#like. where does the cycle end. i feel like a container that people keep dumping their life’s waste in and i just have to. hold onto it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ecto-stone · 3 years

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So I don’t really know that much about that my blood au you created could you tell me a bit about it?

Ha hah I Hope this is Edible

So My Blood Au is just Me dumping all the cool stuff i can think of into a DP what if Vlad is Good ^For Starter MB Vlad or Vladimir Jude Masters is a Paranormal investigater/ hunter/exocist in a sense. He seemingly Perfect in People eye, Not Really on the inside as he have many problem stem from living so long and going though alots of thing that he prefer not to talk about that he hide from People , go so far as to adjust his own emotion to what he find fit to the situration making him really hard to read. (Not Jack and Danielle, those are close enough 2 peel him like an onion if they sense something off). -Vlad And Danny are not same kind of Halfa in this AU, Vlad is Two soul (Half Blue Demon Vampire Ghost, Half Human twisted together and blend into one) and Danny is Soul within soul (Going though the accident give him two identical soul that over lapped each other) -Ghost are nerf and ecto beam and ecto Base attack can harm ghost but they can't harm Physical thing in living world Unless they are infuse with Core element same with Human entering Purgatory. -The world have 5 Realm: LivingWorld, Purgatory (GhostZone), Elsewhereness, Fairy Land and Unworld. +Going with the idea that originaly Vlad is supposed to be a vampire and many ghost in the series feel like they are more supernature creature then Ghost. Living world now have many Human and other Creature living among each other , hidden in plain sight +Purgatory: Where Ghost go and heal before they move onto Elsewhereness (Heaven in this verse) or Rebirth back to the living cycle. There are many area in Purgatory that fit human decription of after life look like , this is due to collective faith and ideal of many Ghost focus with each other to created these Resting stop. Incidentally like the living world these area are also watch over by being call King and Queen of the Death (Caretaker and protector of the Death soul, a being with incredible power capable of bending reality). Most well known one are the King Dark, Prince Argon and Princess Dora of the Dark Age Zone. Queen Desire of the thousand and one night. ect.. newest King of the death is Ghost Writer (library of the forgotten) but he prefer not be refer to as king, just Ghost writer. +Elsewhereness: The final resting Places of enternal Bliss. Once the Soul is ready to let go of all earthly desire, they are send here. Not much is known about this realm or it location. When a Soul reach enlightment it will automatically know where to find it. The realm also House many god. +Fairy Land: Home to care taker of the childhood inocent and many god that work to keep the universe running. Most common creature that live here is Fairy with two side one silly colorful side that appear to children to granted what ever their heart desire. The other is the Blue fortune side that Weaved the fabric of Luck and fate. +Unworld: A Dark realm with one way in no way out. It house many dangerous creature, ancient outer god and unspeakable Evil that have been banish to through age by god and human. >the Origin Story: +Vlad and Jack are Friend from Childhood (Their Bond are really tight kinda like Sworn Brother ) unlike their canon counter part meet in college. They Hunt Ghost but in more of a Release soul from their earthly bound kind of way via the info they get from the Masters Family Grilmore. (There is one major inconvience is that You need to wait for the correct day and time to perform ritual sending ghost back to purgatory so they can Move on to Elsewhereness/heaven of this verse ) +They Meet Maddie in college (Maddie and Vlad almost alway in a total clash with each other with Maddie tech almost Hunter like way in dealing with ghost and Vlad more traditional Way of Handling them) Which end with Three of them forming the Original Ghost Trio. With Maddie accept Vlad and Jack Respect the Death ideal. And Vlad and Jack incorperate More Technology into their Asset. +Maddie point out the inconvinient of having to wait for the correct day for each ghost to send them back to Purgatory (Their room are fill with

Container for ghost), Which lead to them comming up with the idea of Making a Ghost Portal. <Note: MB Vlad is not into Romantic relationship, Platonic one Matter to him more> >The Accident: No diet soda the Accident is purely due to one miscalculation that cost Vlad life (his Head got Blash Clean off infront of Jack and Maddie) In that Split Second of His face getting disintigrating, Vlad get a Glim into UnWorld (the Realm where are Demon and evil of the four realm are banish to) and Got Latched on and Pushed Back to the living world by a Demon Vampire Ghost Both Soul are now inhabited Vlad headless lifeless body, in Which about 3 day after Vlad burial that Vlad Body got completely decontructed inside the coffin and recontructed into a body that is more fitting to host both . Vlad have a hard time remembering Who he is after kinda get rebirth and Wander the world until he Get Suck into a Natural Ghost Portal and got Flunk Back in time. >Journey of an Immortal Being: -Vlad Stuck in the Past, He recovered his memories, Going through existenal crisis, Evil phase, Evil make me feel bad, Not Evil anymore, Found out that he is immortal now, Existenal crisis part2, Acceptance, Travel the World and Start doing the what ever he like, learning old way of magic still helping ghost and other supernatural being. -Caused several Major Change to the past that Mythical Creature got un extinct. (Due to the Law of life and death this does not affect who get born or not, it just that the world got alots more races now and those used to be born human in the original timeline might get born as another races entirely) -Get Mistaken for Messiah.( Look You can't kill Vlad, He would just be gone for like 3 day then comeback) -Caused the legend of Dracula. -Vampire cult have a horrible obession with Vlad as a Whole. Look like vampire act like one, can walk in plain day light and more importantly the ability to Open a Portal to Unworld . ( Vlad don't use this ability much and can only open small one as it is very energy consuming) -Meet his own ancestor Which is the Fentonightingale that Later Splited into Fenton and Nightingale (later change to Masters) leading to revealation that Jack and Him might be very distant Related. -Bickering With Time God (Do not trust the Clock Man that work for the Eyes) -Get Caught in War far too many time. -Meet Phantom (an odd entity that is oddly clingy to him) in the Great War. -Meet Other Some of the DP ghost when they still alive -The Horrible Bar incident that reveal Phantom true nature, an evil being that wish to turn the world back to it original nature of nothiness and try to turn vlad to the his side, Kill, Seal in Rock Case covered with Sigil to prevent Phantom from escape, Chuck it into the ocean. - The Contruction of the Coffin Ghost Portal. (Havent actually went into the Purgatory caused the CCP is one Way Portal. -Forming of many Hidden town that home supernatural being. Amity Park is one of them. - And many more unseen story >Daddy Stolen Ribbone saga (MB Vlad is sterile, he want to have kid but can't.) -The Vampire cult that he have grudge with attemp to Clone or at least created a child that have Vlad Power through ritual and cult like method. Imagine Danny Clone but even more mess up . -Vlad end the life of most of them by his own hand (they are suffering, it is best to let them go) -Birth of Danielle: +Danielle Evelyn Masters or just Dani/Dee for short is the only Stable child come out of this whole odeal. She is Created From Vlad Ribone like a Twisted Eve. And like in the book it caused both of them to be very attached to each other in a Fatherly Daughterly Way. +Dee Have Vlad Ghost power and Demonic Power but No ghost form (Her default funtion as both and whether she is in ghost mode or Human mode is all Up to energy control) and no connection to Unworld there for she can't open portal to Unworld. Dual Soul nature Wind/Fire.

+She like Frog and is interested in Marine biology (which Vlad have full support over, she have a room fill with Vlad hand made frog plusie that she all named. +He raise her teach her everything he know about how to deal with supernatural being and how to Snipe Vampire from a long distant with pin point accuracy.

+An kidnapped incident with the Vampire cult latter resulted in Dee Death at the age of 12 (1999), and Vlad becoming fully Merged into one Being with Plasmius. and wipe out the entire vampire cult in a horrible Vlad the impaler way). +After wiping out the remainder of the cult, vlad go into retirement and work as a wall Painter < he work supper fast on celling painting and no one know why> >The Boy Who Fly (2 year before the start of actual MB story) -Danny Gain his power at the age of 10, his parent know. The event of Portal acivation caused the whole town to have a black out. -They move House alots for 2 year. And Jack try his best to make his family as normal as they can be after accidenly k his friend all those year ago and now half eff his own son. -They finding out amity park their new home is on accident when the RV engine die mid way through the middle of no Where (The town shown it self to those in need) -Danny hide his abiltiy. But after a gym incident. and getting Praise by his peer for it instead of scold like with the adult Danny start getting bolder using Floating power around his new friend when no adult is watching. <Vlad who is Working on the Giant Raven paiting for the School Saw this and know imediately What Danny is> -They offically meet each other on the the roof top, when Danny mom ask him to go down the store and by some bread and he decided to try to Air Frog Swim to it. They become friend and Vlad even teach Danny how to fly properly before having to leave (they visit each other alots after the revealation, and vlad is a good adult friend that Danny can talk to) (Danno forgot about the bread and return home breadless) -Jack may stop with the whole Paranormal hunter/ghost scientist job but not Maddie. She keep doing it behind his back due to danny special need in ecto base consumtion (he havent grow abit since the accident and keep getting smaller and it concerning) -Jack found out and they have a Fight. which lead to Maddie go to his Sister house. -Danny Found out about why his dad was so stressed out about ghost thing now. When looking through his parent old stuff with his new friend tucker. (Dude why does your parent have a Picture of the wall painter in thier old junk). He show the image to Vlad. -Danny Get jack to tell the story about the inccident. Dad what if i tell you that Your friend who die 18 year ago survived and is on our front door right now. Reunion, Jack feeling guilty about making them both like this. Go Get Maddie. Happy reunion of the trio. -Fenton Parent become accepting to Danny condition, Danny have a good mentor that can teach him ho to control his power And they live happy ever after for now

#Q/A #good god how do you add read more on a QA #my blood AU #Danny Phantom #danny phantom au #god this is long #hachi text

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princecharmingmendes · 3 years

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A Quarter After One | Raul Mendes

"Look, I know you're a hard ass but can you play with my hair? It would really help"

Hello hello! This was a request or an idea that actually came from the prompt above sent by the lovely @bvttercupbby (thank you so much!) and I was immediately in love with it. This is a blurb/oneshot that was planned to fit in the Hey Angel universe where they're in a stablished relationship, but could be read as an individual piece, but if you want to check that universe first, they're on my masterlist and the first part is in here (aster is also a blurb from that universe!). If any of you have any prompts or requests you'd like to see, feel free to send them to me, even anonymously. Anyway, I'll stop ranting now, happy reading and don't forget to tell me what where your thoughts on this piece!

*Word Count: 2.3K+

*Warnings: a few curse words, and I guess that's it;

*Posted: April 9th, 2021.

-*-

It was a hard day and Y/N was tired, but she simply couldn’t sleep.

Her shift was long and exhausting, too much happened in a short span of time. Too many bad news and annoyingly arrogant people to deal with, and she even had and early shift the next morning. So when she got home she was finally able to breath. Technically she went to her boyfriend’s apartment since Raul knew she had a tough day, and they were basically always together, switching between their places at least twice a week. He texted her as soon as she got in with the spare key he gave her a few months ago, letting Y/N know he was going to take an extra hour cause he got caught up, that she didn’t have to wait for him to do anything.

So Y/N decided to head to his room and take a long warm shower to relax her nerves a bit. After washing her hair, taking her time to get all soft and exfoliated, and even going as far as applying a hair mask to keep it shiny. Then she changed into a pair of sweats and soft big T-shirt she loved borrowing (or ‘stealing’ as Raul liked saying) and padded downstairs, slumping on the couch with her phone in hands. But before she could curl up in the soft baby pink blanket Raul kept their for her, she heard the front door opening, and as she turned around to check, her boyfriend was walking in with a few bags on his hands.

“Hi, Bambi” he smiled at her, placing the bags on the counter, alongside his stuff.

Y/N got up from the couch and trailed behind him, circling her arms around his middle, nuzzling her face on his back “Hi”

“Needy?” he asked with a chuckle.

Y/N nodded her head “need you”

“Oh darling” Raul cooed at her, spinning in her arms to face her and gently cradling her jaw in his hand, the free one on her lower back keeping her close “I’m here, sweet thing, and I’m sorry it took me longer than what I told you this morning”

Y/N only nodded hugging him tighter and he leaned down to place a kiss to her forehead, before enveloping her in a hug.

“I’m sorry I’m late, I just had to stop by and grab us some stuff, wanna take a look?” he offered gently.

And she nodded softly in response before adding a quiet “please”

Raul smiled before carefully maneuvering them so he could pull the stuff out of the bags“Okay, I got us the Chinese takeout you love so much, stopped by to grab you your favorite cake, a painkiller and as I was checking out, I saw this and I just had to buy it” he said before grabbing a Bambi plushie.

Y/N’s eyes widened and a small smile twitched on her lips at the sight of the stuffed animal, quickly followed by a shake of her head and a breathy giggle. And he was glad he got this reaction out of her, his heart a bit warmer when she reached out to gently cradle the toy in her arms before pulling Raul for a tighter hug.

“You’re so annoying” she mumbled against his chest as he laughed, pressing a few kisses to her hair “but I love you for it”

“I love you too, Bambi” he pressed a final kiss before pulling away a bit, despite her whine, to look at her a bit better “you look comfy, that T-shirt seems to be really soft, is it new? Could swear I had one like that”

“Oh fuck off” she said playfully rolling her eyes and he chuckled at her.

“That’s my girl” he mumbled as he watched her getting flustered at his compliment “now lemme shower real quick, you can go ahead a pick the movie and as soon as I’m back I’ll bring the food so we can eat it on the couch and maybe cuddle a bit before bed, yeah? How does that sound? Good?”

“Yes, thank you”

“Of course, Bambi” he said pressing a quick peck to her lips “just don’t pick something you want us to pay attention to, I guess we both need the rest”

“Okay” was all she replied as he moved to his room.

While she waited for him, Y/N settled back down in her spot on the couch and started scrolling through movie options, and ended up choosing a random action movie they’ve probably watched way too many times before, but she couldn’t simply be bothered. A few minutes since he left, Raul was back, hair still wet from the shower, in a pair of sweats and a random t-shirt. He was quick to grab the stuff he brought them for dinner and to plop down beside her, swinging an arm over her shoulders and pressing a kiss to her hairline.

They watched the movie as the dug into the little containers and had desert, before actually dumping their dishes in the sink and coming back for a cuddle. Y/N finally started feeling her muscles relaxing as she laid flat on top of Raul’s body as they finished the movie, his hands lazily running up and down her spine. She wasn’t feeling so nervous anymore, and as much as she would give anything for a long night of sleep, she felt like she wasn’t going to be able to actually get a proper one. On the other hand, her boyfriend was struggling to finish the feature film, his movements kept coming to a stop, only for him to sigh and resuming his previous ministrations.

“Raul?” she called his name softly into the dark room.

He only hummed in response, squeezing her a bit tighter to his body, making her let out a breathy giggle.

“I think it’s time for us to go to bed” Y/N tilted her head to look up at him, only to find him smirking at her and before he could make any dirty joke, she lightly slapped his chest “don’t even start”

Raul chuckled and shook his head “yeah, I’m completely worn out”

“Come on then, champ” she said lifting herself up from him, and consequently the couch as well.

Raul lazily rolled out of his place, grabbing her hand and trailing up with her to his bedroom. They both went on their little night time skin care/ general routine, side by side on his bathroom as they did most nights before collapsing on top of his duvet. He gently coaxed her to get under the covers before turning off the light. Y/N scooted a bit closer to him and he was quick to get it, pulling her to his chest before placing a quick peck on her lips with a chuckle.

“What time do you have to be up tomorrow?”

Y/N sighed before actually answering “seven, I think, why?”

“I have to be up around the same time, so I’ll make us some breakfast” he mumbled, his voice already getting a bit more sleepy and slow.

“Okay, thank you for today, I really appreciate it” she said playing with the soft material of his shirt.

She felt Raul smile against her hair as he nuzzled his face there “of course, Bambi, I love you so much, m’angel”

Y/N smiled at his sweet confession at his hazy state “I love you too”

“I know, Bambi, otherwise you wouldn’t put up with my shit” he murmured and she giggled in response “goodnight, angel”

“Goodnight, Raul”

-*-

Y/N was getting frustrated.

She was tired. Exhausted both physically and mentally, and all she needed was to sleep, but she couldn’t. She fell asleep rather quickly, only to wake up half an hour later and to get stuck in a cycle of napping for a few minutes and being partially awake for the others.

Her muscles were tight, her bones hurting, her head pounding and she didn’t have much to do. Y/N didn’t want to get up and go watch something on the couch, that wasn’t going to help. But she also didn’t felt like laying down for hours on end without being able to properly fall asleep. And waking up her boyfriend wasn’t an option, even though she knew Raul wouldn’t mind, she felt bad doing it to him knowing well he had at least three surgery’s in the following morning. So she didn’t have much to do. Y/N tried moving as little as she could, as to not to disturb the sleeping body next to her, and she managed to detangle herself from Raul’s arms to not wake him up.

But it didn’t go exactly as planned as she heard him sigh heavily before turning on his side to face her. Y/N tried to pretend to be asleep, hoping it was just him dreaming or something like that, but when she felt him gently pushing the hair out of her face and moving it behind her ear, she opened her eyes to look up at him.

“Bambi, what’s keeping you up?” he croaked in a raspy sleepy tone and she just shrugged in response, making him sigh “I’ve been feeling you trash around for at least an hour now, tell me what’s going on so I can try to fix it and finally put you to sleep”

Her voice was small as she finally spoke up, almost afraid she’d piss him off “I don’t know, I just can’t”

“Darling, is past one A.M. and we both work not that early tomorrow, but we still need to be up at seven, so please tell what’s bothering you” he sighed in defeat.

Y/N shook her head “It’s nothing, really, you should go to sleep”

“I really wish I could just pretend to believe in you, turn around and go back to sleep, but we both know that’s not happening, and I’d be a jerk if I did that, so please, I just want to help” he laid his hand on her jaw, his thumb mindlessly caressing the soft skin on her face.

She leaned on his palm, enjoying the warmth of his palm seeping onto her skin “I just think I might still be a bit stressed with what happened today, and that’s making me restless”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Before we laid down? I could’ve made you some tea or something else to try to calm you a bit more, maybe even a massage, you know I’m good at it” he had a frown on his face as he said it, concern lacing his features and his voice.

“I guess I didn’t want to be a bother, specially with something that stupid”

Raul’s honeyed eyes softened at her admission “it’s not stupid if it’s keeping you up at night, Bambi, you should’ve known that, and I would never judge you for it”

“I know, and saying it aloud makes me even more dumb for not sharing it earlier and maybe even saving us from this, I’m sorry I kept you up”

“Oh angel, come here” he said before pulling her into his chest “you don’t have to apologize, that’s why I’m here, right? To take care of you, and it’s okay”

Y/N only nodded her head against his chest as she snuggled closer to him, mumbling into his t-shirt “okay”

He chuckled quietly before adding “Now what can I do to help?”

