#but it also means that nowadays your hands are kind of tied with how evil you make them

[quibbs126]

I wonder how much the storytelling in Transformers is limited by the fact that one of the two main factions is called the Decepticons, and due to iconography and probably mandates, they can never change that name

[warcraft-lore-archives]

The Folk & Fairy Tales of Azeroth Lore Facts

Editor’s Note: “Some of the tales you’ll encounter here may be rooted in canon, or they may be another traveler just telling a tall tale.” 

Eyes of the Earth Mother

Though the Earth Mother heard the whispers of the Old Gods, she could not be swayed by them (13).

Pregnant, the Earth Mother sought a place away from the Old Gods’ corruptive influence to give birth to her children. Unable to find such a place, however, she decided to shape the world and, in doing so, create her own safe haven (14). 

All of Azeroth’s lands, waters, and even the elements themselves came forth at this moment. They were suffused with enough of the Earth Mother’s essence so soon after their inception that they kept the Old Gods’ powers at bay (14). 

The Earth Mother gave birth to twins: first An’she, a beacon of life and warmth, then came Mu’sha, who was to bring rest, tranquility, and healing. The elements called them the “sun” and the “moon” (15). 

Eventually, both An’she and Mu’sha developed connections with the elements. An’she found himself able to wield the light and warmth of fire while Mu’sha maintained some control over the tides and winds (15-16). 

The twins even went so far as to use the elements to create weapons to spar with. Mu’sha opted for a bow and arrow, whereas An’she’s weapon of choice was a set of blades (16).

To keep her children safe from the Old Gods’ ever-present influence while she slept, the Earth Mother took both An’she and Mu’sha up into her eyes. Their power was so great that she had to keep one eye open at all times (16).

This, however, meant that Azeroth no longer received An’she’s warmth or Mu’sha’s guidance of the wind while the Earth Mother rested. Cold slowly spread across the land and blizzards raged until she finally woke again (18).

The Earth Mother’s cycle between periods of sleep and awakening would come to form the basis of the seasons as we know them, with her time of work the summer and her time of rest the winter (18).

As the twins grew in power, they developed the ability to bring on the change of seasons at will, though they took care to do it slowly and give the world time to adjust. As the Earth Mother rested, An’she and Mu’sha continued to tend to Azeroth from behind her eyes (19). 

After waking at one point, the Earth Mother found that there was new life walking the earth. Plucking wheat from the plains to sprinkle over them, the Earth Mother called them “Shu’halo,” - the tauren (19).

Just as the Earth Mother taught her children, both An’she and Mu’sha taught the Shu’halo in the ways of the elements and caring for the land (20). 

When the Earth Mother next slept, however, the Old Gods extended their influence to the tauren, causing them to grow violent and turn on their own kind (20).

Saddened to see the tauren fall to such corruption, the Earth Mother shed a single tear. She realized that the land was no longer able to hold the Old Gods’ power at bay, meaning anything it touched could be corrupted (21). 

Knowing that she was not safe for her children anymore because of her own connection to the land, the Earth Mother removed An’she and Mu’sha from her eyes and laid down in despair (21-22). 

The single tear that the Earth Mother had shed became a blue baby, later named “Lo’sho,” or the Blue Child (22, 24). 

Seeking to put an end to the Old Gods after what they had done to the tauren and the despair they instilled in their mother, An’she and Mu’sha fought against some of the eldritch beings’ manifestations. During the battle, An’she was wounded grievously. Though Mu’sha sought to heal him with wind and water, he continued to bleed (24).

The Earth Mother, stirred by her distant children’s dismay, eventually found her way to them. She urged them to take Lo’sho and go to the heavens so they could protect Azeroth from above, while the Earth Mother chose to root herself in the earth and prevent the Old Gods from ever claiming her children (26-27).

Mu’sha, the moon, continues to follow An’she closely across the sky so she can keep tending to his wounds (26). 

One Small Tuskarr

The tuskarr etch their clan and family symbols into their tusks. Though this is customary, some do engrave other symbols - such as marks indicating deeds of great distinction - into their tusks as well (32, 36). 

The catch master, who weighs the tuskarr’s catches, has a counting staff adorned with cords in the colors of each of the clan’s active fishermen. In accordance with how big a tuskarr’s haul of fish is, the catch master ties a single knot or more into their respective cord. These knots can be traded for tools, weapons, and coins, among other things (32-33). 

A single knot is customary for those who meet basic requirements, while additional knots are allotted to those who catch more (33). 

One can also earn knots from other tasks, such as fine embroidery, though they do so at a much slower rate than those who fish (38). 

Food is shared equally among the tuskarr (33).

The tuskarr perform nomadic journeys that take them to various kalu’ak towns. While the fishers take their own boats, most of the mothers, adolescents, and children trek across the ice (34). 

Fishing practices are passed down from parent to child. Though it is unclear if that is “law,” some of the tuskarr refuse to teach others to fish if they are not their own blood, going so far as to withhold information about the currents and places fish gather (36).

Tuskarr sometimes dye their moustaches (36).

It never gets fully dark in Northrend (38).

Oacha’noa is the tuskarr’s deity of both the sea and wisdom. Her symbol is that of a kraken (39). 

The spearhead on most tuskarr weapons is made of sharpened bone (42).

A type of manta ray known as the stargazer can be found in Northrend’s waters (44).

The tuskarr can survive in water so cold it would kill other races native to Azeroth in mere minutes (45).

The tuskarr typically fly kites for fun, though they have been known to use them to send signals to others at great distances (48).

Lay Down My Bones

According to Vulpera beliefs, the first of their kind was born from the magic of the desert. Though they are a nomadic people, an old tale about an artifact called the Wailing Bone claims the desert calls their bodies back to where they began when they die. To ensure they find their way back, the vulpera follow the Wailing Bone (55-56). 

Once one of their own has passed, it is customary for the next of kin to carry the bone at the head of the caravan while the vulpera wander in search of the proper place to bury them. The journey may take anywhere from days to weeks, but when the Wailing Bone begins to cry, the vulpera know they have found their loved one’s final resting place (56, 61). 

A poem is carved into the Wailing Bone: “Wander, roam; bring me home, / Down paths at my behest; / Among the stones, lay down my bones, / So I, at last, may rest”. Few can read the script it is written in, but most all vulpera can recite it from heart (54). 

Two vulpera, frustrated at their inability to find their elder’s final resting place, neglected their duty and left his corpse in a river in the hopes that it would bring him there for them. Refusing to obey the Wailing Bone caused it to crack. From that night on, the vulpera of the caravan found themselves cursed for failing to heed the Wailing Bone (62, 65).

Cracking under the pressure of the curse, the two negligent vulpera ultimately died gruesome deaths at each other’s hands. One of their bones was made into the next Wailing Bone (65).

A caravan always needs a Wailing Bone (65).

The Uninvited Guest

One goblin adage goes like so: “Every great goblin invention was born from necessity, bubble gum, or an accident” (69).

The goblins have a nursery rhyme: “In the dark of night and bright of day, / Keep in your hand a tossaway. / Guard your fortune, mind your greed, / Or else the Uninvited Guest will feed” (70).

The Uninvited Guest is a goblin boogeyman of sorts who is attracted by greed so egregious it offends even the dead. It is incorporeal, invisible, and has the ability to move through walls (76).

The Uninvited Guest feeds off of greed, but it can never be satisfied. It will latch onto its host like an invisible parasite to feed, inciting strange charitable behavior in them until they have given away all of their earthly possessions (76-79). 

A “tossaway” is a shiny gold-painted coin stamped with the face of the very first trade prince. These fake coins get their name from the way goblins quite literally toss them away in a symbolically superstitious act to protect themselves and their fortunes from the Uninvited Guest (70, 74). 

Tossaways were invented by Slixi Boompowder, the wife of one of the former trade princes of the Steamwheedle Cartel, after her own run-in with the Uninvited Guest. She only escaped from it because she distracted it with actual gold galleons, which inspired her to create the tossaways (83).

Legend has it that the Uninvited Guest still roams Azeroth to this day, looking to feed off of hapless greedy goblins (84). 

Klaxz Boompowder was one of the former trade princes of the Steamwheedle Cartel. His rival was Rikter Hogsnozzle, the trade prince of the Bilgewater Cartel (70-71).

Tradition dictates that goblins are buried with their most valuable possessions so they can enjoy them at the Everlasting Party, the goblin afterlife. They are then given burial gifts by other goblins from their own riches, though most goblins are too greedy to truly part with anything important (73).

Once the coffin is sealed, goblins dance on top of it to usher the deceased on to the Everlasting Party (75). 

Prominent goblins typically serve as pallbearers while goblins contractually obligated to serve as pack mules carry the rear (75). 

The goblins used to employ golden galleons as their form of currency, but it fell out of fashion. Nowadays, they are incredibly rare and expensive (74-75). 

Trolls have a tale about an invisible evil that sucks the souls from living beings and leaves them mad. It can only be seen in the light of a full moon (80). 

Sister is Another Word For Always

Vereesa felt Sylvanas’ death at the hands of Arthas the moment it happened (89-90). 

Sylvanas’ eyes were gray as a high elf (91). 

In the midst of her sorrow at her sister’s death, Vereesa sought many escapes. At first she tried to sleep, but when rest and forgetfulness would not come, she embarked on a journey across deserts and forests with little in the way of proper food or nourishment except that which she found (90, 93). 

It is very possible Vereesa perished at some point on this journey, for she came across a spirit healer, though she was told it was not yet her time. The spirit healer offered Vereesa a deal: if she could bring her the willing soul of Sylvanas without ever touching her, the spirit healer would restore her to life (96-97). 

When Sylvanas first died at the hands of Arthas, it seems as though the Arbiter sent her to Ardenweald (98-99). 

After she struggles to locate her sister in Ardenweald, Vereesa is inadvertently pulled into the Maw. There, she still has difficulty finding her, and is told by the Jailer that Sylvanas is not there - at least, not yet. He then urges her to leave, telling her she does not belong there (99, 102-103).

Eventually, Vereesa spots a silver glimmer she knows to be Sylvanas, though it is only a fragment of her soul (103-104). 

Before she can escape with the soul of her sister, the Jailer stops Vereesa and inadvertently tricks her into touching Sylvanas, rendering her deal with the spirit healer null and void (106). 

At the end of this journey, Vereesa awakes at the foot of a statue, her memory of the experience hazy (109). 

The Paladin’s Beast

Uther is originally from Stratholme (117).

Introduced as a fable beloved by the princelings and princesses of Lordaeron, the Paladin’s Beast is a tale that follows a young Uther as he finds himself in a mysterious and unfamiliar land. Determined to prove himself and bring back a prize to his fellow paladins, Uther joins a tournament put on by a foreign kingdom despite the protests of its princess. Though he is a strong warrior, she insists the beast of the tournament kills every knight who challenges it. Still, Uther refuses to back down, confident that his faith in the Light will give him the strength he needs to prevail. However, the princess’ words hold true, as every knight who goes to fight the beast before him perishes. When it is his turn, Uther decides to stay his hammer rather than fight, remembering the princess’ words. The beast withdraws, defeated by his act of compassion. It is revealed afterward as Uther goes for his prize that the princess actually was the beast all along, cursed to fight in the tournament for disobeying her father and breaking the royal lineage. She casts a spell on Uther, making it so that when he returns to Lordaeron, he will not remember anything of who she was or his experience there until the day he finds himself in a fiery field. Though the fable ends there, it is said that Uther dreamt of the silver kingdom and its princess for many years to come. It was not until his final moments, trying to fell a beast with weapons rather than compassion, that he would fully remember the princess and her story (111-127). 

For Lies and Liberty

Most undead do not get all of their memories back immediately once they are raised (or given free will). It takes time and encouragement (133-134). 

On the long-standing issue of whether or not undead have ichor or blood running through their veins, it appears one Jeremiah Pall still has blood in his body, though it has stopped moving on account of his still heart (134).

The story of the “Fearless Flyer” - a man known as Captain Whitney - is famous among some of the Alliance forces. According to the man himself, Whitney and his outfit had been fighting orcs for months to no avail when he hatched a bold plan to launch himself by catapult into their camp and take them by surprise, hence the nickname the “Fearless Flyer”. This story, unfortunately, turned out to be nothing but hyperbole. As it stands, a drunk Whitney accidentally got tangled up in nets, fell in the catapult, and was unceremoniously flung into the orcish camp. Believing themselves to be under attack, the orcs retaliated and killed most of the unsuspecting humans while Captain Whitney hid (136, 142). 

Stones, Moss, and Tears

Though female elves traditionally mark their faces after they have achieved a rite of passage, they can continue to add embellishments to commemorate any further deeds (155).

At least one kaldorei lorekeeper was charged with knowing the name of every Sentinel and recording details of their more noteworthy battles (156).

The Bloomblade druids were one of the oldest, unbroken lines of night elf druids (158). 

A species of insect known as glowmoths migrate through Mount Hyjal every autumn (164). 

The Embrace

The White Lady and the Sun were charged with keeping watch over Azeroth as it dreamed (171, 176). 

Though she loved the people of Azeroth dearly, the White Lady found herself growing lonely and in want of a family (173). 

The moon cycles are thought to be the White Lady turning away and hiding her face in her sorrow, though she would always look back upon Azeroth to watch over it (174).

It is said that the White Lady loved Azeroth and its denizens so much that a child - the Blue Child - was born of that love (174-175).

The Blue Child, ever curious, began asking the White Lady questions about the mortals that weighed on her heart, as she could not answer (176).  

One night the White Lady woke up to find the Blue Child gone. Unable to find her, she swore off her charge until the Blue Child was returned to her (177-178).

Without her guidance, the planet sped up and the tides ceased. The White Lady was only convinced to return to her duty after the Sun urged her, telling her the Blue Child might return if she had the moonlight to guide her (178).

The White Lady began to glow even more brightly over time in the hopes that her child would see, her light quickly growing to rival that of the Sun’s. This, too, caused problems, for crops burned and navigators could not see the stars to travel by (179). 

Upon seeing the terrible effect this was having on Azeroth’s denizens, the White Lady dimmed her light and retreated (181). 

The Blue Child ultimately returned from her long travels to her mother. They embraced in the sky, creating a beautiful eclipse (182).

Ever curious, the Blue Child was bound to grow restless again and leave for the stars, but the White Lady knew she would always return (183). 

When the moon turns red, it is a sign of her anger (177). 

Why the Mermaids Left Boralus

Back when Kul Tiras was still a Gilnean colony, Boralus had hardly any walls or structures protecting it from the wind or sea. More often than not, when the Great Sea churned at the city’s edge, it took houses, ships, and even men down into its depths. So many would drown in these incidents that those remaining covered them with weighted nets, causing them to sink to the seafloor (187-188, 190). 

Many of the roads out of Boralus flooded during great storms, making it deadly to try to leave the city on foot or by ship (198).

The Kul Tirans declined to build a seawall for fear that it would have done nothing and also because repairing it after a storm would have been just as dangerous as the storms themselves (188).

Most of Boralus’ early inhabitants were seamen of some sort, whether fishers, sea priests, sailors, or pearl-divers (188). 

During storms, the tidesages would act as a makeshift seawall and use their power to cut the waves before they made it deeper into the harbor (199).

Mermaids appeared quite openly near Boralus in its early days. Though they lived much deeper than most could naturally dive, they liked to sit on the rocks and watch ships go by, among other things. Most lived in temples beneath the sea that belonged to Kul Tiras’ former inhabitants (189, 191). 

According to superstition, sighting a mermaid was bad luck and presaged many inauspicious things including a doomed voyage, a brutal winter, and poor fishing. They were also seen as the harbingers of storms (189-190). 

Tidesages were (and still are) always the first and last to disembark from a ship. As a result, they usually went down with their ships (191).

The tidesages’ unrivaled dedication, combined with the frequency of drownings and shipwrecks, often meant they died young (191). 

Mermaids are spawned from eggs and leave no corpses when they die (191, 203).

The mermaids had very little understanding of the Kul Tirans’ mistrust towards them (191). 

Mermaids have some power over the rocks and water - granted to them by the Tidemother from birth -, but they use it sparingly because it is finite. Once a mermaid runs out of magic, they die. As a result, mermaids can live up to five hundred years (192). 

Mermaids consider sirens lazy and murlocs deplorable (192).

According to legend, the bubble seaweed in Boralus Harbor is actually discarded pearls. A mermaid by the name of Halia fell in love with a tidesage and kept secretly gifting them to her as a token of her affection. The tidesage, Ery, was far too pragmatic for such a gift and dumped the pearls back in the water every time (195).

The mermaids believe that the Tidemother will give tails to those who slit their feet from toes to heels and walk into the harbor at dawn (197). 

According to legend, Boralus’ great stone seawall was formed through the combined efforts of dozens of mermaids and one lone tidesage. A virulent tempest had come upon Boralus one day, taking men and ships alike with it. Though the city’s tidesages gathered to push back the waves, all but one were lost to the storm over the course of five long days. The last remaining tidesage, Ery, persisted despite her exhaustion while the mermaid Halia, too afraid to watch her lover perish, began using her own magic to craft a seawall. Though the storm repeatedly broke it down, her fellow mermaids joined her, ultimately expending their magic and sacrificing themselves to raise a wall so grand it towered over even the mightiest of ships and waves. Ery herself nearly died after this, though Halia saved her by invoking the Tidemother. She cut Ery’s feet from toes to heels and dragged her into the harbor, performing the ritual necessary for her transformation into a mermaid (198-203).

All but one of the mermaids - Ery notwithstanding - perished to save Boralus, which is why none are seen there today (204-205).

As a result, the sailors of Boralus now see mermaids as a symbol of the highest honor, good luck, and sacrifice (205). 

During calm sunsets when the red of the sky is reflected in the harbor, sailors refer to it as “Ery’s blood,” after the tidesage who fought the storm so valiantly. Ery’s blood is a sign of good weather to come (205). 

The Courageous Kobold and the Wickless Candle

Kobolds tell a sleep-time story (209).

Kobold families live together in caves. They have their own nests, but congregate in common areas for stories, among other things (210).

Some time ago, the Whiskersnoot kobold tunnels crumbled, submerging the Whiskersnoots in total darkness. They lived like that for generations, having decided it was no longer safe to dig higher after the cave-in. This spawned a saying: “Never pick above your snout, else the darkness snuff you out!” (210-211). 

Granny Whiskersnoot, however, dug just a little bit upward every day until one day she broke through to a light above. She intended to lead the other kobolds to it, but could never find her way back through the tunnels again. It wasn’t until her granddaughter persisted in finding it that they made their way back above ground (211, 222). 

The kobolds think of the sun as a “Wickless Candle” (211). 

Visage Day

On a dragon’s Visage Day, they choose what mortal form they will take. This is significant, as it shows the Aspects trust them to adopt the guise of one of the mortal races and walk among them. It is the dragons’ hope that through choosing a form to embody and relate to mortals, the more mortals can understand dragons in turn (228, 234). 

Onyxia, on the other hand, maintains dragons choose visages that allow them to control the mortals (241). 

In accordance with tradition, the Visage Day ceremony occurs on the uppermost level of Wyrmrest Temple. Each of the Aspects are usually present for members of their own dragonflight, though Alexstrasza herself has been known to officiate on occasion. It is also customary for each flight to send emissaries (243). 

During the ceremony, all attendant dragons take their own mortal forms in honor of the dragon whose Visage Day it is (245). 

Before they publicly choose their form, the dragon in question traditionally makes a proclamation (245).

The Visage Day ceremony can be delayed (244). 

Nozdormu has helped many bronze dragons prepare for their own Visage Day (230).

When Nozdormu sits in the sands at the heart of the Bronze Dragonshine, intricate patterns form around him (233). 

Both Kalecgos and Chromie performed a short incantation to assume their mortal forms, though Nozdormu did not appear to need to (234, 236, 246). 

Kalecgos says that he chose a half-elf form - which he calls a “blend of mortal worlds” - in order to symbolize his own attempt to blend together the dragon and human worlds (237). 

Onyxia, on the other hand, opted to take the form of a beautiful human woman to better manipulate mortals (241). 

The dragons often go by nicknames in their mortal forms because they find their full names sound too formal to humans (238). 

The drakonid were fashioned by the dragons to be helpful and loyal (238).

The black dragonflight practices how best to inflict pain (239). 

[lils-writes-stuff]

A Family Affair

spencer reid x reader

Best Years Part 5 | part 4 | part 3 | part 2 | part 1

Summary: as a case from atlanta dwells, the readers past make more advances. 

Warnings: normal criminal minds things

A/N: based on season seven episode 16 

 “You can’t hide forever Y/N,” the voice spoke. 

 Y/N’s eyes darted around the room she was in. She sat in a chair but she wasn’t able to get up from it. The smell of the damp room overwhelmed her as tears began to roll down her cheeks, 

“No,” she spoke with a trembling voice. 

“Nothing lasts forever Y/N, you know that,” The voice said before revealing itself. Caroline walked out from the shadows of the room, gun in her hand and a evil look on her face. “All the things you love will be gone soon and you know it.” 

 As the words left her mouth, lights flickered on beside her and she saw her team sitting there tied up to chairs.

 She made eye contact with Spencer, who than mouthed that it was okay. 

 “No, no- do not touch them, hurt me- take me, do whatever you want to me!” Y/N tried to plead to her tormentor, but Caroline just shook her head.  

 “Too late.” 

Y/N sat up in a cold sweat, clutching her chest as she hyperventilated. She reached and wiped the small tears that were on her cheeks. 

 “It was just a dream,” she tried to reassure herself. “Just a dream.” 

Y/N pulled herself out of her bed, pulling Spencer’s sweater that sat on the edge of the bed over her bare arms and pulling the ends of it over her torso that adorned a grey tank. Her feet shuffled as she walked to the bathroom to quickly brush her teeth then through her small living room into the kitchen where a fully dressed Spencer stood, ready to start the day. 

 “Good morning,” he said looking up from the book he had in his hand. 

 “Hi,” Y/N responded, voice full of sleep still. She brought herself over to the coffee machine, completely avoiding Spencer who was awaiting attention.

 “No love?” he asked with a small pout on his lips.

 “Coffee,” she said softly as she poured herself a cup.  

  “Uh-huh,” Spencer said as he walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Usually, when they shared their mornings together and he did this, she would always lean back and lay in his arms. “What’s wrong?” 

 “Nothing just had a bad dream, spooked me a bit that’s all,” she said reassuring him. That wasn’t a lie, it was just a dream, she thought trying to reassure herself also.

 “Are you sure?” He asked. 

 “Yes, bub, I am sure,” she said, using his nickname she gave him a little after they started dating. She placed her mug on the counter and turned in his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck. 

 Spencer pulled her closer to him and connected their lips. Y/N loved when he was in a needy mood, it meant cuddles and kisses and all the attention she could give to him or vice versa. 

 The slow morning kiss tasted like coffee and toothpaste. Spencer held her closely as he pecked her lips multiple times diligently, making Y/N’s heart soar. 

 The moment was short-lived as both of their phones rang meaning Hotch needed them there in the office sooner than planned.

 “No,” Y/N said, dragging out the ‘o’ in sadness. 

 “Go get dressed I’ll make you a coffee to go,” Spencer told Y/N. 

 She sighed in defeat. She grabbed Spencer’s arm as she walked away, her sliding down to his and then finally letting go and walking to her room to get ready.  

--------

 Emily, Y/n, and Penelope laughed at the story Penelope was telling as they entered the round table room. As they walked in they saw JJ take a shot of Five-hour energy.

 “Whoa you’re not messing around,” Y/N said with a chuckle as she sat down in a chair at the table. 

 “Mm, Will’s away all week, so I am pulling double duty with Henry,” JJ said as she finished the shot. 

 “Please tell me we are still on for Saturday night because I have had it circled in my calendar for the last 23 and a half days, which apparently, from the look of you you did not,” Penelope said rushed while she looked at JJ. She set her mug down and took a seat in her chair.

 “Ooh, Garcia paid good money for those salsa lessons,” Emily said, tucking a piece of hair behind her hair. Y/N nodded her head in agreement.

 Spencer and Morgan walked into the room and took their seats hearing the tail end of the conversation. 

 “I’ll get a sitter,” JJ said, feeling guilty for not remembering the plans that they had made.

  “Let’s get started,” Hotch said walking into the room with Rossi, the two taking their seats at the table. 

  “Okay, Atlanta Field office has a serial on their hands,” Penelope said as she opened her tablet. “Two prostitutes stabbed and staged in the last two weeks.”

 “Atlanta’s crime rate has skyrocketed over the last few years, especially the proliferation of solicited sex and drug use in the downtown district,” Spencer said. 

 “Maybe this guy thinks he’s cleaning up the city,” Emily said looking up from her tablet. 

 “It’s rare for an unsub who targets prostitutes to pose the bodies,” Y/N said, eyes trained on the pictures of the bodies. 

 “The means of disposal usually reflects how the person feels towards them,” JJ said.

 “It looks like he didn’t think poorly of his victims, even kept them dressed,” Rossi said eyes going towards the screen. 

 “He could be filled with remorse. The arms are folded, the bodies laid to rest in a quiet park outside the city,” Derek said while he pointed at the pictures with a pen. 

  “Maybe he knew them?” Y/N asked as she looked up from her tablet. 

 “It could be personal, there’s a lot of rage in these kills, multiple stab wounds,” Emily said.

 “What about sexual violations?” Rossi asked looking at Hotch.

 “No, the M.E.’s report says there’s no evidence of sexual activity before death,” Hotch says in response. 

 “So what’s he doing with them?” Penelope asked.

 “That’s what we need to find out, wheels up in 20,” Hotch said.

---------

   “Yes, Mom-- I know I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the last time I was coming down,” Y/N said to her mother on the phone. “Well, to be honest, it wasn’t the first thing on my mind to stop by and say hi since I was trying to catch a serial killer not too far from my home.” 

 The team listened as she paused and a look of horror filled her face. 

 “No ma’am I didn’t mean that in a smart ass way you know that, I’m sorry, I’ll come by if I can-- I will love you bye,” She hung up the phone grabbing her coffee from the bar before heading back to her seat next to Spencer. 

 The team looked at her with amusement after hearing the conversation between her and her mom. 

 “What? Don’t act like your Mom still doesn’t strike fear in you when she has that tone,” she said, mostly looking at Derek who she knew was about to say something to her. He opted to just raise his hands, knowing she was right. 

 “Okay, so both of the victims had 250 dollars on them when they were found, why wouldn’t the unsub take that?” Emily asked, changing the topic back to the case. 

