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a-simple-gaywitch · 3 years

Text

Embers to Ashes

hotch x unsub!reader

Summary: When (Y/N) leaves the BAU, she doesn’t expect to get wrapped up in a crime spree

Word Count: 2609

Warnings: abusive relationship, pregnancy & mentions of childbirth, typical criminal minds violence

“The real monsters are humans without conscience.” -Robert E. Keller

Your decision to leave the BAU was not an easy one, but it was what was best. After your mother fell ill, you decided to move back home to care for her, as she was alone. Your team protested, not wanting you to leave, of course. Penelope fought for you to stay the hardest. She was like the sister you never had.

The team followed you to the airport to see you off. Hugs went around, followed by promises that you’d call when you land. The only person who didn’t hug you was Hotch, which you found weird for a number of reasons. Even Spencer hugged you, and he wasn’t big on physical affection. And you’d always thought you and Hotch were close.

“Hey, promise me you’ll keep in touch,” he said, resting his hand on your shoulder.

“Yeah, of course,” you said.

“Oh, I need another hug!” Penelope said, squeezing you tight again. She’d been crying the whole time and her mascara was running. “I’m gonna miss you so much, Peaches.”

“I’m gonna miss you too, Pen,” you said. You glanced at your watch. “Okay, I really have to go now. I love you guys so much.”

You were grocery shopping for your mother when you ran into him. Nicholas Gully, one of your old high school friends.

“(Y/N)? (Y/N) (L/N)?”

“Nick! Hi!” you said, tossing the box of pasta into your shopping cart. “How have you been?”

“Oh, great. What about you? Big FBI agent out at Quantico.”

You laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of your neck. “Yeah, uh, I actually quit.”

“What? Why? All you talked about in high school was getting into the academy.”

“Uh, well, it’s because of Mom actually. She’s sick. I quit to move back out here and help her until she… Well…”

“Yeah. Well, I’m here if you need to, I don’t know, let off steam?” He handed you a business card. “Here. My number. Give me a call, we’ll go out for drinks or something.”

You smiled. “Thanks, Nick. It was good seeing you.”

Your mom died about a month after you moved home. You were an only child, so it was your responsibility to handle all of her affairs. It was stressful, and you felt isolated. Alone.

You looked at all the funeral plans spread out on the kitchen table, and before you knew it, you’d called Nick and asked him to come over.

What happened next was a blur. You buried your mother next to your father, Nick stayed by your side the whole time. While your mind was clouded with grief, you thought the only good thing to come of it was your new relationship with Nick.

He was nice. He treated you well and helped you through your grief. Only, he didn’t like how much you talked to Penelope and Emily, saying that it was unnatural to be so close to your ex-coworkers. So you stopped talking to them.

Nick moved in with you not too long into your relationship. He said that living in your mother’s house alone wasn’t healthy for you. He helped you sort and pack up her belongings, taking the things you weren’t keeping or throwing out to the thrift store.

You were together for about 8 months before your relationship changed.

You hadn’t been feeling well and you had your suspicions. You took a trip to the drug store and bought a few tests while Nick was at work. You took all of them, trying to rule out a false positive.

When you heard Nick come in from work, you decided to tell him.

“Hey, Nick? I have some news,” you said after he put his work bag down on the couch.

“What’s up?”

“Um, you know how I haven’t been feeling well lately? Well, I went to the pharmacy and picked up some pregnancy tests. They were all positive.”

“Are you serious? You’re pregnant?”

You nodded. “I’m calling my doctor first thing tomorrow to schedule an appointment.”

Nick’s tone should have tipped you off to his true nature. But you were in too deep.

A few months passed. You were showing significantly, though your doctor was worried about your health. The bags under your eyes grew, and you were showing up to your appointments with more and more bruises on your arms. One day you came in with a poorly concealed black eye.

One day, you came home from a doctor’s appointment to see Nick packing some bags.

“Nick? What’s going on?”

“We’re going on a trip,” he said. “Roadtrip, it’ll be fun.”

“Nick, I’m 7 weeks away from my due date-”

“You’ll be fine,” he snapped, thrusting a bag at you. “Get in the car.”

You headed outside, Nick’s hand firmly on your back. He steered you away from your old clunker towards a shiny new SUV. “Did you buy a new car?” you asked.

“Sure, buy. Let’s go with that.”

“Nick, what did you do? What did you get us into?”

“Don’t worry about it. Get in.”

“Nick-”

“I said, get in.”

“Des Moines PD has a case for us,” Penelope said. “As do St. Louis, Louisville, and Charleston.”

“Carjacking?” Morgan asked, flipping through the case file. “Why are they asking us to come in?”

“It’s the same MO,” Hotch explained. “It’s a couple, a man and a woman, presumably his wife or girlfriend. They find a home just outside the city and take the car at night, leaving the previously stolen car.”

“They’re active at night? How do we know it’s a team?” Spencer asked.

“The second victim had security cameras installed. They caught glimpses of the couple, but not enough for us to identify,” Penelope explained.

“Why are they only bringing us in now?” Emily asked. “It says the first theft was over a month ago.”

“Because this one ended in a murder and assult. The surviving victims are at the hospital. Wheels up in 30,” Hotch said.

When the team landed in West Virginia, Hotch divided the team up between the hospital, the crime scene, and the coroner’s office. Hotch and Emily took the hospital to interview the victims. One was a woman in her mid-30s, and the other was her 6-year-old son. The husband had been the murdered victim.

“Hi, Mrs. Foster? I’m Agent Hotchner,” Hotch said, taking a seat next to the woman with Emily. “Would you mind answering a few questions for us?”

“Well, I’m-I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to remember but…”

“Anything you tell us can help us catch these two,” Emily said, gently patting the woman’s hand. “We’re going to try something called a cognitive interview, to see what your subconscious picked up, okay?”

The woman nodded. “Okay.”

“Go ahead and close your eyes,” Emily said. “So, it was late. You and your husband were getting ready for bed. Then what?”

“Neil heard a noise,” she said. “He said it sounded like a man. He grabbed Micah’s little league bat from beside the front door. He told me to wait inside. Micah had fallen asleep on our couch and came to see what was going on. I-I heard Neil yell and I heard a gunshot. I ran outside and I saw a couple. A man and a woman.”

“What can you tell me about them? What did they look like?”

“I didn’t see the man too well, but the woman, well, I only saw her face. But she looked bad.”

“What do you mean?” Emily asked.

“Well, her skin was sunken and sallow. She had bruises all over. She looked like she was ready to drop at any second.”

“Okay. What happened then?”

“Neil was bleeding on the ground. I-I ran over to him and felt for his pulse. It was already gone. Then the man hit my head with the gun, and I fell to the ground. But Micah- I didn’t know Micah followed me. The man pointed his gun at Micah. I was terrified. I thought he was going to shoot my son, too. But then the woman stood in front of the gun. She started pleading with the man. I was fading in and out of consciousness, but I heard her.”

“Nick, don’t!”

“What did I tell you? You don’t get to call me that, whore.”

“I-I’m sorry, sir. But, please, don’t hurt him. He’s just a boy.”

“He saw our faces. You know the police are already on our trail. We can’t have a kid squealing to the cops.”

“No, I… I won’t let you.”

“You won’t let me?”

“He hit her,” Mrs. Foster said. “Hard. It was so hard I thought he shot her, too.” She shook her head. “After that, he knocked me out. I don’t know what happened next. I just remember waking up here.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Foster,” Hotch said. “This was very helpful.” Hotch and Emily got up to leave.

“Wait, Agent Prentiss,” she called after Hotch left the room. Emily turned around. “When you find them, go easy on the woman.”

“Why would you want us to do that?” she asked.

“I work at a battered women’s shelter. I see women like her all the time. She’s profoundly abused. She’s not a criminal, she’s a victim.”

Micah Foster was able to give a detailed description of the man to the sketch artist. Thanks to his description, they were able to track him down outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. What they weren’t counting on was seeing you, in the passenger seat.

Nick didn’t want to go down without a fight. But his idea of a fight was to use you as a human shield. He held you in front of him, his arm bracing against your throat. He had a gun in his other hand, training it on the team.

“You shoot, you hit her!” he said, pressing harder on your throat.

“Okay, okay,” Morgan said, holding his gun up in surrender. “We won’t shoot. Just let (Y/N) go.”

Nick turned the gun and pressed it to your temple. “Why are you so concerned about her?

“Because she’s a person,” Derek said, trying to negotiate. “She doesn’t need to get hurt.”

A gunshot went off. You screamed and stumbled forward, Morgan catching you. Nick fell to the ground, dropping his gun and gripping his thigh. Hotch had snuck up behind and shot him in the leg.

The next thing you knew, you were in an interrogation room with Hotch and Emily.

“(Y/N), what happened?” Emily asked you, her voice gentle. “You look awful. What did he do to you?”

Your eyes were trained on the table. “Nothing. He treats me with nothing but respect. I did this to myself.”

“(Y/N), we all know that’s not true,” Emily said. “Talk to us. You know us.”

You kept your eyes on the metal table and you stayed quiet.

“Damn it, (Y/N)!” Hotch yelled, slamming his hands on the table. You flinched back, closing your eyes and wincing like you were bracing for a hit. Hotch took a step back. “Prentiss, take over.”

He left the interrogation room and stormed over to the second room where Morgan and Reid were interrogating Nicholas.

“Hotch-”

“What the hell did you do to her?” Hotch nearly screamed, his blood boiling.

Nick smiled. “I didn’t do anything, she did it all to herself.”

“We both know that’s not true, you piece of-”

“Aaron!” Rossi said, cutting him off. He then proceeded to pull Hotch from the interrogation room. “What the hell is going on with you?”

Hotch took a deep breath, rubbing his hand over his face. “You saw her, Dave. You saw what that asshole did to her. You saw her flinch away from me. That’s a woman who has faced down some of the worst humanity has to offer, and she’s been so badly abused that she’s…”

“Aaron, you know what abuse does to people. We’ve seen it more times than I ever want to count.”

“But it’s never been someone we know. It’s never been someone we love.”

“Ah. So that’s what this is about.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Why don’t you sit this one out? Prentiss and I can handle it.” Rossi walked into the room and sat next to Emily. Emily had given you a glass of water.

“(Y/N), why did you save the mother and her son?” she asked you.

“I don’t know,” you said, twisting the glass around in your hands.

“(Y/N).” Emily reached out and put her hand on yours. “You specifically looked out for the boy. Why?”

A tear rolled down your cheek. “Nick made me leave mine,” you whispered.

“What?”

“He said she would slow us down, that she was a burden. He made me leave her at a church. I didn’t even get to hold her.” After that, you broke down sobbing. Emily slowly crossed to the other side of the table and cautiously put her arm around you.

The team worked out a deal for you with the DA. You would be acquitted if you testified against Nick, and you would be closely watched by the team.

“She can’t keep sleeping on the couch in the conference room, Hotch,” Rossi said as the team gathered in the bullpen. You were asleep and the team wanted you to have peace. “She can come stay with me. Lord knows I have the space.”

“Wait, why should she stay with you? She’s my best friend,” Penelope argued. “She can stay with me.”

“Babygirl, you don’t have a spare room,” Derek reminded her. “I can take her in.”

“She just spent the better part of two years under the thumb of an alpha male, do you think she’d feel comfortable staying with another one?” Emily said.

“Did any of you think maybe she should make her own choice?” Spencer piped up. “I mean, she hasn’t been able to make her own choices, I think we should at least give her that.”

“Reid is right,” Hotch said. “We should let her make the choice. And please, don’t pressure her. She’s not the same (Y/N) she was when she left. She’s been through hell and back.”

In the end, you chose to stay with Aaron. Something about him made you feel safe. Slowly but surely, you started warming up again. You spent your days taking care of Jack when Hotch was on cases. When Aaron was home, he spent time with you and Jack. The two of you grew closer and closer.

You’d stayed with Aaron for a few months before there was a shift in your relationship. You weren’t sure when it happened, but you and Aaron were closer. You became more comfortable with physical contact, and you found yourself curling up on the couch with Aaron for movie nights after Jack went to bed.

You kissed Aaron first. He’d come back from a case with a book he knew you’d been wanting to read. It was something simple, but it meant the world to you, knowing there was someone who listened to you and wanted to do something nice for you.

Your relationship blossomed from there, and Aaron made sure to show you he respected you and never wanted to hurt you. Of course, there were bad days and there were days you argued, but Aaron never raised a hand against you. He never wanted you to experience the pain Nick caused you ever again.

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.” - Mark Twain

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #x reader #em's fics

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crystalwillow · 3 years

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Exiled Problems – Part Six

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x Casey Valentine (F!MC)

Features: Bryce Lahela

Word Count: 1.9K

Warning: This AU features themes of; Angst, Swearing, Alcohol Use, Violence, NSFW Material (Mature Themes, 18+)

Taglist: @sophxwithers @otakudreamer @an-jell-o @curiousconch @mm2305

=================================

The weeks turned into months and before they knew it Ethan and Casey were taking lunchtimes to the park, sitting in the coolness of shade in the warm summer heat. Casey had taken to ordering lunch to Ethan’s apartment or making them a small picnic. Ethan would then pick her up from outside his apartment block and they’d drive to the nearest park and take a stroll around the duck pond or small nature trail before heading back to Ethan’s car and getting back to their respective jobs. The past few months hadn’t been easy on Casey’s family or Bryce and his family if she were to be honest with herself. Tabloid headline after tabloid headline was speculating about what ‘trouble could be in paradise’ for the couple that seemed to be so happily engaged mere months ago.

Truth is, they weren’t engaged; not really. Casey hadn’t said one word to Bryce that didn’t consist of “fuck.”, “dickhead.”, “off”, or a phrase that was similar to that of “If I wanted to catch an STI I’d come home.”

She despised him more than she did her parents. They could have picked from any eligible bachelor for her to fake a marriage to, but they had to pick him. The most insufferable and intolerable man on planet Earth.

Today however, Casey had brought the picnic to Ethan’s office as the rain poured down outside, ping ponging off the Boston streets that are quieter than normal as people stay in work or at home, diving into the nearest store for shelter; or making their way into coffee shops using their jackets as a temporary umbrella from the natural shower that threatens to soak through their clothes.

As she knocked on his office door, Casey shivered a little from the cold and the rain that dampened her clothes as she forgot her umbrella and had to run from the taxi into the hospital. After a few moments the door opened, Ethan’s greet smile falling into a look of concern as he saw Casey shiver.

“You’re soaked.” he exclaims

“Yeah, that… tends to happen when one forgets their umbrella.” she giggles nervously.

He shakes his head with a bemused smile and steps aside, opening the door wider and inviting her in, closing it again swiftly behind her.

“I’ve borrowed a round table from the cafeteria.” he states, motioning to the table that’s a new addition in the corner of his room. Casey looks over at it and smiles. “Your desk would have been fine, you know that right?”

“I do.” he nods, “but as it goes, I wanted this to be somewhat of a romantic lunch. My desk is where I work. I’d rather keep the two things separate.”

