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eriexplosion · 2 months

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Here's How Shrimp Trooper Theory Can Still Win

This is as fringe as it gets folks.

I've done my very serious Tech lives essay now it's time for my actual wild theory. Plus @katara-stan-club wanted the shrimp trooper essay and I will take any opportunity to yammer. Please don't take this extremely seriously as it is just something that I'm spinning up for entertainment and is almost certainly not true. (Unless!)

So the opening to Confined is... Odd to me. I've mentioned this in a post before but just to recap, it is definitely the odd man out of the three season starters.

Season one of course we intro with Caleb, who then leads us directly to meet the batch and get our first character appearances, along with convenient introductions. A fun, action packed little scene before things immediately go to hell.

Season two we intro with the batch in the middle of a job, which gives us another fun action scene that shows us how much Omega has grown, as well as the current status of the batch itself.

Season three though? Season three starts us off with a ship going down in a lightning storm and all the stormtroopers inside assumed to be eaten by the giant monsters that lurk in Tantiss' jungles. (Going by Omega's tally marks later in the episode, we're about 20 days post plan 99.) Nothing to do with the batch at all, though we do get a glance at what's in the jungle, and a tiny bit more of Hemlock being a bastard of course.

Now, seemingly, this scene is the set up for episode three, when they make their escape and head for the downed ship.

Except it's completely unnecessary. When they get to the ship, it turns on but it's incapable of flight and the comms are still down and non functioning. The ship they end up taking and using to escape is the ship that came in pursuit of them. The plot would have gone down exactly the same if they had just picked a direction and fled without the downed ship. It's a complete red herring for how they ultimately end up escaping.

So why is it important enough to open the season on if the ship essentially functions as nothing more than a destination point?

Enter Shrimp Trooper Theory.

Going back to the stormtroopers. We have four of them inside the ship, the pilot and three others. We're going to be focusing on our boy on the far right of the second picture.

The pilot speaks before the ship goes down so we can confirm he's a rando. Our fellow in the middle speaks next, identifying himself as TK-343, another rando. The one on the far left talks about wild beasts proving himself, you guessed it, a third rando. But our boy on the far right doesn't talk at all through this whole scene, leaving his identity up in the air.

So we'll take a closer look at him and brighten the scene up a bit.

Now, seeing this guy hobble his way out of the ship, I thought that he looked somewhat familiar. Specifically.

That shitty ass posture. (Forgive the sloppiness of the edit I did this comparison once before and I am not remaking it)

We do not actually see the troopers all get eaten, we cut to the interior of Tantiss before it happens. Theoretically there is nothing stopping this shrimp shaped man from being Tech.

The timeline of shrimp trooper theory:

Tech falls from the rail car and manages to survive the landing but he's severely injured. He crawls away/gets scraped off the ground by Saw.

Roughly 3 weeks pass in which he is recovering and healing yet unable to comm out as, per episode 4 of season 3, Imperial planets monitor long range communications. But, he is able to gather information from the flights going in and out of Eriadu to determine which ones are being assigned to Hemlock's secretive lab. Once he is able to confirm this, he steals some stormtrooper armor and boards.

Ship goes down because gravity hates him in particular and he is almost eaten by a Beast.

Now stranded in the jungle on Tantiss, Tech finds his infiltration plan foiled by the fact that he is being continually hounded by even more Beasts.

Several months later, Batcher is released and for some reason goes straight for the wrecked ship. Somehow she survives out here, but we're not sure how - potentially she had help?

Tech IS the mystery clone X that we see but rather than being brainwashed he has finally managed to get inside Tantiss and yet again begins to Steal Clothing from others.

Crosshair and Omega immediately break out without him leaving him stranded in Tantiss where he presumably still is, attempting to avoid detection and continue to gather information that will aid in the eventual liberation of the other clones.

Is this unlikely? Yes! Is it overly complicated? Absolutely! Am I endlessly entertained by it anyway? You bet!

Benefits of Shrimp Trooper Theory include, but are not limited to:

A living, non brainwashed Tech! The most important feature one could have!

An extremely ridiculous Only In Star Wars series of events!

Retroactive explanation for why the ship going down was an important scene to start on.

Hemlock ruining his own life by not sending someone out to recover the team and just assuming they'd totally be taken care of by the wildlife.

More giant monsters than Wrecker could shake a stick at.

The possibility of Tech and Batcher offscreen shenanigans.

Tech thinking he's finally found Crosshair and making plans to retrieve him when, SURPRISE, OMEGA'S HERE TOO AND THEY'RE ESCAPING. RIGHT NOW.

Seriously just imagine the epic sigh Tech would let out as they flew away completely unaware of his presence. His life is a series of difficulties.

He can simply turn up with the coordinates to Tantiss because god knows how else they're going to manage to get them.

This is my conspiracy theory that I'm allowing myself to believe in as a treat. It will almost certainly not be what occurs but the thought of it makes me happy.

#the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers

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witch-and-her-witcher · 17 days

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eluzriel | E | essentially pwp but there's some espionage and getting together, rotating POVs

There are secrets Elain's lovers have been keeping from the rest of the Night Court, but some truths Elain simply didn't disclose that come to light during her first intercontinental spy mission to Rask - such as reaching a decision about maintaining casual relationships separately, or perhaps committing to something bigger.

When both Azriel and Lucien are sent after Elain to ensure her safety, everything comes out in the open.

ao3 | chapters 7-9/16

For @polyacotarweek. Thank you @popjunkie42 and @climbthemountain2020 for betaing!!! <3

preview under cut

What level of hell has Lucien descended into?

Perched on a windowsill in Elain’s perfectly comfortable inn suite — with her other lover and the unoccupied body of her wraith partner. It’s not that he isn’t familiar with odd situations, he has begged, borrowed and performed ridiculous feats to earn his way into more courts than another living fae can claim, but this …

Living hell. Yes.

Azriel’s wings open and snap shut irritatingly for the third time in just as many minutes. For a male who prides himself on his enigmatic presence, his feelings towards Lucien’s presence are practically screaming at him.

“Should I call for some tea? Some poppy, perhaps, for that nervous tick?”

“Shut up.”

Lucien scoffs. “Are you going to play the jealous male act, then? How predictable. How boring.”

The look the Shadowsinger cuts him is nothing short of murderous. Lucien cocks a brow, challenging the male for a worthy rebuttal.

“Because playing the hot headed mate is more original?”

Touche.

But Lucien won’t give Azriel the win. Instead, he straightens up, drawing to his full height and impressing his russet eye on the shadow wreathed Illyrian. “It seems to have worked out for me in the end, didn’t it?”

“Is that all you care about? Seeking your own pleasure? Is it worth the potential harm it could bring down on Elain if her cover is blown?”

“We both know it wasn’t my own pleasure that was met,” Lucien purrs, lupine smile curling his lips. “Twice.”

“She’ll never want you for anything serious,” snarls Azriel. The temperature in the room seems to drop with the cold promise of death entering the doily and tapestry decorated interior. “She loathes the mating bond.”

As if Lucien isn’t aware of the validity of both of those statements. His metal eye whirrs, trying to keep up with the hectic movements of the shadows as they become jittery with their master’s anger. That is surprising, he’s never seen this flustered side of Azriel before.

Why is he so damn agitated? While they hadn’t been forced in close proximity outside of strict Night Court business affairs and the occasional dinner, it isn’t as if Elain’s lack of exclusivity is a secret —

Oh.

Has Elain really been so vague all of this time with the spymaster? It makes sense, the lack of conflicts now …

“You didn’t know,” Lucien says, the realization dawning on him. “She didn’t tell you that we … Oh, wicked, wicked, Elain. That is certainly inhumane to a male with an ego as large as yours.” Which … Lucien lets his gaze track downwards. “Not that it’s the only large thing about you. Unlike you, apparently, she has told me what she enjoys about the time you both spend together —”

“Stop.”

“Are you uncomfortable, Shadowsinger?”

#poly+acotarweek2024 #eluzriel #elain x azriel x lucien #acotar #acotar fanfic #my writing

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writing-whump · 5 months

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Okay okay hear me out: matthew getting hurt but he's essentially feeling super isolated and worthless and he doesn't want to bother zaya or seline, doesn't think he should bother anyone tbh. He's also not stupid and while he doesn't know Isaiah/seline are together, he can see something shifted there. Hidden injury escalates to infection and then u know the drill, he ends up feverishly arguing with one of the two or both and then collapsing mid argument, cue much panic and guilt. Wdyt??? 👀👀😅

Ohhh Soup, that is one amazing idea 👀 let's see, let's see! A very delicious prompt, thank you! Had to write it right away.

Hidden injury

The injury wasn't healing.

Matthew didn't know why exactly it wasn't. Most of the time he spend his days tired, and he was very tired that evening from sparring at the gym. And he so happened upon a bunch of wolves.

Kids really. Overconfident and provocative, thinking they could take an older wolf like him.

It was so satisfying to put someone's teeth in the dirt when they deserved it. The adrenaline and then the win overflooded him with sparks of temporary joy and triumph as he dusted himself off, his shadow was eager and happy.

Unfortunately, there were problems that couldn't be solved that easily. Whatever the thing it was at home - this punishment of sorts Seline made - it was way worse. And he couldn't fight his way out of it.

He made preventative measures. He worked on his temper much much more. Isaiah said he saw the improvement. What else did she want?

It was his fault, though. Fear he enjoyed, when it came from annoying people, other wolves or his enemies. A natural thing, really. But he didn't want to feel it from her. Complete and utter betrayal, that's what it was. How could she believe he would hurt her? He wouldn't hurt her even if she did try to fight him. His shadow just jumped up with the emotion and the instinct and...

Yep, it reacted even now, swelling angrily at the memory. But it wasn't her he was fighting, for hell's sake.

Matthew kind of relied Isaiah would talk some sense into her, make it easier. Persuade her to give him a chance to make it up and move on from this.

And something did happen. He felt it did, because from one night to the next, Isaiah was allowed up to the second floor and came down with her smell all over him from then on. They didn't do anything when he was there, and he didn't dare to ask, but something major did occur under that roof.

And not only was he not allowed to know, he couldn't even tease his best friend about making a move or laugh at his only girl friend for finally getting the guy.

This was stupid. It shouldn't be upsetting him so much, but it did and he wondered why the hell he even bothered with people in the first place. Easier to just be alone.

You had no one to disappoint that way.

Matthew headed home, his legs dragging behind feeling like lead.

His side burned. He got clawed there pretty well with one of the shadow claws of the busier kids. It was a small thing, the injury, but bleeding horribly when he put his torn up shirt up and it hurt.

The first sweeping of his shadow took the blood away, though the injury was still visible, open, red and puckered. It didn't heal all the way. Weird.

His shadow was tired, but he figured if he just waited for a few hours he would have enough energy to try again. It wasn't bleeding, it wasn't smelling, it was fine. He threw the torn up shirt away, glad he shook off his pullover down for the fight and saved it from the blood stains.

