#I like the idea of sound based attacks for them. or just using his skateboard or bike

[taaannnkk]

six and nine lol

[fangirlovestuff]

Chris Cross Applesauce - Chris Evans x reader

a/n- Hey lovely people! it’s Chris’s birthday here so here’s this fluffy piece based on a very random thought I had lol. Happy birthday to this absolutely perfect human. The summary lowkey sucks but I promise it’s pretty cute! Enjoy <3

summary: You and Chris have known each other for forever, and you’ll love each other for more than that.

word count: ~4,500

warnings: panic attack, obliviousness

5 years old

The hot summer sun sent waves of heat across your face as you stood in the street. You were holding your mom's hand, half hiding behind her foot, as she talked with the other mom in front of you. Two little boys were hiding behind her as well, eyeing you and whispering between themselves.

"Sweetie, say hello to our new neighbors," your mom gently nudged you as she put your 2-year-old brother on the ground, holding his hand as well. You had moved into your house a few days ago, and your mother wanted to get to know your neighbors in the friendly little town.

"Hi," you said shyly. The other woman smiled at you warmly. "Hey there, I'm Lisa. Boys? Say hello please," she turned her gaze to them now.

"I'm Chris," one of the boys said. His blue eyes met yours and he extended his hand for you to shake. You took it, telling him your name as well. No one else you knew had ever offered to shake your hand, kid or adult, so it made you feel very respectable. On the other hand, you wondered about this strange boy your age who was shaking people's hands like you've seen grown-ups do. His brother didn't let go of their mom but introduced himself as Scott. He looked closer to your brother's age.

"Well it's been a pleasure to meet you," your mom smiled at the woman. Lisa, your mind supplied, that's what she said her name was.

"Likewise!" Lisa replied warmly, "We'd love to see you around sometime."

You parted ways, you getting into your house as they went into theirs across the street.

That night your mom went into your room to tuck you in. She sat down on the edge of the bed and kissed your forehead gently, making sure the blanket is tight enough around your small form.

"So, what do you think about our new neighborhood? Think you'll be friends with the little boys from across the street?" your mom smiled.

"I don’t know mom," you said with all the self-importance a five-year-old can muster. "They're boys." You scrunched up your nose, frowning slightly.

Your mom felt no pressure to add anything on the matter. "Well, goodnight sweetie." Your mom kissed your wrinkled nose, making you giggle, and got off the bed.

"Goodnight mommy," you mumbled as you felt sleepiness take over you.

6 years old

You entered the classroom, your eyes darting around nervously. You calmed down a bit after seeing a familiar and smiling face in the crowd of strange kids around the classroom.

"Come on! I saved you a seat!" Chris exclaimed excitedly and waved you over. You smiled back and made your way over to his table. You sat down next to him, pulling out your brand-new pencils and notebook and putting it neatly on the table in front of you.

Chris and you were talking about one of your latest games in the yard, where he and Scott were pirates and you were a princess that needed rescuing. "But princesses need to be rescued from the pirates, not by the pirates!" you argued. "But we're good pirates! And besides, hanging out with pirates is way cooler than with some prince or duke or whatever it is princesses do," Chris said. Before the argument got more heated, the teacher stepped in and silence took over the class. For the rest of the day you focused on school, meeting new friends and learning new things.

At the end of the day, you and Chris left the classroom side by side, the pirates argument long forgotten as you talked about everything that happened today.

"And when Anna fell off her chair in the middle of class," you both laughed.

"And the teacher told her not to sit criss cross applesauce on her chair," you said and continued to laugh. "I didn’t know that's how that's called," you said, pleased at all you've learned today. After a short pause you realized, "Hey, that's like your name! Chris cross applesauce!" you laughed. "That's not the same thing," he said indignantly, slightly offended. "Well it sounds the same," you smiled teasingly, but your sensitive nature told you to drop the subject.

You waited for your moms to come pick you up and went home. On your way home you animatedly told your mom about your day, excited about what new things could happen in school.  

12 years old

"Chris cross apple sauce!" you called out as you climbed up the stairs of the Evans house. You knocked on Chris' room door. "We gotta go or we're gonna be late!"

"When are you gonna stop using this stupid nickname?" Chris grumbled, fidgeting with his shirt as he opened his room and joined you to go downstairs. One of your classmates, Jenna, was throwing a birthday party and her parents were out for the evening, so she invited the whole class. The whole affair felt very grown-up and exciting, because you've never had a class party without parents.

"Never," you replied with a playful grin. "Bye Lisa!" you shouted out to Chris's mom, who was in the kitchen.

"Have fun kids!" she yelled back as the door slammed behind you both.

You got into your moms' car and listened to some music on your way. You both hummed along to the familiar Disney tunes without realizing it, laughing when your eyes met and you realized what you were doing. You quickly arrived at Jenna's house and jumped out of the car.

"Bye mom!" you told her through the window.

"Thanks for the ride!" Chris added, before you both turned towards the big house.

"Have fun kids! Remember I'll call you when I'm coming back to pick you up!" your mom yelled after you before lovingly scoffing and driving away.

You knocked on the door and waited silently until Jenna rushed to open the door.

"Hey guys!" she smiled at you happily. "Come in, we're just waiting on a couple more people and then we can start the fun."

You went in and handed her your presents, wishing her a happy birthday before sitting down with your friends. Chris and you were friends among yourselves still, but usually when you were with other people you each had your own friends to be around. You sat down next to Anna and Maddy, and you gossiped in hushed voices about what's gonna happen at the party, who broke up with who, and that unflattering shirt Kailee was wearing, just your normal girl talk. Chris was probably talking to his friends about football and skateboards, or whatever it was boys talked about. Honestly, you were never too bothered to ask.

 The room filled out a little more and Jenna came back with a few cups and bottles of drinks. None of them were alcoholic of course – this was a 7th-grade party after all. She settled down on the carpet with all of you. There was a chorus of "Happy birthday Jenna"s before an awkward silence settled over the room. None of you really knew what to do next.

"So," Jenna started, "anyone has some ideas about what to do?" she said nonchalantly.

There was a little pause for thought before one of the girls, Katie, spoke up. "Oh! There's this game my sister told me about. It's called seven minutes in heaven," she said with a smug smile. Katie was one of the only kids with older siblings who actually told her things, which made her the pinnacle of knowledge among the girls. "Do you have an empty bottle, Jenna?"

Katie explained the rules of the game. "Every time someone spins the bottle and needs to be in a closet or like, a small space, with whoever it lands on for seven whole minutes, no takebacks! And it has to be boys with girls," she smiled. "My sister told me that sometimes people kiss inside the closet. Once two of her friends went in and after seven minutes, they opened the door on them kissing!" she giggled as if letting you all in on a secret. You were all hooked. That sounded like such a big kid's game and you all wanted to play it. You got in a circle, putting on brave faces as Jenna came back with an empty water bottle. "Who wants to go first? You can go into the coat closet outside," Jenna gestured towards the entrance.

Mike, one of Chris's friends puffed out his chest. "I'll go first," he smiled, seemingly confident. He spun the bottle and it landed on Katie. "Well, after you," he smiled as he helped her up.

They went into the closet and you all dispersed into quiet conversations.

"Think they're gonna kiss?" Anna whispered.

"I don't know," Maddy said. "Katie and Mike actually seem like a good couple to me. Something might come out of this."

You nodded and hummed in agreement. You were thinking about whether you wanted that bottle to land on you or not. If it landed on you, would you finally kiss a boy?

Mike and Katie came back. The girl immediately surrounded her and the boys him, questioning in hushed voices: "did you kiss?" "What was it like in there?". But Katie and Mike kept their mouths shut, cryptic smiles on their faces. "Let's continue the game!" Katie finally exclaimed and you all went back to sitting in a circle.

"Who's next?"

"I'll go next," Chris smiled, encouraged by his friends patting him on the back as he reached forward and spun the bottle, your thoughts spinning with it. Would it be weird if Chris kissed another girl before you kissed a boy? An odd feeling coiled in your stomach at the thought.

The bottle finally slowed down, stopping on Mike. "Spin it again!" everyone yelled.

"Alright, alright," Chris laughed as he spun the bottle once more. It slowed down again stopping on you this time. You haven’t even thought about that. Would kissing Chris be the solution to your earlier question?

The room filled with whispers. Chris and you were friends, everyone knew that. But some people have previously asked you if you weren't, you know, more than that. Boyfriend and Girlfriend. You denied every time – that's ridiculous, you've known each other since you were five, the usual.

Chris' cheeks reddened a little as he got up, gesturing for you to go first like Mike did before. You smiled a little shyly at him and went on, and he followed you into the dark closet. All of a sudden you felt aware of your limbs, and how little space you had to stand in.

"So… we have like seven minutes to pass. What do you wanna do?" you asked, trying to ease the tension.

"Do you think Katie and Mike kissed?" he asked out of the blue. You frowned, thinking it over. "I don’t know," you finally shrugged, "why?"

"Cause if they did, they're totally gonna hold it over us. Like, feel superior, ya know?"

"Guess you're right." You looked up at him and shrugged once more. He was already so much taller than you.

"What if we kissed? Just like, to keep them from getting too annoying about it," he quickly added.

"Well, whatever," you smiled.

He leaned down and your lips touched for a brief moment before you both pulled away, avoiding each other's eyes.

"That wasn't so bad," you said teasingly, trying to lighten up the atmosphere. Nothing happened right? That was your first kiss, but it doesn't mean you and Chris need to stop being friends or anything. It was just to keep your friends in check.

"Yeah," he said and you both laughed awkwardly.

Your friends came to your rescue, opening the closet when the time was over.

The party continued and you had fun. You played some other games, and you were with your friends – it was great. You could officially say your first party without parents was a success.

When your mom came to pick you up you and Chris chatted in the car as if nothing happened. You didn’t tell anyone you kissed Chris, not even your mom. Just at night, when you went to sleep, you whispered into your pillow – I had my first kiss today.

16 years old

You knocked on Chris' room door, notebook in hand. "Come in!" he yelled from inside. You came in, closing the door behind you and flopped down on the bed next to Chris, who was watching Top Gun for like the hundredth time. "Hey, Chris cross applesauce," you greeted as you extended to notebook to him.

"You know saying that is longer than just Chris, right?" he scoffed, taking the notebook from your hand.

"I know, but it's catchier," you said and smiled stubbornly. "Aren’t you tired of that movie already?"

"It's one of the greatest movies of all time," he said absently, trying to both copy your homework and keep enough of his focus on the movie.

"Whatever. Don’t you ever do your homework yourself?" you teased him. "Why would I when you do yours so well?" he smiled cheekily and you rolled your eyes.

"You're gonna have to start doing your homework sometime. Anyway, did anyone reply to you yet?" you asked, genuinely interested. A while back Chris told you he wanted to be an actor. At first, you were doubtful. You've seen him in school plays and such and you knew he enjoyed doing them, but you knew acting could be a tough career. It was also one he would probably pursue away from home, which was weird – you were so used to Chris living across the street from you almost your whole lives. But then you saw how serious he was about this you knew you had to support him in his dream. He sent out a letter to a few summer internships in New York, and he was waiting on answers.

"Actually yes!" Chris jumped up and grabbed a piece of paper from his desk and handed it to you. You read it quickly, mumbling beneath your breath, "we want to offer you an internship…" you finished reading the letter and smiled at Chris, who was beaming back at you. "That's amazing!" you hugged him without a second thought. You caught Chris by surprise but he quickly wrapped his hands around you. You pulled away, looking down and smiling shyly.

"Yeah, everyone here was really excited to hear about it. I'm surprised you didn’t hear us from your place," Chris laughed, and then his smile turned bitter. "There was one person who wasn't so happy. We broke up." You sent him a sympathetic look. His girlfriend was bitching for a while, you weren't surprised they broke up, but you were still bummed for Chris. When you broke up with your boyfriend a few months ago, Chris was there for you and you intended to do the same.

"Well, I guess you're gonna spend your summer in New York, surrounded by hot girls and tons of shops. Can’t say I'm jealous about the hot girls part, but I wish I could go shopping in New York."

Chris laughed. "I am gonna be working, you know. Earn my money. So I doubt how much of the girls or the shops I'll be seeing."

"Hot secretaries," you argued wittily and he laughed once more, the sound filling your heart with pride; you made it happen. You just wanted your best friend to be happy. "You have a point," he admitted, smiling smugly, and then, "What's that letter? I can’t tell if it's an 'i' or an 'l'." He pointed to your notebook.

"Shut up, that's clearly an 'r'!"

"That's what you call a clear 'r'? It just looks like a straight line!"

You swatted his arm and he laughed. "You should be thankful you're getting my homework anyways." You raised your eyebrows at him. "I am," he said, his blue eyes meeting yours. "I'll be even more thankful if you wrote a better 'r' though," he smirked. You took out your tongue at him and you both laughed.

You were happy for Chris, but you had a hard time picturing summer without him.

20 years old

At 20 years old, you were finally in LA for the first time in your life. The City of Angels did not disappoint, filled with beautiful people and huge lavish houses. You liked NYC better, but you had to admit LA had its charm.

Chris and you were sitting in the corner of a dimly lit Italian restaurant, eating your pasta bowls in companionable silence.

"So, excited for tomorrow?" you asked, smiling at him from across the table.

"More like terrified," he chuckled as if joking, but you knew him well enough to know he was actually nervous. You reached your hand across the table to rest on his, comforting him. "I'm sure it's gonna be great. The only thing I'm worried about is that now you're becoming a movie star and you're gonna forget about us," you added jokingly. To be honest, you knew you shouldn't really be worried about that; Chris was too good to pull something like that. But deep down you couldn't help feeling like he's going off on his own, that he's going to disappear from your life.

Like you read him, Chris knew how to read you. "You know that would never happen," he turned his hand palm up and squeezed yours. "Yeah, I know," you smiled. "You're always gonna be just… Chris cross applesauce." You giggled and he rolled his eyes at you.

"Still stubborn on that I take it," he huffed.

"Always," you winked and he laughed. "But anyway, I'm excited to see you play a jock. I'm sure it would be great," you smiled smugly.

"Oh god," he buried his face on his hands and you laughed. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this, am I?"

"Probably not," you laughed.

"Ugh," he groaned. "And there's this one scene… whatever, I guess you'll see it tomorrow. Why did I agree to this?"

"You mean this as in this movie or as in bringing me to watch it?" you asked, amused and curious about what scene he was talking about.

"Everything."

"Well, that's your problem I guess, can’t resist the opportunity to do the things you love," you laughed, and then realized what you just said. "Oh my god that came out so wrong!" you put your face in your hands while Chris laughed. "I meant like, acting," you clarified as you laughed along with him.

"I know," he said and smiled, his eyes shining with mirth and… well, love. But that was normal – you've known each other for fifteen years; you wouldn't have stayed friends if you didn’t love each other. It was a given, you never had to say it. But it was a constant that comforted you many times.

You smiled back, and your eyes were probably shining with love as well.

26 years old

There was a knock at your room door. You looked at the clock beside your bed; 1 am. Who could it be at that hour?

You opened the door in your pajamas, still weary from your interrupted sleep. You saw Chris, who was breathing heavily and quite honestly looking like shit, as much as Chris could be.

"What’s going on?" you asked, brows furrowing as you guided him in to sit on the bed. His breathing hitched and you saw tears shining in his eyes. He shook his head, and you noticed his body was shaking as well. You sobered up, putting your hands on his cheeks and guiding his gaze to yours. "Chris, just breathe with me, okay? Match your breathing to mine and we can breathe together. That’s right, everything's fine. You're okay." You kept breathing slowly, encouraging him to match his breathing to yours. You've never seen Chris have an anxiety attack, you didn't even know he had them, but you knew what they were, obviously.

You helped Chris calm down and he closed his eyes, clearly keeping in tears. You wrapped your hands around him in a tight hug and put his head on your shoulder. He sobbed into your shoulder, burying his head in the crook of your neck. You sat there for a few minutes until his breathing calmed down completely. You pulled away and your eyes locked with Chris' blue ones.

"What's going on?" you asked softly.

"I just… there's so much going on right now. Which I ought to be thankful for, I guess. And I know it's self-centered, but… I can't help but feel like all of these eyes are on me. And I," he took a breath, " I might not have all that much going on later. You know how it is- you never know what your next project will be, and I'm not that good anyway. So, I could disappoint them. I'm so grateful for what I have, but the possibilities to fail are overwhelming." You looked at him sympathetically. "But that's just a spoiled thing to say I guess," he added quickly and chuckled, as if dismissing it. "I have pretty much all that I could ask for and I'm still complaining." His head hung low, his gaze boring into the floor and your heart broke for him.

"Chris," you nudged his head up to yours. "You are amazing, and you are entitled to your own problems. The fact is, it is stressful. And you're not undermining other people's problems – I know you don't, you’re one of the kindest people I know. So, if you need help, panic attacks might be a good sign to go and ask for it. If you're in too deep with your own problems, you can't help the people around you."

"Panic attacks?" he looked puzzled.

You raised your brow at him, sending him a questioning look. "Yeah, that's what it seemed like."

"It just happened, like, a couple of times until now, and I'm sure-"

"Chris." You cut him off, "Even if they weren't you should still talk to someone about what’s stressing you out. Okay?"

"Yeah, I guess when I-"

"No, no postponing this," you cut him off once more. "Tell you what. I'll find someone, and once I do, you're going. Promise?"

He looked down, considering what you said, no doubt thinking you were going a little crazy about this. You didn’t care. Over the years, you've seen and heard enough about what anxiety does to people, and you couldn't let that happen to someone you loved.

"Promise." he finally looked up at you.

"Good." You hugged him once more, and it wasn't long before your eyes were drooping low, Chris' as well. You nudged him and you both fell onto the bed, tired out.

You woke up in Chris' arms the next morning. Somehow he managed to become the big spoon during the night. You untangled yourself from his arms, silently walking to your computer to start your search.

You were determined to help your best friend.

28 years old

"Hey there, Chris cross applesauce!" you said, hugging him briefly and sitting down beside him at his kitchen table. "What's up? You sounded nervous on the phone."

He chuckled at your antics. "You know how I was on the fence about taking the Cap role, right?"

"Yeah, I also know I told you to take it and that you'd be the perfect Captain America and you pretty much ignored me." That was a bit of a downplay of the many conversions you had about the topic, which were a little more serious than this. "What about it?"

"I took it," he grinned.

Your mouth literally shifted into an O shape and you gasped. "Are you kidding me? Is this a joke or are you for real right now?"

He shook his head. "It's for real."

"Oh my god, Chris that's amazing! I'm so proud of you!" your smile was so wide you thought your cheeks were going to rip. You hugged him tightly, practically squealing. You pulled away slightly, your face staying close to his. "That was a really brave thing to do. You're gonna be so great!"

"Yeah," he smiled timidly. "There is one more brave thing I haven't done yet, and I definitely should have."

"What, you wanna go bungee jumping?" you chuckled.

"Scarier." And before you had the chance to reply, he crashed his lips into yours, still managing to kiss you softly.

It felt like something inside you finally clicked. Suddenly you remembered everything and you realized; you've loved Chris for years. How could you not? He was your person, always in your corner, and you always in his. You rationalized that it was friendship, but deep down you knew this was more. You remembered the day of your first kiss, and how you could've just told your friends that you kissed and it would've had the same effect. No other kiss made you feel this light and giddy, until now. When Chris kissed you, it felt right. The missing piece was there all along.

You pulled apart, your breaths heaving. Your eyes met his, a smile creeping onto both of your faces. "I-" Chris started, but you cut him off, "I know," you bit your lip, "me too."

Your lips touched once more, more tentative than before, taking your time to explore each other. Time seemed to slow, leaving you both in a bubble of your own. You and Chris were always in a bubble when you were together, now you just gathered the courage to call it what it is – love.

31 years old

You looked in the mirror and took a deep breath. If you were nervous, Chris is probably terrified right now. But you knew it was good terrified.

You took in your white-clad form in the mirror. In spite of your nerves, you couldn’t keep the smile off of your face. 25 years of memories weren't nearly enough, but you fondly remembered each and every one of these memories. And you were ready to make a lot more if you could do it with Chris by your side.

You took one more steadying breath as you got ready to walk down the aisle. Today was the day; you were finally getting married.

Finally seems like an understatement. Looking back, you probably fell in love with Chris the moment he offered his hand to you when you were five. It just took you a little time to realize it.

And so, your heart swelling with love and a beam on your face, you were getting married to the love of your life.

39 years old

"Happy birthday baby," you whispered as you both woke up, the sun hitting your face.

"Thanks," Chris murmured as he buried his face in your neck to kiss you, his voice deep from the night's sleep.

"Mommy! Daddy! I can't find my bow!" Ella, your 2-year-old screamed from her room.

"Guess the kids are awake," Chris said in a disappointed tone and you chuckled.

You both got up and went to face the day – like you did so many things since that day thirty-odd years ago – together.

[story-collector]

The Family We Chose

Part 5

So I just realized I fucked up the ages...like I didn’t calculate something correctly because Damian is 9 when he leaves them...and he’s supposed to be 13 when they see him again but they were 16 when he left and they are supposed to be 17/18 and it doesn’t line up....

Change Damian to 10 when he leaves, they will stay 16....they will be 18 when he sees them next and he will be 12 almost 13.Fixed

???....timeskip I guess

Two years ago I left them, leaving Wayzz behind with Marinette. I glanced to the sketchbook on my desk, almost full, of drawings of my old...and new family.

When I was first brought to my father I hated every single one of his sons and him. I wanted nothing to do with them, I wanted my family, the one I chose.

Unfortunately I knew that wasn’t possible. I knew that the league wouldn’t attack them anymore with my grandfather being dead but I had no idea what my father would try to do. So I left them alone, I stayed away. They had wonderful and successful lives, they didn’t need me to get in the way.

When I became Robin I felt like I was betraying my family, like I was betraying Marinette. They had kept me from the fighting, despite how I had been raised, but they had kept me occupied and gave me things to do. My father didn’t seem like he really cared what happened and he had swept us all into his little mission against crime.

