#but i fixate on sportsmanship

[stillabookworm-ifonlyinspirit]

oh not the capital D Drama at the men's foil final

[joz-yyh]

Love Host - Ch. 8 (Preview)

SUMMARY: Miles and Waylon meet up for some diagnostic testing that takes a very drastic turn. No beta. Read at your own risk.

RATING: T (for this chapter ONLY!!)

PAIRING: Walmiles (WalriderxMiles)

WORD COUNT: 1,211

A/N: Doing my best to keep focused on these two long enough to finish another chapter. Comments and likes are very appreciated.

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Clang, Clang, Clang--!

Waylon looks up from his computer chair at the pedantic knock, knowing who his pertinent guest should be, double checking the security feed just to be sure Murkoff wasn't paying him any surprise visits.

There on the monitor, is a quiff of black hair and ugly olive jacket he'd recognize a mile away. Speaking of Miles –

Waylon opens the bean hole to the main door, the grinning blue eyes of Miles fucking Upshur waiting for him on the other side.

“Hey there, WayWay, I am here for my check up,” he greets with a smile, the wave he offers just out of sight, “Oh yeah, and Wally’s here too.”

The words barely register before the nanomachine has its whole face pressed against the peephole, staring back at Waylon, completely eyeless.

The techie nearly jumps out of his skin, shutting the slat out of paranoid instinct, body wrecked by a wave of heebeegeebees.

He can see it. Why can he see it when he couldn’t as much before?

“Heeeeyy,” Miles whines, voice dampened by the steel barrier between them, ”I am still waiting out here.”

Waylon internally groans, trying to collect himself enough to unlatch the many bars securing the entrance shut.

When the final lock cracks loose, Miles is too busy comforting the Walrider to notice, holding its caricature of a face and daresay, petting it.

“Ah, you can c-come in now,” Waylon offers, standing in the doorway, watching on with morbid fixation.

“There, see,” Miles exclaims, a consoling note to his voice, “He wouldn't invite us in if he didn't like us.”

Waylon swears this scene must be slowly melting his brain from the inside out.

“Hey, Way,” the brunette asks, turning his attention to his fellow asylum survivor, “could you tell Wally that you like him, please? He thinks you're scared of him. Isn't that silly?”

He isn't scared, he's terrified.

“Yeah, s-sure. I like him,” Waylon offers weakly, swallowing down his dread.

This was absurd. A machine couldn’t have feelings and even if it did, they were none more important than his own.

“Told you! Everything's fine,” Miles chippers, the Walrider finally appeased by this discovery.

The machine gazes toward Waylon again, breaking it’s body down into smaller pieces, swooping in close to swirl around Waylon knees, then higher, drifting in a cyclone of miniature storm clouds up to his shoulders.

“Uhh, hello again, I guess,” the engineer offers shakily, trying to appear fearless and brave, even lifting a finger to touch the nanite mist surrounding him. It feels like water.

“Thanks Waylon,” Miles says, patting him on the shoulder in good sportsmanship, stepping inside.

“Yeah, sure. No problem.”

And just like that, the nano machine leaves him to follow it’s host, the dazed software engineer reminding himself that he needs to rearm the door.

Before the reporter can poke his nose in further, Waylon locks the paddock, turning on the electric fence to deter any unwanted trespassers.

“So this is where you’ve been holding up,” Miles asks, taking in the abandoned barracks, a dimly-lit trailer filled with a junkyard of abandoned tech.

The Walrider is equally curious, ghosting around the layout, dosing the army green interior in supernatural mist.

“Not quite,” Waylon amends, running a hand down his face, feeling overwhelmed by the quirky demands of his company, “This is where I work. Keeps me a safe distance away from Lisa and the kids in case anything happens.”

“Safety is important. I am sure there are no OSHA recordables in here,” the snarky brunette remarks, dodging under a duct of loose wires.

“Ha ha funny,” the blonde remarks, devoid of amusement, “the device I want to show you is over here.”

Waylon grabs him by the wrist cuff before Miles can slip away to snoop, escorting him to the testing room.

“Aren’t you going to give me a tour first,” the sleuth whines, taking in as much of the space as he can, “you can’t tell me you have a secret lair and not show me around.”

“There's really not much to see,” Waylon growls, noting his companion’s inquisitive fingers, “Also please stop touching everything.”

“Awwww,” Miles whines, dragging his feet in disappointment, a frown setting in.

“Fine, maybe later,” the techie relents, his stride persisting, “We're kinda pressed for time.”

“Oh, somewhere you gotta be,” Miles asks, perking up at that confession, raising a brow at his companion, letting himself be tugged along more easily.

“Yeah, I’d prefer to be home every night to be with my wife and kids.”

A long pause, their combined footsteps echoing off the iron grates that line the floor.

“Am I invited,” the reporter asks, smirking at the back of Waylon’s unkempt head of hair.

Another aggravated tug on his sleeve.

“Let’s just get through the testing first.”

They arrive at their destination, the very back of the bunker, a T-shaped hub. One of the doors is sealed off, making Miles wonder what could be hiding in there, the rest of the room encased by steel shelves filled with gutted parts, radios, computers, phones and the like.

In the center is a chair outfitted with restraints, a litany of auxiliary cords hooked up to various loadouts, a desk and computer terminal set up in the corner, no doubt to collect the data of whoever sits in it.

“So … this is it,” Miles says judgmentally, unimpressed, “Looks like an electric chair, but somehow more revenge of the nerds-esque.”

Waylon smacks his lips and rolls his eyes. He won’t deny it bears a striking resemblance to Mount Massive’s brainwashing devices, ones he had the untimely pleasure of experiencing for himself.

“Yeah, everyone's a critic. Just get in.”

“Is it safe,” Miles asks, skeptical of the bad vibe he was getting just looking at the creepy thing.

“As safe as any of this experimental tech is gonna be.”

Miles supposes he can’t complain, given the circumstances. He doesn’t get any of these gadgets, but there was no one else he could turn to (aside from maybe Wernickle) who could give him the answers he seeks. Still, the reporter can’t help feeling a bit uneasy about entrusting himself to diagnostic tools on a budget.

The Walrider manifests itself as a disembodied head, whistling through it’s cheeks, seeking to reassure it’s host with a trill of sound. Miles smiles, close-lipped, stroking the odd contours of its face with a gentle hand.

“Alright. I mean we’ve come this far. What other choice do we have?”

With that, the anxious human hybrid takes a seat, the next test subject for this experimental apparatus going on torture device. Waylon straps him in, tying the buckles too tight to be comfortable, but Miles suspects it's punishment for trying to pry into the engineer's private life. His head too is bridled in place, another belt across the forehead to keep him securely in an upright position.

“This will monitor your heart rate,” Waylon says, electrode pads stuck to Miles’ temple, and then after a moment a disclaimer, “I am not a doctor, though.”

“You’ll be able to tell me more about the Walrider, right,” the brunette asks, nervously clenching his hands on the arm rest.

Waylon hesitates, less than confidently offering a, “Yeah,” in response.

[aidenpriceless]

What AIs would best suit Mario and Luigi

Greetings, anon. I am glad you asked, as being open to possibilities is perhaps the most important trait that a scientist must possess. While dogma looks to provide a certain stabilty, curiosity is what is more likely to lead to expansion. With that in mind, I thank you for your question, and now I am going to jump into it immediately.

I am assuming the AI sample you are referring to is the one assigned to the top group: Omega (rage), Eta (fear) , Iota (happiness) , Delta (logic) , Gamma (deceit) , Theta (trust) , Epsilon (memory) , and Sigma (ambition) - in order of leaderboard position. These are EIGHT (8) possible matches for each character.

We could also consider the eventuality of assigning Eta and Iota as a pair like we did for Agent Carolina, but given that neither Mario nor Luigi need a suit of armour to use their powers and enhancements this could be wasteful. Besides, Agent Carolina's situation was a…Particular one, without going into detail.

Let us set the bases for this experiment, first and foremost.

PRELIMINARY DATA

Mario:

Shows a positive and optimistic demeanour, often cheerful and playful.

Very attached to the value of fairness, shows kindness and courage, but sometimes can be overbearing, especially towards his younger twin brother Luigi.

Can be headstrong and cocky.

Is more impulsive than his brother and more prone to enter dangerous situations alone.

Good sportsmanship, compliments his opponents most of the time, although he has been observed reacting negatively in a few occasions. (ie wiping a tear in Mario Kart 64)

Interested in animals, including unusual ones.

Is musically inclined as listens to vastly different genres (classic opera and new-wave Europop) and plays multiple instruments: piano, guitar, synth, saxophone, trumpet and a few percussion instruments.

Dysfunctional when it comes to sexual matters, namely responding with stomping and murder, in that order, upon learning that Toad and Princess Peach have had oral sex. He is also seen urinating on Yoshi and farting towards his opponents to show confidence and dominance.

Fixation with food and smoking may hint an addictive personality, likely to cover up for the frustrations noted in the point above.

Despite these points, Mario is described to possess an indomitable will 'completely free of evil or temptation'.

Superhuman strength.

Superhuman durability and stamina, with the added ability to cheat death and respawn to return where he left.

Enhanced agility, capability to leap and jump, and overall speed.

Proficient with weapons.

Can drive karts and motorbikes.

Has pyrokinesis.

Can switch to 3D form for a limited time, although this will affect his health.

While in Dr Mario form (which can be found as both an alter ego and a separate character depending on installment), he is able to heal patients and defeat severe viruses.

He also happens to be a skilled plumber.

Luigi:

Luigi is often described as 'living in his brother's shadow' due to his more demure personality.

Timid and emotional, can be prone to over worrying and cowering. Despite this, he is described as 'Mario's fearless brother'. Mostly due to his ability to overcome his fears. Namely he has overcome his phasmophobia.

Is frequently overlooked and feels the weigh of it, sometimes showing signs of being tired of being 'the eternal understudy', feelings of unworthiness.

Displays childish behaviour during taunts and physical attacks.

Has been shown embelleshing stories about his adventures depicting himself as a more heroic, more corageous figure.

Clean and well groomed, he presents in a few occasion as a refined person, likely in order to make a good impression on others to obtain external validation, given that he is particularly sensitive to criticism.

Very vocal against animal cruelty.

Luigi thinks his brother his better than him and shows support and adoration rather than envy.

He is extremely cautious.

Has displayed clumsiness in that instance where he accidentally locked himself out of the air balloon.

Superhuman strength.

Superhuman durability and stamina.

Speed.

Can manipulate both fire and lightning.

Super Luigi form (through consumption of a Super Mushroom).

Can create a field of negative energy. This field can: put opponents to sleep, cause them to move in slow motion, and deal damage. It is fueled by his sadness for being in Mario's shadow, and it is activated through an exotic dance number.

He too, like Mario, has an indomitable will free of evil and temptation.

Can drive karts and motorbikes.

He too happens to be a skilled plumber.

CONSIDERATIONS

The key difference between these two characters, specifics aside, seems to be a lack of restraint in Mario as opposed to an excess of it in Luigi. An AI implant can easily influence these traits for the better or worse, but this leads us to the core question: what is the result we are after? What hypothesis are we aiming to verify in this setting?

Due to the fact that anon has not provided this key information, I am going to start speculating by considering multiple scenarios.

MARIO AND LUIGI WORKING TOGETHER, THE AI ENHANCE THE PERFORMANCE OF BOTH CHARACTERS

Delta's rationality is bound to keep Mario's poor impulse control in check, while Iota would boost Luigi's self esteem and all around happiness. While that would impair the usage of his Negative Energy field, he could rely on his other attacks and use them more efficiently, which would make up for this issue.

MARIO AND LUIGI WORKING TOGETHER, THE AI ENHANCE MARIO'S PERFORMANCE AND WORSEN LUIGI'S

Let's say Mario is assigned with Delta again, but Luigi is assigned with Theta this time. Theta represents trust and despite its enthusiasm, it has to be kept under careful observation as its behavioural patterns can be childish at times. For this reason, Luigi might be overly cautious about preserving Theta's emotional well being, to a perhaps exaggerated extent which will have him hold back as always while Mario is in a more stabilized position.

MARIO AND LUIGI WORKING TOGETHER, THE AI ENHANCE LUIGI'S PERFORMANCE AND WORSEN MARIO'S

Luigi, due to having self concept issues, might experience short term benefits from being able to deceive the enemy and give a desired impression through illusion of trickery. That being said, if we were to assign Gamma to it, we would have to take into account that Mario would have to be able to keep track of those schemes, which he will most definitely not do if Mario is paired with Omega which will intensify his aggression and poor impulse control.

MARIO AND LUIGI WORKING TOGETHER, THE AI WORSEN THE PERFORMANCE OF BOTH CHARACTERS

The answer to this one is very easy. Eta, which is associated with fear, will be assigned to Luigi. Theta, which is associated with trust, will be assigned to Mario instead, effectively boosting the quality of his big brother instinct. This will create an imbalance in terms of responsibility, forcing Mario to take care of Theta and also of his brother and his newly enhanced fear. Due to the fact that they love each other, the brothers will be easily locked in a codependent dynamic. This type of dynamic is one that, by nature, doesn't involve much open discussion, as both parts want to perpetuate the problem, and more importantly it will play on the fact that Mario has more of a harder shell in comparison to his brother and is less expressive in terms of fear as he is the stronger and braver of the two. If Mario were to get angry, Luigi would grow more fearful and he would try harder to overcompensate. This will lead to mistakes on both sides.

