#The other tiny detail that I guess I noticed but hadn’t done the math on was the boxing bag in the new headquarters

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 51.03 - London Business School vs Hertford, Oxford

Since it was introduced at the 1988 Olympics, every single Gold Medal in the Women’s Team event in the Archery has gone to South Korea. Including yesterday’s win that’s nine straight victories, and their period of unparalleled dominance continues. The men’s team have also won six of the nine they have contested, and a mixed team won the first staging of that event in Tokyo too. Adding their success in the individual events, South Korea have won 26 gold medals, and 42 in total, in the 43 archery events which have been thus far staged at the Olympic Games. 

As Twitter’s own @tarequelaskar pointed out in the brilliant article which alerted me to this story, this is a perfect example of specialisation, an economic concept whereby countries or companies focus intensely on one particular aspect of a given industry and come to serve that niche in such a specialised fashion that they become the ultimate experts and nigh-on irreplaceable. This is done in government and business by providing companies with incentives to specialise, and supporting those who succeed at it. 

With respect to Korean archery, similar forces are at play. There are a bunch of professional teams and leagues in the country, giving archers financial stability while they focus on their training, something not as common across the world. Said training involves such things as practicing in live baseball stadiums and replicas of the Olympic venues, to mimic first the atmosphere and then the conditions that will be present on the day of the actual tournament. 

This philosophy of marginal gains - the same system used by Team Sky and Chris Froome to win multiple Tour De Frances on the trot - puts their preparation miles ahead of the competition, which goes some way to explaining their dominance. It is not the only reason. Before the fine-tuning of the elite shooters comes the discovery of the promising young ones, and the inspiring nature of past success (along with a historic national love of the sport) helps to create a virtuous cycle which give Korea a far larger number of archers to choose from than any other country. This greater choice means that there is a greater chance of finding the next Gold medallists.

Making the argument that professional footballers are at a higher level than other elite sportspeople, Michael Cox used this same argument in a recent article for The Athletic. To summarise, he stated that because there are a far higher number of people who wish to become professional footballers, that must mean that the ones who do make it are at a higher standard than those who make it in other sports. Initially, I was drawn in by the pure maths of this point, but having thought about it some more I’m no longer sure to what extent I agree. 

Now, the fact that hundreds of millions more people play football than rugby, or basketball, will certainly confer some level of “eliteness”, but only up to a certain point. Because football has been so popular for so long, the general standard of the play, relative to what it used to be, has had longer to improve. In the same way that if you transplanted a 100m runner from the Olympic final in the early 20th century to now they probably wouldn’t even qualify for the games, a footballer from the 80s would stand less of a chance of making it were they playing today. Many other sports don’t have that level of natural progression, afforded by decades of technical and tactical advancement - at least not globally. 

But the numbers argument only goes so far, as can be demonstrated by the Korean archers. Yes, there are more archers in Korea than anywhere else, relatively, giving them a higher chance of uncovering those with a natural aptitude, but the reason behind their bow and arrow dynasty is the specialisation. The hyper-detailed level of training and focus which allows them to be the best they can possible be. 

Now, archery is unique in that there is a theoretical maximum score (I understand that this is to some extent arbitrary, and related to the rules of the game as defined by some human being, semi-randomly, but it works in terms of this argument, because it gives a percentage score of how good the archers are based on the agreed-upon parameters of the sport), which, at the Olympics, is 720. The Olympic record is 700 (held by Korean Kim Woo-jin, giving an implied “eliteness level” of 97.2%. 

The best player in the history of football (don’t @ me) is Lionel Messi, and few would doubt that he operates at or above that level of perfection in his sport. But I also don’t think you could doubt that Novak Djokovic, or Serena Williams in her pomp, were similarly magnificent at tennis. Cyclists on the Tour De France put their bodies through more in three weeks than most people endure in a decade, and have every aspect of their training and diet strictly controlled so as to bring them as close to perfection as possible. There will certainly be a higher number of these elite performers in football, because there are a higher number of paying jobs for said elite performers, and because more people attempt to become elite performers, but I don’t think that it follows on from that that they are better at their sport than other elite athletes, all of whom have undergone years and years of specialised training to get them where they are.

Does any of this matter, in terms of how each sport should be enjoyed? Probably not, but its interesting to think about, and kind of awe-inspiring to try and appreciate just how good those at the top of their respective games are. And if there is some discrepancy in the level of eliteness between the different sports it doesn’t detract from the fact that they would handily dispatch any civilian challengers without breaking a sweat. The joy comes from watching people who are good at stuff doing that stuff - and, as evidenced by the crowds which gather for non-league football, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are at the absolute pinnacle of said stuff. They’re still going to be much better than the rest of us. 

Competitive quizzing is different from the activities previously mentioned in that any normal person can have a guess at pretty much any question, with a chance that they’ll get it right. What sets the contestants apart on shows like University Challenge is the speed of their recall under pressure - the quickness of their knowledge as well as the knowledge itself. But there are plenty of armchair quizzers who think they could wipe the floor on the show, so just how good are the actual contestants? (Compared to an elite footballer or archer on an imaginary scale that accounts for relative skill in all disciplines?). I don’t know (and in case you hadn’t noticed by now I’m just fascinated by people who are really good at anything, and wanted to share some of that fascination with you all), but I’ll try and have a go at answering it anyway. 

So, the World Quizzing Championships have been dominated by British and Irish quizzers since its inception in 2003, with 16 of the 18 winners coming from either Britain or the Republic of Ireland (who have four wins courtesy of The Egghead Pat Gibson). This, in my mind, makes this neck of the woods comparable to South Korean archery. It is a hotbed of talent, and the infrastructure is in place to encourage and aid talent maximalisation. Indeed, if you scroll down the list of highest ranking players at the WQC in any given year you can see a significant cohort of UC alums, so clearly there are a number of elite quizzers who have passed through the show. 

This specialisation can be seen in microcosm with the preponderance of top-level quizzers produced by Oxford and Cambridge, who both have a long-standing culture of competitive quizzing far beyond other Universities. The debate is there to be had on the fairness of each institution having so many teams, but clearly they produce enough elite players to compete with far bigger Unis when entering as (sometimes tiny) colleges. 

In conclusion, I think it is pretty obvious that UC is a breeding ground for world-class quizzers, and though no one has won a World title straight off the bat after appearing on the show, there are top-50 and top 100 finishes abound, which is still greatly impressive, and helps to give an idea of just how good these students really are. 

Hoping to justify the 1000 words I’ve just written about their exceptional talents are two teams from the London Business School and Hertford College, Oxford. The Oxford side have never made it beyond the second round, but LBS reached the semi-finals in 2006, their only previous appearance on the show. Anyway, there is quite literally no time for me to recite the rules; here’s your first starter for ten... 

Paxman mentions that LBS were in the show in 2006, but doesn’t mention that they reached the semi final, which is lazy imo. A bunch of them are studying for MBAs, which makes sense. He doesn’t mention Hertford’s previous appearances either, but that’s more understandable.

Hertford’s Hitchens takes the first starter with Kennedy, and the Oxonians added a full set of bonuses on words made up by authors - including a couple of educated guesses. LBS hit back with the next question, but can only manage one bonus on famous scientists. One of the two they miss is Rosalind Franklin, and Paxman teases them for not spotting an apparently obvious clue within the question.

The first picture round is on national emblems, and LBS are first to recognise that of Vietnam for the starter. They don’t know Laos or Belarus, but do know that Mozambique has a machine gun on its one. Butterworth then jumps the gun with argon on the next starter, giving his answer just as Paxman says it in the question. Butterworth makes up for it with the music starter, recognising Fat Boy Slim before anyone else, and LBS know Primal Scream and Wu Tang Clan too. They’re still fifty points behind though, and will need a big second half to turn things around.

This task gets more difficult for them, as Hitchens takes another starter. Lloyd adds a second in a row for Oxford and they are nearly one hundred points clear. LBS really need to get some points on the board, and Ruess duly obliges, knowing that there is a massive sculpture of a spider called Maman, which sounds needlessly scary, to the extent that I’m not even going to google it.

The comeback is ended before its even begun as Oswald takes a starter for Hertford, which gives them the picture bonuses - the starter having been dropped by both teams. Lloyd produces another excellent guess of Reuben, demonstrating how useful it is to have vague knowledge as well as specific knowledge. This is one of probably five questions he has answered in a throwaway manner, but which turned out to be correct. 

By this point LBS seem to have accepted defeat. Ruess takes another starter, but there is little to no urgency on the bonus questions. They’re right, granted, to have none, they have no chance of winning, but if they gave it a go they might scrape a high scoring loser spot. Ruess is the only one who seems bothered, and bags himself ten more points. They have an amusing discussion about methods of poisoning in Agatha Christie novels (’it was used as a curry ingredient?’, Ruess wondered aloud, trying to figure out which spices could be poisonous, before Butterworth pointed out that it wasn’t something commonly used as a curry ingredient, prompting respectful mirth from the audience) on the bonuses, but still languish miles behind. 

Lloyd grabs the last starter of the night for Hertford, who win by eighty at the gong.

Final Score: London Business School 100 - 180 Hertford, Oxford

At the end, Paxman mentions Hertford’s stellar guesswork, which means I wasn’t chatting nonsense (at least on that front, the jury is out on the rest of it), and says that they’ve done a really good job. Incredibly effusive praise for a score of 180. He really is going soft in his old age.

Phew, that was a long one. If you made it through the intro you deserve a prize. And that prize is that you get to come back next week for the next episode of this blog!! Woop woop! 

And if this wasn’t quite enough UC content for you then you can subscribe for extra blogs on my Patreon, which features Retro Reviews from the 2015/16 series of the show. Ta x

[fleechin]

Separatory Funnel

Here’s my 2020 Portal Secret Santa for @artistyutaki, she offered a few prompts but one that I thought was interesting was Chell and GLaDOS/PotatOS hiding from Wheatley in the later chapters of Portal 2. I thought I might as well tie it into some of Chell’s thoughts about the ordeal, while also showing what Wheatley’s up to. I also noticed she was interested in the idea of computer gore, with plates and cables all over the place, so I tried to incorporate a bit of that in as well. I also threw in a tiny nod to Mel and Blue Sky since she mentioned she’s a Blue Sky fan. So this ended up being longer than I thought, and it’s my first time writing a proper fanfic of sorts, but I really hope you like this! I had a great time making it!

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This was not the best place to be in right now. 

Not that it ever was down here, but where Chell was at this exact moment was especially not great. She didn’t complain though, it could always get worse. Actually, it usually did get worse, especially right about when she would wonder if it ever could. Perhaps it was best not to ask that question right about now. Sure, she had just fallen from a deactivated funnel and landed in a dark office whose only door was blocked by overturned desks, monitors, and furniture, which happened to be heavy enough that it’d be a pain in the back to move but for whatever reason the Portal Gun didn’t want to pick up. On the bright side, at least she didn’t fall all the way back down to the 1950s again.

Realistically though, knowing Aperture, it was bound to get worse no matter what she did. If even superstition was anywhere near reliable at this point, it would have been an improvement compared to everything else in this insane complex that somehow had only gotten stranger and more… alien-like, almost, after its founder had died of moon rock poisoning. At least the idea of a set of metal underground spheres laced with asbestos and full of half finished test chambers, the brainchild of a man proudly named Cave, was somewhat navegable. There was an understanding that if one were to see some place and travel far enough in that direction, they would eventually get to that place. If that place moved downwards in freefall, it would be because of the design of the facility, not some sarcastic supercomputer trying to keep her testing while calling her fat.

This bundle of desks, chairs and monitors was somehow all tangled up, with the wires going all over the place. It looked like she would have to either pull the whole thing at once or remove each one separately.

The recordings she heard from Cave Johnson painted a general picture, though they didn’t get awfully specific. But seeing as ground up moon rocks were all the rage down here back in those days, and hearing Cave coughing while ranting about lemons for some reason, it wasn’t difficult for her to figure out exactly how they managed to finally bring down the founder of Aperture. The real surprise? That somehow every other employee at Aperture hadn’t inhaled the stuff and keeled over. It had to have been a possibility, as there was no way that anyone smart enough to work a portal gun would have taken it upon themselves to design any part of this place without being crazy enough to consider the idea. 

This table was a lot heavier than it looked. Hopefully she could fold it over. It wasn’t exactly easy to see the parts that let the table fold on itself when it was this dark.

