#and if you are interested in helping organize / run the event DO let crooked know! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ladyeliot · 4 years

Photo

Sparky

Valentine’s Day (Prompts)

Request: Anonymous: #10 & #1 from the Valentine's day prompts with Tony Stark please. I was thinking of something similar to the Nat & Bruce scene in age of ultron. Like Tony & the reader are teammates both like each other

“Will you be my valentine?”

“What is a girl like you doing in a bar on valentine’s day?“

Pairing: Tony Stark x Fem!Reader

Summary: After the events that transpired during the Chitauri Invasion of New York you couldn't take it anymore and chose to go your own way, like the other Avengers. Now three years later you are reunited, but there are too many hidden feelings between you and Tony. (Based on the sequence from Avengers: Age of Ultron, during the party).

Warnings: Flirting, Angst.

Word count: 3290

A/N: Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

It could be said that you would never know what the word majesty means if you didn't go to a party hosted by the "Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist", Tony Stark, at his Tower. There was no other situation in the world that better described the splendor that your eyes could discover there, or at least that was what they used to talk about in the social environment to which he belonged.

It had been hard weeks of work, and surely the next weeks were going to be even harder, so there was no better excuse to revive the social life than to organize a small party among friends on Saturday night, that's what Tony had called it, although it was far from being small, and most of the attendees you didn't even know. It wasn't that you weren't sociable, well, actually that wasn't the best word to define you, but what you couldn't get rid of were all those thoughts about the events that happened the last time the whole team had met.

It had been three years since you were all together, you knew that something big was about to happen, otherwise you would not be there again, you would have continued your life away lost somewhere in Indonesia hoping to find peace and tranquility after the Chitauri invasion, but you would never refuse to return when someone asks for your help again. Besides, seen in another way, going back to meet them does not always bring negative consequences.

"[...] I fly up to the general's palace, drop him at his feet and say 'Boom, were you looking for this?" laughter began to erupt around you, as Rhodes smiled proudly at the story he had just told.

You on the contrary showed a small smile trying to interact with the people around you, but you had barely paid attention to his words, your thoughts were elsewhere, even so, you realized that your martini must have evaporated, because your glass was completely empty. You got up from the sofa, keeping your eyes fixed on a bar that was waiting to offer you the best alcoholic beverages you had ever tasted in your life. You assumed that if you were going to have fun that night, it wasn't going to be possible without a little help from inside your body.

"What is a girl like you doing in a bar on valentine's day?" Tony's words caused you to look up from behind the bar and your eyes fell on his.

"I guess drown my sorrows in alcohol," you arched an eyebrow with a small sideways smile and refilled your martini glass.

"I'm sure you'd find a better way to drown your sorrows," Tony's voice grew darker, opening the doors to the game he was best at, but you were no slouch either.

"Possibly, but alcohol knows best how to deal with me," you raised your glass to your lips and sipped some of its contents, "I'm not an easy girl to fight with."

"Then I think you're in the right place," Tony mimicked your gesture, draining the contents of his glass, propitiating a smile on your lips.

"I'll keep that in mind," you said lowering your seductive tone ending the encounter, as you watched Rhodes approach you, you just gave him a smile and walked out of the bar back into the crowd.

You knew what Tony was like, during the time you had shared with him he had shown you each one of his multiple and multifaceted facets, which as he continually acknowledged were "Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist". On more than one occasion he tried to delve into the Playboy one, but time and time again he fell flat, for as you had said you were not a woman to deal with easily, nor could you yourself deal with yourself. Besides, there was the fact that you were totally opposite people, but very similar, in terms of character, and during the time you spent together a very peculiar relationship was generated between you, that few of those present would know how to describe.

You crossed that large room contemplating around you, everyone seemed to be enjoying a pleasant evening, you realized that it was the first time you associated those people with a calm situation, no surprise appearance of enemies, no screams and people fleeing through the streets fearing for their lives, only music, laughter and gestures of happiness complemented with a few glasses of alcohol. You felt the need to do the same, let yourself go and enter that parallel world, but something inside you prevented you from doing so, it was like a feeling that something was about to happen, so you opted to look for a door to the outside and enjoy the peace and quiet that your solitude, along with your martini, could offer you.

The night breeze of New York City at 1138 feet was a breath of fresh air, never better. Manhattan lay at your feet, but your eyes had no intention of looking down, on the contrary, they looked up, for you could almost touch the universe just by reaching up. Everything you'd ever wanted was up there, slinging the stars, allowing you to escape this world and discover so much more, and you'd known for years that more than one danger lurked there.

"Nice," Rhodes' presence caused your thoughts to drift away for a while.

"What's nice?" you asked quizzically, watching his figure approach you.

"Seeing that there's still love left on Valentine's Day," he stood beside you in the middle of that wide 90th floor terrace that surrounded the building.

"What do you mean?" you frowned oddly, circling the glass in your hands, but the gesture Rhodes made reminded you of the conversation with Tony. "Oh, no, no, no, that...we were joking. You know how Tony is."

"I know, I know how Tony is," Rhodes affirmed with a nod. "He was worried, when you disappeared off the map."

"I know," you said with a breath in your voice.

You hadn't really been entirely frank in telling your story, after the events in New York, you had taken the option of abandoning your complicated past life and running away, on the one hand feeling like a coward, but on the other hoping to start from scratch. The connection with Tony had been strangely special, and maybe the events affected you more because of his almost possible death, so when everyone chose to go their own way you did too, trying to disappear from the face of the earth, Indonesia was the best thing that happened to you. Eventually you discovered that Tony had made every effort to contact you, until after a few months he succeeded in doing so, thus generating an unpleasant misunderstanding between the two of you, coming to the conclusion that you had no intention of returning. But now there you were.

A new presence made Rhodes turn away from you and go back the same way he had come, but not before offering a little tap on Tony's shoulder. In his hands he brought two new glasses, this time of champagne and with a smile, the one that could get on your nerves, he approached you and offered it to you.

"Rumor has it, I make you nervous," he said raising an eyebrow and tilting his head.

"Excuse me?" you added in the same tone of voice he was putting on.

"You know, you disappeared when the conversation had gotten interesting," he took a sip from his champagne glass.

"Well, it didn't take you too long to find me either," you mimicked him, "If I had wanted to run away from you it would have taken you a lot longer to find me."

"I'll have to agree with you there," you looked down at the floor with a smile and set the glass down on a high glass table, to put his bow tie, which was completely crooked, back on properly. "Will you be my valentine?"

"Are you flirting with me Mr. Stark?" you frowned and subtly brushed the right side of his neck with the tip of your finger, causing a small spark to appear through the touch, making evident the little capacity you had in those moments of your powers. But that subtle gesture only intensified Tony's smile.

"Is it that obvious?" the tone of arrogance perched in his voice, at the same time he stroked the spot where you had given him the slight shock. "As obvious as I make you nervous."

At times that self-assurance could drive you crazy, at others it could drive you mad, on this occasion, both were fighting equally. You didn't know if it was because of the numerous martini glasses that were running through your blood, or because he was more attractive than you remembered him, or because that perfume was igniting your insides, but his powers of attraction were driving yours crazy. You felt the electromagnetism inside you seem a bit out of control, and that made you slow down that situation.

"Subtlety is not really something that goes with you," you said trying to show indifference to his words while you took the glass of champagne in your hands again and turned your face away from his, making a gesture to leave again. You felt a little annoyed with yourself for showing that you couldn't control the situation as well as he could.

"That's true, I'm not subtle," his tone also changed as he contemplated your gesture to leave, he took on a bit more seriousness, "I'd rather act up front, with everything, than hide."

"So that's it..." you said smiling bitterly stopping yourself.

The truth is that during the two months you had been back, after your emotional retreat, you hadn't had a single moment of peace to be able to address the issue at hand Tony. The meeting was hardly cold, there was really no time for reunions, as you showed up at the start of a mission to retrieve Loki's scepter in Sokovia, so that was the first time the two of you were alone, and you were using flirting to put up barriers to have a running conversation.

"What?" he played completely clueless, even though you knew perfectly well what he was referring to. "Ah, you mean I didn't decide to run away and hide in some remote location on earth after I nearly vanished in an alien invasion? If that's it, then yes."

You took a breath into your lungs and nodded to yourself taking a long sip from the champagne glass while avoiding looking into his eyes, which were looking really angry for you.

"I don't think this is the best time to have this conversation," you expressed putting the glass back down on the high table.

"Then when?" he raised his arms. "Shall we wait until this new mission is over and you're leaving again? Where is it going to be now? I ask so I don't have to spend seven months running around every corner of the planet. It would be very helpful if you could give me some clue, so I can save some time."

You threw up your hands in complete surrender and headed for the front door to the tower leaving behind you the bitter words coming out of Tony's mouth, you didn't want to start an argument, especially that night. You brought your hand to the knob of the glazed door, but in those moments....

"Jarvis, lock the rooftop exit doors," those words stopped the door from opening, leaving you ecstatic.

"Really?" you exclaimed indignantly looking back at him. "Are you going to stop me from leaving? You know I only have to stroke the glass to bring it all down."

"But you won't," Tony closed the distance to you in three steps, the melody in his voice had relaxed, as had his countenance.

"How are you so sure?" you asked, almost feeling dread at the answer he was about to offer, checking that he was still slowly approaching you.

"Because you know we need this conversation and there won't be a better time than now to have it," he kept his right arm upright holding the cup, while his left was tucked inside his Tom Ford pants, offering you a nonchalant air.

"Okay," you said giving up, and creating with a slight flick of your fingers an electromagnetic force field around him preventing him from coming any closer to you. When Tony noticed he couldn't help but express his amused feelings in a smile.

"Alright," he tilted his face to one side stopping his footsteps. "Fair enough."

"Well, how do we do that?" you asked somewhat confused not knowing what to say or how to start that conversation, it was obvious that those things were just as bad for you as they were for Tony.

"How about...with an apology?" he said unsubtly with a shrug of his shoulders, which elicited a massive gesture of disapproval from you.

"What!" you exclaimed. "Why would I have to apologize to you? I think that's already been settled since you came to Sumba."

"Well... " he put his finger to his lips as if thinking, "The truth is that during our meeting we didn't settle much, on the contrary, I think we complicated things more. Especially if we remember that you threw me with a force field into the Indian Ocean. For that would be one of the things you should apologize to me for. Among many others, obviously."

"I think you'll have to wait with your arms crossed for me to apologize to you," you explained, your tone was quite high. "Besides, I would never have thrown you into the Ocean if it weren't for you trying to block my powers with one of your damn inventions."

"Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me, you ended up smashing it too," with a swift movement he got rid of the button on the blazer that seemed to depress him. "What about ditching me in the middle of the night at the hotel? That I think hurt a lot more than the wrecking you did to my suit."

Remember what you said about never falling for him? You did fall for him once, when he came looking for you on Sumba Island, but you hardly know how it happened, it was only one night, which you regretted, in part, and you opted to leave as soon as possible to prevent him from invading your mind to force you to return with him to America. But things got complicated when he found you again and the two of you started a stupid battle in the middle of that paradise.

"Oh, please," you said hiding under your palm. "Don't you feel comfortable switching roles? Have a woman be the one to leave in the middle of the night?"

"Not if that woman is you, " he said crossing his arms and stiffening his gesture.

You had both assumed that this conversation was not going anywhere, you were finding that out, your way of being and your character was limiting the possibilities of reaching a middle ground. You plopped down on the glassed-in wall, arms folded like he was in your lap.

"Okay, listen," he began, shoving his hands into his pants pockets, "get rid of this and let's talk face to face."

"I don't think so," you said getting rid of the heels that were grinding your feet silly that night.

"Get rid of the electromagnetic field," he warned again, but you shook it off with your face. "Okay, have it your way."

"What...?"

At that moment you checked as Tony moved steadily forward, approaching the edge of the field, knowing that if he breached it that would cause irreparable damage to his person. The alert went off inside your head you hoped he wouldn't be stupid enough to do it, but that couldn't be said for Tony, he had every intention of doing it. It was a battle you were going to lose, because at the very instant you were a millimeter away from piercing him with your foot you got rid of him, causing a smirk on his face.

"I'd kill you..." you muttered clenching your jaw, Tony smiled without stopping his steps enjoying your anger, which barely allowed you to realize that he was scant inches away from you. "I swear..."

But before you could finish his proximity made you stop your words, causing your lips to brush softly against each other. It wasn't a kiss as such. It was a subtle brush, pausing instantly waiting to contemplate your reaction to the fact. Tony barely moved a millimeter away from you, leaving you cornered between his body and the window, but he stopped his movements waiting for you to start them again. Your heart was racing, you could hear the energy coursing through your veins from one limb to the other, and you needed to take a minute to get yourself under control. He knew it, that's why he was acting that way.

You approached his lips again, keeping your mind completely clear. The warmth and suppleness of his tongue went deep inside your mouth, again feeling his taste mixed with champagne and martini. His body imprisoned yours, making you feel every part of him on you. When his mouth pierced your lips to your neck you tried to mumble something unsuccessfully, almost warning him that it couldn't go any further, but Tony didn't seem to care. He was focusing on rediscovering how every cell inside you tensed as he brushed his tongue against your skin. You brought your hand to the back of his neck, preventing him from separating from you, channeling the energy inside you again with force preventing your body from exploding at any moment, because that was the capacity Tony had when he was on top of you. Both of you were completely absorbed by what was going on around you, that there was a party just a few meters away, and that anyone could discover you sooner or later. That's how a couple of knocks coming from the other side of the glass broke the moment, causing a lapse of your concentration that was attributed by a small sparkle on Tony's tongue.

"Ouch!" he groaned pulling away from you, but again he put on that amused grin. "That was hot, sparky."

You on the contrary looked behind you, running into Bruce's figure somewhat embarrassed that he was the one guilty of breaking the situation you were maintaining, but you also found concern in his gaze.

"I'm sorry... Can we talk for a moment Tony?" he asked pointing to the exit door, "I'm sorry."

"What the hell did you do?" you whispered to Tony, knowing something wasn't quite right, but Tony shrugged it off as if it was nothing to him.

"This better be worth it," Tony said shoving his hands inside his pockets to hide the consequences of the action you had been committing. He turned to you and stroked your bare arm. "I'll be back in two minutes, don't move from here. We have a lot of talking left to do," he winked at you and headed for the door. "JARVIS, enable the doors to the outside of the roof," there was no response. "JARVIS?"

Bruce seemed to understand why that was happening, Tony pulled from inside his jacket a device that controlled his AI, but it didn't seem to show any signs of life either. Tony focused his gaze on Bruce, who seemed to take in what was happening and fear was in his eyes.

"What the hell is going on Tony?"

Taglist Open (DM)

MAIN MASTERLIST

84 notes · View notes

mutatismutandisx · 3 years

Text

Shadow and Bone (Netflix Series Review)

No Spoilers!!!

"Be careful of powerful men" - Genya Safin

Welcome to the Grishaverse!

Shadow and Bone is Netflix's big gamble for young adult fiction mega-success, the kind we haven't seen since Jennifer Lawrence volunteered as tribute almost a decade ago, adapting Leigh Bardugo's popular Grishaverse novels (her debut trilogy Shadow and Bone and serving as a prequel for the Six of Crows duology), anchored by an incredibly diverse cast (mostly newcomers) and a huge production budget, showrunner Eric Heisserer, alongside Bardugo who serves as an executive producer, aim for Hunger Games and Harry Potter level phenomenon with their own fantasy epic.

To Heisserer's credit, he manages a great adaptation of Bardugo's novels, even if he falls prey to the same story tropes that made Bardugo's debut novels seem so derivative, Heisserer brings the Grishaverse to life in a (mostly) successful run of 8 episodes, and even if his grand tour of Ravka isn't the most organized or well planned, most viewers will still fall in love with this world.

Heisserer's boldest creative choice, and biggest deviation from the novels, is the introduction of Kaz Brekker and his Crows, Jesper and Inej, in this opening chapter to the story, characters that did not appear in Bardugo's original Shadow and Bone trilogy. Creatively and business-wise, his decision is an obvious one, Bardugo's Shadow and Bone novels, while a solid debut, are the typical young adult fodder that is bombarded to consumers every year, a largely derivative yet charming "chosen one" story that teens and tweens eat up every year and then mostly forget about when the next one comes around (less Percy Jacson and more Divergent if you will), truth be told Bardugo's Grishaverse only became a phenomenon after the release of her superb Six of Crows duology, featuring Bardugo's very own Suicide Squad, a ragtag group of crimials performing incredible, mind-bending heists in the tough streets of a fictional Amsterdam (and beyond!), all anchored by what is (to this day) Bardugo's best creation: Kaz Brekker, a Batman-meets-The Riddler machiavelic genius with a flair for theatrics, Six of Crows and it's follow-up Crooked Kingdom are surely the main reason Netflix even greenlit this series to begin with. And just like in the books, Brekker and his Crows provide a much needed bolt of manic energy to an otherwise very by-the-numbers storyline. Not to discredit Bardugo's talent as a writer, but her skills had simply not been honed at the time of her 2012 debut, a shortcoming that Bardugo would fix later on, in her follow up novels, through ambition and sheer force of will.

And yet, Heisserer stays extremely faithful to the books, whether it's to Bardugo's best ideas or her least creative ones, he adapts it all, while attempting to add his own flair into the mix (with varying results), take our main protagonist for example, Alina Starkov, to those unfamiliar with the novels, Alina is the Katniss Everdeen of this story, a mostly ordinary young woman who, by a struck of destiny, finds herself thrust into the spotlight in the hero/savior-of-her-people role (a most unflattering one might I add), and thus becomes an unwilling symbol to a cause she hardly understands, saddled with all the responsabilities and power that comes with the job, and with the inevitable political players and adversaries that may take advantage of her power for their own gain ("Be careful of powerful men" one of Alina's confidants warns her in episode 5). And did I mention she happens to find herself in the middle of a love triangle? Indeed Bardugo's original novel isn't the most creative, and yet Heisserer doesn't have much to offer as a way to reinvent the character, the best he can come up with is changing Alina's ethnicity (originally caucasian) to that of the fictional Shu Han people (read: China), and yet, nothing is really done with the change, it just sits there, (similarly to Alina everytime a background character hurls xenophobic abuse at her), it's not explored and hardly touched upon, which begs the question why introduce the change in the first place? While I commend the showrunners for casting a female lead of asian descent on a blockbuster property such as this, I would remind them that true diversity is more than simply ethnic tokenism. Perhaps there will be a bigger payoff for the creative change in future seasons (if we get them, season 2 has not been greenlit), doubtfull but I'll remain optimistic.

Tokenism aside, the diversity of the cast truly is commendable, and as expected with a young adult property, it's a very young and very attractive cast, on the one hand it's understandable, they need to appeal to their core demographic, on the other hand they commit themselves to one of the most glaring faults in Bardugo's Grishaverse series, Ravka doesn't seem to have soldiers, politicians or grisha over the age of 25, it seems like a huge oversight on part of a country (and Leigh Bardugo) to have the entire power of the government and the military reside upon a group of teenagers, but be that as it may, most of the cast, while young, is very talented, even if their characters aren't fully developed, they do their best with what they are given, some of the standouts are Jessie Mei Li as Alina, Mei Li is saddled with a character and plot that's as derivative as they come, and yet she finds nuances in her perfomance that are lovely to watch, she brings a sense of joy and determination to Alina that lesser actors couldn't even imagine much less portray, all that helps her stand out from most, if not all, the crowd of chosen one characters that have come before her, and even tho Mei Li doesn't reach Jennifer Lawrence levels with her performance, she certainly surpasses the Kristen Stewarts and Shailene Woodleys that have come before.

