#CANONICALLY ITS ONE UNIVERSE ANGELA APPEARS IN BOTH | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thebrighteye · 3 years

Text

Breaking [My Heart]: Act V Preserving

"There's nothing simple when it comes to you and I, Always something in this everchanging life" - Everchanging [Rise Against] Winston has issued the recall towards rebuilding Overwatch. Angela - formerly known as "Mercy" - is captured by Talon, who are searching for any information that can stop the rise before it begins.

AO3 | FF.net | Works | Pandora Playlist

Trigger Warnings & General Statements This is a dark torture story. As such, there's going to be bad things happening - for the sake of not spoiling, I will not tag what, exactly will be appearing at any time. While I don't think any of the scenes are terribly graphic in nature, I do want to stress that the scenes are present and aren't for everyone. I did try to make the reactions and trauma realistic, following both real-world medicine / research and in-game universe canon (such as Angela's nanotechnology). There will be multiple POVs per chapter - two sets for both Angela and Reaper as well as a fifth from an additional character. Please, read at your own risk - and enjoy!

I have nothing left to give, I have found the perfect end. - Dear Agony [Breaking Benjamin]

A pair of boots stomped towards her. After a moment, she was dumped unceremoniously on the ground; she whimpered as her knee struck the concrete and she sprawled out. Angela looked up quickly, though, for the food and water they always placed out for her. She didn’t want them to force it upon her because she was too slow. Instead of sustenance, she was yanked up onto her knees by the man. She struggled weakly, trying to take the pressure off her broken knee, but it was a wasted effort. The constant grinding noise turned off – perhaps for their sanity because it certainly wasn’t for hers. Panting, she wondered what new hell they had in store for her. The man restraining her yanked her head back from its bowed position as two other men came into the room. There were always three when they interrogated her. The distinctive sound of a pistol slide racking filled the silent room. Finally. They were finally going to put her out of her misery. Relief filled her, chasing away the pain from her knee and the lasting agony that her body was always in. She had won. They had decided to cut their losses and get rid of her. The gunman moved forward and slammed the barrel of the pistol against her head hard. If it weren’t for the restrainer gripping her hair tightly, her head would have been shoved aside. With the brace, she imagined there would be a nasty bruise. But what did bruises matter when she would be dead soon? “This is your last chance.” The third man spoke – of the trio, he was the only one who ever spoke to her. “Answer the questions, or you will die.” He thought it was a threat, but, in reality, it was the sweetest promise she had ever heard. An escape from this? He couldn’t have better guaranteed her continued silence. “Who will answer the recall?” It always started there – with the questions he understood. While he had gotten better at asking the more technical questions, she knew he still had absolutely no idea what he was saying. “Lena Oxton?” Silence. “Victor Daigneau?” Angela focused her gaze on the pistol, on the promise. “Torbjörn Lindholm?” The names brought a flicker of something – guilt? Shame? Grief? – she wasn’t sure. If she died here, what would happen to the ones she left behind? What would happen when they found her broken body wherever Talon dumped her – if Talon dumped her? But they hadn’t found her, hadn’t saved her from this room. All she wanted was out. The pistol was removed, and she nearly cried for the loss of that gift. Then it was slamming back into her, startling a cry out of her. Blood filled her mouth as her teeth tore into her lip. “Where will they go, now that they have cleared out Watchpoint: Gibraltar?” She kept silent. Angela hadn’t even known they had left that Watchpoint until he told her just now. How would she know where they went? She had loved it when she visited that Watchpoint. Oh, her purpose was nearly always for something horrible – usually an emergency surgery or a response to a strike injury – but those brief periods before she left? It was beautiful there; it was unfortunate that Overwatch – this new, rough version of it – had given it up. Angela wished she had gone out to visit Winston more, regretted that she hadn’t seen it in years. She’d always thought there was more time. More time to create and heal, to fix the broken of the world. More time to see her friends; there was always next year, after all – until next year didn’t come. Angela really should have known better. “Perhaps, Dr. Ziegler, you do not believe we will kill you.” Oh, no – quite the opposite. She was praying for it. Even with the misgivings that were rising, tickling at the back of her mind, she wanted it. Death was the only escape left for her. The gun was pulled away again as the gunman pointed it towards the far wall. The gunshot was far too loud for the space, leaving her ears ringing and her eyes watering. She had dealt with death all her life. First, her parents had died in the Omnic Crisis. Next, she had chosen her path as a doctor – before, during, and after Overwatch. Then again, when she had served in the field as a combat medic. Finally, when she had been locked into this room. She had faced her mortality often with Overwatch, and less so since the fall. Angela had been forced to realize it again upon her capture: now, death was a certainty instead of a distant possibility. She wasn’t afraid to die; she had come to terms with that days – weeks? Time was a blur here – ago. Death was easy – but living? Living was hard, especially here. Faintly, she heard the slide being racked again before the warm barrel was pressed against her temple again. Angela heard the speaker demand something, but she couldn’t understand the words over the ringing of the gunshot and the rushing of her blood. The barrel dug into her temple harder; the question repeated as she tried to focus. “Last chance, doctor.” The speaker growled. “Explain how your nanites give you the ability to replicate the DNA and RNA in others.” It had been her crowning achievement: unlike Jack and Gabriel, whose bodies had been modified to regenerate from most wounds slowly, her nanites also allowed her to heal the bodies of others if she chose. Apparently, it was also part of how Gabriel was still alive. Angela gritted her teeth. She would stay silent; it was all she had left. Her chin lifted defiantly. She didn’t know if it was resolution or defeat that fueled her as she stared defiantly up at the speaker. All she knew was that this was the last stand for Mercy, her final act. The speaker nodded at the gunman. The barrel pressed into her temple painfully, and then the trigger was pulled. Click. Angela sucked in a shaky breath as her heart skipped a beat before pounding painfully, head dropping limply as her restrainer released her head. She should be dead. They were going to kill her – there was a bullet in there; they proved it – she had made her peace – they put a gun to her head – she was supposed to be dead. Hard, cruel hands grabbed her face, fingers pressing too hard on her cheeks and forcing her head back until it was painful. “Did you honestly think we would let you go so easily?” The taunting whisper wrapped around her heart and squeezed until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She was supposed to be free. Free of the pain and anguish that had been her life since she had been taken from Cairo. It was supposed to be an escape, a relief – and now it was more agonizing than her shattered knee. They were supposed to kill her. She had been ready, more than ready – she had given up entirely, was prepared to abandon her cause and all those she protected. And they let her live. How was she supposed to continue living after that? How could she live with herself? Angela was breathing too fast, her eyes unseeing as she stared up at nothing. She barely felt it when both men released her, allowing her to slump sideways to the floor into the ever-present puddle. For once, they didn’t douse her with water before they left – not that she was in any state to have noticed one way or the other.

---

She had no idea how long she had laid there. They hadn’t brought her food, nor had they thrown water on her. Angela had just sprawled there, body aching from the awkward, twisted position she had fallen in – but she couldn’t seem to muster the energy to move. To do anything more than breathe. Angela wished her one of her friends would come to her, would tell her she would be alright – that she was strong – but none had appeared. Why would they? They had abandoned her as she had abandoned them; she couldn’t blame them for that. Without a thought for the consequences, she had prayed for death. All she wanted was for the pain – all-encompassing and ever-present – to stop. Angela wasn’t strong like this, didn’t want to be strong like this. She wasn’t Jack or Cole or Reinhardt. She wasn’t Ana. She was just Angela. Wait. When had she stopped being Dr. Ziegler – being Mercy? When had she become ‘just’ Angela? Did it matter when Dr. Ziegler was dead, and all that was left behind was the soft, emotional parts that were Angela? ‘Easy’ wasn’t in Dr. Ziegler’s vocabulary. She had never backed down from a fight, never given an inch when she knew she was in the right – no matter how hard, Dr. Ziegler did what she believed was best. Just because it was easy didn’t make it right; that had been one of her favorite quotes. But easy, oh – ‘easy’ was in Angela’s vocabulary. Easy was what Angela was good at. She was all too willing to let her emotions overwhelm her, to let her feelings blind her. She felt too much, remembered too much, and shook from the weight of it all. If it hadn’t been for the cold, hard parts that were Dr. Ziegler, Angela never could have survived Ana’s death, Jack’s death, Gabr- She couldn’t finish that line of thought, not here and now. It was Angela who was left quivering in this room; Dr. Ziegler was killed when they pulled that trigger. With her had gone her support – because they didn’t support Angela. She was useless, nothing – it should have been Angela that had died instead of Dr. Ziegler. Angela wept, curled there on the ground. Grieved for everything she had lost – her dignity, her strength, her self, but not her life. Sobbed for those she had betrayed and abandoned, for whom she bled in this bright, loud room. Without the strength of Dr. Ziegler and the resolve of Mercy, without the support of her friends, Angela didn’t know how she would survive the next time those men came to her. She didn’t know if she could take their abuse and remain silent, to keep the oath that had been sworn by someone stronger, better.

The mission had been an utter failure. Gabriel didn’t care about how the mission went, though it frustrated him that it had been a waste of his time. Time away from the base, from watching Angela and trying to figure out what – if anything – he would do. Once they landed, he had stalked through the base until he was looking in on Angela, drawn like a moth to a flame. She looked hollow – like a shell of herself. Angela wasn’t being worked on right now, wasn’t even hanging from the chains. She was limp, staring blankly up at the ceiling. She didn’t seem to care that the way she was lying left most of her body on display to the window he was looking through. Before he had left, she had been willing to spend the energy to turn her back; now, she was no longer willing – or able – to make such an effort. What had been done to her that had destroyed that? Gabriel was familiar with torture; he knew there was plenty that would make her look and act like this. He had known it was only a matter of time before they broke her, shattered like a glass thrown to the floor. But after her stubborn refusal to bend, her defiance despite the excruciating pain she was experiencing, he had thought she wouldn’t break. Had thought she could pull off one last miracle. Foolish. The Reaper was a walking testament to the curse that was Angela’s ‘miracles.’ Disgusted, Gabriel spun away and went to his office. He would see what they had done, how she had been broken. He would read the reports and see what her progress was – and what was still yet to come.

---

“Yeah, boss?” He hated the thought of asking anyone for help, but there was no way around it. Sombra was the electronic security in this base; if he wanted to get out, he needed her on his side. He was taking a risk by coming to her, but she had seemed sympathetic towards the doctor the last time they had been in the observation room. “We need to talk.” The woman was practically hanging on her doorknob, hazel eyes peering up at him as she kept her body – and the door – between him and her sanctum. Frustration crossed her face as she stepped out fully, arms crossing. “Is it about the mission? ’Cause, seriously, I’ve only apologized like – a thousand times. I scr-” Gabriel held up a clawed hand, trying to stop her before she started into an unstoppable tirade. “Here.” He offered her a page. Scrawled on it was a request for a secure space to speak – he knew she had to have a place where no one could watch what she got into. He was pretty sure it was behind that door, but he’d been wrong before. Sombra read the paper, taking far too long for the handful of words that had been written there, before looking up at him with one eyebrow raised. He crossed his arms in return, glaring down at her from behind his mask. “Fine.” Sombra sighed, making a big show of rolling her eyes and tossing her arms dramatically. “No es como si tuviera algo mejor que hacer, 1” she muttered irritably as she turned back into her room. Gabriel followed, closing the door behind them. He had never seen this room, but he honestly couldn’t say he was surprised by most of what was in here. Tucked in a corner was an untidy bed with what looked like a handheld computer – or maybe a video game device – left carelessly on top of a pillow and a stuffed animal peeking out from under the blanket. One door, farther in, was left slightly ajar to show a closet filled with clothes of all colors: for a woman built around stealth, she certainly had a vibrant selection. Most of the room, however, was taken up by screens of all sizes. There were news stations from across the world, what looked like the stock market, the security feeds for the base, and screens of various lines of text that Gabriel couldn’t discern in the few seconds he could see them. Sombra hit a few buttons, darkening all of the screens, before turning to lean against her impressively large desk. “So.” Sombra gestured vaguely with one hand. “You wanted to talk.” She fixed him with a look. “Talk.” Gabriel stepped farther into the room, worried about someone overhearing from the hall. “It’s secure?” He growled. He hadn’t seen her do anything, but maybe she always hid what she was doing in this room. There weren’t cameras, of course, but he was almost positive that every room was littered with microphones to catch precisely the kind of thing he was trying to talk about. “Of course it’s secure.” She rolled her eyes before turning to drop into a rolling chair. One leg hooked over the other as she leaned back with her arms crossed once more. “Who do you take me for?” Gabriel sighed. “Fine.” Here it was, his last chance to back out. The opportunity to stop before this foolhardy plan got him – or her – killed. Did he really want to do this? Risk his life for the woman that he had condemned? Who feared him? Who might not even be alive – not in the way it mattered – anymore? Gabriel wanted it; guilt and shame for the promises he had broken and the pain Angela had experienced drove him to save whatever was left of her. He couldn’t make it right – nothing could ever make what he had done right – but he could try to make it better. The Reaper thought it was foolish; they were burning bridges over the woman that had cursed them? She didn’t deserve rescue after everything she had done to them. But, he had come to realize, there was no pleasure in her torture – there was nothing but apathy and a growing stress from the parts that were Gabriel. Gabriel was as important, as intrinsic, to their consciousness as the Reaper was. His cool head tempered the hazy bloodlust; Gabriel was the tactician, and the Reaper was the soldier. They were a team – for better or for worse. To keep Gabriel, Angela had to be saved – so that was what they would do. “I want to get Angela out.” There was no going back now; the words couldn’t be unsaid. Sombra made an incredulous noise. “What happened to ‘she deserves it’?” Sombra lowered her voice on the quote in a mockery of his own. “What happened to the cold-hearted bastard that put her in there, twice?” He crossed the space to thrust another set of papers at her. “This.” Sombra took the papers. She read through them far more quickly than she had his one-line note – she never missed a chance to let a person squirm. Sombra flipped through them, paling slightly once she got to the last page. When she looked back up at him, however, she was completely cool again. “When is this supposed to happen?” She gestured down at the final page. The first pages had been what Angela had been through in the past week, culminating with the threat of her execution yesterday. They’d been in once since then, but she had been so unresponsive that they had spent barely any time with her. However, that final page detailed the tentative timeline of interrogation and the tools and methods to be used in each session. The next few days were littered with what had become her usual – drowning and whipping and burning – assuming that they would find her responsive. There was a note, ended with a question mark, about using a gun again; that, it seemed, was still undecided. If it were anyone else, Gabriel would have told them to use it. He knew that they, too, would come to that conclusion in time – when it came to their trade, they were experts after all. Towards the middle of the following week, they planned to escalate again if she still refused to break. They hadn’t decided which method they would go to next: rape or dismemberment. Either was horrific – would be just as devastating as the mock execution she had experienced. He didn’t think Angela would survive either of them. Gabriel wasn’t sure she had survived the last one. “Wednesday. Thursday, at the latest – as long as they keep to that schedule.” Sometimes plans were moved up – or pushed back. These reports weren’t set in stone by any means; they were more like a guide and a way to cover their asses should an interrogation end badly. Sombra read over the page again, as if a closer look would change the text. Then, she looked up at him once more. “You sure you want to do this?” Gabriel had seen the look on her face before she had hidden it away; Sombra wanted Angela out, too. This woman, who had seen the worst that humanity had to offer to use as blackmail, didn’t want Angela to die, either. “I’m sure.” If he – they – didn’t act now, there would be nothing left of Angela to save. “Alright then.” Sombra nodded after a moment, offering the papers back to him. “Take this,” she held out a comm unit, “and get out. I need to get some things together.” Gabriel hesitated for only a moment before accepting the papers and comm; there was no going back now. He had preparations of his own that needed to be made. At least, with Sombra on his side, he didn’t have to worry as much about being watched.

---

With the little comm unit she had given him – plus some help from her while she was invisible – she had walked Gabriel through the setup of what would ‘disable’ the cameras and hide their escape for as long as possible. Honestly, it would be Sombra that would take care of the security, but – since she wasn’t quite ready to leave Talon – they had to make it look like it was all him. Most of it was familiar – he’d run plenty of covert ops both with Blackwatch and Talon – but having Sombra tell him where everything was made things run more smoothly. He’d gone into the city of Oasis itself to steal supplies. They were mostly medical in nature, since stealing from the infirmary would be nearly impossible, but he had also gathered some food and clothing. They’d need more, but they would at least have something for the immediate days after the escape. Sombra told him she was trying to find them a secure place for Angela to recover until Overwatch could be reached, but she wasn’t sure she could arrange it before he escaped with the doctor. Gabriel had to plan to steal a form of transportation – he couldn’t exactly sneak onto a bus or get a taxi with a bloody woman, after all – and figure out where to lay low. Talon would come after him, after her. Angela was marked for death, had been marked since he had placed her in that cell. Once he took her, he would become a target, too. Gabriel wasn’t sure he could be killed, but he knew Talon would try. With Moira to help them, perhaps they would even be successful. “Here you go, boss.” Sombra had appeared in the door of his office, a stack of papers in her hands. “I know, I know; I should have had this done days ago.” She offered them over. He reached out and found something hard underneath the paper; carefully, he accepted it all, mindful of the security he was trying to avoid. “See ya later.” Sombra had wiggled her fingers at him and strutted out the door, giving no sign that she was up to anything. He palmed the item and tucked it into a pocket without looking at it; if Sombra thought it should be hidden, he’d keep it that way. The second page of her report had been a scrawled explanation. The comm unit would only work while he was in the base – once they were out, she wouldn’t be able to use that to reach him without the frequency being compromised. Instead, Sombra had procured a burner phone. He needed to always keep it on; once she had a safe house, she could call him with further instructions. She also wrote that he owed her, big, for the risks she was taking for him. He had known there would be a price for her help – blackmail and extortion was what she was known for, after all. Gabriel didn’t care. He’d pay whatever price it was that Sombra demanded of him if it would get Angela out of this base. But he knew that his debt wasn’t her real goal: no, that was just a bonus. She wanted Angela out, too. He had seen her face when she’d watched the interrogation and after she had read the reports; she was doing this for Angela. It made no sense. Sombra had never met Angela, had never even seen her until the doctor was bound in chains. Sombra always twisted a situation to benefit herself – it was how she had bounced from Los Muertos to Talon, after all – with minimal, if any, regards to others. Despite those facts, Sombra was willing to risk her position here with Talon to help the doctor escape. Gabriel had a hard time believing that Sombra was doing this purely out of the goodness of her heart. Perhaps she wanted the doctor in her debt – having a world-renowned doctor in her corner was nothing to sneeze at. And, even now, with the shadow of Overwatch dogging her heels and making her life difficult, Angela was still one of the best doctors in the world. When she couldn’t continue her research, when working in a hospital was not enough, she had returned to her calling as a combat medic and emergency responder. Angela had waded into war-torn countries and disaster zones without regard for her own safety, healing anything she could. It hadn’t mattered what side the injured was on; she simply put them back together because that was what she did best. It had been that altruism, mixed with her prodigal skills and sterling reputation, that had kept her safe until now. Yes, a debt from Dr. Angela Ziegler, the woman who could actually defy death, would be no small thing. Even knowing that Sombra was on their side – for whatever reasons – he hesitated to let her dictate where they went. Gabriel wasn’t sure that he had much choice in the matter, though. His nearest safe house was in Turkey, almost a thousand miles away. The Oasis base had been his safe house for this country – one of many things that would change in the coming days. And it wasn’t like he could just book a hotel room or take Angela into a hospital. They had to find a place to lie low, where Talon couldn’t find them, while Gabriel found a way to contact Overwatch. He had a few ideas of where they may have gone, but that would take far more travel than Angela could take. She was too injured – too traumatized, broken – to be dragged across the globe on an international goose chase by the monstrous Reaper. Instead, he’d have to contact them and arrange a meeting to return her to them for safekeeping. Until that time, he’d be forced to keep them on the move – somehow – while he tried to keep her alive. Gabriel wasn’t sure if he’d ever been given a more impossible task.

