#And Bill fucking up out of his own hubris is the best thing

[tswwwit]

Hiya! I'm a bit of a newbie to writing billdip and I struggle the most with dialogue and generally Bills character. I really admire your writing and was wondering if you have any pieces of advice for writing Bill.

I am highly unqualified to give advice on this subject! But here's a few things that come to mind when I think of how I write Bill!

Bill kinda has three main settings: Disinterested, Excited, and Angry. Think of them like levels on a sound mixer, while also being very Impulsive and having an Easily Shifting Mood.

Bored but willing to keep up a conversation because it *could* get interesting. Engaged in the talk he's having, but annoyed enough to insult the person he's talking to at any chance. Furious and excited enough to start making really creative threats!

Dialogue-wise, he's either dismissive, upbeat, or pissed off. He loves mocking people, displaying his superiority, and implication and wordplay. If there's a way to slide in a jab he'll often take it! Puns are not off the table, especially if they'll get a disgusted look or groan. And if he's making a metaphor or comparison he'll often reach for something obscure or downright bizarre.

He's also very manipulative, and convincing. He's got charm to him and can use it - but he also tends to throw in double-talk while he's doing it. (think the 'All I want is a puppet!' scene from the show)

Another point: Talking directly about himself (unless it's to brag) is basically Not A Thing. He might drop hints, but you need a heavy-duty crowbar to drag out anything even slightly beyond surface level.

And that guy's never going to admit when he's having a negative emotion that isn't anger! The best you can manage - if you know him well - is to realize when he's projecting like a motherfucker.

I have also violated all of these vague rules multiple times and will again! So take my suggestions with several grains of salt.

[curlyhairedsimp]

I think about this show a lot. I think about Ford a lot and his thoughts. Why he chose to do things the way he did. Now I’m not trying to place blame but it will sound like it. Ford factually without a doubt fucked up cause he thought that he was supposed to be the man to turn to for these things. He is supposed to tell you if it’s dangerous. He just didn’t account for this other being actually being able to outsmart him.

Bill in the beginning was trying to figure Ford out. I’m sure that he wasn’t quite sure where he stood but Bill doesn’t get attached for no reason. He saw what Ford could become with his selfishness and thought with how far Ford was willing to take it this would be okay too.

Ford isn’t an idiot and he knew what he was building. This part is more of a head canon than anything but in his journals the progression of the books doesn’t really show that Ford slowly feels suspicious of Bill. It’s like one page to the next and that’s why I think bill just laid it out for him. He tried to get ahead of Ford figuring out he was actually lying to him and so he told him. He could bring the weird here and Ford was mortified probably. He was given access to things most people can’t even dream of. It’s why I know it’s his hubris considering more that more than anything that the most important thing to him was preserving his research from being destroyed even when he’s trying to fix everything.

So when Stan calls him selfish in the basement and he gets mad at Stan. It’s because of all people he didn’t want to hear it from one person and it was Stan. Cause to him the most selfish person in the world is right in front of him. Not even realizing that Stan wasn’t wrong to call him that. He almost damned the world for trusting an anomaly and instead of just letting Stan destroy the book. He fights him for it cause he respects his own work too much to destroy it. When it could kill so many people and it was just the best course of action at the time. Regardless of why it was being done.

Ford never unlearned those selfish tendencies cause that’s just how consuming his work is. I think in this sense Ford is a lot like Mabel except Ford doesn’t get hate like Mabel does. Even though Mabel actually goes out of her way to acknowledge her selfishness. Also Mabel is 12 and Ford is like 60. And was like practically 30 making all the mistakes he did.

In terms of emotions/values Ford and Mabel are very similar even if they don’t enjoy the same things. Like the unicorn hair incident. That wouldn’t have bothered Stan or Dipper nearly as much as Mabel or Stanford. Cause they strive to be those things and more so it hurts when someone says otherwise.

In conclusion Ford needed fucking therapy yesterday and Stan deserves hugs.

[spydoclovr69420]

TIME TO SPEW OPINIONS (Companion Edition):

Rose was a great companion who worked really well with 9 and 10. Her personality really helped exaggerate the Doctor's sass and later his emo-ness as 10. She was super brave and very willing to act on her beliefs. (even standing up to the Doctor)

Martha was unfortunately overshadowed in the Doctor's mind by the loss of Rose (L) but she is a GREAT character who had strong opinions and wasn't afraid to tell the Doctor he was wrong or fucked up.

Donna was a great partner to the Doctor with their bickering back and forth. She would readily challenge him but would also play off of him with her own specializations (The calendar in The Doctor's Daughter, The planets in the stolen planet bits)

I have my own issues with Moffat's writing so I'll leave out things that I believe to be "Moffat Issues" and not individual character issues.

Amy was an interesting character who seemed to understand the Doctor more than some of the other companions. This, combined with the new lease on life that was the 11th Doctor really let Amy be both serious and goofy playing off of the silliness of the Doctor.

Rory felt like kind of a side note until he died the first time. When he came back he was a main character kind of guy. His main priority was always Amy, even when there was other things going on, and I REALLY like him.

River isn't really a companion, she's more of a side character. River feels like she was kind of shoehorned in to some of the Doctor's lore in earlier seasons, but by the time she arrived in the Capaldi era for the Christmas special it felt like she was actually someone that the Doctor would like. Before then it almost felt like she was just there for drama. Her appearance in Silence in the Library was interesting and made her character someone to be excited for, but her appearance in The Impossible Astronaut felt kinda of dramatic for me. (not that drama is a bad thing, just my preference) I'm not really a fan.

Clara... I've written essays on why I don't like Clara's character. I think she's well written, especially when we get into series 8 territory, but I also very much HATE her as a person. Her struggle with 11's regeneration is understandable, but the way she treats 12 hurts me a little bit. The 12th Doctor definitely doesn't help Clara's ego when he makes her choose things for the entire planet Earth (Kill the Moon) but by the time Dark Water rolls around her ego is so big it could have BEEN the moon. Spoilers BTW: Oops her boyfriend dies. She's like "OH, I have a time travelling friend I love and care about, he has nothing to do with anything related to this horrible thing that just happened to me so let's threaten to strand him on this planet forever if he doesn't help me undo an event that I already witnessed" What in her mind tells her to do this. I get it, you're mentally ill and grieving. I hate her. Not only did she think of the idea of stranding him on Earth to be fine, but she also TRIED. She tried to drug him and strand him. The idea that he was ok with that kind of put me off a bit. Him forgiving her aside, she also told him that anything Missy did ever was his fault, which is INSANE. I know Missy did some terrible shit to her boyfriend but Clara using this to guilt the Doctor into MURDERING Missy is insane. If she had a spine, she would have done it herself before he got in between them. Anyway I'm glad she died of her hubris. (I could go on)

Bill Potts is my scrungly and she was SO perfect for the 12th Doctor. Their conflict in Thin Ice really nailed down how different the Doctor is from their human companions and emphasized that he's not morally perfect all the time. His hands aren't clean and she knows that, but she also knows that he has good hearts and wants the best for humanity. They have a very grandpa/granddaughter kind of thing going on, which I think works super well with the grumpy 12th Doctor. They're fun, they get along, and in the end it's the Doctor's confidence in his own ability that gets her killed (at first). Bill did nothing wrong ever.

Graham and Ryan are generally ok. I'm putting them in one section because I don't really feel much about either of them. They each have like 3 character traits and nothing else. I feel ways about Chibnall's writing, but I feel like the crowded TARDIS was a bad idea and if it was going to be crowded I might have preferred that Grace be there. I don't dislike Ryan or Graham but a lot of the things they do (particularly Ryan) seem to be for the plot and have nothing to do with their personalities. In the first two episodes Ryan shows some impulse control issues, (touching a shiny alien thing in the woods, and running out to shoot robots with a gun). Graham shows some anger management issues when it comes to emotional things a couple times(The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos)

Dan was a great short-term companion. He had what... 4 stories total? His personality was good and he fit in well with Yaz and the Doctor. He was sarcastic, and missed his crush. He had guts, running around with a wok in Liverpool during an alien invasion.

Yaz. I have feelings about Yaz. If only they had decided to make her crush on the Doctor apparently BEFORE series 13, it would have allowed them more than 3 episodes to deal with it. With what little reference there was to it in The Flux, there was maybe 4 lines and some screentime in the new years dalek episode for that season, and a 2-3 scene reference in the sea devils return episode. That, combined with her saving the Doctor's ass in Power of the Doctor, it feels like this was shoehorned in after audience response, which is almost never a good idea. Otherwise Yaz is a generally ok character with little to argue about, and not enough to her for me to dislike. I do feel like they used Power of the Doctor as the stock standard "companion who has a crush on the Doctor saves their ass" that all these types of companions get at some point. It just feels like it was decided late and they realized that they didn't have one.

Anyway, writing some of these opinions made me feel like it was 2014 again and I didn't like rose because I liked the 10th Doctor. Ofc some of these opinions are from a place of "oh no! They hurt the scrungly!" I did not read this before posting, I just WENT.

P.S. Also I have feelings about the Master, I'll post those later.

P.P.S Also I have watched some of classic who but there's a lot of it so I just skip around to whatever bits sound the most interesting at the time.

[rainofaugustsith]

Jedi Consular thoughts

After playing through the Jedi Consular story a third time, here are my thoughts. Spoilers for the JC class story. 

First and foremost: I want to give my Jedi Consular a hug. And I want to hack the navicomputer on her ship and send her to Rishi or Manaan or someplace beautiful and quiet so she can rest and relax for, oh, I don't know, a very long time. Everyone is on this poor woman's ass all the time to do something for them. Shield all the sick Jedi, Jenari. Engage in extensive feats of intergalactic diplomacy, Jenari. Oh wait, find the super special secret agents of the Emperor, Jenari. Give your strength to the Voss healers so you're literally doubled over in agony, Jenari. By the way, can you please mediate the Trandoshans' battle too, since you're also the Herald? And help me with my science project? And at the end of this, we'll reward you by...giving you more work. Seriously. That's the "reward" the assholes on the Jedi Council come up with for Jenari at the end of the class story. More work with the Republic military. That seems so completely poorly suited for her, given that her entire story arc has been about healing, learning ancient lore, interacting with different cultures and Force traditions and diplomacy. And when she saved Syo, she talked to him. Jedi Council, why aren't you appointing Jenari as Head Archivist or Master of Force Lore or Head of the Force Healing Department on Tython or something?!  I'm sorry Jenari. I know, I know, they didn't even give you a medal and they aren't going to let you retire to a nice quiet library to read. Here's a hug.  Having said that:  1. I've talked about this with mutuals before, but the Consular story shows how short-sighted the Jedi Council is on so many levels. Like...you've gone to the trouble of reconstructing this Noetikon with all of these storied Jedi Masters. Hello, Bastilla Shan is in the house. So let's make sure that only one Jedi ever learns the shielding technique that nobody else has known how to do for hundreds of years. I'm sure that's the best use of the knowledge. Teach it to one Jedi, don't let her teach it to anyone else, and then ask her to save every Jedi with an ancient Sith plague in the entire fucking galaxy. Go, Council! I'm sure there aren't any possible pitfalls with that strategy, including literally working this poor Jedi to death.  But look, she survived! So... 2. The Rift Alliance would have been better off separating from the Republic. I'm just going to say it. The Republic admitted flat out that they wanted the Rift Alliance planets for resources, not their own benefit. And Balmorra? Balmorra wants both the Republic and Empire to get the fuck off their world. You were not elected, Tai. I wish Jenari had been able to actually counsel them to leave the Republic for their own good. The Voss? Dude. You don't even respect the Force users there. But feel free to exploit them for their resources, I guess.  One fun thing is to have your Consular brightly tell Satele Shan and Kaedan that they should send more Jedi to Voss because the Mystics could teach them so much, just to watch both Jedi Masters suddenly get very, very uncomfortable.  Did I mention Jenari needs a hug? She could use some tea, too. And cookies. What? Those are dark sided. FFS, give her the damn cookies. Can I send her to live in the Esh-Kha's new colony with Hallow Voice? Or send her back to Voss with Gaden-Ko so she can hang out in the Shrine of Healing and get some rest? Maybe they will be nice to her.  3. Tharan Cedrax. I always think he is meant as audience wish fulfillment. The dude is arrogant, is brilliant, and has a very young looking woman who literally is programmed to do sexy dances, praise him effusively and give him unconditional love. And he can screw around with the JC and then drop her with no repercussions. 

