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rita-repulsa-ke · 15 days ago

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Ritual of the Rose - Ch 3

"That form you're wearing is a corpse. It should have been in the ground years ago," Rio hissed, and as she said it, her voice a cold mist over his skin, Billy could feel decay setting in, his fingernails loose and prone to falling away, his skin slack on bones, his heart no longer beating in his chest—

Fic Summary: Changes the events of the last episode. Instead, Agatha swears a vow and prepares to go on one final adventure with Death.

For some reason, Billy has decided he's a protagonist as well.

Part 1 Part 2

Chapter 3 - Who is Billy Maximoff?

William Kaplan was a murderer.

No. William Kaplan was dead. He'd died in a carwreck with his parents and someone else had co-opted his body.

That wasn’t his fault! William was already dead and he was dying too, so he'd grabbed on to what he could, like some kind of weird, body-snatching parasite. Only he hadn't gotten just a host, he'd also gotten a life, someone else's life, someone else’s parents, who were currently downstairs thinking loud, worried thoughts about what was going on with their son.

Drugs? Online bullying, maybe? He was so into that weird occult stuff, should they have put a stop to that sooner?

No, he was a good boy. Reliable, kind, got good grades, had never done anything seriously wrong. They should trust him.

And here it was, he braced for it every time, and it still hurt.

It's only, he changed so much after the accident.

I'm sorry, he wanted to tell them. I'm so, so, so sorry, I'm not your son, I'm the leech that took his body. You guys are great parents, and you're my parents, you're the only parents I've ever known, please don't hate me for not being him.

He couldn't tell them that, though. He couldn't tell them their son had died years ago and now there was only him, Billy Maximoff, murderer.

He couldn't tell them the murder part either, couldn't sit downstairs on the couch and sob and let them hug him and tell him it would get better, like they had the first time he'd gotten his heart broken or a bad grade or a mean comment on his Instagram. He couldn't even let them be his parents right now, because there was no way he could confess that he'd killed three women on a Road he created with his mind.

Agatha said she would have killed all of them. And she had, in the most literal sense, killed Alice. Still, it had been his idea to form a coven in the first place, his idea to lure victims to her, even if he hadn't known what he was doing.

He should hate her, but he was too busy hating himself.

He uncurled his hand, locked in a fist since the fight in Agatha's garden. Took out the crumpled piece of stationary and smoothed it out. Noted with mild amusement that it seemed to have silly cartoon cats around the edge of the page. He couldn't imagine anything less Agatha, so probably this had belonged Agnes prior to her time as a hardboiled detective.

Agnes, a woman who'd been kept that way by his ostensible mother, who'd also trapped and tortured a whole town.

Boys, thanks for choosing me to be your mom.

"William! Do you want some dinner?"

He jumped and his hand clamped tight around the stationary again. That was his mother, he reminded himself, the one calling to him with concern in her voice. "No," he said. "I'm not very hungry right now."

"This is why you're such a beanpole!" His dad called, trying for jovial.

"I'm watching my figure," he retorted on automatic, smoothing the paper once more and looking at the address.

An apartment in New York City. No other information, except the hastily scrawled number on the bottom.

He wasn't going to call. He didn't need Agatha's help anymore. He had never needed her help, probably—except for the part where he had and he still didn't know if he was murderer a fourth time over for that, if he'd killed the boy he'd helped put Tommy in.

But that part was done and he didn’t even really regret it. The Road had made his wish come true. Now he needed to find his brother. Tommy, at least, wouldn't go through what he had, waking up with no memory and no understanding of what had happened to him.

Agatha had to told him to go alone. He could do this. He'd made a whole (deadly) reality. He could handle one mysterious stranger.

Resolute, he turned to go and almost screamed, clapped his hands over his mouth to stop the sound at the last moment so he didn't get his parent's attention.

He really didn't want them to come up here, because standing too close, smiling like an open wound, was Rio.

"You know, I think she forgets I can do this?" the woman said. She was wearing her green witch outfit, skintight and kind of cool in a scary way, but all Billy could remember was staring into the skeletal face of Death. "Be everywhere at once, I mean." Then she lunged suddenly, closing the gap between them until their noses almost brushed. "Boo!"

He jumped back and hit his dresser, gave a short, unmanly shriek and she burst into cackles of laughter so loud he worried his parents were about to come rushing up the stairs.

"W-what do you want? Are you here to—" he said, swallowed and didn't finish the sentence, his eyes on the blade in her hand, even though he knew she wasn't going to literally stab him to death.

Well, he really hoped she wasn't going to stab him to death.

"Take you? I should, you know. This…" she shook her head, back and forth, and each time it turned too far, creating the unnerving illusion her head was going to start spinning around like a bad horror movie effect. "This is so wrong, what you're doing here. You're the wrong soul in the wrong body. Very, very gross. But no, not right now, I'm busy letting Agatha drag me along like she always does. Do you know she's really bossy?"

"I know," Billy said, unsure if they were bonding here.

"Right, I bet you do. That whole Road business." She paused, twirled her knife, paced in a circle around his room and watching her now, he couldn't imagine how he'd ever thought she was a normal person, even a normal witch. She moved like a tiger penned into a cage, as though the form she wore didn't quite contain the edges of her, a non-Euclidean—

"She likes you, you know," Rio said, interrupting his mind's desperate attempt to comprehend what was right in front of him. "Agatha, I mean."

"Can she? Like people?" Billy said, which prompted a shorter, sharper cackle.

"I ask myself that All. The. Time," Rio said, sprawling back on his bed and kicking her feet, impatient, restless, almost human except for all the ways she wasn’t. "But apparently she's got a soft spot for little boys."

It took Billy a moment to correctly interpret that statement. "Because of her son."

Rio gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Probably. So maybe I can help."

"What?!"

"You," she pointed her knife at him. "Maybe I can help you."

"With what?"

She wrinkled her nose, jerked the knife up and down to indicate all of him. "Your…condition."

"…And that help isn't killing me?"

"Right," Rio said. "But it would involve you vacating that bod—"

"No!" Billy snapped, his arms wrapping tight around himself, as though he could keep his body held in place.

"Stop!" His magic flared and on instinct, he grabbed for her mind, like he'd done to Jen and Lilia and for a brief, overwhelming moment, he was Death, standing side-by-side with a winged shadow bigger than he could grasp and he was—

He was everywhere. He was vast, all-consuming, but deeply personal at the same time.

He stood at a hospital bed, listening to the monitors make a sound he'd only heard in movies. Flatline. "…Sorry," he said to the woman standing in front of him, looking much healthier and more alive than what lay in the bed.

"Damn," the woman said. "I'd really hoped I'd get a bit longer."

"Everyone does," he said, or rather, something else said, speaking through him like he were a ventriloquist's dummy. "How was what you had?"

He barely heard the answer. There were simply too many, all competing for his attention. An undiscovered allergy. A stupid bet about who could drink the most. A car wreck. A heart attack. Kidney failure. Aneurysm.

And then he was scooped up, deposited back into his body on a wave of green magic, and for a moment, he could see himself as she did, an abomination, an outright defiance of the natural order—

"I'm not doing that to them!"

He snapped back to himself, fully himself, no trace of lingering Death. Rio was still on his bed, looking up at him with narrowed eyes, her mouth firmed into a thin, sharp line. "…You are powerful. And dangerous. I can't believe Ags didn't drain you dry. Them who?"

He collapsed onto the floor, pulled his knees to his chest. "My paren—"

"William? Are you okay?" A familiar voice called up the stairs.

"Yes! Everything's fine, mom."

"Their son is dead," Rio pointed out and Billy glared what he hoped were daggers at her, feeling the urge to use his power boil up again, magic dancing across his fingertips. He forced himself to wrestle it back. He didn't know if he would ever sort out everything he'd seen in the few seconds he'd been Death. He was certain he didn't want another go-round and he'd seen how ineffective Agatha had been at fighting her with direct magic, something he didn't even know how to use.

"I'm their son! And I'm not going to let you kill me,” he said, very aware that he had no way of preventing her from doing whatever she wanted.

Rio tossed her head back and cackled, shrieked, and his parents must not have been able to hear her at all, because she was really loud. "You can't stop me. Even Ags can't stop me and she knows that, though she hates it." Something in her expression went distant, sad like mourners at a funeral. "...She knows that,” she repeated and Billy opened his mouth to ask, but Death spoke first. "But fine, have it your way, keep this disgusting charade up a little while longer. Eventually I'll come and collect. I always do. I am the end of all things, baby!" She sprung to her feet, spread her hands too wide and gave him a toothy smile. "Sooner or later, everything is mine."

"…I can see why you and Agatha might have worked once. She's really dramatic too," he said, which got him another cackling laugh as response.

"She is. I've got nothing on Agatha Harkness," Rio agreed, cloying affection lacing her voice.

"…creep," he muttered.

Rio only snickered. "You'll understand one day, when you fall in love," she told him.

"I am in love! I just have a healthy relationship, thank you.”