---

Now that he had decided, he was impatient for action. He’d gone to the nearby airport and had stolen a car from the long-term parking lot. With Sombra’s help, he hadn’t even needed to break anything; he simply used the little gadget she had provided, and the locks just popped open. Then he had gathered and packed supplies, tucking them in the stolen vehicle. He’d filled and repacked a small bag of absolute essentials – this would be the pack he carried with him through the entire escape. If, for whatever reason, he couldn’t reach the stolen car, they would still have some supplies. They had decided that Sunday – today – would be the day he would break her out. A strike team was leaving this afternoon, and Angela would be worked on in the early evening. While Gabriel hated the thought of her experiencing more torture, he had to wait until shortly after they finished with her. By waiting until after they were done, he reduced the chances of her absence being immediately noticed – and with the strike team reducing the number of staff wandering around, it further reduced those chances. Gabriel only hoped it wouldn’t be too late. The comm unit was in place, hidden by the hood and mask he always wore. He had nowhere on his person to conceal the small pack of supplies, so he was putting off heading towards the armory – and his weapons, which would be necessary – until the last possible moment. Then, it was time. Equipped with his shotguns, ammo tucked in the various pockets and pouches built for that express purpose, Gabriel strode through the halls of the Oasis base for what would probably be the last time. With Sombra whispering in his ear, it hadn’t been hard to avoid detection – especially when he used the same stairwell that Angela had used in her failed escape attempt. This was when the challenge would truly begin. He had a device in his pocket, one fashioned by Sombra, that was supposed to ‘affect’ the cameras and keep him from being seen by whoever else was monitoring the security feeds. Sombra had assured him that she would take care of that – but he only had her word that they would be taken care of. It could be an elaborate setup. Alone, the Reaper would be hard to capture – but carrying Angela? Gabriel wouldn’t be able to use his shadow form to escape bullets and travel through small spaces. This would be the best chance at neutralizing him unless he chose to drop and abandon her. He had already done that once. Gabriel wasn’t planning to do it again. Squaring his shoulders, he let himself into her cell. For better or for worse, he had made his choice.

Footsteps. One pair. The last time there had been one pair of footsteps, they had killed her – yet left her breathing, hollow. She couldn’t, she couldn’t, do that again. She was barely hanging on as it was; that would break her, she knew it. Hadn’t they hurt her enough for one day? She was still dripping with blood and water from their treatment. They had broken her knee again, and the agony was still making her nauseous. She hadn’t been given enough time to recover – which, Angela dimly realized, was precisely the point. She couldn’t break. That was a promise made by the woman they had killed. It was an impossibly heavy burden, dropped upon her because there was no one left, and Angela was left staggering and stumbling under its weight. They deserved better than her, but she was all that remained. It had taken every ragged piece of her to keep from cracking. Oh, she wanted to break – to spill every secret and truth that they wanted. It would be so easy. Angela wanted easy, craved easy. And yet, every time the words were on the tip of her tongue, she somehow managed to swallow them down. Now they were back. Maybe this time, they would kill her, just as they had killed Dr. Ziegler. Her body might remain, but everything they ever wanted would be out of their reach for good. She would be out of their reach for good. The chains rattled. Just before the release that always dropped her painfully to the ground, an arm wrapped around her torso. It pulled her close and supported her weight, disregarding the blood that streaked her skin. The intimacy – and pain – made her shudder. This had never happened before – it wasn’t efficient, nor did it further their goal of making her miserable. “I’ve got you, cariño.” Her breath caught, chest seizing painfully as her entire body tensed. They had sent the Reaper to hurt her, to try to rip the answers from her throat. There was no way – none – that she could hold her ground, not when it was against him. Even knowing that he wasn’t Gabriel, it would still utterly destroy her. He was going to break her. She was going to fail. The Reaper released the chains and her body slumped, utterly reliant on his strength to hold her upright. With it went her tension: now Angela was shaking again, terrified of what he was going to do with her. She couldn’t catch her breath – why was it suddenly so hard to breathe? – as he held her confidently with one arm. “It’s alright, Angela,” he shushed her, trying and failing to sound reassuring, before carefully lowering her to the ground away from the puddle of blood and water at their feet. Crouching, he supported her weight against his chest – the familiarity of it made her eyes well up with tears. She looked around the room, searching for something – anything. A friendly face that would help her get through whatever this was. One of her interrogators, the ones who had taken such pleasure in her pain. Any kind of explanation for what was happening. All she found were the mocking blank walls of her cage, blurred by the water in her eyes. He shook out some dark cloth – his jacket, the one that she had always seen the Reaper wearing – before gently pulling it onto her naked flesh. It was still warm and had a smoky musk that almost hid the familiar scent of leather and sandalwood. The Reaper was careful of his claws as he tugged the jacket over her shaking, uncooperative arms. “I’m getting you out of here.” The Reaper murmured. Angela choked; there was no way she could believe that. She refused to believe it. After everything that had happened to her – after he had put her here – Angela couldn’t dare to. How could she believe that he was Gabriel, that he wasn’t the Reaper? How could she believe that he’d had a change of heart? This was cruel, even for him. “This will hurt, cariño,” he rumbled, one clawed hand hovering over her destroyed knee in explanation. Of course it would hurt. His very presence hurt. Knowing that Gabriel was so close, yet so terribly far away, was almost physically painful. Then he was hoisting her up, one arm hooked under her knees and the other at her shoulders just under her arms. It hurt – oh, it hurt – and she couldn’t help the agonized whimper that escaped. “I know, I know.” The Reaper made the low, shushing noise again as he rose, shifting her so that her head rested against his body armor instead of hanging loosely off to the side. “I’m sorry, Angela. Hold on for me.” Confidently, he carried her straight out of the room and into the hallway she had seen only once. There was no one out here, just like the time she had escaped. Maybe that wasn’t unusual? Perhaps it was just her down here, so they weren’t worried about an escape – after all, how could she go anywhere with her knee broken as it was? Who would ever expect one of their own – the Reaper, of all people – to rescue her? No. Impossible. There was no way this was real; this was a dream – a dream – and any moment, her captors would throw that horribly cold water over her and yank it away. They never let her sleep for long, denying her even that small escape. But if she was asleep, why did it hurt? Her shattered knee was screaming, her bloody and torn back was aching, and her heart was breaking – if this were a dream, surely she wouldn’t feel this way. How could a dream be so painful? “Status?” The Reaper murmured, pulling her out of her distracted thoughts. Angela glanced up towards his mask in confusion – what in the world was he asking for? Before she could decide if she would break her silence and ask, he turned to the left. “The stairs, then.” His steps were measured as he kept his arms steady, trying to minimize the jostling of her body. It didn’t stop the tears from springing and rolling down her cheeks to dampen his armor and the jacket he’d so gently wrapped her in. She stared at the ceiling, letting it blur as he carried her along. Angela didn’t believe this was a rescue. Couldn’t – because if she did, and it was a lie, she would shatter into a million pieces. Hope no longer existed in her world: all that was left was pure cynicism and despair. He was taking her somewhere else; that much was true. She was sure the next place he put her would be much worse – somehow – than the room he had just pulled her from. The thought made her trembling begin again – or maybe she hadn’t stopped. Angela wasn’t sure. So much was happening that it was hard to keep track. Perhaps it was just worse now, because even her teeth were chattering now from the terror. “Angela.” They had stopped. When had he stopped moving? His mask was canted down towards her. “Angela, I know it’s a lot – but I need you to be quiet now. Just for a few minutes.” Quiet? She wasn’t – suddenly she was aware of the soft keening noise coming from her throat, the sound a mixture of her terror and pain. Angela had no idea how long she had been making the noise, but now that she was aware, she did her best to silence it. Angela didn’t know why she had obeyed the order. He was her enemy, no matter what he might say. This wasn’t an escape – it was a trick – and she was just playing into his game. And yet, she had choked the sound off as quickly as he had pointed it out; was it from pride? Or did some small part of her believe this lie? “Yes, just like that, cariño.” The endearment ripped at her heart. He must have seen the pain that flashed across her face – he knew her far too well – because his grip tightened slightly as he looked away. “We’ll be out soon.” They were still motionless, waiting in the stairwell. Why weren’t they moving? Did it matter? The longer they were here in this stairwell, the less time she would spend in whatever new hell they had created. Angela greatly preferred being in his arms – being held with a terrible gentleness, as if he were afraid his touch would break her further – than being strung up in chains. At some point, she had relaxed, her traitorous body leaning into his familiar warmth. It was hard to remember he was her enemy when she was pressed against him like this. And he was her enemy, she reminded herself sternly. He was just taking her somewhere else to be hurt. Dressing it up as an escape would make it hurt that much more when this trip ended in chains once more. Despite knowing all of this, Angela knew that the betrayal – was it a betrayal if he was her enemy? – would rip her to pieces again. She didn’t know if her heart, her soul, could survive a third time. Suddenly, they were moving again. The Reaper pushed the door open, and then they were hurrying down the hallway – in the opposite direction that she had chosen during her escape attempt. Angela wasn’t sure where they had to go, but they hadn’t gotten far before the Reaper tensed. Then, ahead, a door opened for a pair of two men. Angela tensed, too – this must be where he was taking her. That hadn’t taken long at all. She didn’t recognize the men, but that didn’t matter. Anyone in this place was her enemy and would hurt her. The Reaper hesitated for a brief moment – Angela couldn’t understand why. After all, this was what his plan was the whole time. Make her think she was safe only to rip it away once more. It would hurt, but why did that matter? That was the point. Pain was the only constant in her life anymore. Squaring his shoulders, fingers tight on her flesh, the Reaper kept walking as he shushed her under his breath. The men were chatting amicably until they realized there was someone else in the hall; when they saw the Reaper’s mask, they paled. If even his own men were terrified of him, how could she be safe in his arms? Then, they noticed her, bundled up in his grasp. They glanced at each other before one seemed to gather some sort of courage. “What’s going on?” So this was the game. They were going to play along, make her think this was real. Angela wouldn’t let herself fall for it. She would remain silent – she had to give him the same treatment she had given her previous interrogators. She couldn’t give him a single word. If she did, he would break her, and Angela would fail her friends. “The council is not pleased with the lack of results.” The Reaper growled. Angela tried to shrink, make herself smaller and hide in the fabric, as if it would help protect her from what would come next. Just because she expected pain didn’t mean she wanted it. All it did was make her body ache more, and she choked on a groan. His fingers squeezed briefly – in what, comfort? – as he continued speaking to the guards. “We are moving her to a different base, to more... capable hands.” “I – I didn’t hear about a transfer.” The guard blustered. Her eyes, strained as they were from the blinding lights, couldn’t tell that they were acting. Their reactions were good – but she knew better. Her eyes skimmed away again, searching as they always did for a friend, but they were still avoiding her. “I didn’t realize the council answered to you.” Angela snapped back to the conversation as the guard flushed. “Now, get out of my way.” After another moment of hesitation, the guards stepped aside and watched them pass. Angela stared past the bone-white mask to the ceiling above once more, trying to forget who was carrying her – and where she was surely going to end up. “Can you stop it?” The Reaper demanded suddenly, startling Angela, and she tensed again as her eyes went wide. Stop what? What was she doing? “Not you, Angela,” he murmured before his attention was drawn elsewhere. “Fuck!” The angry curse had her curling into herself again, and he shook his head. “Fine.” Angela had lost track of where they were, of how many turns and doors they had gone through. It all blurred, white walls and white ceilings, until suddenly there was wind on her face and stars in the sky. It was so dark. She couldn’t see anything. How could the Reaper keep walking so confidently? Angela shrank into him, eyes wide as she tried to make out their surroundings. It was impossible. It sounded like they were outside, but she couldn’t see – could they simulate the outdoors in a room? Probably. It was dark, dark, dark – how would she see her friends, see anything in this darkness? “Shh, cariño, not yet.” The Reaper said absently, drawing her attention back down to herself. The darkness had evoked terrified whimpers, and she tried to choke them off now. It was hard when she was so afraid, when it was so dark – but she tried. Angela turned and pressed her face against his body armor in an attempt to stifle the sounds. Angela had mostly gotten control of herself when an alarm began blaring. “Mierda.” The Reaper muttered, breaking into a run. He had just ducked around a corner when a gunshot pierced the night, startling a strangled scream from her throat. That had sounded close. The Reaper shushed her as he kept moving. “Sombra?” His voice was tight with stress. Angela had no idea what a ‘Sombra’ was, so all she could do was press her face against his chest, eyes squeezed tight. Angela shouldn’t feel such desperate hope – she wanted this to be real – but it was there, flickering in her heart again. Suddenly he lunged into a doorway as a second gunshot echoed around them. Angela was wide-eyed and shaking, fingers curled in the cloth so tightly that they were going numb. Those shots sounded real, even if she knew they were fake – just like the bullet meant for her had been fake. The Reaper held her tighter; while the claws didn’t pierce her skin, she was confident there would be bruises left behind – though she doubted they would be discernable through all the rest. Then he was moving them again, muttering about a spider as they went. The escape became disjointed for a short time – she couldn’t see anything except in short bursts when light appeared. All she could do was listen to his panting breaths and pounding heart as he carried her through the night. They darted along, rarely pausing or slowing as he took her away. Eventually, they reached an area with more light, though he kept them in the shadows still. The sounds of people surrounded them, and she tensed. Who were they? Were these the people that had been chasing them, shooting at them? Was it time for the lie to end? The Reaper didn’t stop, didn’t bother to attempt to silence her terrified noises any longer; either it didn’t matter, or he was giving up on the effort. Lights pierced and passed by her eyes occasionally, until she finally gave up on looking around and just pressed her face against the Reaper and squeezed her eyes shut. She hated how familiar this felt. It wasn’t much longer after that that the Reaper was laying her down on something soft. Her eyes opened again, confused. There was a little light so that she could make out her space. This was a vehicle – he was putting her in a car. Why were they in a car? He arranged her limbs so that she was tucked in fully before slinging something into the foot space next to her. Then he leaned in and grabbed a strap. “I’m not going to hurt you, Angela.” He soothed when she tried to scramble back, whimpering and shaking in terror and pain. Here it was; this was where it would start. “It’s to keep you safe while I drive.” No, that was not what those were for. Restraints held you in place, kept you weak and trapped while others hurt you. He didn’t give her much choice, though – of course he wouldn’t – as he clipped her into place. “It’ll be alright, cariño, you’ll see.” Then he was pulling away, slamming something – a door, the car door – that made everything jostle and shake briefly. After a few moments, where he muttered to himself where she couldn’t hear, he climbed into the seat before her. Wordlessly, he shifted the rearview mirror to see her before turning the vehicle on and driving off into the night. If this was a dream, Angela hoped she never woke up.

Gabriel glanced up at the mirror again at Angela, checking to make sure she was alright – or, rather, as alright as she could be. He needed to find a place to pull over and dress her wounds, but putting distance between them and Talon was a higher priority. Sombra had run interference as much as possible, but unless she had wanted to give herself away – which she did not – she’d had to cooperate with them as they had searched. If it hadn’t been for Sombra, though, he’d have been shot by Widowmaker before they had escaped the base. He had destroyed the earpiece before climbing into the vehicle. The only electronic he’d brought along was the phone Sombra had given him. Gabriel had asked Sombra to check him for any tracking devices, anything at all that might lead them to wherever it was they escaped to; surprisingly, there were none – or she was lying. Either way, they were as safe as possible at the moment. They had been on the road for maybe fifteen minutes. Angela had managed to fall into some semblance of sleep a few minutes back. A sharp blade of guilt twisted in Gabriel’s heart as he realized that the warmth of the car, the relative softness of the seat beneath her, and his jacket wrapped carefully around her, she was the most comfortable she’d been in the past month. Gabriel kept glancing in the side mirrors, worried that they might be being followed and keeping an eye out for any low-flying aircraft. The car hit something – a pothole, probably – that rattled the vehicle with a loud thunk. It was then that Angela came shrieking back to life, startling him badly enough that he almost wrecked the vehicle. He forced his eyes to remain on the road as he pulled over. Then, after they were safely stopped, he allowed himself to turn and look at the broken angel in the backseat. “Angela,” he crooned, making no move to reach out and touch her – even though he wanted to. No, Angela wouldn’t welcome the Reaper’s touch. “Angela, you’re alright. Come back, cariño.” He knew the bump couldn’t have been pleasant on her wounds, and the sound would have been jarring, but he hadn’t expected her to lose it like this. Then again, she had been tortured for over a month; he shouldn’t expect anything. She had probably been in the middle of a nightmare – if he coupled that with new, terrifying sensations and the Reaper hovering over her, he couldn’t really be surprised. Her screams had died out relatively quickly, for which he was grateful; it was far too loud for the confined space. Her eyes, however, were still glazed and unseeing. It took several precious minutes before she pulled herself back from wherever she had gone. He knew he shouldn’t have waited – Talon was searching – but he wanted to make sure she was alright before they continued along the road. “Are you still with me?” He asked once her eyes came into focus. Angela glanced around the car with confusion, as if she had forgotten where she was. Her gaze cut across him as she investigated the space before jolting back to his mask, eyes wary and body tense. “Are you still with me?” Gabriel repeated patiently. She worried at her lip, clearly considering something, before finally taking a steadying breath. “I am.” Her voice was rough and quiet, even for how close they were. “For now.” The response gave him a small amount of hope. Maybe he hadn’t broken her completely beyond repair. His eyes swept over her one more time before nodding and turning back to the steering wheel. “Good.” Gabriel pulled back onto the road. “I’ll find somewhere for us to hide soon; just hang in there a little longer for me, alright?” He wasn’t exactly sure where this hiding spot would be, but he knew that he had to find something soon. Angela needed to be taken care of before he could try to get them to any of his hiding spots. He had a safe house in Medina, but that would be nearly a full day of travel – not possible for them right now. So, he had followed a more reasonable path and drove them south towards Hillah, hoping to throw off their searchers. North held the relative anonymity of Baghdad and the remnants of Overwatch; hopefully, that was the direction Talon had headed in their search. Eventually, he would have to take them north towards Europe, but it was safer to travel south for now. Between his need to keep from drawing any attention to them and Angela’s fitful sleeping, it took nearly an hour to reach the city. It had left her bleeding longer than he had liked, but there wasn’t anything he could do for it. At least his jacket – and the car seat – would help staunch some of the bleeding. After a little searching, Gabriel found a rundown office building, clearly closed based on the plywood over the windows and chains on the door. He circled the building and parked behind it in an alley in an effort to keep them hidden. As soon as the car stopped moving, Angela’s eyes flew open again. At least this time, she wasn’t yelling. “Angela?” Gabriel asked cautiously, trying to gauge her stability. He needed her relatively cooperative to take care of her; this area wasn’t so deserted that her screams would go unnoticed, but it was the best he could find on short notice. She blinked before turning to look at him, some life in her eyes. “Are you with me?” Angela looked around the vehicle, searching as she often did, before returning to him. Hesitantly, she licked her lips and ducked her head. “I am.” He wondered if it was a mechanical response, one so ingrained that she couldn’t help the answer, or a chosen one. “For now.” She shivered despite the heaters he had turned on, tucking herself further into his jacket. Gabriel frowned behind the mask; she shouldn’t be cold. “I’ll be right back.” He promised her before slipping out of the car. Gabriel wasn’t terribly worried about her managing an escape, not now; she was too tired and they had just shattered her knee again hours previously; he hated that his waiting had let her be hurt so badly again. In a week – if they were still together in a week – he would have his hands full in keeping her from running. Instead, he turned his attention to the building. Gabriel made quick work of the door, breaking the chain and busting the lock to let himself in. It wasn’t the best space – dust and dead bugs littered the floor – but they only needed it for a few hours. At least the single bathroom had running water, which was more than the car had. Satisfied, Gabriel returned to the vehicle, briefly pausing at the driver’s door to turn it off and glance at the woman in the backseat. Angela hadn’t moved from her prone position on the seat; he wondered if she had tried to move at all or if she had just remained lifeless the entire time. With a sigh, he opened the back door. The broken woman jumped, blank eyes focusing on him. As he leaned in to release the seat belts that held her in place, she made a small noise of fear and cringed again. “It’s alright, Angela.” Gabriel wondered how many times he would say that phrase – and if she would ever believe it. “I’ve found us a place to hide for a few hours.” Ignoring the way she recoiled from him, he carefully removed the straps and grabbed the pack he’d slung into the foot space. It had everything he needed for her immediate treatment. “I’m going to pick you up – it will hurt your knee.” Gabriel didn’t know how much she was comprehending at this moment, but hopefully, by explaining himself, she wouldn’t begin screaming again. The Reaper thought it was foolish; just get the task done already because they were wasting time. Then, he leaned in and carefully levered her out of the space. Fortunately, she didn’t scream, but she did whimper lowly as he led them away from the car. Once inside, he hauled her into the bathroom and set her upright on the small counter inside. He left his hands hovering around her, worried she would slump and fall off it entirely. After everything she had been through and the wounds still on her body, he wouldn’t blame her for being weak. He was surprised she was staying upright at all. There had been stains on the seat where she had lain, proving that she had at least bled enough to seep through the thick cloth of his jacket. While it wasn’t completely worrying – she had her nanites and had experienced worse, after all – he still wanted to treat them. It would, at the very least, make them both more comfortable. “Will you let me look at your back?” Angela tensed at the request, pulling the jacket tighter around her. “Look,” he opened the pack to show her the gauze and ointment within, “it’s not a trick.” He held it within her reach, so she could poke through it and see it was just standard medical supplies – items she was familiar with – but she simply looked down at the bag with hollow eyes. “Mi corazón, please.” It was a low blow. He knew it even as the endearment passed his lips. The Reaper was taut with impatience, itching to tear it from her so they could keep moving, but Gabriel refused; as much as possible, he wanted her willing. They had taken too much from her already. Angela shivered and looked away, staring at the far wall instead of towards him or the supplies. After a long silence, one that Gabriel worried he would have to break again, she finally sighed and let the jacket go in submission. Angela had a resigned, faraway look as she stared at anything but him. It wasn’t the best response, but at least it was something, right? Gabriel carefully tugged his gloves off – the claws would do him no good here – to reveal his scarred, ashen hands. Angela didn’t look down as he carefully peeled the jacket from her body, doing his best to keep from hurting her as it stuck to the open wounds. He let the cloth pool at her hips as he assessed her back. There was so much damage that he wasn’t sure where to start – he wasn’t the doctor in this room. Then again, at this moment, neither was she. Still, he had made his choice; he would be whatever Angela needed him to be. Gabriel grabbed some gauze and wet it so he could clean the wounds as best he could. She shuddered and shivered at the cool cloth, wincing and flinching away when Gabriel touched a particularly sensitive spot, but she remained silent. A quick look showed that her face was deathly pale, defeated eyes staring straight ahead as she bit her lip so hard, he worried she would bite through; based on the blood and scabs at her mouth, she’d already done so at least once in the recent past. He wanted to say something to fill the silence, but what was there to say? That he was sorry? That he shouldn’t have broken the only promise that had ever truly mattered? That he should never have taken her, should never have put her in that room? There were no comforting things he could say to her, nothing he could say to her after everything she had gone through because of him. It was clear, by the way she shrank away and couldn’t bear to even look at him, that she wanted nothing to do with him – and he couldn’t blame her. But he was all she had. It took time and a lot of water to clean the gore from her body. The front had been the hardest. He had moved to stand before her, gauze damp with water and blood in his hand, and she had flinched away so hard he’d had to catch her before she completely fell off the counter. While one hand braced her, the other had carefully swabbed at her stomach and breasts. Every flinch and shudder was a dagger in his heart, but he welcomed the pain – he deserved this and more. Finally, he practically bathed her in the ointment that – according to the packaging – was supposed to help fight infection and reduce pain and inflammation. He doubted that it would do much good for her, considering all the open flesh, but it couldn’t hurt, could it? The Reaper thought it was a wasted effort; her nanites were going to heal her anyway, so what was the point? Angela had stopped flinching by then; the far away, glazed look was back. Gabriel hated that look, hated that she felt the need for escape, but it was a welcome respite as he wiped the ointment across her wounds and wrapped the bandages around her. By the time he was done, her entire torso from breasts to hips was wrapped in layers of gauze. He’d run out of bandages then – he’d underestimated the amount he’d need – and was forced to leave her bloody and burned legs unwrapped. At least he had been able to clean them, and they were beginning to scab over; hopefully, after a few days of rest, most of them would be healed enough that movement wouldn’t break them open again. If she were lucky, these, at least, wouldn’t join the scars that were already scattered across her body. “Angela?” Gabriel asked quietly as he packed away what little was left. He had wanted to feed her as well, but he’d worried she would choke herself out of terror while he was working. Now, with her gone for however long she chose, it would have to wait. She’d spent plenty of time hungry, but he had hoped to end that now. Instead, he tugged out a new set of fabric – a green, button-up dress that he had snagged from some store. It wasn’t much, but it would cover her and probably give her some sense of security. It was uncomfortable, dressing her when she was staring vacantly at nothing, but he slid her limp arms into the sleeves and made quick work of the buttons. Work complete, he slung the pack over his shoulder and lifted Angela up once more. He watched her face, wondering if the pain from this movement would bring her back, but she was still gone. Shaking his head, he carried her back out into the night. This time, he set her in the passenger seat – reclined slightly so she could lay more comfortably – and buckled her in. Out of the pack came a protein bar and a water bottle, which he set in the center console for whenever she returned. They had a long drive ahead of them; hopefully, they could make it before Talon found them.

