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arlingtonpark · 3 years

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SNK 137 Review

I can't unsee it.

-rubs temples-

Ok, I know I’ve been absent the past two chapters. I’ll get to why and what I thought of 135 and 136 in this post, but for now…jeez, this chapter.

It was badass and dumb and sometimes both at the same time.

Where do I even start?

-sound of pages being leafed through-

Ok, then.

I actually really like Zeke’s character. He is unironically my second favorite out of the cast.

When we first see Zeke, he’s in his beast titan form. He’s lumbering, hulking, unsettling.

He’s a titan that can talk. He’s a titan that can control other titans!

And he wiped out humanity’s second strongest with ease. I forget his name. It was Mickey, right?

Worst than that, actually. He ordered his titans to kill Mickey with all the gravitas of ordering a side of fries at McDonald’s.

Iirc fans were wondering if this new character would be the main villain of the series.

He went on to wipe out the Survey Corps at Shighanshina, and after that we learned he singlehandedly foiled his parent’s right-wing conspiracy when he was a kid.

Zeke was a mastermind who shouldn’t be taken lightly…right?

Welp, the more we saw of Zeke, the more obvious it became that he wasn’t actually all the impressive.

He wasn’t very good at being a warrior. Honestly, it seems most of his high marks comes from his unique royal blood powers, and the good will be built with Marley when he turned in his parents. TFW cronyism.

He foiled the restorationists plot, but really he was just an abused kid who wanted to get away from his parents.

He killed Mickey, but Zeke was a King Kong sized titan and Mickey was caught off guard and unarmed, so…yeah, ofc he won that fight.

Zeke has royal blood powers, but that doesn’t say anything about his intellectual prowess or anything.

The Survey Corps was wiped out at Shighanshina, but the circumstances of that fight strongly favored him. The Survey Corps were trapped in the city, so all Zeke had to do to win was sit on his ass and do nothing.

And he almost died anyway.

Levi got the drop on him because of his own incompetence. He let himself get distracted, which created the opening for Levi to strike.

Throw in his gullibleness towards Eren, his bumbling demeanor, and his totally emo philosophy, and the true nature of Zeke Jeager became undeniable: this guy is a fucking moron.

Like.

A real fucking moron.

And that’s why his character is unironically so great!

Zeke’s character is such a brilliant subversion of audience expectations.

We were all made to believe that this guy was a Big Fucking Deal through what turned out to mostly be circumstantial reasons.

In reality, he’s an idiot who’s been failing upwards his whole life.

Zeke got as far as he did because he’s really lucky. That’s all he has going for him.

I liked the more fleshed out version of his world view we got here. It is appropriately emo.

My read on Zeke has always been that if he existed in real life he’d be an extremely online philosophy bro, so seeing his outlook on life being effectively copy pasted from 4chan was just delightful.

Zeke is 2deep4(chan)u.

Life exists to multiply. All actions are explained by this singular drive. As such, life is hollow and we’re better off dead.

Imagine that is how you see the world.

Life sucks. It’s an existence of suffering driven by a desire to ensure more people are brought into this world so that they can toil away ensuring that yet more people are brought into this world to toil away ensuring people are brought into this world.

On and on and on and on.

To Zeke, this is the cycle of violence.

Not war which begets war which begets war, but rather life itself.

One suffering existence that begets another suffering existence that begets yet another suffering existence.

That is the context from which the euthanasia plan came from: it was an extension of this broader world view.

Everyone gets a dose of pain in this world, but Eldians especially get shafted. If anyone deserved release from this nihilistic existence that is “being alive,” it’s them.

Hence, Zeke’s plan to sterilize Eldians so they can die out peaceably.

…

It’s hilarious how easily Zeke is disabused of this notion.

I’m not sure if it works from a storytelling perspective, but it tracks perfectly with what usually happens when emo philosophy bros like Zeke have their beliefs challenged.

The emo bro will go on a self-absorbed rant about how nihilistic life is. For sake of example, let’s say the reason is because morality is just an opinion and nothing is objectively wrong.

The n the guy he’s ranting to will drop a critique on the bro so devastating that they’re left speechless:

“What about murder? Isn’t murder objectively wrong?”

Emo bro: -surprised pikachu face-

I swear to God this happens a lot. I don’t know if transplanting that into this pivotal storytelling moment works, but I sure as hell enjoyed it.

But, yeah, while we’re talking about philosophies, let’s look at some others.

Armin thinks there is beauty in pointless moments. Moments that are meaningful only for the people who partake in them. They’re an expression of the love they have for each other. Those moments are worth cherishing and protecting.

He’s right, but you know who also thinks that way?

Eren does.

Superficially, anyway.

When Eren starts rumbling the world, he thinks of his friends and the fun they’ve had together. He’s doing it for them.

Of course, he’s hurt them instead, but that’s still his logic, however deranged it may be.

What separates Armin from Eren is their sense of boundaries.

There are places that Eren is willing to push on towards that Armin is not.

