#and just not accept any job offers from them if i get the government job i want

[emmajeanned]

Had the realization today that teaching is the wrong career path for someone who had to fight tooth and nail to survive going to college full time while having a job full time because the idea of having this same type of workload for the rest of my life literally makes me want to kill myself

[ccrisntok]

Your Masterminds, Whit Young, and Ace Markey! (mm! whace au)

(Spoilers lol)

what normal fellas ahahahahaha (I have poured my entire soul into these two there is nothing left of me)

A basic summary of their relationship:

Whit has spent like, over a year manipulating Ace into being complacent in his plans. In his own eyes, Ace is a sorta-stupid lacky, who he's constantly love-bombing to keep obedient. Although, he is a bit glad for the company... it was sorta empty when Ace was "dead" and they couldn't really talk. And maybe Ace almost dying from his fake execution was a bit disturbing. But he's sure its nothing! (He fell in love with him like a moron.)

Ace has fully fallen in love with Whit. He's not happy about it, but it happened. As a result, he's basically ruined any semblance of his own morality, just so he doesn't lose Whit, or the affection he knows is mostly performative. He's more than happy to kill his fuck-face classmates, after a... bit of prodding, and honestly, he'd do anything Whit asked at this point, even die. He'll still complain about it, though.

i tried to be as original as humanly possible, but I'm def giving credit to @talkativeanonymous, @acethehorseishere, and @a-blog-for-kat all for inspiring these two in one way or another (esp. a-blog-for-kat lol).

anyway there's the art, here's the promised lore. warning for like a million words. I'm serious. It's 1,400 words. you can stop here i don't blame you.

also sorry for the odd looking bullet points, didn't realize you couldn't have gaps lol!

This au operates on a probably un-canon assumption that I pulled out of my ass. That is that Mai Akasaki is both a student in the class of 27, and that she is the "time loop" student. She is usually a part of the killing game, but she isn't this time, for reasons I'll explain in a sec.

This specific loop, Mai is attempting to dissuade the (usual) mastermind from wanting to start a killing game in the first place. That mastermind is Whit Young.

She goes about this by trying to curb Whit's main reason for his descent into despair, his resounding loneliness, by giving him championship. Charles hasn't softened up to the others in any regard yet. But that wasn't the main reason, unbenouced to Mai.

In this loop, and this loop alone, Mai sets Whit and Ace up to be friends. She hopes they can help each other, since they usually end up more or less alone in their school life.

Surprisingly, it works. They get along decently well, although a codependency starts to develop on Ace's side.

Around this time, Whit takes up an internship at XF Future, which Mai doesn't realize. He innocently wants to explore other job options, "Matchmaking" not really being a stable career forever.

Obviously FX Future isn't a normal Tech Company. Whit starts to change, in a barely noticeable fashion, the longer he works there.

Ace notices Whit's contacts start looking a lot more vibrant after Whit takes a couple weeks off school for a "company trip." He thinks it's... sort of pretty.

(Whit's time at XF Future showed him a side of humanity he didn't realize existed. Insane levels of greed, using the concepts of "ultimates" to guide a stupid pubic where the Government wanted them, generally a dystopia. It feeds into his existing detachment from humanity, until he hits a breaking point, setting his sights on ending the "Ultimates" concept by killing the newest class in the public eye, including himself.)

(XF Future develops a new sort of technology, prosthetic "eyes" that basically turn you into a living remote control, able to connect to an entire building if its connected via a computer system. Security cameras, doors, fucking air conditioning- everything.

(Whit offers himself as the test dummy, and it goes perfectly.)

Anyway, Mai decides to talk to Ace, since she's starting to realize he's becoming a bit... softer after hanging out with Whit so much? And hopes like, for once, he'll actually accept help for his mountain of problems.

He doesn't take this conversation very well.

Mai, with knowledge from dozens of loops, accidentally brings up an extremely traumatic event, simply mentioning the name "Tyler" once.

In a blinding mix of rage and horror at Mai's knowledge of the event, that Ace has literally never even spoken about in this timeline, Ace shoves her away from him.

She falls backwards, and splits her head on a desk, killing her instantly.

Ace, in a horrified frenzy, calls Whit, literally his only friend.

Whit shows up. Ace expects him to freak the fuck out, call the cops, or something like that... But he doesn't.

Whit simply tells him they were going to hide the body together, not even remotely caring about Mai's death.

yeah that's a little fucking weird, and its terrifying, but going to jail is scarier sooo Ace goes along with it!

After this, Whit wraps Ace into uncharacteristically cruel pranks against some of their classmates and others at Hopes Peak, oftentimes resulting in physical injury.

He acts like these are completely normal and funny, while Ace is both freaked out by it, and sort of enjoys enacting pain on people he didn't like.

Along the way, Whit notices Ace starting to fall for him. Horrible news for Ace, since Whit plays into those emotions by becoming much more physically and emotionally affectionate. Which he doesn't enjoy, like, at all... not a bit...

Whit convinces Ace to assist him in greater and greater acts of violence until Whit just straight up kills someone (not a classmate, a stranger.)

Ace is of course tied into everything way too deep to stop now, and after all this... he doesn't really want to. So he stays as Whit's accomplice for months, up until Whit's weirdo behavior arrives at the idea of the killing game. He references the "First Killing Game", which Ace had never heard of.

The idea is a bit intense for Ace, but at that point, he didn't have anything beyond Whit. If it took this to stay with him... He'd do it. Even if in the end, they both were going to die.

So they get to work!

Ace had been taking engineering classes at Hope's Peak in hopes of getting out of jockeying, and he'd helped his family build sheds and shit since he was a kid, so he focused on the construction and executions.

Whit wired the building an all-encompassing computer system he could control, as well as stealing "Mono-TV" from XF Future, a robot he can fully control to be the "host" of the game.

He also steals the "mind wiping" technology from XF Future. It's weirdly easy to steal stuff from this company, hm? It's almost like they aren't protecting it...

Whit also uses another piece of experimental biological technology... on Ace.

A screen connected to his brain, a lottt less invasive than Whit's eye surgery. It doesn't impact Ace mentally, it just gives him the ability to produce visible projections for easy construction, communicate with Whit remotely, (and give Whit a way to always know what Ace's condition.)

The screen is unclipped when the game starts, but the brain implant is still connected to Whit, so he can detect Ace's condition.

After kidnapping the class of 27 and wiping their memories... It all starts. A killing game, streamed live to the entire nation.

Whit and Ace start off as a part of the class, interacting with the others like normal, a pretty decent show. Things go roughly as planned, putting everyone in the positions Whit wanted them. Untilll... chapter 2.

Ace gets his ass jumped, and almost dies prematurely. This is fine, Whit privately makes sure the wounds properly cleaned, but it does fill Whit with an... ominous feeling.

Ace still kills Arei, a part of the plan, and gets "executed", so he can more easily upkeep the executions and such behind the scenes.

After the screen playing the fake execution turns off, Whit checks to make sure Ace didn't get injured in his running around... but can't detect anything.

At all.

Ace's heart wasn't beating.

He actually, seriously, had a fucking heart attack.

(Ace's heart attack was for a combination of reasons. Firstly, his heart was actually in pretty bad condition as a result of his eating disorder, something Whit had figured was "over" by now. It wasn't!)

(Second, in that moment, the idea that maybe, just maybe, Whit could have been double-crossing him came to Ace. What if Whit loaded the guns? What if Ace's use was done, and Whit was finally getting rid of him? It was terrifying because he could die, and terrifying because... It'd make sense. It was all that ever happened to him.)

So he had a heart attackkk lameeeeee

This makes Whit tweak the fuck out, internally. (lol pretend his spooky ass sprite happens AFTER the execution, not before. shh its all made up its all pretend)

After Levi gets taken to the infirmary, Whit drops Charles off at his room as quickly as he can, then fucking BOLTS IT to a hidden passageway in his room to the like... Mastermind area, with the execution chamber.

Whit manages to resuscitate Ace in time, barely. And even after that, he's in pretty bad condition. But he's conscious and mobile.

Whit gets him as comfortable as he can, and after spending the night, he sort of... has to leave. He does some tweaks to Ace's brain screen thing, creating a functional heart monitor that Ace (and he) can watch.

As often as he can, Whit sneaks off to the Mastermind area at night to make sure Ace doesn't fucking die in his sleep. But Ace gets... decently better quickly, and returns to his duties overseeing the killing game.

Whit still visits almost every night to make sure Ace wakes up, which he can't really explain to himself. Ace was... supposed to be disposable anyway. Why would it matter if he died?

Anyway yeah the rest of the game happens. No clue there.

In the end, Whit and Ace come out as masterminds (happy pride).

I have a comic planned for how the end goes, soooo... that's it!

holy fuck! my fingers! hi the whole 2 people who made it down this far... uh... did you like my lore.....? do you want me dead now for having you read 1,400 words of two evil homsexuals...? 😅 love you thank you im sorry.

[sergeantxrogers]

Can you please write something with the idea of y/n asking Bucky if she can tie a pink ribbon around his bicep? Thank you

Request: "Can you please write something with the idea of y/n asking Bucky if she can tie a pink ribbon around his bicep? Thank you"

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: none, just fluff

Note: hooooly shit guys, i've been gone for way too long. hope you enjoy <3

_____

The jingle of keys in the doorknob had you lifting your eyes from your book, followed by the sound of the door opening and closing softly. The quiet whispers of a jacket being taken off, laces being untied, keys being set on the small table beside the door travelled through the apartment, meeting your ears and bringing a smile to your face.

Soft footsteps padded against the hardwood floor, careful to avoid any creaky spots.

"I'm awake, Buck," you called out softly from the comfort of your bed, and you heard him pause his movements. And then continue, a bit quicker than before.

Brown hair and blue eyes popped around the the edge of the door frame, brows furrowed. "It's midnight. Why are you still awake?"

You shrugged, sitting up in bed and setting your book aside. "Dunno, really. Got caught up reading."

Bucky frowned, and stepped into the room, walking over to the bed. "You can't sleep?"

It was a casual question, but you sensed the undertone of worry laced through it, and smiled to yourself.

"Actually, I spent most of the evening redecorating, so I'll probably start snoring as soon as the lights are off."

Bucky's hands reached for yours, grabbing them and bringing them up to his lips as he stood in front of you. One, two, three kisses along your knuckles. One hand, then the other.

"Redecorating?" he murmured against your skin, and you nodded slyly. His eyes narrowed, partially in amusement, partially in curiosity.

You cleared your throat and pulled your hands back, settling yourself back into the fluffy down of your pillows and blankets. "How was work today?"

At your question, Bucky's jaw ticked.

"It was fine."

You studied him for a few seconds, and cocked your head. "Just fine?"

He let out a heavy sigh, then collapsed atop the comforter at the foot of the bed. On nights like this, when he came home later than usual, the tension in his shoulders a bit more prominent than usual, the bags under his eyes a bit heavier, he found it hard to form sentences adequate enough to explain how he felt or what he needed.

Ever since the government cleared him of all charges and his mandated therapy ended, Bucky had taken up a job at the DCSA.

Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.

On paper, James Buchanan Barnes was an ordinary, ex-military security guard working for the Department of Defense and the United States.

In reality, the executive branch of the federal government reached out to him themselves and offered him a job doing what they claimed he did best: making people disappear, and making it seem like an accident. He was hesitant at first, unwilling to be the very thing he tried so hard to run away from being, but soon enough, they had made it very clear he had limited options: accept the position, or get thrown in prison for all the charges they claimed to have dropped.

So, for all his hesitating and hatred, Bucky Barnes was the United States government's own personal hitman, killing anybody who posed a threat to the life of the president, his family, or anybody in the Senate.

At least they paid better than HYDRA, Bucky had once joked. You could see, in his eyes, how much it pained him to revert back to his old ways, once again not having a choice.

Bucky cleared his throat, and glanced at you, blinking away the shadows behind his eyes.

"It's fine, sweetheart. I promise. It could have been worse."

Your heart cracked in your chest and you frowned, burying your cheek even deeper into your pillow as you looked at him. "If you say so."