MARIO AND LUIGI BEING ENEMIES, THE AI ENHANCE THE PERFORMANCE OF BOTH CHARACTERS

If anon's aim was to pit Mario and Luigi against each other, it would be wise to give Sigma to Luigi. It would highly likely intensify the Negative Energy field as it is fueled by the sadness that Luigi feels for being in Mario's shadow, and of course a representation of ambition will ensure that there will be a constant supply Luigi's suffering on the matter. For Mario to be a worthy opponent, Gamma is a good choice. Now that the brothers are against each other, which they never have been, the dynamic spawns several unknowns which can be easily exploited through Gamma's cunning nature.

MARIO AND LUIGI BEING ENEMIES, THE AI ENHANCE MARIO'S PERFORMANCE AND WORSEN LUIGI'S

See for the scenario with the same conclusion and different premise, Delta and Theta would accentuate their already preexisting characteristics, further widening the gap in how they exploit their own potential.

MARIO AND LUIGI BEING ENEMIES, THE AI ENHANCE LUIGI'S PERFORMANCE AND WORSEN MARIO'S

This is what in the psychoanalysis field is commonly referred to as as a juicy scenario. The key point to focus on is, like in the Luigi gets Sigma scenario, making sure that Luigi's sadness about being overshadowed by his brother never ends. For this reason, we shall assign him with Omega, which is associated with rage. Anger and rage often function as cover up emotions, usually covering up for disgust (also known as 'the moral emotion') and pain, meaning they are often considered easier and more convenient to feel as opposed to the ones that are underlying. Hence this newfound aggression and strengthened Negative Energy Field are highly to win against a Mario who not only would naturally be surprised, concerned, and scared by this side of his brother that he had seen before, but is also paired with Eta that enhances this fear.

MARIO AND LUIGI BEING ENEMIES, THE AI WORSEN THE PERFORMANCE OF BOTH CHARACTERS

Epsilon is a fragment which needs further study and examination and, in my humble opinion, should not be assigned to anyone as it is…Malfunctioning, compared to other fragments. Hence its presence is almost guaranteed to worsen the host's emotional state without being able to compensate in any way in terms of physical ability. Therefore keeping the previous Eta and Mario match and have it confront a newly unstable Luigi who has been assigned with Epsilon seems to be the most suitable scenario for this outcome.

Thank you for asking, Anon, it is an honour for me to participate in these vital studies. If you or anyone else reading this post would like to comment or expand further, you are welcome to do so.

[somuchfuckingsalt]

One thing I think the Duffers dropped the ball on is not using Steve in a leadership role within the group dynamic because he 100% has the skillset for it and it would also round out his character arc very nicely without diminishing the roles any other characters play.

And when I say Steve has the skillset I mean he played team sports and was in a leadership role on those teams. As someone who has played team sports before, the best captains are the ones who are not just physically good at playing the game, but also the ones who are able to coach others into improvement without making them feel like idiots, participate in strategizing and communicating those strategies effectively to the team, leading the team in the absence of the coaches, having good sportsmanship, being able to work with opposing teams without causing problems, etcetera.

Which is my long winded way of saying the best leaders are those who are good with people. Of the many characters on the show - particularly the teens/kids - Steve is arguably the most emotionally intelligent and he is genuinely the best with people. I don’t think we see as many examples of it in the show as we could because 1) I think the Duffers don’t see Steve as any form of intelligent because the Everything about how they write their jock and jock-adjacent characters displays a lot of prejudices and biases about the “dumb jock” stereotype and 2) the Duffers have definitely dumbed Steve down even more throughout the seasons to the point where he is The Protector and the Joey Tribbiani, so dumb he’s become comic relief. 

(playing sports also would give Steve a lot of experience with strategy, both preplanning and in making split-second decisions in the moment but being a good leader isn’t contigant on being good at strategy, I just wanted to point out he could and should be good at it)

Narratively, season 2 would have been an excellent starting point for building Steve’s leadership role since he spends the back half of the season in charge of the Party and, essentially, leading them. That would build through season 3, settle in season 4 as this is the role he has (especially since they were operating without Joyce or Hopper), and then be able to expand on his capabilities in season 5.

In season 4 specifically, Steve insisting Nancy not go alone should’ve been taken as him taking charge in that situation because he was correct, they should not be doing anything alone. I also think doing something small like just inserting a line where he’s asking for ideas on the plan instead of straight jump cut to them going planning how to get supplies would’ve been great.

I also think moments like having Steve’s voice be the voice over leading up to them executing their plan and Steve being the one to be Vecna’d instead of Nancy (which would show that Vecna viewed Steve as integral enough that fucking with his head wold affect the group) would have put an importance to Steve and put him more into that leadership role in to the audience without needing overt displays and adding to run time (since the Duffers tend to cut out a lot of moments where leadership would’ve been evident to save time). By using these 'important’ moments though would’ve been great ways to set up Steve in a genuine, established leadership role in season 5, especially since there’s going to be a time skip. 

I also don’t think that making Steve the leader would be taking anything away from the other characters - at least not the other teens/kids. For starters, Dustin, Lucas, and Max have never been the ‘leaders’ - that’s Mike. Furthermore, the only other person really sitting in that leadership position among the teens is Nancy but she is already academically gifted, the journalist, the detective, etcetera. She also is not the best people person (competent, but it’s not her strongest feature) and she has the tendency to get fixated on things, which isn’t the greatest trait to have as a leader. 

Anyway, I think the Duffer Brothers Joey Tribbiani’d Steve’s charcater and they 100% could have been doing a lot more with him than they are if they weren’t looking at him through biased “dumb jock” glasses. 

[vermillioncrown]

I think in his own way Kuroko has also gotten fixated on the idea of victory being the most important thing. They might have not have won but Aomine was SHOOK. If SI!Kagami had been paying attention I'm pretty sure the Tōō team as a whole received some psychic damage from that match, and possibly one last Mind Mirror attack when Kagami responded with sportsmanship at the end.

like i said, he is quite teikou-addled. he might not have the capacity for doing damage to other players, but he definitely does damage to himself.

more on aomine when he comes back. thing with hs sports anime is that... kids aren't allowed to be truant. they got schedules to follow

a ton of mind mirror, a bit of moonlit mind, things got way too heated for any of that to be in play once aomine came in -

it took wearing him down at the end for the sportmanship attack to do its damage.

(it's a huge stink in the touou locker room post-game. in canon, someone mouths off about kuroko, and even after kicking seirin's ass aomine comes to kuroko's defense.

here, someone grumbles about 'aomine being overrated' and imayoshi steps in "let's keep the chatter off the bench, shall we?" and the fact he's the one telling people to shut up is jarring.)

^there's a bonus scene

[soulsam]

What's a ship you've wanted to talk about headcanons for, but you've never really had an excuse to? Well, here's your chance!

ANON. I LOVE YOU. IT IS NOW HISOLEO/LEOLUMI TIME.

also this isn't really gonna be headcanons so much as it is gonna be an entire shipping manifesto so strap in

okay so anyone who knows me or has seen enough of my blog is well aware that I LOVE hisoillu. like I'm obsessed with them. HOWEVER. within the canon of hxh, I think that hisoka and illumi actively make each other worse.

the one time we see a glimmer of humanity in hisoka, it's in the dodgeball game on greed island, when he brings home the win just for gon. hisoka finds gon's sportsmanship admirable and intriguing, so he indulges it.

the things that he finds interesting about illumi, however, are not the type of qualities a well-adjusted and functional person has, his obsession with killua & his bloodlust being two obvious examples. in election arc we see hisoka consider killing killua to get illumi riled up, because that's what hisoka wants to see from him. but hisoka never attempts to "corrupt" gon in any way. in fact, what hisoka seems to like most about him (besides his potential) is his optimism and his friendliness. all his generally positive traits which should theoretically make him weak in such a cutthroat world, but instead become strengths that make gon memorable and uniquely powerful. gon's almost naive humanity inspires hisoka to be better (perhaps for selfish reasons but the outcome is essentially the same)

on the other hand, because illumi acts with basically zero humanity, when hisoka matches his energy, he either stays the same or is even worse than usual (again, he considered killing killua just to see illumi get angry). so basically hisoka & illumi are constantly feeding off of each other's bloodlust and depravity, sucking each other deeper and deeper down the more entwined they become.

which is fine, like it's extremely interesting to me and obviously I love them (not in spite of that, but frankly because of it). however, they are very much the epitome of "I can make him worse."

you know who I think could fix hisoka or illumi though?

mr. leorio paladiknight.

leorio has a "fixer" personality. he's gonna be a doctor, for god's sake, and we've seen how he tries to take care of kurapika in his own way. he's hot-headed, recklessly brave when it comes to protecting those he cares about. I think if he saw something human in hisoka or illumi, he'd want to fix them.

we already know he's not really afraid of hisoka. certainly not afraid enough to avoid picking a fight with him while being well aware that he could get fucking murdered. I don't think he'd be afraid of illumi either. disturbed? maybe. enraged? yeah, we already know he is. we've seen him try to tell illumi off for the way he treats killua. but leorio knows how fucked up the zoldyck family is. I think if something happened that flipped his idea of illumi from "another dangerous and unreasonable person who's out to get killua" to "a deeply traumatized young man who's been manipulated constantly since the day he was born," he might start to feel sympathy for illumi.

I personally cannot believe that there's nothing human left in illumi. as twisted and warped as his idea of "love" is, and as cruel as he can be, I think he honestly, truly does love killua. and there has to be some way to take that one tiny, miniscule chink in his armor and use it to crack him open. I think if anyone has the power and the courage to do it, it's leorio.

as for hisoka, I think leorio has a lot in common with gon personality-wise. both stubborn and a little reckless, both sometimes act without thinking and will sacrifice themselves for their friends without even stopping to consider other options lol.

we know leorio passed hisoka's "test," whatever the hell that was about. although hisoka is fixated on gon, I think now that leorio has learned nen, he'll be very interesting to hisoka, even more than he already is. and like I said above, hisoka seems to match the energy of whoever he's currently allied with. while leorio is a little, uh...well, you know, he has a huge heart and he cares deeply about others. I think he could inspire hisoka to act more like he did during the dodgeball match; he was cooperative, helpful even, he took it seriously, and he let himself be injured for the sake of gon's wishes. not even to prevent someone else from being put in harm's way. he did it because it would give them the win that gon wanted. if there is anybody who can bring out that side of him again, it's leorio.

[hyper-cryptic]

Nick and Hancock headcanons?

YES...YEEEEES. I am so eager to talk about these two! Especially Nick since I have been talking all day about Hancock, not that I mind of course. 😳

Starting with Nick!

He really likes animals. I have no actual explanation for this, he just looks like the guy that would take in a lot of cats and then have his house infested by stray cats. Ellie loves the cats, but they GOT TO GO.

He literally forgets he has his hat on sometimes.

I feel like he would like going on strolls around DC, for no reason, just to stretch the legs or to take a smoke. It’s calming for him to go around, seeing the city working and people interact with each other. He prefers going out at night, he likes the lights. :)!

He is actually very disorganized with stuff, forgets where he leaves his files, puts files in the wrong places, sometimes doesn't even file a report...I mean, look at his agency, it's a disaster and I adore it. If it wasn't for Ellie, who at least tries to organize when Nick is out, or busy, he would be so lost.

Okay but, he likes rain right? Imagine him just going out to his roof when it's raining and just be there. Maybe he likes it because of how it feels, the bits of pressure on his skin as the raindrops fall, and maybe the calming sound.

He totally meets up with Hancock every once in a while. Just to catch up with stuff. How is the town going? How are the cases going? Mostly casual things.

He is absolutely terrified of Piper, but in the best way. He admires her determination and how brave she is, but god, he wished she slowed down sometimes.

He likes coffee a little bit too much...Tastes good!

I honestly wonder how his vision is. A part of me wants it to be something similar to the V.A.T.S or even the power armor screen, has little colors and a lot of analysis shit. Or normal, full color vision with the analysis shit on, so he can be happier. :)

He really sweet food. He doesn’t eat much, but he likes to get some treats once in a while.

He likes children. This doesn’t mean he would like to be a father though, he thinks he wouldn’t be able to give the kid the attention he needs, and bla bla, you know him. But he sure enjoys spending time with Shaun and chatting with him, or just doing whatever activity. He is just interested in the dumb things the children do, thinks it’s funny. Imagine the feeling you have when you see a cat playing with whatever? Yeah, same feeling.

Likes to play chess...and he is real good at it. Thinks it’s a really fun pastime and enjoys watching your face as he totally beats your ass at chess, that is if you're bad at it. If not, he enjoys a challenge...if you win he’d be really impressed and give you praise, if you lose he keeps his smug face and suggests to try again if you want to.

Continuing that, he is really competitive. He's good sportsmanship, don’t get me wrong but he likes to be able to keep his ego as high as he can.

Would totally accompany Daisy to the library now that is safer, they both have a love for books. He is totally into dumb, noir novellas...You literally can’t tell me I’m wrong.

Now for my self-indulgent part of the headcanons...He has ADD! Yeah, if little habits like smoking would pass down to Nick, why not this? After all, it was a brain scan, it is totally neurological and ADD being a neurological disorder, it would make sense that it passes down to him! This would also explain how unorganized he is, and I got to say it is very interesting how a synth, a literal bot made for work has traits like “forgetting his appointments very often”, plus his impulsivity and fixation with Eddie. Besides, it makes me happy that I can find a character to relate to at that level.

He really enjoys the Silver Shroud plays. Not a super fan, but definitely enjoys the show! It’s something he would be into. (I actually don’t know if this is canon I’ve never heard him say anything about Silver Shroud, but he has some voice lines about it, PLEASE TELL ME, I WANT TO HEAR ‘EM SO BADLY.) Plus, Kent refers to him as “Synth shaped Silver Shroud”, he takes the compliment!

