#But hopefully this can give an idea to just civil discussions about stuff rather than plain attacking

[celtrist]

It's okay to be emotional over a ship.

It's okay to be emotional over a ship. It's okay to be emotional over characters. It's okay to share grievances over a ship as much as it's okay to gush over a ship. It's okay to feel so overwhelmingly negatively over a ship just as much as it's okay to feel so overwhelmingly positive.

While it's always going to be better to focus on positives, it can also be just as good to let out any negatives you might have about something rather than bottling it in and, for some, feeling alone in your thoughts about it.

It is so, so, SO OKAY to be so heavy in emotions concerning a ship whether negative or positive because it means you're invested in the characters and their relationships. When spaces seem to allow only positivity when some people might have some negative thoughts on a ship, it really negates any conversations about it and even understanding sides of why someone may or may not ship something.

While understandable, there is a double standard between being negative and positive about ships (or portrayal of characters). If you feel overwhelmingly negative about something, "you need to go touch grass". If you feel overwhelmingly positive about something, "go at it queen". I would personally argue we all need to touch grass.

It is NOT okay to harass others. It is NOT okay to let your emotions dictate that you should attack somebody for LIKING a certain ship or DISLIKING a certain ship. Your emotions DO NOT dictate how OTHERS should feel.

It is okay to be negative about a character or ship as much as it's okay to be positive about them. Neither side of being for or against a ship is more virtuous than the others. It's okay to have some fucking emotions regardless if their positive or not, because it means you CARE about the media and the characters in it.

No, you should not revolve your whole online experience in negativity. Find positive in things you DO enjoy. But to brush off people who vehemently might dislike a character or ship as "losers with no lives" is to disregard a person's emotions on something. And if you do wanna think that mindset, congrats, people who obsessively love a character or ship are just the same by your logic. Obsession is obsession, regardless if it's negative or positive.

TL;DR, If it's okay to be overwhelmingly positive in liking something like a ship or character, it should be just as okay to be negative in disliking something like a ship or character. Just as long as it's not the ONLY thing you focus on and no one is actively being bullied, attacked, or harassed about it. And of course, either way, positive or negative, it is all fiction, and a real person should not be attacked or harassed for it. And if you don't want to indulge in negativity you might have, 100% valid. Both sides always need to take a step back into reality.

[riathedreamer]

Zero is Null

A discussion of Zero’s love-hate-relationship with RvB and struggling independence; including a hotdog too big for the bun, tragic backstories, a single bow-chicka-bow-wow, and a cookie at the very end.

Welcome to what will be a lot of text. Basically, it will explore why Zero fails as an RvB (with emphasis on RvB) season. I will not be the first one to bring forth some of the points, and I promise to be fair and civil and fun. This isn’t supposed to be a piece of hate – in fact, I’m writing this because I love Red vs. Blue.

Okay, first of all, to increase your fun – take a guess on just how much of Zero is spent on fight scenes. You see, I’ve calculated the exact amount, and I will reveal it later, but for now, take a guess and remember the number. Maybe you are the winner!

Alright, time to share my thoughts. Wait! Since I suffer from anxiety and have this one annoying voice pretending to be all those critical statements my opinion could be met with, let’s give it an actual voice and address the points throughout this review.

“Why would I care about your opinion, Ria?” – I don’t know, you’re the one who clicked Read More.

“Your opinion doesn’t matter!” – Of course, it doesn’t! Geez. Do you think your opinion matters, though? Listen, we’re on Tumblr, the actual equivalent of screaming into the void. And it’s fun, too!

“If you don’t like it, don’t watch!” - *activates Uno Reverse Card* “You can’t talk about something you haven’t watched!”

“You’re just a Hater” – Actually, this is a point I’ll come back to. Like a cliffhanger. Also, at the end of this, there’ll be a cookie. But this will also include me talking about the stuff I like, because, surprise, Zero is not without talent!

“You just don’t like it because the Reds and Blues aren’t in it!” – Actually, that’s a good point, so instead, this review will start with a sole focus on Zero and discuss the problem that lies within that story. Then we can address why the lack of OG cast is understandable and problematic and weird.

But first! Backstory.

When the first 5 second teaser dropped back in spring (you know, when we were young and innocent and the world didn’t feel like an apocalyptic movie yet), I held onto that one image of what I thought (hoped) to be Grif and Simmons in the sunset, hopefully addressing Grif’s hateglue arc, but boy was I wrong because a) that’s not Simmons, that’s Sarge, and b) the image was from a PSA since the Reds are not in Zero.

Actual face-reveal of me below:

Admittedly, when I heard that the Reds and Blues were not going to be the main characters (or even show up), it felt like a gut punch. However, I actually found myself getting excited due to the creators’ hype. I want to praise them for this. It’s been a while since an RvB season was talked so much ABOUT before its release; it had advertisements, it had creators and voice-actors talking about it. Please. More of that in the future. Their passion rubbed off on me, and that deserves recognition. So it pains me that this was clearly a passion-project, and then when I gave it a try, I didn’t want to touch it again for weeks.

Here’s the thing. I cannot whole-heartedly say that Zero is bad. It’s not gonna melt your eyes. It’s not even so-bad-it’s-good. For me, it’s meh. It’s a Saturday-morning-cartoon aimed for a younger audience with a rushed plot and clichéd characters. The problem is that it calls itself RvB, and with that title comes something to live up to – but more importantly, something to continue.

My main issue is that Zero forces its story into existence by ignoring established content rather than adjusting to it. Let’s call this for the hotdog-too-big-for-the-bun syndrome solely for the sake of the bow-chicka-bow-wow that’s coming now. Bow-chicka-bow-wow. Many of the separate issues I will dive into all add to this hotdog-issue, so I will scream “Hotdog!” whenever this is the case so we can all keep track of my argument.

You can continue the story of Red vs. Blue without the Reds and Blues. While that would personally crush my heart, it can be done. There’s a story of Red vs. Blue that can be continued. The world can be expanded, the previous actions of the Reds and Blues can be explored from another angle.

So.

How does Zero do this? It doesn’t.

I just want to make it clear that new elements can definitely be added when it comes to worldbuilding. That’s literally the point of sequels. But Zero’s settings are presented with so little grace and with no connection to previously established worldbuilding. We get Alliance of Defense and GLASS thrown in our face as very big important organizations – yet we’ve never heard of them before. A big central plot point of RvB is the UNSC and Project Freelancers, and those were introduced naturally with the plot. We already have big established intergalactic organizations. What is AOD’s connection with those? We aren’t told. We are just told they exist and expected to accept it, no questions asked. If this was a whole new world and story – fine. But when you need to build on an already established worldbuilding, you need more grace than this. Chorus was a whole new setting, but it was explained, and it was connected to the previous plot. Same with Iris. Same with Desert Gulch. In Zero, it feels lazy. It feels forced. These organizations are just there because the story is built around them (HOTDOG).

This vagueness when it comes to wordbuilding is also reflected in the settings - we have a desert, a training base, a lab, temples, Tucker’s workplace, and we do not know if all those are set place on the same planet. If that is the case, what is this planet’s relationship with Chorus? Is it Earth? And most importantly, what is the deal with the temples? Why are they connected to Tucker’s sword if it isn’t the same planet. Are they made by the same aliens? Are people okay with this? Why haven’t these temples been explored before? Chorus makes sure to establish this, while Zero doesn’t, adding to a growing amount of confusion.

Okay, so no connection with previous worldbuilding. What about characters? I mean, we got Wash and Carolina and Tucker! So we have RvB characters, it gotta be RvB! Technically – yeah. But it feels dirty. These three characters are not here to be characters. They are here to be props to the new cast. They are not given any development. Their presence isn’t even that important, and if this was a whole new show, they could easily have been replaced with an unknown face. Worst of all, they feel miswritten.

Carolina and Wash are working at a new military organization? Leaving the Reds and Blues behind? To help people? First of all, fucking bad idea, Carolina, the last time you left the Reds and Blues alone, they changed the timeline. But most importantly – Carolina and Wash just joined this new super elite military organization? After being mistreated and manipulated by such an organization in the past?

Carolina is there to introduce the characters. That’s it. We are force-fed their personality by having her literally read out loud their personality. There is no gentle introduction to the new cast. We are not allowed to get to know them naturally. Why show when you can tell, huh? That’s Carolina’s role. That’s why she is there. To introduce the cast and explain their story. That’s it. (HOTDOG).

How about Wash? He is there to get beat up and be a damsel in distress so that the new cast has a reason to explore the plot. Oh, and that brain damage that was the consequence of previous seasons – gone now. The guy who literally has trauma from having an AI explode inside his head is fine with having a computer inserted into it instead. Because that’s needed. To explore his brain damage wouldn’t work now when his role is to be a prop to lure the new cast for one episode and then be put onto the bench for the rest of the runtime (HOTDOG).

And Tucker – he is there to die for a second and have his sword taken from him. That’s literally it. And for the few moments he is there, he feels like old super flirty Tucker, which erases the character development he went through in previous seasons. Okay, so Tucker dies, and then not dies, and then he is put on the bench with Wash where they can sit and talk or whatever (‘cause holy shit, the new cast is not allowed to that), because he isn’t important. The sword is. Tucker is just a prop, even more than his sword is (HOTDOG).

Damn. Wash gets beat up. Tucker gets beat up. Dies. Gets his sword taken away. Almost seems like a Red’s wet dream. Sorry not sorry, Blues, you were done dirty.

So there are miswritten old characters. Even worse is the retconning. The plot needs a “normal” Wash, so, bam, magic computer solution. Never mind Wash’s trauma and character traits. Never mind the logic of the new worldbuilding which also includes a character suffering for years to heal an illness. But the brain damage that was such a big consequence that it became the main part of the plot of the last two seasons – gone. I mean, a gunshot to the head can be healed by CPR. That’s canon. But no one gave Wash CPR so it’s a big thing, okay. It was canonically a big thing, and Zero erased that. This is not me saying that a Cerebral Enhancer couldn’t work in the RvB universe. Imagine it being done right. Wash struggling with the choice of getting used to his disability or accepting the possibility of help - at the cost of reliving his trauma. The struggle between what to choose - what should he choose when he wants to help as many as possible, the sacrifices he thinks he has to make, the way it could have been used as a part of his character growth. But in Zero, the enhancer isn’t a part of Wash’s character. It’s there so the story can work without having to deal with the previous plot’s consequence (HOTDOG).

Same with the sword thing. They sorta explain it by having Tucker flatline, but it’s weak. Honestly, I find it sorta offensive. What about Locus’ sword as well? It’s twisting previous lore to make the new plot work (HOTDOG). (Also, are we not gonna talk about the ultimate power being Spencer Porkensenson’s helmet? Have the writers forgotten Spencer Porkensenson? Have we as a community forgotten Spencer Porkensenson?)

If you have Red vs. Blue in your title, you cannot ignore what you inherit from it. You need to respect the worldbuilding, the established characters, and the previous plot. Zero does not do this.

Let’s talk about the Triplets. No, really, let’s do it. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about them before, because season 14 was a mixed bag for me (that I have now learned to appreciate. Thank you, Zero.) because I have heart at the size of the Grinch and can only love a few characters at a time, and that did not include the Triplets. Can’t even remember their names. Well, I can, but I can’t for the love of me remember which state is which, and my tongue is twisted every time I try to say Ohio, Iowa, and Idaho, and I know it’s on purpose. I know it is. And it got me good. That being said, the fandom actually embraced them really, really well! Seriously, I’ve seen more content for the Triplets than for Zero as a whole.

Why talk about the Triplets? (Was Iowa the lesbian? Or was it Ohio? Fuck.) Because like Zero, they introduced new characters with a story of their own. The Reds and Blues didn’t play a role. But here’s what I feel like the Triplets got right. They didn’t change the settings to force their narrative. They used stuff already established (Project Freelancer), added their own story as a continuation of that. They even included old characters in the beginning (Wash and some other Freelancers) but it felt natural and it didn’t feel like it happened at the expense of the old characters. Wash’s writing felt natural, and his presence wasn’t needed to tell these new character’s stories. He wasn’t a prop to them. He was there to establish the setting and to establish the relationship with these new characters, and then he and the other familiar faces (helmets??) left, and we as the viewers were left with these new characters. And the new characters told their own story by themselves. It felt like, hey, here’s something you know – remember Mother of Invention, and remember Wash’ lower rank, but now, try to imagine being even lower rank than him, aren’t you curious about those fates? Now let’s hear their story! It was new, it was something else, but it didn’t wreck what came before it, and it stayed true to the classic vibes of RvB.

As I said before, the hotdog-issue is my biggest problem with Zero. It infuriates me. I will return to this. But there are more issues, even if we try to look past the title-related problems.

If we try to imagine Zero as its own story and universe (as it should be, in my opinion), it still earns the meh review from me.

These isolated issues include awkwardness, the writing, lack of self-awareness, and pacing. First of all, holy shit, this is a tell, don’t show. Nothing is subtle, nothing is allowed to develop. It’s like the show thinks you are six years old with an attention span of a goldfish. You are not just led by the hand – they have literally pulled off your arm by the end of the show. We are force-fed every bit of information, every bit of personality from these new characters.

The voice-acting is a mixed bag for me. Sometimes it’s pretty good, sometimes it’s not. Some of the problems can definitely be blamed on the dialogue that you can only do so much with. It’s not good. I can’t remember any good jokes (the one joke I really appreciate was the cast on armor, and that was freaking visual humor. That was so RvB. Kudos to that. It was fun. More of that, please.), and RvB is known for having memorably good lines. This is a show built on good, clever, funny dialogue. Zero does not deliver. You have to sit through clichéd lines – “You’re not my dad”, “I trusted you”, “Come with me”, “It can’t be!”, “She’s way too powerful”, and “We have to do this together” – performed unironically. I cringed more than I laughed. Worst thing is that Zero could be a good parody. Sometimes, it feels like it is. One-dimensional characters, a villain wanting ‘the ultimate power’, very overpowered characters, bad one-liners, etc. But Zero takes itself seriously, and I was one of the people rooting for Jax to show up at the end and yell “Cut”. That would have been a funny-as-fuck twist. A spin-off parody. If I can’t have “Sarge the Movie”, I would have taken that and loved it. I would have forgiven everything. “We put so much info into finding that power, but we had no idea what it was” is really a line in the finale, and I cannot believe this is real in a show that somehow still tries to present itself as serious. What a plot.

We have to talk about pacing. God, first of all it should be stated that RvB is a mess when it comes to pacing. I honestly get what they were going for. Sometimes, RvB has come across as a bit boring when you get three episodes stretched over three weeks without much going on. I know season 11 did not have the warmest welcome because it was seen as boring until the finale. But when you see season 11 as a whole, as a movie, as a part of a trilogy, it works so well. Zero is more focused on being episodic. They want something to happen all the time so we will stay tuned. The thing that will happen – a fight. Oh god. The fight scenes.

I have done the math. I have run the numbers. I deserve a freaking cookie for this. Are you ready?

If you put all the episodes together, you have a runtime of 106 minutes. HOWEVER, with the introduction of credits in every episode, you gotta account for this. Removing the credits, this gives us 94 minutes of actual runtime. Out of that, 45 minutes are dedicated to fight scenes. That means 48% of the show is fight scenes.

If I wanted that many fight scenes, I’d watch Death Battle. Except the actual RvB Death Battle episode has a runtime of 20 minutes, and out of that, 5 minutes is dedicated to the actual battle. For the people who hate math – that’s 25% of the actual runtime.

RvB Zero has more fight scenes than a show called Death Battle. Take that in.

The pace suffers from this. Where’s the time to explore the characters? Where’s the time for good dialogue? All I can think of is this:

I get that RvB is a show that’s literally making fun of itself by acknowledging all their characters do is stand around and talk. I get that you want characters to do more than that. But for the love of Church, would it kill the new characters to stand around and talk? For just a minute? Stop fighting, I am begging you, stop fighting! Am I a pacifist now? Am I purple? Have I joined Doc’s team? What has Zero done to me?!

The good thing though is that fight scenes are very good. They’re entertaining. However, they seem to deconstruct themselves when we need to get a fight scene in every episode. Usually, the few fight scenes in an RvB season were in some of the most climatic episodes. In Zero, I can hardly keep up with the pace because they won’t stop moving. Fight scenes aren’t plot. They aren’t character development. You need more than just fight scenes. They entertain, but there’s a limit to that.

Noël Wiggins, the co-writer, stated the inspiration was a Saturday-morning cartoon. They nailed that vibe. If that was their goal, hurray, they have accomplished something! Because of the poor plot and constant fight scenes, it feels like you could just switch on the TV and drop in at any moment and let yourself be entertained by the cool and colorful soldiers punching and kicking each other. I will admit that the fight scenes entertained me. But they don’t make it a good season.

If I were the six-year-old with the attention span of a goldfish that the show believes I am, I honestly would enjoy it. The stiff dialogue and the constant tell-don’t-show makes you feel like an audience that’s not supposed to do anything else but admire the flashy fight scenes. I miss the cleverness of RvB. I miss the characters I get to connect with as I see them grow.

I miss the tone of RvB. Because this isn’t RvB to me.

It’s not that RvB hasn���t changed its tone before. Holy shit, I sorta do want to experience the absolute shock the RvB fandom went through when s6 aired and they were given new characters and serious plot. I would have loved to experience that, but I was too busy being ten years old. The Freelancers seasons also introduced a new tone and more fight scenes with very talented fighters compared to the Blood Gulch gang, but a balance was kept by having half of the season still revolving around the Reds and Blues. But Zero – Zero is so much change. And it’s on purpose. At least this has been made very clear from the beginning.

They constantly seem to appeal to new fans, rather than be directed towards older fans of the show. If you want an entirely new audience with a season with a new cast, new worldbuilding, and new tone, I’m confused as to why they don’t just make a new show. The hotdog-problem begs for this solution. This story and environment and characters feel so out of touch with the original RvB, that with a few rewrites and lack of Halo-armor, it could just be a new show. Problem solved.

If not this, then present it as a spin-off. In all ways, it feels like a spin-off (again, see everything marked HOTDOG). But the creators refuse to do this, and I don’t understand why. I could forgive many of these issues, had they officially separated themselves from canon.

Ah, what’s the idiom? You can’t both swallow and blow? (You can hear the Bow-chicka-bow-wow in the distance). Something about eating cake and having it. Forgive me, English isn’t my native language. POINT IS why are you calling yourself RvB while actively fighting against the core essence of RvB? In my humble opinion, you can’t be both. Marketing it as a spin-off would have granted it some defense when changing, well, literally everything, and I just, would someone please properly describe why it isn’t a spin-off? Isn’t this season marked by its association with the plot of RvB rather than a continuation of it? Zero presenting itself as not a spinoff feels like a toddler clinging to the hem of its mother’s dress while forcefully running away from her, ripping the dress in the process.

When they do connect with the original RvB, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. When they let Carolina, Wash, and Tucker appear for a moment, it feels like luring viewers in with the RvB title. Look at me. Look at me! I’m not saying this is the case. I say that it gives me the annoying vibes of being lured, rather than letting the characters be a part of the show for their own development, rather than having RvB in the title to continue its story. I should not be getting these vibes at all. But I am.

If you want to use RvB in the title, something from the core of RvB needs to be embraced. Things can be changed. They should. Something new should be brought in. But there’s a limit to how much you can change and replace and twist until it would have been better with an original show. As a season of RvB, it should tell the story of Red vs. Blue.

From my perspective, Zero fails to do so.

It pains me that the old cast has been replaced, but as stated earlier, a season could have worked without them. However, I do not like the take that one should be excited about all the new characters. That it isn’t a big thing that the OG cast got replaced. That we should just deal with it. Just, try to imagine another show suddenly replacing the main characters with characters we’ve never met before. Imagine RWBY suddenly only focusing on a new team of huntresses with the previous main characters reduced to an Easter Egg presence, or Camp Camp suddenly being about a new team of campers, no warning given. Can you imagine the outcry? So maybe let’s agree that a replacement of the main cast is a big thing and should be addressed and it’s valid to be upset about this change.

Could Zero have worked? It’s hard to answer this. How can I accept something as RvB if the season actively pushes away the core of RvB aside for an isolated story that could have been told in any other media? As a spinoff, I could have ignored it. To enjoy Zero, I have to fully separate it from RvB in my mind, and then it’s alright. S’not good. But it’s not bad. It’s entertaining enough. I really ended up liking Raymond and Tiny, and there were a few good jokes, and the fight scenes were admirable (but too much) and I love the creators’ passion. But it’s not RvB. I also wish that the new characters had been attached to previous worldbuilding, for example soldiers on Chorus or agents from Project Freelancer. That way we could build on familiar lore which would have decreased the confusion and added a much needed connection with the previous seasons of RvB.

God, the anxious voice is back (by the way, it sounds like Tutter from “Bear in the Blue House”).

“You’re racist” – I hope not. Literally, I do not want to be. Tell me if I’ve ever crossed some lines, because I swear, that is not my intention, I will apologize and most of all, change and do better. I included this because I’ve seen this take thrown around in the big ugly mess that is the fandom clashes regarding Zero. And racism is problem within RT community (this includes AH and RvB, sorry, I just use RT as an umbrella term for the latter), and I’m not saying it hasn’t been a problem with this season. Writers should never be harassed, and never-fucking-ever because of their skin color, and voice actors shouldn’t be treated like they are responsible for the choices of the show. But I was legit nervous to post this review, and I hope it’s been factual without feeling like personal attacks on the creators because that has never been my intention. I was delighted to hear about the diversity behind this project, and Torrian’s passion legit blew me away because it’s been a while since I’ve seen that for an RvB project. I’d hoped for it to be good, and when I feel disappointed, it’s for the reasons stated in this analysis. That said, Zero is made by a diverse cast and it’s made with love, and both of those things are so, so great, but it does not mean that Zero cannot be criticized. It can, and it should. It’s a product, just like all the other seasons, and fans are allowed to discuss it – both what they loved, and both what they found troublesome. And to repeat previous points, and be respectful, always, fuck racists, and never-fucking-ever harass the staff behind a season, what the fuck is wrong with you if you do this.

“Don’t you get it, it’s different because it’s trying something new!” – Hey, remember the philosophical question: if you replace all the parts of a ship one-by-one, is it still the same ship when you’re done? If it doesn’t include the Reds and Blues, if it ignores previous plot, if the old characters feel miswritten, if it values animation over dialogue, if it values fight scenes over comedy, if it wants to be Fast and Furious instead of Red vs. Blue – is it still Red vs. Blue? Because it doesn’t feel like it to me.

“It's been 17 seasons, it’s time to let the Reds and Blues go so someone else can shine!” – I simply do not understand us having been with the Reds and Blues for 17 seasons should be an argument to let them go, rather than be an argument as to why their absence hurt like hell.

“The Reds and Blues ran out of things to do!” – Did- did they, though? I mean, if we were discussing pretty much any other show, I’d probably agree that they were running out of content. But for the Reds and Blues… I think the PSAs nailed it this year! I’m not kidding, I had more fun watching the Reds and Blues discuss how to do laundry than watching Zero. You could literally give me an hour of the Reds and Blues trying to bake a cake or clear a gutter or simply settling down with an ordinary life, and I would trust them to make it worth the watch.

“The flaws were due to the fact it’s only 8 episodes long!” – Look, I can only judge a product the way it’s presented to me. I cannot come up with excuses for it. If they had 8 episodes to work with, they need to come up with a plot that works with this runtime. Seriously, this excuse cannot work when 48% of the season is spent on fight scenes. They could have used more runtime, sure, but the show needs to be able to pace itself and be planned accordingly.

“The OG cast couldn’t be a part of this year, hence Zero!” – That might be true. But. Would one year without RvB kill it? Is Zero necessary? Again, I just can’t judge excuses for the show. But trouble with the cast has been an issue before. Season 15 solves Geoff’s sabbatical by actually making Grif’s absence a part of the plot. Zero’s lack of Reds and Blues just feels like this excuse to tell a story that needn’t be a part of RvB.

Am I a hater? I guess? I greatly dislike Zero for the critique stated above. I do, however, not harass the creators and no one should ever do that. However, I have to admit that I feel there’s been this weird rejection of any critique of Zero where everything’s been brushed off as haters gonna hate, including the critique stated above. And I think that’s a problem because critique, as hard as it can be to hear (and I know this. I’m an author of original works. Weird flex, I know), is valid and necessary and shouldn’t just be shrugged away. As always, both sides of the fandom should always be respectful, but my own opinion is that addressing the flaws of Zero should not be controversial.

Does this super long rant/critique/whatever mean you cannot enjoy Zero? Gods no! I almost envy you if you enjoy this season, but holy shit, feel free to love it and tell the creators that you love it! Me pointing out the issues I have with the season shouldn’t be stopping you. I loved (and still love) s15 when it came out, and it was majorly rejected by the fandom. There were many, many critical posts, people were going on about how RvB should have ended with s13, and it evolved into the writer receiving death threats (me, once again: never ever harass the creators, assholes). But I didn’t tell people to stop being negative. I actually agreed with many of the flaws that were pointed out, and I enjoyed the season despite this, because that is possible. We, as RvB fans, should agree that RvB, is... I mean, it’s not the greatest, most flawless of shows, but we love it nonetheless. So go ahead and love Zero. This is not a stop sign. This is my opinion that you chose to read.

Wait, I promised you a cookie, didn’t I? Well, you’re not getting one. Why? Because I’m a Red and this is my chance to piss off a Blue. As Caboose wisely said: “Well, at least I don't go around... knocking on people's non-doors... and promising them cookies... and then NOT. GIVING. THEM. COOKIES!”

Blue Team sucks.

End speech.

[ekwolfwriter-blog]

Just thinking about the new ATLA movie coming up

I am sure that I will get some comments about this, but I have been seeing a lot of talk about it. Now, I won’t go into topics about the relationship of the main characters or trying to back end support things like why something works (Again, I get there is hate for Zutara right now, so don’t at me. It won’t change my mind about this pair. If you want civil discussions/ talk, willing to talk as well.)

Instead, I wanted to talk about some more story stuff that I hope we get explained or even explored more or potential changes that could shift everything we know about the Gaang and how it affect the story of Korra:

- Learning more about the spirit world and how it affects the world going into this new age of post war fighting. I know the comics (bleh) go into them, but I want to see more on the big screen. Visually speaking, I can imagine it go above and beyond what could be done on a TV budget (Also, praise to the artist as they did their best for the show)

- Learning more about Druk the dragon. I would love to see if this film explains how Zuko got Druk and maybe even going into topics about animal preservation in this world of bending and how to you keep natural peace. Especially dragons - and if there is a chance that more dragons could be born into this world/ should they be. (Personally yes because if sky bison can be brought back or at least preserved so should mother Freaking dragons!)

- Seeing Iroh pass. Sadly, this is a very VERY strong possibility so better to brace for it now. (If they start playing Leaves on the Vine, I will loose my mind and cry! Already Crying now!)

- Possibly seeing Azula more and giving her a conclusion to her story. I can’t say I want Azula redeemed (Even though that it is possible, just not confident that I want to see it if it is executed poorly), but I certainly think she needs to have some change to her and maybe this film can help put the final arc of her story to an end that makes sense. There is a lot of potential for her story to have a good conclusion, just needs a good writing team for it.

- Seeing the building of Republic City and even exploring how a new city could be run free from the other nations. (This is more like seeing the ground work rather than seeing it actually built, maybe it will be small and growing in the film, but I know that the story of Korra was a while, so starting somewhere)

These are just to name a few ideas of what we could see and hopefully get more of in the movie. Granted, that is if we can see if the writers/ directors can pull off story telling with graceful and maybe even subtle execution (This is mostly toward Bryke!). But we will have to see.

As mentioned before, I am willing to try and turn off my critical view of the show for the movie and see what comes from this - for all we know it could just be a simple action film that looks pretty and you can turn your brain off to (no shame in stories like that). But in all honesty, I am strongly skeptical about this since it has been years since the show came out and while I am happy it is getting recognition, I am concerned about how they will execute the story and if it will be good or if we are all falling for nostalgia.

Still, we will just have to see.

[mugasofer]

It seems like many, perhaps most, people historically believed in some immanent apocalypse.

Many philosophies claim that the world is passing into a degenerate age of chaos (Ages of Man, Kali Yuga, life-cycle of civilisation), or divine conflict will shortly spill over & destroy the Earth (Ragnorok, Revelations, Zoroastrian Frashokereti), or that the natural forces sustaining us must be transient.

Yet few panic or do anything. What anyone does "do about it" is often symbolic & self-admittedly unlikely to do much.

Maybe humans evolved not to care, to avoid being manipulated?

Many cults make similar claims, and do uproot their lives around them. Even very rarely committing mass suicide or terror attacks etc on occasion. But cults exist that don't make such claims, so it may not be the mechanism they use to control, or at most a minor one. "This is about the fate of the whole world, nothing can be more important than that, so shut up" may work as as a thought terminating cliche, but it doesn't seem to work that strongly, and there are many at least equally effective ones.

Some large scale orgs do exist that seem to take their eschatology "seriously". The Aztecs committed atrocities trying to hold off apocalypse, ISIS trying to cause it. Arguably some Communist or even fascist groups count, depending on your definition of apocalypse.

But even then, one can argue their actions are not radically different from non-apocalypse-motivated ones - e.g. the Aztecs mass-executed less per capita than the UK did at times & some historians view them as more about displaying authority.

I'm thinking about this because of two secular eschatologies - climate apocalypse and the Singularity.

My view on climate change, which as far as I can tell is the scientific consensus, is that it is real and bad but by no means apocalyptic. We're talking incremental increases in storms, droughts, floods etc, all of which are terrible, but none of which remotely threaten human civilisation. E.g. according to the first Google result, the sea is set to rise by 1 decimeter by 2100 in a "high emissions scenario", not to rise by tens or hundreds of meters and consume all coastal nations as I was taught as a child. Some more drastic projections suggest that the sea might rise by as much as two or three meters in the worst case scenario.

