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munv · 6 months

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𝗜𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗜𝗡 𝗘𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗦𝗬

𝗜𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝘁𝗼𝘀𝗵𝗶 𝗦𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗲𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂? 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼?

The birds were chirping, the sun peaked out from the kitchen window and poured into your connected living room, and peace drifted through the air with grace..yet..you groaned. Now, you weren't an all-time rounded apathetic person, unlike your younger brother you actually learned to show interest but it's not like you wore your heart on your sleeve either.

However, in the face of school, you couldn't help but show discontent. Grumbling as you ate the eggs from your plate that you cooked earlier somewhere in the corner of your eye your little brother looked more than ready to pounce on you. Don't get it wrong. You knew exactly why..you just refused to acknowledge his apparent irritation,

"you said you'd play soccer with me." He stabbed his fork right into the omelet and watched whatever was in it run out. You sweatdropped at this revelation and kept silent. 'he probably got that glare from mom' you shivered from the thought. Entering grade 4 was one thing. Facing the kids there was another, and you couldn't say you were particularly happy to wait for what kind of asshole Sae would transform into when he gets to that stage. Scratch grade 4–teenager sae would give you paralysis demons for eons.

"Now sae, your nee-san has to get an education in order to take care of you when we can't." No matter how much your father tried to sugarcoat it, he always had something to say. "nee-san is smart enough, the only thing that's needed for that dry persona of hers is manners." he calmly chewed his food before taking a sip of salted kombucha tea.

Somehow this reminded you of your grandpa scolding you all those years ago..surely sae couldn't have been a reincarnation of him as well? you frowned at the thought and quickly dismissed it.

"I don't want to hear that from a brat with a soccer ball for a brain." you sassed back. "If anything, there's isn't an ounce of knowledge in that 4-year-old noggin of yours. I say if we pop it, only air would come out. Enough to supply astronauts actually."

"oh? And I thought you were smart enough to be the bigger person and not meddle in whatever "foolishness" a 4-year-old has to offer. nee-san"

"To think I wouldn't be doing this if you didn't need any discipline. Brat"

Your father chuckled a bit at the sparks flying around the room. This had become the usual banter you and Sae had ever since he could talk. What a bundle of joy you both were when you couldn't speak at all. "[name] we're gonna be late if you two keep this up. I'll see you in the car" he got his keys which jingled and clacked along with the movement before making his way outside.

Hurrying to finish breakfast, you put the plate in the sink before grabbing your bag by the door. but, you stopped and turned around to quickly embrace sae and give him a small pat before truly leaving. "see you when I get home sae!" The door closed by the time the younger boy turned to face you and a small blush decorated his cheeks. "stupid nee-san.." he murmured before getting back to work on the plate in front of him. Maybe he'd practice until you could get home and show you some new moves? right! he'd definitely win this match if he practiced.

You entered the school gates as your skirt and tie swished a bit in the wind, before you got here you got what was supposed to be a schedule for your class which was class 1-B. Too focused on your schedule, what you failed to notice was the looks you were getting.

"who's that?"

"you don't know? It's Itoshi-san from Samuyoko!"

"no way..she's from that school? wasn't the entry rate like..3.2% or something"

"oh my go–TOMI-CHAN FAINTED!!"

"an angel? cool" "I thought she was here last year?"

You quirked your brow after finally realizing the commotion around you, looking around only to realize all eyes were on you. 'what the fuck..' These kids made you feel like your nerves were in a literal jumble, and you weren't having a fun time with all this attention.

With the help of your schedule, you hurriedly made your way to your classroom just in time before the bell could ring. Finding the inner strength within you managed to walk into the classroom after taking a small breath to yourself 'Everything is fine..she won't be here- hopefully.'

By the time you reached your seat, her voice echoed through the halls. "[N/N] WHERE ARE YOU??"

ok..maybe you jinxed it. A bob of short light pink hair that pairs with blue eyes had already run into the classroom. "Kagami..nice to see you too." Opening your arms you braced for your impending doom that was soon to crush you one way or another. "gah! you're cuter than last time I saw you! oh oh right, let me tell you about my summer but you tell me about yours first alright?" She jumped into your arms and she was already rambling.

"right. Class is about to start you know." the taller girl pouted in response "Such a killjoy you are, but that always adds to your charm!" She stretched your cheeks out with the brightest smile ever. "we have 12 minutes until science so it can wait"

The thing about her was that you met in your first year when you were still enrolled in Samuyoko Primary. The school was a bit far from home, but considering you were in college back before being reincarnated it was easy as pie passing the entry exam. Kagami was a social butterfly which just so happened to be a complete contrast to your personality. The minute she saw you. Both of you stuck together like glue (she kept on bothering you.) In the end the friendship worked out though so it was fine.

"and I was like "how'd she manage to grab the whole collection before me?" so then"

Ah. yes. She was still rambling like usual, this was definitely your best friend.

ITOSHI OMAKE

"[n/n] you shouldn't be so gloomy all the time! here I am so graciously eating lunch with you and yet you still are as silent as ever!" she whined. It was lunchtime and considering how you weren't so keen on being stalked and stared at during this time you somehow managed to convince kagami to eat out in the garden with you.

"I don't think I'd have the time to speak with the way you've been talking for the last few minutes." still not looking at her, you proceeded to open up your bento and the small piece of cake you brought with you as well.

"didn't you mention that you had a little brother? you don't really talk about him." you paused from the piece of shortcake you were about to devour and took a minute to give it some thought "him? Sae's so much of a brat I'd rather not talk about him."

"Sometimes you act like an old man [name]!" she giggled. "it's better than fighting over pocky flavors with a 5-year-old."

The girl across from you gasped dramatically "Didn't you fight with your brother over STEAK? are you perhaps a hypocrite [name]-chan? even so, you're still cute doing it!"

You pointed your chopsticks are her accusingly "it's different when it's not a random kid Kagami"

"it's so not!"

"it so is"

This was the usual banter you both would have, it was fun. You missed this type of thing whenever it came to her. Maybe..just maybe this life would be better?

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cellarspider · 3 months

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5/?? The pseudohistory of Prometheus

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We return to a movie I wish to send on a journey down the Kola Superdeep Borehole, Prometheus.

And my insanity truly begins in this segment. We are only 1/10th of the way through the movie so far. Content warnings for discussion of racism in pseudoscience and historical anthropology, Spider getting hung up on logistics and space nerd stuff, and pictures of Yuri Knorozov, the most sour-faced man to ever live.

The cast sits down for a briefing. This is a scene with an easily identifiable narrative function: providing exposition to the theater audience. The act of doing a briefing makes sense. It is the last thing here that will.

We are introduced to a hologram of Peter Weyland, the financier of the expedition. The name means all sorts of Lore to the series, but what’s intensely distracting is that we seem to have caught Weyland halfway through applying his zombie makeup.

Weyland is played by Guy Pierce. As of the filming of this movie, he was somewhere around 45 years old. Yes, they smothered this Australian in old man drag so that he could play this character. This is a baffling decision, that only gets slightly less baffling if you know the production history of the movie, which I did not at the time.

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Guy Pierce was hired to play a younger Peter Weyland. There’s a promo video out there of him giving a fictional TED Talk in the not-to-distant future of next Sunday AD 2023, there were various plans for him to appear in the movie proper. None of those scenes are actually in the movie. They refused to double-cast the role for some reason. While the practical effects in the movie are generally excellent and it does make the tiniest smidge of sense that a hypercapitalist asshole would be portrayed as a literal rubber-faced movie monster, this, like many things in Prometheus, made the movie a very weird sit. One where I was increasingly less open to going along with the movie’s fiction. You are telling me that this is an actual human man. I am not buying it. He looks far less human than David, the only non-human there.

Speaking of David, Weyland calls him “the closest thing to a son I will ever have”, and then immediately says David is an inhuman lesser being, who does not appreciate the specialness of his existence because he does not have a soul.

Which is funny, because I think you can see David’s soul leaving his body at this exact moment.

Weyland then tries to mash in some existential weight to the movie: they might finally get an answer for “why are we here?” and all that jazz! He also tries to explain why naming a ship Prometheus is totally not like calling it Titanic II: Don’t think about the part of the myth where Prometheus is chained to a rock and has his ever-regenerating liver eaten by an eagle every day! Think about the bit where he brought fire to mankind! We’re gonna bring back that bit!

And then the archaeologists take over the briefing, and this, THIS, is the bit where they entirely lost me. My suspension of disbelief had already been strained by multiple oddities up to this point. My skepticism about these characters in particular was already a bit elevated by their implied invocation of the ancient astronauts concept.

Turns out, only Vickers, Shaw, and Holloway know why they’re here.

Two years away from Earth. On a massively expensive expedition that intends to make first contact with an alien culture, the first alien culture that humankind has ever found evidence of. Nobody has been briefed up until this point.

This is lunacy.

Explanations have been figured out by fans since then: this is a passion project by Weyland, an annoyance to the rest of the corporate structure that nobody else believes in. The movie eventually intimates this, through Vickers.

Fans have thus speculated that Weyland was just quarantined off to do his little alien hunt, with no logistical support that would make it actually functional. He believed a crazy theory put forward by Shaw and Holloway, and everyone else wasn’t actually best-of-the-best, they were just whoever would take a big paycheck to do fuck-all for nearly five years of sleeping their way to and from their destination.

I am willing to consider that this was intentional. The movie possibly tries to confirm this with Mr. “I’m here for the money” Fifield, but none of the other characters have enough characterization to determine if this is the general trend.

How could we make a story that more clearly spells this out? Maybe Millburn the biologist could encounter more of the crew talking about the payout from taking the job, or reveal that he himself has some project he needs money for. It would also chip away at the dearth of character-building dialog for most of the cast.

As a result of those deficiencies in characterization, a lot of my discussion of plot points is going to be focused around what they do, rather than why. …Except when it is about the why, at which point the main commentary will be “WHY.”

In any case: while it makes sense, I'm still not certain the film meant for this character motivation. Prometheus is just so loudly explicit with so many of its plot points that it doesn’t seem like this is the case. The movie certainly believes in the sincerity and correctness of the archaeologists, though.

Unfortunately, it also immediately tells me that they’re a couple of wingnuts. I’m not sure if it intends to, for reasons I’ll get into after I foam at the mouth for a little while.

They present a series of artifacts to the crew: Egyptian, Mayan, Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite, Hawaiian, and their Scottish cave painting. All of them feature “men worshiping giant beings”, who are pointing to what stargazer nerds call an asterism: a pattern of stars. Shaw and Holloway believe that these are aliens that engineered humans into their current state. Shaw literally says “it’s what I choose to believe” as the entirety of their justification for this.

Again: I knew the movie wanted me to take this as truth, within its universe. That’s the implicit deal the movie has made with the audience, this is truth. You are supposed to be contemplating the "whys" of it all. But the movie had also smacked me in the brain so many times in the past five minutes, that I, like Millburn the Biologist, was ready to call bullshit.

I appreciate him for doing so, and it shows he could have been a smart character, but sadly, he is in Prometheus.

Because he is a fictional biologist and I am an actual biologist, I will expand on his argument, as I descend into ranting for the rest of the post.

Millburn objects on the basis of evolutionary history, which the movie only partially succeeds in papering over: the implication is that evolution on Earth was directed with the deterministic outcome of creating something like humans.

This opens up a whole new can of worms that the movie doesn’t get into–when exactly did this engineering start? When great apes evolved? When mammals did? Tetrapods? Skeletons? DNA itself? After all, we know the aliens, now dubbed Engineers by the archaeologists, have DNA. Did they seed all life on Earth? How did they evolve? Our last universal common ancestor is believed to have already been using DNA 3-4 billion years ago, evolving out of a likely RNA-based genetic standard. Hominins diverged from other apes around 15-25 million years ago. What sort of culture would undertake a project that required at least 15 million years on the extreme low end?