Could she have been one of those scientists? Chell couldn’t remember anything about herself before waking up under Her testing course, however long ago that was, or whether she was actually adopted, like every personality construct in this place seemed to think was a big deal. Any attempt at figuring out how she got down here would have to be based on guesswork. She was a test subject, which made her a likely employee at some point, though if Her insults were anything to go by, she was only a part time employee. Not committed to this job, just doing it on the side to make ends meet.

She finally managed to fold the damn table, and began to drag it out of the way.

At least that meant she wasn’t some Olympian from the 60s who got tricked into going here. Or a homeless person that got plucked off the streets of some town in Upper Michigan all for the promises of $60 at the end. She wasn’t sure how much that would be in today’s money, but wasn’t about to get optimistic. The real downside to it all was that she never would be able to figure it out. She didn’t even know how long it had been other than that it was long enough to concern Wheatley about brain damage, and even if there were information available about her and why she was here to begin with, she didn’t want to go out of her way to find it. Her main goal was getting out of here as quickly as possible, so there was no time for expositional detours. 

At most, she could stumble upon her backstory without looking for it. Figuring out what happened to Caroline was enough for one day, or however long it had been since she had last gotten some sleep. Besides, it would probably be a huge letdown anyway. Maybe she really was adopted after her birth parents considered her completely unlikeable even as a baby. Maybe her last name was something boring, like Smith. Or Jones. Maybe her name wasn’t even Chell at all. But hey, at least it wasn’t Cave. Hopefully.

Of course, she could just ask the supercomputer turned potato battery where she came from. Yes, that would be a great idea, confiding in who up until recently was her own worst enemy about a detail that She had constantly made fun of. She definitely wouldn’t take advantage of that fact and tell her all about how little Miss Chell SmithJonesWhatever couldn’t hold a single job until she came here because everyone hated her. They seemed to be on good terms now, but she wasn’t going to risk jinxing herself. Besides, she had a rule. No talking in Aperture. Nothing that any AI said was ever worth a response. 

So the lights didn’t work in this room anymore. Phenomenal.

Regardless, even though it still didn’t explain whether she was one of the employees, part time, or otherwise, who might have almost inhaled ground up rocks that cost anywhere from a TV to a house - she wasn’t about to do the math to figure anything more precise than that - it was at least clear that she had made it into Aperture under vaguely legitimate pretenses, and that they considered her smart enough to get her hands on a machine that, in the right hands, could’ve solved the world’s climate crisis by generating free energy. It was damning with faint praise.

Which just so happened to summarize the remarks from her semi edible companion. Not directed at her, for once, rather the situation at hand. Neither one of them were the most frequent of talkers, but She was more willing to comment on the situation. Funny enough, once they happened to agree with each other, Chell could reasonably rely on her as somewhat of a spokesperson. 

“After seeing what he's done to my facility, after we take over again, is it alright if I kill him?” 

Chell looked over at the glowing yellow circle, the only part of Her she could actually make out in the darkness of the room, and could only shrug her shoulders. Do whatever you want, she would have said. Frankly, as much as the two had been getting along, Chell wasn’t about to act like this was some new found friendship between the two. As far as she was concerned, the facility deserved to explode in a mushroom cloud with a giant blast radius. The bigger the better. If she was lucky, it would kill Her, Wheatley, and every other personality construct. Just as long as she wasn’t there for it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since he was connected to the mainframe, Wheatley had been trying to figure out how to work this new body. Now that his only test subject was missing, admittedly due to a mistake on his part, he could explore further. There had to at least be some way to hack the solution euphoria program. But until then, the next order of business was to redesign his lair to his own liking. Not too bad a job She did, but it didn’t quite have the Wheatley style to it. Needed a bit more work. Namely, getting rid of that stalemate button. No way that could remain. 

“Right, so, asking the announcer... voice... guy... didn’t seem to do anything.” He said out loud, “Guess he didn’t quite understand what I was getting at. Hmm, wait a minute, maybe if I go and change this setting, then- Это программное обеспечение повреждено. Удалите его и обратитесь к администратору. Aaaand, nope, still there. Hasn’t even budged a little bit. Guess that didn’t work.”

He then remembered the complexities of hacking the neurotoxin emitters and thought he might start there. “Oh, um hello, Mister button, there.” He said in an accent beyond the rage of any human’s hearing, “I’m a representative of the mechanical parts… association, and we are inviting you to a… convention! Yes, a convention, with all sorts of members, cubes, turrets, even other buttons! And we’d like to invite you! Full expenses paid, shuttle bus straight there to the convention. And there’s going to be a whole panel on buttons! Who knows, they might even have you as a guest speaker! All you have to do is head straight down to the lowest part of the facility! That’s where the bus is! Just head on down there and you’re good to go!”

The button didn’t budge. 

“Not one for conventions I guess? Perhaps you’re more of an introverted sort of button. Doesn’t mind being pressed but also fine with staying where he is.”

Wheatley, being the genius he knew he was, figured he ought to look in the old tapes to see what Her old room looked like. Ever since She had been killed, the facility had been in some disarray, of that much Wheatley was well aware. The relaxation center had taken a hit, for sure, and it seemed the rest of the facility was none the better. Wheatley wondered how long it had been, and though he probably could have figured it out, this new interface wasn’t exactly what he would have considered user friendly. 

Come to think of it, he could figure out a few things at once by going through the recordings. For one, he could figure out what Her old room looked like and what She had done about this pesky little button. Or more interestingly, how her whole room got destroyed just from being shut down, that was always a mystery there. 

All he could find were tapes, and they didn’t seem too promising. Just video feeds of the room, none of which showed if the button was there at all or what she had done with it. Maybe skipping around a bit would work, perhaps it would show something. Nothing so far…

Wait a minute now, here were the tapes of when She was killed. Yes, this was definitely the same test subject all right. Silent as always, she was. Maybe her brain damage was pre-existing.

Well this was concerning. Neither neurotoxin nor the built in rocket turret defense station was enough to even faze her. All that nameless lunatic needed were a couple of seemingly easy portals and in less than the required six minutes She was dead. 

If that silent test subject was still alive, she could find any flaw in his lair design and it’d be bye bye Wheatley. 

First immediate order of business, no portal surfaces anywhere in the lair. That shouldn’t be too hard, just meant he would have to move some panels around. There, piece of cake, only a few panels detached and falling off. That was probably normal.

“Right, no portal surfaces anywhere. Check that off the list. Ding! Next we can- OW! Great, another panel just went and fell right out of the ceiling. Hit me right in the… to be honest I’m not sure what this part of me even is. Doesn’t really look like it does anything useful. Tell you what, how about I take this part off, don’t really need it do we? Won’t be hurting anymore, I imagine. Here we go, unscrewing… and done!”

The offending plate came off of his right side, pulling down several attached cables right out of their sockets, leaving them to dangle around and coil around the floor like snakes. Snakes that occasionally gave out electrical sparks. That probably existed somewhere in nature. Electric snakes. Maybe unicrons ate them. Wheatley made a mental note to look that up, right after learning how to play cards. 

“OK, wow that was actually pretty painful. Guess they don’t simulate any anaesthetic in this thing. Aaand now the lights are flickering on and off. Those are the lights, right? The flashlight doesn’t seem to be helping, so maybe I killed that too. That’s probably normal. Happens sometimes. That’ll probably fix itself.”

In the meantime, he at least had time to see what else was in Her old archives. Maybe there was a guide to fixing whatever was going on. Nope, nothing there. He did find an old security protocol system. Aperture Employee Guardian and Intrusion System, it was called. Interesting, that could help make sure she never got anywhere near his lair. Wait, no, that system was shut down locally. Before She went back online even. Odd, not clear who did that. What else was there… Oh, hang on a minute. The Cooperative Testing Initiative. That sounded useful. Wheatley kept reading. 

Yes, these two little bots seemed to be the fix for everything. As soon as he could he had one of each type assembled and sent straight up to his lair. 

“Hello! Right, so I understand you guys are built for testing, and what have you. So, I have selected you two to be my next testers. I need a few favors from you two though. See those cables down there? The ones that are kind of sparking there a bit? Those? Yeah, ever since I unhooked those, the lights have been flickering on and off.”

Blue looked at Orange, somewhat confused.

“You guys don’t see it? Wait, it just happened again real quick right there.”

Orange shook its head.

“So that might just be my optic sputtering out then. Yeah, that’s not great. Either way, I need you guys to try and get those back into me so I can see again. Now you might be wondering why I can’t just use those grabbers of mine and do it myself? Turns out, if I ever try to fix myself without someone else to help out, I’ll die. So you guys will have to do it for me.”

They both suddenly appeared nervous, and Blue slowly approached the bundle of wires. They sent out a spark and they both flinched. Upon reaching the wire, Blue picked up the first one, which went back in without a hitch. The second one was still going through the exterior plate that Wheatley had just unscrewed off. Pulling it as hard as possible didn’t work. Orange, annoyed, went up and pushed Blue out of the way, then slowly pulled out the cable and stuck it back in. By now the flickering was still happening, but only in randomly appearing colors.

“Great! OK now just one more to go! Home stretch!”

Orange was ready to pick up the last cable, but Blue, unrelenting, snatched it out of Orange’s grasp, and emphatically plugged it in. And then the flickering stopped.

“You did it! Bingo! Oh, man alive, that’s much better. Aaand now it seems you guys are knocking each other’s heads out of their… socket, things, whatever they’re called. Not really getting anything productive out of that, besides I kinda need you guys for something else.”

Neither Blue nor Orange were hearing it though. Once they had decided to play the classic game of Knock the Other Bot’s Head Off, there was little that could stop the competition. For personality constructs designed to get along, they did this a lot.

“Ahem, knock knock, anybody there?!”

It was getting heated. Now Blue was running around with Orange’s head, Orange’s body trying to chase after it but only managing to flail around miserably due to lack of eyes.

“ENOUGH!”

Wheatley hadn’t had an outburst like that in a while. It was a little easier when his only test subject and her potato weren’t driving him up the wall smashing his monitors and not giving him the relief when he wanted it. But the lack of test solution euphoria was starting to make its presence known once more, and it made him impatient as ever. Both bots stopped to look over, then Orange snatched its head and put it back on, glancing angrily at Blue.

“You know, there are bots in orphanages that don't even have heads to steal. Maybe think about how lucky you two are and stop fiddling around like that, yeah?”

They both looked at each other, shrugged the mechanical equivalent of their shoulders and gave each other a quick hug. Wheatley didn’t understand how they could forgive each other so quickly, but he wasn't about to object.

“Right, so, what I need you guys to do is see if we can find any neurotoxin reserves. Ever since I hacked the main factory, genius, I know; we haven’t had any neurotoxin to dispense. So I’m building you a testing course that should lead to where the neurotoxin facility was to see if you can find any clues. Alright, Go team!”

Several panels cleared out of the way to reveal two elevators facing each other, one blue and one orange. The bots looked at each other before taking off and heading to the disassembly machines. In less than a minute they had reached the first test, a simple introductory course with a laser and a redirection cube. And no test of Wheatley’s would be complete without his signature, the word TEST written in lights on the wall. 

These two were smart enough to have figured out how to solve it rather quickly, and Wheatley immediately felt the rush of solution euphoria. Whether it was the amount of time since he had last felt it or because he was testing new subjects, this felt much better than the last few tests he had gotten his other subject to try. Now he could focus on the text task, seeing if there was a trap he could build, just in case those two weren’t dead. Getting rid of the button would have to wait. Maybe if they found some turrets or explosives to keep anyone from reaching it, that could work as a solution. For a little while at least.

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Having cleared out all the tables, chairs, and any other debris lying around in what was once an office, Chell could finally get through to the other side and out the door. And the potato on her gun had done a great job at keeping her company. 

“Oh good, now we can get going again. Maybe we can find a way out of here.”

Chell picked up the portal gun and made her way out of the office. To her disappointment, the walkway just led down to the entryway to another test.

“Great, it looks like we’ll need to keep testing a little while longer. And I’m not sure we have that much more time left. Look on the bright side though. Maybe we’ll get to see more of that moron’s inventions. Maybe he’s gotten so desperate he’ll have tried to fuse a turret with a redirection cube and give it laser eyes.”

Chell couldn’t help but smile a bit at that. She resented that Wheatley had become like this, and somewhat missed him in a way, but it was nice to occasionally poke fun at his less than amazing intelligence.

“If a defective turret and a pile of trash had a baby, he would make an excellent pet for that baby.”