It really creeps me out when I hear people who confess to believe that human civilisation, the human species, or even all life on Earth is most likely going to be destroyed soon by climate change. The most recent example, which prompted this post, was the Call of Cthulhu podcast I was listening to casually suggesting that it might be a good idea to summon an Elder God of ice and snow to combat climate change as the "lesser existential risk", perhaps by sacrificing "climate skeptics" to it. It's incredibly jarring for me to realise that the guys I've been listening to casually chatting about RPGs think they live in a world that will shortly be ended by the greed of it's rulers. But this idea is everywhere. Discussions of existential risks from e.g. pandemics inevitably attract people arguing that the real existential risk is climate change. A major anti-global-warming protest movement, Extinction Rebellion, is literally named after the idea that they're fighting against their own extinction. Viral Tumblr posts talk about how the fear of knowing that the world is probably going to be destroyed soon by climate change and fascism is crippling their mental health, and they have no idea how to deal with it because it's all so real.

But it's not. It's not real.

Well, I can't claim that political science is accurate enough for me to definitively say that fascism isn't going to take over, but I can say that climate science is fairly accurate and it predicts that the world is definitely not about to end in fire or in flood.

(There are valid arguments that climate change or other environmental issues might precipitate wars, which could turn apocalyptic due to nuclear weapons; or that we might potentially encounter a black swan event due to our poor understanding of the ecosystem and climate-feedback systems. But these are very different, as they're self-admittedly "just" small risks to the world.)

And I get the impression that a lot of people with more realistic views about climate change deliberately pander to this, deliberately encouraging people to believe that they're going to die because it puts them on the "right side of the issue". The MCU's Loki, for instance, recently casually brought up a "climate apocalypse" in 2050, which many viewers took as meaning the world ending. Technically, the show uses a broad definition of "apocalypse" - Pompeii is given as another example - and it kind of seems like maybe all they meant was natural disasters encouraged by climate change, totally defensible. But I still felt kinda mad about it, that they're deliberately pandering to an idea which they hopefully know is false and which is causing incredible anxiety in people. I remember when Greta Thurnberg was a big deal, I read through her speeches to Extinction Rebellion, and if you parsed them closely it seemed like she actually did have a somewhat realistic understanding of what climate change is. But she would never come out and say it, it was all vague implications of doom, which she was happily giving to a rally called "Extinction Rebellion" filled with speakers who were explicitly stating, not just coyly implying, that this was a fight for humanity's survival against all the great powers of the world.

But maybe there's nothing wrong with that. I despise lying, but as I've been rambling about, this is a very common lie that most people somehow seem unaffected by. Maybe the viral tumblr posts are wrong about the source of their anxiety; maybe it's internal/neurochemical and they world just have picked some other topic to project their anxieties on if this particular apocalypse wasn't available. Maybe this isn't a particularly harmful lie, and it's hypocritical of me to be shocked by those who believe it.

Incidentally, I believe the world is probably going to end within the next fifty years.

Intellectually, I find the arguments that superhuman AI will destroy the world pretty undeniable. Sure, forecasting the path of future technology is inherently unreliable. But the existence of human brains, some of which are quite smart, proves pretty conclusively it's possible to get lumps of matter to think - and human brains are designed to run on the tiny amounts of energy they can get by scavenging plants and the occasional scraps of meat in the wilderness as fuel, with chemical signals that propagate at around the speed of sound (much slower than electronic ones), with only the data they can get from input devices they carry around with them, and which break down irrevocably after a few decades. And while we cannot necessarily extrapolate from the history of progress in both computer hardware and AI, that progress is incredibly impressive, and there's no particular reason to believe it will fortuitously stop right before we manufacture enough rope to hang ourselves.

Right now, at time of writing, we have neural nets that can write basic code, appear to scale linearly in effectiveness with the available hardware with no signs that we're reaching their limit, and have not yet been applied at the current limits of available hardware let alone what will be available in a few years. They absorb information like a sponge at a vastly superhuman speed and scale, allowing them to be trained in days or hours rather than the years or decades humans require. They are already human-level or massively superhuman at many tasks, and are capable of many things I would have confidently told you a few years ago were probably impossible without human-level intelligence, like the crazy shit AI dungeon is capable of. People are actively working on scaling them up so that they can work on and improve the sort of code they are made from. And we have no ability to tell what they're thinking or control them without a ton of trial and error.

If you follow this blog, you're probably familiar with all the above arguments for why we're probably very close to getting clobbered by superhuman AI, and many more, as well as all the standard counter-arguments and the counter-arguments to those counter arguments.

(Note: I do take some comfort in God, but even if my faith were so rock solid that I would cheerfully bet the world on it - which it's not - there's no real reason why our purpose in God's plan couldn't be to destroy ourselves or be destroyed as an object lesson to some other, more important civilization. There's ample precedent.)

Here's the thing: I'm not doing anything about it, unless you count occasionally, casually talking about it with people online. I'm not even donating to help any of the terrifyingly-few people who are trying to do something about it. Part of why I'm not contributing is, frankly, I don't have a clue what to do, nor do I have much confidence in any of the stuff people are currently doing (although I bloody well hope some of it works.)

And yet I don't actually feel that scared.

I feel more of a visceral chill reading about the nuclear close calls that almost destroyed the world in the recent past than thinking about the stuff that has a serious chance of doing so in a few decades. I'm a neurotic mess, and yet what is objectively the most terrifying thing on my radar does not actually seem to contribute to my neurosis.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #22- If You Don’t Love Thunderclash, Get Better Soon I Guess

One last issue before we reach Comic Event Hell.

Time to use a dead man to set up the rest of the nonsense that’s got to happen, because apparently 14 issues of setup, including six issues of literal prelude, wasn’t enough.

The first bit of information we’re presented with is the fact that Chromedome and Swerve are on the opposite sides of the camera-shy scale. I guess that’s bound to happen when your spouse has had his video-cam literally connected to his brain for at least several thousand years.

The art may look really gritty and hardcore here, but this is actually due to a filter Rewind has over all his footage that he’s neglected to take off, because it made all the wartime propaganda he would stuff into people’s heads all the more brutal-looking.

No, this is the style of our artist for this issue, James Raiz, who we’ll be seeing a fair bit of over the next several issues. Raiz has worked on the Transformers franchise over the course of multiple license-holders, as well as contributed to both Marvel and DC comics. He also works in special effects, including matte painting and VFX. That’s just neat.

Anyway, the reason Swerve’s completely frozen in place isn’t because Rewind  switched out his head-mounted camera for a gun that goes off if it hears you make a self-deprecating joke, but rather because he’s conducting interviews with everyone in the main cast. We get all their introductions, Cyclonus makes a statement about his political stances, Drift sounds like he’s high as a kite, First Aid strikes a sassy pose while not being bitter in the slightest, and Ultra Magnus makes a move that would get him murdered on any given film set in the universe.

You do NOT use your bare fucking hand to clean a camera lens, mister. Go get a microfiber cloth and try the fuck again, you complete and utter duffel bag of a creature.

We get a quick cut of the speech Rodimus made back in issue #1, with an angle that implies that Rewind was in the front row of the front row, then cut over to Rodimus asking Rewind to document their Capital-Q Quest. This is where we establish that this film doesn’t only contain footage from Rewind’s personal camera, but also that of the Lost Light’s security system.

Which feels like the sort of access you maybe wouldn’t want to give some nosy little film buff, especially when you have a secret giant serial killing sadist living in your basement like a disappointing adult child.

See? He was given the job to record the adventures of the Lost Light not five minutes ago, and he’s already using his powers for evil. Eavesdropping evil. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, Rodimus, and you just handed it to the guy with a massive Dominus Ambus-shaped chip on his shoulder.

So Rewind’s got permission to film just about whatever he wants, and Rodimus figures it’ll be nonstop action from here to the finish line! Fights! Intrigue! Mild hijinks and peril! Explosions aplomb! Oh man, I can’t wait to see what kinds of crazy shit will happen on this absolute roller coaster of a Quest!

Smashcut to Swerve literally falling asleep in the middle of a conversation. Yeah, as it turns out, no quest, capital Q or not, is nonstop action. Which is good, honestly, because that kind of seems like it would be exhausting after the first week or so.

Swerve, Tailgate, and Rewind are discussing cool alt-modes, which seems like an odd topic, seeing as Tailgate and Swerve have basically the same situation going on there, leaving Rewind alone in the camp of “does not have wheels”.

I worry about you sometimes, Rewind. Internalized Functionism is a very real problem. Uh, well, in your universe anyway. Us humans have to deal with regular ol’ classism and racism.

Rung gets brought up, and it’s revealed that the wheel on his back is almost purely cosmetic; it doesn’t even actually attach to his body. The lads decide that they’ve got nothing better to do, and set up a gentlemen’s wager- first one to figure out Rung’s whole deal gets 100 space-dollars.

Throwing shit at people’s heads will be a major plot point in the climax of this comic series.

Swerve’s go at trying to win the bet involved tossing a grenade at Rung to hit him in the neural cluster, which is rumored to be able to force an involuntary mode change if done correctly. Obviously, it didn’t work this go around. Then our narrative focus switches over to the crew’s hobbies.

You were listening to Prince, weren’t you, Magnus? Not even deep space is safe from the Cease and Desist.

Skids’ hobby is meeting new people, because he suffers from the terrible curse of being so fucking good at everything he tries, he always ends up dropping whatever he picked up, because what’s the point? This acts as a segue into another flashback, to even MORE bullshit that the fellas got roped into on Hedonia.

These are the Stentarians. They’re like the Cybertronians, if they were better in every way.

And by “better”, I, of course, mean “more bloodthirsty, warmongering, and driven enough to make their civil war last about as long as the Jurassic Period”. Also, they’re all combiners by default, and Whirl seems a little TOO into their whole situation. So much so, in fact, that when the Imperial Guard of their race show up to kill them, he decides to do them a solid by single-handedly ending their entire war.

You know, in most cases you’re supposed to show and not tell for visual media. This is way funnier, though, so it can be excused.

We jump back into the interviews, and Rewind’s just asked everyone if they’re happy. This might seem like an odd question, until you remember that everyone on-board this ship has crippling depression and PTSD, and Rewind’s married to one of the saddest motherfuckers to ever exist, so he probably has this question loaded into the proverbial chamber at any given moment. We won’t cover all of the answers here, because they’ll be more poignant to reflect back on later in the comic run, but let’s take a gander at the characters who’ve completed the first leg of their character arcs this season.

Drift, is that perhaps… an honest expression of your inner thought processes happening right there? Has Rewind broken through your carefully crafted persona, if even for just a moment, with his question? Perish the thought!

Because Tailgate outed himself as being baby in issue #21, I have zero doubt he’s not exaggerating here. He was a janitor, then he fell in a hole and became Dirt-Nap Supreme for six million years; even the most boring day on the Lost Light’s got to be better than that.

And it’s nice to see Chromedome on a good day for once. Hopefully he reveled in it while he had the chance, because this interview takes place maybe a couple weeks before he fucks everything up big time and has to blow up his husband with a missile strike.

Getting back to the Mystery of the Rungian Alt-Mode plotline, we see Rung using his backpack as a wheelbarrow- no idea what he’s actually pushing in the damned thing- and wearing the most disgruntled face I’ve seen him pull in a hot minute. Someone yells for him to come down the eerily unlit and sinister-looking hallway, which he does. Rung would not do well in a horror film.

He winds up at Swerve’s, where Tailgate, Swerve, Brainstorm, and someone who is most likely Trailcutter, given the colors, are hanging out in their alt-modes. Tailgate’s ploy to find out Rung’s deal is to do what he does best- lie! They’re having an alt-mode party, and wouldn’t Rung like to join in? There are, of course, logistical issues with being a car in a bar, especially when your drink is on the table and your head is tucked up somewhere in your torso, but never mind all that! Let’s get crazy!

This doesn’t work either. Maybe we should cut out the middle man here and just get Rung drunk enough to agree to a wet alt-mode contest.

No, I don’t have any idea how that would work.

In our next vignette, Rodimus comes into the comms room, Rewind trailing behind him like a grim shadow of death, to see what the hell Blaster wants, other than just the hugest glass of water.

Raiz’s work is very detailed, and you really feel the weight of these giant metal space robots, but everyone looks like they’ve been put through a food dehydrator.

We get a lot of build up to the character who’s about to be introduced, with a common opinion being shared amongst everyone- even Tailgate, who hates successful people like his life depends on it.

Lovely readers, put your hands together for the ideal male partner for Autobots, Decepticons, and Neutrals alike:

A man with so much charisma and charm that only Rodimus could hate him, Thuderclash brings to IDW what everyone wishes Optimus Prime would, making our disappointing space dad even more mediocre by comparison. He fights for justice, and freedom, and the good of the universe- and he does it all while having a chronic medical condition that forces him to stay within a certain distance of his ship that is also a life-support machine, otherwise he will die. Despite his handicaps, Thunderclash seemingly brings to others what they need most, even if they don’t even realize that they needed it in the first place.

He also, in this one scene, appeals to Drift’s religious sensibilities, does a secret best-friend dance with Ratchet (who he helped to pass his medical exams- yes, Ratchet), and congratulates Rodimus on his questing so far.

Thunderclash is one of those characters that everyone in-universe is supposed to love, and I completely buy it- because he’s completely genuine and humble about all of this the entire time.

Compare this to the last time Roberts wrote Thunderclash, in Eugenesis.

Where he was an ex-Decepticon.

And kind of an abrasive asshole.

And then he died.

Y’know, now that I think of it, Eugenesis Thunderclash and MTMTE Ambulon being basically the same character makes a whole lot of sense, even without the horrors of Roberts’ Twitter getting involved.

Thunderclash reveals that he, too, is on a quest to find the Knights of Cybertron, much to Rodimus’ chagrin. But first he needs the Lost Light to break out the jumper cables, and then for his second in command to stop threatening his life.

Turns out, not everyone is as obvious as the Cybertronians with their naming conventions. Whirl assassinated the wrong folks; I’m sure the Galactic Council is utterly thrilled. Paddox wants to steal the quantum engine technology for the good of his people, so they can kick the ass of the up-and-coming Terradore leader.

Completely unaware of the situation unfolding here in the lab, Swerve is directing Rung towards the warm, loving aura of Thunderclash for another go at winning the gentlemen’s wager- through the power of lying about having friends, Swerve’s “agreed” to get Rung Thunderclash’s autograph, in exchange for getting to check that Rung’s transformation cog is still working. Then they bump into the nightmare currently unfolding. My, whoever will save us from this dreaded menace, who holds a gun to the head of the Autobots’ greatest warrior, confidant, friend, and perhaps even lover?

How about a bartender and a giant vape pen?

Okay, so Rung doesn’t actually turn into a vape. It turns out that the Mystery of the Rungian Alt-Mode is also a mystery to the man himself. Because Rung is old as shit, the Functionists got to see this bullshit for themselves, and ended up testing him over and over and over trying to figure it out, lest he prove to be a flaw in their fascist ideologies. Fun fact: fascists HATE it when people they’re trying to oppress don’t play to their expectations.

The Functionists were the ones who gave Rung his little wheelie backpack, to make him at least appear useful. This sort of treatment tends to warp one’s head a bit, which would explain why he’s bothered to keep it for so long- internalized functionism’s a real bitch.

At least he’s not giving teenagers nicotine addictions under the guise of being somewhat better than cigarettes.

Back with Rodimus and Cybertron’s Autobot of the Year for 40,000 consecutive years, we get the unfortunate news that jump-starting Thunderclash’s ship is going to make the Quest go a bit slower for the Lost Light, much to Rodimus’ horror, though he does his best to put on a brave face; after all, that’s what heroes do, isn’t it?

It’s at this point that it’s revealed that “Little Victories” was being screened to all the Circle of Light members who didn’t get murdered or turned into Legislators on Luna 1, and man are these guys pissy. What was meant to be a recruitment video turned out to do just the opposite, because none of these guys want anything to do with what the Lost Light’s got going on.

Too bad Rewind didn’t have time for a cleaner cut for showing. Maybe they could have at least snagged a couple of these guys to tag along.

As all of the Circle of Light leave the theatre to go call everyone’s favorite Autobot to see if he needs a more crew members, the film plays on behind Skids, back to the interviews, as everyone promises more adventures just waiting on the horizon.

You’re not even on this trip anymore, you dork.

Chromedome gives us the title drop for the movie and issue, and we cut to Rewind organizing a group photo of all the interviewees.

And then Rewind died horribly like a week later. Thus ends season one of More Than Meets the Eye!

While I’m here, I’d like to take the time to cover a little bit of cut content from this issue, a scene between Drift and Ratchet.

Drift, during his interview, recalls the time that Ratchet called him into his office for a very serious discussion about his/Pharma’s hands.

Yeah, turns out they’re haunted.

Well, no, not really, because this is a prank. But Drift doesn’t know that yet.

Ratchet demonstrates this hand-haunting by punching Drift in the face, as he screams damnation at Pharma’s ghost. Drift, because he is a spiritual man, knows exactly what to do to deal with this possession; he draws his sword and chops Ratchet’s hands off, then throws them out the airlock.

This, too, is a prank, not that Ratchet knows it right away, yelling at Drift that he’s crippled him.

Clearly, these two belong together.

This bit of cut script was lucky enough to have gotten drawn by the colorist for MTMTE Season 1, Josh Burcham. Burcham’s line art is iconic- you won’t mistake him for anyone else. It’s rough and angular, and honestly just very charming. I’m a sucker for this sort of style. If you want to see his adaptation of this chunk of script- and trust me, you do- the link’s right here:

https://dcjosh.tumblr.com/post/107665292031/its-done-the-mtmte-22-deleted-scene-in-all-its

[tisfan]

Flying My Way

Title: Flying my Way Written by: @tisfan Card: 3023 Square: S2 - AU: Star Wars Rating: teen Triggers/warnings: Tags: star wars au, spice runners, hutts, mechanic!Tony, flirting Created for: @tonystarkbingo Word count: 1484 

Pralla the Hutt was typical of her species; fat, slug-like, and an unappetizing shade of purple with green splotches that made her look rather like some fruit gone soft and rotten.

Tony hadn’t even realized Pralla was female until she spoke, and not even then, until the translator droid started yammering. As a point of honor, most Hutts spoke exclusively Huttese, even if they understood many languages. It was frequently the only such point.

Besides, the talk-droid made the Hutt look important. 

“The magnificent Pralla the Hutt gives you greetings, star captain,” the droid said, “and she hopes you will enjoy your stay at her palace. Make yourself comfortable, and she will be delighted to discuss business with you in the morning.”

She wasn’t, thank the Maker, talking to Tony.

Tony wasn’t the star captain. He wasn’t even a crewman on the ship. He was, in fact, a hired mechanic, brought in specifically to work on the specialized divan that Pralla used to move around her palace. Tony’s father had designed the thing, and been richly rewarded for it. But Hutts lived a lot longer than humans, so here was Tony, hoping he could fix it.

Because the Hutts did not like being disappointed. And there might have been that small incident with some damages in a bar fight -- totally not his fault, the other guy was cheating at Sabaac, and Tony did not like a cheater. He’d thrown Justin Hammer through a window. But it was Pralla’s casino, and she might still have been offended.

In either case, he needed to fix the divan. It was his only hope.

The space captain gave Pralla a quick bow, graceful and somehow sarcastic, like the Hutt didn’t deserve the respect she was demanding, but in such a flowing manner that Tony was pretty sure Pralla didn’t realize he was mocking her.

I like you already, Tony thought, watching him go, wearing all black and walking like people had damned well get out of his way. Tony wondered what ship he was flying. And why. And what cargo he was taking on.

And reminded himself that curiosity about a gangster’s business was likely to get him into trouble.

The line of petitioners moved forward, and Tony moved with it.

Finally, it was his turn. He presented his gifts and his best wishes, and allowed that he would be delighted to assist in the manner of mechanical difficulties with the repulsor tech that kept the divan floating.

“Her most excellent beauty, Pralla the Hutt, welcomes such a brilliant mind to her palace, and hopes you will be pleased to join the festivities this evening. She entreats you will stay behind as petitions are dismissed, to look over your father’s work.”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Tony said, trusting the talk-droid to add all the accustomed flattery and honorifics. Since the talk-droids were the ones who bore the first brunt of disapproval from the Hutt, he was pretty sure the droid was doing its best.

When the room cleared of everyone except her magnificent slugness and the talk-droid, Tony was beckoned forward. Obviously, it was very difficult for the Hutt to move off the divan. At least Tony had thought ahead and brought his portable lifts. “If it won’t trouble you too much, I’ll just slide these under here--” Tony was already moving “--and take a look at what the problem is.”

The problem was a squashed Klatooine paddy frog -- honestly, the Hutts ate the most disgusting things, which was only made more revolting by the terrible liquor they drank. Perhaps Tony should feel grateful, since the Hutts ate things that most civilized races wouldn’t touch, and therefore rid the galaxy of it.

Didn’t matter. Pralla needed a maid, not a mechanic. But Tony could fix it, quick enough. Consider his debt to the Hutts paid, and then get the kriff back to his shop before anyone could say anything. Pack his stuff onto a couple of veractyls and make for the jungle. Get as far away as possible. Because paying off a debt with the Hutts was almost as dangerous as getting into debt in the first place.

Hutts collected power and favors; and there was nothing they liked better than to reel back in a sure winner.

Staying overnight, drinking Pralla’s wine, partying with the gangsters; Tony could almost guarantee he’d do something stupid, and end up owing the Hutts. And this time, more than was fixable with a bucket and a scraper.

Maybe he could dodge the party entirely. Go see what ships were in the Hutt’s hangar bays. Looking at new ships could distract him from drinking and playing cards, at least. Maybe he could even find a ship looking to leave the planet and needed a good mechanic.

There was an idea. Ships. Off world. Find a new life somewhere away from this stinking swamp.

He carefully lowered the divan to the floor. “There you go, your magnificence,” Tony said. “Go ahead, give her a test ride, see how she holds up.”

Pralla’s talkdroid expressed the Hutt to be pleased, and Tony let another droid take him out of the throne room. “You mind if I duck into the hanger a bit, there, Shiny?”

Tony didn’t know if the droid had an objection. He wasn’t listening. He walked away from the beeping mechanical, gazing around.

One Radiant VII, blue with yellow accents. Hideous, but a good workhorse of a ship. It could use a new landing gear. A few more bumps and hard landings, and that baby wasn’t getting off the ground again. But the ship didn’t really speak to him -- it had modified weapons that had been badly installed -- and the crew was almost entirely Gand, which meant Tony would probably need an atmo suit to live on their ship.

Two non-standard light freighters, and then--

“Holy hell, that’s beautiful,” Tony said, stopping dead to stare at the gleaming ship.

“Thanks,” the star captain Tony had seen earlier said. “She’s my pride and joy. The Winter Soldier. A HDR-32 Dynamic. With modifications.”

“Of course,” Tony said. “You… uh… looking for crew? I’m a top-rated mechanic. Starships as well as weapons and droids.”

“My name’s Captain Barnes,” the man said, offering a-- cyber arm. “Why don’t you come aboard, and we can talk about it?”

“Sure thing, Droideka.” Tony nodded before he remembered that this was the man who was captain of a starship and who worked for a Hutt, and who might not appreciate Tony’s sense of humor about nicknames. Too late now, and while he didn’t exactly brace to get shot, he noted a certain amount of tension in his shoulders.

“Most of my crew’s not currently here, taking advantage of the Hutt’s hospitality and doing some trade,” Barnes said. “But I’ve got a co-pilot, a gunner, a reclamation expert, a drop-trooper, and Peitro.”

“What’s his job?”

“He doesn’t have one, he’s the boss,” Barnes said. “We’re here at his word.”

“Yeah? So, sounds like you could use a mechanic,” Tony said. A reclamation expert was smuggler code for salvage. Usually illegal salvage. People who wouldn’t ask too many questions. “And I want to get off the planet. So--”

“Sure,” Barnes said. “We’ll do a test trip, we’re headed to Taris, and then a restock at Nar Shadda. If it doesn’t appeal, you can probably get on another freighter from Nar Shadda, and we’ll part ways.”

“Sounds good,” Tony agreed, not missing the sharp look that Barnes shot him. “We can discuss pay after I look at your ship.”

“You in trouble with the Hutts?” Barnes surmised.

“Not. Yet,” Tony said. “But I don’t hold out hopes for my chances, unless I get out of sight, and hopefully out of mind.”

“Well, we have trouble onboard already, so you’ll fit right in. Come on, I’ll show you your bunk.”

“You could show me yours,” Tony suggested, because his mouth just did that sometimes, whenever he was looking at someone who was attractive and just a little bit dangerous.

“I only cohabitate with people who can dance, and drink, and still fly a starship,” Barnes said. 

Tony’s eyebrow went up, because he was pretty sure Barnes was actually flirting with him. Which was… nice.

“I’ll buy the first round,” Tony offered. 

Barnes grinned. “In case you’re flying solo after dancing, this is your bunk--” he jerked a thumb at a fairly standard rack. “--and that one, at the end of the tube? That one’s mine.”

Tony stuck his head in through the hatch, just to be an ass. “Oh, that’s a nice bed. I definitely want to be sleeping in that.”

“Come on, then,” Barnes said. “Let’s see you put your money where your mouth is.”

“It’s a bargain, Captain,” Tony said, offering his hand.

“You can call me Bucky,” he said. “I only make people call me Captain when they’re under me.”

[mobius-prime]

121. Knuckles the Echidna #22

Dark Alliance (Part One of Three): You Say You Want a Revolution…

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Jim Valentino Colors: Barry Grossman

So fair warning - this arc is very politics-heavy. I've already criticized the inclusion of politidrama plotlines in the comic before, despite my own personal interest in them, so I won't go over it again. What I will go over is that this arc also includes quite a few tasteless references to the Nazi regime of World War II, starting with the intro page. See, every issue in this arc begins with, rather than the traditional intro page that recaps past events and introduces plot points to come, instead a speech or quote relevant to the current story. This one is a parody, if you will (though played completely straight) of the "First They Came" poem by the German pastor Martin Niemöller, referring to how many people stayed silent while the Nazis oppressed and enacted genocide upon groups that those in silence didn't belong to. In this altered version, "Anonymous" claims that Robotnik came for hedgehogs, squirrels, rabbits, and foxes first, during which the speaker stayed silent as they were an echidna and didn't want to get involved, and so by the time he came for the echidnas there was no one left to speak up for them. Of course, quite aside from the fact that this is completely disrespectful to the real-world situation that the actual poem describes, that's not even how the Robotnik coup went down. Robotnik, upon dethroning King Acorn, pretty clearly just started roboticizing all Mobians indiscriminately without regard to their individual species. Not only that, but he didn't even get a chance to start on the echidnas, as all of them were either contained in their pocket universe on the Floating Island, or hanging out in Albion, which it appears Robotnik never even knew existed. I don't know, the whole thing is clearly an attempt to seem really intellectual and deep on Penders' part, but it just comes off as insensitive instead.

Anyway, onto the actual story. We open in the house of High Councilor Pravda, who appears to be the main political leader of the city. In the dead of night, Pravda is awakened by a window smashing downstairs, and angrily stomps down to confront the intruder, believing it to be "dingo trash up to no good." Instead, he is dragged out of his house roughly by several Dark Legionnaires, while the leader, called Kommissar (her title, not her name), admonishes him for his apparent hypocrisy regarding his anti-technology stance.

Well, she seems lovely! As she has her people drag him away, we pan to Haven, where Knuckles is demanding answers from his grandfathers on his father's whereabouts. To his credit, Sabre is genuinely apologetic to Knuckles, believing that they should have been a lot more forthcoming with him a lot sooner, but Knuckles really isn't having it, and can you blame him?

As a side note, this is about the point in the comic where the eyes of characters such as Knuckles and Tails, formerly depicted as black pupils as in the classic games, start to gain some color. We already saw it with Tails a little while back during the Sand-Blasters two-parter, and it's very inconsistent between issues (for example, you'll notice his eyes are blue instead of purple up there), but you'll start to notice it in screenshots from here out before their designs finally stabilize to their modern forms, similar to their designs from the games.

While Knuckles continues to demand to see his father, we ourselves see Locke, who is dropping off Remington, Julie-Su, Lara-Le and Wynmacher back in Echidnaopolis. Remington asks him how things went with Lara-Le again, and Locke acts like he's all regretful that he couldn't woo Lara-Le back to him or something, which like, really man? You're divorced and haven't spoken properly in years, and she has a new fiancé now, did you really expect to just manage to sweep her off her feet again and get remarried? Julie-Su tries to approach Locke to thank him for saving the whole group, and finds herself recognizing his appearance somewhat. Upon asking, she's shocked to find out that he's Knuckles' father, and asks him about Knuckles' whereabouts. Remington ushers her away before they get a chance to speak further, probably to protect Locke's privacy, and as he jokes with her that it seems like she actually cares about Knuckles, Locke muses to himself that his son is likely furious with him, which, yeah, not far off there buddy. He has an idea of where his son might have gone, and as he speeds off in his air vehicle, we jump over to the Kommissar, who has by now dragged her captive all the way back to the Dark Legion's current hideout… and oh boy, inside we get to see a familiar f- …uhh… okay, well, I won't call him a familiar face, because we've never seen him looking quite this messed up before, but it's Dimitri, okay? It's Dimitri back on his BS.

Guess he had to have some, uh, extensive reconstructive surgery after his rather literal fall from grace. And unfortunately for everybody who doesn't want to be ruled over by a cyborg'd up monstrosity of a dictator, he's got a new takeover plan in mind for the city!

Back in the more civilized areas of Echidnaopolis, Remington is having his driver take Wynmacher and Lara-Le back to their apartment when they find the streets blocked by a protest from dingoes, agitating about their lack of housing and accommodations within the city. Remington tries to resolve the situation peacefully by requesting that if they must protest, to at least let traffic pass while they do, but at that moment a giant flaming fireball comes out of nowhere and starts wrecking the place, and the whole thing devolves into a big brawl between the protesting dingoes and the watching echidnas.

Remington calls Haven for backup, and while I'm not sure who exactly in that nest of grandpas he expected to go rushing out of there for something as simple as a protest gone wrong, luckily for him he mentions Lara-Le over the comm, and Knuckles immediately enlists Archimedes' help to poof him out there to help his mom. Meanwhile, we get to see that Locke has completely, thoroughly misjudged where Knuckles would be hanging out at this moment, having thought for whatever reason that he would be brooding inside the Chaos Chamber next to Mammoth Mogul's ugly frozen mug.

