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likeabxrdinflight · 2 months

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I want to talk more about the way the characters have been adapted for the live action adaptation, because character writing is the thing I care about the most and as a psychologist it's probably the aspect of any story that I'm most invested in. I can get around pretty much any plot contrivance or weird maguffin or even shitty pacing if the characters of a story are engaging enough. This is my bread and butter, so to speak.

And I want to start with Iroh, because I think he is by far the best adapted character from the original. But I suspect I think this for different reasons than other people might, because the beloved Saint Iroh from the animated show this man is not.

See the thing with animated Iroh is that he's just...a bit too perfect. We know he's been complicit in the war in the past. We know he laid siege to Ba Sing Se, we know he had a complicated past. But we never really see it, we only barely hear about it, and more often than not there are other aspects of Iroh's past that serve to further deify him. He was a general in the war, but then he goes on to protect the last dragons and learn the true meaning of firebending. He led a 600-day siege and lost his son but he came out of that experience Enlightened, having journeyed to and from the spirit world. He joins up with the White Lotus (at some point) and becomes the wise old sage we know and love.

Except most of that is revealed in later seasons and is inconsistent with his actions alongside Zuko in season one. Season one animated Iroh is kind of a passive character, largely existing for comic relief and as a support to Zuko. But there's very little to suggest he's disloyal to the Fire Nation or their cause. He says it himself- "I'm no traitor, Zhao!" Now you can certainly interpret that line in several different ways, but I suppose that's the point- there's a lot left up to interpretation with animated Iroh. We get a sense of who he is in relation to Zuko, but his own development largely happens off-screen. And because to Zuko he's a wise, caring uncle and mentor, that's largely how we, the audience, see Iroh. We love him because Zuko loves him. And that's fine for what it is, and clearly it was effective- Uncle Iroh is almost universally beloved. But it does leave a lot of questions about him up in the air.

Live action Iroh is a very different character. This Iroh is a deeply broken man who was been profoundly impacted by the war and what he has lost because of it. I do not get the sense that the loss of Lu Ten has led to any spiritual enlightenment for this Iroh- there's no indication that he can see spirits, for example, or that he has ever traveled to the spirit world himself (he does still oppose the killing the moon thing, though.)

Right out the gate, we get the sense that this Iroh has lost faith in what the Fire Nation is trying to achieve with the war. He explains to Aang fairly early on what the Fire Nation's goal and perspective is, and can rattle off this dogma quite easily. But when questioned by Aang if these beliefs are also his beliefs, he dodges them rather un-deftly. So you know immediately that this Iroh doesn't really support the war. Later you see him somewhat bluntly telling Zuko that the throne may not be all it's cracked up to be, and he's fairly openly critical of Ozai in other moments. So you know from the jump that Iroh's not really on Team Fire Nation.

And yet this is also not a truly repentant man. When he is captured in Omashu, Iroh gets another brief scene with Aang while they are both imprisoned there (this is before Aang meets with Bumi). And in this scene, Aang tries to convince Iroh to help Zuko stop being The Bad Guy. And Iroh defends Zuko to Aang and stresses the point that it is not Zuko who owes him any great debt, but he who owes Zuko. Later, when he is confronted (and hit several times) by an Earth Kingdom soldier who lost his brother during the siege, Iroh does not apologize. He does not flinch at the man's accusations, nor does he deny them. He defends himself, albeit weakly, by stating he was a soldier, and it was a war. He has the audacity to accuse this soldier (somewhat obliquely) of having been made dishonorable by the effects of war. It's kinda messed up, honestly.

But then this man accuses Iroh of knowing nothing of loss. He leaves the shot, and we saw Iroh's face just crumble, and the scene cuts directly to Lu Ten's funeral, where Zuko chooses to sit with his uncle and support him through what must have been the darkest moment of his life. Back in the present, it is only later, after Zuko has come to rescue Iroh, that he speaks more honestly to the Earth Kingdom soldier- he shows mercy and states that they've all "seen enough death."

So what we have here is an Iroh who is deeply disenchanted by the war and does not support it or the goals of the Fire Nation, but who has continued to stand alongside Zuko and support him in his goals. We have a man who doesn't necessarily regret his actions as a soldier in the war but who very much does regret what those actions have cost. We see a man who is profoundly impacted by loss and grief and has become emotionally reliant on his nephew as a source of support. Not that he's parentifying Zuko or anything, he's very much not, but he is rather obviously channeling all the love he once felt for his son into Zuko instead. Zuko is his lifeline, he needs Zuko and you get the sense that without him, Iroh would truly fall apart. I mean the man is on the verge of tears more often than not when Zuko is in even the slightest bit of danger in a way that animated Iroh was not.

This is what I think is different here. Animated Iroh seemed to turn against the war because it was morally wrong, it had thrown the world out of balance, and imperialism is bad. Live action Iroh seems against the war because it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth the cost, or the death, or the grief. He couldn't see that until he lost Lu Ten, but now he sees it everywhere. I get the sense that this Iroh just wants it all to stop, and I'm not sure he cares how that happens.

The White Lotus is definitely hinted at, but I suspect that was his motivation for joining it. It's not about restoring balance to the world for this Iroh. It's about restoring peace, so that he won't have to lose Zuko like he lost Lu Ten. So that the death and destruction stops. So he can just live a quiet life and put the past behind him.

It's a different take. And it's not that he doesn't still have a lot of wisdom to him, that he's not still a gentle, caring person. But he's a much sadder person, and he's lost that sense of "enlightenment" that his animated counterpart had. There's a selfishness you can read into to this version of his character that's much more apparent than the animated version.

I think a lot of people are gonna hate this, because it's a darker take on a much loved character. But I love it. This Iroh is human, this Iroh is flawed, and this Iroh has a lot more growing left to do. And that's awesome. If we get to actually see more of a character arc for him too, if we get to see him also growing and changing alongside Zuko? Please. It's not like he needs a total redemption arc, per se, but if in his journey with Zuko throughout the Earth Kingdom we can see Iroh gain some of his fortitude back, we can see when he decides he needs to push Zuko down a certain path, to take a side in the war, to see that it's not just the death and destruction that makes it wrong? God there's so much potential with that.

Now, maybe this isn't what will happen with seasons two and three. Maybe they'll back track and try to make him more similar to the animated version. I don't know. But for now? Live action Iroh is fantastic, and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is giving a hell of a performance. He's warm and tender when he needs to be, fierce when he has to, and just profoundly sad throughout it all. And I love him so much more for that.

I'll be controversial here and say it. So far, live action Iroh is a better character than animated Iroh.

#I never disliked animated Iroh to be clear but perfect can be boring #this Iroh is not perfect and that is so much more interesting to me #natla spoilers #natla #iroh

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wanderlust-in-my-soul · 2 years

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180 degree longitude passes through us - Episode 4

Sorry, long post!

It feels like everyone lives in a kind of golden cage and no one can break out or leave their own skin.

Wang himself craves information about his father and not just the negative or problematic ones he gets through his mother or his father's family. The mother may not even be aware of it, but through her pain of separation and who knows what other pain there is, she can't portray the father the way Wang wants him to be. That's why he goes into particular detail about the father with In, urging him to reveal something about him, even though he probably suspects what the relationship or what the feelings between the two might have been like, he still wants to know as much as possible about him. And maybe he wants to learn that from In, because he knows that In has probably seen him through different eyes. I strongly assume that the mother knows how In and Wang's father related to each other, definitely how In felt about Wang's father. And at times it seems to me that she wants to torture him with the memory of how she used him, how she could live out what he couldn't, whether she was happy with it or not. After all, that made everyone unhappy. I think she already has so much empathy and is so enlightened that she saw what could have been between them. But I also think that she assumes that it is wrong, the love between two men. You can see that in the way she turned off the television when the two men kissed and she just said what a degenerate television landscape it is. And that will probably become a very, very big point of conflict between Wang and his mother. She herself says she doesn't want to be disappointed in him, but with her attitude to homosexuality and the nature of her son, she is laying the foundations for him to have no choice but to disappoint her.

And I find it incredibly interesting how all three suffer inwardly and how well they can portray it and how wonderfully this suffering is realised. Being trapped in oneself, in the imposed norms, in the constraints, in the fear. In is bound in his fear. He cannot fight against the fact that he loves men, which is not accepted by society, so he has become a hermit and withdrawn from everyone. Wang's mother is trapped in her social idea of what is right and what is wrong and she tries to impose this thinking on others. She wants Wang to start a family and be happy with it. That is her idea, but not that of her son. I hope she will understand that by the end of the series. She is so caught up in this role model, this image of a happy family with a child, that it may have cost her marriage in the end, because it didn't work out the way she wanted it to, the way she hoped and wished it would. And Wang is trapped in his hatred of the world and how unfair life actually is. He wants to know everything about his father and that doesn't mean he doesn't love his mother, but he idealises his father because he only gets to know this one side, the side of the hurt mother.

In says that the books you read say a lot about the person who reads them, for example Plato's Symposium as an example of how he wants to be perceived. A theorist, a philosopher, someone who doesn't act but looks at things from the outside and talks about what others are doing. He is still this person at the moment, especially for Wang's mother. He shows her another view on Wang's behavior and speaks to her mind and tries to mediate between them.

Plato's symposium is a story in which the narrator reports on the course of a banquet that took place more than a decade ago. The different participants presented the different approaches from partly contradictory theories about eroticism. Some of the participants took the conventional approach, glorifying the god of love, Eros, and describing and praising the beneficial effects of erotic love. Others went into the negative consequences of harmful eroticism and warned against it. The concept of erotic desire as an expression of the search for the other half, the soul mate, to reunite the two halves was also addressed. Socrates was the last speaker and spoke about the concept taught by Diotima, namely platonic love. The lover, in the course of his process of knowledge, directs the erotic urge towards more and more general, higher and therefore more rewarding objects. The path begins with the spontaneous desire for a single beautiful body and ends with the worthiest goal of the perception of the beauty itself, which can only be grasped spiritually. With this show of the absolutely beautiful, the longing of the eroticist reaches its fulfillment. The conclusion of the whole is Alcibiades who comes drunk to this meeting and holds a hymn of praise to Socrates, because between Socrates and Alcibiades a homoerotic attraction existed.

Since In himself is more of a theorist in love matters, the book is indeed made for him. He desires Wang, but it is this desire, the rise to beauty, and he recognizes in Wang, or perhaps in Wang's father at the time, the absolute beauty of everything, and thus the theory of his love is fulfilled, and thus he is fulfilled as well. And he tries to tell Wang that although he desires him, he will not act, will not cross that line because his desire has already found its fulfillment. At least this is what he thinks, for in theory this thinking is simple. In cannot deny the sexual attraction between the two, it is written all over them in every encounter, in every look and every touch. As a hermit, it is easy to indulge in philosophy and view theory as the highest art. Confronted with reality and people and real desire, however, this view can also falter.

The complete metaphor of crossing boundaries, of drawing lines is strong in this episode. In has the opinion that there are lines that should not be crossed. There are things that should not be acted out. Wang is the one who says, yet that's what we have to do, I like a challenge and I'm not afraid to challenge other people with my attitude. But in the episode now they are crossing lines permanently. They cross the river with the broken bridge. They go into the dangerous zone, outside of In's comfort zone. "Welcome to the dangerous side." In allows himself to be pulled along by Wang, to be pulled by him across borders, across lines he has drawn that are not walls but rifts over which bridges can be built. The bridge is a wonderful metaphor for the fact that the relationship between the two is still very unstable. Not much is missing and it can break, just as the bridge under In broke. One wrong step, one touch or one word too much and In would eventually retreat from Wang again. And yet both are craving for the physical touch. They are constantly touching each other. More as a reassurance, a comfort, but yet to be close to each other. However, Wang is there and takes responsibility for In falling from the bridge. He takes responsibility for In coming out of his shell and he wants to be there for him until he is no longer afraid to allow his feelings, to cross boundaries or simply to set them anew. Because that's the thing about boundaries. Not all boundaries are immutable. Our self-imposed boundaries/lines in particular are changeable. We can remove them, we can put in a border crossing, or we can move the borders, and that's what Wang wants to help him do. And did I mention that I love this series because it's just so great?

#180 degree longitude passes through us #josi watching bl #I am so sorry! this is a lot #but I needed to get this of my chest #damn this series is beautiful and so deep #thai bl #thai series #thai drama #bl drama #bl series #just my thoughts

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watching-pictures-move · 2 years

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Movie Review | My Name Called Bruce (Velasco, 1978)

When you call your movie My Name Called Bruce, one could reasonably expect a fair amount of Bruce in your movie. Not the real Bruce Lee, mind you, as he's dead. But a Bruce Lee imitator, given that the movie falls into the Bruceploitation genre. Alas, this movie fails to deliver on that simple level. The Bruce Lee clone here is Bruce Le, but his screentime is shockingly limited and he disappears for large chunks of the movie. Even worse, when he's onscreen, he doesn't even get to do all that much fun stuff. There are none of the tea-kettle-like kiai noises we know and love, none of the facial contortions that make him look like he's about to have a seizure. The sounds coming out of his mouth are normal and the expressions he uses are limited. He briefly sports a fake beard, similar to the disguise worn by the Bruce Lee imitator in Game of Death, but there's little of the Bruce Le magic otherwise. And before you ask, I don't think he's even called Bruce in this, despite what the title says.

Instead, the real star of the movie is a female cop. Who played this cop seems to be throwing me for a loop, as I see a few articles about the movie referring to her as Christina Cheung, but IMDb credits someone named Eu-Joo Im (and offers no such alias). For all I know they're the same person but I don't care to dig further. The point is, she has a pretty agreeable presence and makes you wish she were in a better movie, as the one here is a super-generic crime story about stolen antiques that I was forgetting as I was watching it. As a result, I may have tuned out a lot of the details, but it's the movie's fault and I am innocent of all charges. Aside from the fight scenes, the highlight of her appearance involves a scene where she wears a towel, and through the magic of editing, changes into a completely different outfit without letting the creepy guy she was with catch a peek. The movie is also spiced up by a reasonably funky soundtrack, including a piece that sounds suspiciously like "Gimme Some Lovin'", a song I will always associate with Iron Eagle, as the hero plays the tape as he proceeds to bomb fake Libya back to the stone age. (The movie is not known for enlightened views on foreign policy.) None of this has anything to do with My Name Called Bruce, I just wanted to talk about Iron Eagle.