Chell’s smile grew slightly bigger and she chuckled silently. It was kind of nice to hear Her jokes while not also being the recipient. The classic insults thrown her way, that she was fat, adopted, unlikeable; those didn’t work on her at all. But they were at least well crafted, almost stand-up quality, though she never would have admitted that. Despite being a murderous former supercomputer with zero conscience up until this point, she did have a bit of a knack for humor. Chell would at least miss that when she left this place.

This was the end of the walkway, and Chell jumped down; her testing break was over. It was going to get tough before she finally did make it out of here.

[elizaisthetruehero]

Stranger with my Sister's Face Chapter 1

Someone at the DOD has a cruel sense of humor. That’s the only explanation Jo can think of for why her brother Tony is standing in front of her, being introduced as the new DOD liaison for Eureka and GD. Tony takes in his new assignment in stride as well as he can, though he has some trouble reconciling the person in front of him with his little sister. She just seems to have a little too much practice keeping secrets from him, starting with the boyfriend.

AO3 Link

Sunlight came streaming in through the windows and was glinting off of the data pad Zane was pushing in front of Jo. "Come on, one more problem, and then we'll take a quick break. You've got orbital and flight mechanics down, and you know the ship inside and out. I know you can do this. Let's just make sure everyone else knows it too."

Jo leaned back in her chair, where she was sitting at Zane's kitchen table, with more data pads and textbooks spread out in front of them. "And what were you thinking of for a break?"

"Well," Zane placed his hand on her arm, gently caressing up towards her shoulder, "you should probably have a snack, feed that brain. I've got the stuff for smoothies if that sounds good. Then", he leaned in and pressed a kiss to where her jaw met her ear, "I should probably make sure you get nice and relaxed. Studying while all tense can't be good for memory retention, I'm sure there's a study on it." He continued to press his lips along her jawline, marking a trail to her chin and back to her ear.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, someone in educational psychology has probably done studies on the length of the cramming session" another kiss was pressed to her jaw, "the proper environment" his nose nuzzled at the side of her face, "and what mental state the student should be in." He pressed a quick kiss to her lips and drew back, smirking. "I think a snack and a few minutes away from the books will be just what the doctor ordered."

Jo raised her brow and tried not to smile at his familiar antics. "I think you want an excuse to get me out of my clothes."

"Now Miss Lupo, who said anything about taking off your clothes? Besides, that dress looks so nice on you. It'd be a shame to take it off." Zane said while looking up and down her body, grinning appreciatively, his eyes lingering.

"I had church before I came to see you."

"I'm not complaining JoJo, just complimenting."

Jo's PDA buzzed, and she pulled it out to check it. They've got to be kidding me. "Shit, I gotta run."

"What happened?"

"The new liaison from the DOD came early. They sent someone active duty military, and I have to give their briefing and finish their clearance."

"How long is that going to take?"

She stood from the table and started looking through the papers for her wallet and keys. Where the hell did I put those? "Probably about an hour or so, I'll make Larry settle them into housing and everything else, I just have to handle the security aspect. It would have gone faster if they'd given me their information beforehand like I asked, but the DOD keeps to their own schedule. If it takes much longer than that I'll grab dinner from Café Diem for us on my way back. Does Thai sound good if I have to do that?"

"You don't want to make them sweat while you finish this last problem?"

She smiled at Zane's pouting face softly. "I'll finish up with this guy as quickly as I can and then I'm all yours to torture with orbital mechanics and rocket ship engineering for the rest of the weekend." Jo kissed him slowly, bringing a hand around the back of his neck. Zane pulled her to him, both arms slipping around her waist, a tongue licking into her mouth. She smiled against him then pulled away. "I'll text you when I get out of GD."

"Fine, go, do your job. Make sure that the DOD didn't send a complete moron our way."

"Or a Consortium spy."

Zane furrowed his brow in confusion. "Shouldn't they have already checked that?"

"Yeah, but my background checks are more thorough. Even if the DOD objects to them. Apparently, it's rude to request those records for a sitting Senator. But some lowly grunt is fair game." Jo grabbed her keys from the dish on the table beside Zane's front door and tried not to think of how she'd automatically tossed them there when she'd gotten there a few hours ago, how easily she'd slipped back into the habits built from two years together.

She drove off to GD, parked, grabbed the extra blazer she kept hanging in the backseat of her car, putting it on to look a little more professional and pulling her hair into a ponytail, now grateful that she hadn't changed after church. Her heels clicked on the floor as she made her way to the conference room off to the side of the rotunda.

Jo saw Daisy Lowell, one of her overnight and weekend security guards standing outside the conference room and nodded in greeting. "New liaison get in okay?"

"Uh, yeah, he just got here. His files are all here, and I ran the checks you like when he showed up, as soon as I got the name. No security concerns, no red flags." Jo heard a slight shuffle, looked down and saw Daisy's left leg shuffling, a tell that something was off with her.

"Is there something else you'd like to tell me?" Jo kept her tone light, but her eyes on the shifting leg.

Daisy kept her gaze forward but avoiding Jo's face. "One thing you should know Ma'am. When I saw his record, I noticed that it was someone who, well, uh, would be familiar to you."

Jo turned her eyes upwards to Daisy's face. "Someone I served with in the Rangers?"

"He was a Ranger." Her voice was tight, clearly taking care not to betray anything.

"Lowell..."

"Look, I didn't say you were the Chief of Security, and he didn't say anything, so I think he'll be just as surprised as you. Just go in there, do the briefing, and maybe schedule in time to catch up." Daisy handed her the file, moved out of the way of the door, and Jo pushed it open.

She first saw Senator Wen sitting at the head of the table, and the back of the new liaison. Crew cut, tan skin, the muscles obvious through the army dress uniform, but not particularly broad, though from what she could tell while sitting, fairly tall, at least six feet. She began cycling through the men she'd served with, trying to place him without the face or voice. Maybe Matteo Garcia, or Joey Pesci. Hell, if Adam Johnson had been serving somewhere sunny before coming here, he might be tan enough to fit the bill.

Senator Wen noticed her enter the room. "Ah, Ms. Lupo, glad you could join us." The new liaison's head swiveled around, and he almost toppled out of his chair getting up. Jo realized that all of her guesses were wrong, that while this man had been a Ranger, he hadn't served with her.

"Hi, Tony." She did her best to act blasé, though she was sure he would be able to recognize the surprise on her face.

Tony just blinked at her, looking just as he had when they'd been caught trying to sneak out to go to a concert years ago, "I, uh, Jo? What are you doing here?"

"You have a security briefing. I'm the Chief of Security here. Do the math, you're going to have to do a lot of it here."

"I thought you said you were working private security for some tiny tech company."

Jo drew her shoulders back and tried not to sound too smug. "You are familiar with the concept of top-secret and need to know, right? Cover stories? I do hope so, or else I'm going to have a hard time approving your clearance."

"Ah-hem." Jo and Tony turned to Senator Wen who had a slight upturn to her lips, almost a smile. "Evidently you two don’t need me to introduce you to each other."

Jo smiled, "No, that won't be necessary. That was taken care of a long time ago."

"You were irritating and loud from the moment we met," Tony smirked.

Jo chose not to respond verbally and simply backhanded him in the gut. "Senator, with all due respect, how long have you known my brother was coming to Eureka?"

Senator Wen did smile now. "Oh, a few days now. I thought it would be a nice surprise for the two of you." She walked around the table. "I'll let you get to work now. He already got an overview briefing in DC, he just needs the details of what's going on right now and security procedures."

"I'll take care of it." Jo and Tony each shook the Senator's hand before she left.

"Pleasure meeting you Major Lupo. Oh, and it goes without saying, but he will not have any say in the selection of Astraeus candidates. Washington was very clear about that." The senator left, and Jo tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach, the one that said that her brother's placement in Eureka had something to do with her.

"Well?"

Jo turned back to her brother. "Right, let's get this started. So, what were you told? I just want to make sure we don't miss anything."

Tony looked at her incredulously. "No no no, back up, let's take a minute. When one goes months without seeing one's siblings, it's customary to express some form of affection. Acknowledgment that we're not complete strangers. That sort of thing." He held his arms out and cocked his head.

She rolled her eyes and hugged him. "It's good to see you too Tony."

He chuckled. "Why did that sound like it hurt a little?" He squeezed her tighter, and Jo pushed her face into his neck smiling, taking in the familiar smell of the god-awful musky cologne he'd always worn. She hadn't smelled it since before 1947.

"Don't be a jackass."

"There's only so much I can do about that." They separated from the hug and sat down at the table. "We should probably get started."

Jo opened his file on the table and checked which briefing and checks he had gotten in DC and what Daisy had already taken care of. "Okay, so you know the basics. Eureka was founded as a place for the greatest scientific minds in the US to gather, collaborate and redefine the cutting edge. We get funded by the DOD, and they get military projects and inventions. You're the military liaison, so you're going to be focused on the projects with military applications and finding military applications for others, mostly weapons projects, but also infrastructure, energy alternatives, medical advancement, etc.

You'll have meetings with department and lab heads, but you should schedule those. These scientists are very busy, and their experiments often have delicate timetables. They can't drop everything to chat with you. I do not want one of their pet projects blowing up because you forgot how to work a phone. Is that clear?" Jo fixed her brother with a look that made it clear she was not making a suggestion.

"Yeah, crystal."

"I also see you were told about the Astraeus mission."

"Yeah, they mentioned the 20 Billion dollar space project. I'm still confused as to how it travels, but apparently, it's been tested and works, and last I checked, understanding how these things work wasn't my job."

"Yeah, it's a 6 month mission to one of Jupiter's moons, Titan. I'm sure the DOD will find some use for the research done on it. And no, no one expects you to understand the details of the science and the experiments done here, though you will probably pick some things up. The people here like to talk about their work, and you're going to be pressed for company that doesn't already have multiple PhDs."

"Okay," Tony looked over the paperwork he still had to sign and then asked, "What did Wen mean when she said I obviously wouldn't have any say over the candidates. I figured the DOD would want a little more say over who goes on this thing."

"You'd get accusations of bias." Jo drew her attention to the papers in front of her, looking for the different disaster procedure outlines for him to sign. If Larry lost them again, she'd kill him for real.

"Why would I get accused of bias? I don't know any of the geniuses trying to get off the planet."

"Tony," she drew her shoulders back and sat straighter, the way that she'd been drilled to in Basic training, the same way her brother had been drilled too, "I'm one of the candidates for the Astraeus mission."

He blinked. "That's very funny Josefina."

"I'm not kidding."

"Seriously." He paused, staring at her in shock. "You want to go into a never tested spaceship, that has a barely tested, still experimental engine that travels through creating wormholes, and hang out on another planet for six months doing what exactly?"

"First of all, I just told you, Titan is a moon, not a planet. Second, the researchers are going to be doing their experiments around Titan and out of the atmosphere at various points and will need an experienced pilot to handle the mission shuttle. Third, in case you forgot, I went to West Point for Mechanical Engineering, and since coming to Eureka, have gotten a more thorough practical education. I know what I'm doing, I know how the ship works, and am damn good at wrangling those geniuses when something goes wrong, which it inevitably will. And for the love of God, it's the opportunity to go to space! This is what everyone dreams about! I'm not turning that down."

Tony shook his head. "This is Uncle Ralph's fault."

"What are you talking about?"

"If he hadn't gotten you those books on space when you were a kid, this wouldn't be happening."

Jo couldn't believe what he was saying. "Oh come on."

"Nicky always told us the space phase would come back to bite us in the ass. We didn't believe him, but what do you know, crazy shit happens."

"I know what I'm doing. This is what I want, and I'm good at it." Jo tried not to be annoyed at Tony, but he was making it difficult. "Look, can we have this conversation later? We have a lot to get through."

"Fine." She knew that she wasn't going to be able to avoid this conversation for very long, and Tony would probably try to talk her out of the Astraeus mission at least a few more times. Stubbornness was a shared Lupo trait after all. "After we finish the government's business, is there somewhere around here to get take out? My briefing in DC mentioned an apartment, but to be honest, after the flight, I don't feel like cooking. And it would be nice to catch up."

"Yeah, I can grab us something from Café Diem while Larry gets you settled." Jo's gut twisted. She wasn't going to be in and out of this like she thought. She took out her PDA and messaged Zane and turned the non-emergency ringer off. Briefing going to be taking longer than I said. Won't be available until after dinner, later tonight. Sorry.

"Everything okay?" he nodded toward her PDA.

"Yeah, I just had plans. Going over stuff for the written science background test for Astraeus with a friend. I was just letting him know I had to cancel."

"Uh-huh. And uh, did these plans have anything to do with why you're wearing a dress?"