Now two years later I could see he really did love us but he just didn’t know how to express that at all. My brothers were surprisingly better at it than him and I had grown fairly close to them. Now I held them to almost the same esteem as the miraculous team. In the end I think, if given the choice, I would still chose to follow Ladybug. She was the first person that really showed me real love and real care. She had treated me as my age but still as an equal. She had been a big sister, almost like a mother to me.

I missed all of them. Sparring with the boys and patrolling with the girls. I missed their cuddles, their hugs. I missed when Max would show me things on his laptop, whether it was a funny cat video or when he taught me how to hack I still enjoyed my time with him. Adrien had taught me fencing. It had been very similar to a katana but it was more for show. He also taught me a lot about modeling. Kim loved to soar with me and taught me how to really push my personal limits in training, I still used his techniques today. Nathaniel was a fellow artists and they could have spent hours drawing together. Nath had shown him plenty of tips for drawing and I had become better with them. He had also shown me how to fully operate our tech system, from the communication system to the cameras that he had hacked into. The Batcave was actually fairly similar and I had learned the computer functions easily.

Chloe had been someone I had become suprisingly close to. Our personalities were very system but I had learned that she cared deeply from the bottom of her heart about people. When she was hurt, she would be broken for days untill she pulled herself together. I felt especially bad for leaving when I thought of her. She had taught me how to find all the good gossip and how to seem almost all knowing. I still used her technics today and because of that I was always the most informed person in the manor. Kagami really was like an older sister. She taught me sword technics I didn’t know and would spar with me. Secretly she was also a genius about animals. We bonded over that. I still carried that live for animals now. Alix was crazy. I had loved skating with her. Together we had figured out I was a natural skateboarder and she had gotten me one. Unfortunately I had to leave it behind but when I came here I got another one and had designed it similar to her hero uniform.

The two people I was probably closest to had been Luka and Marinette. Luka had taught me how to sing and play guitar. Other times he had just let me curl up next to him and he would play the guitar and sing to me for hours. He was a big brother to me and I missed him so much. I still played the guitar, but very rarely and only in private. No one in my new family knew I could play.

Marinette had been mom, or big sister. She had always been there for me. As I had lived alone in the base we had grown close. She had been the one to find me, the one to help heal me, and she was the one who came every day in the morning to see me and the one who would tuck me in at night. She had always been on call for me whenever I needed her. She was more reliable than my new family all together. I felt the worst about leaving her.

I stared out my window to the manor grounds. They were empty and it was dark, my one night off patrol a week. The sky was clear and as I looked at the moon I imagined my family was looking at it to.

In Paris

In the two years that Damian had been gone we had worked harder to finish Hawkmoth off for good but we couldn’t find out who he was. We spent hours pouring over ever single scrap of what could even be slightly considered evidence and we found nothing. Some days I found myself looking for Damian to see if he wanted to help.

Damian was brilliant, he was probably even smarter now in the years he had been away. Two years...it seemed like yesterday where he would be at the table with me as I looked over the Akumas map. I sighed and looked over it again. Still nothing.

A rattle in the ceiling made me look up to see me partner in crime, the one who was there with me when this it all started. He came down to my level and purred into the hug he gave me.

“We’ll find him one day”

I couldn’t tell If he was talking about Damian or Hawkmoth but I agreed with him fully. Chat Noir returning meant that Alix and Kim would be coming by soon to start the night patrol. That meant it was time for me to go home.

I groaned thinking about the essays I had to write and the math I needed to do at home...and the two dresses I need to make for Penny and the suit for Jagged. Oh well, coffee was a hero’s best friend after all. I said goodbye to the other hero’s, my family, and sent my yo-yo out to a nearby chimney. The sound of Chat Noirs staffed extending joined me moments later.

We traveled in silence till we made it to my parents bakery. We landed on my balcony and detransformed. We sat on the chair and just talked for another hour. We had been partners for almost 5 years now. I had just turned 18 and the others were close behind me. My business had skyrocketed and I was already looking at new places to live in and colleges to got to....after I defeated Hawkmoth.

We also talked about the school trip that we had won recently. I remember the countless hours slaving away to win this opportunity for a class who didn’t even know that I had done it. Lie-la was the apparent savior of the class for this. Whatever.

Luka would be the only one staying behind, Kagami having grabbed a spot with our class for the trip. So much planning would need to be done for this trip. We need to figure out patrols with the time difference. We had the app to alert us but other than that and Luka we would be completely blind to Paris, the news of Hawkmoth having been blocked from the rest of the world.

We had a long few months ahead of us.

Taglist:

@buginetye @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @dood-space @silvergold-swirl @toodaloo-kangaroo @moonlightstar64 @greatcatblaze



[sb-sratss-obsession]

SRaTSS Episode Transcript: Ep. 1 - Star Sheriff Round-up

This is a tentative transcription of the dialogues of the first episode of “Saber Rider and The Star Sheriffs”. If you spot mistakes feel free to warn me about it, I would love to make it perfect!

Episode: 1 - Star Sheriff Round-up

Transmitted: September 14, 1987

Japanese version: 1 - "The Space Adventurers" (宇宙の冒険野郎 ‘Uchū no bōken yarō’)

OPENING THEME

Saber Rider... Saber Rider, and the Star Sheriffs Saber Rider, and the Star Sheriffs, In the sky!

Can you feel the thunder inside? Saber Rider! Make the lightning crack as you ride! Saber Rider!

(guitar solo)

Saber Rider...

Saber Rider... Saber Rider, and the Star Sheriffs Saber Rider, and the Star Sheriffs, In the sky!

EP. 1

STAR SHERIFF ROUND-UP

by Marc Handler

Saber Rider: “It was not so long ago that we, Star Sheriffs, first assembled our Special Freedom Fighting Unit. We nicknamed him Ramrod, a peacekeeping vehicle shaped like a huge cowboy. We used him to protect the settlers out here on the New Frontier. We needed the Ramrod vehicle to help stop the lightning attacks of the Outrider bandits. They were evil creatures who crossed into our dimension and raided our Cavalry Outposts. They used battalions of Dimension Jumpers and Vapor Beings who moved freely from their world to ours. We thought that Ramrod was our only chance to stop them, but in the end it was not the Ramrod vehicle but the human Star Sheriffs themselves, who really made the difference. I should know, I'm their leader. I remember when it all began; my orders were to find Vanquo, an Outrider with ghostly eyes and a long pale face. I knew they were bounty hunters seeking him so I alerted the head of operation Ramrod, a very special operative named April. Her father was the leader of the Western Sector of Cavalry Command.

Commander Eagle: What's your report, April?

April: Bad news, daddy. We think the Outriders found out about Ramrod.

Commander Eagle: Ah! But how?

April: A spy named Vanquo. I'll have to go to Planet Yuma at once.

Commander Eagle: Good luck, April.

Saber Rider: “April arrived on planet Yuma at the same time I did. Neither of us realized that we had come in the middle of their most celebrated auto race, the Yuma Grand Prix. A young driver nicknamed Fireball was leading the way in his Red Fury Racer.”

Fireball: The biggest race on planet Yuma and it’s in the bag. The other cars are so far behind I get close to the finish line smooth as a supercharged skateboard. Hey, what's that shadow? That fool! What's he doing? He's coming back around! And he set straight at me! Oh! Ah!

Colt: He's not the one I’m after.

Fireball: What’s the matter with you? You crazy?

Colt: Sorry, pardner. Afraid I got you mixed up with somebody else.

Fireball: Oh-oh. Here come the other turbochargers.

Colt: So, Vanquo sent me off on a wild goose chase. Well, that Outrider just double-crossed the wrong fella. There's a price on his head and the reward is gonna be mine.

Fireball: I had this race iced. Now I’m gonna have to fight for it.

Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, we can see two turbochargers approaching the finish line and they’re neck and neck. Here he comes, ladies and gentlemen. He’s done it! In 23:18, a new speed record for the Red Fury Racer! What an incredible race! The crowd is going wild for Fireball, the youngest champion of all times!

Fireball: Oh, yeah, thanks!

Guy: Look out! Get those bandits!

Woman: No, stop!

Airport guard: Hold your fire!

Man: What a shoot!

Man: Get him!

Woman: They saved my little girl!

Man: But who did the fancy shooting?

Woman: It could only be one person.

Man: It has to be the legendary…

Everyone: Saber Rider!

Saber Rider: If you would be so kind, please give him a lube job. Oh, and a lump of sugar. I'd like a suite, please, overlooking the lobby if possible.

Desk Clerk: Sorry, all our rooms are full. Lots of people here to see the race, you know.

Saber Rider: Race? What race?

Desk Clerk: Why, the Grand Prix, of course. There's the winner right now.

Fireball: Hey, thank you. Thanks a lot!

Saber Rider: Where is he staying?

Desk Clerk: Way up on the 25th floor. Quite the guy, huh?

Man: Hey, Fireball, can I get your picture?

Woman: He's giving away his wreath!

Saber Rider: I’m afraid I must take his room. My mission here is urgent!

Desk Clerk: But he's got a reservation, I can't give his room away!

Fireball: Excuse me, can I have my key, please?

Desk clerk: Of course, Mr. Fireball, your room is all ready… and congratulations!

Saber Rider: Hold it right there. I'm afraid I must have this key.

Fireball: Huh? Hey, what's your trip?

Saber Rider: I'm on a mission of utmost importance!

Fireball: What? That's your problem, bud!

Saber Rider: I'm afraid it's your problem now. Let go of this key.

Fireball: Ah!

Saber Rider: Eh?

Fireball: Give me back that key!

Colt: No dice, kemosabe.

Fireball: Hey, I know who you are! You're that cowboy who almost made me lose the race!

Colt: Sorry about that, dude, but I'm on a big hunt, savvy?

Fireball: You wanna hunt? Try the jungle, savvy? And don't bother coming back.

Colt: Afraid I'm not hunting tigers, race boy. I'm looking for an Outrider with ghostly eyes and a long pale face.

Bonnie May: Colt? Has anyone seen a cowboy around here? Oh!

Colt: What?

Bonnie May: Colt! He found out about the square dance!

Colt: Who?

Bonnie May: My father, who else?

Colt: Father? You didn't tell me you had a father!

Bonnie May’s father: Don't move an inch, you slippery poisoning carpetbagging bandido.

Colt: It was just a square dance, honest!

Bonnie May’s father: You like to dance? Then you can dance the Winchester waltz. You stay away from my little Bonnie May or else.

Colt: I think I’ve used this disguise enough. Time for a change.

Bonnie May’s father: And you stay clear of bounty hunters!

Bonnie May: But daddy!

Bonnie May’s father: No buts, now come on!

Fireball: Well, so much for the fearless cowboy.

Saber Rider: I thought I might have to take a few shots to him myself, just to get his attention.

Fireball: Hmm. Yeah, sure, whatever you say.

Saber Rider: Listen, chum, I don't really want to force you out of your room.

Fireball: You don’t, uh? Well, hey, you're a sport.

Saber Rider: Look, I have an idea.

Fireball: Why do I feel like you're gonna tell me this whether I want to hear it or not?

Saber Rider: It's simple: why don't we just share the room?

Fireball: Cuz it's my room!

Saber Rider: Just a gentle suggestion.

Fireball: I think everyone around here is trigger-happy.

Saber Rider: Do we have a deal or don't we?

Fireball: You can sleep on the floor, that's it!

Saber Rider: Fine, let's shake on it.

Fireball: Huh. I'm going along with this but I don't have to like it.

Saber Rider: Incidentally, chum, about the Outrider that cowboy mentioned, if you run into him, let me know, won't you? I'm afraid if I don't find him soon this planet will probably be blown to bits.

Fireball: Are you serious?

Saber Rider: Do I sound like I'm joking?

Colt: Good thing I was wearing that sombrero and drifter outfit. The Bounty Hunter's got to have a lot of tricks and disguises, and a good disguise can come in mighty handy. Now I better get down to business; track down that Outrider. That bushwhacker gotta be around here somewhere. I just gotta make sure I find him before he finds me.

Vanquo: Let me talk to Nemesis! Oh, I know. Yes, I discovered where this Ramrod contraption is hidden; it's a sitting duck.

Colt: So are you, hombre.

Vanquo: It’s at the Frontier Outpost , just right for plucking.

Colt: Alright, dude, from vapor you came and to vapor you shall return.

Vanquo: Ah!

Saber Rider: It’s him! Vanquo!

Vanquo: I’ll be back!

Saber & Fireball: Oh!

Fireball: That Outrider just turned into vapor!

Colt: Yes, that’s what they're made out of. Nasty, aren't they?

Saber Rider: You sent him back to his own dimension, which means I can't get the information I need.

Fireball: What information? Who was he?

Saber Rider: A spy who knew about a secret defense system called Ramrod.

Colt: Right, he said something about that Ramrod. Said it was at the Frontier Outpost, like a sitting duck.

Saber Rider: Are you planning to go out there and investigate?

Colt: You kidding? I'm a bounty hunter, pardner, I got a reward to claim.

Fireball: Strange guy, huh?

Saber Rider: Totally undisciplined, no sense of etiquette whatsoever.

Fireball: Cowboys!

Saber Rider: Well, I guess I'll go and take a little rest.

Fireball: Yeah, I think I'll go for a walk, just to clear my head, you know?

Saber Rider: Alright.

Fireball: See you later. I'm going out to that Frontier Base fast!

Saber Rider: I got to get out to that Frontier Base quickly. Steed! There you are! Let’s go, boy! Up, into the sky!

Fireball: Red Fury Turbo on! Somebody's gotta warn those settlers and nobody can get out there quicker than I can!

Desk Clerk: I can't get a hold of the Outpost.

Colt: What?

Desk Clerk: I’m sorry, sir, it seems to be some sort of emergency.

Colt: I’d better head out there!

Fireball: Ah! Oh, no! The attack is already underway!

Outrider: Find the Ramrod Equalizer Unit and destroy it!

Soldier: We can’t hold them out much longer! Here they come again! We need help!

Saber Rider: You've got it, chum!

Soldier: It’s Saber Rider!

Saber Rider: Right up here, mate!

Fireball: Well, look at who’s here! Those guys aren't playing around. I’ll better get out the artillery! Ah! I can’t escape now!

Colt: Look like you need a little help there, hey, race boy?

Fireball: There are two more straight ahead!

Colt: Not anymore!

Fireball: That must be Ramrod!

April: Over here! Hurry! Did the Star Sheriffs send you?

Fireball: Star Sheriffs? Who are they?

April: Never mind. If you can drive a racecar you can help with Ramrod. It's an experimental frontier fighter system. I'm afraid it's never been tested but it's the only chance we've got.

Fireball: Hop in!

April: Right.

Colt: Hey, don't forget about me!

April: Look out! You got them! This is it, the Ramrod Equalizer Vehicle.

Fireball: Wow!

Saber Rider: I'll take charge from here!

Fireball: The lady invited me.

Colt: That's cause she didn't know I was here.

April: There's no time to argue, I'll need all three of you when we go to challenge phase.

Colt: Challenge phase, that's fancy! How fast does this puppy go?

April: Fast enough. Come on, this way to the control room. Hurry!

Fireball: It's cool!

Colt: I bet this baby packs a lot of horsepower!

April: You better believe it. These three saddle units are interactive, but the center is especially for land operations. Since you're a race car driver, well…

Fireball: They call me Fireball!

April: All right, Fireball, you take the reins!

Fireball: Right!

April: That one is for the quick draw control.

Colt: That's gotta be mine, yeah.

Fireball: Now we know what two of the systems are for. What about the third one?

Saber Rider: Maverick flight dynamics. I was already briefed back a Cavalry Command.

Fireball: Cavalry Command? What's that?

April: Headquarters of the Star Sheriffs. I'll ride shotgun over here. You'll all have to listen up. Hey, wait a minute, there's something coming at us. It's big! The Outriders have built another Renegade. We are finished if it catches us here, we've got to take off and we've got to do it fast!

Fireball: Okay, hang on your seats. We’re moving out!

Colt: It’s working!

Saber Rider: We’re accelerating to mach 4 and closing!

Colt: Yahoo! We’re out of there!

Fireball: What's that?

April: It's a Renegade Desperado Unit!

Fireball: Watch out for that claw!

April: Oh!

Fireball: You all right, April?

April: Yes, keep moving!

Colt: Well, we know that he can dish it out. Now let’s see if he can take it.

April: Look out!

Fireball: It’s following us!

April: We got to go into challenge phase.

Fireball: What's that?

April: There's no time to explain! Activate the rods above your key compartment, hurry!

Fireball: Okay, let's see what happens!

April: When the rods are clear, hit the flashing red light. Saber Rider, you give the signal.

Saber: Okay. Get ready. Not yet. Hold it. Now!

April: All right. Ramrod will now take navigational control.

Ramrod: Acknowledge, April. Navigational control on, Ramrod challenge phase, one. Head ‘em up, move ‘em out. Power stride, and ready to ride.

April: Here he comes!

Colt: Block!

Fireball: Look out! It’s doubled back!

April: Duck!

Colt: Alright, boys, let’s laser rope this Renegade dupe. If you liked the left, you’ll love the right.

Saber Rider: Nice move, cowboy. Now shall we follow up with a soccer kick?

Colt: Take it away!

Everyone: On target!

Fireball: Let's vaporize this viper!

Colt: Good thinking, pard. I'd like the feel of this shooter.

Saber Rider: We may only have one shot so let's use all the firepower we have.

Colt: All right, amigo. You want firepower? You got it.

Saber Rider: Ready? Aim. Blast them!

Colt: Well, it looks like those Outriders have seen their last round-up.

Fireball: Yeah, but what if they come back?

Colt: After that little lesson? No way.

Saber Rider: You're wrong about that. They'll definitely return

Colt: How do you know so much about it? You got an inside line on this thing, pardner?

April: He knows because he's one of us. A special agent of the secret Star Sheriffs. With these Outriders still on the loose we could use your help too, if you want to join us.

Colt: Star Sheriffs, huh? I always wanted one of those shiny silver stars.

April: Afraid we don't have many badges left since the Outriders took over the silver mines but we use these E.B.U., electronic badge units.

Saber Rider: It usually takes years to train a Star Sheriff but this is an emergency. We'll have to issue your E.B.U. right away.

Colt: No badge? I don't know, pard.

Fireball: I'm not sure about this either. What about my racing career?

April: You'll have to quit for a while but remember: Ramrod is faster than any racecar you'll ever see.

Fireball: Yeah, you've got a point there!

April: And about those badges… I'll see if I can special-order some from headquarters. What do you say, boys?

Colt: Can you picture it, pard? Riding high, fighting out with the Outriders! Paw!

Saber Rider: “And that’s how all began. The bounty hunter, a racecar driver and a beautiful girl from Cavalry Command. Together we've made a commitment to the spirit of the frontier freedom fighters. Wherever danger leads us, wherever the people need us, that's where you'll find… the Star Sheriffs!”

ENDING THEME

Saber Rider... Your destiny will lead you, To wherever people need you, Though danger may have found you, You have your friends around you now, Now! Now! Now! Saber Rider, and the Star Sheriffs! Saber Rider, and the Star Sheriffs, In the sky!

Saber Rider!

[quicksilversquared]

The Felix Fiasco: Chapter 1

AU of the episode Felix

Instead of cutting off what his father was going to say, Adrien inadvertently let Mr. Agreste out himself as Hawkmoth. With some help from a friend- and some surprise visiting family members- and a bit of luck, Paris might just find itself one supervillain down by the end of the day.

links in the reblog

  When Mr. Agreste had told Adrien that he had something important to tell him, Adrien had been excited. He was pretty sure that he knew exactly what his father was going to say- after all, he had seen Mr. Agreste and Nathalie looking really close lately, and they really looked like they were headed for a relationship. It would be hard and awkward for his father to admit that he was moving on, of course, so Adrien wanted to be as supportive as possible. Maybe he could make it easier for his father if he told him that he had already noticed and was fine with it, but- well, Mr. Agreste didn't like people interrupting him, or presuming what he was going to say.

So Adrien bit his tongue instead, keeping himself from interrupting and upsetting his father. Only seconds later, he was regretting that.

He listened in absolute horror as his father admitted that he had always known where Adrien's mom was, that she was in a secret chamber under the house after falling into a magically induced coma. His stomach twisted in dread as his father hastened to assure him that she was stable, and definitely still alive, and that he had a plan in place to get her awake again.

He had a sinking feeling that he knew where this was going. Adrien didn't- he didn't want to believe it, he wanted it to mean something else, anything else, this couldn't be happening, a roaring was starting up in his ears-

"I am Hawkmoth, and I want to get the Miraculous to change the timeline," Mr. Agreste told him, his eyes sliding up towards the window. "So that your mother wouldn't fall into the coma at all. Nathalie thought that I ought to tell you, since things have been dragging on with Ladybug and Chat Noir. That's quite annoying, but- well, I digress. I know that the city has been painting me as a villain, but I assure you-"

Adrien couldn't hear him anymore. The roaring in his ears had drowned everything else out, and his heart was racing, pounding get-away get-away get-away.

So Adrien scrambled to his feet and bolted.

From inside of the courtyard, he could slam the button to unlock the gates, flinging himself through them and slamming the gate behind him again with a deafening clang so that his father would be slowed down. Adrien could hear Mr. Agreste yelling after him, sounding furious and worried all at once, but he couldn't make out the words. His head was spinning, thoughts racing through his mind too fast for him to make any sense of them.

He- he had to get away. Who knew what his father had planned? Why- why would he tell Adrien about his supervillainry now? Was he going to try to get Adrien to come to his side, to help him somehow? He couldn't be forced into that, he couldn't, he couldn't-

And so he ran.

  Marinette had just stepped outside to go meet up with the rest of her classmates when the first car horn made her pause. More horns and squealing tires and shouts had her stepping back towards the door, even as her eyes scanned the surroundings for anything out of place. Sounds like that could really only mean one thing in Paris: an akuma.

But she wasn't hearing maniac laughter or any sort of gloating akuma announcing their name, or seeing any flashes of light that would also indicate an akuma. Marinette frowned in confusion and stepped forward to take a closer look, but a flash of movement caught her attention and her eyes locked on the figure racing recklessly through the park, nearly getting hit by a skateboarder. The near-miss and subsequent yell didn't even seem to register with them.