FWIW Jenari always tells him "I'm not your Jedi" and absolutely refuses to go there. In playing my first version of Jenari, I was surprised that she rejected him when he approached the Alliance after Onslaught. But he was so arrogant, and Holiday wasn't there to blunt the hubris, and Jenari didn't want him back.  4. In the other corner, we have Qyzen Fess, Nadia Grell and Felix Iresso. IMHO these are some of the best companions in the class stories.  5. Okay. Felix. Jenari didn't romance him this time because she is a lesbian and that was hard, because IMHO this is one of the few M/F romances in SWTOR that I can stand. I honestly am constantly stumped why there isn't a huge fandom and love of this character and this ship because Felix is so amazing. 

I can't understand why they didn't bring him back for KOTFE. This dude deserved main story billing. He knew Aric Jorgan and they could have worked with that. And you're going to tell me that in a story where holocrons are important, they could not have found way to incorporate a character who literally has a Sith holocron in his head?! Anyway, I love Felix. His commentary on Belsavis is like the Best Dialogue Ever. I'm sure he gave Jenari hugs. Headcanon is that he's well aware that she is a lesbian and the two of them are BFF and are very close. 

6. The third chapter feels like it's a rehash of the first chapter. Except instead of the plague, we have the Children of the Emperor affecting Good People.  7. I feel like not enough is said about the reason why the plague happened in the first place - namely, the Jedi poked around in a Sith tomb, and then decided to literally sacrifice one of their own by throwing him to the wolves so they could make their getaway. Said sacrificed Jedi was, um, a little angry about that. Not that it justifies the plague, but what they did was really, really shitty. It showed that they felt Parkanas was disposable - which is the same vibe you get from the way the Council handles the Consular. 

I feel like the Jedi Consular would be in their element in the Alliance, with so many Force adepts from different backgrounds, and so many people from around the galaxy. That's how I headcanon it for Jenari. She does not want to be a Sith by any means, but she also does not want to go back to the Jedi and the Republic so she can be worked to an early grave. She just wants a nice quiet place to read. And a hug. 

[iant0jones]

That Greek gods post was interesting, but I would enjoy hearing ypur thoughts on it.

Ahh thank you so much for asking! 💖

This post had a lot of good takes, and doctor who characters obviously have many-faceted personalities so more than one god or goddess could suit them. I’m by no means saying that post was wrong.

Also, disclaimer: I have been dabbling in and out of Hellenistic polytheism for the past year and don’t intend for any of this to sound remotely like hubris, pls don’t smite me @ the gods

Rose - Aphrodite

I agree with that post, not only because Rose is the love interest of the Doctor, but because I think her character exemplifies love in so many forms throughout the series--self love, familial love, platonic love, romantic love, and the love of strangers and the world at large. Also I think she completely captures Aphrodite’s dynamic of being soft and adoring yet viciously ferocious

Jack - in doctor who? Ares. in torchwood? Zeus

Jack as represented in doctor who can be extremely brash and gung-ho. The Doctor and the audience in general are supposed to have a somewhat tense relationship with Jack due to the fact that he’s very willing to bring violence to the table when he feels like it’s needed (which is more often than the show is used to). But in some ways, it’s still kinda comical. That’s absolutely how the Greeks viewed Ares. Also, Ares has a strong association with Aphrodite. This level of passion could only be found in our boy Jack

That being said, I think if we take his characterization in torchwood into the equation, he’s absolutely Zeus. When the Doctor takes on power, it’s often seen as out of step, out of line, and a little insane, but Jack? Jack in torchwood commands respect. He’s the father figure that has been around for a long, long time, and is often right in his decisions, even if we don’t want to admit it. Also, horny as hell

Martha - Athena

Although I think a lot of goddesses could suit Martha and, vice versa, Athena could suit a lot of doctor who characters, Athena perfectly captures the grace and strength of Martha. Her intelligence and her dignity shown throughout the series (and torchwood) are absolutely honorific and suited for this amazing goddess. This is especially true when she really comes into her own as a member of UNIT and is able to combine her skills as a doctor with her skills as a strategist. And I can totally see Athena watching that scene of Martha reciting the bones in the hand and cheering her on

Donna - Nike

As the goddess of victory, strength, and speed, Nike reminds me of Donna due to her absolute devotion to justice, whether it be towards the people of Pompeii, the Ood, or how she herself is treated by others. That woman has held so much weight on her shoulders, but she’s more than capable of pushing through all the hard times to make sure everyone comes out okay. Also, "Did I ever tell ya? Best temp in Chiswick. Hundreds words per minute.”

Amy - Hera

Oooh, my god. The level of Queen in this lady. Amy completely gives off Queen of the Gods vibes. She’s strong as hell, stubborn, and quick to temper, but she’s also incredibly sweet, devoted, giving, and motherly. The scene where she attacks the Silence after reminding them that River became who she is because she’s Amy’s daughter? BIG HERA ENERGY

Rory - Hades

Now I’m by no means suggesting that Asclepius was a bad choice for Rory, but truth be told I don’t know much about that god and so I can’t really judge how well that choice sits with me. However, I do think Hades would be an excellent choice for Rory. He’s sensitive, reserved, and often gets left with the worst lot in life. He’s also highly intelligent, shrewd, and incredibly devoted to his wife, who he puts on a pedestal and treats her like the queen she is

River - Hekate

I’m a little on the fence about this one, especially considering that the post used Hekate’s traits as the goddess of crossroads and magic to highlight for River. I think Hekate’s more accurate for River if we consider that she’s essentially the female version of Zeus, due to her insane amount of power. Despite her level of power, however, she remains humble and is willing to service Persephone and Hades by helping them in the Underworld, which is similar to how River helps her parents and the Doctor. Also, I often associate a level of controlled chaos with Hekate that River would thrive in

Clara - Dionysus

Okay, hear me the fuck out. I think Athena suits Clara best, but because I already used Athena for Martha, I’m going to use Dionysus here, and this is why: Dionysus is the god of chaos, but he’s not really ever depicted as being chaotic himself. Instead, he surrounds himself in chaos. I think this speaks to the duality of Clara needing absolute control in her life, but also being an extreme thrill-seeker who could go over the edge at any moment. Also, the level of drama that she cultivates is absolutely suited for the stage of Dionysus

Bill - Artemis

To me, every aspect of Artemis suits Bill perfectly. Bill is fiercely sharp-witted and I could easily see her taking up a bow and arrow with ease. She’s both incredibly serene and intellectual (which reminds me of Artemis’s association with the moon), yet she’s not unwilling to jump to the offense if she feels like she or a loved-one is being threatened. Incredibly just and hates unnecessary violence.

Also, LESBIAN!!!!!!!!!! Bill and Artemis drink loving-women juice for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert!!!

The Doctor - Apollo

Going back to what I said when discussing Jack, there’s always something disturbing about the Doctor when they’re given too much power. Zeus is simply too godly, and as Nine put it, “I’d make a very bad god.” I think that’s why someone like Apollo is more suitable. He’s the god of light, music, and medicine, which speaks to the healing nature of the Doctor, their creativity, and the profound influence they have on people’s lives. But at the same time Apollo can also be vicious with a bow and arrow, and is considered to be the bringer of plagues. This is reflected in the destruction that follows the Doctor wherever they go. To me, this dual nature is the most important thing there is about the Doctor

[creek-cryptid-deluxe]

Welp I think I've lost Em as a friend. Which is surprising considering the petty bullshit tantrums she tolerates from the "Your boundaries victimize me" girl. Story time? Sure. Why not.

So you guys know that I'm on disability. I make $1k a month & that amount decreases when The Spawn turns 18 in about a year. I also have an epic amount of dental work that needs to be done because no matter how well I care for my teeth, they just crumble. At 35, I'm very much in danger of losing most of them, but in my state you have to pay for separate dental insurance & frankly I can't afford it. Realistically, I could literally only pay bills for a year & then would maybe be able to afford the work but by then my mental health would be so shit that I wouldn't care.

Well, as they were scarfing down a quart sized bag of my chocolate drizzled kettle corn each, the kids brought up making the kettle corn into edibles using a cannabutter style coconut oil, since I use coconut oil to thin the chocolate anyway & The BF has a large network of people who would buy it since he previously was a pot dealer. (Still not legal here.) I told them I'd think about it.

I was bouncing the idea off of Em the other day but my major barrier is making the oil because the recipes I found all required baking the green to dry it first and that ain't happening. She excitedly suggests a friend of her bf who is making it. I ask her to research pricing so I could think on it.

Next day she comes back with pricing. I tell her thank you & that I will get back with her after some research & calculations. (Basically how much each sandwich bag full will cost to make vs how much they would go for. The profit margin was... significant.)

Later that evening I text her saying I'm going to move forward with it. She says ok.

The next day (yesterday) I wake up to a text saying that she, her bf, & the friend had a talk about it & they don't think it's a good idea so they won't be selling to me. I responded with "Cool." And planned to leave it at that and deal with my feelings about it on my own. But she keeps sending message after message about how she knows I'm frustrated with her & she's sorry. Like even after i text that i wasn't frustrated with her, I was frustrated about the situation. She just KEPT ON.

So finally i said "I'm frustrated with a situation where I, an adult, in a fucked up financial situation decided to take a very calculated & well researched risk out of desperation so that I can afford to have a fighting chance of saving my teeth, which are rotting out of my head. You jumped in, offering to help, then suddenly overnight you, who should know enough about me to know I never go into anything without copious research, & 2 other 20 somethings I've met once who know fuckall about me, have decided you know what's best for me. That's super cool. Absolutely dope. Especially since the 3 of you have no clue what it's like to be in my position. It would be different if you had told me he just decided not to sell to people he doesn't know. Disappointing, but understandable. But no, this was about me in particular. And I know you roll your eyes about The Spawn's ideas to monetize shit I already do, but that's her way of trying to help. She knows how fucked up my finances are & how much I'm neglecting certain issues because of it. So she tries to find ways for me to make extra money without absolutely annihilating my already crumbling body or exhausting me further. She's actually being incredibly thoughtful. Are all of them feasible? No. Was this one? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah I'm not frustrated with YOU in particular but how this situation was handled & played out."

That was yesterday morning & she's not said a word since. I sent Dad screenshots, asking if I was harsh. His response was "I think you were incredibly diplomatic considering how wrong & messed up that situation is."

The Spawn's response was "What the actual fuck? Your friends fucking suck. What kind of know it all, self righteous fucking hubris do these people have to think they know what's best for you, the woman who over researches over prepares & plans for every possible scenario? Even I know better than to think that."

So that's a thing that happened. 👍 Tune in next post for my light bulb moment about why my right knee has been so fucky lately.

*sigh* just don't fucking reblog or otherwise steal this goddamned post. Christ pate on a cracker.

[lesbiancolumbo]

I'm watching Etude in Black and why on God does everything John Cassavetes do look like he's about two seconds from breaking(giggling) because he's flirting with Peter Falk? It's just so much. The scolding, the subtext, the murder. Telling his wife "Just for the record I love you" then looking at Columbo and going "Goodbye Genius" who gave John Cassavetes the right?! Insert that gif set about "I had to stop watching because it was making me crazy, I would just *screams*" help me sidney- Bill Holden's Ghost

listen, it’s been like over three years since i first watched étude in black and even i don’t even have an answer for what john cassavetes is doing here. it does actually make me crazy!!!!!!

the ending in particular is just a lot and like, the choice to put the camera on columbo during the scene where alex tells his wife he loves her, that he has always loved her, and that he hopes she won’t go through the rest of her life alone, the implication there being that like.... he’s talking to HIM and meanwhile the projection of alex on the entire backside of columbo is uhhhh, a lot. it’s one of the most powerful visuals in the series for me. like truly coach from cheers wilded out when he directed this.

you are in a car with a beautiful lieutenant and he won’t tell you he loves you because you’ve committed a murder and he knows this and is investigating you for said murder (but he loves you)

i will also say that like. most of this is chalked up to the fact that peter and john were best friends and had that natural chemistry that exists in all of their work together, but at the same time it’s gay as shit and though there are “better” and “scarier” columbo killers than alex benedict i just think he’s an interesting character to watch, and the way he tries to rationalize the things he does in his own head and the way he just fucks everything up so badly in his own false sense of Hubris is deeply amusing.