That got him a glare. "I had church this morning and I didn't bother changing afterward. Do you want to finish this after midnight, or do you want food at some point?"

Tony looked like he wanted to argue, then thought better of it, "I would like food at some point."

"Then shut up."

Paperwork was completed, Larry showed up, and Jo handed off Tony to him, noting the wide eyes as Larry processed who the DOD had sent. She quickly ordered some pizzas and salad (ignoring Vince's eyebrow-waggling, since he probably thought she was bringing them somewhere else) and brought them back to the one bedroom apartment that the DOD had arranged for Tony while Larry was leaving with the completed paperwork. He unpacked his bags, which had been brought when he arrived. Jo and Tony spent the rest of the afternoon and evening catching up, Jo retelling some of the stories she had already told him over the years with the details filled in, now that he had clearance.

She excused herself around 8, saying she had work in the morning, and still needed to take care of things, and drove over to Zane's apartment. Jo knocked on the door and forced herself to keep calm while waiting. It's not the end of the world. It's just Tony and Zane living in the same town. Working in the same building.

Oh God. The end of the world would probably be less explosive.

Zane opened the door and waved her in. "How long did it take to sign in some DOD bureaucrat?"

"Signing him in didn't take very long. Catching up is what took up most of the afternoon." She wrung her hands together and turned to face him, her skirt swishing against her knees. Zane closed the door behind him and leaned against it.

"They send someone you served with?"

"I wish," Jo scoffed, then ducked her head. "Someone at the DOD has a sense of humor, and decided to give my brother Tony the job".

Zane stiffened, then cracked a strained smile. "Big Brother sent big brother?"

"God, I'm going to be hearing that one for weeks aren't I?"

"Oh yeah." Zane came closer, and wrapped an arm around Jo's back, pulling her to him. "So what does he know?"

"Tony has access to all labs but will need prior authorization from myself or Fargo before entering Section 5. He does not get to harass the scientists, and we're trying to make sure he doesn't disturb the work done."

"Jo…"

"He knows about the Astraeus, and that I'm a candidate, and let me tell you, he is not happy about that, thinks I'm an adrenaline seeking idiot for going to space, and he doesn't want to have to tell"

"What does he know about us?"

Jo paused. "What, that his little sister is screwing the town felon? Funnily enough, that question didn't come up."

Zane ducked his head down to meet her eyes. "He's going to hear about it. Your brother is going to be here until at least the launch, if not longer, and people in this town talk. Zoe heard about us while she was on the other side of the country. How long do you think we have until someone mentions me to him?"

"Carter didn't find out for over a month."

"Yeah, and once it got out, it spread. Everyone knows, and everyone's a gossip. He's going to find out we're sleeping together some way or another."

"Look, I just need you to behave yourself around him, okay? Tone down the flirting, don't blatantly discuss the fact that we're sleeping together in front of him and try not to stare at my ass. Or my chest."

"Why should I?"

Jo stilled when she heard him, not understanding what he was saying. "What?"

"What motivation do I have for behaving? You're insistent that we're just friends, so why should either of us care what your brother thinks of me?" Zane ran his hand up and down her spine softly, trying to get her to relax. "I don't know what the Zane Donovan you knew was like, but I have a reputation for spitting in the face of authority. If I start sucking up to some DOD schmuck for no reason, well, someone's going to think I'm up to something."

"Or maybe they just think you're turning over a new leaf. You know, becoming an actual grownup."

Zane leaned back from Jo, and pulled one arm away from her, propping it up on the counter. "Maybe, but maybe he wouldn't."

Jo raised an eyebrow "You realize it sounds like you're asking me to introduce you to my brother at my boyfriend, right?"

He shrugged, "If that's what you want to call it, fine by me. If you want to tell him we're just having meaningless sex, which, need I remind you, has been your call, that's your choice. If you want to look your big brother in the eye and use the phrase Friends with Benefits, go for it, I will back you up. But you and I both know that's not the only thing that's going on here.

We have dinner together most days. I spend most of my free time with you. You spend most of your nights in my bed. Honestly, you really should start keeping clothes here at this point, there's going to be a Eureka disaster at some point. Do you want to show up in yesterdays' clothes or better yet, mine?"

"Zane,"

"I have no intention of going out or being with anyone else right now, and I don't think you do either. What's the harm in telling your brother what he's going to hear anyway? At least this way I'll see it coming when he tries to shoot me."

She stepped back and wrapped her arms around her chest, looking away from Zane, not knowing how to explain the relationship between herself and her brothers. "The last time I would have introduced a guy to my family in this timeline, would have been my junior prom date. They were so overbearing and overprotective and just awful that I told them the next time I introduced them to someone I was dating would be when I was handing out wedding invitations."

"In this timeline?"

"I'm assuming so anyway. Based on conversations I've had with them, they never met anyone I dated."

"What about the other timeline?"

Jo turned her gaze toward the floor, away from his bright blue eyes. "In the other timeline, we had been dating for two years before you met my dad and my brother Nicky. You- He, never met Rico or Tony." She felt him staring at her.

"Tony's the one who the DOD sent, right?" She nodded. "Two years, popped the question, I never met two of your brothers?"

"You'd talked to them on the phone, skyped a couple times, but not in person. You were supposed to come with me to meet Rico and his family when he was home on leave, but you were stuck in the Arctic on a project."

"So I still got my ass frozen off in that timeline too? Good to know some things stayed the same."

"Yeah." Jo tried to look anywhere that wasn't Zane. I almost lost him both times then.

Zane crossed his arms over his chest, and Jo tried not to notice his shirt pulling at his biceps. "So, what are we telling your brother?"

Jo slipped off her blazer and draped it over the couch. "Well, if he asks, I guess we're telling him you're my boyfriend. But only if he asks."

Zane smiled, and unbuckled his belt, slipping it off before shoving down his jeans. "Of course. I'm not looking to get a bullet in my head if I don’t have to."

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 21

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: Calypso and Annabeth have an important encounter

A/N: Sorry for the lateness! It’s time for some Annabeth action. Just a fair warning, since next Friday is the Christmas day and the Friday after that the New Year, I am not sure when I'm going to be able to post again. Be prepared for at least one week's break, possibly even two. But don't worry because more is definitely coming.

I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think!!

Calypso is the bolded text and Hazel the regular in the texting part.

Words: 2300+

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

…

Getting Leo to talk to her again was a huge weight off of Calypso’s shoulders, but there was still more to be done. Annabeth still kept to herself during the history lectures and Calypso didn’t want to force her to talk; she felt Annabeth should be the one to initiate it. From what Calypso had heard, Piper had tried to talk to her earlier, but so far Calypso hadn’t noticed any significant changes in Annabeth’s behavior. When she walked into the lecture hall that day, she noticed the blonde girl on the opposite side of the room, focused on her book. Letting a small sigh out of her mouth, she went to her usual seat pretty far from Annabeth.

Since the lecture wouldn’t start for a few more minutes, Calypso decided to use the time by checking her phone. When she opened her WhatsApp, she considered for a moment to whom she should text. Her first instinct told her she should contact Leo, but she imagined he was probably busy going to his own lecture at that moment, so she ended up scrolling through her other contacts instead. Noticing that Hazel seemed to be online, she started typing to her.

10:05: Hi, Hazel

10:05: Hi there! Was just thinking about you!

10:06: You were? How come?

10:06: Frank just texted me that on his morning jog near the campus today he had run into someone he had apparently recently met somewhere (he didn’t tell me where exactly).

10:07: and they had talked for a while.

10:07: At some point Frank mentioned the guy’s first name was Leo. I’m pretty sure it was /the/ Leo!!

10:08: How can you be so sure? I’m sure there are plenty of Leos around this campus. It’s not a rare name.

10:09: no but hear me out. The description matches with what you’ve told me. He said he’s a mechanic with a dog and when I asked Frank what he looked like, he said ‘dark hair, scrawny, eyes look like there’s some mischief going on in that head of his all the time but he’s not actually that bad when you talk to him’

10:09: I admit that does sound like the Leo I know

10:09: I told you! What a small world it is, apparently the boys we’re interested in know each other!

10:10: Still feels so weird when you put it that directly. You’re the only one who knows so far. So please, if you somehow happen to see him as well, don’t say anything.

10:10: Alright, I won’t. But what are /you/ waiting for? If he’s anything like the boys in our art class I’m sure he’s all over you by now.

10:10: Hazel!

10:11: Sorry, sorry. But you did talk to him after that… situation you had?

10:11: I did. We’re good now. Thanks for the advice the other day, by the way. It did help.

10:12: Ha, so you’re saying I gave you good advice. Could that mean that maybe you should also reread what I just said a moment ago?

10:12: Sorry, I gotta go. Something came up. TTYL!

10:13: Calypso!!

10:13: That’s so rude :P

Calypso hadn’t lied, though. She had noticed someone sneaking from the other side of the hall to the seat behind her, and that someone happened to be her friend to whom she hadn’t properly spoken for several weeks now. Trying to stay on her seat as neutrally as possible, still watching her now dark phone screen, she waited for Annabeth to start the conversation.

There was a tap on her shoulder. “Cal…” she finally heard Annabeth’s familiar voice say.

“Yeah?” Calypso asked tentatively, slowly turning on her seat to see the speaker.

“I think we should talk,” Annabeth stated, sounding more like her usual self.

“Um, sure,” Calypso answered but didn’t have time to say more when the professor stopped her, starting the lecture. “After this class, OK?”

“Right.” Annabeth nodded. Then she turned her focus to the professor, but Calypso noticed that not for long. She started doodling something into her notebook and was tapping on the floor with her foot, a habit that Calypso had noticed was very familiar to Leo, especially when he was nervous. Sometimes it was so easy to forget that Annabeth also had dyslexia and ADHD like him. The information seemed to come to her so naturally… but before the Percy incident, Annabeth had revealed that especially when she had been younger she usually had had to read the textbooks at least 5 times before she had finally absorbed what she had read. Later on, with the help of a teacher that actually understood her learning disability, she had learned some other methods that seemed to help her. One side of Calypso thought that it was relieving to see Annabeth show signs of weakness because usually she seemed so good at everything she did that it was mildly intimidating.

Soon Calypso realized that she herself had trouble focusing on what the professor was explaining while thinking about what she should tell Annabeth after the class. What could she say that she already hadn’t in the previous time? That she absolutely hated Annabeth’s boyfriend’s guts? That her flatmate made her feel weird things when they were in the same room so there was absolutely no need to be jealous?

Once the lecture was over, Calypso packed her things and gestured to Annabeth that they should have their conversation outside the lecture hall. They were walking silently until most of their fellow students had split into their own directions and found a quiet spot by the windows. There were some armchairs spread around the corridor to make it seem more comfortable and the girls sat down on two of them.

“I take it you may have changed your mind about me,” Calypso said directly once she had settled on her seat, feeling there was no need to tiptoe around the topic.

“I… yeah,” Annabeth started, and for a brief moment Calypso thought she showed a tiny bit of fragility. Suddenly she realized that maybe Annabeth wasn’t being her usual confident self, because she wasn’t that great at dealing with her feelings. Things like maths, chemistry and physics were simple to her because there were certain rules that needed to be applied. But the human mind was harder to read, Calypso knew that much. “Sometimes I think there are two different Annabeths: one that is very protective and jealous when it comes to the people she cares about, and then there’s the rational Annabeth who tries to yell to the other one that she is being ridiculous. I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

Calypso shook her head. “No, I think I can understand why it bothered you. I hate keeping things from you, but I promised to myself… I mean, it is safer to not get you guys involved.”

“But… why? What could happen?” Annabeth asked, folding her arms.

“I’m not going to go to details but my father… I’m sure you have figured out by now that he is not a nice guy. When he doesn’t like someone, or someone tries to get into his way… Good things don’t usually follow that. And I mean it. There is a very good reason why I moved this far from my previous home. To be honest, I would have liked to go all the way to Greece but that just wasn’t possible.”

“So you’re saying that your father is what you’re afraid of? And he could get us - I mean your friends - into trouble if you shared too much information with us?” Annabeth collected the pieces of the puzzle together.

“Basically, yes. But please, don’t ask more. I may already have said too much,” Calypso said worriedly.

“Don’t worry. My lips are definitely sealed,” Annabeth reassured her.

“Thanks.” Calypso hesitated a bit. “Um, can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead,” Annabeth nodded.

Calypso shifted a bit on her seat, trying to get more comfortable. “If I’m honest, I was not expecting you to forgive me that whole Percy thing that easily. What changed your mind?”

“Well, let me just tell you that you have some very good friends who managed to persuade me.” Annabeth gave her a playful smile.