With a jolt, Marinette realized that she recognized that figure. It was Adrien, and he was clearly in distress.

Well. So much for the class getting together to come up with an idea to make Adrien feel better on the anniversary of his mom's disappearance. Clearly it was already a bit late for that.

Her heart jumped into her throat as Adrien continued his outright sprint out of the park and straight into the road. Tires squealed- thankfully people had gotten really good at being alert while driving and stopping quickly thanks to the akuma attacks, at least Hawkmoth and his akumas were good for something- but Adrien didn't even seem to notice as he raced blindly across the street, towards the sidewalk on the other side of the bakery. Marinette sprung into action at once, zipping around the bakery and catching Adrien around the waist to stop him, planting her feet as she did so that he wouldn't knock her over.

"No," Adrien gasped, blindly fighting against her hold. "No, no, let me go, don't bring me back there, let me go-"

"I'm not bringing you back anywhere," Marinette promised, but she could tell that Adrien hadn't heard her at all. "Adrien, listen to me, I'm not taking you anywhere. It's Marinette, you're safe. Please."

"No!" Adrien was scrabbling now, and Marinette winced as she felt his nails digging in to her skin, scratching her. "No- he has Mom, I have to get away before he makes me help him-"

People were starting to stop and stare. Marinette winced- ugh, some of them were getting phones out, what was their problem?- and then squared her shoulders as best she could. She needed to get Adrien off of the street and into privacy, and she needed to do it now.

So she loosened her grip, adjusting her stance quickly before Adrien could take off, and hoisted Adrien over her shoulder before straightening up. He was still thrashing and kicking- she was going to have some major bruises later, but Future Marinette could worry about that- but she could stumble back around the front of the bakery to their side door. Tikki quickly phased out of her purse and through the door, popping it open, and Marinette ducked in. Almost as soon as the door closed, Adrien stiffened, apparently knocked out of his blind panic, and his frantic fighting slowed to a stop.

Well. Apparently the smell of baking bread and spices had been just what Adrien needed to knock him out of his panic-fueled blindness.

"Back with us?" Marinette asked, letting Adrien slip back down to the floor feet-first. She held on until she was sure that he wasn't just going to collapse to the floor. "Adrien?"

Adrien managed a nod. "I- yeah."

"Let's go upstairs," Marinette suggested. The hallway wasn't exactly equipped for a breakdown, after all. She kept an eye out for butterflies. "Can you manage?"

"Yeah," Adrien tried, taking a step towards the stairs. His legs nearly buckled under him, and Marinette rushed to support him. "I'm sorry, I just-"

"Don't apologize," Marinette told him at once. Based on his state right now, she was guessing that Adrien had just had a huge shock. Being unsteady like this was to be expected, really. "We'll get there eventually. Just.. don't step backwards. Or lean backwards."

Adrien nodded, sharp and jerky. "Right."

"Adrien?" Mrs. Cheng ducked into the back hallway, her eyes wide as she took in his state. Marinette guessed that she had probably seen them through the window. "Dear, are you- Marinette, can you take him back to the staff break room, maybe? It will be easier than trying to go upstairs. And we just added a new couch in there, so it's plenty cozy. I can ask the other staff to stay out for the time being."

Marinette nodded, changing direction at once. She really didn't want to go up the stairs with Adrien liable to collapse at any moment. "Good idea."

"I don't want to inconvenience anyone," Adrien protested, his voice thin. Mrs. Cheng was by his side at once.

"It's fine, dear, really," she told him. "None of them would be having their breaks soon anyway, they all took them earlier. All they might be popping in for would be a cup of tea or something between batches, but they usually don't." She placed a hand on Adrien's other shoulder, steering them forward into the main kitchen of the bakery and then immediately off into the small side room at the front. "Here. It's not the most private place in the house, granted, but..."

"It'll do," Marinette finished quietly. She squeezed Adrien's hand, but he was clutching her hand so tightly that she doubted that it would even register. "Uh, I don't suppose we have any blankets down here?"

Mrs. Cheng worried her lip, glancing back towards the front of the shop. "No, but..."

"I'll be fine," Adrien repeated, sounding very not-fine. "I don't need a blanket."

"If you change your mind, just let Tom know," Mrs. Cheng told them. She glanced backwards again, then perked up. "Actually, perfect timing, he's got more bread to bring up front. I'll just ask him to cover for a few minutes while I grab a blanket. It'll be a few minutes, thought."

Marinette nodded in understanding, already steering Adrien towards the couch. He was starting to shake again, and she was really concerned. What on earth had happened for him to get this upset? It was really unusual.

The door shut behind Mrs. Cheng, and Marinette got Adrien down on the couch. He curled up against her side at once, clearly seeking out contact, and she could only hug him close. Another minute passed while he clung to her, muffled sounds from the bakery- sheet trays clattering, indistinct conversation, oven doors opening and shutting, feet crossing the floor and back again- coming through the closed door. They were closer than they ever had been before- not a surprise, really, because Adrien was practically wrapped around Marinette- but she wouldn't let herself focus on it.

Adrien was there, and he was hurting.

"It's my father," Adrien murmured into her shoulder at last, his voice thick with tears. "He's my father, and he has mom, and- Marinette, what am I supposed to do?"

"Wait, back up," Marinette said, frowning. She- well, she was officially lost. Adrien's father had his mom, but- but wasn't she missing? How did Mr. Agreste have his wife and yet have an active police investigation going on? That just didn't make sense. "I feel like I'm missing something here."

Adrien lifted his head, teary green eyes staring into her own. "Father, he- he's Hawkmoth. What do I do?"

Well, crap.

  Adrien managed to tell her the rest of the story- or, rather, the rest of what he knew, what little Mr. Agreste had told him before he ran off- between sniffles, wiping his face on his sleeve until Marinette got up long enough to snag a box of tissues, the trash can, and a clean hand towel. Her mom ducked back in briefly, dropping off a fuzzy blanket that Marinette promptly wrapped Adrien up in, tucking in the corners so that he was bundled up nice and warm.

The whole story- Mr. Agreste being Hawkmoth, and trying to save Mrs. Agreste, who had apparently fallen into a magically induced coma after using the Peacock for- well, something. Adrien hadn't exactly stuck around to listen to all of the details.

Marinette couldn't blame him. Having everything dumped on him- because Marinette didn't doubt that it was dumped, considering that tactful was pretty much the last word she would ever use to describe Mr. Agreste- all at once would have been absolutely overwhelming, and considering how awful Hawkmoth had been, especially of late... well, what reaction was Mr. Agreste hoping to get from his son? Surely he hadn't thought that Adrien would just immediately hop on board.

"And the thing is, I had totally been looking forward to whatever he was going to say," Adrien said, breaking the silence. His head had come to rest against hers. "Like, he was there and kneeling on the ground with me, and I thought that- well, he and Nathalie have seemed really close lately and I thought that maybe that he was going to tell me that he was actually doing the healthy thing and moving on from Mom with Nathalie and maybe we could start moving towards being a family again. But no, he just up and tells me that he's a supervillain, surprise, and he's actually known where Mom was this entire time, and- oh, he's not close to Nathalie because he's moving on, he's close because she's his supervillain assistant, I bet! There's no way-" he paused to blow his nose-" no way that she isn't Mayura. I just know it."

...if it weren't for the fact that Adrien was hurting so badly, Marinette would be thrilled by all of this new information. She was Ladybug after all, and finding out who Hawkmoth was...well, it was what they had wanted from the start. She and Chat Noir would be able to do something about the root of the problem then, instead of just fighting every akuma that appeared and being resigned to the fact that there would be another akuma coming along again, and another, and another, and another, an endless stream. Finding out Hawkmoth's identity-it was what they had wanted.

But it was hurting Adrien. Instead of being excited like she should be about the break in the case... well, Marinette was too worried about what would happen to Adrien and how the whole thing would impact him.

There would be no way for her and Chat Noir to take down Hawkmoth and finish things without hurting Adrien. At this point, well, it would just be a matter of trying to minimize the hurt.

"I'm sorry, Adrien," Marinette murmured. She would have pulled him closer, but she had already pulled him as close as he could be. Instead, she turned her head so that her forehead was pressed against the side of his face. "My family will be here for you, I can promise that. And all of us at school. You're not alone."

Adrien just nodded. They fell quiet again, just sitting together and listening to the bakery sounds. After a couple minutes, though, Marinette frowned. There was an unfamiliar voice getting closer, accompanied by her mom.

It- it wasn't Nathalie, she thought. The voice wasn't quite as businesslike and emotionless, and surely her mom would know better than to let Mr. Agreste or Nathalie in without asking first. Marinette lifted her head, listening more closely as the voices got clearer.

"We saw news about my nephew nearly getting run over by a dozen cars, so of course I had to investigate," the other woman's voice was saying, sharp and taut. There was a vein of worry running though, easy enough to pick out even from where they were. "It took a little bit to work our way through traffic and figure out where he had gone. I do apologize for crashing in, but..."

"No, that's fine," Mrs. Cheng assured her. The voices were nearly at the door, and Marinette glanced over at Adrien. He was wiping his eyes, turning to stare at the door. There was a spark of interest in his eyes, hope and eagerness battling their way past the shock and betrayal and misery. "I can understand being concerned. I certainly would be, if I saw that happen with my daughter." They were at the door now, and Marinette watched as her mom reached out and knocked before opening it up and sticking her head in. "Adrien? Your aunt and cousin are here, do you want to see them?"

Marinette turned to Adrien, ready to step in if he was about to try to go along just to make other people happy, regardless of his own wishes. But he looked willing enough, so she didn't have to step in when he nodded.

As soon as Mrs. Cheng stepped to the side, Adrien's aunt swished into the room. As soon as she did, Marinette stared.

She- she looked just like Adrien's mom. Like, exactly.

Uh.

"Adrien, darling," his aunt exclaimed, swooping down on Adrien to hug him. Marinette ended up jostled a little to the side, but she didn't care about that. Behind Adrien's aunt, his cousin wandered in, looking somewhat concerned. Mrs. Cheng exchanged a look and a wave with Marinette before she retreated, closing the door to the break room behind her. The room was a bit cramped now, not meant for four people plus the couch and the table. "Felix and I saw you running away from the mansion and we wanted to come check on you. What happened?"

Adrien exchanged a look with Marinette, and in a heartbeat, Marinette understood his expression. He wanted to tell them- presumably he was confident enough that his aunt didn't already know about his father's less-than-fabulous side gig, but, well, telling them here and now...

Something told Marinette that Adrien's aunt might not have the quietest of reactions when finding out the news about her sister and brother-in-law, and- well, there were enough people around in the bakery that could overhear.

"Should we go upstairs to our living room, maybe?" Marinette suggested. She squeezed Adrien's hand. "If you can get up there now?"

"I think so, yeah," Adrien agreed. He managed to get to his feet, his struggle mostly- as far as Marinette could tell- because of the blanket still wrapped around him. "Let's get upstairs, and then I can talk."

  Unsurprisingly, Amèlie Graham de Vanily was not happy to hear about who was behind Hawkmoth's mask. She was also not thrilled to learn that he had known where her twin sister was all of this time and hadn't bothered to let anyone else know, and she was furious to hear Adrien recount the number of times his father had endangered him as Hawkmoth, both indirectly when he just happened to be in the area and directly, with akumas that were hell-bent on targeting Adrien directly.

Surprisingly, she wanted to do something about it. Herself. Even though it would be dangerous, Marinette had warned, and hard to do. After all, Ladybug and Chat Noir had been fighting Hawkmoth and Mayura and their supervillains for ages now, and they hadn't had nearly as much luck as they might have hoped. So wouldn't it make sense to pass the information on to them, and let them deal with the situation?

Amèlie wasn't convinced.

"He has my sister," she insisted again, clearly determined. "Maybe the two of us haven't always seen eye-to-eye on everything- and I never did like Gabriel, there's always been something off about him- but I'm not going to let him dishonor her memory like this. If there's a chance that something that can be done to save her- if the superheroes have more information about magic than Gabriel does- then we need to get her out and be able to ask them. If she's past saving- well, it would be kinder to lay her to rest, then. It's heartbreaking, of course, to lose anyone, but dragging it out instead of letting them pass on...well, that's not kind to anyone."

Marinette looked from her to Felix, who looked far more like a lost kid than he had before. Something- the fact that they were dressed in black, that she had caught a murmur about missing a funeral as they headed up the stairs, that Amèlie's husband hadn't been mentioned at all- told her that Amèlie was speaking from experience.

"So we should get more information, if we can," Amèlie continued. She was tapping her chin with a finger, clearly already in planning mode. Marinette recognized that expression well, since Ladybug wore it all the time when she was coming up with a Plan. "Adrien, clearly he was willing to tell you more- but I can tell that you aren't exactly in a state to try to pry. So if we switch you and Felix- only if the two of you are willing, darlings."

To Marinette's surprise, Felix nodded at once. "I can do that. It'll be easy."

Adrien looked more hesitant. "But if he figures it out- he has magic powers, Felix, it's dangerous!"

"I can play a part as necessary." Felix told them. His lost look had been replaced by determination and- oh, Marinette recognized that look. It was the same kind of look that she had seen Chloe give her mom, that eagerness to help and please a parent to get their approval. At least Amèlie seemed more receptive than Audrey Bourgeois. "And if Mom wants me to try to find out what happened with Aunt Emilie, then I will."

Amèlie nodded, pleased. "And Adrien? I know that you've been through a shock, but..."

"But time is important." Adrien let out a shaky breath, and his fingers clung to Marinette tightly for a moment. "I- I can do it. For Mom. And if we switch, it'll be Felix who has the hard job, anyway."

"I can manage. I was in the theater club- well, before." Another flash of Felix's miserable expression from earlier crossed his face before it fell back into his neutral expression. "While we switch clothes, you can catch me up on how to act like you. That's the most important part when playing a character."

Amèlie giggled. "I thought you hated theater club, darling. You always complained that it was a waste of time."

"Yes, well." An embarrassed expression flashed across his face. "It serves its purpose."

"You can use my room to switch clothes," Marinette offered. She gestured towards the stairs. "Since our bathroom is a bit cramped."

Felix nodded, rising at once. "Fantastic. Mom, can I borrow...?"

Amèlie nodded, digging in her purse at once and passing over a small bag. "Of course. Be thorough, of course, but the faster of a turnaround we can have, the better. And I'm going to go talk to Gerald so that he doesn't tip off Gabriel and Nathalie. With any luck, he hasn't already reached out."

Marinette winced at the thought. They were so close to finding out everything about Hawkmoth. To have their plan derailed by Adrien's well-meaning bodyguard...

As Amèlie headed back downstairs, Adrien and Felix headed up to her room. Marinette had a moment to wince- she hadn't cleaned up her Adrien posters at all, that wasn't going to look good and something told her that Felix was the sort to notice and comment about something like that- and then she forcefully pushed the thought away, trying to put her Ladybug hat on and focus on what needed to be done.

Obviously, she wanted to reach out to Master Fu and let him know. They would probably want a team of superheroes for the final stand-off, for sure, but question now was which ones. The Snake would definitely be helpful, in case anything went wrong, and maybe the Fox for illusions, and the Turtle for protection, and the Bee- well, she might pick someone other than Chloe, because if Chloe got to be part of the final battle when she had done nothing to deserve the honor of wielding a Miraculous, especially considering how she had bullied Marc and Nathaniel about their comic only two days ago, she would be insufferable. Marinette could see Chloe now, bragging about how she was special enough to help defeat Hawkmoth and all of the rest of them were just lame-o civilians.

Chloe should never have been a superhero in the first place, and the only reason why Marinette had kept going back to her was because Chloe had experience with using the Miraculous and the Bee's powers, and it was hard to think of a new person to use the Bee when they were under a time crunch. But now...

Adrien probably wouldn't want to be involved, since it was his father that they were going up against and he might not be able to go in for the hit. But his aunt and cousin seemed like they would happily go to bat for him (or at least Amèlie would go to bat for her sister, and Felix would do anything if it made his mom happy, which...well, it seemed to amount to the same thing in the end), so maybe she could consider them as potential Bees. But she also didn't know them very well, and had only spent maybe ten minutes with them max. There was a danger there, a risk that Marinette wasn't sure if she wanted to take. Both Graham de Vanilys were a bit unpredictable and hard to read at times, which, well…

Maybe it would be better if she tapped her own mom instead.

Deciding that she could probably wait to decide for sure until after Felix finished his information-finding mission, Marinette pulled out her phone instead, drafting her text to Master Fu several times before deciding that it was good enough as it was. She hit send just as Amèlie entered the room, looking pleased.

"Gerald let me know that Gabriel instructed him to take a detour to try to find Adrien instead of dropping us off at the house first," she told Marinette. "And since Adrien seemed so upset, he figured that he wouldn't say anything yet without finding out the why. So I asked him not to let Gabriel know at all, and we would explain later." She smiled, triumphant as she dropped gracefully onto the couch. "It's perfect, really. Gerald seems like he's far more loyal to Adrien than to Gabriel, so he's willing to work with us. Once we have Felix go over in Adrien's place, Nathalie will text Gerald and we can come in like normal, not suspicious at all."

Marinette still had some concerns. Sure, Gabriel Agreste was an absentee parent at best, sure, but Adrien and Felix were cousins. Just because Mr. Agreste rarely saw his son in person didn't mean that he wouldn't recognize that there was something off. If Adrien and Felix hadn't seen each other in- well, it sounded like it had been a couple years- even if they somehow managed to look similar enough to fool Mr. Agreste, there were bound to be some behavioral differences.

"I hope the boys can work fast," Amèlie commented, glancing upwards. "I do worry that the longer we spend getting set up, the more suspicious Gabriel will be. And with something like this... well, he's already bound to be on edge."

Almost on cue, the trapdoor up above swung open and Adrien and Felix came down. Marinette turned around to see how their swap had gone, and then her jaw dropped.

Had- had they swapped at all? Because if they had, that was insane.

"One would think that you two had been practicing or something," Amèlie said with a laugh. She accepted her bag back from "Adrien", glancing in before zipping it shut and tucking it in her purse. "Your makeup skills are amazing. Even I can't tell the difference, except- Adrien, you have a little powder on your collar." She reached forward towards "Felix", brushing off a few specks before considering them. "Very good."

Marinette could only squeak. They had swapped, then. Clearly she didn't need to worry about Mr. Agreste immediately noticing something was off just by sight, because she had seen Adrien every day at school (...and in heavily-inspected pictures on her wall every day, school day or no) and had thought that they hadn't actually swapped at all, which, uh...

(She wasn't saying that she knew Adrien's face better than his own father, just... well, she actually saw him and paid attention to him more than his own father.)

"I'd like to try to steal the Miraculous, if I get the opportunity," Felix said, straightening his sleeve cuff in a very un-Adrien-like manner. Adrien bumped his cousin's arm, giving him a Look, and Felix stopped at once. "I'm very good at slight-of-hand, so I feel like it wouldn't be an impossibility."

Marinette blinked. "Uh..."

"What is the Miraculous, do we know? And where does he wear it?" Felix's gaze slid from Adrien to Marinette, then back. "Or is all of that entirely a mystery?"

"The Butterfly Miraculous is a brooch," Marinette told him, even though she still had some serious concerns. "But, uh..."

"He wears it under his tie," Adrien told Felix. He was frowning. "But it would be really hard for you to get without being suspicious. Even if he thinks that you're me, he's going to be really protective of it. And it's not like you have a Miraculous to protect yourself if he catches on!"

"I would only try if I saw a good opportunity," Felix assured him. "I am not about to take unnecessary risks. After all, you have Ladybug and Chat Noir to take care of the supervillains once you let them know who is cowering behind those masks. But I do like a challenge, so it's just something to keep in mind."

His mom just sighed, clearly used to Felix's attitude. "All right, as long as you make sure not to try any big gambles. Boys, I think it's time that we head out, so that Mr. Agreste doesn't get any more suspicious about Adrien's absence than he no doubt already is. Marinette, it was nice meeting you, and hopefully we'll get to see you again before Felix and I head back to London. Thank you for keeping Adrien safe."

"Of course," Marinette said, about to shoot a soft look at Adrien before thinking better of it. It would just be weird when Adrien and Felix were dressed up as each other. "Good luck, you guys. Stay safe. And Adrien, let me know how it goes. If you want to come over again, our door is open."

Adrien smiled, small and soft as Amèlie ushered both him and Felix towards the door. "Thanks, Marinette."

With one last wave, they were out, the door swinging shut behind them. Marinette let out a long breath, practically collapsing back onto the couch. That- that had been a lot to take in.

And from the sounds of it, the information that Adrien had gotten before he had bolted had only been the tip of the iceberg. There would be more coming soon, as long as Felix was successful, and that promised to be practically as overwhelming as this discovery had been.

Yikes.

After a moment, Marinette forced herself to her feet, getting up and going over to the window to watch the scene below, just in time to see the small group exit through their side door. Tikki floated up by Marinette's shoulder, watching them go. Felix, dressed as Adrien, headed back through the park, the picture of composure. On the sidewalk, Amèlie and Adrien were headed into the bakery, buying pastries to give Felix a little time before they showed up.

"I think that we should be ready to go over to the mansion," Tikki said after a moment. "And be ready to claim the Butterfly right away, if they manage to get the Miraculous like Felix wanted to. Adrien's aunt and cousin seemed nice enough, but they have just recently gone through a loss and they might not be thinking clearly. If they give in to temptation..."

"Right." Marinette turned away from the window, looking at her kwami again. She would have to text the rest of the class and let them know that they couldn't make it after all. "But the likelihood that Felix will actually get the Miraculous? I mean, there'd pretty much have to be the perfect conditions for him to even get close, right?"

"Honestly?" Tikki glanced out the window again, watching Felix walk away. "Not really. But with a little help…." She turned to Marinette, determination in her eyes. "Let's go over to the little park across from Adrien's house, and I'll go in. With a little luck- with a little help- they might just be able to pull this off."

[cyberramblings]

Sonic & Tails: Ideas for a new Sonic Plot and Partner System

So, first off, there is a game called Sonic & Knuckles. It is basically just the second half of the overly ambitious Sonic 3. It is not Sonic 4, but it is a standalone game. Anyways, there isn’t a game called Sonic & Tails yet, so let’s make that happen.

