#got a Shock‚ Star and Blitz to do as well but I need to stop procrastinating on my homework

[noritaro]

got a ton of TFA specific Bishoujo requests so alas

[ladyanaconda]

Helluva Dad Vol. 4: Spring Broken

Bombproof just had to get a cold; it was nothing serious, but he'd need to rest for a few days, meaning that Striker and Jake would have to ride the I.M.P. van to get to work. It might have been a more-or-less intriguing experience if not for the radio music playing at full volume and Blitzo's careless driving. Striker spent most of the ride covering his ears while Jake was peering through the window alongside Millie.

This is why he'd rather ride Bombproof to work.

"Daaad! Can we ride the van with uncle Blitzo more often?!"

"Over my corpse!" Striker shouted over the noise. "Get away from the window, boy! The last thing I want is you losing your head!"

"But it's so fresh out here, dad!"

"Now!"

Jake groaned and went to sit next to his father with an unhappy scowl on his face. "Killjoy."

"Is this your first time riding a van?" Millie asked curiously.

"No, it's my first time riding a van with a crazy driver!" Striker banged on the wall separating the back with the driver's seat. "Hey, Blitz, can't you go any faster?!" he snapped sarcastically.

Jake's face had gained a somewhat greenish hue and his arms were clutching his stomach. "Dad, I think I'm gonna hurl!" he groaned.

"Kiddo, whatever you do, don't hurl on the carpet or Blitzo will deduct it from this month's paycheck! If anything, hurl on Moxxie's fanny pouch!"

"Hey!"

The van making an abrupt turn to get into the parking lot was the last straw for Jake. As he rushed towards the window, the vehicle came to a sudden stop and skidded. Jake would have flown out of the window if Striker hadn't grabbed him by the tail, but the vomit went up to Jake's stomach, all the way to his throat, and flew out of his mouth.

"Are you okay, my boy?" Striker asked, concerned, as he cradled the impling in his arms.

"I hate vans," Jake grumbled, earning a hair ruffling from his father.

"Listen up, you unoriginal pink cum dump! You have three goddamn seconds to get your tampon race car out of my parking spot…!"

Blitzo's voice brought the stunned group out of their daze. Striker stomped out of the van, intending to pummel Blitzo for the awful experience, but stopped in his tracks as he saw the cause of the problem. A pink car had parked on I.M.P.'s only parking spot. And the owner of the car was none other than…

"Oh shit! Verosika!"

The succubus didn't seem to hear him or didn't care. She was seething with rage, her face dripping with vomit. Jake flinched when her eyes fixed on him.

"I should have known you'd be here. I could smell fish for miles, which is odd because I believe the nearest ocean is…" Blitzo fell off the van's cabin, faceplanting on the ground. "Three rings down!"

Verosika outright ignored Blitzo this time and stomped her way towards the van. Jake hid behind his father.

"You little brat-!"

"Whoa, whoa, hold your horses, miss!" Striker stood to his full height. The succubus was taller than him, but he never faltered. "My boy didn't to… Well, throw up in your face."

"You should be grateful! You got a facial treatment for free!" Blitzo sneered. Verosika looked like she'd snap at any moment, but she merely huffed and wiped the vomit from her face with a napkin, which she then threw at Blitzo's face.

"I suppose you're the fella who spawned that brat, am I right?" She asked, uninterested.

"I'm the boy's father, that's right." Striker nodded. Is it just him or is the succubus eyeing him eye to toe behind her sunglasses?

"You ought to teach that little spawn of yours some manners, cowboy." Verosika purred the last word in a seductive manner, running her hand down Striker's chest, leaning a bit too close for his liking.

Thankfully, Blitzo got in between them. "I'm surprised they let your fat ass out of rehab," he growled. "I can see you're still a drunken whore, clutching unto that beelze juice bottle like it's the last cock in Hell!"

"They let me out because I'm still famous, and rehab is for sad, loser wash-ups." Verosika took a sip from her flash, sneering as she wiped some drops left on her lips. "So, your sister says hi." Jake made a 'burned' hiss. Striker gave him a stern frown.

"Why are you parking here?! This is the only parking spot my company has, so take your tampon race car somewhere else!"

"Um, Blitz…" Jake pointed at the ground. I.M.P.'s name was crossed out in purple spray paint while Verosika's was written in cursive letters.

The succubus smirked. "I'm doing a bit of freelance for one of the infinitely more successful companies in the building…"

"Dad, who's that nasty woman?" Jake asked.

Loona gasped as if the impling has just spoken blasphemy. "Wait, you don't know about Verosika Mayday?"

"Not exactly. I mean, I've seen her in dad's porno magazines, but-" Jake quickly covered his mouth, but it was too late. He laughed nervously when his father stared at him in shock. "Just to clarify, dad, I didn't read. I skipped!"

"I'll talk with you about this later." Striker hissed.

Thankfully, an angry yell from Blitzo distracted them from the argument. "I wasted so much time with a bag of holes like that."

"You know Verosika Mayday?!" Loona asked, incredulously.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, her. Yeah, we dated."

"That explains a lot of things." Striker murmured as Millie and Moxxie stepped out of the van.

"Was it before or after she became a pop star?"

"You dated a pop star?!"

Blitzo frowned. "Okay, why are you all acting like that's such a shock?"

"Hello, it's Verosika Mayday?" Loona pointed out.

"It's you?" Jake added dryly.

"I just… Is she blind? Suffering some form of brain damage? I mean, it'd make sense if she had dated Striker."

The cowboy rolled his eyes. "Gee, thank you, Moxxie, but she's not my type."

"Okay, look, you are all making this into a way bigger deal than it needs to be." Blitzo crossed his arms. "I don't pry into your stupid personal lives."

"You do that all the time, sir!"

"Come on, you kinda do that."

"You totally do that."

"Do I have to remind you all the times I've nearly shot you for sneaking into my house at two in the morning?!" Striker snapped.

"So…" Jake grinned mischievously. "What was sex with her like?" He yelped in pain when his father gave him a smack in the back of the head.

*HB*

Jake didn't quite understand what the fuss was about. From what Millie and Loona said, Verosika Mayday was a musical pop star, but dad wouldn't let him listen to her music; when questioned as to why he couldn't, all dad said was that it was for 'adults'.

In the end, Striker managed to distract his son via target practice. Millie would place an apple on her head so Jake could shoot it with the crossbow; Striker was quite surprised that she wasn't frightened in the least.

