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insult-2-injury · 3 years ago

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Take a Seat- Chapter 1

After a skirmish up top, your failing shop falls under the watchful gaze of the Eye of Zaun. And his blue-haired gremlin daughter.

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Next chap

"The past is never where you think you left it" -Katherine Anne Porter

The first step into Piltover was always a tad violent on the senses. The sun felt particularly offensive today, its rays clashing furiously with the Undercity smog that battled its way upward, thinning alongside you as the elevator made its ascent, hidden mechanics whirring as you came to a shuddering stop.

You raised your palm to preemptively block out the full brunt of the light as the latticework doors hissed open, proudly revealing the golden child of the two conjoined cities, disgustingly picturesque.

A familiar sense of world weariness nestled into the slopes of your shoulders as you stepped out, squinting toward the towering spires of the new hex gates. You felt out of place here, like a fish out of water. Or, more accurately, a fish who had sprouted two human legs and sauntered its way up and out of the swamp.

You pressed the thin fabric of your scarf to your face as you walked, ghostlike, across the bridge, inhaling a few deep breaths to acclimatize to the change. Even the air here was richer than you.

Loathe to admit, you’d actually taken time on your outfit today, throwing on your favorite dress, a green, watermelon striped piece. You'd even thrown the mirror finger guns before you'd left your place.

But of course, the moment you set foot on the outskirts of the bustling city, you understood why your attempt at fashionable disguise was unfruitful. Because topsiders knew the highly specific likes of their own people, and they could catch onto the stench of a foreign invader in seconds flat.

They sniffed the air like prairie dogs, scattering as politely as they could manage as you strolled through the active marketplace. You couldn’t fault them at all, really- it wasn’t as if a lamb-faced Piltovan could exactly blend in downstairs.

The off-white marble fountain loomed ahead as you turned a corner, wiping the beading sweat off your brows. You were looking around for a place to sit when an orange flash of movement nearby caught your attention.

A young, scrawny boy with shockingly red hair was combing through the food stalls of the farmer’s market nearby. His eyes were glazed over with a kind of hunger that you recognized well enough, the kind that made you impatient.

You recognized him from the Lanes; him and his friends took no small joy in terrorizing the local shopkeepers with ridiculously explicit graffiti. You’d never been able to bring yourself to frown on it, as it was somewhat of a comfort discovering another well-placed, comedically spray-painted pair of boobs hidden around the Lanes. A sign that things hadn’t changed while you weren’t paying attention.

The redhead stood out like a sore thumb in Piltover’s golden-rayed streets. Passersby watched him roving about, wary, as if he was a stumbling, undomesticated dog, growling and foaming at the mouth.

And he did look feral, but in the way that only a fellow child of Zaun could understand.

You slid your satchel onto your hip, heading toward him. You purchased an absurdly expensive loaf of rye and a small block of cheese, having learned long ago that flashing any form of money on the streets of Piltover was one way to put suspicious onlookers at ease, as if adorning yourself in cash made you ethical, less likely to steal.

Oh, thank heavens, they thought, you had money. You weren’t one of those people.

Conversely, if you flashed your coin around the Lanes, you were almost guaranteed to be humbled in a host of different ways if you couldn’t defend yourself. You’d be down cash and your shoes, too, if they looked expensive enough.

“I can spot you a mile away with that hair,” you said, walking toward the kid. “Hope you don’t think you’re being stealthy.”

The kid recognized you, shooting you a glare as you placed the offering beside him. “Least I’m not dressed like some wannabe Piltie.”

You pursed your lips and looked down at your dress. “I deserve that.” Reaching into your satchel that was about a thread away from unraveling entirely, you took out a sheathed knife and placed it into his open palm.

“For the cheese. Or whatever else you’ll use it for. Carving more tits into the walls.”

He examined it closely. “Looks sharp as fuck.”

It took the bothered gaze of multiple passersby to realize that your uncivil discourse had created a ripple of disturbance throughout the peaceful fountain area as a Piltovan child was sullied by their first F-bomb. You, a grown adult, threw another one out for good measure, if only to be on the receiving end of one more glare.

“It is sharp as fuck. What do you think I make, butter knives?”

“Would be more useful right about now.”

It was a brief comfort for both of you, you thought, to find reprieve in the churlish language that only someone from the Undercity could understand. It was the kind of harsh, disrespectful speech that probably simulated something like nails on a chalkboard to a mild-mannered Piltovan. You scanned the fountain area.

“Just wear a hat next time. Cover that hair.”

“Wear some make-up.”

You locked gazes with a familiar face across the way. A warm hand wrapped its fingers around your heart as you abandoned the redhead mid-insult and walked toward your brother.

“Stef,” you said, keeping your voice purposefully flat.

When he spoke your name in return, an aching affection bubbled in your chest, even as you took note of how stale the word sounded falling from his lips. He placed an awkward palm on your shoulder and squeezed, but said nothing else, beckoning you with a tilt of his head. An ancient bitterness ignited in your belly at his lack of affection. He’d never been warm, even when you were kids. You stewed quietly as you fell in step behind him, following him toward the pretentious fountain splashing softly in the heart of the marketplace.

Stefan looked at you with his bright eyes, the same color as yours. His floppy, chestnut hair that he'd started to grow out. His dimpled chin with the scar from when the front wheel had fallen off his bike as you’d both ridden down an unpaved road. He had spared you of any injury, wrapping you in his arms to soften the blow. You blinked away a swell of sadness.

He sat down on the thick, marble lip of the fountain and you perched yourself a safe distance away, criss-crossing your legs and pretending to study your nails, as if being in the presence of your elegantly dressed, Piltovan brother didn’t unsettle you in every possible way.

When you’d been summoned to meet Stefan, you had immediately begun the mental groundwork necessary to keep your emotions subdued. The past could hold no power up top, you promised yourself. Your memories together were nothing but distant drops of water. But they weren’t. They cascaded across your mind like a river carving out a canyon.

“You making knives for kids now?”

Your head turned to where the redhead had ditched the knife in place of his own hands, tearing into the loaf of bread with a vengeance.

“Eh, what’s the worst he could do with it?”

“Plenty.”

Your eye twitched.

“Tell me about the Lanes, anything new?"

Irritation cracked through you like a whip.

“Why not take a little outing? And see it for yourself. Instead of sending some shady Piltie suit.”

You were referring to the lavishly dressed man with impeccable posture that your brother had sent to your door as a physical invitation two nights before. Talk about standing out. You’d be surprised if he hadn’t gotten his ass kicked on the way out of Zaun.

Stefan clenched his jaw and despite your vow to remain unfeeling, you found your voice softening with an old devotion.

“It’s the same, Stef, just more shimmer.”

You brought him up to date on your business, about how recent clientele had boosted your profits exponentially. How because of that you were upgrading the tiny stall you’d rented out in the Boundary Markets. You glossed a bit over just who it was you were selling to. Besides, he was smart enough to figure out that the people who were looking for the kinds of weapons you crafted were probably not looking to use them for soap carving.

Stefan, in turn, updated you. He worked in the council building and shared that they were in the works of planning a celebration for the opening of the hex gates. He hardly responded when you mentioned just how screwed up it was that instead of using a fraction of that money for Undercity reparations, from the devastation topside had wreaked years ago, they were pouring it into an event they were branding the most expensive party of the year.

All in all, it seemed his hierarchy of needs was being met, while you struggled to scrape by. Of course, you weren’t surprised by this in the least.

He sat for a long moment after he finished, clearly mulling something over before running fingers through his hair. “You know, the City of Progress is progressing.”

You arched an eyebrow at his astute observation, biting your tongue. He’d never responded well to teasing.

“And we grow stronger yet.” He saw the way your body stiffened at the word ‘We’. “The Lanes haven’t. Progressed.”

You'd only risen to the surface a handful of times to catch up with him since he'd left the Undercity, but every time you did, you lost further touch with who he was now. He spoke differently, his cadence unnatural, like a child trying to fit into a suit he hadn't quite grown into yet.

“Oh, please do continue.”

He placed his head in his hand, sighing at your barbed words.

"If things were ever to come to a head again, it could get ugly. I just want to make sure..."

"Spit it out."

You knew full well what he was trying to get at. With the rapidly growing wealth disparity, and especially with the opening of the gates, tensions had risen exponentially. And the two cities had certainly not been frictionless before. Aside from that, whatever sort of science was behind the hex gates… well, you could only assume that whatever further experimentations were going on up top came at no benefit to those below.

What he was trying to say was if the Undercity tried to rise again, it would get its shit rocked.

"I'm worried about you."

"I'm fine."

Stefan paused, weighing his next words.

“I know you well enough to know you're probably not associating with the right sorts of people.”

You hummed, unable to form words through the melancholic bitterness that had started to form a nasty, bubbling potion in your stomach, increasing slowly towards a boil.

“I'm afraid that after-" He searched for the right words. "I'm afraid that after... what happened... you’ve become disillusioned. Resentful. I just... I shouldn’t have left you down there so long.” As if you were the last spoonful burning at the bottom of his soup pot, curdling and left to wither. What on Earth did he think you did all day, sit by the door and wait for his return? You stared at him incredulously. “I just don’t want you to be in the crosshairs when we-"

You boiled over.

“I’m sorry, who’s we?”

When Stefan was younger, he’d always had a hero complex and the ego to boot- it was what had pushed away the other children at the orphanage. In a game of make-believe, he'd always had to be the savior, and since no other kids would tolerate his big-headedness, you'd always felt the sisterly obligation to play into his imagination. You'd been a great subject and he'd always stayed true, sheltering you from every storm you would walk willfully into the shadows of.

He had needed you and you had needed him.

So, shooting him off his high horse after all these years felt a little treasonous.

"How’s the council stuff going? You said you, what, water the lobby plants?”

“I’m an administrative assistant."

“That's a fancy word for secretary, Stef. You’re a secretary.” Stefan’s knuckles were white as they gripped the lip of the fountain. “You have a lower security clearance level than a janitor, so keep your mouth shut about the Undercity. At least I provide for the cause.”

You could almost see your brother's head inflating to protect his pride as he bored holes into the cobblestone at his feet. He nodded, as if something had just clicked into place.

“Guess that answers my next question. About whether or not you’ve progressed.”

"And how do you suppose I progress? I'm barely staying afloat as it is-"

"Then let me help you."

"I don't want your help."

"Why, because I'm an evil topsider now?"

"No, because I only accept help from the right sorts of people."

You were being childish, and you knew it full well, but you were burning, the gentle affection you’d felt earlier sprouting thorns that raked down your insides.

Progress. The two of you had entirely different ideas of its definition, you realized. Stefan, he hadn't just moved on, he'd crushed any semblance of his former life in the Undercity. And with that, he'd crushed any realistic idea of who you were.

And you? The past beat in you like a second heart. You cloaked yourself in it, sheltered and basked in its savagery. Looking at your brother with fresh eyes, you thought that perhaps ignorance really was bliss.

"And who's that? Whatever misfit band of criminals walks by next?"

"So, everyone in the Undercity is a criminal now? What about you, you think you're somehow excluded in this?"

"Fine then, stay in the past with your friends."

As if the fountain was suddenly a hot skillet under your touch, you leapt up, hair whipping across your face as a sudden breeze seemed to couple with your wild emotions.

The moment suspended in time, the cruelty of his words beginning to tingle across your scalp, setting in, as if someone had just cracked an egg over your head and the yolk was spilling down your temples.

“You…” Your face contorts.

To his credit, he did have the decency to look a little sorry.

“I just want to protect-"

“Few years too late,” you interrupted, “For that.” You took a step forward. “Hope you can swim.”

With one swift motion, you shoved your brother into the fountain and reveled in the way that he yelped in surprise, hands grabbed wildly at thin air before he toppled over with a satisfying splash. Loud gasps echoed around the open space as he plunged in.

In your head, you’d slain a monster when all you’d realistically done was gather enough courage to push a grown man into a shallow pool. But you took the small victory and ran with it as you watched him struggle to slide his entire body in to be able to stand up.

You jeered at those rushing forward to help. What a scandal.

Your smile dropped as you saw an enforcer among them, charging toward not you, but the redhead at the food stands, who had apparently used the hell out of your small distraction. With how quickly he was foraging through different stalls, he was sure to open his pockets later to an incredibly diverse array of food groups.

“Look out!” You shouted and just like that, you entered yourself as a player in the game. A second enforcer locked eyes with you. Must have been a slow day at work. Or maybe being from the Undercity was cause enough for arrest. Didn’t matter because in a split second, you were running toward the kid, an enforcer hot on your heels.

You may as well have been waving a knife and shouting death threats, the way people dove out of your way as if their very lives were at stake.

“Fucking Run!”

The kid’s eyes were glistening with possibility as he hesitated, wanting more. Needing more. You remembered that cockiness, the way you’d felt invincible when you’d pushed the limits, just barely making it out of a scrape. But as the kid had concerned himself, in his hunger, with the proportion of bread to pocket size, he’d forgotten something crucial: the current ratio of Zaunite to Piltovan.

A bulky shopkeeper lunged and grabbed the boy by the shirt from behind, a comical number of fruits falling out of his pockets as he was yanked forward and grappled.

You growled. Shit. You weren’t about to leave the poor, idiot kid to a mob of topsiders. In the moments it took to cross the 20-foot distance, you weighed your options. Damage to property was most certainly a lesser charge than damage to person, so you targeted the legs of the table instead of the pudgy, veiny legs of the man who held the redhead by the scruff of his neck.

The wooden stilts caved in like toothpicks as you used your momentum to perform a sweeping kick that had the table careening in on itself as you flew past. You spared a glance backward, nearly letting out a whoop at the small burst of adrenaline in your chest when you saw the young boy following in your steps.

Recalling your original purpose, your head whipped over to the fountain and you stumbled slightly. Your brother had always been easy for you to read. It was a sibling thing, sure, but when you were younger, others found his mannerisms odd, cryptic. You'd always been able to navigate his sensitivities, knowing when you’d crossed the delicate line, calming him from his verbal tirades. All because you could just… read him. But in that single second of eye contact, you’d come to a sobering realization that you didn’t know this Stefan, this Piltovan flesh suit of your older brother. And that you actually had no idea where you stood.

You were utter strangers.

The two of you sprinted out of the sunny marketplace and down the stairs, narrowly avoiding attempts of capture by the two enforcers following. It was a bit shameful really, how easily you dodged their flying restraints, like it was a traveling game of Double Dutch.

You should’ve been concerning yourself with the consequences, perhaps. Admonishing the redhead boy who ran a half step behind you for never learning how to shoplift. But you were abnormally quiet. Because your brothers’ golden eyes, blank as a slate, burned behind your own.

The two of you held your gasping breaths until the elevator descended downward, as if a misplaced exhale of air would alert enforcers of your location. The skinny boy was silent, his pride wounded, having been held in the air like a squirming puppy not even five minutes ago. You said nothing, figuring the humiliation was enough.

“Thanks.”

Surprised, you looked over to where he was clearly avoiding eye contact. You muttered, “Don’t mention it.”

He nodded, the movement jostling a single, teetering apple out of his side pants pocket and resolutely, you did not laugh as he bent to pick it up. Instead, you found yourself thinking about the alliterative Piltover headlines the next day. ‘Marketplace Massacre’. Or ‘Terrorist Takeover’. And draw them in with a simple hook: “Have Poor People Gone Too Far?’

The elevator came to a shuddering stop, releasing steam as the doors opened to your city, welcoming in a stench you hadn’t known you’d missed. You inhaled deeply, as if you had been deprived of oxygen your entire time up top.

You settled your face into a steady glare, pulling your scarf tighter around your neck. As jarring as the entrance back into the green glow of the Undercity was, it was vital to not show it on your face. Opportunists stalked, you knew, in the shadows nearby, eyeing those who stepped foot in the city for any chinks in their armor.

You ignored the typical scammers as you walked, those who waited just outside the elevator, ready to sell you ‘the very newest gadgets’ from the City of Progress. It was something you really should fall for only once, and it was dumb even the first time, so the fact that they kept making coin was absolutely mind-boggling.

The redhead took off for home, you assumed, leaving a trail of literal breadcrumbs.

You walked through the heart of the city, figuring you had no reason to worry about heading home. With the harsh changes under Silco’s rule, enforcers hardly ever set foot in the Undercity, only occasionally being spotted around the Last Drop. And well, you could only assume they were pressed under the same thumb.

Besides soothing their wounded prides, Piltover wouldn’t waste resources to go after a young boy who snatched some bread and the likelihood they’d put out a search on a crazed woman who smashed some guy’s fruit stand was slim. They’d shake their fists at the city below as they always did, beefing up security around the marketplace for a short time.

Even so, you were extra aware of your surroundings as you walked back to your home on the outskirts of Zaun, keeping to the shadows.

The routine nightmares were held at bay that night, but only because in their place came the haunting words of your only brother. Curling in on yourself, you drifted into a fitful sleep.

_______________________

You got to work early the following morning, despite feeling exhausted. The hours lost to your brother yesterday had been wasted time, and with your increase in clientele, you actually felt a sense of excitement that had spurred on a surge of creativity.

You were confident that you’d managed to slide through the cracks as the next day dragged on in your lonely little riverside workshop. You were confident enough that you lost yourself in your work, no longer peering out the windows nervously for prowling enforcers. But it wasn’t an enforcer that had you nearly amputating yourself with a hacksaw as you startled. No, whoever it was quite literally caved your door in with a single knock.

You leapt up, scrambling for your dagger.

“I have a knife!” The intended threat came out more like a general statement and you would have winced if you weren’t so strung out on a sudden adrenaline.

A grunt in response.

You clutched the handle of your weapon and pointed it at the doorway. “Who are you?”

A pause. Then a gruff voice.

“Running errands.”

“For who?”

The man didn’t mince his next words at all, which in any other circumstance, you could appreciate. But at the time, you felt he could’ve done more to soften the blow.

“Silco.”

A bucket of ice water down your back would have been less shocking.

<3 <3 <3

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#silco #silco x reader #silco fanfic #arcane #silco arcane #reader insert #take a seat

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sundayswiththeilluminati · 4 years ago

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The Lament

The last thing the Vex ever heard — the grinding wails of a vicious Banshee.

Type: Sword

Slot: Kinetic | Energy | Heavy

Element: Arc | Solar | Void

Perk: Banshee’s Wail - Hold melee to rev the blade. Increases damage, shield bypass, and adds shield-piercing to all attacks. Gain stacks when dealing damage with revved attacks. Additional stacks increase the damage and damage resistance of heavy attacks.

Trait: Revved Consumption - Damaging a combatant heals the wielder.

Ornaments: Lethe's Mercy, Internal Combustion, The Logic, The Knight's Elegy

Origin & Description: So, um...hmm. How to start this.

Season exotics that haven't dropped yet but which aren't a secret can be previewed in the in-game Collections tab. That's helpful for me because I can note down a weapon's pull quote, perk name, exact perk text, etc. for its Compendium entry. So although Lament didn't become available till a few weeks into Season 12, it did show up in Collections on day one, and I checked it out to start its entry.

"Weird perk name," I thought as I read. "And weird that they capitalized 'banshee' in the pull quote. In a different context I'd think they were specifically referring to…" Then I read its lore tab.

If there's anything Guardians often need, it's guns. If there's anything Guardians often need fixed, it's more guns. That's why one of the most important NPCs in the Tower is Banshee-44, Tower Gunsmith. He's your one-stop-shop for repairs, upgrades, and catalysts for your weapons no matter how strange. If it goes "bang" (or "zap," "kaCHANK", "thoomp," "click," "pchAOW," "schiiing", "shhhzzooom", "pewpewpew," etc.) then Banshee knows how to handle it. And not much about anything else, because after 43 resets (at least 20 more than Exos are supposed to go through) his memory is swiss cheese on all non-firearm subjects. He was particularly friendly with Cayde-6, with whom he used to do things like go cliffdiving on Io or hunt fugitives in the Reef - y'know, friend stuff - and his temperamental memory gets especially sad every time he forgets and asks where Cayde is.

