#but no room specific map to show u Where they might be >.> i can work around the grindy aspects of the game

[kuromi-hoemie]

i spent today mostly playing a game i don't think i like lol.

there r a lot of minor criticisms i have, but enough of them that I'm on my smoke break rn thinking hmm do i actually want to finish this ૮ – ﻌ–ა

I'm 50-50 on whether i wanna look for something new or just draw for a while

[chocogi]

writing under cold water pt.2

pt1 || pt2 is this! || pt.3

disclaimer! this “fic” will be written in non-linear drabbles, kinda! if you want it to be like other fics, clear plot, chapters clearly lining up, etc, please tell me! i’ll make a separate timeline of fics for that!

Having Albedo just run around your friend’s Ningguang, you tap on the chatbox.

FlexTape

how meni more keysss

Waffles

two more

Waffles

:)

Waffles

btw do u know any 20-primo achievements?

FlexTape

..bubs :). your buddy here is only good w exploring, not achievements

FlexTape

..if u want i can show you chests..,

Waffles

woops lmao

Waffles

lead the way uwu

In your dark little mancave room, you laughed and guided your friend around, obliterating enemies before they get too near, leading them to missed oculi and shrines.

Typing out a reply to them freaking out on smth along the lines of

HOW DO I GET OUT IM SORRY OKAY I WAS PUTTING ARTIFACTS ON NOELLE

no figure out yourself :)

meanie

now get me out

just climb

the bushes cant stop ur character from going thru

oh

As Albedo waited for your friend by a seelie they’ve yet to finish guiding to their respective seelie court, a notification popped in the middle of your screen, telling you of your phone’s distress.

ah. You stared blankly at the notification. It’s that time again.

Ignoring it, you typed out a small request to find an unopened shrine for your friend, specifically the one under your favorite tree in Liyue.

hey, can u let me look around ur map?

?

dont follow around if u dont wanna :)

my map?

what r u gonna get out of that

torture. and finding u another shrine. i forgot exactly where one of them is

oh

go on

huffing, you had Albedo dash around as you collected quite literally, everything collectible around as you looked.

oculus. here

what

oculus

you placed Aether’s skill down to mark where the oculus is and went on your way, killing a ruin guard along for landing missiles on Albedo.

Finally, you’d found the shrine you were looking for, waited for your friend to reach you and said your goodbyes before you left the game for today.

Now, you sigh. Time to deal with that little problem.

You’d been itching to free up storage, anyways.

Childe stopped by the tree you last went to, watching Aether pace anxiously and Albedo sketching in a rather.. stressed manner.

“What’s happening?”

“They have Their “memory” capped. We have a risk of. losing contact again.”

Childe swore to Celestia Above that he’s never felt his heart drop any heavier than now.

A small rip reached the trio’s ears and the smell of perfect coffee wafted around them.

Childe’s grip on his bow tightened and his faltering grin, enforced with gritted teeth.

“Ah, if it isn’t these pesky little cookies.”

Espresso’s smug grin widened.

“Ah, if it isnt the pitiful humans, about to be evoked off their esteemed pedestal.”

Raw anger pulsed under Childe’s skin. A small glance to the two Geo users confirmed that their masks of indifference might just give way.

“Please close the portal, Espresso. We will gain nothing from goading these.. vision users.”

Espresso gave a small ‘tsk’ and wenk off to his office. Sea Fairy’s apologetic face took Espresso’s place.

“I’m sorry for his ego, and.. hopefully They won’t cut ties from the both of us.”

“The only ties being cut will be from your universe.” Albedo hissed; the monotony of his voice enough to scare away Sea Fairy. Not before she closed the rip, of course.

Childe’s grin grew as he overheard the Cookies’ sullen and frantic prayers to Them.

“You must have messed up real time, for Our Grace to leave you like that. Maybe you just didn’t entertain Them enough. Ha! Lacking!”

Espresso didnt even have the heart to look up.

Childe’s grin grew feral.

And Sea Fairy stared in shock and horror from OvenBreak.

thats a wrap! any suggestions or constructive criticism? pls tell me if i have any errors :3

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

BTS at Golden Disc Awards 2021

by Admin 1

On the 9th and 10th of January 2021 BTS attended the Golden Disc Awards, and performed on the second day as well. Being there they won the Digital Bonsang for Dynamite on the 9th and the Bonsang, as well as the Album Daesang for Map of the Soul : 7, on the 10th. Amazing achievements which I sincerely congratulate them on.

When it comes to the performance, it was, most certainly, another amazing collection of stages bringing something new once more, even if they presented songs we’ve already seen at previous award shows this season. The opening came in form of Black Swan, though they didn’t sing any of it. It was more an intro showcasing the entrance of the members and highlighted Yoongi’s return to the stage, at least partially. 

The stage featured big metal winds, low lighting, and the members clad in black and white clothing including leather elbow length gloves for Namjoon and Yoongi, and pretty chockers for Taehyung and Jimin. The highlight though was Jungkook’s hair which isn’t dark anymore, but instead has been bleached and dyed a pretty blond. Personally I think it suits him pretty well. 

More below the cut since this is shaping up to be pretty long:

Next up was ON, which was powerful and fierce, though still missing Yoongi, which is all too understandable. Even though he can stand on stage again and hold his mic in his left hand (his surgery was on the left shoulder), it will still be a while until he’ll be able to dance with the members. ON has certainly grown a lot on me and I enjoy their performances of it immensely, and it was much the case this time as well.

The transition from ON to Life Goes On came in form of the stage being made to look like their individual rooms from BE which appeared on the digital walls around them. Their clothes were mostly comfy, though Jimin’s resembled their outfits from all the way back during I NEED U/RUN era. The transition/VCR like moment ended with the instrumental to We Are Bulletproof : The Eternal and the stage looking much the way the MV did with the whale swimming around them in an ocean of shades of purple, blue and pink.

For Life Goes On they had miniature versions of some of their most iconic MV sets on pedestals. It was a really cute idea and I enjoyed the execution a lot. The members seemed relaxed and enjoying themselves, Jimin and Taehyung even having their little moment of looking at each other twice, these moments certainly having become something I always kind of look forward to when it comes to LGO stages. 

Another tiny Jimin and Taehyung detail was Jimin sending a brief, barely noticeable (by the viewer) finger heart which I hadn’t even noticed until my fourth rewatch. It definitely fits with all these other small gestures we’ve seen from these two in recent months, like the finger hearts and kissy faces during their Lotte Family Concert performance of Boy with Luv or hugging each other on day 1 and doing a fun handshake and dance on day 2 during Dionysus at the MOTS ON:E concert visible only on one of the side cameras, not the main one.

The grand finale was the Slow Jam remix of Dynamite which worked perfectly with the chill out lounge/bar atmosphere created on stage fitting with the Great Gatsby theme. The members wore mostly suits in white, blue in Namjoon’s case, and a bright yellow when it comes to Taehyung, as well as Hoseok who had a white button down which Tae did not. While a normal person would look ridiculous in it, Taehyung looked absolutely stunning and made it more than work. After so many energetic performances of Dynamite since its release, seeing such a calm version was really nice and refreshing, showing how versatile BTS and their music are, how they can captivate an audience with fast songs made for big choreographies and stage productions, but also these slow, more chill types of tracks. A marvelous idea, truly.

There was also an encore stage where they sang ON again but this time along with Yoongi on stage which had some hilarious moments, especially Namjoon and Seokjin being silly waving their arms around while kneeling opposite each other on stage during Jungkook’s bridge. Cute.

Afterward the members were at something like a red carpet after interview where they took pictures with their awards (Jungkook and Taehyung even making their Bonsang and Daesang awards kiss much the way film director Bong Joon Ho made his two Oscars kiss last year) and were asked to do a relay of saying something to each other. 

All translations of their words are taken from Vernal_Bom on twitter.

J-hope to Jimin 

“I didn’t feel lonely in 2020 thanks to Jimin. Thank you for making me laugh. Give me happiness and laugh in 2021 as well.”  Jimin (turning to Namjoon): “It seems he can never live without me” 

Honestly the bond between Jimin and Hoseok is so cute and wonderful and you can see, and hear in their words, how important they are to each other, and how grateful Hobi is. We know the members were having a really hard time in 2020 so it doesn’t surprise me that Hobi would highlight the other members, or in this case Jimin, as one of the main reasons why he made it through it. After all we also know that those two made a song together which unfortunately didn’t make it onto BE. Hopefully we might get it one day at least as SoundCloud release, or perhaps on the next album instead.

Jimin to RM 

It was you who made us pull ourselves together to go through 2020. I am always grateful, and it’d be nice if you share you height a little with me in 2021, be healthy and happy. RM: Okay thank you

I love how Jimin used this (public) opportunity to tell/remind Namjoon of how important he was for them especially in 2020, as leader and surely also as friend, yet still also made a little joke to still keep the atmosphere light. After he was done speaking Jimin also hugged Namjoon, which showed once more how tiny he is in comparison.

RM to JK 

It’s finally today, Jungkook-si, in 10 years! You are Golden Maknae! The day that you will prove your nickname! You are proving it right now with your hair color, but in 2021, I hope the year will be filled with gold, like your nickname. Stay healthy. Let’s ‘Jje-kkit-up’ together this year too! (check it up.. the usual Namjoon saying lol)

It’s quite something to think about and realize, isn’t it, this year 10 years pass since Jungkook became a BigHit trainee and moved into their first dorm with Namjoon, Hoseok, Yoongi and Seokjin. I’m curious if Bangtan, as well as BigHit, have some kind of plan for JK specifically for this year that Namjoon chose to highlight his Golden Maknae nickname in such a way, or if it was more of a reminder to JK, that he’s so worthy despite how he doubts himself, and despite how he himself said he’s been going through tough times in 2020.

JK to V 

V hyung, when we were trainees we were getting along so well, (V: We are not now???) No!!! i didn’t mean it. You are becoming so much of an stand-up (reliable, I assume in this context) guy. Thank you for doing all the schedules with us.  jhope: who’s hyung here?

The bond these two share might just be one of the biggest mysteries and causes for conflicts and fights within the fandom, or particular parts of it. After their conversation In The SOOP, I’d like to believe they’ve figured out whatever issue might've arisen between them in the past, found a way to solve and move past it slowly, and rekindled their friendship once more. Seeing at how well they’ve been getting along (on camera) these past few months, I think it might've been so. It’s curious to me though that JK chose to say this instead of something more akin to what Jimin said to Namjoon, or Hoseok to Jimin.

V to Jin 

V: (turns to Jin)  Jin: This is too close V: I listened to Abyss and that makes my heart ache too... Jin: Thank you V: hyung, your song is so good. Make more songs in 2021, let Army and us listen to your song more. Jin: Okayokay  V: and I play game with you to relieve stress.... sorry for talking in ban-mal (informal form). —(also speaking in informal way) Jin: No no it was so fun V: I love you Jin: I love you too

I absolutely adore the bond these two share and I love that Tae chose to say what he did. We know Seokjin has been going through a hard time in 2020, that he dealt with something I’d call imposter syndrome, so I’m glad we got to know even more about how Tae was there for him, something we otherwise would’ve never known. Certain people try to portray Tae as the one member that is almost estranged from his other members, who barely has anything to do with the group outside of schedules, and yet it’s moments like this--as well as Seokjin telling us in his birthday vlive that Tae organized for everyone including his non-BTS friends to send Seokjin birthday wishes in video form to show him how loved and appreciated he is--are the proof that those people are wrong. Tae is very close with his members, and he’s the ambassador of OT7 or nothing, the members his closest friends and brothers, his found and chosen family.

Jin to Suga 

Jin: Yoongi ya, do it well. Suga: Okay.... Jin: Do well on your rehab, and...uh... let’s do well going forward. Suga: Okay.. I will...

These two are so close yet due to their introverted nature their interactions such as this one are just so hilarious and adorable at the same time. Their dynamic is wonderful and this just seems like peak Yoongi-Jin behavior.

Suga to j-hope 

SG: (unable to look into hobi’s eyes) Our hobi JH: Suga! SG: You did work hard in 2020 (evading eye contact) JH: hahhahahah and? SG: Let’s not fall sick in 2021, and hwaiting...  JH: “Hwaiting hyung, and take good care of your health!”

The saga of Yoongi being unable to look Hoseok in the eye continues and it’s just as precious as ever. They stood so close, and while Yoongi wasn’t able to look into Hoseok’s eyes, it’s funny how he was the one who initiated the whole “them standing so close together” thing. I love the difference between how Seokjin didn’t even try to make eye-contact while Hoseok playfully challenged Yoongi and tried to coax him into it anyway knowing it’ll make Yoongi laugh and smile. It’s such a Yoongi-Hoseok thing, I love it.

And with that, the award was over and now also my post. I hope you enjoyed reading it! :3

[homoose]

Winning is a Habit

Hi y’all! Okay sooooooooo this is my first time writing fic??????? Like omg please be nice lmao. I don’t have a beta reader, so if you catch any mistakes pls lmk! I saw this challenge and the world is total garbage, so why not write our own realities????? Ok here goes!!!!!!!!!! Written for @veraiconcos fic challenge

Summary: The BAU gets called to investigate two high-profile murders in a college town, only to find that they are part of a much bigger, more complicated picture. No real pairings, although you could make it happen if you want lol ;) This is an idea I’ve seen floating around the fandom for a little while now, and I really wanted to see it fleshed out. Set around season 4 or 5.

Category: some angst, sort of fluff? I wouldn’t say it necessarily qualifies as an AU, but it’s outside of canon.

Warnings/Includes: some brief descriptions of violence/CM type stuff; mentions of rape (no details)

Word count: 6.1k

———

“Stillwater, Oklahoma,” JJ said, navigating the map off screen and pulling up the crime scene photos. “Two college seniors— Tyler Allen and Leon Williams, star football players for Oklahoma State University— both found dead the day before the playoff qualifier.”

“Do we know the cause of death?” Spencer asked, thumbing through the case file.

“The ME report concluded that both boys died of acute alcohol poisoning,” JJ informed them.

Emily looked up from the file. “And the locals don’t think this could just be a case of college kids having a little too much fun?”

“Before a major playoff game? I doubt it.” Derek leaned back in his chair. “Especially considering OSU’s having a record-breaking season. I’d guess the coach had players on a pretty strict lockdown.” He raised his hands and joined them in a steeple over his chest. “Showing up to a game hung-over— particularly one as important as this— would be a major conduct issue.”

“That, and there was a pretty specific message left on both victims,” JJ added, arms crossed and eyebrows lifting into her hairline.

“On them?” Rossi questioned.

JJ motioned with her hand back to the screen. Six sets of eyes moved over the photo; the words “U LOSE” scrawled in ink across the foreheads of the two men.

“Resorting to murder to win a football game?” Emily asked, eyes narrowed.

“And why use the forensic countermeasure of staged alcohol poisoning, only to backtrack and assert it as a murder?” Spencer pondered, pursing his lips.

“Whatever the reason, we’ve got two dead college students and a definite signature. Wheels up in 30,” Hotch told them, closing his case file.

⧭⧭⧭

“No sign of forced entry.” Derek walked through the entry hallway and into the living space. “Doesn’t look like there was any struggle, either.”

Rossi thumbed through the mail on the kitchen counter and peered around the small space. “Everything you’d expect in a boys’ college dorm room: dishes in the sink, generic decor, general mess. Nothing that stands out.”

“Agents, thank you so much for coming.” A tall man in a dark suit stepped across the threshold of the apartment. He stuck out his hand for Rossi to shake. “Steven Barrett, Dean of Students.”

“I’m Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi. This is SSA Derek Morgan.” Derek nodded from his place in the living room.

“I apologize for not meeting you when you arrived. We’re dealing with a grieving campus,” Barrett said, running a hand over his face. “I’m actually on my way to speak to the Board, but I wanted to check in with you before. I’m not sure I can be of much help, but I can try to answer any questions you might have.”

“These boys were seniors, but they still lived on campus. Is that typical?” Rossi asked, gesturing around the apartment.

“Uh, yes, it is for student athletes,” Barrett confirmed with a nod. “OSU teams have demanding, sometimes grueling practice schedules. Being on campus simplifies things, allows students to get to classes and practices, as well as utilize the dining halls.”

“Does this building have security cameras?” Derek raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. All of our buildings do. I’ll let Campus PD know you’ll need access to the footage.” Barrett’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He reached for it and punched the button to answer the call. “Yes. Yes, I—I’m finishing up with the FBI now. I understand. I’m on my way.” He ended the call and pocketed the phone. “I’m sorry to leave you, gentlemen. Our top priority right now is supporting our students and community through this tragedy. Part of that healing process is finding out who did this to Tyler and Leon. So anything else you need, anything at all, please don’t hesitate to let me know.” He turned on his heel and disappeared down the hall.

Derek shook his head. “I’m glad I don’t have to do that job right about now.”

Rossi gave another glance around the nondescript apartment and sighed. “Call Garcia and ask her if she’s found any other cases that could be related. And let’s hope there’s something useful on that security footage.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Based on lividity and rigor mortis, I was able to put the time of death between 8:00 and 10:00pm on Wednesday evening. The blood alcohol content for both boys was over five times the legal limit. I’ve never seen anything like it,” the medical examiner mused.

Emily looked over the bodies, her arms crossed. “Dr. Saraj, about how much would they have to drink for the level to be that high?”

“When drinking, the level of alcohol in our blood reaches a peak before it drops off after the last drink ingested,” Spencer supplied. “In a typical night of drinking, spread over the course of several hours, the average man can have 8-12 drinks without ever reaching lethal levels. But considering each victim weighed around 230 pounds, they’d have had to ingest approximately 180 ounces of beer or 18.75 ounces of liquor to reach a lethal blood alcohol content.”

Dr. Saraj glanced at Spencer before adding, “Look, this is a college town. Kids drink. But... to have had this much alcohol still detectable in their system post-mortem indicates that these boys drank at least the equivalent of a 30 rack, by themselves, in less than an hour.” She flipped up the first page of the report in her hands, eyes scanning the second. “And the toxicology screen also found trace amounts of ketamine.”

Spencer bent over the examining table and adjusted the wrist of one of the boys with a gloved hand. “Doctor, are these ligature marks?”

“Oh, yes,” Dr. Saraj agreed, nodding. “They’re relatively faint, so I almost missed them. But I found similar marks on both boys on the wrists and ankles.”

“So,” Emily said, gesturing with her hands, “the unsub doses them with ketamine to gain control, ties them up, forces them to drink lethal amounts of alcohol, and then— what?” She looked to Spencer. “Waits for them to pass out before removing the restraints and leaving the message?”

Spencer examined the marker scrawls. “Were you able to determine what the message was written with and if it was left pre- or post-mortem?”

“My guess would be it was written with some type of permanent marker, but I can’t say for sure,” Dr. Saraj said. “We’re analyzing the residue now, and I can send the report your way as soon as I have it. As for when it was written, I couldn't tell you.” She shook her head. “The one simple mercy is that these boys would have been out cold for a while before they died.”

⧭⧭⧭

“I’m so sorry. I know how difficult this is. Anything that you can tell us will be helpful in finding the person who did this,” JJ encouraged softly. “Anyone that Tyler might have had an argument with recently or who he mentioned having problems with?”

“No, no. He was—he was just your typical boy,” Mrs. Allen sniffled. “Playing football and hanging out with his friends,” she said, voice hitching. “Oh my god.” She dropped her head into her hands.

“He didn’t have time to have problems,” Mr. Allen asserted. “He spent all his free time on the field. Coach had them out there for two-a-days until classes started. He’s the quarterback. He was leading that team to the first national title since 1945.” He stood to his feet, hands clenched at his sides. “Some lunatic murdered my boy and you’re sitting around talking to us while they’re out there, walking free.”

“Sir, I promise you that we have some of the best agents in the country working on your son’s case,” JJ assured. “But in order to help them do their job, we need to know as much as we can about who Tyler was.”

Across the bullpen, Hotch sat across from Mr. and Mrs. Williams. “Leon was a good boy. Football was his life. He loved being a part of this team. It was the season of a lifetime,” Mr. Williams said.

“We taught him better than to be drinking and carrying on,” Mrs. Williams added.

“Can you think of anything or anyone he might have mentioned recently that was out of the ordinary? Anything that was bothering him or causing him distress?” Hotch questioned.

“He was feeling pressure about the season, but he’s been handling that kind of thing since he was twelve years old.” Mr. Williams shared an almost indiscernible look with his wife. “He got into—into the same kinds of trouble any college kid gets in. Nothing that could have gotten him murdered.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Yeah, baby girl, what d’ya got for me?” Derek held the phone out so that Rossi could listen in as they waited in the OSU security office.

