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shadow-laviko · 4 months

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What do you think about hellxander,,

Oh BOY. Maaan, we are not ready.

Spoilers for the end of Rain Code of course.

Oh yeah, also, I'm sick so my brain is not working very properly right now, so I might make a lot of mistakes. Sorry for that.

I've started liking (and even just basically hearing about) Hellxander for a bit more than a week now, and, oh boy, do I love them.

At first I didn't really think much of the ship (mostly because I'm terrified of zombie and the first time I saw Fake Zombie Zilch, I was mostly trying to survive rather than appreciating his love for Yomi), but since I replayed the game and saw it on tumblr... Oh boy.

I don't even know where to start from... Well, I started writing a fanfic about them almost right after discovering the ship, so I think that shows how much I love them?

Like, it's my favourite ship from Rain Code. And from veeeeery far. At first I liked Makoto x Yomi (and still do), because they have a funny and interesting dynamic and potential for fluff (because if you can't allow yourself to be weak even in front of your ennemy who already hates you and finds you weak, when could you?), and, I can't stop thinking that Makoto does not hate Yomi and could genuinely develop some kind of relationship with him.

Anyway, back to Hellxander... The ship surpasses Yomi x Makoto because... HAVE YOU SEEN AIDE (that's how most people call him, right? That word is so funny to me) ACTING TOWARDS YOMI??? I mean, ok, sure, "Yomi" was actually Yuma. BUT STILL. Aide believe it was Yomi, and seemed so happy to talk to him. I swear everyone could have seen a tail wagging during this "scene". Like, COME ON. There's no way Aide wasn’t in love with Yomi. Sure, he might have hidden it when he was alive (although I headcanon him fanboying like crazy and twirling his hair in his mind everytime he was talking with Yomi), but he was definitely in love.

That and, he seems so obediant to Yomi that there's no way Yomi would have hated him or punished him for anything other than fun! And, I'm sure if he had ever punished Aide, Yomi would have been very gentle with him, because he needed his right hand man to not be too damaged to work properly.

And, do you really think Yomi would remain impassive to someone who obeys him, adores him and the likes? There's no way. Yomi would have at the very least considered him a friend, or someone he could agree not to hurt too much.

MOREOVER, can you imagine Yomi being weak with someone else than his right hand man who is here exactly because Yomi isn’t strong enough to take care of everything by himself?? If someone can escape alive after seeing Yomi weak, it's 🦆in Aide.

AND THE ANGST!! DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE ANGST?! I LIVE FOR THAT CRAP! There's never enough angst/no comfort for me. I eat it, I write it, I dream it and I cry it (does that even make sense??), give me all of your angst, I'll devour that crap. Anyway. Maan, the angst potential for these two is through the roof! Imagine the pain Yomi felt after hearing about the death of Aide. Man must have devastated and tried to keep his composure. I honestly think (headcanon time ?) that Yomi was so dead set on catching Yuma/punishing his subordinate failures because of Aide's death.

Also, not only did he had to accept his death, he also had to accept that actually "All previously dead inhabitant of Kanai Ward are not exactly dead per se, but rather, mindless zombies that might not recognises you, even if you were the best of friends or lovers". That's worse than death!

VCsiCaihs

I love them so much. So so much. There's not enough words, no matter which language I'd use, to describe how much I love them.

As for headcanons regarding those two... I did mention some, previously, so, do I still have any in reserve?

Oh yeah

Huh. Might be kinda ("kinda"??) nsfw so uh, yeah.

I think Aide loves Yomi so much that just thinking about him turns him on, and is sometimes enough to make him ejaculate

Aide hates Seth because the man is too close to Yomi AND is (according to him) useless or too pathetic. That being said, he doesn't care about the other Peace Keepers because they are useful and not that close to Yomi. As for Martina... He is jealous of her, but she does a good work and Yomi seems to have fun with her, so he can't say anything.

Aide always seem to know when Yomi will have a nightmare and stalks his house/appartment whenever he sense it, just in case he could do something to help him. (Does Yomi know about it? I have no clue)

As for kinks... Man, I tried looking through a LOT of kink lists, and yet, the one I have in mind seem to be too specific and have no name... So I guess I will not say it. I think Aide would be fine with anything, as long as Yomi is happy anyway.

As for Yomi... Hm... I do have a lot of headcanons, but not directly/really related to Aide, so I'll keep them for later I guess?

I mean, I do have some other ideas related to Yomi and Aide, but those are most of fanfic ideas than really headcanons, so hm.

I think I said everything I had in mind regarding them? If not I guess I'll update it or reblog it, we'll see (What's best?).

OH AND PLEASE

If you have any fics or fanarts of Hellxander to share, please, send them to me. I will eat them all. Even if I already know about it. Nomnomnom.

Oh wait, I almost forgot. Thanks a lot for the ask!!

#rain code #master detective archives: rain code #answered asks #yomi hellsmile #zilch alexander #hellxander #You have no idea what I had to search on Google to find a kink that I ended up not finding in the end

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grayingskies · 4 years

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fable remaster this, fable reboot that...when is fable ii going to be ported to pc it’s been twenty seven million years ;_;

#do people like fable enough for a reboot???#i mean i like it but i'm still surprised #i hear zilch about those games ever

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strawberrymilkgeorge · 3 years

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Part Two. Jackbox Shenanigans

warnings: swearing word count: 2.6k (not including pictures) behind the screen (irl dream x reader) series masterlist ultimate masterlist

Y/n flinched awake, startled by the sounds traveling from the kitchen. Once again, the frosty air pricked her skin, trying to convince her to not move, to stay in bed under the warm blankets. Despite the feeling pulling her into her bed, she rubbed her eyes and sat up, grabbing her phone from her nightstand. Texts from Karl flooded her screen and she replied as she took her comforter off her mattress and wrapped it around herself. She pattered to the source of the noise to find her roommate was making food.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" Naomi asked, eyes wide with concern as she looked at Y/n. "I dropped a pan."

Y/n, who was observing the world through one squinted eye, shook her head and she sat at the counter in the kitchen. "No, I should be awake anyway."

"You're usually awake much earlier. Late night?"

Y/n nodded. "George streamed and we all talked for a little after."

"Oh, yeah, I watched his stream this morning..." she started, eyes focused on the food in front of her but Y/n still caught the mischievous glint in her roommate's eyes.

"Of course you did," Y/n laughed through a yawn. "That's your lover."

Naomi rolled her eyes. "Maybe if you gave me his number he would be."

"He doesn't give it to many people. I just barely got it and I've been friends with him for a year. I'm pretty sure Karl doesn't even have it."

Naomi groaned, though Y/n knew it was a joke... for the most part. She got another text from Karl, and consulted Naomi for a second opinion.

"Should I post this?" Y/n asked, lazily holding up her phone with a picture on the screen. Naomi squinted as she looked back over her shoulder. "Karl keeps yelling at me too."

"Yeah! That's a cute outfit. Make sure to credit Karl or he'll yell at you for that as well."

"No chance I'm doing that."

Incoming FaceTime... karol <3

Y/n hit accept and held the phone up to make a face at Karl. He mimicked the position. "Hello, sir."

"Hello, ma'am."

"What are you doing?" she asked him, walking to the bathroom to brush her teeth, her comforter dragging on the floor behind her as it continued to protect her from the cold.

Karl got distracted and started messing with something out of the camera view. "Um, trying to figure out what to do for my stream tonight. What about you?"

"I'm waiting for you to give me a fit check!" Y/n yelled. Karl quickly looked at the camera and smiled. He set his phone down on his desk and ran backward so his whole body was in frame. He posed awkwardly a few different ways before running back and resuming his position.

"Yes!" Y/n hyped with a mouthful of toothpaste. "Let's go, Karl! Karl with the old man sweater!!"

He giggled. "You're the one that told me to buy it."

"Because it's sick. Doesn't mean it didn't belong to an old man before you."

Karl pouted before his face lit up. "Guess what. I met a girl."

"Oh?" Y/n cooed. "Where? Do you have pictures? Is she cute?"

"She's Jimmy's new cameraman. Camerawoman. I don't have pictures, and yes. She's very cute." His cheeks turned red and Y/n smiled, flipping off the bathroom light and heading to her closet. She threw her comforter back on the bed and tried to pick out an outfit.

"Come on, bud, elaborate. What's her name? Have you asked her out yet?"

"You don’t get to know her name, I don’t want to jinx anything. Plus, you’ll just look ‘Mr Beast crew’ and find out anyway. Also, no, I haven’t. I'm pretty sure she thinks I hate her because I have not said a single word to her. I get so nervous when she's around I freeze up and just like... act weird. And then as soon as she's gone, Chris freaking roasts me so bad."

"Aw, I can teach you how to flirt if you want!"

"Yeah, okay," he scoffed, sarcasm dripping from his words.

"What's with the attitude? I'm great at flirting."

"No, you're not. I watched Gogy's stream last night."

"What does that have anything to do with anything?"

"I heard the way you spoke to Dream."

"What?!"

"You have zero game, Y/n. Absolutely none. Zilch, if you will."

"Yeah, because I wasn't flirting with him?"

"Not successfully, at least."

"Karl, what?" Y/n laughed but she was so confused. "No part of me was trying to flirt with anyone in that stream."

"Oh, come on," Karl groaned. "Don't do this again. Don't pretend to not like a guy and then cry to me when you're wack ass attempts don't win him over."

"Karl," Y/n started, looking directly at him. "I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. I wasn't flirting with him. I do not like him."

"I'm just saying, you talk about him a lot. Like, you always panic when he interacts with your posts because you're scared he's going to DM you right after. And you gush about him a lot."

"I do not gush. I admire the hard work he puts into his videos but I talk the same about him as I do with George and Sapnap. The only difference is I'm friends with them and not Mr. Minecraft. He's intimidating, that doesn't mean I have a crush on him."

Karl stared for a moment, trying to read Y/n's expression to detect any lies. "You'd tell me if you did, right?"

"Karl, I tell you everything. I'd tell you if I murdered your family." They both laughed. "It's impossible to hide anything from you, you're my best friend."

"Okay, sweet, but please don't murder my family, just to be clear."

"I won't. I love your mom too much."

"Well, how was meeting Dream, then? Despite apparently not being in love with him?"

"It was cool. Terrifying because it felt very forced but the four of us hung out on the call after George ended his stream and he was much more relaxed."

"That's true. Aren't we all?"

"Not you! You're the exact same person on and off camera. Just a little ball of giggles."

Karl giggled which made them both laugh more. Suddenly, as if he completely forgot until that moment, Karl sat up quickly and yelled, "What am I going to do for the stream?"

Y/n shrugged. "See if anyone wants to play Jackbox. Chat always loves those and it's relatively easy to throw together last minute. You just need to find people that are free to play."

"Genius. Who should we invite?"

"We?"

"Yeah. It was your idea, you have to play."

"But, I've never played! And I barely know all your friends so I wouldn't get half the inside jokes. I'd be a boring addition."

"Please? They're your friends too! You just talked to Sapnap and George for four hours yesterday and George was the only one playing anything. That's friendship if I've ever seen it."

"But... others.... like literally everyone besides Sap and George...."

"Things like this are how you get to know them better. Besidessss, you're never boring."

"Fine, I'll play."

"YES!" he shouted. "Okay, who should we invite?"

**********

Y/n huffed and scooted her chair closer to her desk. She pulled up Discord and hovered over the voice chat everyone was in. An overwhelming number of voices chaotically spoke over each other as soon as she joined.

"Oh no," she mumbled.

"AYYEE!!" a voice yelled, the green bubble lighting around Quackity's name confirming her suspicions.

"Aye," she said back less enthusiastic. "Hi everyone."

"She's here!" George cheered.

Y/n could hear Sapnap huff. "Finally. Geesh."

"This isn't even your stream, calm down." Y/n's eyes scanned the names on the left to read who else was involved in tonight's games. She had suggested a few people to Karl but wasn't sure about the final list. Besides the boys who had already greeted her were BadBoyHalo and Dream.

"Hello, Bugsy! It's nice to meet you! I'm BadBoyHalo."

Y/n smiled widely at his voice. "Hi, BadBoyHalo! Nice to meet you too."

Her eyes slowly traveled to the last name on the list, which had yet to greet her. She wasn't bitter, but she was curious why he hadn't said anything yet. The boys hyped up him talking about her so much but she had yet to feel that energy from him. She picked at the bottom of her hoodie, eyes darting between the names as they lit up when someone spoke.

"Is Dream still AFK?" Sapnap asked.

"I think so," Bad replied.

Maybe that's the only reason he hadn't said anything. Y/n felt stupid for thinking it had anything to do with her.

"He's probably coding something or something like that," George teased.

"Haha nerdy ass man," Quackity cackled.

"Language."

"Don't you also code shit, George?" Sapnap called out. "You're probably helping him test something after this, huh? As Quackity said, nerdy ass man."

"You know what, Sapnap? I'm not sure I like your attitude all that much."

Y/n smiled. Despite feeling nervous, she was already having fun just listening to everyone talk. The real nerves would kick in when they were live in front of tens of thousands of people and she would have to be funny.

A message popped up in the general chat, notifying everyone that Karl was joining the voice call soon so they shouldn't say anything bad.

"Everyone say something weird," Quackity directed.

Discord dinged and Karl's name joined the list on the side. "AAAHHHH-!" he started yelling over everyone to let them know he was here in case they were saying anything bad. With his luck, they were going to say stuff anyway to mess with him.

"So, yeah, that's how I lost my virginity," Quackity said as if he just finished a story.

"To a prostitute?" Sapnap added quickly. "Wow, I never thought you... oh Karl!"

"Language!" Bad gasped.

"What the..." Karl laughed loudly. "What did I just join?"

"Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry," Quackity apologized, which was hard to make out since he was laughing so hard, surprised at what Sapnap added to his joke.

"Bad, you can't say language about a prostitute," Sapnap defended. "That's really rude of you. Maybe it's a little unconventional but they're just tryna make some money the best way they know how."

George laughed with Quackity as Bad sputtered. "I-I said language about what Quackity said!"

"What, virginity?" Karl asked innocently and Bad yelled again.

"Bad hates people who have had sex!" Y/n called, causing Quackity to laugh loudly.

"Bad! How could you?! That's so messed up!"

"Wait, guys, is everyone here?" Karl asked.

"Dream isn't. We don't know where he went."

Karl groaned and started typing something, presumably yelling at Dream to join.

"Let's goooo! We're popping off!" Quackity started saying, stalling. "We're popping off!" George joined him, becoming absolute fools to keep the chat entertained.

"Okay, he's here!" Karl said. "Everyone's here!"

"I'm here, I'm here, sorry. I was... yeah, sorry," Dream stuttered out.

"Welcome back, Dream!" Bad chirped.

"Hello!" he replied. Unexpectedly, his next greeting was directed at Y/n. "Hi, Bug."

Y/n instantly got shy for no discernable reason. She blamed it on his voice and its ability to manipulate emotions any way he wanted. That and she was getting attention from someone first. "Hi," she squeaked back, hoping the contrast of her icy hands would cool her face enough to focus on the game.

"Bugsy, you are adorable," Bad stated simply.

"Sapnap! What did you just send me?" George asked loudly, and just like that, the attention was off of her and she could breathe again.