Regardless of that, I wanted to talk about my vague conceptualizations of a Sonic game plot. I WANTED to continue my thoughts on other Sonic characters, but my stupid brain can’t stop thinking about “what if Sonic and Tails fought?” Again, this is getting into some borderline fanfiction territory, but I write the blog AND the rules.

Piggybacking off my previous post detailing my thoughts on Tails, I had said that I liked the idea of Tails taking over Robotnik’s lab after he is defeated once and for all (or temporarily, I don’t expect Sonic Team to kill off the main villain, as much as I’d pseudo-ironically love Sonic Adventure 3 to open with Eggman’s funeral while Sound of Silence plays like the overly edgy funeral scene from Watchmen 2009).

Now, this is also getting into some serious Marvel Civil War or Batman v. Superman territory, but stick with me. I feel like one of the most underutilized aspects of Sonic as a series is the cast of characters. Maybe it is just me, but I feel like Sonic fans want to see their favorite obscure character return or see as many characters as possible. Even the most trivial characters have a cult following in the weird Sonic fandom. It was really cool to see the obscure Sonic the Fighters characters return for a boss fight in Sonic Mania, even if they were just an illusion. I am proposing a Sonic game where nearly every characters returns to make up the boss fights.

Now, the first issue with this idea is that typically the “rival” battles in Sonic are a bit hit or miss. Fights against playable characters in the Adventure IMO felt pretty flat and uninteresting. Now, 2D Sonic has some better boss battles against the likes of Metal Sonic and Knuckles and the same goes for Generations, so maybe those could be emulated. Regardless of gameplay, I’d like to see all the weirdies like the playable cast of Sonic Heroes, The Fighters, Emerl, Blaze, Gamma E-102, etc. return at least as boss fights, if not as playable characters, even if they are just piloting the mechs that would typically be piloted by Eggman. I get zero excitement from fighting Eggman anymore, but just put Rouge’s model in the cockpit and suddenly its way cooler with more potential for unique boss dialogue.

So far I have proposed a Civil War-style plot where Tails goes a little bit off the deep end and a Sonic game where the boss fights are all the beloved recurring characters. It should be obvious how these two parts fit together. Perhaps the dual story structure of Adventure 2 is overplayed by this point, but obviously it would fit in with these ideas.

To get into the nitty gritty and provide an example of what I am imagining, consider Metal Sonic. I can easily see a plot that starts with Tails reconfiguring Metal Sonic to be “good”. This bring back a classic character in a new way and allows for a lot of angles for the plot to go, of course borrowing from various Iron Man plots and the Buffy-bot from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

One idea from Sonic Adventure that I would really like to see return is the ever-evolving nemesis concept. Even if Sega never really brings back Chaos, I’d love to see a rival that increases in power as the game goes along. This could totally tie in with my previous idea, with Metal Sonic becoming more powerful over the course of the game, possibly with the acquisition of the Chaos Emeralds like Chaos does. Metal Sonic already has been shown to take on a few different forms, such as at the end of Sonic Heroes.

Another story beat that I’d like to see replicated is the end of Adventure 2 where Sonic and Shadow have to team up. Now, in this hypothetical Sonic & Tails game, that would obviously be Sonic and Tails teaming up, but I’d also love to see them bust out Mecha Sonic as a kind of retconned prototype of Metal Sonic from Sonic 2/3 as a last resort too.

I also love the story beat of all the playable characters at the end of Sonic Adventure bringing the depleted Chaos Emeralds to Sonic for the final fight. I would love to see something like this but a little more weighty. I have a clear mental image of something like the Breath of the Wild loading screen that shows your level of progress though the game, but instead with Sonic endlessly walking towards the camera as the game loads, surrounded by more and more characters walking towards the screen as you rescue/recruit them.

Personally, it seems like Sonic games struggle to balance multiple playable characters, so I’d settle for something like Advance 3 where you pick a partner that enables new moves. I would prefer to find a way to include every possible character as playable, but I would settle for a 3D Sonic game where Sonic (and maybe characters that control near identically like Metal Sonic, Shadow, Silver, Blaze, etc.) is the only playable character, with characters like Tails, Knuckle, Amy, Big, etc. are relegated to the partner role, but swappable.

Playable Characters:

Sonic: Everything normal

Metal Sonic: Just make him control like he does in Adventure 2: Battle, so faster than Sonic but with less moves. I don’t think Metal Sonic has ever been canonically playabe, only appearing as a boss fight or playable in racing games or bonus modes, so that would be my biggest request.

Shadow: Just Sonic but slipperier and please give him a teleport instead of a homing attack

Silver: Again, just Sonic but make his double jump more offensive to represent his telekinetic abilities

Blaze: Her name is BLAZE and she has FIRE POWERS in Rush and Rush Adventure, so please just make her control like Sonic but with a fiery homing attack or her fire hover from Rush

Espio: Just give him some kind of limited invisibility or maybe the tornado attack as a reference to Heroes

Mighty: He could probably be thrown in with his moves from Mania, but this is reaching

Jet: Probably asking too much, but he’s never been playable in non-racing game, so even seeing him with his board in a main game as a kind of joke would be cool

Assist Characters:

Tails, Cream, Charmy: Obviously, limited flight with slightly different characteristics. Cream could alternatively have the Chao attack from Advance

Knuckles, Rouge, Tikal: Either a limited glide or the digging

Amy: Piko Piko Hammer as an attack or as a big jump. She could also maybe be a Sonic-like characters, but I feel like she was shoehorned into the speed role in Heroes

Big: I just like seeing this dumb idiot return. It seems like asking a lot for the fishing rod to be used as a grappling hook, so maybe he could just have a big area attack

Fang/Knack, Bark, Bean: I mean, maybe just show up and fistfight some enemies?

Vector: Something music based, realistically

Chaos: Again, this is reaching, but maybe this ties into Tails taking over Eggman’s research

E-1XX Alpha, Gamma, Omega, etc: It is asking a lot to have all the robots return, but I’d love to see them all as slight variants of “shoot a bunch of missiles” or limited hovering

Omochao: Personally I’d love to see this little guy as an assist who just never shuts up, maybe with some hidden secret-unlocking potential

Vanilla: She doesn’t have a lot of game appearances, I’d take anything

G.U.N. Commander: Again, I just think this would be kinda funny. He could summon robots or just fire missiles

Eggman Nega: Not sure why he would help the main characters, but I’m always rooting for weird stuff like this

Wave, Storm: They could function like Tails/Knuckles or grant a temporary board for tricks or whatnot, maybe like the skateboard powerup from Sonic Generations

Tails Doll: This is dumb, but it would be fun to see as a little throwaway easter egg

So, that was a bunch of random nonsense directly from my brain, but you probably get the idea: find a way to include a lot of characters in the plot and the gameplay. Do I expect any of this to ever happen? No. And honestly, I’d prefer to see another game where I can actually play as characters like Rouge, the robots, Amy, and Cream.

ONE LAST THING: There should really be a Sonic rhythm game. They have so much music, both the classic songs as well as the Crush 40 songs, with tons of remixes of both already existing and even more possible. It would fit perfectly with the gameplay of Sonic, you could just have the notes appear as obstacles or powerup boxes. There are a million different ways to slice it, but it just makes too much sense to ignore. I don’t have enough ideas to make a separate post, though. Maybe I’ll make a playlist sometimes of songs I’d like to see included, but the issue is that it would be way too many songs. As with the main point of this post, I would love to see many different playable characters with very slight changes to their properties.

ONE LAST LAST THING: Since Sega hates localizing Puyo Puyo games, they should just make a new Mean Bean Machine with HD graphics and all the various Sonic characters represented somehow and then release it internationally either as Mean Bean Machine or just Sonic Puyo Puyo. Again, I didn’t have enough ideas for a whole post.

FINAL FINAL FINAL RAMBLES: I kinda wanna play Sonic 06 since I actually just recently found out that Rouge, Omega, and Blaze are playable, but the disc is 20 bucks at gamestop for 360. I also kinda wanna play Unleashed, but not enough to buy it. I really get more excited when more characters are playable, which makes me wish I enjoyed playing Sonic Battle more. I also have my eye on Chronicles if I can ever get the patience to actually sit down and play it. At this point, I should just make my own dang original game or story inspired by the things I like about Sonic.

[espship18]

Kpop ship for yeoli-tranbolie

Sup my quarantine lads lol. I have a ship for @yeoli-tranbolie​ ! This is the first ship of the new group, so let’s start this group off fresh!

Based on your request I learned these things about you: 

You’re 5′0 and African American 

Lover of all types of music 

A social-butterfly

A musician, you play the french horn

You enjoy singing

You also dance and like ballet the best 

And in your request, you asked to be shipped with BTS, Monsta X, NCT, and WayV. Let’s dive right on in!

BTS: Taehyung

Happy babes who can vibe the f out, but also be jumpy happy-hyper babes. I can also totally see you two as more of the artsy couple too. You each would enjoy taking little classes and work shops to expand your skills and abilities, which would lead you two to taking the same music workshop class. The whole class would be split into groups and each group would have to make a performance. You and Tae would be put in the same group, so you would be spending a lot of time together with your group mates. Luckily, everyone is grown adults so everyone does their part. You guys put on a great show, and you’ll begin to find yourself hanging out with Tae, in a coffee shop, even more, despite the workshop being complete. You two would develop a huge crush on each other, and you’re both too shy to tell each other. You’re also worried that you two don’t like each other because you can’t get into each others brains, so you’re like “..crap.” But Tae would make the first move, like the babe would have this elaborate idea on how he was gonna tell you he liked you, but then he would get so nervous, forget what he was gonna tell you, so he was just like “okay, I like you.” And you two would soar as if there was never an issue or worry. I can see you two being one of those couples who enjoys staying at home. That doesn’t sound super exciting to some people, but I feel like you and Tae would much prefer to be in the company of each other, and you wouldn’t want to feel the pressure to conform to what people want you and Tae to be. And since you two are so into music, you enjoy chilling at home if you’re not working or doing school things, and you just listen to music. You enjoy searching new music styles together, also critiquing styles you don’t like and getting a taste for what you two have similarities and differences to. You two also enjoying doing research on artists and genres as well, so there is a lot of time that you two can spend days upon days watching documentaries on the history of classical music and Beethoven or Prince. You also enjoy joining Tae when he goes to the studio to see him work every now and then. Which Tae enjoys showing off a bit, and it’s honest really cute because he’s clumsy so sometimes he’ll forget a thing or two, or he will hit the wrong button, or even trip over a wire in the floor- it’s honestly really cute. PDA wise, Tae is a needy boy in this one. He’s not afraid to be like “hug me” and you give in bc it’s Tae. He also loves to steal kisses, so watch out for that, he’s sneaky. 

Monsta X: Kihyun 

For this particular member, I can see you two bein the hyper social-butterfly type of couple. And omg imagine this, you two have that classic high school sweetheart gig going on and omg it’s so adorable! You’re smitten kittens who have been together for years. A lot of people and fans would be shock to know what your secret is to a happy relationship and to put it simply, it would be taking life day by day. Being flexible with each other, making each other laugh, living in the present instead of the future- that’s your secret. You two would be quite humorous to each other, so I can definitely see you two constantly making jokes to one another, being goody around one another to make each other laugh, and overall just hitting that humor spots where it counts. Communication would also be a HUGE factor for your relationship success. You can’t have a relationship without communication, and being completely honest and open with your feelings can work wonders for your relationship. You two would also be very observant of each other, it doesn’t matter what the change or topic is. Plus, you two like to keep the element of surprise in your relationship, it keeps the flame alive when you least expect it. It can also be for something that is goofy and small, like the cute stuffed alien riding a skateboard you saw at a grocery store. Kihyun will get it for you, TRUST ME. Along with being observant, you two can really read each others emotions and auras when you’re upset or if you need some space from one another, it’s completely normal, and it’s a virtue to have for you two. I also love the idea of you two working together to create beautiful music and beautiful dance. The harmonies, the way you move with each other..aaahhh, it’s magic! Imagine making a beautiful ballad together and making the SWEETEST harmony and dance to it, PURE ART MY FRIEND. P U R E ART. Another reason why y’all work is that you’re able to keep home life and work life separate. You have minor disagreements here and there for work, so you get to take your grievances out at work, then you’re peaky keen at home. Be prepared to be pampered because date nights are on Kihyun. Getting a little dressed up, going to get some good food, it doesn’t even matter if it’s ramen or fancy sushi, you’re together and that’s all that matters. You’ll take a little walk after if it’s not busy and you’ll sometimes find a little spot to sit and relax. PDA is very mild and supple. You don’t feel the huge need to put your love out there, so very soft and heart fluttering kisses, a lot of hand holding, and, knuckle kisses with “i love you’s” are his signature trademark. 

NCT: Yuta

Y’all are both fire crackers and I am living for it! You two definitely would keep each other on each others toes, there’s so much energy, in the best possible way. In my opinion, Yuta is very versatile. That being said, be prepared for a LOT of pick-up lines, one-liners, and cheesy jokes! To be honest, you’ll want to pull your and his hair out at some of them, because jokes aren’t always his best, but you can always laugh, rather it’s out of genuine laughter or embarrassment. You two are such cuties too, and it’s hard not to just grab him by the cheeks and tell him how cute he is. He’s that type of boyfriend that will drop a compliment bomb on you, and if you start to out do him, he will come back two times harder, he’s always determined to tell you know how much he loves you and wants you to know how pretty you are, inside and out. He’s also the type of boyfriend who likes to spoil you every now and then. Matching outfits or matching concepts are something he would enjoy, so he would know all of your sizes for clothes, and don’t be surprised if he comes home like “loOk wHaT i GoT, pHoTO sHoOt” And those photo shoots are always fun. I love to think that your and his hang out/date spot is in a practice room or recording room. You two don’t feel like big special and extravagant date night type of couple. Something like a practice room would serve as a perfect hang out spot for multiple reasons. One, you two can hang out and snuggle and relax, two, you can also be productive such as: Yuta working on an upcoming comeback, while you’re doing homework. I have this cute idea that Yuta would also want your hang out spot to be a practice room because he would want you to be near him when he worked. Yuta has a very busy man, which as we know, he works so hard, so he would actually prefer you near him when he worked. You would help him keep his stress level down and he’s also a confident boy, so he would want to show off a little, hehe. But you honestly don’t mind it, you love seeing him when he works, and you can also appreciate and let him know how good he does with his work. PDA wise, you two are adorable! I honestly believe Yuta is a snuggle bug. He loves to show his love to you in little ways, which would include the softest of hand-holding. He loves the size comparison to your hands, he also loves to touch you, so hand holding would be his favorite. Hugs, so many freaking hugs, this guys nickname could be teddy he loves to hug and snuggle so much. You don’t mind it though, because you know that if you ever need a hug or someone to hold, Yuta is right there by your side when you need it. 

WayV: Hendery 

He is your smol bean who’s a bit chaotic at times. He’s the ultimate stress-reliving boyfriend, he’s goofy, sweet, and sympathetic. He also has his own little thing going on every now and then, which makes him even more irresistible. I like him with you most because he’s the cure to your stressful life. Life with Hendery is anything but stressful, I’ll tell you why. He’s the best freaking listener- he’s also an amazing advice giver. Hendery can shut up for two hours if it means letting you vent out all of your frustrations. Advice needed or not, he’s got your back, making him one of the best support systems you can get. He also is the king of support systems because he does these things called “you nights.” They’re simple nights in, most of the time they’re during the time when you’re having a lot of stress- when you need it most to be honest. He makes a blanket fort, fit with snacks, your fav food, pretty lights, and some of your favorites. Sometimes, he’ll even come up with fun little games to get your mind off of the stress you have, normally in a slightly destructing form. You can laugh while also taking out frustrations and anger without giving Kun a heart attack. Think of the wet paper towels thing in Friends! Hendery’s plans never seem to fail, because once you get to throwing those paper towels, your mind goes into happy mode, and all of the frustrations you have are wiped away in the blink of an eye. I also like to believe that Hendery’s curiosity card would be drawn because he would take a fascination with your ability to play the french horn. I used to play instruments myself, so I understand that you forget to practice every now and then, but Hendery would love watching you practice, he would make sure you remembered every now and then. Then, a real treat would be when Hendery would ask for a lesson or for some light tutoring. This cute son of a gon wouldn’t be able to get his mouth in the right position that’swhatshesaid so you’d squish his lips and cheeks into the right position, it would be so freaking hilarious. Date night is your specialty too! You make up for date night since Hendery does your “you nights”, so you make little thoughtful dinner dates or go out and do something that will help you two bond. Hell, sometimes you even try to cook for him! PDA is more reserved since I feel like he’s a bit more shy than Tae or Yuta. Hand holding is what’s he’s most comfortable with, to be honest, he prefers to love on you in private, he feels like he can be sweeter that way. But, if you want to woller all over him and give him the biggest kisses in the world in front of the world, he will let you, trust ya girl.~ 

~STA 

[qwigoqwaga2]

Random GNR Fun Facts

@motley-queen Anyone please feel free to add to this and correct anything that's incorrect. -Slash really likes snakes. He had two named Clyde and Cranston that were mentioned on the Appetite for Destruction liner notes. -Axl gave Steven the nickname 'Popcorn' when introducing him at their concert at the Ritz in 1988 because of the way his hair bounced around while he played. -Steven loves pugs. -Axl recorded Appetite for Destruction line by line. -GNR used to be friends with Mötley Crüe and one of their first big tours was opening for them during their Girls, Girls, Girls tour. -Axl and Izzy are both kind of reclusive, so they didn't hang out with the Crüe much. I believe Steven and Nikki are still friends now. You may have noticed in the Dirt movie Slash and Steven were present at the gathering where Nikki died. -One time Steven got kicked out of a bar for being too drunk and he got mad an punched a light and broke his hand so he couldn't play and Fred Coury from Cinderella had to fill in for him for a while. -Axl was late to their label signing. The band spent a long time looking for him and eventually found him on the roof, meditating. -Axl's feud with Vince Neil happened because Izzy had made an inappropriate comment about Vince's wife, Sharise. Axl decided he had to get involved and defend his bandmate. Izzy apologized to Vince afterward, but Axl and Vince kept threatening to fight each other but never did. -An early friend of the band (maybe Barbie Von Grief) said that Axl talks a lot about people who've hurt him, which is why he spent so much time badmouthing Slash after Slash quit. -Axl and Izzy are actually country hicks from Indiana. -In the albume liner notes for Use Your Illusion they have "fuck you St. Louis" in reference to the St. Louis riot. During Rocket Queen, there was a guy with a camera who was taunting Axl and Axl told the security to take the camera and they didn't, so he launched himself into the crowd to take it himself. He then got back on stage and announced "thanks to the lameass security, I'm going home" and smashed the microphone on the ground and left. Fans rioted because the show was cut short and Axl was blamed and GNR was banned from playing St. Louis again. There's video of this incident. -All of them abused drugs, but Steven had the worst problem. It got to the point where the rest of the band wanted to kick him out because he couldn't clean up his act, but they didn't have an explicit reason to. The last concert they played together was Farm Aid in 1990. Steven tripped and fell while coming onstage. They did two songs, Civil War, which was new and they had only rehearsed it in the studio a few times, and a UK Subs cover Down On the Farm, which Steven had never heard before. Duff clapped the beat for him and Steven managed to play the song (well enough that I wouldn't have known he'd never heard it). He happened to be going through a period of trying to get clean (which, like Nikki Sixx he tried and failed many many times before finally getting clean in 2010) and he was super sick from withdrawal when they fired him. They made him come in to record Civil War and he could barely get through the song (the final version of his part had to be heavily edited to be a cohesive song) because he was so sick. They claimed it was evidence that he was too jacked up to be in the band and fired him. -Axl was married twice. Once to Erin Everly, who Sweet Child O' Mine is about, and once to Stephanie Seymour who appeared in the November Rain music video (I believe that's where they started dating) and likely many of the songs on Chinese Democracy are about her (and/or Slash). In both relationships, they were abusive to each other. -I believe it was Stephanie that Axl proposed to by threatening to shoot himself if she didn't marry him. -The bromance is strong in this band. Slash/Axl, Slash/Steven, Slash/Duff, Duff/Steven, and Axl/Izzy were all BFF pairs. -Axl and Izzy were actually BFFs from school. Steven and Slash were too. They met when Steven fell off his skateboard and Slash came and asked if he was ok. -Axl's singing career began as a child when he sang in the church choir. -Welcome to the Jungle was written about when Axl left home and went to New York City (it might have been LA, but I think it was NYC the first time) and got off the bus and as he tells it in the intro from the Ritz '88 concert "this little old black man comes up to me and my friend with our backpacks and about ten bucks between us and he goes, 'do you know where you are? you're in the jungle, baby, you're gonna die!" -Axl wanted real sex sounds for Rocket Queen, so that's him and Steven's girlfriend Adrianna (which Steven was pissed about). -Their first tour together was known as the Hell Tour. Duff had a band with some shows scheduled up in Seattle (where he's from) so they were going to play them but their car broke down and they had to hitchike there and leave all their equipment behind. -They at one point lived in what was essentially a garage with a loft. -Axl has bipolar disorder and is generally a very intense person. He's described as both a huge asshole and an incredibly sweet, caring guy. He's also actually very quiet and shy. -For example, one time when Steven overdosed and was in the hospital, Axl was the only one who came to visit him. -One time Axl was with some girls and wanted to go to one of Mötley Crüe's parties, but he was too shy to ask so he sent the girls and Nikki decided to let the girls in but not Axl just to be a dick. -The start of the whole "Axl is a control-freak dictator" thing is from when they toured with the Rolling Stones. Axl was so impressed with how the Stone's tour was such a well-oiled machine and he wanted GNR to be like that (I think it was GNR that Metallica said they learned everything what not to do from touring with GNR). Suposedly Axl forced Slash and Duff to sign away all the rights to everything GNR to Axl or else he refused to go on stage. They quit shortly after that. -Freddie Mercury and Elton John were Axl's idols (hence all the grandiose piano songs). -At Donington in 1988, two fans were killed during their set. That show is where some of the footage for the Paradise City music video comes from. The band didn't find out until afterward and they were devestated. The crowd had been rowdy and they could see people were getting injured and Axl had been trying to get the crowd to calm down, but the two bodies weren't found until after the show (it had been raining so much it was super muddy and they were partially buried in the mud). -Izzy is basically a recluse and no one knows where he is or what he's doing. But he does have a solo career. I don't think he ever wanted to be in a band as big as GNR became. -Slash and Duff founded Velvet Revolver together. Sebastian Bach auditioned, but they rejected him because they said they sounded like Skid Roses (so they went with Scott Weiland and sounded like Stone Temple Roses instead). -The first ideas for the music for November Rain came to Axl while he was on a bus in the early-mid 80s. -They didn't used to have a setlist. Axl would just pick songs based on the mood of the crowd. During the Use Your Illusion tour this meant that all the backing musicians and dancers had to be just waiting backstage for their song to be announced. -Axl threw ridiculously extravagant afterparties on the Use Your Illusion tour. -Slash proposed the original lyrics for Paradise City: "where the girls are cute and they've got big titties" -Right Next Door to Hell was written about Axl's neighbor who claimed that he attacked her with a wine bottle and there was a lengthy legal battle about it. -They were an overnight sensation basically. The Welcome to the Jungle music video was played on MTV at midnight or 3am or something ridiculous but fans loved it so much they kept calling in and asking for it to be played again. -They used to be glam in their early days. Steven argued against it became the makeup would run in his eyes while playing.