“Well, my handsome knight, I wish I could tell you more but so far, I’m coming up empty with similar cases,” Penelope sighed. “Nothing that matches our alcohol poisoning M.O. or the signature. I just expanded the search to surrounding states, and I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Anything on our two victims?” Rossi asked.

“Now that’s where it gets interesting,” Penelope mused, tapping the fluffy end of her pen into the palm of her hand. “There’s nothing. Zilch, nada.”

Rossi narrowed his eyes. “And that’s interesting because...?”

“Come on, sir,” Penelope scoffed. “Two young, athletic, good-looking college football stars and there’s nothing at all? Nothing scandalous on social media. No run-ins with campus PD. Not even a write up from an RA.”

Derek tilted his head in thought. “Hotch and JJ said their conversations with the parents told a similar story.”

“Okay, but no one is this squeaky clean, particularly not at a Big 12 college. Everyone has some dirt,” Penelope insisted. “I haven’t found it yet, but there’s gotta be something out there. When I have it, you’ll know it!”

“Thanks, Garcia,” Derek drawled.

“Over and out!” Penelope jabbed the button to end the call.

The OSU officer waved them over with his hand. “I’ve got it queued up to 6:24pm. You can see the boys here,” he pointed on the screen at the two victims, “entering the north entrance of the dining hall.”

Derek leaned toward the monitor. “So they leave practice, come through the dining hall for dinner. When do they leave?”

The footage sped up on the screen, then stopped. “Here. 7:01.”

“Rossi, you seeing this?” Derek slid his eyes over.

Rossi nodded. “Is there any way to enhance these frames?”

The officer shrugged his shoulders. “Not on this system. Honestly, the camera quality isn’t great. I’ve been trying to get them to invest in an upgraded OS, but you know—budget woes. Your analyst might be able to do more.”

“It’s not going to matter.” Derek sighed and straightened up. “She’s careful of her angles.”

“I couldn’t find them on any grounds cameras, but they pop back up entering the dorm. Here, at 7:12.”

“All three of them,” Rossi noted. He looked at Derek. “And like you said, she’s discreet.”

“They all go upstairs to the apartment,” the officer continued, “but only the girl leaves. At 8:43.”

⧭⧭⧭

“We have a witness from the cafeteria that confirms that the boys ate with a dark-haired young woman in a red coat,” Hotch said, arms crossed. “But other than those two details, the witness couldn’t recall anything else and said they’d never seen her before.”

“So we’ve got the two victims entering their apartment with an unknown woman. They’re upstairs for an hour and a half before she leaves,” Emily recounted.

Derek stood with his hands on his hips. “And in that time, she manages to dose and gain control of two boys that are more than double her size and funnel a lethal amount of alcohol into them. Now the question is why?”  

As the team converged around the conference room table, a uniformed officer entered into the doorway. “Agent Jareau? There’s a possible witness—says she might have some new information.”

JJ nodded to the team and moved to the doorway. A petite young woman stood in the center of the bullpen, wringing her hands. When her eyes landed on JJ, she let her arms fall to her side. As JJ approached, she motioned with her hand for the girl to sit at the closest desk. “Hi, I’m Jennifer. I heard you wanted to speak to someone about this case. Can I have your name?”

The girl nodded. “Um, I’m Cassie. I saw the announcement you made. About the woman in the red coat. I heard you say that she had brown hair. Is that true?”

JJ cocked her head slightly. “Yeah, the witness and security footage we have shows a woman with dark hair walking with Tyler and Leon. Why do you ask?”

Cassie’s eyes darted around the bullpen, and she drew her arms tightly over her chest. “I just— um—well, I—”

“Would it help if we moved somewhere a little quieter?” JJ suggested. When Cassie nodded and stood, JJ placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and directed her toward an empty interview room. Cassie sat in the chair farthest from the door, and JJ sat opposite her. “Is there something you wanted to tell me about the woman? Or is it something else that’s on your mind?”

Cassie let out a long breath. “When I heard that they were dead, I— I was relieved. That sounds awful, but it’s true.”

JJ tread lightly over her next question. “You felt relieved. Why was that?”

Cassie looked directly at JJ. “I’ve been looking over my shoulder everywhere I go for the last seven months. I won’t have to do that anymore.”

“Can you tell me more about what you mean?”

Cassie took a breath and closed her eyes for a long second, before opening them and continuing. “There was a huge party in the spring. I mean, there were, like, hundreds of people there.” Cassie’s eyes went wide. “I never go to parties like that. But it was the end of the year, and my friend—well, I went with my friend. She got invited.”

“Were Tyler and Leon at this party?” JJ asked.

“Everybody was. I mean, everybody who’s somebody at OSU was there. We saw them right away. The whole team was there, but people treated those two like kings.” Cassie looked down at her hands. “We were drinking... a lot. At some point, Laney and I got separated. I tried calling her phone a bunch of times, but the party was really loud. I—I didn’t want to leave without her, but I was getting really messed up. I had a guy friend from one of my classes walk me home.” She swiped at her eye with the back of her hand. “Laney didn’t get back until the morning. Her clothes were all torn up, her hair had... blood in it, and she—she had a bruise under her eye.” She looked up at JJ, eyes shining with tears. “They raped her. I left her behind, and they raped her,” she whispered.

JJ reached across the table for Cassie’s hand. “Cassie, I’m so sorry. What happened to Laney was not your fault, or hers. Do you understand me?” JJ paused before continuing. Cassie looked down. “Do you know if she reported it?”

Cassie nodded. “I’m the one who went with her to the infirmary. They did a kit and confirmed it. When we went to Campus PD, they did nothing. Said Laney was wasted, and there was no one that could back up her story.”

JJ squeezed her hand. “So there was no official report filed?”

Cassie laughed coldly. “Oh, they wrote a report. I think if we ask them to, they have to. But they wouldn’t name Tyler or Leon in it. Said they didn’t want to ‘give legs to any gossip.’”

JJ’s mouth stretched into a thin line. “Where’s Laney now?”

“I don’t know.” Cassie shook her head. “She didn’t come back to OSU this fall. I haven’t really talked to her since—” She looked at JJ. “I can’t get the image of her out of my head. How she looked when she came through the door that morning. What they did to her… I’m not sorry that they’re dead.” Her eyes were shining with rage. “People knew what happened… and no one did anything. And those two were still the kings of campus.”

⧭⧭⧭

The team absorbed the new information quietly. “So Garcia was right. They did have something to hide.” Derek’s phone buzzed. “Speaking of. Hey mama, you’re on speaker.”

“I hope you’re all sitting down,” Penelope warned. “I expanded the parameters of my original VICAP search to include the surrounding states. No hits on suspicious deaths by alcohol poisoning. However, the U LOSE signature? Seven hits across Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas.”

“So our unsub’s been traveling across the South—” Emily started.

“Oh, I’m not done,” Penelope continued. “Just to double check, I expanded the search area to the continental US. Our unsub has been busy. Over 30 murders with this signature, all across the country, dating back to March 2007. All different M.O.s: gunshot, stabbing, strangulation, you name it. But all with U LOSE scrawled across their forehead in—get this—liquid eyeliner.”

“Anything tying the victims together, Garcia?” Hotch asked.

“All men, mostly white, but all across different ages, occupations, and marital statuses. At first glance, there’s no real connection,” Penelope answered.

“What about on second glance?” Hotch prompted.

“Way ahead of you, sir. I did a little digging.” Penelope shrugged. “Okay, a lot of digging—most of it legal. Every single one of these victims had at least one sexual assault allegation. Some are official police reports, some are HR complaints, some are sealed court records. But in every case, the victim’s cause of death is directly related to the details of the assault records. Women that were held at knifepoint, their attacker was stabbed to death. If they were choked, he was strangled. If they were held at gunpoint, he died of a gunshot wound. Et cetera, et cetera.” Penelope twirled her pen. “The differing M.O.s combined with the fact that the unsub kept crossing state lines kept local PDs and field offices from making the connection.”

“Garcia, can you search OSU PD records for an incident report?” JJ asked.

Garcia tapped rapidly across her keyboard. “Absolutely, sugar, when would it have been filed?”

“It would’ve been this year, sometime at the end of April or beginning of May,” JJ answered. “The victim would be named as Laney Collins.”

After a few moments, Garcia peered through her green cat-eye glasses at the report. “Mmm, I’ve got one incident report, filed on May 7th. And woof, this report is not much to go on. The responding officer wrote a whopping three sentences. According to him, Laney was incapacitated and thus was not a credible witness.” Garcia twirled her pen. “The alleged attackers, who are not named, denied Laney’s account of what happened. Because there were no other witnesses, Officer Thorough deemed that no further action was necessary.” She jabbed her pen in the direction of the screen. “And this, my friends, is why women don’t bother reporting.”

“Good work, Garcia,” said Hotch.

“There’s one more interesting detail from the report,” Garcia continued. “The dean of students signed off on it.”

“So Barrett knew about this the whole time,” Derek fumed.

“And again, people wonder why women don’t report,” Garcia repeated, ending the call.

“So our unsub is seeking justice for women she believes have been failed by the system. We’re looking for a vigilante, carrying out revenge killings,” Rossi concluded.

Derek nodded. “And she’s organized and efficient; she finished with Tyler and Leon in less than two hours.”

“She’s smart and she blends in, doesn’t draw too much attention to herself,” JJ added.

“She’s meticulous and has at least some knowledge of forensic countermeasures, considering there’s no physical evidence tying her to any of the scenes,” Spencer remarked.

“And she knew enough to keep her face off the security footage,” Emily finished.

“Rossi, Emily, and I will stay here and deliver the profile,” Hotch directed. “JJ, I’d like you to speak to the families again, see if they knew about the rape. Reid, Morgan, talk to Barrett and see what else he might be trying to keep quiet.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Makes you wonder just how many people knew what happened,” Derek considered, closing the car door.

“It’s estimated that twenty percent of student victims of sexual assault report it to their university, but less than one percent of assailants receive any type of disciplinary action,” Spencer cited, making his way toward the sidewalk.

Derek shook his head. “And so the victims don’t see the point in reporting it. Your attacker gets to walk around like nothing even happened. Cassie told JJ that she felt like she had a target on her back once they reported Laney’s assault.”

As they walked up the blacktop driveway to the entrance of Barrett’s home, Spencer slowed his steps as he noticed the front door. “Morgan.” He nodded at the door, slightly ajar.

Derek drew his gun and moved ahead of Spencer. He pushed the door slowly open and called out, “Mr. Barrett?” In the foyer were the remnants of a broken vase and a small trail of blood. “Call Hotch, let him know we’ve got trouble here.”

Derek and Spencer worked to quietly clear the rooms, one by one. Derek stopped at the bottom of the stairs and motioned to Spencer. As they started up the stairs, a woman’s voice called out, “Shut up! You had nothing to say before. So now, you’re just going to listen.”

Derek reached the top of the stairs and started down the hallway. He reached the open door where a woman stood, her back to the door. Behind her, Derek could see Barrett, sitting on the floor, blood dripping from a gash on his head. His hands were raised in front of his chest, palms facing out. Derek stopped, his gun trained on the woman, and murmured, “Laney?”

The woman pivoted her body, her short blonde hair whipping around. Derek saw tears in her eyes and a revolver in her hand. “Don’t,” she warned.

“Laney, my name is Derek. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to talk. I need you to put the gun down.”

“No!” Laney screamed. “You don’t know what he’s done.” She shook the gun in Barrett’s direction, and Barrett closed his eyes.

Derek spoke softly. “I do, Laney. I do know. I know what happened to you. I know that he kept Tyler and Leon’s names off the report. I know that he didn’t help you when you needed it most. I know that he let them get away with--”

“Rape. He let them get away with rape. Because he cares more about reputation and football than what happens to women on his campus. They ruined my life.” Laney turned away from Derek and put both hands on the gun. “They ruined my life, and you did nothing. And then they walked around campus like they were invincible, because you taught them they were.”

Derek moved further into the room, into Laney’s eyesight. Spencer moved into the doorway, covering Derek. “Laney, look at me. I’m putting my gun away.” Derek held his hands up and then moved to holster his gun. “Doing this won’t make the pain go away.”

“How many others? How many other women did he do this to?” Laney let out a painful sob. “If I don’t stop him, it never ends.”

“Listen to me.” Derek took a step closer to her. “Killing him won’t change what happened, Laney. It won’t. Believe me. I know how you feel.”

“People love to say that when they’re trying to shut you up. How could you possibly know how I feel?” Laney spit out.

“Someone hurt me, just like they hurt you. And nobody was there to help me. No one was there to listen.” Laney froze, eyes shifting to meet Derek’s. “I wanted to hurt him, Laney. Wanted to make him feel the same pain I felt. I wanted him to suffer.” He moved another step closer. “I know that those men hurt you, and I know that he let them get away with it. And I am so, so sorry. But you’re stronger than anyone knows, Laney. You are the only person who has the power to help others who didn’t get justice. I have a friend who’s spent her whole life helping survivors, and I know she’d love to talk with you.” He took another step. “You are the only person who can stop it from happening to someone else. You can make sure he’s held accountable for what he’s done. But if you pull that trigger, you can never go back,” Derek warned.

Laney looked at Derek, his hand outstretched, wordlessly asking her to give him the gun. She looked at Barrett, crying and silently begging her to show him the mercy she never got. “I wish I’d been the one to kill them,” she whispered.

The gun dropped out of her hand as Derek stepped forward to catch her. He kicked the gun into the doorway, and Spencer recovered it. “I’ve got you,” Derek said, helping Laney out of the room. “Shh, it’s ok, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Spencer moved to lift Barrett off the ground and helped him into a chair by the window. Out of the corner of his eye, Spencer caught a flash of red below the window. He stumbled over Barrett, nose almost pressed to the glass as he stared out. The woman froze, eyes locked on Spencer’s. His mouth opened slightly as he stared at her, bewildered. By the time his brain caught up, she had already disappeared from view.

Spencer turned and raced down the stairs, clinging to the railing as he nearly missed a step. He burst out the front door into the driveway, sprinting around the side of the house. He heard Derek call his name, saw the other SUVs pulling up, but he kept running. He skidded to a stop at the edge of the backyard, and then spun in a full circle, eyes frantically scanning the perimeter.

Hotch approached from the side of the house, gun drawn. “Reid! Are you all right?”

Spencer took a last look, scanned from east to west. “Yeah, yeah. I just—I thought I saw—I thought I saw something.” He shook his head. “Barrett’s inside. He’s got a head laceration, but he’ll be fine.”

Hotch lowered his gun and nodded. “And Laney’s not our unsub. So we’re back to the beginning.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Strauss is asking us to head back to Quantico.” Hotch pocketed his phone and looked at the team. “We’ll move the cases to our watch list and flag the signature for hits in VICAP. From what we know about the unsub’s behavior, we know she’s no longer in the area.” He gestured to the evidence board. “Our best course of action is to keep the profile in our periphery for now. We can do that from the BAU. It’s late. Go to the hotel, get some rest. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“I’m absolutely starving.” Emily slipped into her jacket and headed for the door. “Anybody want to hit up that 24 hour diner?”

Derek and JJ quickly agreed, following Emily from the conference room. JJ turned back, eyeing Spencer. “You coming, Spence?”

“I’m just really tired.” His voice lilted up, almost a question. “Next time, though.”

JJ gave him a look but didn’t press him. “Have a good night, Spence.”

“Yeah, thanks.” He gathered up the case files, not quite ready to put them away.

⧭⧭⧭

Spencer’s eyelids felt heavy as he walked through the lobby of the hotel. He really was tired. He blamed the exhaustion for what he thought he saw through the window at Barrett’s. His fatigued mind was seeing things that weren’t there. He practically floated into the elevator and up to his room. Sliding the room key through the slot, the door beeped open and Spencer stepped inside. He flicked on the light and dropped his bag on the floor, loosening his tie as he walked toward one of the sling back chairs sat by the window. He paused just before he reached the chair, his gaze lingering over something on the desk. A note hastily scrawled on hotel stationary.

623.

Spencer lifted the note with two careful fingers. “623?” He turned it over, looking for the rest of the message, but the paper was blank other than the number. He lowered the note, and his eyes landed on a small plastic card where the paper had rested on the table. Not just a card. A room key.

⧭⧭⧭

Spencer stared at the door of the room. Room 623. He turned his head and slowly looked up and then down the hallway. He took a breath and raised his hand to the door. He knocked in the familiar rhythm: five knocks, pause, two knocks. He pressed his ear close to the door, listening for any movement inside. When he heard nothing, he knocked again; the same pattern, but a little louder. He listened again. Nothing. Spencer felt a bead of sweat creep down the nape of his neck. He thought about turning around, about walking back down the two flights of stairs to his room and getting into bed.

Instead, he pulled the keycard from his pocket. As he lifted the card with one hand, he used his other to raise the strap on his holster. He held his breath as he swiped the card through the slot and heard the beep of the lock. Drawing his gun from the holster, Spencer slowly turned the handle of the door.

The room was mostly dark. Only the yellow glow of one of the bedside lamps illuminated the space. Spencer stepped into the room and quietly closed the door behind him. Again, his mind said to turn around. Yet his feet carried him further into the room. He could see now that the sling backs were facing toward the window. There were two glasses from the mini bar on the table between them.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” a familiar voice mused.

Spencer startled and then swallowed audibly, a cartoon character realizing he’s in serious trouble. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

“You can put the gun away,” she continued. “Really. Come sit down, Reid.”

Hearing her say his name sucked all the air out of his lungs. He closed the remaining distance between them, staring dumbly at her perched in the armchair. She gave him a small smile, warm despite the nervous energy in the air. “Hey, Reid.”

“Elle.” Spencer sunk into the chair across from her. “I—I thought I was seeing things. Earlier. At Barrett’s.”

She studied him quietly. “This hair is a good look for you.”

“Thanks,” Spencer blushed, smoothing down the hair at the nape of his neck. He quickly dropped his hand. “It was you then.”

“What was me?” Elle asked innocuously.

“You were at Steven Barrett’s house today. In the yard.” Spencer folded his hands to keep from wringing them. “You were wearing a red coat.”

Elle lifted one of the glasses to her lips, taking a sip of the clear liquor, ice cubes rattling. She swallowed and gestured to the other glass. “Have a drink.”

“I, um, I don’t drink anymore.” Elle raised an eyebrow. “A lot has happened since… the last time I saw you.” Spencer smoothed his hands down the tops of his thighs. “You were there today. Elle, did you—are you…” He wasn’t even sure what question to ask.

Elle ran her fingertip around the rim of her glass. She was quiet for a long time. Spencer fidgeted in his seat, but stayed quiet, waiting. Elle set the glass down.

“Do you remember that night in Dayton? In the hotel room?” Spencer looked at her pointedly. Elle let out a laugh. “Sorry, I forgot who I’m talking to; of course you remember.” Their eyes met. Spencer felt she was looking right through him. “You told me that I’d won. That because Garner was dead, and I was alive, I won.”

“Elle—” Spencer started.

“You asked, Reid. This is my answer.” She screwed the cap off the bottle of gin. Pouring the remainder of the bottle into her glass, she continued, “It took time, but I started to feel safe in my own home again. I could close my eyes without seeing his face. I could take a shower without bringing my gun.” She downed the rest of her glass. “When I killed Lee, I gave that same freedom back to the women he’d raped. They could exist in the world knowing that he would never hurt them, ever again.” She smiled ruefully. “And it felt… good. It felt right. And after years of having watched people be destroyed by monsters… I don’t know. It was just something I had to do. To bring that freedom and that safety back to other women who had been hurt and broken and alone. To destroy their monsters.” Elle looked at him then, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I don’t expect you to understand or approve. But the answer to your question is yes.”

Spencer took a breath and asked, “Why’d you put the key in my room? You could have just… disappeared.”

Elle shook her head. “I chose this. I knew what I was doing and what it would mean. Most of the time, I’m fine, great even. Because being able to give these women justice is the greatest gift. But with this work, you can’t really keep anybody close. No holidays or birthdays. No dates or girls nights.” She shrugged. “I guess I just wanted to see what would happen. What the boy genius would do.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Spencer admitted.

“Well, that’s a first.” Elle smiled, but Spencer could see apprehension in the rigidness of her shoulders, in the slight bouncing of her leg.

“I should probably arrest you,” he considered.

Her leg stopped. “You probably should.”

Spencer looked down at his hands. He ran his fingers up to the crook of his elbow, ghosting over the scars there. His mind raced from memory to memory: Elle on the train car; Tobias Hankle standing over him; Elle in the hospital bed; the needle in his arm; Elle in the hotel in Dayton; the click of an empty chamber.