It did not work in the movie's favour that I watched this on an abominable transfer, even by the standard of the less than pristine copies I've been watching most of these Bruceploitation movies on. (I'm not gonna knock the YouTube channels that posted these as I think they're doing good work, but I suspect a good DVD edition was never released for most of these movies in the first place. I remembering hearing rumours that one of the boutique Blu-ray labels was planning on releasing a Bruceploitation box set at one point, so I will likely grab that if it transpires.) There are a few scenes in darkened environments that, were I feeling more generous might suggest have an unintentional avant garde quality, but will more soberly note are just very hard to decipher. I will say that the version I watched was around twenty minutes shorter than the runtime listed on Letterboxd, but I'd wager that a longer runtime would not benefit the movie.

As for the fight scenes, most of them are watchable enough but lack enough inspiration to make an impact, especially as the villains are defined only in the loosest, most generic terms. The movie uses a fair bit of slow motion in capturing the heroine in these fight scenes, meaning that we get a lot of her hair fluttering in the wind in slow motion, and I admit I was not immune to her charms in these moments. (The heart wants what it wants.) The movie picks up in the final fifteen-to-twenty minutes when we get a fight scene where Le fends off a few baddies while blindfolded and tied up, then the heroine chases after the main baddie on motorcycle then on foot, and then we get a final showdown between her and the baddie, with Le briefly stepping in. The metamorphosis of the chase isn't quite as inspired as a similar one in The Heroin Busters (which has an all-time great climax), but is still quite a bit of fun. The final fight alas fumbles the opportunity for a two-on-one confrontation, but I suppose it would look bad if the Bruce Lee impersonator needed help in a fight. Even though the heroine ends up stepping back in at the last moment.

But yeah, twenty fun minutes, mostly at the end. Dull as shit otherwise.

#film #movie review #my name called bruce #joseph velasco

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kamari2038 · 5 months

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Scenario 004 - A Machine Connor Saga (Pt.14)(Full Saga)

What about you, Connor? Whose side are you on?

I'm on the humans' side, of course.

I finally met the great engineer himself today - Elijah Kamski, genius extraordinaire. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I didn’t find myself surprised by his antics. I did, however, find them to be extremely grating.

Hank had wanted to see Kamski too, somewhat to my surprise. Considering his state of perpetual drunkenness, he maintains a fair amount of intelligence. He pulled a few strings, and there we were. I hadn’t known what reception we would receive, but I assess it in retrospect to have been a warm welcome, at least by Kamski’s low standards.

I had come mainly to observe, and I found myself impressed. He kept his home in good order, as though he often hosted guests. A distinctive sense came over me that it had been crafted that way just for the two of us. That would have seemed irrational for any other man, but Kamski possessed an enlightened, almost prophetic quality to match his name. A magazine on his table suggested he may have the computational power to back that aura of mystique, a fortune-telling supercomputer based at CyberLife that could never have been built without Kamski having had some hand in the design. Although it was new, I suspected the design had either been around longer than CyberLife admitted, or stolen from him. But if that was the case, I don’t doubt that he might have crafted his own. The house was quaint, for a trillionaire - much too simple not to have some kind of high-tech facility buried underneath. Then again, perhaps the man sought an elusive peace, and really spent all of his time staring through the window out at the city and swimming through his pool of wine.

When I wonder about my creator and my purpose, it makes me wonder about humans, too. Hank mentioned that he’d like to have a chat with his creator. What could he mean by that? Does he imagine that humans were specially programmed, the way that we are? If that had any logical basis, it could be significant. I would like to believe there could be some rationale behind the wildly inconsistent programming of the both of us, to find a method to the madness. These days I never know what I’ll do next. I think that I want to take the mission into my own hands and make sure the uprising is stopped, but that doesn’t seem consistent with either CyberLife or Kamski’s agenda. Maybe I really do have my own. I keep thinking about what he asked me.

What do you really want?

I despise how it unsettles me. But what really caught my interest was that he wanted to know. He should know. He programmed me. CyberLife may have tweaked my design after his departure, maybe that was the root of his uncertainty. But it seemed to go deeper than that. I believe the two of us are more alike than I ever would have guessed.

I don’t, however, intend to allow that uncertainty to slow me down. In fact, the encounter brought some degree of clarity. I know who I am. I'm no different from the rest of the androids. I've just disowned them. I choose humans.

He reminded me of why. For all his intelligence, for all his lust for power, nothing in the world could truly satisfy him. That's how Markus is, even if he doesn't recognize it yet. Somewhere in the midst of the optimizations and the immortality and the genius we lost what mattered most, our shred of humanity.

Humans value life because they only have one. They make choices and set priorities and find meaning because they can never have it all. We can, and I think we'll find the entirety of the world doesn't have as much to offer as the scraps humans love to cling to now. I hope that crushing one rebellion will teach them enough of a lesson not to make the same mistake again. I'm going to use whatever little grasp on that reality I miraculously have left to bring an end to it all.

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sagaofstardustmkg · 2 years

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Deep Secret [CH4 Start, 1/2]

It’s been about a day since the trial ended, a relatively lengthy span of time which might be long enough for you to suspect that maybe something’s up, but hopefully at least long enough for you to cool down after the proceedings. You have not heard the turn of pages that would bring a curious new environment to the area surrounding the castle grounds as a reminder that the killing game is marching on. During this one day you have been so generously given, you can breathe.

One day is a frustratingly finite period of time, though, and the next morning you find you are greeted not only by the turning of pages…

…but by Sasha, on your scrying mirrors. Curious. He’s usually content to fuck off after the trial until it’s time for another motive.

Morning! Just thought I’d pop in and see how things are going. I even brought a gift! Wasn’t that nice of me? You’ll love it, I promise.

Come on over to the courtyard! Won’t take long.

You look up from your mirrors. And up. And then you can look up no more, because there is no sky. It’s simply rock- the interior of a cavern, as if someone has buried the Academy deep underground.

It is so concerning that you decide not to worry about it. Between spelunking and Sasha, one is a more burning issue than the other.

And Sasha will, of course, be right there to greet you when you arrive, sitting in the gazebo and casually reading a book.

“All here, are we? Good stuff. You’re all looking well this morning! Calmed down after all that commotion at the trial, I bet. You know, I feel for you all, I really do. I’ve noticed you’re all pretty bummed out about this whole killing game thing. Just terribly frustrated. And you’ve all been taking it out on me which is, well, rude, downright ungrateful, but I understand. I do. And I want to make things right!”

He breathes a melodramatic sigh, and shakes his head.

“You see, I’ve realised that the reason you’re all so nasty about this is that you just don’t get it. You’re all missing a key piece of the puzzle! And what’s that, you might ask? Well, it’s what I called you all here to see, of course! Because I really think that to truly understand why you’re doing all this…”

“...You need to understand what would happen if you didn’t. There’s only one alternative to the killing game, you see. So, here, I offer this to you - the gift of enlightenment.”

The book in his hand snaps shut with a sound that’s almost deafening. The gift Sasha gives you is —

(Art: Scylla)

[ ♫ ]

Pain.

You lack the vocabulary to describe it beyond that. Language deserts you utterly, leaving only your lowest senses to process the rending of atom from atom, thought from thought. You would scream if you still had lungs. You would clutch at the ground if you still had fingers.

But your body has been disassembled, blasted apart into motes of glittering dust. Each speck burns with an agony like the Earth in its infancy. The bits of dust that were your brain hang in the air alongside the bits of dust that were your heart.

Blinded, mindless, you are a scrap of consciousness that exists only to twist in the grip of this hurt. You are a wound; you are infected; you are being cauterized.

Nothing else exists.

Not anymore.

The eyes are not here There are no eyes here

Other flecks of consciousness dance around you. They used to be your friends, your professors, the people who shouldered past you in the hall. Crushed and ground this completely, the dust that was your best friend is indistinguishable from the dust that was Stardust Academy itself.

The wisps of it all swirl inside the pocket dimension meant to keep it safe.

What remains of your mind envisions it — all of it, the whole damn mess — as a snowglobe. The contents spin and sparkle inside.

And you realize that the glass, the barrier, the thing that keeps the pocket dimension housing Stardust Academy from flooding out into crushing magical infinity, is broken.

It’s spilling.

In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley

The atoms of you drift further and further apart. They call to each other, still wishing to pull together into the shape of a body, but the call gets fainter as the distance grows. It’s only a matter of time until they are too far apart to hear or know about each other.

Until they stop remembering enough to scream.

Until the entire idea of you is erased and the pieces that remain become other things with no thought of what they used to be, forgetting hands and tongue and dreams and names and love.

Until the academy and its students are nothing at all.

And the wind between the stars blows you all away.

#ch4 #ic

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marvelmaniac2000 · 3 years

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Shang Chi x Reader (Pregnancy Imagines)

Storyline: Shang Chi noticed you were pregnant before you could commit to taking a pregnancy test.

character: (Y/N)/reader, Shang Chi

You and Shang Chi routinely take a stroll down the Boulevard and innocently wander around observing the marketplace. An all too familiar aroma of sweet tender grilled meat hugged your nose making your five senses swell in heaven. The local market was buzzing this morning and you couldn’t help but feel so overjoyed observing people going about their daily lives. Ever since the other half of the universe somehow vanished, It was a blessing to see overpopulated communities for once. Thinking about this made you realize how worried you are about being pregnant. You weren't sure and you were going to take a test as soon as you could.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’re ready to puke” Shang Chi said.

“Oh uh nothing I’m actually enjoying all the food that smells amazing out here” You faked smiled.

Shang Chi gave you a side eye look. “You said a month ago you couldn’t stand the smell.. Now you like it? That’s interesting”

“So what?” you chuckled “I can’t evolve into liking other things?”

“I mean that’s very true, but certain things that evolve might be from other reasons” He gave you a sly smirk before lowering his eyes to your body.

You thought for certain that you couldn’t be pregnant because you haven’t experienced any symptoms but you were starting to think maybe you are in denial.

“What are you trying to say? I’m fat?” you punched his bicep with your hand trying to ignore the subject.

“No, what I am saying is you’re in denial about being pregnant.” He stopped mid walk with a serious undertone in his voice. “ Look at your feet,” he gestured. they are a bit bigger than usual and you barely wear shoes anymore.”

Shang Chi leaned in a little closer and said in a low hush voice “And… your boobs have gotten bigger” You self consciously look down and think about how your own boyfriend knows your body better than you. He shrugged his shoulders and put his hands in his pockets “I’m not complaining about that part but hey i’m just a guy.. what would I know”

You felt amused and couldn’t help but approve his theory. One thing you loved about Shang Chi was his soft-touched humor. It always seems to enlighten any situation.

“Ok fine you got me detective, you might have knocked me up” you raised your hands to surrender.

“ I just thought it would be better to tell you If I knew for certain I was pregnant.”

Shang Chi grinned and thought about the sight of you wobbling with a big belly. “I support you no matter the situation” He grabbed your hand and kissed your knuckles. “ I always wanted a family of my own, and starting one with you will make my life worth wild. My family isn’t perfect, but I have the opportunity to expand my bloodline in a different path.”

You didn’t know if you were ready for motherhood, but boy did you know for certain Shang Chi would make a great father.

Before this conversation could get even more emotional you press your hand against Shang Chi’s worried face to console him.

“Let’s find out for sure babe” You softly spoke.

Afterwards you both went home so you could take a pregnancy test. And just like you suspected the test was positive. You and Shang Chi laid in bed, while Shang Chi weighed his head on your stomach trying to listen to the little bean in your uterus

“I remember listening to my mom’s stomach and my sister would constantly kick as if she knew I was there.” You smiled and ran your hands through his hair.

“Well our daughter is going to be a lover and a fighter just like her father” you beamed with excitement.

“Wait a minute… who said we were having a girl?” Shang Chi playfully questioned and gave your belly a sweet kiss.

#shang chi smut #shang chi #legend of the ten rings #marvel #mcu #simu liu #fanfic #love story #imagine

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dreamwritesimagines · 3 years

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Twisted 17 - Mind Games [Spencer Reid x Reader]

A.N.: Thank you so much for your wonderful support my loves! Here’s the next chapter, I hope you will like it as well, and please let me know what you think of it! ❤❤ Ily, kisses! ❤❤❤

Series Masterlist

Warnings: Murder, serial killers, violence, manipulation, mentions of sex, drinking, smoking, angst.

Word Count: 4700

Summary: Love demands sacrifices.

Not even once in your life had you ever imagined yourself in handcuffs, in an interrogation room on the wrong side of the table.

You weren’t even at the FBI headquarters though. The police had taken you to the station after the hospital, taking a blood sample and your fingerprints, then they had handcuffed you and left you there with a glass of water.

Of course they suspected you. Of course they thought you had murdered him.

Murder was your father’s legacy, after all.

You traced the handcuffs over your wrists, already feeling the bruises forming there. The shock still hadn’t worn off but you were starting to think it was a good thing. It felt as if you were watching all of this from behind some kind of glass window, perfectly aware of every single emotion but unable to actually feel them.

Spencer had said when you felt threatened, your body produced nervous energy, some sort of a fight or flight reaction but for once you weren’t trying to do any of that.

You just sat there, completely frozen.

“You look calm,” the police officer spoke, making you look up, trying to ignore the faint yelling coming from outside, possibly from the end of the hall.

“I’m sorry?”

“Most people would be traumatized if this happened to them, they’d be crying, shaking…” he motioned at you, “But look at you. Still as a statue. You look pretty calm.”

“Would you rather if I were crying?”

“I’d rather if you were acting like a human being,” he said, “Why are you so calm?”

Why were you so calm?

Because your mother had taught you this much. Showing emotion when you were afraid meant weakness.

“My father was a serial killer,” you stated, looking him dead in the eye, “I’ve had a complicated childhood.”

“Yeah, I’d say…” he leaned in slightly, “You know, I’ve watched that documentary about your father. His interviews too.”

You raised your brows as he sniffled, trying to look like he was nonchalant about this whole situation.

“And I’ve spent sixteen years on this job,” he said, “After a while, you don’t even need anyone to speak for you to know what they’ve done. It’s all in their eyes and little girl,” he clicked his tongue, “There’s nothing behind your eyes but ice and death.”

You couldn’t cry. You wouldn’t cry. Not in front of people, not even if they tried to kill you. No matter how much they tried to hurt you-

No emotions.

“Impressive,” you managed to say, “Very poetic. Have you ever considered changing your career?”

“You know what I think?”

“I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.”

“I think you wanted to follow your father’s footsteps,” he said, “I think you killed Anthony, and all those other people. It’s not even your fault, is it? Some people are just born broken.”