---

Angela returned hours later, long after the sun had peaked over the horizon. She had shifted, the movement pulling his attention from the road momentarily, before looking around the car with that same curious look she’d had before. He kept quiet, letting her get her bearings in peace. Finally, once Angela went still again, hands twisted in the soft, green cloth, he reached for the protein bar between them. She flinched, proving that – even though her eyes were downcast and her face was angled away – she was intensely focused on him. It was an effort to keep driving safely while ripping the package open – he should have opened it before driving – but he managed. “Here,” he offered, extending the opened package towards her. “I know you’re hungry.” It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t like they had a lot of options. “You’ll want to eat it slowly; there’s water, too.” Angela stared at the food for a long, considering moment before reaching out with a trembling hand. Once she had it, she fell onto it ravenously – unsurprising, despite his warning. He should have known better: they had trained her to eat quickly or suffer consequences. “Slowly, Angela.” He snapped in hopes that she would slow down; no such luck there. The bar was gone in less than a minute, leaving her picking at the crumbs on the dress and inside the packaging. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be sick. Gabriel left the water bottle, also unopened, where it sat. He doubted she had the strength to open it as she was now, and he wanted to let her stomach settle before adding anything else to it. Angela didn’t seem to notice the water right now, though he’d mentioned it, which made the denial that much easier. Once she was finished getting every bit of sustenance from the package, she crumpled it in her hand. She turned her attention to the window, watching the trees pass by; Gabriel got the impression that she was more trying to not look at him than to look at the scenery. Her entire body was tense, hands balled into fists in her lap and jaw clenched. That was fine, he told himself. They didn’t have to talk, didn’t have to say anything except for what was necessary to keep her safe and – relatively – healthy.

“Yeah, Sombra?” He demanded, angry. Baptiste hadn’t expected to hear from her, not after his request for a favor had gone south. Despite trying to warn Dr. Ziegler, she had still been captured. He was positive it was Talon that had taken her; he had just found proof that she was a target only a week before she had been kidnapped. He had called Sombra when the news had broke, but she had ignored him. That had solidified his beliefs; why would his friend – and they were friends – ignore him unless she had information she didn’t want to share? She was prideful, after all. To have been beaten to the punch must have stung. With his knowledge, he had gone to the Rialto base to stake it out and search for clues. Baptiste would have shared the information, but he wasn’t sure who to trust. There were so many organizations trying to find the doctor – but he knew that Talon had eyes and ears everywhere. He didn’t want the doctor to be put into more danger than necessary – nor did he want a target on his back while he searched. “Hey, mijo,” Sombra’s typically boisterous voice was subdued, as if she were trying not to be overheard. “So, about that favor...” Baptiste rolled his eyes, ducking back and away from where his stakeout position. He wouldn’t be able to focus on the task while talking to her. “I thought you were going to warn her.” Baptiste accused. “I know Talon has her.” He just hadn’t figured out where they had her. There were so many bases scattered across the globe; Rialto just happened to be the one closest to him. He’d hoped to pull the information from one of the higher-ranking agents, but he’d had no luck there – and now Talon was aware of his presence. “I tried, mijo, honestly.” She defended, indignant. “It’s not my fault the doctora didn’t take my warning seriously.” Baptiste knew that Sombra was a liar – one of the best, really – but he didn’t think she was lying to him now. He sighed, deflating. “Do you know where she is, then?” Baptiste barely knew the doctor – they had only worked together the one time in Venezuela – but he knew she was a good person that deserved saving. She was the type of person the world needed: a brilliant doctor with a literal healing touch. If he could, he would help her. “Even better,” Sombra confided, voice now sly, “I know where she’s going.” Baptiste knew, then, that she had helped the doctor escape; despite failing the first time, Sombra had tried to fulfill her promise differently. It seemed she had been successful. “Currently, she’s heading out to Medina, Iraq.” “Currently?” Baptiste echoed. “Yeah – the Reaper has a hiding spot out there; I doubt he knows I know about it.” Of course, she knew about it; Sombra found out everything about everyone. It was what made her so scary – and why he had asked her to warn Dr. Ziegler. If anyone could have found and reached her, it would have been Sombra. But – “The Reaper?” Absolutely no way. That man was death. He didn’t take prisoners, didn’t take anything except blood. He was one of the most – if not the most – dangerous men in Talon – and Sombra wanted him to believe that he had broken Dr. Ziegler out? “I know, right?” She chuckled. “But yeah, he’s got her. Talon’s not happy; they’re looking all over for them. I doubt he’ll stay in Medina long – he’ll probably try to reach out to Overwatch here soon – but... the doctora was in pretty bad shape.” Unsurprising, but chilling nonetheless. He’d never seen the results of torture personally, but he’d done some digging about it during his medical career in preparation for the potential inevitability. “I’ll help her. Medina, you said?” Baptiste was already trying to figure out how he was going to get to Iraq with any kind of swiftness. “I said Medina, currently.” Sombra corrected. “I’m calling in some favors; they’ll be in Numbani before the end of the day.” She sounded very confident – she must have excellent intelligence on whoever she was calling. Not only to complete a transport within the next – he glanced at his watch – sixteen hours, but to also keep quiet about who they were transporting. “Get to the airport; I’ve got transportation for you, too.” Baptiste scoffed. “You could have just led with that, you know.” He told her, moving to pack up his survey site. He’d go back to his tiny hotel room and pack. When he arrived in Numbani, he’d get supplies to treat the doctor. “Where’s the fun in that?” Sombra asked, and he chuckled. “I won’t make them wait too long.” The doctor needed him, after all. If he didn’t need to erase his presence in Rialto, to keep Talon from finding out it was him, he’d just leave his luggage behind. “Take care, mijo.” “Yeah, you too.”

---

Sombra took hiding in plain sight to a whole different level. It was eight stories off the ground and required a passcode to enter, which had surprised him considering most bolt holes were hidden. Baptiste shook his head and began setting up the apartment for the injured doctor. Foolishly, he hadn’t asked Sombra about Dr. Ziegler’s wounds, so he’d had to guess at what he would need. Mostly, Baptiste had gotten a lot of gauze with a sprinkling of other items. He’d have to get more supplies after he assessed his patient. Maybe, if he were lucky, the Reaper would be cooperative and get the supplies for him while he worked. It would be the most efficient use of their time – but cooperative wasn’t a word generally associated with the Reaper. Then again, this entire situation wasn’t something that would be associated with the Reaper – unless, of course, the Reaper was the one doing the hunting. Baptiste was pulled out of his musing by the Reaper storming into the small apartment with Dr. Ziegler cradled carefully in his arms. The sight was absolutely disconcerting and left him staring. “Well?” The Reaper demanded impatiently. Baptiste shook off the feeling; he could be weirded out by the Reaper’s apparent change – discovery? – of heart later. Right now, there was the injured doctor to tend to. He cleared his throat. “You can put her on the bed,” he explained, gesturing towards the appropriate door. The Reaper turned and stalked through it, leaving Baptiste to trail behind him. Baptiste watched as the Reaper gently laid out the doctor, taking special care with her left knee; Baptiste eyed it critically. It was black and terribly swollen – considering where she had been, it was probably broken. As the Reaper stepped away to loom against the far wall with his arms crossed, Baptiste took his place at Dr. Ziegler’s side. “Dr. Ziegler?” Baptiste asked, trying to catch her gaze. It was impossible – she was staring blankly up at the ceiling; Baptiste couldn’t even tell if she’d heard him. He glanced back towards the Reaper. “Is this normal?” Did she have a head wound, or was this psychological? There were bruises and cuts on her face, so it could be either. “Yes.” The Reaper bit out. That wasn’t a good sign, but he wasn’t sure there was anything he could do about that. He checked her head over but couldn’t find any external sign of major trauma. She had a bruised cheek, and her lip was scarred and bloody where she had bitten through it, but there was nothing that would explain the doctor’s current mental absence. He’d tried to shoo the Reaper out then, for Dr. Ziegler’s propriety, but the man had just growled at him. Baptiste, realizing it was a fight he wouldn’t win, turned back to his task. It wasn’t long before he had set her green dress aside and cut the gauze away. Baptiste inhaled sharply, horrified at the sight. “Do you know what they did?” He asked, barely keeping his voice steady as he carefully began cleaning out the wounds. Baptiste hadn’t realized how emaciated she was when she’d been bundled up in the Reaper’s arms, but laid out like this, it was obvious. He could make out her ribs under the cuts and bruises, her cheeks hollow, and eyes sunken. They’d starved her, probably dehydrated her too – he would have to figure out a way to combat those safely. Across her thin form were relatively fresh black-purple bruises mixed with healing yellow-green scattered across her body. There were gashes torn haphazardly across her flesh with no apparent pattern or reason. He hoped the majority – all, really, but he wasn’t that lucky – of her wounds were external, because he had no way to assess internal trauma here. “The better question is: what didn’t they do.” The man replied after a long moment. Baptiste’s hands paused then, just for a moment, as he looked down at the poor, broken woman on the bed. “I got her out before they could rape her,” the Reaper continued, voice deadly and cold, “but she suffered plenty of other abuse.” What a horrible silver lining, Baptiste thought. It didn’t take long to clean the wounds – surprisingly, the Reaper had done a decent job there. Baptiste followed the lines of red to her legs, finding burns among the gashes. He frowned; that would make wrapping the cuts harder since the burns needed to breathe. Some looked old and scarred, but a few were fresh and bubbling with blisters. Still, he worked his way down – and looked at the bottoms of her feet when prompted by the Reaper. He hadn’t realized that would be a target, too. The burns there were all old, but he noted them – he would need to get burn cream for all these wounds. Then Baptiste shifted her so he could see her back. Or rather, couldn’t. “What...” It seemed that her body was healing faster, here – but the wounds were still terrible. Strips of dead flesh hung raggedly along the streaks of red scabs; some were bleeding from his jostling. “I told you: she suffered.” The Reaper growled. Baptiste nodded jerkily; he had been warned, but nothing could have prepared him for this. Baptiste supported the woman carefully, considering how to best treat her back. He worried about damaging her knee further Baptiste wasn’t a doctor that knew how to put such delicate parts back together. Hell, he wasn’t a doctor at all – he was a combat medic. Still, he had a job to do. After a moment, Baptiste rolled her onto her stomach so that he could see her back entirely. The Reaper had cleaned these wounds, too. All he needed to do was remove the dead skin. Then, he was propping her up so he could slather ointment across her chest and back before wrapping her back up with gauze. The entire time, Baptiste could feel the heavy gaze of the Reaper, watching to make sure he didn’t hurt the doctor any further. It was one of the most stressful treatments he had ever administered – and he had worked in war zones. “There,” he said, sitting back with a stretch. He had treated Dr. Ziegler to the best of his ability with what supplies he had, and she was now bandaged and dressed once more. Having seen her, he had a better idea of what other things they would need. She had remained still and vacant the entire time; it was only her shallow breaths and faint pulse that had convinced Baptiste she was still alive at times. He wasn’t a psychologist of any kind, but he knew that this couldn’t be good. “How is she?” The Reaper demanded, moving away from the wall to hover over the bed on the opposite side. If Baptiste didn’t know better – and hell, apparently he didn’t considering the situation – he’d say the man looked worried, which was impossible because he was wearing a mask and body armor. “Physically?” Baptiste gestured broadly towards Dr. Ziegler’s body. “She’s healing – she’s gonna be fine. I don’t know about her knee – she needs a real doctor for that, but I’ll get a brace or something for it – but everything else?” He sighed. “Dr. Ziegler will have scars, but the gashes should be healed by the end of the week.” Baptiste had once been envious of her nanite technology and her accelerated healing, but now – seeing this – he wasn’t jealous at all. Those nanites had kept her alive, but at what cost? “Mentally? I don’t know, man.” Baptiste sighed. “I don’t know if it’s a head wound or if it’s something else; I don’t deal with that kind of stuff.” He was used to gunshot wounds and field amputations – torture was a little out of his depth. Generally, he was only with his patients for a short time, then he never saw them again; long-term care wasn’t exactly his forte. “It’s not a head wound.” The Reaper informed him. Baptiste glanced up at him curiously, but if anyone would know, it would be him. “Then I really can’t help with that.” The Reaper turned his gaze onto him then, and Baptiste could feel the baleful glare coming from behind the mask. “Man, don’t give me that look,” he said, holding his hands up defensively. “If I could help her, I would. I need more supplies to help get her physically healthy, but I can’t do anything about her mind.” The Reaper huffed. “Go get whatever she needs.” The Reaper ordered eventually. Baptiste turned away to hide his eye roll. He wandered off to the bathroom to wash his hands and then headed towards the exit, leaving the supplies strewn about – he’d need them soon enough. “No, no, don’t thank me,” he muttered as he closed the front door behind him, not daring to say anything where the Reaper could hear him. “It’s not like I flew halfway across the world or anything.” He’d have come to help Dr. Ziegler anyway, but the Reaper could be a little more grateful, couldn’t he? Then again, he was the Reaper.

All I have is one last chance, I won't turn my back on you. Take my hand, drag me down; If you fall then I will too. And I can't save what's left of you. - Without You [Breaking Benjamin]

1It’s not like I have anything better to do.

#overwatch #fanfiction #angela ziegler #gabriel reyes #mercykill #fanfic #mercy #reaper #sombra #Jean-Baptiste Augustin #baptiste #tw torture #tw violence #tw dark thoughts #tw dark themes #tw suicidal thoughts #tw hallucinations #whump

9 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 4 years

Text

Helstrom: The Comic History of Marvel’s Son of Satan

https://ift.tt/33Vbv3V

On Oct. 16, Hulu will be releasing the latest Marvel tie-in series Helstrom. It’s not so much like one of those upcoming Disney+ MCU shows that feature high-profile superheroes telling stories that will be important to the overall fictional universe. It’s more like Daredevil or Runaways where quality be damned, you’re never going to hear anyone in the movies make anything close to a reference to it, but it counts as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe anyway.

The series is about siblings Daimon Helstrom and Ana Helstrom, who have seemingly normal lives, but oppose demons and evil people on the side. Their mother is institutionalized, which is fairly true to the comics, but their father is also referred to as “a powerful serial killer.”

In the comics, things are a bit grander. Their father isn’t just any serial killer, but a variation of Satan. Marvel has a bunch of guys whose identities are “basically Satan, but not really.” Instead of suits and turtlenecks, the two have comic adventures where they dress like they shopped off the sexy Halloween costume rack at Party City.

Daimon Helstrom (played by Tom Austen) gets both L’s in the comics as Daimon Hellstrom, but also has the rad nickname of Son of Satan. Shockingly, he’s a good guy! Mostly. Even when bare-chested with a glowing pentagram over his torso. Even with a magical pitchfork as his weapon of choice.

Son of Satan and his sister Satana are essentially the Marvel versions of Dante and Vergil from Devil May Cry. Both are half-human/half-devil and they lean on opposite sides of their genetics.

So let’s say you want to get into Hellstrom’s comic book exploits. Well, you’re in luck because we have a list of his main character runs since showing up in 1973.

The Early Spotlight (1973-1975)

Hellstrom made his first appearance in Ghost Rider #1. In the first two issues of that series, Hellstrom was hired as an exorcist to help deal with a missing woman who had been possessed. Interestingly enough, they never gave a clear look at Hellstrom in those two issues other than the demonic birthmark on his chest.

Initially, Hellstrom had a Jekyll and Hyde gimmick to the point that he told the woman’s loved ones to lock him up in a dark room and not let him out no matter what he said. Unlike the supporting characters in Young Frankenstein, the bozos didn’t take that to heart and let Hellstrom’s more maniacal personality Son of Satan loose.

Sidenote: His adventures were originally going to be called “the Mark of Satan” with more emphasis on Satan as the antagonist, but doing comics focused on Satan was deemed a little over-the-line, so they changed it.

Second sidenote: I did not hit her, it’s bullshit, I did not hit her, I DID NOT! Oh hi, Mark of Satan!