Ben Barnes is a surprise as General Kirigan, at first glance you might think him miscast (too young, too pretty to be believed as a stone cold, battle hardened general) and yet he still manages to make the character his own, a possessive, demanding, controlling, master manipulator who always seems to have the upper hand, Barnes is blessed with a tight script and he never misses a beat giving a subtle and nuanced performance. And then there is Kit Young as Jesper Fahey, sharpshooter, playboy, criminal with a heart of gold, Young is a revelation, he is as good in his role as Robert Downey Jr. is as Tony Stark, and that's all you need to know, Young was simply born to play Jesper, anchored by a strong script, he steals every scene he is in and far overshadows his fellow Crows. And as for the other Crows, Freddy Carter acts his heart out as Kaz Brekker, committing to a very physical performance, from scowl to limp, he embodies Brekker visually, but after the first 2 episodes you get the feeling the writers simply don't know what to do with his character, losing the spotlight to other actors blessed with better material, never did I think Kaz Brekker would be overshadowed by one of his fellow Crows, yet here we are. Carter's talent still shines through and his perpetual, omnipresent scowl as Brekker is a beauty to behold, even if his limping is somewhat inconsistent, which makes me hopeful he will improve when given more to do, still it's a shame to have the master strategist/evil genius Bruce Wayne replaced by a lowly con artist and not a very successful one at that. As for Amita Suman, while perfectly cast as Inej Ghafa, her character is severely underwritten, from her past work in The Menagerie, to her faith, to her interactions with Brekker, it's all done in the broadest of strokes, Suman isn't given much to do and therefore doesn't have the opportunity to excel as The Wraith.

You can feel the writers straining for time between developing this world and the large cast of characters they have to work with, inevitably some characters fall of the wayside, through none of the actors' fault. Daisy Head as Genya Safin is all untapped potential, even more underwritten here than she is in the books, which make later revelations about her character (the color of her kefta and shifting allegiances) barely register, hopefully they correct that going forward. Sujaya Dasgupta is another victim of a weak script and little screen time, Dasgupta is simply miscast as the powerful, acerbic, steely-eyed Zoya Nazyalensky, long gone is the regal, no nonsense, silver-tongued Grisha general, in Dasgupta's hands Zoya is just a watered down Grisha version of a Mean Girl, faltering every scene with the exception of one moment, as she makes her way through party goers at the Little Palace and she corrects Inej's ethnicity to a bystander, (her one good line reading in the entire show) "She's Suli", she declares, with all the strenght and defiance that's sorely missing from the rest of her performance, moving forward let's hope a stronger script can lift her performace off the ground, because right now all the wind is gone from this Squaller's wings. And as for Malyen Oretsev played by Archie Renaux, he is the Gale Hawthorne of this story, the undignified love interest, and Renaux is as boring in his role as Liam Hemsworth was in his.

Lastly, Danielle Galligan as Nina Zenik and Calahan Skogman as Matthias Helvar, are equally terrible in their performances, from their accents to their interactions, none of it rings true, and it's particularly jarring when juxtaposed with the talent portrayed by the rest of the cast, we spent way too much time with Nina and Matthias, for absolutely no payoff to their story (yet! Fans will recognize them as 2 future members of Brekker's murder of Crows), but their little side adventure is so disconnected with the events of the main plot that I can't help but feel their story was better reserved for another time, hopefully with some better actors playing the roles. A lovely moment of playfulness between Nina and Matthias while they tread along in a barren, snowy hill, is the only glimpse of hope for Galligan's and Skogman's performances, maybe there is talent to be tapped but it certainly wasn't in display this time around.

The Grishaverse is simply too large and complex, so understandably Heisserer and his writers room have a lot on their plate, but while the character work is largely uneven, his world building is quite solid, based on the impressive foundation Bardugo set out for them, the showrunners are able to bring the world of Ravka to life, the costume design is stunning, from soldiers to Grishas, to royals and diplomats, the costume department does a fabulous job with every piece and every character, one of the high points in the series.

The VFX team also does a lot of the heavy lifting for Heisserer's world building efforts, realizing the different power sets of all the Grisha in a fantastical manner while still maintaining a realistic quality to them, ("you'll believe a man can fly"), but even with a huge production budget, Heisserer strains with this world-spanning adventure, so even though the set and production design is mostly impressive, some sets simply fall out of range for the show's budget, case in point, both Ravka's Royal Palace and the Little Palace are not fully realized, viewers are given a single outside shot of the Royal Palace (and from very far away at that) and the throne room is only visited once, and as for the Little Palace, it's stripped from many of the books most sprawling details, the training grounds, the Grisha school, the fabrikators workshop, the dining room, the palace's towers, all falling victim to obvious budget restrains. Not to mention both palaces are devoid of the classic Russian influences that permeate Ravka's world.

But Heisserer's skills for world building show the most limitations on the lore of the Grishaverse, the three Orders of the Grisha are never properly explained, with Fabrikators getting next to none screen time, Heisserer is never capable to establish a clear view of the world these characters inhabit, most viewers will be very confused about Ravka's shifting borders, the civil war tensions between East and West, and the adversary foreign nations (an inclusion of a map in the opening credits of every episode would have gone a long way), the sociopolitical elements that Bardugo has infused in her books are decidedly complex and the show doesn't do them justice, unfortunately. Perhaps most glaring is the very clear disagreements on what a Ravkan's diction and accent should be, since every actor has their own interpretation of it, an oversight that I hope is fixed in future seasons.

As the few completely negative points of the show, alongside Galligan and Skogman, the sound mixing is terrible (you will need subtitles to watch this show) and the cutaway flahbacks are quite sloppy.

To conclude, Shadow and Bone is a lovingly crafted, beautifully realized, world building adventure, it has a couple of missteps along the way (like all adventures do), but the final product is strong enough to overcome some of its creative faux pas, with a solid script and anchored by a (mostly) talented cast, Shadow and Bone doesn't reach Catching Fire levels of greatness but it far outpaces the rest of the young adult fantasy competition.

12 notes · View notes

themilky-way · 4 years

Text

a red kiss {steve rogers}

gif credit: hasan-minhaj

pairing: 1940s! steve rogers x female! reader, 1940s! bucky x reader (platonic)

summary: steve starts to notice a shift in his feelings. when he comes back from the war, he must confront them. set in the 1940s.

warnings: okay listen this was supposed to be cute and fluffy BUT it turned into a lil bit of spice near the end. IT’S NOT A LOT, IT’S JUST AN ATOM OF SPICE but be warned ;)

author’s note: this is long i’m sorry but i couldn’t stop iykyk lmao. i’m a slut for 40s! steve and bucky they’re so adorable. also this SUCKS AKNSJS

-------

the realization hit him like a blow to the chest. it was painful, relieving, scary, and every possible emotion mixed altogether. it was something new to him, something so close yet a million miles away for him to actually grasp. to steve rogers, the first soldier in the world to actually survive a high dose of a strength serum, the idea of having a silly crush was laughable. and much more foolish when the person behind his infatuation was his best friend.

he played it off the first time it happened when he spotted you walking straight out from your apartment building, all dolled up and a purse hanging from the crook of your elbow. you hadn’t seen him, and you weren’t going to since you weren’t even meeting up with him at all, but the streets were small and it was normal to come face to face with someone you knew in brooklyn. he was about to say something to you, a casual “hey, what a coincidence!” but he couldn’t find his courage. his mind began running faster than his new enhanced speed, and then at once, it stopped working. his eyes took over your form and the way you were dressed that morning. the outfit you wore was one he’d never seen before, but it suited you wonderfully. but then he looked at your face. steve caught glimpses of your smile, the way your eyes shimmered with joy at the conversation you stopped to have, how your nose scrunched up when you laughed. then, he actually heard it. it came out as a small wheeze at first, but then shifted to a hearty laugh, and he smiled. how could he not? it was intoxicating, the mere image of you like this. yes, he’s laughed with you before, but it felt nothing like this. it didn’t feel like it did back then, as you, steve, and bucky all cracked jokes and all of you erupted in giggles. today, it was something more than just friendship.

steve noticed it happen more often ever since that day. everything you said and did somehow managed to become permanently ingrained into his mind, and it drove him crazy. when he was at the campsites reviewing lines of entry for his troops to drive through, he became distracted on the thought of your voice. his mouth would be speaking, directing commands to his men, but the other half of his brain was busy imagining something with you that wasn’t even real. steve, honey, you made it home. you came back to me. he pictured himself being with you and that confused him, yet that never kept him from doing it again. at other times, when the three of you would be having dinner at his house like you did every friday, he’d let himself imagine what it’d be like if you stayed after bucky left. you’d help him dry the dishes as he washed them, help organize the dining table again, chat a while in the living room, and finally, when the night sky was laid out with stars, you two would dance. his right hand would go to the small of your back and simultaneously your left would lay on on his shoulder, your free hands clasping together next.

but all of this, it wasn’t real. it didn’t mean anything at all, and it was a fantasy; a fairytale created by his brain. or was it his heart?

steve’s questions were finally answered during a military gala one night. brooklyn’s governor opted to celebrate the soldiers that had come back safely from a mission and set out to decorate the local ballroom in brightly colored lights and streams. the event was all the city could talk about; the girls were ecstatic about buying a new dress and shoes for their returning soldiers, while the boys were trying to see if they could befriend some fighters for reputation purposes. it kept everyone hopeful about the outcome of the war, and that with all its casualties and sorrow, was still being fought for a better future.

steve was nervous, practically sweating through every layer of his suit, when he met up with bucky that evening. it wasn’t because he didn’t want the attention nor because he was afraid of the spotlight he might receive, but for his own personal dilemma. how would he act once he saw you? would you catch on to the sudden quiver in his voice? would you tease him? more and more inquiries piled up on his plate, so much that he didn’t even notice when he started to crack his knuckles.

the pair were walking together while conversing about whatever topics flowed into their minds, occasionally bumping into glamoured-up girls heading in their same direction. steve was talking, ranting about some random thing, but as the group of women came to a stop with them at a light, he paused the conversation. bucky caught on, considering steve was a real chatterbox, and he let a tiny smile creep onto his lips. he looked at steve’s cautious gaze directed at the girls, and then flicked his own eyes to look at them himself.

“aw, stevey, don’t tell me you’re scared! c’mon, you’re captain america, they’re practically falling at your feet,” bucky teased. he lightly slapped steve’s shoulder for encouragement, and then proceeded to go behind him and place both hands atop his shoulders. steve knew what came after this part. it was boy culture; to push your friend in the direction of the girl they yearned after. except steve didn’t want them, any of them. he wanted you, and he needed bucky to stop before he embarrassed someone else.

“bucky, stop, please. not now,” steve pleaded, but bucky didn’t listen. he began pushing steve in the direction of the group, which in turn earned flirty giggles from each woman. all the while, bucky offered assurring affirmations: you can do this buddy, just be yourself. they’ll love you! just remember what i taught you.

“bucky, stop doing this, i don’t like it,” steve repeated. it seemed none of his pleas made their way to his friend’s ears, or if they did, they’d come right back out. it wasn’t until he was about ten feet away from them that he’d had enough. “I said stop!” steve proclaimed, turning around abruptly and grabbing bucky’s wrists and flicking them down. the look in his eyes was angry, straight to the point so the other soldier could see he wasn’t joking. “i don’t want them.”

bucky stepped back and apologized, holding his hands up in surrender while steve softened his stare. the pair then adjusted to continue their route and took note that the girls had left, all flustered and unsettled because of steve’s rejection. at this, bucky let out a huff of annoyance, but steve ignored him and started walking again.

the two friends went on like this for a while, about ten minutes or so at most. they walked in silence with their hands stuffed in the pockets of their pants and didn’t look anywhere but the streets ahead. steve’s head was down, though, and bucky was running somethin-a phrase his partner had said over in his mind. the silence was unnerving, leaving bucky to turn the wheels in his head harder with each passing second. but, at last, after he’d run into a dead end with possibilities of who steve could be interested in, he turned to him.

“so who do you want, then?”

“what?” steve pondered back. he looked back at bucky with confusion, with no complete understanding of what he was talking about and then turned to look at the street name above him.

“you said you didn’t want those girls. back there, I mean. you implied you already had someone you wanted.” steve laughed at this, suddenly feeling a rush of heat flow to his cheeks. it was silly, feeling all giddy and excited whenever steve thought of you. but he couldn’t help it, not feel anything for you. turning to look at bucky, he saw that he was already smiling. how could he be mad at his friend? he didn’t know. “c’mon, stevey, you can tell me. i’m your best pal, aren’t i?”

both of them came up in front of the large, double doors of the dance hall. steve went up and grabbed the small handle on one of the doors and pulled it open, with bucky on his trail before stopping to observe the scene before them. the chandeliers that hung all around the ceiling were huge, the crystal shiny and reflecting rainbow hues on the marbled floor. the tables were arranged close together near the back of the room, with a grand portion of it for dancing only. the bar, mostly where the soldiers resided at, was to their right, and a loud orchestra band playing classics to their left. everywhere the boys’ looked, they were met with salutes and appreciative nods. some people even bowed before them in acknowledgement.

“promise me you won’t say anything? if I tell you?” steve asked, raising his voice slightly due to the loud gossip and music. bucky looked at him somewhat bewildered, but then nodded his head when he remembered their prior talk. he was about to reply when a loud, familiar voice erupted.

“oh, my wonderful boys’! i’ve missed you, dearly!” you exclaimed. you strided right up in front of them and placed one of your palms on each of their cheeks’. you looked at them, one at a time, before they both pulled you into a tight hug. they held you for a while, before they pulled away from you to speak.

“doll, you look absolutely stunning,” bucky gallantly expressed, leaning in to press a kiss to your cheek. upon seeing this, steve felt his chest tighten and his hands, which were rested at his sides now, clenched into fists. he felt jealous at an innocent gesture from his friend, and he knew it was wrong to feel this way but he couldn’t stop it. hell, you weren’t even his. right now, to steve, the moment in which bucky pressed his lips to the soft, tender skin of your cheek seemed like hours long. you flicked your eyes to steve then, and smiled, and he found himself unclenching his fists and grinning back. you did things to him, so many unimaginable things that he’d have an entire volume of books ready to publish if he sat down and wrote them down.

“aren’t you gonna kiss me too, honey?” you inquired. the question was so innocent, so modest and friendly, that it even caught bucky off guard. his eyes widened and glanced quickly from your face to steve’s. somewhere, in the furthest depths of bucky’s brain, two pieces of a puzzle clicked together. he made the connection instantly, and he couldn’t help the look of pure joy that made its way onto his features. pulling away from you to allow his friend to step in, bucky observed in silence while steve nervously placed a peck to your other cheek.

afterwards, you politely excused yourself to get their table ready, seeing as you were one of the head coordinators for the event. as you walked away in the direction of the guests, with your gown swaying from above your heels, steve watched in awe. and, ironically, bucky examined him. the smile that played at his lips since the very beginning of the night was now more radiant than ever, and he knew he couldn’t help but inquire further.

“it’s her, isn’t it?” his question was rhetorical, in a way, but he was proud to ask it. “the one you want.”

steve, now promptly looking at him, could only manage his own playful grin. of course he wanted you. you meant the world to him.

“she doesn’t feel the same way, buck.”

“the hell you mean she doesn’t? she asked you to kiss her, for god’s sake!” bucky exclaimed loudly, his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets at this point. how could steve not see the hints you gave him? “if you don’t go for it, i will.”

it was a joke. a clear and obvious joke that was made to ease the uncertainty of his friend. but steve’s mind began racing at hundreds of miles per hour, sweat clamming up the palms of his hands, his shirt, everywhere. he felt uneasy at such a lighthearted phrase that had no truth behind it, and he knew he shouldn’t be so worried as he was right then.

“steve, i’m joking. she’s your girl, y’know that, right? yours,’ bucky assured him. it worked, shockingly, but steve was able to feel his muscles relax once more, earning a small chuckle from bucky. “she’s not my girl.”

“not yet.”

the rest of the night went by in a haze. you were seated with the boys-with you obviously in the middle-and talked about endless things with them. you chatted lively, with your eyes twinkling with some sort of magic that enticed both soldiers, and took your time listening to some of their own stories. bucky took you out dancing-who sent a cautious glance towards steve for permission first- when the orchestra played your favorite song. you ate dinner with them, getting up from your own seat every once in a while to go speak with another lovely lady about rather personal matters.

when this happened for the third time that night, steve noticed that you drifted off for a longer period of time than per usual, but didn’t pay too much attention to it. that is, until the same wonderful woman you had spoken to previously came up to him and handed him a note. it was a tiny, white piece of paper that was folded in half-a firm, delicate red kiss planted on the front of it. like any normal person who was about to reject another, steve began to rapidly spill out apologies to the woman indicating he wasn’t interested, which caused her to laugh. he turned to bucky, who had the same adorning look of confusion all over his face.

“no, you must of misunderstood my intentions, captain. this isn’t from me, it’s from your friend-the one that was sitting here.” the woman informed. her eyes looked from steve’s down the your empty chair in the middle and lifted a finger to it. and just as quick as she had straunted up to them, she was gone. she’d been a messenger for some sort of scheme-but what was it?

steve opened the letter while bucky shifted down to your seat to look at it together. his fingers trembled slightly while lifting the sheet up, nervous as to what you could’ve possibly written that wasn’t as forward as the note itself.

meet me on the terrace in two minutes. the stairs behind you will take you there.

it’s safe to say steve lost his mind, and quite frankly so did bucky. he animatedly hugged his friend, ruffled his hair, slapped his back-everything you could think of. “atta’ boy, stevey! go get your girl!”

steve didn’t even ponder anything beyond this. he hurriedly stood up from his seat and rushed to the back door leading to the stairs, not caring about the people he might have shoved in the process. his heart was thudding against his chest, too loud for him to even hear bucky and his friends whistling and cheering behind him.

the stairs seemed infinite-his speed not even able to match the number of steps there appeared to be-but he got there. to the top of the terrace. to you.

you stood near the bordering edge of the building, your back to him and arms crossed over your chest. you seemed to be looking at the sky laid out in front of you, stars and constellations decorating every inch of it. steve walked slowly towards you, perhaps afraid of startling you, and eventually reached where you were. he stood beside you, taking you in for a split second before you turned your vision to greet him.

“glad you could make it,” you smiled.

it lit his face up, the view in front of him-you. steve was a courageous man, one who spoke his mind to get to the end of the line, to protect those he cared about. but when it came to you, well, that was different.

“god, you have me wrapped around your finger and you don’t even know it, don’t you?” steve huffed with a light shake of his head. he lowered it down, afraid to even look at you. this was it; the closest confession he would ever allow himself to make. he was afraid of the rejection; afraid of the awkward conversations in front of bucky if you didn’t match his sentiments. how would he find another woman like you?

a little finger found its way under his chin. it lifted his head up an inch so he could look up, and when he did, the whole world stopped. a flirty grin was displayed on your lips and the soldier found himself wanting nothing more than to kiss it away.