"What?" Sapnap feigned innocence.

This was going to be a long game.

"Let's play!" Karl decided. "Should we warm up with some Quippy?"

Y/n focused intensely on her answers, silently hoping the others would find her funny.

"Oh my gosh," she mumbled as everyone else finished writing. "Y'all, I'm about to get Quiplashed so hard. Don't make fun of me."

"I seriously doubt it," Dream said. "You can't possibly be worse than George at this game."

"Shut up, we always- it's like 3 am my time. I can't, like, think of things 'cause my brain isn't functioning."

"Yeah, that's why," Sapnap teased.

"Surreee," Dream said.

The first round wasn't too bad. Y/n was in 5th place but she got quite a few laughs so she didn't care too much about where she stood. She got a notification from Dream on Twitter as everyone laughed at one of Quackity's answers.

Y/n looked back at her screen and saw the new prompt and answers. She read them quickly as everyone was laughing and with a few seconds left to choose, voted for the one on the left. It was funnier anyway.

She loosened up substantially after another round, and she knew it was mostly because Dream had reached out to her. Something about him comforted her and made her feel safe, which warmed her heart.

"Bugsy! What the hell, that's so messed up. You're so messed up," Quackity yelled, laughing at the answer on the screen. They were playing Survive the Internet and her comment got taken way out of context, just as the game intended.

"Oh my gosh!" Karl cackled loudly. "Bugsy, I didn't know you felt that way. Oh my gosh? They're just kids?? Bugsy out the gang?"

Y/n hid her face in her hands and laughed. "Noooo!! Wait I never knew- I didn't know I was ever in the gang?"

"She really said, 'infant children? slaughter them all'," Sapnap joked.

"You know, I think you'd get along really well with Technoblade," Dream added. "Though his specialty is orphans, as it appears."

"No, no, no, whoever wrote that heading is SO messed up!" Y/n defended, rereading the heading that made her comment look bad. She knew it was a game but all the attention on her was making her embarrassed. "Who would think to put that?"

"Everyone cancel Busgy!" Karl yelled.

"Karl, no! You're supposed to be my best friend!"

"I don't know how I feel about my best friend killing children..."

"Karl!!"

"Nooo," Bad protested softly. "I like Bugsy. Don't cancel her."

"Everyone vote!"

The article with Y/n's name turned out to be Dream's. "Dream! What the hell is wrong with you?" she yelled, causing him to wheeze loudly.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I wanted point."

The whole night ended up being like that. Y/n had a lot of fun and by the end, she felt a lot more comfortable with all of them. Quackity, Karl, and Sapnap were loud and very high energy while George and Bad were quieter. Dream was half and half, sometimes matching Quackity's volume and sometimes going a while without saying a word. Overall, Y/n had a lot of fun and hoped to let back in the gang in the future.

**********

PREVIOUS • NEXT

**********

A/N: WOOO PART TWOOO!! Hope you guys enjoyed this part! Also thank you so much for all the love on the first part!! I did not expect it to get as much attention as it did!!!!!

we clearly haven’t got to dream and yn being close yet bc they literally met the day before this but i added a small little dream/yn moment :] pls let me know how you liked this part!!!!!!!!!!!!

taglist: OPEN (at the time) @hydrate-tion @loraleiix @tinaswagbd @charsdummb @smileyyuta @1ghoste1 @cerberus-hellhound @gaysludge @queestionmark @carnations-red @letsloveimagines @the-fictionwriters-hairdo @boiled-onionrings @a-cryptic @fee-btheweeb @letsloveimagines @erwinss @just-a-stan

#rpf #real person fiction #dream x reader #dream x y/n #dreamwastaken x reader #dreamwastaken x y/n #mcyt x reader #mcyt x y/n #dreamwastaken smau #dream smau #social media fiction #social media au

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theonesthatiworship · 3 years

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HUNDRED FOLLOWERS/BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION ASK GAME!!

Hey, everyone! Tomorrow is my birthday, and I recently just hit one hundred followers!

I just wanted to thank each and every one of you that have followed me and supported me, and I wanted this to be way for me to show you that I love and appreciate all of you.

So I created this ask game in celebration of the recent events! Anons are welcome, for the ones they are applicable to, and I encourage all of you to please participate! I’d like to hear from each of my followers, and I know that there are a lot of you out there!

So please remember, have fun, and don’t stress yourselves out. this is just for fun and a way for me to better get to know all of you. For those who stayed long enough to read this, have a great day :)

Ask game:

🥇 - I’ll tell you what my first impression of your blog was

🏵 - I’ll tell you the name of a flower that reminds me of you

🖊 - I’ll write a fanfiction based on the prompt and pairing you give me (size and length of your choosing)

🔍 - I’ll give you an in depth analysis of my opinion on any character or ship you provide (given that I know which fandom it is)

💌 - I’ll send an anonymous ask to your inbox telling you what I like most about your blog

♥️ - provide me any ship, and I’ll tell you my headcanons for them

🔪 - I’ll tell you how I think you would end up dying in the future

✨ - tell me which problematic character you stan and why, and I’ll tell you if I agree or not

🥔 - I will rank your blog on level of superiority from 1 to 10

🎤 - I will tell you which song I think best fits your blog theme/overall aesthetic

💋 - Send me a pairing and I’ll give my theories on their sexual preferences/kinks

🩸 - I’ll tell you if I think you’d ever kill someone, and who it would be

🔥 - provide me the name of a character, and I’ll give my otp, sexuality headcanon, brotp, notp for them, along with their quirks and favourite food

🌍 - I’ll tell you where in the world I think you are, and you can tell me how wrong I am

⭐️ - You can ask me any question from this list

🌈 - I will privately message you a chapter from the multi -chapter rarry fic I am currently writing (anons will need to be turned off here because I have to know who are you to message you)

🍑 - I’ll tell you how attractive I think you are

📖 - give me the name of a popular classic (like Wuthering Heights for example), and I’ll write an essay analysing the intricacies of it

🫕 - provide a pairing and I’ll tell you my soft domestic headcanons for them

list of welcome fandoms:

- Harry Potter

- Percy Jackson

- The Umbrella Academy

- Heathers

- Hamilton

- Sherlock

- A Series of Unfortunate Events/All The Wrong Questions

- Once Upon A Time

- Six

- Killing Stalking

- Stranger Things

- The Hunger Games

- Anastasia the Musical

- Squid Game

I’ll add more fandoms when I can think of them, but for now, this is the list of fandoms I participate in!

And remember, this is just a fun, lighthearted game I thought of, since I just reached a hundred followers and it’s my birthday tomorrow. Please be respectful, and I will be of you too! Have a lovely day everyone, and take care of yourselves! ❤️❤️❤️

@bravegryffindorlion @daughterofthedead2 @ghost-spidey @acciorxses @g1nny-p0tter @nousheen @geetikarandamgirl @femaledoubleagent @zilch-zero-nothing @ all of my mutuals

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unfortunatelysirius · 4 years

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╰☆☆ ℕ𝕆𝕋 𝕐𝕆𝕌ℝ 𝔾𝕀ℝ𝕃𝔽ℝ𝕀𝔼ℕ𝔻 ☆☆╮ [Sirius Black – Marauders Era] [Part 14]

Previous Installments: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13

╰❂╮ prompt ╰❂╮ ☾ ¡Original! ☾ With the perpetrator on their tail, and Sirius’s prejudices no longer something that can be ignored, relationships shatter and a safe way out is near unimaginable. ╰❂╮ author’s note ╰❂╮ Sorry this is so, so late. I hope the installment is to your satisfaction. AND IM SORRY IT’S SO SHORT BUT PLS, FEEDBACK WOULD BE APPRECIATED AND I’LL BE MORE PROMPT ON UPDATES. Will be updating Chocolate Frogs and Love Notes soon. Tell me if you want added to any of my tag-lists! ╰❂╮ warnings ╰❂╮ Angst, Swearing, Violence ╰❂╮ word count ╰❂╮ 2043 ╰❂╮ tag-list ╰❂╮ @kapolisradomthoughts @rageofcaliban @saucyleftovers @bunnymother93 @siriuslyr5 @apareciumimagines @random-quartz @ruefulposts @seabasstiantrash @starlightspidey @pinkettepoet @peppermintspecks @jiongyongguk @bethanystan @raindancer2004 @where-are-my-gummy-bears @cutebutnotinorcent

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT, and a disturbing sort of cold Y/N thought she might never experience in her lifetime, shivers up and down her spine within the dark, suffocating corridor. The stars were like silver dewdrops splattered across the navy sky, visible through each old window’s silhouette littered around the castle; with every passing step, Y/N caught another glimpse of Nature’s finest canvas. She was curled into Sirius’s side, squished between his subtly muscled body and James’s near-identical shape, both Remus and Peter trailing the three of them by seconds. It was reminiscent of times that seemed so far away.

Y/N thought it was all too good to be true. Everything, from her and Sirius falling back into same-old, same-old routine like they’d never left the honeymoon phase to James looking quite sullen compared to his usual upbeat, enthusiastic self. She wondered if it was all a twist on reality to make her think things were fine when really, Sirius wasn’t anywhere near, James still hated her, and the Marauders were leading her somewhere to hex and discard their latest “conquest.” It made all the more sense the longer she thought about it, but thoughts of the way Sirius felt—flesh, bone, whole—made her realize she was daft, and just a little bit mad.

He was so obviously here, a living, breathing wonder, and she was trying to make it a mirage. She wanted it that way.

Or maybe she’d just went long enough with things going wrong that miracles seemed far too good to be true.

“I have to meet with Regulus,” murmured Y/N into the quiet air, after the silence became a tad bit too smothering. She was also alert of her own negligence, from her delirious daze to her angry soul’s demands for an apology, as Sirius’s arm looped around her became a bone-crushing reality. Not so much a reality she craved anymore, but one that needed multiple bandages slapped across it; the Muggle way of rekindling old flames and licked wounds. Y/N was beginning to grow agitated and nervous, as this reality crushed down on her. As her newly-put-together world fell apart in the wake of unanswered questions. “He—wants to help. He thinks I was Obliviated.”

Sirius glanced down at her, looking unsure, his own face not betraying the inner turmoil running their world ragged. The two of them didn’t know how to approach their current problem, the one that kept them from falling together as happy memories asked them to; Y/N was afraid of what lay in wait, Sirius’s admittance that he thought so lowly of her that for even a millisecond he thought she might have been a slag, and Sirius dreaded the moment he had to let his betrayal out into the open. Neither of them were willing to ruin their reconciliation by simple, trivial ire, the kind that winded up someone alone and heartbroken, the kind that could get anyone and everyone hurt.

Even the most painful of thoughts were best kept internalized, if it meant staying locked tight in a dream.

Even now, the two of them were so different. Differences Y/N once overlooked in favor of what made them compatible.

“Regulus doesn’t care about anyone except for himself,” Sirius snapped at Y/N, the three Marauders looking nervous in anticipation for the argument to come. “He’s a Slytherin. The bloody git is tricking you.”

“How the fuck would you know?” Y/N was never one for confrontation. This was all new territory. She was tired, and depressed, and dying of questions; she loved Sirius, she did, but he was still the prejudiced, arrogant prat he was before they started dating. He’d always hate Slytherins because he grew up in a world full of snakes that rejected him for being who he was, and maybe that was a drawn line for why they weren’t meant to last. He was the charismatic, hateful railroad tycoon, and she was his subdued wife that tiptoed around his temper. Stupid, foolish—she was letting herself use another goddamned Muggle analogy—Americanized, no less. Maybe Y/N was running low on a lucid mind as much as she was excuses.

He knows nothing about Regulus, she thought anyway, looking into those silver grey eyes she’d always loved. Sirius didn’t. He refused to talk to his brother; maybe Regulus was growing into himself and losing that part of him that preened and prawned from pleasing his parents. If he was scared, if he was determined to find the truth because he wanted to sabotage dark plans, he never once betrayed it. But deep down, there was nothing else rational to explain his motivations, and Y/N knew he was a scared little boy afraid the monsters would someday catch up to him—

And they’d eat him alive like all wolves just so happen to do.

“Regulus is your brother,” continued Y/N. “He doesn’t want to be part of whatever it is your parents do. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You didn’t grow up with him. You didn’t see him do nothing when his brother was lying on the ground, with their father standing above him,” seethed Sirius. “Don’t act like you know him; you sure as hell don’t.”

Y/N felt like crying, as she wrenched herself away from Sirius’s warm, comforting embrace. “Don’t act like you know me,” she spat. Sirius’s jaw fell downwards, a flicker of hurt flitting across his face. “Go mope in your dorm. I’m getting down to the bottom of this, with or without you.”

Sirius was silent. Y/N continued to watch him, imploring him to say something, wishing he wouldn’t just let her leave. If she left, she could get hurt, and Sirius wouldn’t be her knight in shining armor. They went so long in turmoil that Y/N wanted there to be some sort of compromise; if they could argue and fight for so long, the two a mess with their friends on the fence on how to fix them, then they sure as hell could be soft and melted together, too. Maybe they were different, maybe Sirius couldn’t let his old ways go, but truth be told—Y/N always wanted to show him a new perspective.

She’d tried doing that before things went wrong.

“Really, Sirius?” she said now, staring brokenly at him. “We could finally figure this out, and you’re backing down? Really?”

“Whoever’s done this is dangerous,” Sirius told her. His voice had lost all its shake, all its fury, rendered a new sort of mellow Y/N had hardly ever seen from him. He looked like he itched to hold her and reassure he was just an asshat, but his asshat ways betrayed none of his true love for her, or his need to protect her. None, nada, zilch: right? He was a teenage boy, a prat, but he didn’t mean anything out of his pathetically unfiltered mouth. “I want you safe, Y/N. We should leave this to the professors.”

Those words were foreign out of his mouth. Y/N took a heavy breath and she said, “Sirius, do you even hear yourself? Merlin, what’s happened to you?”

“What’s happened to me? Me?” Sirius’s laugh was humorless. “You’re bloody mad.”

“Sirius, Y/N, this isn’t the best time,” said Remus, looking between the two with apprehension.

“This is the best time, Remus,” Y/N said, refusing to look at any of them. She knew Peter was fidgeting; she knew James was gap-mouthed like a pufferfish; she knew Remus was trying to hide his trepidation. She knew Sirius was silently seething. All of them, they weren’t clearly thinking. They didn’t have their nerves together. Y/N was terrified that solving the bottom of the mystery would never come if they fell apart before they came together. But Y/N could no longer go on if her experience with the love of her life was only going to be heartache and pain, two things she had felt since coming to this God-awful school.

You’re not any better than him, thought Y/N, her brain suddenly going to Ashton. He was dead, and she’d never get to see him again; she’d never get to tell him she was sorry, that she never meant to use him, that he was someone she came to love in her desperation to feel. He taught her about love. He taught her that it was okay to be without for a little while because wholes always regain their lost pieces. Maybe he threw her into an abyss after he broke her heart that left her sad and lost of all hope, but now, with her head on her shoulders again, she could safely say he taught her a lot—yet she gained nothing.

Y/N was happy with Sirius, but he did not teach her anything. He was a fun partner in crime, but when it truly came down to life lessons, he wasn’t a teacher; he was along for the ride, a mere passenger in a bus packed to the brim with faces from the crowd.