Bucky pursed his lips to the side, then looked toward the door connecting your bedroom to the bathroom. Without a word, he got up, walking towards the bathroom and simultaneously pulling his shirt over his head. You smiled to yourself as you watched him disappear behind the door, flicking the lights on and letting the soft, yellow glow flood the floor of your room. You listened to him shuffle about, letting out a soft sigh as he unbuckled his belt.

His movements paused.

Your smile grew.

"Y/N?" he called out.

"Yes, babe?"

The door creaked open all the way, and behind it stood Bucky, holding his toothbrush in one hand, with a confused look on his face.

"Why is there a pink bow on my toothbrush?"

It took all your strength not to burst into a fit of giggles immediately as you schooled your face into one of nonchalance, and said, "I told you. I redecorated."

Bucky's bewildered eyes flickered from you, to the toothbrush, then back to you. Then he turned to look at the bathroom. And you saw the exact moment in which he realized there were pink bows everywhere. Big, small, light pink, dark pink, neon pink, cotton, silk, linen. A variety of ribbons tied in bows around everything you could think of: toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo bottles, the soap dispenser, the toilet brush, the towel rack, your skincare bottles, his deodorant and cologne.

"Y/N," Bucky said calmly.

"Yes?" you replied, batting your eyelashes innocently.

"Can you please tell me, why, exactly, you decided on redecorating with pink bows everywhere?"

You hummed, then shrugged. "You know, I'm not exactly sure. I just think they make pretty things look so much prettier. I may have gone a bit overboard, though."

"You think?"

You bit back a grin as you watched him shake his head, as if to snap him from his stupor of amusement, and bend over the sink to brush his teeth. You watched him brush his teeth, wash his face, change out of his jeans and into pajama pants. You tracked him as he turned the lights off and sighed, trudging over to the bed, exhaustion creeping into every one of his movements and pulling at him like gravity. You opened your arms wide, lifting the covers as you did so, and Bucky gladly crawled into them, nuzzling his head into your chest and wrapping his arms around your waist and back.

You placed a soft kiss to the crown of his head, and let your arms come loosely around his neck. Bucky said nothing, content to lay in silence and listen to the beat of your heart as it lulled him to sleep.

After a few minutes of you silently running your fingers through his hair, you whispered his name. "Bucky?"

He hummed in answer against your chest.

"You know how I said pink bows make pretty things even prettier?"

You felt, rather than saw, his body pause at the question, and then his head was up and his blue eyes were staring into yours with a puzzled expression. "Yes... why? What's that have to do with anything?"

"Well..."

You paused. All of a sudden, you felt stupid. Bucky's furrowed brows and sleepy eyes urged you to continue.

"I have a pink ribbon under the pillow, actually, and I was... I wanted to..."

"What, honey?"

"Well, I was wondering if I could tie it around your arm."

Bucky paused, blinking up at you slowly, as if he hadn't heard you.

"My arm?"

You nodded.

"Why?"

You shrugged. "Because it's already beautiful, and I want to make it even more so."

He laid there quiet for a moment, and you were about to tell him to forget about it, but then he unwrapped his arms from around you, letting you drop flat onto your back, and shoved a hand beneath your head. Beneath your pillow.

He emerged with a baby pink ribbon in his fingers, the material pliable and soft in his grip, as he handed it to you.

"Go ahead," he said simply.

You gave him a skeptical look. "Really?"

He shrugged with one shoulder. "Why not? Did you think I'd say no?"

You fell quiet, then let out a sigh through your nose, turning over slightly to better reach his arm. His left arm.

You wrapped the ribbon around his bicep, the vibranium cold and unyielding, a stark contrast to the warm pink silk in your fingers. You looped it through, pulling it taut, then let go. You stared at it for a second, then glanced up at Bucky. Leaning in, you pressed a light kiss to the exposed metal right above the bow.

Bucky let out a shuddering breath, then laid down again, this time face to face with you. His fingers traced soft, swirling patterns against the skin of your arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake, and you closed your eyes against the feeling.

"I love you so much," he muttered quietly. "You know that, right?"

You nodded, eyes closed and a smile playing at your lips. "I know. I love you, too. Every part of you."

Bucky loosed a breath that sounded somewhat like a disbelieving breath, and you felt him lean in and press a kiss to your temple.

You fell asleep without even realizing, lulled into dreams by the steady thrum of his heartbeat and his hand stroking your hair.

[upon-a-starry-night]

Number Neighbors Pt.29

Natasha Romanoff x Fem! Reader

Natasha Masterlist Series Masterlist

Word Count: 2.3k

Summary:  When you catch sight of the newest trend going around you know you’re all but bound to at least try it, it was harmless anyway. What could possibly stem from something so little?

----

There’s nothing like the warmth of a home-cooked meal. Especially in comparison to the mediocre meals you were cooking for yourself. You like to think it heals a little part of your soul with each bite you take. 

Your mother doesn't question why you suddenly accepted her offer home after months of refusing but you have a feeling she might know. She’s always had weird physic mom abilities. At first, you thought you could get away with acting normal but the look she gave you when you got in her car at the airport told you you’d been caught.

Since that moment your mother has been doing an exceptional job at distracting you and you’ll never be able to express just how grateful you are for her. 

The few days that you’ve been home your mother’s been parading you around town, showing you what’s new and telling you stories of all the crazy things you’d do in every building, playground, and park. When you're home, your mother finds excuses to give you small brushes of physical affection and you don’t realize just how lonely living by yourself has gotten until you woke up to waffles and a kiss on the forehead.

You have a small inkling that she’s behind the occasional disappearance of your phone as well but you don’t comment on it. It’s a welcome break from the chaos of social media but you know you can’t avoid your problems forever and reality hits one afternoon when your mom is out grocery shopping and your phone dings with a notification.

You pick it up to see multiple news outlets blowing up about the upcoming press conference the government will be holding to explain what happened to the Avengers and you all but rush to turn the news on the TV.

There are a few unfriendly-looking government officials in suits and balding hair standing in front of a podium full of microphones and before any of them have even spoken there’s a flash of cameras from somewhere behind the camera.

One of the taller white men steps forward and the room goes silent. You’re on the edge of your seat with anticipation and you’re sure everyone else watching is as well. The man in the suit looks less than excited to be there and you can already tell by the look on his face that you’re not going to like what he has to say. Your stomach sinks in.

“I know this has been greatly anticipated by the public and I’m sure you all have a lot of questions so I'll get straight to the point.” Another camera shutter clicks. “ Around a month ago we approached the Avengers group about the amount of destruction they left behind after their battles. We felt the damage was too significant to let it continue happening, so we came up with the proposal that the Avengers agree to government supervision and limitations to minimize the damages.” 

You let out a low hiss through your teeth as murmurs fill the conference room. You’re sure most of the Avengers wouldn’t have taken kindly to that situation. If you’re honest you’re surprised a full-out fight hadn’t started. It only makes you more nervous for what’s to come.

“Unfortunately, a few members of the group didn’t agree with our terms and have since fled to avoid responsibility” Your blood boils at the way he’s talking about the world's greatest heroes, like they’re teenagers who broke the neighbors' window. You’re sure they’re purposely leaving out details of their contract to make the Avengers look bad. “Due to this circumstance,” A woman steps from behind him and hands him a file and he opens it and begins lifting picture after picture “The following Avengers are now considered wanted felons. If you see any of them please contact your local authorities-”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence as the room erupts into chaos. Reporters are shouting, cameras are flashing left and right and questions are being flung at the uncomfortable-looking officials. 

You practically shoot up from your seat in outrage. The Avengers are wanted felons? What was the government thinking? Just because they wanted control over the world's strongest and smartest? You hated to think what the world would descend into now that criminals not only didn’t have to fear the Avengers, but could call to get them arrested as well.

Security steps in and the room calms a little but reporters refuse to let the subject go, raising their hands to question such an idiotic decision.

“With the Avengers gone, what are you going to do about the influx in crime?” One asks, and another white man steps up to the podium to answer.

“We will be doubling the police force in every state to ensure the crime rates go back down” The reporters don’t seem satisfied, another raising a counter-question

“What about supernatural criminals and weapons?” The man swallows nervously and you’re sure a cartoonish bead of sweat is about to trail down his forehead when he speaks up with less confidence than before.

“Rest assured our officers are being trained to handle any possible situations, and we will be arming them with state-of-the-art weapons” You practically groan at his words, and your phone dings with notifications from various sites. Your friends from the Stark party are texting you about their outrage, news outlets are blowing up, and your mother wants to know if you want any cereal. 

You text her yes and respond to your other texts, tuning out the bullshit coming from the TV until pictures of the ‘wanted felons’ appear on the TV. Over half of the Avengers pictures are on the screen with the words “Wanted” under them and your eyes unconsciously drift toward Nat as a woman speaks

“We haven’t been able to get a hold of any of the aforementioned Avengers so if you have any information about their whereabouts please call-” you practically scoff at the TV. Of course, they couldn’t get a hold of Natasha Romanoff, if she wanted to disappear you’d never see or hear from her again-

Your head spins. A dangerous thought sneaks into your mind and despite your best efforts you can’t block it out. The government official had said they tried to make this deal around a month ago- around the same time Nat stopped responding to you.

With your heart leaping to your throat, you immediately rush to grab your computer. It wasn’t like you hadn’t considered Nat’s name being Natasha but you hadn’t wanted to plaster Natasha’s face onto this total stranger, and you definitely didn't want to project your feelings for your celebrity crush onto a real person who had nothing to do with her.

You never let yourself go down that hole, especially because the more you talked to Nat the less she seemed like the stoic Natasha Romanoff you knew of. 

You still refuse to believe it until you can prove it though, so the only thing you can think to do is pull up every single publicized mission the Avengers have gone on and open your phone to Nat’s contact. You ignore the painful jerk your heart gives as you scroll past your pleading and Nat’s last “I’m sorry” text until you find the last time she said she had to go away for ‘work’.

She’d been gone for two weeks but still managed to send you a quick ‘goodnight’ text on one of those days. It made your whole week that she’d been thinking of you even while she was working and still chose to text you even though she could get in trouble for using her phone. 

You scroll through the missions until you find one with a similar date. A mission in Eastern Europe that took the three of the Avengers two weeks to complete. It doesn’t state which Avengers so you brush it off as a coincidence and scroll up further, searching for another ‘work’ message.

Half an hour later you have at least fifteen ‘coincidences’ that line up almost perfectly with when Nat would leave you on delivered. You want to believe it but you’re at war with yourself.

Something joyful tugs at your heart and you shake your head to try and get rid of the images of Nat smiling on the other side of the phone. 

The other part of you is astonished you’d even believe such a thing. Why would Natasha continue texting you? There was no way she’d trust something as childish as ‘number neighbors’. And if she did believe that… why wouldn’t she just block your number?

Although you suppose she did try and get you to stop texting her, you just wouldn’t take no for an answer. Suddenly all of her threats feel a little more serious. 

For a split second, there’s relief. The weight of the fear that she’d ghosted you because she was tired of you lifted from your shoulders. The fear of never knowing her face or what she sounded like was gone. Instead, it was replaced by anxiety. The woman you loved was a wanted criminal AND an Avenger. You don’t know if it’s better or worse that you can read all of the texts in her voice now.

Your brain is screaming at you while your heart is frolicking in a field full of flowers.

The woman you’ve had a fictional crush on for years is actually the woman you fell in love with online, surprise!

Still, you’re worried you’re getting a little ahead of yourself so you try to calm down and scour the internet for more proof. You find an old video from when the Avengers did a live slumber party for charity and zoom in on Nat’s pajamas. Yep, the same gray as the photo of her pants she’d sent you from way back when you first met. 

The first photo she ever sent you and it was truly a gift to receive but big deal- lots of people wore gray to bed! 

The thought of gifts reminds you of the surveillance footage the restaurant promised to send you months ago when Nat bought you dessert. God, you really should read your emails. After scrolling through work emails and companies advertising their sales you find a very old email from the restaurant with the footage from their back alley. 

You can’t believe you forgot to look at this.

