#I would actually commit various crimes just to have the opportunity to walk into a room she just left

[jurassicass]

Catherine zeta jones as morticia is the milf ever I’m frothing

[yuyuswrld]

O Captain, My Captain

Series Intro

characters: various aot boys x reader

genre: SMAU with writing, romance, smut, angst

for my marco fans, there’s a little sneak peak at him at the end :)

notes: this series will be 18+ even though this introduction does not have any smut in it. please do not interact with me if you are under 18. all characters in this series are over the age 18.

You learned that Eren Yeager was a stone wall incredibly quickly. It was a shock to you, considering how popular he was despite being unable to converse with someone he didn’t know well. You’d have steered away from him forever if it had been up to you. However, knowing your luck, you had to see him every day after all your classes were over.

It was a slip of judgment to allow yourself to be recruited as the next manager of the volleyball team. Sure, you had watched a couple of games here and there for school spirit, not to mention copious amounts of alcohol at the after-parties. But when one of your professors approached you on your way out of class, describing a great way to amp up your resume and get all-expenses-paid vacations, becoming a sports team manager was the last thing you expected.

“It’s kind of funny, actually,” Connie starts to explain after you walk into the gym, noting the tasks you'll be in charge of before you commit to the offer. “Our old manager, Hanna, got pregnant with one of my homies. Now she’s off giving birth and whatnot, so we’ve been down a manager.”

“So what does a manager typically do?” You question, shifting the conversation slightly to get to the point. The more you look at the different stereotypical characters running across the courts and the loud smacks that echoed throughout the gym, the more your desire to take the opportunity dwindles. Sure, cute boys and another achievement on your resume are great or whatever, but you really try to avoid getting committed to sports – especially after crashing and burning last time. You shudder as a chill runs down your spine at the thought before Connie starts talking again.

“Oh, um. I won't lie, I honestly have no idea what she did, either.” You stare at Connie in silence, cocking an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Uh, is there someone who does?” You ask. It's getting difficult to ignore your doubts about your decision to come here.

“Yeah, I think so. Let me go grab ‘im.” Connie jogs further down the court, interrupting someone as they finish their current spike. But as your eyes focus in on who was walking closer, you knew you we’re going to have the displeasure of meeting Eren Yeager.

Connie runs over to drag his brown-haired teammate over, who takes his sweet time walking over after sparing you only a glance. He is good looking, sure – but you aren't fooled by appearances, and you've heard far too much about him to even remotely consider him attractive from listening to Petra gossiping about him. She had a big mouth and somehow knew everything about everyone, the good and the bad, but it came in handy when it came to staying in the loop at school. Eren had a nasty habit of cursing out any girl who made an advance on him, citing his career and how a ‘bitch’ would only get in the way of it.

You think back to the memory of Petra sipping her drink, watching Eren walk out of school and head towards his Hellcat in the parking lot. You two had been sitting at the school’s cafe as you enjoyed your “study” date, which had inevitably just turned into a gossip session.

“You see that guy? That’s Eren Yeager. He’s on our volleyball team and he’s a fucking psycho.” She'd rolled her eyes as she recounted the gossip she had gotten from her friend. “Apparently Mina – y’know the one from our bio class? They hooked up at a party and afterwards he accused her of trying to sabotage his volleyball career. He even called her a psycho. That’s not even the only time he’s done it apparently. I know he’s cute, but stay away unless you want to end up on a true crime podcast.”

You brace yourself for the upcoming conversation as he nears.

“You’re going to be the new manager?” Eren says in a monotone voice, as if being forced by his mother to make small talk with a distant aunt. The displeasure of being interrupted is written all over his face.

“No – well –” You start before Eren cuts you off without hesitation.

“Usually Hanna prepares the towels, fills the bottles with water, and mops the gym after practice. Coach Levi's pretty anal about the gym being clean, so pay attention to that. You’ll want to learn about formations and strategies, too; Hanna fucking sucked when it came to game sense. You’ll work with the sports director Erwin to set up practice matches and travel plans. There’s probably more, but that’s your job, not mine.” He jogs back over to do spiking drills without another word. Your jaw slackens, scoffing at the attitude. What a little shit. Connie shrugs at you in an I’m pretty sure that’s right way. You smile at him, politely dismissing yourself before trudging your way back to your professor’s office.

“Absolutely not,” you say, dramatically sighing to emphasize the sheer disappointment you feel from the experience. “I only talked to Connie and Eren, which was already too much. You’d have better luck with a dog trainer or circus clown to manage them.” Your shoulders drop, but you prepare to defend yourself as to why.

“Please,” Professor Hange begs, their eyes beading with desperation. “I was the one who introduced the previous manager to the guy that got her pregnant. On accident, of course, but they’re totally on my tail about getting a new manager to fill the spot!” They spin around haphazardly before collapsing on their standing desk in an unconvincing sadness. “I’ll even see if they’ll pay you as if you were working a normal student job.”

You internally cringe, but are now forced to consider the prospects. Chewing on your lip, you respond. You know if you look back on this moment at any point, you’d want to go back in time and slap yourself.

“If you can make it a paid position, I’ll do it.”

Unsurprisingly, Professor Hange got their way in the end.

next: part 1, reiner x reader

[laura-apexart]

Day 28  8.4

The MAMBO museum 

Very heavy series of exhibitions by Colombian-born performance artists Rosemberg Sandoval (b.1959 Cartago) influenced by Theater of Cruelty and the social and political climate and history of Colombia–”poverty, guerrilla warfare, drug trafficking and common crime.” Video, performance, photo, sculpture–much of his work involved using his own body as a tool to enact violence on–self flagellation as a mode of expelling violent thoughts– 

The work was so incredibly visceral and upsetting/ disturbing, powerful? Sensational. Now much of  it would be illegal because in some of his performances he was working with human remains –a severed tongue to write messages of the condemned and silenced, hair of women and children who were raped and murdered, intestines of recently murdered –Hard to look at–What was so interesting to me was seeing the many school groups visiting and getting tours -aking myself–would school groups (they looked like 7-9th graders) be shown this work in the US given the current climate of hyper sensitivity, and sensorship in general  (mental health crisis among teens—there were piece’s explicitly about different ways to commit suicide)---made me curious about the training the museum educators received–wanting more of that training or engagement myself, but also the difference in cultures between Colombia and the US and the different ways we deal with violence and corruption and atrocities–ubove ground or below ground and the students seemed squeamish and a bit uncomfortable (maybe I am projecting here?) but also supported by the  context they were being given--the educators situating the work and using it as an opportunity to look honestly at one aspect of the countries history. 

Feeling exhausted and oversaturated but still went to Casa de la Moneda: History of Money Museum which opened in 2019–a  museum exploring the different historical, social and cultural uses of money throughout Colombia’s history–focusing on various perspectives–interesting to see the shift of value from natural objects–shells, shells made into beads, to agricultural–corn, to gold–metals–then made into coins made into bills —And the very large machines that helped print and produce the currency. Didn’t have the full capacity to engage with all the players involved—but this museum was attached to the Botero museum and the MAMU museum and it seems the bank of the Republic of Bogota owns the whole complex. 

Then back to the public cinema to see a video installation by the London based experimental filmmaker Ben Rivers. Post apocalyptic scenarios piecing together staged filmed footage as well as documentary footage post disasters–tornadoes and hurricanes as well as stagings of mythologies like the story of the minotaur and labyrinth which he filmed with children within labyrinth architecture (not sure where it  was filmed) and to  get to the actual installation I myself had to turn a series of corners to walk through a labyrinth like structure. The color and quality of  the footage was gorgeous–16 mm, projected  . There were many different small screening rooms with projections–one just focused on a sloth–which gave me permission to sit and rest and focus on this creature and its incredibly slow movements. 

In the evening, I went to a pole dancing class but it ended up being more of an Aerial dance class with hot pink spandex fabric like massive ribbons  suspended from the ceiling -we were taught a series of ways to wrap the fabric around our bodies or make knots so we could climb up it and flip and swing. It required a significant amount of upper body strength (which I still don’t have much of) as well as trust and letting go, physically balancing–weight/counter balance–letting the fabric suspend and hold you–and once I did lift off the ground and swing and let myself be suspended it was super exhilarating. The instructor was patient and really technically skilled and wonderful at breaking things down into steps, gentle energy. 

The pole dancing was happening in the same space and for the first 20 minutes of the class I thought we were just warming up with the suspended spandex then I thought oh this is the class, before you can go to the hard poles you work soft, then it became clear that they were two completely different art forms and I think it’s for the best that I didn’t end up with a pole because these women were so strong and masterful and in their power! So fun and inspirational to watch -also loved that every different type of body was represented.

Then out to dinner I organized with Marthin, Daniela and Alejandra, at Mesa Franca. Maybe the most incredible, creative meal, food, restaurant I’ve ever been to, all local, fresh ingredients, but also wonderful company and conversations. The sauces were next level and dessert was a cocoa mouse with a granita icy sorbet made out of the nuts shell of cocoa. Unbelievable. We joked that this meal was the equivalent of dancing salsa, all the different flavors unfolding in the mouth.

[pocketfulofrogers]

Love Me Anyways

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: What is there to say? You’re a dark and twisty assassin and Steve Rogers is definitely... not that. When you get an opportunity to run, will you take it?

Notes: Tiny bit of smut and angst with a happy ending. If you feel like you’ve seen/read this before, you may have. I’m reorganizing and this was previously part 1 of Haunted Woman, Broken Lover. When I originally wrote this, it was meant to be a one off, but sad endings don’t always feel right. I then struggled to turn it into a series, so here is HWBL reimagined with a different ending as a one shot. The series will still be a thing, but now I actually feel good about it!

They call you a ghost. It isn’t for the way you seem to slip through walls or the way you look at death as a reflection. It’s the hollowness of your eyes that earns you the nickname. Hazed over orbs coated in grey.

Clint asks you if they’ve always been that color, you tell him you can’t remember anymore.

Fury lets you run your own thing after you agree to attach yourself to the badge. He’d rather not know how exactly you get the job done, so long as you’re on their side.

You’re solo most of the time, it’s better that way.

They learn quickly how deadly you are, leaving your enemies questioning the validity of your existence and holding the same vacant stare as you. It wasn’t just physical injuries you specialized in.

The first time you met Steve Rogers was an accident. You had a rogue Armenian scientist tied up in his basement. He had been about to run when you appeared at his kitchen table, and, for a moment, you thought a heart attack might get him before you could.

You were sat before him, leaned forward with your tools on a bench beside you. A small blade aching to break skin sat hot between your fingers, but so far, your words had been enough. Steve opened the door, barreled down the steps, and stopped in his tracks. You locked eyes with him and, in a flash, you saw something hauntingly familiar within the blue.

That’s when something inside you shifted.

He took one look at the scene before him and shut it down immediately. You slipped away when he called it in and left no trace of your existence except for a long thin line gushing red from the scientist’s throat.

Steve find’s the plans for a chemical attack on his desk that night and where to find each accomplice wrapped in a pretty bow of nylon. Alive, your note assures him.

“She’s like a cat. Brings home dead things to show her affection.” Clint says one day. You promptly shove an elbow in his gut.

He learns how to spot your work past blubbering grown men and catatonic stares. Natasha tells him you hold your liquor well, Clint comments on your gambling abilities. He asks if your eyes are naturally that color, they tell him you don’t like to answer that question.

Later he asks Fury how they found you. He’s not sure how you became what you are today, but he knows this world has not treated you well, yet here you are, working to protect it regardless of what had been done to you. That’s the only reason he didn’t order Clint to take you out.

“So, she’s good?” Steve asks.

Fury pauses for a moment. “For our sake, I hope so.”

The next time you see Steve Rogers, you’re slinking through the Triskelion halls trying to stick your nose somewhere it probably doesn’t belong. He bumps into you, grabs your arm and your side to steady you. You know he can feel the scars beneath the thin material of your shirt and jump from his touch.

He shakes it off. “Tell me,” He starts. “Do you have an actual name or are you really just a ghost.”

You think for a moment. “Y/N.” He raises a brow, both your voice and an answer surprising him. “What, were you expecting a cryptic answer on the relativity of life and death or something?”

He chuckles. “Guess not.”

A moment later, he gets distracted, turns a way for a split second and then you’re gone.

“Yeah, she does that.” An agent passing by comments.

You continue on your path, leave him the gift of a solved problem on his desk sometimes. He sets up cameras and lasers, trying to catch you just once. It takes him a few months to realize the janitor drops the files and notes for him. You and Natasha laugh at his expense.

He starts to leave files in various places he knows only you could find. The worst of the worst. Men and women he thinks you’d be happy to cross off. You can’t tell if he leaves them for you, or because they’re just terrible people. Either way, the change in narrative surprises you, but you never bring it up. You’re the last person that would ever judge someone.

Natasha taunts him over it.

“It’s a modern-day love story with an assassin twist.”

“Why not that one?” “She doesn’t like Oklahoma.” “How do you know that?”

“She sent booze as thanks for your last tip. Are your cheeks seriously red right now, Rogers?”

Eventually, you concede and stop leaving him only the locations of gift-wrapped bodies with detailed lists of committed crimes. Complete with proof, of course, you weren’t lazy. You start to send him alive leads, people that can be questioned. Sometimes they’re unharmed, usually they’re mostly coherent. He’s surprised by the change in narrative, but he never brings it up. Sometimes people change, but that was none of his business.

Natasha is sure to point it out, though, consistently.

“You see him more than anyone else.” “That’s not true!” “…” “He’s here more than you, so it’s only by default.”

“Wait, you left that guy alive?” “Steve needs to question him.” “What about that one guy I needed answers from?” “You didn’t say please.”

“I’ve known you longer.” “He leaves me sex traffickers.”

When a body comes up dead that shouldn’t have, your signatures blatantly displayed, they send him to bring you in. He doesn’t believe for a second you could kill a kid, but he’s the only one who can get close enough. Fury’s only half sure you won’t kill him.

You battle with the idea of running, knowing they’ll never find you if you don’t want them to. You saw the evidence; you knew you were screwed. Fury told you from the very beginning that if he ever sensed you had turned, he’d take you out. No warning, no questions. Still, you wait patiently in your living room.

The window by the fire escape opens and Steve slides through, tip toes his way in and around the corner only to find you sitting there, an amused smirk tugging your lips.

“What calf exercises do you do? They look fantastic.”

He rolls his eyes and catches site of the artwork around him, the soft whites and greys of your walls and furniture giving spotlight to their colors. He never even considered you could have a home. You follow his gaze and shrug. Assassins can have taste too.

“The diplomat’s son, did you kill him?” He asks. You watch him silently. “Fury thinks you did.”

You walk slowly towards him, watch him curiously and tilt your head. “And if I did?” You prompt.

“I have orders to bring you in.”

You’re a breath away now, gliding your fingers along the Kevlar of his arm and trailing your way to his jaw. You trace his collar with a fingertip, watch as the pulse of his jugular quickens. You look up at him and he swallows thickly.

“And if I don’t want to?” You graze tentative fingers along the edge of his jawline. “Tell me, Captain, would you kill me?”

He hopes the eagerness in your voice is misplaced, the envy misinterpreted. Or perhaps the girl who surrounds herself with death does it with the idea that it may one day take her.

You don’t give him the opportunity to dive into that rabbit hole.

When you place your lips on his, soft and remnant of something sweet, he can only taste the brilliance of life. He wraps himself around you, slips in his tongue when you’re startled by his sudden switch. You thought you’d leave him shaken enough to slip away, disappear with the rising sun.

But now? Now you’re just as hungry for him.

He carries you, lays you across your bed. He runs the pad of his thumb along every scar left behind by a blade, places a kiss on each one from a bullet. You knot you fingers in his hair as he drags his tongue up the inside of your thigh, scream his name when he brings you higher than you’ve ever been before.

When he slides into you and stretches you deliciously so, you allow yourself to feel just this once. He catches the shift in your eyes, convinces himself his mind is playing tricks on him when the grey haze appears to fade.

He moves slow before he finds his pace. You dig fingernails into his back and trail them down hard enough to make him hiss. He nips you from shoulder to jaw, hips rocking into you, and you swear nothing has ever felt this good.

You lay there in silence, sweat coated limbs still entangled. He sighs heavily and you just know he’s about to ruin the moment.

“Stay.” You whisper. He looks down at you wrapped around him. “I’ll go with you in the morning, just stay tonight.”

He tightens his grip on your bicep and nods. “Ok.”

You’re still awake when dawn breaks, you had gotten lost in the simple rhythm of his heartbeat. A dream that one day life could be even just an imitation of normal. The thought makes you sad more than anything else.

You slip from his arms, grab a bag, and pack the essentials. Watching him sleep, he seems so peaceful, so good. You ache to wake him and stick around long enough to fix this mess. He deserves that.

Could you do it? Forget your past and pretend to be anything other than the hollow shell those before carved you into?

Ah, but this was your MO. Slip away in the dark when things took a turn either way. ‘Flight risk’ has always been written on the back of your eyelids. You weren’t quite sure why you felt you owed Steve more, but you did.

