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nervoushottee · 1 month ago

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it happened quiet | daryl dixon x fem!reader

Summary: [1.5k] What you and Daryl have is a soft quiet love.

Big Bald Ass Note: I’ve always had a love for Daryl Dixon. He was one of the first “older man” crushes I ever had many years ago. I’ve always loved his character and the way Norman Reedus has and still does portray this character is like no other. My favorite thing about him that I didn’t understand when I watched twd when I was young but grew into adulthood was his introverted character. And how his care for others was soft, quiet and subtle yet strong and profound all at the same time. As a person who has a quiet love, personally prefers it and deeply cherishes that quiet love. I had the sudden urge to write this. I’ve been getting back into my Daryl Dixon phase recently and I just couldn’t get this out of my head. Thank you to @moonpascal for giving me that little push I needed to just go for it while the juices were flowing despite my other fic waiting outside waving her hands hoping to be seen, This is a long author’s note but this piece is truly something that means a lot to me. Which is funny because this is literally fanfiction but it's still writing and it's still art and it's mine.

Enjoy.

Daryl wasn’t an affectionate person. It’s never been something that just came easy to him. He never received it as a child and didn’t think anything of it once he got older.

There was one time when he was really really young. He was waiting for Merle after school, his older brother’s school building a few blocks away, and he watched his classmates greet their parents. He saw the parents with bright eyes and wide smiles. Mothers kissing their sons on the cheeks and fathers rubbing the top of their heads.

A strong deep feeling within his belly grew from the sight of it and it got bigger and bigger as the two Dixon brothers walked back home.

And when they got to their home, Daryl saw their mom had been exactly in the same spot where the two boys had left her. Face down into the pillow, an arm hanging off the side of the bed where a spilled bottle of Jack Daniels had stained seeped into the carpet.

Daryl cried for the first time ever. He cried for something he never had.

He didn’t cry when he saw kids on the streets with new bikes and scooters. Didn’t cry when his mom and dad would yell until the sun went down. But he cried for this. That deep strong feeling that he couldn’t name poured out of him and he cried. Standing in the hallway as he watched his mother sleep.

Merle, barely a teen and was bitching about spilled liquor, thought he was crying because mom looked too still. His older brother checked her pulse and felt the faint thump, thump, thump. “She’s jus sleepin’ Daryl.”, he explained to him. But Daryl didn’t stop crying. He hunched over, clutched his chest like his heart had been twisted and shoved down into his stomach and cried.

When Merle finally found out why he was crying, the older brother placed his hands on each of Daryl’s shoulders, stooped to his level and looked directly into his eyes.

“Dixons don’t cry. Not over that or anything else. We just weren’t made for that stuff.”

Daryl never cried or wanted it again.

Until now.

Until you.

When the world’s gone to shit and the dead are walking. You gotta learn how to start trusting the living. Well, to learn how to trust your group. They don’t just become a group of people you survive with. They become your family whether you like it or not.

And in the beginning, Daryl sure as hell didn’t like it.

He tried to force it away. To keep himself on the outside like he’s always done. Still did even when his brother went missing when they went back for him on that roof. But when time goes on and people die you build something, you find something and you learn something. He warmed into being more into the group. To being something of importance to Rick and the others. More than just Merle’s younger brother.

He remembers Carol telling him that he was meant for a leadership role but he’s never thought that about himself. And never will.

And getting closer to them came with affection. Came with a bond. With awkward hugs from Carol when he had spent day and night looking for Sophia. Her cropped hair pressed against his bandaged ear. It came with pats on the back from Rick and looks that meant something a lot more brotherly than he’s ever felt with Merle. With you and your small smiles and lingering eyes.

He had to learn to accept it. To learn that it was okay and wasn’t out of pity. That it was something he was actually allowed to have. It took him a long time to and he still only takes it in doses. Giving Carol a Cherokee Rose or the brief massage of her sore shoulder. Patting Rick’s shoulder, hoping he knows how much his brotherly bond means to him through it. Nodding his head at you with the tip of his ears a bit red as he turns his head away from you.

You’ve been a part of the group for as long as he could remember. And the two of you didn’t become something immediately. Daryl was an ass to you when all of this first started. He was an ass to everyone. But when he would small smiles from the courtyard, he would feel something that had never stirred inside of him before.

You were a touchy person.

Always within arms reach of someone. Giving Lori a reassuring squeeze of the hand or hug when she seemed like she would just break down in tears from the stress of being pregnant in this world. Kissing the top of Beth's head when she came to you with her anxieties over the group's safety. Or playfully slapping T-Dog’s shoulder when he used to make you laugh.

But when it came to Daryl you never touched him. And he felt off about it. Thankful but off.

When the two of you were starting to become something more, he had subtly brought it up when the two of you were on watch. It felt like pulling teeth when he asked you. And he would rather have done that with a rusted wrench than do this.

“I know you Daryl.” you said to him with a shrug.

That was the only thing that you said to him when he had asked but it was all that he needed. As your eyes never left his, he watched you smile softly. The moon giving your skin a light glow. You knew that he doesn’t respond well to physical affection. To hugs or kisses on the cheek (except from Carol who does it despite the awkwardness she laughs through). You knew it was something he just wasn’t used to. Or even maybe never had. It was only four words but it meant more to Darly than he could even say in a lifetime.

And if you ever told anyone that he was the one that made the first move and kissed you at the top of the prison tower. He will lie until he’s blue in the face and say he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.

After that you became more affectionate with each other. More touchy than before. Not touchy like Glenn and Maggie. Kissing each other goodbye when the other would go on a run or a quick kiss good morning. Or hugging after a run gone bad and they almost lost the other. Public display of affection to his partner, to you, is something Daryl could never really get on with.

But what the two of you had was a quiet love. A word Daryl still had a hard time saying and rarely ever said but knew deep in his heart that he felt it whenever he looked at you.

It was a quiet love filled with small glances and innocent touches. His hand against the small of your back or a quick tap on your arm or thigh. Your small smile to greet him and the nods that greets you. Holding his hand underneath the table. Feeling his calloused thumb rub against your hand once or twice. Checking on eachother during the other’s watch shift. Him adding some of his food on your plate as he walks past you. You giving him a snack of whatever random thing you have on hand in the evening. Placing your head on his shoulder very briefly when there's not many people around. A mutual meaning of a hug when it's late at night and you won’t see him for a while.

It was a silent bond the others knew about by name(ish) and feeling but not as much by action. Those actions were yours and yours alone. And you both preferred it that way.

Tender kisses and tight hugs. Soft caresses on the cheek and tracing fingers across bare chests. Whispered stories of childhood that turn into bedtime stories throughout the night. Expressing moments of doubt, fear or anger. Tears that would fall on your face and the feeling of his lips pressed against the top of your head.

Even in moments when you were sleeping next to him. Your head on top of his chest or his arm curled around your stomach. Daryl would feel your wrist, his thumb against your pulse to make sure it's still beating. Or hold as still as he can like he’s tracking a buck in the forest to feel the up and down of your body to ensure you’re breathing.

You became a big part of his life. This group (his family) became a big part of his life. Who knew that it would only take the end of the world for him to feel something more than just anger for the first time in his entire life.

Daryl wasn’t an affectionate person. But he learned how to be. For the good of the group, for himself and for you.

dividers by @saradika

#daryl dixon x reader #daryl x reader #twd daryl dixon #daryl dixon #twd daryl #daryl fanfiction #daryl twd #the walking dead #the walking dead fanfiction #daryl dixion imagine #daryl dixion x reader #daryl dixon fluff #daryl dixon fic #the walking dead fic

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lady-wildflower · 2 years ago

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We’re Not Gonna Live With Fear - Star Trek: Picard season 3 episode 10 The Last Generation

So I wasn’t entirely satisfied with some of the ending of Star Trek: Picard, season 3 episode 10, just because it didn’t feel like it got quite enough time (which is weird, ‘cos it’s almost half of an hour long episode, but hey), and I felt like writing a supplementary fic to do with the deassimilation of Jack - it’s a similar complaint to what I had with Voyager and the ending of Unimatrix Zero, being assimilated isn’t something that you get away from scot-free. I mean, in First Contact there were full-fledged fully implanted drones within an hour, whatever mechanism handled Jack’s assimilation would have had plenty of time to get all fiddly with Võx. So here’s a fanfiction, crossposted from AO3.

Jack Crusher deals with his initial recovery from the Borg Queen after being assimilated in 2402. Word count: 6,255.

Note: I also changed the initial bit a little so he didn’t remove the thing on his face with… what, his hands??? On the way from the transporter room? I think it may have been a production decision to make him look more human but I don’t have to worry about that and I have different priorities so I ain’t doing that. And I don’t imagine the shit on his hands would have just been gloves mate.

“Welcome to the Enterprise,” his father said warmly, smiling at him as he waved a hand at the brightly lit yesteryear not-quite-retro-but-nearly-there, classic really, Bridge of the Galaxy class U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D. Jack still didn’t know quite how his parents had dug a blown-up crashed ship out of the mothballs of what he had been sure had been the complete totalling of the Enterprise D, but there they were, standing on her bridge. Worf, the very model of a modern major Klingon, was snoring like a puppy in the counselor’s chair beside Sydney and Alandra’s Dad, and his weirdly elderly robot chum Data. Riker and Troi were embracing in the relief that death had not done them part, and the viewscreen showed a prolonged hail from the U.S.S. Titan A, depicting Seven of Nine, Sydney, Alandra, and Raffi. And there, up in the raised aft of the bridge behind the broad tactical station, Jack’s Mum and father stood on either side of him, holding him as he held his armored arms around them right back, with pride. Of course, it wasn’t that idyllic. Because Jack was still reeling from the disconnection of his consciousness from the Borg Collective. And that had been a comparatively tiny Collective. His body? Implants perforated his form, he was covered from toe to neck in armor with tubule sockets and piping all over him, the skin of his visible face was almost entirely mottled with black circuited veins and gray, some of his hair had fallen out - much to his consternation, as a vain young man dreading the imposition of early-onset baldness thanks to his father’s genetics - and the right side of his face was dominated by the black cranial implant that clawed up toward his nose under his eye and its red laser, and that also happened to be why his vision was green-tinged and filled with grids and analyses in Borg codes he could inexplicably understand, telling him all about how the systems of the Bridge worked and connected to the rest of the ship.

“So. This is where I was cooked up,” Jack said amusedly, glancing over at Riker. “She’s in good shape for getting blown up and wrapped around a planet,” he noted, and his father chuckled slightly under his breath.

“Oh, that is thanks to Mister LaForge. Sneaky fellow spirited away the saucer section off Veridian III twenty years ago and has been refurbishing the old lady in secret ever since,” Picard told him, and Geordi smiled smugly back at them. “And a good thing he did too. Who knows what would still be happening if he hadn’t,” he said, his tone getting a little morose as he turned back to Jack and his eyebrows did that weird scrunchy thing they did when he was emotional. His Mum’s hand patted his shoulderblade plating gently.

“You have no idea how glad I am that you’re back,” Beverly told him. “And you are so very thoroughly grounded, Jack Edward Crusher! Running off like that, getting yourself assimilated! Gave me the worst heart attack any mother’s ever had!” she exclaimed, a touch of sarcasm in her voice as she slapped his arm, but probably hurt her own hand more than his arm. Jack scoffed self-consciously. Yeah, he had done that hadn’t he?

“In my defense, I did sort of have the Borg yelling at me my whole life. It was bound to happen eventually,” he quipped. His mother’s expression immediately softened and she pursed her lips, raising her hand to his cheek.

“Ohh… well, it’s a good thing you’re a doctor’s son. Let’s see how bad the damage is,” Beverly said softly, fetching the sleek tricorder she’d discarded and flipping it open. “As soon as we can rendezvous with the Titan I’ll ask their chief medical officer to stock us up and we’ll get started getting all of this crap off of you then. For now, a good scan and a screwdriver will have to do,” she said, and Jack frowned with his one good eyebrow.

“Here? Why not head over to the Titan?” Jack asked. His Mum raised her eyebrow.

“No no. I de-assimilated your father in this ship’s sickbay, and so help me like father like son I will do the same for you young man,” Beverly replied, and Jack couldn’t help but smile a little at that. He was beginning to accept Picard as his father, not quite his Dad yet, but his father, and he supposed the connection was sweet. The tricorder started twittering methodically as his mother began scanning him, and almost immediately her eyebrows were knitted together in concern. He knew why - as soon as he’d even thought about it, his ocular overlay had spewed up a green whole-body diagram of his implants into his peripheral vision, and boy were there a lot of them splayed through him. It almost made him vomit; it was bad enough just keeping away from looking at the black exo-plating that covered his body, arms, and hands, but to imagine - no, remember - all the bits and servos and mechanisms inside of him? It was with a shiver of revulsion that Jack tried to will the image away, and to his relief it did go away.

It had been a traumatic day. And now that the smothering influence of the Borg Queen was gone, his mind was free to gape in horror at what had been done to him - it just hadn’t had much time to take it all in yet. The mutilated, half-cannibalized faces of the drones who’d been tasked with the first phase of his secondary assimilation would haunt his nightmares for a long time.

“Well, Beverly?” Picard asked concernedly, looking to her. As he moved, Jack’s ocular overlay saw fit to give him a complete rundown of the alloys that made up his fanciful Admiral’s combadge.

“Well, it’s not good, I’ll say that. It never is, with the Borg,” Beverly said wryly, making a face. “But I suppose it’s better than it could have been. There’s a lot that’s typical of Borg that they don’t seem to have gotten around to, I don’t even want to speculate what was meant to go there,” she told them, pointing to the socket on Jack’s right pectoral. Some pulmonary junction meant to facilitate another future implant that would have allowed him to function in a vacuum, Jack believed. “The cortical array is going to be a nightmare to remove, I’m afraid,” his Mum told them, this time pointing to the mass of tubules and wires implanted into the base attached to the right of his skull. “It makes sense that the Borg would have designed your complement for the purpose of amplifying your transmissions before all else, everything else is either standard or missing. Which, don’t worry son, I��m already thinking of ways to get that particular segment out of your DNA, and out of the DNA of everyone in Starfleet who was affected,” she assured him, and he nodded gratefully. Picard beamed at her affectionately.

“Trust me Jack, your mother knows all about unplugging all of this,” Picard agreed. “She’ll have it out of you in no time.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say no time. Locutus pre-dated some things, the spinal clamps for one. Those aren’t coming out any time soon, not if you want to be walking in the next few months,” his mother disagreed. “It’ll be a little while until you’re a hundred percent de-Borg’d, son,” she said apologetically.

“I can live with that,” Jack surmised, before he sniffed amusedly. “Hey, Mum, can I keep this?” he asked jauntily, pointing a gauntleted finger at his eye. His Mum frowned at him bewilderedly and lowered the tricorder as Picard’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You know, on somethings the Borg had some good ideas. It’s good this, it’s like I’ve got the Memory Alpha article for everything I look at and I don’t even need to find a padd for it,” he said with a shrug, trying to ignore the way servos in his biradial clamp whirred with the motion. Picard scoffed.

“You want to keep it?” Picard asked incredulously.

“I can see all sorts of things with it, it’ll come in right handy. Like LaForge’s eyes,” Jack replied, glancing over to Commodore LaForge to verify with his own eyepiece that he was remembering right; indeed, LaForge was the blind one with synthetic eyes that could see all manner of spectra - and the ocular implants Jack had been fitted with were even better. “Wonder if I could run that old Doom game on it. But if you could just fit an off-switch into the thing? It’s gonna be bloody distracting when I try to go to sleep,” he asked wryly, and it was his Mum’s turn to scoff.

“Speaking of, Data, would you mind scanning the wreckage for a preferably intact regeneration alcove? Even if Jack comes to his senses and has us get rid of the damn eye implant it’s going to be a while before it’s all gone, so we’ll be needing one and they’re not exactly in good supply,” Beverly asked, leaning over the tactical console as Data turned about to her with his funny yellow eyes. A partial analysis of Data’s complex positronic android-synthetic hybrid frame flashed up in Jack’s eye. Jack wondered if Data still technically held the Starfleet rank of Lieutenant Commander if he’d been legally dead for twenty-five years, even as he snickered at his Mum’s description of his lunacy at thinking the eye implant at least practical. It was going to be a long recovery, he knew, so Jack thought he might as well make the most of it and get something cool out of it. Namely, the most unobtrusive yet helpful implant of the lot. In a way he was deflecting from the pain, but that little bit of joviality was serious-ish.

“Of course Doctor,” Data replied politely, getting up from the first officer’s chair to go back to his forward station. The LCARS panel chirped and beeped as he tapped buttons in quick succession. “Scanning for one now… I have one. It doesn’t look like it’s got a dead drone in it,” he said wryly, before he tapped another few buttons. “It’s in Cargo Bay One, but I’ve put it in a containment field just in case. I may be twenty years short on news, but I do know that Borg technology isn’t known for its safety,” he told them.

“Thank you Mister Data,” Picard said gratefully. “Will, if you would take the con while Geordi, Beverly, and I head down to Sickbay and get started? Plot a rendezvous with the Titan,” he asked politely, pointing at each of them in turn as he began to step toward the turbolift.

“Sure thing, Jean-Luc. Good luck kid, I know it’s not easy,” Riker replied, parting briefly from Troi. “We’re all glad to have you back with us,” he said with a smile, and Jack nodded back to him. He wasn’t quite sure how to react to it; all his life he’d kept people out, but now that he’d bared so much… he didn’t quite know how to be open without their minds swimming in his own, he had to admit.