"Hey, Blitz, what did you do to Verosika Mayday for her to hate your guts like that?" Striker questioned casually.

"It was nothing, really! I merely borrowed her credit card when she was still sleeping and went to Wrath to take horse riding lessons!"

"Well, no wonder she's so mad."

"Hey, you're supposed to be on my side."

Striker shrugged. "Sorry, but you're on your own when it comes to relationships."

The door slammed open, startling Jake into shooting the arrow a few inches down, but Millie caught it with a hand. Moxxie looked disheveled, and his face was covered in lipstick marks. All he said was that he needed to lay down as he dropped to the floor. Millie went to check on him.

"What happened to Moxxie?" Jake asked. Striker shifted uncomfortably.

"Let's say that he received too much love," he murmured.

"But it wasn't from Millie, she's right here."

"Oh, Strikeeer!" Blitzo sang as he leaned in closer to the cowboy with a wide, exaggerated smile. "Do you know what's the best part of being the employee of the month?"

"Let me guess: to do you personal favors so you won't have to face your shitty issues yourself?"

"Bingo! I was wondering if you could use your… natural charm," Blitzo quirked his eyebrows coyly. "To have that bitch give back our parking spot."

Striker dropped Moxxie's cup of coffee. "What?"

"You know, a little bit of sweet-talking, flirting. Maybe some oral sex-"

"I know what you mean, Blitz! What I mean is why me."

"Well, you're a ladies' magnet. I don't think you'd have trouble convincing a drunken slut to give you all of her assets."

Striker wasn't sure of how Blitzo always, always, manages to convince him to do that kind of stuff, but in the end, he agreed to try 'without' having to recur to sex. He didn't need to go far, as the band of succubus had taken the vacant offices right in front of I.M.P. Well, no wonder Blitzo was so mad! Meeting up with your ex and finding out you'd have to be in the same building for a bloody week wasn't pleasant.

Striker took a deep breath and stepped into the room. Apparently, the succubus band was still making fun of Moxxie's probably tiny dick. They went silent as soon as he came in.

"Well, look who it is."

"Greetings, miss Mayday." Striker tipped his hat for the sake of courtesy. "I suppose I don't need to explain why I'm here."

"Want a kiss, cowboy?" one of the incubi got a little too close to his liking, prompting Striker to point the barrel of his pistol right at the demon's face.

"Put a hand on me and I'll put a bullet in-between your eyes." the imp hissed, tail rattling.

"Oh, look! His tail is like a baby rattle!"

"Hey, did that cute little impling come with you? I want to eat him with kisses!"

This time, Striker pulled out his angelic pistol. "Leave the boy out of this," he growled, expression dark. The sight of the weapon scared the succubi into silence, all but one.

"Well, well, you certainly have more balls than the little guy with the bowtie." Verosika purred, hips swaying as she approached him. "Too bad I already got a bodyguard, 'cause you look like you'd be good at that." she gently pushed the barrel of the pistol aside with a finger, leaning dangerously close to Striker's face. "I suppose Blitzo is still throwing a tantrum over the parking spot, right?"

"That's right, ma'am." Striker stepped back warily, putting his pistol away. "Perhaps we could reach an agreement, considering that…"

He's dealt with succubi before, but never in such a personal manner. Not ever since… Striker knew what was happening when he realized he had been cornered against the wall. Verosika's hands lay on his chest as she leaned in close to his face. His tail rattled uncontrollably. His bottom tightened at the she-devil's enticing aura.

"An agreement, you say?"

"Y-Yes…" Striker cursed himself for stuttering.

Verosika pulled him closer by the waist, licking her lips. "You have such alluring eyes, cowboy. Reminds me of an anaconda hypnotizing her prey…" Striker grabbed her wrist before she could reach for the zipper of his pants. Verosika laughed, running her other hand down the line of his neck. "Let me kiss you…"

Her lips were inches away from Striker's when she heard a click and something pressing against her stomach: the blessed pistol, firmly held in the imp's hand.

"Nice try, sugar, but my heart already belongs to someone else." Striker sneered. Impressed, Verosika stepped back, smirking.

"Not bad, cowboy. Not everyone can resist my charms. Just for that, I'm offering you a deal."

"A deal?"

"A demon duel. I bet you and Vlitzo's sorry company can't off as many people as we can fuck by the end of the day. If you win, I'll return your parking spot. If I win," Verosika whispered into Striker's ear. Whatever she told him sent shivers down his spine.

Reluctantly, Striker looked up at the succubus, fists clenched. "Game on, bitch."

*HB*

"Alright, shut your assholes, here's how we're going to do this shit. First, we find a fuck ton of clients, we portal up, we have our fun murder time as per usual, we pill all the bodies into a big fucking canoe…" Striker didn't pay attention to the rest of Blitzo's ranting, instead distracting himself by polishing his angelic rifle. "Do you have any questions?"

Jake raised a hand. "What does orgy mean?"

Striker spat his mouthful of coffee right into Moxxie's face while the others exchanged nervous glances. Blitzo cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Let's say it's something you aren't supposed to know about for at least ten years. Now-"

"Where did you learn that word?!" Striker all but yelled, grabbing the impling by the shoulders.

"One of Verosika Mayday's songs is called 'Orgy' and I got curious."

"And where did you hear the song?"

"Loona was listening to it." Striker glared at the hellhound, but she merely shrugged.

"What? It's just a song. By the way, think I can come with you guys this time?"

"Absolutely not," Blitzo said, crossing his arms disapprovingly. "I forbid it. Not gonna happen. Sorry, sweetie. Spring break is no place for vulnerable goth girls. You know the kind of freaks yup there who'd drool all over you!"

"Well, I can blend in with humans easily enough. Just let me tag along."

Blitzo blinked. "Wait, say that again?"

"I can blend in…?"

"Do you have a human disguise?" Millie inquired.

"Yeah. Don't you?" Loona widened her eyes in realization. "Wait, you five have been screwing around on Earth this whole fucking time without human disguises?!"

"What if we did?" Jake asked.

"Let's say it's against the rules to be seen by humans in our real forms."

"Okay, new plan!" Blitzo made a new, crudely-made scribble. "Loonie can help lure the humans to us and we'll take care of the rest. Okay, how about that?"

"Flawless logic."

"There's one little detail. We need enough client killing demands to win this bet so I won't have to-" Striker trailed off as he recalled that Jake was listening. He cleared his throat. "How will we get so many clients in such little time?"

Blitzo grinned. "I got that covered, Strike."