“i believe it’s quite the opposite, captain,” you retorted. you were testing the waters; seeing if he could finally notice how easy it was for you to turn to putty with a single glance from him.

and then you did an unthinkable thing. your teeth pulled a corner of your bottom lip up, holding it in place before letting it slide back down gently as it slipped from their grip. it was hard not to do what steve did in the following moment. he was watching the entire thing, an urge to devour you whole lurking somewhere in his mind, and then briefly looked back up at your eyes. the same spark, desire, that had always been there for him covered your gaze, granting him permission to do everything he was thinking about. he glanced back down at your lips again and didn’t hesitate in taking you in.

his lips pressed together to yours, his hands finding your waist and gripping slightly while your own arms snaked around his neck. you pulled each other closer, only what your dress and his uniform allowed you to, and you wished for time to stop running. his lips felt like fire against your own, an addicting heat that seemed to burned with the intensity of a thousand suns. he tasted of whiskey, the flavor that his tongue dripped off clogging up your senses and releasing a little more than just a thrill through you.

but then the fire, the burning, the passion altogether was gone. your lips separated themselves from his and you let out a small whimper at the loss, causing steve to laugh quietly. you brought one of your hands to cradle his cheek, a thumb caressing his bottom lip delicately. you saw it curl upwards, simultaneously feeling his grip on your hips tighten. you leaned in to place one more peck-maybe two, or three- and looked up at him after.

“i can’t believe i just kissed captain america,” you grinned.

“i can’t believe i’m holding the most beautiful girl in the world.”

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #1940s!bucky #1940s! steve rogers #james buchanan barnes #mcu #marvel #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers fanfiction #captain america fanfiction #sebastian stan #chris evans

93 notes · View notes

percywinchester27 · 5 years

Text

About a boy (Part-2)

Word count: 2.8K

Warning: Suspense, feels, physical abuse, bullying

Characters: Dean, Cas, Gabriel, Benny, Michael, OCs and… Sam?

Summary: Dean Winchester has a secret. A secret that could really land him in trouble. He never expected to connect with anyone when he walked into the ‘Blue Stone Orphanage for Boys,’ but even then, the walls he has put up are slowly coming down. Now, a series of strange events are threatening to expose him. When everything starts falling apart around him, will he still be able to save the one person that matters the most?

A/N: Many thanks to @thing-you-do-with-that-thing and @deanssweetheart23 for beta reading this story. I love you guys <3

Part 1

The orphanage wasn't quite as gloomy in the daylight, Dean concluded, but still gloomy enough. Cas showed him around the place in the morning. The shower rooms, the mess, the grounds. Everyone looked at him as they passed. The new kid. As if he hadn't had that before.

The building was I- shaped, and a good chunk of the T-shape was occupied. No one really knew what happened in the left-wing. It was boarded and the only way to go there was from the ground and up the other staircase. The ground floor had the office, the library, store room, record room, the kitchen and the mess hall, which overlooked the huge, unkempt backyard.

The first floor was mostly storages and a creepy meeting room for when interested couples visited the orphanage to look at a kid up for adoption. Looked like a jail cell to Dean. The second floor had a Rec room with one old TV set. A couple of computers that looked like they were about to give up any second now. A table tennis board and a few other random board games. It was longish room, like several walls had been knocked down to make space for it, with an assortment of mismatching sofas. The place was about as lively as an almost abandoned old age home. The second floor housed kids from 3 to 6, third floor from 7 to 10, then the floor above had 11 to 14 and the fifth floor, the one where Dean was to live was 15 to 17.

He kept his head down all through breakfast, carefully watching kids file in and file out. There must have been at least 600 to 700 of them in the whole building. It was a big facility and that just made it all the more difficult for him. Afterwards, he stood by the widow, seeing all the little kids scramble on to one bus after another and head to school. Dean started the day after, so today was all he would get.

Cas clapped him on his back on his way out. "Stay quiet, alright?" his blue eyes twinkled.

"Okay."

As soon as all of them were in the bus, Dean slipped out of the mess quietly. His cleaning duties weren't going to be assigned till later today which is why he had to make the most of his time. He passed Andy in the hall, who was headed towards his office.

Dean nodded to him, all the while cursing under his breath. The record room was just down the corridor from Andy's office. How was he going to break into it with Andy just around the corner? He had to try though.

He looked around once Andy had passed, then doubled back to the record room. It was locked.

Great!

He pulled out the lock pick he kept with him from his pocket and picked it open, cursing once more because this would leave evidence, and he was, at no cost, supposed to draw attention. Once inside, he shut the door behind him and turned to face the room. His breath caught. The room was full of racks stacked with files. There must have been thousands and thousands of those. Till there was only enough room to walk around.

"Shit!"

There was no way he was going to find one single record in this sea of files. He went along the first row anyway, maybe they were categorized alphabetically, though being organized seemed highly out of character for the whole place.

Still, Dean went around, looking for 'W.' That wasn't the most common letter for surnames, now was it?

All of a sudden the door barged open.

"Who's there?" A voice called. Dean jumped, startled. "It's me…" he said, as meekly as he could manage. I'm new here… I got lost."

"Come out, now."

Dean walked back carefully till he was at the start of the rack. A lanky boy of about 19 was standing at the door. He wore a janitor's uniform, and looked slightly punch drunk.

"You shouldn't be here, kid!"

"I-I got lost…" he stammered.

The janitor dude, walked closer,eyeing Dean. The nameplate on his chest read "Garth F."

"Alright, but don't have Andy catch you snooping around next time," Garth scolded good-naturedly. "Now off you go."

Dean didn't need to be told twice. He made a beeline straight for the 5th floor. Not stopping till he was on his bed, heart pounding out of his chest.

What had he been thinking? Getting caught on the first damn day?

He could barely swallow the lunch and then hit the sack at 5, before Cas could get back from school. Dean was starting to like him, and at this point he couldn't really afford to do that. The sleepless night and an afternoon of over thinking, at least, aided in passing out cold.

Dean was awoken by a rag thrown over his face, suffocating him. He tried to flail, to yell but rough hands grabbed his legs, his arms, pinning him to the mattress.

"Don't make a sound, or you'll pay for it," someone hissed in his ear.

So, this was the initiation. Deliberately, Dean stopped moving. If he didn't know who he was watching his back from, none of this would ever work.

He was roughly shoved into a huge gurney bag and then dragged across the hall. Fortunately, not down the stairs. He guessed that whoever the captors were, at least they were scared of making too much noise, so he wasn't obviously staying on the same floor. 24 steps down, flat stretch then a pause then a left turn, another 24 steps. Dean tried to memorize every step, but what with all the juggling around, it was hard to make sense of the direction.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the gurney carrying him was thrown on the ground. The fall hit his head hard. Then it began, the ceaseless thrashing. Hands and feet, mostly feet found each part of his body, hands, head, leg, just everything. He curled up into a ball, head in hands to avoid getting hit in the eye or getting his nose broken. That thing was permanent and he didn't want to live his life with a crooked nose.

At long last he was dumped on to the ground unceremoniously. At first, he didn't remove his hands from over his face, but when nothing happened immediately, he blinked into the darkness, barely seeing anything.

"What's your name, kid?" A harsh voice asked.

"You want it tattooed on your chest?" Dean asked. It earned him a swift kick to the gut.

"Smartass."

The comment was a throwaway, but Dean could hear a hint of grudging admiration.

"Your name?" Another voice asked, this one was harsher, and also older.

Dean wanted to throw another comment, but he figured he needed to get up first to have at least some advantage. If answering was going to buy him time, might as well.

"Winchester."

"Think I've heard that name somewhere," the first voice muttered. Dean inhaled sharply.

"Winchester what?" Second voice.

"Dean Winchester," he replied, hoping that the first voice had something more to add to. Sneakily, he got on his knees, his body killing him as he ambled.

"We have an initiation system here, Winchester," a third voice added.

How many were there? In the bare light coming from the far away lamp near the side building, Dean could make out at least 5 silhouettes. There could be a couple more.

There was no way he could fight his way through all of those.

"Strip!" The harsh voice said.

"What's the fun in that?" Dean said, careful, calculative. If he had the disadvantage of the darkness, so did they. Maybe, just maybe he could run away.

Another shove. Dean almost fell back this time. When the second shove came, he was ready to block it and throw it back. His one hand collided with the assailants and the other landed on his back, pushing him down. There was a muted yell and whoever the boy was, took another one down with it.

"Think you're smart, huh?" The harsh voice asked, and three figures crowded in.

"Wait!"

The huffing thin frame of Castiel threw himself before Dean. "Let him go, Michael."

So that was the bully's name.

"Castiel?" Michael backtracked. "What're you doing here?"

"Dean's my friend. I can't let you guys do that to him."

Michael seemed to regard Cas. "This happens to every kid."

There were jeers in the background.

"Yeah but he's not a kid anymore" Cas said, hurriedly. "C'mon, man! Let it go."

Even in the darkness, Dean could see Michael's shoulders go taut. "Why are you trying to save the newbie's ass, Castiel? What's in it for you?"

Cas said nothing, and Dean wondered the same. What did he get out of saving Dean?

"I've had enough of this soap opera," Michael said impatiently. "Gary, pull Castiel away. Let's get this show on the road."

There was a sudden whelp, and then Cas grunted, as if he had been hurt.

"No," Dean shouted, losing his calm now. Whatever Cas' deal was, he had still tried to help Dean. He didn't deserve to get punched for it. "Let him go. If you got guts, come at me, asshat."

No one answered. There was just a flurry of movement and Dean was down on the ground once more, the dust making him cough. They could thrash him for all they wanted. He knew they would succeed because they had the advantage of numbers, and they knew the place well while he was plunged in this darkness. But, like hell he was giving up without putting up a fight. His only concern was Cas. He had to be okay.

"Gentlemen!" A silky voice suddenly interrupted. The thrashing stopped.

"I see you're showering our lovely new inmate with all the love."

"Gabriel?" Michael asked, perplexed.

"Yo, Mikey!! You back to abusing little kids in the alley?"

"What?" Michael's tone quickly changed from surprise to anger. Dean noticed that this Gabriel was making no effort to keep his voice down like the others.

"Too dark here, don't you think?" Gabriel wondered out loud. Then, there was the distinct sound of a matchstick being struck and the view was flooded with light.

Holding the match was a boy of about Dean's age, or maybe a little older. It was hard to tell. He was blonde with light eyes. Maybe brown, maybe hazel, it was hard to tell. The most distinct thing in his eyes wasn't the reflection of the dancing flames. It was the dancing mischief.

"You'll wake everyone up, you idiot," a boy said, he looked scared. From the voice, Dean pegged him as Gary.

"Oh, you're worried about this little thing?" Gabriel smiled, looking at the matchstick that was on the verge of extinguishing. "I wonder what you'll make of the lights that are about to flood the hallways because I left one such matchstick burning in your room. Give it… uhhh ten more minutes before the smoke sets up the fire alarm and then boom! Red lights everywhere."

"Fuck!" Another boy cursed.

In the fading light, Dean had seen it all. The cold, calculating look in Dark haired Michael's eyes, his three goons lurking in the background. One more was holding Cas, then there was Gary who looked ready to piss his pants.

"This isn't over, Winchester!" Michael growled, then took off running towards the building, his goons all following him. The guy holding Cas, abandoned him, pushing him into the dirt, too.

"Are you okay?" Dean said, pulling him to his feet. "Why-"

"Well, surely he isn't!" Gabriel said speaking over Dean, leaving all his oily pretense behind. He was irritated. "Cassy, are you out of your mind? Why did you do that?"

Cas just dusted the grime of his shirt.

"Dean was in trouble."

"Yeah, he's new!" Gabriel shrugged. "Why did you put your ass on the line for him?"

"Why did you put your ass in line for me?" Cas asked. "Look, Gabe, let it go."

"It's your head," Gabriel said. "Just don't lose it over some newbie idiot."

The sound of footsteps walking away was much too loud now.

"C'mon, we need to get moving," Cas said. They hadn't really hurt him, but he was still roughed up. Despite that, his voice was pleasant and kind.

"Thanks, man," Dean said, looking down as they quickly walked up the path. "You didn't have to do that. They could have hurt you."

"Nah, they wouldn't," Cas brushed it off. There was a confidence there, and Dean wondered what the story was.

They walked in silence for a while, before Cas mumbled.

"Don't mind Gabe. He isn't all that cocky. He means well."

Dean got cocky alright. What he didn't get was how Gabriel could pull a stunt like that without getting in trouble. Michael's gang would totally get him now, but he didn't seem bothered at all.

When Dean wondered out loud, Cas laughed. "Don't worry about Gabe. He's a sneaky piece of work. He has something over each one of them. Even Michael. I don't know what, but everyone just generally stays away from Gabe, ya know."

Survival of the fittest. Gabe sure knew how to be the dominant species.

"He seems to care about you."

Cas' eyes glinted in the darkness. "We've been together for a long time, now, sharing the same room. Well, he's your roommate, too, now."

They had reached the back porch now. "We can't go in from the left wing. Those idiots probably locked that back up."

"What do we do then?" The question was more panicky than Dean wanted it to be. The place was affecting him more than it should.

"Don't worry," Cas reassured him. "We can stake out in the store room till the morning and then slip out when they unlock the floors."

The plan worked without a glitch, and soon they found themselves bunking against the musty furniture at the very end. Cas stretched out on the floor and Dean took up the side against the wall. This way, they couldn't see each other, but from the sound of his breathing, Dean knew Cas was still up.

"Can I ask you something?" Dean finally said.

"Yeah?"

"Why did you bust me out?"

Cas was quiet for a while. "I think you're different, Dean. There's something up with you. I've been in an orphanage all my life, I've seen countless kids come and go. They all look scared, look lonely. You- You on the other hand look like you've been sent into an enemy territory, you aren't judging this place, you're scoping it. Like you're up to something. Now, I also know you're not bad, because I saw you help out the kids out front today with the lawn when you didn't have to. So, I keep thinking to myself why you're here."

Holy shit! Cas was smart.

Dean knew if he lied now, he'd suck at it, but also he'd royally insult both the favor and the trust that Cas had put on him.

"I- " he started, feeling dangerously nervous. "I came here with a purpose."

Cas seemed to hear with baited breath.

"You see, my parents both died in a house fire." Dean waited for it, because now was where the "I'm sorry" came in. Cas didn't offer one. Probably because he had heard way too many sob stories by this point, or maybe because he knew all too well that those same 'I'm sorrys' didn't mean a damn thing."

"Well, I wasn't their only kid. I had a little brother- Sam. They… they took him away and put him in some orphanage. It has been 11 years since I last saw him. Turns out the some orphanage is this orphanage."

"Holy heavens!" Cas sat up straight, tumbling a bucket behind him. The clang of the metal it banged against, echoed through the whole room and maybe outside.

The two of them went deathly still.

There were footsteps outside, and both Dean and Cas, slipped further inside. He under the stashed away bed, and Cas under an abandoned table.

Dean pursed his lips, not daring to breathe too loudly even after the footsteps had receded. He stayed silent, watching the minutes go by. Just when he was sure that Cas had probably fallen asleep, the quietest whispers sounded in the dark.

"We're going to find your brother, Dean. We're going to turn this place upside down and find your brother."

Dean did not reply. His throat was too thick.

Now that he had let his guard down, the fear, anxiety and worse, the hope came flooding into his heart, making him defenseless. He stayed up long after Cas' hushed snores washed over him, feeling the gratefulness and camaraderie he hadn't expected at all.

******************************

A/N 2: I really really hope y’all like this story!! Please let me know what you think… the feedback is what keeps me going :)

If you wanna be tagged, please send me an ask

About a Boy taglist:

@sdavid09 @deanssweetheart23 @blacktithe7 @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @cosicas-cuquis @chalicia @anathewierdo @mrswhozeewhatsis @protectteamfreewill @firefly124-writing @spnbaby-67 @hoboal87 @rizlow1 @donnaintx @starmission @gh0stgurl @tftumblin @emily-a-c11 @ericaprice2008 @jotink78 @charliebradbury1104 @ohgodwhybloggg @i-dont-get-cold

#dean winchester #dean winchester fanfiction #spn fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester imagine #anawrites #ana writes Dean #ana writes aab #aab 2 #aab part 2 #q

81 notes · View notes

ravenwritesstuff · 5 years

Text

Best Laid Plans (6/?)

Fandom: Frozen (modern AU, no magic) Pairings: Helsa, established Kristanna, Rapunzel/Eugene, lotsa frohana Rating: T for now, M later almost for sure A/N: Stop looking at me.

The multi-function table is loaded with pastries, fruit, and more bagels than Elsa remembers being in existence. Kristoff, Eugene, and Rapunzel all have their plates in front of them - Rapunzel's somehow the most full - and are conversing amicably with him.

The space is not large but it was designed to give an open, inviting feel. She had created it to make everyone feel welcome the second they entered the room and it seems her design has done just exactly that. She never once considered that could be a detriment until now.

“Elsa!” Rapunzel jumps up like she hadn't talked to her just moments before in the atrium. The rest of the eyes in the room track to her immediately. She does her best to ignore him.

“I don't recall having a meeting scheduled this morning.” She feels that she is dripping on the stone-tile floor. “You will have to excuse my tardiness.”

She doesn’t flinch meeting his gaze even as mascara stings her eyes. She bets it is running down her cheeks, too. To his credit he keeps his composure despite her rain-soaked appearance. Except not to his credit, because shouldn’t even be here. Of all the entitled bullshit she has ever encountered…

She crosses her arms and looks at her employees.

“Thank you all for entertaining our guest at the expense of your other tasks, but you may go now. I will take it from here.”

They get the point.

The trio are all gracious as they take their plates and leave (all of them grabbing a bit more from the generous spread before ducking out sheepishly). Elsa gives them her best facsimile of a smile as they exit. She shuts the door behind them with a definitive thud (though she knows that will do little to keep them from eavesdropping) before turning back to the root of this entire problem. The idea of her staff listening in makes her even more irritable. She hates being the center of attention.

Still, she turns and meets his gaze. “Mister Westergaard.”

He smiles. “Hans.”

He is seated on a cushioned bench that was custom built for the space. She half expects him to rest his elbows on the table and cradle his chin in his hands with his patronizing tone. She stiffens a bit, but tries not to acknowledge it.

She is a professional. She will at least see what he wants.

“I wasn’t expecting you.”

“You wouldn't let me take you to dinner so I brought you breakfast.”

She remembers their conversation after the dance, the granola bar she grabbed on the run, but also remembers her most ultimate truth and speaks the lie that must come from it: “I don't eat breakfast.”

��Everyone eats breakfast.”

“Well I don't.”

He scoffs, smile tugging at his wide mouth.

“Doesn't take bubble baths. Doesn’t dance. Doesn't date. Doesn't eat breakfast.” He rattles off the list and she feels her ears turning pink. Had he really listened that closely? “I know for a fact that at least twenty five percent of those statements is patently untrue. It makes me wonder about the other seventy-five percent." He dangles the bait but she doesn't take it. He shifts. "So if you don't do all of those things, what do you do?”

“I run this company.”

He nods his head slowly, keeping his clever eyes trained on hers. “And you are in charge of planning all of the events put together by this company?”

It is a leading question. She knows it. Doesn't want to feed into it, but is uncertain how exactly to skate around it.

“Anna and I are partners. Which of us take the lead on projects depends on what best fit our client's needs.”

He leans forward then, just enough that she can smell ulterior intent even as he assumes a professional posture.

“So your clients pick their point of contact. Interesting.”

She can feel him circling, and realization snaps his intent into place. She knows where this is leading, and a chill runs down her spine. If she had known he would be this persistent…

She presses forward, trying to correct her misstep.

“In part. The team at E & A Events all have a say as well. It is a team operation. We all have different, but equally important, roles.” She doesn’t like where this conversation is going, but she won’t surrender even as she drips on the floor. Even if she wants to shove him out the door and force him out of her mind and life.