“You say that as if you we’re making me lose my mind on there mere months ago, not giving a damn who heard us.” Casey laughs as she sets up the food.

“Yes. Well… I-” he stammers as his face starts reddening slowly.

“Oh my God! You still think about it don’t you?” Casey teases with a sly grin.

“No,” Ethan protests; “I do not!”

“Ahhh the man protesteths too much.”

“Protesteths?”

“It’s part of MY language so keep any criticisms to yourself please.”

Ethan holds his hands up in surrender as he crosses the room and takes his seat next to Casey. As they settled they gave each other smiles before falling into easy conversation that flowed naturally for the next hour as they made their way through the picnic. As they finished Ethan let out a yawn.

“Tired?” Casey asks

“Just a bit. Thank God that I only have 4 hours left today.” he sighs.

Casey gave him a kind smile. “I thought I’d order pizza and dough balls for dinner tonight. I was going to do it so it arrived shortly before you were due back but I can wait and let you have a nap first if you like.”

“That’s… awfully thoughtful of you.”

“Well, our secret date did overrun and ended up in your bedroom last night.” she chuckles.

He responds with a chuckle of his own, leaning over to press a kiss to her cheek. She smiled at the gesture, turning her head and captured his lips with her own as she gently pulled him back in by his tie.

“Oh!” he gasps with surprise before responding to the kiss with a deepened passion of his own, the pair reluctantly pulling apart when a knock sounds at the door.

“One moment please.” Ethan calls out then turns back to Casey. “We’ll have to go on another date soon.”

“You plan another stealth outing?” Casey grins imitating a move like one of Charlie’s Angels.

“You’re insufferable.” Ethan laughs looking bemused.

“Yet you still choose to date me in secret.”

“I like you. Why would I?” he asks. “And considering you accept all the invitations and seem to enjoy my company, I guess you like me too.”

Casey smiles up at him with a warm softness and gives him a nod but one thing nagged at the back of her mind.

No you idiot, I love you; but I’m hiding from a fake engagement so we can’t publicly be together the way I want us to be.

Another knock sounds and they jump springing apart from their hug they had naturally fallen into. Ethan cleared his throat as Casey started to pack the tupperware away in the bag she was carrying with her.

“Come in.” He called out.

The door opened and a nurse walked in, placing papers on his desk. “These are the test results for Ms Schneider you ordered Dr Ramsey.” he smiles

“Thank you, Samuel.” Ethan nodded, pulling his eyeglasses from his jacket pocket, and placing them on before picking up the paper and looking at them closely.

“I’ll… see you at home.” Casey spoke up as she reached the door the nurse had just left.

“Hrm?” Ethan hummed looking up, gasping slightly as Casey smiles back at him. “Oh! Yes. I’ll see you at home. Enjoy the rest of your day.” he smiled politely.

Casey nodded and left with a wave over her shoulder, gently closing the door behind her. As she waited at the elevators, a doctor stopped beside her. She gave a polite tilt of her head and a smile, the doctor respectfully returning the gesture. A few seconds later he speaks up.

“Are you Casey Valentine?” he asks.

“Uh… yes.” she answers a bit confused.

“Dr Naveen Banerji.” he smiles back kindly extending a hand, Casey shaking it just as the elevator arrives and they step inside.

“Where is it you’re heading Miss Valentine?”

“Uh. ground floor. Thank you.”

Naveen stood watching as the door closed before he asked his question. “What do you think of Ethan?”

“I’m sorry?” she asks, a little stumped at his boldness.

“Sorry let me give you some back story. Dr Ramsey was my intern when he started here. We’re close and he’s somewhat like a son to me, He’s told me about you.”

“Oh.” Casey responds in surprise. “Good things I hope.”

“He’s told me about your secret dates, explained the tabloid headings I’ve seen.” Naveen sighs as they step out of the elevator. “It seems you lead quite the troubled life Miss Valentine.”

“Please, call me Casey.” she smiles politely.

“Only if you call me Naveen.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.” Casey chuckles as they shake hands. “But yes,” she continues with a sigh. “Things are quite complicated and troubled at the moment.”

Naveen smiles sympathetically. “You’ll make it work. I’ve caught you two looking at each other sometimes. You can't fake a bond like the one you two have. You’ll break free of the farce and get your happily ever after. I can feel it.” he nods.

“Really?” Casey ponders and Naveen nods in response as he pulls a card from his pocket. “If you need anything, call me. It’s the number that goes directly to my office. My lunch hour is 11:30 am to 12:30 pm.”

Casey nods as she accepts the card, Naveen holding her elbow and patting it softly with a look of approval in his eyes.

“I best get back to work, Casey. It was lovely meeting you.”

“You too, Naveen.”

The two part ways with a wave and smile before Casey heads to the exit, sliding the card into her back pocket. As she passed the water feature, she looked up to Ethan’s office to see him looking out pensively at the life that was bustling below now that the rain had died off. She waved up to him with a smile and after a moment he noticed her and waved back with a small smile.

As Casey walked around the corner and out of view from Edenbrook an uneasy feeling settled in her stomach and she felt like she should head back into the hospital, but she knew she had work to get back to so she pushed on. That proved to be a mistake when suddenly her world went black as arms restricted her and something covered her head.

“AH!” she screamed, trying to kick out and get her attackers off of her.

“Hold her tighter!” one angry voice shouted.

“I’m trying!” another shouted back.

“Get. Off of me!” Casey yelled as she managed to stomp on one of their feet with her wedged heel, hearing a crunch and yelp of pain. The grip around her arms left as they fell to the ground giving her the freedom to blindly escape her other attacker.

Just as she had been taught, she got them into a position where she had the power before she locked him in a chokehold until they fell to the ground.

------------------------------------

As Ethan was preparing to leave work his office phone rang.

“Hello, Dr Ramsey at Edenbrook hospital speaking. How may I help you?” he said professionally, only to have his professionalism drop when he was informed it was the police calling. “Okay.. Right… I see… Yes. Mhmm. … Well, thank you for letting me know, officer. Of course. Thank you again. Bye now.” Ethan smiled until he placed the phone back on the receiver with a troubled and deep sigh.

When he returned home, he heard sobs coming from the bedroom he was allowing Casey to stay in. His heart was already aching, and the sounds made it worse. He approached the door and raised his hand to knock but stopped himself. He should just let her go, is what he thought to himself. Turning away and heading to his own room, listening; and waiting to hear the front door to his apartment open and close again. Once he did, he made his way to the kitchen, where he found a pizza box with a note on it.

“Ethan.

I’m sorry to leave you like this. I have to abide by my parents' rule for the safety of both of us. These past few months with you have been amazing. The most free and happy I’ve felt since I was young. Please know that I still love you, and it’s you my heart is with. I will return to you once it’s safe to do so, but for now. This has to be goodbye.

All my love,

Casey xx

P.S: Tell Naveen I said hello when you next see him? I met him today, he seems to think of you as his son. It was nice to meet a parent. Oh and enjoy the pizza, I put a little bit of myself into it. You’ll see. Sleep well tonight, know I’m with you.”

A tear slipped down Ethan’s cheek as he looked up from the note and opened the box, a breathy chuckle escaping his lips.

“Oh, Casey.” he sighed shakily with a bittersweet smile upon seeing the chili on the pizza.

That night both went to bed yet had trouble sleeping, their performances at work suffered over the next few weeks as summer turned to fall and Casey's wedding to Bryce crept towards them quicker that either would have liked it to.

=================

#choices stories you play #playchoices #pixelberry studios #open heart fanfiction #choices fanfiction #ethan ramsey fanfiction #oph mc #ethan ramsey #casey valentine #bryce lahela #ethan x casey #au’s by lahamseiroshoe #lahamseiroshoe writes

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ihsanxdemirci · 3 years

Text

i h s a n d e m i r c i

bio / dossier / connections / muse

BASICS :

FULL NAME : ihsan demirci

AGE : thirty

BIRTHDATE : april 13

GENDER ID : cis man

PRONOUNS : he / his

OCCUPATION : army infantry; tactical linguist

CURRENT LOCATION : salem, massachusetts

LANGUAGES : english, turkish, arabic

PHYSICAL :

FACECLAIM : alp navruz

HEIGHT : 185cm / 6'1"

WEIGHT : 80kg / 176lbs

BUILD : athletic

DOMINANT HAND : left

HAIR : black; messy curls; too long

EYES : hazel; gold flakes

FACIAL HAIR : always stubbled

VOICE : soft gravel; tempered; subtle turkish accent

LIFESTYLE :

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS : currently residing alone in his family home, attempting to clean and organize his parent’s belongings, very little of his personality is present, but does keep candles lit when he’s there ( enjoys vanilla and cinnamon ). keeps things neat and orderly, there is still far too much clutter for his liking.

DIET : balanced, enjoys spices and strong flavors, doesn’t understand sushi. cooks very well, primarily turkish / middle eastern style cuisine. taco bell is his favorite restaurant ( and yes, is convinced it counts as a restaurant. ) chocolate and anything with lots of cinnamon are his favorite sweets.

CLOTHING STYLE : comfortable and practical. jeans, t-shirts, sweaters; enjoys texture and earthy colors. dislikes being cold, so often layered. rarely wears accessories.

HOBBIES : the violin

SEXUAL ORIENTATION : homosexual

DRUG USE : no

SMOKING : no

ALCOHOL : occasionally, socially

BIOGRAPHY :

trigger warnings: homophobia, alcoholism, abuse, violence, war, ptsd, parental death

Ihsan's parents immigrated to the United States from Ankara, Turkey shortly after marrying in their early twenties. His father enlisted in the army, while his mother found her passion in teaching private violin lessons and performing with local orchestras. Between his deployments, the couple moved around quite a bit as his orders required until, after some difficultly conciving, they finally became pregnant with who would be their first and only child. The decision was made to settle into Salem, wanting to give their son as stable a life as possible without all of the moving around required by the military. Because his father would continue to deploy while Ihsan was very young, he was primarily raised by his mother. Early on, Ihsan was a happy child, bright and friendly, with hardly a care in the world while attending school, playing with his neiborhood friends, and learning the same love for the violin that his mother had.

However, when he was thirteen years old, everything changed for the family after his father was hurt in a conflict overseas, and the army had to make the decision to medically retire him. Losing his career and the only way of life he'd known was a devastating blow to his father, and to cope with the loss he turned to whiskey to numb his anger and depression. With nothing else to occupy himself with, and in chronic pain from his injuries, his father's focus turned a critical eye to his son and the way he was developing. While there was a lot to be proud of, Ihsan was, in his opinion, too soft; he played no sports, preferred to spend his free time with books and music, and had close to nothing in common with his old man. His father's sudden and often times overbearing involvement in Ihsan's hobbies sparked heated arguments between his parents, often resulting in slammed doors and broken glass; at one point, Ihsan even recalls the local police being called, as the neighbors feared their fighting had escalated into violence.

Ihsan, feeling responsible for his parent's disagreements, tried to placate his father by beginning to show interest in sports at school, signing up for jiu jitsu lessons, and going with him to the gun range to learn how to shoot. For a time, it worked, and it appeared as though they'd all found a way to live within their new normal at last.

That is, until a rumor found it's way to his father that Ihsan was seen kissing another boy in the parking lot after a school dance. When he got home that night and curled into bed, his lungs rattled with the pain of his father's disapproval and his split lip stained his pillow with blood, his father's liquor-scented voice growling on repeat in his head, "no son of mine..."

In time, Ihsan was able to convince his father that it all had been a misunderstanding. A lesson, hard learned, that in order to keep the peace in his family, he would have to carefully navigate his own life, to wear a mask and keep secret the parts of himself that would set off his father's temper. This façade of his became a routine that followed Ihsan even after graduation, when he felt he'd met the love of his life; Milo Boone. But what he'd used to protect himself all these years was the very same thing that drove Milo to eventually have to end things between them, Ihsan's insistence on living in secrecy suffocating Milo's own vibrant truth.

Heartbroken and entirely without direction, Ihsan decided to chase his father's footsteps and enlisted into the army. He wanted out of Salem, and away from everything that reminded him of his own failures and cowardice, to run from his perpetual knack for disappointing those around him. He joined the infantry, and was trained as a specialist in tactical linguistics, being already fluent in english, turkish, and arabic. Ihsan threw himself into his career, signing into back to back contracts and forcing himself to stay as busy as possible. So much so that when the news his mother had died in a car accident, he was unable to get home in time to even attend her funeral.

Years passed in a repetitive blur of deployments and combat, and just as his contract is due to expire, he gets word that his father had fallen critically ill; his years of drinking ( which worsened after the death of his wife ) had finally caught up with him. Ihsan, planning to return home to care for him, in a final let down, didn't make it in time for him, either. Rather than being at his father's side in his remaining days, he finds himself at his graveside instead.

Ihsan is currently living again in his childhood home as he takes some time to organize his parent's things and figure out what to do with himself next. Part of him is considering returning to the military, but with that thought comes a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach as another part of him insists that, for now at least, Salem is where he needs to be in to try and reacquaint himself with the person he'd been meant to be all along. Beyond figuring out his future, Ihsan struggles with his past; his time in the army leaving perpetual dark circles beneath his eyes as sleep evades him, cut short by nightmares of combat, loud noises jarring him wide awake in the middle of the night.

#x. 𝐈𝐇𝐒𝐀𝐍 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐂𝐈 : 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎 .#srphqintro

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quakerjoe · 4 years

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Despite appropriating the grandiosity of the White House for his own political gain, Trump still fell solidly short of Joe Biden’s 24.6 million viewers. And on the third night of the convention, Kamala Harris at 22.8 million viewers trounced Mike Pence, who delivered a dismal 17.3 million viewers.

But even before we had that metric to judge by, GOP convention organizers sought to make the case for Trump mostly in his absence. Even though Trump bookended the 4-day liefest by showing up early on the first day and blathering away for nearly an hour, and then closing out the convention by blathering for more than another hour, Trump was surprisingly more absent than expected in between those two appearances.

In Trump’s absence, his validators worked really hard to sell Americans on some mythical Trump figure who’s really a nice guy deep down, not racist, and much more mainstream than the cringe-worthy Trump we’re all subjected to on a daily/hourly and sometimes minute-by-minute basis.

“From the day that I met him, he has only wanted to make this country the best it can be,” first lady Melania Trump said in her Rose Garden speech Tuesday. “America is in his heart.” Of course, she also said Americans deserve “total honesty” from their president and Trump’s guy to give it—so let’s just say Melania’s more of a grain-of-salt validator.

But the Trump-less mirage was the plan—placing fictional warm-and-fuzzy Trump in a fictional world where he never bungled the coronavirus cuz it never happened and the Biden-Harris ticket is actively planning to destroy the suburbs as white America knows them.

The problem for the Trump campaign moving forward is that fictional Trump doesn’t exist and everyone damn well knows it because his main mission in life is bringing as much misery to the world as he experiences in his own miserably decrepit brain. Additionally, the fictional world in which Joe Biden is an antifa puppet and the coronavirus isn’t claiming hundreds of thousands of American lives also doesn’t exist and every voter who could swing this election also knows that.