For that, Eren thinks Armin is weak. All Eren had to say to him when they spoke at the restaurant was how useless Armin was.

Armin can’t go the distance. He can’t do what’s necessary. He takes options off the table too easily. He wanted to negotiate instead of seeing the truth that war was inevitable.

To Eren, that’s weakness.

In reality, it’s empathy.

Armin cares about people. Even people who hate him.

Eren doesn’t. If you’re his enemy, you’re dead to him, period.

Eren has no soul.

He may have slept under his enemy’s roof, ate his enemy’s food, and saw the good in them for himself, but he’s still killing them.

I don’t care if he’s crying on the inside. I don’t care how many times he said he’s sorry to Ramzi.

That actually makes it worse.

Eren made the calculation, the conscientious decision, that the lives of billions of people across multiple civilizations were worth less than that of his race.

Not even his whole race; just the subset of his race he was most familiar with!

Eren and Armin represent two widely similar, yet subtly different philosophies.

For Eren, the world is beautiful, but you have to do cruel things to protect that beauty.

The world is cruel because it is beautiful.

For Armin, the world is beautiful, but it is plagued by cruelty.

The world is cruel, but also beautiful.

SNK made the right choice. Armin was rightly depicted as the superior worldview.

(I have some gripes about how endemic the series seems to think cruelty is to the world, but we’re ignoring that now.)

Ymir is more of a wild card than I thought she’d be.

It seemed straightforward.

Ymir had been beaten and enslaved her whole life, so when Eren offered her freedom and treated her life a human, she sided with him.

That still looks to be what happened, but it seemed like Ymir also genuinely wanted to destroy the world with Eren.

The world treated her with cruelty, so of course she’d want to burn it all. Makes sense, right?

But Ymir, it turns out, is a lot more complicated than that.

She was beaten, enslaved, raped, hunted like an animal, and after all that, she still believed in this world.

She saw two lovers together, and that embodied what made the world worth getting attached to.

Those two lovers were her conquerors. Her oppressors.

She saw the love between two of her slavers, and instead of resentment or jealousy, she simply knew it was beautiful.

If people threaten his freedom, Eren wishes death upon them.

When Ymir is literally enslaved by them, she still acknowledges the beauty of their romance.

It’s a cool layer of complexity to add to their dynamic. They’ve been through similar shit, but they couldn’t be more dissimilar.

My guess is that Ymir is sympathetic to Armin and everyone came back to life through her help.

I know Armin Zeke the credit for that, but…that makes no sense?

Eren defeated Zeke when Ymir sided with him and he started the rumbling.

Eren, via Ymir, is in control, not Zeke, so it makes no sense for Zeke to be able to do any of this.

The only explanation is that Ymir broke from Eren and now Zeke is her new best friend.

…Yeah, this is the part where I talk about the bad stuff with this chapter.

The exact mechanics of how all of this went down is very underexplained.

Zeke being able to reveal himself like he did can be chalked up to Ymir’s power, but if it’s true this was purely Zeke’s doing, then…how?

How was Zee able to do that if Eren is in control? Why would Eren even put Zeke there instead of encasing him in crystal and keeping him physically close by?

This whole final battle has been very underwhelming for me, which is why I didn’t do a review for the last two chapters.

The premise is pretty bland.

The Alliance’s main opposition in this fight are mindless drones. The titans they’re fighting have no humans inside them, they’re just puppets. NPCs.

What drama there has been here has been the same fucking crap we’ve been dealing with for the past few volumes.

Yes, Mikasa, Eren has to die.

I know this is hard for her, but my patience has run out.

Eren told her to her face that they had to kill him if they wanted to win, and then when the Alliance is riding on Falco’s back, they make the final call to kill Eren and this is the face Mikasa makes.

Like this is the first time she’s heard it.

This is the face you’d expect from a child, not a grown ass adult.

That was the moment I became convinced Mikasa would probably die in this fight.

Her head is too far up her ass as this point.

She is utterly incapable of processing the obvious fact that Eren hates her.

Yes, he’s theoretically destroying the world partly for her, but he’s also deranged and too self-absorbed to see that he’s hurt her. He has no real regard for her.

It is beyond annoying that there has been almost zero progression for her character on this issue.

If by this point in the story, she had accepted that Eren had to die, but was still visibly coping with that, then all would be well.

What’s frustrating is that just when it seems like we’ve progressed past that stage, we learn we haven’t.

I also feel that a lot of the major beats of the fight were pointless.

A major point in the battle comes when Armin gets eaten by the Okapi titan, and Mikasa, Annie, and the rest have to rescue him. But Armin didn’t seem to be in any danger of dying, and him being sent to P A T H S was actually a good thing in the end because he was able to win over Zeke.

The whole deal with the explosives around Eren’s neck was also pretty badly handled.

You’d think the hard part would be getting the explosives to the neck and securing them to it, but nope. Pieck took care of that in a couple of panels, and the real meat of the fight is doing the very last thing they need to do to win.

It’s very tedious and contrived.