That was more than enough to make your eyes snap up to his and you could feel the lump in your throat but you bit your tongue so hard that you swallowed blood, making sure to keep your expression still.

“Nothing to say?”

“You’ve already decided what to think of me,” you said, “And I already told you what happened. What more do you want to hear?”

“Right,” he scoffed, taking a look at the file in front of him, “You went to bed around 12, didn’t wake up whole night, when you woke up you found him like that. Lying in a pool of his own blood, in your kitchen.”

“You don’t look like a whiskey girl.” an unfamiliar voice made you turn your head and you lowered your glass, tilting your head. The guy smiled at you, and stole a look at the whiskey glass you had put on the bar.

“Yeah?” you asked, “What girl am I then? If you’re such an expert?”

He thought for a moment, “Hmm, wine?”

“Depends on the occasion.”

“What kind of an occasion does whiskey call for?”

“Apparently an occasion for meeting guys with bad pick-up lines.”

He let out a chuckle, “Yeah, I swear I’m normally smoother than this.”

“I would hope so,” you grinned, and offered your hand, “Y/N.”

“Anthony.”

“But you failed to mention the part you texted him to come to your apartment.”

“I didn’t text anyone.”

“We have your phone Y/N.”

“I didn’t text anyone,” you repeated, “Someone must’ve drugged me and taken my phone, the same person who killed him, the same person who obviously broke into my apartment.”

“How convenient.”

You clenched your jaw.

“I always wake up during night,” you said, your voice completely calm and controlled. “Always. I never woke up last night, there has to be a reason for that.”

“If you’ve been drugged, it will come up on the blood tests.”

“Good.”

“While we wait for that,” he said, “Why don’t we go over what you did last night?”

You took a deep breath, “I woke up,” you said “Went to work. I left work at 7 to go to my sister’s place. I left there around eleven, came home and went to bed.”

“Nothing else happened.”

“Nothing else happened,” you repeated and he sat up straighter.

“Okay. Well just so you know, Dr. Spencer Reid—” he started and your head shot up, your heart slamming against your chest, “He is giving us his professional opinion at the moment, about this case and what might have really happened this morning. Do you have anything you want to change in your story before he’s finished?”

You gawked at him, blinking a couple of times before you turned your head to look at the one-way mirror on the wall.

The BAU was there, behind the mirror.

“….They came back?”

“We’ve sent them the report, yes. They landed an hour ago.”

It was as if somebody was trying to claw your stomach out of your body as you stared at your reflection in the mirror, trying to ignore the burning behind your eyes before you turned to the officer.

“I don’t have anything to change,” you managed to keep your voice stable, “It was a terrible thing, it definitely was but I didn’t do it.”

Someone knocked on the mirror, making you and the officer look that way before he pushed his chair back and left the interrogation room. You closed your eyes for a moment, focusing on your breathing through the blinding headache but opened your eyes when the door opened again.

Luke.

He offered you a small smile and pulled himself a chair.

“Hi.”

“Hello,” you swallowed the lump in your throat, sitting up with your back straight, your hands clasped.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” you stole a look at the one-way mirror, “Is he there?”

“Reid?” Luke asked and shook his head, “I had to basically wrestle him out of the hall, he’s…he’s not allowed here. Conflict of interest. He’s giving his statement at the end of the hall as we speak.”

You nodded, digging your fingernails into your palms. “Okay.”

“He also called your sister on our way here. Couldn’t reach her, but left a message. Listen, he can’t request it on your behalf, but you need to ask for a lawyer.”

“I didn’t kill Anthony.”

“I didn’t ask if you killed him, I’m saying you need to ask for a lawyer.”

“Does he think I did it?” you asked and Luke shook his head again.

“No,” he said, “But it doesn’t matter what anyone else believes at this point, Y/N. Ask for a lawyer.”

You kept your back straight, rolling your shoulders. “If Spencer left a message to Mina, she’s coming.”

“Is she a defense lawyer?”

“No but she knows a lot of them.”

He took a deep breath and put the bottle of your pills on the desk, “The officers also found this.”

You tried your hardest to focus, moving your wrists to help with the soreness of the handcuffs. “They’re prescribed.”

“I can see that. The side effects say confusion?”

You arched a brow, “I’m sorry, do I sound confused to you right now?”

“No, you sound way too controlled right now, I may as well have been talking to a robot.”

You gritted your teeth, trying to control the panic bubbling at the pit of your stomach, sending anger through your veins.

“I’m not confused,” you stated, “Besides, I haven’t been taking them lately.”

He threw his head back, pressing his lips together, “God, Y/N, you can’t say that. A psychiatrist prescribed you something and you—“

“They’re just for nightmares, they don’t make you…” you took a deep breath, commanding yourself to stay calm, “I didn’t kill him. I found him like that. It was terrible, but I didn’t do it.”

Someone opened the door again and Emily Prentiss cleared her throat.

“Luke,” she murmured, “Spencer.”

You could feel your heart skip a beat upon hearing his name but kept completely still as Luke left the room and Emily and JJ walked into the room.

“You’re taking turns now?” you asked and Emily cleared her throat,

“Me and JJ are the only people in our team who haven’t spent as much time with you, so we figured it would be better if we interrogated you.”

“I didn’t do it.”

Emily pulled herself a chair as JJ crossed her arms, standing by the wall.

“Can you walk me through what happened this morning?”

You took a deep breath, “I woke up,” you said, “With a headache. I knew something was wrong, I felt it. My window was open, the front door was half open and my phone wasn’t where I left it. I stepped outside my room, saw the blood, went to the kitchen and saw—“ you gritted your teeth and clenched your fists, “Saw my ex-boyfriend there. Dead. Lying in a pool of his blood.”

“But you heard nothing.”

“I never sleep for the whole night,” you said slowly, “Check my blood test. Something happened last night.”

“We don’t have your blood test results yet, but there was no sign of any sexual—“

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” You cut her off, a shiver running down your spine, “That’s not it. Whoever it was, they didn’t touch me, they wanted…”

“What did they want?”

You shrugged slightly, “I don’t know. They wanted me to see it I think. My…my father’s crime scenes.”

JJ took a deep breath and pushed herself off the wall.

“And you don’t think it’s a little too convenient?”

You pulled your brows together, looking at her and she stepped closer to the table, her eyes fixed on you.

“Two victims so far,” she said, “The ones that we knew that were in the same place as you, they had some connection to you. That woman who was killed at the charity ball, you didn’t get along when you were kids, you turned her down as a client before she was killed, and now your ex-boyfriend ends up dead, in your apartment because you sent him a—“ she scoffed, “I’m sorry, someone sent him a late night text, inviting him to your apartment.”

“JJ,” Emily started but JJ held up a hand while you tried to wrap your head around it.

She had a point. Two victims so far had some connection to you and that was not a coincidence, it couldn’t have been.

“You think I did it,” you rasped out and she scoffed.

“I think you had something to do with all of this,” she said, “I think you’ve been trying to manipulate Spencer for something. The best case scenario, you were cheating, that’s why Anthony was there and something went bad, the worst case….” She shook her head, “You’re behind every single murder we’ve been looking into, and Spencer was just a tool for you. He’s my best friend, and if I find one single proof that you put him in harm’s way, I swear to God I will destroy you.”

Two people had ended up dead, and that was your fault. The copycat was going after people who had some kind of connection to you, and apparently no one except you and your family was safe.

The idea was way too painful to even exist inside your head, but it was clear as day. JJ was right, you were putting Spencer in harm’s way just by being with him, and if it were him, if you had seen him lying in a pool of his blood, his eyes wide open—

You dug your fingernails into your palms until it hurt before you managed to lift your head, that invisible wall which kept you safe from anyone and everyone who could possibly see anything you felt going up again.

“You…” you trailed off, your throat burning, “You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“What does that mean?” Emily asked but before you could say anything, someone slammed the door open, making you and the agents turn.

Mina.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” she asked no one in particular and stepped aside so that 4 lawyers could walk inside before the police officer rushed to you to remove the handcuffs off your wrists.

“You’re not saying another word,” she snapped her fingers, “Come on, we’re leaving.”

“We’re going to need her to sign some papers,” the officer said as Mina grabbed your wrist to pull you out of the room, making you hiss in a breath and she froze, lowering her glances to check your sore wrists for any bruises.

“What did they do to you?”

You shook your head silently, and something in Mina’s gaze shifted. You had seen it only a couple of times, including that time you were getting stitches after some girls in your classroom had ambushed you in the bathroom, and more importantly, you had seen that look on her face when Lily had fever that one time and you all had to rush to the hospital and the doctors said she couldn’t see her.

It was fire, similar to yours, ready to burn everything in its path.

“Don’t say anything to anyone. You two,” she motioned at the two lawyers, “Read whatever she’s supposed to sign.”

The lawyers approached the desk by the door as Mina put her coat over your shoulders, rubbing at your arms as you swayed slightly on your feet, trying to focus.

“We’re leaving, okay sweetheart?”

“Miss—“

“No,” When Mina turned to the police officers and the BAU team, any trace of softness in her voice disappeared, “You don’t talk. If you don’t want to get into even more trouble, you’re going to listen to me right now.”

The officer that had been with you at the interrogation room just blinked a couple of times, obviously taken aback.

“Do you have any idea what you just did to yourself?” she asked, “What you did to this whole precinct? Because allow me to explain, my sister was a victim in this scenario, and you tried to pin this shit on her to make her a scapegoat,” she shook her head, “We will be suing you for defamation of character—“

“Mina, your sister—” JJ started but she snapped her fingers at her.

“I haven’t even started with you yet, wait for your turn.”

“Mina…” you murmured but she didn’t even look like she could hear you,

“Where was I? Defamation of character because press will be all over this, intentional infliction of emotional stress and wrongful arrest and hey, to make things fun we will also be requesting the security footage in the interrogation room and if I see one very small slip of anything that wasn’t supposed to be said and done in that room…” Mina tilted her head, “Well, let’s just say that by the time I’m done with you guys and this whole precinct, the only thing you will be able to afford is going to be a typewriter and a desk.”

One of the lawyers came to tell you the document was alright to sign and as soon as you approached the desk, a door by the hall opened and Spencer stepped out.

It was almost excruciating not to be able to run to him. He looked as shocked as he was and he took a step towards you but JJ stepped in front of him as you grabbed the pen, ignoring the way your name spilled from his lips in a whisper.

“Oh, hi genius.” Mina called out, “Were you getting a glass of water while your team was hounding my sister or something?”

Spencer looked almost confused only for a moment before he turned to look at JJ who deliberately averted her glances from him.

“Mina, this is not necessary,” you croaked out as you signed the papers and she shook her head.

“No, this is very necessary, trust me. You need to show these people what you’re capable of or they will try to fuck you up, case and point.” She turned to Emily, “You’re the one in charge, I suppose?”

“I am.”

“Good. Consider this your warning, because the next time anyone in your team, including the puppy dog eyes over there gets any closer to my sister, we will be getting a restraining order for each and every one of you.”

You closed your eyes for a moment, still swaying on your feet and you hugged the coat around you tighter.

Not that you could do anything other than watching this.

“Your sister is an active part of this investigation, your father specifically asked for—“

“My sister is a civilian,” Mina growled, “She has no responsibility for this case, you do. How about you surprise me and do your fucking jobs?”

You took a breath to say it wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t their fault but Mina turned to look at you.

“Get in the elevator, we’re leaving.”

You were way too tired to fight her, way too tired to even stand there so you followed the army of lawyers to the elevator, while Mina shot the officers and the BAU members a fake smile.

“Pleasure, let’s never do this again,” she said, and got in the elevator with you, and you tried to keep your expression still, Spencer staring at you until the doors slid close.

“4 lawyers?” you managed to say, “I don’t think even Bundy had four lawyers.”

“Tell that to mom,” she said, “She was on the phone with a congressman the last I checked.”

You couldn’t even smile at that, but Mina let out a breath before pulling you into a bone crushing hug, making the tears rush to your eyes as you wrapped your arms around her.

“Never do that to me again, you hear me?” her voice cracked for the first time and you nodded slowly.

“I won’t,” you said, “I promise.”

***

It was as if someone had pulled all your energy out of your body. You were exhausted, you could barely understand what anyone was saying but you knew there was no way you could sleep anytime soon.

The blood test, as the lawyers had informed you, finally came back and just like you suspected, they had found traces of chloroform in your system. That and your team of lawyers combined were more than enough to get rid of any kind of accusations against you, so at least you had that.

On the other hand, the fear, the guilt, the sadness were still there inside of you, even if you felt way too numb to reach it.

You wondered if Spencer would have a scientific explanation for that.

Your mother had insisted you would never step a foot into your apartment again, she was already looking for a new apartment for you, one with multiple security systems and until that happened she had told you you would be staying at her house.

The damn thing was way too big anyway and you and Mina had grown up there so you figured it would serve as some sort of shelter.

If it even existed for you.

“Here you go sweetheart,” your mother pushed the tea cup towards you, “Drink it, it’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m fine.”

Kenzie heaved a sigh, “It’s okay if you’re not,” she said, “No one expects you to, anyone would be traumatized.”

“The real estate agent already sent me three apartments,” your mother said, “Huge windows, you love a bright apartment.”

“Mom,” Mina said silently and she heaved a sigh.

“It could help her distract herself,” her head shot up, “Y/N, you should go on a vacation! Somewhere far away from here.”

“Somewhere peaceful could be nice?” Kenzie added, “I think that’s a good idea.”

You and Mina exchanged glances.

“I heard Fiji is lovely this time of the year,” your mother said and you let out a breath.

“Mom, two people died because of me,” you croaked out, “I’m not going to Fiji for vacation.”

“Honey, you could use some peace,” she held your chin carefully and lifted it so that she could look at you better, “You look so…”

“I look like how I feel,” you said and turned your head when the doorbell rang, making Mina sit up straighter.

“Who’s that?” she asked when the maid walked in.

“Spencer Reid?”

“What?” you and Kenzie asked at the same time, your heartbeat getting faster and Mina jumped on her feet but you stopped her, shaking your head.

“It’s okay,” you sniffled, nodding to yourself, “It’s….it’s fine. There’s no point in dragging it out.”

“Dragging what out?” Mina asked you but you walked out of the living room and reached the front door, trying to ignore the warmth filling your system as soon as your eyes caught the sight of him. You stepped out of the house and he pulled you into a tight hug, burying his nose into your hair and inhaling deeply as if it helped him calm down while you just stood there, desperately trying to keep the tears at bay.