[stratamuzak]

Interview with Voltagehawk

STRATA: What artists in particular you are drawn to (alive or deceased) that you listen to for particular moods? Such as happy/sad/contemplative/etc… Explain why you might listen to one artist for a particular mood.

CHASE AROCHA When I want to feel inspired I listen to a lot of the different projects of Mike Patton. Be it Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom, or Tomahawk, the range of styles of music is so diverse that I’ve been listening for like 15 years and I haven’t gotten bored yet, haha. When I want to relax or chill, I love BadBadNotGood, an amazing jazz artist doing incredible arrangements all in a hip-hop context. It’s great! Or Ray Lynch, I really love his writing and use of counterpoint melody. Then if I’m getting hyped I put on something like Dying Fetus or Vitriol, or Maximum the Hormone. And any other time I’m blaring Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper and Sturgill Simpson.

DAN FENTON I think a lot of the time music finds my mood. Sort of more a spiritual or cosmic connection. When I was a kid my mom would make us watch musicals if we stayed home sick from school. Jokes was on her because I hated school but I loved learning musical scores and how to write dynamic parts and movements. The fact that people like Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra or Marlon Brand were also amazing actors only added to that unlikely education. I learned how to really feel music between that and the intense very bloody hymns we had to sing in church. I understand the sentiment but that shit is harder than a lot of black metal. “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb”. Hard core shit. Sorry, I digress. During the making of our most recent record which is called Electric Thunder and set for release later this year or early next (hard to navigate releases with all this pandemic shit) I listened exclusively to film scores, classical music and radio evangelists. I am not religious but I grew up in a preacher’s home and when I needed to get my creative push and anger at its peak, I listened to preachers who were clearly greed driven and motivated by the lust for power. It made my adrenaline rush in anger and it came out in the recording for sure. I am a huge fan of Hans Zimmer and Vangelis. Each of these artists move me in powerful ways. The juxtaposition of darkness and light both in traditional instrumentation and experimental synth based work. Just musical giants. When I am feeling frustrated about the social issues I see everyday in my East Nashville neighborhood I listen to KRS-One, Kamasi Washington, Outkast. A lot of protest music. I am in love with band IDLES from the UK. Such powerful lyrics tackling issues like the need for male vulnerability, equality for all and the  seemingly ironic brutal beat down of toxic masculinity. That band is great if you’re happy, mad, sad, whatever.

STRATA: Do you have a process you go through prior to writing, playing, and even performing?

CHASE AROCHA I do a lot of breathing exercises like the Wim Hof techniques. I have generalized anxiety disorder and I used to get horrible debilitating panic attacks, it helped me get into breathing and meditation. Anxiety will never go away but you learn ways to live with it and push through your panic. I think about how much this means to me and how long I’ve spent doing it, I try to see that I value myself as a person and then from that thinking I can just let go and play music. Only approaching it with love and not worrying about mistakes because that’s how we learn.

DAN FENTON The entire thing is one process. Like a heros journey of sorts. I listen and meditate everyday, I believe in a cosmic river of inspiration that flows from an energy that is and has always been. I believe if you listen hard enough and give yourself to the music the muse will send your mind transmissions that may only be a section of a song, or perhaps they are an entire album, but everyday I show up. A few years ago I read this book called The War Of Art, by Steven Pressfield. In this book he describes the invisible force he calls the Resistance. The Resistance may be things both “good or bad”, but they are anything that keeps you from showing up for your art. So I show up everyday, you can ask the dudes in the band, they receive a work tape maybe twice a week with new shit to try out. If I don’t feel that muse working I don’t force it, but I instead wait on further transmissions from the cosmic womb. All sounds crazy, but my story is crazy, so crazy makes the most sense. In the studio I have many processes. I found while recording vocals I perform better in complete darkness, I have realized how much I live inside my head and how active my imagination is and equally ADD my eyes are. So when I can’t see it brings to life the imagery and the passion of the song. I can see all those people I write about, all the landscapes, the love, lust, joy and pain. I also do some method stuff, keep things in my pockets pertaining to a character I may be portraying in a song. Wanna be Daniel Day Lewis shit.

STRATA: Your own current project, discuss the process your music went through as you built each layer. From beginning to the end of it. 

CHASE AROCHA This all started with our drummer Jarrad having a vision and going through trials and errors of finding the right people to execute that. Along the way Dan, Tyler, and I all came into the picture and that vision morphed into something we all felt was not even from us. Like we were an antenna receiving a signal and these riffs and lyrics quickly meshed into something I haven’t heard before. Part hard rock, part jazz, part punk and hardcore. All with this message of love and truth being the reason for living. To end the ones controlling our thoughts and dividing us or tribalism and greed. I feel like we made something worth listening to and that’s all I feel like you can really hope for.

DAN FENTON The self titled record that we have available now on all streaming platforms was two different profound stages in my life all in the making of one record. When we began, Jarrad and I partied a fuck ton, and I was descending into some serious personal shit with alcohol. It was bad, I couldn’t get through a day without way too high of a blood alcohol level. Before we finished vocals on the record, I stayed up one night working and drinking, perhaps I had never stopped from how many nights before, who fucking knows. Anyhow, I died for 9 minutes on the side porch of my house. Fully shut down, fucking dead. Mind you, I didn’t want to die, I just didn’t know how to lay off the bottle. Woke up in the ICU surrounded by my band, my wife and what few friends I had left. At that moment Voltagehawk became a complete family to me. I spent a stint in rehab (Jarrad drove me) and that was several years ago now. When I got out I went back to finish the record, make some amends and chase this thing out for real. So that was some info on the first record. The new Album which is a 13 song space odyssey named Electric Thunder, after our beloved Electric Thunder Studio owned and operated by our resident space wizard producer Geoff Piller, was not so dramatic. After I got my shit together and my mind cleared up I began to write everyday like a mad man. Song after song after song came like never before. I think we cut 15 songs out before we settled on the final 13. Our process as a band is often for myself or one of the other dudes to present a bare bones or often finished idea to the band and we run it through the Hawk Filter. The Hawk Filter is just the decomposition and reconstruction of every rough idea till it fits us. Which is silly to say because if we like, it we do it, not a matter of genre worship. Shit’s good, do it. Always do what’s best for the song.

STRATA: Can your music personally be an open door to breath and bend in the world of artistic exploration? In Other Words… how comfortable are you as an artist exploring other types of music and creating projects that might be totally  different than what you are creating now?

CHASE AROCHA There is so much great music in the world in so many styles, why shouldn’t we try to explore them all! I’m always trying something I haven’t done before, not always as a challenge, but I would hope it’s natural for people to do in art. We shouldn’t be the same people we were 2 years ago, let alone 10. I love jazz, Death Metal, and country music. If you can find a really fun and genuine way to blend those then that’s absolutely what you should do! Don’t be tied down to what kind of music you’re making and just make music.

DAN FENTON That’s all we do all day. Everything on this planet, and above it, and in it’s majestic seas and mountains, all these people of all the cultures of all the world and their energy and their culture all influence and musical inspiration is welcome. Our philosophy is never say no, and jump off the cliff, and pull yourself back up. Meaning: try all the musical options then settle on the one we believe is the most amazing. So much of our influence is from cinema and books, video games, you name it. I’ll pluck a support cable on every bridge I see ‘til I am dead just to see if it speaks to me. Sonically there are no fucking rules, and if you impose rules, fuck your rules. We love to create, to talk about creating and then to birth something new is beyond amazing.

STRATA: Are you open to change your style, genre even, and approach to how and what you create every time you enter a studio? Or do you find once you have a formula in place do you find it best to stay with what you know? Many times artists will change how they approach their songwriting and even their recording staff/producers.

CHASE AROCHA

Like I said before, I believe that you should just make music and with that should come constant experimentation. When we record we find sounds from all over the place. From children’s toy instruments, to skateboard wheels spinning to imitate rain. Our writing is kind of always evolving and changing. Dan is an amazing writer who literally has lyrics and melodies pouring out of his hands and face. Everyday he has new ideas and records and sends them to everyone. Jarrad is great at taking those riffs and making suggestions on how the structure could be of a song along with feel. I am obsessed with adding layers of guitars however I can, but I also write a lot and send tracks as well. Tyler is a tone junkie on the bass, filling in the bottom end and has such a great approach to being independent from the guitars with his lines. We send tracks back and forth to each other then we get in a room and flesh them out. The whole time in the process the songs are constantly changing and evolving into the sound we have. We are always open to change and never believe in the word No when discussing music and art. You try every idea and see what works and what doesn’t. Sometimes when one member has a vision of how a song should go and is trying to communicate that,  you should respect his idea and see it through. If it doesn’t work that’s okay, we tried!

DAN FENTON Voltagehawk is ever evolving. As it stands, we spend way too much time trying to pigeon hole what people will refer to our sound as. I don’t care what you call it as long as it moves you. I listen to everything from John Coltrane and Tom Waits to Napalm Death and Motorhead, Antonio Lucio Vivaldi to Kamasi Washington. IDLES and Bad Brains. If you refuse to evolve as an artist, experimenting, growing, trying new methods, all these elements then you cannot grow as a human being. Too many people are happy where they are, just okay, making the same music that their dads made and trying to cosplay some kind of yesteryear. We don’t do that shit, we’re us, that’s it. We grow, when you hear the Electric Thunder for the first time you will understand everything. If you burn some sage next to a photo of Carl Sagan while you listen to Electric Thunder, you will see the cosmic river in your minds eye. The world is full of people with a blockage in their brain. They cannot see that this bullshit we call a life is just a series of labor for hire gigs that leave us rapidly in the middle. We’re trying to break away from it all and follow our feathers, our truth, our search for enlightenment on our hero’s journey. I’ll leave you with this. Know Thyself.

[howtohero]

#242 Teen Teams (Teens Read This!)

Are you a teen? Are you tired of going to school like some kind of dorkus mcflorkus? Would you rather be outside, riding dragons and punching skull monsters (this is monsters made of skulls)? I bet you would! Because you’re a cool kid and fighting skull monsters is cooler than sitting in class learning anatomy or math like a nerd! (Learning anatomy in a world populated by dragons and skull monsters is basically futile anyway. Like a mad scientist can wake up tomorrow and decide that anatomy isn’t important and design an entirely new lifeform and all that class time will have been wasted!) Well do we have the solution for you! You should become a superhero! Get together with all your other cool hip friends and form your very own crime fighting force! The bad guys won’t know what hit them when you roll up in your carpool to foil their crimes. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and form a teen team!

Tean teems are the best because there are no adults on the team. It says so right in the name. If an adult even tries to get on this team full of teenagers just call them a creep and push them down a flight of stairs. That’s basically crime fighting right there. We all know what no adults means of course, it means no rules! Nobody to give you a bedtime or tell you to do your homework or warn you against using a flaming club as your weapon of choice. So what if the fire will eventually consume the wood and probably burn your hand? That sounds like a science thing. And science is for nerds.

Teen teams are the perfect place of teens of all stripes who just want to fight some crimes. Teenagers who were pressed into fighting criminals at a young age by a surly old man in a onesie? Welcome to the club. Children who just want a somewhat positive outlet for their violent tendencies? Come on down. Cool teens who want to solve mysteries with their pals but would also like to be wearing some sort of costume while doing it? We think you’ll find yourself right at home! If you’re a teen who also would like there to be less crimes, go out and join a teen team! Or form one yourself, there’s literally nothing stopping you. If an adult superhero tries to stop you “in order to protect you” all you need to do is flip them the double bird and do a backflip out the nearest window. Or hit them in the shins with your skateboard and then skateboard out the window. Either way, once you do that they physically won’t be able to stand in your way anymore.

Being part of a teen team is way better than being a teenage member of an adult superhero team. Teenagers on regular teams tend to be relegated to more of a sidekick or support role. And that’s the last place a teenager wants to be. Teenagers aren’t supportive and don’t have any desire to be, and that’s beautiful. Adult superheroes will force you to stay back at the base, or do crowd control, or maintain the team’s social media account (yet, for some reason, take issue with all of the quality memes you’re posting on the account at their expense). That’s not what you want to do. That’s not what you were meant to do. I mean, for crying out loud! You’re nearly fourteen and a half! That’s plenty old enough to leave the base and try to best immortal serial killers at hand to hand combat. What’s the worst that can happen to you! You’re a child! You’re not going to die. Dying is for old people. If I’ve learned anything from the Jurassic Park (don’t date yourself) World franchise it’s that children can’t die!

Another super nifty thing about being part of a teen team is all the free lessons you’re going to learn through your adventures. Sure, fighting HAL is all well and good, but any superhero can fight HAL. Only a super cool team of teenagers with attitude can learn an important moral lesson from fighting HAL. (Sorry, is it clear to everybody that HAL stands for Hyenas Against Laughter? It is? Ok great, just figured I’d check.) Through adventuring with your fellow teenagers you guys will learn important lessons about teamwork, mutual respect, and that sometimes you’ve just gotta accept that the weird quiet girl on the team is the daughter of an actual demon who tries to take over the world every 25 years and that sometimes he’s gonna swing by the ol’ base to drop off her laptop or some clothes that she left at his apartment last time she was there for the weekend. Adults don’t get to learn important life lessons from fighting crime. They just get sweaty and tired. They simply don’t have the energy to learn anything after surviving and repelling an attack from the Haunted Houseboat. (Hyenas Against Laughter is a coalition of hyenas that believes that humanity stole laughter from hyenas and so they have declared war on human comedy in all its forms. For some reason they have yet to turn their attention towards us. Rude.) Just another reason why teenagers are better than stupid adults.

Living with a bunch of teenagers and no adults also means that your hideout is going to be totally wicked sick. Put your team headquarters on your own private island, or in the side of a mountain with a really cool name like “Mt. Awesome” or “McCoolsVille Mountain” (or “Mt. Mountain” to be edgy and subversive). Get yourself a huge sofa and a huge tv and like four pool tables and a refrigerator just filled with chocolate pudding. Make your hideout so dang cool that when older superheroes come to chew you out for having a glow in the dark exterior that very blatantly publicizes your location to any villain in a 300 mile radius, they’ll be so floored by how cool your place is that they’ll completely forget about reprimanding you. Put a giant dragon statue on your roof. Yeah. 

If normal life is getting you down, and you’ve got superpowers, and you don’t wanna commit crimes, then joining a team of teenage superheroes is the best move you could possibly make! You’ll meet loads of interesting people. You’ll make the world better while learning valuable lessons about taking responsibility for your actions and why adopting every weird ooze monster that the bad guys leave behind is a bad idea. Plus, you’ll live in like a floating castle or something. A floating castle with a floating chocolate pudding moat. It’s gonna be aaaaawwwweeeesooooommmmeeeee!!!! 

[lkmrn]

De-Colonize Your Life: How to Identify and Dismantle White Supremacist Patriarchy

I found the event on Facebook. It sounded like something he would talk about. I don’t know if he’s actually go to it. They. They didn’t share much of that part of their life with me. Neither the pronouns. I’m guessing, based on what I gathered from their profile after I I friended them. A new identity, sense of self, completely disconnected from me but nonetheless running parallel to mine. I thought as much, although I’m still cautiously unraveling the gender binary in order to include identity beyond gender. I still have room to grow. No one else I know is going to this. Practically no one has committed to attending to begin with. There are about 200 people invited and 100 (including myself) expressing interest in going, and 7 people confirmed attending. How many of those seven were involved in organizing and promoting the event? I wonder if they feel the same disappointment I would feel over that turnout, if I would even be able to get seven people to show up and talk with me. I wonder, ashamed, if this energizes them, if they’re pumped about sharing their knowledge with those seven, soon to be eight with myself included. I’m the rest of this bus ride and two metro rail lines away from getting to the east side of Los Angeles. It takes over two hours to get to Mariachi Plaza, the station I’ll end up in order to walk the rest of the way. I feel guilty because I don’t do these things very often when I know I should. It’s just the commute. It takes so long to get downtown from the valley, but I don’t want to risk the potential financial ruin of taking my car and having something break down again. I wonder how other people do these commutes. I’ve already gotten used to reading on the bus, but food is a big concern for me. Do other people pack a meal? What do they pack? What’s a good meal that doesn’t need to be heated up or kept cold, that you can eat sitting on the bus bench or standing up because the seats are all taken, or sitting on the ground waiting for the gold line train? Maybe just fruit and carrots. Sometimes they have food at these community events. But they ask for a donation, or they just go ahead and charge. And I don’t have cash on me. I’m still worrying about finding a second job starting this coming month so I don’t have to dip into my savings again in order to cover rent. It’s been months, and I’ve been teaching group piano and voice classes two days a week. I make $400 a month. My rent is $650. I feel bad for feeling bad about how I’m struggling. I went to art school, almost $40,000 a year, on my parents dime. No scholarships, no financial aid, no honors or awards from my high school telling my college that they needed me there, that my name, my talent would put them on the map. My senior year, I started seeing posters going up about students whose parents paid for their spot there. I wondered if that included me, shutting out some prodigy’s dreams of becoming the next Michael Pisaro because they couldn’t scrape together the tuition. I still don’t know if I’m that person. I don’t know who I am. The bus drops us off at the North Hollywood Station. I put my bookmark in its new place in my book, gather up my backpack, and walk down the steps from the back exit. Some people yell thanks up to the driver. I always wanted to do that, but I felt weird doing it, like I need to be a regular in order to gain that level of cordiality. Anyway, the moment’s passed. People complain a lot about the red line. People from the professional and working classes alike whisper their uneasiness, a lot of words like unsafe, crazy, homeless, dirty being thrown around. From my rose-colored glasses, there’s nothing much wrong. It’d be nice if more people chose to take the buses and trains, instead of clogging up the freeways, and maybe Metro would expand its services so my commute times would get cut. So I could see my friends in Burbank without having to call a Lyft home or risk driving my car. Every now and then, I think I’d like to see the bus pass my stop because it’s operating at full capacity, instead of the rides when I’m leaving the bus empty well before it’s final stop. I lose access to data when I go downstairs to wait for the train. It’ll be at least another year before they somehow open up internet access in the underground stations. No noticeable construction necessary. It makes you wonder why they took so long to get it done in the first place. Anyway, I’m not as bothered by the inconvenience as the commuters sitting at the top of the steps. I have my book. I picked up this book about white supremacist patriarchy permeating supposedly feminist pop music. It’s really interesting reading a philosopher’s take on music I’ve been listening to for years, even if it’s critical. I got the suggestion from one of my professors. Not from him personally, but from his Facebook post. I’m trying to open myself up to ideas and opinions that aren’t my own, gravitating toward topics that I’m already interested in. Hence this workshop, a series of what will most likely be a combination of lecture and discussion, in order to activate my sense of responsibility to disadvantaged communities around me. I hope that I’ll be given a role in their movement, something small that allows me to support them. I’m getting excited as I draw a little bit closer and closer, an anxiety that tangles fear with future potential elation. I’m starting to feel hungry, but you can’t eat on the subway. It’ll have to wait until I get to Union Station. As the time passes, I start drinking more water, clearing my throat. There’s a funny feeling creeping up in the back of it. I hate when this happens. I go off schedule with these excursions, and my body starts attacking itself. Or maybe the subway actually is germ-infested, and my refusal to appease my body by eating dinner at that moment has allowed a virus to break through my immune system’s defenses. I’m on course for an incredibly annoying sinus infection that will last close to three weeks. But in the moment, I don’t care so much. I think my body can handle anything. I need to switch from the red line to the gold line at Union Station. As soon as I get off the subway, I can smell that deceptively irresistible scent of warm pretzels from Wetzel’s, and my body begs me to stop at the very strategically placed stand to the left of the top of the final staircase to the main part of the station. But my financial worries force me past down the corridor to reach the stairs leading up outside to the gold line station. I check Facebook again when I get there. No new attendees, definitely not Fernando. I go ahead and confirm my attendance, considering I’m more than halfway there anyway. A thought starts planting itself into my head, that somehow Fernando will see this, and he (they) will think more of me. That my interest in their interests wasn’t passing or manipulative. I let that scenario play out while I’m waiting, distracting me from the book I hold open, leaving me on the same page for the entire 20 minutes. My focus returns on the train. Of course they won’t notice. Even if they did, it wouldn’t change their opinion of me. Because I’m not sure if the dissolution of our friendship was ultimately because of me. But that’s a one-sided conversation that still to this day has not ended. I make it to Mariachi Plaza, and for a few minutes, genuine elation takes over any anxiety. I feel genuinely happy to be here, seeing kids skateboarding around the open area in front of the steps of the station, the older folks sitting on benches conversing in their native tongues. It’s a home that isn’t my own, but it feels open and welcoming nevertheless. That thought makes me feel a little guilty, and the anxiety returns. I’m a white person feeling at home where quite a few other white people had previously felt at home, had in fact purchased homes somehow with their seemingly endless supply of income. You see, the millennials who don’t buy avocado toast are the ones gentrifying low income neighborhoods. I’m not one of them. I don’t want to be one of them. I look up directions to the place where the meeting will be held. It’s about a 20 minute walk. I have about thirty minutes until we’re supposed to start, so I try to walk a little slower. I tend to show up early to things, but for this I want to be right on time. I just want to find a seat in the back and take everything in. I don’t wanna make a spectacle of myself, prostrating myself to the organizers, telling them how invested I am in improving myself and how much I care about their cause. How much I am on their side. No, it’s best to show humility. This isn’t about me. I’m there to observe and support. I show up 5 minutes early. I sneak a glance inside as I walk past the door, not breaking my pace. There are a few people inside, sitting around two large white plastic tables pushed together. I start getting nervous again. I decide to walk a little ways down, then head back. Just until the workshop is supposed to start. But I’m afraid this is one of those things that doesn’t start on time. I wish I’d had friends who were into this sort of thing. Then it wouldn’t be so hard to go. I’d have someone to talk to about interesting things, to help make introductions to other attendees. Time’s up. I head inside and sit down in the first chair I can find. A few more of the seats have filled up, but the room is still pretty empty. The organizers started passing out paper and containers of markers. Some of the participants start doodling while a few others work up the courage to say a few words to each other in between excruciatingly silent pauses. No one is talking to me, so I pull out a pen and my planner, and I dive into my future laid out on the pages. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice someone walk in. I don’t lift my head up, out of fear that might draw attention to myself. They sit a couple seats down from me, and again out of the corner of my eye, I notice a familiar figure. I know him from school. Relief washes over me, surprising myself. I call over to him and start in on a conversation. I don’t remember what we talked about. We probably tried to catch each other up on how we were surviving post-grad life. I was focused more on having a friend I could share this with. We started about 10 or 15 minutes late because the organizers were waiting for the last of their own to show up. I don’t remember what he said, but he was charismatic and impassioned. More people showed up as the night went on, probably regulars. They talked a lot, about their own experiences in the neighborhood, fighting against displacement, struggling to support themselves through school. They threw a lot of curses as whiteness, at the patriarchy, at capitalism, which I self-righteously agreed with. Then a guy in the back, dressed in militaristic uniform, began expanding on the destruction of capitalism, namedropping Marx and more contemporary communist ideologues. That was when I started checking out. I’d heard enough white men elaborating on the benefits of a classless system, the need for the oppressed to rise up against the bourgeoisie. Not that I didn’t sympathize with the message; I was tired of the messengers. Anyway, the meeting ended, and although I didn’t feel as though part of a revolution, I felt part of a new community. I was overcome by excitement, anxious elation, and I couldn’t wait to get started. I imagined walking back to Mariachi Plaza with my friend from school, starting what would be a series of revolutionary discussions. He was making his way up to the organizers, so I figured I’d wait for him outside. We hadn’t talked about afterward, but I figured it was a nice gesture. 5 minutes passed. He was helping them put up chairs. I kept sneaking glances back inside. At this point, I wondered if it was more awkward to continue waiting around for him outside, or if I should go inside at this point and draw attention to myself. I chose neither. I started walking back alone. I had no idea if he was taking public transit anyway. It was a stupid idea. Me, once again, imposing myself on others in order to feel better about myself. The white savior, white activist. Maybe he would think I’m rude for leaving without even saying goodbye. Maybe that’s who I am.