“Elle, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for telling you that you’d won.” She was motionless, staring at him. He continued, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it was like. To be consumed and overcome by a memory.” Now it was Spencer’s eyes that shone with tears. “I didn’t know that the trauma could… fester in your brain like an infection that you can’t get rid of. I don’t know if winning is even possible after something like that.” He rubbed his hand under his eye and cleared his throat. “It was an awful thing to say. And I’m sorry.”

Elle tipped her head back, trying to keep the tears from spilling over. “All’s forgiven.”

Spencer reached out and gently grabbed Elle’s hand. “I’ve been so tired recently. I thought I saw something through the window at Steven Barrett’s house. But when I did a perimeter check, I didn’t find anything.” Elle dropped her head back down and turned to look at him. “We’re headed back to Quantico in the morning. We’ll, um, be keeping tabs on VICAP hits on the signature.” Spencer gave her hand one soft squeeze before standing. He let a small, bittersweet smile move over his face.

He made it to the door before he heard her voice again.

“If I asked you to stay, would you say yes?”

Spencer swiveled back to look at her, the door just barely open. Elle’s arms were crossed over her chest. Her eyes were dark and wide and full of storms. “Just for a little while longer?”

Spencer turned and moved his eyes up the length of the doorway, considering. He heard Elle let out a breath. His own breath stuttered. He closed the door softly. He put his hands in his pockets and turned back to her. “I’ve got a little while.”

[wygolvillage]

been thinking about how i would make a remake/reimagining of simons quest. long post ahead. might be a little stupid since im no game designer or writer or anything lol

random gameplay stuff

it would be metroidvania style, but not all in the castle. imagine it like ooe but the map is interconnected.

i would keep the day/night cycle but it would be less obnoxious of course... probably there would be a little clock on the HUD showing what time it is and how close you are to nightfall. villagers would go inside during the night, but you can still enter churches. churches are your most reliable healing method since save rooms would be pretty sparse in the rest of the world map, and saving at the churches also allows you to skip straight to morning or nightfall if you so desire. being stuck in the middle of the woods during night can be disastrous if the player is ill-prepared since monsters grow stronger then.

there would still be puzzles to figure out and complete, and it would still be a bit cryptic (not to the degree of the original of course), but there is a supporting character i would put in who you can ask for hints at any time, and hers are a lot more straightforward (more on her later). important items are gained through quests rather than bought with hearts, but drop rates would be VERY forgiving since it’s required. like, a villager promises to give you the red crystal if you can get him some fish meat from a merman, which would have about a 40% drop rate... i kind of wanted to preserve the sense of fighting monsters to forage for materials the original has without making the game a total grindfest :P

additionally, materials dropped from monsters can be used to craft food items after simon teams up with the aforementioned supporting character. like i said before, save rooms wouldn’t be super common so it would be implemented as a way to heal yourself when you’re away from town.

the bosses would be decently difficult to compensate with there being very few of them- a true challenge, but they can be beaten with both playable characters if the player is skilled enough

the plot would be expanded upon as well so lemme give a little summary

it begins in simons house where he wakes up having trouble breathing. he’s been struggling with some physical illness ever since battling dracula years prior, especially a nasty bite on his arm he sustained during the fight, and that arm has been turning a pretty nasty shade of grey, like its wasting away. he goes outside to a graveyard near a local church to try and get some fresh air, but it is largely unhelpful. suddenly, he spots an old woman standing at one of the graves. he looks over at him and says mysteriously “ah... must be a horrible night for a curse.” simon is like “what do you mean?!” the old woman tells him to “resurrect him and destroy what remains, or nothing will remain of you”. she then disappears into thin air, implying she’s a ghost or something equally spooky. simon is like “destroy what remains... dracula’s remains?!”

the game starts properly in the graveyard and surrounding forest as simon heads in a fairly straight path towards the town of jova, where he meets a woman a few years younger than him named agnes. agnes’ parents were killed by dracula’s forces when he was resurrected back then, and she admires simon greatly for defeating the dark lord (shes also implied to be a descendant of grant danasty!). she decides to accompany him on his quest after hearing about his curse. he asks the head priest of the town if he knows about dracula’s remains, and the priest tells him that he heard of some of dracula’s followers placing some of dracula’s body parts in their strongholds to worship, and points him to the direction of the first stronghold and hands him a stake. he also warns them that bringing all of his remains together can resurrect the dark lord and it holds a remarkable corrupting power.

simon and agnes then become a character swapping duo (just like portrait of ruin hehehe). agnes is low on defense but can deal plenty of damage at a close range, and her signature weapon is the golden knife. she’s fast as well, whereas simon is more of a slow, defensive character who is best at keeping distance between himself and the enemy. agnes is smart, but impulsive and stubborn, and doesn’t like being told that she’s wrong. simon is a stoic but kind individual who tends to keep to himself. their personalities occasionally cause conflict between them during the adventure, but they eventually grow to become really good friends.

eventually they reach berkeley mansion, the first of the strongholds, and its aesthetic is very much “dark evil church”. there are the usual skeletons and bats and stuff, but some of the dracula followers are regular enemies as well. the first boss is a human who has dedicated his life to following dracula (specifically to contrast against the priest dude who gave simon the stake and directions) who uses magic attacks and stuff. beating him earns simon dracula’s rib, which functions suprisingly well as a shield (which becomes important later).

the adventure continues on like this, going from town to mansion to town, with simons curse becoming more and more hindering to him (from a story perspective not a gameplay one. simon wont become worse to play as because that would be lame as hell). they go to the other mansions, with the bosses being carmilla (guarding the nail of vlad, in a mansion thats very much a vampires lair), olrox (guarding the eyeball, in a massive dining hall themed mansion) death (guarding vlads ring in a Spooky Clockwork Skeleton Mansion with slogras and gaibons and all the usual death stuff), and in the final mansion... there is no boss. just as simon is about to grab the heart, agnes stops him.

Agnes: You told me you were going to destroy the remains, weren’t you?

Simon: Of... Of course, Agnes. Why do you ask?

Agnes: Why haven’t you?

Simon: ...

Agnes: We have almost all of them. You remember what the priest said, right? That bringing them together can resurrect Dracula.

Simon: Well... I haven’t exactly been truthful, Agnes. The old woman who sent me on this quest didn’t tell me just to destroy his remains...

Agnes: So you’ve been intending to resurrect the Dark Lord this whole time? For your own selfish gain?

Simon: This curse will kill me if I don’t.

Agnes: ...So it’s true, then. You’re willing to risk the lives of thousands just to save your own skin. Lives like my parents’... Lives like mine.

Simon: I...

Agnes: There’s no need to explain yourself, oh great hero, Simon Belmont. (Scoffs) If you care more for yourself than anyone else, strike me down now!

surprise! simon has to fight against his best friend! tbh i would be pissed at him too lmao. and it’s a tough fight, as agnes can deal a ton of damage and is hard to dodge. killing her like any other boss will give you the bad ending, where simon realizes she was right and lets himself succumb to the curse out of guilt for her death. the way to the good ending is to use dracula’s rib as a shield (i told you it would be important!) or dodge/survive her attacks until she tires out (the shield is the best method though), and realizes simon doesn’t want to hurt her. they have a touching emotional moment and simon assures her that he beat dracula before and can do it again, but he will need her help. agnes nods, and they head to the ruins of dracula’s old castle, which is totally empty. there’s no music, while the rest of the game has been filled with catchy tunes, here there’s only ambient noise.

they reach the throne room and place drac’s remains on a pedestal, where they begin to glow with dark energy. blood is dripping down the walls and stuff, and the count is returning to the mortal plane as thunder booms in the background. simon begins to doubt himself. if he loses now, the world will be plunged into darkness, and it will all be his fault. but... agnes has his back, despite everything. they fight dracula together, and though it’s tough with simon’s weakened body, they eventually prevail, as simon drives the stake into his heart, the curse finally lifted.

the game ends with agnes and simon returning to jova. agnes admits that she’s still upset with simon for lying to her, but she would be even more upset if he died slowly because of her. simon sighs, stating that there was no easy solution to the situation they were in, and asks for forgiveness for breaking her trust and risking so much for his own desires. agnes says maybe one day she will forgive him completely, and she still considers him a friend, but she needs some time to herself. simon nods, and they go their separate ways.

SO YEAH idk if this is even good but i hope u at least enjoyed reading it. maybe ill make designs for this version of simon, and for agnes too ofc :D

...yeah, not exactly the happiest ending, but i always found it kind of weird that simon was so willing to resurrect the count to save himself from the curse, so that’s the main conflict i decided to add to the story. its not the sort of conflict that can be easily resolved. theres no easy answer... agnes was right about simon risking other peoples lives being wrong, but she was also wrong to insist that he just give up and let the curse kill him instead. its Complicated idk... Castlevania II: Simon’s Trolley Problem

edit: actually i decided there would be two "true endings" after using the shield in the agnes fight. the one i described, and a second one where they decide against resurrecting dracula and simon lives out the short rest of his days with agnes until he dies of the curse. both endings are considered equally canon and valid

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

The Infiltration

Eh? Who the fuck are you?

Um. Apologies...I got a call about a broken light?

Oh...so you’re the repair guy? Arrived quicker than I thought...

I like to be on time...

Well good. Yeah, a couple lights on the second floor of the building went kaput...We were thinking the circuit broke or something...The main box is on the outside of the building, just down the hall to your left.

Thanks. But um...Sorry if this seems like I’m being too personal, but would you mind if I took a look at the indoor circuit too? 

The fuck? Why?

It’s just to get a better look at the whole system...yeah, I’d rather not bore you with the details...I don’t wanna do it either, but it’s company policy.

Don’t worry, I won’t touch anything I’m not supposed to.

Hm...Fine, if that’s the case. There’s a security office on the left.

Thank you very much.

So...Security Office.

*He takes out the walkie-talkie that he had hidden in his pocket.

Hey, this is Shuichi. What’s my next move?

Kyoko: Good. You’re inside. Where are you right now?

I hid away in the security office. There’s no one in here with me right now...

Kyoko: Ok, good. Keep an eye out in that room. There should be a map of the whole building.

Ok, I found it...Ok, so Eje Karma’s room is on the top floor, and it looks like there are three ways up...The stairs, the elevator, or the fire stairs outside...

Chihiro: I think the best course of action would be to take the the fire stairs. The electric box is out that way, so you wouldn’t get caught...What you do from there, I don’t know...

I’ll figure something out...It’s just to my left out the office, right?

There’s the box that Chihiro cut...Sorry buddy, but I guess you’re not being fixed today...

Hey! You!

H-Huh?

You. You’re the repair dude, right? Here to fix the lights?

U-Um...yeah, I am...

C’mere a sec...got somethin’ ya need to look at...

O-Ok...(Shoot...Don’t have a choice...)

*Shuichi follows the guy to the second floor. He leads him into an office.

Look at this. Our fucking TV’s not working...Mind fixing it for us? Powers on but nothing’s showing up...

Um...Well, I’d like to, but unfortunately, TV’s aren’t really within our expertise...

Oh Bull-fucking-shit! Look, you’re an electrician! TV’s run on fucking electricity! Get the fuck to work, and maybe I’ll pay ya extra...

(Dammit...What to do...)

Kyoko: Shuichi? What’s going on?

Huh? What’s that? I just heard a voice...

Oh, s-sorry, that’s my work radio...L-Let me switch it off...

*Shuichi reaches into his pocket and turns off the walkie-talkie

(That was close...but I’m still in deep...I’ve never even fixed a computer before! How am I supposed to fix a whole Television!?)

We’re waiting...!

S-Sorry um...

Hm...It looks like the TV itself isn’t broken...The connectivity isn’t right...

Don’t you gotta take off panels and fiddle with the wiring and shit?

No, there’s no need for that...I’ll just have to...

S-Sorry for this...

*Shuichi smacks the top of the TV. Unfortunately, this gets no reaction...

Hey, don’t break the damn thing...!

I know, I’m sorry, but it’s really just that simple...Mind if I hit it a little harder?

Just don’t crack it or nothin’

Th-Thank you.

*His face profusely sweating, Shuichi hits the TV with his knee. Surprisingly enough, it works, and the TV turns back on.

(Y-Yes!)

Damn! That’s cool! Didn’t realize it was that easy.

Well, I can’t say I blame you. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders...

Whatd’ya mean?

Normally when these types of things stop working, a lot of people try and give it a good smack to get it working again.

Guess you didn’t want to risk it...

Ah, I see...well, thanks for that. Sorry ‘bout all this...I’ll letcha get back to work...

Thank you...

*Shuichi goes to leave the room, but then as he does, someone else walks in.

Huh? The fuck are you?

Oh, s-sorry...

Captain Karma! This is the dude who came to fix the lights. We just had him take a look at the TV.

Yeah, what he said...(It’s him! Eje Karma!)

...

I-Is something wrong sir...?

You...You ain’t the usual guy...That’s kinda weird...

Oh...(They have a usual guy!? How often do the lights go out in this building!?)

(Then again...this place does look a bit run down...and there’s so many people taking refuse in here...)

This is the first time anyone else’s come for us...What happened to him, huh?

Tch...I’m gonna get to the bottom of this...

Ah, sir wait a moment!

What is it?

Th-The thing is...um...

I feel like there’s been a bit of a mistake down the line...What company did you have your men call?

Huh? Called in Light Electrics...Ain’t that the company where you work...?

Ah...I see the problem...

What?

I think you might have called in two repairmen...I’m from a different company.

What company...?

It’s called...Um...

Kalls: 1. Breaks: 0...

“Kalls: 1 Breaks 0?”

Yes, Calls spelled with a K. K1-B0 for short...

Can’t say I’ve hearda you...

Yeah, so I guess someone else called me in accidentally...

...

...(Please buy it! Please, for the love of Atua, buy it!)

I see...Well, sorry ‘bout all this...You gonna get back to work then?

Yes sir, if you’ll let me. I’m terribly sorry about all this...

Nah S’okay...Just a bit of an error I guess...

Need me to pay you or somethin’

No, it’s fine. Someone already told me they’d sort it out after I was done...

Well, you do your thing. Sorry ‘bout all this, again...

*Eje goes up the stairs to his office.

(Wow...I am surprisingly good at lying!)

(Well...at least I tricked him...That was terrifying though!)

*Shuichi hides in a quiet corner where no one can see him and turns his walkie-talkie back on.

Kyoko: Shuichi! Respond! Please respond...!

Sorry Ms Kirigiri, I’m here...I didn’t mean to worry you...

Chihiro: Oh thank god...You’re ok. I feared the worst...

So did I...I had a run in with Captain Karma, but I was able to trick him.

He’s probably back at his office above me. But in order to get there, I need to take the stairs...

Kyoko: So, what’s the problem?

There’s a locked door, and I can’t get in...It’s a security lock too, so I can’t pick it...

Chihiro: Hm...You’re on the third floor, right Shuichi?

Yeah, I am?

Chihiro: Would you mind going to the window and opening it?

Um...ok...

*Shuichi opens the window and recoils in surprise as Chihiro’s drone flies in through the window.

Ah!

Chihiro: I worked with Kazuichi to make a modification to the drone...Stand back.

*The drone flies to the lock and a small, screwdriver looking instrument extrudes from it. A few electrical sparks glow as the screwdriver touches the lock, and then it suddenly opens.

Ah! It worked!

Kyoko: Those stairs will take you to the roof Shuichi. If you go up there and go down the fire escape, you should be able to get to Eje’s office.

Got it...

Er...

*Shuichi gets to the roof and witnesses a couple of the gang members having an argument. More specifically, it seems like a brawl is going on and a bunch of people are making bets.

Chihiro: I can see about...14 gang members there...

Kyoko: They look busy. I think you should try and sneak past them...

Got it...

*Shuichi scales the edge areas of the roof and works his way around several pipes and stacks of crates that are just lying around on the roof. He easily manages to sneak past the fight and then runs into a fence. In an attempt to climb it, he scales over and unfortunately lands on an unbalanced pile of crates.

Uh...AH!

*He loses his footing and slips, which attracts the attention of the fight observers...

Hey! Who’re you!?

Ah w-well...

*Before Shuichi can reply, three gang members strut up to him and grab him.

Alright...Screw it!

*Shuichi removes his hat and in self defense, headbutts the man who grabbed him. He dodges punches from some other assailants and then jump kicks another guy.

Ah...WAH!

Oh no!

*After being knocked back, the guy Shuichi kicks falls backwards off the roof of the building. Shuichi, at the fastest speed he can run, rushes up and grabs his leg, saving him from falling to hsi death.

AAAAHH! H-HELP ME! I DON’T WANNA DIE!

Easy...now!

*Shuichi, with as much strength as he can muster, is successfully able to pull him back up onto the roof. The thug passes out from the shock of the situation though. Shuichi sighs in relief, but that relief is washed away when he realises he’s surrounded.

Who the fuck are you, you bastard!?

I’m...

Wait...!

Huh?

C-Captain...

*Eje struts onto the scene...

...

Captain Karma...?

Let me guess...You really ain’t some maintenance guy, are ya?

Apologies, no...I wanted to speak to you about something of utmost importance, and unfortunately, this was the only way I could do so...

Awright...Tell me something pal...

Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have your skull smashed in with a slab o’ concrete!?

...

Simple...You owe me...

Huh!?

Your buddy was just about to fall off the roof and I saved his life...In this gang, you believe you should repay the people you’re indebted to, right?

I don’t know about you, but I think that includes me now...

...

Captain Karma, don’t listen to this fuckers talk! He’s trying to buy his way outta this...

I should also tell you that my allies have already have us surrounded secretly. If you kill me, there’s no way you’re getting my body out of this building...

Tch...

I don’t know what you want, but tell me who you are...and maybe I’ll consider it...

My name is Detective Shuichi Saihara.

Detective? Wait, you’re a cop?

No, not exactly. I’m a detective, but I don’t work for the police.

...

Fine...

What!?

Hey, assholes, get back to work!

Spud! Chum! You two come with me and...Shyhara, to my office...

Thank you for your hospitality Mr Karma...

You got this Kyoko?

Kyoko: Yes. We can see you with the drone. Looks like you got caught huh?

Sorry...I failed you again...

Kyoko: You did no such thing. Your mission was to get an audience with Karma, and you’ve succeeded. But do me a favour. Don’t tell him about your walkie-talkie unless you absolutely need to.

Got it...!

*Shuichi follows Eje and his goons.

[blackuigryphonvr]

#PokemonGo #Niantic #Wayfarer #Abuse #CyberBullying I’m currently suspending ALL of my nominations for PokéStops in South Field, and my local area due to a pattern of very bad abusive behaviors collectively done towards me from a group of local individuals whom I’ve actually never ever done anything, but are trashing me behind my back.

I DO NOT APPRECIATE players ganging up on my nominations and ABUSING Niantic’s system to accuse me of being a Nazi and committing a crime! How dare u! It’s like I’m having my own version of the Warren/Sanders back-stab!

WHO in their right mind would ACTUALLY BELIEVE that I’m a Nazi?! WHO would ACTUALLY believe that I would ABUSE Niantic’s system to harm others in my community?

This has been a constant pattern of behaviors of a number of things dating back to June, and this confirms a lot of things I was already catching onto, and suspecting. This also strongly confirms my #1 suspect, and I already suspect up to 9 other persons as well as alt accounts.

Do u have any idea how much research I put into this spot since 2018? I didn’t just pull this out of my ass. It’s not only historical but prehistoric. There is NOTHING DIFFERENT about THIS SUBMISSION than all of my others that went through.

But I’ve noticed that whenever I publicly divulge where and when I’m submitting nominations and mention it publicly on social media, or the local Discord thread, those locations get rejected for reasons that make no sense at all.... but, the ones that did make it through were ones I never told anyone I was doing.

Before Wayfarer even went live, I had reservations about sharing my intel, which I’d been gathering since 2018 hoping to turn into a PokéStop eventually... but, I decided it was better to let go of it, so that others could do it. I gladly, And freely gave out my details, added info to Google & Yelp and even went to long lengths of so much research to share which maps to check, which historical archives to use.

I noticed that much of the ones I openly shared with others often got stupid reasons for rejections. So, we had to come up with better methods to submit nominations with less room for potential rejections like having cultural n historical information or good photography exposures. But, when they didn’t tell others they resubmitted, it got accepted.

Also, I was very vocal about my plans and wishes for which locations I’d been scouting out the best locations for Community Days, especially Public Parks! As a Mom I care about a safe place to play, free parking, and safe access.

I recall feeding my intel to others, publicly, and being told by a head person (whom I trust) that my info was being shared with someone whom wanted to do those locations. Specifically, South Field And Stella Tirrell Park.

I wanted those spots to become high quality places to play Community Day, but I HAD A STRONG INKLING that these places could become a PokéGym since there was an older PokéStop there. I told people this. Yet, no one bothered. Months blew by, and nothing...