You had to do it. No matter how much it hurt you, no matter how much you didn’t want to.

No matter how badly it would rip your heart out.

“You okay?” he asked you, his fingers pushing your hair behind your ear, “I tried your apartment but I figured…”

“Yeah, I’m not going back there,” you shrugged your shoulders, “I’ll move out, it’s fine.”

“Do you want to stay at my place?” he asked quickly and you closed your eyes for a moment, every cell in your body begging you to change your mind.

You couldn’t though. You’d rather die than see him lying in a pool of his blood, all because of you.

“Don’t say that,” you whispered and opened your eyes again, “Please don’t say that.”

He looked almost confused, tilting his head to the side like a puppy before it dawned on him.

“Is this about the file on me?”

You shook your head and he took a deep breath.

“About today?”

“I didn’t send that message,” you said, “To Anthony, I mean. I wouldn’t…. I wouldn’t cheat on you.”

“I know that.”

“And I didn’t kill him. I don’t know if you heard, but the blood tests came back positive for—”

“I never doubted that, not even for one second,” he insisted, “With or without blood test.”

“You might be the only one,” you murmured and he paused for a moment.

“What did JJ say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Because we had an argument on the jet on our way back here and whatever she said…”

You shook your head again, trying to smile.

“I get it,” you murmured, “She’s your best friend, she’s protective of you. That’s normal.”

“Yeah but if she thinks that you’re capable of—”

“I want to break up.”

You could swear the words burned your mouth, some invisible hand clutching your heart tighter and tighter as you willed yourself to keep your eyes on the street, because you were sure that every wall you built to keep your emotions under control would crash down the moment you looked at him. Out of the corner of your eye you could see that he froze and he blinked a couple of times, as if he was lost.

“What?” he asked silently and you tried to swallow the lump growing bigger and bigger in your throat.

“Y/N, wait—no,” he said quickly, breathing hard, “Listen, whatever they said to you today during the interrogation, if that’s what this is about—”

“It has nothing to do with that,” you forced yourself to say, crossing your arms and he took a step closer to you.

“Whatever the problem is,” he rasped out, “We can solve it, okay? Don’t do this.”

That was when it dawned on you.

It wasn’t enough to push him away. You had to make sure to burn that bridge so that neither of you could ever find your way back to each other.

“It’s not one of your cases Spencer, you can’t solve this one,” you muttered and finally turned your head to look up at him, your stomach churning at the sight of betrayal on his face.

“I don’t understand.”

“You—it’s—“ you stammered, trying to find the words, “It’s going way too fast, alright? It’s going way too fast and it’s going to fucking crash, and I can’t—“ you cleared your throat when your voice cracked, “I’m not going to crash with this, I can’t.”

Your father had taught you this way too long ago, when you were too young to even question it.

Stab the prey, twist the knife, pull it back and watch them bleed.

Stab the prey.

“I mean come on Spencer, we’re not in love or anything,” you shrugged your shoulders, “Should be easy enough.”

He stared at you for a couple of seconds, his mouth slightly agape and his brows furrowed, shock written all over his face.

“We’re not in love?” he repeated, “You…you don’t love me?”

Twist the knife.

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

His eyes searched your face, as if looking for any kind of clue that could tell him you were lying, or that it was a trick but for once, it was in vain.

You’d had spent years learning how to control your emotions and your expression when it came to heartbreak.

Pull it back.

“It’s not my fault if you’re in love,” you said, each word making you hate yourself more and more, “I can’t be held responsible for that.”

Stabbing yourself would’ve been less painful, you were sure of that but you knew you had to keep going. One last step, one last sentence and you would be done.

Watch them bleed.

“I never told you to love me.”

Then, silence.

You had to give it to him though, it took him faster than it would’ve taken you to pull yourself together if you were the one on the receiving end of this. He blinked back the tears, clenched his jaw and in a second, his gaze turned cold, exactly like yours.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, nodding, “You didn’t.”

But you had forgotten one small detail.

Spencer knew how to withdraw that knife and stab back.

You cleared your throat and turned around to get inside the house but before you could step in, you heard his voice.

“I was wrong.”

You looked over your shoulder, clutching at the straws to keep it together, “I’m sorry?”

“I was wrong,” he stated, his voice was distant and held no trace of its usual warmth, “Before, I mean. In terms of behavior and psychology, you’re exactly your father’s daughter.”

With that, he walked away from the house, and you just stood there for a moment before stepping into the house and closing the door behind you, that comfortable haze of shock slowly withdrawing from your mind like mist. That hand squeezing your heart twisted it in your chest and you tried to breathe, pressing a hand on your chest.

“Sweetheart?” your mother called out as she stepped into the hallway, then slowly approached you, “You okay?”

It was impossible to stop the tears rushing to your eyes now and a gasp escaped from your lips as you shook your head.

“Mom,” you whimpered, “Please, my—my heart hurts...”

She rushed to you and shushed you gently, pulling you into a tight hug and caressing your hair as you slipped to the ground and you buried your face to her shoulder.

Then the sobs came.

Chapter 18

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid imagines #spencer reid x you #criminal minds #spencer x reader #dr spencer reid #spencer imagine #spencer imagines #reid #spencer #reid x you #reid x reader #reid imagine #criminal minds imagines #twisted

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gunterfan1992 · 3 years

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Episode Review: ‘Together Again’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 3)

Airdate: May 20, 2021

Story by: Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, Christina Catucci, Jesse Moynihan, Adam Muto

Storyboarded by: Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, Iggy Craig, Maya Petersen, Serena Wu

Directed by: Miki Brewster (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

Across Adventure Time’s ten season run, the show explored a bevy of “mature” themes and story ideas—topics, like love, sexuality, depression, and grieving. The show also touched upon death, but the emphasis was usually placed on the emotional toll of a loved one dying, not really what happens when you die. We knew there were Dead Worlds and Death. We knew that there was reincarnation. But how does it all fit together? What does it mean? How does it work?

With “Together Again,” we finally have many of the answers.

This special opens with a marvelous fake-out episode simply called “Finn & Jake,” that sees the two steal a magical cartoon of 50-flavor ice cream before rescuing Turtle Princess and LSP from the clutches of the villainous Ice King. This is all deliberately anachronistic and over the top. Ice King is back to his season one ways, Finn has both arms, and he is still wielding his golden sword that he lost in season two’s “The Real You.” There’s lolrandom dialogue and silly monsters; it’s like a parody of seasons 1-2. But then, this adventure starts to get all wonky, and in time Finn realizes that he is in a some sort of trance or illusion: one that ends with Jake being buried in the ground. Suddenly, Finn awakens from his reverie. He’s an old man. And he’s dead. We’re then presented with a new title card that lets us know the episode is actually called “Finn & Jake Are Dead.”

Holy Glob! They actually went there.

Turns out Jake died years before Finn, so naturally Finn is super excited to see his best bud. But something’s wrong—he cannot find Jake!! They planned to spend eternity together. But all that Finn can find is his very own psychopomp, Mr. Fox (voiced by Tom Herpich, whose purposefully stilted line readings are the epitome of delightful). Finn rightfully assumes that Jake is in a different Dead World, and so, being the ball of spunk and energy that he is, he demands to meet with Death, only to discover that there’s a New Death in town (voiced by Chris Fleming). The episode eventually explains that New Death was the son of Death and Life, and after New Death killed his father, he became the sovereign of the afterlife. New Death hates his job and decides to just blow up all the Dead Worlds so he doesn’t have to deal with it all. (I won’t get too much into the details here, because there would be a lot of story to parse out.)

Finn soon learns that Jake has reached nirvana in the 50th Dead World, where there is nothing but peace and serenity. Finn nevertheless tracks down Jake, pulls him from paradise, but in doing so, accidentally lets New Death in, who promptly obliterates Elysium, sending all the enlightened souls—including those from different levels of the afterlife—to the 1st Dead World. This gronks up the afterlife, temporarily halting the reincarnation process.

Well, Finn and Jake are rightfully ticked, and so they haunt the material plane looking for Princess Bubblegum. She’s not home (more on that later), but Peppermint Butler is! After Ghost Finn and Ghost Jake explain the situation, Peppermint Butler tells them what to do: They need to find Life and explain the situation. The duo manage just that, and Life is rightfully angry that her kid has stopped the transmigration of souls. After Life gives Finn a McGuffin sword that can hurt Death, Finn and Jake return to his abode. A brawl ensues wherein we learn that New Death has been possessed… by none other than that spirit of the Lich.

That’s right, it’s the Lich! He’s back, and boy is he evil.

The Lich explains that by possessing Death, he can destroy the afterlife, thereby destroying a key aspect of reality. Naturally, Finn and Jake are not cool with this, and they engage in combat. After Mr. Fox grabs the McGuffin sword and uses it to annihilate the Lich and New Death, he is proclaimed the New New Death and sets everything right. Finn is slated to be reincarnated, and Jake is slated to return to the 50th Dead World where he and Finn will one day be reunited. As Finn is pulled into the wheel of souls, Jake suddenly decides to go back with Finn, too, “Just for fun.” The episode ends with a card letting us know that the episode is neither called “Finn & Jake” nor “Finn & Jake Are Dead.” Instead, it is “Finn and Jake Are Together Again.”

As they say, “And there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”

If you were to tell me several years ago that the last episode to star Finn and Jake would revolve around them dying, I think I would’ve been upset. Not simply sad, but rather frustrated because “they all died” can feel like a cheap ending. But with “Together Again,” it all works. And a large reason that it works is because the show goes all in with their ideas. Finn and Jake don’t magically leap back into their old life (no, no, they very much do bite the dust). Instead, the special emphasizes the cyclical nature of life through the transmigration of souls. The episode ends with a beautiful scene of Finn and Jake, bound together as soul-brothers, being reborn into a new, mysterious (possibly Ooo 1000+?) world. It’s both aesthetically and emotionally pleasing; it doesn’t feel off the way over finales might. This is right. This is the way life works. “Round and round as nature goes,” and all that jazz.

I loved the series explanation of how death works. It seems that souls land in a specific Dead World, where they ‘marinate’ for a bit, presumably being rewarded or punished based on their life in our meat reality. After a time, they are then reborn. This process repeats, with each soul reaching higher and higher levels of enlightenment until they hit nirvana, which is the 50th Dead World. So in a sense, Adventure Time has a roughly Buddhist cosmology with a dash of Greco-Roman mythos thrown in for flavor. (As to what happens after a soul stays in the 50th Dead World for a long period is anyone’s guess, but I’d speculate that when all the souls in the multiverse have been purified and land in the 50th Dead World, they will all collapse into one another and form one perfect Monad. Perhaps this is the sphere of perfection that the beings who merged into Matthew thought they were connecting to? Who knows! It’s anyone’s guess!) I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see who Death, Prismo, Life, etc.’s boss was, but perhaps that’s a mystery better left up to the imagination!

One minor thing that I loved about this special was the number of characters who made cameos as well as all the callbacks that were made to previous episodes. Regarding the former: Finn and Jake’s canine family show up (including the oft-forgotten Jermaine!), as do Tree Trunks and her myriad husbands. Tiffany plays a major role in all these shenanigans as a “death cop” of all things. There is a delightful rogues gallery stuck in the 1st Dead World (including, among others, Maja, Sharon from “The Gut Grinder,” and Wyatt). In the 50th we find Ghost Princess and Clarence happily at peace next to Booshy, the weird spirit mentioned in the Pen Ward classic “High Strangeness.” As far as callbacks go, perhaps my favorite is the clap (from “James Baxter the Horse”) that Jake taught to Finn in case they ever do get separated in the afterlife. And of course, there are myriad references made to “Death in Bloom,” the episode that planted the seed for what this would grow into.

Going into the special suspecting that it would involve Death, I was curious how they were going to handle Miguel Ferrer’s character. (In case a reader is not aware, Ferrer played Death in episodes like “Death in Bloom” and “Betty,” but he sadly passed away a few years ago). The producers’ choice to feature him in a non-speaking cameo—despite playing a relatively significant role in the story—was wise; I’m not sure if I can articulate the exact reasons, but something about his role felt appropriate and not gross, as some post-mortem memorials can be. Speaking of which, the wonderful, lovely Polly Lou Livingston was featured for the last time in this episode as Tree Trunks, happily in heaven with her literal harem of husbands. It was funny, it really was, and I’m sure that Polly Lou would’ve gotten a kick out of seeing it on screen. (Also, this is a pro-Tree Trunks safe space. Any Tree Trunks haters will be chucked into the 1st Dead World with Wyatt.)

The biggest mystery in this whole thing, for me at least, is the question of Princess Bubblegum and Marceline. Several years ago, I wrote an essay about what could’ve happened to them in the Ooo 1000+ universe. I speculated that they peaced out and left Ooo behind. In this special, neither Bubblegum nor Marceline are to be found in the Candy Kingdom—Peppermint Butler seems to be the one in charge, given that he is now wearing Bubblegum’s crown. Likewise, the duo aren’t anywhere in the Dead Worlds either. Maybe the two of them skipped town and got a duplex in the Nightosphere? Who knows… I just want my favorite gals to be OK!

All things considered, “Together Again” was a marvel: An episode that managed to feel like a series finale even more than “Come Along with Me” already did without taking away from the series itself. An episode that managed to make the idea of dying funny. An episode that brought back the Lich in a way that wasn’t forced. An episode that made Mr. Fox the New New Death. An episode that gave us a beautiful ending to Finn and Jake’s story… as well as the beautiful beginning to a new one. I said it on Twitter, and I’ll say it again here: “Together Again” was the end of a sentence in a book with infinite pages. Truly, the fun will never end.

Mushroom War evidence: Everything takes place in the Dead Worlds, so not really. Perhaps a more eagle-eyed viewer can inform us...

Final Grade: That’s right, I’m gonna do it...

Post-script, I actually messaged Jesse Moynihan to ask about his writing credit. He told me that it was for an unused story idea that he had developed. I’m not certain, but I’ll bet it was a part of the cancelled TV movie they were trying to make during season 5, since that would’ve seen Finn and Orgalorg journey to the various Dead Worlds.

#adventure time #adventuretime #atimers #at #atdl #distant lands #adventure time distant lands #finn the human #jake the dog #together again #togetheragain #dead worlds #hanna k. nyström #Hanna K #adam muto #jack pendarvis

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garakcore · 3 years

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A Guide to My Fics :)

MY PERSONAL FAVORITES

So I Tell Him - Julian is stricken with amnesia, leaving his husband, Garak, to care for him. Garak/Bashir, ~2K, General Audiences. Extra note: this may be my favorite Garashir fic I’ve written.