 “It’s a lot to pass up, money must not be on his mind,” Rossi said. 

 “Dumping the bodies certainly is,” JJ said while opening the file that laid on the table. “He chose two different parks outside of Atlanta.” 

 “The parks are 15 miles apart and 40 minutes from the city, speaks to his comfort zone,” Spencer said. 

 “Or he didn’t want to return to the same location and risk getting recognized,” Derek countered. 

  “Hey guys, I hate to be the messenger of sad things,” Penelope said through the speaker of the laptop. “But yet another body has been discovered by some joggers at yet another park. Her name’s Rebecca Moore and, get this, a missing person report was filed on her.” 

 “How long was she missing?” Y/N asked. 

 “36 hours.” 

 “Who filed it?” Emily asked.

 “Her friend, Allyson Parker,” Penelope answered. 

 “Prentiss, you, Y/N, and JJ find out from Allyson if she has any insight on why Rebecca was targeted. Morgan and Reid, go to the disposal site, Dave and I will set up at the field office,” Hotch said telling everyone where to go. 

---------

  JJ, Emily, and Y/N pulled off the street as they arrived at the spot where Allyson told them to meet her. 

 “Allyson Moore?” Y/N asked as the approached a Brunette who stood on the corner. 

 “Yeah that’s me,” she responded. 

 “Hi, I’m Agent Y/L/N, this is Agent Prentiss-” she pointed to Emily on her left and then pointed to her right- “and this is Agent Jareau.”

 “Nice to meet you,” Allyson responded. 

 “We’re very sorry for your loss,” JJ said. 

 “How long were you and Rebecca friends?” Emily asked.

 “3 years,” Allyson responded getting choked up. 

 “You two had each other’s backs, that’s why you filed the report, right?” Y/N said looking at the girl.

 “It was almost two days, I thought she was at the police station. Getting locked up is better than disappearing with one of them,” Allyson explained. 

 “So what made you think something was wrong?” JJ asked. 

 “She always came back,” Allyson said. “Bad as it was, this place was home, you know?”

 “Did she have any regular customers?” JJ continued with her questions. 

 “We all do.” 

 “Rebecca had over 250 dollars on her,” Y/N said,

 “She did?” Allyson said, less a question more of a statement of disbelief.  

 “What would that kind of money get a customer?” Emily asked.

 “A lot,” responded Allyson. 

“Like, all night or….,” JJ trailed off wanting Allyson to finish her thought. 

 “Nowadays? Yeah,” Allyson responded. 

 “We need to take you back to the last time you saw Rebecca,” Emily explained, setting Allyson up for what they were about to do. 

 “Where were you standing?” Y/N asked watching as Allyson transported herself to that night. 

 “Facing which way?” Emily asked. 

 “Street-” she nodded towards the road- “A truck pulled up. He was one of my regulars. I was talking to him through the window when Rebecca pulled up in a silver beamer.”

 “Did you recognize the car?” Y/N asked Allyson.

 “No, it must have been a new customer,” Allyson explained. 

 “What did she do after that?” Emily asked. 

 “She looked back at me and then started walking down the block, that was the last time I saw her,” Allyson said, but then she stopped. “Wait a second, there was an older gray van. I’ve seen it around here before, it was parked there a long time.” 

 “A van? Where?” JJ asked as Allyson came back to where she was. 

  “It parks right there,” Allyson said pointing to a spot by a couple of trash cans. 

 The three women turned their heads to look at the spot. 

 “Could you make out the license plate?” Emily asked. 

 “No it was dark,” Allyson responded to their dismay. 

 “How long was it there?” Y/N asked turning her head to look at Allyson. 

 “A few hours probably, why?” Allyson asked.

 “It’s a loading zone, permit parking only,” Y/N explained.  

 The three women thanked her before they headed back to the SUV.  

---------------

 “Allyson remembered seeing a van parked on the street the night that Rebecca disappeared,” Emily said as her, Y/N, and JJ walked into the conference room. 

  “And she’s seen it before, but get this, it was parked in a loading zone for hours,” Y/N added.

 “Well, why don’t we check any recent tickets?” The Atlanta field office agent, Agent Brooks, said. 

 “Our analyst already did that, nothing,” Emily said.

 “It’s not a residential area, so a vendor maybe, Garcia pulling permits now,” JJ said. 

 “He’s done this three times before,” Rossi began. “Each victim is left with 250. That’s a 750 dollar investment, he didn’t have to make.” 

 “He has every chance to take that money back, but he buries it with them instead,” Derek said while he looked at the crime scene photos in his hands. 

 “It could be an expression or a manifestation of his guilt,” Emily said. 

 “Everything that happened postmortem- keeping them dressed, crossing their arms, laying them to rest- it’s all very nurturing,” JJ said.

 “But the kills are the exact opposite, incredibly violent and angry.” Y/N said countering JJ’s argument. 

  “Multiple personalities?” Emily asked.

 “Or multiple unsubs,” Hotch answered. “The violent one submits there dominance and the submissive one if left to clean up the mess.” 

 The team sat in silence as they thought and looked over the case file. Everyone’s attention soon turned to Agent Brooks as her phone rang. 

 “Brooks,” she said answering the phone. “Okay, we’ll be right there. There’s been another body.” 

 “Damn,” Y/N said. “These guys are moving fast.”

 “They are, Morgan and Y/N go to the latest crime scene with Agent Brooks, the rest of us will stay here,” Hotch said looking between Y/N and Derek. 

 The two Agents nodded and followed Brooks out of the office.

 It was a ten-minute drive to the crime scene, the three hoping out of the vehicle, and following an Atlanta Police Officer to the body. Brooks walked away from the scene as she answered her phone than talked to one of the responding officers and came back a minute later. Y/N and Derek looking over the body as she approached. 

 “Her name was Julie Harmon, lives in a loft downtown,” Brooks spoke looking at the body. “Envelope of cash was in her bag, wrapped in plastic.” 

 “That’s new,” Y/N said as she inspected the outfit Julie was wearing. “It looks like she’s prepped for burial.” 

 “This woman doesn’t fit his victimology,” Derek said while he crouched down next to the body to look closer.

 “Yeah, look at her nails,” Y/N said pointing to the fresh manicure that Julie had. 

 “The ways she’s dressed, her shoes haven’t hit the pavement,” Derek said in agreement to Y/N’s observations. 

 “Maybe she’s a high-class call girl,” Brooks said.

 “Who fought back and got punished for it,” Derek said. 

 Y/N inspected the body some more before she spoke. “Blunt-force trauma and the same bruising on the thighs, this one is the most violent yet,” she said. 

 “And the shortest time between kills,” Derek added to which Y/N hummed in agreement. 

  “Feel’s like he’s trying to break some kind of record,” Brooks said. 

 “This team has a complicated dynamic. Ultimately, they trust one another,” Derek said looking between Y/N and Brooks. 

 “They’re still codependent too, enabling each other,” Y/N added. She thought of all the different kinds of relationships that could have this dynamic. 

 “It sounds like any dysfunctional relationship, how do we narrow that down?” Brooks asked. 

 “Through her-” Derek pointed at Julie- “The more we can learn about Julie, the better we can understand why they’re doing this.”

------------

   After the Derek and Y/N returned to the office, the team began to piece together a profile on who they believed their unsubs were. Y/N stared at the pictures of the bruising on the leg’s of the victim’s, not sure what it was but it felt monachopsis.

 “What are you thinking?” Spencer asked Y/N, noticing her staring at the board. 

 “The bruising, it doesn’t look like any form of torture we’ve seen, it almost doesn’t seem like it is torture,” Y/N explained turning to Spencer. 

 “Maybe it isn’t, but what else could it be?” He questioned looking at her. 

“I don’t know,” Y/N responded with a shrug. 

“Guys, we’re ready,” JJ told the two in the room prompting them to follow her to the rest of the team. 

  “We’re looking for a pair of white males in their late 20s to early 30s, who’ve developed a pattern of overkill followed by remorse,” Hotch explained to the Agents that were scattered throughout the office. 

 “This usually points to a dominant/submissive partnership,” Y/N said. 

 “The submissive follows the rules, knows the dominants type. Obtains the victims, and disposes of the body once the dominant has completed his killing ritual,” Spencer explained. 

 “What is the ritual?” Brooks asked. 

 “It most likely involves some form of bondage,” Emily began her explanation. “All the victims have identical bruises on their thighs, but we’re not sure if it’s done during capture or kills.”

 “There’s no sexual assault, which tells us the dominant is likely impotent or is experimenting with other forms of sexual release,” Rossi said. 

 “We often refer to this as a ‘thrill kill’,” Derek explained. “The dominant is inducing pain and creating terror without a sexual element.” 

 “This often provides him some stimulation and excitement, kind of like an adrenaline rush. The thrill of the murder is only a temporary fix,” Y/N said. 

 “Like any narcotic, the violence satisfies his senses for a time, but then it fades. This is why his cooling-off period is nonexistent,” Derek added. 

 “Despite a public investigation, the unsubs have continued killing. The risk of getting caught does not trump their need to kill,” JJ said as she looked around at the Agents. 

 “Thank you,” Hotch said dismissing everyone back to what they were doing. 

-----------------

   “Julie Harmon was a sexual surrogate,” Derek said walking into the room after talking to Penelope. 

 “Whoa, sounds like somebody felt like a little progressive prescription might fix everything,” Emily said twirling her pen in the left hand. 

 “Well, they were wrong,” JJ added. 

 “That’s not just going from high- to low-risk victims. A sexual surrogate’s a very specific type,” Hotch said. 

 “It seems like they were trying to fix something, I mean why else would you call a therapist?” Y/N asked. 

 “They do treat patients with all types of disabilities, whether it’s developmental, physical, or emotional,” Emily explained looking at Y/N.

 “My guess is this guy had all three,” Derek began. “I mean, let’s look at physical: he’s got the upper body strength to kill, but the victims bruising tells us that he was using restraints.” 

 “Only they’re not on the wrists or ankles where restraints usually are, they’re tramline bruises around the thighs,” Rossi said pointing to the bruises on the photo. 

 “It’s as if the victims are straddling a chair,” Spencer said. 

 At this Y/N had a click, “What if it’s a wheelchair?”

 Spencer turned his head to look at Y/N as they had the same click. “Physical infirmities, with strong arms. That does make sense.”

 “That would also explain the van parked in the loading zone, handicap permits grant access all over the city,” JJ said agreeing with the two. 

 “I’ll call Penelope,” Y/N said stepping out of the room with her phone. She walked down the three steps that led up the room they were in and pressed Penelope’s contact name for her work phone. 

 “Hiya sugar what can I do for you?” Penelope asked answering the phone. 

 “Hey Penelope, I need you to look for handicap permits of those in the comfort zone for me, please,” Y/N requested to the woman over the phone. 

 “Sure thing, also I have to tell you something that’s a little suspicious,” Penelope said making Y/N’s heart beat faster. 

 “What is it?” She asked with nervousness. 

 “Caroline Roberts, I put a flag on her in case something suspicious or odd happened to alert me, anyways she hasn’t shown up for work in two weeks,” Penelope explained.

 “Oh maybe she just went on vacation or something,” Y/N said trying to reassure herself it was probably nothing. 

 “Sugar, it wouldn’t have alerted me if that was the case, but don’t you freight because right before she left she bought a ticket to head over to London, now I don’t know what that means, but it does tell me she’s out of reach from here for a while.” 

 “Okay thanks, Penelope, hit us back with that list?” Y/N asked. 

 “Faster than you can say my name, I bid you a-do.” 

 Y/N hung up her phone and entered back into the room with the rest of the team. 

----------

  Y/N sat with Spencer, JJ, Derek, and Emily in the small conference room. Her eyes were trained on the board looking at all the victims, all different ideas running through her head while the team talked. She wasn’t really listening though, only hearing parts of what they were saying. 

 “Maybe the caretaker is a woman, by nature, women prefer cleaner disposal methods,” JJ said peaking Y/N to listen to what was being said. 

 “I don’t know. I mean, that terrain was something serious,” Derek said referring to the dumpsite he went to with Spencer. “No offense, ladies, but Reid and I hiked up that ridge, and there’s no way a woman physically fit or not, could carry dead-weight all that way.” 

 “And we profiled that the partners in a wheelchair, so that would make it impossible for him to help with disposal,” Emily added in agreement. 

 Y/N stood up from her seat and walked over to the board to look at the pictures closer. Words scattered between the pictures of the crime scene from them trying to form the profile more. 

 “So there’s a third person involved, that rarely works there’s usually two against one, ” Derek said. 

 Y/N trailed back into her thoughts as her eyes darted between the pictures.

 “They’d have to trust each other completely, so what kind of relationship involves that dynamic?” Spencer asked. 

 Y/N’s mind then thought back to something her mother always used to tell her: No matter what we will always protect you Y/N, through hell or high water, because we are your parents. 

 “What if it’s parents protecting their child?” Y/N asked, turning around quickly from the board to the four sittings. “My parents always told me growing up that they would protect and help me no matter what. So what if this is like that.”

 “They raise them, they root for them,” JJ said with realization. 

 “They would share the same genes,” Emily added. 

 “Apples don’t fall from the tree,” Y/N agreed. 

 “A parent would hold themselves accountable for the child being injured, that explains the guilt,” Spencer said. 

 “Yeah, but what kind of sick family pulls this off?” Derek asked. 

 “One that’s done it before,” Y/N answered. 

 “I’ll get Hotch and Rossi,” JJ said standing up to exit the room. The rest of the nodded and waited for her to come back with the.

 The five than explained why it was probably a family to Hotch and Rossi. The family probably only had one child because a sibling would be less than likely to participate. If the child was hurt in an accident and the parents felt responsible they would do anything to make them happy.

 “Murder probably wasn’t something they planned though, it came as an extreme side effect of the son’s condition,” Y/N explained to Hotch.

 “If there was orbital cortex damage from the accident, it would help to explain why killing is his release,” Emily added.

 “If the mother has psychopathic tendencies, she could have passed it down through her X chromosome,” Spencer explained.

 “Garcia’s looking up accidents now that have the parents at fault,” JJ said. 

 “That list has to be long,” Rossi spoke as he raised an eyebrow. 

 “Uh- it is, So she is also looking for unsolved cases in the state,” JJ added. 

 “There’s a good chance this isn’t the first time the son has acted out,” Y/N explained. 

 As Y/N finished her statement, JJ’s phone rang. 

 “Hey, Garcia, you’re on speaker,” she said to her over the phone. 

 “Okay, the only thing I can find that’s remotely similar to this is from five years ago. A coed at Georgia state was stabbed and left in a park,” Penelope said.

 “Did she have bruises on her inner thighs?” Rossi asked.

 “Uh, M.E. says…” Penelope paused as she looked for the answer. “Yes, she did.”

 “All right, Garcia, check student enrollment for that year for students with campus handicap permits,” Hotch said to the woman on the phone.

 “I got a bushel of matches, let’s narrow this down.” 

 “Look for in-state residents. If the unsub was injured there’s a good chance he stayed close to home,” JJ said. 

 “Oh, they’re all locals,” Penelope responded. 

 “The parents would have covered it up, and they would have pulled their son out of school after the murder,” Emily explained. 

  “Eureka, Jeffery Collins,” Penelope said as she found a match. “He dropped out of school weeks after the murder and have since lived with his parents.”

 “What’s his story?” Y/N asked. 

 “Sending it to you right now, he’s an only child of Linda and Donald Collins. He was a local athlete who became paralyzed in a car accident when he was fifteen.”

 “It says here the mother was driving, but the injuries weren’t consistent with being behind the wheel,” Derek said while he looked up from he tablet. 

 “But the fathers were look-” Spencer pointed to a part of the report on the tablet that Y/N held in her hand- “Broken ribs, ruptured spleen, minor concussion.” 

 “He’s obviously the one who hit the steering wheel,” Y/N said in agreement.

 “Let me guess, the father was drunk,” Rossi said looking over to Y/N.

 “Yeah, twice the legal limit,” Penelope answered over the phone. 

 “Sounds like they switched places and she covered for him,” Y/N said. 

 “But helping your husband avoid a DUI is far different than helping your son dispose of bodies,” Spencer said as he looked between those around. 

 “Not necessarily,” Hotch countered. “The mother fixes things, she could have manipulated the husband into making up for his failure.” 

  “Garcia, you got an address?” Derek asked Penelope over the phone.

 “Sending it to you now,” she quickly responded. 

------------

 “Hotchner,” Hotch said answering his phone. “Okay, we’ll be right there,” he hung up and turned the car around. 

 “What is it?” Y/N asked as she leaned forward in her seat to adjust her vest. 

 “Agent Brooks, they just found Donald Collins car wrapped around a telephone pole,” Hotch responded as they headed towards the accident, a mere two minutes from where they already were. The SUV came to a halt as they reached the accident and Hotch, Spencer, Emily, and Y/N piled out of the car. 

 “Hey guys thanks for getting here so quick,” Brooks said as she approached the four. 

 “We were on our way to the Collins home when we received the call,” Spencer said as they continued over to the car. 

 “Donald Collins was behind the wheel, died on impact. We found this in his coat pocket,” Brooks explained handing Emily the letter that was sealed in an evidence bag.

 “Let me guess, it’s his confession to all the murders,” Y/N said before she looked at the letter in Emily’s hand. 

 Agent Brooks nodded her head in response. 

 “Even in death, he’s still covering for his son,” Emily said showing Hotch and Spencer the letter. 

 “No one else in the car?” Hotch asked. 

 “No,” Brooks answered. 

 “No skid marks, he probably hit the pole going about 65 miles-per-hour,” Spencer said inspecting the asphalt behind the car. 

 “He committed suicide,” Y/N said while she shook her head in disbelief. 

 “It looks like he was trying to replicate the accident that made Jeff a paraplegic, this was his ultimate penance,” Emily said. 

 “Is this their endgame?” Hotch asked. 

  “If he was trying to replicate the accident, Jeff and Linda would have both been in the car,” Spencer answered, turning to the three on his right. 

 “So where are they?” Y/N asked. 

 “Probably still at the house, maybe even with their next victim,” Spencer said. 

-----------

  “Mom, Mom listen, I promise you the next time I am home I will try to come to visit you I swear-, Y/N said as she brought her mug and Spencer’s over to their seats on the jet.

 Spencer mouthed a ‘thank you’ to Y/N as she handed him the mug, which she responded back with a nod as she sat down in her seat.  

“No it’s not that I don’t think visiting you isn’t important. You know you’re starting to sound like grandma,” Y/N laughed as she looked at Spencer next to her and then Emily across. “All right will do, love you too, bye.” 

  It was the next day, the team had arrested Jeffery Collins and were now on their way back home. 

 “That sounded fun,” Emily said as she looked at Y/N. 

 “You have no idea,” Y/N laughed. “She told me if she doesn’t get to meet Spencer, or any of the rest of you guys really, sometime soon, she’s going to through a fit.” 

 The three laughed but they halted as they saw JJ walk up and sit down next to Emily, a look of defeat on her face.

 “Still no sitter?” Emily asked the blonde. 

 “My sitter is not available,” JJ explained. “Apparently I have a better chance at winning the lottery than getting a sitter for a Saturday night.”

 “What’s going on tonight?” Spencer asked. 

 “Ladies Night,” Y/N said as she looked over at Spencer next to her. His eyes trained on a book in his lap. 

 “It was but, I forgot to book a sitter,” JJ said.

 “I’ll do it,” Spencer said. 

 The three women turned their heads to look at him. All having the same questioning and unsure look on their faces.

 “Spence,” JJ said trying to protest. 

 “What? I’ve seen an episode of ‘Mr. Belvedere’,” Spencer said trying to prove he could do it.

 “I don’t know if that would help, bub,” Y/N said patting his arm sweetly. The nickname just slipping out but no one questioned it. 

  “And you’ve never babysat by yourself before,” JJ added.

  “You know- uh-  he could do a couple of hours,” Emily said looking between Y/N and JJ. 

 “What could possibly go wrong?” Spencer asked. 

 “Well now that you said that, something definitely will,” Y/N said, her superstitious side showing. 

 “Alright fine,” JJ caved.  

-  

 “Whooo!” Spencer cheered obnoxiously loud as they stood gate side of Hotch’s triathlon. “Couple hours, Couple hours! You guys didn’t even come home till sunrise,” he said looking at the four very hungover women. 

 Their eyes were covered with their sunglasses as they leaned against the gate, heads pounding from the cheers and alcohol. 

 “Why are yelling,” JJ said as she looked up then away from Spencer. 

 “Make him stop,” Emily said looking down to Y/N who stood beside Spencer. 

 “With pleasure,” Y/N said, getting up from her position of leaning against the gate to than grabbing Spencer’s face. “Spencer, I really don’t want to slap that pretty little face of yours I adore so much-” Spencer blushed at Y/N’s words- “but if you do not stop yelling I will.” 

 He nodded his head as she let go of his face and laid her head on his arm.  

 “Okay, hey Jack earmuffs for a minute, earmuffs,” Derek said tapping Hotch’s son that sat on his shoulders. “What did you guys drink last night?”

 “The green fairy, you’re in the FBI, can you make the crowd stop cheering?” Penelope pleaded to Derek next to her. 

 “By my estimates, Hotch will be finishing any minute now,” Spencer said looking at his watch, making Y/N lift her head as his arm moved. 

 “Do you see him, Uncle Dave?” Jack asked as he looked down at Rossi from Derek’s shoulders. 

 “I think I do kiddo, right there!” Rossi said as he pointed to Hotch running down the course. 

  Y/N clapped along with JJ and Emily and winced at Spencer’s loud cheering but let it slide since it was for Hotch. Hotch smiled as he saw the team cheering for him as he crossed the finish line. When he crossed, the team walked over to the table he was getting his water and medal from, Jack beating them all there as he was so excited to congratulate his dad. 

  “Did you see my sign?” Jack asked, jumping excitedly. 

 “I did, that’s for you, buddy,” Hotch said placing a medal around Jack’s next he was given.

 “Look at you, how do you feel?” Rossi asked. 

 “I think I’m gonna live,” responded Hotch as he took another sip of his water.

 “Pretty impressive, I had money on the swim killing you,” Emily laughed. 

 “My bet was the bike ride,” Y/N added, grabbing Spencer’s hand and then laying her head on his arm again. 

 “I practiced,” Hotch said still trying to regain his breath. 

 “And it paid off, good job,” Derek said congratulating Hotch.

 “Thank you.” 

 “Hey, you guys want to go get something to eat?” Spencer asked the team. 

 “Yeah, something greasy,” JJ said pushing her sunglasses up her nose.

 “Oh yeah,” Emily agreed. 

 “Please,” Y/N added. 

 “Hotchner!” A voice of a woman was heard making the team turn their heads. 

 “Beth! Jack, there’s somebody I want you to meet,” Hotch said guiding his son over to, the now identified, Beth. 

 “Awe,” Y/N said at the cute moment they were watching. 

 The team laughed at Y/N’s audible feelings and began to walk as they saw Hotch lead Beth and Jack towards their group. 

--------------

 Y/N and Spencer walked into Y/N’s apartment together after eating lunch with the rest of the team. Spencer came with her to grab some of the things he left from the other night staying there. 

 “I’m going to go to the bathroom real quick,” Y/N told Spencer who nodded back with a tight-lipped smile.

 After Spencer grabbed his things he placed them on the round table that was to the left of Y/N’s kitchen. His eyes became drawn to the white envelope with a wax seal with a bird imprint on it. Curiosity getting the better of him, he picked it up inspecting it. Before he could open it though, Y/N walked back into the room. 

 “What’cha lookin’ at?” She asked as she approached Spencer. 

 He turned around to face her, showing her the letter in his hand. Her face grew white with horror, she hadn’t received a letter in 3 weeks. 

 “Where- where was that?” She asked, walking over and grabbing it out of Spencer’s hand, beginning to open it frantically. 

 “On the table,” he responded pointing to where it laid on the table previously. 

 “Oh god,” Y/N said, knowing that meant she had gotten into her apartment somehow this time. 

 “Y/N, what’s wrong, what is it?” Spencer asked trying to get answers from her. 

 “Agh,” Y/N said softly as she cut herself on the paper from the envelope.  

 “Hey, hey, slow down,” Spencer told her, grabbing the envelope from her hand.

 “Will you please just open it and read to me what it says,” she said sitting in the chair she pulled out from the table, placing her head in her hands. 

 “Yeah-yeah, sure,” he responded opening the letter. “ ‘Nothing lasts forever Y/N’ from C.R., what is this, who’s C.R.?” 

 Y/N thought back to the dream she had a couple of nights ago before they left. 

 “Nothing lasts forever Y/N, you know that.” 

 The voice echoed in her head. She lifted her head up from her hands looking at Spencer who had kneeled himself in front of her. 

 “Caroline Roberts,” she told him. “Spencer I need to tell you something.” 

Tag List (let me know if you want to be added!!):

@throughparisallthroughrome​ @word-scribbless​ @nintendumbfuck​ @confused-and-really-hungry​ @justine-en​ @andiebeaword​ @itsarayofsunshine​ @baby-i-am-fireproof​ @abitofeverythinggg​

[blackjack-15]

(Pachin)Koping Mechanisms, KuroSAWa, and Putting The Ring On It — Thoughts on: Shadow at the Water’s Edge (SAW)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC, TOT

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. For this meta and the next (CAP), I’ll have a section entitled “The Faerietale” where I break down the issue of genre within the game and how it adds to the experience.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: SHA, SAW, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SPY, GTH, Rashomon.

The Intro:

Full Disclosure: draft titles of this meta include “Yurei-sing the Tension” and “Using Your Girlfriend’s Mom’s Horrific Death For Fun and Profit”. They ultimately don’t fit the tone of the game (or the meta), but I thought they were fun…so you’re being subjected to them anyway.

Freshly out of the games of growing pains, Shadow at the Water’s Edge is the first of our two Faerietale Games, where we delve fully into Theme and Allegory and other such literary devices — which happen to support some pretty fine mysteries as well. As such, in case you didn’t see it above, both SAW and CAP will have a section diving into the Faerietale-ness of it all (partially because it’s That Interesting and partially to keep the intro section from being like 2k on its own).

SAW is interesting for a number of reasons (which I’ll go into throughout the meta) but one of the things that stuck out to me on a replay was how much it leans on Rashomon for its story about the past. For those unfamiliar, Rashomon is a Japanese film by Kurosawa Akira from the 50s that deals with the rape of a woman and the killing of her husband, a samurai, as told through four different points of view.