"Someday, you will meet someone who takes part of you away with them, and you never, ever get it back," Rio said, somehow managing to sound genuinely adoring as she said it. "And then you'll know what love is."

"…I think you should look into counseling."

"Tell your father to get his heart checked," Death replied and then, before he'd even processed the words, she was gone.

“...Thank you?" he whispered to thin air, then staggered to his feet, suddenly desperate for his parent’s company even if he couldn’t tell them a single true thing about his life.

"Hey, dad," he said as he came down the stairs. "I'm going to ask you to do something really weird…"

For more of Rio being everywhere at once, try Death and the Scarlet Witch. Or for something cuter, try the witch who cried wolf.

#agatha x rio #agatha all along #agathario #billy maximoff #ritual of the rose #uh idk rio is sort of trying to help I guess #She's a good girlfriend when Agatha isn't looking

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abominable-space-they · 2 months ago

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Agatha all Along theory

Spoilers through ep 5

Ok first we need the set up

In this magical retelling of The Wizard of Oz Jennifer is the tin man, bound to inaction, Lilia is thr cowardly lion always afraid of what might come to pass, and Alice is the scarecrow who thinks she has nothing to offer but does.

Agatha is Dorothy

It's heavily implied here that Teen is toto, though I think this is a misdirect.

Rio is the one she's known for ages, Rio protects her, Rio loves her, Rio is fearless, Rio gets her into shenanigans, Rio is pissed off at her mom & company who tried to hurt her, Rio literally licked her hand in the first episode

Rio is Toto

Now Wanda is definitely the wicked witch of the East, that makes Teen, Warlock, either the wicked witch of the West or Glenda the Good witch

And I'd argue for now, it's both. Teen is Glenda the Good Witch and Billy/Warlock is the wicked witch of the West secretly driving a lot of the action because of the death of his mother & family.

Ok so now episode five

This episode is poppy field incident in Wizard of Oz.

I had to go rewatch it, bc I haven't seen it since I was probably 8. So in that trial, The Wicked Witch of the West places a poppy field in their path, which would poison them with good feelings until they faded away.

Dorothy leads them into the field, it's beautiful, they're frolicking. Dorothy passes out, the tin man gets stuck again, the cowardly lion passes out out of fear, they all lay down in the poppies and almost drift away.

They realize something is wrong and scream for help, Glenda is super imposed over the screen casting magic to loosen the hold of the poppies enough that they can wake up and run away.

I think that the theories that this was all or partially a dream are gonna be right.

I also think Teen led them into that place and left the door open for the Salem seven (they're the flying monkeys after all) so he would have a way to coral them to this place

Maybe he originally wanted to punish Dorothy and leave her there, maybe he planned on siphoning his powers back while she was possessed by her mother or sleeping/high

Whatever it was, that didn't go as planned, he blames Agatha for fucking up his plan.

When Agatha says you're just like your mother it does inspire him, not to murder though, to wake them up.

My guess is the mud is a misdirect and he's using it to wake them up, because hell yeah he is just like his mother

But that means something different to him then Agatha. His mother bent the rules of space time to bring his father back to life. His mother went to any lengths to save the people she loved... Including becoming a villain in the eyes of some.

He asked Agatha to save Alice, she can't, he's furious because she was the one who caused all this in the first place, he couldn't be expected to know it would go like that.

Then she reminded him who he is, and even though she meant it meanly, like you're a hypocrite just like your mother, you're delusional just like your mother, you're willing to kill people to get what you want just like your mother, you call me the bad guy while being just like me just like your mother.

But it was still enough to remind him that there is no one better suited to breaking through some sort of pocket dimension unreality then the son of the Scarlet Witch.

So that's what he's doing, I don't think he's taking them off the road, I think he's pushing them down down down, back onto the road.

But really, also... Where is Rio?

Maybe Agatha is actually Rio, maybe the corpse of Alice is really Agatha, still sleeping in the poppies

Whatever it is specifically, none of this is exactly as it seems and I can't wait to see how it plays out

#agatha all along #spoilers #agatha all along spoilers #agatha harkness #warlock #agatha all along teen #follow the yellow brick road #Agatha all along theories #analysis #Agatha all along analysis #aaa episode 5

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swiftsgrath · 2 months ago

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we talk about how rio was very likely the first person to see agatha as she is and to not be scared of her power or instantly label her as evil (as we SHOULD) but what about the way agatha perceives rio?

bc my girl is literally death. like. can you imagine what it's like to be the person responsible for taking people's souls? even if she can't directly kill people, she is the one they blame. the one people fear the most and hate the most and run away the most from. she is the one who listens to lovers beg and children cry and mothers fight. she is the one used as curses and threats over and over again, the one most people would rather NEVER meet.

except agatha doesn't see her as this terrifying, doomed being. not when she feels like one herself. agatha has been, as we've seen in the last episode, quite literally chased by death since she was born. people wanted kill her since she was born. even before meeting rio, she held death's hand in hers. it's familiar.

agatha has been running away from death long enough that it's always been an old friend.

dying was very likely not the thing that scared her the most – even if it did. she was scared of the pain and the hate and maybe even her own powers, but think about it: for someone who cannot die out of age, it's the possibility to be burned and drowned and murdered through blasts of magic that's scary. fear of death as in being gone forever? i feel like that's something agatha developed through years of figuring out her own magic and the way she actually wanted to live her life.

so she meets this woman who accepts her by who she is and helps her when she needs and who doesn't see her as the worst person on earth. this person who's there for her, really is, and won't ever judge her for the trail of dead people she left. she meets rio, who actually makes an effort to know her and listen to her trauma and care about her feelings. if she so happens to be the one thing that's been chasing and hauting her since she was born, then it's just a bonus. bc rio understands being feared and hated and regretting things she has no control over as much as agatha does.

death is the one thing that has never left her side and has never betrayed her. never even took her, if you think about all the times she escaped. and i think that's what was worse about nicholas – the only time agatha actually feared rio was when she became a mother.

because then she feared for nicholas, a boy she gave life to. life rio would inevitably have to take someday.

and because rio made living so much better for her, as much as agatha knew it couldn't be stopped, it probably felt like losing both nicholas and her biggest certainty at once. the certainty that death would always take her side.

soooo yeah anyways

#agathario #agatha all along #agatha x rio #agatha harkness #rio vidal #nicholas scratch #vidarkness #they are CONSUMING MY BRAIN in a very unhealthy way #but idc #i could write ESSAYS on this #writing fanfics that we'll never see the light of the day as we speak

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darkshines1984 · 28 days ago

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So, i finally got around to watching the final two episodes of Agatha All Along for a second time (and this time on tv screen and not bleary eyed on my phone in the middle of the night). In terms of where the story line went, I pretty much expected it and had long since excepted Agatha was going to die and become a ghost like in the comics.

Was I super impressed by the two episodes? No. Episode 9 wasn't a bad episode in itself but it was a strange season finale. It felt underwhelming after the drama of the episode before. Episode 8 had a lot of good stuff but it felt disorganised and chaotic. I think it really contrasted against last weeks Episode 7, which brought a lot of threads together very intellugently and fluidly. Instead, so much was thrown into a short time in episode 8 that the threads of storyline just kind of touched base in the episode without truly intertwining. I think the episode probably needed to be ten minutes longer to fit everything in more comfortably.

Was it a terrible ending? No. I am happy with were it left off. Its a neat place to go from Agatha All Along to 'Wiccan' or whatever they chose to call the next series.

I know a lot of people are hoping for a season 2 of Agatha All Along but its not going to happen. Like Wandavision led directly to this series, this series was always leading to Wiccan. Not to worry though as, like Billy was the other main character in this series, Agatha is going to have a key role in his. It will no doubt be Jac Schaeffer again and this will allow time to explore more of Agatha's backstory. I will eat my hat if Rio isnt involved somehow in that series, especially as death will still be a theme. I also did really enjoy Billy's story and cant wait to see were it goes.

What they decide to do with Agatha at the end of that season will depend on if the MCU has further plans for her. If they do, then somehow she will come back to life (as she does in the comics). If they dont have plans, then the option is there to finally lay her to rest with her son, reconciled with her own past. You have to feel that in either of those options, Rio has a role to play.

Finally, although I love a redemption story as much as the next person, i am glad they didn't completely go down that line with Agatha. Yes she has some redeeming qualities but on the whole she is a pretty terrible person. She is selfish and cruel. She is a murderer and con woman. She made her own child complicit in those murders. Yes, I get she wanted to keep him alive, but that absolutely does not make her actions right. She is emotionally manipulative...i mean so manipulative she pretty much emotionally abuses and uses the literal embodiment of death. I dont think you have to ignore all that and even try to make excuses for her to still love the character.

