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orcasoul · 19 days ago

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The Lesser of Two Evils

Summary: Marcus fulfils his promise, new tensions threaten the peace in Rome and feelings can no longer be ignored.

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, brief mention of smut (18+ only, minors DNI) enemies(ish) to lovers, slow burn, protective Marcus Acacius.

Word Count: 6, 699

Chapter 10 Devotion and Disorder

Breakfast had been slightly awkward for you and Marcus this morning. Instead of addressing the very obvious elephant in the room, Marcus seemed to prefer to keep the conversation light, maybe because of the servants present or (and you hope this is not the case) maybe it's because now he's had time to think about it, Marcus realises it was a mistake. But that can't be it. The way Marcus touched you, the way he looked at you last night spoke louder than any words could... or had you just been too hopeful? Even now as the carriage makes it's way to the Colosseum, the events of last night linger between you, like a silent companion, following where you go. Will neither of you bring it up? Will you both carry on like nothing happened? The thought of pretending that nothing has changed between you brings a physical ache to your chest, a part of you longing to address the issue.

But with the busy day fast unfurling now just doesn't feel like the right time, so as much as it gnaws at you you do your best to maintain a cool facade, chatting casually. However, you cannot help but notice Marcus' warm honey eyes soften even more than usual as you speak, his gentle smile lasting just that little bit longer. It makes it almost unbearable to keep eye contact with him but impossible to look away at the same time. Neither of you may be willing to speak of it yet, but the dynamic between you both has undoubtedly shifted, a newfound intimacy - that maybe has always been there, but never acknowledged - seems to have crossed that line with you last night and now there's no turning back. Marcus sits across from you, holding a mahogany box decorated with Guilloche around the edges on his lap. He'd sent a servant to collect it at the crack of dawn, eager to have it in his posession.

What may appear as a simple box to most people means so much more to you. Inside that box lays your future, your official documentation of citizenship. It doesn't matter that you can't read it, just it's existence is enough for you. It'll mean the beginning of the rest of your life. You hadn't realised you'd been staring at the box until Marcus spoke. "Are you nervous?" You shake your head, quickly anwering "No." But then with a sheepish expression, you confess, "Well... maybe a little." Marcus smiles comfortingly. "There's no need to be nervous. All you have to do is accept your parchment and thank the Emperors." "Yeah, that and have sixty thousand eyes upon me," you chuckle lightly, even though inside your pulse is already picking up. "Yes, that too," Marcus laughs with you. As if he can sense your inner turmoil, he leans forward, his hand settling over yours in your lap.

"Everything will be okay," he soothes and it's then you realise you'd been twiddling your fingers in uneasy anticipation. Marcus gently squeezes your hands, his warm, reassuring touch instantly drawing the nervous energy from your body. You nod in response, turning one hand over to clasp his and release a sigh as you tilt your head up to meet his gaze. And what you see makes your breath stutter for a moment. Marcus eyes, full of tenderness and warmth, eyes that say 'I'm right here with you, you're safe.' Your heart swells and flutters in your chest. How did you become so fortunate to have someone like Marcus Acacius in your life? You must have done something right at some point for the gods to see fit to make your paths cross - even if it was under dire circumstances.

You want so much to tell Marcus how you feel, but where would you even begin? What he makes you feel is so much bigger and deeper than anything you've felt before, the intensity of it threatening to drown you in the most wonderful way. With the swell of emotions rising up your throat all you can do is embrace his hand tighter and smile, hoping that your eyes can express to him what your voice cannot.

*****

Water! What the hell?! Water in the Colossuem. And not just water, ships too! Marcus smirks as he comes to stand beside you in the imperial box. "How...?" a shocked laugh bursts from you, "H- how is this done?!" you ask in disbelief, unable to tear your eyes away from the huge behemoths floating in front of you. "The water is channelled through aquaducts and a lot of underground canals," Marcus explained, watching you take in everything in awe. "Amazing..." you breathed out, so quietly Marcus barely heard it. "I've never seen an actual ship before," you stated, still mesmerised. "Well then, it's a good thing you have such an upclose view. This will be impressive." Marcus pressed his hand to the small of your back, gently guiding you to take your seat. As you sat, the trumpets blared and the Emperors entered the box, accompanied by Julia, the crowds cheering as the announcer paid his respects to the two rulers and introduced today's battle.

Then the moment you'd been awaiting arrived with the announcers next words. "Before the battle commences, Justus Marcus Acacius, by permission of their graces, has a special announcement for us today." Marcus stood to the roar of the entire arena, made his way the the balcony with the parchment in hand and lifted an arm in salute, his mere presence eliciting a frenzy from the crowd. Dressed resplendently in ceremonial armour of pure white and gleaming gold, he looked more like a god than a man, his name sounding like fervent prayers from the lips of worshippers. Watching him exude confidence and grace, you cannot deny that Marcus Acacius is a sight to behold. Marcus lowered his arm, turned to bow to the Emperors and began addressing the crowd, the deep timber of his voice striking something deep inside you. It both soothed and excited you at the same time.

"I am not an orator or a politician, I am a soldier. I have seen bravery in men and women during war and today I wish to honour the bravery of one woman in particular. A woman, whom without her courage and intervention in the face of great peril, I would not be standing here addressing you today. A woman to whom I owe my very life; Alia of the Gutones." Marcus turned to you, arm outstretched, beckoning you to come and stand beside him. With a gulp and a deep breath you rise and join Marcus, thunderous applause and cheers reverberating all around you. Marcus gives you a wink before turning his attention back to the spectators. "Today, I fulfil my vow to her as you all bare witness..." Marcus holds out the document, "Alia, you are forthwith and forevermore a citizen of Rome. Congratualations."

Your breath left your lungs in a gush of joyful relief as you accepted the parchment, tears building behind your eyes. It's done. This here, is why you risked everything, why you left the only home you've ever known and travelled a dangerous world with people who were supposed to be your enemy. Marcus had not just kept his word, he'd gone above and beyond for you. No one - besides your parents and Farro - has ever shown you the care and devotion that marcus has. Inside your chest a wave of warmth and adoration for the man before you swept outward, overwhelming you to the point of giddyness. Gods, this man is everything to you; your joy, your security, your life. With Marcus by your side, you feel like you could take on the world and everything would be okay, he'd make sure of it. It's like he understands you like no one ever has, emboldens you... completes you. But what does that even mean?

Burying your confusion deep down, you tilt your head up at Marcus and smile wildly, happily soaking up as much of this moment as you can. "Thank you!" your voice slightly shakes with the overload of pure emotion. "Thank you General Acacius... Your Majesties," you acknowledge the Emperors with a kirtsy and they briefly nod at you. Bringing your eyes to meet Marcus' once more, you say, "I am eternally grateful for this great honour." And just like that, the crowd broke out into a deafening cheer, your name now being repeated over and over. "Hear that?" Marcus leand down so his mouth was level with your ear, hands clasped in front of him, keeping his eyes on the crowd. "That's all for you," he spoke lowly, voice like silk, warm breath tickling your ear.

It makes your insides flip and your knees weak. It's all you can do to not melt on the spot. You hope Marcus doesn't notice but... you also hope he does. "Wave to them," Marcus encouraged, laying a hand at the small of your back and extending his other arm out towards the the arena. This surely can't all be for you! Just having one person look upon you kindly is still so odd and here you are, being hailed and applauded by tens of thousands of people. Stunned, a light laughter of awe climbs up your throat and you raise your hand to the multitude of faces, who now sound even more enthused by your aknowledgment. After a few moments Marcus guided you back to your seat, settling in next to you as the announcer heralded the beginning of the battle. On the other side of the thrones (where you and Marcus couldn't see), Julia and Macrinus shared a murderous look and a silent nod.

*****

You'd left the Colosseum with mixed feelings. Marcus wasn't kidding when he'd said the battle would be impressive. From the sheer size of the ships and the damage they'd wrought, to the ferocity of the fighters, it definitely left a lasting impression on you. And while you'd enjoyed the pageantry of it all, the deaths left a bitter taste in your mouth. Even though the men were criminals or prisoners of war, death is something you'll never enjoy watching, especially for sport. But this is a big part of Roman life, so you know you'll have to get used to it, especially now that you are a citizen. A Citizen! It's still so surreal, like a dream. If you weren't holding onto your document like it's the most precious thing in the world to you - and it just might be - you'd be certain you would wake any second to find this all to be a great fantasy.

But no, this is real and you can't keep the smile off your face as you scan the writing and the official seal. "It's not going to disappear if you glance away from it," Marcus chuckled as he observed you from the opposite seat in the carriage. Your eyes met his, your smile growing and the sight warmed Marcus' heart. He's not sure if he's ever seen anyone so elated, so radiant and his chest swells with pride knowing he's made all of this possible for you. Heaven's, he'd give you the world if it means you'll keep smiling at him like you are now. "I just can't believe it's finally happened," you beam, pure joy dancing in your eyes. "I'll never be able to thank you enough for this, Marcus." Marcus shook his head, his smile softening. "You deserve it. You deserve every good thing life has to offer."

Marcus doesn't miss the blush creeping over your cheeks as you look down coyly and it hits him deep inside his gut; how much he wants to reach out and hold you in his arms again. Images of last night re-emerge; you, small and soft in his embrace, your face, expectant and full of desire and the ghost of your lips as they lightly brushed his. And suddenly it's clear. He doesn't just want to have your body, but your heart too, to keep, to cherish and to protect, forever. He's fallen for you, deeply and irrevicably and he didn't even see it coming. The realisation leaves Marcus momentairily stunned. He studies your face as your gaze roves your parchment again, an idea emerging. "If you wish to be able to read it, I could hire a tutor for you."

Your head shoots up, your eyebrows raised. "Oh, that's very generous of you, Marcus, but it's not necessary." "Would you like to be able to read it yourself?" Marcus asked, nodding to the document on your lap. "Well, yes but-" "Then it's settled," the corner of Marcus' mouth quirked. "But the expense-" "Don't worry about that..." Marcus raised his palm to stop you, "it's not an issue." You raise one eyebrow, a teasing smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. "And if I insist you don't waste your money on me...?" you countered. Marcus shrugged, a satisfied expression growing on his face. "Then I'd have to insist it's not a waste." "You're impossible," you say with a lighthearted chuckle. Marcus shrugs again, laughing with you. "Thank you," you whisper after a moment, looking straight into, not his eyes but his very soul and it makes his breath seize. He should feel vaulnerable, but he doesn't. He feels seen and content to be seen by you. Oh, he is well and truly fucked.

*****

After arriving back at the villa Marcus had informed you that he'd be away until dinner time; important business with the Emperors and the war council, apparantly. Poor guy can't seem to get a break even when he's recovering from an injury. It's a good several hours until dinner and in the meantime you wish to keep yourself busy and you smile to yourself, knowing just what to do. Marcus has been exceptionally kind and attentive to you since your arrival in Rome and you would love to return some of that kindness and do something for him for a change. Obviously, there aren't many options for you but the one thing you always enjoyed as a child was cooking. Morning's spent with your mama, preparing the days' meal are some of your most cherished memories. And today, you'll prepare something special, just for Marcus, to show him how much you appreciate him.

Going in search of Cassia, it doesn't take long to find her, refilling the oil in the braziers. "Hi, Cassia?" you approach with a big smile on your face. "Good afternoon, Alia," Cassia smiles with a respectful nod, giving you her full attention. "I'd like to do something for Mar- for the Dominus," you correct yourself in front of her. "Of course. Is there anything I can do to help?" Cassia asks. "There may be..." you begin, a mischievous hint in your voice. "What are the odds that Claudia will let me into her kitchen?" Cassia huffs and amused laugh, "Not great. She runs that kitchen stricter than a warship." You can't help but laugh at the thought of the little plump woman barking orders with authority. "Maybe you could help me convince her. I'd like to cook a meal from my homeland for the Dominus as a thank you for everything he's done for me. Maybe if we explain it's a special favour for the Dominus, she'll understand." Cassia nodded, a playful grin on her face. "There's only one way to find out. Brace yourself."

Standing in the entryway to the kitchen you can see why Cassia had told you to brace yourself. Despite her small stature, the plump middle aged woman was certainly a force to be reckoned with, giving off a 'no nonsense' vibe as she ordered the kitchen servants about. You almost chuckled but then she noticed you and Cassia standing in the doorway and she stilled, questioning eyes locked on you. "My Lady?" she hesitated. "You shouldnt be in here." She then directed her gaze to Cassia. "Is something the matter?" You stepped closer. "I would like to cook todays dinner; a surprise for the Dominus." "Absolutely not," Claudia shook her head, looking almost scandalised. "The kitchen is no place for a Lady."

"Well..." Cassia began, "techniquely, she doesn't have the title of a Lady, so you could make an exception?" Claudia seemed to think it over for a few seconds. "Please..." you smile, softly. "It would mean a lot to me to be able to repay the Dominus for his hospitality." With a resigned sigh, Claudia placed her hands on her hips. "On Two conditions," she emphasised the word Two. You silently waited for her to continue. "One, you don't destroy my kitchen..." You had to suppress a laugh. "Agreed" "Two, if the Dominus is dissatisfied with tonight's course, I'm not to be held accountable." "I'll take full responsability," you promise, giving her a hopeful look. "Very well..." Claudia relents and motions for you to follow her. "Thank you," you whisper to Cassia before leaving her and getting to work.

*****

"The best course of action would be to pull the army back from the Vistla River Basin and fully secure a large area of resource rich territory we've already taken," Marcus insisted as he studied the map sprawled out on a table at the Curia Julia. A mix of voices, some in consensus, some uncertain filled the hall. For hours he'd been surrounded by members of the war council, a select number of senators and the Emperors. "Pull back?" Emperor Caracalla scoffed. "To what purpose? As you said, we've already taken that territory." "Yes Your Grace," Marcus forced a neutral tone with great effort. "But we have not been utilizing the area and it's resources to our full advantage. The Gutones have proven to be stronger than anticipated and the losses we've suffered for underestimating them have been too great. If we are to succeed, we have to temporarily retreat, to gather more materials for weaponry while awaiting the arrival of new troops and supplies."