Nowadays called “a Rashomon episode” or “false flashback”, the idea of different, opposite points of view being shot and filmed to present to the audience is almost a cliché, but Kurosawa was the first to really bring it to film and to popular consciousness internationally.

Like in Rashomon, we’re presented with different views of the situation at the ryokan (including but not limited to Kasumi’s death) from our characters’ perspectives — and, like in Rashomon, no point of view nor opinion on what happened is ever confirmed to be the Honest Truth.

Was Kasumi’s death accidental, and on whose part was it accidental? Does the world stay the same inside the ryokan, or is it just as prone to change as the rest of the world? Is the ryokan a resort or a prison? Should you respect what your loved one wants for themselves, or is it your job to want something better for them? Takae, Rentaro, Miwako, Yumi, and even Kasumi all have different opinions on these questions, and we’re never told who’s correct, nor to what extent.

Finally, like Rashomon, the game is content with leaving a few answers undiscovered. While shooting the movie, Kurosawa was approached many times by the actors, who wanted to know what “really” happened in the movie — and each time he refused to say, wanting the story to be truly Alive in a way that it wouldn’t be if he answered their questions.

Nancy’s job is to expose the malevolent force in the game for what it is, not to heal the family, nor to make decisions for them.

And speaking of their decisions, let’s talk about what motivates our characters in this game. I know, this intro is already kind of long, and I normally keep this kind of talk for the Characters section, but given how much they intersect in this game, we’re gonna go into it here. All of our suspects here in the game are driven and informed by one thing: their coping mechanisms.

C’mon, no surprise here. It’s in the title of the meta for more than just the pun.

Because our suspects are living in the “Once Upon a Time” section of the faerietale — aka the past — it’s their coping mechanisms that drive them. Takae is driven by guilt over her daughter’s death and fear of a changing world; Miwako is driven by anger towards her family and personally-assumed responsibility over Everything That Happens; Rentaro is driven by selfish pride and concern over his loved one; Yumi is driven by avoidance and individualistic willpower.

These are all common when dealing with loss, and each of these tell us exactly how our characters are going to act throughout the tale. In a very real way, SAW is a game about how we, as humans, deal with the stories that we tell ourselves (another thing that it has in common with CAP), and how that changes the way that we perceive the world.

It’s the breakdown of Rentaro’s coping mechanism — his pride in always being correct — that causes him to Do Evil while claiming that it’s The Right Thing. Everyone else’s mechanisms are what allows for him to be as influential as he is; Kasumi is already haunting Takae, and Miwako is already feeling the world crash down around her. Even though the yurei is just wires and metal and Upsettingly Damp-Looking Hair, its presence in the ryokan isn’t physical – it’s psychological.

Remember, “a ghost doesn’t need to be real to haunt you”.

The Title:

Let’s be real here, we’re getting into the segment of Nancy Drew games where the (most of) titles just kick butt and aren’t afraid to do so. Like, Shadow at the Water’s Edge? Gives you creepy vibes right off the bat even without the yurei on the front giving you The Ring flashbacks. Properly atmospheric without being too specific, and “shadow” gives us the idea that we’re dealing with a monster that’s more ghostly, rather than flesh and blood.

I don’t even have anything negative to say about this title, that’s how good it is — plus, I mean, the acronym is literally “saw”. Awesome.

Let’s move on then to the faerietale behind the title.

The Faerietale

SAW and CAP both function, genre-wise, as a faerietale — a story with few characters, big pasts, legends and magic, and a moral at the end to tie things off. In both cases, interestingly enough, it’s our villain who gives us our “moral” — the Truth that ties the plot, history, and characters together, able to be said in a single sentence. In SAW, it’s this (rather chilling) statement from Rentaro that does it:

“A ghost doesn’t need to be real to haunt you.”

But let’s start at the beginning.

Like in a lot of faerietales, we have two sisters who are as different as can be, an inheritance (a ryokan rather than a crown or a prince), absent/dead parental figures, a wizened mentor related to our main characters (Takae), and a Monstrous Force opposing them and their ‘kingdom’. In this story, Nancy is the Dashing Outsider (not unlike the Prince from The Twelve Dancing Princesses) who vows to learn the secrets, defeat the monster, and save the kingdom, restoring balance to the ‘royal’ family and allowing them to prosper.

(And no, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in this game Nancy’s the Knight in Shining Armor when CAP and Renate’s talk about them is right around the corner, but we’ll save that for next time.)

Having established that the game is a faerietale, let’s talk about why that actually matters (beyond the fact that it’s kinda cool in itself) when we’re looking at the game.

It basically matters for a handful of reasons: it allows us to figure out the suspect Fairly easily, it allows the writers to Allude to subject matters that are a little Dark for the E/E10 rating that Nancy Drew games normally get, and provides a bridge between the (overall) concrete games of the past and the more thematic, character-development-focused games that we’re coming up on. So let’s break that down.

Assigning our characters faerietale roles lets us see immediately that Rentaro is Missing an easy assignation. He doesn’t fit the prince, doesn’t fit a sibling — he doesn’t fit anywhere, in short, which is our first clue that he’s the villain.

Even ignoring the fact that the yurei is obviously mechanical, that Rentaro has free access to the entire ryokan in a way that no other character does, and that he’s responsible for upkeeping the ryokan (which is why it’s suspicious that he’s not the one Dedicated to figuring out the mystery) — which are all excellent things that point towards Rentaro, his absence in the faerietale points to a hidden role.

Since the only role worth hiding is either an 11th hour ally or a villain, and Rentaro is present from the beginning of the game, it’s pretty clear which one he is.

Situating the game as a faerietale also lets HER play with a few more themes than they normally can, given their target audience. Starting with a rather blatant implication of suicide, the game spins on to abusive relationships, overpowering guilt, and Nancy being, well, downright mean with her questions about a family member’s death.

While Nancy’s always been a bit insensitive, the mystery surrounding Kasumi’s death sends her into the realm of bullheadedly rude (to the point where you can get a game over for it). We see why this writing choice was made in SPY (which we’ll cover in that meta), but it’s one of my favorite things about this game; it takes a slight character trait of Nancy’s and gives it a character-driven purpose.

The last function of SAW (and CAP) as a faerietale is to provide a bridge between the older and the newer games. The older games tended to be self-involved entities: they began with Nancy’s room and ended with the letter to Carson/Hannah/Ned. As the game technology improved and the player base got older, however, that started to not be good enough; Nancy and her mysteries needed to become A World rather than simply a string of cases held together with a handful of familiar names and archetypes.

The first step towards this was the inclusion of the Hardy Boys back in our Expanded games, but it’s really SAW and CAP that show an Active Transition. Faerietales are often thought of, literarily speaking, as the bridge between children’s fiction and adult fiction; they involve simplistic plots and archetypes that children can easily grasp, but teach hard lessons about the world that adults will understand and resonate with.

The earlier Nancy Drew games, on the whole (there are of course a few exceptions), are largely concrete, like the children’s fiction they’re based on. The good and bad guys are simply and easily divided,  Nancy and co. are always the heroes and always do right, and the bad guys always go to jail.

The past few games leading up to SAW start to shift slightly; while generally our heroes and villains are still sharply divided, nothing is quite as simple as it seems (look at TOT, where at least a few bad guys get away and actually profit from their bad actions).

It’s here in SAW, however, where we see that take a sharp shift. Those who should be good guys (Rentaro is a Love Interest, he enjoys puzzles, he’s a ‘fixer’ by trade) aren’t good at all; those who should be the bad guys (Takae and Miwako behave a lot like early Nancy Drew villains with their cageyness, dislike of Nancy, and ability to get Nancy to Second Chance) really aren’t.

In case this point is a bit obtuse, Logan is the perfect example of what I mean.

In SHA, Charleena Purcell has a receptionist (well-voiced by JVS) that at first prevents you from talking to her, but isn’t much of an obstacle. It’s a cut and dried ‘solve this one puzzle’ and then Nancy can talk to the author as much as she chooses — it’s barely an impediment, honestly.

In SAW, we’re dealing with another famous author, who also has a receptionist — Logan Mitchell. Unlike the receptionist in SHA, who’s just Doing His Job and exists long enough for a puzzle, Logan is a rather spiteful character who enjoys hanging up on people, and does it to Nancy with Great Joy.

As a character, Logan matters; he has his own viewpoints, loyalties (that are explored in SPY as well), and his own idiosyncrasies that make dealing with him — repeatedly — a bit like dealing with people in real life. The receptionist in SHA isn’t a character, no matter how much I personally like JVS’ voice work with him. Logan is. And that’s a huge difference in the approach of the games and the shift from the concrete, insert-puzzle-and-go nature of the older games and the more abstract, thematic nature of the newer games.

Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you, the player, and your personal preferences. But it can’t be denied that there is a shift, and it’s the genius of SAW (and CAP)’s genre-shift to a faerietale that does it.

The Mystery:

Our mystery picks up where TOT left off, with Krolmeister sending Nancy to one of his favorite ryokans in Japan as a thank you for her help in the previous case.

This is how we find out that Krolmeister is apparently Spooky AF, as the ryokan is haunted.

Nancy decides to pick up a job while she’s there (the ‘how’ of her obtaining employment and an E-2 visa so promptly is ignored) as an English teacher to some of the cutest (and one of the most disturbing) children in Japan, which is how she spends her days — and how the game gets away with it taking place Solely at night.

The more time Nancy spends at the ryokan, however — and the more people connected to it that she meets — the more that she suspects that the ryokan might actually be harboring a malevolent entity bent on wreaking havoc and shutting down the place once and for all…

As a mystery, the game is solid; you spent most of your time “on-site” at the ryokan, soaking in the very well-done atmosphere, with only a few moments in-game spent at other locations (such as the pachinko parlor, Yumi’s apartment, etc.), and the amount of work that went into every detail of the ryokan is staggering (especially the garden).

Normally, I wouldn’t hang so much on the atmosphere when talking about the plot, but it’s actually relevant here, since the atmosphere is part of the plot — i.e., is it the ‘atmosphere’ of the ryokan that makes the hauntings happen, and did the ryokan kill Kasumi.

Speaking of Kasumi, she’s one of the biggest open-ended mysteries in this game. Did Shimizu Kasumi kill herself, or was her death an accident, or was it caused by a Paranormal Entity, leading to her becoming a ghost herself?

The game tells us how Kasumi died — cleaning a bath that she had never cleaned before, leading to her drowning — but the circumstances outside of her death like her will and her premonitions about her death speak less to an accident alone and more towards Something causing her death.

In my own point of view, Kasumi — remember, this is the Nancy Drew Universe, where ghosts are actually real — had a bit of Prescient Awareness to her, and knew that her death was coming, though not by what. While there’s evidence towards her knowing about her death that could, if looked at in that light, lead one to suspect Kasumi of suicide, it’s unexpectedly hard to kill yourself via drowning in a shallow body of water. Add to that her future plans, and I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Kasumi knew she would die, but she didn’t plan and execute a suicide.

Of course, there’s good arguments to be made on the other side. Whichever way you look at it, I’m just happy with the presence of loose ends, as that’s not the mystery that Nancy’s there to solve — and, indeed, without the presence of an actual suicide note from that period, is a mystery that simply cannot be solved.

The Suspects:

We’ll start with (and yes, the names will all be in Japanese rather than Western order) Shimizu Miwako, the Younger Daughter in our faerietale and the current force behind the ryokan.

As the one (via a faerietale’s rules) destined to succeed, Miwako sure does get the short end of the stick when it comes to her relationships. Her causing/contributing/worsening the rift between herself and Yumi aside, her boyfriend is actively sabotaging her and her grandmother doesn’t think she should be the one running the ryokan, no matter how good a job she does.

As a culprit, however, Miwako would have been a bit confused, given how much she likes the ryokan and the good job she does with it. For a Miwako ending to make sense, she would have had to been influenced by an actual ghost, sabotaging the ryokan without wanting to and having your usual blackouts that come with Psychic Interference. It would have been interesting, but out of the faerietale genre (and out of the Nancy Drew game genre as a whole) and thus not a very good story.

Next up is the Elder Daughter, Shimizu Yumi, who left the ryokan as soon as she could and instead sells bento boxes in Kyoto. Framed as a sort of free spirit, Yumi doesn’t see any need for her to run the ryokan and instead does something that she likes and is obviously very successful at.

As a culprit, Yumi would have, to be frank, been a major disappointment. Already taking fire from her little sister and her grandmother for the Abject Sin of not taking on the family business, Yumi would have been way to easy, both character-wise and tonally for the game as a whole. The Elder Daughter in a faerietale is usually the one who fails (the Youngest Daughter almost always succeeds), and so it’s refreshing to have everyone but herself consider Yumi a failure.

Their grandmother and quasi-mentor, Nagai Takae, is the other person who helps run the ryokan — much to her displeasure, as tradition dictates that Yumi, not Miwako, help run the family business.

Because someone who resents being there will definitely be a much better worker in the hospitality market than someone who loves the ryokan.

Takae has absolutely no head for anything but her own ideas and clings onto tradition not for its sake, but because change is scary, hard, and (in the case of her daughter’s death) heartbreaking.

As a culprit, Takae would have been interesting, but absolutely impossible — unless she was working with someone else. And as interesting as a Takae/Rentaro team-up would have been, Takae simply has no motive for scaring everyone else out. She needs the ryokan to survive, to do well, if she’s going to be able to cling on to the things that she wants.

Rounding out our main faerietale cast is our Malevolent Force, Aihara Rentaro, the ryokan’s handyman and tech expert, who secretly builds robots resembling his girlfriend’s dead mother and uses them to scare people out of the ryokan.

He’s a peach.

Not only is Rentaro our only option for a faerietale ending, but he’s also just the best option for the culprit in general. Handy enough to build a “ghost”, expected in any place in the ryokan without suspicion, and with a strong (if dickish) motive). Like all Evil Wizards/Malevolent Forces in faerietales, he wants to ruin the kingdom and steal away the Daughter — though, unlike a lot of faerietales, he’s convinced himself it’s For Her Own Good.

Which yeah is super gross, but hey, he’s our Villain. Villains should be a bit gross.

Lastly, we’re going to look at two characters who are inseparable from one another for the purposes of discussion: Savannah Woodham and her assistant Logan Mitchell.

Savannah (as we meet her in SAW) is a former ghost hunter who now writes about technology (hence her presence in Kyoto) who mentioned the ryokan in a book about the paranormal. Not being fond of interruptions, she pays Logan to be her assistant so that he can deal with the calls that she gets.

She also brings in a nice little easter egg talking about CAP, where Castle Finster is implied to be the castle she mentions in SAW.

As a character in the Nancy Drew world (as it becomes a world), Savannah is an odd presence, in that she’s a sage without being an academic. Most of the ‘authorities’ that Nancy calls for information are professors, researchers, etc., but Savannah doesn’t quite fall into that designation.

Sure, she’s written a book, but ghost hunting isn’t exactly a…respected profession or topic — and yet, Savannah is clearly the smartest person in the game (and one of the smartest people that Nancy encounters as phone friends). This is great — Nancy herself is no academic, and I do get tired of the prioritizing of Academia over actual knowledge.

Savannah also gets the best lines, and her VA absolutely smashes it out of the park. I’ll talk more about her as the Nancy Games (beginning in ASH), as a lot of her dialogue is foreshadowing for our next games, but suffice it to say that, other than the Hardy Boys and the Drews, Savannah probably fights only Alexei for the most significant NPC in the ND universe.

Her assistant is no slouch in the Significance department, though.

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR SPY AHEAD, IF YOU DON’T WANT THEM SKIP UNTIL THE NEXT ALL-CAPS PARAGRAPH.

Logan (according to him) started working for Savannah to make some money during spring break and found the job too weird to quit once break was done (according to him). He loves hanging up on people, resulting in Savannah referring to him as her “lil’ Georgia bulldog”, and would like to go out on a date with Bess (according to him).

Yeah, pretty much everything about Logan should be taken with a grain of salt, as he’s the one who tells it to us, and…well, Logan is a spy. A spy who’s assigned to Nancy at least as far back as SAW, who gets close to her friend(s) and reports back to Cathedral that Nancy’s obsessed with her mother’s death and thus will probably be used by those who want to know Kate Drew’s secrets.

He ‘fires’ Savannah from being his boss prior to GTH because his work is done; he’s completed the mission he’s been assigned and is now working on other things. Logan isn’t a ghost hunter, nor a receptionist, nor a guy who wants to take Bess out on a date — until he needs to be. Like any good spy, Logan is all things to all people, and it’s his tiny bit of backstory in SPY (easily missed if you’re not paying attention — remember, in Nik games especially there’s no such thing as “optional reading” — that makes him so significant in SAW.

SPOILERS END HERE, YOU’RE ALL GOOD TO CONTINUE.

The Favorite:

There’s a lot to love about SAW, so let’s dive right in.

The first thing I’ll mention, because I just mentioned it, is Logan, who is one of my favorite parts of the Nancy Drew universe, let alone this specific game. His VA is great, his dialogue is great, his character is great — he ticks all the boxes, and I love it.

Savannah is, of course, also a favorite; any game with Savannah in it automatically moves it up a few clicks in my estimation. Savannah (and sage-type characters like her) is where Nik’s writing really shines, and her dialogue is always a joy to read and hear.

My favorite moment is actually a tiny moment, despite it being the titular incident: the shadow at the water’s edge. It’s easy to miss, but when Nancy looks in the bath and sees Kasumi’s shadow for that split second…it’s the haunting that games like HAU and CUR really wanted to have — subtle, upsetting, and fully within the bounds of the Laws of Haunting that the ND universe has set up.

My favorite puzzle is hands-down the bento boxes. Longtime readers of this meta series (which will be two years old this summer!) will know that there’s nothing that I like better than a good logic puzzle, and the bento boxes are a great logic puzzle. It’s fun, cute, and I love that you can do it as much as you want.

I do love, lastly, that this game is a faerietale. Having read and analyzed faerietales for a good portion of my life, it’s nice to see that niche interest represented within another niche interest.

The Un-Favorite:

There are a few things in SAW that I really don’t like, as much as I think this game is great.

The most important is my least favorite puzzle: the frame puzzle. This puzzle is one of the few puzzles that actually make me white-out in Rage and refuse to play further, which is a problem given that SAW is actually a great game and I enjoy playing it. It honestly stops me from replaying the game as often as I really should, given its significance to the ND universe, and for how just good it is. I usually make my sister or my best friend play it for me, but I do actually have to leave the room while they do it because it infuriates me that much.

My least favorite moment in the game is a little different, given how good the game actually is; it’s the very end where, depending on the choice that Nancy makes, Rentaro’s apology is accepted by Miwako. Sure, Nancy says it’s unlikely that they’ll date again, but this is a case where the choice to tell on him or have him tell himself should result in the same result: him having to leave. Handymen aren’t thin on the ground, and the ryokan needs help, rather than the same toxic influence that helped bring it down in the first place.

While I appreciate the choice for Nancy impacting the end — I really do — it should say more about Nancy as a character than it should about Miwako and Rentaro. That it doesn’t is a failure in storytelling at the 11th hour, which is a shame in a game this good.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Shadow at the Water’s Edge?

First things first, I would obviously change the frame puzzle a bit. I don’t think it needs removed per se, but I would definitely shift it. Give an option to skip it, perhaps, or make it easier the more time you spend on that screen, or make it easier if you go in and out of it a few times. Heck, even having it reset when you back out (or having a reset button) would be better, since getting stuck in the puzzle results in Hours of Frustration.

Other than that, I would only change the ending choice. Like I said above, the choice is great, but it should be changed to show us exactly who Nancy is (not unlike the choice in GTH). Is Nancy the kind of person who would not trust Rentaro to tell himself and thus does it, or is Nancy the kind to give him just enough rope to hang himself?

Either way, we’re given a view of Nancy that we’ll see more and more — that she is not always kind, nor infallible, nor impartial. She lets her feelings interfere with her cases, and while sometimes that’s good (again, GTH is a prime example), sometimes the only impact her choices need to have on her is to show us her character.

All in all, Shadow at the Water’s Edge is a good, mature look at the Nancy Drew universe, and continues the thread of connecting case-to-case. While it’s ultimately imperfect, I believe it’s not only one of the most fun games to play through, but also to consider in the larger realm of Nancy Drew games and in adaptation of genre altogether.

[mxtantrights]

✹ 　 PART THREE (DAMSEL)

HAWKINS, INDIANA

OCTOBER 31, 1983

It's not just regular Thursday afternoon. No, this is no mere mortal Thursday. It's Halloween! One of the few times of the year where I feel a twinge of happiness. I mean, Christmas is cool and all but when will you ever hear a scream and think good things?

On halloween you will.

However-

This is halloween in Hawkins. It's never been done before and I have to set the bar. Well at least for myself. I wanna dress up for tonight and scare some kids. As I am growing older I have grown to realize that scaring the shit out of little kids can be funny on the one day that it's mandated.

"Jessie!" The teacher calls out.

I'm a bit startled but I remain still, and just glance her way. "Sorry."

"Jessie would you mind telling the class what has your attention besides the trail of tears?"

Yes. I really would mind. I really really would mind. I am so not into being called out. What kind of shit is that? So I'm dozing off in class, it's U.S. history, it's not being told correctly anyways. But I won't get mad. I don't like confrontation with- adults.

I'll just have to answer her.

"Uh.." I trail off and blow raspberries with my lips until I can think of something on the spot. "Halloween."

There are fits of chuckles in the back of the classroom. But that doesn't mean it was funny to my teacher, Ms.Sean. She dares to flash a fake smile at me and circle her desk for something. I see her reach for something- a paper, most likely. She picks up one and then walks it over to me, placing it on my desk.

"I don't think Halloween was on our latest quiz."

Uh-oh.

I look down to see the bright red F. Great. Just great. Well I can't bring this home. If my dad or my mom finds out about this they will tear my ass in two. I will not hear the end of it from them. They'll probably punish me.

I say nothing and just place the quiz under my folder.

Ms.Sean takes this as her cue to walk away.

"Maybe if she took more time studying than doing her hair she'd keep up." A scrawny voice from the back said.

The classroom erupted in 'ohs' and whispers. I turned around in my seat to look through the back to find out who said it. And sure enough, a girl with a turtle neck and the farrah fawcet hair to match is holding a particularly evil smirk.

And here we fucking go.

I wasn't gonna be mad. I really was just going to swallow any snarky comments, any comments at all. I was going to sit here like an amazing behaved teenager and take my punishment or public school call out.

But now, oh boy.

If I don't nip this in the butt now, it'll roll. Roll right into a snowball that follows me until I'm graduating senior year. Or at one of these dances, or the next class. I'm not gonna let this spiral. Dayton taught me better than that.

"I really like your costume Trina, but you might give someone a heart attack."

The class really loses it after that. Ms.Sean has to calm them down as I turn back in my seat. I don't need to see her dumb-struck face. That comment didn't rub me the right way, I've got to keep my eye on that one.

As the class chills out, I can see that Ms.Sean is trying to hide a smile on her lips. She clears her throat in another effort to hide it and it works.

"No more disruptions. Back to the lesson...."

-

I set my lunch bag down in front of Jonathan as he mumbles a quiet 'Hi'

"Hey, whats up?" I ask him

But he just shakes his head and shrugs. He bites into his sandwich.

It must be one of his moods.

For the two months and change that I've known him, Jonathan Byers has these days where he just shuts down. I don't know if anything is causing it or if it's just because he's like that. And I don't even know him well enough to pry into his business.

I just know enough to leave him alone.

"So I know you do this thing where you like to keep quiet or minimal, do you mind if I just talk a little bit?" It's very- blunt to say the least to ask him this, but he's like my only friend here. Besides Nancy but I don't talk with her much.

I watch him carefully as he nods his head.

"Okay so I was in history today and this girl made a snarky comment about my hair and my grades. And I wouldn't say anything back home, because you know back home I knew everyone and we were all on good terms. But I had to say something back." I rant a bit. Then I realize that he's actually becoming interested in what I'm talking about, so I hold off a bit.

"Well what did you say?" His mouth is still a bit full with food.

I smile and shrug, since I have brothers I'm used to the piggish behavior. "I told her that her costume might give someone a heart attack."

He goes back to nodding. Oh did he not get-

"She wasn't wearing a costume Jonathan."

He looks at me with wide eyes. And then he begins to laugh. And then I join in. Then we're both laughing. And it hits me that I don't see him laugh like this in this school. He doesn't do much here besides go to class, sulk, avert his gaze from others.

I've seen him laugh the few times I go to pick up my brother from one of the boy's houses.

I push off the thought when he holds his hand up to his chest to stop laughing.

"Ah man, what'd she say to that?"

"Nothing, Ms.Sean decided to resume class. Thankfully."

He nods, but this time he seems a little brighter. I guess thats what friends are for.

My hand digs into my lunch bag and takes out the sandwich I made myself this morning. There was no way I was letting either roof my parents make me something. They'd call a slice of cheese between two slices of bread a meal.

Dayton was the one who looked out for me in cases like this. We went to he same high school together. Sometimes he'd just pop up at my lunch table and swing his lunch over. Or he'd pack another sandwich for me.

I miss my brother.

Not surprising, but it's something.

I take another look at my friend to see if he's dozed off again, but he's not. He's looking dead ahead at something behind me. And the face he has on his face means that it can't be good. Slowly I turn in my seat to steal a glance.

It's the girl I replied to in class.

I watch her take a seat with her friends. And they are joined by Nancy. Nancy Wheeler.

I must've been staring too long because she- Nancy- looks over at me. I don't 'know what to do, to smile or to wave or to do nothing, to just turn back around. I do none and keep watching. In a few seconds the girl- my new nemesis? maybe- looks in my direction too.

And she does something alright.

She gives me the finger.

-

The doorbell rings and I run to get it.

I'm on door duty this year. Mickey is at Will's house. Him and the rest of the boys are playing D&D like usual. It feels like that's all he does nowadays. Not to take it away from him though, I'm glad he's got friends.

But with him gone so much, my parents are surely gonna be on me a bit more. Not with my grades though. I made sure to rip that up as soon as school ended and throw it away in a trashcan that wasn't mine. Kind of paranoid about it, yeah I know.

Anyways, tonights dinner was an indication of my parent's peek interest.

They asked me how I was doing, if I was making new friends, how my grades were doing. Then my mom asked about how the job was going. It wasn't really going though. Yes I went and got an application but I didn't submit it.

It's been sitting in my drawer for a few nights now.

If I take that job then I'm really not gonna have time for my music. There is no way I can get away with blasting the radio in my room and try gin to strum along to the songs after nine pm. I barely get away with it now.