*HB*

Basically, Loona just lured the people on the list to a secluded spot so they could kill them without anyone noticing. Jake still couldn't believe how hot Loona looked in human form.

Jake was sure that something was bothering his father. Ever since he returned from talking with Miss Mayday, Dad acted a bit… edgier than usual. He didn't tease Moxxie as often and focused more on killing the targets. But what gave him away was the fact that he was using the blessing-tipped rifle rather than the regular one. He only uses it when there's something on his mind.

By evening, they had killed twelve people, two offed by Jake with a broken bottle.

"That's twelve kills in the back!" Blitzo laughed as they continued to put the bodies into bags. "I'd like to see that waily snatch orgasm that many…"

"All right, spring breakers! Ya'll ready to get fucked up and make some bitchin' bad choices?!"

The group glanced in the direction of the nearby stage adorned in black and pink just as Verosika stepped out of the smoke in her own human disguise. All the humans on the beach roared in excitement as the concert began. Jake noticed something odd in their behavior. Once Verosika started to sing, they-

Something covered his eyes. "Hey!"

"You're not supposed to watch this, Jakey!" Millie cried out hurriedly. Striker gave her a thankful look.

"Goddammit! That bitch started her goadish mating call! Now she's gonna win all those sex maniacs! We gotta pick things up, guys! He's on the list, Loonie?"

"Huh? Y-Yeah… I-I think so." Striker realized that Loona hadn't even looked at the supposed target. Her attention was focused on Verosika's own hellhound.

"Blitz, I don't think-" Too late. Blitzo had already sliced through the human's skull.

"All right, next one, Loonie, come on." No reply. "Loonie? Wait, where-" Blitzo panicked once he realized Loona was nowhere to be seen. "Where's my baby?!" Striker merely pointed towards Verosika's hellhound. There she was.

"And… We've lost him." Moxxie sighed as Blitzo stomped his way towards the hellhounds.

"Can't blame him. I wouldn't like any guys sniffing 'round my daughter either." Striker murmured. "Anyhow, looks like we'll have to handle the rest of the list."

Millie laughed in excitement. "Hell yeah! Team MMSJ getting shit down!"

Jake wanted to help with the killing spree, but his father put him on a table behind some beer barrels, blindfolded him with his red scarf, and firmly told him to wait for him there. So the impling sat there with a big pout on his face, arms crossed. What's up with dad today?!

"Yeah, party!"

The table was knocked over without warning. Jake fell face flat onto the ground. "Ow! What the…?!"

"Eeww! Oh my god! Fucking possums!"

"Wait, what?" Jake lifted the blindfold and realized the humans had seen him. Before he could try to escape, he was grabbed by the tail and shoved into a barrel of beer.

"Ow! Jake?!"

"Moxxie?! What's going on?!"

"I don't know, I think the humans mistook us for opossums!"

The two imps were thrown about within that confined space, sometimes getting submerged under the beer. They accidentally ended up taking big gulps of the alcoholic beverage.

*HB*

"That boy is in so much trouble!"

He gives him one simple instruction: wait at the table. Then he returns ten minutes later to find Jake and the table gone.

"Hey, Mildred! Have you seen Jake 'round here?" Striker asked Millie as soon as he saw per peering into a barrel.

"He and Moxxie are inside one of these barrels!"

"What? What the fuck are they doing in there?!"

One of the nearby barrels wobbled. Striker tipped it over with a kick, spilling out the remaining beer as well as two familiar imps.

"Moxxie!"

"Jake!"

"Millieee!" Moxxie blurted out in a drunken state. "Hey, when did you get four heads? I wanna kiss 'em!"

"Jake? Are you okay, kiddo? Striker grabbed his son by the shoulders. "Answer me, boy!"

"Hey, daddy! The impling said in-between hiccups." "This water's soo tasty! Can I have more?"

Striker rubbed his temple. "Wonderful. My kiddo's drunk and he's only nine."

"Chill out, cowboy! Just don't tell Striker 'cause he'll make a fuss!" Moxxie giggled.

Striker would have made a fuss if not for the massive sea monster that emerged from the ocean. A loud roar sent most of the humans running away from the beach, but Moxie and Jake were completely unfazed.

"Oooh, fishy! Can I keep it, daddy?"

A long, slippery tongue wrapped around Moxxie and Jake as they were pulled into the monster's mouth.

Striker and Milli exchanged determined nods. The former shot a nearby human to take his bottle and make a molotov cocktail, which he threw at the monster. The explosion was enough to make the creature fall. The imps swam towards the mutant fish, digging their respective knives into its hide just as it got back on its feet. They managed to climb towards the mouth and pry the jaws open; Moxxie and Jake, still in the tongue's grasp, were clumsily punching the monster's uvula. Millie reached out for their hands, but instead of clasping it, the drunken imps merely gave her a high-five.

"Oh, for the love of…!" Losing his patience, Striker went into the mouth and sliced the tongue off. The fish shrieked in pain and spat out the severed organ, and its two captives, with it.

However, the abrupt movement slipped the angelic rifle off Striker's shoulder and sent it down the beast's throat. "Oh, no, you don't! Mildred, think you could keep this thing busy?!"

"Striker, what are you doing?!"

The cowboy took out his knife. "I'm gonna retrieve my weapon."

*HB*

Millie and Striker swam back to the beach, both panting heavily. The latter was covered in the creature's blood after slicing open its entrails, his rifle held tightly in one hand and the bloodied knife in the other. They reunited with Blitzo, Moxxie, and Jake on the shore.

"Oh, yeah, way to show off, guys!· Blitzo cheered.

"Are Mox and Jakey okay?" Millie asked.

"Oh, yeah. They're fine." Blitzo looked down at the still-drunken imps in his arms and dropped only Moxxie to the ground.

Thankfully, Jake had fallen asleep; his young age made him less tolerant of the heavy alcoholized state. Striker carefully took the boy in his arms.

"Aww, they grow up so fast!" Blitzo chirped, teary-eyed, as he watched Jake snuggle in his father's embrace.

Sadly, the relief didn't last long as Verosika and her crew approached.

"That was handled rather… Obvious, don't you think?" Verosika sneered.

"You know, I found this," Striker held up a black and silver flask decorated with hearts. "While slicing through that creature's entrails," he smirked. "And I know for certain that it doesn't belong to any of us." That said, he tossed the flask back to its owner.

"Would be a shame if anyone found out you guys were behind a giant monster fish in the human world." Millie sneered.