All excellent questions! The movie is not concerned with them. I am, and that is part of why this movie still lives in a special, awful place in my head.

This isn’t actually what made me become actively hostile toward the archaeologists, though. What managed that, well! It was their archaeology. Anybody who had an Ancient Egypt Phase in their childhood should be able to articulate multiple reasons why the academic community would’ve laughed these guys out of the building.

Bigness in ancient egyptian art does not indicate literal size. It indicates importance. In fact, the artifacts the movie uses exclusively come from artistic traditions which feature hierarchical or non-literal scale. Do the Engineers turn out to actually be eight feet tall? Yes! Am I still annoyed by this? ABSOLUTELY.

You know what else is a big problem? Many of the cultures they reference here had written language! A LOT of written language! They include Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, and Mayan art in their evidence, all of which not only wrote a LOT of things down, but had a habit of annotating a lot of their art with labels to tell you what was going on! You can actually see some on the props they used in this scene!

Beyond that, they had very prescribed formal styles, where you can follow the action entirely through gestures, held objects, attendant symbols, and clothing! If all these cultures, as implied, had actual, direct contact with aliens, recorded in the art presented here, we would know what they were told.

Skipping ahead of the movie for a minute: the Engineers were apparently not telling humans “we’re here in these stars, come find us”, they were telling humans “settle the fuck down or this is where the hurt’s going to come from”.

Here's the thing. Ancient peoples weren't stupid. They wouldn't just not talk about this. If giant aliens came down from the sky and gave them a stern talking-to that contradicted their religion, that would be a big deal. And these characters specifically say the Engineers are being "worshiped" in these images! They're apparently taking onboard what's being said!

It is certainly possible for information to be lost. Over long time scales, that's unfortunately the rule, rather than the exception. But again: half the artifacts have writing on them!

I chose to believe that Shaw and Holloway simply did not attempt to read any available translations of attendant texts, and they were thus cursed for their foolishness by the ghosts of Mayan Studies pioneer Yuri Knorozov and EgyptologistJean-François Champollion, and the still-extant spirit of Assyriologist Irving Finkel.

Knorozov knows your sins against Mayan Studies. Knorozov is a vengeful god. Chapollion and Finkel are likewise very cross.

Two last things stood out to me in the theater. One of them was extremely petty but tied into some very serious issues with pseudoscience, and the other one was not.

Pettiness first: the asterism shown in the artifacts is a pattern of six stars. The movie wants you to believe that it is very spooky that the only asterism that precisely matches this pattern are six stars that are too faint to see with the naked eye. This is laughable, both because the asterism is so generic-looking that I can think of several very visible asterisms that are good matches for the pattern, but it also recapitulates a bunch of really fucking annoying shit from pseudoscientific bullshit.

First: Pseudoscience and pseudohistory likes to make a big deal out of the fact that every culture has stories about the stars. Why?

The sky is very important to every culture’s mythology, because every culture can see the sky. Like, that’s literally it. People can see the sky. They tell stories about it. There’s not much to do at night except look at the sky, when even keeping a fire lit can be an expensive prospect. It is not even the least bit weird when multiple cultures–all of them in the northern hemisphere in this case!–have stories about the same stars.

Second: Cultures vary in their ability to faithfully reproduce celestial landmarks in art and align their architecture is variable, and not as exact as modern techniques can manage. Pseudoscience will claim that they are exact, when it fits their pre-existing theory, or fudge the difference if they want something to fit their claims.

(This is a photoshopped image, by the way.)

Were the stone age temples of Malta secretly aligned with a particular star that foretold the doom of Atlantis, precisely tracking its location through the sky over thousands of years of Earth’s axial wobbling? No! They were roughly aligned with the sun. Sunlight is important when you don’t have electric lights. Were the Great Pyramids of Giza laid out ten thousand years ago to match the layout of the stars in Orion’s Belt, according to the designs of a legendary lost race of highly advanced non-African people? Were they tapping into the Earth’s magnetic field to generate energy? No! They were aligned with the cardinal directions, and they got them a bit wrong!

Hell, if we want to play at that game, I found a decent match for the asterism in Stellarium's Egyptian constellation set. Just flip this 90 degrees clockwise and you'll see I'm totally right. Aliens confirmed.

I know the movie is trying to tell me that all the asterisms in the art are precise matches for each other and are thus impossible to explain without intercultural contact (or aliens!!), but it is also showing me that they are not that precise. So, it’s just showing me stars. At least in some of them. Their little charcoal lad from the Isle of Skye may be throwing fruit at his audience.

In fact, there's a further, probably unintentional link to pseudohistorical claims in the artifacts presented: the Maya artifact shown does not actually depict a "giant figure" being worshiped, in fact, it shows one instantly recognizable, known figure in Classical Maya history: It is an altered version of the ornately carved coffin lid of Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I (24 March 603 - 29 August 683), with the top quarter of the carving replaced with a star pattern that looks nothing like the ones on the other artifacts.

The carving shows Pakal in the pose of an infant, entering into death and being reborn. It is packed full of so many symbolic elements that can be easily recognized by those more familiar with the Classical Maya than I am.

Conspiracy theorist Erich von Däniken thought that it showed Pakal rocketing away on a spaceship. Däniken proposed this because he didn't understand the cultural symbolism, but he had seen pictures of astronauts before.

And on that note, 2,400 words into this rant, we get to the actually bad shit. Unfortunately, it ties into the issue I had with the premise to begin with: the real-world context of pseudoscientific claims of ancient alien contact. Specifically, the racism.

We’re going to unspool this more near the end of the movie, because there was further behind the scenes I was not aware of when I first saw Prometheus, and it just compounds this stuff.

So, when I went on my first tangent on how unpleasant ancient alien theories are, one thing I highlighted is that the further from Western Civilization you get, the more these theories presuppose that fellow humans are incapable of building great works or imagining interesting things. No, they had to be guided, and explicitly shown things that they copied down to the best of their limited capability.

The only european example of alien contact they show is from the Upper Paleolithic, 37,000 years ago. All the examples around the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia range from 5,500-3,700 years ago. The examples from the Classical Maya and Hawaiʻi are from 620 and 680 CE.

During this period, Tang Dynasty merchants were creating the first paper money as the famous female emperor Wu Zetian was on her way to the throne. The Prophet Muhammad went to al-Aqsa mosque, and we’re only eight years before the birth of Charlemagne’s grandfather. We’re no longer talking ancient, it’s just old.

I want to emphasize that the movie is presenting these not as depictions of myths that have been passed down–though there are more problems with that I’ll get into shortly–these are implied to be contemporary depictions of events witnessed by the artists, who were quite possibly instructed by the Engineers to record a precise pattern of stars. An equivalency is being drawn between stone age Europe, bronze age Africa and the Middle East, and a couple of startlingly recent Mesoamerican and Polynesian cultures.

But let’s be generous. Maybe these aren’t supposed to be contemporary accounts in these two outlier cases: the movie’s script will certainly indicate later that they have no idea what they’ve implied here. Perhaps these are story traditions that were handed down from the Olmecs and Melanesian precursors of the first to sail to Hawaiʻi.

Unfortunately, this just recapitulates a different racist trope: that European and more “developed” civilizations invented so much cool and comfortable material culture and philosophy that they forgot the Mystical Religious Truths of the old ways, which were preserved only in Primitive Lands and among Uneducated Peoples, where they never found anything better to do with their time. Oh, if only we had heeded the warnings from those spiritually attuned non-white people!

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(Look, I only remember Devil (2010), which has 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, because M Night Shyamalan wrote and produced it, and this was two years after The Happening came out, so I watched it out of morbid curiosity. It's not as unbelievably bad as The Happening, but as shown in the clip above, the spiritually attuned latino security guard Ramirez attributes toast landing jelly side down to Satan. That is an actual thing that happens in the movie. He is proven right.)

But let's be even more generous: someone probably realized that they'd focused near-exclusively on Middle Eastern cultures, and wanted to throw in a couple from elsewhere. Sitting here, having seen the movie in full, this is the most likely option: their inclusion creates a contradiction with a later scene, and was thus probably not checked for consistency. These cultures were thrown in as a bit of background flavor. I list this last, because in the theater, there was no way to know this at the time.

That answer's still not great. Still leaves us in the same position, where Europeans are pretty much given their own agency, while other cultures need to be led.

Oh, and to anyone else who’s made it this far and knows the production history of Prometheus: don’t worry! I know what Ridley Scott told that one interviewer, about a contact between a less-ancient European power and the Engineers. I’m saving that one. I like to save that one, because strategic deployment of that quote made some of my IRL friends scream.

Next time: the Prometheus descends to an alien world, and I descend further into madness. I am going to drag you all down with me.

(Pictured: Yuri Knorozov, and my present mood.)

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Citations for alt text ramblings:

https://www.almendron.com/artehistoria/arte/culturas/egyptian-art-in-age-of-the-pyramids/catalogue-fourth-dynasty/

#Prometheus (2012)#prometheus 2012 #The last time I watched this movie with a scientific colleague and friend #this scene took us twenty minutes to get through #because we were both biologists #plus me with the archaeology and a dash of space nerdery #and they knew mesopotamian history #so by the time we were done with this scene we were ginned up and ready to fight the movie

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seat-safety-switch · 1 year

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Now, I’m certain that lots of people are stressed out by long car rides, but I find them kind of serene. The purr of the engine, a sparse-at-best concept 1970s electronic album on the speakers, and the endless cycle of highway hypnosis. When things got bad, I used to go up onto the loop route and just run it all night long. My brain would just empty out, and all those intrusive thoughts about turning myself over to the police would go poof. There’s only one toll if you never get off, too, which makes it cheaper than a movie.

Driving for hours is tiring, but it’s mostly because of traffic. All that worrying about other drives is what poops you out. In ideal conditions, which is to say “nobody else on the fucking road,” scientists have shown that human beings can actually drive non-stop for upwards of a couple days. Longer if they have partaken of a highway truck stop’s special-recipe methamphetamines. We are, as a species, built to do these long hauls and derive a sort of demented enjoyment from the trial.

Don’t believe me? Check out NASA. They’re working hard right now to figure out which of their astronauts – already the coffee-achieving cream of the crop of humanity, ignore the adult-diaper stalker lady – are tough enough to endure the trip to Mars. That’s right. Even the toughest, craziest space-pilot assholes among us are getting winnowed out, because they can’t spend a mere seven to fifteen months stuck inside a teeny tiny spacecraft without new TV to watch and only government-approved roadtrip snacks. Admittedly, this is probably because once they get there, they’re going to have to hop right into the space craft to go back home, without even a low-mileage shell of a Datsun 240Z to haul behind them in order to justify the trip.

Maybe in some glorious future, they can pick a regular run-of-the-mill loser like myself to make the trip. I’d be okay with it, as long as they make the spaceship smell kind of like mouldy old shag carpet and occasionally weave out of its lane when hitting a bump. I’ve got a reputation to keep.

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gallawitchxx · 7 months

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hello bee - my offering to you to please speak more on conspiracy theory mickey: 🪴🍉🍫🎶🎷🦇

(hey remember when my ask linked to a completely random post that one time. i hope that doesn't happen again ahaa)

oh hello ray babyyyyy 🖤🖤🖤 ily did you know? thank you for the offerings, your link worked perfectly this time & i would love to chat more about conspiracy theorist!mickey! 👀🔎🕵️‍♂️

soooo, my guy is absolutely a moon landing denier 🌕🚫🧑‍🚀 like, what do you mean a bunch of astronauts went to the moon a few times & then we never went back?? what kind of fucked up science is that? it absolutely could've been faked on a soundstage, those hollywood fucks are always making shit look real!

also! ALSO! aliens! 👽 can't trust the government for shit, but even they're admitting aliens are real now! but mickey was into area 51 waaay before it was cool, ok? if he weren't married to the world's biggest worry-wart, he would've strapped up & joined all those guys that ransacked the place a while back. yippee kay yay, motherfucker! 🛸 we can’t be alone in the universe & to say differently would be ridiculous.