He awakes to a bright sun and a cold spot beside him. There’s a torn piece of paper where your head should’ve been. He brushes his thumb over his name and opens it. It states your innocence and exactly who he should be looking for, where to find them. At the bottom is a separate line.

‘Careful, Captain, or I just might be your future.’

Three years later.

You grab the tiny umbrella in your drink to twirl the ice around again. Undoubtedly a nervous habit you picked up in response to the very crowded beach bar you’re currently sitting at.

It was an alert you received in the middle of the night notifying you of your cleared name a year ago. You can’t be sure how whoever it was reached you, but the screenname ‘Tiny Dancer’ gave you a few ideas.

In that moment, reading those last two words you’re free, something changed. Perhaps it was months of being on the run from people who you allowed to know you well enough to track you that left you felling so drained. 

Of course, you thought about the beautiful man you left behind first, knowing that there was no one in this world who would fight harder for your freedom. You wanted to go find him, you really did, but you couldn’t deny the fact that you felt different this time. Like maybe this was your chance to start over. A chance to live a life that had been stolen from you so long ago. 

The bartender, a lovely middle aged man who strictly wore floral button ups, watches you down the rest of your drink and is quick with the refill. You try to thank him, but he waves you off.

“Anything for my favorite customer.” 

You push your bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout. “Are we not friends by now?”

He barks out a laugh and leans forward against the bar in front of you. “Friends get invited to drink with me, which you do almost everyday. Family gets invited to the cookout. Which is Sunday, by the way. Show up early and bring an appetite.” He shoots you a playful wink before pushing off to help another customer. 

You lean your head back slightly to feel the warmth of the sun and tune into the sound of the crashing waves. It’s the lightest you think you may have ever felt with the sand sticking to your bare legs and salt water in your hair.

Nothing could interrupt this perfectly blissful moment. 

Well, almost nothing.

“Sand looks good on you.” A deep voice says beside you and you smile, face still tilted towards the sun.

“Took you longer than I thought.” You turn to Steve still smiling. “How long can you stay?”

He moves his sunglasses from his eyes to the top of his head and looks around for a moment taking in the view. When he turns back to you, the smile that breaks across his face almost stops your heart.

“As long as you’ll let me.”

[innenofutari]

On Goro Akechi’s morals and forgiveness (character analysis, but also just a very rambly post)

Akechi is… a very interesting character, I have no doubt about this. Also my favorite of course, if you hadn’t figured that out yet by this giant text you’re about to read (sorry). I have a lot I want to talk about in regards to him since he is so intriguing and we actually don’t have that much info about how his thought process works so it leaves a lot of room for speculation.

In any case, in this meta in specific I’m going to be talking about Akechi’s...morality(?), forgiveness and his relationship with regret. I’m not sure if that’s the best word to define this but I’ll roll with it for now. I’ll try to be fair and talk about things as I personally see them, it’s totally fine if you don’t share my views! Now, onto the actual meta.

Starting off, as people are obviously aware, Akechi is a morally gray character, a darker shade of, but he’s a sympathetic and tragic character nonetheless. That much is undeniable, he was written to be sympathetic, even if I’d argue Atlus did a pretty poor job of it in Vanilla (he was still my favorite ever since then though lol) but he’s reached his true potential in Royal, which makes me immensely happy to see. I get so unbelievably happy whenever I see people saying Royal changed their perception of him and started to like him more! But even then, there are a lot of people who just can’t forgive him for what he did, and that’s only natural. I personally think that, if you don’t try to sympathize with Akechi and truly, truly try to understand his mind and history, you’re doing him a huge disservice. But, forgiveness is something that everyone is free to think and decide if he deserves it or not. In Akechi’s case, I feel like forgiveness is something much more personal to the player, and this shows between the Phantom Thieves too.

There is a visual novel I hold very close to my heart called Umineko no Naku Koro Ni (which I’ll be quoting relentlessly throughout this entire post) that illustrates what I think better than I could put into words, so I’ll be quoting that scene with a few tweaks for better context:

“You said you understood the culprit’s motive.”

“...Yes.”

“Is that motive… a satisfying explanation for why they’d [commit murder]?!”

“Who knows. That’s for you to decide. Even if I say it’s satisfying, that doesn’t mean it will satisfy you. …You have to decide that for yourself.”

I really like this. It reminds me a lot of Akechi’s situation. I firmly believe that this has no “objective”, “most correct” answer to, just your personal feelings, which are the most important. I, as a player, do forgive Akechi, I want him to have a happy ending, another chance at life, manage to live happily with Akira and have some fun for once. That’s what “forgiveness” means to me in this situation, but while some people may empathize with Akechi, they still can’t forgive him. They think he should stay forever in jail or die since he cannot be redeemed in any way in their eyes. Where do I wanna go with this endless blabbering you ask, and I respond, I just want to try and see Akechi’s actions through two different lenses.

Well, I personally don’t like downplaying the crimes he committed and dumbing it down to “he was being manipulated” because, even if this is not false, it is not entirely correct either. Akechi is so fun to speculate about because he’s a character who is always clashing against himself in various ways as if he was in a constant state of internal turmoil, and this is not very different.

Akechi himself made the choice to go to Shido. It is extremely unlikely that he didn’t know he was going to be using his new powers for murder. He may have been very young, but despite the fact that he was a child forced to mature prematurely, he knew exactly which type of person Shido was. When he walked into that deal he was aware of the consequences and had fully made peace with the fact that he’d be taking another person’s life. Now, I’m not saying that Shido never manipulated him because he did, but not with that particular choice. 

This alone tells plenty about Akechi’s morals. I believe that Akechi indeed has some level of empathy for other people, but I sincerely doubt he feels especially bad about the Okumura-like people he had to kill. He might feel bad for the family of the victims or just feel nauseated with himself, however, he doesn’t regret a thing. As if he had grown numb to it. ...Until a certain point, that is, but I’ll talk about that later.

I would also like to elaborate further on Akechi’s continuous conflict with himself, and this particular piece of Maruki’s confidant immediately reminded me of this:

He’s talking about Akira here, but isn’t it interesting to note that Akechi’s internalized and externalized realities are, in contrast to Akira’s, the farthest they could possibly be from each other? His sense of justice, childlike desire to be loved and seen as a hero, in contrast to the cold-blooded murderer he had become? It’s like there are two people fighting it out inside of Akechi’s brain (lol) which must cause him a lot of distress. I don’t believe that Robin Hood is a ruse or that his Detective Prince façade is entirely fake. The way I see it, they are his ideal, which he strayed so far away from he lost grasp of who he himself is.

In my opinion, Akechi has never cared about fame the slightest bit, he used all of that as an opportunity to act out the person he wished he was, just and virtuous, while still being the feral murderer and bloodstained person he is today. These are two integral parts of him that he has never known how to reconcile. It’s interesting to note that in the third semester he was the one who since the beginning advocated firmly to return to the harsh reality but he had spent the entire game living in the comforting “detective prince” dream he made for himself until the engine room scene happened. 

With the third semester context, the engine room becomes so interesting because that scene is akin to Sumire finding out she’s not Kasumi. It’s a cold bucket of water thrown straight to Akechi’s face and telling him to wake up from this lie he made to comfort himself and face reality: he is no hero. Despite the fact that he is, too, a victim, he is simultaneously a murderer who perpetuated with the cycle of his father’s aggressions and he cannot escape that fact. Worse, he was being manipulated all along and his revenge plan and arguably his only reason to live AND justification for his actions was completely crushed.

Once again, this Umineko scene illustrates what I think Akechi’s situation up until that point was like:

Akechi rationalized every awful, inexcusable thing he did as, “It’s for my revenge’s sake” and ran with it. He was incredibly blinded by his hate and ignored the weight of the consequences of his actions up until that point where everything came crashing down right in front of his eyes. There is no excuse and no justification for that.

However, Akechi was also abused himself. There is no excuse for what he did, but is getting back at the person who took everything from him so reprehensible a thought? Is wanting justice against someone who essentially ruined your life not understandable? Many people like to say “cool motive still murder” or things of the like, but I’m asking you again to put yourself in his shoes.

Yet AGAIN with a Umineko screencap:

I played this the other day and one of the first things I thought of was Akechi. A lot of people draw parallels between Akechi and Adachi, but that’s just so damn wrong and make me lose my hair so much and become completely bald because that couldn’t be farther from the truth and I’m gently asking you to reconsider. In the pic above, Adachi would fit the “homicidal maniac” mentioned to a T, and while Akechi is by absolutely no means free of guilt and much less a stellar person, his crimes were moved completely by his heart. 

For the people who use his choice to become Shido’s hitman to say Akechi does not deserve any kind of forgiveness and that he’s a murderous maniac, I ask you to at least think of what state of mind he was at that moment. Think very hard about it, imagine how completely bleak life must have looked like then, to the point that he risked everything on murder.

This is nothing more than my speculation, but I believe Akechi’s thought process at that moment was something along the lines of, “I have nothing to lose since my (current) life is completely meaningless". It was as if he had reached such a numb state he chose to forgo all his morals and humanity in pursuit of at least one thing that would give his life meaning, that being his hate for Shido, which I also think was the only emotion he ever truly understood well ever since his mom passed.

Since Akechi is all about conflicting emotions though, I would also like to remind you how vulnerable Akechi really is to any kind of affection. His “childlikeness” that Robin Hood represents was, by all accounts, still there. Akechi has a desperate need to be loved while simultaneously putting up walls and wearing masks, making it extremely difficult to have any kind of meaningful relationship. This is something that Shido thoroughly takes advantage of, too.

That’s also why one of his lines to Akira hit so much harder for me, following this reasoning. “If only we had met a few years earlier,” expresses many emotions at once. If Akechi had known something other than misery and hatred during that period of his life he would not have latched so thoroughly to that revenge plan. Akechi simply had nothing to lose, since he had nothing at all.

I mentioned earlier that Akechi doesn’t regret a thing, which I still think it’s true. Before he had met Akira, he truly did not regret a thing, but meeting Akira caused him a lot of strife because not only Akira is a person whose whole existence flaunts everything Akechi could have had if he hadn’t fallen into fate’s trap, but Akechi also experiences happiness through his connection with Akira. Hanging out and talking to him truly makes him happy, and it’s something more genuine than he’s ever known. Yet, it’s too late, because his choices were already set in stone and he had already pulled the trigger with no way to take any of the bullets back.

That’s why Akechi is so confusing, so controversial and sometimes uncomfortable to think about. There is no clear line between good or bad, he just is something in the middle. Akechi is both a person who ruined a lot of people’s lives with no regard whatsoever to the consequences but also a victim rebelling and retaliating against the person who took everything from him and made his life a living hell. That’s why it’s so hard for not only some players to form opinions about him but also downright uncomfortable for the Phantom Thieves to think about. There is no objectively best answer for what he deserves. It just doesn’t exist. Should he spend the rest of his life in jail, or dead, because his crimes were inexcusable? Or should he be given another chance at life to learn to be happy? It’s entirely subjective, and that’s why he’s so great to think or discuss about. 

Aaand that’s it, I’m grateful you read so far, hope I didn’t piss anyone off, also not gonna pretend this wasn’t very self indulgent because of the amount of times I quoted Umineko in it. Anyways, thank you!

SIDE NOTE: I didn’t write this recently, it had been sitting on my drafts for some months now and I found it again today and decided to just release it into the wild because why not? I think this was meant to be much longer than it is and to elaborate more eloquently on a lot of points I brought up (like the PT with Akechi) but alas, I lost the train of thought and so it Perished.

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek Villains Who Actually Had a Point

https://ift.tt/3t8D3MQ

This article contains spoilers for various parts of the Star Trek franchise.

Last fall, airing just a few weeks apart, both Star Trek and Star Wars debuted season premieres of new streaming TV episodes in which the heroes of each show had to fight a giant, legless worm-monster. In Star Trek: Discovery’s “That Hope Is You Part 1,” it was the deadly Tranceworm, while The Mandalorian’s “Chapter 9: The Marshall” had the murderous Krayt Dragon. The differences between the Final Frontier and the Faraway Galaxy could not have been made clearer by these dueling beasts: in Mando, the plot involved killing the monster by blowing up its guts from the inside, while in Disco, Book taught Michael Burnham how to make friends with it.

The Trek universe deals with the concept of evil a little differently than many of its famous genre competitors. There is no Lex Luthor of the Federation. Palpatine doesn’t haunt the planet Vulcan. The Klingons have no concept of “the devil.” (At least in The Original Series.) This isn’t to say Trek doesn’t have some very memorable Big Bads, it’s just that most of the time those villains tend to have some kind of sympathetic backstory. Even in the J.J. Abrams films! 

So, with that in mind, here’s a look at seven Star Trek villains who maybe weren’t all bad, and kind of, even in a twisted way, had a point…

Harry Mudd

In Star Trek: The Original Series, Harry Mudd was presented as a straight-up con-man, a dude who seemed to be okay with profiting from prostitution (in “Mudd’s Women”) and was also down with marooning the entire crew of the Enterprise on a random planet (in “I, Mudd”). He’s not a good person. Not even close. But, he does make a pretty could case against Starfleet’s lack of planning. In the Discovery episode “Choose Your Pain,” Mudd accuses Starfleet of starting the war with the Klingons, and, as a result, putting the larger population of the galaxy at risk. “I sure as hell understand why the Klingons pushed back,” Mudd tells Ash Tyler. “Starfleet arrogance. Have you ever bothered to look out of your spaceships down at the little guys below? If you had, you’d realize that there’s a lot more of us down there than there are you up here, and we’re sick and tired of getting caught in your crossfire.”

Seska

At a glance, Seska seems pretty irredeemable. She joins the idealistic Maquis but is secretly a Cardassian spy. Once in the Delta Quadrant, she tries to screw Voyager as much as possible, mostly by hooking up with the Kazon. That said, Seska is also someone caught up in hopelessly sexist, male-dominated power structures and does what she has to do to gain freedom and power. The Cardassian military isn’t exactly enlightened nor kind, so the fact that Seska was recruited into the Obsidian Order in the first place certainly explains her deceptive conditioning. You could argue that Seska could have become a better person once she had Captain Janeway as an ally, but, the truth is, she was still a spy caught behind enemy lines, but suddenly without a government to report back to. So, Seska did what she had to do to survive, even lying to Chakotay about having his child. The thing is, again, outside of Starfleet, Seska is at the mercy of the sexist machinations of the Kazon, so again, she’s kind of using all the tools at her disposal to gain freedom. Had Voyager not gone to the Delta Quadrant, and Seska’s villainy may have been more clear-cut. But, once the reason for her espionage becomes moot, her situation gets more desperate, and, on some level, more understandable. 

Charlie Evans

In The Original Series, Kirk loves telling humans with god-like powers where to shove it. In “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” he phasers Gary Mitchell and buries him under a rock. But, in “Charlie X,” when teenager Charlie Evans also gets psionic powers, Kirk does a less-than-a-great job of being a good role model. For most of the episode, Kirk tries to avoid become Charlies’ surrogate parent, and when he does try, it results in an embarrassing overly macho wrestling match featuring those famous pink tights.

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Charlie was a deeply troubled human being, and there was no justification for him harassing the crew and Janice Rand in specific. But, angry, kids like Charlie have to be helped before it gets to this point. Kirk mostly tried to dodge the adult responsibility of teaching Charlie the ropes, and only when some friendly aliens arrived, did everyone breathe a sigh of relief. But, don’t get it twisted, those aliens are basically just social workers, doing the hard work Starfleet is incapable of.

The Borg Queen

Because the origin of the Borg Queen has dubious canonical origins, all we were told in Voyager is that she was assimilated as a child, just like Seven of Nine. As Hugh and Jean-Luc discuss in the Picard episode “The Impossible Box,” basically, everyone assimilated by the Borg, is, on some level, a victim. The Queen was never presented this way in either First Contact or Voyager, but, at one point, writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens had pitched a story for Enterprise which would have featured Alice Krige as a Starfleet medical technician who made contact with the Borg.

Because both Alice Krige and Susanna Thompson played the Borg Queen, it’s possible the backstories of each Queen is different and that maybe they aren’t the same character. Either way, assuming the Borg Queen retains some level of autonomy relative to other drones (likely?) then she’s pretty much making the best of a bad situation. In fact, at the point at which you concede the Borg are unstoppable, the Queen’s desire to let Picard retain some degree of his independence as Locutus could scan as a kind of mercy. The Borg Queen actually thinks she and the Borg are making things simpler for everyone. And with both Data and Picard, she tried to make that transition easier and, in her own perverse way, fun too.

Ossyra

Yes, we saw Ossyra feed her nephew to a Trance worm, and we also saw her try to kill literally everyone on the USS Discovery, including Michael Burnham. However, in the middle of all of that, Ossyra did try to actively make peace between the Emerald Chain and the Federation. And, most tellingly, it was her idea. Ossyra also pointed out one of the most hypocritical things about the United Federation of Planets: the fact that Starfleet and its government rely on capitalism without actively acknowledging it. Essentially, Ossyra was saying that the ideals of the Federation are great, but the Federation has all kinds of dirty little secrets it doesn’t want to talk about. In her meeting with Admiral Vance, pretty much everything she said about the Federation was true—and her treaty proposal was fair. 