"Our sources tell us the army is gaining ground despite the setbacks," Emperor Geta said. "But the cost is proving too much," a member of the war council spoke up. "We are advancing slowly but we're losing too many men and it'll take weeks for reinforcements to arrive. I agree with General Acacius," the man said. "A temporary retreat for an everlasting victory." "If we retreat, even temporarily, we will appear weak," Geta objected. "Maybe that would work in our favour," Marcus ventured. "Let them believe we are weak. Let them underestimate us. And all the while we'll just be strengthening our forces. It's too risky to keep pushing forward at the moment." Geta seemed to think it over while Caracalla had already lost interest and had began to fuss with Dondus. More Murmurs of agreement sounded. "Is everyone in accordance of this plan?" Geta said, looking around the room, all the men voicing their agreement.

"Very well, we shall trust your judgment General Acacius," Geta concurred. "Now, is that all?" "Your Graces..." A aged, light haired senator stood foward. "It has recently come to our attention that unrest has began to stir again amongst the populace." Marcus stiffend at those words. "Yes yes, we've heard all about it, Gracchus," Caracalla said casually while still playing with Dondus. "Rest assured the Praetorians will quell it just like the previous incidents." "With all due respect, Your Grace, these aren't isolated pockets of unrest," Gracchus pointed out. "This time it is more widespread. The lowest in society are struggling. The taxation for the war and the amount of crops being sent to the army is having a disastrous effect on the poorest men and their families." Geta gave a nonchalant shrug. "Those who cannot feed should not breed."

Marcus couldn't believe what he was hearing. How could these boys not care about their own people? Is this the Rome he now fights for? By the looks on many of the faces of the senators he's not the only one appalled. "Rome has so many subjects, she must feed them all," Marcus declared, masking his disgust the best he can. "They can eat war!" Caracalla giggled in his chair, causing some confused looks from the senators and the war council. Even Geta appeared perplexed at his brothers' outburst, for a moment. "During times of war, everyone must make sacrifices," Geta stated, with complete disregard. Senator Gracchus, however, appeared eager to make the Emperors take the situation more seriousy. "I fear if this is not resolved soon it could take us all to a dark place. Desperate people do terrible things."

Geta and Gracchus stared at each other for a moment, Geta now seeming to understand what's at stake. Geta called the attention of one of his Preatorean Guards. "Assign extra Preatorians to patrol the streets. Let it be known there will be zero tolerance for insurgents." "Yes, Your Majesty," the guard replied. Marcus felt like screaming into a cushion... or maybe using it to smother this idiot. It's useless placing a bandage on a broken leg. Unless you get to the very core of the issue it'll never heal. It looks like they're determined to learn the hard way. When the meeting finally came to end and he stepped outside into the fresh air, Marcus took a deep breath. A new wave of worry swept over him. If what Gracchus said is true, Rome could be in for some hard times. He can only hope the reports have been exaggerated.

*****

Marcus dismounted his horse in the courtyard of the villa, handing the reins to the stable hand. Upon entering the villa, he found himself automatically seeking you and the soothing effect you have on him. After todays revelation he needs it. Stepping into the garden, Marcus frowned when he found it empty. With the daylight hours drawing out he'd often find you out here. Where could she be? "Flavia...?" Marcus called as the servant passed by. "Yes, Sir...?" she bowed her head. "Have you seen Alia?" "She's waiting for you in the Triclinium, Dominus." Marcus' frown eased. "Thank you," he said. Marcus entered the Triclinium to find you standing beside his seat with that beaming smile he's grown to love almost blinding him. The next thing he noticed was the smell. A rich and spicy aroma filled the room. It was unlike any aroma he's smelled before. It smelled delicious.

"What's all this?" Marcus cocked his head, his smile a mixture of amusement and confusion. "Come, sit..." you gestured eagerly to his seat. "I wanted to thank you for everything you've done, for everything you've made possible, so I cooked you a special meal," you say, a hint of coyness in your voice. "It's an old recipe my mama taught me when I was a child. I uh... hope you'll like it." Marcus sat down and looked at the plate before him, his heart swelling at your thoughtful gesture. "You made all this...?" he asked, taking in the strange circular, flat pieces of meat, buttered potatoes, green beans and brocolli covered in mushroom sauce." His stomach rumbled at the sight. "You didn't have to do all this," Marcus insisted as you took your seat. "I wanted too," you shrugged. "Thank you, Alia. This smells incredible. What's it called?" Marcus took a bite of the meat, and was pleasently surprised by the burst of unique flavours on his tongue.

"Frikadellen," you answered, taking a bite of your own. "This is delicious," Marcus exclaimed, taking a bigger piece this time. The look of pride on your face at his praise is the best thing he's seen all day. "I'm glad you like it," you blush. "I'd like anything made by you," Marcus replied, watching as your smile spread to your eyes and your head dipped to your plate, as if you didn't know what to do with the compliment. He found it adorable. "So, this Frikadellen is a family recipe?" Marcus asked around another bite. "Yes, my mama taught me a lot of recipes. This is one of my favourites." Marcus saw how your expression dropped slightly into a wistful look and he wished for you to share the pain you've lived with for so long, just so he could bear some of the burden.

"I'm sure your mother and father would have been proud of you, Alia." When your eyes rose to meet Marcus' they glistened with tears. "It's just a meal," you smiled ruefully. Marcus knew what you were doing; trying to make light of a sensitive subject by deflecting but he wanted you to know he's serious. "I didn't mean for this," Marcus pointed to the plates. "They'd be proud of the woman you've become. You're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for. Despite everything you've been through, it hasn't tainted you; hasn't made you bitter. You didn't allow anyone to break your spirit. They would be proud of you," Marcus insisted, "I am too." A little sigh escaped you. "Thank you, Marcus," your voice shook a little, "you've no idea what that means to me." You both continued your meal, talking well into the night, the conversation steering towards more casual and lighthearted topics and neither of you wanted the night to end.

The next morning after the days' entertainment had finished, you and Marcus climbed into the carriage to leave for home... or so you thought. "We're not going home?" you questioned when you realised the carriage started heading in the opposite direction to the villa. "Not yet," Marcus replied, a little smile tugging at his mouth. "So where are we going?" "It's a surprise," Marcus said, cryptically. You sat back, crossing your arms, scrutinizing Marcus with intrigue. "A surprise? What are you up to Marcus?" Marcus laughed softly. "You'll just have to wait and see." Half an hour later, Marcus pulled out a strip of cloth. "We're almost there. Here, tie this around your eyes." You regarded the cloth then looked to Marcus, one eyebrow raised.

"Trust me," Marcus urged. "You don't want to ruin the surprise." Obligingly, you tied the cloth around your eyes, all the while becoming more curious. Several minutes later, the carriage pulled to a stop. Marcus exited first, then reached out to take your hands. "It's okay, I've got you," he crooned as you stepped down, one of his hands settling on your waist to steady you. The intimate contact sent a jolt of electricity straight to your core, excitement tingling up your spine. When his hands suddenly left you, disappointment crashed over you and you secretly mourned the loss of his touch. You heard Marcus walk behind you to the carriage, giving instructions to the driver to return in a few hours. The rumble of the carriage grew distant and you could sense Marcus now standing beside you.

"Can I take this off now?" "Okay, go ahead," Marcus answered. Bright light assaulted your eyes as you pulled off the blindfold, forcing you to squint, but then you saw it; what you can only assume is Heaven on Earth. Before you lay a long stretch of almost white sand nestled between two rocky headlands, creating the shape of an arc. Ocean, rich in hues of blue and green, blending effortlessly like the many colours in the paintings you've seen throughout the city, shimmer under the suns' rays. "Marcus!" you breathed, unable to tear your eyes away. No other words came forth, only an exhale of wonderment wrapped in a disbelieving smile. "You said you'd never seen the sea before," Marcus smiled warmly, reveling in the look of elation on your face. "I want you to experience all the things you've missed out on, and this is one of the most beautiful beaches around."

With unrestrained excitement, you give Marcus a blinding grin, grabbing his hand. "Come on." You surge forward, pulling him with you, down a gentle slope leading to the sand. Just before reaching the beach, you stop to remove your sandals. The sand is warm and fine around your sinking toes. The cry of sea gulls, the gentle slosh of the almost perfectly still water and the smell of brine on the breeze invade your senses. A feeling of peace blankets you in this serene moment. "This is..." you struggle to find the word for a moment. "Perfection," you gush, turning to Marcus, who has been watching you intently the whole time, a look of satisfaction on his face. "Thank you for bringing me here." Marcus set down the basket you hadn't realised he'd been carrying, pulled out a large blanket and spread it over the sand. "It's my pleasure." His eyes crinkled with his warm smile.

"Would you like to have a look around first or eat first?" "Let's look around," you answer quickly, gaining a chuckle from Marcus at your enthusiasm. Marcus removed his shoes and cloak, draping it over the basket to keep direct sunlight off it and strolled with you towards the shore. "Wow," you exclaim as you reach the waterline. "It's so clear." Gathering your skirt in your hands, you pull it up to just above your knees and wade into the lapping water. "And it's warm!" You were expecting that icy chill that always shocked your system when you went swimming in the lake by your village. Marcus didn't answer. He couldn't; not when your bare legs were on display. He quickly glanced around, making sure no one else was nearby. Surely you know it's inappropriate to show your legs in public. But then again, how could you?

It hasn't exactly come up in conversation. And judging by your obliviousness as you skip and wade through the water, you have no idea. Should he say something? But how could he without embarrassing you and himself. Marcus returned his gaze to you, deciding it's best to say nothing as you are the only two people here. He knew he shouldn't be looking, but damn it, he's just a man. As his eyes travel the length of your legs a sinful thought occurred; how they would feel wrapped around him, squeezing him - No! Marcus tore his eyes from your legs as he fought to supress the blood rushing to his dick, making him semi hard. Thank goodness his tunic is loose. "Marcus, come on!" you call over your shoulder as you walk further out, the water now up to your thighs.

Marcus smiled to himself as he followed you further in, calf deep. "Don't go too far," he warned lightly. "It drops off a bit further out." You flash him a big grin and hold out your hand, again beckoning him closer. "I'm fine by here," he said, shaking his head. A teasing smirk pulled at your lips. "Is the General afraid of a little water?" "Not the water," he laughed. "Just the enchanting Siren trying to lure to my death." A genuine laugh burst from you. Who would have thought the usually reserved and stoic General to be so funny. You hope you can coax this side of his personality out more often. Marcus remains where he stopped, slowly strolling in the shallows. If it's the last thing you do, you'll get him to come further out and when he does... The threat of a devilish grin almost betrays your intentions.

"Arrgh!" you gasp, suddenly, looking down into the water around your legs. "What is it?!" Marcus rushed to your side. Perfect! "I don't know!" you lay on the fake panic. "Something just touched... ME!" On the last word you leapt at Marcus, wrapping your arms around his neck, using your body weight to topple him... or at least that was the plan. The man barely moved! Momentary shock flashed across Marcus features which then morphed into understanding and he wrapped his arms tightly around your body, pinning you to him. "That was not a wise idea..." he quipped, a look of cunning in his eyes, "attacking the General of Rome." A soft tut followed while you laughed and squirmed in his grasp. "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me."

"Mercy!" you screamed at the very moment Marcus threw himself backwards, taking you under with him. When you both broke the surface, it was to the sound of pure unadulterated laughter. You've seen Marcus smile many times, heard his gentle laughter, but this... this is different. The deep unbidden rumble, the way his eyes shone projected a youthfulness that belied his age. Before you is a much younger Marcus Acacius; one without the baggage and emotional scars of a war weary General. It made your heart soar and crack simultaneously. Laughter still ringing out between you, you splash water in his face. "That wasn't fair! You had an advantage over me." Marcus gave you a smug grin.

"Many men have tried and failed to take me down. Did you really think you stood a chance?" "You could have let me best you," you sass him. Marcus playfully rolled his eyes. "And where's the fun in that?" Standing to his full height, Marcus held out his hand to help you stand. As you rose up from the water you noticed Marcus' gaze stall on your chest for just a fleeting moment, his eyes alight with what looked like raw desire before he quickly composed himself and snapped his eyes to yours. But his pupils remained blown and intense. The moment made your breath catch. "The... uh... food's probably getting warm in the basket," Marcus stammered, rubbing the back of his neck. "We should... uh... eat." He gave you a tight smile and began to walk back to the basket.

What the hell was that? you wondered in bewilderment, looking down to - oh shit! In all the commotion you hadn't realised the thin fabric of your clothing now clung tightly to your body like a second skin, your pebbled nipples poking through the material. Your first reaction is burning shame. Shame that Marcus had seen you so intimately, but then another feeling took over. You felt ecxited, aroused even. A part of you liked that he saw you and you liked what you saw in his eyes. He does feel something for you, he does want you. After the almost kiss last night you'd feared maybe Marcus had realised he'd made a mistake, that he doesn't feel for you that way and that's why he'd not tried again or even spoke of it. It hurt, of course, but you didn't want to risk your friendship by bringing it up, so you'd also carried on like normal.

But that one moment of eye contact exposed something within Marcus that he'd likely been guarding as much as you have. "Are you coming?" Marcus called over to you, bringing you out of your thoughts. "Oh, um yes." Grabbing your skirt, you followed Marcus up the beach, wringing out excess water along the way. You join Marcus on the blanket as he unpacks the basket, setting up a light lunch of Tracta (flatbread pastry), cheese, boiled eggs and of course figs. A smile creeps onto your face, wondering if he'd ensured they were included because of the fuss you'd made of them before. While eating at a leisurly pace you and Marcus quickly fall into light conversation, both of you ignoring what had just happened. Thankfully the light material of your dress had already began to dry so you didn't have to worry about hiding your chest.

A little while had passed, food long gone and you were beginning to feel the effects of the unforgiving sun. You suggested cooling off in the sea, to which Marcus declined but insisted you go ahead. Wading into the water, you scoop some up and splash it over your face and shoulders, the coolness refreshing on your overheated skin. Looking to your right you notice a long jetty nearby, poking out into the bay and decide to make your way over to it. Marcus watched as you strolled lazily in the shallows, then stepped up onto the jetty, looking like you don't have a care in the world as you walk the length of it. Taking in the beach around him, his mind wandered back to a time when his mother would bring him here - her happy place as she would call it. Memories of hours of fun are held here and he hopes maybe you could make some happy memories here too.