How Helstrom Became One of Marvel Television’s Last Shows Standing

By Alec Bojalad

Son of Satan’s adventures continued into Marvel Spotlight #12-24. It didn’t take long for Marvel to realize that giving him a double-identity was kind of a lame idea and instead had Satan Sr. magically handwave that away and make Son of Satan just one dude. Definitely for the better as he no longer felt so blatantly like Marvel’s answer to Jason Blood/Etrigan.

Hellstrom continued to fight against ghoulish enemies while opposing his father’s ways and dated some generic woman whose name I couldn’t tell you if you paid me a million dollars. It all culminated in a really strong finale issue where Hellstrom fought against and with his sister Satana, but maybe ignore the part where Hellstrom had a dream about the two of them making out.

Striking Out Solo (1975-1977)

Son of Satan had his own self-titled ongoing series that only lasted eight issues. From the beginning, Hellstrom went to Hell to basically tell off his dad as a way to say that this series wouldn’t be about their rivalry. Instead, it was Son of Satan dealing with a bunch of random villains that nobody would ever really remember.

There was one ridiculous enemy named the Possessor (not to be confused with the Elder of the Universe) who wore a mask to hide the fact that he had demon faces where his ears are supposed to be. Too bad he never showed up outside of this series.

It was a trippy outing, but ended before it could find its footing.

Demon Defender (1981-1983)

The Defenders are, of course, the bundle of heroes who don’t quite fit in with the Avengers, Fantastic Four, or X-Men but need people to hang out with. Guys like Hulk, Dr. Strange, Namor, Valkyrie, etc. Son of Satan became a regular ally in the team’s early days, appearing to help out every now and then. Most notably, he was part of a storyline where the Serpent Society kidnapped the Defenders and Clea put together a second team to rescue them, featuring the likes of Son of Satan, Daredevil, and Luke Cage.

Then again, the only thing anyone truly remembers about those issues is a very bizarre and legendary scene of a random guy getting killed by an Elf with a Gun.

As the series reached its 92nd issue, Hellstrom finally joined the team. On one hand, having Son of Satan on the team meant the Defenders had to take on the occult more than usual. On the other hand, Hellstrom soon fell in love with fellow Defender Hellcat, who was regularly dealing with constantly being possessed and turning into a scantily-clad demoness.

When Defenders hit its 100th issue, they did a really climactic storyline where a handful of the various Marvel Devil guys invaded Earth and Son of Satan had to take on Father of Son of Satan for the fate of Earth. The conclusion is rather surprising.

Prince of Lies (1993-1994)

Okay, so Daimon Hellstrom and Patsy Walker have been married for ten years (our time). It’s a fairytale romance where they’ve made a few guest appearances here and there, but have otherwise retired, happily ever after. What could POSSIBLY taint such true love?

90s comics. That’s your answer.

Welcome to Hellstorm: Prince of Lies, a 21-issue ongoing series where every issue looks like a Nine Inch Nails video and they try to see how much lanky nudity they can get away with showing in a Marvel comic. Like, holy crap, there has to be a world record for shadowed-out junk in this series. They even edit in some obvious, hastily-drawn underwear on characters at times as if the editor has realized they’ve gone too far.

It’s a gritty and grimy series that you’d expect from a 90s comic where much of it is written by Warren Ellis and the main character is Satan’s son. Lots of spikes, sharp teeth, long hair, suffering, insanity, and so on. It’s most definitely a product of its time.

Plus it’s called “Hellstorm” instead of “Hellstrom.” Scout’s honor, I didn’t notice the difference until my editor pointed it out.

Maximum Hellstorm (2006-2007)

Ah, Marvel MAX. The days when Marvel decided to give R-rated comics a shot and just threw everything at the wall. Hellstorm: Son of Satan was one of them, going for five issues. By this point, we’re in the mid-00s, so Hellstrom has a more down-to-earth look and is constantly talking to his father on a cellphone and tries so hard not to remind us what he looked like in the 70s and 80s.

But because it’s Marvel MAX, it means that his adventure is filled with lots of curse words, ultra-violence, gross demon boobs, and explicit Jesus imagery you normally wouldn’t see in a comic like this.

While the whole “Hellstrom messes with Egyptian underworld deities” storyline is a bit high concept, it still feels more like the new Hulu show than anything else.

Zombie Slayer (2009)

Speaking of gritty Marvel trends, there’s Marvel Zombies! While the initial Ultimate Fantastic Four storyline and the first two volumes of Marvel Zombies dealt with the happenings of a doomed universe, the next few volumes went slightly more uplifting. After all, sometimes you need to have people to root for who can back it up.

In Marvel Zombies 4, the Black Talon and the Hood (under the influence of Dormammu) try to use the decapitated head of Zombie Deadpool (otherwise known as Headpool) to bring forth the zombie apocalypse in the regular Marvel universe. Yes, we actually have canon stakes this time.

To prevent this, we have the Midnight Sons, made up of Son of Satan, Morbius, Jennifer Kale, Werewolf by Night, and Man-Thing. It’s an incredibly badass group working through an incredibly badass adventure. Too bad the team doesn’t last.

On a similar note, around this time there was a miniseries called the Last Defenders where Son of Satan was a major character. It’s just that by the time the team came together, they were an immediately-forgotten afterthought, so there’s no use in giving it its own entry.

Ghost Riders in the Sky (2009-2010)

Jason Aaron had a really, really, really great run on Ghost Rider. Most definitely read it. It’s pure grindhouse and I love it.

The whole run finished with Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire. This culmination featured Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch working together against a corrupt angel, the anti-Christ, and a group of villains from earlier in the run teaming up.

At least they have Daimon Hellstrom there to help out. Unfortunately, Hellstrom looks outright goofy with a bald head and Fu-Manchu mustache. The story brings back Jaine, his EXTREME love interest from the 90s series who he ended up with after his relationship with Patsy went very south.

Anyhow, Jason Aaron’s Ghost Rider run. Read it!

Strikeforce (2019-2020)

Much like how X-Men had X-Force as the team that would do the really dirty work, Avengers had a spinoff team called Strikeforce. Made up of Winter Soldier, Angela, Blade, Spider-Woman, Wiccan, and Spectrum, the team soon brought Hellstrom into the fold. Which is just as well, since he was working for Baron Zemo for a little while and really needed to get his head back on straight.

Unfortunately for Hellstrom, 1) he retained his bald look from Heaven’s on Fire and 2) the series didn’t last all that long. Only nine issues, sadly. Eh, it was fun while it lasted.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

At least he’s joining the Savage Avengers next! And they’re giving him his hair back!

The post Helstrom: The Comic History of Marvel’s Son of Satan appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/31dX5KF

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

2 notes · View notes

shipping-receiving · 5 years

Text

Jaime x Brienne Slow Burn AU Fics

*cracks knuckles* Get ready because this is a long post. I had an anon who specifically requested “well written, well developed slow burn multi-chapter AU”. I’ve already included a few that fit those criteria in my Modern AU fic recs [ Part 1 / Part 2 ] so I thought I’d dig up a mixed bag of AUs for this list (Regency! Apocalypse! Fairy Tales!).

But just for ease of access, here are my Modern AU recs (so far) that fit this criteria, depending how slow of a burn you want. Some of them actually only happen over the course of a few days (e.g. On the Night’s Watch), but I think you still get That Slow Burn Satisfaction:

Clean hands by Gwen77

Fever by @ladyinredfics

It’s Like Weather by ssstrychnine aka @oneangryshot

Madonna of the Balcony by QuizzicalQuinnia

A Year in the Life by Coraleeveritas

On the Night’s Watch by @miss-m-calling

Beast and the Beast by SigilBroken aka @chickren

Now onward to some of that Enemies to Friends to Lovers action:

//////

All the Roads are Winding by ShirleyAnn66 AU: Modern / Historical / Post-Apocalyptic / +++++ rating: T (more like M in parts) | word count: 264695 | chapters: 29

Why not start with the AU fic to end all AU fics – ShirleyAnn66′s multiverse epic, featuring Jaime and Brienne as physicists who explore five alternate versions of themselves. There are six interwoven parallel slow burns. SIX. Physicists, Prince/Princess (Political Marriage), Singer/Farmer (Best Friends), Prisoner/Septa, Megastar/Private Investigator, and Mad “Jon” (Post-Apocalyptic). Note that there are only 29 chapters in the story, but 35 including the Author’s Notes, and compilations of the five universes so they can be read as single stories.

//////

Before Destruction by renaissance AU: Pride and Prejudice / Regency rating: T | word count: 102716 | chapters: 32

One of the best multi-chapter fics ever created for this pairing, this Pride and Prejudice AU has Brienne as a governess for the Starks and Jaime as Captain Lannister, but both of them still retain their original personalities (Jaime is still the snarky one where Brienne is reserved and insecure). Perfectly plotted, and I think it conveys more of the tension and antagonism so typical of J/B than even the original dynamic between Elizabeth and Darcy.

//////

Shoot the Moon by @hardlyfatal AU: Modern rating: E | word count: 80250 | chapters: 33

corporate!Jaime and writer!Brienne meet on a ranch (with a host of other characters) and find themselves struggling between hostility and deep attraction. There’s also some very endearing domesticity in the second half, with Jaime’s kids Myrcy and Tommen. This probably isn’t that slow in terms of getting to the smut, but it’s really slow in terms of getting all those feelings out in the open. The author also has two other WIP slow burn fics that she is still updating regularly – Man of the Hour (Brienne is a vet, Jaime her mysterious neighbour) and the epic Western Desperado (this has three pairings: J x B, Sansa x Sandor, Dany x Jon).

//////

What is True, But Not Ideal by Vera AU: Modern rating: M | word count: 74868 | chapters: 19

I’m kicking myself that I didn’t think to rec this recently completed story in my first two Modern AU lists. Brienne meets Tyrion first, who hires her as a bartender in his pub, and they eventually become best friends. Jaime only appears from Chapter 4, but the Brienne/Tyrion friendship has really interesting implications for the J/B dynamic. I don’t want to spoil too much about the narrative because the direction of the story is so surprising, but it does take darker turns as the rest of the Lannisters and Starks are introduced.

//////

Bargains by Gwen77 AU: Regency rating: M | word count: 18171 | chapters: 11

Another Regency AU, this time with an arranged marriage between Jaime and Brienne. Jaime is still entangled with Cersei to some degree for most of this story, with painful consequences for J/B, but Jaime and Brienne’s growing feelings for each other are handled beautifully, and ultimately they get their happily ever after. This is the shortest fic in this list, but perhaps more so because Gwen77 writes heartbreaking prose so succinctly. No one writes repressed!JB like her, so it still feels like a slow burn despite its relative brevity.

//////

Scandal by Gwen77 AU: Victorian rating: T | word count: 21652 | chapters: 11

Look, I try not to rec more than one fic per author for each of my lists, but I would lay down my life for Gwen77′s four AUs. This one is set in a 19th Century version of Westeros, with Brienne as a journalist/writer and Jaime as a politician in a constitutional monarchy. This is one of the most unique versions of their dynamic that I’ve read, partly because this version of Jaime is more conflicted and elusive. Chapter 7 in particular leaves me breathless.

//////

The Dark, Dread Toyshop by @miss-m-calling AU: The Magic Toyshop / Modern-ish with a bit of magic rating: M | word count: 68755 | chapters: 25

Based on Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop, this underrated story is a mysterious coming-of-age tale that sees Brienne (and her siblings Pod and Sansa) sent to live with their uncle Tywin and his sons Jaime and Tyrion in his eerie toyshop. (This makes Jaime and Brienne cousins, just a warning for those who find that too incestuous.) This diverges quite a lot from the plot points of GoT/ASOIAF, but still remains enthralling.

//////

Everyone Has Secrets by ellaria AU: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Modern rating: E | word count: 113057 | chapters: 23

Another legendary, utterly seductive multi-chapter fic based on Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Jaime is a political journalist and Brienne is the hacker hired alongside him to investigate the disappearance of Sansa Stark ten years earlier. If you’re familiar with Larsson’s story, you’ll know to expect explicit sexual content and violence. (But don’t worry, all ends well, not the way Larsson left off his story with regard to his two main characters.)

//////

Tale As Old As Time by @brienneofthrace AU: Beauty and the Beast / Fairy Tale rating: T | word count: 56570 | chapters: 17

Jaime is the bitter lord of Casterly Rock (not an actual beast), and Brienne offers to become his hostage in exchange for the release of her captive father. This story plays fast and loose with both canons, which makes reading it really fun and unexpected. I was very lucky to have found this around the time the author chose to come back and complete it (I think there must have been a 4 year break somewhere)!

//////

Living Fiction by Archetype_Electraheart AU: Modern rating: M | word count: 72757 | chapters: 41

No-nonsense Brienne is assigned to be difficult Jaime’s new editor at Winterfell Publishing. This makes for some amazingly snarky interactions (and begrudging mutual respect) from the get-go, but perhaps one of the more unexpected elements of this story is the author’s decision to have Brienne be a longtime model/muse for photographer Loras Tyrell. Brienne’s relationship with her body thus manifest in a very different and refreshing way.

//////

+ BONUS: WIPs

I prefer not to rec incomplete fics on the off-chance they’ll never be completed (wow I wish season 8 was never completed) but these are two of my favourite WIPs that have been updated fairly recently:

With All Your Faults by @seaspiritwrites AU: A League of their Own / Baseball / 1940s rating: T | word count (so far): 91818 | chapters: 26/34

Well on its way to becoming a classic, this fic has been an absolute joy to read. Based very loosely on the movie A League of Their Own, and set in World War II-era America, Brienne is recruited to play in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, on a team coached by maimed former baseball star Jaime. As slow and as satisfying and as wholesome of a burn as you could possibly get.

for our world is cold and full of monsters by @trashy-greyjoy aka chancellor_valdez AU: Zombie Apocalypse rating: not rated | word count (so far): 32725 | chapters: 11/?

It’s the Jaime and Brienne road trip, except they have to fight zombies on the way. No prizes for guessing how Jaime loses his hand in this one. I genuinely love the way this fic is written – there’s a lot of great lines in this – and I don’t think it has gotten as much attention as it deserves. It seems to be on a bit of a hiatus (understandably after Season 8) but the author has promised to get back to it and I can’t wait.

#jaime x brienne #jaime x brienne fic recs #braime #game of thrones #asoiaf #got fic #asoiaf fic #trying again and bet it doesn't show up in the tags AGAIN why does tumblr hate me

365 notes · View notes

adrrianraines · 5 years

Text

choose me.

—chapter i. | chapter ii. | chapter iii.

genre: romance

fandom: playchoices: the royal romance

pairing: LiamxMC (Riley Brooks)

disclaimer:

characters used are owned rightfully by pixelberry. all rights reserved. this is a trr UA (universe alteration) original idea storyline. unlike an AU or Alternate Universe, Universe Alterations or UAs are set in the canon universe, but with "alterations" to accommodate the plot.

grammatical errors, misspellings & typographical errors that i might have overlooked are to be expected. **also, my apologies for the long delay! thank u for doing the proofreading with me, @bi-cookie 😘

taglist:

–of course, hmu if u wanna be tagged for an update! for these lovely people who wanna be tagged in this mess, thank you! ✨

@miss-raleigh-carrera @sunandlemons @wolfychoices @juminssi @onomatorina @ao719 @vaticanwaltz @texaskitten30 @princess-geek @janezillow @cordoniaqueensworld @thecordoniandiaries @omgjasminesimone

Sometimes, the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn’t mean to take. — Angela N. Blount, Once Upon an Ever After

Four rowdy guys stood outside the breezy New York City night, ready to take on whatever it’s willing to offer. One of them, however, was not as patient as the others.

“Who are we exactly waiting fo—�� But when Drake turned with an expression that equates bafflement, he was caught in an loop of awestruck surprise instead. “—woah... You look… different. Wow.” Drake’s tone alerted the others, their gazes then focusing towards the figure coming out of the bar. Maxwell gaped before swallowing several times. He was able to regain his temporary immobility by nodding in eager appreciation.

“You look hot!” The Beaumont Lord blurted, totally unaware of his surroundings. One gentleman was not very pleased with this. Liam’s eyes narrowed, mouth preparing to reprimand Maxwell’s choice of words and behavior.

Riley, on the other hand, had a different thing going on inside her mind. Her prompt reply immediately silenced Liam’s attempt for words.

“Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.” Her tone was saccharine, face producing a smooth wink which caused Maxwell’s cheeks to flush. Liam stared in shock at how, in an instant, the empty and almost translucent bars on top of Drake and Maxwell’s heads appeared then began to be filled with a shade of red.

Much like his own.

Now, how does a gentleman deny such an obvious display of attraction?

He felt a tug of pain inside his chest and the yearning that was caused by her absence grew. This was a reality in which Riley never met him yet but the longing he felt negates the rational thoughts he was trying to settle himself in. Liam watched how her hair swayed against the wind, how her lips curled into a smile as she conversed with the others, how she smoothed the pleats of her green dress as she straightened herself. Then, he immediately stopped.

You wouldn’t want to scare the lady now, would you? He scolds himself.

Riley’s gaze caught him. It was as if, all in slow motion, the wind got knocked out of his pipes, rendering him incapable of coherency. Liam carefully kept his mouth shut and pressed a smile on his face as he watched her approach him. His heart thundered while a million thoughts ran rampant inside his head. Yet, time seemed to slow down for them.

“Liam.” She called, her eyes twinkling against the dimly lit city lights. He was quiet, unbearably so, that Riley looked worried. “Are you okay?”

“My apologies, I…” Liam, who always was a master of his own emotions, did his very best to push the lingering tinge of jealousy at the back of his consciousness. He slowly reached out to take her hand in his to brush his lips against the softness of her skin. “It’s just that... You look breathtaking, Riley.”

“Oh…” Her cheeks flushed, and he almost did a somersault. Riley quickly recovered by teasing him. “Thank you, kind sir.”

“But the night demands us journey and you will be our navigator.” He grinned, letting his fingers brush against her own for a bit longer before pulling away. It wasn’t hard to ignore that Riley’s cheeks flushed red before clearing her throat.

He was pleased.

“I have the perfect place for all of us tonight. I promise you guys won’t regret it!” She says, and Liam, as the one who already lived through this moment, smiled to himself. He knew where exactly they would go.

“The beach?” Drake put an emphasis on the word as they all found themselves sinking mildly against the fine sand of the shore in a beach somewhere in the city. The moon was shining high in the sky and the waves were calm. There were not much people in sight.

“Oookay. Not what I had in mind, exactly.” Maxwell commented then stunned everyone by removing his shoes and folding the edges of his pants up. “Hah! I’m not gonna say no to this!”

Drake only shook his head and followed with Tariq in tow who’d been grumbling about how expensive his shoes were. Moments later, all three of them were splashing each other and laughing. Maxwell and Tariq were focused on attacking Drake which deliberately almost pissed him, if only he weren’t attacking them himself.

Liam removed his coat and slowly laid it down against the sand. He turned and urged Riley to sit with him, in which she followed without question.

Silence passed and Liam grew antsy. He wasn’t sure of how to tackle the changes that were beyond his control nor grasp.

“So pray tell, what exactly brought all of you here?” She broke the silence first, her gaze searching. He looked at her while biting his lip, as if unsure how to respond.

“I should thank you first... that was rude of me to forget. Forgive my rashness.” Liam smiled. “This was a great idea.” Being this close with her only drove him at wit’s end. His mind travelled to how he wanted to kiss her that moment. How he missed her touch. It took a good amount of self restraint as he focused on the more important topic at hand. “The guys are having fun because of you.”

“You’re welcome…” Riley trailed, smiling softly as she leaned in a bit.

Too close. His mind did a little scream.

Focus. He commanded. This is not the time. He knew better. Yet, his body move of its own accord, ignoring the warnings his thoughts deliberately showed. Easily, his hand found itself caressing the side of her face. At first, her eyes widened... then she bit her lip, and slowly... she closed her eyes.

The tiny string of sanity that was keeping him together snapped.

Liam leaned to close the distance between them, lips just lingering a few inches away from hers.

It’s not too late to back out. A voice inside his psyche reprimanded. And for once in his life he didn’t listen.

He kissed her and the flame in him, slow and deep, flickered alive. Their lips stirred in sync, mouths doing a little dance together. His hand now held the back of her neck, while the other firmly held her waist. Her hands gently curled against his chest, as if pulling him close. He couldn’t stop himself, not if he’s obviously aching to be with her again. Everything around them seemed to vanish like thin smoke in a clouded veil.

It felt forever. She tasted angelic.

And once upon a time, she married him.

When the kiss ended, they were both gasping for air. Liam briefly closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers as Riley let out a small giggle.