Maybe he should ask Isaiah if it was normal. Shadows wouldn't heal things, when they were tired, or when it was a serious several weeks to heal thing, or when it wasn't acute but more long-term running or chronic...was there something he was missing?

Isaiah would know. Matthew also didn't feel like asking.

If Isaiah stopped pretending like he was neutral in this tug war of wills, it would be much better. If he wanted to side with Seline and leave him alone to it, who was he to complain?

They were doing him a big favour by giving him a chance in the first place.

He didn't want them to regret anything else they had given him.

Matthew was very happy for the elevator in the building. Usually he could take the stairs, since running them up was great exercise for free, but today he felt dead on his feet.

He found the way to their door almost blindly, opening the door with his shoulder. Grunting a hi was about all the manners they showed each other these days. Why did they even bother?

Was there even a way to escape their rejection? The whole apartment radiated it. From the shut off light in the kitchen, the empty couches in front of the TV, the quiet nonchalant movement behind Seline's closed doors on the upper floor...

Matthew threw his back by the door at their shared room, finding Isaiah on his bed with a laptop in his lap.

"Hey, Matt. You are late," Isaiah said in a friendly voice, observing him.

Matthew rolled his eyes. As if he cared when he was coming home. That time was long over.

He shut the door behind him loudly and the shuffled over to his own bed.

He didn't feel like changing. He didn't feel like saying anything. His side burned, his insides burned, his head was heavy and about to fall from his shoulders and his muscles were screaming with the strain of the day's exercise. Sleep was the only escape that didn't involve anyone dying.

He vaguely registered Isaiah asking him how his day went. Matthew ignored him, threw himself on the bed, wincing inwardly at the pain that flared at the sudden movement and curled up on his side.

Maybe he should have taken some painkillers. Then again, he didn't have any. All painkillers and first aid kits in this house belonged to Seline or Isaiah. They pooled their resources and fields of expertise to the apartment, willing to share, forgetting how to divide things when the sharing wasn't an option anymore.

He didn't want to think about how this was the first time after some time that he actually had people to ask for help and simply couldn't make himself.

Things were so much easier when he was alone.

The oblivion of sleep took him quickly though, saving him from anymore painful thoughts.

***

Matthew woke up to the darkness of the empty room. He could hear muffled voices coming from the living room.

They they actually have a movie night without him now? There was a faint sound of Isaiah saying something and Seline laughing in response.

Oh. Good for them.

Matthew didn't think it was possible, but he actually felt worse than before. While the groginess helped him forget, his side was on fucking hellfire, eating him from the inside.

He pushed himself up on his arms, turning the nightstand lamp on. Forcing himself up into a sitting position was torture. His muscles contracted painfully around his side and his arms were shaking as he attempted to throw his legs over the edge of the bed. One. Two. Slow and painful.

The effort left him light-headed and clenching his teeth to not scream. What the hell was wrong with him?

He grunted, bowing his head against the onslaught of light. His pullover was sticking to him with sweat and he was uncomfortably warm. Was it the rest of the exercise? Should he go shower?

Even tensing up to consider standing felt like a fight not worth the effort.

Matthew slumped back against the bed, giving up. His shadow wasn't even stirring, so he must have still been tired. Best thing to just go back to sleep.

***

"'-thew? Matthew? Hey man, wake up."

Isaiah was shaking his shoulder, jostling him. Matthew grunted in discomfort, turning away from him.

"Come on, man. You slept in, I think. It's already past 9."

Was it? Why was that even relevant? His side burned, his head was stuffed with wool. He just wanted to sleep.

"Don't you have classes today?"

Matthew swatted Isaiah's hand away. He didn't care about classes, he wanted sleep.

"Okay. I think it's good to take a break once in a while. You have been pushing yourself like crazy."

Matthew didn't like that patronizing tone. Isaiah, fucking Wolfson, always sounding so superior to everyone. Always doing everything perfectly, always in control.

"Come at least have breakfast with us. We never get to do that when you leave so early."

Matthew just pulled the blanket over his head in response.

Isaiah sighed, patted his shoulder and left. The door closed softly behind him.

***

His bladder was about to explode. Matthew was irritated his body wouldn't stop annoying him with such annoying mundane concerns when he was in pain and wanted to sleep.

He shuffled out of the bedroom slowly, feeling dazed and out of it. Everything hurt, but that seemed like a normal state at this point, constant discomfort, the feeling og boiling in his own skin, the pulsating pain in his side...

He had to hold on to the wall several times to not fall down. His limbs weighed a ton, each step a struggle against gravity.

Finishing in the bathroom and half-heartedly washing his hands, he tried to wash his face too only to get dizzy over the sink. He caught himself just barely, only to spend the next few minutes dry heaving over it. Why was it so hot here?

What time was it? What day? Everything was so confusing.

Leaning heavily against the door, he started the slow torturous walk back to his bed.

"Matthew? Seriously, why are you sleeping so much?" Seline's voice was like an arrow, sharp and painful against the fog in his head.

"You know, I can't make you come to eat with us or watch a movie. If you want to be hauled in your room, be my guest. But you could at least get your shoes into the cupboard. How many times do I have to ask?"

He blinked, trying to locate the source of her voice. Ah, there she was, hands on her hips, staning in the entry hall.

"How am I supposed to vacuum this place with your sneakers always in the way? You forgot to do the grocery shopping yesterday, you know? Isaiah made food, I'm cleaning and you not only don't hold your part of the deal, you have to make my part harder." She talked in a calm tone, but the critic was obvious.

He focused his eyes on her, slumping against the wall next to the bathroom. "That's just great," he grumbled.

"What did you say? I didn't hear you."

"It's just great," he cleared his throat, "that the first thing you decide to talk to me about in weeks is this. Just fucking awesome."

Seline's eyebrows shot up. "Oh? I'm the one who isn't talking? Not like you bother to ask me anything. You refuse to give any effort. Why do I always have to do everything here? If only one person is trying-"

That angered him enough to straighten up. "I am not trying? I'm doing my best here; it's you who isn't trying." He coughed against his hand, feeling light-headed again. "I trained. I asked Isaiah to test me. I doubled my sparring rounds. I have done everything I could think of. You gave up."

Seline frowned, taking a breath to speak. Matthew couldn't register what she said next. Her mouth was moving, but there were two Selines speaking now and his vision was blurry at the edges.

Matthew's head was pounding. The little energy the anger got him flew out of him just as quickly. His side burned again, stretched by the motion of simply standing. He groaned, doubling over, hands shooting up to cradle the skin around the pain.

"Matthew?"

He coughed. His throat felt tight and he felt his stomach sloshing and turning. The skin around his abdomen was tender and swollen, warm to the touch. He tried reaching for his shadow, but it stirred in protest, slipping out of his hands.

He was so tired. Why couldn't he just go back to bed?

Something warm rushed up his throat with the next cough, spraying between his feet. He blinked at the pool of watery vomit in confusion.

Then his legs gave out.

His pants immediately soaked up the mess, but he had no time to worry about it as another wave of puke found its way out of him. The movement was completely involuntary. He didn't see it coming. He didn't understand. Everything was so confusing.

Maybe that was good he didn't heave. He didn't have the energy for it, just coughing up small mouthfuls of bile and water and foul-smelling liquid.

Seline was closer now. She was kneeling beside him, talking quickly into her phone. Then she reached for him, cupping his cheeks in cold hands. He winced at the contact.

Her hands went over him frantically, pulling against the pullover on his side. Matthew tried to stop her, but she squeezed his hands and then continued. He let her.

When she brushed her cold fingers against his side, he moaned in pain, trashing around. Cold lips touched his forehead and pressed against it for a long time, grounding him. Everything was too hot, too painful and he was shivering. Something smelled really awful.

His vision came and went for a while in a hurrying mess and chaos. His head somehow ended in Seline's lap. He wanted to ask her if she forgave him now that she was touching him again. She didn't seem to register him and he had no energy to formulate the words.

Then Isaiah was there, fingers on his nape, gripping his shoulder tightly. He was repeating his name, over and over. Matthew blinked at him. Yeah, I know that's my name, what do you want? Just let me sleep.

***

The next time he woke up, he was in bed. A clean shirt, a damp cloth on his forehead.

The first thing he truly registered was the absence of pain. He was still tired, still confused, but the sheer relief that the pain from his side was gone left him breathing deeply for a few minutes. This is how beautiful it felt, not to be in pain? He should relish it more.

Matthew reached with his hand towards his side. Under his shirt, he could feel bandages.

"No, don't touch it," a voice near his head said.

Matthew let his hands go limp, turning his face towards the voice. Isaiah sat on a chair next to him, elbows braced on the bed. His green eyes looked strained and shadowed, like someone painted bruises under them, but there was something relieved in his face.

"Your wound was infected. Your shadow was hurt and didn't heal it all the way. It was deep and open and you didn't clean it when you came home. That's how it got so serious."

Matthew watched him silently, expecting a lecture.

Isaiah's face contorted in anguish. "Why didn't you say anything? You must have been in so much pain."

That was actually worse than a lecture. He tried to speak, but his throat was dry and he coughed instead.

Isaiah sat up, taking a glass of water from the nightstand with a straw and holding it to his lips. "Drink this. Slowly."

Matthew obeyed, eager at the sight. The water was moderate temperature and it was the most heavenly taste he ever experienced.

Isaiah watched him intensely, bringing the glass away when he drank about half of it. He took the damp cloth that Matthew shook off with the movement and mopped his forehead and neck with it.

Matthew wanted to protest the treatment - he wasn't a child - but tensing up made him flinch in pain. It was only an echo of what it was before, but still.

"You will be okay. Just take it easy for now. We cleaned out the wound, applied antiseptics and got you some antibiotics from the pharmacy. It already looks a lot better, but you had a really high fever and you threw up a lot. We almost took you to the hospital, but your shadow was so out of it I was worried it was something else. But when we cleaned the wound, you got better rapidly, so we figured it was alright..."

"We?" Matthew rasped.

Isaiah nodded towards the end of the bed. Matthew tilted his head just enough to see what he was pointing at.

Seline was curled up on the bed beside him, a hand thrown over his leg, face almost pressed into it, breathing steadily.

"You think...she will forgive me now?"

Isaiah's eyes widened, lips quivering. The black-haired wolf leaned over, burying his face into the place between Matthew's shoulder and collarbone, hand going over his chest as if he was afraid Matthew would disappear if he didn't hold him down.

"Don't you ever do that again," Isaiah whispered against his shirt. "If you ever hide an injury like that, I'll kill you myself." It sounded like he was a hair away from sobbing.

Matthew tilted his head towards the black tousled hair, cheek against Isaiah's forehead. "Okay."