"gotta watch out for the gray, ian." "who are the gray?" "those big gray alien fucks that are messin' with our dna. snatchin' people right up off the ground & doin' all kinds of experiments on 'em & shit." "mick... just because you're turned on by aliens doesn't mean that they're abducting people & changing our genetic code..." "it's called galactic interference, asshole. look it up." ... "& fuck you, it ain't my fault you look like a goddamn freckled freak." "you need to get off the internet."

because yeah. that's where most of this shit gets stirred up. of course it is. when mickey can't sleep, he's scouring reddit boards & weird little sites that nobody's ever heard of, reading post after post by people with usernames like tinfoilhat4life and wakeupsheep69. he's not sure that he believes everything he reads -- he's definitely not into some of the more whack ones that right wingers have been peddling recently about pizza shop sex rings & whatnot -- but look.... he doesn't know.... you know? 👀🔎🕵️‍♂️✨

#hehehehe what do we think?#obviously it's a slippery slope but mickey uses discernment #conspiracy theorist!mickey #ask bee #answered

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punchdrunkdoc · 7 months

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Part 3, Chapter 3

Summary: After the events of S3, Matt Murdock is trying to once again balance life as a lawyer and a vigilante. But he’s been scarred by loss and betrayal - will a mysterious new neighbour help him heal? Or will her secrets drag him back into the darkness?

Notes: This is a slow burn romance with an original female character, told in 3 (maybe 4??) parts. There is mystery, intrigue, action/violence and angst - all the good stuff!

Also available on AO3 and Wattpad

Masterlist

Reference pics

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PART 3

Chapter 3

The next morning, Matt smiled as he walked passed the florist on his way to work, the rich, heady scent of roses filling the air.

Yesterday, that fragrant reminder of the upcoming romantic celebration had only added to his bad mood - the bad mood caused by a week spent worrying about Calina and her strange phone call, and a month and a half spent missing her. The fact that Valentine’s Day was approaching meant he was bitterly reminded of what was taken from them, and what other couple’s took for granted - the chance to be with each other.

But today, he was actually feeling…optimistic.

Calina may have been a few days early, but she’d given him the perfect Valentine’s gift:

Hope.

Her brief visit last night had spurned him out of his morose despondency. It was the catalyst he’d needed to realise that it was time to stop dwelling on the negatives and obsessing over what they’d lost.

Instead, it was time to focus on the positives. They were both still alive. Still healthy. And still fighting for each other. Distance didn’t matter. Being temporarily separated didn’t matter. They loved each other. They would have the rest of their lives together. A few months apart was nothing compared to the years to come.

Matt had been dealt some crap hands throughout his life - losing his sight. Losing his father. Losing again and again. But he’d always found a reason to stay in the game. To accept the defeats and find the will to carry on playing.

This was no different.

He just had to have faith that God’s plan would reveal itself.

And this morning, he felt like he was finally getting a glimpse of the tapestry. He was finally seeing the beauty in the chaos. This separation would only strengthen them as a couple. It would serve to reinforce their bond, and ensure that they never took each other - or their happiness together - for granted.

“You seem…better,” Karen commented when Matt reached the office.

Matt shrugged. “I feel better.”

“That’s good.” She gifted him with a wide smile, and Foggy patted him on the shoulder.

It made Matt realise how much his foul mood had been impacting his friends and their workplace. “I’m sorry, guys,” he said. “For being such a miserable bastard the last couple of months.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘miserable bastard’,” Foggy replied. “That’s a bit harsh. ‘Forlorn asshole’, maybe. Or ‘wretched son of a bitch’ would be more accurate.”

Matt laughed. “Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll try to be more upbeat from now on.”

“What brought on this sudden change in attitude?” Foggy asked.

Matt couldn’t help his smile. “I saw Calina last night.”

“So you got laid! That explains everything!”

Karen slapped Foggy’s chest with the back of her hand. “God, Foggy.”

Matt just laughed. “No, it was just a quick visit. But it helped give me some perspective. It’s like you said, Fog - this is just a long distance relationship. It won’t last forever…and other couples go through similar experiences all the time.”

“Exactly, man. Astronauts.”

Matt smiled. “Yeah. Astronauts.”

“She’s Neil Armstrong, and you’re the little lady waiting back on earth.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Something like that.”

“Okay,” Foggy said, rubbing his hands together. “Well, since you’re in such a good mood, you can take point on the meeting with the new nightmare client, while I finish off the brief for the Chisholm case.”

“Nightmare client?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, a tenant dispute case. They’re arriving at 10.”

“Fine,” Matt agreed. Liaising with a difficult client was the least he could do to make up for his less than stellar performance the last couple of months. “But I have something to do first.” He held up the USB drive that Calina had slipped to him last night.

“What’s that?” Karen asked.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

Matt booted up his computer and plugged in the device. It contained a single large document which he printed off in braille and started scanning through. At first there was just a list of chemicals - the results of the analysis by the Widow scientist - but then Calina added some context.

And it changed everything.

“Guys?” he called out. “You gotta hear this.”

“What is it?” Karen said, taking a seat on the other side of his desk. Foggy joined them a moment later and leaned against the door frame.

“Calina found something.” Matt spun his monitor around to show the document on the screen. “Apparently, one of the main ingredients of the fear pheromone is something called Arsonium bromide. Its a chemical that environmental groups have been calling for greater regulation on, because it’s disposal has been linked to soil contamination which is affecting agriculture yields across the country. Those environmental groups were successful in convincing a prominent politician to lobby their cause to the EPA last year.”

“Okay,” Karen said slowly. “How does this help us?”

“That prominent politician was Governor Andrew Benson.”

“The guy Calina was supposed to assassinate?”

“Yes.” Matt leaned forward as he laid out Calina’s theory. “Two days after the failed assassination, Benson suddenly, and without warning, withdrew his petition to the EPA, and walked back all his previous objections to the chemical.”

“Somebody got to him,” Karen added. “Somebody with a vested interest in the use of Arsonium bromide.”

“Exactly. With Benson’s support, the environmental groups were gaining traction in their fight. So someone tried to take Benson out. And when that failed, they likely played off the assassination attempt as a warning.”

“Do as we say, or next time it’ll be for real,” Foggy guessed. “Which means whoever is behind the manufacture of the fear pheromone-”

“Is the same person who arranged for Calina to be reactivated,” Karen finished.

“It’s all connected,” Matt said. “If we find out who created the pheromone, we find out who ordered Calina’s mind control. And vice versa - if we can find out who paid to have their very own Widow assassin, we find our pheromone guy.”

“Holy shit,” Karen whispered, tilting the monitor so she could read through the information on the screen.

“I take it the Widows are concentrating on finding out who bought Calina’s ‘services’, for want of a better term?” Foggy asked, reading the screen over Karen’s shoulder.

“As much as they can - but they’re more focussed on hunting down Volkov. He’s the bigger threat to them right now. Which means we’ll be doing them a favour if we find this information first.”

“So where do we begin?” Foggy asked.

“I say we concentrate on researching this chemical. Where its manufactured, who buys it, and how.”

“I’ll start today,” Karen answered, scribbling in her notebook.

“What does this mean?” Foggy said, pointing to something on Matt’s screen.

“Which part?” Matt asked, shuffling through his print outs.

“The last sentence. It says, ‘I hope this helps, shereen-am.’ What is ‘shereen-am’?”

Matt tried to control his reaction. “It’s nothing. Just an inside joke.”

It wasn’t nothing. And it wasn’t a joke. But it was something private, just between Matt and Calina. He’d googled the phrase before calling the others into his office and found that it was a Persian term of endearment. Roughly translated from Farsi into English it meant ‘Honey’.

By using that term, Calina was reminding him of Christmas Day, when she’d whispered all those terms of endearment into his ear as they’d made love on the couch.

She was reminding him of a happier time, to help get him through the dark and lonely days to come.

Matt smiled as he skimmed his fingers over that word again: Shereen-am.

Calina’s visit last night had given him hope. The information on the USB had given him a lead. And the affectionate nickname on the end of her message had given him a glimpse of how things would be between them in the future.

It was a promise, of better times ahead.

———

“And then he grabbed her and kissed her!”

“It was like something out of a movie - the way he dipped her back, and with the two of them bathed in the moonlight with the stars twinkling overhead…”

Calina groaned and sank into her chair as Katya and Inessa gushed to the other Widows about Matt’s antics on the boat last night. The three of them had arrived back at the mansion at dawn, and after a brief nap, they were now debriefing the rest of the team.

But it had gotten a little side-tracked.

“‘Bathed in the moonlight’?” Sofia repeated. “Come on, Inessa, I think you’ve been reading too many of those romance novels.”

“But that’s exactly what it was like!” the younger Widow protested. “It was the most romantic, swoon-worthy thing I’ve ever seen!”

“That’s not really saying much, given the way we were raised,” Viktoria commented.

Inessa rolled her eyes, and opened her mouth to respond but Anya cut her off. “Enough about Calina’s love life. Did you find the warehouse?”

Calina sat up again. “Yes, enough about me. Tell them what you found.”

Anya had found mention on Ranieri’s laptop of a recent real estate transaction. Which wasn’t unusual in itself - the Ranieri family seemed to prioritise property and commercial investments over gambling on the stock market. But while the rest of Salvatore’s portfolio made sense for a party guy in his late twenties - night clubs, bars, trendy apartments in major cities across the world - a former wholesale carpet warehouse in an industrial estate in New Jersey did not.

So Katya and Inessa had been tasked with scoping it out.

Katya tossed a USB stick to Anya. “Photographs and schematics as requested. The place was deserted - no personnel on the grounds - but it was spotless, with signs of a recent professional clean. It’s definitely being prepped for something.”

“Like a lab to manufacture the mind control serum,” Sofia guessed.

“Possibly,” Yelena interjected. “But we can’t get ahead of ourselves. We need more evidence. We need to be sure before we make any moves.”

“Agreed,” Anya chimed in.

“Which is why we planted a few cameras,” Inessa said with a cocky grin. “And several bugs. We’ll know soon enough what the plan is for that building.”

“Good,” Yelena responded. She looked around the room at the rest of the Widows. And a rare smile graced her face. “I know I just told you all to be cautious…but I have a good feeling about this. I think this is how we get Volkov. I think this will all be over soon.”

Several of the women whooped and cheered in response - a sign that Calina wasn’t the only one who was looking forward to this confinement ending.

And it also proved to Calina how much the Widows had come out of their shells over the last few months. They laughed more readily now. They expressed their emotions without prompting. Conversations flowed instead of stuttered, and there was an easy camaraderie between everyone.

The stilted, angry, and bitter atmosphere that often pervaded the base in South Carolina didn’t exist here in Maine. And Calina knew it had nothing to do with the change in scenery - the weather outside the mansion was dark and grey and wet these days, holding little of the sunny, vibrant beauty of Charleston.

Time was the reason.

They’d been given time to start the healing process. To learn about themselves and the world around them. Time to find their little moments of joy.

Joy that even Volkov couldn’t take away. If anything, the looming threat that he posed had the opposite effect - as if the Widows were defiantly enjoying themselves even more to spite him and his attempts to force them back into an emotionless, violent existence.

Calina would be sorry to leave this place when the time came. She no longer felt the need to escape this environment. Not like in the beginning, when she’d first been freed. Back then, she’d felt suffocated by all the pain and rage around her. She’d wanted to strike out on her own and discover who she was away from that toxic environment.

But everything was different now. Now she would miss living here with all her sisters.

Though not as much as she missed Matt.