“Huh? Who?” Calypso knew that Piper had talked to Annabeth but she didn’t know there were others as well.

“First of all, Percy convinced me that there was absolutely no reason to be jealous. I’m not going to tell you how he did it, but he can be pretty sweet when he wants to. Besides, between you and me: Seaweed Brain just can’t lie to me. I can read him like a book.” Annabeth’s smile only widened as she said that.

“OK.” Calypso didn’t think she wanted to hear more about that topic.

“But that wasn’t all. Piper also talked to me,” Annabeth added.

“What did she say?” Calypso asked curiously.

Annabeth’s eyes started sparkling mischievously. “A lot of things,” she started, “but she reminded me of some events that happened before Percy’s arrival that evening.”

“I don’t understand you now,” Calypso pretended to be stupid even though she was already guessing where Annabeth was going with her statement. “What events?”

“I don’t know…” Annabeth tapped her fingers against her forehead. “I think hugging, cupcake sharing and flirty bickering was involved. Keyword: think. I guess the people involved know more about that than I do.”

“That was… that was just us being friendly!” Calypso rushed to deny. “And what was so flirty about our bickering? We do that all the time and I’m not trying to…”

“Relax, Cal,” Annabeth stopped her. “It just kind of reminded me of me and Percy. But if you say so…”

Calypso groaned slightly. “Fine, you won. Again. Maybe… I may be starting to like him. But that doesn’t mean anything. He probably doesn’t like me back. And it wouldn’t work out for various reasons. I… When I moved here, I really thought I could just forget about everything that happened in my past and start to live my life. But it turns out that my past is still following me and stopping me from forming functional relationships. Besides… none of my former relationships worked. I may have been a kid back then but I made some bad decisions and it wrecked my self confidence. I don’t want to get hurt again and I also don’t want to hurt Leo. He has a very good heart, despite his weirdnesses…”

“Calypso, I know from my own experiences that ghosts of your past can be hard to fight. I have had plenty of family issues of my own in the past and they have probably influenced my later decisions, I admit that. But you seem to have taken an attitude that you have to deal with it alone. But you don’t. Let us help you. Maybe I can’t speak for all of us but I know I’m not afraid of your father. It is always possible to fight if you just come up with a good strategy.”

“This is probably a weird comment but that sounded like something I’d imagine the goddess Athena say. Are you sure you’re not her? Or related?” Calypso attempted to joke.

“Last time I checked, all of us were regular people,” Annabeth chuckled. “I admit I’m probably not quite as advanced in the greek mythology as you are although I have studied some of it, of course. But your question reminded me of this book series I read as a kid: Peter Johnson and the Olympians. The characters in it were children of Greek gods and I always wished that I’d be like one of the main characters who was a daughter of Athena.”

“Ooh, I read that series too!” Calypso said enthusiastically. “It was kind of cute although now that I know more about history and Greek mythology, not all the characters are quite like I picture them in my head. But I appreciate the effort to make the mythology more known to young readers.”

“Right! I agree.” Annabeth nodded before realizing they had gotten pretty far from the original topic.  “Sorry, we got a bit sidetracked here. I seriously do hope that you’ll let us help if needed. I myself am gonna try to be more patient and let you do it on your own terms, though.”

“Thanks, Annabeth. Um, about that Leo part, though…” Calypso felt her cheeks heat again and she wanted to curse her silly mind for reacting like that every time she thought about her flatmate. “Would you please be kind and keep it between us? I just really am not ready to deal with that yet…”

“Fine. I’ll let it be. For now. But maybe think about it. Who knows, you could be surprised by what might happen…” Annabeth said mysteriously.

“What do you mean?” Calypso frowned.

“Like I said, there are people who are ready to help you carry your burden even though you’re too absorbed by your issues to notice that. That’s all.”

“O-kay,” Calypso said suspiciously, wondering what Annabeth’s statement implied.

“You should know that one of the people who talked with me was Leo. He said he had noticed that you were feeling pretty down since the… incident and that you seemed to blame yourself for everything. And that you also felt very bad about not being honest. That’s what really opened my eyes and made me decide that I need to get over my grudge that doesn’t even make sense. I got what I wanted, didn’t I? Logically thinking, you should be the one who’s mad at me.”

“That Leo…” Calypso was so focused on that part for a moment that it took her a while to register what else Annabeth had said. “Um, sorry. To be honest, I think the Calypso from a couple of years ago would have been mad. But my priorities have changed and I also realized that Percy is way happier with you.”

“I’m glad you’re not holding a grudge, though,” Annabeth said.

“Life’s too short for that,” Calypso shrugged.

“I guess so. So, we’re friends, right?”

“Right,” Calypso confirmed, giving Annabeth a genuine smile. Some hope had risen in her heart again and she made a mental note to thank a certain mechanic later at home.

[obsidianfr3sk]

Beginnings and Endings (Part 1)

@renegadesnet event 2: august of anarchy 

↪ [The Artino Brothers] 

Summary: In the beginning, it was just the two of them: David and Alec, the Artino Brothers. Then, they brought anarchy into the world. Now, David is not sure if there would be enough of themselves by the end of it. "Don't call me Alec anymore. Now I am Ace. Ace Anarchy."

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25686343/chapters/62363560

This is my contribution to August of Anarchy. It will be a two-part fic about the relationship between Ace and his brother from David’s POV. We have little information about how their relationship actually was, so I had a lot of fun coming up with headcanons and that kinda stuff.

Thanks so much to @dawniebb and @healing-winston-pratt for the timeline they did that helped me with the creation of this fic. I actually also used it for my other fic, The Origins, but I didn’t remembered you guys did it and I just had the image saved on my phone lol (I can credit you for that if you want me to, there’s no problem with that!) Son las mejores <3

The start of the beginning

Age of anarchy Year 0

His fingers felt hotter and hotter with each golden thread they held. A light coat of sweat ran all over his body, but he wasn't sure if it was because he was nervous or because they didn't have air conditioning and it was midsummer.

It wasn’t like he had no reason to be nervous. He had never used his powers for something so important.

Alec watched every movement and noticed every breath. His dark eyes were slightly closed and his lips were pursed. David had the same face.

"Am I doing something wrong?" he whispered.

"You are doing a good job," Alec said. "Why?"

"Because you haven't stopped watching every move I make and—"

"Don't worry, it's not personal—" he pursed his lips more "—I'm always watching."

David rolled his eyes. "You're lurking."

Alec picked up a dry cloth on the splintered coffee table and rubbed it across his brother’s forehead. David thanked him.

"That's not true," Alec replied, "I just enjoy staring at people from the shadows. It is a healthy hobby ”

"I'm sure it isn't."

But hey, what did David know about healthy hobbies? All he had done in those last months was accompany his brother to work during the day and watch television until late at night. Those were his hobbies. And he wasn't even sure if the first one counted as one.

David had been expelled from his school more than six months ago after the principal found out that he was a prodigy. According to her, that was not the reason for his expulsion. It was that he had lied and it was illegal to lie about your status as a prodigy for profit.

"So you do accept schools for prodigies have a lower educational level than schools for non-prodigies?" Alec asked the principal with a defiant attitude.

When Alec tried to enroll him in another school, he discovered that she had already warned the entire school district about David and no elementary school would be accepting him in the near future. He refused to enroll David in a school for prodigies because he would only fall behind in his studies. Apparently, those schools did not receive half the funds that the other schools received.

"Because they’re for ordinary kids," said David, "and I'm not."

“You are not an ordinary kid, that's true. You are extraordinary. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise."

In the beginning, David had remained positive. It was fun to accompany Alec to work, just like the old days. But the weeks passed and it was increasingly difficult not to miss his friends, his favorite teachers, and the math lessons that he liked so much. How did Alec never get tired of the monotony?

"Look, it's already taking shape," Alec exclaimed.

He was right.

"Do you think it looks like the one in your drawing?" he asked him.

"I don't want to give a verdict until you finish it, but yeah, it's a lot like it."

For David, Alec was a great artist. He was also a good brother and a remarkable student, judging by the diplomas on the walls of their old house. At the time, he had also been a good son, although David could not give proof of it. And neither did their parents.

Seven years ago, their parents had died in an explosion at the offices of the organization they were part of. It was called "Prodigies for the Alliance with the Non-Prodigies". His father preferred to call it "Anarchist Group" because the original name was “fucking dumb”. Over time, David realized that the real reason he called it like that was that he liked to see his wife frown every time he referred to her as "fellow anarchist Bianca."

"We are not anarchists," her mother insisted as she used her powers to levitate her cup of coffee. When she was angry, her blue eyes turned red. "We are—"

"Anarchists" interrupted his father. He turned his spoon into gold and raised an eyebrow.

“It is forbidden to use your powers at the table, Alessandro. And no, we are rebels. ”

"Anarchist rebels!" Alec exclaimed.

"Alec, your cereal, you're going to spill it!"

That was his last memory of them.

The news said it had been an accident with the gas pipes. There were some other theorizing that it had been a dispute between members of the organization.

"After all, so many prodigies in one place cannot be trusted," said a young lady from the newscast. “The prodigies are violent, even with each other. They don’t always know how to con—"

Alec appeared behind him and turned off the television.

"Don't watch that. Those are lies."

They had just returned from the funeral. David had not taken off his coat yet.

"Really?" he asked.

His brother nodded. “It was not an argument or an accident. It was an attack. And I have evidence to prove it. ”

The next day, he took David to the police station. Alec explained to the policemen about the bricks thrown at the windows of their house, about the graffiti that appeared on the porch, and about the death threats, their parents constantly received. He even showed them a box full of evidence, with photos and letters. But the only thing the policemen did was laugh at him and knock both brothers out of the place after Alec had the great idea of using his powers against them. That definitely hadn't helped their case.

"Mom would have thrown a chair at that idiot officer, too," Alec told him as they drove back to the house.

"I envy you," David mumbled.

"Why?"

"Because you will always have something of hers that I don't," he answered.

"David, look at yourself in a mirror. You are her living portrait. That is something I will never have.”

From then on, he took David everywhere, to the park, to the bank, or to the two jobs he had so they could pay the bills. David asked who would take care of him when Alec left for college in the fall.

"I won’t be going to college," he replied. "I already have other plans."

After so long, David finally found out about his brother's plans. He knew every last detail. They had spent sleepless nights talking about it and wondering what their parents would think. David was convinced that his father would be delighted, but he wasn't quite sure about his mother’s reaction. Alec assured him she would understand.

They had already tried everything. It was time for someone to do something for real. And that someone, was going to be Alec.

Finally, the helmet materialized in front of them. It was made of the most precious gold of all and identical to how David had imagined it.

Alec closed his eyes and held out his hand. The helmet began to levitate and slowly settled over his head. The sun streaming through the window revealed tiny golden particles floating around him. When Alec opened his eyes again, he appeared more fierce than ever. However, David was not afraid; he was amazed at his work.

"Perfect," Alec whispered. "It feels perfect. Nice job."

"Thank you…"

Alec stood up and headed for the door. "Well, I guess it’s showtime."

David jumped up and hurried to put on his shoes to catch up. Alec was about to leave when he realized what his younger brother was doing.

"No, David, you stay," he ordered.

"What? Why?" he asked indignantly.

“It is not an appropriate show for eleven-year-olds."

"But-"

"David."

Alec had not inherited his mother's eyes, but he had definitely inherited that horrible look that could intimidate even the bravest of humans.

David backed away, feeling pathetic and childish. The fact he was wearing one shoe and had a yogurt stain on his shirt didn't make him look more mature. He sat down on the floor and hid his face between his legs.

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

"But who's going to take care of me?" he mumbled.

His older brother rolled his eyes as he approached him. “You are old enough to be alone for a couple of hours. Or days. "

"Days?!" 

He had never been alone for more than five minutes when Alec went to the store across the street. It was too much responsibility, how would he be able to handle it?

Then, Alec lifted him off the ground. David gasped. His brother had never been able to do that with such ease, but he had no time to be amazed, because judging by his expression, Alec was not looking happy at all.

“David, listen. This is not a game."

"I know," he replied, doing his best to imitate his mother's frown.

"I know you know it," Alec said. He hadn't intimidated him. “But I want to be sure that you understand the magnitude of what I'm about to do. It will be a massive change in the way the world is controlled. ”

David crossed his arms and looked away. Alec gently returned him to the ground and ruffled his hair, slightly chuckling. David couldn't help but smile. Just a little though. He didn't want his brother to think he agreed with the decision he had made.