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The only snag: she wouldn’t turn herself over as a war criminal. Considering the fact that the Federation made Mirror Georgiou into a Section 31 agent, despite her war crimes in another universe, this also seems hypocritical.  Why not just do the same thing with Ossyra? Tell everyone she’s going to prison for war crimes, but make her a Section 31 agent instead? Missed opportunity! 

Khan

Khan was genetically engineered by wacko-a-doodle scientists at the end of the 21st Century. At some point on Earth, he became a “prince” with “power over millions.” But, as Kirk notes in “Space Seed,” there were “no massacres” under Khan’s rule, and described him as the “best of the tyrants.” Kirk’s take on Khan in “Space Seed” is basically that Khan was an ethical megalomaniac. Most of what we see in “Space Seed” backs this up. Khan doesn’t actually want to kill the crew, and stops short of doing it when he thinks he can coerce them instead. His only focus is to gain freedom for himself and his exiled fellow-Augments. In the Kelvin Universe timeline, Khan’s motivations are similar. Into Darkness shows us a version of Khan who, again, is only cooperating with Section 31 because he wants freedom for his people. Sure, he’ll crush some skulls and crash some starships to get to that point, but in his dueling origin stories, Khan is, in both cases interested in freedom for his people, who, are by any definition, totally persecuted by the Federation.

Khan is still a criminal in any century. But, we only really think of him as a villain because he goes insane in between the “Space Seed” and The Wrath of Khan. The Khan of The Wrath is not the same person we met in “Space Seed.” As he tells Chekov, “Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress.” Had Kirk sent a Starfleet ship to drop in on Khan and his “family” every once in awhile this whole thing could have been avoided. In the prime timeline, Khan goes nuts because Ceti Alpha VI explodes and nobody cares. In the Kelvin timeline, Admiral Marcus blackmails him. Considering that Khan is Star Trek’s most famous villain, it’s fascinating that there are a million different ways you can imagine him never getting as bad as he became. In “Space Seed,” he and Kirk basically part as friends. 

Q

In “Encounter at Farpoint,” Q accuses humanity of being “a savage child race.” And walks Jean-Luc Picard through the various atrocities committed by humanity, through the 21st Century. Picard kind of shrugs his shoulders and says, “we are what we are and we’re doing the best that we can.” When we talk about the philosophy of Star Trek, we tend to give more weight to Picard’s argument: the idea that by the 24th century, humanity has become much better, in general than it is now. But, the other side of the argument; that there’s a history of unspeakable violence and cruelty baked into the existence of humanity, is given less weight. We don’t really listen to Q when he’s putting humanity on trial, because we can’t see his point of view.

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

But, because Q wasn’t a one-off character, and because he said “the trial never ends” in the TNG finale, he’s actually not really a villain at all. Q exists post-morality, as we can imagine it. His notions of ethics are far more complex (or less complex) than we can perceive. Q is one of those great Star Trek characters who is actually beyond reproach simply because we have no frame of reference for his experiences or point of view. In Voyager, we also learned that even among other members of the Q Continuum, Q was kinder, with a more humanitarian approach to what he might call “lesser” lifeforms. If Q is villainous, it’s because of our definitions of villainy. Of every Star Trek antagonist, Q is the best one, for the simple fact that he’s not a a villain at all. 

Which Star Trek villains do you think had a point? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Star Trek Villains Who Actually Had a Point appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3eIGmoq

[leaden-tongue]

Loud.

silentarcanum‌:

“Festival means more people, more people means more trouble, and more trouble means more trouble for her in particular.” He glances at Sherlen for a moment before looking ahead, back toward the gathering militia. “She’s had to field all sorts of strange reports today, and deal with parharding troublemakers, all while training the militia. There’s already six rowdies in her jail, cooling off. At least no one’s been naughty enough to warrant a walk to the dungeon. Meanwhile, all I’ve done is push these new bloods through cover drills,” he pointed out, idly motioning to the various mock-covers littering the field, some wood, some just free-hanging sheets. “Beyond that, I’ve been a good boy, I assure you, miss watchwolf. Ate some breaded szorp this morning, brought in fresh from the river. Very mundane, that’s me.”

Nell couldn’t help but think there was some sarcasm in those last words.

Turning back to Evelyn, just enough to expose his slender chin, he remarked back on Evelyn’s words. “Strange how quiet can be bad for our kind,” responded Filarion, finding some humor in what she said. “Stow in it long enough, and you might just get used to it.”

He glanced back to Sherlen, who seemed to be slowly stirring. Nell wanted to vanish before the captain could spy her, but she belatedly remembered that she wasn’t committing a crime beyond existing. She should be alright under the watchful gaze of the law, right? Right.

Filarion laughed lightly. “A terrible fate for the ambitious among us, hm?”

A rather cute yawn left the stern face of the militia commander, and she slowly peeled herself away from the back of the bench, leather armor sticking and making noise as she woke. Quietly blinking away the sleep from her eyes, she quickly sized up the company around her as her hand wrapped around the spear at her side. Recognition was immediate and, to her credit, she didn’t go rigid beyond her usual demeanor.

She gave a nod to Filarion, who offered little more than a smile, a tilt of his head upward so she could actually see it, but then her eyes roamed over Nell - who tried to look casual about standing there, of course - and then stopped on Evelyn.

Sherlen narrowed her eyes. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about someone literally camping on one of the buildings by the marketplace, would you?”

Evelyn took the time to take in her surroundings. She couldn’t guarantee that nobody had turned an eye towards their conversation for a moment, but nobody seemed to be staring at them. Nobody was close enough to hear, unless there was a glamoured grimlock among the crowds—though, with Sherlen so close by, she figured it wouldn’t particularly matter if they were overheard. Filarion was less cautious than she was comfortable with. He was confident enough to have conversations with his men in public, after all. Still, she didn’t think him so careless that he’d let the conversation drift to matters he wouldn’t want the guard captain to overhear. 

More importantly, Nell seemed to tense up at signs of Sherlen’s awakening—was she scared of her? She wondered if the two had ever met before, perhaps under less favorable circumstances; had Nell ever spent time in jail? She doubted it. She figured that Nell’s relatively comfortable position in this town largely hinged on keeping her identity a secret, and it would be much harder to conceal that horn of hers under arrest. No, she was likely just anxious over the idea of being so close to the law—or even, perhaps, to a stranger. Whatever the case, she couldn’t just let her fret on her own. 

She tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, reaching for Nell’s hand between natural movements as eyes turned to Sherlen. The subtlety was unneeded, perhaps, but she tried her best to avoid drawing attention to the already self-conscious thief. She intertwined her fingers with Nell’s, and gave her hand a little squeeze. 

“Complacency and I aren’t on speaking terms,” she said to Filarion as Sherlen stirred. “For better or for worse. I’ll figure something out. This place should get a lot of traffic from the Trade Way, if I know my basic geography. A lack of short-term opportunities doesn’t always imply a lack of long-term ones. That’s the future, though. Have to deal with the present, first.”

Evelyn would have crossed her arms at Sherlen’s question, but with one hand full, all she could do is sassily place her other hand on her hip.

“I stand in solidarity with the displaced and the homeless. My allegiance is forever with the unfortunate. I would never snitch on someone who was just trying to get by.” 

She paused for a second, before immediately snitching: “Yeah, I saw. It was Ables. He is none of those things, and I owe him nothing. I think he’s just cheap.”

[stellar-imagines]

SCENARIO REQUEST: ❝unintentional rendezvous.❞

[ Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia ] [ Characters: Midoriya Izuku ]

「An anti-villain, you obtain some information by infiltrating UA but pull back when you find that it’s no easy feat. Just then, you run into Midoriya who was out for a run. And from then on, the two of you always meet up.」

MIDORIYA IZUKU

It was on the night that Midoriya decided to go on a run around the campus before curfew. The street was well lit as he jogged, considering how late it was when he decided to go out for a jog, there's barely anyone out here. He had decided to stay within the area instead of running off elsewhere. He had stopped right in front of the school building, the gates were closed but the lights were bright. As he stood there, he began to recall everything that he had gone through. From the day he received his quirk from All Might to this very day, he never thought he'd be blessed with the ability to save people and become a hero. The area around UA was relatively safe, Midoriya couldn't hear anything but the quiet chirping of insects.

The night was chilly and soothing against his skin, making him sigh as it helped cool him down from all that running. Internships were right around the corner and he was looking forward to be in action. He hoped that all his training paid off. He was about to take off and sprint back to the dorms to end his work out when he felt something change in the air. It's subtle but he could hear fluttering noises nearby. Midoriya was about to ignore the noise until he saw a figure leaping over the tall walls that surrounded UA, his entire body was pushed downwards and the weight on top of him caused him to groan.

"Heavy....." he complained.

"Ah, how rude! How can you say that, I, your local pretty girl, heavy?" the owner of the voice sounded really offended by his words. His whole body stiffened and it reacted faster than he can question your identity. A million thoughts raced inside his head and the only thing that he managed to ask was,

"Are you a villain?!" he attempted to land a kick but you got off, landing away from the green-haired male. At this moment, he got up and examined your figure but there was nothing much he could make out anyway. Dressed in pitch black clothes and away from the light, he was unable to see until you stepped back, the light shining on you. He could see your eyes and your hair, [Eye Color] and [Hair Color]. Covering half of your face was a gas mask and atop your head was a hat that the numbers 69 stitched on it.

"Hmm, an interesting question indeed! I have never committed any crimes before so therefore, I am not one! But tell me, UA's first year, what is your definition of a villain anyway?" you asked, crossing your arms over your chest.

Midoriya was alert, ready for any sudden movements you decide to pull but honestly, you wouldn't stoop that low to hide yourself. Your plan to sneak into UA to obtain some information had failed and now you're face to face with a student who has a quirk that might be able to get you captured. Instead of making any wild movements, you chose to smile at the male, raising your hands in surrender. Even if he brings you to the police station, he has no evidence of what you did. So, you were calm. You studied his appearance and instantly remembered who he was just from his face alone. UA students were really popular and you've seen them from various media.

"Hm, Midoriya Izuku right?"

"How―"

"Come on, it should be obvious right? The Sports Festival is aired on TV, you know? And the news spread pretty fast nowadays that its scary." you laughed, waving your hand.

"So, what were you doing in the middle of the night at UA?"

"I heard from someone that there's tons of information about various things that I really need to know and well, the security is super tight. So I thought maybe I can just get information through another method." you said casually, leaning against the wall. It took Midoriya just a few seconds to piece your words together but he wasn't able to figure out your intentions.

"You can't just infiltrate the school like that!"

"I withdrew so it's not a big deal right?"

‘No, it is actually a big deal! Infiltrating is a crime!’ He was at lost, unsure of what he was supposed to do in this situation. Sure he had his license and can actually explain himself if a fight breaks out. But he had no proof that you were actually trying to break into the school to obtain a piece of information that he didn't question you about yet. You didn't commit any crime and completely innocent, it would be false accusation and the police might put him in the blacklist, it will surely affect his reputation in the future. But was it really okay to let you off the hook?

"Anyway, it's time for me to go home!"

"Eh!? Go home?"

"Cute guys like you shouldn't stay out too late!" you winked, giggling at the way his face turned bright red, mouth hanging open and unable to form any words to respond.

"C-Cute!?" he squawked in disbelief.

"Goodbye, Izukun!"

He can't keep up with you and he just prays that you're gonna drop the idea of infiltrating UA.

The next day, Midoriya felt a bit worried. You still looked younger, probably around his age. He was unable to sleep that well, worried about what you were going to do next. There were tons of things he wanted to question you but he had no opportunity to do so when you just bolted off. Throughout the entire day, he was too occupied with the thoughts of you. With the way you were talking, it sounded like you had given up but he can't be so sure of that. There's still a chance that you might try again today, maybe tomorrow or even the day after that. What if you continue this behavior until you get whatever you need?

You didn't come off as a bad person but Midoriya assumed that it might be because you were joking the entire time. He even got carried away and unconsciously followed your pace. The entire time he took notes while listening to the teacher's explanation, he can't help but think about you. And the only time he managed to shake his thoughts was during training. But afterwards, he was thinking about it again. Some of his friends caught on to his absent-minded behavior and questioned it, only to be waved off and told that he was fine.

When night time came, he was out for a jog again, going through the same route. Around the dorms and the campus. He slowed down his pace when he passed UA, Midoriya stopped at the spot he met you, more like crashed into you yesterday. Like the other days he went jogging at night, it was quiet with the wind tickling his skin. Standing still on the spot with thoughts plaguing his mind, he wondered if you were going to come again. Just as he was about to make his leave, he heard a voice behind him. A familiar voice that caused him to stop completely.

"Oh, its you again. Out for a run again, huh? Who you trying to impress?" you chuckled. This time you weren't wearing a gas mask but a mask that he's seen countless of times, the ones that people use to hide their identities.

"E-E-Eh? A-Ah, I'm not—"

"I was just joking! You get flustered so easily that it's cute." you giggled, stepping closer to the male who stepped back instinctively. Different from yesterday, you were wearing casual clothes, a black, long-sleeved hoodie with a blue-green plaid skirt.

"Why are you here?" Midoriya decided to ask, gathering his courage. This time, he was determined to get you to fess up and give him the answers he's been wanting to hear.

"Is it a crime to be out on the streets? I pass by UA on my way home." you pointed at your path home. Midoriya looked at you with eyes filled with doubt. You couldn't blame him, it was natural for him to be wary of you since you did attempt to infiltrate UA to get information. So his impression of you is a bit muddled and fuzzy, but he must be confused of what you actually are. Were you a bad person or a good person? There was one thing you were sure of was that you've never killed a person before. 

"Did you purposely stopped here because you're waiting for me?" there was a hint of playfulness in your voice when you booped his nose with a smile. The action startled him and gave you the opportunity to slip past him. Midoriya turned around, about to stop you when he noticed the grocery bag you were carrying. Perhaps you weren't lying about going back home.

"I told you that I gave up on infiltrating UA. Wouldn't want to get caught. I can obtain my information using another method anyway." you chuckled before walking away, waving your hand at him.

"How can I believe your words!?" Midoriya raised his voice which stopped you for a moment. 

"You can't. Because there's no one you can truly trust in this world. But, can you truly attack someone who has done nothing wrong?" you challenged. Midoriya bit his lip. You were speaking the truth and he can't deny it.

"Well, if you think I'm a bad person. There should be someone out there to stop me. I mean there's Heroes everywhere. Also, there are people like you too. Aspiring heroes who want to keep the world safe."

"Bad guys like me get punished while good kids like you get rewarded. But, if it's you, I don't mind getting caught and receive punishment." you winked flirtatiously and swaying your hips.

"Wha―?!"

A few days had passed and every night on weekdays, he'd run into you in the night. He still can't help the unreadiness that forms when he speaks to you but after a while, he deduced that you weren't actually a really bad person. But the way you were doing things was a bit wrong. Midoriya has seen you once in the streets. It was in an alleyway where no one was looking and he originally wanted to use it to get to the other street faster. He hid behind the large trash disposal and peeked to see what was going on.

You were standing tall in front of three men who were armed with guns, hands inside your pockets. Like every single time he saw you, a mask took its place on your face, covering half of it. You had stepped closer, until your forehead was pressed against the tip of the gun, daring the man to shoot. There was an aura of confidence radiating out of you when you said something about how they can't kill you. Though it sounded cocky as hell, those words were backed up with actions. True to your words, they were all defeated by your quirk. And you instantly asked for information, even going as far as to threaten them if they refuse to fess up.

Midoriya walked away when he noticed that you had left the scene. If you were a villain, you would've killed them off right? But that doesn't change the fact that you had threatened people. The weekend was a slow one, he slept more than usual, finished most of his homework together with his friends. When he returned to his room, it was just before dinner time. He decided to change his clothes and set down his things. The balcony door was left open, the air making his curtains sway.

"For a plain-looking guy, you sure have a nice body."

An all too familiar voice that made him freeze.

There you stood on his balcony, dressed in comfortable looking clothes which consist of shorts and a t-shirt. You smirked behind your face mask, looking up and down his exposed chest, right hand rubbing your chin. Midoriya's face turned bright red and instinctively covered his chest before slipping his shirt on.

"Wh-What are you doing here!? This is trespassing!" he spluttered as you casually stepped into his room, looking at every single little thing that caught your attention.

"Oh! An All Might fan huh? You sure have a lot of his merch. Oh, there's the limited edition poster! I'm jealous. He's an amazing person, wasn't he?" you beamed.

"He is! All Might is the best―That's not it! You're trespassing!"

"But it's not trespassing when no one finds me! Besides, I checked to make sure that your neighbors didn't see me~" you moved back to the balcony. He doesn't even know where to start. Sure the two have you been meeting up coincidentally in front of UA at night but for you to come here was surprising. How did you even slip through the surveillance? 