He is a good hugger. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. He might be a good hugger, but he isn’t too sure about them anymore ‘cuz of how his body is built.

His synthetic skin is actually quite soft! Not really soft, but more than expected.

How to break him: literally place your hand on his cheek plus some eye contact and watch him melt onto it. He is pretty much touch starved at this point so any touch will make his heart skip a beat, but do that and he will be at your mercy.

He sends letters to DiMA (obviously once he meets him, accepts him as a brother and isn’t killed) every once in a while to catch up with him! Chase is the messenger. :)!

I just realized that I’ve written lots about Nick already, so! Now Hancock. :D

If he isn’t doing drugs, he’s chewing gum, well...not at that rate, but when he can get his hands on some gum he’ll have some! He really likes it! Mint is his faV. as a funny extra, he didn’t know that swallowing it is...bad, until Sosu or Nick tells him, LMAO.

He would have a pet snake if he could have one. Like really imagine it, he would love reptiles, and know all kinds of stuff about them. He probably really likes Deathclaws.

He knows how to play the guitar. No, I do not have an explanation for this, no I do not accept no for an answer.

He likes very sour or citrus foods, his taste buds are a bit fucked up thanks to radiation, so he likes the fact that the sour taste can make his buds go off the rails. And that’s why he could eat a lemon with a straight face and even enjoy it.

He also really likes coffee, not as much as Valentine but he really likes the strong taste of it! He would drink black coffee and nothing else.

Okay, okay! Last one about food! He is a texture over taste kind of guy, that’s a big reason why he doesn’t like Mirelurk, it’s slimy and weird, no matter how cooked or uncooked it is, he absolutely hates ‘lurk meat. His only exception is boba, he loves boba.

He probably goes around the house only in boxers...because. Doesn’t he give the vibes? Like he would be either shirtless or without pants on relax days or in the mornings.

Autumn is his favorite season. He just likes the orange view of it all, even tho there isn’t much of a change, he does like the chilly breezes that are very common around this season, not cold enough to be annoying but enough to be enjoyable!

He is probably warmer than a normal human because of radiation, so his hands and overall body are warm all the time! (another reason why he likes autumn and cold weather). But yeah! Cuddling and stuff like that are so much more enjoyable with him. :)

His favorite flower might be the carrot flowers there’s around in the ‘whealth. They remind him of the sun *looks at Sole*.

And! That’s all I have for now!! :D

[selfwriting-sugarquills]

Say yes. (George Weasley x reader)

Description: George Weasley had asked you to marry him exactly 465 times since he and you started dating in your fifth year. He’d said it half-jokingly at first, then because you kept turning him down with a smirk as you insisted “someday, but not yet.” and then it had evolved to be a way of saying “I love you” and you’d established that it wasn’t the real one yet as long as you were in school, and that when he finally decided to ask you for real, you’d know: Champagne, fireworks and other romantic gestures were promised but when George loses his ear he decides to spend that final proposal a little differently than initially planned. 

requested: nope 

warnings: descriptions of blood, injuries, a little angst but mostly fluff. 

word count: 3.7K 

taglist: @schlongbottom​ @cardboardbenmazzello​ @unseensilver​ @mochamiilk​ 

(gif isn’t mine) 

“Marry me?” 

“Oh, Merlin,” you facepalm, “It’s too early for this, George,” 

“Come on!” he persists, 

“You always ask me and the answer’s always going to be the same!” you’ve taken on an irritated tone but you’re grinning at him from across the breakfast table, 

“But I don’t know that! What if you change your mind?” he asks and takes a bite of toast, 

“Yeah ‘cause I’m likely to decide to get married in the middle of my sixth year, am I?” you steal the other piece of toast from his plate and bite into it. He lets you, 

“Maybe? It could be kind of romantic: eloping and doing it in secret?” He wiggles his eyebrows at you earning a playful eye roll from you, 

“No way. Your mother would murder you if she found out you’d eloped at sixteen, and I’m pretty sure my mum would be standing in line to get to me next,” you chuckle.

George Weasley had developed a habit of asking you to marry him since you first started dating. He’d first asked you when you were fifteen in Hogsmeade. You, in turn, had choked on your butterbeer and spluttered a panicked: 

“WHAT?!” 

George had laughed and answered: “You heard me,” and you hadn’t had the faintest idea if your relatively new boyfriend was being serious at all. He’d later admitted that no, he didn’t really think marrying you at the tender age of fifteen was a good idea but in his defence:

“I can still ask you now, and then wait to actually marry you!” 

Which was true, but you sort of took the whole marriage thing seriously and so you’d developed a term for The Real One as an understanding that all his questions were not serious proposals and moreso a replacement for “I love you” or another set of endearing words, and that he’d let you know if he did ask The Real One. As the years pass by you’d become used to proposals being randomly thrown at you from the redhead you adored so much. In fact, you’d kept a tally and noted the most noteworthy ones in a small notebook: 

#26 George asked me to marry him on a trip to the beach with my family and immediately got hit by a giant wave, suffice to say, I agreed to do it on the condition that he didn’t drown himself in an attempt to impress me.

#168 George learned yesterday that asking me to marry him while I’m hungover with my head in a toilet results in whatever I can grab nearest to me being tossed at him, possibly accompanied by a certain finger being presented to him. 

#340 George successfully asked me to marry him during a quidditch match and because of his dashing looks and undeniable charm, not to mention his impressive sportsmanship and talent in the sheets, I said yes!

#341 George needs to learn that if he steals my notebook and forges me saying yes then I’ll never marry the git. ---> Oi, you promised not to say no :( - G Get over it, liar >:/ - Y/n

Now, at age 20, George had asked you a whopping 416 times to marry him, and you had yet to accept nor decline any of those proposals: you couldn’t say yes, because it wasn’t T.R.O (as you’d named it) and you couldn’t get yourself to say no because truth be told: you did want to marry him. A lot. But you figured it was better to wait, you weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so you’d let yourself be amused by your boyfriend’s antics for years, though now as you grew older, there was an air of anticipation behind each time he asked, not to mention that he’d stopped asking you as frequently. He liked throwing you off by asking you unexpectedly, 

“You know, if you’re gonna ask me, for real that is,” You ask one night while your head is resting on his chest. You’re in his bed above the shop, the light from the moon illuminating your shapes, 

“Yeah?” his chest vibrates when he speaks and you can’t stop the small, content smile that forms on your lips, 

“Just so you know, I want a ring-” he cuts you off with a soft laugh, 

“- and champagne! lots of it! no ring pops or asking me while we’re in the ocean; I want it to feel real,” 

“Got it,” he chuckles, your head bobbing with his chest as it rises and falls, “anything else I can do for you, madam?”

“...Fireworks would be appreciated too, please.” 

“Noted,” there’s a moment of domestic, blissful silence, “Y/n?” 

“mhm?” 

“I love you,” 

“I love you too.” 

You don’t discuss the proposal anymore for the time being. Things at the order pick up its pace as Harry’s seventeenth birthday approaches and suddenly, 

“What’s going on?” You’re standing in the kitchen with a puzzled look on your face as the two identical young men hurriedly come into the apartment and disappear into their respective bedrooms where you follow George to see him change out of his work suit and into a different, purple one at a fast pace, 

“Something’s come up with the order, we have to leave tonight,” Fred’s voice explains from his room, you give George a questioning look, he doesn’t meet your eyes,

“I’m also in the order, why wasn’t I told about this?” you ask, as George passes by you into the living room, his eyes fixated on his buttons on his sleeves. In your chest, your heartbeat anxiously speeds up while you wish George would just slow down for once and explain what is going on, though you know that slowing down isn’t exactly the twins’ expertise, 

“You know Moody; always so secretive. He probably figured that telling everyone in the order the details would lead to the info leaking or something, don’t worry about it, love,” George flashes a quick reassuring smile at you but you’re already worried about it. In fact, you feel nothing but anxious about this whole situation. 

“But what am I supposed to do? just sit here and wait while you go on some secret mission I know nothing about?” you ask while the twins find coats and begin putting them on. Finally, George faces you and quickly approaches you but you’re not calmed by this. A small flicker of anger ignites inside you as you realise that your boyfriend clearly doesn’t take this as seriously as you do, and then again why would he? he knows what’s happening you think to yourself. George gently cups your face in his hands. He presses a kiss to your forehead, 

“It’s all going to be fine, I promise,” he says, caressing your cheeks, “tell you what: apparate to the burrow and I’ll meet you there, we’re supposed to go there anyway, alright?”

No, it’s not alright, what part of this is alright?!

“Yeah, alright then,” you say in defeat. 

“That’s my girl!” George says and presses his lips to your forehead once more before walking over to his brother, 

“Ready, Fred?” He says and Fred nods at him, 

“Ready, George,” Fred replies with a grin, 

“I’ll see you at the burrow, ok?” George turns to you and when you don’t reply with more than a solemn look, he adds, “Don’t worry.” 

And then he’s gone. And you stand in the empty apartment, trying to process everything that just happened in the past ten minutes. Then you apparate to the burrow, landing outside the building. Molly must’ve seen you because the door opens before you’ve even reached the house and you’re more than happy to see her. You let yourself be swept into her embrace as she greets you with the same motherly fashion as she always did, 

“I hope it’s not a problem. George sent me here,” you say as you tread inside, Molly closes the door behind you, 

“Not at all, dear, I expected he would,” she says with a smile, “I was just about to make some tea, it always calms me on nights like these,” she says, already heading toward the kitchen, 

“What do you mean?” You ask, your nerves beginning to gnaw at your insides again, 

“Haven’t the boys told you anything?” Molly asks from the stove, you stand in the doorframe and shake your head, “something about the order and Moody but besides that, not much else,” you say, 

“Just typical,” Molly tuts, “Oh well, I suppose there’s no reason not to tell you now,” she say and begins explaining the plan of moving Harry to the burrow, of disguising members of the order to look like Harry, the risks of the plan she doesn’t leave out and you don’t feel any better knowing that there’s a real danger of the plan going wrong. 

Time passes. Ginny joins you in waiting, you small talk for a little but soon find yourselves too anxious to say anything other than worrying out loud if the order will arrive soon. 

After an hour and a half, you’re pacing the living room, unable to sit still. According to Molly, they were supposed to have started showing up some forty minutes ago but when you look out over the dark landscape surrounding the burrow there’s nothing but softly swaying grass and a vast cloudy sky. You excuse yourself to go to the bathroom though you don’t do anything other than stare at yourself in the mirror and try to calm yourself down. But you can’t stop thinking about the worst-case scenarios: George coming home hurt, or worse, not coming home at all. You splash water in your face in an attempt to drown out the voice of George telling you not to worry in your head. The words have been echoing in your head since you arrived at the burrow, and each time you find yourself trying to cling to the sound of his voice, remember exactly how it sounded, how his fingers felt on your face as he caressed it, the feeling on his lips on your forehead right before he left, you try to feel the warmth they’d left just in case- 

“I think I see someone!” Ginny says and by the sound of the door being flung open you exit the bathroom and follow her and Molly out into the night where one giant figure and one smaller one appear from the tall grass, who you immediately recognise as Harry and Hagrid, both of whom are soaked and clearly shaken up, 

“Where are the others?” Harry asks while Hagrid explains to Molly how they hadn’t stood a chance, the death eaters had been awaiting them, 

“You’re the first ones back,” Ginny says with a grim expression, she doesn’t get any further though, as the unmistakable pop of apparition brings your attention further down the field, 

“Quick!” you hear Lupin yell and when you see the bleeding person he’s carrying you speed up to meet them, Harry beats you to it though, which is good, because when the polyjuice potion wears off and George’s features become clearer you feel as if all the air has been punched out of you, your knees buckling under you for a moment in shock, before you hurriedly follow them inside the house, where Lupin and Harry lay George on the couch. You and Molly sit down beside him and while Lupin grabs Harry and questions him you don’t tear your eyes away from George. You can’t. 

“Hi there, darling,” he croaks, his eyes half-open. You place your hand on his chest and wince when you find it’s sticky with blood, 

“Hey there,” you say, your voice unsteady. You try not to look at the blood that’s trailing from his ear but against George’s pale skin, it’s difficult not to. You bunch up his shirt in your hand as you try to steady yourself. You feel sick, and it doesn’t take long for tears to find your eyes. 

“Hey,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper, “it’s okay, Y/n,” his hand finds your cheek, as the first tear of many trickles down your face and you struggle to keep composed. You clench your jaw trying not to sob but you still let out a small broken one escape through your lips as you breathe out, as you place your hand on his, squeezing it tightly, you’re afraid. Afraid of him letting go. His eyes close and another sob burst through you. You only look up when you feel a hand on your back, and you find Fred’s concerned face, his hand moves to your shoulder, he gives it a quick squeeze, 

“How’re you feeling, Georgie?” he asks, George swallows and for a moment you hold your breath, thinking he’s unconscious, but then his eyes open, just a little, 

“Saint-like,” he says, to your surprise, a small smirk tugs at his mouth, you and Fred share a look, 

“Come again?” Fred asks, looking pale with worry, the smile on George’s lips broadens, 

“Saint-like,” he says, “I’m holey, Fred, I’m holey. Get it?” Georges’s hand leaves yours to gesture to his ear, 

Fred’s cheeks gain a little colour as he shakes his head, 

“Of all ear-related humour, you go for ‘I’m holey’? that’s pathetic,” Fred says, his smile mirroring his twin. 

After a few moments Molly disappears to find some things to help mend George’s ear, and the order agrees to give him some privacy by moving into the kitchen, leaving you alone with the twins, Fred gets comfortable next to the couch, and you stay put, stroking George’s hair with a still-shaky hand. 