Instead of a fight that’s interesting because they have to wrestle their way through titans while carrying the bombs, we get a totally generic fight because the story breezed through the hard part and all they have to do now is push a single button to win.

But in the end that entire sequence was pointless because Armin decides to blow everything up anyway.

Jean’s shining moment?

A total waste.

Reiner’s shining moment...wrangling that worm thing?

Also a total waste.

Armin was going to blow it up anyway. There is no way you can say that Eren would have survived Armin’s explosion but for Reiner and Jean’s efforts.

It just defies all common sense.

So yeah, this whole battle was a pretty lackluster climax.

Looking to the future, I think this is it.

There’s only two chapters left, so we need to start wrapping up. My guess is Eren’s likely dead and next chapter starts the epilogue.

Tally-ho.

---

I made a post about all the character’s chances of living or dying by the end of the manga. I figured I’d update those death ratings here.

Eren: Likely Alive --> Lean Dead

Historia: Likely Dead --> Toss Up

Mikasa and Reiner: Lean Dead --> Lean Alive

Annie: Lean Alive --> Likely Alive

Jean and Connie: Likely Dead --> Lean Alive

Pieck: Toss Up --> Lean Alive

Zeke: Lean Alive --> Ded

You’ll notice I’m still rating most of the cast as having a significant chance of dying.

While I do feel that this is probably the end of the battle, I’m choosing to be cautious in my choice of ratings.

Mayhaps Eren will pull a come from behind victory.

Ya never know.

#shingeki no kyogin #attack on titan #snk spoilers #snk 137 #snk chapter 137

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7-wonders · 4 years

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Down the Rabbit Hole

Summary: You make a decision about your stay at the enchanted manor, but at what cost?

Other works in the Beauty and the Beast!Duncan Shepherd AU: Wilted Roses Smell Just as Sweet | This Place of Wrath and Tears | A Gentleman’s Guide to Wooing Your Prisoner | This Cruel Trick of Fate

Mallory sneaks you food an hour or so after the Beast’s rage left you in tears. Incredibly grateful for the meal (”sorry it’s just bread and soup,” Mallory had said, “I’ll try and get you more later.”), the rage that’s been slowly building in you since the encounter spills over while you’re eating.

“Do you have any particular attachment to him?” you ask, receiving nothing but a snort in response. “Okay, good. What the fuck is wrong with him? Like, what gives him the right to act like that?”

Although you can’t see Mallory, you just know that she agrees with you as she attempts to form an answer. “I know that wasn’t the best first impression of him, but-”

“‘But’ what? Because it certainly doesn’t seem like there’s any redeeming qualities to him.”

Mallory sighs, trying very hard to not agree with you. “I promise he’s not always like that. Once you’ve both had the chance to calm down, you’ll see that he’s...”

“What, even more of a jackass than he already is?” Scoffing, you move off of the bed to stare forlornly out the window at the rain falling outside.

“I know he didn’t do anything to help his case, but when you get to know him, he really is a nice person.”

You whirl around to face Mallory’s voice, an idea forming in the meantime. “I don’t want to get to know him! I don’t even want to be here! I want to finish this stupid sentence, go home, and forget all about this nightmare.”

“I know you don’t, and I’m so sorry that you are. But it’s only a couple of months, alright? Trust me when I say that the time will go by in the blink of an eye.”

A flush of shame comes over you as you remember that, no matter how terrible this situation is for you, Mallory’s been dealing with the same one for much longer. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“It’s alright, I know today has been stressful for you.” The weight of a hand comes down on your shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. You really wish you could see Mallory right now. “I’ll leave you alone to decompress, okay?”

“Okay,” you say. It’s still trippy to watch the tray of food look as though it’s floating through the air, and you can’t see yourself ever getting used to that. Once the door closes and you have a moment to yourself, your earlier train of thought returns. You don’t have to get used to it.

The room which has been designated as yours is only on the second floor, and it doesn’t look to be that high up from the ground. With the multitude of blankets on the bed that is supposed to be yours, you can very easily make a rope to reach the bottom. Mallory may have said that everybody was trapped here, but that surely just applies to the house and everybody who’s now invisible. After all, Jim was thrown out with no problems. If you can just escape the manor, then you can find your way back to the main road and be home free. It’s a simple plan, but you need to act now before someone comes to check on you again.

Ripping the blankets onto the floor, you hastily begin to knot the ends together until they start to form a makeshift rope. Thankfully, the closet in the corner is more than stocked for when you run out of your original material, and it becomes long enough to make it across the room and out the window. You use the bedpost as an anchor, wrapping one end of the rope around the wood and tying it together before giving it a couple of good yanks to make sure it can support your weight. Once you’re sure that you won’t fall and break something due to the rope breaking (you can’t be sure that you won’t fall, but at least it won’t be from the rope), you lead it to hang out of the window.

The rain pelts your skin like a bunch of small, icy knives the moment you lean out of the window to check the height. Pulling your hood up over your head, you give one last glance at the room that very well could have been your prison, were you not so determined. “Adios, motherfucker,” you mutter before hiking a leg up over the windowsill and beginning to climb down the side of the wall.

