#either go back home and live with the guilt of being the scientist who nearly destroyed tokyolk

[sikyurame]

Not gonna lie, Gyro being ex-FOWL is an au I can get behind

[mortimer-writes-sometimes]

A Warm Feeling, Chapter Four

Chapter Four: Mutual Care

Part One | Part Three | Part Five Word count: 4268 Warnings for this chapter: Illness, panic attacks

Read this on Archive of Our Own and Wattpad!

“Yeah, I got him to eat a little bit when I brought him home. He just looks so… I dunno, dim? His temperature is only 317… Yeah, Al, I know that’s low, that’s why I called!”

Sans paced nervously as he glanced at the living room couch, talking to Alphys over the phone. Once again, he found Grillby laying there, but this time was much less endearing. The flames that formed his body didn’t seem to burn as brightly as usual, and he looked downright sickly. This wasn’t something that had come on suddenly, either. Sans felt like an idiot. Thinking back to the past few days, he should have noticed that Grillby was moving slower. The bartender had been having trouble keeping up with orders lately, and there were moments where he’d even spilled drinks because his hands were shaking. Sans chalked it all up to him being busier than usual, but he should have known better. The last thing Grillby needed- no the last thing Grillby deserved was for Sans to be dismissive of obvious cries for help.

Guilt gnawed at the skeleton’s bones. Why did he let Grillby go home alone the night before? Why didn’t he say anything when his food was underdone? Why didn’t he just pay more attention? If their places were reversed, Grillby would have caught on to Sans’s ailment and made him rest days ago. Grillby was observant like that. He was a good, attentive friend. Was it really that much to ask for Sans to return the favor?

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like the situation was dire. After giving Alphys a rundown of everything that had happened, she seemed optimistic. “W-well,” the scientist stuttered over the phone, “It sounds like t-t-to me that, um, that he’s just been o-overworked. When- well, um, when y-y-you work too much, it c-catches up to you eventually, right? A few days, um, a few days of r-rest should- um, it should help him perk right back up! I think, heheh, heh…”

Sans sighed in relief. “Thanks, Al. I’m just glad he’s not dying or something.”

“He’ll b-be fine,” Alphys reassured. “Just k-k-keep an eye on him, and, u-um, and call me if he gets- if anything else happens.”

“Will do. Thanks.” Sans hung up the phone, looking back at the sleeping bartender. It was nerve-wracking to see him so still. What would have happened if Sans didn’t check on him? The door was unlocked! Anyone could have come in, and that ‘anyone’ could have been a monster with way more malicious intentions than Sans! The thought made the skeleton shudder, ice settling into his bones. What if Grillby hadn’t gotten home safely the night before? What if he’d frozen to death? He should have at least walked him home. Isn’t that what Grillby did, when he was worried about Sans? He said something, he acted, he made sure that Sans was okay and safe and taken care of. Sans had noticed the bartender struggling, and what did he do? Looked the other way. Why would he do that? Grillby could have been seriously hurt! Not that he wasn’t already! What if he had a concussion from the fall? Or sprained something?

“...Sans…”

The skeleton gasped, head jerking up. Grillby was awake, weakly reaching out and putting his hand on Sans’s arm. Sans sniffled, only then realizing that he’d been crying as he spiraled. He wiped at his eye sockets with his sleeve, sitting on the edge of the couch next to the fire monster. “Y-you’re awake,” he mumbled shakily. “You really had me scared there for a second, heh.”

“Well, there’s nothing to fear,” Grillby said with a small smile, voice a little raspy from days of nonstop talking to customers. He sat up slowly, leaning back up against the pillows before opening his arms to Sans. “Come here.”

Sans hesitated for just a moment… and then he was in Grillby’s arms, hugging tightly as he started to cry again. “I thought you were dying! Or Fallen Down, or something!” Sans said through his tears. He felt silly and selfish. Grillby was the one who was sick, and yet here he was, comforting Sans again. The skeleton suddenly sat up, upset with himself. “No, cut that out. I should be taking care of you right now, not- ugh!” He pulled his hoodie up over his head, embarrassed and ashamed. “Now is not the time to be worried about me, Grillbz.”

Grillby frowned at him, adjusting his glasses. “Sans-”

“No,” Sans huffed, cutting him off. “You need to be resting. You can’t prioritize me over your own health.”

“Sans, please-”

“And you really should have taken a break days ago,” Sans interrupted once again. “I know I’m not one to talk, but you’ve gotta pay attention to yourself! I know you like your job and your customers and all but it does no one any good if you work yourself to-”

“SANS.” Grillby raised his voice a bit, reaching forward and lifting the skeleton’s chin to make him look at him. Sans immediately felt guilty for the lecture, seeing the expression on the bartender’s face. Grillby was hunched in on himself, shoulders hitched up slightly with tension. Sans could feel where the fire monster’s hand trembled slightly against his skull. What broke the skeleton, though? Tears were forming in Grillby’s eyes, shining under his glasses for a split second before disappearing in a puff of steam. Sand had never, ever seen Grillby cry, and the quickly growing trails of steam coming off the bartender’s eyes made him feel like his soul was cracking.

Grillby lowered his hand, bringing it to his chest as his gaze dropped to his lap. His voice was barely more than a whisper, vulnerable and wavering. “I know,” he said softly, “I know. I just- please… Can I have a hug?”

God, Sans was an idiot. “Of course, Grillbz, come here.” He really couldn’t do anything right, could he? He moved forward again, taking the fire monster into his arms and rubbing his back. “Shh, hey, I’m sorry, don’t cry. I didn’t mean it. I’m not mad at you, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. I’ve got you.” Grillby always knew what Sans needed. He knew the skeleton so well, from his schedule to his habits to his anxiety. How much did Sans know about Grillby, though? He never asked him many questions about his personal life. He didn’t ask about his family. Hell, he rarely even asked if Grillby was okay. He was starting to realize… this relationship was one-sided, wasn’t it? Well…

Sans would do everything in his power to remedy that.

Comforting his best friend on the couch, Sans made a silent promise to himself and Grillby. He was going to be a better friend, and he was going to take care of his bartender. This time, he would be the one making sure that Grillby didn’t come apart.

Grillby had stopped crying some time ago, but he stayed in Sans’s arms anyway, head resting against Sans’s shoulder as he took long, deep breaths. His head was pounding and his limbs felt like they were made of lead, a sore ache seeming to fill his body down to his soul. The past several days of unrelenting work and exercise were catching up to him, and he found himself feeling sicker than he’d ever felt before. He wasn’t sure why he pushed himself so hard. He’d been fairly good at taking periodic breaks when he needed them before, he just…

Well. He wanted to see Sans.

Business was business, but certain kinds of business could feel unwelcome and overwhelming in the moment. Customers were rude, offhanded comments stung, and the behaviors of some of his customers could get irritating. If there was one thing he could always look forward to, though, it was seeing his favorite skeleton. As soon as that familiar blue jacket came through the door, something in him would ease, and he would be able to push himself through the rest of the night with the promise of getting to talk to the one person he could consider a close friend. Recently, that desire to see Sans had been bordering on desperation. He’d considered asking Sans if he would like to meet outside of work, on Grillby’s days off, but was that overstepping? Would that be awkward?

Wrapped in Sans’s embrace, those fears felt silly. Of course Sans wouldn’t mind it. Grillby wasn’t sure what had pushed them past that line of a bartender/customer relationship, but he felt like they were suddenly much closer. Maybe it was the night Grillby had walked Sans home. Maybe it was the afternoon he’d coaxed Sans into resting, wrapping him in his coat and tucking him into bed before staying the night to make sure he didn’t feel alone.

Maybe it was the way he felt himself fluster at the soft compliments and praise Sans gave him to help him keep going. Maybe it was the familiar amusement and fondness that filled his chest when he and Sans went back and forth with their usual banter. Maybe it was because he still hadn’t mentioned his missing jacket.

Grillby felt Sans’s hand move up to the back of his head, the skeleton running his fingers through the flames that acted as Grillby’s hair. For some reason, it made the bartender want to cry again. Instead, he took a deep, shaky breath, and curled closer to Sans, seeking out that familiar comfort. For the first time in days, he was sure that he was going to be okay.

Sans wasn’t sure how long he spent comforting Grillby, but by the time the fire monster had relaxed all the way, it was nearly time for lunch. He could tell that the bartender had exhausted himself with his tears, but he needed to eat something before he went back to sleep. He had a lot of calories to catch up on, after all.

The skeleton slowly pulled away, cupping Grillby’s cheek. “Hey, I know you’re tired, but you need to eat something first. I’ll make up some ramen real quick, ‘kay?”

Grillby nodded tiredly, leaning into Sans’s touch for a moment. His hand came up to rest over Sans’s as he closed his eyes. “Thank you,” he sighed. “I… I needed that.”

“I could tell,” Sans chuckled gently. “Just try to stay awake while I whip up some grub. I’ll be right back.” He let go of the fire monster and stood, stretching before wandering to the kitchen. His soul was pounding in his ribcage. The warm, gentle way that Grillby looked at him was seared into his mind. The skeleton couldn’t quite identify what it made him feel, but he liked it way too much. He was pretty sure that if Grillby looked at him that way all the time, he would melt.

Shaking off whatever that feeling had been, Sans put a pot of water on the stove, rummaging around in the cabinets until he found a packet of instant noodles. He was glad he still had a few packs left. While there was plenty of semi-edible spaghetti in the fridge, the microwave was still sitting out in Snowdin Forest. Since, you know, Frisk hadn’t come through there yet.

The thought of Frisk made Sans drop the pack of noodles on the floor. Shit. He hadn’t been at his post once all day. What if the human had come out of the Ruins? And Sans wasn’t keeping an eye on them? How had he forgotten about them? He wasn’t sure what they were planning, but at this point, he was sure it couldn’t be good. He had to be there to make sure he was the first person they saw. He had to be keeping an eye out.

“Sans?” Grillby called out, sitting up a bit straighter. He’d heard the skeleton freeze up and drop the package, immediately worried. “Is everything alright?”

Right. Grillby needed someone to watch over him today. Sans could call Papyrus, but the taller skeleton brother could be a bit… much. Sans loved his brother, but when it came to caring for others, Papyrus’s constant energy could be overwhelming. He considered his options carefully. He could go out to his post and hope that Frisk hadn’t already come through, leaving Grillby alone, or he could stay home and just pray that today would be just like the past two weeks.

For the first time in a long time, Sans found that he had a higher priority than watching that damn door in the woods.

“Yeah, everything’s good. Just dropped something,” Sans called to Grillby as he picked up the instant noodles and opened the package, waiting for the water to boil. Even if Frisk did show up, it was unlikely that Sans would be able to do anything about it, right? Right. He could do something about Grillby’s condition, so that was what he would do.

Once Grillby had eaten something, he had enough energy left in him for Sans to get a better grasp on the bartender’s condition. Grillby admitted to having a headache, and he told Sans that he was so sore that he barely felt like he could move. He also hadn’t had much of an appetite over the last few days, but he was starting to get hungry again, so that was probably just the stress. Sans checked his temperature again and was relieved to find that it was steadily rising to normal now that the fire monster had some ‘fuel’ in him (Grillby groaned at that one). Once the little check-up was over, Sans gave Grillby some painkillers and brought a blanket for him. “You sure you don’t want me to move you somewhere more comfortable? I practically carried you to my house, I’m pretty sure I could help you up the stairs and get you into a bed…”

Grillby shook his head, regretting the action as it immediately started to throb again. “No, I’m- I’m fine here,” he managed. “The idea of moving at all is less than savory at the moment.”

“Fair,” Sans mumbled, handing him the blanket. “Well, just get some rest, okay? You need it. I’ll be right here if you need anything.”

Grillby didn’t have to be told twice. He laid back down with a sigh, covering himself with the blanket and pulling it to his chest. “Thank you,” he said softly, closing his eyes and letting himself relax.

Sans chuckled, some of his anxiety finally easing off. “Don’t mention it, Grillbz. Sleep tight.”

Over the next few days, Sans stayed home with Grillby, keeping an eye on his recovery. The fire monster was bouncing back pretty fast, though he did spend most of his time sleeping. They fell into a sort of routine. Sans would wake him- if Papyrus hadn’t already woken him up on accident- and ask him how he was feeling. Grillby would give him the rundown, then the two would have breakfast before Grillby went back to sleep. Sans would wake him up again for lunch, and at that point, the fire monster usually had a little bit more energy in him. He’d stay up for a few hours just talking with Sans before he ran out of steam and had to take another nap. Papyrus would come home in the evening and inevitably wake Grillby by accident, so Grillby would stay up for the rest of the evening, eating dinner with the skeletons and talking to Papyrus about his day.

Sans was a little surprised at how well Grillby and Paps got along. Grillby was pretty patient with him, even if he had to ask the skeleton to lower his volume a few times. He let Papyrus ramble about puzzle ideas and cooking, even throwing in a few tips of his own on how Papyrus could improve his spaghetti. People were polite enough to Paps, but Sans had seen plenty of times how other monsters could be dismissive of his brother. A few would even be downright rude, telling Papyrus that they didn’t care and asking him to just be quiet. With as composed and quiet as Grillby could be, Sans worried that he wouldn’t get along well with Paps, so it was a nice surprise to see them hitting it off so well.

The routine was nice. Grillby’s health steadily improved over the next weeks or so, to the point that Sans was comfortable leaving him home alone and going back to sentry duty. He was still nervous about the idea of Grillby going back to work, but he also had to admit, the bartender was getting restless. Sans managed to get him to agree to three more days before he opened the bar back up again.

Sans went over all of this in his head as he walked towards his station, feet crunching in the snow. It had been a long time since he felt this relaxed. He was… happy. Yeah. He was really, genuinely happy.

Of course, that wasn’t meant to last.

As the door in the woods came into sight, Sans stopped dead in his tracks. There were no footprints in the snow, no indication anyone had left the Ruins. The door was closed, undoubtedly locked tightly from the inside. Everything was as it should have been at a glance, but Sans had learned to pay careful attention to detail.

The snow at the base of the door had been moved. There was a small pile of it where the door had been pushed open slightly, as if someone had just peeked out before changing their mind and closing it again. It was a small reminder. Frisk hadn’t left the Ruins yet, but they were still there. Sans still didn’t know what they were doing, waiting all this time.

Why? Why did they have to remind Sans they were there, and why then? What the hell were they doing in the Ruins?

The skeleton teleported to the door, anxiety filling him as he did. He didn’t bother knocking, because he knew there would be no answer. Toriel never answered when Frisk was with her. She was too busy… or too dead. The thought made Sans go cold. What if Frisk hurt Toriel again? What if they were just coming up with new, crueler ways to torment them? And if they were, what could Sans do about it?

Sans sat in front of the door, trying to take deep breaths only to find his ribcage wouldn’t expand as far as he needed it to, making him gasp weakly for air. He was helpless. He was useless. Frisk had learned every trick Sans had. It didn’t matter if he confronted them in the judgment hall or the moment they left the Ruins. He would fail to protect anyone Frisk decided needed to die. Sans couldn’t breathe. Frisk could be fucking torturing Toriel and the innocent monsters of the Ruins and what could Sans do? Absolutely nothing. He couldn’t breathe. Frisk could be waiting right on the other side of that door, listening to Sans choke and laughing at him. Were they messing with him on purpose? Did it matter? No matter what they did, they never faced any real consequences. Sans did everything he could and every time, Frisk just Reset and started over.

Sans’s vision was starting to get blurry, his pupils fading out. He pulled his knees to his chest and covered his skull with his hands, shivering. Any moment, everything Sans had done in the last month could be erased. Every moment he shared with Papyrus, the friendship he found himself sharing with Grillby, all of it could be gone in a moment and the skeleton could do nothing.

The skeleton vaguely registered that he was spiraling, but he couldn’t pull himself out of it. He couldn’t protect the monsters he loved. He swore he heard Frisk laughing at him. He couldn’t protect their memories, their lives, their progress. “Sans.” He was useless. He couldn’t breathe. “Sans, look at me.” Look at who? He couldn’t see. He couldn’t calm down, panic pulling at his soul. Was he dying? “Can you hear me? Sans, you have to breathe.” He couldn’t. He was going to die. Everyone was going to die. There was nothing he could do. “Sans, stop, you’re going to hurt yourself.” Was he? It didn’t matter.

Whoever was talking to the skeleton seemed to understand what was going on, taking matters into their own hands. “Sans, I’m going to hold your wrists, alright?” Okay. Sans vaguely registered a familiar warmth envelope his wrists and pull his hands away from where he’d been digging them into his soul. “I’m going to put my arms around you, just for a moment.” Do whatever you want. The skeleton was wrapped in a gentle embrace, pulled forward so that he was sitting in someone’s lap. “I’m going to hold your hands now. Focus on your hands. Focus on my breathing and try to match it.” Sans could feel the steady rise and fall of someone’s chest against his back. He focused on the pattern as someone took both his hands and started to rub gentle lines up and down the bones. It was the same pattern as the person’s breathing, and surprisingly, it helped him focus a bit. Sans felt his ribcage start to relax as he fell into that pattern. He realized his eye sockets were closed and slowly forced them open.

Sans was facing away from the door and away from the road, staring into Snowdin Forest. He was still shaking from adrenaline, but it didn’t feel like his soul was about to be torn apart anymore. Someone had him in his lap, and after a moment he realized that someone was humming. He looked down at where they had started rubbing circles into his palms. The hands that held his so gently were made of familiar orange and yellow flames, the light reflecting off the snow in an oddly comforting way.

The skeleton looked up at Grillby, exhausted as he came down from his panic attack. Grillby smiled gently at him, letting go of one of Sans’s hands to brush away the skeleton’s tears. “There you are,” the bartender mumbled softly. “It’s alright. You’re safe. I’m here.”

And when Grillby said that with so much certainty, how could Sans not believe him?

Sans wasn’t sure how long he spent curled up in Grillby’s lap, but it was longer than he liked to admit. The bartender had carried him away from that godforsaken door and sat with him behind the skeleton’s sentry station, effectively shielding him from the world for a little while. God, what would Sans have done if Grillby hadn’t come to his rescue? Sans’s memories of the last who-knows-how-long were blurry, but he vaguely remembered Grillby warning him that he was going to hurt himself. The skeleton only had 1 HP. What if he really had hurt himself, and badly?

As grateful as the skeleton was, there was a more pressing question in the front of his mind. “Grillbz? What are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be resting…”

Grillby sighed, having expected that. “I know, I know,” he conceded, “But I got restless, and… you forgot to take lunch with you this morning.”

Sans sat up a bit, eye sockets wide. “You didn’t.”

“Well,” the bartender chuckled, “As… interesting as Papyrus’s spaghetti is, I had a feeling you might have missed this.” He shifted a bit and reached up to the counter of Sans’s sentry station, grabbing a brown paper bag that Sans had somehow missed. When Grillby set it in his lap, Sans could feel that the bar was still warm.

Sans eagerly looked in the bag, a particular craving he’d been ignoring the past few days hitting him at full force. A burger, a basket of fries, and a bottle of ketchup. He pulled the burger out and dug in, groaning through a mouthful of food. He swallowed and sighed contently, leaning back against Grillby’s chest. “God, I missed your cooking.”

“I’m glad you enjoy it,” Grillby said through another light chuckle.

“Enjoy it? I’ve been practically in withdrawal the last few days, Grillbz.” Sans took another large bite out of his burger, washing it down with a sip of ketchup. After a moment of consideration, he took a fry out of the bag and held it up towards Grillby. “Couldn’t help but notice you didn’t bring anything for yourself,” the skeleton explained.

Grillby smiled a bit. “I appreciate it, but I can eat later.”

Sans just held it up higher, insistent. “Dude. Just take the fry.”

Grillby arched an eyebrow, then gave Sans a small, mischievous smile. “Alright, fine.” He leaned forward and took it from Sans with his mouth, smirking at him.

Sans nearly choked, covering his face with his hands. “Oh my god, Grillbz, you can’t just do that.”

Grilby laughed at him. “What? I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” the bartender teased, wrapping his arms around Sans’s waist.

“You know what? Fine.” Two could play at that game. Sans picked up another fry, holding it to Grillby’s lips. “Eat something, you dork.”

The skeleton would never get enough of the beautiful way Grillby glowed when he blushed.

End Chapter Four

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[castlevania-afterdark-imagines]

Halloween Headcanons

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM MOD ROSE AND MOD SOVIET! Thank you guys for continuing to read the blog! We hope to be releasing some of the character matchups soon, but for today please enjoy this quick post covering the crew's holiday activities! Assuming modern for this post, kids probably aren’t trick or treating at Drac’s castle. 

Trevor

Costume for this year: Zombie, easy to make and fun to overdo when you've got the time. 