A sudden splash caused Marcus' head to spin in your direction, the jetty now empty and a clear disturbance in the water next to it. Ice and adrenaline surged through his veins, propelling him forward, running faster than he ever has in his life to where you were moments ago. Taking a deep breath he dived in. Through blurred vision he saw your form in the crystal clear water. After what felt like an eternity, he reached you, hooked his arms tightly around your waist and kicked furiously until his head broke the surface. Sucking in deep, panicked breaths Marcus turned to his side, one arm tight around you and the other stretched out in front of him as he made a desperate swim for the shore. "M- Mar-!" You tried to speak but the water kept sloshing over your mouth, stealing your voice. "Marc- Marcus! Marcus let-" more water splashed your face as you found yourself being dragged along. If he'd just hear you and let go you could bloody breathe!

As soon as you both reached the shallows Marcus charged through the water, still clutching your body against his like you weighed nothing. "Marcus! I'm okay, you can let go," you stressed, trying to free yourself from his grip. In ankle deep water Marcus dropped to his knees taking you down with him. He spun you around, hands gripping your upper arms and his frantic, wild eyes darting all over your body. "Are you hurt?!" he panted, urgency lacing his voice. "No, I'm fine," you try to reassure him, while catching your breath. "I didn't fall, I jumped." "What?!" Marcus' eyes widend in both fear and confusion. "I- I can swim. I was just diving down to see the the rocks and fish," you smile at him placatingly. "Fucking hell! I thought- I mean- I heard a noise and when I looked up you were gone! I thought you were dead!" Marcus' grip tightened as he pulled you closer to him- subconciuosly or not, you're not sure. The raw agony in his voice and on his face caused your chest to clench.

"I thought I'd lost you!" Marcus' eyes froze on yours for a split second with a burning intensity, then, looking like a man with nothing left to lose, he crashed his lips onto yours. For a moment you froze, wide eyed, your brain finding it hard to comprehend that Marcus is kissing you, he's actually kissing you! And just like that, your entire body relaxed as you mentally and emotionally sank into the kiss, your arms coming up to wrap around Marcus' neck. A soft moan escapes you of it's own accord, which only seemed to encourage Marcus. His hands slide to your back and he pulls your body against his, deepening the kiss and molding you to him like he can't be close enough to you. With your senses heightened, you can feel your pert nipples pressing against his hard chest, lust and longing swelling with the desire you have for this man.

One hand moves to gently cup the back of your head before Marcus breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against yours. You are both breathless now, but not from swimming. "Don't. you. ever. scare me like that again. Do you hear me?" Marcus exhaled, his voice a mixture of fear and relief. "I'm sorry," you whispered guiltily. "I didn't mean to." "You almost gave me a damn heart attack," he half chuckled but still sounded frazzled. You bring your hand to cup Marcus' jaw, tilting his head so his eyes meet yours. "I'm sorry," you repeat softly then kiss him again.

Series Masterlist Ch1 Ch2 Ch3 Ch4 Ch5 Ch6 Ch7 Ch8 Ch9

@bbyanarchist @myownwholewildworldwhole @imherefordeanandbones @picketniffler @h0w-1-wanna-l1v3 @chrissy-forfucksakes-wakeup @meetmeatyourworst @yorksgirl @joeldjarin @echo-ethe @whirlwindrider29 @abbyanarchist @suzyface @missadangel @evyiione @longlivekingminnn @heramj @javiismyhsbnd @kxthxrinx0310 @inept-the-magnificent @liciafonseca @marrowfrog00 @moompie @anoverwhelmingdin

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fandom #marcus acacius #marcus acacius fanfiction #marcus acacias x reader #marcus acacius fluff #marcus acacius gladiator ii #marcus acacius smut #marcus acacius x female reader #marcus acacius angst #marcus acacius x ofc #pedro pascal characters #gladiator 2 #marcus acacius x you

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4cp · 28 days ago

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JACK KIRBY’S SMOLDERING DEATH

(Originally published by HiLoBrow in 2011)

Before the advent of Kirby’s cosmic crackle visual effect, there was the Simon & Kirby smolder. The smolder’s approach to detail was somewhere between brushy and calligraphic — imbuing shadows and organic shapes with waves of complex, immanent energy. The crackle radiated outward as particles, while the smolder was the sinister energy within. Though this style was deployed across the Simon & Kirby comics of the Fifties — including the gorgeous romance stories — its signature application was the macabre.

As this panel from the story “Dead Man’s Lode!” in Black Magic #4 (March 1952) demonstrates, what smoldered best was death. Kirby retained this style after parting ways with Simon, using it specifically to represent the evil and unnatural. It appears startlingly in his giant monster and science fiction comics for Marvel (1958-1961), where its unnatural curves and brimstone-y surface contrast with the simpler, draftsman-like perpendiculars of the rest of the art on the page. It’s the perfect visual approach to the stories’ Cold War metaphor: annihilating death erupting into the prosperous and well-ordered society. This Black Magic panel tells the same story more concisely. In Plato’s allegory, we mistake shadows cast within a cave for reality, which is actually outside of the cave altogether, and perfect. In Kirby’s version, the cave is the reality, a panorama of grotesque death, lurking just below the surface of the tidy myths of progress and prosperity that organized life outside the cave in 1952’s America.

As Kirby knew firsthand, the prosperity of post-war America grew out of vast fields of human corpses. In 1944, he went from drawing Captain America comics in New York to the battlefields of France, arriving a couple of months after D-Day. His assignment was apparently quite dangerous, advancing to the front lines to make reconnaissance sketches for the Allies. We can only imagine the scenes of decaying horror that he saw there, and Kirby’s subsequent career seems almost to be organized around finding reasons to depict the mind confronting something it cannot assimilate. The aghast face is everywhere in his work, from the supernatural and science fiction comics to the precise moment a heart breaks in a romance story. After the return to superhero comics, it begins to appear everywhere, this “Oh my fucking god!” face. In 1966, Galactus would arrive, a hungry, amoral, life-erasing personification of an indifferent universe — the existential horror of death in its purest form.

While the smolder effect continued to signify the macabre in Kirby’s later work, it was also applied to a situation that more and more seemed to concern him: human transformation. In the Sixties or Seventies, when he drew someone zapped across the universe or shifted from one state of being to another, we could expect to see their screaming, smoldering face. It’s still a form of death, or near death — the atomization of the corporeal self — but now it is also apotheosis, the self migrating to a higher plane or transforming into something new. This is perhaps Kirby finding his way past death as a horrifying absolute. If Galactus suggested there was no god (or that god was a Watcher, not an actor), Kirby’s later career has nearly everyone turning into gods. Troubled gods to be sure — just like your average teenager — but for the most part safely on the other side of death, imbued with the crackle of cosmic life. This shift reaches its conceptual and visual apotheosis in 2001, in which the black, smoldering blank of the monolith explicitly fronts the crackling beyond, in a series of obsessively repetitive narratives of death as transformation into a cosmic baby.

#jack kirby #joe simon #kirby crackle #hilowbrow

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duexnuts · 5 months ago

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she's my collar | choso x reader ⋆˙⟡

context: all characters are adults!

ch 1: scotty doesn't know | mlist | next ch.

“this is the fifth time you’ve forgotten to pay the venue, nobara,” you whisper to nobara, while she argues with the club owner.

she glares at you, as the club owner continues to scold, saying that your band may be banned from playing again if the fee isn’t paid.

“mr. yaga, please understand we barely made any money this time, i mean this is barely enough for me to eat dinner tonight-”

you stopped listening after she started talking about how she also “needs” a new outfit for the next show. instead, you go back out to the stage and help yuji and megumi clean up.

“oh, y/n!” yuji runs over to you, smiling, “do you want to go with megumi and i to get ramen? he’s paying.”

while handing megumi’s bass guitar to him, you reply, “i don’t think i’m going to be able to make it. nobara said she wants to see the show after us and they seem pretty cool.”

yuji smiles before speaking again, “my brother's group!! i love them.”

nobara walks over to your group, boasting about how she got the club owner to allow for you guys to not pay the venue fee for the next three shows as long as your band draws in at least a crowd of sixty each time (which is supposedly easy because of her awesome singing). people begin walking in, sitting down for the next show as your group finishes cleaning up and go back stage.

“i’ll see you later, y/n,” megumi says, placing a kiss on your cheek before leaving with yuji.

after waving bye to your friends, you and nobara go to the bar and get drinks while waiting for the next set to come on. she way too many drinks and excuses herself to the bathroom to go vomit. you had offered to come with her, but she insisted that you didn’t need to because “club bathrooms are the BEST place to make friends with other drunk girls” and that you needed to wait, because “next time you see me, i’ll have the instagram of like, three other girls.”

after you finish your martini, a man with shaggy black pigtails walks over to you, “buy you another drink?”

you offer him a warm smile, “oh, no thank you. i’m okay, i can buy myself drinks.”

he signals the bartender to give you another drink anyway, “a girl as beautiful as you shouldn’t need to buy themselves drinks.”

“oh, i'm flattered but i have a boyfriend,” you reply, an image of megumi flashing in your mind as you take in every bit of the man in front of you– his sharp jawline, perfectly messy eyeliner, and toned body. the bartender sets down another martini in front of you.

he chuckles in response, “well, he doesn’t have to know, does he?”

he moves a bit closer to you, leaning into your ear and saying, “stay after the show, okay?” before walking away.

unknowingly, a blush had crept on your face. you shake it off and turn away from the bar to go check up nobara, however she finds you first.

“i told you i would have three instagrams, i actually have five!” she says, her words slurred and her body slightly swaying.

“anyway, why were you talking to choso?” she says

“oh my, that was yuji’s brother?” you ask, “he just came to tell me to watch the show! they’re probably like us, you know? they need more people so that yaga doesn’t get mad at them.”

“yuji hasn’t introduced him yet? that mr. yaga is SO evil, like doesn’t he know we’re an up and coming band? he should be happy we’re here because when we’re famous…” she continues to rant about mr. yaga as you both head towards the stage, where choso’s band, the downtimers, just finished setting up.

the lights turn purple and red as a pink-haired guy introduces the band and begins playing.

as they began playing, you could not help but stare at choso– who saw your glances and just winked in response. you love your boyfriend, but something about choso’s bass playing was just so much more attractive; it had genuine passion. you watched every sweat drop that came off of him as he played, how his fingers moved just right to strum the guitar, and how he knew how to perfectly interact with his bandmates on stage.

you knew choso was attractive, but you also had your loving boyfriend.

so, when the show ended, you had a choice– going back stage or going home to your shared apartment. you chose the first option, telling nobara that you forgot your jacket backstage, which was true, but not your main motivation for going back there.

“do you want me to wait for you?” she asked.

“oh no, its okay. i can just walk home, my apartment’s right around the corner,” you replied, before heading backstage.

once you were backstage, you greeted choso again.

“oh, hey miss ‘i have a boyfriend,’” he said, before sitting down on a couch, patting the spot next to him.

you sit down with him and say, “i won't tell if you don't tell,” before kissing him.

a/n: giggling rn this was so fun to write

#my works˖⁺‧₊⟡₊˚⊹#choso kamo #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk choso #choso x reader

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roanofarcc · 7 months ago

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PROJECT SUNSHINE CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE → BUT SHE’S A CHEERLEADER!

summary: steve harrington x oc

when another product of Hawkins National Laboratory escaped a long-survived nightmare alongside her sister, she crashed into one unsuspecting teenage boy and dragged him deeper into the dark mysteries that made up their hometown.

word count. 3.7k || masterlist

warnings: cannon typical violence, child abuse, horror, gore, and depictions of mental illness. parts of this story were written pre-season 4 release. cannon divergence.

previous chapter ← → next chapter

Tagged: @sattlersquarry, @leptitlu, @two-sides-samecoin, @adaydreamaway30

Steve hauled another stack of VHS tapes into his arms as Robin paced back and forth, not helping him reshelve the movies but instead ranting about her latest date with Tamera.

“All I’m saying is, this one felt different! It was less ‘we’re just hooking up’ and more ‘this could be an actual relationship,” she said. Steve listened intently as he slotted a collection of horror movies back onto the shelf. He didn’t understand why anyone would willingly watch those kinds of movies, but he supposed most people in Hawkins hadn’t lived their own real-life version of a horror movie like he had. Maybe they needed the thrill; Steve did not.

He turned around to grab more tapes but stopped at the look twisted up on Robin’s face, something mixed between unsure and worried. “Isn’t that a good thing? You guys could date for real instead of whatever weird back and forth thing you’ve got going on.”

Steve knew it was more complicated for Robin and Tamera, especially in Hawkins but they could at least admit their feelings for each other. Robin clearly liked Tamera and wanted something more real than whatever causal situation they found themselves in. Granted, Robin had never been in a relationship before and she had confided in Steve that the idea of dating someone was nerve wracking to her. But she deserved to be happy, and Tamera clearly made her happy. Steve wished she just went for it, all in.

“Yeah,” Robin said with a sigh, stopping her pacing and resorting to picking at the nail polish Steve had just painted on her nails two days ago. “But even if we do date for real, it’s not like I can take her to the prom without being a headline in the Hawkins Post. If any asshole caught a whiff of us being together, they’d start a witch hunt or some shit.” There was a shield of humor in her voice, but Steve knew Robin well enough to hear the fear that sat behind it. It pissed him off.

He knew that Hawkins was riddled with assholes of every kind, but the thought of someone coming after his best friend just because she wanted to date happily made him furious. Monsters and evil scientists once inhabited Hawkins but people wanted to draw pitchforks at two girls holding hands.

“That’s not happening on my watch, Buckley,” he said with a cheeky smile, bumping his shoulder against hers as he collected another arm full of tapes.

Robin cracked a small smile before parting her lips like she was going to say something, but something behind Steve caught her eye. She squinted and stepped around him, rushing toward the front counter.

“What’re you doing?” Steve asked.

Robin turned the volume up on the TV, causing a familiar Hawkins newscaster’s voice to fill the quiet Family Video store.

“No names of possible suspects are being released at this time. Chief Powell is yet to make an official statement, but as said he will address the town later this afternoon once he knows more. All we know at this time is that it seems to be an isolated incident.” The scene on the TV shifted away from the newscaster and onto a gurney being wheeled down a dirt and gravel road swarmed by officers and paramedics. There weren’t many places in Hawkins that were unfamiliar to Steve. It only took a moment to recognize where the scene took place as trailer homes appeared in the background of the gurney being lifted in the back of an ambulance.

“Someone died?” Robin questioned with furrowed brows.