Standing in the hallway, letting these thoughts wash over her, Y/N could not do this anymore. She needed to find Regulus and reach the climax of this game. Someone was toying with her and her feelings, and if she didn’t put a stop to it, if she didn’t find a way to draw the villain out and stifle the madness, there was no way for her to get peace—and she’d stay stuck in an endless cycle of being a living ghost.

“I can’t anymore, Sirius,” whispered Y/N. “I can’t.”

She turned around and ran.

The Marauders watched after her, one looking horrified, two looking shocked, and the one this mattered to most—he looked heartbroken.

And none of them even bothered to go after her, as the guilt sunk in and they realized—

Was the love-potion maker truly the villain? Or was it them?

Y/N had stopped running after reaching the fourth corridor. She eventually stopped walking altogether. Her pace slowed until it was nonexistent, her harsh, shaking breaths fell into soundless sniffs, her erratic thoughts slowly but surely came to a close. All she could think about now was Regulus, who was waiting at the library for her presence. And that half-blurry, half-familiar memory of a white-haired girl in the very same forest Y/N was in herself

Y/N knew it mattered. She knew she’d been Obliviated, and she was foolish not to go to Headmaster Dumbledore for help in retrieving her memories… but she was a foolish girl, and foolish girls wanted to figure out mysteries by themselves.

“I’m a bloody fool,” mumbled Y/N to herself, clutching her head like that would heal all trace of confusion, as well as her sadness. It wouldn’t, but it felt like it did—so Y/N continued to grope at her temples and scalp. The corridor echoed with spooky creaks and even spookier whistles. Y/N felt regret seep into her bones, as she realized she was still a bit of ways away from the library—and she was totally, utterly, completely alone.

Y/N heard someone laugh.

“You are a bloody fool,” they said.

Out from the end of the corridor emerged a girl, whose entire face and hair were obscured by shadows—but the pretty little patch on her robes had a snake on them. Y/N knew it was a Slytherin. But all she saw was the patch, as her body and face were near invisible—and even then, the patch’s emblazoning was blurry to her. She felt her head grow light, her eyes squinting to see within the darkness. She was so caught in looking at the patch to even pay any regard to the words the stranger spoke or the wand as it lifted, pointing right at Y/N’s chest.

“Who are—”

The girl flicked her wrist. “Stupefy,” she said.

Suddenly Y/N was knocked off her feet by a powerful spell, the backlash sending her head cracking against the corridor wall, rendering her immobile and near-unconscious.

She felt her body crumble, but only half of the way—a steady stream of numbness shooting through her like lightning.

The stranger walked up, a laugh emptying from her mouth.

“Got you!” the girl sang happily.

That was when things went black.

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scaryscarecrows · 4 years

Text

Beggar, Pick Up Your Crown

AN: Title from Jerry Cantrell’s ‘Siddhartha’. Takes place the day after ‘Out of Hell’.

Happy birthday, Jason!

* * *

Jason wakes from the...he’s thinking the third-best nights’ sleep he’s had in his whole life. First one was...pfft, one’a those random nights, Mom had been feeling okay, and they’d stayed up to see the sunrise and made s’mores on the stove. Second had been after his first. His. Patrol. First patrol.

He has no idea what time it is, and he’s afraid to open his eyes, lest last night turn out to be a dream. He stays still for the moment, concentrating on the cheap hotel mattress under his still-aching body, the smell of complimentary soap and cleaner and that lingering people have been born, had sex, and probably died in this room smell that these sorts of places have. He can hear rain and traffic and general Gotham Living outside and in the rooms around him.

And he’s hungry.

Okay. Okay. He’s woken up out of nice dreams before, and it hurts, but. But he can do it again. One more time.

Please…

He cracks his eyes open.

The room is beige and...rusty orange...and very bright. Well, bright to him, anyway. It’s empty, but he rolls over and, muscles protesting the whole time, peers under the bed. Zilch.

Still unconvinced he’s not hallucinating or unwillingly playing one of the clown’s head games, Jason stumbles out of the warm bed, ankle cracking horribly when he makes it take his weight, and shuffles to the bathroom. Nothing. Nothing in the shower, or wedged into the little cabinet under the sink. He’s alone here.

He lets his breath out slowly, slumping forward against the sink to take some of the pressure off his ankle. He’ll have to look at it later, look at everything later, but...but not now. Not this second, huh?

His hair’s too long; his bangs are in his eyes and he can feel dead ends scraping the back of his neck. No way in hell is he letting anyone near him with scissors. That’s okay. He did self-trims when he was a kid.

He’s out.

He’s out, he’s free of that monster. That bastard’s never going to hurt him ever again. The thought makes him lightheaded, brings an unfamiliar twist to his lips that feels like it might be a smile.

And then he makes the mistake of looking up at the mirror.

The boy-no, he’s not a boy anymore, is he-looking back at him looks dead. He’s pasty white, thin and hollow-cheeked with no spark to his eyes. There’s cuts and gashes all over his face, his nose is crooked, and...and there’s that. The brand on his face, the one that still hurts, the one that screams to the world, PROPERTY OF THE JOKER, IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN!

I’ll never get away from him.

The mirror shatters under his fist, shards jabbing in between his knuckles and falling into the sink and bouncing off the counter to hit the tiles by his feet. He doesn’t care. He can’t face this he can’t face this he can’t--

This is too much for his ankle; it buckles and then he’s kneeling in the glass, sobbing so hard it’s silent and hurts his throat and chest. He chokes, doubles over so’s his forehead’s pressed against his knees, bites down on his lips to try and...and…

Willis always said, ‘boys don’t cry’. Bruce hadn’t...he’d never known what to do with tears. Or any outpouring of emotion, for that matter. And Joker had loved them. But Jason? Right now, he doesn’t care about any of that. He wants Mom, but Mom can’t be here anymore.

It takes him several minutes to register that the tears have stopped and that he’s just...huddled here on the floor with glass jutting out of his skin. The glass doesn’t hurt, but his ankle does and he slowly and carefully brings it up to investigate.

It’s swollen and hot to the touch and it...something about it doesn’t look quite right. He’ll wrap it, he decides, he’ll get a compression bandage or something later today. Okay. He’s okay. He’s just gotta breathe, get up, clean this mess up because he was raised better than to leave this shit for the housekeeper, and then...if he is where he thinks he is, there’s a bodega two blocks south, one that has a gray tabby that lounges in the window. They’ll have a thing of chips or something he can choke down (safely), maybe bandages. Definitely a hoodie, at least, a nice touristy hoodie.

He can make it two blocks. Like he’s got a choice, but he can make it two blocks.

* * *

The smell of rotting watermelons, cheap ice cream bars, and packaged bread is possibly one of the best things Jason’s ever smelled in his life. He’s starving, and now, confronted with food choices, he knows he’s gonna have to exercise some restraint and not just devour a stale baguette in the middle of the store. Crackers. And maybe a soup-cup-thing, that’s mild. And, uh, cranberry juice, yeah, that’s sorta healthy. And a Reese’s. If the Reese’s makes him sick, it’ll be worth it.

The owner is dancing lightly to the mariachi on the radio and the cat is more interested in the birds outside than in him, which means he can limp through the store on his own sweet time. They do have bandages, and the food he thinks he can do, and a red hoodie* proclaiming, I Survived Gotham. It’ll do.

What’s worrying him-apart from, you know, everything else-is where he found money last night. He doesn’t remember a damn thing after leaving Arkham, and it scares him. Mystery for later, though, because he’s hungry and grateful he doesn’t have to rob the bodega man, who-miracle of miracles-doesn’t so much as look up at him. He pulls the hoodie on the second he’s outside, though, tugs the hood up to try and cover the damn thing at least a little.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He can’t go back to him-he’ll die first-and he can’t...s’like they say, you can never go home again. If Wayne Manor was ever home.

Left me he left me with him he said he’d always be there and he fucking left me with that bastard--

He just doesn’t know what to do.

He stumbles back into the hotel room, debates on whether or not he wants to use the grody microwave provided, and decides that yes, yes he does. This will be the first real food he’s had in over a year and he wants to try and enjoy it, if that’s possible.

Man, he hasn’t had one of these in...geeze, since before Mom died. They’re not Old Money Approved, after all. Good. He’s not Old Money Approved, either.

It’s done, he decides, when it pops and the lid gets all soft and hot. It smells okay. Safe, anyway, no hint of Joker venom or any other little surprises. The steam curls around his face, making the...the burn a little tender, but it’s fine. It’s fine. He bought it all sealed up and he’s the only one who’s touched it. He took off the safety tin.

So why can’t he eat it? His appetite’s vanished, even though he knows he needs to eat, it’s just…

You gotta eat, baby.

That sounds like Mom, and it should be concerning, but...he does need to eat. And he can’t just chug it, either, much as he’d like to get it over with. He’s gotta be slow and careful.

Cracker! He’ll dip a cracker in.

The soup’s hot and salty on his tongue, miles above the slop he’s been eating in the asylum. Once he swallows the slightly soggy cracker, his appetite returns with a vengeance and it’s an effort not to pour half the column of crackers in, smash them to bits with the spoon, and eat the resulting mush here and now. But he can’t. He’ll be sick. Hell, he might be sick anyway, who knows.

He dunks another cracker in, catches a wispy noodle on it this time. Jesus. Jesus Christ, this is it, he’s living on soup and crackers forever, this is the best thing he’s eaten in his life--

--no. No it isn’t, is it. Alfred. Alfred made…

Not now. Just eat.

That’s right. He can’t think about anything, that’s not...he’s spent a long time, trapped in his own head. Not now. He can’t do that now. Food first.

The soup goes down easily enough, the cran juice a little less so but it stays in, and then he has to admit that yup, time for some self-examination.

He’s not facing the mirror-or what’s left of it-again. It’s better to stay here, to strip off despite knowing that hotel beds are scuzzy, and, well, survey the damage. And there is a lot of damage. Burn scars, wire scars, marks he can’t even begin to trace. He doesn’t really want to know what his back looks like, but he’ll have to find out.

Further poking the ankle says that oh, sure, it’s...healing, or maybe as good as it’s gonna get, but that squeezing certain spots of it makes his vision go white and over-manipulating it is worse than that. He puts the bandage on it, because what else can he do, and struggles back into his clothes. No more. He can’t do more right now.

* * *

Jason does not mean to fall into a fitful sleep, but that’s what happens. He wakes up gasping and soaked in sweat, a man’s shouting echoing in his ears. Sounds like Willis.

After a minute of lying here, he comes to realize that it isn’t Willis, and it isn’t a dream. It’s...lobby, something’s going on in the lobby.

Shit.

It’s hard to move as steathily as he used to, but he’s still quieter than the average schmuck when he slips out of bed and opens the door to creep down the hall. It’s late, which means the clerk should be alone, which makes them easy pickings. People never change, much as Batman insists that they do.

The shouting man has a gun. He’s wearing a scarf around the lower half of his face and he’s actually kinda big. Looks plenty comfortable threatening a woman half his size.

He doesn’t think, just moves; grabs one of the little chairs near the doors and hurls it

Owowowow not good movement not good

at the man’s back. He trips, gun falling from his fingers and sliding under the desk. The woman, wisely, ducks.

“What the fuck--oh, we got us a Batman-wannabe.” The guy cracks his back. “Come on, then, hero.”

He’s out of practice. Doesn’t mean he’s helpless. He dodges the oncoming haymaker and retaliates by going straight for the jugular.

Or, in this case, the balls. Fighting fair does not get you far in life.

The bravado vanishes. It’s hard to be badass when you’re shrieking like a little girl with your testicles twisted in a fist. Jason lets go, headbutts him to get him down, and steps around him to fish the gun out from under the desk.

“Get the hell out of here,” he says, more out of breath than he should be after that. His shoulders hurt from the throw. That can’t be good. “Or pray to God Batman shows up to save you in the next thirty seconds.”

“You son of a bitch--”

“Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven--”

“I’ll kill you!”

He cocks the gun. Little awkwardly, it’s true-Bruce taught him the absolute bare minimum of gun handling-but it gets his point across.

“Twenty-six. Twenty-five.”

The man can’t quite get upright, but he manages to hobble outside. Jason doesn’t chase after him. He’s shaking, a little, and the gun’s awkward in his hand.

“Thank you.” Oh. Yeah. He forgot about her. “I don’t know--he wanted money, I guess--”

“Don’t they all.” He doesn’t turn around. He can’t; he’s way too identifiable. “You’re welcome.” Back to his room it is, to get his crap and clear out. “I’m gonna check out before the cops show.”

“I’m not calling them.” Huh. “They never come. That’s the third time in two months we’ve had someone in here.”

Figures.

He doesn’t answer-what do you say, huh?-, just shuffles back to his room. He doesn’t realize, until the door’s locked behind him, that he’s still got the gun.

Well, he figures, as he stumbles back towards the bed, at least if Joker manages to track him here, he won’t have to go back. He’ll kill the clown or himself, it doesn’t matter which, but he’s not going back.

He crawls under the blankets this time, tries to get a little more comfortable. It must work, because in five minutes, he’s out. Nothing wakes him this time.

THE END

*Arkham!Jason has a fondness for red hoodies even pre-Red Hood; both baby Jay and grown-up Jay are shown wearing one in the prequels. For obvious reasons. :p

#Jason Todd #arkhamverse #takes place literally less than 24 hours after his escape #fic

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piratefalls · 4 years

Photo

I couldn’t fix the stupid fucking “keep reading” on the original post” goddammit

I almost don’t want to add anything to this because the visual is just... *chef’s kiss*

After Max’s declaration everyone laughs, because there’s no way straight-laced Max surfs. They may have gotten him to relax over the last few years but there’s no way he gives up enough control of anything long enough to let the ocean carry him any-fucking-where. But the longer he stares, completely blank faced, the quieter the laughter gets until it eventually falls into stunned silence.

“No, really. What’s your hidden talent.”

Max doesn’t even turn to acknowledge whoever asked. “I surf.”

"You mean, like, surf the web?” Steve asks, thinking back to when he had Max search out that first pressing Chicago album for Cath.

“While I understand you mean that colloquially, Commander McGarrett, that is not what I meant, nor is doing such a particularly impressive talent.”

“I beg to differ,” mutters Jerry.

“Okay then,” Lou says, standing and walking over to the truck, grabbing the surfboard that’s leaning against the engine. “Show us.”

Max smiles. “I was asked to share my secret talent with the group, Captain Grover, not demonstrate it.”

And with that Max stands up, walks over to his bright yellow Camaro, and peels out of the small lot. The rest of the group sit there in silence.

After a few minutes, Danny pipes up. “I have to see it.”

“Me too.”

“Yep.”

“I don’t think I'll believe it even if I do see it.”

Everyone is so busy trying to formulate a plan to catch Max in the act that they never notice that Kono doesn’t say a thing.

They try inviting Max to go with them to the next team surf session but he begs off, something about a conference call or consultation or whatever. He uses a lot of big words none of them are trained to understand. Then it’s inviting him to Steve’s for a team cookout, attempting to get him juuuust this side of tipsy so maybe they can gently coerce him into the water. That fails because someone - probably Kono, everything’s a little fuzzy the next morning - suggests a game of Never Have I Ever and they all get spectacularly wasted. It eventually just devolves into trying to get Max in the water at all.