There was no point arguing with him. The more time his brother spent there, the longer the beginning of the end would be delayed.

Immediately, he mentally corrected himself. Alec had said not to call it the beginning of the end. What he was going to do was not the end of anything; it was the start of the beginning.

"What do I do while you’re gone?" he asked, without turning to see him.

Alec put his hands on his shoulders. "Stay here as long as you can. Secure all doors and windows and don't go out unless it’s absolutely— ”

Somebody knocked on the door. Alec and David held their breath for the ten seconds that person stood outside their apartment. A couple of letters slipped under the door and the person left. 

David wanted to go pick up the mail, but his brother's grip grew stronger.

"Don't stop to help anyone, David," Alec went on. "As long as I'm not there, you're the only one who can protect you. Do you understand? No one else matters, no one else will help you. Only you can help yourself." He took him by the chin to make him look him in the eye. "Understood, David?"

He had never seen his brother have such a severe expression. Alec had never spoken so seriously to him and had never forced him to look at him. For a second, David thought that it was the helmet that made his brother seem more frightening. But it couldn’t be that.

After all, the world was about to change. It made sense that Alec changed too.

Would David change?

"Understood, Alec," he replied.

"Don't call me Alec anymore." He released his chin and smiled at him. “Now I am Ace. Ace Anarchy. ”

"Ace Anarchy," David repeated. He let the name finish to visualize inside his head. "I like how it sounds."

Alec ruffled his hair once more. "I knew you would like it, my little nightmare."

[canyousevmyheavydirtysoul]

You’re My Bodyguard, Not My Owner. (Chapter 1) (Brendon Urie x Reader)

Note: It’s back. Also, I hope you guys appreciate me, ‘cause I have a math test today, and I spent the entire weekend getting this fic ready instead of studying. You’re welcome.

On the surface, having a spy for a father might seem like the coolest thing in the world. And sure – at certain times, it could be. But there was so much more to it that no one would ever think about.

As a little girl, your parents chose to keep your father’s real occupation concealed from you, if just for the time being, in order to give you a somewhat normal life; they had no desire for you to get caught up in the cruelty of the hidden world.

They were wonderful parents, always going above and beyond to ensure that you were happy, and to give you as much of a typical upbringing as possible. Yet, the fleeing from town to town and city to city at seemingly random occasions in the dark of the night did nothing to aid their cause, and you grew up less normally than they would’ve liked.

It was hard for you to understand at the time – why you couldn’t have sleepovers or play dates every weekend like other children your age – but you never questioned them about it and soon enough, you had gotten used to not getting too attached to people. Or to places, for that matter.

It was only once you had hit sixteen that your father had enlightened you about everything. Your family had been living in a small, secluded town about an hour and a half outside Washington D.C. and everything in your lives seemed to be stable – the need to flee hadn’t arisen in over three years, you had made a wonderful group of friends, and your life was as close to normal as you were able to get.

The night you found out about your father’s real occupation was one you would never forget.

 Chestertown, Maryland. Five years earlier.

It was just after dinner and the three of you were doing the dishes, the usual weekday routine. There wasn’t much conversation, just a bit of small talk, but as you packed away the last plate and hung up the dishcloth, your father said something that made your stomach do cartwheels.

“(Y/N), could you meet me in my office in five? There’s… something I’d like to talk to you about.”

His request caught you completely off guard, and you involuntarily let out a tiny gasp. You had never been in the office before. It was off limits to everyone except your father, so the fact that he was requesting your presence in that room was daunting, to say the least.

“Your-your office?” you spoke, checking to see if you heard properly.

“Mhm,” he nodded, drying his hands with a paper towel, “that okay?”

“Uh… yeah. Yeah, of course, dad.”

You must’ve looked and sounded absolutely terrified, because your father let out a laugh as he reached over to rub your shoulder and place a kiss on your forehead as reassurance.

“Don’t look so concerned, you’re not in trouble. I just… well, you’ll see. Five minutes,” he reminded as he backtracked out of the kitchen and made his way to his office.

~

After throwing on some pyjamas, you turned on your heel and headed out of your bedroom and down the glass staircase that was situated in the middle of the house, turning left into the west wing of the house when you reached the bottom.

Trudging slowly along the mostly unlit hallway, you stopped in front of the door to your father’s office. Your fingers slowly grasped the icy cold brass doorknob and you bit your lip nervously, hesitating slightly before turning it.

Upon entering the secluded room, your nostrils were immediately met with the smell of pine and the crisp sensation of air conditioning. The room was foreign territory, since you’d never been inside the office before, and your eyes scanned the spacious room intricately, taking in every inch of the place. You weren’t sure if you’d ever have the opportunity to be welcomed back, and you wanted to make sure you memorised every detail of its inside.

“Thought you might like it in here,” your father’s voice drew your attention away from the room and you gave him a sheepish smile, “I modelled it after one of your designs, actually,” he added, scanning over the room himself.

You furrowed your brows at him; you’d never designed anything in your life, let alone the interior of a room. Noticing your confusion, he cocked his head in the direction of the left wall where a framed portrait was hanging.

Interest piqued, you took rushed steps towards the picture, a big grin forming once you got a good look at it.

“Wow. I was such a terrific artist,” you remarked sarcastically as your eyes landed on the inscription heading the page.

My Future House. (Y/N) (Y/L/N)

“You actually did quite a commendable job,” your father argued, standing up from his desk and moving to join you, “I mean, look at how it turned out in real life,” he gestured around the room, which now that you had seen the picture, you realised was a mirror image of your ‘design’.

“Mm. It’s pretty.”

“Have a seat,” he instructed, shooing you to the dark brown leather sofa in the middle of the room and taking a seat in the armchair opposite you.

“I know you said that I’m not in trouble,” you started, lifting up your legs and tucking it underneath you, to the side, “but this scenario seems an awful lot like that time I got a talking to for cussing at that lady in the supermarket when I was six.”

The side of your father’s eyes crinkled and his lips twitched upwards into a half-smile as he leaned forward, elbows rested on his knees and fingers steepled just under his chin.

“I promise you it’s not a repeat of that incident. Unless you’ve been cursing at people while grocery shopping?”

“Not in the last month, no,” you replied, a hint of a smile on your face; you shared a chuckle. “So why did you call me here, dad?”

“Do you know what my job is?”

You pursed your lips while you contemplated your answer. “I know what you do for a living,” you answered, and his brows arched ever so slightly, “You’re a software developer; that’s how you make your money. As for what your job is – what you do as a profession – I have no idea.”

You earned a full smile from him this time. “Sometimes I forget how incredibly smart you are,” he muttered, more to himself than to you, “You’re right, snowflake. I make my money from developing software, but it’s not the career path I’m entirely skilled in. Which, obviously, you’ve noticed. You wanna hazard a guess as to what it is that I do?”

“Well, from what I can gather from everything that’s happened in our lives – the constant relocating, the secrecy, the lack of relationships with other people – my best guess is that you’re James Bond.”

A short chuckle escaped your lips and you expected the same reaction from your father but when it didn’t come, and he simply stared at you with a serious face, your face fell.

“Seriously?” you gaped, nearly falling off the couch out of shock.

He cocked his head to the side. “In a sense, yes.”

“What the fuck?” you exclaimed, widening your eyes and clamping a hand over your mouth as you realised your slip. “Uh… I mean, what the fudge?”

He chuckled and waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry, your mother had the same reaction. Although,” he looked up to the ceiling as if replaying a memory in his head; another chuckle came through his lips, “she kinda repeated it over and over and over and over.”

You giggled, resting your elbow on the couch’s armrest and placing your head in your hand. “Yup. Sounds like mom,” you agreed. “So wait… you’re…” you trailed off, not being able to find the correct words.

“I’m a spy, (Y/N).”

“Like James Bond?”

“No,” he shook his head before smirking at you, “I’m better.”

You laughed loudly, whether out of amusement or disbelief, you didn’t know.

“Let me explain…”

And then he told you everything. More specifically, that he was a spy that worked for Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division – or as they were more commonly known as, SHIELD.

You’d also learned that he was among the top ranking SHIELD agents, and the leader of any and all missions connected to battling Hydra, a Nazi-descendant terrorist organisation, and SHIELD’s biggest adversary.

It was clear to you when he spoke that your father was tremendously passionate about his work, and that behind you and your mother, it was what mattered most to him.

You had to admit that his loyalty and dedication was admirable. It couldn’t have been easy to live a double life for nearly four decades, trying to give your wife and daughter the normal life they deserved while simultaneously protecting them and the rest of the world.

A part of you felt as if you should be angry with him for not letting you have the stereotypically ordinary life, but you knew that he did the best that he could. You were like your dad in essentially every way; you were practically his carbon copy. You had his mannerisms, his values, and most importantly, you had his mind-set. You knew that what your father was doing was for the greater good, and you knew that if you were in his shoes, you would’ve done the exact same thing.

“W-wow,” you exhaled heavily once he had finished explaining, “Dad, that’s… intense.”

“You don’t know the half of it, snowflake,” he murmured, sighing as he ran a hand through his thick head of hair.

He noticed that you were still furrowing your brows as you looked at him, and he smiled at you to try and ease your mind. Your dad had excellent genetics; he was pushing forty, yet he didn’t look a day over twenty-five. But when he smiled at you, he looked even younger – like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders and rejuvenated him.

“I have something else for you,” he announced as he stood up and recovered a tiny blue box from the drawer of his desk.

You perked up as he drew nearer, eager to see what was inside. He carefully removed the lid and reached two fingers inside the box to lift out a beautiful necklace, one with a snowflake charm.

“I know that this doesn’t even remotely make up for what I’ve hidden from your for all these years but…” your dad lifted the necklace to place around your neck; you gathered your hair in your hand to give him better access, “take it as a promise. I promise that there will never be any secrets between us ever again. I love you, snowflake.”

Chestertown, Maryland. Present day.

Noticing the black SUV with tinted windows standing in the driveway where your father’s car would normally be, a wave of dread washed over you and your heart felt like it was sitting in your throat. You recognized the vehicle as one of SHIELD’s; the fact that one of them was currently parked in your parents’ driveway almost guaranteed that something awful had happened.

Entering through the front door, you could hear muffled voices coming from the living room. You shrugged off your coat and hung it up on one of the hooks in the entryway before following the sound of the voices.

Upon your entering the room, all three agents’ heads snapped towards you, the two who were sitting noticeably uneasy on the edge of the white leather sofa standing up.

“What’s going on? Where are my parents?” you questioned, your voice involuntarily coming out urgent and panicked.

“(Y/N), maybe you should sit down,” Agent Coulson spoke gently. Advancing towards you in an attempt to guide you to the sofa.

“No, I don’t want to sit,” you took a step back, voice becoming more and more unsteady, “Answer my question. Where are my parents?”

The next few minutes went by in a blur. As soon as Coulson started speaking, your head began to spin as your vision became blurry and you could feel your legs starting to give in, prompting you to lean against the doorframe for support. You felt sick to your stomach.

Letting out a gut-wrenching sob, you sunk to your knees as your heart shattered into a million pieces.

SHIELD HQ, Washington D.C.

SHIELD headquarters was infinitely bigger than you’d ever imagined. You felt irrelevant and tiny, curled up in Coulson’s glass-walled office. After receiving the news of your parents’ deaths the previous night, SHIELD thought it best if you were brought in so that they could monitor you while simultaneously provide you with protection.

Staring through the transparent material at everything yet nothing at all, your fingers toyed with the necklace you wore around your neck. You could hear your father’s voice in your head.

“I’ve had many great achievements in my life, (Y/N). But you are by far the best one.”

 You hadn’t even noticed the stream of tears cascading down your cheeks until a rough, calloused hand held out a box of tissues.

“Now would be a good time to fill you in on everything. If you’re feeling up to it, that is.”

You sighed and stood up. “Might as well get it over with, no?”

~

“As Agent Coulson has already told you, your parents were murdered by a Hydra operative. His real name is unknown, but he’s known as ‘The Asset’,” The Director spoke with determination, though apprehensively.

You rearranged yourself in your chair; a wave of nausea washed over you upon hearing the words “parents” and “murdered”. The thought screwed with your mind completely.

“We know that your father was onto something big. So big, that there was a possibility that it could take down Hydra once and for all. Everyone knew that your father didn’t trust easily – in fact, there were few people who he trusted at all – so unsurprisingly, he didn’t share his intel with anyone.”

The Director stood up from his chair and walked around his desk to stand in front of you.

“Okay, well, you at least have a lead on this Asset guy, right?” you choked out, swallowing a lump that started to form in your throat.

