#but they��re both equally good at the others fields too

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

I feel myself having so much less patience these days, and I don't like it.

Patience and compassion and kindness are things that must be cultivated like tender plants - they grow by the inch and die by the foot.

Seeing into someone's heart is something that takes a little effort, but the way to do it is by reframing your outlook, like you might adjust your vision to see through water. There are layers to a person, and you have to look past what they say or do on the surface in order to get to their true motivations.

And it takes patience and holding space for people, because they are used to operating in an unsafe environment. It's like when you go to the pond, you're not likely to see frogs right away. You might need to sit quietly for a half hour before the frogs re-emerge and float to the surface. But once you see them, suddenly there are frogs everywhere! You just had to wait until your mind allowed you to take them in. People's vulnerabilities and intentions are the same way. You might need to wait a while until the person is sure you are safe to be around, or they might have been exhibiting all of those vulnerabilities and motivations pretty openly; you just couldn't tell until you knew what you were looking for.

This gets much, much harder to do when you yourself don't feel safe, especially when you aren't (or feel like you aren't) being seen as human. You also (obviously) must see the other person as equally human to yourself, or this doesn't work. Perhaps a broken, deeply flawed person; but a person nonetheless.

I work in the domestic violence field, and so I end up talking to a lot of abusers in my professional life on behalf of my clients. I've found that it helps a lot to be kind. Why? Not because it's deserved, but because it's unexpected. They come into the situation ready to fight and argue, and instead, I speak to them kindly and explain why what my clients are asking for is in everyone's best interests. This seems to deflate them pretty immediately. They come into the situation thinking I'm the boss level for "fights with my ex (or whatever)" and then I listen. I take them out of earshot of my client, I let them vent (which helps me figure out what they actually want) and then I patiently explain our position and how we're offering to resolve the situation. And you know what? It works. A lot of the time, they were expecting me to treat them like a monster. But they're not a monster; they're a person who has done some inexcusable and horrific things, but they remain a person. I think about both my abusive exes, and the truth is that they're both people I loved, and loved for a reason. I wouldn't want someone else to hurt them (even if it was in cruel words only) just because they hurt me. Sometimes, the abuser is the father (or mother) of the client's children. There is typically always anger, but what good does it do for me to vent that anger for my client? Who does it help? Nobody. If we can't agree, then fine. I will do my job of asking the tough questions without mercy. But before that? Far better to de-escalate if possible.

Another conflict resolution thing: you have to remove the aggressive third parties that are angry on one side or the other's behalf. They tend to aggravate the party and escalate the situation by talking in the person's ear and saying how unfair this is and generally making it about their own feelings rather than problem solving.

But here too, finding out where the third parties who have involved themselves in the situation actually want is critical to diffusing this as well. They are people who are righteously (at least in their mind) angry on behalf of one of the parties because they love them and this has activated their protective side. And sometimes people really do need an advocate, yes. But sometimes (a lot of times) these third parties actually get in the way of de-escalation and problem solving.

All of this requires patience, effort, cultivation. And I work hard to do that. But lately my patience has been worn thin by too many people seeing me as subhuman, and it's really starting to wear on me.

[tokimihyachi]

Achilles Heel [Pantalone X GN Reader] Chapter 3

❝I cannot kill you, for your end will become my eternal damnation.❞

Pairing/s: GN! Reader X Pantalone, Various Harbingers X Reader SYNOPSIS: Pantalone does not do well with love. He never thought, wanted, much less had experience in that field. He viewed it as a weakness, a bad omen hanging above his head. But he was prepared to make an exception for you. He'd let you become his only Achilles Heel if it meant keeping you. -> ACHILLES HEEL CHAPTER NAVIGATION

CHAPTER THREE: between the lines (3/21)

⸻ "DID YOU BRING ME HERE TO MAKE ME ENVIOUS?"

Pantalone was a considerate host, much to your surprise.You were given too much of a spacious and elaborate room for a guest, bathed in a warm bath, clothed with silken night wear paired with an equally comfortable winter coat. Nothing of the attention given to you was mediocre— if it hadn't been for the maidservants who kept sneering at your presence.

     In fact, you believe they loathed you.

     If only they had simply scowled at the sight of you then maybe you'd believe they found you repulsive to look at. No. They articulated their dislike for you through actions such as brushing your hair too harshly and accidentally tripping the tray that carried your coffee, burning your skin with the hot liquid.

     You decide to hide the burn scar and avoid the plight it may stir.

     At half past seven, the devil invited you to his office. For what reason? To annoy you as if you don't already hold a grudge against him for needlessly choking you out of spite.

     Thank Celestia for your patience.

     "Of what are you envious, [Name]?" the Harbinger asked, his hands moving in a slow manner as he ate another spoonful of his scrumptious breakfast while you sat there arms-crossed with a plate of nothing.

     "You know what I'm talking about." you glowered, "Did you bring me here because we have something to talk about or to make me hungry?"

     Pantalone's lips curled into a smile, "Perhaps both." 

     The man sips from his coffee, one which Frederick came to personally blend in his small cabin office earlier and the aroma capered the room in a medley with the maple syrup and french toast. 

     "How old are you?" you asked, an obvious attempt to obscure thoughts of the food from re-entering the surface of your mind.

      "I don't particularly see the importance of your question."

      You harrumph, "A little privy on the age, hm? Well then, Lord Regrator, what do you do for a living?"

      "We should skip the formalities [Name]. After all, we've already shared quite an intimate moment with each other yesterday." he sliced a piece of mouthwatering pancakes and brought it to his delectable lips before continuing, "To answer your question, you could say that I am a banker of sorts."

     "A banker? Like, with money? Your niche is numbers?"

     "I was not aware there were other kinds of bankers." 

     "Uhm, those who gamble? Like, they give cards and anoint the game."

     "The conductor of a gambling table is called a croupier, not a banker."

     You ignored his input, persisting with your original question, "So, are you good at it? The numbers?"

     Pantalone shakes his head. You were like a child staring at him with so much veneration despite knowing he was a Harbinger. As such, he is unable to stop the tugging of his lips. 

     How detestable it is to feel satisfaction from the likes of you.

     "I am Northland Bank's head director. That much should suffice your curiosity." Pantalone dabbed his lip with a handkerchief, swerving his eye from the plate to your face. You suppress the urge to shiver.

     "How admirable," you complimented, reaching for his coffee but he swats your hand before the cup touched your lithe fingertips. You frowned, "Is it out of inclination that you chose banking as a profession?" 

     The smile on his face disappears, and you begin to panic that you've let an offensive remark slip your brazen mouth.

     "Do you think of me so little that the probability of monetary principles being my natural talent was out of the prospect?" Pantalone spat, annoyed.

     You attempt to reach the coffee again. He moves it away from you. "Why is it that you always assume I'm disparaging your character?"

     He eyed your countenance, examining it for any indication of falsity but find nothing. "So I take it that you're not?"

     "No, of course not. I asked you that because sometimes, innate talent isn't enough of a motivation. You could be born with the most potent brain for something but want another thing that's entirely different from what you're gifted with."

     Clarity is often difficult to grasp when a person's mind is in a constant battle with the heart's desire. You've seen how it conflicted people until it ultimately ravaged their minds leaving nothing but a shell of what used to be a bright flame.

      Pantalone cleared his throat, "[Name], why is it that you ask so many questions?"

     "Well, you can say that it's my nature. I come across something or someone I don't understand and I become curious of them." You explained, shifting in your seat.

      "Curious?" He raised a brow.

      "Yes," you smiled, leaning a little to one side just enough for the light of the morning sun to kiss your figure in a soft glow.

      "I mean, what kind of person strangles you on the first meet after you've done them the favor of getting your own hands bloodied? Clearly, I should be enraged but  that doesn't prevent me from thinking you're uncanny... but not in a bad way, I guess." 

     An unmistakable flicker of delight rippled through Pantalone when his lips turn into a coy smile; the drumming of his fingers on the table coming to a halt. 

     "Do correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you confessing, dear [Name], that you find me remarkable enough to be the subject of your interest?" his tone remained the same as before but there was a hint of mirth; teasing, even, if one listened close enough.

     "Don't put words into my mouth." you avoided his gaze feeling the rush of blood to your cheeks, the realization of your words only dawning now like a broken cash register.

     The Harbinger watched as you fumbled with the cuffs of your sleeved coat, gratification seeping through his veins at the sight of your unease.

     He decides then that he would stop at that for today. "I have a business to take care of today." he pushed himself up and trudged near the wooden coat rack, the metal embellishments of his fur coat clanking together in resonant as he wore it around himself.

     You tilt your head, "You trust me enough to leave me here, alone, in your office? I might find secrets here you would want to remain hidden, who knows."

     A chuckle erupts unexpectedly from his lips, "Trust is quite the big word, no? Try as you may to flee this place, I can simply have my men search for you and bring you back." the undertone in his statement did not go amiss by your clever ear.

     "I'll be honest, I don't know why I'm still held captive. But for the free food and settlement, I really have no plans of leaving." you grinned.

     Pantalone makes no other comment as he draws near you and you realize through his thick glasses that whatever it was he was thinking is the penultimate reason he called you here.

     He stalls beside you in brevity, an inquisitive gaze studying your neck. "I believe you'll find what's in this box suitable. If you do not like it, simply throw it away." he hands you a package exorbitantly bundled in shrouded wrapping, offering no other explanation of the box's content.

     Confused, you take it from his hold, fingers touching his in the briefest of seconds, and yet your pulse spikes all the same. Whether or not Pantalone noticed he did not say, but the satisfied smile on his face as he left convinced you he did.

     When you open the neatly tied box after the man's exit, you find a new scarf within it that was beyond 'suitable.'

     You huff an air of disbelief upon realizing that the cravat he gave you was the exact color of his own.

CHAPTER THREE, END.

<- chapter two

chapter four ->

tip this broke law student here! thank you, travellers! i hope you enjoy the rest of the fic! <33

[burningexeter]

Global Justice

What is it: a reboot or re-imagining of Kim Possible (2002 - 07) that while it still carries over a lot of the signature witty dialogue-driven humor and self-awareness of the original series, will also balance it out with a new, darker espionage feel, genuine high stakes and compelling overarching storylines.

The premise for the series ultimately starts off as one thing intentionally and ends up becoming something entirely different without losing what it was the first time around.

Set in the fictional Middleton, Colorado, we at first follow high school cheerleader Kimberly Ann "Kim" Possible who despite being captain, is too cocky and over-confident for her own good and faces many of the same problems most teenagers go through. Only for literally everything in her life to change for good when on the eve of the school dance that she's in charge of putting together, Kim is kidnapped by both her rival Bonnie Rockwaller and three super-speed robots called the Bebes and is brought to a deadly femme fatale supervillain named Shego who has a special plan in mind for the dance. It's then that Kim is now forced to use all she's got including her skills to make it out of this fantastical scenario alive and stop Shego.

The thing is — she succeeds albeit in an unexpected way and just when everything seems to have ended, all six of them (Kim, Bonnie, the Bebes and Shego) are obtained by a top secret organization that Shego was once one of the best, if not the best agent before called you obviously guessed it, "Global Justice".

In order to make it out of this for their own different reasons, they each are forced to agree to become Global Justice agents, or rather a team as they all share more-than-similar martial arts and fighting skills.

While this puts them at complete odds with each other, they all turn out to be the best agents for all the jobs imaginable and prove to be an effective team while each of them deal with their own problems in their personal lives in having to balance out working for Global Justice.

Notes/Trivia/Details:

• To start things off, Shego will be given an entirely new backstory that fits her this time around:

Her real name is believe it or not, Kim as well - Kim Verrick to be exact. She was once a highly intelligent and equally skilled police detective whose incredible skills out on the field caught the attention of Global Justice who made her an agent, Kim would be a top GJ agent that defeated over 500 villains and brought several criminals to justice.

Unfortunately things would take a turn for the absolute worse, after a mysterious "incident" in upper Middleton that will be left ambigious although specific characters know about it, it left Kim with green-plasma powers and colored-skin which would then lead her to having a face-heel turn and become a new and sinister villain who now goes by the name of Shego. Currently wanted in 11 countries and already has a large kill count, this leads her back to her hometown of Middleton to begin her first evil plot as a villain which would lead her to create or rather resurrect three old friends as the Bebes, make a deal with an obnoxious high school cheerleader who as it turns out will do anything to stay on top and order them to bring her a person that has grabbed her interest as said person is related to an important part of her plan - Kim Possible.

On a fun side note -

It also turns out that not only did she go to Middleton High School when she was a teen but also was the captain of the cheerleaders as well just like the other Kim is now.

• The Bebes will also be given an entirely new backstory to fit their characters here:

Believe it or not, they were human before with the three of them being other top Global Justice agents of different origins - Nancy Ridley, a U.S. marine that was one of the bravest on the front, Judith Bennett, a U.S. soldier who led her squad into battle and Samantha "Sam" Kane, a firefighter who rescued several civilians and fellow firefighters single-handedly in a roaring building fire. All three of them would catch the attention of GJ who made them agents of theirs and while not quite on the same level as Kim (Shego), they were still some of the best agents even being in the top 10.

Unfortunately Nancy, Judith and Sam - who became close friends and allies - were killed in the same incident that gave Kim (Shego) her powers and once she went over to the other side, brought them back to life this time as identical robots she calls the Bebes and just like her, they've also had their own face-heel turns.

• As I've said previously, "Global Justice" will have much more of a full-on espionage/super-spy feel to it along with an aesthetic inspired by and similar to Brad Bird's The Incredibles and even to a certain degree Captain America: The Winter Soldier only with way more color to it. Let's actually lean in to the James Bond influence that the original series' creators had when conceiving Kim Possible. It would not only be interesting but have the show actually stand out from the numerous crappy ones that are pumped out like a factory.

• I picture Christy Carlson Romano, Nicole Sullivan, Terry Kinney Silver and Kirsten Storms all reprise their roles as Kim, Shego, the Bebes and Bonnie while for certain flashback scenes will have Karen Strassman, Salli Richardson and Lydia Mackay as Nancy, Judith and Sam.

• As for the show handles its world-building, usually with most media like this - it's always hidden or in secret, they're separate/hidden worlds or they're government cover-ups etc. basically they're all kept in secret a la Harry Potter, Men In Black, Totally Spies, Martin Mystery, Percy Jackson, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, plenty of Disney shows that you can name off the top of your head.

That's not the case at all here with "Global Justice".