“We are. As we said to your father before we came here, you’re as much our family as Kes or Alandra or Sidney. And if you need anyone to talk to about this, my door’s always open to you Jack,” Deanna agreed, smiling warmly at him.

“Thanks. I’ll um, I’ll think about it,” Jack replied, giving them a black-armored thumbs up. Well, he supposed he’d learn how to be open in time. Nevertheless, he slowly and uncomfortably stepped after his father, followed by his Mum and LaForge who’d come up and around from the lower portion of the Bridge.

“Sickbay,” his Mum said as the doors closed behind the four of them, before she reeled back slightly as Jack accidentally got her in the eye with the laser on the side of his head. Could he turn that off? Well, the red dot on the turbolift wall didn’t go away, so he supposed not. “How do you feel?” Beverly asked him softly, reaching up to his cheek. Jack paused.

“Honestly, it fucking hurts,” Jack replied, so quietly he almost hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t wanted to appear weak, but now he was realizing how enormously stupid that was. “Everywhere. The Borg don’t exactly believe in painkillers,” he winced, noting how his father nodded commiseratingly. Every implant was burning agony in his skin and under it, the edge of the armor around his neck was like a vise rooted into him, burrowing in. Nanoprobes still scraped through his veins, filling him with a terrible ache, and so much of him felt rigid, constrained like every joint in his body needed to be cracked. And his head was pounding like a drum, as the turbolift doors whooshed open to reveal a softly lit corridor in the same classic style as the Bridge.

“It’s all right, we’ll put you under while we take as much as we can out son,” Beverly assured him softly as she took the lead in slowly making their way from the turbolift, stepping backwards. Jack nodded thankfully; he’d already been semi-awake to fully experience the implants being put in, he didn’t want to be awake when they were taken out. Jack glanced to the side, at the shiny black panels on the walls that his ocular overlay informed him were old general-purpose monitors for things like directions, only to freeze in horror at his reflection. He blinked, and Võx blinked back at him, the stoic image of the Borg terror. An image not unlike the historical images he’d seen of Locutus of Borg. A zombified, twisted, dissonant reflection that did not, could not, belong to him. Nausea grew in his gut before his father touched his back plates.

“I know,” Picard said simply, and Jack heard thirty years of trauma in his father’s soft-spoken voice. Was it their shared destiny to be forever scarred, violated, by the Borg? There were tears in Jack’s eyes as Picard offered him a hug, and the only reason he didn’t fall into it like a pile of bricks was because he wasn’t entirely sure how much he weighed just then and he didn’t want to hurt his father. But he did lean into the embrace, squeezing his eyes shut over Picard’s shoulder so he could not see the monster the Borg had made of him. Spacedock, and everyone else who had died at the hands of those Võx had controlled, their blood was on Jack’s hands. Because he’d been weak, and submitted to the voice in his head. Become the instrument of the Borg’s vengeance. Jack was weeping, sobbing his guilt into his father’s arms as his mother gently caressed the back of his neck and his hair affectionately, before a tiny pricking feeling barely caught his notice; a hypospray. Mercifully, darkness took him as his mother sedated him.

Jack had never been so glad not to dream. To him, he had succumbed to darkness and only moments later consciousness had seeped back into him like gluggy soup, and his eyes slowly blurred open before he started at an electronic hissing that whirred up seemingly right behind him before something clunked and there was a tiny lurch in his back.

“Wh-er-” Jack groaned, trying to get up and see what it had been only to instantly be dizzy as he tried to sit up too quickly. “Ow…” he winced, squeezing his eyes back shut as that infernal headache bolted back through his brain and his whole body ached.

“Jack. Jack, take it easy,” a familiar voice said right beside him and he jumped, opening his eyes again to blearily see - without any green overlay, notably - the wavy blonde hair and silvery ocular implant of one Commander Seven of Nine, still wearing her red-shouldered Starfleet command uniform. Jack blinked a bit and his eyes finally focused, and he took in where he was. He was, curiously, not aboard the Enterprise D anymore, obviously his Mum had been convinced to at least eventually set her sentimentality aside and transfer him to the Titan’s better equipped sickbay, where he seemed to have a ward to himself. Seven’s hand, laced with the metallic tendons of her remaining Borg implants, took his shoulder gently as Jack sat up, looking around at his bed - well, he knew what they’d done with the regeneration alcove. Some of its components, most obviously the green flickering plasma conductor at its head, had been incorporated into the biobed, no doubt so he’d be more comfortable and yet also regenerate what remaining Borg components he had - and he did still have quite a few. Looking at himself, the exoplating had all been removed, which he was more than glad for. Reticular nodes, the little spidery implants on the skin, still marked a lot of his visible arms and legs, including twin ones on his feet, and probably were there under his hospital gown too. Some of his skin was still gray and mottled around them, but most of it looked like it had returned to a rosier complexion. His right arm almost seemed to match Seven’s - assimilation mechanisms were standard on Borg, though obviously the design had changed a little since Seven of Nine - with dark metallic augmentations embedded over his tendons, wrist, and fingers, which too were capped like Seven’s. “Does it hurt?” Seven asked him.

“Mhmm,” Jack grunted, trying not to nod too much because his head was killing him. It wasn’t the only thing though; for whatever reason, he was actually cognizant of the implants itching now, irritating the skin around them. Seven of Nine took up a hypospray from the bench and held it up, and he squeezed his eyes shut with a smiling grimace in lieu of nodding. With a hiss, Seven administered the analgesic within it, and Jack exhaled slowly as it began to work, dulling his headache. As she did, Jack frowned at her. “When’d you get promoted?” Jack asked, pointing at the four, not three, pips on her neck.

“Yesterday. Captain Shaw’s posthumous recommendation,” Captain Seven replied with a small smile. Catching Jack’s lopsided frown at that, she inhaled. “You’ve been out for three days. Your mother’s taking some well needed rest, she’s been up for the last three days working on you. While they’re gone, I’ve been assigned the job of being your ex-Borg nanny,” Seven told him, with a sardonic lilt to her voice. Jack snorted.

“Borg babysitting? It’ll never catch on,” Jack chuckled, and Seven shook her head amusedly. Jack frowned and raised his plated hand to his face, specifically around his right eye; surprisingly, he found that he still had the base of the ocular implant around his eye, a little like Seven’s but surrounding a bit more of the circumference of his eye and heading up his nose, so why did he not have the overlay? Thankfully, there was no annoying laser rangefinder on his head anymore, there wasn’t a red dot on his hand.

“The uh, robot installed the off-switch you asked for,” Seven told him helpfully. “Just on your temple, there,” she added, demonstrating on her own face. Jack pressed that point on the implant, finding a tiny button that hadn’t been there before, and the green overlay booted back up with a slight twinge of pain in his eye. Nodding, he turned it back off again, and again his eye twinged as it vanished.

“Brilliant, thanks Data,” Jack muttered. “I allowed to get up?” he asked Seven, though he of course had no intention of following a rule not to. Seven nodded.

“Yeah. Here, let me help you,” she replied, holding his arm and hauling him to his feet. Despite his silly desire to do it independently, it was probably a good thing Seven of Nine was helping; his legs were shaky and weak, and he realized just then that it was probably because he hadn’t eaten anything in three, nearly four, days, and the Borg implants responsible for taking over his metabolism had probably been taken out. The cold floor of the Titan’s sickbay chilled his toes, but he welcomed that touch as he shook and steadied himself on the ex-Borg Captain. “Good?” she asked.

“Yeah, better,” Jack replied hoarsely, looking around the sickbay ward. On a far bench were what appeared to be a number of the implants that had been removed from him as well as the exoplating unceremoniously dumped into a container, and on the bedside table was a little square mirror, so he shakily stepped over to it and picked it up. He’d have to get used to his altered reflection, he knew; reflective surfaces weren’t exactly rare, he couldn’t hide from it. Thankfully, as he raised the mirror, he did not see Võx, no. It was still disturbing, but at least it was a reflection that could belong to him. The gray skin had retreated to only be around the very edges of the base metallic ocular implant that partially circumnavigated his eye, and much of the assembly on the side of his head was gone. His hair was a little bit ruined, having been cut away in places, but the face in the mirror was Jack Crusher again. Just… a little wounded. Though, not all of the cranial implants were gone - there was still a lot of black metal behind his right ear. He frowned and touched it.

“We couldn’t remove the entire cranial assembly,” Seven explained. “Firstly, you asked to keep the eyepiece which means keeping the cortical array and the spinal clamps, because those are what the regeneration alcove we built into your bed links to, and secondly… your father explained to us the Borg’s purpose for you. Your cranial array was specially designed, it’s almost more akin to what a Borg Queen has,” she told him, and he listened dutifully. “We could take away most of it, but not all of it. In a way, you’re like a micro-Collective all to yourself. I’d say it saved your life,” Seven said, and Jack turned to her curiously. “Most Borg don’t just get to decide to leave,” she pointed out.

“Right,” Jack muttered, nodding. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for others, who had had to be excised from the Collective by force. And those Võx had assimilated, Jack had sort of just shoved them out a little unceremoniously. To be fair, he’d been in a hurry. “If I’d’a stayed in there much longer… might have lost myself,” he breathed, trying not to think about it too much. Seven didn’t reply, she just silently nodded understandingly. Jack took a deep breath, then looked a bit more at his reflection. He grimaced, touching the ocular implant again. “Am I never gonna get that eyebrow back?” he asked petulantly. Seven laughed.

“Welcome to the club, kid,” Seven chuckled. “I was able to neutralize your nanoprobes, so you know. Some of them are locked into a limited maintenance mode, we can’t get rid of all of them, and the rest… well, let’s just say I don’t envy you your next visit to the head,” she said wryly.

“What?” Jack asked worriedly, before he groaned.

“Easiest way to get rid of them all,” Seven shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I’m a Captain not a doctor; Raffi’s in command for the moment. Hungry?” she asked him and he nodded eagerly.

“Starving. Don’t think that regeneration bed does much for that,” Jack replied, and Seven shook her head.

“No, it doesn’t. I remember being pretty pissed off about that when I first started having to eat,” Seven of Nine said amusedly. “Here, put that on and we’ll go get you something to eat. I’m sure your father’s chomping at the bit to see you, and your Mom will be too once she wakes up,” she said, handing Jack his clothes off the bench.

One Year Later

“Jack! Jack Edward Crusher-Picard if you aren’t ready to go I swear to God!” the voice of his Mum called impatiently down the hall. Jack snorted to himself. Well, this was going to go well. Beverly Crusher, dressed in her best formalwear, appeared at his door, eyes blazing. “You are not even dressed. Come on, chop chop! Or do you want to be late to your own graduation?!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together to startle him into retracting his arm tubules from the padd in his hand, and he hurriedly turned off his eyepiece like a scolded child.

“We’ve got plenty of time!” Jack protested.

“Get. Dressed,” his mother insisted, shaking her head. “And would you stop doing that? Sticking those damn tubules in every padd in the house, you’re starting to wear holes in them! Don’t even know why you want to,” she huffed, pointing at the padd in the his hand.

“‘Cos I can have like fifty tabs open at once!” Jack laughed, even as he got up off the regeneration alcove-fitted bed and tossed the padd onto his desk. “Counselor Troi says it’s good that I can recontextualize and embrace what remains of a highly traumatic event in my life,” he added smugly, quoting the good counselor, and his Mum just scoffed at that.

“Is that what you call surfing the extranet all night when you were supposed to be studying for your exams?” Beverly asked him sardonically.

“Well-”

“Get ready to go, for crying out loud,” his Mum told him, before she went back down the hall muttering. Jack snickered to himself and closed his door to get dressed, though he briefly reconnected to the padd to apologize to Sidney for cutting their conversation short and tell her he’d see her later, and then closed the other tabs he’d had open, pausing only to watch the batting team of the cricket game he’d been watching bat a six before he turned his eyepiece off again - the Titan was in dock, so he and Sidney, whom he’d been tentatively seeing since the whole incident, had gone on a couple dates, much to the disapproval of Commodore LaForge, had some drinks together, and then she had promised to attend his graduation from Starfleet Academy. He’d been placed in an accelerated program due to his extensive prior experience - and thankfully pardoned for the pile of petty crimes he’d committed in the name of his and his mother’s medical work - but he’d spent the last year attending the school, and it was part of why he now lived not aboard the S.S. Eleos XII or any replacement for her, but in a very nice penthouse apartment afforded to his mother as an Admiral in Starfleet in San Francisco. His father didn’t live with them, the romance that had once blossomed between Jean-Luc and Beverly was one they both agreed was best left in the realms of bittersweet memory so as to not sour it further, but they were still fond of each other and Picard visited often. Jack thought his father’s Romulan partner Laris was quite a cool woman. Maybe one day, he supposed, he’d get a second half-brother, this one half-Romulan, one he’d actually be able to get to know for once.

Starfleet Academy hadn’t been half bad either; it had been a little awkward at first, since he was the person who’d remotely assimilated half his classmates a year ago, and boy had the guilt kicked him for months, but with time and work and a lot of counseling they’d moved past that and he’d made some quite good friends. But that day he supposed it was time for him to focus on graduation, so he reluctantly set aside his distractions and got dressed in his formal uniform, brushed his teeth and shaved, and applied a generous glob of dermal cream about his implants, particularly the assimilation manifold that ran along his whole right arm. The edges of the things itched a lot and tended to scab when he scratched them, and there were a few stubborn spots that had eventually scarred. Finally, he combed his hair tidily over what remained of the cranial implant that had thankfully been mostly excised since the initial round of surgeries, and smiled at his reflection. The implants weren’t quite so obtrusive anymore, and he’d come to appreciate the one around his eye which he’d actually painted with hypoallergenic silver plating to make it look a bit less ugly and more like Seven’s. The mottling of his skin was gone, his hair had grown back and the bright young man that looked back at him was exactly that; a young man, and human. Satisfied, he nodded at himself. By day’s end, there’d be a pip on his collar.

“There. Better?” Jack asked his Mum as he stepped into the living room.

“Much better,” Beverly said warmly, beaming at him. “All right then, let’s be off,” she said, before they walked arm in arm down to the transporter arch and beamed to the Academy, where Jack winced as the sun struck his eyes. Shame the implant didn’t come with a sunglasses function, the Borg really needed to learn a thing or two about beach holidays. But they both smiled gladly at the sight of who was waiting for them quietly under a tree, leaning on the wall trying not to attract too much attention despite wearing a suit; Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, who got up with a wide smile and walked across the concourse to them. “Jean-Luc,” Beverly said, offering him a hug.

“Beverly,” Jean-Luc replied, embracing her and kissing her cheeks politely. “Good to see you, and of course.. big day son,” he told them both, as he moved to Jack and hugged him too with a proud wrinkly old man smile.

“Yeah,” Jack said, smiling back at him. “But I reckon you’re feeling pretty foolish now for giving that whole the last Picard speech last year,” he snickered, having been sent the video by Sidney a few weeks before. Picard scoffed ruefully, closing his eyes and hanging his head. All that pontification about the decorated Picard line ending with Jean-Luc, and a year later the whole thing was ruined.

“In my defense, I was not aware that you existed at the time,” Picard grumbled softly, not without a glance at Beverly, who made an apologetic face. “But I have never been prouder to be wrong, Jack. The legacy you write will no doubt prove you far more than worthy of all those Picards who came before you,” he said softly, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “And part of the reason I am quite definitely not giving a speech this year is because I doubt I could live last year down if I spoke at the graduation of my own mysteriously apparated son,” he chuckled, and Jack smirked as he patted his father’s shoulder with his partially-encased hand. “Shall we?” the old man said, and with that the three of them joined the throngs of students and their families gathering in the great auditorium for the graduation of the class of 2402.

Jack was just glad that he wasn’t the first young ex-Borg cadet to graduate from the Academy, so that the speaker couldn’t have called him up as the first, as if it were some honor - though he suspected that even if he hadn’t been second to the late Icheb, they wouldn’t have wanted to point him out only a year after such a pivotal Borg threat, using Jack himself as its tool, had taken so many lives, destroyed so much. It weighed on him even then a year later, made him wonder if he even deserved the place he took at Starfleet Academy. The angry tirade of the fallen Captain Shaw, whose very life Jack - no, Jack urged himself to remember, Võx, not him - had taken, against his father, against what the Borg had made of Jean-Luc Picard, the only Borg so deadly they gave him a goddamn name! rambled through his mind as he only half listened to some Admiral whose name he hadn’t caught talk about the values of Starfleet. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought of how he was certain that Captain Shaw wouldn’t have forgiven him.

A glint of light caught his eye, and he looked up at the gallery from which it had come - and he recognized its source; it had reflected off of the eyepiece of Seven of Nine, who sat not looking at the speaker, but at him. She wasn’t the only one. Sidney sat there, newly a Lieutenant and beaming down at him, Picard and his Mum were with them, along with Musiker and the Romulan Elnor, Troi, and Riker, and their daughter Kestra, a few years from graduating herself, had come along too. And Seven of Nine was smiling just as proudly as his parents were at him. Jack smiled back up at them. If the old Enterprise senior staff were a big family, then Seven was like a cousin to that family, a big cousin who’d been there for Jack whenever she could be all year. Jack smiled back up at them, remembering what they themselves had told him in their own ways; that he deserved to be here. That he had been manipulated and used, and that what the Borg had engineered him to be did not define him.