[binbons-character-stuff]

Hell Hath No Fury

My contribution to @daffodilsbucky‘s 1k Follower Challenge! Congratulations!!!

My trope was #12 Body Swap.

Dinah Madani was a woman scorned. 

There was more to it, of course. Her career was in ruins. She was a laughingstock among her former co-workers and bosses. Her parents had stood by her publicly, of course, but she saw them, sometimes. They would just look at her, wondering where they had gone wrong with their child. 

Her life was a joke – she was a joke. And it was all because of one man. 

Billy Russo.

Dinah Madani never looked in the mirror and saw a woman who compromised her own values, used herself and Billy Russo sexually to find out information about Frank Castle and Cerberus. She didn’t see someone who played fast and loose with the law; she saw a victim. She saw a woman who had been dishonored, a woman who had been played for a fool. 

A woman who needed revenge.

And she didn’t want revenge from Frank Castle, the man who had pulled the trigger on her partner in Kandahar, or his boss, the man who had actually given the order to murder Zubair. She didn’t want revenge on her boss or her boss’s boss that gave Russo and Castle sweetheart deals for helping to take Rawlins down. Hell, she didn’t even blame David Leiberman for sending her the video in the first place. She blamed Billy Russo, because he had realized her game and beat her at it; because he had been able to compartmentalize dealing with Madani after he found out that she had been using him to get to Frank. 

Because he had been able to find love with someone else, when Madani herself had loved him: at least her version of love. More like want, really, but still, Madani owed him. So, yeah, Billy and you were the object of her sick fascination and utter hatred.

It was Billy Russo who needed to pay. And, if things went as she hoped, pay he would, and you right along with him.

Madame Gao had been hard to find, but Madani was determined. When she had found her, Gao had been indifferent to her. Russo and Castle were troublesome but nothing that her Hand members couldn’t handle. 

In the end, Madani had pledged herself to the Hand for Madame Gao’s help in getting revenge on Billy. And, in order to be completely certain of Madani’s loyalty, Gao had placed a geas on Dinah. She was now magically bonded to Madame Gao until her death or release.

It was a small price to pay to make Russo’s life a living hell before she finally ended it. 

This was going to be fun.

“Honey, I’m home!” Billy called when he stepped into your shared apartment and laid his keys in the bowl that was kept there for general pocket clutter. 

“In the kitchen,” you called out, though he had already figured that out from the delicious aromas and the music playing.

Billy tossed his suit jacket over a dining chair and strolled into the kitchen, loosening his tie as he entered his favorite room of your shared home. 

Leaning his chin on your shoulder as he snuggled up behind you, Billy pulled you close and kisses your neck a bunch of times until you giggled and turned to kiss him properly, knowing that he would continue to harass you delightfully until he got a proper smooch.

“How was your day, love?” you said after a sweet kiss.

“Not too shabby. Better now that I’m with you,” he said warmly.

You looked into his deep brown eyes and marveled that you had ever doubted this man’s feelings for you. “I love you so much, Russo,” you said sincerely. 

Billy kissed your nose with his special crinkly-eyed smile. “I love you, too,” he replied. “Whatcha makin’?”

“Just some quick sausage and peppers with pasta. Wanna set the table while I put the garlic bread in the oven?”

“Sure,” he answered, stealing one more kiss before he went to grab dishes and flatware.

Billy was still getting used to having a woman in his space; you were worth it and he would lie down in a puddle so you wouldn’t get your feet wet, but there was still a lot to get used to, y'know?

This was a man who never lived alone his entire life, going from foster homes to group homes to the Marines. When he finally got out and started his business, he got his first place alone – and he fucking loved it. He didn’t have to worry about his shit getting moved, busted or stolen. Hell, he didn’t even have to deal with Frankie stealing his toothpaste. In a burst of excessive hubris, he had gotten all of the things that he thought would show people how far he’d come in life from the foster kid whose junkie mother safe-havened him at a fire station.

When Bastion Security took off and made it through the government oversight after he and Frank and Curtis had done the CIA’s dirty work and took out Rawlins, he was able to grow the business honestly, not having to worry about Black ops that were too dirty for Feds. His jobs were aboveboard and his money was clean.

Clean money meant less money, though, so the penthouse had been traded for a normal apartment, his closets filled with nice but not bespoke suits and his parking space with the Wraith was now occupied with a Land Rover. After life settled into routine, after all the testifying before the Senate, after he paid back the dirty money he used to start Anvil, well, he realized that while it was nice to have his own space and things, they didn’t have to be the most expensive just for the sake of having the highest price tag. 

And now that he didn’t have to maintain strictest privacy at all times lest his not-so-squeaky-clean business practices came to light, he didn’t necessarily love being alone all the time.

You and he were the last of your friends who were still single; Karen and Frank were together, Foggy and Marci were engaged, Curtis had started dating a girl he’d met at the gym and Matt was getting serious with a social worker he’d met on a case where he’d been guardian ad litem for a boy who had lost his parents.

So, after the first few times that you and Billy were the only ones to show up for a group outing, or were the last ones left after everyone went on with their couples plans, you decided you may as well hang out with each other. One thing had led to another, you’d asked him to be your plus one for a work thing, he’d asked you to go with him to a mix and mingle thing so he wouldn’t threaten husbands. You never expected anything, of course; Billy was famously single and you certainly didn’t think you’d be the one to change that.

But you were. Billy finally quit pretending he needed you to accompany him as a friend and told you he wanted more. 

“What?” you asked with a nervous chuckle. “Is this a joke?”

Billy looked offended. “No,” he said stiffly. “It was not intended as such.”

“I mean, you’re famously unfunny, Russo. You sure?” you said, giving him an out.

Suddenly Billy was feeling more vulnerable than he had as a kid. He decided to go for bravado. With a half-smile, he said, “Yeah, that’s a pretty stupid idea, huh? I just thought that y'know since we been spending so much time together –”

“Bill!” you interrupted. 

“What?” he growled, cheeks a bit flushed with embarrassment.

You smiled and stepped closer, tentatively putting your hands on his shoulders. Looking into his eyes, you whispered, “It’s a great idea, Billy.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and put his hands on your hips, pulling you a bit closer and leaning in to drop a gentle kiss on your lips. 

Your eyelids fluttered open and you smiled happily. “Best idea ever.”

Frank and Curtis had known Billy for a lot longer than any of his other friends, and neither of them could get over the change in him. Outwardly, Billy told them to screw off, he had always been the same guy, but inside – well, inside, Billy knew that he was different. You had seen the person who had always worried that he wasn’t worth anything deeper than his looks. 

But you looked past his exterior, past his sins and loved the man that he had never before had the courage to be. You became his friend after he lost the money and the car and suits, and you never seemed all that impressed with his looks. Oh, you thought he was gorgeous; you weren’t blind. But that wasn’t enough for you. You’d needed to get to know the real William Russo, not the image he showed the world. Only then did you fall for him.

There was a freedom that accompanied someone knowing the real Billy. He had never known true acceptance before, had never understood that concept because no one had ever wanted what was beneath the facade he showed the world. When he was a Marine, he was the best goddamn sniper there was. When he was a businessman, he was the best bullshit artist and salesman he could be. When he was with a woman, he was the best lover he could be, leaving every partner exhausted and satisfied.

But he had never really allowed anyone to see the man he was before. Only you understood the little boy who had been abandoned that still lived inside Billy, and only you had ever been able to make him understand that it had not been his failing, that his mother had been an addict and unable to care for him. 

For the first time, Billy thought that maybe there could be more to his life than resentment and anger; you gave him love and acceptance.

Madani had gathered all of the necessary components for the spell and it was time. She had been very careful not to let Billy see her as she tailed him, learning his and your routines by heart. She had spy training, after all – even someone trained as Billy had been unprepared for the Killing Eve disguises and infiltration shit Madani was pulling. Madame Gao had also loaned her some manpower, so there wasn’t always a small woman around, regardless of her hair color or clothing.

Madame Gao herself was going to perform the spell. Later, Madani would apprentice in spellcraft, but for now she would simply be the subject of the spell.

It had been so easy to get close to you to get something personal to use for the spell component. You were truly and completely a civilian, a trusting fool. What did Russo even see in you?

Madani was currently bound to a sturdy chair, arms and legs lashed down securely. She couldn’t get out of it herself, she had no doubt that it would hold a weakling like you. 

Madame Gao began chanting and threw a lit match into a bowl, fragrant smoke surrounding Madani, clouding her vision and making her dizzy. As her eyes fluttered closed, she felt herself drifting away…

You were having the strangest dream. The sounds and smells were completely foreign to you. There was a strange voice chanting and it was as if you were drunk or high. You muttered in your sleep, and the feel of Billy’s heart beating against your cheek was growing fainter, as if you were being pulled away from his embrace. 

Suddenly, you gasped as your eyes opened to a strange room where an elderly Asian woman was looking you over with a matter-of-fact expression on her wrinkled face. 

“You do not seem worthy of such hatred as my apprentice holds for you,” she said disdainfully.

You were still woozy and completely confused. “Who are you? Where am I?”

“I think the more important question for you is, ‘Who are you?’” she replied, gesturing across from you.

You looked in the direction and saw a woman bound to a chair. Disturbing, but you couldn’t see how it pertained to you. You turned to look at the woman and saw the woman across from you mirror your move. You looked back and so did she – you began to make faces and she mimicked each one. Finally your brain caught up with the evidence before you and you looked down, finding your hands bound to a chair – but they were not your hands!

“What – what the hell is going on?” you asked, panicking and pulling against your bonds. “What is happening to me? BILLY!!”

“You may continue to scream if that is your wish, but there is no one to come to your aid. Ms. Madani was very careful in her planning. Your Mr. Russo should be waking up next to her any time now.”

“Madani? That crazy bitch who tried to kill Billy?” you asked, real fear in your eyes as you looked into the mirror more closely. The hair was short and blond now, but the eyes and face, the beauty mark – you were indeed trapped in the body of Dinah Madani.

And your love was snuggled in bed with a woman who blamed him for every bad thing that had ever happened to her – and had been trained to kill.

Billy woke abruptly, the feel of fingernails digging into his skin jolting him from sleep. He jumped from the bed in fight-mode but saw no threat. “Babe?” he said, half asleep and confused. You usually woke him up sweetly, knowing that he had PTSD from growing up in foster care and serving in the Middle East – startling Billy awake was not a great idea.

“Hey,” Madani purred, “no talking, just make me feel good.”

Billy was wide awake at that, skin almost crawling as he jumped out of bed and away from the hands trying to get inside the boxer briefs he had worn to sleep. “Ah, sorry, no can do,” he said, backing away from what certainly looked like the woman he loved. “Got an early meeting.”

“Ugh,” she practically sneered at Billy. “Fine, Russo. Go to work – as usual.”

Billy visibly flinched and said, “Ah, gonna hit the shower.”

Madani realized that maybe, just maybe she had come on a bit strong. She hadn’t really put any thought into how you and Billy were when you were alone together, and surprisingly, you spent most of your off time alone in your shared apartment. No, she only thought about getting revenge. But Billy had definitely been confused, and though she knew she was smarter and he couldn’t possibly expect this, he wasn’t a stupid man. 

She would have to be softer. It just hadn’t occurred to her that Billy Russo would want to be with a rag doll, she assumed that he would be with a woman more…well, more like Madani. She had been his type once, but it seemed that these days he liked his tail with a side of submission. 

Billy was in the shower quietly freaking out. You were behaving strangely; it was like you were a different person entirely. 

Get ahold of yourself, Russo, he berated himself. So your girl woke up horny and tried to jump you? Most guys would be grateful, and it isn’t like you never woke her up for sex! 

