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avaritia-apotheosis · 3 years

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Phantom Children Ch.4

In Which: exposition for exposition's sake exists, and Vlad looks way more suspcious than he ought

| AO3 | Prologue | 3 | [4] | 5

VLADIMIR MASTERS. Human male in his mid-forties, and most notably the founder and CEO of VladCo, a billion-dollar industry that mostly specializes in manufacturing weapons and technology. Graduated summa cum laude from the University of Wisconsin despite having to drop out due to a lab accident in his second year, landing him in the hospital. Despite being based primarily in Wisconsin, he made an unexpected move to Amity Park Illinois shortly after reuniting with his college friends Drs. Madeline and Jack Fenton.

Not even a year later, Masters ran for mayor of Amity Park and won the election by a landslide. Suspicious, considering Masters being an unknown and the former mayor Montez being quite popular. It’s during Masters’ tenure in office that reports of ghost attacks to the Justice League steadily died down.

“Why?” Damian asked.

Barbara shrugged, pulling up a few files on the screen. “I originally had a theory that related to VladCo’s buyout of Axion Labs—a technological research and manufacturing company that’s mostly local to Amity—being a factor. Within the last couple of years, they had been experimenting with highly volatile chemicals with hallucinogenic properties. Amity had always been known for being extremely superstitious with its ghosts, and if Axion Labs had somehow accidentally released that chemical into the city, well…” She leaned back into her chair, hand twisting in the air. “You could bet how that ended up. The hysteria around ghosts only grew worse in the last two years, with suspected sightings from once every few weeks to multiple in a single day. Early attempts to capture sightings were unsuccessful, and soon enough Amity Park was just written off.”

Much like the mass hysteria surrounding the urban legend of the kuchisake-onna in Japan in the late 1970s, Bruce thought. He pulled up some news footage from Amity Park dated a few years back of citizens being interviewed about their ghostly encounters. Beside these videos were a few photos taken by a shaky camera, showing bright blurs of light streaking across the sky or vaguely humanoid shapes rising from the ground.

“So VladCo., bought out Axion Labs, improved its security, and slowly helped detoxify the town?” Damian shifted his weight onto his other leg and crossed his arms.

“That’s what I thought, but—”

“But the ghosts ended up being real.” Bruce pulled up a video of a field reporter-slash-weatherman taking cover as a figure dropped from the sky, breaking through the walls of a building. The figure—features distorted by an eerie glow—shot out of the rubble just in time before a green blast hit it.

Oracle enlarged other news footage with a few taps on her keyboard. Beings zooming through the air. Massive plants erupting from the ground. Technology coming to life. Each video more worrying than the last, and most showing some footage of a figure bathed in a white glow. “I’d be hard pressed to call any of these faked.”

It begged the question as to how Amity Park survived this long unscathed. Since, if he remembered correctly, even the Dark Leaguers tended to avoid Amity Park like the plague. “They have their own heroes, then?”

“Think along the lines of vigilantes with unofficial support.” A few more files popped up on screen. One showcased a female in a full-length black and red body suit on top of a hover board. The other was a male; young, perhaps a teenager, with white hair and a black and white suit. Hazmat? “The Red Huntress and the Phantom of Amity Park.”

“Partners?”

“More like enemies working on the same turf. Sources place Phantom as appearing first, though it seems Red Huntress has more government support in the end despite there being no official statement. They seem to be the most effective ghost hunters in town, though far from the only ones. The Fentons of Fenton Works are also acting as ghost hunters, though their track record of success leans more towards their anti-ghost tech than any hunting. The town’s even attracted visitors from the Ghost Investigation Ward; a side branch of Cadmus though a now defunct organization.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Damian said. “If anything, this should be more than enough reason for a League intervention. Why the Justice League didn’t come sooner is the real question here.”

Bruce’s lips thinned. “That’s because we were warned off it.”

“What?”

While there was no rule against heroes entering another hero’s city, there were certain unspoken rules that demanded that JL members avoid claimed cities or stay just outside of city lines until given permission to enter. Some were especially strict about it such as Batman’s ‘no metas or outsiders’ rule. Others were more lenient, simply requesting a warning before entering.

Amity Park, despite having no listed heroes in the database, was marked with heavy ‘Do Not Interact’ warnings for humans and metas alike.

“Justice League Dark said that under no circumstances should the League interfere in Amity. The situation was never explicitly laid out for us except to say that everything was being handled.”

“Oh yeah,” Oracle chimed. “Constantine even had it bolded, underlined, italicized, and in all caps. The occult community was very clear about everyone staying away—and apparently this decision had support from Amity Park too.” She pulled up another document. “That’s probably what led to the decline in their ghost reports, actually. Amity’s claims were considered bogus and brushed aside. No one outside their town—not even their sister town of Elmerton—believed them, so they simply stopped asking for help.”

Strangely, it reminded Bruce of Gotham. Both cities existed in its own isolated sphere, unwilling to let any outsiders interfere in its business.

“It’s safe to assume, then, that whatever Ra’s al Ghul wants with Amity, it has to do with these ghosts. Do we have anyway to contact the town’s vigilantes?”

Oracle shook her head. “Ghost attacks within the past few months have slowly died down along with sightings of Phantom and Red Huntress. Your best bet is asking Masters directly.”

Damian glowered. “Masters blatantly sent out an invitation for Batman to my father. How do we know that Masters hasn’t somehow found our secret identities?”

“Unlikely,” Bruce said. “Vlad Masters, despite his wealth, has done well to keep a low profile. He’s met Bruce Wayne a total of three times within the last decade and Batman not at all.” That, and with the kind of spyware Batman has, he’d be able to tell when, where, and who was trying to dig deep into Batman’s past. Masters hadn’t even registered as a ping.

“Besides, there’s always a few rumors of Wayne Enterprise’s involvement with Batman. All this tech has to come from somewhere, no?”

“How long is Masters staying in Gotham?”

“Umm…” Oracle leaned forward in her chain and flipped through a half-dozen windows. “Going by his reservations at the Gotham Royal Hotel, he’s leaving tomorrow.”

Bruce pivoted on his heel, heading deeper into the Cave. “We better make this count, then.”

------

According to Oracle’s intel, Vlad Masters was staying at one of the executive suites in the Gotham Royal Hotel. A titanic structure with forty-eight floors, two towers, and the gothic aesthetic that never seemed to leave Gotham’s architecture.

Scaling the building as well as entering the suite proved no challenge for Batman and Robin. But upon entrance, it was abundantly clear that the room was vacant.

“Are you sure you guys are in the right room?” Bruce could hear the clicking of Oracle’s keys through their comms. “Masters had reserved the suite on the west tower.”

“Yes we’re in the correct room, Gordon,” Robin hissed.

“Codenames only, Robin.”

Robin clicked his tongue, sweeping the common room for any hidden bugs or cameras as Batman scouted out the rest of the room. The bed was made to hotel standard and the bathroom towels all completely replaced. There were no clothes in the hotel closet or dresser.

The only thing left that indicated occupancy of the room was an unmarked manila envelope unsubtly tucked within a pillowcase.

Robin tensed at the sight of it. “A detonator of some sort?”

Batman rotated the package, holding it up to his scanner. “Doesn’t seem to be. Regardless, it might be better to take it back to the Batcave and locate Masters ag—” The envelope started ringing. A standard ringtone found in most phones. Quickly, but carefully, Batman opened the manila envelope and dumped its contents onto the bed. A ringing burner phone and a flash drive came tumbling out.

Batman threw the flash drive at Robin before answering the phone, holding it up against his ear but saying nothing.

Silence. Then, Masters’ voice filtered in through the phone with a strange echo-like quality. “Good evening, Batman! I’m so glad my invitation managed to get passed along.”

Batman growled into the speaker, “What do you want, Masters?” He signaled Robin to do another sweep of the room for any signs of Masters they might have missed.

“I sincerely apologize for not being there to meet you myself; incredibly rude of me, I know. But it cannot be helped, the shadows are growing ever bolder.”

“So, you are aware then, of the League of Assassins’ presence in Amity Park?”

“A league of assassins? What a terrifying notion that is.” Batman frowned. It was unlikely that they had misread his words at the gala, so why was he acting unaware now? Could he be watched? “Why such a group would appear in my little town, I wouldn’t even dare to guess.”

Robin came back into the room and signaled back ‘negative.’

“Why did you call for us, Mayor Masters?”

“Do you know what is so very tragic, Batman?”

“This is strange,” Oracle said. “I can’t pick up his signal. He’s not appearing on any of my cameras, either.”

“When someone so young dies much to soon.” A pause. “Could you even imagine such a thing? A parent burying their own child.”

Batman could. He had no need to even imagine it because he lived it.

“Some very close friends of mine have been weighed down by the shadows of death and I require help in providing them the closure they need.”

“Are the Fentons the targets, then?”

Masters paused. Then let out a breathy laugh over the phone. “Oh, if only it were that simple.”

“So a different target.”

“Everything you need to know is in the flash drive I’ve enclosed in that envelope Whether you take up the case is entirely up to you—though I do hope you take it. Regardless, if he is not returned soon then I assure you that a disaster unlike any you have seen before will arrive.”

Batman narrowed his eyes. “Is that a threat, Masters?”

“No,” He laughed. “That was no threat. That was promise.”

The phone line disconnected just as Oracle exclaimed that she finally found Masters boarding his flight back to Amity Pak.

#danny phantom #batman #danny phantom x batman crossover #dp fic #phantom children.txt

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ravennm84 · 4 years

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Career Advice

Hi everyone!! This story was inspired by a news anchor that I saw on TV, and thought to myself “what would happen if Alya asked that woman for an internship and showed that woman the Ladyblog.” There wasn’t originally going to be Alya redemption, but I decided that the girl needed some love too. Warm-Fuzzies and please enjoy!!

Alya was practically vibrating in her chair as she sat in the reception area of TVi News. She had heard from Aurora and Mireille that there was a summer internship opening and that she should submit an application. She had spent an entire week working on her resume with her mom’s help, citing her blog as experience. Her mother had told her that she might want to double check all her stories before going in, but already knew that she’d be fine. After all, she was an awesome reporter.

There were four other people in the room with her, and she was definitely the youngest. Two of them looked like they were university age and the other two probably attended lycee. That meant that they likely had a bit more experience than she did, but Alya was confident that her blog would set her up for the win. Not only that, Lila had put in a good word for her with the higher ups of TVi News. All she had to do was nail the interview and the internship was hers!

It was about an hour and two interviews before her turn came. Holding her head high; she grabbed her tablet and portfolio, straightened her skirt, and walked in as smoothly as she could in her heels.

The person conducting the interview was Claudia Ramonte, a no-nonsense kind of woman that always seemed to be on a deadline. She preferred people always be on-point and despised people that wasted her time. She was a legend in the industry, she had been an investigative journalist for over 20 years before going into semi-retirement by helping run the company and hiring new journalists. It was said that she had an eye for who had talent and who was just playing journalist. And if you fell into the latter or made the mistake of insulting her craft, you could kiss any hopes of making it big in the industry goodbye. So as soon as Alya shut the door behind her, she put on her most professional smile and extended her hand to her.

“Mme. Ramonte, Alya Cesaire, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She gave her a slight smile as she shook her hand. “When I saw that a kid in college was applying for the internship, I thought that you were either an idiot or you had a pair of steel balls. Show me which one it is.”

A little taken back but her forwardness, Alya’s hand shook slightly as she pulled her resume from the file and handed it to her. “As you can see, I’ve been running my blog, The Ladyblog, for close to a year and a half now.”

“Everyone and their mothers have blogs nowadays, Cesaire.” The woman scoffed as she tossed Alya’s resume onto her desk and turned to her computer, typing quickly. “Every candidate I’m interviewing today has at least two blogs, multiple news articles in their school newspapers, or videos from their college news or radio stations. What is it about your blog that makes you think that you are more qualified than any of them?”

Alya faltered for a second but wouldn’t be deterred, she was an awesome reporter and she would get this internship. “I’ve conducted multiple interviews with different celebrities; including Ladybug herself, other heroes of the Miraculous Team, the daughter of a diplomat who is also Ladybug’s best friend…”

“So have others, Cesaire.” She sounded bored, as she continued reading something on her computer screen.

Squaring her shoulders, Alya kept going. She refused to back down when she was so close to her internship. “I have also done extensive work on recording akuma battles and have compared my footage to other sites. None of them get as close or in depth as I do.”

“And why do you think that is, Mlle. Cesaire?” Her voice going cold

Alya blinked, not expecting the question. “Um… well-”

“Reporters and journalists are not to engage in dangerous situations that are considered life threatening. Whether someone is part of a staff or freelance, they are not to enter danger zones on their own, which you have apparently done numerous times. I will admit that when it comes to journalism, it is never without risks; but no story is worth your life.”

“But there’s no real danger, Ladybug always-”

“A terrorist is a terrorist, Cesaire.” The chill in the woman’s voice gained a hard edge. “And the attacks that have been done by the akumas have, on more than one occasion, shown the potential to be fatal. Should there be even a single time that Ladybug and Chat Noir not pull through, that could result in thousands of deaths. If you think that any credible news source would allow their people to do what you’ve been doing; then you’re more than an idiot, you’re a reckless idiot.”

Then she turned one of her computer screens towards Alya, which was queued up to the Ladyblog. “And from what I’ve seen from your blog in the two minutes you’ve been in my office; you are not only reckless, but mediocre in your work as a journalist. I have looked through multiple posts and have yet to see a single credible source mentioned. So tell me, how can you think that you are qualified to work here if you cannot follow the most basic rule of journalism and check your sources?”

“I can assure you, everything I post is completely true!”

“And I’m just supposed to take your word on that? Hardly.” She turned the screen back to herself, then started playing the first interview she had done with Lila. Mme. Ramonte played it for only 15 seconds, in which Lila claimed to be Ladybug’s best friend after she had saved her life, before pausing the video and looking at Alya. “If Lila Rossi, the daughter of a diplomat, had been saved by Ladybug, there would have been multiple articles and recordings of the incident. I just did a cursory search and the only link that came up connecting Rossi and Ladybug is your own blog.”

Alya was speechless. She wanted to say that Lila was telling the truth, but what reason would there be for Mme. Ramonte, who continued playing Lila’s interview, to lie? She stopped the video again a few seconds later, after the tale of saving Jagged Stone’s kitten from being run over by a plane on an airport runway. The look the legendary journalist gave her was that of total disgust and anger.

“Do I even need to list all the things wrong with

this story?” When Alya didn’t say anything, Mme. Ramonte went off on her, practically ranting. “Firstly, Jagged Stone has been quoted multiple times as being allergic to animal fur, and would not own a cat. Second, no one would allow a minor onto a airport runway, as it would be seen negligence and possibly as an act of terrorism. Even if she had saved some cat from being run over and Jagged had been grateful, no self respecting musician would write a song about a minor that was not their daughter, as doing so could have him labeled as a pedophile. You are very lucky that M. Stone has not seen this interview, because if he had, you would have been served with lawsuits for slander. So, I’ll ask again. Is there anything to keep me from saying that you are nothing more than a wannabe-journalist that isn’t fit to work at a news stand?”

She wasn’t even sure how to respond. Alya had been so sure that her blog was perfect, but after what Mme. Ramonte had said and how she was looking at her, she really did feel like an idiot for believing what Lila had said. Especially since she should have known better.

She now remembered when she flew to Spain with her parents when she was younger and how far away the landing strip was from the airport. There was no way Lila would have been able to see a kitten from that far away. Alya also remembered how she wanted to go outside and play, but her father told her that only authorized personnel were allowed outside at the airport. Then there was Marinette, the designer had mentioned how she couldn’t do certain designs for the rock star because he had fur allergies from when he was a kid.

Oh no, Marinette has been saying for months that Lila was a liar. Ever since she had seen Lila’s interview. And since she designs for Jagged Stone, she would know that Lila was nothing but a liar. She was also the one that got me my first exclusive with Ladybug, so she’d probably know that she was lying about that, too. And I had the nerve to tell her that she was just being jealous… I’m a terrible friend and an even worse journalist.

Looking back up at Mme. Ramonte, she was barely able to hold back tears as she shook her head. “No, Madame. There is no excuse for such shoddy journalism, it doesn’t even deserve to be called that. I apologize for wasting your time.”

The woman’s features softened slightly, but not by much. “You’re still very young and have a lot to learn about journalism, Cesaire. If I ever see you in my office again, I’ll expect more from you than any other candidate. That means looking out for your safety, knowing what is okay and not okay to publish, and checking your stories through multiple, reliable sources. I would also recommend killing your blog and starting new, the Ladyblog will become toxic to your career if it continues. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Alya couldn’t help but stare at the woman across the desk from her. Despite not deserving it, Mme. Ramonte had given her very sage and constructive advice that just might save her career in the long run. If she killed her blog now, started a new one or two, and followed her advice; by the time she finished lycee, she might be able to use them as proper references for her future career.

“Thank you, Mme. Ramonte. I won’t forget this.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Cesaire,” she waved her hand dismissively. “I’m going to remember this and I will be telling other news sources about your blog as well, to make sure you never repeat these mistakes again. So, if you are really set on being a journalist, don’t just prove it to me, prove to everyone that you are better.”

“Still, thank you. Have a nice day, Mme. Ramonte.” Alya stood from her chair but paused before she turned to walk away. “So you know, I think I’ll be doing one final post on the Ladyblog, to admit my mistakes and all the things I reported incorrectly on my blog, along with the sources to back it up. Sort of a final expose to rid myself of the bad energy from my blog, so I’ll be able to move forward.”

The woman gave a nod of approval. Before waving her out of the office.

Alya kept her head high the entire way out of the building while doing her best to remain calm, or else risk attracting an akuma. As a bit of a cleanser, she sent a text to Marinette.

To FashionGurl: You were right about Lila. I’m so sorry for not listening to you. Can we talk on Monday?

A few minutes later, she got a text back.

To FoxyJournalist: You can come by today if you want to talk.

To FashionGurl: Sorry, I’m going to be busy. I have a new story to write about that liar, one that will have multiple sources, showing everyone exactly the kind of person she is.

To FoxyJournalist: Can’t wait to read it!!

~oOo~

What followed for Alya was a very long weekend writing out every story/lie that Lila had ever told her and the class, research into Lila’s old schools, staking herself out in front of the Italian Embassy until Ambassador Rossi came out so she could introduce herself, and then a long conversation at a cafe with the very angry and distraught mother. There were a lot of questions, show-and-tell with the videos on Alya’s blog and news reports from Lila’s old schools, and then the recommendation that she go to speak with M. Damocles and Mme. Bustier.

Monday morning saw Alya going into the bakery before school, telling Tom and Sabine the truth about Lila, and then grovelling at Marinette’s feet for being such a terrible friend. One thing she did not hesitate to show the Dupain-Chengs were the records and news reports she’d found pertaining to Lila’s old schools. Tracking Lila’s social media, Alya had found three schools and discovered the kind of mayhem the girl left behind.

One school had a perfect student named Gaia, much like Marinette, bullied until she was expelled. Another school showed another popular girl named Alessia had “fallen” down a flight of stairs and broken both of her legs, a few ribs, and one of her arms. Even though there were multiple eyewitness reports that Lila had pushed her, the Italian girl moved before she could be brought up on charges. The report from the most recent school made all of them sick. A girl named Ludovica had been stalked, harassed, and bullied over social media beginning the day Lila joined the school until the day the girl committed suicide. A quick backtrace on the account showed that it had been set up by Lila Rossi.