In "Global Justice", it's all out in the open for all to see with no hiding whatsoever but it's all happening in these places that the rest of the world pays absolutely no attention to. There's no hiding whatsoever, all the superheroes, supervillains and spies are out there for all to see but again it's in all of these numerous places in modern society where no one cares about in the slightest. All you have to do is just simply look down let's say an average alleyway and boom, you'll see a superhero fight. That's it, that's how it works.

Obviously this will be poked fun of by some of the characters but still.

• A reoccurring thing is that Kim, Shego, the Bebes and Bonnie will all have their bumbling screw-up moments sprinkled throughout the whole series to show that they're far from perfect and are new to this - with Kim and Bonnie, it's because they're just starting out as agents and get too cocky for their own good and Shego and the Bebes, it's because A). they're just starting out as villains and B). they're just starting out as returning Global Justice agents.

• I picture this show having three seasons with 67 episodes total and on top of that, each season will be a "volume" like either a graphic novel or even the superhero show that fell from grace hard, NBC's Heroes.

Season 1 is Volume One: How To Stop A Green Woman

Season 2 is Volume Two: Operation Hellfire

Season 3 is Volume Three: The Heroes Among Us

• To help add to the show's universe, a couple of scattered around references and easter eggs that are kinda sorta blink and you'll miss them will be made to the events of other media that heavily imply a shared universe and it would actually make sense in the context of the actual series because Global Justice is a top secret organization that's goal is to protect the world from any threats necessary so of course they'd collect and gather information on past events.

For example, a reference that's rather passing will be made to the 1936 event with the archeologist, the nazis and the Ark of the Covenant.

• Also, to help add to the show's setting, it will be heavily implied that the whole show takes place over the course of a single year and that year is 2025.

• Lastly, there will be a few call-backs here and there to the original series. For example, this scene where Kim saves Ron.... will happen in "Global Justice" only this time it'll be Shego who saves Kim.

[usafphantom2]

I flew the Danish F-35 Draken

Hush KitDecember 23, 2013

May 8, 2023

Dirk Reid swapped his RAF Tornado for a Saab Draken in the Royal Danish Air Force. Here he describes the excitement and idiosyncrasies of the fabulous F-35 Delta Dragon.

“It was a single-seat, single-engined aircraft, yet went for 13 years without any hull loss – compare that with Jaguars, Harriers and F-104s.

Draken in three words..

Quirky, innovative, versatile

What was the best thing about the Draken? Adaptability – our roles included recce, anti-shipping, EW, air-ground, other versions were capable air defenders in their time. And the radio, which had hundreds of pre-studded frequencies – just rotate one knob to find the airbase, then press the button marked ‘Radar’ for the radar frequency, the one marked ’Tower’ for the tower frequency etc etc

..and the worst? Being a double delta, it’s low-speed handling. In a stall, the rear section of the wing would lose lift first, whilst the forward part would continue flying, hence the nose came up. Then the forward part lost lift, so the nose would drop, until increased speed caused it (but not the rear part) to fly again, so the nose came up again….. This was called a super-stall, recovery required the stick to be pushed forwards as the nose came down, until both parts of the wing were creating lift, and then pulling out of the subsequent dive – if you had 10,000 ft to play with. Hence the front of the stick was fitted with the ‘knife’, a narrow blade of metal that, when the AoA, or onset of AoA was too high, rapidly vibrated against the pilots fingers causing a natural immediate releasing of the stick. Also, the fuel-state indications in the cockpit, which led directly to the first hull loss for many years. The SAAB designers were very good at taking human qualities into account when developing the aircraft, but this was a rare lapse.

What is the biggest myth about the aircraft? It’s short-field capability. Despite the parachute, landing at Rønne, Bornholm, which was 6,500ft long, needed you to get it on the numbers.

What was your first flight like? Such a long time ago! Thoroughly enjoyable I recall, but a blur of activity with plenty of fuel checks – I was used to turbofans, not a turbojet!

What was your most memorable experience flying the Draken? Probably the long-range recce missions into the far east of the Baltic. We’d launch from Karup and do a training mission on our way to Rønne, where a very lean support operation would give us fuel and a fresh parachute, which we’d have to re-fit into the aircraft. The recce from there was usually a hi-lo-hi profile, with a pair of F-16s as top cover to provide radio relay. We’d do as much as we could before pulling out on fuel minimums for the cruise home with the film for the eagerly-awaiting Photo Interpreters. If we got low on fuel, it was hard to resist the temptation to slow down, which had worked very well on my previous aircraft, but the double delta produced a max range speed of 450kts at low-level or 0.87M at height!

What was the role of the Draken and in which unit did you fly? It had many roles, but 729 Sqn was primarily a recce and anti-shipping outfit. We did a lot of ship recce in the Baltic, the cameras could be mounted to face forwards, sideways, down and rearwards, there was even a 42 inch sideways-facing lens that was very useful for peering deep inland. In the anti-shipping role we weren’t equipped with any guided missiles, so weren’t blue-water capable, more using rockets, bombs and bullets for opposing landing forces.

A. Instantaneous turn rates

Excellent for it’s generation, but no match for an F-16

Sustained turn Needed the burners in! Incidentally, I was used to the Tornado, where the engine ran at max dry and the reheat was varied by the throttle once ‘through the gate’. In the Draken, the burner was on/off, and the engine speed was varied with the throttle

C. Climb rate Good for a mud-mover, but not equal to the fighter versions – we generally carried a lot under our wings.

D. General agility Not brilliant once the speed came off and the double delta started inducing drag.

E. High angle of attack performance See reference to the super stall above

F. Off-base operations Bread and butter to the Swedes, and designed into the airframe, but we never practised it.

G. As a fighter No radar in our version! We practised ACT and did well in a visual fight against older aircraft.

H. Sensors Day VFR only – we had a HUD for weapon aiming and a radalt and a laser to get the data into the weapon-aiming system – all our ordnance required visual acquisition of the target. Ironically, it had brilliant lighting for night close-formation flying, in stark contrast to my previous aircraft, the Tornado – supposedly designed for night flying!

I. In terms of combat effectiveness and survivability? The aircraft was at the end of its life and we retired it from RDAF service when I was there. The Danish were very innovative in terms of the tactics they used, but ultimately the avionics fit limited its capability.

J. Cockpit layout and comfort? Of its day – a scattering of switches and instruments, with a mid-life update thrown in! It was also on the small side, not ideal for an ex prop forward. During landing, aerodynamic braking was normally used, with the aid of the fourth set of wheels in the tail, to slow the aircraft down. There was a radio transmit switch at the rear of the stick which could get involuntarily operated if an excessive belly got in the way, causing much embarrassment.

What should I have asked you? About the safety record. It was a single-seat, single-engined aircraft, yet went for 13 years without any hull loss – compare that with Jaguars, Harriers, F-104s etc.

Did the aircraft have a nickname? It’s called the “Dragon” – no need for a nickname!

Which weapons did you deploy and which was the most spectacular from the cockpit? US dumb bombs, CBUs, cannon and rockets – firing 2 full pods of 2.75 inch rockets was definitely one of my highlights!

Did you fly DACT against types and if so which types and which was the most challenging? Not really, plenty of low-level evasion against RDAF F-16s though.

Do you love the aircraft? Super-reliable and with some outlandish features – what’s not to like?

What was unusual about Danish air force tactics and culture? The culture was very different to the RAF, which consumed all and became a way of life. The RDAF was unionised, worked a set pattern of hours through the week and the workforce scattered to the four winds when the working day had finished. There was a very open and honest culture when it came to safety, which I am sure contributed to the impressive record alluded to earlier. Tactically, they were very free-thinking, willing to innovate and try new ideas.

Dirk Reid/Sqn Ldr/729 Sqn RDAF/1991- 94.

[unquietspiritao3]

Interrupting Your Irregularly-Scheduled Fic-Related Content with An Extremely Long Note on The Situation in British Comedy

Hi there. If you don’t want to read about my thoughts on everything happening in the British comedy scene at the moment, feel free to give this a skip. I totally understand needing to take a step away from such things. But I felt it was important to address, given some of the characters in my stories are based on the people involved/being criticized. I’m also going to link this post in the author’s note of my next chapter update, but feel free to share it before then with those who might not be on Tumblr.

CW: non-detailed mentions of transphobia, sexual assault, and childhood sexual abuse

Okay. I think to start, I need to explain a few of things about me.

First, as I alluded to in the opening author’s note for Should’ve been obvious, I am just an American with a moderate obsession with British panel shows and not enough time to keep up with the entire British comedy world. I jumped into writing in this fandom with huge gaps in my knowledge, which was possibly not wise.

Second, as a way to protect my own mental health and under the advice of my therapist, I’m what you might call ‘terminally offline.’ Before I reactivated this blog for the purpose of sharing fic inspo, I had not been on social media for over a year. I still don’t use it outside of Tumblr, where I follow a very narrow selection of blogs that mostly post Taskmaster gifs (love you all, btw). I don’t watch or read the news. I have systems in place with my friends and family to keep me informed when something really big happens, but outside of that, I am purposefully oblivious. The consequence of this is that I did not know about the two situations I’ll be discussing until I saw some stray posts this past weekend, and that’s why I didn’t address it before.

Third, I always (to a fault, my friends would say) give absolutely everyone the benefit of the doubt and see the best in people until they prove otherwise—and even then, even while holding them accountable and removing them from my life if need be, I try to be compassionate. That’s not going to change; it’s just who I am.

Now for the two situations, my thoughts on them, and their impact on my writing.

The Richard Ayoade Thing

I’ve said before that I’m genderqueer (she/they, equally happy with both, btw). I’m not down with transphobia. But I’ve read that Richard is a separate-the-art-from-the-artist kind of guy, so his personal views aren’t entirely clear to me. That said, the blurb he gave makes me uncomfortable because to me it seems to imply he does agree with the views in the book. I don’t know much about Richard and haven’t consumed much content with him other than Big Fat Quiz and some random clips of various shows, so please point me to anything that would confirm or refute this. For now, I’ll leave it there. In terms of my writing, this isn’t as big of a deal, since the Richard character isn’t central to anything and could be easily retconned out if I wanted to, but I’ll talk more about the writing at the end.

The Noel Fielding Thing re: Russell Brand

Like most Americans, I was introduced to Noel through GBBO. (Well, to be fully honest, I watched the Buzzcocks spanking clips long before then, because those get passed around in spanko circles, but I didn’t know, or care, who the guy in both of them was at the time. It took awhile for my crush on him to develop.) I’ve actually never seen The Mighty Boosh or much of Noel’s standup; he’s just a bit too surreal and nonsensical for me to enjoy when he’s in complete creative control. I’ve watched interviews going back to the time he was promoting Luxury Comedy, all his episodes of Big Fat Quiz, and some episodes of Buzzcocks, in addition to GBBO. I knew he and Russell Brand and had good on-screen chemistry, but I had no idea they were off-screen friends to some degree (at least, they were in the past; more on that below) until this weekend. I also didn’t know that Noel was ever accused of being in a relationship with a 16-year-old when he was in his 30s. I experienced sexual abuse throughout my childhood. Obviously, if that accusation is true, it’s completely unacceptable regardless of the legality in the UK and I will no longer be a fan of Noel.

But rather than try to break down all my complicated feelings on this situation regarding Noel, I’m just going to link to this post, which I agree with 100%, including the part about respecting people who feel differently. The two follow-up posts on the same blog give some good additional info/thoughts. I’m working on doing my own digging, trying to find anything relevant, including the source of the claim that the then-girl in the supposed relationship denied it too. No luck there so far, [EDIT: shared what I found here and it’s in Noel’s favor!] though I have discovered that she (now a woman in her 30s) and Noel currently follow each other on Instagram, and that Noel doesn’t follow Russell Brand (nor can I find a time Noel mentioned him after 2020, right about when it seems like Brand’s right-wing conspiracy-theory crap started). Make of that what you will. Personally, it makes me give Noel the benefit of the doubt unless and until further info is revealed.

Somewhat of a side note: It seems like people are most upset about the lack of a public statement from Noel, specifically. However, what I find odd overall is how there hasn’t been a real statement from any big-name British comic. Lou Sanders was basically strong-armed into saying some stuff in an interview that was supposed to be about her book. Katherine Ryan is very clear she doesn’t want to speak about it despite being the one that called him a predator on Roast Battle years ago. There’s this article about the problem in comedy more generally which several female comics are quoted in, and this one from 2020 including Fern Brady (highly recommend you read both if you can stomach it) but no specific quotes on Brand from names I recognize even there. Radio silence. UK people, can you tell me, is this normal because of the libel laws you all have? From what I understand, it’s much, much easier to be sued for defamation against a public figure and lose over there than over here. Should we expect to wait for an arrest or conviction (if that happens) before people feel safe commenting? Or what is going on?

Impact on My Writing and Final Thoughts

I’ve been having a hard time mental-health-wise, these past few days, reconciling the human need to connect to art with the fact that all art is created by imperfect humans and you simply cannot know what is in someone else’s head or past. That includes my own art. I want it to be an escape for you all, for you to feel safe reading it, but like everyone else, I’m imperfect, and part of that imperfection is not knowing what to do.

At least for now, I’m going to be focused on More than that, and Noel and Richard have never been in the plan to appear in this fic. As for the future, I’m undecided. I feel like I need more info, but I also recognize that we might not ever get real answers.

The sad truth is that writing fanfic always comes with the risk that the thing you’ve been inspired by is later revealed to be problematic. Even if not with these two, something could come to light at any time about any of these people we base our characters on. That last Guardian article I linked should give everyone chills.

I think the best I can do with the info I have today is to say I’m writing about a fictional universe populated with fictional characters, and my use of real people to inspire those characters does not mean I endorse their actions or beliefs; past, present, or future; known or unknown to me at this time. I also want to say, though, that I respect anyone who feels they can’t engage with certain fandoms or fics. Trust me, I do understand.

Take care of yourselves. I care about you so much, internet strangers. 💜

edit: linked the wrong article quoting fern, so added that

[citizen-v2pt1]

Camp David Accords II

Camp David, Maryland

Transcript of President Carroll's opening remarks at yesterday's press conference

"Good afternoon.

In his farewell address, our first President warned us that political parties, in their lust for absolute dominance, will inevitably misrepresent the intentions of their opponents, sow dissention among the People, and threaten the democracy. Too often in the brief history of America, this prophecy has proven true. This past decade, however, has seen a disturbing escalation of this destructive competition as the parties have employed new weapons and allowed their disdain for each other to infect institutions both inside and outside of government.

Last week, an event occurred which so shocked the sensibilities of the American People that they used every means of communications available to send a message to their nation's capital. The message was "Enough - Fix This!"