You were right; it wasn’t that far of a climb to get to the bottom. When your feet hit the ground, you immediately begin to move, no time to stop and wax poetic about your current situation. The shadows provide cover for you as you stick close to the wall, body on high alert for any potential obstacles. You break into a run upon reaching the front of the manor, the lights at your back becoming fainter as you get further from the prison.

Unfortunately, what seemed like an easy plan becomes more complicated by the second. What was a mildly irritating rain at first becomes a torrential downpour, soaking through your clothes and making it impossible to see more than a couple of feet in front of you. If you had thought you were cold when you were hiking to find Jim, you must not have known true cold. You’re freezing, and even shoving your hands in your pockets doesn’t help to stave off what is bound to become frostbite. Somehow, even impending hypothermia isn’t the worst of your problems.

You can’t reach the edge of the property. The closer you get, the farther away the bridge you had crossed less than a day before seems to become. No matter how fast you run, or which way you try to approach the edge, you can’t get there. An hour must pass before your willpower finally runs out, falling to your knees in a mixture of exhaustion and defeat. You try to haul yourself back to your feet, but can only manage to roll onto your back. Your teeth are chattering hard enough that you almost worry you’ll crack a tooth, but you can’t seem to find the energy to care.

A break in the clouds allows you to see up at the night sky. The moon is a crescent, but it’s huge, sitting above you like a beacon for wayward sailors and animals migrating. Dully, you realize that this is the same moon that Jim’s seeing. Wherever he is, he’s safe; your sacrifice won’t be in vain. Nothing, not even death, can separate you from your best friend. It’s a comforting thought, and your blue-tinged lips turn up into a smile.

Of course, you aren’t even allowed to go gentle into that good night. A large hand that’s more of a paw than a hand digs into the fabric of your jacket, hauling you up and over a shoulder. Although your eyelashes are frozen, you can still see that there’s an actual figure carrying you. A pair of fierce blue eyes look up when they sense you looking down at him.

“Shit,” you mutter through teeth that are still chattering.

“Yeah, ‘shit.’“ Although his voice is still deep and growly, it lacks the immense anger it had previously held.

“I--”

“Just shut up until I can get you warmed up again.” You heed his words, choosing instead to try and soak up as much of his body heat as you can. He’s like a furnace, and you would actually be enjoying this were you not on the verge of freezing to death.

You’re back in the manor in the blink of an eye, or at least far faster than when you were trying to escape. The Beast brings you into a large sitting room, setting you on a couch that’s already piled with blankets. Ignoring you, he goes to work at starting a fire in the fireplace, giving you time to look him over in the light for the first time.

He’s smaller than you had originally thought, his voice making him appear eight feet tall. In reality, he’s probably around six feet tall. His unkempt brown hair, in desperate need of a cut, looks more like fur now. A pair of shiny black horns jut out from the top of his head, and you can see the claws on his hands as he strikes a match. Everything about him, all the way down to his tattered rags that were once clothes, is beastly, except for those eyes. They’re the one thing about him that reminds you that, at one time, he was human.

“Take your clothes off,” he speaks up, jarring you from your daze.

“You’re not even going to buy me dinner first?” you joke, numb fingers fumbling with the zipper of your jacket regardless.

“They’re wet. You’ll warm up faster without them on.” Thankfully, he remains facing the fire, giving you the opportunity to strip until you’re in just your bra and panties. Throwing a blanket over your body, you clear your throat to let him know that you’re semi-decent. “Come over here.”

“Why?”

He glares at you. “Because I said so. Bring the blankets, too.”

You have to awkwardly crawl/shuffle towards the fire, but it’s worth it. You can almost feel the ice locking your joints in position melting, and you audibly sigh. The Beast begins to pile more blankets on top of you, and slowly, the chattering begins to subside.

“I have to admit, your makeshift rope certainly impressed me.”

You laugh slightly, still remaining acutely aware of who’s next to you. “Why couldn’t I...?”

“The curse. Nobody can leave the land once you’re trapped here.”

“But Jim was able to leave.”

“You took his place, (Y/N).”

“You know my name?”

He nods. “I heard Jim yell it enough to have it painfully engraved in my memory.”

You scoff, but have to admit that Jim has a way of making sure people don’t forget what he says. “Okay, but the three month prison sentence. Who decides how long people are stuck here for?”

The Beast glowers, and you know you’ve struck a nerve. “You should rest. Your stupidity put you through quite the ordeal tonight.”

He’s right, you probably should rest. You lay down on your side, huddled up towards the fire as you glance up at the Beast. “I’m really not supposed to fall asleep when recovering from something like near-hypothermia.”

“I know.”

You smile, snuggling under the blankets and closing your eyes. “Just, if I do stop breathing, promise me you’ll make some halfhearted effort to save me.”

With that, you fall asleep, the captor who’s just as trapped as you keeping watch over you until the fire’s nearly died out and the soft rays of dawn begin to peek through the windows.

