#and kept important info that involved me directly away from me

[bettycrocker]

finding out your 'friend' unadded you on everything without even trying to talk to you is crazyyyy ngllll

[mana-sputachu]

Read The King of Fighters Gaiden: Origin of the Flame manga aka the Shingo isekai manga and it is honestly depressing when it comes to both the Yagami and the Kusanagi clans...

I know, right?

I liked Gaiden a lot, we finally know how the Yasakani downfall started (never thought about Goenitz, Mature and Vice being DIRECTLY involved... But I liked it and it now makes me want to have Iori discovering it and going ABSOLUTELY FERAL over them in possible future stories) and omg I loved Magai so much.

Such a fantastic character, who strongly reminded me of Iori (very grumpy with a short fuse, but a good guy. How adorable he was while teaching Shingo? 😭). And his relationship with Yamato was GREAT.

GREAT.

They were true brothers, I loved how Yamato was ready to throw hands at whoever tried to talk shit about Magai❤️

And he stayed to his side till the end, even when the Riot started, he did what he could to protect Magai and his child (sending them away was his way of protecting both them and the villagers. I like to think he kept checking on them from time to time).

True brotherhood, firebois COULD NEVER (I mean, Iori would like to but it will never happen. SNK loves this stale rivalry so much...)

The only thing I was bummed about is that Iori didn't listen to Shingo at the end, lol.

Iori I know he's loud and scared the kitty, but he had important infos to share! 😂

[jayoctodot]

The Silent Patient vs The Maidens

I will start by saying that I understand the appeal of these novels as page-turners. They are easy to read and if you want a twisty reveal at the end, you will probably be entertained and satisfied. That being said, I am SO CONFUSED by the near-universal adoration of The Silent Patient and the reasonably positive reception of The Maidens. The weaknesses of the two are strikingly similar, as well, which doesn’t give me much hope of seeing improvement from this guy, though I am intrigued to see whether he keeps repeating the same (apparently successful!!) patterns. These books were at least super fun to hate.

(For context, I read The Maidens for a bookclub I'm in, because several of the members had read and loved The Silent Patient, and one of them gave me a copy of the latter to read on my own time. I loathed The Maidens and then read The SP for comparative purposes. And because I'm a masochist, apparently.)

SPOILER WARNING! Do not read on unless you've finished both books (or unless you care not for spoilers). Sorry if it gets a bit shouty.

Here are the similar weaknesses I noticed in both:

PSEUDO-PSYCHOLOGY

-> Weirdly similar “group therapy” scenes early on where a cartoonishly unstable patient arrives late, disrupts the meeting by throwing something into the middle of the circle, and is asked to join the group after the therapist(s) speechify on the importance of boundaries (HA! None of these therapists would know an appropriate boundary if it kicked them in the ass) and debate whether to “allow” the patient to join. Both scenes are so transparent in their design to establish the credibility/legitimacy of the narrators as therapists, but instead both Theo and Mariana come off as super patronizing. The protagonists are less and less believable as therapists at the stories progress (though at least Theo’s incompetence is explained away by the “twist” at the end; Mariana, on the other hand, is confronted in the opening pages of the novel by a patient who has self-harmed PRETTY extensively, and rather than ensure he get proper medical attention, she essentially throws him a first aid kit and tosses him out the door so she can pour herself a glass of wine and call her niece... and it devolves from there).

-> Ongoing insistence throughout the narrative that one’s childhood trauma entirely explains the warped/dysfunctional way a character behaves or views the world, which is why the books go out of their way to give EVERY potentially violent character a traumatic childhood; when Theo insists that no one ever became an abuser who hadn’t been abused themselves, I wanted to throw the book across the room. (That is a MYTH, SIR. GET OUT OF HERE WITH YOUR ARMCHAIR PSYCHOLOGY.)

-> Female murderers whose pathology boils down to “history of depression” and “traumatized by a male loved one/family member.” Because, as we all know, depression + abuse = murderer!

-> The “therapy” depicted in both books is laughable and so so unrealistic, mostly because neither narrators function as therapists so much as incompetent detectives, obsessively pursuing a case they have no place pursuing (or skill to pursue - both just happen across every clue mostly by way of clunky conversation with all the people who can provide precisely the snippet of info to send them along to the next person, and the next… until all is revealed in a tired, cliched “twist”). Their constant Psych 101 asides were so tiresome and weirdly dated (also, the constant harping on countertransference got so ridiculous that at one point during "therapy" Theo literally attributes his headache and a particular emotion he feels to Alicia, as though the contents of her head are being broadcast directly into his mind... and I'm PRETTY SURE that's not how it works???)

CHARACTERS

-> Psychotherapist narrators with abusive fathers and pretensions of being Sherlock Holmes, which results in both characters crossing ALL KINDS of ethical lines as they invade the personal lives of everyone even tangentially connected to their cases (and, in Theo's case, violate all kinds of patient confidentiality. Yeah, yeah, by the end, that's the least of his offenses, but before you get there, it's baffling that NO ONE is calling him out on this).

-> All female characters are either elderly with hilariously bad advice, monstrous hulking brutes, or beautiful bitches (except for ~MARIANA~, who is Bella Swan-esque in her unawareness of her own attractiveness, despite multiple men trying to get with her almost immediately after meeting her. I'm so tired of beautiful female characters being oblivious to their own hotness. Are we meant to believe all mirrors and male attention have escaped their notice? If it’s to make them “relatable,” this tactic really fails with me).

-> All characters of color are shallow, cartoonish side characters, and most of them are depicted as unsympathetic minor antagonists (the Sikh Chief Inspector in The Maidens continuously drinks tea from an ever-present thermos, and his only other notable characteristic is his instant dislike of Mariana, whom he VERY RIGHTLY warns to stay out of the investigation that she is VERY MUCH compromising… the Caribbean manager of the Grove is universally disliked by her staff for enforcing stricter safety regulations at the bafflingly poorly run mental institution, because HOW DARE SHE. There's a very clear vibe that we're supposed to dislike these characters and share the protagonists' indignation, but honestly Sangha/Stephanie were completely in the right for trying to shut down their wildly inappropriate investigations).

-> "Working class" characters (or basically anyone excluded from the comfortably upper-crust, educated main cadre of characters) are few and far between in both stories, but when they show up, he depicts them as such caricatures. We got Elsie the pathologically lying housekeeper in the Maidens, who is enticed to share her bullshit with cake, and then a TOOTHLESS LEPRECHAUN DEALING DRUGS UNDER A BRIDGE in the SP. I kid you not, a man described as having the body of a child, the face of Father Time, and no front teeth, emerges from beneath a bridge and offers to sell Theo some "grass." I was dyinggg.

-> There are no characters to root for. Anywhere. Partly because they’re all so thinly drawn — and because we’re clearly supposed to view almost ALL of them as potential suspects, so they’re ALL weird, creepy, or incompetent in some way.

-> The flimsiest of flimsy motives, both for the narrators and the murderers. Theo fully would have gotten away with his involvement in the murder if he hadn't gone out of his way to work at the Grove and "treat" Alicia and his justification for doing so is pretty weak; his rapid descent into stalking and murder fantasy and his random ass decision to "expose" Alicia's husband as a cheater with a spur-of-the-moment home invasion and staged attempted homicide is ONLY justified if the reader hand waves it away as WELP, HE'S CRAZY, I GUESS (after all, he DID have an abusive father and a history of mental illness, and in Michaelides novels, that's ALL YOU NEED to become a violent psycho). I guess we're lucky Mariana didn't also start dropping bodies (because the logic of his fictional universe says she should definitely be a murderer by now... maybe that'll be his Maidens sequel?). But she especially had NO reason to randomly turn detective - and she kept trying to justify it by saying she needed to re-enter the world or that Sebastian would want her to (??), even though she had no background in criminal psychology... or even a particular fondness for mysteries (really, I would've accepted ANYTHING to explain her dogged obsession with the case. WHY were Sebastian and Zoe so certain she would insert herself into the investigation just because one of Zoe's friends was the first victim? WHY?). As for Zoe and Alicia, their motives are mere suggestions: they were both abused and manipulated, and voila! Slippery slope to murder.

WRITING STYLE

-> Incessant allusions to Greek tragedy and myth, apparently to provide a sophisticated gloss over the bare-bones writing style, which opts more for telling than showing and frequently indulges in hilariously bizarre analogies. Credit where credit is due — the references to Greek myth are less clunky in the SP, and I liked learning about the Alcestis play/myth, which I hadn’t heard of before - but OMG the entire characterization of Fosca, who we are meant to believe is a professor of Greek tragedy at one of the most respected universities on the planet, is just absurd. His "lecture" on the liminal in Greek tragedy is essentially the Wikipedia page on the Eleusinian Mysteries capped off with some Hallmark-card carpe diem crap. The lecture hall responds with raucous applause, clearly never having heard such vague genius bullshit before.

-> Super clunky and amateurish narrative device of interludes written by another character; Sebastian’s letter reads like a mashup of Dexter monologues and Clarice’s memory of the screaming sheep, but by FAR the worse offender is Alicia’s diary, where we’re supposed to believe she painstakingly recorded ENTIRE CONVERSATIONS, BEAT-BY-BEAT DIALOGUE, even when she’s just been DRUGGED TO THE GILLS with morphine and has mere moments of consciousness left… and even before that, she literally takes the time to write “He's trying the windows and doors! ...Someone’s inside! Someone’s inside the house! ETC ETC” when she thinks her stalker has broken in downstairs. WHO DOES THAT?)

-> Speaking of dialogue, the dialogue is so bad. Based on his bio, Michaelides got a degree in screenwriting, which makes his terrible dialogue even more baffling.

-> HILARIOUSLY rendered voyeur scenes where the narrators spy on couples having sex. Such unintentionally awkward descriptions. First we had Kathy’s climax sounds through the trees and then the bowler hat carefully placed on a tombstone before the gatekeeper plows a student. Again, I died.

PLOT/"TWIST"

-> The CONSTANT red herrings make for such an exhausting read. Michaelides drops anvils with almost every character that are so obviously meant to designate them as suspects in our minds. There is absolutely no subtlety in his misdirections.

-> The “crossover” scene between the SP and The Maidens makes no sense - when in the timeline does Mariana’s story overlap with Theo’s? They confer just before Theo starts working at the Grove, obviously (though Mariana appears to be the one who alerts Theo to the job opening there? Whereas in the SP, Theo has been obsessively tracking Alicia since the murder and had already planned to apply to work there?), but then are we supposed to believe that while Theo has been psychotically pursuing his warped quest to “help” Alicia, he’s also been diligently treating Zoe, so invested in her case that he repeatedly reaches out to Mariana to get her to visit Zoe and even writes Mariana a lengthy letter to convince her to do so??? And then a couple days after The Maidens ends, Theo is arrested???

-> But the thing I really did hate the most is how Michaelides treats his female murderers (who are both also victims themselves) as mere means to deploy a “twist”; there’s no moment spared to encourage our sympathy for Zoe, who was groomed and manipulated by the only trusted father figure in her life, and even after spending a decent amount of time getting to know Alicia via her ridiculous diary, where it’s so apparent that she’s been demeaned, objectified, manipulated, gaslit, and/or used by EVERY man in her life, she’s sent packing to spend the rest of her days in a coma… HOW much more satisfying would it have been for her to succeed in exposing Theo and reclaiming her voice? But no, she basically rolls over when he comes to finish her off (SPEAKING OF — ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THERE ARE NO SECURITY CAMERAS IN THIS INSTITUTE FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE????), writes one last diary entry, and drifts off forever. And then a couple pages of nothing later, the story is over. GOODNIGHT, ALICIA!

Both books kept me rolling throughout (by which I mean eye-rolling but also rotfl). Maybe I will check out his next effort — I’m morbidly curious what he’ll turn out. It does leave me wondering whether I should give up on thriller novels entirely, though. Are many of the weaknesses of these novels just characteristic of the genre? Maybe I'm just holding these books to unfair standards? I'm mostly only familiar with thriller films — many of which I think are amazing — but maybe you can get away with more in a film than you can in a novel.

...I really only intended to write a handful of bullet points, but more and more kept coming to mind as I wrote, to the point where subheadings became necessary. Whoopsie.

[terrascookiejar-archive]

Terra has a Chat with a REAL Moderator this Time

In lieu of my original post that gained a lot of traction, and me talking about being “contacted” by someone claiming to be a mod.

An ACTUAL mod from the Official Cookie Run discord managed to contact me and  set the record straight on a few things, as well as discuss a few things regarding what happened. So it seems that this whole situation has indeed caught the attention of the mods of the Cookie Run Official Discord, and even MicMac himself. So what’s been done?

I do wanna talk about it in greater detail, so I’m gonna put everything in a cut, starting now. If you want the TL;DR version, skip to the second picture of Chestnut with Walnut at the end.

First things First, the person who I talked on the moderation team was someone by the name of Zayder, who contacted me on anon with their details. Using some help from friends We were able to background check and confirm, yes this person is actually legit. So I was reassured I wasn’t walking into some kind of trap.

(The photo given to me to prove authenticity by a friend. I blurred out their Discord number myself just for the courtesy of privacy)

What’s Being Done to Protect Artists on the Discord, Moving Forward?

I think this is the big question on everyone’s mind since I made my original post and all eyes are on the moderators and MicMac to make the change.

There seems to be a genuine admittance to the fact that the previous way fanart was moderated was ineffective and caused issues such as the theft and reposting to happen. 

So they’ve gone ahead and added stricter measures to prevent this from happening again. Including preventing new members from posting until they get the “Cookie” role, a cooldown on the channel to allow for easier moderation and viewing of said artwork, and heavier infractions laid down for art theft. 

I mentioned that the cooldown also allows for time for people to appreciate genuine artwork posted. So considering the magnitude of its members I’d say that’s a great first step in moving forward towards protecting community fanartists. I got confirmation from members in my own discord that the cooldown IS indeed already enacted and even increased from 10 to 30 minutes, so I have reassurance that what’s being told to me is true. 

They DO have a report system on their bot, but it seems most people prefer just messaging mods so that system in itself is rather flawed, but only so much you can do there. 

(^ This one’s my own artwork, btw!! ^) Zayder also asked me for my own feedback on what could be done to help protect artists, since I am an artist myself. It seems most of the moderation team are not artists and this probably lent itself to making moderation there so weak. 

In summary my main suggestions that were noticed were being mindful of traced art, and a dedicated section or post explaining art theft and how it harms artists and the importance of crediting artists. As not everyone understands how it hurts us, some people genuinely are uninformed. Which Zayder stated he would forward to Mic Mac. (Not sure how I feel about my own suggestions going directly to MicMac himself, but you know!!)

Fawn’s Situation happened so Long Ago that most of it is Lost (or worst case scenario, was deleted by a member of the moderation team) 

While the general consensus now is indeed “Yes, Fawn created Nutmeg Cookie,” there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of evidence towards who the perpetrator was (We had their username, hazbinalastor666, but not their ID and they’ve since changed it to cover their tracks) and the moderators involved with Fawn’s “Ban” to be found on the Official Cookie Run Discord. At least not anymore.

Zayder has confirmed that Fawn “left” the server in December of 2019, which lines up with Fawn’s own statements on the situation. However Zayder stated that whoever kicked her didn’t actually put her on the banlist. So either they kicked her manually, or they used the bot and then used it to erase all evidence of it and pretend nothing happened (which he certainly HOPES is not the case, and I do as well). It did not help that Trial Mods were not a thing yet by this time (They were not introduced until February of 2020), according to what Zayder told me. So things on that Discord were essentially pretty gun-ho. It’s not as simple as looking up a term and going to “Oldest” to track down stuff from the time.  Plus a good chunk of it seemed to have happened through DMs so... Good Luck getting that evidence.

Zayder informed me that Fawn is welcome to come back at any time. Though speaking with her she’s chosen not to, and considering her situation I don’t think anyone can blame her. I would like to believe that the version of the Discord that Fawn had to go through is not the same as the one we have now but something like isn’t essentially going to wash away what happened.

As for evidence that Fawn created Nutmeg first? Yes I do have it. The original incident,  hazbinalastor666 claimed that they created Nutmeg in November of 2019, However there’s evidence in our own discord showing Fawn creating Nutmeg as early as September of 2019.

As well as the day Fawn came forward on our discord about the situation after keeping quiet out of fear of backlash, ignited by seeing the thief get a commission of Nutmeg. However, I don’t plan to post that publicly unless I have Fawn’s okay. 

Yes. The First “Mod” That tried to Contact Me was Pretty Undeniably Someone Posing as a Mod From the Official Discord

“I'm also really curious on what you found false on what the "moderator" said to you. Nobody on the mod team ever told us they were gonna contact you, so I wouldnt know who that is.”

So that was my first sign that clearly the original person who contacted me at least wasn’t doing so without the consensus of the other mods, and neither did they consult the mods afterwards... So very, very likely they were a fake from the start. Some of the things that were off that I told to Zayder, and that we found through conversation were as follows:

The first person contacted me on a throwaway and refused to disclose who they were. Zayder gave me the ID of his personal discord and we could verify who they were easily.

The first person blew off my own suggestions for helping improve the fanart channels with statements like “We’re already cracking down on it.” Zayder asked me for my own suggestions as an artist without even being asked.

The first person kept trying to get me to get Fawn to use a VPN in order to get back into the Official Cookie Run Discord. Despite being told repeatedly that’s not how a VPN works. That’s just fucking weird. 

The first person couldn’t track anything down regarding Fawn’s situation years ago, Zayder was at least able to actually pinpoint the date in which Fawn was kicked, and rather quickly too I might add.

Zayder had pretty proficient knowledge on the bot the Discord uses for moderation and how it works. Which he explained to me a few times. The first person said to me at one point, and I quote, “For all I know the bot gives messages when infractions are laid.”

So seeing how talking with a real Moderator like Zayder was, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that someone was trying to dupe me here for some reason. Was it revenge? Did they want some sort of blackmail? Did they want me to proverbially “back off?” And if they ARE a mod why wouldn’t they give the info and such that I gave them to the other mods? Who knows. 

TL;DR:

Long Story short, it does appear as if the Moderation Team and Mic Mac have heard the artists of the fandom and are going to be working hard to lay down stricture rules regarding posting and doing their best to make sure credit goes where credit is due.

Fawn’s incident happened so long ago there’s not much evidence to be found on the Official discord, but we DO have proof that Nutmeg Cookie belongs to UpsetFawn!

The First Person who claimed to be a Mod was a fake and talking with Zayder proved it.

Overall, my talk with Zayder was very pleasant and enlightening and I believe Zayder would say about the same! I never meant to cause such an uproar, but I’d like to think things will change for the better now that we’ve all spoken up on behalf of our fellow artist. 

What we need to do now is watch how the Cookie Run Official Discord moves forward and if they’ll stick to their word towards protecting fandom content creators from theft and uncredited reposts. Though after my talk I’m certainly optimistic they will.

Always have your back for your fellow fandom artist, TerraTerraCotta

[seraphinacantatrix]

lfrp/new contacts

The Basics ––– –

Full name: Seraphina Cantatrix

Race: Raen Au Ra

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Marital Status: Single

Age: 24

Nameday: 19th Sun of the 1st Umbral Moon

Alignment:  Neutral Good.

Physical Appearance ––– –

Hair: White, usually kept up and has a braid. 

Eyes: Green 

Height:  4′9.5

Build: Slender and lean, body of a Dancer.

Distinguishing Marks: 

Common Accessories: Sometimes she wears gloves, a bow in her hair, or at times she even had the golden hand accessories. 

Personal ––– –

Profession: Performer, musician, venue founder.

Hobbies: Playing instruments, reading, making new types of tea, learning, exploring.

Likes: Tea, cooking, music, dancing, learning, books, exploration, helping others, being with her friends. 

Dislikes: Violence, others disrespecting her friends, injustice. 

Languages: Eorzean Common, Hingan, Doman

Residence: Has an apartment in Shirogane and a small home in the Goblet. She makes trips between Eorzea and the Far East. 

Birthplace: Sui-no-Sato.

Religion: The Kami. 

Patron Deity: None in particular. 

Relationships ––– -

Spouse: None.

Children: None.

Parents: Biological father in Sui-no-Sato, biological mother deceased. Adoptive father, Memnoc Sin’fel.

Siblings: Only child.

Other Relatives: A few cousins, aunts and uncles she does not keep much contact with.

Pets: Her chocobo named Nahar.

Traits ––– -

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Additional information ––– –

Smoking Habit: None. 

Drugs: Never tried.

Alcohol: Would drink sociably with her friends. 

RP Hooks ––– –

Music: Seraphina loves music. She loves to strum away at her harp and it was a pastime she did as she traveled about the realm of Eorzea on her own. It is also what she does as a performer at the Izakaya as well as the Cosmere. It was also what got her by for earning gil as she performed at the local taverns and inns throughout the realm.

Exploration: Seraphina, by all means, is not a fighter. Despite this she travels wherever she pleased, until she had an unfortunate encounter with an Inquisitor of the Holy See during the Dragonsong War...now she goes to new places with a little bit more caution and learning about the locals before she does. And because she is so fascinated by all things new, she is more than happy to talk about places she has yet to go herself.

Learning/Education: Being from Sui-no-Sato, there are many things that she wants to learn. Her curious nature and thirst for knowledge knows no bounds! She had dabbled in botany because she was interested by the flora and fauna of the surface (she loves flowers), she sought out books on surface wildlife, and much more. She could sit for hours and listen to her friends go on about anything, including something as complex as aetherology. This makes her an ideal student and thus she studies red magic under her mentor, Hoid. But just because she has one mentor doesn’t mean she can’t have another to teach her something else. 

OOC Info ----- 

- I’m 27 years old (in a happy relationship tvm), work full time...pretty consistent schedule so I would be on FFXIV during certain hours of the day. If I’m not then there is always tumblr I could be reached through. So I believe it’s reasonable to ask that people respect my personal life. I’m also a very story driven roleplayer, who likes to stick to the lore (sometimes there is some lore bendy things with friends but that’s just within the group itself...cause why not? XD) I also don’t tend to partake in AU versions of my character, or non-canon scenarios. But I am willing to make new plot-lines that may even involve others that my characters know.