“No, unfortunately not. He’s as evasive as ever.”

You nodded slowly, disappointment coursing through your body.

“Although, we do have an idea about who his next target might be.”

“Who?”

“You.”

“Me?” you questioned in disbelief. “Why would he want to kill me?”

“Because, (Y/N), you were one of the very few people your father trusted completely. It’s not unlikely that he’d have shared some information with you, whether you were aware of it or not.”

“My father wouldn’t have done that. Not if it put me in danger.”

“While it’s true that he would’ve done anything to ensure your safety, if he knew that Hydra would come after him, he would’ve taken precautions. He would’ve hidden his information somewhere safe. Somewhere no one would know to look unless they knew him as well as you did.”

Stunned into silence, you gripped your hair in disbelief. The Director kneeled so that he was eye-level with you and placed a protective, reassuring hand on both of your shoulders.

“No one will hurt you, (Y/N). My priority from now on is ensuring your safety. But I need you to think. Think long and hard. Think about everything your father has ever said to you and try and see if you can get any idea about what he was working on.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Nick, but I can’t.”

He studied your face intently for a few seconds before nodding lightly.

“I understand, (Y/N). But if you happen to think of anything…”

“You’ll be the first person I come to.”

He smiled at you before standing up and striding towards his office door.

“Well then, there’s only one more thing before you go.”

The Director opened the door, and a man, presumably an agent, walked in. He entered the office and stood with his feet shoulder width apart, hands clamped firmly behind his back, like a Marine. You took in his appearance, and decided that it was highly probable that he’d had some form of military training. He certainly had the stature and aura for it.

He had dark hair, styled upwards in a quiff-like fashion. His jaw was taught and sharp, giving his face perfect structure. His cherry-red, plump lips were set tightly in a thick line, brown eyes gazing into yours in a soulful, almost intimidating way.

“(Y/N), this is your bodyguard for the next little while, Agent Brendon Urie.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Thank you for reading x

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[artificialqueens]

Cupid’s Blind Arrow (Group Fic) Chapter 3 - Ginger Nut

As Katya wandered down the corridors bumping into every second person she couldn’t help but look for Trixie, her beloved dance partner from Friday night. The pair had taken up most of the so-called dance floor and boogied the night away. Trixie taught her how to jive and Katya even taught Trixie a traditional Russian folk dance claiming it looked better with the traditional outfits opposed to an astronaut and a Viking. They hadn’t spoken since, but they never really did out with School. Still, Katya found herself scanning the halls for the girl, or rather searched for her big blonde hair which would probably be easier to notice. “Katya” Flipping her head round hoping it was Trixie, Katya’s smile dropped when she realised it was Adore. “Have you seen Sharon?” Adore asked, leaning against a couple of lockers. “haven’t saw her since Vi’s party. Why?” “Was wondering if we’d get another episode of the show we saw in English” Katya let out a laugh, remembering the scene last week. “I mean it’s a Monday morning, so she’s probably out on a smoke break” Adore shook her head; “nah, she’s not there I’ve just been out” Katya shrugged before waving goodbye to Adore and walking to her first class.

Violet sat doodling in her notebook; it was design class so she could get away with it. She was meant to be designing a fashion forward item for fall, something that was functional but still looked good. The whole class was going to be creating a piece to go in a fashion show, organised by the events committee. For weeks Violet had been exhilarated, ecstatic at the idea that her designs were going to be shown to the whole School. Finally they’ll realise that I’m really talented at this. But for some reason Violet had no motivation today, that was unheard of. The most determined person on the planet was currently sitting cross legged on a stool – which was pretty uncomfortable considering her long legs – sketching and colouring in pictures of knights and medieval princesses, she just couldn’t get the image of Pearl from Friday night out of her head. She looked so stunning, like a work of art. Violet sighed as she drew geometric shoulder blades curving the ends like Pearl had done. “Violet dear” Miss Velour came up behind the girl causing her to jump slightly before doing her best to cover up the doodles with her arms. “Hi, Miss. I’m kind of still in the thinking process, the stuff I’ve got isn’t ready for critiquing yet.” Unfortunately violet knew Miss Velour wouldn’t take that for an answer and the teacher proceeded to give her a knowing look before extending her hand out to Violets half-hindered sketch pad. “May I?” Knowing she would have taken it one way or another Violet reluctantly gave her teacher the paper, wanting to hide in her hands for the lack of work she had to offer. Miss Velour stayed silent for a moment, analysing the tiny doodles that had been shaded and given such detail and attention. “Well, I , uh, this is very different Miss Chachki, especially from you” Shaking her head Violet tried to save herself, “Yeah I um, don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll get something better, don’t worry I-“ “I didn’t say I didn’t like the idea” Dumbfounded, Violet blinked multiple times before finding her words “Wait, you…like this?” Miss Velour held the pad at different angles considering all the elements and potential it had. “I mean I’m not letting you send someone out in armour or petticoats but, it’s a good stimulus. Very original. You could take a more avant-garde approach. It would really stand out from all the fringe jackets and denim blazers.” Politely yet firmly Violet retrieved her sketch book from her teacher's’ hand and her brain started to work at one hundred miles per hour again. I’ve got this she thought.

When the bell went for break Bianca make her way outside, unable to bear the loud and meaningless chatter today. She’d had a pounding headache and couldn’t seem to shake it no matter how many paracetamol she took. As she made her way over to one of the back walls she spotted a friendly face. “You out for another drag?” Quizzed the newly green-haired girl. Not an ugly green, but almost like a seaweed green enhancing the girls’ mermaid persona. She stood against the wall with a joint in between her fingers and a sly smirk on her face. “No. I think I may be dying.” Bianca stood opposite Adore with her arms crossed “What after one night?” She started giggling and it made Bianca embarrassed, “Stop it I’m serious, my head feels like a Rocky movie. Boxing match after boxing match.” Bianca mimicked punching her head on either side before whimpering and squeezing her eyes shut. “What’s the pot equivalent of a lightweight?” Adore jokingly questioned. and Bianca scowled, “come over here you big baby” Bianca did as she was told and walked over to Adore laying her head on the girl’s soft and surprisingly warm shoulder. “How can you do this everyday chola, I seriously feel like I’m dying.” Adore pulled the joint to her lips and took a smoke before blowing it out, up to the sky so Bianca wouldn’t have to smell it. “Have you ever wondered if it’s everything else in your life giving you a headache and not the one bit of weed you smoked?” Adore offered, gazing down at Bianca, who looked back up at her. “No because schools never made me ill before so why would it now?” “Because it’s so much more now. More homework, more classes, higher standards,” Adore thought her list could go on but she finished with “and all in less time.” Bianca nodded in agreement as she massaged her temples. Adore looked at her for a minute, admiring the girl for everything she was. You have a cute face too she thought, smiling to herself. She once again held out her joint and offered it to Bianca; “it’ll calm you down” At that Bianca opened her eyes and removed her hands from her temples looking up at Adore with the biggest look of confusion possible. “No” she exclaimed, “you’re not turning me into Stoner Pearl!” Adore laughed, bright and wholesome causing a smile to graze over Bianca’s face and the pair continued to laugh and talk until the bell went for the next class.

Sitting in math class was Pearl, not taking in any of the information her teacher was giving. She rested her head in her hand, staring into space; her free hand traced the equations in the textbook. “Pearl!” Looking up Pearl found all eyes on her including the one person on her mind, Violet, who was sat at the opposite side of the class smirking and staring directly at her. Flustered, partly because she realised she’d been asked a question and partly because Violet was staring at her, she let out a noise while her eyes quickly scanned the board searching for any values that could lead to the question asked. After a moment her teacher, who everyone just knew as Bob, exhaled a sigh and crossed her arms. “Okay, new plan class. Pearls gonna tell us all a story about what she was thinking about, it must be so much more exciting than my teaching.” Pearl bit her lip, “I’m sorry I uh wasn’t thinking of anything” the girl wanted the ground to swallow her up. Giving up Bob turned back to the board before scribbling the answer Pearl was supposed to give on the board; “Sorry guys, no story time today I guess” A general laugh emitted from the rest of the class and Pearl turned around to face Violet who had checked her watch and began to pack up her things, putting everything in her bag in an organised manner so it would fit just right. Watching Violet do anything calmed Pearl in a way that even she herself found a bit odd. Everything else faded away and Pearl got to learn the other girl’s body language and study her physique. The whole class then proceeded to pack up and Violet pulled out a compact mirror, checking her makeup and hair. Pearl smiled, and Violets eyes moved from her own reflection to Pearl’s behind her. The pair had a mini stare off, before Pearl winked, causing Violet to raise her eyebrows and then blow a kiss in Pearls direction. Subtle Pearl thought. Real subtle

“I’m soaking weeeettttt” Alaska moaned as she walked over to the lunch table Willam had claimed. It was only her and Willam but they took up a whole table. Standing in her normal, but now drenched clothes, Alaska motioned to her hair which looked like a birds nest that had been struck by lightning. A mess. Willam pursed her lips together but started laughing. “The hell happened to you? Go for a swim?” Alaska mocked her laugh and sat down, evidently uncomfortable in her tight denim jeans. “No. It’s basically a fucking hurricane outside and they made us do cross country. CROSS FUCKING COUNTRY WILLAM” Willam started pawing at the blonde’s hair still giggling. “So i was about to die of hypothesis and then-“ “Wait what” willam interrupted. “Hypothesis, like when you die because you’re really cold” answered Alaska plainly. Shaking her head Willam start laughing again, “I think you’re looking for hypothermia, dumbass” Alaska sighed, sat down and pulled out a compact. Gasping at her reflection, she pulled out a brush and tried to fix the mess on her head. “Anyway I went to shower and phi phi was sitting on the floor balling her eyes out so I wasn’t up to deal with that. Then I changed back into my clothes that were dry, then I had to fucking run across the goddamn yard to get in here. So once again I’m gonna die of…” her voice trailed off. “Hypothermia,” supplied Willam. “That.” Willam pulled out her phone and started scrolling through her Instagram and checking snapchat while Alaska cautiously looked over the entirety of the canteen, checking for Sharon. There’s no chance in hell she can see me like this! “Hey, look at this filter! Look how cute I am” said Willam not taking her eyes off of herself and tilting her head from side to side. “Ooh a pair one, come on ‘laska get in this one” shoving her phone into Alaska face Willam posed once again and took the photo. She looked at Alaska, first in the picture the in real life and sighed; “Why didn’t you smile or pose or do something cute? Damn now I’ve got nothing to put on my story.” Alaska gave no excuse, shook her head and rolled her eyes as she leaned back in her seat. “Don’t roll your fucking eyes at me bitch. I’m not the one resembling one of the seven dwarves right now.” “What one?” Alaska questioned, half expecting to hear grumpy. “Mopey.” For the first time today Alaska started laughing, hard. Her whole body was moving up and down in time with her giggling causing Willam to question this strange turn of events, is this the mental breakdown stage? “What?” Alaska said nothing and continued to laugh, squeezing her eyes shut. “What?” Willam hit her on the arm now, eager to know what had the moany and usually heartbroken girl all laughs and giggles all of a sudden. Alaska wiped the stray tears that had fallen, “it’s dopey you fuckin moron” “Dopey? The hell’s he? Some stoner dwarf?” “No he’s just like stupid.” Willam returned back to her phone not accepting the fact that someone thought it would be a better idea to call a dwarf dopey rather than mopey. After she regained her composure Alaska sat upright again and sighed, “Have you heard anything recently from Courtney?” Willam froze. Not too sure how to answer this, she reminded herself that Alaska knew the pair were close but didn’t know just how close they’d gotten. “Uhh, no not really. Have you?” Alaska shook her head and leaned into Willam; “Get her insta up, she might’ve posted something.” Willam looked at Alaska almost questioning her, she did kind of want to find out what Court had gotten up to. Find out if she’d made any plans to come back. Begrudgingly she typed in the aussie’s username into the search bar, each button pressed was decorated with the sound of Willam’s acrylics touching the screen. “Got it.” Alaska leaned in further and recognised the blonde beauty on the screen. Willam started to go through her posts starting with the most recent one. It was posted just this morning; the picture depicted Courtney sitting on a beach facing away from the camera and towards the sun and the sea. She wore a floral bikini and her hair reached to halfway down her back, it looked like it was slightly blowing as if there was a light breeze in the air. My god she’s beautiful. Willam looked at the location tag and it read: Sydney, Australia. Oh how Willam wished she was there as well, wished that they could share the beach and play in the sun. Moving onto the next one. This time it was Courtney and a guy, a candid shot from some nightclub and the pair were laughing. Gritting her teeth Willam felt a churning in her stomach, what is this? Alaska took the phone out of Willams hand and started to scroll at a faster pace, “Oh look Willam it’s you.” Alaska said, focusing on one of the pictures that was posted around 3 weeks ago. #tbt Missing this one, please come over to Aus so I can see your face ☺️☺️ P.S how’re English lessons without me? #MissingAmerica #EspeciallyTheFood #MyWillam Willam tried to wipe the huge grin off of her face but was unsuccessful, from ear to ear she was all smiles and giggles My Willam she thought. Alaska noticed this and smiled back at her; “Do you miss her?” “All the time” Willam mumbled staring at the photo in front of her, not really intending for Alaska to hear. “All the time eh?” Alaska said in her Mae-West impression, she had to play a character like her in her drama class and used every opportunity to practice. Willams lip quivered, trying to hide any emotion. “I never said all the time!” Willam said defensively, “I said sometime” Alaska continued in her impression; “Playing hard to get, I see” Willam wanted to change the subject, she would look again at the photo and revel in all of Courtney’s beauty later. “Did you do the chem homeowork?” Raising her eyebrows meaning she’d caught onto what Willam was trying to do Alaska pulled the folder out of her handbag, throwing it onto their table. Willam brought hers out and started scribbling condensed versions of Alaska perfectly written answers. “Man, you’re such a fuckin nerd,” Willam joked as she read through one of the answers; “like how do you know all of this.” “Uh maybe because I listen in class instead of swiping right on every second guy on tinder” Willam opened her mouth wide in shock, her brain was producing so many good comebacks but they were all to do with Sharon. Willam decided against it, she didn’t want to break Alaska’s first good mood in what felt like forever. And Alaska’s mascara had already suffered enough today in cross country. “Hurtful, i’ll have you know my standards are much higher than tinder” Alaska chuckled before pointing back at the homework. “Come on, bell’s about to go for class. Write!” Instead Willam decided to pack up her stuff, ignoring more than half of the questions. “Nah it’s fine, Miss Davis owes me one anyway” “What do you mean she “owes you one”?” “I set her up with Mr Rice in the art department” Alaska gave an impressed nod and put her folder back into her pink sequinned bag.