Favorite candy of all time: Snickers, he actively buys the fun sized ones for himself instead of full size because he knows his lack of self control. 

Favorite autumn treat: Baked apples, with a pint of whatever fancy autumn ale the local brew pub is trying out this year. 

Trick-or-treat etiquette: Leaves the candy in a big bowl on the front porch, which he guards by blending in with his ridiculous amount of decorations and scaring the daylights out of anybody who tries to take more than needed. 

Sypha 

Costume for this year: Mad Scientist,  complete with fake green blood spattered  robe and pipe cleaners shaped into *electricity* coming out of her floofed out hair. 

Favorite candy of all time: She loves all the tart and fruity things, but if you forced her to pick one she'd say Nerds.

Favorite autumn treat: Pumpkin bread, homemade and covered in a maple brown sugar icing. She tried incorporating the seeds into some sort of crumble on top but nearly burned the kitchen down trying to toast them.

Trick-or-treat etiquette: Answers the door, gushing over the kids who dress up and closing the door on teens who show up without costumes. She also keeps a small stash of allergy sensitive alternatives in case a parent asks for it. 

Alucard 

Costume for this year: Werewolf who just changed back to a human again, or at least that’s what he calls it when he realizes he forgot to get his costume together and wears a torn up shirt and pants with a little makeup to make him look haggard. (Offer to add on a dog collar and cuffs to sell the costume and watch him be really fucking prepared for next year)

Favorite candy of all time: Redhots, or any other cinnamon candy. They were always super easy to trade for, in that most kids didn’t want them so he just got to take them all home for free.

Favorite autumn treat: Hot and fresh apple cider, with a splash of brandy if he’s feeling particularly chilly that night.

Trick-or-treat etiquette: He’s not a big fan of answering the door every 5 min, but he manages a smile and a few pieces per visitor. Lights go off as soon as the sun goes down though.

Dracula

Costume for this year: He just fucking hauls some old ass armor from his closet and goes as a warlord and has won every costume contest every year. Cheater.

Favorite candy of all time: Dark Chocolate pieces, not too sweet and also no kid is going to complain if he fishes all of them from the candy bowl.

Favorite autumn treat: Homemade toasted pumpkin seeds, they’re infinitely better than the basic store bought ones you find year round, and he adds a little bit of extra spice to them in the form of ghost pepper powder. He can handle it, and it keeps people from filching them.

Trick-or-treat etiquette: His is known as the house that only the bravest kids go to, for no particular reason. The decor is pretty standard, the handfuls of candy are GIGANTIC, but Vlad is more than aware of the tall tales kids spin for each other about the giant who lives there.

Lisa

Costume for this year: She tosses a doctor’s coat over a long body hugging black dress, dawns a black big and dark makeup, and goes at “Morticia-n” Adams. It doesn’t matter if no one gets it, she knows and is smug as hell about it.

Favorite candy of all time: Caramels, just by themselves but she won’t turn down a caramel apple if one happened across her path.

Favorite autumn treat: All the fun autumn coffee drinks, she needs that caffeine hit for long hours at the doctor’s office and hey, gotta spice it up now and then.

Trick-or-treat etiquette: Loves answering the door, hypes up the kids over their costumes and kneels down to their level to hand them their candy. She doesn’t give them a ton though, doctor’s guilt and all.

Hector

Costume for this year: Elf, very much inspired by Lord of the Rings styling. It fits in well at the vet clinic with all of the animals and keeps him looking normal enough to not spook them.

Favorite candy of all time: M&M’s, they’re simply and easy to just fill a bowl with and munch on throughout the week of Halloween. Plus no extra individual wrappers that he was to worry about Cezar trying to munch on.

Favorite autumn treat: Caramel corn, again a simple and sweet finger food. But this one he much prefers to get at a festival booth when it’s still hot and you have the smell of it cooking lingering in your nostrils.

Trick-or-treat etiquette: He’s not a huge fan of answering the door, but he’ll put on a brave face since he knows for many kids this is a big deal. If he notices any kid getting bullied or jeered at he unceremoniously dumps the entire bowl in their bag and tells them to head home early to avoid any more issues.

Isaac

Costume for this year: Grim Reaper. It’s literally a robe and a scythe, super easy and minimal effort, but just enough effort to avoid being called out for not trying harder.

Favorite candy of all time: Not really a candy person, it’s all high processed garbage to him. But he does have a soft spot for butterscotch and strawberry hard candies like his grandparents used to have around all the time.

Favorite autumn treat: Pecan pie, he’s not a huuuuuuge sweets person but a slice of pie with a dark roast coffee to offset the sugar and he is instantly in a good mood.

Trick-or-treat etiquette: Always conveniently ends up away from home that night, mostly so he doesn’t have to hear the doorbell constantly. He’ll leave some candy out to avoid getting his house egged but that’s about it.

Godbrand

Costume for this year: Pirate, then he can make all the booty jokes and drink all the alcohol he wants.

Favorite candy of all time: He likes the chewy things, like taffy or Twizzlers but will honestly eat anything. More specifically, he will eat EVERYTHING if you don’t hide the candy meant for the trick-or-treaters.

Favorite autumn treat: Cinnamon rolls, cake for breakfast? Fuck yeah. (Nobody tell him you can have them year round)

Trick-or-treat etiquette: Is of the mind a kid has to go through a fuckin gauntlet of spooky yard decor to earn their sugar rush. Yes he is going to jump out and scare them in the yard, yes he is going to get nearly punched by a few spooked fathers, but he always rewards the kids with a decent candy haul.

Carmilla

Costume for this year: Banshee, it’s dramatic, dark, and scares the sweet jesus out of men.

Favorite candy of all time: Godiva chocolates, she buys a whole fancy box for herself at the beginning of each month. And then pretends she doesn’t eat them all in the first two days.

Favorite autumn treat: Cranberry things, like bars or jams. People have tried to argue with her that it's more of a winter thing but fighting with her over other things has never worked either so...her opinion stands unchallenged now.

Trick-or-treat etiquette: She’s hosting a very lavish party at her house, to be honest she probably rarely hears the doorbell. When she does answer it she lets the kids grab a handful from the ONE bowl she keeps by the door and when that’s gone she just turns off the outside light and stops answering.

-Mod Soviet

[breaddaerb]

Long time no see bread. It is I, again, the one who is always watching and hungry : SOVIPER ANON

*EVIL LAUGH*

Can I have, maybe, just asking, only if you want to, some arguing with a cute end? Maybe my couple being really passive-agressive but loving each other in the end...

And if you keep writing this amazing stuff, I'LL BE BACK

*EVIL LAUGH* *SMOKE* *SOVIPER ANON OUT*

[ sova x viper IV ]

✎↷: AHHH ITS TEAM ROCKET

well you know if you put it this way, i can’t really say no! let me just say, soviper anon, when i got the request about if i had any soviper content, i snorted to myself and thought of you. yeah! you’re that special, friend! anwyays, enjoy the ship content! didn’t reread this one over tooo much since i had it packed away for a few days now :D

As Viper watches Sova’s blonde hair whip down the hallway in a flurry of stomps and muttered curses, she knows she’s done something wrong.

Well— it wasn’t wrong in her eyes. All she had done was suggest that his owl could be improved by lacing his tracking dart with poison. It was more lethal, wasn’t it? If he could subdue someone while they worked, they’d get stacks of progress done instead of needing to beat around the bush.

Somehow, her partner has gotten offended by it. She already knows that his inventions are held dear to him, given his own cybernetic eye, but what’s the harm in an idea for improvement? He told her it ‘wasn’t that simple’ and ‘not everything needed to be a nuclear weapon’, and Viper brushed him off. It’s dumb and petty to her, so she doesn’t see the need to stop the Russian when he runs away. It’s not her fault that he’s upset.

The guilt welcomes itself into her mind when Sova doesn’t show up to dinner that night. She’s brooded on her own for nearly the whole day, taut and put at her wit’s end as she reevaluated their conversation over and over again. Viper was now stationed in the living room with Reyna, her plate of food pulled into her lap. There wasn’t much chatter between them beside the idle remark, but Viper couldn’t ignore the deep stare that the Mexican was giving the American, as if she was being observed. It frustrated her.

When it eventually got to be too annoying for Viper, her head snapped up, eyes venomous. “What are you looking at?” She gruffed, tone harsh ended and sharp.

Reyna didn’t even flinch. “Someone is upset today. What’s the matter, serpentine?”

Viper placed her dinner down, stomach twisted into sour knots. She did not need the woman pressing on her, especially when Sova was still MIA.

“What could you possibly get out of hearing it? Some reassurance that at least one of us has a life?”

Chuckling, the purple haired woman disbelievingly shook her head and ran a clawed hand through her mane. Reyna was always painfully— and obnoxiously— smug about the amusement she got out of seeing Viper’s frustrations.

However, it doesn’t take much for Reyna to continue, thoroughly entertained by Viper’s ruffled feathers. “Ay, nono, hermanita. Nothing like that,” she grinned, leaning forward with a hand beneath her chin. “The owl is not here today, is he?”

The tense of Viper’s hands answer the question for her.

Her gaze sharpens, and Reyna resembles a predator ready to prey. “Trouble in paradise, I see.”

This is more than what Viper will ever come to handle, but she’d be damned if she admitted that Sova’s peaceful ways have begun to rub off on her.

(He would be delighted to hear that. It’s not everyday where you turn a war criminal into a slightly safer, more peaceful murderer.)

“It’s none of your business,” she grumbled instead, stubbornly chewing on a forkful of lettuce. Reyna is pleased with this reaction, if her tittering beside the woman is any indication.

“I should express empathy for the others in our little group, don’t I? This includes the boy of yours.” Slipping from her seat, Reyna rises to refill her glass of water. She knows Viper is listening to her because of the vehement stare that bores itself into the back of her head, lasering through the flesh.

When Reyna turns around to face Viper again, the American is already rising out of her seat and making a beeline for the exit of the living room. It’s laughable at how on edge this woman is at a pointlessly minuscule conversation, but she’s trying her best and her ‘stabilizer’ isn’t there, so someone help her.

“You are yet to talk to him, no? I have heard that apologies are useful in situations like these— unless you plan on lurking around like a measly rat.”

Viper doesn’t take these words well, scowling at the doorway with her face pulling into a frown. “You don’t know him like I do. I would suggest that you’d stay out of it, vampire.”

Reyna sleazed over the countertop, a smug expression on her face. “Oh, but I do? Sabine, you must learn with the softer ones. Sage may play hard to get with me, but it does not mean she avoids me. You on the other hand..”

At this point, she’s heard enough and she flees the living room for a quieter, emptier space. On a normal day, it’s not difficult to block out Reyna’s charms and her games. They both know this. And yet she finds herself bothered, flames of guilt licking up the insides of her stomach as she comes to stop in front of the very doors that she’s been dreading the most.

She needs to start somewhere. Somewhere is... here.

Her knuckles rap against the door, and the scientist paced up and down the hallway while she waits like the maniac she is. In fact, she’s so caught up in it that she doesn’t realize when the door opens with her lover’s head peeking out of it.

Sova doesn’t look too tired, in her observation. His skin retains brightness, and his hair is still fluffy and thick. He looks fine, in all regards, but she knows he’s not. It never is.

“Hi,” she musters after a moment of silence. Sova gets this look of conflict, and before she’s able to say any more, he sighs and opens the door wider, granting her entree.

Sova’s room is something she’s well acquainted with by this point, but she doesn’t have the courage to sit down and make herself at home like the other times. Viper stands numbly in the middle of the room, observing Sova go about his life.

Abruptly, he clears his throat, which may have scared her out of her skin if she wasn’t caught up in the storm that was her mind. Right, she was here for a reason.

“I am... sorry.” Viper admits slowly, arms closing in over her chest. “I didn't mean to upset you, owl. I am unsure of where I messed up, but I hope you know that I take full accountability for it. Whatever it may be.”

Her head dips sincerely, and while it feels wrong to speak in such a vulnerable way, Sova looks ecstatic. His eyes widen like he hadn’t expected that and seriously, who would when it comes to the untouchable Viper? She was called that for a reason.

The Russian engulfs the smaller American woman, and Viper’s clearly put off if not surprised by the physical contact. An apology doesn’t typically incite or encourage affection, according to her observations. Normally, emotions boil and spark at the very sight of one, but Sova defies her standards by the simple way his fingers tenderly held onto the sides of her hips. How expected of him.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” he mumbles, but Viper gives him a pointed look and the man concedes. Sova looks softer than ever like this, and what it does to these.. stirring emotions in her chest, she isn’t fully sure.

Viper’s thumb presses along Sova’s collarbone. “Then what was it, Sova?”

He goes quiet, either savoring the embrace or thinking about what he was going to say next. It happened to be both.

“I don’t want a mean bird.”

She blinks. Once, then twice.

“..what?”

Sova shies away, his face pinker when he speaks up. “The owl. It means a lot to me. I wouldn’t.. want to see it be used to torment people so much. It’s meant to be cute.”

The last part goes mumbled, and because she’s so close to him, she can make out each and every word. She shouldn’t be rendered speechless by something so.. pathetically and adorably childish, but that’s exactly what ends up happening.

“You’re telling me that you got mad,” she makes a gesture with her hands, tone raising. “just because it’s cute? Really?”

He frowned deeply, like he had a plenty reasonable excuse. “Is that so wrong?”

Viper wants to bite at him and pull her hair out. This built up stress, tension, the boiling, all of it for this little reason. She’s close to blowing her top off when she distinctly remembers that this, although minimal to her, was why she fell for Sova in the first place. How dare her heart betray her in the name of science and humanity? She was disgusted...

...and more cuddly than usual, with her head burrowing itself into the crook of his neck. Sova is still pouty, though he indulges her with a light pat to her back and a chuckle. Viper can’t believe she was tortured the whole day just for this.

“You felt tortured?”

Shit. She didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“..no. It was an exaggeration, owl, think nothing of it.”

A wide smile stretches across his face, giddy and warm and everything that Viper needs to relax. He leans in, placing a kiss against the crease of her hair.

“It’s okay, Sabine! I felt the same way. It’s hard to go about without seeing you by my side.”

“Oh, be quiet.”

[imjustthemechanic]

The Price of a Soul

Part 1/? - Agent Russel Part 2/? - The Letter Part 3/? - Miss Lake Part 4/? - The Stewardess Part 5/? - An Assassination Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - Face to Face Part 8/? - Deals, Details, and Other Devils Part 9/? - Baggage Part 10/? - Private Funding Part 11/? - Just Passing Through Part 12/? - Party of Four Part 13/? - Resolute Part 14/? - The Wreck Part 15/? - Body Snatchers Part 16/? - Out of the Frying Pan Part 17/? - A Miracle Part 18/? - A Matter of Circumstance Part 19/? - Nome Part 20/? - The Future

Kay has big plans.

-

Peggy had expected them to immediately board another plane and head south again, but it seemed that the aircraft in question was held up in Portland by a terrible thunderstorm, forcing them to spend the night in Nome.  There was only one place in town that could really be called a hotel, and it had only four rooms for let, which created something of a problem.

“Well,” said the proprietor, an aging white man with a steel-gray mustache.  “Obviously the best room will be for the guest of honour.”  He held out the key to Steve.

Steve held up his hands.  “Uh, thanks, Mr. Stanley, but I couldn’t, not when we have ladies with us.”  He nodded to Peggy and Kay.

“Oh,” said Peggy.  “Well, no, Captain Rogers really is the guest of honour here, and he’s been unwell.”  Peggy had certainly seen more soft beds in the past couple of years than Steve had, no matter how anyone defined it.

“Peg, I’m fine,” said Steve.

“And I’m not?” Peggy asked.

Kay cleared her throat.  “I believe,” she said, “that the guest of honour here is the hero who’s bringing Captain America home – that would be Mr. Masters.”  Her voice was dripping sarcasm, but she gestured to the man with a smile on her face.

Masters frowned at her suspiciously, but only for a moment.  Then he stepped up to take the key.  “Thank you, Mr. Stanley,” he said.

Peggy and Steve both looked at Kay, who shrugged.  “If we had to stand here all night listening to you two say I couldn’t possibly, we’d never get any sleep,” she said.

With the best room claimed, Mr. Stanley gave a second key to Steve and a third to Peggy and Kay, and then offered the fourth and final one to Howard.  “Sorry to the soldiers,” he added, “but I’m sure you fellows can figure something out.”

“Guess I’ll go sleep in the Skytrain again,” said Jason.  He wasn’t angry or bitter, merely resigned, which Peggy thought was probably worse.

“Don’t be silly, we can share.” Howard clapped him on the shoulder and then approached the counter.  “What’s there to drink in this place?  I’m buying a round for everybody… Steve and Peg have a hell of a story to tell and we’re all gonna need to be fortified for it!”  His glance at Peggy told her that he wanted to hear the tale and wouldn’t let her refuse, government secrets be damned.

Half an hour later found Peggy, Kay, Howard, Jason, and Steve all sitting around a table in the nameless hotel’s tiny common room, refilling glasses from a bottle of something Mr. Stanley had confided he distilled himself.  It was pretty crude and burned the throat, and Peggy didn’t want to drink too much of it.  Jason had nearly choked when he tried it, Steve looked disconcerted, and Howard blinked back tears, but Kay downed it like a shot of whiskey and held out her glass for more.

Peggy took the men through the story of what had happened after she and Kay flew away with the helicopter, and how they’d dragged Steve down to the boiler room to thaw him out.  Although she wouldn’t have done so in front of Masters, Peggy confessed that he, herself, had believed Steve was dead, and it was Kay who’d insisted on keeping him intact.

“How did you know?” Howard asked her.

“I just… knew,” Kay replied with a shrug.

That was enough to tell Peggy not to go into the backstory before Kay herself was ready.  “The rest, I suppose is, is fairly obvious,” she concluded.  “The doctors poked and prodded at Steve to make sure he wasn’t going to drop dead on them, and Masters stopped worrying about arresting us because he was far too busy calling ahead to make sure everybody will give him the credit.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” asked Jason, who knew what it was like to have other people claim responsibility for his work.

“I could not care less what Vernon Masters says or does, as long as he leaves me alone,” Peggy replied firmly, though it was an utter lie.  Whatever the man had against her, she knew he wasn’t going to drop it just yet.

“What about you?” he asked Kay.

“I’m used to working behind the scenes,” she said.  She poured the last of Mr. Stanley’s moonshine into her glass, then pushed the empty bottle away.  “Anyway, that already happened, and is officially in the past.  I’m worried about the future.”

Peggy leaned forward.  “What about it?” she asked.  Of course Kay had insisted Masters take the best bedroom, she realized… it was on the top floor, far away from anywhere he could hear this conversation from.  “You said you had an extensive to-do list.”

“I do.  I’ve checked two items off – Ste…” Kay caught herself.  “Captain Rogers is back, and Zola is dead.  That’s a good start.  The next items are Sergeant Barnes and the Red Room.  I want to do both at once, because I know how these people operate, and if I do one first, it’s gonna be much harder to come back and take care of the other.”

Almost unconsciously, everybody else huddled in closer, too.  “Bucky is dead,” said Steve.  “You said the Russians found his body.”

“I said they found him,” Kay said.  “You assumed he was dead.”

Steve’s eyes widened, and Peggy had a sudden vision of him sitting in that half-destroyed tavern in France, trying desperately to get drunk off something that was probably no more than soda when compared to Mr. Stanley’s brew.  For him that had been only a couple of weeks ago, and the guilt and grief were still fresh.  To tell him he’d abandoned not a dead friend, but a live one… Peggy reached to put her hand over his.

“I lied when I told you they found in him the valley,” Kay went on.  “HYDRA found him there.  They recognized him as one of Zola’s experimental subjects, and were very interested in the fact that he’d survived the fall with only a few broken ribs and a shattered left shoulder, so they put him in suspended animation so they could keep working on him.  Of course, only a few days later the Valkyrie crashed and Hitler shot himself like the sniveling coward he was, and the Russians moved in to search their bases and take anything useful.  He was nobody to them, just a nameless POW, but his medical records interested them enough that they took him back with them.

“That’s where he is now,” she concluded.  “They’ve been training him up and brainwashing him, trying to create the perfect assassin… something like me, but with less free will and higher necklines.  They had to amputate his left arm, and eventually they hope captured HYDRA scientists, people like Zola, can build him a functional prosthesis.”

There was silence at the table.  Kay smiled sadly at Steve.

“Don’t feel bad, Captain Rogers, you didn’t know.  How could you have known?  It’s only been three years.  They’re not finished yet.  It’ll be much easier to save him now that it would be later, when the only thing he’s known for decades is orders and violence.”  She glanced at Peggy, and Peggy realized she was the only other person at the table who knew that Kay was speaking from terrible personal experience.