We've talked about Clovis Bray Corporation, aka Braytech, in multiple previous entries. It was founded by a man named Clovis Bray (or "Clovis Bray I" as he liked to call himself). Among the many technological achievements of CB Corp, Clovis Bray claims the creation of the Exos and the building of the Deep Stone Crypt where they were born. All Exos began there as humans whose minds were transplanted to an android body. What CB Corp didn't advertise was how much the Exo research was driven by Clovis Bray's terror of his own mortality. Having prolonged his lifespan to the point where his "body" was a loose sack of lab-grown organs and artificial blood, Clovis now sought a way to move his mind into a synthetic body and was willing to do whatever he had to to get it - including killing his own son, but it takes an entire other entry to list all the shitty things Clovis Bray has done. The shitty thing pertinent to this entry is: to build his Exos, Clovis tore open a portal to a Vex forgeworld, which obviously resulted in a goddamn Vex invasion because that's what happened when a literal Hive Prince did the exact same thing. At least Clovis himself had to deal with the consequences of this one, since he got infected by a terrifying Vex concept/construct that forced him to ditch his fatally-compromised human body ahead of schedule. He made two copies of his uploaded self: one to become an AI controlling the Deep Stone Crypt, and one to wake up as an Exo, past memory reset, in the combat-geared body of his custom-built top-of-the-line robotic assistant.

AI-Clovis aka Big Head Boy (long story) (not actually that long, he lives in a big head) came online with all of his original memories and quickly took/resumed control of the Crypt and the desperate defense against the Vex, by which I mean "initiated a plan to bait the Vex away from Europa and let them murder all of humanity while he kept making Exos." Clovis-1, on the other hand, woke up without any memory of his previous self (a wipe done to help Exos adjust to their new forms), met his granddaughter, saw the awful shit his AI counterpart had planned, and responded with, "Piss off, old man." Turns out if you boot up a new instance of your own "basic emotional form" and immediately expose it to a bunch of awful crimes you yourself have committed, it might decide to give you the finger and go off with your granddaughter Elsie to fix those awful crimes. Thus: into the Vex meat(?) grinder they go!

Clovis as usual didn't fuck around when it came to his own wellbeing, and thus Clovis-1's Exo frame had been built for incredible survivability and combat proficiency. He in turn put those abilities to use at the vanguard of their Vex counter-offensive; those abilities, and his brand new big-ass chainsawsword. Before uploading himself Clovis asked, "What weapon could ever be badass enough for my indestructible new robot self?" and it turns out the answer was a goddamn sword with a chainsaw edge and a little rocket thruster at the tip (yup, that's a rocket) to add devastating angular momentum to its downswing. As concept designer Tyler Bartley said of The Lament, "Definitely channeled my love for 40K into this one."

So the Vex are the Vex, but a chainsawsword is a goddamn chainsawsword, and though it took many deaths and resets the Europan Exos finally reclaimed the Glassway, pushed the Vex back through the gate, and closed it down. Exo-Clovis, now Clovis-43 thanks to 42 deaths and/or informational compromises from the Vex, shattered his blade dealing the final blow to the Vex Hydra that anchored the portal. He and Elsie then got the rest of the surviving Exos offworld (where they may have linked up with Rasputin?) and deactivated AI-Clovis to seal up the Deep Stone Crypt. Then Clovis-43 had to make a hard call: to wipe his own memory of the affair to both protect the Crypt and end the original Clovis once and for all. So, much as he hated to leave Elsie, he asked her to reset him. But before she did he asked for one modification to help him break completely from his former self and start a new life: to replace the hardcoded name inherited from his human self with the one he'd earned in battle from the Exos he fought alongside: Banshee.

Yup. Banshee-44 began as Clovis Bray. Those 43 resets weren't carelessness or weird experiments, they were because he was leading the fight to rectify his own self's crimes and incidentally chainsaw absolute hordes of Vex into scrap. His glitchy memory isn't just from time and resets, it's because he deliberately excised memories and information he wanted to leave behind. And his incredible gift with machinery stems from the same genius that created the Exos in the first place because Banshee-44 is Clovis Bray. BANSHEE IS CLOVIS BRAY.

There's no reason this can't be true. But there were also no previous indications that it might be. Banshee's been an NPC in Destiny since day one. He's always there in the background fixing your stuff, giving you new stuff, trading for upgrade modules and components and whatever's the currency du jour. Similarly Clovis Bray Corporation has been in Destiny's lore from the beginning, mostly as a source of cool Golden Age ruins for Guardians to loot and/or defend. Clovis Bray himself was, until the Beyond Light expansion, a distant and largely undefined character. Linking the two is...there's no reason it can't be true. In fact it explains how dang good Banshee is with salvaged Golden Age weapons tech like Sleeper Simulant's original DVALIN core. But there were no hints about this. No foreshadowing. Just boom, hey, this guy you chill with in the Tower every day? He's the amnesiac android version of one of the worst & most powerful humans of the Golden Age. Yeah. Banshee. That guy. Only the detail of Banshee's forehead keeps me from thinking Bungie's writers pulled this completely out of their asses. It's subtle, but if you look at Banshee's head, he has a split-circle emblem molded over his brow (a detail present as far back as Destiny 1). It's the same split circle as the perk symbol on No Time To Explain, the one that appears on the gear of both Elsie and Ana Bray; in other words, it's a distant symbol of the Bray family.

So fast-forward to Beyond Light and the raid on the Deep Stone Crypt, during which we had to partially reactivate it in order to stop the Kell Eramis from using it to create her own eliksni Exo. Unfortunately when we woke up the Crypt we woke up Big Head Boy too, and that had the knock-on effect of messing with Banshee. Sometime around when Big Head came back online it seems Banshee got hit with a wave of scrambled memories. Next time you hit the Tower he calls you over and describes the weirdness, asking you to help him sort it out. And we do, because we love Banshee, and eventually retrieve both an explanation and the shards of the sword Clovis-43 broke over the carapace of Belmon, Transcendent Mind. Banshee thanks you for your help and reforges the blade, then passes it along to you, saying his fighting days are over and anyway he needs to sit down for a moment and process all this. And because it's Banshee we pat him gently on the shoulder, say "take all the time you need," and wait till we've rounded the corner before screaming in joy and sprinting to our ship to hurtle off and try out our glorious new chainsawsword.

When Big Head Boy found out about Banshee, he said some really goddamn creepy stuff that made it sound like he was going to try to possess Banshee and make him do weird shit, which makes me want to stand in front of his big stupid head and pointedly rev this sword. If he's such a genius he ought to be smart enough to realize that if he so much as texts our beloved absent-minded Gunsmith millions of Guardians will tear him apart. Probably using the weapons that Gunsmith built. Possibly using Lament with the Lethe's Mercy ornament that changes its purple silicon-wafer color scheme to gold and adds the five-bullet Gunsmith insignia (or, if you're in a less-violent mood, the Internal Combustion ornament that makes it the blade from Transistor) (or, if you're in a more violent mood, The Logic ornament that turns it into a Hive Knight sword). Definitely using Lament's revved-up 10-stroke combo move that slices, dices, and ends in a final glorious cleaving rocket-propelled downstroke that will put paid to anything short of a raid boss. Don't worry, Banshee. We got you.

Destiny 2 Compendium Armarum Exoticarum

#Destiny 2 #The Lament #Banshee-44 #Clovis Bray #Deep Stone Crypt #chainsawsword!!#fUCK it's a good sword #it is SUCH a good sword #and that combo finisher!#man it feels awesome to bring it down on someone's head #we love you Banshee #watch out Big Head Boi we can and will kick your nonexistent ass #Destiny Compendium Exoticarum #this is the wager of existence

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fairyscribbles · 4 years ago

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Tree. (Namjoon, zombie!au)

Wow, this is a long time no see, is it not? :) I hope you enjoy this slightly angsty story. I will post an update about my life in a few days, I promise!! <3

Namjoon looked up from the documents he was frowning at as a knock sounded on his door. When he saw you slipping into his office and clicking the lock behind you, he couldn't help but smile, already leaning back in his chair and spreading his legs slightly, a clear invitation to take a seat. You did so with a Cheshire grin on your face, hand immediately smoothing down the strands of Joon's hair, quite uselessly. You're about to mess them up soon, either way."Report," his voice rumbled playfully, large palms settling over your hips, dragging you closer to him so your chests pressed together.

"Time for your mandatory break, leader," you played along, thumb swiping against the bags under Joon's eyes in a nurturing manner. The chest pressed up against yours shook with laughter, and Joon slid his hands up your body to cup at your cheeks and pull you in for a kiss that was long overdue.

You couldn't exactly pinpoint the moment when you two became an item. You probably couldn't even say when this began.

There was that one time the two of you couldn't get back to the tower in time, a while ago when it was still necessary for every able-bodied individual to participate in runs. It was a mixture of adrenalin, fear of the future and the extreme need to be held that had the two of you reaching for each other like people starved.

After that, you had no talk about what you were. The two of you weren't exactly a secret, Jungkook walked in on the two of you more than he'd like (hence the newly installed lock on Joon's office door), but you weren't as public about your relationship as Hobi and the Doctor.

This was enough for you, you settled with a little sigh as your lips molded against his, and you wiggled in Joon's lap for comfort.

As you rubbed against him, Namjoon groaned deep in his throat, hands sliding down the expanse of your back to perch on your ass, swatting at it as you giggled at the rumbled "behave" that left his lips.

Namjoon led the tower with a firm hand, but it never slipped into dictatorship or terror as you had heard from other groups. He fairly often offered his position up for taking and consulted each decision with as many people as he could.

He was a good leader, fair, kind, but also able to make decisions a few would. He relied on the whole group, and he was a shoulder you could lean on when the night got a little too dark.

And that's what you hoped you were to him at this point.

Many times Joon was the first one to rise and the last to sleep, hunched over maps of scavenged territories, scheduled runs, and inventory documents, trying to figure out the necessary steps that needed to be done. Even though he no longer participated in runs, he was still as active as he was before, when he was jumping from roof to roof.

You felt his body relax underneath you, the lazy smile that stretched over his lips evident as he trailed kisses down your neck. The tenseness of his shoulders disappeared under your touch, which you encouraged with a hum, gently grinding down into his crotch. Joon responded in kind, nipping at your neck in playful warning.

"If you keep this up, I won't get back to work when I'm supposed to," he warned and you laughed, scratching at his scalp.

"Oh my god, I would totally hate if you ended up kissing me all afternoon. Please don't," sarcasm heavy on your tongue, you laughed when Joon sent another swat to your ass.

You dipped down to kiss him once more, when you suddenly felt your skin vibrate in something you hadn't experienced in a while. You couldn't have been imagining it, because Joon tensed up as well, brows furrowing as he tried to locate the source of the sound.

As if a switch went off, it both came to you at the same time and you few off his lap, ripping the door open as Joon grabbed at the radio, ordering all runners to find near shelters and get out of sight.

From the windows, you saw the military truck, mounted with numerous blades, spikes and spears which were getting overwhelmingly weighed under by the mass of dead bodies that blindly followed the booming music resonating from the two venue sized speakers on top of the truck.

All the masses of undead had flown to the source of disturbance, looking like ants from the top of the building. With how loud the truck was, you knew it was not only the walkers that were coming, but also the rabid virals that were much quicker.

You reached the entrance to the tower out of breath and turned on the electric traps while grabbing at the radio stationed near the two alert guards.

"The entrance is armed, I repeat, the entrance is armed," you huffed, trying to catch your breath.

"Do NOT return to the tower," but you watched with mouth agape as someone sprinted around the corner, two virals on their trail. Before you could say anything, the person launched themselves in the air, somersaulting over the electrified fence and landing in the rubble on the other side.

The mindless zombies ran straight into the trap, and before they could attempt to flee, their nerves were charred and the smell of rotten burning flesh got in the air.

Quickly shaking off, the runner rose and climbed the barricades to safety. Jungkook was bleeding from where he cut his palms as he landed in the rubble, and he had a smaller gash on his forehead, but other than that he was fairly okay, and it was okay for you to smack him up the side of his head for scaring the soul out of you, something you just told him. Jungkook grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck.

"Sorry, noona," he murmured, wiping at his bloodied brow. "The tower was the closest safehouse for me."

"And the one near the van?" you handed out the melee weapons to the two guards- after the drama with the girl who saved Yoongi's life, guns were forbidden by the entrance, replaced by spiked bats, axes and machetes.

"It's overrun. Some of the virals smashed through the front entrance and there were already some walkers in there." your heart dropped as you heard this. Before you could ask, Jungkook beat you to it.

"None of ours were there. I checked it out and cleaned some of the walkers when the two virals saw me." you sighed out in relief, walking over to the windows. The music was harder to hear now, slowly going farther away, leaving behind empty streets. The further away the car was, the more runners began to check in.

Hope was just fine, monitoring the situation from the nearby watchtowers. Yoongi took the opportunity to practice his aim and test out of well his homemade silencer worked.

And when you looked over at Jungkook, he had a look on his face as if he was the king of the world. His smugness and the amount of injuries on him didn't match him just escaping two virals.

You eyed him warily.

"What did you do?" he shook the backpack in his hand, before throwing it to you.

"Finally got there." your heart got stuck in your throat as you wasted no time in ripping it open, eyes almost glittering in happiness at the amount of pills that spilled out.

"You didn't!" you exclaimed and immediately rummaged through it, checking what he got. Painkillers, cough drops, anti-inflammatory pills, disinfectants, numerous bandages at the bottom, and so much more.

"I wasn't quite sure what to take, so I just got the basics. When hyung writes me a list, I'll go back at take some more."

"Did you keep it open?" Jungkook shook his head.

"Lured in two walkers and then locked the door. Covered it with some rubble, just like I found it. I hid some things that seemed to look important away and ransacked the place, so it looks like it's been raided. Tried to do more, but I heard the music." Jungkook frowned, but nevertheless you threw your arms around his neck, hugging him tight. You knew how low you were running on some specific medicine, and just this backpack stocked you up for weeks.

"You're a hero, Kookie," you cooed, pulling back to press a kiss against the smudged cheek. Underneath the soot, you could see the blush shining through as a tiny giggle escaped his lips.

"Ah, noona..." he mumbled in embarrassment, wiping at his forehead. The wound didn't look very dangerous, but you still took it up to pull out one of the disinfectants Jungkook scavenged to clear it out. The two of you shuffled away from the entrance, leaving the two guards to peer over the ledge and make sure no stray walkers found their way inside.

"So, you saw the van even before?" you asked as you soaked a piece of cloth with the alcohol. Jungkook winced before he nodded.

"Yeah, they went down the main road. There was quite a bit of walkers behind them, because of the music. The women also shot at them, so it brought even more traffic in."

"Women?" you jumped, not even realizing when Namjoon joined the two of you. Jungkook's eyes twinkled as he looked up at his hyung, nodding.

"Yeah, they had assault rifles and also explosives. They threw some in the crowds every now and then, thinning the herd."

"Did you recognize anyone there?" you gently pressed your thumb against the crease between Kook's eyebrows, as he frowned in thought.

"I don't think so. I'm not sure, they had these weird masks over their faces."

"Masks?"

"Yeah, like red masks with a white hand over it? Remember Lord of the Rings, hyung? Something like that." It was Namjoon's turn to frown, his look souring. You reached out, grabbing at his hand in comfort, but the squeeze he returned was feeble at best.

"Damn," he cursed, running a hand through his hair and biting at his lower lip in frustration.

"I gotta go." your stomach dropped, as he turned on his heel, leaving both you and Kook staring after him in alarm. Both of you turned to look at each other, puzzled and confused. Torn between wanting to follow him and ask what's going on and to stay behind and tend to Jungkook's wound, you silently watched as Namjoon took the bare necessities and ordered the electric trap to be turned off, before he disappeared over the ledge, leaving the building.

"Where did he go, noona?"

You wished you could answer him.

It has been a while since Namjoon had gone out alone. It has been a while since he had gone out, period, but even when he did assign himself a run, the others made sure he would be accompanied by the more experienced runners. There was not much need for him to be with someone, anyways- the streets were almost cleared out completely. If there wasn't as much rubble and occasional fires sprouting up, he could pretend as if no apocalypse happened in the first place.

The wind was blowing softly, ruffling through his hair and bringing the stench of death to his nostrils. The smell that would have made him puke just mere months ago now seems like something natural to him. He tenses only once the stench increases, signifying the approach of an enemy; luckily, he seems to be following the van's tracks meticulously, because all the fast virals are gone, and only a straggler shuffling from inside appears here and there. Even so, he doesn't take any chances and opts travelling on rooftops when possible.

He heard of the rumors, but he didn't want to believe them. It seemed surreal, but seeing the van on his own eyes, and hearing Jungkook speak of the people using it confirmed his suspicions.

He travelled swiftly, jumping from one roof to another, using the ground only if absolutely necessary. There weren't many walkers he offed, some stragglers who got stuck when the van passed their way, only now getting loose. He still had some time left before the sun went down, but he didn't want to waste any chances.

The army base on the outskirts of town was said to be abandoned and overrun with dead soldiers. Since there is a theory that the sounder the body was before the infection, the more dangerous zombie it would create, people steered clear from the institution of possibly extremely agile undead shuffling about. The closer he got, the more disposed bodies appeared to be lying on the ground. Here and there, he saw crucified zombies, warning signs for the living to turn back, and yet he ignored them all. Normally, he wouldn't so easily walk into a human settlement; just because his people and the tower were friendly didn't mean that the others wanted to keep humanity afloat. He already heard of gangs overpowering smaller groups, of mafia hoarding the important supplies and trading them for guns or people. There was talk of human trafficking, of gladiator style games being set up where prisoners desperately fought against unleashed zombies without a weapon.

He might be making a grave mistake, Namjoon thought to himself, frowning, as he neared the reinforced gates of the institution. Already from afar, he could see at least three assault rifles pointed at him, the women wielding them growling at him to state the reason why he came. He came closer, hands in the air.

"Are you the Harpies?" Namjoon called out, trying to stay calm even though he knew his voice attracted potential undead lurking afar.

"What's it to you?" one of the guards scoffed back, hoisting the gun higher up.

"I'm your leader's husband."

The headquarters of the Harpies was full of life, and mostly female. Since he was brought in, he has not seen a man, but instead was met by a horde of battle-toughened women who eyed him suspiciously. It wasn't surprising; he wasn't one of them. There was no white handprint on him, indicating his allegiance to the group. The placement of the handprint didn't seem to be of importance: he saw it on the crown of a bald woman's head, over clothing, printed over someone's throat in a ghastly reminder of how the virus has society in a choke-hold.

Weapons also seemed to be heavily distributed amongst the members. There was not a single woman without some kind of weapon, be it an assault rifle all the way down to a knife strapped over the waist.

After patting him down and disposing of his weapons ("We might give them back...if we don't forget," crooned the guard with a sly grin as she slid his handgun from the holster hidden under his shirt), Namjoon was led down the hangar, instructed to keep his eyes forward. He seemed to attract attention; did they think of him as a hostage? Did he freely turn himself over to the enemy, the sudden thought came to his head. What if they would hold him hostage and blackmail the tower for pharmaceutics or food? A weight suddenly set over his shoulders. He and Yoongi had a mutual understanding on how to deal with situations like these; calmly assess if the price is adequate. If not, see if there is a different way to get one of them out. If not, establish a shrine of remembrance for the fallen comrade, because having one dead is better than dozens. You flashed through his mind just as he reached the end of the hangar, and the door to the former commander's office opened.

A woman stood with her back to him, pondering over a huge map which spread all over one wall. Her hair slicked back, held in a tight braid.

"Boss, there is some guy who says he knows you," came the introduction from one of the guards. Immediately, the woman scoffed.