#Duncan Shepherd #duncan shepherd x reader #duncan shepherd imagine #hoc #hoc imagine #house of cards #house of cards imagine #Beauty and the Beast AU

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strangebrews · 4 years

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Symbrock + 46. Overpopulated

ok this is direct extension of (guinea) pigs in blankets but i know u wanted a sequel so here it a tiny one o.O

46. Overpopulated

As it turned out, Rodney was in fact a Ronda.

And she was pregnant.

Or, had been pregnant, to be exact, because somewhere between 1 and 9 AM she’d managed to squeeze out 8 babies.

Venom had watched the whole thing.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Eddie was at the cage, nose pressed between the bars, watching 8 furry peanuts squirm around in the wood chips. He’d heard squeaking coming from his bedroom that afternoon—unlike any sound Rodney had ever produced—and this was the sight awaiting him.

They were going to have to sell them. Or give them away. Either way, the cage they were living in now would be severely overpopulated once the babies became adults.

“It would be unhealthy for them.” Eddie explained. Unhealthy and smelly—his main concern—he thought, earning himself a pinch on the arm for it.

But the proposal to separate the babies from their mother without their consent seemed very cruel to Venom. What if they like it here? What if they do not mind being squished together in there?

“They’re guinea pigs, Vee. They’ll be fine. And since when have you grown so concerned with family values?”

This is different.

How’s it different?

I love them.

It had only known them for a little over 12 hours, but Venom did have a history of growing attached to things quite quickly, so Eddie chose to not comment. But his verdict would remain the same—he refused to support 9 guinea pigs, and that was final.

Venom gave in surprisingly easily.

The little ones grew up quickly, eyes and ears open after a few days, bumping into one another as they scurried around in the cage. Each one was given a name that began with an ‘r’ within the first week. “If you name them, you’ll grow attached.” Eddie had warned, but he found himself referring to them properly after the 2nd week anyway. A bit hard not to, considering Venom’s voice echoed the words around Eddie’s brain each time he so much as looked in the direction of his room. They kept the name Rodney for their mother—decided it was unisex enough.

They were born completely furred, so Venom has assigned their names based on its own interpretation of their characters. For example, Rosie—very cute, but would bite if you tried to pet her. Rocky—smattered with pebble-sized polka dots of darker fur. Reggie—with two giant buck teeth sticking out from his mouth even if he held it entirely closed. And so on.

Venom did not have a favorite—it loved each of its adopted children equally. And if Eddie was prompted to choose one with a gun held to his temple, he would pick Ruby—deep auburn fur and a very big fan of snoozing in his lap.

Taking care of them was relatively simple, Venom learned early on. Rodney took care of the feeding, and Vee handled the rest the same way as before—just had to multiply the effort by 9. Having an unlimited number of extremities at its disposal was extremely useful, it turned out. Venom ensured their presence was as tolerable as possible—stuffed a toy into their snout if the squeals became too loud, spritzed air freshener into the bedroom periodically to keep the smell from marinating in the air.

There was no ulterior motive to Venom’s meticulous caretaking—Eddie had made it clear that there was no option of adopting any of them permanently, reminding Venom of that nearly every day.

But Eddie sensed its sadness, nonetheless. He could tell by the way it slipped into their cage at night, a piece of it curling up in between the blobs of fur, and he felt Venom collapse slightly over his organs in defeat each time it went to check up on the animals.

It was nearly enough to get Eddie to budge.

They’d decided Venom’s birthday was exactly six months after their anniversary—that being the night at the Life Foundation. It was a simple date to remember and unsurprisingly, symbiotes had never particularly paid attention to each other��s spawn days, but Eddie had insisted.

“It’s the most important day of the year, Vee.” and this would be the second one they’d celebrate together.

The guinea pigs were nearly 2 months old now—ready to be given away, just waiting for the right owners. Venom was painfully aware of that fact and pat each one carefully on the head as it let them out of their cage. Eddie hadn’t let them run around before—too many bodies to keep track of and a high risk of pellets decorating the corners of the apartment by the end of the day—but today was an exception. The permission was a birthday gift, of sorts.

Not the only one, though, because Eddie had a second surprise this time around. It was a small package, smaller than last year’s—which had been hiding chocolate inside—wrapped messily in brown paper, with an uneven bow taped to the top. He was trying his best.

Venom took its time to open the gift, careful not to damage whatever it was. It could be gentle when it needed to be. 9 guinea pigs floated around it, watching, each held by a slim tendril which had forked from the single one stemming from Eddie’s shoulder. They deserved to participate in the birthday festivities as well, Venom had argued—didn’t matter that they had no idea what was going on.

Vee didn’t react immediately upon opening the present, slightly confused by what it was looking at, examining them in its makeshift hands. But when the realization finally came, its head jerked towards where Eddie was seated, milky eyes spread wide.

Really?

Eddie smiled and spread his palm open for Venom to weave itself between his fingers. “Yeah—yeah, really.”

There were 8 mini leashes inside the package—identical to Rodney’s and perfect for walks in the park.