Sure enough, as the waiter had said, you can only see a hoodie from that angle but you’ll take anything you can get. You pause and play the video at every millisecond until a sliver of a design is visible and you reverse image search until a picture of that exact hoodie pops up.

You pull up every single member of the Avengers’ Instagram's until you see a picture of Clint Barton wearing what seems to be the same hoodie only two months ago. It’s a stretch, you’re sure anyone could own that hoodie but at this point, you’ve already fully convinced yourself it’s her. You feel like an FBI agent with how deep you’re digging for evidence and the thought reminds you of one of the first things you ever said to her

“What, are you an FBI agent or something?”

“Something like that”

You were truly the world’s biggest idiot at this point. Natasha had been trying to tell you at the Stark party, hadn’t she? You knew the joke sounded familiar. 

A sort of mirth sparkled in her eyes as she spoke her next sentence “Well I’m no FBI agent” It feels like an inside joke and you're trying to pinpoint where you remember it from but after a few seconds you shake it off and blame it on the alcohol. 

Not to mention how hesitant she’d been to talk to you in the beginning. She was a super spy! Of course, she wouldn’t believe you got her number by coincidence. Did that mean that she knew who you were from the beginning? She probably knew everything about you from your apartment number to your first pet. 

But…if she knew everything about you and still chose to stay and talk to you then maybe there was the smallest, tiniest chance she liked you back the way you liked her.

Why else would someone like her spend every day putting up with your antics?

All this time you’ve been wondering who she was and why she left you and now you have an answer you have no idea what to do with. It’s not like she’d be at Avengers Tower right now, nobody knew where she was. And she hadn’t responded to any of your messages. How could you tell her you knew? How could you tell her that you weren’t mad anymore? Will you ever be able to confess how you feel to her in person?

You don’t even realize you're crying until a drop of water lands on your computer. You were overwhelmed with so many different emotions; joy, worry, love. The idea of loving Natasha Romanoff was scary but loving Nat? Loving Nat was easy. And you have to keep reminding yourself that they’re the same person. That The Black Widow was a persona while Nat was her real self. 

The sound of the front door doesn’t register in your mind until you hear your mother calling your name. You turn to look at her with your tear-stricken face and her expression softens as she takes you in.

“Y/n, what’s wrong?” she drops her groceries and makes her way over to you, wrapping you in her arms immediately. The way she says your name with so much love reminds you of the last time you heard Natasha’s voice-

“Take care of yourself, Y/n.”

The sentence only makes you cry harder and your mom soothingly rubs up and down your back. She doesn’t know you’ve just had the discovery of a lifetime or that you accidentally fell in love with a superhero. She just comforts you as you cry in her arms.

“Oh honey, it'll be okay”

You hope she’s right.

Pt.30

A/n: This chapter took a lot longer to write because I wanted to really get Y/n's reaction right- sorry it's late! ~ Starry

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[themultifanshipper]

It wasn’t the first time you’d been targeted by the secret services. It was however the first time you had been interrupted while on a mission. By a very handsome agent no less.

Yes I got the hairpin inspo from Sherlock what are you going to do about it?

Also I know thats a picture of Lando but it fit the vibe ok?

Warnings : Violence (but not explicit), rather rough sex, alex is a bit of freak, gratuitous pop culture references, gratuitous britishness, this is fully self-indulgent I’m sorry, also probably way too much italics, THEY MATCH EACH OTHER'S FREAK YOUR HONOUR

Double A, they called him. No idea why. You had never seen him in person because he had never been assigned to you, obviously too important for a ‘low level threat’ such as yourself.

Which was frankly insulting! You were responsible for 2 government assassinations, a handful of mobster disappearances, one bank heist, various thefts ranging from documents to cars to  priceless art, a few jail breakouts and the subsequent murder of the man who ordered them. And that was just in the last 3 years.

You didn’t really have morals, but you had quite a bit of debt. So any job that paid well was fair game, and if it was wrong, you killed the contractor and got paid double by their rivals. Easy-peasy.

That’s how you ended up in this place. A private auction for stolen artifacts, in a huge mansion, in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. Perfect place to hold one, really.

Your job was simple, find out who was bidding on the most items, kidnap them, and bring them to the FBI. Then you would get a hefty tip from them, and any rival traders that benefited. Simple. A normal Wednesday night for you.

You were wearing a ridiculously exposing dress with a plunging neckline, no back, and so tight around your arse you were incapable of sitting down. Your FBI contact’s idea of a joke maybe. So you prowled the outskirts of the crowd instead.

Except you didn’t expect him to be there. Obviously he knew who you were, and you knew who he was, but he didn’t seem to have realized you had noted his presence, probably relying on his anonymity.

Rookie mistake.

Which is why you were so shocked when he strolled right up to you and offered to buy you a drink. From up close, he was even more handsome than you’d previously observed. His tan skin contrasted against his white shirt, tucked into a pair of navy blue slacks. His big brown eyes and toothy grin made you melt and you accepted his offer with no resistance.

Of course you checked the drink twice before touching it, you never let him touch you, and always checked you had your phone and keys always firmly in your bag which was over your shoulder at all times.

“So what’s a tall, dark, handsome guy like you doing hanging around a dodgy auction, then?” You baited.

He smiled, intense gaze roaming over your body, penetrating your defenses. “Probably not the same thing as you, let’s be honest.”

You gulped down another sip. So he did know who you were, great.

“Don’t worry, darling” He laughed at your obvious annoyance, eyeing you up and down “I’m not here for you, unfortunately...”

You were almost disappointed. Almost. Mostly relieved.

“But” He quickly finished his drink and put it back on the bar “I wouldn’t recommend stealing anything tonight, or the next time I find you…” he leaned in close, lips almost touching the shell of your ear as he growled “it won’t be to buy you a drink”.

You shivered as he walked away, leaving you there to ponder what on earth that meant.

You weren’t here to steal anyway, so no worries!

But it couldn’t have been a coincidence, right?

You kept your eyes on him for the rest of the night. He bid on a couple of items, but it was obvious he was just biding his time, but for what? He seemed just as bored and out of place as you usually felt at these things.

Once it was all over, and everyone, including him, was at the ridiculously overpriced bar having drinks and laughing, you snuck into the backrooms to look for the logbook (there’s always a logbook, auctioneers are simple creatures of habit), and you found it on an expensive looking desk in someone’s unlocked office. You quickly took pictures of all the names and IDs of the buyers; this was almost too easy. When you heard a noise outside the door you hid under the desk, almost hoping it was him, just for a bit of excitement, but to your disappointment an old man came in, grabbed the logs and scarpered.

You sighed, so much for the handsome agent coming to try and shut down your mission.

You wandered around the empty corridors for a bit, looking for something to do when you stumbled upon the saferoom.

You cracked open a few safes out of sheer curiosity, just to see what was in them, and when you got to the fifth one you gasped.

It was a stunning green Jade hairpin. Incidentally the same colour as your dress.

You picked it up, contemplating taking it for your troubles, when you heard a familiar click behind you.  There seemed to be a semi-automatic pointed at you, how uncouth.

“Drop it” he said.

You didn’t move, still confidently admiring the beauty of the pin.

“Well don’t literally drop it, obviously, or I would have to kill you, and I would hate to stain that pretty dress”

You turned around, showing him the pin against the fabric. “But look! The dress and the pin match so well!” you whined.

 “Do you have any idea how much that’s worth?” He hissed.

“Depends who owned it” you said, still admiring the pin, while slowly pulling your own gun out of your bag behind your back “I’m guessing someone from the Chinese royal family?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. Ha! See! I know some stuff you smug prick!

“Indeed, nine million pounds. Now hand it over so that I don’t have to do what my handler has been telling me to do since I stepped foot in this room.”

Your eyes widened and you gawked at him. “Nine million?! Holy shit” you eyed the pin longingly “You shouldn’t have told me that, now I want it even more”

You slowly walked towards him, deciding to leave the gun in your bag, instead taking out a business card, putting the pin in your mouth and sucking on it lewdly while maintaining eye contact. You then got out a pen and scribbled your name and number down before handing him the card. “Call me if you ever want to see what else I can do with my mouth” you said, words muffled by the hairpin.

His jaw dropped in disbelief at your antics, and he lowered his gun “take that out of your mouth, now!”

You laughed “That’s not what they usually say to me, but okay”

You took the pin out of your mouth, enjoying the flustered reaction you managed to elicit from him before suddenly slamming his arm into the wall, taking him by surprise. His gun clattered to the floor, and you wrapped the strap of your bag around his arm, looped it around his neck, pulling him forward as you swept his legs from under him. He tumbled to the floor and you straddled his waist, pulling the strap tighter around his neck.

He spluttered as he rolled you over, your legs wrapped around his hips as he pressed you to the floor with his weight and you gasped.

Heaving, he managed to free himself, and wrap a large hand around your throat, angrily trying to gain back some semblance of control.

You grabbed the hairpin that had fallen next to you and jabbed him in the ribs, managing to wriggle free and crawl towards your bag for your gun.

Unfortunately he recovered quicker than you anticipated and grabbed you from behind, lifted you up, and shoved you over the table, holding you in place with his hips and one hand in your hair, while the other was tying your hands behind your back with something… leathery?

You tried to wriggle free but he just tightened his grip on your hair and pulled.

You groaned and pushed back against him but he was too strong, effectively pinning you down.

“Stop squirming, you brat! I’m trying to tie you up, over here!”

You giggled “Now that, I have heard before” You wriggled harder, trying to at least make it more annoying for him.

“I said, stop squirming!” He slapped your back hard, a little too close to your arse for it not to have been out of habit. You gasped softly and squirmed even more.

“Why the hell would I stop you trying to k-“

Even before the end of your sentence, you felt why.

That definitely wasn’t a gun poking into the back of your thigh. He was hard.

“Well well well, someone’s having a bit too much fun. Sorry, but I don’t put out on the first mission, come back another time!”

He chuckled and leaned over you, whispering into your ear. “Really? Then why is there a wet spot on the back your dress?”

He had you there. Okay maybe being bent over a table in a dark room and tied up by one of the hottest men you’d ever seen might have been getting you a bit excited. But who could blame you, really.

“Yeah well, I’m not the only one who’s a bit overwhelmed by the circumstances.”

He hummed in annoyance. This was not going according to plan for him. And the problem in his trousers wasn’t going away anytime soon, your dress now not covering much as he glanced down to see that you were wearing a white lace thong which was soaked through and left nothing to the imagination.

“You gonna do something or stand there uselessly until I fall asleep?”

He took that as consent (it absolutely was), and growled as he ripped your pathetic excuse for underwear off you, while the hand still in your hair pulled you up, arching your back, your arms still tied behind you.

“Jesus" he groaned "fucking Christ…” He slid a long, slender finger into you, muttering curses “You’re fucking soaked”

“I thought swearing was forbidden in her majesty’s secret service” you gasped as he added a second finger.

“Do you ever shut up?” He groaned, both at your wetness and your words.

“Not willingly, no, it's a problem sometimes”

He sighed, unzipping his fly and pulling his already leaking cock out “Then I guess I’m going to have to fuck you so hard you can’t speak”

“Ooh lucky me!” You quipped sarcastically, but you gasped as you felt his tip rubbing along your folds, gently bumping your clit on the downstroke.

“Any last words?” He asked, dipping the tip in a couple of times, testing the waters as it were.

“Yeah, long live the Qu-“ You choked on your words as he slammed into you, long, hard and deep. Turns out, he was big. 

“You okay?”

The noise you let out in response was inhuman, but definitely of assent, and he laughed at you. “Goodness gracious, that shut you up quicker than I expected!”

You whined and he started moving again, stretching you out and slowly building up to a bruising pace. You let out cut off moans every time his cock hit that spongy spot inside you and you eventually went limp, allowing him to lift you up by a hand around your neck, and prop one of your legs up on the table, changing the angle and making him hit impossibly deeper. You started babbling incoherently as you were nearing your high, pussy clenching sporadically around his cock, getting him closer and closer to the edge as well.

You whined as he slowed down just a tad to savour the moment, “Please- “

“Alex, call me Alex”

“Please Alex! I need to come!”