It was quickly decided that Sabine would be going to the school to have a word with the principal and teacher. Alya gave them a thumb drive with a copy of all the information she had found, she had multiple copies, so that if they decided to pursue legal actions, they had evidence to back it up.

At school, Alya went to class while Sabine took Marinette M. Damocles' office to speak with him and Mme. Bustier, since the woman was decidedly absent from the room. She had barely sat down when Lila entered the classroom, spouting off some story about meeting Ryan Reynolds over the weekend. Alya barely suppressed her snide grimace before hiding it with a smile.

“Really, Lila? That’s amazing! Did you get any pictures? I would love to post them on my blog?”

Now that she was watching, she saw the girl flinch when asked for actual evidence before putting on a sugary sweet smile. “I didn’t get a chance, my phone died.”

“Oh that’s annoying. Where did you see him?” She asked, pulling up the movie star’s Twitter account. “Because you were here in Paris over the weekend but according to his social media, he was visiting his home town in Canada this week.”

Alya definitely saw the girl scowl that time. “Oh, he just said that so he could come here without anyone knowing. He’s researching a role here in Paris and I was showing him around until my mom called me home.”

“Didn’t you just say that your phone was dead?” That got the classes’ attention, as they had just heard the girl say that was the reason she hadn’t taken any pictures. Lila was about to spout some new excuse; but Alya, who was now channelling her inner Mme. Ramonte, raised a hand to cut her off.

“Don’t even bother coming up with another lie. I know you’re full of crap and it spills out of your mouth with every word you say. And before you try to accuse me of lying, taking Marinette’s side, or bullying you; I think you should know that I spent the majority of the weekend looking into everything you’ve told us.”

The entire class watched the Italian girl’s olive skin turn a sickly white. But Alya wasn’t finished, this girl had been attempting to do the same to Marinette that she had done to Gaia, Alessia, and Ludovica. And as her BFF, she was not going to stand aside and let that happen. “I have piles of evidence that you were never in Achu and have never met Prince Ali, you were just playing hookie. I’ve got evidence that you are perfectly healthy and have never suffered from any of the diseases or ailments that you’ve claimed to have since returning to school. I’ve also got evidence that you have never met any of the celebrities that you claim to know. That includes Ladybug.”

Not so surprising, Lila attempted to turn everyone against Alya by turning on the tears. “That’s not true! I would never lie about all of that. You’re just saying that because you’re mad at me for not getting the internship!”

When the class looked back at Alya, they were surprised to see her grinning like a fox. “Did I forget to mention exactly how I know you weren’t in Achu? Or how I know you're perfectly healthy and don’t know any of those celebrities you’ve claimed to be close to?”

She paused, mostly for effect before going in for the killing blow. “Your mom and I had a very in depth conversation yesterday when I ran into her outside the embassy. She wasn’t happy about your interviews on the Ladyblog, and she was confused as to why you were claiming to be Ladybug’s BFF when you’ve been telling her for months that she and Chat Noir were a couple of lazy, incompetent, and downright terrible heros; which was why the school was closed.”

If it were possible Lila paled even more before turning to run out the door. The door swung open just as she was reaching for the handle, and was met with an upset Mme. Bustier. “You are needed in the Principal's Office, young lady.” To the surprise of everyone there, Lila attempted to shove her way past their teacher. But the woman was faster and grabbed the girl by the arm in a firm grip before escorting her out of the room.

When the first bell rang a few minutes later, M. Harpele came in to act as the substitute until Mme. Bustier was finished with her meeting.

Marinette returned to class before their teacher did, smiling bright as the sun and visibly more relaxed than anyone had seen her in weeks. She sat down beside Alya and gave her a tight hug while whispering “thank you” over and over.

“I take it things went well for you instead of Lila?” Alya grinned.

Marinette giggled. “She tried convincing her mom that all of us were akumatized and were trying to ruin her life, but she wasn’t buying it. Especially when M. Damocles showed Mme. Rossi her school records. Mom demanded that Lila give a formal apology and confess everything to the class, or she would get the Board of Governors involved. When Mme. Rossi found out that Lila tried to get me expelled, she lost it and started talking about a catholic reformatory school in Italy. Lila looked like she was going to be sick when she heard that.”

“It’s not perfect, but it’s what she deserves.” Alya shrugged before looking Marinette in the eye again. “I’m really sorry, girl. You’re my BFF, I should have listened to you when you told me Lila was a liar.”

“No, I don’t expect you to listen to me every time. I just wanted you to check things out and make sure that you weren’t being taken advantage of.” Then her brow creased. “I’m curious, what brought all this on?”

“Let’s just say that I just got some much needed career advice.”

#alya redemption #lila salt #ml fic #lila karma #friendship #alya salt

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ravenbrenna09 · 4 years

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Jij Verliest - Chapter Five: Clip 2

master list previous

...

Zondag 18:53

With hurried goodbyes to the people spamming ‘bye!’ in the chat, Robbe ended his surprise Sunday afternoon stream and immediately slumped against his desk.

During the semester, Robbe didn’t stream on Sundays. He preferred to spend the time studying with Yasmina or simply doing homework. His plan was to keep the same schedule for the summer, simply to keep things consistent, and save his Sundays for skating with his friends or hanging out with Sander. But the beach house trip was going to prevent him from streaming for three days. Once he got back, Robbe knew that he would need to get back on a consistent schedule.

Today’s stream was unplanned and a surprise, but it had been one of the best streams that he had in weeks.

Normally, Robbe would’ve only streamed for three hours. It was what his body was used to and Robbe was rigorous about keeping his streams uniform. Occasionally, he would extend the stream or shorten it in thirty minute intervals. But, normally, he couldn’t extend the stream by more than an hour. Until today. He had just ended the stream a few minutes shy of five hours.

As soon as he started the stream, Robbe had felt rejuvenated. His good mood was helped by Sander’s “good luck <3” text when Robbe informed him that he would be disappearing for a few hours. But, in the midst of studying for exams and his stressed-out streams, he had missed doing this. He had missed streaming simply because he could and hanging out with his viewers, who he saw as his friends. It was fun and exhilarating and he had missed it all.

Plus, the fact that Sander was probably watching him sent a thrill up his spine. It made him more excited than he would ever admit to any of his friends. But the extended time in his chair had stiffened his legs and his joints. Even though Robbe had taken multiple five-minute breaks, he was still tense.

As Robbe stood, stretching his body as far as he could, his phone buzzed on the desk and drew his attention.

Sander: Amazing stream, Mr. Streamer. Even if I don’t know a thing about Fortnite. Feeling stiff?

Robbe chuckled, picking up his phone as he moved out of his room.

Robbe: Yeah, I’m walking around the apartment. Might not sit down for another 30 min. Did you get any drawings done?

It didn’t take long to respond.

Sander: Of course, I’m still working on your concentrated face though. Wanna see?

As Robbe sent him the affirmative, he headed out of his bedroom. Across the hall, Zoë’s bedroom door was slightly open and he glanced inside to find her sleeping. Zoë was curled up on her bed, wrapped in her gray blanket, with her hair tied back. Her laptop was perched on the edge of the bed, playing a show.

As Robbe closed his bedroom door behind him, his stomach gave an angry growl, reminding him he had waited too long. Robbe quickly moved in the direction of the kitchen, where he could hear voices. Rounding the corner, he spotted Milan at the kitchen table with Senne. Both of them were drinking what looked like a cup of hot cocoa. As Robbe stepped inside, Milan cut Senne off mid-sentence to ask, “How was your stream?”

Robbe blinked, confused. “It was fine.” Senne turned to him, smiling nervously, as Robbe headed to the fridge to pull out the leftovers from earlier. “I’m just getting some food. It should only take a few minutes. Then, the two of you can go back to your top-secret talk that I’m not supposed to hear.”

“Oooooo,” Milan said, grinning wickedly. “Is someone jealous that other people go to me with top-secret information?”

Robbe rolled his eyes and flipped Milan off for good measure.

“No, no, it’s not that,” Senne said, letting out a sigh. Robbe grabbed one of the plates from the cabinets as he looked over at Senne. Despite being so sure of himself, Senne looked unbelievably nervous—like he was about to jump out of his skin. In all honesty, Robbe wasn’t prepared to see it. “We were just talking about the fact that I’m going to meet your mama on Thursday.” Robbe nodded as he piled the cold spaghetti onto his plate. “Do you have any advice?”

Robbe nodded again, placing the plate into the microwave. Once he started it, Robbe turned back to Senne and Milan, who were waiting on him. “There’s absolutely nothing you need to worry about, Senne,” Robbe said. “Mama is physically incapable of hating anyone. Even my dad and Thomas. As long as you love and take care of Zoë—which you do—she’s going to love you.”

“There’s always a first,” Senne said.

“If there was a first time, it would’ve been Thomas,” Robbe deadpanned.

“Agreed,” Milan said. He reached across the table to take Senne’s hand in his own. “She’s going to love you, Senne. How can she not?” The microwave let out a beep. Robbe moved to pull his steaming pasta out. He blew away the steam as he crossed the kitchen, taking up one of the spare chairs. Robbe extended his legs out beneath the table, stretching them until they popped. “You love her daughter and that’s all any mother would want. Especially Marie.”

Robbe nodded. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Okay,” Senne said, turning to him. “I’m trusting you.” Robbe chuckled, taking a bite of his pasta. “How did your exams go?” Senne asked. Robbe glanced over at Senne, who had turned in his chair. “I didn’t see you at the party Friday night.”

“Are you still going to college parties?” Robbe asked.

“Only when my girlfriend is.”

“Oh, did someone spend the night with his mystery man that we don’t know anything about?” Milan asked, raising his mug to his mouth. Robbe rolled his eyes as Milan suggestively waved his eyebrows. Beside him, Senne took a sip of his hot cocoa. He tried his best to seem indifferent, but Robbe could still spot the suggestive look on Senne’s features. “Come on, Robbe. It’s a safe space. If we talk about it, I’m sure Senne won’t mind.”

Robbe was certain he couldn’t roll his eyes harder. “Sometimes, I wonder why you’re so interested in everyone’s love life,” Robbe said. Senne snorted. Thankfully, he wasn’t holding his cocoa anymore. Senne covered his face with his hand as Milan sent him an accusatory stare. “But yes, I did stay with him. We went to his apartment, he cooked, and we stayed in his bedroom all night, playing video games.”

“Good,” Milan said, grinning. “You seem happy with him.”

“I am,” Robbe said, nodding. He took another bite of spaghetti before letting out a sigh. Milan raised an eyebrow and Senne glanced over at him. Despite the growling in his stomach, Robbe dropped his fork on his plate and leaned back. “I just wish Thomas would leave me alone.”

“Thomas?” Milan asked, raising his eyebrows.

Senne glanced at Robbe, asking, “Your ex?”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Robbe said. “After my exam on Friday, as I headed out to meet ‘my mystery man,’ Thomas came up to me.” Robbe shook his head, letting out a sigh. “He gave me the watch back and told me that he wanted to get back together with me.” Milan’s eyes widened. “I was so angry that I couldn’t respond to him, but—uhh… the guy I’m seeing interrupted him and Thomas left soon after that.”

“Do you want to get back together with him? With Thomas?” Senne asked.

Before Senne finished the question, Robbe was shaking his head. “No,” Robbe said. “I don’t.”

“If you don’t want to get back together with him, you need to tell that to Thomas face-to-face, Robbe,” Senne said. He crossed his arms over his chest as Milan took a sip of his cocoa. “He deserves to hear it from you in person. If he can’t understand, that’s on him.”

“I know,” Robbe said, slumping back in his chair. “I’m just worried that he’s going to try and talk me into getting back together with him. Again.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Senne asked, standing up from his chair. “I don’t mind.” He moved to the coffee maker. As the machine whirred to life, he moved around, starting to make another cup of hot cocoa. Once the machine started brewing, Senne added, “I’ve always been pretty good at scaring people away. Plus my parents will pay for pretty good lawyers.”

Robbe chuckled, shaking his head. “No, but I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll probably end up asking Jens or Moyo to come with me. I just don’t want to be worried about my ex showing up at the apartment for the third or fourth time.” As Robbe picked up his fork, his phone dinged in his pocket.

“You could always go to the police,” Senne said.

Milan nodded. “He’s right, Robbe.”

“Yeah,” Robbe said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I just don’t want to have to deal with it. But if it gets too much and he keeps showing up, I promise that I will report him to the police.” Milan nodded and, from his spot at the coffee machine, Senne made an affirmative noise.

“It’ll be okay, Robbe,” Milan said.

Robbe nodded his head, turning his attention back to his phone.

Sander: Sorry for the delay. Noor came into my room asking about dinner. Here are all my sketches.

Below his texts, a picture loaded in of a sheet of paper—or rather many sheets of paper—and Robbe had to stop himself from literally dropping his mouth open. If these were simply “sketches,” Robbe couldn’t help but wonder what Sander’s masterpieces would look like. In the middle of the page, his own profile was etched in with headphones over his ears. There were a handful of figures that looked like they could’ve been Pokémon, but Robbe didn’t recognize them.

Robbe was so focused on absorbing each and every detail that he didn’t notice Senne walk up behind him. He peered over Robbe’s shoulder, holding tightly to the cup of cocoa with one hand. His presence behind Robbe had startled him, but Senne’s gaze was simply on his phone. As Robbe glanced up at him, Senne smiled down at the phone and gave him a knowing look.

If Senne recognized Sander’s sketches, he didn’t say anything. In fact, Senne just returned to the table and struck up a conversation with Milan about work.

...

Zondag 20:34

#wtfock #wtfam #sander driesen #sobbe #robbe ijzermans #rosander #brenna writes #jij verliest fic #wtfock fanfiction #wtfock fanfic #wtf fanfic #twitch streamer robbe #twitch streamer!robbe #tattoo artist!sander #tattoo artist sander

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dc81600 · 3 years

Text

SCP-REDD

In a dark room a bank of monitor screens illuminated a pale face. The rusted brown glow of the video feeds gave Roger Little more color than the sun had cared to give him in the past few months. Half a kilometer north and two hundred meters down, an automated surveillance drone slowly made its way through a series of corroded metal hallways.

It was oddly silent, beyond the whine of computers and the whir of fans. Roger fiddled with his volume before checking the system audio. Nothing but the noises of the drone itself. No groaning, no creaking, no screaming. Just the soft click clack of the drone.

Roger checked the timing. The drone should have reached it by now. He squinted into the glare and overrode the drone. Nothing but flakes of rusted metal scattered across a floor of rusted metal, fallen from the walls and ceiling of rusted metal.

After several minutes of searching, Roger rubbed his temples. He drummed his fingers on his little metal desk and took a few deep breaths. He reached over and picked up the bulky plastic phone sitting on the edge of his work space. He dialed the number and only had to wait a few seconds before it was answered.

"Sir? It's Roger Little, from Surveillance. We may have a problem."

In the cold reaches of space, a satellite continued to do what it had done for over a decade. It hung in the weaker clutches of the Earth's gravity and watched a man wander about.

The man it was watching, however, was doing something a ways away from his status quo. He was running. Through the sweltering heat of the American Southwest in the middle of its summer, over the scorched earth, under a blazing sun, Mister Lost ran.

In hot pursuit was a man with fiery red hair. His black jacket left unbuttoned, it snapped behind him like shadows cast by a fire, the red trimming a much duller affair than his hair. He was gaining on Lost, who continued to make the mistake of looking over his shoulder. Each glance seemed to give the red-haired man more speed.

The eventual collision left Lost sprawled on the ground for a moment before he tried crawling away. The second man was up in a near instant. He brushed himself off and waited a moment before continuing his pursuit. He walked just behind Lost for a time, until he tried to get up. The pursuer kicked his target back onto the ground. This repeated itself for some time, until the red-haired main simply grabbed the man in the green jacket and dragged him in the opposite direction.

They eventually came upon a third man, who had been sitting on a rock outcropping. Blood and rust clung to every inch of his body. With what seemed to be considerable effort, the man stood. He took two steps before falling.

The red man grabbed the rusted man by the shirt and hauled him up onto his shoulder in a way that was quick but not unkind. All the while Mister Lost remained gripped in his opposite hand. After what looked like a satisfied sigh, the red man walked east.

An O5 rolled an unlit cigar back and forth over the sleek top of his desk. In front of him, the video feed on his monitor ended. Beyond that, his secretary stood at attention.

The secretary took a brief glance at his clipboard. "As you can see, sir, the unknown humanoid has captured both 2933 and 920. Further surveillance from multiple sources show it is now heading for one of our facilities."

The Overseer idly flicked the cigar, sending it spinning. "Given the context, I'm guessing it can be safely assumed who the entity is?"

"It's attacked two of the three Little Mister anomalies we don't have properly contained and now seems to be heading for the Site where we contain the other seventeen. Combined with its general appearance, yes. The list's designation number fourteen, Mr. Redd."

"Lock the Site down. We don't know what Redd is capable of. Considering it was able to escape 2933-1 and has been able to transport 920 for over a hundred miles without stopping, it's not something we want to discover first hand in the midst of an active facility."

The secretary nodded and departed for his own desk. Left alone, the Overseer plucked the cigar up and spun it between his fingers. He replayed the submitted videos and quietly thought to himself.

Eventually his secretary returned, and after a brief wait hustled back out with a freshly stamped order. Alone again, O5-4 slid the silver lighter off his desk and thumbed it several times before it sparked.

A group of people sat in a room full of monitors. Not quite like the one previously described, which was merely a one man obligation simply for the principle of the thing. As the door so boldly claimed, reading Site-██1 Security, this was a security station for a Foundation site, full of attentive individuals, with live feeds covering nearly every hallway and the ability to stream feeds from various containment cells if forwarded from the cell's own containment team.

One attentive individual sat up in her chair, more so than her already perfect posture had allowed. She began squinting at one of the monitors showing a feed of a camera deep within the facility, well away from any of the entrances.

Within the frame was a trio of men. One was dressed in a black and red jacket, one in a coat of metal, and one in a green hoodie. The first was carrying the second and dragging the third, the former of which was groaning and screeching like rusted clockwork and the latter was attempting to crawl away despite appearing to be unconscious.

She wondered how they arrived in the site despite it being locked down, when no one else had made any sort of comment. The worker flagged down her superior as quick as she could and explained what she had seen. But when she pointed to the group of monitors of the area the men had just been spotted in, they were nowhere to be seen. Now one of her coworkers, who had been monitoring an entirely different Wing, was reporting about them.

By the time attention arrived on the monitor in question the men were nowhere to be seen, and further examination showed they had disappeared from surveillance entirely.

O5-4 snubbed out his cheap cigar in one hand and thumbed one of the buttons on his monitor with the other. A round woman with sharp eyes snapped into view.

After a smokey exhale the O5 sat up and meshed his fingers together, if only for himself. His outgoing calls only showed a generic silhouette. "Dziekan. I hope all is well."

The Site Director fidgeted. To her credit, it was only slightly. "Not as such, sir. Redd has somehow breached the site with both Lost and Scary. More than that, he broadcasted a video message from somewhere in the facility. And he's made demands."

The weight of the silence from her superior stayed Dziekan. After several seconds O5-4 took a slow breath and said, "Somewhere in the facility?"

