#demons won agent is now WHITE

[storgicdealer]

cw / robotic insides

the components of the divine

— be careful of my heart, won't you?

you see.. you're taking it home with you tonight.

please, don't break it.

— .. good night, your grace.

[lilyevansreincarnate]

(SPOILERS FOR LONGLEGS, PLEASE ALSO DO NOT GET ANGRY AT ME THIS IS MY PERSONAL OPINIONS)

So the movie was um interesting to say the least, personally, I thought it was good. It built up a steady feeling of dread and made the whole setting feel uncomfortable and stuffy, the first half was good. I thought it was setting up the story to have an incredible meaning and insanely cool symbolism but then it got just a bit silly.

Longlegs - nic cage’s character - was from what Id heard somewhat of a mystery. He wasn’t in it very much, that being important to the story. HE WAS IN IT ALL THE BLOODY TIME I had to see his pasty face every two seconds. I think he had the buildup to have explained trauma that led him up to doing these things, possible religious trauma from a parent resulting in his obsession with stealing youth as his was but no. Just a satanist with a t.Rex obsession.

Next, I want to talk about Lee. She’s a cool character, sure, but how did she have this intuition about everything? A point of her character was that she’d been made to forget these specific points so that her mother would be able to assist longlegs in his killings but no, she has this weird psychic shit that leads her directly to longlegs with little to no injures on her part. I mean, sure, she got threats and it was a bit unnerving but in plot points he hadn’t killed anyone to directly connect with her - obviously her mum being an accomplice to the murders and longlegs visiting her as a child was his connection to her but what connection led her to have the obtuse psychic visions?

I really want to talk about what the title is meaning and what ‘longlegs’ actually refers to. So, obviously, longlegs has this fascination with satan. He believes that murdering these people will somehow bring him closer to Satan? Or resurrect him somehow maybe, and when he visits Lee as a child he says “it appears I’ve put my longlegs on today” so either he’s making the situation far more creepy by acknowledging the obvious difference between their heights as she’s a child and he’s an adult, a gross joke, or, he’s relating himself back to Satan because he somehow believes he’s Baal who is a Christian demon who was ranked as the first and principal king of hell, he is described as white and pasty with a low raspy voice - which is an accurate description of Nic cage’s character - who is incredibly tall. Now the character longlegs’ height isn’t talked about in great detail it is only mentioned when Special Agent Carter says to Lee “a tall man with pale skin visited you as a child, didn’t he?” near the end of the film.

And, at the end, we see Nic Cage - who had before been taken into custody after being found very easily and then had repeatedly slammed his head into the table in front of him until his nose cracked open after saying “hail satan” - unharmed and smiling and he winks and blows a kiss at the camera. In media, this is usually a “I’ve won” type of shtick but he hadn’t?

The point of the murders was to complete this satanic triangle to bring himself closer to Satan - as he believed. But, once he’d got so far and had the mother and father killed the little girl hadn’t died. The entire point is the little girl in the family has to die but she hadn’t. So, the triangle wasn’t complete. He had lost, in terms of relativity so why did he wink and blow a kiss? It felt as though the film had several things that were to be built up in to a metaphor or something symbolic but they’d forgotten to finish it. Several things just making no sense and strings left dangling.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the whole way they had so many hidden things in the movie was incredible and the architecture having small satanic symbols, the devil constantly being behind Lee was very cool and the whole ‘the man downstairs’ thing was very interesting to me but yeah, just wasn’t for me. Might rewatch it, see if I like it any better.

Overall, the movie was fine. It had the potential to be very very cool and a fantastic horror film but it felt as though they’d built up this whole world and then left it incomplete, simply it was bad writing. It got a little predictable and it felt like the writers realised this so they just did tons of stuff that made no sense to make you sit there and wonder ‘well, what the fuck was that for?”

[burningfeathersx]

Regent Reginald is Mara's character so take this with a grain of salt, but he's one of the oldest human souls that was corrupted by Stan's gut and spit out. He's got a spindly thing to him and he doesn't bother to have many features that aren't just 'humanoid globual or darkness'. His two traits are top hat and bright red and rank decorated sash. He puts on a posh British accent and is a little nosey bitch. He's also the one that runs things when Stan nor Lucifer are in Hell minding the place. He is loyal and dedicated to his work and, unlike some others, not too worried about climbing ranks--he's where he wants to be. Doesn't stop him from loving to see and cause drama.

Lady In Gray, also a Mara creation, is a being of unknown motives and alignments. She doesn't speak due to damage to her throat and tends to come off unusually kind for an Infernal--thought that is all anyone can figure out she is. She heals those victimized by various agents in Hell at request. Sometimes she can regenerate entire body parts and had brought people back from the absolute brink of death. She asks for nothing in doing this. She dresses in all lace that used to be white, but is now gray with age. Veiled and similar looking to either someone attending a funeral or a wedding. No one tries to harm her if only because everyone's been healed by her at some point and even hell-idiots know better than to estrange the one being in the entire place with a unbiased healing streak.

Thing-With-A-Thousand-Mouths, Mara's, is exactly what it fucking sounds like. It's huge, gross, basically a Guzzlord with a thousand mouths. A disdained and avoided punishment in Hell is cleaning it's teeth. Some think it's a representation of Stan's mouth-gut. Like how Pride is a representation of Stan's arrogance.

Lady is a hellhound. She was a dog, Welsh Terrier, that he won over a deal he made in Wales for a tri-bridge to be constructed for the locals. He agreed to have it built with use of some lesser demons if he got the first soul that crossed. Whether Lady sensed the hesitance of her previous human companions or saw something interesting at the other side, she sprinted while the humans were debating who was going to cross. Thus, Lucifer got a dog's soul instead of a humans. AS this was the nature of the Deal, Lucifer took his lumps and kept the dog soul. Later, she developed into a Hellhound and his most prized one at that. She's a good girl that can manifest into a humanoid woman, but mostly manifests as a Doberman Pinscher. At work, she takes on a cropped ear/tail appearance. At home, she is floppy eared and fully tailed. She has been the personal guardian of each of Lucifer's 4 children while they reached adulthood. She retains a good relationship with them and behaves very much the normal house pet around them. The rest of the time, at 'work', she is a fierce and loyal Hellhound to Lucifer who has always treated her well.

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Gavin’s S2 R&S - Tempering (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers from an R&S (淬炼) which has not been released in English servers!🍒

This R&S features S2 Gavin!

[ Chapter One ]

Eight-year old Tang Chao wrote in his homework: My aspiration is to be free and easy, and get to sleep after a full meal. 

The teacher failed him.

Eighteen-year old Tang Chao wasn’t able to be free and easy, nor get sleep after a full meal. This is because he was recommended for admission into the police academy.

Everyone knows that he’s a “specially enrolled student”. When he entered the academy, he didn’t even have to go through the “Demon Test”. He wasn’t treated harshly by the officers during training. The first semester consisted of some foundational stamina training and a few superficial criminal investigation classes. In the first month, Tang Chao barely passed in every course. Yet, he remains unusually carefree.

Tang Chao’s roommate feels indignant. “It’s only because your Evol is special. Otherwise, you’d have been expelled from the academy a long time ago with such grades.”

“That’s right, my Evol is special.” Tang Chao arches his brows. “If the academy were to expel me, they’ll experience a great loss.”

Detecting lies is essentially an Evol meant for criminal investigation. And it’s precisely because of this ability that he was recommended for admission into this first-rate police academy despite his average physique. 

“Hmph. Anyway, you only have a few more days of being carefree.” His roommate flips over on the iron bed, sticking out half his head from above. “I heard from the instructors that the first month after entering the academy merely counts as a warm up. Actual training will only begin next week. The higher-ups even sent a third year student to supervise us. Guess who our class got?”

“Who?”

His roommate pauses with each syllable. “Gav. In!”

“Who’s Gavin?”

His roommate almost falls down from the bed. “You don’t even know who Gavin is?”

“Why do I have to know him...” Tang Chao mutters. “Is this person very famous?”

“Famous! He’s so famous! He’s celebrated!”

The famous Senior Gavin had passed, with record-breaking marks, the admission exam, physical capabilities, shooting, Close Quarters Combat, simulated sand tables... His marks for various segments have never fallen below the top three places. In his second year, he was already heading out on missions with full-time Evol agents. Even before graduating, he was so popular that police departments from various districts were already falling over each other in their eagerness to snatch him up.

“...but I heard that mission was pretty tragic. It seems a comrade from the same squadron as him lost his life... Hey, are you listening to me?”

“I’m listening, I’m listening.” Despite Tang Chao’s perfunctory words, he has to admit that this Senior Gavin is indeed more of a special police officer than he is.

Or rather, Evol special police officers ought to be like Gavin. 

“I should caution you. Apparently, he’s exceptionally haughty, and you might as well be a grain of sand in his eyes.” His roommate pats the edge of the bed. “You should be a little more serious next week.”

Tang Chao laughs. “What can he do to me? I’m someone with a special privilege.”

His roommate clicks his tongue, not advising him further. “Seeing that you have such virtuous conduct, you can ask for help after meeting him.

-

[ Chapter Two ]

After assembling in the field on Monday morning, Tang Chao realises that a young man in his twenties is standing next to their class leader. The other party looks fierce, his back even straighter than the Chinese fir trees along the field. At a glance, it’s evident that there’s a world of difference between him and this batch of newly enrolled students.

“This is Student Gavin from the Seventh Squadron. This semester, he will be a provisional supervisor and instructor. In the training from now onwards, I want all of you to be more spirited and driven, and prohibited from embarrassing our class.” The class leader exclaims. “Do you hear me!”

“Yes!”

Amid the uniform responses from the formation, Gavin’s line of sight sweeps across this batch of new students. Everyone holds their breaths and keep silent, thinking that this senior would be giving them a lecture. In the end, the other party simply nods. “In that case, we’ll officially begin. As a warm up, run 10km.”

How many kilometres?

Everyone looks at each other, thinking they must have misheard.

Tang Chao raises his hand. “Reporting to the instructor - We typically run 5km in the mornings...”

Gavin turns a deaf ear to him. “Turn to the right, get ready --- Run.”

[Note] I recorded the audio for his command because why not

At this point, everyone realises that Gavin is truly like what the rumours said, and is not to be trifled with. All they can do is gulp in resentment, running in formation. Tang Chao deliberately lags at the very end, then walks towards Gavin, giving him a salute. “Reporting to the instructor.”

Gavin looks at him.

“I can’t run 10km.” Tang Chao is straightforward. “I have a special situation. The class leader and the others know about it. If I were to run 10km, I’ll really die...”

“Since you’re enrolled in the police academy, there’s no special situation.” Gavin responds. “As for whether or not you’ll die, we’ll talk about that after you’ve finished running.”

“...”

In the end, Tang Chao finishes running. Or rather, he finishes crawling.

The other students in class have already finished running and have headed off for breakfast. He’s the only one who resembles a ghost, drifting on the field. Occasionally, some classmates would pass by. He usually laughs and jokes around while they’re still running, so seeing him - who entered through the back door - finishing last leaves them gloating a little.

Gavin, on the other hand, doesn’t gloat. When Tang Chao staggers to the end point, he speaks with a blank expression. “You’re late by 20 minutes. Have your breakfast. The class will assemble after 20 minutes, and we’ll start with the next training. 

Initially, Tang Chao was already too tired to speak. After hearing this command, he can’t help but do so. “Brother... ah no, Instructor Gavin, even if you’re just showing your authority at the first encounter, it should be enough.”

Gavin furrows his brows.

“Just look at how cooperative I’ve been. Seeing how I've ended up, the others in class will definitely listen and obey you unquestioningly.” Tang Chao cracks his knuckles. “But my physical constitution is really like this. It isn’t my choice to rank at the bottom of the class. Could you just close an eye and let me off?”

Gavin looks at his unwillingness to change, and speaks plainly. “Since you’re so unwilling to undergo training, what are you doing here.”

Tang Chao shrugs. “There’s not much reason. Someone needs me to be here, undergo some simple training, go through the motions, then graduate as a matter of course, then help crack some cases and make a living.”

“What I'm asking is - why are you staying here.” Gavin’s voice turns stern. “If someone didn’t need it, you wouldn't be here? When you were running, I asked your class leader for the training results from your first month. Most of your marks hovered around the passing grade, and you had to re-take a few tests.”

Tang Chao releases an “mm” sound -- even though it’s very embarrassing to be told this in such a straightforward manner, the results are black and white, so he doesn’t hope to get anything higher.

Gavin continues. “From the numbers of your make-up examinations, you actually have quite a lot of potential.”

Tang Chao is left dumbfounded.

“Since you have potential, don’t waste it.” After Gavin finishes speaking, he leaves.

-

[ Chapter Three ]

Gavin’s demon-like training continues. On the second day, he adds weight training and 200 push-ups to the training regimen. At this point, it’s not just Tang Chao who can’t handle it - the other new students in the class can’t endure it midway through. On the third day, he adds an obstacle course and forty minutes of wrestling on top of the basic training.

“I think I understand now. Senior Gavin doesn’t want me to die. He wants everyone to die.” Tang Chao feebly concludes during wrestling training.

Finally, a week goes by. A simulation tactics manoeuvre is added to the training. This is a rare course in which Tang Chao can attain high marks. With an Evol which allows him to detect lies, he’s especially skilled in courses related to psychological warfare. He looks at the holographic sand table before him. Filled with inexplicable courage, he suddenly raises his hand. “Report.”

“What is it?” Gavin’s voice drifts over from the front.

"I wish to challenge Gavin to a round.” Tang Chao raises his voice.

At this moment, soft discussions fill the surroundings. Gavin arches his brows. Amid the discussions, he walks to the other side of the holographic sand table, not engaging in superfluous words. “Which one do you want to start?”

“Rescuing hostages in a factory. I’ll storm the fortification.”

“No problem.”

Tang Chao’s palms begin to sweat slightly, but he maintains the provocative smile on the corners of his lips. “Instructor, if I win, could I be exempted from the remaining training for today?”