“Okay, okay, I’ve got you” The hand not holding your neck trailed down and started circling your clit, making you keen as he picked up the pace again.

“Fuck!” You both cried out at the same time, as he came deep inside you, teeth digging into your shoulder, making you gasp as the pain intensified the aftershocks. He then gently lay you back down on the table, holding you still.

God, it's almost like he didn't trust you or something.

You two stayed like that for a minute, catching your breaths until he finally pulled out, your mixed juices dripping down your legs. He couldn’t resist, he kneeled on the floor and lapped up every last drop, all the way up to your sore pussy, but your whines of overstimulation didn’t stop him as he plunged his tongue as deep as it would go, unrelenting against your squirming figure. He just kept going until there was nothing left.

When he stood back up to tuck himself into his underwear and pull your dress back down over your arse, you finally said, in a rather hoarse whisper. “Alex is a really shit alias, by the way”.

He chuckled.

“If you say so” He then spotted something green out of the corner of his eye, shimmering on the floor.

He sighed and untied his belt from around your hands “Well I don’t need this anymore” you let out a confused noise as you stretched your arms out.

He nodded towards the floor, where the nine million pound jade hairpin lay, shattered on the hardwood.

“Well, that's not my problem” you said, full of mirth, grabbing your bag of the floor.

“Weren’t you here to steal it?” he asked, confused. You shook your head.

“Then why were you here, in the dark, breaking into safes?”

“Ask no questions, and I shall tell you no lies.” You smirked at him.

“Whatever… Right, George mate! We’ve got a code green” he said, eyeing up your dress “We’re going to need superglue on this one!”

You looked at him, absolutely bewildered, and mouthed “George???”, but he just smirked and pointed to his ear.

An earpiece. For fuck’s sake.

“And has George been listening this whole time?” you whisper-yelled.

“Yes, yes he has” he replied, then paused, “and he says hello”

You scoffed “Well then by all means, give my love to George, I’m leaving now, it's been fun, let’s do this again sometime!” you said sarcastically.

You scarpered before he could answer, leaving him with his mess of broken Jade, and George.

He spotted your ripped underwear on the floor, picked it up and pocketed it.

“She seemed nice”

“Yeah, I guess” he sighed, starting to pick up the pieces of Jade.

“Mate, you said you would stop doing this to me!”

“I know I’m sorry! But I have a feeling this isn't the last time we'll be seeing her”

“Goddammit! I’m not paid enough for this shit, Alex!”

[soopibean]

SEVENTEEN VS DISPATCH

This is how Seventeen would react to seeing a dispatch reporter following them.

Disclaimer!! As we all know, dispatch is a questionable entity and obviously the members of seventeen wouldn't react in this way. HOWEVER this is just meant for fun so don't take it too seriously.

Warnings: Mentions of cultish activities, Jeonghan is a scary man, reporter may like coups a little too much. Kidnapping?

Scoups

He angrily rants at the reporter, aggressively telling them what he'll do if he sees them here or around his members again. (Papa coups)

The reporter is left feeling a mixture of fear and arousal. Doesn't return either way.

Jeonghan

They're not watching him, he's watching them.

After a few days of following him they begin to realise he's visiting places they frequent. Restaurants they eat at, even the school they went to... But the most terrifying is when they realise at the end of the day, Jeonghan drove right to their house.

The reporter bursts through his front door to find Jeonghan eating a meal with his own wife and kids, a sinister smile played on his lips.

The reporter quits his job the next day and leaves the country.

Joshua

Simply gives them a gracious smile as he approaches them, offers a firm handshake as he begins his indoctrination. He doesn't see 'dispatch', he sees lost souls perfect for his cause.

The reporters are easy to convince.

Jun

Hasn't noticed. Assumed they were the trash collectors so he personally hands them his bin bags when he sees them. This was a good opportunity for them to snoop, though after opening them, all they find are bags full of scrunched up paper. It's all completely blank.

The reporters are left confused and empty handed.

Hoshi

'Horanghaes' in their direction whenever he see them, asks them to do it back. If they don't he becomes very upset.

The reporters now do it on impulse in most situations... They've become the laughing stock of the office.

Wonwoo

Notices them immediately. Convinced it's the government. Goes into hiding and starts wearing a tinfoil hat.

The reporters receive a bonus for capturing a photo of Wonwoo in said hat.

Woozi

They wait outside his studio for weeks. The blinds are always pulled, the lights are always on but no sign of life is seen. They finally leave but as they do, they miss the chance to see the wild Woozi emerging from the building, hissing at the sun and passing out from dehydration.

The reporters wasted everybody's time and are swiftly demoted.

DK

Greets them like old friends, asks about their families, brings them coffee on occasion. Even if they did find something they could report, they could never bring themselves to betray him.

The reporters become his personal protectors.

Mingyu

Immediately thinks they've caught him in a dating scandal. They follow him as he leaves the dorm late at night dressed perfectly in an expensive suit. He arrives at the restaurant, greeting somebody with a hug... It's Jungkook.

The reporters get sued by HYBE.

The8

Starts filming and taking pictures of them out of spite. Glares in disapproval at any given opportunity.

The reporters end every day feeling judged and self conscious.

Seungkwan

DRAMA QUEEN. Acts annoyed but is actually flattered. Begins to create his own fake scandals.

'O-oh I didn't see you there, I was just talking on the phone to my- oh I shouldn't have said that'

Struts off giggling, looking back every few seconds in hopes they'll follow.

The reporters decide to leave him to it.

Vernon

Does. Not. Care. Completely devoid of emotion when it comes to them. Simply stares blankly and unblinking in their direction.

The reporters are left feeling insignificant. They do little tricks to try to impress him. It doesn't work.

Dino

After watching him get left behind by the entire group on a beach trip they were having, the reporter offers him a ride home out of pity. Dino doesn't question the man and happily accepts, just grateful to have some company on his birthday. After hearing this the reporter couldn't bring himself to turn in any of the information he had gotten.

The reporter goes home and hugs his son.

However, if Dino had waited a few more minutes, he would have seen Seventeen returning with a birthday cake adorned with candles. Though upon seeing their youngest member missing and witnesses claiming he left in a suspicious vehicle, they are now convinced he had been kidnapped.

Thus chaos ensues... But that's a story for another time ;)

[a-sterling-rose]

Danny Phantom Writing Prompt: The Lack of a Hero Complex

Once Danny publicly shames Vlad into returning the status quo of Amity Park, Danny also stops ghost fighting.

The Human Trio and Vlad confront Danny about his lack of action. The Human Trio finally gets a taste of the sleep deprivation Danny experienced when he didn't want to burden them from their schedules while the property damage continued to tarnish Vlad's public reputation. Danny just laughs.

Sam, completely livid at the lack of reaction: Who’s going to protect the town, Danny?

Danny gets up from the couch and looks directly into Vlad's eyes: Yeah, Vlad, how do you plan on protecting your town?

Danny lightly chuckles while he goes down to the lab where the Fenton Parents were working. He was just gonna play on the family computer while his Dad would boast about their latest idea.

The human trio:

Vlad:

When the ghosts who come to directly harass Danny, he decides he just needs to be completely honest with each of them.

Danny: Listen, I'll admit I kinda had fun with the bantering, but I want to focus on better things now. I was never really interested in any of you.

The Ghosts:

The results?

Vlad has to set up legit ghost detectors all over the city and properly hire the Fentons for protection. Vlad hoped that the hiring would gain him favor from Maddie, but he finally got to see how she really was compared to his idealized version. Their constant public damages made Vlad's reputation even more tarnished, and their lack of change despite him personally talking to them about it makes him grow equal resentment towards both of them. It gets to the point where Vlad just sets up the same ecto repellent he uses to keep ghosts from escaping his portal back in Winsconsin. The extra paperwork he has to do now governing is not worth the mess he caused. Political power wasn't as worth it as he thought it would be.

The Human Trio gave Danny the cold shoulder for a while, but that just gave him some well needed alone time to raise his grades. He even finally got to join the astronomy club like he planned before the portal accident. They were a very chill group and welcomed him to sit with them at lunch, so he was never alone. Dash tried to start their usual routine, but that was immediately hauled by the club leader.

Dash wasn't clever enough to figure out how to respond to being called 'Pussy Lips' by a girl, so he just kinda sulked away.

Dash will say the occasional snarky comment, but he never bring himself to get too close to Danny after a club member told Danny to tell Dash and the other football players they could take turns sucking him off after their club meeting. Dash just wasn't clever enough to get things back to normal.

Though the club members weren't A-listers, they weren't at the bottom, so Danny social life became better.

The Human Trio tried to continue on like before, but they were soon caught ghost hunting by the Fentons. There was no punishment, just overactive excitement, seeing they were finally interested in Ghost Hunting. Now, having to join the Fentons whenever there was a ghost detected, the fun of it is zapped away for them, making the tiredness not worth it anymore. The three eventually apologized to Danny, which he accepts, and the group finally accepts the new changes.

There are many things that can upset a ghost, but the universal act that can anger any core is being ignored. Even with the ecto repellent, the stronger ghosts manage to get through and try to get Danny's attention. The boy always just texts Vlad about how he sucks at his job and to take care of the disruption. The ghost eventually pick up that their violent outburst aren't working, so it gets to the point that they try to get his attention another way.

They tried to coax him with things they believed he liked. It is comparable to how Hyper Cat-lovers try to get a shy cat to love them.

Lunch Lady offers him a freshly made meal when he's low on money one day. He thanks her but says he had a big breakfast.

Ember tries to act like their best friends in front of the A-listers, so Danny will become more popular at school. He greets her but continues on his stroll like she was a typical citizen.

Technus offers to give Danny the answer key to all the tests for his classes, but he denies this offer instantly. He'll never cheat on a test ever again.

It got to the point that Skulker said he would drop the promise of getting Danny's pelt if he just let him see his ghostly form. Creeped out, Danny just backed away. He was thankful Valerie was close by.

Box Ghost actually got somewhere when he offered a three-dimensional solar system model. It was in a box he had, so Box Ghost offered it to Danny. He accepted it as the one in the club was showing its age.

This seemed to make these random ghost visits even more frequent. Danny guessed Box Ghost bragged about his 'accomplishment'.

Basically, the ghosts' obsession to defeat Danny changes to them wanting his attention. Vlad’s obsession becomes solely focused on Danny as he just finds Maddie and Jack so annoying now. Like, Vlad just wants to get custody of Danny and get the hell out of Amity Park. He doesn't even want to kill the Fentons now out of fear that they will become ghosts.

After the Ember incident, the A-listers kept trying to buddy up to him. However, Danny learned how they really were, so he just treated them the way he treated ghosts. Now, it seemed they were just as desperate.

Danny will turn into Phantom only when it's necessary, that or he's in the mood to fly. The downside to this change is that whenever he does transform, he always has an entourage of attention-starved ghosts following behind him. He can't even imagine how things would be if he went to the Ghost Zone.

Additions:

For those who want to know the members of the astronomy club-

For those who want to see the club room-

[roxyandtheroxies]

Keeping one's own values untouched in this wretched, bigoted, disgusting neoliberal hellscape, is a feat worthy of endless loot and treasure.

I have this story to show what i mean, it's a work in progress, about Michael, a young man who just finished getting his 17th PhD in an ivy league university, with a bright future ahead of him, and countless job opportunities being sent his way (including working on high positions in government!)...