Seeing him last night had been a rollercoaster ride. She’d swung from the lowest low of wanting to escape his presence, to the highest high from that kiss. Because as much as it made Calina cringe, Inessa’s description had been spot-on - it had been the most wonderful, romantic, swoon-worthy gesture in the history of the world.

But on the journey back to Maine, the high had worn off. And all her doubts and fears - and all the guilt - had come flooding back.

And all of it boiled down to one thing - she didn’t feel worthy of him.

She didn’t feel worthy of the kind of man who would fly a hundred feet through the air just to kiss her. She didn’t feel worthy of a man as amazing and kind and smart as Matt. A man who fiercely protected the strangers in his city, and could touch her with such reverent tenderness.

The kiss had made her forget all that. It had short-circuited her brain and over-rode all her negative emotions, until the only thing left was passion. She’d given in to the moment, to the feel of being in Matt’s arms again.

Which she’d known would happen. It was the reason she’d chosen that cramped, awkward crane jib as their meeting point in the first place. She’d known that if they’d met in his apartment, or on the pier - or anywhere else out in the open - he would have taken her in his arms and she would have been powerless to resist. She would have accepted his embrace and returned his kiss all the while feeling undeserving of him.

So she’d chosen that metal cage instead, as a way to deny herself.

As a punishment.

But he’d gotten around her little ploy. He’d kissed the life out of her on that boat deck, and everything else had faded away. How guilty she felt about Italy. How scared she was that if he truly knew her and everything she’d done as a Widow that he’d hate her.

How terrified she was that they were too good to be true.

“Calina!”

Calina lifted her head at the sound of her name. The other widows were all staring at her. “Huh?” she asked.

“You spaced out there,” Inessa explained.

“Sorry. Just tired,” she lied. “I’m going to head back to bed.”

The chorus of ‘Byes’ and ‘Sleep wells’ from her sisters followed Calina up the stairs, but she was already lost in thought again.

She didn’t know what to do about Matt and all these doubts she was having.

Did she share them with him? Admit her fears about not being worthy of his love? Could she even explain them without having to divulge all the dirty secrets of her past? Wouldn’t that just bring about the end of their relationship and defeat the purpose of the whole ‘sharing’ thing?

Calina fell forward onto her bed and smothered her frustrated groan with her pillow. Then she flipped onto her back and stared up at the ceiling as she contemplated the alternative scenario: being with Matt, with this constant pit of worry in her stomach. Revelling in his affection and his love whilst always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A tear leaked from the corner of Calina’s eye as she wrestled with all of these unfamiliar emotions. A tiny part of her longed for the days of being an unfeeling automaton…but she quickly squashed that treacherous notion.

This was better.

Despite all the uncertainty and pain and confusion, dealing with these emotions was far better than living as a shell of a human being under the Red Room’s control.

“Hey, you okay?”

Calina hastily wiped away the tear as Katya entered their room. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Liar,” Katya teased, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “You’ve not been okay since Italy. Did something else happen there?”

Calina levered herself up to rest against the headboard. “What do you mean?”

“Well, when you debriefed us after the mission you said Ranieri just got a bit handsy. Did something…more…happen that night? You can tell me.”

Calina shook her head. “No, nothing else happened.”

“So what is it? What’s going on with you?”

Calina’s first instinct was to lie again. To keep everything to herself. It was the way she was raised - the way they all had been. Even before the mind control serum took away their emotions they were trained to hide them. To bury their sadness and their loneliness and their pain. To never confide in anyone how they were feeling.

It was a difficult habit to break, but Calina was determined to tear away this next layer of Red Room conditioning. So she took a deep breath and told Katya everything. How she’d called Matt before the party in Italy. How having Ranieri’s hands on her felt. And how it was all messing with her head. “I know intellectually that nothing really happened,” she explained. “It was just a few unwanted gropes and a kiss on the neck - I’ve been through much worse on missions like that - but I just feel so…guilty. I keep imagining if it was Matt in that situation, and he’d let some other woman touch him. I would hate it. Which means I can’t tell him, because then he’d hate me.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Katya interjected. “If you just explain to him that it was a mission and you were playing a role-”

“But that would just open up this whole can of worms. About all the other roles I’ve played in the past, and the things I’ve done-”

“While under mind control, Calina.”

“Again, I know that intellectually…but don’t you still feel guilty about everything you did while under the serum?”

Katya smiled. “I feel guilty for stabbing you in Seoul.”

Calina rolled her eyes. “I’m being serious. We all did some really messed up shit for Dreykov. Doesn’t that…stick with you at all?”

Katya looked down as she picked at a loose thread in the bedspread. “Occasionally. Usually at night - my dreams are sometimes…not fun.”

Calina placed her hand over Katya’s remembering what it was like when she first arrived in New York - the endless nights spent pacing the rooftop, unable to sleep. “I’m sorry.”

Katya shrugged. “It’s fine. They’re just memories. The important thing is that I don’t blame myself for it. And you’re not to blame either. We were kids when we were brainwashed, and then we were forced against our will to commit all those acts.”

“But what about now? We’re acting on our own free will, and we’re still murdering and stealing-”

“Yes, to stop the bad guys!” Katya protested. “We’re on the side of good now. And we have the rest of our lives to be on that good side, and to make up for everything we’ve done”

“Can we, though? Can we possibly balance a ledger with so much red in it?”

“Now you sound like Natasha. And look what she’s accomplished. She’s an Avenger. Little girls all over the world want to be like her, because she’s a hero. We can be like that too.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever feel like a hero. Matt’s a hero, and he-”

It was Katya’s turn to roll her eyes. “You know I like Matt, but he’s not exactly squeaky-clean. He’s a vigilante - he breaks the law every night.”

“It’s different. He has a moral code. One I’ve violated again and again. If he ever found out the truth about me, he’d hate me.”

Katya studied her for a few moments, a frown marring her face. “Calina, what is the ‘truth’ about you?”

Calina swallowed harshly. When she finally answered, her voice was small and shaky. “That I’m not a good person.”

Katya reared back. “That’s ridiculous! You were brainwashed and under mind control-”

“I’m not talking about that! Since leaving the Red Room, I’ve abandoned my sisters, I’ve lied to everyone I’ve met, I’ve killed people, and I- I cheated on my boyfriend!”

“You didn’t cheat!”

“What would you call it?”

“I call it necessary! We’re fighting a war here, Calina. And wars are messy, and they involve sacrifice and difficult decisions. Killing the men who came after you, lying to protect your identity and going undercover to steal from Ranieri were difficult decisions, but necessary.”

“But-”

“I’m not finished!”

Calina snapped her mouth closed. She’d never seen Katya like this - so agitated and…loud. She’d always been one of the quieter, more rational Widows.

“As to your other ‘sin’,” Katya continued. “You did not abandon us. You came to save me in Korea - you risked your life to save me. That’s not abandonment. And the other widows told me what you were like after you were freed - they could all see you were struggling. Moving to New York was another necessary decision. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a good person. You were never cut out for this kind of life. Even as kids we realised that you were too sweet and sensitive. And the Red Room persisted in trying to beat that out of you, but they never could. Despite what you’ve been through and what you were forced to do, you’re still that same sweet, sensitive, good person. It’s why you’re feeling all of this so much more than the rest of us. And while we all appreciate your help with taking down Volkov, if you want to leave again, not one person would blame you.”

She bumped her shoulder against Calina’s. “We love you, Calina. You are worthy of love. You just need to convince yourself of that.”

————–

So do we think Katya got through to Calina? Does she believe now that she's worthy of Matt?

Read chapter 4 to find out...

Tag list: @hollandorks @stilldreaming666 @yanna-banana @chezagnes @tearoseart-blog @acharliecoxedfan @freckledbabyyy

If you’d like to be added - let me know!

#daredevil #daredevil fic #tabula rasa #daredevil fanfic #daredevil fanfiction #matt murdock #daredevil x original female character #marvel's daredevil #matt murdock fanfic #daredevil fandom #matt murdock x oc

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steddieyes · 7 months

Text

Daddy issues, Mommy issues. He's got issues, doesn't he?

Part 1 of my new Arlo fic :)

She drops the fucking cards, all of-

"No- stop that, stop." He sighs leaning forward to rest his face in his hand before getting up with a huff.

"I'm jus' gone have a little bit of private time, jus' one moment.." he says with a faked, happy tone an smile. Not denting that it's faked anymore.

As Arlo walks away and behind the set of hit Tv30 kids show 'Magic FunHouse', all that is heard is a raw, loud "FUUUUUUUUUCK!" before loud footsteps grow quieter and quieter. The show left on and running.

"That fuckin' bitch, embarrassing me like that in front of- move!" He mutters to himself as he strips of his disguise 'Mr. Marble', who the fuck even thinks of that, I mean really. A fucking marble is what I could come up with? I'm such a fucking idiot.

"Oh, hey. So Arlo- what the hell!?" Sasha backs up with a sour expression as Arlo shoves by, throwing off his wig and hat as if it was offending him to the highest degree.

"I don’t want to hear it Sacha, fuck off"

And, okay, rude. Arlo's an asshole and all, but he 's never been this bitter towards her, not even when… she's supposed to be his friend.

"Arlo-??"

But he's gone and out of sight before there's any more protest to be had.

With stomping feet he rushes past Sasha, save for their fucked interaction, but right now he just want to. Just doesn’t. He can feel like shit about talking to Sasha like that later, right now he just wants to get home and away from all this fucking coulor. Which, great. It was the uber driver that he'd had on the fucking show, way to go numbnuts. Walking home again, aren't you smart.

"I don’t want to be heere, my feet huuurt" he whines, tugging on his moms pant leg as he looks up to her with a pout. He never really liked the park, always had to play by himself in the sand. Nobody else wanted to play astronauts with him.

"Who don't you go play with the others, sweetie? I'm sure they wont mind, hun." His mother, Darla, sweetly says. A not-so-there smile on her face.

"But momm-"

"Arlo. You're a big boy now, go play with the others. Daddy said your his big strong boy, okay? Show 'em that you are." She says with a softer tone, bending down to wipe the mud off of Arlo's cheek with the reassurance. But even at six, Arlo knew that wasn't true. Mommy and Daddy fight all the time, Ms.Bory said so too.

With a huff and a deeper pout, he stomps off into the sand. His little feet making a small thud as he marches over to the swing set hoping to find a friend. But nothing's ever been easy for little Arlo, has it. Looking up from his journey to the swings, he sees a little girl getting pushed off some sort of box. So /that's/ where the music was coming from. But before he can come to that full realisation, he sees five kids ganging up on that girl and throwing hackey sacks at her. Her singing was nice, and he didn't like that it was gone now.

Without a second thought, he stands up as tall as he can, and stomps on over to the bullies. Punching one square in the nose just like he seen Daddy do to make the man at the arcade to give Arlo his tickets back. That man was loud, but so is he.

Nodding to himself he moves onto the next one and does the same thing. Quickly moving to punch the other in the gut, uppercutting the next just like he seen that wrestler guy do, and head butting the last boy. Daddys big, strong boy. Didn’t even cry this time, even if he hurt his nose hurting the last boy.

"Thank you, my hero!"

Arlo turn his head to see the girl stepping down off her box with a smile and an arm held out politely.

He nods a little to himself at seeing her and does the same, because that's the right thing he's supposed to do, right?

"I'm Arlo, Arlo Dittman" he says looking down to her hand before quickly remembering 'its not polite to not look someone in the eyes, sweetie'.

"Sacha, Sacha Barbican" the girl says with a grateful smile, shaking Arlo's hand.

"ARLO-!" A voice yells from across the park, breaking the peace and staring at the two as she approaches.

"Arlo, it's time to go, honey" she says with a sweeter… fake, tone. A cracked smile to match with it it, too.