Well, I finally hit Level 40 at the end of 2019 so I hustled to get my submissions done. It took days for me to plan out which ones I wanted, and which ones would be more likely than others to go through. But my Stella Tirrell submissions were screwed. I thought it was very strange.... but I still had 1 that go frozen in the cue. That one didn’t even go into voting until last week. And because no one was actively trying to screw me, it went through and now Stella Tirrell has a PokéGym.

But, also, I turned the Jet into a PokéGym in South Field. I did the work. And it paid off.

But I never told anyone that I was doing those.

Well, someone assumed it was another player. So I asked who they thought did it.... and THAT was the person at the top of my list as a suspect. This person also is very well liked and many people believe this person to be a nice person.... I know this because I also fell for the “nice guy” act until their behavior shifted by June. This person was also the very first local player I ever met at a Raid, and used to say hi to me driving around at night in places I was playing the game. This person has been so overtly passive aggressive towards me, and also tries to play it off at other times like it’s fine. But the cold shoulder treatment is so overt when they show up to Raids. Acting nonchalant but also actually repulsed by me, or that I don’t exist. Or: sure! I’ll help you.... sorry, I have to leave. Over and over!

Well, after mentioning a number of things recently ( if u scroll through my posts) u can see what I had to say about my recent successes getting 2 new PokeGyms myself that were MAJOR. Stella Tirrell and South Field. Any of these local players could’ve submitted any of those nominations but never bothered to BECAUSE the intel came from me.

So, when that nomination FINALLY wet into the VOTING on Thursday Night, by the morning it was screwed.

When I checked the email and saw the reasons why, I WAS FLOORED!

This was NOT just some instance of a lazy person reviewing and just picking any reason. It says “the Niantic Community of Players” decided this.

Think about that.

Multiple people went looking to find ANYTHING matching the locations where they knew I wanted PokéStops and meticulously went through ALL of the rejection reasons and SPECIFICALLY picked to accuse me of committing a crime!

Not claiming my photos were bad.

No. They accused me of abusing Niantic’s system to commit a crime to harm people in my community.

Well, I let others know in my community, and on social media.

I find it to be very strange than within a few hours a different PokéStop nomination went through in South Field. It’s just so strange!

Dude! Just play fair!

Even if I didn’t like someone, Or didn’t approve of them, I WOULD NEVER EVER ABUSE NIANTIC’S system to hurt Another player, or try to destroy their credibility to submit a PokéStop nomination. I would NEVER stoop so low as to lower my self worth enough to be THAT MALICIOUS! I have self respect. And a person that has self respect is respectful to others, and treats others with dignity.

I also wouldn’t go out of my way to try and kick people out of the game, or stop them from ever playing the game again, or stop having access to the Discord server.

There’s definitely been some very bad things done to me that qualify as bullying. I don’t like it. But, I don’t want to kick them out of the game permanently, or have them banned from the Discord server. I’m not evil like u are. I also know that some of these people are kids. But, it’s pretty messed up when it’s adult men. U literally shame yourselves.

Just because I’m getting old, don’t have my own car, am jobless & live in poverty, and I can’t memorize every name of every single Pokémon ever, or can’t memorize every single PVP Combo or Raid Couter doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I’m not a male player, and I can’t change my gender because I’m a woman -an aging woman! I’m not young. I’m not sexy. And u hate me for some unknown reason. But u really need to check YOURSELF !

This was TOO FAR!

There was NOTHING wrong with my nomination. I looked up so much information about South Field Naval Airbase from multiple sources. I have read through so much archival data. I’m so much more informed about this area than anyone else. But anyone could do this if they just bothered to! Like, JUST READ! I’ve been working on this since 2018! It mattered to me. But also, other people were HAPPY and THANKFUL for the work I did. But I can’t write an encyclopedia as a nomination.

I did a Good thing.

Nobody likes BAD DEEDS nor those whom do them.

If u think that those of u whom all actively decided to attack me using Niantic’s system are people that u could trust, or whether they trust u, think again. They will ALWAYS remember that u all got together to attack my reputation, and it will always be in the back of their mind. Eventually, someone will always either screw u, or it will backfire in some way. Their is no honor among criminals, thieves, gangsters. If they can do it together with you against me, what makes u think at some point they might not do it to you the moment it suits them? Or, they will always assume u did these kinds of things.

Just don’t do it.

You know it’s wrong.

Just stop it, and move on.

You really need to think about what kind of person you really are, what your values are, and what kind of person you are vs what kind of person you SHOULD be.

If u have been putting up a front of who u want people to think u are, and I know you are, then u need to get to the root of why that is.

[lukawodric]

sound on – (one shot)

luka modrić x reader warnings: smut (gosh, you’re all dragging me to hell with you).  words: 1.726 a/n: probably the dirtiest thing i’ve ever written after almost is never enough. let me know if you like it or if there’s anything wrong with spelling and etc. enjoy, you dirty people.

After some time together, you both knew by heart exactly how the other one used to act. All the manias, all the things you liked and disliked and even the way you could act in front of unexpected situations. The end of classic sentences, the favourite food, the favourite places to visit… It’s cozy and comfortable to be with someone who can see right through you like Luka does. When you arrived home after a dinner with the whole team, you both just lied down on your bed to watch something on Netflix. You had your head restfully placed on his chest as his hand went up from your back to caress your hair. Running your fingers on his torso lazily, you started thinking to yourself that, when it comes to sex, he’s usually very quiet. More than you’d like him to be. Luka is the focused type of person who can’t just let go of this specific characteristic. Not even in bed. Everything has to follow the script on his head so he can please the both of you like his imagination tells him to do. A smirk appeared on your lips as your head moved up a little to see him attentively studying every single frame of the series on the TV. Tonight, you had decided that you’d show him something he’d never expect. The bond between you two, this time, wouldn’t tell him what you were up to. What Luka does to you, the way he satisfies you… all of these things are priceless. He gets you shaking and he reaches the exact right spots. It’s like he could read your body like a map. But this time, you’d return it to him twice as better and most important: you’d make him finally leave his silence aside. Luka glanced back at you and showed you that sweet smile of his. “¿Qué pasa?” His adorable accent sounded like music to your ears, almost making you give up on your dirty thoughts. “Nothing, bub,” You answered him, supporting your cheek on his skin. “Just wanted to admire you for a bit.” Blinking, he smiled even more in response as you kissed the spot where you chin was before. Your lips traveled up, covering his chest with warm and wet smackers and a few goosebumps dared to show up and warn you about the effect you were causing on him. You were now peppering kisses along his neck, licking your lips after each touch to provide him the same good sensation unstoppably. Luka fluttered his eyes shut and took a deeper breath, holding the back of your head lightly and fixing his hair away from his face with his free hand. When you reached his stubble, he licked his lips and waited for yours to catch them, initiating an intense but slow kiss as your tongues touched with caution and took their time to taste and explore each other. You started making your way back down as he threatened to flip you under him. Immediately, you moved up, grabbed both his arms and forced him to cross them above his head. Confused, Luka rested his head on his crossed arms and glared at your face, looking for a reason. You unclasped your bra and threw it somewhere, clinging your bodies once again right after. “Just be good, babe.” You gave him a little taste of the answer he was looking for and trailed the kisses to his perfectly shaped abdomen, catching every freckle embellishing his skin with your mouth. He watched you as you both kept the eye contact and your body went down supported by your knees and making your hips dance, showing him the dimples at the bottom of your back as your upper half went down. Nipping and sucking at his v-line, your hands played with the waistband of his black boxers. He let a sigh leave his mouth at the vision of you teasing him. Good. That’s exactly what you wanted him to do. But that was only the beginning. You squeezed his thighs after removing his briefs, grabbing a handful of his bulge with your right hand as the left hand palmed his abs, going up slowly. Luka squirmed against your touch but rapidly found a way to deal with your traces more quietly. You teased him by pulling his tip closer to your mouth, kissing it so delicately he could barely tell if you were actually making any contact. You continued on playing with him by licking all the extension of his length without going any further than this, leaving an impatient Luka licking his upper lip and exhaling peevishly. You knew the rule the guys from the national team told you on the first day you met them: don’t ever get Luka irritated or you might see the angry side of him in its scariest way. Were you giving a single damn about it? Not at all. When he started rearranging his body to get up and get things done, you grabbed his tip with your mouth, licked it and sucked, letting it go with a ‘pop’. Instantly, his body gave up and hit the pillows behind him. You smiled, while holding his throbbing shaft and pumping it with a little bit more of pressure and calmly just to have fun with his desperate mood. His hairline starting to get wet from the sweat, his lungs working harder to keep on breathing properly, his legs moving uninterruptedly to find a way to feel comfortable with all this torture. Promptly, you pinned his dense thighs down on the mattress and took all of him inside your mouth at once. His back arched, making it reach even deeper on your throat. Luka let out a painful groan, his husky voice made you move your head up again and you smirked at him, holding his soaked cock. He looked down at your expression, still very confused and fighting hard to deal with the agony you were providing him. He wondered a thousand times what happened to you? He wasn’t sure he liked it, but internally he was totally begging for more and dying to see where you were leading him to. You put all of his length inside of your warm and wet mouth once again and begun to apply suction as your head started bobbing up and down against his crotch. The wet sounds filling up the room gave his body chills and Luka felt relaxed enough to release a few sighs here and there. You picked up pace and he gasped for air instantly. The veins on his arms and thighs were now pulsing and marking his white and smooth skin with the purple lines showing. Holding the sides of his body tightly, you slowed down the rhythm when you saw him closing his eyes and dropping his chin, leaving his lips opened and puffing the air strongly, making his cheeks inflate as he pouted in a silent ‘u’. His eyes looked for yours in order to make you notice that he was close and wanting more of that. “¿Qué pasa?” You questioned, clearly noting that he was close by the way his shaft started palpitating inside of your mouth as you took him one more time. He finally worked on some words. “I’m… so close…” With difficulty, his raspy tone responded and he rubbed his face in exasperation. Luka was afraid to be rude to you as he felt his blood boiling everywhere, so he took a deep breath, stood up on his elbows and caressed your cheek with his thumb and ran his fingers through your hair, pulling it so softly and with attitude at the same time. He encouraged you to go down and you obeyed, looking profoundly on his eyes and making him shiver. “What do you want?” You were now stroking his shaft carefully, directing its head towards your tongue. “I…” He had to take a quick moment to appreciate the sensation. “I want this pretty mouth of yours around me. No stopping this time.” It took him everything to leave his shyness aside and ask you and turns out if made him feel dominant again, the way he likes to act in the bedroom. He’s bossy in bed and he just can’t help it. Starving, you grabbed him and worked hard on swirling your tongue all around his throbbing cock to spread the wetness for your lips wrapped around him to slide easily, making Luka throw his head back and move his hips in the direction of your hot and wanting mouth. Languidly and precisely, you moved again and his bulge was now also thrusting to meet your mouth while his tongue started cursing and rolling your name off his throat lowly, but audible enough for you to keep on doing it faster. Groaning, Luka gently pulled your head down for you to deep-throat him as he watched to make sure he wouldn’t hurt you in anyways. As you got up again and started sucking him faster, he let go of your head to support his body on both his elbows once again and his abs begun to contract, warning you that he was close. You mapped his muscles with your fingers as your free hand clutched his thigh. That was it. He released a deep moan, completely unable to keep it for him. “M’gonna cum, fuck!” He was so lost in this feeling that he didn’t even notice what he just said. You moved your hand down to stroke the base of his shaft that couldn’t fit in your mouth as you kept on sucking him and he exploded. Legs shaking, chest moving up and down urgently and hands holding the sheets. You left his length to crawl above him, placing a kiss on his sweaty abs, chest, neck and then cheek. Lying beside him, you covered his body with the blanket and positioned your head on where it was before. Luka tapped your shoulder twice for you to move and you looked at him confused. “Is anything wrong?” You asked, concerned. He held your waist firmly. “My turn.” He mumbled. “Aren’t you too tired for that?” Raising an eyebrow, you challenged him. Rule number two: don’t ever challenge Luka. Challenges aren’t traps. For Luka, a challenge is a fuel. “Wanna try me?” He placed your silhouette under his.

[chokefriends]

Pit-town Strays Ch.1

Kidlaw softness and redneck shenanigans in a northern mining town. Everything's fucked but whatever.

Rated T, no warnings, or just general warnings for setting-specific social ills and violence (racist cops, shitty parents, etc). Someone ordered wholesome kidlaw family feels? well HERE.

[Ch. 1] - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5

Read on Ao3 too, I’m Ossicle

“What the hell are you going to Pit-town for?” Bellamy chewed at Law with his mouth open, a smarmy sneer on his pasty face.

“None of your business.” Law scowled, turning his eyes away from his brother’s ground-up breakfast. He shoved a random pile of coursework into his backpack.

“Well I know what kids like you go up there to do. Everybody knows.” Bellamy drawled on, like he knew shit about anything besides scamming beer and shooting bottles at the quarry.

“Don’t make assumptions, idiot. I’m just babysitting.”

“Why?”

“It’s called a job? You should try it,” Law suggested primly. “Feet.”

Bellamy lifted his feet off Law’s pile of textbooks. “Why, though? You got that big scholarship, I seen the letter when it came in.”

Law frowned at him. “How did you…”

“Well it was just there, so I read it. Why don’t you move out, if you got all that money? You hate it here so much.”

Law waved this matter aside. “I owe that money to someone. Give me the volvo keys.”

Bellamy didn’t move his stupid stumpy self from the ancient recliner—prized spot in the basement space the three brothers shared. “No, I need it, I’m meeting up with some guys later to go down to the quarry. Dad said I could.”

“Bellamy, I need it to get to town. Just gimme the keys.”

“Well I need it to pick up little ladies! You can hitch, right?”

Law didn’t bother arguing. He sighed through his nose and slid his feet into his severely ratty sneakers before heading out into the yard.

“Don't tell Dad where I am or I'll tell him about your girlfriend!” Law called on his way out.

“Obviously,” Bellamy muttered.

The ancient volvo wasn’t feeling cooperative today, or Law was having a lapse or something because he couldn’t fucking hotwire it. He slammed his fist on the dash and took out his phone. It was an oddly summery fall day—not too cold to walk or bike—but his shoes were getting thin in the soles, and Law didn't like asking his dad for little stuff like that. Didn't wanna be such a burden all the time.

He scrolled through his messages and sent a couple off to see about a ride. But Robin (who'd suggested the job) was teaching, and Baby (sweet, bitter Baby) was already in the sauce.

BB: i cn still come tho? you real stuck?? big bro awwwww im sry

You: Nono dont go driving if youre partying it up, Ill hitch a ride I guess

BB: Where?

You: Just into town

BB: Where in town??????

You: The Pit.

You: or whatever.

BB: LAWWW NOOOOOOOOooo jus kidding lol no judgement here

BB: id sell it on weekends too if i were pretty liek U

You: I’m not selling my ass!!!

BB: Lol

BB: sure

BB: why else ndn boi hangs w miner trash? Shady.

You: Lots of reasons, including a babysitting job. Don’t make assumptions.

BB: “babysitting”” “””job”””’

You: Yes.

BB: God ur sheltered

BB: shltered bebe in u nice rich house

BB: don get picked up there, pit-town piggies love ndn bebes

Law pocketed his phone with an eyeroll and started walking down toward the highway.

Once he’d found a ride and gotten dropped off, it was a twenty minute walk from the highway to the Pit. Law ended up climbing over the bare, rocky hill behind the truck stop, cuz his phone’s map had the place all wrong. On top of the hill, he could see the Pit in all its glory laid out before him.

Pit-town was the weird little enclave where the town’s mine workers were housed, in tar paper houses as outdated as the mine itself. The tangled machinery of the refinery loomed just beyond the houses, and above all that, the smokestacks. White smoke drifted from their peaks, as high above him as the clouds. Nothing except low bush berries grew around here—it was like an outpost on the moon.

Law went down into the village. Men with tattooed arms watched him from pickup trucks, and women smoking in lawn chairs whispered. Half-feral dogs barked and circled.

“Ya lost, hun?” one busty woman called from her front step as he passed, and her friends chuckled.

“No…” he mumbled back, and hurried on as they all laughed.

He was flustered and out of breath by the time he got to the address, on the other fucking side of the whole village. The house was like the rest: a single-storey bungalow on a small plot of land with a car port full of dead appliances. There was a little pink bike lying on the front step, and a short dog chain attached to a pole in the middle of the bare yard. A deep trail had been trod in a circle around the pole but there was no dog in sight. Law went up and knocked lightly.

He stood there for a few minutes, feeling the neighborhood eyes on his back, before trying again. He knocked a little louder. “Hey, um. Hello?”

A harsh voice called, “YEAH IT’S OPEN.”

Law tried the door. “No it’s not?” he called back.

“YEAH IT IS JUST KICK IT AND TURN THE THING AT THE SAME TIME.”

“...No, definitely not open,” Law assured him after trying every kick-turn combination.

“AH FUCK.”

“Yeah.”

“OKAY, CAN YOU JUST BREAK IN?”

“...What??” Law was almost offended.

“I’M DOING A THING, CAN’T GET THE DOOR RIGHT NOW, JUST TRY SOMETHING.”

Obviously Law could break into stuff, because his shitty little brothers thought it was hilarious to lock him out of the house all the time. And because their father thought it was prudent to keep things like Law’s ID in a secure location. Law didn’t think that skill set was a great way to start this ‘job’ thing, though… He looked around at the prying eyes across the street and they flitted back behind their blinds. He sighed.

The lock was just one of the doorknob ones, and the jamb didn’t have a guard on it so it was easy to get a credit card in there. The door swung open and Law stepped into a cluttered hallway.

“In here!” the big voice called from down the hall.

“I here!” a little voice added.

Law navigated his way carefully, stepping over baskets of laundry, unreturned empties, and sealed up moving boxes. Something obnoxious was playing on tinny speakers in another room. He rounded the corner into a sweltering little kitchen that seemed like the only clear spot in the house.

There was a very tall redhead with a face full of piercings sitting at the kitchen table in his boxers, and a much smaller redhead in a frilly blue bathing suit beside him. They were painting their toenails black, with their feet up on the table.

The bigger redhead seemed really shocked to see Law. He almost toppled backward on his chair. “H-hi! Uh! You’re Native.”

Law blinked. “Yeah. Um. You’re naked.”

“I’m Nami!” announced the little girl.

The guy was pretty much naked, by Law’s standards. Also kind of jacked… Law could feel his face heating up and was glad that it didn’t really show on him. The man sitting there in his boxers was pale as a fucking ghost, though, and so his sudden flush was super obvious. He rushed to recover from that intro.

“I don’t mean like, ‘oh, you’re Native.’ Well, obviously you are, heh, but I don’t mind or anything!"

“Yeah, uh.” Law nodded helpfully. “I don’t mind either, that you’re… naked.”

“Kidd is a naked...” Nami sang to herself.

“I'm not even,” Kidd protested. “I'm just hot as hell. Aren't you hot?”

“Am I??” Law was completely lost.

“Not—! I mean, yeah, but you're in a hoodie? Aren't you sweltering?” Kidd clarified.

“Oooh. No, not really. I like to keep covered up,” Law explained, picking at a fraying sleeve. He supposed it was weird to be wearing jeans and a hoodie in this weather, but no weirder than wearing Crocs in public, like people here seemed into doing.

Kidd was distracted by Nami painting patterns on her feet with the nail polish. “Fuck, Nami, stop, we just paint the nails. It’s messy, see? MESSY.” He took the tiny girl and sat her on the counter instead, then went about cleaning up the table. “Sorry about the door. Can’t go anywhere with wet toenails, it smears like hell.”

Law nodded harder and went to help him. “It’s cool, I know how to break into stuff. I mean I don’t usually! But your door was easy. Not that I’ll do it again!”

“Not a problem… uh, Kidd. I’m Kidd. Hi.” The guy finally got his head together and extended a hand. His fingernails were painted black too. He had a really firm grip.

“Law,” Law replied in relief.

“And this is my sister Nami,” Kidd jabbed a thumb at the toddler perched precariously on the counter. “She’s a fucking psychopath.”

Nami ignored them, sticking towels into the toaster instead.

“You have a dog too? I saw the chain outside.” Law wondered.

“No, Dad took the dog with him. And the fuckin car…”

“Your parents are both working?” Law asked, and immediately regretted it. God, he really was sheltered.

Kidd blushed again and started stacking dishes.

Law rushed to clarify. “Or, ‘parent'? I only got one too—a dad. I'm adopted though, and my birth parents are both passed, so.”