We’re not talking about the 30%-35% of Trump cultists who appear to have prematurely donated their brains to science. We’re talking about a segment of white female Trump 2016 voters, mostly with a college education, who ditched Republicans for Democrats in the midterms and, without whom, Trump doesn’t have a glimmer of hope of being reelected.

Now, it’s possible that the Democratic base and Black voters in particular will show up in numbers that completely swamp Trump no matter whom he persuades to vote for him. But the fact remains that without winning back these “soft Trump” voters, the Dons stands no chance whatsoever.

And in their world, the coronavirus exists as do the protests and the chaos in the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and they are worried about both to varying degrees. Of those two concerns, Trump has lost the pandemic battle and ceded the issue. We’ve seen the polling, it hasn’t wavered, and Trump did absolutely nothing during the convention to reassure swing voters that he would miraculously start demonstrating some kind of leadership on the issue.

What’s left to him and his Republican allies is to convince these voters that what is happening in Kenosha could happen anywhere and is a bigger threat to them than the pandemic.

“What we can never have in America – and must never allow – is MOB RULE,” said Trump’s prepared remarks for his acceptance speech (emphasis theirs). “In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and New York.”

At a New Hampshire rally on Friday night, Trump followed up, telling the crowd, “We are all that stand between the American people and the left-wing mob.”

So far, the people wounded in Kenosha include: a 29-year-old Black man, Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back seven times by police, point blank; and three peaceful BLM protesters—two of whom died—shot by an armed Trump enthusiast. The violence isn’t coming from the protesters. It’s a product of the fury and division Trump has fueled from the moment he launched his political rise on the back of the racist birther movement seeking to delegitimize Barack Obama’s presidency.

Republicans, in an act of total desperation, are going to pour gasoline on the fire Trump has ignited to detract attention away from the roughly one thousand Americans who continue to die each day due to Trump’s COVID incompetence. During Mike Pence’s convention speech, he despicably suggested a federal officer, Dave Patrick Underwood, was killed by protesters in Oakland, California, when Underwood was actually executed by an adherent of the right-wing extremist “Boogaloo Boys” movement that’s mission is to ignite a race war.

Naturally, pathetic Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is already getting in on the action, pretending he was attacked by a “crazed mob” of DC protesters and demanding an FBI investigation and arrests.

“Something’s going on here, and it’s much bigger than people think,” Paul told Fox News Friday, “but the bottom line is, we can’t let the United States become Portland, and that’s what my fear is: that the United States is going to be on fire if we have no police.”

The only thing that’s going on is Rand’s overactive imagination (perhaps caused by a little PTSD after being pummeled by his neighbor several years ago) and police shooting black men while armed right-wing activists murder people.

The violence is Trump’s own doing. As former Trump Homeland Security official Elizabeth Neumann explained in a video this week, “We are less safe today because of his leadership. We will continue to be less safe as long as he is in control.” Neumann, a pro-life Republican, voted for Trump in 2016. After serving several years in the Trump administration, she’s voting for Joe Biden this year.

Don’t let your neighbors or your family members fall into the trap of being overwhelmed by the “chaos” in the streets of Donald Trump’s America. It’s not random, it’s orchestrated and Trump has been pulling the strings for years to produce the effects we are now seeing. Trump is uniquely responsible for the violence erupting on his watch. And the only way to heal this nation, to bring calm, is to boot Trump from office this November.

#racism

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pinkstarbelle · 4 years

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People are being murdered

And you expect us to be indifferent to all that’s happened?

In 2001, 2 hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Centre,

One into the Pentagon

And another into a field in Pennsylvania

Killing nearly 3000 Americans,

Consequently, having the most significant impact

On Modern American history.

In retaliation, launched a global war on terror

That led to the one of the biggest sanctioned massacres of over 500,000 innocent Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani civilians.

You expect

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and after a shockingly delayed response

Prompted nearly 1,500 deaths

A huge portion of which were Black people

Who, in the aftermath, were inhumanely labelled as looters and instigators of violence

Rather than desperate survivors looking for supplies.

You expect

From 2011, the Syrian War, said to be the second deadliest of the 21st Century

Has displaced and torn apart the country’s mostly Muslim population

Leaving in its wake around 6 million refugees.

People who have escaped bloodshed and violence,

Left their homes,

Are in need of medicine, food, water

And yet,

Some still refuse to help them.

You expect

In mid 2019, the American government

Detained and incarcerated migrants,

Fleeing from abuse, gang violence and poverty.

Minors were taken from their parents

And crammed into overcrowded detention centres,

Forced to sleep on concrete floors, with no access to sanitation.

Children have died due to outbreaks of disease

And people are barely treated with an ounce of humanity.

You actually expect

Under the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act

Young Muslim girls put themselves between a fellow student and baton wielding police in order to protect him

From violence because he protested religious discrimination.

You expect

A network of internment camps in China

Currently holds at least a million Uighur Muslims

And a genocidal authority

Is forcing them to stop practising their beliefs

And are ‘re-educating’ them.

You expect

The state of Kashmir is on its 10th month of Lockdown,

A communications and media blackout

Holds Kashmiri’s captive.

You expect

In Hong Kong protesters shout out their names and yell that they are not suicidal

When taken by the police

Because they are afraid that if their families do not hear from them again

At least their murder does not get covered up.

You expect

A global pandemic

Has killed 300,000 people

And you see on the TV that some countries don’t have any choice

But to put bodies in mass graves

Or dump them in the street.

You expect

A black man begs for breath

A knee on his neck,

He begs.

And in cold blood,

Gets brutally and viciously, murdered.

There are innocent black people, black elders, and even black children,

And for no other reason except hate

They are being killed

Right in front of us

And you fucking expect

Children on streets.

Women being assaulted.

LGBT folk being wronged.

People of colour being murdered.

And you fucking expect me to behave as if nothing's happened?

That nothing's wrong?

To be indifferent to hate and violence?

When in reality,

Each thing I hear

Every day, is tearing my soul apart!

How would history judge us

If we don’t demand accountability?

And how dare you expect me to be unaffected when it makes me scream

with frustration,

with terror,

and rage.

How dare you expect me to have no fucking compassion for those who suffer

When I suffer with them everyday.

We feel your pain,

We hear your screams,

We see your rage.

There is too much injustice that you face

But you are not alone.

We cry with you,

We mourn with you,

We stand with you

And we will fight for you.

And we will protect you.

And we will not stay silent.

#blacklivesmatter #george floyd #minneapolis #protests #police brutality #black lives matter

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singeramg · 4 years

Text

Midnight: Chapter 21

Pairing: Clark Kent- Superman / Metahuman! Black!OFC

Universe: DCMCU

Rating: M

Warnings: Angst, Violence, Fluff

Summary: When Gia, a Metahuman by force, left Metropolis, she vowed to never come back because nothing was there for her anymore. Secret in tow, she’s stayed out of the way of anyone that could destroy the life she’s built for herself. What happens when the Justice League needs her help reviving the one man she vowed to never see in the flesh again?

A/n: Hey I just popped out of my academic hellhole to post a new chapter! Love you all Thank you for reading!

Catch up Here!

Midnight: Chapter 21

It was late as we headed to Freeland. Diana and Barry came along as planned, Diana flew the plane, would be keeping it running while Barry and I broke into the police station’s records department. We needed to find more information on this Alvin Pierce person and how it connected to me.

Clark and I spent the day spending time with Kalen and Tracy, we couldn’t go out anywhere but when you had a mansion like Bruce’s then you didn’t really need to go anywhere. Kalen was just excited to have both his parents around him at the same time. He wouldn’t rest until we read him a story, funny voices included, then forced us to stay in the bed on either side of him and only then did he fall asleep. I checked in on Tracy and told her Clark was nearby if she needed anything.

It seemed that he was the only one besides myself that she trusted. Which made sense because if you couldn't trust a man who flew you on his back, when you had super strength and had set him up to be killed just hours before, and he didn’t take the chance to drop you in the night sky where no one would find you, who could you trust?

Tracy recognized that and honestly if you wanted anyone on your side it was Superman and seeing as the plan didn’t call for Superman to be blasting through the walls so we both felt it would be more important for him to be here with Kalen, especially for such a short trip.

*Freeland, Georgia*

I wave my hand, my simple clothes changing into my Midnight suit. Diana and Barry had suited up before we even got on the plane and now that we were landing Barry was itching to run around. I toss an invisibility shield over myself and Barry, while Diana activates the cloaking technology for the jet. Barry and I jump down into the roof, and Diana heads to the outside of town where she can land in the Forest, but still close enough to get back to us. Meanwhile Victor and Bruce were watching over nearby cameras, internal cameras and Victor was using blueprints and GPS to guide us to where we needed to be inside of the building. Barry and I had dropped down from an outside vent into a supply closet. The precinct was basically empty other than the few night shift officers and a few petty criminals awaiting transport.

“Alright guys. The room isn’t far. Leave out the supply closet and then make a left, then on the next hallway make a right.”

I felt for energy in the hallway and once it was clear we walked out the room. The room itself was huge and we didn’t have a clue where to start, even if we could find anything on a case so long ago.

“So I walked around and from what I can tell these are more organized by the year than alphabetical. So if we know when Alvin Pierce died we can find it that way.”

“Hey Vic...”

“Already on it...here we go. Alvin Pierce died in 83.”

“Thanks. Alright Barry let’s see if we can find something...”

Barry goes and takes off down one of the aisles, and I follow him after. The row was divided into solved versus unsolved for that year.

“Solved or unsolved Victor?”

“Unsolved. And guys hurry up I think speedy tripped some sort of silent alarm. I know you are invisible but you guys start moving boxes and they are going to know it isn’t a faulty system like I’ve led them to believe. Right now you are on a feed loop. You’ve got a max of 15 minutes before that feed does it’s auto upload into the system and resets the cameras. Then maybe another 3 minutes before they realize something is wrong and one more before they get in the room. You're cloaked but that won’t stop them from blocking your way out. Get moving.”

“Yeah thanks. Diana, are you still okay out there?”

“Yes, just do what you have to do.”

Barry and I begin searching the aisles and due to the sheer number and age it takes ten minutes. I use my energy to encapsulate the box and bring it down. We are just opening it when the door flies open and a blast of energy hits me dead in the stomach, tossing me all the way down the aisle and through the brick wall into the alleyway I tossed a shield to stop damage from the brick wall. Barry is by my side in a second and I toss a stronger shield up a tall black man in what seems to be an electrical suit tosses another bolt at us. From my blast I know my com isn’t active anymore. Whoever this was was sticking to a no kill policy. It didn’t mean he didn’t want to harm us. I toss my own energy at him with a free hand and this guy tosses his own shield up.

“Flash, tell Cy and Wonder to hold. I don’t want to add to a bad scene and we still have civilians. Let us handle it for now. Go get the box!”

Meanwhile this masked adversary leans down to our box, and it seems once he looks at the contents his eyes flash and he shoots an even more powerful blast at me, but because I was prepared for it, I could absorb it. His energy was electric and only served to power me further. I can feel his frustration and he decides to charge at me. This begins a hand to hand combat, I get a read on his emotions but his mind is blocked which no matter how new the power was, it was frustrating for it to not be working properly.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my city?”

His is distorted and odd, clearly meant to hide his true identity.

“Your city? Last time I checked, no city has an owner. Why don’t you tell me who the fuck you are first. Because right now all you look like is an obstacle that needs to be removed.”

“And you two look like bugs that need to be squashed.”

A female voice appears from almost nowhere and she breathes before stomping on the ground with enough force to tremble the ground and crack the concrete under her feet. Because it throws me off balance I hit the ground hard enough that I miss Barry trying to get to me and being hit by a blast. He hit the ground hard and unmoving.

“Flash?!”

He doesn’t respond, in my fear and anger I toss a shield over him to protect him from what I am about to do.

I charge forward at them, opposite of what Clark had taught me to do, but in my case it worked to my advantage because once this tall dude let off another bolt he hands were occupied and I flipped behind him kicking him in the back on his face and this chick in the matching suit tries to call on her breath again but I’m faster as I grab her by the throat and toss her into a wall. The man's emotions spike from fear to anger.

“Oh now you done pissed me off.”

He shoots another powerful bolt at me, using a lot of his strength, but it’s odd because he can pull the electrical energy from everywhere because the block goes dark, and the only thing lit up is the lasso of energy he has wrapped around me. Now I could have absorbed it, but instead I let him lift me higher, pretending to struggle, just as I am about to kick him and then launch myself into him like a little monkey he says

“What in the hell do you want with Alvin Pierce? Did Wells send you?”

“No! Who in the fuck is Wells and why should I tell you?! You are probably one of the bastards trying to kidnap me.”

I kick off his face just as Diana drops down from seemingly the sky but I know it’s the plane still under stealth mode.

“Let her go!”

Diana flies over and punches him away and we both hear a gasping of air and turn just as his sidekick hits the ground as hard as she can opening a sinkhole. In a previously unprecedented move I surround us in a shield but the shield is floating. The man at this moment feels nothing but dread and honest to god fear. It throws me off because the fear is not for himself, it’s for his sidekick. He tosses another bolt but this time it’s not at us it’s at the plane, and as it is destroyed I strengthened the shield over all of us ten fold and he runs at his sidekick tossing the shield of his own up to protect her from the blast. Two things happen for me at once. First I realize his shield is not strong enough to withstand the blast debris being this close and the overwhelming love he felt for whoever was in that other suit outweighed anything else. He was literally willing to die for her to live and I connected the dots that the emotions I had been feeling from him all circled to what I would do for Kalen.

He had to be her father or at least family. No true villain of some toady would have done that for his partner.

I toss my own shield up at the pair and brace my shields against it, having to use my hands to force back the blast into the night sky all by

The feedback from the blast had knocked her out cold and Barry was still out. I drop to my knees, breathing heavy as the energy hurts absorbing into my body.

The smoke in the air was thick and Diana tried to pick me up but she couldn't. It’s almost like white noise rings in my ears and my head rings.

“Midnight! Can you hear me?”

I nod and hoist myself back up resting my elbows on my knees for a few seconds and then back up to full standing. I look around at the damage, Barry is still out cold and I look to the pair and so is the sidekick chick.

“Hey you check on Flash, I’m going to talk to them.”

I let the shield down and the man steps in front of her body, which both are giving off extreme energy which tells me she is alive. He holds his hands up.

“Look dude, I am not trying to hurt either of you. I just came for a little information. Not to hurt anyone or trash the city. I am Midnight.”

I hold out my hand for him to shake. Chin high, he takes it, and I laugh as he zapped me. Clearly trying to take me down.

“Is you finished or is you done? Look Mr. Bolts...”

“It’s....Black Lighting.”

“Fine. Mr. Black Lighting. I came for answers and I am not leaving until I get them. I’ll let you in on a little secret. One of my powers is that I can pick up emotions. Your emotions tell me you are not a bad guy. In fact, they tell me a lot about you. The most important thing about this power is it tells me that you love whoever is unconscious right now. That love is parental...”