Steve swallowed hard.  “How do you know any of this?” he asked.  “I mean… why should I believe you?”

That made Peggy think twice, too… if she assumed Kay’s story of being from the SSR of the future was a lie, then how did she have this information?  Either she was making it all up, or else she knew an awful lot about what was going on with both the USSR and possible HYDRA holdouts that may or may not exist.  Was that awfully convenient, or just awfully suspicious?

Kay seemed to think for a moment.  “Sergeant Barnes has a sister,” she said.  “Rebecca.  She’s the one who named him Bucky, because then their nicknames would match – Becky and Bucky.”  She thought a little longer.  “Before he was drafted he wanted to be a writer.  His favourite book is A Princess of Mars but he’d read almost anything in that genre… not just Burroughs but Wells and Verne and Doyle.  When you were twenty-one, some relative living in London sent you a copy of The Hobbit as a gift, and you read the first chapter and then immediately gave it to Barnes because you knew he’d like it.”

Steve stared at her, not knowing how to respond.

“I know that because you would have told it to me, in a future that won’t happen now,” said Kay, “and I know it won’t happen because you’re alive in 1948 and Zola isn’t.”

“Uh, I’m sorry,” said Jason, “are you trying to tell us you’re from the future?”

“That’s what she told me,” Peggy put in, “but I didn’t want to be the one who sounded like a lunatic by bringing it up.”

“I’m from a future, Dr. Wilkes,” said Kay.  “It’s not the future anymore, and you wouldn’t want it to be, because it’s a future in which you got crushed to death during a demonstration in Baltimore in April of 1968.”

“If you’re a time traveler, how did you get here?” Howard wanted to know.  “We worried that some of the stuff HYDRA was building was for altering time, but I did the math and it just doesn’t work.  You’d need more energy than even the tesseract could give you.”

“I don’t know,” Kay told him.  “I just woke up naked in an alley in San Francisco, and once I figured out I wasn’t dreaming I sat down and made a list of things that have to change.  I need you guys to trust me, because I need your help changing them.”

A moment passed in which nobody spoke, and Peggy realized that everybody was looking at her, as if she were somehow the arbiter of truth and lies in this ridiculous situation.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “I don’t know what to believe.  It sounds absurd… but she did know about Steve.  I can’t deny that.”  How could she, when Steve was sitting right there at the table, in the flesh, as she’d never thought she would see him again.

That seemed to be enough for Steve himself.  “Where is he?” he asked Kay.

“That’s the first problem,” she said.  “I don’t know.  Organizations like the Red Room don’t exactly keep meticulous records, and the details of their history weren’t part of the raise-a-spy curriculum.  When they leave a place, they take everything they need and burn the rest.”

“Which is why you need Dottie!” Peggy realized.

“Exactly.”  Kay nodded.  “She at least knows where she was brought up and who did it, and that’s a start.”

“We haven’t had a whole lot of luck questioning her,” warned Peggy.

“We just have to figure out what she wants,” Kay said.  “I’ve picked out a couple of her patterns… she’s collecting money, but also blackmail material on powerful people.  I don’t know what she’s planning because in my future she obviously didn’t succeed.  But I have a theory, and if I’m right, we’ll have leverage.”

“We’ll have to catch her first,” Peggy said, but for the first time in weeks, she felt as if there were some hope of that.

“What’s my future?” Howard wanted to know.

Kay cocked her head and bit her lip.  “You and your wife die in a car accident just before Christmas in 1991.”

He was startled.  “I’m going to get married?”

Kay rolled her eyes.  “Peggy – you outlive two husbands and die in your bed at nearly a hundred years old, after saving the world over and over but never realizing the enemy you were fighting was within your own organization.  Captain Rogers, they didn’t thaw you out until 2012, and then you had to realize that all this time…”

Steve winced and lowered his head.  “All this time those people had Bucky.”

“Exactly,” Kay nodded, “but like I said, none of that’s going to happen now.  The future is going to be better.  I don’t know how I got here but I know I can do that, or at least try… some things I cannot change, but ‘til I try I’ll never know,” she added in a singsong.

There was another silence around the table.  Steve cleared his throat.

“If what you said about Bucky is true, then I can’t just do nothing,” he said.

Peggy took his hand again.  “We obviously have to try,” she agreed.

“You found Steve,” Howard said.  “I owe you one for that.”

Jason hesitated, then appeared to make up his mind.  “I’m in.”

Kay smiled.  “I won’t thank you yet,” she told them, “but I’ll know when.”

Howard grinned and raised his glass.  “To the future!” he said.

“The future!”  They clinked their glasses together and downed the last of Mr. Stanley’s bootleg, and Peggy felt a little thrill of excitement in the pit of her stomach.  Her work had long ago lost any of that, becoming just what she did with all its secrecy and all its dangers.  But for some reason… this must be what Mr. Jarvis felt, when he described it as adventure.

[detectivejigsawpines]

Ford vs. His Family-part 1 (Breaking of the fellowship)

In which Mabel’s hearing is better than she lets on, and Ford has underestimated the significance of family to Dipper; as a result, Weirdmageddon is averted, but there is still a rift in dire need of healing.

“Mabel!”  Dipper burst into the attic room, overflowing with excitement.  “I just had the best day of my life! UFOs are real and there's one under the town and I saved Great Uncle Ford’s life and- and…”

He finally noticed that Mabel was lying unnaturally still (as in, lying still at all) on her bed, not acknowledging him.  She hadn’t even looked up when he ran in. His ebullience began to be replaced by confusion. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Tell me it’s not true, Dipper,” Mabel whispered.  Slowly she sat up. “Tell me you were joking!”

In her hand was the walkie-talkie, still crackling with static.

Dipper gasped; he hadn’t realized that it had started working again!

Before he could speak, Mabel went on, “Ford’s apprentice?  Seriously?”

He sighed.  “Look, I’ve been thinking and...this is a huge opportunity for me.”

As he spoke, Mabel huddled in on herself, clamping her hands over her ears like that could make this not real.  Then she exploded, with tears in her eyes, “Well it’s a horrible opportunity for me!”

Dipper flinched; he hadn’t realized that she would get so upset by this.  No-she didn’t just sound upset. She sounded... betrayed.

“I had the worst day of my life!” Mabel ranted, jumping off her bed and walking away towards the middle of their room.  “When we turn thirteen, the summer ends, and I have to leave everything behind!” She whirled on him, pointing. “You’re the only person I can count on, and now you’re leaving me too?  So me and Grunkle Stan are both gonna lose our brothers?!”

“Wh-what?”  Dipper blinked.  “What are you talking about?”

Mabel sniffled, and wiped her eyes on her sweater sleeve.  “I-I-when they were talking after he first came back, Ford told Grunkle Stan that he has to give him the house back at the end of the summer.  I didn’t wanna believe it-I thought they’d work things out and stop fighting by now. But this-this just confirms it-he’s using you to replace Grunkle Stan!”

Dipper’s stomach dropped even worse than it had when he’d first seen the drone come to life.  “No-no, that can’t be right. Great Uncle Ford wouldn’t do that.”

“Ask him!” Mabel challenged, eyes filling with tears again.  “Ask him if you don’t believe me!”

Dipper glanced uncertainly over at his backpack, where the rift was.

********

Ford had just finished setting things up to seal the rift and finally make things safe from Bill (at least until or unless he could design a more permanent solution), when he heard the sound of very young feet walking down the stairs.

“Let me guess,” he said without turning around, “Mabel didn’t take it well.”

There was a brief silence.  Then Dipper blurted, “Are you planning to kick out Grunkle Stan?”

The old scientist nearly dropped his equipment, and had to fumble to catch it.  He turned around, and saw Dipper standing there with his backpack clutched in his arms, actually looking like a twelve-year-old for once.

For a moment, Ford’s thought processes froze, and he was surprised to feel a pang of something that might have been guilt or nervousness in his chest.  Either way, he was annoyed by it, and tried to squelch it. But it was hard when the boy was still standing there staring at him, waiting for an answer...and looking increasingly crushed as none came.

At last Ford swallowed and said, “That-I wouldn’t put it quite like-that’s not important right now.  Dipper, I-I need you to hand me the rift so we can deal with this-”

“How can you do that to him?”

Dipper’s voice was starting to rise and tremble violently, and his hands were shaking.  “And why-you weren’t even gonna tell me about that when you asked me to be your apprentice?”  Now his eyebrows drew together, and his volume increased. “What, were you hoping I’d be so excited about everything I’d be learning from you that I just wouldn’t notice he wasn’t around anymore?!”

“No, I thought you would understand that I’m putting an end to my brother’s farcical scam that’s been going on for far too long!”

Dipper recoiled, looking like he’d been slapped with words.

Ford barely had time to process that there was actual hurt in his nephew’s eyes, before he glared, and stomped forward, yanking the rift from his backpack and shoving it into Ford’s chest.

“You can keep your dumb mysteries,” he whispered venomously.  “I’m going back to Piedmont with Mabel. Because yeah, she can be kind of annoying and insensitive sometimes, but she is not suffocating.  She’s my sister.”

And without another word, he turned and rushed back upstairs, slamming the door behind him.

********

The attic door opened for the second time that evening-but it was a very different boy who came slowly inside, kicking it shut with his heel and letting his backpack slip off his shoulder onto the floor.

Mabel could tell from his expression that he’d just been to see Ford, and what she’d heard had been true.  And a nasty, vindictive voice in the back of her mind kind of wanted to say “I told you so.”

Except Dipper looked so crushed that immediately she felt bad for the thought, and let it vanish like a wisp of cotton candy in the wind.

She got off her bed and went over to her brother, putting a tentative hand on his shoulder.

“Dipper?  You okay?”

His mouth trembled, and he closed his eyes to keep her from seeing the tears starting to form.

Mabel wrapped her arms around her brother.

“Oh man, I’m sorry, Dipper.  I know you were excited about the possibility of staying here-”

She stopped talking when Dipper began sobbing, and just rocked back and forth, trying to soothe him.

“I can’t believe I thought he was so great,” Dipper whispered sometime later, moping on his bed with Mabel at his side.  “I mean-he acts so cool! He likes D,D&D, we can talk for hours about all the science and supernatural stuff that puts you and Grunkle Stan to sleep, he can pull off wearing a trench coat and turtleneck in the middle of summer-and all this time he was planning on-this.”

His shoulders drooped miserably.

“Dipper…”  Mabel gave him another hug.  “He’s still pretty cool. He’s just also kind of a poophead.”

To her relief, that finally got her brother to laugh a little.  But it didn’t last long before he was sighing again, and staring gloomily at his knees.  “We need to do something to help Grunkle Stan. He’s too old to go back on the streets.”

She cringed at the very idea of her favorite (she had decided that right now he was definitely her favorite, and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future) grunkle being alone again; because even though he’d claimed he was fine after getting kicked out, something told her that he was lying.  And then her eyes brightened.

“I have a brilliant-beyond-brilliant idea!”

********

Stan came back inside from putting up more signs advertising the Mystery Shack, massaging his back in the spot that always seemed to be getting sore nowadays.

Moses, there were times when he hated being old and decrepit.

With a sigh he headed for the fridge and grabbed a Pitt, wondering if the two nerds were back from their little trip yet.  If they’d deign to descend from on high (metaphorically, since their typical meeting place was in the opposite direction-heh, there was some great joke material there) to mingle with common folk like him and-

“Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Stan!”

The chorus of young voices was soon enough followed by just the gremlins he’d been thinking about.  Dipper, he noticed, was looking kind of banged up, and he felt his protective instincts bristle.

I ask one thing of you, Stanford.  ONE THING!

“What the heck happened ta you?” he asked, looking Dipper over with concern.

And to his horror, the kid’s eyes watered...before he lunged at Stan and threw his arms around his waist.

This time, Stan didn’t try to make any kind of jokes or write this off somehow.  Not when he suddenly felt his shirt growing damp, and saw that the kid's shoulders were shaking.  He just looked over at Mabel for some kind of explanation, while putting his hand on Dipper’s head and awkwardly petting his hair.

“Hey, what-what’s the matter, huh?”

Mabel came and hugged him too.  “We know that Great Uncle Ford’s gonna throw you out at the end of the summer, Grunkle Stan,” she said.

Stan cringed.  “What’re you-”

“You don’t have to pretend,” Dipper murmured, voice muffled against his jacket.  “He admitted it already. We’re so-so sorry.”

At last Stan stopped just standing there awkwardly, and put his arms around them both.

****

When the kids had both calmed down somewhat Stan got them all settled around the kitchen table, with sodas for everyone, and the whole story came out-from the rift created by the portal, to Ford’s offer for Dipper to stay.  The last one in particular had Stan resisting the urge to bring out his bat and see if Ford could dodge getting it in the teeth (he figured it was even odds; for someone who was supposed to be such an awesome butt-kicking space traveler now, Ford had still needed to be rescued twice ever since he came home, so he wasn’t as great as he thought he was).  He resisted in lieu of checking the kid over to make sure he wasn’t banged up too badly.  To his relief, it was mostly just a few scrapes and bruises, easily taken care of.

“...So we came up with a better idea,” Mabel said as Stan sat down, and took a gulp of his soda.  “We think that at the end of the summer, you should come back to Piedmont to live with us!”

She got a blast of Pitt cola in the face, but Stan was too busy gasping for air to appreciate the perfect comedic timing.

“Sorry,” he said after he got his breathing under control.

“It’s okay,” Mabel assured him as she rinsed her hair out in the sink, “my soda was empty anyway, I needed a fresh drink.”

“Gross, Mabel, that was in his mouth!” Dipper pointed out.  “It was probably all full of old man backwash!”

“Hey, watch it!” Stan scolded.

They all laughed, before he sighed and got back to the point.  “Kids...I don’t think your parents really want a grumpy old codger leaching off them.”

“Oh come on,” Mabel argued, coming back to the table.  “They’d understand! You can tell them that you’ve retired and want to spend more time with us!”

Stan shook his head.  “It ain’t that simple, sweetie.  Besides, I can handle myself-I’ve done it before.”

“But you shouldn’t have to, Grunkle Stan!”  Mabel put her hand on his arm.  “You’re our family, and we wanna help you out.”

“Yeah, maybe you could start a new mystery shack downtown!”  Dipper grabbed his notepad and pen, and flipped to some pages where it looked like he’d actually started turning this into a plan.  “Or a novelty shop-that way you wouldn’t be leaching at all, you’d be earning your keep! If you really wanted to, you could just stay with us until you earned enough money to get a place nearby or something!”

Stan...got a little glitter in his eyes again.

“I’ll haveta think about it,” he murmured.

The kids cheered.

********

In the gift shop, the secret door behind the vending machine slid shut.

[innaminitus]

Knife Brothers #1

Summary: What if Thor handed Loki to Hydra? What if Loki, with his all rage, decided to ruin the organisation for disrespecting him? What if he freed Bucky at the process? What if they became friends? 

Warnings: graphic descriptions of homicide

Word count: 2380

A/N: EDIT: I WILL ONLY TAG YOU IF YOU ASK FOR IT IN A TAG LIST POST LINKED BELOW 

The idea is from HERE, I did as I promised and wrote it! Have fun, add yourself to the TAG LIST

There he was again. Captured.

This time it wasn’t his plan at all.

Maybe it was for the better, after all. He would get back home, Odin would shake his finger on him and he would get back to tricking Thor and reading books.

It wasn’t like it was all his fault, after all. Not that anyone would ever listen to what he had to say, of course not, but at least his conscience won’t be that weighed. Loki knew the truth and whose opinion was worth more than his? Even if his back hurt from unconscious guilt, horrible migraine wouldn’t go away despite his magic and eyes wouldn’t close for long enough to let him sleep.

Maybe back in Asgard, in his own bed in his own home he would finally be able to fall asleep without fear of waking up in the middle of the nightmare his life has been for past few months.

A group of man blocking their way brought him back on Earth.

“May I ask where you’re going?” Asked an elderly man, looking less confident than he probably wanted to, in badly fitted suit and cheap haircut.

“To lunch and then Asgard,” Thor was the one to answer. “I’m sorry, you are?”

“Alexander Pierce,” said Stark. “He’s the man, one of the folks behind Nick Fury.”

So he indeed was an important person, even if his appearance didn’t show it.

“My friends call me Mr. Secretary. I’m gonna have to ask you to turn that prisoned over to me.”

Loki titled his head slightly, in a warning manner. He couldn’t speak, the metal device was efficiently muting every attempt at it. Thor’s back was turned to Loki, he couldn’t see anything his brother was trying to communicate.

No turning prisoners over. This prisoner wishes to go back to Asgard. A minute more on this planet would probably destroy his sanity to the last bits of it.

“Loki will be answering to Odin himself.”

He couldn’t help but to roll his eyes. As if Odin ever did something to actually punish his sons in any matter. It didn’t end well the last time, did it? A little bit of stress and disappointment turned Odin into grieving father, an old man with weak heart who fell asleep.

At least his brother was thinking straight. He was going to take Loki home, where he could finally rest.

“Oh, he’s gonna answer to us. Odin can have what’s left,” Pierce spat out and Loki raised his eyebrow at these bold words. He could wipe them from this reality like the pieces of garbage they were. Odin can have what’s left. Foolish, foolish humans. Thinking they actually can be a threat to a god. “And I’m gonna need that case, that’s been SHIELD property for over seventy years.”

“Hand over the case, Stark.” One of the agents reached for it, but Stark backed out.

“We’re keeping that where we know it’s safe.” He stopped another agent with his hand. “As far as I know, you failed keeping it away from trouble. Now it’s our turn.”

“Stark, don’t cross the line with me–“

“You know what, Stark, after a second thought I think we should hand them at least one thing. Not the tesseract, obviously, but I have a feeling that Loki would have better punishment here than on Asgard,” Thor said, turning to the short man.

Loki almost choked. He couldn’t believe his ears. His own brother was giving him away to strangers who would gladly cut him to pieces just to see if he was made from the same elements as them? It made no sense whatsoever, he must’ve known they were no threat to him and he could destroy them if he pleased… He either had a plan for Loki or was just plain stupid. As far as Loki knew his brother, it was probably the latter.

“Do you think it’s a good idea?” Stark asked, his eyebrows high on his hairline.

It’s horrible idea.

“Loki will learn his lesson and we will have one less trouble to deal with.”

You’re betraying your own brother! Loki wanted to scream. But then, he remembered. Remembered how many times he was a traitor to Thor, the countless times he stabbed him, shifted the blame onto him…

It enlightened him. This oaf was taking his revenge. It wasn’t about the punishment for crimes Loki did on Earth, it was personal. Thor wanted to put Loki in a situation with no clean escape. Well played, brother. He wouldn’t expect him to be able to do such thing, and yet there he was.

“I’m not sure–“

“Well, I’ve decided for you.” Thor reached and pushed Loki’s back, forcing him to take a step in Pierce’s direction.

He sent his brother murderous stare, promising all kinds of tortures he’s going to put Thor through as soon as he breaks free.

They tossed him in a car, as if he was an object, not a god they’re supposed to worship and treasure. He wondered whether he should just deal with the problem right now, kill the agents sitting before him, destroy the car, slap his brother across his face and go back to Asgard, or… have some fun.

He could, after all, use his uncomfortable position for his own amusement. Wouldn’t it be fun to ruin their precious little organisation from the inside, destroy their systems, kill their men? Mischievous smirk crawled on his face, thankfully hidden by the metal piece still covering his face. They will remember him very well.

*

With the same gentleness they tossed him in the car, they dragged him out of it in the middle of a military base. He looked around, searching for any useful information about the place. Escapes, weak spots, amount of men, their weapons. He noticed there were no trainees, a whole lot of soldiers armed to their teeth and about the same amount of scientists.

The silence fell when he walked through the base, curious looks were shot at his direction, and silent whispers didn’t fail to be heard. It was hard for him to decide whether they were sure of their victory or scared to death, they tried very hard not to show emotions in front of Pierce, who however seemed to be too arrogant to even pay attention to his own men.

They dragged him through the corridors and hallways as if they were showing off their success, how the marvellous Alexander Pierce and the SHIELD captured and imprisoned the dangerous God of Mischief himself. A truly heroic achievement.

If only they had any chance to actually threaten him.

He looked around as he moved forward, sending a slender beam of his magic to check behind the closed doors, not finding anything particularly interesting. That is, until they nearly pushed him down the stairs, visibly enjoying treating him like a ragdoll. It was the basement where his magic started to finally sense anything more than just offices and conference halls.

It wasn’t SHIELD’s base. At least not the SHIELD he’s known. Suspicious laboratories, chemicals he could scent on the corridor, sweat, fear, exhaustion, rage. Feelings that were so painfully known to him were hanging in the air.