“Equal but different roles, fascinating. I’d love to know more.”

She had practically gift wrapped that segue for him. Instead of getting him out the door she was helping him dig trenches. She could kick herself for it.

“The inner workings really aren’t that important or interesting to most.”

“Try me. Let's start with the big blonde guy. Christopher.”

“Kristoff,” she is just a little too quick, enjoying correcting him just a bit too much, and his eyebrow flicks in amusement. “Just Kristoff.”

“My sincerest apologies. Kristoff. What does he do?”

“He supervises and creates special builds for our events. Stages, tables, altars, set pieces… he also coordinates event set-up and tear down logistics and coordinates all parties involved in that.”

“Fascinating,” he says and she believes him. He seems to hang off of her every word and that makes her nervous. “What else? What about that Rapunzel girl?”

“IT, admin, and graphic design. She can build you an event website with sign up funnels all customized around a graphics suite she creates from your concepts as well as facilitate any paper needs you may have from invitations to menus.”

He hardly lets her breathe: “And Eugene?”

“Vendor liaison and customer service. He is excellent at negotiating with vendors to get you exactly what you want at a price that is fair for everyone as well as day-of coordinating.”

He had already gotten a front row seat of Eugene’s flair for customer service two days ago at Eric and Ariel’s wedding. She is certain he will pick up how far she is underselling each team member and the extent of what they do just because of that, but he doesn’t mention it. He keeps right on with his line of questioning.

“Anna?” He keeps it short, like not letting her pause for even a moment, like he is quizzing her.

Two can play that game. “As Creative Director she does whatever I don't do.”

He smiles then like he knows something she doesn't, “and you. What is it that you do?”

She has given these answers ten thousand times, has recited them all from rote already, knows exactly how to answer his questions but the words catch in her throat. She cannot help but feel she is walking into some sort of trap and she does not want to be caught. She cannot afford to, for either of their sakes.

She takes a breath. “I am Director of Operations and work closely with the designated point of contact to an event that is both seamless and completely authentic to the person or organization putting it on as well as manage several day-to-day operations.”

He leans back and rubs a hand across his chin. He smiles: “I like listening to you talk.”

Her brain scrambles. She does not understand what any of that has to do with anything. She stays professional.

“Thank you.”

“Tell me something else. Anything. Anything at all...”

The sensation of just being a specimen, like a bug under a microscope, makes her anxious. His eyes skate the length of her body and she is suddenly hyper aware of how her once shapeless dress now clings to each curve, how her eyes sting with the mascara leaking into them, how each inch of her body is still dripping on the floor. He seems to notice her discomfort with a sardonic glee, the fight she is waging to not tighten her arms over her chest and hide, to seem relaxed.

“I have told you all I can possibly think to tell you, Mister Westergaard. Why don’t you enlighten me about the specifics of what brought you here this morning?” She turns the table, done beating around the bush. She won’t be made to stand trial, barefoot, with clammy skin, in her own office. "Because if conversation is why you are here I can guarantee you there are much easier and better places you can find it."

His smile falls a bit, but he catches himself. That all too human crack bleeds through and she thinks she has hurt him. She steels her insides against remorse as his cool and controlled exterior snaps back in place.

His smile now wolfish.

“I am launching an initiative," he makes a broad sweeping gesture with his arms. "And I wasn't going to make too much of a fuss, but you all changed my mind.”

She expects him to continue but he doesn't. Instead he just watches her. She frowns.

"Mister Westergaard I don't know if I quite understand. We plan events - not initiatives. Perhaps you would be better served with a Public Relations firm or -"

"Those pieces are already in place." He smiles, just a bit crooked as if he has anticipated this rejection and has a counter prepared. “What I need is a party, and a good one, to draw the proper attention.”

She cannot help but wonder just what a man like this considered to be proper attention, but pushing against him isn’t getting her what she wants. So she leans in.

“Do you have a prospective date for this event?”

Normally these questions would be answered before she ever saw the client in person. Normally there would be boards and sketches and swatches of color and timelines and menus all laid out in coordinating binders for the initial presentation - drawn up from the initial phone consult. Her clients didn’t like wasting time. Neither does she, but here she is.

He tells her and it is all she can do not to choke on her own disbelief.

“That is only five weeks from now!”

“Thirty nine days to be exact.”

“Mister Westergaard - we have other clients, other events, that is hardly enough time to properly plan something of any size or scale.

“Please. It’s Hans,” he stands, smoothing the front of his tailored slacks as he goes and her mouth goes dry. "And you're starting to make me think you aren't interested in taking this on."

There is something a little too casual about how he stands, too relaxed, the drift of his eyes too lazy to be anything but sharply calculated. She can see it. She may not know him well, but she knows he isn’t one to leave something to chance. She didn’t bow to his charm so now he will prod her pride. It irks her to admit that it is working.

“It isn’t that at all.”

“Then what is it?”

She meets his gaze. The crisp lavender button down he wears brings out the green of his eyes and she knows if she was closer she would see the gold ring around his iris. Even with several feet between them she knows just how warm he would feel if she touched him, probably even warmer than she remembers with her rain chilled skin. She knows how he smells. The memory alone is enough to make her heart pound so hard that she is sure he can see her pulse in her throat.

He steps around the decadence-covered table and her calf cramps as she steels herself to not retreat.

“This is my job, Mister Westergaard.”

He comes closer, hands tucked into pockets. She stays, chin lifting.

“I’m aware.”

He stops a few feet in front of her, close enough now that all he would have to do is reach out and suddenly

Her words come out on a gust of breath. “I am not a challenge. This is not some sort of game.”

He cocks his head. “I’m not playing any game.”

She searches his face, warning bells screaming that there must be a lie, but all she finds is that blindingly sincere humanity that scrambles her thoughts.

“I have other events, other clients -”

“So is it a ‘no’”?

She swears he doesn’t move but he feels closer. The light in his eyes shifts and she cannot think. She cannot breathe.

She remembers what Anna said.

This is bigger than what she wants.

A client like Hans Westergaard could establish their company for life - and even if she has disconnected from the length of that concept she knows what it means for others. She knows the firm needs this as impossible and inconceivable as it seems.

“There will be some ground rules.” The fact she keeps the shake out of her voice is a moral victory.

His brow quirks. “You want to set rules for something that isn’t a game? Interesting.”

She feels his humor like a contagious warmth spreading through her chest and nearly chokes at the weight. This was not what she wanted, what she expected from today...

“Any relationship we have will be business only. I cannot take you on as a client if you do not agree to that.”

His wide mouth pulls to the side enough to be just shy of a smile: “Are you implying that I would engage your services for anything other than professional reasons?”

His words sends heat flooding up her neck despite her soggy state.

The same heat she sees in his cunning eyes, the same she knows she will feel if she touches him.

He is trying to fluster her and she knows it.

He is succeeding and he knows it.

She forces her calm: a skill she has mastered over the years.

"I am not implying anything. If we are to work together it is important we both handle ourselves in the appropriate manner."

“Of course. Absolutely.” He smiles, shifting his weight into a casual posture.

She knows she should ask about budget, about the theme, about the twenty five thousand things she clarifies with clients before even thinking about accepting them for their services - but she knows that this point none of that matters. At this point - all that matters is getting him out of her offices so she can think, work, breathe.

So she agrees, “absolutely.”

She takes the lead and extends a hand and he glances at it with a dark twinkle in his eye. He takes it is his and just as she expects his touch burns.

It is all she can do to not catch her breath as they shake on an agreement she can hardly understand.

She releases his hand as soon as she can, letting it sink back to her side as naturally as possible when all she wants is to yank it back and rub her palm on the cool damp fabric of her thigh.

But they need this.

This is something bigger than herself and her own comfort.

She has said ‘no’ to men before, has built those walls she has contrived to protect them from herself, but still those warning bells ring. Anna knows. She knows. This one is different.

But it is only thirty-nine days. What could happen?

The way he smiles at her across the space between them answers that question even if she chooses to ignore it.

[ previous ] [ next ]

#best laid plans #helsa #kristanna #fanfiction #rapunzel #eugene #tangled #frozen #raven writes stuff

27 notes · View notes

shineonyoucrazyyandere · 6 years

Note

I would love another Giorno yandere post! If you can do love bits and making out then that would be awesome! Maybe a childhood friend who moved away and meets him again when he is a Don? I also love the way you write and I am excited to read what you come up with for any request you get and write for. Have a great day!

Ooh Pbftfbt Thank You and - I just saw this, Don’t mind me haha…It’s a definite done deal so let’s start this thing! Oh and don’t mind the formatting guess this is a scenario thing, kind of devolved from headcanons into a little story on accident.

Yandere! Don! Giorno Giovanna /childhood friend (Scenario/a few started headcanons)

-Giorno would likely be very obsessive if you had anything to do with his awful childhood

- His charisma would come off very strongly in a sweet sickly way

-If you’re in Naples you’re likely staying there if he’s there

Little hope was left for the young Giorno Giovanna. A neglectful mother who spent her free time partying, and an abusive father at home. Bullying from neighborhood kids, it was a hellish scenario for a young boy. Safe to say these events made him think very lowly of himself.

He was slightly surprised when someone didn’t act that way. You. Another neighbor didn’t swing at him in discontent, nor sneer in mockery. No, you were eager for a friendship. Was he not scum to you? He didn’t quite understand at first.

You didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t talk much, rather you’d try your best and ask about things nearby. You’d point out you liked the color of the ocean, a specific species of flower that a person had been growing, or a peculiarly shaped rock you found messing around on the sidewalk. It seemed something fit for someone younger but he found himself to enjoy it oddly enough.

Much so it became something that made his heart flutter with happiness. Each and every time he was kicked to the ground, beaten by his father, or bullied he’d think of those moments you’d play with him, or give him a little trinket.

Though normalcy seemed short lived after those precious weeks.

He found your mother one day looking around for you frantically. He offered to help since he was around you the most. Yet when he and your mother did find you it…was horrific. The passion in your mother’s eyes as she screamed and came to grab your frail and battered form off the ground. Your hair had been cut by scissors, blood was sleeping down several places on your body.

Her profuse cursing was drowned out by his rapidly beating heart. Why would someone do this? Innocent. You were innocent. Did they not care? He was the scum they were supposed to beat. What was he supposed to do about it?

After that he didn’t see you, only your mother going in and out of your home with other people, until even her presence was gone. She must’ve moved you out of the house after the hospital trip.

He’d continually look at the small item you gave him after that. Obsessing over it and how you were harmed.

Giorno even tried to inquire about you after he saved that Mafia affiliated man’s life. You had already left Naples to a rural town in Northern Italy by that point.

As disheartened as he was he could wait…he’d see you again eventually.

After events that lead to Giorno to Passione and eventually becoming Don of said organization after* (Giorno is aged up to 18 from here on out btw)

By some sheer amount of ungodly luck Giorno spots you at a restaurant in Naples. He reassures himself that it’s you over and over in his head.

He’d casually introduce himself to your table out of the blue. You would be spontaneously surprised at his presence and the change of his hair color.

You two would catch up on details of your lives (naturally he wouldn’t let on about him being the Don of the mafia).

Just about everything that leaves your lips is internalized into his memory. Even your plans when you were intending to leave Naples.

Giorno would end up paying for your meal and anything extra you wanted. He’d definitely insist on this.

His heart irrationally races after you leave, finally knowing you were safe and sound. He could finally keep track of you after all this time.

Speaking of he’d find your hotel and mode of transportation that you used quickly.

Although he’d be very busy with running a Mafia, every spare second he had would be spending time with you. The hotel room you were in would be spontaneously upgraded to the nicest suite in the hotel.

Anytime you need refereshers on directions (or just flat out short cuts to avoid crowds) He’ll be eager to guide you.

It doesn’t seem all that harmful at first but you’d definitely notice his presence more often than usual the longer you stay in Naples.

“Oh Giorno I didn’t see you there…”

He’ll give a lovely smile that absolutely exudes charisma, much so chills go down your spine. It was almost creepy how charming he became.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to frighten you y/n”

You could just barely pass that off as him knowing the city real well and you both just bumped into each other. But your mind ate up at you otherwise.

Then there was a couple days where you could totally relax simply sightseeing, a few museum visits and such. Though you would end up with a nice treat in between that people seemed to eagerly offer you.

On the night before you’d supposedly leave, Giorno ends up inviting you to dinner. Anything you preferred. It was a mere distraction as he was getting anxious at the thought of you leaving again. He could show you much more if you just stayed a little longer.

He could make you happy, just as the city of Naples had.

When you return to your hotel room you’d go straight to the shower and change your clothes for bed. By the time your usual routine was over, you were sleeping soundly.

Without you noticing your belongings, mainly your purse and phone would be turned into animals just small enough to get under the crack of the bottom of the door.

He’d take any physical passes for the train you had, anything scheduled out of Naples would be canceled. Of course he couldn’t have you abruptly leaving either…so he’d have to keep your phone on his person. Speaking of phones he already made sure the one in the room with you was hidden away from your grasp as well, while you were out earlier in the day.

Waking up you’d be horribly distraught over finding your phone. At first you wanted to call down at the desk but there wasn’t a phone in the room. Even though you were sure there had been one before.

You would be too late for the train that recently left twenty minutes ago. On top of that your passes were missing anyway.

By the time you were done searching the room you were panicked if you had been pickpocketed by somebody. Eventually you would bump into Giorno who happened to be very receptive to helping you.

He’d suggest looking up in your room one last time before going to the police.

About five minutes into searching again the blond claims he found it. You ask where and he responds it was simply tangled up in the blankets as he holds it up casually. Eagerly you asked for it back but he didn’t hand it back to you.

“Giorno. I need my phone back please”

He would merely hold the device towards himself refusing to. You would advance towards him and attempted to grab the phone out of his hand. Only to feel something furry moving in your hand before quickly dropping it.

A mouse.

“W-where’s my p-phone Giorno?”

He told you wouldn’t need it right now and you insisted why.

“There’s no reason for you to leave so soon”

You’d be both confused and horrified at what he was saying.

His grip returns to clutch your dominant hand that once held the mouse. The instinct to tell you to run would be screaming loudly but you just couldn’t. Something told you that he would figure out you’d try and run.

Abruptly he’d take your hand that was currently in his own and gently kiss the top of yours. You became even more nervous as you instinctively put your other hand out on his chest to keep him at bay.

His free hand of course would end up taking ahold of that one you were trying to push with as well.

“I-I…” was all you were able to stutter out

It would be the only partial thing you’d end up saying. His face would end up near the crook of your neck. His warm lips would gently fall onto the surface of your skin. Again, and again. All until your lips were almost touching.

He’d pause for a moment and directly look at you as you would jerk your head back freaked out.

““I only wanted to see what interests you had…just everything about you made me fascinated and well I don’t want to see you hurt by anyone else”

By some strange manner your head ended up closer to his and eventually his hold on your mouth was too strong to slip out of.

He’d let you get a breath in here and there since you weren’t used to it. Any moment you tried to fight you’d end up in a deeper kiss. All between your tongue being played with his and yours being danced around, to simple small butterfly kisses.

Your arms were at their sides with his hands still gripping yours, lightheaded-ness followed suit. In a short few minutes he had left you breathless.

The utter yearning in his eyes was a bit frightening.

“Let me do this for you,hmm?”

#giorno giovanna #giorno jojo #yandere imagines #yandere x reader #yandere #yandere headcanons #part 5 jojo #golden wind #jojo no kimyou na bouken #jojo’s bizarre adventure #jjba #yandere jjba

192 notes · View notes

norahjakobs · 5 years

Text

Earth 33: Outlaws - Jason Todd

Earth 33 is my attempt at rewriting the dc universe. I’m doing this entirely for my own entertainment and as such will be writing what appeals to me. I’m starting this au off with the members of the outlaws, almost all of whom never canonly have been members.

So without farther ado, here’s Jason (This is a long one)

(TW: Death, Drugs, Overdosing, Crime, Vague Allusions to Rape)

Jason Peter Todd was born to Willis and Catherine Todd in a backstreet in Crime Alley. His father a small time crook and his mother drug addicted and unable to take care of him, he was basically left alone emotionally other than the few times Willis made time for his little prince of Gotham. Such as when he pickpocketed two tickets for a flying grayson show.

Willis got arrested on charges of drug use, theft, and grand theft auto. Reportedly he died in a prison riot started by some of Harvey Dents goons. Jason was 8 when this happened and it affected him greatly, he locked himself in his room in the Todd familys beat up tiny apartment for three days till he realized his mother hadn’t gone shopping or even begun to try and hustle any money for bills. He knew then that he’d be taking care of his mother till the day she overdosed like how the neighbors kept saying she would. Pick pocketing and theft became his new way of life but it was beyond stressful for a child of his age, and he was beat up several times by both gang members and police officers who caught him stealing.

He was 10 when his mother died from an overdose, it had been a long day and he was just happy to be able to bring some noodles and dollar store tomato paste home. But as he entered his home of ten years it smelled like how the alleys he always rushed through instead of walking smelled. He set the bags down at the door and rushed to the source of the scent. He got into the cramped kitchen and found his mother, dead. He went into his room and with a vacant expression on his face packed anything he had of value, he knew he couldn’t call 911, the phone service to the house had been cut three months ago, and besides there was no money to give his poor mother a proper burial.

He lived on the streets for the next two years and those two years taught him the way of the street, the distrust, the scrappy fighting that came when you hadn’t ate in three days, the value of a warm meal. Late one night he saw a chance that didn’t come by everyday, the batmobile, unguarded in an alleyway. He could only imagine how much the tires on it would fetch, so yeah he tried to jack the tires off the batmoblie. He was caught by Batman, who took him to get some food and talked with him. He was dropped off at a Wayne funded shelter.

And the next morning something bizarre happened, the people at the shelter let Jason know that there was someone interested in taking him in. He was hesitant at first but agreed to meet this person. A little later Bruce Wayne came in and chatted with Jason who was at first dismissive of the man but warmed up during the conversation, especially when Bruce shared about how he lost his parents when he was around 10. Jason agreed to try out living with him.

He liked it alot to say the least. He ran around the manor stuffing his face full of junk food almost constantly when he first got there till Alfred stepped in, just for his healths stake as a tumble down the long stairs or getting stick off of eating too much wouldn’t be all that fun for the kid. Jason wanted to stay and so stay he would.

Bruce put graves for Jason’s parents in the Wayne family graveyard next to Dick’s parents. Jason was put at ease by finally being able to put them to rest, including his mom’s body that was tracked down in GCP’s system as a yet to be identified body, his father’s body however had not yet been found.

Something that Bruce hadn't accounted for was the fact that Jason was a troubled sleeper, everything else he was doing perfectly with adjusting too, he was doing amazing at school, his checkup only indicated that they might want to give him some multivitamin gummies. But he just couldn’t get to sleep, he was too nervous too, and when he wasn’t too nervous he was too full of energy and trying to use it up doing something. So it was inevitable that he noticed how often Bruce was out at night and how at times he couldn’t find Alfred anywhere.

So when Bruce and Alfred were busy at some glala that didn’t let children in (Side note to myself, write younger Jason at one of these glalas) Jason poked his nose around the house looking for anything hidden. And while pulling books off the shelf in the study he tripped on the carpet and knocked a bust on the desk over, revealing a button. He did what you do when you find a button and he pressed it revealing a firemen pole, which he went down.