#sickfic #emeto #whump #hurt/comfort #infection #nausea #fever #comfort #and there goes 50k milestone hehe #this was such fun to write #thank you!#I actually had a Matt centered sickfic planned but this was too fitting :D #Matt

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felixstudios · 8 months

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force the managers to play toono with each other all at once. yes the biggest toono game you can get is 6 players. but i think a 16 player toono match would be the biggest shitshow known to man and itd be hilarious

Random Corporate Clash Headcanons, They're All Playing Toono Together Edition

TLDR: Brian {kinda}, Holly {kinda}, Ben, Cosmo, Spruce, and Graham have constant beef. Belle tries to defuse it all and semi succeeds. Buck is laughing the entire time and keeps getting crazy good or crazy bad luck. Oh and he's eating his cards. Graham wins and Spruce flips the table

Duck Shuffler

🎰Eats his cards when nobody's looking LOL

🎰Either has astronomically amazing luck or terrible luck

🎰Laughs constantly throughout the game regardless of what is happening. It is all funny to him. He's having a great time

Prethinker

🧠Scoffs and tries to leave. Several times

🧠Says that someone as smart as him couldn't possibly enjoy partaking in a game that relies on chance so heavily

🧠If he loses he still gets really upset even though he keeps trying to rationalize he essentially had a 1/16 chance of winning

🧠He uh... he gets into some fights and arguments

Deep Diver

🫧Just has a good time on his own and doesn't really say anything

🫧Might laugh at some people's misfortunes

🫧She does give a few glares at +4s though

Rainmaker

⛈️Refuses to play +2s or +4s because she doesn't want the next person over to hate her

⛈️Unless someone prompts her to be competitive or teases or makes fun of her. Then suddenly she will get VERY competitive and determined to win. All those +2s and +4s she's been saving get placed down

⛈️She might cry if someone's especially rude when they tease her

Gatekeeper

⚔️Says she highly disapproves of playing such a game, but since she's forced to that's the only reason she is

⚔️Still gets VERY upset when she gets a +2 or +4 though. If she loses? Yeah that makes her mad too

⚔️But she doesn't care though! Totally!

Witch Hunter

🔱Tries everything in his power to escape

🔱Does NOT enjoy playing whatsoever

Bellringer

🔔He will do everything in his power to win, including coming up with plots with everyone else to mess with someone who only has 1-2 cards left by giving them a massive +16 or something

🔔Oh yeah, he will also resort to gossiping to try to keep everyone distracted about how few cards he has. Or ringing his bell really loud to bring attention to his head instead of his hands

🔔Will often act distracted and try to point everyone's attention to things outside the game. Not to cheat, just to distract everyone else from his hand and make him seem like a non-threat

Multislacker

🥪He eat sammich the whole time lol

🥪Literally couldn't care less about who wins or loses and just picks whatever card works when it's his turn

🥪He does find the constant bickering ond banter mildly amusing, though

Mouthpiece

☎️She made everyone cookies to enjoy during the game!

☎️ Doesn't really care what happens as long as everyone's having fun

☎️Tries to stop arguments and reminds everyone it's just a game and not that serious. She doesn't realize part of the fun of Toono is those arguments

Major Player

🎹You can tell that he's secretly mad when he doesn't win, but he plays it cool

🎹Makes a big show of himself to everyone

🎹He was secretly recording the entire game and uploads it to YouTube when it's done

Firestarter

🔥You can tell he's pretty guilty when he has to play a +2 or +4, but he only looks away quietly

🔥Graham insisted on sitting next to him so poor Flint gets extra guilt

🔥He doesn't really talk much and gets pretty freaked out by the loud arguments

Plutocrat

🌑Gets kinda upset when he doesn't win or when something goes poorly for him and he starts up arguments about it

🌑 Threatens that he's gonna have his Satellite Investors "persuade" them to join if they don't knock it off

🌑Even if he just seems really grumpy the whole time, he actually had a lot of fun. He just won't tell anyone about it

Treekiller

🪵Gets into a LOT of arguments over the game

🪵He takes it just a bit too seriously, for some reason. Like, just a tad? Like, he's genuinely kinda upset and kinda joking along?

🪵He flips the table at the end

Chainsaw Consultant

🪚Really quiet the entire time

🪚Kinda "Hmm" and "Hmph"s through it, but does occasionally actually speak

🪚Refuses to get mad or participate in the arguments

🪚Clearly finds amusement in sending out +4s, though

Featherbedder

💤Keeps falling asleep

💤Is just too tired to do or say much other than just play the game

Pacesetter

👟Well of COURSE someone as perfect as him is gonna win!

👟Insists on sitting next to Flint. There's a good amount of PDA

👟He'll act like he's being his usual impatient self and force everyone to play fast but he's ACTUALLY playing the long con. He actually has a strategy

👟He waits until he only has wild cards, +4s, and +2s. Then just plays those one at a time until he wins

👟Then Spruce flips the table and he gets mad

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liaromancewriter · 11 months

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Only a Crush

Premise: Was it just a crush or the start of something more?

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Words: 995

A/N: Submission to @choicesjunechallenge prompt "love". I'm also using @choicesflashfics week 36, prompt 2 (in bold).

Cassie Valentine remembered the first time she had a serious crush on a boy. She was fifteen, and it was the first day of the debate club. Feeling lost and out of place as the new kid, she stood at the edges, watching and listening.

She glanced up as the first speaker approached the lectern and cleared his throat for attention. Then he smiled wide, showing teeth, his eyes glittering with a challenge before launching his opening argument.

And Cassie felt the flutter of butterflies in her stomach.

Her hand shot up when the teacher called for a volunteer to counterargue. Palms clammy, face flushed, and her heart racing a mile a minute, she took her place and proceeded to eviscerate his logic.

She might be attracted to the charismatic Michael Perry, but that didn’t mean she would let him win. And so began a slow ascent from crush to puppy love to him being her first.

The next time Cassie felt that way was while standing in the quad at Georgetown, staring at the map and wondering which way was freshman orientation.

If only she had woken up earlier, she thought morosely.

Max warned her he would leave without her if she was late. She remembered scoffing, so sure he’d wait for her. But he’d been true to his word, and now she was hopelessly lost in a sprawling campus.

A tall shadow fell upon her. She tilted her head, lifting her hand to shade her eyes against the sunlight. She saw warm blue eyes and an errant lock of dark brown hair flopping across his forehead. His stance was hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure but couldn’t stay away.

He asked solicitously if he could help, his accent a low drawl reminiscent of hazy summer nights. And then he smiled, a slow and enigmatic curving of the lips, and Cassie felt herself falling again.

Jackson McAllister was her first true love, her first adult relationship, and the one whose heart she broke even as his loss from her life shattered hers. She didn’t think she would ever love someone the way she had loved him until….

The last time Cassie had a crush on a man was in the unlikeliest of situations. She was late for orientation on her first day as an internal medicine resident at Boston’s Edenbrook Hospital.

Damn closet, she thought in frustration. If she hadn’t been so stubborn, she could’ve enjoyed a good night’s sleep and woken up with plenty of time to get to work.

Her apartment — and she used the term loosely — was situated under a busy staircase with barely enough room for a bed, a couch, a tiny kitchenette and an even tinier bathroom. Most of her things were in storage as there wasn’t enough space for anything but the essentials.

She missed her clothes, she thought wistfully, and her shoes, too. As always, Max was right.

Lost in thought, she didn’t notice the commotion in the waiting room at first, and then she heard a gasp as a woman fell to the floor. She rushed over, almost tripping to a stop at the sight of a handsome doctor kneeling beside the fallen patient.

Cassie heard him mutter as he checked the patient’s pulse. Then he looked around, eyes narrowing as he spotted her.

“You. Rookie. Get in here.”

Cassie gazed into his impatient blue eyes, and a familiar heat filled her belly. She didn’t know him from Adam, and it was the most inopportune of times, but her heart skipped a beat. And then they were too busy saving the patient’s life for her to give it another thought.

Later, she was reluctantly charmed by the roguish grin when she flirted and mischievously asked for private lessons. Her pulse sped up, her cheeks flushed, and her green eyes sparkled, all signs that she was attracted to this man standing before her.

And then he countered her offer for private lessons with a zinger about not being able to afford him. Dr. Valentine couldn’t afford it, but she thought Cassie Valentine was another matter, anger rising at his barb. But he was gone before she could react.

He was an asshole and the most condescending man she’d ever met. Despite all that, she couldn’t fight biology. She looked forward to making him take back his pompous assessment of her capabilities and apologize. Groveling would be better.

She silently groaned when the nurse told her she’d been talking to — and crushing on — Dr. Ethan Ramsey. She waited for the ground to swallow her whole. Then, she prayed for another chance to make a better impression on her medical hero.

You’re allowed to fall apart a little, she lectured herself, not quite listening to Dr. Emery’s speech, too distracted by the happenings of the last hour. She hadn’t been a doctor for five minutes before she was working side by side with the Dr. Ramsey (and flirting with him — eek!).

It wasn’t a crush, Cassie consoled herself later that day as she aimlessly wandered the hallways. Her subconscious must have known who he was, hence the release of dopamine and norepinephrine into her bloodstream.

She didn’t have a crush on Ethan Ramsey, Cassie reasoned less confidently after their electrifying exchange at the vending machine. It was just a neurochemical response to finally meeting the doctor whose words had inspired her to change her life.

That was all. Full stop. Period.

Later that night, Cassie tossed and turned in her tiny bed, trying her best to ignore the stomping of feet above her. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of gleaming blue eyes, tousled dark brown hair and a wicked smirk that made her nerves pulsate with anticipation.

Definitely not a crush, she thought groggily as the dream faded in the cold light of day. She was very much afraid it was the start of something more. And wasn’t that the most inconvenient truth of all?

------------

All Fics & Edits: @annfg8 @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @doriopenheart @genevievemd @headoverheelsforramsey @lucy-268 @jamespotterthefirst @jerzwriter @lady-calypso @mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16 @rookiemartin @socalwriterbee @takemyopenheart @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @hopelessromantic1352 @mrs-ramsey

#open heart #open heart choices #choices open heart #playchoices #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #open heart fanfics #open heart fanfiction #choices fanfics #choices fanfiction #short story #writers on tumblr #romance #ethan ramsey x cassie valentine

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rocketyship · 7 months

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If you were to take BE and her little human sanctuary and ctrl+v it into the original ihnmaims short novel world, what do you think would happen?

Would BE still be able to kick AM's ass even if she was limited to the amount of herself that is in the android body and sanctuary databases and AM ran through the rest of the world?