“I don’t know”

“Do you want a cup of tea?” he offered and she only tightened her hold on the fabric of his pijamas making him laugh “okay, what about a kissy?” he asked mocking the way she asked him for one a few weeks back on her drowsy sleepy state.

“You’re insufferable” she huffed out as he chuckled.

“That’s not what you said yesterday” he sing sang and she slapped his chest softly playfully.

Y/N shook her head holding back a smile as he laughed before adding "Look, I know you're a hard ass but can you play with my hair? It would really help"

As his laugh died down a bit he tipped her head up with his fingers under her chin, placing a kiss to the tip of her nose “jokes apart, of course I will, angel, anything you want, really”

She sighed contently at him as he pulled her to his chest again, starting to comb his long fingers through her soft locks “thank you” and Raul only placed a single kiss to her forehead in response.

Y/N started feeling her body finally relaxing completely, her heavy limbs finally turning into gelatin, and her body basically turning into a puddle. Her mind was finally shutting off and all she could focus on was her boyfriend. His signature scent as her face was buried in his neck, his warm body under hers and his gentle caresses slowly putting her in a sleepy state. And she was grateful for having such an amazing partner to do everything he did for her when she felt a bit off, never pushing her to tell him whenever she was uncomfortable and being patient despite being tired as she accidentally woke him up. And even though this weren’t too much to ask, Y/N knew how rare was to find a man like that, and little things like this made her remember how lucky she truly was.

“Now what about the kissy?” he asked after a few moments of silence and she giggled quietly before tilting her head up and pressing a sweet kiss to his lips “better, thought you were going to put me in emotional distress”

“Over a kiss?”

“Over your kiss, they’re special, Bambi” he said and she rolled her eyes at him, but both ended up laughing.

“Goodnight, Raul”

“Goodnight, angel” and this time, she was actually able to succumb to her tired body’s wishes and fall fast asleep.

-*-

*Please reblog or like this post if you liked it so I’ll know.

*I’m sorry if there are any spelling mistakes.

*Please do not repost this without giving me the credit, this is a completely original piece and I do not give permission to copy this!

*Hope you guys enjoyed it!

*xoxo

-🌙

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blushingbaka · 4 years

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october date hcs

featuring: aran, hinata, kita, and tanaka

✰ a/n: i haven’t had a lot of time to write lately, but i just had to do something including cute october dates, so i whipped these up ! it’s kind of a random compilation of characters, but they’re the ones that just naturally came to me! this was my first time writing hcs, so i haven’t exactly found my style for them... it’s honestly more of a brain dump, but i hope you still enjoy them <3

✰ OJIRO ARAN ✰

⋆ so apparently it’s canon that aran watches old movies and series, so i am fully convinced that he would want to have a night where you two binge classic horror movies !!

⋆ he’s been doing this since forever, so he already has the perfect lineup that he is very stubborn about changing

⋆ he’s all too excited to include you in his little tradition, however, so this boy is fully prepared with popcorn, snacks, hot chocolate, and of course blankets

⋆ even if you’re not really into horror movies, you can’t help but to think it’s worth it when he can’t contain his excited toothy grin as you settle onto the couch

⋆ he starts with his arm draped over your shoulders, but eventually it falls to rest around your waist. he has the habit of absentmindedly rubbing circles into the skin just under the hem of your shirt

⋆ you find yourself watching his face more than the movie. it’s cute how he’s totally engrossed in the movie he must have seen a hundred times, and there’s a small smile that stays on his face the whole night. he gets so into that he forgets all about the popcorn, so you find yourself occasionally feeding him pieces

⋆ if you’re the type to point out the inconsistent plot or the character’s illogical decisions, he’ll immediately shush you and place his finger to your lips, telling you to “just enjoy the movie”

⋆ if you’re actually scared, he’ll smile fondly down at you as you bury your face into his chest and he’ll squeeze your side reassuringly. he’ll be honest and tell you when it’s safe to look back at the screen, and when you lift up your head, he’ll plant a swift kiss on your temple

⋆ you really try to fight it, but you eventually fall asleep. despite falling asleep, you still grip the material of aran’s t-shirt with one hand, which causes his heart to swell with affection. as he looks down at your sleeping form, he can’t help but think how he wants you to be a permanent part of his little tradition

✰ HINATA SHOUYOU ✰

⋆ carving pumpkins !!

⋆ you two had already went on a date to the pumpkin patch to pick out your pumpkins and this boy can not wait any longer to carve it. he whines when you insist on prepping the space with trash bags and such, too excited to get started that he doesn’t care about the aftermath of a mess

⋆ goes in for the pumpkin guts with his b a r e hands, and he tries to persuade you to do the same only saying ‘it feels cool’

⋆ when you finish emptying your pumpkins, you immediately tell him to wash his hands but his teasingly extends them towards you

⋆ “Hinata don’t you dar-“ he does dare. he swipes one hand across your cheek, causing you to scrunch your nose up in disgust. already having one cheek covered with the slimy pulp, you see no reason to not retaliate, so you stick your hand in the bowl you two filled, and throw a piece of pulp in the direction of his face

⋆ your arms end up in a tangled mess as you two continue your cycle of revenge, and the room is filled with your laughter

⋆ after finally calling a truce and cleaning yourselves up, you actually start to carve the pumpkins. It takes forever for hinata to decide what he’s going to do, and your advice of ‘just something scary’ doesn’t work because his immediate answer is kageyama’s face

⋆ he finally settles on a design, but refuses to outline it in pencil first, too eager to start carving. he sticks out his tongue as he focuses on his carving, and you can’t resist placing a kiss on his cheek, which causes pink to dust his cheeks

⋆ he carves with so much exaggerated force, he ends up accidentally cutting off parts he didn’t mean too. looks at you with so much awe when you’re able to reattach them with some toothpicks, and presses an excited kiss to your lips, which causes you to be flustered one

⋆ the night ends with you two cuddled on the couch, his head resting comfortably in your lap as you comb your fingers through his hair. you can just barely smell the pumpkin seeds you have roasting in the oven, and the room is illuminated by both the television and your jack-o’-lanterns that hinata wanted to keep inside just a little longer

✰ KITA SHINSUKE ✰

⋆ kita is more than willing to take you on any type of date you want to go on, but when you mention going to an apple orchard, he can’t hide the glimmer of excitement in his eyes. it’s by far his favorite date to take you on in the fall

⋆ he loves seeing you wrapped up in one of his scarves and placing your conjoined hands in his pocket

⋆ he’ll whisper little tips to you like how you should pick apples from the outside of the tree if you want the ripest ones. gently scolds you if you just pull the apple away from the tree instead of twisting it upward like he told you. you pretend to not understand so he’s forced to show you by enveloping your hand with his

⋆ loves how you ask him for his opinion on an apple before you pick it, and you think it’s cute how he inspects every apple again before placing it into your basket

⋆ he gives you frequent kisses on the tip of your nose, and will take breaks where he just holds your two hands in his

⋆ when you have to use the ladder, he always has a reassuring hand on you, ready to steady you if need be

⋆ you pick extra apples to give his grandmother, and fondness fills him when you talk about giving her some of the apple pie you two are planning on making

⋆ when he hears your stomach growl, he’s already looking for the nearest stand selling apple cider and apple cider donuts. he wears a fond smile as he wipes some powder from the corner of your mouth. And when you kiss him, you love the lingering taste of apple cider on his lips.

✰ TANAKA RYUUNOSUKE ✰

⋆ as soon as september rolled into october, tanaka has talked about taking you to a haunted house, and you can pretty much guess his motives

⋆ he promises you have nothing to be frightened over since you’re with him, and of course you can’t refuse his request

⋆ before you enter, he offers his hand to you, but becomes extremely flustered when you not only grab his hand but also the upper part of his arm, pressing your side to his

⋆ tanaka wasn’t too affected by jump scares and you soon found out why. it was because he was one of those people that sped walked through the experience, peeping around each corner to eliminate the chance for a jump scare

⋆ you chuckled telling him to slow down, which he partly listened to

⋆ gets super defensive when someone pops out on your side, and subconsciously pulls you closer to himself

⋆ he’s that guy that eggs the actors on telling them they’re going to have to do better or that they should go get that fake wound checked out

⋆ when you reach the space containing the guy with the chainsaw, tanaka tenses up, and you thought he was actually scared

⋆ “they must be insane, if they think i’m going to let them chase my s/o” he declares squeezing your hand “i’ll distract them, and you run for it” he tells you squeezing your hand.

⋆ tanaka is definitely skilled at drawing attention to himself, and it’s easier than you think to run along the side, avoiding being pursued. you turn around just in time to see tanaka sprinting towards you despite the fact the guy has given up on chasing him. you chuckle as he collides with you and urges you to keep on moving.

⋆ when you reach the end, tanaka lets out an exaggerated sigh saying, “that wasn’t so bad, was it?” you hug him tightly and press a kiss to his lips muttering a “no.” the boy’s cheeks are blazing !

⋆ it’s gotten colder, and when he notices you shivering, he immediately takes off his jacket to give it to you, claiming your kiss gave him all the warmth he needed

#haikyuu headcanons #aran ojiro x reader #kita shinsuke x reader #hinata shouyou x reader #tanaka ryuu x reader #haikyuu x reader #aran ojiro #kita shinsuke #hinata shouyou #tanaka ryuunosuke #haikyuu fluff

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lucisfavoritedemon · 3 years

Text

Waiting For Forever Chapter 10

Pairing: Bucky x reader, Sam x platonic!reader

Summary: You met Bucky for a brief second at a fair him and Steve attended. Little did you know you would run into him again as you assist Peggy with Steve. There was just something about the sadness in Bucky’s eyes that night that captured your soul, and he was all you could think about. You have a secret though. You aren’t exactly who he thinks you are. This is a story of love, loss, and overcoming any obstacle thrown your way.

Warnings: fluff, slight angst, Bucky being the cutest dad ever, cursing, reader really despising Walker, violence, talks of sexual actions

Word Count: 6467

A/N: This is my thoughts on what happens to reader During The Falcon and The Winter Soldier: Episode Four (roughly). It is not 100% accurate, but I wanted to put a little twist to it. This gives you a glimpse at how the reader and Bucky are balancing work life and keeping their relationship some what professional. I added in some 3rd person POV to get insight on what Bucky’s thoughts are in a certain part. That will be in italics. It is kind of a long one, but there was a lot of detail I wanted to add. There also is something mentioned that I may consider doing a What If...? twist with. Y’all let me know what you think, would that be something you’d be interested in? All mistakes are mine. TFATWS SPOILERS!!!!!

Enjoy!

Of course that’s what Ayo wanted. I didn’t blame her either, Zemo killed their king. Of course Bucky and Sam just had to break him out of jail, and here we are about to feel the wrath of the Wakandans.

“Why did you free Zemo?”

“We need him.” Bucky responded.

“In all honesty, I agree with you Ayo. I wish he would have left well enough alone.”

“We freed you of everything that went back to the Winter Soldier.”

“And I’m grateful for that.”

“Have you forgotten that he killed King T’Chaka at the U.N.?”

“Of course not.”

“My people, those men put me in charge of watching over him, protecting him.”

“I understand that.”

“Maybe we should give him back to them.” Bucky starts to speak Wakandan, “he’s a means to an end.”

I roll my eyes at this. This was absolutely unbelievable, I agreed that Zemo needed to go back. He was going to stop at nothing till he had manipulated us into letting him go free. It would be an endless cycle, a loop that never ended.

“You have 8 hours. Then we come for Zemo.”

Ayo walked away. She didn’t look happy at all, and frankly, I didn’t blame her. I turned around and started heading back to the place Zemo had for us to stay. Bucky grabbed my wrist making me face him. He gave this pleading look, and I knew he was either asking for forgiveness, or to talk.

“I understand your frustration. I do. He’s the last chance we have at finding Karli. Once we’re done, I’ll give him back to the Wakandans. They can do what they will with him.”

“I don’t need you to explain your reasoning. I just knew having Zemo around was a bad idea.”

“I get that. I just need you to trust me. When we’re done with him, I’ll give him back to them.”

“Fine. I’m giving you 6 hours. They’re a little more generous than I am.”

“Fine.”

We walked back to the house in silence. I hated being the bad guy in this, but I believe someone had to be. We walked back in as Zemo stepped out of the bathroom, presumably after a shower. I went and sat down on the couch as Bucky walked to the island in the kitchen. He glanced down at his phone, and his face went sour.

“What’s wrong Buck?” I asked, concerned.

“Karli blew up one of the GRC warehouses. 11 injured, 3 dead.”

“It seems I may be the only one here who is brave enough to finish this mission.”

“We aren’t going to kill her.” Sam stated.

“If it came to that, would you be strong enough to do it?”

“No one is killing anyone, besides me killing you Zemo.” I glared in his direction.

“It’s people with her ideals that have formed the Nazis, Ultron, the Avengers.”

“Those are our friends you’re talking about.” Sam snapped.

“The Avengers, not the Nazis.” Bucky added, for clarification of course.

Zemo started to go on about supremacy, and how Karli is a supremacist. Then he started to talk about super soldiers, and it really got my blood boiling.

“What about Steve?”

“There has yet to be another Steve Rodgers.”

“You wanna know why that is Zemo?” I looked at him seriously this time.

“Why would that be?”

“Because Erskine hand picked Steve. All he ever wanted was to prove to the world that the person who is the most underestimated, can come out on top. It’s why so many people looked up to him. He was part of the minority group. He wasn’t meant to be a good soldier, but a good man.”

I looked away from the group as I recall Erskine's huge speech to Steve. He always knew exactly what to say to people. It’s how he gained my trust so quickly. He treated me like his own flesh and blood when others wanted to use me for my powers. He protected me from Schmidt in Germany before we moved to America, and he continued to do so even after his death.

“When I was young my TT passed away.” Sam started.

“Your, your TT?” Bucky interrupted

"Yeah, my TT."

"Wh-who is your TT?" Bucky questioned, sounding a little annoyed and confused.

“Okay when I was younger, my aunt passed away. The whole community came together. It was a week long thing. Maybe they’re doing the same thing for Donya Madani.”

“That’s actually not a bad thought. A lot of cultures do it.” I agreed.

Zemo goes to one of the cupboards and grabs a container, dumping it out, and tossing something from it to Sam. “Turkish Delight. Irresistible.”

We all decided to go and ask around to see if we could figure out whether we could find out where her funeral was. Zemo of course started to go off about how so much has changed since he was younger. We decided to split up, I was with Sam, and Bucky got stuck with Zemo.

Sam and I walked up to the upper level, and began to ask around. Everyone ran away from us though, and didn’t want to speak with us. They all looked scared and very weary. We walked into a room where it looked like a lesson was taking place.

“We’re looking for Donya Madani, she was a refugee here.” Sam spoke up.

“We are not refugees. We have nothing to seek refuge from. We are just displaced people. We don’t trust outsiders.”

“We want to help out.”

“We have heard that so many times. People have promised more teachers, supplies. That was 6 months ago.”

I was starting to understand Karli better. Before Erskine I was alone in a world that didn’t care about me. Erskine was the person who took me in and gave me food and shelter. He was the only person who seemed to care. So, I guess I could understand Karli a bit better.

“What’s your name, I can make a few calls.” Sam tried to fight.

“I know who you are, but I don’t trust you. I’m sorry.” The man picks up a child and walks off.

“Well that didn’t go to plan.” “No, but it gave us a better idea as to why Karli is doing what she’s doing. Her people are suffering because the government won’t meet their needs. Her cause is good, but the way she is going about it is wrong.”

“Then we need to find Donya and find Karli. The sooner we can get her to stop this the better off we’ll be.”

“The thing is Sam, I don’t think we’ll be able to. Her ideals, they are just too strong to stop. Not without going into war that is. Trust me. I know how this ends, and it ends in bloodshed, as much as I hate to admit it.”

Sam nods in agreement as we walk down to meet up with the other two. As we approach we notice Zemo talking to a group of kids. I notice the Turkish Delight laid out on a little stool. I notice a little girl walk up to him, and whisper in his ear.

“What is he doing?” Sam asked.

“I have no idea.” Bucky responded.

“This is why I’m going to be a helicopter parent when we get home.” I add in, watching with a look of shock and horror on my face.

Zemo walks back over to us, and we all head back to his place. He was keeping us in the dark about something, and I did not like this one bit. Once back at the house, we settled in and started to question Zemo.

“That little girl, what did she tell you?” Sam questioned first.

“The funeral is this afternoon.”

“Where is it?” I asked, hoping he would tell us.

“That is classified.”

“Of course it is. No matter, wherever it is, I want to talk to Karli.”

“Absolutely not.” Bucky protested.

“I’m going with you Y/N.” Sam stated.

“Fine with me, but I feel like maybe talking to someone who knows exactly what she is going through may help her.”

“And you think you can stop her?” Zemo almost laughed.

“I’ve been in her shoes. I know what it’s like to feel all alone. To want the world to pay attention to the minority. I used to be her.”

“But you’re not.” Bucky added.

“Not anymore, but had Erskine not found me when he did, I could have ended up exactly like her.”

“I don’t think you’re going to convince her.” Zemo butted in.

“I don’t care, if I even make her question whether this is the right thing, then I’ve done something right.”

“You know the Dora will be here for you any minute, so keep talking.” Bucky threatened.

“What, so you can turn me over? I prefer to keep my leverage.” Zemo retorts.

Bucky stands up quickly, grabs the cup Zemo is holding, and throws it at the wall, “you wanna see what someone can do with leverage?”

“Bucky, calm down. It’s okay.” I say walking over to him.

“I’m going to make a call.” Sam said walking off.

I went and sat back down on the couch. I pulled Bucky over to sit next to me to get him to calm down so he didn't kill Zemo. I wanted to bring up the fact it was his idea to break Zemo out of prison.

“Have you checked in on Jamie?” Bucky asked as I ran my fingers through his hair.

“I haven't. I didn't want to, not with mister creeper around.”

Bucky chuckled some, "that's fair. I just worry about him without us around. D-does he have any powers or weird abilities?”

“He's started to develop some, but that all comes from my side. You'd be surprised how much he reminds me a lot of Steve, but he really is just like you. He has your charm and Steve's spirit. God, that boy is going to be a lady killer.” I giggle some.

Bucky smiles at me, but it fades fast, "I hope nobody has teased him about who his dad is. I hope they don't ruin the picture you've painted of me in his mind.”

“I hope not either, but if that does happen, we'll handle it. Together, I fear nothing as long as we do it together, as a family.” I squeezed Bucky's hand tightly. He was part of my family now. He was the father of my child, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Bucky squeezed my hand back, “as a family.” He smiled, and my heart skipped a beat when those words came out of his mouth.