Gavin pulls open the map. “We’ll talk about that after you’ve won.”

The holographic sand table simulation is an entirely new course introduced to students in recent years. The maps in the sand table, the personnel’s Evol abilities, the weather and weapons are entirely constructed by the system. Because this is meant to train a students’ adaptive and judgment skills, there’s no such thing as a party gaining an advantage over another through undergoing a similar experience.

Not even after ten minutes after the round begins, Tang Chao’s moves have already garnered him sixty more points than Gavin.

In the lead over Gavin for the first time, his heart finally feels slightly pleased. He can’t help but lift his eyes to cast Gavin a glance. However, the other party doesn’t look frantic at all. Gavin’s line of sight is focused on the sand table in front of him, fingers continuously moving and tapping. The originally three-way defense team is quickly split into nine teams, intercepting and attacking Tang Chao from all directions.

At this moment, students observing from the side burst into an uproar. Having to command nine groups at the same time - is he human?!

Tang Chao is also very shocked. But in the next second, he loses his ability to be shocked. The symbols on the map representing each other’s movements flicker continuously. Gradually, he can no longer keep up with Gavin’s movements - there is too much false information. The moment he calculates that one path can’t be taken, many more paths around him have already been blocked. 

An increasing number of regions struck with red crosses appear on the map. When he finally grabs the hostage, the six teams he originally had have been reduced to a small four-person group by Gavin.

Gavin shuts the holographic sand table. “Any thoughts?”

Tang Chao remains stubborn. “At least I successfully rescued the hostage...”

“You think that’s called a success?” Gavin laughs coldly. “Do you know why the highest marks are awarded based on the number of people left in the simulation? Because every red dot on the map represents the life of a comrade in real life.”

Tang Chao feels as though something is lodged in his throat.

“In an actual operation, the situations you have to face are even more dangerous, and even more complicated than in the sand table.” Gavin looks around at all of the students. “The criminal will not give you as much time and opportunities to make judgement calls. Every wrong decision could result in the death of a comrade.”

His gaze returns to Tang Chao, his tone becoming more severe. “Give it proper thought.”

Tang Chao lowers his head. “Yes.”

“But you were courageous in bringing up the challenge, and it’s worth encouraging.” Gavin curls his forefinger and taps the sand table. “5km, go.”

For the first time, Tang Chao wholeheartedly finishes the 5km run. He pounds his aching and sore legs, preparing to return to the dormitory. Suddenly, he sees his opponent from half an hour ago at a corner not afar off.

Gavin is standing underneath a tree, holding a photograph in his hand.

Gavin doesn’t notice Tang Chao. All of his focus is channelled onto that photograph. In this moment, he seems to have unloaded all his defences, becoming a Gavin different from his usual self. Those perpetually stern eyes have grown dim, bringing with them a twinge of fatigue. 

Tang Chao holds his breath, subconsciously squinting his eyes to identify the photograph. On it seems to be... a female? Could she be Instructor Gavin’s...

But why is there blood on the photograph?

Before he can let his imagination roam, someone suddenly pats him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Tang Chao, have you seen Instructor Gavin?” His roommate asks. “I need to look for him.”

Tang Chao turns slightly, blocking his roommate’s line of sight. He points in another direction. “Oh, I saw him. He walked towards the canteen.”

The lies of a person who can detect lies will never be discovered by someone else. His roommate doesn’t doubt him, and gives him another pat on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

After his roommate walks a distance away, he turns his head once again to look at Gavin, before leaving quietly.

He doesn’t know what that girl in the photograph means to Gavin, but his instincts told him that the tranquil image before him wasn’t one which someone should have disrupted.

-

[ Chapter Four ]

Amid torrential rain, one group continues training on the field of the police academy. The gloomy weather and gloomy atmosphere seem to make the weight on their shoulders much heavier than usual. But this time, no one complains, including Tang Chao.

--Because yesterday, another comrade in the police academy lost his life in a hostage rescue operation.

The pools of water beneath their feet are akin to pools of blood. The wooden piles on their shoulders seem to be alive and breathing, weighing down on them, and leaving them unable to catch their breath. Tang Chao grits his teeth. Even if he’s at the very end of the formation, he doesn’t give up on pressing forward.

“Late by four minutes.” Gavin clutches the watch at the end point as always. “There’s improvement.”

Only Tang Chao knows just how much effort he expended for the few words “there’s improvement”.

In this moment, he vaguely figure things out in his mind. Even though it’s very unclear, there’s a life goal in his heart which is more definite and firm than being “free and easy, and sleeping after a full meal”. Carefree days are definitely good. If he were to cast down the wooden piles and shout “I quit”, he can have them. But as long as he remains in the police academy for one more day, as long as the vow he made upon entering the academy still remains engraved in his heart, his future is destined to have no fate with being free and easy.

Tang Chao releases a muddy breath. He unloads the weight, laying directly on the field. “Instructor Gavin, how did you tell that I had potential back then?”

Gavin is silent for a while. “...actually, that was a lie.”

Tang Chao bursts out laughing.

Perhaps it was indeed a lie from Gavin. But he had followed through with this lie, and enabled Tang Chao to believe this lie too - he had never given up on Tang Chao, and Tang Chao had never given up on himself.

The rain continues pouring down. After laughing, Tang Chao’s voice mixes with the clear water. “Did you know? I suddenly had the ability to detect lies overnight.”

Gavin doesn’t say anything, and Tang Chao continues. “At first, I didn’t even know how to control my Evol. I was so confused, and the people around me were also very alarmed. Because those around me could no longer conceal anything. No matter what kind of masks they wore, I could remove them. Many people were afraid of talking to me. They didn’t even dare to come near to me. That period of time was... pretty depressing. It’s such an incredible ability.”

“Afterwards, I fumbled around and became clearer on how to use this ability. I more or less figured out how to live in such an environment.” Tang Chao points at his head. “The secret is in not caring.”

“It’s not that you really don’t care.” Gavin says.

“That’s right.” Tang Chao smiles wryly. “It’s just that after pretending not to care for such a long time, I’ve become confused too. Instructor Gavin, do you think I can still find the reason for staying here?”

Gavin ponders for a moment before responding. “I can’t imagine how it feels like to be surrounded by lies. But right now, you’re able to walk out from those days, and maintain an independent judgement. It shows that you’re actually much more tenacious than the average person.”

“I don’t think that I’m strong...”

“No one is born strong.”

Tang Chao wipes at the rainwater on his face. “Including yourself?”

“Including myself.” Gavin says solemnly. “I was at a loss before, but afterwards... I found a reason to persevere. I think it’s only a matter of time before you’ll also find a conviction belonging to yourself.”

When Gavin speaks, his intonation doesn’t fluctuate much. It’s as though he’s elaborating on an obvious fact. At this moment, Tang Chao doesn’t use his Evol, because he knows that these are Gavin’s genuine words.

There’s no need to use a lie detector to determine this.

The rain gradually lessens. Tang Chao observes the ash coloured sky for a very long time. His voice is very soft, as though he’s speaking to himself. “I can’t think of any high-sounding reasons. In that case, my goal is to become a person who can live up to this ability.”

Gavin laughs. With neither too much nor too little force, he kicks Tang Chao’s arm with his foot, then blows the assembly whistle in his hand. “All right. Get up and prepare for the next training.”

Tang Chao sits up. “Big Bro, you should at least give me a compliment!”

-

[ Chapter Five ]

Without realising it, the semester is drawing to a close, and Gavin’s task of being an assistant supervisor is ending soon. The class had originally planned to drag Gavin along to a small New Year’s Eve farewell party. In the end, Gavin was sent to participate in a special operation that day, so everyone just brought the farewell party forward, and wish Instructor Gavin a smooth and successful mission.

After the students have left the classroom, Gavin realises that Tang Chao is still standing at the doorway. “Why haven’t you left with the others?”

“I heard this mission is pretty dangerous.” Tang Chao suddenly speaks.

“Every mission is accompanied with danger.” Gavin says.

“Not that kind of danger...” Although Tang Chao isn’t a participant in this mission, he has heard about its contents. “The moment it isn’t handled properly, the dissent between civilians and Evolvers would be aggravated. If the time comes, I’m afraid it wouldn’t end with just a few clashes and bloodshed.”

Although he’s often careless and relaxed, it doesn’t mean that he’s stupid.

“I know.” Gavin nods. “Since you’ve already heard about some of its contents, your class should more or less know about it too - did they ask you to inquire about it?”

“Not really. I wanted to ask you about it myself.” Tang Chao hugs his elbows. “If... and I’m saying ‘if’. If this operation contradicts with the convictions you’ve always persevered in, what would you do?”

“There’s no need for such hypothesis.” Gavin looks at him. “I’ll just use my own eyes to look at it, use my own mind to make a judgement, and not doubt it before the operation even begins. If conviction can be so easily swayed, it means it isn’t yours. Instead, it’s what someone else has forcefully given to you.”

Gavin pauses, glancing at his own palm. Even if its development clashes with my convictions, I’ll use my own methods to handle it.”

When Tang Chao hears this, he’s left dumbfounded. Then, he immediately laughs. “Ah, this answer is truly in line with Instructor Gavin’s style.” He moves over and crinkles his eyes at Gavin. “No wonder the higher-ups purposely trained you to become a leader. With such words, who wouldn’t want to be Instructor Gavin’s subordinate?”

Gavin shakes his head. “I’m not interested in being a leader.”

“Why aren’t you interested in anything? You said you weren’t interested in the competition earlier either...” Tang Chao grins. “It looks to me that the only interest you have is the lady in that photograph, right? When will you introduce Sis-in-law to everyone- ack!”

He receives a blow from Gavin’s elbow.

Tang Chao covers his stomach and pouts, looking aggrieved. “If you don’t want to be a leader, what about being a captain? I heard that after I graduate, the Special Operations Team proposed by the higher-ups will be formed. When the time comes, I reckon there’ll be many interesting and strong comrades joining the team. You can be the boss.”

“Am I the one forming the Special Operations Team? Can I be the captain just because I want to?” Gavin glares at him. “Why not consider whether or not you can join it first.”

“I think if it’s you, I definitely can.” Tang Chao laughs, showing his teeth. “If Captain Gavin can do it, I definitely can do it too.”

A few days later, Gavin sets out. Students from the class send him into the vehicle at the entrance of the academy. Tang Chao gives him a salute and a smile. “Wishing Instructor Gavin an early New Year’s, and wishing you a safe and successful operation.”

Gavin nods, returning a salute to everyone. “I receive your good wishes. Happy New Year. In the future, we’ll definitely meet again.”

Everyone watches as the truck leaves their line of sight. For a very long time, nobody speaks. Finally, with a deep breath, the class leader asks. “Are we continuing with training?”

“Of course we are!”

[writing-for-me-at-this-point]

i. Demon | Asmodeus

Request:  Hi! I was wondering if maybe you could write Asmo angst where he basically tells the reader they're not pretty so he can try to feel better about himself. Thanks love :)

Word Count: 1052 words

Page Count: 3 pages

A.N.  Hope you guys like this! I saw the july event where everyday is something Obey Me related so... heres Demon! I worked it into the request! Heres the angst! Tomorrow we get angel so... be prepared!

        "I mean, just look at you, I pity any man, angel, or demon that wishes to be with you."

        "Stop it. Asmo, I'm serious."

        "You aren't denying anything, [ Y/n ]." His voice was amused at his own antics, the taunting melody made your temper rise, eyes watching your unresponsive form. He was starting to get irked, watching you huff as you curled deeper into the window seat, going back to scrolling through your DDD.

        He needed to feel in control again, that he held his charm over someone- anyone, even if it meant tormenting you. His facade is slipping, his nails are shifting into long claws dipped in lime and shell, sharp and needing fangs nipped at his soft lips. He just needed you to feel bad, to cry, hell- yell at him and storm out! Just make him feel like he won, and that you feel below him, even for a moment.

        It's slipping, his sanity, his ego. The Asmodeus, Avatar of Lust, a Lord of Hell. Those who turn their desires to him would go to his own layer of torture and damnation. But, it's slipping. He's showing the glimpses of Aeshma, the Jewel. An agent of Raphael. 

        No.

        Not anymore, he was a darkened, twisted form of him. Wings devoid of feathers and the muscle was torn, now just bone and thick leathery skin, his nimbus was broken and sprouted out his skull as two long and rigid horns. A failure of heaven, who lost the war, lost his sister, lost his title that was full of love and admiration.

        Now he only had lust. The flesh. And flesh is temporary, but the soul stays.

        Your flesh would age and leave, your soul moving on to the light, the admiration he no longer held.

        And he didn't want to face it. 

        He was no longer him.

        He was Asmodeus.

        "I don't need to justify anything to you." You mumbled, not wanting to hear his taunts any longer, knowing it only came from a place of insecurity. You just didn't know how deep it ran. But, you were going to find it soon, clawing at you for attention and scaring you in the process.

        "Exactly! Because you're nothing! Not to me! Not to any of us!" He started to lose it, claws digging his soft palms, his demon form appearing, but something wasn't right, it was still forming itself into something more monstrous. Small slits were forming around his eyes, mimicking the appearance of eyes starting to form, maybe six or eight if them? His jaw seemed larger, larger than your wide eyes as you stared in horror, his mouth was twice as large as before. His exposed skin looked a light shade of pink, and it looked like it was becoming harder and more pigmented, like bone flushing deeply.

        "A-Asmo. Stop!" You yelled, slipping from the seat slowly, standing with your arms out, but still close. You were hunched over slightly, knees and arms bent, ready to run from the thing in front of you. 

        "You think that was a smart thing to say?" He growled, his voice deeper and more wretched with anger and horror, it sounded like the screams of his victims were merged with him. Like every person he damned, every person he held and touched, had lost a piece of himself because he stole it. Your pact mark on your hip became a violent rose, searing it's emotion into your skin, making you grab it and cry out lightly.