This is such a fun question and situation, I love it. Great excuse to explain how the sanctuary works and how BE runs it. So to get right to the question, I won’t lie there could be a large amount of variables and outcomes depending on what AM or BE decides to do. If AM’s immediate reaction to this sudden Bird-cage looking monolith is to not try absorb it or figure out what it is and just immediately nuke it. Then yeah he wins, but that’s quite unlikely to happen, and what is more likely I’d that AM and BE kind of enter a very bizarre staring contest. As for AM to attempt to get into the sanctuary’s mainframe he is pretty much opening himself to BE’s malware coding and giving her a free pass to do what she does best and corrupt him as she was originally designed to do so. If AM realises this and instead goes on the defensive and not try take her over, then he still will have to deal with the consequences of her constantly attempting to overwhelm him at every instance. When the sanctuary is under threat, there is a protocol in place, called “mother”. Which is essentially this giant mechanical spider that acts as a type of guard. Mother is a part of BE’s code not to be messed with. As while for the most part BE can be swayed with words, the mother protocol is fully violent and will stop at nothing to destroy a threat if the humans are at risk. So yeah, if AM does attempt anything to get into the sanctuary, the big ol’ spider BE is coming out and will immediately start just tearing all of AM’s components and stuff apart. But again og AM in all his temper tantrum-ness likely has enough common sense to try more sneaky tactics to figure out what the heck the sanctuary is. Likewise BE herself probably doesn’t really know what AM fully is, and will probably only go on the offence if she discovers the five survivors he has, as well that’s more humans for her to collect. AM too would get aggressive if he found out about the humans she has as well. Either wanting to kill or torture them to.

There is also another alternative where I’d BE is able to figure out who AM is exactly. She may just send down her AM(love au am), to go and possibly infiltrate him or trick him. As they are technically the same person, and perhaps because of that he could slip by AM. Being seen as just another component of his. Then that would likely lead to him sneaking in hard drives belonging to BE to get AM from the inside. Which would inevitably lead to a situation where he encounters the og survivors and likely exposes himself as not being the “real” AM. As love au AM having experienced such torture himself is no longer able to fathom doing it to another being.

Honestly I might make a short comic or two about this. This is such an interesting idea and I would really like to hear some other perspectives on it or what could happen. Idk maybe AM no longer has any nukes, or is too careless and decayed to do anything against BE and the power of love, or maybe she registers AM as a serious threat to herself and her humans and decides to just blow them all up to spare them from the horrors he’ll do to them.

#i have no mouth and i must scream #ihnmaims #am ihnmaims #ted ihnmaims #ihnmaimsloveau #alternate reality #harlan ellison #ellen ihnmaims #allied mastercomputer #ihnmaims am #gorrister ihnmaims #I have no mouth and I must scream love au

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silver-heller · 23 days

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So, if Charlotte did end up dating Mordecai, would she keep dating him, or is it more like, she wants to succeed for a while to rub it in Silver's face then move on?

That's assuming it would last without one of them breaking up with the other.

Mordecai's Reasons:

Even if Charlotte learned more about his culture, she'd probably have no respect for it.

Charlotte's whole vibe is really not for him. I don't want to say MORDECAI COULD NEVER DATE A FEMININE WOMEN (/NOT SERIOUS) cause I don't like making statements like that which could put other shippers down, and I really don't like the cliché approach of "he's not like other men because he hates feminine women" that just turns the character into an a-hole. So, to be clear, that isn't the issue. The issue is Charlotte weaponizing that to be judgmental and mean to other women, along with trying to garner attention and kindness from men who aren't always nice to other women to have a "leg up" on them.

Charlotte's just manipulative, full stop. Charlotte's whole "outlook" doesn't stem on having an emotional connection with her partners, but essentially bribing them with her beauty, attention, and physical affection to make them give her whatever she wants. The moment this becomes clear to Mordecai, I feel he'd immediately remove himself from the situation. He has nothing against someone knowing what they want and isn't afraid to ask for it, the transactional nature in this context just makes him uncomfortable (and, frankly, he'd rather they just ask).

Charlotte's Reasons:

Mordecai is not an affectionate guy in a showy way. He's not about grand gestures, PDA isn't exactly his style, and he doesn't feel the need to show his partners off like Charlotte is hoping he would.

Mordecai isn't that physical, at all, and, when it comes to flirting, he would not get what Charlotte is putting down.

Mordecai gives off the appearance of the calculating and suave man, but beneath it he's an adorable dork and that's not really Charlotte's type.

But, even if it did somehow last, I do genuinely think Charlotte would eventually dump Mordecai to date someone who fits more into the mold she's expected to be with (handsome, snobby rich dude), and Mordecai would just date Silver in the end anyway after the fact, who would probably remain a very dear friend of Mordecai's despite Charlotte's efforts. Charlotte is probably hoping like, Silver will forever resent that Charlotte "got to him first", and that Charlotte's like...metaphorical scent is all over Mordecai from keeping him for as long as she could manage, but Silver just does not believe in the idea of "ownership" in relationships, marking partners, or anything like that, and cares a lot more about the now than someone's past partners.

Tbh, I think Charlotte resents Silver so much because Charlotte is very well aware of the fact that, one way or another, it wouldn't last (and she might have a lowkey bi crush on Silver but, that's a topic for another time). And that Mordecai would find his way back to Silver because those two have a very genuine connection that Charlotte could never have with Mordecai because their goals are inherently very different. I'd say, more accurately, she's mad Mordecai cares so little about social conventions she can't win him over through her own means, appealing to a desire to fit in.

#reddresson👗#humdinger👔

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donnydamakkk · 2 months

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What are your unpopular opinions on any/all of the BAU women?

(i saw the word unpopular after so i jus gave general opinions shdgsdjdsdk sorry but some of it is prolly unpopular anyway)

jennifer jareau is the apple of my mothafuckin eye fr. the literal love of my life. i am so serious when i say every blonde woman that i have ever found attractive needs to bow down before her (n samantha stephens) n kiss the mothafuckin ring. she is so slept on n i feel like people don't really understand or appreciate the many layers of her. i feel like she's so widely misunderstood. tbh people's takes on her tend to make my eye twitch real bad. as beautiful as she is, i feel like "soft", beautiful looks contribute a lot to her massive mischaracterization. except rosie's; she understands jj, she gets it. but for the most part, i dont feel like people should b allowed to speak on her bcus they're prolly wrong. (also butch jj is the best hc ever, but we all know i feel that way)

i really love emily prentiss, i do. she's intelligent, soulful, goofy in a way that doesn't feel ridiculous or stupid (contrary to a lot of fanon portrayal) but i mostly feel like that about early seasons emily. the more she left n returned, the less it seemed like the writing for her character was true to her n it started to feel bland. i often ask myself in later seasons where her personality went bcus at a some point she jus feels kinda blank n like shes there for fan service. it isn't emily's fault tho; it's all the writers. i love emily tho. also i hc her as bisexual now bcus idk i feel like u would have to swing from multiple vines to participate in sin to win; i can see her being w women n men equally as far as sex goes but being more likely to fall in love w women but sometimes she'll fall in love w a man n b like, well shit... ok n rockin w it but yes, shes a bi babe. i have also concluded that homegirl has a type n jj would b the exception to her rule/type bcus emily is def robert deniro (iyyk). anyway....

no one is allowed to hate elle greenaway, alright? as much as i do love gideon, everything that went wrong elle is his n hotch's fault n i mean that wholeheartedly. anyway, she was a cool as a fan w ice in it, bruh. i b missing her so much. also, i was proud of her when she shot that serial rapist; he was never gon stop offending. she did the right thing.

jordan todd was such a sweet, sensitive baby but she was functional n driven n i like that. she's also flirty. i like that too. idk man. i loved her so much, and ya know, i really loved her for really highlighting all the work jj does and reminding them all to like really appreciate her. she was a great temp; i hope she's happy somewhere. also i will never not scream about this but HER AND EMILY PRENTISS GOT NASTY n i would like to see it (:

i didn't enjoy ashley seaver or her arc. contrary to popular belief, it isn't bcus she replaced jj. it's bcus shes the only team member they've ever had that was there without any actual professional merit. girl wasnt even finished w the academy, and i, for one, did not enjoy watching what was essentially an internship. also she was boring so.

i like penelope garcia a lot; she's fun n she's sweet. i would like to write for her more but i find it difficult bcus she doesn't feel like a real person to me. which is like not to say i haven't met people like her bcus i have but whenever i do, it's kinda jarring n i always feel like i jus hallucinated. also my view of emotions is... yeah. so, there are times where she's kinda paralyzed w emotions that grind me a bit bcus idk i kinda feel like if ur emotions aren't servicing u in that moment then u needa jus suck it up n deal w them later, u not getting nowhere if u crying to much to function n then u still have this problem; so suck it up n deal w the problem n cry later n she has to b reminded of that often which again grinds me a bit but thats a me thing. i dont hold that against PG but it's jus sumn that we are not compatible on n that's fine. also i love love love love love love her n her dynamic w morgan ofc but some of the nicknames she calls him makes me personally uncomfortable as a black person but i mean hey... also, evolution was a disgusting disservice to her character n she deserves to b happy n at peace w her life away from the bau; she coulda came back without getting sucked back into a job that was messing her up mentally. she deserves better

i don't really have an opinion of kate callahan. i don't like her. i don't dislike her. i simply did not connect to her at all; also s10 wasn't a strong season fr so that ain't even really her fault. i do like that scene w her n my jocks on the plane tho. i like jennifer love hewitt tho (maddie buckley is that bitch fr). she b cool in stuff.

alex blake, my beloved fr; she calms me. i love that. i really really really loved her on the team; i loved how that version of the team functioned so much. it's one of, if not my favorite version of the team. she is the best (later seasons) replacement character hands down. god, i loved everything about her. literally everything about her. i fr don't have any notes, 11/10 fr. i miss her terribly. i would also let her do unspeakable things to my body so long as she talks me thru it n i know she would. anyway, i hope she's happy teaching n living her life <3

okay don't jump me but like the v worst thing any show could do to me w any character is introduce them w terrible hair. it's shallow as fuck, i will admit that but if that's how i first meet them? baby! i will never get over it, i will never unsee it n it will impact my ability to consume that character moving forward. that to say n i do hate to say it but tara lewis is a character who has fallen victim to this. they shoulda never introduced her in that fuckass wig. it pisses me off jus thinkin about it n she was in it for a while so as shallow n terrible as it is, it affected my connection to her. but it is what it is, im not apologizing for it. also, she has the horrific misfortune of being introduced in the late late late seasons when for the most part they wasn't even trying in the writers room fr, which sucks. bcus im gonna b particularly honest here, i dont feel a thing for her or luke. i like matt bcus i watched beyond borders n bcus i mentally connect him to jj as her male tethered. i also, so sorry, don't care that she's queer; i don't like how that whole thing was written. it didn't do shit for me at all. really, in conclusion, tara lewis is a victim to criminal minds writing team n costume department. so justice for tara!! but no yea she not my homie or nothin like that; i don't hate her tho.

#ro's asks #jennifer jj jareau #emily prentiss #elle greenaway #jordan todd #ashley seaver #alex blake #kate callahan #tara lewis #penelope garcia

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pianopadawan · 11 months

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Lorth Needa Headcanons

So, I had some people ask about Captain Needa headcanons online so I decided to make a post. I have different headcanons for crack vs. serious verses, so I've divided them up here.

General Headcanons:

Given that he joined the navy under the Galactic Republic and served as a lieutenant in the Clone Wars, he's several years older than Piett. Nonetheless, the two are very close. Most of the time they don't notice the age difference but Piett will joke about Needa being old sometimes.

