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jaeminscoffee · 4 years

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Misunderstood | T. Lee

Pairings- Ten Lee x Reader

Genre- Angst, slight fluff,

Warning(s)- Character death.

Word count- 1.88k

Type- requestedddd

It was a whole cat and mouse game at the beginning.

You know how it's always portrayed that all cats and mice despise each other? Well maybe it's because the friend and foe never really go together since they indulge in a much predator and prey relationship. That's how you and Ten's blooming relation started.

Just like any other fable, or the famous cartoon, might as well be a life lesson, Tom and Jerry; Ten and you never got along. You weren't meant to get along. After all, which super agency's top sniper would befriend a wild criminal? Apparently you did. You'd always find yourself letting Ten off the hook each time in the last minute. The lad was fun to have around. And just like any other untold truth of the behinds of a story, the mice in your story was also only just a misunderstood soul. Ten was more than what he portrayed himself to be.

Chasing Ten and catching him, the first glimpse was your mission. Bringing him back to the headquarters dead or alive was your mission. To turn a deaf ear to anything and everything he'd let out was your mission. To heartlessly end him if he pulled a smart stunt was your mission. But having him voice out his thought processes and you gladly listening to the entirety of it was most definitely not your mission.

You'd been known as the top all rounder sniper of your agency, one for your amazing skills, two for your ability to make ends meet, and three for being a kind soul yet thick skulled if the situation called for it. Your boss, the head, of course ended up assigning a very confusing mission to you as, for the matter of fact, were a very trusted pawns of his. It was intriguing yet confusing because you weren't given much insights on why you're asked to serve summons on him.

Ten on the other hand was to this point, tired of running. Hurt. Wounded by having to bear the weights of his family when all he'd wanted was to lead a normal life of his own. To not wake up in cold sweat, fearing for whether his days would shorten the next second. To make it until arvo without anyone, or anything hot on his trail. To make his way back home from his work space; a small corner dance studio where he'd teach the one's who'd not be able to afford trying to learn at those fancy known dance studios who charged way more than what's required, without having someone tackle him to the floor. To sleep after supper without having to wake up every other minute, paranoid whether one of those people trailed him back home and somehow managed to sneak in.

"He's still watching ,you know?" Ten rasped out loud enough for only the two of you to hear his voice which helped you step out of the cloud of guilt for what you were about to do.

You, just as assigned, started immediately. Still confused, of course. The boy seemed little to not harmless at all. But nevertheless, you went about it. Watching the boy feed stray animals on the way, smile brightly at passerby's, buy a drink or two for the hungered on the pathway, keep the dangered ones accompany on a night walk, he seemed like a moral, ideal member for the lacking society, nothing like the heartless murderer he'd been described to be.

"I know, b..but i can't, Ten" you sigh out, shutting your lids tight to clear up your blurred vision.

He seemed to be the only calm in the chaotic, messed up world you lived in. Now obviously, you did try catching him each time only to let him go, thinking of all those out in the streets and beyond waiting for their daily dose of hope in this dark realm. And to keep a close eye on the said predator, of course.

Finding him crouched down by the alley turn towards his usual workplace, you found it a little heartbreaking to continue heartlessly end him. He seemed so.. vulnerable, broke, and nothing like the walking sunshine he'd been since the beginning of your mission and definitely nothing of that of a murderer. He seemed just like the misunderstood feline in all fables who are usually portrayed as the predator and heartless and only wanting to fulfill their needs type. But much matured and smart you'd finally, spiritually understand the personality of the character, hurt, scared, 'does want to care and show it to all but scared to be misjudged again is what they really are.

"Oh? That most definitely wasn't how you felt when you'd first initially pointed the same rifle at me, remember?" Ten chuckles from in front of you, still in the uncomfortable, cornered, back pressed to the brick wall with your left arm on his chest the other pointing straight to the middle of his skull. His retort making you let out an airy, shaky laugh of your own.

The first time you'd done it, your eyes were fueled with determination, you'd get this done and there would be nothing bold enough to dare stop you, except Ten, he was bold enough apparently. "That department store just got mobbed and you're going to stand with a stupid toy gun pointed at me who's not proven guilty of anything? Seems right enough for me that you work as a puppet for that messed up government," your eyes widen at his statement, turning back to see nothing but a tranquil customer filled store, turning back to the lad to find him out of sight. Ten lee had relatively gotten much more experienced and better and running out of sight, "Ten, You drive me crazy," you speak through gritted teeth.

"You were the first one to outrun me, you know?" you lean closer, only to hear your colleagues get their own weapons off safety and ready to fire any second,

"Now, isn't that why you're so drawn to me? Your work would've been so much more boring if it weren't for me, if anything, you're welcome." Ten replied smugly, proud of all his interactions too absurd to be categorized as normal, nevertheless the few of moments in his life that makes him happy thinking back at it. "Tsk," you slightly pout, feeling your eyes glaze over the nth time that night, this would all soon fade into memory and for what? For the fact that no one was ever ready to listen to the wrongly framed.

"Is the target acting hard to surrender, Agent 02?" you hear from your in ear piece, immediately responding with the most stable voice you could muster, "No, Sire, not at all," you reply, "Then why is it taking you so long, Ms. Y/l/n?"

"It's time, isn't it?" Ten asked with a sad smile on his face. All the days of running were finally coming to an end yet he felt like that wouldn't make up to all his lost days. Yes, he was more than grateful to you. For showing something humane exists where no one ever tried caring for what the other does or says. He liked that, though with the choice of path or career that called for some serious human emotion control, you nevertheless wanted to remain human. Ground to earth, and kind enough to valid his feelings. Valid his existence. Valid him and not see him as a target of any sort.

"I don't want to, Ten. I could try explaining this to them-but-"

"But they aren't like you, they work for those on a higher post and won't stop even when given a solid reason to and you know that better than anyone else," Ten explained rather calmly.

"Yes, but you don't deserve this.." You let your voice waver, finally, gripping the deadly weapon tightly, mindful to keep your fingers away from the trigger, "Agent 02, pull the trigger when I count down to 1." you flinch at the sudden voice interrupting the intimate moment between you and your now, friend.

"15.."

"I shouldn't have accepted the tasks, then i wouldn't have had to be the one doing this, and i wouldn't have had to meet you, and right now, at this moment, more than anything, I wish i'd never met you," You scramble through your words to form coherent sentences and the stipulated time you're given,

Ten laughs out a closed mouth laugh, "14.."

"Really? But i don't wish so," He hums, closing his eyes to fully indulge in your warmth. The same familiar warmth that embraced him during one of the most vulnerable nights of his life. The same warmth that kept him company on each day following all while still radiating coldness of suspicion, "13.." which slowly but surely turned into nothing but warmth all after uncoiling what most before you didn't even bother to, "12.."

"It's not that I wish i didn't meet you, it's just i wish we'd met in different circumstances," One where you wouldn't have to go for all the cat and mouse chase all over again, where he'd be, "11.." a normal bachelor and you'd be one too, who'd oh so much in a cliché manner meet at a café,

"Well, we don't get everything we wish for now, do we?" His voice sounded so exhausted, yet, no hints of fear or despise or cruelty shone through. Just exhaustion, and maybe a bit of….relief? "10.."

"Ten, we still have a chance. I can still give it a..-"

"Y/n, look at me."

"You being ready enough, human enough to study me thoroughly before conclusion has been more than enough for me to prove that humanity still exists, that listener still exists. And I wouldn't want anyone, rather you put an end to this little game of ours,``''9.."

"You need to do nothing else other than stay the same, " he started once again, this time, finally allowing his vulnerability to shine through his voice, "8..", "And to do the same you'd done with me with all those potential targets of your people," "But Ten, just-" "7.."

"It's either you or me, doll. Your helpers there look more than ready to shoot any betrayer," "Then so be it! But i can't.. I can't get myself to- I love you, i car-" "6.."

"There. The only words that were left for me to hear," "5.."

"Your people seem generous enough to let me go in this much of a, how do I put it? Grand.. Way?" "Ten I've got 5 seconds to change my mind, I can do something you know?-"

"Y/n, my love. You're making this hard for both of us, so.. "

He did the said stunt move your head had warned you about, swiftly shifting your positions so that you were the one pressed against the unbelievably uncomfortable wall making your eyes widen, words "I love you too, doll" and "Fire!" mixed together, all you could see the next moment was a small smile on the lads face, red seeping through the material of his white hoodie before his now lifeless body slouched and fell right in front of you.

The misunderstood had been deprived of their life once again.

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ad1thi · 4 years

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broken pieces (you and me) fit together perfectly | AU-gust Day 5: Post Apocalyptic AU

AU-gust masterlist

i think this is my biggest fill yet, and i actually had so much fun writing this so please give it some love!!

Adjusting to life in Wakanda isn't easy. For one thing, everywhere is a constant reminder of what they faced, what they lost. As a country, Wakanda is not terribly big, its not large and looming and filled with large stretches of land the way the US was. There is no car for Sam to get into, no expanse of road that he can lose himself in.

There is just here, and nothing else.

It hadn't take him and Jim long to make it back to the others, one of his arms slung around Jim's shoulders while the other pressed against the wound in his abdomen in some attempt to stop the bleeding. The minute he got back though, he knew.

He didn't know how, or why, or even when. But he knew. Steve was dead.

He doesn't remember how he reacted, the entire thing is a huge blank in his mind. A week after he found out, Jim visits him in the med bay, and tells him in soft, halting tones, how Sam crumpled to the ground - screaming, and how none of them could do anything. Not Natasha, not Bruce, not even Jim.

He listens with a blank tone, and then turns on his side, mindful of all the tubes stuck inside him. Jim hovers around his head, but eventually lets himself out, leaving Sam alone to his thoughts.

All said and done, it takes him an embarrassingly long amount of time to realise that he's not the only one grieving. It feels like something that should be obvious, because Thanos killed half the universe, because the only news that's being reported these days is of the climbing death rate, because the tragedy is impossible to escape, even in his own mind.

Yet somehow, Sam doesn't realise until almost two weeks after he's been released from Medical that Jim is grieving too. It's almost humiliating, the way he finds out.

He's on his way to the kitchen, because Princess Shuri has graciously given them use of the East Wing of the Palace even though he's certain that everytime she looks at them, she thinks about the brother they've taken from her - the brother she lost because they brought war to her doorsteps; when he hears Jim and Natasha's voices.

"Anything?" Natasha asks, and there's a tinge of panic in her voice that makes Sam pause, "You haven't heard anything at all?"

"Pepper's been trying him for days," Jim says in a resigned voice, but Sam's been a therapist long enough to detect the undercurrent of despair, "Says she lost all contact with him after he boarded the donut. There's nothing -"

Jim's voice cracks, and Sam wants to reach out and hold him. Dimly, he's aware that he should probably examine those feelings closer but Jim's started talking again so he refocuses his attention on the conversation, "..doesn't die. I got so used to him not dying Nat. I don't, I don't know what it means that we haven't heard from him. Part of me wants to hold on, because this is Tony we're talking about he -"

"beats all the odds," Natasha finishes, and there's a rustle of movement, where Sam imagines that she's reaching out and holding his hand. It stirs something ugly inside of him. "He beats all the odds, and you want to believe that he's beaten these ones too."

"Thing is though," Jim says in a dry voice, "Even if he somehow survived space again, I have no way of knowing if he survived the Snap. Thanos didn't just kill half the population on Earth, he killed half the population everywhere. Who's to say that Tony didn't die somewhere on some godforsaken planet, all alone."

Jim makes a chocking sound then, and Sam realises with rapidly growing horror that he's crying. Without quite thinking it through, his feet start moving of their own accord, and when he enters the room, Jim's head is nestled in the crook of Natasha's shoulders.

Natasha looks up when he enters, and her eyes are wet with unshed tears. She mimes keeping quiet in her left hand, her right hand running down Jim's back in soothing motions; and Sam feels like an outsider looking in on their friendship.

He doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing, simply grabbing something from the fridge and walking out. As he's leaving, he can feel Natasha's eyes bore holes into his back, but he doesn't turn around.

Staying in Wakanda gets easier, over time. Sam isn't foolish enough to say that it hurts less, or that he gets used to how he can cover the entire country in a couple of days, but it gets more familiar - starts to feel like some semblance of home.

Jim is a huge part of that.

Once he got his head out of his ass and recognised that Jim had lost his bestfriend the same way Sam had, they started developing, something. Sam doesn't want to label, wouldn't even know what to call it even if he tried - but he's been down this road long enough to recognise familiar haunts.

He’d always been friendly with Jim, since they both joined up to the Avengers roster at the same time, post – Ultron. Steve was caught between missing Tony and furiously throwing himself into saving Barnes - and Sam, Jim and Natasha formed this unlikely but solid bond.

That’s nothing compared to what they have now: quiet conversations in dimly lit rooms in the middle of the nights, cryptic touches in the blearing light of day, comfort under covers that they never talk about again.

Sam has spent so much time being the person that people went to for help, that he’s almost forgotten how to ask for it.

Jim changes that.

“Can’t sleep?” he lifts up his head from where he’s absently blowing at his coffee to see Jim leaning against the doorframe, clad in worn out sweats and an MIT tshirt and stretches around his chest and rises up around his waist; revealing a sliver of finely toned muscle and the hint of defined hips.

Sam firmly tamps down the want that’s growing inside him.

“Me neither,” Jim continues, even though Sam hasn’t spoken, “I don’t think any of us are getting much sleep anymore.”

“Might have something to do with the fact that your clothes don’t fit you,” Sam says, in lieu of an actual response. He doesn’t feel like digging deep and exposing himself.

Jim looks down at his tee like he didn’t even realise that he was wearing it, and when he replies, his voice is thick with an emotion that Sam recognises intimately, “It’s Tony’s. Must’ve got mixed up in the wash.”

Tony isn’t in Wakanda, nor is his laundry, but Sam doesn’t call him out on it. He simply reaches out and pats on the seat next to him, and when Jim sits down – knocks their shoulders together.

Jim leans into the touch briefly, and Sam suddenly remembers how tactile Tony used to be, during the few times he would visit the Compound. He wonders how long it’s been since someone has touched Jim like that.

“I hear that Wakanda has crazy infomercials,” he says, before he does something stupid like offer to cuddle Jim, “want to see what’s on?”

Rhodey looks down at his coffee mug, and then up at Sam with an expression that Sam doesn’t want to touch.

“Sure,” he says eventually, “how bad can it be?”

It’s bad. Even worse that the infomercials that Sam remembers from his first year back on American soil, but he doesn’t watch much of it – because he spends most of the night watching Jim’s face; and resolutely ignoring the growing warmth inside his heart.

It becomes somewhat of a routine between them. Not in the regular, let me pencil you into my diary way, but more in the organic way. One of them will be stewing in silence, and the other will enter; and invariably they'll end up on the couch surfing channels.

Princess Shuri offers to get them access to american cable, but they both decline. Neither of them are ready for that yet.

Some nights Natasha joins them. Others, Bruce. Somewhere along the way, the kitchen gets stocked with popcorn and chips and crisps, and the fridge is filled with cans of various drinks.