“The name of the victim will also not be released at this time, but it has been confirmed to be a Hawkins High student. We…” the reporter’s voice droned on, but it became fuzzy on Steve’s ears.

A Hawkins High student. The trailer park. Steve knew it wasn’t rational to jump to the worst possible case scenario. There were a handful of students who lived in the trailer park, but he only knew one for certain. Max. Out of everyone in Hawkins, the worst things tended to happen to their little group. And maybe it was simply unreasonable paranoia, but he couldn’t help that his mind fell there first.

Panic swelled in his chest as he turned to Robin. “Max,” he muttered, ready to run right out the door and make sure the redhead he somewhat begrudgingly saw as a little sister was okay. Robin sensed his worry, her own face suddenly as pale as her white knuckles that gripped the remote.

Steve reached for his keys he left in a space under the counter, but as he did so, the bell on the door chimed and Robin let out a loud breath as she grasped his shoulder and pointed to the people who had just entered.

Dustin and Max rushed toward the counter, both looking a little winded but otherwise fine. Steve let out his own sigh of relief, running a hand through his hair. How he didn’t have gray hairs already was a mystery to him. It felt like the universe was determined to see how much it could stress him out.

“How many phones do you have?” Dustin asked.

Unbelievable, Steve thought. “Someone was murdered-” he started to say, but Dustin, in his usual Dustin fashion, cut him off and repeated the question louder than he had the first time. Steve answered, “Two.”

“Technically three, if you count Keith’s,” Robin added.

Max glanced at Dustin, nodding her head almost frantically as she said, “Three works.”

Without another word, Dustin threw his backpack at Steve a bit too forcefully. He then jumped up on the counter ungracefully, knocking over everything setup to the floor as he slid to the other side and hopped down. Steve threw the kid’s backpack to the ground with a huff and Robin started picking up the scattered papers, tapes, and other items Dustin had sent toppling.

Max, like a normal person, walked around the counter to get behind it and rolled her eyes.

“What are you doing?” Steve groaned in a familiar frustration.

“Setting up a base of operations.” He moved in front of the computer and began clicking around.

Listen, Steve disliked his job, but he didn’t want to get fired. The pay wasn’t great, but he got to work with Robin. Keith was a grade-A asshole, but he spent most of his time either not in the store or tucked away in the backroom playing video games brought from home. If Steve wanted to save enough money to escape Hawkins, he needed to keep his job, but the kids liked to make that a lot harder than it should have been.

“Get off,” Steve snapped. “You guys aren’t even allowed to be back here.” He didn’t know why he tried; it wasn’t like they were going to listen to him.

Dustin replied, “I need it!”

“For what?” Robin asked, shuffling the fallen papers back into a neat pile.

“Eddie’s friends’ numbers.”

If it was possible to roll your eyes so hard they fall out, Steve would have done just that. The mere mention of Eddie pricked his skin, no matter how stupid he knew he was being. “Oh, you mean your new best friend who you think is cooler than me because he plays your nerdy game?”

Dustin dramatically swung his head to look in Steve’s direction and threw his hands up. “I never said that!” He definitely did, Steve was almost positive.

“Seriously, guys? Maybe on Monday you can play around here but it’s Saturday. It’s our busiest day,” Robin said. The Family Video store was set to get busy in an hour or two as the weekend rush filled in, looking for movies to watch for date night, sleepovers, and to cure loneliness.

Dustin returned his attention to the computer, scrolling through a list of customers that had rented from the store before. “I empathize with you, Robin,” he said. “But this can’t wait.”

“Oh my god,” Steve muttered. What he needed was Sunshine to come home and make the kids actually listen. They only seemed to care about what she had to say or told them to do, but she was still in Indy, much to his disappointment. And now there was a murderer in Hawkins, which made him feel even better.

“Calling Eddie’s friends is an emergency?” Robin questioned.

“Correct.”

Steve moved beside Robin and helped her reorganize the tapes into their correct piles. He asked her, “Do you want me to strangle him, or do you want to?”

“We could take turns?”

With an annoyed huff, Dustin asked Max, “Can you fill them in while I do this?”

Steve and Robin exchanged a confused look before the latter said, “Fill us in on what?”

→←

The car ride back to Hawkins was tense and quiet, nothing the radio softly playing as the world whirled by. Sunshine fingers had played with the neckline of her shirt, where her necklace should have been, so much that the stitching started to come loose.

She, Kali, and Calum had changed clothes at some lonely gas station just outside of Indy. Their bloodstained clothes were tossed in a dumpster and forgotten.

As they rolled past the ‘Welcome to Hawkins’ sign, a headache bloomed behind Sunshine’s eyes. She winced and grasped her head, pressing her fingers into the skin in an attempt to ease the pain just slightly by applying pressure.

“Where are we going now?” Kali asked, looking for directions as she eyed the road with a hard-set gaze. Her knuckles were white as she held onto the steering wheel.

Checking the time on her watch, Sunshine knew where Steve and Robin would be for certain.

She should have arrived home sooner, but it took them more time to escape Indy than she thought. They had to stop once to change their clothes, a second time to eat something, and a third because no one could keep their eyes open long enough to drive safely. After a quick nap, they hit the road in the morning, but Kali avoided the interstate and opted for backroads just in case someone was on their tail. By that time, Sunshine was more than ready to be home.

“Steve and Robin will be at work. We’ll stop there first before we try to tack down Nancy,” she answered. “Stay on this road until you hit the next stop sign, then make a right.”

Kali nodded and continued on through her clear discomfort for being back in Hawkins.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Sunshine saw Calum, who hadn’t uttered a word since their confrontation in the alley. He sat with his head turned and eyes fixed out the window, lost somewhere inside his head. There was a lot they needed to figure out, both in the grand scheme of things and between the three of them. Sunshine sure the best place to do that was in Hawkins.

For the longest time, she had felt the need to carry everything on her own shoulders, but since relearning what a normal life was, she had learned to lean on others inside of drowning. They only solved things together, not alone. They defeated monsters together, not by themselves. As long as everyone worked together, she was sure they could put a final end to the Lab and everything else that had occurred as a result of it.

Sunshine took a deep breath before she turned around and spoke to Calum. “Are you coming with us?” Her voice was careful but not too kind.

He didn’t look away from the window as he said, “If we find my dad, can I at least talk to him?” His voice, on the other hand, sounded of a hurt child, abandoned and spirit broken.

Sunshine glanced at Kali, who sighed in response before saying, “I can’t make any promises.” Calum’s figure slumped. “But I won’t say no.”

It wasn’t much, but in Sunshine knew anything about Calum, if you gave him an inch, he’d try to take a mile. “Okay,” he said, flatly, in agreement to tag along.

The car fell back into silence, aside from Sunshine’s directions. The sky was bright blue, the kind of color that brought hope after a long and gray winter. Maybe it was a warm welcome home. Her heart was happy to be back with those who she shared it with, but her head arched uncomfortably. She blamed it on a lack of restful sleep and her bout of angry emotions clouding her being.

“Um, guys?” Calum piped up, leaning between the two front seats with an odd sense of urgency and he squinted out the windshield. He pointed ahead at a helicopter that appeared overhead, a blemish in the pretty sky. The helicopter hovered for a moment, not too far away, just beyond a cluster of trees. They watched for a moment before it started to descend. “That’s a military copter.”

“How do you know that?” Kali asked.

“They’re not exactly subtle.”

Sunshine furrowed her brows. She had only seen a military helicopter once, after Starcourt. Owens and his “backup” had arrived in helicopters. After relocating the Byers-Hopper clan, Owens fell off the map. If he was back in Hawkins, Sunshine felt like she would know about it. Or she had missed something major in the twenty-four hours she had been gone. And with Hawkins' track recorded, that wasn’t impossible.

Still, she asked the question all three of them were thinking, “Why would the military be in Hawkins?”

Calum shook his head. “Because this place fucking sucks.”

Sunshine all but sprinted through the doors of the Family Video store. The bell dinged, signaling a customer's arrival. The usual monotone drone of Steve or Robin’s greeting before they realized it was her and not a regular customer didn’t sound. Instead, a collection of voices filled her ears, and she was welcomed by the sight of Max, Robin, and Dustin all talking on phones.

It was Max who noticed her first, as she hung up her phone. “Oh, thank God,” the redhead said.

Steve’s head popped up from behind one of the shelves he seemed to be restocking, and a grin filled his face before he made his way over to Sunshine. Without a word, she hugged him tightly, relief flooding her veins after her troublesome twenty-four hours. He was warm and smelled like a mix of candy, dust, and cologne. Though it had only been a day, she realized how intertwined he and the rest of the group had come in her day-to-day life.

A low chuckle sounded from Steve before he pressed his lips to the crown of her head. “Miss me that much, Sunshine?”

She really didn’t want to let go of him, and she wanted to pretend that two people weren’t dead and it was more or less partly her fault. The more she had thought about it, they were probably followed, leading whoever was killing the people from Lab right to the two men. They were playing the same game of revenge as Kali, but Sunshine hadn’t agreed to play. She just wanted answers and to understand the memories she had somehow forgotten. Was it another kid from the Lab like Kali? Was it someone who had worked at the Lab themselves? There were so many unanswered questions it made Sunshine dizzy.

Leaning back just slightly from her boyfriend, he caught sight of the frown on her lips, which gave her away almost instantly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

A lot of things, she wanted to answer, but she refrained as Robin hung up her phone with a loud ‘clang’ and said, “Calum?”

The boy stood awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, leaving a good distance between himself and Kali. “Hey…”

“Guys! We need to focus!” Dustin shouted. He shot a small smile at Sunshine. “We’re glad you're back, but we’ve got a problem on your hands that we gotta take care of.”

Sunshine tried to shake off her own issues for a moment, turning her focus on what Dustin had just said. “Problem? What problem?” A pit had been stuck in her stomach since yesterday, but she hoped it would lessen once she arrived home, not get worse. But any issue in Hawkins was almost never small.

Slinging an arm around Sunshine’s shoulder, pulling her into his side. Between him and Robin, they explained how there had been a murder that morning and Max was almost certain the victim was Chrissy Cunningham, a polite cheerleader who Sunshine had passed by in the halls of Hawkins High. The last person the cheerleader had been seen with, according to Max, was Eddie Munson. Despite that, Dustin was certain Eddie didn’t kill Chrissy.

“Yeah, there’s no way,” Calum added. “I’ve been in the Hellfire Club with Eddie since freshman year. He’s not a murderer. An asshole sometimes, sure, but not a murderer.”

Max piped up and said, “But we don’t know that for sure. Which is why we’re trying to find him and figure out exactly what happened last night.”

Kali, who had been quiet, looked at Sunshine. “So, there’s a murderer on the loose?”

Of course there was. She begged Kali to come to a place that held the worst years of her life with a promise that it was safer now, only to drag her back into a possibly dangerous situation. She wanted to curse the universe for its awful timing.

“Not exactly…” Dustin looked hesitant, like he didn’t want to say whatever he was about it.

“Then what, exactly?” Kali asked.

He looked between her and Sunshine. “I’m sorry, who is she?”

“Oh, right,” Sunshine said with a shake of her head. “Everyone meet Kali. Kali, meet everyone.” It was a less than enthusiastic introduction given the circumstances.

“Kali? Like the Kali who Luke and Leia used to live with?” Max asked, eyes wide. Sunshine nodded in response.

“Is she up to speed?” asked Dustin.

It was Sunshine’s turn to be confused. “On what?”

“We think, maybe, it wasn’t someone who killed Chrissy,” Max started to explain. “We think it might have been…something…”

Max’s words were heavy, hitting Sunshine with an unknown force she hadn’t been expecting. The headache behind her eyes pulsed, as if it had a heartbeat. Steve’s arm around her shoulder shifted as he said, “Hey.” He brought his hand up to her face, running his thumb under his nose with a face full of pinched concern. When he pulled it away, blood stained the pad of his finger. “Your nose is bleeding?”

Muttering under her breath, she broke away from Steve and reached for a tissue on the counter. Eyes fell onto her, but none more than Max, who stared at Sunshine with her wide blue eyes almost uncomfortably intense.

Sunshine tried to shake off any concern. “It was a long night,” she said, blaming her less than ideal trip to Indy as the reason for her nosebleed. They started happening randomly after Starcourt, following the overuse of her abilities. Dr. Owens had blamed it on stress, and Sunshine didn’t have any reason to think otherwise.

The blood stopped flowing after a moment and she returned her attention to the group. Level headed. She needed to stay level headed. She couldn’t lose it when one of her peers was head and the kids were already ready to get involved. She had promised Kali that Hawkins was different now, and she foolishly tricked herself into believing the same, that maybe that time, the monsters were really gone for good.

“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions yet,” Sunshine said, looking between Max and Dustin.

The latter countered. “We don’t exactly have a great track record of something weird not being…you know, almost the end of the world. Something could still be happening here.”

Robin shook her head. “Even with the gate-thingy closed?”

Dustin shrugged his shoulders. “The rules we play by are D&D rules, right? But we don’t really know the rules the Upside Down plays by.”

The mere mention of the Upside Down made her sick to her stomach. Her muscles constricted, remembering the pain of what she felt last summer, holding off the Mind Flayer.

“I still think we could be jumping the gun here,” Steve said. “We don’t know anything yet.”

“That’s why we need to find Eddie,” said Max.

“I know where he probably is,” Calum sighed. “Trust me, there’s only one place he could be.”

Everyone rushed to gather their belongings to set out in their search for Eddie. Sunshine shoved a handful of tissues in her pocket as Kali approached her.

“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of Sunshine’s mouth. Her shoulders slumped with tiredness and defeat. “I didn’t know this is what we’d come back to. If you want to leave, I get it.”

Kali still looked indifferent with her arms crossed over her chest and her black makeup smudged under her dark eyes. “I will never understand your and Jane’s loyalty to this place,” she started. “The Lab is responsible for the messes here. The monsters Jane had told me about, the Upside Down. Yet, you’re still here, cleaning up after them. Why waste your time?”

Sunshine looked past Kali, looking at Dustin and Max who shouldered their backpacks with steeled determination fixed on their young faces that had seen too much. She looked at Steve, who smiled when he realized she caught him looking at her. And she looked at Robin, who mumbled to herself as she quickly worked to close down the store so they all could leave and look for Eddie, risking her employment for the second time in less than a year to help them out.