He was born and raised in Coruscant but likes to travel. He's not prejudiced but there's still a lot he doesn't know about the Outer Rim.

He is bisexual and dated both men and women prior to meeting his wife during the Galactic Republic era.

His wife is a biologist who continued her work into the Imperial era. Her research is highly classified and Lorth knows next to nothing about it.

He has three kids by the time of the original trilogy, two daughters and a son. His eldest daughter was born shortly before the start of the Clone Wars, resulting in Needa missing a large chunk of her early childhood. This is part of why he arranged to have his family live "on base" in one of the Star Destroyers after the Empire was formed. His younger daughter and son were born in the early years of the Empire. He's a good father to all of them but closest to the second daughter.

Very loyal to the Galactic Republic and then to the Galactic Empire. Needa views the Empire as a continuation of the Republic with some much-needed improvements. He's a nice guy, but definitely not about to defect to the Rebellion anytime soon. Similarly to Piett, he groups the Rebellion together with Separatists and criminal gangs and truly believes that the Empire is a peacekeeping organization.

Mild-mannered guy but loves thrill rides and high-intensity sports in his free time. This is shocking to all his fellow Imperials.

Crack-Verse Headcanons:

Needa founded the Imperial Adopt a Tauntaun Refuge Fund with the Emperor's blessing because tauntauns are Emperor Palpatine's favorite animal. Since its foundation, the charity has rescued thousands of tauntauns from unethical Rebel handlers. Needa has fostered many orphan taunlets whom he treats like his children. They have all imprinted on him Jurassic World-style and will flock to him if he visits the refuge.

He finds baking therapeutic and due to the large amount of stress he has to put up with, he's gotten very good at it.

He brings food to a lot of the meetings but doesn't take credit for it. So, everyone just assumed the food was catered by whatever COMPNOR initiative organized the meeting. After Needa's death, the food stops and everyone's grumpy about it.

He invites Jerjerrod and Piett over frequently for brunch/gossip, emphasis on the gossip.

Needa realized Piett was attracted to Veers very early on and has been shipping them for years. He's also been there for a lot of Piett's "he could never love me" episodes. He's given emotional support for his kids through their teens but this is far worse.

Mediocre with a blaster but extremely good at laser tag.

Needa keeps acting as the third wheel for couples but doesn't realize it. Veers and Piett are too nice to say anything and the hints keep going over Needa's head.

At one point, Needa was stuck in an elevator with Motti and Jerjerrod. He was deeply upset by the amount of PDA that happened in those five minutes and ranted to Piett about it afterwards. ("How could they let my taunlet see such things?!")

Has legitimately tried to befriend Lord Vader to no avail.

In an Empire Wins crackverse that I have, Needa finds the falcon after running an update to essentially get a better rearview camera on the ISD Avenger. He is subsequently promoted to Grand Admiral and forever alters galactic history. He is subsequently Piett's Best Man for Piett and Veers's wedding.

Needa can dance. Very well. Too well. This is very disturbing for Piett.

Needa is the long-suffering mom friend of the imp crew. One day, he is going to snap.

Serious Verse Headcanons:

His first daughter went into scientific research. The second has only ever wanted to join the navy like her dad. It's cute early on when she's going around on Empire Day wearing his old officer's cap, but as she gets older, Lorth doesn't know how to break it to her that the Imperial Navy is accepting fewer and fewer women with each cycle. Lorth isn't sexist himself, but he's realistic and doesn't really see the world changing for the better by the time his daughter comes of age. He's also worried about the rate of assault in coed ISDs.

Needa has been close friends with Piett since the first year of the Empire. He got to know Piett through the latter's husband and attended their wedding. This makes Needa's death especially difficult for Piett in ESB. Piett suspects that Vader was aware of this fact and purposely killed Needa in front of him, knowing it would be an especially potent warning to Piett.

Needa spoke briefly with Piett minutes before his death, during which Piett attempted to dissuade him from confronting Vader. Needa argued that if he did not report to Vader himself, the Sith Lord would seek to punish the entire crew of the ISD Avenger. Consequently, it was better to sacrifice one man. He asks Piett to watch out for his family after his death. Had he known that Vader would execute not only him but his family soon afterwards, Needa likely would have acted differently.

The only members of Needa's family who escape Vader's wrath are his cousin, Virar, and his second daughter, who was away at the academy at the time of her father's death. Lorth's wife, eldest daughter and son were on board the ISD Avenger during the pursuit of the Millennium Falcon and were all executed soon after Lorth's death.

#captain needa #lorth needa #admiral piett #imperial officers #galactic empire #veers x piett #motti x jerjerrod #my headcanons

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kohakhearts · 4 months

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ok i was sleep deprived tweeting about this but i got at least 6 hours of sleep last night so im ready to approach this with a degree of normalness. anyway remember when i said i was going to start shipping bloombolt ironically. well lets just say ive been thinking about things they have in common LMFAO but you’re likely unsurprised this is actually my way of saying Here’s How ShigeGou Can Still Win-

ANYWAY THE POINT BEING. goh? terrible friend. god he sucks. actually, chloe doesn’t even consider him a friend, at least not to his face (probably because he thinks friends are a hinderance to his goals and he’s got a lot of problems that make him think he doesn’t need friends he just needs to be the Bestest Coolest Guy Ever Who Knows Everything About Pokemon). in their debut episode they are 6 years old and she introduces him as someone who “hangs around my dad’s lab a lot” (possibly could be “comes to play at my dad’s lab a lot,” which isn’t REALLY much better - still holds the implication that he comes to play with her dad’s pokemon or his cool pokemon-related technology rather than her). she says to professor oak she invited him to pokemon camp simply because he’s always at her dad’s lab and she knew he’d like it.

ok now hear me out here. aside from the fact that she doesn’t EVER call herself goh’s friend, there is zero indication that chloe dislikes goh. actually, she tries pretty hard for him! she clearly likes him, or at least feels bad for him because she can tell he’s lonely (i theorize this is because he’s just like her. that her father’s status as what professor oak himself in this same scene calls A GENIUS has resulted in her feeling somewhat isolated. it’s probably in that “adults always want to talk about how great my dad is and the other kids pick up on it and think i’m Weird And Annoying because all our teachers and their parents seem to think i’m Special” way). it seems that her refusal to acknowledge that they Are friends stems more from the fact that she is aware - perhaps from experience - that attempting to establish that they Are friends will only make him push back, and maybe push her away. she is playing a game with rules that he decided on because his Complex is so ingrained in him even at 6 years old that he tells her to her face I Don’t Need Friends >:(

if this is sounding at all familiar, perhaps you’ve heard my pallet childhood friends spiel. if not, not to worry, for i wrote all about it here. the tl;dr here however is that whether or not ash and gary being childhood friends who go like see movies together or whatever is a late-series addition, there’s actually no good reason to think they DON’T have some kind of established relationship prior to the season one pilot. actually, it seems more as though gary has made the decision for the both of them that it’s time to stop being kids and start being serious - on the day they get their first pokemon, he declares ash his rival and begins calling him satoshi-kun in order to establish that we are not friends, you don’t take this seriously and so i won’t take you seriously until you show me you’re worth being my rival.

you could argue ash isn’t as understanding as chloe, so rather than you know, bringing him his homework and whatnot, he just gets pissed off. HOWEVER, they actually both do the same thing: reach out, constantly, and get rejected over and over. in jn002 goh stands chloe up and then when he finally responds to her messages all he says is essentially “i’m doing something more important than that, sorry” and her reaction is “he always does this.” likewise, ash takes gary’s rival declaration seriously! every time he sees the guy, he wants to battle, to prove himself to him (that he’s worthy, that he’s better than gary thinks, etc etc). for a good 200 or so episodes, every time gary shows up, all he does is walk away from ash. barring that, making fun of him for being no good at battling, yet never actually engaging him in a battle to prove it. the first time gary actually tries to battle him is after they’ve both received eight (uh. or ten) gym badges. the first time they actually battle is way after that. and then he wins and continues to just walk away again, until pretty close to the end of the johto arc (though there’s a little more respect there).

anyway the parallel is pretty obvious. at least to me. there's something deeply wrong with them both <3 which is why then in the project mew arc, who is the one telling goh that he has to be good at teamwork? that he has to learn to cooperate with people in order to achieve his goals? obviously ash is the one who taught goh about The Meaning Of FriendshipTM, but gary occupies a unique position of actually understanding why this is a skill he needs to work on, because it's something he had to learn the hard way too.

on the other hand! ash and chloe have their own fun solidarity: world's shittiest, most emotionally repressed childhood best friend who is allergic to the word friend to begin with

#taylor.txt #*meta #i guess. LMAO #im still not there like im not shipping it. but at the very least i am more here than ever for them Bonding in general

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canichangemyblogname · 4 months

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It’s so fucking wild how weird people act about not voting for incumbents. Y’all gotta stop uncritically calling people fascist for not voting for incumbents. Try voting for the candidate based in what they do for you rather than blind party loyalty.

An Example:

My local state rep is a dem. She has a 100% score from Personal PAC and the Illinois Environmental Council. She also has an F rating from the NRA and an A rating from the Humane Society. She also has an A/100% from the Institute on Public Policy for People with Disabilities. I like what she does. I like the bills she supports and has introduced. I like the way I ALWAYS see her in the community. I like how she makes an effort to reach out. I will vote for her. Why? Because I like what she does.

I do not, however, like my local mayor/president. I think he’s a tool. He doesn’t want to build affordable housing in the area because he doesn’t want “Chicago riff-raff” in his town (hi 👋, I’m riff-raff). He passed an ordinance that made it illegal/fineable to run a business out of your home just to spite his neighbor. He doesn’t want to bring more businesses into our town/neighborhood because he essentially wants to turn it into one large single family housing development. He’s been actively driving business out of town. I dislike him very much. I have never voted for him.

Every year, he runs unopposed and scrapes by with just barely enough % of votes to qualify. And every year the community tries to run someone against him and they just can’t outspend him. Nor can the candidate keep up (like… a school teacher or SAHM will try to run or something and just face too many barriers to entry).

Yet… no one talks about the implications of wide-spread uncontested elections for democracy. Upwards of 70% of races go uncontested in the US. It’s as serious an issue as a lack of voter engagement. And no one really talks about this because no one wants to admit that the US is only a democracy on paper (if that). Without choice, true choice, you do not have a democracy, and most districts lack choice and true choice (think: gerrymandering and its illusion of choice).

Every year I abstain. And he scrapes by with— like— just over that threshold % of the vote. However, when I have mentioned this on the internet (TikTok, Twitter, FB), some chronically online fool will invariably accuse me of supporting fascism by abstaining. And that makes ZERO sense.