"Well. Sir. I don't recognize the area. It appeared to be a medical bay, but it definitely isn't any I'm aware of. With him was a little girl with a swollen stomach. He called her Katherine but we don't have any subjects on file with that name."

The name pressed down on the Overseer's chest. He took slow, deep breaths in an effort to calm himself but every inhale became more and more difficult. On autopilot, his hands opened his cigar case. The lighter sparked on the first flick and he took a deep drag. On exhale he realized what he was doing, but decided he may as well enjoy it while he could. How in the world could Redd have known about 231—

"O5-4? Are you still there?"

He shifted out of his daze, if only slightly. "Dziekan. Right. Yes. What were his demands?"

"For you to personally come in to see him, or he would kill the girl."

The next pull turned half the cigar to ash. "And?"

"Nothing else. Just for you to see him in person."

O5-4 watched his hand shake, smoke from the cigar zigzagging. "What did you tell him?"

"That I would notify you."

"You didn't say anything about that being against protocol, it being unlikely of happening, anything like that?"

"Seemed unwise to do so, given the context."

He finished his cigar. "If we're both alive tomorrow, remind me to give you a pay raise."

"Sir?"

He terminated the connection.

One door creaked open only to reveal another. O5-4 stepped through and stared down at the man leaning against the wall, an IV sticking into his arm. Mister Scary looked at him and smiled. The contraction chipped away some rust and blood flowed from the edges of his mouth. Neither said anything as the Overseer stepped past the Little Mister, glanced at the bag of morphine, and went through the second door, this one rusted open.

He considered breaking into a run down the hallway and settled on a stiff jog. Some of the tiles cracked under his feet and when he arrived at the double doors they were open, the joints rusting them in place. "I: 1-7 Os: Ker" was all that was visible of the plaque beside the doors.

Rust began to cling to some of the machinery, but the video feed of SCP-231-7's room was still functioning. Overseer Four steeled himself before looking.

A little girl lay in a hospital bed, her pregnant belly covered by her surgical gown. She seemed quite calm given the circumstances, but given her general situation there likely wasn't much that would upset her anymore.

Next to her bed was a man in a red vest, his jacket draped over the back of his seat. In one hand he held the ankle of a rusting man who was attempting to crawl away, and in the other he held a children's book.

The only sounds in the room were Lost groaning as his body rusted as he scrabbled against the decaying tiles and Redd reading in a warm voice.

O5-4 found the intercom and pressed the button. Katherine winced at the squealing as the system turned on and Redd cocked his head at the noise.

"Alright, Mister Redd. I'm here."

Redd released Lost and slowly turned in his seat to reach into his jacket pocket, removing a piece of paper. He marked his place in the story and shut it, setting the book on the bed. As Redd looked into the camera O5-4 saw flakes of brown and black on Redd's skin, red lightning sparking against it and revealing smooth skin.

Redd smiled. "Please, no need for the 'Mister' formality. We're all friends here. I'm Redd open parenthesis discontinued closed parenthesis. My friends just call me Redd. How are you, Four?"

Geniality was not what O5-4 was expecting. A few moments passed, filled only with the sound of Lost banging on the door, before Redd tilted his head and waved at the camera. O5-4 cleared his throat and said, "I've been better, Redd. You've been causing a lot of problems lately. Now what is it you want?"

Redd shrugged theatrically, splaying his palms. "Sorry about that. Though I do believe I was clear with my video earlier. I'd like to see you, face to face. No cameras, no PA systems. No tricks, no body doubles."

Was that a knife in Redd's hand? No, nothing. A trick of the light, a video oddity.

"Before that, I have one question. How did you get here?"

"Walked."

"The site has been on lockdown and you were able to avoid surveillance for most of your trek despite us having a satellite meant to track Mister Lost. And you somehow not only knew of this Wing, but how to access it."

"Like I said, I walked. As for why I knew, call it insider information. Now, please do get in here."

Again, a glimpse of black in his palm. A jagged shadow that played hell with the lighting of the room.

With great trepidation O5-4 unlocked the blast door and dodged Lost as he darted past. After watching the Little Mister run down the hall, the Overseer stepped into the room. It smelled of disinfectant and lilac, thanks to the small aromatizer next to the bed. He felt his heart hammer away at his throat as he looked to Redd, and clench slightly when the child gave him a little wave.

Redd gestured to the armchair on the opposite side of the bed. Once they were both seated Redd cupped his hands together and sighed.

"So, this is it," Redd said. "The finale. The brief period after a long sentence that drips with the taste of freedom. How long have you been doing this job?"

The Overseer was silent.

Redd smiled. Four would have sworn the overhead lights took on a slightly bloody hue.

"I," Redd finally said, "have been a Little Mister for… what is it, almost twenty years? Something like that. It's been difficult, let me tell you."

Redd looked down at the dagger in his hand, which was now all too real. With something akin to reverence he lifted it up and dragged the shadow across his own throat, cutting so deep his exposed trachea whistled softly. Red ran down his shirt. But it clung at odd places, depicting runes that sat at the edge of the Overseer's memory. Lightning lanced out and into the damage, the blood draining as red sparks healed the wound.

The Little Mister took another breath, "And there's no getting away from it. It won't let me go. As long as this stupid dirt ball keeps spinning, I'm going to be here. Unchanging. Undying. Unable to feel much beyond blinding rage."

He smiled again. "But what if I stopped the spinning? What if I could stop it all? What if I could stop hurting? I'd have to try, right?"

"If that's your intention, why bring me here? Why drag the other two around?"

"I guess I needed some kind of... closure," Redd said, his eyes distant.

I walked. I don't know how long, but I did. I know that much. I somehow ended up at the Wonderworks, the place that had eluded me for so bloody long. And it was running. No old man, but the place was bustling all the same. It was the gods damned child! The oh, so lovely Isabel! But what could I do to her? She was in the same sort as me, in a way. She asked me why you pricks hadn't collected me yet. I didn't really have an answer, but I figured, why not? Not like I had anything else to do. Suicide wasn't the option, as you can plainly fucking see!

But as I got closer, I got this feeling. This itching, burning sensation digging into my soul— if I even have one anymore. There was a thing, locked deep in the hole my brothers were buried. It spoke to me in ways I'll never be able to convey to you. Just. Fuck. It felt good. And I knew. I knew! I always thought I was just subject to anger issues, but all along I was a subject to the King!

Did you know gods can't die? They just… fade, waiting for their time to come again. But they still leave corpses. Something to jam a spigot into and tap into whatever power might be left lying around. The old man must have gotten desperate. Brass wasn't enough, even as big as the corpse he got pulled from is. A Broken universe still yields a Broken power, and a sliver of a fragment isn't worth much of anything. So he tried something a bit more intact, and…

...

What was I talking about? …Wait. Wait, no…

...

I used to say I have these… lucid moments. It's like— Do you wear glasses? You look the type. That brief time when you put them on, when your eyes see both through and around the lens. And everything just seems to warp around you as the glass rushes forward, the world shifts as the filter expands. You wear them long enough and you stop seeing the frames in your vision, don't feel the arms on your ears anymore.

...

I can't tell if my humanity is the prescription or the astigmatism anymore.

And I don't care. I'm so, so sick of it all. My eyes are strained to the point of bleeding and I can't close them. But at least that means I get to watch the end.

Redd eventually stirred from his trance. "Here, I want you to have this." He removed the bookmark from its spot and unfolded it before handing it over.

O5-4 stared at the list. One line in particular drew his eye.

14. Mr. Redd (discontinued) ✔

The man stood there for a moment, eyes unfocused. Somewhere in his mind the twentieth slot was filled. He leaned to the right, his hand out as if ready for a cane to take the weight. After a moment he caught his balance and examined his right hand, then the left, flexing and clenching them. He straightened back up and examined the room.

The former body of O5-4 took a breath.

Mister Collector let it out.

Collector reached into his pocket and pulled out a crisp piece of paper, uncrumpled despite its confines.

He let out a small chuckle. The paper between his thumb and middle finger, he snapped, and a bubble formed around the parchment. It floated just above his palm, bounced when he tapped it. He gave the top of the bubble a light pat and it collapsed into itself, away for him to take out later.

"How you feeling?" Redd asked from his seat.

"Better than I have in years," Collector responded. When he spoke, Redd sat up. Squinted. "And yourself?"

"You—!" Redd flew forward, knife in hand.

Collector slapped it away into a bubble, which soared just out of Redd's flailing grasp. Redd drew another from his sleeve and threw it, only for it to be caught in another bubble. Red in the face, Redd swung a fist while simply producing a dagger from his palm. Collector caught the punch and a silky bubble wrapped itself around Redd's hand. He pulled and yanked and was only able to free himself when he released his grip on the third shadow knife.

"How?!" Redd demanded. "You should be dead! The girl said you were dead!"

"I likely am. The me you are speaking to is merely a copy, made prior to Mister Forgetful erasing 'me' from my old body. Whatever was left in the body of Isiah Crawford after that was Doctor Wondertainment, though with a bit too much Factory mixed in for my taste. I suppose I remember all that because Forgetful couldn't get to me as I was merely in potentia. You remember Mister Mad?"

"He was a fucking— were we all just tests? A fucking training ground?"

"Not all of you, no." Mister Collector, née Doctor Wondertainment smiled. It lacked its old rainbow glow but it shined all the same. "Forgetful and Stripes to cover my tracks, the latter's brother to get you all here…" The smile faded. "…Scary. Ahem. Truth be told, this whole Collector concept was done fairly late into the project's development. I mostly wanted to see how things would turn out. How is Isabel doing?"

Redd glowered. "So then why was I made?"

The old man narrowed the eyes that weren't really his. "Hmm. You were a gamble, I suppose. Of course, I made a grave error— as they say, always bet on black."

Redd grabbed Collector by the collar. "Do you think this is a fucking joke? That I am somehow funny?"

"Not as such. My apologies, I was trying to lighten the mood. What would you like me to say? That you were a defect? That I condensed a power that was much more destructive than I could have imagined and pumped it into some young man's veins? I tried to change you, but you just wouldn't take much. So Redd you became."

Redd released his grip, his face expressionless. "So I'm a mistake."

Collector straightened his tie. "I would more say… an unfortunate surprise. But who doesn't like surprises?"

"Ha…" Redd reeled back, smiling. It took another few seconds for his face to move again. "I'll show you a surprise."

"And what's that?"

The grin in Redd's mouth was almost as sharp as the knives in Collector's bubbles. "That would be telling, dear father. Can't spoil the surprise."

Redd sidled next to the child's bed and smiled down at her. Katherine smiled back up at him, her gaze occasionally edging toward the other Mister. Redd sat down, the impact bouncing the book up and off of the bed. A chuckle left him as he bent over to get it.

Redd set the book down in the center of the bed. He traced out a curved knife on the cover. A spark of red followed his fingertip, outlining the weapon. Once completed the red flickered and was filled with black. Redd slipped the knife off the book as one would a playing card and held it for Collector to see. When Redd turned it so that the blade faced Collector, it appeared to merely be a wispy black line flickering in the light.

"Are you ready?" Redd asked Katherine in a soft voice.

The child took a few breaths. "Are you sure you can? I don't want Him getting hurt."

Redd twirled the knife in one hand and brushed back her hair with the other. "These people may have locked him away, but I just so happen to have the key."

With trembling fingers she lifted up her gown to expose her belly. Brands marked the swollen skin, dull and dark. They crackled like coal when Redd touched them. Katherine laid flat and squeezed her eyes shut.

The twisted scalpel slipped into her, the blade so fine she didn't wince. But as Redd ran the knife across her, she began to scream. The runes on her skin sizzled as Redd cut through them, vapor rising into the air. Within the girl, red and purple pulsed and writhed, her womb mangled and distended. It squished and squelched as her yelling became racking sobs.

All the while, Collector stood impassively at the foot of the bed. He had seen as bad, caused worse, but a twinge of guilt struck him as he thought of Sweetie. Hopefully she would at least speak to him when he found her. Collector stirred from his thoughts when Redd cleared his throat, knife hanging over the mess.

"Don't lose focus, old man. You're about to witness the birth of a new era. Or, at least, the death of this one."

The knife dropped.

Rather than cut or tear into the tissue, the dagger simply sank into it. Black into a mottled red. But as it was swallowed, a pinprick of bright red showed itself. There was a moment of stillness, even within the girl, as the shadows cast across her intestines swirled to the red.

The room was suddenly all too full. The smell of iron was nearly palpable, a loud ripping sound the only thing accompanying Katherine's now-resumed screams. Hardened flesh that matched the color of a dying sun dripped with blood and placenta. It pressed everywhere within the room, on the walls, under the bed, even within the inhabitants. The ceiling began to crack, and then the tearing sound intensified enough to drown out the sobs.

The ceiling exploded. The earth and concrete above it was obliterated as the thing rose, level after level was leveled by the growing expanse. It grew as it rose, each rising floor destroyed in a greater capacity. Eventually Site-██ was exposed to the open air, where dark clouds were beat about by a pair of reverse wings. Eleven mouths creaked open to take their first breaths.

Foundation personnel stared up in slack-jaw awe. At a distance, civilians who could spot at least the crown of horns began to panic. Down in the medical room, the trio remained. A thin umbilical cord connecting Katherine to her son. Redd cackled and pointed the monstrosity out to the spent child. Collector tapped the side of his head and a bubble formed around it.

The Seventh Son spoke. Clouds broke and the sky cracked under the weight of his words. The air itself tasted of blood. All those within the range of His mighty voice felt crimson run out their ears, with the exception of a single man standing in the center of it all. His bubble vibrated rainbows against the onslaught, but held.

"Do you see?!" Redd yelled, none hearing him over the din. He touched the blood coming from his ear and showed Collector. "It's over! I can finally be over!"

Once the bubble stopped shaking, Collector popped it. The world was silent, waiting for the Son's next words. He took the umbilical cord in his hand and proffered it to Redd. A crack of a smile broke Redd's face. From nowhere he produced another dagger and with no amount of ceremony separated mother and child.

Knowing this, the Seventh Son drew another breath. When He spoke again, His words fell on deaf ears. The air around him shimmered slightly, reflecting a rainbow in places.

Collector lowered his hand from where he had touched the Scarlet King's spawn. Something stuck to his hand, which he wiped off on the bed sheet. He cleared his throat and adjusted his tie again.

After a moment he turned to Redd, a small smile on his lips. "I'm so sorry, I'm afraid I couldn't hear you over all the noise. What were you saying?"

Redd said nothing. He did nothing, for a short time. Then his eye twitched. He looked at the shimmer of the bubble around the Seventh Son, at the stain on the bed sheet. Bony palms dug into his eyes as he tried to rub whatever nonsense was clouding his vision. When he looked again, the scene was the same.

"…No," Redd finally said, a full sword in his hand. He slashed at the bubble, the blade digging into the film. Then it flew out of his hand as the bubble pushed back. "No."

Collector watched Redd attack the bubble over and over again with a variety of shadow weapons. After a dozen or so weapons were embedded in the wall behind him, Redd slashed at his own hands and thrust the scarlet lightning into the bubble. It did nothing but catch the light.

"No!" Redd repeated, turning on Collector. "No."

"Sorry, is this distracting you?" Collector said. He raised a palm and snatched away the Seventh Son, now the size of a newt contained within the ball in the Little Mister's hand. "I'll put it away."

Redd watched his savior vanish with a whimsical pop! Mouth agape, he turned to his Queen. She couldn't look back, her eyes glazed over. Her breaths came in short, ragged bursts. Redd ground his teeth together and turned back to Collector.

With a mouth full of blood and darkness, Redd yelled, "No!"

He stumbled forward, knife in hand without the usual motion. It buried itself in Collector's chest.

"No!" Redd screamed, spraying blood in Collector's face. He pulled the knife out of his brother/father and continued stabbing him. "No. No! NO!"

Blood flew from the knife with each stab. Droplets froze in midair, catching other sprays and sloshing together into hovering bubbles of blood. Color drained from Collector's face as Redd's gained more and more.

"No…" Redd whispered, losing breath. His arm fell, opening a large gash across Collector's stomach. The knife fell and disintegrated, merging with the shadow cast by the last blood orb. A tear droplet met it. "No…"

Collector/Isiah hugged his brother/son. Redd sobbed against the offered shoulder. When the cries weakened in strength, Collector led Redd back to his seat. Redd fell into it and wrapped himself in his jacket. With a flick of his wrist Collector brought the crimson orbs into himself. By the time he finished collecting what shadow weapons remained he regained his color, though he moved slowly. He went about pop!ing the armaments away save for one. He took it out of its bubble and sat on the arm of the chair, between Redd and Katherine.

"I can't say this is how I envisioned the family reunion," Collector mused. "But I think I can afford you at least one gift."

Redd almost laughed. "What could you possibly give me?"

"Less give." Collector tapped Redd's forehead. "More take."

Redd blinked. He stared at the swirling hate bubbled in front of him. He winced when it vanished with a light tap from Collector. Emptiness filled him. Wonderful, calming emptiness. Tranquil, simple serenity.

Redd felt where Collector had prodded him. "It… it's gone?"

"Simply somewhere else."

Redd nearly sprang from his chair. "The girl! You could… take whatever they did to her out? Make her right?"

"I don't believe they made her wrong," Collector said, turning his gaze to Katherine. "If the Scarlet King could enter this world without humanity's help, he would have done it already. She chose this life for him. There is nothing for me to take from her, except…"

The black dagger seemed to try to catch the light in his hand.

"At least let me do it," Redd urged.

"I didn't wash your hands of blood just for you to dirty them again, Redd," Collector replied. "What's a few more drops on mine?"

He was silent for a moment, and then Redd said, "I don't think I really want that name anymore."

"Oh?"

He closed his eyes. The roiling red sea of his mind was now a calm blue. "I'm thinking Bluee."

"Blue?"

"With two E's."

Collector wheezed a laugh. "So be it. Excuse me one moment, Bluee."

It was over quick. Bluee found it hard to look at her, so he covered her up.

"So… what now?" Bluee asked.

"Now you enter one of the Foundation's little boxes, like your siblings," Collector said.

"What? That's it?" Bluee stood. "No, that isn't fair, it can't just end like-"

Collector held up a hand, and Bluee went silent. Collector reached into his pocket slowly, like the old man he looked to be. "You may be free of the Scarlet King's branding, but not of Wondertainment's. I'm in the body of a Foundation Overseer now. We have to act our parts."

Collector finally retrieved the paper he had pulled from his pocket earlier. He offered it to Bluee, who took it gingerly.

Wow! You've found them all and became Mr. Collector!!

But the fun isn't over yet, because now a whole new set of Misters will soon be in development, brought to you by our own Ms. Heir!

00. Mr. Collector ✔ 01. Mr. Chameleon ✔ 02. Mr. Headless ✔ 03. Mr. Laugh ✔ 04. Mr. Forgetful ✔ 05. Mr. Shapey ✔ 06. Mr. Soap ✔ 07. Mr. Hungry ✔ 08. Mr. Brass ✔ 09. Mr. Hot ✔ 10. Ms. Sweetie ✔ 11. Mr. Life and Mr. Death ✔ 12. Mr. Fish ✔ 13. Mr. Moon ✔ 14. Mr. Redd (discontinued) ✔ 15. Mr. Money ✔ 16. Mr. Lost ✔ 17. Mr. Lie ✔ 18. Mr. Mad ✔ 19. Mr. Scary ✔ 20. Mr. Stripes ✔

Bluee made a double take.