"Oh satan! You all be so… fucked! Haha…!" Moxxie laughed in his drunken stupor.

Verosika was taken aback by the realization that they were right. "Yeah, well, you five nasty ass gremlins will be in shit for not being in disguises." she countered.

"A human called me a possum. I'm not a possum!" Moxxie collapsed face-first into the ground.

"And given that the humans who saw us were in a deep alcoholic intoxication state, they'll probably think it was a product of their imagination." Striker added with a sneer of his own.

Blitzo chuckled. "You know, we could keep this little Bee movie scene on the down-low if you agree to let us use that parking space." Striker nearly laughed at the sour, almost childish scowl on the succubus's face. She was against the ropes and she knew it.

·...Fine."

While the others cheered at their victory, Striker merely sighed in deep relief.

"Hey, Strike, now that we're on it, what did that bitch say you'd have to do if we lost?" Blitzo asked later that day.

Striker's only response was a loud slurping sound with a straw as he enjoyed a well-deserved meatshake.

[voidendron]

tagged by @vespertine-legacy for a Get to Know the Blogger - thanks, November! :D

1. why did you choose your url?

okay, so there's actually a bit of story behind it so this answer's gonna be long.

I was a roleplayer...god. years ago (6? ish years ago?), for the Transformers fandom, and because of the character I played, I got called "Blitz" and the nickname just kinda stuck, even after I left that fandom. before I'd realized I was trans, my username had "Queen" in it, and I had a separate account for RPing as that character. well, I had both accounts logged into the chat at the same time once cause I'd been chatting on my main, then decided to hop onto the RP one and forgot to disconnect my main (DeviantArt Chat, haha), someone didn't know which one to tag to get my attention, so just caps-locked BLITZQUEEN at me

it didn't take long for me to change my user to that. I eventually drifted away from that fandom, but I decided to name my mascot Blitz for the nostalgia

I started to get uncomfortable with my user, realized I was trans, and started looking for alternatives to the "queen" part of it. I came across the word "indite" which is a synonym for "write." I liked how symmetrical the I's were from each other in "Blitzindite," so decided to roll with it

so yes. my username is literally just "Blitz Writes" (it's also why my writing tag is "blitz indites")

2. any sideblogs?

@thevehszlegacy - where I keep track of my SWTOR OCs. needs updated, but soooo nice to have for sorting reasons

@swtor--screenshots - haven't posted there in a long while, but as the username says

@fr-thecollectors - my Flight Rising blog. currently in an inactive phase on FR, but I still adore my dragons there

@jse--deep-blue-sea - I had a crossover fic from my previous fandom that I stopped writing like two years ago, but decided to try and at least finish it now (mostly bc of the Subnautica part of the crossover). I only post chapters there so I can keep this blog to Star Wars content

I've got a few others I don't really touch anymore, but these are the notable ones

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

2018

4. why did you originally start your blog?

JSE and Markiplier Egos

5. why did you choose your icon?

my current one is my SWTOR main, but I usually have a gas mask one because my mascot has one in place of his face

6. why did you choose your header?

Aesthetic™

but I just really really love that screenshot. one of my favorites I've ever taken

7. what's your post with the most notes?

art from my previous fandom. not gonna link it because of eyestrain (glitching effects) and blood/gore. in this fandom, my post about being able to use headpieces (even the toothpick!!!!) to hide Vette's shock collar in vanilla

8. how many mutuals do you have?

uhhhhhh

idk

is there even a way to check that?

9. how many followers do you have?

249

10. how many blogs do you follow?

71

11. have you ever made a shitpost?

yeeee. my followers are probably tired of my dumb posts tbh aksjld;sldk

12. how many times do you use tumblr a day?

If I'm on my laptop, I have it open. so I'll just say "quite a bit" and leave it at that

13. have you ever fought another blog?

no

14. how do you feel about “need to reblog” posts?

can't stand them. the moment I see "everyone should reblog this" "if you don't reblog-" blah blah blah I scroll past whether I liked/agreed with the post or not, oftentimes without even reading the rest of the post.

15. do you like tag games?

sure! makes me nervous tagging others for them, tho

16. do you like ask games?

yessss I love ask games. haven't been doing em much lately, tho. I should get back into them.....

17. which of your mutuals do you think are tumblr famous?

I...don't actually know. but I know some of them are more fandom-famous

18. do you have a crush on a mutual?

nah

tagging: @thedinalixlegacy @raven-of-domain-kwaad and whoever else wants to do it! like I said, tagging others makes me nervous 😅

[writefightandflightclub]

Out from the cold (Llewyn Davis x reader)

Summary: Llewyn (precious baby) needs your comfort, and oddly, looking after him comforts you too. Fluff but a lil angst to get to the comfort.

Author’s note: I’m doing soft blurbs bc you all deserve a hug from one of our fave fictional husbands. Let’s all destress and be comforted one blurb at a time, okay? (Dunno how many I can do but gonna try and blitz a few requests out tonight. I’m doing these quickly so they’ll be a bit scrappy, please forgive!) ALSO THIS IS EXCITING I’VE NEVER WRITTEN LLEWYN BEFORE AND I’M KINDA HAPPY WITH IT! LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK? (I love this movie so much, one of my all-time favourites, and one of my fave Oscar performances.)

Warnings: just Llewyn swearing, as per. Alcohol and cigs. No drunkeness. Mentions of homeessness / couch-surfing. Mention of abortion.

GIF by @digginmovies​

It’s late when he shows up at your door. Or rather, it’s late when you find him in your hallway. You don’t know how long he’s been standing there, because he didn’t even knock. Perhaps he was too afraid to, but by the time you eventually stopped pacing your floorboards and threw a scarf around you, you’d come to fear the worst; that he’d been beaten and left in a gutter or some doorway, or perhpas that he was just stubbornly wandering the streets, preferring to freeze to death rather than “bother” you. Or worse than that... perhaps he’d finally struck lucky and you’d never see him again. Now that he no longer needed your couch, maybe he no longer needed you.

Anyway, all of your fears were entirely unfounded, and it was a shock to find him there, leaning up against the wall. The shortest missing person recovery mission ever known.

“Llewyn?” you question, sighing in frustration and unwrapping your suddenly suffocating red scarf.

His whole body is an apology as he turns his head towards you. Eyes apologetic. Shoulders apologetic. That sorry cord jacket is very, very sorry indeed. Hell, even his curls slump over his forehead in a despondent way, as if they’ve given up too.