"Who the fuck has the balls to come over he-" and as she turned and sighted Namjoon, her grumbling cut off, the frown on her face replaced by a ghost of a smile he had remembered from before.

"Namjoon," she breathed out, waving the guards away with a flick of her wrist. Her voice. It still haunts him in his dreams sometimes, calling out for him. And he usually wakes up, the presence of her name on his lips.

"Mina."

There were three hours left before the sun came down, and yet you still couldn't stop pacing. Namjoon broke the most vital rules one has to abide when they go out: always say where you're going and have some kind of communication channel on you. Namjoon broke both, and it was unlike him, and it freaked you out.

You tried to entertain yourself by doing other tasks; bringing Jungkook up to the doctor to make sure there were no other injuries on him, before dumping him off at his room to rest. You then took his bag over to Seokjin, who almost wept with happy tears at the sight of so many necessary medicines being dumped on his desk. You catalogued all of them and then made changes on the roster of most vital items the runners had to keep their eyes out for. It did put your mind somewhat at ease, knowing that there were so many items taken off there, and that there is a place where you can go and restock.

That made you call up Jimin and one more runner, marking the pharmacy on their maps and sending them off to see if they can find other necessary items. There was still enough time, as the pharmacy was shockingly close. How could they have missed it?

On your way back from assigning their run, you passed by Yoongi and the girl who rescued him; she recently underwent restorative surgery to have her ankle put back into place, which rendered her basically immobile. The senior runner took it up to help her get from spot A to B. You were glad to see that she is getting used to the tower. Being in isolation for so long can seriously harm a human being, but she is slowly making progress to grow more accustomed to the life here. The kids seem to help- they like her voice and so she and Yoongi make bedtime reading rounds every now and then, reading from the frayed books that were left behind by former residents. Thinking about children had you turning on your heel, walking over to the Teacher. She has been quiet on supplies for a while, especially because Donghun always seemed to scoff at any supplies she asked for. You didn't agree with him- school was necessary even in times like this, to teach the children basic facts about the world, and to give them a semblance of what normal life looked like.

At first she resisted, affirming she needs nothing new, but seeing that the walls of the make-shift classroom have doodles all over them confirmed that they do need some sort of paper, and maybe if they were lucky, some arts and crafts supplies to keep the children busy. You also took note of her state; it seemed to be a struggle for her to get up from the floor, and the cushion probably isn't cutting it anymore as a good seat. You will soon need diapers and possible baby formula.

You visited the doctor afterwards, mentioning the new possible addition to the tower, and asked her if there are any specific items she will need for the procedure. As Joon still didn't turn on his radio or tracker, you had nowhere to be and the initial check-up for the vital things for birthing turned into an inventory checkup of the medical resources. Even though the whole tower voluntarily gave it up in favor of disinfectants, you found out that you were running low on alcohol, and you immediately informed the current runners outside to swipe up whatever hard liquor they could get their hands on. Jimin just sent you a message, informing you on their trip to the pharmacy- they found everything on the list and more, but still decided to stock up on medicine the tower already had an abundance of - if needed, they could trade it for other material in the long run.

The sun was already low on the horizon as you left the doctor's office. With a shaky hand, you raised the radio to your lips, voice so unsure you almost couldn't let a sound out.

"Joon?" his name got swallowed by the static, and the more you listened to the gritty sound of nothingness coming back at you, taunting you, the more your heart tightened in fear. What is happening?

Namjoon would never expect to meet her again in these circumstances; her offering him tea in her great office. Despite being a leader, it was evident that Mina was out on the van mission as well. Her arms, already blackened by new tattoos that ran from her shoulders down to her wrists in bold strikes, had blood splattered all over them. She followed his gaze, smirking.

"Sorry about that," she said nonchalantly, as she wiped down a bit of brain matter from her bicep. "Didn't get enough time to get ready." Giving up on her task, she dropped the towel in a nearby bin, sitting back in her chair.

"I wasn't expecting company, you know." To this, Namjoon chuckled himself. "To be quite honest, I didn't think I would be going around making visits either." it was strange, seeing her like this, so familiar and yet so strange. The face staring at him was the first thing he saw in the morning for many days, and yet looking at her now didn't evoke the same giddiness of love as it had before.

He was filled with apprehension. He felt like he was locked inside a cage with a sleeping tiger, not knowing whether he fed or not.

"Your van stirred up quite a bit of trouble for us." Mina nodded, lifting her legs to rest them on her desk. "Yeah, we usually don't go down there, but we noticed an increased number of walkers." Her striking eyes pierced his, and the breath stuttered in his chest. Even though he felt like he didn't know her, Mina was still beautiful.

"Was it from you?"

"No. We are keeping a good job at staying whole." at in that moment, as something flashed through Mina's eyes, he knew he shouldn't have said that. Something along the lines of pain flickered in them, but it was gone as quickly as it came. Mina gave him a wry smile.

"I'm glad to hear that."

Silence spread among them; nobody quite knew what to say. If he still had it, Namjoon would've been fidgeting with his wedding band at that moment. But that comfort was lost in the apocalypse.

"And so, what are you doing here?" Mina snapped from her thoughts, a smile spreading across her face.

"The world evidently has gone to shit, Namjoon. It has been months, and there has been no outside contact from any government institution. There has been no cure for the bite, apart from immediate amputation if a limb was the source of the disease." Kicking away from her desk, Mina stood up, walking over to the large map painted on the wall. Namjoon took it as an invitation to join her, studying the various symbols spread across the area of the town.

"At this point, we don't operate under the presumption that the people might get better. We expect things will just go downhill from now on. And we need to start cleaning up." Namjoon's stomach dropped at her final sentence. The purge, something Namjoon strongly opposed and tried to stop, is going to happen. He looked up from the map to stare at his former wife's profile, somewhat stunned. How a woman who was adamant about leading the ants out of their kitchen instead of killing them could lean over a map of the city they built their life in and actively plan to get rid of their neighbors, their co-workers, their...

The door slammed open and a woman with a smile that could light up the room entered. Mina's head snapped up and she grinned fully at the newcomer, opening her arms, which the woman took as an invitation to jump into her embrace. Her movements were so full of life, so active, Namjoon only later noticed that her arm was crudely cut at the elbow, something that did not seem to slow her down in the slightest. The white handprint went over the stump from where her forearm would grow.

Namjoon choked at his spit when his former wife and the newcomer shared a kiss, this being the first time they saw each other since Mina returned from the vehicle mission. Not knowing what to do, Namjoon screened the room, trying to find something, anything he could keep his eyes on while his wife greeted her lover. Hearing her chuckle, he turned to her, a sly grin throning on her face. With one arm still wrapped around her lover's waist, she pointed to the area around her neck with a suggestive lifted eyebrow.

"I see you've also been busy in your tower, Joon." red seeped into his cheeks as he pressed down on the new bruise you left behind, and the thought of your earlier escapades made his stomach clench with guilt. He left without telling anyone his whereabouts, without checking in. There was still a couple of hours left for him to return, he analyzed as he looked out the window. It was only after Mina spoke that her lover seemed to have acknowledged his presence.

"Darling, this is Namjoon. He leads a group downtown." She tilted her head in curiosity.

"So you met during the raid today?" Mina laughed at the same time as Namjoon smiled.

"No, we've known each other even before the apocalypse. He probably saw our mark and it reminded him of me." Mina hit the nail on its head. He still remembers the white handprints on the red wall, ones he had passed every time he went to work. Her lover laughed, shaking her head.

"What did you come here to do, Namjoon? Are you here to trade?"

The handprints on the wall stood out, blooming from the bottom, and crowning out into a tree. Namjoon's bigger palmprint was always complemented with Mina's slender fingers.

He shook his head. "I came to offer a chance to merge groups." Mina, whose smile was still civil up to that point, turned sour. With a tightening of her arm, she pulled her lover back to her, pressing a firm kiss to her temple.

"Hyeri, love. Can you give us some privacy? I'll tell you everything tonight." Hyeri, seemingly sensing something important from her lover, nodded in understanding. She returned the gesture, kissing the tip of Mina's nose, which made her giggle slightly, before taking leave.

The tree seemed to travel through the history of their relationship. Some palm prints would hold small keepsakes, such as the movie tickets of their first date, an old key to the first apartment they rented together, pictures of them with their families, friends...

As the door clicked shut, Mina's gaze turned cold.

"You want to collaborate with the Harpies?" her voice was unlike the one he knew for so many years, and it made a shiver run down his spine.

"We have many doctors," he tried to appease the anger in the woman's face. "Scientists even, ones that are working on trying to find a cure..."

"And have they been successful?" she cut him off, leaning back against the wall. Only then he saw that the wall was covered with pictures of women. Some had a red "X" placed over them. Namjoon knew very well what that meant.

The tree trunk continued with pictures from their wedding. He still vividly remembers the feeling of the day, but the visual aspect of it disappeared in the smoke of the destroyed city. The pictures are still probably stuck to the wall, back in their own apartment, with everything else that makes his heart tug in pain.

"No...I mean, n-not yet, but they could be! Mina, those are our people out there."

"They're not." Mina's glare was stone-cold, and if he did not see the white of her knuckles, he would have thought this was easy for her to speak of.

Their wedding pictures were followed by pictures of house renovations. They bought a run-down apartment near the center of town, and it took a while and many pain-filled days to mold the place in what they hoped would be the home that they would grow old in. It was in a great location; supermarkets were nearby, the public transport was a minute away, parks were near, bordering with a kinder garden.

"They're not our people. If you need to tell yourself that to appease your survivor's guilt, I completely understand that. But they stopped being human the second their eyes turned grey and they reached out to bite at you." Namjoon clenched his jaw, looking away from his former wife.

The following pictures on the family tree were of Namjoon and Mina looking bright and happy. Pictures of Mina's body. A black and white grainy picture which only doctors could decipher but held so much happiness.

"Everybody deals with this pandemic their way, Joon. I cannot sit around and try to keep my women safe, knowing that every day there is more of them and less of us. I need to work on trying to give my people a sense of fulfillment, and if it is by killing the monsters and ensuring our safety, so be it. If it is marked with the price of some of mine dying or losing limbs in the fight, so be it."

The bundle of sheets held the most precious treasure of them all, and it hung from the family tree as a valuable fruit. And the two types of handprints would be joined by another.

"What if it is reversible?" he found that he couldn't speak aloud. The words were as fragile as his belief in them, just barely above a whisper.

"What if we can bring back all those that are suffering at this point?"

"And what if we can't, Namjoon? What if they keep mutating, and there will be a tipping point where they will overpower us?"

He still remembers the days when he would play fight with her. Where he would act as if the tiny hands pushing at his calf were strong enough to topple him down. He would still wake up in a sweat, shivering as he dreamt of a dark lake where the same small hands were pulling him under.

"I don't think I can go around and systematically kill them all, Mina...what about...what about us?" his eyes held too much pain, and it made Mina step up to him and cup his face in her palm. The way she brushed under his eye made him almost believe none of this happened. It almost made him believe that she just woke him up to coax him to a breakfast and then work. He almost didn't want to open his eyes.

He saw them. He saw Mina, holding their daughter. He saw his firm, he saw his colleagues still alive, he saw him and Yoongi drinking beers by the river. He almost thought all of this was just a horrid, horrid nightmare.

But then he opened his eyes, and he was still standing in Mina's office. He saw Mina, eyes full of pain and inherent understanding that there might not be another time they meet. Her hand slid down to his neck, brushing against the hickey that you left behind, and her eyes filled with tears. The last time he saw her crying was when she left him, running off with the protype version of the harpies. The last time he saw her crying...

"Our relationship died when our daughter reached out for me with the intention to kill instead of love." her voice cracked. Something broke in him, and he gathered Mina in his arms. He embraced his wife. The woman that he studied with, dated with, fell in love with. He held tight both the woman who gave birth to their only child and killed it away three years later.

"I will die trying to kill them all, Joon." The hug couldn't have lasted more than mere minutes, but it felt like hours. When Mina pulled away from him, she wiped at her eyes viciously. Turning towards the window, she took a deep breath, and Namjoon could see how she visibly tried to hide all the pain behind the wall of hatred she built. The sun was almost down. He had less than an hour to get back, and he felt tired. So, so tired.

"If you need the help of the Harpies, we will be there. In return, we do expect your help in regards with medical assistance if one of us falls ill. However, we prefer death to undeath."

She turned to him, and he no longer saw his wife.

"If you see me stumbling around the town, Namjoon...please, kill me. I don't want to be them."

"I'm really sorry, Mina. I..." I didn't want this to happen. I didn't want us to end this way, on the opposite spectrum of life. I didn't want to leave the body of our only child underneath the tree of memories we grew for ourselves.

All these words were stuck in his throat and didn't want to leave, and yet Mina understood them all. She smiled at him sadly, secretly glad he did not continue.

"I know, Namjoon. You should go, before the sun falls down."

She led him down the compound, and returned his weapons, as promised. As he turned to say goodbye to his wife, he saw Hyeri standing on the side. She reciprocated his small nod with a wave of her hand.

"Good luck, Mina."

"Stay safe, Namjoon."

----

The tower was already lit up in evening mode. People were slowly heading off to bed, already used to the schedule organized by the sun. Guards changed for the evening, every runner that was scheduled to be on a run returned. All their loot was put into inventory and new lists were made up for the next day. The children were all washed and put into beds. Some of the doctors were already sleeping, preparing themselves for the potential crisis that could happen in the middle of the night.

And yet there was one person still unaccounted for. One person because of which you still didn't turn on the UV light traps.

The sun was already behind the mountains, but the skies were light. There were still a few minutes left before the light would die out and the monsters would come out to hunt the unsuspecting victims.

You were sitting at the edge of the entrance to the tower, legs swinging nervously. A machete lay across your lap and you tested your grip on it every now and then, feeling the weight of it in your hand. Would you be able to do it if the necessity rose up?

The radio was still silent. Namjoon probably didn't even take it with him, so it turned out to be useless at this point. The only thing that was left for you was to wait for him and trust him to come home. The urgency with which he left...it was something that he could not postpone, and something he had to deal with, no doubt. But why did he not tell you?

It wasn't as if you were together together. You were fooling around, were you not? But why did you feel as if your heart were about to jump out of your chest and shatter on the floor when you thought of him getting hurt? Where was he?

"___." deep in your thoughts, you didn't hear him step over the rubble. With a loud gasp and a sob lodging in your throat, you jumped down to meet him, hands flying over his body to ensure that it is indeed him, and he indeed returned in one, unbitten piece.

"Namjoon! Where did you--- what did you..." the tears streamed down your face with no control at this point, and you only did freeze when you felt something drop on the hand resting on his chest. Your skin was unblemished, so it was not blood.

Namjoon was silently crying, gripping you hard as if someone was about to snatch you away from him. His chest shook with held back sobs, and your heart broke to see him like this.

Leaning up on the tips of your toes, you pressed a deep kiss against his plush lips. You slowly helped him get up the barricades, bypass the guards and their questioning looks. You made sure the tower was secure and the night defenses were in place.

Afterwards, you led him to his room. Helped him strip down, wash off the dust and the tears from his broken face. Held him when he couldn't anymore, and after he calmed down, led him to his bedroom, holding him so tight, wishing you could protect him from all the evil in the world.

As the two of you lay in bed, you thought the exhaustion and tears pushed him to sleep, however when you tried to wiggle out from underneath him, he held you tighter.

"Stay." he rumbled quietly, slowly sitting up, pulling you up with him. He heaved a big sigh, running a hand through his damp hair.

"Is...is everything alright?" Namjoon shook his head in response, grabbing at your hand and squeezing it.

"There...there is something I need to tell you." he played with your fingers, looking down at your hands. Bringing them up to his lips, he kissed at your fingertips gently.

"A...a story. About myself. About...why I left today." you nodded in understanding, returning the affection by peppering kisses to the hand you brought up to your face.

"It's a long story," he warned, but you shook your head, dismissing his worries. He stared at you for a bit longer, before reaching over to the nightstand, pulling out several objects. They scattered between the two of you.

A photo of a couple, a suede ring box, and a strand of hair in a little bag. You watched the things, trying to piece them together.

"Before all of this, I was married. Her name was Mina, and we met in university. Shortly after graduating, we moved into our first house and within the first year of living together, Mina gave birth to our daughter. We were very happy; years flew by and they felt like days. That all changed when the sickness came."

#namjoon #rm #kim namjoon #bts #bts namjoon #namjoon bts #rm bts #bts rm #BTS story #bts fic #zombie #zombie au #bts zombie au #namjoon story #rm story #namjoon scenario #bts scenario #rm scenario

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cecilspeaks · 4 years ago

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174 - Radio Jupiter

This is Radio Jupiter calling out to all who hear. Please respond. Awaiting your reply.

[different theme song]

This is Radio Jupiter. I’m not sure who is listening. I’m not sure if there’s anyone to listen. I can only verify my own existence. I can only verify the void around me, the apparent fact of stars, the swirling atmosphere of the planet below me. I cannot verify much. I don’t know who I am or where I came from. I woke up here, and all I have to go on is my call sign. So this is Radio Jupiter, reaching out to whoever there is to be reached out to.

It is so beautiful here on my perch, here in my place, in the cosmos and the universe about which I know nothing but feel everything. I don’t know if everywhere is as beautiful, or even most places. Did I happen onto the one beautiful place in the all of it? Without perspective, there is only what is nearby. Without the burden of comparison, everything is beautiful.

If a person is the sum total of every experience they’ve ever had, is a person without memories still a person? Or are they a different creature altogether, made either limited or limitless by the possibilities of a clean slate? I am either trapped or I am more free than anyone who can hear this. If anyone can hear this.

There is a framed photo in this room. It is an elderly woman. Maybe my mother or my grandmother or an aunt. Perhaps merely a photo I saw in a magazine once and liked for whatever reason. I have no way of knowing what kind of person I am, what kind of photo I would keep. Perhaps it is a photo of you. Do you present as an elderly woman? Would you like to? I think perhaps I would like to, even for just a little while. But I only am what I only am, I ever am, whatever I am.

[distortion] This is Radio Jupiter calling all cars, all (species), all… [fades out]

Cecil: Is that any better? Is that better? Can you hear me? [clears throat] OK, my producer is giving me the signal that we are now back on the air. Sorry about that, not sure what that other signal was, but it completely took over ours, which is rude. We’re currently looking for the source of the signal. We’ve narrowed it down to up. Just right up there somewhere, beaming on down to us. But we’re back in control and we do not expect any more interruptions. Of course, we didn’t expect that interruption either. I don’t expect almost anything that happens to me, my life is full of mystery and surprise, as is yours I’m sure, but still, we seem to have this one technical issue addressed. With that settled, I think we can get to the news.

Our top story concerns… [reluctantly] Susan Willman. OK. Sure. There has been a lot of talk in town since the whole incident with the Obelisk, in which Susan Willman learned the name of an immortal all knowing being. This name now exist in her head, an object of great power reverberating through her thoughts. She has withdrawn from her duties as director of the Night Vale Community Theater and the Night Vale PTA. Oh darn, we’ll miss her and her prosaic, muddled staging and grandstanding about home-work life balance.

Susan has instead taken residence in a booth at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. There at all hours, toying with a half drunk coffee and playing with the reflection of the sun in the back of a spoon. At night, the mint light of the sign outside sends strange shadows across her face, and her friends say they sometimes don’t recognize her at all. Steve Carlsberg, who is taking over her role at the Night Vale Community Theater, went to talk to her about some finer details of the casting process, and said that she was less than helpful. She was weeping, and the only thing she said the entire time he was there was that she was afraid to speak, lest the awful name slip past her lips. “No one was meant to carry such death inside of them,” she whispered, and then said no more. “Oh sure, yeah yeah, makes total sense,” said Steve, as he (-) [06:51] down some invisible pie. Well, I think we’ve given Susan enough attention for now, moving on.