But the fun isn't over yet, because now a whole new set of Misters will soon be in development, brought to you by our own Ms. Heir!

Bluee looked up.

Collector's smile had more strength than the rest of his body combined. "Because we're not done yet."

#mr.Collector #scp redd #scp #Mr.redd #Mr.bluee #wondertainment #doctor wondertainment

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bellemorte180 · 4 years

Text

Just Good Business, Chapter Six: Epilogue

Caroline Salvatore, married into one of New York's most brutal crime families.

Niklaus Mikaelson, a notorious mob boss who is hell bent on taking down the Slavatores.

It's an affair for the ages.

Warning: Graphic descriptions of violence.

One Year Later

“Are you sure you’re ready to do this Gorgeous?” Enzo asked from the front seat. His dark eyes shown concern and Caroline could not help but smile at him. He knew the affect the strain of the last few months had on her and while it was far better than the life she had prior, the fall out of their schemes were not exactly a walk in the park. “You gave birth only a few months ago. Are you sure you don’t want to be home with Kol?”

Caroline smiled lightly at the thought of her son. Kol Niklaus Mikaelson came into the world screaming and wild. Even at four months old, Kol was untamable. He was sitting, scooting and just demanding attention. Klaus liked to joke as though it was his brother re-born while Caroline countered that while their son was named after his deceased uncle, that child was all Klaus. The baby even had the curly blonde hair already and his father’s dimples.

“Do you trust Bonnie so little?” She teased and Enzo rolled her eyes. Realizing that while she loved her son, Caroline wanted more of the world than to be just a mother. She started working at Klaus’s shell company and began heavily involved in his other businesses. Caroline found that she was really good at criminal activity; especially when it came to moving illegal substances across state lines and bringing them into the country. Her organization skills were impeccable and having grown up the daughter of the police chief, she knew how the NYPD operated.

However, that meant they needed someone to be stay with Kol when they could not. Klaus refused to hire just anyone. Interview after interview and yet they found no one. When Enzo mentioned that Bonnie had a degree in early childhood development before her sickle cell anima took root, they were intrigued. Caroline loved Bonnie immediately and Klaus could not tell her no.

Bonnie was funny, genuine and knew exactly what kind of work they were involved with; she had to since she was involved with Enzo. She was also strong. After a stem cell transplant, she seemed to be on the mend, much to Enzo’s relief. Bonnie started caring for Caroline during the end stages of her pregnancy and was with Kol during the day while his parents were at work; surrounding by bodyguards. Klaus was not about to risk his son’s safety. Only the best and most trusted guards were posted with Kol and Bonnie at all times.

“She loves that kid more than she loves me but I’m more worried about you. Are you sure you want to walk in there?” Enzo asked. In truth, Caroline was ready for this fiasco to be done and over with. When she walked out of her living room, leaving Stefan’s dead body behind; she did not know exactly what was to follow. The media circus and trial that followed were rough.

Stefan’s body was found the following morning. Police and FBI descended upon the home. Elijah happily turned over all the footage they collected from the cameras planted in their home; deleting the footage of Caroline. Adding in the fact that Elena’s body washed up on the shore of the Hudson River, it was easy to get a federal warrant to arrest Damon.

Damon was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and received a life sentence without the option of parole. While Alaric Saltzman was able to get Stefan out of jail due to the lack of evidence used against him for the murders of Meredith Fell and Elizabeth Forbes, there was video evidence of Damon committing Stefan’s murder and his confession to Elena’s.

But it just wasn’t enough. Not for Elijah and certainly not for Klaus.

As for Caroline, she was painted as a hero. The media portrayed her as an abused wife who turned informant for the FBI, feeding them information on her husband for months. There were photos of the beatings Caroline sustained at the hands of Stefan. They painted the story that she tried leaving multiple times but was unable to; held prisoner by Stefan. She learned of Stefan’s affair and the moment she was able to break free, she informed Damon of his wife’s infidelity. Her own affair was conveniently left out of the papers.

She, of course, had no idea that Damon would fly off the handle in such a manner.

The jury loved her. She was beautiful, sympathetic and heavily pregnant. It was reported that it was her testimony that caused the jury to come back with a guilty verdict in less than fifteen minutes. Damon was carted off and the Salvatore organization dismantled. Many of the criminals were on the run from Klaus’s vast network. It should have been over; but the pesky issue of Damon still being alive bothered both Elijah and Klaus. Despite the fact that Rebekah moved back to New York- they wanted anyone involved with their brother’s death stamped out.

Caroline suggested that they have him murdered in prison, but Klaus replied that it lacked finesse. They wanted to watch him die much like Caroline needed that closure when the life left Stefan’s eyes. She could not begrudge them; which was why Caroline was sitting in a black car in the middle of alleyway, in front of the same warehouse Enzo took her to meet Klaus the day she learned of her mother’s murder.

When Elijah realized that Damon was going to be transferred to a federal prison out of state, he easily arranged for that transport to be intercepted. “Yes.” Caroline took a deep breath and opened the car door. Once she was safely inside the warehouse, she looked over to see Enzo drive off. No need for him to escort her inside this time. She knew exactly what was waiting for her. She walked down the quiet vacant warehouse.

There was not much in the warehouse. Officially, Caroline learned that it was owned by the bank after a business went bankrupt. She knew, of course, that through several back channels that it belonged to Klaus and was used for some of his shadier business practices; like torture, body dismemberment and convincing a wife to betray her husband. However, Klaus currently was using the warehouse for storage of some old artifacts that were shipped in illegally from Europe. Caroline herself had overseen the shipment and was rather proud of the fact that the plan went smoothly. So, the warehouse was filled with crates, canvases and other priceless things that were to be sold on the black market. As she weaved through the mess that she was already mentally organizing, she began to hear voices.

“Tell me Damon, how does it feel to hit rock bottom?” Klaus’s voice sounded, echoing through the warehouse. Caroline rolled her eyes. While she loved Klaus and felt as though she was going to spend the rest of her mafia induced life with him, she could admit that he had the tendency to be a bit over dramatic.

“Fuck you.” Damon’s voice replied but it lacked the bravado that Caroline had come to associate with him. Damon always seemed confidant and in control; even if he seemed far too impulsive for her taste. Elena’s affair, the trail and everything that followed must have really destroyed him. Stefan was always Caroline’s monster and now that he was dead; she almost felt bad.

But she would never deny Klaus his need for revenge, especially when it came to Damon; who after all, was responsible for his brother’s murder.

“You’re not really my type.” Klaus replied in a smart tone. “That and I am happy to report that I am off the market. In a very serious relationship. Very committed.”

“Word of advice, I thought the same thing. Turns out my wife fucked my brother and look where that got me.” Damon replied and Caroline rolled her eyes again. If she was being honest, Caroline could not help but agree that in this matter. He did not ask to be cheated on. She could understand how that would rip someone’s heart out, especially when he loved Elena as much as he did. While Caroline did not see what Damon saw in Elena, she wasn’t completely heartless.

“I have no worries in that regard.” Klaus replied in a throw away tone. “Would you like to meet her? I think I hear her coming now.” Caroline looked down at her expensive high-heeled boots and cursed. The clicking the heel made as it hit the cement flooring didn’t even faze her; she had become so accustomed to the sound that she no longer heard it. “Sweetheart?”

Caroline sighed and walked around the massive amounts of crates and the pillar that was perched in the middle of the massive room. While the majority of the warehouse was pretty much dark but this particular section was slightly better lit due to the flimsy light swinging over Damon’s head. Damon was handcuffed to a metal chair and in a bright orange jumpsuit that did nothing for his complexion.

There were a few men standing behind him wearing FBI jackets that Caroline recognized as men who worked for Klaus. She had dealt with them from time to time over the last year and they seemed to be rather intimidated by her. She did not know if it was because she was with Klaus or good at her job; she liked to pretend it was the latter.

Across from Damon was Klaus, sitting in an identical chair but seemed far more relaxed. He wore a white button dress shirt and slacks; telling Caroline that he had come directly from the office. Elijah was standing over his shoulder, looking at Damon with unabashed hatred. The two brothers had been looking to this moment for well over two years. All their planning, patience and scheming was coming to fruition; Caroline did not even care that she was being used as a prop piece to rub salt into Damon’s already deep wound.

The look on Damon’s face was priceless. He seemed shocked at her appearance, his bright blue eyes widening and his jaw going slightly slacked. Caroline was sure that she was the last person he ever expected to see; let alone be with Klaus. However, his shock quickly dissipated, and Damon narrowed his eyes.

“I believe the two of you know each other well so introductions will not be necessary.” Klaus stated and Caroline held Damon’s gaze. Despite Klaus bravado, Caroline did enjoy seeing Damon’s fury. To drive the point home, Caroline walked over to Klaus, weaving her fingers through his hair and pulled his head back slightly. She leaned down and kissed Klaus on the lips. The kiss turned deep, passionate and long. When they broke apart, they both turned to look at Damon with hooded eyes. However, Damon seemed to have cooled his features.

“Don’t tell me that Klaus is going to be playing daddy to my niece or nephew.” Damon quipped and Klaus narrowed his eyes. The one things Elijah wanted to keep quiet during the trial was the fact that Caroline and Klaus were having an affair. Elijah felt that her testimony could be tainted and would be prejudice against her if discovered. Much to Klaus’s chagrin, they kept that news of their relationship quiet. The world saw a pregnant Caroline, assuming that the child she carried belonged to Stefan. Damon apparently was under the same impression; assuming she left Stefan because of the baby. “And here I was thinking of setting up a trust fund for the kid.”

“My son is none of your concern Damon.” Caroline replied in a sweet voice. “In fact, my son is not even related to you.” At first Damon appeared confused. It took a few seconds, but the truth dawned on him. His eyes flickering between the two of them with wild eyes. “There it is. I knew he would figure it out eventually.”

“No. Seriously?! Him?”

“For a good long while, actually.” Caroline replied. “All those times you and Stefan reveled your plans in front of me, I listened and went straight to Klaus. The sex was just a bonus.”

“I take it my brother did not know of this little…affair.” Damon replied. “He would have killed you the second he found out about it.”

“Remember how you beat Stefan to death?” Klaus asked and Damon froze at the mention of his crime. Caroline could see a hint of sadness in his eyes; almost as though he regretted killing his brother. Although, she would bet he regretted Elena’s death more. Even in the worst betrayal, he still loved her. “Well, Caroline and I watched it all.”

“The hidden cameras I take it?”

“Yes.” Caroline replied. She knew that Damon had a lapse of judgment the night he killed Stefan. He knew that Caroline got the footage of the numerous sex acts Stefan and Elena preformed from her home, but due to his anger; he didn’t consider the fact that the cameras would be on while he killed Stefan. He was too blinded by rage. “I watched you beat him. Then I needed him to know that it was me. That I was fucking Klaus right under his nose and that I was carrying his child. Then I sat down and watched him die.”

“Stefan must have really fucked you up Blondie if you jumped into bed with Klaus. Do you really think he will treat you any better? My advice, take the kid and run before he ruins you further.” Klaus jumped up and hit Damon across the face. The hit was hard enough that knocked a few teeth loose; blood splattering on the ground.

“Niklaus. Temper.” Elijah all but sang. However, his eyes never left Damon. Caroline learned that while Klaus ran hot, his temper flying in his extreme Machiavellian plans while Elijah was as cold as the artic. She honestly did not know which was more terrifying. Klaus reached down and gripped Damon’s chin. Klaus looked him in the eye, bending down to him.

“I may be a monster, but I would never lay a hand on Caroline in the manner your brother did. You did the entire world a favor when you took him out. I wanted to kill him myself, but Caroline wanted to watch him die slowly. You gave her that.”

“Much better than the Bundt-cake pan you and Elena picked out as our wedding gift.” Caroline teased. Klaus wasn’t laughing or finding the situation humorous. He was still staring down at Damon. Elijah called at his brother, but Klaus wasn’t budging. Caroline walked over to Klaus and touched his arm; pulling his hand from Damon’s jaw. “You can end this. Now. Put a bullet in his brain and let us go home to our son.”

“Look at you.” Damon replied, spitting more blood onto the ground. “Talking a man into murder. Never thought you were capable of it.” Damon toyed. “Then again, I never thought you were capable of anything really.” Klaus hit Damon across the face again and Caroline could see the blood trickle down his pale skin. “Always the dumb blonde who was shallow and useless.”

“Bite your tongue.”

“He is baiting you Niklaus.” Elijah chimed in. He walked around the chair. He looked down at Damon and placed his hand on Klaus’s chest. “Let me have a word with Mr. Salvatore. You said your piece. You dangled Caroline in front of him; showing him exactly how you bested him. You’re not the only one who has a matter to settle with him.”

Klaus nodded and let go Damon’s chin. Instead, he linked his hand with Caroline’s and pulled her to him. He kissed the top of her head. Caroline rested her head on Klaus’s chest while Elijah pulled the chair Klaus was sitting in closer to Damon. He sat down and looked at Damon deeply; his gaze never wavering. Caroline was seeing Elijah the agent, the man who rose high in the FBI.

“When Kol was fifteen he got a little too drunk one night. Decided to hot wire a car and drove around New York and as expected he got into a car accident. Killed a young woman. A secretary for some financial firm. He was arrested and facing being tried as an adult for vehicular manslaughter. I was a young man in the FBI then but had high connections. I got Kol out of trouble. Cleaned up his mess.”

“Is there a point to this little story?”

“Brothers do anything for one another. I would do anything for Kol as I would Niklaus or Rebekah.” Elijah drawled. “While I could never imagine the pain, you must have felt seeing Stefan and Elena together. When you love someone and they betray you, it feels unforgivable.” He cocked his head. “If Niklaus or Kol betrayed me in such a manner. I still do not think I would have the ability to do what you did to your brother.”

“Your point?”

“We are all monsters here. Kol was. I myself have committed treason, murder, espionage and all manner of sins that will condemn my soul. Niklaus runs the largest criminal organization this city has ever seen and has more blood on his hands than even you do. My little sister, who on an occasion has convinced multiple wealthy men to hand over their fortunes to her, is no innocent.” There was a smile that graced his lips when he spoke of Rebekah. “Caroline, while her hands are not as bloody as ours, she too has darkness in her. My family are filled with monsters but none of us ever betrayed each other. Stefan betrayed you but you committed the ultimate betrayal when you took his life.”

“Spare me the lecture, twiddle dumb. If you’re going to kill me, just do it because your yammering is driving me insane.” Damon bit out. Caroline cocked her head to the side. She eyed Damon; something was off with him. The way his shoulders sagged and there was no spark in his eyes. His smirk was off. His voice was off. Everything about his was wrong.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Caroline asked. She moved away from Klaus and walked closer to Damon. Her eyes searched him, looking for some spark of humanity left; but she found nothing. While Stefan was a void of anything remotely good; beyond his feelings for Elena, Damon was the opposite. He put on a bravado but there were human emotions underneath it all. “You hate yourself. I should have seen it at the trial. You never spoke or defended yourself. You just sat there and let twelve people decide your fate. You didn’t even try. The Damon I knew would have blackmailed and bribed his way to freedom.”

“Get to the point Blondie.”

“You want to die.” Caroline said. “You want them to kill you.” Damon said nothing, unable to deny the truth. “You cannot live with yourself. You killed your own brother and your wife. You hate yourself for it. It’s why you did nothing to defend yourself or even try and find a way out of prison. The Damon I knew…. you’re not it.”

“You’re more perceptive than I gave you credit for.” Damon shook his head. “Kill me. You know you want to Caroline. I stood by and let Stefan beat you. How many times did he rape you? Because that is what it was, wasn’t it? You never wanted him. You laid for him because you had too. He told me that you fucked you the night he killed your mother. I laughed. I thought it was hilarious.”

Klaus attempted to lunge at him, but Elijah held him back.

“Brother, he is baiting you. I think Caroline has a point.”

“He wants us to kill him.” Klaus hissed. He thought about killing Damon since he found Kol’s body. His hate for the both of them only grew once his feelings for Caroline grew. “I say we give him what he wishes and send him to an unmarked grave to be forgotten.”

“No.” Caroline said; not tearing her eyes from him. “Let him live. Let him live everyday with the knowledge of what he did. Throw him in a cage and let him rot from the rest of his life. He does not deserve the mercy of an easy death. Kill him and he wins.”

“He knows to much Caroline. He could talk.” Elijah pointed out.

“Then cut out his tongue.” She turned to look at both Elijah and Klaus; both of whom looked at her like she lost her mind. “Cut out his tongue so he can’t speak. Mangle his hands so he cannot write. He will have nothing left beyond the memory of killing his brother and drowning his wife in the Hudson. He won’t be able to do anything else.”

Klaus stepped forward and looked at Caroline. His eyes held disbelief, wonder and lust all mixed into one. As though he couldn’t believe that she actually existed. After a moment, Klaus pulled Caroline to him and kissed her furiously. Not being able to help herself, she pressed her body into him. His hands roamed all over her body and she could feel the heat begin to pool between her legs.

“Niklaus. You’re getting distracted.” Elijah’s voice interrupted them.

“You’re a goddess.” Klaus stated as their lips broke apart, completely ignoring his brother. “I plan on rewarding you later.” That gleam and mischief were back, and Caroline could not help but giggle at seeing it. He pulled away from her and walked over to one of the crates. He picked up a crowbar that was leaning against a wooden crate. He wedged the crowbar underneath the lid of one and ripped it off. Sliding the slip end into a rusted nail, he pulled it from the wood. Turning towards the two agents, Klaus pointed at them. “Uncuff him and bring him to his knees.”

“Niklaus, what are you doing?” Elijah asked as the agents followed his brother’s command. Damon was uncuffed from his chair and fought the two agents, but they overpowered him easily. He was pushed down onto his knees.

“Following my girl’s command. What kind of lover would I be if I just ignored such a brilliant plan!” Klaus replied, an overexcited grin taking over his face. “Place his hand, palm up on the chair and hold him still.” The agents once again obeyed; forcing a Damon who was struggling to place his hand on the chair. Klaus walked up to him and placed the sharp end of the nail directly into his palm; digging in ever so slightly. He paused for a moment, raised the crowbar and brought it down onto the nail. The nail went directly into the palm of his hand; Damon screaming as he did so. Klaus repeated the action, over and over until Damon’s nailed was nailed to the chair.

“You’re probably going to give him tetanus using that nail.” Elijah stated, completely unfazed by the scene in front of him. Caroline winced slightly at every scream but didn’t look away. Damon was withering on his knees and appeared to be in extreme pain.

“Then he will have a very painful end.” Klaus replied. He slipped the split end of the crowbar into the nail again and leveraged it so it slid out of Damon’s hand. He repeated the action with another part of his hand before tossing the nail down to the ground. Klaus then brought the crowbar down onto Damon’s fingers with such force, Caroline could hear the bones cracking in his hand. “The other hand.”

Klaus repeated his actions, giving Damon’s other hand the exact same treatment. Once Klaus was done ruining Damon’s hands, Caroline knew that they would be no use to him anymore. No longer would he be able to write or hold the simplest of objects. They were completely mangled. The agents dropped him to the floor once Klaus tossed the crowbar to the side. Damon’s cries of pain turned into a whimper as he cradled his ruined hands to his chest.

“Are you done Niklaus?”