“Okay you two love birds, let's get going.” Sam said, interrupting our moment.

Bucky and I stood up, and we walked out heading to the celebration of life for Donya Madani. Bucky took my hand, intertwining our fingers. The metal felt nice and cool against my hand, and I was relishing in the fact that he felt comfortable with me holding his metal hand.

“Karli Morgenthau is too dangerous for you guys to be pulling this shit.” John Walker spoke as he and his sidekick walked towards us.

“Ah! How'd you find us now?” Bucky sounded annoyed and pissed.

“Come on, man. You really think two Avengers can walk around Latvia without drawing attention?” Battlestar spoke up.

“No more keeping us in the dark. You could start by telling us why you broke him out of prison.” Walker demanded.

“He did that himself technically.” Bucky said, making me roll my eyes.

“This better be an unbelievable explana…”

“Hey! Take it easy before it gets weird.” Sam said, breaking things up between Walker and Bucky.

“I know where Karlie is.” Zemo announced.

“Well, where?”

“All we know is that it's a memorial.’

“So we're going to intercept her there.” Sam stated trying to stop Walker from following us.

“That means civilians, high risk of casualties.” Battlestar stated.

“Alright, good, we'll move in fast.” Walker ordered, moving around Sam.

“No. Sam and I are going to talk to her, civilly. I'm not sure if you know what that means, do you want me to give you the definition?”

“We want to talk to her alone.”

“Don't be smart with me bitch!”

“What did you call me!?” I went to charge him, but Bucky grabbed my arm to stop me.

“I'm not losing her again!” Walker shouted.

“Look, the person closest to her died, she's vulnerable. If there's any time to reason with her, it's now.”

“What? No, no! No, no, no, stop!” Walker tried to get us to stop walking.

“I know you think you can't reason with people like her, Walker, but I used to be in her shoes. I know what it's like to feel like the world doesn't care about you. I was that girl almost 90 years ago. Abraham was my Donya, and I lost him. If anything, she needs someone who knows what it's like, not someone who got handed everything.” I attempted to walk around him, but he shoved me back.

“I think we're way past reasoning with her, unless you forgot the fact that she blew up a building with people still in it.”

“You two walk in there cold, she could kill you.”

“If we go in hot, and the op goes wrong, more people could die." Sam tried to reason.

“I believe that Sam and I can reason with her.” I tried to explain.

“You're gonna let them do this?” Walker turned to Bucky.

Bucky had a look of confidence and confusion. I know he hated the thought of me going in there, but he also knew I was right. He knew Sam and I both had a good chance of convincing her to stand down.

“You're going to let your partners walk into a room with a super soldier alone?" Walker tried to contort his thoughts into not letting me walk in.

I locked eyes with Bucky, begging him to not listen to Walker. That he wasn't the voice of reason, that I was. I begged him to trust me with this mission, that I could do this. I knew I could defend myself if it came to that, so could Sam. I could see the war going on in his head though, and I was almost convinced he was going to pull me out.

“They've dealt with worse. And Sam isn't my partner.” Bucky responded, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“I used to counsel soldiers dealing with trauma, okay? This is right in my wheelhouse.” Sam tried to convince Walker more.

“Yeah, I know. And I know those soldiers, which is why I believe this is a bad idea.”

“Wait, John. If they can talk her down it might be worth a try.”

Walker scoffs, “fine," he turns to Zemo, "we'll deal with you later.”

“I'm sure you all will come to an agreeable conclusion. My associate is just up ahead.” Zemo gestures to a little girl and we start walking again, “hello my friend,” he pulls some money out of his pocket, “this is for your family. Can you show us the way?”

The little girl nods and starts walking ahead. I looked to Bucky, reminding him this is why I haven't called to check up on Jamie with Zemo around.

“What the hell?”

“For once I agree with you.” I mumble to myself, staying close to Bucky.

The little girl leads us to what appears to be the back entrance to where this gathering is happening. She stops, opens the door and nods. She starts to walk in gesturing us to follow her.

“This is the place.” Zemo stated.

Sam and I get in front of the group, and go to follow the little girl. Walker grabs Zemo quickly, and I thought a fight was going to break out. Walker cuffs Zemo to a boiler looking thing, and pins him there.

“You two have 10 minutes, then we’re doing things my way.” Walker states.

Sam and I rush in to find time for us to talk to Karli before Walker can get to her. As we walk around, we notice the building we’re in is two levels. Sam and I watch Karli’s speech from the upper level. Hearing her talk about Donya reminded me a lot of how I would have talked about Dr. Erskine. The more she talked, the more I felt connected to her.

After everyone left, Sam and I decided to go down, and talk with her. I had a feeling this was gonna be both easy and challenging. I had faith that we were going to be able to talk her down. I was confident Sam felt the exact same way I did.

“I saw you two back there.” Karli spoke, her back turned to us.

“We came alone.” Sam spoke.

“We just want to talk, Karli.” I tried to speak as softly as I could to her, I didn’t want to scare her off, and blow our chance.

“We’re sorry for your loss.” Sam spoke genuinely.

“Don’t condescend to me, I’m not a child.”

“We’re not condescending. I know what it’s like to lose some, believe me.”

“No you don’t, not like this.”

“I do.” I spoke up.

Karli turned to me, then looked at Sam. I wanted her to know I had once come from where she is. I knew what it was like to be someone the government mistreated. I had to get those words out. Maybe then she would stop all this, and everything could go back to normal. No more people would get hurt.

“It doesn’t have to be a war, Karli.”

“They started a war as soon as they kicked us out of our homes and onto the streets. People all around the world need me. Millions of them.”

“We can’t speak for millions, but we understand you, Y/n especially. She came from the same situation you’re facing right now.” Sam mentioned. He had to say anything to gain her attention.

“I understand your frustration, and I understand your helplessness.” I interjected.

Karli stood there for a second before she finally spoke, “so you want me to stop because people are gettin’ hurt, right? But what if I’m making the world a better place?”

“It’s not a better place if you’re killing people, it’s just different.”

“I used to think that fighting back was the only thing, the only way you could get people to listen.”

“You both are either brilliant, or just hopelessly optimistic.” Karli smiles.

“Can’t we be a little bit of both?” Sam chuckled.

“No.”

“Y/n, she knows more about Super Soldiers than anyone on this planet. She was Erskine’s protégé back in the 1930s and 40s."

"It's true. Erskine was my Donya. He saved me from the streets of Germany. He gave me a home, clothes, and food. Everything I could have needed. When things got bad in Germany, he smuggled me away to America. He only wanted what was best for me. I fought back against those who killed him, but I also rebelled against the government back in Germany. Trust me, it got me nowhere fast. It changed nothing, loads of people still died, and I didn’t help.”

“This guy we know who knows a lot about Super Soldiers too, he says you’re a supremacist.”

“Me?” Karli asked as Sam went to sit next to her.

“Yeah.” Sam responded.

“That’s ridiculous. Everything I do is to end supremacy. These corporations and the beasts who run them, they’re the supremacists.”

“So, let us ask you, you have more serum right?” Sam asked, standing up.

“So?”

“Are you going to increase your army? You’re killin’ innocent people.”

“They’re not innocent. They’re roadblocks in my journey, and I’d kill them again if I had to.”

“Wow.” Sam and I were both shocked at what just came out of her mouth.

“No, no I didn’t mean it like that. You tricked me into sounding like…”

“Like what?”

“The people I’m fightin’ are trying to take your home, Sam. Why are you here instead of stopping them?”

“You know, my sister is waiting for that exact same answer.”

“We’re not your enemy, Karli. We agree with your fight.”

“We just can’t get with the way you’re fightin’ it.”

“And I’m sure she wouldn’t either.” I look at Donya, hoping Karli would agree.

Meanwhile:

“No, no, no, no. This is a bad idea.” Walker started speaking aggressively as he paced the small room.

“It hasn’t been 10 minutes, John. Just sit tight.” Bucky spoke up as he leaned against the door frame. He wanted to block the way to give Sam and Y/n time to talk to Karli, though Walker was convinced it was already taking too long.

“Don’t do that. Don’t patronize me.”

“They know what they’re doing, especially Y/n. She’s done this dance before. Give them the time.” Bucky kept trying to convince him.

Bucky couldn’t tell at what point he was convincing John, or still convincing himself. He trusted Y/n and Sam, he knew in his head they could do it. His heart was the one screaming at him to just let John go after them. All Bucky wanted was his girl safe, that’s it.

“I’m goin’ in.” Walker started walking quickly towards the doorway.

Bucky immediately stopped him. If anything, now he was going to risk their lives rather than save them. That was something Bucky couldn’t have. His girl was in there with someone who could easily kill them, and he didn’t want that.

“This is all really easy for you isn't it? All that serum runnin’ through your veins. Barnes, your partners need backup in there. You really want their blood on your hands?”

Bucky is lost for words. He was staring at John to intimidate him, but now, he was frozen in fear. John knew just what to say to get Bucky to do as he said. The last thing he wanted to do was be the reason for Y/n’s death. That was his biggest fear, to come home to their son without his mom.

“Karli Morgenthau, you’re under arrest.” Walker announced, walking in.

Karli looked between Sam and I. This son of a bitch just ruined any chance we had of getting her to back down. From the looks of it, Bucky didn’t put up a fight either.

“So this is what that was?”

“Karli wait…” I stepped closer to her, I needed her to see where this could end. Her fight was going to lead to devastation, and this asshole Walker just ruined everything.

“Tricking me till your backup arrived?” Karli backed away.

“We had enough time to talk.”

By now Bucky and Walker’s partner in crime had walked in. Bucky was trying to get to Walker, but his buddy wouldn’t let him get close. Karli started yelling, and John was trying to grab her. Chaos had broken out in just a few short seconds. It took all I had not to knock Walker on his ass right then and there.

Karli pushed John into a table before taking off. Bucky had shoved the sidekick back, and started going after her. I followed suit hoping I could touch Karli, just so she could feel that I was telling the truth.

We were stopped by a whole group of her allies and fights started breaking out, but I continued to follow her. She was my target, my mission, and I couldn’t let her get away. I didn’t get far though when I met back up with Sam and Bucky.

“I lost her.” Bucky announced.

“I swear to god, next time I see Walker’s face, I’m gonna kill him! Why the hell did you let him get through!” I charged at Bucky.

“Y/n, wait a minute! We don’t know that Bucky let him through.” Sam tried to reason.

“Walker didn’t have a damn scratch on him. If Bucky fought back, he would have been on the ground in 2 seconds flat.”

Bucky stayed quiet because he knew I was right. I was so frustrated that we got so close, and now we are right back to where we started. I was so angry I punched one of the walls in the room we were in.

“Y/n, doll, calm down.”

“No! Because Walker got in, people are going to die. You could have prevented that if you just put up a fight.”

“Are you saying that blood is going to be on my hands?”

“Well you certainly aren’t helping your case here.”

“Y/n! Knock it off. I get you’re frustrated, but take a walk before you say something you can’t take back.” Sam yelled.

I knew he was right. I was about to tell Bucky that the blood of everyone who could die at Karli’s hands was going to be because of him. He already struggles enough with that. I stood there and took a deep breath in to calm myself as Bucky started talking.

“You wanna know what really happened back there? He used you against me. Saying if Karli turned on you, your blood would be on my hands. That would be something I couldn’t live with knowing.”

“Walker plays mind games huh? I’m really gonna kill him this time. So, I suggest you keep us as far apart as possible.”

We started to walk around to see if we could find Walker, when Bucky pulled me aside. I was shocked at how aggressively he grabbed me, but was even more shocked when a rough kiss was what I was met with rather than yelling. I wrapped my arms around his neck pulling him closer to me. After a few seconds he pulled away.

“The last thing I want to do is lose you. I’m sorry I let John get past me like that, but…”

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not mad at you. I’m frustrated at the situation. Had John not got between Karli and I, I would have been able to show her I wasn’t lying. That Sam and I were really there to show her we agree with her ideals. That I once was just like her. That Erskine was my Donya.”

“I’m glad he rescued you. He brought you to me.”

I giggle, “don’t get sappy on me Buck. I could have easily ended up in a completely different scenario. I could have ended up as Schmidt’s protégé.”

“We would have never met then. I wouldn’t know where I would be without you.”

“Okay, come on lover boy. Let’s get back before Sam gets worried we ran out on him or something.”

We ran to catch up with Sam who had found a door leading to a staircase. We ran in, and saw Walker with a knocked out Zemo on the ground. Walker’s sidekick came running in a few seconds behind us. We looked at each other, then back to Walker. I felt Bucky grab my arm to let me know not to murder him here, no matter how badly I wanted to.

‘What did we miss?” Sam asked, hoping someone could explain the passed out Zemo.

No one said a word as Bucky walked down and picked Zemo up. We walked off back to his place leaving Walker behind. I was so glad Bucky and Sam were there to stop me because I really just wanted to knock Walker out.

When we got into the house, Bucky laid Zemo on the couch. Then, Bucky grabbed my arm and dragged me to one of the bedrooms, slamming the door shut. I was shocked at his bold moves, but I knew we couldn’t do anything with these thin walls, and Sam sitting in the other room.

When Walker played mind games with him, it unlocked something in Bucky. A side I had not seen in a very long time, a side of him I hadn’t seen since the war. Bucky pulled me close after shrugging off his jacket, kissing me passionately, his hands trailing my body. He attempted to start to undress me before I pulled away slowly.

“Everything okay, doll?”

“Not here Bucky. Not when it’s so quiet.”

“You said when we got a vacation.”

“Not with Sam on the other side of the door. He’ll hear everything. I promise, I will find us some alone time, but not right now.”

“Okay,” Bucky grabbed his jacket, putting it back on, “I’m going out for a walk. I’ll be back.” He kissed me gently before walking out.

I sat in the room trying to gather my own thoughts as to what just happened. I started hearing talking from the living room. Zemo was awake now, and he was asking Sam about being offered the super soldier serum. He then asked Sam if he would ever take it. I started to think about Bucky, how he never got the choice. He was a lab rat for HYDRA, and didn’t get a say on the matter.

“Super Soldiers should be allowed to exist.” Zemo spoke.

“Isn’t that how gods talk? And if that’s how you feel, what about Bucky?”

“You know Zemo, Bucky didn’t get a choice,” I could feel the tears already coming, “and if that’s how you think, then Erskine should have been thrown in jail before he was able to give Steve the serum. Let HYDRA and the Nazis control the world.” I could feel my voice crack.

Right on queue Bucky walked through the doors, “something’s not right about Walker.” He announced.

“You don’t say.”

“Well, I know crazy when I see one because I am crazy.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“Sam!” I glare at him, and he puts his hands up in defense.

“You shouldn’t have given him the shield.” Bucky stated, pouring himself a drink.

“I didn’t give him the shield.” Sam protested.

“Here we go again.” I roll my eyes.

“Well Steve definitely didn’t.” Bucky looks at Sam as he takes a drink.

Suddenly the doors burst open, “All right that’s it let’s go. I’m ordering you to turn him over.”

“Oh Walker, I've been waiting for you to walk through those doors.” I walk over to him ready to fight.

“I’m flattered, sweetheart, but Lemar is the one interested in you.”

“Hey, just slow your roll,” Sam said, getting between Walker, and me and Zemo, “let’s be clear, shield or no shield, the only thing you’re runnin’ in here is your mouth. Now, we had Karli there, and you overstepped. He’s actually proven himself useful today. We’re gonna need all hands on deck for whatever’s comin’ next.”

“How do you want the rest of this conversation to go, huh?”

“I know how I want it to go.” I raise my hand. Sam glares at me and I put it down.

“Should I put down the shield? Make it fair?”

“Oh yeah, bring it Walker.” I say gathering all my strength to knock him out in one shot.

Walker puts the shield up against one of the columns, but as he goes to stand up, a spear aims right for his head. Too bad he moved out of the way quickly. Then the other two walked in and started speaking Wakandan to Bucky and I.

“Even if he is a means to your end. Time’s up,” Ayo starts speaking English, “release him to us now.”

“More than happy to Ayo. Was willing to when we met up the first time.”

“Hi, John Walker, Captain America.” John reached his hand out to shake Ayo’s, and all I could do was laugh. “Well, let’s, uh, put down the pointy sticks and we can talk this through, huh?”

“Hey John, take it easy,” Sam smiled to himself, “you might want to fight Bucky before you tangle with the Dora Milaje.”

“Hear how he said Bucky, and not me. I’m just as tough to fight as the Dora. They may be a little harder than me, by a little.” I said, kind of bragging.

“The Dora Milaje don’t have jurisdiction here…”

“The Dora Milaje have jurisdiction wherever the Dora Milaje find themselves to be.” Ayo spoke, sounding very annoyed, and very angry.

“Okay, look I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot…” Walker put his hand on Ayo’s shoulder, and the fight broke out.

I couldn’t help, but sit on the counter to watch. This was better than I thought. Walker kept trying to fight back, but they kept putting him on his ass.

“We should do something.” Sam tried to reason with Bucky.

Bucky crossed his arms, “looking strong John.”

“Bucky…” Sam warned.

He rolled his eyes, and stopped Ayo from stabbing Walker, “Ayo, let’s talk about this.”

I happened to look over my shoulder as Zemo slipped into the bathroom. I shot up from my spot, and ran to the door, “don’t you dare, Zemo!” I banged on the door. I tried to open it, but he had locked it. I used the force of the wind to knock it open, but he had already slipped into the sewer system.

I turn around as I hear the action from behind me stop, “I’m sorry Ayo. I tried to stop him as soon as I saw what he was doing.” She placed a hand on my shoulder before standing back up. I turned around to see Bucky’s arm on the floor as the Dora headed out.

“Did you know they could do that?” Sam asked as Bucky went to pick up his arm to put it back on.

“No.” Bucky swung his arm around once it was back in place.

Bucky and Sam walked over to the opened sewer drain, “I can’t believe he pulled an El Chapo.” Sam gazed down.

“I can.” Bucky said, annoyed, “come on.” Bucky started to walk out.

We wander the streets for a bit. Sam’s phone starts going off, and he picks it up quickly. Whoever is on the other end sounds panicked. By how quickly Sam is answering them, it’s pretty concerning to Bucky and I.

“”Pack an overnight bag, take the boys somewhere.”

“What’s going on?” Bucky asked, concerned.

Sam pulls the phone from his ear for a second, “Karli called my sister. She threatened my nephews,” he goes back to talking to Sarah, “wherever you go only pay cash. Let me know when you get there. I love you. You know I would never let anything happen to you or the boys. I’ll talk to you soon.”