"The one on that side sure had a bright room, it looked like he was partying or something but there's no one! On the other hand, that side is a bit....unsightly if you ask me but the room was vacant as well!" you shrugged. Ah, you must be talking about Mineta. The moment he was about to protest, a knock resounded in his room and he turned his attention towards the door.

"Hey, Midoriya! You talking with someone?" It was Kirishima.

"No one!" he quickly replied before turning towards you.

"Please leave!" he whispered at you.

"Ah, you're defending me, I feel so honored. But I guess it will be bad for you to be caught with a girl inside your room at night. Hm, now what are you going to do, Izukun?" you giggled, twirling in your spot. Just as he was about to shoot back a response, the door handle shook before it opened.

"Yo, Midoriya! We got some pizza! Come before everyone finishes it!" This time it was Kaminari who burst in. The look on the green head was unbelievable, just like a teenage boy who was caught masturbating or something along those lines. The two males rose their eyebrows at their friend's peculiar behavior. They've seen you and now he had to come up with a proper reason that they will buy.

"The weather is a bit chilly to keep the balcony open don't you think? You should keep it closed." the blonde pointed. Midoriya's head perked up and immediately turned to see no trace of you. Did you leave? Or used your quirk to hide? Whatever happened, he was grateful that you decided to hide yourself from his friends.

"What's up with you? You look like you had seen a ghost." Kaminari asked.

"N-Nothing!"

"Bro, you can't just barge into someone else's room like that." Kirishima said, Kaminari chuckled softly and apologized to the viridian haired male.

"Hm? I could've sworn that I heard someone's voice just now. Were you talking on the phone?"

"Y-Yeah! It was on speaker so....."

"Anyways, you better come down before we run out of pizza!" Kaminari said before leaving with Kirishima.

"I'll be down soon!" he replied, waiting for the door to close before dashing to the balcony. He glanced around and saw no trace of you, did you seriously run off that fast? Midoriya stepped closer to the edge and looked down, jumping from the second floor shouldn't be a problem and there were a few ways to get out.

"How cute, you're looking for me!" he instantly turned around, a squeak slipping past his lips when he found himself standing face to face with you but what surprised him was the fact that you were hanging upside down like it was nothing. You leaned forward, nose brushing against his before maneuvering yourself until you were standing at the edge, balancing yourself before turning towards the male with a smile. Midoriya backed up a little.

"So you are worried about me, I'm flattered."

"That's not it!" Midoriya protested.

"I'll be borrowing this from you." you waved a slightly worn-out book in front of him.

"My Hero Analysis Book.....!"

"I'll be sure to return it tomorrow so don't worry! Until then, this is goodbye." you waved before falling backward. The boy chased after you and looked down but there was no trace of you. It wasn't a really important book, it was one that he had completed. For some reason, he couldn't find it in him to stop you.

And he actually wants to see you again.

Total: 2765 words Published: 18.09.2019

We’re now open to requests for Kimetsu no Yaiba! Please have a look before requesting!

Thank you for requesting! *｡٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و*｡ We had fun writing this but we but a bit too much effort on this so we hope you enjoy this scenario! We actually have a quirk in mind when we typed this but we held back.― author Hibiki/Lou

Thank you for requesting! Put extra effort when thinking about how reader meets up with Midoriya. Hopefully, the secnario itself isn’t that confusing and hard to follow. ― author Natsuki

Please do not mind the grammar mistakes and typos.

[eastasianfeelings]

all those other wolves: Jooheon

— based on Monsta X as jealous boyfriends

Summary: You just want your Stray Kids bias member to sign your lightstick. It’s not like you’re in love with him. But your boyfriend Jooheon doesn’t seem to get that.

Words: 2.4k

Warnings: jealousy, some angst, making out

*

It’s the first K-pop awards show you’ve been to since you started your new job as an executive assistant to Monsta X’s lead manager. Glittering ice, gleaming velvet and flashing lights saturate every corner, while screams and cheers fill the air at various intervals as the fans hype themselves up. The atmosphere is almost overwhelmingly upbeat.

So why is your boyfriend standing next to you in a quiet corner of the backstage wing with the darkest of glowers on his face?

“Jooheony.”

He doesn’t respond, just folds his arms tighter and pouts into the distance.

You give him a little prod. “Heony, I’ll just go over for a minute, okay?”

“Why bother asking me?” Jooheon sniffs and pulls away. “You already made up your mind anyway.”

“I’m not asking,” you say, torn between laughing at his childishness and knocking some sense into him. “I’m telling you because I don’t want you to think whatever you’re thinking right now.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” he retorts.

You give a little sigh, then reach up and cup his cheeks. “You’re thinking that I’m going to ignore you so I can go talk to Bang Chan, and you’re mad about it.”

Jooheon purses his lips even more. “Noona. You brought a Stray Kids lightstick for him to sign! You don’t even own a Monsta X lightstick.”

“That’s because I don’t need a lightstick. I have you.” You glance around to check if anybody in the darkened wing is paying attention, then rise on your toes and press a buss to his pouty lips. “Understand?”

His frown starts dissolving as his gaze falls to your mouth. “Mm.”

“Good.” You move your palm to his lips to keep him from going in for another kiss. “I’ll be right back, okay? Go hang with Changkyun.”

“Noona,” he whines, but you pull away and wave in parting.

You turn around and scan the sprawling backstage wing, where groups are waiting for the cue to walk to their seats before the show starts. You hadn’t actually expected to see Stray Kids today; you’d brought your lightstick because it was the only one you owned. But now that you’re standing in the same room as them, you aren’t going to miss an opportunity to have your bias sign it.

You spot Hyunjin’s head and make your way toward him through the bodies. As the Stray Kids members come into view, you take a breath to calm your heartrate and remind yourself, Just talk to them like human beings. You’re asking a small favour, not sacrificing your liver.

You carefully twist past Hyunjin and Felix to find yourself face-to-face with Bang Chan. “Ah, Bang Chan-ssi?” you blurt.

He looks at you curiously. “Yes?”

As calmly as you can, you hold out your lightstick and a permanent marker. “Could you please sign my lightstick?” you ask. “I’m a fan of yours.”

“Oh — sure.” Bang Chan accepts the marker from you and leans over to scrawl on the lightstick. You lean back, trying not to breathe on his extremely sculpted hair.

He suddenly lifts his head and meets your eyes from ten centimetres away. “Sorry, I forgot to ask, what’s your name?”

“Ah, it’s fine if you just sign it,” you say quickly. It’s not like you’ll get in trouble if you associate with other companies’ idols, but you don’t want anyone getting wind that you were panting after Stray Kids, just in case.

Chan cocks his head. “Why, are you going to sell it?” he jokes.

You let out a surprised laugh. “Of course not. I’d be fired if I did that.”

“Oh?” Chan’s smiling. “Why would you be fired?”

Uhhh… “It’s a secret,” you say, and break out your cheesiest smile.

“Ah, is that so?” Chan nods and fortunately doesn’t press for more. He scribbles on one side of the lightstick, then flips it over and writes on the other as well.

When he’s done, you take it back and squint at the writing. To my mysterious fan, says one side. The other says, Love from Bang Chan.

Well, you’re not complaining. “Thank you very much.” You bow your head and then waste no time ducking away into the crowd.

“Noona.” Jooheon rushes over to meet you. “What took so long?”

“Was it long?” You check your watch. “It was only five minutes. You guys haven’t gotten the cue yet, have you?”

“You said you’d be right back,” he grumbles, grasping you by the waist.

“Well, here I am.” You squirm in his hold; he’s slipped his hands under your oversized jacket and under your top, to your skin.

He slides a hand down your side and pries the lightstick from your hand. “‘To my mysterious fan’,” he reads aloud, “‘love from Bang Chan’?” He looks up at you with incredulity all over his face. “What’s this?”

You frown. “It’s not like I could give my name, right?”

“No, this is — why is it ‘love from Bang Chan’?” Jooheon splutters. “Why didn’t he just sign his name?”

“Hey, I don’t know,” you defend yourself, “I didn’t ask him to write that.”

“You should’ve told him to just sign his name and be done with it.”

“It’s not like I knew he was going to write that until he did it.”

“Then you just shouldn’t have asked for him to sign it in the first place!”

“Honestly, what’s the big deal?” You snatch your lightstick back. “It’s a few words on a lightstick, that’s it! Seriously, Jooheon.”

But he’s mad now, you can tell. He drops his hand from your waist, narrows his eyes and sets his jaw. “Fine,” he sniffs, “if that’s what you think.”

“Jooheony…”

He turns and walks resolutely back to the rest of Monsta X.

You sigh. Oh well, you have to do your job anyway. So you stick your lightstick back into your pocket and return to your manager’s side. Might as well enjoy your time here while you wait out your boyfriend’s sulking.

*

Two hours later, you’re running to the dressing room to grab bottles of water. Monsta X has just finished their performance for the night, and they have less than five minutes to get rid of their sound gear, change outfits and return to their seats in the audience.

By the time you’re back with the water, the next group to perform has already queued up as well. You trot down the line of Monsta X members and hand out water bottles as you go.

“Y/N-noonim, isn’t it heavy?” A sweaty Shownu accepts the bottle and looks at the bag you’re carrying.

“Don’t worry about it.” You smile at him and keep going.

“Thank you, noonim,” Minhyuk chirps as you twist open the cap for him.

Beside him, Kihyun snorts. “You can’t even open a bottle by yourself?” he pokes.

“I’ll open yours for you, too, Kihyun-ssi,” you say brightly to prevent the bickering from starting up, and push the bottle into Kihyun’s hand before he can protest.

The very last member is Jooheon. You hesitate for a second, then make eye contact and offer the bottle silently. He takes it, holding your gaze with a look you don’t quite understand.

Someone speaks up, breaking the moment. “Hey — it’s you.”

You look over to your right and literally hop backward in shock: Stray Kids’ Bang Chan is standing right there, next to Jooheon. Looks like his group is up next. Past him, you can see the rest of his members lining up as the sound staff affix mics to their costumes.

Bang Chan’s looking at you, and you instinctively side-step in case he was talking to someone behind you. No luck. Chan keeps smiling your way, and now you can see Jooheon staring at Bang Chan too. Yikes.

“Hello,” you say in as neutral a tone as possible, and dip your head politely.

“You’re my mysterious fan, right?” He quirks an adorable grin. “You ran off so fast.”

“Ah, yes,” you say with an awkward chuckle, and sidle another step away.

“Do you work here?”

Before you can answer, a hand clamps down on your hip. You look round in alarm and find Jooheon next to you, arm wrapped firmly around your waist. He’s glaring at the younger boy as though he committed a crime. It is, literally, the least discreet thing you’ve ever seen.

Now Bang Chan’s looking curiously between the two of you, so in a desperate attempt to distract him, you whip out another water bottle and offer, “Would you like some water?”

His face lights up in surprise, and then amusement. “Sure, thank you.”

But as he reaches for the bottle, Jooheon grabs it from you. “Yah, that’s for Changkyunnie,” he scolds you, and turns to stuff it in a startled Changkyun’s hands.

Both you and Bang Chan stare for a moment. “Uh, I gave Changkyun water already…?” you say.

“He’s sick, he needs to drink more. But you know what?” he says to Chan. “You can have this.”

He plunges his free hand into your jacket pocket. You shy away on instinct, but he’s already got what he wants: your Stray Kids lightstick.

He holds it out to Chan and says, “For you.”

Bang Chan stares some more, puzzled grin frozen on his face.

“Ah, hang on a moment, Jooheon-ssi,” you say with a nervous laugh. “I don’t think Chan-ssi wants his own lightstick — ”

Jooheon’s hand glides across your ass, shutting you up effectively, before reaching out to grab Bang Chan’s wrist with force. “Here you go, Bang Chan-ssi,” he says, and slaps the lightstick into Chan’s hand.

“Ah,” Chan says, one hundred percent bemused. “Right.”

Just as you’re about to die from the awkwardness, the sound engineers finally get to Bang Chan, and his attention is pulled away. One of the staff takes the lightstick from him as another begins setting up the mic.

“Monsta X, this way please,” someone else calls. And like that, Jooheon’s gone, off to do idol-ish things with the rest of his members.

You stand in the middle of the suddenly-empty hall for a good minute, bewildered, before you finally regain your senses and head back to the dressing room. Sheesh. 

*

At 1:30 am, the show’s over. The ice and velvet and lights are all gone, and the Monsta X dressing room is empty save you and one other executive assistant. The two of you are gathering the odds and ends that the crew has left behind when the door opens and Jooheon enters.

You look at each other; no one speaks. You don’t know what he’s doing back here by himself, you don’t know if he’s still mad at you, and at this point you’re a little too tired to care.

“Eonni, I’m going to move this stuff to the van,” you say to the other EA, and brush past Jooheon to carry your box of things out the door.

You get to the company car and begin wedging in the box alongside all the others. Footsteps make you look around to find Jooheon approaching. Face expressionless, he leans into the trunk and adds his strength to yours, and together you manage to stuff the box in.

Straightening, you look him over once, but hold your tongue. If he wants to get in trouble by wandering around without his manager, you’re not going to be his parachute. You nudge him away and close the trunk, then lock the car.

As soon as you turn around, Jooheon’s stepping in front of you, a little closer than necessary.

“Noona,” he says, low in his throat.

“You’re talking to me now?” Okay, not the most mature response, but he started it.

From his jacket pocket, he pulls out a Stray Kids lightstick.

You raise your eyebrows at it.

“I got you a new one,” Jooheon says, a little gruffly. “That Bang Chan kid signed it. Just his name.”

You take the lightstick from him and inspect it. Yes, there’s Bang Chan’s signature on one side of the lightstick. Nothing else.

“How did you get this?” you ask, turning it over in your hands.

He grimaces a little. “Staff were handing their lightsticks out. I asked that punk to sign one.”

“You asked him?” Your eyebrows lift higher. “I don’t suppose you managed to apologize while you were at it.”

Jooheon scowls harder. “No. Why would I apologize? I told him to keep his love to himself and never talk to you again.”

Facepalm. “Jooheon-ah, really?”

“He’s my hoobae, he better listen to me.”

What did you expect, honestly. “You know that’s so not necessary. It’s not like I’ll ever see him again — ”

“Yah, noona.” Jooheon steps forward, crowding you against the car. “All men are wolves, don’t you know that?”

You back up prudently and manage a scoff. “Including you?”

“Yeah.” He leans in, tone lowering. “Except I already caught you. So everyone else can stop trying.”

His head angles, his lips part, and you know you’re one second away from making out in the middle of a parking lot at two AM in the morning.

By sheer force of will, you tear your eyes away from his mouth and plant a hand against him to preserve some distance. “Hang on, hang on.”

Jooheon looks down slowly. You realize you’ve got the hand holding the lightstick pressed against his chest, the Stray Kids logo visible against his black shirt.

He looks back at you. 

He reaches up, yanks the lightstick from your grasp and lets it drop.

In shock, you watch it plummet to the pavement. “Joo — ”

And then your hands are pinned to the car by your head and he’s kissing and kissing and kissing you, like he wants to be inside you, like he needs you to breathe, like he’d eat you up if only he could. With a weak whimper, you succumb. How can you not? It’s Jooheon. Jooheon.

“Jooheon-ah.” His name slips from your lips breathlessly when he finally releases your mouth to nuzzle into your neck.

“Y/N-noona,” he murmurs back, and the way he says your name into your skin sends a shiver through your body until you’re shuddering. “I love you.”

Oh, Jooheon.

*

So. You did end up making out in the middle of a parking lot at two AM in the morning, after all.

[pocketfulofrogers]

Haunted Woman, Broken Lover

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: There’s not much to say. You’re a dark and twisty assassin that Fury would rather pretend didn’t actually work for SHIELD, and Steve Rogers is definitely not that. Then again, no one is inherently good or bad.

Notes: Smidge of smut sprinkled in. Still trying to get comfortable writing it. Part 1?

They call you a ghost. It isn’t for the way you seem to slip through walls or the way you look at death as a reflection. It’s the hollowness of your eyes that earns you the nickname. Hazed over orbs coated in grey.

Clint asks you if they’ve always been that color, you tell him you can’t remember anymore.

Fury lets you run your own thing after you agree to attach yourself to the badge. He’d rather not know how exactly you get the job done, so long as you’re on their side.

You’re solo most of the time, it’s better that way.

They learn quickly how deadly you are, leaving your enemies questioning the validity of your existence and holding the same vacant stare as you. It wasn’t just physical injuries you specialized in.

The first time you meet Steve Rogers is an accident. You have a rogue Armenian scientist tied up in his basement. He had been about to run when you appeared at his kitchen table. For a moment, you think a heart attack may get him before you can.

You’re sat before him, leaned forward with your tools on a bench beside you. A small blade aching to break skin sits hot between your fingers, but so far, your words have been enough. Steve opens the door, barrels down the steps, and stops in his tracks. You lock eyes with him and see something hauntingly familiar within the blue.

Something inside you shifts.

He takes one look at the scene before him and shuts it down immediately. You slip away when he calls it in, leave no trace of your existence except for a long thin line gushing red from the scientist’s throat.