-  Communication is IMPORTANT! Don’t hesitate to talk to me if you have questions or feeling unsure, or if there is an idea that you might find entertaining. Depending on what it is you might get a no or a yes, but you’ll never know unless you bring it up to me.

Will do

Character injury

Dark, mature, adult themes (just keep in mind that Seraphina is not a fighter but she has helped others in stuff like investigations or helping on the side.)

Lore-friendly stuff that follows along the FF Universe. (ex: voidsent, auspice, kami, primals, lineage. Job/Soulstones) I’m not that picky. 

It never hurts to ask~! 

Won’t do

I have morals, so no filth, underage stuff (NO THANK YOU) that can stay far away. 

Purely smut/ERP. (I’m story driven so I require more substance in my writing).

AU/non-canon stuff. 

Character death.

No lala relationships (friendship is nice though). 

At the end of the day, all I ask is simply be respectful. If you’re unsure, simply ask me. It’s better to be aware than to not be. 

I would like to add something that I find entirely important to me. KEEP IC AND OOC SEPARATE. Real life comes first always. I won’t tolerate any drama (it takes the fun out of roleplay and the game, which I’m sure no one wants). But if you do have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask! 

Contact Information  ––– –

- You can DM directly on Tumblr. Or you can find me either on Diabolos or Mateus (Since I tend to visit that world often) under ‘Seraphina Cantatrix’. 

[inawickedlittletown]

9-1-1 Meta: The Lawsuit

Note: this is over 2k of meta on the lawsuit as inspired by some discussion on the buddie discord. 

So I think there are definitely a few sides to the story when it comes to the lawsuit and why a lawsuit was necessary. I think that Buck was absolutely right to do it. He was in a corner at the point where the lawsuit happens and I don't think he actually had any other choice. Should he have talked to any of the others? Yeah, probably. 

But here's why I don't think Buck thought that it actually mattered: Buck is depressed and upset prior to the tsunami and yet afterwards he pulls himself out of that and he actually goes and takes the fire marshal job and he might not want it but he's there doing it and I think he was content doing that as long as he needed to because he absolutely felt that eventually when the fire department decided he was ready or he got off the blood thinners that he would be cleared to work. 

Buck even has this idea that hey maybe if his friends/coworkers and captain write a letter pleading his case that it might help change the minds of the department or fire chief or whoever decided that he was a liability while on blood thinners. Buck is so sure that he has their loyalty and their friendship that he fudges their numbers for the drill and that he tells the lawyer that he is absolutely not going to help him sue the city or the first responders. And the lawyer sees him as a victim, he sees Buck as someone that is wrongfully kept from his job and yet despite Buck agreeing with that, Buck in that moment defends the department and his friends and essentially says that they have his back and he has their backs too. That Buck is willing to wait to get back to his job and yet in yearning for it back and in seeing the way that the others are working and seeing Bosko, Buck comes up with a plan. It’s what he does. And he thinks that maybe he just needs the support of the 118 to get the department to let him return to work. 

I don’t think that Buck even fully believes that something as little as a letter would help, but he wants to be active and he wants to do something and that’s the only thing to him that he can do. 

I’ll pause here to talk about Bobby. I don’t believe 100% that Bobby wanted to keep his decision to keep Buck from working from Buck. I will always be left wondering if Bobby was going to talk to Buck in that moment at the station before the call comes in and they all leave Buck at the station because it does seem like Bobby wants to talk to Buck about something...it just doesn’t happen. I just have to wonder about when Bobby was asked his opinion and how much time passes between that and Buck finding out. 

Instead, Athena invites Buck over to their house for dinner and Bobby isn’t too happy with that and he’s especially not happy about it once Buck starts talking about his plan. It’s interesting to me that Bobby didn’t have to say anything to Buck about his part in keeping Buck from returning. He could have just let Buck go on and on about what he hoped to do with the help of the team. Maybe he could have told Buck that it was a long shot or he could have explained that it wouldn’t work. Instead, Bobby admits that he’s the one keeping Buck from returning to work and Bobby explains his reasoning behind it. So I actually don’t really see this as lack of communication or clarity as much as Buck finding out at the wrong moment and Bobby not giving him all the info. 

So for me the problem is not that Bobby made that decision and didn’t tell Buck...it’s the way that Bobby delivers the information to Buck. It’s the way that he isn’t exactly gentle with Buck or explains himself — he sort of treats Buck like a child that’s done something wrong and the worst thing is that Bobby is making excuses to rationalize his decision instead of admitting that it’s entirely an emotional response. Bobby is scared and he’s probably guilty because the kid involved in the bombing was after him and he’s also afraid of losing Buck and we see this fear the moment that he gets that call about Buck at the hospital during the Halloween episode. None of this makes Bobby any less guilty, but I think his part in this isn’t as bad as everyone makes it out and Bobby’s mistake is in that he doesn’t share his feelings with Buck — he isn’t open about his real reasons for not wanting Buck back at work and instead makes it about the job and about his duty as a Captain and that’s not what Buck needs not when Buck is someone that is very open with his heart and his feelings as we see in the Christmas episode where he tells Bobby how much he cares about him. 

The reason that Buck is so shocked and upset is because Bobby goes against everything he believed — Bobby does the exact thing that Buck never expected from him. He expected Bobby to support him and for Bobby to be just as eager to have Buck back at work. And the thing is that no one seems to fully understand why Buck is so eager to have his job back. Maddie doesn’t get it. Ali left him over it. And he’s seen his team working with someone new and seemingly not missing him. Because despite how much Bobby cares and how he tells the others that Buck has them no one but Eddie actually makes it clear to Buck that Buck has them. (Although Buck is pretty sure that they’re in his corner too) Eddie is the one that reaches out and pulls Buck out of bed and forces him to watch Chris and while we know how that ends, it does seem to make a difference to Buck in that after all of that is done, he does take the fire marshal job. 

I also see a lot of mention of Eddie not being there for Buck, but he was. He went and tried to help in the only way that Eddie could. And after the tsunami we get that amazing scene where Eddie tells him that he trusts Buck with Christopher — with the most important person in Eddie’s life. But we then have to remember that Christopher went through a trauma and that Eddie is dealing with a lot post-tsunami and he can’t worry about Buck because Chris comes first. Not to mention that since Buck got back to work (even as a fire marshal) that Eddie probably figured he was okay and over it. The others probably felt that Buck was okay too. And life is busy so it’s perfectly understandable why they might not be constantly checking up on Buck. 

But let’s also take note that Athena invites Buck over perhaps because she feels like checking in on him or just because she cares about him and she knows that he isn’t around his friends often and I think also because she knows what Bobby’s done and she assumes that Buck already knows and she likely wanted to clear the air or at least make sure they were okay except that Bobby didn’t tell Buck and then there’s just drama at her dinner table and you can tell in that scene how much she feels for Buck. Bobby did not handle that well at all and Athena is well aware of it. 

But now as to the lawsuit. So Buck leaves Bobby and Athena’s and he feels betrayed and I think that had Buck not met that lawyer, it wouldn’t have even been a thought to him. He probably would have quit being a fire marshal though...or maybe he would have spoken to the department directly. But Buck is completely worried about himself and his job only. He had no time to think about anyone else or to presume that anyone else on the team would be on his side (or maybe he expected the rest of them to be and for them to just understand and accept what Buck is doing and not hold the lawsuit against him) or be able to do anything about it past commiserate with him. But the lawyer...now he can absolutely do something for Buck. And I think Buck absolutely feels like it is his only option. Bobby has after all told him that he won’t be approving Buck coming back until he is no longer on blood thinners but now Buck has some idea that the department might think otherwise and Buck can be a bit impatient and he’s also desperate and he’s really doing what he needs to do and what he feels to be his only option. 

The real problem with the lawsuit is the lawyer. He’s sleazy and he’s basically out for a payday and nothing more. We actually don’t fully know how much Buck tells him and how much he already knows or finds out on his own. After all, we do know that he’s looked into Buck before he even tries to talk Buck into suing. This lawyer doesn’t care about Buck or what Buck wants and I think it’s important to note that Buck does end up refusing the money and also that the city and the department felt that they needed to settle the lawsuit rather than take it to court. 

I could argue that the city doesn’t want to deal with a lawsuit and the press and all of that and that’s why they decide to settle and it’s sort of what Bobby tells Buck when he tells him he can return to work, but I think it can be equally true that they settle because they feel that they might lose if they go to court and that will make things worse than just giving Buck a payday. But that’s not what Buck wants...he wants his job back. And if they can admit that he’s right through settling then clearly Buck is right about how he should have been back at work long before this. And it isn’t in some ways about Buck winning or being right as much as it is about Buck being treated equally and how Buck’s decision to take the risk and work while on blood thinners is being taken away. It speaks to anyone that’s had their workplace refuse to let them return to work because they’re unwilling to work with their disabilities or their injuries or their medical conditions. And using examples about the others and how quickly they were allowed to get back to work in comparison despite perhaps not being fully ready in a mental or physical capacity was an important thing for the case even if it brought up personal things that clearly upset the others a little. 

I get why people were upset about Buck going through with the lawsuit. I get why Eddie was upset and why Bobby didn’t want Buck back at work, but I don’t feel that any of that negates how important and how necessary it was for Buck to go through with the lawsuit because he clearly had a winning chance and because Bobby’s reasons for not allowing Buck to return to work were personal and emotion based and shouldn’t have played a part in spite of the blood thinners clearly being a setback and being a concern and a risk. But it’s a high risk job anyway and something that Buck has already signed up for. 

It’s just interesting that Buck goes and tells Bobby directly what he’s done and that Hen and Chim aren’t too bothered by it. Hen is probably the most understanding of all of them because she knows how little Buck has outside of the 118 and because she doesn’t take any of it personally. Chim understands what it’s like to not be at work and I think he recognizes that things were handled differently for Buck than him. They both welcome him back in their own ways and don’t hold the lawsuit against him. Bobby is clearly just worried about Buck but he doesn’t ever share that with Buck and instead does everything he can to keep Buck out of danger. And Eddie...well to Eddie it felt like being left and abandoned and especially so when he can’t even call Buck to bail him out of jail. He’s definitely having his own issues and projecting and not really understanding Buck’s side of it at all because he just doesn’t think that Buck’s problems are important or at least not worth a lawsuit and to Eddie that feels like betrayal but that all goes back to his issues with being left by Shannon. 

All of this to say that Buck was absolutely in the right to do what he needed to do for himself and to get what he wanted which is his job and his family back.

[travllingbunny]

The 100: 7x07 The Queen’s Gambit

I owe you all the reviews for episodes 7x07, 7x08 and 7x09, the only ones I didn’t have the time to write after the episodes aired. (I only posted My authentic live reactions to 7x07.) Now I’m on my annual leave (since yesterday... well, technically, from tomorrow) so finally I’m gonna post them before the show returns. During this mini hiatus, @jeanie205​ and me have been doing a joint rewatch of season 7, and we’ve reached 7x08 (which I’ll be posting a review of tomorrow).

Unpopular opinion - I quite liked this one. Roughly on the same level as the previous two episodes, maybe even slightly more as there was nothing major that really bugged me this time. I like it when the show takes a break from the plot and exposition to focus on characters, and this one had some character moments I really enjoyed (in particular for Emori, Octavia, Diyoza and Hope) and the show addressed some of the long-standing issues I’ve had with some of the previous events (such as Octavia’s beating of Bellamy in season 3 or Madi taking the Flame in season 5). It certainly helps that Emori and Diyoza have always been among my favorite characters and that Octavia has become one of my favorites with her amazing development over the last few seasons. One of those “addressing previous issues” things was the Becho flashback (as the lack of flashbacks for that relationship has been rightfully criticized) was OK and in line with what we know of this relationship. Even Nelson’s characterization made sense this time.

There are a couple of things I’m not sure how I feel about, and the big “reveal” at the end was hardly a reveal to anyone in the hardcore fandom, but was still necessary. The pacing of this season hasn’t been the best for sure, but I think I wouldn’t have had any problems if the momentum from the end of this episode - with Clarke and co. arriving on Bardo and learning about Bellamy’s “death”, followed by Cadogan being woken up from the cryo sleep -  and the backdoor pilot was followed by getting directly into present day action and involving Clarke and the rest of the Nakara group in what’s going on. I think it was mostly 7x09 and the completely unnecessary flashbacks that really ruined it and made me lose patience with the season.

I loved the mother/daughter conversation between the two Dizoyas in this episode, which was emotional and also touched on the show’s crucial themes of violence and morality. These two haven’t seen each other in what was just about a month for the mother, but 15 years for the daughter. Diyoza is treating Hope as a child, because that is what she is for her, which frustrates Hope - a dynamic that many will find familiar - though in this case, it’s a bit more understandable as Diyoza hasn’t seen Hope since she was 10, and secondly, she is right that Hope is still naive in some respects as she hasn’t had a chance to meet that many people and experience that much. But that is partly a consequence of Diyoza sheltering Hope from the knowledge about her own life before Skyring. (Hope even threw Dev in her face - explicitly calling him her father - as her other parent figure, one who did teach her to fight and try to prepare her for the real world.) And Diyoza getting upset that Hope came to Bardo to rescue her  - as she saw it her role to save her (“I was coming to save you”) was not logical - she knows how time dilation works, so she should know that Hope would have been long dead by that time, if she hadn’t come to Bardo. Hope was right when she pointed out that the real problem is that her mother wanted Hope to be innocent, the way she isn’t, and that she is upset to see that Hope has become a killer, too. Diyoza was driven both to protect Hope in the physical sense and to protect her innocence - and, as she finally admits here, she wanted Hope to see her in a different light than everyone else does. We’ve already seen in season 6 that Diyoza is really unhappy about her legacy and her past and the idea that everyone sees her as a killer and terrorist. I’ve never thought she should have paid much attention to what Russell Lightbourne of all people said her place in “history books” was (which history books? The Sanctum ones? He left Earth shortly after Diyoza was arrested), but it’s clear that the reason she took it so hard is because she herself feels bad about her past actions. She thinks goal was right, but her methods were not - as she ended up killing innocent people.  “Doing the right thing the wrong way isn’t doing the right thing”.  She is a jaded character who can do violence better than anyone - in a tactical way and only as much as necessary, rather than impulsively or out of bloodlust - and she still does it, but who hates it at the same time, which is why she puts hope (!) in her daughter to be different. When she tells Hope “Violence and rage will destroy your soul, revenge is a game with no winners”, it feels like this is the show working towards its final messages in its final season. 

If the prequel gets green lit, I hope we get more Charmaine Diyoza backstory in flashbacks and learn what was going in pre-apocalypse. In season 5, she said she was fighting a fascist government, and in this scene, we got a few more backstory crumbs, such as that everyone she loved died in wars, some of which “did not need to be fought”. I want to know what the Battle of San Francisco was - the one where Diyoza apparently saved people and was considered a hero for - and what later made her rebel against the government. We also get a McCreary mention when Diyoza finally decides it is time to disclose the full ugly truth to Hope - who and what he was and what he did, which the audience already knew, and the new info for us, that the reason why she had sex with him was to get him on her side during the uprising. (Which, I believe, is the first time anyone on the show has admitted that sex may sometimes be motivated by manipulative reasons.)

Octavia comforting Echo is a scene that got a lot of criticism. But I think this is a really good scene for Octavia and her character development. No, Octavia hugging Echo and telling her she is her family isn’t inconsistent with the fact that Octavia has never liked Echo (and was open about it in how she talked to Hope about her) or that these two characters were never anywhere near being friends, even when they stopped being outright enemies. This is simply Octavia letting go off all grudges and seeing herself and Echo as united in grief,, and is accepting Echo as family because she was in her brother’s life. And she is also now able to empathize with people instead of judging them, seeing the echoes of her how she herself felt after Lincoln’s death. 

What particularly meant a lot for me is that the show has finally addressed her beating of Bellamy in season 3 and that Octavia expressed regret about it. That’s something I had been waiting for, for 4 years. That controversial scene had become even more upsetting over time because of the amount of fanon built around it in fandom wars. Such as the Bellamy-haters attempt to justify it and claim that he “deserved it” and even attempt to blame him for Lincoln’s death, ignoring the fact that Bellamy had tried ti save Lincoln and turned his back on Pike after Lincoln, Kane and Sinclair were sentenced to death, and offered Octavia his help - but she distrusted him, knocked him out and chained him up in a cave and went to save Lincoln by herself. On the other hand, I’ve now seen people criticize Octavia saying “And he let me” and argue that he was “helpless” as he was chained up - which is again ignoring canon, since Miller and others wanted to interfere and stop the beating, by Bellamy kept telling them to stay away. It’s been argued that Bellamy let her do it because he felt guilty. but while there may have been some of that, I've always thought the main reason because he realized she needed it, she needed to blame someone else and take it out on someone else, and Pike was not around. And more importantly, she needed to blame Bellamy in order not to blame herself for failing to rescue him, in order not to think “If only I had done this differently..”. Bellamy started telling her in 3x13: "I came to you, I offered help. If you had only..." and then he saw her look and stopped himself and left, realizing what he was about to say. Octavia sees his motives the same way, saying he let her because she knew he needed it, but she isn’t using this to justify herself. She can now acknowledge her mistakes and take responsibility, and show compassion for someone in a similar situation. It’s not just about grief and losing a loved one - Octavia is now a different person and does not react to losing Bellamy (as she believes) in the same violent, desperate way. Octavia saw Lincoln as her “home” at the time. Echo saw Bellamy as her leader and made saving him her mission for 5 years, and Octavia realizes she must be blaming herself for failing at it. She tells her "It’s not your fault" because she blamed herself when she did not save Lincoln.

The show has been criticized (with good reason) for developing the Bellamy/Echo relationship off-screen during a time jump, and showing a flashback in season 7 could be seen as the show ticking off another box. But the flashback’s main purpose here is clearly to comment on Echo’s storyline this season - specifically, on the issue of loyalty as her main motive (or her tendency to always look for someone to follow, as she herself has said to herself through her hallucinations). The most important lines in the scene are Bellamy telling her “Loyalty is your weakness” and, after she replies it is not, “It is, when it makes us do things we know are wrong”. To paraphrase Indra from a previous episode - loyalty is not a weakness, blind loyalty is. (I will go with the least cynical of the several interpretations I’ve seen floating around of what Bellamy meant when he followed this with a question “Do you think you can be loyal to us?” I think he thought that, as a “shapeshifter”, as he called her, he and the Spacekru can influence her to accept their values and not be a ruthless killer as she was taught to be by Queen Nia.)

Still, there’s a lot that can be deduced from this scene regarding Bellamy’s mindset on the Ring and the Bellamy/Echo dynamic in general - though it’s more of a confirmation of the things we have noticed before. What strikes me the most about this scene is that it may be the least romantic first kiss scene I’ve seen, at least out of those that resulted in a long-term relationship. It feels more like a recruitment scene - and most of the dialogue is about Echo’s and Bellamy’s relative character strengths and weaknesses, and whether Echo can be a loyal part of Bellamy’s team. Echo does look softer and more vulnerable and insecure than we’re used to seeing her, and very surprised that Bellamy is forgiving her for things she herself was afraid he never would be able to (such as betraying him at MW - which led to his previous girlfriend’s death, or trying to kill his sister), let alone show interest in a relationship with her. But Bellamy is a far cry from the emotional man we see interacting with Clarke, either in seasons 1-4 or in seasons 5-6. He is calm, composed, he wants to move on from the past, and when he kisses Echo, it feels like a moment of decision. The Ring!Bellamy has spent 3 years in peace, without needing to protect anyone - as there are no outside threats. He has mourned Clarke, believing that she died saving them all and he left her behind. He feels that his sister is his “weakness” (”love is weakness” - Echo calls it his strength), but his guiding motivation is still to go back to Earth and reunite with her. It’s not the first time Bellamy has lamented the power that his feelings for his sister have over him - in season 4, he described himself as pathetic as always coming back after she had treated him so badly. (Is this a part of the reason why he’s only ever had romantic and/or sexual relationships with women that he doesn’t have such powerful feelings for - unlike Clarke, who is also his ‘weakness’  and the only person for whom he has feelings strong enough to rival those for his sister?) In season 6, Bellamy will criticize Echo for not being emotionally open as he said she was on the Ring. As we know, she was not fully emotionally open on the Ring, either, as she never told him her backstory (he notes here that she doesn’t like talking about herself), but I can kind of see what he meant - she was a lot softer, and going back to the ground and back into the center of action made her go back into the emotionless soldier mode, which is her default survival mode. And for Bellamy, going to the ground, on the other hand, meant being caught again in a swirl of all the emotions - learning Clarke was alive and reuniting with her, seeing a very changed Octavia, having to fight and kill and do things to protect people again - we saw him change from this laid-back Bellamy in 5x01 and become more emotional, throughout seasons 5 and 6. The Ring, with its 6 years of peace and boredom, was like a vacuum - and Echo saw it as something that was “not real” and their relationship as one that’s specific to the Ring and that wouldn’t survive on the ground. One thing that this flashback revealed is how long they had been dating - it seems that “forgiving” was synonymous with “starting to date” (they really spent no time being friends), which makes it all the more astounding that, after 3 years of dating, Echo had the exact same insecurities in 5x01, believing that their relationship would not survive on the ground. In this scene here, Bellamy wasn’t even trying to reassure her - he instead used a kiss to shut her up and make her ignore those concerns. There is a development in their relationship - as Bellamy here calls Spacekru a team, a unit, and wants Echo to be a part of it, and Bellamy in 5x01, three years later, calls them and Echo his “family”. He certainly started to care about her deeply. But at no point does he mention love, and he certainly doesn’t look like a man in love.

