#It's the way Tobias chooses to help and stay by his friends on purpose over and over again every day even tho nothing is telling him to

[yeonban]

Staring at my roster and it's so interesting how they ALL fall into one faction or the other. Either they love someone so much they're willing to die kill and do most else under the sun for their person based solely on their feelings for them (ex. Toma, Soma etc), or they consciously make the choice to care for their person even though they don't exactly feel the emotion of love in the way society would expect them to (ex. Tobias, Lewin etc). NO ONE is in-between or part of a secret third choice. It's one of these two or nothing

[hotchnersbiitch]

Worth Fighting For

A/N: SEND ME REQUEST PLZ

Request: @jojosgirlkat1dluvr​

Pairing: Spencer Reid x reader 

Category: angst & fluff at the end 

Warning: kidnapping, violence. Heavily based off the episode titled Revelations 2x15, so if for some weird reason you haven't seen that episode this will contain major spoilers I guess??

Word Count: 2,003~ 8min

-

You groan as you woke up in a dark room that smelt awful. Your face was throbbing in pain, you went to touch your face when you realized your hands were handcuffed to a chair. Where were you? The last thing you remember was being with JJ to talk to a possible witness but you both discovered that he was the unsub. Tobias? You think that was his name, he ran around back you and JJ split up to look for him. Next thing you know you were hit in the head, now you're in a dirty cabin. 

“Shit.” You mumble out of pain looking down at your handcuffed hands trying to see if there was a way out. 

“Watch your language.” A loud threatening voice called out, the man from earlier was standing in front of you, your eyes went wide. 

“Colossians 3:8; But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” The man recited as he pulled out a revolver and one silver bullet holding the bullet up to your face. 

“This, this is God’s will.” He says loading the bullet into the gun and spinning the chamber before pointing it directly at your forehead.

“Y-you don't have to do this.” You stutter out, fearing for your life. 

“Yes I do,” he mumbled, next thing you heard was the pull of the trigger. click

The whole team was at Tobias’ house trying to find a way to get you back. Your best friend Spencer was losing his mind, he was so worried about you. You guys have been best friends before you even joined the BAU a few years after Spencer did. You both went to college together, you guys were inseparable. Hours passed with no luck, Spencer was worried sick but he was trying his best to stay calm and figure out where you were. Everyone was, you were the youngest of the group, everyone tried their best to protect you. 

“What are you doing? Don’t, please don’t” You beg as Tobias fills a syringe with a clear liquid, you had no idea what it was. 

“It helps.” He says calmly as he lines the needle up with your vein. 

“Please, I don't want it. I don't want it, please.” You were crying not knowing what was going to happen to you. 

“Trust me, I know.” He says as he sticks you with the needle slowly injecting you with the drug. You wince at the pain, you feel the liquid flow through your veins your eyes rolled to the back of your head. 

“Y/N? Y/N?” you sat up off the floor in an empty, completely white room, you saw your mom standing across from you, how was this possible, she's dead. Are you hallucinating? Are you dead? 

“Mom?” 

“Don’t be afraid to let go, sweetie,” she said in an angelic voice, it all made sense to you now.

“I don't want to die.” You cry out to your mother. 

“Then fight, what's something worth fighting for?” She asks

“Spencer.” You reply immediately, you loved Spencer so much. You don't want to leave this Earth without him knowing he’s the love of your life. You don't want to hide your feelings for your best friend anymore. You wanted a life, with him.

“Fight for him Y/N. Don't give up on him, you love him. He loves you too. Don't give up on him.” She says her voice becoming quieter and quieter.

“I love him, I love him..... I love him.” 

  “Guys! Guys! Get in here!” Derek yells from Tobias's computer room where Garcia was working to find you. The team rushes in gathering behind Garcia, gasping when they see the computer screen. Spencer's face went white and he started crying, JJ placed a hand on his back to comfort him, but there was no calming him down now. 

“He’s killing her,” Garcia said looking away from the screen where you were being beaten. The team watched intently as the scene unfolded in front of their eyes. 

“Answer me! How many members are on your team not including yourself?!” He yelled, he broke you you couldn't take anymore beating. You didn't know how much longer you could hold out. 

“Seven” You mutter your voice weak. 

“The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first sounding followed hail and they were thrown to the earth.” He says walking around you before standing in front of you again, you glanced at the camera that was filming you with a terrified look on your face. 

“Tell me who you serve.” He demands. 

“I serve you” You whimper out. 

“Then chose one to die.” 

“What?” You question your heart rate picking back up again. 

“Your team members- chose one to die.” 

“Kill me.” You meant it, you'd give your life for your team.

“Choose, and prove you'll do God's will.” He says as he pulls out the revolver again spinning the chamber before pressing it to your forehead. 

“Choose.” 

“I won't do it.” he pulled the trigger. Nothing. 

“Life is a choice, now choose.” 

“No.” he pulled the trigger again. Nothing 

“Choose.” 

“I...” You thought for a moment before a plan arose in your head. 

“I choose... Spencer Reid,” you utter out.

“He’s a classic narcissist, he thinks he’s better than everyone else on the team because of his intelligence. Genesis 23:4 “Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility. For these shall be his recompense.” 

Spencer shook his head, immediately knowing what you were doing. 

“That's wrong,” Spencer says. 

“She doesn't mean it, man, she's under tremendous stress,” Morgan says and Spencer shakes his head wiping his puffy eyes. 

“I know that I'm not a narcissist. But she does know that I know what she means.” He says the team gives him a perplexed look waiting for him to elaborate. 

“Y/N and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism not too long ago, and she knew that I would remember that, and she also quoted Genesis, chapter 23, verse 4. ‘I am a stranger and a foreigner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.’ She wouldn't get it wrong unless it was on purpose. She's in a cemetery.” He explained in a broken voice. 

“She's telling me where she is,” he adds. 

“Okay, uh....” Garcia says typing away on the computer. Hotchner leans over her and points to the screen. 

“What's that patch of green there?” He asks. 

“Marshall Parish. I think it is an old plantation” Garcia responds. 

“Wait!” Spencer says running to get one of Tobias's journals flipping it open before rushing back in. 

“Tobias wrote in his journals about staying clean and keeping away from Marshall,” Spencer says passing the journal around to the team. 

“Guys, there's a cemetery on the grounds,” Garcia says. 

“She's there guys, Garcia send us the address. We have to go before its too late!” Spencer yells running out to the SUVs with everyone else. He was so scared he’d never see you again, he had to hurry. 

You woke up to the man taking off your handcuffs, you panicked, what was happening? 

“What are you doing?” You ask as the handcuffs dropped to the floor, suddenly he grabbed you by the hair dragging you outside. You screamed out in pain as he dragged you out to the cemetery, he drops you before throwing a shove at you. 

“Dig,” he says sternly, you sobbed and did as he said scared as to what may happen if you didn't obey. You hoped Spencer got your message and the team was on their way to come save you. You dug for what felt like hours but was only several minutes, you felt weak, you needed to escape. You didn't think your team was going to find you in time. You looked at the man before you swung the shovel hitting him in the leg. He fell to the ground and you took this chance to run the best you could, you could see flashlights in the distance, was that them? 

“HELP! I’M OVER HERE! SPENCER! GUYS!” You screamed with all the power you had hobbling as fast as you could, you saw them coming closer to you. Suddenly you felt something hard hit the back of your head and a gunshot echo through the night. 

You woke up to bright lights blinding you, you groan closing your eyes again, your whole body ached. 

“Y/N?” You heard Spencer’s voice. 

“Is she waking up?” You heard Derek ask. You were alive, you were safe, you felt comfort wash over you. You forced your eyes open. 

“Thank God...I’m alive” You mumble looking around seeing your team all around you. 

“Yeah, babygirl you're alive,” Derek says quietly, you look over at him and smile at him. 

“How are you feeling?” Emily asked walking over to you. 

“Like shit.” You say with a small chuckle. 

“Yeah, I’d imagine you were hit over the head with a shovel,” Emily says matching your vibe with a small laugh. 

“That's what that was? I thought I got shot, I felt something hit me and I heard a gun go off and then everything went black.” You explain, the whole team was standing around now listening. 

“No, you weren't shot. Spencer shot Tobias right after he hit you.” Aaron explains, abruptly everything came rushing back to you. 

“Spencer...” you mumble looking over to him tears pooling in your eyes you grabbed his hand. 

“I knew you'd understand. I knew you would.” You mumble before you started crying. Spencer started crying too and nodded. 

“Yeah, I understood immediately. That was brilliant, I’m so glad you thought of that because otherwise... We may not have found you.” He says with a sniffle. You look around at everyone tears flowing down your face. 

“Thank you guys, so much. I was so afraid, I thought I’d never see you guys again.” You admit, JJ and Garcia were crying now too. Derek looked like he was about to, you were so happy to be alive. After a while, everyone said their goodbyes and said they would all be back tomorrow to pick you up since you had to stay in the hospital overnight. Soon enough it was just you and Spencer, you were grateful you two were alone now. 

“Spence, will you stay the night with me tonight? I’m scared to be alone. I know there are doctors around and stuff but I'm scared.” You admit, Spencer sat next to you and grasped your hand. 

“Yes of course. You don't have to explain yourself, I figured you would ask anyways.” He says softly, he looked like a wreck from hours of crying and worrying. 

“You were the only thing keeping me alive.” You say softly looking down at your hands that were intertwined together, you resumed. 

“You're the only reason I didn't give up. I didn't want to die... I didn't want to die before I could tell you I love you... I love you so much, more than a friend.” You said not making eye contact with him, it was quiet for a moment before you heard Spencer crying, which in turn made you start to tear up as well. 

“I was worried I was never going to be able to tell you I love you either.” He says with a small smile on his face as tears streamed down his cheeks, he continued. 

“I love you too, I've been hiding it for so long. I was so scared I'd never get the chance to tell you.” He admitted you smiled at him as he brought your hand to his lips kissing it gently. 

“You're my hero Spencer Reid, I love you.” You say looking at him with eyes full of admiration for him he smiles softly kissing your knuckles. 

“I love you too.”

[thecleverdame]

Control and Release - 12

Series Masterlist

TEDTalk!Sam x Reader

Summary: With the rest of the staff caught in a snowstorm, you find yourself acting as a personal assistant to the notorious Sam Winchester.

Warnings: Dom/Sub, humiliation, embarrassment, sexual objectification,  mutual masturbation, spanking, cum play, fingering, anal play, orgasm control, dub-con, nipple clamps, breath play (more warnings as the story continues)  

Words: 5k

Beta: @ilikaicalie

Parts 13, 14 & 15 are currently available on Patreon for a monthly pledge of $2.50. This includes early access to all my stories and Patreon exclusive content.  >> CLICK HERE <<

-

You spend the weekend naked and fucking in nearly every room of his house. Sucking his cock in the middle of the kitchen, laid out over his sofa on display while he reads the paper, spanked until your ass is bright red. By Sunday night you’re tied to his bed frame and looking forward to the work week so you can get a few nights of well-deserved rest. It’s almost midnight when he sends you home, patting your cheek in appreciation then standing in his doorway, watching as you walk toward the waiting car.

There are faint black and blue marks around your wrists, leftover reminders of being bound and gagged. You look out the window, pressing on one wrist and enjoying the fading pain as the moment comes back in vivid detail. Sam can make your body respond, even when he’s not there.

There a question flickering to life in the back of your mind  - how long can this last? But you push it down, refusing to acknowledge it.

Five Months Later

“What is going on down there?” Rolling your chair back, you glance down the hallway.

“Brent is getting axed.” Millie wheels her chair toward you, and the two of you sit side by side listening to the commotion down the hallway. There’s muted yelling coming from one of the conference rooms.

“Really?” You know he screwed up, it was bad enough for Sam to bring up in casual conversation. “I liked Brent, he wasn’t a total ass like the rest of them.”

“That’s probably why he didn’t last,” Lexi chimes in, walking up behind you, resting her hip on the corner of your desk. “I heard he got called up to the attic this morning. Word is, he told Sam that it wasn’t even him that mixed up the dates, it was Tobias but they blamed him.”

“You think that’s true?” you ask, listening as the yelling escalates and two uniformed security guards come trotting down the hallway.

“I don’t think Sam Winchester does anything unless he’s one hundred percent sure about it.” Millie offers and you shift in your seat.

While your arrangement with Sam has grown into itself, it still makes you uncomfortable when anyone else talks about him. It feels like they’re going to find out your secret just by the look on your face.