I have to say though, if I was playing Alice's 'kiss, kill, marry' game with the last three women standing (i use the word standing with Agatha very loosely), I would be killing Agatha all over again. You couldnt trust her as far as you could throw her 🤣

So, I would just like to finish by saying thank you to Jac Schaeffer, her team and the cast for a great show and the amount of amazing queer representation. Also, huge shout out to the fans who have made so much content (fics, videos, gif sets, artwork, commentary etc). You have made this wild ride even better X

#agatha all along #agatha harkness #agathario #rio vidal #billy maximoff #jac schaeffer

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riverssongs13 · 30 days ago

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It was already established that Agatha is NOT a morally good character. We've been fed the information that she traded her son's life for the Darkhold, that she is a coven killer, and that she's Jolene, among other things. The Nicky for the Darkhold part may have been false, but that does not diminish the fact that Agatha is an atrocious, terrible person who killed countless people.

Given the knowledge that its presumable she did it to keep Rio busy does not excuse the fact that she did kill them witches. And of course she will have zero remorse over that, because again we're presuming she did it for Nicky.

So why are we suddenly finding issues with how remorseless Agatha is? Did we not spend 8 episodes fawning over the hot lesbian MILF who is unapologetically chaotic and murderous and whose ex is literally Death? Sorry but I don't see where the disconnect is.

"difficult to root for a character who takes advantage of people’s kindness or desperation, and shows zero remorse for it" Uhm again, Agatha is not a good person. She does not need some redemption arc that would cleanse her of centuries scamming and killing all those witches. She's written perfectly as she is.

The montage of Agatha's time with Nicky was not some form of penitence for all the horrible things Agatha has done throughout the centuries. It was just showing how her story started, and how it connects to the events of "now". It even has the "time lapse" of Agatha singing The Ballad with her false covens, which ultimately leads to the basement version. It was not "Agatha is actually not a bad person, see? She loved her son."

"Agatha is a horrible coven killer scammer grifter conman" AND "Agatha loved Nicky so much she pleaded with Death to not take him" are not mutually exclusive statements. They can be and are true at the same time.

Can we please appreciate "bad" characters for who they are? Not everyone needs to be "good". It's okay to like bad characters and its okay for them to be the protagonists. Loving Agatha for being the murderous, remorseless cunt that she is, is okay. Let villains be villains.

#agatha all along #agatha harkness #let villains be villains

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fateoffireandwater · 2 months ago

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Top ten MCU girlbosses

before I start writing I want to say that when I think girl boss I don’t think rude bitch or queen of literally everything. It is just someone who stands up for herself I also don’t know how to explain it lmao.

10. Monica

Honestly she just slays that’s all I can say.

9. The mighty Thor

In the Thor movies she starts an amazing scientist with bravery and confidence. Then she becomes a hero and dies defeating Gorr.

8. MJ

I like this character because her personality is different from the average girlfriend of a superhero and she always does what she believes is right and will never shy away from the truth.

7. Darcy

She just whatever she wants and is such a character. She is a girlboss don’t really have a reason why.

6. Rio

I love how she does whatever she wants and has a fun humorous attitude and while everyone is terrified she’s having a great time.

5. Agatha

Just like rio she does whatever she wants and has a great personality.

4. Scarlet witch

literally the most powerful avenger and would do anything to protect her family literally. After she realises the horrible things she’s done she doesn’t hesitate to do what she thinks she needs to do to fix it. She went from a scared character who needed to be constantly saved by Hawkeye, Petrio and other characters to the strongest avenger.

3. Nebula

She starts of as an avenger who wants to get revenge on her sister to a tough, smart, independent, protective and strong character who secretly cares about all her friends.

2. Mantis

After being told what to do and having no freedom for her whole life she finally leaves and uses her incredible kindness, empathy and powers to live her own life. I love how the movie makers didn’t mark her the average female character who either is absolutely perfect at everything and is a bitch and never does anything important or is useless and always needs saving. Instead she has her flaws and strengths.

Karen

Oh my god Karen has to be one of my favourite characters. The reason she was in daredevil in the first place is because she had murdered someone but she doesn’t remember doing it. Because she has no money she works with Matt and Foggy as a lawyer WITH NO EXPERIENCE OR KNOWLEDGE ON BEING A LAWYER. She tries to solves mystery that daredevil is trying to figure. She and her friend Ben are working together to bring these people up. Then she finds kingpins mum which no one knew existed except for a couple people including kingpin, his friend (forgot his name) and the workers at the nursing home the mum was at. Kingpins bestie friendo finds out that Karen knows this and kidnaps her. Then she KILLS HIM which is crazy because he isn’t a weak character or anything. I mean he was kinda stupid guy for leaving the gun on the middle of the table anyway. She gets kidnapped again in season 2 at the end and she tries to escape with some guy and he nearly dies but daredevil comes and saves everyone and she helps everyone get out. After that she writes the most inspiring article (because she gets given a new job WITH NO EXPERIENCE OR KNOWLEDGE OF THIS JOB AGAIN in Ben’s office once he dies.) At the end of season 2 daredevil reveals to her who he is. This is some key moments that show how much of a character she is. I won’t include everything awesome she did because this will be way to long. Anyways throughout season 1 and 2 of daredevil she shows her persistence and hope by always pushing through struggles and reassuring and helping others . Even while she was recovering from murdering someone twice and later losing two good friends all of these on separate occasions she was doing her job, being a good person and helping Foggy and daredevil. She also doesn’t put up with people doing horrible things whatever it is and will to ever she thinks is the right thing no matter the consequences. Dame I should stop writing now lmao.

Like for part 2 if you want.

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chained-sweater · 9 months ago

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the curtis gang & their fears

⇆ㅤ ||◁ㅤ❚❚ㅤ▷||ㅤ ↻ 𝓃ℴ𝓌 𝓅𝓁𝒶𝓎𝒾𝓃𝓰. . .

— ponyboy: spiders. when he was nine years old he came across a spider's egg sac that was in the corner of his closet and, out of curiousity, poked it with a ruler. thousands of baby spiders proceeded to pour out of it and he screamed so loud people thought he was being murdered. he had to sleep in his parent's bedroom with his mom and dad for a long time after that.

* * *

— steve: foxes. he and soda were hanging out in the lot during the weekend (they were in middle school) and they both heard a strange rustling sound coming from the bushes. steve went to investigate and when he went to look behind the bush, a baby fox jumped on him and started biting him. the scream he administered was so loud you could hear it all the way from southern texas near the rio grande. soda managed to get rid of the fox and take steve to get patched up at his place. (steve only had a few bite marks and several long scratches, mainly on his right arm, nothing too serious. and no, the fox was not rabid.) he completely lost trust with all foxes after that incident; he's afraid he'll get mauled again.

* * *

— darry: he's scared of hospitals. well, more specifically, needles. he's terrified of them. the way they look, how they feel when they're injected into your skin, everything. he'd rather get sick than get the vaccine. he always threw tantrums whenever his parents took him to the doctor's office for a checkup when he was little, and lost it completely everytime he had to get a shot. even to this day he'll put up a fuss. just imagine a twenty-year-old, tall, muscular man screaming like a little girl and sobbing uncontrollably and being forcefully held down by his brothers and the gang and like two nurses over a tiny needle the size of his pinky nail. just do it. picture the scene.

* * *

— two-bit: clowns. originally, they never scared him. it wasn't until he had a very vivid nightmare about a clown chasing him and (brutally) murdering him did he develop a fear of them. he woke up screaming his head off (scared his mother to death) and couldn't sleep for like, three days afterwards. he never lets his little sister watch anything on TV that has clowns, nor does he ever want her to meet one; he's terrified that they'll hurt her.

* * *

— johnny: bugs. all of them. he got kicked out of his house one night and slept in the lot. the next morning he woke up to the biggest beetle crawling around on his chest. he literally woke up the whole town with his screaming; the socs could hear him from the west side. poor boy literally ran to two-bit's house (which was the closest near him) in tears. ms. mathews let him stay for a few days to let him calm down.

* * *

— sodapop: heights. he's terrified of heights. there was a carnival in town this one time that he and his family went to. he and his dad went onto the ferris wheel and were having a good time until the whole thing stopped moving. they were on the very top and the ride was falling apart. Despite his dad's reassurances, soda was crying and shaking and fearing that he would fall to his death. they managed to get down safely, but soda never went on anything like that again and promised himself he never would.

* * *

· dallas: dogs. when he was still living in new york with his parents, he witnessed a little girl get viciously mauled to death by a rabid dog and it traumatized him. to this day, he's still dealthy afraid of them. it doesn't matter what breed it is, whether it's a puppy—nope. he can't handle it. he can't even stand seeing them. say he were going somewhere and turned a corner and caught a glimpse of a dog. he immedietly turns around and finds another route because he doesn't want to get hurt. (or in his perspective, killed.)

[■■■■■■■■■■] 100%

#the outsiders #the outsiders headcanons #ponyboy curtis #steve randle #darry curtis #two-bit mathews #johnny cade #sodapop curtis #dallas winston

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thenerdofthegroup · 1 month ago

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I fear some of you don’t actually like Agatha and only want lesbians and Rio...