But while it’s clear what the main themes of Echo’s character arc are, I have to say that I have no idea where exactly this arc is going. Will she learn to have some sort of identity outside loyalty to Azgeda or Bellamy or anyone else? Can she stop being a soldier and a killer, or is the point of her arc that some people can never change? Will she ever examine the morality of her actions the way Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia have been doing, and as Diyoza does in this same episode? I can’t say I’m fully sure what the dramatic moment of Echo slashing her face Azgeda-style meant. All I can say is that it seems to point out that 1) she has been shaped as a person by her Azgeda warrior upbringing in her childhood and this is her main identity she will probably never let go off, and 2) the way she said the scars mean the pain has stopped but you will never forget makes me think she has revenge on her mind. But this wouldn’t be very different of what we already saw her do impulsively in 7x05. Everyone expects Echo to be out for revenge against the Disciples - so it might be more interesting if she really decided to fight for them because she needs that in her life.

We also see Gabriel’s recruitment - the episode’s opening scene, with a pretty straightforward combination of both carrot and stick: come join us and explore the universe, something you’ve been obsessed with for over a hundred years, and oh, the alternative is getting executed, and your friends potentially getting executed. Gabriel is driven by both his scientific curiosity and a wish to save Echo/Hope/Octavia. He genuinely wanted to save them, but he also took away their choice and did it against their will and feels bad about betraying them - another one of those tricky situations in the show where someone betrays someone out of the desire to save their life.

As the Disciples are sending Orlando’s body to Nakara, we see Gabriel do his own ritual of saying “Death is life” as he did for Josephine. Conspiracy theorists were very excited about the fact that we don’t see Orlando’s dead body, but I’d say that simply means the show didn’t want to call the actor back and pay him for appearing as a dead body for 2 seconds.

An unexpectedly funny moment was Anders saying, in reference to Orlando’s death: “I think we need to rethink our penal system” (ya think?) - Neal McDonough’s face was just perfect in that moment. And Gabriel is getting back some of his tendency for snarky one-liners that we haven’t seen much since the first half of season 6 (his only question about being a Disciple is “Do I get a robe?” )

I have no idea why the show, in the following episodes. treats the characters’ decisions to join the Disciples as a big mystery that needed flashbacks to be explained. Anders directly threatened Gabriel and Diyoza, Hope, Octavia and Echo thought they would be executed or tortured, until Echo realized they wanted to recruit them (which was becoming obvious from the nice treatment they were getting - Octavia was even allowed to read a book). It’s not like any of them had a choice, and joining the Disciples and pretending to be loyal is the obvious way to go. 

Another instance of the show commenting on its previous controversial storyline: when Jackson tells Madi that Bellamy convincing her in S5 to take the Flame was not right even though it was also true that it was the only way to save Clarke. Fans tend to take extreme positions on this one - either it was unambiguously bad or it was the right thing - so I’m glad to see the show admitting the complexity of that situation, and that some things can be both necessary and morally wrong - especially since season 5 seemed to treat Commander!Madi as an unambiguously good thing. Seasons 6 and 7 have since gone a long way to acknowledge that making the Grounder tradition of 12 old Commanders is pretty messed up.

I do wonder though, just like Emori did in this episode, since when is Jackson is shrink. He’s a surgeon, and neither he nor Abby have ever shown much in the way of understanding about mental health issues before.

I’ve always loved Emori - back when she was first introduced, because she was a morally ambiguous but sympathetic antiheroine with a developed backstory and because her relationship with Murphy initially subvert the “redemption for the love of a good woman” trope. Both she and the relationship have since developed and changed a lot. Emori started out cynical, distrustful of people and bent on her own survival, due to having such a tough life since she was a child cast out for the way she was born, but over the seasons, she has found love, a “family”, developed new skills, and learned what it is like to be cared, loved and respected by others - and she has become a much more idealistic character. She’s adapted to the new situation - having to pretend to be a Prime - much better than Murphy.  Murphy says (and Sheidheda later echoes that) that it is because she enjoys being worshiped - and I’m sure that’s a part of the reason (and is very understandable - as someone who was thrown away like garbage as a child and an outcast for most of her life, of course she would enjoy adoration, even if it is for directed at someone she is only pretending to be), but she is happily embracing her role mostly because she can use that newfound privilege and power to do something good - and to try to heal an old emotional wound,  trying to do reunite the CoG with their parents who rejected them for being nulls. She will never get a chance to learn if her own parents would be able to un-learn their own brainwashing, regret their actions and have an emotional reunion with her - but she clearly wants to believe they would. This episode may be hammering that point a bit too much with having Jackson analyze her actions - when it’s already obvious and she also straight up tells all that to Nelson, making a parallel between his and her fate, the “nulls” and “Frikdreinas”, both rejected as abominations for their DNA, (When Nelson does his angry-stubborn thing and tells her “You know nothing about me”, it reminded me of Emori’s conversation with Clarke in 4x07, when she said “You know nothing of my pain”.) Unfortunately - while Emori tells Murphy: “The way out of hell is paved with good deeds” - what happens ends up being in line with the proverb “The way to hell is paved with good intentions”. We see some of the old, sly Emori when she tricks Nelson into drinking so she could use his DNA to match him with his parents. But her new idealism makes her underestimate just how horrible people can be.

As I said in my immediate reactions, Nelson’s father is the worst. I really don’t want to judge if it is realistic that people can be so horrible and so brainwashed...  sadly, it probably is. And to be fair, everyone else at that event seemed to be OK, but it’s enough for one a-hole to ruin everything. In any case, that scene was quite strong and well-acted on the part of Lee Majdoub as Nelson (aka Sachin). Unlike in the last episode, Nelson’s characterization made sense this time. His reasoning does not (and Nikki - who is not an interesting antagonist but whose motivations at least make sense - points out the exact same thing I wondered about 7x06, what kind of justice is he looking for now that all the Primes are gone?), he’s not a very rational character, but you can see where he was coming from emotionally, reacting to what happened. 

It was weird, though, that he immediately started talking in the name of all Children of Gabriel and making decisions for them. In season 6, they seemed more like a bunch of people with different ideas who disagreed a lot, but now they seem to be another group that blindly follows a leader.

One thing I enjoyed better the first time were the Murphy and Sheidheda scenes. I really didn’t realize where it was going the first time I watched the episode, but knowing what it’s all about and that Shady is just stalling  - it makes sense, but it also makes these scene drag on during a rewatch. Yes, Sheidheda is portrayed as a master manipulator (I think he is the first antagonist in this show who can be said to be one), and he found all the right ways to get to Murphy - calling him out on his  desire to be a hero and desire to be loved (both of which Murphy always wants to deny), threatening his “queen” Emori, trying to play on Murphy’s concerns about the fact Emori is more adaptable than him, and, most of all, tricks Murphy into trying to play a mind game with him and prove something, try to outsmart him. But when you already know where it’s all going, it feels like those could have been a bit shorter. Maybe instead we could have had a couple more scenes showing what was up with Octavia, Echo, Hope and Diyoza, so they wouldn’t dedicate an entire episode (7x09) to that. But maybe putting a couple of flashbacks (around 5-10 minutes) at the beginning of 7x09 and then getting on with the present day Bardo action (i.e. whatever is gonna happen in 7x10) would have been an even better solution. 

As with “Hesperides”, I’m still not sure why this episode has the title it has and if I’ve been overthinking it. Surely it can’t just be so literal and refer only to Murphy’s move in the chess game between him and Sheidheda? I expected a metaphor about sacrificing a pawn, someone or something of yours that you see as less important, to gain something else, and/or empower your strongest player. I can’t really think of anything in this episode that really fits that. Unless it refers to something else that’s yet to happen this season.

One minor thing that doesn’t make much sense to me was Murphy mentioning Lexa to try to make Sheidheda feel bad, by pointing out her popularity (”everyone loves her”) and his unpopularity. I’m confused by this, because it feels like a big retcon, or a case of the writers starting to confuse Lexa’s popularity in the fandom with her status in-universe. It was a major plot point that everyone was turning against her in season 3 (Nia challenged her and all the other clan leaders sided with Nia and almost voted Lexa down, a Trikru farmer tried to assassinate her, her Flamekeeper was worried that her people would turn against her...) I suppose we’re meant to think her popularity has risen since she died - that seemed to be how it was portrayed in season 4 - but even if that were the case, how much would Murphy know about it? He was only in Polis for a short time in season 3 (pre-ALIE) and mostly interacted with Titus and Ontari, spent season 4 hanging out with Skaikru, was not in the bunker and never got to spend much time with Wonkru. Are we to think that he learned of Lexa’s popularity with Wonkru during these few days on Sanctum in season 7? But as we’ve seen, Sheidheda is not really universally hated among Wonkru and still has stans at least in his own clan, Sangedakru. Sheidheda, on his part, correctly points out that Lexa was killed by a Flamekeeper, just as he was. He says it was because they were afraid of his “ideas” - not explaining what ideas those were, and says Lexa also was... Which also isn’t exactly what happened: Titus was not afraid of Lexa’s ideas, he was afraid she was listening to Clarke and Clarke’s ideas too much. 

We get a minor Bardo time jump of 3 months in the middle of the episode. I have no idea at which point in the Sanctum timeline this or that part of the Bardo storyline happened - they are clearly not being shown chronologically, as the Bardo part of the episodes 7x05-7x06 probably lasted for a few (Bardo) hours. 

Gabriel is apparently now a Level 3 Disciple and works on the "cipher” team. I guess the Disciples value scientific people more than soldier Disciples, since Echo, Octavia and Diyoza still don’t seem to be even Level 1 based on the lack of symbols on their faces, and Levitt is somehow Level 11. Since they have been working on the codes for thousands of (Bardo) years, I’m surprised that the Disciples haven’t managed to do more. According to another team member, the last big discovery was before he was born and it was a 10 digit code that allows them to “harness the power of what you call the Anomaly. 

We get new info in this episode as the final code they are looking for is supposed to help them achieve “transcendence” aka “the final evolution of the species” (which they believe the beings who made the Anomaly Stones had done) and help them win the “last war”, and I assume that the transcendence has something to do with the white light that was seen when Becca typed the 7 symbol combination she only managed to find because she had the Flame in her head, and whatever she saw on the other side - which must be something different from the regular green light that appears when a bridge to another planet is opened. Cadogan’s questions to Anders after waking up were: "Have we cracked the code? Has the war begun?" It's a bit frustrating that the show keep withholding the info - what is the last war, who is it fought against? Is it even a physical war? I guess it must be at least partially, as they train and they want to recruit people like Echo, Octavia, Diyoza. But is that all?

Such a funny contrast between the star-struck, adoring Anders and an almost bored Cadogan, who first  asks, after seeing who woke him up: “You again?” Having seen 7x08, I wonder if maybe Cadogan is not impressed by people who worship him without question and try to please him -as his son did (as opposed to his daughter). Anders keep calling him the “Shepherd” and Cadogan says his trademark line “Call me Bill”. He must have told him that before, if Anders had already woken him up before. Or he just doesn’t like to be woken up more often than once in a few decades or a century, since he says he was woken up “this early”.

I really like the way Clarke’s reaction to hearing about Bellamy’s “death” was portrayed. There was some debate about the fact that Lindsey Morgan, the director of the episode, first wanted to have Clarke fall to her knees, and that Jason overruled her - and I have to say I agree with him. Focusing on Clarke’s face and seeing the shock and gradual realization on her face felt a lot less melodramatic and a lot more real.

A couple of interesting things I’ve noticed: Cadogan has a picture of pre-apocalypse “Polis” (Baltimore?) on Level 13 where his cryo is.

I was first under the impression that Madi’s drawing we see in this episode showed Becca going into the Anomaly, then when I saw it showed multiple people, that it was the Second Dawn members leaving Earth. But after rewatching Anaconda, I think this is the scene when Becca activated the Stone and everyone (Becca, Bill, Grace, Callie and Reese) stood there around it, talking about it. So, probably another one of Becca’s memories.

Rating: 7.5/10

[deejadabbles]

Spells of Defiance (Atem x Reader x Yugi) Chapter 2

Two: Yugi

One //// Two //// Three //// Four //// Five //// Six //// Seven //// [Eight coming soon]

Summary: The Circle of Magicians protects the world from rogue, murderous fey. The police who keep bloodsuckers and flesh-eaters in check. You’ve hunted vampires for years, earning a reputation as one of the best magicians in that field; but what happens when an encounter with a particular vampire makes your already fragile loyalties split?

Supernatural/Demon Hunter AU. Vampire!Atem x Reader x Incubus!Yugi (yes, a polyamorous relationship). Warnings for cursing, vulgar language, violence, and some sexual themes.

This is a fic I’ve already posted this on my AO3 but I wanted to spread the Yu-gi-oh x Reader love here on tumblr.

A brief stop at the mess hall ensured several things, that you heeded the vampire's worry and got some food in you, as well as make your presence known to anyone who saw you go into the prison wing, alleviating any suspicions they might have on if you had a prison break in mind. Most of all, however, it gave you the chance to talk to Mahad about something that troubled you all day.

After sitting in the chair opposite him at his usual table, you told him about the strange thing that happened when Marik's follower bit your right arm. You had been bitten by several vampires over the years and the one just moments ago proved that the hot pain wasn't some new reaction you developed. Though you omitted Atem's bite, Mahad seemed quite interested in your story. He asked to look at your hand, the one with the Circle's seal on it, and examined the brand closely.

"I think the chemical vampires inject when they bite a victim reacted to the magic seal," he had concluded eventually. "Since the seal constantly feeds magic into your body, it likely reacted poorly to the vampire curative, like two incompatible chemicals igniting."

Well, that had been a good enough explanation for you. At least the thought that Marik was giving his followers some strange new powers was pushed down on your list of possibilities.

After your business there was taken care of, you retired to the second floor of the Sanctuary where everyone's quarters were. Your room, like every magician's, was small and devoid of much personalization aside from the stray trinket or two. Shelves were full of Circle-issued books, herbs, and tools mainly used for your job as a magician. It wasn't much, but at least it was yours.

You knew you needed rest, but too many thoughts swirled in your head as you curled up in bed. Possible ways to help Atem, how you could pull it off and what to do after you did. Several options for both bid for your attention, making you feel scatterbrained and restless.

Knowing that lack of sleep would only impede your ability to complete whatever plan you came up with, you eventually had to get up and take a vial from your stockpile of sleeping drafts. It was a drastic measure, you didn't like how the potion usually...amped up the weirdness of your dreams, but it was better than lying awake all night.

Once it had taken hold and you finally fell into sleep, it quickly became apparent that that particular side effect was doing wonders tonight. In the dream you were still lying in bed, only now instead of feeling disoriented and fitful, you sighed in relief as a wave of calm washed over you, leaving you content, warm, and...excited all at the same time somehow. You were even made aware of how wonderful the fabric of your clothes felt against your body, the garb not being your usual night clothes, but something silken and much more revealing. Then you dreamt of an arm, sliding its way across your hip before a firm hand gripped it. Fingers started stroking your hair and you hummed in delight as something else warm and soft draped lazily across your thigh.

"Are you comfortable?" a voice you couldn't ever remember hearing before whispered from behind. The voice was sweet and gentle, not unlike a butterfly's wings. You only hummed in response as the fingers continued to massage your scalp and temples, so the voice continued. "Good. Now, tell me about your day. I heard there was a trial, something involving a vampire?"

Memories of Atem's plight invaded your dreams. The both of you fighting side by side, his judgment by the people you served, his cell and his fangs piercing your skin with such care. The flash of memories felt almost painful. This was wrong. Why were some scenes replaying trice over behind your eyes? The fingers continued to soothe, and the soft string by your thighs swished slowly across your bare skin.

Then the sense of wrongness pitched to a high bar as something dug deeper. Memories of touring the Sanctuary played like a movie in your mind. Distant voices, the voices of guards posted at the cells were trying to swim to the surface as well. Something was looking for answers in your head. The thing swaying lazily at your thighs- how could you not have realized it was a tail the moment it touched you? And the hands stroking so gently, they had minor but undeniable claws to them!

Your mind was yours again in an instant and so was your body. You grabbed the wrist of the hand at your head and heard a gasp from the melodic voice. One swift motion and you were atop the invader. A second and his clawed hands were pinned down by your knees on either side of him. Your own hands were free to strike if needed- though you noticed your current state of dress and that made you lose an ounce or two of security. The sheer fabric of the negligee sent waves of vulnerability to your core, even as you stared daggers down at the incubus trapped beneath you.

His lavender eyes were naturally large, but they were widened in shock and, though he obviously tried to hide it, fear. Heat gathered in your right palm as you called on your fire, and you kicked your glare up to a ten as you addressed the demon.

"What the hell do you think you're doing invading the dreams of a magician, incubus?"

He wasn't trying to escape your grasp, knowing a physical struggle was pointless in the world of sleep. "I wasn't doing anything perverse if that's what you think." When you cocked your eyebrow and darted your eyes down to the lingerie you were dressed in, he actually flushed a pronounced pink color and looked away. "You d-dressed yourself in that, not me! It must have been conjured up when your subconscious picked up on...my type of magic."

The term 'pleasure magic' hung unspoken but heavy in the air between you two, since both of you knew what his 'type' was. You ignored the sudden wave of embarrassment upon remembering that you had been admiring this particular outfit in a store a couple of weeks ago. That wasn't important right now, you knew he wasn't here for a typical feeding, not with what was flashing in your head just a minute ago.

"You were looking for info on Atem. Why?" You kept your voice and gaze as firm and cold as steel, even when the incubus met your eyes again and you saw his own steel under the lavender irises.

"I can't tell you that."

Oh, he knew you couldn't actually do much in the dream world, but that was okay.

"Fine, have it your way."

You gripped the collar of his button-up in a firm grasp as you began chanting your spell, and that's when he did start to struggle. It was too late though. You plunged your grip into his very being, his life force, and pulled his essence along the tenuous connection he himself had made between you two in order to enter your mind. And just like that, his enchantment -the dream- faded, but his body became more solidified beneath your grip. You had hauled him through space from wherever he was hiding and into your room. Wasting no time once his physical being was there, you threw him off your bed and to the floor.

He hit the ground with a thud, but you hadn't put enough strength behind the move to cause him real pain. Damn, his huge leathery wings might be a problem in your tiny bedroom. His spade-tipped tail swished behind him as he took a defensive stance, still on all fours on the ground. Even with that, you sensed no real fight in him. Oh, he would definitely fight if he needed to, but, something in his eyes said he didn't want to fight you. So, not liking the idea yourself, even after his invasion of your privacy, you lessened the aggressiveness of your own stance. At least you were back in your actual PJ's in the real world, you felt much less vulnerable now.

"I just teleported your ass to the worst place a rogue fey can be," you started, keeping your tone cool. "Tell me why you were rifling through my head, and I might let you go."

The incubus did not respond at first, he looked as though he was weighing something in his mind carefully. You hadn't noticed it at first, the thick curling horns atop his head having obscured some of his hair, but, now that you got a better look at him, the demon bore quite a resemblance to Atem. They couldn't be related. Incubi and succubi were born demons, vampires were humans made into demons either by other vampires or by dark magicians casting a curse. Maybe they just liked the same brand of hair gel or something.

"You were trying to help him."

The incubus' words drew your attention from his face at large and more directly to his eyes. You honestly couldn't tell if his tone was accusatory or something else, but either way, a suspicion came to mind that you did not like.

"Are you working for Marik? Were you trying to find out how much the Circle knows about his little cult?"

The demon's brow creased in anger at the name. "No! I would never work for that monster!"

"Then why-" you stopped yourself, another thought popping into your head as you remembered what memories the incubus had been searching through. He not only searched for scenes of Atem but for your knowledge of the prison wing's layout. You made your voice a bit more gentle as you asked, "What's your name?"

The man again looked wary, considering. "...Yugi."

Your posture relaxed even more now and you actually sighed with relief. Yugi must have assumed he was safe because he too relaxed, getting up from his crouch slowly.

"Atem told you about me?"

"He asked me to find you and tell you what happened to him. He didn't want you to be left wondering." You crossed your arms, giving him an almost amused smirk. "I don't think he expected you to use your magic and go digging around in a magician's head."

Yugi blushed just a tad again but his voice was even as he said, "I'm sorry for invading your privacy, but I thought you were the magician who arrested him. When I saw your memories of the past couple days though..." He gave you an odd look, as if he was almost perplexed by you, though not in a bad way. "You were trying to prove he was innocent. You fought for him, you even let him..." his eyes flickered to your left wrist and the phantom feel of Atem's gentle bite pulsed there.

Feeling suddenly embarrassed again you moved the conversation along. "Look, I know what you were looking for in my mind, you want to break Atem out, but I'm telling you now it's not possible. There are wards and seals all around the prison wing and you can't get in without a magician's seal," you waved your right palm at him. "You'll just end up getting killed if you try to rescue him by yourself."

Again his eyes filled with an anger that you already suspected was uncommon for him. His eyes were meant to be soft and sparkling, not filled with hate.

"I'm not going to just stand by and let the Circle kill him! I can't!"

"Hey, hold on there, Yugi," you held up your hands to keep him calm, even with your noise canceling charms around the room, if he got too loud your neighbors might hear him. "I just said you can't do it by yourself." When his eyes exchanged anger for a soft flicker of hope, you couldn't help but smile. "Luckily for you, I'm not going to let them kill Atem either. And...your help might make things a lot easier on me..."

Even though your specialty was vampires, you knew quite a lot about pretty much all fey races, including the talents of incubi and succubi. They weren't just good at invading people's dreams and making your wildest sex fantasies come true, most were also talented at glamor charms. It went hand in hand with the whole 'fulfilling their desires' thing, not to mention it was necessary to turn their wings, horns, and tails invisible if they walked among humans.

After a short talk with Yugi, you were assured that he was one who could extend that talent to turn himself, and others, invisible altogether. That was a tool you needed in order to pull off the 'sneaking Atem out' portion of your plan. If you cast an invisibility spell your fellow magicians would have a higher chance of sensing it and catching on to your plan. Yugi's brand of magic was different, It was less attune to a magician's senses. Like radio waves on slightly different frequencies.