Life has been split into two categories. The normal work week, which is usually boring and predictable - you go to work, go home. You get the occasional text from Keith Campbell, a little homework every now and then but for the most part your professional life has turned into just that, strictly professional.

It’s the weekends that you indulge in each other. From Friday afternoon until Sunday night you live in a sexual fantasy, engaging in whatever wonderful torture he decides to inflict. He was the one who talked of compartmentalizing his life but you’ve done the same.

Bang.

The door to the conference room flies open, hitting the wall with a thud. All three of you jump. Brent is hauled out of the room by the guards, who are now joined by four more, as they wrestle him out of the building.

“Poor guy,” you mumble, looking away.

“Another one bites the dust.” Millie shakes her head. “We’ve got it good. We stay under the radar and just do our job.”

“We should head over to the auditorium.” Lexi taps the back of your chair.

It’s Sam’s monthly employee meeting and everyone is expected to be in attendance. Grabbing your coat, the three of you head out of the main building to the staff auditorium. There are always refreshments and snacks if you get there in enough time and you wander around, talking to other employees and sipping seltzer.

You’re discussing Lexi’s upcoming blind date when there’s a tap on your shoulder. Turning, you find Pepper, looking as irritated as always. “He wants to see you. Now.”

Sam hasn’t called for you in person, during work hours, in months. You’re taken off guard, looking sideways at Millie and Lexi who are both as surprised as you are. You’ve done your best to keep the fact that you occasionally meet with him a secret. As far they know you’re just another low-level assistant

“Come on!” Pepper snips, grabbing your arm and hauling you off. You follow her backstage, winding through a labyrinth of hallways until she stops at the door to a small room. You step inside and she closes the door.

Sam is standing, one hand in his pocket eyes fixed on his phone. He looks up, smiling when he sees you. “Hello.”

“Hi.” You clasp your hands together.

“You look surprised. Am I interrupting something?” He cocks an eyebrow, stepping closer. Every action he makes has a purpose, especially the way he moves.

“Not at all.” You tilt your chin up toward him. “I was just caught off guard. You don’t mix work and us these days. I’m always happy to come when you want me.”

That last statement makes his eye twitch, nostrils flaring.

“I’m glad to hear it.” He inches nearer, eyes dropping down your body. “I wanted to make sure that you don’t have plans this weekend.”

“Do I ever have plans?” you counter, watching him lick his lips. You know one thing for sure, the longer this has gone on, the hungrier he is for you. And the feeling is mutual.

“Yes, but today is your birthday. People normally celebrate with friends. You don’t have anyone coming into town?”

“No,” you nod, holding your head high. “I’m all yours.”

“Good. Be ready tonight at eight. Wear a dress, something nice. I’ll pick you up.”

“We’re going out?”

He hasn’t taken you anywhere other than his bed since San Francisco. In fact, some weekends you never wear anything at all, naked from Friday to Sunday. You wonder if this is for your birthday or one of his social engagements. It’s not uncommon for him to take a date, but as far as you know it’s always Pepper who accompanies him in public. He says it’s cleaner that way. Everyone knows she’s his assistant so there are no misunderstandings.

“Yes,” he confirms. “No panties, hair down.” His eyes linger then he steps back, smoothing down his tie.

“I look forward to it.” You watch as he leaves the room, always left in a wake of excitement and expectation.

-

It’s almost eight as you look in the mirror, adjusting your dress. It’s black and tight, falling just above your knee. The neckline is lower than you're used to but nothing scandalous. It’s the back that’s the real show stopper, it’s open all the way down to just above your ass crack. You hope it’s not too much, Sam will occasionally comment on your clothing choices but you think you’ve got a handle on his taste. Above all else he prefers class.

His car pulls up just before eight. You’re waiting by the front door of your brownstone apartment building, hurrying down the steps, eager to find out what’s in store.

The driver opens the door and you slide in next to him.

“How are you tonight?” he asks, his hand already on your knee, slipping between your legs.

“Excited. I haven’t been out in a long time.”

“Well, let’s hope this evening lives up to your expectations,” he purrs, hand sliding just a little further up your leg. “I hope you’re not too hungry, we aren’t eating until after.”

“After what?” You look up, his fingers pressing into the warm flesh inside of your thigh.

“You’ll just have to wait and see.” He grins, giving you a squeeze and removing his hand. “Before we go any further, I need to tell you that I allowed Pepper to choose a second assistant for the Tokyo trip next month. I expressed my preference for you, but she chose Lexi.”

“That’s no surprise I guess.” You can’t help but be disappointed. “I mean, I’d like to see Japan, but you know better than anyone Pepper hates me. We don’t work well together.”

He chuckles. “She’s not one to hide her feelings.”

“How long will you be gone for?”

“Two weeks. Don’t worry, I’ll have you report to me every night. You’ll have a list of tasks for while I’m gone.” He holds his stare and you get lost in the moment, drowning in those eyes that you’ve come to know oh so well.

“I look forward to it.”

“I would expect nothing less. We’re here.” He points out the window as the car pulls up to the Boston Museum of Modern Art.

“We’re going here?” you ask looking back at him. “It’s closed.”

“Not to us,” Sam corrects you, allowing the driver to help you out before following. You feel his hand on your naked back, sliding down to the dip in your lower back. He leans down to whisper in your ear. “Excellent choice.”

“I thought you might like it.” You smile, taking his arm and walking toward the entrance. The thought dawns on you like a bolt of lightning. “This is the Yayoi exhibit.”

“You said you wanted to see it didn’t you? The timing was perfect.” He looks proud of himself as a porter opens the front door for you.

“I said I wanted tickets-” You’re dumbfounded, looking around at the empty museum.

“This is better. A private viewing without the distractions.”

There’s a man bustling toward you with several people following.

“Mr. Winchester!” A short, sharply dressed man extends his hand. “We are so honored to have you here. I’m Cecil Baton, the general director. On behalf of the entire board, we want to extend our heartfelt thanks for all the support you’ve offered over the years.”

“It’s my pleasure.” Sam nods in confirmation, slipping an arm around your waist to pull you forward.  “This is Y/N, she’s very much looking forward to seeing Infinity Mirrors.”

Cecil takes your hand, shaking it vigorously.

“We are thrilled to be able to repay your generosity by hosting a viewing for you and your lovely friend.” Cecil makes a tsking sound and a uniformed waiter steps forward with two flutes of champagne. “May we interest you in a glass of Dom Perignon?”

“Thank you for the gesture, I don’t drink,” Sam affirms and looks to you. “Go ahead.”

You hesitate for a moment before taking the glass off the tray and then the two of you are whisked down a hall, as you explore the wonders of each colorful, unique room.

By the time you’re done, you’ve finished three glasses of champagne and are floating on cloud nine as Cecil chatters away, walking you out. He goes on and on about how wonderful Sam is. Leaving you to ponder exactly how much money he must have donated to get a reception like this. You probably don’t want to know.

“What did you think?” he inquires as you walk back toward the car.

“It was...better than I could have imagined. What an experience.” You feel like you’re vibrating with happiness. While you’ve never lived through any kind of cruelty, you’ve also never been pampered in any sense of the word. This is a scenario you could never have imagined. You turn to him, stopping in your tracks and gripping both his arms. “Thank you so, so much.”

“It was nothing.” He shakes it off, giving your elbow a squeeze. “Come on, we’ll be late for dinner.”

-

Dinner is at a French restaurant called Mistral.

He orders for you, but he’s better at it now than he was in the beginning. He’s come to know your preferences, even ordering you a fourth glass of champagne, toasting you with his seltzer water.

“Sam,” you start, looking from the tuna tartar. “Is there a reason you haven’t touched me yet tonight?”

“I touched you in the car,” he smirks.

“Yes, but you didn’t touch me. I mean, you are going to, aren’t you?”

“Don’t worry,” he chuckles, sitting back in his seat, one arm resting on the table. “It’s your birthday. The one day of the year I’m going to leave it up to you. Start thinking about what you want tonight. It’s your choice.”

You can’t help your grin, giggling a little as you sip from the flute. “I’m not sure I even know where to start.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something.” With a genuine laugh, he goes back to his salad as you talk about your favorite part of the exhibit and the various other artists you hope to see in your lifetime. When you finish he’s quietly watching you, seemingly satisfied to sit and listen as you ramble on. “Do you have anything on your bucket list? I know you have more money than God, so you can probably see and do anything you want but there’s gotta be something.”

“Hmm,” he indulges your question, really giving it thought. “I want to see the northern lights. I’ve never had the chance.”

“That’s a good one,” you agree as your empty plate is swapped out for a giant tower of chocolate and raspberries. You almost squeal, a little tipsy and having arguably the best birthday of your life. “Come on, try some. One spoonful of sugar won’t kill you.”

“No.” He shakes his head, face lit up in amusement.

“Oh come on Sam, it’s my birthday. You said I’m in charge tonight...one bite.”

He contemplates your request and just when you think he’s going to tell you no he reaches over and spoons a bite of your dessert. Popping it in his mouth and wincing, “too sugary.”

“Your loss,” you laugh, digging in.

-

“Have you decided?” Sam's teasing, watching you blush in the low light of his bedroom.

“Yes,” you nod. “There are several things I’d like tonight, but first I want you to take your clothes off.”

He raises his eyebrows, but compiles immediately, toeing his shoes off and reaching for the buttons on his shirt. You do the same, stripping down until you’re both nude and staring at each other. He’s already half hard, cock thickening right before your eyes.

“In a little bit, I want to suck your cock. Then I’d like you to spank me, not too hard though.” You explain, biting your bottom lip as he nods in agreement.

“We can do both those things.”

“But first I want you to lay down on the bed.” You clear your throat, not comfortable giving the instructions. This is his territory.

He walks over to the bed, sitting down before laying back on the pillows. You crawl over him, straddling his legs, then moving until you’re sitting across his upper thighs, his erection standing tall against your stomach.

“I want to touch you,” you admit, watching him blink in response. You reach up, placing your opens palms over his chest, feeling him twitch under your touch. Fanning outward you sweep your palms over his chest and toward his shoulders, sliding over warm skin. Both his hands are resting on your thighs. He sighs when you run your nails through the hair on his forearms and then lean forward to suck on the skin of his neck.

A low groan leaves his throat as you nip at the juncture of his neck and shoulder and before you think better of it you place a kiss just under his ear. It’s a lingering touch and then you do it again and again moving downward until you find yourself under his jaw, scraping teeth over his five o’clock shadow. When you raise your head to look down at him, his eyes are closed, popping open seconds later. Staring at each other, his hands slide around to cup your ass cheeks, rocking upward as his cock rubs over your stomach.

You shift forward and rub your clit against his cock, nose pressed into the side of his cheek.

“Fuck my mouth,” you whisper.

Sam moves in record time, flipping you onto your back as you yelp in surprise. Getting off the bed he grabs you by the ankle rolling you onto your belly then turning you in a half circle until your head is hanging over the edge of the bed.

“Open.” Your jaw falls slack as he slides the head of his dick past your lips and you suck hard, as he slides forward. “Take it,” Sam purrs, reaching down to stroke your cheek as his cock hits the back of your throat. You hum around his dick, let him push forward until his balls press into your chin. “Just like that.”

His deep voice conveying words of praise go straight to your clit, throbbing between your legs, triggering the slick that’s leaking from your sex. You let him fuck your throat looking up as he stares down at you with forced concentration. Without warning, he pulls out of your mouth leaving a trail of spit as he taps your shoulder like he’s tapping out of a fight.

“Roll over,” he commands, big hands turning you over as you comply without hesitation. Head tilting backward over the edge of the bed, upside down. He places one hand at the side of your face, the other on his cock as he pushes back between your lips. “Open up.”

He slides his cock over your tongue and past your uvula as you swallow him whole. Pressing forward he watches the bulge in your throat, then reaches down to rub the outline of the head of his cock as you choke around him. “Fucking perfect.”

He holds himself there for a five count, you know it well. He’s rough, but consistent which helps for things like this. The next one will be longer, but if you count to ten you know he’ll give you relief.

He pulls out, drool leaking over the sides of your face as you gasp for air. Holding his spit-wet dick in his hand he rubs the head over your face, tapping your cheek several times before sliding back inside, right back into the deep stretch while you concentrate on breathing through your nose.

This is one of your favorite things. While you knew you liked sucking dick, having him fuck your mouth as you lay on the bed is a whole other level. Your pussy is slick, throbbing with excitement as you gag around his thick shaft.

“I can see my cock in your throat,” he observes, rubbing the bulge with two fingers. He pulls back, leaving you a mess of spit and tears, eyes watering, but you eagerly open back up, tongue out as he thrusts back in. “Do you like this? Choking on a cock?”