The instant he had stepped up and received his commission as Ensign Jack Crusher-Picard and the silver pip had been pinned to his neckline had been decidedly more tense than that of his classmates, but it had been those friends whom he had made that had begun the applause that had rung out through the auditorium just as it had for everyone before him, applause echoed loudest by the gallery of his family and Sidney and Seven. Perhaps there were those who would see him as dangerous always, but he was not alone.

Of course, the better bit of the day was the dozens and dozens of parties that sprang up all over San Francisco afterward, and Jack found himself partying in a cocktail bar ringing with pop music alongside Sidney, a little tipsy as he and his friends laughed away the evening as new ensigns of Starfleet.

“Ayyyyyy!” Jack cried as his Andorian buddy Tr’ven won the beer pong game. “Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!” he chanted along with his friends as the loser, a Bajoran by the name of Jarian Dai groaned and reluctantly picked up the red cup. Bzz bzz. In Jack’s pocket, his miniature padd buzzed with a text notification. Huffing, Jack got out the little glass device, expecting it to be another text from his Mum asking when he’d be home, but he was curiously surprised to see the text hadn’t come from his Mum. No, it had come from Seven of Nine, simply abbreviated to 7/9 for her display name.

7/9: Check your Cadet account emails.

Jack frowned. That was a bit out of the blue, but he supposed not without plausible cause; some of the cadets, like Dai, had received their assignments - he was going to the U.S.S. Vanguard - so maybe that was what she meant. Putting the padd in his left hand, Jack turned on his eyepiece and then focused on his arm to shoot the two evil little tendrils that were the interfacing assimilation tubules into it.

“Oooh he’s getting the tubules out!” Leannia, an unjoined Trill, cajoled excitedly. She was drunker than he was, and Jack scoffed.

“Oh shut up Leannia,” Sidney chuckled, shaking her head as she smiled at him.

“I’m just checking my emails, it’s not that cool. Screen on this thing’s tiny,” Jack replied, shaking his head. Leannia laughed gleefully and took another long sip of whatever colorful cocktail she had, some disgusting thing with Denevian Mead in it, while Jack flipped out his emails into his peripheral vision with a thought. And indeed, among the unreads, was one from Starfleet Command, with the subject line Starship Assignment - Jack Crusher-Picard. “It’s my assignment,” he said softly, but clearly not softly enough, as half his friends heard and gasped.

“Oh! Tell us tell us!” Dai called, downing the red cup of booze he’d had to drink from the pong. “Let’s hear it Crusher!”

“Gimme a bloody second,” Jack laughed, opening the email in another tab to read it. Most of it was the usual official stuff, before his eyes widened incredulously as he read his assignment.

Starship: U.S.S. Enterprise - NCC-1701-G

Commanding Officer: Captain Seven of Nine

“Holy cow,” Jack muttered.

“Whizzit?” Dai asked, his voice so slurred it came out in one word.

“Enterprise G,” Jack replied, retracting his tubules and turning off his eyepiece as he blinked. Instantly, cheers erupted around him from his classmates. Sidney erupted, yelling with gladness that they were both to be serving together and kissing him.

“AYYYY! Bartender! Another round for the Enterprising xB!” Tr’ven yelled eagerly as his antennae shot up, clapping Jack’s shoulder triumphantly. “Hahahaa!” Jack couldn’t help but laugh and celebrate with them, beaming as the group congratulated him. Despite all the pain, despite the violations he had been through, Jack was not alone. It was not such a bad thing at all, to suffer the mortifying ordeal of being known.

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boudicca · 2 years ago

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tagged by @madame-karenina to do this 2022 recap thing for new years idk if it has a name i just woke up

top 3 films:

i don't watch movies <3

1. the handmaiden (4.5 stars)

🔔🔔

2. batman: under the red hood (4 stars)

nobody ever said i had taste. 4 stars for plot issues. also removed one star for lack of tim drake but gave it back upon seeing tiny baby jason doing a backflip. (he is very small.)

3. village of the damned (1963) (5 stars)

rewatched this absolutely terrible movie which continues to be the best film ever made x

top 3 books:

i didn't actually read that much this year aside from sections of books for school and like... fanfiction. because i was busy with school. nevertheless

1. greywaren by mstief (4.7 stars 🤨)

too many thoughts for a coherent review. very genuinely changed my life. a win for annoying people everywhere

2. young avengers (vol 2) by kieron gillen (4 stars)

finally read the whole young avengers suite and i really really enjoyed it... vol 2 is much better but i miss eli :( like to slap his bald head etc

3. the brothers karamazov by dostoevsky (currently reading)

christ but these little bastards are mentally ill

honourable mentions to emma and catherine, called birdy

3 improvements:

- got my first job :^)

- started university

- started adhd medication

3 resolutions:

1. learn to drive 🥴

2. fix my 5am-12pm sleep schedule

3. use my phone way way way less. like only on weekends less

favourite song

currently savior complex by phoebe bridgers. whatever that says about me

fav quote

from big sur by jack kerouac: "on soft spring nights i’ll stand in the yard under the stars—something good will come out of all things yet—and it will be golden and eternal just like that—there’s no need to say another word."

tagging uhhh @nyusenkas @nizynskis @simonettasforza and @lukesunbornn if u want

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benis-chillin · 2 years ago

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Sonic Wolf 6 Profiles: Cyber the Canary

Welcome back to the Sonic fanfiction blog posts that nobody cares about!

Or maybe I'm wrong, and people DO care about them, and it's just my anxiety talking. Idk.

Anyway, meet Cyber!

Name: Cyber the Canary.

Age: 19

Bio: Originally known as Sarah, she was the love of Jack's life before she died in Infinite's first strike. However, her body was recovered by Eggman and used to test cybernetic enhancements, reviving her with machinery. Her eyes, beak, lower arms, and lower legs are entirely mechanical, while other parts are merely supplemented with cybernetics in order to function. This process(and brain damage from her death)almost entirely erased her memories, and she started going by Cyber once she regained sentience. Eventually, she escaped the research lab she was being kept in and encountered Jack and Raccoon, the former recognizing her in spite of her cybernetics.

After that, she adopted a visor to hide her cybernetic eyes, and a cap to hide a data port on the top of her head, and began fighting in Wolf 6 with a Burst Wispon until the end of the Eggman War, when she retired to the Mystic Ruins with Jack and Raccoon to live in privacy, where Jack tries to help her regain her memories. She is unable to speak anything but a modified version of the Egg Pawn language, due to her beak being replaced, but Jack has learned the language in order to understand her, while she uses sign language to communicate with Raccoon.

Cyber's origins as a character were basically just me screwing around with the Sonic Forces OC maker to create a cyborg character. After some tweaks here and there, I got this design. From there, the character started building in my head. Why did she wear a hat in the design? Because it balanced things out. Why does she wear one in the story? To hide a data port. Think of it like a bald spot, she has some anxiety around other people seeing it. She has a piece where her beak would go, does that mean her beak is gone? Sure, and since just giving her a generic robot voice would be too typical, she'll talk like the Egg Pawns do in Sonic Heroes, producing a "!" as a way of stylizing it(why she doesn't have a proper cyborg voice will be explained at some point).

This is also why I decided that she eats with a feeding tube, btw.

Why does she wear a visor? Because people freak out around her cyborg eyes.

Something I want to make clear is that Cyber is not in any way ashamed of her cybernetics, other than her data port. Due to her memory loss(more on that in a bit), she doesn't remember NOT being a cyborg. She knows that there's a difference between her experiences and the experiences of full organics, but she's not really too fussed about it. This attitude was inspired by my own about my false right eye. Like, yeah, I'd like to know what binocular vision is like, but I'm not gonna spend the day whining about it because it's been absent since I was 2 years old. I don't KNOW what life was like before, and I imagine many other people with similar situations feel the same. The only time you feel anxiety about it is when you feel like others may judge you for it, even indirectly, and that's why she covers her eyes.

And how much of her is cybernetics? Well, here's an external view without her data port.

(Don't mind her being naked. There's no naughty bits to speak of)

An interesting fact about those backplates is that those were gonna be used in Reflections. Basically, she would've saved Shadow from drowning after the water started pouring in at the end, and those backplates would've been used to help force the water out of her lungs since she doesn't have a mouth to properly cough with. I think they still serve that purpose, but the scene was cut because it didn't fit once the Wisps got involved.

Everything else on her torso is life-support related. I imagine a good chunk of her organs are now either fully or partially mechanical, but I don't want to get TOO in-depth with that. She was basically built so Eggman could see how far he could go with these things, so the more, the merrier, I guess.

And just to be clear, she was never weaponized. She was the prototype for all of the ECS Units moving forward, who were. After Eggman was done with her, she was basically used as reference for the other ECS Units until she gained sentience on her own. Her origins are horrific, her actual life? Not so much.

And here's me laying out how the data port looks...To the best of my limited ability.

The less said about that, the better.

So, how about her fashion sense, huh? I don't really see Cyber as a "girly-girl," per se, but she DOES have some specific tastes. In a reference to one of my own tendencies, I decided that Cyber likes herself a good T-shirt. Hero worship, memes, TV shows, anything is fair game to go on there. She wears shorts since they're the easiest to put on when you have to take your legs off to change, but she's not exactly OPPOSED to wearing skirts or dresses for the right occasion.

I like to think that the Chaotix shirt came from a brief attempt by them to have a merch shop for extra scratch, but they made everything a bit too expensive, so she was one of like, 5 people to ever buy anything from it.

And now, for a bit of an elephant in the room, her previous identity of Sarah.

And I need to make one thing clear with this, just so there are no misconceptions: Sarah and Cyber are, as far as the characters and story are concerned, two entirely separate people. They are very similar in many regards, and Cyber still has stuff like the sign language from her, but she is effectively dead. Jack's initial attraction to Cyber was from the fact she used to be Sarah, but he kept off of the romantic stuff until Cyber, as her own person, found herself in love with Jack. He loves her for different reasons than he loved Sarah, there's no ifs, ands, or buts about that fact. She could've gone her own way in life after the war, and he would've accepted that, but thankfully she decided to stick with him.

Overall, I'd say that out of the main 3, Cyber is my favorite in many regards. She has the most tragic past, but she's the brighter one of the group. She does fall into the "perfect girlfriend" character mold a bit, but I plan to iron that out a bit as her and Jack develop both as characters, and as a couple.

If you wish to read her stories:

The full Wolf 6 collection: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2802334

And her feature story made to promote Then and Now: https://www.tumblr.com/benis-chillin/698775785672212480/what-now

And if you wish to read up on Jack: https://www.tumblr.com/benis-chillin/704396379625291776/sonic-wolf-6-profiles-jack-the-wolf?source=share

Anyway, take care, everyone, and stay tuned as next time, we look into our feral bear boy, Raccoon!

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic fan character #sonic fanfiction #sonic oc #sonic wolf 6 posts

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zumpietoo · 3 years ago

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It Has Been a Rough Couple of Days for the Haters...

So jmas decides to make up some lame shit....however, first the background that spurred it....

First some vague, tangential trolling about a nobody not being friends with Ari or something, cuz, again, THAT matters...(tho does show considerable obsession...

Next obviously pressed about Ari’s sweet, offhand comment....and dude, we all loved it....there’s then a lot of insisting what a flop the Versace campaign is and....

Well Cole seems to be getting plenty of “work on the side”, the rest, nooooppppee....but most importantly, dude, PP had one year, THREE years ago where she had two projects: one barely had lines (and she’s long lost whatever it generated for her), the other was a soooperrr low budget flop.

Since she has to buy her way onto other projects, had just one since then AND it appears to be headed towards even bigger flopping, I def wouldn’t hold my breath....

Apparently, all this is too much for jmas, so she decides to pull out the BIG GUNS:

Yes, yes, mah kiddies!!! We are back to “dating up” and thus, essentially turning PP into a prostitute....also, who knew A+++list in Hollywood and the industry made announcements to their publicists of their plans to date anybody....let alone an actual fatty, balding D-lister....plus, I thought “dating around” was evvollll, cuz shows “no emotional commitment/is just using people” and is what you don when you “can’t move on”???? Cuz that IS what they claimed about Cole---when he actually wasn’t....

This is hilarious....she now reminds me of a friend of Claudia’s in elementary school whose parents were druggies and was very poor.....she’d make up elaborate stories of all the amazing things she actually owned, how her parents really had all these things, etc....when she lived in a shitty apartment and when at our house was always begging us to give her whatever we had on hand....

Except in her case she was just a poor kid of maybe 8 and trying to cope with an unhappy life.

Here we have a psycho fabricating shit left and right....and confirms jmas is Silly Liareyes (cuz exact same narrative when she DMd me, years ago...)

Except when you thought this was Cole, it was scandalous----how does that work, loony???

“Your source” is your fanfiction and has always been wrong, dude....also, love how you’re already walking it back a bit, nonetheless

Wait....I thought being even “pushing” (which they assigned to Cole at 26, I believe) 30 and not married made you an evvolll old whore/man whore all by itself???

Also, whelp, Jack Nicholson and Robert Dinero are over 30 and sooooperrr A-listers, is PP “dating” them, now???

Also....”I’m not gonna make up shit cuz already I’m gonna be eating egg off mah face for weeks....”

We were not....also, WTF do they call PP’s trysts with Ms. G and all her nobody junkie hot ladies????

OMG.....yes, both PP and yourselves absolutely ARE, she’s horribly bourgeois and unquestionably one for social climbing....except it’s too much effort for her.

And, if all/any of this were true? There would be pap pics/DM leaks, etc...

Also, “playboy”??? Does jSillyLiareyes just watch D movies from the 30s and crib their content?

Plus I thought being a “playboy” etc was similarly evvolll and why Cole needs to be cancelled? And doesn’t that make these guys expressly the supremely evolll shit you insist Cole is?

Ummm....why TF would she “need to be discreet”?? If these guys really were A+++ list wouldn’t that simply bolster her career? (like you’re attempting and failing to do here), wouldn’t, again, she be spotted with them? Also, again, sure does make her look shallow....

Oh and why TF would this “source” tell you?

Oh and if Crotchi’s “dating” (nope) again only to get Cole’s attention, etc...

And yet your endless pining for “dating up” is Pee Arr defined....especially since it’s obvious this is fueled not just by jealousy of Cole being in a nice, stable relationship and giving no fucks whatsoever what the fame implications are (because he’s better than that), but by your homophobia....

OMG.....this is all so glorious too!!!

Oh jmas, way overplayed your hand (that was empty) with this silliness. I’m not sure if I’m completely embarrassed for you or thrilled at how I may never stop laughing....

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irrepressible-domovoy · 6 years ago

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I was trying to write fanfiction and somehow ended up with this instead. (It bounces around, but bear with me)

You ever notice how friggin’ jacked superheroes are?

Like, take Captain America: The First Avenger for instance. In that first scene where he’s just been turned into Erskine’s super-beefcake, Carter (or, more accurately, Hayley Atwell, because that was not scripted) couldn’t keep her hands to herself when he popped out of the pod shirtless with washboard abs and boobs that rivaled mine.

And every time we get a female superhero, she’s this stick-figure thin girl with an absolutely flat belly and no scars (unless they’re the Black Widow) and no stretch marks because those are considered “gross.”

But here’s the thing.

The actors aren’t naturally that way. It’s not even healthy to be that way.

I remember reading how Chris Hemsworth got his “look” for his shirtless scenes in Thor by not drinking water for a few days and right before he would need to be hospitalized for dehydration, they called, “Roll it!” (I legitimately cannot remember where this was. Someone help me?)

At another point, I remember reading an interview where Chris Evans said those super-tight shirts from the Captain America movies were really uncomfortable. He even hinted that they were painful.

And in another movie, (Was it Spartacus?) the cast pretty much survived on chicken and lettuce. Look, I’m not a nutritionist in any sense of the imagination, but even I know that’s not safe, physically healthy, or good for your mental health.

In Fight Club, Brad Pitt screwed himself up big time by cutting his weight constantly to keep his “perfect” physique.

Slightly off-topic, but Brendon Frasier nearly killed himself with the stunts on top of the weight/muscle-tone demands for The Mummy 3. There’s a serious problem with the industry here.

And let’s get onto the women’s body image here that affects literally every woman on screen: Flat bellies? Dudes. Cis women have these things called ovaries that are in there. We need more room. Plus, it is actually unhealthy for anyone of any gender to have less than 8% body fat, at bare minimum.

Then there’s the issue with erasing scars and stretch marks. I am twenty-two years old. I have scars from everything from an accident in the kitchen to skinning my knee as a kid on a patch of shattered glass. You (the writers and directors of the films) give them to the dudes, but not the girls? Just work those scars into your BAMF super-heroines. They already have the backstories for them to be viable and even likely. I, as well as more than half of the people on this planet, have these things called stretch marks. They are what happens when we grow. It means I started out as a baby and turned into an adult. They are not shameful and only serve to remind me that I, and the person on my screen, were once small and innocent. (Also, they either look like tiger stripes or lightning bolts, depending on how you look at them)

My point is, we the viewers (whether children learning how to view our own bodies and the world, teenagers struggling with self-image in a world that tells us we aren’t ever going to be pretty enough, or grown adults struggling with all of the above and more) deserve to be able to see heroes that are real and the actors portraying these characters deserve to not only feel better about themselves but to also be able to do their job without causing permanent damage to their bodies.

@fightyspidey and I came up with some ideas, if Marvel Studios wanted some suggestions.