“Don’t worry,” George says, 

“You do realise that saying that over and over isn’t going to work, right?” You answer, brushing tufts of ginger hair away from his forehead, 

“worth a try,” he replies, closing his eyes again a pained expression forming on his face and you know that he’ll most likely pull through but you can’t seem to let go of the ‘what if?’ resting in the back of your mind. Molly reappears with a bag of various remedies and ingredients, she picks out a sample of bottles, and then goes to find a cloth and some water, 

“I would use magic,” She says, “but I think this is easier to control,” she wrings the cloth and both you and Fred eye it nervously, 

“You gonna be ok?” You ask George when he opens his eyes at the sound of the water from the cloth dripping into the bowl beneath it. He swallows hard, 

“Yeah, I think so,” he says, “It’s a bit of water, how bad could it be?” you try giving him an encouraging smile but you know that beneath it all you’re both aware that this isn’t going to be pleasant, 

Molly gingerly touches the cloth to George’s ear and he winces, letting out a sharp hiss and his hold on your hand tightens, reminding you that your boyfriend, the former beater, is a lot stronger than you but you don’t ask him to let go, or say anything at all, your lips form a thin line as you watch him grimace and whimper with every stroke of the cloth against the cut. Molly apologies profusely and promises that she’s doing it as fast as she can, her eyes lined with tears as well. Fred grows pale when Molly wrings the cloth again, turning the water a bright vermillion and excuses himself, 

the cut looks better after it’s rinsed and Molly gently applies some of the remedies she’s picked out, before asking your help in holding George, who’s close to unconscious again, while she bandages him, 

“It’s not much,” she says in a shaky voice, “but it’ll do till tomorrow,” 

“Do you think it’ll heal?” you ask, your voice is grainy and you now realise how dry your mouth is. Molly runs a hand over her son’s forehead, 

“you can never know with dark magic, if it was cursed off we can’t know if there’ll be side effects,” she says, “we’ll just have to wait,” she sighs, watching George with glossy eyes. Then she picks up the water and turns to go, 

“I’ll go clean up,” she says with a sniffle, leaving you alone in the living room with George. He looks a lot less frightening without the blood covering his neck and face, and with the bandage covering the ear, he looks almost normal, though he’s paler than you’ve ever seen him. You overhear Fred talk to Molly, who orders him to go upstairs and rest, you reckon he’s not doing well either, after a lot of arguing from Fred he complies. Molly comes in with a tearstained face and some blankets. Together you rearrange pillows and blankets, so you can lay next to George on the floor, 

“We’ll have to leave the clothes on until tomorrow, as much as I’d like to change them,” Molly says, eyeing the bloody stains on the jacket and t-shirt he’s wearing, “oh well,” she says, “I think it’s best if we all get some sleep. You’ll be alright here, dear?” she asks, 

“Yes, I think so,” you say, not sure you’ll be getting much sleep. You try to get comfortable next to George, holding his hand and laying down, staring at the ceiling. You quickly accept that sleep isn’t coming to you, and you sit up again, resting your head on your arm so that you’re almost laying next to George. It’s easier to relax when you can see him. See his chest rise and fall slowly. Hear his breathing. Feel it. Warm and soft, reminding you that he’s still here. Your eyes grow heavy and you’re nearly asleep when, 

“Y/n?” your eyes open at the sound of his voice, you blink at him. His eyes are staring intently at you in the dim light, 

“What?” you ask, 

“Can I ask you something?”

you sit up, 

“It’s just,” he begins, taking breaks in between his words, you wonder if anything Molly has given him has made him loopy, “I’ve been thinking about everything, and since I suppose I can say I’ve had a near death experience, it wouldn’t be right if it didn’t put some things into perspective,” he says, smiling at your puzzled expression, 

“where are you going with-” 

“will you marry me?” 

“...what?” you stare at him,

“I had a whole thing planned but I think I’d rather do it now so I’ll never have to almost lose the opportunity to ask you for real again,” he says, 

“George,” you say, awestruck “are you sure?” 

“More sure than I’ve ever been,” he says in an almost unrecognisably serious tone, his eyes locked into yours, 

You take a shaky breath, “ask me again.” 

The same cheeky grin he’d always wear when he’d ask you appears on his face and you could cry because for the first time that night he looks like himself again, 

“Y/n L/n, will you marry me?” he asks, taking both your hands in his, you don’t move to stop the warm tears that spill down your face, tasting them as you smile, nodding at him, 

“yes, George Weasley, of course I’ll marry you,” you say, diving in to kiss him gently, his hand finds your face, his thumb wiping your tears away, 

“Please don’t cry over me, Y/n,” he says, your faces still close, earning a half-sob half-chortle from you, 

“I’m your bloody fiance now, I’ll cry however much I want over you,” you say, kissing him again. 

“How many times did I ask?” he asks, 

“I think that was the 417th time,” you reply, he pouts, 

“Damn, my goal was a thousand,” he says with a smirk, “wait,” his eyes widen, “what am I supposed to ask you now?” he says. You allow yourself to laugh,

“you don’t have to ask me anything, thank you very much,” 

“...Want to renew our vows?” he tries, 

“Actually, I’ve changed my mind: I’m divorcing you,” you say, laying down beside him, 

“hey! we’re not married yet,” he says, 

“Then I’m divorcing you prematurely,” you say, “now get some sleep!” 

*** 

Bill and Fleur’s wedding was wonderfully different from the way the rest of your lives were going. The war was pressing on with more and more shops in Diagon Alley closed down for an indefinite amount of time. Everywhere you went, people seemed anxious, awaiting something unknown, a sort of resolution to all the dread. In the middle of it all, a wedding had seemed misplaced but standing in the tent behind the burrow, seeing people actually laugh, dance and enjoy themselves, you felt more at ease than you had in months. 

“Hey,” George appears next to you, handing you a glass of champagne, 

“Hi,” you say, looking at Luna dancing with her father for a moment, you turn to George, “how’s the ear?” you ask, George didn’t talk about it much, insisting it was fine which didn’t stop you and Molly from fussing over him still, 

“It’s okay,” He says, “If I’m honest, I hardly notice it anymore. Now I just want the bandages off,” he chuckles. You stand together, watching the crowd for a moment, 

“Can I show you something?” he asks after sipping his drink, 

“Right now?” your eyebrow lifts, 

“Right now. Come on,” he nods towards the exit of the tent, extending his hand for you to take, 

*

“What are we doing in your room?” you ask, a little winded the alcohol and from climbing the stairs, 

“Sit down,” he gestures to his bed and heads to his dresser, rummaging through the third drawer down, “Where is it, I could’ve sworn- Oh! here it is!” he picks up a small object. He turns to you with a grin, “Now, I know that The Real One didn’t exactly go as planned, but I did have a whole thing planned, so,” he walks over to you and kneels down, opening the small object to reveal a stunning engagement ring, “I figured I owe you this,” he says, 

“you got me a ring?” you say a little breathlessly, feeling ridicoulus when tears rim your eyes for what feels like the millionth time since George lost his ear, 

“bought it with my first salary from the shop,” he replies with a sheepish smirk, “do you like it?” 

“I love it, George,” you say, “really, it’s beautiful,” 

“Want me to put it on you?” 

“Duh!” you laugh,

George slips the ring onto your finger with ease and presses a kiss to your hand, then places soft kisses up your arm to your shoulder, your neck and finally your lips, his tongue swiping across your lips, deepening the kiss for a moment before you both break away with breathless laughter. He rests his forehead on yours, taking your hands in his, looking at the light shifting in the jewels in the ring, 

“About bloody time we made it official, too,” he says with a sense of content finality, his hand cups your cheek, kissing you again, this time hungrier and you let him lower you onto his bed to celebrate your final engagement properly. 

[calloftheancestors]

The Ungracious—and Their Demonization of the Past

Never in history has such a mediocre, but self-important and ungracious generation owed so much, and yet expressed so little gratitude to its now dead forebears.

By Victor Davis Hanson

December 29, 2021

The last two years have seen an unprecedented escalation in a decades-long war on the American past.

But there are lots of logical flaws in attacking prior generations in U.S. history.

Critics assume their own judgmental generation is morally superior to those of the past. So, they use their own standards to condemn the mute dead who supposedly do not measure up to them.

Yet 21st century critics rarely acknowledge their own present affluence and leisure owe much to history’s prior generations whose toil helped create their current comfort.

And what may future scolds say of the modern generation that saw over 60 million abortions since Roe v. Wade, even as fetal viability outside the womb continued to progress to ever earlier ages?

What will our grandchildren say of us who dumped on them over $30 trillion in national debt—much of it as borrowing for entitlements for ourselves?

What sort of society snoozes as record numbers of murders continue in 12 of its major cities? What is so civilized about defunding the police, endemic smash-and-grab thefts, and car-jackings?

Was our media more responsible, professional, and learned in 1965 or 2021? Did Hollywood make more sophisticated and enjoyable films in 1954 or 2021? Was there less or more sportsmanship among professional athletes in 1990 or 2021?

Was it actually moral to discard the “content of our character” and “equal opportunity” principles of the prior Civil Rights movement of 60 years ago? Are their replacement fixations on the “color of our skin” and “equality of result” superior?

Would America have won World War II with the current labor participation rate of only six Americans in 10 working? Would our generation have brought all American troops home and quit World War I, in fear of the deadly 1918 Spanish flu pandemic?

Are we proud that most standardized tests of student knowledge and achievement continue to decline, despite record investments in education?

Do we ever pause to consider that we enjoy our modern standard of living, and security because we were once a meritocracy that quit judging our workforce by tribal affinities and ancient prejudices?

Our generation talks of infrastructure nonstop. But when was the last time it built anything comparable to Hoover Dam, the interstate highway system, or the California Water Project—much less sent a man back to the moon or beyond?

If prior generations were so toxic, why do we continue to take for granted the moral and material world they bequeathed to us, from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to our airports, freeways, and power plants? Did we ever defeat anything comparable to the Axis powers or Soviet communism?

We know the symptoms of the current epidemic of hating the past.

One is Orwellian renaming and statue-toppling. Historical revision often responds to puritanical mob frenzies rather than to democratic discussion and votes of relevant elected officials.

Where is the pantheon of woke heroes who will replace the toppled or defaced Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt?

Whose morality and achievement should instead be immortalized? Were the public and private lives of Che Guevara, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Margaret Sanger, and Franklin D. Roosevelt without sin?

Racial fixations tend predictably in one direction. In good Confederate fashion, we lump all individuals who look alike into inexact collectives of “white,” “black,” or “brown”—often to stereotype the supposed evils of so-called white supremacy.

But if we go down that tribalist and simplistic road of caricatured oppressors and oppressed, will future generations tally up each group’s merits and demerits, to adjudicate the roles of millions of individuals in making America worse or better?

What standard would they use to judge our ignorant world of racial stereotyping—proportional representation in Nobel Prizes, philanthropy, scientific breakthroughs, or lasting art, music, and literature versus statistics on homicides, assault, divorce, and illegitimacy?

Immigration—when legal, diverse, measured, and often meritocratic—has been the great strength of America, as typified by industrious arrivals who chose to abandon their own homeland to risk new lives in a foreign United States.

But if America is so flawed and so irredeemable, why in fiscal year 2021 are nearly 2 million foreigners now crashing its borders—illegally, en masse, and intent on reaching a supposedly racist nation that is purportedly inferior to those they abandon?

According to the ancient brutal bargain, assimilation and integration grant the immigrant as much claim to America’s present and past as the native born. But then shouldn’t the antithesis also be true? Shouldn’t immigrants at least respect those of the past who created the very country they now so eagerly desire, and died in awful places from Valley Forge to Bastogne to preserve?

Never in history has such a mediocre, but self-important and ungracious generation owed so much, and yet expressed so little gratitude, to its now dead forebears.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep 36 S4: Seto Joins Dragon Wife in Hell

So I dunno about you guys, but 2020 aged me like a lot in just these 8 months, so I figured it was time to embrace the feeling of being on death’s door and I decided to learn Mahjong. So I could truly embrace the ancients and vibe in their natural habitat.

Anyway, once I learned some Mahjong lore, some parts of Yugioh just open up. Namely--Seto’s dragons. Like a whole lot of stuff about early Seto Kaiba that confused me at the time just makes so much more sense now.

But unfortunately, he dies this episode, and he never pulled out his Blue Eyes White Dragons, and it’s just like...

...but my Mahjong deep cuts...

Like every episode I’m just rubbing my palms together in anticipation that someone will die, but like...I never get to talk about how in Mahjong, there’s only 4 white dragon tiles, but if you have 3, you can steal the fourth white dragon from another player’s discards, and that when you that, other stuff happens...I don’t get to talk about that because Seto’s hella dead.

So lets just get to the death. Dartz decides to make all of our soldier frenemies attack Pharaoh--because that’s all he needs to raise the Leviathan. Like Dartz doesn’t even really need to finish this game. He just needs Yami.

Seto picks up that these friend (and Pegasus) soldiers that Yami refuses to kill are probably going to end the world very quickly so he decides to do something about it. If this were a blog where I talked about cards instead of Mahjong, then I’d dive into the intricacies of what that even was.

But, we’re not, so lets just talk about Pegasus.

(read more under the cut)

This guy harnesses some psychic energy he’s got leftover from S1 and communicates directly to Pharaoh’s mind.

So, hey, what was that about Pegasus not having powers anymore? Like? He’s still doing this? He’s still psychic and he very clearly can still make blank cards so like...I guess you can take out the eyeball and make him nicer, but you can’t take out some of the effed up magic side-effects. (like there was a comment I didn’t respond to (which, sorry about that, been a little nuts over here in California), but apparently there was a movie in between seasons where Pegasus saved their lives--so he’s legit good now...there was a DLC where character arcs happened.)