Billy shook his head and hurried through his shower. He had no idea what you saw in him, but you were so tender-hearted that you were probably some combination of hurt and embarrassed because he’d run off like a blushing virgin.

Billy came back to the bedroom wrapped in a towel, an apology loaded for his weird exit, but you weren’t there. He perked his ear in the direction of the kitchen and heard you opening cabinets and shrugged. Morning weirdness aside, he really did have an early meeting.

He got dressed and came out to the dining room to find you drinking coffee. He bent over to drop a kiss on your cheek. “Gotta go,” he said. “See you at 7 for Karen’s thing, right?”

“Oh, right!” Madani exclaimed. “You’re picking me up, right?”

“No,” Billy drawled slowly. “We’re meeting at Kashkaval Garden. Remember?”

Madani made a 'silly me’ face and said, “Right, of course! Absolutely.”

“Great,” Billy replied a bit suspiciously. “You OK?”

“I’m fine,” Madani replied. “Weird dreams, feel like I could sleep some more. Better hit the coffee!”

“K,” Billy agreed reluctantly, then sent you the special smile that he deserved for you. “Love you, babe.”

Madani felt her stomach churn. Really? He loved this little Mary Sue? “Back atcha,” she said with a tense smile.

Billy’s eyebrows went up slightly, but then he smiled and said, “See ya tonight.”

“Yup.”

Billy closed the door behind him, actually shaking. You had never failed to tell him to have a great day when he left for work. He’d been called out of bed in the middle of the night and you’d told him to have a great day in your sleep! And, 'Back atcha’ when he’d said he loved you?

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

Madani knew that Billy had been weirded out by her behavior, though she wasn’t sure what precisely she did wrong. He’d liked her well enough when they had been together, how much different could you be? Yes, you were a pediatrician, so you obviously liked children, whereas Madani wanted nothing to do with any ankle biters, even if they were family. Maybe he found something in you that he had missed out on being raised in the foster system? That made sense; it wasn’t you, but what you represented.

What possible other reason could there be for him to be with Madani’s polar opposite?

Billy had been distracted all day. From the first minute of the 7 a.m. meeting where David and Curtis had gone over the company’s quarterly financials and the prospects for the upcoming months, he’d been somewhere else. 

“Billy!” Curtis said loudly, knocking on the table in the conference room. “This is where you talk.”

“Shit, sorry, guys. Weird morning,” he apologized. “Ah, we have eight ongoing personal security jobs stateside and I’ve been trying to get us contracts for overseas security, too. If any of that starts looking positive, we’re going to need to hire and train more ground crew. And we could actually use some tech crew now, Micro.”

“That’s…wow,” David Leiberman exclaimed. “I’ll put out some feelers. This is great news, guys!”

“Yeah,” Billy said with a surprised chuckle. “Y'know, I think we might just make a go of this thing.”

Frank slapped the tabletop and said, “Damn straight!” he agreed heartily. “Drinks are on me tonight.”

“It’s your girlfriend’s party, weren’t they already?” Curt heckled Frank.

“Yeah, ya cheap bastard!” David joined in as Billy chuckled at their ribbing of their friend.

“Eh, shut it!” Frank clapped back happily. “Bastion Security Incorporated is here to stay!”

Billy was planning to talk to Frank about your strange behavior, but he didn’t want to bring down the vibe of the partners after the meeting, and he had a lot of work to do around three meetings and two conference calls. I’m probably overreacting, anyways, he reassured himself. Just a weird morning.

Still, the feeling that something was wrong nagged at him all day. To top it off, he had texted you several times and you hadn’t answered him once. You always answered him, even if it was just a few words to say you were busy and you loved him.

He was utterly disgusted with himself for feeling like a clingy teenager, but damn, you were the best part of his life. What if you really had been keeping from him resentment over how much he worked? You always said you understood, even when he had been completely honest about all the stupid, awful things he had done. He was utterly overwhelmed with the grace and forgiveness his found family had blessed him with, but they had already been friends. For them it was a continuance of a relationship and therefore they found good in him to outweigh the bad that he had done. 

With you, he had been honest early on; he needed to know that you could bear to look at him with his sins laid bare, because he knew almost from the beginning that you were special. The fact that you loved him knowing what he had done never ceased to amaze him – and he didn’t think he could make it without that love. Your love had changed him, made him able to return love. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t the most important person to him.

Christ, I feel like a twelve year old girl, he thought to himself disgustedly. 

He picked up his phone and looked again. Still no texts.

Billy sighed and tried to focus on the resumes in front of him. They needed to hire new employees whether or not his love life was making him weepy.

Billy had arrived a few minutes early, but the hostess said the Garden Room was ready and led him back. Frank and Karen greeted him warmly, Billy congratulating Karen on her book deal. As if being a partner in Nelson, Murdock & Page wasn’t enough to keep her busy, she had submitted a manuscript for a mystery novel to a publishing house and had been offered a contract.

“Promise me you’ll only describe a character based on me as 'devastatingly handsome’,” Billy demanded playfully.

“How about, 'chronic bedwetter’,” Frank suggested.

“Or 'high-maintenance mirror hog’?” Curtis chimed in.

“'Technologically challenged!’” David piped up, loathe to be left out and giving the worst playful insult he could think of.

“Or 'terrible, inattentive boyfriend?’” he heard your voice add in the midst of laughing off his buddies’ roasting.

His eyes went wide and he spun around, and yeah, you looked pissed. “Hey, babe,” he said carefully, leaning over to kiss your cheek, which you accepted stiffly.

“I’ve been sitting out front waiting for a while, babe,” Madani said with saccharine sweetness and a big smile. “If Sarah hadn’t grabbed me on the way in, I’d still be waiting.”

“I mean, I thought you’d come on back,” Billy said quietly, smiling thinly, aware that all of your friends were watching. “Not like this is the first time we’ve used this room for our group.”

Madani looked around and saw the questioning looks pointed her way and let it go. “Of course. Long day,” she said, hopefully placatingly.

“Did you bring the gift?” Billy whispered as people began to mingle again.

“Gift?” Madani replied absently.

Billy’s eyebrows beetled his brows and he frowned as he said, “Are you kidding me? I said that we didn’t need a gift and you spent hours picking things out and paid extra for fast shipping!”

Just as Madani opened her mouth to snap back, Matt said, “Billy, got a minute?”

Billy closed his eyes briefly before smiling and turning to face the group. “Sup, Matt?" 

"I heard you were hiring and I have a friend who might be a good fit.”

“You have friends who aren’t here?” Billy said with feigned amazement in his voice.

“Ha ha.” Matt held out his hand and said, “Come over here so we don’t bore everyone?”

Billy was surprised but said, “OK,” and put his arm under Matt’s hand and walked over to the far side of the room.

Matt smiled and said quietly, “Who the hell is that?”

Madani watched Billy lead Matt over to the other side of the room. She had been worried when Matt had asked Billy to talk, but then Billy had served him up snark like he did to the other guys so she figured it must really be normal.

She really was making him suspicious, though. She wasn’t going to be able to drag this out and enjoy torturing him, as much as it pained her to admit it. She had put so much thought into the method of her revenge that she didn’t research the means.

She smiled and joined the crowd, hanging back to learn the names of the people she didn’t know. She regretted letting her obsession with revenge cloud her judgment and keep her from doing better background. 

You were actually being treated fairly well. Aside from some self-defense moves that Billy had insisted upon teaching you, you were absolutely not a threat. You were more of a throw-your-handbag-then-run-away-yelling, “Street Smarts” than a hand-gesture-like-Neo-while-screaming, “Come Get A Taste” kinda girl.

The elderly Chinese woman had dismissed you to the care of a group of guards with a full-on bad guy monologue. “The rest of your life does not promise to be pleasant, but it is up to you how you will be treated while you are my guest. Obey my simple rules and you will have the freedom of this room, you will be allowed to watch television and have access to bathing facilities. Your meals will be brought to you and if you are a well-behaved guest, you will be treated as such.

"However, if you get any ideas about escaping, then of course you will be returned to this chair and these bindings. Tell me, child, have you a preference?”

“I will behave until Billy comes for me,” you said, chin raised proudly. “You’re right, I am absolutely no threat, but Billy…he allows himself to care for very few people. You have the misfortune to be holding one of them as an honored but unwilling guest. Let’s hope the insane obsession of an off-balance woman scorned is worth the trouble it will bring to your door.”

Madame Gao smiled condescendingly. “I think we will be able to manage a few toy soldiers, child. Do not worry about my health when yours is in so much more peril.”

Billy smiled tensely at Matt. “What the hell do you mean, man?”

“I mean,” Matt bit out, “that woman may physically be your girlfriend, but somehow, that’s not who is currently inside her.”

Billy was dumbfounded. He knew of Matt’s alter ego and therefore understood that Matt had talents and powers far beyond his experience, but for there to be a completely different person inside your body? The same body, incidentally, that he had been inside on countless occasions?

“Matt,” Billy bit out a moment later, “man, I can’t wrap my head around this. You saying there are two people inside her?”

“No, Billy,” Matt replied ominously. “She’s completely gone.”

Madani figured she should stop staring holes into the back of Billy’s head and mingle a bit. She’d met Karen and Sarah before, albeit in a rather interrogate-y way, but still – she figured she could handle small talk with them.

Madani walked over to the edge of the group of friends and edged in until she was next to Karen. 

Karen turned to her a bit and gave her a one-armed hug. “So glad you got here! Boys are so dumb, right?”

“Tell me about it!” Madani replied with an exasperated smile. “I feel like such a dunce, I left your present at home!”

Karen waved her concern away. “You don’t need to get me a present, silly! I just want to celebrate with all my friends.”

“Still,” Madani said ruefully, “happy birthday!”

And there was silence. And it was not good.

Frank cleared his throat. “Ah, we’re celebrating Karen’s book deal, kiddo! Did you pre-game some white wine before you got here?” he joked.

Madani was mortified. 

Karen laughed. “Oh, you goofball!” she announced. “This is an old joke, like Frosty the Snowman, we say 'Happy Birthday’ for everything!" 

Billy and Matt had returned to the group in time to hear Karen blatantly lie to help fake-you save face. 

William Russo had seen a lot of things. He’d been to war, he’d killed men, he’d seen his friends die – hell, he’d almost had his own ticket punched more than a few times. But he had never, never experienced a horror so visceral before in his life.

You had never had an enemy in your life. Hell, when he’d first met you he’d been suspicious as hell, not believing anyone could be so goddamn nice. But the more he got to know you, the more he realized you were simply a caring, kind individual.

And you would have to have one hell of a case of amnesia to forget one of your dearest friend’s birthday. 

"Karen, I am so sorry, but I just got word that I have to go into work,” Billy said regretfully. “And I really hate to say it, but I need my team.”

Frank, David and Curtis all groaned at that announcement, but they knew that Billy wouldn’t disrupt something like this for no reason.

“I’m really sorry, Karen” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “I’m so proud of you. I promise I’ll make it up to you.’

Karen hugged him back, whispering, "What is going on?”

“Dunno,” Billy whispered back, knowing she was talking about you. “Gotta find out.”

Billy needed confirmation before he left. He walked over to fake-you and said, “Sorry, lovebug,” knowing that you absolutely loathed that particular term of endearment. He leaned over to kiss her cheek, feeling the anger rolling off fake-you in waves. “Can you get home OK?”

Madani almost snapped at him, but judging by the nauseating nickname knew that you wouldn’t respond that way. “Of course,” she said sweetly. 

Billy stood and waited expectantly for a moment, but you never told him to be safe.

You always told him to be safe when he had to go on a job.

By the time the four of them had gathered at Bastion’s office, Billy had pulled his shit together, but there was still a part of him that was reeling. He’d seen a lot in his time on this green earth, but nothing else had come close to this shit.

“What the hell, Bill?” Frank growled as he entered the conference room at Bastion.

Usually the richly appointed room made Billy feel a sense of pride. This was where he brought new clients to discuss their needs with the team. It was a combination of high tech and dark wood, the perfect blend of science and class that said that the company was competent and successful. Now, he could have been sitting in a junkyard for all he cared. “Brother, I’m so sorry to fuck up Karen’s party –" 

"That ain’t what I’m talking about, Bill,” Frank interrupted as Curtis and David entered the room. 