And if I don't make time for my music, then I'm really just a nothing. I'm not doing too good in school because I want to make something out of myself with music. And If I don't practice that then I just won't be doing too good all around.

You know what's also not too good? Whoever's kid is at my door.

I look at the young boy who seems on the verge of crying. "Are you okay little man?"

He looks to me with those wide cartoon eyes. And it ties in with his costume, the kid from E.T. The kid's got the basket in his hands and I really do want to take a peek inside and made sure E.T. isn't actually in there.

"My alien needs candy to survive." He quips.

Laughing I grab the bucket from the table beside me and give him like five different kinds of chocolates. He deserved it.

The boy smiles, thanks me and begins running away.

I thought I was gonna scare kids this year. But my parents told me they don't want to be 'the bad house' on the block. I guess even adults deal with peer pressure and social hierarchies. What was I gonna do, disobey them?

To their face? No.

I'm already doing that with my grades.

I shut the door and head back to the dinning room. My parents are watching some old people movie on tv which leaves me all by my lonesome. Which I would like if it weren't Halloween. I thought my night would be more entertaining than this.

The phone from the kitchen starts ringing. And I'm running again.

I pick it up after the second ring. "Hello?"

"Jess? it's me."

"Dayton? isn't it like early there in Stanford?"

"Yeah-just, don't alert mom and dad alright. I didn't even mean to call-"

"Okay I won't, but why are you calling?" As soon as I ask him it's like the line foes dead. I sure thought it did because I begin beating on the receiver. "Hello?!"

"Keep your voice down alright!"

"The reason for your call brother o'mine?"

More silence from him, but I can hear him moving around. "I'm- no just forget it. I didn't mean to call."

"Well you did anyways, so that must mean something..." I trail off thinking he might just say what's on his mind but he doesn't. Which is weird since he's always talking, that's why he's going to law school. "I miss you."

He sighs on the other end.

"I miss you too dude."

"Okay, so then let's leave it at that. You miss me, that's why you called."

I can hear him a bit of movement and a short laugh. "Thanks."

"Goodnight, or early night or whatever."

"Goodnight Jessie."

[i-do-unimportant-things]

*clap clap* Movie review

So yeah, Charlie’s Angels, the 2019 reboot of the TV show. A  feminist movie but really just a clichè action movie with a mediocre plotline, relying on it’s ‘woke points’ to be watchable.

First, let’s talk about the movie itself and why it did so badly.

The 2019 Charlie’s angels is an action comedy movie about three female super spies trying to retrieve a weapon of mass destruction from the wrong hands directed by Elizabeth banks, the guardian calls this a ‘weaponised feminist frenzy’. This movie hit the theatres at the start of the year and went on to fail so badly, the financial loss can only be explained by claiming there’s a wage gap. Charlie’s angels is originally a TV show from the mid 70s, but nowadays, no one would consider the show ‘feminist’. The entire plot of the TV show existed around the three main female characters being hot, and near naked. Nevertheless this sleazy show was successful and had a few movies coming out in the years 2000 and 2003. And on November 15 2019, the latest Charlie’s angels came out from Sony studios. Sony, the same company that has brought you: Ghostbusters 2016 and the Emoji movie. Now don’t get me wrong lots of movie companies use nostalgia to try and sell tickets, but no one does it quite as poorly as Sony. The movie tries too hard to be some sort of woke feminist statement, but it ends up just being really forced. One of the main actresses, Kristen Stewart has commented that this movie is ‘taking down the patriarchy’ Ah yes, this feminist reboot of a non-feminist show, is taking on the patriarchy head on! C’mon, no one will believe that this mediocre action film is making is making any kind of significant social impact. It would have made a much bigger impact if the movie was not only made by women, but also, enjoyable to watch. The movie was, unsurprisingly, a massive flop shattering Elizabeth Banks dream of turning it into a franchise. It had a budget of $50 million and ended up making $8 million in it’s opening weekend. No one cared to see it, and for those who did, they hated it. Like, seriously despised it, 4/10 on IMDB? Even shark tale is rated better than that. But Elizabeth Banks wasn’t ready to admit that maybe, just maybe, her movie wasn’t that good. No, instead she was bracing herself for a box-office flop, by blaming men.  Prior to the movie’s disastrous opening weekend, she had said that if the movie didn’t do well, it would reinforce a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go to see women do action movies. Here’s a little thinker for ya, if people don’t go and see your movie, it may not be because all men are sexist pigs, but people would rather watch a good movie. Regardless of whether or not there’s a female character in it. Not to mention other medias with female leads have gone on to be extremely successful.  Alien? Kill Bill? Tomb Raider? Both Frozen’s? Metroid series? Mulan? Wonder women? Bank’s counters this by saying that the female comic superhero movies are only successful because they are tied into a larger, male genre of movies. Wait so, the successful movies starring women are successful because men are sexist, but your movie isn’t successful because men are sexist? What are you babbling about? Look, I understand it sucks to see a movie you directed, produced and acted in fail, but this weak finger pointing is not going to help.

Now let’s analyse the movie and see why people hated it so much.

Above all, Charlie’s angels is a comedy spy action movie that doesn’t work as a comedy, spy or an action movie. The plot is basically this high-stakes mission about retrieving weapons of mass destruction. But the problem is that the movie never bothers to actually visually establish as dangerous or as anything really. All we see is one of those devices killing one guy right beside it and then being automatically self-destructed. Then there’s the “action”. It’s mostly just noise without any meaningful character moments or choices or obstacles or any real sense of danger. Most of the time the action sequences don’t even serve any purpose plot-wise. On top of it the physics of it are so illogical they just make no sense. Like just watch the car falling out scene. But all that aside what I wanna focus on is the aspect of Charlie’s angels that is probably the main cause of it’s downfall more that anything else; it’s relentless obsession with gender. There’s a difference between a good female-led movie and a movie so blindly obsessed with the feminist agenda that it gets to the point of being destructive to itself. A lot of times with a certain agenda of gender or social class or whatever they tend to feature a core theme that empowers the group or demographic that it’s about. And with Charlie’s angels the care theme is obviously female empowerment which is made very clear from even the first line in the movie “I think women can do anything”. Basically the core theme of Charlie’s angels is that women, by nature, can do anything. In itself, it’s a great message for younger female audiences. The problem is that the movie quickly grows so obsessed with this theme that instead of it being positively empowering, it actually becomes negatively degrading. Because when Charlie’s angels claims that women by nature can do anything, it doesn’t mean that women can do a certain specific set of things they set their minds to, it means that women, by nature, can do literally everything. And before you say that I’m saying it’s a problem because I hate women, hold on. There’s actually a major character issue that comes with this obsession; it makes every female character and main hero shallow and superficial and takes away their individual uniqueness that’s supposed to make them who they are. To show what I mean let’s look at our three main angels; one of them is this tall angel who initially is established as the physical brawler of the team, she’s powerful and likes to solve obstacles by running straight at it and punching them until their no longer obstacles. And that’s great that’s something that gives her character individuality and can delve much deeper into the movie. Thats who she is but then, she makes this smart science trap using chemicals, then all of a sudden this physical brawler turns out also to be a super-smart chemist, and to be clear; she doesn’t become that, she doesn’t learn to be that she already is that because again, women by nature, can do and be anything. So what exactly is the issue with this?  Well at first she is this one specific thing, but then turns out to be an entirely other thing and suddenly, we don’t really know who she is anymore. To build on this example look at the Kristen Stewart’s angel, the way the movie tries to establish her is that she’s this confident improvisor of the team who uses her wits to gain an advantage over others. But the movie also presents her as just as competent of a physical brawler aa the tall angel, which not only makes her witty hustler personality kind of pointless, it also destroys her individuality it’s hard to know who Kristen Stewart is as a person when she can do and be the exact same as the person right next to her, and if we don’t know who she is it’s hard to get into or develop her as a character when we’re not even sure what it is we’re getting into or developing. The only character difference seems to be that Kristen Stewart says what ever haha ‘funny’ she has on her mind. Then we have princess Jasmin’s angel who is this super smart technology nerd thrust into this world she doesn’t belong in. And she could be a pretty Interesting character, if not for the fact that the movie has already presented the tall angel as super-smart as well, and the fact that Jasmin seems to be able to handle herself in a fight too. So, what makes her different? Who is she compared to the others? Who is she as an individual person? And pretty much with every female character the movie is so unhealthy obsessed with this agenda of female empowerment that it just ends up being a weakness. The characters don’t struggle, they don’t have any flaws or depth they don’t have anything that would make them individual people that the audience can care about and watch grow because in a world where everyone is special, no one is. When women by nature can do or be everything, the one thing they can’t do is be unique.

In addition to empowering the group their about, the other thing these movies with social agendas often do is villainise the demographic opposite them and show how they need to struggle to overcome obstacles set by this opposite demographic. And since Charlie’s angels is about women, obviously here the point is to showcase men and the evil they’re capable of. Which again, is made very clear, even from the very beginning. Basically, all male characters in Charlie’s angels are in some way douchebags who treat women in a derogatory sense. There’s a total of three good guy men in this movie. One of them dies, another one is cleansed of his whatever sins by a women beauty, and the last is like the perfect man from a dystopian world where women have enslaved men. So the message is that men can be a bit of an annoying obstacle to women. I personally don’t like this message, but it has potential to explore some really deep themes with it. But the problem again, is that this movie is so blindly obsessed with it’s agenda of having men be evil that it inadvertently destroys the very message it’s trying to explore. Firstly, just like the female side, all the males are diluted down to unrealistic caricatures nobody can take seriously. The security guard for example, his character is supposed to portray men abusing power against women, and it could have been a very powerful message, but the reason that moment doesn’t work whatsoever is because we’ve never even seen the security guard before, and so we have no perception of why he would do this. He’s not being evil because he’s jealous of Jasmin’s career, he’s not being evil because he’s hurt inside or anything, the movie is saying he’s being evil just because he’s a man. All men in this movie are being evil just because their men and that’s all there is to it.The movie doesn’t give us any reasons or explanations, no explored internal fears or flaws or motive or anything under the surface and that’s not how real life people function, that’s not how to get anything done with your message other than it being scoffed off as shallow and dumb. Secondly, this men are evil obsession creates a big narrative problem. In the sense that the plot of the movie quickly becomes very one-dimensional and easy to predict. For example, near the midpoint of the movie there’s a twist that Elizabeth Banks, who is the leader of the angels, might be evil, she might have some evil plan that involves  tracking Patrick Stewart’s good guy character. But then you remember that this movie has just spent it’s entire runtime  proposing that all men are evil just because their men which would then mean that OH WOW WHAT A SURPRISE THE MAN IN A FEMINIST MOVIE IS EVIL. The problem is that it’s really not that much of a surprise to anyone because from the start the film has done everything in it’s power to condition the audience to believe that women are all good and that men are all evil. Having a message criticising men or a whole demographic can be great and powerful. But you can’t let yourself be so blindly obsessed with it that you don’t even bother delving deeper into it.You can’t have women be good just because women are good and men be bad just because men are bad. That’s not realistic, that’s not how the world works, that’s not a message that will get anyone to listen and above all, it’s not good writing.

Another danger that can very easily come true in movies with social agendas is that the message they’re pushing becomes very one-sided. To the point of alienating a certain section of the audience. And with Charlie’s angels, wether the filmmakers intended it or not, the fact is that the movie altogether as a whole is very anti-male. I’ve already commented about all male characters being portrayed as shallow evildoers, but there’s also an underlying theme that men as people are objectively sinful creatures who deserve bad things to happen to them. It docent matter who they are or what they have or haven’t done, if something bad happens to them, it’s okay because they deserve it. For example, there’s a long-running ‘joke’ where the angels continuously injure a bunch of guys and then make quips about wether or not they’re gonna wake up. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, when your making a movie,  you are allowed to portray any group of people or entities in whatever positive or negative way you want. So if you want to make a blatantly obvious movie where a specific gender as a whole is portrayed as the worst possible thing in the universe, that’s fine. But you also need to understand is that there’s also gonna be financial consequences from that specific audience. See, before Charlie’s angels hit theatres, it was clear it was gonna be a flop. And knowing this, director Elizabeth Banks had said what I had put above: “if the movie didn’t do well, it would reinforce a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go to see women do action movies” and wether or not the statement has truth(which it doesn’t) is irrelevant. The importance of the statement is the implications that Elizabeth Banks doesn’t understand the concept of biting the hand that feeds. Now I don’t really like the anti-male stuff in Charlie’s angels, but as I’ve said, you’re allowed to do whatever you want in your show. So I understand why male audiences didn’t go out of their way to pay money to see their own gender be continuously criticised and called evil. For example if you make a whole movie ridiculing females and calling them the scum of the earth in a very on-the-nose way, you can’t just expect females to swarm in and support it. Thats not how it works. Whatever message your movie has, you have to be smart about how you deliver it. Don’t just say ‘Women good, men bad’ find a way to imply what it is you wanna say through metaphors. As a filmmaker, you would want everyone to enjoy the film, regardless of gender or race or whatever. I’m not criticising Charlie’s angels because I hate female-led movies. I’m being critical of Charlie’s angels because superficial agenda movies like Charlie’s angels are the reason why we still have so relatively few female led movies. And I’d like to think that by now we’re past one-dimensional messages like this.

[wftc141]

Equestria's Hired Help-Chapter 2: Fancy's Job

On the next day, a lot of customers are in the bar as it is opened and Blitz and Sunset are already on their shifts working. The two works as bartenders but Blitz is also the bouncer to keep order in the bar. Mostly gangs, mercenaries or any type of criminals come to the bar but must follow Blitz and Sunset's rules meaning no fights or killing, no drugs and no intercourse.

The two also take care of drunks as they do not let them walk out to their cars and drive off drunk which most bars get shut down for allowing drunks to drive unconstipated. The money from jobs that Blitz and Sunset do is for the bar as their second job and disguise from cops.

Mostly mercenary jobs can be illegal if they're tied with criminal activity including gang affiliations. The bar used to belong a colt who worked for many years and was friends with Sunset and Blitz as there is a picture frame of him between the two. He is an earth pony with blue eyes and used to wear a white shirt and a bowler hat. Unfortunately due to an illness, he passed away leaving the bar alone which Sunset and Blitz take over to honor their friend.

After Blitz grabbed his tip from his customer, Blitz noticed a colt with a large blue hood over his head a few feet away snorting a small ounce of cocaine on the table And also the fact his body odor was as intense as horrible body spray. Blitz left his station and approached the colt behind.

"Hey, no drugs allowed here." He said, tapping his shoulder.

The colt turned around and noticed Blitz waiting for him. He only replied with a snort.

"What are you, a fucking cop?"

"No, I'm the owner of this bar," Blitz answered. "House rules. You wanna do that shit, do it outside."

The colt stood up and went up on Blitz's face. He could see his white stained nostrils nearing his eyes. "And what the fuck you gonna do if I refuse?"

He heard a slam from aside and turned around. Sunset glared at the colt, holding a sawn off shotgun on the counter.

"Like my friend said. This is our bar and you follow our rules," Sunset clarified. "No drugs. Got that?"

The colt glared at both of them for a brief moment before letting out a grunt.

"Fine."

Eventually, the colt left the bar, not before giving them the bird on his way out. Both of them brushed it off. Shortly, Sunset's phone rang. She took out her phone and stared at the ID. It only said "Unknown Caller ID"

"Hey Blitz. Cover for me?" Sunset asked.

He nodded. Sunset headed off to the backroom and closed the door shut, answering the caller.

"Hello?" Sunset asked.

"Is this Miss Shimmer?" Someone with a really deep voice asked. It sounded like it was altered by some sort of device.

"Who's asking?"

"A client."

"What do you want?"

"We need you and your lion employee in Canterlot for a job. There's an earth pony who stole something that has classified documents of our company and threatens to expose us and we would like it back...and if possible you may capture the thief to us alive. More Information will be sent to your phone. Have this done and the 1,000 dollars will be delivered, in cash. Good day and good hunting."

After the call hang up, Sunset checked her messages and found several of them with images of an apartment in Canterlot and a photo of the target who was a colt pegasus with black fur and green eyes with baggy eyes and stained lips. After reading all of the information that was given, it was time for another job for her and Blitz to do for a unknown client.

In the city of Manehattan, Starlight is walking through the police department and made her way to her office desk in a depressive mood. There were a few glares by other officers because of her past but she got used to it from time. Starlight unpacked and had her desk setup since yesterday night. Sunburst made his way to her with two cups of steaming coffee and held out a cup to her which grabbed her attention.

"You okay?" Sunburst asked.

"Yeah...so so." Starlight answered as she took the coffee from Sunburst.

"How'd it go with the family?"

"Well, the daughter said there was a shootout and she managed to get away from them without looking back."

"And you had a hard time believing that."

Starlight nodded as she does find it hard to believe by the way of the description of the crime scene there was no way Diamond Tiara would escape on foot and fly over to Ponyville to her parents.

"She's obviously hiding something." She said.

"Maybe this is a vigilante thing." Sunburst guessed, taking a gulp of coffee.

"I know a vigilante and she doesn't murder people. That's the true definition of vigilantism. The family obviously hired somepony to get their daughter back."

"Jeez Starlight, you would be detective of the month if you keep that up."

"Would be an honor. Fact is, they may not hand it to me because of that criminal record they made since I was part of an evil militia."

"It's not really a record if you're not arrested or charged. You were the one who exposed them."

"True that."

"Still, if they did hire somepony to get their daughter back...would that still count as a crime?"

Starlight then gives Sunburst a look that shouted 'seriously'.

"Sun...three Griffons are dead."

"Three gangbangers are dead." Sunburst added, holding up three fingers. "Don't get me wrong, I would bring justice but you gotta face the fact that they had it coming when they were kidnapping little girls for their sickening trafficking business and they were gonna do the same to Diamond and Silver. Silver's already dead and that must've made the Rich Family lose faith in the police, just like every other pony in this damned town."

Starlight then starts to stare at something which is a small picture frame of her smiling with a familiar mare which is a alicorn with violet eyes and dressed as a royalty. The frame caught her attention as she's worried about her friend who has been missing for a few years along with her five friends.

"How long has it been since they've been missing?" Starlight muttered.

"What's that?"

Starlight came back to real life as she noticed Sunburst was looking at her in a confused look as he heard her muttered out loud.

"Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself."

The next day, Sunset and Blitz took an hour drive to Canterlot first thing in the morning in a not-so clean but functional white Audi sedan. They arrived via the gate border of Manehattan. First impressions: neat, expensive, snooty and awashed with pampered ponies.

"So who this guy we're after again?" Blitz asked, taking a sip from a soda can.

"Some freelance journalist named Jackpot Bronco," Sunset answered. "Apparently he stole a thumb drive from our client. Must be some sort of executive company."

"Coulda just sent one of their own to do it."

"They could've but ponies nowadays don't like to get their hands dirty and besides, the pay is good."

"Point taken. By the way, you mind if we stayed in Canterlot for a little while after this?"

Sunset glanced at Blitz before looking back on the road.

"Uh, sure? Why though?" Sunset asked.

"Well...You do fancy a good meal, right?" He said as he placed the empty can in the compartment. "Cause word has it that this place got the best ones. Like the five-star kinds. Something you don't see in Manehattan."

Sunset felt a bit concerned about eating with a lion in front of the ponies.

"Well, I mean sure but...aren't you a bit worried about how other ponies would feel-"

"Ugh, please. Like I said, I dealt with that shit since I first set foot on Equestria. Been called a dirty immigrant, monster and pretty much anything between a communist or a warmonger. Griffons got the same treatment as well."

"But you do know two lions came to Equestria and blew up two popular places full of innocent ponies ten years back, right? None of them would ever forgive what they've done."

"Everypony judges us over what a bunch of terrorists do. They don't take the word from the minors. Some of the lions were part of a joint operation against terrorist cells a few years back."

"But this isn't the past anymore. They don't shape anything for the future."

Eventually, Blitz sighed. "Well, if you say so, we can just go home and I'll make the dinner as usual."

"Yep. I'm way better off eating your nice food than listen to rich assholes call you a commie."

Sunset still feel a bit bad how Blitz has been usually treated. In Blitz's hometown, Panthera-Leo, his country was far worse than Equestria as there has been wars between governments and gangsters and corruptions within governments. Panthera-Leo also had terrorism as there were Lion who likes to go out on a sport hunt by killing anyone they see as prey.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the pinpointed building. The two got out of their car and headed inside. After a stack of stairs, they got to the top floor and found the door.

"Room's here right?"

She replied with a nod. The two stacked up next to the door with each of their Glock pistols drawn out. Sunset lifted up three fingers, counting down to one and clenched her fist. Blitz kicks down the door and then the two storms into the room where it is very messy with files on the floor along with empty beer cans. The two also confronted the colt who was in a middle of snorting cocaine until he stopped, startled when Sunset and Blitz stormed into his apartment room.

"Show me your hands." Sunset ordered.

"Who the fuck are you guys?"

"Doesn't matter, you stole something of an important person and he wants it back..." Blitz said.

As he continued on, the colt then starts to feel something wrong as he couldn't control his shaking nor his breathing. He also grabs his chest as something was about to explode. Blitz and Sunset look at each in confusion and then looks back at Bronco.

"Are you okay?" Blitz asked.

Bronco then gives out his last breath and collapsed backwards to the floor. Blitz and Sunset exchanged glances, confused. Blitz then went over to the body and checked for a pulse.

"Well shit," Blitz said as he let go of his neck. "He just OD'd on us."

"Kinda feel bad for the poor guy now." Sunset said.

Sunset then looks around and noticed a thumb drive on the table next to Bronco's desktop computer. She walks over to the computer and picks it up along with the flash drive attached to it.

"Well...I guess this is what our client wanted." Said Sunset.

"You sure that's the one?" Blitz asked.

"Same description from the photo they sent me."

"Then looks like our job here is done."

"What about him?" Sunset asked.

Blitz then starts to look around and then finds a wall telephone. He walks to it and starts dialing and waits for a response.

"333, what is your emergency?"

"Please! I need an ambulance!" Blitz cried in a feigned panic tone. "My friend just had a heart attack in his apartment, Room 237! Please send help!"

Blitz then hung up and then turns to Sunset, smugly.

"Problem solved."

Sunset then tilt her head to the side as she thinks that was a good plan and she and Blitz starts to walk off leaving the dead colt alone in the room with the door closed.

Later, Blitz and Sunset are now in an empty parking garage as they wait for their client to give them their flashdrive and receive their payment. Finally on time, two black SUVs and a Lincoln limousine drove up and parked in front of Blitz and Sunset. Coming out of the cars were colts in assorted suits and designer shades, making a first impression of hired bodyguards. All of a sudden, they aimed their guns at Blitz and Sunset which the two step away with their hands slightly up.

"Woah, what the fuck is this?" Blitz demanded.

"Now, now everyone. No need to draw your guns out."

The voice sounded like it came from the limousine. The door opened and a middle aged unicorn with light azure eyes, well combed hair with a mustache came out. He wore what a typical pony would wear in Canterlot - a grey suit with a purple bow tie, a white pinstripe shirt under a black vest and one eye glasses. Sunset is very surprised as she knows who she is.

"Mr Fancy Pants?"

"Who?" Blitz questioned as he turned to Sunset.

"He's a CEO executive slash celeb."

"That's right." The rich pony said. "And I believe I owe you two an apology. My team are simply misguided when it comes to which pony or lion is a hostile."

Fancy Pants then tilts his head as he was searching for someone or pony else as there was something missing.

"Mr Bronco?" Fancy Pants asked.

"He overdosed." Sunset answered.

He sighed, expecting a sight of his fearful look on his face. "That's a shame but no matter. Do you have the thumb drive?"

Sunset slowly reached into her pockets and took out the thumb drive. One of the guards went up to her and snatched it off Sunset. She watched as the guard handed the thumb drive to Fancy Pants.

"Thank you very much for retrieving this." Fancy Pants said, observing the drive with interest. "I've already transferred the money to your account as promised. I do hope we can work together again in the future and with your skills. There's alway room for a place in my business."

"Thank you Mr Fancy Pants but we're better off working alone."

He nodded. "Understandable. Also one more thing before we wrap it up...you wouldn't happen to have peeked what's inside the drive, correct?"

By the look on Fancy Pant's glare(although his eyes didn't actually flare up), Sunset was prepared to make a shield spell as she was having a bad vibe but was not going to be needed as she answered Fancy Pants truthfully.

"No. We've hardly even checked it out."

Fancy Pants continued to stare at Blitz and Sunset. Blitz has a bad feeling as he has his pistol tucked behind his pants and ready to draw if anything goes down. Few seconds later, everything eased up.

"Good," Fancy Pants said, smiling. "You both have a good night now."

Fancy Pants and his guards gets into their vehicles and drove off leaving Blitz and Sunset alone.

"Fancy Pants?" Blitz scoffed. "Seriously, what kind of a dumb name is that?"

"How should I know? I'm not the one who gave them weird names." Sunset replied.

"Whatever. You wanna get something to eat?"

"Sure and I think I know a place. Hopefully they don't mind Lions like they don't mind Griffons."

Blitz and Sunset gets into their car and ignited the engine. From a distance, somepony held a pair of binoculars, focused on the car driving out of the parking garage. He held his gaze on the car and looked away once it disappeared.

Back in Manehattan Police Department, Starlight is sitting in her office continuing to stare down at her picture frame of her friend who is missing along with five other friends while rapidly tapping her fingers on the surface. She still wish her friends are found and ok. Her day dreaming stopped when Sunburst started to walk to her direction with a folder in his hand.

"Hey, got some news from the CSI," Sunburst said as he came up to Starlight. "They managed to pick up DNA of the murderer of the last Cut-Throat Talon gangster. Get this...he's a lion."

Starlight looks at Sunburst with a surprised look.

"A lion?" Starlight asked as she takes a look of the information in the folder and was surprised that it a match for a lion. "Holy shit...what do we know about him?"

"Not much but this could be the same lion that was involved with a few incidents across Manehattan but none of them still have a clue on who he is."

"This is gonna scare the city."

"This is gonna scare all of Equestria."

Sunburst and Starlight starts to wonder who this lion is and why he's Equestria...hopefully it's not another terrorist attack that Equestria had by lions from Panthera-Leo.

[soaringlanddormitory]

Title: Thoughts

Summary: Even if they were leaders, there were secrets. Even if there were allies, there were disagreements. But when there are disagreements, there are deals.

Word Count: 3626

Notes: I wanted to lowkey write about Dai and Kaoru for this au because I think these two bonding would be fun to write!! Plus, this is also a part of Arc 2 so jkfbfkj

There’s a spill of angst and gore in this!! Also it’s pretty Kaoru and Dai centered because since first weeks of being together, he still doesn’t talk too much with the rest of the cast!!