Which kind makes you wonder about Marik, but we’ll probably never see him again so o well, save it for the fanfiction.

PS Yami is totally fixating on that eye we can’t see, right? Like...it never outright tells us, but does this spiritual Orichalcos manifestation of Pegasus still have the golden eye? A human eye? Or no eye at all? Just skin?

Not like it matters because Seto does some sort of card shenanigans that undo the whole friends that are soldiers thing like it never happened.

MMMMM I don’t like these weird legs on Yugi. Don’t like the thighs it gave to Joey. No! I’m seeing like this skin-tight silhouette of half an ass right now and I really don’t like it.

Along with other card things I won’t go into that consumed most of this episode, Seto finally got hit by a...well, I mean you can clearly see it in the next cap.

So, in Mahjong, there are 3 types of dragons: a white dragon, a red dragon, and a green dragon. I used to think it was really lazy that we’re just calling monsters straight up “white dragon” or “red dragon” in this show, but now it makes more sense because this whole time it was probably baby’s first Mahjong reference but I’m too Western to know that.

Anyway, the white dragon is funny looking because it’s a white tile--just a completely blank white tile. I thought it was a wild card at first but nah--it’s a white dragon in a snowfield--which is a very funny Dad joke from 200 years ago we’re still doing today. But, often, instead of a Dad joke, they’ll just make the white dragon tile a drawing of a blank card, like this:

Kind of funny that the guy who’s shtick is white dragons, ended up with his soul in a blank card. Was that a mahjong reference? Probably not, but I noticed it.

And mahjong aside, the show paid it’s respects to Seto dying and so he took his sweet time passing on. It’s still not that much respect. We aren’t gonna get that amazing Joey death sequence from S3 that took like half an episode of scene-shredding for our mains to recover from, but like...Seto was very determined to keep going, despite not having a soul.

He even finished his turn of cards, as if to just spite Joey Wheeler for that one time Joey hella died before killing Marik.

Shippers rejoice, it’s a Yami and Seto Kaiba death sequence. If you squint really hard, it might even be an embrace. I mean they both have very sharp duel disks on, and if Yugi’s closes for whatever reason, it’ll snap Seto’s head clear off, but what other “hugs” do we really get on this show?

And as for Mokuba, he was quite tragic this episode. I mean it’s Yugioh, so it’s not like you’re gonna cry or anything, but Mokuba just doesn’t really have anything else going for him without his brother so it is legit like...man Mokuba gets a lot of crap thrown his way and even when he’s happy, he still has to live with Seto so just...Mokuba...

Again we get this bubble effect of other people trying to enter the Orichalcos which happens just a Hell of a lot this season. Like Dartz probably has never had a single person WANT to go in the green zone in 10,000 years and then these bizarre children happened and they just want to bounce off that thing like a jello pudding.

I think it took over 5 minutes for Seto to die, and he was very, very, VERY angry the entire time. Just fueled by literally nothing but rage. Could probably go a couple more episodes if he had taken a nap in the KaibaCopter, but alas, even Seto Kaiba eventually runs out of fumes.

Anyway, another Mahjong fun fact. The dragon tiles are considered an “honor tile” and how many times have we heard Seto--who is such a scumball--go off about his honor? It can be hard to use honors tiles because their rate of success is lower, so when Seto’s like “I have to live up to my dragon’s honor or I can’t keep these in my deck” could he be like...making a Mahjong pun as well as a literal reference to whatever he defines as honor?

...Again, just a Mahjong reference I noticed, but probably not what they intended at all. Which is Good Enough for this blog.

After he tragically passed on, and Yami delicately put his body on the ground, -- Dartz decided to make this moment very funny for me, instead.

Bless.

Not as good as Yami the both times his body was chucked casually across the screen this season--but a very good toss, nonetheless.

I have made so MANY clips of this season!

Tristan and Tea kinda just stood there this entire episode while this was all going down and like...I know they can’t really do anything else at this point but like...can someone give Mokuba a hug???

I can’t believe Valon was the only guy in this entire show about friendship who knew how to hug people. He was in prison since he was 9, and then was raised by freakin Dartz, why is he the only hugger?

PS, apparently Seto’s yummy soul was enough to make the Leviathan open a single eye-ball in curiosity.

Mokuba out there flinging so many insults that he got everyone else banned from watching devil cards. It’s like sports competitions in Middle school with that one kid who won’t stop cussing. That one kid who is the reason everyone else has to sit through a boring ass assembly about sportsmanship? That’s Mokuba.

Now that everyone is ‘passed out’, we can get to the juicy stuff only the olds talk about--which sounds a lot like I’m about to do another segway into talking about Mahjong again, but I’m actually all out of the Mahjong juice. Again, I’m ass at Mahjong.

(and like...the peanut gallery died in the original version, right? I know to never trust a “they’re just sleeping” line in Yugioh.)

Dartz telling me he dragged that ass length blue hair across Egypt?

Man.

I would say that it must’ve really thrown people, but then again, their Pharaoh looked like...that.

So Dartz ended up wandering the earth for 5000 years, cursed to live immortally, unable to revive the great Leviathan, wallowing in his failure. Sentenced to suffer the entire existence of humanity that he never wanted to see survive anyway, unable to die himself.

That’s an interesting plotline that I wish I saw more of. I really like the idea of a supervillian who is already past his prime, who’s already burnt out, who’s so far removed from what happened that he’s fully accepted his demise and is just wandering around out of habit. But, most importantly--that changes my math. That’s like...5000 years he wasn’t slurping no souls because he was too damn depressed. So I’ll append the Deathcount. One second.

OK so we can just subtract 7.3 million from what we had, leaving us with: 7,805,844,047. Barely even made a dent but...eh...when you got the current population of the Earth in there it’s really hard to make a dent in that thing.

PS I still have that google doc where I keep track of the deaths, we have 55 lines of entries, haha.

Yugioh is interesting because you do have some racial stuff going on here where Yami is SO OLD that he doesn’t remember not only his own name--he doesn’t remember what he looks like. He’s even seen it a few times in hallucinations but like...Yami legit doesn’t know what it is to be an ancient Egyptian anymore. It’s been a hot minute, and he still sees himself as a pale skinned Yugi clone when he spiritually manifests in the show. Because the modern day, set in Japan, through Yugi’s eyes--that’s all he knows about life.

Dartz was so impressed by Pharaoh’s magic powers that he knew--he just KNEW that this Pharaoh with the worst hair would be the yummy soul for the Leviathan tummy. But unfortunately...

This is a show that has had so MANY overlapping apocalypses that I did have to sit back and kind of count off on my fingers which crazy person this would be about.

Honestly? Either Seto or Bakura...guessing Bakura because we haven’t finished his storyline yet and I know that he’s the big bad of S5. But man...Dartz was just like “oh...no thanks to that guy. I’ll just take a nap for 5000 years, BIG no thanks.” and it does make you wonder...

...oh...so that’s why you didn’t bother Bakura in this timeline.

It also helps make Bakura even more of a threat. Again, Bakura is great because he’s just constantly leaving nuggets of what a threat he is and then just...disappears for seasons on end. The Bakura we’ve made in our head is probably way more awful than what he may end up being.

But for now, it’s fun to just fill in the gaps instead.

anyway that was it for this episode, I’m off to pretend it’s Thanksgiving week and will look forward to drowning my anxiety in a 16 lb turkey shared between four people.

Anyway, I brought up the cat that falls asleep on metal rods so I have to do this:

And for those that are new, this is a link to read these in chrono order: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[acrosstobear]

Sorry I need to rant. This may take a few posts, so plz bear with me. I have mixed feelings that Guanyu is coming to FP1 this weekend. I liked him just fine b/c he was Callum’s teammate. But someone told me a few months back that Guanyu had been throwing shade at Mick for years via Chinese media and weibo (Chinese equivalent of Twitter). I looked up and was pretty shocked that they were right. So Guanyu implied that he was dropped from FDA because he was so talented that he stole Mick’s thunder

(2/4) He started the whole conspiracy theory that Mick won championships during the feeder series only because PREMA had Ferrari built Mick cheating cars and Ferrari purposely sabotaged other cars to make sure no one beat Mick (I mean… the absurdity here fgs). In a 2017 interview Guanyu had in Chinese, he did not call Mick by name, but said something like“I am glad that my talent got recognized by FDA and I’ve been outperforming Schumacher’s son” (can’t find the link rn, so don’t quote me on that)

(3/4) So yeah, I think Guanyu has a huge Chinese fanbase that hates Mick with a passion since they bought the theory that Mick is this monstrous entitled prick who almost ruined Guanyu’s career. After it was announced that Guanyu is driving in FP1 this weekend, the Chinese F1 forum if full of comments, shittalking Mick and saying Guanyu will slaughter Mick because he will rank higher and so on. I mean Guanyu will be in an Alpine, while Mick has a shitbox Haas, so that will happen, no doubt.

(4/4) I guess my point being, I know Guanyu is doing well this year and is likely to win the F2 championship, and I really hope there is more diversity on the grid. But I thought he was a kind and sweet guy before reading his Chinese socials. He certainly holds grudges against Ferrari and Mick, and his bizarre fixation seemed well-hidden from non-Chinese platforms...feel like a redflag to me tbh

ohhhhhhhh my god????? i can’t believe i missed this anon, you must have sent this while I was on vacation but this is incredibly interesting!!!! so i will start off by saying that i know next to nothing about Guanyu, other than what I got from the Prema videos in 2018 and the fact that he likes fashion. 

for anyone interested, it seems that Guanyu’s Weibo profile is here (x), though i can’t get any further back than Feb without making an account (and have to rely on Google translate to read everything). so i can’t confirm myself anything that Anon is saying above, but honestly, none of it would particularly surprise me. We already know that Dan still holds a grudge for similar reasons and with Mick having won F4, F3 and F2, all with the same team, there’s no way there aren’t more drivers who lost in those seasons that feel the same way. 

obviously we can all admit that Mick had very different pressures on him throughout his feeder series than a typical driver would have to face, and in a lot of ways, i’m sure that there are drivers who, from the outside looking in, think Mick’s path (of having a relatively secure seat, of not needing to scrape together funding, of having the luxury to take time to learn and make mistakes) would have been easier than theirs. 

while it sucks that Guanyu would make such public comments and contribute to conspiracy theories (and basically give grounds to his fans to hate on Mick/Ferrari), i also think there are much worse things he could be doing. while its not sportsmanship at its best, it certainly doesn’t make him a bad person at the core, just a bit of a sore loser tbh. and its important to acknowledge that the culture for Chinese athletes is wayyy different than for, say, European athletes. its definitely a red flag that all of this is not something that got picked up by Western media outlets and stayed confined to Chinese platforms, but I can also mostly understand where it comes from when I consider the failure culture in China vs. in Europe. he’s making up stories for one side of the media to make himself look better for the fans, and while i’m not a fan of the Dan Ticktum way of hating, this isn’t any better for me.

all around, this was a trip anon, and i appreciate you sharing!!!! definitely worth taking into account regarding Guanyu, though personally, it won’t stop me from supporting him as much as i do now, which is to say -- Oscar’s gonna win the F2 title AND the seat 😅

[joz-yyh]

Love Host - Ch. 8

SUMMARY: Miles and Waylon meet up for some diagnostic testing that takes a very drastic turn. No beta. Read at your own risk.

RATING: T (for this chapter ONLY!!)

PAIRING: Walmiles (WalriderxMiles)

WORD COUNT: 4,190

READ ON Ao3: -> HERE!!

A/N: Wishing you all a belated Monster May, but also happy first day of Pride~ Excited for next chapter because there will be smut~ Comments and likes are very appreciated.

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Clang, Clang, Clang--!

Waylon looks up from his computer chair at the pedantic knock, knowing who his pertinent guest should be, double checking the security feed just to be sure Murkoff wasn't paying him any surprise visits.

There on the monitor, is a quiff of black hair and ugly olive jacket he'd recognize a mile away. Speaking of Miles –

Waylon opens the bean hole to the main door, the grinning blue eyes of Miles fucking Upshur waiting for him on the other side.

“Hey there, WayWay, I am here for my check up,” he greets with a smile, the wave he offers just out of sight, “Oh yeah, and Wally’s here too.” 

The words barely register before the nanomachine has its whole face pressed against the peephole, staring back at Waylon, completely eyeless.

The techie nearly jumps out of his skin, shutting the slat out of paranoid instinct, body wrecked by a wave of heebeegeebees. 

He can see it. Why can he see it when he couldn’t as much as before?

“Heeeeyy,” Miles whines, voice dampened by the steel barrier between them, ”I am still waiting out here.”

Waylon internally groans, trying to collect himself enough to unlatch the many bars securing the entrance shut.

When the final lock cracks loose, Miles is too busy sympathizing the Walrider to notice, holding its caricature of a face and daresay, petting it.

“Ah, you can c-come in now,” Waylon offers, standing in the doorway, watching on with morbid fixation.

“There, see,” Miles exclaims, a consoling note to his voice, “He wouldn't invite us in if he didn't like us.”

Waylon swears this scene must be slowly melting his brain from the inside out, along with Miles’s seemingly endless list of pet names for him.

“Hey, Way,” the brunette asks, turning his attention to his fellow asylum survivor, “could you tell Wally here that you like him, please? He thinks you're scared of him. Isn't that silly?”

He isn't scared, he's terrified.

“Yeah, s-sure. I like him,” Waylon offers weakly, shoving down his dread.