In other news, the new beer cave at the Ralphs has been closed for repairs due to occasional time loop issues reported by certain customers. Manager at the Ralphs, Dave Ball, issued a statement by spelling out words with cantaloupes in the parking lot, saying “everything is fine with the beer cave, it’s a great and refreshing addition to Night Vale. Please don’t go inside or even look at it, as we don’t know why it’s doing what it’s doing. Everything is fine, please stay safe and stay away.” Dave then rearranged the cantaloupes to create complex fractal designs that made me dizzy to gaze upon, but were beautiful nonetheless. When reached out for a comment, Ralphs corporate said they had no records of any branch in a town called Night Vale, and were tired of receiving prank calls with bizarre tales about a made up store. When provided with pictoral evidence of Night Vale, a representative at Ralphs corporate began to bleed form the eyes while shouting: “This can’t be real! My god, this can’t be real!” More on the story of the beer cave if anything happens [distortion, fades out]…

Agent N-223: [--] out there, out there? Not sure if any of this is getting thru, but continuing to narrate on the off chance anyone will hear this and come, you know, to collect me. I’ve been doing some digging through the spaceship, and I’m disturbed by what I’ve found. Weapons. Many, many weapons. Racks of guns, cases of grenades and explosives, radar that I instinctively know is for tracking combatant space crafts, even though I have no memory of receiving that training. I am armed to the teeth and ready to wage war. But on what? There are no living beings in sight, and for all I know, there are no other living beings anywhere. Perhaps I’m here to wage war upon the planet below me, that swirling gaseous titan. Maybe someone had enough of it and sent me up here to put Jupiter back in its place. If so, I think the weapons they gave me were insufficient. I experimented by shooting off a round or two out the airlock, but the bullets soared into the upper atmosphere of the planet without slowing at all. My attack had no appreciable effect on my victim. So maybe the planet is not my target. Could it be the stars themselves? I am sent here, a pinprick in the side of God to cast myself as the stars, shouting threats and tossing grenades until the entire (-) [09:42] of the universe cowers and surrenders. Perhaps that.

Or perhaps I am at war with you, whoever is hearing this. Maybe I was given this radio in order to threaten and terrorize before I attack. So be afraid, I am coming. O-once I figure out where you are. I have no idea which direction to start moving and I don’t even know if this space ship has any way of controlling movement or if I’m just stuck in this orbit. Either way, this is Radio Jupiter apparently declaring war. [distortion] Consider it declared and [fades out].

Cecil: Can you hear, they can hear me? OK, I apologize, we’ve been doing all kinds of troubleshooting, including shifting the angle of our broadcasting tower, updating all of our software, and yes before you ask, we did try unplugging it, doing a ritual spilling of blood and plugging it back in. The issue we’re having is that these broadcasts are being sent out on military frequencies, which unfortunately automatically override ours. I’m unclear why the military would be getting into broadcasting, that’s more of a community radio thing, so let’s all stick to what we’re good at. I’ll keep doing radio shows that inform and delight, and the military can spend three trillion dollars on a plane that instantly explodes if anyone tries to fly it.

We have reached out to Rudy DeJardin, the local representative of the military industrial complex. He has a little table set up outside of the hardware shop, and anyone who has any questions for the military can just ask him, and he’ll do his best to answer. Most of the stuff can’t answer because it’s classified or embarrassing, but sometimes he’ll say a few cryptic words. In this case, his only answer was to make “mm-hm” sounds and shake his head frantically, while rolling his eyes toward the heavens. Not clear what to make of that, but I sure love whatever this broadcast is off my frequency, Rudy. Any time you want to get on that.

And now a word from our sponsors. Today’s show is brought to you by Nature’s Caress Fountain of Youth gentle flushable wipes. Did you know in most of the world, they just wash after using the toilet? They have a whole thing specifically for doing that. It takes a couple of seconds, cleans thoroughly, and doesn’t create mountains of paper waste. If you dirty your hands, do you wipe at them frantically with an even less robust version of tissues, or do you use water and soap? Why would it be different for anything else? Because it just is, that’s why. It’s the American way, love it or leave it. Nature’s Caress Fountain of Youth gentle flushable wipes: clog the world with your debris. This has been a word from our sponsors.

And now, as a special treat, Mr. Lee Marvin himself will perform act 3 scene 5 of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. This is the scene that contains the immortal line “I never knew the meaning of fear until I kissed Becky.” [distortion] OK, Mr. Marvin, take it away!

Agent N-223: This is Radio Jupiter speaking to you from a time of peace. Yes, there was that brief episode of war, and it was regrettable. I fired upon an innocent planet, although that planet seems none the worse for my crimes. In any case, that war is now over, as far as I’m concerned. I have no interest in battles and conflict, especially when I have no memory of what that conflict could involve. I have no interest in killing anyone, and I have no interest in dying quite yet.

So, peace in our time. I’m jettisoning all the guns and other weapons. Let them scatter out harmlessly into the universe, most of them swirling down the gravity well of Jupiter, where the immense pressure of the inner atmosphere will compress them into diamonds. I don’t know if that idea is scientifically sound, but I like the thought of it. All these worthless guns made glittering jewels, swirling in the endless storm of a planet that doesn’t even know they’re there.

As for me, now that I’ve declared peace upon the galaxy, I would like to know what is out there. I have found the controls for the ship and it seems I must have been trained in their use, because whatever I do appears to work as I want it to. I am turning away from the only star I’ve ever known. Because my memory is short and it’s the only star that has been there for the last two hours. I’m turning out to the dark unknown, and I’m casting myself into it. I hope there is a grander universe out there, I’d love to see it. This is Radio Jupiter, letting the cosmos know that I am on my way. I’ll see you soon. Or, given the size of space, most likely I won’t see you. But we’ll both exist, and [distortion] won’t that be nice?

Cecil: [clapping] Wow, wow wow wow. Thank you, Mr. Marvin, truly a performance for the ages, and what a treat… What? What happened? When? Oh not again!

This is Cecil Palmer of the Night Vale community radio station. I don’t know if you can hear these words, but if you can, we have identified the source of these intrusive broadcasts. She is agent N-223, sent during the early years of the space program on a secret mission. She was put into hibernation so that she could wake up and serve as reinforcement in the Blood Space War at some point in the future. But it appears that the hibernation damaged her memory, and anyway the Blood Space War doesn’t happen for another thousands years, so eh, she won’t be much use in that battle yet. Ah, thanks to the anonymous tipster who snuck us this top secret info. We owe you, Rudy.

Oh, uh it looks like we might be having more interference due to some Rough weather.

[“The Faded Red and Blue” by David Berkeley http://davidberkeley.com/]

Agent N-223: This is Radio Jupiter on the tail end of the tail end. If there was anyone listening back near that star, I think I’m getting out of range. I feel you getting out of range. Whatever presence I felt that I was speaking to, that feeling is getting hushed and fuzzy. The way I’m sure my voice is for you now.

You’re gonna have to go on without me, I suppose. Be brave about it. Or be scared. Your feelings are not my problem anymore, if they ever were. I have new problems now, problems of void and cosmos, problems of dark matter and lost memories. I am adrift in a universe that does not know I exist, but then you are too. I don’t know what is out there, but I hope I live to see it. Won’t that be something, if I get to see whatever happens next? I hope I do.

Well, this is Radio Jupiter signing off for the last time. [echoing] Stay safe out there, I’ll try to stay safe out here. Goodbye.

Cecil: The signal has faded out. It seems she has finally left our world and also left my radio frequency. I’m not trying to speak badly of a strange remnant of a war that has not yet happened, floating out into the nothing beyond the nothing, but come on, please, use a different frequency. It’s just rude. The military, through Rudy DeJardin has disavowed any knowledge of Agent N-223 or her mission. “Nope,” Rudy said through clenched teeth, “Never heard of her. Iiii certainly wouldn’t just say her name on the radio, after being asked not to. That’s not something I would do Cecil,” he said. So I dunno. Maybe we got the story wrong.

It is something, isn’t it? We are bits of life floating in a whole lot of non-life. The fact is true for us in both space and time, we are brief on any measure. And yet we can reach out our voice and be heard, even if only for a moment. And that has to mean something, doesn’t it? Doesn’t… it?

Stay tuned next for an angry buzzing from inside your cutlery drawer, but you’ll be too afraid to open it and find out its source.

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Agate is a girl’s worst enemy. Emerald is a work acquaintance who a girl hung out with once and then it just – never turned into anything more.

#welcome to night vale #wtnv #welcome to night vale transcripts #episode 174 #radio jupiter

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Doctor Who: What Makes a Great One-Off Character?

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Some Doctor Who characters are intended for greatness; some are intended to be killed off at the end of their first episode. Writers have a lot more control over the second than the first. What remains true for all characters, is the tension that exists between their function in the story and their potential to affect it. Even a guard who simply runs into a room to get shot could have dragged the story in another direction, should they be allowed (this stock background character was the inspiration for Terry Pratchett’s City Watch novels).

Successful one-off characters aren’t necessarily those who break away from their function, (or even those who aren’t strictly required, for example Binro the Heretic in ‘The Ribos Operation’), but those who make a story soar to another level entirely. More often, what makes them work is when their function in the story is disguised. There are plenty of ways to do this and most of them intersect: casting, costume, dialogue, performance…

Let’s first address the latter. Does the actor need to get under the skin of the character to create a nuanced and layered take that resonates utterly with the audience?

Nope. Doctor Who frequently embraces camp. Sometimes camp holds Doctor Who at gunpoint and sings piano ballads at it. The results vary. Richard Briers’ possessed Chief Caretaker in ‘Paradise Towers’ undermines the production (while not a production striving for kitchen sink realism, Briers’ parody-like performance still cuts against its Brechtian leanings) whereas Graham Crowden’s Soldeed is heightened and ridiculous among similar performances.

Other great examples of this stock character, which I am calling Ham-Err Horror without apology, include Professor Zaroff in ‘The Underwater Menace’ (intended to be driven mad by the death of his family, only for this to be cut from the script, rendering the character inexplicably inexplicable) and John Lumic from ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ (inspired to create the Cybermen by a fear of death, with actor Roger Lloyd-Pack citing Dick Cheney as an inspiration for the performance, but remembered mainly for the ripe delivery of lines such as ‘And how will you do that from beyond the grave?’).

Sometimes you don’t even need dialogue. Christopher Bowen, as Mordred in ‘Battlefield’, commits to a maniacal laugh so long that there’s a cut to another scene in the middle of it.

And yet there are places where camp or over-the-top villains work unironically, and some of the most hospitable are the Tom Baker stories of 1975-1977. Harrison Chase, Magnus Greel, Morbius, the Master… these characters fit into the Grand Guignol tradition of heightened and melodramatic performances (Just because something is dark and morbid doesn’t stop it being ludicrously tragic). As the tone of these stories is pitched at gothic melodrama though, the characters and setting cohere.

Returning to ‘Battlefield’, while there are some great individual performances from one-off characters, they’re not quite pulling in the same direction (Jean Marsh as Morgaine is playing an inter-dimensional sorceress as if it’s real, Marcus Gilbert as Ancelyn is saying ‘This is ridiculous, and that’s great’ and pulling along Angela Bruce’s Bambera in that direction too). ‘Battlefield’ is fun, but also disjointed.

Doctor Who: Ranking Every Single Companion Departure

By Andrew Blair

It’s a Sin’s Doctor Who Crossover Pays Tribute to Remembrance of the Daleks Actor

By Louisa Mellor

Some characters get by on the strength of costume or make-up, such as the Destroyer (also from ‘Battlefield’) or the Zygons. Broton, the latter’s leader, is a successful character who operates purely as a function rather than an individual. Played with haughty relish by John Woodnutt, Broton is a visual triumph, with the costume a collaboration between costume designer Jim Acheson, visual effects designer John Friedlander and director Douglas Camfield. At its best, ‘Terror of the Zygons’ oozes with tension and atmosphere, with some fantastic design work and enjoyable pulp runaround. This all distracts the viewer from Broton being a colossal idiot. Indulging in clichés such as explaining his entire plot, putting characters in easily escapable situations and assuming the Doctor is dead without proof, Broton has to do these for the story to unfold according to Doctor Who’s format. Fortunately few people watch ‘Terror of the Zygons’ for Broton’s unique take on planetary subjugation.

Some clichés exist specifically because that character has worked well in previous stories. Frequently in Doctor Who somebody would sacrifice themselves to save the day, someone else would comment on this, and everybody would look solemn for a few seconds before immediately moving on with their lives. ‘The Ark in Space’ features two people sacrificing themselves to save humanity, one with a quip about his union and the other fighting possession, and in 1975, a single line noting these acts was enough.

In 2005, TV had changed, and so Doctor Who threw more weight behind these deaths (boosted by Russell T. Davies’ seemingly effortless ability to generate a whole human life by adding three adjectives per character to the scripts). Jabe in ‘The End of the World’, Gwyneth in ‘An Unquiet Dead’, Pete Tyler in ‘Father’s Day’… these sacrifices were dwelt on, their weight became cumulative. From this, a subgenre of Almost Companions emerged with Lynda in ‘The Parting of the Ways’, Astrid in ‘Voyage of the Damned’ and Rita in ‘The God Complex’: all too doomed to step on board. Eventually the show acknowledged this with the Eleventh Doctor standing over the body of Lorna Bucket and observing “They’re always brave.”

Doctor Who was commentating on itself as early as its second series (in ‘The Rescue’ David Whittaker created Koquillion, a monster in a rubber suit that turned out to actually be a man in a rubber monster costume). In the 1980s, Doctor Who had become increasingly continuity-heavy, but what its final few series managed successfully was to comment on Doctor Who without making the stories’ success dependent on this. Characters such as Captain Cook offer up twisted reflections of the Doctor, with the Chief Clown, Josiah Samuel Smith and Commander Millington all tapping into the historical influences on the show, but crucially the stories still work if you’re not familiar with all this.

‘Ghostlight’, the most densely packed version of this approach,is still entertaining even if you don’t know what is going on. It’s played with such conviction and unity, with each character managing to feel both heavily symbolic but with a sense of inner-life. This is generally true of the Seventh Doctor’s era supporting characters, especially the guy who snaps “I can’t do anything without my list now can I?” in ‘The Happiness Patrol’.

But as we’ve seen, a standout character doesn’t have to be multi-faceted. Not every henchman can be Packer from ‘The Invasion’ (he’s not only sadistic and cruel, but Peter Halliday really commits to the undignified flapping when things go wrong), but most stock characters in Doctor Who work by being given ‘a bit’.

Usually this stems from their plot function. Harrison Chase, in ‘The Seeds of Doom’ is a plant collector and obsessive because the story is based around aggressive plant-creatures, and needs a simple way to bring the main human antagonist into the adventure. Here though it’s more than that. Lesser examples of this trick can be seen with Tarun Capel in ‘Robots of Death’, where his obsession with robots isn’t as unsettling as Chase’s obsession with plants (and then further down the line we have Magnus Greel in ‘Talons of Weng-Chieng’, who is evil because the story needs a bad guy). In ‘Seeds of Doom’, time is devoted to the idea of a man who considers plant life superior to humanity, and the script and actor Tony Beckley really commit to the comedy and horror of this idea. That’s his ‘bit’.

Perhaps the finest example of turning a character’s basic function into pure entertainment is Duggan in ‘City of Death’. Douglas Adams and Graham Williams, rewriting David Fisher’s scripts about aliens in Monte Carlo, took a Bulldog Drummond-inspired detective character and realised his primary function in the script was to be the muscle for the Doctor and Romana.

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

There are other elements of of ‘City of Death’ that poke fun at television’s contrivances (The guard’s throwaway line saying Captain Tancredi will “be here instantly” just before the door opens, for example) and Duggan’s repeatedly punching people unconscious to move the plot along is not only revealed to be an example of Chekhov’s Gun, whereby it’s the solution to the whole story, but also the source of the best sight gag in Doctor Who when Duggan opens a wine bottle by simply smashing it open off the bar. Without providing him with much in the way of depth or backstory, by leaning into the character’s story function to almost absurd levels, ‘City of Death’ creates one of the most memorable supporting characters in Doctor Who history.

The post Doctor Who: What Makes a Great One-Off Character? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3aUbT6u

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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iatasbcl · 5 years ago

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Bring Me To Life

Chapter 2: Into The Wolf’s Lair

Previous part: X

Pairing: Connor/ RK800 X Android!Reader

Summary: You and Connor head to the CyberLife tower. Trouble ensues.

A/N: I wasn't planning on continuing this but I liked the idea of an android reader and Connor being a badass duo a bit too much lol ENJOY

Warnings: Warnings: violence, death, not canon compliant, badly written fight

W.C: 1.4k?

The autonomous taxi stopped near the gate and you turned to the window, the guard looked at you with narrowed eyes as you did your best to keep your composure. Wind and snow hit your face as he tilted his head to see who laid beside you.

“Damn. You really busted that thing.” He said.

You knew you couldn’t go back bustling into CyberLife empty-handed, they were expecting you and that was exactly what you needed right now. You planned to infiltrate the building from within, to disguise yourself as one of their own and choose the right moment to strike them down.

That included ‘damaging’ Connor so your story would be more believable. You felt terrible but it was the only way, they knew what he did, but they were still in the dark to your whereabouts, or so you hoped. It was a dangerous gamble that could end you both, yet you felt… confident. Confident in your and Connor’s abilities.

The damage wasn’t critical, but enough to make him seem vulnerable to them. He looked ‘ruffled up’ as humans would say, a part of his jacket torn, and a huge part of his skin turned into its original plastic and his normally perfect hair was a mess. His hands we cuffed up and his LED was fixed on that red that you were used to.

“I only did what I was instructed to.” Lies. You were ordered to kill him, but this guard probably did not know that. He stared at you and you could feel your pump fastening, shit, did he not believe you?

“Alright… go ahead.” If you needed to breathe, then you would’ve let out a sigh. You nodded and rolled up your window, you kept your eyes on the road.

“This is a bad idea,” Connor said. You turned to him with an eyebrow raised, “Amanda knows what we will do. They most likely know too.”

“I know.” You started, pinching the bridge of your nose as he sat up, slightly bettering his position.

“But this is our only way. We need the androids stored there.”

“I…” He held your hand and your skin retracted again, the warm sensation now became more familiar and far more pleasant. “I don’t want to lose you.”

You could feel his fear, his terror of you getting killed or deactivated because of him. You hated how surreal this felt, the man you… loved was going with you to what could be considered suicide. You didn’t wish for it to be this way, but there was no other choice.

You hesitantly squeezed his hand and transmitted your own emotions to him. You too were afraid of losing him, of dying, of losing this revolution, of losing the chance to ever be considered a living being together with the one you loved. But you were also hopeful, hopeful the two of you will make it out safe and sound, hopeful you will live to see another day.

We will make it to another day.

He looked into your eyes and smiled, you did too.

The ride didn’t take long after that, Connor went back to playing the wounded little prey and your demeanor shifted into that of a cold hunter. You got out and pulled him with you, pushing him forward

There were guards, as expected. You tensed a bit, but your façade remained, nonetheless.

Remember the plan. We take them out in the elevator, you heard Connor’s voice in your head. Right, this wasn’t the place to be a trembling deer, the success of this mission was your top priority. That and surviving.

“Why didn’t you deactivate it?” The question stopped you dead in your tracks. “Further harm may have caused permanent damage to key components needed for its examination. It is incapable of causing any trouble, though.”

The guard in white didn’t say anything for a moment, he gazed at you and you gazed back until he finally budged. They resumed walking towards the elevator with one of them right behind you and another behind Connor.

You finally reached it and entered swiftly. Only two guards entered, probably armed, and surrounded you and the only android here. “Agent 54, Level 31.” One of them said and the elevator began moving up.