Give us Thor, mighty Viking warrior king, with the fat from too many feasts. (Human weightlifting champions are known for being “a bit pudgy” but they can also kill you with a pinky. It’s not that far off the mark)

Give me Steve Rogers with stretch marks and scars from growing too fast after Project: Rebirth.

Give me a Natasha Romanov with scars that aren’t there to maximize the mangst and aren’t perfect little circles that are easily hidden.

Give me Tony Stark without a shirt and his scars aren’t some “sexy work of art,” but rather an ugly reminder of pain and hardship.

Give me Sif coming to visit the Avengers and she comes in with shorts or a skirt on and we see how she doesn’t shave her legs and literally no one cares.

I want to see the Hulk with stretch marks and Bruce completely chill with his pudge.

I want to see Peter, Shuri, and Wanda with acne and acne scars. (Please?)

I would love to see Scott Lang telling a story about the time he fell out of a three-story window (”And Luis did nothing!”) and he ended up with a bald-patch on the side of his head from where his helmet cracked his skull open. (I actually have one of those)

I want to see burns on Pepper, because her Extremis is still imperfect and can’t heal everything without leaving something behind in its place.

Happy should still have scars from Iron Man 3.

In short: Give me characters that I can see myself in.

The fans aren’t perfect. We don’t have clear skin, no matter our ages, and we have scars and fat in weird places and hair in even weirder ones.

Give us heroes that we can identify with.

Give your actors a chance to breathe. Give them a chance to be okay with themselves.

#avengers #hollywood #feminism #mcu #marvel #fandom #film making #film industry #beauty standards #show us scars

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sassyseeker · 6 years ago

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No other universe + character can hold my interest

for fanfiction like Dragon Age + Solas. I like Jack Sparrow (sorry, *Captain* Jack Sparrow) and his adventures on pirate shores or chasing the horizon on the Black Pearl. I like Jareth, the Labyrinth’s Goblin King, and his love for the stubborn, pretty Sarah, now a grown woman, full of potential for romance. I like Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, and his naive student, Christine Daaé. I also like her with her childhood friend, Raoul. I like Fenris so much! Same universe, beautiful soundtrack, cool tattoos, the same elven charm plus hair! (lol) But it’s not the same. There are so many universes, so many settings, so many plotssibilities... So why do I feel so attached to the same Evanuris, wether he spends the majority of the story as one or as a bald hobo apostate or as a modern day teacher or businessman or archeologist or mentalist or donut shop clerk? How come I don’t I tire of it? Why do I feel like other themed fics soon become boring and his fanfic is somehow superior? (I tried to alternate themes for fear of running out of DA+Solas material but started resenting the other themed fics and gave up, cause I wanted to read Solas fic that much more). It’s not the time setting, I like medieval as much as modern and scifi. It’s not Dragon Age, cause other LI’s don’t have me as invested. It could be the fandom. I get a feeling that Solas fanfic in general is more mature (not talking about sex, but narrative). Solas is controversial, many hate him. Perhaps the select group who loves, writes and reads him have more affinity regarding other preferences as well, which resonates with me better? But I have read many different flavors of Lavellans and OCs and don’t think this to be the case. The general maturity of the stories is definitely something I enjoy though. Is it Solas himself? Is his canon character so well written that it makes his fanfic seem somehow superior to me? I think his canon character is very well written and the richness of the lore can add so much to a fanfic. However, the lore is not always used, the canon is not always followed (and i also love it), I find that the writer’s prose/style/personality/choices is a huge part of what makes the stories interesting. So that doesn’t answer my question either. Why? Is it that maybe his character resonates with me more? I really love good men. I have a huge crush on good intentioned ones, even if they’re wrong (but think themselves right), self sacrificing, protecting, loving men. But literature has many others, Solas is not even an ideal example (there are self-interested motives mixed in there, attempted guilt redemption through sacrifice for one, not to mention he might let you die). Cullen is a good man, according to the standard protocol, and he is right there, alongside Solas... completely forgotten. He’s lucky I romanced him first (it was lovely that first time, with my Trevelyan), it would be hard to enjoy it as much had I romanced Solas first. Maybe it’s the tragicness of the situation? This is the closest I think I get from a possible answer because literature may have many more tragic characters/plots but I don’t recall ever reading fanfic of any of those.

Do you find yourself of a similar opinion? Do you like Solas fanfic more than all the rest and do you have a theory why? Please share you theories with me, I’m trying to understand.

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soldierstark · 7 years ago

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Close Proximity | TOM HIDDLESTON X READER

Description: The reader is Tom's hair and makeup artist which leads to them spending a lot of time together in close proximity. Usually this wouldn't be a problem but Tom finds the reader insanely attractive so all he wants to do is kiss her.

Author's Note: Ya'll wouldn't believe the amount of homework I decided not to do because I wanted to write this lmao. Junior year is going gr8. Anyways, as always let me know what you think and this is my first Tom Hiddleston fic so I'm looking for reassurance lol.

Word Count: 2083

FANFICTION MASTERLIST

Tom was a professional, really he was. His years working in many different types of movies made him a very well rounded actor, at least in his opinion. He’d show up on time, know his lines, and was open minded when it came to change. He’d always get along with his cast mates and crew members as well.

He always thought that he’d ever have a problem with someone while working on a movie, it would be with some hot headed actor who had a superiority complex. Turns out, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Tom had a problem with his hair and makeup artist.

It wasn’t her personality or anything. (Y/N) was a genuinely nice person who never failed to get a laugh out of him, even when he had a 5 am call time with 2 hours of sleep. She always had the most entertaining stories and fit right in the conversation when Chris and Mark would stop by his trailer in the mornings.

The problem was that for the months Tom has been filming Thor: Ragnarok, he would spend a good 45 minutes alone with (Y/N) every day getting ready to film. That’s not including the touch ups she’d do between takes.

The reason Tom had a problem with this was because (Y/N) was very attractive. Like, it was almost unnatural how beautiful she was.

This became an issue because since she was his hair and makeup artist, their faces would be in very close proximity to each other for long periods of time. And during these extended periods of time, it took all of Tom’s will power to not grab her face and crash their lips together.

Her (Y/H/C) hair cascaded down her shoulders in waves when it was down and framed her face perfectly when she wore it up, as she often did. It looked so soft and Tom resisted the urge to run his fingers through it.

(Y/N) had (Y/E/C) eyes that always had some sort of glint to them no matter the mood she was in. They would dart back and forth across his face as she did his makeup, her eyebrows scrunching together in the cutest way as she concentrated.

She had an enticing habit of chewing her lower lip between her teeth while she worked. It never failed to bring his attention towards her lips every time she did it. Tom couldn’t help but wonder what kind of chapstick (Y/N) used to make them so plump and soft looking.

And since Tom was such a good actor, he was able to keep his affection for (Y/N) hidden. It was difficult, don’t get him wrong, but he managed. After all, Tom was a professional and professional actors didn’t go around and make out with their hair and makeup artists.

All was going according to plan until one day, the producers scheduled an interview on set in between takes…

“What do you think is going to surprise people most when they see this movie,” the interviewer asked, looking down at a notecard placed in her lap for a split second.

Without a second’s hesitation, Mark answered. “The humor in this movie, definitely,” he replied with a smile, leaning forward slightly. “Compared to the other Thor movies, this one is a comedy and much more lighthearted, no contest.”

“And does that ever make it more difficult to film?”

Tom let out a laugh along with Chris and Mark as they reminisced over the many fails that had happened in the months of filming. “Let’s just say that the blooper reel for this movie will be extensive compared to the others,” Tom answered with a devious smile.

“Yep and this movie in particular I think might’ve been my favorite to film so far actually,” Chris added.

Mark let out a snort. “That’s because you have more screen time than ever before.”

Chris looked directly into the camera and winked. “True,” he replied with a smirk.

Tom rolled his eyes and leaned back into his chair, shaking his head slightly in amusement. “It’s also because we filmed a majority of it in Australia where his wife and kids live. He got to go home every night to his family while Mark and I went to empty apartments.”

Chris nodded his head in agreement along with Mark. “That’s true though I did talk to my wife every night over the phone,” Mark said. “It helped a lot.”

Tom let out a dramatic, sarcastic sigh. “And then there’s me. All alone in my apartment every night with no one to call except my parents.”

“So no girlfriend then?” the interviewer asked.

Tom’s mind flashed to (Y/N) for a split second before he shook his head. “Nope,” he answered, popping the p.

“Any prospects?”

At the same time Tom shook his head again, Chris laughed and yelled out gleefully, “Yes!”

Tom whipped his head to the side quickly with wide eyes and Mark started cracking up laughing in his chair. The interviewer looked surprised but she leaned forward intrigued.

“Oh really?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Do tell.”

The British actor shook his head violently and tried to fight off the heat rising to his cheeks unsuccessfully. “No, no, no. I- uh,” he stammered out before clearing his throat. Suddenly Tom regretted telling Chris and Mark about the crush he harbored for his hair and makeup artist.

“Oh that’s a lie,” Mark chortled, rolling his eyes in amusement. “C’mon Tom, tell her about (Y/N).”

The interviewer smiled even wider if that was possible. “Who’s (Y/N)?”

Tom continued to shake his head and waved his hand dismissively. “No one! Its uh- she’s jus-.”

“Oh (Y/N)’s just his hair and makeup artist that he really likes,” Chris whisper-yelled while wiggling his eyebrows.

“Chris!” Tom yelled in disbelief. “Oh my god she’s totally gonna quit when she sees this.”

The interviewer chuckled and looked down at her watch. “Well this has been very fun but I promised to be done by 2 so you guys are free to go. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.”

The boys all gave a quick goodbye and walked back over to set. Tom was running a hand through his hair nervously while Chris and Mark picked up their pace to keep up with him.

“Why did you do that,” he groaned, rubbing his face with one hand. “(Y/N)’s going to want to quit when she sees that.”

“Why would you think that?” Mark asked in disbelief. “If anything I think she’ll start jumping up and down out of excitement.”

“Yea I mean, what girl doesn’t want to hear that Tom Hiddleston has a crush on them,” Chris added clapping Tom on the back supportively.

Tom gave him a blank stare. “(Y/N) you imbecile,” he retorted, his accent coming through prominently. “Especially not through an interview. I’d rather have told her myself.”

Mark snorted. “As if you would have ever gotten around to it. We did you a favor man”

Chris nodded in agreement. “Yea. Plus you still have time to tell her before the interview gets released. It’ll be weeks before it comes out.”

“Better yet,” Mark started, walking in front of Tom, stopping their walk. “You should go and tell her now.”

“What?” Tom said in disbelief. “No! No way. Tha- i- it’s- that’s not a good idea.”

“And why is that?”

“Becau-…. Well there’s a lot of reasons okay! I can’t just go up and talk to her.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I need a reason that isn’t me professing my love for her!” Tom answered in exasperation. Mark and Chris sure knew how to get under his skin.

That’s when Tom saw an unnerving glint in Chris’s eye. He watched in confusion and in disgust as Chris reached a hand out towards him and rubbed his face, smearing his makeup around. He then proceed to yank on his long, dark haired wig, pulling it halfway off of his head.

“Ow what the hell?” Tom yelled rubbing his head in pain. “I think you just gave me a bald spot. What was that for?”

“I don’t know man I’m sorry,” Chris said feigning innocence. “You should get that fixed.”

“Huh?” Tom muttered.

Mark shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “You needed a reason to talk to (Y/N). Chris just gave you one. Now go lover boy. Get the girl.”

“What the fuck happened to you?” I asked when my gaze fell upon Tom. I was sitting in the hair and makeup trailer reading a book between takes when the handsome British actor entered looking very disheveled.

His Loki wig was hanging off his head and half of his makeup was smeared around terribly. I stood up out of the chair I was in as Tom walked further into the trailer. He walked towards the chair I was in and sat down with a huff.

“Chris happened,” he grumbled, rubbing his hands together in what looked like nervousness.

I gave him a strange look when we made eye contact in the mirror in front of us. Tom held my gaze for a split second before looking down quickly.

My hands went through the motion of detaching the wig so I could redo it while we spoke. “How’d that interview go?” I asked, remembering that he was talking to me about it this morning.

Tom cleared his throat and looked in the mirror, his stunning eyes boring into mine as I took of the wig, exposing his natural light brown hair. “It was a train wreck to be honest,” he replied.

I smiled and let out a laugh, walking around the side of the chair to stand in front of Tom so I could do his makeup. “Oh really? How so?”

It was quiet for a moment as I began to wipe away the makeup that smeared. One of my hands cradled the side of his face, holding it steady, while the other gently wiped away the makeup.

No matter how many time I did this, I would never get used to the close proximity. I could feel Tom’s breath on my neck, causing me to shiver slightly though I wasn’t cold.

My heart rate sped up and beat against my chest like a jack hammer. It sounded so loud in my ears that I feared for a moment that Tom could hear it as well.

I could feel my breath hitch as I looked down slightly to see Tom staring at me intently. I leaned away, my lower back pressing against the counter behind me. “What?” I asked, tilting my head to the side confused.

I could feel my hair fall out from behind my ear and into my face so I reached a hand up to push it back. Tom’s eyes followed my every move, causing a rush of heat to rise into my cheeks.

When he didn’t answer the question I repeated it. “Tom. What is it? Are you okay?”

All of a sudden in one swift motion, he stood up and jerked me towards him, pulling me against his toned chest. His fingers dug into the small of my back as one hand threaded itself through my hair and crashed my lips against his.

I tensed up in shock for moment but quickly retuned the kiss with an equal amount of fervency. His lips were soft as they pressed against mine, a low groan erupting from his chest. He kissed me with such fierceness that I breathed in sharply but dam was it wonderful.

I let him walk me backwards slightly until I was pressed against the counter. I wrapped both arms around his shoulders as he lifted me to sit on top of the counter. My legs wrapped around his waist tightly as my nails dug into his back blissfully.

Just as Tom slid a hand underneath the hem of my shirt, the door to the trailer swung open. Tom sprung away from me as if I had the plague while I jumped off of the counter and tried to straighten my appearance.

Mark and Chris came into view, both smiling like mad men looking between the two of us. It was pretty obvious what we had been doing and there was no way to hide it.

“You’re needed on set in 20 minutes,” Chris announced then let out a chuckle. He turned around to leave with Mark who was snickering as well. “C’mon Tom. Be a little more professional for god’s sake.”

#thor #thor ragnarok #thor 3 #loki #Loki Laufeyson #Loki Laufeyson x Reader #loki laufeyson fic #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston imagine #loki laufeyson imagine #marvel #marvel imagine #fanfiction #off #chris hemsworth #mark ruffalo

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kellendriaaa · 7 years ago

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Fate and choices

Chapter 1

Cast: Jack Kline; Rose Ceallaigh (Main OFC); Sam Winchester; Castiel; Dean Winchester; Gabriel; Lucifer; Tara Zendey (OFC); Clark Barker; Victoria Wellagan (OFC); Dolby Murray (OMC); Mitchell Inkle (OMC); Loris Lichens (OMC)

Pairings: Jack Kline/Rose Ceallaigh; Castiel/ Dean Winchester; Gabriel/Sam Winchester; Lucifer/Sam Winchester; Clark Barker/Tara Zendey and others...

Summary: Rose Ceallaigh, a student and part time waitress found an innocent boy, not that innocent in front of her building. Knowing that he ran away from his family not to escape them but to protect, Rose try to help him discovering a world she did not know who was right in front of her eyes.

He know basically nothing about the world, so Jack will learn what is love, burn, passion, joy and being hurt. He will learn how to be human, how to feel every emotions.

While Dean, Sam and Castiel are still trying to find him and finding that girl who is immune to supernatural powers when dealing with their own preoccupation.

Okay I sucks at summary too. I'm sorry please give it a try

Notes: I don't own Spn neither their amazing characters only mine so all the OFC and OMC. English is definitely not my first language (I'm french) so sorry for my many mistakes.

It's really slow, and basically nothing happens, I'm placing the characters and the context of their lives but I always put hints into my chapter. Sooo enjoy ! ^^

The music was ringing in the dinner. Heat of the moment by Asia was making her move her head while reading her document on the global warming; it is not that she did not like it. C’mon, she definitely love studying and learning about the environment and water and all of that but making a whole project about it seems heavy and way too much in her mind.

Except, that asshole naming Brennan, Mr. Brennan, do not even wait for her to come in the class to choose what she had to do.

Well, not exactly. Yes, global warming was the last subject but there was another one.

Fate and choices.

C’mon, how the hell were we supposed to do something with that. She was not really a fatalist (sometimes she was, after watching sappy movies. And knowing she will passed another valentine’s day watching other sappy movies) but apart from that she was believer and did not think everybody deserves hell.

…

Okay reading fanfiction on the net was enough for everybody to go straight to hell but at least she knew and was ready to run to hell with her fanfiction friends. However, all these peoples with a rough life do not necessarily deserves this. After her class discuss the subject of “Fate and choices” she was pretty sure, her classmates were demons or at least some dark creatures even if she do not believe in that.

So is she really a believer? That is a good subject! Better than all of them actually.

“Rose!” her boss shout, “less brooding and more working lil’ girl.”

“’m coming” she answer tying the knot of her apron correctly.

She was working as a waitress in the diner when school was over or before. For now 2 years and she freaking like it, everything was cool and people were kind (not always but most of them!) so was her boss. Mitch Inkle, soon to be, 60 years (they were preparing a little something for the event) and four marriage in the counter, well four-failed marriage so four divorce. He was immune to marriage now.