“Uhhh,” you rattle, vibrating around him, unable to do little more than make desperate gurgling sounds.

“I know you do.” He strokes your cheek, rocking forward, getting just a tiny bit deeper. “What do you say?”

“Huh ooo,” is your version of thank you as you swallow him whole.

“Where do you want me to cum?” he grunts, pulling out. You look up at the sight of him holding his cock in his hand, inches from your face.  

“In my mouth,” you confirm, clamping your thighs together. “I want to taste you.”

“Open wide.” Reaching forward he gives your nipple a hard squeeze before jerks himself with the head of his cock on your tongue. A half dozen strokes later he's cumming warm and salty as you suck and swallow with fervor. “Keep sucking, just like that,” he instructs as your tongue gently swirls around the sensitive head.

When he’s really into it he can stay hard after he cums. He’s done it plenty of times before. He can’t always get off again, but he can damn sure fuck you into next week.

You carefully attend to his cock, rolling his balls in your hand until he’s sufficiently aroused and then he pulls you off his dick by your hair.

“On your hand and knees,” he instructs, gesturing toward the bed. You scramble into position, feeling your pussy ache as he knees his way between your calves. “You want me to spank you?”

“Yes, please.” You look back at him, arching your back, widening your legs.

“You’re going to get a spanking while my cock is in your pussy,” he huffs, running a hand over your lower back, down the crack of your ass. “Make sure you ask before you cum. No more rule breaking, not even on your birthday.”

You swallowed his load before he told you to, part of you was wondering if he’d punish you for it.

“I understand,” you confirm feeling the thick head of his cock sink into your slippery pink cunt. It’s an easy slide despite his size, but you're wet enough to take him to the root on the first stroke. He holds himself deep, balls pressed into your mound and then his hand comes down on your backside.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

It’s perfect. He knows your body to a tee, knows exactly how hard you like it. His harder spanks are saved for discipline and his softer ones are teasing, but this is the perfect sting.

“It’s your birthday, twenty-nine would be the tradition, wouldn’t it?” He strokes in and out, nestling back inside before bestowing three more smacks on the other cheek.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

“Fuck,” you breath, clenching around his shaft.

He pulls out, only to thrust back inside and then they come in rapid succession. Too many to count. All you can do is howl, twisting on his cock until he finally stops, both hands gripping your ass, squeezing.

“Would you like to cum now?” His inquiry is accompanied by a series of shallow thrusts.

“Yes.”

“How? Like this?” You’re not used to being asked for your preference and hesitate before answering.

“Yes, but I want you to hold yourself deep and rub my clit.”

He snorts, leaning over your back. “Anything for the birthday girl.”

Pressing forward he stuffs your cunt until he’s right against your cervix, sending out those little sparks of pain you love so much. His middle finger finds its way to your clit, making soft circles and you’re already there.

“May I cum?” you pant, eyes shut, mouth hanging open.

“Yes.”

It’s the only permission you need before falling over the edge and cumming around his cock. You jerk, moaning and whimpering as you tighten around his shaft. He takes his hand away from your bud but holds himself inside you until your orgasm begins to fade. He pulls out only to slide back inside again, thrusting slow and even, two hands gripping your hips.

“We’re going to get one more out of you tonight.”

-

You’re sweating.

You flex, blinking awake trying to figure out why you’re overheated only to find Sam wrapped around you, his chest pressed against your shoulder blades, soft belly at the small of your back.

It’s not the first time. He often slings an arm over you in his sleep, but he’s never cocooned you before. You wiggle backward, testing the waters and his grip tightens as the arm over your side curls under your stomach, pulling you back into him.

If he woke up like this you’re not sure what reaction he’d have. The two of you live in a strange world, a weekend relationship devoid of soft affection but always intense. The two of you have slipped into a safe space, an agreement and routine that seems to be working. This isn’t moving backward or forward, you’re stuck in a loop of sex and gratification that never fails to leave you somewhat crestfallen as you head into the week. You spend your time waiting until you’ll see him next, hoping for a little more.

You lie there, half awake, body hyper aware of him holding you for nearly two hours. It’s morning when he finally rolls away, grunting in his sleep and flipping onto his stomach retreating back to his side of the bed.

Sam’s sleeping belly down in the bed, mouth open as his back slowly rises and falls with his breath. You lay there, unmoving, watching his relaxed features, that handsome face looking almost boyish with his pink-flush cheek smashed into the pillow. He’d never let you gaze at him like this if he was awake, so you indulge while you can.

There’s no need to look at the clock to know it’s early, the way the light filters through his windows shifts depending on the time of day. That and he’s not up yet. It must be before six if he’s still out like a light.

The clock confirms it’s five forty-five and for once on a Saturday morning, you’re willingly awake before noon. He normally let’s you sleep in while he goes for a run and does a few hours of work. You give him one last look and gently crawl out of bed, pulling on white cotton panties and foregoing all other clothes, heading to the kitchen to make tea.

You’ve just taken the kettle off the stove when you hear it, a shuffling behind you. It’s impossible to explain how you know it’s not Sam, but you do. You can sense it. Every hair on your body stands up on end and when you turn around you’re faced with a stranger standing in the middle of Sam’s kitchen.

He’s tall, not as tall as Sam but a big guy and you’re instantly frozen in place, practically naked, blinking at the man in front of you. His shirt is spattered with blood, the red stains that are unmistakable.

“Well shit,” he smirks, a grin tugging at his mouth as he eyes your naked tits. “He always had good taste.”

“Um,” you stammer, taking a step back. “Um, who-”

You can’t find the words, your brain shutting down as he gets closer.

“Look at you,” he whistles, sauntering around you as you turn in a slow circle to keep him in your line of sight. His eyes dropping down the length of your body, head to toe. “How much does a guy like Sam pay for a girl like you? Do you charge by the hour or the night? I mean, I’ve been to Vegas, fucked my fair share of working girls but hot damn sweetheart, you are something special.”

It’s at that moment that your thoughts come together to form a coherent thought. This is Dean, Sam’s brother.

“Pleasedon’thurtme,” you squeak out in one quick utterance.

“Don’t worry sweetheart. My brother has never been very good at sharing anyway.” His eyes hone in on the fresh bruises on your hips, leftover handprints.  

“Wh-what do you want?” you stutter, now shaking in fear. Dean closes in and you back up into the counter, trapped by his advance.

“Don’t worry,” he eyes your tits again. “Nothing you can give me, at least not right now.”

“Get away from her.” Sam’s voice booms from across the kitchen, standing bare-chested in a pair of pajama pants, eyes on fire. He looks from Dean to you, extending a hand. “Come here.”

“We were just getting to know each other.” Dean offers a lopsided grin.

Eyes glued on Dean, you inch sideways until you can scurry across the kitchen, letting Sam pull you to him.

“Sam,” you look at him, eyes wide.

“It’s okay.” He takes a half step in front of you, putting himself between you and his brother. “What are you doing here, Dean?”

“Did I come at a bad time? I understand if you wanna be sure you get your money’s worth before we get down to business.”

“She’s not a hooker,” Sam clarifies, tilting his head, eyes never leaving his brother.

“Yeah,” Dean smiles, making a production of leaning to the side to look at you. “Didn’t think so. Good for you, getting back on the horse after all these years. I’m happy for ya.”

“Cut the shit,” Sam steps forward and you move with him, pressing against his back. “What the hell are you doing in my house? Are you trying to get me arrested?”

“Trust me.” Biting his lip, Dean chuckles to himself. “This is the last fucking place I want to be. But I need you, Sammy, there’s some bad shit about to go down. End of the world type stuff. Dad and I need you.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Sam snorts, his posture softening. “No.”

“Tell you what. How ‘bout you put your girl back to bed and we talk about this alone?”

“How about you get the hell out of my house?” Sam counters. “You must be high if you think I would ever do anything for you or dad.”

“Just hear me out, Sam.” All the playfulness drains from Dean’s face. “Dad went on an a...hunting trip. He hasn’t been home in a while.”

“How is this any different from any other time?” Sam shakes his head. “You know this feels familiar. It’s been fourteen years since the last time you showed up with this same story. I went with you and Jess ended up dead. You ruined my life and Dad showed up when he damn well felt like it. So no, there is no way in hell I’m going anywhere with you.”

“We need you.” Dean’s mouth pulls tight. “I know you’ve got a whole white collar thing going on and a life, a girlfriend. I wouldn’t ask if I had a choice.”

“There’s always a choice Dean. I made mine a long time ago. Dad said if I left not to come back and I haven’t. So get the fuck out of my kitchen.”

“Sam,” Dean takes a step forward. “This is your family.”

“No,” Sam spits back. “Family was an illusion. A convenient guilt trip to get me to do what you and dad wanted. I don’t have time for family, Dean. My life is full up.”

“Okay,” Dean looks at the floor, before leaning to the side to look at you again. “Nice to meet you-”

“Stop talking to her.” Sam’s voice is colder than you’ve ever heard him, venom simmering under his words. “You stay away from me and you stay away from her. You hear me, Dean?”

“I hear you.” Dean waits for a beat, looking from Sam to you and then he’s gone just as quick as he came.

“Sam,” you sputter as he turns to you, placing a hand on each shoulder.

“We need to talk.”

[pixylate-archive2020]

                              The Mother of Valerie Mache

{ tw for talk of kidna.pping and chi.ld-abuse. }

Cadence Beaumont was raised in Kalos. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she never had to struggle when it came to much of anything. She was given everything she needed, wanted, and could ever want, by doting parents. Said parents also encouraged her to become a woman who would take whatever she desired from the world, as she deserved good things. Naturally, all of these factors allowed Cadence to grow into someone brimming with hubris.

(Said hubris led to her downfall.)

Faeries have always been known throughout Kalos for centuries through folktales and various legends, while some in the modern today have claimed to have seen or met one personally, surviving the encounters. Cadence herself was was interested in the existence of faeries for one reason and one reason only: they allegedly could give blessings. Though she already had a good life, things going for her that a lot of people dreamed of having, she wanted more. More wealth, more respect, more love. 

When she heard someone claim that there was a faerie currently roaming Santalune Forest, she went to investigate. She brought along her team of Poison-type pokemon, just in case she would need them. She did eventually find the faerie, who stated Cadence had quite a lot of bravery, or foolishness, to approach her so brazenly. But, the faerie was in a particularly good mood, and was curious as to what Cadence wanted from her.

Cadence did end up gaining enough of the faerie’s favor to earn a blessing, though of course, they made a deal. Just as the faerie would give her what she wanted, Cadence would do a favor to repay the entity. However, Cadence chose to not hold up her end of the deal. She saw no reason to, as she got what she wished for, and looked down her nose at the fae, thinking she wouldn’t be able to do anything genuinely harmful.

By Cadence not fulfilling her end of the deal, the faerie was of course angered. Not only did she take away her gift, she seeked to make Cadence utterly miserable. Of all the things to not do to a faerie, disrespecting them is the biggest one. No one did such and got away with it, never in history, and the fae was determined to not let Cadence be the first.

Cadence soon realized the warnings and horror stories about faeries held water. Waking up with her skin mysteriously marred in various areas, her hair falling out, her money vanishing, the people who she felt were her friends turning their backs on her; her life gradually fell into shambles. After her mother and father suddenly deemed her a disgrace, and Cadence lost her only regular source of income, she saw it appropriate to try and flee Kalos in order to get away from the faerie she deceived.

She moved to Johto, as she has old family ties to it, and it was far enough away from Kalos to where she felt safe. Choosing to live in Goldenrod City, Cadence slowly adjusted to living in Johto over the span of 3 months, mentally frazzled but thankful she at least stopped waking up with her appearance falling apart. She gained a small job working in a flower shop, and while she hated having a job more fitting to a “peasant”, it was better than nothing.

One day, she met a man who came into the flower shop to buy a bouquet. He was attractive, sure, but she didn’t have much interest in him at first. It took multiple visits and he innocently commenting that she was pretty, for Cadence to “notice” him. Soon, they started going on dates, and over time, she found herself falling in love with him. The feeling was reciprocated.

After close to a year passed, they ended up getting married. Cadence moved into Tobias’ home in Ecruteak City to live with him. Life started looking great for her again, and for a while, she thought she would never have to deal with faeries & their wickedness ever again.

Eventually, Cadence Mache became pregnant. Both she and Tobias were excited to be first-time parents. The pregnancy went by without any unusual problems, and after about 9 months, Cadence gave birth to a girl. She was lovingly named “Valeria”, and taken home with Cadence when they were cleared from Ecruteak’s hospital. That night, the family all settled down within their home, with Cadence putting Valeria to rest in her crib.