You were glad that you had two endurance potions in your personal stock, you and Yugi had needed them by the morning. Not only were you up for hours discussing your plans but, when you tried to get a few hours rest, you simply couldn't fall asleep with an incubus so close. You knew Yugi meant no harm, he was easily one of the most respectful and gentle seeming demons you'd ever met, but that didn't mean the teachings of not trusting such creatures went away easily. Twice you had jerked awake and automatically reached for your silver dagger when your subconscious sensed his demonic energy so close.

You hated it. Hated that they had taught you to kill his kind with little to no questions. It was an impulse and teaching you had fought your entire life. Still, at least in this instance, being able to look down, see Yugi curled up on the carpet with your spare blanket and his peaceful sleeping face made you come back to your senses in a snap. He was so quick to trust you. You wondered if you yourself could ever get to that point.

At least now, in the waking world, you had enough control over your emotions to trust him. He was practically pressed against your back as you two walked down the halls of the Sanctuary, his form invisible to everyone. You could feel his warm breath on the back of your neck and if it wasn't for the fact that you had gleaned much of his gentle personality the night before, your instincts would be screaming at him being so close to such a vulnerable spot.

"I know we talked about this a lot last night," Yugi whispered in your ear, wary that the glamor would do nothing to hide his voice from passing magicians, "but are you sure it's best to do this during the day? Wouldn't it be easier at night?"

"Night is when they'd expect a vampire to escape," you muttered back, barely moving your lips. "Don't worry, Yugi. Everything will be fine. Just follow my lead and we'll be okay."

You heard him draw in a deep breath, "I know. I trust you."

That gentle, easy omission almost made you stop in your tracks, but you quickly pushed it to the back of your mind. Both of you needed to focus, there was no time for sentimentality.

It was a long trek from your quarters to the prison wing and the first half of that walk went by without incident, no other magician's paid you or your invisible friend any mind. That is, until a certain shade wearing blonde rounded a corner and locked eyes on you.

You cursed under your breath as Keith stormed towards you across the wide hallway. Trying to duck him would just make matters worse, better to address the threat now. Keith wouldn't do much with everyone else in the hall anyway, you just hoped he kept his distance while he barked.

"Heard your little cry-fest didn't do your pet vampire any good," Keith smirked as he came nearer. "But I gotta bone to pick with you."

Keith advanced and you couldn't escape. Damn him, you weren't the only one who knew how to corner prey. You backed into a wall and felt your back press against Yugi's chest. He took in a sharp breath and, almost as if on instinct, wrapped his arms around your middle. Poor guy obviously felt the need to hold his breath as Keith closed in and planted his fist on the wall beside your head.

"That little stunt you pulled yesterday is gonna cost you, girly. That was my favorite jacket."

"What, I didn't do anything," you defended against his attempt to intimidate. "I'm guessing your jackets burst into flames all the time, better than being on your back all day in any case."

If the comment annoyed him at all, it didn't show, his smirk only grew. "Cute. Bet you won't be cute when I drag ya in front of the Council." He dropped his tone to a conspiratorial whisper, like a teen sharing gossip. "See, I know about your little trip down to the dungeons after lockdown last night. My guess is your vampire boy loved the company." Somehow his grin turned even more sadistic, "You got a fang fetish or something? Yeah, that's it, isn't it? Always knew you were a freak."

The arms around your waist tightened and Yugi let out a low rumble in his throat.

Keith's eyebrows knitted beneath his shades, "Did you just growl at-" He paused, his forehead wrinkling even further. Then his head jerked slightly. "The hell?"

His fist lowered from its spot by your head as Keith turned away a bit. He cursed under his breath again, then stepped away from you completely, looking quite frazzled even with his shades covering half of his face. The next moment Keith was powerwalking down the hall, throwing some half distracted comment about 'dealing with you later' over his shoulder as his fingers ran ragged through his hair.

"What did you do?" you whispered to Yugi, bewildered and still looking at Keith's retreating form.

You felt the incubus shrug against your back. "He seems like the type of man who doesn't appreciate gay porn, so, I planted an hour-long loop of it in his head."

You had to bite your lip quickly to keep from bursting out in laughter, oh, Keith was never going to forget this! The more you thought about it the more you wanted to laugh. Yugi, apparently having just realized that he had grabbed hold of you, finally unwrapped his arms from your waist. You took the chance to dart down a less crowded adjacent hallway and, the moment you were sure no one would see you, doubled over and let out a deep, long laugh.

You sensed Yugi join your side but you couldn't stop laughing, especially when the thought of Keith walking around, smacking his temples like a hazy TV to get the images to stop popped into your head. He was going to be very traumatized for the next hour.

"I- I can't remember the last time I la-laughed this hard!" you finally managed, trying to catch your breath. You honestly didn't, while you had managed to retain a sense of humor over the years, life as a demon hunter didn't offer much laughter.

Finally, you regained control of yourself, though you flashed a smile at where you assumed Yugi was standing before you stepped back out into the main hallway and resumed your walk to the prison wing. Again Yugi remained close behind you, obviously trying to keep calm while being in a proverbial hornet's nest, especially when other magicians passed close by. Still, you managed to get to your destination without trouble.

There was no one at the main entrance, but you knew guards would be patrolling the wing, and again, Yugi's magic would come in handy. After you pressed your palm to the magic seal on the door, stepped inside, and assured that no one was within sight, you shut the door behind you and turned to Yugi.

"Okay, glamor me like how I told you last night."

While he worked his magic, Yugi's imagine became viable in a shimmer, though only for a moment. An odd sensation of excitement washed through you as the spell took hold and he was finished in just a few seconds. You looked down at yourself and felt that the clothes were very much...not you. Neither was the curtain of flowing locks long enough to tuck into your belt, the hair color was the exact opposite of your own. Good, the whole point of this glamor was so the first prisoner you spoke to or anyone who caught a glimpse of you here wouldn't recognize you.

"When we approach this prisoner remember what I told you, Yugi. He may look like an innocent kid, but he's not. He's almost a hundred and fifty years old, dragons just age slower."

You heard the concern in Yugi's voice when he answered, "He's not going to hurt anyone, is he? Aren't you worried that he's one of the fey who really should be locked in here?"

"No. He doesn't have a history of violence," you tried to make your tone reassuring, even giving him what you hoped was a calm smile. "In fact, the only reason he's in here at all is because of his big brother. The Council was hoping to get some info about him and maybe even prove that he's been involved in his brother's shady adventures." You shrugged. "I don't know, he just doesn't seem like the type, and even if was helping out his brother, those dragons are way at the bottom of our 'most dangerous' list. I don't see the harm in breaking the kid out."

"I thought you said he wasn't a kid," Yugi's tone sounded quite amused.

You rolled your eyes, "Just follow me."

The little dragon's less than violent record was not the only reason you were willing to break him free. His cell was on the far side of the prison, opposite Atem's cell, making the little one a perfect distraction.

It felt wrong to say his cell was 'nice' but honestly, considering what the other prisoners were stuck with, it was. A nicer bed (though still a cot), a TV, books, and even a heater to keep his cold-blooded body warm. Whether his special treatment was due to the fact that the Council wanted him on their side, or because they feared retribution from his older brother if they treated him too harshly, you weren't sure.

When you stepped in front of his cell the youngling dragon was laid out on his cot, arms behind his head and eyes closed. Also looking quite human in his current form, unable to change into his winged form with the magical wards surrounding the prison.

He greeted you with a smug tone, "Day three. You guys are really pushing your luck keeping me here. Big brother's gonna be breaking down your walls to get me back any day now."

"What if you didn't have to wait?"

Your tone of voice drew his attention and his eyes snapped open, their gray depths locking on yours. "Who're you?"

"Someone who needs a distraction. I can get you out of the cell, and even give you directions to a section of this wing where I weakened the wards that keep you from transforming."

He sat up, looking suspicious, hopeful, and excited all at the same time. "What's the catch?"

"Like I said, I need a distraction. After you transform and go crashing through the nearest wall, I just want you to make an even bigger mess in the courtyard. Don't kill anyone, just draw as much attention as possible before you fly off."

"Did Seto send you?"

"No, but think how impressed your big brother will be when you come home all on your own."

Kids, human, dragon, or otherwise, would be kids, and kids liked to look cool. He agreed to your terms in a heartbeat, and after opening his cell and sending him on his way, you and Yugi booked it to Atem's cell.

It wasn't hard to avoid the two guards patrolling the halls, especially with your knowledge of their patterns and Yugi's help.

Much like the night before, Atem must have caught your scent on the air, not just yours though. He called out both yours and Yugi's names in surprised worry as he pressed himself as close to the silver bars as possible. Yugi finally let his invisibility glamor fall as you both came into view and Atem's eyes widened when he looked at him.

"What are you doing here?!" He tried to step closer to the bars, looking ready to grab Yugi and shake him for coming after him, but he hisses at the sting of silver.

"We came to rescue you!" Yugi replied innocently.

Atem turned his scolding eyes to you, then flinched slightly when he took in your very different appearance. Yugi muttered an 'oppose, forgot to drop the glamor' before waving his hand and returning you to normal. Atem was over the shock in a second.

"Neither of you should be here. If you're caught, they'll kill all three of us! I won't have either of you getting hurt because of me!"

"Oh shut up," you snapped, "have a little faith in us, Atem. Yugi's a pretty smart guy and with my help we'll be able to pull this off- as long as you don't put up a fuss." To make your words all the more firm, you folded your arms and matched his hard gaze.

In your peripherals you caught Yugi giving a smile that was almost a smirk. "You heard her, Atem, don't make a fuss. We're getting you out and that's final."

The vampire closed his eyes, and the way his fangs poked through as he sighed looked almost cute. "Fine." He opened his eyes again and looked over at the tiny window that let in a beam of afternoon sun into the hallway. "I assume you have a way to prevent me from bursting into flames the moment we step outside?"

"Yup, luckily for you sometimes magicians need to transport vampires during the day, and I know an enchantment to do that." You held up a golden ring etched with runes. "It'll only last a few hours when I activate the enchantment, but it should be more than enough to get you out." Before you could explain any more of the plan, a thunderous crash that shook the ground followed by a roar cut you off. The little dragon was finally on his way out. "That's our cue."

You raised your right hand, the seal on your palm glowing and connecting to the lock on the cell. The moment the mechanism clicked, Yugi grabbed the bars of the door and threw it open. The moment it was, you tossed the enchanted ring to the vampire and told Yugi to do his thing, just as shouting echoed down the stone hall, frantic and calling for backup to hold off the dragon. When you looked back and saw that Yugi had turned himself and Atem invisible the next phase of your plan started.

.

The dragon youngling made good on his word and wreaked so much havoc on the Sanctuary's courtyard that the hallways were practically empty as the three of you ran for it. Even the few magicians you did pass didn't spare you more than a glance, likely assuming that you were on a mission for something specific. The echoes of the invisible feet running behind you didn't even draw notice in the commotion that could be heard clearly from outside.

"Are we truly planning on simply walking out the front door?" Atem hissed behind you.

"No, it's more like the back door the way she described it," Yugi answered.

"We just need to get out of range from the Sanctuary's wards and I can teleport us out of here. Now keep quiet before someone hears us!"

To your horror, silence had just fallen between the three of you, when two figures turned a corner and almost knocked right into you. You skidded to a halt so fast you feared that the boys wouldn't be able to avoid colliding with your back. They managed not to by a hair.

"Whoa! Sorry!" the shorter of the two called.

"Oh, Mana." Your attention immediately darted up to her companion and your eyes locked with Mahad's. Your spine gave a slight shiver at how he already looked suspicious.

"Where are you off to?" he asked, trying to keep his tone gentle.

"Councilman Rhodes asked me to get something from his office, to help with the escaping dragon." Good thing you already had an excuse ready.

Mahad raised an eyebrow. Then, the horror inside your stomach screamed again as he looked behind you and narrowed his eyes. Without another word, Mahad waved his hand and chanted a familiar spell. You wanted to scream out loud as you turned, and saw Yugi's glamor fall. Both men stood there, frozen and wide-eyed and completely visible.

Mana gasped, "Atem! You were using the attack to sneak him out!" Then her face fell from surprise to confusion as she looked Yugi up and down, "Who's the incubus?"

"Atem's lover, I assume." Mahad's eyes darted from them to you and not for the first time in your life, you felt like Mahad was reading your very soul like a book. He had always been able to tell volumes about a person just by looking at them.

As you and the boys were still frozen on the spot, not knowing what to do, Mana looked up at her mentor with pleading eyes. "Master...if we turn them in, all three of them will be executed." Her eyes darted back to you, "She was just trying to do what was right!"

All you could manage was to look the man directly in his eyes. There was no chance at overpowering a skilled magician like Mahad. Your fates were in his hands now.

He held your gaze for another long moment, before he closed them and turned away. "Then I guess it is a good thing that we didn't see them. Let's go, Mana."

"Yes, sir!" the girl said, her usual cheerful manner back as she winked at you and followed her teacher down the hallway.

It took a moment to realize what just happened, but, after that moment, it really didn't surprise you. Mahad followed rules, yes, but above all else, he was a good and fair man.

"Thank you," Atem's voice called after the two magicians and Mahad actually stopped at the words.

"Take care of her. She's throwing the only life she's ever known away right now." He looked over his shoulder and gave you one final serious stare. "Even if we keep quiet, the Council will find out. You know that."

You only had to wait a second before you answered with, "I don't care."

The profound look of understanding that crossed Mahad's eyes almost caught you off guard. Perhaps he wished he could do the same as you. But a second later he and Mana resumed their walking, the latter giving you one last wave of goodbye before they turned another corner.

When you looked back at the boys to tell Yugi to cast his spell again, you jolted at how both of them were staring at you. Had they assumed you could just send them on their way and come back to the Circle without the Council discovering what you did? No, they were too smart for that assumption. More like having it said out loud made it real for them...and they seemed torn over the idea that you were giving up, well, everything for them. You didn't like the hints of guilt in their eyes.

"Come on, we got a lot of ground to cover still."

Teleportation spells...they just weren't your forte. But it was the best way to get plenty of distance between you and the Sanctuary while they realized what you'd done. So you just had to endure the strain of teleporting yourself and two passengers the moment you were out of the building's magical reach.

Your body hit the ground hard, the dry leaves and dirt doing little to break your fall and you heard two similar thuds come right after you before your portal closed. Letting out a groan, you rolled onto your hand's and knees, hoping there weren't too many bruises as you looked over your companions who were once again visible.

"You two okay? I've never teleported that many people."

Yugi sat up on his knees and flapped one of his wings gingerly. "I'll be okay," he winced.

Both of you looked around the forest to find Atem, and there was a strange flutter in your chest when you saw him standing in a ray of sun. The light illuminated his face, only enhancing his look of wonder as he looked up at the blue sky between the trees.

"I had heard of enchantments that allow vampires to walk in the sunlight but..." he looked back at the two of you and his smile was so happy it made your heart ache. "I never thought I would see this again."

Yugi rose from the forest floor and walked to Atem, immediately pulling him into a tight embrace, something he had likely wanted to do since he saw him in the cell. You felt a sudden wash of shame as you watched the affection, though you couldn't pinpoint why. You shouldn't blame yourself for what the Circle did...even if you were part of that very clan.

Not wanting to intrude on their proper reunion, you busied yourself with that task of finding the backpack you had stashed in the forest that morning. It was a large thing, though, quite small when one realized that it had all of your possessions stuffed inside. It wasn't as if you could go back for your things after breaking Atem out.

When you returned to where the men were they had parted from their embrace and you saw looks of worry on their faces as the peered through the trees. When they spotted you, their mutual worry eased in an instant.

"I assume you never told the council where you or Yugi live, right?" you asked before they could say anything to you.

Atem shook his head. "We should be safe, so long as they don't find it too important to track us down." He looked over at Yugi with a smirk. "Yugi actually knows how to cast a ward or two himself, and has our home protected from tracking spells."

Oh, they lived together? Interesting.

"Just small ones," Yugi muttered, cheeks red, "I don't think they'd stand up against the Circle's heavy duty spells though."

"Don't worry. The only reason they were going to kill Atem is because they thought he was part of Marik's cult and figured it was easiest to execute him. They won't waste resources tracking him down now. But they will to find me...which brings me to a favor I need to ask of you."

Atem met your eyes, looking alert, serious, and ready. "After everything you've done, you can ask anything of me."

You set your backpack down on the ground and looked down at the magician's seal branded into your palm. An ancient mark that bound you to the Circle. A mark of servitude one might say. "If I'm going to escape the Circle myself, I need this seal removed." You closed your fingers, feeling another flood of shame. "You see, this seal doesn't just help us channel our magic and let us open doors in the Sanctuary. It...It also acts as a kill switch."

"What?" Atem's dark tone made you look up at him. He suddenly looked very angry. Yugi contrasted by looking horrified.

"In the case of a rogue magician, a magician like me, the Council can cast a spell and use the seal to kill the magician. I don't think they'll do that immediately, they'll try to capture me first, but I have no doubt that they'll resort to that eventually."

Yugi took a step forward. "You told that man that you knew the Council would find out that you betrayed them. You knew that and you still..."

"It doesn't matter, especially because I think Atem can help me get rid of the seal."

"How? How can I help," he asked, sounding on the verge of desperate.

"Yesterday a vampire bit my right arm and it hurt. It hurt like hell, not how vampire bites are supposed to feel. When I asked around the most likely conclusion is that the curative on a vampire's fangs reacts to the magic in the seal." You knew your eyes must have turned pleading as you looked at Atem, but you didn't much care somehow. "I think your bite can purge the seal's enchantment from my body. If it's magic vanishes, so does my connection with the Circle."

Atem's eyes darted to your right palm, "Are you sure it'll work?"

"No. But it's the only other option besides cutting off my hand." You gave them a wry smile. "That's plan B."

Yugi scowled, "Please don't joke about that."

You closed the distance between you and the vampire and he looked almost wary as you lifted your hand, palm up, to him. "It's worth a try." Relief filled you when Atem took your hand. "I'll warn you now, I'll probably start screaming, but don't stop. If it hurts that means it's working."

"You don't know that," Atem all but snapped, but, after a moment he looked back down at your palm and sighed. "I pray this works."

He opened his mouth and his fangs flashed in the sunlight before they pierced the skin of your palm. White hot pain filled your veins almost instantly and you clamped your mouth shut in an effort not to cry out. You didn't want Atem to feel guilty for hurting you, especially with how gentle he was trying to be, but the pain was too much and you couldn't stop the shout of agony that bubbled up from your throat. Sweat gathered on your brow and your other hand clenched so hard you were sure your nails broke the skin.

Then, you felt a pair of hands cup your face. They turned your head and you saw Yugi's beyond distraught face before he locked his purple eyes with yours. And suddenly the pain seemed to fade away, slowly but surely. It was replaced by a calm kind of excitement. Not unlike the feeling you felt when he entered your dream or when he changed your appearance with his magic. Your mind went fuzzy, and you couldn't think of anything in particular. It felt like floating under a ray of sun.

Slowly, the scene came back to you. A dull ache throbbed in your right palm as hands rubbed it and your arm with reassuring care. A wave of dizziness overtook your body and you stumbled, only to be caught in two pairs of strong arms.

"We've got you," Yugi said as they lowered you to the ground gently.

"Does it still hurt?" Atem asked as neither dared to let go of you yet.

You managed to find your voice after a few moments. "Believe it or not, it hurt worse when they gave me the mark."

Yugi looked disgusted. "And they call us the monsters."

You became aware that Atem was still gently stroking your palm with his thumb. You looked down, and you almost wanted to cry in relief when you saw that the seal was nothing but a faint pink scar now.

"I think it worked," Atem confirmed.

After a minute you managed to regain some of your strength and as you did you got the urge to remove yourself from their embrace. It felt odd to be part of such affection, though the moment you sat up, you missed the comfort.

"Thank you, Atem. This will make running from the Circle much easier." After giving the vampire a smile, you looked over at Yugi, almost amused as you remembered how Yugi had done something in the midst of your pain. "Did you use your seduction magic on me?"

As his eyes widened his face flushed, "I didn't fully seduce you! I just...you were in so much pain, I thought I could use it to block it out of your mind. It seemed to work too."

"I'm not upset. Thank you, it made all of that a lot easier."

Still with a hint of the blush, Yugi smiled back at you. Silence settled for a moment, and you knew the longer you were with them, the harder it would be to part. Damn it, why did being with them just feel so....

"You two need to get home. The enchantment on Atem's ring won't last forever and you'll want to be somewhere safe when it runs out."

When you stood up both men jumped to their feet as well, Atem actually stepping in front of you. "What do you mean 'you two'? You're coming as well."

"What? No, I shouldn't."

"Yes you should!" Yugi insisted, "You need a place to stay, stay with us!"

Your mouth opened and closed a few time, resembling a fish as you tried to think of a good reason to deny them. Then again, did you really want to?

Atem put a hand on your upper arm, "Please, stay with us. We need to look out for each other now."

A moment of contemplation. "I...o-okay. I'll stay for a while."

"Yes!" Yugi cheered, "It's settled then," he plucked your backpack from the ground and slung it over his shoulder. "Since you're still pretty shaken up from Atem's bite I'll fly us there."

"Wait, what?" your face felt drained all of the sudden. You had been in the air a few times, but somehow the imagery of this incubus trying to carry both you and Atem while flying made you fearful.

"Don't worry," Atem assured with a smile, "Yugi is stronger than he looks, he won't let you fall."

As the incubus gathered a vampire in one arm and a magician in the other you said, "But I'm just not a big fan of flyING-!" your voice pitched into something like a scream as he flapping his wings and shot into the air.

Life was certainly going to be more interesting with these two.