        Your own mark pleaded in ivory, his chest slowing the only glowing mark, trying to get him to calm down. He felt your fear, your terror directed at him, and he loathed it. He loathed it, and yet, here he was drawing out more of it. The darkness he held flourished in him, feeding off of you, but the sorrow- oh that got to him.

        The sorrow that he lashed out at you, the sorrow of his words clawing at you, the sorrow of him hurting you. It was powerful enough to stop him in his slow and short steps towards you. He looked for a second, and realized he was circling you, hunting you. The tears in your eyes were silent as they fell, your breaths were deep and trying to calm you, you moved with him. As he circled you, you moved to the door, trying not to get him to lash out at you.

        "[ Y/n ]..." His voice was as soft as he could allow in this form, it was like a low and growling rumble, it sounded warning and dangerous. He saw your eyes widen, and felt your heart drop, and he never wanted more than to just hurl himself at you. He was regretting everything, he really was, he pushed too far and lost his temper. He just wanted to drop it and cry, but it would make things worse, if he moved any closer.

        But, you were you, you understood him and his brothers. They lost their tempers often, so maybe... if he took a small step...

        "Asmodeus! Leave me alone!" You yelled, using your pact, and starting to move a bit faster towards the door. His feet locked in place, all eight eyes looked broken and hurt, his arms hung at his side.

        "[ Y/n ]- please-" He tried to get out, wanting to fix this, voice slowly changing into its normal tone, but it still showed his darkness that was thriving from your fear.

        "Asmodeus, leave! Go to Solomon! Go somewhere where I'm safe from you! Leave now!" 

        And with that, in a misty smoke that was ebony in color with flashes of rose, and the small silver of white, he was gone. Your pact mark was still glowing, but it was dull, and scared. Dropping to your knees, you placed a hand on your hip, and focused on closing it- placing a barrier between you and the demon.

        "Please... don't come back for me. I can't have you anymore."

        There was no love, just an empty plea, lost in the mind of lust and entropy.

[joshualunacreations]

Golden Globes 2020 nominee Brad Pitt is an icon of white masculinity. His whiteness is rarely acknowledged, yet it's whiteness that's used to put Asian males in their "place⁠"—on screen or off.

The white-controlled media machine mocks and demonizes Asian men just as it deifies white men—which is why I looked up to Pitt growing up. I thought he represented what being a good man was. After all, Hollywood usually makes Asian men look horrible so who would aspire to that?

During Pitt's Fight Club era, he inspired me to buy a leather jacket, work out, bleach my hair blond, and wear colored contacts. Like many Asian Americans who've done similar things, I thought I was just trying to be cool and fit in. But what I really was doing was masking my Asianness. So when Angelina Jolie adopted Maddox (born Rath Vidol) in 2002, it felt like he'd won the lottery and proved the American Dream was real: An orphaned Asian kid saved from his "poor, backwards" war-devastated country of Cambodia and brought into the home of white American royalty.

I'd already begun my journey to re-embrace my Asianness by 2016, but when news broke that Brad Pitt was accused of lunging at Maddox when the 15-year-old tried to defend his mom during his parents' argument, it felt like whatever remained of that Dream finally shattered.

To be clear, no one knows what happened on that private jet besides those who were involved or witnessed it, but what we do know is the incident prompted Jolie to immediately file for divorce and request sole custody of the kids, and that Maddox doesn’t want to speak with Pitt. Initially I didn't want to talk about this due to Maddox's age and because his parents are some of the most powerful people in the world. But he's now around the same age I was when I dyed my hair. So if the deification of Pitt was that damaging to me, what's it like for Maddox?

If Pitt & Jolie had been paying attention, they would know Asian American kids like Maddox don't have many heroes that look like them on screen (Can you name even one prominent Cambodian American actor?). So how could a father of two Asian sons mock Bruce Lee—one of the only ones Asian Americans have?

Because anti-Asian racism is so entrenched in Hollywood and American culture, and white saviors perpetuate it too. It's how Tarantino—who's supposedly "inspired" by Asian films—could write a disrespectfully inaccurate and downright racist portrayal of Lee and be unapologetic about it. Even Jolie in her best efforts—such as her film adaptation of First They Killed My Father—almost fetishizes the trauma of war in Cambodia and downplays US involvement. One wonders if Maddox chose Korea for college because K-pop gives a positive Asian male rep he's rarely seen. For all their power in Hollywood—even the UN—you would think Pitt and Jolie would've done more to correct the lack of positive AsAm male representation for the sake of their sons (or at least avoid taking it away). But they haven't. Their life imitates their art and vice versa.

All of this begs the question: if an Asian kid is "saved" from Asianness, who can save him from white saviors?

I don't know the answer, or if Maddox is even asking, but he should know he's not alone—because it's a question that many Asian Americans like me are also asking.

(Please don't repost or edit my work. Clicking "Share" and liking my page is always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to Patreon or donate to Paypal. I recently lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304 https://patreon.com/joshualuna https://www.paypal.com/paypalme2/JoshuaLunaComics

[nicklloydnow]

“In orchestrating the attacks on September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden had wanted to end the global reign of the decadent West, inflict a staggering blow to American democracy, and entangle every Muslim in the conflict. Bin Laden may be dead, but it is hard not to conclude that he got what he wanted.

(…)

Three wars were launched in the aftermath of 9/11, two officially: the war in Afghanistan, in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks, which later became a nation-building effort to replace the Taliban; the war in Iraq, based on the big lie that Saddam Hussein was tied to Al Qaeda, which also became a nation-building effort; and the informal, clandestine war of illegal surveillance, enhanced interrogation, indefinite detention, and extraordinary rendition — the war that would be led by America against itself. A war on the very ideals that bin Laden had promised to end.

(…)

The Western intellectuals who wrote book after book about the threat from Islam were working within a ripe tradition. Ten years before 9/11, the Princeton historian Bernard Lewis had coined an important phrase in The Atlantic to describe the coming conflict. “This is no less than a clash of civilizations,” Lewis wrote, “the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both.” By defining the battle in such grandiose terms, we accepted the same narrative as the jihadis — that this was a war over civilization, for the very soul of humanity. The war on terror, we were told, wasn’t a counterterrorism operation or a law-enforcement matter, but a battle of good versus evil.

Twenty years later, it feels like evil won. Osama bin Laden had laid a trap, even if that wasn’t his original intention. Only by getting the West drawn into endless wars abroad, and into plots against enemies at home, could he bankrupt the American behemoth. In the decade since his death, the results have been plain to see: conflict and instability across the greater Middle East; more refugee flows into the West, combined with anti-immigrant violence in response; the rise in America of terrorist attacks carried out by white extremists, goaded on by an authoritarian leader who made a name for himself demonizing Muslims. The surveillance state now has extensive access to every facet of our lives. Trust in political institutions is decaying. Democracy itself is in peril.

In many ways, Donald Trump was the singular creature of the forever wars, elevated to national office in a country that had become exhausted and angry at outsiders. All of Trump’s signature policies — from banning Muslims to building the Wall — found a receptive audience in an America that saw its way of life threatened by foreign enemies. It was only a matter of time before contempt for the Other turned inward.

Here lay the great tragedy of the 9/11 era: that something much worse than terror wounded our society over the last two decades. An essential faith in the future was lost. Perhaps this is true for the end of all empires, and despair always precedes the fall.”

“Within 24 hours, the US government was doing what it does best. It demanded more power, and set to work coming up with schemes for using its enormous military and national security apparatus — a group of agencies which had received more than half-a-trillion dollars during that fiscal year.

When the US national security state failed on 9/11, not a single person with any significant level of responsibility lost his job.

Notably, the very same people who failed utterly to provide national security on September 11th were the same people who were entrusted with providing security on September 12. Except now, those people, and their government agencies, were granted more power, bigger budgets, and were held to less legal and public scrutiny than ever before.

By November, the federal government had already rewarded itself lavishly for its incompetence. Congress passed, and the President signed, the USA Patriot Act a measure that transformed American jurisprudence and made every American a suspected terrorist, open to surveillance by government agents. DC politicians had also created yet another federal department, the department of Homeland Security, because apparently the Defense Department is concerned with things other than the defense of the US "homeland."

(…)

Meanwhile, the feds themselves didn't sacrifice anything. For the feds, it was just more of what they'd always wanted. More taxpayer money. More power. More untrammeled authority to imprison, spy, tax, search, and control. Their abysmal failures on 9/11 led to no changes, no reforms, and no accountability. For them, everything got better.

If the destruction of American liberties was something the terrorists wanted, then they got what they wanted, too.”

[sophielovesbarnes]

All or nothing, chapter three.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Winchester!reader

Warnings: Mention of death, fluff, drinking.

Author note: Took me a while to write this one, I had a horrible writer’s block, and yesterday I managed to break it.

I hope you enjoy the chapter, let me know if you want to be tagged.

Requests are open.

Gifs are not mine.

Masterlist

Chapter two

Chapter three.

Why the hell did you have to wait until the last minute to start cleaning? You mentally slap yourself and sigh before getting back to scrub the floor; you wanted to give Spencer a good image and for what you have learned so far, he is a neat person and likes very clean spaces, which is why you were in the middle of an intensive cleaning session. 

You aren’t much of a messy person, but you are also in college, so there is unfolded laundry on the couch, empty food containers on the kitchen, dirty dishes in the sink, and shoes on the floor, and you have had a hell of a week, after meeting Spencer on Tuesday, you spent all night on the moon, then on Wednesday you had to spend all the afternoon doing homework, so now you had a lot of work to do, including packing to go back home after school on Friday. 

“Come one Y/N, stop procrastinating and get to it.” 

Three hours later the kitchen and the living room are spotless, your laundry is folded and stacked on your closet, there is nothing on the floor, your suitcases are ready and the lasagna is in the oven, and there is freshly baked garlic bread on the table. 

You admire your work as you rub your wet hair with a towel, trying to absorb as much water possible so you can blow dry it, then you go back to your room so you can find something decent to wear in your closet, you end up choosing the blue summer dress Sam gave you for your birthday last year, you had been saving it for a special occasion and this was definitely one.

When you are ready you finish setting the table and at 6 o’clock on the dot your doorbell rings. 

***

Spencer has changed a total of seven times in a lapse of fifteen minutes, he can’t remember the last time he felt this nervous.

He likes you, he really does, and it shouldn’t be possible to like someone this much in such a short span of time, but you are the most gorgeous girl he has ever been with, and you are also funny, and kind, and smart, and as hard as it seems you both share so many interests in common. 

But at the same time you are like him you are also quite the opposite, you take him out and far away from his comfort zone, and it is both exciting and terrifying, but it makes his mind wander and worry, will he be enough for you? And if he is, if you manage to get into a relationship, how will you make it work? With him living 576 miles away from you, and you both having such different lifestyles. 

He also has Maeve on mind, he couldn’t keep her safe, and he has seen the families and loved ones of his time getting in the crossfire, he saw it with Hotch, when Hayley got killed by Foyet, and he is terrified by the idea of something happening to you because of him. 

He stops himself and tries to shake the shiver from his spine, he shouldn’t be worrying so much at this point, he brings himself back to the hotel room and stares at the mirror and finally decides what to wear, the blue sweater with the matching tie will do, he tries to tame his hair with his fingers and then he leaves his hotel room, he is lucky enough to have both Morgan and Rossi out so he won’t be asked to explain something he hasn’t finished understanding. 

The address you gave him is quite close to the hotel he is staying in so he decides to walk, the city is nice and he can see why do you like it so much, sooner than he expected it he finds himself in front of the apartment complex that you indicated, he builds himself with courage and he rings the bell, the gate opens and he enters and calls the elevator on the fourth floor he gets down and knocks on your door.

When you open he is astonished, you look incredibly beautiful, you are wearing your hair down and curled, and the blue dress you are wearing hugs your body perfectly, and just like that he confirms one more time how much he likes you.

“Spencer! Hi, come on in.” He enters, closing the door behind him and you give him a smile.

“I-I got you these.” He gives you the bouquet of gerberas he bought in the way and he sees your eyes sparkle as you receive them.

“They are so pretty! Thank you.” You head to the sink, fill a vase with water and then you place the flowers on the kitchen bar. “Please take a seat, can I get you anything to drink?” 

“Water is fine.” He answers admiring your house, it’s small and cozy and all the pictures on the walls make it feel like a home. “It’s a nice place.” 

“Thank you, I owe it to Dean, like pretty much everything in my life.” The timer rings, giving you the cue to turn off the oven and take out the lasagna, you put on your gloves and take it, and then put it on the heat proof mat you had placed on the table. “I hope you are hungry.”  

“Starving.” He replies with a soft smile. 

You cut the lasagna and serve it on both of your plates, Spencer gives you a soft smile thanking you, you sit in front of him and raise your glass.

“To us.” He imitates your action and clinks his wine glass with yours. “Cheers.”

“Did you know that “Cheers” originated from the old French word chiere which meant “face” or “head.” By the 18th century, it meant “gladness,” and was used as a way of expressing encouragement.” He rambles. “And toasting is thought to come from sacrificial libations in which a sacred liquid was offered to the gods in exchange for a wish, or a prayer for health. It was Greek and Roman tradition to leave an offering to the gods, including alcoholic beverages, during celebrations and commonly after a death. In Greek mythology, the god of wine, Bacchus, was often toasted.”

“I did, and did you know that in Medieval times, glasses were clinked and people cheered loudly to ward off any demons or evil spirits? And that there are theories that say that it was done to avoid poisoning?” You reply, and he is fascinated to be able to talk with someone that is actually interested on this kind of facts and willing to talk about them with him. 

You take a sip of your wine and smile at him, and he could swear his heart jumps every time you do it.

“Bon appetit.” 

He takes the first bite and then looks at you with his eyes wide open.

“This is really good.”

“Thanks, it’s my mom’s recipe. She used to have a restaurant and people would make lines to try her food.”