Little was Cadence aware that her newborn was stolen as she and Tobias slept. Her nightmare wasn’t over; the faerie who she disrespected before was still bent on making Cadence suffer. The woman fleeing to a different region didn’t do anything but increase the faerie’s annoyance. What’s more, is that the faerie’s own lover joined her in this quest for revenge. They discovered Cadence was pregnant, and bided their time, waited for the child to be born. They easily entered the human’s domain, switching Valeria with their own faerie child.

Cadence discovered the following morning. She instantly knew the infant laying in her daughter’s crib was not her daughter, despite their appearances being identical...except for their eyes. This infant’s eyes were a startling silver, softly glowing like they contained the full moon within them. She knew this meant one thing: this baby was a faerie. A changeling.

Naturally, she was angered beyond belief. Knowing her firstborn was taken by a faerie, surely the one she upset long ago, filled her with a burning anger and suffocating grief. However, there was little she could do about it. Tobias had no idea she didn’t pay back a faerie what she owed them, and thus had them hunting her.

Tobias didn’t know that this Valeria was not the true one; picking her up from her crib and affectionately holding the thing close. He noted how her eyes seemed to have changed, but was strangely not concerned. Cadence knew this was the spell of a changeling at work; the magic making to where the parents (or in this case, one of the parents) would accept the fae despite however it differed from the original child.

To keep her husband ignorant of her past, and thus the fate of their child, Cadence kept the true nature of “Valeria” as a faerie secret. Unsure of what would occur, Cadence was too fearful that Tobias would be furious that his first child was taken away from him, because of her crime. Not wanting to lose him, not after she lost about all the other good things in her life, Cadence never uttered a word about it. Instand, she would play along with this twisted punishment, raising “Valeria”.

However, she never treated “Valeria” with love. Why would she, as not only was this creature a faerie, it dared to mimic her lost daughter’s appearance? Take her place? Brimming with rage and hatred, Cadence abused “Valeria” often, venting her her ill feelings through her actions. 

She made sure to play nice when Tobias was present, but as he was out of town a lot for his job, that left she and “Valeria” home alone constantly. It didn’t matter that the faerie child herself was completely unknowing of her own nature and what her purpose was; Cadence took everything out on her. A defenseless child was the perfect punching bag, all the more better that she was a faerie on top of it all. 

Cadence never took it too far though, not wanting “Valeria’s” injuries to be too severe and alarming to Tobias. Bruises, cuts, scrapes; those were all excused as the girl being careless outside and in the house. It helped that due to her faerie biology, “Valeria” healed from her injuries far more quickly compared to the average human being, and didn’t scar.

Years later, a school-aged “Valeria” was taken out of school by Tobias, when he learned she was being bullied by her peers. The children found her appearance creepy, and the majority of the teachers didn’t ever feel inclined to help her, as she unsettled them as well. Refusing to let his daughter be treated like that, he asked his wife to homeschool her, and she of course accepted. More opportunities to make the faerie suffer? Cadence couldn’t turn that down.

As “Valeria” grew older as time went on, Cadence made sure to make the child believe she was a horrible, flawed entity. She didn’t tell “Valeria” herself that she was a faerie, for two reasons. One, she didn’t want the information reaching her husband. Two, she wanted “Valeria” to believe she was being treated the way she was because she deserved it; plain and simple. 

Cadence manipulated and psychologically abused "Valeria” in many ways: to think whatever she wanted her to think, to act however she wanted her to act, unless she wished to be punished more. "Valeria” was a mistake, a blemish on this good earth, and a complete waste of life; all things Cadence wanted to carve into the girl’s mind so she’ll know it forever. 

However lovingly Tobias treated “Valeria” in contrast, Cadence countered it. To push it further, she made the constant threat of death to “Valeria”, if she tried to tell her father what she was doing.

For her 10th birthday, Tobias gave “Valeria” her very first pokemon: an Eevee. Cadence gave her permission for it, hiding her sheer displeasure, and told her husband that she would help their daughter care for the normal-type. She kept to her word...mostly. She never laid a hand on the Eevee, but if the pokemon made a mess in the house or misbehaved, she punished “Valeria” for her lack of diligence and forced her to clean up after him.

Some months after “Valeria’s” 13th birthday, Tobias revealed that he had to live in Kalos for business, but he didn’t know for how long. Cadence refused to go, claiming she didn’t want to leave Johto (though in reality, she didn’t want to go to Kalos ever again if she could help it). “Valeria” however wanted to go live with her father, so she could stay with him. 

(She wanted to get away from Cadence, more than anything else.)

Cadence very well could’ve said no and kept “Valeria” home in Johto, but she allowed the girl to leave with Tobias. Frankly, she was sick of her. Not having to deal with her sounded like a blessing, one Cadence passionately believed she deserved. Bags were packed, farewells were said, and “Valeria” departed with her father to Kalos.

That day was the last day Cadence and “Valeria” (who mainly goes by Valerie now) saw and spoke to one another. Valerie never tried to contact her mother. After Valerie left her father’s home and traveled Kalos, she stopped being in touch with him for a multitude of reasons, thus cutting herself off from her known family completely.

While to this day, Valerie has no idea what her parents have been up to, some events have transpired. Years ago, Cadence and Tobias eventually divorced, when Tobias finally started to suspect that his wife wasn’t as good of a person as she seemed. 

Cadence chose to take a “vacation” from Johto; traveling to Hoenn. During the process, she disappeared. 

No one knows where she currently is, or if she’s alive for that matter.

[mowseries]

Writer Journal Entry

{Saturday, September 29th TUMBLR 2018}

//Summary format for the Machines of War series! “Spoilers” below.

—0 (Mournful Blues): Cardinal is built in secret, and develops a strong sense of reckless devotion to saving others as well as a sense of self. He's closest to his C.O., though he adores his father. Things start to go wrong, and he ends up in a test chassis. When that fails too, they discover that the failure is software-based, and there is talk of erasing him. He runs away. 

Living in the streets eventually takes him to Kansas City, which—while safer than Monstropolis and Chicago—is still dangerous. He takes shelter with others in a homeless community, and becomes fascinated with jazz music. This all comes to a grinding halt when a building catches fire in a thunderstorm. He saves the people inside (including a family with a young girl), but goes Offline in the process. 

His injuries remind him of his approaching mortal end, and drive him to seek Dr. Light out of a misinterpretation that Light had found a way to fix him. It turns out instead that Light had developed the concepts for Rock and Roll, and was using his old core as a "brand new" technology. He is very upset, and runs off blindly after bumping into Mikhail. He meets Señor Gonzales shortly before he dies. 

Wily, for his part, moves out of the office, with plenty of foreshadowing for Broken Winter as he talks to Mikhail.

===================

—1 (Sons of Anarchy): Wily is brought on board to help build "the first" AI&As, due to old friendships and so on. Rock and Roll don't really like him, however, and he is lonely. There are also foreshadowing signs of envy, and he clashes with Light on philosophy perspective.

Development of the Industrials appeases him, and he's allowed to pull his own teams together. He chooses to recruit internationally (outside of Europe) from lesser-known and unknown individuals in the scientific community (not academics), which raises a big to-do. Mikhail is one of the ones recruited; he is second-in-command on the DLN-005 project.

Mikhail ends up taking over the DLN-005 project and writing his own coding for it after Wily has to drop the project due to health problems: Wily chose to retain his focus on the troublesome DLN-008 project. He eventually has some success by using the first fully written DWN_OS software, and he gives Tobias emotions.

Tobias comes Online initially in awe of Dr. Light, but is neglected in favor of his brother, Rock. He and Dr. Wily grow very close to one another, and he also becomes good friends with David (and meets Mikhail in the process). He grows to love radio and shares his father's fervor for ideas re: robot rights/roles in society, and starts looking forward to his testing being over.

Unfortunately, he is destined for an isolated existence. His protests at learning this lead Dr. Light to realize that Tobias is fully realized and has emotions. Dr. Light becomes furious and gets into a loud argument with Wily, which Tobias, Mikhail, and just about everyone else overhears. When he threatens to erase Tobias, the electric 'bot panics and runs away. He hides with Dr. Wily for a while, and asks for Wily to upgrade himself and the other Industrials. Wily agrees after learning about the projects for Timeman and Oilman.

The Industrials all agree to split up after they are fully realized, with Snow being his adorable self. They go their separate ways, except for Snow traveling with Fire.

Tobias ends up making broadcasts, fleeing from town to town, and eventually ends up in Monstropolis. His grand coup de grâce at his favorite radio tower gets him cornered and attacked, causing him to lash out in fear.

Not long after this, he gets news that his brothers have died. Surprised and worried, he contacts David and agrees to meet up with him. Unfortunately, they're too late: Snow and Fire get cornered, and Tobias ends up hearing his brother's final words.

This shatters his sanity, and he's catatonic for a while. He manages to encrypt a fair amount of data before the Blue Menace finally hunts him down as well. In the ensuing fight, he discovers it's actually his older brother, Rock. His attempts to reason with him are useless, and he's literally ripped to pieces.

This drives Wily utterly MAD, and he rants in a vow of revenge.

Mikhail, of course, is detained in questioning, which goes on for so long that he's unable to get there in time to stop Tobias from messing with the database. He does see that David is truly alive, however. He's sent back to Russia, but he's being watched…

===================

—1.5 (Moral Compass): Wily brings Cardinal back to life after discovering him. He hopes that Cardinal will be like a son to him, but Cardinal is furious when he learns about what happened to the First Gens.

He runs off, back to Kansas City. He's recognized via dogtags by the girl he saved, and she tells him about the Mad Hatter Café. He initially gets a job as a janitor there, and sleeps on the roof. He notices the secret trap door during a tornado warning, but says nothing.

After telling the truth to the girl, she introduces him to the REAL purpose of the café, passing him off (with technical truth) as a homeless soldier with memory problems.They gladly take him in, to his initial guilt.

He slowly adapts to his new life, and eventually learns of the hacking side to the Hatters. "They explain that most of the time, it’s to set up truly private interactions or transactions, in a setting not monitored by the people who would hunt them down. He feels sad (but not too surprised) to hear that humans live in hiding for their identity, too."

Once he gets word from Wily, he takes the risk of traveling back to see him despite the Hatters being more like a family than Wily was. He meets Metal for the first time, and feels a bit guilty when he notices Wily isn't completely sane.

Back with the Hatters, he works more on self-repairs and they assure him he's safe and welcome with them. He decides he wants a new name, and settles on "Cardinal" after consultation with the thesaurus. "When given a hard time for this, he grins because he knows he’s been fully accepted.

He contemplates what he wants to have on his birthday, with the Hatters getting him a fake ID as a present after having been with them for so long. He decides on March 8th, but isn’t sure why. Elsewhere, Enigma and Chorus are "…" at seeing this influence starting to rub off on the timeline

In the end, he purchases his motorcycle, and finally gets the chance to live out his literal dreams. He finds it exhilarating and freeing.

======================

—2 (Hora de Muerte): Carlos is built and spends time with his brothers in the lab, a bit in awe of the world around him (and fairly close to Pisces). His oldest brother's gory details about blood drive him to become a pacifist. Unable to stand being cooped up in a lab, he's eventually allowed to run loose. A run-in with Highway Patrol and the National Guard spooks him, but Cardinal gets him out of the jam and sends him down to Texas.

Once there, he meets Señor Gonzales, who takes him in and raises him like a son. He becomes a member of the community over time, and gets several other teenaged friends.

His struggles between his two families and his own identity continues over the course of several years, but inevitably, the Blue Menace sets out once again. Carlos's decision to stay with his new family and life is disrupted by the destruction of Lower Monstropolis, and the subsequent visit to the horrific wreckage.

He arrives too late to save either Pisces or Jaden, and nearly kills Rock in a berserk rage. He ends up trashing the lab he was built at, and returns home to Texas to spend out the rest of his days there.

In the end, he is found, and forced to fight to the death. Everyone in the community (other than Pops and Cruz) is shocked to see that he was a robot all along.

Due to certain hardware failures, his self-destruct fails to go off. His body is confiscated to be studied via reverse-engineering.

========================

—3 (Empire of Corruption): Wily and Light start working together again. Their intentions both start off good, and a lot of good comes from it; Nico is built and allowed to be Roll's companion, Siamini is built and works as a lab assistant, Rush is built with transformative abilities, etc. But Wily isn't fully over what happened, and becomes mad again when he discovers Carlos's old, forgotten, dismantled chassis in storage. When Spica falls to Earth in Korea, he sends Snakeman out to retrieve him.