“We’re not loyal to Hawkins,” Sunshine said. “It’s about the people. Our friends. Our family. And because…” she trailed off with a sigh, wearing a sad smile. “Because no one else will.”

The group all headed for the door, ready to go. Kali shifted in her boots, thinking. “Your friends are leaving,” she said. “We should get going.”

Sunshine blinked, confused. “You’re coming with us?”

“For now.”

That was good enough for Sunshine.

#stranger things #steve harrington #steve harrington x oc #steve harrington x original character #max mayfield #dustin henderson #robin buckley #kali prasad #chrissy cunningham #eddie munson #steve harrington slow burn #stranger things fanfiction #st fic #st4 #stranger things 4

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rei-ismyname · 3 months ago

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The second time the X-Men and Avengers fought part 1

The first time the X-Men fought the Avengers was in the sixties and it was profoundly boring. Xavier was dealing with Lucifer, the guy who crippled him, and he instructed the O5 to stall them without explaining. I'll cover that another time, because their second conflict is much more interesting. They fight over pretty in pink-era Magneto. Fuck yeah.

Mags' greatest hits. Thor nearly died and Mags got away, he's embellishing there. Cap too.

Magneto has reformed. Sure he tried to nuke people but let it go, come on. After surrendering to the world court for trial, he was cleared on all charges before he was turned into a baby the first time. That left only his beef with the USSR. He threatened them, they nuked him, he sank their sub. He would have been cleared for that too, but riots and attacks by Nazis interrupted the trial, with him saving the judges and opposing counsel. The Soviets tried him in absentia and sentenced him to death, now they're exerting pressure on the USA to hand him over. He's not a citizen, but he does live there. The Avengers are ordered to help capture him for execution. Mags definitely did all that gnarly shit, but The Avengers are basically disagreeing with the World Court here. They want to put him on trial again - a fair trial. That's going to be difficult.

Asteroid M fell to Earth and the government leaked details to the media to draw him out. He's not actually up to anything too sinister here - sure he wants some of his stuff back, but he also wants to destroy it to prevent anyone else from misusing his wild evil science. He snuck away from the rest of the X-Men on vacation, as he didn't want to cause them trouble.

He wasn't really given a chance to surrender or explain. The Avengers showed up bringing up old shit and attacked. He doesn't defend himself despite being very capable of doing so. Doctor Druid mind controls him and they slap some depowering gauntlets on him.

The X-Men catch up to them and are like 'that's our dad's loser husband. You leave him alone.' Before they can beat each other up the Winter Guard arrive - communist Avengers, basically. I'll get into them later, but they're a bunch of superpowered weirdos. Some are mutants. There's a lot of people here with different agendas so I'll break it down.

The X-Men - want their boy back. Definitely don't want him executed. Don't 100% trust him.

The Avengers - want Magneto to go to court again for a 'fair trial.' Don't trust him at all.

The Winter Guard - want to deliver Mags to be executed. They hate him.

Magneto - just wants to do his thing. He's just a little guy. Not keen on court, definitely not keen on execution, and wants to do right by the X-Men. He promised Chuck he would take his place. He's a big Magneto fan.

Monica Rambeau insists that Mags is in their custody. As moral authority for the world, they want to subvert both governments during the cold war AND take him to court. It's a bizarre approach to law. Darkstar considers The Avengers trustworthy, but the rest don't. Death to Magneto for his crimes against the motherland. Get in line. Obviously they start fighting, east vs west. Everyone is terrible at negotiating and communication, as usual. Interestingly, neither really has the authority to be doing this but it doesn't matter. Another proxy conflict of the Cold War. The World Court thing is weird because Mags has already been tried by them. They also don't usually handle criminal cases at all - this will be relevant.

The X-Men show some rare good sense and just bail while these idiots thrash each other. No matter who wins, they lose. Well, Rogue flies off with damsel Magneto and the rest follow. Both teams notice but the disagreement is still there. The USSR won't settle for less than death and the Avengers insist on the World Court while breaking many international laws and overruling two governments, two trial outcomes, and the UN. The X-Men get away clear while these bozos argue.

However, not all is well in the X-Men's camp. Mags doesn't want to drag them into his mess but he insists Asteroid M be destroyed. Havok gets hysterical so Mags explains that the tech inside is too dangerous to fall into anyone's hands. Logan seems to think that merely setting foot in Asteroid M will somehow corrupt him, perhaps missing that he plans to destroy it. Storm places a lot of trust in the Avengers to do the right thing, but Magneto can't. He'll do it alone if they don't trust him, so he flies off very stylishly. Logan's comment to Rogue that they couldn't stop him if he was trying to do bad things says a lot. He didn't fight the Avengers and he isn't forcing anyone to do anything. He is the kind of powerful ally that needs to consent to the rules - if he doesn't choose to you can't make him do anything. That he has been choosing to except for this one instance should be significant. To be fair, he has tortured them and tried to kill them multiple times, so trust is hard. Rogue and Logan should know better than most.

Off on his own, Mags in his cunty pink jumpsuit has found the fallen Asteroid M. He hasn't been allowed to throw any vehicles around for a while - not even as a treat - and this is pretty close. He's loving raising it out of a lake. On the Blackbird, Logan is sulking. Surprising I know. He's mad that Magneto didn't do exactly as they said. He's clearly from the Charles Xavier school of villain reform. Logan hates it when people just go off on their own to do what they think is right without explaining themselves. He'd certainly never do it.

Monica is intangible, spying on the X-Men. She overhears Logan dry snitching and shooting down any possibility that he might be telling the truth. Again, he has this bizarre idea that Asteroid M is some lodestone of evil that will corrupt Magneto. If he truly believes that, they should stop him. Asteroid M was for fucking up the planet.

With that information, Monica rejoins the Avengers at the speed of light and they head off Mags. He's just armed explosive charges to destroy his former base, looks like he was being truthful. He vaguely warns the Avengers to get away, but Thor takes it as a threat. They're pounding on him and he's trying to prevent them getting blowed up. They come across as gung ho oafs, not listening or realising that he isn't fighting them. They'd know it if he was.

Magneto is right. Y'all are arrogant. Also, he found his old helmet. No more mind control for Doctor Dickhead. It looks excellent.

The X-Men, well Storm, decided to trust Magneto and come to aid him. Monica says they didn't want the fight, as they pound on a guy who's not fighting back. I like Monica Rambeau, but the Avengers are cops. Cap asks Dazzler why, as a hero, she's protecting Magneto. She explains that they know what it's like to be pariahs everywhere they go and later that the don't think he'll get a fair trial. She is ignored.

The X-Men and Avengers are beating the shit out of each other when Magneto regains consciousness from Monica flying into his brain at the speed of light. He groggily warns them that the whole thing is about to blow up. Everyone freezes except for Monica, but she's too late (despite traveling at the speed of light.) BOOOM! Asteroid M blows sky fucking high. Mags shields everyone from getting torn apart but do they appreciate it? Nope.

By the time The Avengers come to, the X-Men are long gone. Mags is grateful but nobody is happy about how events have unfolded. If Logan speaks for everyone else in wanting to keep him out of court, what did they expect? The Avengers and the Winter Guard will keep coming. The choices are give him up, fight, or hide forever. Sure, he bounced to take care of biz, but they just saw he was following through on his need to destroy the base and the tech therein. Everyone came to him and he protected them.

Logan insists that Mags tell them everything, just as Logan would. Talkative, explaining himself, sharing freely - all things Logan is known for 🙄. Havok doesn't trust him either but doesn't say it, while Rogue has sympathy for him. They were all at his last trial and 'hanging' is not an exaggeration. In fact it's understating the difficulty in getting Mags, or any mutant, a fair trial. His lawyer was attacked, the judges too, Fenris did false flag terrorism in the X-Men's name, but there was plenty of grassroots anti-mutant protesters and riots.

The X-Men think they've shaken the Avengers but Doctor Druid is on board, and his thoughts prove Rogue right. He actually thinks they'd kill him if he was discovered. They don't kill him but he does manage to get word to the Avengers. This shit isn't over.

Next time! More punching, another trial, Mags reveals some secrets, a Magneto cult is discovered, and the Avengers don't learn anything. Singapore, conspiracies, a ship sinks, even more punching, and Magneto trying to do what is right. There's also the commies who want to execute him, but it's complicated.

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tobiasdrake · 2 months ago

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Daredevil: Born Again 01x07 - Art for Art's Sake

Three episodes left to go. And this one is... mostly about Muse. Which sucks. The show pretty much ground to a halt once this absolute nothing of a character showed up.

Fortunately, the end of this episode is very promising.

I was kind of expecting that they'd start the episode by showing us how Matt found Muse's lair. Like they wanted to have the big climactic episode finish last episode and then now we jump back a bit and see the investigation that helped him find the serial killer that no one could find.

The most we get is this one line where Matt flexes on the cops by bragging about how effortless finding Muse was.

We do get some investigation later in the episode when he (snerk) reveals the ability to see what's been painted on a piece of paper by feeling the brushstrokes with his hands.

Matt realizes that Muse is going after Heather because sketches he made of her perfectly match the contours of her face. That's not how anything works. This show got so stupid after Muse showed up.

I want to note that tactile art is a thing. There are artworks designed so that blind people can touch and feel the painting through the texture of the art. But this is something you have to make on purpose. There are special methods of creating tactile art.

Yeah, I know he's from the comics, but an evil painter is a weird villain choice for a blind superhero, isn't he? It writes the show into a corner when Matt has to discern Muse's next target by studying his drawings.

It's kind of weird that he even has a next target. The show justifies it with this conversation.

"After last night, he's gonna go into survival mode 'cause he knows he's got limited time. If I can figure out his pattern, I can figure out where he's gonna strike next."

If he's going into "survival mode" then why would he strike next? If the cops and Daredevil are after him, now is the time for lying low. Maybe even skipping town and setting up shop in a new city. Matt is speaking to some sort of deadline where Muse must complete his Master Plan before they can catch up to him.

But. There's been no indication that he has any sort of Master Plan. Why would Matt think this? Why would he be right? He is, but why is he? He's a serial killer. He just... kills people. Serially. There is literally nothing stopping him from refraining from killing until the heat is off or maybe becoming the Blood Artist of Chicago.

His Master Plan, as noted above, is to some day murder Heather. But that just raises further questions because. Like.

Okay. His ultimate goal is to kill this one person he could go after at any time. And he's murdered sixty people but never targeted her because... of reasons? It's so important to him that he make a blood painting out of Heather that he's willing to risk life and limb with pursuit hot on his tail to get to her, but not important enough that he ever bothered trying to get to her before this very moment.

This is such a nothingburger of a character. They dedicate a lot, a lot of screentime this episode to Muse and Heather conversing both before and after he attacks her, during which he reveals his very fine motive for being a serial killer.

He likes art and also he's evil and crazy, and he wants to kill Heather because receiving therapy from her gave him the courage to be an evil and crazy artist murderer. That's it. That is the entire character.

His thematic purpose in the show is to make a point about the masks we wear and maybe the masks wear us, who knows. Something something eh Fisk and Murdock??? What if they're the masks they wear? Huh? Huh?? Isn't that deep?

It's stupid and he's a godawful drag on this show. Fortunately she shoots him to death with a gun. And, y'know, good for her.

He's dead now and we never have to see or care about him again.

I'm very happy for Heather that she got to have this moment. I really thought they were going to kill her off to make Matt and Fisk both feel sad enough to punch each other about it. I'm glad she gets to empty a clip into this awful villain's stupid chest instead.

Though I can't help but note that this spares Daredevil from having to figure out how to resolve yet another villain despite his no-killing policy in a series where death is the only cure for evil, just like in the old days. But I'll reserve judgment on that until I see where things land with Fisk.

Fisk basically spends the whole episode spinning his wheels and going, "Daredevil? But... But Daredevil? But could it be... could it be Daredevil? But Daredevil...."

Like. I need to emphasize that he learns about Daredevil's return before the opening credits even roll.

In the stupidest way possible. Angela del Toro. Angela del Toro whose beloved uncle was shot to death in his White Tiger uniform over getting in a beef with the police in a corrupt city that's declared war on vigilantes. That Angela del Toro... talks to the cops and tells them every single thing that happened to her.

She tells them all about Muse, where to find his lair, everything she saw down there, and that she was rescued in a big fisticuffs brawl by Daredevil somehow. At some point offscreen she just gleefully infodumps everything she knows onto the police she despises so that it can make it back to Fisk here.

...

Not only does this make absolutely no sense as a character choice but... it doesn't even matter. Fisk does nothing with it. The only effect on the plot that him possessing this knowledge has is that it lets him have an incredibly dumb scene with this toadie here, where he sits in a window and mopes about what a meanie-face Daredevil is.

He sits here and just cries for three minutes about how that mean old Mister Daredevil man beat up his goons and dismantled his crime empire. Then he gets into an argument with Buck over whether or not it would be okay to use his resources to fight Daredevil.

Buck has clearly not been watching the show. I have no idea what he's talking about.

Mayor Fisk rose to his office on the FUCK VIGILANTES platform. Literally, his chief campaign promise to the voters is to drag Matt kicking and screaming from his law office and throw him in a cell the instant he starts getting up to shit like this again. This isn't an abuse of power. This is what he was elected to do.

One episode ago, Fisk assembled his Bad Apples Mob for this exact purpose. He calls them the Anti-Vigilante Task Force but he's reluctant to deploy them against a vigilante for... some reason and is hunting a serial killer with them instead.

But we're doing Muse stuff right now so Fisk can't actually do anything with the knowledge that Matt's up to Daredevil activities again. He has to sit with this knowledge and stew until the show's done with Muse and can be about him again.

Fisk learning this should be a point of rapid escalation. Fisk:

1 - Knows Daredevil's identity 2 - Has a vendetta against him 3 - Has a mandate from the voters to destroy him 4 - Has the full resources of the police at his disposal 5 - Has created a task force of Ultra-Cops made of exclusively Bad Apples who don't follow anyone's rules and exist purely to do Fisk's dirty work 5.5 - And that task force also have a vendetta against Matt personally.

The second Fisk learned that Daredevil is in action again, Matt's life should have violently imploded as we move into the final act of the story. But we can't do that. Because we still have a full episode of Muse to go.

So Fisk stews and he sits and he stews and he ponders and he stews. Halfway through this episode he chats with Kim about it to ask if she thinks Daredevil is really truly hiding under his bed. Which queues up Detective Kim for this line, which is a crowning achievement in the field of saying nothing in a voice so dramatic that it feels like the plot has moved forward.