Now this is some well-appreciated character development from Locke. I've been heavily criticizing him this entire time for how he's handled his interaction, or lack thereof, with his son, and I'm glad to see that Lara-Le's admonishments seem to have gotten through to him. While he won't get a chance to catch up with his son right at the moment, at least we know the big talk isn't that far off in the future.

Knuckles and Archimedes poof into the fray on the streets, and Knuckles begins throwing punches at whoever gets close enough, which as everyone knows is the single best way to end a violent brawl - by participating! Despite being an echidna himself, he doesn't hesitate to throw punches at other echidnas in the bunch, with Archy adding some of his own fire breath into the mix. If anything, I'd say he accurately judged the situation, which is that the dingoes were peacefully demonstrating and it appears to have been an angry, racist echidna who threw the first molotov. General Von Stryker makes his entrance, and despite him predictably acting aggressive and blaming echidnakind in general for the dingoes' treatment, Knuckles actually agrees with him that the echidnas are being really crappy, and offers a truce so they can discuss what went wrong and how to resolve it. Meanwhile, back in hell - I mean, the Legion's hideout…

This is probably the single most disturbing page in the comic so far, if you ask me. This guy is begging, screaming, for mercy and they put him under like nothing's wrong and start doing surgery without his consent (obviously) on his brain. Dimitri, watching the proceedings, starts mwahaha'ing to himself about the whole affair, as apparently Pravda is the direct descendant of Menthor, the councilman who denied his and Edmund's proposal to use the Chaos Syphon all those centuries ago. He's determined not to get careless with his power again in the future, and now that he's defeated death by old age through the sheer power of adding more and more cybernetics to his failing frame every time something goes wrong, he's ready to get his long-due revenge.

In another part of the city, Knuckles and Archimedes poof right into the middle of the Chaotix, who are pleased to finally see him and hopefully get a chance to catch up. As he explains what was going on with the protest, Julie-Su arrives and gives him the "why" he was looking for, which is that, naturally, Pravda was kind of a racist ass and wasn't working very hard to ensure the dingoes would have housing built for them in a timely manner. However, elections for the position of High Councilor are coming up in a few days, and Pravda has ever-so-mysteriously been missing since the previous night, with his traumatized wife too messed up to be able to talk about what she saw. She slyly mentions when questioned that "a little birdie" gave her all this information, leading Vector to rather rudely blame her for "having friends in low places" and generally acting as distrustful of her as ever. Seriously, Vector's been kind of a jerk to her ever since she left the Legion, and you just know that situation is gonna come to a head sooner or later. But enough of them - let's head back to the Kommissar, who's having her people reenact Kristallnacht in the streets of Echidnaopolis! (Told you this arc is full of tasteless references to WWII…)

She reports in to Dimitri, who is pleased to hear about her progress on the senseless property damage and random citizens she's beating up for no reason. Like, the regime seems cacklingly evil enough to want to do this kind of stuff, sure, until you hear Dimitri's actual plan for takeover this time - he's implanted control chips into Pravda's brain, and is going to use him as a mouthpiece for the Legion's ideals in the upcoming election!

So, wait. You want to get your new mind-slave to cast your organization in a positive light, and at the same time you're having one of your main commanders go around smashing windows and beating people up in alleys? How is this master plan of yours supposed to work, exactly? That entire Kristallnacht page could be removed from the comic and not only would it not impact the story, it would make it make more sense than it currently does. I seriously think that it was only included to draw more parallels to the Nazi regime, because there's just no way it makes any real sense otherwise. Sigh, Penders. Why do you have to be like this?

[comingupforblair]

The MCU vs DCEU approach to world-building

Of all the complaints leveled against the DCEU, the difference in world building compared to the MCU is arguably the most prominent, to the point where it could even be said to be why other criticisms have been as intense and frequent as they have been to the point where it’s acceptable to accuse Warner Bros of being actively uncaring or disrespectful to their characters I’ve been vocal in my defense of the approach taken, not least because of how exaggerated it has been and how it ignores the numbers, and my feelings that the MCU approach, despite it’s undeniable merits, is not and shouldn’t be the only way to build a franchise nor should alternate ways be dismissed as has been the case with the DCEU.

My intention in this post is not to say advocate for one over the other but to look at both as objectively as I can and analyze the benefits and costs of each. I won’t pretend for a second that I’m nit biased as my feelings on this subject are very well documented and I don’t aim to change anyone’s minds but rather to add a sense of nuance to a discussion which has been frustratingly reduced to a narrative that there is a right way and wrong way to build a universe and Warner Bros have chosen the wrong one.

First, I’ll give a brief definition of each approach as I see it

The MCU approach - This method involves giving characters solo films prior to a team-up in the belief that it will create audience familiarity and emotional attachment so that they will care about them all in a team-up film.

The DCEU approach - This method is far more streamlined and is built around an idea that giving audiences a taste of characters first and then building upon that to build hype for a solo film will bring in audiences as well as not including backstory that is not seen as a high priority (not showing audiences a character backstory that they have already seen multiple times for example). Solo films are, in theory at least, more director driven and stand-alone.

Since the MCU method is the one most often praised as the correct one, I’ll start with that

Benefits

Audience attachment - While I don’t believe that solo films before a team-up are absolutely necessary for creating attachment, there’s no doubt that it is helpful and can make big team-up films easier as audiences will likely have at least one character they want to see in it.

World-building - The MCU approach can allow for audiences to be introduced to new parts of the universe and meet supporting characters more easily as well as add a sense of depth to the universe as a whole, making it feel more whole.

Easier film making - Introducing a lot of characters in one film can be very difficult and this approach means film makers won’t have to spend as much time on introductions and backstory and can cut right to the important stuff

Building on characters arcs - Through this method, film makers can build on what has been established already in solo films and develop the characters more efficiently in a team-up film as audiences will know their previous films

Freedom for solo directors - This approach can allow directors to set the first impression of a character, which can be critical, and put their own stamp on them. I still believe one of the best examples was the first Thor film where Kenneth Branagh was free to cast an actor of his choosing for the role and he picked Chris Hemsworth, who was perfect. Branagh was a lifelong fan of the character and it would have been unfair for him not to get a say in that element.

Downsides

The homework effect - This is starting to rear it’s head as an issue for the MCU as it can be very difficult for audience members to understand a major film if they haven’t followed all of the preceding ones so far and films outside of it can be seen as necessary and not in a good way. This also overlaps with frequent accusations of major studios, not just Disney, making things into trilogies that don’t need to be and dragging out stories for more profit.

Continuity lockout - As with the above, this is also starting to be an issue where it can be legitimately confusing to watch films if you don’t have a good knowledge of all the preceding ones. If your favorite Avenger is Captain America and you only want to see his films and skip others, you might find yourself wondering who Scarlet Witch and Vision are and why Steve and Tony are at each other’s throats. If you have no interest in any of those films but just want to watch Thor: Ragnarok because you’re a fan of Taika Waititi, you still have to at least know the plot of the last Thor film and who Doctor Strange is and other elements such as Thor’s scenes with Loki may lack weight if you haven’t seen The Avengers and first Thor film.

Investment - The aforementioned investment from the benefits is a double-edged sword. If you place your bets on a character people love, it works out brilliantly. But if you invest a lot of time and money in a failure, it can be tough to walk back from such a blunder.

This has happened in the MCU with the Inhumans. Disney spent years pushing for them in the comics and shows to take over for the X-Men. Agents of Shield was written to revolve heavily around them to create hype for a film that ended up becoming a TV series that failed spectacularly. This puts Disney in the awkward position of now trying to downplay the characters they spent years building up and Agents Of Shield is stuck being inextricably linked to a mythology no one cares about anymore.

Emphasis on luck - As noted above, this approach requires every piece to do it’s part and that requires a lot of luck. A single failed film can seriously damage future plans or overshadow them considerably. This occured with Marvel and Iron Fist which was intended to build hype for The Defenders which was seen as a crossover event similar to The Avengers. 

Unfortunately, Iron Fist was very poorly received by critics which ended up taking a lot of hype out of The Defenders, a fact not helped by Iron Fist being a fairly crucial building block which overlaps with the first downside. This ended with The Defenders, a show that once seemed like it would be one of Marvel’s defining accomplishments, getting a reception which mostly praised it in comparison to Iron Fist.

Aversion to Controversy- When you’re building such a universe, you want everything to work efficiently and that means not having any wild cards. This recently showed up with James Gunn who was dropped the instant any controversy arose about him because Disney didn’t want the bad press. The response ended up creating an even worse controversy which will have it’s own effects on the films.

Accusations of formula - The level of investment means that producers aren’t as willing to take chances. Directors seem and may feel like they are hired to set up the next big film rather than to make something unique and audiences may struggle to find a reason to see it.

Next up is the DCEU approach

Benefits

Peaking audience interest - The approach taken so far has allowed audiences to get an idea of what characters are like and build hype for a solo film from there. This worked amazingly well with Wonder Woman in BvS and there’s a strong possibility of it happening again with Aquaman and The Flash and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. On the Marvel side, it worked with Black Panther and Spider-man in Civil War, especially the latter who had to overcome the ‘’another Spider-man already?” reaction.

Less pressure on creators - Going with the above, actors in solo films don’t have as much pressure on them which is also handy if they’re relatively unknown as is increasingly the case. Creators can build upon what works and discard what doesn’t and they won’t worry as much if they appear first in a solo film. Tom Holland has said that playing Spider-man in Civil War first was extremely helpful for that exact reason. There’s also less pressure on directors to win people over to characters as that’s already happened.

Streamlined stories - I think a fact often missed out in this debate is that audiences don’t need to know or see everything. Things can only be hinted at or referenced in backstories and work just as effectively. This is especially true of characters we’ve seen a lot or whose stories we already know. I can’t give an estimation on how many people wanted another solo Batman film or rehash of his origin so soon but I reckon it was about zero. Further more, the success of the CW show means a lot of people know Flash’s backstory even if it’s another continuity. 

Other franchises such as Harry Potter and Lord of The Rings show that backstories don’t need to be seen right away or even at all. Marvel also showed this with Guardians of The Galaxy where their stories are only briefly shown or hinted in non-specific details and Spider-man’s backstory which, in the case of the latter, the average cinema goer already knows and will know exactly what Peter is talking about when he references tragedy in his past. 

Creative freedom - Warner Bros has always been a director driven studio and the DCEU has made an effort to live up to that. Whatever your feelings on them, Man Of Steel and Batman v Superman look and feel like Zack Snyder films and Aquaman looks set to follow with James Wan as hopefully will other films. This allows for films that feel unique and has the potential to attract other directors who worry about their vision being compromised for the sake of the franchise. Disney have learned this as well with films like Guardians of The Galaxy, Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok which weren’t as burdened with world building.

Easier access - Having films that are more stand alone can potentially allow for audiences who are uninterested in superhero films coming on board as they don’t have to worry as much about knowing a lot prior. Warner Bros are taking this a step further with the non-DCEU Joker film which, if it works, has the potential to raise immense possibilities for the genre as a whole which it needs to avoid the stagnation that is always being threatened as upcoming.

Downsides

Less audience investment - I said before that audiences don’t need to see characters on their own before a solo film and I stick by that but it is still a helpful tool in doing so. Not using it can be risky if you don’t know how to pull it off. 

Burden of exposition - Having a lot of characters in one film and giving each some kind of backstory can be tough and, if done poorly, can drag the film down. Justice League had mixed success with doing so, not helped by the cut running time.

Less freedom for solo directors - The DCEU approach means that directors in charge of solo films are already losing control of a major element which is casting and initial audience introductions. Sometimes, even most of the time, this can work out for the best as Patty Jenkins admitted she wouldn’t have cast Gal Gadot as Diana but it’s safe to say that the first Thor film might not have worked as well if Kenneth Brannagh hadn’t been the one to choice Chris Hemsworth for the role. 

They also don’t set the tone for the audiences’ first impression which can be critical. This can leave follow-up creators having to clean up messes more than make films and shows as was the case with Iron Fist’s appearance on The Defenders.

Less overt leadership - This can be a positive or negative depending on how you see it. On the one hand, not having a leader who sets a strict tone for films and outlines an arc can creates feelings of disjointedness. On the other, it does allow for more independence among directors even if WB have undercut that possibility with BvS and Justice League.

So that’s the benefits and downsides of the two franchises as I can see it. If I’ m missing anything, let me know.

Like I said at the start, I’m not trying to win anyone over. If you still feel like the DCEU would benefit from an approach like the MCU, that’s fine. I just wanted to outline the shades of grey in this discourse that I haven’t seen others mention. 

[a-salty-alto]

1) I’ve been re-watching the Ultron/Break Up Arc and I have decided that there are some issues with Steve in that arc. So, we all know Steve is Tony’s biggest supporter and is always trying to boost his confidence and all that jazz. So to suddenly see him so against Tony’s leadership when Tony’s been reckless and thoughtless in the past seems a bit out of character, or at least a little strange considering everything that they’ve been through and all the reckless things Tony has done in the past

2) Also, I understand what Tony is supposed to learn while broken, don’t always be reckless and know when to ask for help, I got that. But I don’t really understand what Cap is supposed to learn, he played outside the rules when rules is exactly what he wanted. He complained about Tony’s leadership being disorganized and needing structure, and yet he defied orders and did what he felt was right rather than following orders like he wanted to. Tony’s Arc is very clear to me, but Steve’s isn’t.

Pre-emptive apology because this is probably going to be really rambly and go off-topic becuase I have a lot of feelings about this arc.

Ok, so first off, I don’t like this arc, and as a result I don’t really like to go rewatch it, so I might not be a strong on the details of these episode as I would be with others like, say, “The Age of Tony Stark” so, sorry about that too. 

Actually getting to your first point, yes I find Steve’s leaving to be out of character, but for different reasons. Backing up a bit, the audience is really primed empathize with Tony’s desire to save Arsenal in this scene. Most episodes before this feature at the very least a cutaway to Tony working on Arsenal, and even some epsiodes that don’t like TAOTS further this by putting an emohasis on Tony’s relationship with Howard which is explicitly a reason Tony cares so much about Arsenal. Aditionally, the audience is presumably familiar with the tropes of “Robots and AI are equal to people,” and “I’m not going sacrifice my friend who is under some version of brainwashing/mind control.” All these added together means that audience is not surprised when Tony tries to avoid destroying Arsenal. This is standard hero fair. In fact one of my issues with this arc is that no one makes a connection to Bucky here since TWS falls under that latter trope and it kind of feels like Steve either  is being a hypocrite or Steve doesn’t adhere to that first trope and considers Arsenal disposble, as if Tony just inherited a fancy watch from Howard, which would make sense if you consider Steve’s attitude in seaosn 3 when Ultron pulls this same trick but posesses Tony instead is different and he shows much more reluctance to attack Tony than he does in attacking arsenal, This would also further justify Steve’s anger and induce favorite Civil War trope, “GOD DAMN IT JUST TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS” but wouldn’t mesh with the idea of Steve being an all around nice guy, especially given that Arsenal is generally adorable. It would be pretty hard to put Steve and Tony at equal moral footing if the writers had followed this idea to its fruition is what I’m saying, so I’ve basically just decided to let this point slide. 

Getting back on track, since the audience is more likely to be on Tony’s side here, it can be easy to miss that TONY REALLY FUCKED UP. This isn’t like other times where he overestimated his skills or put more faith in his tech than his friends, Tony lied, knowing full well he wasn’t going sacrifice Arsenal, and explicitly betrayed Steve’s trust, and allowed Ultron to get away and cuase further damage that spreads into later seasons. In the scene where Steve quits there isn’t moral discussion, its Steve going “you FUCKING LIED TO ME” and Tony going “yeah, becuase I didn’t think you’d let me save Arsenal.” It’s not a moral discussion, it’s an accusation that’s accepted and then given an explanation. 

WAIT A SECOND THIS IS THE FUCKING MINDWIPE WTF 

The only part of that that’s out of character is that Steve doesn’t call Tony out in front of the rest of the team. The end of the second episode should have been here. Or really, the team shouldn’t split up at all, they should end up voting tobench Tony for the duration of the Ultron thing becuase he’s clearly compromised, Tony should go sulk in Malibu so we can see more of SI and maybe Pepper- and I’m getting off topic. I’m analyzing this not rewriting it. Anyway, this is why Tony’s lesson is so much clearer than Steve’s, Tony’s the one who actually has to learn a lesson. Arguably Steve’s episode is about him learning what Tony’s motivations are after interacting with the Russian Guys and seeing them go behind their superiors back to help a friend. I mean, there’s not really a clear throughline between those two things, or at least it wasn’t as obvious to me on a first viewing, and there isn’t really a resolution to it but it is a possibility.

The only thing here is, I’m wrong. Steve does have a lesson to learn. Sort of, I think. Bare with me now, so that second episode where the team officially breaks up? Before the big dramatic simulataneous break up of the show’s three main power couples, Steve brings LMD’s to a fight that he presumably strongly suspected Ultron was at. There’s no real indication that Fury or Hill or someone forced Steve to bring them. That leads to Ultron having an LMD that he can use to trick a trap Tony sets for him. We can infer that the trap would have worked on the actual Ultron and would have potentially allowed Tony to save Arsenal. Instead, Tony has to blow up the ENTIREY OF SI’s SYSTEMS becuase he caught the LMD, not the actual Ultron, allowing Ultron to infect the system. 

Steve has pretty clearly fucked up here. Now, if Steve had brought the LMDs becuase he didn’t want to take the risk of going in alone or we’d seen Fury or Hill or Coulson say it’d be too risky to go in alone and Steve agreed, or if the thing was supposed to learn “let people take risks” becasue Tony’s risk using the SI system as bait would have worked if not for Steve’s actions then Steve would have had a lesson that paid off in the end of this arc when Steve tells Fury “taking a risk to save the world Tony does that 10 times before breakfast.” It would also be potentially reinforced by Steve’s episode because the Russian Guys take a risk to save their friends or something. 

The only thing is, Steve never really gets called out for the LMD thing to the extent that Tony gets called out for the lying thing. Maybe this is because in Steve’s case it was honest mistake, except Tony calls him out on it twice, and  Steve never counters with something along the lines of “I didn’t know Ultron was there,” or “the LMDs weren’t my choice it was a mistake, unlike when you chose to lie,” which would further highlight the severity of Tony’s actions in comparison to what he’s done in the past. Instead, when Tony calls him out on it, Steve goes “putting the blame on everyone but yourself, huh? Ultron wouldn’t even be here in the first place if you hadn’t lie,” which is flawed reasoning. It’s an Ad Hominen, Steve’s going “your argument is wrong becuase you did ‘x unrelated thing’” which doesn’t make him look good, it looks like he’s projecting. It in no way absolves Steve of guilt for the LMD thing that leads to Tony’s home and company being destroyed. Again this could have been intentional karmic punishment since Tony’s fuck up is more severe if we’re giving Stece the benefit of the doubt but I don’t think that properly telegraphed to the audience

None of this is helped by the fact the lesson in Steve’s episode is very muddled it isn’t clear what he’s getting from it at all. I can make arguments for an interpretation but I don’t think it’s as clear as with Tony.

I also kind of find the rules/ order vs chaos to be weird and out of place. As I hope I’ve adquately demonstrated, following rules doesn’t really factor into the initial conflict. It’s really more utilitarianism vs. kantianism. To me that aspect felt out of nowhere and superfluos.

Ok, I’m done. Hopefully I’ve answered your questions anon sorry it got really long. Hopefully it isn’t too rambly, I just feel like this arc has a lot of good elements and aspect that could have been explored or communicated better, and whenever I start talking about it, I kind of get all over the place.

And if anyone disagrees with my analysis, feel free to drop into my inbox. I like discussions and stuff as long as no one’s rude and accepts that everyone has different interpretations. This is just one 16 yo’s understanding of what’s going on.

[lore-a-lie]

Chapter 3, Act 4: The Phantom in their Paradise

Daily Life

Kaede woke the next morning with little thought of Monokuma’s odd behavior the night before. It wasn’t like any motives had been put in her room as far as she could tell. He could have just been acting strange for any number of reasons with what had been going on lately, so it was nothing worth lingering on for now.

Ryoma’s odd behavior as she saw him on the way to the dining hall was harder for her to brush aside.

He refused to so much as glance her way and his face was so red he could have had an actual fever. Trying to check in with him quickly proved fruitless as he just picked up his pace, but Kaede couldn’t understand why he’d be avoiding her now. It’s not like they parted on bad terms after training or anything, right?

At least he didn’t have any issues with Kaito at breakfast, but that hardly narrowed things down. Beyond hopefully ruling out him getting sick, considering that “mutating virus” talk before. Or if he does think he’s coming down with something he might be assuming Kaito already had it, who knows.

Out of respect for his apparent desire to keep his distance she sat between Tenko and Tsumugi after getting breakfast this time, since Kokichi was too close to Gonta and by extension Kiyo for comfort.

It was actually odd to see these two here without Angie, as she was the only person missing right now. But neither of the other girls seemed worried so she may have warned them she would be late. Might as well just focus on eating and worry later, if at all.

Considering what Angie did have to show for her tardiness worrying may have still been warranted. She came in bouncing as brightly as ever with her alola’s and hello’s, but her hands and jacket still had a lot of unsettlingly bright pink paint on them that rubbed Kaede wrong for reasons she couldn’t place. (Maybe they’re just too similar to Kibo’s current colors? It’s not like I don’t like pink normally. Hmm.)

Art stuff normally went over her head, and “Atua” is hardly any better, so Kaede honestly wasn’t paying too much attention to what she, Tenko, Tsumugi, and Tenko’s pigeon were discussing. (Especially since of the three the bird’s the one least likely to lose me or tick me off. Sorry John, but you’re not worth it.)

Not until the effigies from before came back up.

“Sooo, Angie has a question for everybody: Hypothetically if Atua made a series of wax sculptures for everyone who’s died so far where might it be a good place to set them all up?”

“... Tell me you’re kidding me Angie.” Kaito blanched at the news.

“Hypothetically I could be!”

“Jesus Christ on a cracker you actually did make more of those wax things didn’t you?”

“I don’t care where you put him Ryoma, his faith has no say here," Angie replied looking rather annoyed (or as annoyed as Angie'd ever show) that any god other of her own was brought up even as a swear. "Soooo?”

“That depends. “Hypothetically” how many does “He” have to find homes for?” Ryoma asked to further humor her, resting his shaking head in his hand.

“... Everyone? So...” Angie began counting her fingers for a moment before continuing. “11? Unless bears only count as half-a-person. But only because they’re bears Kibo!” She quickly added with some frantic hand waving to avoid any accusations of “robophobia” on her part, and her attempt to keep his feelings in mind seemed to make him happy. Or as happy as anyone could be with something so morbid.

“Why on earth would you include our tormentors too? Human losses are one thing, but them?” Kaito objected, looking particularly panicked.

“Aww, but Monophanie was nice. And Atua knows Monodam tried to be good. So it felt mean to leave anyone else out!”

“Oh, oh can I have Himiko?! Or Rantaro if Kaede’s not calling him.” (WHY WOULD I KOKICHI?!)

“... Whhhhy do you want the statue of a dead person Kokichi?” Tsumugi asked with a fair amount of suspicion in her tone.

“Reasons!”

“Why on earth would we ever let you have a tribute to Himiko?!” Tenko shouted, shoving the table a bit as she stood to confront him.

“Because I’m less likely to be a creeper towards her than you are for starters.”

“And you’d be keeping them where?” Angie asked, cutting off any argument the upset Tenko wanted to make. Her eyes started shining with unshed tears with his brutal reminder of how poorly she kept coming across. But she didn’t let any fall or give as much as a sniffle as she focused on John instead, who nuzzled her.

“In my room, duh. They won’t melt honest! Not so sure about not getting dinged up, but hey it'd be better than nothin'.”

“Should I be accusing you of hoarding right now or of protesting too much when you were so quick to consider me a necrophile yesterday?” Kiyo sniped with a glare, causing the trickster to pale.

“... Oh shit, you actually heard that. Whoooooops. Y'know what, nevermind Kaede can keep them!”

“I never said I wanted either of them, why would I?!” Kaede quickly objected.

“You’re so mean Kaede, does that mean you only want the bears to finish your doll collection?!” Kokichi huffed, causing Kaito and Ryoma to snicker some while others like Gonta were left looking very confused.

“I don’t want any of these things, stop putting weird words in my mouth! Can’t we just put them in their original labs or something?!”

“Forgive me if I’m mistaken but if their realism is what makes them “creepy” wouldn’t separating them make it worse? And where would Rantaro and the cubs even go?” Kiyo pointed out.

“We can just put them in Kirumi’s lab or Tsumugi’s then. Probably Kirumi’s since it’s more out of the way and replacing the figures she’d “serve” would be easy enough right?” Ryoma suggested.

“Why even suggest my lab then?!” Tsumugi asked, just as uncomfortable as Kaede was at being dragged into this discussion.

“Space mostly, I mean no one would want these things in Kiyo’s lab right?”

“Only if you understand I would move them myself periodically just to see how you all react to them.” Kiyo teased.

Angie wasn’t amused by the idea of Kiyo messing with her artworks however and responded the most civil and mature way she knew how: by reaching into her coat’s pockets and tossing salt at his face.

“May the power of salt compel you!”

Kiyo however refused to be compelled. It did seem to make him salty in a different sense though with how his eye started twitching. “... That isn’t how this works. At all. First, I know for a fact no salt we have in this place has been purified, and I highly doubt any of your dubious “credentials” could be used to change that. They wouldn’t be able to so much as slow a spirit, much less banish one. Second I doubt any here have the impurities supposedly needed to induce a change within a person’s soul.”

“May the power of Atua compel you!”

“I am genuinely more inclined to listen to the table salt if those are my options.”

“... May the power of Tenko compel you-”

“I swear I won’t touch your statues Angie, no need to go so far.” Kiyo conceded, proving he did have a shred of self-preservation left after all.

“Can I “compel” him anyway?” (Boy we get off topic easily.)

“Tenko no.” Kaede said with a long-suffering sigh.

“Tenko yes!” Angie cheered, as if trying to start a “wave” with her arms as she beamed.

“Your vote doesn’t count Angie! And neither does Kokichi’s.” Kaito said while batting at Kokichi who was primed to throw his own two cents in too. Making both complain, though Angie's was indecipherable to them.

“Awwww but who wouldn’t want to see that?”

“I’d like to not risk executing Tenko today thanks.” Kaede deadpanned back at the brat.

“Have more faith in Kiyo’s durability than that!” Angie tried, in their language again rather than her random ramblings, swaying from side to side.

“No, that sounds like the right amount of faith to me. I’m a killer, not a fighter. I only bested Kirumi because she was surprised and blinded at the time, I’d heard the sort of “tasks” she had done before.”

“Gonta not sure that sort of thing Kiyo should be admitting to.”

“I thought your supervision was as much for my safety as it was for everyone else’s. Were you lying to me?” Kiyo asked with an exaggeratedly shocked expression at Gonta's "betrayal".

“No, but still sound bad.” Gonta said, giving Kiyo his best scowl. Or tried to, but only really managed a cute pout, since he was lacking the sort of terrifying aura he could get when he was really mad.

Tsumugi looked thoughtful again as she spoke more to the ceiling than her classmates after a thought occurred to her. “... Actually if Kiyo acts up, and he really is “possessed” like they say they are, I have one of those cleansing air fresheners that’s supposed to have holy water in it which might help.”

“ You wouldn’t DARE. ” (... Yeah, not many would "dare" when you get like this. Living is kinda nice and all. But why not do it anyway? It’d serve him right and get rid of one of the perpetrators. No! That’s too risky.)

“OHH, OHH, PICK ME! PICK ME! I WOULD! I WOULD!” (I get where you're coming from but please stop making yourself a target Kokichi! If she’s gone and his “limits” go with her, he might actually kill you.)

“H-hey come on Kokichi I’m the one she keeps singling out! If she’s offering it I should have it, not you.” Kaito argued.

“Please, there’s no need to get like this! We don’t have to fight amongst each other. Perhaps we could continue our trip to the virtual world? Or help Angie move her figures?” Kibo interrupted, hoping to stop any fighting he could.

“Or we could try getting rid of Monokuma so we don’t need to deal with this anymore,” Kaito offered. When he saw the series of blank faces look back at him he clarified what he had in mind.

“I’m serious. There’s only one Exisal now, and we know where the mastermind would need to go if they want to make more Monokumas. I mean I don’t think we have any reason to doubt Shuichi was right about the secret of that hidden room behind the bookshelf, he was the Ultimate Detective. So if we can break him when he’s outside the Exisal, and keep eyes on everyone so whoever the mastermind is can’t run off to replace him in case there was another entrance there, we’d be safe right? Either we could break the Exisal too, or maybe one of us can pilot it if we can find where they go when they’re inactive.”

Should I tell him about the grenades? The mastermind may not know I have them, and with them destroying Monokuma and the Exisal could be possible! This could make a good trap for them too.

Before Kaede could decide, Kibo objected. “And what happens if we misjudge things?! What will happen if Monokuma comes back, or if there are already two Monokumas, the one we see and one in the black Exisal? Could we even beat one normal Exisal, much less one that could be even more advanced?”

“I-I agree. I don’t want to risk losing anyone else if we can help it! With one plainly obvious exception.”

After giving Tsumugi an exasperated scowl at her obvious jab Kiyo joined in on this new scrum too. “I hate to disappoint but I’m not one of those suited to such a task. But going on the offensive could be to our benefit, as dangerous as it would be. There aren’t any motives to distract, and it could well narrow down who our mastermind could be. Provided such an attempt doesn’t get us all killed of course.”

“And that being a possible outcome at all is proof we shouldn’t do that yet! Not until we don’t have any options left, like if the kill or be killed style motive comes back so there wouldn’t be anything left to lose. Aren’t you all typically in favor of thinking the “motives” could help find an escape as well, or solve the mastermind question on it’s own? And what if the outside isn’t as safe for us as this place still is?” Angie brought up.

“But a pre-emptive strike could be enough to help us find out how to get out of here before a motive can turn us against each other again!” Tenko began, before she reconsidered her stance. “But… Even if we are immune, the world outside could be worse. I-I mean… I’m not sure I’m okay with doing something so dangerous only to find out everyone’s… gone.”