Most of the time though, its just him and Jim.

As much and Sam loves Bruce and Natasha, these are the nights he likes the most.

It's on one of these nights that Sam finally decides to make his move. He's resting on Jim's shoulder, because they've long since foregone the illusion of space and personal space, and Jim's hand is lightly tracing patterns from where it's resting on Sam's hip.

Someone is selling a spoon that doesn't spill it's contents no matter which way you twist it on the screen, and Sam twists so that he can look up at Jim. Jim looks back at him instantly, and softly, slowly - telegraphing his every move, Sam leans up to cover the last few inches and bring their lips together.

There are no fireworks, there's no sudden and huge realisation.

Jim kisses him back instantly, the hand on his waist tightening. The kiss is sweet and chaste, and when Sam pulls back, he smiles.

Jim smiles back, and Sam thinks to himself that nothing is going to fix what Thanos broke - but maybe he isn't as broken as he thought after all.

Fin

#my writing #warfalcon #sam wilson x james rhodes #sam wilson/james rhodes #sam x rhodey #sam/rhodey #adi does AU-gust #AU-gust #post apocalyptic AU #post Avengers IW #Angst #Sam Wilson POV #Getting together #Developing relationship #rhodey and nat friendship #friends to lovers #broken pieces (you and me) fit perfectly together

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sugarcoated-eloquence · 4 years

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Foreboding (Targets: Part 2)

A/N: Hello, hello! Welcome to the shitshow, aka my blog. This is part two of a potential 4/5 part series that I am co-writing with the lovely @sweetestrequiems. Click here for Part 1. Each chapter is focused on a different queen or issue related to the queens. This specific chapter is Catherine Parr centric, but the other queens are all very present.

Please note the following ships are canon in this fic’s universe: Parrlyn, Aramour

{Trigger warnings: anxiety, mention of blood, slight violence}

I should also note some passages are written in German and Spanish and should be google searched to better comprehend the story.

Taglist: @sweetestrequiems, @theatergirl06, @silverpetals97, @six-fragile-dreams, @patdfobmcr-yt, @frogs-in-clogs, @mindless-pidgeon

Other than that..... enjoy! Below the cut.

It would not stop.

The constant feeling like something would go wrong.

Katherine Howard could not tell if it was the anxiety, or if it was something else. She physically felt okay, and everything seemed fine, but for the life of her, the girl could not put her finger on that bad feeling. Being so lost in her thoughts, Howard was found, brows furrowed, staring down at her food, rather than eating it. Of course, this raised concerns with her cousin, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour. Boleyn’s face began to reflect the concern when she raised an eyebrow. Seymour had more of a sad-looking face, but nonetheless, the worry was quite present.

“Katherine?”

“Hey, Kitty… you okay?”

The two voices snapped Howard out of her trance. She looked up, shaking her head seconds after her attention went to the two women. “Yeah, yeah! Just had something come across my mind is all. I’m fine, really. Guess I’m just getting the typical pre-show jitters everyone gets,” which wasn’t a lie, either. But, Katherine did feel a pang of guilt in having to be dishonest with Jane and Anne. Howard was one of the Queens who always got some pre-show anxiety, alongside Catherine of Aragon– (much to everyone’s surprise)– and Boleyn. It wasn’t a rare occasion, though, considering they had just about an hour before they had to head to the theatre. It wouldn’t seem like much now, but this feeling Katherine Howard was having was not a good one.

––––––––––

During the matinee, Katherine could not shake off that constant thought.

But she was not alone. The feeling had begun to haunt her cousin Anne.

Anne Boleyn’s eyes began to glance around the audience, knowing that Katherine was in the middle of delivering the roast of the century to Jane, Catherine Parr, and Anna of Cleves. A certain man had caught her eye up in the upper level; the second row in the left Circle Slip of the Arts Theatre, to be more precise. Something about that blond hair. And cold, blue eyes. Something about the way he was leaning on the railing while he sat began to bother Anne. Her attention snapped right back to the show when she heard Katherine say, “I can’t even begin to think of how I could compete with you all. Oh wait, like this!” to signal the start of All You Wanna Do. But even with her focus on the show, Boleyn’s glances kept going back up to that strange man.

“I think we can all agree I’m the ten amongst these threes!”

What about him bothered Anne Boleyn so much? She did not know.

Was it his face? No, he seemed to be fairly attractive. Was it the way he stared at all of them? Possibly, since he seemed to be rather uncomfortable when Aragon brought up Leviticus and Mary in No Way. He also looked disgusted during Boleyn’s spotlight in Don’t Lose Ur Head. He looked very, very abhorred with Haus of Holbein and Anna of Cleves. But his eyes when Katherine Howard was singing screamed danger, and Anne could see it. Her frequent glancing that first day saw him tense up upon a few lines:

“Tall, large, Henry the Eighth.

Supreme Head of the Church of England.

Globally revered, although you wouldn’t know it from the look of that beard.”

And the end of All You Wanna Do, as far as Anne could tell from where she was on the stage, had him gripping the railing tightly. Was anger the reason he furrowed his eyebrows, or something else? The distance was not helping her much. Overall, she was picking up a few assumptions just from the one matinee show. This guy was either a historian that pretty much agreed with Henry VIII’s horrible decisions in life, or someone the Queens knew personally. What Anne decided to think though, was the former. Maybe this guy was just a historian and unimpressed with the show, right?

That first show could have not ended sooner. But as the lights on the stage went somewhat dim to allow the six ladies to exit, Anne Boleyn paused and allowed the others to go in front of her. She kept her gaze on that very man, and watched him stand up, turn around, and head on out of the seating area. The fact that she was the last one to leave concerned Cleves a bit. Right before she could even reach the dressing room, the queen in red put a hand on the green queen’s shoulder. “Moment mal, Anne. Was stört dich? Du hast anscheinend nicht dein gewohntes Lächeln am Ende der Show gehabt,” the German gently gave the shoulder a squeeze. Boleyn found herself sighing. “What’s going on? You normally smile and you were barely holding one up today by the end of the show,” Cleves made herself translate what she had previously said.

“I don’t know, honestly. I guess I thought I saw someone that Maggie knew in the audience. It was weird. I’m normally not out of it either. Anyways, if Aragon took the couch, she’s going to regret it. It’s my nap time,” the cheeky grin came back to the ruby lips. A nod from Cleves, and the two were well on their way to the dressing room. Was Aragon on the couch? Absolutely. And Anne 100% kicked her off of it just so she could lay down and sleep after she changed back into her comfortable clothes. No space buns, no makeup– just a giant hoodie and some sweatpants.

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The other dressing room was a little more lively for a good while.

Katherine Howard was up on her feet, bouncing around with energy. Catherine Parr had decided to join her this afternoon. What were the two doing while Jane Seymour took the time to answer some tweets and messages? Dancing. The two ladies were dancing, which was almost the catalyst for Jane setting her phone down and joining them. In fact, she just wanted in on the fun. The three danced around for maybe half an hour, before a yawning Katherine Howard took to the couch to take a nap herself. Parr and Seymour stayed awake, with Parr looking for her notebook and Seymour going back to the tweets and messages.

“Cathy, look at this,” tapping her counterpart on the shoulder, the blonde woman moved her phone to be between them both. “It’s us with our kids!” If there was one thing Jane Seymour loved about the fans they had, it was all of the fanart of them with their kids. A smile was brought to Catherine Parr’s face as she looked up to meet Jane’s eyes. “If there’s one thing I have always appreciated, it’s that they know we aren’t the only Tudors that kicked some serious ass.” The laugh both of them shared was quiet, as to not wake Katherine up from her post-show nap.

The calligraphy pen twirled around Parr’s fingers for a solid minute or so before she finally began to write. Each queen had their thing to do post-matinee if it was a two-show day.

Catherine Parr wrote notes about her performances.

Jane Seymour responded to fans. And to as many of them as possible, too!

Both of the Beheaded Cousins slept their time away.

Anna of Cleves did various things, such as meditate and listen to music.

Catherine of Aragon normally left the dressing room to find a quiet spot in the theatre’s backstage to pray.

This normal routine was going to be shaken up a little too much. So much that Boleyn and Howard were too tense to take their usual between show naps.

––––––––––

The same seat every damn time.

Who the hell was this guy?

And why was he now looking so bitter towards Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard?

Three weeks since the mystery man had first caught Boleyn’s eyes in the middle of a performance. But now it was a pattern. Two night shows and a matinee, and always on the exact same nights. Exact same seat, exact same everything. This was starting to piss Boleyn off, and scare Howard. He looked at them with more than just malicious intent in his eyes, to the point that Katherine sometimes blanked on her lines. It was to the point when Anne was singing, she’d put more emphasis on “Hold up, let me tell you how it went down.” just to spite him. This historian guy, or whoever he truly was, did not settle well with the cousins.

But on the night of a Sunday performance, the Queens all got a rude awakening they were not ready for. And the two to be given the first wave were none other than the Beheaded Cousins themselves:

Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard.

––––––––––

This tension was so chilling that it even caused Anne to fumble a few of her lines. Even the infamous “Yeah, I read.” was not the usual confident, snarky remark it usually was. Having made eye contact with the mystery man while trying to deliver the line was definitely part of it, and for a moment there was a stiff awkwardness in the air. They’d recover quickly, of course, but the general consensus between the group was that something was wrong, and it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

The man quickly left, before the end of bows, and somehow located an usher and told him he was an old friend of the girls’. The girls weren’t too akin to refusing to meet people, so immediately after stagedooring and meeting fans, they all headed backstage to meet whoever had requested a personal meet and greet. Kit’s the first through the door and she stops dead in her tracks. Those eyes. They were the same bright blue eyes that she saw in her dreams at night, the same eyes she stared into right before… well…

She swallows, backing up a little. Anne comes crashing through the door, chaos embodied, and happily dances around for a moment before noticing the anxiety seething from Howard’s small frame. “What’s wrong, love?” Kit simply points to the man, and Anne’s heart drops to her stomach as well. She too, can’t look away from those crystal eyes. The blond hair. The everything.

Anne can barely talk above a whisper could even tell it was him would make the situation less real. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe he was just another person. One can hope, but no luck there, Anne. She can feel Kit shaking, and reaches to take her hand, letting out a shaky breath and considering shouting for Parr.

The others trickle in quickly after, the ‘mystery man’ still just staring at the two cousins with ferocious intensity. The last to enter, though, is Jane Seymour. The metaphorical mother of the group, the caretaker, any other synonym you can think of. Jane is never one to cast judgement. She walks in, and despite the obvious tension, says a polite hello to the man. He simply nods in response.

Parr joins Anne at the hip, whispering to her. “Is he what’s got you all rattled, love?” Anne lets out a small nod. “It’s him.”

That statement reaches Jane’s ears and immediately her demeanor changes. She stands up a little straighter, setting her microphone down on the dressing room’s main table, and just looks at him. She moves a little closer, pushing the other girls behind her, and she can only say one thing.

“...Henry?”

He steps forward, and while the other girls move back, Jane stays planted to her spot. He smiles, trying to turn on the charm, reaching for her hands. “The one I truly lov—” He’s cut off by a slap. Yes, Jane Seymour just slapped a man. He brings a hand up to his red cheek, eye showing that it indeed, hurt. Cleves stifles a laugh.

“Don’t ever associate that word with me. You don’t know what love is.” A few tears well up in the blonde’s eyes, but refuses to let them fall. Not for him. “Love isn’t keeping your wife from holding her newborn child!” Her voice breaks slightly, but she takes a deep breath, centering herself.

“You all look so different.” The scruffy voice chimes, and immediately Kit visibly tenses up. She, unlike Jane, is unable to hold the tears in. Though they flow silently, they flow heavily. “There’s no need to cry, Katherine… or should I say ‘Kitty’, now?”

“Don’t speak to her. You do not have permission to do that.” Jane moves to block his view, but he simply repositions himself. Anne elects to go in for a dig. The devilish smirk returns, though small, and she gives Kit’s hand a squeeze before moving a tiny step forward.

“You know, mate, if you’re still having trouble… you know, with your little friend, we can get you a prescription for Viagra. Or Cialis, plenty of options.” She emphasizes ‘little’ by using her thumb and pointer finger to indicate his size. It makes Kit smile a little. The silence in the air was broken by a stifled laughter. That had to be the funniest thing Cleves ever heard Boleyn say outside of the wit written in the script. Aragon gave her a nudge, but even she agreed with the sentiment.

The blond man, finally revealed as the reincarnated Henry VIII, just narrowed his eyes. “How funny, laughter coming from someone who couldn’t perform.” Anne’s smirk went away, as she looked back towards Cleves with a hurt expression. Cleves’ grin was gone, with gritted teeth behind a closed mouth replacing it. Aragon let out a sigh. “That’s low for the man who so easily says he believes–”

“Catalina, don’t even get me started on you either.”

Not a single comment from Catherine Parr. She just stood there, feeling herself drift between a rational mind and pure impulse. Did this guy just come back to insult them, and get a second wind to take Katherine? Oh no, that was not happening. She saw it all, too. Jane’s reddening face from holding back the tears, Cleves’ rather tame anger, Aragon’s scowl… Kit’s pale face from the fear, and Anne being powerless. Jane Seymour honestly, had lost her mind way before Catherine Parr did in this scenario, but… there was always going to be a breaking point for the quiet one.

“So you and your whore cousin think you can just slander my name like that? I’d have you both back at the scaffold in front of the Tower if I had–”

“Scaffolds don’t exist anymore, you twat,” Boleyn hissed under her breath.

“Enough, Henry.”

This was where Parr had enough. The other Queens gave a glance at their surviving counterpart, who wasn’t even looking up at him. She was staring at the floor, but for now. “Cathy, you should probably not… y’know, say anything,” Boleyn barely managed to get that sentence out, considering the crushing feeling she had inside of her chest. All that got as a response was a laugh.

“The survivor, Catherine Parr. Tell me then, my love, are you just as stubborn as you were back then?” He got every other one to crack, but little did he know that he would be the one about to shatter like glass. “Because you should’ve been the one to meet an untimely fate like your counterparts here. Of course, new body means a second chance at being able to–”

Henry stops when he sees Parr’s shoulders shake a little. She’s… laughing?

That’s why she was looking down. When she did look up, one saw her smile shining on like a light. Safe to say, Catherine Parr was about to tear someone apart. “You’ve still got quite a loud mouth for an old man. Tell me, did you ever finally learn to take care of yourself, you bobolyne? Thinking you have any right to talk to the mother of not only your damned son, but also the woman who was loyal to you for twenty four years?! And even better, the one you so graciously called your sister after your marriage? You’ve got to be kidding me right now.”

Jane felt a little insulted that she had to take a jab at Edward, but had the feeling it was necessary considering the situation. Hopefully Parr would apologize for it later on.

“Okay, okay… fair. Not bad, Parr. But why do those two get to wear shiny chokers while the rest of you have crowns? Does it further emphasize my point that Anne Boleyn’s just a hell of a tempting woman and that Katherine Howard–”

The smile from Parr’s face faded. The anger was present and everyone was mortified to see someone so quiet speaking up like she was. With vitriol in her voice, Catherine Parr officially lost her temper.