“Why don’t you shout Vic name when she’s obviously sleeping in some corner of the house huh?” she complained while dressing the table, “’m pretty sure she’s your fave here.”

“Yeah maybe, she gives me chocolate cake every day not like you and the rest of this damn house.” He shout the rest of the sentence so everybody hear him, then everybody laughed.

“We, on the contrary, care about your health old man so don’t complain,” says Loris, another waiter.

“Yo Loris,” start Vic finally out of her beauty sleep, “can we talk about all the cigs you smoking? We should have another big conversation about how your ass will burn with these things.”

“My ass will be cooked perfectly just waiting to be eat hon’,” he says laughing.

This was her day, joking around before the opening. Her coworkers became her family.

Today was a chill day, clients were calm and all, no problem happen.

Yet.

Nothing happen before these guys came into the diner. ‘They look freaking weird’ she said to herself. They were four, a guy with a trench coat (like who still wear that?) giving his soul with his eyes to the guy who look a squirrel. Actually, they were giving each other heart eyes but seems deep in Narnia. Then there was the giant one and goddamn it he was tall as hell. Probably Eiffel tower height.

How did he even walk correctly and the hair! Is he doing an ad for L’Oréal or what? Well, the giant one was in front of a young guy, looking like the trench coat guy. Seems lost, like a kid.

Did they kidnap him?

“Rose! I’m tired of screaming your name all the time,” Mitch, who was right next to her scream laughing, “go ask these guys what they want lil’ girl.”

“I’LL GO!” she screamed in his ears going to the weird team. “Hey guys! What can I get you?”

“What is the most delicious and greasy thing you have?” The squirrel asked. She laughed while the giant one just rolls his eyes.

“The Mr. and Mrs. Is the biggest and greasy thing I eat here and it makes regret it the day after. But hell it was all worth it.”

“Yep,” said Vic staying next to me, the smile on her face becoming bigger showing all her teeth and she got so many teeth. “Big, delicious and mouth orgasming. You’ll feel it all over your body, trust me I know.”

Was she flirting with the squirrel? He is way too in love wi-

“Well, I’ll take it then,” he says winking at her with a smirk.

Not so in love I think. Or just too much in the closet. That done, she wrote down his command and went for the others while Vic went to tell Dolby, the cook, what she needed.

“Soooo, what about the others?”

“Egg and bacon,” said the giant one, “with water.”

“Nothing for me.” The trench coat.

The last one seems to search very deeply, what he wanted to choose. Rose feet were hurting her in these damn shoes. Too small for her feet but what can she say when it was calling for her, screaming her name for her to come and buy them.

But right now, she regretted it more than anything, how something so pure and beautiful could be so evil. The fact that the young one seems to be searching excessively long did not help at all, even if he was cute when he was concentrating.

“Ooooookay, he’ll take egg and bacon,” the savor, who was the giant one, say.

She nodded then go to Dolby while she saw Vic adjusting her clothes, opening the button of her shirt then going to serve the squirrel. Rose thought that she should probably tell her that he was not that type of guy but then she thought about how he reacted to her poor attempt of flirting then let it go. She sit at the bar checking her text.

Tara

Hey booboo, your still in work or?

11.17AM

She loved that woman but she hates her grammatical errors. She answered rapidly.

Rosie

You’re* and yup still. What about you?

11.26AM

Tara

Shut up, just finished some stuff, about to go to you. Need some burger with a lot of bacon asap

11.28AM

Rosie

It’ll be waiting for you. Love ya xx

11.28AM

Tara

Same here xx

11.29AM

She put her phone into her apron and take the plates, sighing when she knew rush hour is about to come. She walk toward the team giving them their plates.

“So 2 eggs and bacons for the two of you and hot sauce for the guy here,” she gives the hot sauce to the squirrel, “’m sorry she forgot it.”

They nodded and started to eat. They really really freaking really seems weird and she was pretty sure she saw a blade in the giant one coat but maybe eyes were becoming tired. Anyways, she waited for Tara and not long after she saw the old red mustang parking and her best friend coming into the diner hugging her closely.

“I don’t know how that old car is still rolling.”

“My baby is tough, she’s the strongest person I’ve ever see in my life,” Tara answered, her car was her life literally, she was taking care of that car more than herself sometimes. “You done? ‘m taking the food home.”

“Just wait until this table is done then ‘m all yours.”

She was about to tell Mitch that she was done then something inside her twist. Maybe her instinct but she take Tara and throw her down, using her body as a shield against whatever that happen. Probably an explosion, her head was tripping, she hears gunshot, then a big light in the dinner but her head was too dizzy to focus, she tried to see if Tara was good but her face was full of blood, same for her arm then nothing.

TV was on, probably SpongeBob because she knew every episodes of this show. The smell were horrendous, it was a hospital. She was in a hospital. What the hell was she doing in a hospital, she tried to move but every part of her body hurt even part she didn’t knew exist were hurting her.

The first things she saw was white, too bright, too white and too clean. There was a face smiling at her, face she recognize as Tara. She try to smile back but her lips was drier than the Brennan bald ass so she tried to move but Tara stopped her.

“Hey easy booboo, you take some good shot here.”

Rose wet her lips, her mouth feels weird, disgusting just like hospital. Like death.

“Stop being overdramatic about the hospital, it’s not death,” Tara say laughing slightly.

“Ho… How?”

“I know you, how do you feel?”

She adjusted herself in the bed.

“Like a 2 trucks went over me then a train came and end the job.” She respond scanning the room, there was SpongeBob at the TV and men in front of her, men in suit. Black suit and sexy suit. Weren’t the guys from the dinner? Tara saw Rose confusion about the two men standing and watching her like a mouse in a laboratory.

“Booboo, these guys are the FBI and they want to ask you some questions if you want.”

She nods quietly. She knew something were weird with these guys but FBI, she did not except this.

“Hi Rose I assume,” say the giant one, Rose nod, “I’m agent Smith and this is agent Wesson,” he continue pointing the squirrel. “We want to ask you some questions about the attack at the diner.”

She nodded again.

“What do you remember?” asked agent Wesson.

“Not much, I was about to tell my boss that I was going with Tara then… then… I don’t know I felt something coming so I pull Tara away, then nothing much after that.” Rose answered. “By the way, Tara your face was full of blood and… and… how?”

“How what?” She answered not sure.

“How did all the blah on your face is gone, it looks like nothing happened.”

Tara looked at the agents then at Rose.

“You protected me, which is by the way the last time you do such a stupid thing, you were the one who was damaged booboo.”

Rose was sure and certain that Tara’s face was disfigure but she did not remembered a lot so she let that go. Maybe it was just her mind playing tricks. Still, she was curious about what could have happened.

“Do you know what happened?” Rose asked.

“An attack, we’re working on these missing people, did you hear about it Rose?” Asked agent Smith.

“Yeah, they’re talking about it at school apparently these guys were going in and out the old house, at the end of the street. A haunted house or something.”

They seems interested, the three looked at each other then at Rose.

“Which one?” Asked Wesson.

“Pink with an angel on the porch, you cannot miss it, it’s the only old house around.”

“Thank you, we’ll let you rest now,” said agent Smith.

She didn’t hear about them after that. C’mon agent Smith and Wesson, were they that obvious? Why not agent Beyoncé and Jay-z?

Months after that, life was still the same nothing more or nothing less. Tara was in one of her many traveling, so Rose was mostly alone at home but she likes it. She loved chilling on her big comfy couch while watching TV, with some shows or Marvel movies. She loooooooved Marvel since the day Tara bought her, her first comic book as a birthday gift, it was almost 5 years ago. She was 18 years old and it was her first gift. She still have it, cherished it since this day. Since her 17 she lived alone, ran away from abusive parents and found that beautiful woman who helped her and raise her up when everything was down. She owed Tara her actual life even if she was working in a little diner, struggling with school, she has never been happier than right now.

Today was Mitch’s birthday surprise. The regular customer knew about it, so they were acting differently on purpose. The old lady, Mrs. Marks, was upset about everything, complaining all the time so Mitch would take care of her, living the employees to plan the surprise. Dolby did an amazing cake who was in the fridge, Vic took care of ours and Mitch’s clothes, Loris make sure that Mitch was away during the preparation.

“Goddamn! Where is Rose? Or Vic?”

“Calm down Mitchie, Loris is in the place why don’t you go and see what Mrs. Marks needs huh?”

He shook his head, refusing to go again and hear about how stupid those teenagers, being taller and provocative than ever are.

“No, hell to the no, I love her but not today,” he begin then whispering the last part, “I just want slit her throat and burn her at the moment, go with her and I’ll see the new one.”

Loris laugh, it was amusing to see how the charming and loveable Mitch could be when things get out of his control. Loris went to Mrs. Marks thanking her then went to see how things were going in the kitchen with the girls and Dolby.

“Yo! Is everything ready ‘cause Mitchie is about to freak out and kill everybody.”

“Yup, almost done,” said Rose, “go and change ‘m gonna shut down the power.”

They all nodded, so she did it and called for Mitch to see what was happening, he was almost relieved to get away from the constant stress and check everything making sure it was alright but he and Rose came back, there was no light in the dinner just a little bit the cake’s candle then everybody screamed.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY MITCHELL!!”

Rose has barely seen Mitch crying and it was one these moments she will forever keep.

The party was good, they were so many gift it took him 1 hour to open them all, from the customers, the employees, his kids and even ex-wives, same for his family. Mitch is someone you cannot not love. He was like that and Rose like it this way.

After the cleaning, Loris dropped her at the nearest bus station so she could take a bus go straight home. It was late and very dark and that part of the city was not full of light. So she took her phone from her backpack and use the lamp torch to see through her way home.

Everything was fine when she saw a body sitting on the ground, her first reflex is to run to him and see what is happening because he seemed hurt. The truth, he was full of blood and there was a cut on his lips. She tried to wake the guy up but he was totally down.

So she shake him a little bit, trying to have a reaction from him, he open his eyes, looking at Rose. She try to make him stand up but it was hard since he was about to collapse.

“Damn!” She curse and put him on his feet nevertheless. “Yeah, that’s it hold onto me big guy. ‘m taking you to my house. Do you understand?”

He nod so at least he was still conscious. She hold him through the way his arms around her shoulders while she was holding him from behind, going upstairs slowly until they make it to her door so she try her best and open it taking him directly to her room so he can sleep on the bed. She close the door and lock it twice to be sure. Then run to her bathroom taking all the medical care she got. She put some alcohol on a compress, cleaning his head and his lips.

The guy was beautiful, soft pink lips, beautiful features. Looking like an angel.

But she didn’t stop, she keep searching for other marks or cut but his clothes full of blood did not help at all so she try to find something that could fit him. And there was her ex-boyfriend’s clothes who can fit him so trying her best to not look, Rose undressed him, cleaning the bruises every time she finds some, and put the fresh cleaned clothes on him.

After putting the bloody clothes in the washing machine, she put the covers on him and turn on the heater so that he will not be cold then clothes the door letting him sleep.

She start questioning herself. First of all, what the actual fuck? What will happen if the boy was a killer or something like that? However, a killer would not be in that state huh? He would’ve been the one putting someone in that way so no, well she hope no.

Trying to keep her mind out of this, she started working on her school project. Doing research and writing down everything that seemed important in no order, after she will put all the ideas and information in order.

When she looked at the watch, it says 02:54 AM.

She scratched her eyes not being sure of what she was watching.

And indeed it was not 02:54 AM but 06:24 AM, it was worse so she stopped everything and let her body fall on the couch and sleep.

Chapter 2 ; Chapter 3 ; Chapter 4

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orenashii · 7 years ago

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Author's Note

Whew. I'm finally back. It's been a crazy week.

I want to quickly shoutout to two people who gave me the inspiration to write this story. Trap3r (on ff.net) and @peppertower. Back in May when I first published Chapter One, I had no idea where this was going. Seriously. I even wrote that in the author's note. Not a clue. But I talked to some people, most notably these two users and suddenly, inspiration hit and now we have this. So thank you for inspiring me. This story would not have happened without you.

Enjoy!

I Exist

Chapter X

"Iset?"

"Yes, dear?"

Ashi looked up at her companion. She had woken up from her slumber, feeling a little bit more refreshed yet still weakened. She had asked Iset if she could try walking. She knew her steps were slow but the goddesses in her company were patient.

"There is something I have been meaning to ask you."

"Hm. What is that?"

Ashi swallowed, twisting her fingers together, knowing the question she wanted to ask but feared the answer. "What's going to happen to my sisters? What is their fate?"

Iset nodded her head in understanding. "They, like you, must have their souls purged of the evil within."

"But they were also innocent. They did not have the freedom to make their own choices in life. Will they have to endure a test like I did? What if they can't defeat the evil? Will they not exist? Will they—"

"Hush, darling. Yes, you had to fight to rid your soul of darkness. Because you are special. For I pulled you from the depths of unawareness and have given you consciousness. Their souls will be redeemed but they will feel no pain. And one day, when they have been relieved of evil, they will be born anew. To this, I can make sure."

She dipped her head down and nodded. Her voice was quiet. "Thank you."

"I can sense something else is bothering you."

Ashi grimaced. There was something bothering her. Something had been bothering her for a long time. She'd never expressed it to anyone and had trouble expressing it now.

"I just feel... guilty. Like I don't deserve," her voice shook along with her head. "Any of this."

"Ashi, what you are feeling is normal."

Ashi continued, Iset's words falling on near deaf ears. "It was luck that kept me alive. Pure luck. Jack should have... killed me. That day. But he didn't. I was allowed to live. And I might get the chance to again and my sisters will never have that."

"It is part of the healing process," Jahnavi chimed in. "A way to cope with a traumatic loss."

"But, why me?" Ashi lamented, more to herself than anyone else. "Why me?" She was never particularly close to any of her sisters, her mother would not allow it. They were comrades. Nothing more. She did not truly understand them as their own individuals. She did not even know how they would react to situations she had experienced. She wondered if it would have even been possible, had another survived, had they all survived, to teach them the error of their ways.

Her mother did always say she was the most unfocused. Would they have wavered in their mission? Would they have been capable of seeing the truth?

Was she... better? Than them? She felt terrible just thinking it.

"Does it make me a bad person? To want to live again?"

"Absolutely not," Iset said firmly. "You have worked hard to get to this point. You are deserving of this gift. And know that you have done the world a great service. Because of you, because of your samurai, you saved billions. Your sisters will never feel that pain again. Because of you."

She nodded but was not completely appeased. She felt pride in herself for her choices. But she could not shake her guilt.

"I know you have these feelings and I cannot say that you will ever cease to have these feelings. But do know that you are worthy."

Iset placed a comforting hand on her progeny's shoulder. Ashi's head lifted to look into the goddess' eyes. An easy smile passed between them. Jahnavi interrupted the two with a slight clearing of her throat.

"Ladies. I do believe we are nearing our destination."

Ashi gasped at the stunning sight before her.

Jack and Kali sat together in a private sitting room near the throne room. The Pharaoh had so graciously offered it to them to use for the late afternoon so that Kali could 'fulfill her duties' as the Prince's personal scribe. Jack sipped from his teacup slowly as she relayed questions she'd had about the details of the Scotsman's life.

"He had red hair that he kept pulled back in a ponytail. He was balding at the top. He had a very thick mustache and faint green eyes."

Kali smiled at the description. "It almost sounds like your describing an older version of the Courier."

Jack laughed. "No, no, I do not think so. If the Scotsman were to ever meet the Courier, I'm sure he would have a few words about his stature."

"Like?"

Jack held out his arms to gesture at his own body. "The Scotsman was a very large, imposing man. I'm sure he would advise your Courier to 'thicken up' by eating some of his wife's haggis."

"What is haggis?"

"Sheep stomach stuffed with meat and barley." Jack stumbled over the words as he laughed, remembering how enthusiastic the clan was about the dish. "I cannot say I was too fond of it."

Kali laughed along, jotting down notes in a leather notebook. The notebook was her constant companion.

"But speaking of the Courier. I noticed he is quite the... personality."

She grinned. "Isn't he, though? He is nothing if not entertaining."

"That is a word for it, certainly."

"What did he do?" she said with a roll of her eyes. "Some ostentatious display of masculinity, I'm betting."

"Well... there was something that struck me as rather odd. He told me that you had taken... some sort of liking to me?"

"What?" Kali deadpanned.

"But he did not sound too happy about that."

Now her eyebrows lifted. "Really?"

"Yes. But when I commented on his displeasure, he made a... joke? That you had killed his father."

Kali reeled back. She was silent for a few moments. "He told you that?"

Jack tried to wave off the unease in her expression. "He assured me he only said it in jest. I assumed it was an attempt at dark humor."

She wrung her hands together nervously. She avoided Jack's gaze. He spoke again. "Is something the matter?"

She sighed heavily, a groan of irritation and worry. "Listen, Jack. I don't know why he said that to you upon your first meeting but," she said in a low voice, trailing off. "But, I actually did kill his father."

Jack's head jerked slightly in disbelief. "What?"

"It was an accident! A mistranslation. But it was my fault. His father is dead because of me."

He squinted his eyes. "I don't understand. What happened?"

Another heavy sigh. "The Courier's father was a very high-ranking member of the Scottish navy. Some members of his troop were visiting India, not on official business or anything, and we hosted them at my father's inn." Kali told the story as if exhausted, as if she had explained this many, many times.