Later that day, Arlo had Sacha over for dinner. Mom heard all about how he was a big boy today and helped Sacha from trouble, but dear old Dad wasn't having it. Especially not when Sacha went as far as to compliment Moms cooking.

"Oh fuck you, /she/ microwaved it-"

He knows better than to act shocked, but he thought that- he thought that his time might be different…

"It's because you haven't fixed the goddamn oven! I am so sick of-"

"OH IM GONNA KILL YA BITCH-!"

Turning to quickly grab Sacha's hand, he knew it was time to go when Mom and Dad started to reach for each others neck over the table. Mom said he wasn’t supposed to know that part happened.

"I'm sorry my Mom an Dad had too much juice today and became expressive.." he says with a slightly sad, but sorry, tone.

"Thank you for rescuing me from my two bad situations today" Sacha says, sitting across from him on the sidewalk with a cool-aid, one of the cool blue ones. But he always preferred the red.

"You can count on me Sacha" he says with a new smile as he raises his red cool-aid in the air to cheers, to celebrate getting out of their situations together.

#arlo dittman #magic funhouse #manjusha magic funhouse #brandon rogers #brcu #am i really gonna have to be the one to feed this fandom #GUYS IM STATVING TOO #arlo you poor guy :(#i love arlo ao much you have no idea #sacha barbican #young arlo dittman #young sacha barbican #fic #ao3 fanfic #:)

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mutedsilence · 10 months

Text

@writingfanficsfan the cut is some of an Ironstrange fic I've been working on. Tbh I've not added anything in a while. But I have plans for where it'll go.

"No."

"Stephen-"

"No, I will not show up for some douchebags publicity stunt!"

"He has a heart condition, he needs-"

"A lower ego, that's what he needs. Look, Christine, I'm not going! If he thinks he can wave his money about and I'll come running, he has another thing coming."

"Stephen, you are the top. Best of the best. He wants you. They won't let him up there without medical assistance, and he won't go without you."

"We've literally never met. Not to mention that I'm a Neurosurgeon!"

"Doesn't stop him wanting you there. You'll have plenty of time to get to know each other."

"I'm not going. I wouldn't be caught dead working on some publicity stunt for Stark. He's a pompous asshole that needs to be taken down a peg. What he needs is someone to tell him no. Someone to tell him they won't play his little game."

***

Stephen stood outside the transport to his new home for the next year. His possessions had already been collected. He could only take essentials - clothes and a select few items to keep them entertained. Stephen was told that if anything was needed, they could contact the control centre. Whatever it was would be sent up with the next food shipment. The shipment that came every three months.

Even with his protests, he went along to the training. A car was sent to collect him every day. A man called Happy, drove him to the training centre. He would be intercepted on his way to the hospital. It was as if Stark hadn't given him a way out. It had caught him off guard when he was first picked up. A man in a suit stood waiting for him in front of a car. It had been early in the morning and Stephen was walking to his car, ready to start his shift. "Excuse me, Doctor Strange?"

He had turned to regard the man properly, still walking towards his car, "Yes? Sorry, running slightly late." He hoped that had been enough to deter the man from further conversation. No luck.

"Hello, I'm Happy Hogan. I've been sent to collect you," That made Stephen stop. All attention on the stranger, "I work for Tony Stark. To go to space, you need proper training. It's already been cleared with the hospital."

"I'm not going to space, I'm going to work." Stephen went to push past the man. His anger slightly building. The nerve of that man! Happy extended a hand, not touching, just giving Stephen a pause. He extended the hand to his ear. He gave a nod to no one in particular - obviously listening to someone. "Is that him?" Happy gave another nod as he listened, "Listen, I'm not going to join you in an insane publicity stunt. Find someone else."

Happy spoke before he could move away, "Doctor, Tony has said if you get into the car, he will not only pay you handsomely, but the hospital as well."

Stephen didn't think of himself as a sell-out, but they needed funding. They needed any and all the money they could get. His mind wandered to all the run-down equipment they had been using. He grit his teeth and let out a sigh, "Let me get changed."

He hadn't met Mr Stark. He knew of him and what he looked like. Everyone did. There wasn't a person alive that didn't know Tony Stark, especially after he became Iron Man. Stephen strapped himself in for intensive training. It typically took two years before going to space. But this was Tony Stark. He had created a ship that replicated Earth's living conditions. As Stephen had been saying constantly, it was stupid. He still required some training, but not nearly as much as actual astronauts.

***

Stephen sat in the small waiting room. He and Stark would be the only ones living in the space station full-time. Others would arrive when needed, but this was Stark's plan. He would be alone if it wasn't for his heart. They would travel up there together, in a confined space for six hours. Then a year of confined space to follow.

He couldn't help but think of all the good he could be doing if he had stayed home.

Someone sat beside Stephen, with his nose buried in a book, he didn't pay them any mind. The person shifted. They kept moving as if they had never sat in a chair before and were trying to figure it out. Stephen tried to ignore them, tried to keep his focus on his book. These were the last hours before he was stuck with Stark for the foreseeable future.

"So, you're my Doctor."

Stephen looked up at the intrusion. His thoughts scattered as he looked into the eyes of Tony Stark. The eyes that looked steadily into his own. A small smirk was playing at Stark's lips. Stephen really, really wanted to punch him.

Stark stuck out his hand. Stephen tore his eyes away from Stark's face to look at his hand. He steadily took it in his own. "Mr Stark." Stephen kept his voice business-like. His handshake was short and sharp. The second his hand was dropped, he turned back to his book. Determined to have some kind of peace in his last moments on Earth.

He turned the page and Stark spoke up again. "You can take that with you," Stephen looked back up into Stark's eyes. They were searching for his eyes. "The book. If you're ready, we can leave now, or- or I mean, it's up to you. If you're not ready to leave yet - that's fine. We can wait for the designated time. It's just, everything is ready, so if you wanted to, and I mean if you actually wanted to. Yeah. I'll shut up."

Stephen watched him in amusement. He had never expected to see the great Tony Stark, stumble over his words. They would have had another hour at least until they needed to leave. Stark had looked down and away, blowing out a breath. Stephen found it kind of funny watching the man scramble over what to say. He wasn't what he expected. Stark had always been shown as a narcissistic, arrogant sod, but, perhaps that was just how the media wanted him to be seen. The Tony Stark they show to the world. Not this Tony Stark. The Tony Stark that's kind of cute as he tries to speak to another human.

Stephen closes his book. Stark had turned his head to look out the window, watching as people worked. "I'm ready if you are." Stark's head snapped to Stephen's. A smile ghosting his lips. A twinkle hidden within his eyes.

"Great, I'll let them know," He held out his hand, "Do you want me to put that in cargo? Probably won't be able to read on the way." Stephen looked between his book and Stark's hand before giving a nod and handing it over.

***

They hadn't spoken a word during the six hour trip to the space station. There just wasn't anything to talk about. At times, Stephen was certain Stark would start talking. He would turn to face Stephen, but something on his face must have deterred any conversation Stark may have wanted.

The six hours seemed to span into days.

The station was large, much larger than what was warranted for just the two of them. But it gave him an opportunity for escape. When he felt like he couldn't take it with Stark anymore, Stephen had plenty of room to get away.

They were connected to each other through the programming that ran the station. The computer knew exactly where they were and what they were doing at all times. It was necessary. The whole point of Stephen going, was to keep an eye on Stark. He had access to all of Stark's vitals at all times. All he had to do was just ask. If anything was out of the ordinary, the small bracelet Stark was to wear, would send out an emergency distress signal. That signal would send throughout the station to wherever Stephen may be. He hated to admit it, but it was indeed, very clever.

Stark gave Stephen a tour when they landed. He was clearly very pleased with his work.

There was a dining area, already stocked with food and drink for them. A room filled with machinery, Stark assured him that if he wanted, he was welcome to tinker with it all. There was a smaller room that just had seating and a few books. There was a control room, Stark told him that that was where they would do the live streams when needed. The live streams would be broadcast on television and online so people could know what was happening on board. They were scheduled few and far between.

The bedroom was shared. The beds were small and compact. One above, one below. A curtain creating the only type of privacy. It made sense, he supposed, that they share a room. If anything were to happen during the night, Stephen would be readily on hand. There was only one bathroom. Simple in its design. Their clothes, Stephen found, were already in the wardrobe. There was only one wardrobe in their room. Their clothes had been mixed and placed together, all hung neatly.

For some reason, Stephen didn't mind. He kind of liked it.

#fanfic #ironstrange #iron man #doctor strange #wip

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tiltedsyllogism · 1 month

Note

for the WIP title ask meme: Gordo at the picnic!

(for this fic ask meme)

So one thing I think about, every time I rewatch (or even think about) seasons 1 and 2, and especially that killer scene between Tracy and Ed in his office in 2.2, is how Tracy never really gets a fair shot at being an equal at NASA -- not because Gordo is already an astronaut but because, by the time she shows up as an ASCAN, all of her future colleagues have long since been conscripted into knowing the open secret of Gordo's "shenanigans" (to use Margo's word.) And it's so interesting to hold that together with how Gordo is so supportive of her in so many ways -- deep ways! real ways! -- and yet I can't quite believe that he's capable of giving up all of his asshole habits to make room for her as an equal, even though he's doing that in other ways that would probably be harder for a lot of other men.

Anyway, this is a not-quite-a-story-yet set at one of those backyard picnics shortly after the four female ASCANs get their pins, and the aim is to capture some of those tensions. I don't have much other than notes, but what I do have is below the cut:

“Hey Gordo,” Deke called across the patio, “will you come help me with the burgers?”

It wasn’t an order, but that didn’t mean Gordo wouldn’t catch hell on Monday if he blew it off. He turned back to Chloe, grinning. “Duty calls. But hey, maybe I’ll talk to you later?”

“Sure,” she said, showing off those dimples again.

Gordo joined Deke behind the grill, where Deke was piling up grilled burgers onto a paper plate. The whole right side of the grill was open, so Gordo picked up the package of beef rounds and began laying them out like tiles.

“Gordo, you gotta stop doing that,” Deke said quietly, after a minute.

Gordo didn’t let his smile change. “Doing what, Deke?”

Deke glared down at the grill then turned to look at him. “Chatting up the other guys’ wives.”

“Just being friendly,” he said evenly.

“You friendly like that with the new astronauts? Or just their wives?”

“Okay.” Gordo lifted his hands defensively. “Hands off Wayne Cobb, I promise. Look, Deke, it’s not anything. Lambert’s a cool guy.”

#for all mankind #fic ask meme #gordo stevens #deke slayton #moon show

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spoppet · 1 year

Text

some dissent on the conflict between the typhon and humanity

boilerplate spoiler disclaimer here: lotta big plot spoilers here. this is a long one, buckle up.

i’ve recently been seeing a lot of posts that’s like “oh the typhon are the good guys actually” and i feel the need to push back against what comes across as borderline contrarianism.

to preface this: I don’t think humanity are “the good guys”, per se. transtar corporation itself as an entity is absolutely unambiguously evil and you will hear no disagreement on that from me; it is steered and commanded by and at the behest of shadowy cyberpunk-adjacent neo-feudal billionaire lords (this is almost directly pointed out in logs you can find in Mooncrash). the arrogance of these people and their lackeys (namely the Yu siblings and their direct subordinates, especially in Psychotronics who had no excuse of ignorance) — their arrogance is a tremendous sin. it is abundantly clear that a core subtext of the game is that capitalism and privatization will consume all it can without regard for anything but profit. capitalism is as much of a devouring, uncaring monster as any typhon. with that said, i cannot agree with the notion that the typhon are “the good guys”. let’s break this down from the top.

the very first interaction humanity has with the typhon is a malfunctioning lunar satellite during early exploration of the solar system, to which they send an astronaut who is immediately attacked (unprovoked!) and killed. all subsequent attempts at communication seem to have failed. The Soviets and US government both agree this is a serious threat that they should contend with together, but because of political squabbles and confirmation bias and outcome bias (and lack of perceived benefit) they part ways and put the project on hold... after more typhon attack scientific personnel just who at the time were largely only observing them, killing them in the process. some idiot in government foists it off on the private sector without realizing the risk they’re creating.