Kidd was wiping off each dish absently under the running water, not really cleaning anything. “We got a dad and mom, they’re just… not around right now. So it’s just us! Which is better, believe me.” He growled the last bit under his breath.

“Oh, got it.”

“Anyway. I didn't wanna ask someone to come all the way here to watch Nami, but that bitch down the street won’t take her anymore because of lice or property damage or something, and I got an interview today. I’ll prolly find another illegal daycare somewhere around here if I do get this job, though, heh.”

“Yeah don’t worry about it.” Law tried not to seem squeamish at the mention of lice.

“If they do take me I’ll be starting right away, so I might be out til pretty late,” Kidd warned him. “I’ll pay you for however long you’re here for though.”

“Sounds good. You gonna work at the mine?”

This seemed like another sensitive issue. Kidd looked away and muttered, “No… you gotta be 21, and take all these courses and stuff. And anyway, like HELL will I end up in the fuckin pit,” he finished with unexpected heat.

Law was saved from having to come up with a response by Nami blowing up the toaster outlet. The kitchen appliances all blinked out.

“FUCK! Again…” Kidd rushed to pick her up and sit her back on the table as a loud dryer beep sounded from the bathroom. “And fuck, there’s my pants. Listen, can you grab a fuse from the drawer there and stick it in? I actually REALLY gotta go, like right now.”

“Yeah of course!” Law watched the strange redhead duck through the kitchen door and pick his way down the obstacle course hall to another door.

He pulled his eyes away from the muscled back and onto the little girl, who was… eating nail polish.

“You!” Law scolded her, and put her in a chair. He grabbed the few towels that weren’t burnt, and tied her to the aluminum frame. “Okay, eat cheez-its while I fix this.”

Law had got the new fuse screwed into the panel and the nail polish off Nami’s face by the time Kidd came back, dressed in clothes that didn’t seem like interview clothes to Law: heavy duck pants and steel-toed boots. He grabbed a duffel bag that was sitting on a box stack, shouldered it and then stood looking at Law.

“Uh,” Kidd was blushing again. It was kind of amazing to see this tough blacklung brat acting so unsure. “If I come back really late maybe I could bring something? To eat? And we could eat it here?”

“Yeah, that'd be good.” Law shrugged like he didn't mind either way.

“KFC?” Kidd suggested.

“Oh I don't like breaded stuff. Fries are good, though.”

“Chinese?”

“I'm trying not to eat MSG actually…”

Kidd tried to think. “So what do you eat?”

“Mostly sushi.”

“I didn't know there was any sushi places in this shit town,” Kidd admitted.

“At the college there's one. Uh, but whatever you bring is fine, don't worry about it!” Law reassured him.

“Okay. Well, see ya.” Kidd made his way outside, yelling at some hovering dogs to git!, then started swearing. “Aw fuck, Nami's FUCKING bike…”

“You trip on it?” Law poked his head outside.

“No,” Kidd was looking at an empty front walk. “Fuckin kids took off with it again. I'll just go punch their dad in the throat later, not a big deal.”

“Holy,” Law commented mildly.

He watched Kidd pull a frankenstein-ian motorcycle out of a side door and roar away on it. Then he looked around to see if anyone had caught him looking. He was just sending a good glare at the prying eyes across the street when he remembered that he was babysitting. He returned to the kitchen where Nami was sitting once again on top of the table, drawing circles in a nail polish puddle with one finger.

“Your brother is an entire entrée,” Law informed her.

She didn't reply, intent on her craft. But she objected when he tried to pick her up. “Nooo!”

“No?” he put her down.

She glared at him, a tiny girl of no more than four, ginger hair in little pigtails and her frilly blue bathing suit spotted with nail polish.

“I'm Law,” he sat down so he was at her level, and introduced himself. “Lawww.”

��Law...” She appraised him solemnly for another moment and then seemed to deem him acceptable. “I’m being a witch,” she confided in a whisper.

“A witch?”

“Yah.”

Law sat back in the chair with a laugh. “My girl! Let's talk!”

Law had the kitchen scrubbed to his own exacting standards in short order, having secured Nami firmly to a chair (with duct tape and towels this time).

She was starting to nod into her cheezits by the time he'd finished, and Law figured it was nap time. He went to review the rooms along the hallway, looking for a baby room. He couldn't figure out the logic of the place, though. There was a largeish bedroom, which seemed to be the source of the stale smoke smell, mostly taken up by a tacky king bed and Seinfeld DVDs. It clearly hadn't been used in forever. He closed that door. Then there was a smaller room that might've once been a child's room, decorated with glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and complex Lego structures piled in one corner. It was stacked floor to ceiling with file boxes and covered in dust too. Another small room seemed to be Kidd's hideout, though the bed was just a box spring covered in laundry and books. There was a guitar and practice amp, and a desk piled with half-dissected old laptops. Law resisted the urge to snoop, and closed the door.

He went back down to the other end of the hall, past the front door, where the narrow corridor opened into a small living room space. A couch and a single mattress were neatly made up into beds, in front of a large TV that seemed like the only new thing in the house.

“I want a Kidd nap.” Nami had somehow gotten out of the duct tape high chair and was at Law's side, rubbing her eyes.

“Okay? In the big bed?”

“You're silly,” she accused. She went to lie down on the couch, pulling a fuzzy blanket over herself.

Law went to sit next to her. He gestured down at the mattress on the floor, with its orange and blue comforter and many fuzzy cushions. “Is that your bed? Don't you wanna nap there?”

“No,” she explained patiently, eyes already closed.

“Right, obviously.”

He watched her shuffle and sigh her way to sleep.

“I could've had a sister,” he murmured, partly to her and partly to himself. “I mean, I do have a biological sister, but I didn't grow up with her. I think it would've been nice, though…”

Nami was already asleep when he looked over again. Easy! Law totally had this babysitting thing in hand. He pulled his stats assignment out of his bag, and got down to the real work.

Nami turned out to be a pretty chill baby, as well as being an utter terror. She mostly ignored Law, preferring to go about her little play tasks uninterrupted, with the TV playing in the background. “Being a witch,” she explained whenever Law asked what she was doing.

“Keep it up,” he encouraged her, turning back to his own work.

He quickly learned, though, to keep an ear out for silence, because she was probably blowing shit up. Law found her building a fire in the oven, then making what he was pretty sure was mustard gas in the toilet.

“How’d you do that??” He took the bleach from her and she threw a mild fit before toddling off to the next game.

By the time Kidd returned, Law was just sitting in a kitchen chair with his stats assignment disregarded in front of him, watching the four-year-old expertly jimmy the makeshift lock he'd put on the knife drawer.

“More twist on the lever,” an amused Law recommended.

“So this one's being a psychopath huh,” Kidd entered and threw his duffel bag on the table.

Law corrected him.“Um, she's a witch and a prodigy? She made several deadly potions with cleaning supplies today."

“Oh jesus now there's two of you.”

“One more and we got a coven.”

“Great. Nami, it's like 11, why ain't your ass in bed?” Kidd growled at his sister, who ignored him.

“She went down for a couple hours, but kept getting up when she heard a car go by. And I couldn't get any pajamas on her,” Law reported.

“Yeah she won't take the bathing suit off unless I bribe her. She's big into being a ‘mermaid’ this month, on top of being a witch.”

Nami had gotten the knife drawer open and was feeling around in it with one chubby hand.

Kidd scooped her up. “No knives.”

“A knife!!!”

Law shook his head and smiled. Child after his own heart. “What's she want a knife for?”

“She's been trying to slash my tires lately, so probably that. It's usually pretty funny to watch, but yeah, not at bedtime. Eh, Nami?”

“I WAN A KNIFE! A KNIFE A KNIFE A—”

Nami stopped and stared at the chocolate coin Kidd was holding up. She grabbed it and wiggled out of his arms. They followed her to the living room where she was stashing her prize under the couch.

“Holy, she's got a hoard,” Law gave a low whistle at the cache of foil coins and random shiny things.

“Yeah I think she's more dragon than mermaid,” Kidd commented.

Nami lay down in her floor bed, where she could see the glittering pile.

“I got food, if you wanna…?” Kidd nodded back toward the kitchen.

“Is she good here?”

“Yeah she pretty much puts herself to sleep, just leave WrestleMania on for her. She likes the noise.”

They went back to the kitchen, and Kidd turned on a thing Law had thought was a smashed toaster oven reconstructed with safety pins, but which turned out to be a radio. Kidd gestured to a bag on the table, and Law unpacked it while the redhead fiddled with the receiver. It mostly seemed to be picking up country music and static.

“Can almost get that alt rock station with this thing,” he muttered, “probably just needs another coat hanger.”

“You went and got sushi??” Law pulled out several little plastic containers.

Kidd’s back was to him but Law could see his neck and ears going red. He kept fiddling with the dials. “Yeah, whatever.”

“From all the way at the college?”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

“...I think that radio is using you as an antenna,” Law observed, changing the topic.

Kidd snorted and let go of the screwdriver-dial, and the radio went to mostly static. “Faboo. Maybe it wants a piercing too.”

His face had returned to a normal color under all that metal, and he joined Law at the table. Law offered him the dragon roll and took the sashimi plate.

The chopsticks were an obstacle.

“Do you stab it?” Kidd glared at the sushi and the two little sticks.

“No, look at my hand: hold one like a pencil, and the other one loosely—”

“I stab it.”

“Don’t stab it, hey, you’ll ruin the integrity of the roll shape!”

“Hm,” Kidd chewed his mangled piece. “Tastes like salad.”

“Here.” Law scooted over a chair. He took the chopsticks out of Kidd’s fist and rearranged them. Kidd’s hands were large and rough to the touch, and the scent of sweat and gas clung to his clothes. The sudden impression of body heat and machinery smacked Law right in the back of the brain.

“I’m gonna say this is finger food,” Kidd decided.

“Yeah,” Law agreed automatically.

“Yeah, fuck this. Want a beer?”

Law hated beer. “Yeah. I mean, whatever.”

Law sat and nursed the beer with determination, trying to pay attention to Kidd's animated take on government surveillance vans and Nicolas Cage. His brain was getting fuzzy really fast, though. He was such a fuckin lightweight.

“He’s not an actual human person, is all I’m saying. You seen his face tryna do face stuff?” Kidd argued, crunching his second beer can and tossing it in the bin across the room. "Nother beer? Hey, you’re not even done that one.”

“Tastes like bread,” Law noted distractedly.

“I guess. You don’t like Bud?”

“I liked the first movie,” Law hiccuped.

Kidd laughed like a fucking hooligan, and Law had to laugh too. Normally loud laughs grated on Law's ears, but he decided he liked this one. It wasn't mocking or cold; just big.

Kidd shook his head with a final chuckle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Me too. Sooo uh, what you studying at the college?”

“General science right now, thinking I'll go into the pre-med stream,” Law answered right away. “Or maybe something more research, less clinical… uh. Or you know, like. Whatever.”

Kidd actually seemed interested. “Yeah that sounds awesome. I always wanted to go into engineering, but pure research would be cool… You um. Doing some math, there?” He looked over at Law's assignment, abandoned on the table.

“Stats. The bane of my existence. Don't stare at it too long, it'll put the bleed on your brain.”

“...you're stuck, huh?” Kidd glanced over again.

“No.” Law sniffed. “I'm considering it from many angles.”

“Okay, man.”

“Oh, like you know anything about sample sizes and shit.”

Kidd shrugged, but the line in his forehead deepened. He cracked another tallboy.

Law gripped his own beer can in the uncomfortable silence that followed, and then downed the rest all at once.

“Nother,” he wiped his mouth and Kidd raised an eyebrow but passed him a fresh one.

“Git it in ya.”

“Mhm.” Law took a deep swig and almost fucking barfed. “Sooo… you make that bike yourself huh?”

“...yeah,” Kidd's face lost the put-out look and split into a grin. “Or whatever, I just added some stuff and changed other stuff… actually, it's…”

That got another good long ramble out of the redhead, full of startling laughter and crass parallels with female body parts. Law wondered idly if Kidd was actually familiar with any female body parts, or whether this was just how people in Pit-town talked.

“Hm?” Law sat up straight, realizing that Kidd had asked him something. His brain was definitely all swimmy now.

“Or I can give you a lift back now. It's a long way to the Rez.”

“I'm not from the Rez, I live down the highway. I can just hitch my way back, it's not a big deal." Law looked at his phone—after midnight.

Kidd was giving Law a look, like he wanted to say something about that, but then grunted and downed his beer instead. “Here, for today,” he said, taking an envelope out of his pocket and pushing a few folded bills into Law's hand.

“Thanks.”

“If you're free tomorrow I'll be working again at noon. And like I said, you can stay here tonight if the trip out is—”

“Oh!” Law felt his face heating up again. “No, I gotta get home. My dad's gonna kill me as it is. I'll come back tomorrow, though, okay?”

“Okay! Or, whatever, good.”

“Yeah.” Law stood and started stuffing things back into his backpack. “Okay see ya tomorrow.”

Kidd gave him a flippant salute and cracked another beer.

Pulling on his sneakers at the door, Law felt a little tug at his pant leg.

“Law, you are going to go?” Nami worried.

“Yup, gotta go home.”

“Law, you won't be here if you go,” she started snuffling.

Law picked her up and put her back in her bed. “I'll come back tomorrow. Okay?”

“No.” She hid under the blanket and kept snuffling.

He hesitated. “I have to go.”

“She’ll get over it in a minute,” Kidd told him from the doorway, leaning backlit against the frame with crossed arms. “It's better not to draw it out.”

Law looked at the little lump among the cushions and shrugged. He stood to go.

The redhead chewed at his tongue piercing and watched him. “Okay, I don't wanna be weird about this, but like. It's the Pit. And you're... You know?”

Law wasn't getting it. “I'm...?”

“C'mon, you stick out. And it's really late, and it's just past check day, and… it'd really just be faster if I gave you a ride.”

Oh, fucking chivalry or whatever.

“So I'll put my hood up,” Law dismissed this.

“It’s the Pit, though,” Kidd said again.

“... See you tomorrow.” Law left without drawing it out any further.

Law got halfway through the village before someone pulled up next to him, apparently to offer him further unwanted courtesies.

“Looking for a place to stay?” the man offered.

“Just heading home,” Law deflected.

This didn't seem to be the answer the guy wanted, and he followed Law in his pickup at very close range, until they got to the village limits and the end of the street lights. Law gripped his phone in his pocket. He heard the truck door slam just as he went to detour off the road between two houses.

Law tried not to back away as the guy advanced. “I'll call the police.”

“I am the police,” the man pointed to the badge on his belt.

"Shit..."

"And you're trespassing."

Law held onto his phone, a harsh roaring steadily growing in his ears. The smart thing would be to play dumb and helpless so he wouldn't fucking get shot, and just hope someone came by… but the man went to grab him and he panicked just as the roar peaked. Law snapped the fist holding his phone into the man's temple, and it made a loud crunch. A couple more frantic strikes sent the pig down in a confused pile of limbs.

Well he'd fucking done it now. Maybe he could run before—

“Oohhh shit, haha,” someone commented.

Law glared over at Kidd, who was sitting there on his noisy rat bike, peering at the man on the ground.

“Hi?” Law crossed his arms.

Kidd scratched his neck. “Saw him drive past after you left, and figured… yeah. I was just gonna come and like, bam! Do a drive-by with a crowbar. But that Rocky shit was actually way cooler, haha. Is that a brass knuckles phone ring?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah…” Kidd considered the lump on the ground. “Kay, well. Can I drive you home now?”

“...” Law really, stubbornly wanted to refuse.

“Just so you can see how Marlene here rides,” Kidd patted the motorcycle. “Did I tell you I built her?”

Law's tension cracked and an incredulous laugh bubbled out. “Yeah. You told me. She's a beauty.” Kidd passed him the helmet and Law slid into place behind him.

“She’s a rubber-tit, chain-smoking old blacklung biddy, fuck yeah she's a beauty. You can ride her all day and night, she don't get tired.”

Law had been wondering how he'd get all the way home like this without popping a boner, but that mental image cleared it up.

“Uh,” Law gave the unconscious cop a guilty glance, “should we get this guy somewhere…?”

“Oh, I'll just call his wife to come get him, I guess,” Kidd snorted at the pathetic pile and took out his phone.

“You know him?”

“Everyone knows everyone here… hold on a sec. Hey, Mrs. Kyle? Yeah I just seen Kevin going off tryna fight that goose again.”

“Fuckin what??” Law snickered.

“Yeah, Cobb Road. Looked like he'd taken a good one on the head already. I dunno who taught that thing to make a fist. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, bye.” Kidd hung up, nodding to himself like that was it.

“No one's gonna believe that shit,” Law objected.

“Oh the goose? That's real, the thing's a monster. I think they should just shoot it but there's a pool on who'll defeat it in hand-to-hand combat.”

“...okay. Sure.”

“It's the Pit,” Kidd explained again.

Kidd tied a bandana onto his face as a windguard, and they pulled out of the village and onto the highway. It was fall but the air was warm and smelled like tar. Law held onto Kidd's waist and directed him by patting his arm and pointing. The smokestacks receded behind them, though the tar smell lingered on through the treeless landscape. Eventually Law signaled for them to stop.

Kidd pulled off the highway and stopped just under the lone streetlight at the turnoff. He looked around. “This is just a carpool lot. I might as well take you all the way home, right?”

“Nah, my Dad's already gonna be pissed that I'm out this late. If I ride up on a bike smelling like booze… yeah.” Law passed him the helmet and dismounted. “It's not far from here, I'm good now.”

Kidd was still processing the first part. “Aren't you in uni? You still have a curfew?”

Law shrugged. “He's strict. He just worries. Though, yeah, he's nowhere near as protective about my fuckin brothers so—”

At that exact moment Law's brain registered the whine of a familiar car, and he had to grip his bag to keep from bolting. He relaxed slightly when he saw it was just the Volvo.

“Hey Lawnboy,” Bellamy chuckled, leaning an elbow out the window.

“Hiii Law,” a gawky, sharp-eyed girl chirped from the passenger seat.

“Monet, my dream girl,” Law flirted mildly, leaning on the door frame. Monet giggled and Bellamy scowled.

“That your ~boyfriend~?” the blond troll mocked, jabbing a thumb at Kidd, who tensed and sneered.

“Yeah,” Law shot back.

There was a pause.

“Really???” Monet scrambled to get a good look at them both. Bellamy's face went slack with shock.

Kidd stuffed his head into the safety of his helmet.

“What're you doing?” Law questioned the helmeted Kidd.

“He's shy!” Monet squealed. “Ahhhh you guys are perfect!”

“Are you blushing?” Law tried to flip up the mirrored visor and Kidd held on stubbornly, shaking his head.

“Law, bring him to Hawk's place with us, I'll make youse guys’ drinks!! I got sourpuss and peach schnapps!”

“They're not coming to Hawk's,” Bellamy told her sullenly.

“Shut up Bellamy. Law, you guys coming?”

Law demurred. “Gotta work tomorrow, Monet-fique. Nother time.”

“Aw.”

“See you at home, Bellyache,” Law dismissed his pouting brother, who scowled.

“‘Babysitting’, huh. I'm telling Dad you're hoeing it up in the Pit,” Bellamy threatened.

Monet punched him in the shoulder. “Oh my god Bellamy no you're not. Later, Law! Byyye, strong silent boyfriend!”

Bellamy took his cue and screeched away.

Law turned back to Kidd, who was still hiding under his helmet. “Sorry. That was my brother. It just seemed like the best way to get him to leave.”

Kidd gave a slight shrug.

“So. See you tomorrow?” Law shouldered his bag.

Kidd nodded.

“Thanks for the ride. And for dinner and stuff…”

“Yeah it's whatever,” came Kidd's muffled voice.

“Oh yeah I mean, whatever.” Law started off down the road.

“Uh…! Thank you too, for… coming...” Kidd called after him a few steps later.

Law stopped and looked back awkwardly.

“...And for being chill about Nami's issues, and the house, and dealing with that creeping fucker… You don't have to come back after that crap. And if all this is gonna get you in trouble with your dad anyway,” Kidd offered in a nervous jumble, as Law wandered back over and stood there, feeling suddenly sad.

Law had had his share of sweet goodbye kisses under this streetlight, when he'd been a little younger and a little less worried about everything. He kinda really wanted another like that right now… But Kidd was holding onto the helmet on his head like a life preserver. And a kiss seemed like such a shallow, wrong-headed kind of assurance to offer against all ‘that crap.’

Law leaned in, and bonked his forehead lightly against the glossy helmet instead.

“Well, pick me up tomorrow, at the highway. So I don't gotta risk crossing the goose,” Law shrugged too, like it really was all just whatever.

He couldn't see Kidd's face but he could see his heaviness lift.

“You got it, Cap.”