[himikochan]

SJW Handbook and Advice - CHICAGO-CENTRIC

Hello everyone I’ve been compiling info for protesters and non-protesters for Chicago and I thought I’d share it here. It’s copy and pasted from a few different posts but it’s somewhat comprehensive and draws on a lot of ideas I’ve seen circulating. Not all of this info is Chicago-specific, but I do talk about local laws in Chicago and bail funds in Chicago. 

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SAFETY AND GOOD CONDUCT AT A PROTEST

-Tear gas: the agent in tear gas that's painful, lachrymator, binds to water molecules. It's so effective because it gets into your throat/lungs/eyes and also binds to the moisture on your skin. If you suspect tear gas might be used at a protest [which honestly you should just guess now], you should try to make sure as much of your body is covered as possible- wear long sleeves and pants and try to cover your hair. If possible, have gloves and goggles or sunglasses handy. When you are exposed to tear gas, try to get a wet cloth against your face ASAP- the moisture on the cloth will bind to the lachrymator and prevent it from getting inside of you. Pour water on a bandana or mask and try to keep it as close to your body as possible. Walk away from the cloud of gas ASAP- and before you go inside your home, try to stuff your clothes into a bag [wash them in 4-5 days when the lachrymator isn't as reactive anymore]. Take a shower as soon as possible and try to wash your hair 2-3 times- some people have told me that you should take a cold shower. If you are directly exposed to lachrymator and it gets in your eyes/mouth/nose, rinse with milk or a water/baking soda solution ASAP. Lachrymator is a very unstable molecule and either of those is pretty effective at neutralizing it.

-IF you're in a position to try and take care of a tear gas canister [if you've come prepared with a traffic cone, water, a mask, and goggles- or you're reckless as shit] cover it with a traffic cone. That will trap the fumes. Then pour as much water as you can into the traffic cone, hopefully it will put out the fuse inside the canister. PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN ATTEMPTING TO DO THIS- and do some more research on how to do it properly. I have not personally had a chance to use this tactic.

-The cops may have vans with IMSI catchers and/or cell phone jammers: IMSI catchers gather information about you and cell phone jammers prevent you from being able to use your phone. Carry a watch, make an exit plan with a vehicle/public transit OUTSIDE of the area where the protest is happening, and sharpie the phone number of an emergency contact on your body. There may come a time where you want to shut off your phone- even if you don't get detained, knowing there is a friendly phone number you can access will make you feel better. Be careful about taking pictures of fellow protesters’ faces- the police are using pictures on social media to target protesters after the fact. UPDATE: I just saw another post about IMSI catchers/stingray stuff. They suggest leaving your phone at home because turning your phone off is a break in your normal patterns and can be used in a prosecution. They suggest using a burner phone- this might be the way to go if you live in a city where IMSI stuff is confirmed. SECOND UPDATE: Imperfect protection measures STILL DO SOME GOOD. There are plenty of reasons you can be in a position where you need your cell phone on you and turning off your location services and/or putting on airplane mode for a time may still do you some good!!! IMSI catchers rely upon being the strongest signal in an area [cells automatically connect to whatever seems to be the strongest signal carrier]. From what I understand IMSI catchers have a limited range and basically a max capacity of how many phones they can support while still being the strongest signal in a given area. So for large protests, they'd need to deploy a lot of trucks with IMSI catchers to collect lots of data about crowds. IN MY PERSONAL PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE, which is not universal and may be out dated information, the Chicago police tend to use cell phone jammers [which prevent you from getting a signal at all]. This way they can try to stop protesters from calling/texting each other- make an out strategy with the people accompanying you about where to rendezvous if you're separated. Here is a little information regarding IMSI catcher use in Illinois."The law permits law enforcement agencies to use CSS devices only to locate, track the location of, or identify a communications device—in other words, they cannot configure them to capture the content of any communications. [...] Is CPD abiding by state law rules? It is impossible to say without any record-keeping or audits. CPD has not responded to our most recent FOIA request for information about any new policies, procedures, or records on its use of this technology, so we can only assume that it has not developed any."

-That being said: many capabilities of your phone rely upon knowing where you are to work. So IMSI catchers aren't the only thing you need to worry about.

-If you're able, bring water and some first aid supplies [such as gauze, tape, antibacterial cream, saline solutions, gloves, wipes etc] for fellow protesters [and maybe snacks]. Even at past tepid protests, I've seen fellow protesters fall into glass or hurt themselves trying to climb into higher ground just to see. If you don't know how to administer first aid for things like lacerations, ASK FOR HELP. Many protests have people trained to help and we're all in this together. You might want to read this thread on gunshot wounds, it's better to loosely know what you're supposed to do, just in case. Learn to apply a tourniquet- hint, it’s not just putting a belt around someone’s leg.  The snacks are to keep everyone’s spirits up and remind us that we’re in this TOGETHER.

-Running is easier with a backpack than a messenger bag, wear comfortable shoes, and have something to write with. The mood might strike you to change your sign a bit, 

-If you’re protesting in an area that isn’t close to where you live, try and reach out to someone that lives in the area. You may need to get out quickly and no way to get home and need a safe house- in Chicago, the mayor instituted a curfew from 9pm-6am at 9:04 tonight after the city had blocked every bridge and shut down public transit. Protesters are now basically locked into our downtown area with no way to get home and the police are allowed to detain anyone outdoors.

-Check in with other protesters. Do your best to maintain social distancing, but try to make sure that your fellow protesters are not lagging behind due to injury or something else. Solidarity is the goal above all else.

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Lori Lightfoot has kept the curfew in place and Chicagoans are expected off the streets between 9pm-6am until further notice unless they have an "essential job". Public transit has been stopped altogether in many areas- so if you have to go out, book enough time for you to walk there and back.

Here are some important reminders of your rights- if your are arrested, stopped in you car, and what to do with your phone. PLEASE READ THEM FOR YOUR SAFETY. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

IF YOU ARE STOPPED:

-In Chicago, the police are permitted to ask your name and address and other questions (to determine if you are involved in a past/present crime). I believe you only NEED to give them your name, regardless of how many questions they ask you.

-You should refresh yourself on how to properly invoke your right to remain silent. Remember to ask “Am I under arrest/being detained?” If they say yes, you HAVE to say “I’m invoking my right to a publicly provided lawyer, and my right to remain silent.” SAY EXACTLY THAT- variations of that phrase are NOT always effective and the cops will use any opportunity they can to undermine your rights and not give you a lawyer. YOU MUST STAY SILENT- otherwise you’re technically waiving your right to remain silent and MUST EXPLICITLY re-invoke your right when you’re done talking for it to apply. 

IF YOU ARE STOPPED FOR QUESTIONING:

-Police may “pat-down” your clothing if they suspect a concealed weapon. The ACLU says do not physically resist, but make it clear that you don’t consent to any further search.

IF YOU ARE STOPPED IN YOUR CAR:

-Upon request, show them your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance. In certain cases, your car can be searched without a warrant as long as the police have probable cause. To protect yourself later, you should make it clear that you do not consent to a search. It is not lawful for police to arrest you simply for refusing to consent to a search.

ON THE TOPIC OF UNLOCKING YOUR PHONE:

I haven't found any hard and fast rules about whether or not you have to unlock your phone if you are held by the police. A Vox article from February 2020 says "If your phone is protected by a passcode or biometric unlocking features, there’s a chance cops can’t gain access to your personal data. But that’s not guaranteed. [...] But if your phone is locked with a passcode and law enforcement can’t hack into it, the Fifth Amendment may be your friend. Essentially, the Fifth Amendment says you can’t be compelled to give self-incriminating testimony. [...] Testimony, in this case, is defined as revealing the contents of your own mind. Therefore, civil rights advocates say, the government can’t force you to tell them your phone’s password." But this is still being played out in the courts- there's tons of pending cases and no real precedence for this on either side.

Freedom.press in an April 2020 article says "If you are arrested or taken into police custody, you should verbally state that you do not consent to a search of your devices. A law enforcement agency is only permitted to conduct a warrantless search of your device if a compelling case for an emergency can be made." There's a lot of potentially useful information in their article, which I will link in the comments.

REMEMBER- cops are easily protected most of the time for infringing on our rights regarding being searched if it could be considered "reasonably" legal for them to do so [even if it isn't]. Saying "I want a lawyer, dog" does not invoke your right to an attorney, being silent does not invoke your right to remain silent, if you do not verbally refuse to be searched your silence is taken as consent to be searched. The limited dissemination of information on the legality of searching a phone could protect them if they coerced/forced you to unlocking your phone.

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If you are in Chicago and see a post/event about protesting today or tomorrow [June 1st].  DO RIGHT BY YOURSELF AND MAKE SURE IT'S A REAL PROTEST.

I've heard that some VERY suspicious people are putting together a BLM protest in Chicago tomorrow. These people are NOT experienced organizers, NOT affiliated with BLM Chicago, and NOT known to anyone in the Chicago organizing/protesting communities.

We KNOW that a lot of the rioting and looting in other cities were begun and propagated by the police and white supremacist groups [not by protesters or ordinary citizens]. We do not know if these people are cops, white supremacists, or just irresponsible folx, but it could very well be a trap to escalate violence, incarcerate allies, and justify the Mayor granting more restrictions on the city. 

The source I saw was for the purpose of organizing medics to deal with the inevitable fall out, but protect yourself and your fellow protestors by not going to this sham event.

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Hello everyone- protesting not your cup of tea? That's okay! Protesting is the showiest part of being an active citizen and activist, but it's by no means the most important part.

Below, I'll be posting links for people that need your money AND non-monetary ways you can help.

-If you know people protesting in your area, offer them a place to clean up afterwards and possibly crash if public transit is closed off. If you can safely offer them a shower and a place to change clothes- that can make a huge difference. It could help them evade being targeted by the police on the way home, buy them time to get home without being part of a crowd, and they may need a place to wash off residual tear gas or pepper spray [or the blood of a comrade]

-If there are protests in your area and you have extra supplies [water, pre-packaged snacks, materials for signs, gloves, first aid kits, masks, etc], you can hand them off to a protester OR leave them in a place they'll find them with a note.

-Be wary showing the faces of protesters on your social media or having them saved online. Be mindful about who you're sharing details of a protest or protesters with and try to do your best about sharing accurate information about donations. One of the bail funds in another city recently had someone set up a fake venmo account under the name of the bail fund and many people donated to it, believing they were helping bail people out.

-Your friends with small businesses may want help or need supplies boarding up their windows- most protesters are avoiding small businesses when things turn sour [and in fact, most looting and rioting appears to trace back to undercover cops and white supremacists right now] but it's still a good idea to close up shop if you can. See if anyone needs help securing their business. .-Make fliers about properly administering first aid, basic rights regarding being detained/questioned/arrested, and phone numbers of local communal bail funds. 

-Many people who were on the fence about BLM, police brutality, and protesting are beginning to see the truth of it all now that the pandemic has forced us to confront racial/ethnic and class inequality. We have more allies than we did before- make sure to give them the toolkit necessary to enacting change. 

Protesters need funds in so many places right now: 

-Chicago Communal Bail https://chicagobond.org/

-ACLU Illinoishttps://www.aclu-il.org/en/donate

-BLM Chicago https://www.blacklivesmatterchicago.com/donate/

-The Family of George Floyd https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

-Minnesota Freedom Fund https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/

-ACLU Minnesota https://www.aclu-mn.org/en/donate

-The Bail Project https://bailproject.org/

[perpustakawan]

Asal Usul Bukit Tagiok

Published by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei in an unknown year. Written by Lamat Ja’afar. Story told by Tasim Lamat. Illustrated by Rahim Ahmad.

Bukit Tagiok is a hill that’s believed to be the source of rivers in Brunei hundreds of years ago during a great drought that turned the land a brick shade of red. The drought was called ‘The Nine Year Drought’ (Kemarau sembilan tahun) and water was severely scarce to the point that many hills turned into volcanoes. A name dropped in this book is Bukit Tabor Bintang- a hill that was previously a volcano until rivers started flowing. Geographically, Brunei does not have volcanoes and though our lands are hilly, volcano formation is unlikely to happen but I want to point out something interesting and my own little theories.

The 9-year-long drought reduced the water source of the whole country to one single well in Kampong Manggis. The height of the water is less than one’s ankles and its situated at the far bottom of the well. Seven different ladders, tied together at each end had to be use for the villagers to climb up and down. Usually they would queue up but knowing Bruneian’s haughty, selfish and petty behavior, fights that end up with killing happened a lot over water. Every single day. With the glaring heat and a large body count of people, the living, plagued in fatigue merely piled the dead bodies on top of one another and covered them in buckets of dirt to make the buriers less guilty. These poorly made graves turned into hills over time. The two greater hills were called Pungsu Timbunan and they’re the closest to the well as that’s where the killing usually happened.  

After some time, a Chinese man appeared with a jambol (a kinda haircut) and in his hand was a hammer and a nail thing. Curious on what this stranger was doing in their bare Malay lands, the villagers watched him place the nail at the base of a hill and hammer away. Water flooded out of the base of hill to the low lands to create a river. The Malays were overjoyed and their life prospered because, just like the current events, it is China that helped this struggling nation.

The Chinese man disappeared and now, the villagers, faced a even bigger dilemma; the water kept rushing in non-stop that the lowlands are the riverbeds and the highlands are the new lowlands. Sharks, crocodiles and other ocean creatures migrated to the river, namely Sungai Damaran via a channel in Sungai Mangsalut. The Chinese man, who the locals fondly call ‘Kina Bejambol’ appears, no emotions in his face and put a giant-ass rock at the hill opening. The flood stop and our hero vanished again. After some time, the villagers found a giant caterpillar resting on the flat rock of the hill base and decided to name the hill after the caterpillar instead of the man who literally saved the whole country. The Tagiok in Bukit Tagiok derived from the Bruneian word ‘giok’ which means caterpillar.

Fun fact: the rock Kina Bejambol used was flat so it’s called Batu Betilam. It’s believed that if you knock on it hard enough, it’ll sound hollow, like a well full of water. I’m not entirely sure if you can find the hill in modern day as putting ‘Bukit Tagiok’ on Waze had no results. But! Sungai Mangsalut and Bukit Tabur Bintang does exist in current day! 

Perhaps, this story is based on real events- which brings me to:

THEORY TIME

The drought lasted for 9 years and there was no mention of a Sultan. My first theory was that the story took place in the era of the Bruneian Civil War that lasted for about 13 years. The same war that started over a cockfight and two sultans were fighting over the throne. With constant war, rations are low and the drought could just be symbolizing the dread, danger and neglect the people feel amidst war. Sabah during the time was under Brunei, so Sabah’s Mount Kinabalu’s name origin being from the word ‘Aki Nabalu’ – the revered place of the dead is such a coincidence with the Pungsu Timbunan in the story. Maybe their hill is made of piles of dead bodies too?

But that doesn’t match up. Mount Kinabalu has many origins, particularly involving widows and there isn’t a mention of a widow in this book. The events could not have happened during the Bruneian Civil war as its mentioned in history how one of the Sultans fled to Pulau Chermin, stuffed the royal crown and jewelries into a canon and shot it into the ocean where it remained lost. Water existed and Brunei back then wasn’t a barren land as chickens were healthy and used for cock fights- if there was a severe drought then, no one would have time to fool around with gambling with chickens.

This brings me to my second theory: the story took place wayyyyy longer in time. Before the first recorded sultan, Sultan Muhammad Shah came to the picture and Brunei back then, was ruled by an unknown chief who wasn’t Muslim. It’s noted from far back that Brunei, through different names had very close relationships with China so that might explain why our Chinese hero came to be. This makes sense cause, historically, Awang Alak Betatar (Sultan Muhammad Shah’s name before embracing Islam) and his siblings and crew screamed “BARU NAH” (‘There!’) on a SHIP meaning water was already present in the river canals.

But this doesn’t match up either because Kampong Manggis was mentioned in the story. There isn’t any historical records mentioning when Kampong Manggis was called Kampong Manggis. I don’t have info but the fact it’s only called Kampong Manggis instead of something more archaic sounding like, Tabur Bintang, Pandai Besi, gives me the impression that Kampong Manggis is a relatively new Kampong established in modern Brunei. I can’t even recall a folk story involving the kampong too so until further info is available, both my theories of this story is flawed.

Before I end this blog post, I wish to share that I am certain that his story isn’t a silly made up story like Dayang Dengan Timun because of the insert at the very first page by the director:

In today's wave of modern society, views are not always focused on one impression. The separation gap is too obvious, when the view is absorbed from the ideals of intellect and the mind is not limited to certain norms.

The natural response is to say that all folk tales are mere fairy tales, and are not suitable and in accordance with the current state of society. This response is very detrimental. This loss is not for individuals, but for all who are entitled to it.

Folklore has a distinctive position in literature. Its role is no less important than other ancient literary works. Disclosure of stories in the form of history, education, prominence and others in the form of books, is a practical and effective method.

This series of folk tales is rewritten from the speeches of the elders. Through cultural acculturation it is not impossible that these folk tales have similarities with the folk tales in this archipelago. The treasury of these folklore will be a ristaan ​​and a point of reference for future generations who will most likely not hear these folk tales spoken by the elders. By recording these folk tales directly can also curb the extinction of these stories from disappearing just like that.

It is hoped that, in accordance with its potential as reading material, this book is suitable for additional reading of children in particular and adults in general.

This is one of the many local stories unheard of by not only my generation but my father’s too. It is by luck they managed to turn this into a book but it makes me wonder of the rest that are gone forever. This also means that any theory I throw on whether or not this event actually happened will not come to life because of this country’s lack of records in their own history (and uh, censorship. Lots of history have been omitted out of textbooks to disappear for good). 

[prorevenge]

Boy meets girl

I often pressed V for information on how she earned income but she would give conflicting answers about grants and scholarships until one day.... About 6 months after our first meeting, she finally tells me and IT. IS. NOT. GOOD. I was interviewing at a professional school when I receive the call, she's in trouble, BIG TROUBLE, and needs my help. She tells me she earns money by doing others' assignments for them. $200 to write a paper and $800 to complete an online class, usually a 100 level introductory course. She describes the method she uses to circumvent the ITs detection of others completing others assignment and how her client wasn't doing his part to copy/paste and submit from his own computer. He is failing the course and blames her. He threatens to turn her in. Her plan is to refund his money and wants me to 'follow him to see if he goes somewhere alone and take his phone' because that has all the evidence of their communications. HOLY SHIT! SHE WANTS ME TO COMMIT STRONG ARMED ROBBERY, a FELONY for her! I'm not going down for this or with her and I know nobody would believe me. ENTER: military experience - if there's no record, it didn't happen. So, I agree to help her, somehow, as soon as I return to town. I go to V's dorm the next night and she shows me EVERYTHING. Her list of clients, their blackboard passwords, how she meets them, how she defends them during honor code violations, etc. So I tell her not to worry, I'll handle everything on the day she refunds his money. Relieved, she goes to bed but before she lays down I ask to use her computer for on assignment and she says "sure do whatever you want". In my state, if you let someone use your electronics, its called "having privilege" and anything you do with their computer which may harm them is legal as if it your own computer. So, I took screenshots of her conversations with her clients, I open google settings and screenshot all the blackboard users and passwords stored on her computer. I go to her messenger and screenshot their conversations. Back home, I compiled our recordings and saved our facebook conversations. A week later, I made up an argument about an upcoming New Years Party and broke up with her. Then sat on the information I had on hand for 2 more weeks thinking about what I should do.

I remembered how she has a history of arrests from high school to freshman year for stealing from outlet malls and selling their loot online. Never formally charged. She, of course, omitted this from her application into professional school. How she admitted "finding a mark" and using them to pass her courses. How she denigrated others who were completing courses through hard work. How she used her position as honor council to get her friends out of trouble while helping to expel others for doing exactly what she was doing. How she cheated on me multiple times, used me, manipulated me, tried to make me commit a felony and ruin my life. SHE HAD TO BE STOPPED.

Knowing she was friends with the faculty on the honor council, they often bought each other gifts, I had to go above their heads. I gave names and descriptions of the events to my program director. He then goes to the honor council, anyway. I was called into the honor council's head office of "Corrupt Administrator" CA. CA tells me I should delete the information I have because it could become a civil matter and I should consider my "self preservation." She schedules another meeting with me a week later. I return and she asks if I want to make a statement about V. Guess what I said, I tell her "no, I deleted everything and I don't remember" because I was in the military and I know how to 'play ball' when superiors tell you to shut your mouth. But the most important reason I decided to not file against V directly was due to the fact I was applying for a military scholarship to pay for professional school. Since I did not follow through, the program director filed an honor code violation complaint against V on a date [suggested by CA]. A month later they tell me their investigation was inconclusive and they will close the case due to the director waiting 1 day too long to file according to the school's academic policy. CA set us up! However, since the director used my name as a source, they must notify V because students have rights to know their accusers. FUCK.MY.LIFE. CA fucked me and ruined any chance for a case against V based on a technicality. Now I fear for my safety because V tried to get me to strong arm rob someone now I just implicated a dozen cheaters who have as much as her to lose. CA schedules a meeting with V and tell her about an ongoing investigation and tells her she will be kept up-to-date. I know the investigation is over and now they are just doing formalities. V requests the information of the investigation and they promise to email it to her. V calls me for support even though we aren't together. She is crying and talking about killing herself. She tells me her dad had been paying for her college this whole time and starts coming clean with other lies. I feel bad and almost regret everything. Maybe she is not a sociopath, maybe she is really sorry. She stays at my house the next few days, I'm watching her trying to keep it together. THEN HER FUCKING CLIENTS START COMING TO MY HOUSE. She is still doing their assignments! She NEVER LEARNS!

Finally she gets the investigation info and there's my name. She calls me 130 times in 3 days, sends her friends to my classes to tell me to come to her house, finally I do. But I don't go into her room because she will trap me. She takes my phone so I can't record. She tries to get me to sign a paper saying I fabricated everything and its all false. I tell V, "They already closed the investigation, you wont get in any trouble why should I implicate myself and get in trouble? It wont solve anything!" And she pleads, "Do you still love me?" I shake my head and walk out. Two days later, police are waiting at my house to serve a 72 hour emergency protective order (EPO) commanding me to stay away from V. I know what she is up to. She is trying to get me to violate the protective order, discredit me, and send me to jail. Its very easy to lie to create one and lie to say it was violated.