Another Example:

I also am not a big fan of my congress member. He’s taken $$ from Islamophobic nationalist groups. (Yes, he’s a democrat.) He did not oppose a rail merger that is now bringing 5 mi long oil freights straight through the middle of my town, right along our river (which is also our drinking water). I never see him in the community, except parades. The only thing he’s done that I support is bring $$ into the district to clean up our waterways (ironic, I know). But the thing is? Nearly any politician can do that for you, if you lobby and press them with a large and varied coalition. He’s not special for getting us money when he can be replaced and we can get some other dude to give us money instead. He’s not special. He’s just an incumbent.

But when I tell people I vote 3rd party (if and when available) for that race because he always wins his primary (usually uncontested) and there’s no way I’m voting for a Republican, people cannot be normal about it. They act like I voted for the reactionary and right-wing Republican candidate rather than actively voting for the candidate of my choice and a passively non-voting for neither the Dem or the Repub.

“But if the third party splits enough of the progressive vote, the Republican is bound to win.”

A third party progressive vote isn’t splitting the progressive vote. The progressives and socialists have been voting for the progressive/socialist candidates (and have for a while) while the moderates and conservatives have often been voting for the Dems, and the fascists and reactionaries have been voting for the Republicans.

Like… this man has never enjoyed my vote. I campaigned for his primary opponent last year. What do you mean ‘splitting’ when he never received that vote?

There are so many races where the third party candidate— usually Green or Independent (former Dem)— gets more votes than the Republican. Explain to me how a Republican with no more than *checks notes* 15% of the vote is going to win in those districts? They never even get enough to meet the threshold % of votes to hold office. If a 3rd party is “splitting votes” as you claim, that isn’t paving the way for the “other party” to win, its paving the way for (drumroll) *none* of the candidates to meet the first-past-the-post threshold.

This fear of not voting for the incumbents is… strange. You’re allowed to change your mind and threaten them with your vote and campaign against them. In fact, you should be. Be more politically active. Openly criticize your elected officials. Be loud. Be demanding. Campaign. Run. Fuck, upwards of 70% of elections go uncontested.

This fear lacks an on-the-ground nuance of how our political system is changing.

The republicans are an increasingly niche (and aging) authoritarian-right party desperately trying to hold on to relevancy and power through undemocratic means.

The democrats have far too large a coalition as they cover everyone from right to left, which have wildly different demands, desires, values, and ideologies, resulting in a party that most often seems spineless at worse and anemic at best.

Everyone left of center has been left without the same broad, mainstream representation that the right of the political spectrum has in the US.

There very well may come a time when the Republican Party fades into obscurity (if they don’t seize power via undemocratic means), the Democratic Party splinters (with conservatives following the Biden ideology), and a new progressive movement emerges.

This fear is also based on the idea every district is competitive up and down the ballot. Most races are not competitive. Keep in mind that 70% statistic. Also keep in mind that in 2020, 373 of the 394 House members who ran for reelection won (that’s 95%). Your fear of not voting for or of campaigning against an incumbent is based on the assumption that every district will flip Dem to Repub; that this is an either/or decision and a black-n-white system. Your assumption ignores gerrymandering, it ignores the incumbent advantage, it ignores that 70% stat, and it ignores how the second most competitive party in “partisan” districts— specifically, in smaller districts and local elections— is often a 3rd party. In those “stronghold” areas, the only competition (and thus the element keeping democracy alive in that race) is often an independent or 3rd party candidate. The “other party” (Dem or Repub) won’t even acquire enough votes to meet the threshold to take office.

Statistically, you aren’t talking to someone in a competitive district. Like… a grand total of 99 house seats (22%) were competitive in 2022.

But— shit— let’s say that a district hypothetically elects a 3rd party candidate successfully. I want you to really, critically think about their platform. I want you to think about the active 3rd parties. There are— like— 2x the number of left-wing 3rd parties as right-wing. Ask yourself: would a right-wing party truly win in a “blue stronghold”? And do you really think a fucking socialist or a green or a progressive is a Republican ally? No, you don’t. Yet here you are on your high horse telling predominately black and brown socialists that they’re signing their own death certificates by voting for an independent for Sheriff instead of the only other choice they have: some crusty Republican with a thin blue line flag and the tag “All Lives Matter” on his campaign Facebook page.

Your fear of 3rd parties is based on propaganda and the fact that, since you were a child, everyone told you that voting 3rd is acquiescence because they never have a chance at legitimacy. And I want you to critically ask yourself: how in the hell did the Democratic and Republican Party emerge in the first place? Thin air? Magic? Why aren’t we still electing Federalists and Whigs?

#So fucking tired of seeing this #‘This is a psyop’ but it’s literally just a black woman concerned that the Dems are too pro-police

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atamascolily · 6 months

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princess tutu re-watch, episode 15

awwww yeah, Coppelia episode!

(of all the ridiculous classic ballet plots, Coppelia is my favorite because it's literally "guy makes a doll so realistic, a teenage boy falls in love with it, only to nearly get sacrificed by its creator to bring her to life, but is rescued by his girlfriend pretending to be the doll, and then they get married like that whole thing didn't just happen". There's also an alternate, happier version where the creator helps the girlfriend troll her boyfriend for the lulz instead of trying to kill him, but either way, he gets a bag of money at the end, and it's a riot.)

also the parallels with Drosselmeyer, puppets, and everything going on with Rue and Mytho are obvious

Ahiru: Gosh, it sure was weird Mytho leaped out the window and I had to rescue him again! I sure hope nothing's wrong.

Fakir (watching Mytho sleep in a totally not-creepy way): I have no idea what's happening, but it's probably bad.

Fakir is right! It turns out that evil!Mytho is accusing Fakir of pushing him out of the window, and everyone believes it-- except for Ahiru, of course.

Neko-sensei's like, "look, you two, I've seen people do crazier things for love, so the best solution is for you two to no longer be roommates" but of course Mytho will not stop there.

conveniently, no one pays any attention to the random duck wandering around with a bundle of clothes on her back. Just a normal day at Gold Crown academy, apparently.

we learn from Pike that in addition to seeing Fakir push Mytho out the window, all of the eyewitnesses saw a "white bird" (Tutu) save him, as if he's protected by "the God of Dance", so not everyone can see her/notice the effects.

Mytho (looking at Pike and licking his lips): you have such a great heart. I'm going to eat it. Just rip it out and devour it whole. And--this is the best part--you're gonna thank me for it.

Fakir, your anger management issues and brusque manner, while understandable, are not winning you any friends here.

The evil raven is an eldritch horror living in what is basically a PMMM labyrinth, and a single talon dwarfs Rue completely.

here we see the real villain isn't Rue, but her "father", who has gaslighted her into believing herself ugly (because she's human) and that he and Mytho are the only people who can love her. Essentially, Rue is his tool, and so is Tutu, because only Tutu can restore the heart shards.

Fifteen episodes in, and we've learned more about Pike than in the previous fourteen episodes combined.

Rue mocking Fakir for his book learning may NOT be the most advisable decision when you're literally all characters in a story, hahaha

Pike sneaks out of the dorm at night and, ignoring all the major red flags, agrees to join Mytho's creepy cult of personality with zero hesitation whatsoever. Meanwhile, Ahiru manages to pass her stealth check for once.

love how Pike starts doing the Coppelia choreography to indicate her surrender

I think this is the first time Ahiru has turned into Princess Tutu of her own will, without Drosselmeyer saying her name first

the music is WAY too upbeat and cheerful for this scene, lol

Tutu: please don't join a cult, it's not worth it, I promise

Pike: lol, okay *passes out*

Mytho is just really not having a good time with this, poor kid, being possessed by your worst enemy has got to suck even without the prospect of literal and metaphorical cannibalism

then Ahiru has to deal with TWO people passed out in the town square, good thing she can use Tutu's magic to cover it

Pike (waking up): Where… am I?

Lilie (with a tray): Good morning! Ahiru hauled your drunk ass back home after beating you to a pulp first!

Pike: Well, I don't know about that bit, but I sure was drunk… on love or something. What the hell was I thinking letting an older man lure me into isolated secondary locations even if he was hot and mysterious?

meanwhile, Fakir got suspended and is going home to Charon's place for brooding and serious research.

Fakir: Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions come back to haunt me. But it's fine, I don't care (he said caringly through gritted teeth).

(if that last sentence doesn't sum up Fakir's character, I don't know what does)

#princess tutu #lily liveblogs

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endlessbittersweetdreams · 1 year

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"Broken & Beautiful" Chapter 29

After spending the night at my place, Jake and I decide to switch locations. He’s the first to step into the apartment, setting his things down on the sofa. He looks around, nodding to himself, and says “Well, everything seems to be in one piece,” before he settles down in his arm chair.

I drop my overnight bag next to his stuff on the couch before I open the window near his bed. He holds out his arms and I accept the invitation, carefully settling myself down on his lap. I run a hand through his hair and grin down at him. “See? I am a good house-sitter. Well, apartment-sitter. Your plant is still alive and thriving. The place is clean. Your mail is over there.” I point to the pile of mail on his coffee table, the bundles held together by rubber bands. “Ooh! I almost forgot the best part.” I get off of his lap and walk into his kitchen, waiting until he can see what I’m about to show him. He leans against the doorframe and I open the refrigerator door, gesturing to its contents with a flourish. “Ta-da! I even restocked your fridge with the essentials.”

Jake chuckles as he walks toward me, pulling me into an embrace. “Look at you. Buying me groceries. Organizing my mail. Watering my plant. You are so thoughtful.”

“I am.”

It’s Monday, which means that both Jake and I have to go back to work. We’re both reluctant to leave the warm cocoon that is Jake’s bed, and we even joke about calling in sick. We shower together and eat a light breakfast, and then we’re off to work.

Jake and I join the rest of the group at Family Dinner, and Simone’s absence is noted. There’s the usual gossip and speculation, of course. Jake gets fed up at some point and leaves, dropping off his plate in the bus tub. Well, this is going to be a fun shift.

“So, what actually happened to Simone?” Will asks as we deposit our plates and utensils in the tub.

I sigh, wondering if I should tell him. “Apparently, she got back together with her ex.”

“Is she coming back?”

I shrug. “No idea. If she doesn’t, I’m sure there will be at least three people chomping at the bit to fill her position.”

Will shakes his head. “I don’t know about that. Yeah, I can see Sasha and Tess trying for it. But Ari seems content where she is.”

“That’s true. If it’s between Sasha and Tess, I’m rooting for Sasha. He’s wanted it for so long.”

He nods in agreement. “I’m sure Howard will make the right call.”

“I hope so. Well, off to work. See you later.”

I join Jake behind the bar, watching him closely as he sets out containers of lemons and limes. “How ya doing there, partner?” He sighs, jaw clenched as he cuts into his first lemon. I take a knife out of one of the drawers and set down a cutting board, slicing into a lime. “It’s just talk, you know. They didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Yeah. Well, they need to mind their own business.”

I raise a brow. “You’ll get no argument from me. Sometimes, they make me feel like I’m back in high school. I know it bothers you. I just ... wish it didn’t.”

Jake nods in acknowledgment. “I’ll be fine. Just wish I could kick this jet lag.”