I begin to panic about Jamie, and I can tell the same fear has rushed over Bucky. “I’ll call Miranda once we meet with Karli.”

“Maybe you should check on him now.” Bucky sounded worried, and I nodded.

Just as I went to call Miranda I got a text from her, “she just texted me saying that she is taking Jamie somewhere. She got a call, probably similar to Sarah.”

“Tell her to contact Sarah and meet up. That way they’re together, and safe.” Sam suggested.

“I agree.” I sent the sitter a text with Sarah’s contact information, and told her to stay with them till we get state side.

At that point Sam got a message with the coordinates we were to meet Karli, “she said come alone.”

“I’m going with you.” Bucky stated, rubbing my back to soothe me.

I nodded in agreement as we headed to suit up. We then headed to where Karli asked us to meet. It was in the same area where the gathering for Madani was, which made it easy for us I guess. We knew if she took off though, we wouldn’t be able to find her again.

“Karli!” Sam yelled, announcing our presence. She then peeked her head out, and we ascended the stairs nearby.

“You called my sister, and her babysitter. Is that how we’re going to play this?” Sam asked, angry as hell.

“I would never hurt them. I just wanted to understand the two of you better,” she looks over, seeing Bucky, “I see you, um, didn’t come alone.”

“You have to end this now.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, either of you. You both are tools in the regimes I want to destroy. You’re not hiding behind a shield.” Karli started.

“Yeah Walker doesn’t exactly know how to properly fight it seems.” I chuckled, earring me a glare from Sam.

“If I were to kill you, it’d be meaningless. I was going to ask you to join me. Or do the world a favor and let me go.” Karli continued, practically begging.

Sam then looked down at his arm piece. He seemed to zoom in as panic sunk in his face. He then looked up and over to Bucky, “it’s Walker.”

Bucky jumped down, but Karli followed, and knocked him into a column. Sam and I jumped down after, so Karli didn’t hurt him. I ran over to help Bucky up as Sam and Karli fought. Once Bucky was on his feet, I helped Sam out by knocking her into one of the columns behind her.

“I’ll send you the two of you the coordinates, go.” Sam ordered before taking off.

Bucky and I took off after Karli. We chased her through the streets before she dipped back into the building. We went to head up the stairs, but Bucky was knocked down by one of the Flagsmashers. Bucky shoved them down the stairs, but they got right back up. He then kicked them into a wall, and they fell through.

We went back to chasing up the stairs after her. At the top of the stairs there was a doorway that led to a huge room. Sam and Walker were fighting off Flagsmashers left and right. I groaned knowing we had to help Walker. Bucky ran up and punched one in the face that was about to take Sam out from behind.

“You’re welcome.” Bucky said, going back to fighting.

I kept shoving them into each other, then pushing them towards Bucky or Sam to take care of. It was working well to start, then things went south when Lemar was kicked into column at full speed by Karli. He was dead on impact, though Walker begged for him not to be.

Sam, Bucky, and I took off after Karli. The chase led to the streets, and we were met with a horrible, gruesome scene. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. Steve’s shield was used as a weapon for the first time. I was disgusted, angry, and numb all at once. All I could do was cling to Bucky to keep me standing straight.

“What has he done?”

TAGLIST (OPEN):

@ginger-swag-rapunzel @soccer1000

#bucky x reader #sam wilson x platonic!reader #Bucky Barnes #sam wilson #john walker #baron zemo #waiting for forever

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justanoutlawfic · 3 years

Note

angst train: "thanks for nothing"--- red beauty

nearly 200 writing prompts

On AO3/FF

It’s the same routine. Belle fights with Gaston and storms to Ruby’s for tequila shots, Chinese take-out and horror movies. They bitch about him flirting with other women, the way he talks with his mouth open and his incredibly small dick. Ruby will inevitably tell Belle that she can do so much better. Belle counters with a saucy smile and says “You mean like you?”

Within moments, clothes leave a map to Ruby’s bed where they fuck each other’s brains out.

And come morning, Ruby will make Belle pancakes, wondering if this is what love is. Falling asleep in someone’s arms, giving little kisses to their jaw and making them breakfast in the morning. She’ll blast Teagan & Sara, shake her butt and use the whisk as a mic. Just as she’s bringing the smiley faced treat back to her room, she hears Belle on the phone. Gaston giving half-hearted apologies and Belle accepting them. She’ll breeze through breakfast, kiss Ruby’s cheek and race out of the apartment to “make up”.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Ruby tried to tell herself it’d end. It had to. Belle is a smart girl. She has to know that guys like Gaston aren’t going to change. He’s going to cheat again. He’ll smack a waitress’ ass.

And yet every time, Belle goes back to him. Ruby is left with a half-eaten plate of pancakes and a broken heart.

She laments on the dilemma to Mary Margaret over some wine after Belle misses yet another girls’ night. Mary Margaret gives her a sympathetic smile and pats her hand.

“Sweetie, have you have ever considered that maybe you’re part of the problem?”

Ruby nearly spits out her drink. “How can you say that?”

“You let her come back to you.” Ruby opens her mouth and Mary Margaret raises a hand. “I did the same thing with Victor, Belle does it with Gaston. We forgive people who hurt us, in hopes that they’ll change.”

Ruby frowns. “But?”

“Victor never stopped cheating. I doubt Gaston will. And Belle…” Mary Margaret sighs. “I don’t think she means it, but she’s not going to leave.”

“You did,” Ruby mutters.

“I did, but it took a year and several people pointing out what I was blind to. It only takes one person to break a pattern.”

Ruby lets Mary Margaret’s words sink in. She tries to talk to Belle about Gaston, but she’s never around. Another part of the cycle.

A few weeks later, Ruby is finishing the last touches of her outfit. A pair of silver hoops pair well with the crescent moon necklace hanging dangerously above her cleavage. A red bodycon dress shows off her best features. She’s finally getting out of her funk. Mary Margaret and Ashley have invited her to go dancing with some new friends from work. Between sticky diner plates, studying for business school and thinking about Belle, she’s had no fun. Ruby really needs tonight.

She’s searching for her favorite black leather jacket when the creaky door to her apartment pushes open. Belle stands there, a bottle of Patrón in hand. She’s also dressed for a night out. Evening blue blouse with a few buttons popped, a black flared miniskirt. Her chestnut brown hair is curled, mascara popping her blue eyes. She’s absolutely gorgeous and looks equally miserable.

“Gaston stood me up,” Belle complains, kicking off her ridiculous heels. “Went to the Rabbit Hole and of course, there he is with fucking Jacqueline.”

Ruby’s fingers grasp her jacket. “Oh.”

“I need to drink. Where’s that menu?”

Belle walks over to the kitchen, placing the bottle down and searching through the drawers. Ruby just stares at her, mouth agape. A part of her knows the pattern. She calls Mary Margaret and Ashley to say she won’t make it. Ruby will dig out a copy of Nightmare on Elm Street. By the end of the night, a naked Belle will be in her arms.

She thinks of what Mary Margaret said. How it only takes one person to break a pattern.

“I actually have plans,” Ruby finds herself saying. Belle looks up from the takeout menu drawer. “Mary Margaret and Ashley found this club that has a ladies’ night. David and Thomas agreed to look after the kids. They invited me to tag along.”

Belle frowns. “I’m not really in the mood to go out.”

“Well…I am.”

Belle raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“I can’t keep doing this!” Ruby blurts out. She sighs when Belle tilts her head in confusion. “I am sorry that Gaston is an asshole. I am sorry that you think he’s what you deserve. But I deserve more than this too!”

Belle’s mouth drops open. “What are you talking about?”

“This! Our routine! He cheats or lies and you come over here for me to comfort you. I drop everything.”

“Isn’t that what friends do? I did that for you when Peter cheated.”

“Yeah, once. And then I dumped his ass.”

“It’s more complicated than…”

“Don’t,” Ruby holds up a hand, anger radiating through her veins. “I get that you love him. I get that it’s hard. But did you ever stop to consider what this does to me?”

“I’m so confused.”

“Of course you are! Because all you ever think about is yourself!”

Belle’s eyes widen. The paper menu slips from her finger tips as her lip begins to tremble. Ruby fights to not give in.

“Thanks for nothing,” Belle mumbles, storming towards the door.

“Don’t run away because I’m finally standing up for myself!” Ruby calls after her. “You’re using me to get back at him and you know that’s not fair!”

Belle whips back around. “If this was such a problem, why did you wait so long to tell me?”

“I don’t know, maybe because I thought it would end. But I realize that it’s up to me to do so.” Ruby pulls her jacket on. “I’m going out with my friends, my real friends. The ones that have been there for me. The ones that don’t use me as a revenge fuck. Now get the hell out of my apartment.”

“Fine!”

Belle storms out of the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. A picture next to it shakes then falls to the ground, glass going everywhere. Ruby groans and stomps to the closet, retrieving the broom and dustpan. Once it’s safe, she retrieves the cracked frame and stares at the picture. Belle leaning into her shoulder, laughing at something happening off camera. Ruby smiling down at her with all the love in the world.

“Fuck that,” she whispers, tossing it onto the nearby island.

The next morning, Ruby awakes with a pounding head. She let a cute girl buy her a few drinks too many. A lot of last night after she arrived at the club is a blur. Ruby vaguely remembers Ashley practically carrying her out of the club, calling them all an Uber. Mary Margaret must have tucked her into bed, because there’s a couple of aspirin with a cup of water waiting on her side table. She downs them and heads into the kitchen, blinking a few times.

Belle sits there with a few takeout containers in front of her. Ruby takes a step forward, noticing they’re pancakes. Belle extends a Styrofoam cup and Ruby accepts it, black coffee pouring down her throat. It’s much needed solace after the night before.

“I can’t cook like you,” Belle mutters.

Ruby plays with the lid of her cup. “Belle, I can’t…”

“I broke up with Gaston.” Ruby raises an eyebrow. “For good.”

“That’s nice and all, but it doesn’t change…”

“I’ve been a world class jerk.” She sighs. “The truth is, I’ve had feelings for you, but I was just scared. I’ve been with Gaston since high school. A part of him felt safe, secure. But you…you were there for me when he wasn’t. And I took that for granted.”

Ruby nods. “What were you scared of?”

“Ruining our friendship. I didn’t realize I already was.”

Ruby bites her lip. “It’s nothing that can’t be repaired.”

“Will you let me try?”

Ruby considers it. “It’s gonna take more than pancakes and a cup of crappy coffee.”

“I know.”

Ruby settles in the chair beside her, removing the plastic lid. She won’t let this become a routine. Belle has one chance to prove herself, to be the woman Ruby knows she can be.

And God, Ruby hopes she doesn’t let her down.

#red beauty #ruby lucas #belle french #ouat #once upon a time #zoe19blink #asked and answered

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erazonpo3 · 4 years

Photo

Intro to my infodump on Alphecca but also I’m getting more and more shameless about it so I’ll probably dump a lot of other shit too later but back to the point: I never tend to stop mutating characters in my head but for all intents and purposes Alphecca is at a point where I’m satisfied with how fleshed out she is in my mind, so I figured I’d write it down.

SO basically a rundown:

Alphecca’s main purpose is to be the “Season 1” villain, in which her part in the story can be expanded but mostly wraps up in a self-contained plotline, and has relatively low stakes so that there’s room for the narrative to escalate. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t pose a threat as an antagonist- because she absolutely does- but simply that her behaviour of terrorising people and raising bodies is already the status quo, and she has no grand design or plan of action. Cassandra steps in to change that status quo for the better, but her failing to do so won’t leave anyone any worse off than they already are. Yet with that being said, Alphecca is also built to be Cassandra’s antagonist specifically, so of course there has to be a resolution there.

Alphecca as Cassandra’s antagonist

Alphecca exists to be a foil to Cassandra, so that when you put them together their differences shine brighter. Where Ilione is a foil to Cass in that she’s largely her polar opposite: extraverted, very emotionally sensitive, inexperienced etc, Alphecca is a foil to Cass by being very similar to her but for a few glaring differences. It’s worth noting that while their personalities are pretty different, they share a same jaded perspective on life and struggles with mental health that stem from an ugly ZT origin story.

Both women were approached by Zhan Tiri during a time they felt powerless, and sided with her over loved ones in an attempt to regain control over their life. They were encouraged to embrace malice and sadism, had their faith in their loved ones undermined and had those insecurities stoked, and all this instability created the perfect storm for them to be easily manipulated and betrayed. Zhan Tiri operates as a cult leader does, seeking out vulnerable people and cutting them off from their remaining support networks until they have nowhere left to run, even if they want to.

It’s not to say Cassandra wasn’t making her own choices, but this kind of gaslighting shouldn’t be dismissed either. Some people will forever lack sympathy for her, but that’s exactly the point of Zhan Tiri’s manipulation- if nobody’s willing to help you out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself you’re going to be stuck there to rot, so you may as well keep digging in the hope that you might hit gold eventually.

Alphecca and Cassandra are both victims to Zhan Tiri’s super fun form of control, but the major difference between them was that Rapunzel remained willing to help Cassandra out of that hole. Alphecca didn’t have a Rapunzel, or a Varian, or a Eugene, and instead over time she became twisted and warped into a menace who doesn’t need Zhan Tiri’s encouragement to do terrible things anymore. And that’s what makes these two foils to each other; Alphecca is the monster Cassandra never was but could have easily become if she was never shown compassion.

Thus the only person who can stop Alphecca is someone who can empathise with her, at least to some degree. In fighting terms, Alphecca has a bottomless bag of tricks up her sleeve and the nature of her undeath makes her essentially immortal. She cannot be conquered, only slowed down, and the more pissed off she gets with you the more volatile and dangerous she becomes.

Cassandra initially sees Alphecca as a chance to prove herself, both as a force for good and as someone who can rid the world of Zhan Tiri’s legacy. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Alphecca cannot be defeated through conventional means, because otherwise warriors like Adira (who has encountered Alphecca before) would have been able to deal with the problem. Considering that Alphecca herself has sought out her phylactery to destroy it- with an extra thousand years of hunting up her sleeve- but failed to do so, makes it apparent that she can only be stopped by being reasoned with. But for a lich who hardly remembers the human experience, that’s pretty difficult.

It ultimately means the only person who can stop her is Cassandra, because the only person who can reason with her is someone who can empathise with her from a place of camaraderie rather than condescension, and recognises that the cycle of violence needs to be broken by compassion and not just violence but harder.

The Storyline

Basic plotline goes like this:

Early on into her journey Cassandra learns about the bone witch that roams the wilderness and terrorises innocent villagers, desecrates the dead, is probably a cryptid because legends have existed about her for generations, et cetera and so on. When evidence appears that this witch is real Cassandra and decides to investigate, because this is a pretty straightforward “good guy stops the bad guy” situation for her to jump into. (By this point Ilione is also tagging along).

Their first encounter with Alphecca is pretty tame. They intercept her at a mausoleum, she does a fancy music number/generally has a good time fucking around with them, but ultimately skulks back into the shadows at the end. It’s sort of all in good spirits and Alphecca isn’t ‘defeated’ by any means but still bows out as a show of good sportsmanship.

Their future encounters are a lot less nice.

The more Cassandra continues to pursue her, the more pissed off Alphecca gets, and when Alphecca gets pissed off she begins to embrace her sadism and her outbursts become more violent and cause more collateral damage. She lowers herself to underhanded tactics like throwing Cass into a nightmare reality a la Tromus and becomes increasingly sinister. The ‘tentpole’ of this plotline probably marks the shift from Alphecca as a trickster figure into a more dangerous one as Cass and Lio learn that she was also a disciple of Zhan Tiri.

The situation ultimately comes to a head by the finale, by which point Alphecca is very much unhinged and out for blood. She becomes fixated on Cassandra and does her best to hit below the belt, sniffing out her insecurities about her past with the moonstone and bludgeoning them with a metaphorical sledgehammer, and basically tries to goad her into a complete spiral.

This is the emotional climax, and the underpinning of Cassandra’s character development in becoming emotionally sound enough to shake it off. It’s at this point she understands what Alphecca is doing; Alphecca is caught in her own eternal maelstrom of emotional torture and latches onto anyone she can drag down with her for the small amount of pleasure it brings. She’s able to recognise those feelings because she can empathise with them and knows exactly what she needs to hear in that moment.

There’s probably some extended backstory revealed by this point too, going into a little more detail about the way in which Alphecca was caught in Zhan Tiri’s web down to becoming a lich, but of course what’s more important is the resolution.

With Cassandra getting through to her, Alphecca is able to pull herself together long enough to ease the situation back down again and have a more honest conversation about hope and humanity and compassion and all those good things. Cassandra admits that she can’t do much to ‘fix’ her, but starts by continuing Rapunzel’s legacy and showing forgiveness and compassion to someone who doesn’t think they deserve it. (Alphecca isn’t entirely regretful of all her actions, but does acknowledge that she ought not project her pain onto others anymore.)

Alphecca Post-S1

Alphecca doesn’t really get a ‘redemption arc’ because honestly I don’t want her to be redeemed. It’s not really a moral stance so much as I believe she’s genuinely disinterested in being a better person, she just has the selfish desire to be able to live happily again. And that’s kind of all she needs. She doesn’t care much about other people, but she’s working on herself and that means squashing the sadism.

I think it also continues to make a good parallel to Cass: Cassandra is trying to do better not only for herself but by others because she sees it as her own social responsibility, whereas Alphecca just wants to do better for herself and if other people benefit from that, that’s just a bonus.

Alphecca doesn’t join Cassandra on her travels either, although she does make appearances as a reoccurring character. Cassandra is upfront about the fact that while she wants to help Alphecca, she needs to help herself first, and the damage Al inflicted on her is slow to heal. They’re both in danger of dragging each other down in their own spirals so it’s best that they give each other space, but it’s also very important that they’re able to share their experiences. It’s a minor struggle between Cassandra and Ilione that Lio doesn’t really understand a lot of Cass’ struggles, although she does try to be sensitive about it. Alphecca provides that alternate perspective: Lio can provide support but little empathy, while Alphecca can provide empathy but little support.

I’ve also got more Alphecca stuff living in my brain regarding her origins, her own foray with Death and her association with lesser and greater deities, her relationships to other ZT cultists, et cetera et cetera but I’ll probably stop here to keep it succinct.

But basically over the course of this plotline Alphecca goes from wacky evil villain to really tragic but still evil villain to not really evil villain but still kind of a jerk neighbour that shows up at your house asking for your wifi password acquaintance.

#basically my build-a-bear guide to making an antagonist #it's fun #of course there's so much more to making characters and villains than just this but basically foils good #alphecca #cta au #my art #cassandra #female villains can have little a homoeroticism as a treat

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steve0discusses · 4 years

Text

Yugioh S4 Ep 27: Joey Punches Valon to Death and Seto Kaiba buys a Car.