NOW ITS NOT JUST REVENGE TIME, ITS WAR

Here's the plot twist: I never really deleted the files as I told CA. TYVM, Google drive.

After the 72 hours EPO expired, another EPO arrives which lasts two years but requires a court appearance. This is a huge problem because I am in the US Army reserves and it requires the handling of firearms which is illegal under an EPO. Her lawyer calls me and threatens me not to "participate in anymore investigations against her" and sends a paper tiger. I get a lawyer, lets name him "Folds like a lawn chair". He tells me "who will they believe: a pretty girl or you?" I fire him. Get a better lawyer, a trial lawyer, called "Miss Badass Esq." and prepare for war. Miss Badass requests a copy of V's EPO from the court. It essentially says I was blackmailing her, threatening to beat her up, and I broke into her room to steal incriminating information against her. All lies. I provide my lawyer the entire history of our relationship: 600 pages of facebook and text messages showing she is the aggressor, the abuser, in the relationship, phone call history, all the recordings and screenshots of her cheating ring. I make a poster sized chart of her room and the events that transpire there the day in question when she tried to trap me into signing a statement taking responsibility for her actions.

Courtdate: We made V and her lawyer look REALLY stupid. They were going with the 'pretty girl' strategy. But the dorm gave us records showing she was signing me in and out of her room, so it discredits the need to break in. The call logs: 130 times in 3 days and aggressive texts showed she wasn't actually afraid of me adn it was her, not me, being aggressive. And when he asked what I had to use to blackmail her, her lawyer said "just some tutoring papers" for which the judge said, "that doesn't sound like anything wrong. What power did that give him over you?" They had no response. My turn to speak, I explain how she tried to get me to rob a guy, how she wanted me to write a letter to take the blame, how she used her position as honor council chair to break state law and violate academic policy. And summarized we were only there because she wanted revenge on me. I watched V and her lawyer stutter and squirm uncomfortably under the judges questioning, case dismissed.

All that information I gathered to defend myself was not going to go to waste. I took it to a newly hired honor council investigator called "Meg" who had no affiliation with V. I told her what CA had done to defend V. A week later, I was told the by Meg there had been a meeting with the school police, the provost, their legal team, then the provost himself decided filed a complaint against V. I had to meet with the police to file a statement about V trying to recruit me to rob someone but other than that I was out of the loop. I later learned the results: V lost her her slot at that school's professional program, her program director yelled at her at the top of his lungs, "YOU WILL NEVER GO TO ********* SCHOOL, I KNOW ADMISSIONS AND I WILL SEE TO IT", she got expelled, her TWO degrees (biomedical engineering and biology with a minor in chemistry) were withheld for 6 years and her transcripts would carry a permanent mention of an honor code violation, her clients who graduated had their degrees retracted with similar mentions on their transcripts, and current clients were also expelled. The school changed its policy on reporting date requirements to like 60 or 90 days. Me? I am in professional school. V had her chance to get away with all of this until she tried to get revenge on me. I reduced this super villain from owning a fleet of beta male minions, being the most connected person in the university, and having a lucrative future in ripping people off in the medical industry to the last time I saw her: riding a fucking scooter.

(source) story by (/u/Apophis1942)

[sablelab]

Covert Operations - Chapter 61

DISCLAIMER: This is a modern AU crossover story with Outlander and La Femme Nikita. LFN and its characters do not belong to me nor do those from Outlander.

SYNOPSIS:   Claire reports back to Section One with important Intel about her suspicions and with extra Intel about the triads with the names of potential suspects for Fergus to run a check on.  Jamie returns to Section One just in time to hear the briefing.

MY THANKS to all those who are reading, liking or reblogging my story. THANK YOU. Previous chapters can be found at … https://sablelab.tumblr.com/covertoperations

  CHAPTER 61

  When Claire returned to her apartment that night, she dropped her keys on the bureau, kicked off her shoes and padded into her living room.

It had been a very eventual day and she had important intel that Fergus needed to know.  Her meeting with Inspector Ng and the briefing had raised many concerns for her that may eventually lead to the one who was passing on information to the Rising Dragons. Hopefully this intel would bring their End Game closer and her mission at the OCTB to a quick conclusion.  Having spent a month or more on the Madame Cheung mission profile with Jamie, she hoped that this one would be brief.  It would mean that they were making rapid inroads to a final conclusion and would be a win-win for Section One.  All being well then, hopefully Operations and Madeline would grant her and Jamie some much needed downtime when the mission was completed.  She would really love to lay on a breach somewhere far away from Hong Kong and chill out for a while.

With these encouraging thoughts in mind Claire flopped down on the couch and immediately got in touch with Section One.

“Fergus are you there?” 

“I'm here Beauchamp. Have you got something?” 

He listened as Claire relayed some of the new Intel that had been discussed at the briefing and some of her other concerns that she had noted.  However just before severing the communiqué with him she stated, “There is one other thing ...” 

“Yeah?” He replied listening intently as she elaborated on the extra information and what she had observed since being at the OCTB.

“... Did you get all that Fergus?” 

“Geeze Claire ... I'll have to clear that with Operations,” he stated gobsmacked at what she had told him.  

“Then, do it.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Fergus took off his comm. unit and stared at his computer screen for several minutes just absorbing the information that Claire had communicated. Her words kept revibrating in his head.  Could it be possible?  Had Inspector Jiang Ng been the one to suppress the Intel concerning anyone associated with the Rising Dragons? Was he working directly for Sun Yee Lok or somebody else? Was the head of the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau really the plant? Claire had said it was entirely possible that he was the mole.  Was there a triad war looming? Operations and Madeline wouldn’t like that. Were they closer to finding Jonathon Randall?  If all this proved to be accurate then this was epic news that his superiors needed to hear.

So much information filled his brain with possibilities that needed to be checked, but he would relish the challenge of finding the connections Section One needed to ascertain the best way to profile the next stage of the mission.    Fergus was shocked by the Intel Claire had passed on and he couldn’t wait to inform Operations in person.  Leaving his communications station, he hurried along the corridors of Section towards the Perch. Her info had blown his mind. It seemed that she may have found out the very evidence that Section needed to make a move and sooner than they would have expected. If this data proved to be true then Section One would be expecting a visit from Inspector Jiang Ng in the not too distant future.

While walking briskly along the corridors towards the Perch, Fergus hurriedly rounded a corner and nearly ran smack dab into Operations.  A little out of breath he stopped short just before bumping into Section One’s leader.

“Sir, I was just on my way to come see you,” he stated breathlessly.

“What is it Mr Claudel?”

“I’ve just received a message from Claire. Intel that she’s found out could be promising in capturing not only the mole at the OCTB but also Jonathon Randall.” Operations was pleased. “Excellent ... Anyone we already know?” “No.” “Who then?” He asked a little impatiently. Dougal Mackenzie always expected his techie to have the answer before he asked the question rather than have nothing concrete to report.  Why waste his time?  If he was not on the ball already and had found out something relevant then this was a wasted conversation. However, Fergus couldn’t contain his enthusiasm and blurted out the most damaging update. “Claire suspects that it may be the chief of the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau himself ... Inspector Jiang Ng.” “Do we have Intel on him?” “I’m working on it now.” Operations quickly changed his tune realising that his techie was indeed following through on Claire’s Intel. “Good to hear Fergus.  I’m glad that you have made some inroads this will be beneficial when we debrief.” “Claire has confirmed our suspicions that Jonathon Randall may be involved with the Rising Dragons also.” “Good.” “She’s made plans for surveillance of The Triangle nightclub tomorrow night to check out the possibility that Inspector Jiang Ng is involved with Jonathon Randall and has connections to the Rising Dragons.” The news was getting better. “Excellent.” “There was one other thing too sir.” “What?” “The OCTB is checking out rival triads ... it seems that there is suspicion amongst them over Tony Wong and Madame Cheung.” “Get on it ASAP Fergus. We need to keep ahead of their investigations. There’s always the possibility that someone may recognise Claire and then her cover will be compromised and all our good work will be for naught.” “I’m on it.” “You have 24 hours. Can you handle it?” “Yes sir ... I can work within that time frame.” “Good.  Then proceed.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Fergus Claudel returned to Systems with orders to cover all bases. Because they had invested so much time, energy and resources on the Rising Dragons’ missions, Section had been stretched a little thin. It had been their main priority despite all the other missions of late, but they had come too far to go back now. If Claire’s cover was compromised Fergus knew he would be in deep trouble, after all it was, he who devised the mission profile for her in the first place. However, he had anticipated any glitches that could occur and had a contingency back-up plan as a failsafe. Jamie’s return was imminent for the mission in Senegal had taken less time than anticipated, and that would be a good thing too if he was needed on this mission as support for Claire.

Immediately sitting down at his console, Fergus set to work. He hoped he would have all that he needed by the morning when Jamie was due to return then he would be able to debrief his leaders. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning, Madeline entered the Perch to find Operations in an animated discussion on the phone. He acknowledged her presence with a glance and nod then returned to his conversation. 

“Colum ... We haven’t heard from you in a while.” “So how are things in Section One Dougal?” “Good ... Thank you.” “Any development on Sun Yee Lok?” “As a matter of fact ... there is. We’re getting closer.”  Operations replied giving his superior no more information that the bare minimum. There was no way in hell that he or Madeline wanted any interference from their governing body at Oversight with this mission.  Column, as its leader, had always been a thorn in their side and they tolerated him at best.   “Excellent. I see One is maintaining its success rate. The previous missions have severely handicapped the Rising Dragons interests.” “Thank you brother. I appreciate you saying that. We’re doing what we can.” “Oversight would expect nothing less. Am I right?” “But of course.” “Keep me informed. You have fifteen days.  Goodbye Dougal.” “Colum.” Dougal’s reply was succinct as usual whenever he spoke with his brother and replacing the receiver in its cradle, he turned to look at Madeline who asked, “He was pleased?” “Oh, yes. He wants a complete report in fifteen days. I want him to think he’s getting one ... understood?” “Perfectly.” “Fergus says that Claire has provided early Intel that has given us an exceptional projection and he has been working on it. We should know something soon.” “So, we’re making excellent progress then.” “Yes, I’ve seen the numbers.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

 While they were discussing Colum Mackenzie’s call, suddenly there was a beep and an operative’s voice echoed in the Perch. “Sir, James Fraser has returned.” “Send him in.” Glancing towards Madeline with a look that spoke volumes Operations stated, “Fergus or Murtagh must have sent word to him. He’s obviously escalated the Mission to have returned so quickly.” “Yes ... but nothing should surprise us where Jamie is concerned,” she replied. “You’re right as usual Madeline.” The two leaders of Section One turned when their Level 5 Operative entered the Perch and stood at ease. Jamie was an excellent operative … their best really … and if he could contain a situation quicker than expected then he would do so.  However, they suspected that the expediency of this mission was accelerated because he would want to know how Claire was faring on her new assignment.  Jamie would never admit that this was the case but they knew there was a close bond between the two operatives that could not be shaken no matter how hard they had tried. As of yet, they could not ascertain if it was a romantic bond or just one of mentor and material despite Madeline suspecting that it was more than platonic.   They both stated as James Fraser stood waiting for Operations to speak. “Welcome back James.” “Thank you.” “The mission was successful.” “Verra.” “Excellent. Your team managed 100% containment quicker than we thought.” “Yes.” His superior then cut to the chase and told Jamie of the status of the triad mission.  “You’ll be pleased to know that Fergus has new Intel on the Rising Dragons. So unfortunately, you won’t be having any downtime.” “You will be on Close Quarters Standby as there will be a new mission pending to Hong Kong tomorrow,” Madeline added watching Jamie intently to see his reaction to this information.  However, there was not even the blinking of an eye as he stood there listening to what his leaders had to say. “Fine.” Operations continued. “There’s a briefing later this afternoon. Your Senegal debrief can wait.” “It’s finished.” Jamie stated matter-of-factually with his usual succinct statement. “Very well then .... have it on my desk ASAP.” “Yes sir.” “That will be all. You can go, Fraser.” Both leaders stood as one and watched the retreating back of their Level 5 operative ... then glanced at one another without needing to say a word. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Thankfully, he had written his debrief on the Senegal mission on the Section plane on his return, and having given his report to Operations as requested, Jamie made his way to the Ready Room to grab some much needed shut eye before being summoned to the briefing table later that afternoon. Although his body ached from the bruising he had incurred on this past mission, he hadn’t sustained any major injuries. It was nothing that some much-needed rest wouldn’t fix and it was all he required to replenish and revitalise his spirit. His team members were not so lucky though, and were in Medical being checked out.

Knowing that his Claire was safe and all was well was the best news he could have received, but he needed to hear her voice to know for sure.  His first priority, therefore, before his weariness took its toll was to contact his love as to his return to Section One.

“Sass-en-ach…”

Her name rolled off his tongue in a loving caress.

Jamie had not had any communication with Claire at all since his meeting with Superintendent Zheng and her beginning her undercover operation at the OCTB. He knew that she would be wondering why he had not had any contact with her and no doubt by now Claire was getting a little testy due to the lack of interaction.  However, the Senegal mission had taken him away from Section One as well as taking all his efforts to contain the matter so that he could return as soon as possible. The mission had also been fraught with danger and he needed to have his full concentration on what was at stake and knew that Claire would worry if she knew that the situation was hostile.

 No doubt his Sassenach had her ear to the ground in the early stages of her transfer and was keeping a watchful eye on the comings and goings at the Bureau.  Jamie knew that she was more than capable and was an exceptional operative who could take care of herself, but that didn’t mean that he never worried about her, because he did.  His Claire was always on his mind and her voice haunted his thoughts at night when he closed his eyes. They were partners who were also lovers and her welfare would always be of the utmost priority to him.   He patiently waited for a reply from the other end and closed his eyes in relief when he heard Claire reply. The sound of her dulcet tone in his ear was like a soothing balm to his weary body.  

 “Ja-mie …”

 He could hear the relief and longing in Claire’s voice as she uttered his name so achingly while her voice caressed each syllable of Jamie as if she was placing kisses to his lips. God how he had missed her. He’d missed her terribly, missed the sound of her voice, missed seeing her by his side and he’d missed the kisses they shared. He was trembling with it, with the need to see her, touch her, have her tight against him. Nothing else mattered. There’d be words, there needed to be words, but those could wait. Everything could wait. The thought of having her seem near is what he had wanted most of all.  Just the sound of her voice was enough to feel her presence and Jamie hung on to the sound of his name on her lips.

It had been a couple of weeks and he longed to see her and all he really wanted to do was hold his Sassenach in his arms. However, knowing that he might see her soon made the separation a little more bearable.  Madeline had said that another mission to Hong Kong was being planned and no doubt he would be on a surveillance team and that was why he was on Close Quarters Standby. The mission could be set in motion at any moment and he needed to be prepared but hopefully he could catch some shuteye before leaving.

The intel that Fergus had been correlating meant that the new mission would be in play shortly after the briefing this afternoon and that another triad member would soon be a guest at Section One.  It could very well be the lead they were after to finally get closer to finding Sun Yee Lok.  These peripheral members of the Rising Dragons had all given Section vital information but as yet the Dragon Head had remained elusive. Perhaps this time he would slip up and be more visible.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Fraser! ... Briefing in 10 minutes!”

The sound of Operations’ directive woke him from his sleep. How long he’d slept for he didn’t know? It mustn’t have been that long but it was enough to give him the energy he needed. Jamie got up and made his way to the Briefing Room. Operations was standing in front of the briefing table while Fergus, Murtagh, Abernathy, Wakefield and Madeline were seated quietly waiting. Jamie was the last to arrive. He took his seat without so much as a look at those gathered, and sitting stony faced with his blank patented stare, he waited for Operations to begin the debrief.

As if to stress the importance of this mission, Dougal Mackenzie leaned his hands on the briefing table, glanced briefly at all those who were gathered then he began to speak without any preamble. 

“Claire has provided us with the names of people she suspects are the mole and members of the Rising Dragons triad. Detective Raymond Koo ... Undercover Agent Eric Yong ... and Inspector Jiang Ng.” Madeline leaned back in her chair and stated, “We have to assume that the mole could be any one of these three OCTB operatives and he is working for the Rising Dragons.”

Looking directly at Jamie she added, “We need to find out which one.” “Did Claire elaborate on why she suspected these men?” Jamie asked trying to decipher in his own mind who may be the most logical one to be the mole at the OCTB.

 “Raymond Koo asked questions as to Madame Cheung’s disappearance.  Was he trying to ask if they knew who was involved in her mysterious disappearance or merely asking an innocent question? Claire wasn’t sure but the Inspector was of the view that another triad group was responsible,” Fergus declared before summarizing further.  “Eric Yong was taken off a surveillance case on Jonathon Randall.  Perhaps he too was getting too close to exposing him as a triad member and the Chief Inspector clipped his wings.” 

Jamie said nothing just nodded his assent leaving him with the most obvious choice which ultimately would have been Claire’s as well.  These two men were not the spy. Glancing around at those gathered Fergus Claudel added more clarification. “I cross-correlated data found on each of these men and discovered that each one has had contact with Jonathon Randall who is linked to the Rising Dragons.” “So, guilty by association?” “Yes Jamie, but we feel that the others are mere passing associations of no consequence and more than likely just doing their job.” Madeline interjected.  “However, our main focus is on Inspector Ng and Jonathon Randall himself.”

Continuing Operations then relayed his synopsis. “Claire’s Intel would suggest our mole had help from the highest level or is privy to classified information. Therefore, Inspector Jiang Ng ... the head of the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau is our main target.”

Pulling up a Blue Screen of a Chinese man who it was difficult to gauge his correct age but probably was round about 35 to 40 years old, he indicated to his Techie to relay what he had discovered. “Fergus?”

“Inspector Jiang Ng is a hard nosed elusive leader who projects an image of ruthlessness. He has risen within the ranks quickly and has been well decorated for services in fighting crime in Hong Kong.  He’s suave, brash and confident ... has plenty of money to throw around and enjoys nightclubbing and gambolling.”

“On his salary this would suggest he is getting a kickback from someone.” Madeline stated before Operations spoke again.

“Our Intel also suggests that he always seems to be one step ahead of the other police departments which impresses his superiors but his methods in apprehending suspects borders on viciousness.” Once more Fergus elucidated the intel he had managed to find out. “The other reason is his clever manoeuvring of department personnel and his tactics in predicting triad behaviour with the help of his highly placed police informers. He is excellent in playing one police department against the other which interfered with each others’ investigations to the point that they blocked each other out, bringing investigations to a standstill ... except for those he had instigated.” “This is highly suspicious.” Madeline concluded which left those at the briefing agreeing with her. “Exactly.” “For that he was not well liked, but this doesn’t seem to bother him. Inspector Jiang Ng it would seem is far too smooth, too in the know, too enlightened and for that reason, Claire has him earmarked as someone to watch closely.” Operations briefly straightened as he studied everyone's perception of Fergus's Intel before continuing. “The second important man is Jonathon Randall.  He’s of British and Chinese ancestry and an entrepreneurial multi millionaire who is the owner of The Triangle nightclub.”

Jamie listened intently as his leader continued but what he heard next gave him cause to be a little concerned.

“Claire has told us that she will be in attendance at the nightclub Saturday night, and will debrief in the morning,” Operations stated dropping the Blue Screen’s remote back onto the table as he concluded the briefing.  “This means that she will be in the key position to survey the premises and to make contact with this Jonathon Randall.”  He then had the final word, “We're converging on the mole. But we have a couple of options. ... I'd like your input Jamie.” 

Nodding he replied, “Of course. I’ll work up a profile.”

   *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ to be continued

[spriterpt]

Hey Liss, I really want to start a small horror group rp but I never ever done one on Tumblr and I'm scared of messing up. Could you give me some advice? Is running a group rp on tumblr too stressful?

First of all, I’m so sorry for the late reply!

The biggest factor in how challenging it will be to run a group is how much time you have to put into it. That’s not to say that if you go to school or work full-time you can’t run one, but if you don’t have much time to commit to being online, it can be a lot to handle. That said, it’s incredibly rewarding to watch a roleplay thrive!

The two most important parts of your group are going to be your plot and your graphics. I wish the second wasn’t the case, but how your roleplay (and your promo graphic) looks is a huge deal when it comes to drawing people in. Roleplays with ‘basic’ graphics, sadly, often find it difficult to gain any traction in the community. If you’re not great with graphics, you may want to consider getting a co-admin who is, or contacting RPHs who do those types of services. That said, a solid plot or location is what will make people stay. Your roleplay will need to be either plot-driven or character-driven. A plot-driven roleplay is going to be harder to keep up with, as you’ll have to provide lots of events and plot drops to keep the ball rolling. Character-driven roleplays can often take a little longer to set up, as you really want to make your location come to life by providing a history and places around town for people to set their interactions, but require less upkeep as the members create their own plots. For a horror group, chances are it’s going to be a little more plot-driven.

Setting up your blog can be one of the more stressful parts of running your own group. You want to make sure everything looks good, all of the writing is error-free, and the page is properly organized so viewers can find what they’re looking for. Below is a list of important pages your page should include and my advice for them.

NAVIGATION: It’s very, very important that your navigation be properly laid out. People aren’t going to want to join a roleplay if they can’t easily find everything they need to do so. Most roleplays divide their navigation into two sections–before applying and after acceptance. The first should include your plot, rules, characters, taken/banned face claims, wanted connections, and application. It should also include any other information you’d want people to know going into it, like locations around your town. The second should include your checklist, blogroll, trigger list, and OOC masterlist.