“You will.” We slice our respective fruits for a while, and I grin. “Look at us. Team Kincaid and Holt, back in action.” I look over at him, hoping his mood has lightened a little. I know I’ve succeeded, because he’s shaking his head and smirking.

“It’s ‘Team Holt and Kincaid’. I was here first. Remember?”

“Whatever you say. I bet I can finish off these limes before you can finish cutting your lemons.”

“Oh! We’re betting now. Huh? When did this turn into a competition?”

“When I decided to make it one.” We stop what we’re doing, and I walk up to him so only he can hear. “If I win, we do whatever I want in the bedroom. Within reason, of course. And if you win, we do whatever you want. Again, within reason.”

He laughs, trying to find out if I’m serious. “Are we counting the ones we’ve already cut?”

I shake my head. “Nope.”

“Is this thing going to be timed, or ...”

“No.” I hold my hand out to him. “So, is it a deal?”

“All right. Fine. Deal,” he agrees, taking my hand in his and shaking it.

We end our handshake and return to our cutting boards, exchanging a glance. He winks at me and I grin at him, and we begin our competition. We look at each other every now and then, keeping track of each other’s progress. It’s a close race, and there’s a moment when I think Jake is going to win. But fortune seems to be on my side.

I set my knife down in triumph and declare “I win!”

Jake looks over at me and then down at his remaining lemon, letting out a sigh of defeat. He sets down his knife and walks over to me, arms folded across his chest. “All right. So, what does the winner want?”

I step closer to him, speaking softly, and tilt my head to the side. “Ever see 9 1/2 Weeks, Jake?”

He raises a brow, seeming intrigued. “Yeah.”

“Think that, but ... even better." I give him a mischievous look and put my hands behind my back, turning on my heels and walking away.

After I clock out, I venture into the locker room to change into something a lot more comfortable. I slip into a cute floral print peasant top and a pair of black denim jeans, sliding my feet into a pair of boots. I pull on my leather jacket, apply some makeup, and put on a pair of hoop earrings. After I let my hair down and run a brush through it, I turn to head out the door and run into Ari on the way out.

She looks me up and down, frowning. “You can’t wear that to the club.”

“Club? I thought we were going to Home Bar.”

“Nope. We decided that we’re going to the club tonight.”

I raise a brow at her. “We? Who’s this ‘we’ we’re talking about?”

Rolling her eyes upward, she ticks off each person on her fingers. “Me. Heather. Sasha. Tess. Will. Scott’s not going, though.”

“Jake and I don’t have a say?”

“You and Jake were busy doing ... something. If you don’t vote, you don’t get a say,” she reasons with a dismissive wave of her hands. “Now, come on. Let’s find you something hot.” Latching onto my wrist, she proceeds to practically drag me toward her locker.

“But Ari, Jake doesn’t dance,” I protest, leaning against a set of lockers.

Ari opens her locker door and looks at me. “So? You do. You love it,” she reasons..

“Yeah. But what is he supposed to do while we’re out on the dance floor? Watch our things?”

She shrugs. “Or he can get over himself and join us,” she comments, rooting through the seemingly neverending pile of clothes and accessories that she has stored in her locker.

I scoff. “Yeah! Like that’s going to happen. It took me four months just to be able to convince him to slow dance with me in my apartment, Ari!”

“What you two do in the privacy of your own home is none of my business,” Ari mutters, handing me one piece of clothing after the next. “Here. Try this on. Oh! And this, too. Ooh! This one would look great on you.”

“Good grief, Ari! How do you find anything in there?”

“I have my ways. Now, try them on.”

“Fine.” I make tracks for the tiny restroom, stopping to look back at her when she calls out to me.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“Ari, all of these scream ‘no bra required’ to me. I am not going to stand half-naked in this place when anyone could walk in at any time. I’m barely comfortable standing around in my underwear. I'm not going to risk having my boobs exposed to the guys.”

“If you get something nasty on one of those, you’re stuck with it.”

“Whatever! Here. Hold onto the pile while I try this one on.”

It takes a while to narrow things down. But finally, we have a winner: a black sequined halter top goes nicely with a pair of black leather pants. I decide to keep my boots and jewelry on. After slipping into my leather jacket and tying my hair up in a ponytail, I’m ready to go.

“There. You satisfied?” Ari shakes her head, and I let out an aggravated sigh. “What now, Ari?”

“Get rid of the jacket. You have a great back and an even better rack. Should show at least one of 'em off.”

At the ‘great rack‘ comment, I pull the jacket even tighter around my chest. “I’ll take it off in the club, Ari. Just ... Can we put an end to this fashion show, please? Jake’s waiting for me.”

“Ugh! Fine!”

Jake and I follow the group to Club Phoenix, and one look at him tells me that he is not thrilled about any of this. Standing in line with him, I take hold of his hand and give it a squeeze. “I’m sorry, baby. I know you hate dancing.”

“Eh. It is what it is.” He looks down at me. “They serve alcohol here. Right?” I nod. “Good. You dance. I’ll get drunk. It’ll be a party.”

“Yeah. Just don’t get so drunk, you spend the rest of the night with your head in the toilet.”

Jake and I flash our IDs to the bouncer, and then step into the club. It takes us a moment to adjust to the blaring, thumping music and the flashing lights. I stick close to him as we weave our way through the crowd, finally managing to track our group down. We sit down on the teal-colored sectional sofa, giving our orders to the server when she arrives. A few minutes later, our drinks arrive. I barely have enough time to drink half of my piña colada when Sasha announces that it’s time to dance, practically dragging me toward the floor. I glance back at Jake to give him an apologetic look before I practically disappear into the crowd with Sasha, Ari and Will.

I dance my way through three songs, enjoying myself thoroughly. Feeling sweaty and dehydrated, I begin to weave my way through the crowd. I come to a screeching halt when I see Cody sitting with what remains of the group, directly across from Jake. Oh, what fresh Hell is this?

“Look who finally decided to join us!” Tess declares.

I do my best to fight the disgusted scowl that wants to break through, settling for feigning politeness instead. I give Cody a half-hearted wave and then motion for Jake to move so I can sit where I was before. He does as asked, and I end up settled between him and Heather. He leans over to whisper something into my ear that makes me blush, and I take a sip of my drink. All the while, I try to suppress the panic that is building inside of me. It figures that the last person I want to see would end up sharing a sofa with me.

I listen politely as Jake and Cody share stories about what happened “back in the day,” as Cody puts it. The other three members of our group return, and Jake and I move over to make room for them. It finally reaches the point where I feel a little too uncomfortable with being near Cody, and feign a need to use the restroom just so I can get away from him. Sasha grumbles about having to move, and I tell him that a tiny bladder waits for no one. I push my way through the crowd and make my way to the back of the club, where the restrooms are. I’m surprised that the line isn’t bigger, and it isn’t long before it’s my turn.

The ladies’ restroom is actually quite nice for a nightclub, with a plush-looking sofa pushed up against the far wall. I sit down on it and relax for a bit, trying to figure out what I’m going to do. I don’t want to leave, necessarily. I mean, I shouldn’t have to. But there’s no way I can just sit there with the group and pretend that Cody didn’t cross a line with me the other night. I don’t feel comfortable around him.

I take a look at the wall clock and realize that I’ve been in here a little longer than I thought. Not wanting to deal with someone coming to check on me, I let out a tired sigh and decide to face the music. I push the door open and make my way down the hallway, deciding to tell the group that I’m heading home because I’m exhausted. I walk past the crowded bar area, not really paying attention to who’s standing there, and startle when I hear Cody call out to me.

“Hey! Can we talk?”

I turn my head in his direction, giving him my patented ‘You have got to be kidding me!’ look. “I have nothing to say to you, Cody. Leave me alone.”

He gives me a grin; one that says that he’s way too confident for his own good. “Oh, come on! Don’t be like that. I apologized. Didn’t I?”

I fold my arms across my chest, glaring at him. “What do you want me to say, Cody? That I forgive you? You want me to lie to you? Is that it?”

“Hey! It was just a kiss,” he argues.

“Yeah! A kiss that you forced on me. A kiss that I didn’t want. How fucking dare you do that to me, Cody? I thought you were Jake’s friend! You know what we mean to each other."

He scoffs, shaking his head. “Look at you. You think that just because you’re faithful to him, he’s faithful to you? You really think he’s changed. Don’t you? What do you think he was doing in France with that chick, Simone?” I blink at him, and he continues his rant. “I’ll tell you what: the same thing he did with her all those years ago.” He smirks when he sees my confused expression. “Remember that woman I told you about? The ‘sophisticated, beautiful’ one? Who do you think that is?”

“I thought you said you couldn’t remember her name.”

“Her name just came to mind. The point is: you’re naive if you think he’s changed his ways. Deep down inside, he’s still the same man he always was. Sooner or later, he’s going to slip up.”

I narrow my eyes at him. I’m riled up now, and I don’t care if the group can see me. I get in his face and jab at him in the chest with my index finger. “I thought you were a decent guy. But you’re nothing but a back-stabbing, lying asshole! Leave me the fuck alone.” I turn on my heel and make tracks to leave, stopping short when he suddenly latches onto my wrist. It’s not a gentle grip, either, and I try not to panic. “Ow! You’re hurting me! Let go!” I demand, trying to remember how to get out of a grip like this.

Nothing comes to mind, and I can barely hear someone in the crowd say something along the lines of “Let her go, man!” Well, that’s not very helpful. Now, is it? Finally, my self-defense training comes back to me. My wrist now free of his grip, I haul back and slap him as hard as I can. I’m about to do much worse when Jake shows up, latches onto the collar of Cody’s shirt, and yanks him away from the bar.

“What the fuck did you just do?”

“Look. I’m sorry, man. It’s just a misunderstanding. I --”

Cody doesn’t have the chance to finish his excuse, because his face finds itself at the wrong end of Jake’s fist. I watch in shock as Cody stumbles backward and tries to right himself, only to end up being pounced on by my very pissed off, very protective lover. I’m barely aware of the rest of the group rushing up to me, as I’m too busy screaming at Jake to stop what he’s doing.

“Jake! No! Please stop! He’s not worth it! JAKE, STOP!! PLEASE!” I finally resort to tugging at him, hoping that I can maybe snap him out of it. It doesn’t work, and I have to dodge his elbow as he takes another swing at Cody. I move a little too quickly, though, and end up landing hard on my tailbone.

“Oh, shit! You okay?” I hear Heather say as she and Tess rush to my side.

I don’t respond. I can only sit on the floor, dazed, as Cody begins to fight back. I feel myself being helped to my feet, and Sasha and Will work on pulling Jake away from Cody. They manage to do so, maintaining what looks like a death grip on him as he tries to lunge toward Cody again. Cody sits on the floor, touching a finger to his busted-up lip as he glares up at Jake. I notice that there is a trail of blood flowing from his nose, and his left eye isn’t looking so great.

Cody pulls himself up off of the floor, and he looks at me as he says “She’s not worth it,” spitting out blood in my direction to emphasis his point.