“Absolutely not. We still have the matter of his tongue to deal with.” Klaus stated, not caring that his white shirt now had blood spatters on it around the waistline. Caroline was already imaging how much bleach she would have to use to get the stains out; something he became very good at in the past few months. “Unless you would like to cut it out? I’m sure I can find some plyers in this place.”

Elijah sighed, contemplating and then took off his winter jacket. Caroline held out her hand and took the coat from him. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, slinging that over the other chair. Klaus, grinning like a maniac, pointed to one of the agents, commanding him to find him a set of plyers. Within minutes the agent returned and handed the pair of plyers to Elijah.

“Now, brother, while you take care of his tongue; I need to have word with my girl.” Klaus stated, pulling Elijah’s jacket from Caroline’s arms; tossing to lay with his suit jacket. “We will find you once you’ve completed the act. The lack of screams will be our signal.”

Klaus grabbed Caroline’s hand and pulled her away from the rest of the group. She looked over her shoulder to see Damon struggling in the agents’ arms while Elijah waited patiently for him to settle. They all fell out of sight when Klaus turned a corner and all Caroline could hear was Damon began to give a throaty scream. Klaus weaved them through crates of wooden boxes that Caroline was mentally taking inventory of; something she was going to actually be doing with in the coming weeks.

“Where are we going?”

“Through here.” Klaus pointed through a small opening in a cluster of crates and pulled her through. He turned to face her and immediately pulled her into a kiss. It was heated and passionate. Caroline pressed her body to his and she could feel his erection pressing into her stomach. She bit her lip and tried to not grin. “You are a goddess. That mind of yours, it is a wonder.”

“Well, it is my best feature.” She teased, blocking out Damon’s screams that echoed throughout the warehouse. Klaus allowed his hands to roam over her body and he gripped her behind, squeezing her buttocks; causing Caroline to squeal. “Klaus!”

“It was what made me fall in love with you.” He leaned down and kissed her again. Caroline wrapped her arms around his shoulders. His hands moved towards her winter coat and unbuttoned it. He pushed it off her shoulders and let it hit the ground. “Watching you order the mutilation of my enemy, it does things to me that I cannot explain. All I wanted to do was please you and then fuck you.”

“Then do it.” Klaus took her shoulders, turning her around and pushing her up against the wooden crates. Caroline braced herself, palms resting against the wood. He palmed her breasts through her shirt and pressed his clothed erection into her behind. He pressed his nose into her hair, inhaled before biting her ear. “Klaus.”

“You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.” Klaus whispered in her air. His hand snuck his way under her shirt as his lips descended upon her neck. His free hand gripped her blonde hair and pulled her head to the side, giving him more access to her pulse point. His tongue peeked out and dragged it up the side of her neck. “Even after the last year and a half together, having Kol and you just being by my side, is not enough for me.”

“I’m yours.” Caroline breathed out in a throaty moan. Klaus pinched Caroline’s nipple through her bra causing her to hiss; pressing her behind into his erection harder. He groaned into her ear, thrusting his hips forward. “What did you like more? When I figured out that he wanted to die or when I told you to cut out his tongue.”

“Both.” Klaus hissed. His hand snaked down her abdomen to the top of her pants. He unbuttoned them, pulled down the zipper and yanked the pants down to her ankles. Caroline spread her legs enough to give Klaus access to her center. He ran his across her center, causing her to moan in delight. “Wet for me already. Tell me love, did you enjoy bossing me around? Commanding me, bending me to your will?” Klaus twirled the bundle of nerves on her clit while biting her neck. “Answer me.”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“I enjoyed it.” She whimpered. She reached behind her and palmed him through his pants. Klaus groaned at the contact, whispering her name in her ear. “I enjoyed taking control. I enjoyed seeing you in your element, hurting him. Hurting him because I told you to. I enjoyed the power I had but do you know what else I enjoy?” Caroline asked, causing Klaus to hum in her ear; his fingers still rubbing her clit. “I enjoy it when you fuck me. I enjoy it when you’re inside me and all I can feel is you, thrusting and pulsing until I fall apart.”

Not being able to take her teasing any longer, Klaus pulled at his belt buckle and pushed his pants down. He aligned himself with Caroline’s entrance, coating himself in her juices and pushed inside of her. They both cried out at the feel of them together. Slowly, Klaus withdrew before pushing back in. Over and over, Klaus thrusted into her.

Caroline’s screams echoed off the walls. Neither could hear the screaming occurring at the other end of the warehouse. They were so involved with their lovemaking that nothing else occurred to them. The sound of their skin slapping together, and their moans only caused Klaus to move faster. He grasped her hair and pulled her head back. Feeling the pull of her hair was enough to send Caroline over the edge.

Her orgasm rippled through her body; screaming Klaus’s name as she came. He continued to thrust into her while she fell over the edge. Knowing that Klaus was not near his peak yet, Caroline smirked. She pushed off the crate and Klaus, taken off guard, stumbled ever so slightly, slipping out of her as he went. Caroline turned and pushed him gently, causing his back to hit the crates on the other side of the wall.

Caroline grabbed his head and pulled him into a deep kiss; her nails trailing a small trail down his chest. Her kiss traveled from his lips to his jaw and then down his neck. She kissed his chest until he sunk down to his chest until she was on her knees. She was eye level with his penis and gave his one long lick.

“Christ Caroline.” Klaus hissed out, weaving his fingers through her hair. Caroline took Klaus into her mouth and began to bob up and down. She massaged his balls and Klaus’s fingernails dug into her scalp. His eyes rolled back into his head. It wasn’t long before Klaus found himself spilling into her throat; Caroline drinking it all. After she licked his penis one last time, Caroline stood and kissed Klaus on the lips, letting him taste their juices mixed together on her lips.

“If the two of you are done, Mr. Salvatore is being loaded up and transported to receive medical attention.” Klaus groaned in frustration. Caroline, blushing, bent down and pulled up her pants. Klaus tucked himself into his pants and picked up Caroline’s coat. He put it on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. They linked their hands together and they walked around the crates. Elijah was standing there, cleaning his hands of blood; ignoring the fact that his shirt was covered in it.

“I’m assuming that Damon Salvatore has become mute?” Klaus asked, appearing extremely pleased. She did not know if it was because he just won a war or the fact that he just got laid. Either way, Klaus was having a very good night.

“Yes. It was not exactly pleasant.”

“Oh, don’t be that way Elijah. You enjoyed it.”

“Let us leave. I have work in the morning.” Elijah replied and Caroline smiled. She was ready to go home. Tonight, put an end to a very long nightmare and Caroline felt as though they finally could get on with their lives. In that moment, all she wanted to do was go home to her son.

“Yes. Let’s go home.” Caroline smiled widely pulling on Klaus’s hand. “I want to see our son.”

#klaroline #klaroline fanfiction #caroline x klaus #klaus mikaelson #caroline forbes

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carolynpetit · 5 years

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Control

Toward the end of Control, there’s an exhilarating sequence called the Ashtray Maze, in which the shifting nature of The Oldest House takes center stage, becoming part of what feels like a choreographed dance, all of it adding up to a dazzling, whirling, almost staggering multimedia extravaganza. It’s a real knock-your-socks-off moment, easily the most impressive video game set piece I’ve seen since at least Super Mario Odyssey’s New Donk City Festival. Yes, I loved the Ashtray Maze, but in the hours and days since I’ve finished the game, the maze has come to feel less like an audiovisual expression of some sort of meaning hidden at the game’s heart, and more like a distraction from the fact that, in the end, there is no there, there.

Jesse Faden arrives at The Oldest House, the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, with a past full of mystery and a head full of questions. When she was a child, agents from the bureau came to her hometown of Ordinary to investigate an Altered World Event, a paranatural disruption of our dimension, just the sort of thing the bureau works to, well, control, its work a secret from all of us who go through our lives unaware of the strange power that certain objects and people possess. The shifting hallways of the House waste no time in ushering Jesse to the director’s office, where a man, Director Trench, lies dead. She picks up his service weapon, and with that, instantly becomes the new director, soon setting off into the depths of the House in search of answers to the questions of her past.

Or is it you, the player, who picks up Trench’s service weapon? Of course, almost all games allow us to question the relationship between the player’s actions and the actions of the character they play, but Control actively raises these questions. An entity or body known as The Board, that dwells on the Astral Plane, holds some authority over the bureau and its director, and when it speaks, words and their meanings splinter, sometimes breaking the fourth wall and making you aware that the game is addressing not just Jesse but you. Given Control’s concerns with other planes of existence and with objects that can be multiple things, initially the ways in which it also peels back the layers of its own internal reality and asks you to consider how they are constructed by game designers add a delicious added layer of seeming meaning to the proceedings. Who is in control? Me, or Jesse? The Board, or the folks at Remedy who made this game? Is there even a meaningful distinction here between the Board and Remedy?

youtube

There are pleasures aplenty to be found in The Oldest House. Scattered everywhere are memos and reports on events, objects, and phenomena that the bureau has cataloged and investigated, and in truth, I’ve never before found in-game text quite so fun to read. I mean, I may appreciate in the abstract that someone had to write all those in-universe books cluttering up every bookshelf in Skyrim, but I’m sure as hell not gonna take the time to read them. In Control, though, I stopped to read every memo I found, always game to read about some other strange object or bizarre happening. And then there are the charmingly off-kilter, official bureau short films hosted by Dr. Casper Darling (Matthew Porretta), whose sparkly-eyed enthusiasm for the phenomena he studies is infectious. Darling’s one of the few sources of any real warmth or humanity in the game, and while it’s certainly welcome whenever you come across it, the chilliness of most of Control ends up being to its detriment.

As you make your way through the labyrinthine halls of the bureau, you’re routinely besieged by groups of agents corrupted by something called the hiss. With your service weapon and the abilities you acquire from some of the strange “objects of power” the bureau has acquired, you dash around environments (and later levitate), popping off shots and hurling objects, a superhero with a gun. The combat is speedy, chaotic and kinetic as all hell, and definitely wants you to feel like an unmitigated badass. It works, too. I just wish that among all the questions Control was interested in exploring, one of them was about whether or not it’s such a good thing that games so often want to make us feel like the only one capable of fixing things, the only one who really matters. Or how about this: Why is a game whose narrative is so concerned with the strange and unconventional mechanically interested in providing us with only the most conventional, ordinary types of enjoyment that games so often aim to provide?

But in the end, it turns out Control isn’t really interested in exploring questions much at all, despite pretending to be in the beginning. I hoped the final few hours might contain, if not answers exactly, then at least some sort of meaningful suggestions toward possible answers. But they don’t. It all falls apart in a mess of rapid-fire events and revelations that don’t actually reveal anything. Haven’t we realized yet that “mystery box” storytelling isn’t any good if the box is ultimately revealed to be completely empty? Control could have been well-served by a commitment to saying things, even too many things, so that the truth or meaning was like one of the game’s objects of power, looking different from each angle or shifting so rapidly that the human eye couldn’t perceive it. But no, there’s nothing there, just smoke on which is projected the illusion of something, which might be enough for YouTubers to create speculative fan theory videos about “what it all really means,” and they’ll all be right and they’ll all be wrong, because Control can’t commit to actually meaning anything. That’s not enough to undo Control, because when you have as much style as this game has, it turns out that style is enough, but only just.

(6/10) (Recommended)

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cindylouwho-2 · 5 years

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TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

US Amazon sellers were told via email that they will have to pay taxes on some Amazon fees, as Etsy has been doing with sellers in the EU and in Quebec.

The Instagram look may be dropping out of favour; apparently, reality is in. “Instagram museums and walls were built to allow normal people to take influencer-quality photographs—but they worked so well, those types of photos became common enough that they don’t resonate like they used to. “#unfiltered

In case you missed it, my review of Etsy’s Spring & Summer Trends Guide, including all of the keyword data (which you do need to check out, as they reveal some interesting search info).

ETSY NEWS

Etsy published a new census/survey of sellers in its 6 core countries, and also did a summary (if you don’t want to read the whole thing). “More than nine out of ten Etsy sellers (91%) are the sole owner of their businesses.”... “The majority (82%) of Etsy sellers would like to grow their business, but more than three out of five would not want to grow so big that they would have to hire more help.”

The bugs & errors with financial statements and records continue; Etsy botched the VAT statements yet again, even overwriting them all the way back to 2016. No word on whether any sellers have notified EU authorities on this yet.

New seller handbook article covers advertising; not much new or gripping, but it does discuss general ad approaches, not just Etsy’s.

There is also a new free shipping tool, in case you didn’t realize that Etsy wants more sellers to offer free shipping more often. “When we talk to shoppers during research, many say things like “I want to feel like I’m getting a deal!” and “I would love to see free shipping across the board, even if it meant increased prices.” Offering free shipping can be a great way to give customers like these the shopping experience they are looking for.”

CEO Josh Silverman participated in The Wall Street Journal’s “In the Elevator” interview series [video link]. Every 90 seconds, an engagement ring or wedding ring sells on Etsy. He also talks about free & fast shipping not always being a reasonable expectation when shopping on Etsy, unlike Amazon.

Speaking of free shipping, a limited number of US customers will be getting it from Etsy, with Etsy reimbursing sellers for the costs. Non-US sellers and buyers get nothing.

Etsy’s 2019 1st quarter results will be available May 8.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Rand Fishkin released Part 5 of his Learn SEO in 1 Hour series: technical SEO [video & written transcript]. This is the one most of you can skip or just skim over, as it does talk a lot about coding.Some tips are important to everyone, however, like page linking/site structure (for websites), and having https set up.

Part 6 covers link building, in 10 minutes. Remember, if you are going to put effort into getting links, do it for your website & not your Etsy shop or other marketplace page. If you are creating traffic, make sure you own it.

Don’t forget looking beyond Google for your search engine traffic; this podcast [with written transcript] breaks down an approach to several of the biggest ones beyond Google. Spoiler: they only recommend worrying about the biggest, Bing, if you have around 1000 unique search visitors to your website per day.

How to get keyword ideas from the Google search results: there’s a lot more available now, beyond the search bar suggestions.

Google is asking local businesses if they would pay for their Google My Business listings. This possibility raises concerns about the impact on organic rankings.

More SEO tips for Amazon, including discussion of the various factors involved.

If pages on your website aren’t indexed by Google, there are some steps you can take to fix them. (For websites only, not Etsy shops)

Advanced/semi-advanced content: Great tips on using bookmarklets in Chrome to get SEO things done quickly. (A lot of these involve tools that work best in the paid version, so I suspect most of us will not have much use for this, yet.)

Possible Google algorithm update last week. (I am seeing changes)

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

Looking for new hashtags for your social media accounts? Try: https://www.tagshitter.com (apologies for the name; that’s what they call it. It’s good, too! Just like its regular keyword research partner, http://keywordshitter.com/ )

Email subject lines [infographic] are crucial to top interaction with your newsletter etc. Includes Dos & Don’ts, plus the shockingly low open rates in most industries.

Selling through social media directly is a great way to avoid people losing interest as they keep clicking. Note that this seems to work best with items under $50, though, which they suggest solutions to in the next part of the article.

Despite all the scandals and negative media coverage, US social media use hasn’t really changed in the past few years. “A 2018 Center survey found that some Facebook users had recently taken steps to moderate their use of the site – such as deleting the Facebook app from their phone or taking a break from the platform for some time. But despite these findings and amid some high profile controversies, Facebook users as a whole are just as active on the site today as they were a year ago.”

Facebook scandal watch: FB’s “stock price jumped after it said it expects to incur a fine of up to $5 billion from the Federal Trade Commission. And that’s all you really need to know about whether the historically large penalty matters to the company.”

Also:

they admitted to asking for your email password then importing all of your contacts. “...Facebook disclosed to Business Insider that 1.5 million people's contacts were collected this way and fed into Facebook's systems, where they were used to improve Facebook's ad targeting, build Facebook's web of social connections, and recommend friends to add.”

The Canadian Privacy Commissioner is taking FB to court over breaches of Canadian privacy law.

But hey, it’s all fine, because they beat earnings expectations in the first quarter.

70% of YouTube videos watched are recommended by its algorithm. “ The recommendations are fueled by the artificial-intelligence arm, Google Brain, of YouTube’s parent company. The machine-learning models help identify videos that aren’t exactly what you just watched, but similar enough that you might like them.“

Does directing people to the link in your Instagram bio really work? Testing says that it probably doesn’t work for most accounts, and more importantly, that Instagram may be limiting the algorithm visibility of posts that direct visitors to the link in your bio.

Twitter has now limited the number of accounts you can follow in 1 day, to 400 down from 1000; this is intended to cut back on spammers.

US Twitter users are better educated & better off than the average American.(Good article for target market considerations)

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS)

Amazon is reducing/removing the ads for its own products, possibly due to increased complaints of unfair competition. “Amazon is now the third-largest digital advertising platform, behind Google and Facebook”, and could grow 50% this year alone, based on projections.

Facebook retargeting tips. And everything you need to know about the Facebook pixel for tracking your ad performance.

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

Some Google Analytics tips for websites - almost beginner level!

The Google Search Console delays are nearly all fixed.

Stats programs all give you different numbers, and that isn’t likely to improve. (This piece is semi-advanced; don’t bother with it if you aren’t a stats geek.)

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

eBay’s Spring Marketplace Updates include several back end changes and a fee increase for sellers who run afoul of eBay’s seller performance standards.

Amazon sellers can buy so-called “black hat” services to beat its algorithms. These include tips from Amazon employees who are making money by reporting on Amazon’s inner workings. Amazon “also said it takes action against sellers who pay for internal information; penalties include terminating their selling accounts, deleting reviews, withholding funds, and taking legal action.” No doubt the company already has closed some of the loopholes discussed in the article.

Amazon also fires warehouse workers by algorithm, based on productivity.

GoDaddy launches an ecommerce sharing tool that lets you list across multiple websites including your standalone. Current marketplace options include Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Jet & Walmart. They bought Sellbrite as part of this move. Quite a few different entities are releasing this type of service, so shop around if it is something you are interested in.

eBay released their 1st quarter 2019 results on April 23. Total sales were down 4% from 2018 (they were close to even when currency fluctuations were accounted for), but eBay’s own income from seller fees was up. “eBay reduced their marketing by a significant amount where their cash was being used to effectively subsidise the sales of high value items. Put simply, eBay have been buying sales and now they’ve stopped and this has seen a reduction in high ticket items being sold in comparison to sales of lower value items.” Easter being later this year may have slowed ecommerce growth overall in the quarter.

...but Amazon reported record revenue, up 16.9% over 2018. Despite that, analysts note that growth is slowing, & that Amazon’s own projections for the second quarter are lower than many predicted. “Amazon’s CFO Brian Olsavsky said during the call with analysts that part of the lower guidance is due to an $800 million investment in making free one-day delivery shipping the default for Prime members.” - if you thought buyers wanted stuff yesterday already, wait til this becomes the norm ... I mean, Walmart & Target stocks fell after the announcement. Walmart is already hinting at offering the same.

You can return your Amazon purchases at Kohl’s in the US, starting everywhere in July. Ease of returns is going to be a bigger battleground in the next few years, as retailers continue to increase free & speedy shipping options.

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

Generation Z will be making 40% of US retail purchases by next year; they are going to change a lot about selling. “ Fair trade products, ethical business practices, and a strong mission statement have never been more essential. Vend reports, “Research has shown that this particular generation cares about various environmental issues (76% are concerned about humanity’s impact on the planet) as well as social causes such as racial, gender, and income inequality.” [Gen Z come after millennials, and are currently more numerous than millennials or boomers.]