#symbrock #eddie brock #venom #mine #how else do i tag this #symbrock fic #? sure why

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ladylynse · 4 years

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Part 5 [FF | AO3] of Protocol: The world has changed since the Merge. Ghosts-threats-are everywhere, the Guys in White are in control, and trust is a risk when friends can so easily become foes. Dystopian AU (courtesy of competent, world-merging GiW)

Previously:

Red light engulfed Danny, and all Jazz could hear was his scream.

He dropped.

His screams cut off as he crashed into the ground, but they still echoed in her ears.

Jazz couldn’t breathe, but her eyes met Sam’s. Sam’s lip curled before she picked her way across the wreckage. “You broke protocol.” Sam’s voice was cold. Hard. Cruel. “You let that ghost separate us and then you pursued without waiting for backup.” She reached Danny and kicked him in the side, hard. Jazz winced. “Still animate. Come on. Let’s secure it.”

-|-

Fenton made no move to help her haul the ghost from their jet once they reached the base, but Sam wasn’t entirely convinced her sensibilities regarding it hadn’t been compromised. She’d once thought it a brother, after all. The betrayal of what it actually was should cut deep, but perhaps it was hard for Fenton not to see her brother looking out from the ghost’s lying eyes.

The ghost was conscious again, despite its ectoplasm leaking all over the previously-pristine containment cell on their jet. The other members of their team had paused to jeer, but Fenton had dismissed them with a bark, and they’d gone. Phantom had been their capture; no one else would share that glory.

Sam was only letting Fenton share credit because she’d distracted it in that critical moment.

Fenton took down other ghosts readily enough. She didn’t lack skill, not anymore. Sam knew she was still the better shot—she always had been—but Fenton could rival any of the senior staff at this point.

She’d be a good one to train new recruits, if anyone could convince her to step back from the field.

Not that anyone would. She was a Fenton. Her family name was well known now, and not just because of the abomination that had once been her brother.

It made Sam’s insides curdle, thinking that she had once called it a friend.

Thinking that she had helped it.

Repeatedly.

“Make the report,” she told Fenton. “I’ll get the ghost down to processing.”

Fenton met her eyes, knowing exactly what Sam was doing. “Are you sure?” she asked quietly.

“You’re still a good hunter.” Hesitation alone wasn’t enough reason for Sam to stab her in the back and report her. Even with that, Sam trusted Fenton more than she trusted the newer recruits. Someone with a sloppy shot would get her killed, and Fenton wouldn’t let a ghost attack her.

Besides, she was willing to let Fenton fudge the report for something as small as that. She wasn’t willing to swap places and let Fenton take the ghost anywhere while unsupervised, however many cameras were spaced throughout the facility. Getting the ghost to processing wouldn’t take that long, anyway. She’d be back before Fenton finished.

It wasn’t strictly following protocol, of course. They were supposed to make the reports together. But the higher ups would understand. This wasn’t a ghost she was willing to pass off to anyone else. Not before she got it to processing, anyway. She knew better than most how tricky it could be, but they’d be equipped to handle its tricks down there.

“Thank you,” Fenton whispered. Her eyes lingered on the ghost for a few more seconds before she turned her back on it and headed off. That technically meant Sam needed to get someone else to help her get the ghost out of the cell, but it was more for redundancy’s sake than anything else. She was content to have them watch her work.

The Guys in White gadgetry was simple to use. Intuitive. Besides, a good many pieces weren’t unlike the FentonWorks weaponry she’d once used. Considering all the Fentons’ designs had been turned over to the Guys in White, that wasn’t a surprise. After the raids on Vlad’s various secret labs, his technology had been appropriated, too. There were others, of course, but Sam didn’t trust anything that she knew came out of the hands of completely inept ghost hunters.

Just because they’d improved since the Merge, out of necessity if nothing else, it didn’t mean she’d trust their previous so-called research.

The ghost was still twitching from the electricity she’d run through it before opening the cell, but it was a simple thing to snap on the cuffs, attach a lead chain, and drag it to its feet. “You’re coming with me,” she told it as it blinked stupidly at her, sagging against the outside wall of the cell. She pulled, and it stumbled into place alongside her.

“Sam,” it croaked.

Did it think she was still its friend?

Maybe she should let it. The very idea made her nauseous, but if it thought it could trust her? If it thought she was just doing this for show? She’d get a lot more information out of it than if it knew the truth.

Or, rather, accepted the truth.

“Protocol,” she hissed, hoping it would take that to mean she couldn’t talk.

It blinked and nodded, but it had never been one to keep silent for long. It barely waited until they were out of earshot of the other agent before it asked, “Where are we going?”

“Processing.” She knew she should add I’m sorry or some equivalent, just for the show, but she couldn’t force the words past her lips just yet. She glanced pointedly at the cameras instead. It licked its lips and bobbed its head again.

“Do…do I want to know what’s involved in processing?” it ventured after a moment.