The scruffy redhead leaned into his bike and the road, and became a fading engine roar in the dark. Law walked home slowly.

[gammija]

The Hollow review/summary/rant/explanation of why i hate the ending I wasn’t sure whether I should post this, but I did enjoy reading others experiences watching this show, so here’s mine under the cut. Edited from a convo with a friend.

(Obviously, spoilers!)

Me: Okay so to properly express my disappointment i gotta take you through the major beats

The show starts with three teens waking up in an almost empty room, finding out they all have amnesia. They quickly solve a puzzle to escape the room, and just as quickly Adam and Mira realize they have superpowers (superstrength/agility and some weird 'speak to animals/know all languages' hybrid, respectively. also she can breathe underwater and swim really fast. its kind of vague)

Kai is already clearly a comic relief, discount Ron (from HP, the movies, no idea about the books) so me and sister correctly predict he'll get jealous of adam and miras relationship (even if there is none), gets pissy and jealous that he has no powers, but then finds out he has powers anyway he does, hes a fire bender. cant say im not bitter about that cause id put my money on invulnerability but eh its alright he has red hair after all hes still fun

Friend: Of course he is

I just feel bad is all aldjs

Me: adam gets a throwaway line of 'maybe were dead' and kai never lets it go

this food might be poisoned but im starving and hey were dead anyway! right, adam

Friend: I love him??

Me: i loved him as soon as he spoke his first dumb words also he puns but basically hes the only interesting char; adam and mira are just cookie cutter 'male lead 1' and 'female lead 1' i mean, he’s cookie cutter ‘jealous 3rd wheel’ but that has more going on than the first two still servicable though

anyway so the jokes are sometimes fun, and superpowers are always my jam. but the REAL reason to keep watching is just, whats going on? ARE they dead? or in some kind of weird gvnmt experiment? some weird magical vampire guide (dont ask) hints they wanted this themselves ooh, intrigue. and the world is very very quirky they start in a gravity falls-y woods and then get teleported to a desert with minotaurs and witches, then get invited for tea by the Grim Reaper and the rest of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse

tbh Grim is the best part of the show but thats neither here nor there

anyway they have a magic map that updates once theyve been somewhere, and it shows them that the hot dry desert and the swampy wood bunker are like right next to each other

so you start thinking, how are they gonna explain that? this is too weird to be handwaved away. theyve gotta be going somewhere

they visit some other exotic locals, like what appears to be the set of Alien (complete with alien) and an abandoned old fair and a floating island with japanese inspired evildoers on it

the weird magic guide keeps showing up and being vague, dropping hints that there are other kids there etc

at some point Mira says "This is no time for games!" Weirdy: "Thats where youd be wrong~" me and sister: Aha! videogame! that connects all the dots, and also makes the tropes clear: small world with all kinds of different areas, quests, fights, superpowers, an updating map, fast travel Adam, a few eps later: guis i think we might be in a videogame me and sister: [high five]

Anyway in the meantime also the second predictable Kai (discount Ron) plot happens: they meet three other kids (boy boy girl) and they act shady but the girl takes an immediate and obvious interest in Kai so obviously theyre gonna manipulate him and have him betray his friends but in the end he'll see through their facade and kick their ass that more or less happens. The other teens also confirm that this is a game, and theyre trying to win. winning is done by bringing the MacGuffin to a tree fights over macguffin ensue situations are dire but our characters persevere

(also Mira kisses Adam and he acts very weird about it, almost as if hes gay and the only reason they didnt make it canon is censors) (no lingering gaze, just him going 'hehe yeah no thanks, its not you, its me', but in a very... he doesnt seem to be saying it with shall we say burning desire in his soul. hes literally just like 'eh youre a good friend.' Cool move, cartoon that made the two main boys have arguments over nothing cause of course the two main guys have constant dick measuring matches)

this all is not the offensive part btw it was all fun and games, its just a flash cartoon i wasnt expecting Shakespeare

anyway so theyre in a videogame, and apparently thats the answer to all the weirdness. A bit of a cop-out, cause thats a very easy answer, but eh, it works. it wasnt immediately obvious.

also something i hadnt mentioned yet: thisd be ideal for making (self-insert) OCs. Unique powers for each person, there are clearly more characters than shown, the world is your playground

and maybe the video game thing could be interesting on its own in the last few eps the game seems to be glitching out a lot they say its breaking apart so they really gotta hurry now maybe they were beta testers for a vr game gone wrong maybe this is part of it but its like a huge experience that you tell all your friends about anyway there are ways it could be cool, could be expanded to a season 2 despite having solved the mystery

but. last episode. our heroes get the MacGuffin, go to a final stage, and fight the Boss Battle (its a dragon). they enter the Castle....

...and the screen zooms out, into a sudden live action stage, where we see the cartoon (literally what you were just watching) on screen. there are 6 chairs, 3 with our heroes, 3 with the other teens, presumably. theres a host and hes dressed exactly like the weird guy (and that was already kind of a clashy outfit in the cartoon). it was all just a game show. but. the worst part is the live action

you. dont. go. from. animated. to. live. action.

other way around? fine, can work. But now? WHY itd still be dumb and dissapointing but if itd been animated too itd at least have been.... nice to look at but the acting.. oh god they didnt even say anything and it was all wrong clearly theyd just picked the first random teens that vaguely looked like the chars and put them in there cause they had no lines so who needs acting?!

the enemy teams girl had, in the cartoon, pink hair. Purple with pink highlights instead of stylizing that into something more realistic or painting the actual hair, they gave some 30-year old woman a wig and called it a day

keep in mind i binged this show in one go

purposely stayed up late to watch the last ep with my sis even tho we shouldve gone to bed and were disobeying our dad cause we Had to Know

and theres more i said they had no lines but i was lying. Kai did have a line. well, his voice actor did they dubbed him also the line was about him having to pee which is already not the most hilarious in animated version but a live action kid whose supposed to be this character you spent 3 hours with but looks nothing like him saying that in a voice that doesnt belong to his throat, as he stands bashfully in front of a live audience, the only words spoken by your main characters in the last moments...

*its actual hell*

oh oh one more thing at the end the six kids stand in a line and kai is next to other girl they glance at each other and as the eyes of this teen and 30 year old in wig cross, her eye glitches for a moment

dun dun duuun

bUT i dont care anymore, The Hollow. You overestimated your own premise. this wont be forgiven. your most interesting part was the mystery, and the answer  to that was "just a normal game show" (which also doesnt make sense on another level smh) soo if you think that im interested in what these two-dimensional (ha) characters will do now about the glitch in the eye of a bitch then i have news for u

i dont

...if they get a second season ill probably check it out though as long as its animated

Friend: Gammi I'm getting the real sinking suspicious feeling that what you saw isn't the real end but bad on purpose because there's more to it

Me: the show didnt seem good enough to be bad on purpose

and yet im still not done, if youll still hear me out

i mean, im an animation fan so ill still watch but if theyd wanted to be bad on purpose they really shouldve done a better job fleshing out the characters thats what people come back for that was a bit of a sidetrack BUT so i said why the live action itself was just terrible in overal quality

but the resolution that 'oh it was all in a game show' doesnt work on multiple levels

first of all, they show a short flashback of "About 5 hours earlier". The kids stand on the stage and are instructed to take their seats in the vr-chairs, and pick their superpower

2 things i dislike about that

1) there goes all the self-insert/oc potential. they werent teens in over their heads, they werent gvnmt experiments, or just some kids who wanted to play a game -they were in it to win it, from the start. thats very specific and not the most appealing to all kinds of characters (goodbye, all the 'im just an average girl whod never step into the spotlight like that' characters).

Also, all the expansion on lore is gone. maybe there were other games simultaneously? eh, maybe, but theyd be all gameshows. Maybe someone ended uo trapped there for way longer? nah its just a gameshow theyre not gonna let anything actually bad happen. Maybe there are other worlds, other areas, other weird creatures? unlikely, they finished the map and familiarity seemed to be a thing for the audience. Now every new idea has to be put not through a 'whats interesting for a player' but a 'whats interesting for a viewer' lens, and whats a selfinsert if not a player in another universe

2) HOW IS THIS A SUCCESSFUL GAME SHOW

who the hell watches a game show for 5 consecutive hours, some of which mustve been just them walking. also, we zoom out of the screen were watching, so implication is that everything up until then has been what the audience has seen. but... we only followed the one team. there were two? why didnt the audience want to see what they were up to? ~reality tv usually thrives on showinf the worst assholes so realistically they wouldve been the focus~

There are also way too many times *both* teams couldve failed, from early on till late in the game. Not a single game i can think of thats played for an audience is set up like that, and especially not a televised one (okay tbf idk if this was televised, i dont remember if i saw cameras, but. it mustve. monetary reasons.)

What r u gonna do if they all 'died' from the monsters in the first ep? Call it a day? boring for the audience. let them restart from scratch? boring for the audience. the existence of an audience messes with everything

AND THEN ANOTHER THING what do you mean, "5 hours ago?" you never get a time stamp to show how long theyve been in there but there are some cuts, when they travel and such. The actual show is a lil over 3 hours runtime. You mean to tell me you sat through 2 hours of the characters just walking?

okay last thing. so. they were clearly second season teasing with the glitching eye thing. i already said this but. theres nowhere to go from here that isnt worse that the first season. your mystery is dead. you clearly know your live action teens cant act so youd have to go back into the game - but why would they do that? how would that be in any way interesting? you explored all there was to explore.

The other, more out there option, is that as you said the 'real world' was a fake-out and theyre still in a game. but. how would- how would you even make that remotely convincing? if youd just left the 'real world' gameshow as animated too this wouldnt have been a problem. but there is absolutely no conceivable reason to justify, in universe, why another meta-level up is 2D animation again unless they were in a game, in a game, in a game. and thats just dumb. yall aint inception

Friend: HONESTLY if they just kept the whole deal animated it'd probably be okay. Not good, but better,

Me: ye me and my sister came to the same conclusion

i couldve lived with that. at least, i couldve just acknowledged the finales existence but chose to ignore it. now however im full phantom planet levels of denial. in fact i dont even know how the show ended anymore, suddenly

Friend: what finale? what show?

Me: also at least now we know why its called The Hollow

it leaves you feeling empty inside

[myriadimagines]

See You Soon

DC (Arrowverse) One Shot

Pairing: Reader x Nate Heywood 

Other Characters: Sara Lance, Ray Palmer, Jax Jackson, Amaya Jiwe

Warnings: mentions of death and alcohol

Request: n/a

Summary: The Legends have arrived in Star City to fix another anachronism. For some reason, Sara is trying to keep Nate in the dark and wants him to stay on the Waverider, and he doesn’t understand why. That is, until he realises what year it is. The year something terrible happened.

Word Count: 2,676

A/N: hi please don’t kill me for writing a one shot while they’re closed. but seeing as my blog is officially 1 year old (whaaaaaat?!), i thought i might commemorate it in some way. and because i love nate and i love torturing myself, i present to you…….. this fic. and spoiler alert i know jax left but at the time that i wrote this hE WAS STILL PART OF THE LEGENDS OK. thank u guys for tolerating my slow ass writing, weird ramblings and all that, i still can’t believe i’ve been writing for a whole year?! 

please reblog/leave comments!! and despite this, one shots are still closed!

Your name: submit What is this?

“Where’s our next destination, Captain?” Ray asked as he strolled up to Sara, who was staring at the map of anachronism. He could see a troubled expression on Sara’s face, and he frowned as he asked, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Star City, 2015.” Sara pointing at a glowing spot on the map. “It’s a level 8.”

“Surely that’s not the only thing bothering you.” Ray tilted his head, and Sara sighed as she turned around, her arms folded across her chest.

“It’s about Nate.” she finally said, looking over Ray’s shoulder to make sure no one was else was listening. “You know I do background checks for everyone on the team, and… well, something happened to Nate in 2015. He can’t go on the mission with us.”

“Seriously?” Ray asked. “Did he get hurt or something?”

“It’s not like that.” Sara shook her head. “Something didn’t happen to him specifically – it has to do with someone he loves.”

–

Nate could feel his head spinning as the Waverider landed. Despite time travelling so many times, he sometimes still felt the side effects. He looked over at Zari, who looked slightly nauseous, and couldn’t help but chuckle. At least he was doing better than her.

“Alright, what’s the anachronism?” Nate clapped his hands together as he got up from his seat. Sara was already around the console, pulling up a map. Nate looked outside, and noticed the setting look pretty modern – a nice contrast considering they had spent so much time back in the old days. It looked familiar, Nate realised, and he asked, “Wait, Sara, are we where I think we are?”

“Star City.” Sara responded, her tone somewhat wary as she exchanged glances with Ray, who immediately looked concerned, too. “Uh, Nate, I think it’s best if you sit this one out.”

“What?” Nate’s face scrunched up as he turned around. “Why?”

“Jax needs someone to take care of the Waverider.” Sara replied, without missing a beat, and Nate turned to Jax as he looked at Sara in confusion.

“No I don’t-” Jax tried to protest, but quickly stopped mid sentence when Sara glared at him. “I mean, yeah, totally.”

“Gideon, what year are we in?” Nate looked up at the ceiling, putting his hands on his hips. He didn’t know why Sara was preventing him from leaving, but perhaps knowing what time he was in might help.

Before Gideon could respond, Sara interjected, “Gideon, don’t.”

“Come on, Sara.” Nate tossed his hands in the air. “Just tell me what’s going on!”

“Nate, this is for your own good.” Sara pointed at him as the rest of the team awkwardly looked amongst each other. Only Sara and Ray knew what was going on, while the rest of the team were as clueless as Nate. Waving her arms, Sara continued, “Everyone else, let’s get ready to move out.”

Nate groaned in frustration as no one came to his defense, quickly walking away instead. Before Amaya walked out the room, Nate quickly grabbed her arm, hissing, “Hey, Amaya, what is up with Sara?”

“I don’t know, Nate.” Amaya sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t understand it either. Did anything important happen to you in 2015?”

“2015?” Nate’s eyebrows furrowed, before his face paled. Amaya’s expression immediately became concerned as she reached out to squeeze his shoulder.

“Nate?” she gave him a small shake. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.” he stammered. If he told Amaya the truth, he knew she’d also stop him from leaving the ship.

2015. The year the love of his life was killed.

–

Nate never thought he’d experience true love. Sure, it’d be nice, but he thought it was unrealistic. He’d been on a few dates, of course, but it never became anything more than a one night stand.

He met you at a library. He still smiled to himself when he thought about it – how cliché it was, like he was in a movie. You happened to be in the same history section as him, and he noticed you out of the corner of his eye debating between two books. Unable to keep to himself, he recommended a book to you, and when you turned to thank him, Nate was blown away by how beautiful you were. You had such a joyful smile that Nate made him smile too, and he thought your laugh was the most adorable thing he had ever heard.

“Thanks,” you said, waving the book Nate recommended as you put the other one back on the shelf. Nate nodded, at loss for words as you continued, “If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be stuck here all day deciding.”

“Oh, I’ve definitely done that.” Nate nervously chuckled after he had finally found his voice again. “One time, I had too many books and had to leave at least 10 behind otherwise I’d exceed the limit, but I couldn’t decide which ones to ditch so I kinda just stole them all.”

Your mouth dropped open as Nate began to blush profusely, stammering, “Well, I mean, I didn’t… I didn’t steal them, I returned them, of course-”

“Relax,” you laughed, reaching out to touch his arm. You winked at him, responding, “I won’t tell on you, I promise. You know, I didn’t take you for the rebellious type.”

“I think we’re all a little bit rebellious, don’t you?” Nate grinned, and you smiled back. Awkwardly clearing his throat, Nate stretched his arm out as he said, “I’m Nate, by the way.”

“y/n.” you shook his hand, tucking your hair behind your ears with your other hand.

“That is a beautiful name.” Nate breathed out, more to himself than for you to hear, but you blushed.

“Thank you, Nate.” you smiled. You looked down at your watch, before letting out a sigh. “I’ve actually gotta run and check this out.”

“Oh.” Nate’s shoulders slumped slightly, the disappointment evident in his voice. “Do you, uh, come here often?”

“Well, I actually just moved to Star City.” you confessed, and Nate’s eyes widened.

“I could show you around the city.” Nate blurted before he could stop himself, and your smile widened. “I mean, if you’re cool with it.”

“I’d love that.” you gushed, pulling your phone out of your pocket. “Here, why don’t you tell me your number so I can text you?”

Had he just scored a date with you? No, Nate told himself, it was just casual – but he was so excited nevertheless. He was so excited, in fact, he had almost forgotten what his number was.

–

It was probably the best day of his life, showing you around the city. You had texted Nate the minute you left the library, and the two of you had been texting nonstop until you met up a week later. The two of you had clicked instantly, and there was not one awkward silence between the two of you. The both of you told jokes and talked about anything and everything, as if you had known each other for years.

The two of you had just finished dinner at Nate’s favorite restaurant, and he was driving you back to your apartment. You were singing to a song playing on the radio, and Nate tried his best to keep his eyes on the road, despite wanting to just stare at you. You looked so happy, bobbing your head up and down and waving your arm out the car window.

He finally pulled up at your apartment and parked the car. You turned to face each other as you said, “Thanks for taking me out, Nate, I had a lot of fun.”

“So did I.” Nate grinned. Running his hands through his hair, he added, “We should do this again.”

“Definitely.” you agreed, before suddenly looking nervous yourself. Vaguely gesturing to your apartment complex, you asked, “Do you… do you want to go inside?”

Nate’s eyes widened before he quickly nodded, and you smiled at him as the both of you got out of the car. You reached for Nate’s hand as you led him to the apartment, and fumbled to find the keys in your pocket.

Was this moving too quickly?

Screw that, Nate thought. He wanted to be with you. You were the one for him, he just knew it.

–

“Nate…” Jax shook his head as he caught Nate trying to sneak out of the Waverider. Nate cringed as he slowly turned around to face Jax, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “I can’t let you leave the ship – Sara’s orders.”

“Jax, please.” Nate begged. “There’s something really important I need to do.”

“Look, man,” Jax stepped closer to Nate, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he shrugged. “I don’t know why Sara insists you stay behind, but she’s gotta have a good reason for it. Just trust her, dude, she’s trying to protect you.”

Nate scoffed and shook his head. “Jax, just help me out. I’ll be back before the team returns. And even if I don’t, I’ll take full responsibility. I’ll say I knocked you out!”

“Seriously?” Jax raised his eyebrows, and Nate sighed.

“It was worth a shot.” Nate muttered. “Jax, this is Star City, our home! Think about it, nothing bad is going to happen to me here that I can’t handle.”

Jax pressed his lips together, before finally throwing his hands in the air in defeat. “Promise you’ll take full responsibility?”

“I promise.” Nate nodded, before turning around and running off before Jax could change his mind.

–

“Hey,” Nate stopped a man on the street, who looked up at Nate warily. “What’s the date?”

“December 19th.” the man responded, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Ok, thanks.” Nate patted the man on the shoulder before continuing on his way. He almost felt sick just thinking about what was going to happen.

December 18th, after 2 years of dating, Nate had proposed to you. And you said yes.

As Nate approached the the office building where you worked, he thought about that day. The two of you had gone to the library again to check out some books for a paper you needed to write. Nate had written down a list of books he thought would be helpful, and as you were pulling them off the shelf, you noticed there was one book that looked familiar – the book you had checked out when you and Nate first met.

“Oh my gosh, Nate.” you nudged him excitedly, holding up the book. “Remember this?”

You began to flip through it absentmindedly, before noticing a sticky note at the back of it. Scrawled in a handwriting you immediately recognized as Nate’s, your mouth dropped open as you read it.

Will you marry me?

You turned around to see Nate, already on one knee, open a box with a glittering ring inside. He smiled at you as he asked, “Well, what do you say?”

You laughed, blinking back tears of joy as you responded, “I think I’d be an idiot to say no.”

As Nate slid the ring on your finger and wrapped his arms around your waist to kiss you, he thought about the day he showed you around Star City, and how he thought that was probably the best day of his life.

This was definitely the best day of his life.

–

Nate was about to enter the lobby of the building, when someone cleared their throat behind him.

“Nate, what are you doing?” Sara asked, and Nate whipped around.

“How did you know I’d be here?” Nate groaned, and Sara shrugged.

“I put a tracking device in your jacket.” she responded, and Nate shrugged his jacket off and tossed it at her, which she caught without looking. “I knew you’d figure out what was going on at one point, and I knew you’d come here.”

“I have to save them, Sara.” Nate said, his voice cracking, and Sara sighed. She knew what Nate was going through, and as much as she wanted to let him, she knew the consequences. “y/n’s going to leave any minute now, and-”

“I can’t let you, Nate.” Sara interrupted, and Nate brought his hand to his face. “You don’t know what’ll happen to the timeline if you change this.”