He wasn’t scared now, no. After what he’s been through he probably lost the ability to feel anything but disappointment and fury. Besides, there was nothing to be afraid of. Humans? These fragile beings he could snap in half with a flick of his fingers? Nothing more than ants under his shoe.

One of the soldiers with useless in fight with Loki rifles opened a metal door, leading to a laboratory. He barely took a step and sensed somebody approach him quickly. He tried to turn, but the chains and surrounding him people prevented him from doing that, and he didn’t want to show his advantage just yet. A needle sunk into his neck, tranquilizer spilled in his veins, but it was too weak to do anything more than just make his fingertips numb for a second of two.

“You were supposed to give him the same you give to the Soldier!” Pierce shouted and Loki couldn’t help but roll his eyes. As if his body was as weak as human’s.

“I did!”

He really did wanted to play for a bit longer with his new friends, but they didn’t seem to enjoy his company too much. He began to freeze the chains and the metal piece on his face, causing everyone to panic.

Really, what did they expect from a god? To be obedient little thing that would follow every order they give? Wrong address.

“Kill him! Kill him!”

He allowed himself another eye roll and broke free from everything that was strangling him.

Bullets flew in his direction, but he stopped them with a single wave of his hand and summoned his daggers. How good it felt to have them back in his hands, fitting like gloves.

One sunk into somebody’s neck, muting every sound of protest.

One he didn’t deliver perfectly and it dived into an eyeball, crimson trail flew from the injured socket.

Another cut in the neck, because that’s the most efficient.

He hit aorta, the blood splattered on his face and stained his clothes.

With annoyance he turned to the last living creature in the room, Pierce crawling to the door, desperately trying to call for help. Loki flicked his fingers and a split second later materialised his clone in front of Pierce.

“Please… Please…” He cried, some of the blood of his men was on his suit.

“Please what?” The clone titled his head and dragged Pierce up by his collar.

“Don’t kill me… I’ll do anything!” He tried to take his hands off of him, but even if it was only a clone, it was still much stronger than Pierce could ever be.

Loki walked to them calmly, the secretary pierced to the wall, writhing and trying to break free, his panic enlarging as he noticed there was not one, but two gods in front of him. Loki’s hand shot to his forehead, his magic wrapping around Pierce’s brain, moulding the memories and knowledge to his liking.

How small were humans’ brains… How little did they fit, how much they hid in the depths of unconsciousness, covered traumas, blurred what’s not frequently used…

Useless memories, useless dreams… That wasn’t what Loki was searching for. He dug deeper, heard a scream of the man held by three arms.

There. Something useful.

Knowledge floated him, blinding him for a quarter of a second before complete darkness muted his magic. He blinked a few times, his vision focused back on Pierce, on his empty eyes and lack of pulse.

“Hmm,” he let him go and watched as his body fell on the floor like a puppet, “looks like I broke something.”

He shrugged and walked to the door, his clone already gone. For a second he just wanted to call Heimdall and go back to Asgard, but what he just saw in Pierce’s head made him change his mind.

Apparently the facility he was at wasn’t SHIELD at all, even if the signs on the walls told him differently. It was just a blind for another organisation called Hydra, created for a drastically different reason.

What if he just… stayed for a while longer, took his sweet revenge for disrespecting him in so many ways? Not that he was so eager to receive punishment from Odin, after all.

He cracked his fingers and got out.

The alarm was already off, someone must’ve heard the shots. That was even better for him. Panic was his feast.

By the time he reached the end of the corridor, his daggers, clothes and skin were soaking in different kinds of blood, his ears full of different kinds of screams.

However the scream he heard next was drastically different from the ones he caused. It was a scream of a man, hidden somewhere near. He searched through Pierce’s memories until he found the right one.

Winter Soldier.

And what if he stole Hydra’s most precious weapon? Fixed him with his magic to make him as normal as he was when they captured him seventy years ago? A smirk showed on his face again. Yes… That was even better than just killing the Soldier.

He took a few turns in the labyrinth of corridors and hallways, using Pierce’s memory of where the man was held. He heard more agents approaching him, he felt their fear faster than he actually saw him and sighed when they thought that bullets would stop him.

He changed into his Jotun form, the disgusting smell of panic filled his lungs when the men before him desperately tried to reload their guns.

Not fast enough.

Frost and ice pierced them in every way possible, the blood that floated from the wounds froze almost instantly, creating diabolical rays, icicles on their frostbitten dead bodies.

He moved them aside with his magic and continued his walk, still in Jotun form. The Soldier screamed again, just in time for Loki’s rapid entrance.

The scientists were surrounding the man, attempting to unleash him from a disturbing chair with many metal pieces, tubing and devices he didn’t even know how could be used.

He titled his head at the scientist’s poor attempts to attack him with scalpel and it quickly changed its path, dipping into the scientist’s throat. While one of them managed to escape, another one was more courageous, jumping at Loki with a needle, probably another tranquilizer. The god reached a hand in his direction, placed it on a heart and froze the organ, another dead body fell before his feet.

Loki walked slowly to the Soldier, who was trying to break free from the binding him metal handcuffs. Without hesitation he pressed his palm onto Soldier’s forehead, cleaning his memories, bringing forward who he was before Hydra, clearing his mind from all the mess the scientists created. When he backed away, the Soldier, James, as he read from his memories, was calm. Loki reached to the metal device in his mouth and took it off before freeing him from the handcuffs.

“What do you say, my friend? Shall we destroy them?”

 ___

Tag list: @lokihiddleston @sherlocked-bitch @buckysknifecollection @lecoindenox @valhalla-ally @daddyloki @fuckythebuckybarnes @phantomhiiives @get0verit @it-jinxed-us @gayatri5

[fablesrose]

Of Kings and Shadows XV

Chapter XV

Description: Y/n, a girl who seems to have found her calling. Being a SHIELD agent is like a dream come true. With a friendship starting to form with the Avengers, she’s the Queen of the world! What could go wrong?

Pairings: Avengers x reader, Loki x reader (eventually)

Notes: On Wattpad –> Here

Warnings: pain

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Day blah ba blah blah blah.

That's how it always seems to start, isn't it? The character opens with saying: it's been two-hundred and twenty-nine and a half days since I last saw the light of day... Which translates to seven months and sixteen and a half days.

That's not how I'm gonna start, because frankly, I can't remember how long I've been here. There are no windows in our cell, just white LED lights to tell us when to rise and when to rest. For all I know, our lunch could be at midnight, and our dinner at daybreak. Not that we have that many meals a day, it varies, at least that's our theory. As most of our living here, we really don't know.

Time kept ticking by. I wasn't sure at what pace. My internal clock used to be decent, but since the drug and no clock to reset, I have no idea.

I was getting restless. I couldn't move around, and I'm ashamed to say I was almost aching for the next fight. I was angry, trapped, and it was the only way I had some sense of control. It's ironic, since it may have felt that way, but I knew it was so far from the truth. And there was nothing I could do about it. A small piece of control, however imaginary, was a life-preserver, a beacon, something to cling onto, a way to hold my sanity.

It was a... relief when the guards came for me again. It was a way for me to release the tension of being in that small room. Let out the stir crazy.

My adrenaline was pumping the whole time. The fight was over too soon. While it released some of the pent up energy, I still felt like I could run for hours. It was much like my second fight. I had him unconscious on the floor. My hands were trembling slightly, from excess energy or from the guilt of doing this, I wasn't quite sure.

I jumped up and down which released some of the energy, enough where I could calm down and breathe. I sat back down in much the same position as before. I didn't know if I was in for another long wait, so I figured: might as well get comfortable. I waited for a while, not nearly as long as last time though.

The intercom clicked on and I snapped my head up, "Hmmm, whatever am I going to with you. You haven't earned the title of Queen yet..." He paused and I had to swallow, suddenly my rapid heart rate wasn't from the exercise.

"What do you want from me, you coward!?" I didn't know why I said it. His voice just grated on my nerves. Not because it was unappealing, no it was because he had a nice voice, but he's the reason I'm trapped in a cell, with no color but Jaz's eyes to look at besides our own skin tone. He's the reason I'm an experiment, why I can't go home. Why I'm going to be forgotten; that's if I haven't been already.

"Oh, name-calling are we? Good, because I need to know what to call you until you earn the title I want you to have. Let's see, let's see... Consort? No... that's almost hard to say, I need something that just rolls of the tongue. Princess? Maybe, but all I can picture is pink and purple ribbons." He laughed like he made a pitiful joke. "I could go really old fashioned and call you a concubine. What do you think about that?"

I bit my lip, but my thoughts still slipped out in a whisper, "I'm not your bitch." I mentally smacked myself for swearing out loud, nothing good ever came from it, especially now.

"No? Don't like the name? You are... what did you say? You are my bitch, but I would prefer not to call you that, there has to be some level of respect in this relationship. Oh! I know what to call you... Mistress. Yes, just rolls off the tongue," as if for emphasis he clucked his tongue then continued, "and to answer your question, Mistress, I want you to win this match."

My hands started to tremble again, thinking of what he's trying to insinuate.

"I trust you know what that means." The intercom clicked off again, leaving me in silence.

I knew exactly what he meant, and I hated it. Suddenly all I could hear was my heartbeat and heavy breathing. Signs of life. I looked at the man on the floor. Average build, shaggy brown hair, he lied on the ground, face down to where I couldn't see his face. Maybe that was best. I hadn't even been put through very much yet. How was I considering doing this?

You do what you have to to survive.

Do I even want to survive if this is what I have to live with?

What if that's his thoughts too?

I don't know that. How could I do this?

I looked at the little window in the door. I could see part of one of the guard's face. He was facing straight ahead, back to the wall. I noticed his eyes flicker to the window, at me, but then he looked back at the wall giving no expression to me. I swallowed and clenched my fists. I glared up at the security camera, I didn't even need my near nonexistent ability anymore to know he was watching me.

I pounded my fists against my forehead, hating myself. This wouldn't be my first, no far from it. This time it felt personal though. I approached the boy, that's what he looked like from behind, just a boy. I lifted his body so he was kneeling, his head slack. I put him into position, I could feel everything, the warmth of his body, the scratchiness of his jumpsuit next to mine. I took a deep breath and looked straight at the camera.

I made sure to make it quick. Quick as a snap. He didn't feel a thing.

I stood, letting his body fall to the ground, dead weight. The door opened and my two guards came in to escort me to my cell. I kept staring at the camera for as long as possible, I wasn't sure of the exact message I was sending, but I wanted him to know I was sending it. Two steps before I was out the door the intercom clicked on again, the three of us halting.

"Beautiful, my Mistress. You will make a wonderful Queen."

I didn't acknowledge his voice, the comment, none of it. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

I entered our cell, devoid of emotion. Devoid of everything really. I simply sat on the cot, staring at the floor. Jaz watched me but didn't say anything. I wasn't sure how many minutes had passed, maybe it was hours, I couldn't be sure.

My voice came out in a whisper, barely audible, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"What was that hon?"

I looked into her dark eyes, knowing she knew exactly what I said, "You knew exactly what is supposed to happen in those fights." To her credit, she didn't break eye contact, despite the burning gaze I set upon her. "And you didn't care to correct me."

She clenched her jaw, "You would have found out eventually. In this situation, the later you know about the ugly, the better."

I nearly snarled at her, but I didn't argue. I rolled over and didn't acknowledge her, trying to fall asleep. Eventually, the angry tension in my limbs dissipated, leaving me with exhaustion that gripped me both body and soul. Luckily I fell into a dreamless sleep.

I was rudely awakened the next morning with rough hands rolling me over, nearly off the bed. I blinked my eyes open and had enough sense to stand on my feet before they threw me to the ground.

"Hey, what's going on?" The guards usually weren't this rough with me or Jaz for that matter. I looked to her and found her in a state of frightened confusion. She didn't know what was up either.

They didn't answer me, only grabbed my arms and dragged me out the door. While I didn't know how this labyrinth of a building was laid out, I did know that I was being taken in the opposite direction as to the rooms where the prisoners would fight. That fact made me sweat a little bit more. I tried to keep up with them so I wasn't being dragged, mostly for my own comfort, but they had a lot longer legs and I kept tripping up and slipping in my socks.

Soon the hallways weren't just white walls. There were windows set in the cinderblocks and I did not like what I saw through them. They didn't go to the outside, no they looked into rooms with various medical instruments placed on tables next to every color imaginable liquids. In the center, there was either a  table or a chair. They were solid shiny metal, probably steel, and they had strong metal or leather restraints. I started to fight my guards, I didn't know where I would run to, but I would keep running until I found something, anything. Their grips were strong as they continued to drag me down the hallway past more and more experimental labs, some had blood spattered everywhere, some looked squeaky clean, even more, had someone strapped to one of those chairs or tables, screaming, unconscious, or dead.

"Nononono, please, don't do this. I don't want to! Please, sir, don't take me!" I continued to try and break free but they didn't budge. They didn't even look at me or show anything at all that said I was even in between them.

I tried to dig my feet into the ground to stop them, but my socks simply slid across the floor, hindering them little. I tugged at their arms and even tried to bite one of them at some point, but nothing stopped them from taking me to the last room at the end of the hallway. It had the largest window that showed the scientists preparing and waiting for me in the largest room. It was a table in the middle of the room, metal loops were on the sides in the positions to hold my limbs. This table also had a leather head strap and a metal loop to go around my neck.

Once they got me into the room, kicking and screaming they locked the door behind me. I deeper sense of dread spread through me. This was actually happening.

One of the doctors addressed my guard, "Did you not give it the sedative?"

He answered gruffly, "It was with the meal, but I think she went to sleep before it was delivered."

She sighed, "Fine, get her on the table."

They nearly threw me onto the metal and before I could struggle they managed to get the restraint around my neck. I flailed my other limbs, not wanting to get strapped down on this thing. The guards managed to hold my legs down long enough to strap them down. I kicked a couple of times after the loops were secured and winced when my feet rattled. I finally figured I wasn't getting out of three metal bangles, so I didn't try to punch anyone in the face... As hard anyway.

They eventually got me strapped down all the way and I could feel tears start to prick in my eyes. I looked around to see what exactly they were going to do to me. I looked at the wall where the window was, but all I could see was myself, strapped down to that table. I looked pale, and I could tell the meals they were giving us didn't help maintain weight. My hair was frizzy and out of place and if I had to use one word to describe me it would be a mess.

I saw the scientists moving around and I saw the short dude from before preparing a syringe with a beaker in his other hand. The beaker was filled with a dark, no, not just dark, black. It was pitch black. The consistency seemed to keep changing, as he swirled it seemed to change from syrup to shiny ink to a matte looking substance.

I looked back at the ceiling, not wanting to watch. A young-looking woman came to my side touching my arm slightly. I could tell she was trying to look emotionless, blank, but her eyes told me a different story. She held up a wooden spoon and swallowed.

I took a shaky breath and opened my mouth wide. She lodged it into my jaw and I clenched onto it.

I heard the portly man flick the syringe and I couldn't help look at him. It was filled with that liquid from before and I watched long enough for him to squeeze a singular drop out to make sure there was no air in it. I quickly looked at the ceiling, not wanting to watch any longer.

I felt someone hold my wrist down so the inside of my arm faced out. A tourniquet was wrapped around my upper arm so they had a better shot at my vein. My body was tense, nervous, I tried to breathe deeply to calm down but nothing was working.

I heard him chuckle next to me, "I would say relax, it will hurt less, but this will hurt either way."

I barely had time to register and brace myself when he stuck the syringe in my arm. I winced slightly, but that pain couldn't cast a shadow on the pure agony that came when he started to push the concoction into my bloodstream.

It felt like acid, burning every cell in my body to be as black as itself. I could feel exactly where it went, rushing down to my fingertips, causing them to spasm as if it would make the pain go away. I was so focused on the pain that I didn't notice when the demon doctors stepped away from me to watch.

Tears were rolling down my face as I screamed with no restraint. I could feel the wooden spoon cracking in my jaws.  I arched my back above the table once the ink approached my heart. I was jerking and rattling everything as the substance pulsed through my body as if a different kind of pain could distract me, make it better. I understood why they had the leather head strap because if it wasn't there, I'm sure I would have tried to bash my brains out in pure reflex.

I felt it travel and spread from my heart all the way to my toes. It seemed to creep up my neck agonizingly slow despite my rapidly beating heart. Once it reached my head it felt like I had eaten a spoonful of wasabi while my head rested on a concert speaker playing at full volume. If my hands were free they might have scratched away everything, my eyes, ears, scalp, they might have ripped my head off just to make the pain stop.

The next sensation was nearly indescribable. I could feel sweat running across my skin, but I could also feel it running underneath it. I could feel each pump of my blood not just in my ears and fingertips, but also in every vein and artery. It was like it was cooling it from the inside, which was still painful, but not as much as the burning. My screaming reduced to groans, still wiggling on the table. I was panting, I focused on breathing heavily as if it would help with the pain.

Eventually, everything started to tingle like it was falling asleep. In the wake of the pins and needles, an overwhelming numbness started to take hold. My breathing became shallow, but regular, not labored or strained. I stopped moving on the table, becoming almost deathly still. My gaze remained on the ceiling as I lost all feeling in my body. I vaguely remember hearing the wooden spoon fall to the floor.

Everything seemed stiff like I couldn't move of my own free will. I didn't even have the will to blink my eyes, so I watched my vision slowly collapse inward from the darkness, as I felt silent tears fall one by one down my face.

Tag List: 😞

[aliceslantern]

Retribution, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 13

Newly a person again, Ienzo is weighed down by guilt and his humanity. He's prepared to do whatever it takes to atone... only to find unexpected solace in a familiar face. With more insight into the bonds between people than ever before, Ienzo reaches for a dangerous element from the past to help Kairi and Riku in their search for Sora. What is his life if it means saving another, brighter light?

Zemyx, background Sokai, post Re:Mind

Chapter summary:  Ienzo begins to have doubts about his conviction to save Sora, and tries to find its origin.

Read it on FF.net/AO3

---

“...Do you have a moment?”

Aeleus looked up from the puzzle he was working on. “I was looking for a way to fill my time,” he said. He gestured to the seat across from him.

He and Dilan shared common spaces in their apartment. The furniture was comfortable, broken in. Aeleus seemed to be growing some flowers and herbs in a small planter box; Ienzo went over to examine them. “It’s you that’s been working on the gardens,” he said, with realization.

“I like making things grow,” he said simply. He put another piece down onto the table in front of him. “What is it on your mind?”

“I suppose I wanted a more… objective opinion, on something.” Ienzo sat down. “Aeleus, has your heart ever told you with certainty to do something?”

He set aside his puzzle. He, too, looked odd without the frame of his uniform. “Why is it you ask?”

“I thought my heart was telling me I needed to save Sora, and do whatever it would take.” He touched his breastbone, which was still a bit too touchable despite all his attempts to eat enough. “But lately, I’ve had… doubts, in that conviction. Namely, that I am violating nature. And is that not what I’ve done before?”

“What we’ve done, you mean.” He sighed. “Tea?”

“...Please.”

A few minutes later Aeleus handed him a ceramic mug that smelled of jasmine. He sat on the couch across from Ienzo’s chair. “How do you feel when you think about it?” he asked.

“About what?”

“Doing this.”

“I’m afraid as of late my gut hasn’t been very reliable. The anxiety,” he explained, at Aeleus’s baffled expression. “Even with the medication I’ve been given, it’s hard to tell what is purely stress and what is a warning from myself. All it does… is make me feel sick. I…” He looked at his one hand, the veins visible in the early afternoon light. “I had thought at first that it would be worth it, to sacrifice myself for him. But this is bigger than just me. This is… Kairi, too.” He bit his lip. Aeleus’s expression was mostly stoic, aside from a quickly-masked flicker Ienzo thought was concern.

“You started to see yourself as having worth,” he said softly. “And now you have things to live for, aside from the guilt.”

“Well… yes. I wish to… be with Demyx, more than anything. But it goes and goes in circles, Aeleus.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Kairi feels this way for Sora. The thought of doing purely nothing when I can make change is…” Ienzo bit his lip. “It’s abundantly clear that our scientific research is getting nowhere and will get nowhere. It’s been almost a year. I--”

Aeleus stirred his tea. “Have you considered,” he began, “that perhaps this is not your responsibility? Sora made this choice knowing the price. He would not want you to risk yourself for him.”

“I… I know. But I… I owe him for… if not for the experiments, for what I explicitly asked for, none of this would have happened.”

“Xehanort manipulated you,” Aeleus pointed out. “You were… how old, Ienzo? Six, seven? He asked you to do that and made you think it was your idea.”

Ienzo was shaking. He could feel tears in his eyes. “And what of what I did after?”