Millennials & Gen Z are big gift card buyers in the US - over 1/3 buy a card every 3 months.

Brick & mortar stores & malls are using your phone location data (location analytics) to make marketing and product decisions. “Every company interviewed for this story said it chooses not to use information that could identify individuals. But for the most part they’re on an honor system because rules governing data remain relatively lax.” This surprised me: “To glean details, including an individual’s age, income, ethnicity, education level, number of children and more, firms connect the phone’s evening location with U.S. Census data”

MISCELLANEOUS

US copyright law: the USSC rules that your copyright registration must be finished/approved before you can sue an infringer in federal court.

If you hate Gmail’s current layout, you will love this Chrome extension.

And if you use Google Sheets fairly often, you will likely learn something useful from these tips.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, missed industry revenue expectations in the first quarter of 2019.

#seo #search engine optimization #etsynews #analytics #stats #social media #contentmarketing #ecommerce #smallbiz #cindylouwho2newsupdates

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theundergrounddog · 6 years

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Kenny Omega at DDT (Part 2)

Interviewer: “How was it for you adjusting to the Japanese culture?”

Kenny: “Uh well… I was lucky that I sort of had a good introduction to DDT. I mean I made that YouTube video of the anywhere match where I’m wrestling around my cottage and DDT fans are kinda wacky so before even like arriving to DDT they were already really excited to see me. So I sort of had that little bit of buzz. The adjustment was really easy to do in ring and in the match. The more difficult adjustment was adjusting to the actual culture and the food and the language and that was sort of like, you know a really long slow process.

Cause I mean it’s… you’re on your own to learn the language, you’re on your own to figure out to eat properly and maintain your diet and maintain your conditioning and that took about three years to balance it all out and to get to like a level in my Japanese where I could converse and sort of survive.

So yeah, the matches and stuff, that was easy. It was the other stuff, the after/before match type of things, the time when I wasn’t wrestling that was most difficult.” Under the Mat (podcast) 2014.21.04

(Quick disclaimer: I just want to make it clear that translation-wise I’m operating on google translate and common sense only. I cannot speak or read Japanese. If you can and you notice any issues where the meaning is drastically off, I would really really really like to know! Thank you!)

Kenny has 9 matches on his first tour in Japan however, 6 of these were during the beer garden shows which were over and done with by the 10th of August.*

At the same time, Kota was working other promotions aside from DDT including competing in Pro Wrestling Noah’s Junior Heavyweight tag league near the end of the month. This despite perhaps not being at 100% health-wise. There are reports on the blogs of him going to hospital to get checked out after his match with Kenny. The story is that he hit the back of his head when taking the Michinoku driver to the chairs and doesn’t remember the match clearly after that. Given that my main source for this is Takagi’s blog, he may be slightly exaggerating it for kayfabe’s sake however this wasn't the only place I saw the rumor that he was made to go to hospital after the match.

Kota works a match on the 9th for K-DOJO 3 days after his match with Kenny but doesn’t wrestle the final night of the beer garden shows on the 10th. He is at the show, but he just takes part in a comedy skit and works at the shop rather than doing the tag match originally advertised.

(Source)

Kenny has a street fight against the president Takagi himself! Unfortunately, apart from the Kenny vs Ibushi match and the tag match he had before that, none of the rest of Kenny’s matches from this tour are available online as far as I can find.

(Source) (Source)

Afterwards:

After the match (which Kenny loses) Takagi calls him “the best foreigner” and promises to call him in one year. The crowd chants ‘please come back’. And Nakazawa translates a promo from Kenny for them.

Kenny: "My wrestling career was so blessed to contract with WWE so that I could finally join ROH and finally come to DDT. Whatever anyone says DDT is the best company, with the best wrestlers and the best fans, as long as you want to see me, as long as Mr. Takagi asks me, I will definitely come back because this is where I am." (source)

So now the bulk of the wrestling was over. Kenny stayed in Japan for another three weeks, but only performed on three more shows.* One on the 17th in Nagoya, one on the 27th at Shin Kiba 1st ring again for another promotion called Great Pro Wrestling and one on the 31st at Korakuen Hall.

Tagaki’s promise at the end of the beer garden show hopefully eased Kenny’s mind a little but his initial concern to prove his worth so that DDT would bring him back was not unfounded. DDT was a small promotion. They didn’t have a huge amount of money to spare flying in and hosting talent from across the world.

The dormitory where Kenny stayed was in a quite run-down state. Matsui, one of the DDT refs, actually writes on his blog that he was impressed Kenny stayed there the whole time without complaining. It was in an industrial area outside of the center of Tokyo. The residents were mostly elderly with little or no English and they often crossed the street to avoid him. When he got lonely, he used to go talk to the staff at the local convenience store. It was a 45-minute bike ride to the closest internet café. (If you want to know more about this, the Japanophiles documentary is probably the best thing to watch. The other tidbits of information are scattered about on various podcasts and shoot interviews.)

Michael Nakazawa was a busy guy who appears to have been holding down multiple jobs, but he still finds time to hang out with Kenny often during his stay.

From his blog entries, it’s clear that Kota and Kenny’s connection was more or less instant. The day after the beer garden shows end, Nakazawa and Ibushi take Kenny to Akihabara and they play arcade games.

Ibushi vs. Omega, rebound match suddenly broke out! (August 12th)

“It's a game though. (^ _ ^;)

Today we have come to play in Akihabara in a group of three.

A splendid O Mega revenge with an initial D! Happy.

Silent Hill played alongside teaming together. I heard that I have not seen Silent Hill's gun shooting in the USA. You are pretty enthusiastic.

Even so, both of you are considerable gamers .... There is no language barrier in the game. That’s a relief. (^ O ^)”

From an interview with Kenny in November 2008 (August 17th -ish)

“-Then, if there are memories etc in DDT?

Omega: There are lots of memories and it is difficult. If I had to give one, I guess it's the hot spicy challenge with Ibushi. We went to a restaurant in Nagoya. There was a Russian roulette pizza in that shop, and one of the 6 piece pizza had hot sauce on it. Me and Ibushi are poor at eating spicy foods and can not eat them at all, but decided to do the challenge because it would be funny.

Eating with us was a rookie from Nagoya. He ate first but there was nothing. And then we ate, but there was nothing at all. Why?

'The truth is that mine was hit.' The new guy turned white, the Russian roulette pizza was over. But then it's not fun, right? So Nakazawa passed a spicy sauce to Ibushi, and Ibushi made the sauce for my pizza. In return I put sauce on Ibushi’s pizza, but I slipped and put it all over (laugh) But, for the time being, I handed it to Ibushi and decided to eat that pizza quickly.

Then it's hard to do anything! The two of us drank water, I put ice in my mouth, but I still felt like drinking water. Ibushi cried tears it was so spicy. So, Ibushi wiped the tears with his hands, but his hands actually had hot sauce on and so more and more tears flowed. So, both of our tongues are still burning, I asked for ice cream, but my tongue was still burning, still continued drinking water and then it took a long time to settle out. That was a good memory.”

Kenny’s match on the 17thwas a triple threat with Kudo and Masa Takanashi which Kenny actually won! Kota has a match with Dino in the main event. Can’t find either match online but the latter looks like its pretty standard fare for a Dino vs Ibushi match i.e. a copious amount of non-con kissing and heavily dick centered offense.

Ibushi wins but the Extremeparty recapper still notes some concern over his physical wellness.

Today's Ibushi & Kenny Omega (22nd)

The events of this day were recounted in both Nakazawa’s and Matsui’s blogs.

Nakazawa: “We joined with Mr. Matsui and Mr. Ibushi, who didn’t play at Noah today, we went to Ikebukuro. When people went to America with ROH before, people who became indebted people are connected, but the barbecue has become a treat for everyone. Well I have not eaten such good meat after a long time Nobunashima ....

Street brothers Kenny and Ibushi-san were playful while eating ice-cream. Good relationship. In this case you do not need an interpreter anymore.

What close friends you are, before they leave the office, they say they say "Hado-ken!" Or something like a fireworks that happened to be sandwiched with both hands and shoot it with you. Ah Ibushi I'm burning a hand. f (^ _^;)”

Matsui: “Tonight, Ibushi and Michael were invited by the mother who took care of me during the expedition of ROH. Ibushi, Michael, Kenny, and me got to eat meals.

It was delicious!

Also moved to the shop that they are doing.

Despite the fact that Kenny did not drink a single drop, he sang English songs for a long time without giving up the microphone, and it made me drink.

Love song sent to Ibushi was sweet and painful.

So, now we will return.

Kenny wanted to stop by the arcade,

"If you play now, the train will be gone!" I said in Japanese.”

Kenny Omega Night (August 24th)

Ibushi’s Noah matches start on the 23rd. Meanwhile, Kenny and Nakazawa hold the first Kenny Omega Night at Dropkick! He squishes the grapefruits with his bare hands apparently. They play street fighter with customers + other DDT wrestlers.

Then they play strip street fighter. Which goes badly for Michael.

They do a little Q&A with Michael translating:

"The reason that I came this time was to fight Ibushi. The fight against Ibushi was the most important match. I did not expect it, but after fighting we got along well. I want to do a rematch with Ibushi when coming next time, but, only if Ibushi has the same idea, it is possible we could tag. "

"It's boring to stay in the dormitory, I’m a rarity in Adachi-ku so it is not very pleasant. It’s not like that in Akihabara or Shibuya. I like all Japanese food, but I have to ask Michael and Matsunaga to explain all the menus. I was surprised by the Moss Burger Rice Burger. How does rice replace the buns? I thought it was delicious when I ate it. I had an image of Japan as the advanced country of technology, the impression has not changed since coming. "

There is more strip-Streetfighter and Michael loses again.

Yesterday appeared in the S Arena! (August 27th)

Nakazawa:“Yesterday, Mr. Ibushi & Kenny appeared on the S - Arena on Samurai TV, so I was present as an interpreter. I wonder if I can translate properly. It's my first time to interpret something on TV. It is not bad usually as usual.

However, it was a big pinch before recording. We were meeting at the studios at half past eight, but no one had come yet. Well Kenny I know was at Great pro's match at Shinkiba from 7 o'clock before this recording, but Ibushi-san was late for no reason as usual (lol). What should I do if they never turned up? He was not upset but upset. Actually, Ibushi-san arrived after broadcasting had begun. f (^ _^;)

If you were watching the broadcast yesterday, you will understand, but there are not any words such as the language barrier, they are really good friends. They are is about the same age, and wrestling is a person who can respect each other, both of them are fond of games, they cannot drink alcohol or spicy food. They like the streets, and like indies. I guess there are things that germinated through fierce fighting and sympathies that they both feel.”

“After that, we went to eat Okonomiyaki by three people, we cooperated together and breathed in briefly and baked over with one more thing! Another photo was baked by Kenny: Smiley Okonomiyaki It was my first taste & mischievous but it seemed like it was.

Kenny's last match in Japan for the time being is 8.31 Korakuen convention, please come and watch! Without business, Kenny Omega once I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon.”

The match Kenny has before going to the TV station on the 27th is a bit of a mystery. It’s for a promotion that isn’t DDT called ‘Great Pro Wrestling’(?) but it was in the Shin Kiba 1st ring which was the same place the beer garden shows were held. I didn’t find out about it anywhere the rest of the match recaps are, but from our old friend Griffon591! The match was against JOM Taro but I’m struggling to find much information on it. Griffon591 did however take some really cute photos of Kenny standing about.

Before Korakuen (August 29th-30th)

Everyone is busy in the run up to the big DDT show at Korakuen Hall. Kota is also in the middle of the NOAH Junior Heavyweight Tag League at this point, fighting guys such as but not limited to: Daniel Bryan, Davey Richards, Kenta/Hideo Itami and Taiji Ishimori.

(source) (source)

Matsui: “Yesterday I made a mozzo in my office, and I drank with Kenny and others. I nearly missed the last train.

It looks like Kenny managed to learn how to get back to the dorm from here by train.

Korakuen is nearly here so today I stayed at the office for a while. There was one meeting and two meetings. I will return from now. The office has always had a high population density in the production of DDT. About 9 o'clock, Ibushi, Kenny and Michael came to the office, but of course he was playing.

However, the way of Ibushi and Kenny's communication is quite creepy. Words are hardly exchanged, communication is measured only with a smile. Surely, I wonder if there is something known only to crazy people.”

DDT Summer Vacation Memories (August 31st)

The big Korakuen Hall show finally comes and Kenny has his last match of the tour was against HARASHIMA.

(source)

Promos after the match:

HARASHIMA: "Kenny Omega! Your last trick, it worked ... Damn, I lost, as you know, Kenny will return to Canada at the end of the game, but I will not allow running away. We will play with this DDT ring!"

Kenny: "HARASHIMA-san, Thank you. Korakuen Hall, DDT, DDT fans, This is my dream. And my dream has come true. For you fans, I gave 100%, I gave everything in every match I had in DDT."

“(He did not have an interpreter this time, but chose language that was easy to understand.)”

There’s also much amusement from Yukihiro Abe (another DDT wrestler) that Kenny has the [for private use] copyright warning on his gear.

Kenny’s knee was apparently injured during this match but it’s not so bad that he doesn’t keep wrestling on it.

Saying goodbye (September 1st-3rd)

Kenny leaves on the 4th but it looks like he probably says goodbye to Ibushi on the 1st. This makes sense considering Ibushi’s Noah matches. He has one on the 2nd and one on the 4th both of which are outside Tokyo, so maybe he just wasn’t coming back in between.

Matsui: “Today, slowly to the office from the evening.

I was thinking that I would normally take a day off but I decided to go in because Kenny is coming by.

Kenny is going to return to Canada on the 4th.

We may meet again tomorrow or the day after tomorrow but we may not meet with everyone so we took a photo.

He wasn’t selfish, even though he lived in a dorm for a long time he did not complain, but it was a truly wonderful foreign player who performs great in the ring (even on the street).

Good bye Kenny.

Until the day we meet again!”

Nakazawa: “Since from today Ibushi-san has matches with Noah, campground, SEM and so on, we will have a memorial photo with everyone as this is probably the last chance we can meet with all of you. Mr. Ibushi must also be missing. It will come back again soon.”

Nakazawa (in a later blog entry): Kenny says, "It is a funny thing, as returning to Canada comes closer, it becomes a bit sad every time people say: "Kenny, today is probably the last day to see you before your return." Yesterday is really something I (almost?) cried, I rarely get such a thing. I finished playing games at the arcade and it's about time to go home and say goodbye to Ibushi. I came back to sleep with an attitude almost incomprehensible because it was difficult to cry.

See you! (September 4th)

Nakazawa: “Yesterday was the last chance to see Kenny. Today I work in the gym so I cannot go to the airport to see you off ... I'm sorry.

At night I went for dinner with Mr. Matsui and Inokuma but I had my two-shot taken at the end. Double Hadoken! (Why naked and in the station premises)

We shook hands and hugged and parted. It was a busy month after Kenny came, but it was fun. I am really looking forward to seeing you again and again. There are also opportunities to have a match against you next time. See you!”

And that’s the end! Spoilers: Kenny does come back in January 2009 and many more times after that. Lots of cute shit happens then too. Go out onto Michael Nakazawa’s blog and discover it for yourselves.

*I say at the start that Kenny had 9 matches, but earlier this week I thought he only had 7 so there could easily have been more. I was going off cagematch’s results and then found the mystery 2 with blind luck lol.

#golden lovers research tag #Golden Lovers #Kenny Omega #kota ibushi #ddt #this is so long #i'm so sorry #also if there is something you want a source for and i missed it #you can ask #also the bit about saying goodbye to ibushi just kills me #and i really want a real translation of it

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thissupposedcrime · 6 years

Text

another fiery night, you feed my hunger for your love

Veronica, James thinks as he watches Lance destroy a hospital room, did nothing to prepare them for her brother.

In which the war ends, and the MFE pilots try to visit the paladins in the medical wing. Emphasis on try.

implied plance, jeith/jaith, sheith

Ending the Galran invasion doesn’t miraculously grant the MFE pilots free time. The world needs rebuilding, and, unlike Voltron, James and his team aren’t going to fly off into the sunset or fight in the cosmos. It’s up to them to transition from defending to protecting without the Voltron forces’ support. Drills continue, outreach expands, sleep schedules don’t shift to peacetime hours.

But it doesn’t take any cajoling on James’ part for the team to unanimously agree to use their unscheduled time to visit the paladins in the hospital wing. Parents and civilian allies have long been sent home. The MFE’s sterling reputation for never truly disobeying orders or requesting special privileges can afford the dent of ignoring visiting hours.

Foolishly, they begin by visiting Allura. James respects her, both as a dignitary and a fighter, but he underestimated her willingness to answer all of Leifsdottir’s questions of Altea, especially once Coran and Romelle return from finding dinner, flagrantly ignoring the rules of when they can be in the medical wing. Rizavi only encourages them all, hitting James’ chair the first time he gently reminds Leifsdottir they can visit again. It takes multiple frustrated nurses and Kinkade lifting Leifsdottir off the ground for them to escape, silencing Allura’s attempts to explain the Altean alphabet to Leifsdottir. Coran’s voice echoes through the closed door.

Leifsdottir’s repeating the symbols’ sounds to herself as they walk down the hall. Kinkade nods along. One day, an Altean or an unknown alien are going to accidentally reveal secrets to Kinkade, assuming his silence means ignorance. This nursery tune will come to haunt them all if Kinkade finds it worth mentioning.

“It’ll be a super quick visit, we promise! They deserve it, don’t they? Cooped up like this can’t be fun,” Rizavi chirps to a nurse on duty as they near Lance’s door. Sometimes you just need to sicc her on someone to save the rest of the team. James’ acknowledgement of this is why he’s team leader.

Besides, Veronica has tracked in over a dozen family members to see Lance, all loud exuberance and youthful love. The staff know half of the MFE don’t speak above a normal sound level most of the time. It’s fine.

Rivazi knocks and nudges Lance’s door open once he calls out. She immediately falls back against the door, shoe having slid against two bouncy balls. Numerous others litter the room’s floor. James isn’t going to be the one to ask.

Lance is cheerful, in good spirits. He dutifully answers all of Leifsdottir’s questions, ones gotten from Veronica, as if she hadn’t had breakfast in his room or darted over to see him in-between afternoon meetings.

He requests information on how Earth is recovering, gets excited watching the newest vids on the datapad James brought with their appropriate security clearance. It’s a good meeting, if brief.

“Hey, guys, before you go, can you help refill this for me?” Lance asks, reaching across his bedside table for a large circular container and gesturing to the balls on the floor. “Normally the balls bounce back but they spilled all over when my family visited. Veronica refused to help me,” Lance says the last part forlornly, like Veronica is a great source of sorrow.

James knows better after spending a war with her. “Why wouldn’t she help you?” This has to be a trap. From the corner of his eye, he notices Kinkade and Leifsdottir methodically fill the container with over a dozen balls the size of a fist.

Lance smiles back, and, if his throat wasn’t so sore, would likely try whistling and staring at the ceiling in a parody of innocence. “No idea. Guess she’s not used to indulging my every whim anymore. Oh thanks!” He says to Kinkade as he takes the container. Settling it on his lap, Lance grabs a green ball and tosses it lightly in the air. Cradling it against his palm, Lance pulls his arm back and throws the ball against the opposing wall. It is shockingly loud.