In response, I invited the leadership of these entities to a long weekend here at Camp David with the intent not just of calling a truce and of putting safeguards in place to ensure that hostilities never again escalate to current levels, but to see what measures we could jointly agree upon to restore the People's trust in their government - their trust in our ability to lead.

Our discussions these last three days have been far ranging, occasionally heated but mostly civil, often going well into the evening, but insightful and enlightening for all of us.

Camp David Accords I

My colleagues will elaborate on the results of our endeavor, but I will provide a summary.

1. We concluded that unchecked partisanship can indeed tear at the fabric of society, but that political parties do have a role in the maintenance of a healthy democracy. Nevertheless, both parties have agreed to dismantle political mechanisms they have put in place to prevent third-party candidates for office from competing successfully. We will open the game and level the playing field.

2. Even those serving in Congress abhor their dependence upon corporate funding, political action committees, and wealthy donors to run for election or re-election. We are all in agreement that this system fosters corruption and must be replaced by some form of equitable public funding available to all eligible candidates. Real campaign finance reform is coming at long last.

3. We have also agreed to put an end to gerrymandering before the next federal election cycle. Henceforth, political district boundaries will follow established county lines or the equivalent thereof.

4. Congress has agreed that it can no longer claim any exemptions of any sort from the laws it has imposed, or will impose, upon others.

5. Congress has also agreed to end the practice of attaching riders to bills that are unrelated to the core legislation. This has too often been used to hide pork-barrel spending from public review and debate. Enough!

6. A further major change in the way the two houses of the Legislative Branch do business is that the prerogatives of the leadership will be curtailed. For too long we have tolerated a system that sets a few members of Congress as more equal than others. New equitable mechanisms will be designed for controlling the scheduling of debate on proposed legislation, for making committee assignments, and especially for making changes to the standing rules of the body.

7. To further encourage cooperation and communication between all members of Congress, seating arrangements will be changed to alphabetical by state.

8. Finally, we have agreed that there must be much harsher penalties for members of Congress who publicly defame their colleagues to gain political advantage. I am hopeful that from this point forward, all our elected representatives will set the standard for civil discourse in America.

The parties are turning over a new leaf. I trust the national media, state and local governments, and all responsible Citizens will follow their lead."

For more information on President Carroll's ascession to office and his administration, read "The Democracy Saga" by B. Thomas Marking.

[dirty-bosmer]

Me again lol. don't know why I asked the last q on anon. I just made a new blog for fandom stuff and am self conscious cause I don't have much on it. Didn't want you thinking I was a bot! Anywho, I've calmed down and actually have another question re: fic writing. I'm considering writing an Oblivion fic (thank you SO MUCH for the insp, fell in love with fic again while reading yours) and am wondering : What was your inspiration for Lucien and his relationship with Nim? It's so deliciously twisted, and I have only read one other fic that braves the territory you do (have you read Love and Blood on FF? also themes of obsession and the author's Lucien is VILE). Kinda rare to see a story that's not afraid of making him actually villainous, wicked, and believably the murderous lunatic he is in game (I dont want prince charming anymore!!!) I mean hear me out, the fanon is fun too and I got a kick out of it for years, but it's SO refreshing to read something beyond another iteration of the smooth, suave, reticent but romantic characterization in dozens of Lucien/Silencer fics.

Got any book recs for characters or relationships like the ones you write about? (hope this okay. I'm srsly just so excited rn like u kno the feeling when you finally get a fic that does it the way you see in your head and are like YES THAT LET ME CONSUME IT anywho here i'm rambling again good day)

My kind of people lmao. First of all, goodness, thank you again! I don’t know what I’m going to do with all these compliments besides become a puddle on the floor. 

That is seriously so sweet of you (despite the morbid nature of the content you are complimenting). And yeah, look, it's a story about two murderers and their descent into madness. The companionship forged between them is obviously not going to be pretty, heh. For a long while, however, I was worried no one would like it cause I gleaned that fanon Lucien is a little more... tame? Or he’s sexy XD Anyway, I've had people comment on how much of a sicko edgelord he is in the fic (both positively and negatively lol). I really appreciate that you love what I’ve done with him but just want to say there is no right or wrong way to do it! There’s stuff out there for everyone’s taste, and I am not and never will write with the intention of making the story palatable to everyone. I decided to give it my all writing him menacing and icky and pyscho cause that’s what intrigued me,. I'm happy with it! And I am Infinitely more happy that you like it too 🥰

And yeah, it makes me feel weird to say aloud that I love all that dark, twisted stuff in fiction, but the heart wants what it wants 🤷‍♀️ I just love a “romance” story that's not actually a romance at all but rather a work of horror— an exploration of the dark recesses of the human psyche that breed obsession and the all-consuming need to devour. I got a healthy, fulfilling relationship irl. I want my fictional characters to squirm a bit, and damn but I want to be equally uncomfortable when I indulge, ya know??

Gonna put the rest under a cut here:

As for inspiration regarding the relationship/Lucien, this is gonna sound so weird lol but Griffith and Guts from Berserk, Hannibal the TV show, the band Deftones (hit me up for song recs). Some creepy uncomfy books that explore similar dark themes: Damage by Justine Hart, The Vegetarian by Han Kang, Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov, You by Caroline Kepnes, Boy Parts by Eliza Clark. Also soooo many movies. There are too many to name (hit me up again hehe).

For Lucien, p much anytime I read/watch a character being a sick little freak I take note of it (see above). I’ve also listened to Dr. Ramani Durvasula’s podcasts about narcissism (she is a doctor of psychology and a leading expert in the field who was studying narcissism loooong before it became a commonly known personality trait). It really helped me understand the human capacity for manipulation and cruelty, how someone can go through life working to get what they want while only being capable of loving themselves. 

Oh, and you know, I looked it up and think I started Love or Blood a really long time ago but haven’t read any fic on FF in years cause the site is p much unusable to me. Was it about Janus Hassildor? I don’t think I ever got to the Lucien bits. Maybe I’ll pick it up again. I’ve read so many Lucien fics, I can surely read another, and if it’s similar tropes, I’ll probably enjoy it. 

While I have your attention, I would be remiss to not mention some other DB/Lucien fics that I enjoy. Next of Kin features a younger Lucien, and he and Tal (the MC) are delightful and dirty and so real. They have a great dynamic. The relationship feels earned. Also Lucien is believably a career assassin and rotten at the core while also retaining his humanity and the capacity for tenderness. I’m picky with romance in general. I can't do heavy handedness and often times I find the characterization of a loving Lucien kind of contrived or saccharine or just not for me (and that’s okay! It wasn’t written for me. We all have our preferences and mine do not skew tender D:), but this is flawlessly executed, lemme tell you. The writing is PHENOMENAL. Truly some of the best I’ve read among fic. I’ve raved about it on my blog, as it’s quite rare to find a story that balances its themes as well as this does. Also Fortune’s Favorite is very dear to me. It features another monstrous Lucien who is undeniably gross and predatory. He’s not the main focus, but the story is otherwise full of angst and sadness. So too light and love and oof, I got misty eyed at several parts. There are multiple relationships in this fic, each of them juicy, but Lucien’s relationship with the MC is a horrific descent, quite a disaster (in the best of ways) and truly so entertaining to read.

So yeah that was... a lot lol. Hope it helps. Also please tag me in anything you write! I get so excited to see new Oblivion fics and would love to talk shop and writing. It’s how we learn knew things and improve :)) 

[madeincosmos]

Things learned at school that I am still unlearning

1. You only have one chance to do anything, and if you fail you’re either stupid or lazy

2. Asking questions gets you in trouble

3. There’s only one correct way to do things, and it’s up to authority to decide which way it is

4. Your work is only worth as much as the local authority decides it is worth

5. You are only supposed to work on things that are assigned to you

6. You need explicit permission each time you want to do anything that wasn’t specifically assigned to you, including taking a pee

7. Cooperating with other people is cheating

8. Your work doesn’t have to serve any purpose other than measuring how much you’re worth, it will likely be discarded right away

9. You must be smart but not too smart, doing things ahead of the schedule gets you in trouble

10. Knowledge comes from lectures and books rather than experimentation

11. Education has to be serious, if you’re having too much fun you’re going to get grounded

12. Moving your body is forbidden, except for 2h/week when you will be measured on your ability to play ball games

13. There can be only one top performer, and it matters who this is

14. If you re-use something you've done before, that's cheating

15. The quality of your work can be summarized with a single number

16. It's important to be a "critical thinker", but only about things you've been told to be critical of

17. Drudgery in school is necessary as a preparation for even worse drudgery at work

18. There is no feedback, only evaluation and judgement

19. It doesn't matter if my writing actually helps me understand what I'm thinking about or is useful to anyone, as long as it sounds good and has no obvious errors

20. If an authority says something I think is incorrect, misleading, or confused, I may get punished for trying to correct or clarify

21. You are trapped in this institution. No matter how poorly it's run or how miserable you are, you can't leave

22. If you do good work that doesn't check some arbitrary boxes, it's not good work

23. You can’t choose your own projects. They need to be given to you by someone in authority. Anything you come up with doing on your own is inherently nonproductive

24. Good writing is verbose writing. Brevity will be punished

25. If there is a problem with how you do at school, you are the one who's at fault

26. The whole point of spending most of your waking hours at school for a dozen years or so is to determine if you’re a “good student” or not

27. You need to do exactly what you're told to do, asking for reasons why you're supposed to do it and about possible consequences will get you in trouble

28. You're not allowed to resolve conflicts on your own, an authority figure will step in and decide who's in the wrong (usually both) and how they need to be punished

29. Everyone needs to do exactly the same thing at the same time

30. The best response to a problem is to punish everyone equally

31. Nobody cares about how things look like from your point of view

32. There’s no context, no parallels with other disciplines, no connections between things you might have learned elsewhere, only individual bite-sized chunks of knowledge

33. Any interaction with an adult might be used to evaluate, judge or punish you

34. Your interests or personal life don’t matter, you must only speak when prompted, and only about the things the authority figure wants you to speak

35. If you made a mistake, it means you are worthless

36. You’ll never need to iterate on one thing for a long period of time, everything you create will probably end up in trash anyway

37. Experts are always right and never make any mistakes

38. You’re required to do every single thing anyone ever asks you to do at 100% of your capacity, everything is equally important and there are no priorities or tradeoffs

39. If you don't have an official certificate signed by some recognized authority proving that you're capable of doing something, you should probably leave that to experts in the field

40. Collaboration on a group project means that whoever cares most does all the work

41. School is the only source of knowledge. there's no other way to learn

42. Vacation, unlike school, is fun and exciting

43. Caring a lot about anything is nerdy and low-status

44. I can't make food. I only eat what I'm given

45. Learning only happens in a building, sitting at a desk, and listening to someone talk

46. The only way to solve problems is a top-down authoritarian decision that puts everyone in their proper place

47. You’re not allowed to ask anyone for help

48. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle of something interesting, you need to drop it immediately and move on to the next thing whenever asked or you will get punished

49. Every time you interact with an expert or someone in a position of authority, you are being evaluated. Make sure to impress them with how much you know

50. There is one correct answer to every question, and it applies equally well to everyone

51. If what you’re currently doing isn’t working, your only option is to TRY HARDER

52. Learning is something you do because it is Simply What Is Done, and you would be punished otherwise, not something you do because you have an intention or goal that learning will help you achieve

53. Only activities assigned to you by someone else have value, doing whatever you feel like doing is wasting time

54. The only way to achieve anything meaningful or important is through brute force, left to your own devices you’d just bum around

None of these is true in real life.

[ghostbustermelanieking]

(will there ever stop being an abundance of tma time travel au potential?) anyways: time travel au set now -- at the end of season 5 -- where the main season 5 crew (jon, martin, basira, melanie, georgie) end up going back to either destroy the fears or try and prevent the ritual from ever happening, instead of making a decision that could doom their world and others. they all wake up like circa 2016 and start meeting frequently in the tunnels of the archives to try and figure out a plan, while avoiding the hell out of elias to try and keep melanie and basira and georgie from being trapped at the institute too.

but you know who doesn't go back? tim and sasha. because in season 5, they're dead. so in 2016, the two of them are left with an immense amount of whiplash in the wake of this, left wondering what the hell happened to jon and martin -- one of whom they were pretty close friends with before all this happened, and the other of whom they were growing close to -- but now they're both being distant and acting strange (hiding things and getting emotional)... and not only that, but they seem to like each other now, seemingly out of nowhere. (tim and sasha find them hugging in jon's office once, and the sight is pretty startling on multiple levels.) jon's started collecting fire extinguishers and taking them down into the tunnels, and he doesn't assign anyone field work re: follow ups (especially the carlos vittery statement; he and martin both panic when that one comes up). martin spends half his time in jon's office even though neither of them seem to be doing any work, but when he does come out, he asks strange questions about how much tim and sasha like working here, and if they'd want to quit (they've both said yes at previous times, but always in a casual way -- never with this deadly seriousness and sadness that martin has). sasha mentions going to artifact storage to pick something up, and jon and martin both panic in equal, abrupt measure that startles the hell out of her. and they've both started killing spiders, with a ferocity that is genuinely startling to see in martin, who isn't lecturing jon on their importance to the ecosystem anymore.

maybe this would've be so weird if it weren't for the visitors that start coming to the archives, not to leave statements but apparently to talk to jon? three women, two of whom are the host of ghost hunt uk and the host of what the ghost -- this is weird, but it's weirder how they react to tim and sasha, especially tim -- the youtuber and the woman martin introduces as basira keep shooting tim odd, startled looks like they're surprised he's there. and sasha; melanie king keeps staring at sasha like she's seeing a ghost. this is unusual, because tim and sasha don't remember these friends -- they didn't think jon and martin had many outside friends, much less internet famous ones, and they don't understand why they're spending so much time in the archives. (tim jokes, once, that they spend so much time there, they might as well work there -- six assistants makes even less work, right, boss? -- and they react a little like he's hit them.) or why the five of them kept sequestering off in the tunnels under the archives -- there are tunnels under the archives? (yes, tunnels jon and martin randomly open and pour five full fire extinguishers into one day. how the hell did they know they were there?) the five of them spend hours in the tunnels, without ever inviting tim or sasha -- sasha tries to listen at the trapdoor, but she doesn't get much of anything. whatever they're discussing, they don't want tim and sasha to hear.

and that's not to mention how all of them react to elias. elias starts hanging out in the archives more often, hovering around tim and sasha, and asking questions they can't answer, after jon's and martin's friends start showing up three or four times a week. jon and martin have started being more hostile towards elias -- surprising, considering jon's original attempts to impress elias, but it makes more sense than how basira, melanie, and georgie react. on the few times they actually interact with elias, they clearly have a lot of contempt for him, vicious contempt that makes no sense. (once, tim swears he hears melanie mutter something about wishing they'd killed elias when they had the chance???) tim's half paranoid they're all going to be fired. but at this point, he's wondering if maybe that would be a good thing.

it's clear jon and martin are hiding things, something serious, something odd and maybe even dangerous. tim's more concerned; sasha is more angry. she starts wanting to investigating, starts asking pushing questions. steals the key to the tunnels from jon's office and asks tim to go and investigate it with her. if there's something wrong, really wrong, neither of them understand why jon wouldn't just tell them. they're friends -- or, they thought they were friends.