“What of what I did? Of Ansem or Even or Demyx? We’ve all done awful things.” He reached over and squeezed Ienzo’s hand. “Ienzo. There are other ways of atoning.”

“But he’s lost,” he said. “Lost, and alone, and--”

“Sora will find his way home if he’s meant to. If that never happens… we must grieve, and move on, and stop trying to force the impossible. All that will do is hurt all involved. Don’t you think?”

The tears ran over.

“Whatever you decide, Ienzo, I will support you completely. But are you doing this to save Sora, or to save yourself?”

The realization was rattling him, yet it was so obvious. “I… I’m not sure.”

Aeleus handed him a cloth napkin for his face. “Think about it,” he said. “Though I must admit my bias and say… I don’t wish for you to leave this life. And perhaps that is selfish. I have so much to make up to you, Ienzo.”

He sniffled. “Like what?”

“If I had done a better job protecting you--”

“...I’d still be Zexion. That’s not necessarily a good thing. I just don’t want this suffering to be in vain.”

“It won’t be,” Aeleus said. “We’ll make sure of that.”

---

Every time Ienzo tried to think about it, it gave him such intense anxiety his heart would palpitate. He turned his focus instead to Demyx, to the bits of life that he wanted. Ienzo was by his side as he finally got his back taken care of, and the few days they spent together as Demyx rested were very nearly happy. Ienzo enjoyed the excuse to nurture him. He hadn’t realized just how much time they spent having some kind of sex until they temporarily couldn’t. All the more reason to encourage what was below that to grow.

(But wouldn’t that be sadistic, should he go through with this?)

Don’t think about that, Ienzo.

“I don’t know how you put up with this,” Ienzo said to Demyx. His bed was uncomfortable; even in the few minutes Ienzo had been lying next to him, his bones started to ache. He could feel the springs acutely.

“Eh, could be worse.” His hair was loose against the pillow, making him look like someone else. “What’s worse than the bed is having all this time to think. Can’t really play music when I’m supposed to be laying down. Which narrows my options.”

“...I don’t like thinking either.”

Demyx scoffed. “Aren’t you a scholar?”

“Yes, but lately my thoughts are so… messy.”

“Being human is a mess.”

“That is true, isn’t it?” He propped himself up on an elbow. “Messy… unexpected. Wrenching. Yet… I feel as though… I’m being offered choices for the first time in years.”

Demyx squeezed his hand. “I know what you mean.”

“You’re so different.”

“How so?”

“You care about things.”

“It’s… hard not to,” he said. “Doing what I do… I see the impacts of darkness. The pain in people’s eyes. I don’t know if I was just ignoring it before… or if I were too oblivious. I’m tired of being oblivious. Tired of being alone.”

“Is this what you want to do forever?”

“What, deliver packages?” he barked a laugh. “Hardly.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

Demyx looked up at the ceiling. “To be determined,” he said softly, with a shrug. “I used to live by the seat of my pants. But that just gives me anxiety now. Maybe…” He breathed for a moment. “My music helps me. If I could teach people… that might help them work through all this.”

“Would that make you happy? Helping people?”

“Maybe.” He sighed. “There’s another thing.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve been… trying to pick up some magic,” he admitted with a slight grimace, as though embarrassed. “White magic. I’m actually not that bad at it. What if I were to… use that to fix people?”

“That’s a hard calling.”

“I know. But… weirdly, I feel determined.” He turned his face back to Ienzo. “I think that’s your fault?”

He laughed a little. “What, I’ve instilled in you a work ethic?”

“More like…” He knotted his hands against his stomach. “Actually being attached to someone made me realize… I’ve been so selfish. And selfishness might not be part of… the real Demyx. Whoever that is.” A sigh. “I thought staying under the radar would keep me safe, but I’m not safe from the memories. Or from myself. If I want to actually enjoy life, I’m going to have to get my hands dirty.” He wrinkled his nose. “Instead of hiding or taking things away from people, if I give them… music, or help them heal… maybe I’ll help me heal too.”

“That’s very astute,” Ienzo said softly. He touched Demyx’s cheek, which was scratchy from a few days of stubble. “I often wonder… the same.”

“If helping people will fix you?”

“Yes. I think it may begin that process. But… who, and how?”

“Words,” he said. “You’re a storyteller.”

“I’m a scientist.”

“Your weapon wasn’t a beaker--it was a book,” Demyx pointed out. “What’s a memory if not a story about you?”

Ienzo felt something like a thrill. “That’s rather poetic. I suppose I could… tell the stories. About what we did. About how I feel. Maybe I can help them realize the narrative--the narrative of Xehanort. And help give it more than just a bittersweet ending.” He cocked his head. “How do you know how I feel about words?”

“I’ve read your reports,” Demyx said simply.

His eyebrows shot up.

Demyx pointed to the phone. “You forget I’m connected to the network too? I just… I dunno. Sue me for getting curious. The way you write… it’s much more alive than the way the others do. That, and… come on, Ienzo. You invented a way for people to share pictures--which are stories too.”

He blushed. “That was mostly for reconnaissance,” he admitted.

“Yet your first post was in and of itself… a story about your future. Stories can make or break a heart.”

“Yes,” he said softly. “The… future. I hope…” He trailed off. “The people we’ve hurt. Their stories are important. What they’ve witnessed. It could help them heal. I could… gather those stories. They deserve so much more of a voice than Xehanort.”

“So do we,” Demyx said.

He wasn’t sure why this felt like a revelation. “Aren’t we also perpetrators?”

“We want to do good. Helping one person won’t make up for the many people that… well, got hurt.” His eyes crinkled. “That’s not how things work. But to not do anything… is worse. Don’t forget he hurt us too. You and me could have been normal. You were a kid and I was an amnesiac. Do you think we would’ve chosen this life if we’d known?”

Ienzo blinked.

“Some things are our fault. But he was the one who pushed that out of us.”

“Demyx, you’re…” he shook his head. “Have you always been this wise?”

He laughed a little. “No.”

“I love you.” Ienzo leaned in and kissed him gently. “I’m so glad we… took this risk.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

[ohprettyweeper-fics]

The Last Bandito: Vulture Generation

Part Two: Statement of Purpose

Summary: As adjustments are made to the way life is now, some decide their next move. Warnings: Sickness, mentions of death.   Word Count: 1860 A/N: Book #2 of The Last Bandito series. Prompts are in bold; translations are from Google Translate.

Masterlist

Nico looked out over the district of Dema he presided over as the Heathens returned to their assigned quarters for the evening. They filed toward the buildings silently; one man looked up to the window where Nico was, paused and pursed his lips together, and then continued on his way. 

This man — who was no longer a man, really — had once looked at Nico with eyes that longed to be privy to every bit of truth and knowledge the Bishop held. Now, after the last invasion from the Bandito child and another nemesis they had yet to name, all of the Heathens looked at him differently. Respect and adoration had changed to tolerance and skepticism. 

“You are troubled, my lord.”

Nico turned away from the window. He had been aware of Keons’s presence before the other Bishop had even arrived to his quarters, but had been too lost in thought over the grouping of Heathens to acknowledge Keons before now. 

“They are losing their faith in us,” Nico stated. “This Bandito child coming here, taking away Heathens and humans alike — threatening the Bishops. She’s given them something new to have faith in.”

Keons did not look bothered. “They will return to us, as they always do. The older generations of Banditos filtered out, eventually. It takes time for them to see the truth, but what is time to us? Nothing.”

Nico pondered over the words for a full minute before shaking his head. “This feels different. Do you remember what you told the child’s mother the first time you visited her?”

“I told her that the child would be something new, something different. That was no great prophecy, Nico. A Heathen and a human had not before created a child together, and they haven’t since. We knew that whatever being was born from that woman, it would be a creature the world had not seen before.”

“Perhaps you were more correct than you understand,” Nico suggested. “She is something new. Something different. She threatens our way of life here. If we are to take over the new city, expand the old, then we must have the full faith and trust of every citizen of Dema — so long as she is doing what she has always done, that will not be the case.”

Keons stood a little straighter. He did not want to ask his next question, but he knew he must. “What would you have me do, pochesnyy?”

“Break her. They need to see her broken so we can gain the respect that we deserve.” 

* * * * * 

Tyler was beginning to worry about Ildri. After she went into her tent following the conversation on the ridge, she refused to come out for several days. Tyler brought her food, forced her to eat, and, eventually, slept on the ground next to her. He gave up his tent to a couple of newcomers who had almost nothing, save for the clothes on their back. He wanted to comfort Ildri, but he had to admit that he felt more comfort, too, being close to her. 

One morning, he woke up and Ildri was gone. He told himself not to panic; she was likely around camp, maybe washing up in a cold creek somewhere. The sun was barely visible over the horizon — in fact, some areas of camp were still mostly dim. Tyler rubbed the sleep from his eyes and wandered over to the big fire in the center of camp, warming his hands and his body by the flames. 

The group that had assigned themselves as the cooks of the camp were cleaning up from breakfast before Ildri came back over the north ridge. Her hair was fixed in intricate braids away from her face, with metal beads adorning her stitched locks. Yellow paint was smeared in two upward-pointing arrows under her left eye, with three small lines set over her nose. Yellow dots arched over her right eyebrow, and a thin yellow line divided her bottom lip. 

Tyler jogged to meet her halfway and gestured to her face and hair. “That’s new.”

“I had a dream last night,” Ildri started her explanation, “about the Banditos who used to live here. Generations before we were born. The women did their hair this way, some of them, and all of the ones who rescued escapees from Trench wore the face paint. They all stood at the top of ridge and looked down on a man in Trench, running from one of the Bishops. The Bishop caught up to him, but they made plans to go into Old Dema and get him — not through the front gate like Quinn and I did, but underground. They took him out of Dema and into Trench — Tyler, what if we did that? Some of them can escape on their own, but a lot of them can’t. That’s what I did for New Dema. If I can do it on my own, rescuing some here and there, why couldn’t we rescue more of them together? We gather a group of —”

“Wait, Ildri. Breathe.” Tyler put his hands on his shoulders, gripping gently. “I’m all for this, but you understand, if you start this, you will be the leader Josh said you already are. There will be no handing it off, no going back.”

Ildri took a deep breath. “I know that. And, I think, this is what I was made for. Not to be a victim of the Bishops, not to be a pawn of The Conference, but to do this. To give others a new beginning. I am the last Bandito, Tyler. Shouldn’t that mean something big?”

Tyler could feel the Heathen virus boiling in his blood at the thought of doing anything to go against the Bishops. He had known even when they were young that Ildri was going to do big things with her life; it was an unspoken truth, something understood but not talked about. Never, in either set of memories, did Tyler ever imagine he would be part of something like this — something life-changing, not only for them, but for so many others. 

* * * * *

Faylinn lay awake in her hotel room in New York, wondering at all the noise outside her twelfth floor window. Cars raced past at all hours, voices floated through the hallway at any given time, and the lights of the city were so bright, she often felt the sun never went down. 

She got up to pull the blackout curtains closed. The thick material didn’t block out the noise, but if she turned on the television set, maybe that would give her brain different noise to concentrate on. 

“Comedy,” she muttered, coming across reruns of an old sitcom she had loved as a child, “that’ll work.”

When the sound of the television did not help her sleep, Faylinn pulled the heavy, paper copy of her manuscript from the nightstand onto the bed beside her before opening the document on her laptop. The publisher was extremely interested in circulating her manuscript, but an editor had nearly torn the thing to pieces, marking it all up with suggestions in red ink — although the term ‘suggestion’ had been used lightly. 

Faylinn couldn’t help but feel her past hanging over her like a thundercloud as she worked through the recommended edits of her novel. As she read over the words she had written about Old Dema, her mind wandered back to the night she had followed Ildri and Quinn there, then watched them murder those innocent people. 

That was part of the reason she was still in New York. She could have easily gone home to do these edits, but it was so much easier to keep the distance between herself and what now felt like her old life. 

Then, a wave of realization hit her. “I don’t have to go back. I could stay here, forget everything about my life there. Only this novel would remind me. After all, I betrayed them all. What do I have to go back to?”

Her cousin’s words echoed in her mind then. When you realize who you are, then maybe you’ll understand. Ildri didn’t hold Faylinn to any fault, so why couldn’t Faylinn release herself from the guilt? Perhaps it was the way Josh had looked at her when she said she was coming to New York. Or the way Quinn wouldn’t even meet her eyes. 

“There’s nothing to go back to,” Faylinn spoke out loud, closing her laptop and pushing it, and the manuscript, to the foot of the bed. “So I won’t.”

* * * * *

The blood pressure cuff around her arm was tight — too tight, really — and gave Quinn the urge to tear it the monitor off and run far, far away. Her decision to stay in New Dema had been the safe decision; the one she had made after coming down from her bloodlust, unable to believe the carnage she had left behind her in Old Dema. 

And now, she was dying. New Dema’s best scientists were trying their best to come up with a cure for the Heathen virus, and it was Quinn’s only hope at the moment. 

The best anyone could surmise was that the Heathen virus was, essentially, not compatible with the dearg-due genes. The two strains were going after each other, and her tissues were caught in the crossfire. 

“Same as yesterday,” the nurse told Quinn, jotting down numbers on a notepad to later put into a computer. “Feeling the same?”

Quinn shrugged and nodded. “More or less. I think I slept a little more yesterday, but it may have just been the day.”

“Do all the resting you can,” the nurse encouraged, “your body needs it to recover.”

“If I recover.”

The nurse pressed her lips into a thin line. “You know, you’re the first non-Heathen patient here. They brought you down from The Conference, and I couldn’t believe that you had the virus — your eyes weren’t red and you weren’t hungry for blood or anything.”

Quinn whispered, “Not at the time.”

The nurse forced Quinn to look at her. “My point is, Quinn, you are different. Not everyone goes into Old Dema and comes back out, for starters, but the virus hasn’t become who you are. You can fight it. You have to fight it.”

Quinn looked at the other woman with tears in her eyes and hurt in her voice. “How do I fight death? Do you understand, that’s what’s what I’m doing here? I came here to stay in the place that’s become my home, and found out I’m dying. I’ve accepted it, and you should, too.”

The nurse stood from the bed, tucked the note with Quinn’s vitals into her pocket and gave a single nod. “Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, then I won’t bother.”

The lump in Quinn’s throat as the nurse left the room was nearly suffocating. She hadn’t truly accepted that she was dying, not yet. There was still that last, frayed strand of hope she was clinging to, hoping and praying that the scientists would soon find a cure for the Heathen virus and save her life. 

* * * * * * * * * *

Tags: @takenvysleep @tylersheavydirtysoul @apurdyfulmind @adversaryproject

[katsen13]

Hostile Takeover

This was my story for a writing prompt. You can find the prompt here.

If you like the story, you can check out my other stories here.

Warnings: Suggestive, angst, betrayal, loss, mention of suicide, kind of dark.

A bit long so heads up.

     “Oh, we’re not done yet here.” You smile coyly.

    A devilish grin spreads on his face. “Well, if you would like to continue, there are a few places I think you would find more desirable.”

    You mask your disgust with a deceivingly seductive smile. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid you misunderstood.” You step out from the shadows into the light of the full moon shining in from the skylight above, the moonlight gliding down your long, dark hair.

    The Dark Lord’s smile begins to fade as he noticed the icy glint in your light, blue eyes. He looks down at you, dangling from a crane above a vat of acid, slowly turning away from you. “What… what is going on?”

    “Well I always knew I was the brains behind the operation, but I figured you of all people would at least recognize a betrayal when you saw one.” You cross your arms, smirking up at your former boss.

    “What are you talking about?!” He kicked his legs, growing frustrated because he couldn’t turn to face you. “Madox and Sledge will be here soon.”

    “Oh, you think so?” You raised your eyebrows in mock concern. “I don’t. See, they work for me now. They’ve always worked for me.”

    Worry starts to fill the Dark Lord’s face. “I don’t understand…”Your contemptful laugh echoes off the walls of the cave, reverberating through the pipes. “Of course you don’t understand. You were too blind to see any of it.” You look at the Dark Lord with heavy disdain. He just looks back at you with his brow furrowed, confused as ever. You sighed, pulling a remote from your pocket, identical to the one the Hero had destroyed before leaving. The Dark Lord’s eyes widened as he noticed it.

    You push the button on the remote, lowering your boss down to eye-level. “After all these years, we’re finally becoming successful! Don’t you see it? The business is thriving. Our stocks are up, our shareholders are investing even more, and our company is set to go global!” You walk to the edge of the platform and stop in front of your boss, your faces about a foot apart. “Do you really think, after all this time of doing nothing, you actually made it work?” You whisper, looking him in the eyes almost pityingly. “Failure after failure after failure. So many locations lost to us, so many labs destroyed, all those employees’ lives, wasted.” You sigh again, looking down at the remote in your hand before returning your focus to your boss.

    “No. I was the one who made things work. After every scheme was foiled, I was the one who led the analytics team to find out where it went wrong. Every time a base was discovered, I sent out the warning, telling everyone to stay away and that we would regroup at the safehouse. Whenever a base or lab was destroyed, I led the recovery teams to salvage as much as we could from the remains. Any time a factory or warehouse was raided, I was the one who went before the media trying to save the company’s reputation. Your reputation.” Your eyes grow a little misty. “And whenever there was a tragedy, and believe me, there were many tragedies, I was the one who contacted the families and made sure that they were well cared for. I was the one who had to try to explain to them why their loved one wasn’t coming home. I was the one who hoped they would understand why I couldn’t tell them what they wanted to know, what they deserved to know.”

    Your boss looked at you, the worry on his face vanished. “That’s not true. I set up foundations for the families, I started a nonprofit to clean the bay and rescue the wildlife, I campaigned for the mayor’s Safe Streets initiative!”

    “No, that’s not true.” You reply, looking up at him coolly. You tilted your head questioningly at him. “Tell me, do you remember when the last time you signed anything was?” The Dark Lord grew quiet, his face stony and expressionless. “That’s what I thought.” you continued. “Well, I can tell you. Today, you signed the company over to me. Mr. Madox and Mr. Sledge witnessed it and as of 11 am this morning, I became the company’s first female CEO. A little over an hour ago you typed this up on your private computer and signed it.”

    You held up a piece of paper to your boss. His eyes grew wide before narrowing, his face darkening as he read the suicide note. You turned the page around and read a bit from it yourself. ‘I am so sorry to all those I have hurt and betrayed over the years. I just cannot deal with the guilt of all those innocent lives lost because of my foolishness anymore. I neither ask nor hope for any forgiveness, I only ask that you learn from my error, as I did not learn myself until it was too late.’ You look up at your boss with a slight smile. “I must say, I’m quite moved by ‘your’ last words.”

    The Dark Lord swallowed hard, masking his fear with a bluff as he looked you in the eye. “The Hero will stop you. He’s probably watching right now.”

    You smile as your boss’s eyes meet yours. “Stop me? No, you see, he helped me.” The Dark Lord’s eyes widened incredulously, his mouth open in surprise and disbelief. “You see, he’s tired of it too. Tired of stopping plan after plan of yours, I mean, not that they would ever work. He just couldn’t take the risk though, you know?”

    “After the Arcadia incident, I contacted the scientists’ families to help make arrangements. When I visited Michael’s family- you remember Michael, don’t you? That sweet intern in the lab who brought everyone bagels on his first day?- his poor mother told me that the arrangements had already been paid for anonymously, though she suspected it was by the nice young man who came by the house the day before to offer his condolences. I quickly contacted the other families and they all said the same thing- a respectful, handsome young man with fair hair and hazel-green eyes had visited, and shortly after, they found that the arrangements they had made for their loved ones had been fully paid for.”

    You began pacing, glancing at your boss as you continued. For the first time in nearly the decade that you had known him, you swore you could almost see the thoughts forming in his head, the gears in his brain starting to pick up speed as he began to piece things together as you had. “When I visited Enrique Salando’s young widow, she told me that she had already paid for her husband’s funeral. She said when she told the kind, young man that, he was a little dejected. I happened to notice a small basket of toys and asked about it. She smiled and said that the man had noticed it too and she told me about it.” You stopped pacing and turned to your boss before resuming. “Did you know Enrique was a school bus driver? He loved kids so much, but he and Maria were unable to have children. You know what he did? He started working for your transportation division, picking up and dropping off employees at work and home, and taking them to town for lunch. He did that so he would have more money to buy things for the kids on his bus. He bought clothes for the less fortunate ones and a birthday present for every single child on his bus.”