You looked at the upper corner of the elevator and notice a security camera. You access the network and successfully jeopardized it. Alright, how do we do this?

I’m constructing the best way to handle this, follow my lead.

Wait-

A guard grunted as Connor shoved him against the white wall, you punched the other one in the face and knocked him down. He got up and reached for his gun, but you jabbed him in the chest, sending him down again.

He hissed, putting one arm on his chest and using the other to point his gun at you. Your parts moved without any second thoughts, reaching for the hand pointing at you and twisting it. A crack was heard, followed by the man’s screams. Humans would consider it sickening, the angle his hand was contorted in looked abnormal, to say the least.

The man howled in pain and you chose this moment to deliver your fatal strike. His gun, now in your hands, was pointed at his head.

BANG!

The screaming stopped and so did his struggling. Blood had spattered on to the wall, tainting the pearly white with crimson red. You turned and saw the other guard pull your partner back as he tried to shoot him. You steadied your aim at him, but Connor had managed to snatch the weapon and do that first. “Nice. I didn’t realize ‘following your lead’ meant improvising.”

Connor chuckled, “A little bit of spontaneity won’t do you any harm.”

He touched the panel and instructed it, in the dead man’s voice, to go to the lowest floor.

A small smile tugged the corner of your lips, “yes, I suppose almost getting shot is thrilling”. Connor stood next to you as the elevator headed down, “as if any of them could lay a finger on you, destroyer.”

★ ★ ★

The elevator opened after what seemed like ages and you stepped out. It was quite the scenery. You had never seen androids in those numbers before, and they just stood there. They stared into the distance like the dolls you saw in some children’s stores. Connor went ahead, his hand’s artificial skin faded as reached for one of the androids. You watched, waiting for the ‘virus’ to spread.

Things just couldn’t be that easy, huh?

“Step back, Connor!”

Another RK800? You scanned him. RK800 #313 248 317 – 60. He had his gun pointed at you who stood away from your Connor. Did CyberLife store him away specifically for this situation? It wasn’t like he could take on both of you-

“Don’t even think about it.”

If you had a real heart, then you were sure it would start racing. You knew of him, the android that now stood beside RK800- 60, RK900. His voice was like Connor’s but deeper, more authoritative and more commanding. The fighting abilities you had programmed into you were equal to his, according to CyberLife employees’ chatter.

“Step back if you don’t want your partner to be executed, RK800.”

#feedback is appreciated #i havent wrote a series in ages so... yeah #Rk800 x reader #Connor x reader #dbh connor x reader #dbh imagine #dbh #RK900 #rk800-60

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mittensmorgul · 5 years ago

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9.06, Heaven Can't Wait.

YAY! BOBO!

so I neglected to mention Buddy Boyle and Bartholomew the fallen angel, and all the angel factions forming in the 9.03 report because I was trying to get through it as fast as possible, but ugh... guess I gotta mention them eventually. There, I mentioned them, just about as much as this episode did. :P

But this is directly relevant to Cas's current state of mind, which is relevant to the overall plot of this episode, because of Rit Zien angel and why he's come to this town where Cas has tried to make a life for himself as Sales Associate Steve. The Rit Zien seeks out pain-- originally mortal wounds on battlefields-- and either heals or else "humanely puts down" angels he cannot heal. Except, as Cas will explain in this episode, he doesn't understand human emotions, and that emotional pain is temporary... and then we learn that the Rit Zien was drawn to this town by the magnitude of Cas's suffering specifically. Which, if that's not a statement on Cas's current emotional state, I don't know what is.

The first victim we see is a man who literally hangs up on a suicide prevention hotline because he lost his wife. He even has a gun, but changes his mind when faced with the Rit Zien, but he gets exploded into pink goo anyway.

The next is a high school girl suffering a normal level of teenage angst, telling a friend she could just die of embarrassment because her boyfriend broke up with her in the cafeteria in front of everyone but in no way meaning it literally, and poof... pain disintegrated.

Despite his own pain having been kicked out of the bunker and feeling completely abandoned by Dean, Cas still calls Dean to alert him to the strange cases in town, but tells Dean he won't participate in the hunt. Dean manages to track Cas down working at the Gas N Sip anyway (Cas never told him where he worked), and pulls Cas into working the case with him.

There's the whole Nora thing, which Cas thought was a date but was actually a babysitting job... When the Rit Zien shows up for Cas, he thinks it's for the baby, running a fever and crying. But he's actually there for Cas.

CASTIEL: How'd you find me? EPHRAIM: Because you're warded? The same way I find all my patients – I just followed the sound of your pain. You have no idea how loud it is. I could hear you for miles.

And then the question we've been waiting on an answer for ever since:

EPHRAIM: Shh-shh-shhh. It'll be over soon. I'll take the pain away. CASTIEL: I want to live. EPHRAIM: But as what, Castiel? As an angel? or a man?

Because back in s9, this question remains directly tied to PAIN. To SUFFERING.

CASTIEL (to the baby): Nobody told you. Nobody explained. You're just … shoved out kicking and screaming into this human life, without any idea why any of it feels the way it feels, or why this confusion, which feels like it's … a hair's breadth (The baby stops crying.) from terror or pain. You know, just when you think you do understand, it'll turn out you're wrong. You didn't understand anything at all. Guess that's just how it is when you're new at this.

He thought he understood, and he's only just beginning to truly understand (and I mean, Crowley as almost-human this season too, despite having been human originally long ago, still suffers with the burden of human emotions, equating what demons and angels are capable of feeling even way back here, long before 10.03 when Cas will make that same comparison).

Cas is feeling the guilt of what's happened to the angels, and he's already hurting over it. So when Sam and Kevin discover (with Crowley's help) that the angel fall spell is irreversible, Dean doesn't tell Cas that fact thinking he's protecting Cas from even worse guilt. But meanwhile, it's still a major source of Cas's pain (and Dean's pain, because hell if he doesn't want to bring Cas back to the bunker here, but can't as long as Sam isn't healed enough...)

EVERYBODY'S SUFFERING! Lies all around. Dean specifically tells Sam that he won't be seeing Cas on this hunt, and yet he spends the entire time pretty much with Cas. But also Dean, lying to everyone, trying to manage his mounting lies in the name of protecting (or in the language of 14.08, "not wanting to burden them") or just out of pure FEAR because this situation is officially so far above his pay grade and he can't even talk to ANYONE about how bad it actually is without the whole thing crumbling down around him... and that's not even considering the Fallen Angels Fighting Amongst Themselves situation on top of all his personal shit...

Which interestingly is paralleled in the experiences of young Dean in the flashbacks in the next episode...

spn 9.07, Bad Boys.

Dean's put in a situation way above his pay grade, having been left to "rot" by John after getting in trouble for shoplifting enough for him and Sam to eat while John was off somewhere else on a hunt and Dean had been left in charge again. John had demanded that Dean tell Sam a very different story, one that not only covered Dean's "shame" at having been caught shoplifting and abandoned by John for several months while Sam was "shipped off to Bobby's" (and remember, Sam would've been about 11 years old at the time, ie old enough to have understood the truth of the situation, but maybe not why John refused to get Dean from Sonny's, that to John this was a form of punishment for Dean-- both isolation from everything he's ever known AND forced separation from Sam, like John was punishing him for failing to take care of Sam by isolating him completely...), but also was about John hiding his OWN culpability in any of this happening in the first place. Child abandonment, neglect, the fact he regularly left the boys on their own and disappeared for weeks or months at a time leaving them to fend for themselves on whatever meager sum he left them. Which, I mean, YIIIIIKES.

And this episode was really the start of my "sanitized for sammy" and "the story became the story" tags, of how fundamental to their codependency these small lies have always been, since they were children (and yeah, we saw that going all the way back to s1, with 1.18, 3.08, 4.13... pretty much all the flashback episodes, but this is where Dean gave that calculated deception a name-- "the story became the story.")

We really see the extent of Dean's lifelong struggle with managing all these secrets begins to break down, which exactly parallels his "bigger story arc" issues in early s9. With all that in mind, it's no wonder he breaks and feels his ultimate failure connected with the collapse of the tower of lies that all started with the best of intentions, and just spiraled out of his control. All in the name of protecting his loved ones.

Kinda like Dean trying to keep John's horrific final words from Sam back in s2 (even though that only lasted a few episodes), kinda like Sam hiding the truth back in s4, kinda like Cas hiding the truth in s6. So now they all will have this fun little problem in common (less dumb, less ass...)

But more interesting to me than the actual circumstances of this episode specifically, is how these lies begin to slowly unravel throughout the episode, and how the truth finally coming out affects everything going forward.

First Sam begins to learn the truth about that time, but it's still not really the whole truth. Dean plays it off as his own fault, shrugging the experience off. Sam also can't figure out why Dean's not only kept in touch with Sonny all these years, but also actually told him the truth about the hunting. The deeper truth slowly comes out in bits and pieces. And then there's Robin, who Dean never told the truth to in the past who learns it all in a shocking way... seeing it first-hand.

This had been Dean's one real "escape to normalcy" of the sort that Sam had spent most of his life running away toward (and which Dean's being forced by circumstance now to push Cas toward... let's not forget that the original airing order of these episodes put 9.06 AFTER this episode... which is why I've smooshed the two of these into one way-too-long post). And let's remember that it was only Dean's need to make sure Sam was safe that got him to leave Sonny's and return to John. He talked about his interest in fixing cars in this episode, and he could've had that life if he'd chosen to stay, because Sonny agreed to fight for him if he wanted that.

But even by the end of the episode, Sam only knows part of the truth, and Dean's still trying to protect himself with that tiny shard of a lie:

Sam: You just got lucky? Kind of like you did with this place. I mean, here I was thinking this was the worst part of your life, and it turns out it was the best. Why'd you ever leave? Dean: Never felt right. Sam: Really? Dean: It was two months, Sam, okay? And I couldn't wait to get out of here. I don't know what to tell you. It wasn't me.

And he can't bring himself to burden Sam with the truth, that it was literally Sam himself and his duty to protect him that made him choose to leave.

Then there's Timmy, losing his mother in a fire, Dean thinking it's the "I Clobber Evil" action figure that the mother's ghost is tied to, when in fact it was Timmy himself. Because it's not exactly that Dean sees himself in Timmy-- repeatedly running away from foster homes, clinging to "imaginary friends" -- It's SAM. He talks to Timmy like we have to imagine 16-year-old Dean would've talked to SAM. And doesn't that just say it all here.

And using this “decoder ring” of a couple episodes to help us unravel what happens when these dudes try to protect each other, to “not burden each other” with these sorts of secrets, things almost universally go sideways. Because this is, yes, what Cas was thinking in hiding his deal with the Empty to trade himself for Jack, but it’s also the sort of smaller concerns from each other regarding Jack’s behavior after 14.14. Each of them were worried for Jack, each of them had noticed small things in Jack, but NONE of them wanted to admit the truth to themselves, let alone to each other. Each of them held their tongues, not wanting to worry each other over Jack, or unfairly burden each other for nothing when all they really have are their individual suspicions and no actual concrete evidence that Jack’s soul is actually gone, you know? But the consequences of trying to protect each other are far more grave in s14...

#spn 9.06 #spn 9.07 #winchester family dynamics #lies and damn lies #the story became the story #sam sympathizes and dean empathizes #s14 hellatus rewatch #spiders georg of the tnt loop #the scheherazade of supernatural #spn 14.08 #spn 14.14 #it's spirals all the way down

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sometimeinjoon · 6 years ago

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Misleading Misdemeanor

4.1k

01 - 02 - 03 - 04

A/n: I have an obvious lack of knowledge of actual criminal procedure, ignore all the mistakes, I hope they’re acceptable. Also, it MAY get gruesome. Tread with caution.

Kim Namjoon. 24. Murderer.

Also one and the same as you, under certain conditions.

The sight of a black folder poised on your desk barely daunted you. It’s been a while, you thought, sitting down on your chair. In contrast to the multiple glaringly bright red folders in multiple towers around you, this black one seemed to hide its menacing contents quite well. To anyone else, this sole folder would be the most innocent of the swathe you basically lived in due to their sheer number.

At this point, you were never given anything but red. As soon as a case a little too complex shows up, it’s always the same phrase — “give it to the blitzkrieg" — as your superintendent lovingly refers to you. The color repulsed you so much you wanted to smash your new assistant Jennie’s head through the wall whenever she smiled at you with her less-than-pearly whites and fire engine red lipstick; she was sweet but stupid, and that plus her nauseating love for the stupid color made you want to chop her head off most of the time, but lucky for her, you were composed. You had to be, especially with your line of work.

Opening the folder, you were greeted with the typical documents: what they did, who they harmed, how many they harmed, sentence, possibility for parole, multiple photos of their crime scenes. Your eyes quickly get glued to the mug shot, which unnervingly resembled a yearbook picture more than it did an archival photo of a deemed psychopath, judging by the color of his folder that was almost never used. The motherfucker was smiling, and on top of that, the motherfucker was attractive. Nothing new in your experience though, that’s how pretty faces get away with so many crimes. You were merely noting facts.

Yelling in the corridor averted your eyes from the man in the photo to your window, seeing a man being dragged away by several police men. A dull 4 sat atop his head and you nod; the noisy ones were never really dangerous, although if it took 4 men to haul him to his cell, he sure was strong, you’ll give him that much. Behind the boisterous man was Yugyeom, your long-term colleague, sporting a proud 8. Darting your eyes around the people that were present outside your office, you gave a contented sigh. The gray numbers become overwhelming when you see too many all at once, and now that you controlled when you saw the numbers, you were invincible.

Fixing your view back to the opened folder, you begin to read on the man:

Kim Namjoon. IQ an impressive 148. 32 counts of murder, 2 counts of manslaughter. Nothing else.

You figured a man of his physique and appearance would be a rapist, and that’s beyond your bias, but he wasn’t. Perched at the very top of his victim list were his former investigators, sitting in first, second, and third, indicating succession, first being his latest victim. His case went from a white, to a red, to a navy blue, to a black in the span of a week, and no one has done that in your many years of experience. You’ve been warned quite sternly by your superintendent: “He killed the last 3, so don’t ever let your guard down. No one else can do this but you at this point, and if we lose you, the entire team’s going down.” Strangely enough, seeing this man’s case accelerate to the most dangerous color category that quickly made you excited to interview him. What number did he have? You’ve never seen anyone above a 9.

“Fifteen minutes, krieg,” Yugyeom knocks on your open door, adjusting his cuffs, as if the man they were dragging out gave him a bit more of a fuss than usual. You hated the nickname that was forced onto you, but nonetheless, you nod at him, taking one last sip from your cup before standing up, black folder in hand.

The walk to the interview room was relatively short, but filled with gasps from newer employees you passed by, and reassuring smiles from the ones you’ve been working with for a while. Throughout your career, you’ve only ever handled 3 black cases. To exemplify that feat, no one else has handled a black case. They were reserved for you. Everything above red was reserved for you. It took a lot to move up from a white case, and when a case does move up, it’s already a scare.

“Good morning, miss,” the policeman that was going to stand guard outside the room greeted you, holding the door open. Shortly after, 2 more policemen joined him. You were about to ask why there were so many of them, forgetting briefly about the supposedly extremely dangerous man you were about to encounter. You should be a little more fucking nervous, you fucking diva, you thought to yourself. Honestly though, how dangerous can this man be? Compared to you, at least.

Namjoon is ushered into the room and you don’t look up from the files you were trying to organize. You hear the door to his side of the room click, and he inhales quite sharply as he sat down.

“Wow,” he pauses for a bit too long, “you’re smart.” You can hear his smile through his voice. You don’t reply to his compliment as you continue to jot down questions you were going to ask him. “I know you know I am too, cause I know you can read my profile,” he follows up just as you pressed the button on the intercom to speak, not once looking away from your notes, and it makes you laugh right into the microphone.

“Oh shit, a girl this time?” By the way he speaks, you sensed genuine surprise in his tone.

“Sexist?” you ask, finally looking up, and you get the wind knocked right out of your chest.

A red number. It says 12.

“No, just astonished they’d even send a female in my direction, knowing what I did to the others,” he answers you, his gaze fixed right on the mirror in front of him. You feel like he’s looking right at you, except he seemed to mirror the subtle terror he couldn’t see on your face.

You struggle to speak as you not only lost your entire train of thought, but also you were scared shitless, as much as you’d hate to admit it. You didn’t know numbers could be red. You also didn’t know that the scale didn’t stop at 10.

He deadpans at the one-way glass in front of him, acknowledging the change in strategy. “I mean, I don’t think you intend to make my post-arrest kill count four, do you? It’s harder to kill someone when you don’t know who to kill, exactly.”

“Correct, even though the interrogation style’s motives must be obvious.” you try to nonchalantly answer.

“Also wouldn’t be exactly delightful to fall for my interrogator,” he places his cheek in his hand, half-smiling. What a motherfucker. “You have a beautiful voice, ma’am, I could melt listening to you talk about what an asshole I am.” He smiles wider.

“Great, then let’s do just that. Name?”

“You know my name. My file’s right in front of you.”

"I’m trying to follow protocol, but since you’re so eager, let’s get to it then,” you say, and he nods.

"Let’s cut everything out,” he says, leaning onto his elbows on the table. “I know you know exactly what I am, and the flowery talk I use on everyone won’t work on someone like you.” His expression is hidden by the shadow cast by his face from the drop light on the ceiling, and oh god how you wish you could see what he looked like as he said that.

“You talk like you know me,” you say, clicking your pen down and you see him raise an eyebrow and blow air out of his nose in a form of a hesitant chuckle. You tried to ignore your obnoxiously sweaty palms. He can’t see you, you reminded yourself.

“Kim Namjoon, 24, murderer.” The way his voice comes out so rich and deep contradicts the evil he spoke, and it scared you more how he seemed so calm and composed. You were used to murderers and rapists be this way, all collected, all chill, but the menacing 12 marking the air above him made it difficult for you to just treat him like an ordinary man.

“Any specific motives on your killings? Specific targets?”

"Anyone. Everyone. I don’t really care.” You stop writing.

“Any types you spare?”

He smiles at your question. “The ones like you.”

He’s an actual fucking psychopath, you tell yourself, and re-read his files to see if he really wasn’t a rapist, or at least a sex offender. He seems to be quite purposefully alluring.

“Aren’t you going to ask what I mean by that?” Namjoon quirks an eyebrow. You wondered why all traces of fear seem to have left your body, the red 12 you’ve willed away to not have it distract you, although it’s real, and it’s a warning. What made this too-confident of a man be a 12? Why is his number red?

“Yes, tell me more about why you wouldn’t want to kill me,” you wave your pen around in the air as you spoke into the mic, trying to humor him. Surely he was just being sly.

“Two quite simple things,” he waves his hair away from his face. “Smart,” he raises his pinky finger in a count, “and dangerous. I know you’ve been told you’re one of a kind, and you are, baby girl, you are, but you’re — ” he trails off, and looks directly at the mirror and you meet his eyes.

“A red 12. Just like me.”

“Are you sure you want to do it this way?” The policeman asks you before moving out of the doorway to let you in. He wasn’t the only one nervous about this, no, the entire fucking building was. Half of them were sure they were about to lose their best employee ever, and half of them are convinced you’ll break this man and skin him alive.

You intended to make neither of the two sides right.

The interview yesterday did not go as planned, and ignoring the worried looks to your direction as soon as you left the interrogation room, you decided to end the interview early, for your own sake. Your mind was racing, heart thumping like a horse that’s just ran in a race. Today though, you planned to get the answers you needed from him.

Setting your gun underneath the table, you waited patiently for Namjoon to be let in. You were nervous, more nervous than the interview yesterday, and understandably so. You were now going to be a mere few feet away from the hotshot killer, and he wasn’t going to be cuffed or restrained in any way.