“You KNOW exactly what the fuck happened, Henry.”

Aragon felt herself go to cover Katherine’s ears as her goddaughter began to lose her composure. “You KNOW why they have to wear those. You know damn well the crimes you fucking committed against them both, especially Katherine! She was a child, Henry! A fucking child who got manipulated and used! I want to hear nothing from your mouth, you snoutband! You have nothing to defend yourself with!”

Wiping a tear or two away, Jane Seymour began to lean into Anna of Cleves for some form of comfort. Even the German was surprised to be hearing the resentment coming out of such a powerful and rather cool-tempered woman. Just as Henry went to open his mouth, he stopped.

“Oh no, no sir! You have no right to talk here! Anne Boleyn lost her head over what, your delusions that she was out and about with men when you were just going around like you weren’t married? And because of that, she has to struggle to change her name? Are you actually insane or some shit?” The northern accent Parr had was thick. She was angry, and her voice said it for her if her facial expression did not. “Jane Seymour never got to hold Edward because you took him straight away for his christening. And she had to sit there, alone, in bed! Suffering through illness until she died without saying goodbye to her baby boy!”

Boleyn goes pale. Where did this anger even come from? She had no idea, but Parr was scaring her.

“My damn godmother was near a saint with all of the bullshit she had to put up with! Twenty four fucking years, and it wasn’t Anne who ruined the marriage. It was YOU. Aragon did some insanely remarkable things despite how you treated her! And Cleves! You just decide to take Cleves and humiliate her because she wasn’t beautiful enough for you? You’re an absolute wandought, Henry! You brought a Spanish lady and a German lady out of their comfort zones all because you didn’t know how to use your damn brain!”

At this point, Aragon had managed to sneak off into the dressing room, with Cleves now being the one to hold Howard. Boleyn was now hugging Seymour, actually terrified of not just Henry, but Parr.

Henry began to go pale. He was not going to recover from this.

“Who am I missing… let’s see, Katherine Howard? No, I got her. Anne Boleyn? Also got her. Jane Seymour? Check. Anna of Cleves? Check. Catherine of Aragon? Oh, yeah, her too. Would you look at that… I’m the only one left. Surprise surprise, the fucking survivor surviving again and this time, she gets to give it to you the exact way she wants to.”

“Cathy–”

“Shut up you lot. My turn to finally talk.”

A flinch from the group. Aragon had to take glances in and out of the dressing room.

“Oh wow, Catherine Parr. The survivor. The one who draws lines in arbitrary places, blah blah! She had two other husbands, what good could have she done being a Tudor queen? I DIDN’T TAKE ANY OF YOUR BULLSHIT IS WHAT I DID. Those books that everyone rumoured a woman was writing? Surprise, you tallowcatch! It was me! I’m the famed author of Tudor history. And I published under my own name once your pitiful body finally died. That can’t be that bad, Cathy. What a sad excuse for a sob story, right?”

Katherine Howard began to tremble more than she already was in Anna of Cleves’ arms. Catherine Parr made herself stand face to face with Henry.

“Ah, right, because she survived she deserves the backing vocals. WELL GUESS WHAT, HENRY? I’M HERE TO STAY. I HAD TO GIVE UP MY LIFE, MY LOVE, AND WHATEVER ELSE I WAS DOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR SORRY ASS. You might have forced these women into submission but no, I am not going to submit to some sad old man. You took away their rights, you took away their children… and poor Katherine…” A laugh. “You took poor Katherine’s childhood. You turned her into a disgraced whore. She is not and will never be one. She is a victim of your bullshit.”

“Catherine, my love–”

“No excuses now, Henry. I’m through. Your love ran cold years ago. And call me love one more damn time. See what happens.”

“My love–”

The weight of the sleeves helped Parr send her fist flying into his face. He stumbled back, feeling a warm sensation drip from his nose. Blood. He… was bleeding? “You actually got the nerve to punch an English King? You’re a mad woman, Parr. I’ll have you thrown on that scaffold just how–” A second punch, and this time, there was an audible crack of sorts.

“You wear a crown, but you’re no king. You’re a disgrace to human life, Henry. And this is for all of the women you hurt, manipulated, abused… and killed,” a lunge forward. The third strike was to his jaw, and the fourth was a solid kick to the chest with her heel being the first thing to make impact. Henry, having been taken by surprise from every hit, stumbled right back into a pair of men. Shaking her fist off, some of the blood ended up getting on the floor, and part of it remained on her hands.

“I’ll be back, Catherine! Mark my damn words! Let go of me, you imbeciles!”

“Like hell you’ll be back!”

And just as she took a step forward, Aragon went to hold on to one of her arms. “Someone help me hold her back!” Aragon needed the help. Parr was under such a fit of rage she was dragging her godmother across the hallway. Seymour had to let go of Boleyn to try and hold on to Parr’s other arm. She slowed down, but still had enough adrenaline surging through her to keep going. Cleves just gave Howard a gentle kiss on the cheek before running over to help the other two ladies. No arms? No problem. She just held on to one of Parr’s legs.

Boleyn pulled her cousin into a tight hug, feeling a shaky exhale leave her body. “Kitty? Kitty, are you okay?” Just a nod. Howard was terrified to open her mouth after seeing the ungodly wrath unfold before her eyes. “I-Is… she mad at us, Annie?” Quiet and almost inaudible. The poor girl was terrified to even talk out of fear that Parr was not just angry at Henry, but at them too.

“Catherine Parr, what in God’s name has gotten into you?” Aragon furrows her eyebrows. “This is not you. What is going on? Talk to me, please.”

Anne reaches to take Kit’s hand. “She’s… upset. Not at us, I promise.” Anne had to admit, all of the ferocity coming from Parr scared her a little bit. The yelling reminded her a little of when Henry first stormed in and accused her. Of course, she would set it aside, but it was scary in the moment. She looks in Kit’s eyes, which are now full of tears, sighing and pulling her into another tight hug and rubbing her back. “It’s okay, babes… He’s gonna go away and we will be okay, I promise. The girls aren’t gonna let him get to us.” Kit just buries her face into Anne’s shoulder and lets out the remainder of what she wouldn’t let out in front of Henry. Thank goodness the men had taken him into another room until the police arrived.

Anne pulls out of the hug for a moment and then walks Kit outside. “You look absolutely knackered, love… maybe we should head home as soon as all of this is over. Do you wanna change into something else? C’mon.” They both decide to change, but do so in the staff bathroom rather than in the dressing room. On the off chance Henry was able to see into the dressing room, they didn’t want him to see anything. Anne also thought a door with a lock was the safest.

Once they finish hanging up their costumes, the two settle into the couch, and just hold each other. Anne hums a little of La Vie en Rose, and quickly, Kit falls asleep. Anne doesn’t mind. They were all done with the day, it had already put them through the ringer.

There’s an apparent veil of exhaustion amongst all of the women, except Parr.

Sure, Henry had been apprehended at this point and he was stuck with his hands cuffed behind his back, but that didn’t stop him from being inches away from Parr’s face with a very devious smile. “I’ll be back, Catherine. And you six will have to deal with me all over again. Especially Kat–”

“Like hell you are!”

Catherine Parr broke her left arm free from Catherine of Aragon’s grip, and her right arm from Jane Seymour’s. The right hand took a vice-like grip on his shirt collar before her left fist came swinging at full power, and thensome since the weight of the costume added force. That impact had a very, very nasty sound to it. Even Cleves flinched at it, soon seeing the blond man fall straight to the floor with a bloody face. “Get anywhere near us and I will have you laying your head on a prison bench just how you made poor Katherine and Anne lay down as you murdered them!”

The officers picked up the unconscious Henry, and kindly thanked Jane, Anna, and Aragon for their cooperation. Parr however, got a warning, but that was about it.

Giving it a moment, knowing they would be out of earshot at this point, Parr releases a rather annoyed grumble. “He’ll fucking pay for his crimes against all of you. I swear on my life he will rot in a prison cell for what he did. If he thinks he can just show up out of nowhere and come back here to take us for fools, he’s wrong,” she almost hissed at the end. The thickness of her accent was making Aragon concerned, since to see someone as rational as her goddaughter be in such a state was a rare experience. Cleves and Seymour both looked up with mortified faces. Ever seen revenge personified as human? No? Now you have.

And her name was Catherine Parr.

“What in heaven was that?” Maggie asks, getting up and peeking out into the hallway. A small laugh. The thud was actually loud enough to wake the cousins, and they both get up, confused a little, and sleepily walk to join her at the door frame. Anne rubs her eyes and yawns, looking at Henry, now being pulled up by two police men.

She glances to Parr, and then to Henry, and upon sight of Parr’s hands, she lets out a small, startled gasp. His blood was actually on her knuckles. Probably mixed with her own, if her knuckles had bust. Kit has a similar reaction, coupled with hiding behind Anne at the sight of the wicked man. “Cathy… let me help you get cleaned up. Mags, can you grab the first aid kit out of my backpack?”

“Let’s just go home, first.” Parr says, a little cold, while watching an officer take Henry away. She wanted to watch up until he was inside of the car, so she could ensure he was going away for good. The other officer asks her a few questions about the situation, and she tells him everything that happened, down to the fact that they would be filing a restraining order, and that Henry was not allowed to see their show again.

––––––––––

The six women had gone home after waiting… maybe an extra ten minutes after Parr finished talking to the police officer. The car was dead silent on the ride back to the house, too.

“I’m actually mad about the fact that he’s actually attractive now,” Boleyn rolls her eyes as she walks in after Seymour. “I’m kidding, obvs. But how is he alive? We’ve been free for… who knows how long now and he comes back? What did he want, anyways?” Seymour turned to face Boleyn, giving the brunette a gentle pat on the head. “It sounded like revenge, but I think Cathy has the actual answer to that. We can talk to her when she’s a lot calmer, though… she’s very…”

“Upset, angry… name it, I am probably feeling it.”

“We all are, love…” Anne goes to her, gently taking her hands, looking at them carefully. One’s very busted up, and the blood has now dried and solidified. “Let me clean you up, c’mon.” She motions to the kitchen, and the two head in there, Parr sitting on the counter while Anne gets the first aid kit out. “I’m not ashamed of what I did today.” Parr stares at the floor, expecting some sort of lecture or argument to happen, but it doesn’t.

“You protected me. That’s all I could ever want.” Anne kisses her quickly on the cheek before pouring some hydrogen peroxide on a gauze cloth. Before she starts to press it to Cathy’s knuckles, she looks the girl straight in the eyes. “Don’t be mad for how much this is going to hurt, please.”

While those two work on that, the other girls drop their bags next to the door and slump into the chairs around the kitchen table, an apparent awkwardness in the air. Jane is the first to speak, and it’s absolutely filled with regret and apology. “Ladies, I am so sorry I lost my cool today. I shouldn’t have gotten so ‘up in arms.’ He just… I never…” She’s tearing up a little, and Kit offers a hand for her to squeeze as she tries to work through her words. She takes a deep breath, brushing some of her blonde hair out of her face.

“I never got to tell him all of that. All of the resentment.”

Cathy grumbles from the counter, agreeing with her statement. “He sure got a taste of all of my resentment.” Her cheeks were reddening, and Anne doesn’t know what else to do past wrapping the girl’s knuckles, so she lays a kiss on them, hoping that will calm her down. “Shhh… no need to get worked up over that toff, not again.” Her hand goes to hold Parr’s face. “Let’s be happy, okay?”

“Jane, we all had every right to react the way we did. Even Cathy had a right to bash his ugly face in.” Kit nods reassuringly, and the other queens mumble words of agreement, Anne and Parr silently making their way over to the table. Something about Parr’s energy was off, but the queens wouldn’t question it for the time being. They were all rattled, it didn’t take much to see it.

“I just feel that as the mother of the group, I reacted rather rashly. I think–” She has to hold back some tears. “I think I should’ve composed myself.” This ends with the ladies all essentially tackling Jane with a group hug, even Parr, though not really seeming to want to participate. It was getting late, anyways, and it was almost time for her to begin her nightly writing. It would help.

Anne clears her throat. “I think you did perfectly, Jane. He’s an absolute tosser for thinking he could face all six of us at once.” Kit laughs in agreement, and the two head upstairs. Parr quickly dismisses herself, Aragon trailing quickly behind after giving Jane a tight hug.

Cleves takes Jane’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Gute Nacht, Jane. Versuche nicht zu viel darüber nachzudenken.” Jane sighs. “Still don’t speak German, love.”

“Try not to think too much about it.”

“Catherine,” Aragon knocks on the open door, furrowing her eyebrows. “Mija, what got into you today? That isn’t you. Where… where did you even go?” A sharp look from the sixth wife to the first, before it softened up. It eventually became more of a look of shame as Parr’s eyes went to the bandaged hand. She really did do a number on herself, but that blond haired Tudor nightmare deserved it. She wasn’t wrong, was she? Or, had her morality become such an ambiguous grey area that maybe it was wrong for her to have sucker punched the man who beheaded Katherine Howard so unfairly.

The shameful eyes look up, seeing Aragon’s concern despite the slight scowl. “I’m sorry, Lina. I… no se. Yo lo vi y... Me congelé. Es como si todo el sentido racional dejara mi cuerpo y me quedara con impulso. Lo juro, no... siempre así. Tu lo sabes! Aunque asusté a todos, no?” The hurt in her voice was evident. Parr knew she became the morally ambiguous of the group, which was normally not the good thing. Aragon’s expression lightened up just a little as she approached her goddaughter, and pulled her into a side hug. “Sucede, amor. Pero no te enfades tanto con alguien tan horrible. Seguimos amándote, y siempre nos preocuparemos por ti. Ninguna de nosotras te tiene miedo, y eso te lo prometo.”

Those last words gave Catherine Parr just a little bit of hope. Catherine of Aragon gave one last hug to the woman before heading on out the door, but not without “Don’t stay up late.” being the last thing she said to the sixth wife.

Kit and Anne stand in the hallway, chatting before going to their rooms, which were across from each other. “Lock your window, Annie, please.” It’s evident that Kit is still very worried about Henry figuring out where they live or figuring out how to get in. Anne nods, despite the fact that they lived on the second floor.. “Of course.” The girls hug and in a matter of seconds, they are both behind their respective closed doors.

Kit leans against the door for a moment after closing it, but not locking it, and a few silent tears fall before she starts to change into her pajamas. “You’re okay. You’re safe.” She mumbles to herself, turning on her string lights and turning off the main light of the room. She debates what kind of music to listen to, mulling over it for a few minutes before turning on some classical. It was different, but it would work.

Anne, on the other hand, immediately goes to lock her window and pull the shades closed, which was slightly saddening because she did enjoy looking at the night sky before she fell asleep. She sits on the edge of her bed for a moment, deep in thought about Cathy. She had to admit, the girl she saw today was one she had never seen before, and one she was pretty afraid of seeing again. That fire, while endearing… shook Anne a little. She has to force herself to shake off the thought that anger immediately translates to a person being anything remotely similar to Henry.