This precious man. Why doesn’t he know how special he is? Why does he always dwell in the shadows, rather than allowing himself to be welcomed into this warm, light-bathed apartment of yours. Why doesn’t he realise that he is a light himself, and not a burden? That his presence alone can furnish and illuminate any room. Can compel audiences and, certainly, can move you to train your eyes on him as if he is a star under a perpetual spotlight.

Well, you suppose you should just be thankful that he’s here at all, because he always seems an instant away from slipping into shadow and never coming out again. You are thankful. You are always thankful to find him on your doorstep.

“How did it go?” you ask him, and Llewyn pushes himself up from the wall, despondently shaking his head. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and simply stands there as if forgetting any purpose which might cause him to move. You have to shuffle forwards yourself to give him the hug you feel he so desperately needs, even if he doesn’t know he deserves it. You wrap you arms around him, and it’s a little awkward, and he’s stiff, and he feels of wool and cord beneath your fingertips. Smells of frost and cigarette smoke, and like he hasn’t managed to run his clothes through the laundry in a few days. You make a note to do that for him, if you can coax him into a warm bath later.

“Can I please stay with you?” Llewyn asks in a small voice.

You don’t let go of him, willing him to soften against you.

“Llewyn, you dont have to ask me that, you live here.” You say it like it’s obvious, yet this simple fact is something you are endlessly trying to convince him of.

“I sleep on your couch, because I have no fucking money. Because I’m a piece of shit musician who can’t book a gig except for the Gaslight. And that’s only because I knocked-up a chick who gets me a slot out of pity some nights because she aborted my baby.”

“Llewyn!” you say, heartbroken and disbelieving that he could talk about himself in such a way, and looking, in your shock, like you might come for a piece of him too for thinking so little of himself. But, the world keeps kicking this poor man when he’s down, and he’s running out of energy to keep getting back up, so there’s something in you which can’t blame him.

“I’m just tired. I’m just so fuckin’ tired.”

You bring your hands to the sides of his face, that thick, soft beard under your fingertips.

“Llewyn,” you say softly, searching his melancholy eyes. You want to tell him how talented he is, how important. How special, like you have a hundred times before, but he won’t beleive you. Never does. So, instead, you try something you never have before. At least, not while sober. You dip forward and press a chaste kiss to his lips.

You pull away before his lips have time to react, though even if you had lingered, you’re not sure he would have. You swear that man is so touch-starved that he can no longer recognise affection. That he can no longer remember how to move his lips against another’s. You swear he’s too down on himself that he doesn’t remember how to respond to being wanted.

“Come inside. Your lips are like ice,” you say, and it’s true. You only wish you could thaw him.

Llewyn picks up his guitar case and finally follows you inside, taking his familiar spot on the couch and folding his arms around himself, not even taking off his scarf or jacket. Sometimes you worry that his chill goes all the way down to his bones. Just incase it can help with that, you make him some warm tea and wordlessly pass the mug to him.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly, leaning forward in his seat as you sit at the other end of  the couch from him, watching him gripping the warm beverage in his fingerless gloves like he’s never known a warm touch like it.

You sit quietly next to him and allow him to thaw a little, watching the steam rising from the mug as he takes careful sips. It has begun to lash with rain outside, the percussive sound and howl of wind muffled against the window pane, and pleasantly soothing. At least, it sounds soothing to you; Llewyn probably thinks it’s that dark cloud following him around again.

“Have you eaten?”

“Waffles. Had some Gaslight money left,” he says in monotone, staring intently at a particular spot on your hardwood floor. He didn’t make nutritionally sound choices, it seems, but at least he’s had something.

“Good,” you nod. “And do you want to talk about the audition?”

“Nope,” Llewyn responds dejectedly, popping the “p” emphatically.

When he’s drained the cup he sets it down, eventually unwinding his scarf from around his neck and shuffling off his gloves and jacket. Without all his layers he looks a little like a lost baby bird without its nest, or like a winter tree without it’s covering of leaves.

You take a risk in an attempt to perk him up and head towards the vinyl player, dropping the needle on a record you know he likes. And then, you reseat yourself on the couch, a little closer to him this time.

Llewyn finally turns to you, elbows resting on his thighs, looking just a little less morose. “Got any wine? And cigarettes?”

Now, that you could do.

You oblige him, and before long you are sipping on a glass of red, and you let Llewyn rant freely about the audition he doesn’t want to talk about at his leisure, a cigarette bobbing in-between his lips as he talks, smoke wafting around his face and his hair like the ghost of his own curls. You let him rant about the cookie-cutter, soulless, talentless musicians who make it, and the blood-sucking label execs, and the tasteless consumers, and the whole damn thing, until his shoulders look a little less heavy. A little less apologetic. Until he forgets himself and picks up his guitar and begins to mindlessly pluck and strum away.

He starts to sing under his breath, because he can’t help but sing. Because it comes naturally to him, and suddenly he is the only light in your living room. He is under his own super trouper, against the backdrop of the rainy window pane. Light shining against melancholy.

As lovely as he is to look at, with the way his left cheek tugs up with his words and his brow creases with feeling, you close your eyes as his voice filters through into your bones, making you warm from within.

“I love it when you sing,” you say sincerely, and you don’t know it, but your simple, honest words are music to Llewyn’s ears. Those words are something he hears startingly seldom for a man with a talent like his.

Your eyes are still closed when you hear the chaotic thrum of strings as Llewyn sets the guitar down. Your eyes are still closed as Llewyn kneels before you and slides his hands along your thighs, palms down. Your eyes open just before he dips his head and presses a chaste, smoky kiss to your lips.

Your lips do not react. If Llewyn was too touch-starved to kiss you back earlier, you suppose you are too surprised that he might want you back. You want to kiss him, and apparently he wants to kiss you, but you are singing different bars of the same song. Your timing is all off. So, your lips do not meld with his, no matter how long you’ve waited for this. Wanted it. This time too, his mouth was even warm against yours. His hands warm against you. Thawing.

You smile at him, softly. Catiously. As if you might scare him off. As if he is a wild animal who has dropped to his knees for you.

Instead, he remains as you bring your hands back to either side of his face, and lose yourself in his dark, turbulent stare. It is you who suddenly feels catious, as if he is a storm which might swallow you. Might paint you in licks of grey if you don’t first heal his pain. His eyes are raw. Broken apart, and his beautiful soul so exposed beneath them. No wonder he is so guarded. Feels so vulnerable. His heart is so open and so wounded beneath the expletives and the apathy and the lucklessness, isn’t it? It would be so easy to break, like a lost bird far from its nest.