Steve find’s the plans for a chemical attack on his desk that night and where to find each accomplice wrapped in a pretty bow of nylon. Alive, your note assures him.

“She’s like a cat. Brings home dead things to show her affection.” Clint says one day. You promptly shove an elbow in his gut.

He learns how to spot your work past blubbering grown men and catatonic stares. Natasha tells him you hold your liquor well, Clint comments on your gambling abilities. He asks if your eyes are naturally that color, they tell him you don’t like to answer that question.

Later he asks Fury how they found you. He’s not sure how you became what you are today, but he knows this world has not treated you well, yet here you are, working to protect it regardless of what had been done to you. That’s the only reason he didn’t order Clint to take you out.

“So, she’s good?” Steve asks.

Fury pauses for a moment. “For our sake, I hope so.”

The next time you see Steve Rogers you’re slinking through the Triskelion halls, trying to stick your nose somewhere it probably doesn’t belong. He bumps into you, grabs your arm and your side to steady you. You know he can feel the scars beneath the thin material of your shirt and jump from his touch.

He shakes it off. “Tell me,” He starts. “Do you have an actual name or are you really just a ghost.”

You think for a moment. “Y/N.” He raises a brow, both your voice and an answer surprising him. “What, were you expecting a cryptic answer on the relativity of life and death or something?”

He chuckles. “Guess not.”

A moment later, he gets distracted, turns a way for a second and then you’re gone.

“Yeah, she does that.”

You continue on your path, leave him the gift of a solved problem on his desk sometimes. He sets up cameras and lasers, trying to catch you just once. It takes him a few months to realize the janitor drops the files and notes for him. You and Natasha laugh at his expense.

He starts to leave files in various places he knows only you could find. The worst of the worst. Men and woman he thinks you’d be happy to cross off. You can’t tell if he leaves them for you, or because they’re just terrible people. Either way, the change in narrative surprises you, but you never bring it up. You’re the last person that would ever judge someone.

Natasha taunts him over it.

“It’s a modern day love story with an assassin twist.”

“Why not that one?” “She doesn’t like Oklahoma.” “How do you know that?”

“She sent booze as thanks for your last tip. Are your cheeks seriously red right now, Rogers?”

Eventually, you concede, stop leaving him only the locations of gift wrapped bodies with detailed lists of committed crimes. Complete with proof, of course, you weren’t lazy. You start to send him alive leads, people that can be questioned. Sometimes they’re unharmed, usually they’re mostly coherent. He’s surprised by the change in narrative, but he never brings it up. Sometimes people change, but that was none of his business. 

Natasha is sure to point it out, consistently.

“You see him more than anyone else.” “False.” “…” “He’s here more than you, so it’s only by default.”

“Wait, you left that guy alive?” “Steve needs to question him.” “What about that one guy I needed answers from?” “You didn’t say please.”

“I’ve known you longer.” “He leaves me sex traffickers.” 

When a body comes up dead that shouldn’t have, your signatures blatantly displayed, they send him to bring you in. He doesn’t believe for a second you could kill a kid, but he’s the only one who can get close enough. Fury’s only half sure you won’t kill him. 

You battle with the idea of running, knowing they’ll never find you if you don’t want them to. You saw the evidence, you knew you were screwed. Fury told you from the very beginning that if he ever sensed you had turned, he’d take you out. No warning, no questions. Still, you wait patiently in your living room.

The window by the fire escape opens and Steve slides through, tip toes his way in and around the corner only to find you sitting there, an amused smirk tugging your lips.

“What calf exercises do you do? They look fantastic.”

He rolls his eyes and catches site of the artwork around him, the soft whites and greys of your walls and furniture giving spotlight to their colors. He never even considered you could have a home. You follow his gaze and shrug. Assassins can have taste too.

“The diplomat’s son, did you kill him?” He asks. You watch him silently. “Fury thinks you did.”

You walk slowly towards him, watch him curiously and tilt your head. “And if I did?” You prompt.

“I have orders to bring you in.”

You’re a breath away now, gliding your fingers along the Kevlar of his arm and trailing your way to his jaw. You trace his collar with a fingertip, watch as the pulse of his jugular quickens. You look up at him and he swallows thickly.

“And if I don’t want to?” You graze tentative fingers along the edge of his jawline. “Tell me, Captain, would you kill me?”

He hopes the eagerness in your voice is misplaced, the envy misinterpreted. Or perhaps the girl who surrounds herself with death does it with the idea that it may one day take her. 

You don’t give him the opportunity to dive into that rabbit hole.

When you place your lips on his, soft and remnant of something sweet, he can only taste the brilliance of life. He wraps himself around you, slips in his tongue when you’re startled by his sudden switch. You thought you’d leave him shaken enough to slip away, disappear with the rising sun.

But now? Now you’re just as hungry for him.

He carries you, lays you across your bed. He runs the pad of his thumb along every scar left behind by a blade, places a kiss on each one from a bullet. You knot you fingers in his hair as he drags his tongue up the inside of your thigh, scream his name when he brings you higher than you’ve ever been before.

When he slides into you and stretches you deliciously so, you allow yourself to feel just this once. He catches the shift in your eyes, convinces himself his mind is playing tricks on him when the grey haze appears to fade. 

He moves slow before he finds his pace. You dig fingernails into his back and trail them down hard enough to make him hiss. He nips you from shoulder to jaw, hips rocking into you, and you swear nothing has ever felt this good.

You lay there in silence, sweat coated limbs still entangled. He sighs heavily and you just know he’s about to ruin the moment.

“Stay.” You whisper. He looks down at you wrapped around him. “I’ll go with you in the morning, just stay tonight.”

He tightens his grip on your bicep and nods. “Ok.”

You’re still awake when dawn breaks, you had gotten lost in the simple rhythm of his heartbeat. A dream that one day life could be even just an imitation of normal. The thought makes you sad more than anything else.

You slip from his arms, grab a bag, and pack the essentials. Watching him sleep, he seems so peaceful, so good. You ache to wake him and stick around long enough to fix this mess. He deserves that.

Could you do it? Forget your past and pretend to be anything other than the hollow shell those before carved you into?

Ah, but this was your MO. Slip away in the dark when things took a turn either way. ‘Flight risk’ has always been written on the back of your eyelids. You weren’t quite sure why you felt you owed Steve more, but you did.

He awakes to a bright sun and a cold spot beside him. There’s a torn piece of paper where your head should’ve been. He brushes his thumb over his name and opens it. It states your innocence and exactly who he should be looking for, where to find them. At the bottom is a separate line. 

‘Careful, Captain, or I just might be your future.’

[betterthedevilyouknowuk]

Cannibalism, Blood Drinking & High-Adept Satanism by Kerth Barker

We read this book so that you don’t have to. Upon discovering Satanism, one thing you might do, is browse Amazon in search of reading material. If, like many of our readers, you’re money savvy and like to hunt for deals, you may be tempted to find the cheapest satanic books. DON’T. This was one of the first to come up on the list. At only £5 for a physical copy, it looks like a bargain.  It is not. You will lose brain cells.

Please be aware that this book talks about child abuse, and so this review may be triggering for some.

Kerth Barker is a man who has written many fictional titles in which he depicts his own “Satanic abuse”, committed by various Satanists; most of which are apparently part of the illustrious Illuminati. They control everything in the world, want to see it destroyed, and yes, they all want to have sex with him. It is a classic example of Satanic Panic and is further proof that to this day, we still need to fight these unfathomable, despicable excuses of human beings who spread such codswallop. Spoiler alert. This guy (pictured below) is a con artist.

The Satanic Panic was born in the United States in the early 1980's. Evolving mainly from rumours of Satanic Ritual Abuse (commonly referred to as SRA). Allegations involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. By the late 1990's this epidemic of paranoia had spread to many parts of the world.

The first written account of SRA, which was a major trigger for Satanic Panic, was Lawrence Pazder’s 1980 book Michelle Remembers. Much like Kerth Barkers book, it was written in the form of an autobiography of Michelle Smith. Told by Smith and her husband to her Psychiatrist, Pazder himself. It is easy to see where Barker gained his inspiration. Michelle Remembers has now been completely discredited, but not before major uproar and accusations stemmed from it. Triggering what was essentially a mass witch hunt.

Mike Warnke is another example of how the Conservative Christian right added fuel to the fire. After appearing on ABC'c show 20/20 in an episode titled "The Devil Worshippers" Mike Warnke was frequently cited as an expert on the occult. After all he claimed to be an ex high ranking member of a Satanic organisation. He was debunked in 1991.

We bring up Warnke’s ‘The Satan Seller’, as it has the most in common with this month’s book. More importantly it's author Kerth Barker.  The whole book reads like twisted fantasies of repressed sexuality and identity. And is dangerous in its accusations. He seems intent in ushering in a new age of Satanic Panic! In a failed attempt to seem like he isn’t trying to create unneeded panic, he states in his first chapter that he is not talking about all Satanists. He ‘acknowledges’ that there are some Satanists, who are not into cannibalism. It is almost like he is expecting there to be a #notallsatanists trend as we cry out in anger about how we are being misrepresented.

After a warning that adorns one of the first pages, it's plain to see that this was not going to be a light read. Amy (who regrettably suggested this book), read the whole thing in one sitting, fueled by pure hatred. With Lynsey and Cato getting through it almost as quick, they found it to be equally as excruciating. It left Cato wondering what dark secrets the author is really trying to hide, and Lynsey feeling as though it had taken all of her white blood cells, which where then shat on. 

Going down the list of chapters, it becomes clear fairly early on that Barker is either insane, or he is  taking the piss.

The first chapter starts off with Barkers need to announce that he is a Christian and that Satanists ruined his life. It escalates at a rapid pace from 0-100. Paedophilia, murder, cannibalism and ritualistic abuse, none of which are a laughing matter, spring out of nowhere.  Barker, in all his inability to convey himself maturely sees it as an opportunity to put himself as the centre of an entirely fictional world. According to his book, from a young age he was a candidate, who was primed to become ‘one of the greats’.

The book is scattered with accounts of blood drinking, aliens, surgery and a resistance that communicates via discarded cigarette cartons and rubbish piles on the streets. Somehow Barker knows how to instantly interpret piles of garbage into something meaningful, which is more than we can say about his own work.

Barker often speaks of his enforced alter ego Kathy, and her special meetings. These ‘multiple personality disorders’ are still being used for fuel satanic panic today, and it is something that The Satanic Temple is working to fight against.

It is clear upon reading that this book is in fact less to do with actual satanism, and more to do with his lustful desires and need to be admired in a sinister sort of way. This comes in a range of forms, mostly being preyed on sexually, even talking of his own ejaculation and public sexual acts. Some of them are just laughable. At one point in the book, he tells of how the ‘Baron’ was walking up a set of stairs in front of him.

Barker sure does have a wild imagination. It is a shame the same can not be said for his choice in character names; the ‘Baron’ and ‘Dark Mother’ being the most excruciatingly cliché.

The deeper you get in, the more apparent it is this book is about spreading fear and attempting to force conservative christian opinions in disguise. One such example is Barkers take on the ‘Gay Agenda’.

This sort of damaging propaganda is not only inaccurate, but it is giving homophobes everywhere an excuse to stop the LGBTQ+ community having rights.

‘But where were his family?’ we hear you all ask. Conveniently all of Barkers close family are Christians, and only an older, lesser know family member was a Satanist. It begs the question, while he was being carted around by the ‘Baron’, what did his family think he was doing. There isn’t much talk of his actual family. He has been careful not to mention them too much or claim that they were in fact in on it, because that would be too easily debunked.

The worrying thing about all of this, is that there are so many people who believe the rubbish Barker has written. In fine-combing this book it is easy to see the tactics used by Barker to convince the reader. The most prevalent being the illusion of rationality. He states he believes in religious freedom, and that he isn’t trying to convert anyone.

The main tactic used in this book, is making the characters seem human. If you stand up in court and give a character assessment on someone whom you have spent a vast amount of time with, but only share with them the negatives, you may well fail in convincing the jury. It can make it seem like you are ‘trying to hard’. It doesn’t sound logical, but even Hitler was nice to people sometimes. By talking about some of the nice things that these so called ‘Satanic Abusers’ did for him, it makes his story seem more believable. Because surely if he was making up this whole entire story, he would make it all murder and horror. Wrong. He has added in these ‘niceties’ to make you think exactly that.

There are people out there, who genuinely go through sexual abuse as a child. There are victims and survivors of horrific crimes. This whole entire book is a kick in the face to the people who really have suffered. 

Towards the end of the book, he goes all ‘David Icke’ on us and claims some of these high ranking Satanists are part of a reptilian race that are controlling us and taking over (I don’t suppose that has anything to do with the fact he is a fan and David Icke recommended his books). Also in case you weren’t aware, the moon is actually a hollow space station.

The biggest contradiction written throughout, it whether or not we are actually doomed. At one point he claims we aren’t far away from being completely ruled by these high-adept, alien Satanists. Only to then write a whole entire paragraph as to why they’re going to fail. It's almost as though he knows it isn’t going to happen because he made it all up, so he has to write a reason why it doesn’t come true. 

If these Satanists were ever nearly as powerful as claimed, and the stories true, he would have never been able to write this book. All the time he happens to just know everything about the destruction of the world as we know it and has access to books that nobody could ever possibly prove existed because after all… Illuminati.

He talks of the weakness of others and how he can help them overcome their blood addictions. But the entire time he is on his own high. A throne of disillusion.

To sum things up, ‘Cannibalism, Blood Drinking & High-Adept Satanism’ is one of the worst books we have ever had the malignant displeasure of reading. There is just too much wrong with to be able to cover it in one blog. 

Again, we do not recommend you read this book. We read it so you don’t have to. But if you so wish, you can read part of it for free here or you can purchase it from Amazon here.

Ave Satanas!

This book was published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (16 Nov. 2014). It is copyrighted to the author, Kerth R Barker and we are not endorsed by him or anyone else to write this blog.

Kerth Barker image source Blood drinking image source Illuminati pyramid image source Alien image source

[nayutai]

3 | Bulletproof

Word Count: 2678

Warnings: foul language and implied violence (this one is a bit of a reach but I’m adding it just in case)

A/N: This is more a filler chapter to set some things up for future chapters

Jungkook quietly sits in his seat as he watches his brothers throw curses back and forth. They haven’t fought like this in years. The six of them evenly divided on either side of the issue at hand while he can’t decide which side to join. He’s conflicted to say the least. On one hand, he can see why Hoseok, Yoongi, and Namjoon are adamantly opposing Jin’s suggestion. This Laila girl is a wild card that could flip on them at any second and with the information she knows there’s no way they’d end up anywhere but jail. On the other hand, Jungkook can see the reasoning behind Jin’s argument and why Jimin and Taehyung support him in it. While Laila does in fact know too much, there’s no better way to keep an eye on her than if she works with them. Her maternal lineage and all of the knowledge that it most definitely entails could also benefit the group as a whole to make them function more efficiently. The pros and cons of each argument are nearly even.

Everyone is so busy trying to prove their own point that none of them even notice when Jungkook quietly slips from the room. The youngest member grabs his car keys and his favorite hoodie from his room before slipping out into the night. His sleek sports car hugs the road as he drives to the address he’s had committed to memory ever since Yoongi first voiced his suspicions of Ms. Laila Song. He’d known from the start that, if it ever came down to it, he’d be the one that Jin would ask to take her out. That’s his forte. Quietly and quickly eliminating a target before they even realize that the dark presence they feel behind them is more than just their own imagination.

His mind goes over all of the possible entry points to Laila’s townhome that he remembers from the blueprints he’d stolen from the city planning office. Jungkook carefully parallel parks his car a little ways down the street. He’s close enough that he can see the soft glow of light coming from Laila’s living room, but far enough away that he knows she wouldn’t be able to see him if she were to look outside. His eyes scan the street, a mask covering the lower half of his face and his hands stuffed into the front pocket of his hoodie, as he walks up to the townhome. He makes to go for the back window that leads into her laundry room but the mental image of Kihyun hog tied in an alley quickly changes his mind.

Laila immediately goes on red alert at the sound of three short knocks on her front door. Cyn hisses in her lap as she senses the sudden change in Laila’s mood. Her entire body tenses up when whoever is at her door knocks again.

“Come on, Laila. I know you’re in there.” The stranger at her door whines. She doesn’t recognize the voice but whoever it is must be connected with Jin in some way or another. Laila doesn’t really have friends. Only Cyn and Miss Annie and one of them purrs so she’s not sure that counts.

She attempts to refocus her attention on the tv show she’s been binging on all day but the whiny stranger at the door continues to demand her attention. She swears that he’s worse than her cat. Laila rolls her eyes, moving Cyn to the couch cushion next to her among much protest before warily padding her way to the door. She lets her eyes rest on the hiding places of the various weapons at her disposal. Well-hidden yet easily accessible to those who know where they are. She freaks out a little when she peeks through the peephole only to see a giant eyeball already pressed against it.