His eyes flashed, the lighting taking over his irises.

“Would you calm down?! I already told you we never came to hurt anyone. Better yet we have already saved the world once as a collective...anyway. I came for that box inside, it’s the only lead I have into figuring out who Alvin Pierce was and how he relates to me.”

“Why do you think he would have anything to do with you?”

“I just need to know about an article he wrote that was never published. I need to know what he wrote about because it has something about why people are after me.”

“People are after you?”

He seems concerned for me which surprises me.

“Yes. My team has only been able to get a little info about whoever this is, but in our digging we saw some info that says they were connected to Alvin Pierce.”

“That could be a dead end.”

“That’s my decision to make. I can’t run the risk of them coming after me again. I have to be prepared for whoever is coming because I have too much to lose if they get a hold of me again. So I’ll take my chances with finding the work of Alvin Pierce. I can distract the people while you two get away.”

“Fine, but I’m telling you this will be a dead end for you.”

He scoops up his daughter and disappears into the night, meanwhile I go back inside, grabbing a folder from his box and l left, helping Diana lift Berry around the corner to safety as emergency vehicles and police come swarming the area...

*Later*

Diana, Barry and I didn’t have to call Bruce because Superman landed in front of us with relief on his face.

“I swear you like giving me a heart attack.”

I roll my eyes as he takes Barry from us, slinging him over his shoulder and pulling a card and ID from somewhere on his suit and handing them to Diana.

“Bruce sends his regards. He has a suite booked in the next town over. Also Victor may or may not have borrowed a car to get you there and it should be here...now.”

A SUV pulls up without a driver and the doors unlock. I wave my hand and the door opens, Clark puts Barry in a seat and Diana climbs in on the other side. Clark gets in the driver's seat and I get in the passenger.

*Hotel Roof*

“Of course my girl finds a fight not even 20 minutes on the ground.”

Clark and I are on the roof of the hotel, while Barry and Diana are downstairs in the suite. Victor had the car navigate us to the back, I changed Diana’s clothes so she could go get the keys to the room. She opened the balcony and let’s Clark in with Barry who came about five minutes into being on the plush couch. Now he was inhaling room service pasta with an ice pack while Diana took a shower. Clark and I sneak to the roof. Currently Clark had stepped up to me, his arms wrapped around my waist, as I looked up at him, he looked at me with a smirk right back.

“Hey, well it’s not like I planned on it. This was supposed to be in and out, nothing messy like that.”

“I wanted to fly as soon as that lighting character tossed you through the wall. Bruce told me to trust you.”

“Glad he did. The last thing we needed was Superman coming to drag dude and dudette across the pavement.”

“For you, of course I’m gonna fight for you. I told you before you left I wasn’t letting you go without a fight. Not this time.”

I let my arms go around his neck.

“ Yes, but fighting my battles is a surefire way to ensure you don’t get any.”

I say with a lilt in my voice and then tilting my head back in laughter. He laughs and he picks me up effortlessly, our faces close.

“Oh really? You think I can just let you go again? Gia do you know how long I’ve been waiting to hold you in my arms like this?”

I shake my head ‘no’

“You are the woman I’ve been waiting for my entire life. So yes I’m going to show up and fight your battles every time if that means I keep you here with me and my son.”

Somehow Clark always knows exactly what to say to me and it takes my breath away. It made me feel like I was nothing more than air. It had only been a few hours of everything being in the open but we clicked together like it had been a lifetime.

“Alright...alright. I’ll let you step in SOMETIMES but this does not give you full carte Blanche to step into all my battles.”

“I know. I prefer you not rip me a new one.”

With that we kiss again and he sits me back down on my feet.

“Come on Superman. We’ve got a folder to go over before we leave Freeland.”

“I need to know more about this Alvin Pierce...”

A/n: So how many of you pegged Freeland, Georgia from my last chapter as the home of Black Lighting? If you did good job! To all my readers you are all amazing and supportive and you rock. Thank you bunches and next chapter is in the works as soon!

TAGLIST: (Still open for this story or Henry Cavill taglist)

@bloodyinspiredfuck @romyr4 @p3nny4urth0ught5 @thethirstyarchive @kmcmpmd @winchwm @cheyentjj @msblkfire84 @magdelen69 @peeyewpeeyew @agniavateira @iloveyouyen

#Henry Cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x black ofc #SUPERMAN X OFC #Clark Kent xOFC #clark kent fanfiction #Clark Kent #Superman

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mamapriest · 4 years

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Three things you didn’t know about Judy Garland

VOGUE 2020

Some 50 years after her death, Judy Garland’s spirit still looms over the world of film. The actress who played Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” remains engraved in our memories as a complex woman. Garland is the subject of a biopic slated for release this fall. Here are three things to know about the actress.

In today’s popular culture, Judy Garland still finds her place. Unlike the other iconic and well-known actresses of her time such as Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, much less is known about Garland, especially when it comes to the younger generation, that is until recently. Fifty years after her death, the actress was the subject of a biopic by Rupert Goold, played by a very convincing Renée Zellweger, who won an Oscar for her performance. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, a new museum dedicated to the history of cinema slated to open in 2019 in Los Angeles, will feature its first exhibition on "The Wizard of Oz", the classic 1939 film in which the then 17-year-old actress delivered a historical performance. She will forever be associated with her character, the young Dorothy, who gets swept away from the gloomy Kansas plains and lands on a yellow brick road, complete with her emblematic ruby slippers. The film was a global success, and still remains a strong cultural marker for that time period. Fifty years after Judy Garland’s death, here are three things you didn’t know about the talented actress.

She became an addict while filming The Wizard of Oz

Judy Garland was already familiar with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios when she was recruited by "The Wizard of Oz" producers to play Dorothy. She became accustomed to the world of show business at an early age, when she joined her sisters to form a singing group. Shortly after she joined the prestigious MGM studios in 1935, at the tender age of 13. In her first few films, she played the quintessential “girl next door”, a wise, All American teenager in keeping with the conventions of the time. Behind the scenes, life was less than glamorous for the young star. The so-called “Golden Age” of Hollywood had its share of scandals, including drug addictions, and the mistreatment of artists by the major production studios, and unfortunately Judy Garland was not spared. While filming “The Wizard of Oz”, Garland was receiving criticism about her weight, and had her food rationed by the studio. She soon began taking amphetamines, which the MGM studio willingly gave to young actors and actresses in order to give them the energy to continue filming for hours at a time. She soon developed insomnia due to the drugs she was taking, which was treated with sleeping pills on top of the medication she was already taking. By the time Garland won an Oscar in 1940, she was already in the throes of addiction. Despite her career taking off, the young actress experienced severe mood swings, bouts of depression, increased dependency on alcohol, and the continued criticism from the film studios about her appearance and weight. Despite her success, she was gradually squeezed out of castings, and was considered a black sheep in Hollywood. She continued fighting her addictions for all of her life, until they ultimately got the better of her.

Judy Garland test shot for Wizard of Oz, 1939.

She was married five times

The young star had five marriages, each with troubling stories, including deception, alleged violence, and divorces. Judy Garland married her first husband David Rose in 1941 at the age of 19. The marriage was disapproved of by her mother, and Louis B. Mayer, the boss of MGM studios, who continued to monitor the actress’s weight. The couple divorced three years later and in 1944 she met the man who would be the father of her daughter, Liza, on the set of “Missouri Song”, when went down as one of her greatest performances. During her time with Vincent Minnelli, Judy Garland broke free of the chains of her earlier roles and began to build her image as an idol with a mesmerizing singing voice. However, her addictions continued to plague her, and, coupling with an incident in which she found Vincent in bed with another man, drove the marriage to divorce in 1951. She then met and married a businessman named Sid Luft, who essentially took control over her career. She experienced a great comeback with her performance in “A Star is Born”, where she ironically played a young, up-and-coming star who sinks into madness. Yet again, her addictions came back to haunt her, leading to the couple’s divorce in 1965. She then had a brief marriage to actor Mark Herron (who she later left after discovering he was gay), before settling down with the musician Mickey Deans in 1969. Judy died three months later, from an overdose of barbiturates. Many believe Deans had something to do with her death, due to the uncertain circumstances.

Judy Garland and her first husband David Rose, 1941.

She was an icon for the LGBTQ community

Judy Garland was perhaps one of the first major gay icons, at a time when homosexuality in America was still an incredibly taboo subject. She had a very empathetic relationship with her audience, and her death even coincided with the Stonewall Riots of 1969, regarded as the starting point for the gay rights movement. Her funeral was held on the same day as the riots began, when gay patrons at the Stonewall Inn began fighting back against the New York City police and their unlawful raids. At the time, some homophobic media outlets even mocked the event, claiming that Garland’s death had provoked the riots. Several of the people present that evening recalled the participants of the riot, mostly young homeless homosexuals, who weren’t considered with Judy Garland’s death as they were facing their own. In an article published in 2010, writer Andrew Alexander offers an alternative point of view. He explains that a large number of homosexuals came to pay tribute to Judy Garland during her funeral, constituting one of the first gatherings of gay people in the United States of that magnitude. “It's electrifying to think that the events of Stonewall may have had their origin in that incredibly simple moment of seeing each other.” He explains… “Whether or not Garland's funeral is where it happened, the dawning recognition that "there are so many of us" made gay and lesbian people decide that they would no longer participate in their own oppression by remaining silent and isolated. The idea's so radical that its entry into the world couldn't help but be accompanied by riots.”

Another connection is the rainbow flag, symbol of the LGBT communities which may have been inspired, in part, by Garland's song "Over the Rainbow." Garland's performance of this song has been described as "the sound of the closet", speaking to gay men whose image "they presented in their own public lives was often at odds with a truer sense of self that mainstream society would not condone." *Courtesy of Wikipedia.

💖💖💖

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mortal-for-tax-purposes · 4 years

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Sometimes I forget my grandparents don't understand the concept of systemic racism. I ate lunch with them today and something came on the news about a protest. They were going on about how if it had been another black man killing a black man no one would have said anything, and how a bunch of black people died in Chicago when Obama was president. It was in the range of 25,000 but that might be wrong don't quote me, it was a number my grandmother cited offhand. At first I thought that wasn't the point but in reality it kinda is. It's the fact no one says anything about black on black violence because it's an ingrained idea in American culture due to decades of systemic oppression robbing black individuals of chance and freedom while also pressing a legal system that keeps them on their toes and perpetual forwards stereotypes leading to an endless cycle that crushes the options and oprotunity of black people and blames them for that very same idea while not accounting for the reasons. It then praises "educated and sophisticated blacks" as they are the exception but they should be the normality like every white person is educated. When a white person doesn't go to college or lives in poverty they're a hick or a victim, when a black person is in the same conditions their a thug and statistic. But that doesn't occur to individuals who haven't dealt with that but were raised to see their hardships as overcomable with work. A white man can get rich with enough hard work for himself, a black man can get rich with enough hard work for that very white man. So the idea of black on black violence being nothing but an ignored part of American life, untill you look up a big number making them a criminal statistic giving white people all the more reason to control and kill them is exactly why people are upset. But two white people who worked their way to normalcy and comfort in the 50s-80s and didn't have any problems based on race wouldn't understand that. That's not to say they don't deserve what they have. They worked hard and have been through some truly horrible things, but they don't understand that their race caused none of it. They lived in a culture where the black people were controlled and had no widespread free medium to organize or could be killed without question. So the idea of the system being the problem doesn't track. If I explained the prison industrial complex perpetually creating an inmate loop with a disproportionate amount of black individuals who are jailed at higher rates for higer times with less reform advantages basically being modern day slavery under a banner of Justice while the challenges whites face on release are still great and are still likely to be a part of the loop it's the fact there's less and they're have a chance of escape from the complex. They'd say people shouldn't commit crimes, I mean they didn't so it can't be hard. My girlfriend said something interesting. She said "I mean, it might have to do with the way that people are raised to praise the system, and they dont want to see or admit to its flaws." Which is true and it's disgusting. When you don't have to worry about the police shooting your father or you for pulling out your wallet when they ask for it, you tend to give into the idea of the heroic cop and the fair justice a little easier. I'm glad my grandparents aren't racist but they definitely don't understand systemic racism. This is just all my perspective and understanding, I'm not black so if I said anything wrong or offense I apologize it's just the thoughts I had listening to people who haven't tried to understand the other side.

#blacklivesmatter #blm #blm2020 #systemic oppression #systemic racism #racism #george floyd #breonnataylor

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Headlines

1 killed in shooting in Seattle’s protest zone (AP) A 16-year-old boy was killed and a younger teenager was wounded early Monday in Seattle’s “occupied” protest zone--the second deadly shooting in the area that local officials have vowed to change after business complaints and criticism from President Donald Trump. The violence that came just over a week after another shooting in the zone left one person dead and another wounded was “dangerous and unacceptable” police Chief Carmen Best said. Demonstrators have occupied several blocks around the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct and a park for about two weeks after police abandoned the precinct following standoffs and clashes with protesters calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality. Best said the shootings are obscuring the message of racial justice that protesters say they are promoting. “Two African American men are dead, at a place where they claim to be working for Black Lives Matter. But they’re gone, they’re dead now,” the police chief said.

Two Friends in Texas Were Tested for Coronavirus. One Bill Was $199. The Other? $6,408. (NYT) Before a camping and kayaking trip along the Texas Coast, Pam LeBlanc and Jimmy Harvey decided to get coronavirus tests. Both tests came back negative. Then their bills came. And that’s where the similarities stopped. The emergency room charged Mr. Harvey $199 in cash. Ms. LeBlanc, who paid with insurance, was charged $6,408. Ms. LeBlanc’s health insurer negotiated the total bill down to $1,128. The plan said she was responsible for $928 of that. During the pandemic, there has been wide variation between what providers bill for the same basic diagnostic test, with some charging $27, others $2,315. It turns out there is also significant variation in how much a test can cost two patients at the same location.

Three Words. 70 Cases. The Tragic History of ‘I Can’t Breathe.’ (NYT) “I can’t breathe,” George Floyd pleaded in May, appealing to the Minneapolis police officer who responded to reports of a phony $20 bill and planted a knee in the back of his neck until his life had slipped away. Mr. Floyd’s dying words have prompted a national outcry over law enforcement’s deadly toll on African-American people, and they have united much of the country in a sense of outrage that a police officer would not heed a man’s appeal for something as basic as air. But dozens of other incidents with a remarkable common denominator have gone widely unacknowledged. Over the past decade, The New York Times found, at least 70 people have died in law enforcement custody after saying the same words--“I can’t breathe.” The dead ranged in age from 19 to 65. The majority of them had been stopped or held over nonviolent infractions, 911 calls about suspicious behavior, or concerns about their mental health. More than half were black. Many of the cases suggest a widespread belief that persists in departments across the country that a person being detained who says “I can’t breathe” is lying or exaggerating, even if multiple officers are using pressure to restrain the person.