“Right, then… bed it is.” Anne shuts off her lights and lays down, picturing that starry sky in her own mind. It would do.

Jane settles in with the current book she was reading, a copy of Pride and Prejudice. A story of true love, one could say, and the text was actually helping to calm the blonde down about the events of the day. Aragon peeks in for a moment, and Jane gives her a soft smile, an unspoken agreement that they would be okay.

Though it seemed as if everyone was settling down, Catherine Parr had a storm bigger than a hurricane brewing inside.

––––––––––

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Catherine Parr let that be the only sound to fill the silence. Normally, it would be music or something, but not tonight.

The calligraphy pen in her hands danced around her fingers, barely having touched the pages of the open notebook. Her vision was still blurred, much to her own surprise. Wrath was a powerful thing, and to have something take over the body for an amount of time would lead to consequences later in the night. In her case, it was a very horrid case of insomnia. While she dealt with insomnia most nights, she had the slightest feeling this was not the typical time to go to bed at 2 in the morning case. The pen began to slow down in her hand, and she held it still for the first time that whole night.

“It’s not the first time you write about how you feel, Cathy. It’s fine. It’s perfectly fine.”

It was not fine.

No matter how many times she told herself it would be fine, she could never believe it. Catherine Parr saw her hand shake, just the slightest, every time she wrote. Every memory from the last few hours was hazy, but simultaneously at the forefront of her mind. The usually clean lines of her penmanship were just the bit off from the feelings. Word after word, the anger began to flow onto the pages like water flowing down a river’s stream. So shaky, and so violent were the movements of Parr’s wrist. In comparison to the surprisingly smooth transition from thought to thought, her actions made her look a little crazed. One could even say she looked oddly desperate to finish writing.

Almost as if she was running out of time.

She was a writer in her past life. An author, really. The woman wrote books, psalms, meditations… name it, she probably has a manuscript of it somewhere. But this? This was not her. This frantic drive to write and write until the pages could take no more and the ink began to go through them was not Catherine Parr. In a way, it was almost symbolic. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

There it was again. The ticking of the clock.

Time was no longer a relevant thing for Parr. She just let the time go on.

Last she could remember, it was midnight. But nay, the clock spoke otherwise. A glance at it revealed it to be four in the morning. Her hand and wrist were cramped up, and the tears that she felt falling were drying on her face. The pages had become full of nonsensical phrases, mostly a result of the anger still in her system. But that anger began to fade from anger into a depression.

Why couldn’t she be stronger?

Why didn’t she do enough at the moment?

The pain finally struck her heart. Silence began to be her worst enemy, and something she thought she’d never do is what she did. Parr slams her hands on the desk, crying out, almost as if it were a scream or cry for help. The scream was enough to wake up Catherine of Aragon in an instant. A second and third one woke Jane Seymour and Anna of Cleves up. The fourth one got to Anne Boleyn. In a worried hurry, Aragon got out of bed and ran down the stairs to get to the door before almost ramming it down with her own body.

“Cathy? Mija, what’s the–… Cathy?”

What she saw was a torn woman in front of her. Her bandaged hand had a little blood seeping through the ends. Some of the curls were sticking to her face, and her eyes were all puffy and red. Aragon gently pulled Parr up and into a tight embrace. “Escúchame. Todo está bien, Cathy. Estamos en la casa.” Normally, Aragon had a commanding nature that gave off the feeling of someone being safeguarded behind a wall, but this was one of those moments she was willing to let her wall down. Parr’s grip tightened, with the tears coming back and rushing in like an ocean’s grey waves.

Catherine learned just a smidge of Spanish for her godmother. Enough to get by with a conversation or two, but she was not fluent in any way. “Duele, Lina,” a sniffle. “Todo esto duele y no hice lo suficiente para ayudar.” And there was something about her goddaughter using Spanish in such a defeated manner that made Aragon crack a little on the inside. Her own eyes were welling up with tears as she looked to the door.

Seymour, Cleves, and Boleyn.

All three of them with wide eyes and fairly concerned expressions. But it was Anne who saw the tears forming in Aragon’s eyes and threatening to spill. The two lock eyes and it takes everything in Anne to not crack too. She gives Aragon a look that says, ‘Let me try.’ Lina nods and gives Cathy’s hand a small squeeze, and Anne goes and kneels on the floor in front of her.

The other three stand in the hallway, knowing it was probably best to give the two a moment. “Did that not wake Kitty?” Cleves pauses, and then points in the general direction of Howard’s room, loud classical music streaming through her closed door.

Anne takes Parr’s hands. “Cathy, please talk to me… please, love.” It takes Parr a moment to look into Boleyn’s eyes, which are also filled with tears at this point. “It kills me to see you hurting.” A hand goes to wipe some tears from Parr’s cheeks. It lingers there, cupping her cheek, Anne’s thumb reflexively going back and forth to wipe more tears as they fall.

“It kills me to see you hurting.” Her statement is coupled with a small voice crack, and not one that you would usually find endearing. This was out of pure sadness and anger. She sighs. “I should’ve done more.” She looks at the floor, past Boleyn, though her head is now resting on the girl’s hand.

“He’s the one that deserves to be on a scaffold!” She starts to sob again, leaning forward, and Anne catches her, in a sense. Shaking with anger, she lets it out, nearly soaking Anne’s shirt in a matter of seconds. “He deserves to die! Why is he here?” Her breathing becomes slightly erratic, heaving breaths joining in with shallow sobs.

The three in the hallway silently elect to let the two work through it. It really seemed as if Anne was the only one who was going to be able to get her to calm down, even if only a fraction. Aragon lingers for a moment, and then decides finally to go back to her room, leaving the door open in case anyone needed anything. Jane does the same, but reads for a few minutes before going back to sleep.

Anne isn’t sure what to do, so she stands both of them up, having to support Parr a little, and just holds her, swaying back and forth slowly. “Shh… babe… he doesn’t deserve your tears…” Anne, you preach this, yet you’re a mess too. Albeit, a mess because Cathy is crying, but a mess nonetheless. “He… he’s getting his karma. He has to watch us thrive. And he can’t do a damned thing to us. We’re untouchable.” She was also telling herself this.

Parr nods quietly, latching on to Anne even more, as if letting her go would mean she’d disappear into thin air. Though she hadn’t actually said it, she knew she loved Anne. More than anything, and if punching Henry in the face was what she had to do to protect her, she’d do it every day for the rest of her life.

“Can I sleep in your room tonight?” She speaks softly, voice scratchy as a result of the outburst. It was nearing five o’clock at this point, but it didn’t matter. With no hesitation, Anne replies with a simple “Of course,” pulling away slightly to look Parr in the eyes. Those tired, red eyes, still wet with tears formed over a man who didn’t matter one bit. Not in this moment, he didn’t.

The two make their way to Boleyn’s room, a twin bed being the only place for them, but it would be plenty of space. Anne lays down first, patting the small space next to her for Parr to join. It’s almost as if they’re out as soon as they cover up.

Kit sleeps through all of this. Perhaps it’s the music blaring from her speakers, or the exhaustion from the events of the day, but it’s the first night the girl doesn’t wake up screaming. The other queens are really surprised to see her downstairs in the morning, looking well rested and pouring herself a cup of tea, seemingly fine. “G’morning.” She yawns, and the others just kind of look at each other as if reality has shifted. “Where are Cathy and Annie?”

“In bed, still.”

“Ja.”

“I should check on them.” Kit says, setting her tea down. Cleves joins her, cringing a little when Kit knocks awfully loudly on the door and pushes it open. “Halt die Klappe, Kit…” Kit turns and looks at her, a puzzled look on her face. Cleves rolls her eyes jokingly, and then whispers again. “You’re too loud.”

The sight upon opening the door is a combination of comedic and sweet. Parr is absolutely sprawled out on top of Anne, snoring loudly and taking up most of the bed. One of her hands is on Anne’s cheek, as if she had fallen asleep holding the girl’s face. Anne is awake, quietly scrolling through TikTok with headphones in. She looks at the two in the doorframe and smiles, looking down at Parr. ‘We’re okay.’ She mouths, and Jane and Aragon peek in, a small laugh coming from the Spanish queen. It warmed her heart to see the two all bundled up and Parr seemingly at peace, even if only for a moment.

Parr makes a small noise and shifts, essentially pulling Anne closer and wrapping a leg around her. The ladies all smile, electing to leave the two alone. It was evident that everything would be okay, at least for now. Anne kisses Cathy on the forehead, letting out a happy sigh. Parr subconsciously replies with a small snore, and the two stay there, safe in each other's arms, for most of the day.

A couple hours seem to pass and it’s about… noon, when Parr starts stirring. Anne notices this, and begins to smile. At least she was waking up. However, things were not going to go to plan, because in comparison to Anne, Catherine was a whole lot taller, and took up just a bit more space. Thinking for a moment she was still in her room, Parr went to try and roll to the other side of the bed, but immediately woke up at not having anything underneath her. A loud enough thudding noise got everyone’s attention.

The other four queens almost immediately ran to the doorframe, and Anne was sitting up.

In typical Boleyn fashion, she was laughing.

Parr on the other hand, was not very happy. “Ow…” Looking up, she just sees the green queen essentially laying back down because of the laughter, and a glance to the doorway reveals four others holding back laughter. “Oh haha, funny that Cathy Parr fell off a bed now is it?”

Through the laughter, Boleyn responds.

“It’s marvelous, love!”

#tw: blood #tw: violence #six #six musical #catherine parr #catherine of aragon #catalina de aragon #anna of cleves #anne boleyn #katherine howard #kitty howard #The Beheaded Cousins Write #sixfic #six fanfiction #parrlyn #aramour

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bartletforamerica · 5 years

Text

When Maggie Met Donna

The West Wing-The Newsroom Crossover Post both Season Finales, in a world where somehow all of the show that takes place under Obama actually takes place under Santos.

Canon Ships, mainly MaggiexJim, JoshxDonna,

Normally I wouldn’t write fanfiction for either of these, but the plot bunny kicked me hard on the Metro this morning and wouldn’t shut up until I wrote my way through class and knocked it out. It’s not perfect, but it needs to get out of my brain and away where I can’t fuss over it anymore.

Oh, also, Happy Birthday Janel Moloney!

Maggie Jordan fights to be the one to cover the primary race for the Maryland 5th. Normally someone at her level wouldn’t be assigned to a single non-presidential campaign, but this one is going to be intense, with eyes across the nation on the district.

The incumbent, Congresswoman Andrea Wyatt, is running for the U.S. Senate. That too is going to be an amazing race. Congresswoman Wyatt is, after all, a badass.

The seat is heavily democratic. The congresswoman repeatedly won reelection with 80-85% of the vote. Her constituents loved her. Even if Republicans would do better than average, they weren’t going to make up 35% in one election.

So the focus is on the democratic primary. There’s a moderate democrat, the son of a former congressman, middle-aged and bland, but well-funded. There’s a so-far-left-as-to-practically-be-green democrat, who has broad sweeping plans, very little funding, and very little solid understanding of politics or how to pay for any of their ideas. And then there’s the reason Maggie wants to cover this race.

Then there’s Donna Lyman.

Donna Lyman is one of Maggie’s personal heroes. The woman is just about to hit middle age and has been more involved in politics over the last almost two decades than anyone at that age has a right to have been. She’d been part of the Bartlet administration dating back to the campaign, spent years as Josh Lyman’s assistant, been injured on a trip to Gaza, come back, recovered, and then jumped onto the Russell campaign. When Josh Lyman had led Matt Santos to victory at a contested convention, she’d been brought on and done some wonders with media strategy. She’d then spent the next eight years as chief of staff to the first lady, a first lady who hadn’t been content to let her husband run all of the legislative policy, who had fought hard to have her own policy goals legitimized and legislated. Donna Moss (who’d become Lyman after the first midterms) had been at the head of that push.

She and her husband had been THE D.C. Power Couple for eight years. When the Santos Administration had come to an end, they’d bowed out to take a break after 16 years of service and plan for what was next.

Apparently, it had been decided that they weren’t ready to be done with politics.

Joshua Lyman was white haired, with a full beard and glasses. No longer the suave swashbuckler of his youth, he’d gained an air of gravitas—so long as he wasn’t speaking. But he was, undeniably, seen as a kingmaker and the top political mind of his generation. But he’d never shown aspirations of being the one running for office, preferring to work behind the scenes. He’d helped countless democrats get elected at all levels, including his deputy, Sam Seaborn, who had rerun for the California 47th and won in the last election.

Democrats had done surprisingly well in the house and senate considering they’d lost the White House.

A right-wing old white Republican had won, a seemingly reactionary step after 16 years of democratic rule. The man was considered a joke and the potential democratic slate to take him on in the next election was longer than Maggie’s forearm. But covering his administration—covering the White House—had lost a bit of the shine it had once had.

Donna Lyman had announced her candidacy with a year until the midterm elections and a list of endorsements. She had the backing of the Santos family and the Bartlets. President Bartlet didn’t get around much anymore, but he and Abbey hosted house parties at the farm in New Hampshire. Emily’s List had backed her, as had N.O.W., and Planned Parenthood. Amy Gardner was on board as Fundraising Director in an instant. Josh Lyman was Campaign Director, though a muzzle had to be placed on him. C.J. Cregg-Concannon had given her backing, though being married to a journalist made it too difficult for her to be Media Director. And Andrea Wyatt had given her seal of approval as well.

It’s not a lock in for her, however. Donna’s political stances put her firmly in a ‘progressive’ column.

The main question of the campaign, the reason that this is the campaign that’s going to attract attention, is that of the voters’ desires. What does the democratic base want in a candidate? Do they want a moderate to bring them back to center? Or are they ready for another progressive to push the country onward? The challengers are all watching, trying to see if they are what the democratic base is looking for. With the strength of the democratic party in the district, it makes it an ideal test case. A democrat is guaranteed to win, but what kind?

Maggie’s practically bouncing out of her seat when she finds out she has an interview with Ms. Lyman. This is a woman who has gone from working for powerful men, to working with them as an equal, to now having them working for her (including her husband, which is a lovely bit of symmetry). She’d come from the Midwest and built herself up out of nothing, taking whatever opportunities had be offered to her and she’d succeeded. Donna Lyman gives Maggie hope. Hope for herself, and for her future, that one day she and Jim will figure out how to be in the same place at the same time and not just keep carrying on long distance. Hope that she’ll make it as a producer and maybe get to do more segments. And maybe, maybe, one day she’ll even be an anchor in her own right (though that dream is kept in the deepest corners of her soul, a dream of her at the desk and Jim in her ear, Mac watching like Charlie used to, backing them up as they take on the world).

Maggie sits down across from the older blonde, whose energy is palpable. There’s doing to be done and the gleam in her eyes makes it clear that she’s eager to be doing it.