He ran around the cave unattended for an hour and when Bruce and Alfred has finally managed to get back home he had managed to put on one of Dick’s old robin costumes and was trying to figure out how to turn on the batmobile. Bruce sat him down and explained everything, and once he was done Jason asked if he could be Robin, and pointed out all his selling points like that his grades were good, he was good at running, he could throw a punch.

Bruce agreed to let him become Robin after a few months of training. Jason would remember his first night as Robin as one of the best of his life, only second to being adopted. His first night they dealt with a few purse snatchers, a mugging, and the crown of the night was a heist being pulled off by The Riddler at an art museum.

He met his brother Dick he and Bruce went to Bludhaven for a weekend due to Wayne Enterprises related business. The three of them met up for lunch on the Saturday and Jason and Dick got along greatly and poked fun at Bruce throughout the whole meal. On Sunday it turned out a mob had made the billanet plan to kidnap Bruce Wayne and hold him for ransom. Nightwing and Robin teamed up to save him and by the end of the adventure Dick gave Jason his phone number and told him to call whenever he’d like.

He was pretty friendless though, at school he was focused on the work and there wasn’t any sidekicks around his age running around Gotham. So Bruce organized the sidekick equivalent of a playdate with Blue Devils on again off again sidekick Kid Devil, also known as Eddie Bloomberg. The two were only supposed to taking down Polka-Dot Man who was planning a robbery. But when they returned to where Batman and Blue Devil were supposed to be figuring out a case with Zatanna at her hotel all they found were scorch marks and a very confused Zachary Zatara who had been in the hotel dining room before hearing a bunch of yelling and coming to investigate.

The events that followed were both chaotic and too long to list here. But for more details you can read here!

A couple years later he had hit the age of 15 and was overall, happy. He had a brother who loved him and checked in on him, he had a penpal who understood the stress of being a sidekick. But he also had lingering problems, anger over the treatment he got as a child and the treatment he saw others get, an empty feeling left by his parents. And what really brought out these feelings was a man by the name of Felipe Garzonas, someone that represented everything he hated. A person who abused his privilege to take advantage of those less fortunate, and then got off thanks to that privilege. Batman and Robin got him arrested but he got out the same day thanks to diplomatic immunity. And the man’s victim, overcome with terror took her own life. So when Jason was left alone with the man on a balcony it didn’t come as a surprise that he didn’t help when Felipe was falling to his death. Though the question of if he was pushed or slipped would never be answered.

Jason’s mental health took a dip due to what had happened and the fact that Bruce was avoiding him, and he called Dick who was having problems of his own at the time. But agreed to take Jason on a teen titan mission or two while his mind lingered on what had happened in Gotham and wandered to his family. But his mind got taken off that by meeting the titans and helping with one of the many smaller problems they had.

But when he got back he couldn’t get his mind off his past, so in an attempt to bring himself more closure on the topic he started looking for his father’s body. But meanwhile The Joker pieced together that one of his goons, was Robin’s father and so a plan was formed. Jason figured out that his father wasn’t dead but had gotten away the day of the riot and was working for The Joker who was planning something off in the alps. And due to the avoidance Bruce was showing to Jason, Jason decided to go out on his own. And we all know how that goes. His body, alongside his father’s was found in the wreckage of the blown up building.

He was laid to rest next to the graves for his parents and finally for the first time in years they were all together. But nothing lasts and Taila Al Ghul, in a bid to have something to use against Bruce in case he found out about Damian prematurely. So she sent one of her other pet projects, Twilight, or better known is Slade Wilson’s missing son Grant Wilson.

When he came out of the Lazarus Pit he was confused and tried to flee and there was some trouble stopping him till Taila tranquilized him. It turned out he had no memory of his life than his own name and the fact he died. He was respective to The League Of Shadows training, he still had the muscle memory from being Robin and was in a mental state that was easy to manipulate. He took to hanging around Grant as he reminded Jason of someone in a couple ways and Grant’s inner big brother came out around Jason.

By years end, Jason had fully integrated with The League and was sent on his first mission. When he had came back from it he had been sobbing but the deed was done. Taila talked with him about what had happened and tried to help him desensitize to the issue, she had grown to care about him and it hurt her to see him like this. After this incident his memories started to return, sparked by the familiar feeling caused by what he had done and the subconscious fear of being ignored again because of it.

He shared what he was remembering with Grant and that only helped to fuel the flame of rage in him. He wasn’t mad that Bruce couldn’t save him, he was angry that Bruce let there be chance the same would happen to another kid by letting The Joker live. He made a plan to try and make Bruce understand and set out on his way. Taila feared for him but did offer the original funds he needed for the plan.

He had his 17th birthday right as he was taking over Gotham’s underground as The Red Hood. It was a quick and hostile take over where he intimidated those he could, and killed those he couldn’t. News of The Red Hood found it’s way to Bruce quickly who was working alone at the time due to Tim being with Young Justice at the time. The drug lords were scared and one even agreed to meet with Batman but before they could give out much information they were shoot sparking a chase through the city where Batman failed to catch Red Hood.

He tracked down The Joker and kidnapped him and while waiting for Batman to arrive did all the things that Joker did to Jason in that warehouse so long ago. When Batman did arrive it became a tense confrontation where Jason revealed himself and demanded to know why the clown still breathed. Bruce answered the way he always did, saying they could not be the judge, jury, and executioner. He ended up forcing Bruce to make a choice, either kill The Joker himself or Jason would do it. Bruce instead threw a batarang at Jason, cutting the side of his neck and then The Joker detonated explosives that had been in the building.

He survived and fled Gotham. He decided to go meet his replacement Tim, he broke into the Young Justice base and kidnapped Robin not wanting to also take on a half kryptonian, speedster, and a demigod. The two fought and Jason mocked his replacement but he wasn’t trying to kill Tim. And when things were looking dicey for Tim, Jason nerve pinched him and left.

He then went off to Bludhaven to bother Dick. Who at the time was dealing with the Court Of Owls and the fact they were stalking him and trying to kidnap him. So when Jason was following him and saw some other shady character was following his brother he started a fight with them. Nightwing very quickly joined the fray between Red Hood and Talon and the two scared them off. Their chat afterwards was awkward to say the least, but weirdly friendly since Jason had just helped Dick and Dick caught on to the fact that Jason had been trained by The League of Shadows.

Dick made an effort to help Jason who he had figured out had been brainwashed during his time with The League of Shadows. And some progress was made. But when they went to Gotham so Jason could try to have a normal-ish conversation with Bruce, it blew up in his face when they had gotten talking about Taila and Jason let it slip that Taila had a son that she said was Bruce’s. Bruce, with no where to direct his feelings on the matter, got cross with Jason for not telling him sooner and the two started arguing. It ended when Jason pulled a gun on Bruce and Dick knocked him out with some sleeping gas.

Jason spent a month in Arkham and was beyond angry, he was angry at Bruce for taking out his complicated emotions on him and he was mad at Dick fortaking Bruces side. He had been admitted under an assumed name as a non criminal resident so he was being kept away from where the violent offenders were. Which was for the best, if he had been anywhere near The Joker it wouldn’t have been pretty. He got out when Tim bribed Arkham to let him out. Jason thanked his younger brother and asked about why he did that and Tim explained that the reason Jason was in there wasn’t fair, and besides he was mad at Bruce as Damian just showed up and stole the Robin name. Jason offered to get Tim a drink but he rejected pointing out the were both underage.

It wasn’t long after that he turned 18. He was headed out of a gas station with the first legal box cigarettes he had ever bought that he got a call from Dick asking him to come to the cave, it was important. So he did, everyone did. And it was a grim affair as Bruce had died. Jason didn’t handle his grief well and left the cave before he could hear the message that was left for him. He left Gotham city as well, both because he needed some space from the situation and because he knew that there was about to be a fight over who would wear the cowl.

He went to LA and met up with an old friend, Eddie Bloomberg who was acting as part time tech support for the Teen Titans. The two had a happy, tearful reunion. Jason, who was crashing on Eddie’s couch for the moment continued his work as Red Hood but it was mellowed out. There was a combination of reasons for this, Dick’s support (even though it had been withdrawn), not wanting Bruce’s ghost judging him, and trying to get in a better mental space and not throw away the chance he had.

After Bruce had came back Jason went back to Gotham, and they hashed things out, by no means were they on the same page, they probably never would be again. But Bruce was willing to offer Jason a place in the batfamily as long as he agreed not to kill anyone, and Jason was willing to agree.

Jason and Stephanie got to know each other pretty well since they were given the chance finally. And they got along greatly. It was a nightmare for Bruce however as he had snark coming left and right. Jason also got to know Cass better and they had a couple things to relate on. And for the first time in three years he was finding happiness in his family life.

But again, nothing lasts for forever. Jason late one night while on patrol noticed someone had broken into the penthouse of a well respected lawyer. And he found Twilight was the intruder and it was no mistake that he caught him. The League wanted him back and weren’t willing to take no for an answer, and Grant felt it was personal. So the ensuing argument was intense and by the end the fight had found it’s way onto the top of Wayne tower where Grant misstepped and fell to his seeming death, and worse batman had seen the end of the fight and given prior events including falling to death and Jason Bruce didn’t trust that it was an accident and banished Jason from the city till things were more clear.

Out on his own yet again he decided to form a team and work on the move, no superhero wants the murdery batfamily member in their city for long. So he got on his bike and he went back to LA.

#jason todd #batfamily #batfam #dick grayson #tim drake #bruce wayne #taila al ghul #dc #eddie bloomberg #my writing #earth 33

13 notes · View notes

ckcker · 5 years

Text

My Backsplash

The sun was out then for a second was covered and a second later reappeared like a fadeout that gave up, it was enough action to make me look out my window and enough environmental pressure to stick a leg out through my thoughts. Feeling the way my skin pulled tightly over my face as I often did, I prostrated my nurdlescape wisdom before an inner monologue consumed by detecting evil in the actions or statements of other people. I collected these kind of events, unsure as to what actually is evil but hypervigilant about detecting it, guzzling the inner monologue. It refuses to name the behaviors of others as ‘evil’ because it claims to not believe in a supernatural arena of judgment, but the ‘negative’ behavior it searches for, still, in the part of the body where solutions are emotional, takes on the feeling of experiencing evil. Let’s say this affected communication. The physical-mental feed tube moves so fast, it is hard to grab it, to behead it. Another undetected speed. There should be a word for the period of time in which early users of a new technological device appear insane before the device becomes extremely popular.

From some rapidly opened crypt came the suggestion, ‘I just feel like it’s time for me to date again, to get out there and meet people,’ a popular summary given by those recovering from a bad romantic calculation. Somehow everyone knew the location of that ‘there,’ and I began to think of it too since I also could say I knew where to access ‘there.’ The ‘out’ was hard, I did not want to go out. Work forced it and at least gave the ‘out’ a knowable structure, but the other conditions of ‘out there’ shared certain aspects also found in the haunted house portrait with the moving eyes. And I wanted to be that portrait, steeped in outdated inertia, spraying the room with unacceptable stares, not human but rendered in human form, accepted as a condition of the space. It was difficult to be noticed against my will. My apartment, though only on the 2nd floor, still gave me a view of urban space that was elevated, and so I felt a certain amount of reflection-conjuring power when I looked out my window at buildings, businesses, dogs that couldn’t see me, people looking down at their hands, streetlights and building lights in the cruise of twilight and the lights of businesses, and people with bum backs or legs moving temperately down the sidewalk. Even from the 2nd story window I could look at the components of an urban area and feel like I was above it, both subject to its expectations and laws and electric bills as well as the distant surveyor exploiting its pervasive electricity and improvisational arrangements of shapes as the overabused cinematic container for my longings, lunges and literal hurls. My skyline consisted of a hardware store with a parrot living in the front window, a few backyards connected by weed smoke and in the distance a tall supermarket that people said was not organic but had some good organic items, a billboard unpeeled displaying a solution for upside down credit, beyond it all the upper 1/5 of a prominent downtown building that relieved the panic of not knowing what city I was in, and over it all the far away voices of a mentally disabled singing group rehearsing guitar-accompanied pop/rock standards from the last 60 years at the community center catercorner from the dead spider I did not kill lying legs up on my bathroom window sill. I had seen many things from this window in the brief time I had lived there, I saw a man fall into an abandoned Chipotle once. If one continually expects a problem (aka evil) in the voices and actions of others, always looking for the barbaric silica packet that helps covertly maintain some image of ethical, sensitive, open, accepting person, the ‘out there’ will move on to someone that appreciates it. How obvious, and difficult to learn when you find your identity drifting towards the high cenobite of backsplash.

“Slay mignon” I heard Rob say through the apartment door and then a different voice responded with something less interesting, it meant there were at least two people entering Rob’s apartment next door and that they were using a joking tone as they entered. It was possible to joke around with friends: it was possible to fall into a Chipotle. The reaction I communicated towards the front wall when I heard the knock on my door was jazzy reluctance (muted terror). I answered the door, taking in the image of Rob and similarly young friend, who perhaps was trying to rehabilitate the toupee, in the 8:30pm apartment walkway light.

“How’s it going?”

“Not bad, how are you?”

“Tired. We’re having a bunch of friends over next door though, to let you know. I hope it’s not too loud.”

“Oh that’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

“This is my friend Q.C.”

“Hi. Nice to meet you.”

“We’ll try to keep it down. But no promises, hahaha. Feel free to stop by if you want.”

“I mean, not sure what you’re doing tonight, or.”

“Thanks, I. I am just gonna do something low-key tonight I think. Thanks for asking.”

“Ok great. What’re you getting into tonight?”

“Well,”

“Oh sorry, you just kinda answered that.”

“Yeah, I, there’s that new nature documentary everyone is talking about. I’ll probably watch that.”

“Cool.”

I closed the door. I thought of the slightly crooked curtain dowel in the back right frame of a neckplay fetish porn still. I thought of the crumpled top 1/4 of a straw wrapper on the oak floor of an upscale espresso bar. One must be brave enough to forge one’s own backsplash. I didn’t know what I meant by that, I looked out my window. The skyline at dusk, I aggressively remembered a time.

I thought, ‘all that’s left is the practical and measured execution of plans I previously laid out under uncontrollable feelings.’ The feelings had passed but the structure of living developed during those de-cablings stuck around. Now meaning nothing, their former dominance must be honored. I needed extensive plastic surgery asap. My memory was too personal, gory, smelling of rain-scented incense. I fast walked from my room to a place where a TV played, which joined the space with testimony of a woman who somehow escaped her potential murderer. She described her final maneuver in warbled tones, we are with her running alone through the California desert at night as she tries to find a road and a passing car. This type of flashback people might find interesting, there are no cars nearby, her recollection voice was high and childlike. Though I may stare so hard at my phone to make sure it will forever remember me, I never feel more powerful than when I close my eyes in public. The story finished with her finally waving down a car on the highway; a couple picked her up and listened to her story in shock, as related by her and by then the killer had disappeared.

The cool underside air of dusk in July on exposed skin, calm weather re-routing every thought or experience towards a positive conclusion was its own kind of repression: healthy. It was possible to look at things during the sunset. Sunset had something to do with the way restricted natural light made faces feel diminished with retreating red and less visible, and the time limit on how long was left for someone to be able to see was enough narrative intensity to leave a scratch in the head, if combined with some other high octane action, for instance walking near a pond with friends and viewing a deer. I had not spoken with friends in months, I had not told them more than a present location, Missouri. That I lived in the side of the city that is Kansas seemed to be some sort of rotting occult intel that I kept totally to myself.

I had no intention of watching the new nature documentary everyone was talking about. I decided again to try and experience the city. I closed my apartment door, turned, and, after several steps, read “What is PAIN Music?” typed on top of an unfolded piece of paper. It was lying alone on the roasted teal carpet and thus an object that I could view. Underneath this title was one full page of description meant to answer the question and define PAIN music; it read:

“Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif Dghdhdfj dfloifkij oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif oifj kidfjg adfupifgj Dghdhdfj dfloifkij,” and ended “oifj kidfjg adfupifgj adpoifg adsoif dfpoifgja [poifj apijf.”

What was most clear to me on seeing this text was that I didn’t and would never have any interest in trying to decipher or decode the definition of PAIN music. I did not know if it was even possible. But I folded it back over and then again and put it in my pocket to walk with me.

As I moved through the outdoor hallway from my apartment, I brought viewings into my head of the piece of paper, focusing on the detail I had seen in the lower middle-left corner: “The Coolest Music Ever” in dark font and gassy drop shadow. This was an important clue that I had decided to never interpret or care about. If the piece of paper had unfolded itself for me and only me, it would not receive the pleasure of my humiliation in tracing its undoubtedly core-tearing motives. If it was meant to curse me with an assortment of serrated traumas and thus make new life paths available to deflate myself in and then be educated by, I would not meet it halfway to know why. But I had decided to take it with me anyway, I did not interrogate my reasons for this, and neither did I ask myself why I considered “The Coolest Music Ever” to be an important clue. Maybe because my days of pursuing an acute pleasure had passed by, had been “completed,” crunched by a mania for self-direction and fully shaved of shallow mysteries, like PAIN music. I had dropped my body parts in the mouth of a man in an empty field during a music festival, I had stared at the uptempo lonely dance music video playing on multiple screens at the club meant for young people and had sopped up the vulgar hypnotism, I had held the funneling friend too drunk at the party to not hear longing in any song with house chords and a gay male vocal. Amicable-disabled, part LARP, marshy, far, bloated as forensic bodies, hanging out menacingly, far away, deciding to try and drive along the spilling highway brush, more drooling light the color of mango and then new sustainable light, white and incapable of drool.

Luckily I have a second set of actions that play out in my mind during an action of my body, lucky for me that no one can read them, though I listen for any distant sound that might indicate a second set of actions in a person standing near me. As my finger points at a happy hour menu, it also points at my shredded bed sheet that I will never replace. The sheet that shredded wholly on its own, all it took was a sustained propulsion of my fatefully wound body in sleep over several years to cause a rip and days later a completed tear. One has dual purposes, sometimes one’s purpose is to lose consciousness and rest the body, while one’s purpose is also to interrupt the body’s rest. Sometimes one’s mind considers, ‘it would be more illuminating to challenge a command that this be the time for the body to rest.’ Two drinks in, the happy hour is passing and buy one get one free, and the young woman who is bartending has the look of someone reeling in a fantasy. A cup of hot water fell off the counter and landed on the floor upright yet the black tea bag inside, briefly resembling a violent mid-launch health store fig, whacked against the bar wall with the sonic clarity of a professionally-recorded sound effect. Afterwards, her voice, direct and lifeless, responded when I asked for a lime. When I opened my mouth very very slightly, my teeth touched each other in a light shake that was uncontrollable. My body did not want to talk, but my mind could not help but announce it was at work. It caused my jaw to move although there was no content it considered to be worth releasing. My teeth softly struck each other and it was because my second set of actions were reaching a stealth crescendo; whether a result of the bar music or not I couldn’t tell. There are certain ways one can react to popular shriveled leprechaun vocalists building up hearts of listeners with irreversible we will hope’s and oooooh, don’t you know?s over simple creamy synth and a delirious light tone. One must pay attention to the background world, it is a dangerous dimension that sprays its mechanisms onto thoughts and senses even if you are in focus and obviously the more interesting subject. Therefore, background music must be monitored at all times. Atrocities incubate under background music, background glances, moments on the way to being busy, sounds on the street on the way back home.

2 notes · View notes

unboundlights · 6 years

Text

Psychology Manipulation and Mental Assessment: Share buybacks hoax

Psychological assessment or Mental Assessment: Share buybacks for the most part accomplished for Nefarious reasons, but Mental Manipulation say: Don't Trust Anything! Adjust the recognition, and you modify the result.