“I think he means, what the hell is wrong with your girl?” Curtis said quietly.

Billy’s shoulders sagged as his chin hit his chest in defeat. “I wish I knew,” he said quietly, then looked up. “Matt said – he said that there’s someone else inside her? I mean, what the fuck does that even mean?”

Frank whistled. “Matt’s seen some shit,” he commented quietly. “Nightmare shit.”

Billy slammed his hand onto the conference table he leaned against. “What, like some voodoo shit?" 

"Ancient Chinese mysticism, actually,” Matt said from the doorway.

Billy jerked to attention. Frank, Curtis and David spun to face Matt and saw two people with him: a young man with curly blonde hair and a young Asian woman.

“This is Danny Rand and Colleen Wing,” Matt announced. “This is Billy Russo, Frank Castle, Curtis Hoyle and David Lieberman. Billy’s girlfriend is the one I was telling you about.”

Billy was quiet for a moment. The girl was Asian, but the white kid? “Ah, pleasure to meet you. But what exactly do you bring to the table?” he asked bluntly.

“I am the Immortal Iron Fist.”

You had been pacing your chamber pretty much non-stop. It was decorated nicely in soothing shades of blue and was much homier than a hotel and certainly better than a dungeon. Knowing that it was your prison didn’t make you appreciate the color scheme, pleasant or not. They could hang silk curtains on the windows, but it didn’t change the fact that there were also bars.

This was so not your thing. Billy probably would have found a way to weaponize the TV remote or built a bazooka out of a toilet tissue tube by now, but aside from making bandages out of the embroidered pillow covers, your DIY skills were strictly decorative. 

You had no idea how long you were to be a guest, either. Knowing that your stay would most likely end with either the man you loved more than life or you dead or critically wounded didn’t make you anxious to end your forced vacation with the elderly Asian woman and her silent minions.

“It sounds as though she has been placed under a spell which removes her soul with her body and replaces it with that of another person,” Danny said. “How long has this been going on?”

Billy scrubbed his face with his hand, utterly heartsick and defeated by the situation. “This morning. It was like she was a different person from the second she woke up.” He laughed humorously. “Little did I know she was literally a different person.”

Danny traded a look with Colleen. “There are only a few people in the world that could cast a spell like that, and most of them are in K'un-Lun.”

“What, now?” David sputtered in amazement. “I’m sorry, but are we really talking spells and and and magic? I mean, I know that there are things out there that we can’t explain but –”

“This is not the time to have 'The Talk’ about the world being larger than you know, David,” Matt said harshly. “Our friend is missing.”

“Shit,” Billy hissed as the pain of those words, resisting the need to double over from the gut punch they brought. “She’s missing. Jesus.”

Curtis clapped a hand on Billy’s shoulder and said, “We’re gonna get her back, man.”

“Damn straight,” Frank swore.

You were being punished. Apparently trying to keep the plastic knife from your dinner was not acceptable. You didn’t even know what the hell you were going to do with it; for Christ’s sake, you had literally fallen over when you got your toe stuck in the elastic while putting on your underwear the other day! Still, you felt like you should at least try. 

“What did you hope to accomplish?” Madame Gao snapped at you disapprovingly, almost as if she was addressing a naughty child.

You chuckled bitterly. “I honestly don’t know. I just feel wrong sitting here waiting for the man I love to be murdered by his crazy ex-girlfriend while she’s wearing my body like a Halloween costume,” you railed, beginning to cry. “Why are you helping her?”

“She has pledged herself to me for this favor,” Madame Gao said stiffly.

You scoffed. “I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. She practically whored herself out when she worked for Homeland, why wouldn’t she sell her soul, too?”

“You should mind your tongue,” Madame Gao warned. 

“Or what?” you sneered. “You’ll kill me? If you let her kill Billy, I don’t really care what happens to me.”

“You hold your life cheap.”

“I don’t. I just hold Billy’s more dear.”

“He wronged my new apprentice,” she said imperiously.

You laughed bitterly at that. “He outplayed your apprentice,” you spat. “She used sex to get information out of Billy and found out he played her back. She just can’t accept that he outsmarted her.”

She stiffened. “Perhaps your information is untrustworthy.”

“Yeah, maybe,” you countered. “But what if it’s yours that’s wrong?”

She paused as if pondering your words and then turned to leave, stopping at the door to say, “Since you cannot be trusted with eating utensils, you will not be allowed them for future meals. If there are any more incidents of pointless defiance such as this, you will be given neither utensils nor food. Do I make myself clear?”

“Abundantly,” you answered coldly.

She nodded once, looking at you consideringly for a moment before turning to leave without another word.

You waited until she was gone to sob in earnest.

“How the hell do we find out what we’re dealing with here?” Billy asked.

“Or who, for that matter,” Matt said. “Who hates you enough to do something like this, Bill? Crazy ex?”

Billy exchanged a look with Frank. “Do you think?” he began.

Frank shook his head in disbelief. “She really hates you, that I know.”

“Who are we talking about?” David demanded. Then, as if struck with the knowledge, he blurted, “Wait, Madani?”

“Hold up, you sayin’ you think a Homeland agent did this?” Curtis said in amazement. 

Billy was shaking his head in disbelief. “She lost her job when all the shit went down. You think she’d go this far off the rails, Frank?”

“Hell hath no fury, brother.”

You laid awake, trying to think of something, anything you could do to escape. 

Had Billy even missed you yet? Was Madani playing some sick mind games with him? God, had she seduced him? You wouldn’t blame Billy of course – hell, as far as he knew, you were you. 

You’d had moments of insecurity when you had first gotten together, of course. Billy was an absolutely stunning man: physically breathtaking, intelligent and charming. He had been around the block so many times you were surprised that the city of New York hadn’t renamed it in his honor. 

And that was exactly what he had told you. You had been sitting next to each other on your sofa watching a movie together when he had asked you what was wrong.

“I just…Billy, you’ve been with so many women. How am I ever gonna be enough?”

He smiled sweetly and kissed your nose. “Sweetheart, I have never been a guy to settle down, and yeah, I’ve had my share of sex. I’m not gonna pretend that I don’t know I’m hot. I can get laid pretty much any time I want.”

“Wow, thanks for this pep talk,” you muttered sarcastically.

Billy had smiled at your snark. “So, doesn’t the fact that I want to be only with you tell you that I’m only gonna be with you?”

You’d thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

“Damn right.”

“Probably doesn’t hurt that Frank and Matt would castrate you if you cheated on me, either,” you’d said with a wicked grin.

“There’s my girl,” he’d said with a chuckle.

You came back to the present, even though you’d so much rather stay wrapped in the warmth of your memories with Billy. 

From what you had been told, you didn’t expect to come out of this alive. If you did and Billy had slept with Madani, well, you would forgive him. But, goddamn, you really wished you knew what that crazy bitch’s game was. 

And you really hoped Billy realized that she wasn’t you.

Danny and Colleen needed to gather some spell components of their own to divine what magic had been used, and Matt had gone off to see if he could drum up any leads on Hand activities. Billy, Frank and Curtis had changed into combat gear, ready to go at a moment’s notice, while David was digging into Madani’s affairs as deeply as he could.

Billy had been pacing the floor, so much nervous energy that he felt like he was about to lift off.

“Hey, I think I got something!” David called out.

Billy dashed over to where David was peering into his computer screen. “What?”

“I picked up a video of her leaving her apartment a few months ago and have been running a GAIT tracer on her like how I found Frank.”

“And?” Billy said impatiently.

“And she’s been going in and out of this building every day for the last few weeks, until yesterday. She went in and hasn’t come back out.”

“Micro, you brilliant son of a bitch, I could kiss you!” Billy yelled. “Frank, get on the horn with Matt, tell him to get Rand and Wing back here. We have an op to plan.”

You awoke with a start. It was still pitch dark in your room and you didn’t hear so much as a whisper of breath or shuffle of fabric.

“Who’s there?” you said quietly, hating the waver in your voice.

“It would seem I have misjudged you,” the disembodied voice of the elderly woman. “I saw nothing to inspire such hatred in you, but neither did I see the potential for you to inspire such love, either.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” you asked, attempting to peer into the darkness and see her.

“You have friends in high places. And I underestimated your toy soldier,” she said, voice almost fading away at the end.

“Billy? Is Billy here?” you asked frantically, but there was no answer, and when you scrambled out of bed and over to the light switch, you were alone in the room.

But the door was slightly open.

You crept out into the hallway, terrified but not missing the opportunity to sneak out. As you moved away from your room, you began to hear what sounded like a fight – and then you heard a gunshot.

“Where is she?” you heard Billy scream.

“Billy!!” you yelled as loud as you could, moving toward the sound of his voice.

You reached a room at the end of the hallway where there was what could only be called a battle in progress. Billy, Frank, Daredevil?, a blonde kid you didn’t recognize and an Asian woman were fighting the elderly Asian woman’s guards, Billy and Frank slashing madly with knives while Curtis stayed behind them with a rifle.

You stayed back so that you couldn’t be used against them by being a human shield, but not running to Billy and being quiet so you didn’t distract them was the hardest thing you had ever done.

Finally, the last of the guards dropped and you stepped out of hiding so Billy could see you.

Billy looked at you and you nodded, ready to face your abductor.

“Honey, I’m home,” Billy called out as he entered your shared apartment.

Madani jumped up from where she had been sitting on the couch waiting for Billy to return. “It’s after 3, where the hell have you been?” she asked angrily.

“Aww honeybunch, were you worried about me?” Billy said with what almost seemed to Madani like…sarcasm?

Just then there was a brief knock followed by Frank, Curtis and Micro letting themselves in.

“Oh, hey, I told the guys you’d make us something to eat,” Billy said with a big smile. “You don’t mind, do ya Buttercup?”

Madani narrowed her eyes and bit her tongue.

“Billy, you know how much I hate sappy pet names like that,” you said in Madani’s voice.

Billy’s voice was cold as he, Curtis and Frank all pulled guns on faux-you. “Don’t move, Madani,” he growled.

“Yeah,” you said as she watched her tiny body emerge from behind the large men. “He won’t kill that body, but I told him it was OK to put a couple bullet holes in discreetly.”

Behind you was Daredevil, of all people, and a blond kid that looked slightly familiar. 

Madani looked over at Billy and sneered, “I really didn’t think you were smart enough to figure this out at all, let alone in one day.”

“That’s funny, I always gave you credit for being smart enough to do some investigating before running into a situation,” he said with an icy smile. “I knew something was up before I even opened my eyes this morning.”

You watched Madani’s hateful expression on your face and said, “Damn, babe, do I look that ugly when I’m mad at you or is she just radiating her inner bitch that much?”

“All her, hon,” Billy replied with a small smile.

“In that case, I think it’s time we put her inner bitch back in her outer bitch, don’t you?”

Danny had performed the ritual to return you to your body and then had taken Madani with him, saying he would take her to a place called K'un-Lun to be tried for using dark magic. He assured you that you would never have to worry about Madani coming after either of you for misdirected revenge again.

You had taken a hot shower after they had gone and had been so relieved to feel your own skin, scars and cellulite that you almost cried. But what actually did make you cry in the shower was the fact that while you could tell he was happy to have you back, Billy had made no move to kiss you or touch you in any way. 

Had Madani ruined what you had with Billy?

You were sitting on the edge of the bed, still wrapped in a towel, hair dripping down your back and shoulders as you stared into space.

“Hon?” Billy said gently, standing right in front of you. He knelt before you and ran his thumbs over your cheeks. “I’m so sorry this happened to you because of me. I know you’re probably furious with me –”

“What?” you interrupted, surprised. “I’m not mad at you, love.”

“I understand if you are,” he whispered, not meeting your eyes.

“William, look at me,” you said firmly. When his big brown eyes met yours, you saw pain and fear in their depths. “I don’t blame you for this.”

“How can you not?” he whispered.

“Hey,” you said, “this is on that crazy bitch, not you.”

“I brought this home to you. I should have never gotten involved with you, you’re too g–”

You grabbed his hair and pulled him into a kiss, silencing him and showing him how wrong he was. When you pulled apart you were both panting. 