“That’s a first.” She commented which made him chuckle. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

Oh dear. He let out a soft sigh. Riley noticed the change in his expression and almost began to take back her question. Liam straightened himself, gaze never leaving her. She deserved the truth, much like how he disclosed the information the very first night that they met each other.

“It’s my Bachelor Party...” He breathed. Riley’s eyes widened.

“What?” Her voice faltered yet it was loud enough that he could hear the surprise in her tone. “You’re going to be married?”

“Yes. However... whom I’m yet to marry remains unknown.” He smiled sadly and she looked more confused than ever.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“The truth is… I’m the Crown Prince of a Kingdom.” Liam began and he carefully studied the different emotions that presented themselves in her visage. Surprise? Confusion? Disbelief? Amazement? It was all present.

He leaned back when she didn’t answer. “I have to carefully choose a bride for my country before the end of the year.”

“Wow… that’s… a lot to take in.” Riley’s voice trembled the slightest. “So, you mean to say that you’re a real prince…?”

“I believe so, if you’d like to humor me.” He laughed at how that almost sounded like a joke. But the weight of the crown always kept his sanity rooted to the ground. Riley was the only one who could shake him to the core.

A Prince must never let his emotions dictate his decisions. Much less a future king should let his internal turmoils affect his governance. But right that moment, with her features being illuminated in the moonlight, the sound of his friends’ laughter and the crashing waves against the shore rendered him vulnerable.

Liam thought long and hard at how empty he felt since he woke up without his wife by his side. The idea of losing his family churned his stomach into knots and the possibility of him losing her this time, albeit permanently, left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Liam?” She said as a tremulous smile graced her lips. The wind carries her voice to him. He gazed that it hurts to even look at her, knowing for a fact that right now, she isn’t his to hold. But he can’t not look at her, not when the breeze that came from the sea swayed her hair, fingers beginning to itch to hold her.

It would be so easy to close the distance between them once more, just to kiss her, and declare his love then. The heat of jealousy whenever he thinks of how mesmerized both Drake and Maxwell were with her earlier produced a writhing sensation in the pit of his belly. It was unbearable.

Then, Liam reached out to take Riley’s hands against his own as he whispered the words he never thought and couldn’t keep himself from declaring, “Come back with me to Cordonia.”

Liam woke up with a start.

There was a reverent knock on his door as he tried to rub off the remnants of sleep from his eyes. He swung his legs down the carpeted floor accompanied by a soft groan then moved towards the door. With a soft click and a twist of the knob, his eyes widened upon the visitor who made themself known in front of him.

“Bastien?” He asked, a bit confused.

“Your highness.” With a curt bow, Bastien greeted Liam. “May I come in?”

Still bewildered, he stepped aside and was immediately drawn towards the familiar decorations of his surroundings. His eyes immediately narrowed, thoughts slowly forming a riot inside his head. He turned sharply towards Bastien who looked as equally alarmed as he is.

“Where am I?” Liam blurted, almost as if he didn’t know where he was. The King’s Guard only looked at him, certainly caught off-guard with the question.

“...You’re in Cordonia, of course.” Bastien answered, voice firm with certainty. Liam almost toppled over his feet but he caught himself immediately. In a swift motion, Bastien was immediately by his side.

Cordonia? He rubbed his forehead, as if he was trying to recall the past events that transpired. He recalled being in New York—his Bachelor Party. Right! His Bachelor Party!

“Liam.” There was a mixture of worry within the depths of Bastien’s eyes and Liam couldn’t afford to provide an explanation of such bizarre events that jarred his mind. “Drake told me about this. What’s happening?”

“I…” Liam began, doubt lacing his thoughts. He bit his lip then shook his head after. “I’m quite alright. Thank you, Bastien.”

“Tonight’s the Masquerade Ball. The King asked me to check on you.” Bastien gave him a do-over before stepping back. “Then, I will leave you to prepare.” The knight nodded, though unsure, but proceeded to walk out. When Liam was sure that he’s finally alone, he slumped back to his bed, head hanging low, mind trying to remember the events from the night before.

Masquerade Ball… So, it hasn’t been a full day yet since he last saw Riley.

But why was his memory extremely clouded? It was as if he couldn’t remember ever going out with her. From his previous night’s memory, he knew they went together to the beach and had a magical night that was unbearably hard to forget. Yet, he wasn’t sure if they ever went to the Statue of Liberty. He wasn’t sure how their short trip to the beach rolled out after he told her he is a prince.

Something was amiss.

“Tonight will be the start of the Social Season.” His father’s voice - King Constantine of Cordonia - gently reminded him. The orchestra inside already began playing and they were only waiting to be announced. Liam squared his shoulders and nodded as an answer.

So far, so good. Just like how the previous events happened.

“I have an announcement to make, son. Be sure to be there.” His father said as they all walked towards the large ballroom doors. Not a minute later, the trumpets sounded and he could hear his father’s name together with his step-mother being announced.

“His majesties, King Constantine and Queen Regina!” The herald’s voice echoed and the grand doors opened. The lights basked the royal couple in shimmering glitters. There was a round of applause as he watched his parents walk together towards the center stage, surrounded by all other nobility present inside.

The herald stepped outside and looked at Liam as a signal before he nodded for confirmation. “His Highness, Prince Liam!”

He squinted at the blinding luminscence of the ballroom—ears tingling at the unanimous chorus of claps from what seemed like a hundred pair of hands. He walked and smiled to each noble who greeted him. Liam’s eyes caught several noble women giggling while coyly smiling at him, masks hiding their countenance.

He never expected to undergo the pain of choosing a marriage partner once more. Never in his lifetime had he dreamed of going through similar situations again. His heart constricted at how ridiculous and pitiable he was before he met Riley, nestled in all these fake visages. Pleasing and making sure to never commit a single mistake while being forced to marry for the Kingdom he was expected to take care with as much as what his hands could handle.

One by one, the ladies that were present to win his hand in marriage were announced. He heard a couple of names he knew but none of them mattered when he didn’t hear Riley��s name being called nor the house she was supposed to represent being declared.

His vision caught a few familiar faces in the crowd—Olivia, Hana, Penelope and Kiara. They were huddled together on one part of the room, then several noblewomen he couldn’t even remember and some other figures of Cordonia’s circle of nobles. He carefully scanned the crowd, trying to find the face he wanted to see the most. Yet, all were futile as most of the ladies wore masks for the ball. As what he could remember, she wore an ensemble of clothing so stunning it knocked his breath away. But to his surprise, no matter how much he scanned the crowd, he couldn’t find her. Nor Drake and Maxwell for the case.

Wouldn’t she have arrived already? He asked himself. Or has he missed the announcement? Truth to be told, he couldn’t actually recall hearing her being announced. He was that preoccupied. Yet, even seeing her in Cordonia back then was what surprised him the most.

The herald blew his trumpet again, the sound gathering the attention of everyone inside the crystalline ensemble. “The King would like to say a few words!”

A flood of shush echoed throughout the men and women alike as they halted their business to listen towards the esteemed King of Cordonia. His father beckoned him to step closer. Liam’s feet gingerly walked towards his father, unsure of why he was suddenly being called in the middle.

“My dear citizens of Cordonia, I welcome you all! I hope from the bottom of my heart that all of you are enjoying the festivities our Kingdom offers tonight. Truly, all of you are shining brighter than the stars in the sky.” His father, through practiced pleasantries to diplomatic talks, announced. The nobles slowly clapped one by one until it became a chorus of deafening noise.

“However, as much as my family would love to extend our personal greetings to each lady who graciously presented themselves for this year’s social season, the Royal family has come to a decision that would benefit the entirety and all the while, securing the Kingdom and its future. I, as the current King of Cordonia, do announce that we have already chosen the most suitable candidate for the throne.” There was a hush amidst the crowd. King Constantine took this opportunity to continue. “Hence, the Social Season for this year is going to be postponed.”

The sudden announcement not only shocked Liam but also collectively earned gasps from the people itself. Murmurs then began to break out as furious ladies expressed their grievances of the sudden change of plans. However, Liam stayed rooted, eyes wide and unbelieving towards his father.

“Ah, we would like to extend our deepest and most sincerest apologies. This is selfish, I’m perfectly aware. But for the circumstances that presented itself, we would also ask for the gracious support from the people of this Kingdom as we announce the chosen Lady.” Liam’s ears rang badly, breath turning ragged, gaze in a daze as he tried to process everything. “I would like to formally make it official that I will be stepping off the throne and... therefore, paving the way for the Crown Prince to be crowned as the new King of Cordonia!”

Everything happened impeccably fast, almost like a haze or a gust of wind. Liam couldn’t even process the information himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Queen Regina with a lady wearing a mask from behind the stage. Then, the two of them made their way towards the center as the crowd collectively gushed and murmured among themselves.

He couldn’t think straight.

He heard Olivia’s voice from the crowd, fiercely stating her defiance against the sudden decision.

“I’m insulted, dear Prince. It wouldn’t be a good image for the people to see their future leader caught in a binge.” The masked Lady strutted to his side, voice familiarly eerie and calculating. The smile on her face impossibly cold yet determined.

Liam’s eyes shifted in a frenzied manner as he tentatively took a step back in perturbation. The familiar blonde hair and piercing gaze cut through his facade despite the mask she wore.

It wasn’t supposed to go this way… it wasn’t supposed to go this way. His mind ranted.

And then louder. This wasn’t supposed to happen...!

“Here we present, the new Queen-in-Waiting together with Crown Prince Liam!” He breathed several times as he tried to relax himself. Then, Liam squared his shoulders and plastered the fakest of all smiles he could ever managed and focused his gaze ahead. He could feel Madeleine smirking by his side as she gently wrapped her hand on his arm, pulling him a bit closer to her. The herald continued to announce. “Please, help us welcome Countess Madeleine of Fydelia!” The herald’s voice boomed in an excited cheer as he presented the two of them, standing side by side.

King Constantine clapped his shoulder before breaking into an applause himself. The herald then stepped closer and bowed down before offering the microphone back to the King himself.

“Beautiful, indeed. The future of the Crown are in good hands.” The mirth reflecting on his father’s face was no match against the blinding chandelier lights. “I’d be more than delighted to share with you all that preparations are in tow and the wedding will be happening in a month’s time!”

A month?!

Liam heard the large double doors creaking, and when he tilted his head to take a look, his world came crashing down in an instant. She heard. Dear god, she heard everything. His eyes softened at the sight of beauty that was beyond his reach, dressed like an angel and the most captivating pair of eyes he had ever seen hiding beneath a masquerade. Riley was there, rooted to the spot together with Maxwell and the Duke of Ramsford, frozen and completely stunned in silence as much as he was.

Then, as the trumpets collectively played a congratulatory tune and the crowd of nobles slowly loosened up from the surprising news then started cheering. His emotions only screamed in pain as his thoughts wildly raced towards the lady that just made her grand exit from the ball just after a few moments.

Within the chaos of his own mind, the enclosed space inside the dance floor, the fast beating of his heart and the utterly problematic situation he caught himself into, Liam couldn’t breathe.

His hands curled into fists. His ears started ringing in silent frustration. He froze in place.

And when the love of his life exited the grand doors, he couldn’t even move to run after her.

53 notes · View notes

ansheofthevalley · 5 years

Note

People tend to do the same thing for Steve and Tony (Stony), as in fetishize their relationship, when you’ve already mentioned that there are plenty of LGBTQ people in the world of Marvel.

Hi nonny!

TBH, it’s hardly hot news that fandom in general like to fetishize mlm couples (especially if the characters are portrayed as straight). It’s usually straight women that fetishizes mlm ships (that’s a whole another problem I won’t get into now, otherwise this would be a very long post). I mean, I still remember the days of BBC Sherlock and Johnlock. I’m sure you do too, nonny.

Now, everyone has their own headcanons about characters and all. And that’s totally OK. But the MCU adapts characters from the comics (I know I’m totally coming across like a comic book purist, which I’m not, not really), and there are tons of wonderful LGTBQ characters in the comics. I’m aware that not all the people that are part of the MCU fandom read the comics, and that’s cool.

I guess that my main issues with this are the following:

Like I said before, the MCU adapts the characters from the comics. But adaptation doesn’t mean carbon copy. Just like MCU’s MJ is not the “typical” Mary Jane we know, the MCU version is based on an alternate version of Mary Jane from the comics in which she was as much of a genius as Peter (I can’t remember the alternate universe). The same can happen with a character’s sexuality. Let’s use Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman as an example. Her original version (Earth-616) is straight. But her Ultimate version (Earth-1610) identifies as a lesbian. Same can happen with Illyana Rasputina aka Magik, who in Earth 616 is established as straight, but she’s also established as bi and gay in different alternate universes. Other characters that can go this route are Wolverine and Hercules (both from Earth-12025, alternate universe in which they’re a couple) and Beast and Wonder Man (both from Earth-763, alternate universe in which they’re a couple).

(I MEAN... Here you have two of the manliest, most macho-looking superheroes Marvel has, sharing a show-stopping kiss. JUST IMAGINE if we got something remotely close to it in the MCU).

I don’t have a problem with characters being queer when their comic counterpart are straight, as long as it makes sense whithin their narrative frame. Otherwise, it just becomes thoughtless representation and as a community we deserve better than that.

Then, of course, you have the canon LGBT characters (by canon I refer to characters present in the Earth-616 timeline). You have:

- Gay characters:

Union Jack

Northstar

Angela (Thor’s older sister, whose storyline in the MCU was given to Hela)

Sera

Korg (who already is in the MCU)

Phyla-Vell

Moondragon

America Chavez

Wiccan

Hulkling

Iceman (one of the 6 original X-Men)

Karma (founder of the New Mutants)

Viv (Vision’s “daughter”)

-Bi characters:

Loki

Black Cat

Psylocke

Mystique

Electro (a Spider-Man villain)

Daken (Wolverine’s son)

Prodigy

Beetle (a Spider-Man villain)

Fuse

Noh-Varr

-Pan characters:

Deadpool

Julie Power

Xavin

-Trans characters:

Sera

Loki

-Genderfluid characters:

Loki

Xavin

Mystique

-LGBTQ characters that already are in the MCU (*):

Loki (Bisexual and genderfluid)

Valkyrie (Bisexual)

Nico Minoru (Bisexual)

Karolina Dean (Gay)

Xavin (Genderfluid)

Jeri Hogarth (Gay)

Joey Gutierrez (Gay)

Justin Hammer (Gay)

(*)I’m aware of the pattern here, the only openly LGBTQ characters are from the Marvel shows. Loki, Valkyrie and Justin Hammer have all been confirmed as queer behind the scenes

As you can see, there are tons of queer characters, some that even fit with the direction the MCU will be taking after Endgame:

You have America Chavez, Wiccan, Hulkling and Noh-Varr, all members of the Young Avengers. A notable member of this team? Cassie, Scott Lang’s daughter (she’s a teenager by the end of Endgame, so the timeline is just right for Marvel to bring the YA to the MCU). Also, in the Disney + Hawkeye series, it’s said that Clint will train someone. That someone could turn out to be Kate Bishop, another member of this group.

You have Iceman, Karma, Psylocke, Mystique, Daken, Prodigy and Deadpool, all members of the X-Men or groups affiliated with them. Since Disney acquiered the rights to the X-Men, we’ll see some of them soon in the MCU.

You have Phyla-Vell and Moondragon, characters associated with the GotG and the cosmic side of Marvel. Since one of the confirmed projects is the Eternals movie and it’s also said that the Captain Marvel sequel will take place in space, it’s possible these characters are introduced, since it seems the MCU is heading towards exploring the cosmic side of the universe. Marvel also confirmed that the Eternals movie will introduce its first openly gay character, so yay!

You have Ultimate Jessica Drew. She’s from the same alternate universe as Miles Morales. Since FFH confirmed the Multiverse theory, it can be possible this version of the character appears in the MCU, either as the MCU’s version of the Jess or as part of the Spider-Verse story-line. Also possible to make an appareance (but a little further down the line): Black Cat. She’s a love interest/rival to Spider-Man. There’s also possibility for Electro and Beetle to appear since they were both part of the Sinister Six.

You have Angela and Sera. Since Thor joined the GotG at the end of Avengers: Endgame, making it look like an adaptation of the Asgardians of the Galaxy run (or at least, the start of it), it’s easy to introduce, at least, Angela, since she became a rather popular character.

You have Loki and his upcoming Disney + solo series, which will take place in an alternate universe. The series is perfect for Marvel to explore the sexuality of one of its most popular characters.

You have Viv, the Vision’s daughter. Since we’ll get the ScarletVision Disney + series, it’s possible we get a version of Viv, or a mix of her and the children Wanda and Vision “had” (if you read House of M, you’ll know what I’m referring to). Viv is part of the series of new young heroes, along with Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel), Riri Williams (Ironheart), Miles Morales (Ultimate universe’s Spider-Man), Spider-Gwen (Earth-65′s Gwen Stacy), Nadia Pym (Wasp), Lunella Lafayette (Moon Girl) and Gabby Kinney (a clone of Wolverine).

As I said, there are tons of awesome characters waiting to be introduced. Just because they’re not known to the GA doesn’t mean they couldn’t be great additions to the MCU. I mean, almost nobody knew about the Guardians when their first movie came out. Scott Lang and Stephen Strange were largely unknown by the GA when their movies came out. So yeah, I have great hopes for these awesome characters.

Also, support the Marvel shows that are giving us proper representation! Watch Runaways on Hulu and Jessica Jones and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D on Netflix.

#anti stony #(not really)#MCU #marvel #lgbtq+ representation #my thoughts #i just have shit to say when it comes to the mcu and queer representation y'know #i also have shit to say about the popular mlm ships #this probably will be an unpopular opinion #but y'all are making me have flashbacks with stucky/stony #y'all taking me back the days tumblr was basically a bunch of straight women fetishizing the hell out of johnlock #\ (ツ) /

16 notes · View notes

tansypoisoning · 5 years

Text

The Warmth of the Iris

Zenyatta dreams he's a butterfly - then he's on fire. Not a dream, he's literally just on fire.

Fandom: Overwatch

Genres: Humor

Ships: None

Relavant Characters: Zenyatta(PoV), Genji

Universe: Overwatch verse, canon compliant

Content Warnings: Fire???

Omnics didn't sleep, not in the same way humans did, but they could reach a trance-like state with enough practice, tuning themselves to their subconscious mind.

The monks of Shambali were the most prominent practitioners of that type of meditation, sometimes staying immobile for entire days to connect with the Iris. It wasn't unusual to find members of the order laying about as if off, or levitating in the lotus position, or even continuously walking head-first into walls or pillars, their thoughts far away but their bodies still in running mode – therefore Genji was not surprised to find his master propped up against a lattice screen one day, emitting a rumbling mechanic noise that sounded suspiciously like snoring. The young Shimada knew better, though. He wouldn't disturb his teacher when he was in a state of spiritual elation, and chose to distance himself for the time being. He only wished he could see what the other would dream about this time.

Wind rushed through Zenyatta's unusually fragile body, neither harming nor hindering him, but rather motioning him forward. Where to? It didn't matter; he could fly! Why be concerned with directions, when he had everything he needed right with him and the outcomes of his actions could easily be contained in the span of his wings? Yes, for now he had wings, small, delicate things in the great scheme of things, but so broad in scope, capable of taking him on so many adventures. They were the most beautiful orange, red and yellow, like flames warming his back. They didn't burn him to ashes, but rather lifted him to heights as of yet unknown.

Mobility had never been a problem for the omnic monk, but now that he had the gift of flight (not just hovering like some second rate Buddha) he realized what he’d been missing out on. In his new body he could easily navigate the air currents, and they took him to places he never would’ve been able to reach before: The mouth of an active volcano to watch the lava flowing in its core; The highest peak of a mountain, where an eagle fed its young; A river delta, with water flowing from land into the sea; A studio where four men with peculiar senses of style rated movies based on the number of vehicular collisions showed on screen.

Maybe he could’ve gone without the last one.

Zenyatta was whole at last – free from the shackles of an existence as a land dweller, and complete, seeing the World for what it was and what it was meant to be, not for what he selfishly wished it to be. The wind took him where it willed, and he was happy to follow, and watch, and learn.

Being airborne was undoubtedly the most wonderful thing that had happened to him, and it made him wonder why people didn’t often attempt to fly.

His contentment didn’t last long, though. The breeze gradually veered him upwards, and things were starting to get pretty warm, which was odd, since temperature was supposed to decrease proportionally to how high one was in the troposphere. When he felt himself sweat he knew there was something wrong (both omnics and insects had other strategies for thermoregulation), almost as if his dreams were being dictated by a creature that took perspiration for granted, like some sort of sweaty mammal.