"I was still quite young, an adolescent. I overestimated my English speaking ability. He was accidentally served a dish that contained an ingredient that he was fatally allergic to. I must have mistranslated.

"The Scots were enraged, thinking it a deliberate assassination. My father tried to reason with the other members of his troop, we and the people of India had no qualms with the Scottish. They thought it some... misguided attack on the English for their occupation in our land. I had to be sent away, go into hiding, for my own protection.

"The Courier came to my father seeking work. He had colored his hair and masked his accent so as not to raise suspicions about his origins. He began transporting letters and packages for my family, unbeknownst to all of us that he would read them, gathering information on the whereabouts of his father's killer.

"He did not know it was me until the night we met."

It was raining outside. A light drizzle. Not loud enough to drown out the heavy creak at her door. She climbed out of bed nervously, groping her way underneath it to pull out a shovel that she had stored there for just such an occasion. A deep voice made itself known.

"Mahakala. I have heard quite a lot about you."

"Who's there?"

"Hn. I did not know you would be a woman."

She arched an eyebrow. "You've heard a lot about me but didn't know my gender?"

A pause. She thought she could hear a quiet 'fuck' echo through her room.

"Anyway, that is not why I'm here."

"Why are you here?"

"You are a murderer."

"No! That's not true! It was an accident."

Silence fell. Only the quiet patter of raindrops could be heard on the cobblestone floors outside.

"Show yourself," she said bravely. But her heart was in her throat. This was real. She'd have to defend herself. Would anyone hear her if she screamed? Would anyone get here fast enough to save her?

A light creak. Then the light of a candle. Her eyes adjusted. Her assassin had brought a lantern?

That was rather… odd.

She watched as the light bathed over her assassin's features. He was clean shaven. He had a narrow chin and a wide nose. His eyes were wide, almost…

Incredulous?

"You?" He shouted. His mouth hung open, aghast. "You are the one responsible for my father's death?"

"It was an accident!"

He continued on as if he wasn't listening. "But you're just a little girl!"

"I am not a little girl!"

He took a step forward to get a closer look at her face. She stepped backwards instinctively, gripping the handle of the shovel in her fists.

"How? How did you do it?"

Her hands shook with fear. She swallowed hard before answering.

"S-Sesame seeds."

"What?"

"Your father was allergic… and I did not know! I must have heard him incorrectly. I swear it was just an accident."

"Sesame seeds. You killed my father with sesame seeds?"

He laughed. Not maniacally or dramatically, it was slight. Little puffs of air breathed out of sheer disbelief.

"Was it… hidden?"

"No? The seeds are… quite common where I am from."

He ran a hand through his dark hair. "They told me he was poisoned!"

"Are you going to kill me?"

She could see his eyes widen in shock by the glow of his lantern. "I was going to. We sent someone. But I took his place. I wanted to meet the man responsible for that bastard's death. I thought you were gonna be some evil brute, a former enemy or something! But now that I see that it's just a wee lass…"

"I am not a—"

"How old are you?"

"What?"

He spoke slowly. "How old are you?"

"Fifteen… almost." She answered the question with her voice pitched high, as if she were asking a question of her own.

"Fifteen," he wheezed, as if this was all some sort of cosmic joke. He stepped forward again until he was face to face with her. She noted that he looked nearly as young as her. He wore an expression of stone. Then, finally, he offered a small smile. "Farewell."

"What?"

He gripped one of her shoulders and spun her around so that she was away from the window. He opened it and placed a foot on it, preparing to step out. He turned to look at her one last time.

"Fifteen. What a fucking load."

"Months afterwards, my father sent for me. The conflict was over. Apparently, the one responsible had been 'dealt' with. And… that was it.

"I did not see him for years after that. But when I finally did, he was, well, who he is now. Red hair, cocky attitude," she smiled. "And he spoke to me as if nothing had happened. And he's been with me... well," she said with a slight blush, "with my family ever since.

"I am… grateful. That he spared me. I told him the truth, that it was just an accident, and he believed me. He knew I was innocent and that I did not deserve to die for a mistake, even though he'd set out to do just that.

The two sat in silence for some time. Jack could not help but feel a connection to her tale. Of forgiveness. Of second chances.

"That is a story I can relate to." Jack finally shrugged. "Sort of."

Kali offered an inquisitive gaze. "How so?"

Jack issued a heavy sigh. Sadness overtook his features. Kali spoke softly, assuring him that he did not have to tell her anything if he was uncomfortable. Jack shook his head.

"No, please," Jack said quietly. "It is time... I tell you her story. Our story."

"Welcome, Ashi. To the Tree of Nine Worlds."

The tree was massive; unfathomable to measure its scale, with branches that weaved together like the threads of a tapestry. It was alive. The threads moved like the flowing waters of a river, twisting in themselves, coursing like blood through veins. Large, spherical crystals, perhaps snow, maybe hail, dotted its leaves like the stars in the night sky. The smallest droplets of water fell from wide leaves, shrouding the landscape in a fine mist.

It stretched higher and wider than any tree Ashi had ever seen. She felt immeasurably small. Was this how an insect felt? When it looked upon something so much greater than itself?

The roots of the tree were submerged in a massive pool; the water as clear as glass. Iset and Jahnvai stepped over the foot-tall bricks that served as the pools enclosure. Ashi was hesitant. Was it possible to walk on water? Iset nodded, urging her on. She placed a tender step on the water and was amazed that she did not sink in.

Eventually, the trio arrived at the base of the gargantuan tree. Seated there were three ephemeral goddesses, each wearing crystalline white robes of a fabric so thin that it could be seen through. The goddesses rose their heads at the same time.

Blonde hair, nearly as white as their robes, sat neatly behind their shoulders. Their skin was so pale they almost looked featureless. Their beauty was... unnerving. Almost sinister.

The three were identical, save for the color of their wide, open eyes. They sat in a row. The goddess at the furthest of the line had deep, blue eyes. The one in the middle's were green. And the one at the end's looked nearly black upon first notice, but closer inspection revealed them to be violet.

"Hey. I know you," the purple-eyed one said, looking to Ashi.

"You do?"

"We all do," the blue-eyed one said. "I was in charge of forging your soul." Her voice was cracked, like that of a much older woman, yet her appearance radiated with youth.

"You forged my soul?"

"Did I not just say that?" the goddess rolled her eyes. Ashi noticed that the purple-eyed goddess also rolled her eyes, looking away from her counterpart.

"I'm sorry."

"Worry not," the green-eyed one spoke. "We knew you would come here eventually. This one," she said, gesturing to the purple-eyed goddess on her left, "kept unraveling the threads of your destiny."

The goddess in question shrugged. "It's not my fault I was not satisfied with the ending you all chose."

"It is not our job to be concerned with satisfaction," the blue-eyed one said bitterly.

"And yet here we are."

Ashi looked between the beings in confusion. "If I may, and I apologize if this is rude. May I ask who you are?"

This time Iset spoke up. "They go by many. The Moirai, the Parcae."

The three seated goddesses spoke in order from left to right.

"I am What Once Was."

"I am What Is Now."

"I am What Shall Be."

Iset continued. "But they are most commonly referred to as the Norns: The Three Sisters of Destiny."

Author's Note

I apologize that this chapter took so long to post. I've been working on yet another story and it has taken over my life. But don't you worry. I will not forget about this one. Problem is, I have the ending outlined, but getting there askdhklad. It'll happen. I promise.

Once again, thank you, thank you, thank you! for sticking around and reading this story. I feel so loved. ;-;

Reviews are always welcome!

#samurai jack #samurai jack season 5 #samurai jack finale #samurai jack fanfiction #samurai jack fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #my writing #orenashii #ashi #jashi #jackx ashi #jackxashi

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fapangel · 7 years ago

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I can’t WAIT to cover this Trump Jr. Thing because the lefties are pissing themselves like an excited chinchilla and its just so *precious* III We both know how short, murky, and 'he-said-she-said' the anti-Trump evidence has been, so when one of the few folks Big T trusts outright says he'd love to have an enemy of the US support the campaign with secrets on Hilary... you can see why they'd be excited. What Trump Jr. did by even replying positively to that message was High Quality Stupidity.

So before anything else, let’s take a long momentto enjoy that hysterical chinchilla-pissing, starting with thecomments in my own inbox:

Drumpf has only three options here. Disown hisson and send him on an all-expenses paid trip to NSGB, step down, orget impeached.

(BBC)world-us-canada-40571914 Welp. Donald’s son just screwed himself andhis dad over big time. Meeting someone described as a Russiangovernment official to get dirt on Hillary. And, well, “part ofRussia and its government’s support for Mr Trump”. Ruse or not,the intent from the campaign’s side is clear, and motive goes a longway in an investigation and court. Seems like the best thing to dowould be to throw Goldstone, and maybe Jr., to the investigators anddeny Trump had any awareness?

Now for The Left: After their hysterical, rabidpersecution of Trump failed to turn up anything formonths on end, theiranti-Russian obsession has reached “McCarthy” levels of paranoia(oh, the irony,) soplacing Trump Jr. in the same roomas a living Russian person from Russia fortwenty entire minuteshas them stroking off sofuriously it’s a wonder they haven’t given newly literal meaning to“liar liar pants on fire” yet. TimKaine, Rep.Seth Moulton (D-Mass), thereliably retarded NewYork Timesand theusual sniping from the never-Trump neocon camp are all calling ittreason. That’s aclaim so moronic that Salon.com (yes, Salon) hasan article pointing it out beforehurriedly burying the “vast right-wing collusion conspiracynarrative” theirown site’s been pushingwith the old “all Republicans are morons” line like a wee dogfuriously kicking sand over its scat. Meanwhile, CNN is once again ina class of its own - not because of their hysteria but becausethey’re nowreporting on what their right-wing news competitors are saying:

Raheem Kassam, editor-in-chief of BreitbartLondon, reacted to the story of Donald Trump Jr.’s newly-releasedemails in a way that wouldn’t typically be expected from someone atthe far-right outfit, which is a reliable supporter of PresidentTrump.

“So like, this is straight up collusion,”he wrote in the news outlet’s internal Slack, according to atranscript of the conversation obtained by CNN. “Right?”

Yes. Somehow, CNN knows what Brietbart is sayingon their own fucking internal Slack account. I guess hacking is okaywith CNN when they’re doing it - that is, assuming they’re not justmaking shit up again. But the best lines in that “coverage of thecoverage” were these:

Fox News’ first response was relative silence.While CNN and MSNBC went into full coverage on the story, Fox Newsonly briefly visited the topic before moving on to other news, thenreturning to it later.

Eventually, as the story developed, Fox beganto cover the revelations more aggressively. But the network neverwent into non-stop breaking news coverage as CNNand MSNBC did.

Non-stop, indeed. Given that thefacts can be related in literally 23 words (shady Russian lobbyistscores meeting by promising Trump Jr. Hillary dirt, babbles aboutadoption treaties for twenty minutes before being shown the door,) weall know that it was the same as CNN’s usual “non-stop breakingnews coverage” of anything:

But not that fucking Fox News, oh no! Theyreported the facts,and then moved on and came back later,afterthey’d found more facts,toreport those. Andthey call themselves journalists.Tsk.Therealjournalists are hunting down everyonewho was standing in the room,everyone who might have possibly known someone standing in the room,andlabeling them “mastersof the dark arts.” That is not a joke. That is the actualfucking headline. YERA WIZARD, DONNY! THE VODKA DRINKERSARE COMIN FOR YA! Finally,an immigrant the Democrats don’t like. Maybe extreme vetting would’vefound his DarkMarktattoo in time, eh? Or maybe the Azkabanstamp in his passport? Isthat a wand in yer pocket or do you have Hillary’s e-mails for me? Oh, man. But the absolute bestpart of all this is how they’re pawing at everyone’s shins andwhining and spinning little circles because nobody else wants to play- theWaPo is whining about how Trump’s still bullying them as Fake Newsand CNN’s whiningabout those damn pro-Trump media outlets doubting the meeting evenhappened. How can they keep getting away with it? Maybe becausethe mainstream media is sodistrusted nowthat morethan half of Trump’s supporters don’t even believe the meetinghappened, despite Trump Jr. verifying it andreleasinghis e-mails about it.

Allof this - all the tail-chasing, frenzied yapping and excitedurination - is absolutely hilarious,becauseit all amounts to fucking nothing.If Vladamir Putin himself had been lowered from the sky by a chorusof singing angels, moonwalkedto the top floor of Trump Tower and handed Trump all of Hillary’ssecrets engraved on sacred stone tablets, it’d still amount to jackshit.It’sthe same basic fact that’s undermined the left’s vague “collusion”narrative from the beginning - itdoesn’t matter one damn bit who dug up Hillary’s misdeeds in theelection, because theevidence proves it’s true. Hillarywas damaged by her owncampaign’s internal e-mails - youknow, the bald and unvarnished truth of a fawningmedia’s collusion, solicitations of multimillion dollar campaigndonations from the heads of foreign governments and what Democratsreally think of minority voters. 1 + 1 still equals 2 even ifHitler’s the one drawing it on the blackboard. That’s precisely whythe left has relied on constant dark rumor-mongering using a specificscary word, “collusion,” that connotes all manner of shadydealing and wicked deals on the docks at midnight - even though“collusion”literally isn’t a crime. In other words, Robert Mueller - whomeven WaPo admits is trapped in a rad bromance with Comey, andwho’s staffing his Special Probe withlawyers that donated almost exclusively to Democrats -literally has nothing to investigate. Buteven the court of public opinion can’t convict, because no matter howyou look at it, standing in the same room as two Russians for 20minutes isn’t collusion.

Thedefinition of collusion, accordingto Merriam-Webster, is “secret agreement orcooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose.”Note the agreementor co-operation bit. Assenior CNN producer John Bonifield was caughton tape openly admitting, it’s common knowledge that governmentsare alwaystrying to influence politics - and even elections - in othercountries. After all, aCongressional investigation found that Obama’s State Department gavehundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to an Israeli advocacygroup trying to oust Prime Minister Netanyahu (who refused tokiss Obama’s ass on the Iran nuclear deal,) so it’s not a bigsurprise or anything. Nor is meeting with agents of a foreigngovernment, considering that a Ukrainian-American Democratic NationalCommittee operative was caught meeting with theUkrainian embassy in Washington to try and sabotage Trump. Thepredictable justifications (Ukrainians are the Good Guys and Russiaare the Bad Guys) ignore that Ukraine is a big,ugly, corrupt mess, and that the pro-Russian rebels that Putin’spretending his regular Russian army units are actually doexist (just not nearlyin those numbers) and that the Russian intelligence services - andcrony capitalism oligarchy - doubtlessly have tentacles everywhere inthe beleaguered nation. Afterall, left-wingers were whining about Trump’scampaign manager Manafort meeting with Ukrainian businessmen, anda senior Democratic PAC adviser was attacking Scott Walker forreceivingdonations from a “pro-PutinUkrainian businessman,” so clearly they’re not above suspicion- according to theexact same people who were chumming with them, at least!

Lefties havealways known this all amounts to jack diddly shit, which is whythey’ve been using the word collusion,specifically. As I’vesaid before, the way the media get onto the same page - nay, theexact same buzzword, nighinstantly, is never an accident. “Collusion”by definition means “agreement or co-operation.”Governments influencingothers elections by slipping favored candidates tips on theiropponents dirty laundry is nothing new. Governmentsaiding one campaign in return for agreed-upon favors at a later dateis another. Democratsare alleging that Trump and co. sold out to the Russians, so nowthey’re in Putin’s pocket. Thatwas the point of the lurid fanfiction document about Russian hookerspissing on Trump, to allege that he was “vulnerableto Russian blackmail,” and that’s why Democratsand the US intelligence community deliberately spread that pack oflaughable lies around. And they knowthisisan impossibly ludicrous thing to sell, which is why they keeprepeating vague ominous nothings about “collusion” and keepreporting on everything Trump does in the context of the imaginary“ominous cloud” they’ve industriously created themselves for the express intent of throwing shade.

I delayed this post for a bit just to collect morecommentary in my inbox - and not just because it was hilarious(DRUMPF BLOWN OUT ZOMG LOL) but because I hoped it’d be revealing.And indeed it was: consider this one again:

And, well, “part of Russia and itsgovernment’s support for Mr Trump”. Ruse or not, the intent fromthe campaign’s side is clear, and motive goes a long way in aninvestigation and court.

Every single news story I’ve seen on it havequoted almost those exact lines - the Russian’s email proclaiming hispotential offer as “part of Russia and its government’s support,”and Trump Jr’s skeptical approval, “if it’s what you say it is, Ilove it.” This is what they’re trying to spin as “intent tocollude.”

So how about wereadthe actual goddamn emails, eh?

On Jun 3, 2016, at 10:36 AM, Rob Goldstonewrote:

Good morning

Emin just called and asked me to contact youwith something very interesting.

The Crown prosecutor of Russia met withhis father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered toprovide the Trump campaign with some official documents andinformation that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings withRussia and would be very useful to your father.

This is obviously very high level and sensitiveinformation but is part of Russia and its government’s support forMr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.

What do you think is the best way to handlethis information and would you be able to speak to Emin about itdirectly?

I can also send this info to your father viaRhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.