As soon as Namjoon sets eyes on you, he looks like he’s about to break out into a panic. He was expecting the mirror, the intercom, but instead, he sees the red 12 above your head, and then your actual head. He could see the blazing numbers through the mirror yesterday, despite not being able to see you in actuality. He couldn’t actually believe what he saw. He’d spent all night trying to convince himself it was an illusion. Master killers were a gray 9, so what were you? More importantly, what was he?

No words were spoken for a good 30 seconds after the door was shut behind Namjoon, the two of you just blankly staring at each other, studying each other’s features. Your hands were clasped underneath your chin, and in a fleeting moment of vulnerability, Namjoon actually tucked his massive frame into a smaller size, as if afraid of you all of a sudden, maybe shy? The audience that has gathered at the monitoring room held their breath as they waited for something to ensue.

You inhale deeply and the click of your pen startles Namjoon. “What did you do before you were arrested?”

“Don’t you have it there?” he asks, pointing at the black folder opened at the side of the desk. He actually looks sincerely gently disgruntled by you, as if seeing you physically has ruined something in his already-ruined mind.

“I have a list of your previous crimes, yes, murder, murder, murder, and another murder, what a surprise,” you say, flipping through his papers, setting down the lie you were telling lightly. “Oh and what don’t I have, your last case. Tell me what you did.” You place your hand over the stack of papers so he won’t see the police report that you feigned not having.

“Killed a man, but this time it was an accident,” he shrugs, and looks as if he regrets having committed the crime, but you know he relishes in misleading people with his demeanor, and you know you can’t let him mislead you.

“Go on?” You ask, meeting his too low of a gaze, and you were extremely surprised when he actually took your coaxing and just lets it all out.

“He hit me with in the back of the head, and I, retaliated? I pushed him back too hard. He fell and hit his head on the pavement, and now he’s dead.” He finishes with an exhale. “Manslaughter. Starts with an M, but isn’t murder.”

It’s not uncommon for criminals to make up stories and actually make them believable, but to your surprise, his account matches the one in his folder exactly. He actually just told you what happened, and he looked like he felt bad for it.

“I can’t read you,” he says, taking the words right out of your mouth.

“Why are you trying to read me?”

“It’s important that I know you.” He answers, looking at you with softened eyes and you were at the edge of making sure you don’t believe him.

“So you can kill me?” You ask, pressing forward onto the desk.

“No.”

“Hurt me?��

“Does it look like I would try to?”

No, no it doesn’t. He seems like an angel just about now, and the annoying voice in your head that never has anything helpful to say insists that he must be sincere.

“Tell me, why do you need to know me?”

“So that I can know what I am too.”

You don’t press any further and instead settle back into your seat. This interview was going nowhere with questioning like this, and you both knew that. You also knew there was an audience behind the mirror, and so you flip through your notes from yesterday and go on with the bullets you weren’t able to ask.

“Why did you commit all those murders?”

“It’s different for each one.”

“Okay, Jackson Wang. It says here you were best friends. Why did you turn on him?”

Namjoon’s eyes close shut and he doesn’t open them until after a whole 30 seconds passed by. “His number turned green.”

You inhale sharply when he says that and he’s just as surprised as you were with your reaction. He continues on his train of thought: “he was an 8. Gray, at first, then it started to ombre into this mud color, until eventually, after not seeing him for a while, I look up and see it’s gone completely stoplight green.”

“What does it mean when the numbers turn green? How bad is it that made you do this to your best friend?” You press forward, sliding the 4R photo of the crime scene you were talking about. Jackson Wang, steel pipe in his chest where his heart should be. It went right through him, the other end of the pipe impaled into the brick wall behind him.

Namjoon avoids the photo and looks to his side. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

“That’s why I’m asking you all these things. Let’s pretend I’m stupid. Explain this shit to me.”

He scoffs. “I can’t pretend you’re stupid. Yours are red. And it goes over 10.”

At this point, the people in the monitoring room are completely lost on the situation, questioning not only Namjoon’s mental stability, but yours as well. The ones that have faith in you are convinced that you’re doing this as a tactic and are riding along to his bullshit to juice information out of him, but only Yugyeom and your superintendent are aptly following along to the conversation. They knew what you were talking about, but just like you, they were lost on Namjoon talking about green numbers. All of you only thought that the numbers were gray. You were the only one that can see the numbers, aside from the man across you on the table, but the numbers are definitely not just gray. They can also be fire truck red. And now, to your surprise, they can be green too.

“Then don’t pretend I’m stupid. Pretend I’m your equal and I can perfectly understand your motives to your kilings.” You say leaning even further forward on the table. Namjoon starts moving his index finger against the desk in an incessant manner, drawing a short line. He exhales overstatedly and he leans forward too, his left elbow thudding onto the desk, eyes locking with yours once he settles his cheek onto his opened palm. His finger is still going at it despite the change in position, although now outlining a cross, forward, backward, sideways, stop. He assumes you’ve taken notice of his movement before he tilts his head down to look at you through hooded eyes.

“Try it.” His finger stops.

There’s electricity in your feet and he’s uncomfortably close, but you don’t back away. You’re stuck in a staring contest with a psychopath, his moods changing at exceptional speed. One moment, he’s shy, scared, startled by your presence, and another moment he looks like he’s about to lie you down on the table and fuck you silly, like right now. He’s smirking, dimple exaggerated by the light above his head.

“Are you sure you haven’t raped anyone yet?” You cock an eyebrow.

“Ma’am,” he fully smiles at this point. “Call me anything you want. Murderer, psycho, any synonym thereof,” he settles back into his seat, his finger starting to draw again, this time slower, “but I am never two things: a liar, and a rapist. I’m a gentleman, and I’m sure of it. I’d hold the door open for you if I could once this interrogation is over.”

You toss another photo in his direction, and he takes it. He relaxes further in his seat, one arm slung behind his back rest, the other holding the picture up. He alternates looking at the photo, and then at you. He talks before you ask him anything.

“Six. Easy kill. Gray. He had a wedding ring, but he was abusive.” His finger stops moving. “I had a hard time with this one, just cause he’s so big. With my size it’s not really difficult to take someone down, but this one was muscular. Really muscular.”

“You seem almost happy about this one?”

“I am,” he sets the picture down, sliding it back to you. “He was an asshole.”

You tilt your head to the side, eyes slightly narrowed. Without looking away from him you slide another picture across the desk. You keep your hand on the glossy print while you waited for him to talk.

His face smoothens, smile disappearing. He looks like he’s choked on air when he sees the picture, lips quivering.

“Kim Taeyhung. Your brother.” You barely whisper. “Why?”

“What if I tell you there wasn’t a motive?”

“You told me you weren’t a liar, under any circumstance.”

“You’re good at your job, miss. Really good.”

“That’s the reason I’m in front of you.”

He doesn’t answer for a while, eyes fixed on the gruesome image of the man shot repeatedly, blood ironically painting the canvas that was behind him where he’d fallen over. You reach back and give him more images, more angles of the murder. After you spread out the fourth one, he slams his hand down on your wrist to stop you and stands up. The policemen barge into the room to restrain Namjoon and he doesn’t fight either of them. He throws both his hands up behind his head and smiles. With his face being closer to the light on the ceiling, his eyes become more prominent in its shadow: wide and bright and prodding. There’s something feline and predatory about his gaze, like he’s thinking of dissection. Destruction.

“No, it’s okay,” you tell the two policemen that were preparing to take him away. “Let him go. I’m not done with him yet.” They look at you extremely confused, but they obey. The monitoring room is now bursting full and hot and uncomfortable. Yugyeom weasels his way to the intercom and shushes the room before he speaks.

“Try that one more time and we’re sedating you.”

“Sir, I just held her wrist.” Namjoon looks at the mirror from side to side and sits down. “Hello to everyone watching!” he waves, smiling wide. When his lips terminate the lift at the ends of either corner, he stares at you, his look greedy, intent on taking as much of your features in as he can. He looks back at the mirror behind you, and then to you once again almost immediately. He rests his cheek on his palm again, looking like he’s admiring you from across a library table in university.

“Tell me, miss,” he smirks, “why is your highest digit here at your office an 8? And why just one?” You swallow hard at the nonchalant statement. He definitely can see the numbers, and he’s talking about Yugyeom. “Underground, we go up to 9s. Multiple 9s.”

You wave off his statement while you rearrange his file, sliding a quick compliment to his allies before his face turns serious again at your voice.

“They’re not allies. I don’t have allies. Allies are bullshit.” You nod at his even tone.

“Figures, you did kill your bro—“

Namjoon slams his hand down on the table, startling everyone in the proximity. “I didn’t fucking want to kill Taehyung, you bitch,” he literally spits out the curse he’d so aggressively thrown at you. “I would never fucking kill any of my brothers.” He was talking quick, veins on his outstretched arm prominent and angry. Almost as angry as he was. You hold out your palm to the policeman barely opening the door, peering at you through the slit on the steel. He nods, but his eyes were full of worry.

“You killed two of them,” you say unfazed, head tilted to the side. You were looking at him cripplingly, challenging him, trying to press at his emotions harder so he would burst. “Taehyung. Jimin,” you listed off. Namjoon’s chest heaves with every breath, ears red. His hand is now balled up into a fist, the other clawing at his thigh. You lean closer to him and repeat the names of the three youngest in his family. “Taehyung. Jimin.” You say with emphasis. You fish out their photos from the stack you had and flick them towards him.

He closes his eyes, not wanting to see the images. A tear slips down one of his cheeks, his face flushed, neck veins near popping, fists shaking from how hard he’s closed them in.

“Stop,” He whispers.

“Why did you kill them?”

“I was young. Stupid. Reckless. I still am,” he surrenders, tears now continuous. “But I regret harming them. Killing them. They were godsends in this hellhole.”

“You shot Taehyung 23 times,” you read off of a page in his folder. “That seems intentional, if anything.”

“Why are you suddenly an idiot?” He blinks at you. His eyes were bloodshot, brow worried and hurt was evident in his voice. “Panic. It was in panic.”

“You need to cock a gun to fire that many times in succession, Namjoon,” you cross, and his eyes grow wide at you calling him by name.

He leans forward, hushing his voice. “One,” he sticks his index finger out, “I threw the fucking bullets, alright? And two,” he follows up with his middle finger, “do not call me Namjoon. That’s not a name for you to use. You have no idea what that does to me when you say it.”

You’re baffled with what he said, and you’re not sure how to take that in. You narrow your eyes at him, feigning arrogance.

“Namjoon.”

#bts namjoon #bts namjoon x you #namjoon x reader #rm x you #rm x reader #psycho!namjoon #killer!namjoon #bts soulmate au #maybe #lol

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breakingarrows · 6 years ago

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Violence in Fallout 3

[This was originally published on VerticalSliceMedia.com in 2018 and is republished from the latest draft I have]

Somehow I found myself playing Fallout 3 for hours on end recently. I am unsure when the desire to revisit it began. Before, I spent time rewatching Joseph Anderson, Noah Caldwell-Gervais, hbomberguy, and Luke Stephens’ analysis videos on various entries into the franchise. This interest might have been spurred by questions about the upcoming Fallout 76 (What’s the risk if death doesn’t set you back? They’re talking about crafting becoming more important such as making ammo but are they going to severely limit your resources? How are there quests with no NPCs?), which in turn had me thinking about Fallout 4 and about booting up Fallout 3. I do think a major factor was a curiosity about some of the conversations sprouting up about the Fallout franchise in wake of Bethesda’s reveal and marketing with 76. Mainly, claims that Bethesda had forgotten, or simply was uninterested, in the major themes of Fallout and Fallout 2 regarding Americana. Vault Boy went from being an unethical corporation’s propaganda tool that fed off of the “innocent” American culture of the 1950’s to being the aesthetic core around which Bethesda’s Fallout games rotate with little of that original satire intact.

Fallout 3’s introductory chapters weren’t as long as I feared, but as boring as I expected. Vault 101 imparts on the player the following: your father loves you very much, dialogue choices generally lead to the same outcome, morality is binary. Childhood bully Butch offers the first truly consequential moral choice: the player must choose whether or not to let his mom die from radroaches. Fallout 3 asks, “Butch has been nothing but an asshole to you throughout this introduction, so why not pay him back by allowing his mom to die or killing him yourself?” Except Butch’s mother is not responsible for his actions, and even if she was why would I let her die? This is an issue that enraged me while watching Riverdale, where multiple characters can’t seem to understand that a child is not responsible for their parent’s actions and vice versa. Immorality in this situation is straight out murder by inaction, and the rational thing to do is rewarded with good karma. Nothing about this situation is challenging or complex, and this begins the trend of simplistic and erroneous moral choices throughout Fallout 3.

Immediately proceeding your escape from Vault 101, you will make your way to Megaton the closest Wasteland settlement and host of another moral dilemma, an active atomic bomb that serves as the town’s centerpiece. In Moriarty’s bar you encounter Burke who requests that you activate the bomb in order to destroy Megaton. Surely as a non-resident you won’t care if this town of civilians is obliterated. Overlapping this quest is Tenpenny’s Tower. In it the player either kills Roy and his ghouls or kills Tenpenny and his tenants, there is no third option. Even if you forcibly evict the residents who would protest the ghouls’ presence, or convince them that the two factions can live peacefully, Roy will eventually murder everyone after a dispute, and you will gain negative karma should you follow this up by murdering him and his group. Both of these quests are so simplistic. Why not have the Church of Atom move the bomb elsewhere so that they can set it off and fulfill their religion without endangering the entirety of Megaton? Why is the best option to force two mutually hateful groups into close proximity? Roy and the ghouls in this scenario are so obviously a stand in for racial tensions in the US. Why create his endpoint to be as abhorrent as his oppressor Tenpenny, who would just as easily have Roy killed simply for existing as a non-human?

Ghouls in general are not served very well here, as a large majority of them are rendered feral and ripe for killing, nothing more than mindless zombies. Likewise the raider and super mutant factions, those you will be killing hundreds of throughout the Capital Wasteland are dehumanized as much as possible in order to justify your mindless violence towards them. The lone example against this if Fawkes, who only exists due to his upending of the expectation of every super mutant being a mindless monster. Three Dog spends the early hours warning listeners of the brutality of raiders towards their victims, and super mutants likewise are larger more menacing humanoids that kidnap people to create gore nests. These enemy factions are mindlessly evil and violent, and the player gets to reflect that violence back onto them.

Fallout 3’s first and third person shooting mechanics are very bad, but they are redeemed by the V.A.T.S. system, which freezes time, allows the player to highlight specific limbs, and unload in slow-motion, action edited clips. The system exudes cool, which was the obvious intent of the mechanic. Bethesda wanted to highlight the bloody violence they had created, both in how the enemies mindlessly terrorize the world, and how the player mindlessly guns down anything highlighted in red. I like the VATS system despite its over the top violence, where limbs can be severed by a punch and heads are regularly obliterated in a bloody fashion. An early perk called “Bloody Mess” enables more violent death animations if it wasn’t enough. The description for this perk focuses on the visual entertainment and treats the statistical bonus as an afterthought. This shows that Bethesda wanted the violence to feel cool and impressive and addressed the role-playing elements afterwards.

The world of Fallout 3 is brutal and unforgiving. Jericho raped Jenny, but no one is pushing you to avenge her. Hell, he can even join you on your explorations if you are despicable enough. Slavers place bomb necklaces on wasteland wanderers, kids lose their parents, people get kidnapped and tortured and killed but its all just set dressing so that you can loot a mutilated corpse for bottle caps. Vault-Boy will pop up after you’ve murdered a town of civilians to let you know you’ve leveled up and present some rewards for the good time you’re having. The tone is off, and it is a problem sadly not unique to Fallout 3.

Both the karma system and the violent tone are things I see as complaints from those who have played Fallout and Fallout 2, or at the very least New Vegas, when talking about Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.. Even as someone who hasn’t put significant time into any of those games I still see the faults in Fallout 3. And yet I keep feeling drawn back to the Capital Wasteland, to find locations I hadn’t on my initial playthrough and to touch on some DLC I never engaged with previously. Fallout 3 presents a dangerous and bloody world that is treated like a playground, one that makes it easy to be a good guy and doesn’t want you to feel too bad about killing everyone in sight.

#Fallout 3 #Fallout #Violence #Criticism #writing

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scoobydoominuscoobydoo · 7 years ago

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Part Five

“Please shut up and let me save your life...”

Daphne only ever avoided the gang when she couldn’t look them in the eyes.

Whether it was out of disappointment or fear or something much worse.

She wouldn’t take any phones calls, answer texts.

Hell, she won’t even answer the door for them.

These times were rare since Daph was almost never angry enough at them to leave them. But when they did happen they were long and didn’t let up easily.

The last time this had happened was when Fred had accidentally spilled all her personal family drama to the lacrosse team. And then it immediately spread throughout the whole student body because Fred had no idea how high school worked.

She hadn’t sat with them for lunch for almost a month.

Only returning after Shaggy and Velma came and expressed how much they missed and needed their peacekeeper.

Velma was too close to strangling Fred without Daph to defend him.

Of course Daphne returned since there was no way she could refuse Shag’s desperate eyes. Besides, it felt really nice to be needed.

That had been a year ago.

After that Daph had become more accustomed to Freddie’s major screw ups, and was more comfortable with confronting him on them.

The gang was hoping this meant that Daph wouldn’t randomly disappear from their lives again, that she would stay there next to them playing the ray of sunshine act she lived by.

They were wrong.

The night after the.....incident with Andrews involving guns and tears and lots of hugs, Daphne and just gone home without saying a word to any of them

For the first few days the gang didn’t bug her, since all of them didn’t really feel like showing up to school. Especially since people were keen to ask questions on what it was like. Some would walk up and admire the bullet holes in the Mystery Machine others would pose like a corpse in the same spot Andrews was shot.

Everyone was treating it like it was an amazing feat and that they were so lucky to have such an intense experience in real life.

Shaggy was glad at first that Daph wasn’t showing up to school because he knew that people would flood her with questions about the exact thing she was being haunted by.

The gang could grin and bear it when they were being attacked with curious teenagers.

But if somebody congratulated Daphne on killing someone, they would probably snap.

Everything felt broken.

Like life had just kind of slowed down for them.

Sometimes things would just be totally silent even if they were surrounded with noise. Only able to hear their breathing and feel their hands form and into knuckles or their teeth sink into their lower lip.

It felt harder to walk in a straight line. Watching as things would be thrown into fast forward.

The only thing they had was each other.

Except Daph, who was just pressing pause on her life all together.

For the first couple of weeks they didn’t bother calling her to ask if she was okay.

Of course she wasn’t fucking okay.

One time, on the way home from school, Fred had driven up to Daph’s house and parked in the driveway.

But that was as far as they got since none of them felt brave enough to go in and see what kind of state she was in. This was the first time the avoiding had been both ways, and Shag didn’t like it.

Fred could barely focus on anything, since he only ever had sudden romantic feelings for her when she was gone.

Typical.

And even though Velma wasn’t ever going to say it out loud, Daph was definitely the one in the group that would be the first to call her out on her BS. Velma respected that.

Plus she was the only other girl in the group, and sometimes Daphne was the only one who could understand her problems.

Shag didn’t even know what he missed from Daph, it could be her patience with his cowardice. Or her strong optimism in areas where it did not make any sense. Or how she was the only one who looked out for his shaking hands.

Even if that was a recent thing, it was her thing.

Scoob was depressed to lose the only other one in the gang that loved him as much as Shaggy did.

Without Daph the gang was just a bunch of pessimistic realists and a dog who sat at a lunch table outside and poked their food with plastic forks.

That had continued for almost three weeks, and by that time they felt more in touch with reality again. People had stopped making a huge fuss about the situation and they were all left alone.

It had been a Tuesday when Velma finally put her foot and declared that whether Daphne came back to school or not they still needed to check on her and be there for her.

Everyone agreed.

But Shaggy was dreading seeing what she had been doing to herself these past weeks.