It was last period and Trixie hadn’t seen Katya all day. She’d been purposely trying to run into her, taking different and longer routes to her classes but had no luck. She was now sitting in music and stared out the window. Man that storm is pretty bad, maybe school will get cancelled tomorrow. Strumming a few chords on her guitar, Trixie wished she could just get home. “Miss Mattel” called her teacher, Trixie looked up and waited for more. “The internet’s down, can you take this to reception please?” Trixie lazily stood up, taking her time to get to the teacher before accepting the note and heading out the door. Better make the most of this time out she thought. Making her way out of the music department Trixie walked down the main set of stairs and onto the floor below, the physics base. She leisurely waltzed past classrooms, not having a clue as to what anything on the boards meant. She found a side set of stairs and ventured down them but halfway down she heard footsteps coming towards her. “Trixie?” Called a thick, Russian accent. Instinctively Trixie smiled, “Hey dancing partner” Katya blushed at the memory, then smacked her head remembering how awful she must’ve been dancing considering she wasn’t at all sober added to the fact that she couldn’t dance to start with. “I didn’t show you the folk dance, did I?” Trixie laughed, warm and pure. “You did.” Once again Katya smacked herself. “Don’t worry Katya, you weren’t terrible” “Good, I’ll add that to my resume. “Not a terrible dancer”” both of them smiled and looked at each other for the first time since the party. Katya didn’t have the guts to kiss her on Saturday when she was drunk so she sure didn’t have the guts to now.

[argorpg-blog]

CONGRATULATIONS and welcome to the crew of the Argo II, ROSE! The Gods have spoken: welcome aboard AMARUS, known as KIT ALEXANDER, with a faceclaim of AVAN JOGIA. Please take a look at our checklist, and send in your account in the next 24 hours.

ADMIN NOTES: Rose! The amount of detail and thought you put into your app was just astounding. Those little bits of color and extra thought (”plum carpet”!!) managed to make Kit a three dimensional, complex character to fall in love with. We were both absolutely blown away by the way you managed to convey his bitterness and complication with the gods without making it seem too overdone. We love Kit, and we’re excited to see him here!

OUT OF CHARACTER

NAME/ALIAS: Rose AGE, TIMEZONE, PRONOUNS: 20, GMT, she/her ACTIVITY  & EXTRAS: I’m a university student who also works part-time, so I’m a busy bee lol. But I always find time to write so I should be around lurking pretty much always, and if not here for replies everyday, then every other day or so. Also I’ve kinda fallen in love with this rp, you’ve done a fantastic job.

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED SKELETON: Amarus CHARACTER NAME: Kit Alexander AGE & GENDER: 25, cismale, he/him FACECLAIM: Avan Jogia, Matthew Daddario, Ezra Miller

BIOGRAPHY:

Fortune favored the bold. Your father might have been bold once- must have been to have endeared himself to a deathless goddess who walked the world with wind in her hair, dispensing luck with a brush of her fingers and a heady smile. But you knew him in the aftermath of that intoxication. Luck left your father, but he’d already fallen headfirst into her thrall. Your earliest memories are of sitting at your father’s feet, halfway under the table, tiny fists clenched around a toy car as men who seemed larger than life roared at a television across the room, money changing hands. The plum colored carpeting of your living room caught the wheels of your car, but the tile of the place where your father leaned over the counter and wrote checks in his tightly looping script was better, even though you were told off when the toy’s tiny plastic wheels left marks on the walls. Your father would strap you into the car, pressing a kiss on the top of your head and whispering that you were his lucky charm.

School was when you first discovered other children. Before then it had been you and your father, the men who came to the little home you shared to yell as if the horses, or dogs, or baseball players who flickered on the tv could hear, and grumble as bills were passed across the table, the men who looked over their counters to smile down at you, asking you questions as you slipped to safety behind your father’s legs. You didn’t know how other kids worked, didn’t know the right things to say or do. It didn’t help that your father’s luck, a fickle, nebulous thing, swung your lives between poverty and excess with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Children weren’t kind to silent little boys who came to school in threadbare clothes but with the newest gameboy tucked in their bags, more inclined to speak in whispers to adults than learn the latest skipping game than dominated the playground. Teachers were at a loss as to what to do with little boys who seemed to take innately to math- reeling off probability as if was second nature- but hardly spoke to anyone.

In a life dictated by your father’s fortune, the infectious joy of his successes buoyed you between the dark periods when a gamble didn’t go his way. Being someone’s lucky charm only earns you praise until their luck fails. Betting evolved from a hobby, a diversion, to an occupation by the time you were old enough to compare your life to those of your classmates and find it lacking. Maybe that was why your father’s fortune took a sharp turn for the worse when you were eight, and watching mothers pick up their children as you sat in front of school, heart leaping every time you thought you saw your father’s car. A string of losses led to the loss of the house with the plum carpet, the loss of the comforting weight of your father’s hand on your head, the whispered assertion that you were his joy, his happiness, his lucky charm.

But fortune hadn’t forsaken all those around you. A girl who shared her snack with you did a perfect cartwheel at recess. The cat who lived in the apartment next to the one you and you father had eventually left the back of the car for narrowly avoided the wheels of a speeding truck as it sauntered off, leaving you wide-eyed from where you had been crouched in the gutter, petting it. While you sat, swinging your legs, at the kitchen table of the old lady who lived downstairs and tutted until you agreed to come in for a slice of cake, she found her wedding ring down the back of a chair. It had been lost for years. She’d cried, pulled you into a hug, called you lucky. You’d smiled, shoveled the rest of the cake into your mouth, turned tail and ran.

When you were fourteen, limbs made to look even ganglier by clothing that was inevitably too short, you decided that the universe demanded balance and you were its scapegoat. A turn of good luck for those around you was more often than not your misfortune. Even when you saw the first monster, your voice breaking around a scream at the eyes and the teeth and the smile, sprinting down the road, weaving around obstacles, you pushed against a man, who stumbled away and out of the path of a bucket of paint falling from a window a level above the sidewalk. He was saved a nasty concussion, at the very least, but you were slowed by the collision. Within the block the thing had you in it’s claws, fingers boring punctures into your arm, bruises blooming almost immediately. You’d wiggled free, loosing your jacket as you kicked and writhed, and when you fell hard back to the ground it might have been luck that put a brick within arm’s reach. Might have been luck that saw the brick’s arching trajectory straight into the creature’s yellow eye. But it just as easily could’ve been coincidence, and the good aim that had you picked early in P.E. despite your reputation as a pariah. You didn’t put much stock in luck, anyway.

Your father noticed the loss of the jacket more than the blood that stained your sleeve, and the bruises that steadily turned purple, then green, then yellow. You grew even warier than you had been, keeping your back to walls and keeping to yourself. It didn’t help. The next monster chased you for further than you had ever run, pushed you out into the edges of the city where you passed empty storefronts without really seeing them. By the time you stopped running, when you couldn’t have run any more, the monster was gone- where and since when you couldn’t have guessed. It was there, slumped against the wall of an abandoned strip mall full of shattered glass and trash trapped in dying weeds, that your mother came to you for the first time.

Fortuna smiled, and you were caught between laughing and crying, between confusion and anger, dark humor and utter exhaustion.

Going to Lupa was a better alternative than continuing to try your luck with your father, who had increasingly begun to pretend you didn’t exist. Camp Jupiter, where you weren’t chased by monsters and disappointment, was better than peeling linoleum and empty stares. The Romans welcomed you with open arms- a son of Fortuna was a good sign, a good addition to any legion, a source from which to take good favor as if it were nothing. When war came knocking, and the demigods stormed Mount Othrys like so many child soldiers, you were there. You’d thrown yourself into training, trying to dig out a place for yourself by your own merit, but you’d never be as gifted with a sword as a child of Mars, as tactically minded as one of Minerva. When you were there at the defeat of Krios, watching people you’d known for years be wounded, die, you were there as a lucky charm.

Your mother was beloved, feasts were held for her, and yet when you looked at the tattoo that held her symbol it was with a resentment that was unshakable. As the lines under your tattoo signifying your years in the legion multiplied, you surrounded them with art snaking up and down your arms that had nothing to do with your mother or the other gods and goddesses whose children were nothing but pawns in a greater game. You smothered the implication of your loyalty with flowers and vines, animals and symbols. But you didn’t bother to smother your cynicism. And all people saw was the outstretched, kind hand of luck regardless.

FATAL FLAW/DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC:

Amarus- bitter

Kit has never been shy about his distrust of the gods. As far as he’s concerned, the entire pantheon is full of dysfunctional and manipulative egotists, and the Romans are tragically deluded in their devotion. Even before he discovered the truth of his parentage and all that that meant, he was already skeptical of luck- the thing that just so happened to be his birthright, and utterly inescapable. That his childhood was so consumed by the fickleness of fortune made him bitter from the start- when he arrived at Camp Jupiter as a long-legged fourteen year old it was with tired eyes and a prematurely jaded attitude.

His bitterness made him ambivalent for years, but since he’s gotten older it’s morphed into something harder. To let himself be buffeted around by the whims of his mother and the rest of the gods and goddesses is to let them win. Kit is no optimist, but he’s fighting for something better regardless of the fact that losing seems inevitable. He’s driven by resentment, and it could very easily be his downfall.

Entwined as his future is with the gods and goddesses as well as his fellow demigods, it’s only a matter of time that his derision of the divine sparks with someone’s quick temper. His distrust is so invasive that he’s wary of any help the gods try to extend to anyone, regardless of the situation. In terms of character growth and development, this could definitely change, but his reasons for accepting the call to arms in this quest are decidedly not born of any loyalty to his mother.  

EXTRAS:

cultivated contention: I’d like to explore Kit’s interactions with the Greek demigods relating to the feud and separation that the gods created between the two groups. For him, it’s just another in a string of manipulations and lies coming from the careless pantheon, it’ll be interesting to see how he responds to this once his knee-jerk reaction to be friendly with the Greeks just to spite the gods wanes.

fundamental differences: In a world so concentrated in the godly, Kit defines himself through his distrust of the gods. I’d like to see him befriending someone who’s on this quest for all the right reasons despite this completely different worldview.

in the end, all there is is luck: Exploring Kit’s response to any sort of intervention or aid from his mother would be very interesting. Depending on the situation it could be philosophy-shifting.