He decides to confront his parents and tell them that he quits, this wasn't really him all along, and he wants to move back into their basement, play videogames, and do a part-time burger flipping job at the local Burger King...it gets HEATED but they accept his choice and support him, the story is about the repeated attempts of his former colleagues and professors and superiors to bring him back to the academy, to finish his work on Cold Fusion for example "no one else can do it but you! It could bring humanity into a new era of prosperity! Please, work your magic this one time!" "...naaaaaah"

Or his former philosophy professor goes "your unfinished book may hold the key to bridging the subject-object divide and solve objective morality, this would mark a before and after for MANKIND!!" "Nah i am trying not to think too hard as of late"

Or he gets harrassed by a wealthy tycoon "fifteen million dollars cash, no strings attached, and fifteen more after you finish your work on reconciling Marxism and Objectivism. I beg of you, once i read your projects on the subject, i had a dream of a utopia, where everyone prospers yet no one is used as a slave in any way, it was heaven, do it for me, for everyone Michael-" "pass" "but you must do this! I'll even double the offer, and i'll invest whatever you need, do you want your own private island?" "Bruh i said pass"

Or his super genius ex girlfriend from university harrasses him even harder "Look what you've become, disgusting slob! And yet, i need you to help me, desperately so, if you find some interest in the depths of your soul to lend a helping hand, please finish your work on quantum mechanics! You were one step away from the Unified Theory!" "Yeaaaah, i am sort of over you, i don't think i like women that way...anymore...or at all" and the ex gets really mad and toxic, then Michael reveals he's sort of into men...in a non-gay way? And she storms out, like most guests in this story, fuming, grumbling and cursing under their breath.

It continues by having Michael come out as a straight trans woman to her parents, she's named Minerva now :3

And she has things going on in her burger flipping job too, like this transphobic former professor of hers, he goes in all like "hello ma...maaan? Womaaan?" And she's like "woman" "ok Michael Jackson...wait are you Michael?! The prodigy with 17 PhDs?!" "Used to be, that's not who i am anymore, what's your ord-" "i see you are one of those gender confused attack helicopter pansexual furries with funky pronouns" "(sighs) what's your order?" And it escalates with the guy proposing some research projects he needs a sharp male mind for, she turns them all down and ends up serving him a whopper with extra cheese. She also gets this scene where her coworkers see her banger ass home, the basement stacked with piles of pizza boxes and videogame cases, and they find the 17 PhDs framed on the walls of her parents' bedroom, and it becomes very silly. Long story short, she ends up wearing a cute skirt to work and she passes now :3.

Then, just after she dealt with some old university colleague bothering her with a desperate offer to develop perpetual movement machines, she gets comforted by this really nice handsome coworker of hers, they end up dating, he's named Joey and he's a riot as well. The story is still in progress, anything any of y'all want to add/change? Love and kisses :3

[imagineanime2022]

A Reason To Hate Me.

No Pairing

Character of focus is Katsuki Bakugo

Word Count: 2072

Requested: @supernerdycookietrashblrr

Request: Original Request

Warnings: Bullying, Parent Death, Bakugo hate, bad interpretation of a devil fruit

You should have known that you couldn’t continue under the radar for too long. Your quirk wasn’t something that made you outwardly strong, in the world that you lived in you were practically quirkless. Your quirk needed to be activated by eating a certain type of mushroom, something you coined as the wakeshroom. It soon became apparent to you that you were the only person that seemed to be able to eat these mushrooms but it still had an effect on you, so when you were a child your parents kept you away from them.

That was why you sat in this classroom with your head down cycling through things that you had read 1000 times in attempts to keep attention off of you. You knew that you had failed when you felt the shadow crawl over your shoulder “What are in here you useless nerd?” Someone asked. “Nothing.” You answered softly, trying to make yourself smaller in the chair and shrink away from Bakugo. You remember a time when he didn’t even see you but you made the mistake of sticking up for Izuku one day and that turned his attention to you. Izuku often apologised but you always told him that it wasn’t his fault. “Then you're just taking up space in here?” He asked harshly as he took the paper that you had been looking at. “Still don’t get this dumbass?” “I understand-” “If you understood you won’t be hiding in here-” “Kacchan that’s enough.” Izuku’s voice sounded from the door, Bakugo rolled his eyes. “Losers flock together I guess.” He smirked before using his quirk to burn the paper that he was holding with a smirked before barging past Izuku and leaving the room. “Are you o-” “I’m fine Izuku, thanks for the help.” You mumbled as you looked out the window. “You should tell someone what’s happening.” Izuku suggested. “You mean like you did?” You asked, Izuku sighed as he stood up, he wanted to fight what you said but instead he left you be, after all what you said had hurt him a little bit.

Their descent into madness started slowly, the first thing being the death of your parents after they got caught in a villain attack and you were left alone. You attempted to continue your life applying for the hero schools around and trying to do something that would make your parents proud but when you got to the entrance exam you came across someone you wished that you would never have to see again “what the hell are you doing here?” Bakugo asked. You didn’t say anything “you know that you aren’t good enough to get into this school.” “Hey dude, that's not nice.” Someone said from somewhere in the crowd. “Mind your own business!” Bakugo yelled back. “Can’t even fight for yourself how are you supposed to protect anyone.” You shouldn’t have let it get to you, if you were able to prove him wrong then you could do anything but of course, you didn’t the moment that the exam actually started Bakugo seemed to make it his mission to take every point that you could have got and by the end you were sure that you weren’t getting into UA.

After not being accepted on any hero course, you were still accepted into UA for normal schooling, the government gave you somewhere to stay now that your parents were gone and even offered you a part time job that would help you pay for rent, food and bills. You still saw Izuku sometimes but for the most part you stayed away because that meant that you stayed away from Bakugo too. “Told you, you wouldn’t make it. At least you're where you belong with all the other extras.” You don’t know how he kept finding you, whether he was looking for you at this point. You stayed quiet but that only seemed to give him space to continue “bet your parents are real proud of you now.” You bit down on your lip hands clenching at your side, “bet they tell that lie everyday, anyone ever tell you that parents lie too?” You were sure that he didn’t know that your parents had been killed. Why would he? But that was what started a downward spiral, with no one to stop you, you started spending more time in the world that you quirk created for you, eating the wakeshroom to keep yourself there. You don’t know if the school ever noticed that you stopped attending or if anyone came looking for you because you don’t remember a lot of what happened outside of your little world until Stains grand speech and you joining the League Of Villains.

On the day that you showed up they seemed to have a healthy amount of people already following the cause but the power and atmosphere that followed you gave Shigaraki enough reason to accept you into his group. “You're the only other person my age here.” A soft female voice sounded from next to you. “So?” You asked. “I think we should be friends. My name's Himiko Toga.” She introduced herself. “(Y/N) (L/N).” You answered after a moment. “What’s your quirk, mine lets me change into anyone who’s blood I drink, obviously the more I drink the longer I can pretend to be them.” She shrugged. “My quirk allows me to make a world all of my own and the songs there help me to control what happens there.” You answered. “Woah that’s cool, can you show me?” She asked. “Maybe when we go on our first mission.” You answered.

You were kept away from the Bakugo capture mission, on your own request, admitting that he and some of the teacher may recognise you and make the mission much harder for them, you were proven right when he got back. “Hey loser, what are you doing with these guys?” He asked, you glanced at him for a second. “Is he the one that hurt you?” Toga asked. “Oh you’ve got them doing your dirty work then!?” He asked. “You being here has nothing to do with me, in fact if I was asked my opinion I would have suggested killing you.” You answered, you don’t even know where the sentence had come from but it seemed that the effects of the shrooms that you had been eating in preparation for a fight were taking effect. You watched as Bakugo’s eyes widened allowing them the chance to properly chain him to the chair, you stood from where you were sitting walking over to him slowly, knee leant on the chair between his legs as your hand latched around his throat making him look at you. “You should thank Shigaraki for what he wants to offer you, otherwise I might have indulged in my own fantasy.” “You're crazy!” He growled. “And who made me that way?” You asked softly, pushing his head back roughly as you walked away “I won’t be controlled by you anymore.”

It would be months before you see Bakugo again, he escaped the clutches of the villains with the help of All Might and the other heroes and your group never crossed paths with him for a long while. When finally did come into contact with them was during the Jaku city incident which would ultimately earn you the fear that you deserved. “(Y/N)? What are you doing!?” Bakugo asked. “Me!?” You asked “I’m protecting the only people that have ever made me feel like I’m worth something, you think that using my name would make me change my mind!?” “What about Izuku? I thought you were friends!” Bakugo yelled “Shigaraki wants to kill him!” “I know what Shigaraki wants and honestly it never bothered me, Izuku stopped caring about me a long time ago! Every opportunity he got he saved you, every time he rescues you, so many people make excuses for you, you should never have been given the chance to be a hero! You loved hurting people everywhere that you went but for some reason I was always your target. I don’t know what I did to you but you can be sure that what I do to you will give you a reason to hate me.” You promised as you glanced back at the others, with an unconscious Shigaraki there was no way to win this fight so now they needed to leave. “What are you doing, little illusionist?” Compress asked. “Make sure that you find Toga okay?” You asked. “Of course.” He nodded. “Good then you’ll know when but you have to move quickly all of you.” You ordered, it only took a second for your quirk to take effect stopping all heroes in their track as the dark song took hold of their mind long enough for them to get away, they all seemed to turn on you then, Todoroki and Bakugo being the closest to you, you hummed to the song softly as you dodged the hit moving towards Machia where you sat with your back against his shoulder “Me and you Machia, we’ll be the sacrifices today.”

“(Y/N)!” Izuku shouted, you looked over at him, an almost dead look in your eyes. “What… What are you doing?” He asked. “You know Izuku, I am happy for you, I’m happy that you got to be the hero that you always wanted but it destroyed you, your broken and battered just trying to protect everyone, to protect him the one that made everything a living hell.” You said softly as you leaned back. “Everything needs to change.” “Change?” Izuku asked. “Did I ever tell you what my quirk was capable of doing, I could rewrite the world and make it everything that I want, I never told Shgaraki about that part, I wanted to use it for one purpose.” You explained flicking your hand and knocking back Shoto and Bakugo and freezing them in place. “What are you planning?” Bakugo asked, you looked at him and smirked, you seemed to disappear, reappearing next to his frozen body. “I plan to erase you from existence, I don’t want you in the new world.” You explained “No matter how fun it would be to torture you for the rest of your miserable life.” “You think dying scares me?” Bakugo asked. “Honestly no but I just don’t care. You won’t even get the chance to be an extra.” You smirked as you pulled your arm back, a knife appearing in your hand “once I’m done with you I’ll rewrite the world.” You plunged your hand down but before it could make contact you were knocked away. “I can’t let you hurt him (Y/N).” Izuku said, your eyes widened as you looked between them. “How!? How do you keep taking everything from me!” You yelled the world around you becoming unstable as you pressed the heel of your palm against your head. “I know it’s been hard, I know things have changed but there’s still time to-” “Time to what!? Go back to the way things were, you don’t understand I don’t want to go back to the way things were, I hated it being afraid of even making a noise because he might look over and decide that I’ve annoyed him.” You interrupted. “I can’t go back to that, I can’t.” The bright world about them was starting to become darker as you curled in on yourself. “I can’t, I can’t.” You were so tightly curled that you didn’t notice the deactivation of your quirk. In fact the only thing that you felt was the sharp hit to the back of your neck as you were knocked out swiftly.

Izuku watched as you fell forward into Mirio’s arms as he easily lifted you, the villains had successfully gotten away but they had managed to stop you, maybe even getting you away from them could help you to heal. “I didn’t think that it would have made them this way.” Bakugo muttered. “That’s the problem Bakugo, back then you didn’t think and now it might be too late to fix it.” Izuku explained. “Deku-” “Kacchan, this is something that we may not be able to undo but if that’s the case does that mean that we should punish them for it?” Izuku asked. “This is just as much our fault as it was theirs.”

Request Here!!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

Donald Trump doesn’t care that his lie accusing Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio of eating people’s pets is causing a spike in anti-immigrant hate incidents in the area or was the reason for a bomb threats Thursday morning targeting the local government and local schools on Friday. It also doesn’t matter if you fact check Trump on this BS claim. This is not about the truth. Nobody—I mean nobody—understands what animates, radicalizes and incites his base to vote, make threats and commit violence more than Trump. That is why he is targeting both Black people and immigrants with his lies. This is racism for a purpose.  He gets that with one lie, he is targeting two communities that MAGA hates: Blacks and immigrants.  

As we all recall, Trump--as President--slammed the idea of accepting more immigrants from Haiti and Africa calling them “shithole countries.” Instead, Trump stated he wanted more people coming in from places like Norway aka white people. Trump’s base loved that. That is why during the debate Tuesday, Trump repeatedly fear-mongered about non-white people coming over the border, declaring, “What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country.” He then added the now infamous line, “In Springfield, they're eating the dogs…they're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there.”