How would you know whether you are seeing the correct picture if all the data you are being encouraged is controlled? Contrarian Investing Is a Relatively Simple Concept a standout amongst the most ideal approaches to get a grip for the fundamental standards of Mass Psychology research would be for us to list a couple of things we have seen throughout the years. We trust this will help give the understudy who needs to assist his insight and comprehend of mass brain science with a firmer balance. So, mass brain science is realizing when to purchase and when to move, by using mass assumption further bolstering your good fortune. You don’t simply purchase or move in light of the fact that the majority are doing as such. One needs to trust that the feeling will hit the breaking point, sometimes, it needs to hit the extraordinary of outrageous extents. At the end of the day, individuals ought to foam with Greed or dread before you step or out of the business sectors.

The picture you are making with this information could be fanciful in nature. This is the device that Wall Street utilizes without risk of punishment; they use it all an opportunity to make blast and bust cycles. News sources are grandmasters with regards to information control.

Psychological Manipulation is utilized to Alter Mass Perceptions, the "protected harbor" rule go in 1982, enabled the corporate world to sustain the greatest trick on the clueless American masses. The Harvard Business Review appears to agree with this evaluation

Five years after the official end of the Great Recession, corporate benefits are high, and the financial exchange is blasting. However most Americans are not partaking in the recuperation.

While the best 0.1% of pay beneficiaries—which incorporate the majority of the most noteworthy positioning corporate officials—harvest practically all the pay increases, steady employments continue vanishing, and new work openings will in general be unreliable and come up short on. Corporate benefit isn't converting into far reaching financial thriving.

A standout amongst the most ideal approaches to help your pressure is to stress over an occasion you have no influence over and after that lose the open door that is gazing you in the face. For instance, agonizing over a financial exchange crash and in the process missing the securities exchange bull. At the point when the bull closes you revile yourself not grasping it thus the despicable procedure proceeds. The illness and the fix exist in your very own hands.

In 1982, when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a standard to give 'safe harbor' from control risk, buybacks were almost zero. A year ago, over $500 billion was spent on offer repurchases.

This is the reason there is a functioning exertion to dispose of self-teaching; self-teaching advances free thoughts; government tutoring slaughters all types of free idea. In Germany, self-teaching is a wrongdoing and the senseless people acknowledges it without setting up a battle.

The observation is changing; the majority are currently getting to be idealistic along these lines except if the pattern transforms we can anticipate that the business sectors should rally considerably higher. One other thing to comprehend is that despite the fact that the rally in the business sectors has been falsely actuated, the business sectors have entirely issued "a genuine bullish flag".

What is this flag you inquire? All things considered, both the Dow and SPX are exchanging at new highs.

Congresspersons Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin both offer the slant that stock buybacks ought to be prohibited by the SEC since they are a type of market control.

A genuine buyer advertise isn't in session until the old highs have been taken out. 9 out of multiple times when this happens the market encourages altogether from the breakout point; the breakout point, for this situation, is about 14200 (the old 2008 high).

The Truth depends on what you see to be genuine and that the truth is controlled by means of mentally programming projects. Recognition is everything and not looks or cash. In the event that you can change the discernment, at that point you can reproduce any reality or exchange reality you need. It creates the impression that the breakout to new highs was undoubtedly a bullish flag.

He marks share buybacks as "The World's Dumbest Idea,". He expresses that investors are not giving money to partnerships but rather are rather extricating it and exhibits that since 1980 open organizations have repurchased more value than they have issued.

Harvard Business survey expressed the accompanying in article title benefits without success

In 2012 the 500 most generously compensated administrators named in intermediary articulations of U.S. open organizations got, by and large, $30.3 million each; 42% of their remuneration originated from investment opportunities and 41% from stock honors. By expanding the interest for an organization's offers, open-showcase buybacks naturally lift its stock cost, regardless of whether just incidentally, and can empower the organization to hit quarterly income per share (EPS) targets.

These style contrarians are the same as those with the mass mentality; they just profess to do things any other way, yet the minute dread or vulnerability is noticeable all around, they escape for the ways out like crooks being pursued by the dogs of damnation. A genuine contrarian much of the time comprehends the fundamental standards of mass brain research. On the off chance that you are not acquainted with these principles, you are doing yourself an injury and should get up to speed with them ASAP. These straightforward seven standards for contrarian contributing will furnish the amateur with a firm establishment on which the person can work from.

In an ongoing report, CNN cash expresses that that profit and stock buybacks will new another high of $ one trillion of every 2015. Gold Sachs is anticipating that that number should flood for 2016; they express this number will increment by 7% in 2016, outperforming the one trillion imprint.

This was not a simple call to make given that the business sectors had risen such a great amount over such a brief period, however focusing on the pattern and not the clamor factor, empowered us to isolate the riff from the raff.

Presently that the Fed has perceived that it is so natural to reproduce reality observe how the dimension of mentally conditioning will increment exponentially. Individuals that utilization presence of mind will begin to feel like outsiders in this world, for most of the people will work in a substitute reality. You won't need to watch the TV arrangement the "living dead"; you will begin to keep running into them wherever soon.

The "protected harbor" rule go in 1982, enabled the corporate world to sustain the greatest trick on the clueless American masses. The Harvard Business Review appears to agree with this evaluation.

Five years after the official end of the Great Recession, corporate benefits are high, and the financial exchange is blasting. However most Americans are not partaking in the recuperation.

The primary spot you will see this is with family and individuals, who you thought were your companions, and so forth., and so on. Welcome to my World said the insect to the fly, to which the fly reacted, which one.

Mental indoctrinating begins the minute your tyke enters the state funded instruction framework. When they leave this framework its diversion over for over 90% of the people. A "10% break" proportion is adequate as this 10% can't realize any viable change; they don't control the switches of intensity.

We will give a rundown of principles that we accept are the most imperative with respect to contrarian contributing. It will give both the amateur and prepared dealer with thoughts that should help enhance your exchanging aptitudes whenever executed legitimately. Control and persistence are basic qualities in the event that you need to succeed; nothing comes effectively, for on the off chance that it did, everybody would probably do what you are doing.

This demonstration enables insiders to utilize profitable organization assets to repurchase shares without dealing with indictments of controlling the cost of their offers. It is a success win circumstance; motivating paid to do nothing while at the same time making it seem as though you are accomplishing something. This is a detestable method to help Earnings per share (EPS).

Does the SEC perceive that; evidently not as the SEC lets it out not checking stock buybacks to forestall control? SEC seat Mary White made the accompanying remarks because of a letter tended to from Senator Baldwin.

3 notes · View notes

glenviewlocksmithblog-blog · 5 years

Text

How to Safeguard Your Home Against Burglary & Crime

Here’s the good news: mid-June statistics for 2015 show a drop in home theft. The bad news? There are still plenty of criminals interested in breaking into your home. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t make it tough for them! The first step in home crime prevention is to eliminate opportunity, and it’s up to you to cut those chances.

Though many people only worry about nighttime security, most burglaries actually occur during daylight hours when most people are at work, school, or running errands. It’s important to take precautions during the day, at night, and any time you leave the house to ensure your home stays secure.

When it comes to protecting your family and your belongings, you can’t be too careful, and there are plenty of ways you can protect your home from invasion or burglary. This guide will discuss prevention steps to take both inside and outside your home, and even ways to keep your home protected while you’re away on vacation. Don’t let your home fall prey to a thief: make it a waste of his time and resources!

Protecting Your Home From the Outside

Walk around the exterior of your home and scout out its weaknesses. The best way to protect your home from the outside is to survey it with the eyes of a burglar. If you can easily tell that a window could be pried open, a thief will definitely be able to come to the same conclusion. You can even contact your local police department and they’ll provide a courtesy home assessment that can help you identify your home’s weak spots.

While you’re checking for vulnerable spots, take note of any expensive electronics, art, or furniture that is easily spotted through windows. You don’t have to redecorate your entire home to keep expensive items out of sight, but it doesn’t hurt to make small adjustments where you can. No need to tempt thieves any more than you have to!

Keep shrubbery around entrances and walkways trimmed. The last thing you want is to make it easier for a thief to hide when attempting to break in, so eliminate his options for hiding spots. He may only need a few minutes of cover to make his entry but with no place to hide while doing it, he’s less likely to even try. You could even plant thorny shrubs by your windows to make it not only difficult to break in, but painful!

Build a fence. If you don’t have one already, a fence can be an excellent way to keep unwanted visitors off your property. Open chain-link or ornamental metal fencing tend to be preferable and are ideally secured into concrete to prevent lifting. Solid fences can be easier to climb and offer thieves a place to hide, though some homeowners prefer them for privacy and noise reduction. You can better secure them by having sharp pointed tops or, if you don’t mind rough barbed wire fencing.

Stow expensive items like grills, cars, and bikes in the garage. Though it may seem like a hassle to roll out the grill for every barbecue, leaving it out makes it an easy target for thieves. They don’t even have to enter your home to grab it, and if it’s got wheels it can be a breeze to sneak away with. If your area only offers street parking, always lock your car and be sure to park in a well-lit area.

Use curtains on garage and basement windows. Chances are these areas don’t need the sunlight, so put up curtains or blinds for privacy and protection. Stowing your outdoor valuables only does so much good if they’re constantly on display!

Install motion sensor lighting around your home, especially at entrances. Shine a spotlight on a potential intruder before he can even touch your doors or windows by adding extra lighting with motion detectors at entrances and especially dark corners of your home. If you live in an apartment, ask your landlord to install sufficient lighting in walkways and halls to eliminate dark corners.

Get to know your neighbors. Crime tends to be lower in tight-knit communities because neighbors are more likely to look out for each other and can easily spot a stranger. Your neighbors can be one of your best assets in home crime prevention because they offer extra eyes and an outside perspective. Plus if they have a different work or school schedule from yours, they might be around during the day when you’re away and can alert you to any suspicious activity that may occur in your absence.

Keep your yard free of toys, tools, and ladders. A yard littered with toys signals to a thief that the house may be filled with equally interesting entertainment, like game consoles, tablets, or laptops. A ladder or toolbox left out even briefly for an afternoon can give an opportunistic thief help in gaining access to your house.

Talk to your neighborhood association about increased lighting on your street. Burglars often case an entire street or neighborhood to determine if it’s a good target, but often prefer to do so in the dark of night. A well-lit neighborhood will likely deter him from your area, or at the very least make it very difficult for him to slip away undetected.

Prune trees around two-story homes. A determined crook may scale a tree and break into an upstairs window if branches are long enough to give him access. If you have a second floor, trim back tree branches to prevent a cat burglar from making his move.

Consider forming a neighborhood watch program. This will give you the opportunity to get to know your neighbors better. and create an invaluable awareness and commitment to crime prevention in your area. You can speak to your local police department about giving your group an informal lecture that can provide insight into identifying a suspicious person and what to do if you spot one loitering on your street, how to recognize a burglary in progress, how to recognize an auto theft in progress, and what to do in an emergency. Local PD will also usually distribute free literature on home safety and sometimes even offer window stickers and ID cards identifying your neighborhood organization.

Work with your neighbors to clean up the neighborhood if needed. A run-down, graffiti-lined, littered street can send the message to criminals that the residents of your area don’t care about the neighborhood or each other. That makes a prime location for theft. You can contact your local public works department to assist in the clean-up. It can be an excellent chance to bond with your neighbors, not to mention make your area a more beautiful place to live.

Keep fences, gates, and garage doors locked. It’s worth investing in a quality padlock for each outside entrance, even if you only lock it at night. However, since most friends and family won’t mind calling ahead to let you know they’re visiting, it’s best to leave them locked at all times. Never leave your garage door open if you aren’t in it or outside and able to keep an eye on it.

Install large, reflective numbers on your house and mailbox. This makes it easier for police to identify your home in the event of an emergency. Burglars prefer dark houses difficult to identify by address as it can buy them crucial spare moments in the event they’re caught in the act.

Secure your car. If you must park on the street, do so in a well-lit area and bring valuables like cell phones, purses, GPS devices, and satellite radios inside. Never leave anything of value in plain view, and always lock the doors and roll up windows. Break-ins can occur in even the safest neighborhoods, and an unlocked car is one of the easiest possible targets. Never leave a spare key in the visor or anywhere else inside, even if the car is locked.

Read more at: How to Safeguard Your Home Against Burglary & Crime

Related Article: Burglary Prevention Tips

Do you want to get rid of this security threat? Allow Glenview Locksmith to help you out. Call them anytime at (224) 577-1862!

#burglary prevention tips #home security tips

1 note · View note

rebaobsessivelywrites · 6 years

Text

Emotional Intelligence Ch2 (SS:BH Pt1)

You can find this entire series here on AO3. This chapter is here.

Fandom: Sanders Sides (Web Series) and Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)

Fic Description: Logan was a genius. Everyone said so. He was also the most self sufficient 12-year-old you would ever meet, and he was very happy with that--thank you very much. If there was one thing he did not want, it was an android. Thankfully, things don't quite go his way.

(This is the first installment in a 5-part series. I expect 3 chapters currently.)

Warnings: ‘benign’ neglect, social anxiety, panic attack, emotional, and misgendering. This chapter is mostly comfort/fluff though

Chapter word count: 3,841

Headcanon post, master list, previous chapter, next chapter.

A/N: Finally done! And in time for #sidescontentweek too!!

One dinner, Logan could handle. Two? Sure. A day at an event? Well, he could suck it up. But a weekend? Three days spent being paraded around like a prize pony, passed from important person to important person… he just couldn’t.

His parents had sprung the surprise on him Thursday, just after his fourth visit to the chess park. The following morning, they packed up and left bright and early, caught a plane, and were plunged directly into the chaos of politics and high-class socialization. There were dinners and events and lectures every hour of the day, it seemed, as Logan was expected to attend every event either of his parents had been invited to. That meant breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with politicians and scientists and lobbyists and CEOs and everyone in between, with added lectures and meetings.

Logan didn’t understand it all, but he understood a lot and the people his parents met with were always so impressed by him and his parents loved to use that to their advantage. And, well, it was interesting. He did enjoy the science and finance and that sort of thing, but… he wasn’t used to that many people. This was the first time his parents had asked him to be so involved in one of these symposiums when both of them were attending, and it was absolutely excruciating.

He got about five hours to himself each day, but two of those were from waking up at 5 am and two were spent hiding in the corner of some hotel or event center, desperately trying to center himself before the next event. He was used to maybe 3 or 4 hours with people a day, and that used to be only 1 hour or so with his parents before he started visiting the park a couple times a week. So this? This was overwhelming.

It was the third and final day, and Logan was certain the only reason he had made it this far was his android. Three weeks ago, he would have never believed that he would become irreparably attached to the thing, but now he was seriously wondering what he would do with out h—it. Beyond its now integral role in his daily life, the HK400 had been a godsend throughout the weekend, carefully monitoring Logan and swooping in at the best possible times with various excuses—he hadn’t eaten enough vegetables, he needed to spend 15 more minutes in the sun in order to absorb the proper amount of vitamin D, he hadn’t slept sufficiently and needed to go to bed early, etc—that bought him a couple minutes, at least, to regroup. It kept him sane.

But even with that crucial aid, it was too much. He had been at lunch (again) when he had been cornered and interrogated by a curious stranger (again) and he just couldn’t. He couldn’t stand another minute in that room; he couldn’t think or even breathe! So he fled. He didn’t manage to do much more than mutter a few apologies before he was on his way out of the ballroom and running up the stairs to his room. He fumbled with the electronic key, stumbled into the luxuriant room, and immediately collapsed, bracing himself against the wall and struggling to breathe.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, hunched over, before he finally caught his breath and stopped feeling like he was drowning, but once he did a wave of overwhelming shame crashed into him stealing his breath in a completely different way. Why had he left? He shouldn’t have done that! What were his parents going to say? He was a horrible son. Horrible…

A quiet knock on the door startled him out of his thoughts and made him jump. As he frantically picked himself up off the ground and attempted to make himself presentable, he realized that he had be crying. He scraped the sleeve of his suit over his cheeks and cleared his throat, “Yes?”

“It’s just me, Logan,” the last voice he was expecting but the first voice he should have expected echoed through the door, “Can I come in, kiddo?”

“HK400,” Logan protested, just as he had every time since the android had started using that awful nickname. The only blessing was he never used it around other people.

The HK400 obviously took his response as permission as the locking mechanism gave a telltale click and the droid slid into the room with hi—its key card. It had its near constant smile already plastered across its face as it carefully moved closer, giving him a concerned once over. “How are you, Logan? What can I do to help?”

“I’m fine,” Logan shook his head and pasted his smile back on, “I just… forgot something,” he finished lamely.

The android gave him the most unimpressed look he had ever seen—not just on it, but on anyone—and for a moment Logan very much felt like the 12-year-old he was. “We both know that’s not true,” it pointed out softly, “You don’t need to hide from me, Logan. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

Logan stood there for a long moment, taking in the steady blue LED that shone brightly in the muffled daylight of the hotel room, and the matching earnest blue eyes. “I know,” he almost whispered, “I just—” His voice broke and a hand flew to his mouth of its own accord. Breathing through his nose, he swallowed hard and did his best to force down the tears.

The HK400 stood as still as a statue, as though he was attempting not to startle a wild animal, a concerned look still plastered across his face. For some reason, the steady unassuming silence calmed Logan down even more.

“I can’t,” he choked out after a minute that felt like an eternity. His entire body was trembling, and Logan was just so frustrated with himself. He was angry and guilty and so very sad… He felt like his world was crumbling around him, but that was completely illogical—he was fine! He needed to piece himself back together and rejoin his parents, that was it.

The android gave him a pained look of understanding and stepped closer, as though preparing to physically help and… that was it. The dam broke open again and Logan let out a painful sob that shook his entire body. It was followed by another and another, and he was shaking harder and harder. His knees gave out on him but before he could do more than start to tip, he was suddenly surrounded by a pair of powerful arms, pulled in close to a solid chest. The android had knelt in front of him and was nestling him close and rubbing his back… “Let it out, Logan,” he murmured, “It’s ok, just let it all out. I’ve got you.”

Logan did.

He wasn’t sure how long he spent in his android’s arms, soaking his uniform with tears, but after some indeterminant period he stopped shaking and the android slowly loosened his hold on him. “Hey, Logan?” he murmured against his hair, “How does NASA organize a party?”

Brows furrowing in confusion, Logan pulled away to frown at his caretaker in confusion, “What?”

The HK400 gave him a crooked smile, “They planet.”

Logan felt his eyes, which were no doubt red from all the crying he had been doing, widen comically. His android had just told a joke. …Why?? The experience had become more common since the bot had slipped up in the park over a week previously, but it still baffled Logan to no end every time, and this was by far the most blatant occurrence yet.

“What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?” he—it asked in the same tone of voice, that was almost mischievous.

“What? No, that’s,” Logan shook his head, “There’s nothing… I mean, maybe an orange parrot, but—”

“A carrot!” it exclaimed before letting out a delighted little giggle.

Logan stopped to stare again, forgetting to close his mouth in the process. He was still baffled and dumbfounded, but he was also thankful that the android wasn’t immediately retreating and making excuses like he had a few times in the past.

“Come on,” he—it— smiled warmly and stood, offering him a hand, “Let’s move to the table. It’ll be more comfortable for the chair of us.”