(meanwhile, martin and jon are panicking on the daily about how they're going to save tim and sasha in all of this. they barely know how to interact with them now, after everything, and clearly hiding things has only made it worse. but how can they explain, now? what if tim and sasha don't believe them? what if they just hate them after the explanation -- what if they already hate them? what if telling tim and sasha puts them in danger, puts them in the path of anything or anyone that might oppose them -- breekon and hope are still coming, the circus is still out there -- what if they lose sasha and tim a second time?? but what if not telling puts them in more danger -- what if they lose tim and sasha to ignorance instead of knowledge?

they don't know what to do. they are very stressed. melanie has told them to get over themselves and just explain about a dozen times.)

[noneatnonedotcom]

concept: TOTAL WAR RWBY

in a universe where the great war destroyed every kingdom and caused a collapse of civilization you play as one of the five remaining peoples of remnant as you seek to (re) forge a kingdom that can stand the test of the grimm tide

KINGDOMS

Vale: led by Ruby Rose

ruby's kingdom of vale focuses on light cavalry and ranged. her own special abilites as a general are

SILVER EYED WARRIOR: grimm are weakened greatly within her aura and can even be outright destroyed if the differance in power between her and them is great enough

OPTIMISTIC HEROISM: lower unhappiness in area's controlled by ruby means that there's less Grimm to fight overall meaning lower garisons and more money spent on the main armies

unique units

Wood Runners: long bowmen with added range and melee combat stats equal to melee infantry. light armor means that you should keep them in cover though as well as being a juicy target for cavalry. added range over most normal archers and better armor piecing with their arrows makes them a powerful, unit that can last in melee as well specializing in Anti heavy infantry

Dire corgis: large war dogs with aura unlocked. look like giant corgis because they are giant corgis. great for running off ranged units and light cav. weak to spears, though their aura lets them hang around in combat longer than most would think. they do rely on the charge bonus though and can't be controlled once they're let off the leash. can be called back to their handlers though to be repositioned

FOCUS OF CAMPAIGN: ruby's main focus is to retake the cities and villages of vale that were lost to the grimm tide. your main strategy should be to build up on patch while the rest of vale falls to the grimm before striking out. your main advantage is against the grimm not people after all. and your added happyness means that you can spend more on your armies to put in your frontlines rather than worrying about protecting your rear (ruby's got a great rear guys) your main rival will be

UNITED TRIBES OF VALE: led by Yang Xiao-Long

yang's all about shock infantry and charge bonuses. using them to break the morale of enemy armies her special abilities are

HOT STUFF: human morale lowers around her and buildings catch fire in her aura when she's in combat. she's too hot to handle

PROBABLY WASN'T IMPORTANT ANYWAYS: still recruits units and receives money from buildings that are burned down. though at a slightly reduced rate

UNIQUE UNITS

Bandits: replaces mob, cheap units that gain charge bonus when next to another bandit unit. burn down buildings when nearby. no formations though and can't brace for charges so avoid cav. low morale, they're bandits they're not sticking around when shit goes south

berzerkers: shock infantry, cause dread in enemies lowering morale. chance of going berserk which makes them unbreakable but uncontrollable may even attack allies if they're the closest unit. REALLY FUCKING STRONG ON THE ATTACK! weak to ranged

yang's campaign is all about uniting vale as a tributary state to the tribe. you can recruit units from burned down buildings and still get money so spread like a wildfire and try to show your baby sis that it's safer under your protection. be aware that grimm are gonna be a huge problem for you so keep some bandits as a garrison in every village to deal with grimm.

"some of you may die... but I don't really give a shit about you" - Yang to the bandits probably

vale is a mix of American and French culture. so yeah kinda like Louisiana plantations but with more anime

Vaccuo: led by Jaune Arc

jaune specializes in pike infantry with heavy armor and heavy knights on horseback. he's set up to be a slugger with his special abilities

AURA AMP: allied units in jaune's aura slowly recover health and have increased stats (including armor)

SCION OF HEROES: the effects of chivalry are doubled and you gain it faster.

UNIQUE UNITS

shining knights: heavy knights with aura and mounts also in aura and armor. fuck you, fuck the guy behind you, and fuck the guy behind him I'm coming through. very expensive high morale and capabilities

rainbow guard: heavy pike infantry that proudly protect the standard of the arc family. give extra morale to those around them. fuck you they're not breaking. if there's even one guy left they're still fighting.

jaune's campaign is centered around taking control of the deserts and jungles of vaccuo from your origins in the mountains and hill country of the arc territories.

vaccuo's culture is like Scotland mixed with the middle east. fiercely independent people with a very strong sense of honor. also fuck you they'd rather die then be seen as a coward so you'd better just fucking kill them all. AND FUCK TAXES! so jaune has his work cut out for him, but he's in it for the long haul

MINSTRAL: LED BY PYRRHA NIKOS

pyrrha's all about personal combat and single entity units

INVINCIBLE GIRL: pyrrha herself is fucking busted and everyone wants to be like her. single entity units like huntsmen or companions are stronger and get more XP from battles

AN OFFER THEY CAN'T REFUSE: if pyrrha has more military power than someone they have improved relations with her. peacefully annexing people is possible this way. though this can cause a problem if you expand too fast

UNIQUE UNITS

pyrrha's guard: heavy spear infantry made in the image of spartans. slow but they decimate cav outlast ranged and out fight most over infantry. but they are fucking slow and hate being flanked where their phalanx will not work.

nora and ren: two unit entity, stealth shock is the name of the game ren sneaks them in close to anything even grimm. nora deals a fuck ton of damage all at once that can't be blocked by armor and shatters units. you only get one though sorry the world isn't ready for two noras

while sino/Greco/Roman culture makes martial ability the most important, however, only champions and highly expensive units can be trained. your low-level fighters (I.e most of your army) will have to be mercenaries. still with enough champions, you can take on most things so that's good

SCHNEE DUST COMPANY led by Weiss Schnee

atlas is all about dust weapons. a necessity because of but funded by Weiss's special abilities

COMPANY MEN: units require less upkeep cost

WEISSY: she's kinda a bitch, -50 to all diplomatic relations -75 to faunas factions

UNIQUE UNITS

WEISS GUARD: dust rifle units, slow to reload but longer range than normal dust muskets. dust round in general deal moral damage greater than almost any other units in the game (only yang's berzerkers and blake's beast-men scare people more)

BIG GUNS: 24LBS rifled field guns. or cannons rather for those who don't know the difference. fire straight and have an effective range of 1500 feet. highly accurate and with enough kick to drop even the largest of grimm

atlas and the SDC by extension are based on German and Russian culture (mainly german now that the nobles are gone) and have their main campaign focused on dealing with internal divisions and grimm. their cheaper units lends themselves to using dust arms rather than melee but bare in mind they suck in melee as a result. still, weiss is of the opinion that if you can kill your enemies from the comfort of your home and simply bombard them into submission or dust, why wouldn't you?

Menagerie led by Blake belladonna

menagerie must toe the line between animal and man, utilizing special abilities like

SAVAGE REPUTATION: the effects of dread are doubled and you gain dread faster

CUNNING HUNTERS: blake has bonuses to stats and the stats of her army while ambushing or attacking at night. doing both will make the bonuses stack

UNIQUE UNITS:

white fang infantry: can deploy anywhere light armor but use spears so cav has a hard time with them

NINJA: can deploy anywhere, inspire dread, use grenades flung from slings. capable of vanishing or using smoke bombs to lower enemy stats in melee for a short time

menagerie is a mix between Australian and Polynesian cultures but they are relatively new on the world stage. having been granted the island of menagerie in the brief time before the collapse of vale after the great war. the fuanas population outside of menagerie is very low as a result of the collapse and you have to ask yourself "what will you do to ensure the survival of your people?"

menagerie is a mix between Australian and Polynesian cultures but they are relatively new on the world stage. having been granted the island of menagerie in the brief time before the collapse of vale after the great war. the funas population outside of menagerie is very low as a result of the collapse and you have to ask yourself "what will you do to ensure the survival of your people?"

concepts.

chivalry: is a meter in the game, doing honorable actions increases chivalry. making formal declarations of war and waiting a turn to attack, not doing night battles, honoring alliances and calls to arms. generally making combat harder for yourself will be seen as chivalrous. the higher your chivalry the bigger bonus you will have to morale in battles and to diplomatic interactions.

dread: dread is the opposite of chivalry and is gained by doing unchivalrous actions. it will cause the enemy to start with lower moral and cause everyone (including yourself) to lose moral more quickly. this can be really helpful against strong enemies that have better weapons than you. it will also cause diplomatic relations to be harder. using dust muskets or cannons will cause dread but only in small amounts the more you use them the more dread you'll cause

post-campaign content

finishing your kingdom will open up international diplomacy and will allow you to start a campaign in another kingdom. each with different results based on the person you're playing

jaune can marry the ruler of another kingdom giving him their special abilities (jaune can only get dust muskets and cannons after he marries Weiss btw)

Pyrrha may offer protection to the others and gains their general unit for her own army

yang may extort tribute from them and treat them as the tributaries she had before gaining access to their unique units. ruby may offer bonds of friendship and do the same

blake may create embassies and get faunas versions of each unit (they can fight at night) as well as improve her chivalric reputation with each campaign (basically lets you gain the bonuses of dread without the negatives)

and Weiss may open up branch offices and have each character as a leader under her (you basically play the official campaign as the character you choose but with access to Weiss's abilities and units now as well)

you may only do one campaign at a time. so if you're jaune you have to subjugate yang and ruby in vale before you can try to marry weiss. you gotta finish what you started before you move on basically

on each map, there's an ancient grimm. this is a massive single-unit entity and has an army of grimm backing it. defeating this grimm will grant you a major bonus to happiness and prevent further grimm from showing up later.

single unit entities are very powerful but get weaker as their health goes down. their health will recover with time though

if you finish every campaign as a single character you unlock the grimm tide. salem has taken notice of you and wants you gone before ozma has a chance to bring you to his side. grimm will spawn every turn based on the unhappiness of cities in every kingdom you will wage a war all over the world against the grimm and try to hold on as unique and powerful generals lead hords of powerful grimm to attack you. these hords will even be supplemented by the grimm attracted to your unhappiness to keep your pops happy!

if you beat every general salem herself will come to take you out. she has an unending army that will constantly get reinforcement from offscreen every time you kill off a unit and she's a capable commander in her own right with powerful magic that will prevent you from camping too much (she's out of practice so she can only cast a spell every once in a while, be sure to move when you see the strange glow) if you can manage to get your character to her through her army you'll win and defeat her once and for all

@weatherman667 don't know if you play total war but had an idea for total war rwby and wanted to know your thoughts on the various kingdoms as lead by the main characters.

anyone else who sees this and has suggestions go nuts with it. it's just a bit of fun at the end of the day. how would you incorporate a character? what would their unique units be?

[questionablygourmet]

Will Graham contains multitudes (and that’s a good thing)

Okay, I’ve been seeing a lot of edgelord meta takes on Will, lately*, and it’s bugging me enough as a phenomenon that I want to briefly address some common themes I’m seeing in them, and hopefully provide some food for thought as people continue to rewatch and write about the show. 

Will has indeed made a career out of his understanding of, and fascination with, violence.  He does explicitly admit to enjoying violence that he’s enacted (and sometimes the thought of violence he might enact), and a lot of his onscreen connection with Hannibal is centered on this mutual fascination and appreciation.  

However.

We are also explicitly told and shown, repeatedly, that not all violence is created equal, to Will.  That he has to juggle substantial, sometimes severe, amounts of fear along with that fascination and that understanding.  That he clearly sympathizes with the victims of violence that he considers unjust (even when they are also, themselves, perpetrators - Christopher, Abigail, Georgia, and to a lesser extent Peter).

In the pilot episode they’d barely begun to scratch the surface of what the show would become (given that Bryan Fuller literally started re-writing season 1 on the fly after seeing the pilot cuts), but this line of Hannibal’s is relevant and stays relevant: Your values and decency are present, yet shocked by your associations, appalled at your dreams

And the thing that keeps Will in the field, despite knowing it’s bad for him, that it is actively harming him, is the chance that he can save lives by doing so.  This stays true even in the Red Dragon arc: Molly is shown persuading him in exactly this way, and that’s shown for a reason.  Saving lives is still an important motivation for him.  (And yes, it is terribly romantic to watch him read Hannibal’s letter by firelight and imagine him pining, but let’s be honest - if an excuse to go see Hannibal had been enough of a motivating factor in its own right, he could have had one a hell of a lot sooner.)

The operative point, here, is that not only can Will possess and enact both honest compassion and murderous violence, without that tension between the two, what even is the plot?  The primary emotional arc of the entire show is rooted in that conflict!  

The other thing that grinds my gears as much in an ableism sense as a literary one is the attempted casting of all Will’s interactions with other humans as manipulative/false and/or callous and/or cruel, in light of his demonstrated capacity to do/be all of those things at certain times (often but not exclusively toward Hannibal).  

Mild social awkwardness and occasional standoffishness, which Will does demonstrate toward many other characters in the show, are not fundamentally sinister.  We are told and shown repeatedly that his preference is, for the most part, to be left alone.  When people disregard that, his reaction is roughly proportional to the degree of violation - think of it, perhaps, on a scale of Beverly to Freddie.  He’s a bit awkward with Beverly early on, but he recognizes that despite a few invasions of his personal space, she’s basically friendly, kind, and without much in the way of ulterior motives, and their relationship proceeds accordingly.  Freddie, meanwhile, begins their association by gaining access to a crime scene under false pretenses and then publicly calling him insane, and things predictably go downhill from there!    

Will isn’t obligated to be nice to people who are treating him poorly any more than a woman is obligated to smile for a catcaller, and on the one hand I’m always a bit boggled that a white cis dude is getting this kind of treatment from (part of) fandom, but on the other, the expectation that autistic people constantly perform social normativity Or Else sure is familiar.  