“William Russo, I never want to hear you say you aren’t good enough or you shouldn’t be with me, because I love you more than anyone else in the world.” You leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose, then gently said, “So shut the hell up, OK?”

Billy grinned. “Yes, ma'am.”

“You knew before you even opened your eyes, huh?” you asked, part shy and somehow part smug.

Billy chuckled. “Yeah, she might have stolen your body, but she could never be you. You’re beautiful physically, yes, but your inner beauty shines brighter than anything,” he said almost reverently. “So, yeah, I knew something was wrong right away, because your touch just radiates love, and that was missing.”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Billy,” you whispered,caressing his beard.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Honey, you were the one in danger! I don’t know what I would do without you.”

You threw yourself into Billy’s arms. “You never have to find out,” you said. Then you kissed him and you held one another until you fell asleep wrapped around each other, both thankful to be together and safe.

@marauder–harder / @giggleberts / @thesandbeneathmytoes  / @banditthewriter / @heyitslexy  /  @marauderskeeper / @squidscottjeans  / @russosprettydiamondnow / @iamnotbenbarneswifeyet /  @cutie-bug / @joelynnp / @sssilverssserpent / @acciophoenx / @presstocontinue / @suchatinyinfinity /  @fortisfiliae / @chibiyanai / @raquelbc2003 / @i-padfootblack-things / @rousakousa / @ponycake27 / @hermionegranger  / @drinix  / @something-tofightfor / @life-is-a-melody / @libbymouse   / @letsdanceinthedark/ @lilywoood / @ivegotillegalsinmybottom / @irinazatyk / @thinemineours / @ssserpensortiaaa / @starless-skyox / @lalafral / @hxbbit / @itsjustmylifeconfessions / @buddha-for-satan / @youveseen–thebutcher / @swiftyhowlz  / @shinebrightlikeafanbase / @moonyscardigans / @iaintnofurry / @heytherecix / @ladyblablabla / @damalseer / @starkrobb / @ymariejp / @projectcampbell / @agent-scully-182 / @saralou23/ @blackcoffeeandgreenteaforme / @ethereal-heavcns / @songtoyou/ @morriganwarrior / @training-wheeels / @breanime / @ifoundmyhappythought / @firecracker98 / @poedamneronhoe / @dylanobrusso / @0-cries-0 / @my-little-dumpster-fire / @shadowhunterscloset / @suna-the-lost-cause / @disengagefrmreality / @achishisha / @curlyhairedblueeyedangel / @editboutique / @traeumerinwitzhelden / @ripsithskywalkers / @littledarlinhavefaithinme / @thesumofmychoices / @propertyofpoeandbucky / @whovianayesha /  @weallhaveadestiny / @saltyshaggymeme / @daffodilsbucky / @abroadcastofthemind​

[happymediium]

Shit I’ve Said Sentence Starters: The Shequel /m/

Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. A sentence meme made up solely of quotes that have been said by legend, icon, starlet on the rise, Sarah, also known as me. I’m back, back, back, back, BACK AGAIN with this shit, because I kept finding more funny shit I’d said in the past and decided to write them down again. When answering any memes from this, if you include the name of the meme in your answer, be sure to include the little dabbing emoticon. Because I will check. The dabbing emoticon is very important to this meme. Change pronouns/tense/phrasing/etc as needed! Be warned for strong language and general idiocy.

“I think I just heard a mother say ‘if you’re not sorry you’re a dick’ to her four-year-old.”

“This friendship will only end in bloodshed atop a mountain with one sword between us.”

“Weird how a lifetime of owning cats prepared me for my first tattoo.”

“I don’t want to be horny when I see Dumbo in the cinema.”

“My dog has paws, not hands...bitch.”

“I SEE YOU WITH THAT CHEAP BLUE EYESHADOW.”

“I was...walking like a T-Rex, please don’t laugh.”

“I was assassinated by the FBI for spreading this forbidden sexy knowledge.”

“My Uber driver saw me smile sadly because The 1975 came on the radio and he turned it up.”

“I’ll be there with a pillow to hold over your face in half an hour. Shh, it’ll all be over soon.”

“Leave me alone, I’m whimsical.”

“Kate Bush awakens something primal in me.”

“You dazzling vajazzled cunt.”

“I can’t stop accusing people of being the Zodiac Killer just because I don’t like them.”

“I’m listening to my White People playlist and Margaritaville just came on so, uh, yeah, I guess you can say it’s getting pretty crazy tonight.”

“Today I said hi to a bug on my windowsill and she turned to look at me so we're best friends now, okay?”

“Is that a dog or a raccoon?”

“Every time I put on a wash of my clothes it's just a painful reminder of how many plaid shirts I own.”

“I love Christmas because it’s that time of the year when I’m uncomfortably reminded that I’d fuck Krampus.”

“WHEN WILL MOTHMAN FUCK ME?”

“I told my dog he was adopted.”

“Fuck Bill Gates, you can’t tell me what to do, Bill Gates!”

“I am literally dressed like a 14 year old metalhead, called Chad, who is on holiday with his family to Disneyland.”

“Lasagna is…happening right now.”

“Hm, yes. Well, they were definitely in the stars...and they were definitely at war.”

“DON’T PLAY GAMES WITH MY HEART, PAPA.”

“Now if you excuse me, I must make a post on my blog discussing whether or not multiple iconic fishmen in movies would be good boyfriends.”

“Why have I taken on Jeff Goldblum’s, uhhhhhhhh, speech patterns?”

“I love hanging my clothes up on a wire hanger because it feels like I'm pissing off the ghost of Joan Crawford.”

“Alright there, Big Balls McGinty, settle down there, love.”

“You are not allowed to like my whimsical fuckery.”

“Ew, gross, I almost showed an entire emotion.”

“Do you accept constructive criticism on, uh, everything you’ve ever said to me in your life?”

“I am a monster fucker of some renown, yes.”

“I feel like a fucking child of divorce.”

“I feel like I’m the baby T-Rex in Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World and you guys are the mummy T-Rex and the daddy T-Rex.”

“BAA BAA BLACK PHILLIP, HAST THOU ANY DICK?”

“That sounded memer than I intended--meaner. It sounded...meaner.”

“LOOK AT THE SOFTCORE PORNOGRAPHY I MADE FOR YOU, BRENDA.”

“What do you call that thing...it’s like a kaleidoscope but not on drugs? Telescope?”

“Slugs and snails are my friends but I’d still never touch them.”

“I just did a double take at a wrestling flyer thinking it was a flyer for some kind of gay event.”

“Your hubris has fucked us all.”

“To be fair, mate, not every man has a monster dingle-dangling betwixt his thighs.”

“You said we’re friends and friendship with me means storming the church of Scientology headquarters and demanding they release John Travolta otherwise you’re a fake friend.”

“I believe in Cryptids ‘cause they believe in me.”

“All morality and etiquette goes out the window when I see a free seat on a half 9 train.”

“Hold me whilst I sadly eat toast and sob while watching Jurassic Park.”

“It gives me wormth. Warmth for worms.”

“I knew one day my love of Elvira Mistress of the Dark would betray me.”

“HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME YOU LITTLE FUCKING HOBGOBLIN.”

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 12: Thoughts on 1x11 The Calm

Thoughts on 1x11 The Calm:

S1 Bellarke is the hottest Bellarke fight me.

My boy Jasper doesn’t even appear in this ep and he’s STILL being useful literally making gunpowder like fuck off.

Bellamy is all for just killing everyone and Clarke wants to find some other way. I dunno if I read this as her being influenced by Finn or more like...her mind always whirring, always thinking of better solutions. She’s never content with just the most obvious thing. That said, their positions are reversed a season later: Clarke is all for just blasting the top off Mount Weather and Bellamy wants a more nuanced plan because he sees the people on the inside.

Why wasn’t Murphy + Octavia ever a thing? Also Murphy is smart about cooking meat. Chef!Murphy (head)canon already forming.

“When you’re really pissed off, you always find a project. Something to keep your hands busy so you don’t punch someone in the face.” Finn is annoying but this is good Raven characterization intelligence. Also their conversation is so painfully awkward. She really does just tamp it all down, bottle up those emotions.

Literally nothing is hotter than Bellamy being a leader and giving orders and the delinquents being a competent little group defending and taking care of themselves.

And yet again, Clarke suggested hunting and Bellamy essentially had to sign off on it (not only did he challenge on her and make her explain herself, but tbh if Clarke had told people to pick up spears and go they would have been like yeah right princess)--but it was Bellamy who gave the actual orders, BELLAMY who appears as the leader in the delinquent pov.

I wish there were more young delinquents--really young not Jasper-and-Monty young. Like this loquacious kid who goes hunting with Finn and Clarke. Or even Charlotte, kids that age. ...Really I just wish there were more delinquents. :/

So Raven’s first instinct isn’t to fuck away the pain, it’s to run. Dumb but understandable. She insults Bellamy based on his Ark job (”Aren’t you a janitor?”) which also feeds into my other theory about Ark and class status.

I know I’ve written B/raven stuff and I do ship them in a low-key way, in a ‘they would be interesting together’ way...but I don’t ship them in a canon way, tbqh. In this Bellamy and Raven scene, I see them having a good rapport, but in a way I also see him working her, getting her back on track not just for her own good but for everyone’s good. He has a double agenda and both parts are important.

I wonder how much familiarity everyone on the Ark has with everyone else. That’s not totally clear... people seem to have passing familiarity with others, but not close familiarity. On the other hand, Wick seems pretty comfortable just talking to a Councilor like whatever nbd. On the other, other hand that could be Wick’s personality and/or the circumstances. Most of the ship is probably dead and the rest will die soon so why be formal!

The creepiness of the Ark in this ep should not be understated.I love this aesthetic.

I want to know what the best part of a boar is! Clarke, don’t interrupt. Rude.

Two main characters and a kid you’ve never seen before go hunting in the woods. Which one is going to get speared?

Say what you want about Wick but he and Kane made a good team and I will stand by this opinion too.

In describing their route, Finn said they crossed a road. What road?? When have there ever been roads anywhere in this show?

Kane found a dozen survivors, Jaha has, like, 3....and somehow in Camp Jaha/Arkadia there are like several hundred (?) people. From only two stations like how is that possible? Also didn’t Farm Station have a couple hundred? They must have sent down over a thousand people lol. Kane did not find very many.

Also that Earth Monitoring Station is where the space survivors are living now and it was fucking destroyed in a fire but I guess we’ve just conveniently forgotten about that, huh useless show writers who can’t figure out their own continuity?

Kane has this annoying habit of just being uselessly self-sacrificing all the time. He would be so much more effective if he didn’t do that. He has a lot of hubris, I think. The unforgivable sin: thinking yourself so debased as to be unforgivable. It’s also another way of elevating yourself, of thinking yourself so important that you have sinned more than any other, are worse than any other...it’s still all ‘me me me.’ I think Kane is like that. He’s always looking for ways to sacrifice himself or to be dangerously heroic. I wonder if that matters more to him than, like, actual other people. (Some of this analysis could apply to Jaha at certain parts of his story, though mostly imo in S1. In S2 he starts thinking a little differently.) (ETA it definitely applies to him in this ep, where he wanted to sacrifice himself [and Sinclair] and Kane’s like ‘I’m not a dumbass, we need you smart people to save everyone else, this isn’t a wholly altruistic rescue mission you know.”)

Anya’s idiotic guilt trip re: Tris: “You did this to her.” Yeah I know she’s like 12 and that makes Clarke feel bad because her people don’t use pre-adolescents as soldiers but she should take the attitude she took with L. later. You don’t want me to fuck you up? Don’t attack me first. Would Anya be shedding any tears over the dead, disgusting bodies of the children her chemical attack killed? I doubt it. And they weren’t even soldiers! I mean really the Grounder attacks on the delinquent camp are the equivalent of an attack on a village of civilians, especially initially.

So Monty finds some of the first evidence of Mount Weather (the exodus ship logs showing interference) and Raven’s like ‘neato...give me that for parts.’ He’s much more curious than she is. She’s more...practical? Single-minded? Not that Monty isn’t practical. I dunno. Unrelated but I had this sudden image of modern!Monty listening for signs of alien life, for some reason.