My favorite character is back!

THE STORYBOARDER.

Like clockwork, the best storyboarder of all of Yugioh saw in the episode notes “This is the one where we shall Destroy Joey Wheeler” and he was like “Yes! this is extremely my thing!” and he’s back at it again, destroying Joey Wheeler with such finesse.

Like it’s so hard to explain in caps because you can’t see stuff move, but this animator is so good at the Yugioh vibe--he makes these character designs WORK for him (or her? No idea the identity of the mysterious storyboarder (or team of storyboarders--maybe this was one little group they freelance out to that worked really well together? I dunno) ) they really capture what Yugioh IS in a really unique way and still remain fairly economical in the animation sense. They do not hold back on any pose, and go completely ham into this ridiculous concept of a card game where you put on a special suit and punch eachother in the face.

Mind you, it’s still a card game and I skipped all that, but man...this is such a good storyboarder and I know that next episode they’ll be gone but for now I’m just gonna bask in it.

First off, Rebecca manages to figure out Seto’s 6-letter password in order to access billions of people’s personal data off of a satellite (we don’t get to find out what the password was) and although the storyboarder is great--they did make one fatal mistake.

The bane of every Californian who leaves California. LA is like a completely different country to San Fransisco but everyone only knows of two Californian cities and assumes we’re right next door to each other.

And it’s like...no, man. I don’t have Disneyland. Do I sound like a cheerful person that lives next to Disneyland? Do I say “bruh” and smile with the force of 1000 suns as we surf the coast on the backs of Lisa Frank dolphins? No dude, I have a strong Bay Area accent that makes me sound like a dry sarcastic asshole and I wear sweatshirts to the freakin beach because it’s very cold and filled with great white sharks.

(Sorry I just had to delete like 10 k words where I compared the entire cast to US cities by saying cryptic stuff like Joey Wheeler : Seto Kaiba is like LA : San Fransisco and like it was the biggest random tangent that only makes sense to me. Quarantine brain, y’all, I got SERIOUS quarantine brain. Anyone else? Anyone else just find themselves wasting like 2 hours thinking of which cities match the personalities of different characters on a show that came out so long ago? Man I need distractions right now.)

But back to what’s happening on the show, Yami is coming to terms with Joey’s struggle about as well as Yami does.

Which is mostly Yami saying “I’m pretty sure I killed Joey in that card game with Bakura in S1 and Tea had to bring him back from the graveyard so like wtv.”

(read more under the cut)

This was like 2003??? I think I keep forgetting when this season came out but we had printers at this point. We had google maps and a printer.

I don’t think I’ve touched a map like that since the 5th grade, where we had this competition to make a hypothetical road trip across America. It was Awful, and if you won the competition to get from SF to New York with the shortest distance, you would win something like pizza and a cool engraved name plate. We did not win pizza, because I could not even unfold this asshole map.

And now we have Google so like thanks, Mrs. Lambert, it was cool, but I’ll never use that information again. I hope. It was such a vivid frustrating memory that these maps still fill me with anxiety to this day, hearkening back to my 5th grade self just desperately trying to use string to measure how many miles the freeways across the midwest contain. (spoiler: a lot)

How OLD is this kid? Rebecca’s like secretly a 68 year old. She’s secretly Mrs. Lambert.

At this point we had a swell in the music as each friend of Joey joined in to announce their willingness to risk danger and save him.

Were they...not going to join him the whole time? It just seemed like a weird thing to bring up sooo after the fact.

Yami then turned to Duke and was like “but not you. You stay here” and he was like “Oh, thank gods.”

Rebecca stayed behind because the animators don’t want to draw her. Honestly, she’s incredibly helpful and they were mad stupid to leave the only smart one in the car. But youknow...this team loves being mad stupid. It makes the show more entertaining.

As they left we had a weird aside where Arthur Hawkins reflected “Rebecca is having just a REAL hard time trusting Yami” and it’s like--Arthur Hawkins! You’ve been dumping on Yami for like an entire season, that’s why. Like don’t pretend you’re all on team Pharaoh now. Why ever stop dunking?

But youknow, character development, Rebecca is going to learn the trust the ghost that possessed her crush/best friend that she’s had for 2+ years on a kid who’s been living in Japan this whole time who literally forgot who she was 2 weeks ago. You trust that ghost, Rebecca.

Or not. I mean you really don’t have to. You don’t owe Yami anything, dude. You don’t need to blindly trust idiot men, Rebecca. You just do you. Trust that instinct of “is this guy not trustworthy?” because yep. Chances are if you’re having that thought, that he’s totally not.

Storyboarder!

Storyboarder what ARE you???

STORYBOARDER!

after this followed a scene that I’ve seen gif-ed just so, so often that I assumed it was in a Yugioh Spin-off. I don’t know why I thought it wasn’t in this OG series, but I didn’t expect it to be here, in the Dartz season. But, it does make sense that this scene was under the best Storyboarder‘s direction because *chef’s kisses * it’s perfect. Every frame is a joy. The amount of sinister expressions on Mokuba, the level of sass coming off of Kaiba. It’s such a freakin shame that this man’s best work so far only lasts like a few seconds.

PS my bro looked it up and this car salesman has a wikipedia page.

He also looked up if anyone has shipped this car salesman and it’s our lucky day because this ship does not exist with any human ever in the world. Thank you, humanity. But, they DID make a wikipedia page so maybe we’re just putting off the inevitable?

I’m not even gonna cap it because I KNOW this is a gif you can easily download from everywhere but mm--this is a SOLID piece of animation. This animator is just flexing so hard, man. Yugioh did not deserve this much care and attention to detail.

Shippers rejoice, Seto Kaiba did briefly consider helping out Joey (before he absolutely drove away in the opposite direction)

(They’re clearly in the financial district already, PS. They are driving 5 ft to Dartz’ house.)

At some point Joey nabbed Valon’s card and so now he also gets to wear a bunch of stupid armor outfits.

This one is weird! It’s very Kamen rider-ish...but it’s a color scheme that feels very valentines day. It looks hard to wear. Good thing it’s animated.

I may need to capture this walk sequence though...if I still have the energy...the picture does not display his very energetic arms-in-the-air walk cycle I haven’t seen since that one Season zero episode. I dunno if it’s a reference to that, but I can’t think of any other reason why Tristan is walking like that.

This is when Mai finally shows up.

Valon lost his helmet during this fight, which lead to this:

What a good note to end on.

Anyways, I have no idea what my update schedule will look like or be, so if you’re new here and you want to start reading these from the beginning, I have a link for that:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

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xehanortsreport · 4 years

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Could you tell me more about your Lustitia au? Because it just sounds so cool! And I'm also curious to hear the circumstances leading up to the final boss battle against him. I wonder who'd be the player character...?

Sure! (And it's actually an "i", iustitia! It's Latin for Justice.) So a real basic rundown is that Braig got yote out of his body shortly after losing his eye and Luxu slid in to replace him. Instead of fading completely, however, his Heart lingered in shards scattered across the Final World, and through the help of his partner, who had to figure out his heart had been replaced (an OC of mine, Ram) and over a decade of struggling, he manages to piece enough of himself back together to form a mostly whole heart, kept stable by a heart container he invented and given form via light projection (think SU gems).Now calling himself Iustitia, in direct defiance of his stolen name, his incomplete heart is overwhelmed with a singular emotion: hatred. He's spent a decade watching his friends interact with an imposter without knowing he was gone, and even Ram got fooled enough by Xigluxu to continue a relationship with him before Xigluxu dumped them to make operating undercover easier. As revenge, and partially penance for his past deeds as one of Ansem's apprentices, Iu decided to use his knowledge to piece together the shattered remaining hearts of their former experiments.They revive as incomplete beings: not quite Heartless, not quite Nobodies. They are Revenants, each consumed by a singular out of control emotion based on the seven deadly sins, and who under his direction are pointed towards the ex-Org and Org alike to take out their vengeance on. All of them possess the heart containers that, like Iu, keep their forms somewhat stable. However, only Iu possesses his Corer: a nightstick-like rod that he can use to shatter apart the hearts of the Whole and use to repair the Revenants missing gaps, or which he can use as punishment to silence them forever by smashing through the heart container and taking their remaining pieces, feeding them back to the other Revenants.Because at the end of the day, Iustitia used to be a cop, and ACAB.AS FOR BOSS FIGHTS honestly i just kept it with Sora in mind. Iustitia's final form is based off of eastern dragons, and since the goal of the Revenants is to "repent" for their sins (aka overwhelming emotions) by consuming the hearts of people with virtuous emotions directly opposite to their own (Iu is, for example, Wrath, and gravitates towards Patience [like Sora]), Iu will have reached some ultimate "enlightened" form consuming like...idk some 7 Princesses Analogue where they all have The Purest Virtues. And it's like a Barrier Change Boss like The Lich, where he cycles through seven different advantages and weaknesses depending on what virtue he's representing at that point.But ultimately, he still can't let go of his feelings of betrayal and revenge and that's what does him in. "I'm still angry...why am I still...angry?"And Sora can stop him and just be like "It's okay that you're still hurting. You were hurt horribly."Idk if i'd want Iu to still survive all things considered, BUT that's that on that!

#revenant au #oh its been a hot moment since ive rambled about my AUs on here #i miss it #Anonymous

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the-desolated-quill · 4 years

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Watchmen - Movie blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this movie yet, you may want to before reading this review)

A movie adaptation of Watchmen had been in development in some form or another since the graphic novel was first published back in 1987. Over the course of its two decade development cycle, being passed from filmmaker to filmmaker who each had their own vision of what a Watchmen movie should be, fans objected to the idea of a movie adaptation, describing Watchmen as ‘unfilmmable.’ Alan Moore himself condemned the effort to adapt his work, saying that Watchmen does things that can only be done in a comic book. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and in 2009, Watchmen finally came to the big screen, directed by Zack Snyder.

I confess it took me a lot longer to write this review than I intended and that’s largely because I wasn’t sure how best to approach it. Snyder clearly has a lot of love and respect for the source material and tried his best to honour it as best he could. Snyder himself even said that he considers the film to be an advert for the book, hoping to get newcomers interested in the material. So how should I be looking at this film? As an adaptation or as an artistic tribute? More to the point, which of the three versions of the film should I be reviewing? The original theatrical cut, the director’s cut or the ultimate cut? Which best reflects Snyder’s artistic vision?

After much pondering, I decided to go with the director’s cut. The theatrical release was clearly done to make studio execs happy by keeping the runtime under three hours, but it comes at the cost of major plot points and character moments being chucked away. The ultimate cut however comes in at a whopping four hours and is arguably the most accurate to the source material as it also contains the animated Tales Of The Black Freighter scenes. However these scenes break the narrative flow of the film and were clearly not intended to be part of the final product, being inserted only to appease the fans. The director’s cut feels most like Snyder’s vision, clocking in at three and half hours and following the graphic novel fairly closely whilst leaving room for artistic licence.

Now as some of you may know, while I’m not exactly what you would call a fan of Zack Snyder’s work, I do have something of a begrudging respect for him due to his willingness to take creative risks and attempt to tell more complex, thought provoking narratives that don’t necessarily adhere to the blockbuster formula. Films like Watchmen and Batman Vs Superman prove to me that the man clearly has a lot of good ideas and a drive to really make an audience think about what they’re watching and question certain things about the characters. The problem is that he never seems to know how best to convey those ideas on screen. In my review of Batman Vs Superman, I likened him to a fire hose. Extremely powerful, but unless you’ve got someone holding onto the thing with both hands and pointing it in the right direction, it’s just going to go all over the place. I admire Snyder’s dedication and thought process, but I think the fact that his most successful film, Man Of Steel, also happens to be the one he had the least creative influence on speaks volumes. When he’s got someone to work with and bounce ideas off of, he can be a creative force to be reckoned with. Left to his own devices however, and his films tend to go off the rails very quickly.

Watchmen is very much Snyder’s passion project. You can tell a lot of care and effort went into this. The accuracy of the costumes, staging and set designs speak for themselves. However there is an underlying problem with Snyder trying to painstakingly recreate the graphic novel on film. While I don’t agree with the purists who say that Watchmen is ‘unfilmmable’, I do agree with Alan Moore’s statement that there are certain aspects of the graphic novel that can only work in a graphic novel. A key example of this is its structure. Watchmen has the luxury of telling its non-linear narrative over twelve issues in creative and unorthodox ways. A structure that’s incredibly hard to translate into any other medium. A twelve episode TV mini-series might come close, but a movie, even a three hour movie, is going to struggle due to the sheer density of the material and the unconventional structure. Whereas the structure of the graphic novel allowed Alan Moore to dedicate whole chapters to the origin stories of Doctor Manhattan and Rorschach and filling in the gaps of this alternate history, the structure of a movie doesn’t really allow for that. And yet Snyder tries really hard to follow the structure of the book even though it simply doesn’t work on film, which results in the movie coming to a screeching halt as the numerous flashbacks and origin stories disrupt the flow of the narrative, causing it to stop and start constantly at random intervals, like someone kangarooing in a rundown car.

Just as Watchmen the graphic novel played around with the common tropes and framing devices of comics, Watchmen the movie needed to play around with the common tropes and framing devices of comic book movies. To Snyder’s credit, there are moments where he does do that. The most notable being the first five minutes where we see the entire history of the world of Watchmen during the opening credits while ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’ is played in the background. This is legitimately good. It depicts the rise and fall of the superhero in a way only a movie can. I wish Snyder did more stuff like this rather than restricting himself to just recreating panels from the graphic novel.

Which is not to say I think the film is bad. On the contrary, I think it’s pretty damn good. There’s a lot of things to like about this movie. The biggest, shiniest gold star has to go to Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. While the movie itself was divisive at the time, Haley’s portrayal of Rorschach was universally praised as he did an excellent job bringing this extreme right wing bigot to life. He has become to Rorschach what Ryan Reynolds is to Deadpool or what Mark Hamill is to the Joker. He is the character (rather tragically. LOL). To the point where it’s actually scary how similar Haley looks to Walter Kovacs from the graphic novel. The resemblance is uncanny.

Another standout performance is Jeffery Dean Morgan as the Comedian. Just as depraved and unsavoury as the comic version, but Morgan is also able to inject some real charm and pathos into the character. You believe that Sally Jupiter would have consensual sex with him despite everything he did to her before. But his best scene I think was his scene with Moloch (played by Matt Frewer) where the Comedian expresses regret for all the terrible things he did. It’s a genuinely emotional and impactful scene and Morgan manages to wring some sympathy out of the audience even though the character doesn’t really deserve it. But that’s what makes Rorschach and the Comedian such great characters. Yes they’re both depraved individuals, but they’re also fully realised and three dimensional. They feel like real people, which is what makes their actions and morals all the more shocking.

Then there’s Doctor Manhattan, who in my opinion stands as a unique technical achievement in film. The number of departments that had to work together to bring him to life is staggering. Visual effects, a body double, lighting, sound, it’s a truly impressive collaborative effort, all tied together by Billy Crudup’s exceptional performance. He arguably had the hardest job out of the whole cast. How do you portray an all powerful, emotionless, quantum entity without him coming across as a robot? Crudup manages this by portraying Manhattan as being less emotionless and more emotionally numb, which makes his rare displays of emotion, such as his shock and anger during the TV interview, stand out all the more. It’s a great depiction that I don’t think is given the credit it so richly deserves.

Which leads into something else about the movie, which will no doubt be extremely controversial, but I’m going to say it anyway. I much prefer the ending in the film to the ending in the book.

Hear me out.

In my review of the final issue of Watchmen, I said I didn’t like the squid because of its utter randomness. The plot of the movie however works so much better both from a narrative and thematic perspective. Ozymandias framing Doctor Manhattan makes a hell of a lot more sense than the squid. For one thing, it doesn’t dump a massive amount of new info on us all at once. It’s merely an extension of previously known facts. We know Ozymandias framed Manhattan for giving people cancer to get him off world. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine the world could also buy that Manhattan would retaliate after being ostracised. We also see Adrian and Manhattan working together to create perpetual energy generators, which turn out to be bombs. It marries up perfectly with the history of Watchmen as well as providing an explanation for why there’s an intrinsic field generator in Adrian’s Antarctic base. It also provides a better explanation for why Manhattan leaves Earth at the end despite gaining a newfound respect for humanity. But what I love most of all is how it links to Watchmen’s central themes.

Thanks to the existence of Doctor Manhattan, America has become the most powerful nation in the world to the point where its disrupted the global balance of power. This has led to the escalation of the Cold War with Russia as well as other countries like Vietnam being at the mercy of the United States. It also allowed Nixon to stay in office long after his two terms had expired. The reason the squid from the book is so unsatisfying as a conclusion is because you don’t buy that anyone would be willing to help America after the New York attack. In fact it would be more likely that Russia and other countries might take advantage of America’s vulnerability. Manhattan’s global attack however not only gives the whole world motivation to work together, it also puts America in a position where they have no choice but to ask for help because it was they that effectively created this mess in the first place. So seeing President Nixon pleading for a global alliance feels incredibly satisfying because we’re seeing a corrupt individual hoist by his own petard and trying to save his own skin, even if it comes at the cost of his power. America is now like a wounded animal, and while world peace is ultimately achieved, the US is now a shadow of its former self. It fits in so perfectly with the overall story of Watchmen, frankly I’m amazed Alan Moore didn’t come up with this himself.

It’s not perfect however. Since the whole genetic engineering stuff no longer exists, it makes the existence of Adrian’s pet lynx Bubastis rather perplexing. Also the whole tachyons screwing with Doctor Manhattan’s omniscience thing still doesn’t make a pixel of sense. But the biggest flaw is in Adrian Veidt’s characterisation. For one thing, Matthew Goode’s performance isn’t remotely subtle. He practically screams ‘bad guy’ the moment he appears on screen. He has none of the charm or charisma that the source material’s Ozymandias had. But it’s worse than that because Snyder seems to be going out of his way to uncomplicate and de-politicise the story and characters. There’s no mention of Adrian’s liberalism or his disdain for Nixon and right wing politics. The film never explores his obsession with displaying his own power and superiority over right wing superheroes like Rorschach and the Comedian. He’s just the generic bad guy. And I do mean bad guy. Whereas the graphic novel left everything up to the reader to decide who was morally in the right, the film takes a very firm stance on who the audience should be siding with. Don’t believe me? Just look at how Rorschach’s death is presented to us.