He starts working on reprogramming both Spica and the Third Generation Industrials, but Carlos wakes up in the process. Carlos escapes into the Cloud, ending up forced to take shelter in the very database he'd trashed long before.

Meanwhile, Shadowman wakes up and escapes, killing Snakeman in the process. Nico and Siamini are forced to deal with the fallout, but they are all soon reprogrammed. Everyone manages to escape, but they handle the situation differently: Viper chooses to bully and spy on his brothers, Siamini frets but obeys in fear, and Nico is more focused on his secret meetups with Roll.

Shadow, for his part, travels down to Texas, running into Cardinal along the way. Cardinal decides to break away from Wily at last, and Shadow talks with Pops about Carlos.

While he focuses on getting an emotions program and getting Carlos a body, Cardinal focuses on saving what Third Gens he can. He gets some success with Siam (though Gemini still dies), and comes just in time to prevent Rock from destroying Nico.

Everyone ends up coming together at the old lab. Siam and Nico help repair Speedy, and Cardinal and Shadow fight the Menace to stall for time. Cardinal rages against his brother, and they all manage to escape.

Cardinal goes back, but fails to come in time to help with the Gamma incident. He does dig Rock out of the rubble, but doesn't check for Wily.

The Rebel Angels decide to live down in Texas. Meanwhile, Rock and Roll come into conflict over the truth about Nico, and Dr. Light sees Mikhail at a convention. (The Russian does not have flattering things to say.)

========================

—4 (Broken Winter): Cardinal grows suspicious when there's no news of Wily's death. His investigation takes him to the scene of the incident, and then to what's left of the old lab, where he meets Jazz in her Combat form. (He eventually puts her into a Civilian form, as Wily had been working on those in Empire of Corruption. ) He learns that an intern's codes were used to erase data on Gamma, and grows more suspicious. A fire breaks out before he can investigate further.

He eventually learns about Mikhail, and recognizes him from many, many years ago. He calls in some favors with the Mad Hatters to get a false identity to travel abroad with, deciding to go to Russia. Meanwhile, Tobias and David wake up in the Cloud after so long in an encrypted state.

Viper (who had been rebuilt) kidnaps Mikhail and Kalinka on Wily's behalf, and proceeds to physically and psychologically torture the Russian Doctor into submission for Wily's latest scheme.

(Meanwhile, Anubis discovers evidence of Jupiter in a massive and elaborate underground temple in Egypt. Before he can report his findings, however, he is forced to come back to Siberia. Once he realizes that he’s going to be reprogrammed, he locks his memories such that only Dr. Cossack can unlock them.)

Cardinal's adventures through Eurasia take him across Italy, Egypt, and Siberia, to name just a few places. He fools Wily into thinking he's on his side, and gets access to Kalinka that way. While he's unable to save Anubis, he does save Skull, Keltso, and Digger. Fights with various feds take place along the way.

He arrives just in time to prevent Rock from killing Mikhail, and he takes them to the hospital before blowing up the Siberian Citadel and leaving Rock to deal with Wily.

Mikhail's recovery in the hospital is overshadowed by the possibility he might be executed for his role in what happened, but Dr. Light steps in and "is a good" ( "for once" as Cardinal would say) by putting in a good word, getting Mikhail a good legal team, paying for medical bills, and eventually agreeing to pay for the resources to rebuild the DCNs. Mikhail himself becomes an American citizen and enters Witness Protection under the identity Michael Kodak and his daughter, Katrina Kodak.

Later, sorting out the nitty-gritty gets Mikhail rights to rebuild David via loophole. (Concept art for his new design is later used to build Chorus and Refrain….)  Tobias also eventually gets rebuilt. Cardinal gets much-needed repairs, but brushes off Mikhail's warnings that Wily is a dangerous man to make enemies with.

Eventually, Mikhail upgrades Rock's blaster cannon after patching his combat program. Rock asks him about the DCNs and Cardinal, to which Cossack remarks that Mega would know more than he would. Rock gives Mikhail the medals he got for saving the world, as he suspects that Cardinal would come into contact with Mikhail later. Rock uses careful wording to suggest to various authorities that Cardinal is dead, just in case…

========================

—AO (Allies Obstruct): The Rebel Angels befriend Xelbots outside of time, and are devastated when that world goes through an apocalyptic breakdown—

Okay, yeah, not actually part of the series's timeline canon, but this is roughly when it takes place in perspective.

========================

—5 (Prodigal Son): Cardinal gets publicly framed for the kidnapping of Dr. Light while he's out visiting the Hatters. He is now known by the feds to still exist, and outed to the public as a robot. The Hatters hide him for a little bit, with most of the members shocked to realize he's an AI&A; he tells them the full truth of the matter, and leaves the city for their sake, to confront the true guilty party.

Meanwhile, Mikhail has to deal with suddenly being tasked with taking care of Rock, even though he doesn't really believe Cardinal would be so violent. He has enough doubts/concerns that he cuts off RMDC access to the Rebel Angels, though.

In between the chaos of Gravity and Viper terrorizing Light and Cossack AND the Rebel Angels, Eugene (Starman) discovers an anomaly forming in the distant reaches of space, somewhere around Venus.

There's some internal conflict with the family on how to handle this, but Cardinal still goes to confront the Fifth Gens. It proves to be an incredibly dangerous task, and he manages to get Eugene more on their side. His confrontations with Gravity are only stopped by Rock's arrival, at which point Cardinal goes off to confront Dark Man. Viper interrupts him, and is defeated again for his troubles.

Rock and Cardinal fight, and it goes very badly until Darkman reveals himself at the last moment but doesn't manage to finish Rock off. Cardinal tosses Rock some supplies before warping off to nurse his own wounds.

Later, Mikhail apologizes for his reaction, offers again to fix Cardinal's core or for them to stay in Alaska. Cardinal declines and asks Mikhail to tell the press and the authorities that he is actually still dead; Dr. Light finally realizes that Cardinal is Blues and tells Mega and Roll of the existence of DLN-000.

Eugene is eventually repaired by Dr. Cossack, and offered a place at Light Labs. He declines fearfully, and runs off before the point can be argued. Cardinal notes that he suspects that Eugene needs some independence to decide things for himself, and will choose a “side” once he’s had some time to think.

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—6 (Tournament Trifecta): Wily repairs a number of robots for a tournament, including Isaac, Viper, Jaden, Pisces, and Metal.

As other people start building robots, the Beta Boys are faced with the possibility that they might be able to come out of hiding and stop living as fugitives. They are uneasy when there is a public invitation to join a combat tournament, suspecting it an excuse by various governments to gather data on top-notch combat robotics.

Things take an unexpected turn when they get a distress call from one of the contestants. They initially split up: Tobias and Carlos working to find information on the contestants (and the sponsors); David and Siam working with Dr. Cossack on schematics for armor upgrades that will be both more durable and possibly allow for a morph between hands and weapons for those who lack hands; Cardinal, Shadow, and Nico going to the arena to discern the source of the distress call.

While there, they come across the alarming news that Viper not only has returned, but he has entered the tournament and is fighting his way up the ranks. Shadow angrily tries to confront him, but is stopped when he is attacked by another contestant, who stops them from entering the main area of the arena (where Viper is about to fight Yamato Man). Before they can figure out who he is, he runs off. They try and chase him down when suddenly he gets pulled aside to participate in a fight of his own against Wind Man.

They split up again—Cardinal to monitor the stranger, and Nico and Shadow to confront Viper after the fight ends. Surprisingly, the stranger is revealed as Jaden and Viper loses rather terribly, about to be deactivated when Shadow steps in. Cardinal rescues Jaden and Shadow prevents Yamato from killing Viper so that they could learn why he was there. They learn the true purpose of the tournament when Mr. X comes on over the speakers and reveals the truth. Shadow is forced to leave Viper behind in order to rejoin his brothers and cover for their escape as the arena goes into panic.

As Cardinal, Jaden, Nico, and Shadow take refuge with the Hatters, Mikhail contacts Toby's group in order to share information. He urges them to get to safety, as he suspects Wily is behind this and that Wily may have ordered their termination. Tobias spurns the notion but accidentally fries the circuits of their console in the process. He is forced to repair them himself as Carlos has become rather distracted by some of the contestant designs, which seem familiar to him.

Due to increased security, Cardinal's group is forced to lay low in KC for a while. They work on repairing Jaden, who explains that he had been rebuilt for the contest and entered in in order to draw the Rebel Angels out. Cardinal decides to leave after hearing this to investigate if any others had been reactivated. He uses Jaden's access card (and an ID given to him by Cossack) to enter into the Arena (disguised in full armor). While there he comes across some useful equipment, so he takes it back with him to study, sending most of it off to Mikhail.

Dr. Cossack tests out some of the new equipment and armor with Snow as Kalinka and Keltso watch. They determine the use of the energy balancer, and Snow begs for Dr. Cossack to build his family a cat. They are interrupted by an attack on the fortress from Blizzardman. Keltso goes out to fight him and tells Snow to stay back, but Snow follows anyway and saves him from being shattered by ice. Snow and Blizzard get locked into an elemental domination battle, which ends with Snow being overpowered as he refuses to actually attack. The fight is interrupted by Mega, allowing Keltso and Snow to escape with Dr. Cossack and Kalinka.

Cardinal's group joins up with Snow's group when they arrive in KC. After swapping stories, Cossack gives Cardinal an Energy Balancer. While the others are busy repairing Jaden, Cardinal goes off on his own to give the Balancer to Mega. While he is gone, the others discuss his mysterious past and behavior and go out to eat.

Cardinal travels and meets up with Mega before he fights Tomahawk. He tries to leave, but Mega stops him by saying he knows who he is now. He calls him "Blues" and asks him why he never told him the truth, why he had fought him instead. Cardinal listens as Rock begs him to go back to the labs and speak with Dr. Light. Cardinal calmly tells him to focus on defeating Wily, and then leaves before Mega can protest further.

He rejoins the others. With Cossack's help, they all travel to join up with the rest of the Beta boys in Texas. Speedy is overjoyed that Jaden is alive again, and the two share a happy reunion. After hearing news of Wily's defeat and arrest, everyone goes out to celebrate.

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—7 (Depths of Discord): Cardinal now has to deal with Beowulf, Wily's latest creation. This is a frustrating affair, as he is inexperienced and facing a foe he simply cannot defeat at his current stage in life. Keeping the two of them from killing one another and him is a taxing affair. Alucard kicks Beowulf to the curb, and Cardinal intervenes.

Eventually, Cardinal's intervention comes with the cost of his own Shield (which is one of the few things he's owned from the start) in order to stave off Rock's combat programming from finishing him off. In the end, he has to intervene to keep Rock from killing Wily, which he knows Rock would come to regret later on, and leaves while fairly exhausted.

While he does manage to get everything back, he also manages to get Beowulf to hand over the Super Adaptor.

Eugene also finally returns, this time with troubling news from space…

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—8 (Stellar Disaster): Cardinal is once again forced to get involved for Beowulf's sake, and also sees the reawakening of at least one Stardroid, probably several—which of course leads to other problems with Shadow.

Half of the actual conflict isn't even with the Robot Masters: it's with the Stardroids. They don't bother with the other RMs, letting Rock deal with that while they handle the big guys. Shadow plays a major role in taking them down, though he then goes missing.

Cardinal has to intervene repeatedly for the fish's sake, but ends up getting infected with Evil Energy just as much as Rock due to the both of them getting exposed at the same time. He survives and wakes up before Rock does, but he's horribly weakened by the experience.

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—8.5 (Royally Blindsided): "MoW!MM&B is…. … …just. || "It's only a scratch…" || Really, Cardinal? Why is nobody surprised? || After he's repaired from being CUT IN HALF, he goes back to fight King and ends up nearly one-shotting his core by using a highly charged shot from his plasma blaster. He nearly explodes and is teleported off by the man who nearly killed him not too long ago, and later—after "just good enough" repairs, before Mikhail's finished with them—infiltrates one of Wily's lairs and narrowly talks his way out of a fight with Forte as well."

In other words, Cardinal gets sliced in half, and the narrator becomes Beowulf as he is finally given the first chance to actually do something that matters all on his own.  Beowulf deals with the difficulty of confronting two enemies at the same time, especially with Rock being such a great and terrible enemy. Cardinal manages to get repaired enough to intervene anyway, twice.

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—9 (Scarred Reflection): Will be many cross-reference feels re: being erased, destroyed, decommissioned. Pisces has secretly been hanging out with Splash, keeping her safe (much to the chagrin of his brothers).