“You know,” Danny says one day when he and Steve are leaving the Palace to head to a crime scene. “I think Max is fucking with us. He’s fucking with us and he’s enjoying it, and Steve, I cannot tell you how much that irritates me.”

"You definitely could,” Steve replies.

It’s been weeks. Weeks of staking out Max’s place - Steve’s idea, obviously, because if he doesn’t get to stalk someone to sate his own curiosity at least once a month his right eye starts twitching - of following him on his lunch breaks, his free time, his dates with Sabrina. It gets so involved, and they’re losing so much sleep over it, that eventually Jerry just makes an app for them where they can report their Max Sightings(tm) and try to work out a pattern in his movements.

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

It’s Jerry who figures it out.

“I think we have a mole.” When all he’s met with are the exasperated stares of his teammates, he continues. “Hear me out. I was looking at the data from the Maximum Sightings app --”

“Still not a good name,” Danny says.

“--and, after using every algorithm I could think of and a few I definitely have no knowledge of,” he looks around the room shiftily. “I realized something didn’t make sense. You see, some of these sightings don’t work. As far as we know Max has never been to these areas, has never had need to be in these areas. No family, no friends, not even his dentist--”

“You know where his dentist is?”

Jerry waves Lou off. “Irrelevant. Once you take those data out, though, you get...this.” A map pops up on the computer table in front of them, a number of concentric circles surrounding the general vicinity of the North Shore. An area someone they know really likes to go when they want to surf but avoid the tourists.

“I’m taking away her rifle.” Steve shoves back from the table and heads for the door. “Forever.”

“Nice of you to finally catch on,” Kono says as the team approaches her. A good number of people are on the beach, a few out in the water, but it’s not crowded like most places are this time of day. “Some investigators you are.”

“Why?”

Kono smiles. “Because I could?”

A few of them nod in reluctant agreement. They probably would have done the same thing if given the chance to drive everyone else crazy for their own entertainment.

“Anyway, you’re not here for me,” she says, and points out to the sea.

Max is the picture of content on his board, paddling out to meet the next wave coming in. He pops up like he’s been doing it his whole life, knees bent and arms out, body relaxed as he lets the ocean guide him back to shore. He’s almost unrecognizable without his usual stoicism.

“Huh,” Danny says.

“That about sums it up,” Lou replies.

Kono turns back to the team, arms crossed over her chest, one eyebrow raised. “You guys done following him around now?”

A chorus of muttered concessions is all she gets in response. Confident they’ve all been properly chastised, she sends them back to headquarters. She takes a second to look back at Max catching one last wave before he comes in for the day, a little bummed that this is no longer their little secret. She’s sure they’ll find some other thing to lord over the team’s head, another secret to drive them all crazy, but until then it’s business as usual.

In the meantime, they have real mysteries to solve.

#kelly watches h50 #my fic #max bergman #Hawaii five-0 #prompt

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yoolee · 6 years

Text

SLBP Next Gen OC Babble

UH warning for Major Character Deaths (that did not necessarily occur in game – but did in history), exactly zilch consideration given to reality when it comes to offspring. And, to be fair, exactly zilch consideration given to much of anything. I’m just writing. WHO KNOWS what will come out until it’s done. Know how in greek mythology Athena just banged her way straight outta Zeus’s head, fully formed? Mood. I feel you Zeusy. I do.

These don’t all exist in the same time/AU? Though I also overlap them willy-nilly as I please. FEEL THE SELF-DISCIPLINE. (It feels like nothing. Nothing at all). This isn’t all of them. Just the ones that my fingers needed to get out of their system. I’m just along for the ride. If I ever add the rest it’ll be to this post.

BABY BOOKWORM (F): Brilliant, brutal, beautiful – looks like Saki, with Mitsun’s intellect behind it. In another time, she might have been a scholar, completely content (if somewhat cloistered) with her books and her studies, but war compromised her life in a big way. Her father was determined to protect her, but also wanted her to be able to protect herself, so he taught her swordmanship alongside her brother and retainers, and she looks enough like her twin brother that she’s not above swapping places with him to give herself more agency. Her father was beheaded by the Tokugawa for supporting Baby Monkey’s bid and as a result her relationship with aforementioned BM is strained at best. She blames him for a lot – including what she perceives is a weak will and inability to do anything with the power he was born with, but also feels tethered to him and his success because of how much her father loved him and her brother still does. She will push and push and push and push and is not entirely capable of accepting that she might be wrong in any given situation. Never relaxes. Permanently stuck in acerbic tongue rage mode with only rare, brief glimpses of Being Actually Human.

BABY BOOKWORM (M): A fast, fast thinker, but quiet about it. Grew up on stories of how wonderful Lord Hideyoshi is (and then was, in the past tense) so did his best to emulate until it became natural. Laid-back, friendly, but oh-so-manipulative. Comes across as the friendlier of the two, but is actually even more hard-wired to Logic over Emotion than his sister. Has a mind for tactics and strategy but doesn’t care to apply it – he’d rather be on the battlefield, in the middle of the mindlessness of it, than using his brain to bring it about. Gives the impression of a taut string about to be plucked, if you pay close enough attention, which most people don’t because next to the vibrating rage of his twin, he seems super chill. Never actually relaxes, though he tries, unless he’s around kids.

BABY MONKEY: His father was a farmer who became a soldier, and Baby Monkey is a soldier who wants to be a farmer. He craves peace and stability and can’t entirely stomach what’s necessary to attain it. Constantly feels like he is trying to live up to a myth. Genuinely kind person. Manipulative when he has to be, but not as good at it as his father, and each failure makes him feel a little smaller in his shadow. Happiest when the people around him are happy, so he gets back up every time and tries again, and tries desperately to shove down his own dislike for the spotlight so he can use to it to make them happy.

BABY TANUKI: Has the world—except for her father—wrapped around her delicate, darling fingers, and she might very well strangle it if given the chance. Doe-eyed and dear she is perceived as something of a simpleton, fragile and sweet and gentle and tender and loving and she is none of those things. She is calculating and vicious and quite nearly straight up immoral, except sufficiently unmotivated that for now it’s enough just to be adored by everyone and think them fools for it. There is a sort of seething fury at her lot in life, in knowing that troops won’t follow her into battle or bow at her feet in fear of the blood she’s spilled, and the only person who gets that is her father, who begrudgingly raised her to find power she clearly craves in other ways, without ever spelling out that what was what he was doing, trusting her to be smart enough and strong enough to take what she was taught and find some way to do what she wants once she figures out what that is. She is clever and capable, just doesn’t have a goal. The endless, endless mind games she plays and the adorations she collects are mostly a manifestation of the crushing boredom that comes from being a lady of the castle, as it were. Scary MF. Intense and deceitful. But for all her uncaring, she’s never actually really hurt anyone (maybe a few sore hearts) or been genuinely cruel – and in fact, she’s probably smoothed more situations and saved more souls in her quest to be loved and cherished by all than not. WILY.

BABY FLOWER: Loves her father but is painfully exasperated by him. She is his greatest treasure, most dearly loved, and even though he tells her that literally every time he sees her, she is always secretly happy to hear it, and the way her father’s quiet melancholy clears for just a moment when he does. Dutiful, responsible, serious and elegant, she genuinely enjoys being a Lady and all that it entails. Constantly, CONSTANTLY clamps down on her urge to gather and collect pretty things because she’s seen what it does but oh, OH how that impulse is there. Has had a crush on Ai for basically forever, but the older girl only sees her as a precious little sister and is pretty firm about that, to baby flower’s eternal heartbreak XD Can drink every Echigo retainer under the table, every time, without ever turning her cheeks pink, not that she does so often, because even if no one else can tell what happens to her mind when she takes that first sip she can, and the places she can go when she does frighten her, though she grimly appreciates knowing they are there if she needs them. Has an inherent nobility and grace that serve her very well.

BABY POET (Mitsuhide lol): COMPLICATED BUNDLE. Has an absolute, unbreakable, unbendable, unflinching code of honor. The world is black and white and there is no such thing as gray, and they live by that in a way most humans can’t manage or commit to. In a manner that often throws people though, they aren’t particularly judgey unless called on (usually by Baby Demon) to voice their thoughts, which are always, always honest and rarely easy to swallow. They don’t care what others do – it’s their own honor that matters, but it just makes them that much more of an astute observer, since they have little stake in others. They are incredibly perceptive and incredibly adept at getting to the heart of things in a way that can be unsettling if you haven’t been honest with yourself. Seems very quiet and polite and poetic—and to an extent, they are—but they also have a bit of a ‘burn down everything that is bad - including ourselves if are so - and start anew from the ashes’ take on life that can be, uh INTENSE. Not in any rush to do that – they’re pretty sure they’ll know when they’re called to do so. And they won’t flinch.

BABY DEMON: Solemn, quiet, serious, honorable. Saw a little too much a little too early and will spend his whole life trying to make up for debts that aren’t his – as well as the ones that are. Fully aware that if he manages to build the world in his vision there won’t be a place for him in it, which is probably why he hangs with Baby Poet, who knows it too. Often forgets about the little moments for himself – he works very hard to protect them for his followers (birthdays, blossom-viewing, weddings, good meals) but rarely, if ever, participates himself, until his retainers seek him out and drag him into it because they know he won’t break out of warlord mode without them forcing him to do so. Actually painfully shy and very, very sweet under it all, but ignores that because what value does that bring anyone?

BABY TIGER: Almost a carbon copy of his dad. Bold, brave, bigger than life. Charismatic and unstoppable, but not stupid (though he can be). Eyes are always shining about something. A realist who chooses to live as an optimist. Not a lord - the Takeda clan has been defeated by the time he is a teen, disbanded or absorbed into others, but he still loves people, and he is still a leader, and he will still protect anyone who asks it of him. Wanders hither and thither with Smolsuke, who chose to be his shadow like Sasuke was for his dad. Could care less about things like unity and Divine Rule - he cares about the people in front of him, and the lives they live now and what he has to do to keep them safe and make them better.

RANDOM RELATIONSHIPS:

Baby Bookworm (F) x Baby Tanuki: Should their paths ever cross they would loathe one another to their cores – mostly, yes, for the similarities simmering under the surface, the shared rage and brilliance. In particular, Tanuki would hate Bookworm for having the agency to go to battle, disguised as a man or not, and Bookworm would loathe her simply for the family she’s from and what they took from her, in addition to being a deceitful horror – because Bookworm would see through her instantly. Just like Tanuki would see through her and know just where to poke to make her hurt. IN THE MODERN WORLD they would be best friends who would rather die than admit a modicum of affection for one another, and probably occasionally contemplate murder, but would also be super chill roommies where Bookworm read and Tanuki murders throngs of zombies on a video game before getting dinner and bitching about the dumb people in their lives. Pants-wettingly TERRIFYING when they choose to be a united front.

Baby Bookworm (F) x Baby Monkey: Unadulterated rage and fearful sympathy. Bookworm hates him for not doing what she feels like he could be doing, not taking the power he has to make things better, and he feels guilt over what she’s lost and finds her presence exhausting (because it is). He also dislikes that she makes him feel inadequate, because it (possibly ironically, given her goals) makes it even harder to step up. Despite all of that, he really, truly wants her to be happy (in part, yes, out of his own guilt in her unhappiness) and that is motivating in its own way. They steer clear of one another, because it drains them both to go at it, which they do, every time, and so they spare themselves unless there’s no other choice.

Baby Brave x Baby Dragon: MEANT TO BE. Childhood love to something forever-lasting. They get to be happy because I said so. Fight me.

Baby Deer x Baby Jokester: They do settle! They stay in Europe for years until they decide it’s time for a family and they make their way back. Their parents know. Despite them supposedly running off without a trace, Nobuyuki shows up the day his first grandchild is born and kisses her brow before leaving, and a traveling merchant with a toothy grin sometimes stops by to deliver letters and goods that he refuses payment for. They don’t see their cousins, but their children meet theirs, someday.

Baby Flower x Baby Tiger: Baby tiger has been in love with her forever (or thinks he has been), but she pretty firmly prefers girls and has made that clear, so over time, they become best friends. Would not hesitate to die for one another, but they are both strong enough and smart enough and absolutely determined enough to manage to save the other’s ass without dying, because living for someone is so much better. He never quite gives up the torch he carries for her, but he tries to – even using her for advice on wooing and such XD since he’s pop’s ways work about 50% of the time.

Baby Bookworm (M) & Baby Monkey are also BFFS, as are Baby Tiger & Smolsuke

#sorry for shoving my BS tangential rambling on the fandom ^^;;;#I will try and keep it contained #I think it's mostly out of my system #slbp next gen

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what-the-hekate · 5 years

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The Becoming

There’s a lot I want to do with this blog, and I’m still putting it together in my head. I do know that I want to use it as a space to share my thoughts on witchcraft and related subjects, some of it centered around research into particular topics, and some of it just what I’ve been thinking about.

Right now, I have a lot of stray thoughts that aren’t ready to be developed into posts of their own. As I sat down to type some of them out and see where they went, I ended up running pretty far with a piece about my personal journey into witchcraft. And that seems as good a place as any to start.

I suppose I’ve always been attracted to the strange and supernatural, but I didn’t think of myself a witch (or even consider it) until I was a teenager. This was during the teen witch craze of the 1990s, when the movie The Craft and the TV series Charmed reintroduced the idea of witchcraft as something appealing and empowering to young women. I don’t remember which of my friends first got the idea to dabble in witchcraft; maybe it was me, maybe not. I do remember that someone got hold of a copy of a Silver RavenWolf book, probably Teen Witch, and that we had to pass it around because the girl who actually owned it was afraid her parents would find it in her room.

Looking back, I have mixed feelings about those books. I feel lucky that I was the right age at the right time to have that option offered to me—that I was a teenage girl in the 90s listening to Tori Amos and Liz Phair and Ani DiFranco and Paula Cole and Alanis Morissette, and that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on TV, and that pop culture in general was telling me I had power at the point in my life when I could’ve felt the most powerless.

Which Witch? A wordgame

At the same time, I wish there had been a greater variety of voices to hear about witchcraft from. Silver RavenWolf may have been a driving force behind a generation’s interest in witchcraft and Wicca, but her books were also full of bad information and skewed heavily towards one version of witchcraft. She doesn’t clearly distinguish between “witch” and “Wiccan”, and I think the passage in To Ride a Silver Broomstick about her associations with those two words explains why, but I also think it’s important to be clear that they aren’t wholly interchangeable. You can be a witch and not be a Wiccan; her books are about how to be a Wiccan. That’s what I tried to be as a teenager, and ultimately it’s why I drifted away from witchcraft in general over the next few years.

(Let me go ahead and say: Wicca is right for some people, and that’s fine. It’s not right for me.)

Some of my aversion to the Wiccan version of being a witch is instinctual and was pinged early on. when I was reading those Silver RavenWolf books. For me, being a witch was about female empowerment and independence, so I was confused when I got to the bit about worshiping a dual deity, the Goddess and the God. I never gelled with the Horned God on any level. It wasn’t to do with the similarity to the Christian devil; I wasn’t raised religious and I had no particularly strong feelings about anything in the Christian universe. I just didn’t feel at all compelled to adopt a central deity (or two) in general, and I really wasn’t interested in a male one.