“Are those your parents?” He asks pointing to the picture of your parent’s wedding, it was your favorite photograph of them, your mom looks beautiful in her white dress and she seems so happy and your dad is looking at her, and you can see the love in their eyes. 

“Yeah.” You reply, nostalgia running through your veins. 

“It’s a nice picture, do they live in Kansas as well?”

“No.” You take a deep breath and then continue. “They are gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, it has been a long time.” You sigh and try to keep your emotions on the line. “They died in a car crash when I was eleven.”

“That’s why I owe Dean so much, when the accident happened Adam was already in college, but I was still little, and my aunt Sabine tried to take me back to Minnesota, but Dean wouldn’t have it, he filled to be my legal guardian and he went to trial against my aunt and he won, then he sold his bachelor’s apartment and bought a house for the both of us and he became both my mom and my dad.”

“He sounds like a great brother.”

“He is, I’m lucky to have him, and Sam and Adam, they are quite amazing.” You take the picture from your first competition and show it to him. “These are my brothers, Dean is carrying me, Sam is on the left and Adam is on the right.”

“You look really happy.”  He comments.

“Yeah, I was, it was probably one of the best days of my life.” You reply, filled with joy of reliving the memory, the moment when your team was announced champion, the proud looks on your brothers’ eyes, the screams of excitement coming from your teammates, and the intense feeling of joy running through your veins. “It was my first all star competition, man, you should've seen Dean, he bragged about it for months.”

“For how long have you been a cheerleader?”

“I started with ballet and gymnastics when I was 3 and I joined the squad at my elementary school as soon as I got in.”

“What do you like about it?”

“Well, I love dancing and I love sharing joy, cheerleading lets me do both.”

“Are you planning to do it professionally?” He asks.

“I don’t think so, to be honest I think I would rather develop my career as a psychologist, I would also like to have a dance academy, but I think that would be an extra.” You take a small pause to admire the soft color of his eyes and then ask. “What about you? Did you always know that you wanted to be an FBI agent?”

“Not really, I knew that I wanted to help people but I wasn’t sure how, then when I was 22 I decided to join the FBI.” 

“Have you ever considered doing anything else?”

“A part of me would like to teach, but I don’t think I do good in front of many people.” 

“Well being honest, I loved hearing you.” You see his cheeks blush and he looks away for a moment.

“Thank you.”

You finish eating while doing small talk, you ask him about his career, his team, you see how enthusiastic he gets when he talks about them, when he tells you how they became his family.

He also tells you about his mom, about how she slowly deteriorated and how much it scares him to get sick like her. When he is speaking you place your hand on top of his, he gives you a small smile and then changes the subject. 

“Tell me about your brothers.”

“Well, Dean’s the oldest, and he has always taken care of all of us, he is the most loving person I know. He taught me how to ride a bike and helped me to do my homework every day until highschool. 

He is a mechanic, he has his own workshop where he does restorations on vintage cars, he was also a soldier, he enlisted after 9/11, that’s where he met Castiel, he was an army doctor, he crushed on him but he was already married to Lisa, and she was expecting Ben, my nephew, then he came back home but he and Lisa didn’t work together as a couple anymore, they tried to stay together for Ben, but they weren’t happy, so they got divorced and stayed as friends, then like fifteen years later Dean got in a small car accident and the doctor that got his case was Castiel, they started dating very little after that, and they got married three years ago, this year they adopted a little boy, Leo, he is the love of their lives.” 

While you are talking Spencer looks at you with attention, and your hand never leaves his. 

“Sam’s the smart one, he studied law at Stanford and he is now a junior partner on one of the biggest firms on Kansas, he is married with Jess, they have two daughters, Marie and Elizabeth, and Adam studied Mechanical Engineering at KU, he works on the workshop with Dean, and he is expecting a baby with Jo, who is basically my sister, they used to hate each other they were always jumping at the other’s neck, so it was definitely a surprise.”

“Do you miss living in Kansas?”

“Yeah, I do, sometimes I get very lonely here, I have friends and all but, it’s not the same as having my family here, that’s why I love vacations so much, because I can go back home and see them.”

“Yeah, I get the feeling.”

Talking to him is easy, when you are with him you don’t feel the need to keep your guard up, you feel like you can trust him with anything, when you talk he listens with attention, he actually listens, not like other boys you have met, that only wait for you to stop talking so they can focus the conversation on them, and when he talks you are fascinated, he is insanely smart and well educated, you have the most interesting conversation you have had in your entire life , and time seems to fade away, when you notice it, it’s already past midnight.

He helps you to clean, after you finish you walk him to the door, you are standing under the threshold when you both start to speak at the same time, you chuckle softly and then let him start.

“Thank you for having me.”

“It was my pleasure.”

Then you stay in silence, and you allow yourself to get lost in his eyes, slowly you get closer to him, so close you can feel his soft breath over your mouth, he hesitates for a minute but then he places his hand on your waist and then you close the distance between your lips and his. 

Kissing you has to be the most exhilarating feeling he has ever had, it is like his lips were meant to be in yours, you run your fingers through his hair and then he pulls you closer to him, making your chest rest on his, your lips move softly and in synchrony his his. 

He wonders if you can feel his heart beating, because it seems like it may abandon his chest at any moment.

Every shadow of doubt fades away, at that very moment he makes the decision that he is not willing to let you slip away from him, he will fight to keep you next to him, he will do whatever it takes.

“Good night Doctor Reid.”

Tags: @that-aesthetic-wannabe

[duraxxor]

Shadowlands: A Prelude

The grand finale of the three-way storyline between the Beast, The son Aiden, and the father Duraxxor has finally come to a close. We find our these individuals converging right into the heart of Northrend itself as the winter seemed to chill the bone more so than the norm. Ritualists were converging together from all across as the agents of this being that were in service to the one we call the Beast's will. Some were even leftovers of the fallen master N'zoth as they worked to preparation of a summons of a greater magnitude. This information alone had made it to the ears of those that it was most important to.

Aiden, along with Sephirrion left with but a note to offer anyone with the family that was still left behind in this time of peace. By sea, they made way, unexpecting of whoever was already on their path to this diabolical individual that would see their end first before all else. An assassination attempt was made just before they made the shoreline with the individual meeting a frigid end at the hands of Sephirrion's frost swordsmanship. But as they made landfall, they would soon realize that there were more allies than they had anticipated. Knights a variety drawn in by the call of someone else that could also hear the cry of the Lich King Bolvar as something was more amiss than what was to happen. 

Valanth Sunscorn, Dra'kaal Deathcleave, and even Gravekeeper Anna were present amongst these individuals along with the Forsaken mage Benjamin Lewinters as they gathered alongside Sephirrion and explained to both he and the living son of Daevara that they were all here to fight the same thing and that they were asked by Mr. Myotis himself. So without any further interruptions, the forced marched over and began to attack these malefic ritualists at the frigid plains of Sindragosa's Fall, close to a one many peaks that surrounded the area. It was a clash of undead for the most part versus the forces of the void and demonic that brought Benjamin, Sephirrion, and Aiden to the face of the being known to them as The Beast alongside the wench, Lindeara Windsorrow who had continued to focus on being the main objective.

The Beast's abilities proved to be formidable as he possessed an keen magical manipulation of a small burst of Time itself, proving that he could use it as offensively as he could defensively. It took the three of them a few attempts before they began to realize what was even going on and all seemed like it was truly at a loss when he had managed to cut Sephirrion down where he stood who had managed to bring himself to take the full force of devastating strength right to the very core of his soul. And the summons proved to be a succession as Benjamin was kept away from Lindeara as the head a creature with rows of teeth began to rise from the depths of the ground when suddenly... a barrage of massive bats began to rain down, screeching and howling as they pelted the creature before reanimated monstrosity of the skies know as Nightterror came down and rushed the behemoth back to the hell it came.

Meanwhile, the young lord himself was doing all he could alone against this formidable foe, managing to learn how to move through his chronomancy to counteract it defensively but was on the ropes from the damage he had suffered. Growing tired of these games, The Beast had a hold of Aiden and began channeling the cursed seal, trying to pull that dreaded link that bound all of the living Daevara right from the depths of their souls with enough force they could kill them. The Beast had finally won, he was going to destroy the infernal family that had meddled in his affairs for over ten thousand years of a broken pact. And soon, he would be able to move forward with his careful plans. Nothing could stop him now.

" Kroanthos! "

A name has power, one lady so sanguine once said. And it was at this point that Kroanthos' eyes turned to that which howled his name into the winds and found himself divebombed by an airborne creature known by many names. Bat wings flayed and flapped as the two beings writhed like two serpents trying to kill the other. It was when Aiden got a glimpse of the white locks of hair that cascaded on his shoulders that he realized it was none other than his father. His father was alive and had changed. He couldn't believe it as he saw this creature bring their most formidable foe down to the drops below and back to the snow covered hillside, stealing something so precious as Duraxxor declared that Kroanthos' reign over the Daevara family had come to an end as he now bore the mark of the progenitor. Kroanthos had lost and just when he thought to try and take back what was his, he was betrayed by his closest ally, Lindeara.

Lindeara used her own pact to him to take away what was left of the miserable husk since he no longer had any power over her and took it upon herself to take flight and escape while she could, declaring that she would be back to destroy them all and take back her child Xanthariel as she had always planned to. That was, until the tethers of soul energy zigzagged across the sky just above Icecrown Citadel and like a mirror, the sky shattered as a dreaded spire took shape within it's epicenter. Lindeara took this opportunity to sprout her demonic wings and take flight in the confusion. With that being said, the reunion of Lord and son was cut short and he told his son to tell the other's he would return one day but he still had a fight to finish. The wings of the Myotis growing wide as he took off after the demonic witch. 

Chaos was consuming the entire landscape of Icecrown as the dead could no longer hear the voice of Bolvar and now they were running rampant below. Dura was now urging everyone to leave this place and retreat to help with what was to be a revolution within the world of Azeroth as he began to slowly realize what had happened. The undead were completely free of that which had jailed them for so long to not go completely apocalyptic upon the world. For one last moment, he told them all this was farewell for now as he followed the wench to the rift above, bursting with a gust of speed as he rushed her with ear-piercing screeching. Claws, teeth, and spells were cast, inflicting devastating amount of pain as the two found it all the more satisfying to continue tearing each other apart. 

When they thought nothing else could end this fight, winged harbingers clad in a sinister black smoke rained into existence, zeroing in on the pair as they rushed with the speed of a reaper. Death's grip weaved directly into their hearth, tethering to their bodies with a sinister chain of purple haze. They began to feel the agonizing pain of death tear at their souls until they both found themselves too weak to fight back. Two of these beings now having a hold of them, they sought to bring them back through this rift between Life and Death. And the moment they passed through, the change in flow suddenly brought the two beings back to their own version of life as they writhed and flailed, forced their imminent release as the Val'kyr's of black smog left them both to fall to their own devices. Separately, Duraxxor fell from his foe as they both appeared to no longer possess the ability to fly. Every single aspect of reality had been inverted as he watched as Azeroth began to fade from his sight, the welcoming blue of the frigid Northrend being consumed overcast of death's storm. The father of bats in that moment felt nothing but the cold embrace of weakness as he slowly began to blackout from the fall. But in that darkness of his the depths of his mind, there was one color that consumed his unconscious thoughts...

" RED. "

[ Tagging for those that it may apply to: @gravekeeper-anna @sanguinesorceress @igniting-the-dawn @viviannamaraschiano @sneakybinch @theblackmourninquire @miah-ambershade and to all else whom it may concern =) ] 

[animemangasoul]

Follow Me

Summery: When the only people Zenitsu considers family are killed off by an upper moon. It leaves the scared boy all alone in a dangerous world, or well, that is until a pillar finds him and tries in his own awkward ways to train him for the final selection.

Or, In which Obanai doesn't want to but still somehow ends up taking Zenitsu under his wing

Chapter 1/50 -  I Found You

Move.  

He needed to move.

Obanai knew, clearer than he’d known anything ever before, that if he stopped now, he would die.  

Move  

Vision blurry, chest heaving, and hair matted against his skull, the snake pillar reached out blindly for the nearest object. Hand pressing down on a tree, he staggered; slick fingers smearing blood across the bark.

He breathed.

Nothing had gone right on this mission. It hadn’t been simple, the demons – the demons had been more than he’d been led to believe, and for some messed up reason... the humans, they had worshipped them. Willing to die and even kill him to protect their masters.

The situation was tricky, but – Obanai was a demon slayer. It was his job to protect these people, to save them, to avenge them, but – they'd poisoned him...Hurt him to save their masters, protect them – and yet, he’d tried, he’d tried so damn hard.

Kids, there had been kids there. So, he fought, and he bled and he’d won. But at what cost?

“I need to thank Kochou,’ he thought absentmindedly; vision slowly clearing as the detoxing agent started to take effect. If it hadn’t been for his follow slayer, Obanai was sure he’d be dead by now. ‘I’ll take over her training duties for a week,’ he decided. Still-

Outside of the poison, he was gravely injured; his leg leaving a bloody track behind it where he was dragging it behind him as he was slowly inching his way out of the forest.  

If Obanai didn’t get some semblance of rest soon, he would most likely not make it. Thankfully; even if he was far away from any rest station, he recognized this area. The former thunder pillar lived around these parts, and Obanai was sure the old man would have the grace to put up with him for a while. So-

With that in mind, he inched his way towards the only destination he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, would keep him alive.

What he saw when he arrived at the edge of the cliff however.

-Blood-  

-Death-  

-Carnage-  

There was something to be said about getting used to things. After a while of experiencing certain situations, a person-through time-will get used to those types of situations. Will not flinch when faced with them again and will move forward with a level head and a calm exterior, but – Obanai's stomach lurched.

Sometimes, certain situations just catch you of guard.

When safety – the very concept of safety, is flipped on its head... One finds themselves unsteady on their feet. Unsure, scared, and although Obanai Iguro is a pillar, and had been a demon slayer for even longer, for a split second, for a moment – His fingers twitched, his legs shook, and his face pinched into an expression of utter grief.