“Holy hell!” Rizavi screeches. Kinkade and Leifsdottir stare at the ball, watching it bounce back to Lance’s bed. Lunging over the side, he catches the ball, only to throw it again, the thump louder.

Veronica, James thinks as his team watches, did nothing to prepare them for her brother.

After three more tosses, the ball fails to come back, rolling under the bed. Kinkade lets it. He does not offer to pick it up.

The loss does nothing to stop Lance, who ferrets through the container for a blue ball, slightly larger than the last. Satisfied, he uses it to batter the other wall twice more.

“Why?” Rizavi finally breaks the ice to ask. James really wishes she didn’t. It’s a member of Team Voltron. It’s easier just to accept this sort of shit and focus elsewhere.

“You’ll see,” Lance replies brightly. “Hey, did anyone keep track of how many times I hit the wall?”

“Seven,” Leifsdottir offers. Considering they don’t have visual contact face to face during most of their exercises, they’ve all ignored James’ attempts to teach them morse code. Still, he blinks no in her direction.

“It was seven,” she repeats. That’s not the no he meant, if she actually knew what he was signaling.

“Huh. Wow. Okay. Better up my game,” Lance says, mainly to himself. James reaches for the container, thinking of Veronica and everything she doesn’t put him through.

He’s too slow.

Lance continuously clutches balls, only to toss them at the wall again and again.

“Why?” James tries. Kinkade subtly tries to peer at the medical documents at the foot of the bed. James prays it lists a concussion and that the defender of the universe’s fate isn’t like this all the time.

“You’re supposed to have seen.” Lance sounds confused, borderline mildly distraught. James thinks of excusing himself to call Veronica about her brother when the door swings open with a wild, harsh bang!

Katie Holt, clad in an oversized shirt and shorts, pushes past Kinkade, single-minded focus on Lance. One hand clutches a pillow. The other holds what appears to be a video game, but James doesn’t get more than a glance as she shoves them into Leifsdottir’s hands.

“I! Was! Trying! To! Sleep!” Each word is punctuated with a beat of her pillow against Lance’s prone form, and his muted, low groans. Finally, she rears back and hits him across the face, stunning him into silence and leaving the pillow on the bed.

“Excuse me. Sorry about this,” Katie says to Leifsdottir, seizing first the wires and connecting them to the television in the corner and then what is proven to be a game system, which she plugs into the wall.

While she’s been working on her electronic set up, Lance has moved on the bed, leaving her plenty of space and placing her pillow next to his hip. A second blanket has materialized out of nowhere. Katie climbs up, making herself comfortable in the bed. Stretching out, she hands Lance a controller, keeping the other for herself. When the game boots up, she wiggles a bit more, elevating the pillow and her head by resting it against Lance’s stomach.

James and his team watch in silence, glancing at each other for mutual confirmation that they’re the normal ones in terms of team dynamics.

“If you move on me during a boss fight again, I’ll choke you with the wires.” She’s not even looking at Lance, watching the pixels on the screen load.

“That was one time!” He complains, loudly.

“One time,” Rizavi mouths. They’re spectators now. James tilts his head toward the door, but it goes noticed by Lance.

“Veronica says Pidge is a nice girl and should be allowed to rest without me distracting her,” Lance tells them, answering a question James forgot he asked. “Veronica doesn’t know the truth.” He winces as an elbow gets him in a sensitive spot.

“Hi guys. Sorry for interrupting. How are you feeling? Shiro told me none of you were injured but it’s nice to know for sure,” Katie Holt says, truly noting their presence in the room for the first time. James’ hand raises in a half wave, almost against his will.

“Everyone came out fine, thanks for asking,” James responds. “It’s nice to see you up. Do you need anything? We can talk to the staff on our way out.”

“A change of room,” she announces, brightly. Lance’s knee twitches in response, jolting her left arm up for a moment. She presses it back down as Lance sticks his tongue out at her.

“Technically, you’re no longer in your room,” Leifsdottir points out.

“Unfortunately,” Katie agrees, but it’s clear she’s content curled up here, Lance’s hand occasionally patting her hair.

Despite the regulations she’s breaking and the adamancy of the doctors to keep the paladins calm and medicated, James doesn’t think for a moment of reporting either of them. Katie stares him down all the same, her mother’s daughter, as if she doesn’t trust him not to walk out and rat them out to the first doctor he sees. Lance is busy making jovial remarks to Rizavi and Kinkade, but James knows the battlefield, knows the synergy of two people bonded. Lance is primed to respond in anger if Katie does, even if he doesn’t look it, seemingly distracted and happy.

He thinks of telling off Hunk, of the tension with Keith no one was prepared for. James understands this is a team of long memories.

“It was really kind of you guys to visit,” Lance says as Katie stops sizing him up, shifting to talk technology with Rizavi and Leifsdottir. It’s a silent tag team, and terrifying in its effectiveness.

“We should let you rest,” James decides. All but Rizavi, finally getting a chance to geek out, look ready to move on.

Kinkade agrees. “We still need to greet Hunk and Keith.”

“Oh, uh, I don’t think you’ll be able to tonight? Hunk had a long day and is asleep,” Katie tells them. Rizavi despairs.

“Wait, what? He couldn’t last for a little while longer?” Lance interjects.

“Hunk had Shay bring him two large sticks, so he and Keith have been using them to prop open their doors and shout across the halls at each other, so Hunk is exhausted between seeing his family and telling Keith all of their stories.”

“Did it put Keith to sleep?” James forces himself to feel nonchalance at her answer. This was a courtesy visit, and Keith the most injured of all the paladins by far. While the team has been awake for nearly a week, he’s only on his second day.

“No, but Shiro’s with him, and I know they haven’t gotten a chance to talk yet since he woke up,” Katie says, seemingly blase, but James catches her glance at him and then quickly look away to stare at the television.

“Captain’s here?” Kinkade asks.

Of course he is, James does not think.

“We all got a chance to see him. You might ask him about how Hunk’s doing during you meetings” Lance offers.

James takes the solution for the dismissal it is.

this will probably get added to a larger story I’m writing about James before, during, and after the war, but in case I cut it, I thought to at least share it with people who might like it.

let me know if you liked it/it seems ooc/have ideas or prompts

#james griffin #pidge #lance #plance #jeith #kind of implied but it's there enough #my writing #voltron spoilers #voltron s7 spoilers #vld s7 spoilers #vld spoilers

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blueboxesandtrafficcones · 5 years

Text

Snowball Fight

Hello, hello!

Welcome to the 2018 31 Days of Ficmas! List provided by the wonderful @doctorroseprompts. @timepetalscollective for 13xRose and therefore fulfilling multiple bingo slots (including wearing another regeneration’s clothing, though it’s Rose wearing it)

31 Days of Ficmas masterlist

Summary: Rose and the Doctor disagree about 13's level of responsibility when it came to the Death Eye Turtle Army. Deciding to settle it like adults, they split Team TARDIS down the middle - and wage the snowball war for the ages.

AO3

Three weeks onboard the TARDIS had done little to diminish Yaz’s wonder for her new surroundings. While Ryan preferred to spend his free time in the Entertainment Room playing 23rd century video games and Graham took advantage of the library, she opted to wander the halls, learning the layout of the spaceship. Two years of training as a police officer had drilled into her the importance of knowing her whereabouts in relation to where she needed to be.

Of course, her explorations had limited value; every morning a different path led to the galley, and a single path never took her to the same place twice. The TARDIS is alive, Yaz, the Doctor had said, and that was never more evident than in the changing floorplans.

She loved it.

Surprisingly for someone who liked to have control, it didn’t bother her that she was habitually lost. The few times she’d grown worried enough to call for help, within two minutes she’d either walked through a doorway into the console room or the Doctor had appeared, leading her back to where she’d been trying to go, babbling a hundred miles an hour the whole way. That only made her more confident in her investigations.

So far she’d found two pools, four squash courts, a garden, an art gallery, and several disused bedrooms. Today, she was on the hunt for a fitness center or exercise room. The Sheffield Constabulary had certain expectations of its officers, and running with the Doctor proved that endurance was key. She was doing well so far, able to keep up, but without a training regimen she was worried that might change.

Ryan had scoffed, dismissing her concerns, but a few days before she had stumbled across him in a mostly empty room practicing climbing a ladder, padded cushions on the ground in case he fell. She’d quietly backed out, letting him have his privacy, all the while fiercely proud of her friend.

Feminine voices ahead alerted Yaz that she was about to get sidetracked, but she wasn’t too bothered as the hallway spilled into the console room. Leaning against the doorway with her arms folded, she smirked as she watched the Doctor and her wife argue.

Despite heated tones and hands perched on hips, their stance and closeness suggested flirting more than anything, and it never failed to make Yaz smile. Her new friend carried the universe on her shoulders – and as strong as she was, she still needed someone to help lighten the load, and the other woman appeared to do so with ease.

“-which is why I’m absolutely right, and Yaz agrees. Don’t you Yaz?” The Doctor’s raised pitch invited her in, and letting her arms fall to her sides, she stepped further into the room.

“What trouble are you causing now?”

The Doctor’s indignant splutter was drowned out by her wife’s laughter.

“Oh, she’s got your number, love,” Rose sniggered, leaning back against the console. “And it only took three weeks. That might be record. Well done, Yaz.”

“Thanks,” she grinned at the slightly more petite blonde. The couple looked very similar, standing at nearly the same height with matching bottle-blonde hair and mischievous grins. The only way she could tell them apart the first few trips was the Doctor’s tigger-like energy and manner compared to Rose’s steady, laidback attitude, and their outfits – the Doctor only ever seemed to change her shirt whereas Rose was always in a new, cute outfit that made Yaz jealous of her closet and apparent budget.

“You didn’t answer my question, though,” Yaz prompted, raising her eyes at the now-pouting Time Lord.

“I’m not causing trouble,” the alien denied hotly. “I was just saying that the Death Eye Turtle Army was not my fault.”

“Ehhh…” Yaz grimaced, considering, before shrugging one shoulder. “To be fair, it wasn’t not your fault either.”

“Traitor!” the Doctor gasped, before turning a glare on Rose who was bent in half, howling with laughter as she clung to the console for support. “And you, Rose Tyler!”

“What?” she gasped, holding her sides.

“You- you- you impugn my honor!”

“Oh, I’m really glad you didn’t say belittle,” her wife sniggered, before bursting into giggles again.

Yaz’s nose wrinkled, slightly lost. The couple clearly had a rich history, if their frequent incoherent asides were any indication.

“Inside joke,” Rose explained briefly, confirming the theory. “If you ever meet a Sontaran, it’ll make perfect sense. Long story.”

“Well, we all came out of it safe and sound, so no harm no foul,” Yaz offered, giving the Doctor a tentative smile.

“Thank you, Yaz. Nice to see someone appreciates me.”

Rose rolled her eyes, grinning at Yaz as she directed at her wife, “I appreciate you more when you when you get us out of trouble than when you get us into it. And even moreso when we can have a nice day out without any trouble at all.”

“You love it.”

“Yeah, and I love chocolate cake, doesn’t mean I need to experience it every single day.”

Yaz coughed deliberately, trying to derail another bickering session at least long enough to get out of the room; it tended to get a bit too close to the line between flirty and foreplay for her to feel comfortable observing. Never mind that Rose was staring at the Doctor like she was chocolate cake. “Are we going anywhere today?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said decisively, moving towards the controls as if struck with inspiration and starting to throw switches and press buttons in a possibly-meaningful order. “We’re going to settle this disagreement like adults.”

Rose sighed deeply, the knowing exhale of a fondly exasperated spouse. Yaz heard it often when her father started on his conspiracy theories. “Somehow I doubt your idea of what qualifies as ‘adult’ is vastly different from mine.” Turning, she began manipulating the controls in front of her with a familiarity Yaz found fascinating. Nothing was labeled yet she never hesitated in her movements, graceful and efficient. Even the Doctor sometimes struggled with apparently new systems, and if she didn’t know better she’d think Rose was the original operator of the craft. Though the Doctor’s occasional jealous look was usually humorous.

“Rose! Not that kind of adult!”

“I didn’t- that wasn’t- shut up,” Rose groaned, stretching to flick a switch almost out of reach before swatting at her spouse. “I meant something along the lines of just letting it go, being the bigger person. Accepting responsibility.”

“Ah.” The Doctor’s nose crinkled, and she shook her head. “Nope, no thanks, not me.”

“Where are we going?” Yaz cut in, grabbing onto a holdbar as they careened through the Vortex, watching with awe as the couple flew around the console, giving happy laughs at every bit of turbulence.

“There’s this planet called Woman Wept,” the Doctor started, only for Rose to immediately cut in.

“-An’ it’s absolutely gorgeous. Once upon a time it was pretty much all water, only the sun died suddenly and everything flash-froze. ‘S called that because when you look at it from above, it looks like a woman crying. Now it’s all snow and ice.”

“And what does that have to do with settling your disagreement like adults?”

“Snowball fight,” the Doctor said brightly, as though it were perfectly reasonable and obvious.

Yaz just shook her head, capitalizing on her last few moments with the women as she could hear Ryan and Graham stumbling down the hall. “You’re gonna settle it with a snowball fight?” For just a moment, she remembered the last call she’d taken before stumbling across Ryan in the forest – two grown women needing supervision to resolve a parking dispute. These two were far more entertaining.

The boys burst in then, Ryan in front with Graham hot on his heels.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” They moved to their stations, taking hold for dear life just as they hit a nasty bit of turbulence.

“Snowball fight on an alien planet. You up for it?” The Doctor’s indefatigable adventuring spirit made them all grin, and Ryan was the first to agree.

“Hell yeah.”

“Why not?” Graham added, as the ship landed with a final shudder.

“Brilliant!” The Doctor leapt towards the door, throwing them open and revealing a tantalizing glimpse of white.

The companions made to follow, only turning back when Rose cleared her throat.

“It’s freezing out there. There’s hats, gloves, scarves, and coats in this closet,” she said, throwing open a door in the wall to reveal a multitude of wintery items in all shapes sizes and colors, selecting an absurdly long, multi-colored scarf for herself.

“Really? You’ll trip and die on that thing,” Yaz muttered as she pawed through the items to find a matching set.

Rose winked, still winding it around her neck. “Not before the Doctor dies of hearts failure.”

Suitably kitted out, the four humans (though Yaz still wasn’t fully convinced about Rose) stepped out to find a dozen snowmen of various sizes and incredible detail in the snow around the ship. Each had a different face and body type, or as much as a snowman could have, but they must have meant something to Rose because she giggled and went up to the fourth one from the ship and gave it her scarf.

“Wicked,” Ryan breathed, making Yaz look up – and gasp.

“Oh my…”

A sixty-foot frozen wave towered over them, glistening in the moonlight. Rose was right; it was spectacular. Similar shapes rose out of the darkness in the distance, giving the place an eerie but serene feel.

“Does anyone live here?” Graham asked, looking around, his face showing the same marvel as Ryan’s and her own.

“Not anymore. Planet died when the sun did,” the Doctor reported sadly, dropping the snowball she held, her wife wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulders.

“So, how are we splitting up the teams?” Ryan stepped closer to the Doctor, staring at the wave overhead in awe.

“Boys against girls?” Rose suggested, making Ryan and Graham frown at her.

“What, the two of us against the three of you? Nah, man, that’s not fair!” Ryan protested, crossing his arms.

“What? No, the two of you with me,” the Doctor said cheerfully, kissing Rose quickly before moving away. “Then Rose and Yaz.”

Graham didn’t seem assuaged, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe I should sit out, keep score, that sort of thing. Make it even.”

“What? No!” The Doctor’s face fell as she wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “We’ve only barely got a chance the three of us.”

“And it’s not just two,” Rose smirked, disappearing through the TARDIS door only to return a moment later with Grace, who was grinning widely. “The TARDIS is a cheater, taking pity on the Doctor and not letting Grace know we’d landed.”

“Oh, you’re going down,” Ryan’s nan gloated, poking her husband in the chest. “You haven’t a prayer, love.”

“That’s not fair,” the Doctor whined, glaring at her wife. “You three’ll be too good.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” Rose retorted, “and this most certainly is war.”

“My dignity’s at stake!”

“What dignity?”

“Children, children,” Grace soothed, laughing, “three on three seems like a fair fight.”

“I heartily disagree-” the Doctor started, only to splutter at a sudden mouthful of snow as Rose shrieked with laughter and took off across the frozen tundra. “Saboteur! Come back here!”

The Doctor began chasing Rose as Grace, unseen by Graham, carefully packed a solid snowball, and with a wink to Yaz, lobbed it at her husband.

“Oi!” he yelped, before scooping up a ball as well and throwing at Yaz.

“Hey!”

And the war was on.

Twenty minutes later it had devolved into each of the married couples chasing their spouses around, fighting bitterly and taking no prisoners. Every so often someone would yelp or scream as snow was shoved unceremoniously down their shirtback, and Yaz and Ryan watched it all with a laugh.

“It’s nice to see them so happy,” Yaz commented, sipping at the hot chocolate the ship had provided. She and Ryan had easily declared a truce after the third snowball in a row she’d nailed him with, and they’d brought out a bench and pile of blankets to watch the ‘adults’ battle for supremacy play.

“Yeah. I think Nan loves this travelin’ more than the rest of us combined.”

“Definitely.” They shared a laugh, though Yaz’s smile slipped at the reminder of how closely they’d come to not having Grace with them. If Rose hadn’t been there to cushion her fall… Sure, both women hobbled away with bruised ribs and aching bodies, but they’d walked away.

“Hey, stop that,” Ryan chided, elbowing her in the side. “She’s fine, ‘s all good. What’s that Rose keeps saying, ‘Don’t borrow trouble’?”

Yaz nodded, forcing the thought from her mind as she nudged him back. “I think the TARDIS gave us a snowball gun – want to take them all down?”

“But the Doctor doesn’t like guns.” He gave her a wide-eyed, innocent look before he started laughing, throwing his head back and letting it ring out. “Hell. Yes. You pack, I’ll shoot.”

It didn’t take long to build a well-stocked cache, deciding that Ryan would aim and Yaz would load – part of the gun seemed to be an old automatic tennis ball launcher; all she had to do was feed the snowballs through as fast as she could, and Ryan would do the rest.

Within five minutes they were forevermore known as the undisputed Snowball Fight Champions.

#bbatcfic #doctorroseprompts #timepetalscollective #31 Days of Ficmas #ficandchips #Doctor Who #13xrose #13th doctor #rose tyler #snowball fight #yasmin khan #ryan sinclair #graham o'brien #grace o'brien #teamtardis

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study-with-nina · 5 years

Text

[taken from my blog]

I'm an avid reader. There's nothing I love more than diving into a new novel, whether it be nonfiction about a recent scientific discovery or a centuries-old classic. In 2018 alone, I read 46 books, and started three more that I will finish in the new year. Since making a commitment for my New Year's resolution to read 40 books in 2018, I have read some astonishingly good novels. Here are ten of my favorites, in no particular order.