“Even if the truths we could find may be worse isn’t that worth the risk? At least then we’d know. What happened to the world, any of our friends and families, all of it. Then we could move forward.” Ryoma said, trying to sway her, but with no real success.

“And that’s assuming all that end of the world sorta stuff was true in the first place. We won’t know until we can get out, riiight?” Kokichi suggested, but it was hard to tell if he was doing more harm than good.

“But… Gonta think it safer to act like it is, right? Prepare for worst so good news is better. Gonta no want to risk leaving friends in danger if there chance fighting not be best plan.”

“So we’re basically deadlocked again? Let’s just think on it then. I mean it’s definitely not a bad idea, just a risky one. So let’s just let Kibo continue his tour for now, okay?” (And I’ll think about if now’s the time for Miu’s last gift to us to come into play. It might take two of the bombs to take out that new Exisal after all.)

Kaito wasn’t exactly pleased with the idea, probably for multiple reasons despite enjoying the virtual world for the most part, but no one complained in the end. Particularly not Kibo, who nearly ran up the stairs in his excitement to show off the rest of his hard work to everyone.

The logging in process went by more smoothly than the time before, though Kibo still entered it last to ensure no one had any problems. Well “last” if you weren’t counting Shinguji, which was easy to do.

As he promised before she did have her own avatar this time, but chest aside it wasn’t too different from her brother’s still. It was more like she just had Kibo mirror Kiyo’s sprite and take off his hat so she could use the ornament in her hair like she had supposedly done during the Ultimate talent show. The mask and bandages were also gone in her case, but Kiyo’s wraps were also changed into striped gloves that mimicked them for “safety reasons”.

Kaede hadn’t been the one to ask, so she assumed either Kiyo brought it up or Kibo realized the dangers himself when he was changing Shinguji’s avatar settings. (Or making her settings, whichever works best. Still, I need to stop being so forgetful, that could've been dangerous! Jeez, so many things to juggle.)

Still, despite how… unwholesome the siblings’ relationship was, the two chose to keep things mostly tame. Kiyo more so than his sister, who was clearly enjoying everyone’s discomfort including his own. Which was appreciated by everyone to various extents, particularly those who enjoyed this world.

Kibo still led the way to the bridge while Kaito, Angie, and Tenko trailed close behind. Kaito got quickly sidetracked when he caught sight of a sign near the river that said this place was “Mirai Hills”, and pointed out how “Future Hills” didn’t make too much sense which suited a game world’s location.

The bridge over the river was narrow and didn’t have any type of visible safety rails, so just like the doorways everyone had to go one at a time, but it felt sturdy under their feet. It made sense, with the unbreakable object rule, but was still comforting with how strong the current was under them.

But when they got to the other side there was nothing there, despite Kibo looking as proud as a peacock.

“And here we are! The looping point.”

“... Gonta no understand.”

“O-oh… Hmm, maybe it’d be best to see it for yourselves first. So just follow me, I promise it’s harmless!”

Despite his words when he crossed the point where the world seemed to end he disappeared. Kaito was the first to try to follow, but Kaede could tell he was worried that Kibo made a mistake with the program. Angie pushed Tenko through the rift next, while Kokichi went after them. Gonta insisted Tsumugi go next and that the Shinguji siblings go before he did, leaving Kaede and Ryoma alone.

“S-so, you want to go next or should I?”

“Which would be easier for you?”

“Hey, I’m not scared! … Much. And what’s your excuse Edgelord McEdgyson?”

“Just letting the lady go first Sweetheart.”

“S-sweetheart?” (What? Why is that nickname making me blush like this? It’s just a generic thing, and I teased him first so it’s not that out of line. Jeez, my heart’s still pounding, but it’s not from fear anymore.)

Whatever the reason could be Ryoma looked just as surprised he called her that, sporting a fierce blush of his own. But she didn’t see it for long, since she looked away to hide how red her face felt. And she’d completely forgotten how fast Ryoma could be when he wanted to, looking back to where he was only to see air. (Hey, no fair! So much for ladies first. Not sure I can really blame him escaping the awkward, but still!)

With no choice left Kaede made herself walk through the rift in the world, and met with the weirdest sensation when she did. She knew she’d only taken two steps to get through but it felt like she was moving more than that, despite not being able to move much less see or hear. Like she was sleep walking.

And suddenly she felt awake again, and saw her friends near the church somehow. “Huh?”

“And that’s the map loading point everyone! Only physical objects and people can pass through, which causes some sensory delay. Neat, right?!”

“Well thank you Kibo, I’m impressed.” Korekiyo claimed, making Kibo excited to go on before continuing. “Every time I think I can’t despise this place more you find a way to prove I was terribly mistaken.” (Oh come on, no need to be so mean about it! Why get Kibo's hopes up like that before crushing them you jerk?!)

As Kibo's eager expression sunk like stone Shinguji took the first chance to tease her little brother.“Only because you’re one of the few people who could manage to get cabin fever while outdoors, my dear Korekiyo. Though I think I enjoy hearing your internal screaming more than seeing it like this.”

“When it’s this artificial what’s the difference between this and being inside? It can’t be called “nature” when it’s made so unnaturally yes?”

“Hmmm, I see. Angie mostly agrees but she doesn’t mind it! Much less humid that the real outside is. Sometimes artificial stuff is better, like strawberries or cherry candies!” Angie chimed, nudging Kibo a bit in an attempt to help cheer him back up.

“Gonta not sure how we got here though… ”

Kibo looked ready to answer that, eager to salvage what confidence he could, before Kiyo interrupted with a blinking exclamation mark floating above him. “Do you have a handkerchief Gonta? Monogrammed or not, either will work.”

Gonta checked his pockets and pulled out the desired scrap of fabric, which Kiyo then made a basic loop out of.

“See where the right side now reaches the left? Think of that brief moment of disconnect as our avatars jumping over that small gap. Does this make sense to you?”

“Oh, Gonta understand! Gonta couldn’t see because Mini-Gonta closed his eyes because he got scared when he jumped to other side. Poor Mini-Gonta, Gonta no want to make him scared again.”

“... If that’s how it makes sense to you then I’m glad to be of service.” Kiyo said, giving Kibo a smug look as he did. The poor ‘bot did look rather deflated, much like Kiyo did when his avatar lesson failed before. (Sorry Kibo, It looks like Kiyo doesn’t want to lose his teaching job to anyone… Maybe because with how he is it would be better for everyone if he didn’t try teaching for real later. Unless it’d be at an all boys school?)

“Well now that we’re here we can look inside the chapel at least! Though it’s kinda messy compared to the mansion. I think it’s leftovers from a Christmas or New Year’s event, but it’s all completely safe! All the streamers are gone now, and anything else that could be used as a rope is too short to hurt anyone.”

“Well that’s a shame, ropes can be so much fun to play with.” Shinguji complained as she toyed a bit with her own long locks as she gave her brother a look.

“S-sister!” Kiyo practically hissed, not that Tenko noticed with how she brightened at the change for a far more innocent conversation starter.

“Oh you do cat’s cradle too Shinguji? Master would have me play it when I got too hyper as a kid!”

“Hmm, Hmm~ I don’t think that’s what she’s talking about.” Angie interuppted, giving the sblings quick suspicious glances before locking eyes with her friend again hoping she'd get the message.

“... Ohhhhhh. Nevermind then.”

“I’m not too sure you’d like “playing” with us anyway." Shinguji shrugged, before giving Kaede a once-over. "Miss Akamatsu on the other hand could work.”

“WHAT?!”

“Sister that’s enough, please.” Kiyo definitely didn't beg.

“Fine, fine. Still disappointing, but it’s not like I could do much sewing in here so it’s hardly a loss.”

“May Atua reach out to you both and cleanse your souls of their impurities for your redemption, Amen.”

“Unlikely, Miss Yonaga. If your God wasn't dead before I'm confident he is by now with this group of idiots.”

"Sister, that's not what Nietzsche meant by "we killed him" and you know it."

“I don’t know, maybe something holy could make you a bit less like the just plain creepy stringy haired girls you see in horror movies.” Tsumugi quietly offered.

“My sister is not an onryō! Not all spirits are malevolent ones, death just… changed her a little.” Kiyo said ever on the defensive where she was concerned.

“I’d say it was more like time and illness changed me, but indeed. My mind is still human, thank you.”

“Well of course you’d claim something like that, but what human being would ever want to kill 100 people for company?!” Tsumugi snapped with a surprising anger behind her.

“One whose ill body lead to an ill soul and mind, which my brother has been working to amend for me. What sort of cosplayer would claim to be allergic to dressing up as someone who existed?!” The specter spat back.

“What?!” (Oh god not this again. I don’t suppose we could just go inside without them?)

“How on earth is the act of dressing up in costumes for personal enjoyment as expressions of their passions made invalid simply because they choose to embody the characteristics of the deceased?”

“But that isn’t cosplay anymore-” Tsumugi tried to counter, but there was no stopping the tirade now.

“How is it NOT cosplay?! Your “anime” already HAS characters based on genuine historical figures, so what makes this so different? I had more than ample time on my hands when I was ill to see enough of that drivel to know this for an absolute fact.” Shinguji scoffed as everyone not named Tsumugi tried to put as much distance between the two girls as possible.

The fact this included an exhausted looking Kiyo brought a smug look to Kokichi's face, which the taller boy didn't hesitate to smack him for.

“Because those people did actually exist, it’s not bringing a fictional character to life like cosplay does! AND YOU TAKE THAT BACK!”

“Then tell the Fate series to give Alexander of Macedonia back first because even they knew how badly they messed him up! And apologize for what they did to Gilgamesh of Mesopotamia while they’re at it.”

“T-that’s completely different, those changes are what makes them fictional characters! And you can’t prove that other person existed at all-”

“Are you so sure about that? Because I’m fairly certain we could at least narrow down what he likely looked like, like having a beard for starters. Not to mention how they missed the point of his epic poem.”

Seeing familiar territory Kiyo did feel comfortable enough speaking up. “What exactly makes it so different anyway? These historical figures were invoked in the work itself as expressions of “love” for this subject yes? What of the cultures where dressing up as those that are gone are a key aspect of their beliefs regarding keeping their memories, histories, or stories alive?”

“Kiyo, don’t encourage them. We didn’t pass on a chance for an epic Maki vs. Tenko smackdown to watch a nerd rage debate between our fangirl and your geeky dead sister.” Kokichi said, bringing Kiyo's position more to his sister's attention which got her brother a glare for his "betrayal" of not siding with her stronger.

Shrinking into the group best he could the anthropologist made the smarter call. “Fine, as you wish. But I’m also not going to be the one to stop them should things get out of hand.”

The benefit from the interruption of the yelling match was it gave Kibo a chance to try and help diffuse thing. “Umm, Miss Shinguji? I understand if you think Tsumugi’s argument is disrespectful, but it does appear to be a genuine condition, regardless of if it may be coming from her state of mind more than anything. Could we just go inside please? I’d rather not log you out to give you time to cool off and join up with us.”

“ Fine .” Shinguji said, but the glowing red vein markings that appeared on her head told a different story.

Kibo wasn’t kidding when he said the inside was a mess. Some stacks of full boxes looked like they could easily crush a person if they fell on them, but he did try to make that unlikely by stacking them so the largest where along the wall behind several smaller stacks or placed directly on the pews.

He probably put the “lightest” of the big boxes on top too, with the heaviest on the ground like he did with the pews. I wonder if he had to do this in-game or in the programming.

“Hey wait, Kibo, aren’t those fireworks?! You said all the dangerous stuff was gone!” Tenko panicked.

“... You do realize explosives can’t work if the canister can’t break right?" Kibo asked looking rather insulted that she'd think he'd overlook something like that. "Besides, even if you lit the wick the fire wouldn’t be able to catch onto it. … Assuming fire can work here at all, I can’t remember if I allowed them to do that in the kitchen. Since food not working makes cooking unnecessary anyway.”

“Then why keep something that’s plain useless at all? They’re just teasing us like this.”

“If you think I should get rid of them just ask me about it outside, okay? I just focused on your safety.”

“Actual outside, the school’s “outside”, or the “outside” inside this machine?” Kiyo deadpanned.

“Can it Kiyo, we all know what he means.” Kaito scolded, but when he tied to give Kiyo a pat on his back Shinguji interrupted him by clinging to her brother like she was a vicious koala. Or just a normal koala, if Kaede remembered right. Either way Kaito backed off in record time and everyone tried to ignore them.

As Kaede went to get a closer look at the stained glass window she noticed a familiar looking shape to her left. “Kibo you didn’t tell me they had an organ in here! Ooooh I wonder if it works~”

“Are they that similar to pianos? If I knew that I would have said something sooner, sorry!”

“It’s fine! Is everyone okay with me playing it right now? It’s been awhile since I tried one.”

Upon hearing no real objections Kaede began to play, giving the others some background music while they looked through some of the supply boxes to see if there were any books or games of note here.

Or most of them did anyway. Angie and Kokichi were instead teasing Shinguji with alternate nicknames for her to use, ranging from trying to make her “Kiyo” and Kiyo into "Kork”, which nearly got Gonta to intervene for Kokichi’s safety, to Angie making Shinguji some variant of “Kore” which wasn’t much better.

Kiyo mostly ignored them (minus the "'cause he needs to put a cork in it" incident) and encouraged his sister to do the same, but when some were enough to get him to chuckle under his breath his sister would glare at him until he apologized. (That’s not a good sign. My sister and I tease each other all the time, and we’ve seen Shinguji do the same to him so what gives? Even... “romantic” partners are allowed to do that much, with limits, right? This feels way too one-sided.)

As if in petty revenge for her brother’s “transgression” it sounded like Shinguji started going around, flirting with the girls and what not. Sounded like only because Kaede still preferred focusing on finding simple tunes to play to pass the time. But for whatever reason Kiyo seemed more content than jealous from what Kaede wasn't able to tune out. He was probably the only one who was, as even Tenko seemed uncomfortable despite mostly enjoying her attention.

Which was all well and good until Shinguji made her way to the organ and rested against it to talk to her.

“You have a twin, don’t you, Miss Akamatsu?”

“Yeah, just a little bit younger than me. Why?”

“Have you heard of the old Japanese myth that if star crossed lovers commit suicide they are reborn as twins? I wonder if that’s meant to be a blessing or a curse, keeping them together with a new taboo.”

“If you’re still here I’m not sure if reincarnation is really possible. Wouldn’t you have lost “friends” by now if it was?” Kaede responded, trying to stay as calm as she could.

“You’re no fun. But know my earlier offer still stands, since you’re the only girl who’s shown him enough positive attention I doubt my Korekiyo would object to us “sharing” you, with or without this simulation. It’s been awhile since we played that game with anyone.” (WHAT?! HELL NO! EW. NOT. HAPPENING.)

Before Kaede could recover from her internal screaming to answer, Angie started praying for their souls again and Kibo pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and said “Sister Shinguji” into it. (Like a nun? Weird.)

And in a blink of light Shinguji was gone.

“ANGIE’S PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED, PRAISE BE TO ATUA!”

“No they haven’t, that was just me. I wanted the portable phone to be a surprise. It’s just like a landline.” Kibo explained.

Not that said explanation helped set Angie straight any. “Kibo has become a blessed divine instrument of Atua!”

“... I don’t think I am. Since I denounced Him and all.”

“ WHAT DID YOU DO ? ”

To say Korekiyo was livid was an understatement, but if Shinguji’s resemblance to the likes of Medusa was uncanny his wouldn’t be too far from it either. And all of his rage was targeted at Kibo, who was too shocked to do much of anything as Korekiyo lifted him by his collar. (I guess weights were also made equal. Should we let him vent, like Kaito often does, or stop him right now? Would it look bad if I freeze him right now? Should I let another girl do it instead?)

“We already discussed the way the two of you work Kiyo, there’s nothing for you to worried about! Please calm down!”

“How could I possibly be calm when you took my sister from me?! " He snarled. "How do you know she’ll behave the same as I do, when it’s my body out there?! I can’t afford to lose her again! Do you have any idea what I went through when I lost her the first time?!”

Korekiyo still wouldn’t put him down as he shook him, ready to lash out at anyone who tried to intervene as he ranted. But he hadn’t actually tried to hurt Kibo yet, which was a small blessing.

But with his focus bouncing wildly between Kibo and the others and his hair in such disarray he didn’t notice the small girl sneaking up behind him. Not until Angie popped up beside him and poked his nose with a little spoken “boop”. Like she was trying to imitate pressing a button, which wasn’t too far off.

She kept her finger there as Kaito and Gonta forced Korekiyo’s fingers let go, which wasn’t as hard as it initially looked. Tenko already proved that while the avatars couldn’t move others moving them was easy.

With Kibo safely tucked behind Gonta and Tsumugi comforting him, Angie finally pranced her way back to Tenko and waited to see if this calmed Korekiyo down at all.

Which it didn’t seem to at all when he regained control of himself, but as panicked as he still was he restrained himself to glaring accusingly at everyone else around them. But with the way he was on the brink of tears they didn’t have the same sort of impact as he seemed to hope they would have had.

He wasn’t settled by any of his own attempts to try to rationalize his anger either, most notably pointing out Kibo had no issue with Miu getting away with far more indecent humor than his sister did. Even if that may not be for long, as like Miu she also had problems with socializing due to a lack of proper practice.

It wasn’t until Shinguji came through the church’s doors that he became anything like his usual self again, immediately taking her into a hug with enough force to spin her in the air, before placing her behind him.

While she petted his hair in a way that could appear comforting at a glance, and he clearly took it as such with how he leaned his head into it, nothing about her came across as the least bit concerned. It was more like she was annoyed by Kibo’s stunt more than anything, despite seeing how much it terrified him.

But there was one thing that puzzled her that she needed an answer to. “Idabashi, had I misheard during our little mishap just now or did you address me as “Sister Shinguji” for your portable phone?”

“... Well no one else was giving me something to work with so I wasn’t sure what else I could call you. Without upsetting anyone I mean. Do you need me to change it again?”

“No, not at all. It’s fitting to have a parody of a nun’s title in a false place of worship in a way, no?”

“Sooo, would that make Kiyo your “priest” then?” Tsumugi asked.

“... Tell me you aren’t suggesting that you think nuns, women who have pledged their body and soul to the God they essentially have married, are ever allowed to have sex, much less that their male counterparts can in most practices? And heaven forbid either try with each other,” Korekiyo warily stated.

“Oh, so they’re not like our shrine maidens then Kiyo?” Tsumugi asked again, a bit more confused.

“... My apologies sister, I now know EXACTLY the sort of thing you were complaining about in regards to how disconnected to reality she truly is.”

“H-hey, you could just answer me directly!” (Did you really need to ask for a lesson Tsumugi?!)

“In brief: Anime and manga for any Christian or Catholic practices are often terribly mistaken for working like our own Miko and whatnot, since Japanese creators rarely have a true understanding of how they work or their significance to their believers. Even some Japanese Christians may have an entirely different method of performing their religious ceremonies, since they were separated by most “official” leaders for so long after the religion was once made taboo on our shores.”

“Also yes, some sects may allow their higher ups marriage or sex, but they often value their “virtue” of chastity too much to be particularly common. What need does a “Father” or “Mother” have for biological children when they have so many lambs they need to raise the best they can for their “God”?”

“Okay, okay~ But can you two not do shared lessons? Atua believes one of you is more than enough.” Angie said to try and shut the two up, again annoyed at another religion getting more "attention" than her own.

“In my defense I did say I intended it to be a short one. I have no say on if my sister wants to expand on anything for the sake of clarity.” Korekiyo said with a shrug as his sister quietly giggled behind her hand.

“Just because he has more knowledge of this sort of thing than I do, I also like showing off when I can.”

“Still, Angie makes a point. If you two do this outside things might get a bit too confusing and distract us from what you’re trying to tell us about. So maybe keep it to a minimum at least please?”

“Only if we can finally leave now, Kibo. There isn’t anything left to show us, yes?” Korekiyo asked.

“Right, that’s fine with me since I also showed you the cell phone item. If anyone wants to come back later, like to keep Kiyo and Shinguji in here while they’re normally being watched, just ask me okay?”

With two means of logging out the process went a lot faster than last time, and adjusting to the Shinguji problem was made simpler too. It hardly mattered who left when anymore, as long as Gonta went before those two so they wouldn’t try anything stupid, but few actually thought that either would right now.

This time Korekiyo still had control when they all got out, but for whatever reason Tenko kept looking at him funny. Like she was scanning him for weapons and confused why she kept coming up empty.

“Is there something the matter Tenko? Are you disappointed to not see my sister anymore? I’d more than understand if that’s the case.”

“W-what?! No! It’s just… something’s not right here.” She said with a mild blush. (News flash Tenko: Nothing has EVER been right. Not in school, not on the general campus, not in the killing game idea, and not even in Kibo’s program!)

“And how exactly does that involve me specifically? If it’s another attack on my sister I advise against it.”

Tenko looked disgusted, ashamed, and appalled by what she thought would answer things. “Tenko might need you to kinda sort of need you to take off your jacket again and pad you down. But only the jacket, got it?! It just looks like it’s on the thick side so it’d be harder to find anything than if it was just the shirt under it!”

“Kibo, are you sure everyone’s wires were matched correctly before we went in? Because I thought I just heard our dear Tenko ask one of her hated menaces to disrobe of her own volition. How scandalous,” Korekiyo teased.

“Well I thought I heard  the serial killer with an incister try calling someone else “scandalous” so we might need to check his wires too,” Kokichi joked back, which soured any good mood Korekiyo may have been getting back before.

“Hey, I’m being serious! This is could be important!” Tenko tried to argue despite her embarrassment, and Korekiyo relented with an eye-roll and a shrug as he stood up with his arms outstretched. It seemed like he was already very used to these procedures, which considering his appearance and time traveling he likely was. Either between rightly concerned local police, airport or border security, or a bit of all three types.

As she tried to mimic a pat down, as if from memory of how they were meant to be done, it was clear she was using more force than she needed to as he’d almost flinch with each hit. She was still red as Himiko’s hair but her embarrassment was soon replaced with resolve and some confusion as she avoided looking at his face as she worked. But for whatever reason she kept focusing on his button down’s chest and back.

“I must say, out of everything I expected to be subjected to today being groped by you wasn’t one of them.”

“H-HEY, I AM NOT! I-it’s just a pat down thing!”

“Your areas of focus say otherwise, I’m very well versed in both forms of “attention” I assure you.”

To say she retreated as if touching him would burn her would be an understatement, much to Gonta’s relief due to how “improper” this all was. Everyone else was just confused. But Tenko wasn’t done just yet as she pointed at him accusingly. “Fine, I need you to switch with Shinguji for a bit!”

“If that’ll be enough to put my jacket back on and end this charade, very well.” He replied, very tired of whatever Tenko was trying to do. But as the mask came off her previous observation was made obvious.

“I KNEW IT! Tenko knows a titty when she sees one! Er, wait-” Tenko realized her mistake too late as her friends already began to snicker. Particularly Kokichi, who just had to embarrass her even more.

“Don’t worry we’ll definitely believe you about that~”

“T-THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT! DON’T TAKE THAT OUT OF CONTEXT!”

“Is it really that much better in context?” Ryoma deadpanned with a smirk.

“Nope~ too late. I have never wished I had a recording device more than right now,” Kokichi continued.

“Well we do actually." Kibo happily informed him. "I’ve always had a recording function! I can use the playback if you like?”

“NOOOOOO-”

“YEEEEEEEEEEES!”

Kibo took a moment to prove his claim, though it was oddly old technology compared to the rest of him. Kaede really tried to ignore that and what the metal tape recording did to the sound quality while Kokichi’s grinning face lit up almost as much as Tenko’s fell and turned red.

“Nee-heehee~ Kiiiiiiiiiiibo, have I told you today how much I looooove you?~ <3”

“...No. And I will give you a copy if you agree to never say anything like that to me ever again.”

“DEAL! No lying or take backsies either, pinkie promise!” If Kokichi was any more of a dog he could have probably worked as a fan with how fast his tail would have been wagging as he held out his little finger.

“I’ll pass on that thanks.”

“And you people wonder why I hate men?! How dare you, Kibo, you traitor! You’re just another one of those miserable piles of secrets, just like him!” Tenko wailed and pointed at Kibo accusingly.

“Hey, no one would blame you for hating this guy Tenko, just stop dragging the rest of us into it!” Kaito objected, who finally managed to stop laughing.

“Where exactly am I falling with this? I am being judged based on my brother’s sex or my own? And why are you all acting like this is some sort of shock? He already told you this can happen with our condition.”

“Gaaaah, why did you need to ask Tenko these questions?! I don’t like the images that puts in my head!” (NO ONE DOES! GOD WHY MUST THEY BE LIKE THIS?!)

“Can you just… change back or something now? Because Fem!Kiyo’s weird enough to look at even without your… You. I don’t even know if this means I’ve lost as a woman or not with how weird this all is.” Tsumugi asked, but Keade couldn’t tell if she was more frustrated or depressed by everything going on.

“Kukukuku~ Oh my, does your rudeness truly know no bounds? I must say I’m quite hurt, Miss Shirogane. Honestly, I have no idea how He can still think of the rest of you so highly with how you insist on treating us both.”

“Hey, you monsters have no right to judge us! Though... I guess you aren’t technically a degenerate male. But I’m still not trusting you with anything either as you aren’t much better. And that wasn’t the point!”

Tenko got a hold of herself enough to finish explaining her odd behaviors. “The point was this means you can’t just be some delusion right?! Bodies can’t just do… this. The same thing happened at the party, Miu told me she noticed too so I wasn’t just seeing things! Kiyo’s not binding or anything so this really did just happen... Whatever that means. Beyond being physical proof the supernatural exists I guess?”

“If you wanted to know if they were real you could have just asked-”

“NO! NOT YOU, NOT YOURS.” (Wow, this might be the closest Tenko ever gets to rejecting another girl. But is it progress or just her survival instincts finally kicking in?)

“Maybe it could still be a type of delusion if we were already in some sort of virtual simulation? Wouldn’t that be a wild plot twist! Not sure if that explains the cameras though, those still definitely exist.” Kokichi offered, still doing little to explain things one way or the other.

“Why would we have access to a system like that if we’re already in one?!” Kibo was quick to shoot back.

“For the mindfuckery of it all? Pretty sure that could score it some extra meta cred or something.”

“That would explain how my dear Korekiyo’s able to eat and drink through his masks too, wouldn’t it?”

“Huh~ Are you saying you don’t know how that works either?” Angie couldn’t help but ask.

“Not at all, I’ve never needed to try it. Just like how he doesn’t need to know how to repair our clothing. But He’s always been good at little tricks like sleight of hand or knowing how to keep things out of sight.”

“Sooo how do you not smear the lipstick under there? You both have to know that one right?” Tsumugi started to inquire. Fitting with how important details like that could be to her work.

“Please, you can talk makeup with her later. Would you please just switch back for now?” Kaede sighed.

“Well as you’ve asked me so politely Miss Akamatsu, fine.” She replied, lifting the mask back across the bridge of their nose. And just like that what little of a chest Korekiyo’s body did develop under the white fabric was gone too.

“I do hope everyone’s most satisfied with this little demonstration now. I would very much like to put my jacket back on if you don’t mind.”

“For the record Kiyo: Fuck your sister and everything she represents okay?” (Kaito why are you trying to piss him off?! I know Shinguji scares you but please don’t! Korekiyo wouldn’t really kill you for this right?)

But as clear as the rage was that crossed Korekiyo’s visible features, he soon took a breath and calmed back down. He almost looked hurt before trying to make himself appear less offended and more lighthearted.

“I thought none of you approved of me doing that?” (GAAAH, can we please just forget that’s a thing?! Too gross to think about. And disturbing, on many levels. At least they can’t really do… That, anymore? RIGHT???)

“GODDAMNIT KIYO!”

“Nee-heehee~ Come on you practically walked right into that one Kaito.”

“MOVING ON. Angie you still need help with moving your sculptures right? Let’s go do that.” Kaede said.

“Oh! Yes, yes that’s a divine idea! But Kiyo can’t help. He’s done enough to Maki and Kirumi.”

“I never did anything to Maki and you know that!”

“Except keep quiet about what Kirumi was planning and helped get her killed as a result.” Ryoma coldly stated, taking Kiyo off guard. But despite looking like he wanted to object to that accusation, he didn’t.

Instead Kokichi decided to mess with him some more. “Hey Gonta, you said only good people like bugs right? So maybe showing Kiyo how great alllll your bug friends are will help make him a better person!”

“I don’t dislike bugs in the first place, within reason, due to their cultural significance to many peoples-”

“You confessed to eating them Kiyo, that counts!” Kokichi argued with a shit eating grin on his face.

“Just because you’re willing to eat something, that doesn’t mean you hate the creature killed to make it.”

“... Tell me you’ve never eaten a dog.” Kaito blanched again.

“Define “dog”, and then ask yourself if you really want me to answer that question.”

“Gonta’s forest family big brother ate dog sometimes. But he always kinda mean. Insisted on Gonta getting hands on hunting practice by starting with a bunny he caught. Kiyo remind Gonta of him a lot.”

“... I’m not sure if I should be offering you my gratitude or apologies. However, the point remains that I don’t dislike bugs so-”

“So you shouldn’t mind meeting all of the bugs in Gonta’s lab at all!” Kokichi brightly chimed in, much to the horror that spread across Kiyo’s face.

He hid it before Gonta saw him though, and was all smiles as he replied under the entomologist's watchful gaze despite the frozen venom in his tone. “ You first Kokichi. ”

“That great idea! Gonta take both friends to meet and greet insect friends!”

Gonta didn’t give them much time to react beyond the mutual look of horror found on both of their faces as he practically carried them to his lab. Or literally carried them in Kokichi’s case, who found himself nearly tucked under one arm as the other dragged Kiyo along with them.

The remaining students gave a moment of silence for the two unlucky bastards, but certainly weren’t going to do anything that could risk them sharing their fate. Even if the silence given was more of the stunned variety than a truly respectful one. At least, up until Angie put her hands together and started praying.