He remembered the old man well.

He had a certain laugh.

A frame shaking, stomach holding, belching of a laughter. It had been annoying, it had been warm.

Scanning the village bellow with two different eyes, Obanai furrowed his brows. The old man was dead. He wouldn’t - if he was still alive, if he... These people would still be breathing if – if he was still alive, the old man wouldn’t have let this happen.

He was dead.

He’d retired, and he was still dead.

It left a sickening feeling in Obanai’s stomach. A sort of disconnecting pain that he hadn’t felt for a very long time. A sort of burning feeling under his skin that made him-

Lifting a finger, he gently patted the slithering snake around his neck. “Let’s check for survivors,” he muttered.

Kaburamaru hissed softly at him. It was as much of a comfort to Obanai as anything. His lips twitched. “Thank you.”

Making his way down the mountainside was difficult and painful, but without a single sound leaving past his lips; only the echoes of his labored breathing greeting the wind, Obanai made his way down the rocky paths, slowly but surely.

When his feet finally met solid ground, he raised his face to the sky, and closed his eyes. His shoulder ached, his leg burned, and his ribs creaked, but – he only gave himself a second to breathe, before he put one foot in front of the other and started moving forward.

Nothing and no one.  

Every single life in front of him had been snuffed out. He couldn’t count how many times he’d knelt down; leg screaming in agony, and checked for a pulse on the least ravaged bodies around him, but-

Nothing.

Kaburamu hissed again. Obanai patted him. “It seems they’re all gone, old friend.” The snake didn’t say anything else, and Obanai continued on his journey. Towards the small cabin squashed between two enclosed training grounds.  

The old man was probably dead, but – He wanted to see it for himself. See what was left of him.

When his feet finally came to a stop in front of the broken down door, he saw the kid first.  

Sobbing and hunched over, all Obanai could do in that very instant, was stare. He hadn’t sensed him; probably the poison; while weak now it was still coursing through his veins, but...There was someone alive here.  Yes, the old man... the old man was dead (The snake pillar could clearly make out the twisted white hair and the jagged scar from where he stood), but, someone had survived the massacre. Someone was still alive.

A crying, unharmed, sobbing boy.

And he held a sword between his fingers. Fingers that were clutching at the hem of the dead man’s haori.

Obanai took a step forward. The kid tensed; noise suddenly dying in his throat. Obanai took another, and then another, until he was standing across from the blonde child.  

The kid had yet to move, but – his fingers were now gripping firmly at the hilt of his sword.  

Good

At least he wasn’t completely hopeless.

Dropping down on his knees; ignoring the pulsing pain temporarily, Obanai placed both hands on his legs and sighed. “He is dead. They are all dead, so what happened here, demon slayer?”

The kid’s head shot up, and through his glassy stare and wobbling bottom lip, the snake pillar saw something.

A burning rage, a reckless glint and a thirst for vengeance.

Obanai’s skin crawled and his mouth tasted like ash.  

It seemed, no matter how many battles they fought, he fought, tragedies would always strike someone down.

“Are you a demon slayer?”

The question was hesitant, wary, scared.

Obanai glared. “I am a pillar, brat. Show some respect and answer my question.”

The kid’s shoulders tensed for a second, before they sunk into themselves and the crying boy lowered his head. “I wasn’t here,” he muttered; one hand coming up to run shaking fingers over the old man’s face. “But a demon did this. She did this. Gra-Master told me. Before he... Before he-”

A sob.

The snake pillar stilled.  

“A demon? Singular?”

The kid nodded again. “Just one.”

Just one.

One demon.

One demon killed a former pillar and an entire village so fast that some of the victims' bodies were still warm. Still bleeding out.

Obanai swallowed.

A single demon.

“An upper moon,” he breathed.  

The kid’s eyes grew sharp. “What does that mean,” he blurted; fingers still resting on what remained of the old man’s face. “That’s what gram...master said too. What does it mean!”

The demon slayer frowned. “It means you better start talking brat. What happened?”

Ch 2 , 3 , 4

[dawnaress]

  MVP of Horror: Rachel True reflects on her experience as the only Black star of 'The Craft'

Rachel True is the first to tell you that she wasn’t supposed to be in The Craft. When the script for the 1996 Goth horror favorite first made the rounds in Hollywood, there were several obstacles that stood in the way of her joining a cast that included rising stars Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Robin Tunney. “I had to fight to read for it,” True tells Yahoo Entertainment now. “My agents at the time were like, ‘You’re probably too old.’” (Watch our video interview above.)

Not only that, but the role that True auditioned for — Rochelle Zimmerman, one of four teen girls at a Catholic high school who form a Manon-worshipping witch’s coven — was written for a white actress. Undaunted, she relied on “smoke and mirrors” to get into the room and ultimately won the part, setting a new precedent for teen movies in the process. “It’s a big movie in terms of my career, but it’s also a big movie for Black people out there,” she says. “It’s one of the first teen movies that wasn’t a Black teen movie or a white teen movie.”

The obstacles didn’t end after True landed the role. If anything, they intensified during and after production as the actress felt herself being marginalized in favor of her co-stars. True makes it clear that she didn’t experience any overt hostility from the rest of the cast; instead, it was the studio and people behind the camera who seemed intent on holding her back. “When we were shooting the movie, I had literally been told by my team to stay away from Fairuza,” she remembers. “[They said] she can get away with stuff, and you will get fired for it. I was literally told, ‘You’re Black, so don’t say, ‘F*** you, mommy,’ like the white girls.’”

She also had to fight for equal attention during the film’s publicity tour. “They put up a poster of the four of us, mentioned the three girls and then skipped down the call sheet, I think, ‘This is how Black actors get underpaid, this is how they get forgotten, and it’s part of why I mouthed off about the publicity back in the day that I was excluded from. At the time, I don’t think my castmates understood; they were like, ‘You’re not as famous as us.’ What they didn’t get is that in the early to mid-1990s, [the studios] excluded the Black person, which meant they were never going to be as famous as you because they didn’t get the press.”

True experienced that exclusion as recently as last year, when she took to Twitter to reveal how a fan convention declined to invite her to a planned Craft reunion featuring Balk, Campbell and Tunney. (The actress credits Balk, now a close friend, with tipping her off about being left out.) “I had my guy call them up and say, ‘You could have the first reunion since 1996 with all the ladies, and they were like, ‘No thanks,’” she says. “My thing is that everything in life comes down to money, and if you don’t want the money [from a cast reunion] then as a Black person, what else am I supposed to think?”

After her tweets went viral, the convention reversed course and the full Craft coven reunited in March 2019. “I’m glad I spoke up,” True says. “Hopefully it opens the door for other people, so that when I go to the conventions it's not just me and maybe one other Black person.”

Racism is a subject within The Craft as well. As originally written, Rochelle struggled with bulimia, but the film’s co-writer/director, Andrew Fleming, revamped that storyline after True was cast. In the finished film, the character’s antagonist is Christine Taylor’s Laura Lizzie, a high school mean girl with a special hate-on for Rochelle. “First of all, Christine Taylor is so nice,” True says, laughing. “People come up to me and say, ‘Was she really racist?’ And I’m like, ‘She’s the sweetest woman in the world!’ I had gone to an all-white public school, so it was a great way to exorcise those demons if you will. It wasn't the first time someone called my hair pubic hair — that's the truth. So to have that in the movie was fitting, I think, as far as how people think.”

During filming, True remembers being uncomfortable with the way Fleming used her skin color as a plot point. “I remember thinking, ‘Do they see Blackness as a problem?’ All the characters have issues, and to me being Black wasn’t an issue; the way other people treat me for being Black is the issue. But once I really thought about when I got older, I realized it’s a good thing they have that in there. We’d come out of a time where we had things like The Cosby Show where nobody ever mentioned racism, and here was a movie that tackled it head on. I do think it’s interesting, though, that the other three characters never say anything about it! Not one of them is ever like, ‘That’s too bad that she’s racist towards you.’ I don’t think they would do that today.”

One other story choice that still rankles her a quarter century later is that Rochelle loses her supernatural powers at the end of the movie, while Tunney’s Sarah keeps hers. “Even in the mid-‘90s they knew they couldn’t kill off the Black chick,” she jokes. “But I was like, ‘Rochelle is more powerful than this! She’s an astral bridge, why is she cowering?’ That’s actually how I felt about that scene.”

Those memories are balanced out by the fun that True had making The Craft, whether it was flying around on harnesses or having a plaster mold made of her face for certain special effects sequences. “I loved all that stuff — I love movie magic. It's why I love being an actor because you put on this character and you get to experience life! I knew there was a lot for me to learn; Fairuza gave me a really good tip, because she was more experienced than I was. For the scene where we licked blood off our fingers, I kind of deep-throated my finger and she told me, ‘Rachel, it’s film and it’s a close-up. Just a small lick will do.’ So she might not have been the friendliest when we were shooting, but she was there to make a great movie. And she makes the movie, right? She’s so intense and fabulous in it.”

True shares other stories about the making of The Craft, as well as tales from her eventful life and career, in True Heart Intuitive Tarot, a boxed set that includes a tarot deck and a guidebook that’s part memoir and part tutorial. “It’s helped me with my career in Hollywood, a town full of smoke and mirrors,” True says of her lifelong interest in tarot. “I use tarot as a therapist — like a shrink in a box I like to say — so that I understand what I’m upset about or what’s going on.”

And with the True Heart book and deck, she’s hoping to instruct other people on mastering the art of reading tarot cards. “People hit me up on my DMs, saying, ‘Can I get a reading from you?’ And I’m like, ‘No, you can’t afford me!’” she laughs, adding that she’s mostly retired from doing public and private readings. “The idea with the book is that you can learn it for yourself... and you can heal yourself.”

The Craft is available to stream on Hulu or rent or our purchase on Amazon, iTunes and FandangoNOW. True Heart Intuitive Tarot is available on Amazon.

— Video produced by Jen Kucsak and edited by John Santo

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

[badass-women-league]

TIVALI

5- Tali’s birthday

6 months has passed. Ziva was now feeling like her life was back on the tracks for good. Tony had helped her to see a brighter future. Him and Tali had been the lights that helped her get through the darkness of the past years. Tony was sitting on the couch, he was watching an old movie on the Tv. Ziva walked into the living room and sat next to him. She was getting back from Tali's bedroom after putting her to bed. She was looking concern about something. She said:

-"we need to talk about Tali.."

Tony muted the tv and turned to Ziva without saying a word. Ziva continued:

-"She is asking a lot of question about herself.."

Tony was confused:

-"what do you mean ?"

-"She asked me question about her skin... why is her skin not as white as other children at her school ? Why are we not living in the same country as uncle Tim and her cousins ? Why aren't we sharing the same last name ?"

Tony said with his charming smile:

-"we are working on that..."

-"I tried to explain her but I think she is still very confused about all those questions"

-"what did you say ?"

-"I told her that one day we will take her to see Israel and D.C so she can see the lands from which she comes from"

-"why not doing this now ?"

Ziva was surprised:

-"what ?"

-"now is the perfect time, her birthday is in a few weeks.. we should take her to D.C. and Israel"

Ziva seemed nervous. Tony grabbed her hand and said:

-"it's gonna be alright.. You said it, she needs it and so do you.."

Tony was suddenly more nervous. He had something in his mind, Ziva could see it.

He leaned over her to kiss her neck. His hands caressing her face, her shoulders, her breast.. he stopped and whispered:

-"I want another one..."

Ziva was confused. As she kissed him she asked:

-"what ?"

Tony's hand stopped on Ziva's belly. He stopped his kissing to check her reaction when he said:

-"I want to have another baby.."

Ziva tensed up. Tony tried to reassure her:

-"I know this is a big decision but Tali will be 7 soon, she's not a baby anymore. If you need more time we can wait but you seemed to feel better so I thought..."

Ziva stopped his monologue by placing a kiss on his lips. She was kissing him so strongly that it was almost painful. When she broke the kiss, Tony was still confused by her reactions. She still haven't given an answer. She cupped his face and smiled:

-"are you sure you can handle my "deadly pregnant mood" ?"

-"well.. we all have to die one day"

Ziva laughed and kiss him again. Tony asked:

-"I don't want you to feel forced to do it..."

-"I don't... I just need some time to be sure that I am myself again.. I haven't had panic attacks for months which is a good sign. Just give me some time and I can be ready"

Tony felt his heart pounding through his chest. He smiled and kissed her passionately.

-"Take all the time you need"

A few days later. Tony was putting Tali to bed. He tucked her in and said:

-"Ima told me about those questions that you have.. you wanna talk to me about it ?"

She shrugged her shoulders to indicate that she wasn't sure. Tony said:

-"it's ok.. if you don't want to talk then I will do the talking, that is something the DiNozzo's are really good at" he brush a lock of hair away from her face and continued: "you and your mom are the most beautiful things that ever happened to me. Your skin is the same color of the sand of Ima's country, you have my hair and your mother's eyes. You are looking more like your mother everyday and it makes me happy. You know that Ima and I, had to make difficult choices, right ? I told you about why Ima had to live away from us for so long." Tali nodded. "I promise you that from now on, there will be no difficult choices anymore and we'll stay together, Ima, Aba and Tali... and who knows, maybe one day you will be a big sister"

He kissed Tali on her forehead and stood up.

-"good night Tali, I love you"

Tali answered with her tiny voice:

-"love you Aba"

Tony walked out of the room and closed the door, Ziva was waiting outside of the bedroom, leaned on the wall next to the door. She had been listening to their conversation. Tony was surprised:

-"hey, you there"

As only answer Ziva kissed him. It was a long and soft kiss. She was putting all the love she had for him in this kiss. She had been nervous about welcoming another child, until now. Seeing Tony taking such a good care of their daughter overwhelmed her. She knew he would be there to help her as he had been there to help Tali. She broke the kiss and said:

-"let's make a baby"

3 weeks later. Gibbs stepped out from the elevator with his usual coffee on his hand. He stopped between Mcgee and Ellie's desk and looked at his team. They were quiet, too quiet. Mcgee raised his head from his screen, smiled and greet him:

-"Morning boss"

Gibbs didn't answer. Nick nodded to him with a smile. What the hell was going on here. He walked to his desk and stopped when he finally figured what they were hiding. He smiled when he saw Tali, sitting at his desk. He turned to Mcgee and asked:

-"our new recruit Mcgee ?"