She recognizes the man at her door from her uncle’s files when he backs away. Jeon Jungkook. Main vocalist of BTS and contract killer. From what she’s read, he likes to be up close and personal when he takes care of business. The man in question grins widely when Laila swings the door open. For a second, Laila has a hard time believing that the child in front of her could be anywhere near as deadly as her uncle described in his notes. It’s when she really looks into his eyes that she realizes that his true power lies in his perceived innocence. His cuteness is incredibly disarming but there’s something in his eyes that belies the dark stain on his soul. It’s a hard edge that doesn’t quite belong.

“Can I help you, Jungkook?” She questions with a hand on her hip. The tinkling sound of bells can be heard as Cyn winds her way around her ankles, sniffing at their unwanted visitor warily before deciding that he’s okay.

The feline is purring loudly as she demands attention but Laila doesn’t dare take her eyes off of Jungkook for a single second. She knows as well as he does that he would only need a second to end her. Jungkook seems like he’s gotten a shock or smelled something bad. His face is all twisted up but just as Laila opens her mouth to ask questions his megawatt smile returns.

“Is that Shameless?” He asks excitedly after catching a glimpse of the tv screen, ducking under Laila’s arm. She’s so surprised that her words fail her as she watches Jungkook kick his sneakers off and make himself comfy on her love seat. “Carl is my fucking hero. Fuck Debbie though. She can choke.” Laila rolls her eyes as she shuts and locks her front door once more.

Jungkook’s eyes are trained on the screen but he notices Laila’s movements in his peripheral vision. His hands are loose and ready in his lap as he prepares himself for any sudden movement. He’s in awe of the way she seems to glide across the hardwood floor. Her bare feet barely make a sound as she crosses the room. The way she walks is reminiscent of the Bengal cat that she owns, graceful yet powerful. Part of him wonders if she could teach him how to move that soundlessly.

“I’m only going to say this once, but I agree. Carl is amazing and Debbie ain’t shit.” Jungkook snorts in agreement. He lets out an excited noise when Cyn leaps into his lap and makes herself comfortable.

Laila figures that she may as well take this opportunity to weasel information out of Jungkook while she can. He seems like the type that’ll accidentally spill a secret or two if you play him right and Laila has always loved games. Laila is about to launch her first attack when Jungkook beats her to the punch once again.

“Jin wants you to work with us.” The weight of Jungkook unexpected statement slams into Laila with all the force of a speeding bullet train. That wasn’t even on the list of possible things that she’d predicted might come out of his mouth. Not even close.

“He wants me to what?” She asks incredulously. There’s no way in hell she heard that right. Work with Kim Seokjin? That’s got to be a fancy way of saying he’s going to put a price on her head. There’s no way it’s not.

“He wants you to work with us like be on payroll and everything.” Jungkook rambles on about the different “job opportunities” that she could undertake on the team. Combat training, negotiations, “sales”, the list never seems to end. Laila begins to wish that the young man was actually here to kill her instead. It would be a hell of a lot easier to go on the run than to be in the upper echelon of one of the biggest crime syndicates since her mother left the game in the 90s.

Hysterical laughter bubbles up out of Laila’s chest. Her cackling jolts Cyn out of the peaceful slumber she’d slipped into while Jungkook’s words trail off. He cocks his head to the side in confusion as Laila nearly rolls of the couch. What could possibly be that funny?

“That has got to be the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard in my entire life.” Laila gasps out in between each staggered breath. Jungkook pouts cutely. He was starting to get excited about working with her the more he talked about it but Laila doesn’t seem too interested to say the least.

“I’m sorry for laughing but Jin has officially lost his damn mind if he thinks that I’m about to join his merry band of criminals.” Deciding that she’s had enough entertainment for the night, Laila switches her tv off and rises from the couch. She stretches her arms over her head and politely tells Jungkook to leave.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me why you don’t want to work with us.” Jungkook replies from his spot on the love seat that he has yet to vacate. He crosses his arms like a petulant child. Bottom lip poked out and everything.

“Oh my god I don’t fucking have time for this.” Laila sits back down on the couch, reaching down between the cushions to her right. Jungkook is wary and his suspicion is quickly justified when a knife embeds itself in the back of the couch, barely a millimeter shy of the smooth skin of his neck. The cat in his lap doesn’t even flinch at the whistling noise of the blade as if this is a normal occurrence. “You either leave on your own or I’ll bury you outback. Take your pick.”

Jungkook decides then and there that he would serve this woman his heart on a silver platter. Call him twisted, but the fact that she nearly ended his life just then has all of the blood rushing to his dick. Laila doesn’t know it yet, but all she’s done is strengthen his determination.

“Fine, I’ll leave.” Cyn whines at being disturbed as Jungkook rises to his feet. He moves to stand in front of her, smirking at the way she tilts her head back to look up at him. Her hand tightens around what’s most likely another knife as he tucks a few of her braids behind her right ear. “But I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing each other again very soon.”

The wide smile that covers his face sends chills down Laila’s spine. It’s sinister. Dark. She contemplates shoving the knife in her hand between his ribs but something in her tells her that no matter how at ease Jungkook looks, she probably wouldn’t get half the chance to carry out such a plan.

“Goodbye, Jungkook.” She grits out. He grins at her once more, scratching Cyn between the ears one final time before heading out the door.

Jungkook had figured that everyone would blow his phone up when they finally stopped arguing long enough to realize that he’d left which is precisely why he’d left his phone in his car. Sure enough, the amount of missed calls is dangerously close to hitting triple digits. The phone vibrates in his hand with a new call from Jimin.

“Fucking finally! Where did you go you twat?” Jimin screeches into his ear.

“Jimin, I’m in love.” Jungkook answers with a dopey grin on his face as he eases his car out of the parking space. He fills Jimin in on his little adventure as he weaves his way through traffic on the highway.

“First of all, you’re a dick for not taking me with you.” Jimin starts, obviously feeling some type of way at being left out of Jungkook’s plans. “Second of all, is she as hot as she looks in these surveillance videos?”

“If someone told me she was actually Aphrodite, I’d believe them.” Jungkook answers. Laila’s face floats across his memory as he recalls just how breathtaking she was in person. The plush fullness of her lips. Her smooth skin a rich brown that had almost seemed to glow wherever the light touched it. Even the way her slender fingers had gripped the handle of the knife she’d launched at him had been beautiful.

*   *   *

Several smacks to the back of his head and neck along with indignant shouts is how Jungkook is welcomed back home. He scowls at his brothers as he wards off a few stray hits from Hoseok and Jimin. They’re all lucky that he loves them.

“Jimin told us where you went you fucker and honestly you’ve got some nerve not taking me with you.” Taehyung proclaims as he flops down on the couch with his Nintendo switch.

“I was planning to break in and you wouldn’t know how to be quiet if I paid you. This is why you’re not allowed to bring people home anymore.” Hoseok falls over into Namjoon’s lap as Taehyung pouts. Jungkook pushes Tae’s legs over to make room for himself on the expensive leather couch.

“You said you were planning to break in so does that mean you didn’t?” Namjoon questions. He’s always reading between the lines which is why he’s the one that does all the heavy negotiating. Nothing gets by him.

“I knocked on the door like a normal person. The thought of ending up Kihyun told me that was the better option.” Namjoon nods in concession to his point. No one wants to end up like Kihyun.

Jungkook turns to the eldest of their merry band of misfits who is currently leaning over the back of the couch totally enraptured with whatever game Taehyung is playing.

“I told her you want her to work with us. She said it’s the dumbest idea she’s ever heard.” Jin’s eyes lift to Jungkook’s face and the youngest member can almost see the gears turning in Jin’s head.

“See there Jin. I told you your idea was stupid.” Hoseok dodges the pillow that Jin flings at him as he happily stuffs chips in his mouth.

Jin straightens as his mind races with possible next steps. Six pairs of eyes follow his every movement when he starts pacing back and forth along the length of the couch. He freezes mid step when the perfect solution comes to him. He can’t believe that he didn’t think of it before now. They leave for Japan for a week in the morning so his plan will have to wait till then but there’s no way this won’t work.

“Hobi, Tae, you two are up when we get back from Japan.” Jin instructs much to Hoseok’s displeasure. Taehyung is only too excited to finally get to lay eyes on the Laila Song. He even pauses his game to voice his appreciation. Hoseok on the other hand would rather eat glass.

“This is fucked. Why do we have to go?” he demands, standing from his seat immediately. Chips fly from his open bag as he animatedly waves his arms around in frustration.

Jin shuts him down with a single look. “You two numb nuts are the most persuasive out of all of us and I refuse to be turned down twice so whether you like it or not, you’re going.”

Hoseok continues to mumble under his breath but he knows not to continue to arguing with Jin. An idea on how to take care of Ms. Song before they return from Japan suddenly comes to him and just like Jungkook did earlier, Hoseok slips from the room to make a phone call. Light breathing on the other end is the only indication that his call has been answered. Hoseok rattles off a price and Laila’s address.

“Done.” Hoseok smiles slyly. Fuck Jin if he thinks he’s about to waste his energy trying to convince that problem with tits to take part in his livelihood. He doesn’t trust her and never will and Jin’s a fool for not doing this earlier. Jin might be the leader around here, but even leaders make messes sometimes that need to be cleaned up.

[soybeantree]

late night 

pairing: jooheon x reader genre/warning: fluff - children fluff word count: 3.7k description: jooheon shows you just how good he is with kids when your nephew needs a little extra tlc.  a/n:  turns out kids are becoming a common theme in our stories. sorry not sorry! besides who doesn’t want soft!jooheon with a little one. 

‘Each morning I wake up, put on my make up, and say a little prayer for you.’ 

Eyes still closed you roll over and silence your alarm. You sigh deeply into your pillow. Your bed is so warm and your pillow is perfectly shaped to your head. Leaving your bed now would be a crime, but one you have to commit. With a low groan, you throw off your covers, bracing yourself as the cold hits you. The little person next to you squirms, and you realize you were a little too dramatic with your uncovering. You quickly pull the covers back and tuck them under your nephew who curls up instantly. Glancing over him in the week morning light, you smile at his peaceful little face which is partly hidden by his mop of hair. Which reminds you, you need to take him to get a hair cut soon. You pray this time he won’t whine and beg for you to let him dye it some crazy color like his Jooheon-hyung. Seven is too young to start dying his hair despite how much he protests. You should be mad at Jooheon for being a bad influence, but he really isn’t. He’s the miracle who got your nephew to talk after the accident. After countless trips to every known psychologist and speech therapist in the country, you had given up hope that your nephew would ever speak again. While you two had developed your own means of communication, his teachers and his classmates had not, and they were the ones creating drama and mental stress for a poor kid who had already been through enough. You had been ready to take him out of school and home school him when one day you took him to work with you. You were supposed to have had the day off, but they called you in. With no one to watch the little man, he had to tag along. Looking back it must have been fate, there was no other explanation. Jooheon was never on your side of the building. You had worked at Starship for three years and never run into any of their idols. But on the day you were supposed to have off but didn’t and the day you had to bring your nephew, Jooheon came looking for an IT expert to fix his phone. He never made it into the office though. He saw your nephew sitting outside your office fidgeting with his fingers and decided to sit next to him. To this days, you don’t know what he said or did. All you know is that when you walked out of your office, you found your nephew with a bright smile on his face sitting next to an idol. You had started crying which had freaked out Jooheon. He started apologizing, and it took you a minute to calm down and explain that they were happy tears. You didn’t explain everything to him then, but you told him enough for him to understand that that smile was a miracle. After that day you had started to bring your nephew you with you whenever you had an opportunity, and Jooheon would make his way over any time he was free. Your nephew’s face would brighten the moment he heard Jooheon’s footsteps coming down the hall. In a few short months, your nephew was talking again. He never stopped talking now, and you wondered if he was making up for the two years he hadn’t spoken.  Finishing up in the bathroom, you shake your nephew awake, telling him to get ready for school while you head to the kitchen. You pack a lunch for him, for yourself, and one for Jooheon. He enters just as you finish up the last lunch. You hand him his and curse under your breath when you see the time. You rush him out the door and barely manage to put your shoes on before you hit the street. By the grace of God, you drop him off and make it to work on time. But you don’t even have time to breath a sigh of relief. Your boss already has a list of things to do. Before you know it, it’s lunch time. Pushing away from your desk, you stretch out your arms and roll your head around your neck working out the kinks. Days spent at your desk are your least favorite. You prefer to be up and about fixing things, but those days are few and far between which you suppose is a good thing. It means things are working properly, but still it means a boring day for you. “What did you bring for lunch today?” “Aish!” You scream as you clutch your heart. Your scream startles Jooheon, and he screams too. You glare at him, and he stares at you wide eyed. “You’re ridiculous.” You shake your head as you stand up and brush past him, heading to the IT break room. “Why did you scream?” He asks as he comes to walk beside you. “Why did you sneak up on me?” You counter as you pull open the break room door. The room is empty as usual during lunch time. Your workmates prefer eating in the Starship cafeteria. Jooheon follows you into the break room. “I didn’t sneak up on you. I thought you knew I was there.” You pause as you pull your lunch box out of your locker and stare at him. His ears flush slightly under your gaze. “What- how- never mind.” You shake your head. “Just next time make sure I know you’re there, so we don’t end up scaring each other.” He nods as he takes a seat at the break room table. “What did you bring for lunch?” He asks as he leans over the table to get a better look at what you’re unpacking. “Kimchi Fried Rice with Beef.” He makes a noise, and you glance over your shoulder to find him nearly bouncing in his seat. You snort and return to your unpacking. “I still don’t understand why you come eat my leftovers instead of eating in the cafeteria.” “You don’t know why I prefer a home cooked meal to cafeteria food?” He eyes you as you bring over the plates. “Besides you don’t eat in the cafeteria either.” He adds as you place his plate in front of him and take a seat across from him. You have no rebuttal to either of his points; instead, you start to eat. Jooheon seems to forget about the points as soon as the food is in front of him. He starts to devour it, making little noises of pleasure as he eats. You smile to yourself as you eat. Watching him eat your food with relish always brings a smile. Even if you question why he comes, it doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy his company.    Around mouth fulls of food, he asks you about your nephew, and you fill him in on the little accomplishments, like the fact that he’ll actually go to bed in his own bed now even though he still ends up in your bed every morning, and about his school and extracurriculars. You tell him how the little guy wants to dye his hair to match the idol’s. Jooheon laughs and tells you that you should let him. A glare from you makes him change his tone, but he still smiles at the idea of your nephew as his mini-me. The last few times you’ve brought him to work, you’ve caught Jooheon teaching him to rap. All too soon, lunch comes to an end, and Jooheon is rushing off to some schedule. You wish him good luck before cleaning up the dishes and heading back to work. Your days follow the same routine, though Jooheon doesn’t always make it too lunch. Some days he’s too busy and other days he’s not even in the country, but he always makes an effort to come if he can. One day he comes, and you’re the one who’s too busy for lunch. He enters your department, and you’re rushing around grabbing tools and pads from various tables and shoving them into your backpack. “Y/N, what’s going on?” But there’s no time to pause and explain. “WSJN had a mini fan concert today, and some dumb shit in the equipment team thought it would be a great idea to set his coffee on the sound board. Long story short, the coffee spilled. My boss’s boss called asking me to bring a replacement and see if I can salvage the sound board because those bitches aren’t cheep.” You finish packing up and throw your backpack over a shoulder. “Sorry, I can’t stay for lunch. If you’re hungry though, I did pack something. You know the combination to my locker right?” He nods, but you don’t see it. You’re already rushing out the door.

The sound board is salvageable you decide when you get a look at it, but you aren’t given the chance to work on it. Fed up with the incompetence of his crew, your boss’s boss decides you’re the only one capable of doing anything and puts you in charge of all the equipment. Everyone stares at you, and you stare back at them. Before you can second guess yourself, you start organizing people and handing out assignments. 

When you break long enough to check what time it is, you nearly have a panic attack. It’s a quarter to six, and your nephew’s after school day care closes at six. The event hasn’t even finished, and you’ll still have at least an hour of break down and loading of the equipment once it ends. Before the panic sets in, you do the first thing that comes to mind: you call Jooheon. “Hey, Y/N. How’s everything going?” His voice sounds from the speaker. “Hey Jooheon. I feel so bad asking you this but can you do me a huge favor?” “Of course.” His response is instantaneous, and you sigh with relief. “We’re nowhere close to being done here, and Y/N/N gets out of his after school program at six. If you’re not busy could you pick him up? You can just take him straight to my apartment. In the apartment across from mine is this little old lady. She’s watched him before, and if you explain the situation, I’m  sure she’ll agree to watch him.” You say in a rush. “I just don’t want him to take the bus home alone. He knows the way, and he has his T-Money Card, but-” “Y/N. Calm down. Breathe.” You do as he says. “I can pick him up. I have the night off. Don’t worry.” You can hear the smile in his voice. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll send him a text and let him know you’ll be picking him up.” You pause a moment and shake your head. “He’ll probably be happy that I can’t pick him up.” Jooheon laughs, but immediately covers it with a cough. “Thank you, Jooheon.” You say one final time before ending the call.