“May Atua have mercy on their souls, and should the worst come to pass may He take them under His protection in the great hereafter despite their lack of faith or points. Except maybe Kiyo. May He just not return Kiyo to his sister or something, like have Him give Himiko or Rantaro company instead. Amen!”

“How dare you try to curse Himiko like that, I trusted you!” Tenko wailed, only to have Angie halfheartedly waving her off in some attempt to shush and “soothe” her. Which went as well as expected.

“But they got along, he never actually hurt her, and she was such an innocent girl it may help clean his soul! Maybe. Hopefully. It felt more mean to single Rantaro out. Since blackened like Shuichi and Miu might not help him as much there, assuming he could get along with either of them in the afterlife.”

“Then why not just let him rot where he belongs?!” (Yeah, I’m with Tenko this time.)

“... Angie hopes Tenko isn’t suggesting that his sister can honestly make it to the better place.”

“Not to mention with how fucked up he is being anywhere without his sister could be “Hell” on it’s own.” Ryoma joined in. (NOPE. Get back on topic please!)

“Alright already you guys, let’s stop talking like this okay? Is anyone going to be helping Angie and I carry her memorials to Kirumi’s lab or not?”

“Tenko will!”

“I.. Think I’ll pass. I’ll be out training in the normal spot if you want to meet up later, Kaede.”

“And I’ll go with him to make sure he either actually trains or doesn’t sprain anything else. Like his head,” Ryoma snarked while following Kaito away, who began to bicker with him.

“Hmmm, Kibo, would you like me to try and make you a uniform like your avatar had? And I can throw in a matching hat or some cover up to hide your joints if you’ll keep me some company while I work!”

“Oh! Thank you, that’s very nice of you to offer, Tsumugi. Perhaps after I’m done re-calibrating the avatars to everyone’s desires before I forget anything.”

“Good idea, and I can hang out in there so you’re not as alone until you’re done!”

With all those plans set aside the rest of the bustling students made their ways out the door, aside from Kibo and Tsumugi. Kaede idly wondered why Kaito felt the need to tell her where they’d be, since everyone still preferred to have their monopads on them, but assumed he said it as some sort of comforting habit.

As hard as moving Shuichi’s statue may be for her, she was going to do this. Her friends need her to act with confidence, so she needed to face her regrets and mistakes head on in any way she thought of. Her best was what they needed, so she was going to make sure she kept giving them that however she could.

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[foolishheadstronggirl]

Served - Chapter 3

New chapter time! =)

I was going to post on Wednesday, but I just couldn’t bring myself to post anything on episode night and take away from that fun!  And then it was game night (I coach softball) and family days, so today’s the day lol.  But I have a couple of chapters pretty much ready to go I think, so I can send those out more frequently.  Thanks for hanging in there with me, and for all the encouragement!

As always, big thanks to the wonderful @13starbuck42 for the excellent beta work, cleaning up my crazy Southern vernacular!  Also tagging @today-in-fic

Catch up with Chapter 1 and Chapter 2!

A/N: I’m going a little off here and playing Time Lord - this museum didn’t actually exist IRL until 1983, but for the purpose of my story, I’m going to pretend it did!

Chapter 3 – Charmed

After a rather sweet first date, Dana Scully was pleased to say the least.  Whatever had been said about Daryl Worthington before was falling upon deaf ears now, because she truly believed he wouldn’t treat her poorly.  He certainly hadn’t so far; he’d actually been very attentive to her since they had officially started dating!  Carrying her books, walking her to class, driving her home instead of his buddies, spending Friday nights just hanging out.  He had kissed her goodnight at the end of their second date, and Dana was most definitely ready for it.  It had been a really great start, and Dana was happy.

While most of their dates had been casual meals and weekend movies, one date was so special it stood out from all the others.

On Saturday morning at ten o’clock, the Scully’s phone rang and Dana heard her mom answer.  Several minutes later, Maggie called up the stairs, “Dana, honey, can you come down here for a minute?”

Is something wrong? Dana thought as she raced down the stairs.  Is it Ahab?!  She tried desperately to calm down, her rational mind attempting to reassure her that if it was serious, her mother would have been upset; Maggie completely lacked the ability to remain stoic when it came to her husband and children.

Maggie smiled reassuringly.  “I can see you thinking way too hard, sweetheart.  Everything is fine.  That was Daryl.  And before you get jumpy, he called because he wanted to ask me if it was ok before mentioning it to you, in case I said no.   But I think it’s a nice idea, so go get dressed.  You have a date this afternoon.”  

Dana opened her mouth, ready to rapid-fire a barrage of questions, but her mother cut her off.  “No ma’am, I’m not telling you anything!  That’s the other reason he called me instead of you: this date is a surprise!  Go get yourself ready!”  Maggie said with a sly little lilt in her voice and a knowing smile.

Most people liked surprises, but Dana Scully was not terribly fond of them.  They rarely lived up to the hype, and quite often left her feeling at least a little disappointed.  But she was determined to enjoy whatever this turned out to be, because it was a sweet gesture.  Dana couldn’t contain the tiny smile peeking out the corner of her mouth.  She might not be like most girls she knew, but when a guy planned something special, it was hard not to feel pleased.  Dana dressed in a flowy tunic and tights, pulled her hair back (in case they were going to be outside, she reasoned), and headed back downstairs to wait.

When Daryl showed up a half hour later, Dana was glad that she had put on something more dressy than jeans.  Daryl was wearing a crisp button-down shirt and looking much nicer than he did for their typical Saturday night hang-out dates.

“So, you gonna let me in on this big secret?” Dana said teasingly.

Daryl chuckled.  “You’ll see.  I think you’ll love it.”  He turned toward Maggie as he directed Dana out the door.  “Thanks again, Mrs. Scully.  I’ll have her home by 10pm.”

“You kids have fun!”  Maggie’s voice carried through the door as it closed behind Dana.

Dana and Daryl chatted casually as they cruised down 163 to I-15, but when Daryl swung the car onto Highway 91, Dana was befuddled.

“Daryl, where are we going?”  she asked with an edge to her voice.  The excitement of adventure was giving way to anxiety over not having any idea where she was.

“Babe, I really wanna keep it a secret ‘til we get there, okay?  I know it’s killing you right now, but it’ll be worth it!  So let’s talk about something to take you mind off it.  Tell me what you wanna do when you grow up, young lady,” Daryl grinned at her.

Dana rolled her eyes.  “Ugh, Daryl, don’t patronize me!”  She laughed to assure him she wasn’t angry.  “Well, you already know, don’t you?  I’m going into medicine.  I’m not sure what specialty yet, but my father really wants me to practice.  I just haven’t found anything that lights me on fire, you know?  It’s weird, but sometimes I feel like I’m missing…something, but I have no idea what.  Missy keeps telling me that I’ve got plenty of time to figure out the future and that I should quit worrying about it. But it’s really not that far away, and the things I focus on now really do matter!  That’s Melissa, though.  Anyway, you knew all that already; what about you?  What do you want to do after you graduate?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Daryl shrugged, noncommittal.  Dana felt mild shock at the idea of someone a year and a half away from graduating having no concrete plan for the future.  He continued, “I’ll probably go to the community college and do some welding classes, maybe get on an oil rig somewhere.  I don’t figure I’m going to go some big college, though; I’m pretty tired of classes all day long.  I really want to do something with my hands anyway… you know, manly stuff,” he half-smiled, eyes on the road.

Dana felt a slight twinge of something like wistfulness, but shook it off quickly.  Who knows, she thought hopefully, it’s a long time until next May… I might be able to help him think more clearly about his future!  He’s smart enough to go to college; to really make something of himself!  Maybe we could study for the SATs?  Touring some college campuses together would definitely be fun!  

As they rolled down the California highway, Dana and Daryl enjoyed easy conversation, sandwiches and fruit, and early afternoon sunshine.  After a pleasant two-hour drive, they reached their destination: the San Bernardino County Medical Society.  Dana turned and quirked an impertinent eyebrow toward her boyfriend, whose laughing eyes found hers immediately.  Before she could ask him anything, though, Daryl’s attention was drawn to a door beyond her shoulder.

“Good afternoon, sir!  Thank you so much for your response to my letter; I’m very excited to show my girlfriend your facility here,” Daryl spoke gregariously to the well-dressed gentleman who had walked out to meet them.

The man shook Daryl’s hand, then extended his arm to Dana and clasped her hand warmly.  “Certainly!  We are honored to show off our wonderful facility to young people to further interest in our disciplines; that’s precisely why we’re here!”  He replied, then turned his attention to Dana.  “You actually picked a perfect day to come by; we are preparing for a visit from a school group later today, so everything is shiny and ready!  My name is Dr. Hamilton, and I know from my correspondence with your young man that you are Ms. Dana Scully.  It is my absolute pleasure to meet such a lovely young lady with an interest in the field.”

To say Dana’s interest was piqued was an understatement of the grandest proportion.  What is this place? she wondered, incredulous.

“And what field would that be, sir?” Dana asked slyly, slicing a glance at Daryl, who laughed out loud at her overt attempt to discover just what she was about to face.

Dr. Hamilton chuckled and offered his arm to the tiny redhead.  “Tell you what, Ms. Scully; why don’t you let me show you?”  The kind professor ushered Dana into the building, with Daryl following closely behind.

Inside, Dana was greeted by a neat reception desk and a sign reading, “Southern California Medical Museum.”  Bewilderment, then excitement lit her eyes as she realized what this must be, and she spun toward Dr. Hamilton and Daryl to make sure she understood correctly.

“It’s a collection of medical, dental, and pharmacy artifacts, such as surgical tools, antique bottles, unique devices that truly have to be seen to be believed, and a medical library.  We have really interesting items like bleeding bowls, invalid feeders, and all kinds of instruments used during various wars, including the Civil War.  Even if you’re not interested in becoming a medical historian, it’s interesting to see where we’ve come from, don’t you agree?” Dr. Hamilton presented.

Dana turned wide, animated, blue eyes toward Daryl.  “How long can we stay?”

___________

Dr. Hamilton had discussed most of the exhibits with Dana and Daryl, but left, albeit reluctantly, when the school group showed up for their tour.  He told Dana to write down any questions she might have and said he would be happy to answer them for her before she left, or in continued correspondence if need be.  Dana shook Dr. Hamilton’s hand firmly, promising to visit again soon.

Dana wandered the museum to her heart’s content, spending hours looking at anything and everything. She was fascinated.  Daryl walked beside her, staying close most of the time.  But occasionally, he hung back, leaning against a wall to watch Dana as she discovered and learned.  By the time Dana was ready to leave, she had filled two pages of a legal pad with questions about a series of exhibits featuring the progression of surgical tools and procedures, with an interesting sidebar about pathology and battlefield forensics.

The pair left the museum hand in hand, and when they were back in the car, Dana leaned over and kissed Daryl.  “That was wonderful, Daryl, thank you so much.  It was incredibly thoughtful of you,” Dana effused warmly.

“I’m glad you liked it; I wanted to show you I’ve been paying attention,” Daryl replied.  “Now, let’s go grab a bite to eat back at the bay before I have to whisk you home,” he said with a smile.

When Dana walked in the front door that evening, Maggie was reading in the armchair; she had been waiting up to hear all about the surprise date.  She immediately noticed that her youngest daughter looked a dazed, maybe even a bit distracted, as she hung up her jacket and ambled into the living room.

“So, did you have fun?  How was it?”  When Maggie spoke, Dana jumped slightly, as if she hadn’t even noticed her there.

Dana smiled.  “Perfect, Mom,”  she sighed.  “It was perfect.”

[babybluebanshee]

Heavy Rains - Chapter 3 (TF2)

Being stranded at Teufort during a raging storm with a gaggle of homicidal mercenaries isn't Miss Pauling's idea of a relaxing vacation. The group tries to make the best of it, but when a mysterious illness starts making its way through the barracks, it's a race against time to find a cure before it's too late. And that's not even bringing the emotional baggage into things.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Sniper was bouncing his leg again. Even if Engineer hadn’t been able to see it, it was making the crate underneath him tremble slightly. The beer in the bottle next to Sniper’s foot rippled.

“You keep that up and that bottle’s gonna tip over,” Engineer said, trying to keep a smile in his voice. “Then you’re gonna have to explain to Demo why a perfectly good bottle of beer went to waste.”

“Sorry,” Sniper muttered. His bush hat dipped lower, covering his eyes. Engineer could have sworn he saw the other man flush just a little.

If he didn’t already know what was making Sniper so awkward, this would almost have been endearing.

They’d managed to play a few rounds of poker after getting Scout situated in the infirmary, but the atmosphere had been tense after Engineer had explained to Heavy, Demo, and Pyro what was going on. The game had been uncomfortably quiet, and they’d all played rather abysmally. Even Pyro, who usually bobbed around the table, sneaking peeks at everyone’s cards and humming nonsense songs to himself, had sat glumly at Engineer’s feet, clicking his lighter.

After a few hours, Heavy and Demo had folded, going back into the bowels of the barracks to distract themselves in other ways. Pyro disappeared into his quarters to do heaven knew what.

Engineer had managed to convince Sniper to stick around and play some rummy, though, truthfully, the other man had needed little in the way of actual convincing. And really, Engineer hadn’t felt like it’d be a good idea to leave the marksman on his own right now. Sniper moved like a zombie, and his already sparse conversational skills were practically nonexistent. They’d moved the game into the loading bay, so they could slide up the door and listen to the rain, sluicing off the overhang. Engineer hoped that maybe that would calm Sniper down a bit, but so far, it hadn’t helped much.

“You know Medic will let us know if anything changes,” Engineer offered.

“I know,” Sniper muttered again. He kept his gaze fixed firmly on his cards. “I just…”

A beat of silence, filled only by the rain.

“Just what?”

“...I shoulda checked on him sooner. Maybe he wouldn’t have gotten so bad if I’d tried to look in on him earlier.”

“Snipes, beating yourself up over this ain’t gonna help anything.”

“I know,” Sniper repeated. He finally raised his eyes to meet Engineer’s. They looked weary.

“Look, Snipes, I know you’re close to the kid, but he ain’t dying,” Engineer said. “Just take it easy. Medic figured out how to heal fatal injuries with the flip of a switch. The kid’s in good…” Engineer trailed off and rethought his words for a moment. “He’s in capable hands.” There. That was much better.

To his relief, that actually seemed to get a smile out of Sniper. “I don’t mean to be such a sad-sack,” he began.

Engineer cut him off. “You don’t gotta apologize to me. We all know the two of you are close. He’s practically your kid brother. Stands to reason you’d be concerned about him when he’s sick. Your draw, by the way.”

Sniper drew his card, arranging it among his hand. “Scout certainly seems to think of me that way,” he said. He laid down a set of three queens. “Doesn’t surprise me though, from what I gather about his brothers.”

“What about ‘em? I never heard him mention his brothers much,” Engineer said. He drew a seven of hearts. He added it to the seven set on already out, then tossed out a king of spades.

“That’s just the thing. He hardly ever talks about them, even if ya ask,” Sniper replied. He took the king off the discard pile, threw out a black two. “He’ll go on for hours about his mum, but mention his brothers to him and he gives ya a look like ya just spit on his shoes. Wants to be done talking about them as soon as he can.”

“That’s familial strain if I ever heard of it,” Engineer replied, taking the two to complete his run. “Not that I’m the expert. Ma and Pop never saw a reason to have anymore after me.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” Sniper replied. “I know what it’s like to have a shitty older brother.”

“You got a brother?” Engineer asked. He barely knew anything about Sniper’s family situation. Ironically, Sniper seemed to be just as tight-lipped about it as Scout was about his brothers. Only reason he knew the other man’s mother was alive was because she occasionally sent him stuff in the mail.

“Yep,” Sniper said simply. He took a sip of his beer, then drew. “Younger sister too. Both arseholes in their own way, but me brother was worse. Alice was usually content to ignore me, think I was embarrassing. Robby tended to be a bit more involved. Most of the kids who beat the snot out of me when I was young were his friends. Never laid a finger on me himself - he knew Mum and Dad would find out and he’d never hear the end of it - but he never even tried to stop his fuckwit friends.”

Sniper rearranged his hand a bit, then threw out a red ten. His face was totally neutral. He may as well have just described the weather.

“Damn, Snipes,” Engineer said. “That sounds rough.”

Sniper waved him off. “Nothing to be done about it now,” he said. “‘Sides, if it weren’t for him, I would never have taken to hiding in trees and chucking rocks at the tossers. In a way, he’s why me aim is so good. Now, Robby mostly sticks to stupid little barbs about work and family and such. Wants to make me feel like a failure. Make me think Mum and Dad think I’m a failure.” Sniper smiled as he took another drink of his beer. “Joke’s on him though. I ever get tired of his nonsense, I can just put one right in his bulbous forehead.”

Engineer couldn’t help but laugh. As a kid, he’d often wondered what it would be like to have siblings, someone to play and explore and tinker with. In his more lonely hours, he’d imagined it was like having a sidekick, a constant companion. Hearing this made him realize he’d probably dodged a bullet.

“I just joke, a’course,” Sniper added. “Mum made me promise I would try to stay civil with Robby as long as she was still alive. She didn’t say it had to be in the same continent though.” Sniper smirked.

Engineer chuckled again, and said, “Well, for what it’s worth, you’re a much better brother to Scout than your brother and his brothers both combined. Doubt he’d ever want to throw rocks at you, anyway.”

“It’d certainly help his aim.” Sniper grumbled, though the smile was still clear in his voice.

As the two men shared another hearty chuckle, they heard the door to the dining hall open. The smells of butter and garlic wafted towards them. It made Engineer’s mouth water, and he realized just how hungry he was. He shouldn’t have been all that surprised. No food since breakfast and a belly full of beer wasn’t exactly enough to sustain a man.

Heavy poked his head around the corner. “I make dinner,” he said as cheerily as his rumbling bass would allow.

Heavy didn’t cook for them often, but when he did, it seemed to brighten the big guy’s mood immensely. Probably brought him closer to home. The big guy also made a point not to bring his family into his work environment. But it was easy to see how the big guy positively lit up when the mercs discussed their homes, their childhoods, and especially their mothers.

“Who wins?” Heavy asked, motioning to the cards still strew out on the crates.

“Nobody, yet,” Engineer said. He stood up and stretched a bit, setting his cards where he’d been sitting. He grabbed up his beer. “But I gotta get some grub in me before I can play anymore.”

“Same, mate,” Sniper said. “I’m starving. Can’t beat your ass running on empty.”

“Last I checked, you got more cards in your hand than me. And I got more points.”

“Tides turn when you least expect ‘em, mate.”

“Pretty sure that ain’t how tides work…”

They followed behind Heavy down the hall. Mixed with the buttery garlic smell was the smell of boiled potatoes and warm bread. Engineer’s stomach gave a soft gurgle.

He saw Heavy smile appreciatively. “You fetch Spy and Miss Pauling, then we eat. I take Doktor dinner and you finish game. Then you deal Heavy back in for poker, da?”

They entered the dining hall. Pyro was already sat at the table, squirming excitedly at his place. For whatever reason, Pyro absolutely loved mealtimes. He seemed to enjoy just being around the mercs, all together, in each other’s company. Maybe he thought of them as his family. If Engineer knew hardly anything about Sniper or Heavy’s families, it was safe to say he knew bupkis about Pyro’s. He ventured to guess not even the Mann Co. administration had a hell of a lot on him.

When Pyro saw Engineer, he waved enthusiastically.

Hmm. Family. That seemed to be coming up a lot this evening.

Engineer waved back, then said to Heavy, “Hopefully, we all play a little better on full stomachs.”

“I worry for others. When I worry, I cannot concentrate,” Heavy said, pulling plates and utensils out. “Cooking a good distraction. Makes me feel better, takes thoughts away from worries.”

“Well, you ain’t gotta worry too much about Scout and Soldier,” Engineer said. “They’ll be fine once Medic figures out what’s wrong.”

“Not just Scout and Soldier,” Heavy replied. “Also for Spy. Has been in smoking room all day.”

“Ain’t like that’s anything new,” Sniper grumbled. “Disappearing is about all that spook’s good for, once his job is done.”

“He prefers privacy, same as you,” Heavy said simply.

Sniper didn’t respond outside of a snort of derision, but Engineer saw him lowering his hat back over his eyes a bit. He knew that Sniper held very little love for spies of any kind. Came with the territory when your job was to sit still, off by yourself. You were basically a sitting duck.

Most of Sniper’s vitriol was aimed at the BLU spy, but Engineer wouldn’t exactly call Sniper’s relationship with their own spy that much friendlier. He didn’t rightly recall a conversation between the two men that lasted more than a few sentences. And those few sentences ranged from cooly professional to biting, depending how either man felt at any given time.

Honestly, Engineer would rather keep it to the former end of the spectrum this evening. The day had been stressful enough.

“I think I can wrangle up Spy and Miss Pauling myself,” Engineer said quickly, heading towards the barracks. “Go ahead and make me a plate,” he called over his shoulder before he got too far away. He’d do a lot to preserve the peace, but not miss out on meals when he was hungry.

As he walked in the direction of Spy’s smoking room, Engineer let his thoughts drift to what Heavy had said about Sniper and Spy. He prefers privacy, same as you.

Engineer was sure if he ever told Spy such a thing, he’d be laughed at. But now that he thought about it, he could see where Heavy was coming from. Spy wasn’t exactly what anyone would call a social creature. He tended to keep himself closed off. Next to Pyro, he was the merc with the most mysterious past, the one no one knew anything about. Not even his accent was any help to pinpoint where he was from, what with the mix of Spanish, Italian, and Romanian thrown in along with the French.

Spy seemed to prefer things that way. He offered up nothing more than what was enough for him to skate by, under people’s radar. That was the very basis of his career, after all.

That being said, Spy was still flesh and blood. He was charming and could carry on a conversation, sure, but Engineer had always had a feeling it was difficult for him to maintain that charm constantly. There was this look he got when it was clear that he wanted to be away from someone, away from people, and it didn’t even seem to be a look of annoyance or aggravation. It was more...tiredness. Like a dispenser that was running on low, Spy needed a break, to recharge himself.

As such, Spy spent a good deal of time by himself. No one had any idea what he did during all that time, and no one really asked. Engineer didn’t think Spy would tell them even if they did.

Sniper tended to do the same. He would go out into the woods whenever they were at one of the mountain bases, and just stay out there for hours. He’d come back at dark like that was nothing unusual. To top that off, he spent most nights in his camper van, parked out back. Even Spy actually slept in the barracks.

He prefers privacy, same as you.

He thought about Sniper’s brother, whose childhood cruelty had driven a young Sniper into the trees to chuck rocks at him. It was easy to see where Sniper’s desire for privacy had come from.

And that just got him thinking about family again. So many of them had some kind of thing with their families. Sniper’s contemptuous siblings. The contention between Scout and his brothers, whatever it was. Heavy’s secrecy. Pyro and Spy and the complete lack of anything about them.

Soldier was in the same boat. No one could get a coherent story about his life before Mann Co., unless they asked him about Poland. And sometimes even if they didn’t.

Then there was Demo’s own tumultuous childhood that Engineer still couldn’t rightly figure out. Something to do with the Loch Ness Monster and an ancient Highland tradition.

It made the loneliness of his own childhood seem downright idyllic by comparison. Distant dads and few friends kind of paled in comparison to the lives his colleagues had.

Huh. Maybe in a way, they were more like family to each other than Engineer had realized. It was definitely the better alternative for some of them.

As he came upon Spy’s smoking room, he heard muted voices from within. One of them sounded feminine. Unless Spy had another girl hidden away somewhere, he guessed that was Miss Pauling. Saved him the trouble of having to find her.

He knocked gently, and it actually took a moment for the door to open. In the meantime, he heard stumbling steps, someone hitting something solid, and a French swear. Miss Pauling laughed a little, and Engineer heard her ask Spy if he was okay. Spy’s answer was slurred French. Enigneer heard a few more swears thrown in for good measure.

After a few more moments, Spy opened the door. He was pretending very hard that the scene within had not just happened, and Engineer had not just heard it. To anyone who didn’t know better, he seemed exactly the same put-together, slightly bored looking Spy as usual. He stood erect, his face impassive, an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

Too bad you could practically smell the booze on him.

“Did you want something, laborer?” Spy asked. He was making a conscious effort not to slur, each word punctuated carefully. He attempted to take a puff of his cigarette, only to realize that he hadn’t lit it yet. A frantic hand shot into Spy’s waistcoat and began fishing around. He nearly dropped his lighter when he pulled it out and flicked open the lid. The entire time, the bored expression on his face stayed firmly in place. Engineer’s gut hurt from trying not to burst into hysterical laughter.

“Just wanted to let y’all know that Heavy’s got dinner ready,” Engineer replied. It was getting harder and harder not to laugh. “‘Less of course you two’d rather stay and continue...whatever you got going on in there.”

“Oh, food!” Engineer heard Miss Pauling exclaim from inside. She, unlike Spy, made absolutely no attempt to hide how clearly inebriated she was. She wobbled to the door, holding a very expensive looking bottle in her hand. She eventually got close enough to Spy to lean on his arm heavily. Spy’s mouth twitched in a smile.

“I’m suuuuper starving,” she said, tugging the sleeve of Spy’s suit jacket, looking up at him like a child begging their parents to take them into a toy store. “Let’s go. I-I don’t even care what it is. Sniper could literally be cooking possum right now and I would not care. I jus’ need food.” She seemed to realize she was still holding on to the bottle of whatever they’d been drinking. “Oh! Can we bring the bottle? I’m bringing the bottle.” She shook it a bit.

“Weren’t you the one that said neither of us needed to drink anymore?” Spy asked, slowly slipping the bottle from Miss Pauling’s fingers. He began walking towards the dining hall, with Miss Pauling still clinging to his arm like she was his prom date. He looked as close to busting a gut as Engineer felt.

“That was past-Miss Pauling. Now-Miss Pauling wants to bring the bottle.” She made a grab for it.

“No, no, no, no more cognac for you, mon cher,” Spy said, holding the bottle just out of her reach. Engineer stepped out of the way just in time to not be beaned in the face with it.

“Merde, apologies,” Spy said, once he realized what he’d almost done. He shoved the bottle into Engineer’s arms. “Keep this from her, at all costs. Drink some of it if you like, but do not let her have another drop.”

“Joke’s on you, Frenchie,” Miss Pauling said. “If I want more, I can just exercise some of my feminine wiles and Engineer will totally just give me that bottle.”

“Really?” Spy said. “And what exactly do you have in the repertoire of feminine wiles?”

Miss Pauling opened her mouth to reply, but a look of absolute puzzlement swept across her face. For roughly thirty seconds, she walked with her mouth open, looking like she was trying for the life of her to come up with something resembling feminine wiles.

Finally, she said, “I dunno, something involving belly dancing? I mean, I don’t know how to belly dance, but it doesn’t look that hard.”

Dear lord, Engineer wished he had a camera.

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

Heavy didn’t like to brag, but that was probably the best chicken kiev he’d ever made. Mama would have been very proud, especially if she’d seen the way the team sopped up the sauce with the bread he’d heated in the oven.

If cooking had not made Heavy feel at ease, the friendly, comfortable atmosphere at dinner certainly would have done it. It was a welcome change of pace from the stressful afternoon, even if Heavy had to attribute it to the team’s alcohol consumption for the day (except Pyro, who was just happy to be there). Demo was obvious, and Engineer and Sniper had gone through quite a few bottles of beer during their rummy game, downing more with their dinners. Not to mention both took nips from the bottle Spy and Miss Pauling had brought with them from Spy’s smoking room.

It had been immediately obvious what they’d been up to all day, from the way they swayed as they walked into the dining hall, chuckling between themselves. Engineer looked positively tickled at the display.

Miss Pauling was far less ladylike than she had been at breakfast, wolfing down her food like a woman starved. Spy opened himself up a great deal, facing everyone, with a lazy smile on his lips, something Heavy doubted he would have done had all his faculties been about him. It wasn’t exactly the way he would have liked Spy to be dealing with things, but Heavy did not feel it was his place to judge. After all, drinking several liters of vodka was practically a winter sport back home. He would simply have to indulge a bit himself to join the fun. He did have a bottle of Abrau-Durso he’d been saving, that momma had sent him for his birthday, and he’d been craving a nice bellini.

But that could wait until Medic had been fed. Heavy opened the door to the infirmary with one hand, balancing a plate covered in tin foil in the other. He knew there was no sense in knocking. Medic wouldn’t be paying attention enough to notice.

The doctor was, indeed, hunched over his desk, completely enveloped in a thick medical textbook. The rest of his desk was covered in papers. He didn’t seem to have heard the door open or his doves cooing softly at the new person in the infirmary.

Off to the side, Heavy saw Scout and Soldier, still sleeping somewhat peacefully. He tried not to look at them for too long. The two most boisterous and energetic members of his team lying silent and still was just wrong to him. He focused on the task at hand.

He approached Medic’s desk, Medic’s muttering getting more audible. Heavy managed to pick out the words “food poisoning”, “vitamin B”, and “appendectomy”.

He gently said, “Doktor?”

Medic almost jumped directly out of his chair, clutching the arms so tightly his knuckles went white. He looked up and Heavy saw his glasses had gone askew. The were practically sliding off his nose, and it forced Medic to squint up at him.

“My apologies, Doktor,” Heavy said. “I brought you something to eat.”

Medic adjusted his glasses, and gulped a bit. “It’s quite alright, my friend. I...was a bit absorbed. I didn’t even realize it was that late.” He shoved a few papers out of the way, and found his watch. He grimaced a bit when he read the face, and quickly returned it to his pocket.

“What have you learned?” Heavy asked. He set the plate down, removing the foil and pulling out the knife and fork he’d brought in his pocket.

“Not much,” Medic responded. Heavy heard him sniff a bit as the steam from the food drifted closer to him. The tension seemed to drip out of the doctor’s shoulders. Heavy felt a swell of pride in his chest.

Medic began cutting into the chicken and continued, “Every time I think I’ve found the answer, another problem arises.”

“What sorts of problems?” Heavy pulled over a wheeled stool and sat down. He knew Medic wanted everyone to stay away from the infirmary, for quarantine, but he felt that Medic needed a sounding board. Besides, he was a strong man, with the immune system of a brick wall. No silly virus was going to hurt him.