I do thoroughly appreciate the irony that my very first gripe in this fandom was with having run into a few too many depictions of Will as a poor helpless softboy uwu(TM), and now here we are at the opposite pole of the disk horse.  But seriously - nuance is a thing.  Will Graham contains multitudes, and that’s a good thing, because we wouldn’t have much of a show if he didn’t.  

*I am not intending to complain about “Dark!Will” fanfiction.  That’s its own, often very creative kettle of fish.  This post is specifically about interpretations of Will as he appears in the canon material.  

[tyrantisterror]

The ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest 3-D: Entry Roundup

You’ve been patiently waiting for the results of the ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest 3-D, and now... you have to wait a bit longer, but at least you’ve got an entry roundup with lots of sketches and a good bit of feedback for all the entrants!  My goal is to get the finalists illustrated in a week or two, and after that, the grand prize winner will be announced.  But, for now, the official entry roundup!  After the cut:

I should note that while I sketched these in the order they were submitted, my scanner saved the documents with random names, so they’re a bit jumbled.  You know, just in case you’re like me and would get confused noticing that it’s almost in chronological order but with some entries jumbled around.

@bugcthulhu’s Obsideban was designed as a counterpart to Rohobaron - the Black King to Rohobaron’s Red King, if you will.  Or, well, Black Queen in this case, as Obsideban also takes her personality from the “delinquent girl” archetype in Japanese media.  Bug’s designs always ooze personality, and I had a lot of fun translating this big, gnarly retrosaur into my own style.

@toothlessloveshiccup‘s Argonox is the first - but far from the last - monster in this breakdown that brings in a bit of fantasy influence to ATOM’s roster.  A golden-fleeced ram with a vicious streak, this sheep is both treasure and dragon at once.  And while it wasn’t written in the monster’s profile, given the Yamaneon-rich nature of its wool, Argonox might be able to replicate the healing power of the golden fleece too!  A very fun mammalian kaiju and excellent entry.

@highly-radioactive-nerd submitted Gunmetal Jeeves, a robot butler who can gigantomax temporarily create a holographic/hard light version of himself to fight kaiju.  That detail was a late revision added to the entry before the contest’s deadline, made after the creator realized that ATOM allows for some truly ludicrous bullshit, which is something everyone should exploit when making entries for this in my opinion.  Also, this is a robot butler who can size shift.  Revel in its awesome absurdity!

Ultranerd submitted Rajasaurus, a dimetrodon-like synapsid kaiju with electric powers.  His origin specifies that the electric powers are a result of the volatile nature of the Yamaneon deposits he mutated under, which is an interesting idea.  That’s another theme that cropped up a lot in this contest’s entries, actually - people really wanted to play with what Yamaneon can do.

Case in point, @polygonfighter’s Yamaneolith takes the Monolith Monsters homage at the heart of Yamaneon even more apparent.  I like the implication that there is a second mineral-based lifeform at the root of this Yamaneon cluster’s anomalous behavior - a parasite, perhaps?  It brings up some interesting possibilities.

@ariccio50 submitted Kukulkuzana, and damn is this a cool spin on the body plan of my martians.  I made a few changes here and there (splitting its tail into two is probably the biggest one), but tried to keep true to the original design, because holy hell is it gorgeous.  The idea that this is a mountain-dwelling creature is really intriguing to me, as it looks like a sea creature, but at the same time, that flexible and low-slung build WOULD work pretty well in mountains, and it’s just the right mix of plausible weirdness that makes for a fun alien design.

@akitymh submitted Aramzados, a Venusian monster that’s basically an organic hot rod car.  I like the idea of organic machinery being the gimmick for Venusian kaiju, and Aramzado’s does it subtly enough to not feel like that gimmick is the sole thing going for it.  I especially love this monster’s stange, apparently mouth-less blade-beaked face.

@virovac submitted Rurzar and Zar Rider, a Beyonder kaiju and mecha (respecitvely) that were both modified and repurposed by humans reverse engineering Beyonder technology to make, like, a motorcycle-saurus essentially.  It is a delightfully absurd concept, and a very, very detailed one (13 pages of description).  There’s a dark undercurrent beneath the sillyness, though, as this pair show that humanity might still be following the same path as the Beyonders before them.

@dinosaurana brings us Krangor, a humanoid monstrosity of living kelp!  The goal here was to create a Jack Kirby-esque monster dude, complete with the gibberish name and all.  He’s also made out of kelp, which feels very classic 1950′s monster-y despite me not being able to think of any monsters that were explicitly made of kelp.  I love him.

@kiryuthechimera submitted Genkakurah, a psychic retrosaur with some draconic features.  Though his substantial powerset is probably the biggest distinguishing feature of this kaiju (given that most ATOM kaiju pretty much have the same standard powers), what really draws me to him is that reptilian pseudo-beard.  It’s just a fun detail!

@glarnboudin submits Tiratola, and see, there’s that fantasy influence again!  Even more explicitly dragon-y than Kraydi, Tiratola still manages to toe the line between sci-fi and fantasy enough to fit ATOM as is while still cementing its ties to my own slice of fantasy fiction.  Man it’s good I’m doing a Midgaheim book next, huh?

@dragonzzilla submitted Scuttlebutt/Argonautilus, a hermit crab kaiju who lives in/with a hollowed out mecha.  That’s a twist I can’t recall ever hearing before, and the idea of a kaiju and a mecha having an equal partnership that doesn’t involve one being grafted to the other is really intriguing to me.  A very unique concept!

@evolutionsvoid submitted Fleagor, an enormous flea who has no idea what to do with itself now that there’s no creature large enough for it to parasitize.  I love that concept - it takes the core idea of the giant bug kaiju archetype (i.e. unsettling the audience by showing how terrifying small, “insignificant” creatures would be if our sizes were reversed) and really turns it on its head.  The name also plays on the Universal Monsters, who were a huge part of 1950′s pop culture thanks to their movies being re-released in that era, so all and all this one is very on brand for ATOM!

@skarmorysilver submitted Lilacorn, another entry that plays up that Midgaheim/ATOM connection.  Reinterpreting the mythological unicorn as an Cenozoic wooly rhinoceros-inspired monster gives it a very unique look, both in ATOM and in the general world of unicorns, and she has a bad-girl with a heart of gold personality to boot!

dracosaurus-rex submitted Florasaura, a two-headed plant/retrosaur hybrid monster.  I love me some plant monsters, I love me some retrosaurs, and I love me some rhyming the word “flora” with other words that contain similar vowell sounds, so this one has me written all over it!

@downtofragglerock submitted Sauroguana, a delightfully odd flying retrosaur.  There’s a great deal of charm to the original illustration that this sketch doesn’t quite capture - it’s a deceptively simple design with a lot of personality in it, and with those unique leg-wings it really doesn’t need a whole lot of frills to stand out.

Draxi submitted Brakan, an unimpressive burrowing retrosaur kaiju whose mastery of illusions allows it to convince other kaiju it’s actually a big, super-powerful badass that’s the ultimate fighter in the universe.  It’s a delightful parody of the concept of a fan self-insert god-mode character, with a really fun story built into it to boot!

@quinnred submitted O.N.I.A.C., a mysterious cocooned kaiju whose chrysalis has been turned into an organic computer of sorts by the people studying it, and seems to possess a fairly advanced intelligence for a kaiju.  It’s a really bizarre and ominous idea, with built in intrigue given how vague its nature is.  Is it just a kaijufied butterfly/moth who got stuck mid transformation?  A relative of the Mothmanuds?  Something else, perhaps equally alien?  Good story potential here.

shadyserpent submitted Vespilitor, a bat/retrosaur hybrid made by the nefarious Spooks Organization.  A mercurial prankster whose tendency to stir up trouble never crosses the line into maliciousness, he’s the kind of monster who would make a great foil to a lot of ATOM’s cast.  I’d especially like to see him in a prank off with Ahuul - it’d be like Bugs Bunny fighting Daffy Duck, but on a kaiju scale.

@multiversefan submitted the Yamaneon King, a nomadic kaiju whose refusal to settle down causes problems as he stirs up trouble at kaiju sanctuaries all over the globe by showing up unannounced and stirring up the locals.  He was basically designed to be a monster that the kaiju sanctuary initiative would struggle to deal with, which is a good idea for a post-ATOM Volume 2 story conflict.

Sir K submitted Jadeera, a kirin kaiju that can actually forcibly convert most of its body to Yamaneon to enter a dormant, statue-like state in a loose homage to King Shisa.  Though the fantasy elements are far more present than I usually prefer for ATOM kaiju, I think it should be noted they’re pushed that far for a purpose - a theme in Jadeera’s entry, which continues where its creator left off with their submission to the previous ATOM create a kaiju contest (Yokaigon), is that the world of kaiju is more complicated and challenging than many are willing to accept, which is a theme in ATOM itself.  Yokaigon’s more supernatural/occult powers are based on the ghost parascience of my setting, which ATOM has delved into a bit (Pathogen being the big example), so it’s not as out of left field as some might think.

@cerothenull​ brings us our final entry (unless some got lost thanks to tumblr’s shitty tagging system), the flying spider Naeranti.  She’s a kaiju spider who uses silk to make complicate hot-air balloons, more or less, and that’s just delightful.  ATOM could always use more spider-monsters, and with a really unique gimmick backing up a wonderfully distinct look, Naeranti is sure to stand out among her fellow giant arachnids.

Well, that’s the roundup!  In a week (or two, depending on how much my hand cramps) we’ll have the five finalists, and sometime after that, the grand prize winner!

[hopeymchope]

Initial Persona 5 (Royal) Thoughts

I got Persona 5 Royal for Switch on launch day and started it immediately. 

NOW, five fucking years after its release, I finally have Persona 5 in a format where I can experience it. It’s taken long enough that even the updated release (Royal) is three years old! And given how long these games are, there’s a good chance I’ll be playing it ‘til Christmas or something.

Game Status: I just completed the second of the “Palaces” and am working towards identifying my next target, with my Phantom Thief team now numbering five.

Quick info on my Persona background: I’ve explained this before, but so far I’ve played P3P and P4G already as well as P4DAN and the “Arena” spinoffs. I tried to play P2 Innocent Sin, but I bounced off it pretty hard, so I didn’t get too far. That pretty much scared me away from trying the first game or Eternal Punishment; I guess I understand now why everyone (including Atlus) seems to treat the third game as though it’s where the series began. :P

Initial thoughts on P5R from a newcomer:

When I started out, I strongly suspected that this whole “in media res” opening and the interrogation framing story weren’t present in the original P5. After all, they’re spoiling a bunch of stuff that is otherwise only implied or not yet known at all - showing you the characters that’ll make up your team (implied by the box art but not confirmed), spoiling every single target you’re going after WEEKS before the characters in the game even meet that person, etc. I was surprised to learn that they’ve always been there! I really feel it’d be much better if I wasn’t constantly being spoiled on what my next target’s gonna be all about and sometimes even shown pictures of them. I’m also a simple person who likes seeing narratives gradually escalate in intensity, but now we start out doing a RL heist in the rafters and then we have to step back to invading “mind palaces” where we can expose our identities willy-nilly and it will have zero effect in reality. So I’m like “Wow, this feels REALLY unimportant compared compared to where I need to catch up to.”

“You’re not wrong, Sae. You’re just an asshole.”

Why must every one of these games include a Good Boy who most of the squad treats like utter shit for no fucking reason?! Out of 3, 4, and 5, the guy who came the closest to maybe, kinda-sorta deserving his treatment as “the bitch” of the group was Junpei. But you better back the fuck off Ryuji right now, squad.

Speaking of those two... I both appreciate and resent Morgana in equal measure. He doesn’t seem like a bad person (cat?), and he’s obviously very helpful. He’s even kind of fun/cute at times. He’s the main resource of information for everybody, all the time. He’s also bossy and controlling in a way that made sense for like, Mitsuru in P3, but like... why must we dance to his every whim constantly? Why must our every action feel like it’s dictated by him? I understand that the answer is most likely “because somebody has to be an exposition dump and provide tutorials,” but you could do the tutorials JUST via the pop-up windows. Morgana feels like the the puppet master and true leader of the group. Protag/Ren is a figurehead who is dancing to his tune. They should’ve done like P3 and just said “Protag/Ren is the field leader for combat and exploration, but MORGANA is the actual leader who makes decisions and oversees plans.” But no, they had to put it all on Ren despite any evidence for that at this point. Which is irksome to me. ................ But hey, at least Morgana isn’t a repeat of Teddy or something, which I admit was my initial fear when I saw the “odd-looking mascot character who we first encounter in the other world and is somehow warped by it.”

He means Morgana, right?

Ann just... doesn’t really stand out to me. I guess this series already has a habit of repeating character traits and personalities, and there’s only so many tropes you can smoosh together (plus there are undoubtedly characters that I never even met), but Ann still feels like she’s not much of a unique person yet. There are elements of Yukiko (P4) and Lisa (P2) and Rise (P4) in there, but I’m still not feeling like I know her as herself yet, if that makes sense? This is the kind of thing where the individual bonding levels will probably fill in the gaps. At least she’s likable enough for the person she is right now. And hey, I found her efforts to deceive/avoid Yusuke during the second arc to be legit hilarious.

Yusuke? Him, I like. He seems distinctive from any characters I’ve met before in this series. Of course, I might just be ignorant of someone similar from P2EP or P1, but my limited experience finds him to be unique and generally likable.

The fact that it took MONTHS for anyone to ask Ren why he has a criminal record and what his side of the story is feels pretty insensitive to him. But the way Sojiro never cares ONCE to hear what happened, just shits all over you constantly and treats you like a little piece of crap and distrusts you non-stop and only softens at all when you start working for him for free? Yeah, FUCK Sojiro. I said it.

[hotdogct]

as dreamers do ||| n.jm

pairing: na jaemin x reader genre: fluff words: 2.2k a/n: hello!!! this is my first piece of writing in a very long time, so apologies if its all over the place/makes no sense!!! obviously this is all a work of fiction, disclaimer, blablabla, idk what i’m doing i just wanted to write drabbles about nct lmao, so with that being said!!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Do you trust me?”

You roll your eyes in the direction of your coworker, Jaemin, who was sitting across from you in the fluorescent lit break room located just behind Splash Mountain’s gift shop and exit. The two of you were part of the massive workforce of college aged youth that Disney recruited every year to staff their theme parks and resorts. While you weren’t initially thrilled with your role as a custodian, you learned to appreciate its quirks - and that included the unique cast of characters otherwise known as your coworkers. From the full-timers that did their best to ignore your presence, knowing another semester would just bring a fresh wave of new faces, to your fellow program cohorts - Jaemin being one of them.