Nor did I really care for the heterosexual duality of the Goddess/God, and all the binary sexual symbolism of things like the Great Rite and chalices and athames. At the time, I wasn’t consciously aware that I was queer (probably because it just wasn’t a possibility that I was exposed to very much). But I reacted to this whole Goddess/God thing turning up in my magical female empowerment pretty much the same way I reacted to a romance subplot suddenly taking center stage in a book I was enjoying. It wasn’t a dealbreaker, but I couldn’t help being annoyed that it was distracting from the stuff I was really there for.

Honestly, what probably played the biggest overt role in my move away from Wicca was simply that it was a religion. I’m just not cut out for religions. I find them interesting, and there are pieces of them that work for me sometimes, but on the whole it’s just not something that’s ever going to be a part of my life. Wicca is a very demanding religion. It’s highly ritualized, from the major holidays (the eight sabbats, plus the 12-13 esbats) down to the daily practices of spellwork. There is just a lot to do, and a lot of specificity about when and how to do it. I have enough trouble disciplining myself to do the other things I’m obligated to do in my life, like work and school and errands and keeping my house reasonably tidy and eating a vegetable on a regular basis. I was way worse at this at 14 or 15 years old. I got tired of rituals fast.

So TL;DR, I did not end up being a Wiccan. And because I’d gotten the idea that, in real life, witch = Wiccan, I didn’t think of myself as a witch anymore, either. If I have any lasting bitterness toward that segment of my path, that’s it. The identity of “witch” was an empowering, beautiful thing that I wish I’d been able to keep in my life even after my dalliance with Wicca was over. There were definitely times I could’ve used it.

In the years after that, I kept on being a little spooky and magical and all the things I’d been that had drawn me to witchcraft in the first place, just without a central identity to pin it all to. It’s interesting how things drift in and out of focus and concreteness depending on whether they have a name. The witch fad gave way to something else the way fads do, Buffy and Charmed eventually ended, and I didn’t think much about witches again until recently.

There’s a lot to delve into about why witchcraft has its resurgences when it has them; probably there are already a lot of essays on the subject. But generally, I think you tend to find women thinking witchy thoughts at times when they’re particularly under threat.

Much of my early/middle-early adult life coincided with the Obama administration. I’d only become really aware of politics toward the end of the Bush era. When 9/11 happened, I was in the middle of an unrelated nervous breakdown and just did not have the spoons to think critically about political issues; I was also 16 years old. I didn’t realize how fucked up things like the PATRIOT Act were until years down the line. I was in the dark in more ways than one, dealing with undiagnosed depression and anxiety and having to claw my way up out of its depths without even medication to give me a boost.

A Musical Interlude: What does this have to do with witchcraft...?

Two things kept me just this side of insane when I was in the depths: writing and listening to music. Of the latter, I still had the female artists who’d taught me how to be a woman, thank fucking god for them. And as I was trying to find a foothold in the long slow climb out of my depressive pit, I’d come across a Finnish band called HIM; for whatever reason, their particular brand of gothy romantic macabre intellectual music was exactly what my soul resonated with at that moment. I realized that I could vibe with men sometimes, provided they were the type of men who wrote poetry and wore eyeliner and a lot of black. This is probably how I ended up listening to Nine Inch Nails.

I was aware of NIN, as anyone who experienced the 90s was; even if that wasn’t your particular scene, you heard “Closer”. A lot of women around my age credit David Bowie in Labyrinth for their early confusing sexuality-related experience; mine was probably the “Closer” video. I think this explains a lot about me. But besides that, I hadn’t paid much attention to NIN until I ran into them again in 2007 or so, when they were doing this crazy metafictional thing called Year Zero around their latest album. I don’t remember exactly how I found it; maybe via Lost, which had its own thing like that and led me to the niche narrative medium of alternate reality games. Anyway, it was highly political, which was not what I remembered NIN being about, and as I was listening through the band’s back catalog and reading a bazillion interviews with brooding, sarcastic, witty, thoughtful Trent Reznor (look, I’m not completely gay), I got sucked into this thing.

I don’t remember whether I read this while I was diving into Year Zero or after, but in some interview or other I found out that Trent had just come out of his own darkness. He’d struggled with drugs and depression and nearly died, and when he finally got his shit together, he realized how much he’d been oblivious to, in his own life and in the world around him. Year Zero was political because he’d woken up, and it woke me up.

It’s interesting to me now to think that female music and male music acted like an alternating current in my life, one then the other driving me forward, yet I got absolutely zilch out of the hetero-duality of Wicca. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s also interesting that the avatars of that dynamic in my life were Tori Amos and Trent Reznor, since they had an important impact on each others’ lives too (that I didn’t know about till much later). There’s a bit in Tori’s book Piece By Piece where she talks about reconciling with the angry masculine energies she was drawn to at points in her life (I can’t remember if she specifically mentions Trent in that part, but I assume it’s at least somewhat about him), and her realization that she had a need to tap into energy like that sometimes. If anyone is the embodiment of feminine power to me it’s Tori, and reading her words about needing to channel masculine rage did and does resonate with me about the time in my life when male artists’ energies were what I needed to survive and evolve.

So anyway, back on the path: my dark times led me to Nine Inch Nails which, while the music was also helping me heal my soul, also focused my brain on the world I’d been ignoring. I became aware of, and pissed off about, politics in no time flat. I devoured Naomi Wolf’s The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. I watched C-SPAN of my own volition. In short, I realized that the system is fucked up. I realized that the things happening in America were literally insane, and I knew insanity. I learned the word “patriarchy”, but I’d known the thing it named for a long, long time. This was also the point when I realized I’d exhausted my lifetime stores of patience for bullshit and being fucked with; they have not, to this day, been replenished.

And then, like a lot of people, I thought the Obama years meant everything was okay forever. I mean, god, I sure felt like I deserved a break. There were ups and downs even then, but I really had no idea how fast and how far we could plummet down again until 2016.

Witch 2: The Rewitchening

I don’t believe you can be a woman and be aware of what’s going on in the world and not be angry. As I write this, my home state of Alabama has just passed an amendment (which may be useless; we do have the longest mess of a constitution in the world) aimed at undermining women’s right to an abortion. We have a president who says the most vile things about women on a regular basis, and a new Supreme Court Justice who is a rapist. There are a lot of rapists. There are a lot of men who beat up their wives and girlfriends and then go on to shoot up a school or a nightclub or a shopping mall, and we keep acting surprised, and we keep forcing women to share custody with their abusers and berating them for being abused. Women, everywhere, are under attack.

If there’s a single predominant reason I came back to witchcraft now, and why I think a lot of women are coming to witchcraft now, this is it. We are threatened, and that idea of female empowerment and strength and the potential to be feared by those who would harm us and to be fearless... it is as potent and attractive to us now as it was in the 90s, and the 60s, and probably so many times before.

I am a witch. I don’t belong to a religion, and I don’t feel obligated to be a witch according to anyone’s definition but my own. My witchery is a product of the path I’ve taken to this point, and is highly focused around female empowerment; that said, I recognize that other people’s witchery has a different shape, and different (or no) gender, and is religious or isn’t, and I acknowledge and respect that, too. I have zero interest in telling anyone else how to be a witch, or whether they can be.

I started this blog because I need to express myself, but also because I want to contribute to a diversity of voices about witchcraft that wasn’t available to me as a teenager. I want to put things out there in case someone else needs them. Honestly, I’m writing and gathering all the things that will eventually be here for a hypothetical, imaginary-but-maybe-real young witch who is maybe just a ghost of my teenage past, to tell her the things I wish I could’ve heard, and just to remind her that no one can tell you how to be a witch, and no one should try, and that there are so many different ideas and beliefs and voices and experiences out there for her to learn from, including the ones inside herself.

That’s my origin story.

#op #witchblr #personal

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jumpstartingjack · 3 years

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Trust the Process

After I returned home from my trip to Pinedale we knew that we wanted to put in an offer on the property. Being as this was our first dive into the world of real estate, we really had no idea what we were doing. This would be a continuing theme throughout the process of jump starting the Jack, not knowing what the heck we were doing but figuring it out as we go!

Since the property was in the possession of a trust, the process of making offers and the communication that followed from those offers was incredibly slow. We would submit an offer to our realtor and not hear anything for literally weeks on end. The chain of communication was our realtor, to their realtor, to the company overseeing the trust and then to the family. Four levels of communication that turned out to become one giant game of telephone. Understandingly, we became frustrated at the pace of the whole process began to feel as though we were the only party in the process that was truly serious about making a deal. Eventually we were able to overcome some of the hang ups in the communication line by being overly persistent and probably at times a little annoying.

Our first offer was slightly lower than their original asking price, but it was based on the condition that we would be able to gain additional financing of some kind. As we went down the rabbit hole, we began to learn more and more about the process of financing and the hurdles that we would have to overcome to obtain it for a property such as the Wagon Wheel.

Doing all of this in the midst of a pandemic was something that would play a significant factor in the process. In the current climate, no bank wanted to touch a property in the hospitality industry. Even though the tourism in Pinedale and the surrounding area had weathered the challenges of the pandemic extremely well, financial institution were more than a little wary of loaning money in the realm of tourism. To make matters even more complicated, there were no records on hand about the property and business itself. Like zero, zip, zilch. Whether the original owners had failed to keep records or if somehow those records had gotten lost in the shuffle of the trust, we still don’t know, but it was a glaring issue. Without profits and loss statements, banks had nothing to work off of and couldn’t calculate the risk on their end on investing. And then there was the issue of all the deferred maintenance that would have to be addressed before we could even open the doors of the motel. This was not a “turn key” property by any means. A new roof, parking lot, hot water heater, plumbing… all of it was more than any bank wanted to stomach.

During those first few weeks of the process I spent a significant amount of time researching local banks, calling those banks, pleading our case and casting our vision, and all to no avail. We cast the net wide and explored numerous avenues but it really didn’t look too promising. I then decided that if we wanted banks to be serious about us we needed to get serious about ourselves and come up with a bullet proof business plan that we could present. I spent weeks doing market analysis on the hospitality in the Yellowstone and Pinedale area. I called other motels in the town and was surprised at how open they were at giving me their experiences and advice. I came up with conservative spreadsheet projections on what we could expect in years one through five. I remember dreading the process when I started but as I did more research and put pen to paper (or stylus to iPad) I became more and more excited about the dream of the Jack and the vision that we had for the property. It also helped that as I did research I was coming up with promising numbers that were projecting that this dream could become something sustainable. Even with low calculations it seemed that we could really make this motor lodge dream into a sustainable enterprise. Throughout it all I found a renewed vigor.

Despite the quality of my research and the promising projections they displayed, we still found ourselves in an uphill struggle with potential lenders. What became even more frustrating is that many banks strung us along without any real intentions of working with us in the long run. I soon learned to state up front in my initial conversations that we were not interested in weeks of back and forth dealings and mountains of paperwork only to be met with a closed door that they knew would never open in the first place. I began to appreciated that banks that flat out told me no in the initial conversation.

It was looking more and more like we would need to explore an owner carry with the trust if we were going to be able to afford to purchase the property at the asking price. An owner carry loan is a loan that is carried by the owners of the property, basically cutting out the middle man or a bank. Payments are made to the owners of the property, with interest accrued, all with an understanding that in a certain number of years the loan would be refinanced through a bank and the owners would then be bought out entirely. It wasn’t an ideal situation by any means but it was looking like our only choice.

Kayleigh and I talked it over, discussed it with our realtor, and made an offer to the trust for an owner carry scenario. This was our last ditch effort to secure the property and it seemed like the family was interested in our proposition, but as we would come to find with the entire process of jump starting the Jack, nothing really is ever what it seems.

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coulscns · 6 years

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— ✧ KELSEY CHOW ?? no, that’s just EUDORA MAY COULSON !! she’s the TWENTY year old adoptive daughter of PHIL COULSON & MELINDA MAY ( DAISY JOHNSON & LINCOLN CAMPBELL ), and an UNDERGRAD at paragon. i hear she’s PASSIONATE & ADAPTIVE, but tends to be DECEITFUL & SHORT-TEMPERED. her file says that her power is ELECTROMAGNETISM MANIPULATION.

tell me who’s going to save me from myself when this LIFE is all i’ve known.

SECTION ONE OF THREE: BULLET POINT HISTORY trigger warnings for death, arson, injury, murder ( ? )

what would prove to be the most defining moment of dora’s life would actually happen BEFORE she was born. before her mother, daisy johnson, even knew that she was pregnant with his child, her father, lincoln campbell, sacrificed himself to save the world - and he did do just that, but he never knew what it cost him

and, what it cost daisy

had he lived, then there was no question ; he and daisy would have raised their baby, together, creating for themselves the families neither had ever had. they wouldn’t have been ready, not even a little bit, but it would’ve been ok so long as they were in it, together. but he didn’t live, and when daisy found out how her life was going to change in such a huge way a few weeks later.. she panicked

she wasn’t ready. the people that say that all a kid needs is love are only right some of the time - she could love her unborn child with everything in her, but that didn’t mean she’d feel any more confident about what was to come. it didn’t stop the voice at the back of her head, telling her how all of her family, all the people she cared for, ended up hurt or worse because of her. it didn’t stop her from realizing that she couldn’t do it - so she decided that she wouldn’t. but she had been in and out of foster homes for her entire life. she knew how hard and unforgiving the system was, and she couldn’t do that to her kid -

enter phil coulson and melinda may, daisy’s pseudo parents, everything she had ever dreamed that she would have in a family. how it came about involved far too many late night and emotional discussions - all that matters is that on february 21st, a baby girl was born, and on her birth cert she was named eudora may coulson

daisy remained in her daughter’s life, but never as a mother. if anything, she was a hip older sister figure, able to watch her child grow up happy and loved while said child knew nothing of the truth. they bonded over computer programming and video games playing, but dora was never any the wiser. it was just easier, that way. daisy knew that if she ever changed her mind, phil and melinda would allow the truth to be revealed - but even if she’d started to second guess herself as dora grew older, she couldn’t have ever ruined the family unit that they created for her

everyone else in phil and melinda’s shield family were her family too, of course, just as they would’ve been if she’d been raised by her mother. i imagine all the oldest people knew - but it wasn’t the kind of secret that everyone wanted to be the first to tell. it was one that was RESPECTED, if anything, and it wasn’t as if who raised her changed much. eudora was surrounded by an overwhelming amount of love and loyalty, and was a happy child, surrounded by strong people who she was able to look up to and learn from. the only complaint that people had with her was that she was obsessed with shield

it was understandable, of course. her parents being so involved, all of the people she knew being the same, eudora grew up thinking that working with the organization was as normal as working for the post office. she loved the idea of joining up and becoming a hero - so much so that around the time she turned thirteen, she REALLY started to pressure phil and melinda

she wanted to know when she could join, and get her security clearance, and go on top secret missions with them. they’d taught her some self defense, enough to make sure she could take care of herself if needed, but she wanted MORE, now - she wanted to be an agent, and do whatever it took. and of course, they tried to keep her away from that life, for as long as they could. they tried to keep her SAFE

and they kind of became stifling, over protective parents, in the process

and everyone knows what happens, when a young teen feels stifled by their parents. they rebel - and for dora, that took the form of many after school detentions and low tier vandalism and delinquency, until finally, not long after her fifteenth birthday, they got the call that she hadn’t turned up to school that day. they naturally thought she was skipping a couple classes, and would turn up again eventually -

except, she didn’t

when they actually searched her room, they realized that she had took all of her money and things

her dream ? become a vigilante hero. yes, she was one of THOSE teens, who couldn’t just choose one. she thought if she proved herself as capable, she’d somehow prove herself as more than capable to be an agent - and at the time, hitting the streets seemed like the best of ideas. when she was six states away, however, lacking money and a roof over her head, she realized she’d kinda hecked up

but she was stubborn as all hell. she was gonna MAKE IT - or at least, she was gonna do her best to make a name for herself, before they tracked her down. she was good at covering her tracks, but dora knew that eventually, she’d get found. it was a question of when, but for the time being, she tried to do as many heroic things as she could

as in. she walked a lot of old ladies across the road and saved some cats ( and one parrot! ) from some trees. as it turned out, there wasn’t a lot of hero deeds out there for a homeless kid to do

a few more heroics, and a lot of near misses from her shield fam in tracking her down ( listen - they’re the best at their jobs, but the unexpected side effect of dora trailing them for YEARS was that she’d picked up on all the best ways to go on the run ), and we’re gonna fast forward to the second of dora’s defining moments

terrigenesis. i bet y’all thought i was gonna ignore this lil home slice being an inhuman. guess AGAIN !