But this time, he stays. Llewyn simply looks right back into your eyes, for once. And when he undoubtedly notices your evident desire there, all he does is question why you are looking at him at all.

“Why do you want me?” he asks you, plainly, shaking his head softly. He doesn’t say more, but you swear you could guess his thought. You could have any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Or a Chad. Some rich, muscly dude with a centre part and a Corvette. I’m nothing. Nobody.

Your mouth forms a bashful, thin line, and you shrug your shoulders, placing your hands over his palms. You desperately want to show him he is somebody.

“I dunno. Why do you sing, Llewyn? Why do birds make music? I just do. I want you. My soul tells me I should, and I listen.”

He looks sad. So sad, So tired, and so you do the only thing your soul tells you to in this moment. You comfort him. You reach up and tangle your fingers into that mess of crotchet black curls on his head. You stroke him and soothe him, and he gives in to you, burying his head in your lap and letting you touch him. Letting you smooth your hands and your fingers and thumbs over his hair, his neck, his back, his shoulders. He wraps his arms around your lower legs and curls around them, still sat at your feet like a stray who refuses to be a house cat, despite how many times you try to coax him in from out of the cold.

“Llewyn, come lie with me a while?” you ask gently, and he looks up at you, unsure. Still, he clambers up from his position and is about to recline on the sofa when you grab his hand. “No, Llewyn. Come lie with me in my bed?”

He gulps, as if you might eat him alive, but he follows as you guide him as if it might be a relief to climb into your jaws anyway, and you lead him by the hand along the hallway and into your room.

He watches you with hesitant fascination as you shrug off your layers, down to your underwear. Then, he follows suit, letting his worn trousers and white t-shirt pool on to the floor at his feet, until he’s standing in only his patterned boxers.

You climb under the covers, shivering at the autumn chill in the room, and you hold the tented covers open for Llewyn to climb in after you.

“Y-You want me to... W-what do you wanna do?”

“Nothing you don’t want to, darling. But if you’ll let me, I just want to hold you.”

He hesitates, but he’s cold, and so, so alone, and he’s so tired of never having anything he wants. So tired that he’s willing to forget, just this once, that he can’t give you what you deserve. Or at least to stop consciously reminding himself of it.

He slots his soft, slim body under the covers, and you let the blanket fall over him. Then, you lie on your back and pull him on top of you, until his body covers yours and his head nestles on the cushion of your breasts.

It is quiet enough in the room that you hear him gulp again, but he doesn’t bolt. Once he’s settled, your wrap him in your arms, your fingers twining in his hair, carding through those thick, tangled curls. Your hands smooth up and down his back, until he is humming softly, his face entirely buried in your chest. “Sweet man,” you soothe, and listen to the sound of the rain outside, and the background noise of the record player filtering through. “I know it’s not much, but I love it when you sing. I wish I could give you riches for it, and record deals. But all I have to give in return is a little piece of my heart, and you steal a piece of it every time I hear your voice,” you whisper gently.

Llewyn is silent, and you wonder if you might have scared him off, but he seems quite content exactly where he is. You wish he would stay, but you know he has a cycle of houses, like a traitourous street cat with nowhere he feels deserving to call home.

For now though, he is here, and you begin to sing gently along to the song filtering through from the living room. It’s one of your favourites. One which Llewyn has sung for you many times before.

You look down at the side of his face, his eyes closed, his eyelashes fanned on his cheek, and his beard twitching as his full lips tug up into a faint smile. Finally.

“You have a pretty voice, dove,” he says, and your heart clenches at the pet name. At the fact you have finally found a way to make him happy. You should have realised it would be music.

“No, Llewyn. It’s nothing compared to you.”

“I dunno. You probably have more chance of making it than I do. Maybe you should have gone today instead.” You worry that he has been tugged back into a slump, but you see he is still smiling, and you recognise the humour in his tone, self-deprecating though it is.

By the next chorus, Llewyn begins to softly sing along too, and your heart flutters as his voice vibrates against your bosom.

You tug in a deep, happy breath, and exhale spring into the autumn room.

Llewyn props himself on to his elbows and shuffles up the bed, until his face is level with your own.

You regard him catiously, feeling suddenly as flighty as he usually is.

“What do you want to do?” you ask him, as his lips hover close to yours.

“Nothin’ you don’t want to,” he says, mirroring your words from moments ago.

This time, when your lips meet, softly, neither of you are surprised. This time, your mouths are both warm and moving together, like you sing the words to a shared song, both melding in time.

As Llewyn curls around your body and snuggles into you for warmth, you hope you can get him to stay. You hope you’ve showed him he doesn’t need to wander in the cold any longer.

He has your heart after all, and you need him to bring it indoors; out from the cold.

[tendouthighs]

Characters: Kuro Tetsurou, Bokuto Koutarou (separate)

Time period: 3rd years at Nekoma, late college time

Warnings: literally one slightly suggestive line

Word Count: 1.7k

Genre: Fluff

Format: One shot

Gender: Fem/Male/Gen

Dedicated to @jayeray for the secret solstice event between me and some friends!

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XOXO

Kuro Tetsurou:

It was finally the weekend, the boys had just finished their volleyball practice and you and Kuroo were on your way back to his for your Annual-December-Weekend-Movie-Marathon. Cool name right? Anyway, the manger of Nekoma, Jay, had just finished locking up and saw Kuro waiting for her by the vending machine. Walking over Kuro passes Jay a soda and proceeds to hold her hand.

“So what are we going to watch this time?” Jay asks as she take a sip of her drink, “I swear to god if it’s the polar express again, I’ll drown you in hot chocolate.” Kuro chuckles and grabs her unoccupied hand, “You say that but I know you love the film, sweetheart.” “Don’t ridicule me you ass hat” Jay says in fake annoyance. “What can I say? It’s fun to tease you” His ever lasting smirk makes Jay want to hit him but unfortunately her hands are full.

Jay rolls her eyes as she sees that they’re just now coming up to the schools gate. “If we stay at this speed we’re never going to get back. Was volleyball to hard on you, Captain~” Jay chides, teasing him back from his comment before hand. “Well I don’t know if you can see, kitten, but it snowed last night and I’d rather you not fall and be whining all through out watching polar express that ‘it hurts’ and that I should ‘kiss it better’. So you should be thanking me.”