"One long nightmare, with a number of Industrials starting to lash out in despair. Cardinal has to deal with keeping the family together and out of trouble in the middle of what threatens to be a horrific disaster—the Industrials in question were only given free will, like with the First Gens, with Wily taking advantage after the fact due to being reminded of how things played out with Tobias. Cardinal has to fight his way through and try to save as many of the Industrials as he can, and then (yet again) is forced to save Rock's chass when he gets in over his head."

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—10 (Fevered Fugue): Robosickness madness grips the world. Bots are going berserk. Why does this sound and physically, painfully FEEL familiar to our heroes?

The COMBAT_DLN.EXE program gets loose and becomes fully viral, sending the whole world into the tizzy that the Mighty Numbers would face on a "merely" national scale. He outright teams up with Rock to try and find a cure: Rock working with Light and Cardinal working with Mikhail. Another violent argument between Light and Wily as it's revealed that the virus is the result of Light's work breaks out—leading to Wily to storm off with the cure and attempt to take advantage of the situation, much to Cardinal's chagrin. While on the way to confront him, however, Cardinal collapses from the effects of the virus; it's caused him to overheat in a way that he can no longer convert energy from his core into healing surge. Rock's prototype "cure" helps clear his mind, but the damage to his already fragile state is not so easily reversible. He manages to struggle on and eventually confronts Wily for the last time—and then leaves him to die, because he's learned from his mistake of MM3 when it comes to taking pity on the crazed Doctor.

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—11 (Grinding Gears): It turns out that Wily’s software was not the ONLY work of his from the old days that was stolen…

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—XOver (Temporal Echoes): Due to observation of dangerous anomalies in spacetime, and Rock Light’s inability to handle them, Dr. Light was called upon to create a new robot that was capable of resolving the threat. He worked hard on the blueprints for the hardware, but ultimately failed to produce a working copy of software.

Desperate, the powers that be (with Dr. Light included) begged the world’s best (sane) AI&A coder to join the project: one Dr. Mikhail Cossack.

Dr. Cossack agreed, but only under very strict conditions. Chief among them were the two main points regarding ownership and production: the unit would be considered a DCN, with Dr. Light acting as a subcontractor for the construction process. Therefore, it would be the legal property of Dr. Cossack’s privately owned LLC., subject to the legal ramifications of said ownership. Consequently, LightLabs, Inc. would NOT be allowed to mass-produce the unit under any circumstances, and any unapproved constructs produced using either the hardware or the software would be considered violations of patent and subject to seizure. Although these were not very well received, they were demanded and ultimately honored.

The project was a phenomenal success. Chorus transcended the confines of linear spacetime…

…and never returned.

None of the tracking measures seemed to indicate that Chorus got injured, destroyed, or captured, so the project leads were forced to conclude that he was either unable or unwilling to return. Since they still had a problem to deal with, Dr. Cossack agreed to make another construct—Refrain—using a slightly upgraded blueprint who would be tasked with the same defined purpose and the additional prerogative to search for and assist Chorus along the way…

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—T.

[lilacsolanum]

am I correct that you once mentioned being able to talk forever about the breakdown of Animorphs team dynamics at the end of the war? please... if so... i'd love to hear your thoughts...

YES, YOU ARE VERY CORRECT. HERE WE GO.

Cassie and Ax are the only ones whose books straight up lay down the law on this. The Sacrifice has Ax straight up talking shit about, like, everyone but Marco. Marco he’s cool with, because Marco’s clear headed and not worried about getting his hands dirty. Marco’s like “Man, drop a nuclear bomb if you GOTTA, like I don’t LOVE the idea but what’s an intergalactic war without a ‘lil nuke here and there? Makes it EXCITING.” But he starts getting disenfranchised with Jake - “I wished now not for Jake, but for an Andalite commander. An experienced soldier. Someone who better understood when to fight and when to watch.” He is OVER how Rachel is terrifyingly violent and should have been removed from fighting a while ago (the scene where Ax chooses to forgive and free a Yeerk-moprhed-bird who is just trying to become a nothlit — only for Rachel to thoughtlessly murder the Yeerk on a rampage — is one of the most chilling moments in Animorphs. I gasped and had the set the book down when I first read it, and I first read it as an adult.) While He even straight up calls Tobias out on getting trapped in morph on purpose - “He stayed in red-tailed hawk morph for longer than two hours. I suspect he did it on purpose.  It was his way of escaping the complexities of human life. Although he exchanged them for a new set of complexities.” When he finds out Cassie gave away the morphing technology, he says “I could not stop looking at Cassie. I was not exactly sure what I was feeling. But I was sure it was very close to hatred.” Later he says “Perhaps the real menace lay at the other end of the continuum - represented by Cassie. Humans who were softer. Kinder. Well-meaning. And, ironically, infinitely more dangerous.” He eventually does forgive Cassie and start to understand her choice, but it takes him a MOMENT. Ax is TIRED in this book. The Sacrifice is just Ax talking shit about everyone, it’s amazing. “My hatred for Cassie began to extend to them all. They were fools. They would never prevail. They were too soft. Too sentimental. Too childish. Too stupid and ignorant.” - Aximili in The Sacrifice, pouring out some tea.

Ax ends up in this really sad place at the end of the war where he’s resigned to dying on Earth, to dying with his human friends, and he sees honor in that but he does not want it. Ax is easily the least developed characters in the series, especially once he’s given to the ghostwriters. He’s either The Funny Alien Bro or he’s the writer’s voice of political commentary. VERY RARELY is he treated with respect. Because of this inconsistency, it’s hard to say what Ax does immediately after the war. Does he just peace out to Andalite immediately? Does he take time to decide what he truly wants? Does he decide he truly wants to stay on Earth with humans but goes back to Andalite out of duty? Does he reach out to Tobias? Does he quietly accept Tobias’s decision to isolate himself and feel secretly relieved that he no longer has to care for this neurotic bird? Does he feel guilty about being secretly relieved? Does he not care he’s relieved? There are a ton of ways to interpret Ax and view his post war decisions. The only thing we know from The Sacrifice is that he’s pretty fucking DONE.

-

Cassie talks a ton of shit, too. (”The truth was, and it hurt me to admit it, Jake just wasn’t Jake anymore.” - The Ultimate. “Rachel’s voice, on the other hand, was firm and unhesitating. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m thinking it’s time to explode a big ‘ole bomb.” “And you couldn’t be happier,” Cassie said bitterly to Rachel. “Could you?”” - The Sacrifice.) Cassie always has sweetly-snide things to say about everyone in her narration (homegurl is always like “Marco is funny, but only to cover up his own fear.” “Yeah Tobias DEFINITELY trapped himself in morph.” “Rachel is a mess.” Cassie is a southern church lady and a master at shade and I love her.)

Cassie and Ax are basically just. Done with everyone. Cassie has already realized all her friends are way too war-touched to ever be healthy, and knows, on some level, that she’ll retain enough stability be able to elevate herself past the PTSD. In her last book, she makes this sad, desperate last chance grab at retaining what was left of Jake’s humanity. After that, we don’t see many people really connecting with Cassie and honestly, it’s not because she gave away the morphing cube. It’s because the Animorphs agree to blow up the Yeerk pool. I think that is a defining point for Cassie, the equivalent of Jake losing his parents. Her fate is sealed when she is forced to participate in destroying the Pool. She doesn’t like herself and she doesn’t like these people. She completely gives up on Jake and knows they have no future, which you see plainly in her reaction to Jake’s proposal (I don’t know what I expected her answer to be, but I didn’t expect her to start crying. And not tears of joy, either. “I would like that … eventually,” she said. “ But. But what?” She sighed. “But, Jake, what are you going to be? What are you going to do?” “Guess I thought I’d go to college,” I said. “And study what, Jake? Me, I’ll go to college, I’ll become a doctor. never forget what’s happened, I’ll never even try, but I’ll be able to slip back into a normal life. But you, Jake?” ) She is straight up aggressive toward Rachel in The Ultimate (”“Why do you have to be so horrible?” Cassie exploded. “You are, you know. And you get worse every day. Your own mother can’t even stand you.””) Cassie is maybe not consciously aware that she is the only one who will truly survive the war, but she knows SOMETHING, and she starts to distances herself and gives up on her friends at the end of the war. It’s another one of Cassie’s bright clear lines.

-

Marco doesn’t really comment on things falling apart, but I also don’t think Marco approaches exactly HOW falling apart things have become in the same honest way Cassie and Ax do. Listen: homeboy has abandoment issues. Which I guess is extrapolation, as I can’t really think of any example where he’s directly like “Everyone Leaves Me Eventually Fuck ‘Em And Their Little Dog Too”, but the text DOES tell us 1. Marco’s mom died when he was 11, which is a very big thing to happen to a very tiny child; 2. His dad mentally checked out immediately after and 3. After the war, Marco awkwardly tries to keep the band together. He admits to spying on Jake in his free time in The Beginning, AND I MEAN. “Marco lived half a mile from me, in a house about seven times bigger than mine. We’d started hanging out again. And after awhile he’d given up arranging dates for me with whatever starlet happened to be willing.” (Jake, The Beginning). Some of that is Jake giving back to Marco, but one can ONLY ASSUME from Marco’s weird spying that Marco pulled every drop of Jake’s friendship out by sheer force of will. He also apparently invites Cassie AND HER BOYFRIEND to his Hollywood parties (I spoke to Cassie every couple of months. She was seeing some guy … actually, a good guy. I had met him at one of Marco’s parties.) and is in general all up in her shit. He does this crazy detailed run down of every step Cassie has made post-war in Chapter 10 of The Beginning. Like bro why do you even know Wal-mart tried to get Cassie to sign a deal with them? Because you’re not as cool as you think, and you miss the fuck out of the Animorphs. His defining character trait is also “Cares about no one unless he adopts you as as family, in which case he will walk right into hell and personally bitch slap satan to ensure your safety.” I honestly don’t think it OCCURS to him that they won’t all be friends after the war. He comments a bit on people falling apart, but I swear he thinks they’re all going to fall apart together. Marco is arguably in a better position when the war ends than when it started. He brings his mother back from the dead, his dad is functioning, he is rich and famous, everything is great (save for the inevitable trauma of his parents and the existence of Nora and the fact he deliberately put her in harm and all the other terrible realizations we’ve all had about that family). But I can’t help but feel that his abandonment issues are part of what lead him to The Rachel. He sacrifices a pretty bomb life to go on a suicide mission without question, because Marco doesn’t have much family, and he adopted the Animorphs as a family, and now the only way to get that family back for even a moment is to go on The Rachel.

Basically, at the end of the war, Marco is something close to happy and hopeful. The last book he narrates is a fucking romp with tanks and ducks and bondage jokes (”” ICONIC). He’s focused on his parents, and he’s not really seeing the looming aftermath of war.

-

Tobias is sort of in the same situation. He’s dealing with a lot. He’s got a Loren now, and he’s awkwardly morphing human for her. He has been disenfranchised with Jake ever since Jake manipulated him into volunteering himself for torture. He’s kicking it with Marco and Ax and they have this sort of unofficial club going on, but he never mentions particularly connecting with Marco on the same level he does Rachel or Ax or even Cassie. Which, don’t get me wrong, I am 100% a huge believer in Team Finesse as disgruntled roommates who care for each other deep down, but it’s ultimately not enough of a connection to keep him around after Rachel’s death. That’s the thing with Tobias. He was always sort of detached from everyone but Rachel and Ax, and Ax was somewhat circumstantial. We all love the shorms, shorms are real, but there’s definitely a reading where the two of them bonded because they had to. I also definitely think Tobias never truly believed in Ax’s love for him. That’s the thing with Tobias, he can joke and he can bond and he has a nice time with the other Animorphs but he doesn’t believe in a universe where they hang out without the Yeerks, ya feel? He can go on a tank joy ride with Marco, but underneath it he’s thinking “This hilarious class clown wouldn’t give me the time of day if it wasn’t for Elfangor.” He can listen to Ax call him shorm, but ultimately he’s going to feel “Ax is only here because he has no other option, we wouldn’t be friends otherwise.” That’s why as soon as Rachel dies, Tobias is out. When Cassie says, “He doesn’t hate you, Jake. He never did. His heart was broken, that’s all. And you know, Tobias never had anyone. No one before Rachel. No mother, really, no father he could ever know. Rachel was the first and only person who ever loved Tobias.” (The Beginning), I think she’s speaking from Tobias’s POV, because she knows of all people that Tobias was loved and loved fiercely by many. It’s just that when Rachel said it, he actually believed her. (This is a line I’ve been sitting on for a minute and will use in a fic, so anyone who reads it again later, act surprised okay?)