    “When I left the apartment, I went to city hall and talked to the senior clerk on a hunch. She confirmed it and told me that a trust fund had been set up in Enrique’s name for all of the kids who have ridden on his bus the past few years. She had notarized the paperwork herself for one Mr. Nathan Carter.” A confused look appeared on your boss’s face when you mentioned the unfamiliar name. “I’ll admit, I hadn’t heard of him before either. It turns out, he’s quite the businessman himself, though his business is mostly farther up the coast. He’s done well for himself financially, but lives a comfortable yet simple life, instead, donating millions to charities all over the state. Some say he’s a reclusive man, living alone in a little cottage on the bay and well, I decided to pay him a little visit to decide for myself. I drove up there and knocked on his door. When he answered, he recognized me immediately.” You laugh at the memory of the Hero’s maskless face, paling the moment he saw you. You saw a brief flash of panic in his eyes before you properly introduced yourself and explained why you were there. After you finished, he warily studied your face for a moment, searching your eyes for any hint of deception before he let you come in.

    “It turns out Mr. Carter and I have quite a bit in common. After talking for a while, we were on the same page. He was on his last straw and out of ideas for how to deal with you. He didn’t want it to come to this but you had made him desperate.” And who could blame him? When talking with the hero, you saw the look in his eyes. They had seen so much tragedy and grief over the years, as much as you had. He couldn’t help but feel guilty for his part in it all, even though he had gone out of his way to try and prevent it. It turns out he had been doing the same thing as you all along in the aftermath of your boss’s tyrannical schemes. The only reason that you never noticed before was because you usually contacted the families first. Whenever that happened, the Hero would quietly make a generous donation to whatever charity the victim had supported. He never sought you out because he figured you were doing good in your own way and there was always the possibility of it being a trap.

    “I told him about your next plans for him and showed him the remote. He agreed to make another identical one for me and I slipped him the key when you had me chain him up. I told him that in exchange for his help, when I take over the company, we will be leaving the evil business. He was so relieved to hear that. I think he’s happy that he’ll finally be able to focus more on his business and on being a good boss to his people. I think he’ll be really happy tomorrow when he gets the papers for the merger proposal I sent him.” You turn and look at your boss one last time from the doorway as you prepare to leave.

    “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Look, if we work together–” Your boss started, looking at you pleadingly before you cut him off.

    “It’s too late for that, but don’t worry boss. I’ll take care of the company like it was my own.” You press the button without warning. The Dark Lord’s face fills with pure terror before vanishing out of sight, plummeting down into the tank of acid below. It happened so fast he didn’t even have time to scream. You look at the edge of the platform he disappeared behind. “It always has been.”

[akaluan]

bibliomatsuri replied to your post “kuroiwriting replied to your post: When All Is...”

but worldbuilding? shiny??? (unless u don't want to talk about it / unless spoilers, in which case ignore this)

Prequel | Prequel | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

*snerk* nothing is particularly spoilery, I don’t think, it’s mostly just fragments that aren’t really connected to much. So... let’s see here...

((This went a lot longer than I expected, lolol))

.

Being an Arrancar so suddenly, Ichigo can’t use Final Getsuga.

He still has Shiro and Zangetsu, though. Shiro is more prominent than before, of course, and Zangetsu is weakened due to being a Quincy manifestation in an Arrancar.

In this case, Ichigo goes for Resurrección, and then tries to figure out Segundo Etapa. He reaches the first, and gets an unstable version of the second during the dangai training.

Not that he’s certain that either is enough to beat Aizen. He’s actually pretty sure it isn’t. But what else can he do?

(He’s done what he can. Threw himself into learning everything Shiro would teach him. Everything Zangetsu reluctantly agreed to teach him. He’s done what he can and now he has to try.)

(Frankly, Isshin is a bit terrified of this new version of his son. He can see traces of the Hollow that nearly cost Masaki her soul in the Hollow traits his son is displaying. He wonders how much of that Hollow Ichigo has inherited.)

The fight with Aizen goes... not poorly, precisely, but not entirely well.

Ichigo’s still learning how to be an Arrancar. His instincts are all twisted up, and the tail he gains in Resurrección (and which lengthens in Segundo Etapa) is... frustrating.

Still, he’s got a pretty wicked high speed regeneration going on -- not nearly as good as Ulquiorra’s, but still visibly powerful -- and that combined with everything else means he can just... keep going.

(Like his bankai, Ichigo’s strengths are still focused on speed and stamina. He’s strong, of course, almost overwhelmingly so, but his speed still trumps everything else.)

Aizen isn’t actually prepared for the level of speed that Ichigo gains in Segundo Etapa. This is Aizen’s downfall.

(Frankly, Ichigo isn’t entirely prepared for his own speed either. He’s just very adaptable.)

Ichigo manages to win, and Aizen is sealed, and everyone goes home... sort of happy.

(Now comes the hard part. Adapting to life as an Arrancar in the living world.)

(Urahara has his hands full trying to figure out how to deal with this.)

No one initially realizes that Ichigo has poison. It’s not like he uses his claws during the rest of the invasion of Hueco Mundo or when he attacks Aizen.

Because no one realizes this, Ichigo doesn’t know he needs to be careful. He scratches Uryuu on accident, and no one thinks anything of it.

(Urahara wasn’t around to think anything of it, when it happened.)

Uryuu grimaces at the way the shallow marks feel like they’re freezing, but waves Orihime off -- the wounds are barely bleeding, she doesn’t need to waste her energy on healing him.

It’s only luck that has Uryuu around the others when the poison starts to overwhelm him. Orihime hastily summons her fairies and struggles to reject Uryuu becoming a Hollow.

(Urahara is here this time. He gets to watch as yet another Quincy struggles against the fate of becoming unmade. Except this time he knows the Quincy. This time it’s not just academic.)

Ichigo is horrified by this. By the knowledge that he caused this. He decides to leave ‘for everyone’s good’.

Uryuu is furious about this decision when he finally recovers and wakes up. He marches up to Urahara and demands the man help him drag Ichigo back to the Living World.

Urahara points out that so long as Uryuu and the others remain vulnerable, Ichigo’s never going to willingly return.

Uryuu gives Urahara a look and asks if the man’s reputation as an inventor and mad scientist is deserved or not.

(Urahara hadn’t expected Uryuu to be the one who approached him about this. He had spent time trying to create some sort of defense after he recovered traces of the poison from Masaki. He just... doesn’t entirely know if it will work.)

But when the others come to him, backing Uryuu up, Urahara sighs and goes forward with it.

(Besides, with Inoue around, things aren’t quite so dangerous.)

Urahara coaxes Ichigo back to the Living World, with a promise of figuring out how to make his friends immune, but that he needs Ichigo there to help him with that.

Everything actually turns out pretty well? At the very least, Sado and Inoue have no adverse effects from what Urahara has created, and introducing some of Ichigo’s poison to Sado afterward results in... nothing. Same with Inoue.

It’s Uryuu that has problems. He reacts poorly to the initial solution, requiring Inoue to heal him. And the next. And the next.

Uryuu is a Quincy, and every solution Urahara can produce is... harsh, relying on Hollow reiatsu or Hollow nature or some other Hollow-natured thing that makes Uryuu’s Quincy nature rebel.

The one solution that doesn’t is equally uncomfortable, and relies on Uryuu remaining close to hand: implanting an artificial filter in Uryuu’s soul that can handle both the Hollow reiatsu and the poison.

Except it doesn’t change the fact that Uryuu gets sick, and leaves him aching constantly. And Urahara needs to keep an eye on it, to make sure the filter remains operating correctly.

Eventually Urahara runs out of ideas except one. which he doesn’t want to use. But Uryuu is still insistent and Ichigo reluctantly agrees when Urahara proposes it to him.

(Urahara is going well beyond his own comfort, Living World science and medical knowledge mixed with Shinigami healing.)

(He’s never been a medic of either sort. This is a foolish endeavor, and yet...)

Inoue stays nearby during the entire event. Just in case.

Urahara takes a piece of Ichigo’s Quincy nature and implants it in Uryuu.

(He’s hoping that Uryuu’s soul doesn’t reject it. Hoping that Uryuu’s soul will ‘learn’ from Ichigo’s nature, and gain the resistance to Hollow nature that Ichigo grew up with because of his mixed heritage.)

Inoue is necessary.

Uryuu’s soul doesn’t take kindly to the intrusion. He’s been through too much, put himself through too many efforts in too short of an order, even with Inoue there to reject the damage.

Inoue... doesn’t want to see this continuing to happen. She doesn’t want Ichigo fleeing again, and she hates seeing Uryuu constantly in pain, constantly on the edge of serious illness or death--

Instead of rejecting what’s been done to him. She rejects what’s happening.

She rejects the way Uryuu’s soul reacts, keeping him under her shield while the piece of Ichigo’s soul integrates into Uryuu’s. While Uryuu’s nature slowly twists and takes on the darker edge that Ichigo has.

It takes days, and Ichigo retreats in shame. He’s done this to Uryuu. Done this to all of his friends and family. The only reason he doesn’t flee back to Hueco mundo is because he feels like he can’t while Uryuu is still suffering.

(Inoue drives herself to a thread, trying to keep Uryuu alive through the entire process. Urahara does what he can, but there’s very little he can do.)

(Urahara hates feeling so helpless.)

In the end, Uryuu survives. Tired and worn thin and barely able to stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time, but he survives. He’s out sick for over a month, trying to regain his strength and accustom himself to how his very nature has changed.

(His control is shot and his powers are unreliable. He’s given up his claim on being a true Quincy in favor of staying at Ichigo’s side without danger.)

(He’s not only gained a resistance to Hollow reiatsu, he’s gained Ichigo’s immunity to his own poison.)

(Despite everything, he can’t really say he regrets it.)

Of course, it takes months to convince Ichigo of that. Uryuu gets used to stalking into Hueco Mundo and keeping Ichigo company there until his friend finally agrees to come back home.

Uryuu isn’t good with words and he knows this. But actions? He can do that. He sticks by Ichigo no matter what, refusing to be chased off.

(He gets pretty good at fighting alongside his friend, beating off the Hollows in Hueco Mundo who think Ichigo and Uryuu would make a good meal.)

(He gets inured to the way his body is capable of surviving on free reishi for a time, instead of food.)

(He’s picked up a bit more from Ichigo’s nature than just poison immunity and resistance to Hollow reiatsu.)

By the time Ryuuken actually realizes what’s going on, everything is over and he’s faced with his son being... not entirely his son anymore.

Uryuu’s smiles are sharper and his nature is darker. He’s a Hollow-tainted Quincy, a thing that shouldn’t even be possible.

(Isshin really isn’t in any better position than Ryuuken. He and Karin and Yuzu got the same solution to Ichigo’s poison that Chad and Orihime got, though Ichigo usually only remains around them in the gigai that Urahara built for him.)

(Ichigo can’t return to his body anymore. The Arrancar change means his body can no longer support his soul.)

Uryuu’s body, too, slowly suffers from the constant change between kishi and reishi, on top of the way his soul has been altered. His Living body is still a bit too Quincy in nature, and his soul now permanently contains Hollow reiatsu.

Inoue does what she can, but the more she rejects the damage the more difficult it becomes to do so.

In the end, about the only thing they can do is to accept that Uryuu’s Living body can no longer support his soul either. Urahara reluctantly goes through with it -- Uryuu’s chain is already significantly corroded, and it doesn’t take much to see Uryuu Actually Dead.

(Again Ichigo feels heavy guilt. This is his fault.)

(This time, though, he stays at Uryuu’s side.)

Uryuu forces himself to struggle through, regaining his strength and control for a second (third) time.

(Ichigo doesn’t understand the lengths Uryuu is forcing himself through, just to stay at Ichigo’s side. He doesn’t understand, but he refuses to  push Uryuu away at this point.)

By the time the Wandenreich start poking around, Uryuu and Ichigo and pretty damn co-dependent.

Uryuu still goes with them, still infiltrates the enemy with the hope of exposing their weaknesses, but this time Ichigo is aware of what’s going on.

Uryuu tries to keep a lid on his Hollow nature. Tries to keep the other Quincy from realizing he’s anything more than a Gemischt.

Yhwach knows. He offers Uryuu a Schrift, with the promise that Yhwach’s gift will help Uryuu overcome the ‘unfortunate taint he has been cursed with’.

(Uryuu is infuriated. His nature is not a curse. He walked willingly into these changes, and given the chance he would do it all again.)

(Yet what can he do but accept Yhwach’s “Gift”? To refuse is to reveal himself for the traitor he is.)

Yhwach reveals Uryuu’s secret before the entire Wandenreich, while declaring Uryuu his successor. No matter how Yhwach spins it -- that Uryuu is the next evolution for Quincy, that his survival as both a child surviving Aushwalin and a teen surviving Hollow infection means that he will lead the Quincy to glory -- Uryuu is still an outsider, still tainted and impure.

The Wandenreich hate him, and Yhwach’s words do nothing to assuage that hate.

(Uryuu can’t wait to bring their empire toppling down around their ears.)

[taaroko]

Post-IW MCU Rewatch: Avengers: Age of Ultron

Time for the Long Weekend of Ultron. If you’re looking for a negative review, this will not be that. Maybe I am easily satisfied, but I dislike zero of the MCU movies. As long as characters I love are onscreen and being awesome and especially when they’re interacting with other characters I love, I’m going to end up with overall positive experience. That being said, this movie is my least favorite in which Thor appears, and it’s probably close to the bottom of my ranking.

I saw a post yesterday pointing out that this is the only movie in which Thor uses lethal force against humans. In the opening sequence when they’re taking down the latest in a long series of Hydra bases, he’s wasting a bunch of dudes without hesitating. Like the person who made that post, I’m pretty sure Thor is not cool with your fascist BS, especially if he knows that they love using Norse symbolism.

Is this the only time Steve uses his motorcycle as a projectile? Because I kind of think it’s not, but I can’t remember for sure. 

“Can we hold them?” “They’re the Avengers!”

I love Thor and Cap’s combo moves so much.

“Good talk!” “No it wasn’t.”

“Please be a secret door please be a secret door please be a secret door—yay!”

The lullaby is always going to be hilarious now.

Well that was an extremely effective way of activating Tony’s guilt complex.

What’s Wanda’s deal? She saw what Tony saw, right? She knows Tony’s greatest fear is failing to stop an alien invasion and Earth’s destruction—of surviving all of that while his friends don’t (ooooouch). Is she already doubting the plan, or what?

“Tales of sprained deltoids and...gout.” Thor is so very wonderfully bad at backtracking from a foot-in-mouth moment.

Oh wow, Tony asked Thor for permission to keep the Scepter long enough to check it out before he’d take it back to Asgard.

“Will...Thor be there?” SAME, GIRL.

“We don’t have time for a City Hall debate.” This is the last time Tony will be so averse to oversight.

Okay so I’m confused. Did Tony recycle part of an interface Hydra was building? Because that would kind of explain how it ended up thinking humanity was too defective to be allowed to live?

Ultron killing JARVIS hurts so much worse than I ever would’ve expected it to hurt to watch an electronic butler get killed.

Thor is telling a bunch of old veterans war stories! That’s so great!

“This was aged for a thousand years in the barrels built from the wreck of Brunnhilde’s fleet. It is not meant for mortal men.” Wait a second. Brunnhilde? As in, Valkyrie from Ragnarok? Seriously? She gets a name in this movie but not the one she’s actually in? But it’s pretty cool they made kegs out of her ships. I’m assuming this wreck happened before the disastrous attack on Hela, which means Brunnhilde could probably decide how to repurpose all the wood. Barrels of mead definitely sounds like something she’d sign off on.

Also does this mead get Steve drunk? I feel like it should at least be able to do that. And it’s great that Thor hands some to him in the same breath that he says it’s not for mortals. He thinks very highly of Steve.

I wonder how often Steve hangs around with old veterans.

I’m completely fine with Bruce/Natasha. ...But my ship is Bucky/Nat.

Hehe, it’s Steve’s turn to be Natasha’s wingman.

The hammer scene is fantastic.

I saw a review thing where someone talked about how there’s a stupid gag where Bruce’s face lands on Nat’s boobs, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember what that was. Well I just found it, and...that is not how you play something like that for cheap laughs. They don’t linger on it, they don’t make risqué comments. Nat is so not bothered by it that she doesn’t even acknowledge his apology, and Bruce doesn’t even seem that embarrassed. Nat is entirely focused on making sure what’s happening around them isn’t enough to make him hulk out.

Okay yeah, Ultron went straight back to the Hydra facility after they killed all his Iron Legion bodies, which definitely makes me think they used some of Hydra’s interface to make him. And I think Tony was so willing to do it because of how Wanda messed with his brain, cranking up the paranoia about alien threats.

Thor is not happy that Tony spent the time he graciously allowed him before taking the scepter back to Asgard messing around with it like this.

Is it weird for Andy Serkis to play human characters after doing so many mo-cap roles?

“Keep your friends rich and your enemies rich and wait to find out which is which.”

Ultron has so far talked about evolution, quoted scripture, and quoted famous poetry. He’s gotten remarkably cultured already, and he’s let it make him super pretentious.

I’m pretty sure they realized going in that they were never going to top Days of Future Past’s version of Quicksilver, so they didn’t really try and then also killed him off so they wouldn’t have to. But where that Quicksilver is ridiculously fun, this one has more emotional weight. And an arc.

Okay. So I think Wanda tapped into Tony’s fears (born from his glimpse through the portal) and Thor’s slight aptitude for foresight (as indicated in his dreams of Asgard burning in Ragnarok). Steve has neither of those things, and she made him see a messed up version of the past he wishes he could go back to. She made Nat see the past she regrets, and she just made Bruce hulk out. I don’t think Wanda herself has any ability to see the future.

Oh hey, Wolfram & Hart are in Thor’s dream.

Also foreshadowing to his level up in lightning powers. Hmmm. I wonder if Heimdall’s warning is that Ragnarok will pave the way for Thanos.

The entire Veronica sequence is awesome. But the best part is Tony’s jackhammer punches/Chinese finger trap. Also Tony’s face after Hulk spits out a tooth.

The wind down of the fight is the origin of “Earth hate Hulk.” Aww.

I do not understand the hate Clint’s family gets. I could not have been happier to discover that the reason he doesn’t have a girlfriend is that he has a wife and kids. Statistically, it’s nice that at least one Avenger has a family. It’s okay for there to be a stay-at-home mom somewhere in the MCU. And it’s wonderful that Natasha has kind of been adopted by the Barton family.

Thor and Steve’s faces during the whole bit where Thor steps on a toy house are hilarious. Awwwwwwwww Thor left because he’s worried he’s a danger to them, because of his vision! That’s so sad!

Ooh, was that the first time Clint’s been called Hawkeye in the movies?

I don’t understand the vitriol against Natasha’s attitude about being sterilized as a young teenager. That moment was the rite of passage that sealed her role as a KGB assassin. To her, it is symbolic of everything she did for them and gave up for them. And it’s their philosophy that motherhood could compromise an agent, not the movie’s. This doesn’t mean she wishes she could be Laura Barton. She plays all these different roles and weaves all these different lies because it makes it easier to hide from her past, and Wanda just brought that all back to the surface. She’s allowed to be upset that she let a hostile government agency mutilate her and limit her options for the future. It’s tragic, not problematic, that she, as the sum of her entire past, considers herself monstrous. This is just more “I’ve got red in my ledger.” And she’s a little bit playing this up because she wants Bruce to stop fighting what they could have together. She doesn’t want him thinking something like that she deserves more than someone like him.

You don’t have a dark side, Steve. Don’t be silly. But here are sown the seeds of Civil War. Winter Soldier has made Steve very opposed to using force as a preventative measure, and it has also made him very mistrustful of putting someone else in charge, but now Tony’s giving him reasons not to trust him either. For Steve, there will never be a time to retire. This is why I’m convinced he’ll die in Avengers 4, and why I desperately hope Tony will be allowed to retire.

“I need your help. It’s dangerous.” In the deleted scenes, yeah.

“Guy’s multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit.” *snort*

Clint’s darts game is great.

“Hoo, I’m decrypting nuclear codes and you don’t want me to.”

What is this power Ultron has to make big chunks of stuff move? Is it magnetic? Because that wouldn’t explain him moving chunks of road.

Bruce and Tony interacting is so great.

AHAHA! There’s a reason Ultron didn’t do something obvious like launch all the nukes! JARVIS was stopping him! JARVIS’s surviving protocols were making sure he didn’t do everything you’d expect an AI with internet access to be able to do. Okay. Biggest plot hole isn’t actually a plot hole. Boom. However I do think that Ultron’s plan to destroy the Earth meteor style was part of his melodramatic god complex personality.

Ultron 3.0 looks awful. Should’ve streamlined a bit. He looks like he’s on steroids.

I very much do not like that Vision can fly without visible means of propulsion. It looks doofy. And Vision is a doofy name. However, points for taking Thor as inspiration when it comes to style.

Not a fan of Clint’s weird tunic/coat thing. Would’ve worked better if there was a belt.