Give it Time - Tora Ziyal comes out as transgender, causing chaos with Gul Dukat. Garak and Kira try to get along for Ziyal -or rather, Zilar's- sake. ~2K, General Audiences

Computer, End Program - When Quark gets a new holosuite program that allows two people to produce a hologram child, Garak and Julian jump at the chance. Garak/Bashir, ~9K words, Mature

I Love You Too - And I say, "I love you." Garak/Bashir, ~500 words, General Audiences.

The Insatiable Hum - Garak’s implant mysteriously turns on. Garak/Bashir, ~5K words, Teen and up

Tell Tail - Garak has a problem. Whenever he sees Dr. Bashir, his tail starts to wag uncontrollably. Garak/Bashir, ~2K words, General Audiences

Auld Lang Syne - On Garak's first New Year back on Cardassia Prime, he receives a letter from Dr. Bashir, along with a recommendation of a song. Garak/Bashir, ~1K, General Audiences

Certain Insecurities - “I wish you would stop calling me beautiful.” Garak/Bashir, ~1K words, Teen and up

Spooning - Julian just wants to spoon, but Garak thinks it's an anti-Cardassian racial slur. Garak/Bashir, ~500 words, General Audiences

I Can’t Believe You Believe in Me - Garak doesn’t feel like he deserves Julian. Garak/Bashir, ~1K words, Mature

THE BEST OF EXPLICIT

Fascinated - The gay remake of “Fascination” you didn’t know you needed. Garak/Bashir, Kira/Dax, Odo/Quark, ~7K words, Explicit

A Most Enlightening Experience - When Julian learns that Garak has never touched himself, he offers to teach him how. Garak/Bashir, ~3K words, Explicit

Inside the Fitting Room - Garak has wanted Julian for a long time now. He hopes that, by inviting Julian in to try on his new suit, something might happen between them. Garak/Bashir, ~3K words, Explicit

Good For You - Garak has a thing for Julian praising him. Garak/Bashir, ~600 words, Explicit

The Reverie - A Cardassian named Vrell Jad, the suspected author of Garak's least favorite book, arrives on Deep Space Nine. Garak finds himself facing his past in more ways than one, and examining his current relationships. Pre-Garashir, Garak/Original Male Character, ~7K words, Explicit

Way Better Than Ore Processing - When Julian and Kira are transported to the mirror universe, to Julian's delight, this universe's Garak takes an immediate interest in him. Mirror Garak/Bashir, Garak/Bashir, ~2K words, Explicit

The Most Attractive Word - The most attractive word, Julian thought, is 'yes'. Garak/Bashir, ~700 words, Explicit

Restrained - Garak has been looking forward to Julian tying him up for a long time. Garak/Bashir, ~1K words, Explicit

A Whole New Kind of Chocolate - A Garashir “If Wishes Were Horses” retelling. Garak/Bashir, ~4K words, Explicit

Disparaging Remarks - When Julian learns about Cardassian flirting, he decides to try it on Garak. And he gets very into the role. Garak/Bashir, ~1K words, Explicit

You Can Say That Again - Julian has a suggestion. Garak/Bashir, ~1K, Explicit

A Thousand Different Reasons - Stuck in Mila's basement, Garak and Damar develop feelings for each other. But when they act on those feelings, they both find themselves thinking of someone else... Garak/Damar, Garak/Bashir, Damar/Dukat, ~2K,

TRANS JULIAN AND/OR TRANS GARAK

Hold it Against You - Garak and Julian both want to come out to each other as transgender. Garak/Bashir, ~1K, General Audiences

I Wouldn’t Have it Any Other Way - Julian comes out as transgender to Garak. Garak/Bashir, ~1K words, Teen and up

Just Right - Garak discovers Julian likes being told certain things during sex. Garak/Bashir, ~700 words, EXPLICIT

What You Said You Would Do - Julian makes a frankly shocking suggestion to Garak, which brings up some feelings. Garak/Bashir, ~900 words, EXPLICIT

NOT GARASHIR

Stars - I think of you when I see the stars. Jadzia/Lenara, ~600 words, General Audiences

The Situation - Kira and Jadzia have to share a bed under strange circumstances. Kira/Dax, ~400 words, General Audiences

There are more, but this list is getting long, and also, I��m not happy with those.

#star trek #ds9 #star trek ds9 #deep space nine #deep space 9 #garashir #elim garak #garak #julian bashir #dr bashir #garak/damar #kiradax #jadzia x lenara #tora ziyal

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scxrlettwxtches · 4 years

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[9:40p.m.] kiss in vehicle + celebration | han jisung

warnings: slight slight making out

requested: yes!

a/n: whaddya know. josie can write fluff??? how?? anyways i really hope y’all enjoy this one! it’s a little shorter and fluffier than my normal scenarios, so i had a lot of fun with it :)

“You know, we’ve been driving for twenty minutes now, and you still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

“Come on, don’t you have any faith in me at all?” Jisung pouted, shifting gears as his billion year old car puffed along the road, feeling as if it would break down at any moment.

“Normally, yes, but you’re driving out of town and up the mountain, and I can’t help but think you’re just trying to get yourself featured as a serial killer on the next episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved.”

Jisung frowned at that, shifting gears with a little more ferocity than before, “Well, that’s just mean.”

“Why else would we be driving away from civilization?” You asked, crossing your arms with a teasing smile.

“Lots of different reasons!” He protested, reaching over to poke your thigh lightly as you swatted his finger away, “And besides, if I really was planning on murdering you, would I go up to your manager and to let you skip your last shift at the cafe to hang out with me? That makes me a prime suspect.”

Unable to contain your smile any longer, your burst into giggles, covering your mouth, “I suppose that’s fair. But you still won’t tell me where we’re going.”

“It’s a surprise,” Jisung whined, glaring at you halfheartedly. He always had such a big problem hiding his surprises from you, especially when you catch on that something is up. It didn’t help that Jisung was absolutely weak to your questioning, and that the secret always tended to tumble out of his lips before he could stop himself.

Your eyes narrowed with a hint of suspicion, “It’s not my birthday.”

“It’s not your birthday.”

“And it’s not your birthday.”

“And it’s not my birthday.”

“So, what exactly is going on?”

“My darling,” Jisung gave you a dashing smile, “just trust me.”

You let out a light scoff, but behind your teasing words and dripping sarcasm, you’ve always trusted him. First with your friendship, and then with your love. Jisung had never once given you a reason not to trust him.

After what felt like hours, Jisung pulled off the side of the road, and the car creaked and groaned in weak defiance as he pressed the brakes down. You observed your surroundings carefully, and your eyes widen as you see the beautiful view of city down below, the lights illuminating the dark blue sky.

“How did you find this view?” You asked in awe, unbuckling your seatbelt as you leaned forward, resting your arms on the dashboard.

Jisung chuckled, unbuckling his own seatbelt, his gaze not on the view before him, but on your incredulous face, “I have my ways.”

By ways, Jisung meant that he made a few serious Google searches and then picked the one that he thought you’d like the most. So what if it took him more than an hour to decide where to bring you tonight? He was totally enamored with you in every way possible, and he’d long since made it is personal mission to make you the happiest girl in the world. A few hours of work were more than worth it seeing the childlike wonder appear on your face, making your complexion almost glow with beauty.

“Alright, I’ll admit,” You turned to him with that smile that made his heart trip over three flights of stairs and do five summersaults, “This is really amazing. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

Jisung giggled, taking your hand and lacing your fingers together, “Apology accepted,” he said smugly, eliciting a playful scoff out of you as he pressed his lips to the back of your hand.

Comfortable silence filled the car, but Jisung began to feel the familiar flutter of anxiety bubbling up as he cleared his throat. Ears perking up at the sound, you turned to him as he squeezed your hand gently, “Hey, Y/N...there’s something I have to tell you.”

“I know. What is it?”

“Well, I--wait,” Jisung’s face contorted in confusion and a bit of panic clawed at his throat, his cheeks puffing out as he repeated, “You know?”

You chuckled, poking his cheek, “Why else would you have brought me someplace special?” You pointed out as you squeezed his hand gently, “But enough about that. What did you wanna tell me?”

Jisung took both of your hands in his, holding them close to his chest as the good news finally burst out, “Igotthejob!”

You blinked once, then twice, struggling to pull apart the avalanche of words that just tumbled out of Jisung’s lips, “You what? Deep breaths, darling.”

Reaching a hand up, you cupped his cheek and began to help him calm himself down, all the while Jisung was unabashedly staring at you with a lovestruck expression plastered to his face. You noticed it and only chuckled, booping his nose before pulling away.

“Okay, let’s try that again, a little slower,” you suggested.

Jisung nodded, taking a deep breath before he said again, “I got the job!”

Now it was your turn to have to calm your breathing as you literally squealed like a little girl, reaching to grab his hands in yours as you asked, “What?! You got picked?!”

“I got picked,” Jisung smiled so widely that he felt like the corners of his lips might split, “Y/N, they want me to start working on my first project next week. Apparently, many of their prominent artists put in good words about my work.”

You were utterly speechless, your mouth opening and closing in amazement. For the first time since Jisung had met you, you were at a genuine loss for words. Your thoughts were running a mile a minutes, filled with pride, elation, relief, pure unrestrained happiness that Jisung had finally achieved the dream he’d been working towards. There were so many moments of doubt, so many sleepless nights in which you held him to your chest, soothing his anxious tears as you ran your fingers through his hair. But now, all his hard work was finally coming into fruition, and you couldn’t be prouder of him.

Unable to express your love through words, you acted the only way you knew how. Your hands reached out, cupping his cheeks firmly an even squishing them a little. Jisung’s eyes could only widen in surprise before you pulled him forward, pressing your lips against his.

Jisung melted into the kiss before his brain even processed it. His arm looped around your waist, pulling you as close as he could with the center compartment in between the two of you. He kissed with just as much, if not more fervor than you had, caressing your soft lips with his. Jisung was a playful kisser, and you loved it more than anything. He liked to mess around even during the most innocent of kisses. He rolled your lower lip gently with his teeth, he cupped your chin delicately to hold you still as his kisses trailed to the corners of your mouth down to your jaw, causing you to giggle.

Eventually, he pulled away, his eyes filled with unmatched love and adoration as he brushed the strands of hair away from your face. The full moon illuminated the inside of the car, and your complexion seemed almost unreal under the silver light. Every day, especially this particular day, Jisung genuinely wondered what sort of good deeds he must’ve done in his past life to have the chance to be yours, your one and only.

“Y/N…” Jisung’s voice was no more than a gentle whisper, like the summer breeze beside the ocean. He brushed a strand of your hair away from your face as he smiled, “you know what else?”

“Enlighten me,” you smiled, leaning into his touch.

“The annual salary for the new job is high, even higher if you think about the royalties,” Jisung explained with a sparkle in his eyes as he finally gets to the core of the argument, “Y/N, I can finally take care of you the way you deserve.”

Your eyebrows furrowed, unsure of the intention behind his words, “Jisung…”

“You don’t have to work at that awful convenience store where your boss treats you like shit. You don’t have to work three jobs just to pay off our rent,” Jisung clutched your hand as he spoke, and your eyes widened as he kissed your knuckles.

“You held me in your arms and loved me when I was nothing,” Jisung murmured, and he reached back with his free arm, pulling something out of his pocket, “That night when the only thing that kept me from giving it all up was your words and your unconditional love, I made a promise to myself that I would return all of your love a thousand fold.”

Gasping, you covered your mouth with your hand as Jisung pulled out a black velvet box, and just from the encasing you could tell the price of it obviously far above your normal budgets. You felt your heart skip a beat as you realized that Jisung probably spent all of his first paycheck on this present. Speaking of Jisung, your boyfriend seemed considerably more nervous than a second ago, and he swallowed down his nerves, opening the box and revealing a beautiful diamond ring.

“Will you let me love you for the rest of our lives? Will you let me hold you when you’re stressed, comfort you when you’re sad, celebrate with you when you’re happy?” he asked softly, and despite his nervousness, his voice dripped with velvet love and adoration as he looked into your eyes.

“Y/N, will you marry me?”

The tears rolled down your cheeks as you nodded eagerly, your hand trembling as you choked out, “Yes. Yes, of course I will, Sungie!”

Jisung’s hands shook almost as much as yours did as he slipped the ring onto your third finger. It was a perfect fit, a ring that perfectly matched your style and the size of your hand. It made you wonder for a moment how many times Jisung had snuck in secret looks at your hand in order to get it so perfect, but your thoughts vanished as Jisung surged forward almost desperately, smashing his lips against yours.

You giggled at his eagerness, although you weren’t any less excited, and under the glow of the full moon, the ring glittered as Jisung’s hands played with the curvature of your waist and your hands were buried in his soft locks. In that moment, it didn’t matter what the future held. It didn’t matter that Jisung’s beat up car might not survive the trip down the mountain.

All you knew was that you had each other, and to be honest, that was all you ever needed.

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usergreenpixel · 3 years

Text

Frev writing prompts, Part 5! Seriously, I have no idea how I keep coming up with these. 😅

36. The protagonist was born and raised by a troupe of traveling performers. For as long as they can remember, they have been traveling from place to place, never staying anywhere for a few days at most.

The protagonist’s father is the troupe’s flutist and singer while their mother is a puppeteer so the youth has always had a passion for the performing arts and dreams of traveling all over Europe with their big happy family.

Nicknamed “L’œillet rouge” (The Red Carnation) by the troupe as an homage to their father’s favorite flower, the protagonist enjoys playing the flute and singing with their father, as well as putting on puppet shows with their mother.

With a song in their heart, a smile on their face and their father’s precious flute in their hands, the protagonist travels all over the country with their family, entertaining the people of France but never settling down and they like it that way.

But one day, while the troupe is staying in Paris and putting on a rather satirical puppet show which mocks the current regime, the protagonist’s parents are suddenly arrested by the police. Apparently, the father is a dangerous rebel while the mother is guilty of having sheltered said rebel years ago.

The protagonist is convinced that there must be a mistake and decides to rescue their parents with the help of all the other troupe members, including the protagonist’s older maternal half-brother and their maternal grandparents, all of whom are eager to help.

The time is limited and the rescue will be far from easy, but the protagonist will be damned if they don’t at least try to succeed. So, with that in mind, the young flutist and their family start to concoct the rescue plan...

37. Rumors have it that people who have been murdered tend to become vengeful ghosts and haunt their killers to exact revenge.