Best

Rob Goldstone

There it is, inas many words - an offerto expose Hillary’s shady connections with “Russia.” That’san outright offer to provide dirt - and as LizPeek points out, this offer came shortly after the book “ClintonCash” was published, which exposed a shit-ton of the ClintonFoundation’s lucrative dealings with Russian businessmen. Even theHillaryapologists at politifact couldn’t deny that Bill Clinton receiveda half millionfucking dollar speaking fee forgiving a speech - from a Russian investment bank calledRenaissance Capital which isvery, very much tight with the Kremlin:

Personal connections and a commitment to Russiahave proved critical to Renaissance. Jennings and other execs got toknow many junior officials in the early 1990s who have risen tosenior positions in the Kremlin and at the central bank. RenaissanceDeputy Chairman Robert Foresman has advised state-owned Gazprom,giving him access to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.At a Renaissance investor conference in June speakers includedFinance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Arkady Dvorkovich, aide to RussianPresident Dmitry Medvedev.

Andlet’s not forget Sergei Magnitsky, a Russan lawyer whofingered Renaissance Capital as part of a massive government-involvedtax fraud scheme, was arrested by said government, then murdered inprison to keep him silent. These guys are dirty as hell.

Nospeech, not even from God himself, is worth a half-millionfucking dollars a pop. That’sa hefty ass-kissing “donation”, any way you look at it - and beforeHillary became Secretary of State, Bill pulled down that half-miljust twice. After she became SecState, he got a half-mill forspeeches eleventimes.

Anddid I mention that Bill wasbeing paid a half-million dollars for fucking nothing around the sametime Hillary was pushing for approval for Russiato buy a controlling interest in Uranium One, one of the largesturanium mines in America?

Nowconsider that - given Russia’s crony capitalism/mafia stylegovernment (as exemplified by Renaissance Capital’s tight ties withthe Kremlin) and the constant murder of journalists or anyone elsewho could spill the details on these things (including Magnitskyhimself,) the only people who wouldhave this informationwould be “The Russian Government.” That’sexactly why the email offer mentioned it - it was mandatory to bebait the hook.

Andthis is why the media have very, very carefully omitted that lineabout Hillary’sconnections with Russia, andexactly why Trump Jr. tweeted out the emails himself - becauseit makes it screamingly obvious that his “intent” was to getproof of Hillary’s shady dealings and misdeeds. Hedidn’t promise any favor trading with the Russians, he didn’t promiseto to give them “special consideration,” and he didn’t promise tohost Putin’s fucking birthday party, either. That isn’t“collusion,” by definition.

Mindyou, the Russians were definitely up to no good. The lawyer,Natalia Veselnitskaya, spent all her time in Washington and environslobbying against anti-Russian sanctions -after receiving special clearance to enter the country fromLoretta Lynch herself. (Gee,ain’t that funny?) Oncethere, she spent most of her time trying to lobby for “making itlegal for Americans to adopt Russian orphans again,” banned by aRussian law that was retaliation for what she reallywanted to lobby against, the Magnitsky Act - economic sanctions onRussia, named after the whistleblower murdered after he ratted on thecompany that later stuffed 500 million dollars into Bill Clinton’ssticky pockets. Thiseditorial details why the Magnitsky Act really chaps Putin’s ass,but that act itself,likethe orphans/adoption thing, just a way to open up the topic ofanti-Russian economic sanctions. Considering that the ~masterof the dark arts~Americancitizen lobbyist that translated for her is ex-KGB, and thatNatalia droppedher promised Evidence On Hillary to launch right into her lobbyingspiel, it’s pretty clear what the goal was. Most likely, she wasshilling the same Kremlin bullshit she’d pushed everywhere else, withthe promised Evidence Of Hillary’s Crimes a bullshit lie to get inthe door. Or at absolute worst, she was trying to dangle a potentialpromise of ~evidence~ in return for potential or implied promises ofTrump’s future administration to lower sanctions on Russia (whichhe’s refused to do, by the way.) At best she was wasting TrumpJr’s. time, and at worst she was trying to solicit a deal - i.e.,collusion.

Andthat’s about when Trump Jr. showedher the door.

Evena fucking dog figuresout that you didn’t actually throw that ball after a few seconds oflooking for it, but the media’s still yapping like they finallycaught that invisible car they’ve been chasing. They’reso completely and utterly absorbed by their own narrative thatthey’ve come to believe it themselves. It’d be cute if they weren’tgrown adults with collegedegrees, you know? IfSatan himself had slithered out of a flaming crevasse andhanded Trump Jr. Hillary’s banking statements on a dead-babyparchment scroll, it still wouldn’t fucking matter unless they hadTrump Jr. signature on a contract selling his soul for it. Andwhat they’ve got now is a campaign operative saying “fuck yes Iwant an October surprise to dunk my opponent with!” Andthis is before you getto the Democrats colluding with Ukrainians at the same time they wereattacking Ukrainians on Trump’s side for being evil andsuspicious, before you weigh theClintons having a corrupt Kremlin-complicit bank stuffing cashin Bill’s pocket as Hillary sells out our biggest fucking uraniummine to the Russians, and before you weigh Loretta Lynch personallygiving that Evil Russian Lawyer permission to enter the country inthe first place.

Andthey honestly don’t understand why nobody believes them. Thegiggles that keep on giving. It’s amazing.

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pretend-im-not-there · 7 years ago

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Something to Live For

Well, I talked about bringing that old fic I made in 2012 over here. So, here you go. 5 year old Mass Effect 2 fanfiction. Enjoy if you will.

Rating: T

Wordcount: 5,343

The area underneath engineering was a small, mostly dark area, lit by only two small lights. Due to this, and the fact that most people didn't bother to go down there, the crew of the Normandy had dubbed it the Hideaway. It was exactly because of these reasons that Jack decided to make that area into her quarters. It would have been the perfect place to stay, too, if that damn Commander didn't know exactly where to look every time she was looking to talk to her.

The ex-convict had thought about moving where she slept every so often, making everybody keep on their toes in order to avoid her, but knew it wouldn't matter if Shepard was looking for her. That damn woman was persistent as hell and everybody sure as fuck knew about it. She guessed that was a bit of why she could respect the red-haired woman a bit, not that she would ever admit it. If only she would keep to her own damn business instead of sticking her nose into everyone else's. Then again, she wasn't the only one who tried to butt in to other people's lives. As much as she didn't want the biotic on the ship, that Cerberus bitch sure seemed to be interested in her life.

Before she could continue on that line of thought, the sound of one of the doors above opening caught her attention. The soft taps of boots on the stairs could have been anybody, but the bald woman knew better than to think it was anybody but Shepard. Only two people were stupid enough to come down there and one of them was pissed off at her.

When the red-haired Commander had finally descended the stairs, the ex-con looked into her green eyes and smirked. "Shepard," she greeted. "Come to try making me play nice with the cheerleader again?" Jack barked out a short laugh. No matter how hard she tried, the biotic knew she would never like anyone allied with Cerberus. Didn't mean she wouldn't fuck that "perfect" bitches brains out.

As much as she hated the woman, Jack had to admit that Miranda Lawson was a damn nice sight. From the shape of her face, to the way she moved, to the way her suit hugged her curves, it was like she was just made to get people hot and bothered. This, and their intense hate of each other, made it more surprising that the blue-eyed Cerberus bitch actually called her out for a rough after-mission fuck a while back. She apparently liked it because, every week since, Miranda came down to the Hideaway for another round. Avoid each other most of the week, then screw their troubles away on that last day.

It was a nice enough arrangement between them, but then that woman decided to start talking to her after. About her family, about her past, she would just start talking. What made it worse was that the woman would always find some way to get Jack talking too. Usually the conversation would reach Cerberus and she would walk out, ending the conversation there. Today was different, though.

Today she had blown the Teltin facility to hell. She had gone in and destroyed the place that tormented her nightmares for so long. She felt so good after that she decided to move up her next time with Miranda. When the subject of Cerberus was brought up she stayed. What a stupid mistake.

The bitch refused to admit Cerberus did any of it. She refused Jacks entire past and what she went through. She refused Jack. And she was not happy about it.

Now wasn't the time to start getting lost in memories, though, not with the Commander standing over her. Shaking her head clear of her thoughts on the woman, Jack looked up to see Eileen Shepard was just looking at her. There was no reaction at all to the question, and that was all it took to set Jack on the edge of her cot. If there was one thing the bald woman learned on this ship, it was that the former Spectre always had a reaction to anything. Always.

"Come with me." The words shot out of the Commanders mouth in an even tone that the biotic had never heard before. It was almost like the woman standing before her was empty, only a shell of what she was. The tattooed woman almost had to follow her, just to find out what could make Shepard change so drastically from the sarcastic saint that she tried to be.

Standing from her cot, Jack followed the Commander into the cargo hold that Grunt had taken as his. Jack had gotten along pretty easily with the Krogan, seeing as how they both seemed to like smashing their enemies until they were paste. Sure, their tolerance of each other sometimes ended up in competition, but that was just how they liked it. Nothing like a Krogan to keep a bet interesting.

Shepard didn't stop in the hold, however. Passing by Grunt with a slight nod, she opened a latch on the floor to reveal a ladder to the launching bay. As the Commander climbed down, Jack looked over to Grunt, wondering if he knew why the woman was acting strangely. With only a shake of the head as a reply, the bald woman shrugged her shoulders before following down the ladder.

As soon as she set foot on the launch bay's floor, she looked around the room. The bay wasn't much to see, just the Kodiak sitting in its' clamps and a large amount of crates covering the deck. The Commander stood in the middle of the room, her back turned to Jack as she worked at something in her hands.

Jack slowly walked toward the woman, wondering why she brought her to the mostly empty room. If she had wanted to talk to her, the Hideaway was usually secluded enough for the both of them. "Alright, Shepard, we took the long way to the ass end of the ship. Now would you mind telling me why you dragged me down-"

The biotics words were cut off suddenly by a sudden pain in her jaw, forcing her to dip her head and take a step back. When she looked back up, Shepard was pulling her fist back, adopting a fighting stance.

"What the hell?!"Jack yelled out as her Commander threw another punch. Seeing the attack coming this time, the biotic threw up a barrier, the blue field stopping the fist from making an impact against her stomach. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

In an instant, another fist was flying at her head, this one covered in its' own blue biotic field. As soon as the fields connected they both broke, leaving Jack defenseless against the fist, forcing her back a step. As soon as the bald woman recovered, and was about to attack back, Eileen spoke.

"I have something I need to tell you about." The cold tone was so unlike the Commander that it stopped Jack for a second. As the words sunk in, a raging fury ran straight to the ex-convicts head.

"Then why the fuck are you attacking me," she spat. Almost instantly, the bald woman was forced to double over, her only support being Shepards' arm where her fist impacted with her stomach. How the Commander had suddenly become so fast, Jack had no idea, but she wished she had at least grabbed the Carnifex pistol that the Salarian had given her.

"We're fighting because it seems to be the only way to get the lesson through to you." The Commander moved away from her, forcing her to take a step forward to keep from falling. No matter what, she wouldn't allow herself to fall inside the ship. She would hear no end to the Cerberus bitch's taunting if she fell.

"Jack," Eileen paused. Jack knew she always thought about what to say next when it came to the convict. "What do you plan to do after we destroy the Collectors?"

The question took the bald woman by surprise as Miranda's voice flashed through her mind, asking that same question. Damn that woman and her questions. "Can't say I put any thought into it," She lied as she threw a biotic field covered punch at the woman.

"C'mon Jack," the red-head replied as she side stepped the woman's punches, "Everybody has some plans for when all this is over, though most are just planning on heading back to see their loved ones. Hell, even I have someone waiting for me on the other side. What do you have waiting for when you're finished?"

Miranda's face flashed through her mind, and she instantly tried to squash the thought as her heart sped up. Now was not the time to be thinking about a meaningless fling, not with the Commander wearing her down. "You wanna know? Fine. When all this is over, I plan on hunting down Cerberus' dogs and killing them one by one. Happy?"

"And after that?" This question made Jack pause and blink for a moment. She had never thought about what she would do after she got her revenge. The ex-convict would probably just find something else to let her anger out on. She looked up to say so to the Commander, until she saw the look on her face.

The smile Shepard returned her was almost painful to look at. It was one of those smiles she turned toward that Turrian when he talked about that crew he had. It was a look of pity that Jack didn't need, and it made her biotics flare up so hard that she could probably crush the ship if she wanted too.

Instead of forcing everybody in the ship into a slow death, however, she decided to just try and crush the Commander. Focusing her power, she shot a pulse of her biotics forward to grab the infuriating woman. She had almost had her, too, when a thin Biotic field covered the red-haired woman and she disappeared.

The biotic looked around, trying to find where the woman went, when she heard a gunshot ring out. Faster than she could raise a barrier, a piercing pain shot through her leg, forcing her to her knee. The tattooed woman's hand ran to the pain, pressing gently against where she was hit.

"You fucking shot me!"

"Calm down," the Commander called from behind her.

Calm down? After Shepard shot her? Fuck that! "Like hell I'm gonna calm down! You just fucking shot me!"

"I said. Calm. Down." The voice came from right behind her as she felt the Commander grab her arm that was holding on to her leg. She tried to pull her arm free, but Shepard's grip held firm as she pulled Jacks hand in front of her face. The Spectre held it there, waiting for the convict to stop struggling and actually look at the limb in front of her. The first thing the biotic noticed was that her hand wasn't covered in red like she expected. It was covered in yellow.

"I shot you with paint ammunition. It won't break the skin so easily, but it hurts like hell when it makes its' mark. We used to use these all the time back when I ran with the 10th street Reds."

Shepard's words quickly caused Jacks eyebrow to quirk. She let out a small cackle as all the tension instantly left her body. Realizing you weren't going to have to dig a slug out of your leg, or lose the limb entirely, apparently took a lot out of you. "You were a gang member? That's a hard one to believe."

"Harder to believe is that I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them." The Commander said as she walked around from behind her. After a few steps, the woman turned to look at Jack before sitting down. "Every tactic I've used in the service has been inspired at some point by when I was with the Reds."

"I met someone in the Reds before," Jack shot back. "They weren't anything close to you. Especially didn't fight like you did just now."

Eileen shook her head with a smirk playing on her lips. "The groups changed since I was a member. Turned into xenophobic idiots after getting too much power. I wouldn't be surprised if Cerberus goes knocking on their door sometime soon."

"Still doesn't explain how you just dropped me like that." Jack tried to act indifferent, but a spark in her eyes betrayed her. Nobody beat her, especially as easy as Shepard just did.

"Much as I like to keep it quiet, Joker and I have one thing in common. We were at the top of the fields we chose. He was the best in his flight school, and I kicked ass in close combat." The Commander chuckled a bit as she turned her head to the ceiling, "Though I guess having some biotics helped me in that area."

"No shit, girl-scout," Jack bit back. As good as the information on why she could do it was, it still didn't tell her how the woman had just made her feel like she had ran a planet's surface in ten minutes. It made her angry to think that the soldier wasn't going to tell her how she did it, either. "So, are you going to tell me why you brought me here, or are you just going to let me get back up to kick your ass."

"You're pretty strong, Jack. The most powerful biotic I've ever met, but I'll beat you every time you get up. I learned long ago that it doesn't matter how strong you are if you can't use it properly." Shepard paused for a moment as they stared each other in the eyes. Jack could almost see the dulling in her eyes as the former Spectre started again. "Have I ever told you about the first time I used my biotics?"

"Do I really look like someone who likes a trip down 'memory lane'?" Jack questioned. First Miranda wanted to tell her about her Daddy issues, and now Shepard was telling old stories? Next thing she'll know, the Drell on the crew deck would want to tell her all about the Hanar ass he's kissed.

"No, but I'm not really giving you a choice here. Now shut up and listen or I'll cover you in paint rounds." Knowing that Shepard wasn't kidding, Jack laid back, supporting her body with her arms, waiting for the red-head to continue.

"Back when I was in the Reds, I used to carry my own crew around. Four friends that would follow me around and another Red member we would keep around to scare whoever we ran into. Adam, if I remember right. Looking back, he kind of reminds me of you."

"Yeah? And how's that?" Jack didn't bother even trying to hide her smirk, the Commander being too far in thought to notice it anyways. It would have been the perfect time to attack, had the ex-con actually wanted to. Despite her protest earlier, she was interested in what could have made the woman in front of her into what she was. Even going through Cerberus' files, she could only find the bare minimum on the soldiers' background.

"He didn't care for anybody except himself. If anybody got in the way of what he wanted, even one of my friends, he would attack them. Dangerous as he was, he still helped us, so we stayed out of his way and he kept everybody else away. At least until something happened."

Shepard paused to look at the biotic, noticing she had the woman's full attention. "For years, Adam was living from one pleasure to the next, and everybody turned blind and deaf to it. Everybody except me. Every man he killed and every girl he raped, I heard it, and it killed me a little more every time. He was the worst of scum down there, and I decided to make him stop."

"Yeah, and how did he take that," Jack growled out as she rubbed her leg. The pain from before had faded fast, but it still stung as her adrenalin started running low.

"He decided I was a good enough target to vent on. At the time, the fight was pretty tough. He was stronger than I was, but I was faster. The only problem was that I didn't know how to fight as well as I do now. It left me at a disadvantage that he easily took up."

"Eventually, he caught me and started trying to molest me. I was weak then, trying to hit him anywhere I could to make him stop, but it was useless. I had my moment, though, when he tried to take off his pants."

Eileen jabbed a fist in front of her, as though punching at an invisible target, "I put all the strength I could into a punch at his face. I wanted to hit him so hard it would put him through the wall behind him. I didn't realize that I had hit him with biotics until that wall fell in on him."