[hcneymilkks]

STRAY KIDS Hyunjin ‘Charming’

Request from WATTPAD.

Prompt number

6. First Christmas with their S/O and panicking to their best friend/sibling about what to get them. Somehow, a plushie didn't seem exactly suitable when they knew the other had bought them an engagement/promise ring.

Pairing: Hyunjin x OC Ying

Genre: fluff

Word Count: 2.3k

MASTERLIST

Going to the shopping district was an absolute nightmare. A week before Christmas and it seems like the whole world didn't finish their Christmas shopping. Ying grumbled incoherent words as she looked at the selection of teas, already getting a migraine. Just why was everyone out today? Of all days?

"Hi, can I get a green tea latte?"

She opted to stay in the cozy and secluded place, the Brentwood cafe, squished between a plushie store and a jewelry shop on Fifth Avenue. Knowing she wouldn't be able to get any Christmas shopping done until later, she opted to work on her new novel. A fantasy novel filled with magical creatures added with a little touch of horror. Just as she was finished the part where the main character accidentally saves the enemy, the bells chimed signalling that someone had just come to order. Ying stiffened as a chair scraped across from her, but she continued to write, massaging her wrist and cracking her neck. Only to make eye contact with a guy.

A guy who was standing way too close to her liking.

"Hwang Hyunjin if you do not move an inch I will smack you with my bookbag."

Yup, it was Hwang Hyunjin. Funny, loveable guy, but also so very clingy and annoying at times. Who knew Ying could bear with him for the past year, even his older brother Minhyun couldn't stand him. But then again, siblings are just weird in general.

Hyunjin pouted and sat in the chair in front of Ying, whining. He hadn't seen her in what? Like a week and this was how he was treated? How rude. "Yinggggg! You're so mean!"

"Let me finish this one sentence and then I'll deal with you."

"Excuse me, am I some part of your to-do list?" He feigned hurt and put a hand over his heart, dramatically leaning back onto the chair....almost, just almost making himself fall. Ying raised an eyebrow and finished the last word, sighing and packing up her things.

"Hyunjin why are you here anyway? I thought I told you I was going to shop for Christmas presents."

"Well, I'm doing the same thing. Plus, I knew you didn't like crowds so I figured you would be here writing. Also, I missed you." He shot finger hearts at Ying but she didn't seem impressed one bit. If any, she was already wanting to shoo the boy away.

"Okay....well I'm leaving now so I'll see you at home." she tries to leave the cafe but not until Hyunjin slings his arm around her neck, bringing her closer to him. He laughs and talks about how it's better for both of them to shop together, seeing as how they can combine gifts based on the same mutual friends they have.

"How about this for Jisung?" Ying held up a bento box, Hyunjin stopping his actions and tilting his head.

"Why does he need a bento box? The boy doesn't even cook. He burned cup noodles in the microwave remember?" Ying put the bento box down and ruffled her hair. Just what do guys like other than liking other girl's pictures?

The rest of the day went by chaotically. Hyunjin seemed to disappear every thirty minutes, leaving Ying to ponder over which skateboard would be better for Felix. She was tired and just wanted some food.

"Hyunjin, this is the fourth time you left me, where do you keep going?" Ying rummages through some clothes, her phone stuck between her neck and shoulder.

Hyunjin's breath hitches. "I needed to use the washroom."

Ying rolled her eyes. Even on the phone, she knew Hyunjin was lying. Her mind was racing. Just what if Hyunjin ditched her and already went home?

"Babe I promise I'll come back. I'm just ordering us some food to take home, does Chinese sound good?"

"Anything is fine. Don't forget my Taro bubble tea or else you aren't allowed to come home."

"Okay okay, Love you!"

_____________

A few days closer to Christmas meant two things.

One, the stress of buying presents would finally disappear, ready to attack round next year.

Two, a small purple bag under the Christmas tree got her worried.

The day that Hyunjin finally came back to get Ying, he wasn't holding just a Taro milk tea and Chinese takeout.

Just behind the plastic bag as if Hyunjin was trying to hide it was the small purple bag, with the words Ying could faintly make out before Hyunjin linked arms with her.

Diamond Jewelers.

Even now while Hyunjin went out with the boys and Ying was curled up into a ball, blanket and hot chocolate in her hands, she felt uneasy.

Deciding to dial her best friend, she focused her attention on the fireplace, the flames dancing as if out of routine.

"Hello?"

Ying snapped out of her daze and sipped her hot chocolate, soothing her parched throat. "Flora?"

"Oh hey, Ying! What's up? How's the Christmas shopping?"

Ying groaned. "Horrible. Buying stuff for the boys is so hard, and I didn't even buy anything for Jeongin yet!"

Flora laughed on the other end of the receiver. "Same, Minho is so hard to shop for. I opted to just get him a bunch of cat things but man do I not like cats." Ying could feel Flora cringing, for her love of dogs outweighed the other.

"Anyways, you bought something for Hyunjin did you not?"

Ying sipped her hot chocolate nervously, her eyes staring at the purple bag again. "About that....."

"So you didn't?"

"No! I mean I did. It's just-does a plushie sound fine?"

Silence.

"Um....." Flora nervously laughed. "In all honesty, Hyunjin would love it, but it's your guys' first Christmas together so I would think you would get something a little more you know.....out there?"

Ying sighed. "I suppose you're right. But something's nagging me."

"Spill."

She sets her cup down on the table in front of her. "Like I know I'm not supposed to know what Hyunjin got me, but I have the biggest feeling that it's a ring."

"Like an engagement ring?"

"That or a promise ring."

Silence once again. Ying rolled her eyes and set the phone down on her lap, knowing what will happen in;

Three

Two

One.

"OMG OMG OMG WAIT ARE YOU SURE? LIKE SURE SURE? BECAUSE IF SO THEN YESSSSS! YOU GUYS ARE THE POWER COUPLE OF THE CENTURY! IMAGINE IF YOU GUYS GET ENGAGED BEFORE THIS DECADE ENDS?!" Flora fangirls even more and Ying giggles.

"Okay okay okay I know! But I just don't wanna bring it up until Hyunjin is ready."

"I understand, but please Ying get him something else than a plushie." Flora and Ying laugh.

"I'll see."

___________

Opting to give the soft bear plushie to one of the boys meant that Ying had to buy another present for Hyunjin, and maybe throw in a scarf for Jeongin. Back at the shopping district, she had bumped into Flora, who was cringing at buying cat toys.

"Just be happy for once about the cats."

"I can't Ying, I just don't like them, they are not as fluffy as dogs are." Ying couldn't agree more.

Ying ruffled her hair as Flora looked at the array of shoes, her mind deciding on getting black FILAS, one for her and one for Minho. How cute. Ying sighed and looked at the shoes, thinking of buying matching outfits.

"Oh, I got it! Minho said that Hyunjin loves to read so you can get some books for him. I mean I think I remember someone mentioned that Hyunjin wanted to read a book with you on your dates and pick up on a new chapter on each date or something like that?"

Ying thought about it. "That is not a bad idea, let's go to the bookstore."

Fantasy, Romance, Comics, the bookstore had it all.

But Ying couldn't choose.

After two hours plus a bubble tea break, she opted for three books.

A comic book, a fantasy with some romance, and a thriller. She also added in a new bookbag and another plushie.

"Our little reading bear." she would explain to Flora, who had piles of books stacked in her arms.

Everything was finally settling down, and Ying could breathe a little easier.

_____________

December 24th, Christmas Eve.

As the boys couldn't wait any longer, they all met at Woojin's house to do gift exchanges. To make it more interesting, they added a bottle to spin. Whoever it lands on, the person has to pick another person and guess which present was theirs.

Chan poured some wine as Jisung got the present wrong twice. Minho laughed and teased the squirrel boy as he thought they were "soulmates and could tell which one was his."

In the end, Minho tackled Jisung which resulted in spilled wine and laughter.

Christmas music was playing in the background, lulling everyone slowly into slumber. Ying leaned her head on Hyunjin's shoulder, who had spun the bottle to land surprisingly on Ying. She looked around, she got her presents from mostly everyone except for Hyunjin and Minho. Although she was curious about what Minho got her, Hyunjin's purple bag stood out the most. She took a breath and pointed at Hyunjin, to which he smiled but didn't give her the present.

"I advise you to open Minho's first." was what she said.

Disappointed, Ying mustered a smile and opened up Minho's, her eyes growing wide. In the box was a charm bracelet with not one, but nine charms. She pulled it out of the box and smiled.

"This is beautiful." She beamed.

Woojin cleared his throat. "If it's okay, we would like to tell you why we got you those charms." Ying nodded and Woojin spoke again.

"A bear. For you always being so snuggly and your hugs relaxing me and the members."

"The music note. That your love for music has made others feel inspired and to always follow our dreams." Chan smiled.

"The chopsticks. You make bomb ass food and thank god for that because I can't cook to save my life." Minho laughed and everyone joined in.

Changbin spoke; "A puzzle piece. For you always know how to solve problems and are the missing piece to each and every one of us."

Hyunjin stayed silent, nodding at Jisung to go ahead. "A sailboat. That you always want to explore new things which are always a good thing.

"A video game controller. Because you are the best gamer I have ever played with. No cap, just tea." Felix dabs and she tries so hard not to cringe.

"Excuse me?! So you're saying I'm not good at games?" Minho looks at Felix offended.

"Minho, the only game I play with you is Mario Kart. I'm tired of it." Minho crosses his arms and smirks.

"Maybe that's because you suck at it and I always win. Practice gamer boy."

The boys all yell and erupt in laughter, Felix now glaring at a smug-looking Minho.

Seungmin tries to calm everyone down as it is now his turn to speak. "As I was going to say before I was rudely interrupted," Seungmin looks at Minho who only shrugs. "I chose a book. Not only because you're smart, but also because I can read you like an open book, not to say it's bad or anything! But that means that you're honest and open to everyone."

Flora clasps Ying's hand to put on the bracelet Ying had been trying to put on for the last 5 minutes. "Because Mr. Hwang Hyunjin can't help his girlfriend, I'll be taking his place as her boyfriend. Hyunjin, have Minho."

More laughter erupted and both Hyunjin and Minho gaped at Flora and then cringed at each other.

"I'm kidding. I'll be serious, I chose a heart charm because you have a kind heart and is willing to help anyone in need. You are also full of love and so happy and cheery! You're the light of everyone's life."

Finally, Jeongin points at the last charm, showing his bright smile. "The sun. Because of your bright personality and glowy aura that draws everyone in."

Everyone smiles at Ying who studies the charm, thanking all of them.

"But why is there a space between Changbin's and Jisung's?"

"Because I have yet to add mine in." Hyunjin faces Ying and clasps both of her hands. She feels his hands tremble a little and the thought scares her.

"Ying, for the past 8 months you have shown me nothing but kindness and love. You really are the light of my life, helping me up when I get down. Not to mention the food you cook is amazing. There are so many wonderful things to say about you but I think a few things will explain it."

Hyunjin rummages through the purple bag and opens a blue box. In it, is a red rose charm, with gold accents decorating the outside. Ying gasps and puts a hand on her mouth, Hyunjin clipping the charm onto the bracelet.

"The rose symbolizes love and passion, and that is what I have for you Ying."

Hyunjin stands and Ying does the same out of instinct. He gets down on one knee and pulls out a purple velvet box. Inside, is a beautiful diamond ring, with a twisted gold band.

"Our fates have intertwined Ying, and I don't think I would ever go back in time to change anything. You are the love of my life and I never want to lose you. Will you be with me forever and marry me?"

Flora clings onto Minho, trying not to scream. A tear falls down Ying's eye and she nods.

"Yes yes." She hugs Hyunjin and the two share a kiss that sends fireworks shooting. Her heart is buzzing and her cheeks are flushed, but she wouldn't change this day for the world. Hyunjin places the ring on her finger, cool to the touch, and he kisses her again with more passion.

"Lookie here!" Chan coos and tippy toes to place the mistletoe on top of the newly engaged couple. Ying laughs and doesn't hesitate to kiss Hyunjin once more, feeling warm from the touch.

What a Christmas.

[doglover502]

Reputation

WARNING: The following post is super lengthy. Probably the most lengthy post I’ll ever make.

Decided to release what Reputation would look like if it was a fanfic.

Will contain many unfinished dialogues, finished chapters, and links to pictures. Figured I’d give you all as much of the scope as possible to see how with this whole idea I’ve been thinking.

Enjoy this fragmented half outline/half fanfic piece of work I’ve got!

Intro: For the most part, the same as the original, even if it is now strangely somber toned than the rest of the fic.

Chapter 2: Also stays the same, except the ending is with Fanny being called away on Teen Leader business instead of prepping for a pep rally.

Chapter 3: Fanny and Paddy getting into a fight, over an escaping operative. Most of it would take place in the sky with them spouting insults at each other. This would also reveal that Paddy is Head of the Decommissioning Squad, following in Fanny’s footsteps. The operative escapes from both of them, but Fanny does capture Sonya and Lee from Sector W who were in the area. They would continue their fight at dinner, introducing the rest of their family, with the dysfunctional dynamics between them (mainly Mr Boss not helping at all with their fighting and their mom being more or less oblivious to the fact that they’re fighting at all).

Mom: “Isn’t it lovely to see the 2 of them playing together?”

Maybe, maybe not a sweet moment between Fanny and Shaunie, whom she clearly favors over Paddy for him not being an operative, showing despite Fanny’ abrasive, demanding egotistical attitude, she does still have a heart down there… somewhere.

Chapter 4: Next day. Talk between Fanny and Rachel, maybe pep rally thing still happens. Instead of operatives disappearing though, now a giant KND fight, then teens disappeared. Revealed from the same kids Fanny captured in the previous chapter. Traced back to Patton who had a hand in their escape, gets beat pretty dang hard by a group of bullies that were tipped off by a blonde girl (under the passive-aggressive claim of it being her job) and as a final touch given a swirly. Fanny tries to leave, since she knows he deserved it, at least in the Teen Ninja’s view, but hearing him hurt makes her get pretty uncomfortable, until she decides to help him (The Teen Leader’s job is to look after every teen, even the friendly-to-kid ones), before leaving soaked in toilet water. 

Chapter 5: Investigation, starting with immediate Paddy interrogation. He says nothing, even though she is not convinced. She then started to formulate a plan, or a blueprint, thought the plan isn’t outright stated yet (honestly it’s something big that’s really only done for petty revenge, because that’s how The Fan rolls with things like that). Paddy then says over one of those fork walkie-talkies (they’re in the show, I just don’t know what they’re called) to bring the teenagers back in the morning before anyone gets too suspicious.

Chapter 6: The next day, the missing Ninjas return, but act very different. They keep cancelling their missions, and don’t attack kids. Fanny gets very concerned, but still can’t get any info out of any operative. This is the turning point where she turns to Patton, remembering how he’s friends with operatives. She brings up how she saved him from that swirly (though he would have survived anyway), and states how this means that he owes her something. She more or less tricks him into working for her.

Chapter 7:  Next day, it’s revealed that Patton took their conversation in the last chapter as them becoming friends, and kind of sort of told everyone in the school. Him, still being considered a dork, means that Fanny’s been getting a lot of crud for it by everyone in the school. She immediately goes over to him to set it straight that any relationship they have is strictly business (read: he does stuff for her).  Then she more or less starts Patton off with a series of tests throughout a week, with the first task for him to get rid of his old smell, which he does (later it’ll play a part). 

Fanny: “This is just to see how much you’re willing to do for me.”

Most of them are humiliating; making him wear ridiculous suits, purposefully provoking a bunch of people, Wally included, and being forced to admit some of his most shameful secrets (the bedwetting included, which comes back later). Overall, stuff that Fanny finds funny, but also paints her as a bit of a jerk (which she is. She gets better later).

 Throughout the week and these tests, Fanny talks with Wally of a possible plan to find out what’s going on with their Ninjas. Fanny comes up with a plan to try and kill 2 birds with one stone; ask a favor from her father to attack near an important treehouse sector while she goes out and invites Patton to spend a day with Ninjas, try and get him to act more like a teenager, and prompts him to show up in the morning so they can prepare some things so he doesn’t make a complete fool of himself.

“I thought you said our relationship is strictly business.”

“This is for business. I’m a busy girl, maybe sometime I need you to talk to someone I can’t be bothered with. Do you really think someone’s gonna talk to someone who has unicorn vomit in their hair”, she asked pointing to his rainbow dyed hair. Before continuing, she stopped before asking, “Wait a minute, I don’t remember telling you to get a rainbow hair dye.”

“You didn’t”, Patton explained. “I got it myself when you asked me to get all that hair detangler.”

Fanny stared at him as she thought, That hair was a conscious decision. Oh my god this is gonna be hard.

Chapter 8: (This chapter will be broken up in paragraphs because it’s the longest chapter I have written)

Meetup the next Saturday morning…at 6 in the morning when Patton shows up at her house.

Fanny rubbed her eyes and she grumbled to herself.

‘Who the crud is deciding to bother me at this godforsaken hour’, she thought. ‘I swear if it's Paddy, I'm going to throw him so far-’

Her thoughts were interrupted when she opened the door and finally heard a familiar voice.

"Morning Fan"

Fanny looked up wide-eyed (or as wide as her still half-asleep eyes could open) to see Patton on her door. However, instead of his usual outfit, he now sported a white one-piece footie pajamas, a hood over his head resembling a polar bear. The only familiar clothing he had was his signature pink scarf.

Fanny looked at him, staring at his still rainbow-dyed hair, in a slowly forming face of annoyance.

"What the crud are you doing?!"

"Well, you said you wanted us to go out for something yesterday, so-"

I DIDN'T MEAN AT 6 IN THE MORNING", Fanny shouted at him. "Do ye have ANY idea what it'is t'have a Saturday sleep?"

Patton blinked at her in curiosity. "You have an accent?”

Fanny was slightly taken aback. "No ah-", she then coughed to clear her throat. "No I don't. Anyways, don't you know you're supposed to sleep in on a Saturday?"

Patton nodded his head, smiling. "I did sleep in. Usually I wake up at 5."

‘Of course he does.’ Fanny rolled her eyes. 

"Well, now you know", she said less annoyed. She started to turn around back towards her room. "So, you can go home and just come back lat-"

Before she could finish, Patton took her arm back towards his direction. 

"Negatory, Fan! You said you wanted us to go out today the second I woke up, so, here I am."

"And you didn't bother to change out of your pajamas before coming over?"

"Oh don't worry Fan. I remembered my scarf", Patton said holding up an end to his pink scarf for emphasis.

Fanny rolled her eyes again, before she yawned. "Well, I'm going to change out of my pajamas because I am not about to go outside-"

"The SECOND we got up Fan", Patton interrupted a second time. "Just like you asked."

Fanny looked at him in shock. "Well can I at least get some breakfast first?"