PLOT: This should be at the top of your navigation page and, ideally, directly linked from your home page. It shouldn’t be too long or too short, just a few paragraphs. Your paragraphs also shouldn’t be too lengthy–large blocks of text can turn people away. 

RULES: The most important rules are as follows. Activity–most roleplays have an activity limit of 5 or 6 days. This allows members to balance RP with real life while still preventing too much inactivity on the dash. Characters–the number of characters you can have, the age requirements for characters/face claims if you have one, and whether characters can be on a multi-muse account or should have separate blogs. Drama/inclusivity–there should always be a zero tolerance policy for OOC drama, and rules in place to promote inclusivity such as requiring that members reply to at least 3 starters before posting their own.

CHARACTERS: This is where keeping up with a roleplay can start to get tricky. There are two types of RPs you may choose to go with–bio or appless. If it’s a bio roleplay, you need to make a graphic for and post the biography of every character. If it’s appless, you need to make sure that each time you get a new character, you update your character page. Either way, you’ll also need to keep on top of your taken face claims page. Many admins choose not to post a bio or add a character to their page until they’ve received the account for that character.

WANTED CONNECTIONS: This isn’t required, per se, but can inspire more people to join your roleplay. You should have a form for your members to fill out, and they’ll send in their wanted connections. That’s another thing to keep up with–you’ll have to put all of these on your WC page as well as remove taken connections, or edit connections that have 1 out of 2 or more muses taken (think bandmates, or multiple siblings).

APPLICATION: Your application should include, at the very least, the character’s name, age, gender AND pronouns, and face claim. Most choose to add positive and negative personality traits to their app. If it’s a bio roleplay, you’ll need to request a biography, either by simply stating ‘bio here’, or by dividing it up into sections. For instance, you can split it up into background, present, and personality, and include a paragraph or word requirement for each section if you’d like. 

CHECKLIST: This should be the first thing in your ‘after acceptance’ section and should include everything your new member has to do after being accepted. This should include getting their account in within 24 hours, following everyone on the blogroll, tracking your tags, looking at your trigger list and sending in any triggers they’d like added, sending in wanted connections, asking for the OOC blog/Discord link, posting an intro for their character, and finally posting their first interaction. Speaking of tags to track–yours should include tags for character intros, starters, events, tasks, admin notes, and new blogs to follow.

TRIGGER LIST: Some basic triggers you should include: sexual assault, suicide/self-harm, eating disorders, blood, drugs, death, abortion, violence. You should also ask that your members send in any personal triggers that they’d like added, and this should always always always be kept confidential.

OOC MASTERLIST: You may choose to only include OOC information on your character page, but an OOC masterlist can be helpful when it comes to plotting. This lists each member’s name and which characters they play, and often includes other OOC info such as age, timezone, and pronouns. This way when plotting with someone, members can immediately see all of the characters the person they’re plotting with plays.

As mentioned before, graphics and theme are also very important. Your theme should be neat, organized, but ‘pretty’. Almost all themes are going to involve at least one graphic. The color scheme of your graphic(s) should closely match that of your theme so that everything looks coherent. If there’s more than one graphic, they should look nice together without being repeats of each other. You’ll also need to create a promo graphic to post in the tags. Note that you should create a sideblog to post your promo graphics, rather than flooding your main page with them. Your promo doesn’t have to look quite as similar as the others, since they won’t be shown side-by-side, but should still give off the same ‘vibe’. You’ll want to make sure to double-check all of the writing on your page for errors, click on all of your links to see that they’re working properly, and go through your navigation from the point of view of a potential member.

The next part is being a good admin. You should be able to get on almost every single day, even just for long enough to post something in the tags and empty your inbox. Admin activity is crucial to group activity. As soon as members see the activity of the main die down, they start to decline in activity or find other groups. 

There are three key elements to promoting your roleplay. The first is through your promo sideblog and promo graphics. You should be posting these often enough that they regularly show up in the tags without being too overbearing. You’ll have to check the tags you choose and use some trial and error to figure out how often that is. {Remember that your post will only show up in the first five tags you put down.) The second is posts on your main. You can let viewers know a little about your roleplay, let them know you’re going to be around for a while, or just include a tidbit about your day. The same rules apply for how often to post these as with your promo graphics. The third element is requesting shoutouts from RPHs. This gets your RP back into the tags without having to put yet another post on the main, as well as gets news of your RP around the RPH community. Remember to always read the RPH’s rules, be polite (please and thank you), and use their name if it’s on the blog. You only have a certain amount of characters for your shoutouts, so make them count. Keeping on top of all three of these things can be difficult, but is incredibly important to running a successful roleplay. You need to make sure you have time to do this on top of your other admin duties. I’ve always found it easiest to take care of all of my other admin things first, then dedicate a chunk of time solely to promotion.

Keeping the main up-to-date is one of the most important things you’ll have to do. This includes your character page/biographies, taken face claims list, triggers list, wanted connections, OOC masterlist, and one more thing we haven’t mentioned yet. Something Tumblr has been doing lately is eating posts in the tags. That means even though you have a tag dedicated to your group’s starters, most of them won’t show up in the tag. As an admin, it’s your responsibility to keep track of all of the starters in your group and get them out to your members another way. Some groups choose to compile a list on their page, while others choose to creat a sideblog and reblog all of the starters there. Either way, this is very, very important to making sure all of your members are included. As an admin, I prefer to take things one ask at a time. New account comes in? Post the follow, add the character, add the face claim, onto the next one. Wanted connection? Put it on the WC page, post a new wanted connection on the main, onto the next one. I find that this makes it easier to keep track of everything than getting everything out of the inbox and then trying to go back through it all. 

Because there’s so much to do, you may want to consider getting one or more co-admins to help you. At least to me, it seems like most RPs have around 3 admins. It is possible to run one yourself, but you can always try on your own and ask for co-admins if you’re having trouble. You want to make sure you stay on good terms with your co-admins and consult them about updates, events, and plot drops.

Speaking of events and plot drops, that’s another thing you’ll have to take care of. Plot drops and events keep the RP alive, and if you find that the RP’s activity is a little low, something like that can help. You don’t have to do it super often, but a few days every month or so dedicated to an event can be really fun. With a horror RP, you may also want to have plot drops here and there.

You’ll also have to deal with any problems that arise in your RP. If someone comes to you with a concern about another member, you’ll have to use your critical thinking and problem-solving skills to determine exactly what’s going on and what action you should take. If you notice that someone is only writing with one or two other people, you’ll need to address it to them directly. This part can definitely be stressful and nerve-wracking, but it’s an important part of being an admin. 

One way to see how you can improve your RP is to ask RPHs for their opinions. The trick is you actually have to listen to them. If you’re repeatedly being told that your graphics need work, consider getting some help with them. If they point out a broken link or typo, you’ll need to fix it. Another way to improve is to check out other RPs! You definitely should not lift anything directly from another RP, but it can help you get a feel for how everything should be set up and what types of themes and graphics are ‘in’ right now.

I’m going to end this with a link to this amazing masterlist from rpthemehelper that includes multiple posts on every topic you could need help with. I’m sorry that this was probably way more than you were expecting to read, but I hope it helped some!

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Save Him

A Stitched Story

JSE Fanfic

Oh, I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. I’ve had this planned out for a while. Notice how pretty much every one of the boys except Jack has been permanently injured? Wonder how Jack feels about that...probably not too good for someone who loves his friends so much. Also, read until the end, I promise it’ll be worth it :D

Tagging @septic-dr-schneep for inspiring this AU with this post.

Read the past stories: Stitched Together | The Start of the Nightmare| The Silent Night | Speak No Evil | The Static Speaks Their Names | Shot in the Dark

“But thank you guys so much for watching, if you liked this video, punch that like button in the face, like a boss! And! High fives all around. Wh-pssh! Wh-pssh! But thank you and I’ll see all you dudes...in the next video!” The moment he was done with the outro, Jack dropped his smile, slumping deeper in the chair. Not for the first time, he considered taking a break from YouTube. The stress of making videos every day, on top of everything else—and he was recording videos for Chase’s channel, too, just to make sure nobody started getting suspicious about where he’d gone. If someone called the police on his missing nature, he doubted they’d be able to do anything, and it would be better if no one else got mixed up in this.

Jack turned off the camera, and then the computer. He swiveled his chair around and stood up, stretching. His work for the day still wasn’t done. He left his recording room and came out into the hall. This was a fairly big apartment, but it was still an apartment. There was a tiny room he’d chosen to record in, a bathroom, a living room, a small dining/kitchen combo, and two bedrooms. Everything was packed close together. It only took about five steps to get from the recording room door to the guest bedroom door. As Jack opened the door, he thought that it wasn’t quite a “guest” room anymore if the person staying inside couldn’t really leave.

There had been no change in Schneep’s condition in the two months since...well, they didn’t know exactly what happened. It wasn’t like Schneep could tell them. They’d tried everything to get some sort of reaction, anything, from him, but their efforts were in vain. It was like he was in a coma. One where your eyes were open and dripped static tears all the time.

Jack ran through the motions of checking on him. There’d been no change from yesterday. He was still lying on the bed in the exact same position. Jack had told the hospital that Schneep was on vacation, de-stressing indefinitely. He’d also used Schneep’s ID to get in and, well quite frankly, steal some medical supplies. There was an IV and a heart monitor, steadily beeping just like it had been doing for weeks now. Jack couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more he could be doing, but...god, he didn’t know. He didn’t know any sort of medical shit. He didn’t know anything about magic or the occult or whatever the fuck this was. Why couldn’t he actually do something?

“Schneep,” he sighed. “I wish...I wish a lot of things. But I wish you hadn’t gone after him alone. I wish we were all together here now. All of us.” He patted his shoulder. Maybe he could hear and feel him, somewhere in there. “Wake up soon. Please.” Then he turned and walked away, looking back one more time before turning off the lights and closing the door.

He left the room and started to turn down the hall, immediately running into JJ. He startled, backing up a couple steps. “Jesus, dude, you startled me. Didn’t hear your footsteps or anything. Did you want something?”

JJ was clutching a piece of paper tight to his chest. He was bouncing on his feet nervously, adjusting his mask with one hand. Quickly, as if he was trying not to talk himself out of it, he shoved the piece of paper toward Jack, then retreated a few steps down the hall.

Jack blinked, confused for a second before looking at the sheet of paper. There was cursive writing on it, which Jack recognized as JJ’s handwriting. He read the words: Jack, I have been doing some thinking during these last few weeks, and I have decided that there is more I can do. I’ve been avoiding going home, simply because I have been scared of what happened there. But I can’t let that stop me from helping you any longer. I can’t stand by and watch my friends get picked off. So, if you will agree to accompany me, I would like to go back to my home. There are some heavier magick spells and magic books in the apartment above my shop that could be of use. I hadn’t thought the situation serious enough to consult them before, but now it’s clear that we are running out of options. Despite the risk, retrieving them could possibly shed some light on this horrid situation.

He looked back up at JJ. “You’re sure?” He asked. “I know how much it freaks you out to even think about going back there.”

JJ nodded once. He folded his arms. It was clear to Jack that he was still scared: his hands were shaking and he was avoiding looking directly at anything. But he was trying. He must’ve really thought this was worth it. “Alright, if you’re positive. I’ll get my jacket, it’s s’posed to be chilly today. Then we’ll walk down to the shop.”

It was indeed a cloudy and chill afternoon. It took Jack and JJ about forty-five minutes to get from Jack’s apartment building to the shop, walking swiftly, driven by nerves. Jack didn’t actually think they’d find anything there, but the lingering feeling of what-if made him wish he knew how to shoot a gun, like Chase.

When they finally reached the shop, the sight of the dark, dusty windows sent chills down their spines. It had been nearly seven months since either of them had set foot in there, and it looked abandoned. JJ fished about in his vest pocket before finding the keys. It took him a minute to unlock the door, as he kept shaking. The door creaked when it finally swung open, accompanied by the ringing of the bell that was supposed to announce customers. The inside of the shop was just as dark and dusty as the windows. Stacks of cobwebbed knickknacks cast eerie shadows on the walls.

“Oh god. This is fucking freaky,” Jack muttered. “Let’s hurry.” JJ nodded in agreement, and the two of them practically sprinted across the main body of the shop to the locked door that would lead upstairs. JJ once again took out his keys and unlocked the door, revealing a narrow staircase leading up. He gave Jack a worried look. “It-it’s okay,” Jack assured him. “We’re doing good so far. I’ll go up first.” The two of them vanished up the stairs. Once they were gone, the door closed behind them.

There was another door at the top, but this one didn’t have a lock. It swung open, and JJ’s hand immediately darted to the side, flicking the light switch on. The apartment matched the shop downstairs in decor, which was to say it looked like it belonged in a different time period. The 1920′s perhaps. The two of them had entered into a living-room sort of area, with a sofa and two chairs covered in dust. The curtains were drawn, so without the yellow light of the lamp dangling overhead, the room would have been completely dark.

“I don’t...see anything.” Jack’s eyes darted about, but it just seemed like a normal apartment, albeit a bit old-fashioned. “So, where are the things you need? On the bookshelves in here?”

JJ shook his head. He made a few signs—he was getting better at them, enough so that Jack could figure out he was saying something along the lines of There’s a room down the hall.

“Well, then we should go look there, shouldn’t we?” Jack gave the living room one more look-over, then followed JJ down a hall to the left. There were three doors, two to the right and one to the left. That was the one JJ opened, darting inside the room. Jack was right behind him.

It was a storage room. Every wall had shelves full of items nailed to it, there were piles of books and boxes and chests stacked on the floor. Everything was labeled, organized meticulously. “Wow,” Jack breathed. “When you said you had a collection of magick items, this is more than I was expecting. What are we looking for?”

JJ promptly walked to the far end of the room, stopping next to a book pile, waving at them in a way that indicated that was what they were looking for. Jack nodded, joining him. He tilted his head to the side, reading the titles on the spines. Half of them he couldn’t pronounce, and of the half remaining he could only guess at what the titles meant. There was a label on top of the pile, a piece of paper folded over with the words Strange Entities, Spells, and Phenomena: Research/Info (Magic) written on it. “Okay,” he said slowly. “There’s no way we can carry all these back to my apartment, so you’re gonna have to help me choose which ones to prioritize. Each of us can hold...uh, three or four, maybe five if we choose thinner ones? Let’s get started.”

A few minutes passed, wherein JJ and Jack sorted through the pile. Usually this involved Jack holding up a book for JJ to look at, and then he’d either shake his head, or take the book and thumb through the pages, then either put it aside or nod to say they should take it. After a while of this, they narrowed it down to eight books that were important enough to take back. “Do you think we should take any of this stuff?” Jack indicated the objects on the shelves. JJ considered for a moment, then shook his head. He signed something that about meant Not enough room, not worth it.

“Alright, then.” Jack grabbed four of the books. “Let’s go.” The two of them left the room, emerging into the hallway again.

The lights died.

Jack stopped dead in his tracks. He looked behind him to see JJ had done the same, his eyes wide. Jack wanted to say it was nothing, but they both knew better than that. “Just...be ready,” Jack whispered. JJ nodded shakily. Jack turned back around and crept down the hall. It felt like his eyes were going to burst out of their sockets, he was looking so hard, waiting for something to happen.

They reentered the living room. But it was different. There were things hanging from the ceiling, dangling from lengths of green thread. Jack looked closer and saw they were thin, silvery, bloodstained needles.

There was a muffled yelp, then a series of thumps behind him. Jack spun around and saw Jameson had fallen to the floor, dropping the books he’d been carrying, bracing himself against the nearest wall. His eyes were fixed on the needles overhead. “James? No no no, it’s okay, it’s fine!” Jack dropped his books in turn, rushing to Jameson’s side. “They can’t—they’re just—they’re not going to hurt you!”

A laugh echoed around the room, causing the needles to sway. “You don’t k̷n̸͠ow ̕͝t̸ḩ͟a͝t̵̶, Jackaboy.”

Jack’s shoulders raised at the mere sound of the voice. He resisted the urged to rub his throat, instead turning and looking back to the room. “Where are you?”

“Neither h̴e͢r͞ę̢͞ nor t̀͠h͏e͢͟͞r̸ę͝.” The voice was coming from everywhere at once, but it was also coming from nowhere at all. “But there’s s̷o͢m̢é̡òn̷͡e̡͠ who’s been...h́͏̧o̸pi̸͠n͞g͢͠ to see you two.”

Everything turned red for a moment. And when it cleared, there was Chase, sitting on one of the chairs, staring at them through the static film over his eyes. Jack inhaled sharply. He hadn’t seen him in person in months. And Jameson hadn’t seen him at all. Jack looked over to see him touching the spot where his mouth was under the mask, his eyes fixed on the stitching around Chase’s neck.

“Chase...” Jack said softly. “Are you...there?”

“I̧'m͡ ̛h̡eŕe͝.”

“That—that’s not what I meant.” Jack stood up, slowly. Chase mimicked his movements almost perfectly. “Do you remember? Please tell me you remember me, and Doc, and JJ.”

“I͏ ́remember̨ y͝ou͢. But́ w̕h̷y̶ ̷do̧ ̴you ma̢tter?̵” Chase held his hand out to the side, like he was waiting for someone to give him something. And suddenly there was a knife in his hand, formed out of thin air.

Jack felt his heart freeze in his chest. “Chase.” He raised his hands. “Please, don’t do anything stupid. Look, we’re not dangerous. You don’t have to do this.”

“H͟e͝ ̸toļd̨ m͠e ̀t̶o.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean you have to do it!” Jack said, not bothering to mask the desperate note in his voice. “Chase, just...try and think for yourself. Do you really think it’s a good idea to—to do whatever it is he told you to do? You’re going to end up hurting someone. You’re gonna hurt someone who hasn’t done anything! I know you think that’s an evil thing to do. You shouldn’t do whatever he says, because he’ll tell you to do awful things. Please, Chase, do you really want to do this?”

For a moment, the static in his eyes seemed to clear a little. The hand holding the knife lowered a bit. Jack let himself hope. And then—

“Y̡ès̀.”

The knife sailed through the air. Jack instinctively ducked away from it, but he hadn’t been the target. There was a wet thump, then what sounded like someone screaming with their mouth closed. Jack whirled around. Jameson was still sitting against the wall on the floor, but now his hands were wrapped around the blade that had lodged in his stomach. He looked at Jack, and there were tears in his eyes.

Something broke inside Jack’s heart. He spun back around, facing Chase again. “Is this really it?!” he shouted to the room at large. “You’re gonna send someone else to do your dirty work for you?”

“Well, w̶h͏ỳ̷ s͏̕ḩ̕͞ơuĺd̴ń'ţ͟ Į?̨” The voice returned, bouncing from corner to corner, breaking and distorting. “If I have a p̛͠͠up̡̛p̷̢e͏t̡̢, might as well u͟sé̵́ ̀͞h̸̨i̵m̵͏.”

“Why is it him, though?” Jack demanded. “Why is it him, Anti?”

There was a slight pause. Then, Anti hissed, “He was the eą̀ś̷̸ie̛s̷̢t̡̀͏ ͟͠onè̷̕ to turn.”

Jack stared at Chase. He hadn’t moved since throwing the knife, his expression perfectly blank. Jack hated it. He would give anything for him to stop looking that way...he would give everything for his friends to be back to normal. He took a deep, steadying breath. “Anti, do you know what’s even better than a puppet you had to turn?” He hesitated for a split second, then made his decision. “One that’s willingly joined you.”

Absolute silence. Jack didn’t look away from Chase. That is, until he heard some scrambling sounds behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see that Jameson had moved a couple feet toward him. One hand was still on the knife, still stuck in his torso, the other was reaching toward Jack. Jameson looked him in the eyes and shook his head. There were a few muffled sounds coming from underneath the mask, and Jack could guess that Jameson was doing his best to plead with him through the stitching. “It’ll be okay, JJ,” Jack said soothingly. “I—I know what I’m doing. Just make sure you don’t bleed to death or anything.”

“It will be b͢e̶̕t͡t̢̕e͠r̸̨ than okay.” Jack’s head whipped back around. He was here now. Or maybe he wasn’t quite here. His edges seemed...fuzzy, and patches of red, blue, and green were falling off his body in droves. He was grinning madly. “What are you ơ̢f̵f͏e͞ri͡ǹ̛g̷̀ m̡͟e, Jackaboy?” Anti asked, stepping closer.

Jack fought the urge to take a few steps back. “I...I’ll take his place,” he said quietly. “I’ll take all their places. I’ll join you, I’ll let you do whatever the hell you want to me, but only if you let them all go.”

“How do I know you’re not l̵̸̡y̵͟i̶͢n͠͏̴g̷͟? How do I know you won’t tr̢͏y͞ ̴̨́t͞͠o̴͢ ̶ru̡n̵̡ at the f̸̕iŕ͟şt̶͟͠ opp̡o̷r̡͢t̡͏͏uǹ͢͞i͏t͡͡y͠͡?̷̧͠”

“I won’t! I...I swear it!” Jack swallowed. “On my life. On their lives.”

Anti stared at him blankly, his eyes flickering between blue and green, the open throat gushing blood through the string straining to keep it closed. Then his grin widened. “Alrig̶hţ̀,” he said, voice crackling. He disappeared, then was suddenly right in front of Jack. “A ͡͠d̷́éà͢͡l̕'s͏͟ ͡͏̴a ͝ḑè̷̵a͟ļ̵.” Before Jack could argue or demand more, Anti grabbed him by the shoulders. A wave of neon, glitching distortion spread from his hands, enveloping Jack’s body in seconds. When the glitches faded away, Jack was gone.

Jameson cried out, the sound turned into a mumble. No, no, no Jack didn’t—he couldn’t have—that was so stupidly heroic, didn’t he know it wouldn’t work? That he’d just give himself up for nothing?

Anti turned his attention to him. He smiled triumphantly. “Ḩ͞á͠v̡̕͟e͏ ̢f̧ưn̷̛.” He pointed to the ceiling, then wiggled his fingers in a cheery wave before he and Chase disappeared.