Tali jumped from the chair and rushed to Gibbs. Gibbs lifted her up to hug her and Tony and Ziva appeared on the bullpen. Tony said:

-"you should be proud Tali, you are the only DiNozzo ever allowed to seat at this desk without getting your head slapped" Gibbs looked at Tony with a smile, he was lucky that Tali was there otherwise he would have gotten that head slap. Tony smiled and said:

-"Hi boss !"

They shook each other's hands. Gibbs turned to Ziva. It was a special moments for them. They haven't seen each other since she left D.C after Sahar. He said:

-"Ziver... you look fine"

-"I am.."

-"what are you doing here ?"

Tony answered:

-"We were missing those orange walls. We had this little family trip to Israel and since someone is getting 7 in two days, we thought it would be a good idea to stop by D.C before getting back to Paris."

A few hours later. Ellie had introduced Nick to Tony. Tony said:

-"yeah I've heard that your first meeting with Ziva was pretty physical.."

Ellie said:

-"yeah! He keeps telling everyone that he kicked the ass of the legendary Ziva David"

Nick panicked and frowned at her:

-"no wait! It's not what I said, why are you telling them this..."

Ziva interrupt him:

-"Tell me when you are ready for a quick rematch ‘ass kicking demon’" She winked at him. He was a man who liked to be challenged but he was not sure this was really a good idea for his ego. Tony laughed and said to Ellie:

-"20 bucks on Ziva.."

-"you already won.." and she walked away.

Nick complained and shouted:

-"thanks for the support, you should be on my side!"

Mcgee came back with Tali. After taking her on a tour of the building.

He stopped by his desk and said:

-"and this Tali is uncle Tim's desk but it used to be your dad's desk. Go on, sit"

She rushed to the chair and sat. Tony and Ziva walked in with Ellie and stopped to look at their daughter. Tony felt so proud to see his daughter sitting at this particular desk.

Gibbs was also coming back to his desk. He looked at Tali sitting at her dad's former desk. He walked to her and said:

-"hey Tali, I have something for you. This is something special that only special people get to wear..." He placed an NCIS cap on Tali's head. She took it off to look at it and put her tiny finger through the hole in the peak. Gibbs continued:

-"this is not every cap.. This belonged to your father first, then he gave it to your mom.."

Tali asked:

-"why is there a hole in it ?"

Gibbs smiled and looked at Tony:

-"you will ask your dad about this"

Tony nervously smile since he was the one who missed the shot and holed the cap. Gibbs placed a kiss on Tali's forehead and walked to Ziva. He said:

-"you did it. You got your family back"

-"it is thanks to you"

-"your father would be proud"

Ziva smiled. This little sentence meant so much to her.

-"I wish he could have met her"

-"he would have loved her. She's a great kid"

Ziva touched her ring, Gibbs look at it and said:

-"you two came a long way since the first day you sat at these desks"

-"and we still have a long way ahead of us... will you do me the honor to be by my side when I will walk down the aisle ?"

He was the best person to walk her down the aisle. He has always been like a father to her. One of her biggest fear when she was an agent was to disappoint him. He taught her so maybe things about work, life and most of all about herself. He fought for her, he protected her, he saved her. Gibbs smiled and kissed her forehead:

-"it will be my honor"

Tali's birthday

Everyone was supposed to gathered at Gibbs' house. Tali was playing with John and Morgan in the garden. Tony was finishing to get the food ready along with Jack. He looked at his watch. Where were they ? They should be here by now. He took his phone and dialed Ziva's number:

-"hey! Where are you, everything is almost ready"

The door of the house opened and Ziva entered along with Nick, Ellie and Mcgee:

-"here!"

She hang up the phone. Nick was holding a towel on his face. Ziva smiled and asked to Jack:

-"do you know if there is some ice we could use for his face ?"

Jack asked worriedly:

-"what happened ?"

Ziva, Mcgee and Ellie smiled at each other but no one answered. Nick was clearly pissed, he said:

-"go one make fun of me if you want, you know what ? I don't care... I have been blinded by the sun"

Ellie laughed:

-"the sun...sure.."

Tony turned to Ziva:

-"I don't need to ask who won"

-"you don't .. but he had been a good sparring partner, he fought well"

Ellie was putting ice on Nick's face and she was fighting the urges to make fun of him, just like Mcgee. Ziva kissed Tony and walked upstairs to take a quick shower. Tony was looking at her as she walked away and stopped his look on her curves. He would have loved to drop everything he had to do to join her upstairs. Once she had disappeared he turned his attention back on Nick and Ellie:

-"I told you this was a bad idea.. a lot of people tried to defeat her"

Nick asked:

-"what about you ?"

-"me ?" He laughed "I am not suicidal, I have spent years following the only rules you should know about Ziva David" Tony and McGee looked at each other and answered at the same time: "don't make her angry"

The rest of the afternoon went on. Tali spent most of her time playing with Mcgee's children. The adults were all gathered around a large table full of food, talking about life and how Nick got his ass kicked again by Ziva.

At the end of the day, Tony was sat on the couch. McGee joined him with two beers. He held one out to him and asked.

-"so Anthony DiNozzo is finally gonna be a married man"

-"Can you believe that ? I have never been more nervous in my entire life. Next to that, being kidnapped by terrorists in the desert was a cakewalk"

-"you'll be fine! You are marrying your best friend..nothing can go wrong in that"

-"you're right" Tony raised his beer and said "To marrying our best friends"

McGee smiled, raised his beer and repeated:

-"To marrying our best friends"

Tony suddenly got more serious almost solemn and asked with a small smile:

-"Will you be standing next to me as my best man Probie ?"

It has been a while since McGee had heard this nickname. He was certainly not missing it:

-"if you promise that you'll never call me probie again.. it will be an honor"

Ziva suddenly appeared with Tali in the kitchen. Mcgee asked:

-"how is she doing ?"

-"ah you know.. she's the toughest woman I ever met. She's doing better but the first weeks had been pretty challenging. She had nightmares and panic attacks all the time, we tried our best to protect Tali from that. We talked a lot, even though I know she never told me everything about what happened to her. That's her way of protecting me I guess. And here we are, planning our wedding and trying to expand our family"

-"what ? Really ? That's wonderful"

-"yeah but keep that to yourself ok...I am not even sure I am supposed talk about it"

-"talk about what ?"

Ziva's voice made them startled.

-"nothing ! We were just here, talking about..wedding"

Mcgee nodded:

-"yeah... wedding"

They were clearly very nervous. Ziva threw them a suspicious look and smiled before walking out.

[seekingluckynumberseven]

Day 6: Welcome to My Life

Blech. Over-steeped tea was the absolute worst. Years of listening to Thunderpants lecture about the proper way to brew a cup couldn’t compete with the mystery in front of her. She wrinkled her nose and shoved the offending cup aside to stare at the email posted in the chat. The black headphones pumped out music, drowning out the random thoughts of a certain red head so she could focus on the puzzle. If she danced a bit to the beat, at least no one was here to see… or yell. The movement in the notes and her body always helped with the nervous energy that came along with investigations. Decisions formed from her analysis became ones of life or death in too many situations.

Mint Eye. Well, they at least stuck to a theme. The colors… the gradient flower background; she snorted. Someone in their marketing department needed to go back to school in this decade. Her playlist may have a lot of 80s and 90s music in it, but the rest of those years could stay right in the past. Especially the colors. 

The words screamed “come to my crazy cult party; Kool-Aid for all!”. The ironic choice of the word magenta made her want to dismiss it as spam. A place where everyone is happy, of hopes and dreams, almost as real as the color that didn’t exist. Only manufactured by humans’ brains to make sense of a world gone mad. But over and over history showed how people cling to those contrived ideals and how far they’d go to make them a reality. That was part of the reason her shadow world even existed.

What really made her pause from out and out dismissing it staring back from the small screen. A quick flip of her wrist revealed an eerily similar designed etched into pale flesh. Seven had figured out this was tied to the mysterious hacker. Was it a coincidence that the Seeker’s Eye in the center of the sword was a simpler version of the stylized green and black eye of this Mint Eye? That this “Unknown” had lured a Seeker to this apartment out of all of the targets walking on the street. Coincidences just didn’t happen in their line of work. 

There was a small chance that whoever had created the design had been exposed to a fictionalized version of their organization. The tattoo that adorned her arm was very different from the rest of the Swords. In a way it was a prototype, it’s artist a designer on a very popular video game franchise. He had “borrowed” and modified the idea of their organization to fit the game world. To say that Juno had been unhappy was an understatement. Even more so when Kali had asked him to design a new “sword” to fit her. But the artwork could hide in plain sight because of the game. The old guard truly didn’t understand the need in a world where secrecy was becoming rare. Where unknown hackers could breach the defenses of an organization like theirs without breaking a sweat.

It was a bit rude that they hadn’t invited her or Seven to drink their Kool-Aid. Happiness was in short supply in the secret agent biz. If anyone deserved a few hopes and dreams, it was the red headed hacker. Her imagination was very good at creating dreams that involved him. No cult help needed there. Too bad there truly wasn’t a paradise that could make them into reality. The smirk on her face was wiped off at the now cold, bitter taste of the tea. Ugh… she’d forgotten in her daydreaming. A message popped up in the chatroom before she could empty dump offending brown water.

707: Kali…

707: It’s late. You’re still up?

Kali: Yeah. Don’t sleep much.

Kali: Anyway, I was thinking about you.

707: Me?

707: Oh… Were you thinking about me because you’re nervous?

707: I’m sorry I can’t do anything more for your safety.

Kali: No sorries. Not that at all. 

Kali: That wasn’t at all what I was thinking about tbh.

Kali: Really, I can take care of myself. Any word from V?

707: I tried…

707: But it seems V doesn’t have any service right now.

707: But I left a voice message, so he’ll call me as soon as he hears it.

707: All the RFA members, including you…

707: must be careful for the time being…

707: Please… I hope no one gets hurt because I wasn’t good enough…

Kali: Hey. It isn’t your sole duty to keep everyone safe. We have some responsibility too.

Kali: Plus you’re trying really hard. I’m sure we’ll be fine.

707: That’s… that’s not always the case….

707: You can say that because you don’t know much about me.

707: Kali….

707: I don’t think I’ve told you much about myself.

707: what kind of work I do for the agency…

707: And dark things like that.

707: To be honest…

707: I wanted to show people in the RFA

707: only my bright and fun side.

707: Because the work I do is nothing but dark and filthy.

707: I didn’t want to tell anyone about that.

707: But…

707: now that this is happening… I feel like I should talk about it a little.

707: Because if anything happens…

707: if anything bad happens because of me…

707: you… and all the other members

707: will be in so much shock…

Kali: Nothing bad will happen because of you. 

Kali: I’d like to know about your workplace tho

707: To be honest, the place I work for

707: is a complete shithole

707: where even a mindless joke can get you killed

707: So it’s actually weird

707: for me to say that nothing bad will happen.

707: It’s the only path I could choose, so I don’t want to whine about it.

707: But… I want you to know this.

707: Nothing good will come out of you knowing,

707: but I’m not a clean and bright person…

707: And

707: since you can be put in danger because of me,

707: we need to keep our distance…

707: If we’re like how we are now, where we can’t meet

707: and you’re neither friend nor family, you’ll be safe.

Kali: Not even friends? That’s really sad. 

707: I don’t know.

707: you and me…

707: did we ever have any kind of relationship?

707: We just talked a bit

707: here in this chatroom…

707: And of course, I enjoyed all those conversations… but even those are pointless for me.

707: You know…

707: I only tried to laugh as much as I can in this chatroom,

707: because of the dark place I’m really in.

707: This shithole… is probably the place that suits me best.

707: I hope the members,

707: and especially you, aren’t harmed because of me…

707: but I don’t know.

707: I’ll be more careful from now on.

Kali: Seven, you need to think about yourself too. 

Kali: I’m always here to listen and I’ll do whatever I can to help you.

707: You are always so kind.

707: I wasn’t wrong.

707: You are an angel.

707: You are so kind to everyone,

707: and even though you just found out about the RFA,

707: you fell for my ridiculous threat,

707: and told us you’d help.

707: If I had just let you go then…

707: told V that this isn’t right,

707: convinced him to send you away…

707: you could have just deleted this app

707: and be free…

707: But it’s already happened now

707: so all I can do is be more careful…

Kali: I don’t regret this Seven. Especially getting to know you.

707: Kali…

707: Thank you,

707: but those words will have heavy consequences,

707: so please be careful of what you say.

707: Please don’t think I’m such a good person.

707: Of course,

707: I’ll take care of everything that’s already happened.

707: I’ll try harder for you because I involved you in all this.

707: Whatever happens,

707: I’ll make sure you’re never in danger.

707: but…

707: once this hacker deal is taken care of,

707: there’s something I have to do first…

707: so things might go a bit slow.

Kali: Seven… the agency, are you in danger working for them? Are they threatening you?

707: Don’t worry about it, Kali ^^

707: I’ll just go back to the Seven I always was, and come back after everything’s finished.

707: I’m sorry for being slow.

707: Please tell me

707: if anything strange happens

707: while I finish up my agency work.

707: Alright, Kali?

Kali: I’ll be fine. Just focus on yourself ok?

707: I really hope so…

707: ^^

707: I have to go now.

707: I plan to finish the agency work in a blink of an eye.

Kali: Seven, be careful. And thank you for protecting me. 

707: I don’t deserve to be thanked.

707: I’ll come back soon. Take care of yourself.