Mexican president to fly commercial to the US (Washington Post) When Mexico’s president travels to the White House next week, he’ll have to reckon with the same questions travelers everywhere are asking. How early do you need to arrive at an airport these days? Will the middle seat be left empty? During the layover, will the food court be open? Next week, Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be the rare foreign head of state to fly commercial to meet the U.S. president. The populist leader promised to sell Mexico’s presidential jet when he began his term in 2018--part of a larger effort to throw off the luxe trappings of the country’s highest office. He has also opened the presidential palace to the public, and is ferried around the capital in his own Volkswagen Jetta. While the jet is still unsold, López Obrador has stood by his pledge to fly only on commercial airlines.

This is the moment to address decades-old problems, UK PM Johnson says (Reuters) Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that Britain must seize the moment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to fix decades-old problems and narrow the productivity gap with its competitors. “We must work fast because we’ve already seen the vertiginous drop in GDP, we are waiting as if between the flash of lightning and the thunderclap,” he said. “We must use this moment now, this interval to plan our response and to fix of course the problems that were most brutally illuminated in that COVID lightning flash: the problems in our social cares system, the parts of government that seemed to respond so sluggishly.” He said Britain was not as productive as many of its competitors, and while London was the “capital of the world”, much of the country felt left behind and “unloved”.

EU reopens its borders to 14 nations but not to US tourists (AP) The European Union announced Tuesday that it will reopen its borders to travelers from 14 countries, and possibly China soon, but most Americans have been refused entry for at least another two weeks due to soaring coronavirus infections in the U.S. Travelers from other big countries like Russia, Brazil and India will also miss out. Citizens from the following countries will be allowed into the EU’s 27 members and four other nations in Europe’s visa-free Schengen travel zone: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay.

Europe sours on global powers (Foreign Policy) A new poll from the European Council of Foreign Relations shows the extent of the damage the coronavirus pandemic has wrought on attitudes toward the United States. The decline was most dramatic in Germany, Denmark, and Portugal where at least 65 percent of respondents said that their view of the United States had worsened during the pandemic. It’s not just bad news for U.S.-Europe relations; Russia and China also suffered reputational damage, according to the poll.

China passes sweeping HK security law, heralding authoritarian era (Reuters) Beijing on Tuesday unveiled new national security laws for Hong Kong that will punish crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison, heralding a more authoritarian era for China’s freest city. China’s parliament passed the detailed legislation earlier on Tuesday, giving Beijing sweeping powers and setting the stage for radical changes to the global financial hub’s way of life. “The punitive elements of the law are stupefying,” Simon Young, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong’s law school and a barrister, told Reuters. Britain and some two dozen Western countries urged China to reconsider the law, saying Beijing must preserve the right to assembly and free press. Washington, already in dispute with China over trade, the South China Sea and the coronavirus, began eliminating Hong Kong’s special status under U.S. law on Monday, halting defence exports and restricting technology access. China, which has rejected criticism of the law by Britain, the European Union, Japan, Taiwan and others, said it would retaliate.

Christian television station in Israel loses license (Foreign Policy) Israeli regulators have revoked the broadcasting license of an evangelical Christian television station for misrepresenting its mission. Ward Simpson, the CEO of God TV and the station’s owner, had attracted the scrutiny of regulators after appearing in a fundraising video after the license was granted saying “God has supernaturally opened the door for us to take the gospel of Jesus into the homes and lives and hearts of his Jewish people.” He later clarified that he was not trying to convert Jews; he was simply seeking to get them to accept Jesus as their messiah. Regulators said God TV is welcome to reapply for a license if it vows to describe the nature of its broadcasts more honestly.

Syria faces mass starvation or mass exodus without more aid, WFP says (BBC) Syria faces the risk of mass starvation or another mass exodus unless more aid money is made available, the head of the UN World Food Programme has said. Ahead of a donor conference in Brussels on Tuesday, David Beasley told the BBC a million Syrians were severely food insecure and some were already dying. More than 380,000 people have been killed and 13.2 million others—half the pre-war population—have been displaced inside and outside Syria since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011. "The whole world's facing crisis unlike anything we've seen probably in everyone's lifetime. But, quite frankly, what's happening in Syria is unprecedented. It's the worst of all storms coming together," Mr Beasley said in an interview. "If we don't have the money, here's the bottom line: you're going to either have mass migration, [or] starvation, and exploitation by extremist groups," he warned. "I think the people will leave, just like they did five or six years ago."

Coronavirus Is Battering Africa’s Growing Middle Class (NYT) James Gichina started out 15 years ago as a driver shuttling travelers from the airport, worked his way up to safari guide, and with the help of some bank loans, bought two minivans of his own to ferry vacationers around. But when the coronavirus pandemic cratered the tourist industry and the economy, Mr. Gichina removed the seats from his minibus and started using it to hawk eggs and vegetables. With what he now earns, he said, he can barely afford to pay rent, buy food or send his 9-year-old son to school. “We have been working hard to build better lives,” Mr. Gichina, 35, said of his colleagues in the tourist sector. Now, he said, “We have nothing.” As the coronavirus surges in many countries in Africa, it is threatening to push as many as 58 million people in the region into extreme poverty, experts at the World Bank say. But beyond the devastating consequences for the continent’s most vulnerable people, the pandemic is also whittling away at one of Africa’s signature achievements: the growth of its middle class. About 170 million out of Africa’s 1.3 billion people are now classified as middle class. But about eight million of them could be thrust into poverty because of the coronavirus and its economic fallout, according to World Data Lab, a research organization.

#headlines #news

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jazzviewswithcjshearn · 5 years

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A detailed look at Stanley Nelson’s Miles Davis documentary: “Birth Of The Cool” (2019)

The following is an in depth review of the New York premiere weekend of Stanley Nelson's Birth of the Cool which I attended on Sunday August 25th, 2019. Where applicable I have added some additional information about Miles' history and career to give context for new fans in the Davis orbit.

Introduction

Miles Davis. All you need to do is say the name and many adjectives are conjured-- restless innovator, genius, temperamental, swagger, fashion icon, tenderness, mentor. All of these themes and then some are explored in famed director Stanley Nelson's fantastic new documentary Birth Of The Cool. For casual music lovers and devotees of Davis' extensive genre breaking career, there is a lot on offer. Initially when the film was announced, following Don Cheadle's creative vision of the trumpeter's retirement period with Miles Ahead in 2015 the thought in my mind as a lifelong Davis fan was what could possibly be covered that I don't already know? The answer is quite a bit. Through combinations of interviews with those who knew him best, musicologists, fellow musicians such as Jimmy Cobb, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter, Lenny White, Carlos Santana, family friends, and ex wife Frances Taylor Davis, it creates quite an intimate portrait.

By far the most impressive feature of the two hour documentary is the coverage of Miles the man, not as an mythical superhero figure as some documentaries or biopics are wont to do with their subjects. Nelson covers virtually the entire spectrum of his career and life: personal reflections from Davis' joys following Dizzy and Bird to 52nd street, meeting ex wife Frances Taylor, the unbearable suffering of his heroin habit quitting cold turkey, the relapse into drug use to deal with intense physical pain, his thoughts on creation, the freedom of being a black man in Paris, and the disappointment of coming home and seeing the racism again, among other topics. Davis is approachable and endearing to the audiences voiced by actor Carl Lumbly reading portions from both Miles: The Autobiography and interviews from his later years.

The Music and Film Production

Nelson's interspersion of decade specific footage to track the trajectory of the trumpeter's varied career is incredibly clever featuring stock footage, fast cuts of classic films, and significant political events. The use of Wayne's Shorter's “Paraphernalia” from Miles In The Sky (Columbia, 1968) as the director announces the decades through slick headers is striking. It is striking in part because it drives home the point of how the trumpeter was always moving forward. Though he always went forward musically seeking to change with the times and grow, Miles' previous musical breakthroughs from Birth of the Cool (Capitol, 1957 rec. 1949/50) Round Midnight (Columbia, 1956) Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959) Sketches of Spain (Columbia, 1959) Miles Smiles (Columbia, 1966) On the Corner (Columbia, 1972) The Man With the Horn (Columbia, 1981) and Tutu (Warner Bros, 1986) just to name a few, informed EVERYTHING he did; and that's important to realize for newcomers should they wish to make the deep dive to access his entire catalog. The use of “Agitation” from E.S.P. (Columbia, 1965) as Frances Davis was discussing the domestic violence she experienced, as well as during the recounting of the brutal beating by a drunk police officer outside Birdland shortly after Kind of Blue was issued made the viewer almost feel those incidents. A wonderfully smart choice by Nelson to use selections from Round Midnight, Workin' (Prestige, 1956) Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, Bitches Brew and On the Corner at the appropriate moments was masterful and lead a gentleman to remark at the post film Q&A that the film's totality was a composition and the director was on par with a musician.

The reasons for having an actor voice Davis was due to the fact that although Nelson had access to 40 tapes of Davis in conversation with Quincy Troupe for Miles: The Autobiography, the director explained at the post film Q&A that the interviews were recorded on a cheap tape recorder, with quite a lot of background noise, so the tapes were unusable. It was decided to use portions of the autobiography and later interviews to tell Miles' story. His actual voice is heard in the documentary via session reels from Freedom Jazz Dance: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5 (Columbia/Legacy, 2015) the 50th Anniversary edition of Kind of Blue and there is some gold there. The archival photos and footage are stunning. Davis' friend Corky McCoy had brought two reels of film, and had a 16mm camera for which he took a class at UCLA and provided a lot of source material. The scenes of Miles boxing are phenomenal, and one sees that he had as much passion for the sweet science as he did for music, and cooking. He had a terrific left jab! There were many previously unseen non performance photos that were obtained through photographer estates, and friends that add another deeply personal dimension to things. Also essential to the narrative arc is that contrasting views are presented. Stanley Crouch's frank admission of not getting, liking or understanding the 70's period met by a harsh, but true rebuttal by Carlos Santana is just part and parcel of the documentary's mission to feature everything.

Miles' Humor, Stance as a Civil Rights Activist

Over the course of the film's two hours, there are some hilarious bits of the trumpeter's blunt commentary on life experience, and thoughts on other musicians. For those with a deep knowledge of him, there are no new revelations, but they are quite funny just the same. Miles is heard in session reel audio “I can't play that shit, man!” and even more uproarious in a story relayed by Wayne Shorter of a well known episode, the trumpeter's response to black folk playing the blues out of suffering is classic: “you're a GODDAMN liar!!!” Finally, tenor legend Archie Shepp discussed wanting to sit in with Davis to which he was met with a stone cold “fuck you!!” which brought a unison chuckle from the Film Forum audience.

As funny as his remark was regarding his teacher's naive comment, it boldly demonstrated Miles' commitment to exercising the civil rights of black people, and the pride of being black. In 1957 when Miles Ahead was first issued, Columbia chose a white woman sailing on the cover because they felt that it would show that the trumpeter crossed over to a mainstream (read: white) audience. When Davis saw the cover, he incredulously asked “who is this white bitch on the cover?” The album was promptly reissued with an image of him instead. In 1961, he demanded that Frances Davis be photographed on the cover-- the first in a series of covers featuring black women on the trumpeter's records which for the time period, an incredibly progressive move. Cicely Tyson was featured on the cover of Sorcerer in 1967, another emphatic statement on the beauty of black women. As the film discussed early on, Miles saw his dark complexion symbolic of power, and that is something he exhibited time and time again. Although not covered in the film, the famous February 12, 1964 concert that produced My Funny Valentine and the companion Four and More brought forth a rare passion from the players involved because they had learned Davis had waved the fee for the show as it was an NAACP benefit. Also he had felt strongly about the apartheid in South Africa during the 80's and refused to play there. He was committed to the civil rights of African Americans up until the day he died.

Transition to Superstar in the 80's

As Miles started back on the road to health in the early 80's after the 1972 car wreck that caused him considerable physical pain and causing him to dive back into substance abuse, he emerged a new man in the 80's. He cut Man With The Horn with a new band, diving into the new decade's vision of funk. Along the way he tapped into Caribbean flavored grooves, synth pop, and hip hop. He did interviews (most memorable, his appearances with Bill Boggs and on the Arsenio Hall Show) television shows like Miami Vice, and played a leading role in the film Dingo. Nelson's choice of footage and commentary from musicians during this period show him as positively ebullient, Davis was healthier, painting and cooking, his passions with increased zeal. The footage of the Tutu session, showing the trumpeter's investment in current pop music of the day, and with Prince is quite jubilant.

Touching Moments

There are several touching moments scattered throughout the film that Nelson uses to truly allow the audience to identify with Davis and those who loved and cared about him. Three particularly stood out. The star of the film was without a doubt Frances Davis who had detailed a few stories previously unbeknownst to me. When Miles fell in love with her after seeing her in a production, she was heavily courted by top Hollywood and Broadway actors of the day, with unshakable confidence, and wry humor she professed in the film that as a dancer, her legs were her best asset and that was like with everyone else, won Miles over. Though he had many romantic partners, he and Frances clearly had something that was beyond special. He admitted due to his drug use that he was a bit jealous of the attention she received after being cast in West Side Story and made her quit the show. The emotion she felt when retelling the regret she had when leaving the show, and her career behind was palpable and heartbreaking. She would frequently disappear upstairs in their apartment and gaze longingly at her ballet slippers between bouts of cooking. Lumbly, as Miles intones in his signature rasp how he wished he knew years later that Frances was the best thing to ever happen to him-- a fact he was unaware of when they were together.

The second really touching moment of the film occurs towards the end of Miles' career during the famous 1991 Montreux concert conducted by Quincy Jones where he revisited classic Gil Evans arrangements. There was no musician closer to Davis from 1983-1991 than Wallace Roney. In the film, Roney explains his feelings at Miles indicating he wanted to get the quintet with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams back together but also revisit the Gil Evans material, he had the sudden realization Miles had little time left. The rehearsals for the July, 1991 Montreux concert were vigorous, and Davis showed up for only a few. One of the most challenging pieces was “Pan Piper”. Roney, sensing what his mentor and dear friend was feeling physically jumped in to assist. The piece was not rehearsed but called at the concert, and Davis, summoning the strength of his youth plays a remarkable solo, sharing phrases with Roney. At one particularly difficult passage, Roney jumps in, but Miles is also playing the same phrase. Like Muhammad Ali winning the title a third time in the 1978 rematch with Leon Spinks, Davis managed to reach back and heroically play through the tune, as he did the rest of the concert, providing a memorable late career moment.

The third deeply emotional moment is shared by Miles' last partner, friend Jo Gelbard. As the trumpeter was rushed to the hospital, she detailed some of their last moments as Miles was in his bed prior to having a stroke. The moment has a gut wrenching, aching beauty similar to a great solo like on “Blue in Green” or “Time After Time”. She tells of a conversation that she and Miles had where he said “God doesn't punish you, you get everything you want. You just have limited time.” Indeed, a provocative thought on mortality.