“Sara, in less than an hour the only person I’ve ever loved is going to get on the road to drive home, except they’ll never make it. They’ll get hit by a drunk driver, and they won’t even make it to the hospital.” Nate said desperately, recalling the events almost like it was yesterday. He was waiting in his apartment for you so the two of you could go out for dinner. It was a Wednesday night, and you usually worked late on Wednesdays, so he wasn’t concerned when you didn’t come home at first. Then it reached ten o’clock. Then eleven. Then when it reached midnight, the police showed up at Nate’s doorstep and delivered the worst news of his entire life.

“Nate, calm down.” Sara tried to say, but she could see the tears welling in his eyes as he constantly looked over his shoulder, making sure you hadn’t left.

“All I need to do is to stall y/n for ten minutes.” Nate gestured wildly. “Or tell them to take another route home. I can save them!”  

“Nate, what happened, happened.” Sara reached forward and grabbed his arm. “I know you think you can change it, but you can’t mess with history – you of all people should know that.”

“I was going to marry them, Sara.” Nate choked out. “I had just proposed to them yesterday.”

“If you could save y/n and have no consequences, you know I’d let you.” Sara said, her voice low. “I know it’s hard, Nate. If I had the opportunity to save Laurel, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I miss my sister everyday, but there’s nothing I can do to bring her back. You know we can’t mess with time.”

Nate finally bowed his head, knowing Sara was right. He hated himself for acknowledging the consequences, but he had to. He wished he didn’t care, and that he had the willpower to save you anyway, no matter what would happen to the timeline.

But he knew if you were in the same position, you would do the right thing.

“Nate!”

Nate froze upon hearing your voice, and Sara looked over Nate’s shoulder and saw you approach. She had never actually met you, only read about you while researching Nate, but seeing you in person seemed to make the situation feel so much more real. You looked so innocent, and that was what struck Sara the hardest – why was it always the innocent who were hurt?

Sara looked back at Nate, who looked paralysed. She simply gave Nate a sad smile and nodded slightly, before turning around to leave the two of you in private. Nate could physically feel his heart breaking in two as he turned around, looking at you for what felt like the very first and the last time. You looked just as beautiful as he remembered you, still smiling that gorgeous smile. You had your car keys in your hand, and you walked up to him.

“What are you doing here?” you laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck as Nate instinctively wrapped his arms around your waist. “I was just about to go home.”

Nate struggled to respond, and your smile faded. You reached out to touch Nate’s face as you asked, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I… I just… I need to do something important.” he finally said, before simply grabbing your face in his hands and kissing you. Nate pulled away, pressing his forehead against yours as he caressed your cheek. “I love you, y/n.”

“I love you too, Nate.” you smiled at him, brushing your thumb against his cheek. “Don’t take too long, okay? I’ll see you later tonight, then.”

Nate screwed his eyes shut, not wanting to cry. He finally opened his eyes, and croaked out, “I’ll see you soon.”

tags: @jedisimonlewis​​

[withnive]

210731 니브(NIve)_KHIGH Interview

NIve Disserts His Musical Journey From American Pop To Korean EP, ‘Broken Kaleidoscope’

Causing ripples in two of the most loved music worlds – American and South Korean, 28-year old singer-songwriter, producer, and composer, NIve (니브) is here with his 1st mini-album, ‘Broken Kaleidoscope’. An adroit artist who made his debut with the English single ‘Getaway’ on November 9, 2018, NIve has since then been on a mission of “self-healing and healing others” through his music which maps a myriad of genres.

“I wrote this EP almost as a personal diary, but expressed through music, so you can expect to hear a lot of honesty and vulnerability!” – NIve about Broken Kaleidoscope EP

On his journey, he has traversed through multiple facets of life – beauty of existence, happiness, individuality, liberation, etc. All these reflect in his musicality and closely attune his listeners with their universal relatability and validity. He has also made his debut in South Korea with ‘Like a Fool’ in 2020 and entered a new industry. Since then, with solo songs like, ‘Tired’ and ‘Liberated’, and several contributions (as Jisoo Park) to the creation of hit songs by artists like EXO, BTS, NCT U, etc., NIve has managed to become renowned as a global artist!

“I make music to heal myself and to hopefully help others heal as well, so if that’s happening, that’s really all I can ask for.”

We at KHIGH are gratified to connect and bring to you the musings, excitement, and exceptional musicality of the multi-faceted Korean-American artist, NIve.

KHIGH: Your stage name, NIve is quite unique. Why did you choose it and what does it signify?

NIve: One day, I was trying to figure out a word or a sound that represented me, and a sound similar to “Nive” popped up in my head. Afterwards, I discovered that NIve means “being cool without having to say cool”. I really related to that meaning on a personal level because “cool” is what you make it to be. A lot of times, if you have to tell yourself that who you are or what you’re doing is cool, it actually might not be as cool as you think!

KHIGH: Starting out from a classical music background, what first got you interested in pop?

NIve: I think I just loved how different music could be in general. I wanted to start writing songs to express myself, and pop music seemed like a great place to start!

KHIGH: How has your journey been, from participating in Superstar K Season 6 to being recognized as a great Korean-American singer-songwriter and producer?

NIve: It’s been a rough ride, but I try my best to hold on! I’m grateful for all the ups and downs that I’ve experienced on this bumpy road.

KHIGH: After your U.S. debut as a singer-songwriter and the successful fame that followed it, what made you turn to the Korean music industry too? How was debuting in Korea different?

NIve: It was a natural process. There wasn’t really a thought to “separate” my debut in the US and in Korea. I write my music in both English and in Korean, so it’s still me regardless of the language, and my goal is to express myself in that moment, as best as I can. With that being said, I got to release music in Korea after collaborating with really great Korean artists like Sam Kim and Heize in particular, so that was pretty different from my time in the US.

KHIGH: Your discography has always been all about empowerment, self-discovery, and universal relatability. What fuels the liberating music and lyricism?

NIve: It all starts from my wish and hope to find my own peace in my life. There were a lot of moments in my life where I felt like I was alone in whatever I was feeling, so I wanted to create liberating music so that people know that they are NOT alone. By doing that, I end up finding myself feeling more at peace, as well!

KHIGH: Your latest release ‘ESCAPE’ shows a completely different side of your artistry as it changes the mellow, acoustic pop vibes to an upbeat Swamp-rock-infused one. How did this track come about? Is there a reason you pursued a distinct direction in this single?

NIve: I wrote ‘ESCAPE’ during a time in my life where I was feeling restless and fed up with certain emotions that I was feeling. Once I started to express that through music, the song just naturally started to turn towards this more upbeat, aggressive direction. I didn’t intentionally write ‘ESCAPE’ in this direction in particular, but it felt right.

KHIGH: ‘ESCAPE’ is also the first track off of your recently released 1st mini-album, ‘Broken Kaleidoscope’. Does this EP also follow in its footsteps with a portrayal of your versatility? What themes can we expect to see in the new EP?

NIve: I would say yes to that! The best way I can describe the EP is that it’s almost like five completely different “islands” being merged into one big one. Even though the different parts of the island look different, they all feel like they belong together. I wrote this EP almost as a personal diary, but expressed through music, so you can expect to hear a lot of honesty and vulnerability!

KHIGH: Since you are involved and skilled in all stages of music creation, we are curious to know, which part of the whole process do you enjoy the most?

NIve: Writing a song from scratch in my room! It doesn’t matter what I start with, but there’s something about the raw creation that I enjoy a lot.

KHIGH: Your tracks always have a variety of elements that are a hit among your fans, ranging from your natural vibrato, the guitar strumming to the captivating percussive pop. What factors/elements would you say dictate your creative process?

NIve: It all starts with a thought or a feeling, and then pans out based on the message or theme I want to express. From there, I decide on the musical elements or genres that fit the message or emotion��the best.

KHIGH: You have worked with a lot of renowned artists like EXO’s Chen, NCT U, Paul Kim, BTS’ Kim Taehyung, Sam Kim, Heize, etc. Can you recall a memorable moment of working with any of them?

NIve: Without picking out a specific moment, the thing I enjoyed the most in working with all those artists was being able to just sit down and talk with most of them. Those conversations are actually what sparked a lot of the creative process!

Treat your ears to the pleasurable symphony of CHEN’s and NIve’s vocals brought forth through their earlier interactions and collaborations:

KHIGH: Your short poetic notes addressed to ‘My Broken Kaleidoscope’ are quite evocative and thought-provoking. Do you think you will ever compile these musings in a “Collection” publication of sorts?

NIve: I’ve always thought about it, so we’ll see what happens!

KHIGH: The songs in your discography are a mix of a lot of genres, but we would like to know, which music genres inspire you the most as a person and as an artist?

NIve: At the root of it all is classical music. That’s how I got into music, and that’s how I still approach music to this day.

KHIGH: What are your thoughts when you see so many people being influenced and empowered by your music?

NIve: I’m just filled with gratitude. I’m so thankful that people are comforted and even empowered after listening to my music. I make music to heal myself and to hopefully help others heal as well, so if that’s happening, that’s really all I can ask for.

KHIGH: Your personality seems to convey that you are a reserved thinker kind of person. So, taking this opportunity, would you like to spill some TMIs that your fans may not know of?

NIve: A fun fact about me is that when I was in Gold Coast, Australia, my favorite thing to do was to go surfing!

KHIGH: Lastly, any message for your fans who were eagerly awaiting your latest debut EP’s release?

NIve: I appreciate you all so much and can’t wait to share this EP with you. Thank you for always waiting for me and listening to my music. This EP will feel a little different, but I promise that it’s full of impactful music. I’ll do my best to stay creative and continue to create art for you, for us. I love you all, and I hope I get to see you all in person very soon!

Check out the title track, ‘I’m Alive’ from his latest EP, ‘Broken Kaleidoscope’ if you haven’t already: What did you think of NIve’s debut EP, ‘Broken Kaleidoscope’? Are you excited to see NIve exploring the  South Korean music industry more and more? Who would you like to see him work with next? Spill your thoughts in the comments.

[love-takes-work]

Best Buds Together Fun Outline & Review

Best Buds Together Fun is a lovely little activity book...with a few Easter Eggs for fans!

This activity book is for child fans of Steven Universe (and, well, maybe for some of us who aren't so much children). Most of the quizzes and activities are lighthearted little amusements for kids, and there are paper cutouts to play with, but as usual with Steven Universe materials, there are also a few tidbits of information that might be enlightening to overanalytical fans like yours truly.

As in most of the other books, the outfits for the Gems flip flop between older and newer outfits, which just by itself makes you wonder "when" in the continuity this book fits, and then on top of that there are many references to Homeworld Gems as "villains" even though at the time of the book's release, two of the former villains are on friendly terms with the Crystal Gems.

If Peridot is still a villain for purposes of this book, it probably can be placed somewhere between episodes 67 and 68. (I say 68 because it also has a reference to Connie still wearing her glasses even though she doesn't need them, and she stops doing that after 68.) The cover features Steven and Connie high-fiving in the foreground, with a background of Pearl and Garnet in their beach outfits from "Beach Party" (with Amethyst as their beach ball).

Here's an overview of what you can find in the book. At the end I list glitches or especially interesting bits for SU nerds.

☆ Crystal Gems ☆

Steven and the Gems welcome you, encourage you to be a Crystal Gem even though you don't have Gem powers, and provide you with a detailed table of contents festooned with Crying Breakfast Friends stickers, stars, and Cookie Cats. You're then invited to fill out personal info and pick a Gem to become part of the team (potentially based on your birthstone; mine's Garnet!), and then there are some cutouts of the Crystal Gems with stands so you can put them on your desk.

They also have some catch phrases in talk bubbles that you can put beside them. Pearl's is "Some of us are trying to protect humanity" (from "Laser Light Cannon"); Steven's is "I am pretty great!" (from "So Many Birthdays"); Amethyst's is "Chill it, dude" (from "Cat Fingers"), and Garnet's is "Don't hold back!" (from "Lars and the Cool Kids"). And then you can draw yourself (with a star on your clothes, they instruct) so you can be part of the team. Cute!

Then there's a Fusion activity. You get to write about who you'd like to fuse with and do a quiz to make sure you know your Crystal Gem Fusions, featuring Alexandrite, Stevonnie, Garnet, Opal, Sugilite, and Sardonyx. Nice to see Sardonyx here! She was left out of the Guide to the Crystal Gems, presumably because it was unknown whether her reveal episode would have been released by the time the book was (it had been). And finally, there's a quiz about each Crystal Gem. Four questions each test your knowledge of Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, and Steven.

☆ Beach City ☆

Next up, Beach City. First, there's a map for when you come to Beach City! Beach City businesses are featured next, with a maze to solve to help Steven get fry bits from Beach Citywalk Fries and an empty plate on which to draw your own pizza from Fish Stew Pizza. Then there's a Ronaldo page encouraging you to discuss what weird stuff happens in YOUR hometown.

And for the Big Donut, you get a job application so you can work with Lars and Sadie. Answer honestly!

Next we're off to Funland Arcade where you can design a video game, and there's a search activity to find certain items in Greg's U Stor unit.

☆ Humans ☆

Human characters are next on the list. We get a picture of some of the human characters with hints, and then there's a Connie quiz and a Greg quiz, and there's a place to write a "killer song" like the one Greg had to win Rose Quartz's heart.

☆ Villains ☆

Next, we have a section for the villains. Cutouts for Peridot, Lapis Lazuli, and Jasper come first, with stands for them and some accessories for Peridot. These guys also get talk bubbles: Peridot's say "They're the ones that keep breaking my machines!" (from "The Return") and "You clods don't know what you're doing!" (from "Jailbreak"); Jasper's says "Why are you so weak?" (from "The Return"), and Lapis Lazuli's says "I'm tired of being everyone's prisoner. Now you're my prisoner, and I'm never letting you go!" (from "Jailbreak").

There's a place for you to record and retaliate against a Homeworld attack message, and then you're supposed to write about your fears and draw a monster. Next we see a mirror like Lapis's where you're supposed to write the story of another mirror-trapped Gem and give it a name, as well as your own intentions toward it. And then there are images of opponents the Gems have fought for you to write in their names.

☆ Objects ☆

The next section seems to be about objects. The next activity has a collection of objects that belong to characters (including less obvious ones, like a pile of junk from Amethyst's room!), and you're supposed to identify who the items belong to.

Then we have a Warp Pad Connections page where you play squares, then a list of what you'd pack for a trip in your Cheeseburger Backpack. Then there's a shot of Amethyst's room (from "So Many Birthdays") where you compare one picture with another to spot the differences.

☆ Adventure ☆

The next section is adventure themed. The next activity is a memory test; you look at a picture and then answer questions on the next page. It's reasonably difficult since some of the questions aren't super straightforward (e.g., what weapons are the Gems using? They aren't!).

Then you get to fill out specifics of your perfect celebration party on becoming a Crystal Gem, and draw a comic about your own first Gem adventure (helped along by stills from the show--Steven with star eyes and Steven packing helpful items from "Cheeseburger Backpack," the Gems collectively attacking and Garnet's reluctant face from "Marble Madness," a crowd scene of humans from "Ocean Gem," and the "congratulations" scene of Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst from "The Test"). And there's a board game you play with penny markers and coin tosses, with bonuses and setbacks themed from the show.

You also get to do a Mad Libs style fill-in adventure like "Garnet's Universe," a word search of SU-associated words, decode a message, and come up with imaginative social media status updates you think the characters would have.

There's a coloring page for the Crystal Gems, a journal page for your adventure, a place to draw your dream home, and a choice of activities to do with your best buddy. You can cut out a Steven-themed door hanger, and fill out info about your family, and plan a family meal and discussion, and document your family history.

☆ Join the Team ☆

And finally, you get to cut out your honorary Crystal Gem certificate and check your answers in the back. I thought the "answer" to your Big Donut application being an illustration of Lars saying "Hmm, we'll review your answers and get back to you!" was really cute.

☆ Notable bits and questions: ☆

1. In the Garnet quiz, you're asked to pick the component Gems of her Fusion. The choices are all familiar Gems except in two answers "Turquoise" is an option. It made me wonder if there will someday be a character named Turquoise.

2. In the Pearl quiz, you're asked to guess how old Pearl is. The only possible answer that makes sense is "several thousand years." They're not nailing her age down yet, but we know the youngest she could possibly be is around 9,000--she once claimed she was "only a few thousand years old" when she began fighting alongside Rose Quartz, and we see her doing so in an episode that took place 5,750 years ago, so even if that was the earliest she started fighting with Rose, she was a few thousand years old by that point.

3. I like that they put quotation marks around the word "born" when referring to a Gem being made.

4. One of the Steven quiz questions asks for the name of Steven's rock band. One of the multiple-choice answers is "REO Steve Wagon." Another one is "The Rolling Gem Stones." Oh my god. (Do you have to be old to get these?)

5. The Beach City map is cool--I wish there had been a way to include it in a bigger format. I have actually seen the high-res art version of this and it's so much better if you can really read everything. It has references to old docks that were destroyed, which roads go into Beach City (SR 13, I-95, toward 1A), and plenty of locations both familiar and unmentioned in the show. The peninsula Beach City is on in Delmarva is bordered by Rehoboth Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The map features a compass rose--you know, with actual roses on it and Rose Quartz's symbol. Nice touch.

6. One of the images on Ronaldo's page purports to picture a psychic duck. It kinda looks like a Psyduck from Pokémon.

7. The U Stor search is interesting. Most of the items really were pictured in Greg's storage unit at some point. I was particularly interested in the fact that the mysterious totem pole was in there, and it was reproduced as it is in the show. It's a weird item, with one face that looks like it has Rose's shield, one face that looks like it has Jasper's Gemstone, and the top face looking like one of the birds from "Giant Woman." Some of the items actually are difficult to find, which is nice, and though it asks you to find a Mr. Universe record album, the thing that's there is actually a CD.

8. In the section where you fill in the names of the show's humans, the show refers to them as "Boardies." Connie technically isn't a Boardie--she doesn't even live in Beach City.

9. The book refers to fry bits as "Steven's favorite food." I think there have been several different foods that are his favorites, but this is the first time I've seen one specifically called out to be THE favorite. Surprised it's not Cookie Cats.

10. Peridot's villain cutout, featuring her with her limb enhancers, also has a couple robonoids and some mysterious star-shaped objects. They look almost identical to the drill parasites from "Arcade Mania." That's peculiar because those were "children" of the Gem Cave Creature, not a piece of Homeworld technology.

11. In the section where you're supposed to write out the names of opponents the Crystal Gems have fought, two of them are corrupted Gem monsters and their names are kind of arbitrary descriptions, not officially assigned in the show. In the supplemental materials associated with these characters, they're called the Ice Monster (from "Monster Buddies") and Watermelon Tourmaline (from "Beach Party"), but the answer key calls the latter "Giant Puffer Fish." (The characters never call the Ice Monster anything; they just fight it.)

12. In the Spot the Differences activity in Amethyst's room, the answer key is slightly incomplete. The key shows five differences: 1. A cup that's labeled "#1 Gem" vs. "#1 Dad"; 2. Pearl's hair color; 3. Amethyst's knee star color; 4. A moon replica that's there in one shot and is gone in the other; and 5. A dark object that's next to Steven's feet in one shot but not in the other. It's a little petty, but the bottom picture is also cropped just a little differently, so you can see a shred more of the image on the bottom picture's left side and a little less of it on the right.

13. The memory test where you answer questions after looking at a scene has a potentially misleading question. They ask you to name the colors of Pearl's clothes, and the answer key only has blue, pink, and green. The star on her chest is also yellow.

14. The mini board game is cute, but it would be hard to play in the book because it doesn't lie flat and the board area would need to be open flatly enough to put penny markers on. You'd have to pull out the pages.

Activity squares give you a bonus for finding Cookie Cats at the store (but wait, they're discontinued!), set you back if you lose some of your GUYS (featuring two Dave Guys), give you a bonus if you win a singing contest at Beach-A-Palooza (even though the talent show does not appear to actually be a contest in the show), set you back if you're attacked by clones of yourself like in "Steven and the Stevens," give you a bonus if you fuse with the other Gems (whoa! the space features Alexandrite), give you a bonus for using a Warp Pad, set you back if your homemade spaceship falls apart like in "Space Race," and have you win if you're first to get back to the Temple.

15. The "choose an activity and then make plans to do the activity" page is funny since some of them aren't possible. I mean, sure I can choose between volleyball and football, or going to an amusement park vs. going to the movies, or reading a book vs. playing with toys, or riding a bike vs. a unicycle, or going to school vs. going shopping. But I'm afraid I can't make plans to fly like a bird or swim like a fish, fuse with Pearl or Amethyst, or fight a Gem Monster or Homeworld Gem. And I can't choose between Cookie Cats or Lion Lickers, since neither exists in my world and Cookie Cats are discontinued in Steven's world! Waaah!