-

And Jake and Rachel have isolating incidents that are pretty clear on the page. Rachel’s descent into extreme violence addiction isn’t super well done, but these ARE children’s books. As dark as these books are, there’s something so incredibly disturbing about watching a child find joy in a shower of blood that it’s not really well touched upon. All we know is that she’s out of control, to the point where when confronted by an armed but currently peaceful group of soldiers, she ignores orders from Ax and attempts to ram through the human shield by physically stomping on her mother’s foot and forcing the gas pedal. No one wants to hang out with Rachel by this point, not even her family, not even Cassie. Well, we can assume Tobias is still kicking it with her, but we never get a scene of them together which is a SHAME. And Jake is, you know. I’ve rambled enough, but anyone who has read the series knows that Jake withdraws from his friends when he loses his parents in The Diversion. Marco and Tobias are too preoccupied to help, Cassie tries to the point where she hands their only leverage over to the enemy but eventually gives up on EVERYONE, and Ax is too exhausted to care. I don’t think it would have mattered much if Jake had gotten a ton of support though. He’d given up by then.

ANYWAY you asked for my feelings on the kids drifting away from each other and I gave you 2K because I am extra.

[sweetsmellosuccess]

The Best (and Worst) Films of 2017

Determining what you deem to be the “best” films of a given year – or the “worst,” for that matter – is something of a drain. First of all, what, exactly, is your criteria? Do you choose the films that made the most impact on you? The ones that months later you still remember in vivid detail? The ones that seemed the best made? Sometimes, a film you dismiss one year you eventually come to realize is actually very, very good. Other times (though more rare), a film you absolutely loathed comes around for you and you realize you made a huge mistake in your original harsh judgment. Ultimately, it has to come down to the most basic and inexcusable of fallacies: It just feels right to you, for whatever reason, and shut up, it’s my list. This obviously makes these year-end lists little more than a document of my utterly subjective whims in a given calendar year, so take any of these so-called lists, no matter how definitive they want to appear to be, with a giant salt-lick block. Withering disclaimers in place, let’s go ahead and do this.

The 20 Best Films of 2017

20. Wind River Taylor Sheridan’s directing debut – a whodunit conducted on reservation lands in frigid Wyoming, lead by a BFW hunter (Jeremy Renner) and a neophyte FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) -- does have some glaring weaknesses – he does seem preternaturally fond of the whole “female agent in over her head” dynamic, and there is certainly some White Guy in Native Lands stuff that might turn people off. But one thing he does get right is the landscape, in all its pitiless beauty, and a sense of just how thoroughly American society has largely turned its back to the plight of our country’s native peoples. It’s a murder mystery with more of a political kick than you might expect. Full Review

19. Logan Just when the superhero genre had about exhausted its bag of tricks, James Mangold’s more haunting vision of a Wolverine (played for the last time by Hugh Jackman) old, riddled with guilt and doubt, and loss of purpose felt like a revelation. The lion in winter, whose adamantium claws were still in effect – and to particularly bloody purpose, with the application of the hard ‘R’ rating – became a version of the character we hadn’t seen before, and one that proved to have much more emotional complexity. Full Review

18. The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected) I realize Noah Baumbach, with his archly literary sensibilities and dynamic wordplay between admittedly sad sack, often dislikable characters, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But I’ve always found his stuff riveting, and here, with a full-blown cast (including Dustin Hoffman, Adam Sandler, Emma Thompson, and Ben Stiller) and a bevy of characters whose intricate interactions yield emotionally rich scene work, he’s in fine fettle. Sandler, proving once again that he’s capable of far more than brainless, lazy fart comedies when pressed by a good director, is very strong, and Hoffman, playing an irascible, egocentric aging patriarch, is excellent. Full Review

17. Berlin Syndrome Another film I thought would do better than its limited-run-straight-to-video release might indicate, Cate Shortland’s cat-and-mouse thriller about an Aussie tourist in Berlin (Teresa Palmer) who has a brief affair with a German man (Max Riemelt) before he abducts her and keeps her locked in his apartment for months on end. The film is smart and riveting – featuring yeoman work from the two leads, and a pulse-tripping last act that welded me to my seat – and, in this unofficial Year of the Female, featured a strong-as-nails heroine standing up to the worst sort of male oppression, a perfect metaphor for 2017. Capsule Review

16. Free Fire Amongst an admittedly soul-searing line-up at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival, Ben Wheatley’s absurdly entertaining shoot-em-up struck me as exactly the kind of elixir I needed to pick myself up off the floor. With a sterling cast – including Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy, and Oscar-winner Brie Larson – and a can’t miss bottle-episode premise – a pair of gangs during a gun-buy gone bad are forced to square off against each other in an abandoned umbrella warehouse in ‘70s-era Boston – work to make this thing pop like a series of firecrackers. I actually expected it to be a bigger hit than its more modest returns indicate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it picks up steam after repeated viewings on cable and streaming services. Someday, it will get its due. Full Review

15. A War Quietly, Tobias Lindholm has been making tremendous films over the last decade, either working with director Tomas Vinterberg, or on his own helmed projects. This military drama stars “Game of Thrones” actor Pilou Asbek – a star in his own right in his native Denmark – as a captain of an outpost in Afghanistan forced to make a difficult, but totally understandable, decision that leads to his having to endure a court martial hearing. Asbek is absolutely masterful, and Lindholm has a way of creating difficult and complex narratives that puts his characters and his audience in a moral quandary. Full Review

14. The Salesman Every film from Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi is a cause for celebration, and this film – an interesting meditation on repressive misogyny, Iranian social politics, and Arthur Miller – is no exception. The film utilizes Farhadi’s trademark tightly wound, concentric narrative wrapped around a central core mystery. While it’s not quite at the level of some of his best work (including A Separation, and The Past) it’s nevertheless a fascinating film further probing deeply into the human condition. Capsule Review

13. Strong Island I had the pleasure of watching Yance Ford’s deeply moving doc, about the murder of his older brother and the ways his loss devastated her once-happy family, at last spring’s True/False festival. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time: “Shot in a pastiche of styles – for most of the interviews, the camera keeps a respectful distance, but for Ford’s own confessions, he shoots almost uncomfortably close, almost daring us to look away – the somber themes are greatly enhanced by the addition of inspired poetic visuals: an angled roof against the blue of the sky, snow swirling in air against a dark night, a particularly haunting overhead shot of the grease stain on the concrete outside the garage where his brother lay down to die, which untether the film from clear narrative delineation, and send it into spiraling layers of grief and acceptance. The result is uncompromising and almost impossibly raw.” Capsule Review

12. Wonder Woman Just when we were all ready to take the DCU and chuck it into Zack Snyder’s garbage disposal, along comes Diana Prince, who revitalized the entire comic book genre, and breathed new life into what had been Warner Bros. desultory foray into comic book universes (a life almost immediately put back on life support after the disastrous Justice League debacle this past fall, but I digress). Gal Gadot’s star turn as the heroine of the summer could not have come at a more precipitous time, given the political wave of female empowerment, and Patty Jenkins’ film was thrilling and ground-breaking. DC might have only given us one winning film this year, but it certainly was a doozy. Full Review

11. Graduation Cristian Mungiu’s narratives always challenge his protagonists in deeply disturbing ways, either by dint of the oppression they are under, or the moral quandaries he elicits. His latest film, about a well-connected Romanian doctor (Adrian Tetieni) who uses his influence to illicitly aid his stricken daughter (Maria Dragus) on the eve of her college entrance exams, is another master study of moral nuance and precise scene composition. A single, wordless shot of the doctor coming home with his wife (Lia Bugnar) sitting in the kitchen tells us everything we need to know about their marriage, which is fantastic filmmaking. Mungiu greatly helped spur the Romanian cinematic revival over the last two decades, this film continues to cement his considerable legacy. Capsule Review

10. The Unknown Girl Recently, the Dardennes Bros. have been quietly making some of the more ethically absorbing films of the last few years. In 2014’s Two Days, One Night, we got to see the plight of a depressed woman attempting to get her old job back by pleading with her co-workers; here, we follow an obsessive doctor, Jenny (Adèle Haenel), after a young woman is murdered after first trying to gain entry into her small clinic after hours. Jenny devotes most of her time and energy not to try and solve the crime, but only to discover the identity of the woman so she can notify her family. You get the impression the Dardennes – whose previous oeuvre contains many unflinching dramas – want to lay out the ways we need to respond to our fellow human beings in order to be truly happy with ourselves. It says something that their protagonists stand out so much for simply just doing the right thing. Capsule Review

9. Personal Shopper Kristen Stewart has become far more than a starlet; she’s a bloody force of nature. Working again with Olivier Assayas (their previous collaboration, Clouds of Sils Maria, was also very strong), the two have made a film so filled with provocative energy, it can’t stay in one place for very long. Part ghost story; part fashion treatise; part character study; part Millennial ode, it moves in so many directions, you can’t catch your breath. Rather than feel scattershot, however, it’s anchored by Stewart and her undeniable screen presence. It will be fascinating to watch the rest of her career play out as she gets older and her muse carries her in different directions. Full Review

8. My Happy Family One of the joys of going to a festival like Sundance (and having critic friends with excellent taste) is getting to catch films you likely wouldn’t have seen under normal circumstances. Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß’s Georgian drama concerns a middle-aged matriarch (Ia Shugliashvili, in a fantastic performance) who suddenly decides to move out of her busy apartment where her vast extended family live, and move into her own flat where she can hear herself think. To her husband’s consternation, no matter how tightly the thumbscrews are applied, she remains resolute, which comes to make more and more sense as the drama unfurls. Currently on Netflix, I can’t recommend this one strongly enough. Capsule Review

7. I, Tonya One of the true surprises at last year’s TIFF, Craig Gillespie’s black comedy plays out the life and times of Tonya Harding with verve, wit, and absolutely brilliant performances, none more so that Allison Janey’s scene-stealing turn as Tonya’s witheringly acerbic mother. “Through a series of recreated interviews with the participants, screenwriter Steven Rogers has a grand time, breaking 4th walls, and giving glorious, epithet-spewing life to its decidedly lowbrow characters. Admirably, it also manages to make salient points as to the nature of celebrity culture, and the simple, one-dimensional character forms that American society so adores. It’s a colorful noisemaker, with a strand of barbed wire wrapped around the handle.” Capsule Review

6. Lady Bird Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut was a spiky, scintillating reverie on teen identity, and the difficulties of holding onto those things that most matter to you even as you strive to open yourself up to totally new experiences. “At its heart, too, through all of its sweetly comic undertones -- and laugh out loud bits of extemporaneous dialogue that flows through Gerwig's script like a guzzle of warm syrup -- it's an emotionally powerful evocation of the way loving parents and their children have to forge a way to learn to live apart from one another. "I want you to be the very best version of yourself you can be," her mother tells her at one point, and Lady Bird's struggle to figure out just who that might be is thoroughly captivating.” Full Review

5. The Florida Project A kind of reimagined Little Rascals, but set at an Orlando residence motel on the dirty outskirts of the strip outside Disney World, Sean Baker’s film is filled with the vitality and spark of life, even as the lives it depicts are difficult and often suffering. As far as the children of these hard-scrabble parents are concerned, the whole area is like an unsupervised playground. Featuring fantastic performances from the children – and a wondrous turn by Willem Dafoe, as the building manager – none more so than impossibly young Brooklynn Prince, the film is smart, sassy, and, at the end, extremely moving. Full Review

4. Get Out Much digital ink has already been spilled (um, generated?) in praise of Jordan Peele’s stunning directorial debut, a brilliant comedy/horror-based dissection of racial politics in this country, but here’s just a bit more: Peele’s film is so tightly constructed and carefully put together, it works equally well on multiple levels. That a film so loaded with racial politics can also be so damn entertaining is a marvel that needs to be seen multiple times before fully appreciated. Full Review

3. Phantom Thread Not that there was any serious doubt before but Paul Thomas Anderson is so fully in control of his craft he can make a riveting, emotionally wrenching film from a fussbudget dressmaker who likes his breakfast to be eerily silent. It helps when you have the luminescent efforts of a fantastic cast – lead by Daniel Day Lewis, in his reported last ever film role – but PTA is also the man who put that cast together and got such fantastic performances out of them. It’s a love story from a particularly obtuse angle – in this way, somewhat reminiscent of PTA’s earlier Punch Drunk Love – but takes such vibrant risks along the way, it’s all you can do to keep from applauding midway through. Delicate, fussy, nuanced, and absolutely gorgeous to look at (thank you, DP PTA!), with a wondrous score from Johnny Greenwood, it’s almost shockingly good. If this is indeed Day-Lewis’ last film, he’s gone out with a hell of a swansong. Full Review 