(as a brief aside: outcome bias due to political pressure is the primary reason that both the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia were destroyed; politicos and capitalists putting their own interests above the welfare of their astronauts against the advice of their more informed specialists and anything approaching good sense. the shuttles’ design was compromised by military-industrial interests as well and that was a factor but that’s a story for another time.)

another point to make here: the Typhon appeared at a Lagrangian point - lunar L2, if memory serves. With all the mention of the Great Filter and Fermi’s Question the game makes (down to multiple paintings in Morgan’s apartment!) that is absolutely not a coincidence... because literally any spacefaring species is going to use Lagrangian points due to their benefits for space travel (I’ll spare the details but they make navigation easier). supplementary data from mooncrash logs strongly implies that the Typhon wait on other planes/dimensions/instances of reality for any activity at these points, potentially for millions or billions of years — and that’s the dinner bell, because non-sentient beings probably aren’t going to develop spaceflight. People seem to conveniently forget the following:

The Typhon are sentience-eating interdimensional trapdoor spiders who are heavily implied to have committed species-wide genocides countless times. I dunno about you, but i think maybe genocide-buffet isn’t cool just because some assholes who weren’t held accountable were doing unethical experiments. the reveal at the end of the game makes it clear that humanity’s on the ropes, billions are likely dead and consumed, the vast majority of which were innocent people who had no say whatsoever in whatever Transtar was doing. even if we assume everyone on the station actually knew because “the simulation must be biased!” as i see a common argument (that I disagree with)... people earthside sure seem to have not known.

another aside: i’ve seen people dismiss the idea of mirror neurons in pro-typhon posts re: their lack of them as a supposed excuse, but they seem to conveniently forget that while this among other things are questionable at best in our world, in the setting of Prey, Panpsychism and Orchestrated Objective Reduction are unambigously real (there’s a bunch of references to it and other related concepts to it throughout the game, both in reading material and on whiteboards - the former in the Psychotronics director’s office, the latter in Igwe’s quarters, if memory serves). things work just a tad differently. While Alex is an unreliable narrator, I really don’t think it’s a stretch that the Typhon are literally physically unable to empathize with sentient life.

all of this in mind, part of the reason I find the cooperation ending interesting is precisely because it spells out that conflict and exploitation breeds misery and death, and that forging avenues of communication and empathy is what you should do. the whole point is that transtar was approaching the issue from a consumptive, exploitative mindset, and so were the typhon. both wanted to extract from the other; but unlike the typhon humanity isn’t a hivemind. there was no collective agreement from all seven billion people that all of them should be killed for, whereas the typhon act in unison to consume without fail and without pause, without agency of their own... unless introduced to it via new methods of perception and cognition, i.e. Project Cobalt and the player character.

therein ultimately lies my main issue: while i absolutely think Alex Yu is just a tremendously evil piece of excrement who did so many fucking things hideously wrong (Danielle’s assessment of him is quite accurate), his assertion that humans are quick to project ourselves onto that which we do not understand is extremely relevant here, i.e. the argument that the typhon were just ickle innocent space creatures that were experimented on for no reason and that they must have been suffering is a very human perception and projected assumption they can or do feel the way we do, which is categorically not the case. transtar is evil and amoral precisely because it consumes sentient beings in the way the typhon do: because it is always hungry, but that is not the totality of humanity, merely its worst impulses. the typhon are more force of nature than villain per se, but by the logic that they’re the good guys so’s a tsunami that kills thousands of people who had no say in the climate change that corporations are causing... which is kind of a fucked up victimblamey throughline imo.

Prey’s thesis statement, to me, is that if everyone takes there’s only misery, but sometimes the right thing to do is to give - in this case, the capability to empathize and communicate. transtar was mistaken, but those mistakes must be corrected. humanity can give, where the typhon... don’t, at least not willingly. Morgan outright says it in one log, that we keep putting them (the powers in the interest of consuming and exploiting) into us, instead when we should have put us into them, to build a bridge and a connection for understanding. the whole goddamn point (at least imo) is that without trying to hope, without trying to see, without trying to mend, there is no future.

... but if at your darkest hour you really fucking try to make it right and to give, maybe just maybe there’s a chance there’ll be a change for the better.

#prey 2017 #prey game #sometimes you really don't need to play devil's advocate #argle and perhaps even bargle

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candyskiez · 4 months

Note

Hello tell me about your OCs and how they work pretty please :)))))))

I'm taking this as an excuse to talk about my newest story because I can. This is very WIP. It will get more developed eventually.

This takes place in a universe with gods that are shit at their jobs.

The Gods took too many magical resources from one of their planets to create new ones. They have some schemes and plans but in a lot of ways they're just spoiled brats who take too much and go “oh no, I'll just make a new one!” They're assholes. They take too much of…idk smth that stabilizes magic I'm working on it.

1. Something bad is happening and has been for a long time now. People asked the gods for help. The gods promised them help in the form of a chosen one. So people waited, and ... The chosen one doesn't come. One lady gets sick and tired of it because everyone's fucking dying and noboies doing anything about it, so she decides FUCK this, I'm gonna fix it myself. I think she gets a group of people with her at some point but haven't decided. One of those people is her friend Lola.

2. The thing is this chosen one is a literal child. Like. A literal child. This child has been being yelled at to grow up faster so they can save the world for years now and no progress they make is enough, because they have to be as good as an adult but they *aren't an adult yet.* They're a kid. All this massive pressure on them is taking a severe toll on them. If they fail something, it's "they don't deserve this honor" "people are COUNTING on you" "this is what you give us? After years of nothing?" , and if they get it right, it's "Took you long enough!" "Where were you when we needed you?" Nevermind that they're a *child.* Their name is Laika.

3. I think there's. Idk some powerful magical or spiritual people in charge of preparing them for it, but they're not. Good at their job. Like they're excellent with their magic but none of them were prepared to help a child. Some of them fail Laika out of genuine mistakes and want to help but just...don't know how, others are unfairly bitter at this child who has powers they don't know how to control and is in an environment that's constantly triggering them to spiral.

4. The lady for a long time resented the chosen one and upon finding out Laika is a literal child flips her SHIT. I have no idea how it gets t this point but I do know there's a scene where she's talking to the gods in a fucking rage

Magic goes absolutely haywire and causes like plagues instead of healing magic, warps crops, spells going screwy. Etc. The gods want to focus on more profitable worlds so they focus on more interesting worlds. But Gods are fueled by belief, so they needed to keep the world from losing faith. They half ass making a chosen one and cut so many corners. Because of this they're just a lil kid. And also like. No experience. Some vague ideas but they're just some kid.

CAST:

Lady named after an astronaut: Teacher, snarky but loving. Extremely loving. Saw so many kids screwed over by the system. Treated like dog shit by the parents and the system. Has this insatiable need to fix things. Became a teacher to fix things after learning how shitty Lola's childhood was but couldn't do shit. When the worlds going to hell she gets sick and tired of sitting on her ass and gets up to do something or at least figure it out.

Lola: Astronaut names best friend. Disabled somehow. Was treated like the dumb kid all her life. Either gets pity, condescension, “you can actually do it, you're just too lazy”, accused of stealing resources, or shit like that. Shes expected to be soft and gentle and kind all the time, but eventually gets fed up and drops the persona and just. Shatters. Shes pissed. She's been pissed her whole life. Her arcs gonna be about disabled anger.

Laika: Chosen one. They got issues.

The gods are a metaphor for capitalism. This is a story about the inherent trauma of living under capitalism. I will develop it more...eventually

#candyskiez oc bs

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aemondslefteyeball · 11 months

Text

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi (8)

Masterlist

[Modern!Aemond x Fem!Reader]

[Warnings: Death, gore, aftermath of animal attacks]

[Summary: Let's gather 'round the campfire and sing our campfire song. Our C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G song!]

Word Count: 4.6K

Chapter 8

Small cursive lettering filled the pages of the journal, and intermittent doodles marked the page, words overflowing around all of it. A discordant look at your inner thoughts, Aemond mused.

Dear Dad,

I met my fiance today and he is the absolute fucking worst. You would have kicked his ass. I wasn’t expecting him to sweep me off my feet but the first fucking thing he did was shove a prenup in my face. Nice to meet you too, asshole.

He couldn’t have been that callous, could he? He had to have given you some form of acknowledgment. Was his first impression that bad? Aemond frowned as he skimmed over the pages, looking for mentions of his name until landing on the next passage.

Dear Dad,

Today has been the worst birthday I’ve ever had. Aemond started my day off by barging into my room at five in the goddamn morning to interrogate me about Sunspear. He apparently saw my post and demanded to know why I was spending “his” money taking vacations. He literally just stood there bitching until I walked into the bathroom. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that I have my own fucking money and my own means of travel. After that the Kazoo preacher was back on the subway screaming about 'the children', and if all that wasn’t enough fucking Jaydee didn’t put the boiling chip into the test tube and it blew up on my goddamn arm. I wanted to take Vaeryx for a quick flight but the wheels were too chewed up after my last landing. Your jacket doesn’t smell like you anymore. I really wish you were here.

Aemond swallowed suddenly. He didn’t even remember doing these things, but the pen marks dug into the page afterward. Another wave of guilt hit him at the realization that he didn’t know when your birthday even was. The journal hadn’t been dated, and he never asked.

Dad,

I got accepted for a summer workshop at Storm’s End Tech!!! If that isn’t exciting enough we’re studying bacteria at the thermal vents off the coast of Cape Wrath!!! Professor Webber really pulled through for me, she was saying that this will really help me when I apply for grad school. Do you remember the house we lived in when you were stationed at Qaehrys? The one with the big window that led onto the roof? I really miss laying there and looking at the constellations with you. I took your telescope out tonight and searched the moon until I found Vaegon’s Crater. Dr. Lee said that’s the most likely spot they’d put a base and it’s apparently less than a decade away. When it goes up I’m going to be there, and I’m bringing your telescope.

Wait, what? Aemond knew that you were a student, but he always assumed you were pursuing business or something. Guilt crashed over him at the realization he had never taken the time to ask you what you were studying. He had never taken the time to ask you anything about yourself, really. He never really had much interest in microbiology, but maybe you were like Helaena and her entomology. Beyond that, never in a million years would he have guessed that you were planning to become an astronaut. You? Did they even send microbiologists to space? Aemond sighed as he put the journal down. He told himself that he was doing this to get to know you better. To support you. But he felt like he knew even less than before and at the cost of your privacy.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The trilling of insects was the only source of noise, save for the torch. A melancholy silence was cast over the circle surrounding the pyre. Aly held the torch, dried blood and tear tracks staining her face. Silent sobs started to erupt from her as the kindling beneath Sabitha’s feet sparked. She next lowered the torch towards her girlfriend’s knees, following it with her shoulders. Aly wiped globs of snot off her face with one hand, using the other to cast the torch into the burning base of the pyre. Tears fell as you squeezed Nettles’ shoulder. She turned her gaze towards you, her massive brown eyes brimmed with tears. Your gazes shifted back to Sabitha, and the sight of teeth peeking through her torn cheek. “Mother above,” Myri exclaimed, her gaze fixed on Sabitha’s twitching hand. “She’s alive.” Panicked looks shot out across the group. “She’s alive! She’s-”

Aly ran towards the pyre, repeated “No’s” being exclaimed as she wrenched Sab off the pyre by her belt loops. Sabitha fell with a heavy grunt, and Aly immediately set out to put out the flames that had cropped up on Sabitha’s jeans. The redhead just lay there, intermittent grunts and gurgles emerging. You lowered yourself to the ground as quickly as you were able, lifting her head so that Myri could rest a blanket under it. “I got you,” Aly whispered, grasping her girlfriend’s hand.