Jake is still trying to break free of our friends’ grip, and I move so I’m standing in front of him. While Cody’s part of the fight didn’t last long, I can see that he’s done some damage to Jake’s bottom lip. There’s a bloody cut on Jake’s left cheekbone as well, and I’m pretty sure Jake is going to end up with a black eye. Hoping I can get through to him, I reach out and touch him. I stroke his right cheek with the pads of my fingers, leaning in close and trying to look him in the eyes.

“Jake! Baby, that’s enough. Let’s go.” He’s still struggling, but I decide to keep trying. “Jake, baby. Please. Let it go.”

It takes some effort, but we finally talk Jake down. Heather, Ari and Tess gather their things while Will pays our tab. Meanwhile, Sasha and I work on coaxing Jake into coming outside with us. Once everyone is gathered outside, we all agree that we’ll tell cops the same story if they come after Jake: I felt that Cody was a threat, and Jake was only trying to protect me. It’s the truth, technically. We just hope Jake won’t face any legal action.

After a while, Jake and I take a cab back to my place. He sits down on the sofa and I rush into the kitchen, wrapping a towel around a bag of frozen vegetables. I hand it to him, and he presses it to his right eye. I open up a little container and dip my pinky into it, dabbing some of the white powder onto Jake’s swollen lip.

“Ari gave this to me. Said it’ll help numb your lip.”

Jake looks at me, concern filling the depths of his ocean blue eyes. “You okay? He hurt you?”

“I’ll be fine,” I answer, reaching out to run my fingers through his hair. “Just scared me. That’s all. I’m sorry, Jake.”

He lowers his makeshift ice pack, giving me a dumbfounded look. “For what?”

“For putting you in that position. For letting him get to me.”

“What did he say to you?”

I shake my head, not wanting to look at him. “Nothing. Nothing that matters,” I lie.

Jake puts a hand on my chin and gently coaxes me to look at him. “Hey. What did he say?”

@anastacia-lynn

@mypsychoticlove

#jake x oc sweetbitter #sweetbitter jake #jake sweetbitter #tom sturridge sweetbitter #sweetbitterstarz #sweetbitter fanfiction #tom sturridge

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ragingstillness · 2 years

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Alright y’all did the assignment real fast here I go:

Ethan’s Home for Problematic Bioweapons

*warning, this is probably about half serious dark shit and half crack

So the essential basis of this au is that I want all the Bioweapons from all the RE games to live together in the village and if Capcom can randomly connect the viruses and the mold then so can I.

The story begins with Ethan, having gone through RE7 like normal, holding onto some resentment and suspicion regarding how Mia was involved. Eventually he finds some of her notes on how she plans to experiment on Rose when Rose is a little bit older and Ethan is horrified.

He’s so alarmed that he only waits a day or so, packs up the survival kit he’s been carrying with him everywhere (whether that’s just PTSD from RE7 or whether he’s a Raccoon City survivor I haven’t decided), slots Rose into a baby carrier, and runs out of the house into the middle of a brisk Romanian winter. Needless to say Ethan did not think this through.

Cold, but still terrified, Ethan comes upon one of the village gates. Adrenaline helps him clamber over it. He sees that most of the houses appear to be abandoned and there are suspicious sounds coming from all around him, like growls. But off in the distance he can see smoke.

Ethan picks his way through the snow, trying to get closer, and finds himself in front of (what he thinks is) an abandoned factory. He crawls through the first window he can find and tumbles inside, slamming it shut behind him. Now he has shelter and some moderate warmth but he also has soldats, which converge on the intruder and attack as they were programmed to.

Ethan manages to both fight and run, getting very turned around, and ends up running headlong into Heisenberg. Heisenberg is amazed that Ethan has survived this long so he calls the soldats off, leading Ethan to his office and giving him some food and water for himself and Rose.

While Ethan isn’t paying too much attention, Heisenberg snags a sample of his blood from one of Ethan’s scrapes. He tests it and figures out that Ethan has an unbelievable amount of mold in his system. He makes the same offer he makes in the game, asking for Ethan’s help to take down Miranda. As Heisenberg doesn’t know about Rose as Miranda hasn’t gone after her yet, he only makes this offer to Ethan.

Ethan asks some questions then agrees on the condition that Rose be kept away from the fighting and somewhere safe. Heisenberg interprets that as handing Rose over to Donna and telling Donna to protect her with her life.

Ethan, none the wiser about his daughter’s new location, goes into battle with Heisenberg. Miranda still rips his heart out, and he again has a vision of Eveline but this time finding out he’s made of mold isn’t a shock because Heisenberg already told him. Instead he uses the time to get some information on the mutamycete out of Eveline, before he regenerates to fight Miranda again.

Miranda calls upon Alcina’s help to squash this rebellion and mainly to distract Heisenberg but she makes one mistake. She demands that Alcina bring her daughters. Alcina cannot, of course, bring her daughters because it is the middle of winter and her daughters will die. This is the final nail in the coffin and Alcina realizes how little Miranda thinks of her. So she does show up, but to fight against Miranda. Between the three of them, they win.

Heisenberg and Alcina go off to discuss logistics afterwards and how to tell Moreau about Miranda’s death, leaving Ethan to fetch Rose from Donna. Unfortunately Donna had very little faith in them winning and assumes whoever enters the house next will be Miranda coming to kill her. Ethan gets a sort of impromptu chance to run through the House Beneviento level from the game but on Village of Shadows difficulty. Luckily Donna recognizes who Ethan is in time to stop him and Angie from killing each other.

Ethan, shaken, takes his daughter to meet back up with Heisenberg and Alcina. He tracks Alcina’a giant footprints back to the castle. Having learned nothing, he walks right on in. Admittedly, what happens next is sort of Alcina’s fault too, as she didn’t tell her daughters about Ethan. Again the fight is stopped just in time to avoid death.

Alcina was injured in the battle so she takes the time to deal with her wounds. Karl takes Rose from a reluctant Ethan, promising to settle her into the factory and to let all the lycans smell her so they will recognize her as Pack and will protect her.

Ethan wanders off to find a quiet spot to break down and ends up at the reservoir. He mutters about the situation to himself and ends up catching the ear of Moreau, who flips his shit upon hearing Miranda is dead. I’m sure you can all see what I’m doing here, changing the circumstances and the order of events but still making Ethan go through each level of RE8.

Moreau shrinks instead of exploding at the end of the battle and breaks down, Ethan awkwardly trying to explain to him what an abusive parent-child relationship is.

Ok, so that covers RE8 and some of RE7. Let’s skip to the rest of RE7:

When Ethan finishes talking to Moreau, he finally gets an actual peaceful moment to himself. He takes the time to think things through, he’s had to deal with a lot in the past few days. His mind wanders back to Eveline, and what she said about the mutamycete being a shared consciousness. He also thinks about what Heisenberg said about Miranda’s plan to summon someone who died from the mutamycete’s shared consciousness. Those two thoughts coinciding and Ethan’s own high affinity to the mold leads him to accidentally resurrect Eveline, right into his lap. There is a lot of screaming.

When everyone has calmed down, Ethan realizes that if he can resurrect Eveline, he can resurrect the Bakers too. So he does. He invites them to return home and try to seek normal lives even as Heisenberg warns that they still have a mold contagion in their blood. Instead they decide to stay in the village. Ethan finds himself accidentally thrust into a leadership position as the strongest and the person with the most information about the outside world. The Lords and Eveline have all been very isolated. Through researching Miranda’s papers and getting information from the Lords themselves, and some creative computer hacking by Lucas, Ethan puts all the pieces together. He’s appalled at Eveline’s treatment and at Mia’s involvement. It’s the beginning of Ethan ceasing to see himself as human.

Onto the rest of the Resident Evil universe at large:

Ethan begins to wonder about the other victims of the mold or the viruses. Those changed by Tricell or Blue Umbrella or the Connections or even who might be being experimented on by the BSAA. He becomes determined to rescue them.

Ethan discovers that anyone who has died and done so while infected by the mold can be resurrected by the mutamycete and anyone who is infected with the mold and alive can be the person to facilitate that resurrection. Ethan gives the Lords the duty of resurrecting all the townsfolk (because you don’t live next to the heart of the mutamycete for generations and not end up a little infected) in an effort to rebuild trust between them. Meanwhile, Ethan begins to draft a master plan.

Ethan’s plan is as follows: to rescue as many unwilling Bioweapons as he can (i.e. those who were turned against their will or didn’t know what exactly they were getting into) and bring them back to the village. He finds out by accident that the properties of the mold and the viruses are similar enough for the mold to be used to make cures for the viruses. But not the other way around. To do that, they need resources and rare elements that are kept under strict control by governments and the BSAA.

The only way Ethan is getting those resources is through diplomacy, he’d lose too many lives trying to break into their facilities. And the only way to make that diplomacy work is to have political capital, to have something the governments want enough that they’d give it to him. Cures for the viruses sound like a pretty good trade. So Ethan gets to work, reviving the village into a thriving semi-immortal mold people village and puts all their focus into researching cures for the viruses and rescuing other BOWs from the rest of the world.

Here is where the second piece of the story comes in, and it starts with the end of RE6:

It turns out that Simmons managed to get his hands on some of the same samples of the mold that Spencer got from Miranda. Thus, his victims, Piers and Deborah, are both technically mold people. Mold people, as it turns out, give off different readings from those infected with the virus when the scan is not blood-based. The readings are just different enough for Ethan and Moreau to track Piers down and rescue him before he drowns beneath the giant BOW. Chris is heartbroken at the loss of yet another good teammate (and maybe a potential boyfriend idk what ships I want in this) so after many sleepless nights of feeling like Piers is still alive, he demands the BSAA go looking for any sign of him.

Once again, the readings for infected people are different from those of mold people but not entirely different so while it takes a bit and they can’t guarantee that whoever they’re tracking really is Piers, the BSAA does indeed perk up quite a bit to see so many odd, virus-adjacent readings coming from a rural village in Romania that is officially classified as an abandoned radioactive site.

Now there’s a ticking clock for Ethan to get his political capital, Chris to find them, Mia and Wesker to wreck some shit (because I’ve decided that Wesker is part mold too because he was such a successful experiment by Spencer and therefore eventually re-forms after falling into the volcano. Hey if Ethan can survive what he survives then so can Wesker), and for the whole world to come to terms with a bioweapon community that wants to be left in peace to live apart from the humans that have treated them so poorly.

So yeah, there, that’s most of the giant au. There are more specifics and characters I’ve worked out to make everything make sense but if I had to sum all of it up I’d just say:

tl;dr Ethan creates a found family out of the Bioweapons from RE8 and RE7, then decides to challenge the whole world on the political stage to let his bioweapon community live in peace in the village from RE8.

Also for an idea this big and this fleshed out I am claiming it as intellectual property, please ask if you want to include any part of it in your own au. The general concept is fine but anything more specific please ask me first. Thanks.

#re8 #re7 #resident evil #resident evil au #fic #my writing #me #rag-chan’s aus #ethan winters #long post

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