Monty wants to keep the radio because he still believes in the Ark and he wants to see his parents again. “My family is up there.” Makes me even more curious what his relationship with his family is like. (You’d think S3 would have answered that but...not really.) He’s one of the few people who seems to care about those left on the Ark. And he looks so sad when Raven unplugs it... A rare moment when he lives up to his fandom cinnamon roll image. And when Raven leaves he picks up the radio thingy and I wonder if he’s considering putting it back together.

Murphy has a fish.

I gotta love Raven’s confidence: I’m hot and I’ve identified a straight man, if I start undressing, he’ll sleep with me. If I were as hot as her, I’d probably be that confident too, but still.

Bellamy’s “I’m not that guy” speech is actually hilarious when parsed. It’s like the equivalent of “IF I were going to say X, it would sound like this, but since I can’t, I won’t.” Like “If you’re looking for someone to tell you [a list of things in detail], that’s not me.” But you just did dumbass. His ‘bad boy’ persona cracks so easy.

Right before Clarke unpacks the medical tools, there’s a shot of a random $50 bill on the ground. Mmmmm something tells me that our weak U.S. paper isn’t going to survive a century post-apocalypse lol. There’s also a piece of paper. What is that stuff doing there?

Oh never mind. It’s an old bank. There’s paper and cash all over and lots of little drawers. Makes sense, banks would have vaults, and bunkers did have money in them. Maybe they’re in the Treasury’s old bunker. I never noticed that before, but it’s actually quite clever. The set design on this show is A-PLUS.

I’m not into the enemies-to-lovers thing generally but Anya/Clarke should have been a thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.

What an incredibly unsatisfying sexual encounter.

Kane says ‘no more than 1,000 survivors’ and ‘at least 1,500 dead.’ There have to have been at least 1,000 though, because they send them down on 12 ships and assuming they spread themselves about equally (which isn’t necessarily true but would be the smartest thing), that would be about 83 people to a ship. And I’m fairly sure Farm Station had more than 83 people and I’m also semi-sure that Arkadia as of 3x01 had more than 166. I mean it’s really hard to tell, and I can’t remember what sort of casualty numbers they gave for the Mount Weather explosion, but these seem like very low numbers to me. I don’t know. Maybe it does make sense and I’m just missing or mis-remembering something.

Having said all that, they did find another cache of survivors after this dialogue (including Abby), which might explain the discrepancy. (ETA not really because they only find, like, 10.)

Kane’s trip through the vent is a nightmare scenario for me so I’m just gonna...not watch.

Lindsey Morgan is so kickass in this ep, like how she stutters a little bit on “family” when she’s talking to Monty.

I completely forgot about this but the Grounders literally try to steal Clarke away like wtf. First of all, I wouldn’t trust her even as far as I could throw her if I were them. And second...she’s the enemy? But “prove your worth and you’ll be welcome here” I guess. Maybe Anya’s into her. I guess it’s good to poach the best talent from the other side before you destroy them. Also love that Clarke pretends to consider it.

The kill marks are to symbolize kills in combat so, really, Clarke’s 3x01 crack abut not having room on her back for all the deaths she’d caused misses the point...as far as I can remember she’s never actually killed in combat. Killing in self-defense, in group self-defense, or as part of an overall military-type mission isn’t the same as in combat, especially as she mostly acts as a general-type person, giving orders rather than doing deeds. Even pulling the lever, with Bellamy, is an awfully sanitized way of killing.

Going after this guy, getting him talking, taking out his knee and then slashing his throat, is one of Clarke’s best moments. HIGHLY UNDERRATED. Really second only to her escape from Mount Weather in early S2. Also props to Eliza Taylor, I appreciate how her expression afterward is half ‘oh shit I killed a man, this is terrible’ and half like steely resolve and determination.

Can Monty not tell the cardinal directions? (Your other West, Monty.)

A rare moment where Octavia and Raven seem like friends. Actually this is a good Octavia episode. She’s only in 3 scenes, which might explain why...

Also underrated is the tense but quick blnk-and-you’d-miss-it horror movie moment of Monty being taken by the Mountain Men. “What’s that creepy signal?.... Omigod... “ And he was never seen or heard from again.

So...why did the Mountain Men take him? Shits and giggles? To see if they could experiment on him? They seemed to have decided pretty quickly that the Sky People were like them, guests rather than blood resources. I wonder what the thought process was.

The end of this episode was aces. Great set up for the finale. I miss when this show was good.

[aaronbrookscomedy]

Debaser.

In 2003, I was living in Carman Hall, the freshman dorm at Eastern Illinois University. Rumor had it that it was built on swamp land and that the girls tower could sink at any moment. It had a disgusting pond that some kid everyone called Skittles jumped into one night. It’s the same pond that one of the dorm’s night assistants had to fish his moped out of of.

I lived on the second floor, but knew the elevator well. It’s the building in which I first got drunk, first got a blowjob, and first heard Deja Entendu, so I’m sort of attached..

In the hundreds of kids in that dorm, there was only one 21 year old. His name was Derek and he lived right down the hall from me.

Derek was a maniacally-intense blonde haired, blue eyed marine who just got out of the corps and was taking advantage of the G.I. Bill. He was interestingly handsome, like a young Woody Harrelson with a better head of hair. He was as likeable as he was aggro. He called me “Farley” the whole semester and told his mom and dad that I was “the funniest motherfucker every put on God’s green earth”. Like they gave a shit. Like they’re asking their 21 year old son who the street’s hottest class clowns are. I think I stood there in my graphic t-shirt that my stepmom bought me while working at a Goodwill and just waved and walked away. Derek was the best.

This whole thing happened during rush season, when Derek was rushing Lambda Chi. The story was that he wasn’t really into it. The dude just spent the last four years as a fucking marine. Why the hell would he take some 19 year old stoner’s bullshit? “I’m sorry, I can kill a man bare-handed 84 ways, we’re listening to O.A.R. until YOU change the CD.” Apparently, he thought it was lame and wanted out, but they were being shitty about it. He got tired of their antics one night when he went over there to pregame. After drinking for a bit, most of the frat went out to a bar. Derek stuck around the house. He straight up stole a keg from the basement and took it in his jeep over to our dorm.

Apparently, he had to park a ways away so he could sneak up the fire escape so the night assistants wouldn’t catch him with a keg of stolen beer. Derek dropped the keg off in the back room of the triple at the end of the hall.

People lost their shit.

Derek was running around the floor, banging on every door and telling people that there was a full keg in the triple and we were all going to finish it.

Everyone bought in. 20, maybe 25 guys pile in this two room dorm and start drinking the only way you can when you’re 18 and intimidated - incredibly recklessly. I have a hops allergy (boo) so I never really drank beer because it would get me sick, but I loaded up on eight-dollars-a-fifth vodka and kool-aid. I’d be okay.

Somehow, we were blaring I’m a Loner Dottie, a Rebel so loud I couldn’t even hear it. It was magical. We were drinking for an hour or so when Derek left the room to take a phone call. Apparently, some of the frat guys went back to the house early and found that their keg was gone. Someone there knew that Derek was the last one in the house and they were calling to see if he knew what happened. They must’ve heard us drunkenly screaming Red Letter Day through the door and put two and two together. They were coming for the keg.

Derek came back in and told us what was happening, and not to freak out or anything - that he’d handle it. We were all sort of anxious. Was an entire frat going to come and kick the collective ass of the second floor freshman dorm? Were we allowed to go back to our rooms or would Derek snap our necks? With no better options, we did the only thing we could: we stayed put and kept drinking.

A couple of minutes later I went to take a piss. We had a communal bathroom and showers that took up the middle of the floor.

One time, I was going #2 in the stall closest to the urinal. Looking underneath the stall wall, I saw shoes come in. I head the classic unzip. The shoes moved. They went from running parallel with the stall wall to perpendicular.

Then I heard it.

The dull thud of a stream of piss against metal and the inebriated chuckle of someone who was raised in a goddamn barn. Someone pissed on me. Boys are gross. I digress.

In walking to the urinal, I passed by the door that led down to the lobby. I heard a commotion - people yelling and a door banging, but hey, it was past midnight on a weekend, so strange scuffles in the stairwell were commonplace. It could’ve been anything. I didn’t really think twice about it.

I went back to the triple and kept drinking. Derek came in a minute later and told us that the frat guys came over, asking where the keg was. Derek swore up and down that he didn’t have it. They wanted to come up to check his room for evidence. It wasn’t in his room, but they surely would’ve discovered it by following the cloud of weed smoke and newfound hubris that lead to the corner triple full of 20 dudes. Derek told them they couldn’t come up and to get the fuck out of there and leave him alone. They rushed him in the stairwell and he kicked the shit out of all three of them.

First off, how hard would it be to fight someone while going upstairs? Stairs are hard enough. No need to add fighting to it. Second, a marine? Get out of town.

As he recounted this, we all felt like we were staring at the coolest human being we’d encountered to that point in our lives. Meanwhile, Derek seethed with rage. Something inside of him had been turned on. He was amplified. He pounded a full beer, walked over to the wall connecting the two rooms, and punched harder than I would’ve guessed possible.

He put his fist right through a fucking wall. On purpose. Out of joy.

He laughed like he’d lost his mind. He laughed with his entire body and punched another hole in the wall. The room was invigorated. Somebody else punched a hole in the wall. Then somebody else. Mind you, this wasn’t even his room. The guy who actually lived there sort of shrugged and told us that his dad was a carpenter and they’d just hang a new sheet of drywall. Good enough for us. Keep ‘em coming, boys.

I didn’t participate. What if I couldn’t do it? What if I electrocuted myself by punching through a live wire? Lots of scenarios ran through my head that kept me from joining in, most of them fear-based.

The assault on the wall continued with about half of the room punching holes in the wall while the rest of us uncomfortably drank as we casually watched pornography on someone’s computer. There was random pornography playing on a computer in pretty much every room at all times. I’d bet that this fact still holds true today.

I knew a guy who would turn his computer speakers towards his open window and blast pornography out onto a stoop full of kids. It was such a common occurrence that it sort of became the natural background, like traffic noise.

The drinking kept going and the party eventually spilled out into the hallway. Word had spread that there was a Keg on 2 and nobody was stopping it. Kids came from every floor and the party went to probably close to 50. All of our doors were open. People would pop in and out like a fucking open house. It was like something of a movie. Amazing.

By four o’clock or so it was mostly us 2nd floor guys hanging out, as the keg had long been dried out and we’d all moved on to something else. We were peak drunk. Invincible drunk. Crawl into the bed of a stranger’s pickup drunk. Debaser drunk, just slicing up eyeballs. It was just the point in the night where you contemplate pulling an all-nighter before passing out at six. The kid whose dad was a carpenter stood up and surprisingly coherently asked us to follow him into the hall.

The dozen of us or so went out into the hall and followed him to the elevator. He called it and the left one opened up. He asked Derek to hold the door for him. Derek went inside and kept his finger on the open door button, totally unsure what to make of what was happening. The guy (I don’t recall his name) dropped his pants and took a shit right in the middle of the elevator. He looked us in the eyes as he did it. I’ve locked eyes with a man while shit left his body. It’s not something I’m proud of. One long turd laid out, right in the center, totally unavoidable. When he was done, he pulled up his pants, took the final pull off of his Mickey’s, and smashed the bottle over the turd. He turned toward the door and walked out.

He said nothing.

We all looked at each other in utter disbelief. We were baking in the smell of a fresh piece of human shit. We couldn’t take our eyes off of it. Just human feces and a broken Mickey’s bottle, a turd and a thousand glistening emeralds shining in the fluorescent light.

I laughed harder than I may have ever laughed. Blind drunk in the prime of my youth. I’d just dyed my hair black (I only did it because a pretty girl named Noelle said I should. I was weak). There were chicken nuggets in the shape of smiley faces for lunch the next day.

In that moment, I was the king of my own history. That’s the best I’d ever be.