"Those aren't just rumors. We don't have confirmation, but we are open to the possibility."

So... rumors, then? If you don't have confirmation then yes, the rumors are still just rumors. They don't stop being baseless conjecture when they become the police's baseless conjecture. "Open to the possibility". What the fuck are we doing here?

Not only does Fisk knowing about Daredevil go absolutely nowhere but then, at the end of the episode, he finds out about Daredevil again.

You could cut the crying window scene and the weird rumors exchange, and just have Fisk learn about Daredevil's return right here. Right now in this room. And then it would flow better. He can go nuclear on Matt next episode because he's just now finding this out.

But then a miracle happens. Like a veil lifting over the show, the story suddenly tightens back up once Muse is gone.

Fisk takes credit for Daredevil Heather, actually, vanquishing Muse and ending the serial killer threat for good. He claims his officers were the ones who shot Muse, capitalizing on the opportunity provided by his opponents' work to look good in front of the cameras.

It's a solid bit of political commentary and an ominous plot point all at once. I do think it would be more effective if his Anti-Vigilante Task Force had ever hunted vigilantes before. They got the part where the crooked politician takes credit for a thing but they forgot the part where the thing he takes credit for is something he tried to stop before making a 180 once it was done.

This works but it would work better if any attempts to apprehend Daredevil had ever been made.

And... Vanessa. Oh, Vanessa.

Vanessa is the best part of this episode. The strained marriage drama between her and Fisk isn't that interesting but it opens up the possibility that Vanessa's going to kill him.

We all feel that, right? Like this is where the whole Adam thing and marital counseling and all that is going? There's been kind of a "Last Days of the Kingpin" vibe circulating around Fisk. Like his run as mayor, his attempt to turn his image around, is the dying act of a man unwittingly at the end of his rope.

I've been thinking about that for a couple episodes now. I might be totally off-base. But it would make sense for Vanessa to be the character who conveniently resolves the Fisk plotline for Matt, since he's not allowed to ever be the solution to anything. I have no idea how Matt's even supposed to punch Fisk hard enough that he stops being mayor. But matricide would do it.

This episode ends on an attempted assassination against Fisk, as Vanessa conspires with Luka to take him out only for Buck in the shadows to kill Luka before he can get the draw on Fisk.

God, this scene is shot and lit so perfectly. I love how Buck is in front of the camera the whole time but he's over there in the darkness, so you don't even notice him until the muzzle flashes. If you go back and watch, you can see him turn his head to notice Luka and pull his gun.

But it's so subtle that he's basically invisible.

And they leave it ambiguous as to whether Vanessa ratted him out to Fisk and set Luka up to take this fall, or if she really intended to have Luka kill Fisk. Who knows? I don't. We won't know until next episode probably. That's a great hook.

Also Baby Kingpin over here decides to take revenge against BB for tricking him into leaking information and getting him in trouble earlier. And I hope she destroys this man's entire career.

Two episodes left to go and the show is back in gear. Looking forward to next week.

#daredevil born again #drake watches daredevil born again #marvel #marvel cinematic universe

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myfaveisfuckable · 1 year ago

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Xie Lian:

he looks more unassuming in his setting than in general but oh man is he not, this man is weirrrrd like Weird weird, he met a guy on a cart who he knew was like a super evil ghost man and not only did he decide to ignore the fact that he was that super evil ghost man, he eventually ended up marrying him! who does that? also, he collects trash for a living! and out of him and his ghost husband he's arguably the weirder one! he's literally a god and he dresses like that (imagine that in italics) absolutely wild. also he's obsessed with swords and is on good terms with the guy who stabbed him and trapped him in a coffin for 100 years but he draws the line at his annoying cousin (who does do really bad stuff as a ghost but he disliked him before that). overall he's just, wow.

Dokja:

1. Introduced as a bland everyman only made exceptional by circumstance, slowly revealed to be the most batshit, suicidally depressed, bisexual maniac in existence. Uses self-sacrifice like a tool and is completely unaware of how beloved he is by the people he keeps pulling into his fold because he is so deeply and utterly convinced that he is fundamentally unlovable. He's like sixty foundational traumas stacked in a trench coat and he's always sixty steps ahead of everyone else and he loves the people he chooses so so dearly and people keep calling him ugly even though he's canonically pretty average and holy shit dude get some therapy please

2. He looks like a neet-pulled office worker. Spoilers: turns out to be one of the oldest things in the world and the only being keeping it going and alive. He needs to be there to keep the world going. Also, he got like kind of adopted by Persephone and hades. Like his blorbo is real and in love with him. But this man looks so average that people call him ugly to his face just because he’s surrounded by absolute gorgeous people.

3. do NOT let the pretty official art fool u. this is the most average 28 year old salaryman going through the absolute most in the apocalypse. ORV is a story about the most average man on earth with the most mundane, depressing life. and one story that he read to cope with it all. he's just some guy, but he is also the most beloved specialest guy. not because he had some hidden talent. just because he loved a story ferociously and also he likes getting in trouble on purpose. he is the most unreliable narrator you will ever find. every piece of the universe loves him for his average stupid self. you will understand when you read 👍

4. GHBJNKML i am praying someone has sent him in but. unreliable narrator the most ever and also i just. love him so much. orv in itself is such a goo dnovel but like. kim dokja is the definition of love and the most caring person but also he's suffered so much and while. yknow we're introduced to him as a kind of nerd but like. listen he's so fucked up juts LISTEN

#poll #tournament

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heyclickadee · 2 years ago

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Okay, here’s the slightly evil, kind of sad, but mostly happy in a somewhat melancholy way (basically just a lot of feelings here) thought I had about Tech and Phee having kids, if that should ever happen:

So, operating under the assumption that Tech comes back, let’s say he and Phee do get together. And let’s say they stay together, and end up more or less space married. Let’s say they both want kids, and, after a lot of discussion about the war going on in the background and how they’re going to raise them and keep them safe, they end up going ahead with it. They don’t really settle down in any one place, but they’ve got their own ship with plenty of room, Pabu (maybe) is a good, stable home base to go back to when needed, and they’ve got a huge family for support. Those kids, if they have more than one, are loved. They have tons of uncles, somebody is always around, maybe some of the other batchers have partners (or not) and also have kids or adopt kids (heck, let’s throw Riyo in there, too, since she and Echo are a popular ship—they end up together but they don’t want kids, but they do a lot of work helping younger clones when they’re not fighting the Empire, Hunter took in several of the clone cadets they rescued from Tantiss, Wrecker is the favorite uncle but Crosshair is the favorite babysitter, they all manage to visit Cut and Suu once in a while, and and both Omega and Lyana are delighted to have little cousins running around (I kind of headcanon that Shep and Lyana kind of adopted Phee into their family after she found Pabu, so even if we’re going with a version of Phee that was formerly a Jedi and and doesn’t really know who her birth parents were, her kids are going to have family on both sides).

And this all exists just as a headcanon for something that could maybe happen after season three, depending on how season three goes, buuuut I like it. It’s just this nice little thought of this big, chaotic family, way bigger than just our six batchers, that’s structured a little weirdly, because clones, and everyone has their problems. but they’re all doing their best for each other and there’s a lot of love in it. And then I started thinking about clone aging.

And we all know clone aging sucks, but: let’s say clones really do age at twice the normal rate once they reach maturity, and let’s say Tech is chronologically, like, twelve but physically in his late twenties. A hard late twenties where he could pass for anything between thirty and fifty, but late twenties all the same. Suppose he gets the best case scenario and manages to live till he’s physically 90. Chronologically, he’ll be around forty-five. So, close to best case scenario, barring dying violently or getting sick, he’s got maybe another thirty-three years in him. That might seem like a lot (and it probably is to a clone), but to put that in perspective, I’m thirty-five. If I die in thirty-three years, I’ll only be sixty-eight—I’ll have died pretty young. And I’ve already been alive almost three times as long as many of the clones have. The clones do not get that much time.

There’s a lot to be explored with that in regards to Phee; I’ll be honest, the potential, “This is going to be over faster than either of us are going to be ready for,” “It is—let’s do it anyway,” is part of why at draws me to the ship, because there’s something a little defiant about two people going into a relationship knowing one of them was built to die faster, and choosing to live their lives how they want despite that. But there’s also a lot to be explored in how Phee and Tech would handle that with their kids. Because—they’d tell them. They’d have to sit down and tell them once they got to a certain age. Tech is going to be lucky to see them hit their twenties. It’s not like they wouldn’t notice their dad and their clone uncles getting old so much faster than their mom, Omega, or their uncle Shep, or anyone else they know. They’d ask questions, and it’s not like Tech wouldn’t be up-front. But I don’t think it’d be an easy conversation for any of them to have.

#the bad batch #techphee #tech bad batch #phee genoa #things I made myself have feelings about #while staring at my computer and not working yesterday #anyway add this to the ever growing list of things I want to draw #very rambly tired thoughts do not take them too seriously

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pagesfromthevoid · 11 months ago

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Okay so I can’t draw worth a damn but I am obsessed with Hazbin Hotel rn so I used this picrew to create a base and then I played around on Canva to create…

Avery!

Avery died in the late sixties, when she was 31, having grown up in a cult-like community. When she broke away in her twenties, she turned to paganism and witchcraft to fill the void that was missing from her life after leaving the cult. Her mother and father sent someone from the community to bring her back, but instead they killed her when they saw her interacting with a crow (she was feeding them) and her killer took that as a sign of evil. They killed the crow as well. She’s in hell because of the witchcraft.

She doesn’t necessarily want to be redeemed, but she doesn’t think it’s fair she’s in hell for something harmless. It’s not like she was cursing or hexing people; she was simply protecting herself and her home. But the hotel is her best bet for understanding from anyone.

As we can see, she’s got crows feet and wings, representing her interaction with the crows and their symbolism in witchcraft. The crow that died with her joined her in hell, and it lives at the hotel. It’ll come when she calls, but it just sort of does its own thing and spends a lot of time on the roof. His name is Poe.

If I could draw, yall would be sooo fucked lmao

#cress talks too much #hazbin hotel oc #Hazbin hotel #don’t make fun of me I cannot draw but I can make people up

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they-call-me-youngermoney · 5 months ago

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you've discovered a dwarf gourami mer. sixty's a little perturbed by your presence, but he and his brothers are ultimately harmless...

... maybe.

my drawing for @cptjh-arts' 2024 sixty exchange! made for Nika.

#i'll take ''drawings that make it obvious i'm an outlast fan'' for 200 #dbh #detroit become human #dbh fanart #dbh sixty end of the year exchange #dbh 60eoty2024 #dbh sixty #rk800 60 #sixty and connor are technically the same so aa yeah i'll tag connor too #dbh connor #here buddy lemme just group you in with your evil twin brother #oh fun fact sort of: the pose and lighting is lowkey inspired by the flying beagle himiko kikuchi album cover #art #100% organic younger money

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lesbiandonnanoble · 1 year ago

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hello! i dont know if there is someone better to ask but youre one of the most prominent dw blogs i can think of: are there any episodes that stand out to you in their discussion or promotion of space colonization? especially using rhetoric of "its human nature to explore" or even religous backing.

if not no worries haha, im just writing a paper and i wanted to use a scifi example!

this is really awful cos you asked this last year and i suck and obviously your paper is already written and i'm so sorry. this ask made me think about how the topic as a whole is approached in the show/the extended universe and this is sort of a poorly done summation of those thoughts.

there's a lot in doctor who to work with in terms of human/humanoid/dominant species colonisation in space. key word work, because it is very much on the shoulders of the watcher/reader/listener to draw up a complex or accurate allegory in almost every case. rather than the "right to explore," i think often by nature of needing an easy conflict doctor who goes more for the "right to utilise resources no matter where they're found, even and especially luxury resources". an example all my followers are the most likely to have seen/remember is planet of the ood. obviously this is slavery, but the abduction of a slave labour force is often part of the colonisation of an inhabited place. it's an especially on the nose critique because the colonisers in this case were physically preventing communication and the reforming of the community they colonised to exploit, but this is done on a very simple level and not extrapolated or discussed in real world terms or with real world context.

the extended universe deals with the topic of colonisation in a more frequent and usually slightly less basic way. jamie mccrimmon is a character who even in the show was (pre-doctor) living under militant colonial (british) rule. this is explored more in depth in a couple of audios; it is genuinely rarely touched on in the show. in certain companion chronicles jamie's survival of british colonial rule is discussed directly (the glorious revolution) or alluded to with parallel space colonisation plots (stuff like the edge comes to mind). c'rizz is another character from the audios who the doctor met after his community was violently colonised and imprisoned but c'rizz has sort of a very strange and very particular thing going on so i'm not really sure how much there is in terms of a colonialism discussion with him; i'm sure you could find something but again the work to find commentary on it is put on the shoulders of the audience. also in the way of extended universe, the EDAs will (like the show!) often have sort of basic space colonisation as a plot point which is not very explored or discussed or looked into beyond that it's a familiar cut and dry situation for the doctor to walk into and be the good guy. they go for this often in the show and the books, they'll pull up a complex and violent social situation and then not delve into it as a social situation (or in this case an act of colonialism) in favour of delving into it only as a plot point, if that makes sense. however I did think dreamstone moon (EDA) actually had something to say about how late stage capitalism/commodification is both an arm and heart of colonialism. i have a (very short) post about that here.

ultimately, doctor who as a creation began in the early 1960s in britain. the universal reoccurring threat that has persisted over the subsequent sixty years within the fiction of the show (perpetrated by any and all villains) is that of the fascist, the authoritarian, the idea of a world-conquering absolute dictator. the (white) british collective consciousness, reeling from the second world war, could not picture any greater evil than the global surge of fascism in the late 30s-40s. colonisation, especially with britain's history as the perpetrators, is something that held visibly less evil in the minds of these british tv writers, and that is reflected in the writing more often than not, especially in classic who. often, colonialism in doctor who is a backdrop, a setting, and not something that is examined, especially not fully, in the episode's text. it betrays something about the show and the country it came from. it is a nasty fact of doctor who and the context it rose out of.

i know i'm too late to help you with that essay but this just made me think, and these are just my thoughts. i don't know. i guess more than any wealth of strong examples when you look at colonialism in doctor who you notice the general lack of sociopolitics, realism, and empathy in any portrayal of colonialism. to pull strong, more-than-surface-level anti-colonialist narratives out of doctor who, you have to do most of the work yourself. i do think this has to do with the show being synonymous with a country that was historically the biggest perpetrator of military colonialism in the world. i don't know. it's grimly interesting in a way that puts a sour taste in my mouth.