The heat was manageable at first, but he soon started feeling like a pig (who coincidentally also don’t sweat) roasted over an open fire. Was this ascension? The Iris’ final test to determine whether or not he was ready? Before having experienced life as a butterfly he didn’t think he would be, but now he understood things he couldn’t have fathomed before. Perhaps it was time.

Oxygen fed his wings and burned his lungs – did butterflies have lungs? Did he have lungs? – and he could feel the warmth of the Iris flowing through him. The wind pushed him ever closer towards the sun, and it was then that Zenyatta knew: everything was right. This is where his path had led him, and this is where he would finally reach the peace he had longed for.

He was so close now; just a little more and he would be there. He was burning, and melting, and becoming something entirely new and likely horrible to behold, but he was just so happy…

That is, until the world shook and he was jostled awake.

Zenyatta was brought back to our cold, cruel reality by being repeatedly shaken by the shoulders by someone who kept calling for a ‘master’.

Oh, wait – he was ‘master’.

“Genji.” He greeted, sounding more cheerful than he thought he should after being awaken so rudely.

“Master, you are on fire!” The cyborg warned, still rattling him aggressively.

Zenyatta paused to examine his surroundings, and even with his head moving to and fro he realized he was indeed ablaze. Where his gorgeous wings had once been there were only flames licking his metal skeleton.

“Ah, yes, that appears to be the case.” He noted “But an extinguisher is not required.”

He attempted to mitigate the damage with a harmony orb, but all he managed to do was rotate his hand in a perfect circle several times. Apparently his circuits had been fried.

“Master, you need healing!” Genji cried, but he only kept shaking him back and forth. Whether it was out of worry or if he was trying to put out the fire somehow, Zenyatta didn’t know “I’ll- I’ll call Angela!”

The monk gave his disciple the robot version of a beatific smile.

“Who the fuck is Angela?” Zenyatta had never cursed before, but he had to admit the whole experience was cathartic.

Genji whined loudly, before pushing his teacher back to fall in the snow behind him – only it was a drop of eight feet, and the white thicket he landed on was mostly ice.

He sunk a little in the snow (but not much cause aluminum) and lifted a metal hand to give his student a thumbs up.

“I’m fine!” He declared, pushing himself into a sitting position to watch Genji, as he ran to the other side of the ledge to climb down the stairs, only to fall down face-first on the snow in the last step.

“I need healing!”

Zenyatta sighed and attempted to summon another harmony orb, only to have his wrist spin out of control again, but it wouldn’t have mattered either way. Genji had stood up, dashed to the other side of the monastery, then came back to him all in the short while that it would’ve taken to heal him.

“Master, are you well?” The ninja cried out after coming to a halt in front of him.

“No.” Zenyatta moved his head sideways, lightly at first, but it gradually grew into an uncontrollable motion that shook his entire body “I was having the most wondrous dream. Why did you wake me up?!”

“Master?”

“I dreamt I was a butterfly. A butterfly, Genji! Do you have any idea what I’ve experienced?! The sights, the sounds, the feelings, the car crashes?! I was one with the Iris, truly for the first time!” His voice had risen to a volume he never knew it could reach, and his systems were heating up so quickly he thought he might catch on fire again. Good.

“You would have burned down to scrap metal if I hadn’t woken you!”

“I’ll show you scrap metal!”

And he did, when he attempted to hit Genji with a discord orb and ended up rotating his hand so violently it flew from his wrist right into his student’s face.

In the end, both master and pupil were alright, after Zenyatta had spent all his energy and a mechanic, a medic and the firefighters had been called to mitigate the ensuing damage.

#overwatch fanfiction #genji fanfiction #zenyatta fanfiction #mine

3 notes · View notes

segadores-y-soldados · 7 years

Photo

And because tumblr is going to destroy this post: the full image Please be kind to my terrible Paint skills, I wasn’t about to bust out an old tablet to make this super fancy. Please know that this is one possible interpretation of the final year, year and a half of Overwatch given what we currently have available to us right now.

Sources and more information under the cut:

To start off with, our baseline point is Recall.

Recall is when both the game and the main plot begin - the Recall animation and Winston’s “Are You With Us” recall message are initiated, and this “coincides” with the game’s release in 2016. To make things easier for everyone, my math here is simply to project: 2016 + 60 years forward = Recall initiated in 2076

Fairly straightforward and makes following game updates a bit easier.

From here, forward-progressing events move roughly at the same time as the game has been released. For example:

Summer of 2016 || Summer of 2076: Ana is released || “Old Soldiers” comic occurs

November of 2016 || November of 2076: The Sombra ARG concludes || Sombra leaks LumériCo’s secrets

November of 2016 || November of 2076: “Infiltration” is released || Talon attempts to assassinate Katya Volskaya

November 2076: Volskaya asks Zarya for assistance in finding Sombra

Holidays of 2016 || Holidays of 2076: the “Reflections comic” occurs

Now we’ve entered 2017 || 2077. Things shift slightly here.

On-going throughout 2077: Zarya searches for Sombra

Late February 2017 || Late February 2077: Interview with Efi Oladele is released

July 2017 || Late February 2077: “Masquerade” comic is released || Doomfist breaks out of prison and returns to Talon

March 2017 || March 2077: Orisa is released || Efi builds Orisa

Sometime after Orisa is built, 2077: Zarya meets Lynx in Numbani

April 2017 || April 2077: the “Uprising” event is released || files on the Strike Team’s mission against Null Sector are declassified

July 2017: Doomfist is released

August 2017 || (likely) August 2077: Junkertown map is released || Junkrat and Roadhog initiate “The Plan”

September 2017 || (likely) September 2077: “Searching” is released || Zarya finally finds Sombra

This is why the “Uprising” content all says “seven years ago” - because the game and the overall plot since Recall has moved forward one year, but the actual event of Null Sector’s Uprising did not change in time. So, with the “Recall” event and the “Uprising” information, I have two anchor points of reference for the general, final year of Overwatch: 2076 - 6 years = 2070 2077 - 7 years = 2070

Michael’s GDC talk also gives us a third anchor point: the Halloween party where Reinhardt tells the story of “Junkenstein’s Revenge.” This is actually set during Halloween the year before, so 31st October, 2069 (nice).

I’m breaking this up by section to help make this a bit easier.

Introduction

1. “Six Years Ago:” “Fading Glory: On the Trail of Jack Morrison,” in-universe article (https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/19809396/) 2. Michael Chu’s timeline: “Thinking Globally: Building the Optimistic Future of Overwatch,” a GDC talk given by Michael Chu (Timestamp: 49:12 - clip starts at discussion of materials: https://youtu.be/bj56ejM5EcU?t=2952)

Late 2069/Early 2070

1. “Halloween party:” “Junkenstein’s Revenge,” a comic in which Reinhardt narrates a “scary” story to some of the Overwatch members (https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/junkrat-junkenstein). What is important to note here is that Michael actually puts this in the “Fall of Overwatch” era of his timeline. It is also important to note that several major Overwatch characters - Lena, Winston, and Genji - are either not yet a part of Overwatch, or were not permitted to join the “core members’” Halloween party. I have personally chosen to interpret this as the first option. You may view things differently.

2. Tracer disappears from the timeline (not shown): “I was missing for months” - quote from her Origin video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27LPGldyY7M). “[Tracer] reappeared months later, but her ordeal had greatly changed her: her molecules had been desynchronized from the flow of time.” - quote from her Hero profile (https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/tracer/). “Months” here, as I understand it, probably means fewer than 12 months (a full year) but more than “a couple” (2 months). It’s difficult to say when exactly Lena disappeared and when she returned, but we know she had returned by April of 2070 (at the very latest).

3. The Shimada brothers’ duel: alright. Full disclosure inbound. I got a handful of people countering me on this issue in my Moira discussion and here’s my response: we have a number of conflicting pieces of information and many of them could be possible. I’d like to run through my reasoning for why I’m placing this event in the final year of Overwatch, as well as other possible places it could go.

3.1 “Nearly ten years ago:” a few people brought up that the 2014 Blizzcon Overwatch reveal panel described Hanzo (a then-playable character) as having left his home “nearly ten years ago.” You can find this quote on this transcript here (http://overwatch.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/blizzcon-2014-overwatch-unveiled-panel-transcript/3). Reason why I disagree with this assessment: this line never made it to either of Hanzo or Genji’s final Hero profiles (Hanzo: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/hanzo/) (Genji: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/genji/).

That said, this does not mean the line is incorrect, nor that it is not part of whatever internal timeline Blizzard is using. I personally do not think it’s wise to specific details from the 2014 Blizzcon panel because of how old it is and how much changed between 2014 and the game’s release in 2016. Remember - Blizzard was still rethinking its own plot well past the game’s release (when they canceled “First Strike”). But in all fairness, if you want to make your own version of the timeline and use that, then feel free.

3.2 Late March/Early April: I had someone else note the fact that the “Dragons” animation shows several koinobori, or the Japanese koi windsocks traditionally flown on Children’s Day on May 5th. There are a couple of issues with this: one, it does not particularly coincide with the blooming of the cherry blossoms in the Tokyo region (source: http://www.jnto.go.jp/sakura/eng/index.php), which is where Hanamura is “set,” and two, the idea kinda trusts that Blizzard did research on koinobori and when they are supposed to be used. In an effort to be fair to Blizzard, technically, koinobori can begin appearing as decorations as early as April, and be flown all the way through to Children’s Day.

3.3 Genji in training: a related issue to 3.2 and the upcoming 5th event in the timeline is that Genji appears to be testing out his cyborg body in a sparring match against Lena/Tracer. The “Art of Overwatch” book also provides a description that appears to imply that this skin is him when he is still recovering:

“Much like the Origins Edition skins, the designs released for the Uprising event offered a glimpse into a pivotal period of the characters’ lives. One of the most extreme designs belong to Genji. After his brother, Hanzo, nearly killed him, he was taken in by Overwatch and given a new body (below). The experience left the hero embittered and angry, constantly at war with the cybernetics that were now a part of him.

“When designing a skin for this part of Genji’s story, the developers used his outfit to mirror his turbulent state of mind. They made his armor feel like a mishmash of parts, symbolizing the hero’s struggle to accept what he has becomd. The use of red throughout the skin also helped ot emphasize his uncontrollable rage.” - The Art of Overwatch, page 233

No date is given, hence why I feel the idea is only implied, but it is not stated. Again, if you wish to create your own interpretation of this, you are free to do so.

4. Winston crash lands on Earth (no exact date given): this one is very difficult and admittedly extremely loosely incorporated into the final year of Overwatch. You may interpret it differently. My reasoning here is that Winston is not present in the Halloween comic, and no specific details are given in the ironically-named “New Details Emerge About Possible Fate of Horizon Lunar Colony” article (https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20812209). However, Winston needs to be “present” and part of Overwatch when Tracer returns to the timeline from her accident, so this potentially puts Winston’s landing sometime around the Shimadas’ duel.

5. Uprising: As I described above, I’ve extrapolated that the time since release and the canon-events revealed have some parallels running between them. Obviously, this is not set 100% in stone. However, with Uprising, we do know a few things:

it is Lena’s first mission, so it has to come after her return to the timeline

it features Winston, so he’s either a part of Overwatch now or taking a more active role

it features Winston testing Lena’s chronal accelerator, so it is relatively recent after her return and stabilization

it features Genji before he gets his normal cyborg “skin”

it features Angela who appears to be testing Genji’s cybernetics

Reinhardt has not yet retired

Jesse is still present and part of Blackwatch

Ana is still present

Gabriel is still present

Overwatch is already under public scrutiny

Director Petras has already suspended Blackwatch activities

It takes place “seven years ago” from 2077.

These are a lot of constraints to place on Uprising, but they do limit us to what is likely the final year of Overwatch. The teaser tweet for the event can be found here (https://twitter.com/playoverwatch/status/848958308643885056?lang=en) and the blog post can be found here (https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20696534). Mid-to-Late 2070 (exact dates unknown) This is where things get very difficult to align, and the majority of events could be effectively rearranged to come before or after each other. 1. Moira recruited to Blackwatch: main source - Moira Origin Story (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ETybQd4uRE) The newest event at the time of this writing, Moira’s recruitment is constrained by two major things - it must come after Genji joins, and it must happen before Genji and Jesse leave Blackwatch. Again, if you see Genji’s fight with Hanzo as happening a couple of years before 2070, then yes, this event could come much earlier. The second “part” of this (which I’ve placed several months after her recruitment in the timeline) is that whatever Moira does or “tests” on Gabriel must come after Ana has “died” and separated from the Overwatch team. Hypothetically, Moira’s “tests” are likely conducted over a period of time, but no matter what, Gabriel’s “final, unmasked appearance” (whatever it is) was never seen by Ana (but hypothetically has been seen by Jack/Soldier: 76).

For the quote that I provided, you can check here (http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/167111711575/moira-preview-new-hero-overwatch-panel) or you can watch the source video yourself:

“Moira Reveal Panel” - quote from Michael Chu (Timestamp: 3:47 https://youtu.be/HsJU3PEk9JY?t=227)

Source for the “Soldier: 24 folder” - http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/167127031445/new-details-on-the-university-map-of-oasis-found

2. Doomfist’s arrest: main source - Doomfist Origin Story (https://youtu.be/vaZfZFNuOpI) Again, no exact date has been given, but there are number of constraints that put this after Uprising:

Tracer is part of the team that arrested him

Winston is part of the team that arrested him (this may come after Winston passes whatever certification test is in the photo in Recall)

Genji appears to have his new cybernetics and may have transferred to Overwatch

Other key members of Overwatch, such as Reinhardt and Torbjörn, are not present and may have retired.

This may come before Moira’s recruitment. Talon activities at this time period are difficult to suss out correctly. As Moira’s hero profile implies:

“After Overwatch was disbanded, O'Deorain was forced to turn to unconventional sources of funding. This time, she was invited to join the scientific collective that had founded the city of Oasis. Yet some have whispered that the shadowy Talon organization had already been supporting her for years, aiding her experiments in exchange for utilizing the results for their own purposes.” Moira may have already been working for Talon at this time. The “organization had already been supporting her for years” overlaps with her recruitment into Blackwatch (no matter where you put it), meaning she may have entered Blackwatch and Overwatch as a Talon agent. It is also possible that she was approached by Talon AFTER becoming a Blackwatch agent.

This is important - and unfortunately very vague - because our next two points rely on knowing when and how Talon began infiltrating Blackwatch and Overwatch. 3. Amélie’s transformation into Widowmaker (no exact date given): main sources - Widowmaker’s Hero profile (https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/widowmaker/) and “Legacy” comic (https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/legacy)

The exact timeline of Amélie’s transformation is hard to pin down because so much of it is simply unknown. We have a few constraints but don’t know the exact time or nature of them:

Her skin and heartrate have been affected by whatever chemicals Talon put in her, turning her blue/purple (and yes, that’s canon and not just “aesthetics” - “then her physiology was altered, drastically slowing her heart, which turned her skin cold and blue and numbed her ability to experience human emotion.”)

However, her Talon skin does not have the blue/purple tint yet, so it’s possible this is a representation of her shortly after she killed Gérard (I suspect Overwatch would’ve been much less casual about letting her return to her husband if she had been, well, literally blue/purple).

It is not known if this process was started before or after Moira joined Blackwatch, but it is incredibly suspicious that a “possibly Talon-affiliated” scientist with knowledge of altering genetics and physiology who is literally shown testing chemicals on her own arm which later turns blue/purple appears in the exact timeframe that Amélie’s transformation begins. The Fall of Overwatch: Late (?) 2070 1. Ana’s “death:” main sources - Ana Origin Story (https://youtu.be/yzFWIw7wV8Q) and “Legacy” comic. For my original discussion on this, check here: http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/159512959195/alright-so-the-subject-of-ana-being-the-source-of Ana’s death was likely a major, major turning point for both Overwatch and Talon. Again, it’s hard to place because it appears to come after the majority of Amélie’s transformation into Widowmaker, but again, the exact date to place this is unknown. Many fans originally believed that Ana had “died” much, much earlier in the timeline, like, several years earlier. However, after Uprising was released and it was revealed that Ana was still present early in the final year, fan theories had to be changed.

It also makes a lot more sense if Ana’s “shoot-off” with Widowmaker occurs very close to the Fall of Overwatch - so close that she was not able to recover in time and return to the organization to help repair any rifts her “death” may have caused. However, it also has to come before Gabriel’s final transformation or shift into “Reaper,” because Ana does not recognize “what has happened” to him.

It is also a little difficult to sort out, but a major “potential” cause for a rift between Jack and Gabriel could stem from discussions about Ana disobeying orders. It’s a small detail to catch, but in the “Legacy” comic, Ana deliberately defies orders to evacuate and turns off her communications device, possibly leaving the Strike Team unable to find her location. However, in the “Old Soldiers” comic, Reaper says that Overwatch “left [Ana] to die,” which seems to contradict the point that she disobeyed evac orders. I know many fans don’t like the idea of the fallout between Gabriel/Reaper and Jack/Soldier: 76 being over a miscommunication, but it seems entirely plausible that Jack returned from the mission without Ana, claiming she had ignored his orders, and that Gabriel had accused him of abandoning her. Again, this is my interpretation of the events presented. Reading between the lines, especially with such large gaps in the plot, is a difficult task and you may choose to interpret things differently. 2. Events with unknown dates: there are three events that have no set dates but occur near or close to the Fall of Overwatch, or at least must occur after certain other points. These are: 2.1 Genji leaves Overwatch: this must occur after he participates in the arrest of Doomfist. 2.2 Jesse leaves Blackwatch: this must occur after Uprising and Moira’s recruitment (bare minimum), and must occur after “the infighting” within Blackwatch had begun (McCree’s Hero profile: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/mccree/). Direct quote: “McCree appreciated the flexibility afforded to the clandestine Blackwatch, unhindered by bureaucracy and red tape. But as Overwatch's influence waned, rogue elements within Blackwatch sought to bring down the organization and turn it to their own ends. Wanting no part of the infighting, McCree set off alone and went underground.” 2.3 The “Venice incident:” an unknown event alluded to in Moira’s Hero profile, in which her presence in Blackwatch is revealed (Moira’s Hero profile: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/moira/). Direct quote: “Her employment was a closely kept secret, until it was uncovered during inquiries following the Venice incident. Many high-ranking Overwatch officials disavowed all knowledge of her affiliation with them.” This is significant because a major Talon leader - Vialli - works in Venice and appears (briefly and much later) during the events of the “Masquerade” comic.

These events have no set dates and no particular order. Michael Chu has stated that McCree and Genji kept in touch after leaving Blackwatch separately, but no dates are given for that. 3. “What happened to you?”/“It was a conspiracy:” Main sources:

Reaper’s Hero profile: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/reaper/

Soldier: 76′s Hero profile: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/soldier-76/

Soldier: 76 Origin Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byhvUmpAA9c

“Fading Glory: On the Trail of Jack Morrison”: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/19809396/

Moira Origin Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ETybQd4uRE

Nesskain’s (the artist of the Moira Origin Story video) response to how Gabriel is feeling about the shadows: https://twitter.com/nesskain/status/926674887615188992

Moira Reveal Panel at 2017 Blizzcon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsJU3PEk9JY

“Old Soldiers” comic: https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/ana-old-soldiers

“Are you with us?” Recall message: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwFu8kEsUW4

And now Here we are. I’ve put these two events side-by-side because it’s incredibly likely that they’re linked in some way. The exact nature of their connections are still unknown, as are their dates. Hypothetically, by the time Genji and Jesse leave, “whatever happened” to Gabriel has not yet occurred. That said, Michael Chu has stated that Jesse McCree has not seen Gabriel/Reaper in the current plotline, but that, if they were to meet, McCree “would known [sic] that Reaper was Reyes if he encountered him” (https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/6b63j3/ama_request_michael_chu/dhlepud/). In other places, Michael has stated that the only people who recognize that Gabriel is Reaper are Jack, Ana, and Sombra (this is prior to the release of Doomfist and Moira). Direct quote: “So far: Ana and Jack (when they encountered him in Old Soldiers) and Sombra (because she Knows Things). “Even with everything that's happened to Reyes, Ana and Jack would be able to recognize him immediately, given all their close experience serving together over the years. “(To make it extra confusing: it gets a little more complicated in-game because we chose to have some non-canon interactions because I think it's more interesting to have Reinhardt take out Reaper and say, "Traitor!" than to accurately reflect that he doesn't know Reaper's true identity. But as I've said before, events in game shouldn't be considered strictly canon.)” - Michael Chu (https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20753735625#post-13) So we’ve come to a few constraints on Gabriel’s “appearance:”

Jack/Soldier: 76 knows that Gabriel is Reaper by the time of “Old Soldiers,” if not beforehand.