It’s very clear while watching the film that Zack Snyder is a big Rorschach fan. He gets the most screen time and there’s a lot of effort dedicated to his portrayal and depiction. And that’s fine. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. As I’ve mentioned before in previous blogs, Rorschach is my favourite character too. However it’s important not to lose sight of who the character is and what he’s supposed to represent, otherwise you run the risk of romanticising him, which is exactly what the film ends up doing. Rorschach’s death in the graphic novel wasn’t some heroic sacrifice. It was a realisation that he has no place in the world that Ozymandias has created, as well as revealing the hypocrisy of the character. In the extra material provided in The Abyss Gazes Also, we learn that, as a child, Walter supported President Truman’s use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and yet, in his adult life, he opposes Adrian’s plan. Why? What’s the difference? Well the people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t American. They were Japanese. The enemy. In Rorschach’s mind, they deserved to die, whereas the people in New York didn’t. It signifies the flawed nature of Rorschach’s black and white view of the world as well as displaying the racist double standards of the character. Without the context of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Rorschach’s death becomes skewed. This is what ends up happening in the movie. Rorschach removes his mask and makes a bold declaration to Doctor Manhattan, the music swells as he is disintegrated, defiant to the last, and his best friend Nite Owl screams in anguish and despair.

In fact the film takes it one step further by having Nite Owl punch Adrian repeatedly in the face and accuse him of deforming humanity, which completely contradicts the point of Dan Dreiberg as a character. He’s no longer the pathetic centrist who requires a superhero identity to feel any sort of power or validation. He’s now the everyman representing the views of the audience, which just feels utterly wrong.

This links in with arguably the film’s biggest problem of all. The way it portrays superheroes in general. The use of slow motion, cinematography and fight choreography frames the superheroes and vigilantes of Watchmen as being powerful, impressive individuals, when really the exact opposite should be conveyed. The costumes give the characters a feeling of power, but that power is an illusion. Nite Owl is really an impotent failure. Rorschach is an angry bigot lashing out at the world. The Comedian is a depraved old man who has let his morals fall by the way side so he can indulge in his own perverse fantasies. They’re not people to be idealised. They’re to be at pitied at best and reviled at worst. So seeing them jump through windows and beating up several thugs single handed through various forms of martial arts ultimately confuses the message, as does the use of gratuitous gore and violence. Are we supposed to be shocked by these individuals or in awe?

Costumes too have a similar problem. Nite Owl and Ozymandias’ costumes have been updated so they look more imposing, which kind of defeats the purpose of them. The point is they look silly to us, the outside observers, but they make the characters feel powerful. That juxtaposition is lost in the film. And then there’s the Silk Spectre. In the graphic novel, both Sally and Laurie represent the changing attitudes of women in comics and in society. Both Silk Spectres are sexually objectified, but whereas Sally accepts it as part of the reality of being a woman, Laurie resists it, seeing it as demeaning. The only reason she wore her revealing costume in A Brother To Dragons was because she knew that Dan found it sexually attractive and she wanted to indulge his power fantasy. None of this is touched upon in the film, other than one passing mention of the Silk Spectre porn magazine near the beginning of the film. There’s not even any mention of how impractical her costume is, like the graphic novel does. Yes the film changes her look drastically, but it’s still just as impractical and could have been used to make a point on how women are perceived in comic book films, but it never seems to hinder her in anyway. It’s never even brought up, which is ridiculous. Zack Snyder’s reinterpretation of Silk Spectre is clearly meant to inject some form of girl power into the proceedings, as she’s presented as being just as impressive and kick-ass as the others, when the whole point of her character was to expose the misogyny of the comics industry at the time and how they cater to the male gaze. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the graphic novel did it perfectly, but it did it a hell of a lot better than this.

Die hard fans have described the film over the years as shallow and ‘style over substance.’ I don’t think that’s entirely fair. It’s clear that Zack Snyder has a huge respect for the graphic novel and wanted to do it justice. Overall the film has a lot of good ideas and is generally well made. However, as much as Snyder seems to love Watchmen, it does seem like he only has a surface level understanding of it, hence why the attention and effort seems to be going into the visuals and the faithfulness to Alan Moore’s attention to detail rather than the Watchmen’s story and themes. While the film at times makes some good points about power, corruption and morality, it doesn’t go nearly as far as the source material does and seems to shy away from really getting into the meat of any particular topic. Part of that I suspect is to do with marketability, not wanting to alienate casual viewers, but I think a lot of it is to do with it simply being in the wrong medium. I personally don’t think you can really do a story as complex and intricate as Watchmen’s justice in a Hollywood film. In my opinion, this really should have been a TV mini-series or something.

So on the whole, while I appreciate Snyder’s attempt at bringing the story of Watchmen to life and can see that he has the best intentions in mind, I don’t think this film holds a candle to the original source material.

#watchmen #dc #warner bros #zack snyder #review #spoilers

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loopy777 · 5 years

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‘Traitor’s Face’ Planning Doc 1

Original outline, minus information on the final act. CONTAINS SPOILERS for Acts 1- 4. Note that the character descriptions were updated continuously as I developed the outline, so not all the info matches.

UPDATED: Info on Act 5 and the Epilogue, originally REDACTED, has been restored.

AANG/MAI AU EPIC

PREMISE The root of the whole story is a short story in which Mai is the one standing above Aang when he awakens from his hundred-year sleep. Instead of moving Aang's awakening to the Fire Nation like in most such Alternate Universes, this story will leave Aang where he was in the cartoon in Southern Water Tribe waters, and present a world in which Mai would conceivably be near the South Pole.

As such, the "nail" of the story is Fire Lord Azulon's focus. Instead of merely being content with depopulating the Waterbenders of the South Pole and bottling up the Northern Water Tribe into a single walled city, Azulon continued to prosecute the war against the Tribes until they had both been conquered. This was foolish, as it allowed the Earth Kingdom to muster and unite to keep the Fire Nation from conquering any more territory. The Fire Nation managed to hold on to its oldest colonies, but could not press forward. The Earth Kingdom eventually raised a Wall, bisecting the whole Kingdom, separating the Fire Nation colonies from the rest of the land-mass.

Scrambling to keep that captured territory hurt the Fire Nation's campaign against the Water Tribes. The South eventually fell to a new generation of Fire Nation technology, and the people were consolidated into new cities under tyrannical Fire Nation rule. The Northern Water Tribe lasted longer than that in its walled city, and it wouldn't be until General Iroh- Azulon's crown prince- took over the campaign that it fell to the Fire Nation.

As the story opens, a new governor is on his way down to the South Pole to take over administration of the settlement of New Ozai, so named because it was established the same year as the birth of Azulon's second son. Hours from his destination, the governor's ship hits an iceberg, and his daughter is present to witness a boy with arrow tattoos emerge from within...

Episode order and description:

*Act I: The Hunt for Katara* 1. The Avatar and the Fire Heiress- Mai, teenage Fire Nation heiress and part-time ninja, discovers the long lost Avatar in an iceberg, while traveling to her father's new posting in the South Pole. With an evil plan in mind, she teams up with the young Water Tribe warrior Sokka to help the young Avatar Aang find a Waterbending teacher. (Azula is introduced by Piandao to June, and hires her to find Zuko.)

2. The Southern Air Temple- Aang, Mai, and Sokka check the young Avatar's home for surviving Air Nomads. But what can they do when Aang discovers the horrible truth? (June finds Zuko, and tells him that she's been hired to get him to the Avatar and get him in fighting shape.)

3. Warriors of Kyoshi- The Avatar gang needs access to the Fire Navy's intelligence records in order to find out where the Southern Waterbenders have been imprisoned for the past few years. They infiltrate the prisoner processing center on Kyoshi Island for answers, and find Captain Zhao hunting for them. Will a local rebellion blow their cover? (Zuko is training and travling under June's supervision.)

4. Something light-hearted. Aang, Mai, and Sokka bond. Mai starts to feel sympathy for Aang. Ooh, let's go to Chin. What's it like under Fire Nation rule? (Zuko has an adventure with June. This is really Zuko's moment to shine. Perhaps he's the progatonist of this 'episode?')

5. The Blue Spirit- The Fire nation is now fully aware of the Avatar's return, and the gang is feeling the heat. It's not just enemies who are looking for them, though, as a mysterious rebel makes contact with the Avatar. Meanwhile, Zhao continues his hunt, but he finds that someone back in the Fire Nation is trying to control him.

6. The Banished Prince- As Aang, Mai, and Sokka approach Fire Nation waters, with the mysterious Crescent Island as their destination, they encounter trouble from Commander Zhao's fleet, and a banished prince who Mai knows too well.

7. The Winter Solstice- Aang has been abandoned by his friends. While Sokka throws himself into a hopeless quest to free his sister from the magma caverns, Aang faces off against the double threat of his traitorous crush Mai, and her ally Zuko.

8. The Waterbending Master- Reunited with his friends in the Earth Kingdom, Aang begins his training with his Waterbending teacher, Katara. Meanwhile, Mai deals with the fallout of her betrayal. Zuko deals with his failure, and meets up with his sister, the dreaded Azula! (Zhao realizes that he's being sabotaged in favor of Zuko, and resolves to cheat.)

*Act II: Rise of the Spirits* 9. The Fortuneteller- The group encounters a Fortuneteller at a festival, and to Aang's dismay, his predicted lover is not Mai, but Katara! Meanwhile, Sokka uses the downtime to try to reconnect with his sister. But the forces called upon by the Fortuneteller become restless and attack... (Meanwhile, Zuko and Azula 'bond.' Or rather, find a way to work together.)

10. The Festival- Investigating the increased Spirit activity in the Earth Kingdom, the gAang attends one of the new Spirit Festivals being established by a wandering group of supposed experts. As Aang basks in the peaceful spiritual energies, Katara shows signs of trouble. (The gAang uncover a huckster posing as a Ghostbuster, and after they expose him, the encounter Long Feng and his Dai Li. No Zuko or Azula in this one.)

11: The Spirit Hunters- Aang and company tag along with Long Feng and his Spirit-hunting Dai Li. They offer knowledge and the chance to do good work, but not all is what it seems with this mysterious order. (Long Feng sells the gAang out to Zuko and Azula, then betrays them all.)

12: Darkness of the Crypt- Long Feng has trapped the gAang and Royal Fire Siblings in his crypt vault, intending to use them all in a ceremony to give him power (or purify the Earth Kingdom, or something). They are forced to work together to beat the Spirits and Dai Li agents, but the pressure may be too much for Katara.

13: Houses of Healing- Seeking to get Katara help, the gAang comes to a healing institute where they are said to be able to heal damage to the mind. While Katara gets treatment, Mai encounters her old friend, Ty Lee, and a community of Airbenders.

14: Something lighthearted- Separated from Katara again, Sokka is down in the dumps, so the gAang heads to one of the surviving big Earth Kingdom cities for some relaxation and shopping. While there, they finally make contact with an agent of the organized Earth rebellion.

15: The Seer- The gAang tries to meet up with a Seer who is advising the various Earth Kingdom rebellion leaders, but the Fire Nation is also targeting this person. Big battle between rebels, Fire Nation, gAang, and Zuko with Blue Spirits.

16: The Siege- The gAang are holed up in the ruins of Omashu while the Fire Nation lays siege and prepares to invade the city. Zuko makes an attempt against Aang, and calls Mai out on her betrayals. (In the end, something happens to send everyone to the North Pole to meet Iroh.)

*Act IV: The North Pole*

25: The Northern Water Tribe

26: The Princess of Water

27: Warlord of the North

28: Secret in the Ice

*Act III: Fall of the House of Fire* 17: The Chase- Sokka and Mai chase Zuko and Azula into the Fire Nation in hopes of freeing Aang. But will they be able to catch up before the Royal Fire Siblings arrive within Piandao the Slicer's domain of influence?

18: The Beach- Everyone hangs out at the beach, and Zuko and Aang come to an agreement.

19: In the Hall of the Fire Sages

20: something with platinum?

21:

22:

23:

24:

*Act V: The World Tree and the death of Aang and Mai*

CAST

THE GAANG Mai: The emotionally detached Fire Nation Heiress who serves Evil because of a lack of ambition or will power. She finds the Avatar, and realizes that he represents an opportunity for the people close to her. She chooses to serve Azula and Zuko, and so frees Aang on Azula's orders so that Zuko can catch him and come home again. In traveling with Aang as a spy, though, she comes to care for him and Sokka, and sides with them to help them.

Aang: The Avatar, the Hero on a Journey. Pops out of his iceberg and instantly falls in love with the first girl he meets- Mai. There's a part of him that senses her hunger for light, for a cause, and for love, and he's drawn to provide that for her. He sets out optimistically, expecting to fix the world and win Mai's heart, and her first betrayal leaves him realizing that both of these may not be possible. Rather than following the Avatar Elemental cycle as a path to growth, he grows as the Bridge Between the Worlds and saves the world with Spirit stuff. In the end, he wins Mai's heart; distant epilogue?

Sokka: The warrior from the South who feels guilty for all his failures in life. His mother is dead, his sister has been taken away to a fate worse than death, and his tribe are the slaves of the Fire Nation. He seizes on the possibilities offered by the Avatar to rescue his sister, and try to restore hope to his people, and the world. Sokka doesn't believe himself capable of leading or bringing that hope himself, and he's fatalistic about his life and significance. He craves love and new family, but can't bring himself to accept them, hence why he does not act on his temporary attractions to Mai, Suki, or Yue. Sokka's story ends when he dies in Mai's arms, and Aang is the one who comforts Mai and talks about how Sokka didn't fight hard enough.

EXTENDED GAANG Katara: Sokka's little sister. She was taken away as a child and grew up in a Waterbender prison. She was secretly trained by Hama as a Bloodbender, and once she gets out of the prison is able to quickly pick up Waterbending and teach it to Aang. Katara has a vengeful streak, which doesn't come out at first. She's ruthless and hates all Fire Nation, like Jet. Her corruption is what leads to the first exploration of the Spirits and how the supernatural corruption is leaking into the world. Katara is initially in awe of and sweet on Aang, but eventually they realize that their values are too different.

Zuko: Zuko was pushed out into the world without Iroh. His crew mutinies quickly and strands Zuko in the Earth Kingdom. He loses his eye to infection.

Ty Lee: Spiritual guru (studying under the remnants of the Air Nomads) and love interest to Sokka

FIRE NATION Azula: Her father's loyal servant, but increasingly disturbed by signs that all is not what it seems in her life and family

Ozai (Ursa): Wants Zuko home, and wants to murder the rest of the royal family. Has good reasons, but has utterly gone off the deep end of ruthlessness

Azulon: Vague presence, going to die off-screen, murdered by Ozai (Ursa)

NORTH POLE Iroh: Warlord of the North. He was an affable but dedicated Fire Nation conqueror, but then his son died during the conquest of the North Pole. Iroh used arcane arts to turn Lu Ten into a zombie, and now is dedicated to mastering the arts that will bring his son back to true life.

Lu Ten: Tortured zombie, it's like he has two personalities, the guilty prince and the zombie demon.

Yue: Hostage of Iroh. Somehow tied to Lu Ten's survival.

Pakku: ??

ACTS

Act I: The Hunt for Katara * Plot A: The gAang hunts for Katara. * Plot B: June whips Zuko into shape and gets him to the prison on time. * Resolution: Mai saves Aang from Zuko. As the sun sets on the solstice, something spirity happens; Aang realize he needs to get smart on that, and heads for the Earth Kingdom's order of sages.

Act II: Rise of the Spirits * Plot A: The gAang investigates the Spirit troubles in the Earth Kingdom, learning about how the Fire Nation's devastation has created a Ghostbusters situation. Katara has trouble coping with the outside world, and is taken to healers (including Ty Lee). They discover that the Fire Nation needs platinum to fight the Spirits, but supplies are being diverted. * Plot B: Zuko is recruited by the Blue Spirit (Jet) and joins up with them in order to track Aang. Zuko gets in one more good fight against Aang and Mai, then discovers who the order's leader is (Iroh), and decides that his father needs this information. Suki is also recruited. * Ty Lee * Long Feng and the remnants of the Dai Li are now Ghostbusters.

Act III: Fall of the House of Fire * Fire Nation travels. Culture and worldbuilding and stuff. * Sun Warriors. * Aang and Mai dance a Fire Blade dance (Agni Budokai): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCNyHprEZK8 * Revelations about Zuko's history, scar, and banishment. * Massive battle between the Weapons of the Fire Nation * Ozai and Azulon die. * Azula disgraced? * Ursa turns out to be alive in the Fire Palace, and somehow working for the badguys. She kills herself Hamlet-style with poison. * Ursa thought she was doing right by Roku, wiping out the Royal Family but uniting the world. Discovering the truth, and that she's no different from Azulon, has her drinking poison wine out of a golden goblet. * Shakespearean Tragedy * No rhyming or iambic pentameter * Suki helps Zuko pick up the pieces of his life, but the age of Fire Lords is over.

Act IV: Sokka Dies * Sokka dies. * Mai gives him proper rites so that he doesn't become a ghost or zombie. * Katara is given the impetuous to become a true hero, and a new master in the form of Pakku. * Mai is given the impetuous to sacrifice for love. * She also hears the legend of Avatar Kuruk and discovers the secret of Koh's. * Piandao is given reason to turn on Azula? * Oh, yeah, this takes place in the North Pole. And it's the big revelation of Lu Ten and why Iroh is doing what he's doing. * But mainly, Sokka dies. * Move to before Fire Nation arc?

Act V: The World Tree * The entire "Foggy Swamp" is a lionturtle, sleeping nestled beneath the swamp. The tree grows on its shell, and has become one with the lionturtle. Iroh somehow uses the tree to Energybend. * Good guys win. * Bad guys defeated. * Sorry, no, Sokka is still dead, and his ghost doesn't appear to smile at anyone. Nice try, though. * Never mind, Sokka doesn't die. Mai gives her face to Koh in exchange for the power to destroy Iroh's Spirit form, and Aang dies passing on his life force to heal the World Tree. Sokka is the survivor. * Aang leads his allies down after Iroh, except for Mai, who goes into the Spirit World to find Koh. She plans to give her face to him, so that she can destroy whatever Iroh is doing. Creating a dark lionturtle, perhaps? Altering time? Whatever, it has to be something that would beat her if she had a face/identity, so she wants Koh's help. He agrees, and takes her face, turning her into The Destroyer. As part of his promise to Kuruk, though, Koh kills Mai so that she can reincarnate, whereas most of his victims are trapped forever in the Spirit World without a face. * Aang fights Iroh, and nearly loses, but Mai saves him. Aang realizes that she has sacrificed her life, but saves the day and destroys Iroh. The World Tree is fatally wounded, though (perhaps by Mai's actions?) and Aang gives his life force to restore it so that the world won't unravel or something like that. He reincarnates. * A pregnant swampbender, who witnessed the whole spectacle, gives birth three days later. (Get it, three days?)