Jameson looked up. The needles were still hanging from the ceiling, but they were jittering, moving. The threads holding them were flickering in and out of existence—

He barely had time to curl into a ball, flinging his arms over the back of his head and neck before the threads vanished altogether, sending the needles crashing to the floor in a wave of silvery death. He cried out again as he felt the sharp jabs, the thin piercing pains, all over his arms and back. The gently metallic sound of needles hitting the hardwood floor was all he could hear. And then, as quickly as it started, it was done.

He stayed in that position for a while longer. Not just because moving caused the needles to jingle and the knife still inside him to stab deeper, but because he was scared. Was he alone? Or was Anti still there? Eventually, he found his courage, slowly lowering his arms and raising his head. The apartment looked empty. And it felt empty...too empty.

Jameson really was alone.

Hours later, he’d managed to make it back to Jack’s apartment. Thank god Jack had given him a key, otherwise he’d be forced to find other accommodations, since there was no way in hell he was staying back at the shop. He’d managed to get most of the needles out back there, but he’d kept the knife in until he had access to the medical supplies Jack kept in the bathroom. He didn’t want to bleed out. Once back at the apartment he’d double-checked for needles, pulling out the last of them. Most of his backside and his arms were covered in tiny holes that thankfully hadn’t bled much, but still required bandaging. He’d also finally treated the massive stab wound, though pulling out the knife hurt almost as much as it being buried in there in the first place.

After he’d managed to do that, he checked on Schneep. Just as he suspected, he was in the same condition as before. Anti had lied. He hadn’t let the others go, he’d just taken Jack. No doubt he was laughing at him for believing he’d ever relinquish an inch of control.

And Jameson was angry. No, he was furious. At Anti. He was still terrified of him, of course, but now it was mixed with a rage he’d never felt before. Anti thought he cheat and manipulate and hurt without consequences. He thought he could take his friends from him and get away with it. Well, he was wrong.

Jameson had the presence of mind to grab four of the books he and Jack had originally set out looking for before leaving the shop. Now, he sat at Jack’s kitchen table with one of them open before him, carefully reading the pages and trying to push through the pain in his abdomen that would shoot agony up his chest whenever he moved. There had to be something, anything, in here. A tiny hint as to what, exactly, Anti was, the mere mention of a way to defeat a thing like him. The windows grew dark, and still he read, still he studied.

There was nothing in the first book. Nothing he could use. Sure, maybe he saw some spells that could help, but he was magickal, not magical. Magick just needed certain charged items, specific rituals to follow to make something happen. Anyone could use magick. But spells, enchantments, curses, jinxes...for those you needed a certain amount of pure talent, a bit of magic in your soul that you had to be born with. And if you weren’t born with it? Sucks to be you.

Jameson slammed the book shut, then slammed his forehead onto the kitchen table. He still had three books to go, but he had a feeling they were all like this. Plenty of useful and interesting information, but nothing to shed light on his current predicament. Many powerful spells and hexes, but nothing he could actually use.

Why had he ever thought this would be a good idea? Why had he ever believed he would actually be able to do anything? Why did he think ever he was useful?

He raised his head. Those...weren’t his thoughts. Actually, they were, but...they were the same sort of things Anti had said to him so many months ago. The things that this demon, or whatever he was, wanted him to think. And thoughts like this had been plaguing him ever since then. He was thinking of himself the way Anti thought of him.

Jameson sat up straight, placing his hands palm-down on the table. These thoughts...they just wouldn’t do. If he let himself think this way, how was he better than Anti? He certainly wasn’t helping anyone. He was just letting Anti win. And that was not something he could do. Anti could not get to him. And if Anti thought he was weak and useless and all those other things, then he’ll have to prove him wrong.

He closed his eyes. He wasn’t worthless. His friends needed him, now more than ever. And he wouldn’t let Anti get between him and saving them. It could not happen. He would save them. He would save them. He would save them he would save them he would save them—

Something snapped.

That was the best way to describe it. It wasn’t a bad sort of snap, like a heartstring breaking. It was like the snap of chains breaking free. His eyes flew open, and his world was glowing blue.

He looked down at his hands on the table. The light blue glow was coming from them. Or, more accurately, the rings that had appeared around them. They were flat, concentric circles that reminded him a bit of that hero movie Chase had made him watch one day. Between the rings of each circle were...runes. The language of magic and magick. Or at least, one of the languages, there were multiple runic alphabets one could use. These runes were dancing, running around the circles. He recognized a few of them: save, protect, guard, friendship, loyal, soul, rescue.

He raised his hands. The rings stayed with them. He thought about them growing bigger. They did, changing from the size of dinner plates to the size of trash bin lids, the glow flaring in turn. He wished for them to disappear, and they winked out of existence. He wished for them to return, and they faded back in.

This wasn’t possible. He’d tried magic spells before, they hadn’t worked. He thought he wasn’t magic. But apparently he’d been wrong. Maybe he just needed some proper motivation. Maybe he just needed something—or someone—to fight for.

JJ was smiling. Under the mask, he was honest-to-god smiling. The motion was pulling at the stitching, and he welcomed it. It had been so long.

No more listening to Anti. No more waiting on the sidelines, not even trying, because he thought he couldn’t do it. He could do it. He was going to save his friends.

[magicalthoughtsendinterriblefics]

The Life of a Bartender - Request

Requested by anon:  I was wondering if you could write a Black widow x Reader fiction... Natasha is such an awesome character and I would find it incredible to read about her.

Pairing: Natasha x Reader

Word count: 2.221

Warnings: Not romantic, not edited, not thought through. I also played  A LOT with the timeline, so forget everything you know.

A/N: So this is an experiment of a new story format I wanted to try, and a character I love but have never written before. It’s also the first fic I finish since I started my break, so it’s a huge deal for me and would really appreciate it if you were to offer your feedback. Seriously, it means a lot to me because I am very excited about this, but also about being back and just want you to tell me if you liked it or not.

Also: I’m back, bitches. Requests are still closed, though.

Enjoy!

The bar hadn’t had much clients in the last couple of weeks. Only the five usual alcoholics who basically lived here, and a couple of teenagers every now and then, pretending to be all grown and ready to drink but who would leave whenever one of us asked for their ID.

I was attending my shift solely because I had nothing else to do. I didn’t even enjoy this job anymore, not without a good story to spend the night with, that is.

All the good ones had gone. The only stories left were the typical: my wife left me, violent parents, terminal diseases… I wanted adventure, thrill and fantasy, not another episode of Desperate Housewives.

“Scotch on the rocks, please,” a girl on her thirties asked, sitting on the stool right in front of me.

“Do I know you?” I inquired as I started pouring down her drink.

“Don’t think so, I’m not from here…”

“Newscast! A new threat raises and the Avengers struggle to take it down… find out more on tonight’s Broadcast with Jimmy Buffay and Marlon Branaghan.”

“I hate those guys,” I mumbled and turned of the TV. Nobody noticed except for the girl, who simply chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, pouring her another glass.

“The Avengers always struggle to take down threats, but they always report that as news.”

“Damn right.”

She drank a few more glasses of Scotch and then asked to change to Tequila.

“Slow down, why would you do that?”

“To forget.”

And so I noticed the story I was craving for had been sitting in front of me for a whole hour.

It took three tequila shots to convince her to tell me her story, but I finally achieved my goal.

“When I was a child I moved to Russia with my parents. I lived there until five years ago, when I moved back here.

During my last three years there, things got dangerous around the area where I lived. Some bad guys were terrorising the town a little. My parents died victims of those assholes, and I got sent to this sort of academy for orphans.

I met a woman there… she was a bit older, but we got along right away. If you know what I mean…

That academy turned out to be even worse than the gangs on the streets.”

“How come?” I asked.

“You wouldn't believe me.”

“Try me.”

She sighed before talking in a whisper. “They… trained us to be some sort of femme fatales so we could get important information for them in order to end with all those criminals.”

“That’s awesome.” I mumbled, she chuckled sadly.

“That's what I thought too at first, but then I realised we were actually getting brainwashed into working for said criminals.”

“How?”

“They sterilised us, and filled our brains with fake memories so we’d remain loyal to them. I was rather new so I still had some of my  own memories, but Nat… the woman I talked to you about, didn’t even remember who she was anymore.”

“That's… fucked up.”

“It is, indeed…” She asked for another shot and I poured it down without second guessing. She drank it like water, sighed and looked down. The shadow that formed around her eyes in that moment, due to the dim light from the bar, only added up to the dramatic story she was telling. “So this one night, I’m out of my room, just walking around because I couldn’t sleep. I hear steps on the other side of the hallway, so I hide in the shadows, waiting to see who the intruder was.”

“And?”

“It was Nat.”

“What was she doing there?”

“She was leaving,” her eyes were far away, back in Russia, reliving the moment those very eyes caught Nat running away.

“And?”

“And I begged her to take me with her.”

“Nat, please, I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“I know, I know… I promise you I will come back for you, okay? You have my word.”

“She wouldn’t do it, she had planned everything, there was no room for me.”

“She sounds like a bitch, I’ll tell you that,” I interrupted, as I started drying the glasses that the other bartender had washed and left on my side. A tough looking man approached, asked for a bloody Mary for his partner, I poured it and then he left. “So? Did she come back?”

“Not exactly,” she mumbled, “I spent a whole year in that hellhole, and it was worse than before. They left my remaining memories untouched, but not because they wanted to be good but the exact opposite; they had checked the security cameras and microphones installed in the hallway the night Nat escaped, and they had heard me asking her to take me away…”

“What did they do?” She lifted her Tequila glass, I poured her another one, then she repeated the motion and I obeyed. She drank two more shots before she continued with her story, and every word she said became more and more slurry.

“They tortured me, day by day, they found ways to make my life impossible, without stopping my training. I obviously became stronger, because I could stand more pain than the rest of the girls there, but at what cost?” She chuckled once again, “I ended up hating Nat so much that I became loyal to the criminals I hated in the beginning. I wanted to have my revenge…”

“Did you ever?”

“Well, this one day I get a mission to stop someone from S.H.I.E.L.D. that was trying to get some info on some secret project my superiors were working on. So I prepare myself, I get to the mission and it turns out Nat is the enemy.”

“What happened?”

“So we meet again,” said (Y/N).

“I see you’re still with them,” Natasha muttered.

“Well, somebody didn’t come back for me,” (Y/N) replied. There was something dark in her eyes that Natasha hadn’t seen before.

“I couldn’t…” She apologised.

“Well, isn’t that sad?”

“This time is different, I can help you out of here if you just let me take the information I need.” Natasha begged.

“I don’t think so.”

What followed was a violent fight that involved three different martial arts combined with other combat techniques and weapon managing. They used everything in their power to defeat the other, even the furniture from the office they were in. Tables, chairs, glasses, wires and even broom were used against each other. Kicks and punches were thrown, some into the other’s face, some into the air. It was a proper fight that would, invariably, end with blood.

Natasha was still too fond of (Y/N), who she kept in her heart as a sweet and innocent child, and therefore she was controlling her strength, something (Y/N) didn’t do.

At one point, Natasha was on the ground, absolutely defenseless, hurt and lacking of air. (Y/N) would take this as her advantage, and so she pulled out a gun from her belt, pointing it directly into Natasha’s head.

Natasha lifted her hands up, as a sign of surrender, and connected her eyes to (Y/N)’s.

“I know you’re hurt, I know it’s my fault, but killing me won’t change anything…” She started, “It may actually make it worse.”

“Talking from experience?”

“No, but… I learnt that this is not the way out, okay? I know good people, kind people, who will help you no matter what. Please, let me take you to them.”

(Y/N) took the safety lock from the gun. Natasha swallowed loudly before pronouncing the words she would only say in the dark, when her mind was off this realm; words (Y/N) hadn’t heard ever after Natasha left. Words that mattered.

“So what did you do? Did you shoot her?” I inquired. I had forgotten about the glasses or the other clients. My focus was on that poor woman, and her amazing story.

“Will you tell the cops?”

“No,” I rushed to say, “my lips are sealed.”

“I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I was still in love with her… She was defenseless, and she wasn’t even hurting me that much whenever she punched me - like, I knew how strong she was, and she didn’t even left a single bruise on my body that night.”

“But she abandoned you, and the people she abandoned you with tortured you, and…”

“And I’m an idiot for letting her live,” she granted, “but I don’t regret it.”

“What happened then?”

“I decided to take the information myself and run away.” Another Tequila shot. “I didn’t go back to my superiors, instead I escaped to Croatia, changed my last name and my general information.”

“What about that super important information?”

“I sold it to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a good amount of money and a guarantee of witness protection. With that I moved here and tried to start a new life.”

“How can someone like you start a new life? What do you do for a living?”

“I work at a library, live in a very tiny apartment in the outskirts of the city, and try to keep a low profile.” She responded, and suddenly everything she had told me stopped making sense.

“Right, so you’re going to tell me you went from being a Russian spy to a librarian.”

“That’s what I said.”

“And what? Nat is now an Avenger or some shit like that?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” she replied, “Natasha Romanova, or Black Widow as the press like to call her.”

I bursted in laughter right in front of her face. She didn’t flinch, nor changed her poker face at the action. She simply poured herself another shot of Tequila.

“I know what’s going on here,” I said.

“Yeah? Tell me.”

“You read everything about the Avengers, and probably a lot of books about the Cold War and shit like that, because that’s what librarians do, and then you came here trying to mock some chick with a story you created based on what you had learned from your precious books,” I explained, “am I right or what?”

She giggled. “You’re damn right.”

“I knew it!” I cheered, “No Russian spy would come here and tell her story so easily. I think I deserve a tequila shot,” I said as I took a glass out for myself, “and you get another one, which is on me because that was the greatest story I have heard, and I’ve been in this business for quite some time.” She agreed happily and we both drank together.

Out of a sudden, a huge robot arm fell from the sky and into the bar, leaving a whole on the roof and killing the two folks that were playing pool right where the arm fell.

Chaos begun, the clients ran away screaming, as other the bartenders all gathered around me and pulled us down. (Y/N) got up from her stool, a bit shaky from the multiple shots of alcohol she had consumed but on full alert mode. She took a gun out of her jacket and pointed it to the door.

It opened, and a strange looking man walked inside. He barely took a glimpse of (Y/N) when Black Widow struck him from behind, beginning a fight as violent as the ones in the movies. The man hit her on the stomach, making her fall and stop attacking.

He was carrying a trident, which he was about to use to stab the famous Avenger, when (Y/N) shot at him. Of course, she didn’t hit, because she was too drunk to aim properly, and she noticed and so she threw the gun back to us and ran towards the man.

A similar fight as the one with Black Widow begun. (Y/N) was very good, in spite of her drunken condition, and although she didn’t harm the man as much as he harmed her, she gave Black Widow time to get back up and take another gun out.

Headshot.

His brain splattered all around the walls. It was green, and viscous. Grossest thing I have witness in that bar, including those girls who think they can drink and end up recreating the Exorcist in the bathroom.

“Are you drunk?” Black Widow inquired, approaching (Y/N).

“A little,” she replied. Black Widow gave her a stern look. “It’s her fault,” (Y/N) said, pointing towards me.

“We need to talk after this is over,” Black Widow told her.

“No, you need to thank me for saving your ass,” (Y/N) argued. Black Widow smirked.

“I’ll be back for you,” She promised.

“Prove it,” (Y/N) dared.

Black Widow shook her head as her smirk grew into a huge smile. “Don’t let her drink anymore!” She ordered and strut outside as a green spat of light shone through the bar’s windows.

“I forgot to tell you that,” (Y/N) said, as she turned around to look at me, “we kind of made up.” She took her wallet out and left more money than what she actually owed. “Thanks for the talk, and the tequila.” She winked at me and walked out as if nothing was going on.

Best story ever.

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[cjvazmovielife]

Funny Moment From My Film Life.

Fortune favors the bold, yet sometimes luck is the virtue you need the most. I've been very fortunate in my life. I've gotten to work on some great projects. I've also gotten to meet some very talented filmmakers and actors. But with any life story, there's bound to be some funny moments so here's one that's still close to my heart.

Like every other filmmaker out there you always start by doing small, unpaid, projects. Little indies, youtube videos, and even spec commercials are a norm. Usually, it's a limited crew, limited talent,  one single camera, a few lights at most and no budget what so ever. Crafty was a combination of whatever two for 1s we could get on pizza, chips, soda, nachos, and candy. Sugar being the key ingredient to keeping people going. We collaborated, tried different things, played around and just had fun. We didn't take it too seriously, because it was about enjoying the time with your friends and creating something special.

When you get your first paying job, on a big set, with a huge budget, that becomes the "aww" moment for you. The talent's right over there getting some last minute makeup put on and you can see them. You are working with experienced professionals for the most part. Some of the pieces of gear on the set cost more than your apartment, so you try to stay away from those. You take it all in, hide your starstruck anxiety and just really listen to what you are told to do.

"I need you to take this actress back to her trailer, stand outside the door, don't let anyone in and when she walks out bring her right back to the sound stage." The trailer is about an 8-minute golf cart ride away. I'm taking this particularly gorgeous actress, in a golf cart, back to her trailer, and then back to the sound stage. I'm sure you all know where my mind was at, but for those that don't here was the thought. "I wonder if I have a shot?" She was older, well known, still is, a real A-lister, and I believe at that time she was dating a billionaire. So confidence wasn't so much my problem, it was a lack of reality. But when she spoke to me first, I kept the conversation going. Took her there, brought her back and everything was golden. For the rest of that shoot, I was basically her gopher, and I had a blast.

One of my next paid jobs was working on a commercial. A golf commercial to be exact. Now being fair I like golf. People think it's boring and not worth the time. I'm not going to try to convince you that golf is great, I'll only say that it takes more skill than people think. So, I get brought on to this commercial by an actor I worked with and got to know on a previous job. Good guy, quite talented, and he has done a lot. He isn't as well known as others, but I think he's good.

So like the previous story, he basically brought me on to be his gopher. It was a simple commercial, nothing too crazy and yet their equipment was comparable to a feature film. I learned after that shoot that a lot of commercials have the same budget as most features. Even something very simple can cost millions to produce. At least they spend millions to produce it, and it's common practice.

About an hour into the day I'm bringing my actor on to the set. I'm driving him in a golf cart from his trailer to the golf course hole they are filming on. Roughy 20 minutes into that, he calls my name, and I ran over. Director needed something done, and he volunteered me. Union rules are a little laxer on commercials, and since it fell under Production Assistant (PA) work, it wasn't an issue. Simple task, I take care of it and bring back what was needed to the director.

For the rest of the day, I'm alternating between being my actor's gopher and the director's 3rd gopher. I was running around all over that golf course, on my walkie every few minutes and it was interesting. Ok, I was having a blast, because when you are young and to be connected to the second top talent and the director of the shoot is a big deal. You feel important, you feel trusted, and it's a great feeling to have. Just avoid being an entitled dick about it if you get there.

About half the day I'm tasked with going to another trailer to bring back the main talent for the scene, he had just arrived on set. Somethings happened, people were busy, I was free, and it's part of the craziness of a film set. I rush over in my little golf cart, stop by his trailer, and knock. The door opens, I'm looking away when I start telling him we are ready for him and I was there to pick him up. He says "thank you, I'm ready to go," and I immediately look up when I hear his voice. Well known golfer, and at that time I was a fan, I'm still a fan. We as PAs don't get all the info that everyone else does. I was told golf commercial, at no point did I hear he was going to be in it. We got in the golf cart and drove off.

Anyone that has set foot on a golf course knows they are pretty large, you only have a singular path to follow, and they always seem to pick the hole furthest from the parking lot. So the Golfer and I had some time to kill, and a good rule of thumb to follow on set is let them speak to you first. We can argue the semantics of we are all people, and we are all equal later. Best to understand that when Actors are on set they are constantly thinking about their role. They don't want to forget a line, they don't want to mess up, and concentrating is key for them to do a good job. For non-actors, the stress level usually rises higher. They are used to doing what they are doing, but being on set is something new and different to them. Their focus is equally as important because they too want to do a good job. With that being said don't take it personally if they don't speak to you right away or at all.

Luckily for me, he seemed relatively calm and only asked a very general question. Then we proceeded to speak about golf for the remainder of the ride. I can't say that helped put him at ease, but we were joking around a lot, and when he showed up on set he was laughing. Keeping talent and crew happy, does make the day go by faster. So we are off the golfer does his thing, shots are being done, producers seem happy, and everyone is getting through the day without any issues.

Then the Director had an idea for an additional shot. He wanted to do something very specific, and pretty unique. He wanted the Golfer to hit the ball directly at the camera. Golf balls are pretty hard, and when you hit them with a club, their average speed is over 150 miles per hour. That's going to hurt if it hits you, so the Golfer's first response was to move the guys standing next to the camera. He didn't want to accidentally hit anyone. The Camera Team was moved, and the camera was operated by remote. The producers are watching from a tent we call video village. The Golfer asks the Director again if he's sure. Director says "just try to hit the camera." There was a smile from the Golfer, and he proceeded to line up his shot.

We are all watching from a distance since it will go into a wide shot. The Golfer does the most amazing, camera perfect swing, the ball flies through the air like it's on a rail and within a few seconds crashes straight through the camera lens. A stronger phrase than "Oh crap" was repeated by many on the crew. My actor was laughing, the Golfer was laughing, the Director was laughing, and everyone except for the producers in 'video village' were laughing. To see it from their perspective, they are in a tent outside watching the screens, they see the Golfer do his shot, and then literally the ball coming straight at their faces on the screen. Then they see black because the ball went through the lens. That would be enough to shock anyone especially the money people.  

After a few times on playback, some giggles and some jokes being thrown around we were pretty much done with our day. The commercial came out great, and everyone was happy. I wasn't involved with returning the gear to the rental house, but they normally expect it to come back in one piece. This is a good example of why films spend a lot of money on insurance. That was one of the funniest incidents I experienced, and there are plenty more moments to come.