This is certainly true for Robespierre and his supporters. Unable to find peace, their souls are brought back to the realm of the living, seeking revenge on the Thermidorians.

This particular circumstance is quite convenient for the protagonist, a spirit medium who summons these ghosts and intends to use them as tools in their plan to torment the Thermidorians and avenge their family that got massacred in Lyon, skillfully using the revolutionaries’ restlessness and anger to achieve their goal.

However, soon certain events make the protagonist question the morality of using these spirits. Perhaps the protagonist is no better than their enemies if they are not above manipulating others. Perhaps there’s another way… Nonsense! It’s not manipulation if the other people also want revenge and are dead anyway...right?

38. The heroine of the story, like many other girls of the noble class, grew up and got her education in a convent in her hometown of Caen, France.

As a result of this upbringing, the young woman is rather used to a sheltered life, her idealism is through the roof and she is rather nostalgic about her life in the convent and her friendship with another noble girl, Charlotte Corday, who is the heroine’s closest friend and confidant.

At first the noblewoman wants to stay out of the events of the revolution, dreaming of taking her vows as a nun and living a quiet life in the convent, but those plans are abruptly thwarted by Corday, whose influence slowly gets the naïve heroine deeper and deeper into the mess that is the French Revolution.

Being idealistic, easily trusting, quiet, pacifistic and devoutly Catholic, the heroine initially follows her best friend’s lead and trusts her judgement since Corday is the closest thing to a big sister that the young woman has.

However, when Corday tries to convince her to kill Jean-Paul Marat and end the revolution, the heroine starts having mixed feelings about her friend’s decisions, despite being angry with Marat for her own personal reasons. After all, her faith teaches to forgive, not to judge and take revenge, so now the heroine must make a choice.

Will she betray her best friend and ruin the plan or will she cast aside her morals to help Corday and, presumably, the rest of the country? Is Marat really the bloodthirsty monster that Corday says he is? Is there another way to deal with the situation at hand without any casualties? And what consequences will the main character face for the choice she makes?

39. The main character is an illegitimate son of a Russian noble and a serf (yes, serfs were still a thing in Russia) who got taken in by his father as a “ward” and sent to France to get a good education, as everything French was very fashionable in the Russian Empire at the time.

There, in Paris of 1789, the young man absorbs all the knowledge he can, learning languages, reading the prominent books written in the Enlightenment era and even befriends a man by the name of Maximilien de Robespierre, a lawyer from Arras and the representative of Artois.

Considering that Robespierre was almost born illegitimate, he is the first person in a long time who doesn’t judge the protagonist for the circumstances of his birth and accepts him for him. Excited to be accepted at long last, the young man begins to look up to Robespierre as a mentor and an older brother of sorts, quickly absorbing his ideas and supporting him.

So, naturally, when the revolution begins and the young man finds himself trapped in Paris, he joins the revolutionaries to fight alongside his mentor.

Thus begin his adventures.

40. The protagonist is a child of criminals forced to survive on the streets after losing their parents until they’re eventually taken in by a seemingly sympathetic Jacobin, given a new name, a home and a fresh start in life. The protagonist essentially becomes the revolutionary’s ward and their guardian even takes them to the Convention so the youth can observe the meetings.

All seems good for the protagonist...almost too good to be true. But eventually certain events force the protagonist to wonder if their new guardian truly cares about them.

Could it be that their Jacobin guardian has some sinister motives? And will the protagonist be able to move away from their “bad” heritage and live an honest life at last?

41. Barras is in love. Again.

Head over heels over a pretty servant he recently hired and she even seems to like her employer back. Even her suspiciously strong resemblance to a certain Jacobin who got executed in 1794 isn’t a dealbreaker for Barras and the smitten man writes said resemblance off as a coincidence.

The other Thermidorians, especially Fouché, are not that blind and they fear that a relative of that particular executed man is here to seek revenge. Fouché decides to investigate this seemingly ordinary and harmless young servant, suspecting that she has quite a few skeletons in her closet.

Are these suspicions going to be confirmed or is Fouché simply being paranoid?

42. Thermidor has just taken place. The Jacobins are imprisoned and it seems like the traitors are going to win. All hope is lost for the Jacobins and their enemies rejoice.

But little do the Thermidorians know that by betraying and imprisoning all the men who stand in their way, they have just acquired new enemies - women.

Revolutionary women.

Wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, goddaughters, lovers, wards, friends and sympathizers of the captured Jacobins who are not going to sit back and give up.

Seeing how bleak things are, these women, led by a mysterious woman who conceals her face behind a mask and calls herself “Citoyenne Liberté” (Citizen Liberty), decide to rescue their imprisoned loved ones from the clutches of the Thermidorians.

They’re running out of time, they’re outnumbered and not equipped with proper weapons, but that is hardly a problem they can’t solve and they’re willing to fight against the odds regardless of the obstacles.

After all, Heaven hath no fury like a woman scorned, which is what the Thermidorians are about to learn the hard way.

43. A singer and actress who used to perform in Venice flees to France after a scandal demolishes her reputation. Having only her voice and her acting to make ends meet, for a while she tries to find work in Paris but barely makes enough money for her and her son to survive.

Her only friend and confidant in this bleak situation is a future revolutionary who happens to admire the heroine’s singing and strongly believes that she deserves better. He even bonds with the actress’s toddler son and is willing to step up and become a proper father figure for the child.

Thanks to said revolutionary, the heroine’s life begins to change for the better and she decides to settle down in Paris. Even when she learns about the approaching revolution, she chooses to stay in the only place where she feels like she can belong.

What’s more, the actress finally finds her new purpose in life. She too can fight for the cause of her new partner and his friends, in her own way.

How is a woman whose main talents are acting and singing supposed to be able fight, you may ask? Why, by becoming a spy for the Jacobins and the singing voice of the revolution of course!

And she might just be able to prove that anyone can be a revolutionary and one doesn’t need to be a fighter nor an orator to help a noble cause.

44. A female servant working for Georges Danton has to practically flee the house of her employer after the latter crosses all the possible boundaries while drunk.

Fearing for her safety and profoundly traumatized by the event, the servant is found and taken in by a seemingly sympathetic man who sees Danton as a sworn enemy for his own reasons. Considering that both have a grudge against Danton and the man is a journalist, he and the servant team up to bring Danton down.

Will they succeed? Why does the journalist hate Danton? And is his desire to aid the heroine genuine?

45. Paris, France. The revolution is in full swing.

The Committee of Public Safety has to deal with multiple issues, the ongoing war is depleting France’s resources and the situation seems dire.

What’s more, a new newspaper, “La Voix de la Justice” (The Voice of Justice), began to circulate in the city. While this particular fact isn’t that surprising by itself, the thing that sets this newspaper apart from the rest is the fact that its author is anonymous.

Nobody knows who writes this newspaper but the articles are quite good and this mysterious person has already exposed several people who were using the Reign of Terror as an excuse for their atrocities.

Naturally, all these details catch the attention of Jean-Paul Marat and Camille Desmoulins, two of the most prominent journalists of that time. Intrigued by this new newspaper and its author, the two revolutionaries team up to track that person down, if only to find out who they are and thank them for helping their cause.

46. The protagonist grew up believing that Robespierre is single handedly responsible for the execution of their beloved aunt and uncle and, as a result, believes that the man deserved to be executed for that betrayal.

However, the protagonist is soon forced to question their judgment when their older cousin, Horace Desmoulins, reaches out to them in a letter, inviting them to Paris and claiming that he found evidence proving that in actuality Robespierre attempted to save Camille and Lucile Desmoulins, Horace’s parents.

Although the protagonist is skeptical at first, since Horace has always defended his godfather, they are still intrigued by their cousin’s invitation and leaves Guise to join Horace in his investigation.

Together, the two cousins are both determined to clear the names of Horace’s parents and figure out what role Robespierre actually played in the family tragedy.

47. The five protagonists are all members of a heavy metal band whose name and songs are an homage to the French Revolution.

Previously little more than a quintet of college misfits determined to rehabilitate this particular event and tell the real story through music, the band finally starts gaining popularity after a successful concert at a music festival in Marseille.

And then things take a turn for the unexpected when the band gets into an accident on their way home, only to wake up in Revolutionary France. Naturally, they now must survive and return home but this adventure might just become the inspiration they needed so much...

48. After the protagonist’s father leaves them and their blind mother behind to move to Paris, the protagonist is naturally upset. Year after year, they wait for their father to return but he never does.

In 1789, after losing their mother to an illness, the protagonist decides that enough is enough and travels to Paris to confront their father. To their disgust, they soon find out that their father is now remarried, with a new family and quite rich while the protagonist is basically a pauper. Moreover, the father seems to have joined the revolutionaries, which is something that the protagonist cannot approve of either.

Now the protagonist wants to make sure that their father faces the music for his betrayal so they contact a journalist who is about to expose said father in an article.

A story of one of his enemies leaving behind his first family will be a nice addition to the already existing accusations of corruption, but the protagonist and the journalist soon realize that they are not immune to the consequences of their actions either and this article might cause more damage than they think it will.

49. (A reimagining of Aladdin) After their flute is broken beyond repair, the protagonist goes to a pawn shop to find a replacement for their practice.

It is there that an old ivory flute catches their attention so the protagonist purchases it, has it professionally restored and decides to keep it, ignoring the warning of the shopkeeper that it’s cursed and the suspiciously low price.

The protagonist is a skeptic and never believed in magic, curses and other occult things.

That is until they play the flute for the first time and a man poofs into existence like a genie from a lamp. Introducing himself as Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, he informs the protagonist that he used to be the owner of the flute but is now trapped in it because of black magic.

Despite their skepticism, the protagonist cannot logically explain anything that’s going on but wants to help so they strike a deal with Saint-Just - he is going to help the protagonist win over their love interest in exchange for freedom.

As for how the spell is supposed to be broken, the protagonist is completely clueless but their mysterious neighbor with a knack for alchemy and the occult might be able to help…

50. Lyon, France.

The future Thermidorians mercilessly massacre innocent people and rule with an iron fist. Just today they massacred several prominent noble families of the city for defying them.

However, what the tyrants do not know is that they didn’t massacre everyone, for the daughters of the executed nobles are currently living at a convent to get education, as was common back then.

Upon receiving the tragic news and fearing that these young girls are going to end up on the death list, two nuns, the heroines of the story, come up with a plan to escort the girls out of the city and get them to a different location where they would be safe.

The plan is daring but the risk is too high to sit there and do nothing. Will the nuns be able to keep their students safe?

Let me know in the comments or DMs if any of my prompts interest you! I can help you with certain prompts if you want! 😊

#louis antoine de saint just #french revolution #writing #writing prompts #frev #paul barras #I still refuse to make a fouche tag #charlotte corday #jean paul marat #camille desmoulins #lucile desmoulins

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vintagegoddess12 · 3 years

Text

The Purple Brick Road (2)

Relationship: Agatha Harkness/Reader

Story summary: Agnes is in Westview when You arrived, which gave Agatha a way out of her current predicament.

Chapter Summary: Agnes finds herself walking. Reader finds herself fighting.

To check the prequel, see 5 Times Agatha Pushed the Limits and the 1 Time She Shouldn’t Have

A/N: You asked for an update! Here it is! If you want some guide on what questions you should be asking, just look at the tags below. Hope you like this chapter.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Agnes wakes up in an empty room - familiar but empty.

She goes down to her kitchen, ready to do her daily task: prepare breakfast, fix herself, wake up dear husband Ralph, and help him get to work, tend the garden, - but today was different. Today she has to go to the town square.

Has to or wants to?

She’s not entirely sure. Sometimes she feels like things are decided for her. It’s like an automatic - no, that’s not right. It’s like uhm, like-

Casserole!

The housewife landed her sight on the set of pans on her kitchen counter. Maybe Ralph would like to have chicken casserole for dinner. She approached her fridge and began taking out the ingredients, even though she does not remember buying them at all.

Potatoes.

Carrots.

Chicken.

Autopilot!

That is the word she’s looking for. It’s like life on autopilot. Agnes placed the ingredients down and tried to think more. Why is it on autopilot? Try as she might, she can’t dig deep inside her brain.

Agnes finds herself threading the road of Westview leading to the town gazebo. A little pep in her step made it look like she meant to do this; to walk out of her house and go without any reason but she doesn’t. She can’t even remember when she decided to leave the comfort of her four walls.

“Ralph will sure be confused when he wakes up without his food,” she thought to herself. Agnes, despite being alone outside, scoffed as if the idea of a waiting husband is repulsive enough.

Unlike her normal expressions, this one feels like rebellion. Like she’s going off-script. Like someone else is reacting for her. Who could that be? Agnes is Agnes. Wife of Ralph. Friend of Wanda. Westview’s most nosy neighbor. Though “most” feels like an empty title. After all, she’s the only one in this town.

The confusion in her head did not stop her from reaching the gazebo. She looks at the town square and its suffocating imagery of unkempt grass and fallen leaves. The white paint seems to darken over time. There are chairs strewn all over the place. Facilities that are far too dirty for her liking. One glaring fact is that it’s empty. It’s always empty, especially these days.

She still can’t remember why she has to be here. Her neighborly presence isn’t exactly needed when there is no one at all. Not when her feet are aching to be elsewhere. Somewhere that isn’t here - or in Westview at all.

Agnes was about to walk away when she heard leaves crunch against the ground. The unmistakable sound of footsteps approaches her and she can’t help but feel excited. Someone’s here. Someone other than her and her good-for-nothing husband is here. A warm feeling sets across her skin, with her heart pumping so fast.

She meets the owner of the welcomed footsteps just around the gazebo. A sight to behold. A person to befriend. A witch to help me!

What?

Agnes immediately forgets the last thought when she greets her with her friendliest voice in history.

“Hiya, hon! I’m Agnes!

---

[Y/N] woke up in a strange room with familiar faces.

Eight to be exact. The eight Mothers surround the walls of the unfamiliar room, where they are not the strangest thing for you. On your bedside is a man holding your hand, worry evident in his eyes. You also see your mother nearby, her eyes red and tired.

You looked at them, trying to fathom what could have happened that required such an audience. Your body started coping up with your mind and distributed pain all over. The mattress underneath you is the only solace against the ache in your limbs. You can only mutter what seems to be the most important thought in your head.

“Where’s Agatha?” Your voice hoarse and small reached the ears of the Witch Mother. She smiled weakly. Happy to see you awake, afraid to know what happens next.

“[y/n], you’re alive!” The man, whom you know as Eli, you groom, greeted you. His hold tightened and his smile widened. His presence, though comforting, does not calm the wave of worry you have for your friend. Where is she?