And if you do fine but don’t complain when a show about witches isn’t focusing fully on the romance. Every character needs to be explained and this episode was EXACTLY like WV episode 4. And received the same backlash. It needed to happen and the final dialogue between Agatha and Billy tells us such BEAUTIFUL things about Agatha. How a young child who survived and used their gift should never feel ashamed. She is telling him what she wished to hear and the tears in her eyes of remembering Billy and Wanda in the hex. Just beautiful storytelling and Kathryn’s acting

But ultimately, if there is nothing more than we have been given. I will be livid. Because that IS queerbaiting. To not give us a kiss or showing their backstory etc IS queerbaiting and it would be disgusting. BUT their relationship is the heartfelt whisper behind everything. Every small action, every look, every comment and smile and interaction is beautiful and heartfelt. BUT it is the storyline that will become prominent in the final trio of episodes. It will be and we will get a kiss.

I am personally furious the first kiss of the series about women is between two men. BUT their relationship was not integral to the story. Agatha and Rio’s are. Is that not more important? There will be more. Their relationship is for the latter three because the latter three is pure Agatha. Well Lilia next episode but Agatha is much more there

Anyway welcome back to quick thoughts about Episode 6

The Eastview and Westview flags in Billy’s room were in Agatha’s trial. WHY IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. Jac I am calling you a liar and I don't care (I'm kidding Jac you are doing a great job thank you for every Agatha thing)

Lilia putting the sigil on him is SO GOOD. My personal theory is that she saw what would happen if Wanda found him. It would have ruined both of them. It could have been because that amount of power at that age may have hurt him but Agatha has constantly been kind to him. I think it was because she saw a bad future with Wanda finding him. Idk jury is out on this but it’s a fun thing to think about. Why?

RALPH’S EXPLANATION! GOOOOOOD this is the thing I keep trying to say. Ralph described it as absolute torture. People were literally asking Wanda to kill them over that. And that was less than two weeks. Agatha has been under it for THREE YEARS. AND I would point to ep 4 where the other two was screaming in pain to the curse and she was able to withstand it. Not only does it show the sadness that she has probably been through so much pain that she can withstand it even without magic BUT ALSO think about how much torture she has felt! She deserves to murder everyone around her. My bby

The outside perspective of the interrogation scene was wonderful. Absolutely hilarious. I think the director said to Kathryn ‘make him break’ and that was where they went

And it is just… again so sad to me. She was forced to make an utter fool of herself but people went along with it and helped her. Its so sweet but so heartbreaking. I love you Agatha

The running scene. She got a cramp because she hasn’t left the house for so long

Billy sits in a chair covered in moons

THE RESEARCH SCENE I LOVED IT I LOVEEEEEED IT. and also remember this is a secondary source. I love this in media. Agatha isn’t a succubus she is a siphon but because this wiki is most likely written by a creep they turn it sexual. I mean she could be but you always have to think about WHO wrote it. Just like the Jolene article. Kathryn probably didn't fuck Dolly Parton’s boyfriend but she did get slapped by her and they ran with it, just like a tabloid would. And ALL THE PHOTOS!!! AHHHHHH I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE PROPER RUN THROUGH OF HER LIFE

On the Jolene point I think it’s a fun easter egg because it’s like Agatha’s perspective of Wanda if the ‘lover’ was magic. Look at these lyrics:

I think Agatha is the singing perspective, Wanda is Jolene and the magic is their lover. It is favouring ‘the younger more perfect’ witch (Agatha is better than everyone don't even, I'm just saying from a jealousy perspective)

AGATHA SURVIVING THE MUD AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHH

GONNA SCREAM SOME MORE AHHHHHH

The fact she is one of two witches who has NOTHING and yet still survives the death sentence (which isn’t a death sentence but shouldn’t be escapable) shows how utterly incredible she is. She is a survivor which brings me to my next love

THE DUALOGUE I FUCKING LOVED IT

Okay, originally I thought that she would be mad and angry. But this made so much more sense. Her unseriousness is her hiding her anger and annoyance. But fundamentally she is connected because she relates. Wanda was too late. She was fighting so hard and Agatha tried but Billy… he is a child. He is just like her. But was given a gift not a curse like Agatha. But still, Agatha prioritised surviving and living over anything else. And that is what Billy did: survived. And she respects that. So she tells him what SHE WANTED TO HEAR as a child!!! Its so beautiful!!! Honestly utterly beautiful and Kathryn acted her ass off. Fucking Goddess

And some people are going ‘uh she knew from the start. But why did-’ she lied. ‘Why did what Rio said hurt’- she lied. She had a suspicion at the start but as it went in she thought it was Nick. That shattered around Rio’s comment because Rio would know and Agatha trusts that. Agatha trusts her in those moments. But she did think he was nick then or at least her suspicion and hope tilted towards there which is what I think. She is already covered in mud and embarrassed. Of course she is going to go ‘yeah I always knew. Never had a doubt’. Media literacy is dead my god

AND THE WAY SHE TOUCHED HER BROOCH. That proves to me she did geneuinly have the hope that he was nick. At least in the moment she truly realised the tragedy that Wanda got her son back but she never will.

Her unseriousness. Sometimes a bby girl is a 350 year old serial killer witch

I love you Agatha

And remember this is Agatha’s show. But these character’s need to be fleshed out. But by their explanations we get a greater image of Agatha. But every relationship Agatha has is equally important. I want more romance but this was not the episode for it. The latter three will

#thank you for coming to my ted talk #sorry for any errors… I'm too tired to fix it #I hope this doesn’t come across as weird #but some people need to get a grip #to put it lightly #anyway….#AGATHA IS BETTER THAN ANYONE #AGATHA GO AGATHA #agatha all along #KATHRYN HAHN THE GODDESS YOU ARE

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wutheringheightsfilm · 11 days ago

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I would love to hear your opinion on Viktor Arcane's arc in season 2 because I have seen people praising it and people hating it but not many people discussing the ableism of [spoilers!!] basically killing him in the first episode and then having Jayce bring him back against his will in a way that strips his physical and mental autonomy away, after season 1 spent the majority of his arc hyping the evils of Messing With The Arcane But Only When The Zaunites Do It, so that Viktor can realize he is in the moral wrong for trying to not die from the disease he got from growing up in the underclass. And the show fridges his lab assistant (also implied from Zaun) to teach him this. Jayce who has so far primarily reaped the benefits of selling Hextech to Piltover, is the one to "learn" that it's bad to mess with the Arcane (this coincidentally happens the only time we see him physically in Zaun) and the solution is of course [spoilers!!] kill Viktor, who's magically curing addiction and disability and possessing people now. And if they bring Viktor back it will probably be because Singed pulled a Rio on him. On top of this, Ekko is just fucking gone during the occupation of Zaun and we don't see him again for the entire Act. Sorry for the rant in your inbox I'm just really happy to find someone else who thinks Arcane sucks aside from the dropped potential of the side characters. Fans of OG Lore were looking forward to Viktor's political radicalization against Piltover. Hilarious to think they would ever do that in hindsight

Okay hi anon I'm finally caught up and can answer you now LOL

yeah the politics of arcane are bad. like incredibly so. it's kind of shocking to say that the best arcane can pull is like, hamfisted liberalism.

i think jayce has literally always been ableist towards viktor as well as classist and not once has he ever had to grapple with that. jayce is my least favorite character and if he doesn't even get some sort of comeuppance for the absolute destruction he's caused i'm going to eat my shoe. though i will say this is the second time we've seen him in zaun, the first time was when he literally murdered one of silco's child laborers lol and had...right, zero repercussions for that because as it turns out of course it was ambessa's plan all along and everything has been somehow engineered by her. oh i was soooo eye rolling when that was revealed.

i also really didn't like sky's death either; i'm glad they kept her in some aspect (like being with viktor in the arcane-space or whatever it's called i don't know i don't go to league of legends) but imo her death was unnecessary and there would have been a better way of getting viktor entwined in the arcane than that.

it's crazy to me that you're absolutely right; viktor has to constantly pay the price for trying to not die of a disease he had no choice in getting (not that anyone ever has a choice in getting a disease, but you know what i mean) and he literally gets killed for trying to help heal other people. which i mean you could definitely argue the whole jesus arc for viktor is strange (it is) and this show definitely has negative attitudes towards both addiction and disability no matter what. i'm not disabled so really i don't have much space to speak here, but i absolutely do think this show is ableist.

THE FACT THAT EKKO IS GONE IS SO? like where's my man???? he was literally gone the whole fucking time and i find that so fucking nasty i'm sorry. both mel and ekko, two of the most fascinating characters, have been shoved aside this entire season in order to make way for jayce's constant bullshit and whatever problems poor cop caitlyn has. when i say i have never given less of a fuck about caitlyn i truly do mean that. it honestly upsets me that caitvi or whatever is as popular as it is because i thought we all collectively decided we don't fuck with cops. but i suppose not

and it's totally okay for the rant in my inbox!!! please feel free to discuss however much you want from me, i have had so many negative feelings about this show and i'm starting to feel like i'm going to get killed in the town square for it LOL

ETA: i didn't even know viktor was supposed to get radicalized against piltover. oh what we could've had

#vero.txt #t #vero watches arcane #< for those who have that blocked #asks #arcane spoilers #arcane season 2 spoilers #arcane s2 spoilers #< i hope that covered my bases. sorry!