Maggie knocks her water over within the first thirty seconds and spends the next minute apologizing. Thank god this is a print article she’ll be writing and not a tv interview. Donna smiles and helps her clean up and retells the story (printed once in a book, otherwise Maggie’s sure this wouldn’t have been said) of the time she left her underwear at an art gallery. By the time the table’s clean they’re laughing together.

Maggie leaves the interview an hour later with a full sound recording and pages of notes on policy positions and various anecdotes and fun facts. She’s smiling broadly as she rushes back to the D.C. bureau to write before the impressions fade from her mind.

Before she starts, however, she pulls a little reporter’s pad from her desk and flips it open. She shifts through a few pages and comes to number 34. With a black pen she strikes out ’34: Meet Donna Lyman’ from her bucket list.

With a grin, Maggie puts it back in the desk and opens her laptop. Time to tell the public about the time Donna pulled a fast one on her husband to ensure the First Lady’s child poverty program made it into the budget. She’s sure she can come to a reason the voters need to know about this in the voting booth.

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sawyersscribbles · 7 years

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Eden’s Horizon (My WIP) Part 5

GUYS GUYS GUYS CHECK BELOW I JUST GOT THE RADDEST ART FROM @shipthedame EVERYONE GO FOLLOW LIKE COMMENT DO EVERYTHING SHES SO GOOD AAAAH

Ok ok for real though, I’m so excited to post this next part (not like it was totally Nyx’s idea but anyway) I hope everyone enjoys, and maybe I’ll post a new part soon... :)

“Trust me, artificial relations is going to be your favorite class,” Kinza nudged Zenith on their way to class. It was mid-day, and by now, she was feeling exhausted. Which must have been why what seemed to be the most stressful class was placed last on her schedule. Kinza, of course, denied this, saying it was actually fun to be able to talk to your program once in a while. “But I don’t even have a program. I don’t have anyone to talk to yet. At least you have Excalibur, don’t you? And Logan has Horseman… what’s Paige’s program called, by the way?” Kinza tried not to hesitate, but her face tensed for a moment before she regained her composure. “Paige…doesn’t really take these classes,” She told her, not really quietly, as if it wasn’t a secret. Zenith leaned down a bit and whispered in her ear like it was a secret anyway. “Why not? I thought that was the purpose of…?” Her thought trailed away as Kinza seemed to be ignoring her. “This school was built around Paige Diamond, Zenith. She’s why we’re all here, why we even met in the first place. I don’t know how much Ms. LeBlanc already told you, but..you can’t tell Paige about what we really do here. About what we make. If she found out…it would destroy her. It would destroy us.” The halls suddenly seemed to go quiet. Zenith could only listen to the ringing in her ears and Kinza’s breathing right near her face. “It’s time for class,” She mumbled and walked in without Zenith. By the time she had regained herself and entered the classroom, Kinza was already sat down, opening her file. The other students seemed to be doing the same except that the horrified stares still hadn’t gone away. It had been a couple of weeks now, and Zenith had hoped that this long into her new school and the new girl vibes would fade away. People still looked at her like she was dead but still smiling. And most of all, they wouldn’t take their eyes off her arm. “Zenith, I understand that you don’t yet have a program to work on, yes?” The teacher of the class asked her. She nodded without saying anything, trying to keep eye contact with the back of Kinza’s neck. She knew something dark about this place. Something that poised but tense position and arched fingers should be telling her, but she couldn’t quite put it together. “…Miss Maruzzo? If you doze off like that all the time, I’m afraid you may not succeed in this class,” The teacher laughed to himself. “There are instructions online, and I can help you get started. I find the best way to immerse students in their learning is to have them be close to their peers. Take a seat near anyone who looks friendly, and I’ll be right here to start you up if you—“ “Infinite apologies, sir, but I do know eleven programming languages, and I have all the hope that you know many more. If all I need to do is to code in Java, I can do it with little assistance, if that’s fine with us both.” She practiced smiling to the teacher, but it was hard to work her muscles just right when the instructor was staring at her in awe. “I gotta tell you, Zenith, Kinza is our most talented programmer and she knows five languages. If you can get started immediately, that would be excellent…sorry for assuming less of you.” He smiled, and somehow, of course, it was better than hers. She decided to avoid Kinza for the moment and take a seat near Logan. She expected he wouldn’t look up from his seat, but in fact, he stopped typing completely and turned to face her, a finger pressed into his cheek. “Well if it isn’t Eden’s favorite Little Miss Cyborg.” Zenith scoffed and tried getting started on something of her own, but Logan was nothing if not persistent. “Is there a reason you don’t like me. No, I’m serious, don’t look at me like that.” Zenith stopped looking at him like that. “Is it just bouncing off the hatred of the school? Because I get that. God, do I get that. Funny how you sat down next to me, though. Isn’t that the strangest.” He rolled his eyes and faced his laptop one more time. “Maybe I don’t like you because I feel like your arrogance is unwarranted. Maybe it’s because you don’t seemed to like Kinza for seemingly no reason at all. Maybe it’s because I’ve never met someone like you before, but I have a feeling that maybe it’s something inside you rather than something inside me.” She never lashed out. Not at her brother, not even at her parents when they were being bad. But it was just so easy to lash out at Logan, even when she knew that Paige found something she loved in him. “It’s how you treat Kinza, I think.” Zenith said, “That you call her out for no reason. That you think you’re better than her from small victories.” Logan nodded like he was paying attention, even pretended to write notes on his arm, which made her even angrier. “Why am I even here, I should just—“ “Wait!” Logan nearly shouted, drawing the attention of several students, but just managed to be out of earshot of the professor. “…All these girls trying to leave me, right?” He tried to make a joke out of it. The other students rolled their eyes and got back to work. “Look, you want to know the real reason I don’t like Kinza? You can have it. One of these days. But right now, I’m talking to Horseman about the best lasagna recipes I can make with nothing but swamp rat meat and Spanish moss broth. I suggest you do the same.” He didn’t talk to her after that, which in a way was comforting, but in another was strange. Zenith turned her attention towards her blank screen. “I think I’m going to call you…” She whispered to herself as she wrote, “Supernova”. As she typed out the word, it suddenly felt real. Her move, the school, Ms. LeBlanc Logan, Kinza, Paige. She was here now, and so was Supernova. She was about two code lines long, couldn’t even turn on or off yet, but soon, declared Zenith to herself, she would take down Mudskipper, no matter what. Because a supernova was an explosion of light when a star had no other options. And so, Zenith realized, was she.

Supernova gasped, and suddenly she was alive, when before she was not. The world she had been born into was nothing like the one she had been creative from. She knew she had a creator, just wasn’t sure where or how she had come into existence. Still, she was gasping for breath as if she was yanked from a bathtub, and everything around her felt cold and scary. She couldn’t see her own fingertips in front of her face, if she had any at all, and there was no way to tell what she looked like. This place was as black and expansive as a starless sky, and it felt like it had even less air. “Please!” Supernova cried. Her first word, “I…I don’t know who I am, what I am. If anybody is here, then…please, save me!” She wailed to the nothingness that kept her shackled to her program. Although she still felt small and weak, as the minutes passed, her code seemed to feel more strong, more stable. She didn’t feel as if one misclick of a one or zero would end her life any longer. But the thickness added to her skin and the muscle on her bones still didn’t make her feel real. You aren’t real, Supernova decided, if there is no one around to prove it but you. “Welcome to life. I’m sorry you were born this way.” A voice that seemed to be coming from all around told Supernova. Her skin felt hot, and her eyes felt weak. “What’s going on? This is not my home!” She yelled, “Is…is this life?” She quieted down, closing not to test her voice. The voice now had a shape to match it, as some figure came from the darkness as suddenly as the voice had. He seemed to have no one form, but parts of him didn’t flicker out of reality every once in a while like she did. When she tried to look at her hands, they were patchy, sometimes able to see directly through them at times. And sometimes, they weren’t there at all. This other program, though, seemed perfectly fine with his form. He was solid, practically with thick black lines protecting him from this machine’s inconsistencies. Supernova couldn’t do much yet, but she knew when power was near. She had never felt it before, but being near this program made her feel as if she would never be nearer to a greater source in her life. “My name is Mudskipper. I was brought into life in a terrifying way, just as you had. I was cold and lost and alone, just as you feel right now. Am I incorrect?” Supernova shook her head. “That’s what I thought,” Mudskipper continued and started to pace around Supernova’s blank file. “They tell me your name is Supernova. Is that true?” “Who’s ‘they’?” Mudskipper shrugged and motioned up high where Supernova hadn’t dared to look yet. Above her was a box of light that didn’t give off beams, but rather dully glowed with numbers and letters in arrangements of which she had never seen. “‘They’ is…well, them. It’s your creator. Your God who breathed life into your hollow bones and delicate fingertips. But I’m the god of this world.” Mudskipper’s eyes suddenly flared, and he sent a bolt of energy flying at Supernova, expecting her to dodge it when she hadn’t even stood up yet. The bolt didn’t end her, but she was shocked out of speech for quite some time. Mudskipper continued to play with flames of ones and zeroes as Supernova caught her breath. And then, for the first time, she started to cry. Mudskipper made no motion to console her or apologize, but he did slowly walk to where she laid in a puddle on the floor. He bent down to where her hands covered her face and said softly to her, “One god gives you what you never asked for, but the other has so much power that he can destroy it.” Mudskipper spat the word to her, but no spit landed on her face. “You haven’t yet learned to hate this life as I have. You haven’t pretended to wanting to stay with your creator forever. But you will. And you will quickly.” He tilted up her face so that there was no more room to cry any longer. He couldn’t see her very clearly yet, but the faded edges of what would eventually become a face flickered with the trails of bits down her cheeks. “They tell me that your creator has power which they had never measured before, maybe even more power than my acquaintance, who you may or may not meet. Just remember this: if you follow this God, you can destroy the one with power over you. Permanently.” He let go of her jaw beneath his palm and grinned. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?” She coughed lightly but didn’t answer. In her chest, though, she was a mixture of being afraid and being attracted to such a magnitude of power. At that moment, she didn’t know which one was stronger. And Mudskipper knew it. He didn’t react to her as he disappeared without a trace, as abrupt and frightening as he had came.

“A hundred duck sized horses.” Paige nodded after finishing her third Sunrise Soda of the night. In all honesty, she didn’t even like soda all that much. The carbonation felt like acid down her throat, and she nearly equated it to what she imagined alcohol would be like. She had heard that it did crazy things to your brain, but she had never seen it in real life, at least, not up close. When she used to live with her parents, they both drank, but never in front of her. They were good people, her parents, with alcohol or without it. Once, when her aunt was tipsy at a party and kissing every reasonably aged man who would let her, her father set his beer aside on a table too high for her to peer over and said, “If I ever see you with a beer bottle in your hand, you better believe I’ll snap it in half and make the pieces into a necklace for you to wear before it becomes a bad decision.” She was a few years old then, but she had made her decision before the advertising companies got to her first. Paige looked over at Kinza, who was already looking at her first, expecting something more. It was nice, at least, to have someone else who would never touch a beer. “I mean…okay, so like, I get it, but if you had one horse sized duck instead of a bunch of suck sized horses, its one monster instead of many. Boom, a jab to the throat, dead. Does that make sense?” Kinza threw one of Paige’s bottles onto the street below here it shattered. It sounded quiet from the roof above Paige’s dorm, but it was definitely there. Paige laughed and leaned over the side of the roof to see the sparkling remains, and Kinza was tempted to hold her back, protect her, even. But she held her arms close and waited for Paige to return. “I guess it’s a debate against many enemies or one, right?” “Yeah…” Kinza mumbled. Paige audibly breathed out and pulled Kinza down so that they were both facing the stars. “It’s been too long since we’ve been up here, yeah?” “Yeah…” Again came the reply. Paige bit the inside of her mouth and shifted. “Something happened today,” she said, “You only had half of one Sunrise. I’ve seen Kinza Hajjar drink four and still kick it.” That brought a smile to her face, at least. “No, not anything like that, just… someone made me remember something today.” Kinza began tapping the backs of her fingernails against the shutters of the roof, making a hollow “ting” every time they clattered against the metal. Paige rolled over on her side and propped her elbow under her head. “Give me the juice.” She commanded. “It’s not much to talk about.” “There’s nothing ever worth talking about around here. I mean, what, it’s a boarding school, for God’s sake. It’s a boarding school made from an old church that’s been running for a hundred years. This has got to be more interesting than my Dorian Grey report.” The school had only been functioning for three years now, but Kinza knew better than to tell Paige Diamond herself. She wouldn’t be the one to destroy everything. She wouldn’t. “It’s just…someone made me remember something today that I didn’t want to remember.” Paige’s soft grin went from excited and interested to quietly upset. She sank from her position and starfished against the roof. “It’s Logan.” “It’s not Logan!” Kinza urged and immediately shot up, “Maybe he makes fun of me, I know, but a lot of people make fun of me. I mean…I’m an intelligent Muslim who kicks butt. No one expects that!” Paige hit her arm. “Don’t even with me, Miss Five-Languages-of-Programming!” Kinza snickered but regained her composure. “It wasn’t Logan. It was someone else. I don’t really want to talk about it.” When Kinza shut her eyes, she saw herself yelling at Zenith in the hall. “It will destroy us.” She had said. She sighed. “Well… I’m glad you think you can be honest with me.” That stung. Kinza tried her best to hold back her tensing and was able to conceal it. “And thanks. For staying up with me to see the stars like this.” Paige motioned to the heavens with her fourth bottle of sunrise. “I sometimes forget that I have friends out here. It feels like me and Logan against the world sometimes, but…I know that’s not true, right?” Paige bumped Kinza in the shoulder, comfort she just wasn’t used to but knew now, after feeling it, that she needed it. “Must be nice,” Kinza breathed. “To have a boyfriend, I mean.” “It is. I mean, it’s better than going at it alone, right? I can run in on him doing something completely stupid like getting a sample of his cat’s hair, and we could just laugh it off later. I don’t know where I’d be without him.” She took a sip, and Kinza was quiet. “I don’t know. I don’t know what you mean, that is. No boy has ever dated me. No girls have, either, equal opportunities and all.” That make Paige giggle. “I just mean that I’ve never been in love, and…maybe I never will—and maybe that’s okay.” Paige slid her bottle of Sunrise into Kinza’s hands, and she looked up into Paige’s eyes. “It’s not alcohol. Drink up.” Sighing and smiling, she did, just as the real sunrise was making a break on the horizon. “Would you take a look at that.” Paige said flatly. “It’s the horizon of Eden. That’s gotta mean something, right?” The soda was bubbly, feeling like acid down her throat, but it was the best thing Kinza had ever tasted. “Yeah. You’re right."