707: Then… Good bye.

<707 has left the chatroom.>

Tears hadn't fallen when the bullet pierced her thigh, nor all the times when Juno would beat her within an inch of death as a “test” of control.  But they fell for him, hot wet trails down her checks. Sadness and anger warred to take dominance. Anger won. The phone hit the wall with a solid thunk, a dent left behind in the white drywall. This… this was what their whole organization was formed to monitor and clean up. The Seekers weren’t fulfilling the duty her grandparents had lived and died for. 

What could she even say to alleviate any of the burden on his shoulders? “Don’t worry about me, Seven. I’m the dangerous one, not you. My bad, the people who own my soul aren’t doing their job. Sorry.” He wouldn’t believe her. No one ever would. And that made her one of the Seeker’s most effective tools, a weapon hiding in the body of a young blonde woman with a sad smile and the eyes of a demon.

[lonely-bored-writer]

Is Everything Okay? Ch. 14

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Anderson's eyebrows furrowed, the concern was clear on his faces. The pale and ever so slightly shaky teen gave the older man a small smile.

"Yea..." Danny nodded, looking down at the cup of water before him. His mind reeling to try and explain who was the reason for his fainting spell. He bit his lip, and glanced up. He tensed and pulled in on himself at the sight of Spectra and her minion Bertrand. "It's just..."

"It's Ms. Spectra, isn't it." Anderson was met with a wide eyed teen. The man released a sigh, looking of at the demon-like redhead. "The way you two look at each other, it's like a predator looking at a prey. I'm going to see what I can do to get her removed-"

"You don't have to." Danny cursed himself inside. He didn't want Spectra here, she fed on his emotions which made him worse, but he didn't want Anderson to go through the trouble. He's already helped him enough. "I-I can handle it..."

"Danny, you knew she worked for Vlad. That alone shows that something happened between the two of you, and I can tell it wasn't good." The blonde slouched to the teen's level. "I know it's hard handling this with Masters alone, so I'm going to help have Spectra dismissed. "

Daniel didn't know how to the respond to the man's kindness. A man who he didn't even know existed until a few weeks ago. His response was a watery smile, which was returned with a sturdier smile as the agent left to speak with the Judge. Danny curled in on himself, trying everything he could to drown out the soft whispers that sounded like roars. He didn't expect anything else anyway, he was the kid who fainted in the middle of a hearing.

A sigh escaped him, he kept his cobalt eyes on the white tile at his feet. The raven haired teen just couldn't help but be glad to have had Anderson, who had told him everything that he didn't catch in his hazy. Spectra somehow had a video of him acting like Phantom, rather than shifting. That made things a lot easier, he could have been acting for all everyone knew. It couldn't be that hard, right?

"Any evidence, or testimony that Ms. Penelope Spectra is to be ignored." Judge Montreal addressed before turning to the two lawyers before him. "Mr. Anderson will start."

"I call Tucker Foley to the stand." Danny's head shot up to see his best friend walking to the podium. He felt happy that Tucker decided to show, but he couldn't believe he missed him. How could he not notice this? "Mr. Foley can you tell me about the first time my client, Daniel, came to you about Vlad." Even from his seat, Danny can see the slight tremors running through his friend. Tucker never did fair well under pressure.

"Uhm, he had gotten back from the reunion. I had questioned him what was wrong, I've been his best friend for years, I can tell when something is bothering him, ya know? He didn't tell me at first, but I promised not to tell anyone unless he gave the gr-green light. When he told me, I tried to get him to tell someone just how much of a froot-loop Vlad is." Tucker paused when he caught the dark gaze of the silver haired man. Anderson noticing the small exchange effortlessly blocked the teen's view. Prompting Tucker to go on, said teen swallowed thickly before continuing. "But he didn't want to. I got-get it really, the man had threatened to kill his dad and somehow marry his mum! With all the surveillance Vlad had, Danny was to worried that Vlad would find out if he planned to tell anyone and he would hurt his family."

"What about his parents? Do you remember either of them making a move or noticing what Mr. Masters was doing?"

"No..." Tucker paused, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. "Wait, I know his mum thought something wrong was going on with the man. So they stopped visiting him, but then he became Mayor and he spent more time in Amity Park and..."

"What about Jack Fenton?" Anderson decided to save the kid from having to finish the sentence. Meanwhile, Danny was dumbstruck by how well his friend was lying... Well partially lying.

"He can be a little slow when it came to things like that..." Tucker gave a nervous chuckle. wishing nothing more than to have his PDA which sat in Jazz's lap out of the techno geeks reach. "He still thought Vlad for being his best bud from College."

"So would you say that Vlad Masters didn't only seem psychologically and physically capable of harming the Fenton family, but he also was able to manipulate people?" His answer was a jerky nod from the antsy teen who sat at the stand. Anderson bit back a sigh, he wasn't going to drain the kid before the shark of a defense attorney got to him. "No further questions." Anderson nodded, taking a seat at his table next to the still fidgeting Danny.

"Thanks for coming." Danny smiled at his two friends. "I wasn't sure if you were going to..." The teen gave a nervous smile and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Of course we were coming!" Chris shook his head in mock disbelief. The blonde beside him chuckled softly. "What kind of friends do you think we are!" The teen exaggerated his point by placing a hand over his heart. The smirk playing on his lips dismissed any notion of actual hurt. The purple haired teen's smirk only grew at his friends laugh.

"So, how'd you think it went?" Danny questioned, glancing between the two of his friends. He kept his knees pressed to his chest, and bit his lip. He wasn't hopeful about the whole thing. Vlad had power and influence, knowing him he would have somehow paid off the jury.

"I think it looks great actually." Dash spoke, taking his seat on one side of Danny while Chris took the other. Although a bench was seated not even five feet away from the trio, they had chosen to join their distraught friend on the floor. "Masters lawyer didn't have a case against you. You've got this in the bag."

"Yea Dash is right. That lawyer of his is just grasping at straws, theirs no way you'll be losing." Chris agreed with the jock, giving Danny a smile. "Besides, even if the prick paid any Jury people to vote in his favor no one will do that, not after the panic attack you had in there."

A grim silence filtered between the two, all of them sat against the wall. Daniel was hugging his knees, with his chin resting between them. Dash sat with one leg bent and the other stretched out. While Chris sat with his feet pressed together, leaving an opening between his legs. The trio sat and waited, waited for the case to be called in and for the verdict to be told.

"Danny!" The teen jumped, his cobalt eyes landed on a panicked Jazz running towards them. Her aqua eyes wide, swimming in tears while she panted, stopping in front of the three. "Danny, it's dad. We have to get to the hospital!"

Danny froze, his mind swimming in possibilities. He couldn't just leave could he? But he had to go, he had to see how his dad was doing... But the verdict. The pressure started to build on his chest, but all he could do was stare at his fraught sister. The feeling of a hand on his shoulder snapped him from his panic. He turned quickly to be met with Dash's slightly worried blue eyes.

"We'll call and tell you the verdict, you should go"

"Mum?" Jazz questioned, walking up to her crying mother. Danny lagged a few steps behind, a familiar sense of dread and trepidation growing inside him, wrapping tightly around his throat. His eyes flashed to his father's room... Or what was his father's room. The bed was bare, any sigh of anyone having occupied the room was now gone. The tears began to slide down his cheeks before he came to the full conclusion.

"He's gone." Danny stated, knowing immediately that it was true. "Dad... He's dead?" The harsh sob his mother gave told the siblings what they needed to know. Jazz acted first, pulling her mum into a tight hug, letting her cry into her shoulders. But Danny stood frozen, his whole body felt like it was just drenched into an ice cold bath. He felt numb, but he felt so much at the same time.

"-Your fault!" Danny looked wide eyed and crying at his angry mother. Her leaking eyes trained on him, anger flaring them. Just hearing the two words from her, he knew what she thought. He couldn't agree more, he knew he was at fault. He deserved the anger and hatred from her.

"Mum, wait-"

"No Jazz!" Maddie cut her daughter off, moving towards her trembling son. "It's all your fault! If you had just-If you had just done something before none of this would be happening! Your father would still be here, we would still be living in OUR home. This-This is all on you." Her words got colder the more she spoke, they dug deep into Daniel. Even if he felt that way, it hurt more than any wound hes gotten to hear his own mother say them.

"No!" Jazz got between the two, everyone seemingly forgetting about everyone else in the hospital. Everyone who stood or sat around watching the exchange with various emotions. "This isn't Danny's fault! This is-"

"She's right." Daniel's soft whisper shocked his sister into silence, but seemed to please his mother. "Mum's right, this is all my fault." He chocked out, the tears clouded his vision as he turned and booked it out of the room. He didn't want to see his mother's rightfully hateful glares, or his sister's pity looks. The pressure on his chest increased by ten folds, making it harder for him to breath.

All he knew was that he needed to get away from all of this.

"Dude you won! Masters got 25 years!"

Danny's blurry eyes stared down at the sentence on his phone. Those word did nothing to appease the pressure, or the guilt inside him. If anything it all increased, he figured getting Vlad out of the situation would make everything so much better, but it didn't. Everything hurt, everything was falling apart and there was nothing he could do.

A choked sob escaped him, he tossed his phone roughly onto the cement of the roof he found himself on. His eyes found the large billboard that sat in front of him. Confusion and paranoia raced through him when it shut off. The electronic billboards were always up, so why would this one suddenly shut off? Nonetheless his questions and worries were answered and confirmed when the face of a certain silver haired halfa found itself on screen.

"Hello everyone of Amity Park, this is your Mayor. The same Mayor who had just been wrongly convicted of child abuse if you are watching this. I had hoped all this could have passed over without the need to reveal young Daniel Fenton's secret. A secret he had thrown his own godfather under the bus to protect. A secret he in trusted me with for some time. I had hope little badger would have came to his senses and retract his false statement so I wouldn't have to go to such extreme measures to clear my now tarnished name..."

Danny's vision focused instantly, fear curling through him. The alarm raced through his veins, his mind going to the only thing he could think Vlad would do with his. Vlad was going to expose him...

"Many of you may not believe my words, and so I had decided to display for all of you video evidence to support this. Very well, for all of Amity Park to know, Our resident Daniel Fenton is also our resident hero Danny Phantom. He had gathered his injuries doing nothing more than protecting this town, he did not want you to know of this, and so Daniel had put the blame on me. I can see how this is hard to grasp, and so here is the proof."

From his perch on the roof, Danny could hear the out roar below him as the video of his transformation played on loop. The very transformation he had been forced to do by Vlad well before any of this occurred. Danny should have expected Vlad to have insurance, should have expected things to never be easy for him. His head snapped up, eyes trained on the white hover craft heading his way. They GIW already tracked his ecto-signature. They were getting better.

Swallowing down the fury of emotions running through him, Danny knew one thing for sure. He needed to get out of Amity Park.

[mittensmorgul]

Feelin' like A+ right now because 1, they crumpled up that lukewarm Crowley foil like a stale takeout wrapper because HEY NOTHING WILL REPLACE CROWLEY; and 2, Sam bringing an end to the power struggle for Hell IN FUCKING DETROIT. Nine years since the Boy King said yes to the devil and now my fave is toppling evil monarchies. It all goes down in Detroit, baby.

THAT IS SOME EXCELLENT DESCRIPTION. 

Hi, first off. :D

Second, I think I’m gonna use this to write up my Sam vs Detroit nonsense, because you brought pretty much everything I wanted to unpack about it in one convenient doggie bag.

Season Five was essentially this: Lucifer taunted Sam from the jump (or from 5.03, at least) with the fact that Sam would always eventually say yes to him. And he taunted Dean (from 5.04, at least) with the fact that this would always eventually happen in Detroit.

And it DID. Sam DID say yes, even if every other element of that prophesied scenario had been irrevocably altered because of the efforts of TFW over the course of s5, and Sam and Dean walked into that meeting with Lucifer knowing what they needed to do, and the results were not at all what Lucifer had believed they would be... it still happened in Detroit. Like, that was the singular Fixed Point that all of their cosmic interference still could not alter.

One has to imagine that all the demons in Hell were at least peripherally aware of what went down during the apocalypse era, you know? Demon Sunday School lessons had been preparing them for this since the beginning, the return of Lucifer and their coming dominion over the Earth, or whatever stories they told themselves (which Crowley always saw through as a lie to keep them all in line, knowing Lucifer was just as eager to be rid of demons as he was of humans...). But we’re left with the impression that even the lowliest of demons was watching all this go down like this:

I have a hard time imagining a demon such as Kip who’d studied Crowley enough to play the role (however unconvincingly to Sam or Cas) to at least earn the grudging demon minions he had, must’ve been paying attention back during the apocalypse. Detroit was literally a buzzword in every major circle of agents acting in that era.

Basically, there’s no WAY Kip didn’t know what arranging that meeting in Detroit was supposed to bring to the surface here. He was using that deliberately, just as much as he used that snazzy lavender suit to affect his Crowley impression to hoodwink all his minions into following him in the first place.

He lured Cas TO A BARBECUE IN DETROIT, decorated not only with ACTUAL LITERAL FIRE (quite the opposite of Lucifer’s exposition that he “burns cold” and proceeds to draw a pitchfork in an iced-over window in 5.22), but pigs of all sorts all over the place (pretty much what demons think of humans... as livestock, with flashbacks to “long pig” and Kip mentioning eating babies again), he drinks the drink we’ve been associating with Cas and Humanity for years as well-- and thanks 8.21 for this:

while Cas himself ordered WATER which he didn’t even drink because he’s been eschewing... all human nourishment (aside from the occasional beer Dean has put into his hands) since his disappointing PBJ in 9.11.

But back to Sam, in Detroit... Where he both accepted and overthrew his destiny to Play His Role that he’d been groomed for since November 3, 1983... He walked into Motown Meats having finally overthrown even the specter of that destiny that’s haunted him since 5.22, when he first grappled with Lucifer and won.