This was absurd. A machine couldn’t have feelings and even if it did, they were none more important than his own.

“Told you! Everything's fine,” Miles chippers, the Walrider finally appeased by this discovery.

The machine gazes toward Waylon again, breaking it’s body down into smaller pieces, swooping in close to swirl around Waylon knees, then higher, drifting in a cyclone of miniature storm clouds up to his shoulders.

“Uhh, hello again, I guess,” the engineer offers shakily, trying to appear fearless and brave, even lifting a finger to touch the nanite mist surrounding him. It feels like water.

“Thanks Waylon,” Miles says, patting him on the shoulder in good sportsmanship, stepping inside.

“Yeah, sure. No problem.”

And just like that, the nano machine leaves him to follow it’s host, the dazed software engineer reminding himself that he needs to rearm the door. 

Before the reporter can poke his nose in further, Waylon locks the paddock, turning on the electric fence to deter any unwanted trespassers.

“So, this is where you’ve been holding up,” Miles asks, taking in the abandoned barracks, a dimly-lit trailer filled with a junkyard of broken, decommissioned tech.

The Walrider is equally curious, ghosting around the layout, dousing the army green interior in supernatural mist.

“Not quite,” Waylon amends, running a hand down his face, feeling overwhelmed by the quirky demands of his company, “This is where I work. Keeps me a safe distance away from Lisa and the kids in case anything happens.”

“Safety is important. I am sure there are no OSHA recordables in here,” the snarky brunette remarks, dodging under a duct of loose wires.

“Ha ha funny,” the blonde remarks, devoid of amusement, “the device I want to show you is over here.” 

Waylon grabs him by the wrist cuff before Miles can slip away to snoop, escorting him to the testing room.

“Aren’t you going to give me a tour first,” the sleuth whines, taking in as much of the space as he can, “you can’t tell me you have a secret lair and not show me around.”

“There's really not much to see,” Waylon growls, noting his companion’s inquisitive fingers, “Also, please stop touching everything.”

“Awwww,” Miles whines, dragging his feet in disappointment, a frown setting in.

“Fine, maybe later,” the techie relents, his stride persisting, “We're kinda pressed for time.” 

“Oh, somewhere you gotta be,” Miles asks, perking up at that confession, raising a brow at his companion, letting himself be tugged along more easily.

“Yeah, I’d prefer to be home with my wife and kids.”

A long pause, their combined footsteps echoing off the iron grates that line the floor.

“Am I invited,” the reporter asks, smirking at the back of Waylon’s unkempt head of hair.

Another aggravated yank on his sleeve.

“Let’s just get through testing first.”

They arrive at their destination, the very back of the bunker, a T-shaped hub. One of the doors is sealed off, making Miles wonder what could be hiding in there, the rest of the room encased by steel shelves filled with gutted parts, radios, computers, phones and the like. 

In the center is a chair outfitted with restraints, a litany of auxiliary cords hooked up to various loadouts, a desk and computer terminal set up in the corner, no doubt to collect the data of whoever sits in it.

“So … this is it,” Miles says judgmentally, unimpressed, “Looks like an electric chair, but somehow more revenge of the nerds-esque.”   

Waylon smacks his lips and rolls his eyes. He won’t deny it bears a striking resemblance to Mount Massive’s brainwashing devices, ones he had the untimely pleasure of experiencing for himself.

“Yeah, everyone's a critic. Just get in.”

“Is it safe,” Miles asks, skeptical of the bad vibe he was getting just by looking at the creepy thing.

“As safe as any of this experimental tech is gonna be.”

Miles supposes he can’t complain, given the circumstances. He doesn’t get any of these gadgets, but there was no one else he could turn to (aside from maybe Wernickle) who could give him the answers he seeks. Still, the reporter can’t help feeling a bit uneasy about entrusting himself to any diagnostic tool created on a non-existent scrap heap budget.

The Walrider manifests itself as a disembodied head, whistling through it’s cheeks, seeking to reassure it’s host with a trill of sound. Miles smiles, close-lipped, stroking the odd contours of its face with a gentle hand.   “Alright. I mean we’ve come this far. What other choice do we have?”

With that, the anxious human hybrid takes a seat, the next test subject for this experimental apparatus going on torture device. Waylon straps him in, tying the buckles too tight to be comfortable, but Miles suspects it's punishment for trying to pry into the engineer's private life. His head too is bridled in place, another belt across the forehead to keep him securely in an upright position.

“This will monitor your heart rate,” Waylon says, electrode pads stuck to Miles’ temple, and then after a moment, adds a disclaimer, “I am not a doctor, though.”

“You’ll be able to tell me more about the Walrider, right,” the brunette asks, nervously clenching his hands on the arm rest.

Waylon hesitates, less than confidently offering a, “Yeah,” in response.

The programmer returns to his computer chair, swishing around his mouse, loading up a program with a few swift clicks. 

A gray and white window pops up, waves on a grid, a number of statistics waiting for action.

“OK, I am going to turn it on now,” Waylon warns, looking over at the subdued reporter, about to flick the switch, "you might feel some … discomfort.”

“I am ready,” Miles braces himself, waiting for his electrotherapy to begin, the stiff shock he expects not so much more than a mild tingle. A part of him relaxes at this, the vibrations reminiscent of a massager, one of those fancy La-Z-boy recliners. Nothing he can’t handle.

Miles can’t turn his head to see the screen, can only speculate what his friend is doing over there, but the rapid clicking and typing does make him feel a little less relaxed.

“So, how you're feeling now, this will be our constant, what your readings look like normally. Which we’ll then compare to your reactions when introduced to stimuli.”

Waylon sounds like an exemplary salesman, confident, in the zone. Miles supposes all he needed was to have a computer in front of him to accomplish the feat.

“Sounds harmless enough,” Miles laughs raggedly, trying to calm his breathing.

“I am turning up the gain,” Waylon says, dialing up the voltage, the green-yellow-red LED indicator flashing, whining with excess energy.

The Walrider whimpers, a swell of crackling electricity causing the prescribed discomfort. It hurts Miles to see the creature suffering, tries to calm his symbiotic partner through their subconscious, saying it'll be over soon, but he can’t shake the nagging feeling that something is wrong.

“More,” Waylon advises, cranking the voltage up to maximum.

With this, the Walrider blips and flashes in and out of its corporeal form, unable to maintain it’s physical body. The nanites are raging like storm clouds, booming like thunder as it roars in pain, but this was Miles' idea -- he brought it here, subjected it to this. How could he call it off? 

Perhaps the Walrider had acted as a shield, protecting him from the worst of it, but now Miles can feel it too, an electric surge consuming him, making him wrestle against his restraints, so wired every vein in his body is popping. 

Then, it finally clicks in the struggling journalist's head.  This was bordering on lethal. 

"You're trying to kill us," the reporter barks in realization, and he doesn't want to admit that there's tears of betrayal gathering in his eyes, “What is it? Some kind of virus?!”

"I am trying to disable it,” the blonde corrects, his shout cutting through the charged shocks in the air, over Miles screaming, “Put yourself in my shoes. Murkoff is going to come at us with much more than this. I had to test it’s limits." 

"This isn't what we agreed," the reporter bellows, grasping onto consciousness.

"If I had told you, you wouldn't have agreed,” Waylon grimaces, trying to get the reporter to look past his personal bias and understand common sense, “For godssake it's a machine Miles. It's not human. It's killed people. Use your head!" 

"The same machine that saved your ass from getting sliced up," the reporter grits out, trying to reroute the pain, blocking his mind of it.

That makes Waylon falter, rethink his ethics, but he finds his courage again.   "I am trying to fix this, fix you. After Murkoff, what then, huh? You think society is just going to let you go running around loose, a living bioweapon? They’ll call you a terrorist! A threat to national security." 

"You don't know that!" 

“Do you hear yourself?! Just listen to me –" 

"–Turn it off!" 

"Miles–" 

"– No! If he dies, I die!”

Waylon stares at him numbly, shaken to his core, never considering that possibility.

“Turn it the fuck off, Waylon,” Miles reminds him, swiftly approaching his breaking point, “How will your kids feel, knowing that their father is a murderer?!”

That line ultimately causes the engineer to relent, doing as he's told. The chair powers down, the Walrider dissipating along with it, fading into thin air, too weak to exist.

The heat generated by such a powerful current leaves behind a steam, a faint smoke wafting up from around Miles’ person.

Waylon stands, intent on helping him out of the restraints, getting shocked in the process when he strays too close to the magnetic field. 

How could he forget? Miles was a living powerhouse now, polarizing everything around him.

He grabs a pair of heavy duty rubber gloves from off the shelf, better equipped to thwart any more incoming sparks, starting from bottom, unbinding the reporter’s feet first, then the buckle on his waist, his wrists, and then finally the band around his head. 

The electrical hazard of a man collapses by the time he’s done, a harsh rattle echoing throughout the space as his knees hit the mental grate under him, causing another shock to rumble across the bunker, the lights flickering. Good thing Waylon is wearing insulated shoes.

Miles is shaking, eyes blank and crazed, gaping in silent horror. He can feel the faint presence of the Walrider still inside him, barely a wrinkle, a wisp of life, his relief drowned by sinking fear.

"I am sorry," Miles mumbles through ragged panting, hugging himself, hoping the nanomachine can hear him, though he doesn’t know how much merit his words will hold after this, “Just wait. Everything's going to be OK now.”

Waylon is aghast. He's never seen Miles break before, that snarky exterior he donned like a suit of armor brought low, stripped to such a sad and sorry state of despair.

The whistleblower bites his lip, clenching his fists. He reminds himself that what he did was a necessary evil, to not regret his decision. 

His stomach is in knots, kneeling down to comfort Miles, a hand resting upon his pious back in a gesture of peace.

"H-hey, are you … OK?"

In a fit of anger, Miles pushes the blonde away, knocking Waylon into the nearby wall, shocking him with some of his excess energy. Miles only regrets not being at full strength, because, if he was, he would have hurt the backstabbing liar much more. 

"Drop the good boy act,” Miles growls, ruthless, seething hate in his eyes, “We both know it's a crock of shit. And fuck you!” 

Waylon admits he probably deserved the insult, his mind still reeling, his chest tight, electrocuted.

“When are you going to get it,” Miles shouts, stumbling to his feet, reaching for a nearby shelf to compensate for his weak knees, knocking over some of the equipment in the process, “I am not the same man anymore and neither are you, no matter how hard you try to deny it. What happened to me in Mount Massive … it happened to you too, Waylon."

Minutes ago, when his head was still getting fried inside a microwave, when he and the Walrider were both on the brink, he'd seen memories, not his, but the machines. It showed him Waylon dressed in a patient’s uniform, hiding from a cannibal with a circular saw, falling down an elevator shaft as a runaway bride, a piece of lumber stabbed through his ankle.

Waylon stares at him, speechless, still in a discombobulated heap on the floor, where the product of Miles’ attack had landed him, held up by the weak limbs of his forearms.

"Unlock the fucking door," Miles spits, shuffling along in disgust, clinging to anything substantial that will crutch his weight, “I need a smoke."

More parts crash onto the floor, thunder shocks raining over everything Miles touches, the emotionally charged brunette punching the wall, a spark igniting into a starburst of charred black, the power shock rippling through the bunker.

“The door, Waylon,” orders a very pissed off reporter.

The man in question scrambles to his feet, pushing past his living battery of a companion to input the deactivation code for the fence, unlocking the door for him as well. 

—--

It feels good to be outside, feet planted on solid ground, Miles finding the nearest thing that he can use as a seat (which just so happens to be a concrete jersey barrier) and flops his blue jeans onto it, fumbling with his lighter. 

"C'mon, light goddamn you," he curses, trying to ignite the end of his cigarette, but his fingers are shaking far too much, the flame stalling every time he flicks his thumb over the wheel.

The fits are getting worse, even his lips are too damn chaotic, Miles abandoning his task in favor of clutching at his head, elbows on his knees, sobbing. 

As much as it's killing him not to feel the Walrider’s touch right now, he's trying to find some way to fill the hole, but if this is what life felt like without it, he’a pretty sure he'd rather die.

What would it take to bring it back? A few more fingers? An eye? An arm? His legs? How many parts was he willing to give up?

“What the hell am I supposed to do!? You can't leave me here!”

He's shouting, his voice a booming threat, as if his fury alone could convince the universe to give him what he wants.

God, when did he start depending on his triquetra boyfriend so much? 

Something faint whispers in the back of his mind, but it's too distant, a ghost ship sunk to the bottom of the ocean, too deep for him to make sense of what it is. 

Next comes a prickle at his skin, like an itch, persuading Miles’ to blink, eyes still puffy with the salt burn of his tears.

The setting sun is almost too bright, but a veil surrounds it, an umbra of miasma so glaring it feels like a rippling mirage on the horizon.

"Tell me, I am not hallucinating right now."

The cigarette falls from Miles' mouth as he leaps towards it, grasping at what looks like the ulna and radius of a forearm, metacarpals made not of bone, but of glass.

The creature grunts painfully, as if Miles opened up a barely staunched wound, the crudely disassembled parts catching him, fragile pieces splintering, but not letting go.

"Don't ever do that to me again." 

It's spoken like an order, the beginnings of a spine taking shape under his touch, connecting vertebrae to skull and Miles sobs, squeezing the fragmented skeleton of his beloved monster even tighter.

 "I thought I lost you."

There's a whirring almost like a hiss that's permeating the air, comforting, acknowledging.

They stay locked together like that for a while, until the Walrider is a full body once more, Miles finally calmed down enough to think rationally.

"So, what now," Miles asks, gazing upon its beautifully disfigured face, twilight burning all around them.