ABC News co-moderator David Muir instantly fact checked Trump saying “ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports” of any animals being treated that way by immigrants. But Trump remained defiant, saying, “But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there.” When Muir factchecked Trump again, he then offered this ominous line, “We'll find out.”  Trump’s lie at the debate about Haitian immigrants was something his base has been worked up about for days—as Trump knows. The first prominent right winger to amplify the lie was Trump’s close ally Charlie Kirk—who has a history of making racist comments about Blacks--posting just days before the debate on Twitter that “residents of Springfield, OH are reporting that Haitians are eating their family pets.” His post was viewed more than 4 million times.

Trump’s son, Donald Jr. then amplified the lie on social media that Black migrants were kidnapping and eating people’s cats and dogs. Next Elon Musk -the owner of Twitter and vocal Trump backer--did the same. That got the attention of the Trump campaign.  If the MAGA base believes/loves the claim Black immigrants are such savages that they are eating people’s pets, they were going to join.  That is why on Monday, Trump’s running mate JD Vance claimed in his post viewed more than 10 million times that “reports now show people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” A short time later on Monday, as the NY Times reported, the Trump campaign did a massive email blast to their supporters quoting the lie about the Black immigrants.

[...] In reality, Springfield residents have overall been welcoming to the Haitian immigrants to their community over the past four years.  Jamie McGregor the head of McGregor Metal, a family-owned business in Springfield, told The New York Times how it was lacking workers after it had invested to increase production before "the Haitians were there to fill those positions." Joe Ruck, a co-owner of Champion City Cuts Barber Shop, told USA Today that Haitian immigrants are working the jobs no one else wanted. But Trump’s lies have embolden the haters in Springfield. As Newsweek documented, there has now been a surge in vile comments directed online and in person against Springfield’s Haitian community. A 19-year-old, who graduated from Springfield High School and now works at an Amazon warehouse said he has been called a "dirty Haitian" and an "illegal."   

[...] Despite many officials warning that Trump’s lie will lead to violence against the Haitian community or Blacks in general, he refuses to stop. On Thursday night in the midst of this backlash and after the bomb threats, Trump again repeated the lie to his supporters at a rally in Arizona, telling them “20,000 illegal Haitian immigrants have descended on a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life.” (The Haitians in Springfield are in the US legally.) The convicted felon added the lie that these migrants are “walking off with their pets.” And earlier on Thursday, Trump posted five digitally doctored photos on social media of himself saving pets from migrants—including the racist image at the top of this article where Trump is saving a white cat from angry Black people.

Dean Obeidallah’s column on the Springfield Cat-Eating Hoax is spot-on. Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the right-wing media’s racist and xenophobic scapegoating of Haitian migrants has led to bomb threats and a rise in anti-immigrant hatred in Springfield, Ohio.

[sourcreammachine]

REFORM PARTY "MANIFESTO" 2024 SUMMARY

they say it ain't a manifesto even though it is. they're tryna pretend they're not politicians even though they are. their reasoning is that they know they won't be the next government, so this is what they'd push for as opposition members - just like in the manifestos of the greens, SNP etc. but anyway, this "contract" of theirs is scant and they're running a vibes-based campaign. you don't need to see any actual policies, no no no. you already know if they're for you or not. oh, and if you think they're for you - just like all far right parties, they ain't: they're for capital, they're for vested interests, they're for cruelty. they're for the classic quasi-accelerationist burnout cycle that'll weaken the base of society and the economy and ruin fucking everything. but hey, at least there won't be no immigrants. i'm so sorry if you see them as the future: they're taking you for a ride just as you've been used time and time again, because there is no clearly accessible political solution to improving your material conditions as current politics stand, i'm sorry - that is, within the paradigm you know - there're answers just outside the tunnel-vision you've been forced into. why not take a look sometime. who knows, you might find some hope.

i'm not shitting you, though. the manifesto is not long. go read it. see for yourself the draconian horror they advocate, and will push for these five years, and will endorse with the hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of Short Money coming their way after they get into parliament. this isn't a 2015 UKIP moment, a single-issue agenda that'll flame out. even if they fail in their 2029 campaign with no votes against the tories to count on, these ideas and their influence are here to stay for the medium-term now. even if we remove the rosethorn it'll keep bleeding and bleeding and bleeding

yeah, on account of the scantness, these policies are vague. they're much more like ideas rather than proposals. the general nonsense of them has been fact-checked time and time again so i won't bother. here's just a summary of their rambling ephemeral suggestions

💷ECONOMY

revoke benefits after four months, MANDATORY acceptance of the second job offer on pain of benefit revocation, make all eligibility capability assessments in-person, mandating medical assessments, to catastrophically reduce disability benefit entitlements

raise the personal allowance to §20k/a, cutting individual taxation by §1600/a. raise it to §25k for the married

raise the second band of income tax from about §50k to §70k cutting an ABHORRENT amount of tax from the upper-middle class, far far far far far more than the tax cuts on §20k-earners

leave the World Economic Forum, plummet corporation tax from its already international tax-haven low levels, abolish any business tax for "high-street based" small businesses to create a new class of fat cat burghers, VAT refund for businesses making under §150k/a profit no matter what it is they're flogging

revoke european trade agreements and collapse trade with the mainland

massive tax breaks for defence contractors

'frontload' the child benefit system, plunging it after the child turns four

pour money into giving tourists a full refund on VAT

surge the inheritance tax threshold to §2m BUT "allow the money to be donated to charity instead" (ie allowing massive loophole scams)

massive deregulation, including on the regulation of business and employment laws as "we must make it easier to hire and fire". the manifesto also whines about "6700 eu laws" that still stand, but whines and moves on, implying a mass unbounded deregulation of industry

🏥PUBLIC SERVICES

abolish the NHS and replace it with a private voucher system

catastrophic austerity: every government department to be removed of a 5% of its funding that it must account for itself, reducing spending across the board without central planning or oversight

catastrophic statecapture: abolish civil service leadership and replace them with politicised government appointees "from the private sector"

catastrophic hike on university entry requirements and mandate many be cut to two years

catastrophic privatisation of the remaining public healthcare with surge in outsourcing and contracting, 20% total tax relief for private healthcare

statecapture the BBC with full nationalisation

comprehensive curriculum audit to impose "patriotic education": mandate "any teaching about a period or example of british or european imperialism or slavery must be paired with the teaching of a non-european occurrence of the same to ensure balance", teach children about "their heritage"

public inquiry on "the harm of vaccines"

leave the WHO

end the exemption private schools from the 20% VAT. wait, wait no hang on i've got that wrong. oh right yeah, that's labour's policy, sorry. reform says to impose a 20% TAX RELIEF ON PRIVATE SCHOOLS. sorry peasants, your tax money is funding Eton now

🏠HOUSING

catastrophic tax breaks for small landlords

revoke the renters reform bill

abolish stamp duty (the tax on the buying of homes) under §750k and plummet it above that mark, allowing obscene wealth transfers, massive property buyup, catastrophic housing supply saturation, and the annihilation of first-time buying

🚄TRANSPORT ?

ban and abolish low emission zones

ban and abolish low traffic neighbourhoods

ban and abolish all 20mph zones except outside schools

lower petrol tax

👮FORCE

abolish the human rights act

abolish the equality act

leave the european convention on human rights

freeze "non-essential immigration", and they do not elaborate what they mean or what the policy definition is to be. so they're just gonna be rambling about ephemera to kingdom come. that's the game they're playing

10% HEAD TAX ON IMMIGRANTS via additional national insurance charge

REVOCATION OF CITIZENSHIP FROM IMMIGRANT UK CITIZENS COMMITTED OF CRIMES, without specifying whether or not this applies only to dual-citizens, meaning reform supports the mass imposition of STATELESS status, A GRAVE AND ABHORRENT CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

invade france. i'm being serious. they'd intercept and arrest small-boat crossers and 'take them back to france', violating french territorial sovereignty on both land and sea via the use of force, gravely violating international law against our neighbour

FORTY THOUSAND new police in five years, around 25% more, massively prioritise pipelining ex-military officers and enlistees into the police, abolish PCSOs and make them regular broken-windows police

labour camps for young offenders

create a US-style coast guard and begin routine patrols for migrants or foreign fishers

surge armed forces funding by the highest amount proposed by any party

"stop Sharia law being used in the UK", ie draconian monitoring of mosques, muslim community organisations, the palestine movement, and any muslim

absolute prohibition on asylum applications from "safe countries", sentencing desperate seekers to political persecution and death by mere categorical definition

increase stop-and-search powers, mandates and centrality in policing tactics, pursue broken windows policing,

MANDATORY MINIMUM OF LIFE for second violent/serious offences or ANY drug dealing, new offence for 'substantial possession of drugs'

catastrophically demolish the legalised definition of hatecrime to de facto prevent its use for any prosecution

mass prison building, convert disused military bases into prison camps

bad internet bill: massive inquiry into 'child social media use' (under their watch requiring catastrophic restrictions), renew the online safety bill as "social media giants that push baseless transgender ideology and divisive critical race theory should have no role in regulating free speech"

abolish the northern ireland framework, seemingly unilaterally, paving the way for a hard border and blowing the starting whistle on The Troubles 2

speaking of which: exempt the armed forces from human rights law

catastrophically plummet the number of student visas and prohibit international students with dependents

end funding for european defence programmes. sorry estonia looks like you're lost. oh also "the west provoked putin" so there's that

require the licensing of foreign trawlers in the eez, beginning a cold war with iceland

halve international development / foreign aid funding from its already tiny budget, with specific mention of "global quangos" (literally how many centuries has it been and antisemitism is STILL invoked by these pillocks)

🌱ECOCIDE

repeal every penny of green investment

abolish all emissions targets including for all public services

abolish all renewable energy subsidies

mandate the use of fertile land for farming, ban natural england from protecting 'farmland' land, end and ban all rewinding programmes

abolish environmental levies

catastrophic surge on oil/gas licensing and open new lithium and coal mines, and support biomass/biofuel

🗳️DEMOCRACY ?

begin trumpist restriction on the ability to vote

abolish all postal voting apart from the elderly and disabled

keep voter ID

"legislate to stop left-wing bias and politically correct ideology"

proportional commons and elected senate

🏳️‍⚧️REACTIONARY AGENDA not otherwise covered

for all transgender schoolchildren who have not been permitted a gender recognition certificate: prohibit the use of correct pronouns by any teacher, prohibit the recognition of social transitioning by any teacher, and require mandatory outing to their parents

ban all unisex toilets

"cut funding to universities that undermine free speech", with no clarification, meaning they get to bully anyone they chose

abolish the public health observatory on racial health disparities

look, yeah. the manifesto is short, their purview is open. the door is not shut. everything is on the table. their one, two, three or more MPs are going to be using your tax money to advocate anything and anything that harms migrants, queer and trans people. nonwhite citizens and any annoying political movement can and will be fair game for total attack and political annihilation. wherever the transphobic tornado goes next they will join in. it is going to be a dangerous time for us. they are going to push for absolutely anything they can to harm trans people. your country. your money. your responsibility to fight them. that is what democracy is

[noneuclideanwhimsy]

Hey!! This is really random coming from me since I usually yap to u abt catcf, but im rlly curious to know what the other fandom I keep seeing u post about is, something involving a G-man?? Idk what it is but it looks rlly cool :3 could u maybe explain it to me? Feel free to yap as much as u want.