Still stunned from the last joke, Logan couldn’t do more than accept and let himself be led to the small round table that was equipped with two chairs and a small coffee setup—including a coffee maker and all the proper accoutrements. It was currently piled with everything Logan had gathered from the lectures he had enjoyed over the past two days, but neither of them cared about the clutter. (HK400 was most certainly bothered by it, but he didn’t press the issue and was clearly preoccupied at the moment.)

As Logan sat down, however, he wobbled slightly on his still unsteady knees and accidentally knocked several papers off the table. His android immediately bent to collect them, a faint smile still playing on its lips. When he straightened and set the collection of articles and book recommendations back where they belonged, Logan was still staring—no doubt with a slack jawed look.

The HK400’s lips twitched slightly. A moment later, he lost the battle and a broad grin stretched across his face, “Aw, you ok there, Logan?” he teased gently, pushing the article on the top of the pile towards him, “Do you need a patent the back?

Once again, Logan was completely lost, “…you mean… a pat on the back?” After a moment of confusion, however, he glanced down at the paper the android had pushed towards him. It was an article he had picked up on his first day, when he had been attending an informative lecture on the legal bounds of patents with his father…. The article was an overview of every type of patent the government authorized, complete with examples. His eyes widened in realization. Patent.

The android reached over the pile of papers and fished a pink packet out of the coffee service station. “I’m not sugar,” he said almost contemplatively, waving it at Logan, “what do you pink?”

Logan let out a soft groan and leant his head forward into his hands. Despite his actions, however, there was a smile floating at the corner of his mouth. “Your mispronunciation of words… is meant to have a comedic effect,” he muttered, “But I am not certain how I feel about your attempts.”

“No, no, Logan,” the android grinned cheekily at him, “Its mispro-pun-ciation!”

Logan gave him his best glare, but it failed miserably thanks to the laughter that bubbled up in in throat and slipped past his lips. The HK400 observed his reaction with unadulterated glee, letting his own laughter join. The sound of the android giggling like a little kid set Logan off even more, and soon he was caught in a downright hysteric bought of belly-deep laughter. He nearly fell out of his chair before the android managed to settle himself down enough to catch him.

Just like before, with his uncontrollable sobbing, Logan was unsure how long he spent laughing himself silly, but eventually it passed. He spent a few moments after it finally died off gasping for breath and examining his android, who was fast becoming something akin to a friend. He was sitting in the chair opposite from Logan now, grinning dopily—almost like laughter was a drug to him. The sight of the content expression on the bot’s face made Logan smile again.

“HK400,” he started, before stopping, stumbling over his own tongue. That sounded so wrong. HK400… was a type of android. It seemed illogical to continue to insist on calling him—it… whatever!—something so generic and impersonal, not to mention a mouthful. If the past three weeks had shown him anything, it was that the HK400 was possibly the best thing that had ever happened to him. It —hell— he didn’t deserve that.

“Logan?” the bot asked in concern, breaking through his thoughts.

Logan shook himself and smiled up at him, “Sorry, I was just thinking that HK400 is a rather big mouthful.” The android simply frowned down at him, a hopeful but baffled expression on his face. Logan self-consciously straightened his glasses, “I mean, it would be more, uh.. logical to call you something more… unique?”

“Are you,” the bot hesitated, his LED flashing rapidly and his eyes growing wide, “asking me to register a name?”

Logan swallowed hard, “Uh, yeah, I… I think I am.”

His LED flashed yellow once before it settled to a more certain blue. “That… I’d like that,” the HK400 unit smiled softly, “Who am I, Logan?”

Logan paused at the wording, examining the android, “In all honesty, I think only you are capable of answering that question.”

“I don’t… understand,” confusion creased his eyebrows, although his smile didn’t waver.

The young genius shook his head softly, “That’s for another day. But I truly don’t know what to call you.”

“No?” the android asked curiously, thankfully showing no offence.

“No,” he confirmed, “I’m sorry, I should have thought this through more…”

“Don’t be,” he held up his hand, still grinning brightly, “You’ll think of something.”

“I’m not so sure,” Logan couldn’t help giving a self-deprecating shrug, looking down at where his hands rested on the table. He wasn’t creative, and giving his android a name was such a big thing…

After a beat of silence, the article on patents was pushed to brush against his fingers. He glanced up to find the HK400 smiling mischievously at him again, “Well, that’s patently absurd!”

Logan groaned, lips twitching without his consent, “Are you ever going to stop now?”

“Pat-ain’t likely!” he chuckled warmly, looking proud of himself.

Logan smiled ruefully and shook his head slightly. This new attitude his android was displaying was annoying, but it also…. It was nice. And the puns were… interesting, or at least creative that’s for sure.

A thought occurred to him, eyes widening unseeingly. “Pat…” he murmured.

“What?” the android shifted forward slightly “Are you ok, Logan?” Logan’s eyes snapped back into focus to find his caretaker’s LED cycling yellow. “Do you need another patent the back?”

“Sorry,” he smiled reassuringly before his eyebrows drew together in concentration, “Just… Your name. What about Pat… something. Patrick?” As soon as the name left his mouth he wrinkled his nose in distaste, “No.”

The android leant forward eagerly, resting a hand on each of Logan’s and smiling encouragingly. Logan returned the smile and carefully regarded the machine he had come to care for. He really wanted to get this right; a name helped a person define their sense of self, and for him it was so much more important because he had existed for almost a month fully cognizant without one. In the beginning that didn’t seem to be a problem, but now… he —and the android was definitely not an it, not if Logan was honest with himself— was so clearly capable of independent thought and it seemed wrong to call him by his model name.

The android gently squeezed Logan’s hands and the 12-year-old’s eyes were drawn down to where they rested on the table… on the article. “Pat…ton. Patton.” Logan nodded to himself, lifting his head to observe his android’s reaction.

His soft smile grew to a blinding intensity as he stared at Logan, an emotion the young genius failed to identify shining in his eyes. “Patton,” he murmured, as though testing the word, “I like that.” He giggled, “I could give you a Patton the back whenever I want.”

Logan simply raised his eyebrows at his caretaker; yes, the name was inspired by the pun but was it really necessary—

“Or a Patte,” the newly minted Patton added happily, retrieving a mug from beside the coffee pot on the table.

The genius couldn’t help rolling his eyes a little, lifting his freed hand to adjust his glasses again. “Let’s not push it too far,” he muttered.

The android froze in the middle of his movement, causing Logan to jolt and stare at him in surprise; Patton’s eyebrows were furrowed, his LED spinning yellow.

It took Logan a moment before the reason clicked, but as soon as it did his eyes blew wide and he hurried to correct his mistake, “No, no I don’t…” he shook his head and glanced down, carefully shifting the hand that still rested in Patton’s grip to give him a comforting squeeze. “I mean… I doubt my tolerance— for puns, that is— could possibly withstand your, uh, obvious aptitude for them.”

To the genius’ relief, the android immediately relaxed, tension draining out of his frame, and gave him another blinding smile, “I guess we’ll just have to see, now won’t we?”

Logan hesitantly returned the smile, “If we must… Patton.”

The way Patton’s smile grew in response to hearing his new name left a warm feeling in Logan’s chest, leaving him more settled than he had in days. That same warmth, renewed every time Patton smiled, miraculously lasted even as he ventured forth from his room and back into the mire of social expectations. It buoyed him through the remainder of the unpleasant weekend, and left him content and focused for days afterwards.

Upon their return from the stressful trip, everything returned to normal. Logan resumed his studies, rarely seeing his parents, Patton flitted around the manor, efficiently handling every problem before Logan ever encountered it, and the pair upped their outings to three or four times a week. Logan found himself growing fond of Mr. Stokes and the other chess enthusiasts, who seemed to almost live in the park, and was happy to oblige his android’s incessant herding.

In fact, Logan found he actually appreciated Patton’s constant presence and energy. On one particular occasion, the food delivery service his family used failed to arrive and Patton left to fetch supplies. The young genius was alone for only a few hours, but it had felt like days; without the background noise his energetic android provided, he had simply been unable to focus. Patton had given him the softest smile he had ever seen upon returning to find his grouchy, unfocused charge.

It was much easier to focus on matrices and derivatives when he could hear the android humming idly from just beyond his bedroom doorway.

“Hey, Logan?” the familiar cheerful voice cut through the 12-year-old’s train of thought.

A smile already spreading across his face, he glanced up from his textbook to see his android approaching. Patton gave him a smile in return and lifted an object for observation—a pair of glasses held carefully by the ear pieces, “What are these?”

For a moment Logan just blinked at them; they appeared uncannily like his own, except for the fact that they were obviously too large and no longer held lenses of any variety. That moment was, however, all it took for him to remember and flush a vivid red.

“I was cleaning your room and found them wedged…” Patton trailed off as he glanced up from the object of his curiosity. “Kiddo?” he asked, concern coloring his tone.

“They, ah,” Logan cleared his voice, “They were my father’s. I was, evidently, so fascinated with them that… after he had surgery to fix his vision, he gave them to me.”

“Oh!” the bot exclaimed in delight, returning his attention to his discovery, “That’s nifty.”

Another smile claimed his lips without his consent and he shook his head at the android’s word choice. Patton had grown on him even more over the past few weeks. He seemed to be increasingly comfortable both with himself and with Logan; he only reverted to his initial behavior (what Logan was coming to think of as his ‘pre-programmed’ behavior) when in the presence of others. Even then, he had begun to slip more and more around Logan’s chess partners. The genius received an inordinate amount of pleasure watching their reactions to the android’s unexpected sense of humor.

Logan watched with a similar sense of amusement as Patton, face scrunched up in thought, ever so carefully placed the glasses on his own face. After a moment spent fiddling with them, making them sit more comfortably, he beamed down at Logan, “What d’ya think?”

Even though the frames were very similar to Logan’s, they looked remarkably different on Patton’s face. They seemed… rounder, less rectangular, even though that wasn’t possible, and made Patton’s bright blue eyes look twice as large, despite the absence of lenses.

“They look nice,” he answered honestly, earning beaming smile.

Patton quickly scooted a few feet to the side, so he could see himself in the mirror on Logan’s wall and regard his new accessory with curiosity. After a moment he turned back to Logan, a mischievous smile creeping across his face and setting alarm bells off in Logan’s head, “Well, they are rather… spectacular!”

“Patton,” Logan groaned, rolling his eyes to the ceiling.

“Are you doing math?” he asked out of the blue, moving closer to his charge and peering down at his calculus textbook.

“Patton…” Logan muttered in warning. Where he would have been confused a few weeks ago, he was now merely suspicious, eyeing his android carefully, “don’t—”

Patton merely grinned, “You might need some new glasses to help with that division!”

“Ugh,” he huffed, burying his face—glasses and all—into his hands.

The android just giggled, moving to perch on a nearby chair and removing the black frames from his face. Once Logan recovered from the horrible pun and Patton settled his giggles, the pair just smiled at each other.

Logan had never smiled so often, before Patton had entered his life.

But as he stared at him, Logan couldn’t help noting how different his caretaker looked without the glasses on, almost as though frames had belonged on his face from the start. “You should keep them,” he burst out, gesturing to the frames in the bot’s lap, “It’s not like they were doing any good, wherever they were when you found them.”

Patton blinked at him in surprise, “Are you sure?”

He gave a one shouldered shrug, “Yeah, I mean, I’m not going to use them.”

“Thanks, Lo,” the android gave him another brilliant smile, warming him in a way he was still growing used to. He watched fondly as Patton returned the frames to his face, dramatically pushing them up the bridge of his nose.

Logan may not be certain about everything, especially not when it came to his android, but he was positive that Patton was the most amazing person he had ever met. He did not know how he had developed such obvious independence or if all androids were capable of doing so, but he was incredibly grateful to have him in his life. Puns and all.

A/N: I know the last scene seems a little tacked on, and I almost didn't include it but I wanted to limit this installment to three chapters and it REALLY doesn't fit with the next one. Speaking of... brace for angst. (I still need Patton to deviate, after all. He's only bending his programming at the moment, kinda like snarky Connor in the game. He still needs to tear down the wall, so to speak.)

Let me know if you want to be tagged! (I will be reblogging with the taglist from @reba-andthesides)

#sanders sides #sidescontentweek #logan sanders #patton sanders #detroit become human #reba's d:bh au #reba writes

31 notes · View notes

redknight3996 · 4 years

Text

17: Juno

Cedric Crosswhite is a man of influence. He is rich. He is powerful. He is untouchable.

And at this point in time, he is very, very dead. He may have died through a number of methods, depending on what you yourself elected to do while in Glitter Avenue, but assuming he survives all the way into Phase 2, his death is a rather sudden and simple one, delivered at the hands of a younger man he elected to meet with.

Seth Marotti is a man of no consequence, careless and wealthy through inheritance. The group he was a part of call themselves Bloody Sunday, and you’ll probably see at least a few of them in their stark white suits and eerie ivory masks as they operate around the park. They’re regarded as something of VIPs, so you’ll likely see even other hunter groups deferring to them, if just because incentive means keeping them safe is worth more than killing them.

Escort missions might not be especially fun, but it does add an interesting flavor to events.

Regardless, Seth’s decision came rather abruptly. He and his own little clique were invited up to Crosswhite’s penthouse, because the man in question thought it would be fun to introduce these new people to the park, particularly since they were all young people of proper backgrounds.

You were most definitely not invited, but there were ways to get in if you really wanted to be present. Being there does mean you get to see the exact moment where Seth audibly wonders just how many points Cedric’s bodyguards would be worth before shooting the older man straight in the forehead, blowing off the upper part of his skull in a messy spray of blood, bone, brain matter, and loose hair.

Juno does not take this sight well, and it’s about time you got to know her, assuming you haven’t run into her already. It’s quite likely you haven’t though, as while she is exceptionally aggressive while riled, she is otherwise always at her beloved’s side, keeping him safe, keeping him company, and keeping watch over him, because she was made for him, and he wasn’t made for her.

Juno looks a great deal like a tall, female mannequin. She has no visible eyes, mouth, nose, or ears, though sensory organs do exist across and under her alabaster frame. Where her eyes would be were she a natural human, she instead has two symbols printed: a spade and a diamond, the card suits, both in a deep blue. More spades and diamonds wind down and across other parts of her body, particularly her legs, which are partially displayed due to the leotard and knee-high heeled boots she wears, both in a dark blue.

The same dark blue as the jacket she wears with the white cross on its back and the white spades around her cuffs, and the tophat on her head, ringed with white diamonds. The symbol, not the jewel.

Featureless and stoic, you will only ever face her if you try to aim for Crosswhite’s head. She is protective and vicious by nature and indoctrination, because she was made for Crosswhite.

She keeps watch over him, a looming white and blue shadow, stretching over his back in the right lighting. If you attempted to harm him in any way, and the other members of her quartet didn’t kill you first, you’d more than likely die via a solid black fist tearing through your face and out the back of your head. Or by having your legs broken and your throat crushed under her heel if you managed to wound her beloved. Or by a slow and steady death from having sharp, black nails driven into every available inch of your skin–the thin, sharp needles of black metal, not quite bone or steel, steadily left behind in your taut flesh as though you’re a poster being hammered into place–if you managed to kill her beloved.

The only reason Seth didn’t suffer the same fate was because her beloved instructed her to leave the white suits unharmed when they entered his penthouse. He told her that they were his guests, and they should be left alive, and she obeyed, because she was made for him and he wasn’t made for her.

So she didn’t react in time when the gun was raised.

Juno has eyes. She has a great deal of eyes, made of black spots on fields of sky blue. All of them open wide. The pupils shrink as his body drops, and there’s a bark of a barrel as a prepared man in a white suit aims and fires and has the shotgun shoved under his chin before he even realizes he’s killed himself.

The Bloody Sundayers weren’t entirely stupid, they did have weapons ready, but they didn’t expect the pure rage of a mourner. Tears leak from a hundred eyes all across her rippling skin along with jagged black spikes as she tears Seth’s face off. His skin sticks to the jagged points in her palm and fingers and he screams in unexpected agony and clutches his ruined face in time for her to shove a clawed hand with an eye on its back through his stomach so she can watch his intestines spill.

He dies too quickly for her liking, and the other murderers–panicked and screaming–think they can kill her, so she proves them wrong. Any hint of humanity has vanished in weeping eyes and jagged metal, splitting from inside her body as her twitching, jerking head sprouts crooked horns, piercing upward like lightning bolts.

Don’t wear white in her presence. If you were in the room, it shouldn’t be dressed as one of the Sundayers, because she’ll shove her fingers up through your jaw and tear your brain out through your mouth. If you’re dressed otherwise though, she’ll actually leave you alone. Her weeping eyes might spare you some attention as she cradles her beloved’s body, her skin twisted into a mourner’s black as her body is wracked with silent sobs, but she won’t hurt you if you don’t look like one of them. Others would, but she won’t.

You’re just not important enough to kill. She won’t even strike back if you take the opportunity to blow open her blackened head–spraying blue blood, splatters of what might have been a brain, and what were most definitely once eyes–but it will mean someone else will kill you down the line for it. That’s just nature.

You might notice her spikes starting to dig into her beloved’s corpse, because she was made for him and he wasn’t made for her, so she needs to keep him with her. She needs to keep him safe, even if she didn’t when it mattered, and you’ll see the thorns of a weeping rose dig under skin and crack bones as she tears him into pieces and pulls him in. You haven’t seen her feed before, and the way her body almost peels open so strips of thorny, black flesh can pull the meat and marrow into a circular maw surrounded by undulating tendrils is...well, however it feels is up to you. Maybe you’re into it, who knows.

Her skin ripples once more, then the deed is done, and she will continue her hunt. She has no purpose now, so she’s going to kill every last murderer in white in the park. She will most likely die during it, but that is her cause, because she was made for him, and he wasn’t made for her. Because he gave her purpose. Because she didn’t love him. Because she was bound to him. Because she needs something out there.

Because she was made for him. And now he’s dead. So she’s going to kill everyone she feels like killing, and no one is going to stop her.

And who knows. Maybe you’ll elect to help her in her quest. She might appreciate that, though you’d do better kneecapping her targets so she can kill them properly. Stealing kills is just rude, and while she won’t kill you for it, since you’re just helping, she might get annoyed enough to leave.

And at this point, you really need all the friends you can get. Even if they’re monsters.

Especially if they’re monsters.

18: Ceres

Good riddance to bad trash, is the immediate thought that flits through the mind of Ceres upon her learning of Cedric Crosswhite’s death. Or at least an equivalent to that thought, as she doesn’t exactly think in English, though she can understand the language easily enough. Or at least certain phrases of it, when given in the right tone of voice.

She’s decent enough at picking up on cues, and she’s good at following leads, which is why she’s the most active of the cross quartet, and almost certainly the first one of the group you’ll wind up encountering. Juno is unwilling to leave Crosswhite’s side while Ceres is more than happy to, so she’s the one most often sent out on excursions and the one most likely to be sent to kill you if you offend her client in some way or another.

Once he’s dead, however, all bets are off, and she’ll be a frequent presence throughout the park as she explores around, looking for interesting ways to enjoy her time free of responsibilities. And also looking for interesting things to eat, so still be wary when you see her. Not that she’s hard to spot, as she has a pretty distinctive look.

Like Juno, she resembles a featureless white mannequin in general appearance, though everywhere Juno is blue, Ceres is red. Where spades sat, she has hearts instead, though they have diamonds in common. The general attire is similar, what with the leotard and heeled boots, though Ceres was gifted with fishnet tights and ruby gloves for her own ensemble, and she wears no jacket so you can easily see her back.