[gta-5-cheats]

Inside ‘Fin,’ the elite human/AI assistant

New Post has been published on http://secondcovers.com/inside-fin-the-elite-human-ai-assistant-2/

Inside ‘Fin,’ the elite human/AI assistant

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“I have FOMO for the future”, says Sam Lessin. That’s why his startup, Fin, is working backwards from a far-off tech utopia. One day, computers with some human help will answer our every beck and call. Today, Lessin is teaming them up. Every day, Fin gets smarter.

For $1 a minute, 24/7, Fin gets your digital chores done. Message, email or speak a request and a real person will snap into action, augmented by a machine intelligence toolkit built from all the tasks Fin’s tackled to date. Sure, it handles research, scheduling, commerce and customer support calls. But it also learns your habits, negotiates for you, and conquers complex jobs like creating a website.

Now after two years and funding from top investors, including Kleiner Perkins, Fin is opening up to more customers and press. “We’ve really intentionally talked to no one,” says Lessin, a former Facebook VP who sold it his file sharing startup Drop.io.

That’s a vastly different approach than most boisterous AI startups have taken. “There’s been this crazy hype cycle,” Lessin tells me. “‘Everything’s a bot. Bots are awesome. Everything’s an assistant.’ All these things fucking suck.”

Converting money into time

Fin was determined not to suck, even if that meant staying quiet. Lessin and co-founder Andrew Kortina have tinkered and tested Fin since mid-2015. “I had done Venmo,” Kortina says, downplaying his co-founder role and its sale to PayPal, “and was then doing nothing. I heard Sam was also doing nothing and that piqued my interest, as he’s an old friend.”

Brainstorming led them to the thesis that “the internet is broken as an information machine,” Kortina tells me. They saw a greater destiny than entertainment, distraction and big enterprise. So in Fin’s first incarnation, the duo swapped neglected memos and to-do lists, and tried to find what they could get done for each other. Plenty had been falling through the cracks.

“I’m okay about doing menial things for colleagues but I’ll just let all that stuff in my own life slip,” Kortina admits. “I wouldn’t go to the dentist for years. I didn’t have health insurance after college for 10 years. My credit score was terrible because I had some bill I wouldn’t figure out how to pay.”

Most people have similarly boring tasks they loathe spending time dealing with. You could call the cable company to fight a price hike or research restaurants and hunt for a reservation. So could Fin. And thanks to Uber we’ve grown accustomed to being able to trade money for that time back, sidestepping slow public transportation or looking for parking when we’re in a rush.

Fin co-founders Sam Lessin (left) and Andrew Kortina (right) in front of the flag of Finland

While it’s easy to imagine Fin as merely a first-world luxury for the lazy, and it’s great at that, it’s also a productivity tool that can let people achieve more of what only they can do. Kortina talks about Fin as a way to “instantly offload” chores.

Even if you could power through a task faster than Fin could second-hand and keep the dollars, “It’s not just the cost of doing that thing yourself. It’s the context switching,” Kortina explains. “It’s so hard for me to get into a really good state of concentration and flow and creativity, and when I get into that state I don’t want to be interrupted.”

Reverse-engineering science fiction

Fin’s far from the only personal assistant startup trying to save you time, but many of the others fail due to hubris, relying too heavily on their own code as the answer to every question. “The mistake is looking at machine learning and thinking we’re so close to this general intelligence,” Lessin insists. Replacing humans outright isn’t the answer. “The future is people helping people.”

Competitors that can go AI-only are restricted to narrow sets of tasks, like x.ai for meeting scheduling. Traditional and virtual assistant services can be inefficient. Facebook’s M assistant also uses a combo of humans and AI but is free and hasn’t been opened up to the public.

One service similar to Fin called GoButler was forced to pivot to solely automated assistance, and eventually sold as scrap to Amazon. Fin’s most remaining direct competitor is Magic. It’s cheaper at $0.59 per minute but only takes requests via text message. Lessin moonlights as a partner for Slow Ventures, which participated in Magic’s $12 million 2015 Series A, which raises some concerns about conflicts of interest he wouldn’t comment on. [Update: More examples of competitors were added to this paragraph.]

But wait, isn’t AI supposed to take everyone’s jobs? Lessin envisions a new industrial revolution instead. He cites cobblers making a few shoes while waiting around the shop for customers, struggling to match fluctuating demand. But with steam and electricity “you had a new source of power. It’s not like power stopped work. You had humans doing what they were good at, tech doing what tech was good at, and you had way more shoes.”

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With Fin, though, Lessin’s vision involves a team of round-the-clock operators equipped with AI and processes for similar tasks can snap into action even after-hours, rather than a full-time dedicated assistant being “paid for showing up being on YouTube” and then going off the job, Lessin says. Even if it’s expensive at $1 per effective minute of work, Fin is exceedingly convenient, and you don’t pay for down time.

To use Fin, you just pop open its minimalist black-and-white desktop site or iOS app, then type, speak or upload a photo of your request. If you’re unsure what you could ask for, there’s an anonymized feed of real examples from other users to spark your imagination.

“We can execute any task that doesn’t require hands in your city,” says Lessin, noting how hard it is for some startups to get local scale and capacity nailed down. “I have incredible respect for Instacart.” He also points out that “there are types of specialized knowledge we can’t currently do for you. Ask us some PhD physics problem and it will either take a long time or we won’t do it.”

Usually, though, you get messaged back almost immediately by a Fin human who collects any necessary details and gets started. I felt an instantaneous sense of relief upon outsourcing my responsibilities. Along the way, your task gets updated with progress and requests for secondary decisions. When possible, it just pulls things like addresses and airplane seat preferences from your onboarding survey, and payment information or online passwords from the app’s Vault. You get a detailed statement of exactly how Fin used your time and how much you owe.

“Our job is to mix the best tool or person for the job in a way to deliver an experience that’s better than you can get from working with a single isolated individual, or a piece of pure software,” Kortina declares.

That’s where the name “Fin” comes in. “Like ‘the end’ in French films,” Lessin reveals. “This is the interface and the ways things will work in 50 or 100 years.” While technology will get more and more adept at a wider range of tasks, he imagines that in the end, it will still be humans sending requests to computer-human teams.

The unevenly distributed future

The hardest part of using Fin is getting over the mental hurdle of relinquishing control while paying for what you could do yourself.

“I think that’s the real competitor,” says Lessin. Even factoring in what your time’s worth and the context switching overhead, Fin can produce some serious sticker shock. That’s accentuated by our idealized predictions that underestimate the time required to do things. “How long does it take to book movie tickets?” Lessin jokes. “30 seconds? No!”

Fin’s team

I was charged $80 to deal with having a mis-shipped iPhone X refunded and a new one bought and sent. While I was thankful not to have to deal with customer support, it was some pricey peace of mind. Getting a holiday restaurant reservation originally cost me $150, which is completely absurd even if it took several loops to find the right time and get me to sign a credit card payment form for the prix fixe dinner.

Luckily, I was refunded that $150 after submitting a complaint through the app, which is easy to do through Fin’s thumbs up/down buttons on each request. “Most really heavy users escalate / ask about something every month or two,” Lessin admits. Fin uses internal benchmarking tools to track if certain assistants take too long on a task or routinely do too much research in a category. Still, Fin sometimes goes overboard so users shouldn’t be shy about contesting any charges that seem ridiculous. You can sign-up through this link for TechCrunch readers to get a discount on your first tasks.

Fin initially launched in beta with a $120 per month subscription fee. But Kortina gripes that “all we were learning is how people could arbitrage Fin to do way more than $120 worth of service.” He seems to be having bad acid flashbacks to before Venmo started charging a 3 percent credit card fee in 2012, when people would just send money back and forth to hit minimum spending limit or earn points while Venmo ate the fees.

With the switch to per-minute pricing, “We’ve set ourselves up for the long haul by really focusing on unit economics,” says Lessin, in contrast to many on-demand startups. That surely delights Fin’s investors John Doerr at KPCB, Sameer Gandhi at Accel, and Saar Gur at CRV. While Lessin won’t reveal exactly how much Fin has raised, he calls them “good capital partners,” noting the startup has enough cash to “be able to do this for a long time.” Fin now has 20 employees on the technical side, while it’s climbing toward 100 when you include its full-time operators.

Not subsidizing the service is a healthy choice for Fin, but that means “Unfortunately it’s not at a price point that everyone on Earth can afford.” Whether through economies of scale, AI advancement, or human training, Fin may need to bring the price down if it wants widespread adoption. “The future is already here” sci-fi author William Gibson once said, “it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

The premium price tag begets premium service that makes Siri and her cohorts feel like mere calculators in comparison. “The message is you should demand a lot more out of assistant services than cooking timers and Google search lookups,” Lessin concludes. In an era when technology is designed to soak up the maximum amount of your time, Fin lets you buy it back. We’ll each have to decide how much it’s worth.

[theskyexists]

Christmas episode doctor who

Uhhhh I watched it and it was ......good?

I cried. Even though I've only seen four episodes with Capaldi and Bill. The episode was about loss and it was....sad as fuck. the Testimony was a neat idea. If still kinda sad. A bit like Donna's goodbye but slightly better. Kinda reverse Donna but with less time paid to it kinda. The mutated Daleks. Neat. The surprise at the not-evil plan. Neat. The tower and other decor...uhhhh weird. The necessity of going to the greatest database in the universe when he could have asked Testimony itself and/or the TARDIS should be pretty loose from time and it's database should be too. Stupid.

The usual FUCKING annoyance of Moffat's hubris showed up but it also had feeling. It was real about death. It was sad. Surprisingly, Gatiss also did a good job. Not surprisingly I spose but you know.

And it was funny.

It was also sexist and weirdly old-timey though called out genuinely. And that's like....I feel like it's better to leave those inexplicably sexist values (for some rando alien) behind and forget them rather than breathe new life into them.

But it was still funny and slightly adorable. Not sure how the Doctor forgot about that encounter.

To come back to the hubris.

I hate Moffat's desire to pull all of doctor who history into his domain, to stamp them all with his mark. Keep off dude.

And the mark is hubris.

Russel T Davies explicitly punished hubris. For the Doctor to overreach, to decide cold-bloodedly who lived and who died, to take away agency and go against time itself. That was punished with consequences.

The Doctor is a god, but he is not omnipotent. He simply does the best he can, whenever and wherever he is.

But Moffat has gone so far as to name the Doctor LITERALLY the one driving force for Good in the Universe pulling everything everywhere together. He is himself his own reason for running away from Gallifrey (how dare u make that up - honestly it was pretty good but I just mistrust Moffat immensely) Cool. It is kinda cool but also. So. Damn. Arrogant. So..... BLAGH. The coolness is NOT the heart of the show. It's the HOOK. and the Doctor is only the portal, the snappy portal to cool other worlds. The immortal.

It made a lot of impact when Moffat wrote it into his amnesiac John Smith episode but.... Then he just kept expounding on it in his run and I'm just like....no. no. Why must you. The doctor is cool and wonderful it you don't need to keep saying it!!! His last episode is exactly like his first!!! Lots of flashy bubbles going: the doctor is so cool! The doctor is so cool!!! Names! Images! Frowny faces!

The way the Doctor saved the soldier made no sense to me whatsoever. He has no power over fastforwarding time?

The new years armistice: 'nothing like it ever happened again in history' he says. Hubris. But that story always moved me. And silent night is one of my favourite Christmas songs.

This episode did make me think that I might have missed out on some things not watching Capaldi's run. That it might be worth it. His hair was also amazing this episode. He displayed real grit and exhaustion and tragedy.

On the other hand his dramatics and servitude was kinda what uhh turned me off from his doctor like where the hell did that come from it was too much just too much. It was good balanced with the First Doctor's down-to-earthness and incredulity but...

First Doctor was perfectly cast!? Perfect lookalike. And it was a pretty nice introspective thing to have them consider regeneration together.

There is one thing I absolutely one hundred percent adored and that is:

The return of the timelord theme. There is NOTHING that was as enchanting to me as a kid. And it still is just so goddamn incredible. Magical.

I am worried that the TARDIS freaking out and coughing Thirteen out has some shitty basis in her gender change. That would literally be the worst plot to open with ever.

Also had an uncomfortable and uncanny flashback to Amy's face when closeup on Thirteen's. I was just like..................less makeup pls.