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permanentreverie · 1 year ago

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top 9 books

rules: list your top 9 books (duh) but i will be cheating a little bit - combining authors and giving honourable mentions, because i can

tagged by @wherepoetsdie, thank you michelle i love ranting about my favourite books but also this is gonna be SO. HARD.

1 : the starless sea / the night circus by erin morgenstern - both of these books are exactly my kinda vibe. the worldbuilding, the romance depicted, the portrayal of magic and surrealism, both books remained in my head for MONTHS after first reading them. i think both of these books perfectly fit my criteria for 5 star reads on goodreads - books that cracked open my skull and altered my psyche

2 : the youthful you who was so beautiful by jiu yue xi - so is your comfort book an incredibly niche chinese book that doesn't even have a proper english translation and publication, or are you normal?? i read this book late last year, reread it early this year, and already have been wanting to reread it for months. the writing is by no means perfect, but there is something about this story that i will never get enough of. chen nian and bei ye's relationship, the stress on their characters and the trials they face, it all just. it all breaks me i want every single person to read it but also they have to GET IT.

3 : jane eyre by charlotte bronte - this book has remained a staple for me for years. the first time i read it (when i was 12) i actually didn't like it, but every reread since has solidified my love for jane's character and the beautifully twisted love story of her and rochester.

4 : little women by louisa may alcott - again, a childhood staple. there is something so incredibly magical and intimate, the story of the march sisters, and so many good lessons on love and childhood and family and ambitions! jo march has and always will be *my* heroine, she gets me and i get her and she pulls the strings in my heart in an aching way

5 : i'll give you the sun by jandy nelson - this may be my no. 1 favourite book of this year. it's just such a beautiful story of grief and sibling relationship, a book that truly feels like a coming of age and is written in a way that some would call pretentious - which means it spoke to me, personally <3

6 : deathless by catherynne m valente - i guess you can tell that i prefer books that have prose > plot lol. again, this book is just so beautifully told and i'm a sucker for slightly-fucked-up relationships akfjdsk <3

7 : pachinko by lee minjin - this is possibly my favourite historical fiction i've read. there is So Much to this book, talk of femininity and motherhood and immigration and race and so much more. it's all beautifully told and has some of the best characters i've ever read.

8 : beartown by fredrick backman - if you know, you know. i am going to read anxious people soon (will probably be my next read) there is just something in the ways that fredrick backman writes and weaves dozens of narritives on community and girlhood and friendship and parenting and love and loss and grief and everything that these books are about.

9 : all for the game by nora sakavic - listen. listen. listen. i feel like i HAVE to include this series. not everyone will get it!! but i do!! this series is literally crack cocaine. batshit insane plot and the most intricate of characters and messy dynamics and found family and made me feel feral. enough said.

honourable mentions - howl's moving castle by diana wynne jones, northanger abbey by jane austen, if we were villains by m.l. rio, the folk of the air by holly black, a good girl's guide to murder by holly jackson, six of crows by leigh bardugo, beach read by emily henry, alone with you in the ether by olivie blake

tagging @hollyfhumberstone @mixtapedoh @acotars @thebirdandhersong @daydreaming-optimist @andsjuliet @sandrson @delilahsbard

#i tried tagging mutuals i know love reading so if i missed you im sorry!#ofc if you want to join in just do it and say i tagged you (or tell me if you want to be added to my tag list!)#thanks michelle this took me way too long to do cause it was hard to settle on just 9 <3 #tag games

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voicesofchaos · 1 year ago

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Zexal Month - The Empress

So this theme is supposed to talk about our favorite character. But again I feel like I have talked about Yuma and Vector so many times. It would be cool to talk about underappreciated main characters like Tron or Durbe. But I figured I wanted to do this like the Numbers post and instead look at the characters that are nobody's favorite character! So I am going to go through the minor characters in Zexal, note anything special about them and then make-up what happens to them after the series. Going to be another longer post! @zexalmonth

I'm going to start with Kotori's friends. We see Kotori spend most of her time with the Number's club but honestly I feel like off-camera she probably spends a lot of time with them off-camera throughout the whole series. Even though they are extremely minor characters in the series I feel like they are an important but separate group of friends that Kotori treasures. Epilogue-wise they stay friends with Kotori for a long time and maybe at like Kotori's birthday party they even start to become friends with the Number's club as well. Although Rio is annoyed by how much they like Ryoga.

Let's keep talking about classmates but talking about a bunch of characters that were mostly one-ofs at the beginning of Zexal II.

Except for Taichi/Spencer who debuted early and gets tricked by Tokunosuke/Flip a lot. He was also an important enough character to appear in Arc-V! So I am going to say after Zexal he got so tired of being bullied that fled to another dimension and in Arc-V's Heartland he ended up murdering the Arc-V version of Tokunosuke/Flip.

Then we have the student council guy. Not much to say about him honestly except that he becomes really good friends with Todoroki/Caswell after the series. Sure.

The flower lady continues her flower club and goes on to become a surprisingly good duelist with her Plant Burn strategy.

The comics drawing guy goes on to become an award-winning comic book artist for her his comic called, THE LUKEMAN!

One more notable classmate, Yatagarasu. I guess he is named that as a reference to being a good soccer player but why waste such a good name on a nobody Yugioh character! Yatagarasu is an iconic Yugioh card that is responsible for creating the first ban list! I say after the series he keeps simping for Rio for some time until he meets a certain someone else on this list...

Before we leave the school we need to talk about this teacher. This guy totally goes to jail for cyberterrorism. Everything in episode 3 anf 4 wasn't an act.

Moving on to World Duel Carnival! This Soccer deck guy, he dates Yatagarasu. Speaking of dating, Construction Boy dates Anna for a little bit but she ends up dumping him. Camera guy develops a crush on Akari and becomes her stalker until she gets a restraining order put on him and eventually he ends up in jail for illegal pictures. Then the Tomato guy dies of a heart attack at a young age.

Can't forget good old Charlie McCoy! This guy has one of the only on-screen kisses in all of Yugioh ever! Thus guy! You know what, I don't have anything else to say about him.

Let's move on to one-off villains! The gangster duo from episodes 11 and 12 who took advantage of Shark end up teaming up with the first guy in Zexal II the Barians brainwashed. Together their form a criminal empire that dominates the underworld. Until the Zexal version of Ushio/Trudge takes them down.

Speaking of gangsters. Did you know that only 2 fusion monsters were ever summoned in all of Zexal? Kaito summoned 1, Twin-Photon Lizard. And these guys summoned the other! They go on to become edgelord duel champions.

Again remember this guy that worshipped Kaito for literally no reason? Yeah that is all I have to say about him. He is just funny to think about.

What I want to say about Anna's friend who get married would make this post NSFW so I ma just going to skip them...

We see the mothers of most of the Numbers Club. But did you remember that Tetsuo/Bronk also has a hot sister? Just feels like wasted potential. They could have done so much with her character!

Finally we come to this idol. Fun fact, when Girag was hinted to be coming to Duel Links, a lot of people thought this idol was being added to the game as a playable character! In episode 92, Shark plays the guitar in a band with her. So my final post-Zexal headcanon is that her and Shark are friends-with-benefits on the down-low.

Hopefully you have enjoyed this very silly list of forgettable characters. I'm sorry if your favorite was so forgettable thaat they couldn't even make this list.

#Zexal Month #Zexal Month 2023 #ZexalMonth #ZexalMonth2023 #Yugioh Zexal #Zexal #Forgotten Characters

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hrodvitnon · 8 months ago

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GxK Abraxasverse ideas

-In the Abraxasverse version of GxK, Godzilla doesn’t kill Tiamat. He does fatally wound her and leave her for dead, but he doesn’t kill her outright. This is actually pretty merciful by Titan standards: killing her so that she could not threaten his reign is something most Alphas would do (and even Ozymandias had to do on occasion, albeit reluctantly). And they’re not mates, so by all rights Alpha Titan custom would dictate that she should die. Sparing her would be seen as a sign of immense weakness if it was anyone other than Godzilla. (The only reason he didn’t kill her is because he can’t bring himself to kill someone his brother loved so dearly.)–Tiamat actually survives and manages to recover, but she’s out of commission for the rest of the movie and carries the scars for a while. She’s pissed, but also gets the message that Godzilla will kill her if she challenges his reign again, familial connection be damned.

-Shimo was a contemporary of Dagon, being a friendly rival of his. They’re equally horrified to see what’s become of the other.She also remembers Godzilla as a murderous little goblin with Short Person Syndrome who always tried to fight, so seeing him with maturity and something resembling actual decorum gives her massive whiplash. –Dagon helps Kong free Shimo, and the two former rivals have a moment to reconnect before the Final Battle.