Ana recognizes him by demeanor and personality, but is horrified by his appearance when she unmasks him in “Old Soldiers.”

Despite having worked with him for the same amount of time as Ana, Reinhardt canonically does not know who “Reaper” is, but would recognize him if he encountered him.

Jesse McCree canonically does not know who “Reaper” is, but would recognize him if he encountered him.

Interestingly, Widowmaker does not know who “Reaper” is.

Winston does not appear to know who “Reaper” is.

Genji may or may not know who “Reaper” is.

It is important to note that, by the time of the explosion at the Swiss Watchpoint, the majority of these characters are not present in Overwatch anymore. Ana, Reinhardt, Jesse, Amélie (if she ever was close to the Overwatch agents), and Genji have all left. Winston, presumably, is at Watchpoint: Gibraltar. The locations of characters like Torbjörn, Angela, and Lena are unknown.

That leaves three possible “major characters” at the Swiss Watchpoint at the time of the explosion: Gabriel Reyes, Jack Morrison, and potentially Moira O’Deorain. Her direct involvement in this event is unknown. According to the “Fading Glory” article, both Gabriel and Jack were seen by witnesses as being present in the Watchpoint before the explosion. Soldier: 76 confirms this in his Origin Story. Reaper confirms that he too was present at the base in the “Old Soldiers” comic.

What is significant is that Nesskain has confirmed that Gabriel is “scared” when what appears to be his final transformation is occurring (in the presence of Moira), yet for some reason, he specifically blames Jack and Overwatch for “what happened to him.”

Ana: “What happened to you...?”

Reaper: “He did this to me, Ana. They left me to become this thing...”

Ana: “Gabriel...”

Reaper: “They left you to die. They left me to suffer...”

Reaper: “...Never forget that.”

Reaper’s explanation in “Old Soldiers” is fascinating because it appears to be in direct contrast with information given to us in “Legacy” (Ana chose to turn off her comms) and the Moira Origin Story (Gabriel approached her for recruitment, Moira either created or enhanced his genetic mutations, resulting in his “Reaper” powers and/or current appearance/state of existence). It’s incredibly difficult to say how closely together Gabriel’s shift and the Swiss Watchpoint explosion occurred, or how much they are directly related, but it seems likely they are linked in some way. At the very least, Reaper links “being left behind (to suffer)” by Jack/Soldier: 76 and Overwatch with the explanation for his current (2076) state of existence.

Again, I will leave you to formulate whatever interpretation or conclusion you want. Conclusion You don’t have to use this timeline. I’ve provided every major source that I have for this “final year of Overwatch” - watch them, read them, form your own interpretations, do whatever you want. If your biggest issue is where I’ve placed things, go ahead and rearrange your own puzzle pieces. However, you should keep in mind an important quote from Michael Chu: “One of the things that we really like doing with Overwatch is playing with perspective. We utilize perspective when we tell stories about what characters are thinking, what their goals are - and we have a lot of unreliable narrators. We want people to pay careful attention to what characters think about in particular situations. We want them to use their judgement and knowlege of a character’s thoughts to come up with their own ideas about the universe.” - Thinking Globally (Timestamp: 34:35 https://youtu.be/bj56ejM5EcU?t=2075) Not only are many of the points in the timeline effectively “freefloating” (aka, they have no exact dates, or hell, not even exact months or years), they are also complicated by the matter of unreliable narrators and biased perspectives. The Moira Origin Story gives us a crucial clue to Gabriel/Reaper’s story, but the narration in the video is all told to us by Moira. I am personally infinitely grateful for the Moira Reveal Panel and Nesskain’s comments on his own art because they provide us with very significant clues that are from outsiders looking in. That is, they are not tinted with biases or unreliability.

After going through the new clues on Oasis, as well as listening to the Moira Reveal Panel and seeing Nesskain’s comments, I have revised a lot of my initial ideas on her, Gabriel, and Jack. At the moment, I’m waiting to see if we get any in-game interactions between her and Reaper when she is released to the PTR later. For now, this my interpretation of the Fall of Overwatch.

451 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 5 years

Text

Watchmen: The Real History of Hooded Justice

https://ift.tt/2WqCj6Y

HBO's Watchmen moves away from the work of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons with the real story of Hooded Justice.

facebook

twitter

tumblr

This article contains major Watchmen spoilers.

The first episode of Watchmen focused primarily on establishing the 2019 of its world, and making certain new characters got sufficient introductions, and as unencumbered by the legacy elements of the comic as they could possibly be. But with each episode that follows, the larger history of this universe starts to get explored, whether it's by the introduction of legacy characters like FBI Agent Laurie Blake or Adrian "Ozymandias" Veidt, or the redefinition of a foundational character from the book like Hooded Justice in the context of his relationship to a new character like Angela "Sister Night" Abar.

American Hero Story: Minutemen (which, according to HBO's official supplemental materials, is the second season of the American Hero Story show, by the way) puts the spotlight on Hooded Justice, who is canonically the first officially recognized masked vigilante adventurer in the Watchmen universe and a founding member (alongside the original incarnations of Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, Captain Metropolis, a young Edward “The Comedian” Blake, and others) of the Minutemen, the first superhero team. Of course, it was pretty clear from the outset that American Hero Story: Minutemen was a ridiculous, exaggerated portrayal of historical events, but Watchmen episode 6, "This Extraordinary Being" points out just how wrong they actually are. And in the process it retcons an important piece of the book, as well.

Of course, Watchmen episode 6 reveals that none of the events of AHS is anywhere close to the truth. Instead, it turns out that Angela Abar's grandfather Will Reeves was the man under the hood and tights of Hooded Justice, adopting the identity to mask his investigations into a vast, white supremacist conspiracy in New York City that had even infected the police department. The general look was inspired by Trust in the Law, the movie about Bass Reeves we see the young Will watching in the opening moments of episode one, with the addition of the hood and noose after Will is the victim of a racist attack by his NYPD colleagues. The episode dramatizes key moments in the career of Hooded Justice, from his two earliest adventures (which deviate from how they're described in Under the Hood), to his joining of the Minutemen (and his relationship with Captain Metropolis), to the moment he uncovers the true plan of the Ku Klux Klan's mysterious "Cyclops" subset to incite violence among the black community via hypnotic suggestion.

So let's try and resolve the events of Hooded Justice's life as seen in this episode with what we know of him from the comics. Every change made to Hooded Justice on screen lines up with something that can be verified from the book, which remains the only "official canon" that this show draws from. Hooded Justice did indeed become active in 1938, and his first public act was stopping a mugging in Queens, described in Under the Hood in much the same way as what we see in the episode.

"A man and his girlfriend, walking home afer a night at the theater, had been set upon by a gang of three men armed with guns. After relieving the couple of their valuables, the gang had started to beat and physically abuse the young man while threatening to indecently assault his girlfriend. At this point, the crime had been interrupted by a figure 'Who dropped into the alleyway from above with something over his face' and proceeded to disarm the attackers before beating them with such severity that all three required hospital treatment and that one subsequently lost the use of both legs as a result of a spinal injury."

That lines up exactly with the events of "This Extraordinary Being" with one exception, Will Reeves ran into the alley, and didn't "drop" into it "from above." But even this is explained in Under the Hood by pointing out that "the witnesses' recounting of the event was confused and contradictory," a nod to how tricky eyewitness accounts of traumatic events can be.

read more: Watchmen Episode 6 Easter Eggs Explained

But it's the next event where things deviate from the accepted story in the text. In his first fully costumed outing, Hooded Justice tracks the members of the KKK's Order of the Cyclops to the stockroom of a grocery store, confronts/beats the absolute crap out of them in the back, before the fight spills out into the store itself. After getting shot at by the proprietor (who was allowing the KKK to operate out of the back room), he escapes by crashing through the shop window. But here's how it's described in Under the Hood...

“A supermarket stickup had been prevented thanks to the intervention of ‘A tall man, built like a wrestler, who wore a black hood and cape and also wore a noose around his neck.’ This extraordinary being had crashed in through the window of the supermarket while the robbery was in progress and attacked the man responsible with such intensity and savagery that those not disabled immediately were only too willing to drop their guns and surrender.”

That's certainly the version of events we saw in the American Hero Story segment glimpsed back in episode 2. The most likely scenario here is that since so many of those involved in this fracas were police officers, it was easy to change the official story by the time it made it to the press. And there's no reason that Hollis Mason would ever know any details about this that weren't in the papers, unless Hooded Justice confided in him during a Minutemen meeting. As of now, there's no evidence of that, especially considering that Mason also chose to amplify the theory that Rolf Muller was Hooded Justice. Unless, of course, Mason knew the truth about Hooded Justice and Will Reeves and used his book to help throw suspicion off his teammate and fellow police officer, but that may be something of a stretch.

"This Extraordinary Being" takes place over the span of nearly a decade, from 1938 to approximately 1947. Not depicted in the episode is the beating Hooded Justice administered to the Comedian after he sexually assaulted Silk Spectre. A note in the book from Sally Jupiter's husband (and Minutemen publicist) Laurence Schexnayder dated Feb. 3, 1948 indicates that Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis were still romantically involved, albeit as we see in the episode, their relationship had been on the rocks for some time.

The Minutemen disbanded in 1949, and various costumed adventurers were called by notorious historical scumbag Senator Joseph McCarthy and his odious House Un-American Activities Committee to unmask so that they could be investigated more thoroughly. Hooded Justice declined their invitation "on the grounds that he was not prepared to reveal his true identity to anyone. When pressed, he simply vanished." according to Under the Hood. It's easy to see why a black man who had barely escaped the Tulsa Race Massacre with his life as a boy and who by this point had devoted the last 15 years of his life vainly trying to draw attention to a white supremacist conspiracy that stretched into high levels of public life, wouldn't want to unmask before a biased and bloodthirsty committee like the HUAC.

In other words, nothing presented on screen in Watchmen episode 6 conflicts directly with verified accounts of Hooded Justice's life in the book. It's only where the book (specifically the Under the Hood chapters) veers into speculation that you can spot inconsistencies. In the book, it was heavily implied that Rolf Müller, a circus strongman with ties to Germany, was secretly Hooded Justice. A decomposed body presumed to be Müller's, that had been shot execution style, washed up on the shores of Boston Harbor roughly a year after Hooded Justice stopped appearing in public and Müller had disappeared (an event dramatized, inaccurately, by American Hero Story). While never stated outright in the book, the implication certainly seems to be that Müller was Hooded Justice. Apparently, that connection was drawn by right wing publication New Frontiersman in a 1956 article, paraphrased in Under the Hood, reproduced here:

“The author mentioned the disappearance of a well known circus strongman of the day named Rolf Müller, who had quit his job at the height of the Senate Subcommittee hearings. Three months later, a badly decomposed body that was tentatively identified as Müller’s was pulled from the sea after being washed up on the coast of Boston...The inference of the article was that Müller, whose family was East German, had gone on the run for fear of being uncovered by while the Communist witch hunts were at their most feverish. The piece also implied that Müller had probably been executed by his own Red superiors.”

The New Frontiersman was roughly the Watchmen universe's equivalent of reactionary quackery like InfoWars or any given evening program on Fox News, so it's understandable why they could draw the wrong conclusion here. However, there's evidence to support the idea that Watchmen co-creator Alan Moore did indeed intend for Rolf Müller to be the true identity of Hooded Justice, specifically in the form of two Watchmen "adventure modules" that were supplements for the DC Heroes roleplaying game shortly after the release of the book.

The supplements are by Dan Greenberg and Ray Winninger, but were created with Alan Moore's knowledge and approval. One of those, an adventure called "Taking Out the Trash" is a wealth of information about the Watchmen universe, from bios (complete with birth dates) of various heroes to a timeline that fleshes out the world from the turn of the 20th century through the events of the book. In there, it's revealed that not only was Rolf MüllerHooded Justice, but that he was murdered by the Edward "The Comedian" Blake as revenge for the beating HJ had administered after the Comedian sexually assaulted Sally Jupiter at Minutemen headquarters.

If you take DC’s Before Watchmen: Minutemen prequel into account (note: this writer does not, and it seems that neither does the HBO series), yet another story emerges. In it, Hooded Justice (whose identity is still never revealed) is killed by the original Nite Owl, Hollis Mason, believing him to be responsible for the deaths of several children, while the actual perpetrator of those murders was Rolf Müller, a Nazi on the run who was ultimately killed by the Comedian (who had helped engineer the case of mistaken identity in the first place as revenge on Hooded Justice). DC’s Before Watchmen prequels are generally regrettable exercises, though, and even the legendary Darwyn Cooke couldn't really make the convoluted story presented in that Minutemen story work.

Regardless of that, the only “official canon” this show acknowledges is what is in the original book, and with that in mind, none of the CONFIRMED facts about Hooded Justice as presented in the Watchmen comic conflict with the revelation that Will Reeves was the man in the tights. With one exception. Under the Hood paints an unflattering picture of political views that Hooded Justice held. "Before Pearl Harbor, I heard Hooded Justice openly expressing approval for the activities of Hitler's Third Reich."

read more: How HBO's Watchmen Was Brought to Life

It's difficult to imagine a black man in 1940, especially one who had witnessed the atrocities that young Will had, and who was devoting his life by this point to fighting institutionalized racism in New York City, could approve of Hitler. The most likely scenario is that Mason misheard Will stating a version of claims from the propaganda leaflet his father had picked up in World War I and which Will carried for much of the rest of his life, and conflated that with "approval" of Hitler and Nazi Germany.

This is the sole loose end remaining in lining up Will Reeves' story with the Hooded Justice of the book. In a further bit of coincidence, that pamphlet was shown to be written by a "fraulein Mueller," a call back to the Rolf Müller identity that had long been considered the truth of Hooded Justice's identity. Instead, it may have just been a red herring to keep audiences off of Will's trail a little longer. But in any case, there's still lots more of Will's story to uncover, and Watchmen has three more episodes to reveal it all. Still, there’s little to indicate that Watchmen writer and executive producer Damon Lindelof would allow anything this accidental to slip by.

Mike Cecchini is the Editor in Chief of Den of Geek. You can read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @wayoutstuff.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

facebook

twitter

tumblr

Feature

Books

Mike Cecchini

Nov 24, 2019

Watchmen

HBO

DC Entertainment

from Books https://ift.tt/2qL56rc

#aion-rsa #Books

0 notes

nofomoartworld · 7 years

Text

Hyperallergic: Resituating Kerry James Marshall in a Black Radical Tradition

Kerry James Marshall, “Past Times” (1997), acrylic and collage on canvas, 9 ft. 6 in. × 13 ft. (photo by Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago)

Kerry James Marshall’s work arises from a black radical tradition that encompasses pan-African, Caribbean, and Black Atlantic writing, philosophy, and art. Yet the current retrospective exhibition Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, jointly mounted by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, leaves a vast silence around the black and African diasporic dimensions of his work. Ensconced within a project of demonstrating his relation to the Western canon (including comparisons to Dürer, Degas, Holbein, Chardin, Cézanne, Velasquez, Courbet, Eakins, Watteau, etc.), these institutions remain locked into a white historical narrative in which Marshall’s work inevitably appears as “belated.”

Curator Helen Molesworth observes how Marshall’s figurative painting was out of step with the move towards abstract art and nonrepresentational work engaged in institutional critique, such as by artists Michael Asher, Daniel Buren, and Hans Haacke, or later Mark Dion and Fred Wilson, making Marshall’s work seem like naïve realism. She writes in the exhibition catalogue, “I fear I have a lingering ambivalence or anxiety that assumes belatedness is a charge rather than a virtue.” In making up for this anxiety and trying to position Marshall as both a master Western painter and a master of institutional critique, the curatorial essays extensively reference the white, male, Western canon of painting, but mostly ignore the ways in which Marshall’s work fits into and extends black visual culture, black feminist art, and what he calls “black aesthetics.”

In his discussion of Mickalene Thomas’s work (reprinted in a selection of his essays in the catalogue), Marshall writes that the black aesthetic “is an atmosphere, a tone, a ‘vibe.’ ‘Black aesthetics’ embody the ‘twoness’ W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about in The Souls of Black Folk: it is glamorous and impoverished, structured and improvisational, naïve and sophisticated, brash and abject. Its first principle is a desire for self-representation.” Marshall therefore finds it curious that in discussions of Thomas’s work amongst curators, “no black antecedents seem to arise as potential influences on the development of her style.” We could say the same of this exhibition’s catalogue, apart from Marshall’s own writing. Although the curators briefly acknowledge references in Marshall’s paintings to pan-Africanism, Civil Rights, Black Panthers, and radical black writers like Ralph Ellison, Aimé Césaire, and Angela Davis, the limitations of the Western (and American) curatorial framework overlook the key symbolism of Haitian Vodou and the crucial influence of the spirits, or “mystères” in Haitian Creole, in his work.

In an essay Marshall wrote for the Krannert Art Museum in 2004, “Bill Traylor, William Edmondson and the Modernist Impulse,” also reprinted here, he excoriates white art critics and museums for embracing and celebrating black folk artists while ignoring or offering only lukewarm approval for academically trained black artists including Norman Lewis, Romare Bearden, Hale Woodruff, Elizabeth Catlett, and Lois Mailou Jones, whom he refers to as “masters all in the African American canon.” In another 2010 essay on Chris Ofili, Marshall complains of not seeing anywhere in contemporary museums an Ofili, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley, or Mickalene Thomas: “Ain’t these some quality artists? Somebody tell me what’s up with that shit.” And he is right. While many of these artists now have far more museum presence, the critical framing of their work has yet to challenge canonical assumptions.

Yet the curators fail to take his cue and consistently compare his work to the Western (white, male) canon. An African diasporic reading of Marshall’s work, in contrast, can help interpret its rich tapestry of visual references, which lead far beyond Western art history. Art historian Krista Thompson, in her study Shine: The Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice, borrowing from Ellison’s term “un-visibility” in Invisible Man, calls on us “to put pressure on the forces, institutions, and disciplinary structures that might erase, discount, and render certain African diasporic practices un-visible.” Haitian anthropologist Gina A. Ulysse likewise argues that representations of Vodou in white Western contexts have an especially long troubled history of distortion and suppression. It is therefore incumbent upon us to place Marshall’s work within these black aesthetic traditions, as well as in relation to the folk traditions and “outsider art,” including the visual arts of Vodou.

Kerry James Marshall, “When Frustration Threatens Desire” (1990), acrylic and collage on canvas, 80 × 72 in. (image courtesy Collection of April Sheldon and John Casado)

Marshall is explicit about his influences. In his painting “When Frustration Threatens Desire” (1990), he describes it as combining “symbolic representations of the seven African powers from the Yoruba pantheon … and some ve-ve from Haitian Voodun,” mixed with traditions of Western pictorial representation:

What also started to crystallize in that painting was a way to bring together not only Western traditions of pictorial representation, but folk traditions of painting that have an equally valid authority. I don’t see much difference between using Giotto or Bill Trayler as a point of reference. To me they’re the same.

Here we find the veve, a Vodou symbol drawn in powdery white designs that summon lwa, or spirits. There is one for Ogou Feray, the lwa of blacksmiths, fire, and war, and another heart-shaped veve for Erzulie Freda, the lwa of love, beauty, and femininity. We see the black cat symbol of European witchcraft, but also the snake representing the lwa Dambala, the primordial creator of all life, sometimes called the “Great Master.” Marshall’s Vodou imagery is very precise and depicts specific practices, usually known only to initiates. The Met labels name a few of these lwa in passing, and mention the use of veve, yet offer no interpretation of what they represent, where they come from, and what they mean in the context of a syncretic tradition of visual representation that is both Western and Afro-Caribbean.

Kerry James Marshall, “Slow Dance” (1992–93), acrylic and collage on canvas (courtesy the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago Purchase, Smart Family Foundation Fund for Contemporary Art, and Paul and Miriam Kirkley Fund for Acquisitions)

The religious symbols of Haitian Vodou appear prominently throughout Marshall’s work, but especially in the paintings from 1989–93 that include the white veves drawings, spiritual candles in sequined bottles, numerology drawn from the Kabbalah, and the combination of crosses and phallic sexuality associated with the Gede spirit Baron Samedi. Ezili Freda, a spirit also associated with art, romance, jealousy, passion, and sex, manifests in “Slow Dance” (1992–93). On the table is the veve for Papa Legba, guardian of the crossroads and intermediary between the material and the spiritual world, between God and humanity. Unequipped to see these aspects of black aesthetics as important to art history, the institutional apparatus of labels, catalogues, and curatorial essays generally passes over them quickly, erasing their significance for Marshall’s positioning as an artist. Adding these readings back in can transform how we see his paintings.