The comment makes Jay fluster as she finish’s her drink and throws it away, “Hey! I thought I said no polar exp-“ Jay pauses in her sentence when she see the rest of the volleyball team are all standing around grinning, “what’s up with them?”

Turning around (and letting go of kuroo’s hand) Jay spots kenma launch a snow ball at Yamamoto. Kuroo instantly starts to cackle while Jay stood there in shock and proudness “I knew he had it in him”, Jay whispers whilst wiping a fake tear from her eye.

Just as Kuroo finally calmed down from laughing, he cracked up again as Yamamoto missed throwing a snowball at Kenma and hit Yaku. “Wahhh Yaku so you’re so tiny that it must of been luck that the snowball hit you” Lev commented which therefore caused Yaku to throw a snow ball at Lev and a while snowball war to start out.

“I’m not even going to question how this happened, so let’s just leave and not get dragged in-“ Jay whistles and try’s to turn around to sneak off, whilst dragging Kuroo with her. Jay was definitely not going to give up cuddles just to get cold in the snow. But alas, the universe has different plans for Jay and her main character life.

On their way out Lev threw a rouge snowball and it hit Jay square in the back of the head. God help Lev against Jay’s overprotective (and dotting) boyfriend. “Hey! Do you want to run double laps Lev!” Kuro shouts as Lev frantically apologises, “it was an accident Kuroo I swear- Jay, I’m sorry! Tell the bad man it was an accident!”

Whilst kuro was telling Yaku to keep Lev on a leash, Fukunaga throw a snowball at Kuroo, right in the face bless him. “That was cold as ice,” he giggles to him self.

Jay instantly burst out laughing “Fukunaga that was comedy ‘cold’! And the faCE KURO MADE AHAHA! Oh god I’m crying that was hilarious, you deserve a raise for that oh my-“

Jay stopped laughing as snow filled her mouth making her cough. The cackles of Kuro and the muffled giggles from the team were heard as Jay slowly stood up from her previous laughing fit on the floor.

Jay swiftly snatched the snowball Lev was making (which in turn made him whine, but Yaku stuffed snow in his mouth whilst Inokua tried to stop him-) and aimed the snowball at Kuros face, at close range might I add, and threw it into his cackling open mouth and closed eyes, which made him choke.

After Kuro stopped dying, Lev of course had to say something “that’s karma for throwing a snowball at our pretty managers face”, which irk’ed Kuro. “I’ll show you pretty you damned giant!” Kuro sneers and throws another snowball. Which unfortunately for Kuro, hit Kai. Which then began another war.

After an hour or so had past, and being covered in snow and cold to the bone, the volleyball team went inside to get changed, and dry off, in the locker room. Jay and Kuro started on their ways back to Kuroo’s, with his arm draped over Jay’s shoulder, and her arm wrapped round his waist. Slowly catching her breath, Jay breathed an airy laugh, “I gotta say, I didn’t expect to be dragged into a snow ball fight when I woke up this morning,” she smiled, “although I can’t complain, as you did get a face full of snow”.

“Says the one who got snow thrown in their mouth!” Kuro retorts, smirking. “Yeah! Well! At least I wasn’t the one who choked on the snow!” The look Kuro gave Jay made her realise what she said, “hey wait, don’t-“. He swiftly cut her off “ but you’re the one who chokes-“, Jay jumped and tried her best to cover his mouth, “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU-“.

His eyes held amusement as he pries her hands away, “you know, that was our first snow ball fight.” Realisation flashed in Jay’s eyes and a giant smile came across her face. “Oh yeah! It didn’t snow last year” Jay comments and grabs kuro’s hand to continue the walk, “well I enjoyed it, especially now that we can get back and we can cuddle and get warm.”

Looking up at the sky Jay smiles fondly “Although it’s cold, this will still be one of the best memories that I’ll treasure with you and the team in”. Kuro’s eyes wondering slightly before a genuine smile settled across his lips, not his usual smirk. “Well then I’ll just have to warm you up in my arms and make more unforgettable memories”.

Coming to a stop a few blocks from Kuro’s house, he hugs Jay tight around the waist as her arms come to instinctively curl around his neck. Jay looks into his eyes and smiles cheekily, “well my lips are cold too.”

With a smirk and a whisper of “I think I can warm them up”. Kuro dips his head as his lips connect to hers in a soft kiss. Pulling back slightly Jay smiles at him. “We should hurry up, or else we’ll never get back,” with another peck to his lips Jay detaches her self, “I want more kisses and cuddles when we get in.”

With a laugh, they both continue back. It’s safe to say this is the best winter that Jay had ever had.. and Jay knows that as long as she has Kuro, all winters will be the same. Nothing seems more perfect than this.

XOXO

Bokuto Koutarou:

Bokuto always took things to the extreme, and Christmas was no exception.

The house was blitzed to the max with decorations, the biggest tree there was, and a hundred lights that light the front lawn.

But the activity that Bokuto loved the most, was gingerbread decorating.

So that’s what Jay and Bokuto did Christmas Eve Eve (as Bokuto says) because patience is not in Bokuto’s vocabulary.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing” Jay’s eyes glimmer in amusement as she watches Bokuto stack icing covered gingerbread biscuits on top of each other. “I know what I’m doing, I’m an expert at this type of thing! I wasn’t the ace of Fukurōdani for nothing!”.

“Bokuto that was four years ago,” Jay sweat drops but doesn’t bother pressing into the matter, “and with how tight you’re squeezing that bottle, the top looks like it’s about to blow off”. It was true, with the excitement and determination to finish his gingerbread tower? Stack? Thing?, his knuckles were slightly white from squeezing the bottle too hard.

“This bottle is as tough as nails!” He proudly declares, “nothing can break this bad boy-“ maybe it was the fact he spoke too soon, or his icing cover face and hands that made Jay laugh and grab the table to stable herself; but either way she was in stitches.

“W-what was you going to say-“ even speaking was hard when you were dying from laughter, “as hard as nails, eh?”. The tick mark on Bokuto’s forehead increased with every comment; until he exploded.

“YEAH, WELL, HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT IT WAS AS SOFT AS KUROO WHEN HE LOOKS AT WOMAN” Bokuto _screamed_, it went silent. A pin drop would of sounded like an earth quake.

“Did you just-“ Jay cut herself off as she stared at Bokuto, deadpanning. Flushing red he rubbed his face to get the icing off, instead making it worse. “Now you just look like a clown,” Jay’s comment makes his hair deflate a little so Jay quickly rephrased what she said, “a hot clown that is my lovely boyfriend!”