Closing Thoughts

Attending the Birth of the Cool New York City premiere weekend was a marvelous experience. While fans can quibble about what was not included, what albums were glossed over, the lack of bands represented, etc the documentary set out what it was supposed to do; present a balanced, comprehensive portrait of Miles Davis the musician, and human being. While it would have been nice to hear from band mates like George Coleman, Keith Jarrett, Airto, Kenny Garrett, Foley, Marilyn Mazur, Benny Rietveld, Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea or Dave Holland, many of them are featured in the Miles Davis Story (2001) and those interviews can be used as a supplement to this new film. Stanley Nelson treats Davis with respect, and veneration detailing the human experience at each point. The wealth of unseen photos and film footage are a nice bonus for diehard fans, and the well known stories that they all know, will be enlightening to casual and new fans of Davis. The Q&A on the Sunday, August 25th matinee was incredibly insightful, with probing detailed audience questions, with an added treat: The ageless 95 year old drumming pioneer Roy Haynes in the audience! One of the few surviving titans to have played with Charlie Parker. The documentary is on a par with Jaco, Chasing Trane and Bill Frisell: A Portrait.

Rating: 8.5/10

#miles davis #legend #change #blackness #herbie hancock #wayne shorter #john coltrane #tony williams #jazz #music #documentary

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thedcdunce · 5 years

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Static

“What can I say? I identify with Pikachu.” - Static

Real Name: Virgil Ovid Hawkins

Gender: Male

Height: 5′ 7″

Weight: 140 lbs (64 kg)

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Black

Powers:

Bang Baby

Abilities:

Science

Tactical Analysis

Multilingualism

Weaknesses:

Vulnerability to Bang Babies

Equipment:

Static Saucer

Static Traps

Universe:

Dakotaverse

New Earth

Base of Operations:

Titans Tower

Abandoned Gas Station of Solitude, Dakota City

Parents:

Robert Hawkins; father

Jean Hawkins; mother

Marital Status: Single

Citizenship: American

Occupation: Student

First Appearance: Static #1 (June, 1993)

Powers

Bang Baby: Static's physiology was altered by a mutant-genetic explosion which caused him to adapt unusual powers. Static's body itself can generate raw electromagnetic energy, which he has learned to manipulate, control and enhance.

Super-Conductive Electromagnetism: Static can sense sources of electromagnetic energy or objects that can be affected by it such as underground water pipes. He can magnetize and demagnetize metals.

Electromagnetic Fields: Static generates an electromagnetic field just like the earth and the sun generate their own Electromagnetic fields. Static can also create barriers and shields that he can use to block, repel, hold back attacks and defend himself in battle.

Mechanokinesis: Static can capable of fixing or operating electronic devices through his electromagnetic manipulation. He can operate most devices just by touching, even if they are not plugged.

Electromagnetic Levitation: Static can cause objects to fly.

Wavelength Tuning: Static can hear radio waves meaning he can listen in on the police broadband and music stations, as well as tapping into the phone lines so he can make calls.

Electrokinesis: Static can generate electricity from his body and administer it in a range of different attacks and uses. He can charge devices, drain devices and project his electricity in a variety of controlled ways.

Electrical Displays: Static is able to project his electromagnetic energies in the form of energy-based constructs, such as disks, orbs, bursts, shields, platforms, force fields, and other projectiles or constructions.

Electromagnetic Force Bolts: Static can project powerful blasts and/or bursts of electromagnetic energy from his hands for uses allowing him to hit, push/pull or blow away his targets, and potentially exerting enough force to destroy them.

Ball Lightning: Named after Ball Lightning, the weather phenomenon. Electromagnetic Energy compressed into a large ball and thrown at targets; an offensive maneuver in a combat situation.

Static Cling: Static can adhere most objects or people to surfaces and other objects, plus Static can magnetize surfaces.

Electrical Transformation: Due to Static's power to generate electromagnetic energy, He is able to transform his entire body into pure electrical energy.

Abilities

Science: Static is a highly gifted student with a particular interest in math and the sciences. Static also possesses an almost fanboyish knowledge of comic books, role playing games, and science fiction.

Tactical Analysis: Static is able to apply his scientific knowledge in combat and real life situations and does so almost intuitively. This allows him a certain advantage over less clever opponents.

Multilingualism: Virgil has learned to speak German for unknown reasons and is fluent enough to carry on a simple conversation in the language.

Weaknesses

Vulnerability to Bang Babies: For unknown reasons, Static can be affected by electricity-wielding metahumans whose powers are derived from Quantum Juice.

Equipment

Static Saucer: Static uses it to fly through the air.

Static Traps: Normally, Static does not use any real weapons and mainly relies on his electromagnetic powers in battle. However, to defeat particularly formidable opponents, he will employ his "static traps," a well-planned use of his powers and everyday materials. These static traps were limited only by Static's creativity and the preparation time available.

Dakota City

The poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhood of Dakota City is Paris Island. Gangs were commonplace, and turf wars a regular occurrence. So much so that eventually all the local gangs agreed to settle things once and for all, at an intersection of the three main gangs' territories, a spot called "Ground Zero".

This "Big Bang" was no secret, and when more than five hundred gang members converged that night, armed and ready, everyone in the area, police included, knew what was going down. Even Dakota's mayor Thomasina Jefferson, knew about it. Mayor Jefferson decided to take advantage of the unique situation by marking herself as a "tough on crime" candidate for the next election. Once the Big Bang began, she ordered the police to release a special tear gas containing a harmless radioactive marker, which would allow them to track any gang members who got away for days afterwards. Then, the police would move in on the gangs in force and apprehend as many of them as they could. By morning, the vast majority would be incarcerated, and the stragglers could be chased down and picked up over the next few days.

Things went hideously wrong. The gas killed over ninety percent of the people exposed to it, with the survivors either being hideously mutated into monstrous forms or gaining superhuman powers. Those survivors became known as "Bang Babies"; to the world at large the deaths were attributed to gang violence. Fifteen-year old school kid Virgil Hawkins was bullied, like most kids are. But after taking one beating too many he was given a gun by his friend Larry Wade, who encouraged him to seek revenge. Virgil showed up, and hid behind some crates and old oil drums, but while he was waiting he decided this was not for him. Throwing the gun into the water, he wandered off, deep in thought and heedless to where he was walking. Thus it was that Virgil, although not a gang member, ended up present at Paris Island on the night of the Big Bang. Exposed to the gas he gained a variety of electromagnetic powers, and, inspired by the superhero comics he read, decided to become a superhero, Static.

It is not all good being a superhero though. At school the only person who knows Virgil's secret is his best friend, Frieda Goren; he cannot use his powers to deal with bullies for fear of giving away his secret identity. Because his sense of duty means he will drop everything to deal with threats to the city, he finds it impossible to hold down even the most menial job. He has got enemies aplenty - Hotstreak, Commando X, Holocaust, and more. His close friend Rick Stone came out as gay, forcing Virgil not only to deal with his own homophobia, but also to protect Rick when a gay rights rally was attacked by a homophobic super villain.

And then there is Dusk. Dusk was another teen vigilante, with a strong code of justice, whom Static encountered. He and the young lady hit it off immediately, and combined patrolling and dating. Then the two of them assisted the police on a drug bust, only for Static to discover one of the dealers was Frieda's boyfriend Larry. Shocked, Static initially let Larry go, putting a slight rift between him and Dusk. A day later, the two heroes caught up with Larry just as some other dealers decided it was time to silence him. Dusk was shot trying to protect Larry, who died anyway, and if Static had not carried her to safety, Dusk might have died as well. Afterwards, Static told Frieda he had decided to abandon his costumed identity. He was convinced not to by Dusk, who was leaving Dakota because she had become wanted for murder.

DC Universe

At some point, Static was abducted by the Dark Side Club, drugged by the Anti-Life Equation and forced to compete against other heroes in an arena for entertainment. He proved too strong to control, and the proprietors mostly kept him locked up in the basement, although he was allowed out to compete with the other reigning champion, Ravager. After being freed from the Club by Ravager, he applied for and joined the Teen Titans, becoming a full-time member.

Return To Dakota

Virgil finally decides to see his family again after learning that a deadly virus has been infecting citizens of Dakota, including Sharon. After returning home, Virgil reunites with his family as well as Frieda, and learns that his girlfriend Madison has left him during his absence. He discovers that whoever created the virus is also selling limited supplies of the vaccine, and attacks the lab where it is being made. Upon breaking into the facility, Static is surprised and knocked out by Holocaust.

After refusing to help Holocaust in his pursuits, Static is imprisoned in a specialized containment unit alongside Aquagirl, Wonder Girl, and Bombshell. Holocaust informs the heroes that he plans to kill them and weaponize their abilities in order to sell them, but is ambushed by the rest of the Titans before this can happen. Holocaust easily defeats them, only to be confronted by Cyborg, who has recruited former Titans Kid Flash and Superboy.

Fun Facts

Static has had a few nicknames and street names, they include "Kilowatt Kid", "Sparky", "V-man", "Virg", and "Hero".

Early in his superhero career, Static flew using everyday metal objects like garbage can lids. He now flies on a hover disc of his own design and construction.

#static #virgil ovid hawkins #virgil hawkins #shadow cabinet #heroes #Teen Titans #static shock #dc #dc comics #thedcdunce

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shadowunicorn26 · 5 years

Text

MECHANICAL WORLD ROLEPLAY

INTRO AND LORE

The world of Carinthus and it's people have always been inexplicably drawn by the allure of technology and its powers. The tech of the world we see now was derived from ancient relics discovered in the ruins of the world that died long ago. In the ruins of old we discovered blades capable of discharging energy, unbreakable armor, and medicines capable of curing the incurable. Though none of these things were built for man as they were too large, inoperable, and toxic. Only by reverse engineering these items did we advance.

Our cities rose across the landscape. We as man were primal once, but it was not long before we evolved and adopted technology into our every day life. In the year 3150 we chose to welcome these technologies into our bodies. Many sought to use them to walk after losing legs, see after loss of sight, speak after loss of voice. Though others chose to adopt this technology to build their bodies into weapons or merely become prettier or more unique. Even singing better or changing eye color.

The first war in the year 3200 was not fought between men. It was fought between man and machine. The ancient Horde of A.I. known as the Wrath poured from beneath the ground, they sought to overtake the surface. We mankind, fought ruthlessly and with unprecedented ingenuity. The war ended in the year 3263. Mankind stood upon a mountain of metallic bones, we had risen victorious over a foe many had thought unbeatable.

We pulled apart the bones of these machines and reduced them into fodder for our advancement. The materials pulled crom their bodies and bunkers fed the creation of more augmentiations and even more technology. Mankind had finally reached the golden age of technology.

FACTIONS, GANGS, AND ORGANIZATIONS

The Control: The control is what the government has come to be known as. They claim to be there for the people, to have the cities best in mind. However, the truth behind them is that they do not much care for the citizens in any way. They seek fortune and power more than anything. The government capital of the world is Sun city.

The Enforcement: These individuals are well known and feared as the primary law enforcement of the world. They receive highly specialized augmentations and implants to aid in the hunting of criminals. These men and women are not classified as police, they actually posess their own agency akin to the C.I.A. or F.B.I. Their jurisdiction is literally unlimited and they have many times been able to overule the government when necessary. These units are often spotted bounding across rooftops and even through the windows and walls of residential or business buildings. They possess headquarters in all of the major cities. These buildings are often some of the cleanest and most well kept structures in the cities. They can be anywhere from large sprawling facilities to towering structures of white and black.

Police: lower crimes are dealt with by machines, androids, and drones as well as simple men and women aided by such machines. The police are most feared by regular citizens as they can be very strict, they handle crimes like simple thefts, riots, protests, and domestic disagreements. They have access to drones and types of droids as well as riot suppression vehicles with non-lethal weapons.

The Mad Dogs: This messy and violent crime ring is known most for their peddling of drugs. They sell and transport every drug under the sun but they are most active in the trade of Black Water. These men and women are commonly seen performing trades in the back alleys and drive-bys on crowded city streets. They are surprisingly well hidden. Many think they live beneath the streets but in truth they reside in camps in abandoned buildins and keep moving. This group operates in all the mahor cities, calling the lower sector of Emerald city its primary home.

Reclamation: This Terror organization is well known for its use of explosives, acids, and gasses to destroy and terrify. They believe that the Control must be destroyed by any means necessary. Countless innocent people throughout all the major cities have lost their lives to the mad violence of this organization.

The Torione Family: this organization is what remains of what many once called the Mafia. While their are other families, this one is often thought of when many think of the Mafia. They take part in arms trade, money laundering and and counterfeiting, they also house several illegal gambling houses and casinos across Skylight city.

The Cleansing: while the name of this group of assassins may sound righteous, they are not. They are just as you would expect from assassins. Willing to kill whoever you want as long as the pay is right. Though many of them possess a code. A certain type of person they won't kill or a way they won't do it, or perhaps a certain way they have to kill.

Runners and Rats: the runners and the Rats stand out in the fact that they were two different groups that joined together to survive. The runners corner the market on the delivery of unknown and potentially illegal goods, they live by a number of simple rules, never open the package if it is sealed, always deliver the package on time, and deliver the package by any means necessary.

The rats are the thieves and hackers that many fear. These people would probably be ignored by Enforcment if they didn't go after the big ticket items like diamonds, experimental tech, high value information.

HISTORY AND WORLD STATE

W.A.A: the weaponized augmentations accord was an agreement made within the government that the use of weaponized augmentations was to be outlawed. However the accord never passed due to the murder of the council member that had been pushing it. Many of the ordinary citizens now wish that the Accord would be brought back, to help prevent the violence on the streets.

Night of Red Streets: in 3310 crime had become even more dominant and aggressive. The streets of sun city lit up in celebration of music and food. The mood was destroyed when the first shot rang out, killing a young woman. Then the next shot, and the next. The firing went on for almost an hour. The dust settled to reveal over three hundred inocent men, women, and children dead. The reasoning behind the massacre is still unknown, and the action remains unclaimed by any organization or gang.

LOCATIONS AND CITIES

Emerald city: this city was once known by the name of Brenton, however it has since been renamed as emerald city, it is recognizable not only by its lighting but by its stacked vertical growth patterns. The name certainly fits with the lighting if the mid and low sections of the city. The upper city is home to large corporate buildings and homes of the rich. The mid section of the city lies beneath the upper streets outside the range of sunlight, it became neccessary to use lighting. The signature green lighting was chosen for reasons unknown. The lower section if the city is so far beneath the sun that it is not only cold but moist. The green lights are sparse and spread out. The distance between the peaks of the buildings and the sections above are not known exactly. Only that there is enough space in both the mid and lower section for "skyscrapers" and flying vehicles.

Sun city: Sun city is known by the fact that it is the home of the control. The reasoning behind it's name is unknown. While the sun is visible it is no view that would quite earn the name. Peppered across its landscape are towering skyscrapers and above that are the Sky towers. Countless wealthy individuals reside in the sky towers along with individuals of high government importance.