“Really?” Sabitha groaned, “Fire?” The gurgle couldn’t suppress the sarcasm in her tone. She let out the smallest chuckle she could manage. The rest of you were still too keyed up from adrenaline to do anything but pant and stare.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just one more, Aemond told himself. He stared at the journal ahead of him and pulled it back onto his lap. One more, and that was it. He would put the journal back and he would leave it this time. His fingers brushed over the indents in the page, smudges bleeding out to the right.

Dad!!

I think I met somebody recently.

Happy doodles filled the margins of the journal, little flowers crammed into each individual corner.

She’s in my lab. She’s Westerosi, but I think you would really like her. R’hllor, what do I even say? She’s so fucking smart, Dad. She’s kind of shy but it’s actually really adorable. She’s just… a ray of sunshine. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say something mean about anybody else. Just really, really uplifting. Gods, it feels so good getting on the train knowing I’ll see her dorking out over S. aureus with that adorable ass grin on her face. I don’t know if her being so different from Aemond is what makes me like her, but it’s such a breath of fresh air.

Aemond stopped reading the entry after the last mention of his name. While his stomach turned at your Hallmark-worthy descriptions of Emerson, he was grateful it provided a natural stopping point for him. He felt a small pang of pity. Here you had written a dissertation about how much you liked her, only to have it repaid with a whole two months of devotion. No more. Aemond put the journal back into the nightstand and shut the door behind him.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your teeth grit as your foot hits the ground. Rhaena shot you a comforting smile, and you responded with a brief one before putting one foot in front of the other. Sabitha grunted from behind you, leaning against Aly. The two of you paused for a moment so the pair could catch up to you. “When we get back we’re gonna need clean water and thread to stitch them up.” Aly nodded while you shifted your weight onto your left leg.

“Leave me.” Blood was soaking through the bandage Rhaena had wrapped around Sabitha’s face, her voice coming out muffled. Between that, and the eerie sound of her sucking air in through the hole in her face it was a wonder anybody could understand her.

“Sab, stop it.”

“It’s-” Sabitha’s head lolled into Aly’s cheek, her auburn hair stiff with dried blood. “Not… Safe.”

“Don’t say that! We’re almost there!” Aly looked like she was about to start crying again, her powder blue jacket darkened with brown stains.

“Let them go,” Sabitha said, one hand coming up to weakly clutch at the vertebra around her neck. “Let them go.” She turned her gaze towards the rest of you then, grunting quietly before Aly acquiesced.

“Go back to the cabin as fast as you can.” She turned towards you, Nettles, Rhaena, and Myrielle. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but you had kept a decent pace so far. Thankfully it seemed like the wolf didn’t fuck up your muscles. There was still a mottled wreck beneath the cloth bandages, but it was superficial. It would heal. You would be fine.

“Aly?” Nettles whispered, worry furrowing her brow.

“Go.” Aly ordered.

The four of you got back to the cabin after what felt like an entire day, pain slicing through you with each step you took. For your part, all you could really do was be grateful that you could walk. This godsforsaken place put a lot of things into perspective. The four of you finally stumbled onto the porch, as panicked gazes took in the massive bloodied bandage on your thigh. “By the seven.” Sara got up off the porch as you moved to sit. “What happened?” Looking around the group, the blonde’s eyebrows wrinkled. “Where are Aly and Sabitha?”

“She… she told us to leave them.” Rhaena panted out. Floris took her hand and Baela scrambled to your side, tears brimming in her eyes.

“We were attacked by wolves.” But with how big they were, they might just be direwolves. Who knows, maybe a snark would cuntpunt you next. Anything was possible in this shit-ass forest. Fuck this country. Barba rushed out of the cabin, her icy eyes widening in panic. A hand clapped over her mouth as she looked at you, her jaw trembling for a moment. Gathering herself, she grabbed Rhaena by the arms. “Show us where to go.”

You grunted as the hot needle punched through your skin. Exposed to the open air was a horrifying sight. The flesh of your right thigh was mottled with black bruises, puncture marks on multiple spots. The cherry on top of it was the massive chunk of skin that had been wrenched from your leg when you kicked the wolf off you. Clenching your jaw, you hummed through your grit teeth. Seasick Sarah, had a golden nose. Hobnail boots, wrapped around her toes. The needle pierced through each layer of gored skin, fiery pain erupting as it happened. The parts of the wound that could be sewn up were. The chunk of skin that had been torn off could not be sewn shut. So as of right now, you were biting down on Floris’s belt, preparing for Nettles to press the heated knife onto your wound. You looked away, staring off into the darkness outside the window. The first burn lasted for a few seconds, and you bit into the belt hard enough that your jaw ached. After that, the next session started. You started to feel hazy about what seemed to be halfway through, and when she was done you were drifting in and out of consciousness. Sara sat at your side, stroking your hand. You pulled the blanket up more tightly over yourself, shivers wracking you. “You hanging in there?” She questioned, her tone soft. “Need another blanket?” You nodded abruptly.

“I thought it’d be warmer.” You murmured as her face drifted in and out of your field of vision. Her silvery hair flickered in the light, darkened roots showing at the crown of her head. When she placed the blanket over you, you curled into it. Turning away from her, you sank into the warmth of the cot and the blackness of sleep.

Muffled screams roused you, and you turned to the source of the noise. Disorientation clouded your mind until you caught sight of Sabitha lying on the table. The same hooked needle that went into your thigh was currently being plunged into her face. Baela’s expression wavered as she held Sabitha down. Please pass out. Sabitha continued to writhe in pain, thrashing against Baela. Please just let her pass out. Muffled shouts echoed through the cabin, and you found yourself covering your ears. Barba stared at Sabitha, a conflicted expression on her face as she grasped the weirwood pendant around her neck.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aegon sat across the table from Aemond, one arm on the back of the booth and the other dipping a fry into ketchup. He ate that, chewing for a moment while grabbing the massive, greasy burger and dunking that into the pile of ketchup afterward. Aemond held back the urge to physically cringe. His brother’s disgusting eating habits had always irritated him, and Aegon weaponized that. “So.” Half-chewed burger rolled around in Aegon’s mouth, and Aemond clenched his fist under the table for five counts before releasing it. “Moat Cailin?” He grinned, taking another slobbering bite of the dripping burger.

Aemond rolled his eyes. He cut into his chicken vesuvius carefully, picking up a piece of chicken and potato before properly chewing it, placing his silverware down, and staring Aegon in the eye while doing so. When he finished chewing he finally spoke. “I’m going out on one of the search rafts.” He said flatly, cutting another piece of chicken. “Maybe you should come.” A pointed stare was shot Aegon’s way, and he shrank back at the retort. It was no secret that he moved on from Sara a while back, but something shifted in Aegon’s gaze. His brother fidgeted in his seat. Aemond narrowed his eye as he ate, what was he hiding?

“What do you think they’re doing right now?” Aegon asked suddenly, taking another bite of his burger.

Aemond sighed. What would you be doing right now? He hoped you were dipping your feet in the Greywater, laughing with your friends. “I don’t know, trying to culture swamp bacteria,” Aemond said with a shrug, spearing a potato. “Whatever microbiologists do.” He finished.

“What?” Aegon said, his head quirked to the side like a puppy.

“Microbiologist. Somebody who studies ba-”

Aemond was cut off by barking laughter from Aegon. His brother set the burger down with a gross slap. Aegon leaned back in the booth, one arm cocked over the top of it. “She’s not a microbiologist.” He let out another guffaw.

Fury rose in Aemond as he clenched his fist. “She’s not an astronaut yet ei-” Another round of laughter cut Aemond off as he slammed his fist down onto the table, a couple across the restaurant shooting them a nervous look.

The action did nothing to faze Aegon, who continued laughing as he popped another fry into his mouth. “You’re guilting me about not going to Moat Cailin and you don’t even know your wife is an astrobiologist. Oh fuck, I knew it.” He lifted the burger back up to his mouth and took a messy bite, smacking it around. “I knew your marriage was bullshit.” He cackled, shaking his head before swallowing.

Aemond paled, looking around suddenly, grateful that nobody seemed to be paying attention to anything other than their own meals. His eye narrowed as he took in Aegon’s smug face, his fist aching as he clenched it. “You don’t know anything.” He hissed.

“Aemond.” His brother sat up for a moment, setting his burger down. “I’m a fuck up, but I know people.” His usual candor came back to him again a moment later, taking a loud slurp of his milkshake. Aemond stared off to the side, angrily following the insipid breathing exercises Dr. Greenwood had given him. “Is that what this is about? You feel guilty because you were a dick to her?”

“I just want her to be happy once she gets back home.” He stated flatly, hoping his idiot brother would finally drop the question.

“So when are you moving out?” Aegon needled. “Seriously, what makes you think she’d want anything to do with you when she gets back? You don’t even know what she's getting her Master's in.” When Aemond tensed to get up he paused. “Wait. I shouldn’t have said that.” He admitted. “Hey.” Aegon made eye contact with him, an uncharacteristically serious look flashing over his face briefly. “I have a secret too.” Aemond stared back at him, nodding at him to continue. “Me and Floris have been fucking for the past year or so.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I have an announcement.” Said announcement fell on deaf ears, with most people turning over. Barba grabbed a metal ladle, clanking it on the wooden table. “Hello!” She banged it repeatedly, and you groaned as you sat up. “Hi! Excuse me!” Rubbing your eyes, you looked around the cabin. “Thank you,” Barba said quietly. “In light of the expedition having ended how it did, I’m going to take the dead guy’s plane and fly south. I’m going to find us help and I’m going to get us out of here.” She nodded as if hyping herself up.

Fuck. “You’re gonna fly that thing?” Barba nodded at you, and you shook your head. When you talked back in your clearing you didn’t think the expedition would end this way. This shit was still crazy. No. There is no fucking way. “You don’t know if that plane is operable.”

“I’ve been looking over it for weeks, and the gas tank is full.” She threw her hands up suddenly. “I’m a pilot, I grew up watching my Grandpa fly. I have two-hundred flight hours. I know that I can do this.” Your heart sank, throat clenched tight as you stared at her pleadingly. “You can’t deny that Sabitha doesn’t need serious medical attention.”

“She’s not the only one.” Sara piped up, her gaze flickering over to her best friend emotionlessly. “Floris, tell them.”

“I- I really don’t.” You shot a glare at Sara, in disbelief that she really just derailed this so she could force Floris into telling everybody.

“Tell them.”

“What is it?” Luke asked, his doe eyes confused.

“Yeah, what is it?”

You gave Floris the most supportive look you could muster, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m pregnant.”

Rhaena immediately stood up, bounding over to Floris. “How far along are you?”

“Wait, did you get knocked up out here?” Myrielle asked, an eyebrow quirked in Jace’s direction. Baela’s eyes bored holes into the back of Myri’s skull.

“No, I…”

“It doesn’t matter when it happened,” Sara said, a sanctimonious look on her face. “Okay? It just matters that we get them both help.”

Rhaena tried to grab at Floris’s stomach, and she swatted her hands away. “Rhaena, not right now.” She snapped.

“Alright, can everybody just.” Ser Criston ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “Barba, you can’t do this.” He commanded. “No. It’s not even close to safe.”

“There is no ‘safe’ anymore, Ser Cole.” Barba retorted. Her face was hard, different. “It’s going to be winter soon. If I don’t do this, we’re…” She paused for a moment, shaking her head. “We’re all gonna fucking starve.” You fidgeted with your hands, holding back tears that pricked at your eyes. It didn’t feel right. There was something you were missing.

“Alright, well, I’m still the oldest here, so, no.” He flatly responded, gesticulating with his one free hand as he leaned on his crutch. “I’m not gonna let you do it.”