Wow I never realized how often “monster” gets tossed around in this movie. Nat, Bruce, Vision, the Avengers collectively. Even Cap makes a joke, “What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on him?” This movie is pretty much asking if they have any right to do what they do. If they’re a menace or a benefit. In the end, the answer is pretty unclear. They did kinda make Ultron. They save the world from him and come out with Vision and Wanda on the team, so it’s probably a net gain, but the Sokovia Accords are an extremely understandable consequence. Wanda has that dilemma herself. She thought she had to destroy the Avengers to save the world, and she nearly destroyed the world by helping Ultron, but then she helped save it by defeating him. At great personal cost.

Yay another Thor+Cap combo move!

Pietro is so petty and obnoxious to Hawkeye, and it’s great.

Aww it’s the nerdy guy from Winter Soldier! And thankfully he survives this movie.

“I am Thor, son of Odin, and as long as there is life in my breast...I am running out of things to say. Are you ready?” His grin is my favorite.

The Maximoffs are the most functional, affectionate siblings in the MCU. :/

The number of Ultron robots somewhat strains credulity. Also, why didn’t he just send one to go chill across the world as a failsafe? Ultron is kind of stupid.

Rhodey’s reaction to Vision is priceless.

Aaand there Hulk goes. Apparently through a portal to trash planet, eventually.

If the meta-narrative of the first Avengers was “Can this exist?”, then the meta-narrative of Ultron was “...But should it?” The answer to the first question is “Absolutely it can.” The answer to the second is “Only if it doesn’t get arrogant or reckless.” I think Infinity War’s question is “Can it keep getting bigger like this and still survive?” and Avengers 4 will determine the answer. My guess is that it’ll be “Not without sacrifice.”

Anyway, that “are we monsters” thing is pretty much the individual arc of most of the main characters—except Steve. He makes a reference to it, but he is constantly the voice of caution and reason and he’s the one who pushes for zero civilian casualties in the city. This is the beginning of “We don’t trade lives.” It’s okay to sacrifice yourself, but not to play a numbers game with other people’s lives. Steve is and always has been rock solid. He’s a good man. He trusts his instincts, and they are pretty much always right. But that means he can never stop. He never gets to rest.

Clint is the other character who doesn’t have an “am I a monster” arc. His arc is just the kinda adoptive dad thing he has with the Maximoffs, and us finding out so much more about his life. He’s trying to retire, like Tony, but he’s willing to die for this if he has to. (I hope he doesn’t. But if most or all of his family got Snaptured, then it’d kinda be okay, though devastating, for him to sacrifice himself so they could come back.)

Natasha, Bruce, Tony, and Thor all have the monster arc, and I think Vision is supposed to be the answer at least for Tony and Thor. They created something good. Natasha didn’t get the guy, though, because she betrayed him to get Hulk back for the battle. And Bruce lost big time.

Maybe the reason Ultron is so low on my ranking of MCU movies is that it’s kinda muddled. There are great character moments and the main theme is an important one for the MCU, but in the end we have a snarky, grandiose villain with an army of disposable soldiers (again, only the villain is waaaay less interesting than Loki), coupled with the same plot as “I Robot, You Jane,” one of the worst Buffy episodes of the entire series. (Demon ends up in the internet because of the negligent actions of the good guys, tries to get impressionable young people to work for it, has a robot body built for itself, then gets locked inside that body and out of the internet, then destroyed.) I think it got spread a bit thin trying to set things up for Phase 3, too. Setting up Wakanda, Ragnarok, Civil War, and even Infinity War. Maybe if it didn’t need to do all that, it could’ve been more focused.

[centaurrential]

Play that funky music...

About a week ago I was walking from home to the train station, with the frost forcing me to tactically place my feet as I walked so as not to slip and fall. Most of the way I was able to walk on the grass peeking out from under the gates of residential properties. Even with the frost, the texture of grass is much friendlier than the slickness of pavement.

I was nearly at the steps up to the station when I thought, “Ha! Home free!” Of course, the second I stopped paying attention to my feet, I fell. My natural inclination was to curse the municipality for failing to salt the sidewalk, but, me being me, my thoughts led to, “but what about eutrophication? What about over-salinization of waterways? Soil??? What. are. the. consequences?!” And then all those split-second thoughts collapsed into, “...what if sidewalks were designed with more texture in mind?”

You encounter those situations often in life. One problem is solved, but solutions beget more problems, and so on, until you’re spiralling into a rather ridiculous situation where your problems become inflated and you’re trying to get a grip on things when the whole matter could have been avoided in the first place.

With regard to writing and argument, many university professors prefer shorter works and will actually penalize you if you write beyond the set limit. But those are exercises in logic and persuasiveness - I’m attempting something a bit different.  The second-to-last thing I wrote was nearly ten pages long according to my word processor. I could have written a lot more, but I was afraid of overwhelming people. However, it seems that my writing is easy enough to follow and it wouldn’t be a terrible thing if I went on longer, so I’ll do that this time. I’m happy to do that, ‘cause there are a lot of tiny pieces that make the puzzle.

And again, I want to add a few notes regarding my one of my previous posts (the one about mental health was something like a short performance during an intermission). Looking back, I think these addenda actually tie separate posts together nicely. (Initially I had the word ‘little’ in front of ‘addenda’ but once I reviewed what I actually wrote, I don’t think ‘little’ is the right descriptor...)

The observation that ‘responsibility to others is necessary’ is not my own. Dr. Jordan Peterson (the infamous U of T psychology professor) has championed that as medicine for the modern existential crises many people find themselves falling into. He also tends to critique ideological thinking. I purposely didn’t mention his name, not to take credit for his ideas, but because I wanted to protect myself, and to protect the ideas. I wanted them to stand alone per se, so that everyone could reflect on where taking on more responsibility to others might aid them more than they thought. Peterson has influenced my thinking enormously and I didn’t want the leftist radicals to rip my head off because some of his opinions are highly controversial (and because I am, in a way, an ally to them, and I really do value some of the things those people have to say). If you’re interested, look him up, but if you do, please look carefully. I’ll comment on the theme characterizing his relationship to social justice later in this post.

I generally see Dr. Peterson’s views as rather optimistic, but with respect to certain issues I feel this optimism is misplaced. Two reasons why:

a. He attempts to justify economic inequality generated by capitalism via the ‘paredo distribution’ (Google it). The graph is apparently a pattern that economists have discovered, which reflects the natural flow of more money into the hands of people who already have it. And this is generally understood: the more capital you have, the easier it is to take risks and to invest and thus generate more capital. And if that behaves as some kind of ‘economic law’ or inescapable trend, then why challenge it? But of all the lectures and interviews I’ve watched on YouTube, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him concede that this distribution pattern might be exaggerated because of dishonesty and historical oppression, which altered the playing field tremendously, so much so that levelling it seems nearly impossible - and that we are still paying for it today all whilst battling the new emerging monster that is post-modern capitalism (which is ironically fuelled by our appetite for social media).

The most obvious global example is the “slave trade”. Not only was most of the continent of Africa torn into pieces, its own people were taken from their homes and sent across an entire fucking ocean, in an attempt to distribute its riches, which were never for the taking in the first place. So while the description of ‘whiteness’ as privilege is inaccurate as it is too broad and too narrow at the same time, the feeling of guilt some people feel because they were simply born into a culture that has its roots in colonization is a very real problem. And any Canadian who’s encountered the news at some point in the last few years knows that this problem is alive and well, still kicking at the backdoor of Indigenous communities.

The specifics of dishonest profit-making: inexcusable wages, horrendous working conditions (even in North America), the ruin of families because workers are sucked away to do hard labour instead, the evaporation of opportunity for self-determination, the inability to basically breathe, and, the clincher: the manufactured DEPENDENCY on all of this. And that’s only in the spiritual realm - never mind the disastrous ecological situation.

People generally think of vegetation as a ‘renewable resource’. False. I mean technically, yes, you can plant more trees and you can grow more vegetation, but that’s only the case if your soil is of sufficient quality, and even then certain soils only permit certain kinds of vegetation to grow. Like a grassland versus a subalpine forest. And yes, soil and vegetation do have a give-and-take relationship, but the complexity of both the soil and of the ecosystem at large takes a VERY long time to develop, so long that it’s hard to even conceive of the time span if we were to overlay it with our personal lives.

When I first read (in an introductory forestry textbook) that soil, not the crop, is the true resource, it blew my mind. That’s because time constraints dictate our lives and they dictate what constitutes “renewable resources” and “non-renewable resources”. The problem wouldn’t be so bad if we could find a way to revive soil and bring it back to its authenticity (ie. its historical character, just before the pillage) once we’re done harvesting whatever crop we have. And farmers do do that to a certain extent; they rotate crops: some crops suck the nitrogen out of the soil, and some restore it.  But you look at something like the Alberta tar sands, and never mind the fact that it’s an oil producer, but also that is ground we are never getting back, because that ground evolved in such a way that only the passage of time can allow. Erosion can take two forms: physical (many soils are stratified and if you dig a hole deep enough you can actually see the layers because they’re often coloured differently), and chemical depletion.  And if you segregate excess biological matter so much that it cannot return to the soil, those locked-in nutrients aren’t going to just magically appear out of nowhere. That would violate our law of the conservation of mass.

And we’re not even talking about the little society that is the mature/old-growth forest. You can see a marked difference between tree plantations and natural forests. Part of the discipline of forestry is to observe the stages that occur in forest development, and it isn’t just “let’s go plant some trees in a barren landscape”. When you learn about the different qualities in a forest plot like its geologic traits and the way water moves through it, you have to use your powers of deduction to write some kind of backstory that explains the ageing of that young forest into old growth. The point is, the explanation is necessarily holistic.

Old forests are messier, and that’s because they’re like human societies in that they become much more complex over time. However, they don’t resist change-making elements. They change in accordance with the ebb and flow of Earth’s cyclical processes. By contrast, human-made structures require humans to tend to them, to restore the order that entropy has taken, to ‘heal’ natural erosion. Scientists concerned with the relationship between humans and the natural environment often encourage people to go into nature because it’s healthy. I don’t think that has as much to do with extra oxygen intake as it does with vibing the rhythms of nature.

Ok, I went on a bit of a tangent there but not for no reason.

I think Dr. Peterson really does want to see the glass as half-full rather than half empty but he also tries to paint capitalism in a more positive light by saying that people are less poor now than they were half a century ago. That may be the case, but then I wonder what got them poor in the first place? It was the idea that ‘this is mine just because [I got lucky and] I have the tools (money) to make it mine’, and the mindset that suppressed people don’t have inherent value and that another’s quality of life doesn’t depend on more than just money. And if you’ve got enough money and the investment offer you propose to a government is appealing enough, international borders, and the management of resources that’s supposed to fall within those borders, don’t matter either! It’s like breaking someone’s flower vase on purpose, gluing the bits and pieces back together, and then saying, “Look what I did for you! You owe me a thanks.” But of course, the people who did the vase-breaking and the people trying to repair the vase aren’t always the same people.

The other situation where I don’t think Peterson accounts for the entire truth:

b. Women. It sounds like most feminists hate him. I don’t think he hates women; I think he’s too preoccupied with figuring out the truth about things to resort to something like that. There are moments when he’s on the public stage where he’s actually moved to tears because of how passionately he feels about human suffering, and because of the gratitude people have toward him for his ability to motivate his listeners in fixing themselves. And I think the majority of his audience consists of young men, which some people look at and think “RED FLAG”. But the detractors don’t pay attention to the real reasons his ideas appeal to men because they think all men are one-dimensional creatures.

Anyway, when he thinks of feminism he thinks economically, and I guess that makes sense because the more money you have, the more freely you can act.  And in that respect, for him, sexism doesn’t exist and the disparities we see between men and women in the workforce are because of inherent differences in male and female personalities - not that one is better than the other, but because they’re just different. But when I see people complaining that about someone being ‘relegated’ to a traditional female role (or they’ve been brainwashed into thinking those are the only suitable roles), it makes me wonder why those roles aren’t elevated to an importance equal to that of traditionally male roles. And the way I interpret the economics of feminism -- liberal feminism -- is that the traditional realm of the woman is left in the dust, and what we should all aspire to are masculine ideals, which, to me, isn’t really a good type of feminism at all!

But what’s ignored is this sort of...carnal...view of women that misogynists have, that has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with female sex organs, the female form, and the belief that because of all the things that make women women, they are purely inferior to everything considered “traditionally masculine”. You can be a financially successful woman and still experience an ancient sexism, latent or otherwise, which really is tied to your sexuality and to your ability to produce babies and further, the expectation that you will be the one to nurture them. And the ancient and the present clash violently sometimes. And I don’t have a problem with a lack of mercy toward true misogynists, but I do feel sorry for them because, can you imagine how they feel once they realize a woman is actually smarter and more capable than them?

So here I want to address the relationship between the individual and the communities the individual is a part of. I talk about individuals a lot and I think I have a very good reason for doing so. First of all, it’s cultural. I’m speaking from the point of view of a society in which the development of the individual is encouraged, and is a priority. We probably wouldn’t be able to relate to people from less prominent cultures who really do think first and foremost in group terms. And psychologically, there are few instances where a person, whose sense of individuality is fully formed, would be capable of transforming into something else (not to say that’s impossible though).

You may remember the link I provided in my last post, and if you read the article you’ll know that the degree to which a person sees themselves as an individual varies across cultures (and you’ll know how breath-taking and unexpected the connection between schizophrenia and individualism is). The author mentions a study involving Chinese citizens and Danish citizens, where researchers discovered that variations in notions of individuality are reflected neurologically. I can’t help but wonder if the diminished sense of autonomy observed in the Chinese participants had something to do with China becoming a giant of communism. This may be a case of the-chicken-or-the-egg, but the fact that the government under Mao committed huge human rights atrocities, which no average citizen would willingly invite into their homes, leads me to believe that the communist mindset would, if anything, be less attractive in the aftermath than when it was a novel idea. I obviously don’t know the whole history, so this is just conjecture. But then, compare that situation to the one in the United States where even the word “socialism” (communism-lite to some) sends people into a frenzy. And, arguably, contained in the American mentality is a very deep idea of independence from others. Canadian citizens are known (and I think beloved!) internationally for being more peaceful and more moderate than our southern neighbours. The word ‘socialism’ doesn’t hit a nerve with us like it does Americans, and I was always so puzzled why the S word was such a dirty word to them. Now it makes a little more sense... it’s psychological.

There is no sense in arguing what type of mindset is better or worse, ‘cause I think we’re sort of stuck with what we have. And what I say here isn’t meant to be universal, for obvious reasons. Anyway, the issue isn’t so much Individualism trumping the need for the betterment of the community, or sacrificing the realization of individual desires for community order, but that overall, the individual is inhabited by emotion, or otherwise that which compels you. And the feeling a person has is what causes them to act, and that is the first level of interpersonal change-making. And if an individual deviates from accepted moral behaviours, the onus is on them to pay the price. Pretty much everything else is external. The way you transform your individual feelings into something that the community might benefit from - and you SHOULD, because we place a hell of a lot of trust in strangers as we go about our daily activities - is to think that maybe, if you’re feeling something, someone else has felt the same. And the way you figure that out for certain is by trusting that a person will tell you, given that they’re allowed the opportunity to do so. I’m pretty sure Wittgenstein talked about this in his Philosophical Investigations.

It’s like when kids fall and scrape their knees or something. You don’t just assume that they’re not okay because they have an injury, you wait for them to tell you if they’re in trouble. If they pick themselves up and move on with the activity, you can trust that they are fine. One of the many things that are awesome about kids is that they don’t mess around; they’re not political and they haven’t yet assumed all those pretences that we adults have.

For a moment I want to explore what knowledge can do to morality. In this context I mean morality in the human realm, which I believe is more complicated than it used to be. Take war and refugees, for example. Even before social media we relied on journalists to provide us with accurate information about acute situations, like war. But we’ve become exposed to systemic, chronic injustices taking place in countries we think are technically functioning alright just because bombs aren’t going off and they’re not waking up everyday to the sound of machine-gun fire. We generally have knowledge that there are people somewhat unlike ourselves, in that they suffer because the quality of their lives is much worse than ours. We wouldn’t know about these things if not for global travel, and if not for the Internet.

So we feel something tugging at our heartstrings - can we do something about it? A relatively painless solution is to donate money. That works, but only when you have human agency thrown into the mix - money is useless without people. And NGOs, like any other organization, have their maximum operational capacities, and humans have maximum capacities too. So the question is, when do you give up your life for the sake of someone else’s, halfway across the globe? And does the information we have obligate us to do these things just as knowing our next-door-neighbour would (in theory) obligate us to help them when needed? And from that follows another question: how big should our jurisdictions--the administrators of public works and services--get before our neighbours become faceless?

So some prominent public figures like to warn people that “democracy is in trouble.” Um, no shit Sherlock! From the American point of view, I think what they’re referring to--other than corruption--is increased ideological polarization, with fewer people meeting on middle ground. And that’s to be expected: not only is a collection of individuals more powerful the bigger it gets, resulting in greater capacity to attract more like-minded people, but the Internet has made it very easy for such groups to be more visible, and then more accessible. Of course Americans are typically seen as more “extreme” than Canadians, and that view (fact?) contributed to the theory that the financial crisis of 2007/8 was harsher on the Americans than it was on Canada: the “all-in” was reflected in the propensity for US bankers to take greater risks in sculpting their neat little “financial packages”, whereas that was less so the case in Canada. (This is not my own theory, just something I learned in a random political science class.) Anyway, so the legitimized and dare I say, “civilized” channels of social change (ie. voting, writing to your local elected official) are increasingly being circumvented.

But if we haven’t already lost democracy, we are well on the way. People who instruct that YoU sHoUlD vOtE employ a paper thin definition of democracy that assumes the democracy of the ancients is the same as democracy in 2020, which it absolutely is not! First of all, if you consider the rural voter compared to one employed on Wall Street, the vote representing Wall Street reaches further than the rural one, and is more likely to be heard than the one representing rural lifestyles. So the illusion that “every individual gets one vote” may be a de jure truth, but is a de facto lie.

It matters where people collect themselves, and it matters what way entire industries vote, and it matters which industries are considered more important than others. After all, “the economy” is number one in political platforms, and if it’s not number one to individual voters, that’s because they operate on the presumption that they are sufficiently insulated from drastic changes in that realm, allowing them to focus on social issues instead.

And even if we’re not voting officially in elections, we can see how skewed “democracy” is, and how not all votes are equal, if we pay close attention to the issues that monopolize the media. While the purpose of media is provide us with information, it does also act like some kind of statistical sieve. I suppose the best (and easiest) way to maintain skepticism is to remind oneself that what you see on the daily news is only a tiny portion of what is happening in the world, and that is just its nature.

I had lunch with a friend on Boxing Day and she provided me with some statistics that basically compared the number of lives lost in our province due to drug overdoses, compared to the number of lives lost because of COVID infection, over the same time period. Deaths from ODs far outnumber deaths from COVID, but it’s obvious which issue has been dominating our psyches for months now. And why is that? It’s because the people who are likely to die from drug overdoses are “certain kinds of people”; drug use is their “identity”, and that through their “habits” they are segregated from the rest of the population. We believe, however, that COVID isn’t selective in the same way that overdoses are, and so more people feel the need to act, if only on a theoretical basis. But why would this discrepancy exist if the only thing we cared about was preserving the life of a person, no matter who it was?  This is the rural road/Wall Street issue in another form.

Furthermore, the distance between voters and elected representatives has ballooned, though I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Never mind the obvious issue we have in Canada where we don’t vote directly for our Prime Minister--unlike the presidential elections in the US--we run into many obstacles whenever we try to get the government to bloody well listen to us. Anyone who’s dealt with Service Canada, or any bureaucracy for that matter, would agree. The point is objectivity and fairness--and fairness is a good but complicated thing--but the more heterogeneous your population becomes, the more difference in people you need to account for, and the looser and looser the language becomes! The details of any issue you need resolving become close to irrelevant. Like it’s no wonder political platforms are so generalized and vague. Maybe the loss of democracy engenders ideology because people want goals, they want inclusivity, justifiably, and they want things against which to measure the efficacy of politicians. But the specificity required to address the needs of a particular community is really hard to come by! If you really wanted to stay true to the origins of democracy you would decentralize everything, and the balloon separating voters and elected representatives would shrink, but that’s not going to happen. So we might as well loosen our grip on The Democracy Ideal and just call it something else.

That being said, it isn’t like federal governance isn’t useful, because even if you disagree with federalization the reality is that centralized governance makes possible the galvanization and coordination of resources and people that small, independently-governed communities would be unable to accomplish. Example: war. You may not be the one looking for war, but that doesn’t mean someone who’s got beef with you isn’t either. War is not funny, but I tend to see warmongers as little boys throwing temper tantrums - “You made me MAD and now I’m coming to destroy your sandcastle!!!!” :o ...did I say that out loud?