-On that note, Skar King is another contemporary/old enemy of Dagon. He’s overjoyed to know Dagon’s back: it means he can properly kill him. (He cleared out a space specifically reserved for his mechanical head.)

-The Final Battle is interrupted by Xenilla literally crashing down to the surface, which changes the entire direction (and nature) of the conflict.

---

Interesting ideas! Rio de Janeiro is gonna be flattened by the time this arc of the ‘verse is finished.

#submission #abraxasverse

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saiilorstars · 2 years ago

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Go the Distance

T’Challa x OFC / Citlalli’s masterlist

taglist: @ocappreciationtag @arrthurpendragon @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @gloryekaterina @foxesandmagic

If you’d like to be a part of this OC’s work/edits, let me know!

Looking back at it, he regretted how things happened. The ire he felt for his father's death sent him over the edge. He didn't 'explode' like others, but he recognized (now) that he did have his moments.

"Agent Del Rio!" He called angrily after her. She was striding down the hallway, her back to him. "Agent Del Rio!" Eventually, he caught up to her and with one swift movement, he grabbed her by the arm and turned her around. "We need to speak now !"

Citlalli Del Rio was anything if not pretty stoic with her expressions. It was a habit she picked up a very long time ago as a means of survival — literally. "Would you like to continue screaming in the hallway with other agents around?"

T'Challa was no fool. She was testing him and how far he would go to get what he wanted, even if it meant getting her into legal trouble. Could he?

Unable to answer himself, he pulled Citlalli into the first open room and shut the door with lock. "You pushed it today, Citlalli," he said immediately afterwards. "I know what you did."

Citlalli walked up to the conference table, drumming her hands on the top of a chair. "I do many things. Care to be specific?"

The ire grew stronger and T'Challa stalked up to her, once again turning her around. "You know what you did! You gave the weapons back. How could you help the people who cover up a murderer? A mass murderer, I will add."

Citlalli stoically looked at him and detached his hand from her arm. "You don't care that he was a mass murderer. You only care that he allegedly murdered your father."

"Allegedly?" T'Challa said incredulously. "He did ! It is public knowledge that Sergeant Barnes was in the same city when the Accords were signed."

"Oh, you of all people know how technology can be used to persuade many people," Citlalli said, tilting her head to the side. Her dark eyes softened on him. "And it is much easier to convince someone who already wants to believe it."

In retrospect, T'Challa now knew that he had wanted to believe it very much. The news forced the idea that the Winter Soldier had blown up the site of the Accords and he, filled with ire and revenge, believed it without a second thought. It blinded him.

"Yes, I did help them," Citlalli said firmly, straightening herself up to take the full blame. Her open confession wounded T'Challa more than he had expected.

He got word from the Dora Milaje about suspicious sightings of Agent Del Rio and when they communicated the sudden loss of the confiscated weapons of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, and the coinciding disappearance of Citlalli, he knew it was true. Still, knowing it and hearing it directly from Citlalli was different

"Why?" He was left to ask.

Citlalli heard the frailty in his voice, the betrayal. She subtly swallowed hard. "Because it's not as it seems. I grew up blinded by those who were supposed to all truthful and powerful. I have learned to look past all that shine. I see things factually and factually, things are not what the news says. I listened to Steve Rogers. I heard him."

"It's all lies, Citlalli," T'Challa argued, "Sergeant Barnes is his best friend! He would cover for Barnes!"

"Yes, perhaps in other things, yes. It is the nature of best friends," Citlalli agreed with him, "But in this—"

" No !" T'Challa snapped.

Citlalli lowered her head, drawing in a sigh. "You are not listening."

"I'm not listening?" T'Challa said incredulously. "I'm not listening!? You — you are not listening to me!" And it hurt him so deeply that the one person he trusted, the person he…

Citlalli raised her head again, meeting his eyes. It was like she could read his mind. "I do listen to you," she said quietly, but he scoffed, and hard. "I do ," she reiterated.

He was blind and deaf, apparently. Looking back at things, T'Challa knew he should have listened to Citlalli more. He'd gone off on her after that, telling her how that had been the ultimate betrayal and that any kind of relationships they ever had were done. Granted, their relationship had always been professional but neither one would deny that there were moments where sometimes that line blurred.

He regretted it so much.

Citlalli never yelled back, never argued back, and most importantly never tried to convince him not to break things off. That hurt too.

Had she never cared for him at all? Had he imagined those close-call moments between them?

When he left that room, he left Citlalli for good. He wanted to be a man of his word, even if it hurt him like hell.

But when things turned and he discovered the truth about Baron Zemo, T'Challa had no choice but to admit his fault. Unfortunately, Citlalli was no longer available. When he reached out to Everett Ross about her, he was told that Agent Del Rio had abruptly turned her papers in and resigned from the CIA.

The shock had taken days to ware off and when it did, T'Challa felt the weight of the past come crashing down on him. He'd lost his father and now he may have just lost the love of his life (who didn't know she was the love of his life).

"You should have told her a long time ago!" Nakia all but smacked him. Not even his status as King of Wakanda would protect him from her fury. She shook her head at him, hands on her waist. "I cannot believe it took all this to happen for you to get this."

T'Challa felt like he should put his hands up in surrender. "It was always pretty clear that she and I were just friends." Nakia scoffed and because Okoye was also in the room standing guard, she did too. T'Challa rolled his eyed at the two. "I was not ever intending on ruining the job she loved. We were professionals."

"Fifty percent of the time, perhaps," Okoye muttered and Nakia pointed at her in agreement. "You two were so in love that neither of you saw how obvious it was."

"Idiots, that's why," Nakia said, "And now you went and lost her because of your rage."

"I don't need to know but I already know," T'Challa said with a huff. "If I am bothering with this embarrassment, it is because I thought you two would be more willing to help me find her."

Nakia exchanged a glance with Okoye. Yes, of course they would help.

It took a while to track Citlalli down. T'Challa learned bits and pieces of her the time they knew each other. She wasn't very forthcoming about herself but T'Challa knew that it wasn't just with him. She did not trust many people and even then those she did deem friends knew mundane things about her.

T'Challa knew that he was one of the few people who knew that Citlalli had been adopted. She came from a very troubled past and her roots lied in Mexico, not the States. T'Challa liked to think that he knew her most, and maybe that fact enabled those feelings to grow. He learned how as a child, Citlalli had to run from her old village because of invaders; he learned the trouble it took her to cross borders and how she almost died on several occasions. She had lost everything and still managed to climb up the ladder all over again.

An uncrowned princess turned agent turned vigilante.

Looking back at it, how could he not fall in love with her?fall in love with her?

Because even when she tried being stoic, she slipped…with him. With him, she smiled, she laughed, she even joked. T'Challa imagined that was what Citlalli used to be before everything was taken from her and for him to be able to get it out of her every now and then was a gift he valued very much.

He hoped she smiled wherever she was.

After months of searching, they caught a break. T'Challa honestly couldn't believe it never occurred to him before. Citlalli's life had been in Mexico, so it only made sense that if she felt threatened she would return to her land where she felt more in her domain.

She was intelligent enough not to leave a trace of her leaving the United States so to anyone else it would appear that she was still in the States. Once they figured that out, their search became easier. Citlalli's old village used to reside not too far from Mexico City so it made sense for her to go somewhere near there. It became easier to spot the woman who had suddenly arrived in a small outskirt town who so decidedly wanted a job in or near a horse stable.

"It was so funny to me," Citlalli truthfully laughed. She sat with T'Challa on a bench only a few blocks from the CIA headquarters. "My adoptive parents had good intentions with their idea to bring me to a horse stable. They thought I should have some nature around me."

"I imagine in New York that's not very possible," T'Challa remarked, leading her to hum.

"So they bring me to this beautiful stable one day and they think that I'm going to be afraid of the horses. As if."

"As if…" T'Challa watched her laugh again. "So they made the mistake of assuming you weren't brave."

Citlalli's laugh subsided into a smug smile. "I don't know if 'brave' is the right word but they never assume anything about me again."

"Did you ride that day?"

"I did," nodded Citlalli, "and after that, horseback riding became one of my therapies. I don't have to think about anything when I'm on a horse. I don't have to remember anything either."

Even just talking about horseback riding made Citlalli look so at peace and that wasn't something T'Challa saw very often.

She rode the horse beautifully. Like an expert, and she was.

Citlalli had a deep affection for nature. She loved it and always lamented living and working so deep within cities. It was perhaps the thing she missed most from home.

T'Challa never told her but every time she shared her woes for a life closer to nature, he secretly thought about taking her away from New York. He was sure that she would love Wakanda, a place where technology was superb but never taking away the pleasure of the naturalistic simplicity of life.

And now it seemed like she had found her place again.

The stable was on a ranch and it was pretty decent sized. There were only workers, clearly not a place for the public. There were crops on one side and many other typical farm animals scattered around. It was all calm, the perfect place for Citlalli.