it had taken an age, but dora had reached san diego - and at the diner she worked at ( shoutout to the people who had no issues in hiring an underage girl w no papers ), she overheard something that led her to what she thought would put her name into the young heroes hall of fame for life. it seemed like an arms deal. that was what it SOUNDED like, anyway. lots of “we meet at midnight”’s and “make sure to bring the gear”’s and blah blah blah, she kinda tuned out for the most part, but her sweet lil innocent mind had gone straight to GUNS instead of drugs, which probably woulda made more sense

she tailed the guy when he left the diner, managed to sneak her way into the warehouse after him, and watched as he met with just two other guys- two? two! that made THREE altogether, and any vigilante hero can handle three assailants

they didn’t have any guns with them, though. or bags of drugs. just a small wooden box, which they were, she assumed, trading for the briefcase full of cold hard cash. she wasn’t about to tell the guy she’d tailed he wasn’t getting his moneys worth, though. she didn’t question it - as they held out the little wooden box she had appeared, taking out the guy she’d followed with a sweeping move, and then- yikes

one of the others had reached for his gun. he was raising it towards her, when they all realized at the exact same time that the little wooden box had toppled from the third guys hands in the commotion. it was sailing towards the floor, they looked like if they weren’t already destined to being too slow they’d have shouted, or tried save it, but they were all stuck and she was wondering if it was a bomb and then-

the wood splintered. the crystal inside shattered. the explosion of what seemed like dust enveloped all four of them, and the last thing that eudora thought was - dying thanks to asbestos fucking SUCKED

she doesn’t recall what happened next. she was too young, to go thru terrigenesis - and it’s been long since proven that anyone unprepared, or too young, or BOTH, will suffer consequences. for eudora, it was coming to exactly three days later getting wheeled out of a back alley on a gurney, the noise of the ambulance going right through her skull, the flashing lights killing her eyes. some lady had seen the passed out teen and panicked thinking that she was dead, and honestly, eudora wasn’t ruling it out as an option

she couldn’t remember anything that happened, after she had gotten to the warehouse. zilch. nada. nothing. which was kinda good, i suppose, considering the last thing she’d seen before terrigenesis took her was the petty criminals before her crumbling to dust. and also kind of bad, because when an EMT tried to lean over and check her eyes with another annoying torch, she, uh...

electrocuted him

it was p bad

the other EMT’s screamed smth about her being a freak or whatever, and she was DEFINITELY freaking out, and it was a good job they hadn’t thought she’d be much of a threat and hadn’t strapped her to that gurney because she was fucking outta there like a flash, even though when they came to their senses, they tried to stop her

things were uh . how you say... not good !

she was alone, she was scared, she was going through changes that she didn’t understand - now would be such a good time to ruin her some more, but finally, something went right. a bystander from the whole ‘maybe killing an EMT and injuring three others’ thing followed her ( it’s not as creepy as it sounds ), and just.. well. happened to be a member of a very special group i can’t wait to namedrop

enter: a teeny tiny san diego based branch of the brotherhood of mutants, left mostly to their own devices. their scout brought in what she thought was another newly displaying mutant - and in her humble defense, after a display of their powers, eudora didn’t have any real. reason. to DOUBT she was a mutant

it wasn’t like she knew she was an inhuman. because.. she didn’t. and she couldn’t remember what she’d gone through to get her powers, because, plot convenience. and really. it was a case of mistaken identity on like. both their sides

things looked up, immediately. the mutants she ran with for the next while were more than helpful at showing her how to use her powers, and under their leaders wing, eudora learned more about mutants and their struggles and .. more about herself, or at least, that’s what she thought. she was a mutant ( haha ). she was a part of the unfairly treated minority, now, and eudora had always been a passionate, strong willed, and STUBBORN girl. she fell RIGHT into their ideals, accepting them wholeheartedly, and

well

remember when i said things would go right

i meant they’d go right for like a few months, tops, and then i’d ruin it again

she was pretty powerful. especially in the tiny group that she ran with. and once they realized that, and realized that she was on board with them - hook, line, sinker - it got easier and easier to wind her up and watch her go. she started carrying out jobs for them. sometimes it was getting money, when it was low and they needed the cash to get by. sometimes it was help in burning down a warehouse containing weapons that they’d been tipped would be used at the next pro-mutant rally. sometimes, it was hurting people. twice, it was a lot more serious than that.

but eudora was among who she thought were her friends and allies - and in a way, she was, but that didn’t negate the fact that she was young and impressionable and wholly in over her head, and they took advantage of that fact

she was starting to do more and more questionable things, and it was bad

REALLY bad, in fact

there was an anti-mutant rally planned to happen the summer after she had turned eighteen, and eudora was their main event. from the sidelines of the huge stage those against her kind spoke from, she focused all of her power on the electricity lines. the microphone, the speakers, the lights - everything exploded. the wires went up in flames. the wood of the stage caught, the people on top were heading towards fiery deaths if they hadn’t dove in time -

thankfully, shield turned up.

a camera had caught eudora and some of her friends scouting the area in the early hours of the morning. facial recognition tipped off the team, and they had rushed to get there as soon as they could. if it hadn’t been for their presence, everyone on the stand that day would have died - thanks to eudora. not that they realized that, at first

her friends scattered and she was too stunned at the sight of her mom and dad striding towards her to do the same. the family was reunited in the chaos, but she had always been told that honesty was the best policy - and she told them then and there her involvement in what had happened that day. they didn’t take her back on the bus as their kid.

well. they did.

but she was also under arrest

#yikes

in a story full of yikes’ i really hate to end, but here is where i must. it goes without saying that they were able to have her freed and her record wiped, after a few call ins of favors. and with her back, they got some time together before they decided that maybe sending her to the academy would benefit her - she’d picked up a lot of extreme ideas while she had been away, it seemed, and they wanted their daughter back

but much as they wanted her back, she couldn’t just reappear from nowhere. and eudora HAD changed. she was different. she was a mutant - and yes, they foolishly allowed her to keep on believing that because she had already been through so much, adding in that her almost sister slash aunt was actually her mother would have been too much, full stop. and she knew what it was like, for mutants

she still wanted to help the brotherhood

so once at the academy and away from her prying parents eyes, she reached back out to her friends-

and that’s where we’re at w eudora coulson! she’s an inside man that aint nobody suspecting!

SECTION TWO OF THREE: EXTRA DETAILS

her quick stats page, which includes personality tidbits, can be found HERE

eudora isn’t bad. i feel like after all my talk of her brotherhood dealings, i needa clarify that. she ISN’T bad. or evil. or whatever else you’d apply to a typical ‘villain’. she’s misguided - especially given that she thinks of herself as one of their own. her first experience with mutant kind after her change was a very extreme mutant kind, and she’s adopted their ideals as her own, and wants to work with them, to help them. but that’s because she thinks she’s doing the right thing. all she’s ever wanted to be is a hero. she still thinks that in a way, she’s being one

she has a single, self done tattoo, on the inside of her left wrist ; roman numerals that she typically covers up with a very large bracelet, which make absolutely NO sense to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re looking for. they’re coded coordinates for the exact whereabouts of the san diego branches safe house - and an identification mark, for if she runs into anyone affiliated with them.

she used a codename while running with the brotherhood group that she ran with, which was HYADES - not just a cluster of stars, but also the name of the sisterhood daughters of atlas in greek mythology, of which one is named eudora. when she was little, she used to have a mythology obsession that everyone actively encouraged, because knowledge is power and all that jazz - it was the very first name to come to mind, and she ran with it for as long as she ran with them

she wasn’t always rly short tempered. that is .. tragically .. another terrigenesis side effect, on top of the whole ‘losing all the time immediately during and after the change’ thing. there’s just.. so much going on in her head, now. a lot of extra power flowing in her veins, etc, etc - all her emotions are heightened but its mostly when she gets mad that people realize, because eudora goes straight to RAGE.

SECTION THREE OF THREE: WANTED CONNECTIONS

one connection i REALLY want, and will probably put a wanted ad in for, is one that’s ,, a bit much to explain, but makes sense in my head. i want eudora, a self called HERO, to have her own ARCH-NEMESIS - and everyone knows that the best of those are the ones that the hero created, themselves. i’d love if one of the people doing the terrigenesis trade had ALSO been a dormant inhuman, and i’d love if they had gone through the change with her. i imagine that they’ve been out there not too far from her all this time, and are p angry about the whole ‘she kinda had a part in their friends deaths’ thing - n also maybe the whole ‘definitely having a part in them gaining powers that they mightn’t have wanted’ thing. i’d LOVE that kind of hero/villain dynamic, so if ur interested. pls. hmu

FRIENDS ! literally any and all kind. she dropped off the face of the earth for about 3 years, but before that she probably had plenty of all types of friends, and since then, she’s probably made more. i just want her to hav some connections, ya know?

looks to the shooting stars n wishes for a daisy johnson

i dont kno ive been typing for two hours im so tired

ill come up w more

i swear

for now

pls lov

n plot w me

thank u for coming to my ted talk

#sidekick.intro #「･ﾟ ★ ･ * 🇮 🇰🇳🇴🇼 🇮'🇲 🇦 🇼🇴🇷🇰 🇮🇳 🇵🇷🇴🇬🇷🇪🇸🇸 ― eudora may coulson. 」#「･ﾟ ★ ･ * 🇼🇭🇦🇹 🇹🇭🇪 🇫🇺🇨🇰 🇮�� 🇺🇵 🇰🇾🇱🇪 ― ooc. 」

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turntabletokyo-blog · 6 years

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Make Love Not War: Chapter 1

(Note: I don’t have an AO3 account right now, so I’ll just be posting my fics on here and then posting them back on there later, feel free to leave any comments!) Summary: Steve has been missing for two months after El closed the gate and the Snow Ball took place. While the rest of the town copes, Billy continues to convince himself that he doesn’t give a shit. ______________________________________________________________

It's been two months since Steve had gone missing, posters rested on telephone polls and outside of school walls, questioning where he might have went. His disappearance was grim, but in reality, life in Hawkins continued on as it usually did. The only peoples lives who had fallen to less than simply default were the ones who cared about him, and this honestly showed who that was. Because despite the masses of people who kissed Steve's ass while he was present and high on the high-school food chain. They did so to gain cred or impress him, or impress other people, or maybe just to impress themselves. Despite all that, most of those people couldn't try less to find out what had happened to him.

Though, the people who were really involved with him of course have been struggling and brainstorming and grieving this entire time. Nancy, the children, the parents of said children, Jonathan, Hopper. But each of those people knew what it really meant when someone went missing in Hawkins, Indiana. So that glum heavy feeling in Hawkins rested upon their shoulders entirely, and so did the responsibility to do something about it.

Billy didn't care, or, at least that's what he convinced himself, every time he saw the aforementioned Kings stupid face plastered outside the school he took it upon himself to tear it down in disgust. As far as he told himself, he didn't know what had happened to Steve and he didn't care. This mulleted asshole continued on his days as if nothing had happened. Going on sleazy dates which consisted only of cigarettes, car speakers and booze breath smooches in the front seats of his Camaro.

He also continues to lay in his room and spin thrash metal records while disguising any thoughts he has in a hazy cloud of smoke. He had hardened himself long ago, become cold and callous, and been doing it for long enough to avoid any feelings of care for a boy he knew he fully despised.

________________________________________________________________

After sucking in a heavy puff of smoke on an overcast, mid-Monday. He decided to step out his room. Maybe go pump some iron downstairs, or watch whatever crappy flick is on TV. Though, once outside, it was hard to avoid hearing the low yet frantic voice of his step-sister yelling into what he could only assume was the walkie talkie he'd seen her holding previously.

"No Dustin! Who knows where he could be or how we're going to get there. I say we just follow Mike's game plan and leave tomorrow night. We need to get this over with.

"Game plan? Billy was as thick as a world almanac so his first attempt at understanding was entirely unsuccessful.

"I know Lucas.. I miss him too. And if no one else is going to bother helping to find him then we just HAVE TO do it ourselves."

Oh my god. Billy couldn't help it, actually he wasn't quite sure why he did this. It was honestly just a visceral reaction for him to slam the door open with his foot. Something he hadn't done in a long while.

Max, jumped at the sound, eyes wide but hand still tightly wrapped around the walkie. After her initial moment of shock she narrowed her eyes in confusion and contempt almost giving Billy a "what the fuck do you want" look. This girl has known for months now that she has absolutely no reason to fear him, and he knew that as well. So why did he take the liberty to kick the door open? What was he hoping to accomplish? And what he had wondered: why had that conversation even caused him to care.

But, Billy was nothing if not confident, so he continued on as he had originally intended. "Game plan? Let me get this straight little red riding “good”. Are you trying to find the shit lord who disappeared?"

Max stood up, she instinctually was holding down the microphone of the walkie, but the kids knew to keep their mouths shut on the other ends. "Shit lord?" She spat out with a surprised smirk. "Are you serious, Billy?"

Max and Billy hadn't spoken as fully as this ever since she pulled her stunt, everything after then had been angry huffs and threatening eye contact. She carried on, "He's been gone for two months. Don't treat this like it means nothing, I don’t care that you liked fighting him in basketball practice." She wrung out that last sentence in a mocking tone. "Don't be an idiot."

A small "Oooh" echoed through the walkie from the silly hat sporting boy.

Billy's face turned rage red and a few veins threatened to pop out his neck as he had to hold back from reacting to this kind of behavior. Previously, he may have stepped forward and toward her, responding, "What did you just say to me you little shit?" and grabbing her walkie from her hand only to crack it under the weight of his favorite pair of boots, but he knew better than that now. He ignored the kid on the other line and used his rage to continue his interrogation through and through. "You're really going to go looking for someone who's been kidnapped? In Hawkins? Do you guys think you're the fucking Scooby Gang? If he could have been found at this point then police would have done it." He snapped out. Knowing the weight of his words, but taking in his typical sadistic pleasure of them as well.