Barba’s face hardened even further. You barely recognized this person, icy eyes narrowed to a point. She took a step forward. And another. “What are you gonna do to stop me, Ser?” Her face twisted into a sneer as she gave him a once-over. Tension filled the cabin as the two of them stared off.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aemond thought that he should feel more nervous. He sent you on a plane that crashed, it seemed only right that he should be subjected to the same fate. But he didn’t and he wasn't. Shockingly enough he felt freer than he had in months. He told Dr. Greenwood everything. Everything that Aegon told him, everything he himself had done, everything he could think of in the session came directly out of his mouth. He thought that another person knowing his sins would destroy him, but Dr. Greenwood hadn’t judged him. All she did was give him a plan to avoid the urge to do those things again. The only thing that weighed on him were Helaena’s words. ‘What if you’re looking too far south?’ When he told Dr. Greenwood about it, she had simply stated that everybody was bound to have their own theories and that he should trust the experts. Logically he knew she was right, but he still couldn’t shake the lingering worry that Helaena was. What if they were wasting their time down here and you were up near Winterfell? The plane ride was uneventful, and Aemond spent the entire time catching up with some work. He technically had until Tuesday off, but today was only Thursday and he wanted less to catch up on. The ride to his hotel was… interesting given that it was essentially a private hut floating on the water. The boat sailed through choppy gray water, and insects flew at Aemond from every direction. When he finally got to his hut, he was relieved to find that his secretary hadn’t booked a hovel. Setting his things down, he moved to enter the shower. When he got out he set about his usual routine. He opened his laptop to get some more work done before shutting it and turning the TV on before eventually settling on a documentary series about Valyria.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

You set about helping the best as you could with your leg still in the condition it was. Mauling or not, work still needed to be done if Barba was going to fly the plane out of there. You tore up another plant as you watched Sara and Floris talk. There was obvious tension there, but Sara played coy and watched while Floris yanked roots out. Eventually, Floris walked off in a huff, and you set your gaze back downward. You would find her later tonight.

When a runway was cleared and all vines were taken off you all stood in front of the plane as Barba arrived. You crossed your arms over your chest and tried to suppress the feeling of dread that grabbed hold of you. She had her backpack on, tugging on the straps as she smiled nervously at Jace. Jace in response pulled her in for a hug. They stayed for a minute before she embraced Nettles, and then Sara. “Be safe, okay?” Barba nodded at Sara’s request. She smiled as she pulled Floris in for a hug, and a few more crowded around her in a group hug. All you could do was watch, a sense of foreboding stirring off in the distance.

When she reached you, you pulled her in as tight as humanly possible. You tried to burn everything about her into your memory, down to the scraggly feeling of her black hair against your face. Squeezing her for a moment more, you pulled your lips over your teeth. “Stay.” You whispered pleadingly. It didn’t feel right, and Barba was the one who had encouraged you to follow your gut.

“Remember your vision,” Barba murmured in response, “Fire and light, it’s a blessing from the Gods.” When she pulled away an austerity had passed over her. You recoiled, increasingly uneasy as you pulled your arms back over your chest. Barba stepped back and opened the door to the Cessna, climbing in and unzipping her backpack.

As soon as she sat down, Criston wrenched the door back open. “By the Gods, Barba. Please, don’t do this.” You hadn’t seen this side of Ser Cole before. Desperate. The last ditch effort of a man who knew his days of authority was behind him.

Barba shot him a nervous smile, swallowing before she spoke. “Thanks for worrying about me, Ser, but…” The sternness flashed back over her face like a mask, her icy gaze flattening. “This is my purpose.” She reached a hand out to pat him on the shoulder before she pulled it back and shut the door with a heavy clang. Barba ran her fingers over the weirwood pendant, her gaze emotionless as she placed her stuffed bear into the copilot's seat. Her gaze passed over to you quickly, before she locked eyes with you and smiled. Discomfort arose in you, as you watched something stir in the very back of her eyes. She held your gaze long enough to make you squirm before the propeller started to spin. Wheels squeaked through the dirt as cheers rang out, you stepped forward and prayed to whatever Gods there were above that your vision was a blessing. The plane was flying as it should, and Barba successfully lifted off. A relieved smile broke out across your face, but you knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet, quite literally. The landing was the hardest part of a flight, and you didn’t entirely trust the brakes on it. The Cessna soared clear over the lake, and you ran forward with eyes pointed to the sky.

“Oh my Gods, she’s doing it!!!” Laughter sounded, Sara clapping as you all ran to the lakefront. She shifted the plane to face due south, and you let out a sigh of relief. It had been a blessing from the Gods. Tears brimmed your eyes as you silently thanked them for seeing her through this. The plane grew smaller as she flew further away, shrinking in the mountains off into the distance. You began to cheer with the others, turning to grab Baela’s hand in excitement.

“Is that smoke?” Sara asked suddenly. Your gaze snapped skyward, and your heart dropped into your stomach. The fuel line. Angry fumes shot out of the bottom of the plane, and it started to shake. A bright flash of flame balled out as the explosion shook the treetops. A halo of light shone, a second sun in the bright sky. Sara screamed and clapped her hands over her mouth. Your body moved automatically, tears streaming down your face as you sank into the water of the lake. Rhaena tried to pull you up, saying something about your leg. Your body went limp as the sobs wracked your body. That fucking vision. And you had been stupid enough to trust it. A banshee’s wail rang out, but it didn’t register as being yours. You stared off into the distance, where sunrays broke through dustclouds and smoke.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fuck, this chapter was really really hard to write. I had no idea I would become so attached to Barba when I started writing this wtf. R.I.P Barba.

Taglist: @chainsawsangel @neenieweenie

#aemond x reader #hotd x reader #aemond x you #hotd imagine #aemond fic #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond imagine #aemond the kinslayer #aemond one eye #house of the dragon aemond #prince aemond #prince aemond targaryen #hotd aemond #hotd aemond targaryen

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mochamoth · 7 months

Text

Rant on why I love and fixate over Scratch (sorry for bad writing + Long warning!!)

If you couldn't tell by my profile I am literally OBSESSED with Scratch. I first actually started watching AoStH about a year ago, because of a clip of the show I saw on tiktok. I thought it was funny therefore I checked the show out. And omg I became so fixated on Scratch specifically. Also don't expect a lot of these reasons to be deep, I am NOT a deep person 😭.

So first off his personality. I adore how he's both an asshole, but also a total wimp. Also he is so SO dumb but in a charming way. I love when he acts like an actual chicken, it's funny and cute (plus his LAUGH OMG, MOST ICONIC LAUGH NEXT TO PAPYRUS'S). Scratch is just a total loser who tries to act cool and I love him for it. Oh also the way his mannerisms are. Omg. The way he SITS. He'll casually just do the splits. On the floor. And the way he walks. And how he STANDS. HE STANDS LIKE A CHICKEN WITH HIS WING HANDS. IT'S SO CLEVER AND CUTE OMGG.

Next is his design. It's just- nice. It's a nice character design, especially when paired up with Grounder (I'll talk about him in a bit, dw I'm also a Grounder fan). I loveee his outfit (?) he has going on, it's simple but nice. I like his extendo-neck, it adds a LOT to him, same with his wing-like hands and arms. Also I'm bias but chickens and crows are my two favorite birds, so that alone is just a yes for me. His eyes are cute. Simple and cute. His COLORS OMG. I am autistic and some colors overstimulate me, so Scratch and aosth as a whole just- the colors are so pretty and nice. I love Scratch's blue-ish color. It's a very nice blue. Oh and he is SO fun to draw. Thank goodness too, cuz the last character I was obsessed with was Guzma, I love his design too but it's a nightmare to draw. The only thing I'd change about Scratch's design (not counting headcanons or styles) is his feet. More specifically his lack of claws. Where are they?? His name is Scratch, so why doesn't he canonly have claws? It's not a big deal, I headcanon he has retractable claws, but still.

Third, I kinda relate to him? Not too much like I did, again bringing up the last character I was obsessed with, Guzma, but still relatable. I'm also very dumb and gullible, and I'm the oldest of my siblings not counting step. I know Scratch and Grounder are technically twins, but for the sake of this I'm gonna say Scratch is ever so slightly older. I relate to random quirks he has like copying and playing out fictional media I like, talking very loudly, and being extremely clumsy.

Probably the most dumb reason on this but I adore it; his outfits. Omg. His outfits. My favorites are def the knight one, the astronaut suit, and I'm not sure what it's called but the outfit he wears in the Egypt episode when he tries to trick Sonic's ancestor. LIKE HE SERVED?? HELLO?? And those are just my favorites. He has such good style in my opinion, he ate almost every single outfit up (almost).

Ok so finally getting to this: his duo dynamic. Omg. Scratch and Grounder are like- my favorite villain duo ever. They're perfect. They balance eachother so nicely and are literally siblings. I love the type of bond they have. They fight almost constantly over everything, and are constantly blaming eachother for no reason, yet they still care for eachother. It's just not obvious. It's more obvious in Grounder, but Grounder isn't really mean. Evil and a shitty influence definitely. But he's not really that mean? Grounder kinda looks up to Scratch a lot, no pun intended, but Scratch also cares back. He just won't vocally say it. Like he has saved Grounder's life MULTIPLE times. And gets very defensive of him when he feels like it. They're not perfect, obviously. Scratch especially can be a total jerk to Grounder for no reason. But at the end of the day they do care for eachother. Hell even when they're not up to catching Sonic or helping Robotnik they're hanging out together, very rarely do you see them on their own. Once in a while yes they do their own thing, but they do hang out a lot. Also how their designs balance eachother is so nice. Scratch is this tall, skinny, chicken robot while Grounder is short, chubby, and a mole robot. Also little side note, the chicken robots Scratch is based off of (Cluckers or something) drive me insane 😭. Like I died probably 26 times from them. Anyways the colors too. Grounder's greenish teal compliments Scratch's red details. Idk as an artist I just like that fact. Don't ask me any deep questions about art btw, ik I work as an artist but I'm not that smart 😰. I like how even though Grounder is the short one Scratch will coward and cling onto him 😭 it's funny. And I love how chaotic they are. Just two dumbass guys doing dumbass things!! Coconuts when added is also amazing. I wish we got to see them work together more. But Grounder and Scratch on their own are again, perfect.

Oh. Also. I like how they're ACTUALLY separate characters. With a lot of duos I see one of two things happen a lot. Either they have very watered down personalities, or are literally the same person. I like how Scratch ans Grounder work together, but on their own are great characters still.

The final reason is probably the most.. I guess vague out of the others. I just feel like he could have a lot of depth. Ok I know he's dumb. He's made as a comedic henchman. He's not supposed to be taken seriously and it's a silly kid's show. But how him and Grounder are treated is lowkey dark? Like they LITERALLY said they're abused. And that's normal to them. They thought "hm yes let's force our robot kid to do chores! That's love!" Like no.. No that's not love 😭. I feel like that could also be a contributing reason to why Scratch is so hostile and cold, even to people he cares for like Grounder. It's because he doesn't know how to show it. But that's more headcanon territory so I dunno. And I feel like them fighting for a BIT of Robotnik's love tears them apart and it's kinda sad to watch. Like they could be very close but can't.

This was more of a sloppy rant than anything. And I don't really watch aosth that often. Not often enough to remember every single detail. So if anything is wrong I am terribly sorry 😭. But those are just a few huge reasons why I love Scratch so much. That's not getting into tiny specific details that don't really matter at all. Anyways I'm sorry for this long ass rant, I swear I won't do this often 😰 probably just one more time for another "show" if I feel like it, I just felt like ranting today! Thank you for reading this!

(Also photo of him. Cuz why not.)

#aosth #aosth scratch #scratch and grounder #scratch #hyperfixation #adventures of sonic the hedgehog

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