Assuming he was just quoting Aladdin at you, you offer no response to Jaemin’s initial query and continue scrolling through your phone, shoveling the few remaining cheese crackers from the nearby vending machine down your throat, intending on savoring the remaining minutes of your last break for the evening.

Your thoughts wandered back to your fellow cast members. There was Daehwi, sheltered and away from home for the first time, affectionately nicknamed ‘baby’ by everyone he befriended. Wendy, with her melodic voice and cheerful disposition, eager to break into song at a moments notice. Lucas, who might’ve come to Florida to party first, but worked equally hard. Hani, who arrived a few weeks after you, always the first to come help when you radio that your restroom has overflowed, again. Even Jinho, who had initially fooled you with his youthful looks before revealing this was his third time through the program, had somehow wormed his way into your heart. But nobody had been as captivating as Jaemin. When you first met him in passing in the cramped break room, you were convinced casting had made a mistake, that he was lost on his way to costuming for entertainment. He certainly looked like a prince - perfectly straight teeth, boyishly handsome good looks. A few days later he was assigned to clean the same bathrooms as you - “bathroom buddies” as everyone affectionately would call the practice. There, in the shared stockrooms, you learned who Jaemin was beyond his beautiful face - how his friends back home called him Nana, that he was studying photography in college, that he was an only child, a helluva flirt. Even your music tastes were similar, a fact you discovered on one of the many cramped, late night bus rides back to program housing where the two of you stood packed shoulder to shoulder, like sardines in a can. Jaemin interacted with guests both young and young at heart with an effortless charm and grace. Your managers loved him immediately, and before you knew it, you found yourself incredibly enamored with him too.

It wasn’t until his hand suddenly broke through your field of vision, blocking sight of your phone, that you realized Jaemin had stood up and was now standing directly in front of you. His head covered the harshest of the overhead lights, casting a soft halo glow around his black, messy hair and broad shoulders. He smiles down at you, innocently, and you feel your heartbeat accelerate when your eyes meet his own.

“Do you trust me?” he asks, again. This time, without thought, you place your hand firmly in his.

******

Jaemin leads you out of the blinding light of the break room silently, into the dark of the early winter evening. Eyes still adjusting, you follow behind him, thankful that your corner of the park was mostly deserted - Splash Mountain still closed for the season, only a few stragglers were coming and going to use the restroom in the area. You vaguely remember that Jaemin had been assigned a nearby zone to clean that evening - which was it again…?

He leads you up a flight up stairs, then, and that’s when it hits you. Train Zone. The Frontierland Railroad Station. It was an easy zone to clean, as the railroad shut down early each night before the fireworks display. Gathering the trash in an empty zone like this was a godsend, especially when compared to the other ride queues you had to clean, oftentimes fighting constant guest traffic like a fish swimming upstream.

Lost in your thoughts, you follow behind Jaemin as he completes his task diligently, making sure each trash can within the train station is empty and re-bagged for the next morning. It had been a few days since the two of you had worked in neighboring areas, and you often found yourself tongue tied when around him. The background music loop of Frontierland was noticeably absent, the speakers within the station shut off for the night. This led to Jaemin singing nonsense songs while tying up trash bags and wiping down surfaces, dancing lightly on his feet.

Turkey leg-g-g

At the train

D-d-d-driving me insane~

All you could do was laugh at his antics, and before you knew it, the nearby banana boat parked at the exit ramp was full of trash bags. Satisfied with the results of your hard work, you were about to begin the walk to backstage, where the dumpsters were located, when Jaemin turned about face, walking instead towards the train station.

“What are you doing?!” you hiss, not wanting to shout but needing to stress your confusion at his actions. Jaemin stops at the gate, unlatches it, before turning around, beckoning you over with a smile.

“I asked you if you trusted me, didn’t I?” his voice low in your ear upon your arrival at his side, banana boat now parked safely out of any guest traffic. Jaemin unlocks the gate for you, both of you falling silent on your walk back up into the depths of the train station - no more cute, silly songs spilling from his lips.

“Are you sure we aren’t going to get caught?” your voice carries louder than intended across the empty room as you go through the turnstile, and you wince.

Jaemin’s boisterous laugh took you by surprise, followed a moment later by his hand ruffling the top of your head, messing up your hair. As if to say, foolish.

“Getting the trash from up here is technically our responsibility. So what if it took us a little long?”

He was right - the best part of your job was the agency it provided. Sure, you were cleaning up garbage and bathrooms and vomit, but you could walk around freely. Explore hidden corners and crevices of the park. You knew all too well the allures of the shared hallway between the Frontierland restrooms, the stock closet next to the Veranda breezeway, the dumpster behind the Haunted Mansion - places the rest of your desperately horny coworkers had used to hook up in weeks prior. As you follow Jaemin around a corner towards the front of the station, through an open passageway, you wonder if that’s what he has in mind. That is, until you see the view in front of you.

Jaemin had led you to a small balcony that overlooked the whole expanse of Frontierland. From above you could spot guests walking about the park to and fro, the Rivers of America flowing gently behind them in the distance. Bits and pieces of Cinderella’s Castle were visible through the tree line, shining bright in multicolor as the nightly projection show proceeded to play.

“Jaem, it’s….”

“Nice, isn’t it?” He finishes your thought for you, his hand brushing over the staged decorations of fake barrels and crates against the wall of the balcony that seemed perfect to sit upon. Moments later, Jaemin plops down with a satisfied smile on his face and pats the space beside him, silently asking you to join him.

“Nice is an understatement” you offer in reply. A small laugh leaves his lips, a breeze rolls through. For just a moment, it is quiet and still.

“I’ve been wanting to show you this place for a while, but the stars just never aligned right until tonight.”

“You mean, the computer system that automates scheduling and staffing didn’t randomly place us in neighboring areas of the park until to-” Jaemin’s stiff elbow into your side lets you know to drop the wit. That you could do, but a question lingered in your mind, still, and you did have to voice your sole concern.

“How do you not get caught up here?”

Jaemin turns around, points to the solitary light on the balcony, and it’s then that you notice the bulb is off. You might feel exposed looking down upon everyone, but quickly realize that nobody is looking up at the closed train station - let alone looking for two cast members in white uniforms in the dark, goofing off on a weeknight.

Fooling around…

You were thankful for the cover of darkness in that moment, as you felt your cheeks turn crimson at the thought. Being alone, with Jaemin, this close, in the dark...This all seemed very sudden, despite everyone knowing about your big crush on Nana - he had to know too?

“So,” Jaemin’s voice cuts through your ever-racing thoughts, and your chest goes cold. “A little birdie told me there’s something you really, really like…”

If jumping off the balcony was a safe option, in that moment, you would’ve taken it. A confirmation of your worst fears - that Jaemin was aware of your ridiculous, schoolgirl like crush on him. You are speechless, sunken, pulse racing, and terrified.

Without the usual cue of area music, caught up in the last hour, you had missed your usual clues. A loud boom caused you to jump in your seat, out of your brain, head immediately turning towards Jaemin - only to make eye contact with him, bright lights reflecting off the surface, who smiles and motions for you to turn around. Of course.

If you were known for one thing amongst your cohorts, it was that you loved fireworks. Even on the most hectic of nights you found a way to make sure you were outside during the nightly display, never taking for granted that you were being paid to watch the sky light up in time to music. You had your favorite spots to watch from, but had never once considered the train station. From the corner of Frontierland, it felt like the fireworks were almost on top of you - cascading down upon Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the expanse of empty night sky providing the perfect canvas. As the speakers above you were silent, there was no accompanying soundtrack, but it didn’t matter - you knew the whole show by heart. You were unaware of how long your mouth had been hanging open in blissful, childlike wonder, only noticing when Jaemin gently pressed his finger up against your chin, closing the space between your upper and lower lip through simple momentum. Moments later, his hand brushed over yours, testing the waters, and finding no complaint, interlocked his fingers with yours, and gravity pulls your head to his shoulder. A soft, steady hum leaves his lips, as you settle into this newfound bliss.

The rest of the fireworks show plays out in front of the two of you - two white ghosts in a dark shadow, illuminated by glowing streaks and bursts of color from the night sky. You’re working at the most magical place on earth, sure, but this felt like the most magical moment of your life.

Before you know it, the sky calms again, signaling the end of the show. You remain frozen for a moment, not wanting to leave. When you finally stand back up, awkwardly untangling yourself from Jaemin’s frame in a rushed manner, you can almost feel yourself floating back down to the ground, back to reality. Jaemin, your co-worker, Jaemin the flirt. He brought you up here just to watch the fireworks after all. Had you been a bit more outgoing, a bit less awkward, maybe...

Taking a few steps towards the entryway, a sudden hand on your wrist pulls you against the wall - thankfully, out of sight of any guests, but now engulfing your entire body in shadow. And it’s here in the darkness that Jaemin’s hand releases itself from your wrist, finds its way up to your cheek. Here, he leans in and kisses you - pressing his chapped lips against yours gently, but with enough intent and purpose that you swear you were seeing stars after a few moments. It doesn’t last long, as all fairytales would tell you. When you part, Jaemin rests his forehead against yours, both slightly damp from the Florida humidity, and you can feel him smile against you, somehow breathless, letting out a low chuckle, before asking,

“Did you think I was talking about the fireworks?”

[jinxedpanda4life]

DamiRae Hospital AU?

  No I am not writing one, if I could write well I would though! So here are some HCs for a hospital AU.    If someone decides to write this then I’ll be your first reader. Also I am sort of basing things off of Grey’s Anatomy just a bit and my limited knowledge of the medical field.

- Starts of as 1st year residents, specialties may vary

- The “Titans” are residents and 1st years that show great promise, this doesn’t really play a role its just what people call them behind their backs

- Dr. Kori Anders is a OBGYN (women parts and birth) resident, a year or two away from finishing

- Dr. Richard “Dick” Grayson is is a surgery resident, trained by the hospital owner Bruce Wayne (who is a world renowned surgeon, has awards, etc), specifically general surgery

- Dr. Garfield Logan is pediatrician (kid doctor) res, bonds well with kids, but is considering going back to school to become a vet instead

- Dr. Jaime Reyes is an oncology (cancer doctor), having had cancer as a teen and is now forever trying to rid the world of it, works mostly with kids and teens

- Dr. Jonathan Kent is a physical therapist that works with pain management. Up beat guy and is always trying to brighten his patient’s lives.

- Dr. Damian Wayne is a surgical intern, blood thirsty little thing, hoping to become a neurosurgeon (brain, spine) (or cardiothoracic (heart, lungs) both are competitive)

- Dr. Raven Roth is an anesthesiologist (the drug person that knocks you out) and is starting her surgical internship (she wanted to do more than just help people get high essentially or whatever) has no current preference for any specific surgical field

- Add in characters:

-- Dr. Jason Todd, trauma surgeon (fits too well)

-- Dr. Timothy Drake diagnostician (medical detective basically) 

-- Dr. Donna Troy gynecologist

-- Terra Markov is a nurse (i don’t like Terra but nurses are the actual best)

- Story stuff:

- Damian and Raven meet as they are put under the guidance of the same resident

-Damian has an automatic dislike for Raven because she knows everyone already and is equally, if not much more, knowledgable about surgery, the OR, the ER, protocol, etc  He also thinks she is cold because she rarely shows emotion (pot kettle Damian)

- Raven can always be found in the medical archives researching old cases and studying new ones, Damian stumbles upon her when looking for an old cardiomegaly case (enlarged heart).

- Raven gets along with all of the past ‘Robins’ making her a go to intern

- Garfield can be seen whenever he is not needed trying to flirt with Nurse Markov and often goes to Raven to sulk 

- Damian and Raven are always early to pre-rounds and are typically the first ones there (usually early in the morning, getting there before 500)

- Jon bumps into Damian more often than not and they start becoming friends (Damian is reluctant at first and is still you know Damian about everything), Damian even recommends patients to him 

- Though Damian doesn’t want to really ‘hang out’ with anyone he reluctantly hangs out with the Titans, because of Jon and Dick

            - When in a large group when at a bar, club or whatever Damian tends to stay close to Raven because 1) they actually have things to talk about 2) she isn’t loud

- Raven & Damian are both assigned to a case that is frankly befuddling and have to start spending long nights and early mornings together to figure it out

- Over that period of time they learn things about each other:

-- Raven learns: 

Damian has a dog (Titus) and cat (Alfred) 

He is single (Kori told her) and lives in an apartment close to the hospital

He has lived in various countries

He is trained in multiple martial arts 

He prefers his tea with brown sugar and a slice of lemon 

His eyes are a true emerald color with a ring of gold and flecks scattered within 

He may hide it well but when Raven compliments him he becomes flustered

He speaks to himself in Arabic when he curses, trying to remember something, doesn’t want anyone to know what he is saying

He isn’t always an asshole

When he actually smiles a true and genuine smile, she has heart palpitations

-- Damian learns:

Raven has two tattoos (neither are a bird), a gang tat (she is saving up to get it removed), and a mantra in Azarathian; Azarath Metrion Zinthos

She immigrated from Azarath when she was around 8

Her notes are in Azarathian

She actually feels a lot of emotion and knows how to control them

If she is not reading about a current or past case she is reading any book or file she can get her hands on, he has caught her reading in multiple different languages; Azarathian, English, French, Russian, Arabic, Dutch, Mandarin, (could be more or less)

She lives alone and has a cat, Nevermore, and thanks to Dick he already knew she was single

She likes all tea, no matter how prepared, but prefers the sweetener to be honey

Her hair is black but shines purple, especially under the ER lights

Her eyes are a purple that at first glance look blue, like Elizabeth Taylor, he realizes though her eyes are galaxies on their own 

When she smiles the world actually stops moving, her eyes shine like stars and he never wants the world to start moving again

She always wears a necklace with a gold and ruby ring at all times (it was her mother’s wedding ring)

- When Damian starts having le feelings for Raven he considers actually seeking medical advice as this has never happened to him before

- Raven tries her best to contain her feelings when at work, going so far as one day a month staying home just to scream, cry and feel her feelings

- It does not help that new feelings towards Damian start popping up, especially since he starts bringing her tea and hanging out with her at work

- During the middle of their 2nd year of residency someone holds Raven hostage in the hospital to fix someone that person loves (this person had connections to Trigon and knew who Raven was)

- That was not a fun time for either Damian or Raven; Damian was outside the hospital pacing trying to figure something out with the other Titans trying to calm themselves and him down

- Shots are fired and when all is said and done, Raven gets shot in the abdomen and the hand (she was in ICU for a hot sec)

- Damian seemed to be there every time Raven woke up, he was always checking on her during rounds even though he wasn’t on her case

- Raven did have to have surgery on her hand and in her abdomen (idk where i’m not getting that specific), she hated being, in her words, coddled 

- Even though Raven was right handed (the one that got shot) she learned how to do everything, writing, eating, going to the bathroom, etc. (many of the other residents are impressed since she keeps working on it after her other hand heals)

- Raven’s room also becomes a space for other residents to destress and just vent about their day. She listens and gives advice, all without looking up from whatever she was doing. 