And the power of tax revenue increases the larger your jurisdiction becomes.

Think of it this way: you have many small, independently-governed communities in one area of the world, and a more centralized community in another area of the world. In terms of land-mass, total population, and GDP per capita, the group of small communities and the single large one are the same. And the total tax revenue from the small jurisdictions combined equals the revenue from the one, big, centralized system. But you can bet that the more centralized society is gonna be able to do more with its dollars, just because you have fewer people, who are possibly less ideologically (nationalistically?) divergent, in charge OF those dollars!

And most people can name their Premier or the Prime Minister before they’d be able to name the lesser celebrities that make up Parliament and the legislature, which tells you a whole lot right there. You can see that whenever people talk politics they’re not complaining about what their local representative is or isn’t doing (with the exception of mayors, but as my tenth-grade civics class described it, cities “are creations of the province” and are dependent on provincial and federal funding, whereas the provinces pre-existed confederation). The focus is always on the higher-level politicians, on a provincial or national level. Not to mention people are nothing but mobile these days, and you can easily find yourself traveling (or even relocating your residence) from one jurisdiction or electoral ward to another in just an hour. Now how do you govern people who are mobile like that? They can take their money out of one jurisdiction and inject it into another, no sweat. Like, maybe, someone who lives on the border between BC and Alberta. Or Ontario and Quebec. You get the point.

And the issue of mobility is a very important one because the main mode of transportation people rely on will dictate what they can do with their lives. A person who relies on a bicycle or public transit to get around will not have the potential to do as much as a person who owns a car. The time it takes to get places--because you are either at the mercy of your physical energy, or you are at the mercy of bus and train schedules--and the size and weight of the load you can carry is dependent on what you can afford, and also what is more “practical”. So while you technically may live in a big jurisdiction like Toronto or Vancouver, the “city” that you move through to secure your essentials is bound, with your residence at the centre and the distance from that centre that you are able to travel. And if you have more constraints, you have to be discerning about what your most important tasks are.  

Here’s another way to think about: if you’re the sort of person who’d rather buy “locally grown” food than “imported” food, what is your definition of “local”? Does it refer to anything within provincial or state borders, or does it refer to a particularly-sized circle where the grocery store you are most loyal to occupies the centre?

I’m switching gears here because I really want to talk more about an issue that affects me greatly: the problem of ideology. So for a while there I was kind of YouTube obsessed and Peterson explained one of the advantages of YouTube perfectly: on that platform you don’t have the time constraints, and you don’t necessarily have the ideological constraints you find in mainstream media, either. You can do justice to issues that need much deeper exploration than what the news offers, and I’m of the mind that many things are like that.

So I’d watch conversations or debates or whatever you want to call them and I think to myself, am I missing something?! Sometimes you talk to a person who’s so staunch in their ideology and they have such confidence, and such conviction that you really do wonder if they know something you don’t. But this happens on both “sides” of the established political spectrum. Which begs the question: does your point of view have such exquisite internal unity that it is impossible to extract from it a single valid proposition without needing to commit to the entire farce? It’s like standing at a concrete wall, knowing there is something on the other side, but no chance of wishing a door into existence. And those people are built like metal detectors. Metal detectors have a sole purpose and that’s to sniff out something they’re already looking for. You can almost predict how a conversation with an ideologue is going to go if you have prior knowledge about their general political stance. You’re fed a script, and this script has pretty much remained the same through time, with maybe new information thrown in there to support a belief the person already has. And because the societal picture in their minds looks more like a Mondrian than a Monet, when they get stuck in a corner and have no option but to repeat something they’ve already said in hopes that viewers won’t notice, it is positively cringe-worthy!

I’m not here to endorse one political party over another, I just exposit as I see it.

In my view, modern conservatives differ from liberals in one key way: they support and even instigate the encroachment of their ideals into people’s personal lives, whereas liberals tend to be more like “live and let live”. That’s what makes the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage hard to resolve in the arena of party politics.

I think, for anyone to lay claim to truth in politics, they’d have to find themselves in the innumerable (possibly infinite) different social situations people find themselves in on a regular basis, just to get a wee understanding of why they may make certain choices in future terms. But that’s impossible. The most you can say is, “Well I’ve lived through a multitude of different social dynamics at play, and I know that things aren’t always the same, and so the best I can do is acknowledge possibilities, even if I can’t name them.” Like a person can find themselves oppressed in one situation (according to the definition of oppression I suggested in a previous post) and be perfectly okay in another. And this applies globally. Think of going to a posh restaurant where you’re unable to purchase a drink with your astronomically-priced meal so you’re forced to order water. But THEN you go to a dive bar and because you can afford a pitcher of beer you feel like a KING.

...No, things can get more serious than that.

I think one good thing the left has given us is the concept of ‘intersectionality’, and I think the degree of intersectionality in a society is related to its level of multiculturalism. But I’ve seen it abused, and selectively applied. They take one look at a person, think to themselves, “Oh, you look aryan,” and then without thinking about the possible tragedies that pepper your background, they throw you into the “privileged white person” pile and wash their hands clean of you. And applying those ‘white people’ stereotypes to a person who appears to be a certain way is just as bad as any other stereotype. Also, samples of supposed ‘radical thinking’ on social media really shows another type of authoritarianism, where people ABSOLUTELY CANNOT MAKE MISTAKES! Forgiveness isn’t a concept in the vocabulary of the SJW. You say something tone-deaf and without inviting you to explain and thus explore why you said what you said, it’s, “you’re canceled.” Anyone worth talking to isn’t going to want others to see them as prejudiced. They may be ignorant, but that doesn’t mean they’re filled with hate. Someone throws the word ‘bigot’ at you and it’s like, well who can argue with THAT?!  You go scampering off in shame. The conversation is done. They’ve made up their minds.

The people I just described are a very, very strange lot to me. They’re meant to be crusaders of social justice, which is a noble thing -- you think of the Paris student protests of ’68, you think of Stonewall, MLK Jr, the people who were ready to lay their lives on the line for the sake of love and truth... but I really don’t think the SJW’s mental faculties are fully developed, and I really don’t think they are sincerely committed to the cause.

I see this happen often when we’re dealing with the trans pronoun issue. Because it is a gender issue and, people who think in black-and-white terms tend to force transgendered individuals into the care of feminism. But to think that feminism can advocate for the trans community is to first, ignore the the fact that this is a special case (and no one knows it better than the person living that reality), and second, to ignore the historical reasons for the necessity of feminism.

Even if the composition of society today is different from what it was fifty or sixty years ago, it’s still worth paying attention to the themes of recent history even if you don’t pursue it academically, because that’ll give you clues as to why an idea emerged the way it did. You might remember the sensation that was, “Ok, boomer”. I refuse to think of that New Zealand MP, who was 25 years old at the time she said that, as representative of my age-group and our attitudes toward elders. No doubt there is a chasm in the understanding between generations, but you don’t just dismiss someone, even though he or she is a generally reasonable person, just because they don’t share your point of view. What is it we always say? Hindsight is 2020? Sure, you can blame people all you want, but you’re only doing that because you have more information NOW than previous generations did when the problem was in its prodromal phase. I think of the MP who said that as juvenile, ideological, and self-righteous. If you had to live through the Great Depression and two World Wars how do you think you would react? Obviously boomers came around after the Second World War, but we all know well and clear that ideals and values are more or less inherited. It’s like, “Well you should have been able to see into the future and because you didn’t we’re going to publicly patronize you!”

So we’ve got major problems now, and it’s not that these problems exist in vacuums away from one another; they form a mesh, a kind of spiderweb on steroids, and we’re caught in it. Some of the will for societal change falls to the individual, but sometimes people need to be forced into shedding old habits and adopting new ones. They say, necessity is the mother of invention. Well, likewise, I say, necessity is the father of deflation. But it looks to me like governments--the only ones with the tools (legislation and policy) to initiate change without society imploding--can have their heads in the clouds too. You may have tools, but if you don’t know what their uses are and therefore what you can create with them, you might as well not have them at all. But there they are, sitting in your garage, gathering dust...

The other day I saw a billboard advertising a government attack on the plastics industry, lol. You want an example of idealism? That’s it right there. I have to ask: how do you suggest we go about doing that? ‘Cause plastic is the thing that supports democratization of goods and our ability to be spontaneous. To eliminate plastic altogether is the sort of thing that requires very careful planning, and not just on the individual level but on a systemic level too. Talk about filling a gap!

The capitalist narrative, with growth of an economy as one of its most important tenets, has permeated the collective conscious so thoroughly that we think of capitalism as the only necessary and sufficient path to a functioning society! Well society looks like it’s functioning, but that’s a facade, and if you’ve been following my blog you’ll know why I think that way. 

The problem is that this post-modern way of being has gathered so much momentum that we’re still unsure of what to do. Does the elimination of one bad thing take other, potentially good things with it?

Again, from a dialectical standpoint I do wonder if it is possible to abandon the things that don’t serve us, while keeping things interesting and diverse enough that life can actually be fulfilling, and FUN! 

[earthnashes]

tell us about those who serves under Celestia - either on Guardians/Orphans projects or maintaining the city. what is it even like to be one of those who knows and participates in all the Mistral's horrors? how many of them are corrupted and how many are tormented by guilt? can you name more secondary/background characters who's filling these roles? like is Blueblood one of the scientists or some sort of priest?

The scientists and doctors who serve Celestia in creating Orphans and Guardians are among the world’s best remaining scientists. They have the technology, the income, location, and most importantly the reason to do these experiments and projects.

Being one of the individuals who brings Mistral Orphans and Guardians is a bit like being santa’s secret helpers: aside from the very select few folks who are known by name (like Celestia, who is the discoverer of alicorn, Luna’s the one who refined and actually made the drug in Tonic form, Scorpan’s known for being the founder of Celestia’s Haven a.k.a the creator of the Orphan procedure, Discord the “Father” of Guardians), no one knows your name aside from your colleagues and Celestia herself. You are the Mistral government’s secret, the workers who perform the atrocities the public doesn’t know about, and the ones who do this are either willing to ignore the atrocities for “the good of the city”, you ignore it because it’s a hefty sum in your pockets (the job pays sinfully well), or are guilt-ridden but are essentially trapped because once you join this team, you cannot leave it unless you’re willing to subject yourself to a memory wipe. Which Celestia would rather avoid, since the team is kept small for a reason. 

Many of them are willing to ignore the horrors they perform because, as much as some of them may be guilt-ridden, they still go about their job because they are just as desperate for an answer to cure this “magiclessness” in Mistral, including themselves. The work isn’t to just produce more alicorn to supply more of the drug, it’s also to find a “shortcut” to fixing their inability to use magic instead of waiting for nature to take control over it. That’s part of the reason why Rarity is so important like Cadance was, they consider them the “key” to that shortcut.

There are of course those who would much rather not do what they’re doing but it’s far too late to be released unscathed, so their only options is a voluntary memory wipe of the work they’ve done (which honestly isn’t much of an option in the first place) or to try and escape which uh…. doesn’t end well if you fail. They don’t kill you, they force you to keep working but any rights you previously had by being a willing worker is completely stripped away.

Some scientists of the top of my head:

-Scorpan, the original creator of the Orphans programming and the refiner of the conditioning process the children go through. He originally remained with the team because he continued to lie to himself that the experiments and projects were justified for the good of Mistral, but he eventually stopped believing in that lie and refused to work. He managed to escape Mistral, but because he’s a high-valued scientist, the search for him is ongoing, so he must remain in hiding.

-Sunset Shimmer, originally a student of Celestia’s and one of the project leads for the most recent Guardian series. Sunset, like Twilight, was somewhat being groomed to be something of a successor to Celestia should anything happen, but Sunset was far more interested in the science side so Celestia found Twi and allowed Sunset to pursue a career in the creation of Guardians. And at first she really did buy into the bullshit Celly sold her; this is for the good of our future, we do the dirty work so the population won’t have to, we’re gonna find a way to bring magic back to our people, then we won’t need alicorn anymore! For years she believed it (I mean, it helped that she was raised by Celestia), but when Twilight was grafted and Rarity was introduced into Mistral… something changed. Slowly but surely she began to see that what they were doing was horrific, no matter how much they tried to justify the kidnapping, exploitation, and murder of children (not all of them survive the process of being turned into an Orphan), allowing nearly the entire population to become addicted to a very dangerous drug, the abductions recently conducted to gain more suitable candidates for Guardian grafting. She stayed because she loves Celestia like she was her mother, she doesn’t want to believe that this seemingly saintly mare was a monster, but it was getting harder to ignore. Luckily for her, Mistral eventually falls, and with that, the decision is made for her. She survives, and upon learning about Scorpan, she joins him in his quest to right the wrongs they’ve committed.

-Blueblood, adopted son of Celestia (Celly’s infertile, she can’t have children of her own). Blueblood isn’t actually in on the atrocities his mother commits but he’s smart enough to know that Tonics (what alicorn is refined into) are highly addictive and dangerous. As such, he doesn’t use them. BUT he’s the lead of the marketing team for Tonics, he helps them get sold and persuades others to buy them because for all of his lack of scientific smarts, Blueblood is very charming and a smart salesman. He has a conscious; he does actually feel a bit guilty for selling something he knows will ruin someone’s life if used too much, but he figures “hey, their lives, their choices. They wanna get fucked by this stuff, then who am I to judge?” It’s also a pretty penny in his pocket, all the mares and stallions he can bed to his heart’s content (these people will do anything to get even a small dosage of Tonic. Anything), and the praise of Celestia. What more can a guy ask for…. right?

-Filthy Rich, not a scientist but a resident of Mistral and one of the richest stallions in the city. Where does he get his riches from? Why, his wife of course! The Rich family was always… well, rich, but they grew even wealthier when Nora “Spoiled” Rich found work as one of the scientists under Celestia’s leadership. And Spoiled Rich loves her job. She’s good at it too; she’s very intelligent and has helped engineer quite a few of the findings toward the invention of Tonic and some of the design problems Guardians had, so she is a valued member of Celly’s team of scientists. She has no qualms about keeping her work “hush hush”, only stating that it’s government business, and Filthy is all too happy to accept that because they are living the big life. not to say Filthy’s a lazy stallion; he works alongside Blueblood in Tonic marketing, but when not doing that he’s very famous for his alchoholic beverage company (which could be all the more popular because maybe he uses Tonic as an ingredient). He usually remains closer to home than his wife, though, who is often gone for long periods of time due to work. He’s the one who primarily raises Diamond Tiara, and he honestly is a loving father. Spoiled? Eh…. not so much. I’d like to think that Filthy’s actually a bit put off by Orphans; he of course doesn’t know the truth but the appearance of them makes him think maybe something wrong is happening to them, which Spoiled brushes off like no big deal. That worries him, but… he isn’t really sure why.

[desaeviio]

How did Banner survive an arrow to the head? Fun story.

 Most cases, an arrow to the noggin will kill you, and technically, here, it had done just that.  However, even after a year of suppressing Hulk and ‘curing’ herself, Banner failed there. Failed in accounting for the fact Hulk didn’t like taking death sitting down. Or ever frankly. So, through an extreme amount of Hulk Stubbornness, the arrow didn’t kill Banner, however, there wasn’t some grand transformation to shake it off, heal, anything like that.

Rather, there lay the “Dead” body Banner, in a field of heroes watching blood pool out of a head wound.  In shock, quiet and extreme levels of guilt. 

Under the surface of the evidently dead body in front of them was really, the absolute bare minimum of function running to keep alive. And Healing was slow, not terribly slow, but not immediately there. All advanced brain functions dropped off entirely, all power to heal a broken brain. Quite luckily, though Hawkeye doesn’t miss, he missed the brainstem. Almost apparently on purpose. By all measures of scanning, the heart rate was so low, Banner may have well been dead, but also quite luckily since the Avengers didn’t quite listen to how she chose to be handled in death should it come, steps like embalming were and cremating were skipped.

In fact, it was written that there was a preference to be buried, unaltered, left to rot. Another will at some point probably cited cremation, though if only to ensure the body would never be recoverable. This note thankfully got missed, but they didn’t do an open casket obviously. So thanks to that blunder in burial, they buried a technically alive person.

Technically alive. There wasn’t much ‘person’ rattling around that skull for a good week.IT was nothing more but Hulk’s pure determination to heal and keep alive that drove healing from another brain wound in the past five years in a slow manner that didn’t drain the weak body of all resources (however any weight put on by her wife’s carb-heavy cooking was used up in this process).

The scary part was what happened next. 

Banner, effectively dead to the world and herself, woke up in the grave, buried, with little other impulses and instruction she could think of other than ‘escape’ and ‘panic’ and ‘oh god’. Also waking up from your last memory being attacked and ganged up by the Avengers and then an arrow in your head is terrifying.  Somehow, though it’s beyond the zombie-like memory of the time, she got out. Hands dirty, nails long and disgusting. She dug her way out. She remembers none of this and is grateful. But the waking up, oh, that is remembered.

And from there on, there was an ashy, pale zombie-like woman about, heading a direction, unable to speak, somehow knowing what direction home was. Who knows how many miles away it was. That memory is a haze. Home wasn’t so much a place, but a person, and even with a brain still trying to formulate what season it was or time of day or that it was alive and kicking just... managed to find it. Hulk internal compass, bird-like in nature-- didn’t die out in Banner, especially to obscure things like homing into birthplaces and towards people evidently. And boy, did she give her wife the scare of the goddamn millennia.

An ashy ghost of a dead wife oat the door at midnight, dirty, skinny walking for days it seems splinters and dirt under the nails. Ross almost didn’t answer the door, and when Banner eventually put a word together in an incredibly parched mouth, it barely came out, hoarse, a ‘hi’ nearly mouthed.

But shit, Ross let her in. Screamed. Died a little, but let her in. Not before shutting the door on her.  It’s understandable.

Almost immediately thereafter, questions flooded a panicked wife obviously, shouldn’t you be dead? They buried you? But Banner had no response. Words were beyond saying. They weren’t happening. There wasn’t a single solid sentence spoken for at least a week. Banner slept on the couch after the first night, sleeping for two straight nights. Then, refusing to sleep for days in a row after. Waking up in your own coffin will do that to you. She ate everything offered by the fourth day, but getting any food int her took the force of an army. Banner was fucked up. Spacing out. Just trying to put things back in some working order in that cranium. Things didn’t ... click yet.

About a month in, there were sentences again, two weeks in, some very light explanation of how survival was even a thing. Banner didn’t know much about how either, and if she did, there weren’t words rummaging through that damaged brain enough to describe it.

Hulk took advantage of Banner’s inability to say no, or anything, and how frequently the poor brought-to-life scientist never really said or did anything at all while recovering beside sleeping and zoning out for hours at a time. So, Hulk got out and took adventures. Hulk earned it frankly. Fixing up a brain on the near-dead out of survival takes a toll on you. However, a fun side effect was that the transformations encouraged better healing, so each outing seemed to improve things. The first day Ross washed her recently alive wife. By the end of the month Banner could successfully stand in the shower too long and stare but nonetheless clean herself. It improved speech. It improved appetite. It worked.

As of now, Banner is still largely fucked up, and still isn’t saying no to Hulk so instead is laying low and putting pieces back together.

One of the scarier things that isn't a comforting thought frankly, is discovered later. While they removed what they could of the arrow from Banner’s skull and brain... They couldn’t get everything. Why try so hard for a dead person. Any more digging and you ruin what’s left of the face. So, apparently, something that keeps Banner up at night other than horrible flashbacks, is the fact in an extremely creative effort to pull from any resource as needed, Hulk... kinda... broke it down. What remained. In the brain. That arrow fractures left in the brain just got... absorbed. Eaten. That’s fucking miraculous, but the thought kept Banner up all night one night considering how that was possible, but Hulk made do.

Banner hides from the world still, slowly getting out there, but not announcing being alive just yet. However, it’s growing more apparent that’s the case, just coming back from the dead is hard on anyone.

So, Banner and The Hulk live. Goes to show, despite getting messed up in the process, it’s impossible to really kill the goddamn Hulk. The upside if that rather than the first fatal headshot to the back of the head prior, this front arrow shot did not result in infantilization of the brain. Banner didn’t lose intelligence temporarily out of it, not like that. 

Rather, there were two stages, Zombie trying to work with fragments coming at them, and genius, The genius was just flaked over with zombie-brain and came back relatively quickly, just a good month of not a  lot of genius going on. Rather than a bullet splattering everything and starting over, an arrow just sliced a little, an easier mend. but some severed connections initially for sure.