No. “Cursory evaluation, subject assignment, security recommendations. For your accommodations.” She put as much of a sneer into the word as she could muster. Let it think she hated that she was doing this. Let it think that she didn’t want to, that circumstances were forcing her to. Let it think her pretense was for a different reason. “It’ll mostly be to check a box than anything else. Your reputation precedes you.”

“Yeah,” it whispered. “I’ve been a target for a while. We all have.”

“You’re a bigger prize than some.”

“Which will make my escape that much more meaningful,” it said. It still spoke quietly, barely moving its lips even when she glanced at it, but it was able to put an impressive amount of force behind the words. It had only slightly turned its face towards her, but it looked…hopeful.

She stamped down on the disgust that rose within her and fought to keep her face and voice smooth. “It would,” she managed, which was as close to agreement as she could get. They weren’t going to just let it escape. None of their specimens escaped. Some had been destroyed, eventually destabilizing and turning into ectoplasm, but this one would be more resilient than that.

“So not right away, huh?”

It did think she was still on its side. Good. She gave her head a minute shake. “Not yet.” Not ever.

“Too risky, I guess.”

Was that a note of fear in its voice, buried beneath bravado and false acceptance?

“I’ll hold on, I promise. No matter what they do to me.”

They. How foolish it was, not to sort her in with the others, if only out of a sense of self-preservation. She could have told it that it was better to assume the worst and be wrong than to assume the best and be wrong.

It would learn soon enough.

Sam stopped in front of the elevator. “Processing is in the first level of the basement,” she told it as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

It followed her inside—it had to, as she still had it on a short leash—and waited until the doors had shut again before saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. When they attacked. I…I tried, but….”

“It’s okay.” When she thought back on it, the attack hadn’t come soon enough. She’d done so much for the rebels. Too much.

“Have you seen Tucker?”

Tucker. She still wasn’t sure if he’d come around to the right side, but after she’d come here, she’d sent word to have one of the other tech guys screen his communications. No guarantee, of course, if Tucker’s skills were better than whoever was trying to hack him, but Tucker was valuable, and she didn’t want him taken for questioning unnecessarily. If they hadn’t captured this ghost, she might worry more, but since they had? Tucker’s hands would be tied even if he did still want to help the rebels. The abomination would have been one of his last consistent points of outside communication, and without a leader, a face, a symbol, something to rally around, the rebels would crumble sooner rather than later anyway.

“Field agents don’t associate with the techies.”

It lapsed into silence, finally, as they arrived at the floor for processing.

Sam nodded to the agent at the end of the hall as they exited the elevator. “This is where I leave you. With Agent N.” Processing was contained, every square inch coated in phase proof finish or built from treated material. It wouldn’t be able to escape, even if Agent N displayed uncharacteristic incompetence. “I need to get back to Fenton. Jazz,” she amended too late, seeing the look that crossed its face.

“Right,” it breathed. “I…. I’ll see you soon, I hope?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Let him think they still kept her schedule in the dark, even though she wasn’t among the newest recruits. It was still looking at her, so she twisted her mouth into a smile. The best she could manage, anyway. “Sorry.” The word felt wrong. “Um…good luck.”

It snorted. “Thanks, Sam, but luck isn’t going to get me out of this.”

No, it wouldn’t, but luckily, she didn’t need to come up with a response because Agent N was in earshot. Not looking at the ghost beside her, she said to her colleague, “This is our latest acquisition.”

Agent N grinned at her and took the proffered lead. “We caught it at last.”

“We did,” she whispered, feeling its eyes burning into her. She stood her ground as Agent N took it in for processing. When it looked back at her, something inside her twisted, and she turned away.

(see more fics | next)

#danny phantom #dystopian au #sam manson #danny fenton #phanfiction #fanfiction #dp fanfiction #my writing #ladylynse

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piggypaisley · 5 years

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"Sir, That Octopus Is Flirting With You..."

AN: This is just a silly, little self indulgent thing I wrote last night when I was suddenly hit with inspiration, and needed a break from a big project I had been working on.

This is based off a small AU i’ve had since the announcement of BUP, and kept it around and toyed with for about a year. It’s not a universe really expanded upon, and honestly I was just pulling a bunch of concepts out of my ass while writing gfdhjs. Enjoy this for what it is. (See the first instance of mermaid Tetrox here.)

Word Count: 1110

"Sir... the octopus appears to be flirting with you..."

Belladonna looked up from her clipboard and eyed the octopus in question. About 20 feet in away from them, there was a... mermaid, (I suppose you could call her..) floating in a large tank about the size of a very large swimming pool. Her hair was a vibrant purple-pink, and she had the legs of an octopus in place of those of a human. Besides those two features (and her razor like teeth) the rest of her looked perfectly human. So much so, one could be easily mistaken that she was... well, besides the aforementioned qualities, of course.

She floated gracefully in the water, top-half resting on the edge of the tank. When she noticed the two people looking at her, gave a cheeky wave, and blew a kiss or two at them both.

Belladonna looked back to her co-worker, fellow marine biologist, Arnick Stilltion, (still new to her division) and simply nodded.