“Soldier’s fever increased, and I had to give Scout a mild sedative. His fever was keeping him from being able to rest,” Medic said before stuffing a huge bite of chicken into his mouth. He moved some papers aside, brought more towards him, not seeming to care that the butter sauce from his fork was dripping on them. “Whatever Scout has, Soldier definitely has it too. He’s obviously not responding to an aspirin regimen either. I’m going to see what antibiotics will do. If this is a particularly violent strain of the flu, that should help. If not...I suppose I’ll try something else.”

“Medigun will not help?”

“I thought about that,” Medic replied. “But that would really only alleviate the symptoms for a short time. It was meant for more tangible injuries - broken bones, bleeding, and the sort. Bacteria and viruses are beyond its reach. Too small, you know. Unless it was purged from the body completely, the symptoms would just return.” He absent-mindedly speared a few potatoes and put them in his mouth, then set his fork aside to return to his textbook.

Heavy sighed quietly. He knew this sort of thing was bound to happen. If Medic wasn’t reminded to eat and sleep when he got like this, he just wouldn’t do them. They impeded his work, he said, took his focus away from what was important. Heavy had since stopped trying to remind him that he wouldn’t be able to focus on his work at all if he was too exhausted and hungry to do it properly. He mostly just took the direct approach these days.

“You can find solution after you eat,” Heavy said firmly. He sounded like a mother scolding their child, and under normal circumstance, Medic would have given him a petulant look, reminding him that he was older than him and had the gray hair to prove it.

Instead, Medic just muttered, “Ja, ja, I will, do not worry about me.” Almost as if to placate Heavy, he crammed another forkful of potatoes into his mouth.

Heavy set his mouth in a firm line, then placed one of his huge hands on top of Medic’s head. His fingers could almost touch under Medic’s chin. He gently turned the doctor to face him, and gazed down at him sternly. All Medic offered in return was a cheeky smile, and Heavy knew he was preparing to attempt to talk his way out of this, as he did with most things he didn’t want to do. Heavy cut him off before he’d barely opened his mouth.

“Don’t,” Heavy said. “Please eat, Doktor. I stay until food is gone. You are of use to no one if you do not take care of yourself first.”

“But I -”

“Heavy use mama’s recipe for chicken kiev. Do you want to insult Heavy’s mama?”

Medic narrowed his eyes at the obvious emotional manipulation. Heavy merely released his head and motioned back to the plate. Medic shoved aside his textbook and papers to make a space for it. He ate in defeated silence, but he did indeed clear his plate.

Heavy couldn’t help but smirk. As worried as he was for Scout and Soldier, he knew Medic would find the answers he needed. He’d keep him from running himself into the ground in the meantime.

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

“You might as well give up now, bush man.”

Sniper merely rearranged his cards. He didn’t meet Spy’s eye.

“I’ve played in some of the most prestigious casinos in the world. Monte Carlo. Monaco. Macau.”

Again, he held his silence.

“I have parted professional gamblers from their money more times than I can count.”

Sniper could feel Heavy, Engineer, and Miss Pauling’s eyes on him. In any other situation, that might have made him uncomfortable, more prone to mistakes. Not this time. Spy didn’t have a prayer.

“Here’s a thought,” he finally said. “How’s about you stop monologuing like a Bond villain and show us yer damn cards, eh?”

Spy gave him a Cheshire cat grin. “If you insist,” he said. He laid out his cards carefully. Three kings, plus a pair of tens. A full house.

Sniper let out a low whistle. “Not too shabby, mate,” he muttered. “Ain’t got nothing so high here. Bleeding shame.” Good lord, he was about to piss himself in anticipation. Finally, he laid out his hand - all diamonds, two, three, four, five, and six.

He wished he could frame the face Spy made as he took in the straight flush. He would have laughed if Heavy and Engineer didn’t beat him to it, crowing like it was the funniest thing in the world. Even Miss Pauling was giggling a bit. Sniper basked in it for a moment. Nothing was quite as satisfying as making the fancy wuss eat his words.

“I do believe,” he said, “that means that the rest of this is mine.” He reached out and plucked the bottle of cognac off the table. Spy had used it as his bet, completely convinced he’d be walking it back to his smoking room after the game was over. Now the rest of it was going directly down Sniper’s gullet. There wasn’t much left, only about six ounces or so, he’d say. But at seventy-eight bucks and some change an ounce, it was gonna taste mighty good going down.

“Very impressive,” Spy said tightly, tapping some cigarette ash into an empty beer bottle at his side. Sniper could practically see a vein bulging in his neck.

Oh, sweet victory.

Spy’s frustration must have been noticeable to more than just him, because Miss Pauling giggled again and leaned against Spy playfully. “Looks like you might wanna start sleeping with your gun in your bed, Sniper. Unless you want to wake up with a knife in the back.”

“You make it sound like I don’t already do that.” Sniper took the stopper out of the cognac and took a generous swallow. Damn, that was good stuff. Spy definitely had taste. One good quality about him then.

To Sniper’s surprise, at Miss Pauling’s gentle tease, Spy seemed to relax a little. A tiny, mischievous smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Oh please, I would never be such a poor sport,” he said. “If I really wanted to kill him, I would poison the liquor. More poetic, I think.”

And then the strangest thing happened - Spy winked at Sniper. It was the most familiar thing Sniper had ever seen the other man do. An acknowledgement of his joke, as if they were friends.

The idea that Spy might consider him a friend was ludicrous to Sniper. It’s not like they ever spent any time with each other outside of the battlefield. Even when they did, they tended to keep their conversations as cool and professional and brief as possible. Because it really didn’t take much for either of them to make the entire exchange descend into a acidic argument, complete with childish name-calling.

Now that he thought of it, the time they’d spent speaking outside of Scout’s bedroom this afternoon was the longest they’d spoken to each other in weeks. They liked it that way.

After all, there couldn’t be two more different men on the planet. It wasn’t hard to tell Spy looked down on him, almost more than he did everyone else. Sniper’s accent, his mannerisms, the fact that he didn’t mind getting down and dirty - it all seemed to be offensive to Spy. He’d barely ever seen Spy with a speck of dirt on his suit after the work day was through. He went out of his way to stay clean and put together.

And yet, here Spy was giving him cheeky winks and ribbing him and not calling him filthy and a savage. It was almost unnerving.

Then again, Sniper supposed that could be blamed on the booze. A lot of the last few hours could be blamed on booze in one form or the next.

Things had started simply enough - when Heavy had returned (with a bottle of sparkling wine, refusing to tell anyone where he’d gotten it) from taking Medic his dinner, they’d started up another round of poker. Miss Pauling watched one hand, and then asked if they’d be willing to teach her to play in the next one. Of course, Engineer had leapt at the chance, a firm believer in “that more, the merrier”. Sniper was just glad that something had managed to unwind her.

They went easy on her for the first few hands, on account of her being a novice. Once it was clearly established she knew what she was doing, even in an intoxicated state, then there were no holds barred.

Then Heavy had made bellinis with his wine, using some dusty canned peaches he found in the kitchen cupboards. When they ran out of that, they passed around the cognac, Spy keeping the bottle away from Miss Pauling as often as he could, typically with a giant shit-eating grin on his face and some scolding in French.

Of course, that didn’t stop Engineer from sneaking her the bottle every now and then. Something about her “feminine wiles”. Whatever it meant, it made Engineer laugh.

By the fourth hand, Engineer had dug out the emergency bottles of scrumpy Demo kept above the refrigerator. Demo hadn’t exactly been happy about that, trying to get them to leave his stash be and drink the beer they had an abundance of, but he ended up being too out of it to put up a fight. His protests had slowly faded into gibberish as he laid his head down on the table, and soon enough he was snoring away.

Sniper tipped back the last of the cognac and let out a long, satisfied sigh. He swayed gently on his chair. “Looks like we’re gonna have to stick to good ol’ RED Shed from here on out, lads,” he slurred out. Beside him, Pyro was starting to stack the discard pile into a house. Demo still snoozed at the end of the table. Heavy and Engineer’s excitement from the poker win had vanished, and Heavy’s head was beginning to dip, the alcohol starting to finally effect the burly man. Engineer had folded his arms across the table, upon which he rested his chin.

Or perhaps they could save that RED Shed for another time. No one else looked like they had much left in them.

Spy took one last drag from his cigarette and slid the butt into the bottle he’d been using as an ashtray with a look of disgust.. “You could not pay me money to drink any of that swill,” he said. “Pity someone cheated me out of my cognac…”

Sniper stuck his tongue out at him. Childish, yeah, but so was accusing the person who’d won fair and square of cheating. Alley-skulking wanker.

“You said keep the bottle away from Miss Pauling,” Engineer mumbled.

“That was not an invitation to pilfer all of it,” Spy retorted. He pulled out his cigarette case to light another, but there weren’t any left. Sniper heard him mutter, “Putain de merde.”

Engineer was no longer listening. As soon as he’d finished speaking, he’d hidden the rest of his face in his arms and let out a tiny grunt of suffering. Sniper could hardly blame him. He wasn’t exactly a lightweight, but he had noticed the room starting to spin when he’d finished off the cognac.

Or wait...was the room spinning? Or was it just his head?

Next to him, Engineer let out a moan. Sniper swore he could actually hear the poor guy’s stomach churn.

“Oi, mate, you gonna chunder?” he asked, sliding over to Engineer’s side, reaching out to gently shake his arm. This close, he could see, indeed, Engie did look a bit green around the gills. Sniper had seen that miserable face many times in the mirror when he was in high school, young, dumb, and going too hard because he thought he was invincible. “You’re looking pretty rough, truckie. Maybe we oughta put you to bed.”

Engineer raised his head a bit, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he stared blankly ahead for a moment.

Then, without warning, he hopped up from the table and ran to the sink. Sniper managed to turn his head before Engineer began to wretch. If he didn’t know whether he was sick or not, seeing another person puke up dinner would help him figure it out.

After a solid minute of Engineer vomiting into the sink, and a few more seconds of him dry heaving, he slumped against the counter. Pyro rushed to him, soft, concerned-sounding mumbling coming from under his mask.

Sniper tried to get to his feet, go help poor Engineer out, but as soon as he got to his feet, the world spun about like a top. His stomach gave a lurch as he grabbed the table for support. He didn’t know if his feet would walk a straight enough line to actually get to the sink.

Fortunately, the noise had managed to rouse Heavy, the least drunk out of all of them. Sniper found himself grateful for Heavy’s ample girth. It meant that this much of the drink was enough to get him pleasantly buzzed at most.

He rose from his chair with a soft grunt, and lumbered over to Engineer. Sniper was actually kind of shocked to see him stumble a bit, have to take very deliberate steps to steady himself. When he finally reached the Engineer, he placed a gargantuan hand on the smaller man’s back, and said, “I take you to bed, my friend?”

Engineer merely gave a limp nod, and allowed himself to be lead away. Heavy still kept his hand firmly in the center of his charge’s back, and Pyro trailed along behind them. They all knew that Pyro wouldn’t leave Engineer’s side until he felt better.

“He’s gonna be feeling that in the morning,” Sniper said, using a long arm to brush aside some empty beer bottles. Suddenly, they didn’t look so inviting. All that retching Engineer had been doing was starting to do a number on his own stomach. He mostly wanted to lie down.

“I feel as though we all will be,” Spy replied, rising from his chair. “But I suppose we deserve it for indulging ourselves like children.”

Outside, the wind picked up, whipping the rain against the tin roof above them again. They all jumped at the sudden noise. Sniper had actually forgotten that it was raining at all while they’d been having their fun. “Passes the time in this pissy weather, at least,” he said. His words were quickly swallowed up in a yawn. He gave a look down at his watch. It was half past midnight. Pass the time, indeed.

“Think it’s about time I was dragging me arse to bed,” Sniper said. “Can’t put off the inevitable, I suppose.”

“I guessh,” Miss Pauling slurred. She attempted to stand herself, but her heel gave from under her and she very nearly fell backwards. Spy swooping in like some kind of swashbuckler was the only thing that stopped her fall. Unfortunately for him, it looked like the liquor was catching up with him too, and he swayed dangerously.

“Whoa, careful there,” Sniper said. He stopped himself from running over to help them both. He knew that he’d only stumble himself, and they’d all get acquainted with the floor in a hurry.

“Hey, hey, guys, c-can you tell the room to quit spinning,” Miss Pauling asked, her head bobbing a bit. “That’s, like...that’s really rude.”

Spy chuckled softly, pulled her arm over his shoulder, snaked his other arm around her waist, then turned to Sniper. “Would you mind helping me carry her? I think if you take one side, we should be able to stay balanced.”

“You think so?” Sniper took a tentative step, to test his legs, make sure the skinny sticks would stay standing.

“It’s worth a try, no? I’ll toss in a nightcap for incentive, if that helps. I have an excellent bourbon, back in my smoking room.”

“Really don’t think more alcohol is a good idea, mate.” Sniper finally made it over to them, and took Miss Pauling’s other arm. She was a limp noodle, quietly humming to herself. They started walking out to the hall.

“And why not? We’re already going to be miserably sick in the morning. One more drink is not going to change that.”

“Why don’t we just pickle ourselves so we’ll live to be a hundred and two?”

“Well, then how about this - it’s a shorter distance to carry Miss Pauling,” Spy said. After a moment, he added, “You realize I was kidding about poisoning you.”

“I actually did, but now that you’re bringing it up, how can I be so certain?” Sniper felt Miss Pauling fall back a little bit, and he quickly tightened his grip and pulled her up a little. “Careful,” he grumbled. “I’d rather not drop the lady who knows how to dismember a body so it fits in a hatbox.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I only have two hands,” Spy grumbled back. “I’m not...um…”

“You ain’t what?”

“That thing...you know, the fish, the one that doesn’t actually look like a fish? I can’t remember the word in English. The one with all the arms? Arm fish? It’s arm fish, no?”

Sniper barked out a laugh. “You mean an octopus?”

“Yes, that,” Spy said. Holy Mary, was he blushing?

“You forget English words?” Sniper asked, still laughing a bit.

“Only when I’ve had too much to drink,” Spy muttered. “But English is horrendous, even when I’m sober. And I’m honestly better at it than most of you.”

“How’d figure?”

“I still debate whether half the words Demo says are words in any language, let alone English.”

“Fair enough.”

“Not to mention the butchering Engineer and Scout give it. And they live here.”

At the mention of Scout, Sniper felt a small pang of guilt in his gut. He wondered if the kid was okay. Medic hadn’t come out of the infirmary all night, and Heavy had relayed the minimal amount of news to them when he returned for their card game. It didn’t give him a lot of hope for the kid making a speedy recovery.

“Why so quiet all of a sudden?” Spy’s question dragged Sniper away from his thoughts, and he shot his head up to meet his eye. Spy was looking at him quizzically.

They were approaching the smoking room, and Sniper started thinking hard of excuses he could give to get away once they were there. He didn’t want to have a heart to heart with Spy. He’d had enough of heart to hearts. He didn’t even like Spy enough to entertain the idea. He was tired of being told things would be okay, when every hour that ticked by was giving him reason not to think so. Last thing he wanted was to hear the same thing out of the mouth of someone who thought he was better than him.

Spy reached out a hand to open the door, being careful not to loosen the grip he had around Miss Pauling’s waist. As soon as they were in and Miss Pauling was taken care off, Sniper told himself, he was begging off. He was gonna go to bed and let the sweet embrace of a drunken sleep take him until he was awoken by his rebelling stomach or an explosive headache or both. He’d take his chances with them.

The door swung open silently, wide enough for them to get through by turning sideways into the darkened room. The first thing Sniper was aware of was the strong smell of Spy’s cigarettes. They probably were going to linger in the room forever, with as many as Spy smoked. Mingling with the smell was burned cedar wood from the fireplace and the subtle aftershave he occasionally smelled on Spy when they passed each other in the hall. To his surprise, the scent combination made his eyelids feel heavier than ever.

Spy groped for a light switch on the wall, and the room was suddenly filled with soft light. “We can just prop her up in one of the chairs,” he said. “Probably safer, in case she gets sick.”

Sniper didn’t answer him, just let himself be guided over to one of the armchairs by the fireplace. He was almost home-free.

Together, they gently slid Miss Pauling down from around their shoulders, and had her sitting as comfortable as they could get her in the overstuffed armchair. Spy took a moment to gently pull the glasses from her face and set them on a side table nearby. Then he shucked his suit jacket and put it over her, like a blanket. Sniper just stared dumbly. Where was all this friendliness coming from in Spy? All this kindness? It couldn’t just be because he was drunk. There was a casualness about it all, like it was all second nature to him.

This didn’t seem like the snooty frog that Sniper tolerated on a daily basis. He was starting to wonder if that man really even existed.

Spy loosened his tie a bit, and started heading over to the sideboard. He pulled out a bottle, and two glasses. He must have seen Sniper gazing at him in confusion, because he smiled a little and said, “I promised you a nightcap, no? I pride myself on being a man of my word.”

Before Sniper could decline, say he wasn’t interested, blame exhaustion, drunkenness, anything to get the hell out of here and avoid whatever was about to happen, Spy said, “I also wanted to speak with you about something, if you wouldn’t mind humoring me.”

Piss.

“Sure,” he said dumbly. Spy was already pouring the drink. Sniper realized it wasn’t whiskey, but a dark wine. He could smell it from where he stood.

Spy walked over and handed Sniper a glass about half full. After taking a sip of his own glass, he said, “You are worried about Scout.”

Christ, he’d known it was coming. Why hadn’t he run?

Spy’s icy blue eyes were boring into him, awaiting his answer, even though something in Sniper felt Spy already knew full well what his answer would be. He awkwardly swirled the wine around in his glass.

Finally, he just muttered, “Yeah.”

“Good,” Spy said. “I am too.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m worried about the little tick myself,” Spy said. He walked past Sniper, and, instead of taking the other armchair, he sat down on the floor, his long legs stretched out, in front of the fireplace. Despite the relaxed pose, now that Sniper was really looking at him, he could see the tension in Spy’s shoulders. The icy blue eyes darted about anxiously. Obviously, the declaration had not been something Spy had planned on telling Sniper.

Sniper walked slowly to Spy’s side, crouching down until he too sat on the floor next to him. He tried to keep his tone light, and said, “Thought you couldn’t stand the kid.”

“I find him boorish, insensitive, and irritating,” Spy said. He took another, longer drink of wine. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t like him. Does that make sense?” He looked to Sniper, his face genuine.

Sniper thought for a moment, the wheels in his head turning a bit slower than usual thanks to all this sauce. After some time, he said, “Yeah, it does. Kid’s not the easiest to be around sometimes.”

“You two are quite close.”

“He’s like me little brother. And he can be just as annoying.”

Spy merely smiled a bit.

Sniper finally took a drink of his wine. It was rich and went down smooth. He took another. Then another. Before he knew it, he took a drink and the glass had been emptied. Then, without thinking, he said, “I wish Medic would say something.”

“I know.”

“And I’m tired of being worried about it, and whenever anyone asks, all they tell me is to be patient and everything will be alright and I just need to take it easy. I don’t feel like taking it easy, I’m in a bloody panic over the little mongrel.”

“I know.”

Sniper side-eyed him, searching the other man’s face. There was nothing there. “You do know, don’t you?”

“I’m tired, bush man,” Spy said suddenly. He twisted around, setting his glass on the side table by Miss Pauling’s glasses. When he turned back around, he grabbed Sniper’s arm, and began pulling him down to the floor with him. Sniper barely had time to react before he was on his back on the soft Persian rug. Spy was snuggling into his side. Sniper could smell his aftershave. Somehow, the smell made him even sleepier when it was this close.

“You feeling alright?” Sniper asked, reaching out to set his empty glass on the fireplace hearth.

“Mm-hmm.”

“‘Cause I don’t want you to get sick or nothing,” Sniper said. He let his head sink further down, let his muscles relax. Lord, this carpet was so soft.

“I’ll be fine.” Spy’s eyes slid shut. “Trust me, if I need to vomit, I’ll let you know so you can roll away.”

“And you’re sure you don’t wanna...I dunno, talk, or something?”

“Do you?” One icy blue eye cracked open, to stare up him.

“...no.”

“Then be quiet, bush man, I’m sleeping.” The eye drifted shut again.

Sniper couldn’t help smiling a bit. He pulled his hat over his eyes, and let himself succumb to sleep, with a backstabbing nance buried in his side.

[jeremys-blogs]

Marvel’s Future: A New Main Trio?

I don't think it's any real debate at this point that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has made its impact on both film and popular culture at large. That studio took characters that few outside of comic book fandoms had ever even heard about and turned them into a billion-dollar franchise, creating a series of movies rightly regarded as greats. And all this culminated in Avengers Endgame, a decisive cap-off to the story we'd come to know and love, as well as serving as a farewell to many of the characters who had served as the heroes of this tale. And its those characters I wanted to talk about today, or rather, the now-lack of them. Because the cast is undoubtedly one of the major highlights of this franchise, and standing at the center was its three biggest stars; Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. But, as Endgame now showed, those are three costumed crimefighters that we're likely to never see again, thus taking out a lot of the draw that made the past films work as well as they did. And since the MCU is likely going to want to continue for a long time, that leaves the worrying question of who can take the place of those three greats. Who can stand up to fill the void left behind by the original core trio of the Avengers and serve as the face of the franchise from here on out?

Now this is a pretty big thing to speculate on, I know. These three characters brought the franchise to life and are, within the MCU itself, absolute giants that would be pretty daunting to try and follow in the footsteps in. But if Marvel is going to want to continue to draw people in, we're going to need a central cast around which everything else has to revolve. And my big idea here is this. Don't just focus in on a new cast, but specifically a younger one. A trio of younger heroes who have grown up in this world of monsters, heroes and aliens, who have, with the rest of the world, seen the world change from the mundane to the fantastic, and have them be the ones to take up the mantle left behind by Tony, Steve and Thor. Young people who not only have coming-of-age stories of their own, but also have to have them during an age that has been irreversibly influenced by these powerful, larger-than-life figures who, without even realizing it, have shaped just what life is going to be like for the next generation. Thankfully, the MCU has already provided a pair of characters that I feel can be a part of this new hypothetical core trio, and as for the third, well, I'll get into that one a bit later on.

The first of my proposed new trio would be none other than Peter Parker, the amazing Spider-Man himself. And this one, I think, is probably going to be the least contentious of my choices, because Peter has proved himself to be a well-liked and popular addition to the Marvel films since his debut in Civil War. In fact, the reveal that his character was going to be a part of that movie was likely a big reason why so many people were drawn to it, even though that film would likely have been considered great even without him. Tom Holland has been a real standout performance in the role and every subsequent film he's been in has only cemented my belief that he is not only a worthy Spider-Man, but someone who will probably go on to be one of the key figures in Marvel's future. And since the movies have already set him up to be a sort of successor hero to Tony Stark, I'd say him being considered as one of the new mains is going to be something a lot of people will want. And hey Tony himself personally "knighted" him as an Avenger back in Infinity War, and if that's not a blatant "I choose you" moment for the character, I don't know what is.

Second on my list would be Princess Shuri, younger sister to T'challa, the King of Wakanda and the Black Panther. Much like Peter, Shuri has proved to be a likeable addition to the MCU, with some even citing her as the most enjoyable character of the Black Panther film. And while her brother might himself be more associated with the Avengers, we cannot forget that he is a national leader, and therefore will probably be occupied with a great many responsibilities. His sister, by contrast, is not only unhindered by such things, but also seems to have a greater affection for the world beyond Wakanda's borders, and as the end of her brother's film showed, she'll be getting out there pretty often as part of Wakanda's efforts to better be a part of international affairs. So she'll definitely have more opportunity be out there, and if rumours are to be believed, there's even a chance of her perhaps taking on the mantle of Black Panther herself one day, if only during those times when T'challa himself won't be able to do it. As a funny, intelligent and witty young woman, I think Shuri would be a welcome addition to the new main cast of the MCU, especially since there would be a need to have a hero whose abilities didn't solely lie in some extra-human powers like other characters have.

As for my final choice, I thought long and hard, and eventually decided on the character of kamala Khan, AKA Ms Marvel. Now, this one is likely less-known than the other two since she hasn't appeared in the MCU yet, but to give a brief rundown on her she's a Pakistani-American teenager who, like Peter, acquired her powers (in this case super-elasticity, in sort of the same vein as the likes of Mr Fantastic) by accident and decided to take on the role of a costumed hero as a result. As for her personality she is, to be perfectly frank, an utterly unapologetic Marvel fangirl, completely obsessed with the bigger name heroes of that world, in particular Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, whom you can probably tell she took her hero name from. There's a bunch of other stuff with her but that's more or less the gist of it, that she's a super-stretchy girl with an total love of superheroes and would, most likely, be the most enthusiastic about not only the work of heroing but also being a part of whatever new Avengers form up in the wake of the departure of the old guard. And with her, we hopefully have our new core trio for the franchise going forward. A group of youngsters who come of age in an era of superpowers, gods, aliens and all manner of other world-changing events.

However, much as I would love for Kamala to be included in this, I must concede that her being a part of the new Avengers would present a very specific problem. You see, while Ms Marvel has indeed been confirmed to be a future addition to the MCU, her arrival will not be by way of a theatrical film, but rather television, specifically a Disney Plus exclusive. Now that might not sound like an issue since it's all Marvel, but consider this. The movies will, by and large, be the main form of Marvel that general audiences will be watching or otherwise be aware of. So, for instance, while not everyone going into the original Avengers will have seen all the other movies, they will have likely at least heard of characters like Tony, Thor and Steve. Kamala has no such luck, especially if she's thus-far only going to be appearing on a streaming service that not everyone has access to. So if we're going to have her as part of this new trio, there's probably going to have to be more explanation with her than there is with Peter or Shuri since audiences would already be familiar with the two of them. Fortunately, I've given this some thought and I think I've come up with a workaround.

Remember, Peter's own introduction in Civil War clearly showed that he'd been having a career as Spider-Man for some time before Tony recruited him. He never had any in-movie depiction of his origins. The same thing can be done for kamala. Have her go through her TV stuff sure, but wen it comes to the team-up have her inclusion be like Peter's, where the other heroes find her and include her with only a vague acknowledgement to the stuff she's been getting up to before that meeting. So those who've seen her show might understand what she's been referring to and moviegoers will, like with Peter, get this sense that there was this whole other story that they just haven't been told yet. As for how to bring the three together, maybe Peter will come across some baddie he can't fight alone, and with the Avengers kaput he decides to seek out other help. He goes to Shuri (with the two of them having maybe established an acquaintance during Tony Stark's funeral and wake) and together they try and stop the villain between them. And during their attempt they come across kamala, who has been getting involved with the antagonist while they were tracking them. Details can maybe be worked out later.

But while getting the characters all together is all well and good it'll all be for nothing if they don't work well off each other. That was, after all, one of the things people loved about the original Avengers. Thankfully, I believe these three kids have a lot they can do together once they become a team. Shuri and Peter, as one example, could pick each others' brains over some random new technology they discover during their combined villain-fighting, all while Kamala looks on totally confused as to what they're talking about. Kamala and Peter could share a moment where they consider how their chance for an ordinary teenage life is gone for them because of what happened to them. Or perhaps they could share an avid fan moment where they discuss who could win in a fight between two of the older heroes, all while Shuri watches them with amusement. Maybe Kamala and Shuri could have a talk about feeling like they're in the shadows of their respective predecessors, Captain Marvel and Black Panther, and assure each other that they're just as worthy of being heroes. Really, there's no end to the kinds of interactions these three could have once they're all together, and I think it has the potential for some truly great character moments.

Now, I realize that it's unlikely that such a team-up will happen. It was all just a bit of fun speculation. But I do think it's worth considering. After all, the MCU, at least as we've known it for the past decade-plus, can no longer continue as it was because of the massive cast change that Endgame gave us, and I truly think that the franchise will need some new main face if it's going to want to continue onwards, trio or otherwise. Thankfully, if nothing else, we know by now that this is a studio that has enough experience at making great movies that, no matter what form their franchise takes, at least it'll be fun for us to see play out 😊

[starboyjxmin]

First Love (Yoongi x Reader) Pt. 4

Synopsis: Hoseok has a daughter but things take for worse turn as soon as he discovers at what cost.

Warnings: Fluff, Angst, Crying, Smut, Vulgar Language, Cheating

Genre: Romance, Angst, Smut

Word Count: 8361

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

(A.N. This was suppose to be a Hoseok fanfic but I took a bold, maybe not so much, action that turned it into a Yoongi fic. Also, this is my first fanfic on Tumblr! Bare with me please, much love! X.)

It was kind of emotional to see how quickly you became attached to Yoongi after a few days. The last time you had seen him was a week ago exactly, which was when he took you to the grand dance floor and waltzed with you, whispering words of admiration to you. It was baffling. You were never someone who was praised but hearing it from the feline eyed man made you feel fierce. Beyoncé fierce. You had even called your friend from college to tell her all about Yoongi.

"He's just so.. It's like he's a God." You could hear your friend choke on her drink from the other side of the line.

"A God?" She managed to cough out.

"Mhm, he treats me so well." You immediately flipped on your stomach, pulling your pillow from under your stomach and tossing it to the side of your bed. It was 9:50 P.M. "It's like.. What I wished Robert was like back when I was a teen and how I wished he would have asked me out that one night at the diner near the college campus, or how I wished Rob would have been with me back when we meet my senior year of high school."

"Giiirrl," The disapproving tone in Sasha's voice left you a bit surprised. "I don't want to ever, listen to me, ever hear that fool's name ever again, especially from your mouth. Got it?" You laughed, remembering the days your Bronx friend use to cuss people out for trying to outsmart her. Everyone knew Sasha was a force that one should never try to provoke.

"Okay, okay, I won't say his name!" Both of you giggled and soon the line on either side got quiet.

"What about this Yoongi guy?" You smiled at the sound of his name.

"Well, he has a daughter and a husband."

"...Are you homewrecking?" Sasha's serious voice shook your core which caused a loud, almost bark like laugh to erupt.

"Oh my, no!! No!" You suddenly sat up. "Dear no." This came out of you more calmly. You began to tell your friend everything Yoongi had told you three days before he had practically eaten you at the Charity Ball.