The Walrider adverts it's mangled gaze, knowing Miles isn't going to like it, making a gesture towards the bunker.

"Oh, no! No, no, no, nooo! You're not telling me you want to go back in there," the man shouts, staring at his partner with a new wave of vehement, tear-streaked baby blue eyes.

He pulls away from the mechanized menace to stomp his Timberland boots around in the dirt, arguing with himself why it was a bad idea.

The Walrider allows its host this moment to cool off, expel his frustrations before it goes to the human's side, steering Miles away from his thoughts and back into its arms.

Miles is having none of it, holding the nanobot off, trying to resist its pull, but the machine squeezes him into a suffocating embrace anyway.

"No, don't try to–" 

‘– sweet talk me,’ he finishes the thought inside his head, but he's not sure his thoughts are all that private anymore. 

He sighs, playing captive for a few precious seconds before he wriggles out of the hug, pushing the other away, pinching his sinuses, aggravation plain on his face.

"Let's just think about this for a second," the sleuth tries to reason, his other hand on the entity’s chest to keep a healthy distance, "What am I supposed to do if something goes wrong?” 

(As if things haven’t gone horribly wrong already.)

“How can we trust Waylon after this?"

The Walrider hovers there, compiling a solution. Bony phalanges take hold of Miles' hand, upturning it. 

An onyx box is placed inside its host's bandaged palm, circuits spreading all throughout each corner, making it shimmer and glow.

“It's pretty,” Miles says, watching the ebb and flow of energy, “but what am I supposed to do with this?"

The Walrider taps it's claw on one of those art-deco type microprocessors that adorns each side, the compartment opening to reveal a strand of DNA, the miniature double helix spinning inside like a gothic ballerina.

"Yeah, alright," Miles says, recalling his high school genetics classes, "I think I get it. It's a spare copy of you, right?"

The synthetic skeleton's eyes are black voids, a flash of pupils pulsing with energy, but Miles knows what it means.

With a delicate touch, the reporter stores the replica of DNA back inside it's jewelry box, depositing it into his jacket pocket for safe keeping.

"Going to finish my cigarette before we go in," Miles scoffs, retracing his steps, looking around for the tube he haplessly discarded. 

He's tempted to take a fresh one from the pack (cigarettes being one of few luxuries he bought alongside the road map at the gas station), but he’s not exactly in a position to waste perfectly good tobacco and these things were expensive as hell.

He spots the white cylinder amidst the dirt patches in the grass, plucks the filter off the ground (not too dirty) and sticks it between his lips.   It lights on the first try, that sweet inhale of nicotine (and god knows what else) feels like a hit of ecstasy. He's the epitome of James Dean in that moment, slick, cool, and aloof.

The Walrider floats over, snuggling it's jaw against it's host's ear, a clack of teeth in its best impression of a laugh.

"Yeah, Yeah," Miles dismisses, a stubborn pout clinging to his lips as he jerks away, annoyed by the fact that he gave in too easily.

The entity dissolves, bio smoke curling around its host, patiently waiting. Halfway through his second cigarette, Miles speaks again.

"If we’re doing this, then, I want you to possess me, like you did before.”

Now it's the Walrider's turn to act surprised, manifesting its jaws to growl an objection.

“If we're going back in there, we go together or not at all," the brunette declares, forthright with resolution, pointing accusingly with his cigarette.

Miles would rather die on this hill, then budge from it, but the Walrider has its own methods of persuasion.

Obsidian claws drag him up by his weather-beaten jacket, all 6’1” of him teetering on tip-toes, the half-spent drug falling to the ground, still burning away.

“Hey, not again,” the human whines, but there's no real anger behind it, no matter how hard Miles tries, “That's a forest fire waiting to happen, you know. Haven't you heard of Smokey the bear?” 

As the man twists to retrieve his lost cigarette, the Walrider distracts him with a kiss, one Miles resists just briefly before surrendering to it.

"Hnnn… Mmm…" 

A billow of smoke writhes between them, ebony and ivory, Miles opening his mouth to the Walrider’s wandering cable of a tongue, and OK, fuck it, time to make out.

—--- 

Miles struts back into the bunker, slamming the door shut behind him with a flick of the wrist, the nanites taking care of the rest, latching all the barrel bolts tight.

Waylon jumps from his desk, anxiously awaiting the outcome of Miles' smoke break, standing up to meet him halfway.

Judging by the cacophony that marked his return, Waylon assumes Miles must still be a prickly flume of outrage.

Not that appearances matter, but Waylon folds his hands over his hair, still inflated from the static, patting it down, reluctantly approaching the other male, trying to do the right thing by apologizing first, "Miles I thought about what you said and I am sorry–"

Waylon chokes on his own fear, recalling the same palpating collision of dark energy when he escaped Mount Massive, the same shape that faces him now, a man-made demon that watched him burn out in a stolen jeep.

"Miles … is that … you," he asks quietly, backing up, hands reaching for something solid to steady his nerves.

"Chill out, Waybaby, I ain't gunna hurt you.”

His brain can't seem to connect the vaporware voice to the bastardization of the man that's saying them, almost wants to laugh, having no other logical response.

“Just thought you needed a visual demonstration of the point I made earlier so, here we are," he ends his intro by holding his hands out like a showman, a little pièce de résistance.

For as smart as Waylon is, the words just don't come. He swallows, nods even if he doesn't comprehend what's happening.

"Anyway, Wally's convinced me,” the man turned machine explains, looking sheepishly smug, “We're following through with your plan so hook us up, operator, we're going back in."

"What?"

Just what kind of masochistic freak has Waylon gotten himself mixed up with if Miles wanted to be zapped to high heaven willingly?

"You said you wanted to test our limits. So, I say: Let's. Get. Dangerous."

Waylon remembers those ridiculous work related survival videos he had to watch as part of his onboard training. Suddenly, those scenarios don’t seem so far-fetched anymore, playing hostage to Miles’ special brand of crazy

[erazonpo3]

Intro to my infodump on Alphecca but also I’m getting more and more shameless about it so I’ll probably dump a lot of other shit too later but back to the point: I never tend to stop mutating characters in my head but for all intents and purposes Alphecca is at a point where I’m satisfied with how fleshed out she is in my mind, so I figured I’d write it down. 

SO basically a rundown:

Alphecca’s main purpose is to be the “Season 1” villain, in which her part in the story can be expanded but mostly wraps up in a self-contained plotline, and has relatively low stakes so that there’s room for the narrative to escalate. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t pose a threat as an antagonist- because she absolutely does- but simply that her behaviour of terrorising people and raising bodies is already the status quo, and she has no grand design or plan of action. Cassandra steps in to change that status quo for the better, but her failing to do so won’t leave anyone any worse off than they already are. Yet with that being said, Alphecca is also built to be Cassandra’s antagonist specifically, so of course there has to be a resolution there.

Alphecca as Cassandra’s antagonist

Alphecca exists to be a foil to Cassandra, so that when you put them together their differences shine brighter. Where Ilione is a foil to Cass in that she’s largely her polar opposite: extraverted, very emotionally sensitive, inexperienced etc, Alphecca is a foil to Cass by being very similar to her but for a few glaring differences. It’s worth noting that while their personalities are pretty different, they share a same jaded perspective on life and struggles with mental health that stem from an ugly ZT origin story. 

Both women were approached by Zhan Tiri during a time they felt powerless, and sided with her over loved ones in an attempt to regain control over their life. They were encouraged to embrace malice and sadism, had their faith in their loved ones undermined and had those insecurities stoked, and all this instability created the perfect storm for them to be easily manipulated and betrayed. Zhan Tiri operates as a cult leader does, seeking out vulnerable people and cutting them off from their remaining support networks until they have nowhere left to run, even if they want to. 

It’s not to say Cassandra wasn’t making her own choices, but this kind of gaslighting shouldn’t be dismissed either. Some people will forever lack sympathy for her, but that’s exactly the point of Zhan Tiri’s manipulation- if nobody’s willing to help you out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself you’re going to be stuck there to rot, so you may as well keep digging in the hope that you might hit gold eventually. 

Alphecca and Cassandra are both victims to Zhan Tiri’s super fun form of control, but the major difference between them was that Rapunzel remained willing to help Cassandra out of that hole. Alphecca didn’t have a Rapunzel, or a Varian, or a Eugene, and instead over time she became twisted and warped into a menace who doesn’t need Zhan Tiri’s encouragement to do terrible things anymore. And that’s what makes these two foils to each other; Alphecca is the monster Cassandra never was but could have easily become if she was never shown compassion. 

Thus the only person who can stop Alphecca is someone who can empathise with her, at least to some degree. In fighting terms, Alphecca has a bottomless bag of tricks up her sleeve and the nature of her undeath makes her essentially immortal. She cannot be conquered, only slowed down, and the more pissed off she gets with you the more volatile and dangerous she becomes. 

Cassandra initially sees Alphecca as a chance to prove herself, both as a force for good and as someone who can rid the world of Zhan Tiri’s legacy. However,  it quickly becomes apparent that Alphecca cannot be defeated through conventional means, because otherwise warriors like Adira (who has encountered Alphecca before) would have been able to deal with the problem. Considering that Alphecca herself has sought out her phylactery to destroy it- with an extra thousand years of hunting up her sleeve- but failed to do so, makes it apparent that she can only be stopped by being reasoned with. But for a lich who hardly remembers the human experience, that’s pretty difficult. 

It ultimately means the only person who can stop her is Cassandra, because the only person who can reason with her is someone who can empathise with her from a place of camaraderie rather than condescension, and recognises that the cycle of violence needs to be broken by compassion and not just violence but harder.  

The Storyline

Basic plotline goes like this:

Early on into her journey Cassandra learns about the bone witch that roams the wilderness and terrorises innocent villagers, desecrates the dead, is probably a cryptid because legends have existed about her for generations, et cetera and so on. When evidence appears that this witch is real Cassandra and decides to investigate, because this is a pretty straightforward “good guy stops the bad guy” situation for her to jump into. (By this point Ilione is also tagging along). 

Their first encounter with Alphecca is pretty tame. They intercept her at a mausoleum, she does a fancy music number/generally has a good time fucking around with them, but ultimately skulks back into the shadows at the end. It’s sort of all in good spirits and Alphecca isn’t ‘defeated’ by any means but still bows out as a show of good sportsmanship. 

Their future encounters are a lot less nice. 

The more Cassandra continues to pursue her, the more pissed off Alphecca gets, and when Alphecca gets pissed off she begins to embrace her sadism and her outbursts become more violent and cause more collateral damage. She lowers herself to underhanded tactics like throwing Cass into a nightmare reality a la Tromus and becomes increasingly sinister. The ‘tentpole’ of this plotline probably marks the shift from Alphecca as a trickster figure into a more dangerous one as Cass and Lio learn that she was also a disciple of Zhan Tiri. 

The situation ultimately comes to a head by the finale, by which point Alphecca is very much unhinged and out for blood. She becomes fixated on Cassandra and does her best to hit below the belt, sniffing out her insecurities about her past with the moonstone and bludgeoning them with a metaphorical sledgehammer, and basically tries to goad her into a complete spiral. 

This is the emotional climax, and the underpinning of Cassandra’s character development in becoming emotionally sound enough to shake it off. It’s at this point she understands what Alphecca is doing; Alphecca is caught in her own eternal maelstrom of emotional torture and latches onto anyone she can drag down with her for the small amount of pleasure it brings. She’s able to recognise those feelings because she can empathise with them and knows exactly what she needs to hear in that moment. 

There’s probably some extended backstory revealed by this point too, going into a little more detail about the way in which Alphecca was caught in Zhan Tiri’s web down to becoming a lich, but of course what’s more important is the resolution. 

With Cassandra getting through to her, Alphecca is able to pull herself together long enough to ease the situation back down again and have a more honest conversation about hope and humanity and compassion and all those good things. Cassandra admits that she can’t do much to ‘fix’ her, but starts by continuing Rapunzel’s legacy and showing forgiveness and compassion to someone who doesn’t think they deserve it. (Alphecca isn’t entirely regretful of all her actions, but does acknowledge that she ought not project her pain onto others anymore.) 

Alphecca Post-S1

Alphecca doesn’t really get a ‘redemption arc’ because honestly I don’t want her to be redeemed. It’s not really a moral stance so much as I believe she’s genuinely disinterested in being a better person, she just has the selfish desire to be able to live happily again. And that’s kind of all she needs. She doesn’t care much about other people, but she’s working on herself and that means squashing the sadism. 

I think it also continues to make a good parallel to Cass: Cassandra is trying to do better not only for herself but by others because she sees it as her own social responsibility, whereas Alphecca just wants to do better for herself and if other people benefit from that, that’s just a bonus. 

Alphecca doesn’t join Cassandra on her travels either, although she does make appearances as a reoccurring character. Cassandra is upfront about the fact that while she wants to help Alphecca, she needs to help herself first, and the damage Al inflicted on her is slow to heal. They’re both in danger of dragging each other down in their own spirals so it’s best that they give each other space, but it’s also very important that they’re able to share their experiences.  It’s a minor struggle between Cassandra and Ilione that Lio doesn’t really understand a lot of Cass’ struggles, although she does try to be sensitive about it. Alphecca provides that alternate perspective: Lio can provide support but little empathy, while Alphecca can provide empathy but little support. 

I’ve also got more Alphecca stuff living in my brain regarding her origins, her own foray with Death and her association with lesser and greater deities, her relationships to other ZT cultists, et cetera et cetera but I’ll probably stop here to keep it succinct. 

But basically over the course of this plotline Alphecca goes from wacky evil villain to really tragic but still evil villain to not really evil villain but still kind of a jerk neighbour that shows up at your house asking for your wifi password acquaintance. 