Skylight: this city is believed to have earned its name by its lights in the sky. It is more of what you would expect from a large city before the golden age of tech, only more sprawling and expansive. The crime rate is through the roof here as it is everywhere else. The center of the city is accomodates one of the few urban parks with real and well kept trees. Skylight city is like a giant circle that goes on for over two hundred and fifty miles. The sky scrapers were built in rings, large businesses and corporations as well as high ranking officials and the wealthy resided there. this collection of rings was catalogued from district one to ten. District one through five are where the high class reside. Towering complexes of high end estates high above the ground accessible by landing pads and elevators only open those with permission or law enforcement. Six through ten is where the middle class resides. Cramped into large apartment buildings and housing complexes. Another ring about another a hundred miles thick all the way around is district eleven, the poverty district.

ITEMS, TECHNOLOGY AND AUGMENTATIONS

Augmentations and technology are sold by countless different companies, however the leading company in augmentations is Rockwater Enterprises.

Augmentations and implants: augmentations range from bionic mimbs, upgraded visual sensors, mechanical lungs, hearts and vocal cords. Another example is that one can have rifles implanted in their arm or even a grappling hook. Jet packs, thrusters, energy shields. You can get augmentations at official tech clinics as well as black market dealers. Many augmentation ports allow for interchanging parts.

Medical: medicine became a simple matter. Syringes became faster working. Most deseases are now curable through a simple but expensive injection, cancer is not included.

Vehicles: while ground vehicles with wheels have not become uncommon they are not as common as they once were. Vehicles capable of flight and hovering are most common.

Weapons: laser weapons do exist as well as energy boosted ballistics.

[BCU]PLOTS AND STARTERS

The year is 3327 and crime has continued to plague our world. War has not been an issue since the control took over all countries. Wars of a new variety have begun, in the streets and on the rooftops.

criminal: the criminal path can be set witgin ine organization or betweeen two. The story itself changes depending on the two groups chosen or the one group chosen. This pathcan he very dark ans violent.

Enforcement: the enforcement path most likely chronicles an investigation by two Enforcement agents and other exploits.

Enforcement and criminal: this could be with an ex or reformed criminal and an enforcement agent or between an enforcement agent and a current criminal. Romance will not happen very soon if this option is chose but is still possible.

(I am open to ideas.)

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frogmanwritings · 5 years

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Chapters: 2/?

Fandom: Teen Titans (Animated Series)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Relationships: Beast Boy/Starfire

Characters: Garfield Logan, Beast Boy, Starfire, Koriand'r (DCU), Slade, Slade Wilson, Deathstroke, Robin, Robin (DCU), Dick Grayson, Cyborg (Character), Victor Stone, Raven (DCU), Rachel Roth

Additional Tags: Angst, Romance, Villains to Heroes, Fluff, Smut, Violence, Alternate Universe - Teen Titans (Animated Series) Setting, AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Evil

Summary: Garfield Wilson has lived with his adoptive father, Slade, since his parents died. Finally, after 5 years, Slade is sending him out to try and take down his rivals, the Teen Titans. How will a dark and mistreated Garfield react to them upon meeting them? How will he deal with their bright alien bringing a shine of positivity and joy to his life that he had hidden from him behind angst and abuse?

Links:

Fanfiction

Ao3

It was a cold night, though that was nothing new to the man walking along the sidewalk, green eyes examining the sky above him. It was almost a perfect black, the small blend of ocean blue and even a deep violet mixed in with the colorless sky, coupled with white shining stars that held hints of gold in their gleam. The man had occasionally seen the sky through his small window, though he had to admit that it was far more gorgeous to look at without the restriction of fogged glass blocking his view. The stars were much clearer, even if they were just endless specks light-years away. The silver moon looked like it was yawning, holding a crescent shape and letting even more glistening mini suns shine his path.

Garfield Wilson couldn't help but take in the scenery. He was on a mission, to catch the attention of the infamous Teen Titans and let them know just which new 'baddie' was in town. And how would he go about doing that? Well by stealing a high-powered battle staff with both explosive and electric capabilities, something that Robin would drool over in comparison to his little metal Bo Staff.

The laboratory it was being held at was highly protected, with alarms being set up on all potential openings, and motion-detected lasers inside the establishment should an intruder get past those. Enough to scare off plenty of potential thieves with the threat of the police coming over, let alone the Titans. Good for Garfield however who wanted them to come to him, plus he'd get a pretty staff along with the fact.

Slade had scouted out the place previously and was able to easily identify each security measure the place took when it was closed off, and it turns out that security guards usually patrolled the outer entrances of the lab, but only on weekends. Likely due to financial restrictions placed onto the owner of the research facility by the mayor, it was well known that he didn't want Jump City to become a police state, instead relying simply on local police forces and the Teen Titans to protect the place. Rather foolish however, given the numerous superpowered villains patrolling the place, looking for any opening to make themselves bank. But politics were a very brutal game, and if Mr. "Say what the public wants me to say" wants to secure votes, he'll prohibit local establishment and non-government funded facilities have any sort of bodyguards patrolling.

The owner still used guards however, just on weekends and on non-busy police days, whatever the hell that meant. So easily enough, the heist of the staff was simply scheduled on a day that security guards weren't there, aka a nice Wednesday night.

Garfield soon came across the address given to him, surrounded by other research facilities, though their research seemed to be based more in medical purposes. Made the changeling wonder just why this laboratory in particular were crafting military grade weaponry. Unless the explosive tip of the staff actually blew up asprin and bandages of course, science was a mystery.

It was a wide white building, looking to be around two and a half stories tall. Black tinted windows were placed within 10 feet of each other along the side of the building, where Garfield suspected that those were where the workers and their desks were at. The upper level of the building held no windows and was much wider in space than the lower level, so he assumed not only was that where the lab workers held their experiments and research, but also where the staff was held.

Speaking of the apprentice, his mutated green skin, while starting out as a grass green color, had slowly dimmed down to a paler color that more resembled old moss rather than anything lively. Plenty of years living in a cellar will do that. His jawline was strong and firm, a pointed chin that looked like it could cut through steel pointing down to his torso. His hair had grown out all the way down to his neck, and puberty treated him well in the facial hair department, with some sick sideburns that stuck out, similar to that of another Logan across universes.

Despite his poor living conditions, Garfield certainly didn't look like it. He was still fairly short, only around 5'7" to 5'9" on a good day, but he had put on a decent chunk of weight. He wasn't a bodybuilder, but his muscles were well defined and his torso was almost rock-solid, with his six-pack being his most prized possession on his body. Around 180lbs of muscle, he certainly wasn't no pushover, along with his naturally enhanced strength and durability. No Superman, and he wasn't sure just what his limit in strength was, but he was confident in saying he was stronger than any other human around.

But he didn't just have to rely on his pure strength, being Slade's son did come with benefits, and oh boy did he have some weapons to spare. A Bowie knife, numerous flashbangs, a Grapple Gun, smokeballs, even a few sticky bombs, all strapped to a utility belt tied around his waist. Dressed in a black jumpsuit that resembled the outfit of a Doom Patrol uniform, the purple was replaced with the bronze-orange that was painted over one half of Slade's mask. Armored gaunlets were wrapped around his wrists, made of reflective titanium designed to block just about anything, including energy blasts, which just so happened to be the primary weapon of one of his adversaries in Starfire.

Of course, he still had his collar, gray and made of steel as well, dogtags hung off the front, one with the same 'S' as on his headband, along with the other one having his 'new name' in Garfield Wilson craved into the metal. To wield the staff and not get electrocuted, he wore special-protective gloves, the palms of them made of an absorbive rubber that would, at best, tickle his hands should the sparks of the weapon ever come in contact with them. At the back of his neck was where he would store the staff, a natural sheath that was perfect for any sword and staff, and was also what was used to hook onto the wooden pillar in his 'room'.

Rather than going through the front door, Garfield used his grapple gun to fire a zipline right onto the roof of the second floor. Climbing up, there wasn't any sort of vent or glass roof like he assumed, perking frustration out of the changeling before just deciding to blast right into the place. He had bombs to spare, and besides, might as well not have that first zipline be a waste and make a grand entrance.

Unhooking one of the sticky bombs from his belt, he planted it on no specific part of the roof, giving the thumb that was being used to hold the explosive a smooch before doing so. Gar pushed the red button atop the bomb and quickly ran a safe distance away, not even bothering to shield his eyes or plug his ears, simply watching the bomb tick and tick and tick before...

*BOOM*

Immediately, the explosion triggered the laboratory's alarms, flashing red lights going throughout the entire establishment, which was going to be almost unavoidable regardless if he wanted the attention or not. But once the smoke and dust cleared, Garfield jumped down, immediately greeted with the typical white layout of the place, colorless walls and colorless floors making for a rather bland room.

But he didn't much care for decorations, he was more focused on the glass case that held the staff, though the shapeshifter suspected it wasn't any sort of simple glass that could be broken with a sneeze, especially so with the gleaming metal that outlined the container. Designed to hold out average humans, Garfield certainly didn't see himself as one of those, and thus he decided to test his strength out.

Cracking his knuckles, he lifted up the prized possession, the staff itself around 4 feet long, sleek silver design with one of the tips holding a black rounded tip which he could only assume to be the explosive tip. And the other end held a black button, he could assume that's how you turned on the electric properties of the glorified stick.

The cylinder container had plenty of buttons on the top of it, as well as a hatch that was locked up and wouldn't bulge, even as he tried to rip it open. Obviously there was suppose to be some sort of password he could enter that would open it up, but with the alarms going off, that also meant that the lab computers were shut down completely until the security system was manually turned off. And like hell was he going to try and figure all of that out.

So, Garfield went after what seemed the most vulnerable, the glass. Holding the container up with one arm, he lifted his other, pointing his elbow out and after a deep breath, slammed it down. Painful? Definitely, but the glass showed signs of cracking, and thus he bit his tongue and slammed the sharp of his arm down once again, and after a third attempt, the protective cover was broken open, and the changeling from there tore the rest of it open, tossing the shattered glass and buzzing metal to the side for his prize.

Placing his hands firmly on the pads of the staff, he gave the thing a few swings, being surprisingly heavy for its scrawny size, but he wasn't about to back down from the challenge of wielding the thing. As for his escape... might as well put the baby to the test. Finding the wall that faced out towards the street, he held the staff back before thrusting it forward, letting the explosive tip make wreckage of the pure white walls, clearing out a rather sizeable hole in the building.

"Nice." He remarked, looking rather proud of his find before actually looking out the hole he created and seeing... a police car? The station was across town, how the hell were police here already? It was just a stray vehicle however, and of course, Garfield immediately thought of the gas station just a block away. Cop was probably harassing some clerk when he heard the alarm go off.

And speaking of the cop... where was he? The changeling could tell right away that he wasn't in his car, even through the tinted windows and there wasn't anywhere that he could hide behind with the way he parked it over the sidewalk.

And just as he connected the dots of where the pig could possibly be, the cock of a pistol rung in his ears, along with a deep-voiced demand. "Drop the weapon!" The male yelled out, though right away Gar could hear that he wasn't fully confident in his words. Why would he be, he was a loaded out green man with some stiff muscles and a deadly staff in his hands. Not even turning around, the shapeshifter just perked his brow and kept his same exact stance. "I just want the Teen Titans, I don't want to kill you now." His monotone voice remarked, and only half of that was a lie. He DID want the Teen Titans to come to him, but there was a certain part of him that was curious of just what killing someone felt like and this shaky cop might just be the perfect candidate.

"Drop it now, man!" The officer seemingly completely ignored his words, once again making a nervous demand, trying to hide it behind a loud yell, but the apprentice could easily make out the emotions in his voice. He was scared, and there was a tiny part of him that felt bad for the guy, but then again, he was also a complete dumbass entering the place without any sort of backup in sight. And he even tried to let the suit off, giving him a chance to get out of here so he could wait for the Titans, but nope.

The station would be better off with someone different wearing that badge, Garfield ultimately decided, but.. the cop did have the advantage right now. Any sort of sudden movement and he could catch himself with a bullet in him. So a quick plan was arranged, and the shapeshifter slowly and steadily raised his arms up in surrender, the staff being held in between his index fingers and thumbs, dangling temptingly. "Come and take it."

After a few seconds of silence, Logan eventually did hear the officer slowly step forward towards him. Slow, hesitant steps that further showed just how fearful he was. Each little tap made the changeling more eager, just waiting. "No sudden movements, you hear me?" The cop ordered, and Gar silently responded with a slow and sure nod, pressing his thumbs firm on the staff while his pinkie waited for just the right moment to move.

Feeling those sweaty fingers placed on the metal of the staff, what came next might've came across as a shock. Literally. A yell of anguish came out of the cop's mouth as the advanced electricity of the staff was turned on by the teenager and burned his hand, and Garfield was quick to react, snatching ahold of the pistol that was previously aimed at the back of his head, making sure that the bullet that was panic fired from the chamber hit the floor several feet away. Holding the staff in one hand, he made quick use of the officer's own pistol, the next two shots fired, both piercing and flying through the forehead of his adversary.

Logan watched as the cop fell, not much like the early, early shows and movies he barely remembered watching as a child. Instead of jumping backyards several feet, his victim kinda fell on himself, the top half of his body slumping downward while his legs gave out on him and collapsed on the ground. Landing on his tailbone first, the rest of the body fell backwards, and a mean sounding *thump* accompanied the head slamming against the tiled floor.

The officer was around his height, but had a hefty gut on him, his blue police uniform barely holding on around his fat. His arms had hair growing along them, and looking up towards his face, clear blue eyes stared blankly up towards the exposed roof, blood seeping out from the two bullet holes that were above each eyebrow on him. The thing was that... they still seemed alive, though only briefly. Several emotions ran throughout them that interested the changeling. Fear... Confusion... Sorrow... Regret... too many to count before they quickly clouded over and went cross. His mouth was gaped, as if trying to say his final words, but nothing came out, just a small heave, his final breath...

Oddly, Garfield felt... nothing. He expected some sort of high afterwards that motivated him forward, maybe even regret that would shift his opinion on doing this entire job, but... nothing. The dark-skinned officer's body laying lifeless before him didn't do much for him, and even seeing the gushing blood pooling around the back of his head, though if that was from the bullet shots or his head smashing into the tile on his way down was unknown, it all was just something that happened.

The most emotion he felt was actually a bit of disorientation after having those gunshots fired so close to his sensitive ears, using his pinkie to pick at his earlobes as if just murdering that man was an inconvenience for him and his poor eardrums. There was also a bit of confusion, Gar being able to hear some sort of static sounding voice, before realizing that it was coming from the cop's communicator. He couldn't make out the exact words but it seemed like whoever was on the other end of it was urgently asking for his partner's status. Sorry fella. He unapologetically thought to himself, stuffing the freshly fired pistol into one of his holsters before doing the same with the stolen staff, this time securing it in the hole on the back of his collar.