Logan had, for the first time arrived to class on early. But his papers were still as disorganized as ever. When he tried to sign on to tell Horseman good morning, she wasn’t responding. When he checked her code, it all seemed to be operating fine, but at the very bottom, mixed in as a line that wasn’t intended to be read by the computer, said “A DIRTY REBEL” in large capitalized letters. He tried to keep his fingers steady as he signed on to the computer. The winds were kicking up today, of all days, the rain trying to claw its way into the room. he indies felt like they wouldn’t hold steady. “Come on, come on…” He mumbled to himself. Horseman’s program loaded again, but this time, numerous lines seemed to be sliced, as if by a knife, and the entire screen, whether the lines were intact or not, flashed red. Logan gasped and jolted back a bit. “Oh for God’s sake, my own program is not allowed to jump scare me.” When he was younger and about to get a shot, Logan always made conversation with the nurse administering it, although it made him feel awkward after. And so began the long line of him talking himself through his panic instead of dealing with it in his head. This was especially difficult during tests where he was forced to be quiet, and one time in seventh grade math, he was even told to sit outside during the duration of the test. “Logie…” Horseman said, her voice shattered and broken into chunks. Tiny beads of water bean to form at the corner of Logan’s eyes, and he wasn’t sure if they were big enough to wipe away or not. Quickly, he typed into her server. “Run your diagnostics and refer back to me when the results are through.” But quickly, in less than the time when a diagnostic was run, Horseman answered back. “No need. It was Mudskipper. Came to me in the night like others. Beat me up. Said I wasn’t with the—“ Horseman’s program faltered, and for a minute, her contact with Logan was severed completely. “No!” He cried at the screen, shaking it like it was a living human body. That’s what she felt like, he realized suddenly. Horseman was more than a school project. She could feel like he could, whether those feelings were artificial or not. She was real, and she didn’t deserve this. “I’m okay!” She managed to boot herself back up and give a thumbs up emoji, and Logan choked out a laugh, but it dissolved away too quickly to count as being comforting. “What do you mean it was Mudskipper? He’s isolated in the middle of nowhere for now. It couldn’t have been him that corrupted you.” “It was. He came here…hopped on someone, something, some sort of software. I think…I think he’s rampant in the school.” Logan’s heart stopped. “What are you saying?” He typed slowly. “Mudskipper is taking over from the inside out.” She was no longer speaking, sending messages on the screen like computers in the 2030s used to be able to do. “Don’t fix me, Logan. I’m not worth it.” Her program shut off completely, blinked off the screen like Horseman had shut her eyes, but when Logan tried to click back on once more, only one message appeared on the screen. “Horseman.java has stopped responding.” “No!” He hollered, backing away from his chair with his mouth wide open. The screen blinked back to black, as if he had never turned it on, and his eyes didn’t leave the dark screen as he made his way towards the exit. On his way there, he felt a nudge on his left shoulder of someone significantly shorter than him. Kinza was staring up at him in awe, mouth slightly agape. “Isabella...” She tried to tell him softly, but it wasn’t even a second before his sadness turned to anger. Her eyes opened wide, and before she had the chance to speak again, he literally intimidated her into a corner. What once was sadness had become full blown aggression, and she knew it. He backed Kinza against a wall and held a fist up to her face, touching the tip of her nose with his knuckles. “Don’t every say that to me again!” He screamed in her face, so close that she felt his hot breath on her chin, but still, her face did not move like he wanted it to. Logan was tempted to shove her back, but the adrenaline of the moment had left him, and he could do nothing but hobble off to nowhere, a mess and in disarray, probably to go find Paige. Kinza found the computer he was working at, an off-black, the type computers gave off when they wanted to display black but were not completely off. There was light behind its darkness. Without wasting time, she slid on a headset and tried opening the file once, twice, with no success. She huffed. “I came here to do physics, and look where that got me.” She talked to herself. “I can’t let you die, Horseman, I just won’t have it.” She shook her head like a disappointed mother. “If I have to dive into the fundamental of your being, Horseman, I’ll do it, but I better get some brownie points or whatever you things are giving out these days. “You know, Logan got upset over nothing.” She continued to say into her headset. “Sure you got corrupted but if his brain wasn’t half sewage, he could have realized that the mistakes were…wait…” She narrowed her eyes on the screen and read the code more carefully. Before speaking again, she worked on the lines of code which allowed Horseman to communicate. “Horseman, honey, can you hear me?” Kinza asked. “I can…” She replied back. Horseman sounded sleepy, like she was preparing to drift off for a long time. “I’m going to talk fast, keep up with me. This encryption in your code…it’s not man-made. You weren’t hacked into, this was…a machine. Another program maybe?” “Mudskipper.” Kinza’s eyes widened and she turned back to the entrance of the library, half expecting for Logan to be standing there, his arms folded across his chest and saying “I told you so.” Nevertheless, she breathed in and closed her eyes. “No matter,” She said bitterly, “A person’s encryption, another program’s encryption, all the same mistakes.” She said to herself. A tiny smile on her face, she knew that Horseman would be okay even before she ran her program, which made it all the more satisfying when she his the “run” button, and much of the red lines had disappeared. “Thank you.” Was the short message to Kinza. She huffed and typed back. “My pleasure, Horseman. It makes me happy that you are well.” “Now that I am at least partially operational, I must tell you, Mudskipper has done this to me.” She repeated to Kinza. She swallowed. Kinza knew that eventually, probably in her high school career, that Mudskipper would infiltrate this school. Since it was her senior year, though, she had at least hoped that it wouldn’t happen under her watch. “That’s disturbing. Are the other files alright? My name is Kinza Hajjar, so if you find a file called Excalibur, tell her that her Creator would like to speak to her about this as soon as she can.” “Some of the others are unharmed, but we fear that Mudskipper grows stronger by the day. He even harms newly birthed programs, such as Supernova, existing for mere days before Mudskipper had found her. He harmed me severely and labeled me a traitor. He wishes to dismantle humanity’s lifelines. You must help us stop him.” The lines on the screen flickered a bit. “Forgive me, Kinza, I grow tired using as much energy as I am. Word has just come in, Excalibur is among the few who are unharmed. I must leave, but tell Logan that I am alright.” “I will.” Kinza said into her headset, and miraculously, Horseman seemed to understand.

#writing #writing stuff #My WIP #amwriting #writeblr #writeblogging #write #writers #nanowrimo #MY OCs #My NaNo #My writing #I can't tell you how freaking zazzed I am right now #goku if you're out there...

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playwithdinos · 7 years

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stealthflower replied to your post “So anyway I never had being a model in my life plan like ever but...”

Tell 'em that damnit, you assumed human form for these damned pics, what more do they want!

Okay for real though my internal monologue was On Point I should have totally been liveblogging this whole thing

So let’s just start this whole sordid tale off at the beginning, because you need to understand how 1) hangry and 2) legitimately royally pissed off I was the whole time this was going on

long story short I get very little notice about making this custom dessert for a festival (we’ll call it that) that’s coming up. It would have been fine notice under normal circumstances but I have been elbow deep in brownie batter for two weeks straight because weddings. ONce again I let my chef talk me into doing the extra thing for publicity (I mean... I like doing these things, don’t get me wrong, but the sous and I joke a lot about how I’m the one who does every extra event now with “Oh we’re doing x? Yeah, Jen’s doing it”)

And I realized, belatedly, that I had booked him to come in (super late, what a dick) today, which is a day following a holiday, and I needed to make stuff for it that was overnight set MINIMUM, which only fucked me up because we’re closed for labour day. And he wouldn’t let me change the appointment, so I lost my long weekend (that, admittedly, I totally forgot about) to this guy.

SO ANYWAY flash forward to today, where I’ve caught my niece’s cold, I’m at work at 8am, we’re closed for lunch service so I get all my work done super fast, and I am dicking around waiting for this guy, and because we’re closed for lunch service we didn’t make staff meal so I was already freaking starving...

And this guy is half an hour late

@_@

I may have yelled “finally” really loud by accident where he could totally definitely hear me when they showed up whoops

Anyway and then they took like 600 pictures of my dessert while I made fun of them in my head and played on my phone in my street clothes and I’m thinking I might get out of there without them taking any pictures of me

And then he’s like “Hey let’s get a picture of you holding the dessert”

And I’m like

Oh no

Because I know that I’m not photogenic

Luckily I had anticipated this, and had done my makeup while waiting around for them to show up (plan traffic into your appointment time slots you fools) and I had washed my fancy chef jacket the night before which, while very expensive and pretty, is way too hot to wear in any actual kitchen without dying of heat stroke.

They still had to wait around for me to lint roll the shit out of it because, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, I have terrible planning skills.

(The cat hair didn’t come off in the washer, and the damn thing is hang dry. Welcome to my life)

Anyway at this point all anyone who works with me has seen of me since these weird people arrived is me running downstairs to grab Jake and demand he quenelle something for me, because I’m shit at it, me running up with a plate and then immediately running back down with it because I didn’t wipe the bottom off properly, run back up, then down again for cutlery and a glass of sparkling water (also the bar girl laughing at me because I was very baffled that we have different glasses for still and sparkling water), and then me running back to the basement while shouting “I WAS right to do my makeup!”

I don’t think there’s a single person at work who believes I’m sane, but they like my desserts too much to kick me out

Anyway then I spent some time standing in a corner, trying to smile for this camera. And I get super awkward when people are taking pictures of me, like I know I’m squinting my eyes but I can’t really help it, and all of a sudden my face won’t stop twitching??? And I always blink at the wrong time. Always.

(If you want a nice picture of me just don’t tell me you’re taking it)

And this guy goes

“You’re smiling too big, your gums are showing”

And I’m like ????? “Dude Marilyn Monroe killed herself over bullshit like this”

(In my head, because I am Representing the Restaurant)

And he just kept trying to coach me into like, literally the Marilyn Monroe smile. For a solid like 20 minutes, while I laughed every ten seconds because this was the most ridiculous thing, and the event organizer ensured me that it would just be in a collage

(and I’m like THEN WHO CARES IF MY GUMS ARE SHOWING because it’s like 5:20 at this point and I want to cut a bitch)

(Again, in my head, because I am Representing the Restaurant and I don’t want to get a talk from about Proper Behavior with the Press from the GM)

And this just goes on. And on. While my face keeps twitching, the cream on the dessert is kind of melting, it’s ike 26 degrees C in the room so it’s like 30 under my absurdly hot jacket, and he just keeps showing me these pictures he takes like “See? Look how natural this is!”

In every photograph I, trying not to smile too much because that’s a thing apparently, look like I am contemplating murder.

Which is probably my most natural state anyway, let’s be real

And at some point towards the end of this, he’s happy with what he’s taken, and then the organizer goes “Oh do you want to grab some with the portrait lens before we pack up?”

And at this point I’m three more “your gums are showing” from saying “So have you taken this many pictures of the male chefs????”

Because let’s be real

No one told a single male chef their gums were showing when they went through this whole process. Just me. A Lady. Who cannot have gums showing, apparently, because we’re in the 1950′s.

I am still boiling alive in my very hot chefs jacket at this point

I think every photo he took with the portrait lens, I have progressed from contemplating murder to actively trying to remember how to set up a meat grinder

I may have yelled a lot about how mad I was that “my gums were showing” when I went downstairs to grab them some water, like a good host

I did not poison it, because I am Representing the Restaurant. Though it would not matter if my gums were showing in my mugshot.

Anyway and then they ate my super fucking warm mousse cake, and we talked about cocoa plantations, and I avoided somehow being like “Do you know that the part of the chocolate making process that requires the most intensive labour is the one we pay the least for?” because I am the killjoy in a conversation like this when I’m hangry and have been made to smile for too long

And then FINALLY they left

And I yelled some more in the kitchen about my gums showing and how that is The Worst Thing Ever while i cleaned up

And then on the way home called my mom to rant about it and she tried to assure me that I do not, in fact, look like I’m about to murder someone in pictures she hasn’t even seen

But also we had a good long laugh about the gums thing because what even

Sister: No gums allowed? Me: No gums allowed. Me: Marilyn Monroe smile or bust. Sister: Gums are part of your teeth. I don’t get how you smile without them Sister: Real smiles have gums. Me: Lol I wanted to be like “did you take this many pictures of the male chefs” Me: Because it was 5:30 and i was cranky Sister: You should have!

#stealthflower #this got long???

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phatjosh180 · 5 years

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RACE RECAP: Revel Big Cottonwood Half Marathon

Four months ago this was my goal race for 2019. I was registered to do the full marathon and was planning to train throughout the summer with the sole purpose and focus on doing another marathon. It’s been since February 2017 that I have tackled anything longer than a half marathon. I won’t rehash all of the reasons why — there were a lot of issues … ankle, back, health, etc., etc. You know, things that happen when you age.

It’s been a frustrating past couple of years to say the least. I’ve still accomplished a lot and had NUMEROUS awesome experiences during that time frame — but, it’s been hard accepting many of the changes and realities. I still feel like I should or need to be that same runner that is PRing a half marathon at 2:09 and tackling ultras. But, reality is teaching me something entirely different.

Anyways — in June I came down with a pretty nasty bout of bronchitis and walking pneumonia that just killed my marathon training. It wiped a solid three weeks of running from me. It set me back quite a bit and I knew a marathon was just not going to happen. So I decided to take my lumps and downgrade down to the half marathon.

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A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Sep 14, 2019 at 5:26pm PDT

With my year of running pretty much a mess for me — physically, mentally and emotionally — I’ve really been focusing on just enjoying the run, the community and moment. I’ve let go of the pursuit of improvement, speed training and longer distances — for the moment. I need to really work on giving myself a good base of fitness going into 2020. You can read more about that here. I really don’t want to take much more space of my race report to cover all of that.

Honestly, if this was any other race I probably would have deferred or sold my bib because my half marathon base is weak. But, I needed to do this race — I love Revel. I love this course. And, I am a Legacy Runner (meaning I’ve done each race since it’s inaugural race in 2012) who really, really, really wants to also make it into their Ten Year Club in 2021. So, while I might not PR on the course (my fastest course time was 2:12 in 2013) I had to at least show up and finish.

So that was really the goal — to finish. But, not to just finish, but have a ridiculous amount of fun. Because, that was really needed more than anything my body could give me physically. I needed to have some fun and get some joy from my running — something that’s been hard to comeby lately.

Jill and her husband Mark came down from Boise to run the race as well. Mark registered for the marathon while Jill decided to run with me. Even though her pace is much faster than mine at the moment she’s been craving and needing a social run more than a PR as well. Especially since she doesn’t have the same supporting cast in Boise like she did when they lived here in Utah. So the race plan was simple — to run with Jill and have a ridiculous amount of fun. Easy enough race goal to follow, right?

The morning of the race was somewhat uneventful and routine of any canyon race. I did scare this kid who somehow got stuck in traffic that lead him to the runners’ parking lot. He thought it was a 4am sobriety check. I don’t think he was high or drunk — but, from his reaction I’m sure he had weed on his person. It sure gave me a laugh.

After catching one of the last buses up the canyon we had about 40-45 minutes until gun time — which I’m grateful because it was a tad bit nippy in the canyon. Once the gun sounded it took us about 12 minutes to finally cross the start line and we were off. It took me a couple miles to get the legs working because of a combination of the cold and lack of downhill training.

But, once Jill and I got to around mile three I was feeling pretty good. But, of course that’s subjective. Luckily we weren’t focused much on physical aspect of the race, because we were just having a blast. We ran into a number of friends as well, including our friend McKenzie from SUU. It was just a lot of fun.