- During this time Raven becomes hooked on Pretty Pretty Pegasus

- Raven’s room is also full of cards, flowers, etc all from fellow staff and some from patients. When she leaves (she spends a couple weeks in thanks to multiple surgeries, recovery, and other minor injuries) all of the gifts litter her apartment, the cards end up in a box by her desk, she presses the flowers, and stuffed animals are donated to children’s shelter (she keeps some that she has grown attached to)

- During this time Damian is more of an ass than usual (people notice and tease him)

- Damian at some points keeps working without breaks/sleep for hours on end. Dick pulls him aside after noticing, scolds and forces him to sleep in one of the on call rooms. (He really wanted him to go home, but Damian wasn’t leaving)

- Once Raven was discharged Damian and Garfield help her back home (clothes + gifts + Raven w/a healing hand/other injuries = need help) the other Titans would have helped but were needed at the hospital

- Garfield leaves after dropping off Raven and Damian (and her stuff) as he is called in on a Peds case (could be fake, may not be) and Raven & Damian spend the rest of the time basically watching terrible movies. (with Nevermore sitting on both of them)

- That is the night Damian realizes that not only does he like Raven, but he like likes her. He starts devising plans on how to get her to date him. 

- All his plans basically are thrown out the window because of one reason or another (he kept overthinking it)(poor guy)

- It is not until their 3rd year of residency that Raven realizes her feelings towards Damian (Have I made it clear she likes him? I can’t remember...)

- She realizes her feelings when she has to crash at his place for a night (because he lives ridiculously close to the hospital, like how expensive is that??) and he tries to make sure that she is as comfortable as possible 

- She never realized how much he cared for her? Like she was always helping him out and there for him but she never realized he reciprocated that care? *Shocker*

- Raven becomes kind of a mess because of all her emotions that she is trying to bottle up. (all the corks are disintegrating and the jar is overflowing)

- Raven is during her Ortho rotation (bone surgeon people, they are cool, ik from experience) that she actually gets a good release for her emotions (setting peoples bones and drilling and hammering in pins is actually therapeutic) 

- Raven thinks that may be the specialty she chooses

- Damian saw her as a mess and could not fathom why she was said mess, he figured it was about a romantic interest after someone made an offhand comment about her love life and she became a blubbering mess (very un-Raven like)

- After all of well *motions with hands* that Raven asks why Damian doesn’t have a s/o or someone

- He says there is only person that he has been meaning to ask out (looks pointedly at Raven)

- All Raven says is “Go for it.”

And that is where my HCs end. Now if anyone who happens upon this post decides to write a Medical AU with any of these please tag me, tell me, message me. 

You do not have to give me credit, I just want to read it. 

This took me a couple of days to write up, so if it is disjointed I apologize. 

If anything needs to be corrected for any reason let me know!

 I hope this fuels some imaginations!

-I may post more HC AU things if they come to mind, we will have to see.

[time-to-cause-chaos]

i didn’t finish my chem homework yet

Peter and MJ get kidnapped after school and Tony is a worried overprotective dad™ who just wants his kid back.

(This used to be a two-shot but since I’m re-uploading it, I thought i’d just smash both chapters together, here you go)

AO3 link   WC:5,426

The first thing that Peter noticed through the harsh pounding in his skull was that he couldn’t see and there was a heavy metal weighing down his wrists.  He figured those two out pretty quickly.  He couldn’t see because he had a blindfold covering his eyes and his wrists were shackled to the ground, so he assumed he had been kidnapped.

Don’t get him wrong, he was freaking out, but the last few times he’d been kidnapped they weren’t that bad.  Either Mr.Stark came and helped him get out- with a lot of fussing afterwards - or he got out himself.  No one had figured out that he was Spiderman, which was good, it made it much easier for him to make like and get out of there without looking back on it.

His head was still dully throbbing but it was much less worse than it originally was, then the memories came crashing onto him, with another agonizing squeeze of his head.

Him and MJ were talking in the school parking lot, helping each other on the chem homework, ah shit we didn’t finish it, when those people in the cars came and...what happened after that? He racked his brain trying to remember, but no memories popped up.  

Wait.. MJ, dammit

He bit his lip frowning and, achingly, reached a leg out trying to see if she was there or at least close to him.  He would have called out her name but he didn’t want to alert the people that captured them, at least, not yet, he didn’t even know if anyone was even in the room with him.

His toe prodded something and he poked harder-

“Ow, Parker that’s my freaking thigh” 

“Oh, heh, sorry MJ”, he said, voice cracking slightly

“Mm-hmm, so how are we going to get out of here?”

“Can you see?” he tried

“Nada”

Peter fumbled blankly for a moment, “Do you remember what happened?”

MJ didn’t respond for a couple of seconds, “You don’t?”

“Must’ve hit my head”

“Yeah, ok, so those guys came and..took us?  Yeah, you weren’t waking up in the car so you probably hit your head in the parking lot, I’m pretty sure nobody saw anything so I don’t think anyone knows we’re gone”

“That's fine”, he could see- well, not really -MJ judging him

“You really need to rethink your sense of ‘fine’”

Peter would have said something but a bang shook the walls, effectively, cutting off his words.  

MJ’s foot was, lightly, leaning against Peter’s knee, and his blindfold was harshly ripped off, eyelids immediately shutting back, unaccustomed to any sort of light.

Before he could even try again to see again, “Look, I want something”

“Well duh, I want to get out of high school, but at this rate it’ll never happen”, Peter snarked, thinking of all the treacherous finals they were preparing for.

He could see now and the lights were actually pretty dim, compared to the normal brightness lights usually were.

There was a man standing in the center of the room, he seemed pretty normal, if you passed him on the street, you probably wouldn’t have blinked twice.  He was wearing a faded red t-shirt with a motorcycle on it and he had a light tan with brown hair, he seemed pretty young, no more than 25.

“Listen, I don’t want to hurt you, I swear on that, but I got friends in the other room who wouldn’t hesitate, so you’re going to unlock your phone and call up Tony Stark” his voice shook, and he sounded...scared.

Scared people do reckless things.

The man held up Peter’s phone in 2 fingers, and Peter turned his head to see MJ fully staring at the man(let's call him Jeff) down with a glare.  Sadly, Jeff didn't even blink in her direction, because if he had he would be terrified.  Peter knew that first-hand, he had been pinned with that look way too many times.  MJ could be very scary when she wanted, like Natasha.

“Look, man, you know Tony Stark could track my phone before you could blink, right?” the man’s face was paused, “He’s Tony Stark” Peter emphasized.

“We have advanced hackers protecting this area, so at least for a little bit, we’ll be safe.  Thanks for the concern though” his face hardened, “now call”

“Alright, fine”, he surrendered.

MJ cast him a side-glance and he gave her a nervous smile in return

“Can you uncuff me, so I can call him?”

“Sure, kid”

On cue, 3 beefy men stalked in, forming a half-circle around them.  One more person walked in, a woman, muscular with her ginger hair in a ponytail.  

He grimaced, he couldn’t take on everyone in such a small room, especially with MJ still chained to him, he didn’t know if he could defeat them even if they were out on a field with no one around.  Those guys looked like an elephant couldn't make them budge, they were literally covering half the lights, filling his eyes.

Jeff came behind him and freed one of his wrists from the miserable cuffs, and handed him the phone. 

The lady who had come in, pulled out a sea green dagger bejeweled with gems, it was beautiful but not helpful in this scenario.  Don’t let it fool you, it may have looked lovely but one look at the blade would show it’s still efficient.  

She knelt down next to him and gently held it against Peter’s chest, “try and cry a little, sweetheart, we want our money”

Ok, they want money.

MJ next to him tensed, “Be careful where you put that thing” 

The lady, now called Cam because Peter’s brain said so, pulled another dagger out of her pocket, a purple one now equally pretty as the other- what did she collect them? -and directed this one at MJ.

“Listen, or else your girlfriend’ll get it”

“She’s not my girlfriend”, he muttered.

Peter chewed the inside of his cheek, these people were much harsher than Jeff, who was now standing towards the back of the room watching them silently with his arms folded over his chest, eyes avoiding his.

Peter couldn’t risk getting MJ hurt so he typed in the password and made a show of him raising it to his ear.

The dialed ring took 10 seconds before it clicked and Mr.Stark picked up.

“H-hey, Mr.Stark”, his throat was dry and he cleared it, trying to get the squeak out of his voice.

“Sup, kid” Mr.Stark said, “Is May home?”

“Yeah, uh Mr.Stark, I’m not really at home right now” a small whimper broke out as Cam pressed the knife’s blade into his chest, a dribble of blood ran under his shirt.

Geez, why was she pressing it so hard, he wasn’t going to teleport through the phone line and escape.

Tony paused, “Ok, I’m tracking you right now, unless you tell me what’s going on.  Are you hurt?  Where are you?”

 MJ looped her ankle over his knee and she threw him another weak smile, probably to distract him from feeling a knife pressing into his chest.  It wasn’t even cutting deep but knowing that Cam easily could, made him worry.

“No I’m good, just-”, the phone snatched out his hands before he could respond.

“Hi, Stark, hope we’re not bothering you, but we need something from you”, Cam said, setting the phone on speaker, with a bored expression

“Actually, I am quite busy, just got pulled out of a meeting for this, but I suppose I could hear you out, as long as you let the kid go”, he replied coldly, Tony already got the gist of what was happening, good.

Faintly, in the background noise coming out of the phone, Peter heard FRIDAY’s voice saying she hasn’t tracked the call yet, he only picked it up because of his advanced hearing.

He let out a low groan, leaning against the wall behind him, trying to ease his headache, and scooched a little closer to MJ.

“There’s two of them actually, we got his girlfriend holed up here too”, MJ glared at her, “You were just sent an email, Stark, follow the simple instructions and you’ll get ‘em back, and in one piece” she added with a sick grin.

“Do you know how many people have tried this trick before? Yeah you probably do, Daily Bugle usually gets to them, anyways, not one of them has worked before.  How do you know yours will?”

Peter knew Tony was trying to stall so he could track the call, but Cam caught on, “Nice try, see you later, Iron Man, and try to remember who we’ve got over here, okay? For their sake” 

She ended the call, cutting off Mr.Starks protests, knelt down next to Peter and squinted, “So kid, why are you so special to Tony Stark?  What’re you his secret love child?”

“I’m just an intern”, Peter replied, his headache had decreased just enough to where he could ignore it, and now that the dagger wasn’t cutting into his skin anymore, he could finally breathe without worrying a blade was about to stab him.

“You’re lying”, she says with an air of finality, standing up, “but that's fine so long as we get our money” she shrugs

“Your daddy’s got 4 hours to do what we sent him or else your brain’s gonna go ka-plooey” she mimics getting shot in the head, twirling on her feet, as an extra, the big guys in the back each pulled out a gun which Peter and MJ shrink back at.

MJ had been quiet this whole time save for the occasional remarks and with a start he realized that she was scared.

It wasn’t too visible but her fingers were having a silent tap-dance on the floor next to her and she was biting down on her lip, and then there was the occasional shine of tears in her eyes that quickly diminished immediately after appearing.

Peter wanted to slap himself, she’s MJ, yes, but she’s never been kidnapped and threatened to be killed before, and to top it all off, her life is depending on a billionaire who has to pay up.  Of course, she’s going to be scared.

One of the big guys came and reattached the cuff, blocking MJ from his view for a few seconds, before everyone, even Jeff, walked out.

She looked at the floor, and only after the door to the room slammed shut again, did she look back up at him.

“MJ, I’m so sorry I got you into this mess, but we can get out, we’ll find a way and maybe Tony got the location and is already on his way”, his eyesight got blurry, MJ shouldn’t be here, she could get hurt and that couldn’t happen.  MJ knows the basics, throwing a punch, kicking someone in their stomach, but that wouldn’t help against a stupid gun.

She breathed in, “Yeah, I know we’ll be okay, it's still scary though, don’t look at me like that, dork.  It’s not your fault, and I’ll be fine just give me a second”

She closes her eyes sucking in deep breaths and Peter is unconsciously doing the same, taking in air that wasn’t there before,  forcing his tense muscles to relax. They both sigh melting against the wall.

“Mr.Stark is gonna get us out of this”

-

“You sure?” MJ asks, 2 hours later.

“Ok, well I’ve tried to break the chains, they’re not budging”, Peter answers

The past 2 hours, MJ and Peter had been joking around and laughing, almost as if they were back in the school cafeteria with Ned, snorting their eyes out over a stupid joke that was way too old to be funny at that point, and not in a dingy, dreary room, kidnapped, and out for ransom.

Still, it was easier to put on a front then, now they had around 2 hours left based on MJ’s mystical time-guessing.  Now the deadline was much closer and with their kidnappers out of sight for so long- they hadn’t reappeared after they left with Peter’s phone - anxiety was building up and it was getting harder to joke and act like they were fine, you could their smiles being forced to show and a small sheen of sweat breaking out on either of their foreheads.

Now they sat in silence waiting, Peter tried a couple more times to break through the chains or get out of them but each time they just chafed his wrists a little bit more, and MJ forced him to stop before he hurt himself more.

MJ found her eyes starting to slip closed, and she shook her head a little bit to try and clear the mindless fuzz out of her head.  Peter next to her didn’t look far from passing out too, it should have only been 5 in the afternoon about now, though they both seemed ready to zonk out of the world for the next 12 hours.

Peter was more unconscious than conscious when the door slammed open, Peter yelped at the harsh bang and jerked up.  He felt exactly like he had just woken up from an afternoon nap and he had no idea where he was.  MJ was also up and looking around like she couldn’t believe where she was.

“Ah shit, that wasn’t a dream”, she groaned

The only people who came in this time, though, were Jeff, Cam, and one of their meaty bodyguards.

Peter was still blinking ripples out of his eyes as he watched Cam come closer to them.

“Call Stark again”, she shoved, his phone into his face, and he took it nearly dropping it out of his fingers

He huffed but called, he was doing it mostly for himself though.  He wanted to hear his mentor’s voice talking, it always seemed like Tony’s words calmed him down, and he wasn’t complaining, hearing Tony Stark talk about something dumb one of his rich ‘friends’ did at a banquet was always perfect after a nightmare.  At this point, he would settle for anyone’s voice; Steve, Thor, Nat, May, Pepper, Bruce, Bucky, Sam, Rhodey, literally anyone.