Kerry James Marshall, “Could This Be Love” (1992), acrylic and collage on canvas, 8 ft. 7 in. × 9 ft. 6 in. (private collection, courtesy Segalot, New York)

In “Could This be Love?” (1991), veve for Ezili plays an especially prominent role, accompanied by ritual candles, the number 7, which stands for love, the words “La Venus Negra,” and the song lyrics “Yes I’ve got two lovers and I love them both.” The painting here crucially illustrates the practice among devotees to enter a “spiritual marriage” with the lwa, carrying out special ritual practices on a particular day of each week, which involve preparing a bedroom, clothing, flowers, perfume, and candles. These are more than “African American interiors,” as the catalogue entry tells us. Is the artist indicating his own spiritual marriage with Ezili Freda?

Then there are Marshall’s portraits with golden halo effects, including his puzzling “Self Portrait of the Artist as a Super Model” (1994). Do they reference the popular chromolithographs of Ezili Freda as the Mater Dolorosa with her wounded heart? Or Ezili Danto, fierce mother and protector of children, one of the most famous portraits of black female beauty to circulate across the Black Atlantic world? If Marshall’s golden halos and patterned backgrounds echo Western art traditions, they do so refracted through the folk traditions of the Afro-Atlantic world, where their meanings are doubled: as much Vodou as Christian.

Kerry James Marshall, “Self-Portrait of the Artist as a Super Model” (1994), acrylic and collage on board, 25 × 25 in. (collection of Craig Lathrop and Jennifer Roblin, image courtesy Met Breuer and the artist)

In “Voyager” (1992), there is a prominent veve for Papa Legba, as well as one above it for Maman Brigitte, lwa of death and fertility, and protector of cemeteries, whose colors are black, purple, and white. The curved boat with the small triangular sail is the symbol for the spirit Agwe, whose colors are white and blue, and whose ceremonies involve floating offerings into the water. Agwe is not only a protector of fishermen in the Caribbean, but also represents a memory of the many African ancestors lost on the Middle Passage who are said to have passe anba dlo, or passed under the water to return to Guinée.

Within this rich cultural context, Marshall’s work combines both mastery and mystery, yet the curators largely give us a narrative of mastery framed by Western art history and limited by an American national focus. Curator Ian Alteveer situates Marshall’s work biographically in relation to Los Angeles, where he moved as a child, and Chicago, where he lived as an adult. Titling his essay “A Different Light: Kerry James Marshall’s Western Exposure,” Alteveer seems to be commenting on both the bright sunlight of California and Marshall’s exposure to Western academic painting. Curator Dieter Roelstraete reads the work as “Realist” and mainly concerned with figuration, making the invisible visible, and a “predeliction for literalism and a resistance to metaphor” — completely missing the nonliteral, metaphorical, and spiritual aspects of the work. Roelstraete positions this realism as a difficult move in the midst of poststructuralism and abstract expressionism, once again reading the work in contrastive comparison to white canonical masters like Kline, de Kooning, Motherwell, and Pollock.

In the only curatorial essay by a woman of color, Lanka Tattersall comes closest to black aesthetics with her essay “Black Lives, Matter.” Yet like the others, her discussion of making blackness visible avoids situating Marshall’s work in relation to the wider cultural production of Caribbean, Black Atlantic, and African contemporary art. All of the curatorial essays and catalogue entries ignore Marshall’s self-positioning in relation to the tensions between pan-African folk art and Western modernism, a central theme in his work, and between the Western canon and black aesthetics. It is as if they still want to anoint him as a legitimate painter by refusing such “outdated” identity politics, purifying his intentions as painterly.

Kerry James Marshall, “School of Beauty, School of Culture” (2012), acrylic and glitter on canvas 8 ft. 11 7/8 in. × 13 ft. 1 7/8 in. (photo by Sean Pathasema)

Looking again at Marshall’s paintings, we might interrogate not just their “jet black, ebony black, charcoal black, obsidian black, velvety black, inky black,” as Molesworth describes, but also the ways in which they shine, a key aspect that Krista Thompson has identified in black popular photography and recent portrait painting. “School of Beauty, School of Culture” contains not only numerous pinned-up portrait photos, but also a camera flash lighting up the central mirror reflection, as if the artist were taking a photo of the scene. Thompson highlights how artists such a Kehinde Wiley and Ebony G. Patterson use these popular photographic practices in works such as Wiley’s “Three Boys” (2013), or Patterson’s 2013 project “Illuminated Presence” with urban youth in Chicago. When Marshall compares Mickalene Thomas’s “sparkle factor” to that of Haitian Vodou priest and flag maker Silva Joseph he says, “I have to say no one does sparkle better than the Haitians.” With his gold glitter and frequent depictions of lanterns, candles, studio lights, and light rays, he underlines his relation to a black aesthetic sensibility and visual economy of light that extends transversally across the Caribbean and African diaspora into African America, from the signed Lauryn Hill poster above the central mirror, to the Chris Ofili exhibition poster from Tate Britain, to the advertisement for Dark & Lovely “Ultra Glow” make-up.

The violence of refusing to allow blackness to be self-referential reiterates the white supremacy of Western art because it leaves only the aspiration to be included in white institutions. Let’s therefore contextualize this black artist’s work not just in relation to white male artists, as the curators do, but also in relation to the treatment of black female bodies, hair styles, and ideas of beauty by artists like Kara Walker, Mickalene Thomas, Wangechi Mutu, and María Magdalena Campos-Pons. The full-bottomed, shining female figures in “Black Star 2” and “School of Beauty, School of Culture,” produce a black cultural landscape that moves across the Atlantic world (referring to Marcus Garvey and the United Negro Improvement Association’s Black Star Line, which aimed to build connections across the Black Atlantic and Caribbean world) and simultaneously dismisses the constricted white American version of female beauty. Thus Marshall’s work speaks as much of exposure to pan-African cultural influences — and glowing light — as it does of any “Western exposure.”

Lets’s compare his style to Romare Bearden, quilt-maker Plummer Pettway, and “master” Haitian flag maker Myrlande Constant. Let’s compare his portraits to those by Kehinde Wiley, Ebony G. Patterson, Chris Ofili, and Ghanaian photographer Ben Bond. Let’s adjust our white gaze and Western art histories to make visible the double consciousness of a black gaze and black aesthetic traditions inside and outside the museum, as well as within and beyond the material. Only then will we begin to school ourselves in black beauty and black culture.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry continues at the Met Breuer (945 Madison Ave, Upper East Side, Manhattan) through January 29.

The post Resituating Kerry James Marshall in a Black Radical Tradition appeared first on Hyperallergic.

from Hyperallergic http://ift.tt/2jmg8wx via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Hyperallergic

0 notes

segadores-y-soldados · 7 years

Text

Soldier: 76 Fact Sheet, References, and Some Analyses

Alright, so this is a list of facts, ideas, and analyses based on: 1) current issues or hypothesized trajectories for history, 2) confirmed Soldier: 76 lore and personal history, and 3) confirmed Overwatch timeline stuff. Note that all of these can change since Blizzard basically says “fuck it” and changes their lore every three months. Some of these are analysis-based; stuff that is hypothesized/headcanon/food-for-thought status will be denoted as such. Some NSFW language and swearing is included. Also some political and social hypotheses and interpretations.

Main article: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/19809396/

Other resources:

Reaper Art Assets

Reaper References

Reaper and Soldier: American Cultural References

Here we go:

Indiana:

This is by no means an exhaustive list of stuff about Indiana, but these are basically quick soundbites for people who want a jumping off point.

Bloomington, Indiana currently has a population of about 90k in the city proper, and about 180k in the metropolitan area. It’s not a massive city by any means, but it’s not some small country town either.

Bloomington is a “college town”: it has the most populated public university in the state.

This means that just under half of the population is roughly young, college-educated adults and students.

“Bloomington is a regional economic center anchored by Indiana University and home to a diverse business community involved in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, technology, health care, and the arts. Bloomington's concentration of employment in the life sciences is six times greater than the U.S. average, and employment in the technology sector has grown by over 80 percent in recent years.” - Wikipedia

In heavy contrast to this, Indiana is currently the meth capital of the U.S. Indiana is also currently facing a massive heroin and HIV epidemic.

And I’m not talking that “glamorized Breaking Bad” shit.

Things could’ve stood a chance of improving before the U.S.’s new Vice President and former governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, royally fucked over many of the state’s social structures and services.

Read this: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/53c313/mike_pence_says_his_role_model_for_vice_president/d7rxk07/

Read this too: http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/01/indiana-opiod-problem

Let me reiterate: Mike Pence fucked up Indiana so hard there’s a fucking HIV epidemic in parts of the state. He bullied a female elected official out of office. He cut funding for fucking preschools. He destroyed Indiana’s energy system.

Now imagine being Jack Morrison, born probably in the next year to 7 years, living in the aftermath of this.

Watching business cut positions, watching people pursue higher education in your home city, but knowing that every other person in your school has a family member who got ruined by meth or HIV or struggled to make ends’ meet. Roughly 40% of the people in your home city are young adult students attending the largest public university in your state. The city is predominantly politically liberal. Your state is struggling. Your country elected the man who helped devastate it into the White House. You grow up in the aftermath of a Pence governorship and a Trump presidency.

“On the rare occasions when I cross paths with other living souls, they describe young Morrison in different ways. He was a rambunctious youth. A humble, salt-of-the-earth farmer's son. But these people all agree on one thing: Morrison was never destined to live out his days in the land of rolling plains and deep blue skies. At eighteen, Morrison packed his bags and joined the military. He had planned to serve a brief stint in the armed forces and then return home to the family farm, but his work ethic and courage caught the eye of the military brass.”

Military:

Canon: Jack Morrison joined the military at 18 years old and was eventually brought into the Supersoldier Enhancement Program.

There, he met Gabriel Reyes and the two became best friends.

Analysis: I have a hard time believing that Reyes would’ve been friends with Morrison if he’d been a huge jerk or ultra politically conservative.

Gabriel Reyes grew up in LA, which is by and large liberal within the metropolitan area.

This may be unknown to many people, but California is EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE outside of the majority cities. Even within the majority cities, you are likely to encounter people who are NOT liberal on a regular basis. The odds of Gabriel having never met “a conservative individual” are literally less than zero.

However, the odds of Jack being “politically and/or social conservative” are also pretty damn low. Naive possibly, but Jack “being shocked” over crime, drug problems, gang violence, cultural differences, or urban lifestyle stuff is less likely than I think many in the fandom realize.

So it’s not exactly an age-old tale of “young, naive, wide-eyed man from the Midwest meets a hardened, sarcastic, street-smart man from the urban jungle,” although that is what Overwatch lore wants to portray it as. When you dig a little deeper, things get more complex.

Omnic Crisis:

Jack was probably the only member of the First Strike team to double as a medic. This is evidenced by him carrying Biotic Fields as both Soldier: 76 and Strike-Commander Morrison.

Ana’s Biotic Rifle was not invented until sometime later, after Angela Ziegler (Mercy) had joined Overwatch. We know this because of the released blueprints of the Biotic Rifle with notes by both Torbjörn and Angela (the blueprints are addressed to “J. Morrison” and “G. Reyes”), in which Angela expresses concerns about the “weaponization” of her biotechnology.

We also know from concept art and the first “Ana” comic that Ana functioned primarily as a regular sniper before the development of the Biotic Rifle.

This means that Jack probably performed most of the healing in the field and during battles for the majority of the Omnic Crisis.

Analysis: this may be one of the reasons why the United Nations considered Morrison to be the “heart and soul” of the First Strike team: “Leadership of Overwatch fell to Reyes, but Morrison would have a greater impact on the group in the long term. He brought out the best in the people around him and helped mold Overwatch's diverse (and sometimes conflicting) agents into a cohesive fighting force. In unity, they found the strength to defeat the robots and end the Omnic Crisis.”

Hypothesis: this may provide a lore-based reason for why Solder: 76 always announces the deployment of his Biotic Fields to his teammates in-game.

Overwatch:

Hypothesis/Speculation: I find it INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE that Gabriel Reyes would continue to work for an organization - more specifically, to under Jack Morrison - for another twenty years if he truly hated it. I take this bit of “canon lore” with a massive pinch of salt.

Timeline: It is very likely that the first major playable character hired by Jack after he became Strike-Commander is Mei-ling Zhou, probably for her breakthroughs in climatology.

Jack almost certainly approved of the “hiring” of other playable characters like Jesse McCree and Genji Shimada, even with all the problems and issues surrounding them.

Jack probably recruited Angela Ziegler (Mercy) to be the head of the medical sciences division at Overwatch.

Jack probably saved, rescued, or assisted Winston after his escape from the moon colony.

Jack almost certainly had a familial relationship with Fareeha Amari, given their in-game interactions and the Ana Origins video.

Jack and the other early members of Overwatch canonically participated in Halloween parties where they all dressed in costumes.

It is implied by the same Halloween comic that Gabriel Reyes designed the uniforms for Overwatch, probably including Jack’s Strike-Commander uniform.

Canon: Jack liked Old Western films.

Probable Canon: Jack has been to many different places around the globe - all the known Watchpoints, and likely all the U.N. Headquarters as well. As Strike-Commander of Overwatch, he may have spent a considerable amount of time in New York City, which is where the main U.N. Headquarters are located.

“Strike Commander Morrison envisioned a bright new future for humanity. Under his leadership, Overwatch served as a global peacekeeping force and an engine for innovation, making advances in scientific fields as varied as space exploration and medical research. But even as Overwatch grew in power, Morrison stayed dedicated to the people around him. He trained new agents, instilling in them Overwatch's noble goals and ideals. At Morrison's memorial service, Reinhardt Wilhelm, one of the group's original members, said, "He devoted everything he was to Overwatch. He was our moral compass. Our inspiration. Our friend."”

Analysis: Jack Morrison was dedicated to helping develop the betterment and progress of humanity through medicine, technology, and the sciences.

Contrary to what Reaper says in the “Old Soldiers” comic, Jack did not actually deliberately leave Ana in the field. In the “Ana” comic, Ana chooses to turn off her comms and chooses to continue pursuing the enemy sniper. The last thing Jack says to her is “Everyone, move! Ana, you too! Evac’s on its way! Wheels up in two! Now beat feet! Disengage, Ana! That’s an order -” (emphasis from comic).

Given all the controversies around Reaper and how long he has “existed,” it is important to point out that Gabriel/Reaper blames Jack for a very specific event, probably the event where he became Reaper (although when specifically this event occurs is...well, debatable, I guess). This is described in the Old Soldiers comic through direct dialogue from Reaper. Ana removes Reaper’s mask and asks “what happened to you…?” (probably about whatever his current appearance is), and Reaper replies: “He did this to me, Ana. They left me to become this thing. They left you to die. They left me to suffer… ...Never forget that.” (emphasis from comic itself).

Food for Thought: there is no mention of the promotion or anything related to it in the Old Soldiers comic, which implies that perhaps the decision was actually not as big an issue between Jack and Gabriel as stated (or as other people thought?). In fact, there’s no mention of the promotion in any of Jack or Gabriel’s lines, dialogue, or character interactions. At best, Gabriel throws some shade through lines like “Finally, some recognition.” but neither character actually mentions the issue directly, nor do any of the others.

Hypothesis: it is entirely possible that the “problems over the promotion” have been largely dropped from the “lore,” and Old Soldiers more closely represents “the new direction” Blizzard is moving towards with regards to the Jack-Gabriel rivalry, split, fall-out, fight, battle, whatever you want to call it.

Post-Fall/Soldier: 76:

Canon: Soldier considers “a part of himself” to have died in the Swiss Base explosion (Origin video). It is not stated what “part of him” that is - take it as you will.

Canon: Soldier does not consider himself a “vigilante”: “Truth is...I’m just a soldier.”

Canon: Soldier: 76 is canonically anti-corporation. This is evidenced by his personal investigation into LumériCo, as well as him breaking, entering, and vandalizing corporations and financial institutions in the U.S.: “A masked vigilante whom authorities have named "Soldier: 76" is considered the prime suspect in these incidents. In addition to bombing corporate offices and financial institutions in the United States, this individual has breached a number of former Overwatch bases. Soldier: 76 has stolen valuable technologies from these sites, including experimental weaponry, causing untold damages in the process.”

Analysis/Hypothesis: Given the current state of Indiana and U.S. national politics, the above bullet point is not particularly surprising.

Canon: Soldier: 76 is anti-gang or anti-crime-organization. Just...watch Hero again or something. But also consider that Soldier has the line “Reyes should’ve cleaned up the Deadlock Gang a long time ago,” said with mild frustration that the Deadlock Gang still exists.

Canon: Soldier: 76 does not want Overwatch restored. This is demonstrated by his Gibraltar lines, and his new interaction with Winston. He considers Winston’s actions “illegal” and “breaking the law” - “same as me.”

Canon: Soldier: 76 does have many memories of Gibraltar - “they weren’t all bad.”

Canon: Soldier: 76 feels “terrible” for all the scientists of Overwatch (Ecopoint Antarctica specifically). He has a new interaction with Mei, where he says that the frontlines of the battlefield are no place for a scientist. Mei teases him as a retort, saying, “I guess it’s a good thing I have you to watch my back.”

Analysis/Hypothesis: Mei recognizes who Soldier: 76 is and is referencing the fact that Jack hired her, and watched over her progress.

Canon: Soldier: 76 has numerous voicelines about activating a Biotic Field, all of which are directed at his teammates. He never activates a Biotic Field for himself (although as a Soldier main I can tell you that I absolutely activate Biotic Field for myself 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time is for the tank. On extremely rare occasions, I have activated Biotic Fields for friendly DPS or Defense units who stay close to me or ask for healing from me).

Canon: the worst “insults” that Soldier has ever said about Reaper is that he’s a “bad guy” and “kind of a jerk” (on the flipside, Reaper’s sitting at a solid “boy scout” as his only insult for Soldier).

Canon: Reaper addresses Soldier by the name of “Jack” in Old Soldiers. The only other character to do this is Ana (on the flipside, the only two characters to call Reaper by the name “Gabriel/Gabe” are Ana and Sombra).

Alternate (?) Canon - Junkenstein’s Revenge: Immortal: 76 “does not care for the nobility” but is siding with the lord of the castle to take down “a common foe - The Reaper.” He tells Hanzo that The Reaper is “the worst kind” of monster there is - “a wicked man.”

Alternate (?) Canon - Junkenstein’s Revenge: Immortal: 76’s faith is in science and alchemy as “the things that keep him alive.” In an interaction with McCree, McCree states that “pumping someone full of chemicals and electricity and whatnot” makes the individual “not a man, but a monster.” This is a reference to Junkenstein’s Monster, but also to Jack and Gabriel “in the main canon,” who were “pumped full of chemicals” in SEP.

Alternate (?) Canon - Junkenstein’s Revenge: Ana describes that Immortal: 76 “attracts strange companions” - “just as it has always been.” This is yet another reference to Jack assembling Overwatch’s diverse crew during its peacetime era.

Interpretation: While some of Soldier’s interactions can be seen as patronizing, I believe it’s more likely that he is strongly concerned for characters like D.Va, Tracer, and McCree. As shown with the Mei interaction, he comes across as gruff or harsh, but well-meaning. His other interactions with Ana and even Reaper to an extent show that Soldier is extremely tired, jaded, and possibly depressed from the wars he has waged - both physical and political/social - and that he likely does not want to see young people get drawn into similar situations.

Hopefully people keep finding these little essays and fact sheets useful. I’m less familiar with the Midwest than the West Coast, but I figured it was useful to throw down some pointers for people who may not know where to start. I also hope that condensing a lot of the “lore” around Jack Morrison/Soldier: 76 helps people get hone in on some key characteristics and ideas about him.

#soldier 76 #jack morrison #my essays #my writing #references #resources #I know people have liked the other ones #sorry this one gets so political #but I've seen people trying to make Jack into some ultra conservative asshole #or some bitter patronizing jackass #and it's frustrating to me because canonically #Jack isn't like that at all #the man helped lead the world to peace #he valued diversity and unique viewpoints above all else #he prioritized hiring doctors and scientists and visionaries before anything else #let the old man rest #let him be happy

52 notes · View notes