#anon #i was thinking about how to answer your question and realised that colonialism situations are so often used in doctor who as setting but (u #(usually) never delved into as the primary conflict AND with sociopolitical consciousness #like even when they do discuss it it's in a watered down and dismissive way #doctor who #which is interesting! british show acts british fork found in kitchen but it's SO spineless. hm #asks

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mjonthetrack · 2 months ago

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moon bound

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT: The Vision Unfolds

The walk back to the lodge was a blur, her paws barely grazing the ground as they guided her through the woods. The weight of what she’d seen hung heavy on her, a constant pressure in her chest. Every breath felt shallow, as if the forest had swallowed all of her air, leaving her suffocating on the fear she couldn’t shake.

When they arrived, Selene barely took notice of anything around her. She was too caught up in the memories, the flashes of what she had witnessed still dancing behind her eyes. The blood. The bodies. The sinister faces.

She pushed past Jonathan and Jey, barely aware of their presence as she stalked into the lodge, her movements sharp and erratic. She needed something—anything—to ground her.

Her eyes scanned the room, her heart pounding in her chest. Then, she spotted it—a notepad, lying innocently on the table where her bag had been tossed earlier. Without a second thought, she snatched it up, the paper crinkling under her fingers as if it too was shaking in fear.

Jey and Jonathan exchanged a glance, sensing the shift in her energy, the manic edge to her movements. They stayed back for a moment, unsure of what she was about to do. They had seen Selene act with confidence before, but this—this was different. This was raw, untamed.

She sank into a chair by the window, still gripping the notepad in her hands. Her eyes were wide, pupils blown with the terror of what she had seen, but her body remained still, as though she had stopped breathing altogether.

Her fingers hovered above the page for a moment, trembling. Then, with a shudder, she closed her eyes, blocking out everything else. For a second, she just breathed, the silence pressing in on her like a physical weight. And then, suddenly, her hand shot to the paper.

Her fingers moved frantically, as if guided by some unseen force. The pen scratched across the page in a blur, her strokes erratic but somehow controlled. She wasn’t thinking. She wasn’t deciding to draw. She was reliving what she saw—her hand, almost like an extension of the terror inside her, translating the memories into something tangible.

The sound of the pen scratching against the paper was the only thing filling the room. Jonathan and Jey stood at the edge, watching, confused but captivated by the scene unfolding before them. They didn’t speak. They couldn’t. There was a sense of power in the air—an energy that Selene had tapped into, whether she wanted to or not.

The image began to form on the paper—no, it wasn’t just an image. It was alive. The body of the hiker was drawn out in precise, violent strokes. His neck was torn open, the blood spilling from the gash in thick, vivid lines. And there, in the background, was the unmistakable shape of a figure—shadowed, blurred, but with a presence so strong it made the hairs on their necks stand up.

Selene’s breathing became more ragged, her hand moving faster, more erratically, as though trying to keep up with the flood of images crashing through her mind. She wasn’t just drawing. She was experiencing it all over again.

Jonathan stepped forward, hesitant, his eyes never leaving her. “Selene...” His voice was soft, coaxing. “Selene, slow down. You’re pushing yourself too hard.”

But she didn’t hear him. Or perhaps, she couldn’t.

Her hand jerked suddenly, and the page tore under the pressure, but she didn’t stop. She kept drawing, the jagged lines of her panic and frustration splashing across the page.

Then, with one last desperate, shaky motion, she drew the face of the woman. Her face was twisted, eyes black and red, her lips curled into an evil, knowing smirk. The image wasn’t perfect—it didn’t need to be. It was the feeling behind it that came across, the malice of it. The woman’s face seemed to jump off the page, as if the paper itself was trying to escape.

Selene’s breath hitched as she let the pen drop, her hand shaking violently against the paper. The room was dead silent. Jonathan and Jey stood still, their gazes locked on the page, not daring to move.

Her voice was small, trembling as she finally broke the silence. “That’s what I saw. That’s what I—” She cut herself off with a choked sob, and Jonathan rushed to her side, his hand gently resting on her trembling shoulder.

The air was thick with tension, and the only sound that filled the room was the echo of her ragged breath. She hadn’t just drawn what she had seen. She had felt it, lived it again through the frantic movements of her hand. And now, the truth was staring them in the face.

Jey leaned forward, his eyes narrowing at the image on the paper. “This... this isn’t just a random attack, is it?”

Selene shook her head slowly, still too shaken to speak clearly. “No. It was them. The... things.”

Jonathan’s gaze turned sharp, his protective instincts flaring. “We need to prepare. This is bigger than just one hiker.”

Selene’s voice wavered again, her eyes wild and distant as she spoke in a whisper, “They’ll come for more.”

—————

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE: A Haunting Encounter

Days had passed since Selene had drawn the image of what she saw. The air in the lodge had been tense, thick with unspoken words and the weight of what they now knew. Jonathan and Jey had done their best to reassure her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was caught in the middle of something much larger than herself. She still didn’t fully understand it, and there was so much she was yet to learn about her wolf and what came with it.

But today, she couldn’t stay cooped up anymore. It was time for her to step out, to breathe, to gather her thoughts away from the heavy weight of the others' concerns.

She slipped out of the lodge quietly, the familiar sound of her boots crunching against the earth grounding her. She dressed in her usual mix of comfort and style, loose cargo pants and a fitted tee, but with the added practicality of a woven basket slung over her arm. The children needed more herbs and fruits—there was always something more to gather for them. Her mind was set on that simple task, a little piece of normalcy.

She moved swiftly through the trees, her heart starting to settle with each step. Nature was familiar to her. The forest whispered around her, and for a brief moment, she allowed herself to forget the horrors she had witnessed—the violence she had seen. It was a temporary relief, one that didn’t last long.

Something shifted in the air, a sudden tension that pricked at her skin. The breeze, once gentle, had stopped, and a heavy silence settled in the forest. She paused, a sharp breath catching in her throat.

And then, she saw her.

The woman stood in the distance, barely visible through the thick trees, her pale figure nearly blending with the whiteness of the light filtering through the canopy. Her face was too perfect, too pristine, like someone from an era long past. Her clothes—impeccable, colonial in style—hung from her frame like they belonged to a different time altogether. A long, flowing gown, dark but pristine, the sharp contrast against the earth surrounding her. And those eyes.

Selene’s pulse quickened as she recognized the same haunting look from before—those eyes, black with a red tinge, soulless and predatory, gleaming in the sunlight like two dark stars. It was the same woman from the image she had drawn. Her breath hitched in her throat.

The woman’s lips curled up in a slow, knowing smirk, the kind that made Selene’s stomach twist with unease.

"Well, well," the woman spoke, her accent dripping with an old, formal English, the kind of voice that made everything seem distant, cold, as if the speaker was above it all. "I see they weren’t exaggerating. You truly are a... peculiar creature."

Selene’s heart raced as she instinctively took a step back, her hand instinctively moving toward her bag. But she didn't feel the reassuring weight of her weapons—no, all she had was the basket, a useless piece of equipment for this kind of situation.

The woman tilted her head, the movement unnervingly smooth, predatory even. "I wonder... how much more you can take before you break."

Selene’s body went rigid. Her breath caught in her throat, and her instincts screamed at her to run. This was one of them. One of the things that had attacked the hiker.

She forced herself to remain still. “What do you want with me?” The words came out shakier than she would’ve liked, but her pride didn’t let her back down.

The woman laughed softly, the sound cold, almost cruel. "Want? Oh, sweet thing, it's not about what I want. You are already a part of something far bigger than your little... pack of wolves." She took a step closer, her eyes glinting as she took in Selene’s every reaction. "Tell me, how does it feel to be the only one who doesn’t understand the game you’ve been pulled into? How does it feel to be the key they are all too blind to see?"

Selene’s chest tightened. The woman’s presence was suffocating, a tangible weight on the air, and she could feel the tension rising. But she couldn’t let it control her.

“You’re not welcome here,” Selene said, her voice low and dangerous, the edge of her wolf creeping into her words. “Stay the hell away from me and my people.”

The woman’s lips twisted into a smile that wasn’t a smile. “Your people?” she echoed, and her voice turned mockingly sweet. “Oh, sweet girl... you have no idea who you're really dealing with, do you?”

Selene’s wolf stirred within her, restless and agitated. The air around her seemed to hum, thick with hostility, as if the earth itself was warning her. The woman’s eyes flickered briefly, as though she was weighing something in her mind.

“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” Selene said, stepping forward, determined to hold her ground, even though her body screamed for her to run. “You’re nothing to me.”

The woman’s gaze darkened, and for a moment, Selene thought she saw something more sinister than before—anger, perhaps, or perhaps amusement. "I’ll be seeing you again, darling. You’re far too important to ignore. Remember that."

And with that, the woman turned, gliding silently through the forest like a ghost, disappearing into the shadows as though she had never been there at all.

Selene stood frozen, her heart hammering in her chest, the words echoing in her mind. Important...

She shook her head, unwilling to believe it. She had no idea what that meant, but she wasn’t about to back down now. Her wolf howled inside her, a warning and a challenge, and Selene finally forced herself to breathe.

She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she couldn’t afford to waste time thinking about it. The forest still held its secrets, but so did she. And Selene wasn’t about to let anything slip through her grasp—not this time.

————

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE: Shadows and Smoke

The forest held its breath.

Branches hung low, cloaked in silence, while the earth beneath pulsed in rhythm with her steps—soft, soundless, deliberate. Selene's body moved like smoke: sinuous, elusive, and everywhere at once. Her dark fur was soaked in shadow, her golden eyes dimmed to slits, focused and unrelenting. The prey didn’t know she was being hunted.

But Selene did.

The vampire woman strolled ahead, casual in that eerie, out-of-time way. Long skirts brushing dead leaves, corseted bodice too pristine for the wilderness, curls pinned up like she’d just stepped out of a Victorian painting—untouched by blood, though the scent clung to her like perfume.

Selene's lip curled.

She didn’t rush. Didn’t make a sound. She prowled. One paw in front of the other, heart steady, mind clear. This wasn’t a reckless dash fueled by fear. This was a calculated pursuit.

Because if she ran again, she’d be giving that monster control. And fuck that.

The woman tilted her head once, pausing in the clearing. Selene froze in the thick underbrush, the cool dirt hugging her belly. Her breath stilled.

The woman sniffed the air.

Selene stayed low, unmoving.

“I know you're there, pet,” the vampire drawled, her accent crisp and cold, like porcelain cracking under pressure. “You shouldn’t be, but you are.”

Selene didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t breathe.

“You’re not like the others,” the vampire continued, turning slightly—only slightly—toward the thicket where Selene crouched. “Something in your blood burns louder. Wilder. Like the old ways.”

Selene’s eyes narrowed, ears pinned back. Her muscles tensed, ready to spring—but still she waited. She watched.

“You’re not ready,” the vampire said softly, voice now almost sweet, like spoiled honey. “But you’re coming. One step at a time. I’ll be waiting.”

And then—gone.

No shift of leaves, no breeze, no trace. Just vanished like mist before sunrise.

Selene leapt into the clearing a beat too late, growling low, teeth flashing in the light—but there was no target.

Only silence.

Only the wind.

But her heart?

Her heart was thunder.

She stood there for a long moment, alone, scenting the space, tasting the air. It was real. Not a nightmare. She’d followed. She hadn’t fled.

Not this time.

Selene turned, back still straight, and started the slow walk toward the village. Each step was heavier now. But they were hers.

Alpha mate or not… she was beginning to walk like one.

Even in the shadows.

————-

CHAPTER SEVENTY: Ash on Her Scent

The lodge door slammed open with a gust of wind and heat behind her.

Selene stepped in barefoot, her skin still dusted in dirt and ash from the forest, hair tangled like she’d torn through the trees—because she had. Her chest rose and fell heavy, gold still flickering in her eyes as the remnants of her wolf pulled back beneath her skin. She was expecting it.

The yelling.

The lecture.

She could feel it building in the room before a single word was said.

Thalia’s mouth opened first, hands on her hips, ready to snap. Dahlia sat up straighter with narrowed eyes and a knowing look, her baby strapped to her chest. Jey’s nostrils flared. Sefa looked like he was ready to explode.

“You just went off on your own again? Are you mad—?”

“Selene, you could’ve been ki—”

“Have you lost—”

And then silence.

Like someone had cut the power to the entire room.

One by one, they stiffened. The children—usually rowdy or curious—sank into stillness. Jey took a slow step forward, nostrils twitching again. Sefa blinked once, his jaw locking in place.

Everyone looked at her.

No. Past her.

No. Around her.

No—on her.

Selene froze. “What?”

They didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Thalia’s lip curled slightly, not in judgment but in discomfort. “What the hell is that smell on you?”

Dahlia swallowed. “It’s not wolf. Not anything I’ve scented before.”

Jonathan appeared from the back room then, his face etched in the kind of worry that could split mountains. His eyes hit her, then the air around her.

And he flinched.

Selene stood her ground. “I didn’t touch her.”

“Her?” Jey repeated, voice sharp.

Selene nodded. “I tracked her. I… followed her.”

Thalia’s arms dropped from her hips, her bravado faltering.

“She let me follow her,” Selene continued quietly. “Talked to me. Like it was nothing. Like I was a pet she was waiting on.”

The lodge was silent. Tense. Even the pups were still.

“That scent,” Sefa said finally, “it’s old. Cold. Wrong.”

Jonathan stepped forward now, his voice low. “Vampire?”

Selene didn’t speak. She just nodded.

And that one word—it changed everything.

The room buzzed with unspoken fear and something more primal than anger.

Jonathan’s face darkened like thunderclouds gathering behind his eyes.

“You shouldn’t smell like her,” he said tightly.

“I didn’t touch her,” Selene repeated, stronger this time. “I followed. I needed to know.”

“You could’ve been killed,” Thalia whispered.

“Then we’d know even less,” Selene bit back, exhausted, her voice raw. “Y’all want answers or not?”

Silence again.

And then slowly… reluctantly… Jey nodded.

Selene exhaled hard. The fire was coming. But not yet.

First, she had to explain. Everything.