Emile/Canción belongs to @polar-star-dorks!

Hanako/Lotus and Rin/Bullet belongs to @polar-stars!!

Comments are always appreciated and I love you soooo much!!

The weeks were going smoothly, and it was so smooth that even the rest of the gang felt like there was something odd. What made all the incidents suddenly stopped? It feels like as if... there were no people aiming for them. That was quite impossible, especially the fact of how the bounty. They might have felt relieved, but there could be a downside to everything.

They couldn’t name what was going on. They weren’t able to be targeted for weeks now, even if there were a couple of stays inside the Kinokuni Household or the Isshiki Household- no one ever dared to strike them. Maybe it was the calmness before the storm? It as so relaxing it was uneasy... What the hell were the enemies planning? 

The gang wasn’t able to tell, and they couldn’t ask the opinion of X-terminate who were in a current mission. Bullet had some details about the Districts- and it was something significant to know the next move. But why were the people who aimed for the heads of the two not acting?

They knew the reason once someone was shot dead in front of them.

All of the people who witnessed the sudden crime were in shock, but in an instant- all their weapons were brought out. Maybe their prediction was right, it was something to catch them off guard. Luckily, the people with them were smart enough to not think that. If there were something that could happen, Lotus already told them the plans, depending on what their next move may be. Currently, they had 8 plans, and they’d be able to determine which one they were gonna use by the letter that she would say.

“They haven’t shot yet, I’d say we have to wait. If they shoot again, we have to go with plan D. If a knife, plan B. Of course, if it’s going to a massive type of weapon, Plan H.” Lotus spoke up and they all were listening to her. “Whatever happens next, you should already know what to do.” She brought out a gun before looking over at Gaia. “Gaia, if you notice something... Tell it to the group.”

“... Death.” She muttered. “Raven, Bullet, Shot, Target, Cross.” She stated more names of the gang members of X-terminate. “Above that building. They were the ones to shoot.” Her voice didn’t show a hint of being scared, it only showed that she may have felt safe.

“Are you fucking telling me that bitch is aiming for us?!” Eizan yelled and Nene held him the arm and pulled him back. “What the fuck are they doing?!” He never expected the gang to be traitors, but he interpreted it completely wrong. LA5T 5HOT5 knew that.

Canción shook his head. “I know Bullet wouldn’t really do that. She’s not that kind of person. Cross too.” He began speaking up, wanting to defend his friends. “Death may act like that sometimes, but he’s not that kind of person either... I actually think they were aiming solely for the person who we were talking to.”

Aroon began sighing before bringing out his phone. “Let me talk to him.” He placed his phone beside his ear. “He’d probably answer my questions. But as Canción said, Death wouldn’t do such a thing. He might act all evil and shit, but it’s him testing us.” He heard the other side pick up the phone, and as always- there was playfulness despite him commanding Raven to shoot someone dead.

“Oh hello there Aroon~! We’ll be going down soon!” He sounded enthusiastic, he even watched his members go down through the elevator. “I’ll make my members go ahead! I still have to slice this bitch into several meaty pieces! He has planned to hurt our poor sweetheart and Isshiki-kun.” He brought out his knife. “What method should I use? I accept requests~!”

Aroon felt his breath shorten, and his eyes closed tightly. The people around him noticed his reaction, an for an unknown reason- it felt like he was feeling regret. “Just stab him where it kills him instantly. You don’t need to go further than that. Unless you want to get information from him.” Once he says those words, he hears a chuckle.

“My, my. My previous leader has gone soft. But anything you say.” He took some steps closer to the person who was tied up to a chair, gagged and blindfolded. “He’s lucky that he fainted. He’d die without knowing he did. Anyway! See you later... Leader.”

Death hanged up on the phone call, and the person who was on the other side quickly slipped his phone back into his pockets, his eyes getting pretty dark. “We have to wait until X-terminate gets here.” He says this before crossing his arms. “Death will take a while.”

“... You look rather pale, Stupid Red Hair Clips.” Someone went closer to him, even holding his cheeks. “Damn! You aren’t only pale, you’re cold too!” He removed his hands from his face and Lotus instantly pushed Kuga to the side, cupping his face.

She became rather uneasy, even fixing his hair a bit. “I thought he was kidding, but you are turning rather pale. Do you need something?” She began worrying because the only thing she remembered him being pale was when he was shot near a vital area. “Were you shot somewhere? Were you stabbed and you hid it without telling us?”

“Lotus...” He brought out a tiny smile. “You really don’t need to worry. I was just thinking of something.” He held her hands before laughing a bit. “It was cute on how worried you were though. Made my heart skip a beat.” He began teasing her, and she instantly pulled he hands away before going back to position, her face a bit red.

“Yeah. He’s fine now. We don’t need to worry.” She knew that there was something bothering him, but with his reaction- she knew that he wouldn’t tell her the reason. At least not when everybody is around. “However, what we should worry about was the sudden action of our allies.”

Right after she said that, there were people coming out from the building. It was no other than the members of X-terminate, but their leader wasn’t present. 

“You see, our leader told us to go ahead.” Cross says with an inexpressive face. “He probably wants to take care of the dirty business.” They sighed before rolling their eyes. “He always does this nowadays. He only wants to make a small sign of “Don’t mess with us.” all over the crime scene. He should be more careful.”

“I know our leader may be like that.” Bullet brought out her shades before placing it on. “But you don’t need to worry about him. He’s not really the bad guy if you’re considered as his ally.” She tried to act cool and collected, but she felt panic rise as she looked at the glaring face of Eizan. She quickly focused on someone else, someone who was much more understanding. “We were doing things on the sidelines, but trust me- it’s nothing that will negatively affect you.”

Nene began thinking of the possibilities of what they were actually planning. “What you mean is that your gang- has been killing people against us?”

“Kinokuni, you’re surprisingly smart for someone who’s protected all the time.” A woman tipped her hat before smiling. “But you got that right. Why wait for enemies to attack if you can just kill them off the bat?”

“X-terminate uses more questionable methods. Probably even more questionable than the big family gangs of Eizan and Kuga.”  Canción knew this information through interviews and research. “The person who decides what happens is Death, right?” He wanted to confirm everything, and as soon as Bullet replied with a nod, he continued. “He probably wants this alliance to be over with, so he’s doing it in a quicker way.”

Eizan brought the attention to himself by coughing. “Is he a goddamn idiot? If he were to do that then there’s a possibility that we’ll be considered as criminals when we get fucking caught. It doesn’t help that we’re tied as allies.”

“I would agree with you for the first time, Greedy Shit.”  Kuga shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, yeah- Killing everyone left and right may make it more safe for us, but it brings too much damn eyes on us! Sudden death will bring us to the news and people could actually make a logical guess for who’s doing all this shit!”

“I can’t fucking believe you sounded smart for once, midget.”

Before Kuga shot his gun, they felt another presence in front of them. It was no other than the gang leader.

“Very bold of you to assume that I’ll allow myself or my gang members to be caught in such a cruel act! Me? Doing such reckless things? I’d never do that!” His hands were dirty with blood and he was currently wiping it ff with a handkerchief. “If I were to do a crime, I’ll make sure I come out clean and if I do crime...” He grinned. “I leave no evidence. Not even bones.”

Sometimes, they felt that the gang leader that they have to deal with was scarier than the enemies. It was now known that the reason why there were no people appearing to try and shoot them was because they died before they had a chance to. All because it was Death’s command.

“Even if you know that you won’t get caught, doing such a method is dangerous.” Isshiki warned. “We don’t need to kill all the people, you’re probably not even a hundred percent sure that they’re actually against us.”

“Not a hundred, but about ninety. People inside the Yakuza are cruel are inhuman, Isshiki-kun. They can betray you at any moment without even any remorse in their hearts.” He hissed. “Next time you know it, your family is-” He paused for a moment, even closing his mouth for a second. “... Forget about that. All you have to know is that we’re supposed to eliminate them before they decide shit. We have to make them fear us.”

“But-”

“What? You fear me too? You don’t trust my decisions? What a waste of calling me a fucking ally!”

Death was instantly pulled by Cross, their expression not changing. “Calm down, leader. They never said such. You’re overthinking.” The male became quiet and he started to clutch his fists.

“... Good luck surviving against the Yakuza, you shits. Fifty percent are aiming their gun at you all, I bet you’ll slowly die one by one if you don’t do shit in advanced. You have to kill your enemies, potential enemies or else you’ll die first.”

50 percent? Was that accurate?

It wasn’t a surprise that there was a dark atmosphere around them, but Aroon quickly pushed people aside as he grabbed the hand of the other gang leader. “Death.” His voice was rather shaky, and this was something considered new from the male. “I have to talk to you. Question you a bit too.”

The eyes of Death widened as he didn’t expect it either. “What are you going to tell me? Say something like I’m just as shitty as the rest because I’m not a goody-two-shoes anymore? Tell me that I’m a fucking violent monster for choosing the better choice?! You-”

“Dai, shut the fuck up!”

It was normal for people to bring out their gun to shoot at each other when they were pissed, but the whole vibe was different because Aroon let go of him and only turned around. His eyes were filled with anxiety and his whole body trembling.

“... You used my first name.” Death muttered. “You fucking used it.”

“I’m pleading you. Just... come with me.”

“Are you talking to me as Aroon?”

“... I’m talking to you as Kaoru.”

The rest of the cast could only watch the two talk, a lot of different emotions were in each individual.

“The rest... Please go back to my house.”

“Calling me by my first name...” Death got a cigarette and placed it between his lips. “Was uncalled for.” He lit the cigarette up and he began calming down. After he was given time to walk around to a private bar, he was able to reflect on his action and words. “But what did you want to tell me?”

Aroon ordered a whole bottle of Patron Silver and he eyed the person he was with. “... I wanted to talk about confidential matters about the alliance. Something I don’t want the other people to hear.”

“What is it?”

“I wanted to ask if I forced you in doing this.”

There was a silence between the two. “Because fuck, I think I did. I brought you to this kind of life. If it weren’t for me even mentioning this to you, you still could have been the same Dai Adachi that I knew for years. If I didn’t tell you shit, you wouldn’t have ended up like this. You wouldn’t think yourself as a damn monster, if it weren’t for my shitty decisions.”

“It’s not your fault that I think this way.”

“Then why are you acting that way?!” Aroon spat, before slamming the table. “Back then, you never said so much shit about yourself! Back then you... You used to be so fucking happy.” He knew he got people to stare at him, and they probably thought he was ready to fight. Luckily, only a couple of people were in the bar- and they were actually some people inside the Chankul family. “I fucking destroyed you.”

The ginger began scanning the figure in front of him, and he felt the guilt that he was releasing. “We haven’t even drank yet you seem drunk.” It was a sad smile present on the lips of Death. “Even if I have changed drastically, it’s not your fault. The world is just cruel. You didn’t destroy me. I chose my path myself, you didn’t force me in anything.”

“You’re saying this with the dullest of eyes, Dai.” 

“...”

“You’re lying. For the love of god, please be honest with me...”

The male began softening and even if some years passed by, he never failed to read him. “Fine. It was a half truth and half life. You might have brought me to this life by telling me about the Yakuza, you told me I could save my mother- but it didn’t end up happening. You made me believe that my sole purpose of living is to do what I must. It’s kill or be killed in this damn world and you made me realize this the hard way.” Death finally spoke up. “But it doesn’t mean you destroyed me.”

“You sure?”

“Of course. I never lie, at least not to you. If something, you made me realize my ability of being a leader and a fighter. I may think I’m a monster, but that isn’t your fault. It’s my own thinking, and sometimes...” He became tense, not knowing how to word it properly. “I think you feel like one. Maybe more than me.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“A bit curious on why though. But you don’t need to tell me.”

“I could, but can you promise to not tell it to anyone... Especially my gang?”

When that was the deal to hear his side, Death didn’t know how to feel like this- He believed that the he trusted them most, and if there was something... he’d tell them first. “Promise.”

“Remember when I asked if I destroyed you? I felt like I destroyed their lives. Sae could have been living with Rito and Hideko and feel more human than she’ll ever feel around here. Emile could have been a famous musician if it weren’t for me accepting him to join. Tetsuji could be in a better gang if it weren’t for me telling about mine and Hanako could have followed her dreams and I...” 

“I ruined everything.”

The bottle of alcohol arrived and Aroon got the bottle, gripping it tightly. “And man, what if they think that and never tell me? I sometimes wish drinking and smoking would remove such negative thoughts but... it never does the trick.” The only thing that could be hear in the room was the soft music that was present inside the bar ever since they came, and the gang leader of LA5T 5HOT5 allowed tears to flow down. “I’m glad you think differently... but damn, my mind won’t make me think otherwise.”

After the last sentence, Aroon began chugging down the alcohol straight from he bottle, even asking for one more once he finished. “I have no power to change your thoughts of yourself, but all I can say is that I disagree. Your gang seems to love you... I don’t think they’d think that way.”

“I hope they don’t.” He ran his hands through his hair, before sighing. “But thanks for telling me this. At least I confirmed that I wasn’t manipulating you to do all of this. That I wasn’t forcing you. That’s actually all I wanted to know, sorry for getting off topic.”

“No, it’s fine. Makes me know that you still trust me.” He grinned before patting his previous leader on the back. “But... are you sure that’s all?”

It took a while for him to think, but something else popped in his mind. “Actually... There might be... It’s about the alliance. Are you sure about joining it or are you not?”

“Well... Isshiki-kun asked me privately, he wants to make sure that everyone is going to survive. I think he wouldn’t have picked me if it weren’t for the amount of people aiming for him and Misses Eizan.” Death shrugged. “They fear me, but sometimes I wonder if it will work. We have clashing moralities... But... I don’t want to see anyone else die. At least anyone that I know.” He gritted his teeth. 

“That, I agree with. After the death of Mister and Misses Milas, I don’t want to experience losing anyone again. Not with a violent death. Especially with people who I’m closest to.”

“Hm... Fair. I do have a different reason, though! I may not be close to Misses Eizan, no-sirry! But... I know Eizan-kun will get close to her.” He began chuckling. “So I think protecting her is worth it.”

“That’s... such a shallow reason. You’re doing it for matchmaking purposes.”

Death began laughing before nodding happily. “Yep, yes, absolutely! And who knows, maybe if she can look at me in the eye for once... We could actually get along. No one can tell the future. I felt the same with Julio-kun, Kiyoshi-kun and Shouko-chan.” He brought up. “I thought that I wouldn’t end up caring for them, and I’ll kill them off if they turned out to be useless, but now- I can’t bring myself to do so. I’ve always cared about Christelle and Rin, but those three were different. I guess we never expect who we’d get close to, yes?”

The bartender served another bottle to Aroon, and he slid it over to the person he was talking to. “You’re right. We are allies, after all. We’ll probably bond in one way or another. However, are you willing to at least adjust a bit? For the sake of others?”

Death accepted his offer and opened the lid of the bottle, his eyes closed and it took him a couple of seconds before replying. “... I’m willing to change it a bit, if you’re the one to tell me. I won’t accept it if anyone inferior tells me to do so. However, you have to make a deal with me. Are you okay with sacrificing something?”

He should have expected an answer like this. He would change his methods, but it had to come with an exchange. This was for the best of the group, especially to the people who they were protecting. He crossed his arms, thinking of what he may ask for... He knew how money hungry he was, maybe a thousand of dollars. “... If it’s for them, then I believe it’s worth it. I have sacrificed myself for Eizan and Kuga, my life in fact. I know you wouldn’t go that far so bring it.”

A little smirk was forming on the lips of Death, truly amused by his words. “That’s my leader for you... Then...” The suspense grew as Dai began drinking a few sips of alcohol. Some drops of sweat was on the face of Aroon, hoping that the money exchange wasn’t too high. “Probably just 1000 American Dollars.” He stated. “Oh! Or ask Lotus out, that would work too!”

Immediately, Kaoru slid his whole wallet to Death, and this dissapointed the male. “... Have my whole damn wallet.”

“Oh boo. you’re no fun.” Death rolled his eyes. “But deal.”

[rike-with-love]

Be Mine (chapter 1)

Summary: This is my first fan fiction ever, so please be kind. Umibouzu arrives to Earth and he has some life-changing news for Kagura. COMPLETED!

Pairings: Okikagu

Rating: M for mature content, bad language, violence, angst

Disclaimer: I don't own Gintama or it's characters, Sorachi Hideaki does. I only own this story.

Author’s notes: I have a link to my fanfiction masterlist on my profile. Please check it out for more chapters and fics!

Chapter 1

It was another ordinary day in the Shinsengumi compound. The Sun was shining, birds were singing and mayonnaise bottles were spontaneously exploding. ”Goddammit, Sougo!” Hijikata yelled as he was covered by his beloved life elixir. ”What are you screaming in the middle of my beauty sleep Hijibaka-san?” Sougo mumbled as he lazily shuffled to the kitchen area.

Hijikata was in the middle of collecting the ”holy matter” from his face and uniform. *CLICK* ”Oi brat, did you just take a picture of me?” Hijikata grunted behind his teeth. ”You always think too highly of yourself, who would want a picture of your dumb face,” Sougo said with a mischievous grin on his face. ”Oh, by the way, Hijikata-san, do you want to see my new bazooka the Hijikata Detonator 23XX it also has a camera attached to it, so convenient, don't you think?”

”Die Hijibaka-san!” Sougo yelled as he fired his bazooka, took a nice picture of Hijikata's ”horror face” and blasted a hole in the wall. Poor Hijikata managed to dodge the blast. Kondo ran into the kitchen area and shouted: ”Toshi, Sougo is everything okay?” ”That brat just shot me with a bazooka!” Hijikata growled as he got up from the floor. Sougo looked as deadpanned and innocent as ever. Then he walked through the hole on the wall and decided to go out.

It sure was a pretty ordinary day with all the explosions and screaming. Okita Sougo 1st Division Captain of the Shinsengumi, High Prince (yes, he the ”high” is self-proclaimed) of Sadists was going for an afternoon stroll. ”Get back here, I'll make you commit seppuku damn brat!” Hijikata shouted after him.

”Oi Toushi relax, our son is just having a little temper tantrum.” Kondo soothed Hijikata. ”For the millionth time Kondo-san, he is not OUR son and he is just a lazy homicidal bastard!” Hijikata grunted as he put his hands inside his pockets.

”Ne ne, Toshi, do you think he is going to see that Yorozuya girl?” Kondo asked with a suggestive wink. The demon vice-commander let out a sigh and took out a cigarette. ”It is already quite obvious Kondo-san,” Hijikata concluded as he lit up his mayonnaise lighter. And another explosion was heard at the harmonious Shinsengumi compound.

Sougo was having a rather good day, although Hijikata still got to see another day. I'll get him someday and the vice-commander's position will be mine. Sougo thought to himself and had a nice internal evil laugh (you know muahaha and all that). ”Oh my god! It's Captain Okita!” Sougo tensed up immediately with irritation. ”Not this shit again...” he mumbled.

A group of three young women was rushing towards him. Sougo stood with a deadpan look on his face and turned his back to the group. ”Sougo-sama, do you want to go out with us?” One of the girls asked shyly. Sougo was not interested but decided to indulge with his sadistic nature.

Sougo turned and approached the girl who talked to him. He leaned a bit closer to her face, she held her breath with anticipation. ”Sure, but after that, you must come to my chamber of chains and whips,” Sougo whispers and backs down a step. Two of the other girls gasp in horror, but the third girl just smiled. ”Sure, whatever you want Sougo-sama.” the (obviously) submissive girl flirts.

Sougo's face drops from sly to more deadpan than usual. Without saying anything else, he turns his back at the girls and walks away. ”Sougo-sama, Sougo-samaaa! Please come back!” The girl begged. Sougo could only sigh with boredom.

Sougo thought to himself: Since when all the women in Edo have gone that annoying. It's not that I'm not interested in women, but that was too easy. I don't need easy, I don't want easy. I want that cat-and-mouse thing and of course after that complete submission because I am the high prince of sadists. After a while of strolling the captain realized that he was in Kabukicho District. There he saw two familiar men talking in an alley.

”Gin-san, what are we going to do now?” Shinpachi asked with worry in his voice. ”Calm down Patsuan, Gin-chan needs to think.” I-I-I can't calm down, Kagura-chan is going to...I can't even say it.” Gintoki scratched his hair and picked his nose simultaneously, he only does both when the situation is dire.

”Yo Danna! Oh, and levitating glasses.” Sougo greeted as he stomped next to them. ”Hello, Okita-san. Wait what do you mean 'levitating glasses'?? Shinpachi asked. Before Sougo could elaborate his words Shinpachi said: ”Nevermind, I have to go home now, see you guys later.” As Shinpachi was gone, Sougo turned to Gintoki. ”Where is China?” He asked. Gintoki met Sougo's eyes and flicked his bugger to a bypassers hair.

”Listen to me sofa-kun...” Gintoki began. ”It's Sougo, Danna” Sougo corrected. ”Yes, I know Sommelier-kun, you don't need to correct me anymore,” Gintoki said with a proud voice. Sougo sighed and said: ”It's still Sougo, Danna and how the hell do you know a word like that?”

Gintoki laughed briefly and cleared his throat. ”Oh Danna-kun, a man like me gets wiser and suaver with age, it's called the George Clooney-effect. You must've heard about it Soda-kun?” He huffed and crossed his arms. This is just endless, Sougo thought and sighed. ”Where is China, Danna?” He asked again.

Gintoki closed his eyes and said with a heavy voice: ”I think she went to the riverbank, but I highly advise you to leave her alone today Sabaody-kun.” Gintoki walked past Sougo and waved his hand as he left. Sougo thought to himself: Well, if China is angry at something, I bet she will be a fierce opponent today, after all, it's our duel day.

Sougo made his way to the riverbank, the sun was setting soon so the sky was pinkish and dreamy. Kagura was sitting near the river. She was hugging her knees and facing the river. She had her hair ornaments as usual and her long vermillion hair was in two ponytails. She had her traditional red cheongsam dress.

”Oi fat pig!” Sougo yelled. No answer. ”Oi fat ugly pig!” Still no reaction. ”Oi China you are breaking a policeman's heart for not answering. Do I need to arrest your sorry ass?” He shouted louder. Kagura's arms dropped to her sides, she grabbed some grass with her fists and then let it fall out of her hands. It seemed she was trying not to get agitated by Sougo's words. He was not having that, not one bit.

Sougo stomped to stand behind her. ”Leave me alone dumbshit, I've had a rough...aaaaargh! *SPLASH* Sougo had calmly kicked Kagura into the river. I just might die after this, but what the hell. Sougo wondered to himself. An angry beast emitting a crimson aura rose from the river. Kagura walked out of the water, pissed off and wet. She shook herself dry like a dog would (because Kagura is and always will be Kagura).

”You truly are an animal, have you ever heard of towels?” Sougo teased. Kagura met Sougo's eyes with a gaze so murderous it could crumble down nations. Chills went down Sougo's spine and he loved that feeling, actually, he lived for that sensation. Kagura's mind was made up then and there, sadist would meet his demise today.

Kagura didn't have her umbrella with her, so she had to trust her hand-to-hand combat skills. No words were exchanged and Kagura charged into a fierce attack. Sougo dodged effortlessly. As Kagura was cussing to herself, she noticed a tree nearby.

She yanked the tree up from the ground and threw it at Sougo. ”You stupid sadistic punk chihuahua asshole!” Kagura shouted. Her tree attack missed by inches and Kagura gritted her teeth. Sougo pulled out his katana and stated. ”How unfair that only one of us gets to use a weapon.”

Kagura made a quick high kick and managed to disarm Sougo. Normally that would never happen, but Sougo's focus was terrible. Her slightly wet red clothes hugged her from everywhere, perfectly. It was terribly disturbing for Sougo.

Where did she get those curves? Not that I care. What about those damned side slits on her dress showing off her strong and perfectly smooth legs. Why doesn't she wear pants underneath or something... Sougo's inner thoughts were caught short when Kagura's swift jump kick found his jaw. As karma worked it's ways, Sougo flew into the river.

”Hah! There you go Sadist, now we are even.” Kagura cheered with confidence and a big smile. Sougo got up from the river and touched his tender jaw. It was painful, but he had gotten used to her kicks landing sometimes...actually nowadays more frequently. Sougo stared Kagura straight into her eyes and saw through her smile, all fake.

Sougo walked to the shore and shouted: ”Damn you China, now my clothes are wet too.” He walked normally closer to Kagura and observed her from a safe distance. Sougo slid his jacket off and threw it on the ground. ”Now, will you tell me what's wrong? Or do I need to force it out of you?” Sougo asked.

Kagura looked away from him and her posture slumped slightly. ”Oh, and I am going to arrest you for damaging that poor tree, you can be so careless sometimes...” Sougo said and shooked his head. Kagura was clenching her fists and let out an angry battle roar. Sougo smirked and prepared for the upcoming thunderstorm of kicks.

Their bouts usually lasted an hour or two. When they were younger the crazy sadistic duo was always at each other's throats. After four years of maturing the level of bickering stayed the same, but physical fights happened only once per week. It was an unspoken contract between them, they just happened to find each other on their ”duel day”. Sougo would never admit it to anyone but their battles were the highlights of his weeks.

Sougo had a hard time keeping his eyes in control. He didn't understand why he wanted to stare at her legs, vermillion hair, and bright blue eyes. She was the monster kid who had nose picking contests with her earthdad. Her gross mouth was always full of food and sukonbu. Why is she so distracting. Sougo thought as he dodged another attack.

They were now facing each other in fighting stances. Their combat transformed into a pushing contest. As their fingers interlaced it felt somehow very intimate to Sougo. He decided to win fast to get away from this tingling feeling.

”What the hell are you staring sadist?” Kagura yelled. Sougo saw his opportunity and stared straight into Kagura's cerulean eyes: ”I'm looking at your beautiful blue eyes, I could stare at them all day.” He lied (or did he now?). Kagura was dumbfounded and lost her stance. Sougo was still pushing with full strength so they both lost their balance and fell down on the grass.

The sun was setting now and the sky was reddish. In that light and in Sougo's eyes, Kagura looked mesmerizing, like a beautiful china doll. He was hovering over her. Why China makes me feel this way? They were both panting from the fight and their eyes were locked like it wasn't possible to look anywhere else. Sougo's eyes dropped from her eyes to her parted lips.