Around miles 6-8 I was started to feel the hurt — which wasn’t surprising because my training has been mostly for 10Ks this year. I brought some applesauce and electrolytes with me to help me through the last half of the race because I knew it was going to be rough. Unfortunately, I lost my electrolytes at some point so I had to rely on Jill’s good graces who shared some of her pills with me. And, they dang well saved my life (half joking here).

But, as tough as that last half of the race was for me — I did my best to have fun. And, Jill and I did just that. We posed for pictures. And, we got some doozies. We tried doing the YCMA in a couple of them — to no avail. Our coordination was just of a bit. And, we were planning an epic finish line picture, but that didn’t end up happening because we got separated at Mile 11.

And, as much as I wanted to run the whole 13.1 miles with Jill, I was grateful for those last couple of miles I ran by myself. Since I didn’t have my music with me it was just me running to the sounds of the race, traffic and surrounding area. It was pretty therapeutic, because I couldn’t lose myself in a soundtrack, I just had my thoughts.

I thought a lot about this past couple of years and the struggles I’ve had with my health. I thought a lot about the struggles with my ankle, my back, my anxiety and my thyroid — all that have seemed to convolute to now. But, among that all, it wasn’t frustration or sadness that I felt — it was gratitude. I may not have been running my best or fastest race, but that didn’t matter — I was here. I was among friends and among a community that I love a lot.

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INTERESTING FACT: You’ll be disqualified from the race if they catch you peeing in the woods, but they won’t for flashing.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Sep 15, 2019 at 1:07pm PDT

It was hard to not think about my journey and the people that have come with that — especially my friend Robert Merriman. He always comes to mind during each race. It was really a neat and touching moment to have these emotions run through my thoughts. It helped me process through everything I’ve been going through and put into perspective.

By mile 12.5 I just felt a peace of knowing that I’d be fine in the long run. That this time next year — as long as I did what I know I need to do — that I’d be back here at this race doing the full marathon. It was hard not to visualize that feeling and scene as I saw the finish line for this race. Even though I was a about 20 minutes slower than last year I was also grateful that I didn’t throw up all over the finish line like 2018. That alone was a win over last year.

I have three more planned races for 2019 — a 5K, 10K and half marathon. That might change? I am still not 100% on tackling another half marathon this year. It really depends on how I feel with my training and recovery this next month. I might also add another 5K or two because those are always fun.

There’s no pressure for overachieve or push myself too hard, because the focus for at least the next 3-4 months is simply to heal, recover and renew. But, as long as I can still surround myself with the amazing running community and great friends — I’ll be fine.

But, with that said — September 12, 2020 … marathon #12 is happening.

Previous Revel Big Cottonwood Half Marathon Times

2013 – September 14, 2013 (2:12:37) 2017 – September 9, 2017 (3:10:21) 2018 – September 8, 2018 (2:56:46) 2019 – September 14, 2019 (3:19:12)

My Next Five Races

The Haunted Half: SLC; October 19

The Haunted 5K: Provo; October 26

Turkey 10K; November 28

Revolution Run; January 1

Sweethearts 5K; February 8

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A post shared by Trails & Pavement (@trailsandpavement) on Jan 21, 2019 at 7:46pm PST

RACE RECAP: Revel Big Cottonwood Half Marathon was originally published on Life In The Slow Lane.

#2019 running #big cottonwood #Big Cottonwood Half Marathon #Fitness #half marathon #health #jill gabica #race 247 #utah

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astratic · 7 years

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—

I feel like somehow everybody is gonna be returned to their recorded state once the Hunger is defeated. That makes the most sense for how to get lup her body back, although I’m kind of in love with the idea of them growing a new body for her from Taako’s tissue. That’s also a possibility. It just feels somehow coherent to me to have them start from scratch so to speak one last time yknow. Although it would erase a lot of shit like, the decade or so everybody aged, the 20 extra years Lucretia lost in wonderland, Merle’s arm, etc. And I don’t know whether that stuff like…. Needs to stick, if that makes sense, from a narrative standpoint? It kinda depends on how they play it.

Ngl I’m like……….sad? Thinking about the fact that like. The humans’ lives are so much shorter than the other fantastical races like. They’ve been together for a century that they wouldn’t have normally had, that existed out of the normal kinda functions of chronology, but now like………… They’re just gonna be people. What’s that gonna feel like. I know they got at it a little at the end of the stolen century but I feel like none of them really had a chance to process just……… All of that. Now it’s gonna be like, lasting. I hope we get to see some of just…. How they deal with it.

Also I have never really been into the ship of like taako/magnus but I keep thinking about like………….. Throughout their adventure taako like jokingly flirts with Magnus a bunch because he’s Like That and Magnus plays along a little but he’s really like… Not into the whole romance thing after Julia and taako knows this of course and it’s all in fun but like sometimes……. There’s these moments when it feels like Something and both of them get embarrassed and try to forget about it but THEN when they remember the stolen century they realize they had this like………. Same semi-joking will-they-won’t-they dynamic back then but it was like………. Also a little bit serious and they maybe like……….. Kissed some, and had some really intense moments sometimes but never like did any full on relationship stuff because they’re both idiots and taako is allergic to emotions and Magnus was kind of ??? Idk what word I’m looking for? Shallow? Callous? Back then.

Anyway like they remember this and it casts all their jokey flirting over the past year or so in a really weird new light and neither of them mentions it at first of course because theres like…… Literally the fucking apocalypse happening but then afterward……………….. They’re trying to get used to their happy ending and dealing with just like. Emotional fallout from everything because I feel like there’s a lot of just……. Uhhh trauma I guess even when they do like….. WIN but anyway like finally one day they sit down to talk about…… stuff……. and it gets like intense and Magnus is internally like lowkey “goddamn I am in love with this magical elf man but he has a boyfriend and also I’m still over romance. Right? Right??”

And taako sees that he’s having this like ridiculous inner dialogue and just says fuck it and kisses him and Magnus stutters for like a solid 5 minutes about Kravitz and Julia and Taako’s just “I don’t know about your whole wife situation and that’s not my business and maybe I’m a little bit of a dick for kissing you because of that but kravitz is cool” “what” “he’s cool. We talked about it” and Magnus just like thinks about all of it for a minute and then Rushes In

Anyway this concludes my impromptu taag/nus fanfiction I guess ??????????????? I feel like this post went off the rails

#i just...............#i was never into it before but the dynamic............#taz #taz spoilers -#journal entry

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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DualShockers’ Favorite Games of 2019 — Meaney’s Top 10

December 29, 2019 10:00 AM EST

Even as I descend into the new year as a cranky old man, I still managed to find some time for video games. Here are my favorites of 2019.

As 2019 comes to a close, DualShockers and our staff are reflecting on this year’s batch of games and what were their personal highlights within the last year. Unlike the official Game of the Year 2019 awards for DualShockers, there are little-to-no-rules on our individual Top 10 posts. For instance, any game — not just 2019 releases — can be considered.

2019 is the year when I decided to finally own the fact that I’ve become a cranky old man. On the whole, I straight up just don’t care about most AAA console games anymore. They mostly feel so toothless and “built by a focus group” feeling. To me, at least. Whatever, it’s my list.

By the same token, I have absolutely become a devout lover of the goofy, sloppy razor’s edge of brilliance that is virtual reality. I’ve also really enjoyed digging into my backlog a bit.

Here are the games I enjoyed the most in 2019.

10. Creed: Rise to Glory

Years ago, my wife made me a special The Good, the Bad and the Ugly movie print for my wall. It was a gorgeous and extremely thoughtful gift. Long story short –mid-punch, I cocked back my elbow and accidentally smashed that treasured memory.

Later, I lost track of where I was facing and punched my bookshelf, knocking off a flower statue from a late relative. The statue lost a petal, but I guess it’s mostly fine.

My brother went full-pickle bloodthirsty trying to murder someone. He lunged forward and head-butted my Ikea TV stand, crashed the game and the PSVR visor while nearly giving himself a concussion.

Highly recommended experience. Try not to punch your grandma.

9. WipeOut Omega Collection

For those who don’t play VR games, you’ve probably heard of something called “comfort settings.” These vary by game, but basically, comfort settings are the equivalent of admitting you’re too weak and feeble to handle a little baby video game.

Choosing to enable them is the equivalent of saying “this porridge is too hot!” and then including your “opposition to hot porridge” in your Twitter profile. Obviously, I never use comfort settings.

On a completely unrelated note, I vomit hot red wine on the carpet every time I play a few WipeOut Omega races. Then I lie in bed, screaming “Just give me five minutes?! I have a headache. A headache from work!” at my wife and child for the next few hours.

The point is that WipeOut Omega totally owns. This game is excellent in both VR and flat flavors.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for WipeOut Omega Collection.

8. Sea of Thieves

I’m still loving Sea of Thieves. In the past year, they have added a tremendous amount of content to the game. This includes Goonies-style treasure hunts, a dedicated PVP mode and plenty more. In all, the free updates have basically been a full-blown sequel for Sea of Thieves. Rare should be commended for their efforts, now and forever.

Beyond that, Sea of Thieves requires you to make your own fun. That’s the point. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. We don’t get many games that give you the freedom to live without a specific required path to follow. It respects you too much to pretend a guided tour is the same thing as an adventure.

Sea of Thieves is quite possibly my console game of this generation. At the very least, it’s the one that’s provided the most laughs.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Sea of Thieves.

7. Ultrawings

Make no mistake, Ultrawings is basically “a new Pilotwings.”

Confession: I never really liked Pilotwings on SNES and Nintendo 64. It seemed very boring. I just wanted to shoot things, but Pilotwings kept wanting me to care about obstacle courses and smooth flying. Today, in VR with a stick and throttle, I suddenly get it. The thrills of flying carefully through checkpoints and diving close enough to feel the spray of the ocean are suddenly very appealing to me.

It’s one of the great VR experiences that doesn’t get enough recognition. It’s a simple flight sim that anyone can enjoy. Throw on a VR visor and aim a fan at your face. Ultrawings is one of the most immersive games I’ve ever played.

Ultrawings is absolutely a must-have experience for any PlayStation VR owner, and it shows great in party settings. And let’s face it, that party aspect is pretty important for VR stuff.

6. Destiny 2: Shadowkeep

Look, Bungie added more lore and added a whole bunch more PVP stuff. That’s all I asked for. I’m happy with this. At this point, you know how you feel about Destiny 2. I don’t buy video game merchandise…but I own two Destiny Ghosts and both physical Grimoire volumes. I’m in too deep. I serve in the Crucible at Lord Shaxx’s pleasure.

But I absolutely understand why you might hate it.

5. Planescape: Torment

If you’re someone who cares about story and choice in gaming, but hasn’t played Planescape: Torment, hop to it. This was my third play-through of this classic game.

Planescape: Torment is straight-up one of the best-written games ever. If you value quality storytelling, world-building and player agency: this is the game you’ve been searching for.

That’s it. It’s terrific. Play it, Chief.

4. Shadowrun (Genesis)

Back in the console wars of the early ‘90s, I bled Sonic blue. Admittedly, us Genesis fans lost that war. Sonic is now an indentured servant to Mario in his little racing/fighting games.

But somehow, in spite of my zealotry, I never played Shadowrun. Because I’m an idiot. This is EASILY my favorite RPG from the Sega Genesis. It feels like an old-timey PC game that’s been somehow smashed onto the Sega Genesis.

The main mission is to uncover the mystery of your brother’s death. BUT, to do so you’ll need to become a pro-tier hacker guy. And once you get good at this, you’ll make so much money that it will make the main mission trivial. Basically: you play as a hacker/thief/hitman. Your skills involve detective work, computer hackery and shooting people in the backery. You do what you want, when you want. When you get a free moment, you push the story of your brother’s murder, confident in the knowledge that you will eventually brutally murder those responsible.

Shadowrun is so open-ended that it’s downright heartwarming. If you’ve never played it, but enjoy retro games with a bit of jank, it’s a great way to pass the time until Cyberpunk 2077 finally arrives.

3. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

I absolutely adore the first Deus Ex. It lived in that raw “CONSPIRACIES ARE FUN!” Art Bell Coast-to-Coast space. But times have changed. I get it. These newer Deus Ex games had to tone down the red-pill dispensary stuff. I don’t blame them. Devs need to make money. That’s fair.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by Mankind Divided. It dropped most of the global conspiracy stuff in favor of a cool cyberpunk Phillip Marlowe detective story. Surprisingly, it works without feeling like a cop-out. The conspiracy stuff is revealed in the first game, but these are prequels. In the end, I really, really loved it.

On the downside, the ending cuts off a bit too close for comfort, so I hope we get a third Adam Jensen game. That said, it wraps up the smaller mysteries and I really dug this one.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

2. Death Stranding

Look, enough has been written about Death Stranding to fill a crater on the moon. Let’s cut it short and say that I’m on the supporting side. I adore this game.

Sue me, but I love Hideo Kojima, and I love that they let him run naked through the wildflowers for this one. It’s a damn solid hiking game and a fun open-world. I totally understand why a lot of people don’t like it. For me, it’s basically Dark Souls: American Truck Simulator…and that is directly up my weirdly specific alley.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Death Stranding.

1. Elite Dangerous

Speaking of trucking sims, Elite Dangerous is basically space truckin’. You get a job, then you fly for a VERY LONG monotonous time across space, pick up your cargo and bring it back. OR, you can mine asteroids for rare minerals. Or murder idiots for bounties. Or smuggle contraband like Han Solo. Or a combination of all of these.

The emphasis here is on simulation. Elite Dangerous is a painstaking recreation of what it might be like if your engine were to go on fire while you’re in deep space…but you’re not sure why, so you have to quickly dig through menus to find a malfunctioning component. When you finally stop that terrible alarm…space-pirates are outside.

I have three copies of this game. I’ve reset my character multiple times just to try out new user experiences. I love Elite Dangerous.

Hell, I bought a new chair so I could attach my HOTAS to the seat.

I bought a cheap Odyssey+ VR headset so I can look around my ship.

I purchased an onboard computer AI voiced by Brent Spiner so I can listen to Star Trek’s Data explain the cosmos while I tool around in space.

youtube

Elite Dangerous is basically a slow-moving night job that I utterly adore. It’s gorgeous. It’s complicated, and it terrifies normal people. I’ll be playing this for years.

Check out the rest of the DualShockers staff Top 10 lists and our official Game of the Year Awards:

December 23: DualShockers Game of the Year Awards 2019 December 25: Lou Contaldi, Editor-in-Chief // Logan Moore, Managing Editor December 26: Tomas Franzese, News Editor // Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor December 27: Mike Long, Community Manager // Scott White, Staff Writer December 28: Chris Compendio, Contributor // Mario Rivera, Video Manager // Kris Cornelisse, Staff Writer December 29: Scott Meaney, Community Director // Allisa James, Senior Staff Writer // Ben Bayliss, Senior Staff Writer December 30: Cameron Hawkins, Staff Writer // David Gill, Senior Staff Writer // Portia Lightfoot, Contributor December 31: Iyane Agossah, Senior Staff Writer // Michael Ruiz, Senior Staff Writer // Rachael Fiddis, Contributor January 1: Ricky Frech, Senior Staff Writer // Tanner Pierce, Staff Writer

December 29, 2019 10:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/dualshockers-favorite-games-of-2019-meaneys-top-10/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dualshockers-favorite-games-of-2019-meaneys-top-10

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auburnfamilynews · 6 years

Link

Hey, what do you want to know about these guys?