Thank you for asking, I love rambling about my interests and this particular fandom is my special interest so I really love rambling about it :]

Anyway. Half-Life is a video game series released by Valve Software, the first game came out in 1998 and was about an experiment going horribly wrong at a research facility called Black Mesa. On May 16th 200-, 27-year-old theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman (this is our player character btw) did what his higher-ups told him to do and shoved a suspicious crystal under a beam. This resulted in the Resonance Cascade, the inciting incident of pretty much everything that happened since in the series, in which a bunch of portals to a borderworld (basically a universe that can serve as a bridge between other universes) called Xen opened and aliens started coming out of them and wreaking havoc on Black Mesa. Then things got worse somehow with the military showed up, but not to save the BM staff but to shoot everybody on-sight to cover up the incident. Gordon grabbed a crowbar and started fighting his way through all of the aliens and soldiers, eventually making his way to Xen and killing a creature called the Nihilanth, who was keeping the portals open and invading Earth with an enslaved species called the Vortigaunts because it wanted to get away from the Combine (we’ll get into what the Combine are and why they’re so scary in a bit). Then Gordon gets saved by the G-Man.

Since you asked about the G-Man specifically (and since he’s my biggest comfort character and I love him to death), I’ll explain what we know about him. He looks like a mostly ordinary human authority figure, just a tall man in a blue suit, if a little uncanny and with glowing eyes. The term ‘G-Man’ is old-fashioned slang for a government agent and is what the fandom calls him (I sometimes say G' for short) because it’s his name in the game files (it's not his in-universe name, he doesn’t have one to our knowledge). However, he’s strongly implied to be a far greater force than any human government just assuming a form humans can comprehend. He’s widely considered to be the greatest mystery in gaming; nobody knows exactly who he is, what he is or what his motivations are, the only things we know about him is that he more or less controls time and space and ensures the story of the games happens as intended with minor nudges in the timeline and by ‘hiring’ important people. Nominally, he answers to a group of even more nebulous ‘Employers’, but his goals don’t always align with theirs and he occasionally deviates from their orders.

Anyway, the G-Man says that him and his Employers are impressed with Gordon’s work liberating the borderworld and preventing further invasion of Earth, so he offers Gordon a job under him. Gordon accepts, and the G-Man puts him in stasis outside of time and space for about 20 years.

In this interval, a whole lot of things happen on Earth, mostly to do with the fact that this is when the Combine choose to come a-knocking, attracted by all of the interdimensional disturbance caused by the Resonance Cascade. The Combine are a nightmarish parasitic collection of alien species that cannot innovate on their own and therefore seek to invade and assimilate as many worlds as possible in order to steal their existing innovation. The Seven Hour War happens, and that name kinda speaks for itself. It ends when Wallace Breen, the former administrator of Black Mesa, strikes a desperate bargain with the Combine in exchange for humanity’s surrender, and so they keep humanity alive and establish an oppressive, dystopian regime on Earth with Breen as its puppet leader as they slowly drain Earth of its resources, turn humans into brainwashed soldiers and try to replicate the teleportation technology that caused the Resonance Cascade.

However, as it often is with humans, not all hope is lost: a handful of other Black Mesa survivors including scientist Eli Vance and his daughter Alyx Vance start a Resistance against the Combine, which includes teaming up with the now liberated Vortigaunts, who now live on Earth and are even more oppressed under the Combine than the humans are (poor guys can’t catch a break).

Half-Life 2 was released in 2004 and is about Gordon Freeman being returned to the post-Combine Earth after his stasis and teaming up with Alyx and the rest of the Resistance. A lot of humans see Gordon as a saviour figure come to liberate humanity for a second time after he already saved them from one alien invasion, which also paints quite the target on his back for the Combine. Quite a few things happen in this game: a Resistance member named Judith Mossman who wants to protect Eli and Alyx is manipulated by Breen into betraying Gordon’s location to the Combine but Gordon gets away and they get Eli instead and ship him off to torture prison, which Judith did not agree to. Alyx and Gordon then storm the torture prison to rescue Eli where they find Judith and figure out that she‘s been working with Breen and Alyx obviously doesn’t take that very well. They find Eli and go to escape with the Combine’s half-finished, clunky replica of a Black Mesa teleporter, but Judith panics and sends herself and Eli to Breen’s headquarters in the Combine Citadel instead. Alyx and Gordon reroute the teleporter back to a Resistance laboratory and make their escape, but the teleporter, being a half-finished, clunky mess, proceeds to explode and bring down the whole torture prison.

This explosion also messed up the teleportation process and Gordon and Alyx only made it back a full week later, when they find that the blowing up of the torture prison has sparked a full-blown uprising from the humans, who now have solid proof that the Combine aren’t untouchable. Gordon and Alyx join the fight, wanting to storm the Citadel and rescue Eli for real this time. They fight their way there but ultimately get captured, coming face to face with Breen himself, who tries to get them all to surrender. Judith then decides she’s had enough of Breen’s nonsense and backstabs him, setting Gordon, Alyx and Eli free. Breen attempts to make an escape using a Combine portal, but Combine teleportation devices aren’t exactly known for their stability, so Gordon destroys it before Breen gets there and Breen falls to his death in the elevator. Before the whole Citadel can explode and take the whole surrounding city with it, the G-Man freezes time and appears once again to save Gordon (and possibly also Alyx), putting him in stasis once more.

This is where things get a little messy, because instead of using another full game to wrap up this story, Valve decides to release the sequels via smaller expansions called ‘Episodes’; at least three were planned, but only two ever came out.

Not a whole lot happens in HL2 Episode 1, the most notable thing is that the Vortigaunts all team up and use their powers to pull Gordon (and possibly also Alyx) back out of stasis, which the G-Man isn’t pleased about but does let them go. The rest of the episode is everybody trying to get the sparkles out of the city before the Citadel blows up, which they successfully do.

HL2 Episode 2 is where the plot picks back up. The Resistance find out that the Combine are trying to use the leftover energy from the Citadel explosion to send a call for reinforcements to their home universe, something they can prevent if they launch a rocket into space from a Resistance base called White Forest, so that’s Gordon and Alyx’s next destination. They do have to stop for a bit when Alyx gets stabbed through the back by a Combine-made creature called a Hunter and almost dies, but Gordon helps some local Vortigaunts save her life, with the minor caveat that Gordon’s and Alyx’s fates and souls are now forever intertwined. The G-Man also appears here, telling Gordon that Alyx was originally meant to die at Black Mesa but he defied his Employers to save her life. Then he tells the still unconscious Alyx to tell her father to ‘prepare for unforeseen consequences’ and, as usual, mysteriously disappears.

Alyx wakes up and they make it to White Forest, where they receive a message from Judith informing them that she’s also been busy since she left the Citadel. She somehow managed to uncover the Borealis, a research ship that went missing many years ago from Aperture Science (Black Mesa’s rival research facility, they’re very unhinged and have their own games, the Portal series) and is thought to have incredible technology on-board. Most of the Resistance is enthusiastic about finding the Borealis and using its technology against the Combine. However, Eli, upon receiving the G-Man’s message through Alyx, reveals to Gordon that he’s heard these words before and that he’s certain they mean another Resonance-Cascade-level disaster is inevitable if they use the Borealis and decides they should destroy it instead. Then there’s a big battle with Combine forces as the Resistance try to launch the rocket. They’re successful, and the Combine fail to call for reinforcements. Then Gordon, Eli and Alyx go to board a helicopter to the Arctic where the Borealis is located, but before they can do that, they’re interrupted by a pair of Combine Advisors bursting through the wall. Advisors are creatures with powerful psychic capabilities, unlike anything the Resistance has faced before, and while they eventually retreat and Gordon and Alyx survive, Eli is killed in this struggle.

For a very, very long time, this exact cliffhanger was the end. HL2 Episode 2 came out in 2007 (which is also the year I was born, funnily enough). Half-Life 2 Episode 3 still does not exist, and neither does Half-Life 3, to the point where it’s a meme in the pc gaming community that Valve can only count to 2.

What does exist is Half-Life Alyx, a VR-only game with Alyx as the protagonist that released in 2020 and technically takes place between the first two games but also does a lot of cool wacky timeline things that would take a separate post to explain because this one is already getting absurdly long. Another thing I didn’t mention is the HL1 expansions, which are a handful of shorter campaigns released between 1999 and 2001 that tell the stories of other characters who survived Black Mesa and are also questionably canon due to being made by Gearbox Software, who got a few Valve canon things wrong. There is so much more to talk about here but, again. This post is very long and I would understand if you didn’t even read this far. If you did, thank you very much!!! I love my silly anti-nihilist video games about the indomitable human spirit standing in the face of forces beyond its comprehension, and it brought me great joy to get to yap about them for 14 paragraphs straight. Thank you again for sending this ask ^^

[londonhalcyon]

More slow going progress from Chapter 42. Here’s some familiar faces—and the calm before the storm.

* * * *

I had made the call I had promised Mason the week before, to no avail. Getting, or getting around, the right paperwork on such short notice, particularly for an island country with a valid reason to dislike uninvited critters, would have risked drawing too much attention from Magical Customs—and by extension the Ministry. Attention by the government—any government was the very last thing Mason needed, as I relayed to him over the Cauldron’s rarely used telephone. He had been surprisingly chipper about it. Not to worry, he’d told me. He had a better idea. One of his sisters had shouted for him in the background before he could explain what he meant.

Now Mason was two oceans away, and I had a bowtruckle in my tea. Needless to say, I had figured it out.

“I told you not to let him swing from the light,” Kathy scolded as she vanished the spilled tea from my robes.

Sam accepted the waterlogged Samuel from my hands. “He was on my shoulder two seconds ago!”

I had no comment; I was laughing too hard.

Both witches were notably calmer than they had been at the funeral, as was Robin, who was present for my second visit. Kathy and his new guardian had apparently arranged for him to visit weekly, partially so Robin could see his aunt more often, mostly so he and Sam wouldn’t be alone over the summer. I was relieved. So was Kathy.

At one point, when Sam and Robin had gone out to pick up groceries for dinner, Kathy said about his guardian, “He’s not a bad chap, but I think he’s in over his head. He came across a bit too eager when I offered to let Robin stay over.”

“At least he’s trying?” I said.

“He is. He calls sometimes, to ask for advice. I can relate, if I’m honest.” She was perched on the kitchen counter, a fresh cup of (bowtruckle-less) tea in hand. She watched the steam rise, fogging up the edges of her glasses. “Better me than an Auror, I suppose. But I’m starting to worry.”

“For Robin?”

“For all of them.” She set her cup down. “I quit my job at the pub. The Muggles there don’t need a witch among them. We’ll be all right,” she added, before I could say what I was thinking. “We can pull from the rainy day fund for a while. It’s safer for everyone this way.”

Familiar words. “If you need anything…”

“We’ll be all right,” she repeated.

I leaned back against the counter. The flat was a little smaller than the Cauldron’s, and messier. Dishes crowded the sink, the water quite turbid. A pile of mail sat on a side table by the sofa, opened but not dealt with. I crossed my ankles; crumbs scattered around my feet.

Star-shaped paper lanterns had been strung along the walls, their feeble glow struggling to make up for the room’s single window. Non-magical, by the looks of them. There was a telly by the sofa too, a haphazard stack of tapes by its side, which was a rarity in any wizard home. Not counting Muggle-borns, it wasn’t often I came across a witch or wizard who could comfortably set foot in both worlds. Even I struggled with it more than I cared to admit. These days, it was only getting worse.

“You look tired,” I said. Again.

Kathy grimaced. “Ministry business. Mr. Thicknesse…the way he’s been acting lately… Well, I’m not sure I should say.”

“Everything all right?”

“No, but it’s not like it’s not all right either. Or not not? It’s fine.”

Also familiar words. “I can bring you more potions,” I offered. “Or Rosmerta’s cooking.”

“Ha! I might just take you up on that.”

Sam and Robin stampeded into the kitchen with the groceries a short time later, just as I was getting ready to leave—to their dismay.

“You’re still going to stay in Hogsmeade, right?” Robin asked. “You’ll be there when we return to school?”

“For as long as I can,” I said.

Sam looked startled. “What?”

“I’m not planning on going anywhere,” I amended. Not yet.

Kathy became unusually interested in her near empty teacup. I hadn’t said those last two words aloud, but it didn’t matter.

I twisted the silver ring around my finger. Some things were better left unsaid.

[cheemscakecat]

Ms. Red Mom [Short Fic]

Merriam had never been good at asking for help. Not from any of her judgmental family, and not from her exes.