"It appears so."

She said nothing more as she turned back to her clip board and continued with work. Arnick stood there in silence for a moment as well... he was honestly expecting a little more of a response.

"Shouldn't... Shouldn't we... be worried, perhaps?" He asks.

"Nah." Belladonna replies as she shakes her head "It does that with everybody... You should have seen what it did to poor Cyanthia," She chuckles. "Little bugger gave her one hell of a love bite during feeding time, and she whacked it in the face with the feeding rod."

"I was wondering how that got in the tank..."

Belladonna looked down at her purple lab coat, and over to Arnicks with a curious expression, causing him to do the same.

"I think maybe it's the color we're wearing. It's pretty similar to the color used by it's species opposite sex. I'm sure it's just confused."

Arnick pointed her attention back over to the tank "I wouldn't be so sure..."

Belladonna looked up and saw the creature currently playing a sick version of tug of war, with a person in place of an actual rope. She had clung all of her tentacles on to a female worker, no more than an intern, and desperately tried to pull her into the water. Meanwhile, two of what seemed to be the girls friends, held onto her with all their might, keeping her from being dragged away. All three of these girls wore no official lab coats - or any shade of purple at all.

Belladonna stood for a moment "Well, maybe it's just trying to eat that one-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Belladonna and Arnick witness as the octopus manages to successfully win the tug of war, and pulls the poor frightened intern into the water, triumph. ...Not enough to fully submerge or put her head underwater, and with no intention to drown her, but so she could cradle her in her arms... and begins repetitively riddling the girls cheek with fast, harsh kisses.

Boy, is that is one direct octopus.

"Alright then, maybe not..." Belladonna admits.

"You know, you can't just keep letting it do that," he says as he pulls a cigarette and lighter out of nowhere and ignites it. "It could end up seriously attached to one of you. If that happens and we release it back into the wild, it could very well try to make it’s way back to the facility, searching for its ‘mate’. It could even get hurt.”

She eyed the man almost stupidly. He rolled his eyes

"I'm sure you don't need me to remind you how highly intelligent octopuses are —let alone one with a human brain—, or the research findings of animals being attracted to humans. As in the case with emus—”

Belladonna cuts him off

"Yes, yes I'm aware of the all that... it’s just," She trials off.

Arnick raises an eyebrow

"The crew and I have this bet going..."

"Dear lord," he says in disgust

"No, no, It's not whatcha think!" She warns "We're just coming up with different theories on who,what, and or why it'll pull something into it's tank. It makes for great research progress, and has thus far,” Belladonna smacks her thick breast pocket firmly. A smug look crawls across her face. “ made me a shit ton of cash,"

Arnick merely scoffs

"Y’know, you could enter the bettin' pool too, if you like." Belladonna suggests

Arnick scoffs at her again and takes the cigarette out of his mouth temporarily "Absolutely not. Not only is it childish, foolish, and stupid of you, its is also incredibly cruel," he takes a drag of the cigarette and murmurs "Reinforcing this behavior will only end badly..."

Belladonna doesn’t respond. The two say nothing to each other, and just watch the three girls continue struggling to separate their one friend fro the very protestant octopus. It was a very amusing sight, one would have to admit... but the way things were going, someone could wind up drowning if they don’t get some help...

Belladonna delivers a harsh and firm smack to the back of Arnick’s head with her clipboard.

"OW-"

"The hell did I tell you about smoking inside?!" She barks out, before he gets the chance the exclaim his pain any louder.

"What the HELL-"

"I don't want to hear it! Now put out that cigarette, and go help out those poor girls before we have a lawsuit on our hands!" She commands

"What, why me?!" he protests

"Because I bloody said so!"

Before she could deliver another whack to the back of his head, Arnick has already put out his cigarette, and run off towards the large tank storing the octopus. Then a few moments later, Cyanthia walks in. There is a large bandage on her arm. She does not look very pleased...

"Belladonna, I am going to need you to file that report on my-"

She stops mid sentence and stands beside Belladonna, and looks on in shock at Arnick now attempting to help the three girls.

"Why is Arnick near the specimen's tank...."

"Oh, I yelled at him for smoking inside and made him go help retrieve the internt." Belladonna says as she gestures at the sight.

Cyanthia looks to her with a mixture of fear and confusion "But, hasn’t the creature nearly smothered two other male workers already...? "

Belladonna laughs. "Ha ha, yeah..."

Cyanthia says nothing and watches on as they others struggle to rescue the girl from the clingy octopus.

...

"Hey, Cyanthia,"

"Hmm?"

"How much you wanna bet she pulls him into the water, head first?"

"Nothing,"

"Really?"

"20 says she grabs him by the leg,"

#Fandom Barf #Fan Fiction #Belladonna #Arnick #Tetrox #Cyanthia

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zhangedward · 4 years

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How To Get Cat Spray Out Of Shoes

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#Does A Male Cat Spray Eye-Opening Unique Ideas #Cat Pee Has Blood In It

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