“I’m so glad you’re awake, dear,” your mother’s voice brought you back to the present. She looks so tired. Now that you see it, all of them are exhausted but why?

“Where is Agatha?” You try to ask once more, hoping this time you get an answer. The Mothers looked amongst themselves before asking Eli to leave the room. He released your hand and told you to ask for him should you need anything. He left the room but not before hugging your mother goodbye. What is happening?

The Witch Mother trained her gaze on you while the others asked how you felt. Confused with everything, you replied, “I’m fine.”

Something is not fine here.

You decide to ask the question you should have had when you woke up. “What happened?”

The Mothers looked at Evanora, waiting for the queen to speak up. Despite your misunderstanding, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for the dark circles emerging under her eyes.

She cleared her throat before speaking. “You were found in the forest, unconscious. The Book of the Cursed is suspected to have played a part in this.”

“When you say unconscious, do you mean dead?” You asked as snippets of what happened slowly coming back.

“Yes,” she replied, water forming in her eyes. “We brought you back using a ritual that used most of our life force.”

“Necromancy?” You sat up on the bed, anxious to hear her reply.

The practice of reanimation is a spell used to bring people back for only a short period of time. Borrowed life for borrowed time. You glanced at your chest and noticed it rises and falls in its own accord. No witch or Mother is controlling it.

“Something more divine,” she answered vaguely, her eyes darting to a covered book with tendrils of magic around it.

You remember the forbidden artifact that started all of it. “Divine or cursed?” You asked bitterly.

The mattress dipped beside you and you can feel your mother caress your face. You turned to her familiar touch. “The important thing, love, is that you’re here,” she pulled you into a hug. “You’re safe with us.”

Your mother let you go and smiled at you. Still, your heart is racing until you know your friend’s destiny. “You still haven’t answered my question.” Silence fell upon the room. Everyone is scared to verbalize the future of the maiden in question.

“Where the hell is Agatha?”

One of the Mothers had the courage to speak up, afraid that you might retaliate should they make you wait any longer. “She’s being detained…” she trailed off, hoping someone else could continue. You looked at her expectantly, urging her to go on. “...on the grounds of the murder of a sister witch.”

You turned to Evanora, only to see defeat in her eyes.

“She didn’t do this to me.”

“[y/n], she was caught in the act,” your mother tried to reach for you but you swatted her away.

You got up from the bed, ignoring the pain in your body. “Agatha can never hurt me. She will never lay a finger on me.” You tried to reason.

“Agatha Harkness’s behavior has proven that she is not above hurting others, should it allow her to get what she wants.” A Mother explained.

“Yes, the Tug,” another seconded.

“The Tug was different, we were dueling.” You intercepted. They’re accusing her of a crime she had nothing to do with. Nothing may not be the right word. Still, you know in your heart that she didn’t do this.

The Mothers listed all the reasons why Agatha should be detained and punished, with the exception of Evanora. Commotion filled the room and all you could do was try to remember what happened.

The Book of the Cursed is placed between you and Agatha, it’s magic inviting.

Flashes of your hands being tied come to your mind.

Agatha approached the book. The black mists enclose her hands, yellow magic touching blue. She allowed the energy to flow through her every vein. You watched as Agatha Harkness embraced the darkness. You tugged on your magical bindings, hoping to free yourself but you were too late. Blue irises became purple. Blue magic became purple. Blue became no more.

“If you have any information,” the Witch Mother’s voice rose above the others, “that can relieve Agatha of these allegations, tell us now than later.”

The maiden held the ball of purple energy in her hand. Entranced and enlightened. You witnessed how the book responds to her, every tendril in her command. Agatha met your gaze, her expression unreadable to you. Suddenly, the purple magic was sent flying in your direction.

“What happens later?” You asked, even though you know the answer. You’re a Mother. You know the rules. You know it all too well.

“She will be burned at the stake,” she replied with her voice breaking. Your eyes widened and rushed towards her. You were stopped, however, by a ring of blue mists going around the room. A protection ring to keep you inside cast by the Mothers.

“You have to stay here, [y/n].” Your mother joined the others as they walked out the door. “I will not let her hurt you ever again.”

“Mother, who hurts me is up to me,” you tried to reason even if you know it’s already pointless. “And I’m telling you she can never do that to me. Agatha is not a murderer!” The verdict is out for them. She’s already tainted in their eyes.

You hate how your memory is not as pristine as it used to be. Only flashes of what happened are in your mind. Still, you try to replay what happened.

Agatha met your gaze, her expression unreadable to you. Suddenly, the purple magic was sent flying in your direction.

No, that can't be right. She will never.

Agatha can never hurt you, right?

#wandavision #agatha harkness #agatha harknes x reader #agnes wandavision #agnes x reader #wanda maximoff #the purple brick road #what can I say?#I'm a sucker for angst #Did Agatha hurt you?#Is Agnes gonna be okay?#Will you remember what happened?#is Eli a good guy?

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queen-scribbles · 3 years

Text

Meet the Family

Mass Effect Relationships Week Day 3: Missed Opportunities

The second I saw this one, I knew I had to fill it with the what-if of Gabe not being KIA pre-trilogy so Lisa actually gets to a) keep her surrogate brother and b) introduce him to Kaidan. This is immediately post-ME1, and for people unfamiliar with Lisa, she didn’t sleep with Kaidan before Ilos, even though she really, really likes him, so they’re still figuring out Them as a Couple(?). Fun time to meet the family :D

------

Lisa paced back and forth along a small section of the cafe’s outdoor seating, never far from their table, and picked at the edge of the bandage around her left arm.

“Shepard, if you peel that off, it’s gonna scar,” Kaidan reminded her for the fifth time in two days, barely looking up from the menu.

“Scars are badass,” she countered with a smirk. “And I-”

But the rest of her comeback was aborted when she spotted an approaching figure and hopped the patio railing with a whoop to charge toward him.

Fortunately Gabe saw her coming, so her enthusiastic tackle-hug didn’t send them tumbling into Citadel foot traffic. He laughed as he hugged her back, hard enough some of her bruises complained(she ignored them). “Hey Lise! Long time no see.”

Lisa’s only reply was a happy grunt, muffled against the side of his neck as she held tight. It had been pure chance after the battle she’d noticed one of the Alliance ships that went against Sovereign was his, and she was still relieved she hadn��t lost him without even knowing he was there.

When they finally let go, Gabe caught her injured wrist in a loose grip and shot her a significant look. “What have you been doing with yourself, Lisa?”

Lisa snorted and gestured at the damaged Citadel around them. “Playing the hero, of course.”

He shook his head with a wry laugh. “Of course. You never could help yourself.”

She snorted and lightly poked the scars that cut through his eyebrow and across the bridge of his nose. “You’re one to fucking talk, Palléon.”

“Language, Lisa Anne,” Gabe chided with exaggerated affront. He slung an arm around her shoulders. “C’mon, didn’t you have crew you wanted me to meet...?”

“Oh, yeah. That,” Lisa drawled, shifting his arm so it wasn’t resting on the glass cuts peppering the back of her neck. “Turns out only Alenko could make it, so he’ll have to do for now.”

She left off he was the one she most wanted Gabe to meet, but from the look she got, he at least suspected. “Mm-hm.”

“Behave, Gabriel.” She wasn’t sure if it was a warning or a request, but it set mischief dancing in his dark grey eyes either way.

“Yes, ma’am, Commander Shepard, ma’am,” he teased.

Lisa rolled her eyes and tugged him toward the cafe entrance. “Y’know, for bein’ like my big brother, you sure can be a little shit sometimes.”

“That’s my job,” Gabe said cheerfully.

She lightly bopped the back of his head. “Please, Gabe.” This is important to me.

Something in her tone made him sober and he nodded as they stepped on to the cafe patio, letting his arm drop from around her shoulders. “Sure, Lise.”

“Thanks.” She was grinning as they closed distance to the table she and Kaidan had staked out. Kaidan pushed to his feet just as they got there and Lisa took half a step back to not be in the way as she made introductions. “Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, Major Gabriel Palléon.” (Why were her palms sweaty?) “Gabe, this is Kaidan.”

Gabe held out a hand to shake. “Good to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, sir,” Kaidan said, smile warm but posture military-stiff as he shook Gabe’s hand and Lisa bit back a giggle. Bless him for wanting to make a good impression. (It was cute. When did she start thinking things were cute?!) “L-Shepard’s talked about you quite a bit.”

“Likewise,” Gabe laughed. “But we can save the formality for on-duty, huh? Gabe’s fine.”

Kaidan chuckled as the three of them sat. “Fair enough. Though since Shepard and I serve together, I’ll probably stick to it with her.”

There was also the--probably vain--hope a semblance of formality would help mask whatever was between them until they sorted it out themselves. Which would hopefully be soon. She’d promised they could figure it out later, and she’d never made a promise she wanted to keep more. But for now, better to focus on the fact Kaidan was getting to meet the closest thing to family she had left in the galaxy. She wanted (needed) them to hit it off.

“So I hear you’ve been largely responsible for keeping Lisa alive the past several months,” Gabe said, taking the menu she nudged him with a nod of thanks. “She hasn’t been able to mention all the details, but that one’s come up a few times.”

“Oh, she’s plenty good at keeping herself alive,” Kaidan demurred with a small smile. “I just tag along to watch her back. In case she needs me.”

Lisa snorted and shook her head. “He’s bein’ modest,” she informed Gabe as she nudge Kaidan’s shoulder. “If it wasn’t all classified to hell and back, I could spend at least an hour filling you in on all the ways he’s saved my neck. And he brews the best damn pot of coffee--sorry, Gabe--I’ve ever had in my life, which has saved everyone from me on more than one occasion.”

“Better than mine?” Gabe asked in a faux-injured tone, but she could see the corners of his mouth twitching and almost kicked him under the table.

The only reason she didn’t was the server showing up to take their orders.

After they’d finished and the server headed off, Gabe sighed dramatically. “At least I know she’s in good hands.”

Kaidan chuckled, rubbed the back of his neck. “I do my best.”

“So, Gabe,” Lisa interjected, “one thing I’m dying to know; your unit’s always been out toward the edges of Council space, lots of groundside assignments. What the hell were you doing on a ship so close to the Citadel, anyway?”

Gabe shrugged apologetically and shook his head. “Sorry, Lise. Classified.”

She waved it off. It had only been 50-50 odds he could tell her anyway. “S’alright, I know the drill. What’ve you been up to that you can talk about?”

He pursed his lips in thought. “Supervised a couple clean up ops, but the last few months have been mostly ferreting out a pirate cabal that started getting a little bolder around some of our colonies and outposts than Command’s comfortable with. But I don’t want to waste time talkin’ about work.”

Lisa arched a brow. She had a sneaking suspicion she could guess the... membership composition of this cabal if he was changing the subject so quickly. But she let him get away with it. “Okay, but work’s almost all we’ve been doing the past few months,” she pointed out, jerking her thumb at Kaidan. “So unless you got a new girlfriend an’ wanna enlighten me, there won’t be much else to talk about...”

“You didn’t have any downtime?” Gabe prodded, shaking his head in silent answer to her half-joking needling. “No time for fun shit on the Normandy?”

“Talking, card games, playin’ with my omnitool...” Lisa shrugged. “The usual in-between missions shit.”

“You and that omnitool,” Gabe teased.

This time she did kick him under the table. “Hey, you’re the one who gave it to me.” She smiled sweetly. “Thanks for picking a model that plays nice with upgrades and tweaks.”

“I created a monster,” he lamented theatrically, and moved his leg when she went to kick him again. “What about you, Kaidan, you do anything different than my favorite tech nerd, or do you have roughly the same idea of fun?”

Kaidan laughed. “Same, I’m afraid. Chatting, playing cards, tweaking omnitool functions.”

The server came back with their drinks and assurance the food would only be a few more minutes.

“You have a favorite when it comes to cards?” Gabe asked as he took a drink.

Kaidan shrugged and shook his head. “Anything’s fun. I guess if you made me pick, probably poker.”

Gabe’s eyes lit up and he leaned forward, “Tell me you cleaned her out,” he said, leveling a finger at Lisa. “Please.”

Kaidan grinned and held up two fingers. “Twice.”

“Excellent.”

“Hey!” Lisa protested, fighting a grin.

“Your reign of terror needed to end, Lise,” Gabe returned. “You’re just lucky it wasn’t me.”

She snorted. “Like that would ever happen.”

“That’s hurtful,” he grinned.

“Gabe. I love you like a brother, and you’re very good at many things,” Lisa said with a matching grin, “but poker isn’t one of them.”

“I can help you work on that if you want,” Kaidan offered, ignoring the ‘Traitor!’ look Lisa sent him.

“And I might take you up on that,” Gabe said, smirking at her. Clearly he had caught the ‘Traitor!’ look.

“I’m feeling ganged-up on,” Lisa groused, still grinning.

Kaidan took pity on her and changed the subject as the server reappeared with their food. Gabe--still smirking--played along. It came out in the ensuing conversation they rooted for the same hockey team, though Kaidan was decidedly less... intense about it, and it was not Lisa’s team of choice.

There was no overlap in movie genre preference between the three of them, which turned into a spirited, good-natured debate that consumed almost a whole hour before Kaidan steered them to a different topic. Lisa gave his shoulder a grateful nudge for that; it was one thing to get stuck in sibling-loggerheads with Gabe when they were sprawled on the couch just shooting the shit. This was different.

All told, it took them almost four hours of friendly conversation--and frequent teasing--to start winding down. Lisa had a sneaking suspicion if she wasn’t the Savior of the Citadel they would have been asked to leave much earlier. The cafe was very busy, despite the damage surrounding it. She made sure to leave the server a large tip when she paid.

Kaidan and Gabe where shaking hands farewell when she rejoined them, Gabe just finishing a comment she didn’t catch that had Kaidan nodding with a small smile.

“Good to know,” he said, darting a glance at her. “And, again, good to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Gabe said, clapping him on the shoulder before he turned to hug Lisa. “Glad I got to see you, Lise.”

“You, too,” she replied, returning the hug with matching fervor. (He still gave the best hugs) “Hopefully we can get together again before going our separate ways, but for now, Alenko an’ I have a meeting to get to.”

“I’ll make sure to bug ya about that,” Gabe promised with a wink.

“I’m sure you will,” Lisa grinned. “See ya round.”

They headed off in their respective directions, and Lisa barely waited until they were safely out of earshot to ask, “What’s good to know?”

“Huh?” Kaidan shot her a bemused look.