"Way ahead of you on that." With that, Patton pulled pulled out of his pocket a wrapped up rectangular object and handed it to Fanny.

Fanny took it into her hand, still in shock. She looked up to him for a long minute with a look of incredulous.

"You're going to drag me out there right now no matter how much I protest, aren't you?"

Patton nodded. "That sounds pretty affirmative."

Fanny sighed heavily before walking outside. "Well, let's just get this over with."

‘Geez, this guy is stubborn.’ 

Around this time, I thought of the idea that even after decomissioning, Patton would still use the words”affirmative” and “negatory” instead of ever saying just “yes” or “no”. More things change, more they stay the same.

The accent part of the dialogue gets explained later in the fic

She then promptly (after a bunch of morning grumbles), gives him a makeover to make him look more “cool”, just in time when her group (Wally, Bartie, and Virginia), show up only to come with another problem; that Patton’s talking attempt at being cool basically devolves into a bunch of mismatched slang gibberish. 

They’ll be given a signal from Mr Boss to attack that hasn’t come yet. They still have a few hours because it’s still early morning. Until then, they pass the time skateboarding (maybe), phone prank calls,and harassing kids to get out video arcades and give them their quarters, all of which Patton fails at. Eventually, they start daring each other to do stuff during which, Fanny ultimately (and gracefully) dares Patton not to talk anymore. A series of more humorous dares happen (including one for Patton to chug down a 128-ounce soda, this comes back later) which manages to impress everyone, right before Mr Boss gives a signal that the treehouse is now free of operatives. 

They drive off to the treehouse, joking and planning a sneak in while the sector’s distracted. Fanny notices Patton squirming in his seat, but makes nothing of it nor asks (for fear of he’ll start speaking slang again). They go inside the treehouse, which is one that is very electronic based to the point of even having wires on the ground (probably a big tech treehouse reponsible for a lot of the newest 2x4 technology). 

They sneak around, with Patton following visibly fidgeting and uncomfortable, but when trying to speak up is immediately shut down. Fanny hacks into a computer, to try and hack into the Moonbase mainframe to see what they’re up to. She finds out that her Ninja’s are slowly starting to be recommissioned and therefore, no longer wanted to fight the KND anymore. She tries to hack in further to find the weakness or reversal, but just as she’s on the cusp of it, the computer starts to short out. Actually, the whole treehouse and the electric things go out and all haywire. And the source of that can be quickly traced back to Patton for that (this would be in lieu of replacing that algebra incident).

Huge cool escape from wires and sparks and potential fire hazards with them running and maneuvering very fast. Here, Patton ends up being the fastest to the point of even Fanny trying to catch up to him, only doing so by catching onto his scarf. Leave off just in time before getting injured, if leaving treehouse in a gigantic mess. 

After, the start to head off for lunch, where Patton immediately becomes the butt of every single pee joke you could possibly imagine. At first, Fanny takes Patton off somewhere and immediately begins to berate him and how she felt like a giant idiot even thinking to bring him along, to which Patton sadly takes (tears may or may not have started to fall). In another rare moment of sympathy, or empathy, or whatever -pathy it is, (which are apparently becoming increasingly unrare), as Fanny sees him taking all of what just happened and also is happening completely silent and visibly hurt, she immediately pays Wally, Bartie, and Virginia $20 to keep that part of the mission completely mum. 

This is also the turning point in the fic where Fanny gives Patton his nickname Whizzer (though she claims it’s because he ran super fast, though really it’s for both things that happened).

This is the point where the chapters stop being numbered

Probably a few chapters with them bonding even more as well as setting Fanny’s plans into motion. Couple of reveals in each chapter. More for more character traits as the plot moves along.

A reveal that Patton actually does have one teen interest; a love of rock music, albeit slightly older rock music. Turning point when Fanny starts to give him a chance, feeling he isn’t completely hopeless.

Reveal of Fanny’s plan, to more of less stupify all kids up until they turn 13, so they can then train to be Teen Ninjas without any decommissioning or interference. Plans kept in a vault kept inside her Ninja Leader headquarters

Reveal of The Steve, now in college, whom Fanny sees to approve of plan (really just to brag at how great of a successor she is), and how he is Patton’s step-brother (to both of their humiliations).

Show some of Patton’s other abilities aside from running fast. He’s rather strong (this would be something shown early on as some jokes in that he doesn’t know how to control his strength), fit into very small spaces, and hold his breath underwater for a long time. Fanny would probably ask him to be a Ninja, but he’d refuse.

Over the course of this, more Teen Ninja get recomm’d and Fanny starts to lose more control. 

Also a reveal of a Teen version of a Code Module hidden in a vault Fanny has with a special key. 

Even more snooping by the blonde girl in chapter 4, who knows Fanny is hiding something but just not sure of what.

Chapter ?: One with Sonya with Patton inviting Fanny to one of their tea parties. Nothing too big, more of a funny chapter that almost gives away Fanny’s plan to Sonya. Basically them fighting literally under Patton’s nose without him noticing a thing. Would also reveal they’ve been close since Patton was a teen and that Sonya was the one who made him his pink scarf. Also some implication on a friendship with The Tommy being responsible for how he is. The end of the chapter would imply that Sonya does feel upset that this is how Patton has become after decommissioning from respected to almost resented. But it does. A lot.

Chapter ?: The chapter was based off an idea from my friend UniversesCollideInc.

Patton inviting Fanny to a friend of his’s party as a “plus one; which takes place at a Chuck E Cheese like kiddy restaurant and she’s the only teenager who got invited. Of course, there’s friction and a fight in maybe the ball pit or arcade between all of the kids and Fan. Or laser tag, with real lasers. Patton, of course, still doesn’t notice, r just thinks it’s all in good fun. Eventually, a game of truth or dare strikes up and one of the kids asks Fanny a truth question on what was her early teen years like or something to which she lies (Paddy, being invited, knowing her well enough to know she’s lying) about how they were amazing. However later she’d go off somewhere secluded (I had this idea that near Patton’s house there’s like this place like this old abandoned playground with a bunch of trees that he would just go to sometime. It was a place no one else really seemed to know about, no kid or teenager. He mainly brings Fanny there just so there could be somewhere she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing her with him) and cried about it. Patton found her, after noticing her van, and that’s when he learns her middle school teen years were just as lonely and miserable as his.

Fanny: How did you find me?

(Patton opens his mouth to answer but then looks confused.)

Patton: Actually I have no idea.

Fanny: I’d laugh if I weren’t so miserable.

Then cue some bonding over how much middle school sucks when you’re not just like everyone else. 

Would reveal some behind Fanny such as her hiding her accent. After this, she starts talking more like herself, at least around Patton.

Also reveal that the blonde girl is actually an older Numbuh 12, as Fanny still remembers parts of the SLUMBER incident, just the non-KND parts. She still remembers the betrayal, but not without any context.

Then Fanny (while thinking ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this.’) says “You know; I think you’re a pretty brave guy, Whizzer.” And when he’s (naturally) confused, continues “You do what you like no matter other people say. I wish I could do that.”

This would probably be around the point where Patton invites Fanny to a sleepover, which she accepts.

Chapter ?: The next night, the sleepover. Probably when Fanny also meets Patton’s mother, and realizes she’s also a big part of his childish behavior. Then followed by this picture and dialogue (tying in part of the tests thing in chapter 7 and Fanny feeling like a giant jerk over it, as she should), which would also be the start of Fanny admitting (at least to between them) that her and Patton are friends. 

Idea that except instead of Fanny finding out about his partial memories from Patton’s sleep talking, she finds out them from a dream journal he’s got that’s mentioned earlier (because that sounds like something he would definitely have). 

(Idea that requested from @minderrific)

At first she just didn’t care, and shrugged it off. She herself doesn’t have a diary of anything like that “(With my nosy brother? Too risky!”). Later on, when she sees him distraught after waking up to get new sheets, she does find it and starts reading some passages. She doesn’t fully understand it, but she knows something is up.

The rest is still the same after with her comforting him, and asking to continue the nickname, and admitting they’re friends.

Chapter ?: The 2 breakfast pics. Older Numbuh 12 threatens to expose Fanny with a lie that she’s working with him to be on the KND side and betray the Ninjas. Fanny tries to break things off with Patton, but finds herself unable too, and is left with a decision, although she is able to at least stall it for a while. She does meet up with Patton again 

Chapter ?: While Fanny is out, Paddy tries to break into that vault to get that Teen Code Module (needs a name), and tries to find the key by planting a bug on Fanny to follow her. That’s when the he learns Fanny’s been secretly hanging out with Patton, as she’s trying to teach him how to stand up for himself.

Chapter ?: That big punch where Patton knocked Wally out. Older Numbuh 12 decides to utilize it as further proof that Fanny’s getting him against teenagers even more, to the point of physically hurting them, and Fanny is forced to break it off, and makes up excuses to why she can’t talk to Patton. Sonya, with new knowledge Fanny’s behind it, decides to talk to her.

Chapter ?: Fanny still ignoring Patton before ambushed by Paddy, Sonya, and Lee. Giant talk, leading Fanny to ultimately say they aren’t friends, she was just using him to try and get information. Patton overhears, and immediately gets upset at her. Though not sad upset, angry upset. Typical friendship breakup scene (yeah I know, clichéd).

Chapter ?: around a week later, Fanny and Patton still aren’t talking, although she does notice since then his old smell from before he met her has come back (it still plays a part). A successful KND ambush commences as more recomm’d teens have fought off, leaving what Fanny more starts to realize are just a mere few left (she’s been very distracted lately). This is when that bet between her and 12 is finally placed to whom gets the Moon base Code Module also gets the Leader position. Also time with Wally and Patton apologizing, and gain “a weird fighty respect” (directly quoted from @socksandbuttons) and later on where Wally kind of helps him to realize (unintentionally) that Patton really can’t stay mad at her forever, and Fanny realizes she can’t either. Wally and Patton fight again, also with comments on Patton’s hands are bloodied and bruised from their fights and his mom would have a conniption (this plays into a small bit in the ending), and Patton gets word through Wally about the bet about to happen.

Chapter ?: The bet begins Fanny attacks the Moonbase, and Older Numbuh 12 soon follows behind. Giant race across operatives, traps, and doors to the Module. Sonya and Lee take Patton to the Moonbase to help her to be safe. He manages to catch up to nearly catch up before older Numbuh 12 uses him to get herself closer to the Code Module. Fanny notices he’s there from his old smell returning (told y’all it played a part), and she finds out Patton has been really hurt and Fanny having to team up with her brother, Sonya, Lee, and The Tommy to save him, even if she has to give the Teen Leader position up. 

An idea I had was the Code Module being kept behind a giant PB&J sandwich wall, instead now Patton is the one allergic to peanuts instead of Fanny like in chapter 5. If that happened, that would also be something that would be mentioned earlier (probably with Fan trying to bake him something like peanut butter cookies and finding out the hard way) 

They make it to her Headquarters where she keeps some medicine stuff and her and them save Patton. Though now she thinks that her popular Teen Leader days are over. Except Patton managed to snatch the Code Module away right before then, technically meaning HE’S the Teen Leader, and would get all the unconditional popularity and not worry about being picked on just for being friendly to children. And his first act…give the title back to Fanny. Therefore being his last act, and having the shortest Teen Leader term. And Fanny’s first act back in office….give the Code Module back to her brother Paddy, so HE can look like a KND hero (she gets annoyed by him a lot, but she does love him).  She also gives him a small gift that she just labels as the key. Fanny regains her Leader position and ultimately discharges 12 from being a Ninja altogether. Paddy at the Moonbase is hailed as a hero, when he opens up and finds the key to the vault; the same Rainbow Monkey necklace that he gave Fanny right before her decommissioning in the now strangely weird-toned from the rest of the fic intro (she still kept it even if she pretended she didn’t).  But, it’s also revealed during her bet she stole a copy of the device hat turned teens back to their side and it’ll probably turned those teens right back to “normal” (she still has Teens to watch, and she can’t go completely soft).

Epilogue: Ends in winter, a day or 2 before winter break. Cuts to Fanny’s bragging about that story to everybody like she did in Chapter 2. And it shows a much more friendly fight with her brother. Still rough, but more light-hearted and in good stride instead of downright hatred. Afterwards she walks off to school with Patton, who’s got a new scarf, a different looking one, (an orange one, in plaid) as a birthday gift, which happened a month after the Module incident. He’d be dressed in a mix of his usual clothes and the ones from the little makeover Fanny gave him (and cool sunglasses, but not as cool as Fan’s). Meanwhile, Fanny is now wearing that hoodie Patton had made her in the the sleepover chapter. It’s revealed in their passing dialogue that Patton is respected more (at the very least everyone gets his name right) and has become something of an honorary Teen Ninja; not a complete one, because he still refuses to fight his friends, but has a position like a children ambassador (more or less organizing the KND/Ninja attacks on each other to make the kid/teen feud just a little less completely hatred filled). Also talk of Numbuh 12 planning a rebellion, maybe for a sequel hook. And then Fanny gives him her gift; a pair of pink gloves for his hands. Some nice happy cozy ending and all that stuff.

And that’s Reputation! :)

It never became a real fanfic, sadly, but it definitely was a fully developed idea. Or at the very least, a developed one :)

Maybe someday I’ll write it like a real fanfic, maybe not. For now though, I think I’ll stick to making more pictures of the story line with bits of dialogue.

If someone wants to take a whack at writing this, or collabing with me to write this, go ahead, I’d love to see it. Just please credit me for the idea if you don’t collab it with me.

Special thanks for the help from @minderrific, @socksandbuttons, and UniversesCollideInc.

I know the plot’s cluttered, the characters are portrayed very differently than they’re usually written (that was intentional, I wanted to play around with just how different an operative could end up when the decommissioning’s over), and it overall needs some work, but I still like it and despite not truly writing it, this is still my baby and I’m proud of what I made it into. 

[maxmollon]

(via Who the Fuck is Jacques Ranciere? | Critical-Theory.com)

WHO THE FUCK IS JACQUES RANCIERE?

A French critical theorist and philosophical troll in a world of ivory tower intellectualism, bourgeois academics, and Jean Baudrillard, Ranciere stands out as a kind of anti-philosopher. A University of Paris professor and former student of Louis Althusser, Ranciere has committed his intellectual project to destroying its foundations.

While that may sound a lot like Baudrillard, who wants to remind everyone that everything is simulation and nothing matters, or Nietzsche who attacks the foundations of Western metaphysics, Ranciere takes a different approach. Namely, by accusing every other philosopher of being a shitty Platonist and hating democracy.

While other philosophers deconstruct the metaphysical tradition and replace it with their own project, Ranciere’s philosophy can be summed up by “meh, people will figure it out.” And thus we present: the thought of Jacques Ranciere.

#1 “Fuck the Police” is Pretty Much his Definition of Politics

This counts.

In his “Ten Theses on Politics”, Ranciere makes a simple claim. There are two kinds of politics in the status quo, fake poser bullshit masquerading as politics and the real thing. Ranciere calls the poser politics the “politics of the police”. Ranciere calls “real” politics “dissensus.”

What the Fuck is Dissensus?

Dissensus is the process by which actors disrupt the politics of the police.

You see, the police are all about telling you what to do and where to do it. Remember that time that cop got all up in your grill for skateboarding in front of 7-11? Or, if you’re a person of color, remember that time a cop arrested you and planted drugs on you for skateboarding in front of 7-11? That’s the police order; the partitions that the police put in place for what can be seen, said and done, and where they can be done. When that cop drove away and you kept skateboarding, you totally disrupted the police partitioning of  that space (sort of).

The police says that there is nothing to see on a road, that there is nothing to do but move along. It asserts that the space of circulating is nothing other than the space of circulation. Politics, in contrast, consists in transforming this space of ‘moving-along’ into a space for the appearance of a subject: i.e., the people, the workers, the citizens: It consists in refiguring the space, of what there is to do there, what is to be seen or named therein. It is the established litigation of the perceptible. – Ten Theses on Politics

We can see how these police partitions work in the events of Occupy Wall Street.

You see, some bankers made this park on stolen native land for them to eat lunch in while they rested from robbing the world of millions of dollars with complicated derivatives and other bullshit nobody understands. When some hipsters decided they wanted to camp out on Wall Street, the police were like “GTFO bro”. And when those hipsters started camping out in Zuccoti Park and ruining those bankers lunches, the police calmly reminded the protesters that the park belonged to white people in suits.  The police reminded the protesters that if they want to take part in this “politics” business they need to vote like everyone else, or at least have some sort of “concrete demands”.  But they didn’t, so then they started pepper spraying kids.

That’s what the police order does, it tells you to take part in the fake politics – casting a ballot, going to a town hall – and tries to divest energy from what Ranciere calls real politics. After all, the Egyptian revolution didn’t start because people started sending nicely worded petitions to the government. It started when people manifested themselves in the public spaces that were once apolitical.

#2 He Doesn’t Get Along with his Colleagues

Ranciere got his first exposure by contributing to Reading Capital with his teacher Louis Althusser.

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https://www.wikiwand.com/fr/Lire_le_Capital Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In contrast to the Hegelian dialectic, which emphasized the idealist observation that human experience is dependent on the mind's perceptions, Marxist dialectics emphasizes the importance of real world conditions, in terms of class, labor, and socioeconomic interactions. - Historical materialism, also known as the materialist conception of history, is a methodology used by some communist and Marxist historiographers that focuses on human societies and their development through history, arguing that history is the result of material conditions rather than ideas. This was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) as the "materialist conception of history." I

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It may be surprising that a few years later Ranciere put out Althusser’s Lesson which might have well been a raging “fuck off” to his teacher and mentor. The quarrel started over the events of May ’68. While Althusser and other Marxists were asserting the importance of Marxist academia in the French student revolts, Ranciere began to break away from this traditional mode of thought. Marxist intellectuals accused the revolts of being bourgeois and undisciplined. To which Ranciere accused Marxists of being a bunch of little shits:

The underlying idea, to focus solely on the theoretical level, is not only that Marxism is learned exclusively through books, but also that it is learned only from the classics. It is that every development is a betrayal, that every application of Marxism is a deviation into pragmatism, ideology, and political manipulation. We can see quite clearly from the phrase, ‘to focus solely on the theoretical level’, that what was at stake on the practical level was the rejection of the ‘developments’ that Khrushchev, with his successors and emulators, had introduced to ‘classical’ Marxism. This was the time, for example, when it was common to teach that peaceful coexistence was the supreme form of class struggle . . . The purism of theory could not but have political effects. And that was really all that mattered: we could say everything, provided nothing that we said had practical effects. – Althusser’s Lesson

But that was just the start. Ranciere’s project became more and more defined as time went on. From a criticism of Althusser and orthodox Marxism, Ranciere’s message soon became “Philosophy – it’s a big bag of dicks.” Writing Hatred of Democracy, Ranciere attacks the Platonic tradition and ties it to practically every Marxist philosopher. He argues that everyone in the Western tradition, from Plato to Marx, wants to become a philosopher king to shovel Truth into the mouths of the blind ignorant masses. Ranciere carries this line of thought to his other books such as “Disagreement” where  he accuses every theorists of democracy of being a Platonic saboteur.

One of his most famous feuds is with fellow Althusser alumn Alain Badiou for his self-professed Platonism.

Badiou, whose goal is to revive an “egalitarian Platonism,” penned an essay about Ranciere titled “The Lessons of Jacques Ranciere: Knowledge and Power After the Storm,” whereby Badiou acknowledges that the shittiest thing he could ever to do Ranciere is agree with him:

“To speak only well of Jacques Ranciere is not an easy task, given the positions that the two of us occupy. Perhaps my constant praise might, in fact, be the worst fate that I could have in store for him. Would doing so be precisely the most underhanded way to attack him? If, for example, I were to announce that we are in agreement on a number of important points, how would he take that? Would he rather just as soon change his mind on all those points and leave me behind?” – Jacques Ranciere: History, Politics, Aesthetics

And then there’s Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard, who started his career by telling everybody to “Forget Foucault” is an academic troll par excellence. The theorists of simulation has taken Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle and turned it into a nihilistic portrait of doom and despair. But Ranciere ain’t got time for that. Writing in “The Misadventures of Critical Thought” he says “theorists of simulation” (a not-so-subtle reference to Baudrillard)  are at the heart of simulation itself.

The Marxism of the denunciation of the mythologies of the commodity, the fallacies of consumer’s society and the empire of the spectacle. Forty years ago, it was supposed to unmask the machineries of domination, in order to provide the anti-capitalist fighters with new weapons. It has turned to exactly the contrary: a form of nihilist knowledge of the reign of the commodity and the spectacle, of the equivalence of anything with anything and of anything with its image

…The current disconnection between the critical procedures and any perspective of emancipation only reveals the disjunction at the heart of the critical paradigm. It may make fun of its illusions but it remains enclosed in its logic. This is why I think it is necessary to re-examine the genealogy of the concepts and procedures of that logic and the way in which it got intertwined with the logic of social emancipation.

– The Misadventures of Critical Thought

#3 He Thinks Your Professor is Worthless

It might seem ironic for a teacher to conclude “fuck smart people.” But in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Ranciere makes that very claim. You see, Ranciere has been hating on philosophers from the very beginning. From his very start in Althusser’s Lesson, to Hatred of Democracy, to The Philosopher and his Poor, Ranciere is constantly accusing philosophers of proposing a capital T truth to reign down in a golden shower of truth onto ignorant masses. That makes a really compelling case for why I shouldn’t be reading Ranciere at all, and maybe just fucking up the police on my own terms.

But in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Ranciere takes teachers to task. You see, teachers are trying to make you stupid. Really stupid. Like you would be better off thinking about shit really hard instead of taking a class on something. Why does he say that?

There was this dude named Jacotot, and he was awesome. He was a French guy who went to teach in Belgium after the French Revolution. He was teaching French, but his students only spoke Flemish. He, by the way, did not speak Flemish. So doing what any responsible teacher would do, Jacotot gave them a recent version of this book Telamaque that had the French on one side of the page and the Flemish on the other side and said “figure it out.”

And they did.