Wide-eyed, Jack laughed at the thought of Shepard punching some idiot through a brick wall without any implants to increase her biotics. The only thing crazier than the thought was that the ex-con actually believed she did it. The Commander made her carrier out of doing impossible things, who's to say that she didn't make a life of it before becoming a Spectre. "So what happened to the guy?"

"He lived." Eileen noted the visible shock on Jack's face before she continued, "The people inside the building called an ambulance that dragged him to the hospital in time to save him. He isn't able to walk anymore, though. Being knocked through a wall severed his spine in his lower back. He no longer has any feeling below his waist."

Hearing that only made Jack laugh more. As much as she hated people, and as much as she liked sex, she could never even think about raping someone. Even a Cerberus lapdog like Miranda deserved better than to be used like that. "Sounds like he got what he deserved."

"Yeah, but it left my friends vulnerable. While I was getting rid of Adam, some other gangs decided to take that time to attack my friends. I lost them all that day. They either died, or hated me for getting rid of the person who kept them safe. I quit the Reds soon after and ran straight to the Alliance recruiting office."

Jack was silent for a moment, letting Shepard sit in her memories. When she realized the Commander was finished with her story, she spoke up. "Is that all?"

Shepard nodded, keeping a close eye on Jack as she sat forward to talk. "You know, if you were just going to talk about your gang days, we could have skipped the fighting and stayed in the Hideaway. Woulda been a lot more comfortable and less painful."

Keeping a close eye on her, Jack watched as the Commander stood and offered her hand to help the biotic up. The tattooed woman waited for a minute before grabbing the hand and was pulled up. As soon as she was on her feet, pain exploded in her jaw once more as Shepard punched her again.

"What the fu-"

"Were you listening at all to what I was telling you?" Shepards voice was much louder than the biotics, practically deafening her own yell. Not knowing what else to do, Jack decided to yell back at the woman.

"I guess I fucking wasn't, so what the hell do you want from me?" Shepard punched at her again, but Jack was ready this time, dodging while grabbing the Commander by her wrist.

"I want you to get your damn act together, and for you to stop being so goddamn stupid." As the red-head yelled this, a biotic blast shot through her hand, shooting the biotic back toward a pile of crates. Jack lifted a barrier around herself as soon as she could, cutting down the impact against the crate.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Jack rasped out, using the crate behind her to help her stand more quickly. Despite the barrier protecting her, she still hit the metal box harder than she would have liked to, knocking the wind out of her. When the ex-con looked up, Shepard had rushed herself to be right in front of her, grabbing at one of the straps she used to keep her chest covered.

"I'm talking about you having a gift that you had to fight for, and using it for something as petty as revenge." Shepard practically roared into her face. "I'm talking about you living like Adam did, going from one kill to the next."

Now that was it. Shepard could kick her ass, and the convict would be fine with it, but she wouldn't let the red-head get away with judging her. Soon after the words left Eileen's mouth, Jack's fist was up, throwing a punch at the woman. The Commander pulled back an instant before the fist came into contact, leaving her punching into thin air.

Suddenly, the tattooed woman felt the familiar sensation of weightlessness as her feet were swept out from underneath her. All too soon, her body was met with the cold metal of the bay's floor. Stunned for a moment, Jack barely even felt when the Commander planted herself on her back, pulling the bald woman's arm behind her.

"I'm talking about being on a ship where you could actually trust some people, but deciding to hate them for no goddamn reason. That is what I'm talking about."

Jack tried to struggle out from under Shepard, but it was a losing battle. The biotic knew it was hopeless, but she couldn't stop from struggling. No matter what, she could never give in.

"Jack."

The sudden softness to the Commanders voice made the convict stop, her mind flashing back to the raven-haired woman a few decks above again. She shook her head clear of the image before looking back through the corner of her eye and responding with a tired, "What?"

She could see the trace of a smile on Shepard's face as she stood, getting off of the tattooed woman. The red-head stepped in front of Jack's head before kneeling down, knowing the biotic was watching her. Despite the weight being removed from her back, Jack couldn't seem to move more than her head. It was as though her limbs were made of lead.

"You are a good person, Jack. You may be arrogant and rude, but I know you're a good person. That's why I hate it when I see that reminder of the Reds in you."

"I've had to kill too many people because they had nothing more than killing to live for, and I've seen too many people die because they wanted to be by themselves. I want you to find something to live for, Jack." Jack opened her mouth, ready to shoot off some curses at the woman, when she felt Shepard's hand rest on her head. Looking up, the biotic was struck speechless to find that the Commander had tears trailing down her face. She had never seen Shepard cry before, even after that Asari that she liked gave her the cold shoulder.

"I don't want to have to kill another member of my crew."

Darkness was starting to surround Jack's vision as Eileen stood and walked out of her sight. The sound of the elevator door opening and closing barely registered with her, her mind now focused on trying to stay awake. Not a fan of passing out where anybody could find her, the biotic slowly tried to stand, but was only able to rise up to her knees before her body decided to give out on her, forcing her to the ground again.

The tattooed woman continued trying, and failing, to get to her feet until she had only a shred of consciousness left. When the elevator door opened, Jack couldn't even muster up the energy to look to see who was seeing her in such a sad state. The soft tapping of heels on the metal floor told her that the person was coming closer, making the ex-con tense up. She knew what people did when you couldn't stop them.

Her thoughts fell away as a pair of arms were wrapped around her, rubbing her arm lightly. The calming movements seemed to work as she visibly relaxed. However, with her tension, the last of her energy left her, causing her to black out.

When Jack regained consciousness the next day she noticed that what she was laying on was too soft to be the floor of the launch bay and too wide to be her cot. While she appreciated the bed, going to sleep in one place and waking up in another was never a good sign. Despite her bodies protesting soreness, the biotic sat up and looked around the room, looking for who she would need to kill before Shepard for taking advantage of her blacking out.

Her eyes crossed the room before stopping at the back of the raven-haired Miranda Lawson sitting at a desk. The ex-con immediately relaxed at the sight, knowing exactly where she was. It helped that she knew that the woman in front of her wouldn't do anything to her without asking first.

"I'll be with you in a moment, Jack," the woman called back to her, "I just need to finish this."

Jack sat there and watched Miranda as she worked, typing away at another report that she'll be sending to the Illusive Man. At times she wondered what the loyalist woman said about her in those reports. Try as she might, though, Cerberus' cheerleader was good at keeping the biotic out.

It wasn't long before Miranda turned her holo-board off and turned to look at Jack. Staring into those blue eyes, the biotics heart certainly didn't speed up. Just like how her heart definitely didn't break as she remembered their fight the day before.

As the convict tried to regain the control she seemed to have lost in the last day, Miranda decided to break the silence between them. "You're probably wondering why you're in my bed after our fight yesterday."

Barely comprehending the words as she fought to keep her emotions in check, Jack gave a short snort. "May have crossed my mind."

Miranda smirked as she stood from her seat and walked over to lean against the window. "I received a visit from the Commander last night after your fight. She didn't tell me what happened, but she told me that you were on the Launch deck and that you needed a bit of help getting to bed."

"That doesn't explain why I'm in your bed."

Miranda had the smile of a predator that had just trapped her prey as she walked closer to her prey. "You're in my bed because you passed out and I wanted to have a talk with you when you woke up."

"Well, I'm awake now and it sounds like we're talking to me." Jack gave a short jerk of her head, motioning for Miranda to come closer to her. When the woman sat near her legs, the convict continued, "So get to the point already."

The Cerberus loyalist nodded, a strand of black hair falling in front of her face before being neatly tucked away again. She opened her mouth, as though about to say something, but quickly shut it and looked at where her hands rested in her lap. As surprising as it was seeing Miranda unsure of what to say, Jack was getting tired of surprises and getting impatient with the woman.

"Will you just spit it out?" The tattooed woman almost yelled, breaking the woman out of her thoughts.

"Right then." Miranda pulled herself back together quickly as she looked from her lap back to the biotic laying in her bed. "I wanted to say... I'm sorry."

Right then, all of Jack's thoughts stopped and Miranda looked away again. The convict could deal with anger easily enough but apologies were a completely different story. She was clueless on how to deal with someone apologizing to her. So, the bald woman sat there staring at the raven-haired beauty, who took her silence as a cue to continue.

"Yesterday, I said some things I shouldn't have and I worded some things wrong. What I wanted to say was that it was a mistake what they did to you. I never meant to say that you were a mistake."

Jack watched as Miranda looked back to her, her eyes watering up with the beginnings of tears. Completely out of her element, Jack's mouth opened and closed without words. The Cerberus woman leaned closer to the biotic, her face a few inches away, and placed a hand on her sheet covered leg when she asked, "Can you forgive me?"

Almost automatically, Jack leaned forward and kissed the woman, a jolt running through her body at the contact. As bad as she was at situations like this, the convict figured this was the right thing to do. She was proven right as Miranda returned the affection.

At what felt like too soon, the raven-haired woman pulled away from the biotic. Pulling the bald-girl into an embrace, Miranda softly spoke into her ear, "Thank you." The two words seemed to be enough to force Jack's heart fast enough that she could hear it's beats.

Jack quickly calmed herself down before pulling away from the woman before her. Thinking about the other day, the tattooed woman seemed to remember something important. A smirk placed itself on her face as she addressed the woman in front of her.

"You know, I never did get to have fun yesterday."

In the Main Battery, Shepard and four other members of the Normandy's crew sat around a card table playing Skyllian Five when a light banging noise could be heard from one side of the room.

"Told you it was a lover's quarrel. Now, pay up." Shepard said with a smirk as she looked over her cards.

"It shouldn't count, you helped settle it." Garrus complained as he pulled a few credits from a pocket on the inside of his armor.

"That's right, of course they'd get together if you helped." Donnelly said as he pulled out his own credits, Daniels agreeing with him as she did the same.

"All I did was put them in the same room together, they did the rest." Eileen said as she took the credits from her crew members.

"I am interested to know what you were doing with Jack on the docking bay, though." Thane said as he looked at Shepard. "Also, raise ten."

"Kind of a risky move against Garrus there, Thane. He's never really had a poker face, even after the gunship shot him, and it's saying he's got something good." Shepard said as she watched Garrus' mandibles move back and forth. "As for Jack, I just decided to beat some sense into her. Raise five."

Jack laid on Miranda's bed, the woman curled up next to her and resting on her arm. Apparently, the cheerleader had been awake all night, waiting for the biotic to wake up to apologize. As she lay there, her other arm found its' way around the other woman's waist.

In her sleep, Miranda moved closer into the biotics warm embrace, a small smile gracing her lips. As a smirk played on Jack's lips, some of Shepard's last words ran through her mind. Holding the raven-haired woman close, the convict thought to herself.

"Looks like I do have more to live for."

#Mass Effect #Fanfiction #Mass Effect 2 #subject zero #Jack #miranda lawson #Femshep

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lady-wildflower · 8 years ago

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Stargate Fanfiction - Not Yet Titled

Eli had moved his search to the engineering spaces, it seemed like the second most likely place for spares. Still no luck.

“God damn it!” he exclaimed, kicking the wall in frustration. “Owww”

He had one and a half weeks to find it, or to fix it. The alternative wasn’t exactly enticing; death. The boy-genius had considered talking to Ginn or Perry, the two women whose consciousnesses were currently dormant in the computer. No, too much power. He was on his own, no matter what he did.

And then, quite suddenly, he was elsewhere.

John, Rodney, Teyla and Ronon shimmered into existence in the large hall that was the gate room. The room was rusty, all the metal a dull brown. A Stargate stood proudly at the end of the room, but this one was different. The chevrons were white, and the glyphs composed of vertical lines, circles and dots. At the other end, various stairs and a platform stood, as well as a computer station. John’s hand immediately went to his nose.

“Someone liked fish around here.” John’s nose crumpled up.

“Smells like the CO2 scrubbers have crapped out.” Rodney strode over to the control panel, tablet in hand.

“Should we not have the Daedalus send spare oxygen, in that case?” Teyla asked, Ronon nodding in agreement.

“Should be fine for now. Wait a second.”

“What’s up?” John asked, still pinching his nose. Rodney pressed a button, and the room’s lights glared on, a high pitched whine escaping the gate.

“This is in Ancient.”

“So we can have it?”

“Daedalus to away team, is everything alright Looks like the lights are coming on over there.” Caldwell’s voice grated into Rodney’s ears over the comm.

“It’s like the ship knows we’re here.” Rodney replied. “But there’s definitely nobody aboard but us.” a quick glance at the life signs detector confirmed that.

“Rodney, you pressed a button. How does that equal ‘it knows we’re here’?” Shepard asked.

“I didn’t do anything but turn on the lights in this room, but the entire ship started booting up as soon as we beamed in.”

“Cool.” As the word escaped Shepard’s lips, the gate behind them whirred to life, the chevrons lighting up. Surprisingly, it also began to spin. Entirely. That was new to Rodney, and he stared at it quizzically.

“Incoming!” Teyla announced, switching her safety off. Ronon took his usual stance, large pistol outstretched. Both the Satedan and the Athosian quickly stepped away from the front of the gate. Rodney ducked behind the console, and Shepard aimed for the spinning ring. The gate activated with the usual flash and ‘kawoosh’.

“Shepard to Daedalus, we’ve got an incoming wormhole.” John said urgently, right before a middle-aged man fell out of the event horizon and the gate shut off once more. Steam vented from beside the gate as the man slowly got to his feet, shivering. He was clearly unarmed, but the SG team remained alert.

“Identify yourself!” Shepard yelled, startling the newcomer, who jumped. He was wearing grey clothing of a leather-esque material, with a certain functionality to it. He was balding, and his eyes were blue.

What came out of his mouth startled Mckay more than the others.

“Shepard… he’s speaking Ancient. An old dialect, really old, but it’s Ancient alright.”

“Great. Last time we had Ancients, they took over Atlantis.”

“This is only one guy, how bad can he be?”

“So was Michael. And what if he’s a replicator?”

“The dialect he��s speaking comes from way before the replicators were even conceived of. I think he’s as old as this ship.” Shepard looked at Rodney like he was stupid; a look he very rarely was given the opportunity to use.

“Rodney, nobody’s living that long. Even if they’re an Ancient.”

“Think about it. This ship has a Stargate, what if he was left in the buffer by accident? And when we turned up, the ship woke up and spat him out.” John was disappointed; he never got to prove Rodney wrong.

“Cool.” The Ancient was still talking.

“Mckay. What’s he saying?” Ronon asked. Rodney listened for a few seconds.

“He’s asking where his crew is, they were supposed to come with him, who are we, what happened to the ship.”

“Shepard to Daedalus, we’ve got an ancient Ancient here, seems to have been left in the buffer of a Stargate aboard.”

“Daedalus, did you say that there is a Stargate aboard?” Caldwell asked, confusion filling his voice.

“Yes sir. Stargate. This ship is definitely Ancient, colonel.”

General Jack O'Neill had seen better days, health-wise. What could he say, he was getting old. His hair had already been going grey over ten years ago when General Hammond had called him in after the Apophis incident. Daniel told him he needed to get out more. To hell with that, he wasn’t the one going on Stargate missions anymore; that was Col. Mitchell.

Then again, a little exercise wouldn’t hurt. Or maybe it would, you never know.

Jack was visiting the SGC once again. Realistically, he hoped nothing interesting would happen. He’d had enough of interesting after the incident with Colonel Telford. Homeworld Command was generally pretty calm, all things considered. Sure, there was a war on with the Lucien Alliance, but there were very rarely catastrophes. Now that all the Daedalus classes had the Asgard beam weapons, they held their own very well against the Ha’tak ships the Luciens had taken. Plus there were talks of the X-305 and declassification of the Stargate program. The former, Jack was very happy with. More firepower never hurt, at least not the people wielding it. The latter though? Jack didn’t want to deal with PR. It was one of the perks of working in a top-secret project.

Hopefully they weren’t serious. He did think it should be declassified at some point; it would have to be. But the public wasn’t ready. And they needed to co-operate with the entire planet if they did that; even the governments who had sworn to secrecy had been pissed when they found out the US Air Force had control of a space portal and a load of ships. Good luck telling the entire world about it without rioting.

And inevitably, there’d be the people saying the Gate was dangerous. Sure, it was. But it wasn’t a death machine. He’d been through it countless times, unless you read his reports, and he was still the same old Jack.

“Jack! How’ve you been?” Hank Landry said as he walked into the office.

“Not bad. You?”

“Just got a rather interesting transmission from the Daedalus. Take a look at this.” Landry handed Jack a printout of a photo taken. Jack saw it. Looked at Landry. Looked back.

“You’re kidding me.” he said. He recognized that ship.

“Why?”

“No way the Destiny got there. What is it, CGI?”

“Destiny? That ship the Icarus expedition went to?”

“Yeah. No way you got a photo. Who made it?”

“Nobody made it, Jack. This is a confirmed photograph from the bow camera of the Daedalus.” Jack was confused.

“Well it’s not Destiny, that bucket of bolts is wayyyyyy out there.” Jack said, pointing at the ceiling.

“There was more than one Aurora type, maybe there’s more than one Destiny.”

Aboard the Daedalus, the Ancient newcomer was looking around in a semi-panic. Rodney had explained to him the beaming technology, but he hadn’t liked it. They had beamed him into the infirmary, so they could check he was all right and that he didn’t have some sort of disease the Tau’ri had never encountered.

To be continued.

#fanfiction #stargate #sg-1 #atlantis #universe #ancient #daedalus #destiny

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