"Wait, really? That's some broken stuff."

"I know, but he doesn't have or carry any luggage from it. He's a great guy. I know for a fact you would love him."

"Hmm, we'll see. Listen, babe, I gotta go. I have to meet with the owner of this company. Can we discuss this another time?"

"What time is it over there?" You checked your phone, counting the hours ahead of you that France was in.

"Baby, it's almost 7 in the morning but the meeting is at 7:30 A.M."

"I'm sorry, well go ahead Apple's CEO, having fun in France." Sasha giggled at your words.

"Bye now, sleep well." And with that, the line went dead.

Yoongi was staring blankly at his screen, not believing that for the first time in so many years, he had nothing to write about or produce. His mind just kept going back to the Charity Ball night. He didn't understand just how intoxicating it had all become once you and him began to kiss outside of the venue. He felt like a teenager all over again.

Y/N couldn't quite understand just what it was about Yoongi that suddenly made her all giddy and playful. You laid there on bed, turning the phone over in your hands. The man was horrible before but now, he was the only thing on your mind. The lingering thoughts of how he gently touched you, his long fingers playing with the back of your dress and his hungry feline eyes rolling back at how your tongue danced on his neck. The gentle touches became more needy and sloppy. God what were you thinking? Little did you know Yoongi couldn't help but think of your touch as well.

"Just like teenagers," He shook his head with a smile. It had been years since he had experienced a woman's touch. It had been years since he had felt true hungry and having had the skin of your jaw in his mouth made him realize he was starving. He closed his eyes, feeling the electrical fuzz of where your hands were before on his chest, slowly creeping down to his stomach and down his hips. There, you were such a nymphet to him, such a sweet, fucking tease. It didn't help that you were so bright-eyed and curious. The ghostly memory of how you giggled after giving him a shy squeeze around his manhood, made him tremble despite it being a week.

You looked at your phone, seeing how Yoongi's contact name illuminated your screen, pondering whether or not you should call. But at the same time, you remembered his husky voice and how you shivered in his arms when his breath tickled your ear and neck.

"Don't play games with me, baby doll. I'll have you saying my name like a prayer."

Bluff, just a bluff you thought as you shook your head, bringing you back to whether or not you should at least text. He hadn't spoken to you, and Rose didn't bother you about her attractive father either. You would see Jimin or Jungkook sometimes at the end of the school day, picking up Rose from school. Jimin was the one who would make clear advances towards you, leaving you to assume that Yoongi was never actually interested, just persuaded by the light buzz he had. You were buzzed too but here you were, wanting to know more about the man.

Yoongi woke up with a start.

Someone was ringing the doorbell rapidly. He groaned as he heard the lullaby repeat in weird places, not sounding beautiful at all.

"What time is it?" He began to rub his eyes, realizing he had fallen asleep in his office.

"12:52 P.M." Replied Siri as he stood up.

"Thanks." Siri didn't respond. He was still in yesterday's clothes and surprisingly, fell asleep with his shoes on still. Yoongi began to walk out of his office and descend from the stairs. The lullaby was still fumbling through the house with its broken notes. "Hold on!" This was no way to wake up a man, much less after he realized last night his attraction towards his daughter's teacher. Yoongi didn't really bother to look through the peep hole, given that it was at Taehyung's eye sight level rather than his. He began to mumble under his breath just how stupid it was that Tae had it installed for his eye level when it was Yoongi that spent all his time at home. He opened the door unceremoniously just to see Hoseok.

It was Saturday, a fine day to go out with friends or even mingle. But today was your court day to finalize everything to the divorce. Everything.

You sighed, seated on the toilet with no panties on, just a long red shirt Robert forgot when he had packed his stuff, deciding that he just didn't want you anymore.

"I should wipe my ass with this shirt."

Your ex-husband would look a you and realize (Hopefully) what a complete fucking douche he was all these years to you, regret leaving so much and fucking your co-worker who has no idea that you knew she was fucking your husband. She kept giving you smiles and compliments as if no such thing had happened before.

"Hi, Yoongi." Yoongi was astonished to hear his past best friend's English sound so perfect, better than his own actually. He didn't say anything but just took in the sight of his friend. It was as if Hoseok hadn't aged a single second from the lat time he saw him, 7 years ago. "Rose only speaks English right?" Hoseok said again in English.

"Uh," Yoongi was still trying to process what was happening. "You-" It was just so baffling. "Wait." Something snapped deep in Yoongi's chest. "You fucking left her. You fucking abandoned her. What the shit are you doing here?" Hoseok held up his hands in front of his chest, palms forwards as a sign of mercy.

"I'll take that as a yes. Listen, may I come in?" Yoongi couldn't believe Hoseok really had the audacity to come back.

"Why are you here?" He shoved the younger man, despite being shorter. Hoseok closed his eyes, not fighting Yoongi back, his hands still in the same position.

"Hyung, I just want to come in and have a civilized conversation with you." This was just angering Yoongi more.

"No! You fucking abandoned her! You left us to take care of Rose and of her mother's body!" He began to shove Hoseok again. "You helped Amy make Rose but you could't be responsible of them after you shoved yourself in her and had Rose?!" Yoongi shoved Hoseok farther away from the front door and again Hoseok just took it. "WHERE WERE YOU WHEN SHE NEEDED YOU? ROSE IS MY DAUGHTER, NOT YOURS!" It appeared as if the older male was going to take a swing at Hoseok's face. "YOU CAN'T JUST SHOW UP AFTER 7 YEARS AND SAY SHE'S YOUR DAUGHTER WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO SHE IS OR WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE!"

"Suga Hyung-," Hoseok's voice came out as a warning as he was continued to be shoved further and further away from the house.

"YOU CAN'T JUST COME BACK AND TAKE AWAY MY DAUGHTER JUST BECAUSE NOW YOU FEEL LIKE SHOWING ANY INTEREST IN HER!"

"MIN YOONGI!" Both males turned at the sound of the very deep, baritone voice.

Taehyung stood at the door, looking at his husband who appeared to be close to the verge of tears and the distant man he wished he could forget.

"Tae," His name came out mangled from his husband's mouth, a clear indicator that there was this deep pain in him. Taehyung didn't care to think but walked to his partner, and as soon as he was within arms reach of Yoongi, the older male threw himself at Tae, hugging him tightly.

"We have neighbours, jagi." He whispered to Yoongi who just stood there, relinquishing.

"Hi, Taehyung-ah," A low growl came out of Yoongi as Hoseok greeted Tae. "May I come in?"

"Sure. But Rose isn't here." Hoseok's face fell. "Come now." The two men walked into their home, Tae still being hugged by Yoongi as Hoseok followed shortly after them. "You can close the door." Which he did.

"I honestly don't want to be a part of this." Yoongi let go of his husband, shooting a dark look at Hoseok who weakly chuckled as he scratched the back of his head.

"You have to. This is about our daughter." Hoseok grimaced at the emphasis Tae put on our. They took a seat in the living room as Yoongi picked up one of Rose's shoes before placing it next to his shoes along with Tae's by the doorway to the living room. Hoseok noticed just how small her shoe was, he wondered just how smaller her feet must have been when she was born. Just how much had he missed out on?

"Why are you here?" Yoongi's menacing voice echoed through the room.

If there was anything you were going to do right, it was to get dressed up nicely for court. You wanted to make sure Rob looked at you the same way Yoongi did the night of the Charity Ball. There wouldn't be any time for you to feel sorry or mop around because this was literally the man who had cheated on you, and treated you horribly. When he wasn't emotionally harming you, he neglected you, pretending at times that you never existed. But lo and behold, you thought as you slipped on some lacy panties, I am very much alive.

You decided to immediately opt for a dress and a bombshell bra you were given at your bachelorette party that was never once worn. The dress you picked out was a suede contemporary dress that seemed to be more body con than contemporary. But it was long, so it was fine. You ruled out heels given that the bruises from Friday night's event were still very tender as well as noticeable so you grabbed some socks and wore the black Lita boots that were once your go to back in high school. Luckily, they weren't scoffed from anywhere. You had forgot just how tiresome it was to untie them and retie them once again.

"12:52 A.M." British male siri said, reminding you that you had to be there at 1:30 P.M.

"Thanks, babe."

"You're welcome, your Majesty." It had been very difficult to program your siri software to respond back to your thank yous and thanks but in the end, when you finally got him to welcome you as well as refer to you as "Your Majesty." It was all very worth it in the end.

You had gone for a jog at 4 A.M., come back home to shower, eaten breakfast and fallen asleep for 3 hours before calling Sasha which she surprisingly answered after the first ring, despite it being late for her in France. It had actually been Sasha who reminded you of your court date being today and at 1:30. Stupidly enough, you had received a text from Jimin asking you out for lunch at 3:00. Dear, at what time did he eat breakfast then? You subsequently agreed to his invitation, worrying about the dancer.

Hmm, makeup would be nice too, you quickly applied blush and mascara, not overall worried about looks since your hair always made you cute when messily put down. This was a look book. You loved how you were able to bring out the beauty in you, anxiously waiting to see your ex husband's face so you could witness the reaction he would have. The goal was for him to regret everything. It was ambitious to say the very least.

You quickly grabbed your purse and phone, dashing downstairs while rummaging through your purse to get the keys. You hastily locked the loft and poked the buttons of the elevator which was thankfully in front of your door, and after the 7th poke, the elevator doors opened for you. No one was inside, leaving anxious you feeling a bit better. It wouldn't help if a stranger saw just how flustered you were over the final and last stage of your divorce. But was it a sin to be happy about being legally and finally fully divorced? Probably not but it was best if you kept it to yourself.

Ding!

You zipped past the parting doors and out of the complex. Your car was parked in the front, across the street. This wasn't the time to walk to the light and wait for it to turn green so you could walk across it and down the street to your car. No, this was time for jaywalking.

"Goodness, if any of my students were to see me." You had made it safely to your car, opening the door and quickly stepping in followed by buckling, closing the door, and turning the engine back to life. "It's a good day," You signaled before driving down the abnormally still street. "It's a hard knock life for us." Singing was a bad habit of yours that only occurred when you were faced with extremely stressful situations.

The whole ride to the court house consisted of you profusely checking your face in the rear view mirror at red lights and stop signs and singing Annie.

Finding parking right in front of the court was almost a miracle as you luckily parallel parked.

It indeed was a good Saturday.

"I just came to meet her. I-" Yoongi was already starting to growl but once Taehyung placed an arm around his waist, he stopped. "Would really like to know what became of her and say goodbye to Amy properly." Hoseok's voice wavered towards the end of sentence.

"Well, since Yoongi is clearly upset about you being here, we can't let you see Rose." Hoseok was about to protest but Tae cut him off. "But we can tell you where we put Amy to rest."

"I don't think he deserved to know that either. He just dropped her there like nothing as well." Yoongi said to Taehyung, loud enough so Hoseok could hear on purpose.

"Hyung, we were best friends-" He pleaded to the older man who was still looking at Taehyung, pretending that he couldn't hear.

"I'll give you the address, we had a nice ceremony for her. We have pictures if you wish to see." Yoongi couldn't believe Tae. He was going to let the traitor back in as if what he did was forgivable.

"Thanks, namdongsaeng."

"He isn't your little brother and stop calling me Hyung because I'm not your brother either. You left us all, you can't just come back and call us these things as if we are a happy family again. Get over it." Yoongi stood up boring his eyes into Hoseok. "We aren't young anymore, we aren't the same boys who were chasing a dream together, we aren't the same people who use to stand on stages around the world with fans cheering us on, we aren't in Korea anymore, we aren't in that small practice room where we would laugh and share stories. Stop thinking you can just have it all back."

"Yoo-" Tae stood up, grabbing his partner's wrist just to be lightly shook away.

"I don't know who told you it was okay to come." The lullaby flowed through the house, finally beautifully and in all of its entirety. "But this was not a good idea." Taehyung walked out of the living room to see Rose standing in the hallway with Jin holding her hand as he laughed with her about something.

"Hey, Tae! Sorry we can back a little earlier, Kelly was paged during our time at the park so we decied to come back for lunch." He failed to notice Tae's face and how quiet the house had gotten.

"Hi daddy! Did you miss me? Where's Daddy Yuyu?" She let go of Jin's hand and hugged Taehyung's waist.

"He's um.." Taehyung began to mouth to Seokjin that Hoseok was in the living room, to which he excused himself before going to see it for himself. "Let's go upstairs okay? You must be sleepy from being at the park."

His daughter pouted.

"No, I want to see daddy."

"He's a little- No!" Rose had let go and ran to the living room.

"We are here gathered today for the final of the divorce between (Y/N) and Robert. (Y/N), you filed for divorce stating reconcilable differences as well as cheating, correct?"

"Yes, your honour." Your lawyer smiled at you, sensing your nerves. So far, when you had entered the room, Robert did look a you. And he still was. Maybe because he was angry.

"Do both parties agree that this is correct?"

"Yeah." Rob's raucous voice seemed to piss you off.

"Yes."

"Okay, she keeps the paid loft that was Mr. Peters' as well as the Audi. Hm, pretty generous of you, Mr. Peters." The judge said, smiling at Robert.

"Just how I am, your honour." You couldn't help but roll your eyes at him. So generous that he let women hop on his dick. You were thankful that he stopped touching you a few months into marriage.

"Anything you would like to add, Miss?"

"No."

"Alright." The judge gave one of the two guards in front of his podium, a paper. "What Derek will be handing to Robert is the divorce papers to terminate the marriage." Rob signed and smiled at the Officer who brought the paper to you. Even his stupid signature bothered you deeply. You signed the paper and towards the end of your flourish, you let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding.

Freedom.

You gave Derek a huge smile that seemed to radiate all your joy and he meekly smiled back, before taking the signed documents to the Judge who overlooked them.

"Okay." The following words the judge said weren't heard from you. You felt like the world around you was muted. No more Robert. No more having to put up with any of his shit, no more disrespect from him to you about your job.

It was a beautiful feeling to know you were no longer tied to Robert. He probably reciprocated your feelings but regardless, you were so happy. It seemed hours until your lawyer poked you, saying that it was all over, time to go home.

Home.

"Hi." A shy Rose looked at the strange man in the living room who was standing, with her dad and uncle staring at the man, it seemed as if they were holding their breaths.

"Hi." He spoke as he got down in a knee.

"Rose," Yoongi felt his breathe get caught in his throat as he watched his daughter slowly walk towards Hoseok.

"Oh my god," Jin didn't really know how to process what was going on. Hoseok had just suddenly, without a warning, come back to them. It was something so unheard of. And to see Rose actually go up to him, was just further mind blowing.

"Hi, my name is Rose Olivia Min. What's your name?" She politely stuck out her hand to the man who created her. Hoseok's heart hurt. She had Amy's emerald green eyes and his tan skin. But upon a closer look, he realized her face was symmetrical and her eye shape seemed to be cat like but had some roundness to it, reminding him of a porcelain doll. It was strange how she had traits of Tae and Yoongi. He took the soft, small hand of his daughter and shook it.

"Hi, my name is Hobi. How are you?" He didn't want to let go of her hand but Yoongi's cough made him drop her hand.

"Daddy," She turned to Yoongi who had an estranged look plastered onto his pretty face as his eyes were glued to Hoseok's face. "Daddy." The little girl huffed, reclaiming her dad's attention, which he gave her with a soft smile. "Is he a friend?"

"No baby, he just came by to say hello to us." Jin finally spoke up. "Hoseok, I think it's time you go."

"Did he do something wrong?" Rose looked back at Hoseok who gave her a weak smile.

"Something among those lines." Taehyung answered as he leaned against the wall, near Yoongi and Jin.

"Oh, well, bye Hobi." She stretched out her hand again to him, so unaware tht he was her father and she once had a real mother.

"Bye Rose."

You arrived at a rather large dance studio that seemed like a company rather than a studio itself.

"Hi, are you here for a class?" The male secretary asked you polity.

"Um," You walked over to his large front desk and leaned over it. "I'm here to see Jimin?"

"He'll be out in a second, his class should be over now." The male gave you a smile before turning back to his computer.

"Thanks." You were about to make your way to the chairs in the lobby to wait for him when you heard Jimin's voice.

"Hey (Y/N)! Sorry for making you wait, I had to change so you wouldn't see me in a mess." He laughed as he gave you a tight hug.

His secretary raised an eyebrow.

There was a lot to Jimin that you hadn't really notice before about the smiley man who was currently telling you about his class that offered a self defense course because he use to box and got certified to teach it alongside his contemporary jazz and ballet classes. Jimin was very kind. He held this glint of overbearing adoration in his eyes that seemed for everyone. He gave the best, tight hugs and the way he held his face with his hand, elbow resting on the table as he heard you discuss your court date, you could say that the man was very kind and a good person. It sounded very bland to said it but you just didn't have the perfect words in your vocabulary to properly describe him, it was a bit sad.

"So I think, he just left me those things out of spite and because now I will be forced to live with his stuff for the rest of my life given my measly salary of a teacher will never be enough to insure me such things that will last and fully paid for."

Jimin gave you a sweet smile as he leaned into his hand lazily.

"Well, I think if it really upsets you, just sell his stuff and buy yourself something comfty but nice with the money you receive from the sells and add in your 'measly salary of a teacher'." You giggled at his words and took a bite from your burger.

"Hm," You swallowed down your food. "You're absolutely right, Mr. Park." He laughed as he kicked back his head. The sun caught his glossy Prince Eric like hair, leaving you starstruck. Jimin was so beautiful.

"Anyways," He poked at his almost finished salad and looked into your eyes with amusement and a smug look on his face. "How's everything with your new man?" He raised an eyebrow.

"The emphasis on 'man' that you did was positively unnecessary!" You shot him a teasingly dark look, praying that somehow your face didn't give away that you had not yet spoken to him despite thinking of him in sinful ways. It was so strange how Yoongi still hadn't called you. Maybe he wasn't that great as you made him out to be.

"Yoongi-Hyung can tend to be a bit distant but it's because he doesn't know how to fully react to people he likes. He usually has this cool laid back, I-don't-give-a-fuck thing going on, which is true because he doesn't care much for other people's thoughts or opinions but when it comes to girls, he's at a lost." He popped the remaining of his salad in his mouth.

"Hm," You looked at your burger, noticing how the sour dough bread was crispy and had a golden glaze to it, and how the cheese stuck snugly to the meat. He didn't strike you as a shy person, much less that he was at a loss. The way he spoke to you at the ball, in the shadows with his mouth attached to your ears and lips, it seemed like he was more than certain he wanted to try something with you.

Jimin watched your face go from unreadable to a sudden pang of hurt and even uncertainty etched over your features.

"Hey, what is it?" He reached over, placed his soft warm hand over your cold one. Your attention shift to the subtle contact.

"Do you think it's possible he just.." The hesitation in your voice sounded so childish but Jimin caught onto what you meant.

"No," He rubbed your hand with his thumb soothingly. "Dear no, Yoongi has a daughter and he has always had high standards that he has put himself to. Trust me, if he wanted some," He leaned in with a smug smile. "He has his husband."

"You know what, you right!" You giggled while popping a fry in your mouth.

This was a beautiful thing. It had been just so long since you had an actual pleasant conversation with anyone, let alone with someone who was becoming a very close friend. Sasha was your best friend but there was a huge time difference between you two and her job was far more demanding than yours. Maybe Rob was right, being a teacher didn't mean enough when you got hungry.

You smiled at something you had missed that Jimin said with a laugh that seemed to make the worst problems seem minuscule.

"I just can't believe Hoseok really came.." After sitting around in the living room and seeing Hoseok departure again for the second time, the boys finally began to talk.

"Fuck him." Yoongi spoke up, looking at Namjoon who had talked. He had rushed from his law firm, missing Hoseok for merely ten minutes. Namjoon was secretly glad he did, what would it have been like to see Hoseok again after so many years? He might have not handled the situation as well as Taehyung and Seokjin did.

"Did someone tell Jimin?"

"Yeah, as well as Jungkook." Jin replied to Taehyung who had a sleeping Rose in his arms as he scrolled mindlessly through his Twitter feed. "Jimin said he was busy at lunch with a friend but was coming 15 minutes ago. Jungkook is still in his classes and he has work afterwards, something about taking his girlfriend out too so he was sorry, however he would come over tomorrow, blah blah blah." He looked up from his phone. "The kid has better things to do than to worry over some guy who is back despite being a jerk."

"Yeah but this is important." Namjoon rebutted as if it would make a difference.

"He's in Med School, calm down." Tae stood up with Rose in a deep slumber in his arms.

"I'm fucking done with Hoseok, why did he come?" Yoongi was angry, he was still shaking from the frustration he felt. This was all so bad.

The lullaby rang through the house, making him feel a little at ease. He breathed in, at least he had his music.

"I'll go." Yoongi closed his eyes as Jin stood up. Hm, he needed to go upstairs and write something, anything. A diss track. He smiled at that thought. Yeah, a diss track would be amazing right now, especially with everything he felt.

"Hey Jin, we met the other day when you picked up Rose?" His eyes shot open.

(Y/N) was standing there in the hallway, her voice had become closer as she made her way into the living room with Jin. He saw you walk in with Jimin's hand on your waist. Wait what?

"Oh dear, yes! You're friends with Jimin?"

"She's actually a family friend. Hey babe." Taehyung walked over to (Y/N) and kissed her cheek.

"Taetae, how are you?" She finally turned to everyone else in the living room, noticing the off atmosphere. "Yoongi." You breathed his name, leaving the poor man to cough as a cover for the groan that immediately erupted through him. The sound of your lips opening and how your tongue effortless rolled his name while that voice you posses, it sent a shock right through Yoongi's being, and right to his cock.

Fuck, this was no time to be aroused by the sound of your voice saying his name.

"Hey," His casual tone caught you off guard, but he was looking at Jimin who shrugged adorably at you.

Yoongi's eyes twitched.

"Why haven't I met your family friend? Tae?" Namjoon stood up and made his way to you. God, what was it with this family with their insanely hot relatives? Jin was the definition of handsome as well as husband material. Namjoon was a fine specimen of a man, a daddy. There was no way you could ever fit in with this beautiful family. "Yoongs?" Namjoon shook your hand as he directed the question to Yoongi as well.

"She was at the Charity Ball, not our fault you didn't notice our honourary guest as well as my beautiful date." He finally decided to stand up, giving Jimin a look of death which caused the younger male's arm to be by his side, rather than wrapped around your waist.

Yoongi looked different, you noticed. He was weary looking and had a disheveled look as well. This concerned you quite a bit given that he was very always holding this playful gleam in his eyes that was ever so present when Rose was around, which she was even if Rose was soundly asleep in her other father's arms.

"Are you okay?" You couldn't help but to express your concern about the feline-eyed man.

He blinked, engulfing you in a tight embrace.

"Now I am."

After Yoongi had excused you and himself from the living room and brought you to his office, he had told you about Hoseok's sudden appearance, how the rest of his family reacted, how Rose talked to him, everything that had happened externally as well as internally. You sat there, listening to him, watching him sit on the black soft carpet of his office. He looked small and vulnerable. At time, he would cry or hold back his breathe when he would talk. Sometimes, he would shyly reach his hand over to you, and you would tightly grasp it, massaging it from time to time.

His whole aura was a bit sad. Yoongi really loved his daughter, you could swear that he was the one who had impregnated Amy and had Rose. How scared must you be, to raise a baby from birth, watch her wrapped in that hospital blanket and suddenly feeling this overwhelming need to be there for that baby, loving them with more than your entire being. Just to have all that love and nurturing care put into having this child grow with standards and never feel the abandonment their previous parent did because now they have you, just to have this so called parent come back and expect to some certain degree, have the love of their child without the staying up late in the nights where you had to work, just to take care of this child who was either sick, fussy, bearing a nightmare, or too embarrassed to reveal they were scared to sleep alone. It was devastating, Yoongi didn't have to say it to you out loud, you could hear it from the pain in his voice to the way his eyes would water.

"I'm sorry, Yoongi." You scoot closer to him, bring your knees to your chest and fixing your hair behind your ear. He leaned into your shoulder, closing his eyes.

"It isn't your fault," He sighed. You looked at his face. His dark eyelashes fanned out against his cheeks, the contrast of his fair skin and his black lashes were very striking.

"I'm here for you." You felt the need to brush his bleached hair away from his forehead.

Yoongi could feel your eyes on him, leading him to open his eyes. You locked eyes with him for a brief moment.

There was this unspoken conversation between you two by simply staring into each other's soul. 

His heart began to thump against his rib cage, he needed to touch you or else it felt like his chest would explode.

"May I-" His voice was weak. "May I please touch you?"

"Yes." That whisper was all he needed.

You braced yourself for a hard kiss as well as rough hands shamelessly pulling at your skin and clothes.

But..

Yoongi softly traced your cheekbone with his finger pads, his mouth a few inches away from yours. His breathe warmed your cheeks, coaxing a blush. His other hand soon traveled from your enclosed hand to your back. Yoongi's eyes seemed to have said millions of things to you. This all caused there to be a so distant yet familiar sensation between your thighs.

Yoongi soon closed the space between you two by pressing his ajar lips against your own lips. The soft feeling of his lips moving with yours, and the occasional tongue he would slip into the growing kiss made this slow burning fire taint your lower abdomen.

His large, rough hand left your face and accompinated his other on your back. He pressed his hands up and down your back, teasing the zipper of your dress. You felt yourself grow deliciously wet from his soft touches. It had been so long since anyone had touched you.

A hand of yours pressed into his lower stomach as the two of you made wet sounds with your swollen lips pressed into one another's, and pressed down to feel his already hard cock. You swallowed the deep groan emitting from the man. His hands finally unzipped the dress, feeling and appreciating the skin under it.

"May I undress you?" He pulled away from the passionate kiss and rest his forehead against yours, breathing hard.

"Please, Yoongi." He let out a moan at the sound of your intoxicated voice saying his name and how your naughty hand was working him against his jeans.

"Princess," He pulled on the short slash looking sleeves of your dress down gently, his fingers making you shiver when they would rub down your shoulders and arms as he pushed the sleeves, the neck of the dress was being pulled down as well with them, revealing your almost suffocated padded breasts. "Could you call me Oppa?"

You sat up, moving a bit so he could pulled the dress off from under you, finally.

"Oppa." His puffy lips and the daze that struck his eyes left you breathless.

"Mmm," He enjoyed the sound of you voice so much, and saying that left him harder than before. "Come here, Princess." You sat on his lap, facing and almost straddling but you were suddenly hit with shyness.

It had been so long since a man had fucked you, let alone touched you so preciously that it left you dizzy.

Yoongi pulled down the strap of your bra, dancing his long digits over the newly discovered skin. He pressed a kiss against your shoulder, earning a soft moan from you. His tongue soon slipped out, rubbing and swirling on your bare shoulder, making you bubble with whimpers.

"D-Oppa," He repeated the same thing onto your other shoulder, leaving you a wet, hot, mewling mess. You began to rub your wet, clothed core against his denim jeans. Surely, they would become stained from your evident arousal.

"I didn't expect anything like this so I don't have a condom, do you?" He said very suddenly, pulling away from your skin but one of his hands was now unclasping the bra while the other held your lower back, anchoring you to his lap.

"I have the little implant rod birth control thing." You admitted, slowing your rhythm on his thighs, looking away shyly.

Yoongi smiled at you, he could swear you were an angel for how pure you looked despite the evident lust that swirled in your iris and how you were just now rubbing against him.

"Okay, princess. Sit up a bit, please." You adjusted yourself a bit, and felt his hands leave your skin. He was unbuttoning his jeans, and pulled down his zipper.

You instantly felt how your panties were pooled with wetness at the sight of his hard, clothed member. He slipped it out, looking up at you. 

"Oppa," You whimpered as his hand left his dick and reached under you. He moved your panties to the side and slowly dipped a finger in.

There was a sudden crash of euphoria running through your body and pressure building up in your hips.

"You're soaking wet," His mouth was now attached to your ear as he kissed it and made grunting noises as he pumped his long digit in your wet core.

You reached for his cock, feeling the protruding veins as you tightly tried to close your hand around it and began to pump him. He soon curled his single finger up, massaging the soft slick top as he pressed another finger against your clit, slowly rubbing his thumb on it and creating invisible circles around it. This was the first time both your clit and g-spot were being stimulated. You were whining his name as tears slipped from the corners of your eyes. The building pressure was getting too much, you began to buck your hips on his hand. How could he use a single finger to bring you to this intensity and another on your clit? You had even forgotten about his twitching dick.

Right before you were about to cum hard, he slowed his pace and gently pulled his finger out.

"God," You breathed. He gave you a smirk.

"Princess, come closer please." Yoongi removed your hand from his painfully harden cock and laid it down. You slid closer to him, feeling the head sliver through your wet lips. He let out a loud moan. He wanted you to tease him as well.

But you couldn't. He had edged you too much.

"Daddy," His eyes snapped to your face. "I want you to take me now." You sat on your knees, leaving a gap between you and him. You moved a bit back, holding his cock a bit up and slid it into you as you moved closer to him.

Both Yoongi and you whined out loudly from the bare feeling. You could feel his skin, his ridged veins pressing against the walls of your core. He could feel how warm and wet you really were. Yoongi's eyes rolled back into his skull, he was afraid to release that moment from how beautiful you felt.

"Sit princess, please sit." You never felt more sexier in your life. This gorgeous man was a complete whimpering mess from under you, begging you to take more of him. This had never happened before.

"Yes Oppa." You wiggled a bit, causing him to grip your hips and his jaw to slack. You finally sat fully down, his cock fully immersed in you.

"C-can I move?" It was so shocking to see Yoongi, someone who had this intimidating look and fearless aura around him, beg and melt before you. It was so empowering to you.

"Yes Pappi." He picked you up and began to slowly rock his hips up into you. You never expected that such slow but powerful thrusts could cause you to moan so loudly. The two of you had even forgotten his family was downstairs.

"F-fu-ughhhhh," Yoongi's low growls and the intensity he was using on you began to make you tear up again. There was this blinding pleasure building up behind your eyes, and these shocks of ecstasy that would wash over you when he began to go a bit faster that made you drop your jaw and even drool a bit.

Yoongi was so lost in his own pleasure that he sloppily began to run your clit faster, feeling you contract against him.