T'Challa honestly didn't want to interrupt Citlalli's obvious serenity but it was of no use trying to avoid it. On a turn of her horse, Citlalli saw him and abruptly stopped altogether. It took her a few moments to convince herself that she was not imagining him (again) and that he was very much real.

A few more minutes later and she was off her horse, walking it by its reign towards the stable. She didn't look back at the sound of footsteps drawing closer. She went directly to the horse's spot and ushered it in, closing the gate after it.

"It took you longer than I thought," Citlalli said, finally turning to T'Challa. His brows raised with surprise.

"I wasn't aware that I was being timed," he wasn't the response he was expecting from her. She didn't appear mad at him…

She certainly seemed less mad with that smile that marked her face. "Well, being the King of Wakanda should grant you some speedier tech, right? Or is it all Shuri's domain?"

Definitely not what T'Challa expected from her, and yet it had taken about ten pounds of nerves off his shoulders. "Uh, she does say that she's better at it."

"And she's right," Citlalli side-stepped him and walked towards the entrance of the stables. "So then, to what do I owe your grand visit? Should I expect to see Okoye's grumpy face somewhere around here?"

"I came alone," T'Challa said, following behind her. "I figured we needed to speak…if you're willing."

"Yeah, I'm willing," Citlalli glanced behind her shoulder, still smiling at him which he thought was plain weird. Why wasn't she yelling at him? Telling him to get lost?

Citlalli led him to a quieter place in the ranch - a bench underneath a shady tree. She sat down and patted the spot next to her. "Afraid of getting a little dirt?"

T'Challa couldn't help but roll his eyes. This was more or less their typical way of being. It was strange to say he missed it too. He sat down next to her, leaving a decent gap between them for obvious reasons. "I like this place," he remarked, gazing out at the scenery.

"Me too," Citlalli let out a relaxed breath as she leaned back on the bench, "I am just not a city girl. I thought this would be the perfect place to lay low."

"Lay low?"

Citlalli nodded. "There were some suspicions after Rogers and his crew got away. I gave my statement and quietly slipped away."

"There aren't - Citlalli, there are no accusations filed against you," T'Challa said, knowing it for a fact since he had spent a lot of his time searching for that verification.

"Even if there had been, I wouldn't be there," Citlalli said, flashing a small, yet smug, smile. "I don't intend on ever getting caught. I'm a good adapter. I'm more of a chameleon than a serpent, I guess."

"I think you're both," T'Challa said, "You hide very well, but anyone should watch out if they dare to do anything against you."

"Did you come all the way here to complement my skills?" Citlalli was already looking at him when T'Challa turned his head at her. His eyes softened albeit with guilt. Citlalli knew it well - she could read him so well and he didn't even know it.

He had no idea where to start. He had come all the way here to apologize and he had no idea where to start. He spent the next couple minutes in silence trying to figure out his words so when Citlalli laughed, he was more than dumbfounded.

"I can see the wires in your head short-circuiting," she said, tilting her head at him, "Don't bother. I already know."

"Know what?" he frowned.

"What you want to say."

"N-no you don't. How could you know?"

Citlalli's smile broadened, her eyes growing kinder by the second. "Because I know you. You're too noble not to come all the way over here to apologize about Barnes. I'm just glad you realized he wasn't behind your father's murder."

T'Challa lost his breath for a moment. How could she read him that easily? That correctly? He looked at her completely mortified and yet relieved that she had taken the words out of his mouth.

Citlalli's smile still didn't wane. She looked out at the ranch, ignoring the warm flush on her face. "I hope you know that I'm not upset, and I really didn't need the apology either."

"How could not be upset?" T'Challa asked quietly. "I said so many things I shouldn't have. You were right, I should have listened to you…but I didn't. And you have no idea how terrible these months have been for me. A punishment, I suppose, for what I did."

"You were hurt," Citlalli said, "And trust me, we do many things while we are hurt."

"But not to you," T'Challa shook his head, "I would never want to do anything to you. You have no idea how important you are to me. I felt like I lost you, and it was all my fault." He lowered his head, absolutely guilt ridden. A few seconds later, he felt a warm hand come rest over his. He looked at Citlalli but she was gazing straight ahead.

"You could never lose me," she said, her fingers just barely sliding between his fingers, "I know you too well to fall for some mediocre argument. You're my friend. I would never let something like that get between us. The only reason I didn't reach out is because I knew that you needed your space and you would eventually find me."

"How? How could you know all that?"

"Because I know you, my dear," Citlalli finally looked at him, smiling widely. It was so unlike her. "Bits and pieces - I know you whole."

T'Challa's heart swelled with the feelings he kept bottled up. The certainty in Citlalli's voice - the confidence that she was right - made the ache in his heart grow because how could she trust him that much and he couldn't do that with her before? "I don't deserve you," he mumbled, turning his hand under hers and interlocking his fingers with hers. "The faith you have in me is the same faith that I should have had in you. You saw the truth before I did, and instead of trusting you I accused you."

"It's alright—"

"No, it's not," T'Challa shook his head.

"It really is—"

"It's not because how could I do that to the woman I love?"

Citlalli could only be so subtle at a confession like that. The confidence she had spoken with had definitely waned in those first seconds. "I…well…"

Somewhere in all the misery he felt, T'Challa found a moment to chuckle. "I don't think I have ever seen you speechless before." He took pride for being the one to do that to her. "You didn't see that coming, did you?"

Citlalli blinked a few more times and, with a clearing of her throat, looked away. "Honestly, no." She had been well aware of her feelings a while ago but with those feelings came the reality check. She was once of a noble family which meant she knew exactly how royalty worked. And no matter how super progressive royalty claimed to be, there was always going to be something that would separate them (and that was assuming that T'Challa would actually reciprocate her feelings). He was the King of a whole country, and she was a CIA agent (ex-agent now). There was no way that would ever work. So she settled for a silent love and hoped that with years to come, she would move past it.

"I was horrible to you the last time we saw each other so the only way to solve it is to make a fool out of myself," T'Challa decided to say, shrugging his shoulders.

Citlalli looked in his direction again. "A fool?"

"Because I came all the way over here with the intention of apologizing and hoping that you would forgive me but instead I'm sharing my deepest secret with you hoping you won't throw dirt in my face." T'Challa looked down at the ground, partly in shame. If he had been braver before, he would've done this in a much better way. A way that Citlalli deserved.

Citlalli tilted her head at him, trying to figure him out. "You're not very King-like, you know."

"I've heard," T'Challa said, "Shuri likes to point it out a lot. But maybe that's better right now. For your amusement, of course. Here's the King declaring his love for a woman he already lost."

Citlalli couldn't help it; she laughed. "Whether you're the King or not, you're still so clueless. Do you know why it is that I know you so well?"

"No?"

"Because when you fall in love with someone, there's an innate desire to know everything about them." Citlalli gripped their interlocked hands. "And I have wanted to know everything about you. Every single detail about you, whether big or mundane, is in my heart. So when you were upset, I knew you'd eventually come back from it. You always do. You're a fair and just man."

Her sincerity got him again, only this time he couldn't help it. The instinct was beyond him. He pulled his hand out of hers then grabbed her face and kissed her.

It was perhaps the one thing that Citlalli had not expected. She could not lead how she usually did with just about everything else in her life. And it was fine. She was perfectly content following the most amazing man and his wondrous lips. They parted slowly and even then remained with their foreheads against one another's.

"...it's not very king-like to kiss the commoners either..." Citlalli breathed in.

That sounded exactly like something Citlalli would say, and yet it still made T'Challa laugh. He lowered his head, shaking it as he tried to get himself together. "Agent Del Rio, aren't you ever serious for one minute?"

"Don't blame me...the King just kissed me. What ever am I supposed to do with myself?"

T'Challa raised his head to see Citlalli feigning a shocked expression. "You are not funny," he pointed at her.

"I think you'll let me be whatever I want to be on account of this long-term argument," Citlalli said, quickly growing serious. "I may love you but you still owe me for this."

T'Challa laughed again. She could play the role of seriousness so well that anyone who didn't know her would actually believe her. "Can I try to apologize say, in Wakanda?"

Citlalli's eyebrows raised, her 'seriousness' thrown off. Ultimately, she gave up the game in favor of reality. "Of course I forgive you. You don't need to make any grand apologies. I didn't runaway because of you. I needed to protect myself in case something happened, and it did. I know Rogers is on the run with his little merry gang. And truthfully, I don't regret helping him."

"I don't expect you to be regretful," T'Challa clarified first, "You were right. I only wish that I had listened to you back then. You should know that there are no formal accusations against you. I verified it."

Citlalli smiled lightly at him. "Thank you. You didn't have to do that, though."

"I did," T'Challa nodded, "Because I should have been with you at that moment as well." He reached for Citlalli's hand and gently wrapped his fingers around it. "If I had been with you then, you would already be in Wakanda with me."

"Can you imagine? Me in Wakanda?" Citlalli chuckled. 'I don't think your mother and sister would like that very much. Besides, what am I supposed to do there?"