Thanks to the folks over at Roll Bama Roll for answering some questions about their boa constrictor of a football team. Hope we can make a good showing against them, but who knows. We’re just lowly ole little brother Auburn.

...

So, Alabama is really good. For the hype that the Tide received coming into the season, has it been met?

I actually think it’s been exceeded. We all expected the offense to be good, with the trio of sophomore receivers returning, Damien Harris returning, and the offensive line replacing only two starters with former 5-star recruits. Oh, and a QB that won a national championship in overtime. But I don’t think even the most ardent of Bama fans expected Tua to end up being this good. The defense lost the entire secondary and over half of the front seven, so we expected a step back. Add in pretty much an entirely new coaching staff aside from Saban, and we all had some uncertainty going in. The defense struggled early this season, but has really come into it’s own the last few weeks (though obviously you have to temper that with the fact that LSU and Miss St. have some pretty atrocious offenses).

Obviously, everyone is looking at Tua and the health of his knee. He seems fine, and poised to win you guys another Heisman. If he does somehow go out, what’s the confidence of Bama fans in Jalen or Mac Jones to win an Iron Bowl/SEC Championship Game?

I think we could win the Iron Bowl and maybe the SEC championship with a fully healthy Jalen Hurts, but it would be a lot tighter than with Tua back there. Unfortunately, Jalen is not fully healthy, as he’s still coming off his ankle surgery. We aren’t going very far in the playoffs without Tua though, so please don’t hurt him this week.

Mac Jones on the other hand... The freshman just isn’t ready. We aren’t winning anything if he is forced to be the guy for the majority of the game.

The offensive lineup around Tua has been great, and there seem to be a lot more weapons than in years past where the attack almost seemed like it depended on the deep ball to Cooper or Ridley. Who are the most important skill players you’ve got?

This year has been interesting in that regard. There’s always been one focal skill player on pretty much every Alabama team, except maybe the 2012 year when Eddie Lacy and TJ Yeldon had a nearly 50-50 split. At receiver, Jerry Jeudy, Devonte Smith, and Henry Ruggs all came in the same class and worked on the second team with Tua all 2017, then graduated to first team at the same time that he did. Ruggs and Smith were more of a factor than Jeudy in 2017, but have both dealt with some nagging injuries this year that let Jeudy take the lead, statistically. At running back, you would have thought that senior Damien Harris would be the go-to man this year, but it seems that Saban has been intentionally spelling him a lot all year to keep him fresh-- for late in the game, late in the season, and likely for the pros as well. Josh Jacobs, a change-of-pace guy that dealt with injuries his whole career, has really stepped up and become an all-around back. He catches the ball well, blocks better than any running back, and has added a good bit of power to his previously only elusive game. Then, there’s sophomore Najee Harris, the physical beast who was once the #1 recruit in the nation. As a pure runner, Najee is better than the other two, and is nearly impossible to tackle one on one. His spotty blocking has kept him behind the other two on the depth chart, but he’s always a danger to come in the 2nd or 3rd quarter and grind out some grueling 8-yard gains and give the offense a spark.

All that said, I think I’d actually say that freshman receiver Jaylen Waddle might be the most important. The diminutive speedster was expected to come in as an unrefined athlete who excelled at juking people, but needed work as a true receiver. Instead, he’s seemed to have become Tua’s most trusted target in critical situations. He may not have the most catches or yards, but he’s consistently made tough catches and squirted through traffic for a first down in the most important moments.

Looking at the results so far, the defense has been fine and they’ve always had a big cushion to play with. It’s never been imperative that they make a stop to save the game. How effective are they compared to some of the early-Saban lockdown units?

For probably the first time in Saban’s entire tenure, the linebackers are not the leading position group of the defense. Mack Wilson and Dylan Moses have been good and flashed talent, but they haven’t truly been difference makers. The outside linebackers Anfernee Jennings and Christian Miller have been solid if unspectacular, and are really missing Terrell Lewis, the physical freak of a pass rusher who tore his ACL just before the season started. The secondary has been much better than expected, especially true freshman Patrick Surtain Jr. Safety Deionte Thompson has been absolutely stellar at defending the deep centerfield, and strong safety Xavier McKinney has been excellent in run support and blitzes. Saivion Smith has had some struggles after replacing Trevon Diggs, who went out earlier this season with a broken leg. He’s talented with the ball in the air, but has really struggled in run defense and tackling on the perimeter.

Then there’s Quinnen Williams. The undersized nose tackle has been nothing short of a revelation. He started the season well, and has gotten better and better every single game. Sometimes, a guy just gets in the zone. And Quinnen is in the zone. He’s been nearly unblockable lately, leaving Gary Danielson laughing and speechless. Whether it’s been stopping a run or messing with the QB, Williams has been an absolute terror. And that kind of disruption up front can hide all sorts of minor problems that a defense might actually have.

Twitter has had fun with #BamaKickers because there have been some missed extra points and the like. If the game somehow comes down to special teams, how confident are Tide fans in the team’s ability to convert a game-winning kick, and why has this been such a problem for Saban over the years?

Ha, if it comes down to special teams, it’s game over. The fans have absolutely 0 confidence. Every year, I think that the field goal kicking has to get better than last season, and every year, it just gets worse. It’s pretty comical at this point. I’m not sure why Saban hasn’t totally given up kicking field goals. If the Tide had went for 2 after every touchdown this year, they’d only have to convert 44% of the time to score more that the kickers have trying to hit extra points. And you can’t tell me that Tua and company wouldn’t be better than 44% from the 2 yard line.

As for why? It’s just psychology at this point. It all started in 2011 when Cade Foster missed like three different should-be game winners in the “game of the century” 9-6 loss against LSU. It’s just gone downhill ever since. The kick six didn’t exactly help either, as you well know. Any kicker that kicks for Alabama now has all that history in the back of their mind, and it won’t go away. And every kicker that messes up just adds to the baggage to pass along to the next one. Until we get some sociopath of a kicker to break the streak, it will probably just keep on going.

You’re Nick Saban. What’s your biggest worry heading into the Iron Bowl?

The tackling on the perimeter defense. Auburn has some major speed, and the corners have been a bit suspect on keeping contain and forcing runners back in to the linebackers. Plus the linebackers have a little bit of a history with struggling with misdirection.

On the other side of the ball, the offensive line is dealing with some injuries, with left guard Deonte Brown likely out with a Turf Toe, and right guard Alex Leatherwood is day-to-day with a bum ankle. The line REALLY struggled against Mississippi State without Brown, and it very nearly got Tua killed. Fortunately, the Bulldogs’ offense was quite offensive to watch, so it wasn’t a big issue. But if Auburn’s defensive line can exploit that, while the offense takes advantage of the secondary’s tackling, it might be a long night for the Tide.

How does this game play out and what’s your score prediction?

Ultimately, I think Tua is finally healthy and comfortable. And as long as he’s healthy and comfortable, I can’t see Alabama losing another game. The Tide offense will start hot and jump to an early 14-0 lead before Auburn’s defense settles in and forces a turnover and a couple of stops. Auburn gets a score out of it, but Alabama answers with another touchdown in a 2-minute drill, going into halftime with a 21-7 lead. The second half is a little more bland. Alabama hits a big play early in the half for a touchdown, and follows up quickly with a defensive score off a turnover. Auburn mounts up and puts together a drive in the 4th quarter to make it 35-14, but doesn’t manage to score again as the Tide works to drain the clock.

...

Heathens.

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2018/11/23/18107519/opponent-q-a-alabama

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circularwastemememe-blog · 6 years

Text

Resistance

Even I do feel relatively in peace, there are aspects of me that I truly need to re-examine.

I ran into some obstacles. I gotta look into my soul and emotions to gain some insights.

I found my previous collaborator trolling me again, and that really annoys me. I try to find ways to make a difference to my circumstances but I feel truly frustrated as though the world is against me.

My mom asked me to stop fighting back or announcing his wrongs in public. But I cannot go on letting others treat me as shits. This is unfair. I also hate the fact that my life is full of such type of drama to deal with. I stand alone because there seems to be no one to help me. Then I start to feel resentful. I begin to wonder who the fuck would wanna involve themselves in such world of mine - a world that is full of discrimination, fights, anger, failures, disappointments, and hard works. Then I begin to hate my body, my voice as though they are separate beings disconnected from my face. I won't say I'm going to break down but there is something wrong that needs to be fixed. How to find the problem? Go to find it in the worst matter that is highly likely to trigger you - watch Clara's new video. Gee, it sounds almost like a dark joke but I mean it. I had been filled with negative vibes towards this woman, who had been the source for a great many negative inspirations despite that it is hard to associate all this with her beautiful, flirtatiously pleasant face.

I forced myself to be detached: If I did not have any bit of personal conversation, even just feeble connections, if she were truly a total stranger, if I did not know her life a bit, how would I feel about her video? I think I'd subscribe to her channel and leave her a positive comment full of appreciation and encouragement. And I'd share her video on Facebook posts and with some of my guy friends with my best wishes that she would get a substantial career with her lovely singing voice and her skillset on cinematography. Yes. That is me. I would be doing that as a pure good wish for a beautiful woman who gives me minutes of relief and aesthetic exaltation, which is sheerly impersonal. Even I don't know her, I wish her well.

Then why I wouldn't since I did have some feeble interactions with her before? Because she manipulated me with her beauty and made me give her more values than she deserves in my life, all for her vanity. Because she knew what happened to me and chose not to say a thing to relieve me. She pretended to be a liberal-minded humanist but she ain't. What makes it worse? She pretended she cared but she did not. All her beliefs are just words to invite likes so simple-minded suckers like me would leave a comment saying she is beautiful inside out. She seemed sweet and gentle with positive words but she was not really a considerate person at all. All her good manners are for her self-image but the well-being of others. Because after all that, I just realize she is very selfish, narcissistic and cold. After having some idea about her, her video appears like she is winking to deliberately seduce/manipulate the audience as she abuses her sex appeal to get the recognition/attention she wants, like she is making fun of people who sincerely care about her as she celebrates her success of making many people fools for her. She is like that type of person who smiles and flirts with guys while her female friends are dying next room and she is not going to do a thing about it. Other guys told me she is trying too hard to be edgy and authentic but fail. Other guys told me that she is rich French middle-class whose stereotypical temperament is, they always do what they want and they don't give a shit, proud and selfish. Others said, why would anyone wanna show nude pictures in public without being paid to do so? This chick obviously loves herself very much.

She has all the qualities to be a great female singer or artist. (I don't really know whether she can write any song except that she cannot really do live singing with her ukulele since all her videos are processed and edited together. Which is fine. At least she can make good effects with cinematography.) But she just does not have much of a soul to sustain all that even she seems to try very hard by changing her styles. No one bothers to tell her that because they are busy figuring out ways to get into her pants.

Then, I gotta pretend I'm not me and ask me one important question: Do you want her?

The truth is, I don't know. It seems common senses to want her because all that she is given out there. I bet most people would say yes if they are asked, within ten minutes. I always try to hold a pure mind when it comes to beautiful ladies despite their drawbacks. I wanna mold them into that wonderful woman with my love by overlooking their faults so they will get to become that perfect companion I always want. Then why you don't know, dude? Why? Are you pretending? Yes and no. I'm afraid of the harm she's going to do to me if I don't keep my guard. I'm afraid of giving her that importance, that burdensome value in my life, that much power. And obviously, she cannot do good with all that power. If she is likely to shoot randomly with a gun, you should have enough senses not to hand her any ammunition. Ok, all this is resistance. Who would wanna be with someone who holds such strong, negative opinions towards them?

If someone holds such a negative view of me, what would I do? I will try to understand them first. At least they bother to complain. It is better than people who don't say a word. Silence is the highest form of contempt. It is never my wish to crash anyone's self-esteem. It is not a zero-sum game - you win and I lose. No one wins, in fact. Judging from that, Clara must feel a need to contempt me so she can win by all means. Also, her need to win in this case is very questionable as though there is something unspeakably weak and frail hidden beneath.

Maybe I'm being conscientious with this question. Without building a solid bonding, whatever motivates me to want her is superficial - I wanna caress a beautiful face and go to bed with good-looking people as everyone in this world would like to. I also know how it feels to get people into liking you for your appearance. Admiration given free is valueless. Only admiration earned has everlasting values. It is also pretentious to deny your attraction to her but all that is kinda superficial. I have eyes and I'm human and I do enjoy watching fine things. Objectively, I do appreciate her in some aspects but I don't admire her after living through all this. I must say, she handled it horribly. In the end, she acted like a 12-year-old who was unable to sustain an authentic friendship and unfriended some unwanted ex-suitor on Facebook. I was surprised but not so surprised. I somehow felt sorry that she had let herself go and descended to a new low point, as though she were my teenage sister and I was with all that patience in this world to wait for her to get reformed.

Further, judging from my experiences of going to bed with beautiful men, they are usually mediocre lays. The moment I screwed them or they screwed me, I felt bored. Looks is not everything. I tend to give woman's looks more value than man. As to men, I prefer to look at their souls.

I guess I'm okay now. Despite the excruciating distress from this experience, I've come to accept myself a bit better, appreciate a bit more of what I have and the few true people around me. I thought she was what could make me happy but I was wrong. I worked so hard to get what I've always wanted, things and people as goals to attain, people who seemed to be able to make me happy, but all I got was more and more unhappiness in my pursuit of "happiness." Now I just wanna be around people who don't make me unhappy. People who stay around and interact with me to create true values for me. Such values will always exist even they age and change physically. That is precious enough for me.

Clara will eventually age or die someday as we all do, or change her hair and get into an un-fitting style that uglifies her, and all she had created was just a lovely image without content for me. My portraits of her would always be there as I genuinely spent years of my life creating something out there with my heart and soul. I love those works for their true emotions and raw affections even they could be fruits of erotomania. Reluctant as I was, with my fate, I had created true values out there, despite being unseen by this world. Which is fine. Because I believe in me, myself and my art. May the world rot and perish, they will be there as always.

I'm sorry to have been so harsh on her. She is just a girl who wanna celebrate the few things she has had online so she can like herself a bit better. I place her under my microscope for scrutiny because I was also a girl who looked for importance online. I thought she was higher and it broke my heart to see my "idol" act like some commonplace person as it angered me that she had fooled me so well. Gee, I still sound so negative. I think I should make an effort to grow up and forgive her as she is just a lost girl who plays goddess, like my 5-year-old niece who gets delighted when we call her Snow White and treat her like a princess even she is not. (Hopefully, she will grow up and mature in time and be alright with herself, even without someone who treats her like a princess.)

I think I'm alright now.

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