Kagura's chest was moving rapidly, mostly from exhaustion, partly from something else. Sougo followed his instincts. He lowered himself closer to Kagura's face, only a few inches away from her inviting lips. Sougo had an urge to kiss her, but he was waiting for Kagura to close the rest of their painful distance.

Sougo surprised himself. He thought he was the kind of 'take what you want' person, but with Kagura everything was different, he was different. Kagura closed her eyes and a slight blush appeared on her cheeks. That's kind of cute. Sougo thought and smirked a bit.

Sougo closed his eyes too. He felt his hands getting sweaty from anticipation. Suddenly he heard the most sinful small moan come from Kagura's mouth. Sougos whole body stiffened from that single sound. And then he felt a touch.

Kagura's...lips?..no...a knee...yes...Kagura's knee in close contact with his crotch. And let me make this clear, it wasn't the good kind of contact, it was a hard impact. Sougo flew off Kagura and grunted in pain. Kagura bounced off the ground and backed away from him. ”Don't ever do that again, you big stupid...asshat!” Kagura shouted loudly.

Kagura ran away as Sougo recovered from the impact. What the hell happened or didn't happen? Damn you China you fucking tease, Sougo thought and got up. He grabbed his jacket and walked home with nothing but his thoughts and a pounding heart.

[enixamyram]

Present Exchange

Summary: After Alice is told about Christmas, she makes Robin a present with the help of her father. Later, Robin helps her make something for Killian in return. Short fluffy Christmas oneshot with FatherDaughter feels between KnightRook and Girlfriend feels between Curious Archer.

  “Ow! Damn it!” Alice swore as her hand slipped and she scratched it along the tip. She quickly checked her thumb to see the tiniest drop of blood escape the corner of her nail.

  “You alright?”

  Alice jumped, spinning and hiding the object in her hands behind her back, out of sight. When she saw who it was, her body tensed for a whole new reason. But even though Alice tensed in fear over what could happen if they weren't careful, she also felt a small flutter of joy in her heart at seeing her father again. No matter what the reason, seeing her papa always brought both happiness and sorrow to the young girl, most of the times the emotions blending together so much that she wasn't quite sure which one was the greater of the two.

  Today was no different. Alice struggled, giving a half smile while also resisting the urge to take a step back and hide behind the nearest tree – just in case. She wanted to be with him, but she also wanted to put space between them. There was next to no chance of anything happening but Alice still worried that they somehow might do something to accidentally activate the curse on his heart.

  “You alright?” Killian repeated, smiling sadly at her and taking the smallest of steps forward before stopping, leaving a good few feet of space still between them.

  “Fine.” Alice lied, half shrugging.

  “I heard you cry out...” Killian frowned slightly. “What are you hiding?”

  “Oh. Uh. It's nothing. Just... Just a present for Robin.” Alice said, blushing slightly as she brought the gift back out from behind her and showed it to him.

  Killian paused then grinned. “Ah. Christmas.”

  Alice felt herself grin immediately, and barely thought about how she was taking another short step towards him. “Robin told me all about it. She and her mum celebrated it back in Storybrooke before they came here. It sounds amazing!”

  “Yes.” Killian chuckled. “Henry filled me in on the details as well. Actually that's why I'm here. I brought you this.” He hesitated and shrugged his shoulders. “It's not much but...”

  Killian slowly reaching into the bag at his side and pulling out a pair of firm brown leather gloves. He placed them carefully on the ground and stepped back, allowing Alice to retrieve them safely. She held them carefully in her hand and he watched her smile spread again, even bigger than before, a warm glow positively radiating off her expression as she looked up at him with wide childlike eyes.

  “Thank you.” She said, almost tearfully, but then paused and shook her head. “Papa. I'm sorry... I didn't... I should have-”

  “Don't worry about it.” Killian said quickly. “I don't need anything. Just seeing you... It's the most perfect present I could ask for.” He paused and chuckled softly. “You do know that archers rarely keep the arrows they use? They get damaged and lost easily...”

  “I know.” Alice shrugged, tucking the new gloves into her pocket and turning the home made arrow in between her fingers. “I just figured this one could be... Like... Her lucky arrow or something.” She blushed hard.

  “You made it for her. I'm sure it's lucky.” Killian smiled softly.

  “Yeah but... I didn't realise how tricky making an arrow was. I can't keep the head piece in place.” Alice admitted.

  “Well here, why don't you let me give it a go?” Killian said, taking a step forward before hesitating and holding his hand out awkwardly with a large gap still between them.

  “You sure?” Alice blinked.

  “Yeah. Of course. It'll still be lucky even if you get a little help from your old man.” Killian said, waving his open hand slightly.

  Alice was careful to place the arrow into her fathers palm without either of them touching before she took several steps away. Then she watched as he continued from where she had left off to attach the sharp head. She'd been able to do the feathers at the end well enough, though she wasn't sure if the alignment was right since she knew very little about arrow design, but she did know that Robin was skilled enough to fire a broken arrow and still hit her target so even if it was a bit off, it wouldn't really matter. No doubt she could work with whatever flawed creation Alice gave her. But she still wanted to try her best. This was the first present she had ever given her and she wanted it to be as perfect as possible.

  Killian seemed to have better luck than Alice, and attached the head relatively quickly considering Alice had been at it for hours before he showed up. While he worked, she watched him in silence, enjoying the sight. They didn't often get any quiet times like this where they could just act like an ordinary father and daughter, helping each other out. Alice breathed for a moment and allowed herself to imagine that there was no curse, no evil witch keeping them apart, and they were just your average father and daughter, working together to create something. It was a nice little daydream. Sadly it didn't last. When Killian was finished and turned to hand out the arrow back to her, Alice once again had to be careful when taking it back, keeping their fingers far apart the whole time.

  “It's perfect! Thank you!” Alice beamed up at him. Then felt another pang of guilt that she hadn't gotten him anything. If she was being honest, she didn't think she'd see him before the Christmas Holiday was over, but even then she simply hadn't thought about it. She'd been so caught up with making something for Robin that she forgot about everyone else, even her own father. What kind of daughter was she?

  Alice hated how easy it was for her to forget him nowadays.

  “Why don't you engrave something on it?” Killian suggested.

  “What?” Alice blinked, lost in her thoughts.

  “Write something along the side.” Killian shrugged.

  “You mean like 'Happy Christmas'?” Alice asked.

  “Hmm, maybe something a little more personal.” Killian said. “To make it even more special.”

  Alice looked down at the arrows long wooden neck and nodded slowly with a smile. “I think I know.” She looked back up at him. “Thank you, papa.”

  Killian and her smiled at one another for a moment. Then they awkwardly looked away, hesitating and unsure what to say next. They wanted to do more, to say more, but they both knew they couldn't. Even just being around each other at a distance was depressing, knowing there was so much they couldn't do for fear of putting Killian in immediate danger.

  “I suppose I should go...” Killian said finally.

  “Okay...” Alice mumbled, then looked up. “Thank you. Again.”

  “No problem.” Killian paused before turning away. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, papa.” Alice practically whispered, knowing her words would carry, tears filling her eyes now.

  She watched him go and waited until he had disappeared completely into the distant trees before turning to sit down. She pulled out a small switch blade knife and was careful not to break the bark of the arrow as she softly carved her the words along the side. In the end the arrow was finished. The feathers at the end probably weren't perfectly aligned, and even with Killian's help, the tip wasn't quite right – though he had clearly done the best that he could, given when he had to work with. The sharp tip wasn't as sharp as most arrows so it probably wouldn't be very good for a real fight, but despite it's flaws Alice was pretty happy with how it turned out.

  Staring down at the finished arrow, she once again wished she had thought to make something for her father. She had only recently heard about Christmas, but that wasn't an excuse. Not really. And it wasn't too late. She still had some time before Christmas day. But... She couldn't think what to do for him. Maybe she could go to the market and buy something but what...

  Alice heard the footsteps this time and quickly managed to tuck the arrow behind her back out of sight before Robin appeared in front of her. The young woman was as beautiful as ever and Alice instinctively stepped forward to embrace her, remembering the arrow in her hands at the last minute and stopping herself short, settling with a stupidly happy smile. Unfortunately that action immediately caught Robin's attention.

  “What are you hiding?” Robin asked teasingly, walking towards her.

  “A present.” Alice said, turning to keep the arrow hidden even as Robin tried to sneak a peek around her.

  “Is it for me?” Robin asked excitedly.

  “Maybe.” Alice smirked.

  Robin's smile spread and she stepped closer to her. “Well. Will you give me mine if I give you yours?”

  “It's not Christmas yet.” Alice noted.

  “Who cares. We'll have our own Christmas.” Robin shrugged. “A special one. Just you and me. No one in the world will have this day but us.”

  Alice smiled softly. “I'd like that.”

  Robin reached into her pocket and pulled out a small handkerchief tied with a thin piece of string. She held it out and Alice took it with one hand, keeping the arrow hidden with the other.

  “I didn't wrap yours.” Alice admitted, wincing. She was messing up so badly. First forgetting her fathers present completely, and now not realising she needed to wrap the gift she had actually managed to make. Christmas was turning out to be a lot more complicated than Alice had originally thought.

  “That's okay.” Robin grinned. “Now am I going to get my gift or are you going to keep it hidden from me?”

  Laughing, albeit nervously, Alice brought the arrow round and held it out to her. Robin's eyes widened and she slowly reached down, taking the arrow between her fingers carefully like it might break. Alice bit the corner of her lip, watching her closely. Her expression was shocked but otherwise Alice had no idea if it was in a good way or a bad. Robin slowly reached up and ran a finger over the engraving along the side, mouthing the words in careful silence. Her lips forming the words 'My Love', the nickname Alice had taken to calling her during their more romantic moments. Alice hadn't realised she was holding her breath until Robin looked up at her and she sucked the air in sharply enough to nearly choke on it.

  “Oh, Alice. I love it. It's beautiful. Thank you!” She threw her arms around her, being careful not to damage the arrow between them. “I'll cherish it forever.”

  “You really like it?” Alice asked nervously.

  “I don't like it. I love it!” Robin said, kissing her hard. “It's the most wonderful gift anyone has ever given me.”

  Alice smiled and kissed her again. For a second they paused, holding each other close and kissing deeply. When they finally pulled away, Alice rest her forehead against Robin's and shut her eyes. Just enjoying the moment.

  “Now your turn.” Robin insisted, forcing her to pull back. “Open your present.”

  Alice was careful when untying the string and let the handkerchief fall open in her palm before she finally saw her own Christmas present. Inside the handkerchief, was a thumb ring. It was a silver ring that seemed plain at first before Alice noticed a pair of swirling patterns that traced along it, side by side in a complete circle. It looked brand new and incredibly expensive.

  “Oh... Wow... Robin...” Alice whispered, feeling both ecstatic and guilty. It seemed like Robin had gone out of her way to buy something so precious while all Alice had done was tie together a bit of wood and feathers.

  “The markings are meant to stand for us. We may only be going around in circles, but we're going around in circles constantly by each others side. Never to be parted for long.” She paused when Alice didn't speak. “Do you like it?” Robin asked, suddenly looking just as nervous as Alice had felt.

  “Yes but... Oh you really shouldn't have, this is too much.” Alice breathed.

  “Don't be silly.” Robin took the ring and grabbed her hand, sliding it onto her thumb for her. “It's not like I'm proposing or anything.” She held Alice's hand for a moment longer, stroking the ring gently. “There. A perfect fit.”

  Alice swallowed, shaking her head. “My gift looks like rubbish next to yours.”

  “No it isn't.” Robin said quickly, grabbing both her hands and holding them to her chest. “I love my arrow. It's perfect. I can't imagine how much work you must have put into it. I don't think I'll ever be able to use it outside practice in case I lose it.” She shrugged. “I just brought something but you made me something. If anything, my gift looks like rubbish now because you're is truly one of a kind. I love it. I love you.”

  Alice looked up at her, feeling her like her heart could burst at that moment. It wasn't the first I Love You they had shared, but it still felt fresh enough that Alice could barely believe it was real. She leaned forward, kissing Robin and clinging to her hands, pulling away only long enough to gasp; “I love you.” Before she leaned back in to kiss her again.

  After they had parter, the two girls found a soft spot to sit down and talk, their arms around each other and warm smiles on their faces that didn't match the in the cool evening around them. As usual they found themselves sharing almost every detail of their days to one another and eventually talk turned to Killian's presents for her and Alice's lack of a present in return.

  “I just wish I could put something together for him.” Alice mumbled, tucking her head on Robin's shoulder.

  Robin stroked her leg comfortingly for a moment then suddenly sat up, nearly leaving Alice's head to knock against the tree behind them. “I have an idea. It's really quick, it's really easy, but it means a lot to people, especially parents. Everyone I know has given it to their mum or dad at least once.”

  “What's that?” Alice blinked.

  Robin jumped to her feet, reaching down to pull Alice up after her. “Come with me. We'll find the perfect log and I'll explain on the way!”

O*U*A*T

  The next night, just a few short hours before Christmas Day, Killian stumbled into his room and found something sitting at the end of his bed. He frowned, lifting it up to find himself holding a block of something wrapped in an tattered old cloak. He didn't recognise the cloak so he was carefully as he unravelled it, laying it across his bed when it fell off. Soon after he felt himself smiling.

  Turning around, he sat on the edge of the bed, carefully stroking the present. He knew who it was from, even if it didn't have a note. After a few minutes of admiring the thick block in utter silence, caught between laughing softly and crying hard, Killian turned and set the block on the counter beside his bed where he kept his hook most nights.

  The block of wood, carved into the shape of a large heart, would be the first thing he saw in the morning, and the first thing he read would be the words carved into its centre, reading: World's Greatest Papa.

[gayinthespacebetween]

Looking back I see what went wrong (now it's time to make it right)

Phew! That sure took some time to FINALLY UPLOAD WHAT THE HECK TUMBLR

*clears throat*

Anyways I hope this is of your liking.

WARNING: light mentions of past abuse. No details about it though.

…

…

…

Sometimes, Carlos looked back at the years he spent in The Isle. And, sometimes, he smiled at the memories.

The ones that made him happy were, unsurprisingly, the ones where his mother was absent, so there weren’t that many of them. Cruella was a controlling being, who needed constant reassurance so that she could feel she was the one in power. That she was top dog, if you will (or top bitch, if you asked Carlos). So often, memories of the Isle meant memories of pain, of being beaten or burned or locked away in a closet, of being starved and forced to clean everything while Cruella just sat around and watched. Always ready to strike him and bring him down and make him apologize for things he hadn’t even done. They are memories of watching the once cruel, but smart woman, turn into a shallow shadow version if her former self.

So yes, most memories of the Isle made him sick to his stomach, because in most of those, Cruella is included. But then…

Then there were the ones that made him happy. And, unsurprisingly, they were the ones that were filled with Jay.

The day they met, for example. There was Carlos, running errands for his mother and Jay, stealing things for his father. He had wanted the fluffy coats Carlos had been told to purchase, but was surprised that when he tried to snatch them, the white-haired boy had held onto dear life, with wide scared eyes and a shaky voice.

“Please, don’t.”

Jay let go of the coat. Because it was so bizarre. Fluffy coats had not much functional value on the isle. And yet the kid was acting as if Jay was stealing the most important thing he had. It was the only item he had tried to steal and given up on. But he couldn’t do it. Not when the little boy was holding it like it was more precious than his life.

Ever since then they had been inseparable. Where one saw Jay running down the streets, Carlos wasn’t far behind. Where one saw Carlos buying at the market, Jay was in the shadows. Always watching. Always protecting him.

And Carlos couldn’t help but feel that he would be no one without Jay. Because the older boy had taken him under his wing, risen him from nothing. He taught him how to steal and fight for what was his and to stand up for himself. And Carlos never thanked him, because that wasn’t a thing on the Isle, but when they were alone he would give him a smile that shone brighter than any gold Jay could have ever hoped to find. And that was enough for them.

They made other friends. Jay started hanging out with Mal, though “hanging out” basically meant running around and causing chaos wherever they went. And Carlos became quite close to Evie, and they would spend afternoons working together on projects and machines to break down the barrier. They were a family, the four of them, even if family was a concept they didn’t know, they had managed to built one.

But Carlos knew that Jay was the closest he had ever gotten with someone. That he would ever get with someone. Jay had seen him as his absolute worst, and still stayed by his side. Carlos knew he had found someone important.

…

Auradon was good. At the very least, it was better than the isle.

Carlos and his friends now finally had a chance to break free from their parents’ hold. And it was showing: Mal was now attending Art classes and dating the King, Evie was getting straight A’s and starting her own fashion line, Jay was co-captain of both the Tourney team and the ROAR one… Heck, even Carlos had changed a lot. He was on top of his game when it came to designing new machines and he actually owned a dog now. Who would have thought? They were doing better than ever.

Except…

Well, Carlos really was grateful for all the changes that were happening in their lives. He really was. It’s just that now they weren’t the same. Their dynamics had shifted. He barely saw any of his friends anymore. And sure, he had made new friends and spent time with them. But it wasn’t the same, and it will never be. They weren’t Mal, or Evie. They weren’t Jay.

For Evil’s sake, how he missed just spending time with Jay. It seemed like such a luxury to even get to say hello to him nowadays.

And he had slowly gotten sick of it. But who was he to stop Jay from having fun and finally being free? They were family. He should be happy that Jay now had other things to do other than steal, fight and survive.

And yet…

He really was a bad friend, wasn’t he? With his selfish desire to keep Jay to himself. They had been JayandCarlos for years now, sure, but maybe this was just the end of that. So he could either stay and bear the pain of watching Jay go, or he could prepare himself for when the time finally came where Jay wouldn’t need him anymore.

Maybe it was time to break some ties.

…

It had been hard for Jay to notice. The slow rate at which it happened made it very difficult to pinpoint the exact moment it started, but looking back, Jay couldn’t help but feel that he should have noticed earlier. That he should have put a stop to all of it before it went too far. And now, he didn’t know what to do.

Sure, he had noticed that Carlos had been distant lately. They didn’t spend much time together ever since they got Mal back, slipping back into the routine they had gotten used to. And it was fine. He knew Carlos had always been kind of a loner and seeing him going out more often was good. It meant Jay didn’t have to worry about Carlos being left alone whenever he had to stay a little longer after practice.

But then, he slowly came to realize that Carlos wasn’t busy, he was just avoiding him. If the two of them ever found themselves alone, Carlos managed to find any excuses to leave. And it hurt, because maybe Carlos was getting tired of him. He knew he wasn’t nearly as smart as Carlos or Evie were, and maybe the smaller boy thought trying to talk to him about his interests just wasn’t worth all the trouble of explaining them to Jay. He always tried to understand, but never quite managed it. Not like Carlos did, at least.

He could work harder. He could show Carlos he cared, and that he didn’t want them to be so distant from each other anymore.

He just knew he couldn’t stand the silence between them anymore. So he walked into the library, knowing Carlos would be there studying. It seemed that was all he had time for now.

“Carlos, can we speak?” He called out softly as to not startle the boy. Carlos looked up at him with wide eyes, seemingly not hearing the peaceful and hopeful tone Jay had spoken with. He gulped hard, but followed him outside of the library, and they walked together to their dorm without saying another word. Though their minds were busily working with possible outcomes to whatever conversation was about to happened.

Finally, they walked inside their room, and Jay pushed the door close behind him with his foot, then leaned against the door as he tried to think of how to start. Carlos was eyeing everywhere nervously and doing a very bad job at hiding his emotions, but he didn’t even spare a glance at Jay, and that hurt.

“What is happening to us?” Hay mumbled under his breath, his voice ridden with fear and nostalgia. “Why won’t you talk to me anymore?”

Carlos immediately jumped into defense mode. “You’ve been busy. Going out with… Friends and stuff.” He crossed her arms, nails digging into the soft skin of his arms. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“True,” Jay nodded. “But I’m not talking about that. I’m asking why we stopped trying, why you run out of the room whenever we’re alone.”

Carlos pursed his lips, but didn’t reply.

Jay sighed, pressing himself against the wood further. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? I know I haven’t paid much attention to you lately. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. But… It’s also not just that, so what is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m asking why you can’t even look at me anymore.”

“Because.” he could see Carlos’ mind reeling, deciding whether to share the information with him or not. “I’m scared.” He finally admitted in defeat, his head hanging low. He still looked very small, almost as if he wanted to disappear into himself. Jay wanted nothing more than to comfort him, so he slowly walked closer with his hands up, leaving his intentions clear and with enough room for Carlos to say no. When the boy didn’t refuse though, Jay wrapped his arms around him.

“You have nothing to be afraid of. I’m right here."And then, he started crying. Quietly in the way only Carlos knew. His body didn’t even shake with sobs, and his breaths were silent. The only indication that let Jay know what was actually happening was the way Carlos pressed harshly against his chest. He always did that when he cried.

"I thought you’d forget about me.” Carlos admitted. “That you’d find me useless now that you have more friends and things to do other than hang out with me.”

“Are you insane? What makes you think I’ll ever leave you?” Jay gripped him tighter. “I love you. An you know I protect what I love. Plus, Carlos, you’re unique. I could never replace you, much less with the guys in my team.” He sighed again. “I’m sorry I spent so much time away, but it won’t happen again. We’ll spend more time together.”

“You promise?”

“Of course.”

Minutes passed, and Carlos finally let go, so Jay took a small step back and surveyed the damage. His eyes were puffy, but apart from that, he seemed fine.

“Come on. Wanna play some videogames now? We can go to the kitchen to get some snacks.” He proposed, pushing against Carlos lightly with his elbow as a way to move past their talk. Carlos smiled and nodded, and so, together, they went to the kitchen and gathered as many sweets as possible. The best thing about Auradon, by far, was that there was always food available.

They encountered Mal and Evie on the division of the girls’ dorms and the boys’ one. “Movie night?” The purple haired girl asked, raising an eyebrow at their filled arms. The boys looked at each other.

“Videogame night.” Jay finally answered, breaking away their staring. Evie clapped her hands together excitedly.

“Awesome! I still need to beat you on that Mario Kart level.” She said, placing a hand on her hip. “Ready to lose?”

“Actually,” Carlos interrupted, glancing at Jay through his peripheral vision one last time. A small smile made its way into his phase. “It’s a boys’ night.”

“What?” Mal huffed. “You don’t have those.”

“Well, we do now.” Jay butted in. He loved the girls, but he and Carlos knew they just needed to spend time with each other right now.. “We can all get together sometime soon though, maybe tomorrow. I really do want to see someone finally beating Carlos.” He smiled, winking at the girls. “See you then.”

“See ya.” They called out, watching the boys walk away. When they disappeared into the hallways, they finally looked at each other and smiled. “See? Told you they’d get back together in no time.” Evie said, turning around and starting to walk back to their room. Mal followed up.

“Yeah, guess you got that one right, princess.” She admitted. “But you also did say it would drive them to realize they’re into each other. And though they both looked stupid with those smiles on their faces, didn’t look like they confessed anything yet.”

“Give it time, Mal. Give it time.” Evie answered. “They’ll get together soon enough.”

“Hey!” Mal suddenly spoke, stricken by the idea. “Wanna make a bet on how long that’ll take?”

“Are you asking me to make a bet on the romantic lives of my friends?” Evie grinned. “Because if so, you’re on!”

[spiritleak]

Basic Witchcraft Questions

Frequently asked questions answered with the help of multiple reliable sources.

-What is Witchcraft?

The “official” definition of it is the practice of and belief in magical skills and abilities exercised by solitary practitioners and groups known as covens. Witchcraft involves the use of intent (and often physical objects) to manipulate environmental energy in order to effect change in favor of the practitioners.

Therefore, it means lots of things in different environments and it is frequently divided according to the user’ s intention and tools of achieving the results desired. 

- Is it the same as Wicca?

Wicca is a belief system and way of life based upon the reconstruction of pre-Christian traditions originating in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Wicca is a tradition of Witchcraft. There are a number of people who consider themselves Witches, but who are not necessarily Wiccan.

- What is Paganism?

Paganism is an umbrella term first used in the fourth century by early Christianity for populations of the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population or because they were not “soldiers of the Christ”. While most pagan religions express a world view that is pantheistic, polytheistic or animistic, there are some monotheistic pagans. While one group may have a certain practice, not everyone will follow the same criteria.

- Is Magick real?

As a beginner that has not practiced enough to guarantee the right and truthful answer myself (even though I have seen some good results for my level), reasons for the belief or disbelief in it can be easily stated.

Most of us do not live in a culture that supports it.  We live in a place that forces action in the world, where the path to independence, self-reliance and happiness tends to rely on rolling up your sleeves and getting stuff done the common practical way in the real world.

So when someone says they have been affected by it or that they think of joining the occult, it is highly likely that he will get negative opinions by his surrounding people.

I personally have really close relatives being victims of it in a negative or positive way and some others practice it cause they have been raised in villages away from big cities and the capital so it was something widely used in their daily lives.

- What do people consider as White and Black Magick?

White Magick is defined as the Witchcraft used for matters like healing and protection , rather from the “selfish” forced gain of the practitioner.

Black magic on the other hand, is what most hesitate to step in when they take into account their beliefs or personal morals since it is widely believed to take energy away to create chaos, destruction, disruption with a nature of forcing things against any wills of the people that participate without their knowledge. (Binding spells, Curses). These

However, nowadays it is a term widely said by people who define magic or ritualistic practices that they disapprove of as Black Magick.

-What types of Magick are there?