Jooheon walks down the street towards the address you texted him. His turtleneck is pulled over his mouth and a black cap covers his white blonde hair, affording him anonymity on the bustling streets. Turning into the courtyard of the building, he makes it two steps before a small black gust of wind runs into him knocking him back those two steps. The wind laughs instead of whistling, and looks up at him with a gape toothed smile. “Woah, your aunt didn’t tell me you’d lost your teeth.” He exclaims as he leans down to be on eye level with your nephew. The little boy beams showing off the hole in his teeth. “You’re really getting big, if you’re loosing your baby teeth.”

“My new ones are already growing in.” He says with pride. Jooheon tilts his head to get a better look, and sure enough two little white sprouts are pushing their way out. Standing up, he shakes his head. “When did you get to be so grown up? Don’t you want to go back to being a little boy again?” Your nephew fiercely shakes his head, and Jooheon chuckles. “Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands in defeat. “We should get going. I’m sure you have homework and other things to work on.” The two start down the street together. “Your aunt told me to drop you off at your neighbors apartment.” Your nephew makes a face at that. “What are you doing tonight, hyung?” He asks with a mischievous glint in his eye. While the idol may have noticed the glint, he shrugs his shoulders and plays along. “Not much. Why?” “You should just stay and watch me until auntie gets home then.” Jooheon scrunches up his mouth and shakes his head, but the little boy won’t be deterred so easily. “Please hyung. Puhhhleeeeasee!” He begs, grabbing onto the older man’s hand and tugging as he bounces up and down. “Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me.” He chuckles while your nephew squeals. Instead of releasing the idol’s hand, he adjusts his grip and takes off. The force sends Jooheon off balance, and he stumbles as he follows behind. “Come on. We need to hurry. We don’t know how long auntie will be busy, and there’s so much to do.” The boy’s fervor is infectious, and as soon as Jooheon regains his footing, he swoops the little boy up and onto his back before taking off.

As you head up the stairs to your apartment, you rub your aching shoulders and thighs. Your body is used to sitting all day, and the heaviest thing you lift is your coffee cup. Today, you had been on your feet for hours, and your flats had no arch support. You had also helped move and load all of the sound equipment. Every muscle aches, and you are ready to fall into a hot bath and then bed. 

Before you can knock on your neighbors door to collect you nephew, you hear music coming from your apartment. Raising a brow, you unlock the door and enter a dance studio. All of your living room furniture has been pushed to one side of the room, including the rug which is rolled up on your couch, and in the middle of the living room stands Jooheon and your nephew. Music blasts through the room, making it impossible to hear what Jooheon is telling your nephew, but by the way he moves while he talks, you can assume he’s instructing him in the dance steps for the song. Neither hear you enter, and neither realize you’re there until the music cuts off. Jooheon whirls around, arms out ready to karate chop the intruder. He freezes when he sees you standing by the speaker with arms crossed. The sight sends your nephew scurrying behind the idol. “Y/N.” Jooheon smiles, flashing his dimples. “You didn’t tell me you were finished.” Using every ounce of resolve to ignore those dimples, you remain firm in your posture. “Because I didn’t realize you would be here.” Jooheon’s ears darken, and he rubs at the back of his neck. “Right, well, he asked if I could stay and wait with him, and I was free tonight. I didn’t think you would mind.” He attempts another smile, but it falls into a thin line. You remain with arms crossed and eyes narrowed for another second longer before a chuckle escapes. You shake your head, and both boys smile in relief. “Of course. I don’t mind, but you could have texted me you were staying. I’m almost knocked on my neighbors door looking for him.” You nod to your nephew who is still hiding behind his hyung. “You can come out now. You’re not in trouble.” The little boy smiles sheepishly and steps to Jooheon’s side. “Did you at least feed our guest?” “I fed him.” You blink. “We ordered take-out. I ordered an extra serving for you too if you’re hungry. I left it on the kitchen table.” You nod at the unexpected blessing just as your stomach grumbles. The boys laugh, and you glare at them, but your stomach grumbles again sending them off in another fit of laughter. Ignoring their laughter, you clear your throat and walk into the living room. “Apparently, I’m hungry. So I am going to go eat and then take a quick shower, and when I’m done you had better be in your pajamas ready to put everything back where it goes.” You force your nephew to meet your eyes, and after an over dramatic sigh, he nods. Looking back over at Jooheon, you say, “Thank you for picking him up and watching him and feeding him. You are a life saver. And you are free to go. I’m sure you have a lot to work on.” “But we still have to watch the movie!” Your nephew protests. You look between the two boys, your brows furrowing. “We picked up a movie, and Jooheon said he would watch it with us.” “Sweetie,” You crouch down so you’re eye level with the little boy. “Jooheon is-” “I can stay.” You glance up, and Jooheon is glancing down at you with a shy smile. “I did promise to watch it, and I’d like to stay if you don’t mind.” “No not at all.” The words come out too quickly, and you bite your tongue before anymore can spill out. Staring at the floor so you don’t stare at him, you add. “I’ll just go eat and get ready and be out shortly.” Without looking up, you stand up and exit the room. After wolfing down the food and taking a quick shower, you pause in your room as you decide what to wear. All of your comfy clothes either have holes or stains on them, and none of them are appropriate for a movie night with Jooheon. But you don’t want to put on anything nice because that would seem like you were trying too hard. You growl at yourself. Why are you acting like this? It’s just Jooheon. Grabbing your favorite pair of sweats and a t-shirt, you start to put them on but pause with one leg in a pant hole. With another growl, you take them off and throw them across the room. In the end, you decide to wear a pair of leggings and one of your nicer sweaters. It’s long enough to cover everything, but still comfortable enough to not be over the top. Confident in your outfit choice, you head back out to the living room to find everything back in order, and Jooheon and your nephew on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. As instructed, the little guy is wearing his pajamas. They wave you over to the couch, and after turning off the lights, you plop down on the other side of your nephew. Jooheon starts the movie, and you settle in, ignoring the sudden fluttering in your stomach. Thirty minutes into the movie, your nephew is out. His head lolls onto your shoulder, and you can hear the faint sound of snuffling. Glancing over his head, you meet Jooheon’s eyes. ‘He’s asleep.’ You mouth. The idol glances between you and the boy and nods. ‘Do you want me to carry him?’ He mouths back pointing at your nephew and then down the hallway where the bedrooms are. Jooheon has already done so much for you, but your nephew isn’t as light as he used to be. With reluctance, you nod. Jooheon eases himself off the couch and slips his arms under the boy’s torso before gently lifting him. As the two disappear down the hallway, you turn off the movie and stand up, turning on the light, so you can clear away the mess. You hear the click of the bedroom door just as you finish tidying up the living room. Jooheon reappears, a soft smile on his face. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you did. You really are a life saver.” His smile widens, revealing his dimples, and your heart skips a beat. You are painfully aware that you are alone with Jooheon in your apartment after dark. You two have never been alone together like this before. Sure you’re alone together at work, but that’s work. This is your apartment, your personal space, and you can’t deny how good it feels to have Jooheon here. It feels right. Like he belongs here. Shaking your head, you clear away those thought. “Here I’ll see you out.” You head towards the door, and Jooheon is slow to flow. But soon enough he is standing beside you. “I enjoyed tonight.” He says as you unlatch the door. Glancing back over your shoulder, you smile. “I’m glad you had a good time. I know the little man can be a bit of a handful sometimes.” “It was more than just hanging out with him. I enjoyed getting to pick him up from school, getting dinner for him, waiting for you to get home, watching a movie together, and getting to put him to bed. I’d like to do it again. If it’s okay with you.” He bows his head and glances up at you through his lashes. Your breath hitches in your throat, and you stare at him unable to speak. The silence stretches on until Jooheon clears his throat. “Sorry, if I made you uncomfortable-” “No,no.” Unintelligible sounds follow the word as your brain tries to get your mouth working again. “No, no, my silence is not - I’m not uncomfortable. I’m just in shock.” You finally manage to get out. “In a good way.” You add when you see his face fall. “I’m happy. I’m happy that you enjoy spending time with me and the little man. I like coming home to find you here with him and with food and watching a movie together. I’d like to do it again too.” You glance down, missing the way his ears flush and the smile that stretches across his face displaying his dimples in all their glory. “Then we’ll have to do this again.” You can hear the smile in his voice, and you finally glance up. His smile is infectious, and you return it. “I should get going though.” “Right. Yes.” Your eyes go wide, and you pull open the door, a little too forcefully. Jooheon chuckles, and you sigh. “I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow.” You nod because you don’t trust yourself to say anything intelligent. He exits the apartment, and you close the door before leaning against it and slowly sliding down to the floor. You may not fully understand what just happened, but you know it was wonderful.  

[420stepsahead-blog]

One of Many

Back in 2017, I met this girl named Huda, she was a well crafted, well made human being that God sent from above in which she defined the meaning of beauty. You know, Huda means guidance in Arabic, and funny enough, this person has actually guided me through the various obstacles I have faced in my life, she has guided me to dig deep inside of my core that has been rotting for months and lit a torch inside of me. I met Huda back in 2017, and instantly fell in love with how she interacts, how she talks and how she- well, operates. We were young back then, and I was still full of all of these emotions and feelings that are yet to be let free and roam to whoever catches. We were young, and by young I mean we were still yearning for the chances life still had to offer, for the opportunities we were about to indulge in, for the ups and downs we were about to get involved in, for the entire wild youth experience. She had fallen out of a previous relationship which somehow still affected her at the time, and well I, I wasn’t really committed to anything, nor have I ever. I wasn’t very keen on staying in a serious relationship for longer than a couple of months, call it whatever you want, but I knew nothing lasts and this era of young love is soon to be expired once I grow up. Huda was different, she was very understanding and very true to her feelings, and to her instincts. She wasn’t like any other girl I met at the time, she was this walking volcano that is soon set to erupt and undoubtedly erasing those who stand tall. She was this very complex human, not to lie but I wasn’t that comfortable around her at first, and comfortable as in- fully ready, or entirely sure. Yes, my heart bumped and those small signs of love showed up, but I hadn’t really paid it any attention, because I just met the girl. Moving on, we both confessed our love to each other. Back at the time I was this dam that had all of the affection and love waiting on the other side, and once I have earned her love, it all went loose. I loved her more than I loved myself, and yes, I wasn’t that secure about myself at the time, so finding her was like finding slice of pizza waiting for you at the end of a very tiring day, there are better examples, but she likes pizza, so yeah. As I mentioned before, the toxicity her last boyfriend injected beneath her skin left many scars, and she was yet to recover. Being the naive person I was, I tried to fill her up with love that I had offered like never before, and to lend the hand of true help, to go through whatever she had to go through, but together. Cutting to the chase, it didn’t last long, and we broke up. Although expected but never occurred to me that she would still have feelings for whoever she was with, but it happened nonetheless. Days upon days and months upon months pass by without hearing a word from her and suddenly we go back to talking, just casually talking. Every feeling I had for her had died. Not a drip of emotion was alive. Well, actually, all of my feelings towards anything were dead and buried beneath seven levels of dirt. The time period we stopped talking I had gotten myself into another relationship, after so long. It lasted for a year, and ended, my heart was shattered into millions of pieces and stepped on. It was brutally assaulted like it was some sort of a criminal. My heart and whatever was left of it was broken, and was unable to function, it was unable to process any feelings or emotions but sadness and grief. To dwell and weep over what happened were my daily tasks. I had given up on everything and everyone. I felt humiliated because for the second time in two years I had given it all and it wasn’t enough. I had offered everything there was to offer. I have lost myself in the journey of finding others and I am yet to find myself again. I have been stuck in this boulevard of emptiness for too long. Months ahead, me and Huda reunite and she falls back in love with me, the same way I did the first time. I wasn’t really on my best behavior at the time, and even though I had loved her again, but it wasn’t like the first time. Overcoming my fear of commitment and the fact that I will be dating the same girl for the second time, I just went along with it, hoping that my feelings would somehow stay intact. Months go by and everything flows around smoothly, but my inner soul wasn’t fully comfortable. I had changed and so did my ethics, I have grown mentally and emotionally and I realized that I needed more time alone to be okay again, and the poor girl did not know any of it until I talked to her through it, letting her know that I am not that ready yet. I felt like a burden the whole time. She was great, she was magnificent, she was the girlfriend anyone would wish for. She’s like a fine shot of Scottish whiskey. She would seduce you so you would take your first sip, your taste buds tingle as you swallow and then you realize it’s not so bad, and you only want more, and more. I honestly never wanted to quit it, but it was just getting out of my hands. Breaking up with her, left me feeling guilty, as if I had murdered someone innocent, as if I had committed the worst crime ever. I never broke someone’s heart that way I did to hers, or at least I like to think so. I left her broken, I let her down and destroyed the image she had of me in her mind, and that alone made me hurt even more, that I have caused her this pain. Seeing her cry or sad because of something I did, wasn’t the greatest feeling ever. But I knew I had to postpone what I had to truly say later on, just so she could get better. Huda has helped me with many things, and she has let go of many just to be with me, and all of what she did was for the sake of love, and true love only. Huda loves me with all of her beating heart, and I know so, because you can see it in her eyes, you can notice it in how she acts around me. Huda taught me that a person can change for the better, and that the past is where it belongs, and where it will always remain, because it’s called the past, you cannot keep yourself attached to something that you’re unsure of its integrity. Huda made me realize that love isn’t necessarily a first sight love, that love can gradually be bigger, and be even more real than before. Huda taught me that actions speak louder than words, that if you love someone you have to show it, you have to do effort, you have to love. Huda opened my eyes to the fact that I cannot just hang my problems aside, and face them, she spoke of how I had to overcome my fears. Huda took good care of me, and that alone made me take care of myself even more. I may not be the best person out there, and I may not have been the best, but I try to be. I try to be a better version of myself each and every day, for I still have lots of time to grow. I still have a lot to do. I tend to run away from my problems, or consider them solved as I see fit, but it doesn’t always work that way. Huda’s love towards me has made me love myself, and love the way love really is. How love is really the greatest feeling to exist, and with love you can achieve more, just because someone out there loves you, and cares about you. That alone my friends, makes you want to live, makes you want to love. This is a thank you letter for Huda, for making me believe in love again, after having my heart broken. Thank you for being there for me, and believing in me. Thank you for being who you are, and showing me how to be myself.  

[letterboxd]

Family.

“We’re trying to say: stop thinking about Manson as the embodiment of all evil. If he got a record deal, maybe nobody would have died.”

Jack Moulton talks cults, Trump and noise-cancelling headphones with American actress and screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Charlie Says is her latest film with frequent collaborator, Canadian director Mary Harron.

Of the serial-killer films currently in release, Charlie Says is the one that puts a strong focus on the women who often remain in the background of these retellings. Leslie Van Houten (Hannah Murray), Patricia Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon), and Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendón)—the three women who killed for Charles Manson (Matt Smith)—are imprisoned in isolation in a California penitentiary, as well as psychologically imprisoned by Manson’s delusional ideas.

Then graduate student Karlene Faith (Merritt Wever) is given the job of rehabilitating the young women—as long as they are prepared to confront the horrors of their actions.

Turner co-wrote the 90s urban indie lesbian feature Go Fish directed by Rose Troche, which preceded her meeting with Harron. Charlie Says is their most recent collaboration, having partnered previously on American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.

What interested you in writing a film about Charles Manson? Guinevere Turner: When the producers met with me they said they wanted to focus on the women as we definitely never got a sense of a story told from their perspective before. Once I found Karlene Faith’s book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten [Faith’s study of the rehabilitation process and elongated incarceration of the three Manson Family girls], I saw a whole side of the story that literally never gets represented.

I got very excited that I could make a good movie out of this and it would also be an interesting commentary on what it says about society that we always treated these women like they’re interchangeable. Nobody’s ever asked “what happened to them?”, “what made them do what they did?” and more importantly “why did we stop talking about them?”. We never stopped talking to Charlie! There was a real opportunity to talk about men and women, who and when we pay attention to historically.

Did you get the chance to work with Karlene Faith in person before she passed away [in May 2017]? Yes, she was fantastic. It took a while to persuade her into talking to me at first. I slowly gained her trust via email, then we would talk on the phone, and eventually I would be visiting her apartment in Vancouver and we became friends. For about two years we were as thick as thieves.

Her book was obviously a huge resource but she was also useful for research as she was a woman of that time. She gave me a great visual, listening to her activist life outside of prison. When she met the girls for the first time she had all these assumptions that they were gonna be freaky psycho-killers and she was blown away by how sweet they were. She was immediately turned by them and she wanted to help them.

What were some of the unexpected realities of living in a cult environment that you wanted to portray? So I grew up in a cult environment as you probably knew so I assume that’s why you ask that question. [Ms. Turner spent the first eleven years of her life as part of the Lyman Family. They were devotees of Mel Lyman who believed he and his commune members would eventually live on the planet Venus. Though parted from her mother after birth, she and her younger sister were ejected from the Family when her mother eventually decided to leave. Ms. Turner considered returning at eighteen but chose to go to college instead.]