Her latest ex, the Spy was no exception. After they broke up, she used the money he’d given her when they were together since it was there. But she rejected his attempts to send her more of it after they split. For a while he kept offering, and it ****ed her off. He even tried to fabricate a story and make it look like she won a prize, so she’d think it didn’t come from him. She was smarter than that. After she chewed him out, he didn’t try again.

She’d accept government aid. Food stamps. Lord knows the government owes it to everyone, with how much tax they take. It wasn’t easy to feed 8 boys, but she did it. They had to portion control, but it worked out. It was actually kind of nice to watch the boys hunting for clams and other seafood on the beach. Peaceful.

But then they got older, and they started to ignore her advice. One by one the older boys stopped appreciating the lessons she tried to teach them, and the frugal way they grew up. Maybe if she’d taken the **** money, it wouldn’t have been like this. But she never could ask for help. They joined gangs. Even after the first had to murder somebody to prove himself loyal, the others didn’t take it as a warning. They still followed suit.

Except for the youngest. Jeremy was always picked on by his brothers; for being small, for being too afraid to join the gangs, for being illiterate, for crying on occasion. She tried to defend him, and sometimes it even worked. But when they got old enough to convince themselves that the hard heart of a criminal was something to be proud of, there was nothing she could say to stop them.

Arthur got arrested. Henry snapped out of his delusions after the gang he joined went too far, and he helped the police catch his so-called friends. And his younger brother Jonas. Frankie fell in love with a woman who’d lost somebody to gang violence, and she warmed his cold dead heart. They fled to Canada to make sure his old criminal pals left them alone.

Henry and Frankie got clean and upstanding first. Arthur and Jonas eventually came to their senses in prison, and ended up moving to other states to start anew. The other three still hung around Boston and visited her sometimes, but they never wised up. That left Jeremy as the only one who never got caught up in a crappy gang.

He tried so hard to get a job and keep it. But he took his brothers’ cruel bullying to heart. And he’d never been able to focus in school. He’d keep a job for a few months and then loose it, then try again. From the age of 17 to 20, he tried to adjust to civilian work and stop relying on her. But he just couldn’t seem to do it.

That’s when she caught him engaging in street crime. Not the **** gangs, thankfully; this was petty crime. But it was a gateway for his brothers and she knew he could follow suit.

She’d thought of this before, but never trusted the others to follow through. But Jeremy had always respected her advice, and tried to make it work. So she worked up the courage to do it.

“The Gravel War? What’s that, some kinda re-enactment type thing?” He was holding the RED pamphlet in his hand. She couldn’t bear the idea of him working for BLU, not that he was likely to meet his father in battle. “It’s a mercenary war. They hire people to go fight each other over some petty issue. I been reading this thing, and it says there’s a respawn machine. So if you get killed in battle, you don’t stay dead.”

She kicked herself a little when Spy called her, saying Jeremy got assigned to the same team as him. But she knew deep down that this might be a blessing. Jeremy took after his father a lot, and he might just learn something she couldn’t teach by living with Spy and the other mercenaries. From what her ex told her, the team had nothing in common with the criminals her other sons hung around. None’a that peer pressure to “be hard” and murder innocent civilians. What the rest of the team did outside of work was their own business, but the war required them to kill other mercenaries, not random people off the street.

No, Merriam was never good at asking for help. But for once in a long line of mistakes, she made the right call.

[breitzbachbea]

Could you answer ALL the questions for pady

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING ABOUT PADDY, I'D LOVE FOR YOU TO GET TO KNOW MY FUCKED UP OLD MIDDLE AGED MAN.

Ask Game for someone's OCs

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

Babyname website, ten most popular boys names in Ireland all time. I don’t know if I picked his surname from a similar/the same site, but I must assume so. Et voilà – Patrick “Paddy” O’Neill!

🌼 - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

Born on the 2nd of May 1965 in canon. He’s 48 in Irish Problems, the first story in the mainseries, which is usually the age range he also appears in in most AUs.

🌺- Do they have any love interest(s)?

Ohhh, does he ever! My man used to be quite the charmer in his youth! Not really putting the love in love interest, but he had a ONS with Daisy Grey, the mother of Shane Grey, who’s part of Charlie’s gay social circle after he left school. He’s also had a few flings with Þóra, @swabianmapley’s lovely OC and one of the Icelandic subordinates. The list could go on - Ben didn't call him a louser for nothing!

But the woman he ends up dating (if I'll get this far in the main story and stick to it) is Donella Ramsay. She's a middle school physics and english teacher from Glasgow he met on a bender in Dublin, where she has relatives. It's ... an odd match, but it works out for both of them.

Shoutout to his childhood/teenhood friends Kilian MacLeod and Angus O'Malley though! I don't ship them in canon, but I love a good AU with Kilick, Padus or a Derry Trio OT3. Welcome to the worst Polycule this side of the Foyle, maybe in the entire North West.

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

Honestly, I think nothing would top a good full Irish breakfast roll for this man. Something as big as his entire hand, stuffed with eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms ... only acceptable way to start the day.

💼 - What do they do for a living?

Be a menace to society! No literally, he's in the mob. Right hand to Harry O'Connel, the biggest shark in the Irish tank. Aaron O'Connel, Harry's father, was who picked Paddy off the Dublin streets and offered him to work for him. Ain't much of a living with the guilt his job produces but well, someone's got to protect the kids now and make their life cushy.

🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?

He plays the guitar! His father taught him. He also branched into other string instruments and is pretty good at the Banjo. His fiddling is good enough for government work. Needless to say, not only does he play, he also sings.

🎯 -What do they do best?

Being a calm mediator, to be honest. Everyone else always looks to him, due to his experience and Paddy's here to get shit done. Doesn't mean he's always calm or hides his emotions particularly well, but he's determined like no other and very good at both executing orders and giving orders. He's so splendid at being a father to be honest, it's a shame he never had any kids on his own, but doesn't matter - he loves Harry, Soph and Charlie to bits. Adopts every lost kid in need of a dad he can find, giving as much love as his big body can store.

🥊 -What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

Loves to be a bastard with his children, a carefree ne'er-do-well, hates that to live that life he routinely makes it worse for a hundred other families who're just struggling to get by. Paddy is filled to the brim with guilt, believes God no longer listens to him and that there's no redemption for a man like him.

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Night out in the pub with friends in Derry; Kilian, Angus, a few others - and the daughter of the Orangeman who's none the wiser that his daughter is hanging with at least one Catholic and Rotten Prods and getting shifted by the latter.

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

Hearing about Kilian's death after the funeral already happened. Kilian's older brother Keith didn't want him there.

🧊 - Is their current design the first one?

It is! I rarely change designs, mostly because the hugest chunk of my characters exist solely as personality and a vague idea of a physical appearance for months, if not years. Paddy had his design pretty quickly because I had to describe him, but I love it anyways. Especially the fact that he's 2 m tall and built like a brickwall.

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

I needed a right hand man for my mafia story and I knew vaguely that there's Protestants in Northern Ireland. That's it and as I learnt more and more about the actual situation and nuances of Irish history and identity, it just has made Paddy more and more interesting.

🌂 - What genre do they belong in?

Born to be in a romantic comedy or a GOOFY heist movie, forced to be in Angela's Ashes meets The Godfather.

💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

Cishetero man as they come, though I make exceptions in AUs for Derry Trio OT3 shenanigans babyyyy. To be fair, too, he's moved in overwhelmingly queer circles due to the job and the kids in the past years that he's not at all fazed by the myriad of gender expressions and sexualities this world got to offer.

🙌 - How many sibling does your OC have?

None! However, he has/had a cousing called Caoimhe, who he loved so dearly, pretty much like an older sister. However, after his aunt/her mother died in a bombing, the family moved away and he never heard from her again.

🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

Very good! Both of his parents died in the 80s, sadly, but he loved them very much and they did him. They also were both rather old parents (William O'Neill was born 1917, Davian O'Neill in the early 1920s), so it's sad they died so young regardless, but not out of the clear blue sky. As I said, his father taught him how to play guitar and Davina also always looked out for her son. Paddy wouldn't have left Derry if one of his parents were still alive.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

THE GHOOOOSTS, Paddy is so fucking haunted! He has lived three lives and to not lose the third one, he is willing to dig himself and everyone a grave without a bottom. Willing to do and encourage the worst things out of a deep, deep sense of love. He lost his cousin, his parents, Angus moved to London and then a bomb wrecked his and Kili's flat, so he walked out of town, left Kilian behind who died in the mid 2000s in a car crash. He got taken in by Aaron, traded his morals for a new family and helped raise Aaron's kids. Then Freya, Aaron's wife, dies in childbirth, Aaron's other right hand Ben gets shot in 2006 and Aaron accidentally poisoned in 2009. Once again, Paddy is the last man standing. So if anything happened to Harry, his sister Sophie or Harry's best friend Charlie, he'd kill everyone and then himself. No hyperbole. His actions in Irish Problems underscore that.

✏️ - How often do you draw/write about the OC?

Pretty much any time I work on the mainseries. He isn't in every AU and I also write a lot of one-shots/other fanfics about entirely different corners of the world that have nothing to do with him, but Paddy never strays far from my mind. Since I've been rewriting Irish Problems since 2022, rarely a month went by without writing about him.

💎 - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

I've toyed with the idea of killing Paddy a lot, because he'd be potent drama. But at the end of the day, I could never go through with it because it breaks my own heart far too much.

💀 - Does your OC have any phobias?

Don't think he likes anything about bombs, but that's less of a phobia and more ... being traumatized by a civil war. He's got over his dislike of guns for the same reason, but still loathes most big guns and will not use anything automatic unless you held the man himself at gunpoint.

🍩 -Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?

Ben was always the man to pick fights and hold grudges, so Paddy doesn't really have any personal nemesis or rivals. Team England can be counted as such, simply because they're Team Ireland's biggest antagonists, but he has no particular bone to pick with Arthur (unlike Harry), Robert (unlike Charlie) or Tahir.

🎓 - How long have you had the OC?

Since 2013! "Like Father Like Son", how the entire story universe is called, was a Hetalia AU I created for an art trade. I needed human OCs for the story and that is how he came about.

🍥 - What age were you when you created the OC?

14. Insane shit.

Here's a drawing of him done by @pyromaniacqueen!

[commissarpiglet]

Hey, look what I found...

First news source, dated 2012 describes that years Israeli politicians fundraising for their campaign from foreign sources, primarily from the US.

[Image id: Money Comes From The U.S. reads as:

For this new report, each member of the Knesset was asked to give a list of campaign donors and the amounts received. Officials at the state comptroller's office told NPR they are currently in the process of checking and verifying the list, although a quick glance at the figures shows a clear trend.

The report says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised more than 90 percent of his campaign money in the United States. Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon, also from Netanyahu's conservative Likud bloc, raised 100 percent of his campaign contributions overseas - mostly in the US. end image id]

[Image id: Titled Many Americans Prepared To Give reads as:

Wilf didn't choose to fundraise in the U.S. herself; her campaign money came entirely from her own personal fortune. But she says she understands Israeli politicians who accept help from often eager American donors.

"Americans are trained to give money to politicians. It is in the system," Wilf says. "They know this is how politics work. So when a politician tells them, 'I'm running,' it makes sense to them to give money. I've had many American Jews offer to help me. And I tell them, 'I don't need it, I'm fine.' But that's their way of saying, 'We want to help you. We want to support you. We like the work that you are doing.' "

Back in the Knesset cafeteria, politicians speculate about the upcoming elections and what surprises may be in store.

Hoffman says that Israelis have shown time and again they don't really care where or how their elected officials raise money.

"Israelis don't care where their politicians get their money from," Hoffman says. "There are politicians that have been convicted of illegal fundraising that are making political comebacks right now, and people don't have any problem with it whatsoever."

What's more important to Israelis, he says, is that their elected officials have the elbows to get the job done. end image id]

Source:

If anybody wants to jump in this rabbit hole with me, or already has, I'd love to get a break down of just how much the US (and others if it's relevant) are funding Israeli politicians. So far it seems like sources outside of Israel can only fund primaries, but I'd bet that's enough for US interests to be involved in Israeli elections.