The ones you will mostly see around are: Binding Magick: To bind is to keep someone from doing something, almost like putting a wall between them and the chosen thing or the exactly opposite, to make a chosen thing or person stay attached Blood Magick: Blood magic is not magic that involves killing people or animals in ritual sacrifice. It is the use of a few drops of blood during a spell or ritual—usually your own blood, but if you are casting for someone else you could use theirs. Those few drops can add power to a magical working in any number of ways. Candle Magick: Candle magick is often used in spells and rituals and can be influenced by the color, scent and number of candles. Chaos Magick: It is about using whatever ideas and practices are helpful to you at the moment, even if they contradict ideas and practices used previously and a personal system is never developed. What applied yesterday may be completely irrelevant today. All that matters today is what is used today. Experience can certainly help a chaos magician in figuring out what would most likely be useful, but they are never confined by the concept of tradition or even of coherency. Crystal/Stone Magick: There are a multitude of crystals, stones and metals that can be used for many purposes through either simply invoking the energies of the crystals or crystal elixirs. Dream Magick: Dream magick is usually incredibly useful for tapping into the astral and one’s own psyche. Through dream magick, you can connect to the hidden secrets of your mind and to realms you can’t access through the physical. Elemental Magick: Usually in the beginning of a ritual, the elements are invoked and called into the circle for their blessings. However, outside the circle elemental magick can be used by invoking the essential energy of the elements for their specific magicks. Gray Magick: Gray magic (also spelled magick) is magic that is not performed for specifically beneficial reasons, but is also not focused towards completely hostile practices It is seen as falling in a continuum between white and black magic and could be also called neutral magic Herbal Magick: Usually employed through incense, tinctures or a long list of other herbal products in order to invoke their essences. If you?re ever having trouble finding something to work magick with for a very specific purpose, look through your favourite herbal magick book and you?ll almost definitely find something to help you. Hoodoo Magick: Hoodoo is a set of magickal practices originating in Africa which, through the process of syncretism, has absorbed some beliefs and practices from other cultures such as Native American spirituality and European Ceremonial Magick. Hoodoo tradition emphasizes personal magical power invoked by the use of certain tools, spells, formulas, methods, and techniques. It ascribes magical properties to herbs, roots, minerals, animal parts, and personal possessions. Some spells even make use of body materials (blood, tears, nail clippings, hair…etc) Knot Magick: Knot magick is a very ancient practice that usually is based on the number of knots tied on a cord, usually with purposes for each knot. Healing Magick: Healing magic can be accomplished through a variety of methods. It can be done through straight energy transfer (reiki and other methods), poppet magick, herbal magick, crystal magick and almost every other magick type for results. Poppet Magick: Poppet magick was popularized in the practice of voodoo but has been used in many different magickal systems in history. Usually ?poppets? are made of cloth or was and are activated with a possession (be it an object or a hair clipping etc) to attach the energy of a person to the poppet. Sigil Magick: Sigils are the symbols that are attributed to most spirits that are found in grimoires but could also represend intents. At the first case,  you can almost imagine the sigil to be the spirit’s phone number. Weather Magick: For most people, weather magick is one of the most difficult types of magick to work. As the title speaks of, weather magick obviously has to do with controlling the elements in order to change the weather for certain purposes. This kind of magick is difficult for a reason: it is not to be taken lightly as weather systems in one area usually can affect the whole world in a domino effect. Voodoo Magick: Hoodoo spells are also often confused with Voodoo magick but it’s another form of African witchcraft.

- What are the most common and basic tools needed to practice witchcraft?

It totally depends on the type of magick you will use. You do not need to have all of those tools to receive successful results and remember that the most basic tool is the right training and usage of your mind and concentration. Let’s see the most common ones: Altar - The altar is often considered a personal place where practitioners put their ritual items. Some practitioners may keep various religious items upon the altar, or they may use the altar and the items during their religious workings. Cauldron  - The cauldron is probably the tool most associated with witchcraft and is steeped in magickal tradition and mystery.  The cauldron is the container in which transmutation, germination, and transformations may occur.In ritual the cauldron is used as a container for making brews and potions, or to contain a small fire for use with spells.  It can also be used for scrying (divination) by filling it with water and gazing into its depths.   Incense -  Incense is one of the more common magical tools. Many practitioners use incense for nearly every magical act, from simple meditations to elaborate rituals. It’s not that its a very powerful or versatile tool, but it is a fairly useful one. Candles - Candles are frequently used for magical meditative purposes, in healing rituals, to help increase a spell’s power, or to influence a particular power. Candles are believed to be able to help one concentrate and absorb personal energy and release it when burned. In preparing to cast a spell, the person may dress or anoint the candle with an anointing oil while concentrating upon the purpose of the spell. Stones and Gems - each one is unique and exudes a specific energy, a crystal or gemstone may be used for healing, magic, spell casting, to inspire, uplift, balance, calm and energise Dressing oils - Essential oils can be used for that, usually a mixture of them and other ingridients. Essential oils - Used for their powers such as to anoint altars, incense burners, good fortune when added to incense, protection against evil & ill luck.

- What are spirits and how are they used for rituals?

We are souls temporarily in a physical bodies on Earth. However, our natural home is in the Spirit World, commonly also called the Other Side. Whether we realize it or not, spirits (or souls) surround us, whether in human bodies or “ without bodies. Because our natural home is the Spirit World, being without a physical body is our natural state. A spirit is simply nothing more and nothing less than another person and they are said to have a huge variety on size and powers, just like the animals on our planet. Every angel, demon, genius spirit and other supernatural being has preferences, styles of work and methods that make this contact more accessible. This is why there are different rituals for every different class of spirit. Some require elaborate rituals, while others only need to sense a sincere need. Some thrive on gratitude, while others only require that you command them clearly.

- What are spirit relationships and why are we recommended to establish one?

Some people when performing sorcery use only their self creation energy and it can only have so much power. Meaning it can only have up to and including how much power you personally have. If you are working with an actual spirit, you are working with not only your own power but theirs as well.

It is also quite beneficial cause spirits have many more power advantages than us humans who are locked inside our bodies that give us boundaries. So in those who use them in their work, spirits do most of the work and the practitioner is there to direct them. However, most people do not have the skills, or more likely, the patience to develop significant spiritual relationships. It takes time, you have to be ready and not let most of what you have been taught from invalid sources about them be a priority in your mind. 

- What is evoking / invoking?

Invoking is where you invite an entity and it steps into your body. You become them, and they become you, and you absorb the energies they leave you.

Evoking on the other hand, is much different. This is more commonly done, though it is seldom said. Evoking is the act of inviting a deity or element to come to your circle, Not be within you.

-What are the Spirit Guides and how could they help me?

Spirit Guides are what many consider to be spirits that stay with you throughout your entire life or pop in every now and again to help you with specific areas of your life or goals you are trying to achieve. These guides are at varying levels of consciousness themselves. What can be said about them is that theu do not mess with your free will, or try to get you to make decisions. The guides you want to work with will only be there to lovingly support, encourage and teach you in your current incarnation. They want the best for you, and will help you achieve it. However, hey will not prevent you from making bad decisions. Some things are meant as lessons, and if you purposely put yourself in harms way, they don’t just jump in and rescue you, although what we call angels have been known to do that, most guides will not.

They help you by Sending signs, such as repeated scenes or even numbers, by sending specific people in your life or even causing you to see dreams with a certain meaning behind them.

-What is Karma on Magick and the Threefold Law?

Taking into mind a sum of all that an individual has done, is currently doing and will do, Karma is the universe’s reaction to it. Something like “What goes around, comes all the way back around.” Negative Karma offers punishment and Positive gives rewards. It is connected to magick via the intentions of the practitioner during the ritual. For example, if one casts a hex, according to the popular idea of karma working as a cosmic judge of all of our actions, it will hit the person back. The Rule of Three (also Three-fold Law or Law of Return) is a religious tenet held by some Wiccans/Pagans. It states that whatever energy a person puts out into the world, be it positive or negative, will be returned to that person three times. The Rule of Three is sometimes described as karma by Wiccans; however, this is not strictly accurate. Both concepts describe the process of cause and effect and often encourage the individual to act in an upright way Some people strictly believe in those and because of so, refrain from stepping into “selfish” magick and some others state that they have witnessed nothing bad caused to the ones that perform “darker” magick.

- What do I need to know before practicing Black Magick as a beginner?

Try not to jump straight into advanced areas until you build the basic skills and experience . It is mainly suggested you spend a significant amount of studying about it so your knowledge can build itself, and by the time you reach advanced practices you have little fear as you know the knowledge behind the words, and you have the skills to handle yourself in most situations.

What is considered dark magick could possibly not only bring some sort of disaster but also draw negative spirits that are hard to get rid of if you don’t know what you are doing in the first place.

More to come soon.

[tessatechaitea]

Eclipso #5

Oh, it's happening!

You can't arrest Bruce for this murder because it was a perfect murder.

Every time I run somebody over in traffic, I just keep driving because I think, "Did I just smash into that pedestrian? Or did he jump in front of me?!" Then I pick up something they dropped and say:

My collection of right shoes and broken sunglasses is enormous.

I'm not saying it's right to invade an indigenous tribe, refuse to acknowledge their cultural beliefs, take photographs they expressly forbade me to take, gotten angry because they destroyed my camera, threw the shaman off of a cliff, and then stole an obvious religious artifact to keep as a souvenir of my perfect murder. I'm saying you have to appreciate the context! And the context is that Bruce Gordon is a white man from Western Civilization which means he can get away with whatever the fuck he wants! Bruce Gordon wakes up from the dream about his origin and then claims that he's a scientist while expressing thoroughly unscientific theories.

"The scientist in me knows that the evil I did was caused by a cut by a magic diamond which allowed a vengeance god who lives on the moon to take over my body! Science!"

As a "man" of "science," I know that nobody ever wakes up from a blackout tied to a bed and still has their pants on. Whoever put him there would have at least taken off his muddy boots! Yeesh.

My first dog's name was Fucky.

I'm not sure what kind of vibe Giffen and Fleming were going after when they decided Bruce Gordon would wake up tied to a bed with a kid nearby watching Bruce sleep but I think it was somewhere in-between horror and reverse pedophilia. Bruce winds up shackled to a chair at a large dining room table sat across from Mona. He asks her what happened and she says, "When that gong sounded, two women appeared, dressed me at gunpoint and brought me here! You?"

Yes. Two women dressing Mona at gunpoint is pretty much the same as some creepy kid telling you that the noises you make when you sleep are the same noises that his pervert dog makes. Practically twinsies!

The more I think about the current state of the world compared to this Eclipso comic book that purports to be a study of evil, the more I realize a real world Eclipso would make sense of everything. I wouldn't have to believe that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered and made to look like a suicide if we knew Eclipso was a thing! Everybody would just go, "Oh, did you find a black diamond on him? Yeah? That explains it! Possessed by Eclipso, got caught, abandoned by Eclipso, and then killed himself when he realized what he did while Eclipso'd! End of story!" Then later when we discovered that all the MAGA hats were lined with Black Diamond dust, we'd all go, "Fuckin' hell. Well, that explains that mess!" Then in Great Britain, you'd discover that all the hard candy had traces of black diamonds in them which is why all the old people voted for Brexit. Or at least that's what people would claim instead of wanting to admit that all the old people are fearful racists. Not to let all the young racists off the hook for voting for Brexit! But I'm sure if people died at much younger ages than they actually do, young people wouldn't continually get handed a fucking shit future that old people keep voting for even though they have no future themselves. Chained to the table with Mona's extreme cleavage staring him in the face, Bruce Gordon comes to the realization that this is all his fault. While I want to agree with him, I'd lay some of the blame at Madame Xanadu's feet as well. How come that barn owl didn't see this coming and tell the Justice League that the end of the world was coming if they didn't get off their asses and do exactly what she says without proof or evidence? Maybe if Bruce Gordon had visited Madame Xanadu instead of going straight to the Justice League, everything would have worked out okay. Which means, I think, I can agree with Bruce Gordon! It's entirely his fault! Also, he did murder that shaman who cursed him to become Eclipso which brought Eclipso back which led to Eclipso murdering 85% of Parador so he could run drugs and kill off all the coke sniffers in the U.S. And, I mean, is that so bad? I think maybe I'm on Eclipso's side here. At least for the first part of his plan. Although after imagining how many people are going to think I'm racist after that fact because I just remembered that most of Eclipso's coke will wind up as crack and distributed to poor, urban locations which are comprised of majority black populations due to decades of systemic racism in the United States government, I take back my endorsement of Eclipso's plan. It's as racist as Bruce Gordon's origin story! I mean, it's as racist as Bruce Gordon's origin story totally wasn't! It's hard to remember the reality I'm supposed to be sticking with in my reviews because I absolutely don't give a shit or pay attention to what I type.

See? You can see how I might side with Eclipso's plan! If we could just forget the way the U.S. treated the crack epidemic as a failing of the people who wound up addicted to crack as opposed to an 80s pushback against civil rights by conservative politicians to help undermine (or strengthen, in way too many cases) white America's attitude toward black Americans, it's a good plan, right?! I mean, you probably shouldn't forget those things I just said. Never forget that conservative politicians did that. Fuck Reagan and Bush and their toadies forever and ever.

And then the comic book finally does something so perfectly perfect that I can't believe I stopped reading after Issue #7 (especially since Ted McKeever began doing art in that issue!). I mean, nowadays, I would have given this comic at least another six months for this perfect moment. Let me set the scene: earlier, the little boy wouldn't untie Bruce Gordon because if he did, his mother threatened to kill his dog. Now at dinner, Bruce and Gordon were served their dinner under silver serving trays. When Bruce's tray is lifted, he discovers the boy's dog roasted with an apple in its mouth (because that's how you roast things!). This is how the scene then plays out:

This moment is such a great nod to early EC horror titles and — for me at least — the first really horrific act of genuine evil. All the rest of the shit Eclipso has done has just been mindless violence.

Later, Eclipso decides to eclipse The Creeper.

How do you get this close to an anus joke so many times and never deliver?! It's not like this is a Comics Code Authority backed comic book!

It's times like this when I have to admit that the critics of my criticism who say I'm not subtle must be right. Because Giffen and Fleming's entire plan in this scene was probably to make the reader think, "It's going up his ass, isn't it?!" And in that way, they never had to go so low and vulgar because they knew his readership would do it for them. But still. I wanted to see Eclipso reference suppositories. Eclipso stuffs black diamonds into Bruce and Mona as well before taking them and Creeper out for a drive through Parador. It's now become a living Hell with terrific new sightseeing destinations like the Shitting Demon, the Burning Crawling Lady, and the Pile of Dead Children on the Side of the Road. None of them get angry enough to become possessed by Eclipso so he drops them off at the border and tells them to get out of his country. It must be part two of his infernal plan! Have them shit out the diamonds in a U.S. toilet so that the rats and alligators become possessed, killing the next million people who don't do cocaine. No, that's not the plan because they all vomit up the black diamonds before heading off down the last 20 miles before crossing the border of Parador into, I don't know, Urazil. I've done that one, haven't I? I can't think of any more South American countries to mix up! Eclipso #5 Rating: B+. I really did enjoy the dinner scene. And letting Eclipso make reference to a pile of dead children was a nice touch too. A god who kills children?! Why, that's the very worst kind of God there is! I know Christians can be naive so, yes, that was a shot at your God. Boom!

[shirlleycoyle]

Hackers Dissect ‘Mr. Robot’ Season 4 Episode 8: ‘Request Timeout’

Episode 8 of Mr. Robot’s final season was intense. We discussed zip ties, phone restoring, location trackers, mixers, Elliot’s sloppy Python script, and the final hack [SPOILERS, obvs]. (The chat transcript has been edited for brevity, clarity, and chronology.)

This week’s team of experts includes:

Jen Helsby: SecureDrop lead developer at Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Jason Hernandez: Solutions Architect for Bishop Fox, an offensive security firm. He also does research into surveillance technology and has presented work on aerial surveillance.

Harlo Holmes: Director of Digital Security at Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Trammell Hudson: a security researcher who likes to take things apart.

Micah Lee: a technologist with a focus on operational security, source protection, privacy and cryptography, as well as Director of Information Security at The Intercept.

Yael Grauer (moderator): an investigative tech reporter covering online privacy and security, digital freedom, mass surveillance and hacking.

***

Yael: I want to start out by saying that I agree Momofuku is good.

Micah: In the very first scene, in 1995, when young Elliot is playing hide-and-seek and hiding something in the Queens Museum, I thought it was cool that he was running past all this retro computer equipment from 1995.

Trammell: Getting to the Queens Museum from 2nd avenue is a long haul on the F to the 7. And isn't Krista's place somewhere in upper Manhattan?

Yael: During the cab ride, I couldn't believe they were still showing videos of Tyrell after he's dead. But I guess I can't say I'm surprised if they put a lot of money into producing it. I mean, it IS Evil Corp. Also, shoutout to Krista. She got KIDNAPPED and KILLED someone and was still counseling Elliot after all that. Talk about emotional labor. (Or don't, lol, Twitter is a mess.)

Micah: Yeah, Krista is quite the badass. I also liked that when they got to the police station and Elliot was like, "I can't go in there with you," she was totally fine with it.

Dom and Darlene’s Kidnapping

Yael: So the Darlene/Dom kidnapping scene reminded me of a conversation we had in a previous chat about duress, and how you can program stuff to lock you out, but if someone's gonna start offing people, maybe you don't want to. Also, how do you get out of zip ties?

Harlo: About a week ago, I did this kidnapping simulation, which was actually pretty harrowing. Before you go into the scenario, they try to prepare you by teaching you how to get out of zip ties, handcuffs, and duct tape. Brief detour: zip ties are fun. While you can definitely just bust them by bringing them down with enough force onto your hip bone, more substantial ones require a long enough shoelace, which you loop through the cuffs, tether to your feet, then flop over and pedal like you're on a recumbent bike to slice through the plastic. Super fun. Great parlor trick. But when I did the sim, it was tricky to feel confident and safe enough—and unsurveilled enough—to attempt the escape, even if you knew how to do it.

Yael: Timing is really important. I think Dom had the sustained training and probably experience to really use it to her advantage, in a way civilians probably don't.

Harlo: Also, kidnapping sims that you do after one day of training DO NOT ever bring in the "cuntstick" with a baggie full of different torture knives. That would absolutely dampen your spirit as far as escape is concerned.

Micah: I just wanna say that Dom is a fucking badass.

Harlo: Yeah, she fucking nailed it.

Micah: Pulling the knife out of your chest and stabbing someone else with it, then shooting your captors.

Yael: That was awesome. It was cool that Dom had a plan, too. I was pretty disappointed that she didn't before. And now the license plate thing makes sense whereas before I was like, of course Dark Army is surveilling you; they own you.

Harlo: I have a nitpick. In the scene where Janice calls her bang-bang-bois over Signal. Didn't Signal at the time NOT play the regular phone ringing tone? Instead, it was this kinda cool radar sound? It used to have this amazing submarine radar sound. Also, Dom and Irish bastard are not using Signal. They were using regular-ass phone. But whatevs. I feel like a fucking walking ad for Signal nowadays. I must be absolutely insufferable.

Yael: I heard something recently about how Signal wasn't secure for people in China who use an Android keyboard.

Harlo: It's because sometimes your keyboard is a snitch. It's not a Signal problem per se, but by default, you might find yourself typing secrets into Signal that are captured by your keyboard, and then, anything goes.

Yael: Well, maybe Signal shouldn't allow external keyboards, or not have them on by default, hmm…

Harlo: In settings: there is "incognito keyboard," and if that's in your threat model, turn it on.

Yael: Do you think Darlene giving up her brother's location was the right call? Or his phone's location? She's basically trading his life for (maybe) saving Dom's family members' lives.

Micah: I don't know… it's kind of impossible to decide between who should get murdered and who shouldn't.

Jen: Mr. Robot's version of the trolley problem. I mean, a bunch of kids were gonna get killed. Sad, but a reasonable call.

Yael: Janice could just kill them anyway, though. It was hard to tell whether Dom thought Janice was gonna kill her family or knew they'd have escaped. But I can see why Darlene did it. I was surprised she didn't do it after Dom got stabbed. I want to know whether it's advisable to tell your armed kidnapper to eat shit, then die.

Micah: She gets my respect for it.

Yael: I've had a crush on Darlene since Season 1. Even if she is a murderer.

Jason: I think it's hard to consider Janice a credible person to negotiate with. She seems unreliable… why would Darlene expect to survive, even if she does everything Janice wants?

Yael: Yeah, that's why I wasn't sure it was a good call.

Micah: Yeah, she's terrifying because she's an unreliable psychopath.

Harlo: There are different classifications of kidnappings. What we saw on Mr. Robot was NOT the most prevalent one, which is just about squeezing money out of someone whose family/loved ones might have it.

Phone Restore

Micah: I think when Darlene wiped her phone, she actually wiped it for good and didn't have a way to recover the data again.

Trammel: The secure element or TrustZone stores a key that is inaccessible to the user. If it gets cleared, then the Flash memory is as good as erased. How did she recover it?

Micah: I don't think she could have restored it, not without taking a backup of the phone first. But when you take an Android backup, the Signal app doesn't back anything up, so she would have lost Elliot's location even if she did restore a backup. I think instead she just installed her hacked Signal client again, and got pinged from Elliot's phone again. That's the only way I can see that working.

Harlo: I don't even think that Darlene would need her Signal mod; Elliot's was modded only to ping with his latitude/longitude periodically. So all Darlene needs is Signal.

Micah: True. Her hacked Signal client must not care about safety numbers—something we talked about last week. Elliot's Signal client could decide to not trust Darlene's number again if her safety numbers changed, but it looks like that wasn't the case.

Harlo: Yeah, I guess there was no safety measure like, "do not ping if safety number has changed" baked in; too bad!

Yael: Darlene got sloppy! Or maybe it was intentional, in case she had to ditch her phone.

Micah: It takes a lot of trust to put an app that tracks your location on your phone.

Yael: She grabbed Elliot's phone from his hand and put it on for him.

Harlo: Signal wasn't available as a plain old APK then… unless you built it from the source code. But it didn't look like Darlene had a computer with her.

Micah: She had a shortened URL to download her modified APK. Also, it's possible she just logged into a Google account and downloaded from the Play store.

Harlo: Ah, then that would be most expeditious. What I'm curious about is how she restored it. Like, if you need to use the Play store, you need a Gmail account. Or F-droid.

Location Tracking

Yael: I thought Janice had a good point when she said, "You didn't give me your brother's location; you gave me his phone's location." A lot of drone operators should learn the difference.

They seemed like they were outside of Krista’s house. How good is this geolocation tracking? Is it just a general location based on the device’s proximity to cell phone towers, or can it locate the exact floor in the exact apartment?

Jason: Geolocation on phones is flaky, especially if you're in an "urban canyon" like NYC where you don't have good line of sight to satellites. Phones also use Wi-Fi data and cell tower data to identify where they are, but it's not perfect.

Yael: Companies like Skyhook Wireless can provide very specific location data based on hotspot IP addresses. They have these huge databases that correlate hotspot locations with the IP addresses. They use a combination of direct hotspot scanning and the cooperation of app “partners” who pass along hotspot IP data from users as they connect. But I dunno if Darlene would subscribe to Skyhook; it's hella expensive.

Jason: Those location databases aren't super reliable. They'll give you a latitude and longitude that is precise but not necessarily accurate.

Micah: Android has two location permissions, "coarse" and "fine." I believe "coarse" location works without GPS and instead relies on Wi-Fi access points the phone can see, combined with Google's massive database of Wi-Fi access points it knows about, and "fine" uses GPS. I think she would use the phone's built-in location services.

Yael: How fine is fine?

Micah: I guess it depends on where you are, but if you take out your phone, open your maps app, and click the button to zoom in to where you are—that's how fine.

Jen: Kashmir Hill has done some nice reporting on some of the unfortunate situations that arise due to errors in those geo-IP location databases.

Yael: I was thinking about this recently with Protonmail. It has this new privacy feature that's supposed to remind your phone to wipe local data if you enter a certain area. But it looks like it would only work if you were right in the center of the country, and it seems like it’s hard to change the radius precisely.

Elliot’s Hack

Harlo: Elliot's stressed. Print twice?

` “print out

Jen: Yeah, he had some syntax errors in that script. SyntaxError on line 16 (first line in the coinCoins() function).

Trammell: The main call is cleanCoins(), but his cleaning function that passes them through the tumbler is named coinsCoins. And since Python doesn't check that when it compiles code, it might cause a runtime error. Hopefully Elliot doesn’t lose all his coins, like when Sonic hits an enemy.

Harlo: I was totes gonna drag him for that, but I gotta check the tape again; perhaps cleanCoins is above the fold and we don't see it.

Trammell: Sonic collects rings, not coins. Please disregard my attempt at a nerd reference and deduct one from my score.

Image: USA

Micah: One of the print commands was Python 2. The other was Python 3.

Harlo: In 2016, he was probably not using Python 3?

Yael: Elliot has been through a lot. Or maybe there were different personalities typing.

Jen: Mr. Robot is Python 2, Elliot is Python 3.

Yael: What is little Elliot?

Jen: He's that programming language for kids.

Yael: I learned the little Python I do know from the Python for Kids book, by the way. "A resource for the rest of us"?

Micah: Also, why is he using both os.system() and subprocess.check_output()… to call curl? You can make HTTP requests directly from Python.

Jason: Yeah, he should be using requests.

Jen: TFW your TV show doesn’t get permission to use requests, so you gotta subprocess out to curl.

Harlo: lol, they can't afford the rights to show requests. Also!

Did y’all notice the autofill? _main_ (one underscore). Somebody's been writing some non-working code that they're hoping to deploy under duress… Also no pep 8, but hey, what are ya gonna do?

Micah: To be fair, he was in the middle of writing that script, and super stressed out, and clearly hasn't tried running it yet. So maybe we're not being fair. I have typos and broken stuff in my unfinished code all the time.

Jen: Yeah, we're just being annoying. It looks hackery enough for the show. We're just giving the readers of this article what they want: line by line code feedback. If I know anything about normal humans, they love Python programming.

Yael: I don’t think he’s slept in many episodes, either.

Jason: If he was doing real development, he'd have Stack Overflow up, and he'd be copy/pasting from it.

Harlo: Anyhoos, okay, we've got some curl with a cookie; and what are those other flags? Don't worry about SSL if it's not available? I forget…

[Python Image]

Yael: I just want Darlene to finish the hack because she "happens to be smart and good at things," as she said several seasons back. If this episode was Request Timeout, does that mean the next one is Conflict?

Oh, dumb question, but does Darlene actually need to find Elliot to finish his hack?

Micah: I'm not sure… I'm actually a little unclear on the details of the hack they're in the middle of doing, and how it works.

Trammell: Looks like the plan is to steal cryptocurrency and pass it through a tumbler to launder it.

Yael: Can we do an ELI5 about tumblers and mixers?

Jen: A coin mixer is a service you can move your coins through such that you can hopefully disassociate the coins with where they came from (which one would do if coins were illegally acquired). Like money laundering.

Trammell: The base64 doesn't decode to ASCII, unfortunately.

Image: USA

Harlo: What does it decode toooooooo? Shall I get out the CyberChef?

Yael: I don't understand how any of this works, tbh. Like, I know he's trying to steal crypto. CryptoCURRENCY.

Micah: This Python script that Elliot's writing isn't actually the full hack. It's not even exploiting anything. It appears to be laundering cryptocurrency. I think once they steal the money, this is how they're going to retrieve it without getting caught. But this script isn't actually stealing the money.

Jen: The other comment is valid. It looks like at some point he renamed a function during development and when the main() function runs, it'll crash with a NameError.

Micah: It looks like the final output of the script is a list of new wallet addresses that the money was ultimately sent to.