[ushioi-omegaverse]

Blackmailed Secrets

Genre: Omegaverse Viewer Rating: 18+ SPG Pairing: Wakatoshi Ushijima x Tohru Oikawa Anime/Manga: Haikyuu!!

[Side Note] α (Alpha):  They are the larger and stronger ones, the dominate ones in bed. β (Beta):  They are the normal, everyday guy. They can still breed with other Betas, but they cannot breed with Omegas. Ω (Omega):  Omegas go through heats. During these heats, the hormones in an Omega go all crazy. A strong scent is released during the heats, causing the Alphas to smell it and chase after the Omega.

(Photos are not mine, credits to Hoshikuzuu scans)

Chapter 1:

Since young I was given credit to my superiority to other kids, other than my family’s economical position in the community. Compared to other kids, my physical and mental capabilities are far ahead than other factions. Since I am born an Alpha.

We are the highest among the three factions, we are far more superior and skilled compared to any. I knew that since the moment I was born.

“Master Ushijima” I heard a familiar voice calling my name from the outside of my room.

Shortly disturbed from reading, I heaved out a quiet sigh as I head out to my room.

“Yes.” One of our family servant was standing outside my door, on his hand was a letter creatively wrapped with maroon colored lace, same as our Academy’s motif.

“Master, a formal letter was sent from Shiratorizawa to invite you in a formal gathering 3 days from now. The contents are written inside which was disclosed to for your viewing.” He handed me the letter before taking a quick bow and leaving the site.

It’s rare for our Academy to send out formal letters, they usually send notices via emails.

Captain, Being a Team Captain does not only mean being able to control and lead your team members, hence he/she should be able to establish a friendly-rival relationship towards other team captains developing sportsmanship which is a high title given to players.

We, the comity of Japan Regional Volleyball Association, would like to invite you in a gathering involving the Captains of each teams in the regional section this upcoming Friday, February 21, 19:00 in the evening at xxxx-XXXX.

Your attendance will be much appreciated and will surely be acknowledged by the Association itself.

Sincerely, Japan Regional Volleyball Association

A deep sigh escaped my lips as I finish reading its content, a party sounds troublesome and in advance, I won’t gain anything in such thing.

Dodging the gathering would be easy for me. Since Junior high, I’ve been well-known of my Volleyball playing skills, especially my spikes which others considered impossible to block. At a young age I was already a part of the Japan’s top 3 best spikers, attending gatherings would only put me into the spotlight. Attention will be placed on me, irritating attention which I do not wish to gain outside of the court.

Settling with my own decision, I placed the letter on top of my desk and continued reading when suddenly, my phone rang, once again disturbing me.

“Wakatoshi Ushijima speaking”

“Ushijima, it’s me. Coach Washijo .”

“Yes Coach, you called?”

“The letter must have already reached you.”

“You mean the one about a gathering?” I took a quick glance at the open letter lying on top of my desk, a bad feeling welling up from within me as Coach continued to speak on the other line.

“Yes, that. I would like you to attend for Shiratorizawa.”

“…”

“You may think that you may not be able to gain anything from attending such thing, but now that you’re in your second year in High School and is a fresh Captain of Shiratorizawa, I believe it’s better to show intimidation and for non-qualified teams to not belittle you as a fresh out of the oven Captain especially those not worthy of winning this competition.”

I do not wish to attend such thing, but if Coach would want me to go, then I shall. His intentions are not far from mine, but being in a faction as I have, no one is worthy of being a Captain other than an Alpha.

“…Yes.” I answered Coach Washijo with a bit of hesitation and somehow he waved this off before hanging up.

Three days have passed and everything’s settled. Wearing my suit, and tie matching our Academy’s color. My family car dropped me off the event venue. The facade of the Hotel was, how do we describe it ㅡ simple.

I’ve been to a lot of parties before and this type of set-up doesn’t even match those. Well, for others maybe, they’ll find this extravagant.

Fixing my tie, I head out towards the hall. Males wearing the same colored suit as I am, and different colored ties gathered around. The room became silent, and glaring eyes suddenly fixated on me. Then later on, murmurs could be heard as I walk pass by the crowd.

“What a pain.” I grumbled underneath my breath.

Taking a glass of champagne on my hand, I went to stay at the further corner of the place. Just beside the window, I stared at the outside where the garden resides.

As I took small sips from my glass, I noticed a commotion just at the corner of my eyes. Two individuals just in close distance to my direction. I could hear their footsteps against the carpet.

Now what?

This is uncomfortable.

Their commotion only grew louder by the second and it was rather irritating, so I turned my gaze towards them and a familiar face caught my attention, wearing a torquise colored tie was Tohru Oikawa. We’ve clashed neck on neck in lots of matches and I acknowledge his talent as a setter ever since in Junior High. His repulsive and ego is what made him lose, choosing to distance himself from teams which will harbor his skills more, schools like Shiratorizawa.

Our eyes met for a second, and for a minute I saw him tense up. His face shows everything, his facial expressions betray him strongly.

Quickly, he averted his eyes from me and with a cocky tone could be heard from him, obviously hiding his tension.

“Well, it isn’t Ushiwaka.” He said teasingly.

He always calls me with that unpleasant name, I don’t like it even one bit.

“A party huh?” A grin immediately plastered on my face as I read the letter handed to me by Coach Irihata a few days ago.

It was wrapped in a turquoise colored lace, matching our volleyball jersey’s accent. It wouldn’t hurt to attend such gathering and it’ll be a good chance to mingle new Captains like I am.

I’ve been a newly appointed Captain for Abao Johsai and for my current standing, I only know a few opposing team captains.

“Expand our connections to other teams, we will be able to use this as an advantage for future practices.” Those were the words Coach Irihata uttered after handing me the letter.

“I think this’ll be easy. Finding connections and training grounds would be very advantageous for the team.” I prep-talked my self before tucking the letter inside my suit’s side pocket.

Before heading out, I made sure that inside my pants’ pocket was my medication, today is still dangerous, especially for an Omega like me.

As an Omega, we encounter heat once every 3 months, and once it strikes its side effect is unbearable. We seek intense sexual pleasure, even as a male, we couldn’t help but find someone to ease this pain within us. To suppress such feeling and prevent such unsightly thing to happen, we were given medications that we need to take when the heat strikes.

Being a part of this faction literally sucks. We are often considered as a cum dump by other factions. Weaklings and Inferior, we are believed that we don’t deserve to hold high positions within the Society nor even the lower economic statuses. We are worthless.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been a part of those cum dump Omegas. I made sure to take my medications, whenever the heat strikes and thus up until now. I still haven’t encountered such unsightly things with the help of medications, and this also because I was able to hide the symptoms, I was also able to hide the fact that I’m an Omega and made people around me that I’m an Alpha. Only my Family, Relatives, Coach Irihata, and my childhood friend Iwa-chan.

Making sure everything I need is in check, I head out to my car and drove to the venue.

After arriving, the scent of Alpha’s lingered through the room, tickling my nose. I hate it. Alpha’s, they always made sure that they are far superior and dominant towards other factions, especially us. There’s this hatred inside me that always well-up whenever I see an Alpha lavished with power and love. If only I was born an Alpha, then I’ll be far better than what I am now, more talented than my Kohai Tobio-chan.

They don’t know I’m an Omega so all I need to do is smile and mingle like I used to, nothing new, just another facade I need to show.

“Wait, I know you!” A surprised loud voice caught my attention as it was directed towards my direction.

I paused just as I was about to grab an empty plate at the table and turned towards where the voice was coming from.

“You’re Tohru Oikawa from Kitagawa Daiichi Junior High right?” A weirdly looking guy with piercings on both his ears and tongue.

“Yes, 2 years ago. I’m now from Abao Johsai and you are?” I tried replying him in a formal way as he walked closing our distance for better conversation.

He doesn’t emit such strong presence and the scent of a superior Alpha isn’t lingering around him, a Beta.

“I knew it! I’m Yuuji Terushima from Johzenji High.” He extended an arm and which I gladly obliged.

Johzenji? Oh, the school which was known for their simplicity and tenacity, but how come this person does not resemble any of their values?

“It’s a pleasure meeting you Terushima.”

“I knew that you’d be a captain someday, Oikawa-san!” He laughed brightly which I answered with a questioning look.

“I once watched your match when I was in Junior High, we lost at that time so we were watching on-going matches. Cut the story short, your tosses are amazing! You won the Best Setter award during Junior Year right? Man! That’s cool!”

Ah, now that explains everything. I sense of pride overwhelmed me, giving me more confidence than I had before. Well of course who wouldn’t? I am an Omega but I was awarded, given title, I was at the moment better than others, better than those filthy Alphas. I was the best.

Before I get a full of myself, the chattering around us silenced. The room was filled with such presence, too strong that I could feel my stomach churning from such feeling. Everyone’s attention were shifted towards the door, even Terushima whom was bugging me a while ago got his eyes fixated at the direction as well.

“Isn’t that Wakatoshi Ushijima?” I heard a whisper just a few feet away from us.

Ushijima? He’s here?

Now I know the reason why I was feeling restless for an abrupt moment, he’s here. The churning from my stomach isn’t a sense of fear, but rather, my body knows the excitement of the presence of my rival. Wakatoshi Ushijima, my rival.

“Wow! Ushijima-san is really something, even I could feel the tension surrounding him...” Terushija said with a bright smile but later on was masked with a smirk as he continued. “I can’t wait to take him down.”

Take him down?

A surge of annoyance suddenly went through me as I kept my composure in tact. Shiratorizawa is a strong school, it’s never a doubt that anyone would find them as a rival. But knowing with the experience that I had, we’ve been rivals since Junior High. Never have I won a single match with them. If someone’s going to take them down, then that someone is us.

“Such big words coming from a Beta Captain.” Keeping it familiar and hiding the fact that I tried playing the sugar-coating king.

“Captain?” His attention shifted back to me and a couple of seconds of staring on to me that he started bursting out laughing.

“Huh?” I look at him dumbfounded.

“Sorry, sorry. I haven’t introduced myself properly.” He wiped a tear from his eyes as he straightened his back. “Johzenji’s Captain is Seiji Okudake senpai, I’m only a representative for the party since our captain isn’t feeling well. I’m only a first year high school student, please do take care of me Oikawa-san.”

“Huh?!” My jaw dropped upon hearing his words.

That was seriously embarrassing! Just when I was trying to get all cocky and stuff! What I said was also cool! Damn it!

I felt my face heating up with embarrassment when Ushijima walked pass us. Without even batting an eye, he heads straight towards the window at the corner room with a glass of champagne on his hand.

“Oikawa-san! Should we go and greet Ushijima-san!”

Before I could even speak, Terushima quickly grabbed my arm and started pulling me in the direction of Ushijima.

“N-no.” I protested while he dragged me and unknowingly, we were already in close distance with him.

It’s impossible to ignore him now, I would rather eat pins than talk to this overconfident Alpha.

Struggling my arms free, my eyes accidentally laid on Ushijima, where our eyes met. I felt my stomach churn again as his short timed gaze buried within my mind causing me to stiffen and avert my eyes away from him.

What the hell?!

There’s no more turning back.

I quietly cleared my drying throat, straightened my back and regained my usual self.

“Well, it isn’t Ushiwaka.” Not breaking my now returned gaze at him.

[Side Note] *CHAPTER 2 is currently in progress, click Follow to be updated for the next Chapter. Comments and Suggestions are very much appreciated. Thank you for reading Chapter 1 of “Blackmailed Secrets”.

[rainbowravioli]

"I don’t understand Yurio fans justifying and excusing this." That's because there is nothing to justify. He doesn't do any harm to Yuuri or Victor by being upset about "losing" FS or being upset at stammi vicino. It's all internal. Vict//uuri don't even notice him, honstly. I mean, I agree that he should mature but he's not bad and doesn't do harm to anybody (not anymore). He wants to be better than Yuuri not to destroy him and that's a big difference.

He’s just a teenager. He’s lonely. He’s insecure. He just wants to better himself. 

All things that have been said to justify his behaviour in the bonus manga. And not even just the “How dare they upstage me! Otabek, bite my glove off!” part, but the entirety of it. 

There’s two conversations going on about the factor of “Yurio upstaging Yuuri”. There is the meta one, about how he’s increasingly getting more focus over Yuuri, to the point that the emotional climax of the series’ finale was his FS, not Yuuri’s, and with how Kubo in particular seems to be pushing for more content dedicated to him and downright ignoring Yuuri and Victor. Then there’s the matter of canon, where Yurio’s desire to win over Yuuri specifically is established in episode 1 and is something that consistently grows, leading him to even put his health at risk for the sake of this objective, which he ends up achieving. Except it wasn’t a clean victory because FS score, so we continue this fixation on Yuuri post-series and him seeing everything Yuuri does as some kind of personal attack. 

I know Yurio is not directly affecting Yuuri and Victor with his actions in the bonus manga. But he wants to. He specifically wants to upstage them, he specifically wants to prove himself superior. He wants to win at the exhibition skate, that’s downright concerning! 

I don’t want him to feel this way. I want Yurio to understand that he doesn’t have to be Victor 2.0. I want him to learn sportsmanship and respect for his fellow competitors, not to see them as obstacles to overcome. I want him to grow out of his inferiority complex. I want him to actually enjoy figure skating, not just enjoy winning at figure skating. I want agape to actually mean something for his arc. I want him to get some character development. 

If all we got in the development department in how he relates to other people after an entire season was that he goes from insulting them to their faces when he feels threatened to just venting at Otabek, we’re not doing so well. I’m disappointed because I expected better.