Yet, for some reason, the harsh past-tense he used, as if Steve was long gone... maybe gnawed at him a bit? Causing a slight sting around his... chest region. No, he just understood it (or rather, convinced himself) that that was purely his hatred for Steve shining through.

Now, Max knew Billy knew absolutely zilch about the upside-down. And she wasn't going to go telling her deranged socio-brother about another dimension hoping he would be completely understanding. The thought of him listening, placing his hand on his chin like a well-trained psychiatrist and attempting to understand and empathize with her story is almost more insane than she thought Lucas to be when he first told her.

Saddened by his words, and giving up on Billy at this moment, she looked down, letting the walkie lay limp by her side and dangle along with her thoughts.

"We know that. But... look you wouldn't understand."

Billy crossed his arms, finally having calmed down. "Why? Oh!" He said mockingly, "Is it because I'm an idiot?"

Max similarly crossed her arms, then caught herself mirroring Billy's actions and uncrossed them quickly."No. You wouldn't understand because... It's what he would've done for us, and we have no frickin' clue where he could be." Anger slowly welled up in her eyes, lips pursing, but she held it together and pushed everything out in the form of a yelling cry instead: "He could be kidnapped, or held hostage, or in frickin' China! or maybe he's a car salesman now! And he just forgot to tell us," She bit her lip "Or maybe he's... dead" (a small gasp fell from the walkie, surprisingly she was still holding the button.) Mad Max interrupted herself with a brief pause and then recollected. "He could be ANYTHING! And we're not going to just leave it, so I swear to god." She took a step forward, balling her fist and looking straight into eyes, unafraid. "If you try and stop us." She dropped her eyelids after this statement, eyes darkening, as if to express "we won't hesitate."

Despite the size difference, Max actually managed to pull out a subtle, drugged and unhappy memory from Billy’s mind so he moved back a step and held up his hands in a white flag position, almost shocked. "Go ahead. I'm not gonna' fuckin' stop you, but, just know." He leaned forward, continuing this dance of aggressor vs. aggressor. "He probably is dead".

Max's eyed widened fists pulled in tighter, inhaling quickly through her nose in shock. But she was shocked at the words, not that Billy said them. So she backed down, and sped back to her bed after realizing the tantrum wouldn't be worth it. Through sheer wisdom, she realized that her anger would be better directed toward trying to find her friend.

Billy backed off, but after pacing toward his room, slamming the door shut behind him and igniting another cigarette between his fingers as quick as possible, those last words which escaped his lips swirled around the back of his mind. He desperately attempted to avoid them. He felt that glum heavy feeling weigh down on him too.

#harringrove #steve harrington #billy hargrove #my fic #fic

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english2301 · 5 years

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Exercise #6

youtube

Waiting for _______________

Write a scene in which two characters are “waiting” for someone or something. It’s up to you who or what they are waiting for (their professor to show up to class? their package to be delivered by Amazon?), the important thing is 1. they can’t leave 2. the person or thing they are waiting for never shows up.

Things to consider while writing: How do you keep the scene interesting, tense, and dramatic without ever giving the audience what they ask for? Take a page out of Beckett’s book and use the absurd and the existential to inject humor and tragedy into your scene. Write at least 20 lines of dialogue (10 for each character), and see what comes of...waiting. Good luck!

------

By Annie

Bertram: Well, what do you want to do now?

Archibald: I don't know. The car door won't open.

Bertram: This is what happens when we get in your Ford Pinto. I can only hope no one rear ends us.

Archibald: Hey, I love this old car! She's my first car! I do want a new car though. We should buy a Lamborghini with this money. What do you think we should do?

Bertram: Call the police, perhaps? Tell them there was a robbery at the jewelry store?Archibald: What! No! I refuse. We may as well die in here, before I spend what years I have left in prison.

Bertram: Maybe we could've just stolen a Lamborghini. Or a Ferrari. Then we'd be in the new car.

Archibald: That's a great idea actually! Why didn't you say that sooner?

Bertram: Archie! You wouldn't hear of it! You and your receding hairline. You just wanted it to be like the good old days. Those days are gone.

Archibald: I'm sorry Bertie. We could go rob a car dealership after this.

Bertram: Or a game of table tennis. Something that won't raise my blood pressure. We could have double heart attacks.

Archibald: Maybe the locksmith? I did that once, when I got locked out of my car. Do you have any money?

Bertram: Besides the money we stole? Do you think he takes jewelry?

Archibald: Maybe we should call the police. I'm sure I could sweet talk them.

Bertram: I'm sure they'd go easy on us. We're senior citizens, after all.Archibald: How much is a prison sentence, for robbery?

Bertram: I don't rightly know. But between a nursing home and a prison, I'd gladly take prison. Maybe there'd be some young people who actually want to spend time with us.

Archibald: It's almost little Hugo's birthday now. Do you think we'll be out of here by then?

Bertram: Oh, probably. How old is Hugo now?

Archibald: He's going to be 20! Maybe he'd like a pretty necklace.

Bertram: I'm sure he'd appreciate that.

Archibald: Oh, I knew it was a good idea.

Bertram: Let's just call the police alright? I'm sure you can charm your way out of it, you old dog. Let's just hope they don't rear end us.

Archibald: Oh, Bertie. You know what, maybe I will. Do you have your phone?

Bertram: No. Archibald: I didn't think I'd need it for the robbery.

Bertram: Maybe we should scream for help, or break the window and crawl out.

Archibald: My car window? Absolutely not!

-----

Waiting For the Last Bus of the Night

By Jacqueline

The setting: A bus stop at night. There is a bench for bus patrons and a weather shelter surrounding the bench. There is a bus stop sign in front of the bus shelter, to the left of it. There is a singular streetlight overhead. There is no one else around.

The characters:

Elliott

Peter

(They are two young men, in their 20s, who are friends. They are trying to get home after a late night at a mutual friend’s house. They walk onto the scene with the clothes on their backs and nothing more.)

-- Elliott: Did we make it? Did the last bus leave yet?

Peter: (checking his watch) Well, it’s 1:02am and it says the last bus should be here at 1:05am. So we have a few minutes.

Elliott: Okay. You’re probably right...but what if it came early and we missed it?!

Peter: Don’t worry about that right now. The buses have been on time for us today, so I’m sure it should be no different now.

Elliott: (steps into the road to look in the direction of the bus and steps back onto the sidewalk next to Peter) I don’t know, Peter, I don’t see any headlights in the distance.

Peter: We’ll be fine. We still have a few minutes.

Elliott: Alright. I’m just worried since it’s getting chilly.

Peter: I’m chilly too, but we will be warm soon. Don’t worry.

Elliott: That’s true…(he paces into the road again to check for signs of the bus and then back) Hey, Peter, did you ever notice how quiet it gets out here at night? It’s so lively and busy all day, but the air is eerily still at night.

Peter: Yeah, I suppose you’re right. It seems everyone retreats into their homes until dawn.

Elliott: (placing his hand on his chin, indicating a deep thought) But what if they’re not? What if we think we’re standing at this bus stop at night alone, but really we are in a liminal space…

Peter: Liminal space?

Elliott: Yeah! It’s the phenomenon that certain areas at certain times of the day, (pause) and especially night, blur the lines between reality and other dimensions. Like, there’s this story I heard about this guy who stopped for food at a rest stop diner while he was on a road trip in 2012. When he got into the diner, everything seemed like it was straight of the 1950s: the music on the jukebox ranged from Buddy Holly to “Earth Angel” by The Penguins, the waitresses’ outfits, the way people spoke, and even the design of the restaurant itself. He figured it was just the theme of the diner and enjoyed his meal and the service he received. He paid in cash and hit the road. About a month later, he took another road trip, this time with a friend, and decided to show him this peculiar diner. However, when they pulled into the parking lot, there was nothing but the abandoned shell of what used to be a diner. Baffled, he asked a cashier in the gas station market why they closed the diner down. The cashier looked at him with a confused expression and replied, “You’ll have to summon a ghost for the answer. That diner hasn’t been open since 1955!” And the conclusion, Peter, is that it was a liminal space! Somehow he had passed through to a different timeline and back into his own. Crazy, right?!

Peter: (with an expression of contemplation) That’s pretty fascinating, Elliott, but I hate to break it to ya: I don’t think we passed through to a different timeline. I think people just sleep at a normal time around here.

Elliott: (throwing his hands up) You’re no fun!

Peter: (shrugging) I tend to be more realistic about things.

Elliott: (walks back into the road to check for the bus and back to the sidewalk again. He takes a deep breath and sighs) I’m starting to think the bus came and went before we got here.

Peter: (checking his watch again) Well, it does say that it’s 1:05 am. It should be here by now. You sure you didn’t see any headlights in the distance?

Elliott: Nope. Nada. Zilch. I told you!

Peter: Don’t be so pessimistic. Maybe, rather than early, the bus is late.

Elliott: Now who’s the realist? It sounds like you’re being awfully optimistic here…

Peter: I’m just saying! The bus isn’t always on time.

Elliott: I know. Sometimes they’re early, and they leave two guys behind in the cold!

Peter: (checks his watch again, then looks around. He takes a turn at walking into the road to check for any sign of headlights, and then spots some). See! There! I told you. There’s the bus. I knew it. (he steps back onto the sidewalk)

Elliott: (steps into the road to confirm Peter’s sighting and jumps back onto the sidewalk with excitement) Fine! Maybe you were being the right amount of realistic. I’m just excited to get home and get cozy.(The vehicle approaches, but as it gets closer, the two young men realize now that it is not a bus at all, but rather, a garbage truck)

Elliott and Peter: (at the same time) Damn it!

(The road and surrounding area fall silent again after the garbage truck is further into the distance. The two young men are silent for a few seconds, letting a shared sense of disappointment hang in the air for a moment).

Elliott: So….

Peter: (closing his eyes and shaking his head) Don’t say it.

Elliott: (with a smirk, tauntingly) Maybe I’m the realistic one after all! Let’s just order a taxi or something. I just wanna get home.

Peter: Let’s just give it a few more minutes. I don’t have the kind of money to just go spending it on a taxi. Plus, I wanna get the most out of this unlimited bus pass.

Elliott: (rolls his eyes) Can’t you just admit defeat for once and call it a night?

Peter: You can go ahead and call a taxi! I’m just gonna save my money and give it some more time. If, after another 5 minutes, there’s still no bus, I’ll take a taxi home.

Elliott: No, I’m not gonna leave you out here alone. (sighs) I guess I can wait 5 more minutes.

Peter: You’ll be thanking me when we’re on that bus and not 25 bucks poorer!

Elliott: I hope you don’t end up eating those words. (Elliott steps into the road to check for any sign of the bus yet again, and then back onto the sidewalk)

Peter: So, what’re you gonna do as soon as you’re home?

Elliott: Hmm...I’m gonna jump in the shower and knock out in bed while Netflix plays in the background. (closing his eyes and tilting his head towards the sky as if meditating) I can almost feel the comfort of my sheets right now… (he lets the thought linger for a moment and opens his eyes. He turns to Peter) What about you?

Peter: I’ll probably eat a late night snack and then chug a gallon of water. I’m so thirsty all of a sudden.

Elliott: (playfully) All that crossing into and out of liminal spaces sure makes you thirsty.

Peter: (rolls his eyes) You want to time jump so bad!

Elliott: Now that’s a sentence you hear everyday.

Peter: (steps into the road yet again and checks his watch, then steps back onto the sidewalk) I’m starting to think…

Elliott: Starting to think...that maybe we should just get a taxi?

Peter: (sighs out of defeat) I didn’t want to admit it, but, I think so.

End.

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rafisaba76 · 4 years

Text

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years

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Missed Classic 71: Asylum – WON!* and Final Rating

by Will Moczarski

Med Systems Marathon Overview:

(a) 1980 Summary (b) Reality Ends (1980) (c) Rat’s Revenge / Deathmaze 5000 (1980) (d) Labyrinth (1980)

* with a little touch of “lost”.

On the Road to Find Out

So I solved the roadster puzzle. It took some gall, it took some nerve, I’m still not completely convinced that it’s fair but that’s what you get for playing 1981 adventures, I guess. The “trick” was to light the lantern with the matches and put it down with the nails. Either the light or the warmth of the lantern attracts the roadster and makes it crash (are we in the storyworld of Daniel Suarez’ Daemon now?). I’ve got some issues with this. Firstly, this is not the full solution of the puzzle. After having dropped both items (the lit lantern and the nails), I seemingly need to leave the corridor to unconfuse the roadster about whom it should attack. This took me some sweet time to figure out as I’d already thought that I was on the wrong track when it didn’t work after running to and fro along the corridor. Secondly, the roadster crashes in the corridor next to me (because I had to leave, right?) and still I become unconscious, effectively sleeping through almost the remainder of the game time. This didn’t bother me at first but it makes the following endgame incredibly difficult and completely unfair. You have all the time in the world to solve everything before the roadster puzzle and then suddenly it’s 30 minutes until lockdown. Talk about tightening the screws. Thirdly, the nails don’t simply deflate the tyres of the roadster, causing it to crash into the walls of the narrow corridor (which would be somewhat believable if it was going fast enough) but it disassembles straight away, leaving a trail of various ex-roadster objects along the corridor. It’s rich pickings: I find a crank, the steering wheel, the voltage deregulator, the headlight and the windshield wiper. Naturally, attempting to pick up all of the items in addition to those I’m already carrying exceeds the inventory limit. It would be no fun at all without a few more save and restore exercises, would it, game?

After the roadster puzzle, I can go back to the asylum proper using the copper key to unlock the maze door from the inside. It may be possible to save the roadster puzzle for last and go exploring with the copper key before entering the second maze for a second time (to gain some precious time) but for the moment I don’t feel like restoring back to before the maze. Instead, I prefer to keep losing the game – again and again. Thirty minutes of game time are really not that much, or, to be precise: 30 * 40 / 60 = 20 minutes of real time. Also, I feel a bit cheated after having tried the copper key on all of the remaining locked doors and coming up with one new room. One! In the room, there’s an inmate offering a wire hanger to me. It’s a similar situation to the one with the fisherman – there’s no box, just a verbal description of the item which has yet to appear. I deem it likely that I can trigger the item drop by trading in one of my items, however, trying to offer anything to the inmate by using my trusted GIVE verb tells me that he doesn’t seem to hear me. Do I not have the right item? I restore and try different parts of the roadster wreckage but no dice. I spend over an hour in this situation, perpetually restoring after twenty minutes as the guards come back (where have they been, anyway?) and catch me looking tired – me, the protagonist, but really also me, the player. After a well-deserved break from the game I decide to check out the manual once more as it has already helped me through some hard times. And what do you know? I can TRADE stuff for other stuff. In hindsight, this must be a reasonably well-known jail/asylum stereotype, and I come up with the right solution straight away after I’ve thus found out the correct verb: of course he wants cigarettes, just like the lockpicking inmate who had helped me before (I have to remember to throw some CAPs his way when all is said and done). I feel a bit stupid for not seeing this connection – cigarettes get me a lockpicker as well as a lockpick – but the game still has it in for me. Exploring with the wire hanger gets me nothing, nothing and nothing. I can’t open any of the doors with it, and the parser doesn’t even understand me when I try. At first I think that this is another parser problem but after EXAMining the hanger, something inside me dies a little. There’s a message on it telling me to get the passkey next time. The passkey? I’ve never even heard of this item. This is what Graham Nelson meant when he said a game shouldn’t expect you to have knowledge of prior (game) lives to solve a puzzle in his player’s bill of rights. Could I not trade in the hanger for the passkey, you ask? But that would be silly, wouldn’t it? No, I have to restore and trade the cigarettes for the passkey. My current ratio of about 100 minutes per puzzle remains stable.