"Be with me," T'Challa said bluntly enough to startle Citlalli. It was hard scaring Citlalli and T'Challa honestly couldn't remember a moment where he successfully managed to scare her. "I love you, Citlalli. I have for a very long time and I should have said it a long time, shown it, and I failed. I don't want to do that again. I don't want to go home pretending like it doesn't hurt to leave you behind. Do you believe me?"

"Yes," Citlalli answered softly, "I do." She could see his sincerity in his eyes, the fondness he held for her was right there...just for her.

"I know how you feel about 'home', and how you haven't really felt like America was your home. I know this place" — T'Challa made a nod towards the field — "feels closer to you but I don't want you to be alone. I don't want to be without you. Come to Wakanda with me, and we can make it our home. But I promise that it can become your home as well. You just have to be there to give it a your touch."

Citlalli actually considered the idea for a moment. Going to Wakanda sounded completely insane at a first glance but then she thought about it again, this time 'going to Wakanda with T'Challa' and it sprung a whole lot of butterflies in her stomach. "It's...it's crazy, isn't it?"

"Why?" T'Challa challenged her for a good answer. "You already left the States anyways. What's a little further anyways?"

"We're talking about a whole sea!" Citlalli chuckled. "And...well..." she sighed, "Who am I kidding? I could never go back to the CIA. Everett Ross would never hire me again."

"You'd be surprised," T'Challa said, shooting her a pretty confident smile.

Citlalli stared at him a couple minutes, getting the feeling she was missing out on something.

"If you want to go back to the CIA, then do it," T'Challa said, "But I will not leave you again. Do you want to go back to the CIA?"

Citlalli's head lowered at the question. "Honestly?"

"Always."

Licking her lips nervously, Citlalli answered very clearly. "No." She lifted her head and met T'Challa eye. "I only ever joined to build connections and networks. It's so tiresome, T'Challa. I don't even like the CIA..." She laughed sourly, "Bureaucratic knots everywhere. I like the freedom — there is no freedom in the CIA."

T'Challa listened to her attentively. He cupped her face, leaning close to her. "If that's the case, then come with me. You might find your freedom in Wakanda."

"The idea of going with you is, admittedly tempting, but I know how royalty works. This isn't some 'be my wife, aka the Queen or be my mistress' is it?"

"Look at me and tell me if that's what I would offer you," T'Challa promptly requested. Citlalli only looked at him for about two seconds before shaking her head. "When I say 'come with me', I mean it as in...fly back with me and...see what happens. You can stay for as long as you'd like. Decide what you want to do next."

"I don't know what I want to do 'next'," Citlalli admitted, "But I do know that I missed you so much. Watching you leave again is...it's not on my to-do list."

T'Challa started feeling something in his chest — anticipation. He knew what was coming...

"I don't want special treatment," Citlalli said, confirming what T'Challa already knew. "And you better tell Nakia to knock it off with her jokes because I know she'll have them."

T'Challa laughed lightly. "I can certainly promise to try and dissuade Nakia from any jokes but I'm not sure I can do much about the first thing you asked for."

"Why not?" Citlalli frowned.

"Because I certainly won't be able to treat you as if you were the same as everyone else." T'Challa grinned proudly about himself. Before Citlalli could fully react, he slid his hands over his face and kissed her.

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mywifeleftme · 1 year ago

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212: Blaze Foley // Live at the Austin Outhouse

Live at the Austin Outhouse Blaze Foley 1999, Lost Art (Bandcamp)

I wept over Blaze Foley’s grave. I didn’t expect to. I was visiting Austin at the beginning of a roadtrip, and my friend asked if there were anything around the city I wanted to see before we set off west toward Big Bend and the Rio Grande. It occurred to me that maybe Townes Van Zandt might be buried somewhere in the area, and I thought it’d be nice to go say my respects. It turned out that Townes rests in Tennessee, but the subject of doomed country singers and their graves brought to mind a story I’d heard about Townes and his friend Blaze, how after Blaze was murdered in 1989 Townes had had him temporarily exhumed in order to get at the front pocket of the suit he’d been buried, where there was a pawn shop ticket for a guitar the dead man had hocked shortly before his passing. I figured I wouldn’t mind seeing the place, so we drove down to the little green cemetery in Manchaca where his small stone faces a pasture of grazing longhorn cattle looking like myths or advertisements, and then I sat there and cried. I cried over the magpie offerings on the stone, earrings and poker chits and an empty beer can (literal trash elsewhere, but respectful in this context and careful placement); I cried at the big cows; I cried over the inscription of Blaze’s face and a guitar with the titles of his best-loved songs; I cried because I was hungover, and because I had done a bunch of fucked up things in the preceding years, and I was so full of shame, overwhelmed by the weight of amends; and I cried because this man had been fucked up and he was dead and people still loved him. I guess at the time I needed a sentimental image of a damaged man who does right more than I’d known. And so, the tears came.

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My Blaze fandom has always centered on Live at the Austin Outhouse, the low-slung 1988 two-night stand recorded barely a month before his death that first saw wide release (in excerpted form) on CD in 1999. (The full four-hour-long tapes just hit streaming platforms this year.) Foley’s discography is brief, and all of it worth the listen, but he was never in better voice, or more warmly recorded, than he was at the Outhouse. If you’ve heard Van Zandt’s Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas, the experience is similar: amid clanking bottles and bar chatter, the most desolate, acoustic songs of yearning sit side by side with wry character sketches and a helping of the dumbest, most adorable stage patter yet recorded. The predominantly solo album is a showcase for Blaze’s remarkable abilities as a country blues picker, and that unmistakable worn, lorn baritone of his.

Though Foley lacked Van Zandt’s overtly poetic predilections (e.g. “Lungs”; “Silver Ships of Andilar”), at his best he was Townes’ equal as a romantic and his better as a wit. For my taste, there isn’t a more genuinely moving love song than “Oooh Love,” a song that sounds like an old junkyard dog surprised to find himself being stroked after years in the rain. There’s brilliance in the slow reveal of its opening verse, his lover complimenting this big hairy man on his “pretty blue eyes” rather than the reverse:

Blue eyes She said pretty blue eyes Said I had pretty blue eyes See me again She wants to See me again She's such a pleasant surprise

It puts the masculine speaker immediately in an unfamiliar, vulnerable position, the one feeling the wonder of being unexpectedly chosen. On the other side, there’s “Officer Norris.” Foley does the best job anybody’s done of lambasting the cops since Kristofferson’s “Best of All Possible Worlds,” dressing down the titular officer for everything from cribbing free coffee cakes to chasing after married women to being abandoned by his mother because he was an unlikable baby. Blaze gives us “If I Could Only Fly” too, a quintessential (and rendingly) sad country song, and “Christian Lady Talking on the Bus,” a wholly unsentimental look at faith and self-delusion. And above all, there’s “Clay Pigeons,” a song of disappointment and humour and endurance and crooked optimism that strikes something true in me like almost no other song has. As someone who’s started over quite a few times at this point, it’s become an anthem, and more than anything else, it’s why I convinced my pal to take me out there south of Austin to pay my respects in person. Music has never fixed anybody, but it can bring who you are into focus. Lord knows I needed that.

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A note on the versions of this recording

Blaze played nearly 30 songs over the course of his two nights at the Outhouse. I’ve been going through the full tapes today (which contain at least as much audio of the Duct Tape Messiah goofing with his friends in the crowd as it does music). While of the original cassette that was passed around Blaze’s friends and fans in the late ‘80s contained 21 tracks, it’s now clear how much my sense of Austin Outhouse as an “album” comes from the work Lost Art Records did when they put out their condensed 12-song CD edition. Lost Art left in a smattering of the choicer bits of Blaze’s rambles and winnowed the tracklist down, turning what could’ve been a double-live record (or a for-true-maniacs boxed set) into a digestible introduction to the man’s work. In order to keep things on one disc, the 2020 vinyl issue (also from Lost Art) leaves out what stage patter had remained, which makes it a smoother repeat listen for those already well-familiar with Blaze’s bits. Still, the CD/streaming version remains definitive for me because it was how I “met” the man.

All that said, the chance to hear versions of other Foley classics recorded in the same space as the familiar cuts is a thrill. If you’re already a fan, I strongly encourage you to try out the live versions of the two studio cuts from the original, and takes on “Springtime in Uganda,” “Long Time,” “Oval Room,” “Someday” and many more. Be forewarned though; it is beyond eerie hearing Blaze talk with obvious affection about (and even do an impression of) his friend Concho January, the elderly pensioner whose son Carey would shoot Foley dead just a few weeks later. By Concho’s own courtroom testimony, the burly country singer died trying to prevent Carey from yet again robbing the old man of a welfare cheque. It was a squalid, hero’s death, and he deserved better.

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#blaze foley #outlaw country #country folk #finger picking #the duct tape messiah #townes van zandt #tales from the tour bus #'80s music #'70s music #vinyl record #music review #texas country #texas music #austin

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