16. The "family portrait" illustrations in the family section surprised me! The Rose Quartz portrait is well known to fans, but the image of Greg with his arm around Steven and the Gems posing around him is new! So is the image of Steven on Garnet's shoulders with all the Gems waving at you congratulating you for becoming a Crystal Gem. It's cute.

And your congratulatory certificate is signed by the Gems. Pearl has loopy cursive and Amethyst has blocky print as you'd expect, but Garnet's signature is uncharacteristically elegant; it's a little tighter but just as fancy as Pearl's. You'd expect it to be a little bolder, knowing Garnet. So this was cool to see.

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

[sciencespies]

How Hurricanes Have Shaped the Course of U.S. History

https://sciencespies.com/nature/how-hurricanes-have-shaped-the-course-of-u-s-history/

How Hurricanes Have Shaped the Course of U.S. History

Bryan Norcross remembers the moment well. It was 3:30 a.m. on August 24, 1992, and the meteorologist was in the midst of a 23-hour broadcast marathon as Hurricane Andrew, having reached Category 5 strength, bore down on Miami. He suggested to his crew that they move from the studio into an adjacent storage room, which was better protected from the fierce winds and slashing rains that were pummeling WTVJ-TV.

It was a wakeup call for many people who were watching on TV or listening on the radio. “Thousands of people over the years told me that was the moment they realized I was deadly serious,” Norcross recalls. “I had already told people to get ready to get under a mattress in a closet when the worst of it came in. That’s when many did, and four hours later they moved the mattress and could see the sky.”

Andrew was the most destructive hurricane to strike Florida, causing more than $25 billion in damage—about $46 billion today—with 44 deaths. Tens of thousands of homes, businesses and other structures were leveled as sustained winds of 165 miles per hour tore through the region. The storm would have a lasting influence.

“Hurricane Andrew is the storm that changed how we deal with hurricanes in the United States,” says Norcross, who now is a senior hurricane specialist at The Weather Channel. “The emergency management system was completely reworked. The hurricane building codes we use today came out of this storm. Also, it was the best-measured hurricane at the time. So much of what we know today about strong hurricanes is the result of Hurricane Andrew. It was a seminal storm in so many ways.”

The history of Atlantic hurricanes is inextricably linked with the history of this country, from its colonial founding through independence and into modern times. A new book coming out later this summer, A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes by bestselling author Eric Jay Dolin, delves into the storms that shaped our society in ways we may not realize.

“I love the long arc of American history and love using it as a backbone to tell a broader story,” Dolin tells Smithsonian. “Hurricanes have determined some of the things that have happened in our country, including cultural issues, politics and the way society deals with concerns it faces: the women’s rights movement, racism, the evolution of television and more.

Dolin begins more than 500 years ago with the hurricane of 1502. This massive storm in the Caribbean sank 24 ships of Christopher Columbus’ fleet off Hispaniola, the island shared today by the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The explorer, who had seen the hurricane approaching while at sea, warned residents of the Spanish settlement of the tempest and earned the distinction of becoming the first European to issue a weather forecast in the New World. The hurricane was also a harbinger of what was to come for those early colonies.

A century later, in 1609, a powerful hurricane nearly caused the collapse of England’s first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. Founded two years earlier, the colony was beset with problems from the start and relied heavily on aid from England. During the storm, a supply ship foundered and sank at Bermuda. By the time relief ships reached Jamestown, the colonists were near starvation.

“…Given the sorry state of the remaining colonists, the food on board the Deliverance and Patience was critical,” Dolin writes. “‘If God had not sent Sir Thomas Gates from the Bermudas,’ a contemporary pamphlet published in London opined, ‘within four days’ those colonists would have all perished.”

The meager rations that arrived enabled the settlement to barely survive until other supply ships arrived. One of the survivors, William Strachey, wrote about his ordeal, which William Shakespeare took as inspiration for the 1610 play The Tempest.

Farther up north, the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 clobbered the English settlements of Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This storm felled hundreds of thousands of trees, destroyed numerous houses, sank ships and killed scores of people, including eight Wampanaog tribespeople drowned by the 14-foot storm surge. A man named Stephen Hopkins, who’d been on the supply ship that sank in Bermuda in 1609 and later an original passenger on the Mayflower, was serendipitously in Plymouth for this storm.

Joseph Henry’s weather map was probably the first one in the country.

(Smithsonian Institution Archives)

Dolin also cites a pair of storms that even helped the United States gain its independence. In 1780, two major hurricanes blasted through the Caribbean islands within weeks of each other, with the second, known as the Great Hurricane of 1780, killing an estimated 17,000 people. “[This] contributed to the French decision to get their ships out of the Caribbean the following hurricane season,” Dolin says, “which coincided with them sailing north and taking part in the Battle of Yorktown.”

As the nation’s population expanded, particularly along the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf, scientists and planners sought to learn more about predicting the paths of these super-storms and defend our cities against them. The first “real-time” weather map was developed by Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Though not used specifically to track hurricanes at first, in 1856 it used new technology to show the movement of storms across the eastern half of the United States with current data provided by telegraph operators.

“Joseph Henry helped shape the world we know when he laid the foundation of a national weather service shortly after becoming the Smithsonian’s first Secretary,” wrote Frank Rives Millikan, a historian with the Joseph Henry Papers Project. “…When Henry came to the Smithsonian, one of his first priorities was to set up a meteorological program. In 1847, while outlining his plan for the new institution, Henry called for ‘a system of extended meteorological observations for solving the problem of American storms.’”

A hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900 killed thousands.

(Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

No matter the plans set out, the science of the time couldn’t warn communities with enough time to avoid the big one, even as local communities may have had the knowledge at their behest. Along the Gulf of Mexico, for instance, locals could tell when a big blow was coming if the crawfish started moving inland. But government officials were still left unprepared when the giant Galveston Hurricane of 1900 sent a huge storm surge that swept over a barrier island. The area was packed with tourists for the summer season and the hurricane killed 6,000 people, though some estimates place the death toll even higher. The death and destruction inspired the building of a nearly 18,000-foot-long cement seawall, one of the first of its kind.

Dolin wonders if this catastrophe along the Texas coast might have been avoided or at least minimized if officials in this country had been more aware of what others were saying about the development of these storms in the Gulf of Mexico.

“A priest named Benito Viñes in Cuba had been an expert predictor of hurricanes during the late 1800s and actually coordinated his efforts with the United States,” he says. “But because the Americans looked down with condescension on Cubans and their science, they didn’t pay attention to some of the signs that led up to the hurricane in Galveston.”

The most powerful storm– with wind speeds of 185 miles per hour —to make landfall in the U.S. was the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The Category 5 storm killed hundreds of World War I veterans on the Florida Keys who had been moved there following the Bonus Army March on Washington, D.C. three years earlier. Novelist Ernest Hemingway, who helped with recovery efforts, wrote a blistering article titled “Who Murdered the Vets” critical of the government, writing “… wealthy people, yachtsmen, fishermen such as President Hoover and Presidents Roosevelt, do not come to the Florida Keys in hurricane months…. There is a known danger to property. But veterans, especially the bonus-marching variety of veterans, are not property. They are only human beings; unsuccessful human beings, and all they have to lose is their lives.”

More recently, more and more powerful storms have left their mark. Hurricane Sandy was a late-season arrival in 2012 that barreled up the East Coast and slammed the northeastern United States. Though only a Category 1 upon landfall, the massive “superstorm” fooled many forecasters since it took an unexpected track toward land instead of heading out to sea. Sandy caused $65 billion in damage and flooded many states, including highly populated areas in New Jersey and New York. Power outages shut down the New York Stock Exchange for two days, only the second time in history that weather had caused such a disruption in trading (the first was the Great Blizzard of 1888).

The advent of radar and satellites enabled meteorologists to track hurricanes with greater accuracy and reliability. In addition, modern computers that could predict the paths of storms have greatly enhanced forecasts to the point where weather experts can be reasonably sure of where they are going as much as five days out.

That ability was bore fruit in 2017., when three major hurricanes hit the nation in less than a month as Harvey, Irma and Maria laid waste to coastlines across the South and the Caribbean, particularly Puerto Rico. Damage caused by these devastating storms cost hundreds of billions of dollars with thousands killed. But it could have been worse.

“The only good news to come out of this bruising hurricane season was that the National Hurricane Center’s track forecasts were the most accurate they had ever produced,” Dolin writes. “So, people at least had a good idea of where and when the hurricanes would strike.”

Waves break in front of a destroyed amusement park wrecked by Superstorm Sandy on October 31, 2012 in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

(Mario Tama / Getty Images)

Dolin argues that storms like these will increase in frequency and severity as climate change continues to cause the oceans to warm. “My book does not end on a high note,” he says. “We are in for a rough ride here on out. There is a growing scientific consensus that hurricanes in the future are going to be stronger and probably wetter than hurricanes of the past.”

Norcross, the TV weather forecaster who talked South Florida through Hurricane Andrew, sees an increase in serious storms this year and into the future. He says the average annual number of hurricanes over the past three decades was 12. Today, the figure has crept up to 14 or 15 per year. The odds now favor at least one storm of Category 3 or higher striking the U.S. each season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts 2020 will spawn 19 named storms with as many as six major hurricanes.

Dolin says policymakers must not only get serious about reducing carbon emissions but also stop new development along shorelines and enforce tougher construction standards in coastal areas against the changes that are already coming.

“We have to have some humility about our place in the fabric of life and the world,” Dolin says. “Mother Nature is in charge. It is our responsibility to take actions that are wise and protect us as much as possible. We can’t bury our heads in the sand and assume the problem is going away – because it’s not.”

#Nature

[tell--your--world]

World Building Made Simple

Building the world for your story is often treated like a big, complicated affair. Even books that claim to break it down and make it simple go into exhaustive detail, turning what should be a fun exploration of your world into a tedious chore. This is because they focus on every aspect you could possibly imagine, from government to economy to magic systems. And while it's true that these things are important, especially if you're creating an entire realm instead of changing up the world we know, it’s also a lot of work spent on details that might be irrelevant.

What I could do now is make the same old claim about having a simple method, then turn around and present a long list of steps or things to remember that will make your eyes cross. Instead, to demonstrate that world building truly isn't rocket science, I'm going to share just three steps to a functional, engaging world. And then I'm going to show you how it works by using those steps to start a new world.

The steps are as follows:

Figure out the story’s plot and create the core cast.

Develop the world only as much as necessary for the story to work.

Add details to make the world richer and more interesting.

Each step will be explained in detail as I go through them.

Figure out the story’s plot and create the core cast.

The characters and plot are the heart and soul of your world, and almost everything you create will directly impact - or be impacted by - them. The mere act of giving your protagonist a backstory is world building, as is setting up the location and events of a scene.

Since this is just an example, I’m going to use a basic fantasy plot - three adventurers have to stop a demon from entering their world.

The protagonist is a thief living on the streets, who gets roped into the adventure against his will when local law enforcement captures him. A priest announces that he’s the one prophesied to prevent the demon’s awakening, and he’s given the opportunity to atone for his crimes by doing so. His comrades are the priest in question and a member of law enforcement who ensures he doesn’t try to escape. The priest is sympathetic and encourages the protagonist to open up to him, but the guard doesn’t believe in demons and thinks the whole thing is a waste of time.

All you really need for this step is a snapshot of the characters and their situation. If you want you can take several such “pictures” to reflect the changing circumstances, or to get an idea of what happens in certain key locations. But if you don’t know exactly how the story plays out yet, just focus on the end goal and how the cast gets together and work from there.

Now that we have our main characters and their objective, we can move on to step two:

Develop the world - but only enough to make the story work.

This is where things can start to get overwhelming. A good approach is to prioritize the things you need to know so that you answer the most important questions first. So what’s the most important thing to know about the world in our example? Is the biggest question why the protagonist, of all people, is destined to stop the demon? Or does the demon itself need to be explained first? Or maybe the prophecy that started all this?

If you have ideas for how your key plot points should be handled, by all means, jot them down. Then try asking questions a little closer to home, because those are all questions that will be answered as the story progresses; you’ll have time for them later. Instead, to avoid getting bogged down, try answering the questions that apply to the beginning of the story. Let’s take a look at the major questions for our example: how did the protagonist get captured, and why is the church able to influence his fate?

These might seem mundane compared to the question of why he’s the Chosen One, but the mundanities are what make a world feel real. Would you start building a house without first laying a solid foundation? No? Well then. Let’s answer the questions.

The first thing to establish is whether the thief was caught through planning on his captors’ part, or if he has some other problem, physical or circumstantial, that made him unable to escape. For the sake of interest, let’s say law enforcement has been after him for some time. He’s been able to elude them because he knows the streets and is small and fast enough to get through spaces the guards can’t, but constant pursuit finally wears him down.

Now we have a new question: why were the guards after him, specifically? Is it a small town where even one thief is cause for excitement, or is it something else? Does he have a reputation? Did he commit an especially noteworthy crime, or is believed to have done so? We can rule out the small town possibility, because law enforcement would probably be minimal as it is - they wouldn’t send a guard along to prevent the escape of a simple thief, even if it was believed to be the only hope for their world. Since our synopsis says he’s being given a chance to redeem himself, let’s go the noteworthy crime route.

As for the other major question - why the church is able to offer that chance - let’s keep thing simple and say the town is run by a theocracy - a government headed by religious leaders. The priest in this case probably isn’t the leader of the town, since he’s also part of the company who ventures out to stop the demon, but a sufficiently large town or a city could have a church big enough to have a sizable clergy. Perhaps the priest is reputed as a Seer, or is in charge of interpreting prophecies. He might join the quest to act as a guide, a healer, or any number of other reasons.

Add details to make the world richer and more interesting.

Once you have these basics, you can start developing other aspects of the world that aren’t directly relevant to the plot, but create a consistency and level of detail that makes it feel like a real place. If we assume the priest is capable of magic, we need to lay down rules for how magic works and how it’s different from arcane magic, which doesn’t come from divine sources. If the party encounters a fantastic creature during their journey, be it a dragon or a simple goblin, we need some basic information about the creature’s normal habitat and behaviors. If they have to cross a massive river along the way, add it to your world map (and if you don’t have a map, draw one! It doesn’t have to be a work of art; if the best you can do is a wiggly blue line for the river and some green clouds for the surrounding forest, do it! The object is to know where things are, and no one else has to see your map if you don’t want them to).

The most important thing to remember at this stage is, once you have the rules, use them. Apply checks and balances to your magic system, and make sure every spell is affected, unless you have a very good reason to change things. For example, you might rule that a long, involved ritual can do things that a simple spell can’t, or that certain branches of magic, such as blood magic, can break the rules for a price. If the party encounters something that shouldn’t live in their part of the world, there should be a believable reason why - perhaps it was driven out of its territory or imported as an exotic pet.

Not every background detail is going to have plot relevance. Some of the things the characters know or pay attention to are simply a result of who they are, such as when our thief makes a habit of looking for escape routes or valuables when first entering a room. But like any other detail, stay consistent. Once he’s been established as vigilant, he shouldn’t be easy to catch off guard unless there are unusual circumstances.

If you want to develop the world in more detail beyond the main plot, character arcs and subplots are a good way to do it. Just build up the same way you did with the main plot: figure out which characters are involved and what the end goal is, work out what you need to do to move things along, and develop from there. Just remember to stay consistent and keep the information you share with the audience relevant to either the plot or character development. And, of course, have fun!

If you’re curious about my fanworks or want a better idea of my abilities as a writer, you can find my fics on the following sites: just remember that older stories don’t reflect my current writing style, and are slated for editing.

My AO3 account:

http://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkDecepticon

My fanfiction.net account:

https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4428055/

If you wish to support this blog on Patreon, you can do so here:

https://www.patreon.com/darkstarofchaos

[moss-sauce]

i talked about viddy games with my cousin and started really thinkin bout enemies and probably got too deep but still i put too much effort into the thinking

so i was just thinkin bout different enemies/monsters in games and got into how some of em have like....human-like qualities that sort of make a bit of familiarity [even if unnoticed, i guess?] so that when it reveals itself to be Different u go “whoops incorrect” and for me it is Interesting. there’s the humanoid ones that’re still like...interesting. like “oh, 2 arms, 2 legs, upright, looks like a head person!!” but then some other feature completely obliterates any familiarity that human-esque sense brings. or the ones that have that thing about them that draws in curiosity but it’s wary because it’ll still fuck you up like uhhh. we had a few specific ones we talked about. i will probably go from how It Happened For Me to just talk so buckle down boys.

so first we got these bad boys

i probably got to into these too hard because i’ve played warframe a HELL of a lot more than the other two so it is Close to me. it’s got the legs arms, and sort of head with eyes BUT do not be fooled, boys, they’re assholes. the first ones you see are the oculysts that’ll start natah and blah blah blah

but they’re really out there compared to the enemies a player will have come across already in the game so the screen flickers and that sound plays to alert the spawning of it n it’s like “OH what is this!! what is going on why’d that happen!!” and so it’s Tense and sometimes u come across the grineer that’ve been ‘scanned’ and u think “dam what wrecked these boys” and ignoring the fact that they show up as friendlies on the mini map, you typically hear them before you see them and they sound really unique and weird. you don’t have the shouting or snarling or anything like that, instead it’s that airy, echoey blabber so that tallies in for something that’s curious about it. but when you scoot in to check them out, oh shit!! they’re scanning you!! but...you’re not being hurt. bill nye the blue guy here scans you and bingo bango scoots out of there! mayhaps you think to scan it before walking in so u sneaky sneak around and scan it and oh boy it Sensed it. and it’s bailing. then Lotus [someone a player would usually like...trust a lot so far] is worried because she doesn’t know what it is and woah hey now that’s not good. activate Maximum Curiosity mode. then in TSD you come across the other types of sentients that hey ho they’re here to do business and not just take pictures and thus begins the hatred to those damage-adapting fucks

then plains of eidolon comes out! suddenly big eidolboy is introduced!

when i first came across it it was Sheer Hell. to be fair i tried playing with a friend and spawned in basically under it’s feet but once i got on my own to be more wary i got Very Interested. it makes the unique sounds that are still somewhat sentient-like, but it’s not the same. for me it doesn’t sound like one of the normal enemies where you can tell “dam they’re angry at me” but instead it sounds sort of...sad? distressed? and considering its backstory and codex entry it makes sense like this poor guy is literally broken and left behind and it just lookin for it’s friends. when you/NPCs try fighting it, it doesn’t really let out angry noises, it just makes those sounds that are kinda distressed. when it’s taken enough damage it hides and onkko says “it’s wary of you” which for me is like “this boy’s still smart” it’s still got the standards: legs n arms and walkin upright, but wait what’s that fuckin noggin there. there’s no face. where the fuck is it’s actual head what is goin on here. throughout the night, it’s just wandering around and minding it’s own damn business-- it won’t go out of it’s way to fight, it really only acts in self-defense, and again it still sounds upset it’s being messed with rather than enraged. like i genuinely don’t think i could fight one with the sound on because i’m an empathetic babby child that doesn’t like hurting things when it’s not required. so i’m just wandering the plains at night and doing my own thing but it’s still out there doin it’s cryin and stompin. godspeed my friend i love you

one of em we mentioned and that’s been super neato to me was 096 from the scp games like. look at this gangly fucker

you see the arms and legs and a head and your brain kinda goes “oh! person!! so it can’t be that bad!!” and you come across it in a room with it just sittin in the middle and whimpering so u like “dam what up” but once you’ve looked at it You’re Fucked; Done For. this gumby-lookin thing is deadset on making sure you can’t talk about it’s weird breakdown to embarass it. n it makes thos screams and the face and like danggun. what happened buddy. u got me good. i felt bad for you

then there’s this boy. the brute from amnesia. the weird like.....idk. cow noises. and it’s got the same look of the arms/legs/head BUT look at it’s feckin head man. this venus fly trap also has a bigass rod for an arm and the sorta backstory on it [and the other monster] is the “oh these used to be peoples! but they were hurt and now they’re like this” so u like “hmm can i Figure It Out what it left of them that’s human??” the mechanics of amnesia make it more complex too because you’ve got your curiosity of wanting to look at it vs. you look at it too long and you go ‘insane’ and collapse for a bit and heave to deal with theat.and this thing will whimper at some points too so it gets me thinking that oh, it might still be in pain or something but psyche. u felt bad for it and now youre dead

anyways thanks for coming to my ted talk sorry if this was incredibly unorganized if you actually read it