Epilogue: Ty Lee visits Sokka and Katara at the the Swamp, where the next Avatar has been discovered. Ty Lee sees that the Avatar has a close, quasi-romantic friend the same age, and somehow can tell that it's Mai's reincarnation. Somehow she contrives to drop the line, "Some friendships are so strong, they can even transcend lifetimes."

#writing #traitor's face

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gwenjoon · 6 years

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Flash Thompson is Gay: A Comprehensive Visual Essay

TRIGGER WARNINGS: alcoholism, abuse, homophobia, brief reference to The Child Within, which contains pedophilia

Over the last year and half or so, I have read a number of Spider-Man comics and have reached many conclusions about them, but my utmost conclusion is that Flash Thompson is a gay man. It is very difficult for me to label male characters as gay, since we’ve all seen the way fandom can completely brush off women in favor of imagined gay men, but once this idea took hold, it stuck. I do not see Flash as truly having been intended to be gay since his conception, or even highly coded that way like Kitty Pryde or Johnny Storm. But along the lines of Bobby Drake, I just feel that it would be the final puzzle piece that would make his 50+ years of character development make sense.

This is not intended as propaganda or a way of seeing representation where it doesn’t exist, but a simple compilation of evidence.

We begin in high school.

Flash will probably always be known as something of a high school bully, even though he was only in high school for 28 issues in the 60s. It’s still hotly debated by fans and Spider-Man writers about how MUCH of a bully he was. In Lee and Ditko’s original comics, it certainly seemed like he and Peter were more mutually antagonistic towards each other, with the caveat that Flash was popular and Peter wasn’t.

No matter what, Flash had a fanboy obsession with Spider-Man, and maybe a bit of an obsession with Peter Parker, too, something both Peter and their classmates noticed and teased him for.

There were times when Flash actually made some sort of attempts to be Peter’s friend, but Peter being Peter, and Flash being Flash, the attempts didn’t go well.

Flash was dating Liz Allan at this point. She teased Peter too, but eventually got sick of Flash berating Peter and dumped him. She then pursued a bit of a crush on Peter (which didn’t really go anywhere since Peter was pretty into Betty at this point). Flash didn’t like being dumped, but he seemed to focus more on the Peter part of this situation and ended up, like, stalking him. In a cute way.

SO Peter and Flash both get scholarships to ESU and kind of . . . accidentally become friends. How does it happen? I don’t know. They don’t even know. But it happens. Basically, Flash is friends with Gwen and Harry and they all hate Peter and Gwen starts NOT hating Peter and then Harry starts not hating Peter so Flash might as well not hate him either.

Also, Peter is kind of hot now which helps everyone adjust.

Go get friendly with him, Flash.

It’s just hard to buy Flash as being into girls when he likes men SO much. Like in Spider-Man: Blue when Gwen and MJ are dancing and probably making out and Harry, like most people who are attracted to women, thinks that’s neato, but Flash waits for his husband to return from war.

Flash goes off to the army pretty quick. Harry and Peter watch Flash make out with their girlfriends because he is nonthreatening and handsome.

When Flash comes back from the army, he is even more handsome, but he tells Gwen that he’s super into her and Gwen is like “if you loved me you’d be nice to my sexy boyfriend Peter” and Flash is like “okay” so Flash starts being nice to Peter. Real nice. It gets weird. Did a threesome happen? I don’t know. But Peter is definitely getting hot and Flash is definitely noticing.

Gwen dies. Everyone is sad, me most of all. But Flash feels the need to clarify some stuff to Peter.

They graduate, Flash and Peter move in together, two bros chillin in a hot tub, five feet apart ‘cause they’re not gay.

Peter moves out and Flash thinks Glory Grant is hot but the relationship never goes anywhere because Flash is gay and Marvel comics is racist, but then Flash moves in with Harry. Flash was LONELY, you see.

And then Flash is getting up the courage to confess his undying love to Harry when none other than Liz Allan swoops in and snatches him right from under his nose.

But it’s gonna be okay because then Flash and Peter accidentally start dating!

It might not be an accident for Flash.

In his defense, Peter really can’t just say things like that.

Also this happens. I do not generally find CPR romantic but, like, what were they going for here? The shirtlessness. The rain. The close up on the mouth to mouth. This sure was some way to frame life-saving efforts between two manly men.

So while this is all going on, Flash’s love life is getting . . . messy. I generally try not to think about it too much because it’s SO messy. Flash saves multiple young women from cults. He dates Sha Shan, cheats on her with Betty (who is in turn cheating on her vaguely abusive husband), and eventually hits Sha Shan. He is immediately horrified and runs away, Sha Shan moves out within one issue and it’s just . . . gone for decades. It went against years of character development and no one seemed to remember it happening. It might have been a way to get rid of Sha Shan (again, the racism), or a way to make you THINK Flash is Hobgoblin but surprise, it was the other abusive guy all along.

It’s really really poorly written, and a cheap plot point. Sha Shan deserved better.

Then you have the thing with Betty. It’s like, they’re cheating! they’re forbidden! they’re in love! but it . . . doesn’t go anywhere either. Betty and Flash remain friends and seem pretty happy about it, until JM DeMatteis, the brilliant mind behind Kraven’s Last Hunt, tells us all in the 90s that actually they had a horrible breakup and Betty hates him. Wild.

SO once that business no one wants to touch and everyone regrets has been pushed aside for some time, Flash starts dating again. He has a new girlfriend every week that he only seems to want to spend time with around, you guessed it, Peter Parker.

Here is an example. Flash is boxing and Blaze tries to literally have sex with him and he’s like “nah, hygiene” and then she comes onto Peter.

Indeed, Mary Jane.

Then we have FLASH/FELICIA. It’s so good. I love them. Felicia starts dating Flash as revenge against Peter. Flash really wants to double date with Peter. Felicia is at first super annoyed that Flash is so GENTLE, but she falls in love with him. She even asks him to marry her.

Flash says no.

Things Flash tells Felicia Hardy when he breaks up with her: “I wasn’t attracted by your looks” and “I thought it would be cool to be this close to someone who was that close to Spider-Man.”

These are things he tells her. They were really things he said.

While Flash is recuperating from his injuries, he starts freaking out that he and Peter aren’t actually friends (you were his best man, but you’ve never gone to a baseball game with him, so that makes sense I guess), and he starts talking about poetry. Poetry is a common way to queer code male characters. Take a look at Dead Poet’s Society or A Streetcar Named Desire.

But here’s the poem he mentions.

Make of that what you will.

Flash gets pretty depressed. Starts drinking more. He can’t make a romantic relationship stick. He’s dreaming about the glory days. This is around when the retcon of his abuse starts to pop up too.

And somewhere along the line, Peter Parker got hot.

But things do get better for him! He reconnects with his sister and goes to rehab. He and Betty reconnect because APPARENTLY they’ve been fighting and Flash is a scoundrel and there is no evidence but I guess I’ll take their word for it.

He also gets a job with Norman Osborn. Things get weird.

In The Child Within, Norman Osborn’s abuse of Harry is paralleled with an explicitly sexual physical abuse from a father towards a son. In Sins Past, The Night Gwen Stacy died will be retconned to make it so that the woman Norman Osborn murdered will have had his children. I don’t like going there, but there becomes a distinctly sexual way that Norman’s relationships with Peter’s friends is viewed.

Flash is reminding Norman about his AIDS charity.

Flash would stick with Norman night and day if he could.

Anyway.

Here’s a fantasy of Flash’s! He loves Spider-Man!

Even when he’s fantasizing about a woman, he’s actually fantasizing about a man!

Okay, I will admit I have not read every Flash appearance in 616. I’m doing this whole “in order” thing right now and I haven’t gotten to a lot of Flash/Betty stuff. Maybe it will change my mind. I doubt it, but I like to keep my options open.

Moving onto Venom. Flash has been dating Betty long-term at this point, but his secret life as a superhero is tearing them apart (she thinks he’s been drinking again). Also, he just sort of . . . self-sabotages all his relationships. Guy’s got issues.

Then we have Flash involved in an incidence of gay-bashing.

He didn’t fully understand what being gay meant. Been there, buddy.

Peter gives him the guy’s number and Flash has a chance to apologize and see two happy gay men living together.

I don’t know, okay, but a guy calls Captain America Flash’s boyfriend. It happens. It’s there.

VENOM: SPACE KNIGHT. Please read this beautiful series about overcoming the cycle of abuse and learning to love again. Things get really gay with the alien goo.

Also, Venom has like always been pretty heavily coded as being . . . some sort of sexual metaphor. David Micheline went there real hard. Eddie Brock pretty much married the symbiote, but only Flash has the guts to make him a guy.

Anything he desires. Anything at all. Whatever that might be.

Now for some Flash Thompson Looks:

Okay, let’s move onto alternate universes.

Here, we have Flash in the Secret Wars version of Spider-Island.

He loved Lizard Betty the best he could.

Avengers Academy!

Then there’s Ultimate Universe:

Love me some pen-sucking.

Not convinced? Well put this in your pipe and smoke it:

And, of course, The Amazing Spider-Man.

“Chicks dig him,” he said.

I dig him, he thought.

Was this even about Flash being gay or about me loving him deeply and endlessly? Who knows. Who cares. It’s all true.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

#marvel #flash thompson #comics #meta

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hackersandslackers · 6 years

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Dealing with Dirty Data

Adventures in Excel

In my last post, we discussed how what separates a true analyst (read: technical) from a project manager wearing the mask of an analyst like some Scott Snyder era Joker (I figure that there's a solid overlap between fans of comic books and fans of the real world application of data. Note that this is a study with an N = 1 so it bares no statistical significance, but I have a funny feeling...call it spidey sense). Full disclosure, this post comes mostly out of my inability to sleep in my hotel room in Chicago following a grueling day of doing the very things I discuss in this blog, and preceding a day where I'll have to literally explain my last post to the suits, but perhaps this is the best mindset to begin discussing the myriad ways in which you may encounter dirty data in the wild, and how a savvy analyst may pivot and match their way around it. However, if my prose isn't as on point as you have grown accustomed...blame it on the 4AM haze. Alas, let's begin by discussing the organizational structure of the majority of corporate entities that leverage data to some degree (note, this isn't all corporations...and what does that say about the state of business?) and how, at each step of abstraction in this process that you are from the data, the data gets dirtier and dirtier. Essentially, there's always going to be a group of about 5-10 fewer-than-necessary legitimately skilled data scientists and/or computer programmers/DBAs who are really solid at building and maintaining a database as well as and some sort of compiling language (nowadays, that's probably python, but not exclusively, nor does this matter). However, depending on your industry (unless of course your industry IS data), it's nearly impossible to recruit people who have these skills to the level necessary AND have some familiarity with why this data is needed, and/or the ability to explain how the internal products that they build can be used by an end user. As such, this team has their own project manager(s) who's sole job is to keep these guys from developing a sentient AI that's sole goal is the annihilation of unfolded laundry...when your industry is healthcare. This team should also have at least one analyst who will take the raw code base and do the first step of translation to a more user friendly form. This generally takes shape as either dashboards in a system like Tableau, or if your company has a group of particularly strong data/business analysts (or particularly weak programmers) an interface written in plain(enough) English on a Business Intelligence platform such as Microsoft BI/SAP Business Objects or whatever other system your company utilizes. As a fun little note, this team ALMOST ALWAYS is referred to by some sort of acronym such as QDAR! (Quality data and reporting!) or KMnR! (Knowledge management and reporting!) or Those Fucking Guys (who have something to do with data) (TFG(whstdwd)). On a less fun little note...neither you, nor seemingly ANYONE ELSE will have contact with this team. In light of this information, how do the reports that they build get chosen or who decides how these databases are built? The world may never know. So let's assume the first type of reporting: the Dataratti (which is how I will refer to the acronym defined team described above moving forward) produces dashboards utilizing a tool such as Tableau or Crystal Reports. You may be thinking to yourself: "hey, isn't my job taking the data and putting it in a form where people who are scared by more than two nested groups of parenthesis, and thus this renders my job unnecessary?" The answer to the question is twofold: Yes, and of course not! As mentioned previously, the decision to create these dashboards, the data contained therein, and how you want them to look is decided upon by a mythical creature who has full access and understanding of the data warehouse, AND has full access to and understanding of the stakeholders (AKA, Those Who Sit Above in Shadow ; that's a reference from a famous run of Thor comics that refers to to a mysterious cabal of gods who perpetuate the cycle of Ragnarok in order to subsist upon the energies created by this strife...which as I write this, is an almost disgustingly on-the-nose metaphor for upper management). Now, if you believe that you may be this mythical creature (as I do), I DARE you to apply for a job with this job description, and once you clinch it with the advice from this blog, rapidly realize that your job will involve either one of these job duties or the other. With that digression, even if somehow a useful dashboard for YOU is created, the limitations inherent in these dashboarding tools make one CRUCIAL issue omnipresent: one can only effectively illustrate up to 16 different variables at a time before the system breaks down (for example, Tableau's documentation specifically warns against this). So even if you have the nicest, most illustrative dashboards on the planet from the Dataratti, there is a nearly 100% chance that the information that you actually need will be scattered across 2-3 different dashboards...rendering the nice looking dashboards essentially useless for your purposes, and as previously stated, you have no contact with the Dataratti, nor do you have access to the underlying data from which these dashboards are created. So pop quiz hot shot, what DO you do? Well, mercifully, all of these dashboard tools allow an end user to download a "data dump" (our parlance for "a buncha numbers with headings"). Using Tableau as an example, one can download either a "crosstab" or a text file of the data represented by the dashboard (in both "summary" and "full data" format). Now, just to get the truly gifted in Tableau off my back, yes, the functionality does exist to build in the ability to download the data in the exact format necessary for your needs through a specific combination of custom web server views and Javascript, but... If the users of the dash are exclusively using this function, why do the dashboard at all? And... This forces the developers in the Dataratti to have decent web design skills on top of really high level Tableau skills, and it requires someone to anticipate exactly how the data will be used by the end user by the Dataratti (which is incredibly hard as it's impossible to speak to this department directly, and as previously stated, the lack of this knowledge on their end is the entire reason why my department exists). A few things to note before downloading data from Tableau: You must highlight at least one element of the dashboard before downloading a crosstab. Depending on what kind of dashboard you're working with, you may need to highlight the entirety of one column in order to capture the entirety of your data (click the first element in any column and then scroll down to the bottom of the report...which may be enormously long, hit shift and click the last element in the report) before downloading either the data or the crosstab. If you are downloading a crosstab, be wary, Tableau web server caps how many rows you can download in this method at a time, this can be avoided by downloading the text version of the data (by clicking data as opposed to crosstab). HOWEVER... If you are going the data route, it defaults to summary view. Look over all the headings, and ensure that this covers everything you need, otherwise click "full data" . Interestingly, this still isn't actually the entirety of your data, and continue to check to make sure all of your headings are covered, otherwise, click the display all columns box, and then download all the rows as a text file. Now, repeat these steps until all of the data that you need in your report is contained across these text files (.csv, AKA the Comma Separated Value file type). With all that lunacy completed, you now have several sheets with some common columns, but all with different information; only some of which you need, so what do you think you do? Simple, you use the tools given to you in the previous posts: you lookup on the common factors across the sheets and return the data that you want until you have all the data you need, in the correct order, on one sheet, and then depending on the ask, you may want to pivot that data out in order to summarize the whole mess of data. THIS IS YOUR FINAL PRODUCT well done. Another protip: if you want to reposition data that you've obtained via a lookup, highlight the whole column, hit control+C to copy the data and then hit control+V pause a second (press NOTHING else) and then press control FOLLOWED by V . This takes the values generated by a formula and replaces them with the values obtained. Functionally, this looks exactly the same, but now you can move the data around without affecting or being affected by other data. As explaining only one possible dirty data scenario took over 1500 words, next time, we'll discuss the other most common form of taking the dirty data from the Dataratti and making it useful to you: using business intelligence portals as opposed to dashboards in order to grab the data that you need. Also, if I don't get roasted on a spit for being half asleep for tomorrow's (today's?) meeting, I'll try and write up a companion post with an example of how this works out in practice. In summary, in this post we've learned: How data is generally siloed and sequestered within the corporate environment, leading to a bevy of unnecessary steps on behalf of the analyst in order to distill a functional report for the powers-that-be Two major methods in which data comes from the data team (henceforth known as the Dataratti) to your team: Dashboards and Business Intelligence interfaces, and... Assuming you get data in the form of dashboards, how to take these dashboards, download the underlying data, recombine and manipulate the data, and package it in a way acceptable for your needs. Congrats, you've just learned the crucial skill of the Slice n' Dice ! Quite sleepily, -Snacks

- Max Mileaf

#HackersAndSlackers #Hackers #Ghost #Excel #Data

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wokeuptired · 6 years

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night 5 of natasha’s 8 nights of chanukah | read the other nights here

left coast

celeste robbins is all about compartmentalizing. there’s life in los angeles, and there’s life in portland. there’s good music, and there’s bad music. there’s the past, and there’s the future.

and then there’s harry styles.

a story about the five stages of grief, getting lost upstate, and becoming brave.

1. denial

“Are you ready?” Sylvia asks, her hand light on my shoulder. I’m not ready, but I nod anyway. She takes my hand, and together we turn away from Grams’ grave. I’ve already read the inscription so many times that I’m sure I’ll never forget it.

Lucinda Evelyn Robbins

May 21 1937 - May 24 2016

Beloved Mother, Grandmother, Friend

She does not go gentle.

“At least it’s not raining today,” Sylvia says, squeezing my hand. I nod, but I wish it were raining. I wish it were raining buckets on top of our heads, drenching us and making our clothes stick to our bodies. I wish it were rainwater dripping down my cheeks, not tears. I wish we weren’t leaving here to go home to a house full of tupperware containers and covered mirrors and sad people. But mostly, I wish Grams weren’t dead.

I hate people competing in their sadness. I’m sadder than you; she taught me piano when I was 12. I’m sadder than you; I’ve been her neighbor for 30 years. But none of them can say, I’m the saddest of all. She raised me. She taught me right from wrong, up from down, now from then. She taught me how to be.

Sylvia drives, and I sit in the passenger’s seat, folding my hands in my lap and trying not to pick at my nails. A month ago, Grams and I got manicures together. I hated it, having strangers touch my hands, but Grams smiled widely and complimented all the women on their hairstyles and their skill at painting tiny flowers on our nails. My flowers are chipping away, and I know I should wipe them off with acetone, but the loss of them will sting more than the smell.

“Paul Cohen was there,” Sylvia says as she guides the car out of the cemetery and back toward the highway. I hate how close the cemetery is to the freeway, which is a graveyard in and of itself, but this is where Grams wanted to be. This is where our parents are, so this is where she wanted to be, too. “Did you see him?”