————-

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE: Old Tongues, New Terror

Selene stood in the center of the lodge, arms crossed tight, jaw locked as every set of eyes stared back at her. She looked like hell—half-wild, dust on her skin, hair knotted at the ends, and her heart still thrashing somewhere beneath her ribs.

“She was dressed like a colonial ghost,” Selene started flatly. “Not the sexy corset kind either. Like… like them stiff-ass portraits in museums. Puffed sleeves. High collar. A bonnet. Lace gloves.” Her lip curled. “Only thing missin’ was a cane and a Bible to beat somebody over the head with.”

She paused, brushing her fingers through her hair, trying to steady herself.

“She sounded like time forgot her,” she added, voice thick with sarcasm. “Proper English. 'Dear, what a curious little thing you are… sniffing about like a mutt at the gates.'”

Selene straightened and gave a dramatic mock bow, complete with a poor imitation of the woman’s eerie, aristocratic accent.

“‘I thought your kind was gone, buried beneath the forests like rotting fruit. But here you are—alive, twitching, afraid…’”

Her voice dropped, imitating the exact lilt and rasp, her golden eyes haunted and far-off. “‘How delicious.’”

The room stayed dead quiet.

Selene inhaled sharply through her nose and exhaled just as fast, her fingers twitching.

“She knew I was following her. From the moment I shifted. Her eyes—they were black. But with a red ring ‘round the middle. Hollow. Like she could see all the way through me.” She shook her head. “Didn’t even flinch when I bared my teeth.”

Dahlia had gone pale, her hand resting instinctively over her baby’s chest.

“She just smiled like she was waiting for me. And when I didn’t pounce… she turned and walked into the trees like she had all the time in the world. I followed ‘til I couldn’t stomach it no more.”

Selene’s shoulders slumped. “I was in the midst of potentially losing my jugular so—” She tossed the empty woven basket onto the table with a dry snort. “No goodies. Sorry, no guavas for the babies today.”

Jey, still gripping the edge of the table, stared at her like he couldn’t decide if he was furious or impressed.

Jonathan hadn’t said a word yet.

But his jaw? Locked. His gaze? Burning straight into her like he wanted to drag the whole forest to its knees for letting her walk back smelling like that.

Selene tilted her head and finally met his stare. “You’re gonna say something, or…?”

Jonathan blinked slowly. Then:

“What else did she say?”

Selene’s smirk faded.

She hesitated.

“…She said she’d be back. Soon.”

————-

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO: “A Game, She Said”

Selene paused mid-pace, her fingers snapping once, sharp like the thought that struck her. Her eyes, still wild from the adrenaline of what she had just survived, flicked to Jonathan first, then the rest of them, each face staring at her like she had come back half-possessed.

“Oh!” she said suddenly, her accent sliding thicker as the words tumbled out. “She did say somethin' else. That vampire bitch—she was runnin’ her mouth like we was at a bloody tea party.”

The group stayed silent, tense, barely breathing.

Selene stood in the center of the lodge now, shoulders squared, chest still rising hard from her trek back. She threw her head back, chin lifted, and curled her lip as she mocked the highborn, posh tone that had crawled under her skin like ants.

“Oh darling,” she began, dripping the words in a clipped, old-English pitch, “You’re not like them. Haven’t you noticed? You’re different. The wolves think they’ve claimed you, but you were never theirs to keep. It’s all a game… a game they’ve already lost.”

Her tone dropped then, back to herself, eyes narrowing. “She said that like it was sweet talk. Like she knew me. Like she knew somethin’ I didn’t. And the whole damn time, she starin’ at me like she could see through my skin. Like I was some kind of joke.”

Selene swallowed hard, lips pressing together in frustration before she gave a bitter, humorless laugh. “And I was meant to pick fruit, y’know? Come back with mangoes, lil' things for the babies, somethin' easy.” She walked over to the corner of the lodge, picked up the empty woven basket she’d dropped when she first walked in, and held it up with a dry shake. “Instead? I was nearly food.”

With a deep sigh, she tossed it down again, the rattle of it hitting the floor loud in the stunned quiet.

“Unfortunately,” she said, voice laced in sarcasm, “I was in the midst of potentially losing my jugular, so… no goodies.”

The room remained still. No laughter. No comfort. Just tension and slowly dawning concern.

Because now, finally, they all smelled it. The faint trace that clung to her skin like spoiled perfume.

Vampire.

And Selene—shaking off her fear and squaring her spine—looked them all in the eye, steady this time.

“She said I’m not like you,” she said quietly, bitter fire behind her words. “So I need to know now—what the hell did she mean?”

And this time, she wasn’t asking for forgiveness. She was demanding answers.

———

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE: “Not Like You”

Silence stretched long and thick in the lodge.

The others looked between each other like they weren’t sure who should speak first—if anyone even could. The tension in the air felt like a held breath, like the forest itself outside was listening in.

Thalia’s brows knit tight as she clutched one of her twins closer to her chest, her other hand sliding to rest on her mate Jey’s arm. Dahlia, holding her swaddled newborn, had the same concern in her eyes—but it was edged with fear now. Not of Selene. But of the weight of what she had brought back with her.

Jonathan’s jaw worked quietly, his eyes flickering with that internal war he constantly wore when it came to her. The vampire scent on her skin had gutted him. But it wasn’t anger that flashed behind his eyes—it was dread.

“She said you’re not like us,” Jey finally said, voice low. “And she looked at you like she knew something.”

Selene scoffed under her breath, arms folding tight across her chest like armor. “Yeah, congratulations, big man. You were listening.”

Jonathan took a half-step toward her, but she lifted her chin, eyes narrowing. “No. Don’t try soft now.”

“You smell like them,” Dahlia whispered. “Like their presence touched you.”

Selene snapped her gaze toward the woman. “Touched? She was about two feet away from takin’ a bite outta me! You ever been stalked by a white devil with fangs and a petticoat on?!” Her voice rose, her accent slipping into every word now with heat.

Sefa stood now, voice calmer than most. “Selene. The scent… it’s faint, but it’s clingin’. She got close.”

“I told y’all!” Selene snapped. “I told y’all what I saw, and now yuh smell it, now it’s real to you? I ain't no liar. I risked my neck to bring you the truth, and now this—” she gestured to their stunned faces, “—this is what I get?”

Jonathan’s eyes softened again, but Selene wasn’t letting anyone speak just yet.

“She said it like she’d been watchin’. Said I’m different. Not like you. Like I wasn’t even supposed to be in this—what? World? Pack? Bond?” Her voice cracked slightly, just for a second.

“I’m already not a full wolf. Ain’t a damn elder. Barely know what I’m doin’ half the time. And now there’s bloodsuckers in the mix who seem to think I’m some kind of what—outlier? Puzzle piece that don’t fit?” She paused, breathing heavy. “So somebody better start explainin’ fast, because I’m not askin’ again.”

Jonathan moved then, slow and deliberate, his voice soft but grounded. “You’re not like us, Selene.”

Her eyes cut toward him like daggers, but he raised a hand.

“Not because you don’t belong. Not because you’re weak. You’re different because… you were never supposed to become like this. It was forbidden. You were a human, untouched. And yet…”

“And yet what?” she growled.

“…You survived the shift. Your bite didn’t kill you. Your bond with me didn’t break you. You adapted, stronger and faster than any of us thought possible.” He looked pained. “That does make you different. But not in the way she meant.”

“And how the hell would you know?” Selene said coldly, arms still folded.

“Because I’ve felt it,” Jonathan said. “Your wolf doesn’t behave like ours. She’s… protective, ancient, primal. There’s something in you none of us can name yet.”

She stared at him, searching, burning.

“And what, that’s the explanation? I’m some special lil mystery and we just walk around pretending everything’s normal until it bites me in the ass?”

Jey exhaled through his nose. “You were never just the mate, Selene. We thought the shift was the whole secret, but now…” He looked at Jonathan. “There’s more. Something else.”

Selene’s expression twitched—something between frustration and fear.

“Well. Guess it’s time we stop waitin’ for answers to fall from the sky.” She looked around the lodge, eyes sharp.

“Because clearly the past ain’t done with us yet.”

#x black oc #romance #jimmy uso fanfiction #jimmy uso x black oc #mature fic #dark fantasy #jonathan fatu

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aaknopf · 1 year ago

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In Shakespeare’s Sisters, Ramie Targoff recovers to literary memory the lives and talents of four women who wrote in England during Shakespeare’s time, well before there was any notion of “a room of one’s own.” From Mary Sidney, sister of the well-known poet Sir Philip Sidney (she wrote most of the beautiful translations of the Psalms ascribed to him) to Anne Clifford, a diarist and memoirist who fought for decades against a patriarchy that tried to disinherit her from her family’s land, these women stun us by their bravery. In the passage below, Targoff discusses the important poetry of Aemilia Lanyer, born of an illiterate mother and an immigrant father; it appeared in print in 1611, making her the first woman in the 17th century to publish an original book of verse.

. . .

In the same year the King James Bible first appeared in print, establishing the most influential English translation of scripture ever produced, Aemilia dared to tell a different story. Over the course of 230 rhyming stanzas of eight lines each, her “Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum” lays out the story of Christ’s Passion from a distinctly female perspective. The formal challenge of writing the poem was itself daunting: it’s no easy feat to compose over 1,800 lines of ottava rima (iambic pentameter stanzas written in an abababcc rhyme scheme). But Aemilia’s greater audacity was in tackling the subject of Christ’s crucifixion. To justify this, she makes the same claim for divine inspiration that the great Protestant poet John Milton would make sixty or so years later in writing Paradise Lost. Describing her own “poor barren brain” as “far too weak” for the task, she asks God to “give me power and strength to write”:

Yet if he please to illuminate my spirit, And give me wisdom from his holy hill, That I may write part of his glorious merit, If he vouchsafe to guide my hand and quill Then will I tell of that sad blackfaced night, Whose mourning Mantle covered Heavenly Light.

Given the fact that the poem proceeds to do exactly what she petitions for, Aemilia shows her reader that her prayer has been answered: she’s not so much writing as channeling the divine word.[...] Aemilia’s narrative of Christ’s Passion begins on the “very night our Savior was betrayed.” As part of her overall strategy in “Salve Deus”of celebrating female virtue, the poem draws attention both to the wicked acts of men (Caiaphas, Judas) and to the compassionate acts of women (the daughters of Jerusalem, the Virgin Mary) in the days leading up to Christ’s arrest. None of this comes as a surprise. But when Aemilia arrives at the moment that Pontius Pilate considers Christ’s fate, she does something totally unanticipated. Relinquishing her own role as narrator, she hands the poem over to Pilate’s wife. Among the most minor figures in the New Testament, Pilate’s wife has a single line of verse in only one of the four gospels. In Matthew 27:19, a woman who is never named urges her husband, the Roman governor in Judaea, to disregard the will of the people calling for Christ to be crucified: “Have nothing to do with that just man,” she warns Pilate, “for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.” In early Christian commentaries and apocryphal writings, this woman was often called Procula Claudia, or simply Procula. In medieval England, Procula was paraded onstage in the mystery plays as an evil woman who almost prevented Christ’s saving humankind; in the York Cycle’s play named for her—The Dream of Pilate’s Wife—Percula, as she’s called there, receives her dream from the Devil himself. There’s no way to know if Aemilia knew this or other medieval dramas; it’s more likely she would have noticed the more positive treatment Pilate’s wife was given in the Geneva Bible, the popular translation done by English Protestants in the 1550s. Consistent with the Protestant belief that everyone should have access to the Bible directly, the translation was heavily glossed with marginal notes. Next to the verse from Matthew regarding Pilate’s wife was a single gloss suggesting that Pilate should have taken the “counsel of others to defend Christ’s innocence.” But whether the treatment of this woman was negative or positive, she had never been asked to perform the role Aemilia gave her in “Salve Deus,” where she delivers one of the strongest defenses for women’s rights that Christianity had ever seen. In Pilate’s wife, Aemilia found her perfect heroine: a woman whose intervention at the crucial moment could have changed the course of history, if only her husband had listened. With the scriptural verse from Matthew before her, Aemilia made two crucial additions to the story. First, she transformed Pilate’s wife into a faithful believer who already regarded Christ as her Lord. “Hear the words of thy most worthy wife,” she begs her husband, “who sends to thee, to beg her Savior’s life.” Far from simply reporting that she’s had an ominous dream, as she does in Matthew, Pilate’s wife explicitly warns Pilate that he will be killing the son of God. Second, Aemilia turned Pilate’s wife into a proto-feminist. After urging Pilate to let Christ go on religious grounds, she comes up with a new reason for why he should be pardoned: “Let not us women glory in men’s fall / Who had power given to over-rule us all.” If men are sinful enough to crucify their savior, then women should be liberated from men’s rule. “Your indiscretion sets us free,” she declares, “And makes our former fault much less appear.” In these four short lines, Aemilia’s character anticipates the killing of Christ as the basis for women’s freedom from patriarchy. As if this weren’t radical enough, Pilate’s wife moves in “Salve Deus” from making her argument about the Crucifixion to recon- sidering the reason for Christ’s sacrifice in the first place. “Our mother Eve,” she exclaims,

. . . who tasted of the Tree Giving to Adam what she held most dear, Was simply good, and had no power to see, The after-coming harm did not appear.

If Eve had no way to know the damage she might do, Adam was only too aware: it was he who received the command directly “from God’s mouth.” Eve was simply a victim of misinformation and “too much love,” whereas Adam, not betrayed by the “subtle Serpent’s falsehood,” knew exactly what he was doing. Aemilia was certainly not the first person to defend Eve on grounds of her innocence or to propose that Adam be held responsible for the Fall. She was possibly the first to argue that the crime of killing Christ so overwhelmed any fault of Eve’s that women’s subordination should come to an immediate end. “If unjustly you condemn [Christ] to die,” Pilate’s wife concludes,

. . . Then let us have our Liberty again, And challenge [attribute] to your selves no Sovereignty; You came not in the world without our pain, Make that a bar against your cruelty; Your fault being greater, why should you disdain Our being your equals, free from tyranny? If one weak woman simply did offend, This sin of yours, hath no excuse, nor end.

Hundreds of years before the women’s liberation movement, Aemilia used the figure of Pilate’s wife to argue that the sexes should be equal. In doing so, she also rescued a voice from history, giving full personhood and agency to a woman whom the Bible didn’t regard as worthy of a name.