"Yoongi, Yoongi, please!" The shocks of his finger rubbing your clit furiously as he began to angle his dick into you while he slammed you against his lap, was leaving you numb and deaf. The ringing in your ears was dull but very much present.

"Fuck yourself Princess, use my cock." He bit your neck causing you to scream. He had let go of your hips and was now pulling at your nipple as his other hand continued to rub you. You began to ride him hard, bouncing on his cock as your breast rolled against his chest. His lips began to attack your own, as he would try to talk at the same time but you were already too far to understand him.

Your climax hit you hard, it spurred out, making you actually sob in deep, blinding pleasure. It felt so great to feel the pressure in your belly finally crack into millions of pieces.You collapsed, face first into the side of his neck, crying from how good it was. He held you to him as he continued to thrust himself into you, cumming as well. You began to squeal in intense pleasure, feeling his cock twitch in you as he released his hot seed deep within your soaked walls. Yoongi slowly came to an end, his hand cradling your head and his other arm firmly around your waist.

"M'pfmm," You tried to speak but it was as if that orgasm was a reset button to your brain.

"I love you, (Y/N)." This caught you very off guard. "I love you so much."

You couldn't look Taehyung in the eyes the following day when he had called you, asking to go out for lunch with you.

What the fuck.

You had really homewrecked him.

Taehyung on the other hand, kept talking to you, even smiling as he ate and spoke to you about his latest photo shoot.

"Kendall actually said I was her favourite modeling partner to shoot with because she enjoyed me. Hey what's wrong?" He put his burrito down. You couldn't dare look him in the eyes. His husband had made love to you, in their home, under their roof.

"Tae," You grimaced at the sound of your own voice as you spoke his name. "I-I think I shouldn’t be here."

He laughed.

"What? No! Don't be silly, babe!" You cringed at his nickname for you. "Hey," his tone grew soft. "Look at me, babe." Reluctantly you did. You were expect a harsh look in his eyes, even some soft of trail of anger.

He held softness in his eyes.

"I just fucked your husband." You chocked, feeling tears flood you.

Taehyung stared at you for a long time.

You cried loudly, earning stares from nearby booths. There was no way Tae would ever forgive you. You were a fucking whore really, you were no better than the women who ruined your marriage. You just ruined someone else's marriage. What a fucking hypocrite.

But Tae began to laugh. He laughed so hard that he began to cry with you.

"Babe!" He chocked out in between tears, "You're so cute!!" Tae couldn't stop laughing at you. You stopped crying. It was incredible how Tae was acting as if you had just said the funniest thing in the whole world. Was he thinking you were joking? "Oh god!" Tae began to breathe hard as he tried to calm down his laughter. "Babe," he leaned in as he sniffles a laugh. "We aren't a real couple."

"But-" He raised a finger.

"We have a daughter, true. But we aren't romantically together." He took a sip of his Coke. "I haven't been faithful to him either. In fact, I have a girlfriend. She's met him and he knows about my adventures." You were deeply confused.

"So.. Are you guys ... Polygamists?" Tae tried to keep a straight face but failed. You noticed he bad a beautiful smile when he opened his mouth.

"Babe, no! We are together for Rose so she has a stable family. Yoongi and I would not divorce anytime soon since Rose is still young and needs both parents here for her. She is to meet Zendaya next week, given that she was the one who match made you and Yoongi. That gave me the opportunity to finally introduce my girlfriend to my daughter." He gave you a sweet smile. “We’ve been together for two year, of course she met Yoongi right from the start as I told her the truth before pursuing anything with her, Zen didn’t seem to care. She was just happy I was honest from the beginning.” You suddenly remembered the comment Yoongi made the day he showed up unexpectedly in your classroom after-school about how Taehyung was a lady’s man. It made complete sense now. 

“Wow.. I wasn’t aware of this.” Tae reached over and took one of your cheese fries. He bit half of it before going on. 

“Hm,” He swallowed. “It isn’t anything taboo or controversial if you really think about it. Couple do it all the time for the sake of their families and are rather much best friends with their partner. You do know Yoongi and I were never in love right?” You nodded. “And that we got married to share custody over Rose?” Again, you nodded. “Alright. You should meet Zendaya too.” You nervously looked up at him, taking a sip of your Dr. Pepper. 

“Me? God, no.” You nervously put your drink down. “She’s so pretty and this huge fashion icon, I’m just-”

“You are (Y/N), the girl who finally possessed my man and stole him from his true wife and mistress, music. The man loves you more than his own music. He rather spend his time talking to you than being locked into that office. Of course, Rose did too but that’s his kids, he has to put that away for her sake. But wow, you did the impossible You are strong, intelligent, passionate, fearless, and most of so beautiful from the inside and out. So please don‘t belittle yourself like that. You are now my family as well. I don’t want my little sister to think so poorly of herself just because she isn’t on a magazine. I think you’re making way more of a difference by teaching than being on the cover of a magazine compared to my girlfriend and I. You are shaping the mind of the future. Wow, look at you, babe!”

Admittedly, that did make you feel loads better.

“Thank you, Taehyung.” He took another cheese fry before simply shrugging. 

“You’re important, I just hope one day you understand this, sweet girl.”

And you did. For the most part. Tae was right, you were important. Rob was forever and always wrong. You didn’t do a shit job and got a shit career. You were the one who was teaching the future surgeons, the future rappers, the future models, the future engineers, the future Ceos, even the future anthropologists. You were in the making of something wonderful. And no one would ever take that away from you, not even a stupid man who was always undermining you and belittling you all the time. You finally had a true family, one that wanted to see you go higher. That was enough to keep you afloat.

Part 5 (Not ready)

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[raindrenchedstories]

Brave little knight 2

Warning! Foul language. Shorter than most of my chapters, but all the interesting stuff happens AFTER this chapter.

Neil had gained quite some time with his thoughts. Time, and regret. Had he just stayed out of the giants view. Had he just remained happy travelling with his fellow humans. Had he just THOUGHT for two minutes instead of acting brashly.

The giant had been gone an hour. Maybe two. Or so it felt. He couldn’t tell without the sun there to show him the time. He actively avoided examining anything but his cell within the room. No good could come from giant paraphernalia.

At least, not in HIS experience. He scoffed, examining his cell once more. There had to be an opening, a way out. The bastard couldn’t have made the cell perfect. Placing both palms on the glass, Neil began to slide it. The panel budged, then stuck. Causing the man to fall to the left.

“Fucker.” He cursed under his breath. Slowly rising. He had to be OUT by the time the giant returned. Dreading the torment he’d be subjected to next. Would there be more spells? They weren’t so bad, but he’d still rather avoid them entirely.

Neil began ramming his shoulder against the glass, hoping in vain it would shatter. When that didn’t work, he began exploring his cell. He found a hole, about the size of one of those water taps the giants left around. He began trying to work an arm through.

He wouldn’t fit, but maybe there was something on the other side. Something he could use to escape on the other side. Even just a particularly jagged stone. But no, smooth on the other side. He slumped onto the floor, deflated.

This would take a bit more thought than ‘desperately claw at any crack like an animal’. He had to think. To be smart about this. The giant said ‘an hour or two’ he’d be back soon. And when he returned, Neil had to think of something to act upon.

If that fall safe spell weren’t on him, he would have tried jumping from a high place and injuring himself. Pulling sympathy from the giant, and hopefully, being given a more escapable venue. His sword was taken as well. So no ‘I accidentally cut myself’ ploys either.

Or...Did the giant plan to hurt him anyway? Could he even trust the beast to take sympathy? What if he just decided to ‘put Neil out of his misery’? His stomach squirmed in place.

The uncertainty was eating at him. It didn’t make the grinding sound of the cave opening much better. Now he had to face the fucker. Sure enough, his captor moseyed in. Seemingly calmer than before. Relaxed. He set a large sack on the table and began pulling objects.

“Got anything to say for yourself?” The giant asked.

Neil scoffed. Opting to watch as the devious bastard continued his work. He could make out the uses for many of these things. Bedding, dishes, toiletries, it looked like Neil was in for the long haul. He did get confused by the last objects the giant pulled.

Two stones wrapped in some sort of gel, a large tank, a tap, and a smaller, less impressive tank and tap.  Neil watched, and contemplated what the purpose of the stones were. The tanks, water delivery system. No question.

The stones however, each had their own little quirks. They were small, the giant seamed to have trouble handling them due to this. One was a nice little green colour, the other an icy blue. Carefully, the giant took the green one.

He could see the bastard grimace, taking the small tank and tap up. The tap in the same hand as the stone. With a deep, measured breath, the giant harshly slammed the green stone into the tank. The gel burst and water seamed to fill the container.

The titan screwed the tap on quickly and exhaled. The tap cutting the water off, making the tank, a filled, and ready source of liquid. The giant set that down. He gazed up at Neil with a small smile. Leaning on the table.

“So, what did you do while I was gone?” He set his golden eyes on Neils face. Causing the man to press back against the wall.

“Oh, you know. The usual. Jacked off and thought of you while doing it.” He hissed. That dragged a snort of laughter from the giant.

“You know, hating me only makes you cuter. But really. You don’t seam like you’ll just give up after a scolding. Did you injure yourself trying to escape?” The bastard tilted his head, starting for the enclosure.

Neil almost told him to go fuck himself when he cut in quickly. “If you don’t answer me honestly, I will be checking you over.”

He huffed. Really assessing the damage from his attempts. “Shoulder’s bruised. That’s about it as far as I can feel.” It was humiliating admitting his attempts, but he’d rather deal with that than being grabbed and held again.

“Anything unbearable?” The giant piped in.

“You.”

“Right. I forgot you were a homicidal little maniac.” Archibald-THE GIANT- sighed. Yes, Neil knew his name. He wouldn’t forget it. But the moment he started seeing the bastard as anything but his captor, tormentor, and source of all his problems, was the moment Neil lost the fight.

That said. The giant wasn’t in- NO! He couldn’t think like that. The giant was the one who threw him in a cage, he had all the power, he had the magic, and the size. It was unfair just how badly humans had it in comparison to the local races.

Balefully, Neil watched the giant repeat the earlier process with the larger tank. Shortly after, he stood, carrying the bits and bobs toward the cage. Neil shuffled back, grumbling. It caught him off guard when the giant reached for HIM. “HEY! HEY! You said you wouldn’t-”

“Never said that. Besides. You DID stab me. I’m kind of done with trusting you for now.” Neil was held loosely in one hand, while the giant busied himself with fixing the cage up. The smaller tap placed by a large sort of dish. Big enough for Neil to lay down in. Another dish made into a bed.

Both on the top floors. In difficult to reach spots. “Could you AT LEAST make the place livable?” Neil whined. There was a soft laugh above him.

“Relax. The spells will keep you from getting hurt.” That wasn’t the issue. Neil didn’t care about getting hurt. He cared about comfort. And the way the cage was set up, his comfort would come in the form of climbing, swinging, and working just to get to bed.

That said, he was probably going to just pull the blankets down and make his own little spot elsewhere. No way he’d stay in the places the giant wanted him to, if he could avoid it. “So... What? I just stay here ‘till you get bored of me?”

“No. You’ll be out of here before long. I promise.” The giant spoke in earnest, shifting things awkwardly with one hand. Neil smirked at this.

“Having trouble big guy?” He folded his arms over Archibalds index finger, forcing himself to be casual and friendly towards the other...For the moment.

“Yeah. Don’t know what I’m going to do with the curtains. Maybe I’ll paint the walls pink. With daisies!” The giant grinned down at him. Spoiling his cocky attitude.

Neil inhaled, then exhaled, he couldn’t keep this up. ‘Out before long’ What did that mean? Dread rose in his heart a moment. “So...You going to tell me what you’re doing?”

“Currently making your cage more comfortable. Little tap is the bath. Big is water. Should be a nice cold drink.” Neil groaned at this, slumping in defeat.

His fault for asking. Then again there was one out he hadn’t tried. “Listen. I got kids to feed. Could you just-”

“No. You don’t.” He was cut off. Neil shot up with an indignant snarl. “You wouldn’t have brought them up just now if you did.”

“I’m a shit father okay!?” He snapped. The giant was right, however, Neil had been lying.

Archibald sighed, leaning in and bringing Neil to eye level. “Buddy. You’re talking to a dad. And young man, you are NOT a father. Now are you going to man up and speak in a civil manner with me? Or are you going to keep crying?”

“Fuck you.” With that, Neil was stuffed back in his cage, the glass sliding back in place. Archibald walked away. It was jarring to say the least. The man found himself following Archibalds path with his eyes until the titan was out of sight.

Resigned to his fate, Neil faltered, and fell against the wall, sliding down and covering his face. Particularly his eyes. It was as though the problem would go away if he didn’t see it. Perhaps if he pressed hard enough he’d go blind. Then maybe the idea of spending the rest of his life in a cage wouldn’t be so bad.

He’d stayed like that for a while, until he heard, and felt the titan return. Glaring out the glass wall, he watched Archibald pull another stone from the massive box. He tried not to think about what it would take to bite through sheer rock like that.

“Why don’t you just pull from the mountain? Why bother even storing rock?” He asked out loud. The giant tilted his head to the sound as Neil spoke. Heaving a sigh, the gargantuan man seated himself.

“Two reasons. One; variety. Can’t just eat one kind of thing all my life. Two; I’d literally eat myself out of house and home.” He laughed the last bit. Neil didn’t join him in his mirth however.

Those golden eyes fell on him again, only now, less intense. No judging, no anger, and no real intent. Archibald sighed again. “We have some things to discuss.” He folded his arms, not truly looking at Neil.

“Nah. We don’t.  But you can go ahead and talk. Not like I can stop you.” Neil glanced over at the water tap. He was thirsty, but he decided to go as long as he could without accepting anything from the giant.

“...I’m not going to keep you here-”

“You said that already. So... How long ‘till I’m off to market?” The man scoffed, leaning his head against the stone wall. He heard a massive groan.

“You’re not.”

“Ah, to the grave then. Great!”

“Not that either. Just shut up and listen.” The giant snapped. He seamed to be fighting not to get angry now. “I’m setting you free after a little while.”

Neil froze up, slowly rising. “Come again?”

“Well, sort of.” Despair rallied in the humans gut. “I’m going to give you what you want.”

“Oh, so you want help dying?” He let himself smirk at the thought. Neil wouldn’t mind one bit if that was the giants intent.

“...I’m going to assume you’re set on being an ass hole today?” Archibald rose from his chair, bringing one of the bags from earlier back onto the table and rummaging through it. He pulled a strange box from this and carried it over.

“No no...I’m set on being an ass hole for as long as I’m here.” Neil leaned back grinning. Playing his nervousness off as anger, or perhaps a smug sense of satisfaction. He wasn’t sure which he was expressing at the moment.

A small bowl formed on the opposite side of the water dish, and slid out towards the titan. Archibald filled this and returned it to the inside of the cage. Neil still refused to budge. With a roll of the eyes, the titan leaned himself on the wall.

It was a little surprising how effeminate Archibalds movements were. Neil cringed. “So... The Mrs. Okay with this?” Neil scoffed, starting for the opposite wall. He pressed the tap, ignoring the glasses provided.

There was a bitter laugh behind him. “There... Is no mrs.”

“Dead?” The water was almost painfully cold in Neils hands. But oh, it was sweet. Nothing like the muggy living taste from the rivers. Or the hot, strong flavor of the boiled water he’d survived off of. “Or were you lying about your kids?”

“...I don’t know if I’m comfortable telling you all the details. But in short, she’s dead. But I’m not sorry.” The titan pulled a small golden chain from around his neck, staring into a clockwork locket.

“And you judge me for simply trying.” Another sip of that wonderfully cold water.

However, Archibald laughed. A genuine guffaw. “I suppose that’s a logical conclusion. But you’ve got the wrong killer...She used me to sire a son to serve her. But. Died in childbirth.”

Food for thought. The human filed that information away for later, if this captive thing went on too long. Once Neil was done with his drink, the cage was re-opened. The man flailing away.

“Now, since you don’t seam to want to hear me out~ I guess this just has to be a mystery for you.” No it wasn’t! Neil knew what giants did to smaller folk. He’d heard the stories. Using them to play out horrifying fantasies. Flights of fancy.

“Fuck off. Fuck OFF!” He backed against the water tank, forcing himself in-between it and the wall. Words were failing him, but Archibald seamed to fill the silence. Nothing of importance, he simply shushed and reassured Neil that everything would be fine.

The human was lifted, then cupped in-between those hands again. A few more spells worked into his person before he was left to himself, back in the cage. “I SAID FUCK OFF!”

“No thank you. Leaves a terrible mess.” Archibald strode off. Picking another boulder up.

“....So what do those ones do?” Neil glanced at his hand, wondering if he should feel so... well actually he felt really nice. Like he was swaddled in something soft and fluffy.

“Couple spells to keep you out of trouble. Make sure you don’t die two steps out the door...Eat up.” Neil could feel his stomach lurch and growl, causing him to straighten bolt upright.

“DID YOU JUST!?” He shrieked in outrage.

“No. The spells had nothing to do with that. You just haven’t eaten anything in a while. Far too thin to be healthy.” With a flick of the finger, the stone bowl moved closer to Neil.

He had to fake casual interest, glancing at the contents. It looked like some sort of bread disk, just sprinkled in there. Harder than Neil knew possible, but not indigestible. He lifted one, broke it, and took a bite. It...tasted like stale boot leather. “Ugh. Please tell me the OTHER humans eat better.”

“For the most part. Kibble is hardly ever used. Trust me, you want that over my cooking.” Archibald sat himself down, keeping his back turned to the human.

“...So here’s the full ration question; How long am I staying?” Neil watched as the giant stiffened, leaning back a bit in his seat.

“Until you’re ready, I guess. That said, you can leave any time I’m not watching. If you can figure your way out.” That didn’t sound promising. But it was better than nothing.

“Alright then.”

[snapadoodlez]

12th Doctor series playlists: series 8 & ‘Last Christmas’

Here is the final playlist I’ve made in my Twelfth Doctor series playlist collection (until the 2017 Christmas Special, that is). This one is for Peter’s very first season as Twelve: Series 8 and ‘Last Christmas’.  Similar to my other playlists, it’s organized so that the listener can (more-or-less) relive the story by listening to it from beginning to end.  

The Spotify link can be found here:  https://open.spotify.com/user/sirenssongs/playlist/3edfNpeuti7HQDR1xcrYCt

As in Series 8, the emotional arcs here are Clara & Twelves’s new dynamic, Clara & Danny’s relationship, Twelve’s self-discovery, and the new Twissy chapter in the on-going doctor/master saga. Fair warning: this is the most heavily“Broadway” out of the Twelve Series playlists, but I think it works for re-telling the story.

I’ve included the full track-list and guide below the “Keep Reading” line. I know I’m going to miss Peter dreadfully, so hopefully this’ll be a nice easy way relive his incredible run as The Doctor. I’ll probably do an embedded version later and a master-post with all the ‘Twelve’ playlists soon:  In the meantime, enjoy!

*Note:  I realize the last song, “When You’re Home”, also starts out the s9 playlist: I thought it bridged the gap between the two really well, and I couldn’t decide where to put it. So both playlists it is! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1. Sparks - The Who

“Any moment now, he’s a coming… but times change, and so must I.” “I think it’s going to be a whopper.”

2. Why Can’t the English? - My Fair Lady 

“Have you regenerated? I remember you. You're Handles. You used to be a little robot head, and now...you've really let yourself go.”

“Why do you keep talking like that? What's gone wrong with your accent? You sound the same. It's spreading. You all sound all English. Now you've all developed a fault.”

“Oh no, that's good... I'm Scottish… I can complain about things, I can really complain about things.” 

3. Just You Wait - My Fair Lady

“No. Don't. Don't smile. I will smile first and then you know it's safe to smile.” “Are you cross with me?” “I am not cross. But if I was cross it would be your fault and. Yes, I am cross.”

“Nothing is more important than my egomania.”

4. Poor Baby – Company

“Well, if neither of us placed that ad, who placed that ad?”

Missy plays matchmaker. * 

*In my head for this song, she’s droning on and on about the Doctor’s loneliness to Seb. Oh Seb... you sassy Interface... how I miss you.

5. I Don’t Know His Name - She Loves Me

“The Doctor regenerated in your presence. The young man disappeared, the veil lifted. He trusted you. Are you judging him?” “I am not sure who you think you're talking to right now, Madam Vastra, but I have never had the slightest interest in pretty young men... Just because my pretty face has turned your head, do not assume that I am so easily distracted.”

“When did you stop wearing your veil?” “When you stopped seeing it.”

6. Nobody Knows You (When You’re Down and Out) - Leslie Odom Jr.

“You look at me, and you can't see me. Have you any idea what that's like? Please, just see me.”

7. Something There - Beauty and the Beast

“Thank you.” “For what?” “Phoning.”

“I..I don't think that I'm a hugging person now.” “I'm not sure you get a vote.”

8. Roll Away Your Stone - Mumford & Sons

“Clara, be my pal and tell me... am I a good man?”

9. Mix Tape - Avenue Q

“Er… are you going to the leaving thing tonight for Cathy?” 

“Um……No, I'm not.” 

“Oh, okay, never mind.” 

“Good night.” 

“Change your mind…I'm going… I'll give you a lift. Why not?” 

10. Tonight At Eight - She Loves Me

“Are you going to look that terrified when you take me out for a drink?” “I… I absolutely promise I won't.” “Play your cards right and you might.”

11. Tango Tragique - She Loves Me

“I am trying to have a date. A real life, inter-human actual date! It's a normal nice, everyday, meeting-up sort of thing. And I would just like to know, is there any other way you can make this any more surreal than it already is?”

“I made a joke.” “A not-funny joke.” “Yeah, well, do you know what I'm making now?” “A fuss?” “An exit.” 

12. Ice Cream (Reprise) - She Loves Me

“Hello. I'm Clara Oswald. I'm a bit tricky, sometimes a bit up myself, but I think that's basically everything you need to worry about.”

“Hello.  I’m...I’m sorry.”

 “Also, I mouth off when I'm nervous and I've got a mouth on me. Seriously, it's got a mind of its own. I’m really worried it wants to go solo.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything.  Or say something nice.”

13. Valley Forge (Demo) - Lin-Manuel Miranda (The Hamilton Mixtape)

"You loved the army.” "Yep. And then one day I didn't.” 

“When did you get to become so wise?” “Same way as anyone else. I had a really bad day.”

Danny has memories he’d rather forget.

14. An Open Letter (feat. Shockwave) - Watsky (The Hamilton Mixtape)

“Look, take him away. Shut him up, shut him down. Up or down, it doesn't matter to me. I've got a lot of work to do. Again. “ “Will you be okay?” "Why wouldn't I be okay? I was fine till you two blundered in.”

"How stupid do you think I am?” 

"I'm willing to put a number on it.” 

“Well, is there anything I can do?” 

“Yes. Yes, and this is very, very important. Leave us alone!”

“When this is all over, you can finish the job.”  “How do you mean?”  “Well, you've explained me to him. You haven't explained him to me.”

15. Enough - In The Heights

“Now, Time Lords, do you salute those?” “Definitely not...And you can get out of my Tardis!” “Immediately, sir.” “Doctor, this is stupid, this is unfair!”

“Do you love him?”

“No.”

“Really had enough with the lies.”

“Not in that way.”

“If he ever pushes you too far, I want you to tell me, because I know what that's like. You'll tell me if that happens, yeah?” “Yeah, it's a deal.” “No. It's a promise.” “Okay. I promise.” 

Clara is soooo over it.  And so is Danny.

16. Sunrise - In The Heights

“I am so…” 

“I know.” 

“And I just get nervous.” 

“Me too.” 

“I don't even know what I'm nervous of…”

“I'll show you. So, listen. If you listen to nothing else, listen to this...” 

17. Ain’t It Fun – Paramore

“There are moments in every civilization's history in which the whole path of that civilization is decided... Whatever future humanity might have depends upon the choice that is made right here and right now... Kill it. Or let it live. I can't make this decision for you.”

18. Get Gone - Fiona Apple

Don't you dare lump me in with the rest of all the little humans that you think are so tiny and silly and predictable. You walk our Earth, Doctor, you breathe our air. And you can damn well help us when we need it. 

Go on. You can clear off. Get back in your lonely, your lonely bloody Tardis and you don't come back. 

19. There’s a Fine, Fine Line - Avenue Q

“I'm done, I'm done. I am finished with it...It's over. I'm finished with him, and I told him that. What is that face for? Why don't you believe me?” “Because you're still angry. You can never finish with anyone while they can still make you angry.” 

20. A Hymn To Him - My Fair Lady

“No, that was me allowing you to make a choice about your own future. That was me respecting you.” “Oh, my God, really? Was it? Yeah, well, respected is not how I feel.” “Right... Okay...”

“Human emotions are confusing.” - Twelve (probably)*

*Note: for the purposes of this playlist, you can just replace “woman” with “human” and “man” with “timelord” for this song (Henry Higgins’  many issues in My Fair Lady is a discussion for another day);  For all it’s faults,  I can’t think of another song that exemplifies the whole “emotions confuse me” vibe as well as this one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

21. The Party’s Over - Leslie Odom Jr.

“I just thought this would be a good one to...” 

“To end it. Yeah. It is. It's a good choice. A good one to end on.”

22. Don’t Wait Too Long - Tony Bennett

“To our last hurrah.” “Our last, yeah. I mean, it's not like I'm never going to see you again.” “Isn't it?” “Is it?” “I thought that's what you wanted.”

23. Style - Taylor Swift

“Was that Danny? What did he want?” “He's fine with it.” “Sorry..?” “Danny. He's fine with the idea of me and you knocking about... Oh, to hell with the last hurrah. Let's keep going...I've had a wobble. It's a big wobble, but it's fine... Now, shut up and give me some planets.”

“You can't really tell if something's an addiction till you try and give it up.”

24. You’ll Be Back – Hamilton

“Now, that was surprising. And I love surprises.”

Missy anticipates her return.

25. I Think I’m In Love With You - Jessica Simpson

“Okay, before all of that. Before all of the stuff That I did wrong… I love you.” 

“Danny, I love you. And you are the last person who's ever going to hear me say that.”

26. Without You – Rent

“It's a terrible thing. Just a terrible, terrible thing.” “It wasn't terrible...It was boring.” “Boring?” “It was ordinary. People just kept walking with their iPods and their shopping bags. He was alive, and then he was dead and it was nothing. Like stepping off a bus.” “He deserved better. And so did you.” “I don't deserve anything. Nobody deserves anything. But I am owed better. I am owed.”

27. No Good Deed – Wicked

“Danny Pink. Is dead.” “And?” “And fix it. Change it. Change what happened. Save him. Bring him back.”

“One last chance. And I don't care about the rules, I don't give a damn about paradoxes. Save Danny. Bring him back or I swear you will never step inside your TARDIS again.” 

28. Blank Space - Taylor Swift

“Hello. I hope you're well. How may I assist you with your death?”

“Who are you?” “You know who I am. I told you. You felt it. Surely you did.” “Two hearts.” “And both of them yours.”

“Oh, you know who I am. I'm Missy.” “Who's Missy?” “Please, try to keep up. Short for Mistress. Well, I couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master, now could I?”

29. Coin-Operated Boy - The Dresden Dolls

 “You see, Doctor? The power to slaughter whole worlds at a time, then make them do a safety briefing. Everyone who ever lived, man, woman and child, is now at my command. An indestructible army to rage across the universe. The more they kill, the more they recruit. Happy birthday.”

“All of this. All of it, just to give me an army?” “Well, I don't need one, do I? Armies are for people who think they're right. And nobody thinks they're righter than you. Give a good man firepower, and he'll never run out of people to kill.”

“Why are you doing this?” “I need you to know we're not so different. I need my friend back.” 

30. Who Am I? - Les Misérables

“I really didn't know. I wasn't sure. You lose sight sometimes. Thank you! I am not a good man! I am not a bad man. I am not a hero. And I'm definitely not a president. And no, I'm not an officer. Do you know what I am? I am an idiot, with a box and a screwdriver. Just passing through, helping out, learning. I don't need an army. I never have, because I've got them. Always them. Because love, it's not an emotion. Love is a promise.  And he will never hurt her.” 

31. History Has Its Eyes On You – Hamilton

“This is not a good day. This is Earth's darkest hour. And look at you miserable lot. We are the Fallen. But today, we shall rise. The army of the dead will save the land of the living. This is not the order of a general, nor the whim of a lunatic. This is a promise. The promise of a soldier!”

32. Unworthy of Your Love – Assassins

“Ten zero eleven, zero zero by zero two” “What did you say?” “The current coordinates of Gallifrey. It's returned to it's original location. Didn't you ever think to look?” “You are lying!” “We can, we can go together, just you and me. Just like the old days.” “You'd be clapped in irons.” “If you like.”

“Seriously. Oh, Doctor. To save her soul? But who, my dear, will save yours? Say something nice. Please?” “You win.” “I know.”

33. For Good – Wicked

“Me and Danny, we are going to be fine. Don't you worry. You go home. Go home. Go be a king or something.” “Yeah, I might do that.” “Or queen, you know. Whatever.” “Yeah, queen, that would be good too.”

“Doctor? Travelling with you made me feel really special. Thank you for that. Thank you for making me feel special.” “Thank you for exactly the same.”

Last Christmas

34. Little Saint Nick – The Beach Boys

“Hello? Doctor? You know it can't end like that. What do you want for Christmas?”

Here comes Santa Claus.

35. One Last Time – Hamilton

“Five minutes. You can miss me for five minutes a day. And you'd better do it properly. You'd better be sad. I expect my five. But all the rest of the time, Clara, all the rest of the time, every single second, you just get the hell on with it. Clear?”

“...When I wake up, you won't be there.” 

“Do you know why people get together at Christmas? Because every time they do, it might be the last time. Every Christmas is last Christmas, and this is ours... But now it's time to wake up.” 

36. When You’re Home – In The Heights

“No one ever matched up to Danny, eh?” “There was one other man, but that would never have worked out.” “Why not?” “He was impossible.” 

“The TARDIS is outside.” “So?” “So, all of time and all of space is sitting out there. A big blue box. Please, don't even argue.” 

“Merry Christmas, Doctor.” “Merry Christmas, Clara Oswald.”