The passkey gets me into a couple more rooms. I can enter the cell of an inmate who threatens to kill me and obligingly follows up on this when I let him out. Furthermore, I can enter the cell of an inmate who has been giggling foolishly from the beginning of the game. Also, if I wear the uniform, I can enter a room with a computer (neatly boxed, as usual, although they made the box on the table sort of look like a computer) in the administrative wing of the asylum. I don’t know what to do with either of them and don’t have a clue what else I should do before I get caught. So far I haven’t seen even the slightest hint at an exit. I am very close to checking out the official hint sheet as issued by Med Systems back in the day but before doing that, I examine every item I’ve got and see if that might tell me anything. Indeed, one of them sticks out: the gold I found in the second maze appears to be “fool’s gold.” It may belong to the giggling inmate. I also figure out that I can pick up the computer but I don’t know what to do with it. The game doesn’t know the verbs USE, TURN ON or TURN OFF and I’m kind of at a loss about what the computer might be useful for. But first things first: If I hand the gold over to the inmate who’s giggling foolishly, he’s very happy about it and leaves his cell immediately, yelling “gold”. Who’s the greater fool now?

So I should listen to the killer but not to Renfrow?

The End of All Things

It’s exam time again. If I pick up the computer first, I can actually examine it, too, which tells me that “it is an alarm!” That is my first, very indirect hint at some sort of exit but I’ll take what I can get. Another brute-forcing session sees me use all of my vocabulary with the computer but most of it doesn’t work. Only “smash computer” returns a follow-up question: “with what?” It must be the bat. I restore and bring the bat to the computer room this time, trying to smash it with the bat. Success! The computer crumbles to dust (I’m surprised it doesn’t disassemble) but I am caught as the noise attracts the guards right away. That’s fair game. If I take the computer back to one of the empty cells, I can smash away at it happily.

Back to the fool and the killer. I try to free the killer once more wearing a uniform but that changes nothing. I visit the guru to maybe get a clue from him how I should proceed but zilch. The fool is my only real open thread, so I examine his room again more carefully. It is outrageously empty. Maybe he will help me with something later after he ran away with my (his?) gold? The next hours are very tiresome. I go through many rooms again, restoring frequently due to the time limit. I focus on the hand grenade and the various parts of the broken roadster, as I haven’t found a use for either of them. Nothing works. After a long, long time I find out that I can open one more door with my new passkey. I am ecstatic about it! However, it’s just another empty room.

I read the manual again. I find the verb “charge” but that doesn’t work at all in the game. There is also a suspicious-looking example: “put the box under the bed.” Why would anyone want to do that? I spend the next hour or so putting things under beds and am shocked and amazed that they just disappear. If I “put copp(er key) unde(r) bed”, it’s gone! I try to look under the bed, pull the bed, examine the bed (“I see nothing special!”), lie down and sit on the bed which gives me a curious reply: “Forget it for now!” As I don’t have any other hints to go on, I do the same with every bed in all of the empty rooms – the one next to Renfrow’s, the one I can now open with the passkey – and always get the same reply: “Forget it for now!” Well, maybe it was all for nothing. When I try to sit on the fool’s bed, “a fool prevents this.” Being fed up with him, I simply attack him but he rips me to shreds. But wait – I know how to get rid of him. Because I’m curious, I also try to lock the door to prevent him from escaping (the same way I tricked Renfrow way back when). Doesn’t work. A fool still disappears. However, if I sit on his bed after he’s gone, the alarm sounds and I’m caught. Is this what I have to do?!

Well, I already know where I can find the alarm and how I can destroy it. I restore back to after the second maze and get the passkey, get the computer, smash it and get rid of the fool by making him an offer he can’t refuse. I sit down and … bloody hell, it’s the endgame. Was there some hint I overlooked? How was I ever supposed to guess this without brute-forcing it? CAPs for anyone who might be able to enlighten me what I just did. Is there some kind of idiom (a fool and his bed are easily parted?) I’m not aware of?

Beloved meteor!

And what do I get for being lucky? Another maze. Maybe I’m not as close to the ending as I thought I was although the time limit suggests otherwise. Mapping is incredibly tedious as I have to restore time and again. Finally, I only discover two rooms and they’re both locked. The maze is not nearly as large as the previous two. Unlocking one of the doors lets me enter a strange room with a professor sitting behind a desk. On the desk there is some sort of contraption that looks like two model mountains, possibly. I can’t talk to the professor or ask him for the exit. However, I can give him stuff. He takes everything and nothing happens, as communicated by the game: “He takes it – and nothing happens.” Apart from being another nasty way of dead-ending the player (as I shall find out a bit later), this is essentially guesswork. It seems likely that the broken roadster will come in handy at this point, though – maybe the professor needs a variety of its parts for that thing on the desk? I try all of them and the voltage regulator does the trick. “The last piece for my time machine!”, he exclaims, resetting the game clock to 5 pm. Did the game just give me a break? I can hardly believe it.

However, there’s no need to celebrate just yet as I can’t find a way to unlock the second room and there’s no other way out of the maze. The passkey doesn’t fit, neither does the steel key, the copper key or the silver key. When I restore back (in anger) I see that I have all but forgotten about the ancient key although I had previously remarked that it felt like an endgamish item to me. I seem to have been right all along. The ancient key unlocks the final door, leaving me alone with a(n invisible) catapult.

Are you absolutely positive?

Now this is where I finally have to give up which is why this WON! post genuinely feels like a LOST! post to me. So far I have brute-forced or guessworked every last stupid puzzle but this final bit of parser-wrestling eludes me. Also, I wouldn’t have brought the necessary item in a thousand years, I guess – I should have brought the crank from the roadster to wind up the catapult. But more importantly even, I don’t figure out how to work the catapult. At all. After way too much time, I decide to finally give in and consult the official hint sheet. Question no. 20 is “Are you at the catapult?” Damn straight, sheet! I decode the first hint: “Sit on catapult with crank.” All right. I restore and take the crank into the third maze but typing “Sit on catapult with crank” simply doesn’t work: “That sentence is beyond me.” I try some more options and then decode the second hint: “Burn string with match.” Which doesn’t work either, as I’m not on the catapult with the crank just yet. Even the hint sheet doesn’t help me! Just sitting on the catapult (“sit on catapult”) works. Checking the inventory tells me I still have the crank but if I burn the string prematurely that doesn’t help at all: “The catapult wasn’t wound!” At least I now know the verb, and I already looked up what I need to wind it with, and the syntax of “sit on catapult”, “wind catapult with crank” and “burn string with matches” works. I am greeted with one of the barest and most cynical ending screens in adventure game history. Stay tuned to find out whether it was all worth it.

Session time: 6.5 hours Total time: 17 hours

###

Asylum is generally a pleasant game but it also proved to be really, really hard and pretty long compared to the other three Med Systems games I’ve previously blogged through. For my PISSED rating I tried to consider my ratings of Labyrinth and Deathmaze 5000 but also Joe Pranevich’s review of The Wizard of the Princess which is from the same era and I happen to know it reasonably well. It’s similarly promising and similarly flawed which is why I’m quite happy with the similar rating.

Final Rating Puzzles & Solvability: It took me 17 hours to beat Asylum and I actually gave up very close to the end. This is a hard game and by no means easier than its predecessors – on the contrary! It does have many more actual adventure game puzzles than Labyrinth, though, and the fact that the titular asylum is slowly opening up with every key you find is pretty satisfying. The mazes are even harder than the ones I’ve encountered before but in the puzzles area it certainly exceeds the other two games by far. Solvability…not so much. Many situations would require better hints and the endgame is just absurd. But even before I stumbled on many solutions by accident and I am still unsure how I actually got to the third maze. By 1981 standards (compare the equally ludicrous The Wizard and the Princess which came out the previous year) that’s kind of normal, though, so I’ll be a little lenient here and say: 5.

Interface & Inventory: The parser has improved a little and the VOCAB command does a lot of good, so there’s some improvement. The inventory limit is a little less strict this time, too. Apart from that the interface is more or less the same as the one in Labyrinth. Compared to that game, I’ll have to say: 2.

Story & Setting: The story may still be “escape from x” but the Asylum setting is so much more interesting than both the deathmaze and the labyrinth. There are too many stereotypes for it to be believable (or even remotely politically correct by today’s standards for that matter) but I can absolutely see the pulp appeal of the whole thing. Also, this is a populated gameworld with inmates and guards, some of which even have their own agenda(s), definitely adding to the flavour. I’ll go with 3.

Sound & Graphics: Still no sound and still respectable graphics for 1981. The asylum even provides some nice new touches like visible doors, inmates, desks, beds. Many items and foes – like the catapult and the gorilla – are still invisible but all things considered it’s an improvement: 3.

Environment & Atmosphere: Being caught by guards or tricked by inmates all the time may not spell fun but it sure creates a sense of urgency. In the same way, the time limit is a major pain yet it serves to make the endgame feel like a grand (if frustrating) finale. The asylum metaphor works better than the ones they used before, and it’s not surprising that this was Med Systems’ most successful (and well-known) game (series): 4.

Dialogue & Acting: There’s no acting, of course, and only some dialogue, but a little more than in the previous two games. The writing is terse and simple but gets the job done. It’s functional and a bit absurd at times, in a likable way. Let’s say 2.

Well: 5 + 2 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 2 = 19 / 0.6 = 32.

That seems about right. Asylum improves the formula of its predecessors in almost every way but still manages to hate the player quite a lot. It’s also much more elaborate than Reality Ends. Was it more fun than my previous Med Systems experiences? Definitely, but also much more tedious. I’m looking forward to playing Asylum II as it’s supposed to be the best of the bunch – however, the next stop in my marathon will be 1981’s Microworld by Arti Haroutunian who is, incidentally, also the author of a later C64 game called Juice which, if I remember correctly, one of our admins has a soft spot for!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-71-asylum-won-and-final-rating/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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gjgriff736 · 5 years

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BEFORE I GO ON, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

This episode is the one where we all remember. We remember those we lost, those who are still here, and those who will probably, absolutely, die in Episode 3.

We start with Jaime Lannister in front of pretty much everyone who hates him, save for Tyrion. Dany was ready to burn him right then and there, Sansa was ready to agree and Jon wasn’t saying much of anything. Dany was pissed that Cersei lied to her about fighting sending her army to Winterfell and blamed Tyrion, who looked like he was ready to cry his eyes out. Because although she cares about her Hand, Dany cares more about taking the Iron Throne.

With Jaime close to being turned into charcoal, Brienne stepped in and vouched for her friend, which helped to change Sansa’s mind. Dany wasn’t happy about that and tried to get Jon to take her side. But Jon was like, “yeah, um, I’m not listening to this shit. I’m Aegon Targaryen and YOU’RE MY AUNT.” Dany was on her own and had to accept Jaime staying alive for another day. Lucky to be breathing, Jaime then went out to the Gods Wood tree to finally face Bran-Not-Bran, who said he wasn’t mad about being pushed out of a tower window, losing the use of his legs, being dragged all over the country to meet a creepy man in a tree, and becoming this shady ass shell of a man. Why would he be mad about that when he knows EVERYTHING? Okay, he didn’t say all of that, but he did say he wasn’t mad. Jaime asked if Bran will be mad after the war is over and Bran-Not-Bran, ever the one to throw shade, answered, “How do you know there will be an afterwards?”

Later, Queen Dany let loose and told Tyrion if he’s gonna be a dumbass then she’ll get another Hand. He’s better than me cuz I would have thrown that pin at her and said, “take this raggedy ass pin cuz we’re all gonna die anyway!” And then I would have gotten unbelievably drunk. Luckily, Jorah was there to tell his love Queen that Tyrion was a smart man and deserved to be Hand. And since she knows Jorah would lick her boots never steer her wrong, Dany decided to give Tyrion another shot.

Whether Sansa will get another shot is an entirely different story altogether. I’m loving the tension between Sansa and Dany because not for nothing, Sansa has been taken advantage of for most of this series. It’s nice to see her take charge and fight for her family. Dany tried the girl power thing to get Sansa to bow down, even touching her hand with some let’s-be-sisters mess. But that hand almost turned into a fist when Sansa asked what would happen to the North once the war was over. Winterfell belongs to the Starks and I agree they shouldn’t have to bow to anyone but a Northerner. Dany isn’t trying to hear any of that noise. She wants all of the Seven Kingdoms, including Winterfell.

Before things could get bloody, Theon arrived at Winterfell ready to fight for the family he betrayed. To my surprise, Sansa welcomed him with open arms and a couple of tears. My eyebrow arched like the Rock when he could smell what was cooking after seeing that exchange. Is this the beginning of Thansa? Seon?

As for another possible coupling I would ship, Arya turned into a full blown mack and found her way into Gendry’s underpants. My girl is now A WOMAN! I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was a little distraught seeing Arya getting her first (and maybe last) bit of sexy time on. Listen, if you’re gonna die, you may as well get naked with a hot guy who knows how to make weapons for you.

One of my favorite scenes of the episode was seeing Jaime knight Brienne. It was light on the sap, but still felt like a genuinely lovely scene. Brienne is one of the bravest characters on Game of Thrones and having Jaime knight her was just icing on the cake. I’m glad she didn’t cry because it would have felt forced. Instead, she was beaming with pride that her friend was the one to bestow such an honor on her. And seeing how happy being knighted made Tormund had me feeling a little conflicted. How do you choose between a one-handed rich man who used to have sex with his twin sister and an unstable Wildling who looks at you like you’re the finest cut of meat he’s ever seen? It’s a tough choice.

And then there’s Jon Snow. Brave. Honorable to a damn fault. And a dimwit. Jon, why would you tell Dany who you really are RIGHT BEFORE BATTLE? I mean, you’ve been through some shit over the years. You’ve lost family members, fought Wildlings and White Walkers, died and came back to life and you STILL have no idea about timing. Come on, man! Did you think Dany would take that news like it was no big deal? She’s been fighting for the Iron Throne since the show started. She’s not going to stop now, especially after realizing that you two are related and all she cared about was WHO WOULD SIT ON THE THRONE! She gave absolutely no fucks about you being her nephew. None. Nada. Zilch. NOTHING!! That oughta tell you something.

It didn’t matter anyway because the dead had arrived at Winterfell. I hope all of you got a good look at everyone in this episode. Because next time we see them, they’ll be fighting for their lives.

Who will survive the Great War against the White Walkers?

Stay tuned.

Game of Thrones airs at 9pm on HBO. Photos courtesy of HBO.

Game of Thrones, Season 8 – A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms BEFORE I GO ON, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. This episode is the one where we all remember.

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