They were all standing on the front porch of Daph’s gigantic house, her mother blinking rapidly at the group of teenagers standing in front of her.

She seemed to be trying to remember who they were.

Were they high school faculty?

Or were they Daph’s friends?

Her eyes drifted over to Fred and then her youthful face set into a tight scowl.

“Oh the Jones boy and his peanut gang, here to terrorize my daughter with those silly mysteries.” She placed her hands on her hips in obvious disapproval.

Fred shrank quickly beneath the woman’s stare, hiding behind Shaggy as if he was able to shield the woman’s clear hatred for him. Velma groaned and rolled her eyes, so much for taking charge of the Daphne recon mission.

Shaggy ignore how Fred was tugging down on his shoulder causing him to lean back and quickly stepped in.

He wasn’t sure if he stood a better chance with Daph’s mom than Freddie did. But he knew she was seconds away from slamming the door in their faces if he didn’t say something.

He gulped.

“Mrs. Blake, we’re not here to drag her back to school or go solve mysteries.” The woman raised an eyebrow at him skeptically, he took a deep breath, this was for Daphne.

“We haven’t seen her for what? Like three weeks right?” He looked back at Velma and she nodded, Fred was still cowering behind him.

“Like we’re her best friends ma’am, we just wanna check on her and make sure she’s not having some kind of mental crisis.” He shoved his hands in his pockets in an effort to distract himself from her judgement.

She tossed her head back and let out a loud laugh.

Shag noted that she had the same laugh as Daph, just more condescending.

He jumped when she slapped her hand on his shoulder, what did he say to make her so engaging?!

“You’re the Rogers boy correct?” Her tone was amused but it could have been a trap.

He nodded cautiously.

She gave him a perfectly symmetrical smile that shone from clearly bleached teeth. “Darling, mental crisis has run in our family since the 20′s. There’s not really much you can do about it.”

He sighed, she wasn’t getting the point.

They were there with her, if anyone could help her it was them.

Right now Daphne felt like the lonely princess locked in the tower and they were the brave knights trying to make it past the fire breathing dragon.

Mrs. Blake must have seen the distress and hopelessness in Shag’s eyes because she removed her hand from his shoulder and had taken a step back, inviting them in.

Shaggy gave her a thankful smile and walked into the spacious entryway.

Fred let go of his shoulder as soon as they made it through the front door, taking the spot as far away from Daph’s mother as he could without being obviously terrified.

Velma rolled her eyes again as she stood next to him.

After she closed the door she pointed up the stairs, “Her’s is the third room on the left. Don’t touch anything, half the stuff costs more than anything you will ever make in your lifetime.” She sent another glare in Fred’s direction.

“We know ma’am, Thank you. Really.”

Shag said this as he made his way up the grand staircase, hearing the footsteps of the others behind him.

“What the hell did you do to that woman to make her hate you so much?” Velma inquired, clear amusement in her voice. Fred cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, “Honestly, I think it may be a large culmination of things so I can’t pick anything specific.”

Velma giggled as they reached the top of the stairs and made a left.

“But I’m pretty sure that it was some time around middle school, because that was when she stopped calling me Fred and just referred to me as ‘The Jones boy.’‘

Velma sighed, “Well you were a clueless jackass in middle school so I’m not even a little surprised.”

“Exactly when did I become the butt of all your jokes Velms? All you ever do is laugh at me now.”

Shaggy decided to stay out of their bickering and concentrated on finding Daph’s room. Normally he’d just pick the door with the most purple since that color was practically part of Daphne’s DNA at this point. But since the whole house was just different shades of purple he was going in blind.

He would have known where her damn room was if Daphne ever let them go to her house.

Fred knew where her room was since Daph was constantly trying to get some sort of spark to happen between them. But he was busy poking Velma in the stomach in retaliation to her sad but true teasing.

Eventually he stopped in front of the third door where Mrs. Blake had told him where she was in the first place.

Genius Shag.

He took a deep breath and looked over toward the rest of the gang.

Velma was pulling on Fred’s hair playfully and they both were in a fit of giggles.

Shaggy smiled and cleared his throat. They were pulled out of their world of acting like 7 year-olds and nodded. Shag took a step back and motioned for Freddie to go first. Give something for her to smile at once they opened the door.

He felt his heartbeat pick up as Fred turned the knob to the door slowly.

His heart might not be up for seeing a ray of sunshine lose it’s shine.

They all slowly filed into the room and looked around, Shag was holding his breath in worry.

Every light in the room was on making the open room seem even bigger, but not soothing. It felt like a big, empty, white room, devoid of feeling and comfort. Shag felt a shiver run up his spine, it felt freezing cold and burning hot at the same time.

The only sound to be heard was a soft, “Jinkies,” from Velma.

Her voice seemed to echo throughout the room, causing someone to stir within the pile of blankets and pillows sitting in the center of the king sized bed. The gang all exchanged concerned looks and slowly made their way over to the bed.

Almost like a bunny peeking out of it’s burrow, Daph’s head popped out of her makeshift blanket cave.

Shaggy’s breath hitched at the sight of her, although she had sent them a welcoming smile it was very tired and forced. Her hair looked like it had rats nesting in it since it was all matted and puffed out.

The things that captured his attention the most were the dark lines under her glazed over purple eyes and her cracked and chapped lips.

He chose to ignore the fact that his eyes went straight to her lips.

It was awkwardly quiet for a few seconds, eyes were avoiding contact and hands were fidgeting.

Eventually Daph leaned forward and pushed herself out of the hill of blankets and slowly crawling toward them, bringing herself to sit at the foot of the bed and clasping her hands in her lap.

She spoke slowly, her voice seemed to croak like a frogs, “Usually Mommy is the one who ends up bringing my homework.”

Shag could tell she was trying to appear okay, but she was trying a little too hard.

None of them responded to her, Fred just stood in front of her like a telephone pole that was out of service and was staying like that till further notice. Velma sighed and rolled her eyes before kicking Fred in the back of the leg.

“Ouch! Velms wha-”

Velma cut him off and motioned for him to start talking to her.

Fred nodded and turned back to Daph, “Right, we....well we just came to umm..” Velma groaned and put her head in her hands while Shag sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Sending the occasional consoling look to Daphne and hoping she picked up on some of them.

Daphne’s face seemed to light up at Fred’s attempts to reassure her. Shaggy let out a sigh, at least Fred’s mere presence was therapeutic for her at the very least.

Immediately that sturdy faith in Fred’s affect over Daphne disappeared when he said, “We just came here to see if you were down to go solve another mystery with us!” Daph’s face fell.

“Damn it Freddie that is not why we braved the horror of Mrs. Blake.” Velma kicked the back of his leg again and shoved him behind her.

She was about to present her own version of their speech but stopped when she saw Daph’s eyes begin to well up. Velma froze, her delivery wasn’t nearly gentle enough to console a crying Daphne.

“Shaggy talk to her.”

He gulped and looked over at Velma, she was motioning for him to do something before Daph went full Disney princess. Or even worse, senior prom.

He nodded and took a few steps forward before squatting down so that he was at eye level with Daph. Her eyes instantly locked on his and the warm feeling returned to her chest.

Shag took a deep breath and spoke to her in a soft voice not tearing his eyes away from her’s, “Daph, this isn’t about us going in that van and once again stumbling upon a mystery that will no question scare the bejesus out of me.”

She smiled.

“This isn’t about us forcing you to go back to school where all the clueless jackasses are gonna shower you with questions.” He felt her fingers grasp onto his gently, his eyes still didn’t leave her’s.

“This is about your best friends coming to make sure that you’re actually okay. Not just okay because you say so. Because I’ll tell you right now Daphne, none of us are okay.” Velma and Fred nodded in agreement.

Daphne sighed shook her head.

“Shags I just- it was a lot easier to forgive Fred for doing something stupid. It wasn’t hard to force myself off of a chair in the cafeteria to go sit next to my best friends outside.”

Her grip on his hands tightened and she took a deep breath.

“Bu- I” Her lower lip quivered. Shag stayed quiet, giving her all the time she needed. “Leaving this bed, leaving this room, to go into a world of eyes following and mouths asking and just everything reminding me of what happened....”

“You don’t need to force yourself Daph, none of us needed to.”

She smiled again than bit her lip, “Shags I want to come back to you, to all of you guys, but then I see the front steps of the school and- just all the memories come flooding back.”

Shaggy raised an eyebrow, apparently she had tried to come back once before.

“Daph, no matter what you do you’re gonna remember it. For the rest of your life you’re gonna remember this. But just know that we’ll be remembering with you, and we’ll always be here for you. You know that right??”

He squeezed her hands.

“And if it gets to be too much...then we can take you to the gym where they keep the football dummies and we can let beat the freakin shit out of one.” He added, although his tone was joking his face seemed genuinely serious.

She stared at him for a second, then looked down at their hands. Thinking over all he said, enjoying how warm his grip on her hand felt. It then occurred to her that she would face hardship, but she would always have Fred’s big bear hugs and Velma’s shoulder and Scooby’s kisses.

And Shaggy’s hand.

Eventually she looked up and gave him a smile, a real smile.

She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into a hug. While surprised he understood the meaning of the hug and grinned, wrapping his arms around her torso.

Fred and Velma giggled and walked over to join the hug.

But the look of contentment on Daph’s face stopped them in their tracks.

Fred simply sent Velma a confused look and she shrugged in response. But as she looked back at her two best friends, a smirk slowly formed on her face.

“Freddie the medicine is for my mom not me I promise.” Daphne leaned against the wall waiting for the nurse to return with her mother’s “prescription” painkillers.

Shaggy rubbed the back of his neck as he leaned next to her, it was way too early in the morning for this. They were finally going to have a crack at solving a mystery after nearly a month without getting involved.

While Shag was 100% okay with that, Freddie was starting to get jittery.

At this point he was going through mystery withdrawals and you either thought it was sad like Daph, or you thought it was hilarious like Velma.

Since Daphne had seemed to get through the worst of it she promised Fred she’d participate after they picked up her mom’s new best friend, codeine. Of course her mom’s source was one of the doofus doctors that decided he wasn’t making enough money so he started selling his own hospital’s inventory on the sly.

And somehow convinced a few nurses to get involved.

Unfortunately those nurses liked to take their own sweet time and they had already been stuck in the back hallway for a good 30 minutes.

Fred was hopping from one foot to another and Velma groaned, “Would you stop that, you look more excited you get your fix than Daph’s mom, God! The Harbor Harbinger of Death ain’t goin anywhere Fred I guarantee it’s not going to leave it’s element as the name suggests.” She crossed her arms and smirked up at him.

He sighed and nodded before leaning against the wall opposite of Daph and Shag.

“Yeah like Fred relax, we’re a little out of practice for putting out lives in peril so maybe we shouldn’t rush it.” Daphne giggled and Fred gave her another confused look.

She used to always side with him.

Their whole dynamic seemed to be shifting and he wasn’t really sure why.

Velma had rolled her eyes and wondered how Daphne was the one cursed to be super obvious with the one she has a crush on.

Shaggy seemed to pick up on Fred’s confusion and Velma’s teasing glances and he bit his lip, he really hated it when they acted like actual teenagers with confusing drama and weird things going on between just friends.

He glanced over at her and saw her looking down at her hands while she adjusted her rings, something she did when she was incredibly bored.

Suddenly a muffled scream resonated throughout the whole hospital.

Fred and Velma both began trying to place where the scream came from while Shaggy jumped and let out a yelp in surprise.

Daphne didn’t really know how to react or what to do, she just stood there and shifted her gaze around trying not to panic. Her eyes rested on Shaggy’s hand and for a second she was ready to grab onto her anchor.

But then she remembered the love of her life was right across from her, so why not just grab onto his hand?

She sighed and reluctantly walked over to Freddie, grabbing onto his arm.

“It was a woman’s voice I know that much but it seemed to come from everywhere...uhhhh...Velms?” He looked over at her, she had her brow furrowed and was looking up at the ceiling.

Then her eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers, “The PA system!!”

Shaggy groaned and let out that nervous chuckle that caused Daph’s heartbeat to pick up.

“There’s gotta be a control room for it we just need to locate it!” She began making her way toward the security office. The rest of the gang following behind her.

“Oh right that’s brilliant, like lets go toward the blood curdling scream which will most likely lead us to a terrifying creature that likes to eat dumbass seniors for brunch!! Genius move there Mensa!!”

While Velma simply yelled at him to shut up and stay close to them, Daph looked back at him and peeked down at his hands.

They were barely shaking, but she saw it.

“Velma they’d most likely have it hidden in the back of the hospital.” Fred said as he began to walk faster, Daph’s grip on him tightened so she wouldn’t fall.

“Oh ho ho, like this just keeps getting better doesn’t it?”

Daphne’s heart leaped, even his voice was shaking as they got closer to the security office.

Occasionally someone would dash past them heading for the exit, and they were sure the main areas of the hospital were in chaos, but otherwise everything seemed calm and quiet.

Which was easily worse than the hallway being filled with screaming.

As they reached a corner Velma motioned for them all to turn right.

Once they turned they were all instantly stopped in their tracks.

Hanging from a cord sticking out of the ceiling was a nurse, the same nurse that was bringing Mrs. Blake’s fix.

Her body was scarred and ripped up, her eyes were rolled back and all you could see was white. Painted all around her on the floor and the walls were stick figures and random scribbles. It looked like something done by a four year old, but the kind that was possessed by a disturbed demon.

“Zoinks!!! Like noooo...that’s it I’m done!! That is not fucking okay time to go!!!”

Shaggy ran his hands through his hair and began pacing back and forth, the panic was setting in, hard.

Daph’s breathing picked up and everything around her seemed to be drowned out by the sound of her hyperventilating. Quickly she turned to Fred and said, “Freddie you promised that if someone got killed then we--we w-wouldn’t get involved.”

Shaggy looked over and saw that familiar look that was on his face nearly every mystery, she looked like her knees were about to give out beneath her.

Fred hadn’t answered her yet and that only made her breathing intensify.

He quickly walked over to her and began to rub her back, ignoring Fred’s confused stare that he’d been shooting him a lot lately.

As he continued to rub her back he felt his breathing even out and his heartbeat slow.

Velma stared at both of them for a second and then sighed, “I’m calling the police and then we’re getting out of this hell hole.”

Both Shaggy and Daphne sent her a thankful look and she simply nodded.

Fred still stayed quiet, too busy focusing on the shifting dynamics of their tight circle. Not sure if he was prepared to adjust, change wasn’t something he did well at all.

Velma hung up after explaining their situation and shoving her phone in her skirt pocket.

“They’ve already received several calls and a couple squad cars are only a couple minutes away but they’re sending more.”

Everybody nodded.

They all stared at each other for a second, finally ready to make a run for the exit.

But then they heard a growl.

A long, loud, angry growl.

And it was coming from where they came from.

Right behind them.

Slowly, the all turned around, Shaggy had gripped onto the back of Daph’s shirt and Velma had taken a step behind Fred, peeking out from behind his arm.

Standing at the end of the hall, his head cocked unnaturally to the side, was a man with a scar running across both of his eyes that looked fused shut.

His clothes resembled a doctor’s but they seemed all wrong.

But that wasn’t the main issue with this.

The main issue was that in the creature’s hand was one of those hand saws that they used to cut off casts.

And it was fair to say that was probably lethal.

Within seconds, the gang let out a shriek and made a run for it, Fred and Velma going down the hallway with the hanging body, Shaggy running in the opposite direction.

Daph stood still for a second, here eyes following Shaggy dash down the hall, she could here the sound of the saw growing closer to her.

She could hear Shag saying, “Basic horror movie mistake.” in her head.

“Daphne what the hell are you doing???!!! Come on!!!!” Fred was shouting for her to follow him.

He continued to call her name but she didn’t respond.

Finally, she groaned and ran in the same direction Shag went.

“Damn horror movie heroine.” She said under her breath as she ran, trying to spot where he went.

She was about to panic and look back to see where the freaking Doctor Demon was, but a hand shot out of one of the rooms and grabbed onto her wrist, pulling her in and dragging her into the corner out of the door’s view.

“Why the hell did you follow me??” He said in a sharp whisper as he backed against the wall and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, her back resting against his chest.

“I-I um just...” She was unable to focus due to how terrified and flustered she was.

Plus that fact that he smelled like fresh soil and hot sauce. It was intoxicating.

“Like I got it, you panicked.”

She just nodded as she brought her hands up to his arms and gripped onto them. The sound of the saw was slowly approaching the room they were in.

Shag’s breath was forcefully being relaxed and Daph found herself holding her own breath.

“This is just hide and go seek meets freeze tag.” She repeated this in her mind over and over.

The closer the sound got, the faster she thought it and the tighter Shag’s grip was on her. Eventually it felt like the sound was right outside their door and Daphne’s heart was beating so hard it felt like it was about to hop out of her chest and give them away.

She leaned her head back against his shoulder.

If the police hadn’t shouted for his to put his hands up, Daph believed that he 100% would have entered their room and sliced them up into teeny tiny pieces.

But instead they were fine, letting out panicked/relieved breaths, still holding onto each other tightly.

#scooby doo #shaphne #shaggy rogers #daphne blake #shaphne fanfiction #teen wolf #stydia

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wazafam · 4 years ago

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Content Warning: This article contains descriptions and images of violence and gore.

Although it has garnered mixed reviews since its Netflix debut on May 21, 2021, Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead currently remains the #1 most viewed title on the platform. The sprawling zombie film about a band of thieves hired to retrieve $50 million from a Las Vegas casino in the heart of a zombie apocalypse has no shortage of frightening and fleshing-eating ghouls.

RELATED: 10 Most Brutal Deaths In Army Of The Dead, Ranked

In the film, the zombies adhere to a specific hierarchy within the walled-in kingdom. There are low-level walkers called Shamblers, more aggressive and intelligent zombies called Alphas, and their superior leaders, Zeus (Richard Centrone) and the Alpha Queen (Athena Perample).

10 Zombie Elvis

While Elvis Presley impersonators are a dime a dozen in Las Vegas, there's something both morbidly humorous and horrifying about seeing a zombified King of Rock and Roll peruse the strip in the opening of Army of the Dead.

The six-minute opening credit sequence is littered with one violent zombie salvo after another, including the introduction of Zombie Elvis (Joe Rashbaum) as a plane crashes into the Eiffel Tower of the Paris casino. The King's gore-soaked maw and bloody shirt give the shambler an extra scary appearance.

9 Zombie Bots

On close inspection, there appear to be robot zombies in Army of the Dead. Although they are never referred to as such on any level in the story, Snyder has alluded to addressing robot zombies in the upcoming animated series Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas.

RELATED: Army Of The Dead & 9 Other Creative Zombie Movie Concepts

As seen above with a metallic endoskeleton and glowing left eyeball, a robotic zombie is part of the onslaught inside the Olympus Casino. Whether or not they are addressed in the future, the idea of robotic flesh-eaters is a mortifying prospect.

8 Showgirl Shamblers

Las Vegas showgirls often provide delightful entertainment but in Army of the Dead, they provide abject carnage and deleterious evil. In the gore-sodden opening sequence, a throng of topless zombie showgirls exacts one of the bloodiest and most violent attacks in the film.

The barbarous onslaught comes when an unsuspecting Penthouse resident is brutally accosted in his jacuzzi by a trio of undead showgirls. After he is tackled in the tub, his body is devoured until a fountain of gore colors the walls of the hotel blood red.

7 Bloody-Mouthed Alpha

Roughly 90 seconds into the hyper-violent opening credit sequence, a terrifying shambler ambles into the frame with a bloodstained mouth as he peers up at the flaming Olympus Casino. In a brightly lit close-up, the shot offers one of the clearest and most detailed images of the ghoul's freakish facial disfigurement.

RELATED: The 10 Best Characters In Army Of The Dead, Ranked

With a decaying gray skin tone, glowing yellow eyes, and blood around his mouth, the image establishes the grotesquery and terror to come.