You might not be staring there though, as the human eye is naturally drawn to unusual things, and a pair of rabbit ears certainly stand out on a humanoid being. Not on top of her head, like a headband, but growing where they naturally would be for any humanoid, and just stretching upward, like two crimson headphones or antennas. Just furry, occasionally twitching, and letting this predator detect approaching threats and track fleeing targets. She also has a tail, which could potentially be handy for her if you assume she’s just some cute bunny-girl monster. Which she most definitely is, but not just that, and making assumptions about her being less lethal and vicious than the other monsters in the park is certainly something she’ll take advantage of.

Really, she can use a lot of things to her advantage because she’s a smart gal and it’s not difficult to figure out weapons. Pointy ends go into soft flesh, hit with the heavy part, and point and pull a trigger; it’s not hard, though she is encouraged to not use guns by her boss because it removes too much of the sport.

So it should come as no surprise that she immediately starts up collecting guns once Crosswhite is shot through the head, which she wasn’t present for because her idiot client instructed her and the other two non-Juno bodyguards to start clearing out the remaining rogues and undead in the Avenue. The zone was his, so clearly the riff-raff had to go, but then Cedric had his brains splattered.

So she kept on killing. Because why would she stop?

Ceres has very wide smiles when she gets excited. Dozens of them, all across her skin. Mouths filled with sharp teeth stretch eagerly across her exposed flesh, starting first at the lower half of her face, then spreading down her neck, over her chest, across her back.

It’s a mistake to assume her “outfit” is actual fabric. You’ll likely figure out that any clothes she wears are just shifted skin, made most obvious when her stomach tears open to show a greedy, drooling maw with a row of teeth along its lips, another row of internal teeth, another set of teeth around the fleshy bud inside her chest, and a long, prehensile tongue that slithers eagerly out to lap at anything catching her interest. Allowing her to lick you is a bad idea–not least because that’s just weird–because said tongue is covered in razor spines sharp enough to shred human flesh straight off the bone.

Before she’s set loose, you might encounter her at random through the park, where she might elect to try to kill you on a whim. Afterward though, she’ll do the exact same thing, but also she’ll be a lot more bestial looking.

Her bunny ears remain, but her round tail is gone in favor of splitting open like a meaty flower and face is a distorted mass of fleshy red canine maws pushing their way out of her head. Her distorted, enlarged hands and feet are not quite clawed so much as teethed, and dozens of open lips and bared teeth cross all over her red and pink flesh–horizontally, vertically, diagonally, and even in spirals–occasionally opening so thorned tongues can eagerly lick at the air or burrow into chest cavities so she can tear out and devour the hearts of her victims.

If you’re worried about Juno, listen for weeping. If you’re afraid of Ceres, listen for drooling. There’s a difference, and knowing that will save your life.

Before she’s let loose, Ceres will aim to slice you up with blades, break your skull with hammers or bats, or simply tear into you with her teeth. She’ll want to do the last one most of all, so she’ll usually try to cut or beat you down beforehand, so you’re easier to consume.

After she’s let loose, Ceres will watch from rooftops, perched and waiting for opportunities. You might notice her, at some point, start wearing a tactical vest drenched in blood–her mouths and tongues still peeking out from under it–and completely strapped with whatever weaponry she found interesting enough to keep. She won’t kill you easily once she gets guns though; she’ll blow your legs apart so she can savor you. Quick shots just aren’t fun.

Surviving Ceres is difficult after she gains freedom. Really, the only way to guarantee she won’t hurt you past that point is if you put in the work to befriend Juno. She’ll still listen for you, taste the air when you’re close, but she won’t aim for you or attempt to hurt you. Her sister rarely makes friends, so she won’t take that from her.

But may whatever god you know of have mercy on you if you harm one of her sisters; the vengeful hedonist will have none.

You don’t want to find out how long you can survive after being swallowed whole.

19: Vesta

It may come as a surprise to realize, but there are still places left to discover in the park. Not full areas like the various zones, but something like the Disco Never Dies Roller Rink.

The Rink is located in between the Carnival and the Avenue, in its own slightly unique connecting area, and it’s a perfectly nice little place. Very disco-themed with a number of disco balls set all around the room, large enough to fit quite a few people, and containing a nice little lounge/restaurant with a couple arcade games, in addition to the rink itself, which is full of zombies on rollerskates.

Among the technicians of the park, the designers and makers of monsters, there’s one that really, really wanted to do a disco thing, and got their wish, for better or worse. Unfortunately, their idea of having the zombies contained within the rink as lethal disco dancers was not to be, as while the dead could totally rock the very 70s era clothing, they’re also quite literally shambling corpses and are excessively uncoordinated when stuck in weird wheely things permanently attached to their feet.

More than a few of the dead in this building have their noses quite visibly smashed in.

But not to worry! For one wonderful lady has elected to make the technician’s dreams come true! Well, at least once she’s freed from her former client.

Vesta is the cheery yellow to the cool blue and passionate red, or so she prefers to think. There’s also the green, but she’s the youngest, so she comes after, and now it’s Vesta’s time!

And you’ll more than likely meet Vesta in a less than hostile context, because she’s the one that delivers the invitation if Crosswhite decides to have you meet him. She’ll be very cheerful about it, though you might find it disconcerting to see her skin ripple as the worms underneath it try to form a smile.

One of her eyes is a star and the other is a diamond, both in yellow. Both symbols too, and not really eyes, but symbols are important and she likes to emphasize them. Her leotard is patterned with stars, after all, and lined with yellow feathers, with a feathery tail sticking up over star-printed booty. Feathers are also visible around her gloves and on her heeled boots, giving her an almost mercurial air, in the divine sense. Though she doesn’t wear any winged helmet, instead having the brightly feathered headdress of a showgirl.

She trades out those boots for rollerblades the instant she’s allowed though, and you might be surprised to see her actually change her looks further, with the patterns on her skin now alternating between purple and yellow, and her outfit is switched out entirely for star sunglasses, a midriff-bearing t-shirt, and denim shorts. She wants to look the proper part, and honestly the leotard just felt too confining, more for “showing off” than showing off, as she’s sure you can understand.

Well, so long as she’s positively inclined towards you. So, again, little reminder that harming the sisters is a bad move in the long run, though in this case, it won’t actually end lethally for you.

No, instead you’ll see holes like honeycomb open up across her “mouth” as she grips you tight between shockingly strong hands before wriggling worms and slugs spill from her mouth and push their way into your every orifice. Further holes will open on her palms as she grips your head and parasites will start to push into your ears, burrowing deep into your brain so she can puppet you properly.

Which is exactly how she’s getting the zombies to move along with her, dancing to her rhythm and skating around in a parody of cheerful amusement, while also acting as probably the most lethal batch of bodyguards now present in the park, because they do not stop, they do not die, and they’re fireproof. Cold works better, though salt is actually decently effective in a pinch. You just need to hit the worms, not what they’re puppeting, so best to get good at cracking skulls open if you’re that dead set on making poor life choices.

While working for her client, Vesta is efficient; she carries a machete and simply removes the heads of those causing problems. Once she’s in her element though, she does what’s in her nature and delivers that members of her internal colony into whatever she needs controlled, and the parasites within her are certainly effective at diversifying in new, horrific ways depending on what their “queen” requires.

And she is technically their queen; both in the sense of her internal organs constantly producing more of these parasites and in the sense of her being the head of what’s not actually a hive mind, but more of a broadcasting station for a number of organisms tuned into the same channel.

It’s a weird thing, but the basics are that if you see worms, leeches, slugs, or strange slimes leaking from strangely coordinated zombies, you’re in range of her network and she’ll see you coming. It’s how she kept the dead away from her client, and it’s how she’ll deal with troublemakers that might show up to ruin her vacation time.

So don’t be rude, kay?

20: Pomona

Pomona looks like her sisters. That’s natural, because they’re all sisters. Related, siblings, blood, kin, redundancies. They were born from the same place at the same hands, and the material that made them might not’ve been related, but then a person’s parents are rarely related, and when they are, that’s not right, now is it?

Pomona is aware of many things. She is aware that she is artificial. She is aware that she was made to kill people. She is aware that she was made to protect one person. To take care of his needs. Her skin–not quite skin, more akin to chitin–shifts and crawls at that thought, of the feelings it brings to mind. She is aware that she thinks more than her purpose would require.

She is aware that she thinks, therefore she is. And she wonders what else might be.

Pomona looks like Juno if Juno wore green and had a bowler hat instead. Sometimes she wonders if her designers ran out of ideas for performers, or if she was always meant to be this way. There was a sort of sense to it; the magician, the bunny, the showgirl, the...dancer, maybe. The performer. The fancy lass.

She keeps the hat because she likes it. She’ll hold onto it, even as her white and green face peels back and the chittering interior begins to peek out.

Pomona is clubs and diamonds. She doesn’t know the exact logic in the symbols. Spades, Hearts, Stars, Clubs, and all Diamonds. Did it mean they had value? What was the idea behind it? Why was her own jacket printed with clovers?

She wants to learn more. She’s willing to put that goal in danger if you hurt her family though. Like all of them, she’ll aim to kill you. In her case, the chitinous plates that mimic skin on her face will open up and insectoid claws, feelers, and pincers will promptly begin tearing your soft skin part so the black centipedes lined with green eyes can start digging into your sockets.

She won’t parasitically puppet you–she’s not as soft as Vesta–she’ll just eat you alive from the inside out and take your skull with her as a keepsake as she continues on her mission.

Seth Marotti was prompted to kill her client. She’s very certain of that because her makers informed her of a change in plans. Due to legitimate grievances with corporate–not least of which being the shutting down of many fun and interesting projects and the persistent insistence that their lovely creations had to be killed for sport, with a guarantee that they would be disposed of following the event either way–the technicians of the park have elected to lodge a formal complaint in the form of having every last one of the ungrateful fucks ripped to pieces by the very monsters they intended to kill.

Also because that “cheap asshole Graman stiffed us on pay”, though Pomona was fairly certain she wasn’t meant to hear that last bit.

Regardless, she had a secondary purpose all this time. Or, more specifically, her primary purpose was different than assumed by the executives; Priority 1 was sabotaging the park after her client’s death, Priority 2 was pretending to protect the client until his death.

To this end, she’ll outright let you kill Crosswhite if you happen to get in the exact right confluence of events to get her and him alone with you, but there’s also her own self-directed priority; Priority 0 - Protect Family. And since Juno was attached to the client, Pomona will intervene in the case of a threat to her life, even if it’s to the detriment of her primary mission.

Not that you could kill her. You could get her to fake her death, if her body takes too much damage, but Pomona is designed to survive essentially everything that could harm her. She has a hardened shell instead of skin, her interiors are all essentially hard-shell insects and crustaceans, and the redundancies in her own biology means she can survive anything from decapitation to being burned alive.

She can breathe underwater, survive freezing, and poisons don’t affect her. Guns that can get through her shell could do some damage, but it’s superficial. Even blowing her up will just mean she’ll need to reconstitute later. And she will inevitably come for you. Even if you escape the park, even if everything is destroyed, even if you’re sitting at home, years later, content and safe.

Even then, you’ll eventually notice something small, maybe a beetle or a pillbug. And you might not know it, but it will mean she’s found you. And when she comes to you, it won’t in the form of a painted mannequin dressed as a performer.

She won’t look exactly like a mass of insects. That implies a disconnect, that they’re not all one unit, attached to each other in every sense of the word. Curled centipedes, the size of small dogs, bound together, shifted into spirals that form into a humanoid shape. But there are far too many and far too large of legs for even giant centipedes, pushing out the black mass. A halo of twitching limbs sticks out from behind her open head.

Her face is a spiral of black and green. Lopsided eyes will stare at you and thin antennas will brush your face before she grabs your head in her hands and twists until there’s a snap. Or squeezes until there’s a squelch. Or maybe she just digs in.

It’s a hypothetical. You haven’t escaped, not yet, maybe not ever, and she’s moved from the Avenue into the underground of the park. And she’s gone where she’s needed, killed who she’s needed to, and done her job properly.

You might not even encounter her at all, though you’ll most definitely notice the monsters she lets loose from the labs. The game is changing again, and the park is bound to be worse for it.

So try your best, have some fun, and maybe make a few friends along the way.

#31 day horror park #halloween #horror #missed a few days #eh #my writing

0 notes

munstergaragedr-blog · 5 years

Text

How to Safeguard Your Home Against Burglary & Crime

by HomeAdvisor

Image via Pixabay

Protecting Your Home From the Outside

Walk around the exterior of your home and scout out its weaknesses.

The best way to protect your home from the outside is to survey it with the eyes of a burglar. If you can easily tell that a window could be pried open, a thief will definitely be able to come to the same conclusion. You can even contact your local police department and they’ll provide a courtesy home assessment that can help you identify your home’s weak spots.

Image via Pixabay

Get to know your neighbors.

Crime tends to be lower in tight-knit communities because neighbors are more likely to look out for each other and can easily spot a stranger. Your neighbors can be one of your best assets in home crime prevention because they offer extra eyes and an outside perspective. Plus if they have a different work or school schedule from yours, they might be around during the day when you’re away and can alert you to any suspicious activity that may occur in your absence.

Image via Pixabay

Protecting Your Home from the Inside

Keep all doors and windows closed and locked at all times. An open exterior window or door is an invitation for burglars to easily enter your home, so keep them shut and securely locked whether you’re home or not. Don’t underestimate strong window locks, and update them if needed. Thieves know how to spot weak locks that would be easily forced open. Make sure exterior doors have deadbolt locks. Sliding doors should have vertical bolts and a metal or wooden rod in the track to prevent being forced open or doors being lifted off the track. Never leave your home without locking the front door, no matter how brief your trip. Even if it’s pouring rain, don’t forget to take the extra moment to lock up. Burglars don’t take days off due to weather!

And don’t forget the door attached to the garage. It’s one of the easiest targets and a likely route of entry. Don’t depend on your automatic garage door for full security.

Change the locks when moving into a new place. If you’re a renter, ask the landlord to change them if it wasn’t already done. Even if an old tenant returned all the keys originally issued, there’s no way to know for sure if there were ever other copies made and distributed. It’s better to be safe than sorry, especially when it comes to a stranger being able to walk into your locked home.

Secure valuables in a home safe or lockbox. If it is small and not mounted, consider having your safe bolted to the floor since many burglars will simply take it with them Give your pass code or combination only to a trusted loved one in case of emergency. Don’t leave it posted anywhere in your house easily accessible to an intruder.

Don’t label your personal keys or or hide spares outside. If your keys are labeled and get lost or stolen you could be in big trouble, especially if your wallet with your ID and address are with them. And thieves know to look under mats and in the gravel for fake rocks to find hidden keys, so instead leave a spare with a trusted neighbor. If you live in a rural area and your closest neighbor is miles down the road, opt for a combination lockbox in a discreet area of your property.

Image via Pixabay

Add privacy film to decorative glass on and around exterior doors. Stained and decorative glass displays can be a beautiful addition to any entrance, but they can present a bit of a security issue. Line them with privacy film to distort the view from the outside and reduce the chances of window shopping or alerting an unwanted visitor to your presence (or lack thereof). This can be especially beneficial for anyone who lives alone or in a house with children old enough to be left on their own.

Consider buying a home security system. There are countless features with any security system, and some particularly valuable ones are outdoor motion detectors, sensors at exterior doors, windows, and the door attached to the garage, an outdoor alarm to alert other neighbors to an intrusion, and security cameras. Select the features that best fit your needs and be sure to go with a well-known, reputable company. Once it’s installed, make it a regular habit to use it. Though it may seem inconvenient to have to arm the system every time you leave the house, many burglars are aware that the responsibility is often neglected and may not be deterred by window stickers or yard signs warning of home protection.

Do your best to learn and inform your family about the security system to cut down on false alarms. They can actually bring on expensive fines not to mention annoy your neighbors. Plus, you don’t want to have a boy-who-cried-wolf effect where your neighbors eventually learn to ignore your alarm anytime it goes off!

Reinforce windows with safety glass or metal bars. It may seem an extreme step, but burglars will often break a small window in order to gain entry. Make it impossible for them to break through by installing safety glass or impossible to squeeze through by installing metal bars. There are plenty of decorative options for metal grilles that can make the adjustment both practical and aesthetically-pleasing.

Protecting Your Home While You’re on Vacation

Double- and triple-check all doors and windows before you leave. Make sure your house is as locked-up and secure as it can be in your absence. (Don’t forget the door leading to the garage!) Be sure to leave some curtains and blinds open to give the illusion that someone is around. Thieves tend to take note of a house that’s clearly been closed up.

Talk to a trusted neighbor about helping create a “lived-in” look. Have them use your outdoor trash cans and collect your mail, newspapers, and any delivered packages. Stacked up mail and newspapers along with empty trash cans can be a clear sign to anyone that you’re not home and may be gone a while. If you’re taking a winter getaway, ask your neighbor to create tire tracks in your driveway and leave footprints leading up to your front door to create the illusion that someone is home. If you’re taking an extended summer vacation, pay someone to cut your grass and keep the yard tidy.

Don’t forget to give your spare key directly to your neighbor rather than leaving it under the mat or in a faux rock or statue. It’s important to leave a key in case of emergencies, but it’s also helpful to have someone check in on your home periodically to ensure no one has entered in your absence. Make sure you leave a contact number where you can be reached while you’re away. And always return the favor to a neighbor in need!

Put timers on lights. Select a few rooms in your house to remain lit to reduce the chances that any thief casing the neighborhood will notice that you’ve been gone. Have outdoor lights, especially around entrances, set to light up every evening. A bright house welcomes friendly guests, but a dark house welcomes undesirable visitors.

Lock your garage door and disconnect the automatic opener. This is an easy, but often forgotten step to keep your home safe while away. Garage doors seem like impenetrable forces so it’s easy to overlook additional steps in securing them. But if you’re going to be gone for a week and won’t need the automatic lift anyway, why not disconnect it and add an easy extra layer of security?

Leave a radio on and turn down your doorbell. A battery-operated radio is a practical, cheap way to make it sound like someone is around. And since many burglars ring the doorbell or knock to see if anyone’s home turning down the sound of the doorbell combined with a loud radio will make thieves unsure if the house is empty or if the resident simply doesn’t hear the door.

Don’t advertise your trip. It’s pretty common for people to post all about their upcoming trip on social media, but avoid the urge. The more people who know your house will be empty, the more you open yourself up to the possibility of a break-in. Similarly, don’t leave a message on your landline answering machine that you’re out of town.

Home invasion and burglary may never truly be eliminated from society, but their threats shouldn’t cause you to live your life in fear. Take these simple measures to secure your home, and reduce the chances that a crook will even look at it twice!

ARTICLE: How to Safeguard Your Home Against Burglary & Crime

RELATED ARTICE: Identifying Garage Door Spring Issues

Whatever you need for home security, call Munster Garage Door Repair

#emergency locksmith #locksmith #locksmith service

0 notes

strategiclocksmiths · 5 years

Text

How to Safeguard Your Home Against Burglary & Crime

by HomeAdvisor

Image via Pixabay

Protecting Your Home From the Outside

Image via Pixabay

Protecting Your Home from the Inside

And don’t forget the door attached to the garage. It’s one of the easiest targets and a likely route of entry. Don’t depend on your automatic garage door for full security.

Image via Pixabay

Protecting Your Home While You’re on Vacation

Article Source: How to Safeguard Your Home Against Burglary & Crime

Related Article: Be Safer With These Terrific Home Security Tips

0 notes