2. Call Me By Your Name I have written more about this film, and the year’s best winner, over this year than I can ever remember doing before. Hence, I quote but one of my various musings thusly: “The film’s first couple of hours are perfectly entertaining, but is in its closing scenes that it goes from engaging to sublime, including a monologue from [Michael] Stuhlbarg, consoling his now-bereft son, that is truly one for the ages. The closing credits, set over a long, single-take of Elio’s face in front of the fire, will sear your soul.” Full Review

1. A Ghost Story Ladies and gentlemen, David Lowery’s powerful meditation on love, time, and the fallacy of human legacy was the only film this year that very nearly dropped me to my knees in anguish as I departed the theater. You can actually view it as having something of a happy ending, but even so, it strikes nerves deep in your cerebral cortex you never even knew existed before. “It’s a film of felt, quiet spaces, whose emotional intensity builds in small increments to become at times almost overwhelming. It goes places you don’t expect, and keeps you there, frozen stiff in your chair, as it comes full circle. It’s definitely not a film for everybody – if, for example, you require three full acts and complete character arcs, you might want to take a flyer – but for the people who can hang with it, it has an enormous amount to offer.” Full Review

Other Worthy Mentions:

47 Meters Down, A Gray State, Abundant Acreage Available, Atomic Blonde, Baby Driver, Bad Day for the Cut, Beach Rats, Beatriz at Dinner, Blame, Did You Wonder Who Shot the Gun?, Dunkirk, I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore, Jane, Killing Ground, mother!, Quest, The Cage Fighter, The Endless, The Force, The Square, Thumper

The 5 Worst Films of 2017

5. Mary Shelley “Unfortunately, working from a truly terrible script from Emma Jensen, Al Mansour’s film is at best inartful, and at worst, the kind of simplistic, every-scene-has-a-point! pabulum that would embarrass a high school English class. Each element of Frankenstein is foreshadowed (here, Mary learns about galvanism; here, she sees an article about sewing body parts together, et al.), as if all she needed to do to write the novel was to pluck them directly from the sources. Even the film’s strongest moments – where Al Mansour, the worlds first female Saudi director, gets to show 18th century male oppression at its most vile and condescending – get watered down under that lead weight of a script. Everyone deserved better.” Capsule Review

4. Hostiles “Cooper confuses macho bravado and grittiness for any kind of verisimilitude – there are a staggering number of plot holes, and character inconsistencies – including the continual presence of a pretty frontierswoman (Rosamund Pike), whose family was wiped out by a group of marauding Comanche – that only serve to move the meandering plot forward. Worse yet, the action sequences themselves are both incoherent, and oddly designed (one of the oddest choices is putting us outside a closed series of tents in one scene, such that the action sequence is totally lost on us). The male actors sport very real and copious facial hair, as to suggest the worthiness of the project, but any filmmaker that can take a pair of powerhouse actors like Bale and Ben Foster and reduce them to this level of low-wattage really needs to self-examine.” Capsule Review

3. The Promise “Worse than any of its stylistic decisions, however, is to take something as horrific and criminally under-represented as the Armenian genocide and saddle it with a hokey love story that is virtually lifeless on its own. Naturally, the timeliness of the film -- taking us back to another age where virulent nationalism ran rampant, and minority groups were targeted as the subjects of its wrath -- is all too sickeningly relevant in the age of Brexit and Steve Bannon's type of exclusionist populism, but even there, the film either falters on the side of its overbaked plot, or sticks its more relevant political points in blithely didactic lurchings. ("This whole country is a graveyard," one character says.)” Full Review

2. Aardvark “A turgid, draggy drama (mostly around the premise that Slate’s character has to be an almost impossibly bad therapist to do to her patient what she pulls off here), a pasty comedy, coddled around a fantastically unbelievable premise and its flailing execution, the film tries to play with our sense of reality, using Quinto’s recurring hallucinations, but it doesn’t even want to bother to play by its own rules. It’s hard for me to imagine those talented actors reading this script and signing off on it, but here we are.” Capsule Review

1. Kidnap “As a means of conveying information, Knate Lee's "script" calls for Karla to talk incessantly to herself in the car, narrating her dilemma ("So now what's the plan?" she asks herself at one point, quickly concluding that she hasn't got one) pretty much so former Oscar-winner Berry has something to do other than grit her teeth and bleed out the nose. She also has a penchant for broad exclamatory statements ("Wherever you go, I'll be right behind you, no matter what!" and so forth). The effect is like overhearing a young boy playing with his GI Joes.” Full Review

Other Dishonorable Entries:

Axolotl Overdrive, Baywatch, The Mummy

Random Notes:

Inexplicably Overrated: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Biggest Welcome Surprise(s): I, Tonya, Lady Bird, Logan

Most Bitter Disappointment(s): Downsizing, Mary Shelley, The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Film That Critics Got Wrong: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Film(s) I Totally Whiffed On: Coco, I Love You, Daddy

Best Upcoming Releases of 2018

1. The Rider 2. Lean on Pete 3. Happy End 4. Chappaquiddick

[jojuarez26]

When love isn't enough:It's complicated

Mature content and strong language Divergent fanfiction:Eric/OC @pathybo @tigpooh67 @ljvosscmt @frecklefaceb @societalfailure @scorpio2009 @james-k-delaney @kiiiimberlyriiiicker1995 @glamlover87 @beautifulramblingbrains @clublulu333 @angolodiparadiso @ariwolff14 @ericdauntless @muffinmano @crystalbaby12 @mom2reesie @drowning-in-my-dreams @singingpeople This was not how I seen life going. After the choosing ceremony I wasn't supposed to see either of them again. Life was supposed to go back to normal. Instead they both show up in Dauntless and make life more complicated. Instead of going home like I was supposed to I decided to go sit by the chasm. The sounded of the rushing water had a calming effect to it. Not knowing how much time had went by I was torn from my thoughts when a hand touched my shoulder. "I hear you have been the topic of the day. That's so unlike you. Do I need to swoop in and save you?" He chuckled shaking his head. I hadn't seen Kendrick in over seven months. When he switched out to fence duty he was gone more than he wasn't. I covered my face with my hands then took a deep breath. "Nope. Just need to never leave my home again. Or get someone to approve a dependent for fence duty," it almost sounded like a plan. Almost. "Naw sweetie, the fence is no place for you. Ryan would be pissed. Probably sneak back from Candor just to kick your ass," he had a playful grin and joking tone, however I knew he was serious. Kendrick had been my brother's best friend. When Ryan left for Candor we had started dating. More out of grief than anything. After six months I realized he wasn't what I really wanted and he would never be able to replace my brother. "You could always tell those transfers you're already spoken for, " a hopeful tone in his voice. "Oh you would like that wouldn't you. Sorry but we both know that ship sailed along time ago," I tried to keep the disdain out of my voice. The look on his face said I wasn't successful. "I would give up anything to change that. I know I can't though. Just becarful. I only want to see you find some happiness again. I'm not sure you'll find it where you're looking." "I'm not looking anywhere. Shit just seems to find me lately," I snapped. "Look I'll be on my way. Just remember if you need anything you know where to find. Just be safe. Sounds like you stepped in the snake pit," I didn't like his insinuating tone. "I will keep that in mind. However I would not hold my breath if I was you." I sure as hell didn't need his help for anything. "Good luck Leci. Hope you don't end up in the bottom of the chasm." he had an ominous tonw to his voice. "What the fuck is that suppose to mean?" now I was getting pissed. He looked behind me then turned and stalked off in the direction of the pit. "How do you know Kendrick?" I turned to look at Eric and wrinkled my nose in confusion. "He was friends with my older brother, we grew up together. How the hell do you know him?" "We have a mutual associate. He's not someone you want to put your trust in." that made me laugh. "Oh because you are? That's kind of calling the kettle black." I rolled my eyes and stood up to leave. He grabbed my arm lightly and pulled me back to him. "Aren't you suppose to be at home? Amar is looking for you." I whirled around with purpose. I had just about enough of him for the day. "You know this isn't how it was suppose to go. You were going to have your psychotic ass back in Erudite reigning supreme over your kingdom. I wasn't going to have to tolerate your delusions ever again," the tears started to sting my eyes. He grabbed me and pulled me to his chest. Rubbing his hands gently up and down my back and nuzzling his head in my hair. For a moment I almost forgot I didn't want him near me. Then he opened his mouth and ruined it. "Aleisia you are meant to be mine. Stop fighting it," he kissed my ear as he spoke. I got my sense back and pushed him back. "Is my life a fucking game to you? Pursue the one thing you can't have until you can break me! Then once you've won toss me aside like all of those who have come before me! Just leave me alone." I tried to walk away but he grabbed my hair and yanked me back again. "The only person making a game out of this is you. But trust me when I say that I will win. I will never be letting you go. You have managed to get inside my head and consume me like nothing ever has before. Stop making this so fucking complicated," his voice was a growl in my ear. "Fuck you Eric! Stay away from me," I struggled to get away again, this time he let me go. When I turned around I seen why. Max was heading towards from across the chasm. I turned back around to give him another piece of my mind but he was already retreating into the shadows down the corridor. "Aleisia my dear we have been looking for you. Seems you have been a bad girl today," there was a hint of amusement in Max's voice. "I'm sorry sir. It won't happen again." "You are one of the few dependents I usually don't have any problems with. What changed when the transfers arrived?" he almost sounded amused. "Idiots. That's what happened. If Red or whatever her name is wouldn't have had the audacity to talk to me like she lost her mind everything would've been fine," I huffed in annoyance. "Seems the male initiates have taken s shine to you but the females are all jealous of you. I shouldn't tell you this but I am damn proud you knocked her out. You are going to be a fantastic asset to Dauntless next year. However you are still a dependent. I can't have you fighting members or initiates. You are going to help unload our two supply trucks this week as your punishment." I just blew out a frustrated breath. I guess I am lucky all things considered. "Thank you sir. It won't happen again." "I'm sure it won't. Oh and Aleisia, tred lightly with the Coulter boy. He's a bit of a wild card" with that he winked at me and left me standing on the bridge. Frustrated and tired I made my way to the mess hall to grab a tray to go and head home. When I went to leave I noticed three of the female initiates, including red surrounding me. Fucking great. Thankful before they got to close Amar and Max had appeared out of nowhere. I also noticed both Tobias and Eric as well as Zeke Pedrad standing up from their tables. This is just getting to be enough. "Ladies, something we can help you with tonight?"Max was not having it. "Teaching this little girl a lesson. I don't know who she thought she was," Red sneered. Oh she didn't realize who she had just mouthed off to. "She happens to be one of my most valued dependents. Unless you want to be made Factionless immediately. I suggest the three of you get lost and stay lost," his voice was caln but ice cold. "You can't- " she really is dense. "I can do whatever I please initiate. I am your leader. Amar, I want her dropped to last rank. Make her earn it." All three girls walked away. I knew this was far from over. I seemed to be trapped on the brink of adulthood but yet sounded by teenage drama. I really wished time could just speed up. "Hello initiate. Could you do me a favor? Would you be kind enough to walk my niece home enlight of the incident today?" Amar was talking to Tobias who was with Zeke. I seen Eric fuming in a corner. I rolled my eyes and started to walk away. Tobias and Zeke quickly flanked my sides. "Hey Leci!! Killing it without even being an initiate. How have you been?" Zeke always the clown. " I have been better to say the least. How's everyone at your parents?" his mother and mine where friends from growing up Dauntless. "Good. Hey what do say we all sneak off to the bar after hours tonight? Seems like you could use a drink, the Stiff could use one too," he cocked his head at Tobias who was rolling his eyes. "We start SIMS tomorrow. Apparently they are taking a new approach this year. SIMS one day, hand to hand the next. I think they are trying to kill us this year." "Wonder why they are doing that? It sounds like a terrible idea. As for the bar offer. I'm not really feeling it tonight. But Saturday maybe?" it really did want to let loose, just not tonight. "Sure, sure. You know I'm allays game." We had arrived at my door. It had been a long damn day. I just wanted to take a hot shower and go to bed. Hopefully no unwanted late night visits "Thanks guys. I think I am just going to lay low tomorrow but I'll see you soon." I gave them each a hug good bye. I was really wanting all of this drama to go away. Damn him. If he wouldn't came here my life would still be uncomplicated and drama free.