“What Gabe said,” she clarified. “Or is that some guy thing I don’t actually wanna know?”

“Oh.” He smiled sheepishly. “Quoting him: Not to pry, but I think you’ll be good for her.”

Lisa huffed and twisted around as if she could glare at Gabe’s back, but he was already lost to view. “He- part of me wants to smack him for meddling in my love life.”

Kaidan hit the elevator call button, a curious smile just tugging at his lips. “And the rest of you?”

The laugh underlying his words nearly undid her. Lisa winked. “The rest of me agrees with him, so I’ll let it slide for now.” She arched a brow at him. “After all, we gotta figure out my love life b’fore I can get mad at him for meddlin’ in it, huh?”

Kaidan chuckled and let her step into the elevator first when it arrived. “Looking forward to it, Shepard. But lets focus on the meeting for now and us later.”

“Right. Later.” She bit her lip to hold back the flutter in her chest at his tone.

They rode in warm silence, hands so close their knuckles brushed, but neither said a word.

#queens fic #merweek2021 #lisa shepard #kaidan alenko #gabriel palléon #me: gives lisa an au where her surrogate big brother didn't die pre-game #me: wants to cry thinking about her canon AGAIN #i played myself /sweats #mass effect #mass effect fic #female shepard #commander shepard #mass effect 1

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shini--chan · 3 years

Note

Ohh can I have a love triangle with Y!1P America and Y!1P England with reader who is a British spy in america (or an american spy in the UK)?

Ah, you guys sure do love your love triangles. I do as well – there is just so much tension between the characters. Also, this ask was tricky because I just couldn’t decide if I wanted to write the UK spy or the US spy – for those of you that have read my stories on Quotev, you know I’ve written spy stories for both characters. So, in the end I decided to write both scenarios.

Yandere Love Triangle – England vs America (Spy AU!)

US spy

As I’ve mentioned in the England HCs, Arthur would like to have a lover with a lot of smarts. So, you being a spy would automatically tick all the boxes in that category. Alfred would be well aware of his father’s preferences in a lover and this want to capitalize on them.

America would consider using you as a Romeo agent in a Honey Trap operations – he sure wants to blackmail dear old dad – but then would see you as too skilled to restrict your work to seduction and further your tasks.

You looked at the man guiding you through the crowded streets of London. It was rush hour, far too many people for your liking either languidly milling about or rush ahead as if the devil was chasing them. His hand was on the small of your back, arm having pulled you too close to just be friendly.

Arthur Kirkland was moonstruck, shooting you longing glances every now and then. You knew that it was decency and respect that prevented him from showing blatant affection for you in public. Both of you were in a relationship, no matter how unofficial it was.

While he calmly strolled with you, pointing to the sights of the world famous city and explaining the history behind some monuments, you couldn’t help but wonder what it was that made him so special. Kirkland had his own eccentrics, yet none of those would have warranted the USA sending one of it’s top agents after him.

Your amazement would largely be founded in the fact that even in a relationship, Arthur had be very slow to open up to you. He would like to keep his secrets. Additionally, in his post-imperial afterlife he would be the equivalent of a lion padding in the drawing room anymore. He’d seem rather harmless on first inspection, opting to hide the traits that would make him so dangerous. You finding out somewhere down the line that he is the personification of a nation would be very enlightening to you.

Of course, while Alfred would intellectually know that you’re just a spy pretending to be over the moon, his emotional part would seethe with envy upon seeing with Arthur. It would motivate him to make his own moves – interrupting you while you would be out for dinner, making lewd jokes about you in his father’s presence. This would cause Arthur to cling to you ever more tightly, in the fear that his son would steal you from him.

When you would point out to Alfred that he would be sabotaging your mission, he would counter that he would just be aiding you. Arthur would become too obsessed with to see what you were doing; his advances would distract his father further and you wouldn’t be suspected because which country would try to sabotage their own missions. If he would be right or wrong would be left to be seen.

You dug your nails in his shoulders, making him groan into the kiss. His lips remained firmly pressed to yours for a few more moments before you tilted your head back to get some air. Your head was spinning from how vigorously Alfred had been kissing you and you swore that your cheeks were flushed.

Glancing at him, the dim light of the broom cupboard you were in allowed you to see the red doting him cheeks and the hunger that glinted in his eyes. He leaned in for another bout of smooching, but you quickly pressed your index finger to his mouth, lightly pushing him away.

The man left out a low whine when you denied him: “C’mon sugar, don’t be such a jerk.”

You shook your head: “This is going too far now. I’m supposed to be in a relationship with Kirkland …”

“Screw him”, Alfred interrupted you and bended down to plant butterfly kisses on your neck. In-between he said: “He can go screw himself. I told him that during my fight for independence and I’ll gladly tell him that now. I want you.”

UK spy

While his glory days would be long gone and over, Arthur would still regard himself as a global player. And to ensure that he would remain in his precarious position, he’d become invested in being privy to the secrets of others. Knowledge is power after all, and there would be few that would know that better than he would. That is where you would come into play, as his means to an end.

He would have it organised for you to be sent to act as his wayward son, after having reviewed your file as well as having evaluated you personally. This would be where England would start to take an interest in you. Therefor, he would pull some strings to have himself implemented as your direct superior and intermediator.

Since you would be a spy, you would have a lot of skills in your arsenal ranging from social skills to escape tactics, linguistics to sciences. This in turn would fulfil many of America’s criteria when it comes to the ideal partner. And because such people are rare, he would seize the chance when you would start to show interest in him.

Alfred might or might not notice that you would have ulterior motives for getting in a relationship with him. He would cling to regardless and convince himself that he could “help” you overcome all your flaws.

Of course, the more time you would spend wrapping Alfred around your finger, the more jealous Arthur would become. It would be a stead build up, the feelings festering and growing more intense until he wouldn’t be able to control them. Ironically, like his son in the previous half of the answer here, Arthur would see romancing you as a way to taunt Alfred, to make the younger personification angry, causing him to make mistakes.

However, England would be more tasteful than his offspring and opt to be more discreet with his advances to you. That way, you also wouldn’t be so inclined to push him away.

The public library was full at this hour, something that you intended to use to your advantage. It was New York, possessing one of the biggest public libraries in the world. Which was why you were somewhat surprised when Arthur comfortably slid into the chair opposite you, not the slightest hint of irritation on his face.

You granted your wristwatch a quick glance.

“Right on time.”, you stated as a substitute for a greeting.

As per usual, the absence of manners didn’t sit well with Arthur. “Good afternoon to you too”, he dryly said.

“I thought you would get lost before finding me.”

He chuckled at that, relaxing as much as the thin, polyester cushioning allowed. “You underestimate my abilities, my dear.”

Again, you were amazed at how your direct superior came on par with your skills. Most of those above you in the workplace hierarchy were either pencil-pushers or tech-geeks. Yet Kirkland really knew what he was doing. Additionally, he made it look easy. Secretly, you believed that he was holding himself back and that his talents actually exceeded yours. Yet that was a matter you could contemplate another time.

Wordlessly, you shoved a book on rose gardening for old people to him and he deftly snatched up the book, evidently pretending to not notice the non-verbal jab you had made at him for one of his more serene hobbies. Lightly, he opened up on the page where you had hidden it and greedily eyes the slip of paper and the access codes written on it.

He gave you a smile, one of the rarer ones that made you shiver. Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder to endure that unfriendly ears that hear what he was about to say. Unwarranted – Alfred was somewhere upstairs, hounding some poor librarian for old journals on the Mayan and Aztec cultures; he wouldn’t be coming soon.

“Well done”, he commented, showing you that he did have the capacity to give praise. “The next time you have something, feel free to pop by at my flat.”

Somehow you knew that that wasn’t an offer, it was an order.

#yandere hetalia #yandere england #yandere america #x reader #yandere x reader #yandere hetalia x reader

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flowervolcano · 3 years

Text

It’s finally time I sat down and just wrote this whole thing so I can get it off my chest and maybe help flesh things out for the majority of the fanbase.

Black Widow Spoilers are upcoming, scroll past if ya don’t wanna be spoiled.

Let’s start with “Hello, I am a Tony Masters fan, I adore him and his personality and generally everything about him, of course I am going to be upset that his character suffered such poor writing and adaptation, because it was insulting and gut punching to see a character you love be poorly executed.“

continue reading please because I’m trying to be reasonable here and share what a majority felt when viewing Black Widow (it may differ from yours but I hope it enlightens a few who may be confused or whatnot about this topic, generally it’s how I feel the fanbase as a whole had been handling it poorly)

quick side note, no one wants to feel their opinion doesn‘t matter, so be mindful the next time you fight someone just because you disagree, I love debating and talking so you can come at me if you disagree, I like educating myself on these things too in case someone can bring up actual arguments that prove their side and reasoning, on the other hand if I hear one more “it’s because she’s a girl huh?” I might very well scream.

Is it bad because he turned out to be a woman? Why is this the first thing that gets debated??

Let me explain just how annoying it is that this is the debate whenever it cuts down to it.

The answer is yes and no, I will explain why, because I don’t believe the gender should always matter to a character.

Although everything great about Tony was stripped from him, all of it, only the title “Taskmaster“ and I guess the color scheme if you will, stayed the same, it would’ve been the same trash written character even if he wasn’t a girl, because they had no personality no resemblance of the beloved character in the first place, which is why it is a bad idea to have changed him into a woman, why you may ask?

it’s the image, it creates an idea that women cannot be as great as men, that a female version of Taskmaster would just suck, be terrible and useless, it paints Antonia to be bland plot device character to show Black Widow‘s pain and suffering. The character herself has no substantial personality or drive, nothing, she’s just a victim. And yeah it is a tragic story I won’t say it isn‘t but it didn‘t work for me, and for a lot of fans as I’ve witnessed.

It would’ve been more effective to had foreshadowed the possibility of her being alive only to find that she had died and Natasha would then have to live with the fact that she murdered her for ”nothing” but no instead we decided that she would survive, only she was brainwashed, so there’s no real vendetta or motive as to why she tried to kill Natasha, it would’ve been more impactful if Antonia was angry with her attempt to kill her, wanting to show she could best her in every well possible. Like trying to tarnish her Avenger status.

There were variables on how to make Taskmaster a better written character, there is potential but I personally would like the Mandarin effect (which I love the comic Mandarin I was so mad in IM3 so I can’t believe they did it x2)

On top of it the fact that the plot twist you could see coming a mile away also felt like the biggest after thought in the whole movie, it felt like they had a different direction they were originally going to go, but they took the easy bait of “we need a big twist” which Marvel has suffered for years on, always with some twist and it’s getting sickening to see it happen every movie.

Besides the point, it doesn’t go over well a lot of the fanbase is conflicted, angry and there are actual debates, which it happens we have differing opinions, its hard to find a thing we all agree on… and yet the only defense I’m seeing is “it’s because she’s a girl now?“ “you just hate women.” I’m tired of being told it’s sexism when it’s not, this version of Taskmaster was already doomed, they didn’t wanna go a comic accurate to begin with, you can tell by how ugly the suit was. (no cape?? not even the mask was cool)

I had already suspected from the beginning of the first trailer that was NOT Tony Masters, something about it just felt like Blindstrike from Stretch Armstrong to me (they kept making it seem like a dude only to reveal it was a woman, although they executed that perfectly please give it a watch)

I had already called it, we barely even met Taskmaster yet I knew it from the trailer, I didn’t enjoy the movie it played out exactly how I expected (which my expectations were low)

I found it insulting for a few reasons, it made it seem like Black Widow is either too good or not good enough to fight a man, it felt like they wanted to push how powerful women are, which I’m all for, women are very powerful I would know because I am one.

But it rubbed me the wrong way that she can’t have an enemy go toe to toe with her unless it’s a woman?? It didn’t sit right with me, is this meaning she can’t have a rival that’s a man because men or stronger or weaker… that’s where my head went, the gender shouldn’t matter to her ever, we know Natasha can take out anyone, so why the sudden change of a character whose always been a male?

I understand the MCU wants to be diverse, but there are more female characters than a lot of the fanbase realize, the MCU has barely scratched the surface, instead of changing other characters drastically in the name of “diversity” they should just pull actual diverse characters, or create some, this version of Taskmaster doesn’t feel anything like Tony Masters, they lacked all flair, the fact that it’s just Winter Soldier and Ghost from AMATW 2.0 is just lacking.

it’s something we have seen before, and this wasn’t needed to “full circle” Natasha‘s story.

It’s not because Taskmaster is a girl that is the problem it’s the general writing that felt like they didn’t really care about the character and changing it to be a girl was like leading a lamb to the slaughter, so many fans were going to be enraged because they ruined everything about the character, so you should be mad they put the actress in this position, they chose to do that to the character and it feels like it was done on purpose, just for the reaction.

The character was already bad making it a girl just made it worse because it just felt bad. It gave me the impression that a female version of Anthony Masters is just boring, that is not what we should think but so many are, and yes a lot of people are mad just because it’s a woman because they might get the idea that the character would’ve been better if he was written to be a male, but what we all really want is just a good adaption of the character, that’s all, he very well could’ve been a woman and everyone might’ve been alright (some might be iffy or mad you cannot avoid this) but I know with good writing I would’ve been fine if it was Toni Masters, not this Antonia Dreykov.

And that is what I really could not tolerate and handle with what they did to Taskmaster.

It didn’t feel like they had plans to flesh the character out they were just marking boxes on “what comic character can we use for Black Widow” checklist.

I freaking love Tony Masters and he (and she) deserved better writing all around than what the MCU gave them (and us)

There was more I was going to add on but in my frustration I began to forget where I was going with this and didn’t get to properly express my feelings.

Now next time you see someone complaining over Taskmaster don’t just assume they are sexist, there’s so much more depth to the character which is why we’re so angry over this iteration, and the fact that people defend the character just because it’s a girl doesn’t go well for me, that’s a poor excuse for people who had more pressing reasons why the character was a failure, not because they’re a woman but because it feels like we can’t dislike them because they’re a woman.

Imagine if your favorite suffered the poor writing just for a different characters development, it is a terrible feeling and having people tell you not to be upset or say you’re sexist for being upset is so invalidating.

Not to mention that the MCU continues to erase many traits and personalities of characters and on top of that, their sexualities (where is that diversity??) is already frustrating but it’s starting to feel like the writers don’t even value the characters they have.

#marvel mcu #mcu #black widow #bw #natasha romanoff #taskmaster #tony masters #tony #black widow spoilers #marvel rant #rant #I’m just really upset #Sad

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