If you had told a 13 year-old Peter, who had just lost his uncle and felt 100% guilty for it, that in a little over a year he’d have half the Avengers as his own little makeshift family and Tony Stark as an almost-dad, he’d have called the cops on you, but here Peter was now having a whole home in the Avengers.

He also called without protesting because as much as he wanted to listen to Tony's voice, he also wanted to know what in the world Tony was doing, because Peter wanted him and MJ out of there yesterday.

Tony picked up the first ring and Jeff stepped up this time to speak into the phone, “Where’s the money, Stark?” he hissed

“It’s only hour 2 and you gave me 4 hours, time’s not up yet”, despite his cool exterior, Peter could imagine Tony right now, sweating with anxiety, voice trembling when he fails to catch and correct it, getting frustrated because FRIDAY couldn’t get a location yet, and Peter really wants to get out of here geez.

He wants to get out of here because MJ’s here too and she could get injured and because he still has a lot of homework that’s due tomorrow and it’s really hot in here, and he’s tired because his head is pounding-

“If you wanted these kids you would've transferred the money a long time ago” Jeff spoke

“Fine, I’ll transfer it now-” Cam smirks, hearing Tony agree, “only if you let me talk to them first, give me two minutes with them and you’ll have your money then I can get them both back”

Cam frowns, “no” she says bluntly, as if she’d let him gain the upper hand in this situation

“Then my money is staying my money”

“Jessie-”

So that’s her real name.

“-give him two minutes, and we’ll get our money” Jeff said, trying to persuade her.

They had a silent conversation, staring each other down with their eyes, and Peter noticed they looked really similar, their eyes were each an emerald green and they had the same high cheekbones sculpting their face.

 They’re siblings, he realized.

Jeff didn’t look like he wanted to be there at all, in fact, he looked sick of all this, so Peter assumed his sister was forcing him to be there to get some cash.

 “Jess! Please! Let’s just get this over with”, he pleaded again.

Her eyes flashed and Peter felt compelled to scooch farther away from her out of instinct.

“Fine! This isn’t working, get out of here!”, spittle flew from her mouth and Peter had seen a fair share of crazy, broken people during his time as a vigilante.  She didn’t look so good at all, she actually looked pretty close to ripping her hair out and stomping the hell out of there.

He could tell MJ could sense that too, casting him a concerned look and gesturing her head towards the woman.  

Jeff - Peter wanted to know his real name now that he knew the sister’s - looked lost and he raised his hands, weakly, in a plea, “Jess, this was never supposed to go this far” his face broke down, and he was full-on crying now. 

Peter felt close to crying too, he absolutely despised when people were forced to do something against their will, and by his sister too.  That must feel awful for him.

MJ tried to reach out, but her fingers barely brushed his shoulder until the chains stopped her.

“Peter, please breathe” she whispered

He gasped, face unbearably hot, and the image of Tony popped up in his head-

“You gotta breathe, kiddo, you know oxygen, yeah that, you need that unless you want to pass out”, Tony knelt down next to him on the lab floor, “Can you tell me 5 things you see?...”

His breathing slowed down gradually, Tony helped me calm down from a panic attack, he thought, hazily.

MJ bit her lip, “You okay?”, Peter couldn’t feel anything at the moment but he gave her a small ‘mm-hmm’ from the back of his throat, chest aching.

He realized MJ was still staring at him, and he tilted his head just enough to look at her, “What?”

“You’re pale, how’s your head?”, he shrugged in response

The two siblings were still fighting and he couldn’t hear what Tony was saying through all of their yelling, he strained his ears, and right before, Jess caught on and hung up, he heard Natasha yell through everything else, “держись, детка” (hold on, kiddo)

He managed a smile, and looked to MJ, “They’re coming”

-

The after-effect of all the fighting had the buff guy with them in the room leave - presumably to get out of there - and had Jess pointing a gun at both Peter and MJ’s heads.

“We’ll kill them and get out of here” she spoke, Jeff was frozen watching her, hands frozen in outreach as if to stop her.

She glared, teeth bared, and aimed one gun in each hand, Peter wanted so badly to grab MJ but he couldn’t, he steeled his face and tried to give a reassuring look to her, but the realization that they were actually about to die was looming over them.

Peter strained to hear the sound of familiar repulsors but they didn’t come.

His eyes pressed shut and he heard the safety of the gun click off-

“Wait!” he yelled, “Let MJ go, please!” Jessie, looked him up and down, “please”

MJ was ogling her eyes at him, “Peter, I swear-”

“Stop, just stop, both of you are dying” 

Peter heard the gun go off, yes, but he also saw Jeff lunge at his sister knocking her and the gun down.

Coincidentally, it hit Peter’s chains against the wall, causing the socket it was in to pop out.  He yanked off the other one with his now free hand so that he could move his arms freely with only the weight of the chains hindering his movements.

He lunged for the gun on the floor and kicked it to the corner of the room, getting it out arm’s reach from either of the siblings.

“Ryan! Get the fuck off of me!”, Jessie yelled

As Peter pried MJ’s hands out of the cuffs, his brain started auto-correcting Jeff to Ryan.

Got it.

Ryan was a twig, which wasn’t a bad thing necessarily, but it made it much easier for Jessie to throw him across the room.

Peter had heard first-hand stories of Ned and MJ fighting with their siblings but this seemed a little extreme.

He threw a punch at Jessie as she ran at him, pushing MJ to get her out of the way.

They went back and forth one kick to his shin, an elbow to her stomach, and Peter had her in a good spot, ready to flip her to the ground but he’d underestimated her.  She jumped up, kicking Peter hard on his chest.  He coughed and - how the hell did she get the gun? - slammed his head with the butt of the gun, causing him to scream from the pressure on his head.  

“M-MJ” he managed, trying to get her attention from where she was preparing to knock Jessie’s head to the wall, “Tony” he whispered, as repulsors came firing into Peter’s ears, he had never appreciated the sound more.

Her face turned solemn and she ran back out of the room, nodding her head, Peter smiled, she got it.

Out of the side of his eye he could see Ryan struggling to lift himself off the floor, and Peter’s eyes fluttered as Jessie slammed him against the wall holding him up against the wall, stretching the small cut on his chest.

Throwing him over her shoulder and walking out the door, Peter agonizingly watched as the hallway they were walking through blurred through his vision.

Exiting the building, Peter saw the sun setting colorizing the sky with purple and orange.

She grabbed him and manhandled (or technically, womanhandled) him to his knees, pressing the barrel of the gun to his head.

“Stop!”, he heard Tony yell.

Oh, Tony, yay

Natasha was posed next to Tony keeping a sharp eye that she softened the slightest bit for him to see.  Next to her was MJ, a little farther back, but still holding a knife pointing towards them.  

“How about no, Stark”

Ryan ran out from behind Peter yelling for his sister to stop, Peter sluggishly blinked trying to focus the double-visioned image blurring into his eyelids.

“Kid! Focus on me”, Tony yelled

He could do that.

Tony’s voice was easy to pinpoint and he zeroed in on him, taking in the hot-rod red of the Iron Man suit.  

“Mr.Stark, I didn’t finish my chem homework” he called, earning another harsh stab of the gun into his head.

“Yeah, buddy, we’ll get to it”, Mr.Stark probably thought he was delirious, who knows, maybe he was, he wouldn’t know.

Peter remembered reading stories about loved one’s dying, they’d plead and yell, and the descriptions would say time seemed to slow down but for Peter it sped up.

“Say bye-bye”, Jessie smirked

“NO!”

“Stop!”

“PETER!”

Peter also remembered watching a video where it said if you don’t hear the bang of the gun going off, it’s because it hit you and you’re either dying or dead.

But Peter heard it, Peter heard it as clear as he’d hear music blasting in his crummy old earbuds.  

-

Tony wasn’t busy, he never really was anyways.  Sure there were board meetings and the occasional meet-ups for SHIELD, but being the Tony Stark had its perks, meaning it was pretty easy to get out of things unless Pepper was after him for a signature or conference( he’d been able to slip out of some of those too though, so hah!).  

The point is, Tony basically was able to do whatever he wanted all day which, when his mind was zooming through ideas faster than a car on a race track, was helpful and somewhat enjoyable with new theories pumping through his veins and having FRIDAY take notes of the gibberish he spewed out for later.  

Some days though, the days when that zooming car kept stuttering and stopping, was pure agony, because there was so much he could be doing - there always was - but he couldn’t get them done because his head wouldn’t cooperate with him and it felt he was ripping up, inside and out.

Today was not one of the latter days, he was going at a steady pace in his lab, the oil smudged across his arms and the music moving him as he bopped his head to the beat.  Grinning, he finished the last part of the specs and pulled out some small spare pieces for a prototype.  This was just a random idea he’d had in a dream and it wouldn’t amount to anything too special but it was pretty fun and he had an abundance of ideas on how to advance it further.

Then Pepper came, which he knew was coming because he’s been skipping way too many meetings lately and he could only hold out for so long.  

The meeting was boring, as expected, and it seemed to be dragging on forever.  He wasn’t even paying attention at this point so when Peter called, he was glad he had an excuse as he quickly turned to Pepper and showed her the ringing phone before running out of there.  Those fancy-schmancy business people could think anything they wanted about him, he’d never cared anyways.

The thing was, when he picked up he was ready to hear the kid’s ramblings of what happened at school or some weird fact Ned told him that would make Tony regret picking up.

What he wasn’t expecting was Peter’s words to be shaking and someone else speaking into the phone, cutting Peter off mid-sentence and thank god for FRIDAY who had alerted him, she was already trying to track the signal.

She didn’t get in time though and he almost yelled when the call ended with nothing solved. 

He went up to the living room where Nat was upside down on the couch watching some cheesy sitcom (it was a spectacle when he found out the great Black Widow watches sitcoms but she’d threatened him to stay quiet about it.  She had weird ways to love them.)

“Tasha?”

“Mm-hmm” , she asked, biting into a strawberry distractedly.

“I’m pretty sure Peter got himself kidnapped”

She’s up in less than a second already stalking towards him.  Her face is passive but you can tell she’s worried.  

“Of course he did, why wouldn’t he have?” Nat murmurs, “Do you have a location yet?”

“I didn’t get it in time but Friday’s still trying and I’m pretty MJ’s with them”

She nods, “Have you called Ned yet?”

“Yeah, he said that went out to the parking lot to go home and he hadn’t seen them after that.”

“What about May?” she prods.

“I tried her, she said she wasn’t worried since he usually stays out at school after hours and Ned checked the parking lot and said he found their backpacks there but that doesn’t really help with anything”

“What’s the plan then?” 

“They sent me an email, it’s instructions to deposit money into an account”, he grimaces.

“You know if you hand in the money, you’re going to get in trouble”, she glances at the clock.

“I know, it’s just a last resort.  He’s been in situations like this before, hopefully he won’t get into too much trouble.”

Nat raises an eyebrow, “Are we talking about the same Peter?”

Tony winces.

-

2 hours later, Friday still hasn’t got a location and they got a second call.

He just needed a few more minutes and they’d have a location, Friday was already so close to cracking it.

The call ended just as Nat yelled something in Russian to Peter and just as Friday, claimed she found the place.

Oh thank god

The last time Peter was kidnapped it had been max, 45 minutes and the first time had been around a little less than an hour.  This time it had been over 2 hours and he knew that lady hadn’t been joking when she’d set a deadline.  Right before they’d hung up, she seemed angry and Tony didn’t like to jump to conclusions but she didn’t seem too merciful or lenient.

“Let’s go,” he said, face hardening.

-

They were just a few minutes too late.  Who knows, maybe even 30 seconds would have been enough. 

Peter had still gotten shot though.

His blast had messed up her aim and thank heavens for that because otherwise it would have shot his head.

Instead, the bullet went sideways, stopping just hitting his collarbone.

There was still blood though, and plenty of it at that.  It had run red underneath his nails, staining them and despite their protesting, MJ had been right next to him the entire way drenching the front of her shirt with red.

Peter had passed out along the way, which was a small mercy in itself.  Helen had gotten the bullet out without too much difficulty.  She’d huffed a small laugh afterwards, exasperatedly, saying if it was even a centimeter lower it would have hit his organs, a part of his collarbone was still shattered a little which they’d done a small surgery for before the shards could hit any of his blood vessels or arteries.

He’d also had a pretty bad concussion which Helen had said shouldn’t have done too much permanent damage, he’d just have to be monitored closely for the next day or two.

She’d practically begged him to stop bringing broken teenage spider-boys to her, and Tony would’ve loved it if he could promise her that, but considering his life and Peter, he didn’t think he could hold out on it for too long.

Peter slept for almost 7 hours before he woke up, throwing out his arm and letting out a small gasp when he felt the bone ache.

Luckily, Tony was still wide-awake at that point and gently grabbed his wrist, putting it back on his side before he could rip his stitches.

“T’ny?” Peter asked, struggling to lift his eyes.

“It’s me, kid” he says, placing a hand on Peter’s head.

Peter blinks his eyes open and glances around, before settling on him again, “,‘s MJ o-kay?”

“She’s fine, asleep”, Tony sighs, “You should probably get some more sleep too, bud.  You lost a lot of blood.”

‘I will if you will”

“Oh you’re evil” Tony groans, “Fine then, scoot over”

Peter manages to move one leg a smidge over and Tony laughs, pushing him to the side as he settles in next to Peter, pulling him close to his side and pressing a kiss on his forehead.

“Did you get the guys who got us?” Peter asks.

“Yeah” Tony tightens his grip, “We got them all”

“You know the lanky guy who looks like he just came out of a noodle machine?”

“Weird way of describing him but yes” Tony looks at him.

“Just,” Peter sighs, “Can they cut him some slack, he didn’t mean to do anything.  His sister was making him do it, he shouldn’t be held just as responsible as her.”

“He was still a part of it, Pete”, Tony tries.

“I know, I know, but it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t want to,” Peter insists.

“I’ll see what I can do for him, kid” he settles.

Peter hums in agreement already shutting his eyes.

“You know, you better not be doing this again anytime soon, you managed to scare Tasha”, Tony says.

“Don’t worry I wouldn’t want to anyway, it sucked.  I rate it 0/10, definitely would not recommend”.

Tony chuckles just as Natasha walks in, “I heard you guys talking about me” she observes, smirking.

She sits, pulling up a chair next to the bed and putting her feet on top of theirs from her seat.

“But seriously, don’t do it again”, Nat warns.

Peter smiles, hiding his face in Tony’s shirt.  He falls asleep to Tony’s fingers running soothingly through his hair and the comfortable weight of Tasha’s legs on top of his.