Glancing back at the hole in the wall he made, Garfield walked forward until the tips of his toes hung off the edge, green gaze examining the outerior of the laboratory and finding himself disappointed that the Titans hadn't arrived yet. At least, under the sound of hot rubber grinding over asphlat alerted him to the sight of a blue and silver convertible turning on the block and heading right in his direction. A bit odd, until he recognized the cybernetic look of the blue that perfectly matched the half metal Titan, and looking through the windshield, that just confirmed it. Cyborg.

Pulling his stolen pistol back out of the holster, he took aim at the vehicle, closing one eye and taking a breath before firing off two shots, aimed at the wheels. However, the bullets merely bounced off of them as if they were nothing, and before he could shoot anymore, his gun was enveloped in a black aura and quickly dismantled in front of him. And finally, Gar managed to glance forward just in time to see a shining green ball of energy fly his way, ducking and avoiding it and letting it crash into the desks in the laboratory.

About time.

The Teen Titans. Cyborg and Robin jumped out of the convertible and stared up at the green changeling, while Starfire and Raven joined them, hovering idly with the same looks of determination in their eyes. And really, this was the first time the apprentice had a chance to get an actual look at the team. Based solely off of descriptions, he had a small idea of just what they looked like, but when face-to-face, it was a whole 'nother thing.

Robin stood in front of the pack, the leader of the group, and his iconic look still remained even after leaving Gotham behind. Domino mask, slicked black hair and a colorful combination of green, yellow and red in his outfit. His jawline was like a reverse pyramid, pointing downward diagonally into a pointed chin. He was rather thin, though his father made sure to tell him that behind his slim build, he held the strength to combat even the strongest of adversaries, including Cinderblock and Mammoth.

Cyborg was easily the biggest of the group, standing well over 6 foot even in his teenage years. Most of his body and head composed of a sleek gray and blue design that seemed extra futuristic. A red eye glowed angrily at him, while a icy blue human eye was squinted, as if he was confused about the appearance of the man he was staring at. Have you seen yourself in the mirror, tough guy?

Raven was probably the most boring to look at. Most of her body was hidden behind a night-sky colored cloak, though he could just make out her thin lips pursed in a frown as she looked upward, along with shapely gray legs that were short enough to make her the smallest of the group. But even at her small size, he knew he had to be careful around her, given her immense power.

And Starfire... god was she was a looker. Flowing autumn-colored hair, tall curvy body that could make any woman jealous, all secured in a revealing purple outfit. Her fists were hidden by two glowing green orbs that increased and decreased in size each second. But the most intriguing thing about the alien was those eyes... A fierce colored green that were like prizeless emeralds, her pupils were wide and shone with almost unbreakable will. And in the darkness of the night, they shone like two mini stars.. the shine of them just so captivating. Hidden behind her will was also a layer of passion and compassion that caused a gentle smirk to cross the face of the changeling. Certainly the most attractive of the Titans and also the most interesting...

"Slade... seems like he found himself a new apprentice." Cyborg's heavy voice was the first to speak, surprisingly unaffected by any of the robotics on him, sounding perfectly normal. Perhaps he still had his lungs underneath all that metal. The human eye of the half robot then widened as his red eye glowed for a split second. "My god. You have Sakutia... how are you still breathing, man?"

"Seems that tech of yours is more advanced than Father described." Garfield first spoke to the Titans, making sure his voice was as sharp and menacing as it could be, finishing his statement with a snarl. However, it seemed that his three companions didn't share the shock of Cyborg's, looking at their friend with a confused look. "Sakutia was a deadly disease most commonly found in animals in Africa, kinda like rabies. Except no one's been able to survive it once they've been infected, since it attacks their cells and mutates them before slowly melting down. It's a slow and painful death, thankfully extremely rare, which makes me question how this guy is alive." Their friend thankfully explained however.

After the medical lesson, Robin was the one who perked up the most, Logan being able to see his eyes widen underneath his black and white mask. "Wait, father? Slade has a son?" He questioned, furrowing his brow as a demanding finger pointed upward. "Slade does not seem like the type to doing the settling and conceive bumgorfs." Starfire thought outloud, looking at Robin with a curious gaze, who seemed more determined than thoughtful at the moment.

Ignoring the word vomit that was whatever the alien just said, Garfield just shook his head, growing more and more bored by the second. And if they weren't going to initiate combat, then he will! Snatching one of his sticky bombs from his belt, he gave the button a quick tap before tossing it like a frisbee in the direction of the Titans, who quickly split up to avoid it, leaving it to stick onto the spare police car on the street, a few idle beeps ticking before eventually the vehicle exploded in epic fashion, fire and car parts flying across the air.

Jumping down from the second story of the laboratory, he was quickly greeted with a charging Robin, who jumped and spun in the air, looking for an overhead kick. Quickly, Garfield caught the metal-plated boot, having to exert some strength in order to hold the bird boy in place, and the look of surprise on the pale teen's face was quite satisfying before the changeling swung him by the ankle, tossing him through one of the windows of the laboratory.

Green starbolts rained down on him soon afterwards, and the apprentice had to jump and spin out of the way of the balls of energy, even using his gauntlets to block one of them before finding himself right in front of the towering Cyborg. Ducking an incoming punch, Garfield tried his hand in giving the robot a punch to the gut, only to find his knuckles ache while his adversary barely moved an inch. "Really man?" Victor questioned him before lifting up a metallic knee, hitting him square in the gut and forcing a heave out of the green teen.

Finding himself getting frustrated early on, especially so after the cybernetic Titan tossed across the street and having to roll out of the way of an alien starbolt once more, Garfield decided to approach things differently now.

As a black-encased mailbox flew in his direction, the changeling decided to introduce his powers into the fight, quickly shifting into a gorilla and turning the flying weapon into rubble with a double fist pound, followed up by a roar. Thankfully his collar and utility belt were designed to endure and grow with his transformations, he still had his weapons at hand should he need them. Hearing Cyborg let out a "Woah!" of surprise, along with seeing the levitating Raven's eyes widen, Garfield went on the attack, jumping up into the air towards the cloaked woman.

She in turn tried to shield herself with her dark powers, but the pure strength of the gorilla was enough to knock her down to the ground regardless, breaking her barrier and causing the changeling to land right atop of her. Shifting back into his human form, he gave a cocky smirk to the empath who had her hood down now, exposing her large violet eyes and short cut hair, along with a red charkra on the center of her forehead. "Azarath Metri-mmph!" Raven began her chant, but Garfield wasn't about to allow that, shoving the side of his hand into her mouth and gagging her while his other hand brought out his Bowie knife.

Before he could do anything with it however, the apprentice found himself knocked several yards away from the demon with a painful burning sensation in his side. Gripping at his hip, he looked upward to find both the beautiful Starfire and menacing Cyborg standing in front of him now. Numbers game is no joke. He thought bitterly to himself, narrowing his eyes as he watched the muscled half-robot transform one of his arms into what looked like a cannon, an almost blinding blue building up in its interior.

Tossing his knife directly into the cannon's gaped opening before it could fire, Garfield transformed into a bear, jumping forward and knocking the staggered Cyborg into a lightpole with one of his powerful paws before turning his attention to the Tamaranean, turning into a fly to avoid one of her punches, before turning back into a human to grab her outstretched arm and judo-throw her over his head.

Pulling out the stolen staff that was stuck to his back, Garfield gripped it nice and tight before turning it on, the odd sensation of the electricity sparkling against his protected palms almost ticklish. More shadow-covered objects were being tossed his way, from lightpoles to tires and even objects from the laboratory, like the desks and chairs that were on the first floor of the establishment. The changeling was quick to react, ducking and swerving out of the way of the smaller and thinner objects and using the explosive tip of the staff to blow up the larger objects, leaving only bits of them to brush against his face.

However, Raven wasn't quite done with him yet, flying forward and landing a quick roundhouse to his jaw while he was still seeking smoke. Staggered, Garfield grunted and turned off the staff momentarily, using it to block the demon's barrage of kicks and palm strikes. She wasn't slow or anything, but in comparison to his sparring partner being Slade? She was an amateur, and her moves were easily predictable. Before long, the villain caught one of the arms that struck forward, holding it firm in between his elbow and his side, and he quickly retaliated with a headbutt square in between her eyebrows.

A cry of pain escaped her mouth, and his forehead could feel the bone it struck down on break under its hit. Satisfied, he then transformed into a kangaroo, using those heavy hitting legs to kick the staggered Raven far and high, right into the exposed hole on the second story of the laboratory. However, he didn't get much time to celebrate, as he once again had to use his staff to deflect a Birdarang that was closed in on his chest.

These Titans did not stay down easily, as once more, Garfield found himself outnumbered, Cyborg managing to tug the knife free from his arm, Starfire flying above and Robin charging forward once more. This would be difficult, as now all three looked to close in on him.

Transforming back into a gorilla, Logan let out a loud yell before using a massive hand to swat at Robin, missing his mark but at least keeping him a safe distance away while he thought up a strategy for the approaching robot. Some sparks were flying from his right arm, which gave the changeling an idea as he blocked another kick from the leader of the group. He just needed a bit of separation from Bird Boy..

Using the explosive tip of the staff, he stabbed down directly at Robin's feet, forcing him to jump backward, just as Cyborg had closed the distance between the two. A wild swing came his way, which Garfield managed to easily dodge before grabbing at the weakened shoulder of the mechanical man with a powerful mitten. A screech followed as the pure strength of the primate allowed him to rip the metal arm clean off of the body of the half-robot. And just in case, Gar quickly shifted back into his human form, turned on the staff and stuck it into the now exposed wiring of Vic.

Sparks and bolts came out as electricity danced along the wires and mechanics of Cyborg, smoke even floating upward from it before eventually, a loud pop was heard from inside his body and the massive half-man fell to the ground, human eye closed.

Starbolts rained down on him now, followed up with several Birdarangs, not all of which Garfield could dodge, eventually knocking him to the ground and causing him to lose his staff as it slid and bounced out of his grasp. He could feel blood run down his side, along with several bruises and burn marks over his chest and back. And he was getting tired, sweat pouring from his hairline down his face and soaking his top.

Looking forward at the two remaining Titans, they didn't look very happy with them either, Starfire's eyes glowing green and an enraged look on Robin's face. No chance they were going to let him get up without being able to knock him back down, with their ranged weapons and his lack of any. He needed just a bit of time to regain his energy, to be able to shift again to finish this...

"Goddamn." Garfield let himself remark, a pained chuckle escaping afterwards, his tongue flopping out of his mouth to wet his lips as he rolled over onto his back, looking forward at the two Titans. "When Father said you guys were strong, he wasn't lying..." He made sure to put emphasis on 'Father', and looking at the perked eyebrows of Robin and knowing his near obsession with Slade, it seemed that was a good choice as he just stomped forward and stood over the fallen changeling.

Garfield raised his hands up in 'surrender' as his collar was grasped and tugged on, forcing the green apprentice to get face-to-face with the leader. "Who ARE you? What is your father after?" The domino-masked teen interrogated his enemy, a vicious snarl on his face.

"Garfield." Was his simple answer, purposefully leaving his second question up in the air and even teasingly perking his brows as he spoke. "Garfield's the name. Though Logan is.. also acceptable." It was clear frustration was beginning to seep into the bird boy, that grimace of his tightening, as well as the grip on his collar. There you go, keep it up.. Gar enticed in his head, slowly lowering one of his hands down while spreading the fingers on his other as it was raised in defeat.

"Garfield... what's your last name?" Robin then growled, giving his collar a shake while his free hand tightened in anger. "Oh.. wouldn't you love to know.. First name's Garfield, middle name's Logan, that's all you're getting out of me." The changeling answered tauntingly, which only made the leader more frustrated, though he seemed to accept defeat on that matter before moving on.

"What is Slade after?!"

Almost.. Garfield thought, his hand almost to that smoke bomb on his utility belt, his energy returning to him as time went on and he stalled.

"Well, not sure how much concern it is to you, but it actually has to do with your girlfriend there. Starfire, I believe?" The changeling lied slyly, nodding towards the Tamaranean who was standing feet away. He wasn't exactly a good liar, but in his anger-filled state, it seemed that statement was enough to get Robin intrigued, and Starfire herself as well, blinking a few times out of confusion.

"What would Slade want out of me?" She asked, only earning a sigh from Garfield. "I'm not going to tell you that now, really I've said more than I should've." He condescendingly taunted the woman, which only earned him a punch across the jaw from who was ontop of him. He really does like her.. He thought bitterly, feeling blood beginning to pool in his mouth after the hard hit.

"What does he want with-" Robin's question was interrupted by Garfield, who spit his own blood into the face of the bird boy, and before he could retaliate, an explosion of smoke clouded over them both. "Robin!" Starfire shrieked, however she wasn't going to be much help for him as a flashbang suddenly went off just under her feet, blinding her and making her stagger on her feet. The changeling quickly shifted into his gorilla form, grabbing ahold of the face of the leader. Giving it a tight squeeze, so badly wanting to just pop the head of the bitch who managed to win over his father's affection, he instead gave him a punch to the gut, causing him to spit out blood in return, though likely not on purpose like Gar's spit.

Tossing the body of Robin out of the smoke and onto the windshield of the convertible he arrived in, Garfield then leaped forward, cupping his fists and slamming them down atop the disorientated alien, planting her into the road. Slade wanted to send a message alright, and that was exactly what his apprentice was planning on doing. Walking over to his staff which had fallen several feet away from him, Logan grabbed it and walked over to the body of Starfire, body stirring on the ground.

Here's your goddamn mess- Garfield was about to drive the explosive tip of the staff right onto the face of Starfire, Robin's closest ally and teach him a lesson for having his father choose him, HIM, to be his apprentice over his own damn son, but then, she opened her eyes...

Something in her eyes made him hesitate. She was still disorientated and in clear pain as she could only wriggle on the ground below him as her pupils looked up at him, and yet... he couldn't do it. Garfield WANTED to take away that bird boy's crush, and the perfect opportunity was here to do that, but her eyes shone in a way that he had never seen before. The night stars above them reflected off of her wide pupils, her irises were like emeralds and the shine of the stars made them twinkle so beautifully. And once the helpless Tamaranean realized the position she was in, emotion screamed at him through her gorgeous gaze. They were silently begging for him not to hurt her anymore, pupils wobbling in fear, which only made the shine in her eyes glitter even more. And even in her scared state, Garfield could make out the pure passion and innocence that laid behind her irises that filled him up with a feeling that he couldn't pinpoint. She.. she didn't deserve this.

His pursuit of revenge slowly evaporated, and instead came in an attraction towards the Titan that he wasn't sure was there before. Sure, she was beautiful, he noted that before, but seeing her like this, the way her eyes looked at him... He had no trouble ending the life of the one police officer in the laboratory, but now, fear actually raked his body. Garfield hated it, but his body trembled as regret clouded his mind over hurting such a... precious soul.

He had to get out of there, quick. Sheathing the staff behind him on his collar, Garfield got away from Starfire, in which he could just make out the last look in her eye before he ran away, back to his father. She was confused, but there was another emotion there that made his heart swell.

Curiosity.

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