Yes, I read the article in The New Yorker. For me, I was excited to bring this knowledge in my DNA of what it’s really like living in that environment to represent both the good and the bad parts. You have those semi-orgy scenes and people doing acid, but also scenes where everyone is sitting around for dinner. That grounds it a little more. At the end of the day, it is a family—albeit an infamously weird one—but it is a bunch of people trying to live together.

While there’s the “everyday” quality to it I also wanted to show the volatility. It can be beautifully tranquil one moment and then turn on the dime into something scary and destabilizing. I feel like those things were true of my childhood. Mary Harron heard me talking about my upbringing for decades and she would always say “you should write about it”. I didn’t want to write about it specifically, but when I found this movie I thought I could bring something personal to the project that no other screenwriter could.

We’re curious about how you like to write. What music do you listen to while you work and are there any films you used as inspiration? I can’t listen to anything when I’m writing. I have noise-cancelling headphones that don’t cancel noise enough. I could live in an actual sensory deprivation tank while I write and I would be so happy, but unfortunately you can’t bring computers underwater. So, no music.

I watched a lot of movies of the era, especially unconventional movies about Jesus such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). Those were interesting aesthetically.

There’s a shot in the movie where they’re walking up the side of this mountain and I just loved that iconography. We were short for time on the day and I pleaded with Mary to make it happen. It made me so happy that it became one of the images they use for the promotion of the film. It does feel like this biblical journey and we were trying to capture that vibe.

What do you do to ensure the female gaze is considered from the script? I find a lot of that is intuitive. For example in this script, there has to be nudity but you notice that every time someone is naked in this movie it’s really uncomfortable. That’s one thing in terms of subverting male gaze, is that there’s no way that any person could see those scenes as objectifying the body for more than a nanosecond because of what’s happening.

It’s all about power, so I like that it’s portrayed as being uneasy. Even when Matt Smith is naked, Charlie is exerting power over someone else and she’s repulsed by him. That’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

How does your acting background feed into the way you write your characters? I think because I’m an actor I deeply feel the reality of what’s available for the average female actor to play. There’s tons of “someone’s girlfriend” and all the tropes, so for me when I’m writing I’m asking myself what about this is going to make an actor say “yes please, let me play that part!”.

I need to present something complex and challenging that they don’t often see. As someone who’s auditioned for many characters that I thought were poorly written, I try and give even the small parts something that will make an actor excited to play them.

What makes your creative partnership with Mary Harron work so well? It’s funny because we’ve never really asked ourselves that. Of course in the last week we’ve been asked that a lot while we’re in the same room and we look at each other like confused animals going “why does it work?”.

We realize that we have a similar sense of humor so we laugh a lot even while we’re writing all this dark stuff. The main factor is that we really trust each other. One of the hardest things about collaborating is that you’re not sure if someone is shooting down your idea because it doesn’t work or they’re jealous that it’s good. You need to trust that you can test stupid ideas with them.

When we first met in 1996 [shortly after Harron’s directing debut I Shot Andy Warhol and Turner’s writing debut Go Fish] we immediately had an affinity for each other and started writing together. It was as easy the first time we tried it as it is now. There’s not even much of an evolution. I feel really lucky for that because as a screenwriter it certainly means I have a lot more access to the movie than usual because the director is always checking in with me.

Despite all of the bleakness, it’s clear in the film that these women just wanted to be loved. There’s such a deep sympathy for them. What interests you about the line of responsibility for those influenced by dangerous charismatic leaders? I’d say everything about that interests me.

I’m drawing parallels to politics today such as the alt-right people that Trump influences, for example. We’re seeing echoes where people are mindlessly following a person who is validating evil, dangerous, and disgusting ideas. For these women I had to constantly remind myself that they did commit these horrible crimes.

I feel like Charles Manson and Donald Trump are apples and oranges except for the fact that they strike me as people where their only real fuel is power and that half the time they don’t know what they’re doing or saying, they’re just terrified of losing it. They almost have no internal life. They just feel when they have the power and when the power may be taken away and what they do to keep it makes people do terrible things. It’s like an addiction.

Matt Smith as Charles Manson in ‘Charlie Says’.

I’m sure you’re painfully aware that we have four Charles Manson films coming out in a short space of time. There’s Tate, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, though I’m certain Charlie Says was conceived before all of these. How do you feel about being a part of this cycle? I started writing the movie in 2014 and most of the time movies are made two years later but that’s not how it worked out for various logistical reasons. So on the one hand, I cringe that it’s the 50th anniversary [of Sharon Tate’s murder] and that’s when our movie’s coming out—it feels tacky but it’s definitely not on purpose.

Which seems to be very deliberate on Tarantino’s part… But the way independent films work is that you try and get them made until you get them produced. You don’t have these luxuries of when exactly they’re going to come out. That said, we have landed in a zeitgeist moment which is nice in terms of people paying attention to the movie. I don’t know much about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but I’m sure Tarantino has a radically different approach from ours.

While they share some similarities, your depiction of Charles Manson doesn’t work in quite the same way as American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. How did you decide the ways you wanted to humanize Manson? I think the first thing that’s similar between how we portrayed these two characters is that while they’re these powerful frightening people, we’re demystifying them and grounding them in an essential pathetic loserness. Mary and I don’t talk about how we can make another movie that takes down toxic masculinity, that’s just where we end up sometimes.

With American Psycho the stakes of social responsibility were different. We were asking people to put your baggage with the book away, we’re women making this, and we are trying to turn it into something that’s a critique of masculinity in a funny and dark way.

For Charlie Says we’re trying to say: stop thinking about Manson as the embodiment of all evil. We want to stop giving him that power and show that he was a conman who was just a failed musician. If he got a record deal, maybe nobody would have died.

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in ‘American Psycho’ (2000).

I have to say, American Psycho holds up really well for the Trump era. One could argue that it works better now than when it came out.

How do you respond to the way you’ve already satirized these sociopaths in power and how that affected the increasing appreciation for the film over the years? It’s gratifying, because [American Psycho] was not particularly well loved when it came out. That’s disheartening when you work hard on a project that you think is more worthy. That said, it being more relevant now is terrifying. I watched the movie again recently and there’s a little part of you that cringes when we make Trump jokes because Donald Trump was a different kind of funny at the time.

‘Charlie Says’ is in US cinemas now, and available on VOD and digital from May 17.

[vvtaverenvv]

A Quiet Night

Hello everyone! Here’s another todomomo fic about them as pro heroes. The story takes place in a future where villain factions are constantly rising and trying to disrupt, change, or even destroy society. Hope you enjoy!

The district was a war zone, to say the least. Buildings had entire sides broken off, exposing the apartments and offices within. Rubble littered the street; broken glass, chunks of cement, and exposed wires and pipes made traversing the ground difficult. Then, of course, there was the obvious battle that was going on. Two gangs had finally escalated their small conflict, calling in favors, rallying friends and allies, and buying mercenaries for their final battle. When it finally began, both sides had amassed what was equal to an army. Petty criminals and gangsters formed the ranks, and those with better quirks and better skills formed the elites that actually did the damage. The battle had started only an hour ago, but the devastation was on par for a war-torn city.

Shouto Todoroki stood with his back to a wall, short bursts of gunfire flying overhead. As one of the more combat oriented  heroes of his team he had been tasked with trying to take out as many of the gang members as possible. At the beginning of the battle it had been easy, after all there were so many people that it was hard to concentrate on just him. However, after the initial melee, everyone became scattered and that was when the real danger happened. Explosions went off to destroy parts of buildings and the road itself, then came the more dangerous weapons. Instead of using swords and knives, they began to use guns and Todoroki was forced to lay low in order to help a family escape. Now, he stood off in one alleyway to observe the fighting. From what he could tell, the remaining gang members were in a standoff in this single block. Confined to the buildings, they fired upon each other’s position until hopefully the other side was routed, or dead.

Todoroki sighed and leaned his head against the brick. Part of him urged him to charge forward into the house and simply take down as many as he could, while another part urged caution. Who knew how many were actually left, and if he took a bullet in the process it’d only limit the hero’s opportunities.

“Need help?” A familiar voice came to his left and he turned to see Momo Yaoyorozu beside him. A large tower shield was in her left hand and she stood in the shadows between the buildings in order to not get spotted by their enemy. A bandage was wrapped around the upper arm that wasn’t protected, and he quickly took a few steps over to examine it. Yaoyorozu waved her free hand in front of his face, then pulled him closer and behind the shield as more gunfire erupted overhead. “I’m fine, you need to worry about yourself.” She spoke in a soft tone as they took a few more steps back into the alley.

“Mmm.” Todoroki hummed and stepped forward with his right foot to create a wall of ice in front of them. Yaoyorozu relaxed and took a half-step away from him to give him some space. “How’d the evacuation go?”

“It went as well as one would expect. Major injuries were the norm, and there’s a few missing so Jirou is looking for them. Kaminari is providing backup for her, so we’re on our own.”

“I see.” Todoroki knelt down and suddenly his right hand began to glow. He traced a small outline of the block they were on with ice, marking the buildings he knew were filled with enemies with a broad X. “The two gangs are spread along these two buildings, fighting each other without caring for the casualties. It’s resorted to trench warfare, and while I’ve cleared a couple buildings already it’s definitely slow going.” He looked up at Yaoyorozu. “We need to do something, and fast. What do you suggest, captain?”

Yaoyorozu frowned as she looked over the crudely drawn map, and while it may look like she was zoned out, Todoroki knew her better. Within a moment she’d have a plan that would work almost flawlessly. He slowly stood and began to scan their surroundings, and a moment later she began to speak.

“We go building to building, no matter what. Floor to floor and room to room.” She formed a long steel pole and held it with her free hand. “I’ll approach them and you’re going to be behind me. When we pass a room, you send in flames or ice and we keep moving. If anybody is in front of us, I’ll use this pole to keep them away and you can send fire or ice after them.” She smiled a bright, confident smile that made Todoroki’s lips twitch up in agreement.

“Sounds like a good operation.” He held up his hands and they began to glow their respective colors, red and white. “After you.”

Yaoyorozu’s operation did indeed save the day. Each floor they cleared was only filled with a few gang members who were easily taken out by the two pro heroes. Todoroki’s abilities were already sharpened for combat, so whoever dare approached them was immediately taken out. Those who Todoroki could not immediately target were handled by Yaoyorozu and her lance. While the gang members did fire back, the shield held up against their attacks. Within an hour, the block was clear of gang members and more heroes had shown up to support them.

Todoroki and Yaoyorozu leaned against a building, watching as more heroes began to file in. Jirou and Kaminari were escorting those few missing and lightly injured who they didn’t manage to evacuate in the opening salvos of the battle. Bakugou and Midoriya were assembling teams to hunt down the few members who escaped, and in the distance they could see Kendou and Uraraka assisting the medical personnel.

Tenya Iida came up to the two heroes, his helmet at his side. Yaoyorozu gave him a small wave and Todoroki nodded in greeting when he came close. “You two seemed to have had a long night, go home.” He spoke shortly, giving the two of them no time to say anything in response.

“But–” Todorki started speaking until Iida held up his hand and glared at him.

“Don’t tell me you’re fine to fight. This week has been hell for the both of you because neither one of you have stopped.” That was true, to say the least. Since the fall of All Might the crime rate and the severity of crimes committed has steadily risen until they graduated, when it began to exponentially increase. Heroes were constantly under pressure to keep up with the piling work, and often didn’t find a moment to themselves unless other heroes managed to cover them. “The public doesn’t need to see you two crashing down.” Iida added, before turning towards someone who called his name. “Go home, we can handle it.” He dashed off then, leaving the two at the base of the building.

When Iida left, Todoroki visibly relaxed and turned towards Yaoyorozu. Now that the cameras were off them, she could show how exhausted she was. Her legs wavered and Todoroki stepped close to gently hold her shoulder to steady her. She looked up at him and smiled. “We should go home. I’ll meet you for dinner?” She asked in a soft voice, one hand rising to pull some of his hair out of his eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll get everything ready.” He whispered back, then felt her warmth fade away as she turned to walk down the street. He watched her for a moment, before turning the opposite way to find his way home.

Hours later the clock struck twelve in and Todoroki was laying on his couch in his apartment. The apartment was sparsely decorated, with a small kitchen to the side and a hallway that led to his bedroom. He laid still with his eyes closed and the TV news playing in the background. The evacuation and handling of the aftermath was finished, and now recovery heroes were rebuilding and clearing the ground for temporary homes and offices. He heard a knock at the door, so he stood and turned off the TV, then went to answer the door. Yaoyorozu was there, dressed in simple pants, a shirt and coat, with a plastic bag held in one hand.

“Good evening, Todoroki-san.” She held up the bag and smiled at him.

“Good evening, Yaoyorozu. I can take your coat.” He stepped to the side and let her in, shutting the door behind her. She gave him his coat and walked over to the kitchen, setting down the bag on the counter and checking the tea Todoroki had started fifteen minutes earlier. “Did you have any trouble getting the food?” He set his coat over the couch and followed her to the kitchen and began pulling out the take-out she had gotten. There was cold soba and dumplings and a small entree of chicken and noodles, among a few other sides. It all smelled wonderful and Todoroki instinctively grinned.

“No, everything was fine.” Yaoyorozu checked that their tea cups–one a plain white cup with a flower on it, and another with a silver-lining and a painted matryoshka doll–were on the table and then turned to grab the tea just as it started to whistle. She set the kettle in middle of the table and then sat down at the table as Todoroki began to set the food throughout the table. He set the soba by his side of the table, and everything next to her. “Any word from the others? I haven’t heard anything.” Yaoyorozu asked as she sat down and began opening the various packages of food.

“Midoriya sent me a text saying they got everybody who was present at the battle, and that nobody was hurt too bad. Only scratches and cuts.” He glanced towards her upper arm where the bandage was still wrapped around her, and Yaoyorozu tilted her head to make eye contact.

“Curious about what happened?” She asked as she popped a dumpling into her mouth. He nodded and she quickly finished her dumpling before speaking. “Jirou and I were helping a family get out of the way when some ganger decided to fire at us. I managed to create a shield to hide the family but one of the bullets grazed me.”

Todoroki frowned slightly and then reached forward to gently grasp her hand in his and squeeze it gently. “I’m glad you managed to get out of there ok.” He said before releasing her hand and picking up his bowl of soba. “Something really needs to be done to limit crime, if–” He spoke softly but she could tell that something was bothering him. His eyes were downcast and slight embers flicked through his hair and around the left side of his face.

Yaoyorozu reached forward and gently brushed her hand against his wrist, and then laced her fingers through his hand when he set his bowl down. “Shouto,” she whispered, making eye contact with him, “It’s ok. We both agreed that when we get a break we don’t talk about work, even if we’re feeling heated.” Slowly she could see the embers dissipate into the air as Todoroki took a deep breath.

“You’re right.” He said, slowly letting go of her hand to grab his food again. “Let’s just relax.” She smiled at him and he returned the smile, and they both dove into their food.

Forty-five minutes later, the two of them were laying on the couch. Todoroki had one arm wrapped around Yaoyorozu, who laid on her side with her back pressed against him. A blanket was draped over the two and the TV was playing some old fantasy anime about a holy grail war. While Yaoyorozu had her eyes closed, Todoroki knew she was still awake, even though exhaustion was heavily affecting the both of them.

“You should sleep.” He whispered, his free hand gently played with her hair.

“Mmm, I’m watching...this.” She gestured with her left arm towards the TV, but snuggled closer against Todoroki’s body.

“I’m sure you are.”

“Besides, I have to go back home.”

“Your home is here.”

“In all but name.” She retorted, her hand moved up to gently cup his face, her eyes opening to stare up at him. “I had to move the meeting to next week.”

“Mmm, just fall asleep.” Todoroki gently took her hand and rubbed her palm with his thumb. “Nothing bad will happen, I promise.”

Yaoyorozu smiled up towards him. The smile was warm and bright, and made Todoroki’s heart skip a beat. “My knight in shining armor, always reassuring me.” She leaned up and blessed him with a gentle kiss. Then, she laid back down on the couch and settled back down against him.

Todoroki sighed and turned off the TV when her breathing became regular and deeper. He laid down on the couch and pulled her against him, his head buried in her neck. With the increase in the crime rate, it felt like everything was going to hell and society was tearing itself apart. His father was stressed out beyond belief and while their relationship still wasn’t the best, he could only feel worried for him as he took on more and more villains. The more he turned over the situation in his head, the more anxious he got. What would happen if they began to sustain more casualties, and the conflicts between villain factions resulted in the same destruction as tonight’s battle has? Could his father really handle the workload and pressure he was under? Could any of them? Society was facing complete chaos and they were the only wall that could stop the tide of ruin that would result from the complete annihilation of Order.

He breathed in, and could smell Yaoyorozu’s slight rose perfume, and felt comfort. His heart rate slowed as he focused on the rose petal scent, her body between his arms, and the warmth that she held. She grounded him, prevented him from exploding under the stress. Even though many people regarded him as the powerhouse of their team, it was really Momo who was the most powerful. She was the one that came up with the best plan, and the one that held everyone together. He smiled softly and gently laid a small kiss against the back of her neck.

Even if the world was going to hell, he knew that Momo was going to be with him until the end.