[in the interest of transparency, I will note that any books purchased through the links provided will provide you with a discount as well as give me a small commission (:]

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This book was actually the first book I read this year, and it still has a special place in my heart. The Book Thief is a story about a young German girl growing up during the Holocaust, and her love of reading that pits her against Hitler's regime. It was refreshingly somber to see the Holocaust era from a new view -- not that of a Jewish person, nor a soldier, but a civilian child growing up surrounded by hate speech and propaganda. Liesel's actions and her love for her little family tugged at my heartstrings many times, and this book is one of the few that makes it onto my "reread someday" list. (P.S., the movie is incredible as well, and is one of the few that seems to follow the book as accurately as possible.)

2. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I actually finished this book in record time -- I just could not put it down. The Hate U Give is a gritty, realistic view into what it's like to grow up black in America, and the unique set of challenges that black people face in regards to police brutality and everyday racism -- from friends as well as foes. After 17-year-old Starr witnesses her friend's death at the hands of a cop, she must decide whether to keep her mouth shut or risk bringing attention -- mostly negative -- to herself. Who will believe her, anyway? This book was so profoundly impactful while being written in the voice of a teenage girl, conflicted and alone. Definitely one of my top books of all time.

3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Honestly, I didn't have high expectations coming into this book. I had seen posters for the movie, and assumed it was just another 3-star read with a profitable idea to make into a movie. I am glad to say that I was wrong. This book, set in the year 2045, follows the adventures of teenager Wade Watts as he navigates the world of the OASIS, an online utopia in which citizens live out their lives, in search of a formidable prize hidden someone in the OASIS's thousands of worlds. Wade is a lower-income resident, and the OASIS is all he has -- so he's willing to risk it all for the chance to win the prize and discover the secret of the online universe's creator. This novel is fast-paced and well-written, and is a must-read for anyone who loves anything 80s, as the challenge is focused around 80s culture. (Call Ferris Bueller -- we're going on one heck of an adventure.)

4. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Despite the books listed previously, I typically tend to read nonfiction or classic literature, and don't often branch out into contemporary fiction. But I had heard rave reviews of Little Fires Everywhere, so I decided to check it out, and it quickly became a favorite of mine. The narrative reminds me of that of East of Eden by John Steinbeck, my favorite novel of all time, in the way that it follows the struggles and interconnectedness of a family, somehow without having an explicitly describable plot ("I don't know, they just...exist") but still managing to pull you in just as deep. Like East of Eden, Little Fires Everywhere follows the story of two very different families: the Richardsons, a large, wealthy family with multiple strong, conflicting personalities; and the Warrens, a small, close-knit mother and daughter duo who never lay roots in any one place. The story has a sort of coming-of-age feel to it, as the lives of the Richardson and Warren teens and their age-appropriate struggles are discussed, but also a hint of mystery as Mrs. Richardson attempts to track down the origins of the mysterious Mia Warren. This book made me laugh, cry, and everything in between, and I was so obsessed that I finished the 11-and-a-half-hour-long audiobook in the span of five days (despite the fact that I worked double shifts most of those days). Again, this book is definitely one of my favorites of all time, and one of the rare stories whose characters you still wonder about long after the book is over.

5. Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler

I have never taken an economics course (though I have dabbled in Crash Course videos here and there) and economics is not an important component of either of my majors (Biological Sciences and Political Science). However, this book was so intriguing that I promptly forgot both of those points. Misbehaving is an excellent introduction to behavioral economics, written simply enough that someone with little to no background knowledge in economics (such as myself) can comprehend, but still intricate enough that the material couldn't fit in a ten-minute Youtube video. Thaler, one of the earliest behavioral economists, describes how the subject came into importance among other economic and business-related topics, as well as how its marriage of economic and financial principles and behavioral psychology lend important insights to businesses as well as individuals. The difficulty of the content is offset with plenty of easy-to-understand examples, and the book reads like a history driven by discovery, with reviews of behavioral economics principles along the way. Though the subject of economics is not one that interests me as much as, say, politics or medicine, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would recommend it as an interesting read that serves as a light workout for your brain.

6. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women” by Kate Moore

I'd be lying if I said this book didn't make me cry multiple times. The Radium Girls is a true story of America's dial painters, the hundreds of young women who painted radium onto watches during the First World War, and the consequences of their position on their health and livelihood. In the days of World War I, jobs for women were few and far between, and becoming a dial painter was the most coveted position among women in their late teens and early twenties, unmarried and looking for some pocket money to buy the latest trends. This narrative follows the story of these dial-painters and how their distinct, omnipresent glow of radium dust went from being wondrous to becoming deadly. As the poisonous radium attacked these young women's bodies, causing them to rapidly and irreparably decay, the radium girls fought for the right to be heard, and to stop the radium industry from pulling any more girls into its vehement trap. This book was deeply heart-wrenching, following the lives of a few bright-eyed young dial painters to their young graves, and a valuable insight into the suppression of women's voices in the early 20th century.

7. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This novel was another popular book that I didn't expect to enjoy nearly as much as I did. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a biography of the life of fictitious movie star Evelyn Hugo, as told to the young and relatively unknown reporter Monique Grant. Evelyn unfurls her story, from escaping poverty to begin her acting career in her late teens, and the myriad of men that came into and left her life across the span of her career and its aftermath. I won't spoil the big twist (or two) that the novel provides, but it most certainly wasn't the "straight bullsh*t" I was expecting based on its title. It is an intense, poignant life of a woman who dared to obtain what she wanted by any means possible, only to discover that her heart lied elsewhere.

8. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

This book was a humorous yet momentous glance into the life of a woman named Eleanor Oliphant, who is perfectly fine, thank you very much. Eleanor doesn't really fit in at the office; her harsh realism and her inability to understand social cues make that quite difficult. But that's fine, because Eleanor has it all planned out. Every week, she follows the same plan, never deviating from her schedule of Wednesday night calls with Mummy, Friday night frozen pizzas, and sleeping off a vodka hangover every Saturday morning. However, when Eleanor and her coworker Raymond save the life of an elderly gentleman who fell near them on their way to work one day, Eleanor's life begins to change in profound ways, and she realizes that maybe "fine" isn't the best way to be, after all. Eleanor's story was touching yet hilarious, and was yet another novel that I could not put down. For anyone looking for a novel starring an out-of-the-ordinary heroine and lacking a predictable romance component, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is the novel for you.

9. The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

This fast-paced, gritty novel breaks the wall between the life of a president and the nation, and introduces us to the world of Washington politics and the counterterrorism approach. The President is Missing follows President Duncan, a tenacious war veteran, as he attempts to circumvent impeachment trials brought forth by members of the opposite party while maintaining the secret of a massive, nation-decimating cyber threat from the citizens of the U.S. This narrative is fast-paced, with twists and turns at every stop, and kept me guessing until the end what the outcome would be. The novel reads like a classic James Patterson thriller with the added expertise of a former president to reveal the intricacies of American politics and the battles of the elites.

10. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

My final novel is one that I finished a mere four days prior to writing this post, but one that already has a special place in my heart. Quiet explores the world of introverts, from their underrepresentation in U.S. culture and their hidden talents unique from extroverts. Though I identify as an ambivert (both extroverted and introverted), I felt this was an incredible analysis into the powers of introverts, and why American society should stop trying to force the extrovert ideal on those that are not born to be extroverted. I particularly enjoyed how Cain drew in principles of biology, psychology, and business, and described not only how introverts are wired differently from birth, but their benefits to jobs that are even as high-stakes and fast-paced as the stock market. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who struggles with introversion (if you dread speaking in front of a class, this is probably you) or anyone interested in the biological basis of personality and behavior.

Out of the 46 books I read in 2018, those are the ones that have stood out to me the most, and I would certainly recommend each and every one of them. If you would like more book recommendations, feel free to ask -- I'm always reading something new! Happy new year!

#this graphic isn't cute but i tried lmao #bookblr #2018 #bookgram #reader #studyblr #studyspo #studygram #studytube #books #libraries #book recs #student #college #xx

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larrydiary · 7 years

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I’m a Larry shipper, right? Why am i disappointed at the fandom, after coming back to it... +What even is Larry? + How can we save the ship

I was going through tumblr and came across some posts by anti’s

First of all I want to clarify that I DONT hate Eleanor, I actually used to stan her a bit. I had these blogs about her and made a page saying We ship happiness or something with Elounor as avatar. I follow her on all my social media. Even if people say she’s untalented. She graduated Uni plus has a good sense of fashion so eh let’s forget that “beard” stuff. Let me live!

So why do we ship Larry. You have multiple types:

The O.G’s: They have been here since the first 2 years, anywhere between x factor days and 2012. They saw how close H+L were and started shipping them, probably from videos like this:

youtube

Be it platonically or romantically, they just thought they were cute together and loved seeing them interact and mess around. Right now they have either moved on from it all or are still here, using past moments as ‘proof’ or just still love their relationship, be it platonically or romantically. A lot use old blog posts and videos as a way to convince the newer generation that Larry was and is something, they promote their friendship mainly . Again, not all of them make up theories and see every moment as proof.

It is also quite obvious that since a lot of em are a bit older, that they ship Larry without being too annoying. That doesn’t count for everyone however...

New Gen. 2013-2015: These shippers either found out about 1D a bit later or just found out about Larry. They have watched countless proof videos and are convinced that H+L are together. By doing so much research they’ve learned a lot about Larry. They probably use the dug up moments and posts from the OG’s as a way to convince others that Larry is real or at least tell them about the ship.

1) So you have the shippers who DEFINITELY ship it and are 99.9% convinced it’s real and even when they start to doubt it they watch a lot of videos to re-convince themselves it’s real. They are often found analysing everything H+L do.

1.5) Some even go so far as to hate on the GF’s, and sometimes they don’t even realise they are doing it. Traits: Call the GF’s names, try ‘their best’ to not disclose who they are talking about but do a terrible job at it (E.G “E is such a bitch, I don’t like her, neither do I like Br, ew!”), hate on the GF’s without reason (E.G. They see a picture of said GF and rant about how terrible they are, without good motives.), automatically dislike any woman who get’s associated with H or L, especially when the media reports they are rumoured to be dating. Even if it’s just an interviewer, a family member/friend, or a celebrity that H/L admire/look up to/respect/befriended. Ahem.

Apparently that is what people call, ‘a Larrie’.

2) You also have the shippers who mainly love their friendship. They’re okay with whatever as long as the two are happy and have a healthy friendship. They want them to interact more but don’t want to force the shipping thing. They don’t really research and dig a lot. They just admire and support from a distance.

They’re usually new to it, and chose not to fall into the rabbit-hole of Larry, maybe a friend introduced them to it, or just have other OTP’s and don’t really want to pay too much attention to Larry.

3) You have the people who are right in between. They would LOVE it if the two were together but aren’t mad at the fact they might just simply be friends. They like the concept of them dating, they might love Larry videos, make or love fanart, read or write fanfics. That in my opinion is the true definition of shipping, just loving the concept and idea of two people being together, having the opinion that they fit together. Nothing else! They want to think it’s real, but don’t force it. They always rethink what is proof and what is not. Always try to find a logical answer and are not afraid to deny said ‘proof’ but also on the other hand, try their best to convince others that there was something going on between them and possibly still is. E.G. they tell people stories about the past, show them footage, but do not want to force the people to believe it’s real. They don’t try to indoctrinate them. They just want to share the ship...

Aka the said friend of version 2.

It’s probably quite obvious i am that one^

So let’s see. People started shipping it cause they were always so close. And the others knew, they saw. They lowkey shipped it. The looks they gave the two, the “You two are so cute!” ~Niall, when Harry said his valentine was Louis. the ‘You two are together, aren’t you?” by Liam, the “When was the last time you kissed a girl?” ~int “When was the last time you liked it?” ~ Liam. Niall’s looks and smirks at the two. The boys teased them about it a lot and it was all fun!

There were even people who asked them if they were dating, and when Louis was going to propose to Harry. And did they mind? No! Because even if half of the people who shipped them were kind of convinced they were going out, the two still played along, made jokes about it and fed the shippers. They loved to see the shippers reaction, they chose to queer 1D, despite the rumours and jealous guys trying to hate on 1D, calling them stupid names.

Just a side note. watch this

youtube

Korean boybands can do this... why can’t Larry? And you know that Kpop management companies are a lot like Modest... Even worse sometimes, you know that South Korea isn’t nearly as open to the LGBT as the west. YET THEY GET AWAY WITH IT!!!

People wrote fanfics, made fanart, made compilation videos(Larry moments), it was okay!

But then stuff started changing. Even when Louis said he had a GF, the two were seen acting in a way that made it seem he did not have a GF at all, similar to how they were right when Louis’ relationship with Hannah ended. Sometimes even worse. People loved it! JOKING that GF was hired! But there were people who took it TOO FAR! They hated on the girl, sent her hate, tried to sabotage their relationship. Louis didn’t like it.

Now to back paddle a bit. Yes it was quite obvious Harry did like Louis to an extent. And Louis didn’t mind. He was there for the boy. Cared for him like his little brother, as a best friend. People thought Louis was gay cause he was quite flamboyant, well what do you get after growing up with so many sisters? Plus, have you seen him when he was a teen? I used to follow him on Bebo. He had girlfriends, and they were real. Now, not saying they’re 100% straight either, chill down, people.

I guess through the years, Louis actually started to like Harry too. Maybe? No? Okay! but there was definitely some man love going on, as H+L friend would say. More fuel for the shippers.

To that point it was okay. But to resume what I started to say about the GF. People turned into pricks! Even IF the GF was hired, which i don’t want to comment on, sending hate to her went too far. We don’t need that kind of negativity in our fandom. It broke us apart! It made us all less close...

Fast forward a bit and we are in the “She’s my girlfriend, People genuinely think me and Harry are together!” era! The two started getting less close. Presumably because they caught on. Louis found out about the hate, obviously. He thought that minimising the touchiness with Harry would make things less complicated. But it made it worse cause people found out. By now you have two sides. The side which realised what they were doing and is even more convinced that GF is fake, cause ahaha why would he do that to his poor Hazza if Modest! didn’t tell him to? And the side who started to believe in Louis+GF more. By now you know I’m talking about Eleanor but yeah.

So you can either believe Modest was there from the start and hired Eleanor, (who had a friend who worked at Modest) Because Modest didn’t like the idea of two guys being in a relationship going public, having her be the muse, the lover, the topic of the songs, or that Modest started interfering when they found out about the rumours getting worse.

The latter can mean that Larry was nothing more than a Bromance (or a one sided love cause Harry liked Louis, it was mutual but they stayed friends for the benefit of... being friends. You almost can’t deny that and if you do then i guess it was just a theory) and when the rumours went overboard, Modest took action and told them to stop being so touchy feely.

Harry for example, only get’s rumoured to be dating someone,he get’s papped hanging around a girl and the second it gets out, new articles start to sprout out of nowhere, and whenever things do get “confirmed” they never end well or last as long as Elounor did.They are mostly high profile people. He’s been getting labeled as a womaniser since pretty much the start of their career. That somewhat correlated with Larry since the womaniser image got people to not believe in the HxL rumours too seriously.

I made a rant about that in 2012 but it was super messy so i’m not going to go into that.

youtube

Either way, them being less close made people even more suspicious and to this day, even after them awkwardly denying rumours, even after Zayn saying it is not real. People believe they are together. Why? cause proof videos. I believe that if you are a true anti, you should at least dare to watch the 30 most iconic Larry moments, and if after all that you still stand by your opinion, then respect to you.

There were far too many suspicious moments. Even if half of what they were trying to do was a joke. You can not deny that they really loved each other. And something ruined it.

The thing about their management company glaring at them or giving signs of approval whenever they do something wrong, or the thing about them giving signals not to answer a question is not made up. There is actual footage of them looking behind the camera and the interviewer saying they have to either stop an interview or saying they are not allowed to ask that.

So why would the management company do such a thing when it is so obvious that the fans really like shipping the two boys?

The reason is because, even if the fans have no problem with it, others do. Outsiders do. A lot of celebrities don’t get permitted to come out. They have to act a certain way and get introduced to girls they have to date for a month or two, sometimes even years. With every generation you have a group of people who completely despise the concept of gay relationships.

Now there are some groups and artists who’ve come out and are doing perfectly fine. But if you have as big as an audience as One Direction, things become more problematic. It is not only the fact that hundreds of girls who feel they have a chance with the boys or are raised not to approve of anything that has to do with the LGBTQ+ (so they grew up with homophobic parents) pretty much get a slap to the face. It’s that they will get so much attention that all the homophobic people in the world, potentially people who can influence a big group of people, will possibly start to hate on them, all these kids who are unfortunate enough to have closed minded parents will not be allowed to listen to the boys anymore. Their entire image will have a massive switch.

Now that they are solo, they have far more time to focus on themselves. Time to reshape and tweak their public image, time and space to show the world who they really are. They are breaking free from the bubble gum pop bubble. They are free to do whatever they want

When they first got put together, people started to say stuff like “One Direction is gay” Using ‘gay’ as an insult just to seem cool cause people thought that liking One Direction was shameful. Especially because of the often obnoxious fans. People simply did not want to be associated with them. But One Direction grew!

I don’t see them coming out any time soon. At this point i am not even sure if they are still together. Especially with the recent events regarding Louis.

I want to say that when Louis and Eleanor first started dating, it was quite awkward, but their relationship started looking realer as time passed by. This time, it just does not at all. Not judging her, i love her. It’s just strange. She got back with someone who “cheated” on her and has a kid with someone else, you’d expect her to ask her boyfriend to do a paternity test. But that is their thing. They can do whatever they want.

Also regarding recent events. Harry seems to be so much more free. He’s swinging and waving around LGBT flags and is being more flamboyant than ever.

Flashback to a couple of years ago when the boy said he liked girls, didn’t like nail polish or make up, and talked about girls. The boys kept mentioning he’s changed. They of all people would understand what exactly changed.

youtube

Now about Louis.

youtube

That is just weird. Moving on.

I believe that we should all just chill and stop the negativity, I didn’t want to believe the misogyny until someone pointed it out to me, don’t get me wrong, i did see it before, but when I came back to this fandom I didn’t think it would be so much worse.

Theories get annoying unless there is proof, in my opinion you can do whatever you like with them, as long as you are aware that your theory might be false/debunkable!

You can ship it as much as you want but DON’T send hate to the GF’s, like, if you ship Larry, why waste time on them in the first place?

Maybe if we all stop commenting Larry on everything we see, maybe then they will come back as close as they were before. Cause it was quite prominent that Harry was saddened by it. They have good and bad memories from the ship.

Just please guys, Larry is fun and i love it, but what I don’t like is all these “shippers” who point at Larry and management, everytime something happens between the two.

But I also don’t like people who attack the shippers, without listening to them first, stand in each others shoes, try to understand each other and why the other person thinks a certain way, step out of your own shoes for once ahaha. We’ll get to understand each other more that way. WE ALL HAVE TO HAVE AN OPEN MIND!!!

Louis said this:

“My main hope for the future is that we all remain best friends throughout everything. I would hate it if anything ‘affected?’ our friendships.”

Sadly something did happen, we have two years to fix things. Maybe i’m just crazy cause i miss the good old days. But let’s at least consider it.

Can we make a plan? Start shipping Larry the way we did in 2011. Just secretly. Let’s not go overboard and theorise everything. Even if it is just for a couple of months. Let’s focus on the friendship! Make them believe we have moved on and know it’s just friendship. I really want to focus on that the next couple of years.

I call it the Larry Reset! Hopefully now there won’t be an article to come out which says “Larry shippers have moved on and have accepted that Larry was a Bromance. Want it back the way it was.” Actually tbh let that happen!

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