Jen: Presumably, he'd run this in test before moving millions of USD worth of coins through a mixer.

Hackers Dissect ‘Mr. Robot’ Season 4 Episode 8: ‘Request Timeout’ syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[tumblunni]

I had some sudden more ideas for npcs in the monster petshop game, and a bit of worldbuilding and stuff!

I was just consideringwhether maybe this should be a fantasy setting with different non-human races, or one that’s just all humans. I dunno, games with catchable monsters seem to ALWAYS be just humans, that’s weird now I think about it! I guess its so the line between sentient magical beings and the pet ones isn’t blurred, but in my petshop idea the monster pets can all talk anyway so that’s not an issue. Tho I dunno if it’ll be to the same degree as in the Monster Rancher anime where monsters are all so similar to humans that they can live their own entirely separate lives without a human partner, and like.. start shops and hold property and stuff. Seriously that worldbuilding is so surreal and cool, you get to see stuff like a giant golem running a little metalwork jewelry store in the background of a crowd scene. I wanna see the story of that guy! Tho it gets a bit confusing cos some monsters can’t talk, and some monsters seem to have more petlike intelligence, and those two things don’t often coincide. I still cry forever about that episode with the guy who abused his giant worm monster, and how with its design and how it doesnt talk you’d probably assume its a mindless evil monster but its actually just a quiet sad good guy and like.. how its full sentience level is revealed by it choosing to refuse an offer from the bad guys to join them, and dying trying to save the life of its abusive trainer. And how it actually does succeed in making him realise how wrong he was to treat it like an animal, and to treat animals like mindless toys! And how he breaks down crying and then how he cradles the lil baby worm and promises to do better this time, and then how his original worm comes back to life way WAY at the end of the series and I CRY FOREVERRRR ... Anyway, sorry, where was I before I got distracted?

OH YEAH! Fantasy races! Which really should be called species, but I guess it stuck cos they’re often used as metaphors/replacements for actual racial diversity, especially in traditional fantasy. IM GETTING DISTRACTED AGAIN!!! So yeah that thought led me to an idea for a particular fantasy “race” I could add. But then it somehow developed into... I dislike designing overly humanlike fantasy races, like seriously what is the point of even bothering if they look identical to humans except short or with weird ears? So I thought.. what if this “race” is actually a disease instead?

MORE LONG THOUGHTS BELOW THE CUT!

So, I was thinking they could look like just normal humans but with a greyish skin colour, odd coloured eyes, and some sort of flower growing on their head. They’d be like ‘flower spirits’ but in kind of a negative way? They look like humans because this is a sort of magical genetic condition that turns humans into this. Though they still get predjudice because people are afraid of ‘catching’ a disease that isn’t actually contagious through touch or anything, but people are happy being ignorant fucks and excluding them from society ‘just in case’ their paranoia comes true.

But anyway! The details! At any moment an inherited carrier could manifest symptoms, and rather literally manifest a glowing flower from their forehead. It grants you enhanced magical powers, but at the cost of your life being tied to that magic. The flower is like if your soul has been forcibly pulled outside your body in a very fragile form! You have to tend to it like a normal flower, and you also have to sorta feed it by doing enough magic or absorbing the energy from magical objects. (So these guys’s magical power is to negate other magics.) If left untreated it will eventually be fatal, and if the flower wilts it’ll also kill you even faster. If you fail to take care of it, it drains energy from your soul instead, which leads to the grey skintone and general weak health. But even if you keep the flower alive it’ll eventually grow too big and you’ll be unable to drain enough magic to keep up with its energy consumption. By the time the story begins, medical technology has actually advanced enough to find life extending treatments for this, even if we don’t have a complete cure. You can’t get rid of the flower but you can take medicines to slow it’s growth. I mean, really the problem is just that this thing outpaces its host, its a really impractical parasite! It ends up killing itself by getting too greedy! (Which makes me think probably the predjudiced slurs around these people would be like... ‘you got that disease cos of your greed/sin/etc’. Even though its just genetic.) And then I think the final breakthrough to save people from this disease wouldnt really be a perfect cure, just to regress it to a budlike inactive state. You’ll always be physically marked as a victim of this disease, and you’ll always have the ‘demonic’ magic-draining powers. And it’ll probably be a long time before people stop treating the sufferers like shit, even after this...

So umm.. yeah. Its kinda gonna be like an analogy for the horrible HORRIBLE way the AIDS outbreak was handled by the government, and how it happened because the victims were ‘undesireables’. And how in this post-outbreak world the whole thing’s practically been covered up, lessened, forgotten. And people still deny it, and still treat gay people like shit, and its taken so damn long to make all this progress and just... gahhhh... How pretty much every LGBTQ person who’s that old lost a dozen friends, how people got so desperate they used to hold ‘die-ins’- protesting by literally saying ‘leave me here on the doorstep’ when they were about to die. Make the politicians see exactly what they’ve done! And similarly the massive MASSIVE quilt full of patches commemorating everyone who died. God... And seriously just HOW LITTLE EDUCATION there is on this subject! Even amoungst modern LGBTQ communities! How eager we are to sweep things under the rug, even if its LITERALLY a rug made of dead queer folk! *sigh* umm.. sorry for the heavy subject matter there.

So yeah, this would be a ‘race’ in this setting, or rather a minority group, but in fantasy terms its a ‘race’ but.. whatever. Dumb language rules! Very small community of flower disease folks, treated like demi-humans. And this leads to a bunch of new ideas for npcs that could deliver this plotline! Of course, the main one would be an actual member of the flower disease folks.

I’m imagining her as just an absolute sweetheart shy gentle giant sort of lady. She’s introduced being this terrifying presence walking into the town, your protagonist being the only one who doesnt understand why everyone else is being all hushed whispers and closing all their shops. Since you come from a sheltered rich kid background, you’re very out of touch with common issues and had no clue this disease even exists. (Even though rich folks are the ones who had the power to help them, are the ones who refused, are the ones who spread the propeganda and then tried to cover up all their own failures...) So you’re the only one who treats this seemingly terrifying vagrant as a normal person, even though it’s (initially) just because you didn’t know the situation. Because of this, she ends up seeing you as a friend and coming back again. And then its up to the player whether you fall for all the predjudice and decide to cut all ties with her from here on, or whether you continue to stand up for her rights and try and change the way society treats her.

ANYWAY, her personality once she opens up to you would be the total opposite of her imposing appearance. She’s a chronic sufferer of self-hate issues, who’s been living completely alone in the forest for a long time, after being kicked out by her family and having no-one to turn to. I’m thinking she constantly speaks like... shy equivelant of Fuujin from FF8? One word sentences, but whispered instead of yelled. And like.. “.......ah..............s-....sorry........?” *questioning inflection of silence* “......uhhm........?” *unfurls hand hesitantly from under cloak and points at loaf of bread* *counts out coins meticulously, making sure to spread her hands and show she’s wearing gloves, she’s keeping them in a pouch, she hasn’t touched them* *places them on the very edge of the counter and backs away slowly, assuming you’re thinking the worst of her* *won’t take the bread directly from your hands, just in case* *struggling to speak again* “... th-.... ah-...... t-thank....... you.....” *mumbles her way out of the store quickly and awkwardly* This is kinda how she’s had to deal with buying supplies from EVERYONE EVERYWHERE. This tends to happen with like the one store in town that’ll take pity and throw her some food, at a greatly inflated price. She’s just had to like.. keep trying. Wear them down. If she keeps coming to a town repeatedly they’ll eventually get frustrated enough to give her what she wants.... or they’ll call the sheriff to chase her off. Either way she finally gets a yes or no answer on that place, and can tick it off on her cross country map of spots to find actual supplies. So she like.. CAN NOT function in a regular shop environment anymore. Probably the first hint that she isn’t really scary is how she’d totally freak out at you treating her normally! She’d be TERRIFIED!! There’s no way she’d actually agree to talking normally, she’d adamantly refuse to taking anything for free, seriously WHAT IS YOUR DEAL, ARE YOU A DEMON??? *sobs into the complimentary bread* It’d be a few visits before she actually opens up to you, and even then she’s very monosyllabic. She literally hasnt talked to anyone for years, she’s become so hardened to loneliness and cruel treatment that she can’t remember how to react to kind people anymore. And her voice is so hoarse both from this and from.. well.. the disease. She hasn’t even had the minimal treatment that’s available nowadays... for the rich, at least. So along with her sidequest being to help everyone understand her, you’re also searching for a doctor who’d treat her, and trying to save up the ridiculous amounts of money it would take. Its far easier if you succeed at destroying enough of the town’s ignorance, and make at least a few friendship links between her and your other sidequest pals. You can start having a town-wide fundraiser to get her the lifesaving medicine! Tho probably that leads to its own sidequest of having to track her down after she runs away, worried that she doesn’t deserve it and she’s just gonna cause more problems for her new friends. NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Anyway, the general structure of her as a customer is that she kinda accepts ANYTHING, and doesn’t have much money to do it with. She’s very lonely, and only built up the courage to come to this town on that first day because she heard about your petshop that sells to lower class citizens, and the idea of getting her own monster friend was like a ray of hope in her life! If you decide not to chase her away from the town, she settles in the nearby forest where all the stray monsters live, and becomes like the scary local cryptid. “I totally saw an eight foot tall woman feeding the crows!!! What the fuck!!!” She has a problem with sacrificing herself to protect all these wild animals, they’re just SO BEAUTIFUL and MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING!! She’s always going hungry cos she gives all her food to them, and then they start to love her in return and she gets a veritable army of feral pals that’ll defend her from anyone who tries to burn her tent down again. So she starts off desperately trying to buy a monster from you, any monster, and then after she gets her first one she starts befriending the forest monsters with its help, and becomes your biggest customer of monster supplies instead. She wants to give all these wild babies the closest life to a normal pet as possible! But she also still will buy literally any monster from you, ever, anytime. Doesn’t matter that she already has fifty, she can always take care of more! Though you do get better results if you give her ones high in defense stats and etc, cos its tough to live out there in the forest, even if your trainer is going hungry to ensure you get the best snacks. Oh, and she’d probably be ABSOLUTELY OVER THE MOON if you could sell her a monster that also has flowers or flower patterns. (Tho i think protagonist would be worried it would be insensitive, but she actually does like them cos they make her feel less lonely) She’s also an incentive to help out with your cookery crafting skills! Cos initially she’s having trouble being able to access any of the other shops in the town, she’ll just buy whatever spare food you have lying around. Even your absolute worst failed dishes are like heaven to her! So you can get more exp from cooking and also make a profit from it, thus helping you get better at crafting fancy dishes for your sweet monster pals. (And your strange tall pal!) Oh, and it’d probably also be an element that people in the town try and ‘politely’ advise you that you shouldn’t sell to her ‘for your own safety’. Because of the flower people’s magic draining powers, there’s the very real worry that one of them could be buying monsters from your store just to drain them dry and slow down their own death. But it sucks to assume the worst of her before you even know her, and honestly even if someone was doing that it’s dishonest to frame them as evil and predatory when seriously they are only committing a crime TO SLOW DOWN THEIR OWN DEATH! I bet that would be the most terrifying depressing situation for them, having to kill a small animal cos you’re having an attack of your symptoms and you just desperately don’t want to die...

And now on to the other supporting npcs I thought could be useful to this plot!

I thought of maybe there being bakers cos... well, the first scene I thought of while planning her personality was her trying to buy a loaf of bread. SIMPLE BRAIN PATHS! WOO! But somehow these bakers ended up gaining a way bigger plot role than I intended O_O I’m imagining them as some sort of Super Duo, just cos this plot idea requires one who starts off sympathetic to flower lady and a boss that provides an obstacle in this. I’m thinking maybe the good guy baker sneaks bread out to flower lady, and their greedy boss is all like ‘no! There are laws in place! Food waste must be destroyed! No giving to the homeless!’ (THIS IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT EXISTS. Almost every major fast food company does it! You can get arrested for stealing food from the bins, or for being an employee who tries to give the food to someone, even if it’s excess food that would just be binned anyway.) But then I ended up humanizing the grumpy boss instead of having them JUST be an enemy. I started imagining this as a family business, and the grumpy boss is their grandma? And then i thought maybe that would be a good vehicle to deliver the backstory worldbuilding about this disease, and now I am REALLY SAD about this grumpy grandma! I was thinking maybe she’s actually someone who lost a lot of friends in the initial outbreak of flower syndrome, and used to protest against it, and became all bitter and depressed after what happened, which is why she’s such a cynical mess nowadays. I think maybe the plot would work better if its like.. the grandkid baker just THINKS that grandma would object to serving a flower disease customer, and then when grandma actually sees who’s been ‘stealing’ her profits, she breaks down crying. Nobody in her family even knew she was so close to the tragedy, she’s been keeping it secret cos even though she isn’t infected she could still be ostracized for being part of that community and all. I’m thinking its gonna just be a very direct analogue, I’m gonna say that LGBTQ people were demonized as the ‘cause’ of this disease back when it was poorly understood. ‘Its caused by greed and sin’ = people pick whichever subjective ‘sin’ they wanna blame... So grandma shows you all her quilt that she’s been keeping secret, full of patches commemorating everyone she knew who died, and tells you about how the tragedy went down and how she got her start as such a cold and untrusting person out of the fear of ever loving anyone again in case she lost them. And everyone gets to have ALL OF THE HUGS, even though hugs can’t erase what happened :( But finding a family that can support her can help flower lady right now, grandma is determined to find a way to save this one person and make up for everyone she couldn’t save! They help you on your quest to track down a doctor, and they give flower lady a place to stay as part of their family, no matter what anyone thinks! And then i think maybe after flower lady manages to get her medicine, grandma actually leaves on a journey with the doctor, to learn how to become a doctor too. She was in medical training when she was younger, before she had to drop out of education due to all that happened. And she just ended up inheriting the family bakery, even though she personally sucks at baking and hates it. (Which is why employee/grandson does all the work and stuff) So now she sees this as a chance to redeem herself, you help convince her that its not too late! She’s gonna use however many years she has left to help people! if she has to be cursed with outliving everyone, she’ll use this long life to make a difference! So its sad cos grandma has to leave on her journey, but grandson takes over the shop and flower lady is employed as an assistant. And they keep in touch with grandma in the mail. (You can sell them a good carrier pigeon monster to help!)

Another npc there could be is... another greedy guy!! I started thinking him up cos i was just wondering about who could be a friend to the grandma. I mean, the npcs have to have relationships and rivalries between each other, its not like the protagonist is the only one who matters, lol This idea i have is (for some reason) someone who looks like a younger AZ from pokemon, wearing a cowboy hat. Kinda? He’s a travelling merchant and ssssssort of the same greedy archetype as grumpy grandpa, but sort of not? He’s an even more huge penny pincher than her, but he doesn’t seem to have his heart in it. He’s constantly desperately wringing any potential money out of anything, overcharging as much as he possibly can, getting himself hurt doing silly get rich schemes. But then he’s not really a jerk about it. He’s very friendly and cares about his customers, unable to actually scam them even as he announces his intentions to do it. He’s constantly betrayed by his own kindness, and ends up giving away free stuff to anyone who has a sob story! He also never seems to actually really spend his money on himself, its not like he actually has any of the luxury he’s always rambling about. I mean, he does indeed seem to have a genuine greed and a few lofty dreams, but then he just puts all his profits in his savings no matter how much it hurts him to do it. *crying over a fancy hat as he dumps his purse in the Swear Jar*

So anyway, his connection to this plot about the flower disease is that his Secret Reason For The Greedy is only revealed if you befriend both him and the flower lady. After you progress the story enough to get her first Happy Ending of getting adopted by the baker family, her second Happy Ending of finally getting the medicine, and her third Happy Ending of becoming the new assistant baker after grandma moves away, the plot still stubbornly continues because really no ending is an ending, yknow? I’m thinking this sort of formula could work really well with a game that has no real overall plot, and is more of just a slice of life theoretically endless thing. When you’re playing Monster Rancher there’s never really any huge changes in the town you still always have the same shopkeepers and nobody even ages. And even though Animal Crossing has villagers moving in and out, its also kinda the same, there’s never any real character development or shifting of the status quo. So I’m thinking having changing generations of the town and continuity between them could be a good way to keep stuff engaging even as you keep playing the same sort of gameplay forever. Maybe some people move away, maybe some people move in, maybe some people get married or have kids, who knows!

So yeah, after the status quo change of the baker grandma moving away and flower lady leaving her homelessness tent to become a full time resident, thats’s when this new sidequest starts. Stuff still isnt instantly perfect for her, she’s still facing predjudice from some people, especially now she’s in a rather public position as an employee. All the controversy over having her work with food, even though SERIOUSLY, DUDE, you can’t catch it from just touching someone who has it! I think she’d feel absolutely terrible, she’d be worried that she’s causing her benefactors to lose business because she’s here. And she’d also have just normal social anxiety adjusting to doing her first job ever, and having to do so much talking. She was homeless since she was very young, she even has trouble with complex mathematics cos she never finished school. Another reason merchant guy could be a good friend of the family, he could help tutor her on this stuff! And general shopkeeping techniques, cos both her and grandson are both super good guy pushovers and all. (”Don’t worry, I’m a wimp too, and even I can manage to be greedy with these five simple steps! ....that’ll be 50 dollars.”) But the main plot for him and flower lady is how he finally reveals his secret reason for being so greedy. One day he just comes along leading a little girl by his hand, and lifts her up so she can see the lady at the bakery counter. “Daddy, she’s got flowers like me!!” He’s been sending all of his profits home to pay for his kid’s medical bills, and he finally decided to let you know once he met someone else with the same condition. He’s been keeping it a secret because people hate flower sufferers so much, and he desperately needs to keep up the trade route with this town otherwise he can’t afford to look after her. he’s so damn relieved to be able to stop lying to you, and to finally introduce his lil bundle of joy! And to let her see someone else with the same condition, for the first time in her life! And then the lil girl could become friends with tall flower lady, and be all like ‘you look so pretty!’ which is something nobody’s ever said to her since she got sick, and just... HEARTWARMING TIME And it could help flower lady keep hope even though predjudice hasnt completely stopped in the world. At least now she’s found some good people, and she can see that her bravery in working at this job is inspiring young sufferers to feel that their life isnt completely over. So they all send off another letter to grandma together, and have a nice family dinner with this other family, and with yours too. :3 (...also, merchant guy apologizes for lying to his close friend grandma for so long, and they laugh at how they both had so much in common and never found out until now! And she is HELLA EXCITED to meet his daughter when she comes back ^_^)

[megamanishashekhawat-blog]

inter caste love marriage specialist

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inter caste love marriage specialist

Intercast love marriages have become a common matter these days, as the younger generation is becoming more liberal in their thought and action. Youngsters are nowadays migrating from their home towns for the purpose of education and career. There, they meet people of different castes and backgrounds and sometimes, these meetings blossom into relations which last for a life time. Many a times, such inter caste love affairs get positive outcomes in a smooth manner, while there are some other cases where couples face severe objections from the parents or the society or both of them. In some extreme cases, such affairs end in something as pathetic as honor killing and suicide. Such people who want to have an inter caste marriage need to be bold and courageous to face the circumstances. At the same time, they can ease things out for themselves by relying upon an astrologer to rectify their problems with the help of astrology.

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Caste system has been a unyielding part of Indian civilization since ages. It is a wickedness that has made the decrees and directives of the Hindu custom biased and inequitable. Favoritism based on the caste system has wrecked the civilization and created dissimilarities among st the people belonging to different castes. Marriage is a revered organization particularly in context of Indian civilization still when the whole world has develop into so progressed there are people who go after firm caste rules. Weddings in the Hindu society are caste driven; inter-caste marriages are measured to be a indulgence and are not supported by the elders.

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Inter caste love marriage, as the name suggests, is marrying a person of your choice who belongs to a different caste where usually one of the two belongs to an inferior caste. Many people believe that it is not permissible for a person to marry someone outside the caste and those who does it needs to be punished.

Inter caste love marriage is not a great feeling for the lovers; instead, it is what makes them more scared. Often they are made to pay for their liberal views and doings. And what is more saddening is that it is highly criticized in India.

Issues related to inter caste love marriage

Inter caste love marriages are prone to threats, not just by the society but by their own family and friends. We have been watching in the news how the beloved couples are killed in the name of honour killing. Well even if it does not give rise to such a serious crime, it surely makes the lovers to break ties with their families. It is usually followed in the Hindu tradition.

Though our country shows it has developed a lot in this era, some of us are still backwards. We are still slaves to the orthodox thinking. In a recent survey, it was found that only 5% inter caste love marriages have reached their goal till now.

Benefits of inter caste love marriage

Inter caste love marriage also comes up with few benefits. You will be delighted to know that marriage is not just a union of two persons but also of two families and what can be more beautiful than associating with a different caste and knowing their culture.

Inter caste love marriage can be a great example of a united India where people believe in living together apart from any caste ,creed or color. In a country where 95% crowd denies inter caste love marriage, there are 5% also present who have big hearts to embrace other humans.

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Vashikaran is such an astrological technique, which can go a long way to help the lovers to get rid of inter caste marriage problems by making the attitude of parents and society positive for them. This can be done with the help of an expert intercast love marriage specialist such as Pandit Sanjay Sharma, who has a wide experience in this field along with many other fields. Pandit ji has united many couples by helping them making their families and the society ready to accept the relationship and welcome them both in each other’s families with open arms. In fact, the families have been more than happy to have the bride or groom from the other caste, to be a part of their family. Success in intercast marriage has been a forte of pandit ji, who has helped thousands of couples benefit from his vashikaran upayas. He specializes in arranged marriages too, ensuring speedy marriages and finding suitable partners with the help of his manglik upayas. Besides love and marriage issues, pandit Ji is also the savior of childless couples and also has helped thousands of people achieve their career goals.

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Marriage is a sacred bond and has its own rituals which vary with customs and traditions of people. It brings two people together and ties them in a consecrated knot where they are blessed to lead a happy life together. In the ancient times, marriages used to be fixed by the elders of the family without even asking the bride and the groom. It was a time when matches were made after considering the family background and by calculating the astrology meter. However, in the present scenario people have called for a change which is observed around so much. This change has even altered the most traditional form called marriage and in the modern generation falling in love and choosing their suitable life partner have become very widespread these days. Needless to say, intercaste love marriage astrology has gained so much importance than ever before and this helps one to have a smooth future and the expert guidance of the love marriage astrologer show partners the right way which enhances the love life of the two individuals. Thus, by verifying the horoscope and other particulars, the astrologers ensure love compatibility and successful union of the partners that culminate in a strong love married life.

Even though people have started leading life independently having least interest in what their stars say, there are a few traditions and beliefs that continue to rule people.

People even in this advanced century believe in a few aspects and even start searching for a intercaste love marriage specialist astrologer who is capable of offering a solution  that allow people to lead a hassle-free life.

The astrologer is a person who owes better command over astrology and such people even help others by gaining a complete understanding of the situation and offering a strong solution.

The disputes or the misunderstanding are by times caused in between the partners due to the evil planet or some disturbances and the professional experts even offer a perfect solution to the love psychic people.

Love is not restricted to caste and creed due to this there are several people who choose their partners irrespective of such societal norms. There will be a solution for every issue and it is a must that people should seek the help of a specialist.

If you are looking for a specialist in inter caste love marriage astrologer, then make sure to pick one carefully as only a right person can help you in withstanding your tough situation.

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Whatever may be the problem, experts offer a helping hand and suggest in the right way that allows one to overcome the hurdle and enjoy a better life with partner. So try to lead a happy married life by seeking the support of an expert who can check the horoscope astrologically and offer a solution after a thorough analysis. In such cases, you can leave your query here we will give you a call.

Inter caste love marriage issues become toughest in Indian culture, just because of having orthodox thinking; people think that love marriage doesn’t have long term foundation. Means, love marriage don’t work for long times.

However, Marriage is the relation which brings many sweet moments in people’s life. After getting marriage, people life is completely changed. Either people get love marriage or arrange marriage. Well, today’s generation want to get marry with their desired one, Means almost all people have desired one, and they have dreams to spend their whole life with that one only, but the sake of having social and inter-caste issues parent don’t allow to get love marriage in another caste.

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Although, we all know love and marriage both are inter related, Marriage relation work smooth when both the couple have love to each other, otherwise, relation doesn’t work for long lasting. Now the thing about a love relationship, if you have a love for your desired one but unfortunate, you can’t get together for forever then that kind of a relation doesn’t worth survive, this is why both have importance at their own place.

When people fall in love with someone, they dedicated whole life with that one, and dream about their married life, but whenever they confess their love relationship in front of their parents then they have to deal with many issues, and parents deny to accept their relationship. Either issue occurs about inter caste or society. This is why many of the couples aren’t able to make their love relationship long lasting.

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The name of inter caste love marriage as a sin in the society but love is not bound able theme. Love has no relation with the caste in any manner. But in the modern era inter caste marriage is the common aspect. Sometime every inter caste marriage is not success because of complexity in the match making and after that create many issues in married life. Planet also a vital role in the successful marriage because fifth, seventh and ninth house are denoted for the marriage succeeding stairs. Only inter-caste love marriage problem solution astrologer Pandit ji read your chart deeply and respectively analyzing.

Hence, difficulties, as well as hurdles in many occasions’ runs at inter caste love relationship or affair and problems in this regard required to be addressed at the earliest of the arising of the same regarding love marriage specialist baba  ji which is close to marriage or else would result in breakup of the relationship following disagreement and obstacles. Study of supernatural power or spiritual force or occult science in the form of Astrology, Tantra, White or Black Magic specialist has thrown light on this aspect of human life and has laid down several remedies or techniques to get rid of hurdles or problems or difficulties related to inter caste love marriage, as well as addressing any issue regarding same.love marriage problem solution baba ji There are different options available and at the same time several types of remedies or techniques available for resorting in order to get rid of problems with inter caste love marriage, as well as getting an insight of what is the reason behind a certain problem arising with inter caste love marriage problem solution.

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In our society marriage is an important event that not only brings two individual but also two families together. When discussing marriage proposition, there are several factors that are also considered like social status, financial condition, professional career, educational qualification and lot more. However when you choose to leave all this and simply marry the person you love, it is not easily accepted by society and families. Inter caste marriage is still not acceptable and looked down in the society. People even go to the extent that they break all their relationship with the person choosing to marry someone beyond their caste.With the guidance of vashikaran, you can ask the help of dark entities in your hard situation of life. Using vashikaran spell for love marriage can assist you to get the approval of parents or partner for your love or inter-caste marriage.