Ranciere advocates this form of  “universal education” and says the traditional teacher/student model is only meant to perpetuate societal inequality and keep students in a state of stultification. Stultification – that’s a fancy word for stupid. The implications of this philosophy are A) You don’t need a teacher like Ranciere to teach you anything and B) An illiterate parent could teach their children to read by plopping a book down and saying “figure it out.”

The crazy part? This shit works, and not just around random corners of Europe where the tradition was born.

You know how your dumb ass can barely figure out how to change the settings on your Kindle? Remember that fancy college degree you spent more than $100k on? Well fuck you, because kids in Ethiopa who don’t even know what a tablet is can not only fix your settings but remove any pesky security measures while they’re at it.

You see, someone at One Laptop Per Child had the bright idea of just dumping a bunch of Motorola Zoom tablets in an Ethiopan village full of kids. The children did not speak English, which was the language loaded on the tablet, and they had never seen a computer before. Within weeks these kids were fucking wizards with the things so much so that they actually figured out how to jailbreak them.

“We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android.”

There’s more. These other researchers decided to give this whole universal education thing a shot and gave a bunch of molecular biology textbooks to a bunch of Tamil-speaking kids in South India. The text books were in English.

Left on their own for two months, without external help or instruction, the researchers felt that surely this task would demonstrate that ‘yes, we need teachers for certain things’ (Mitra 2010). Indeed, after two months, when Mitra asked them what they understood of molecular biology, the children confirmed that they understood nothing. What gets the biggest laugh at Mitra’s numerous talks, however, is the response of one girl from the group, who explained: ‘Apart from the fact that improper replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic disease, we understood nothing else.’ – Of Slumdogs and Schoolmasters – Jacotot, Ranciere and Mitra on Self-Organized Learning

When given an exam on the material, however, the kids all failed. And by failed, they averaged 30%, which is exactly 4 points lower than I scored on my high school physics final that was administered in a language I speak.

Want to Learn More About Ranciere?

If you’d like to explore the thought of Jacques Ranciere, you can read his Ten Theses on Politics for free on Scribd. You should also check out this Ranciere blog, run by Paul Bowman and Michael O’Rourke.Paul Bowman, by the way, is really into writing about the intersections of Bruce Lee and Ranciere.

[lbat1901]

Eddsworld: UTFTF Chapter 13

The Plan - (Chapter 13) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In a conference room, the gang were seen sitting with their future selves along with Future Eduardo, Jon, and Mark. Tom couldn't help, but to eye at the power core that was in Future Eduardo's chest. "What are looking at loser?" asked Future Eduardo. "Nothing" said Tom. "Don't play stupid with me, I know you're looking at me because your eyes haven't moved. By the way, how can you possibly look at things without eyes?" asked Future Eduardo. "Let's not go there, pal" said Tom. "Hmph....we're not pals. We've only met like a good five minutes ago" said Future Eduardo. "Oh, you're certainly Eduardo's future self alright. You may have changed in terms of appearance, but personality wise not that much" said Tom. "Are you trying to insult me?" asked Future Eduardo. "No, I'm not" said Tom. "Oh for pete's sake! Why don't you just shut it already? I can't hear myself think" said Eduardo. "So....future me, how's life been treating you after we last saw each other?" asked Edd. "Life didn't get any better once Tom and Matt, well Future Tom and Matt, took me to the Red Army base. They didn't even bother on putting me into a cell, they had a whole bunch of soldiers to do the job. It was a pretty scene at all" said Future Edd. "I am sorry to hear that honestly" said Edd. "Don't be. I was so dumb enough to believe that Future Tord banned cola even though he had to take over Londom just so that Lord Death wouldn't have a saying. I didn't even know the truth till I was told about. For over a decade, I had my heart and mind set on reversing the now worldwide cola ban and it turned out that everything that I knew was just a resistance and yet, I resisted it" said Future Edd. "Hey, don't feel bad about. At least, you have friends again" said Edd. "That is true" said Future Edd. Edd gives off a smile which made Future Edd smile a bit till there were interrupted by the sounds of Future Eduardo and past Tom about to duke it out. "Eduardo! Stop it!" said Future Jon as he and Future Mark held back Future Eduardo. "Yeah you too, Tom" said Tord as he and Matt held back Tom. "Well he started it!" said Tom. "No I didn't!" said Future Eduardo. "That is enough!" said Future Tord as he came into the room. "You! You did this to me. You had Jon and Mark made me into this being. I am not going to let you get away with this" said Future Eduardo. Suddenly Future Eduardo takes charge at Future Tord just as he raised his hand out in front him which made Future Eduardo stop in his tracks. "What the!? I-I can't move! Why can't I move?" asked Future Eduardo. "Is it not obvious? I don't think you know, but I have full control of anything technological and I can stop anything from going roque. Since you're now part robot, I can easily stop you more then I could when you were still human" said Future Tord. "That's the most ridiculous thing that I've ever heard of. Jon and Mark, is it true that this idiot can control me?" asked Future Eduardo. "Well...uh.... apparently he can" said Future Jon. "Why you.....I HATE YOU!!! Ahh! Headache!" yelped Future Eduardo. "Listen to me very closely Eduardo, it's great to see that you're alive and well, but now's not the time to rub your attitude in people's faces. We are about to enter a war that might get us killed even if we try. So I ask for the sake of anyone here to shove your half-minded, half-arsed, selfish pride down your pride down your throat. Do I make myself clear? Do I!?" asked Future Tord. "....I- Yes, I heard you nice and clear..." said Future Eduardo. "Good. Now with that over and done with, Tom and Matt, I need a full status report about our situation" said Future Tord. "As you wish. Ever since Lord Death and his army first stepped foot upon the lower part of South America, it only took for an hour for Central America to be under control. Fast forwarding to an hour and a half, American forces couldn't do anything but get completely wiped out. The same happened to the many armies before them" said Future Matt. "Yes, yes, that I am aware of that. What about you, Tom?" asked Future Tord. "As of now, their are staying in Sri Lanka after taking control of it. I'm guessing that they need some rest after crossing the entire Pacific Ocean along with taking out islands and other countries. Honestly, I don't blame them" said Future Tom. "Great! Since we know where they are, we can go there and attack them at night. Plus I have bass that's a couple of miles away" said Future Tord. "Okay.....what's the point in all of this?" asked Jon. "Heh, you'll see" said Future Tord. [Two Hours Later] From the skies and to the ground landed Edd who was wearing his superhero attire. "Attention natives of the world, there's no need to fear since you have the one and only PowerEdd and my trusting sidekick, Numero Uno" said Edd. A few seconds later, Eduardo, who was wearing his superhero attire as well, landed right next to Edd. "....Since when were we teammates?" asked Eduardo. "Wheee! Look at me, I'm flying and this costume makes me look good" said Matt. "You may look good, but my costume is lame, but hey I can finally look down on all you people" said Tom. "Looking festive Tom" said Tord. "Like you're the- why do you have to get the cool costume?" asked Tom. "I didn't get it, I made it myself especially the visor. Besides I have to make it go with the robotic arm" said Tord. "Oh....whatever" said Tom. "Are you sure that giving them superpowers through nuclear radiation was a good idea?" asked Future Mark. "Yes, it was. We need some idiots with dangerous inhuman powers in our life" said Future Tord. "Yeah especially when one of them has a teddy bear as a logo and the other has a rainbow colored cape. Like how can you be so certain that world's going to be saved?" asked Future Tom. "What?" asked Future Tord. Future Tord looks up to see Jon in his costume that had a teddy bear on it. "Why is your logo a teddy bear with a J on your costume?" asked Eduardo. "I thought it would give me a sense of justice" said Jon. "He's right you know. You really shouldn't be judging" said Mark. "....Ah....I can't stop staring at that cape of yours, Mark...." said Eduardo. "Since their testing their powers, I must ask, where's Hellucard?" asked Future Tord. "He's wearing a bone clad suit of armor while standing next to my past self" said Future Matt. "I'm talking about our Hellucard, not the past one" said Future Tord. "Oh, he's with Zhong Wei right now and he's not going anywhere" said Future Matt. "That's great to hear. I don't want him leaving too soon with Zhong Wei just so they can stupid things just yet" said Future Tord. "By doing stupid things, I think you mean basketball and skateboarding" said Future Matt. "That's exactly what I've meant" said Future Tord.

[thenerdytomboynewb96]

Samantha Allan Park Ch. #5

Chapter #5

All week I had been trying to read the documents that were held on the flash drive, and every time I began to read anything, my computer was hacked by whoever was on the other side. I basically had to run every time I finally got everything set up and started. Tonight was the last chance I really had to view anything on that drive. I had visited all the locations I been brought to except for the university that Jay attends, and I was running out of disguises. I didn’t know anything about make-up except for how to make my skin look lighter or darker with concealers and foundation, and I had basically used all my wigs and contacts. Since tonight was my last chance, I decided to just go as me. I had a feeling some type of confrontation was coming soon anyways because of how fast this person had been hacking into whatever computer I was using. Their speed and skill made it clear that they were catching up to me, so tonight I made sure to dress appropriately for a fight.

I wore a sporty gray t-shirt underneath a black zip up jacket, denim colored jeggings, and black tennis shoes. Tonight, just like the past few nights, I carried a backpack on my back where on the inside I was sandwiching my tonfa in between a few AP textbooks, and on an outside holder on the back was holding my skateboard, which at the moment was condensed into one thin rod that could extend when a button was pressed. This way I looked like I was just an everyday college student while at the same time I was prepared to defend myself. I also made sure to wear my ring with the blade inside just to be safe. I also had a small pouch inside the bag that had the basics: phone, keys, etc.

It was about nine at night when I left my apartment. Jay was meeting up with some friends to work on a project for one of his classes and told me that he wouldn’t be home until sometime tomorrow afternoon, so I was free to leave and come back home whenever. I decided to take advantage of this and leave later in the day than usual in order to try and mix up when I was leaving to go view these documents. I even skipped school yesterday and still the hacker was ready and waiting for me, and they even stole back some of their documents. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the flash drive after tonight. Maybe I would plug it into a random computer somewhere and just give this person back their information. It was interesting, but it didn’t seem like anything illegal or anything that I would want to hold onto.

Theme: Skillet (Feel Invincible) Skillet (Resistance)

I walked out the back door of the building and made sure it closed all the way and locked. I began walking down the alley when I heard a noise, the sound of something falling. I stopped and stood still, I thought that this might happen. From what I heard, the sound came from further behind me down the opposite side of the alley. I couldn’t tell if this person was by themselves, or if there were multiple people. Luckily, there was a manhole cover a few steps away from where I was. I took a breath, let it out, and darted forward. I picked up the cover and launched it behind me. I don’t know who it was, but I heard a male voice say “Whoa!” and then saw a large dark figure duck and dodge the cover. I wasn’t able to get a good look at the guy because I was already sliding down the ladder that lead into the sewers.

At this point I was just running blind, trying to remember the paths I had gone down this same time last week and trying to avoid them since that would lead me right back to where this person was staying. Hopefully, the further I was away from their main home location, the safer I would be. Right now I was mentally thanking my coach for making us run so many laps and hills during practice, because right now all that training was really paying off.

My main problem was that I had no idea where I was. None of these tunnels seemed familiar, but hopefully that meant I was nowhere near where their base was. Suddenly, I saw some light coming in from the top right side of the wall.  I ran over and looked up through the sewer drain and saw that I must have been under a road near one of the quieter parts of town. I lifted up the drain cover and looked around. I was at a street that was surrounded by small local shops and food markets. No wonder it was so quiet, no one shopped at these places this late on a Friday night.

I went into my bag and pulled out my phone and pulled up a GPS system. I typed in the name of the first street I saw and realized I was actually pretty far away from where I had started running. I then checked the time and saw that it was now 9:20. Dang, I ran pretty far within that amount of time. I put my phone away as I was mentally bragging about how proud I was of myself. In doing so, I had lost my focus, and because of this ridiculous screw up, I hadn’t realized that I was being watched.

I heard the sound of something fly through the air, and the next thing I knew, all the street lights had been blown out. If I had been focused then I would have been prepared for what came next. I went to reach for my tonfa when I heard someone shout “wait, no!” and that fast everything went dark.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I heard some faint noises as my eyes started to open, or at least they tried to open, why couldn’t I open my eyes? As my senses started to come back, I realized that I was wearing a blindfold. I made sure to keep completely still so that whoever had hit me wouldn’t realize that I was beginning to wake back up. I tried to listen carefully to what was going on around me. “You could have been a lot gentler dude.” “She threw a manhole cover at your face! What twiggy girl has the strength to do that?! And her accuracy to! She threw it so fast and her aim was so spot on I actually thought it was gonna hit you!” “Aww you do care.” “Now is not the time for jokes you little-” “Enough! We need to figure out how we’re going to handle this.” “Yeah, since not using force sure worked well, right fearless?” “Oh, and please share how you punching her in the jaw worked out as a much better plan for us.” “Yea man, no wonder she wanted to run away.” “She ran away BEFORE she even saw us, she was never going to handle the situation peacefully!”

So far I had heard three different voices talking. It seemed that the voices were coming from behind me, so my back must have be facing my kidnappers. I felt a bit of a rocking, so I assumed I was in some kind of vehicle, probably the van I had seen in their hideout the other night.

“Well no offense, but if someone hadn’t been goofing off then she never would have heard us in the first place and we could have handled the situation better.”

Okay, now there had been a total of four different voices, so four vs. one, fantastic.

Sam gently tried to move her wrists to see what she could get her hands on. When she moved them backward, she felt something soft. It felt like she was sitting on a couch. That was a bit odd, but then again, there was nothing normal about any part of this situation. It felt like there was just rope tied around her wrists, so she gently started to lean back some, as if her limp body was just moving slightly due to the fact that she was in a moving vehicle. Once her back was against the couch, she then began pushing her finger against the trigger on the ring. It took a few minutes, but finally the blade popped up. While the four voices continued arguing, Sam slowly began cutting away at the rope that kept her wrists bound together.

“So sir fearless, what’s the plan now?” “We take her back to the lair and we’ll talk to her there. I’ll decide what to do next based on how that goes.” “That’s it?!” “And what do you suppose we do then?” “Well first I saw we challenge her! Let’s see how she likes it when we throw shit her way! Then we keep questioning her until we get some answers!” “And if that doesn’t work?” “We go back to using force, that’s what lead us to finally capturing her!” “Well technically it was my planning tha-” “Yea yea I know that your genius is why we were able to track her down, but if we let her keep running then-” “Maaaaaaybe we could have actually talked to her?” “You have no right to talk since you’re the reason she got away in the first place!” “Whoa! Chill bruh……..okay maybe it was my fault a little bit, heh.” “A LITTLE BIT!? Are you seri-”

Before Raph could finish his sentence, he froze as he saw the girl that had been behind them stand up. She was facing the back of the van while Mikey sat in a chair against the back of the couch, so the two had their backs to each other. The girl’s arms were free, and as she stood up she swung her right leg around as she turned her hips to her left and rotated her whole body around. As she swung, her right foot went up in the air. She moved so fast that Raph couldn’t do anything to stop the girl from slamming her foot right against Mikey’s face. Now Raph was more furious than ever. Deep down he had thought that maybe things would have gone better if Mikey hadn’t accidentally slipped and dropped one of his nunchucks and startled the girl, but now all he believed was that this girl was pure scum. If she was really innocent, then she wouldn’t have just kicked his baby brother in the face.

“THAT’S IT!” Raph charged towards the back of the van, but right after Sam had attacked, she immediately turned, ripped of the blindfold, and ran towards the back of the vehicle. Before Raph could get to her, she had already opened the door and swung around to the other side.

Raph quickly backed up, not knowing how to react. He so badly wanted to chase this girl down, but at the moment they were on a highway, and if he wasn’t careful then someone might see him and his brothers through the opening in the back of the van. Luckily there were no cars behind them at the moment, but to Raph’s surprise, the girl was no longer hanging onto the back of the door anymore.

Once Sam had officially gotten out of the van, she tried reaching for the ledge of the roof of the vehicle. She swung herself to the side and was able to get her hand on the ledge. She then swung hard to the right and was able to also get her leg caught on the ledge as well. She carefully pulled herself up onto the top of the truck. Sam had no idea where she was or what to do when suddenly she saw that a refrigerator truck was driving towards them in the oncoming lane. She slowly began to stand up, preparing for a quick and risky leap.

“Donnie where’d she go!?” Leo began to panic as things continued to get out of hand. “I don’t know I haven’t seen her…yet.”

As Donnie was scanning his mirrors to see where the girl was, he saw a figure move from the top of their truck onto the ladder on the back of a larger truck passing by. Donnie stopped the vehicle and sat there staring at the mirror in shock. “She jumped” he said with a dropped jaw. “SHE JUMPED!?” Raph was beyond pissed. He couldn’t wait to start fighting this girl since obviously she had some strength to her and all night she had been asking for a fight. “Dang that chick has a good foot on her, sucks I learned that the hard way though. Ow!” Raph quickly got a cold soda can from the fridge in the back of the van and handed it to his brother. Mikey took the can and smiled. “Hey thanks man!” he said as he opened the can and started to take a sip. Raph flicked his brother on the back of the head. “It’s for you to put on your cheek not to drink!” He rolled his eyes and looked up towards his other two brothers in the front seats. “So how do we get her back now?” he snarled. “Don’t worry, I’m already tracking her coordinates based on the directions that truck is able to follow. A truck that size can only follow select routes coming up, and I know a short cut that will lead us to her.” And with that, the brothers sped away in the van, mentally preparing themselves for what could possibly come next. ______________________________________________________________________________

Once the truck had lead me back to the city, I jumped off at the first red light it stopped for. I winced from the pain in my foot. I was used to foot injuries, but wow that was a hard hit! It felt like I had just run up and kicked a bowling ball. I never expected the kick to hurt my foot anywhere near as much as it did, but luckily I could still walk on it, there were just some sharp pains when certain spots hit the ground. I had experienced similar feelings during some of my soccer games and the pain now was about the same as then, so I just needed to carefully keep walking it off and then I would be okay. Once I got onto the sidewalk, I immediately got my tonfa and put them in the side holders of my backpack, making sure that this time I would be prepared for an attack. I started walking down the sidewalk and looked around at the shops and street signs. I had been here before, but it had been a long while, so overall I was in unfamiliar territory. The next thing I knew, all the street lights went out again. Really? We were going through the exact same routine as last time? I stood completely still, waiting to hear any type of sound. It was incredibly quiet for what seemed life forever. I refused to move unless I heard any suspicious sounds, since running away the first time obviously was the wrong choice based on the conversation I had heard in the van. I now regretted making that decision, but at the time I just quickly reacted to what could have been a dangerous situation. How was I supposed to know whether these guys wanted to peacefully chat or not?

After what felt like years of waiting, I heard the slightest sound of footsteps coming from behind me. I instantly pulled out my tonfa and spun around in time to block what I assumed was an arm that was aiming to hit me in the back. I pushed off and slid backwards some while trying to keep my balance. I heard footsteps quickly coming towards me, but since I didn’t know what this person looked like, I had no idea where to aim a hit. For now I decided to try and fight defensively until I could gain any type of intel on what this person looked like or how they fought, or at least that WAS the plan until I heard what sounded like a sword being unsheathed. Shit, this was bad. I heard the swish from the movement of the blade coming from the right, so I dodged to the left and began to run. I had no idea what direction I was running in and tried to use my tonfa to feel around me so that I wouldn’t run into something.

I felt a wall on my right and just continued to run straight, hoping that it would lead me somewhere safe. Lucky me I ran into a dead end in a dark alley. Now I was really scared and was afraid of what my brother would do to himself if he found out I had been killed. I tried feeling around for anything I could throw and to my surprise I found a pile of bricks. I must have been near a construction zone of some type. I ran along the wall until I was in a corner, and once I heard footsteps again I began launching the bricks in that direction. I still couldn’t see, but I could hear the sound of the swords connecting with and breaking the bricks.  Wow, this guy had to have some muscle to him, and incredible strength in durability to the blades as well if he could actually break the bricks with his swings. I reached down for another brick, but I felt nothing. I kept moving my hands around on the ground as I began to panic, this couldn’t be the end for me already. I stood back up in order to defend myself, but it was too late. As soon as I was up I was hit on my temple, and once again everything went dark. ______________________________________________________________________________

As I started to gain consciousness, I felt a huge pain in the back of my head. I was really feeling the effects of getting hit in the face twice within about an hour.

I could tell that I had been blindfolded again, but this time my hands were bound with twist ties rather than with just rope. I could feel that I no longer had my ring on either, I figured that that was going to happen. I listened for the voices that I had heard earlier that night. I heard them, but they were very faint, hopefully meaning that they were further away from me than they were the last time I woke up. My surroundings were still and I thought I heard the sound of running water, so I assumed they had taken me back to their hideout. I couldn’t tell from sound alone where exactly I was located within the gigantic room, so I wasn’t sure what I should do. This time I woke up on my side rather than sitting upright, so I tried to gently move my legs around to see if there was anything I could feel that would give any type of clue as to where my location was. I also tried reaching my arms forward, since my hands had been twist tied in the front instead of the back. I couldn’t feel anything, so I rolled over and faced the other direction and tried again. My foot kicked against a wall, and when I tried to scoot back I hit another wall, so I was probably in one of the corner spots within the large space. My foot seemed to be feeling a little better now, so that was a good sign at least.

The water now sounded like it had been coming from behind me, so I was guessing, based on what I could remember from last week, I was probably in the corner that was almost directly across the room from where I had entered when I came here alone. I listened for the four voices again and they still seemed to be coming from farther across the room. As scared as I was of being punched again (I don’t know how much more of that I could take) I knew that I had to take this chance to escape. I was able to stand up by leaning and pushing off the walls. I lifted my arms upwards in a straight position over my head when I heard a rough male voice yell “OH COME ON! AGAIN!?” followed by loud footsteps coming closer towards where I was standing.

I then quickly and swiftly yanked my arms down, pulling my elbows in towards my sides as I did so, and was able to break the twist ties. I spun around and yanked off the blindfold as I tried to face my body in the direction that I was about to run to, but once the blindfold came off I stood there in shock.

Standing in front of me was a giant, intimidating, weapon holding…turtle?