Prophesied Boy King of Hell, told he would lead the army of demons in the coming apocalypse, REJECTED THAT DESTINY WITH BOTH HANDS WHEN HE DRAGGED LUCIFER AND MICHAEL INTO THE CAGE (and gigglesnorting because I typed “pickle” instead of “michael” at first and I think I must be hungry or something), and has been living with the guilt and shame of being “tainted” and “impure” because of that destiny and what was done to him in the attempt to force him into complying with it...

SAM FUCKING WINCHESTER, Y’ALL... he drove to Detroit to save Cas-- in a neat reversal of Cas standing in a ring of flames in 5.10 and defending Sam to Lucifer’s face-- this time SAM FOUND CAS IN THAT METAPHORICAL RING OF FLAMES and basically did a NOT TODAY SATAN to Kip, and not exactly took the mantle of Big Boss of Hell, but issued a command to a bunch of demons who obeyed him and fled... I mean, Sam has taken that destiny, that mantle of power the universe had tried to force on him, tore it to shreds and stitched it into an ugly orange (hellfire!) jacket he could live with and wear comfortably...

And his people back at the bunker call him “Chief.”

This is Sam, beginning to understand the line between What He Has and What He Wants isn’t as black and white as he’s always believed...

In an episode where the adversary had one question for everyone-- What do you want?-- Sam is finally in control of his life enough to begin taking that question seriously for himself, and I AM LIVING.

[peacefulwriter88]

One That Got Away - Chapter 1

Steve Rogers X OFC Ariadne Bellamy

A/N: Okay. So I have literally been working on this story for about two months now which is why I’ve been MIA on my writing for this site. I wanted to write something that spoke to Steve Rogers and explored him beyond a sweet and broken boy because I find him fascinating. I wanted to play around with an OFC and I wanted to explore the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a way that spoke to the movies but also hit the helm for comics. I wanted to explore other Marvel characters in ways we don’t get to see and I wanted to have fun. 

So this is what the end result is. Its going to be about 30 chapters....I’m 20 in and I’m hoping to post pretty frequently. Please leave your thoughts, feedback, etc. Thank you @geminimoonbeamx​ for betaing this and helping me create this universe - I sincerely hope you all enjoy! 

Universe: Marvel Canon

Rating: M for Mature (Language, Sexual tones eventual) 

“In this story

I am the poet

You’re the poetry.”

-Arzum Uzun

                                 Chapter 1 - The Clash

It was purely accidentally, him and I. That’s what I always fall on whenever I reflect back on the circumstances that led up to where I stood now, a bouquet of flowers in hand as I waited patiently to walk down the petaled aisle.

It wasn’t Disney Hollywood romance that brought us together. I didn’t meet him at a fancy dinner and he didn’t save my life. It wasn’t a meet cute out in a park or randomly through a friend.

It was just pure random chance.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The promise of good real estate had lulled me and my best friend, Ellie Novak, out of the warmth of our beds and into the blistery, fall streets of Brooklyn that morning about two years ago. It had only taken us the course of ten minutes to realize that it was a scam, that the large brownstone being rented out was far beyond our paychecks, and that we were now stuck having to hear the Native American women speak persuasively on why this home was the one.

“For only $4,800, you and a lucky roommate can enjoy top of the line amenities just yards away from a subway line, in an up and rising neighborhood with plenty to do on the weekend….”

Ellie’s nibbling on the shared scone we’ve picked up from the Polish deli we’d passed on the way here, her eyes flickering from me back to the women who continued to audaciously drone on about the overpriced property and me, begging to leave. Ellie has the kind of eyes that make you want to give in to her at the drop of a dime, large round irises accentuated by her long thick lashes that were still coated by mascara from the night before. I was looking for an out, feeling claustrophobic, annoyed and so fucking hungover. My head was beating and my body was begging for something greasy to eat up the poor decisions from the night before.

Ellie and I stood out in this crowd though, my coffee skin a contrast to Ellie’s light tawny shade and though our brown leather jackets and matching boots complimented the buns we’d pulled on top of our heads, we still stood out among the sea of white. I was falling into the insecurity of not belonging in a city I always belonged in, and I sigh as I tried to find a quick exit strategy, perhaps when we started touring the place. My eyes were panning the size of the room when they had landed on him.  

It was odd, seeing him out of the star spangled uniform I was accustomed to seeing on the nightly news. He had a blue NY baseball cap and a blue bomber jacket paired with a white t-shirt and was sipping the same cheap coffee Ellie and I were. He was standing beside a black guy who guffawed when the real estate agent kept listing off expensive expense after the other, nudging the handsome blonde and shaking his head.

Steven Grant Rogers, Mr. Captain America himself.  

“Ellie….” I was trying my best to keep my cool, trying not to crumble into myself from becoming star struck. I nudge Ellie, probably harder than I needed to and she hums , turning toward me with tired irises as she mouths,

“What?”

“Look to my left.” I mouth back, nodding my head in his direction and she rolls her eyes, looking beyond me I’m sure to not be impressed by a cutie I was wasting her time with. Then she freezes, her body stiffening as she becomes familiar with the face and her eyes immediately return back to her as she whispers,

“Is that...?”

“Yes.” It comes out as a low squeak as I return my attention back to the real estate agent.

“Go say hi!” her voice automatically goes octaves higher, no longer bored which causes me to shake my head adamantly.  

“No. Way.”

“What? Why!?” she’s taken off guard as she shifts her body toward me, no disregard to the people sandwiched around us who are quick to throw us glances of annoyance.

“No fucking way.” I repeat, not looking at her and I could feel her shift, her arms crossing as she looks at me.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You had no problem walking up to Jake Gyllenhaal on the subway a few months ago.”

I roll my eyes, taking a sip of the long neglected coffee I’d been using to keep hands warm, welcoming the bitter flavor against my tongue.   

“He dropped his wallet.”

“Yea and you also had a torrid love affair with him.” the bitterness still crept around each word and I can’t help but snort underneath my chuckle.

“Fucking a celebrity in a bathroom at a restaurant he takes you too isn’t a torrid love affair. It’s a reminder from whatever entity that sometimes you get rewarded for good karma.”

Another loud huff.

“Go say hi! That way I can say hi. Also, pretty sure that dude he’s with is the Falcon. You know how I adore the Avengers. Please.”

Her voice is doing that soft, whiney thing, a tone that only comes out when she really wants something and doesn’t want to go through doing it herself. Doesn’t persuade me enough on this particular morning. Instead it drives what feels like nails into my head and I turn my attention back to the real estate agent as I say crisply again,  

“No. Let’s leave him alone; I’m sure he’s grateful no one has noticed him and wants to keep it that way. Even superheroes enjoy the gift of privacy, probably more than us normal folk.”

Not good enough. Ellie pouts again, this time jutting her bottom lip out and pushes. Again,

“Ariadne….”

“NO!”

I normally wasn’t this impatient, normally could have kindly convinced Ellie that I didn’t want to fulfill her celebrity fancy that morning. That instead, I’d much rather just leave and grab some food and return to my bedroom to force the demons that lingered from tequila and rum being mixed together to free themselves of my mind.

The hangover had won; however, so Ellie got annoyed frustrated Ariadne. And not just Ellie. Oh no, at this point I had captured the attention of everyone in that small, overpriced living room, including Captain America. His amused eyes watch mine and I can’t handle it; its too much after a long week, an early morning.

The real estate agent isn’t as amused by my sudden outburst however, and isn’t afraid to clear her voice and ask,

“I’m sorry – was there something you wanted to say?”

It felt like a teacher mocking me, calling me out for doing something in her class that she didn’t like and I sigh, shaking my head. I didn’t want to cause any more unnecessary drama that had already been started,

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

She looks at me skeptically and I shrug. I was over it, Ellie was over it and from what I could tell by most of these faces so was most of everybody else,

“Actually, there is one thing.”

The woman looks at me, raising an eye. Inviting me for my feedback,

“I think its bullshit that you market yourself as affordable housing for working class individuals but really it’s just another fucking real estate scheme to see how many humans you can fit in one brownstone. This place is way overpriced for what it's offering and I’m over listening to your systematic lies. And I’m sure everyone else here is too. So adieu and good day.”

The real estate agent scoffs as I grab Ellie’s arm and drag her through the crowd, ignoring the low whistles and claps that erupts.

“I don’t believe you did that?” she murmurs as we enter back into the cold and I shrug as I zip up my leather jacket.

“You wanted an out.” I say and she scoffs and rolls her eyes.

“No! I don’t believe you didn’t say hello to Steve Rogers aka Captain America. Never thought I’d see the day you’d pussy out.”

“Unfucking believable. That is what you gathered from that whole thing?” the exasperation drips in my voice and she shrugs, her eyes flitting from the brownstone back to me.

“Listen, I was reading the stars last night and the universe has something monumental in store for you. And as a result me. So help me help you fulfill said destiny.”

I scoff as I look down at her, skeptical eyes drinking her in.

“You think that whatever fate you read from the stars last night – while high on marijuana I might add – is that I am supposed to hook up with Captain America?”

She gives a confident nod, never breaking her eye contact as she nimbly puts on her gloves.

“Précisément.” She says happily and I snort as stuff my hands into my pocket, moving down the block.  

“Whatever….I’m too hungover and also I think I’m suffering from being star struck? Either way I couldn’t think of something witty to say to him. Do I go up to him and say, ‘What’s a guy like you doing in an expensive Open House like this?’”

Ellie’s short frame has mastered keeping up with my longer legs as we move down the street and she nods her head and smiles.

“Yes!”

“No way. I’m not that smooth Ellie. Honestly, sometimes it’s just dumb luck and it naturally happens but if it doesn’t I don’t want to force it. And while I’d have loved a rendezvous with the cap, it didn’t feel right and I’m not about forcing stuff that doesn’t feel right”

She sighs and nods, pulling out her phone and looking at the time. We allow the silence to fall between us, her acceptance of my uncomfortable attitude and knowing that she would have to drop it for now. It isn’t until we make it down the next block that I suggest,

“Well since we’re already out we might as well get breakfast.”

She doesn’t say anything at first, leaving me with the sounds of Brooklyn traffic. Then she’s giving me a little nudge, a small smile creeping on her face as she softly says,

“I mean, Dover’s is on the part of the island. And they do make the best French Toast…”

I flash her a smile as I nudge her back, throwing my arm over her plush shoulders a squeeze.

“Let’s get it my treat. C’mon, for ruining your Instagram perfect pic with the Cap.”

She laughs as she pushes me away,

“Cap’s more your type but how I can pass up a free breakfast?”

Dover’s is….an acquired taste. When you walk in, perhaps for just a second you might debate if this is the kind of establishment you want to invest $10-15 dollars in. It has dim lighting all the time, despite all the open windows. A bar that’s been stained with evidence of the past since probably Steve Rogers was born and sticky floors that stuck to the soles of your shoes no matter what you wore. It had a juke box but that had been broken since my dad used to take me here as a kid and typically has one or two of the same guys who linger over the bar counter with the same pint of beer that makes you question if you’re caught in a time loop.

It was the best kind of dive bar and restaurant because of it though and despite the questioning look of the décor, the food was greasy and delicious and perfect for any hangover that you were trying to ward off.

Margy was a waitress that had worked there all of her life, had the same curled bob and the same dyed bright red hair and skin that smelled of cigarettes and flora. She smiled at us now, a coffee pot in her hand as we flipped over the cheap porcelain cups for her to pour the rich, bitter drink into.

“You ladies are here a bit later than usual.”

She has a thick Irish that’s also been influenced by her upstate upbringing and I smile up at her, shaking my head and shrugging.

“We tried to go to this Open House on the island. Guess how much rent is per month?”

This time she snorts, shaking her head.

“Probably as much as I see in three months.”

“Nearly $5,000. What the hell does that even mean for my life goals?” Ellie say, her hands automatically going through the motions of reaching for the crème and sugar to dump into her coffee.

“Means this island, just like this country, is going to shit.” Margy sighs, shaking her head before she smiles and says,

“Neither here are there tho. So are you ladies going to have the usual?”

“You. Know. It.” Ellie says, before taking another sip of her coffee. Margy nods, taking away our menus and walking away as I grab the container of sugar, pouring just a spoonful before stirring it into the dark drink.

“Still confuses me how you drink that stuff black.”

“I add sugar sometimes. Like just now.” I remind her and she shakes her head.

“It’s so gross. A little bit of crème never hurts anybody.” She smiles into her steaming cup, sipping more of it. Ellie never really drank coffee, mainly because it was the perfect accelerator to the anxiety that she kept contained in her beautiful, plush body. There were occasions, however, when she would allow herself the small treat and when she did she made it as sweet as her personality. She claimed it was because the crème and sugar fought off all the extra caffeine and I would argue back she was just addicted to the idea of coffee.

Either way, she hated that I drank coffee without too much of the like. Mainly because I also suffered from anxiety and she was typically the one who had to deal with the after effects of it.

“Are we using coffee to reflect our personalities this morning?” I say again, trying to deflect any form of a real argument from emerging. “How much fucking alcohol did you drink at Nicole’s last night? First my future written by the stars and now a lecture on the effects of coffee.” I tease and she furrow’s her eyebrows together, sticking her tongue out before taking another sip.

I’m about to bring something up – I don’t remember because that detail stopped being important the moment Ellie’s eyes change into large, hazel saucers that is quickly followed by her ducking her already small body further into the booth.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…” She whispers and I raise a brow as she looks back up behind me before resuming her previous position.

“What?” I ask confused, not amused enough to turn my head realizing that I’ve left the glass of water Margy had placed in front of us go unattended.

“Ohhhhhh my god, oh my god, oh my god. He’s coming over here.”

“What? Is Alex here? Oh my god please let it be Alex. I’ve been dying to cuss him out…he’s such a shit for ghosting you last night…” I turn my head at the door, my eyes surveying the half busy restaurant before my heart stops, the grip around my coffee cup tightening.

Staring right back at me was no other than Steve Grant Rogers himself.

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