6 Red-Pants Alpha

Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) faces one of his most challenging zombie combatants in the corridor of the Olympus casino as the team advances toward the safe. After seeing his friend, Maria, killed, Scott waylays a handful of Alphas before facing off with a ninja-like zombie in red pants.

In the lengthy hand-to-hand battle in which the scary bald zombie sweep-kicks Scott to the wall and nearly bites his neck, the audience isn't so sure Scott will prevail. Fortunately, Scott stabs the zombie in the hand and slams him down with a wrestling move.

5 Alpha General

Due to his grungy long hair and buff naked torso, the Alpha General (Albert Valladares) can be confused for Zeus in certain long shots in the film. However, the muscular Alpha General is his own frightening entity who lunges at Burt Cummings (Theo Rossi) with alarming intensity. Afterward, he drags his prey back to headquarters for Zeus to devour.

RELATED: Army Of The Dead 2: 10 Cities The Movie Should Feature

Ranking just below Zeus and The Queen for Alpha supremacy, the Alpha's scariness comes from his hyper-violent aggression, as well as his intelligence as a key decision-maker within the undead army.

4 Casino Flyers

One of the most thrilling moments of the film comes when Zeus sends his Alpha zombies to attack Scott and his team on the Olympus Casino floor. As the team does its best to fend off the swarming horde, a flying Alpha comes soaring over the slot machines towards Scott with bad intentions.

Supinated on a gaming table, Scott points his military-grade machine gun at another salivating Alpha as the ghoul somersaults through the air toward its prey. It's the scariest moment in the most action-packed sequence of the entire film.

3 Zeus

As patient zero and the ultimate Alpha leader, the almighty Zeus is easily among the top three scariest zombies in the film. His introductory scene alone, emerging from the shadows to slowly devour Burt, is one of the most terrifying moments in the film.

RELATED: 10 DCEU Movies Fans Want After The Synder Cut

With superhuman strength, a frightening level of intelligence/sentience, and the power to command an undead army, Zeus is not to be trifled with. In addition to his godly status, his physical appearance is also deeply unsettling.

2 Alpha Queen

Zeus is bested by his scarier better half, The Queen, whose spastic body contortions and unnerving physicality make her one of the most unique foes in the film. She can also become pregnant and survive decapitation, at least temporarily, which is the stuff of hellish nightmares.

With jagged dirty green teeth, glowing orange eyeballs, and an inveterate hissing growl, The Queen is simply the most fearsome zombie in the film. Her feral introductory examination of Burt is suspensefully bloodcurdling, and her rabid onslaughts are among the most vicious.

1 Valentine The Zombie Tiger

Valentine the zombie tiger is by far the scariest monster in Army of the Dead. Described as "perverse" by Martin, who becomes the most brutalized victim of the ferocious feline, Valentine is also the most unique zombie in the film outside of Zeus' undead horse.

With a hollowed-out left eye socket, ragged blood-soaked coat, and huge, sharp fangs, Valentine roams the kingdom as a de facto guard dog. His lethal attack of Martin is the gnarliest death scene in the film, and that he could return for a sequel makes him an even scarier entity.

NEXT: 10 Best Zombie Movies On Hulu, According To IMDb

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friar0 · 7 years ago

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Far Cry 5 makes me miss Kyrat

Ubisoft’s latest entry in the Far Cry series is a disappointment. This time around you play the part of a deputy to the police force of a fictional american county nestled in the mountains faced with the overwhelming power of a local religious cult. It has all the shooting, red barrels, vehicles, and outposts you’ve come to expect in the Far Cry series. What it lacks however is a sense of character, place, motivation. The mechanics are a little different in this incarnation of the Far cry series. Far Cry 5 does away with the minimap, replacing it with a compass at the top of the screen reminiscent of Skyrim. The map itself is no longer laid out with outposts and towers but filled with little details that require you to zoom all the way in to see. Figuring out where you are and where you should go is a complete mystery thanks to these changes and encourages you to explore rather than go from one highlighted point to the next. The shooting feels tighter than previous entries and there’s the same tight run and gun mechanics fans of the series love with the addition of fixed wing aircraft like biplanes and seaplanes. A new system allows you to summon your customized cars, boats, and planes at certain locations. There’s certainly a lot more to spend money on but, just like in previous games in the series, you will inevitably find yourself only using the signature weapons and vehicles before you finish unlocked half of the available options. Yes, they got rid of climbable towers. Actually they did that with Primal but Primal is such an unorthodox Far Cry game in so many ways people overlook the changes. Outposts, however, are still around but this time they are harder to find thanks to big smoke clouds coming from downed planes and future mission locations. Following the billowing black smoke is no longer a guarantee that you’ll find your way to an outpost. Once you have you will find the outposts much larger and more complex than in previous entries, making them more favorable to sneaking but a real pain when you try to come in guns blazing. Ubisoft also got rid of crafting. No more hunting down dangerous beasts to make a bigger wallet or nicer loot bag. Instead fishing and hunting become a relaxing side venture whose only reward is money and maybe some bragging rights for how big a fish you got. There are a handful of hunting side-quests but no more big game hunts needed to unlock special upgrades. Everything is now locked by quest and cash. As well as unlocking and customizing vehicles you can now customize your wardrobe and even weapon skins with your money. These aesthetic elements provide no bonuses or penalties. So you can wear a bright orange vest or deep woods swat outfit without concern for stealth. If you enjoyed the sequences in the previous Far Cry game where you are captured and taunted then you are going to love Far Cry 5. Rather than progressing through a series of story missions you must reap a certain amount of “resistance points” before you can fight the regional mini-bosses. Along this bar of points are dots that signify an interlude where you are captured. It doesn’t matter if you are in a helicopter or fighting a “capture party” you will mysteriously get drowsy and pass out awakening to the regional mini-boss taunting you. You will do this twice for each of the three regions. That’s six times you are captured and escape. You would think that after the second time they would just kill you. These constant interruptions also really cut into the feeling of being an unstoppable killing machine that every other facet of the game encourages. The real heart of my disappointment comes in the form of the setting and the story. You’re a deputy who goes along to serve a warrant on a well armed cult leader and, rather than learn anything from Ruby Ridge, Waco, or Malheur, you are only one of four law enforcement officers sent to execute the warrant. So, of course, hilarity ensures and by hilarity I mean you are chased and nearly killed while your compatriots are captured. So begins a story of revenge. A story of Revenge. Instead of calling in the FBI, Homeland Security, or the National Guard you immediately start slaughtering motherfuckers. Even when it comes to the big minibosses that you are required to take down before facing the big bad is a question of slaughter. At no time am I given the option of arresting anyone. Instead you find yourself with well armed locals and a “citizens militia” devoid of any specific ideology as you cut a swath of bloody terror across this county. The fact that you are a law enforcement officer seems utterly superficial.

The stage for your best Rambo performance is a southern, midwestern, plains county somewhere in Montana and home to caricatures, rednecks, and “preppers”. In fact the new collectible in Far Cry 5 is “prepper stashes”. Everyone in this god forsaken county has a fallout shelter or a cabin. They speak with a melange of “fly-over” accents and buy their personalities pre-packaged from Dick’s Sporting Goods. In comparison to previous entries Far Cry 5 has a great deal more named NPCs with their own quests and stories. Unfortunately they are all as dull as dishwater. I can’t help but find myself comparing Far Cry 5 to my favorite entry in the Far Cry series and the last numbered entry Far Cry 4. In Far Cry 4 you play the American raised Kyrati citizen Ajay Ghale who comes to an unseen homeland only to discover it is in the middle of a civil war that his parent started. Over the course of the game you discover the story of Ajay’s father, the history of the ersatz-Nepalese nation of Kyrat, and about what it takes to make a revolution work. When I compare Far Cry 5 and 4 I can’t help but find Far Cry 5′s Hope County and Deputy Rook bland. The land is littered with modern day rural detritus that if I wanted to look at I would walk outside my door. The villains spout generic religious rhetoric that is carefully clear of any but the most superficial religious references. You have no real say on how the resistance grows and learn nothing about the character you are playing. It’s Far Cry stripped to it’s most generic elements. When the american flag rises over a recently liberated auto parts store I can’t help but think of deciding the future of the Golden path with Amita and Sabal among ancient ruins. Every deer skin or fish I sell for a couple more bucks makes me think of the bone strewn den of Gulo the honeybadger. As I pick up collectible lighters or baseball cards I miss reading Mohan Ghales journal or spinning the Mani wheels. Far Cry 5′s Hope County makes me miss the mountains of Kyrat.

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jokers-sweethearts · 7 years ago

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Jokers Daughter Imagine: Present for a Princess

Request: (anonyous) Can you do a imagine about Joker getting CP and gift and her reaction? You can fill in the rest with whatever you want. Just please make it reader x joker :) thnx

tw: trichotillomania

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Joker ran his golden knife over the mans throat, each inch it progressed he dug it in deeper and deeper. The terror of feeling the pain build up was enough to make his heart stop, but he stayed alive pleading for the clown king to spare him.

“Pl...please sir I have a family! Kids at home I need to get to!” his voice cracked as his knees began to burn from the tile floor beneath him.

The Joker’s red lips spread into a cryptic smile revealing his metal teeth.

“Ya know.... you have a good point!” he pulled the knife away from the employee and tapped it on his forehead. Leaving a small blood mark.

The man took a deep breath and held it, not believing what was happening. He could taste the freedom so close.

“Need to get home, to the kid. You’re right! This is taking way too long!” In a flash all the man’s joy washed away as the blood sprayed from his throat. It covered the floor around him as he collapsed. “How selfish of you to keep me away from my princess” Joker huffed as he kicked the man’s skull and watched his lifeless head roll around.

The clown king of Gotham turned around to see the toy store being lit on fire by his henchmen. The corpses of all the employees littered the ground. He threw his head back and cackled when he saw Frost walking towards him, giant teddy bear in tow making it almost impossible for him to walk.

“Want me to load it up boss?” Frost said casually, almost like he didn’t even notice the mayhem around him. It made Joker smile even wider. He had done such a good job with Johnny, he was completely immune to the rampage and just focused on work.

“Hmmmm....” Joker growled. He stalked around the teddy bear and Frost like a lion circling it’s prey.

After all these years with Joker, Frost was good at hiding his emotions, but inside he was fucking terrified. He gulped so loud he was sure Joker would carve out his adam’s apple.

“Needs a little something” Joker murmured under his breath, not talking to anyone in particular. He raised the knife up to the bears head and wiped the blood off, leaving a stain. “Perfect! Put it in the car” he commanded adjusting his silver jacket and following Frost out.

The henchmen noticed their boss leaving and tried to follow, but just as some of them reached the door Joker slammed it in their face and held it as they fought with the handle.

“Sorry boys! Looks like there’s no extra room with the bear!” Joker whistled and Frost appeared behind him with chains and a lock for the door. He avoided eye contact with the men he just met last week.

No liabilities, Frost though to himself. It was just routine.

Joker got in the car and roared the engine, bobbing his head back and forth to the screams of the burning men like it was his favorite song. Within seconds he was gone and the gcpd showed up to the toy store.

Joker peaked in the rear view mirror at the toy for his princess. Like he had completely forgot all he just did, his daughter consumed his thoughts. He couldn’t wait to bring it to her and have her love and attention all for himself.

.........

You sat in the living room occasionally glancing over to the window out to the driveway. It was so unusual to wake up in the morning and your father be no where around. Uncle Johnny wasn’t even there to tell you where he’d gone. You tried to kill time by doing the usual. Sneaking clothes from your mother’s closet, target practice in the underground gun range with your father’s golden AK, working on your mother’s motorcycle. Now you sat on the couch doodling tattoos you dreamed of on your leg. You tried to perfect the skull your father had on his chest.

You tired to imagine what he would be doing. Maybe at the club or fighting with batman. Just the thought excited you, always eager to hear the stories when he got home. If he got home... whenever he was out for too long a part of your mind always wondered if maybe another arkham stay was at hand. You shook your head back and forth and pulled your hair to stop the bad thoughts. You knew you weren’t supposed to but you couldn’t help it. You pulled more and more, one strand at a time. The thought of losing him again to that horrible place was too much. Those thoughts gave you flashes of your mother being gone for so long. Locked up in belle reve then stolen again for squad.

The hair building up in your hand almost covered your entire palm. You snarled and threw it on the ground before standing up and going over to the window to look directly out. You’re stronger than that. You’re the goddamn clown princess, you said to yourself. Don’t be ridiculous he’ll be here soon. If not you’ll make those fuckers pay. You felt your ego and anger building up, gifts inherited form the man you awaited. After you finished reassuring yourself, you saw the purple lamborghini pull up, you felt like a god for a moment calling it perfectly.

Then you saw the bear, a maniacal smiled appeared on your face. You should have known he was gone on your account. You felt silly for ever denying that. Racing to the front door, you took a deep breath trying to forget the hair on the floor, before unlocking the door and opening it wide for him to enter. The bear came first brought in by Frost followed by your father.

Seeing him standing tall, towering over you, dressed so nice and confident in his purple shirt and silver jacket, gold chains swinging, you felt safe in his presence. Like nothing could hurt you, even yourself. You wasted no time jumping up into his arms. Feeling the gold rings on his hands rub your back helped you even more. You took some of his green hair in your hand just to feel it, just to know he was real. For a moment you didn’t give a shit about the bear, just happy he was back.

Joker felt the pride surge through him. This is exactly what he wanted.

“Miss me huh?” he chuckled.

“Of course I did, don’t trick me like that again”.

Trick? Joker was confused for a second but ignored it to focus on his baby in his arms.

“So you gonna accept your gift daddy worked so hard to get for you, princess?”

You released him from your grip and turned around to grab the bear. You held it against you tight before the smell caught your attention. You’d recognize it anywhere, one of the first smells you remember experiencing besides being held by Harley and smelling her skin.

You pulled back from the bear and your smile grew even wider, the blood stain warmed your heart. Your father always paid attention to detail.

“Oh daddy I love it thank you!” you squealed at him.

“Yeah yeah yeah” Joker tried to play if off tough but inside he was feeling on top of the world, not that he ever doubted he really was. “Frost!” he hissed “get started on the replacements!” Frost shook his head and followed his orders.

Joker took a seat on the couch and propped his feet up.

“You and that bear get over here and join me princess” he patted the spot on the couch beside him as he grabbed the remote and flipped the news on. His favorite part was coming up, when he showed you all the news reports about the damage he had caused. Better than any movie for him.

As he waited for you he noticed the excess amount of hair on the couch. It led his icy blue eyes to the floor where he saw the clump. Fuck... he whispered. When he saw you headed over he kicked it under the couch.

You plopped down and snuggled up next to him. You felt his strong arm around you and all your fears went away. Everything about arkham was just a distant memory now. You hugged the teddy bear next to you and felt complete bliss.

GCN began their announcement, showing footage of the toy store almost completely burned to the ground. The body count plastered on the tv screen.

You looked up at your dad with a huge grin and congratulated him. But Joker wasn’t paying attention. For the first time he wasn’t intrigued by hearing about himself. He held the remote up and switched off the tv. He clenched his fist around you so hard he was sure his palm would start bleeding.

You stupid fucking clown, you shouldn’t have left her alone. You should have waited for Harley to be back, you should have left someone with her. He frantically searched through his mind for everything to blame so he didn’t have to blame himself.

A sinking feeling entered your chest and shot down through your stomach. He knew. He always knew.

“Daddy I’m sorry I couldn’t help it” you said deadpan, you were sure he was just as exhausted with this as you were. “I got scared when you were taking long. I didn’t know if the rat got you or... I don’t know. But I stopped it myself I promise” you glared at the ground so you wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.

You remembered what Harley had taught you, when you were little and the hair pulling first started. Your mom taught you to focus in on something specific and learn everything you could about it.

You chose your father’s shoes. A solid black with a small golden jester placed just below where his pinky toe would be. It was helping but the urge to touch your hair was growing more. Until you felt your father’s fingers under your chin.

He forced you to look up at him then took your entire jaw in his hands.

Joker looked deep into his daughter’s eyes. He wasn’t angry, he could never physically feel anger for her. It wasn’t worry either. He had a fire burning in his stomach. The same fire he had when he was searching to rescue Harley. It was determination, a lust for control. He placed his mile tattoo over her mouth so he could see a smile on her, before kissing her forehead and getting off the couch.

You were confused but sat patiently waiting for him. When he returned he had something closed in his hand. A ring? A necklace? A bullet? You thought about the usual gifts he gave when you were upset. But when he revealed what it was you were even more confused.

“This is your mom’s favorite, so don’t rat me out kid” he said as he opened up the purple nail polish.

Without hesitating or explaining he took one of your wrists and rested in on his knee, turning his body fully to face you, one leg propped on the couch. His touch was more gentle than usual, you were used to him being more rough even when he was trying to be comforting. His back hunched over to focus as he painted your nails. Some green strands of hair fell in front of his eyes. You used your free hand to brush them back.

“There we are! No one can do that better than me, huh?” he cackled as he began to paint his own nails. He resumed his usual position facing the tv again and switching it on.

“Daddy I don’t understand” you spat out, your voice was raw and almost cracked, feeling tears begin to form. But you held them back.

“Don’t paint the other hand” he demanded in a low and stern voice. You use that hand to stop the other. It’ll look like someone else stopping you. It’ll be me stopping you. He tossed the nail polish behind him when he was finished and showed you his hand. His gold skull bracelet dangling as he waved it around. “See? next time you want to pull you grab your wrist just like I would. You can pretend it’s me now. Focus in on the nail color. Like your mother told you to do. Pretend it’s me” he looked you directly in the eye, you felt the intimidation and you liked it, sure his eyes would burn holes through yours.

You cracked a small smile looking down at your hand, you loved learning that you and your father were alike. It sounded like your mom had taught him that trick too.

“I was just... scared... you know it’s hard for me to admit that but it’s true”.

“Hey!” Joker shouted grabbing your chin again. Within seconds his emotions changed, he went from stern and commanding to gentle again. “Would anyone ever beat me? Would I ever not come back to you?” he opened his mouth slightly, revealing the metal teeth and waiting in anticipation for the answer he already knew.

“No...” you said faintly. You hoped this method would work in the future. But you put it all aside for now. You just wanted to focus on him being home.

“That’s my girl” he growled. He released you from his grasp and turned back to the tv. He extended his arm for you to curl up next to him again. You took the opportunity immediately. He wrapped his arm around you and held you tight against him. A silent reassurance that he wasn’t going anywhere.

You closed your eyes and rested your head on his chest. Right where you knew the skull tattoo was. You let out a sigh that turned into a laugh. Now you felt on top of the world.

“Ah ya see that there!” Joker pointed to the tv, the camera was directed at the body bags being wheeled out of the ashes. “That’s all me, princess”.

You smirked and your eyes glistened watching the corpses being handled.

“One day I’ll do it with you”.

Joker’s heart returned to a regular rhythm when he heard you say that. There were only two people that could control how his heart beat and one of them was in his arms right now. He felt powerful, in control.

A door slammed behind the two of you making you jump in his arms. Joker barely flinched and turned around to see a stranger before him. Frost followed and opened his mouth to introduce him, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Joker put a bullet through the man’s head and his body fell to the floor.

“..Boss that was the new guy you asked me to-”

“Did I ask you to interrupt us?” Joker snarled. He was furious to be interrupted but even more furious that his princess was scared.

Frost shook his head waiting for the same fate as the man next to him.

“Clean that up” Joker said turning his attention back to his little girl.

Frost sighed in relief that the attention was off of him. But now he was the one who’s heart was pounding. He took a glance at the girl on the couch. Frost envied her, but more so he was afraid of her. How she dealt with his boss as a father he’d never be able to understand.

It was just another reminder. Whether burning people alive or gifting his princess with a teddy bear, the Joker was unpredictable. The clown family was unpredictable.

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