“Yeah,” I say, though I’m not sure who Paul Cohen is. The guy who fixed Grams’ car once for cheap when it broke? The old man from synagogue that always had a crush on her?

“Hmm,” Sylvia says. We come to a stop in the left line, the only noise in the car the click click of the turn signal. I reach for the button to turn on the radio, but Sylvia puts her hand out to stop me. “We need to talk about what’s going to happen next.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say. What’s going to happen next: We’re going to go home and sit on the floor for a week. At least, according to Grams’ book, no one will be able to talk to me unless I talk to them first.

Grams ordered us the book on Amazon a few weeks ago, when things started to get really bad: The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning. I didn’t read it, but Sylvia did. She’s the one who called the Rabbi and the head of the synagogue Sisterhood and dealt with all the funeral arrangements.

“We’re going to have to sell the house,” Sylvia says, staring straight ahead, “since neither of us live here. And most of Grams’ stuff, too. We’ll meet with the lawyers next week to go over Grams’ will, and they’ll give us a list of everything we need to find so that it can be distributed. Then we can sell everything else, or you can hire somebody to do it, it doesn’t really matter.”

“You want to sell everything?” It takes me a second to process what Sylvia is saying, and when I do, it scares me. Grams’ house is the only home I’ve ever known.

Sylvia sighs. “I don’t want to, but we have to. We can’t afford it if we’re not living here, and I don’t want to move here. I’ve got a life in Seattle, Cel, and you’ve got a life at school. We have to sell it.”

The light changes and we turn left, onto the freeway. I stare out the window as cars speed past us for a minute, and then traffic grinds to a halt. Sylvia curses under her breath and tightens her grip on the steering wheel.

“I hate this damn city,” she groans. “So fucking crowded.”

I want to scream at her. I love this city, even with its traffic and superficiality and insane number of designer dogs. This is the city that raised me, the city that took my parents and my grandma from me, and this, I know, is the city where I’ll die someday.

“Anyhow,” Sylvia continues, “I have to get back to Seattle next week, but I’ll make all the arrangements before I go, and I’ll make a list of everything for you so you know what you have to do. I might be able to come down for some weekends, but you’ll have to do most of the cleaning and stuff yourself. Can you handle that?”

“Of course,” I scoff. “I’m not a child anymore, Sylvie.”

“Sure had me fooled,” she says.

We don’t say anything for the rest of the ride. When we pull up at Grams’ house, it’s clear we’re not the first ones there. I unbuckle my seatbelt and take a deep breath before I get out of the car. Inside, two dozen people are waiting for us, to hug us and look at us like we’re broken dolls, and all I’ll be able to do is stand there and take it.

“Please try to be nice,” Sylvia hisses at me as we go up the front walk.

The door opens before us, and thus begins the loneliest summer of my life.

Spin Cycle isn’t crowded, which is unsurprising for a Monday morning in August, so I go right up to the counter and tap my nails on the glass top. Beneath it, I see all of the special edition records propped up on stands. Every week, somebody opens up the case and dusts them, but they never sell, because they’re too expensive to be played. And who wants a record they can’t play?

“Yes?” Kali looks up at me, momentarily annoyed, until she sees that it’s me, and then she breaks out into a smile. “Celeste,” she says, tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear, revealing half a dozen piercings. “What’re you doing here?”

I try to grin back, though I know my smile’s not as true as it could be. “Do you have the new Ghost of Hamlet’s Father record on vinyl?” I ask her. “I haven’t been able to find it anywhere.”

“Of course,” Kali says, and then she hops over the counter like only a girl who’s nearly 6 feet tall can, and she hugs me.

Kali is my best friend in Los Angeles, not because we’ve known each other forever, but mostly because we haven’t. People who’ve known me forever know too much about me. They know about me before, before my parents died and Grams took us in, and they pity me. I hate being pitied.

“How’s Grams?” Kali asks, taking me by the shoulders and looking at me. “Is she doing any better?”

“Oh, um.” I bite my lip. “She passed last week.”

“Oh.” Kali’s face falls. “I’m so sorry, Celeste. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t…” I don’t know how to tell her that I didn’t want her to pity me. I didn’t want her to look at me the way she’s looking at me right now, like I’m a piece of glass she needs to handle with care. “You’re busy, so…”

“You know I’m always here for you, Cel,” Kali says. She squeezes my shoulders and lets me go. “Lemme find that record for you.”

“Thanks, Kali,” I say. I follow her across the store, towards the “recently released” vinyls. Kali knows full well that I could find the record myself; I did work here for a year, after all. But I don’t feel guilty about distracting her for a few minutes, since the store is empty. “How’s business these days?”

Kali laughs. “Oh, it’s going. It’s mostly retirees and hipsters keeping my doors open and a roof over my head. Which is not to say that all my customers smell, or anything.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. “I live in Portland, remember?”

“How could I forget? Lost my best employee to that city.” She laughs again and begins digging through a bin of records. After a minute, she straightens up, one in her hand. “Ah! Here it is. You need anything else while you’re here, Cel?”

“Nope, that’ll do.” I follow her back up front and fork over my credit card to pay for it. She hands it back to me and pushes the record across the counter, but before she can wish me a good day, I tell her why I’m really here. “Actually, I do need something else.”

“Oh yeah?” Kali pulls a box of CDs from under the counter and begins sorting them into piles. “I had a feeling. What can I help you with, my dear?”

I turn to the pile of tapes next to the register, the two for a dollar bin, and pick through them. I’m not looking for anything in particular, but I need something to distract me from feeling uncomfortable while I talk. “I got Grams’ car. She left it to me in her will, so I’m going to take it up to Portland with me. And I need somebody to drive with me. Because I don’t want to go alone. It’s a long drive, and I don’t want to deal with that many hours alone in the car.”

“Oh, Cel,” Kali says, and I can hear the pity in her voice. “I’m flattered that you thought of me, but I really can’t leave the store--”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant!” I say quickly, shaking my head. “I was just hoping you might know somebody who has some time, or whatever. It’s fine if you don’t, I just thought I should ask since--”

“I know somebody.”

“What?” I put down the tape that I’m holding and turn to face Kali, the end of my sentence still lingering in my mind: since I’m here.

“I know somebody who needs something to do,” she says. She’s still sorting used CDs, splitting them into piles. The left one, I know, is for CDs in perfect condition, and the right is for ones that might not be resellable.

“Something to do?” I repeat. “I can’t pay anybody, Cor. This isn’t like, an odd job. I just need the company.”

Kali nods. “I know that. And this somebody, he needs company too.”

“Well, okay, great,” I say. “How well do you know him? Is he gonna murder me as soon as we hit the Grapevine and dump my body out of the car to rot with all the cows?”

Kali cringes. “I don’t know him that well, but my boyfriend can vouch for him--”

“You have a boyfriend now?” I ask, surprised. Kali and I don’t talk often when I’m not in town, but we text pretty regularly, and for a while we wrote each other letters. That was Kali’s idea, but I went along with it, no matter how cheesy I thought it was, because she’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

“Yeah,” Kali says, blushing. “He works at Columbia Records. And he’s known this guy for a few years, so I’m sure he won’t murder you--”

“Well, great then,” I say. I didn’t realize until now how eager I was to find someone to drive with me. Grams’ car reminds me too much of her. I can’t drive it that far alone. “That checks off my first box. ‘Won’t murder me.’ Check. Who is he?”

Kali bites her lip. “You’re not going to like it.”

“What are you talking about? I like everyone.”

“No, you don’t. And you especially don’t like this guy.”

“How do you know? Do I know him?”

“You know of him.”

“God, Cor, just tell me.”

“Harry Styles.”

“Harry Styles? From that boyband?” I try not to groan, mostly because I don’t want to hear her say, “I told you so.”

“They’ve been expanding musically over the past few years, you know--”

“Jesus Christ, Cor.”

“Well, keep it in mind as a last resort, okay?”

“Sure,” I say, picking up my record and heading for the door. “I’ll call you if I get desperate, okay?”

#8nights #this is the those dirty hipsters rewrite that never was

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trbl-will-find-me · 7 years

Text

Every Exit, An Entrance (13/?)

There are two (and only two) possibilities: either she led XCOM to victory and they are now engaged in a clean up operation of alien forces, or XCOM was overrun, clearing the way for an alien-controlled puppet government to seize control of the planet.

She’d really like to figure out which it is, but asking hardly seems the prudent option.

Read from the beginning here

She watches from behind glass as three sealed containers are loaded off the Skyranger by technicians in hazmat suits. Shen had pushed his team hard to complete the isolation labs ahead of schedule, and she’s grateful. She’s hoping with Vahlen’s own insatiable curiosity propelling the research team, they might soon have some answers.

Her tablet beeps and she cringes; her most recent requests have fallen on deaf ears, and she doesn’t foresee a different outcome for this latest one.

Officially, XCOM has no authority to examine the medical records of civilians. It also lacks the authority to order medical quarantines, exams, or procedures. She herself had insisted on that very protection; giving an international black ops military organization that much sway over civilian lives seemed a set up for an egregious abuse of power.

She stands by that decision, but right now, she’d give her left arm to have made a different one.

She’d like to say she can’t blame the Council nations for refusing to intervene; they have a duty to protect their citizens’ privacy, a duty she’d like to think they take seriously. The whole of human history, however, tells her that it is less about governments acting for the greater good, and more about punitive bullshit.

Central has always been the better diplomat, the one with a gift for defusing tensions and parrying concerns. His edges have never been as rough as hers, his tongue not quite as sharp. She thinks, not for the first time, that he should have taken Commanding Officer when the role was offered to him.

She finally checks her tablet, pulling up the notifications. The Australian government has predictably denied her request. She huffs a sigh, and darkens the screen. She’s going to need coffee if she intends to make it through this shift.

She wakes to the sound of someone knocking at her door. When she opens it, Wallace is there, face drawn.

Oh no.

“Ma’am, um,” he breathes. “Dr. Tygan sent me up. He wanted me to tell you that Asha’s … She’s not going to be with us a lot longer.”

She nods. “Thanks, Wallace. I’ll get a hold of him.”

She screws her eyes shut after she watches him go. She remembers how to do this all too well.

She’d gotten more than her fair share of practice writing condolences during the invasion. Sorry, I didn’t see the alien coming. Sorry, I was sure someone else would make the shot. Sorry, I screwed up and got your loved one killed. Yes, the words themselves are prettier, more eloquent, but the sentiment is always the same.

“Tygan,” she says, pressing a finger to her comm.”Someone with her?”

“Krieger is, ma’am.”

“Alright,” she sighs. “You have any idea what happened?”

“I can only speculate, Commander.”

“Shoot.”

“Epidural hematoma --- a kind of bleeding between the skull and the outer lining of the nervous system.”

“Jesus. Alright, keep me updated.”

She reaches for her tablet, moving Krieger to inactive status. Death bed vigils aren’t the kind of thing you cycle back onto duty in the aftermath of. She knows there is no way to quantify the emotional labor the specialist has undertaken, or its particular toll.

She reaches for a pad of paper and a pen. Even after all this time, it still feels strange to write directly onto a tablet. It is too removed, too impersonal. Her words stare back at her, blinking and ephemeral. There is no time to think, only the demand to produce, to put the right words in the right order. Pen and paper has always been more forgiving in that regard, more patient and less strident. Make the marks, and think. Cross your words out. Rewrite them. Scratch out six different attempts and then scratch them all out in the hope that you’ll find something meaningful, something that doesn’t sound so hollow, something better than I’m sorry because, god, if that isn’t the worst cliché.

Everyone’s sorry, she thinks. I’m sorry. Tygan’s sorry. The man in the moon is sorry. At the end of the day, it doesn’t change anything. It’s as empty a platitude as anything else.

But it is the best she can offer.

The best, she thinks, bitterly. What a joke. What an empty superlative. You did your best when the aliens first landed, and it wasn’t enough. XCOM still fell and the governments of earth still collapsed. We’re still facing a battle of unfathomable odds. You did your best today --- there are still whole families waiting to be buried and Gunda still lays dying. Best, best, best, but what good did it really do? Does it matter if nothing changes? It’s a word, a concept without any real meaning, the thing you tell yourself at night when those sneaking suspicions you’d prefer to ignore grow too loud to avoid

She thinks of Strike One, of Hershel and Molchetti, of Royston and Martin and Bernard; of Raymond Shen and Moira Vahlen; of Gunda and the civilians. Her best had not been enough to save any of them.

She shrugs on a fleece and makes her way through the ship, through engineering, down the ramp, and out into the night air. She settles on one of the rocks and draws a matchbook from her pocket, reigniting the camp fire.

It’s a slow process, a frustrating one. She throws each failed attempted into the flames, taking some perverse satisfaction in the way the offending papers blacken and burn.

The sun rises halfway through draft number seven. Her twelfth draft roasts away on the flames as night shift changes to morning. After twenty-three drafts, she has run out of paper and douses the flames before returning to the ship.

She is on comms duty when Tygan’s voice sounds in her ear. “She’s passed, Commander.”

She can feel tears well behind her eyes and a lump grow in her throat. “Did she suffer?”

“Not as far as I can tell."

She swallows hard. “Thanks, Doctor. I’ll let the rest of the crew know.”

Digging the heels of her hands into her eyes, she draws in a deep breath, trying to regain her rapidly slipping composure. “Attention, all hands,” she says, pressing the comm in her ear. She can hear the tears at the edge of her voice, and wishes she could keep them at bay. “We just lost Asha. There’ll be a memorial at nineteen hundred local tonight.” She draws another shuddering breath. “I know this is hard, but try to push through. It’s a big ask, I know, but we have to find some way to finish this first. We’ve got people counting on us.”

She scrubs at her eyes, and tries to focus on the task at hand. Vaguely, she hopes her twenty-fourth attempt at a letter will go better.

“Commander,” Central’s voice cuts in, quiet. “What are we doing about burial?”

She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to remember Gunda’s personnel file. “The haven where her family lives is still standing, isn’t it? We’ll finish what we need to do to get into the black site, and then take her home.”

“And in the meantime?”

She sighs. “I don’t like doing it, but Tygan’s cold storage is no different than a mortuary freezer.”

“You’re gonna put her with those things?”

“I don’t like it either, but if it means giving her family a chance to say goodbye, then yes.”

“Understood,” he says, voice clipped.

What do you want me to do? She feels like asking him. What would be enough? Do you want me to bury her here, surrounded by strangers? Do you want me to order Tygan to dump his samples? What do I have to do to make you see that I’m trying? Tell me.

She shakes her head. Won’t help anyone, she tells herself. And it won’t bring her back.

“I realize this makes me an enormous hypocrite,” she says, handing him a cup of coffee, “but I kind of wish I hadn’t insisted on such strict limitations on civilian access.”

He takes the cup from her, shaking his head. “Not a hypocrite, just frustrated.”

“It was the right thing to do, but god, did I hobble us when it comes to research this time around.”

“You were expecting Council support. We didn’t realize how unrealistic that would be until we were in the thick of things.”

“I don’t even need identifying data, you know. I just. I need blood samples. I didn’t think it would be this hard. It’s not like we’re asking for money this time.”

“It’s about power,” he tells her.

Even in hushed tones, it’s a stupid discussion to be having in Mission Control. Technically, outside of personnel quarters and her office, everything they say or do is liable to be recorded and reviewed by the Council in the event of an inquiry. They are already playing fast and loose in their subterfuge. There’s no need to add to the risk.

He quickly seems to come to the same realization, settling his hand on the small of her back, and leading her towards the hallway, all the while making some excuse about expansions to the Skyranger hangar. He maneuvers them deftly through the halls, stopping at her office door, and waiting as she unlocks it. She’s momentarily disappointed when his hand drops back to his side, but chases the feeling from her mind. Really? She chides herself. That’s what you’re thinking about?

He settles into a chair and waits for her to close the door. “I have samples coming for you.”

“What?” She asks, turning to face him. “How?”

He offers her a small grin. “I have ways.”

“This is one of those situations where I’m better off not knowing the details, isn’t it?”

Bradford nods. “Plausible deniability.”

She settles into her own chair, learning her elbows on the desk. “I thought we were done with cloak and dagger after we dealt with EXALT.”

“Another day, another challenge.”

She shrugs. “Welcome to XCOM, I guess.”

He chuckles. “Chin up, Regan. Comms have been quiet.”

She sighs. “Yeah, but when comms were chatty, we knew what to expect. We didn’t like it, but aside from that little incident with Molchetti, there haven’t been surprises in a long time. I can’t shake the feeling we’re in for a bad one.”

“It might just be combat stress talking, Lizzie.”

“You really think so?”

“Do you want an honest answer?”

“Always.”

His face falls. “Probably not. If you’re right, I don’t think we’re gonna like what we find when we crack the Fog Pods open.”

She buries her face in her hands. “Shen and Vahlen are predicting two weeks for a complete initial analysis. That’ll put us just before Christmas.”

“You’re worried there’ll be trouble.”

“With the way the energy spikes are picking up, and with how quiet things have been, it’d be a hell of a way to re-emerge.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t think we can go to the Council. Not without solid evidence, and even then, I’m not sure that would be enough.”

“Strike One’s still on standby.”

She nods. “And we’ve got air and satellite coverage across the globe. We’re as prepared as we can be. I just wish it felt like it. Thank you,” she adds, after a moment. “For having my back through all of this.”

“I’m just doing my job.”

“It’s a little more than that.”

“If I can take some of the stress off of you,” he says, standing. “It’s worth it. I’ll be in Mission Control, if you need anything.”

Just you, she thinks.

There are not many possibilities that give her pause these days, not after the sights they have seen and the horrors they have survived, but the possibility of a Council inquiry, and the resulting court martial proceedings she suspects would follow, leave her with a sick pit in her stomach.

Could you speculate on Central Officer Bradford’s motives? She imagines them asking.

He believed me. He believed in me.

The past tense of the sentence stirs an ache in her chest, something on her periphery that she’s tried to forget.

He still believes in you, says a voice that both is and isn’t her own.

She shakes her head. You’re being ridiculous. There’s nothing to suggest the Council even knows something’s afoot. You weren’t prohibited from contacting non-Council nations. You weren’t prohibited from obtaining a Fog Pod. You’ve done nothing to violate the explicit terms of the charter.

But subterfuge is subterfuge, and she can’t imagine the Council would appreciate their authority being so flagrantly undermined. She led XCOM to this place and he followed her, confident in her ability to play the game. If she falters now, if she fails, she’ll have dragged him into the fallout right beside her, implicated him in whatever punishment should be hers and hers alone.

The thought absolutely terrifies her.

#xcom #fic #every exit an entrance #commander/central

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