A proud smirk soon returned to his face as mischief flashed through his eyes, which in turn made Jay raise an eyebrow. “Well every hot clown needs a stunning clown!” Realisation hits Jay like a brick as she waved her hands around frantically, “h-hey! W-wait a minute,B-Bokutooooo!”

Bokuto pounces on Jay and knocks the both of you to the floor, with Bokuto on top of you, gripping Jay’s hands with his; whilst rubbing his cheek against Jay’s simultaneously. “Now we’re clowns together! All we need now is a baby to make a clown family!” The comment is enough to make Jay flush, but Jay quickly push it down as she sits up and Bokuto slips to the floor. “At least give me a ring first” Jay jokes as Bokuto’s hair sticks straight up and stars shine in and around his eyes, “Marriage is the key to a clown family!! I’ll start the preparations and we can have a gingerbread tower cake and-“ before Bokuto can ramble anymore Jay presses a finger to his lips which stops him in his rambles, going cross eyed to stare at her finger.

Meeting back with Jay’s eyes, fondness is swirling within her irises, “oh I love you, you big good,” a massive smile etches on to his as he tackles you to the floor again, changing “I love you! I love you!” Over and over.

“Alright, alright!” Jay fondly holds him back, “let’s get tidied up and then we can discuss the marriage deal with the gingerbread tower cake”

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General Taglist: @mssyprsn @sachirou-senpai @sugasugawarau

Random: my heart is about to beat out of my chest I’m so nervous- sorry in advance because of how b a d my writing is- ily- xoxo

[back-and-totheleft]

‘There’s still a presence out there reminding people not to speak about JFK’s killing’

Oliver Stone is not a fan of “cancel culture”. “Of course I despise it,” the Oscar winning filmmaker says, as if utterly amazed that anyone needs to ask him such a dumb question. “I am sure I’ve been cancelled by some people for all the comments I’ve made…. it’s like a witch hunt. It’s terrible. American censorship in general, because it is a declining, defensive, empire, it (America) has become very sensitive to any criticism. What is going on in the world with YouTube and social media,” he rants. “Twitter is the worst. They’ve banned the ex-President of the United States. It’s shocking!” he says, referring to Donald Trump’s removal from the micro-blogging platform.

It’s a Saturday lunchtime in the restaurant of the Marriott Hotel on the Croisette in Cannes. The American director is in town for the festival premiere this week of his new feature documentary JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, in which he yet again pores over President John F Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963.

“I am a pin cushion for American-Russian peace relations… I had four f***ing vaccines: two Sputniks and two Pfizers,” Stone gestures at his arm. The rival super-powers may remain deeply suspicious of one another, but Stone is loading himself up with potions from both sides of the old Iron Curtain.

He has recently been travelling in Russia (hence the Sputnik jabs) where he has been making a new documentary about how nuclear power can save humanity. He also recently completed a film about Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev which – like his interviews with Vladimir Putin – has been roundly ridiculed for its deferential, softly-softly approach toward a figure widely regarded as a ruthless despot.

Dressed in a blue polo shirt, riffing away about the English football team one moment and his favourite movies the next, laughing constantly, the 74-year-old Oscar-winning director of Platoon, Wall Street, Natural Born Killers et al is a far cheerier presence than his reputation as a purveyor of dark conspiracy thrillers might suggest. He is also very outspoken. For all his belligerence, though, Stone isn’t as thick-skinned as you might imagine. I wonder if he was hurt by the scorn that came his way when his feature film JFK was released in 1991.

“I was more of a younger man. It was painful to me,” the director sighs as he remembers being attacked by such admired figures as newscaster Walter Cronkite and Hollywood power broker Jack Valenti for listening to the “hallucinatory bleatings” of former New Orleans DA Jim Garrison when JFK came out. “It was quite shocking actually because I thought the murder was behind us. I did think there was a feeling that 30 years later, we can look at this thing again without getting excited. But I was way wrong.”

Garrison, of course, was the real-life figure portrayed by Kevin Costner in the film; he was the original proponent of the theory that the CIA were involved in the killing of the US president, after his 1966 investigation. Garrison wrote the book On the Trail of the Assassins, on which the movie was partly based.

Even the director’s fiercest detractors will find it hard to dismiss the evidence he has assembled about the JFK assassination in the new documentary. Once I’d seen it and heard him hold forth, I came away thinking that only flat-earthers can possibly still believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy all on his own. It’s that convincing.

Stone blitzes you with facts and figures about the Kennedy killing and its aftermath. At times, he himself seems to be suffering from information overload. “I am sorry. There are so many people,” he apologises for not immediately remembering the name of Kennedy’s personal physician, George Burkley, who was present both at Parkland Hospital, where Kennedy was first taken, and then at Bethesda, where the autopsy took place. Burkley was strangely reticent when giving evidence to the Warren Commission.

“I think there’s still a presence out there which reminds people not to speak. I’ve heard that in, of all places, Russia,” Stone says. He was startled to discover that the Russians knew all about his new documentary long before it was discussed in the mainstream press. “They said, ‘We heard about it.’ I said, ‘How?’ They said, ‘We have our contacts in the American intelligence business. They are not very happy about it.’”

Stone believes that no US president since Kennedy died has been “able to go up against this militarised sector of our economy”. Even Trump “backed down at the last second” and declined to release all the relevant documents relating to the assassination. “He announced, ‘I’m going to free it up, blah blah blah, big talk, and then a few hours before, he caved to CIA National Security again.”

The veteran filmmaker expresses his frustrations at historians like Robert Caro, author of a huge (and hugely respected) multi-volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson, for ignoring the evidence that has been turned up about the assassination.

“I can’t say [LBJ] was involved in the assassination,” explains Stone, “but it certainly suited him that Kennedy was not there anymore and he covered up by appointing the Warren Commission and doing all the things he did.”

Stone tried to cast Marlon Brando in JFK in the role as the deep throat source Mr X, eventually played by Donald Sutherland.

“I realise now I am grateful that he turned it down because he knew better than I that he would make 20 minutes out of that 14-minute monologue and it wouldn’t have worked.”

Nevertheless, he filled the film with famous faces. He thought that having familiar actors would make it easier for audiences to engage with what was an immensely complicated story.

Getting Stone to stop talking about JFK is like trying to pull a bone from a mastiff’s jaws. To change the subject slightly, I ask if he is still in touch with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He is and is utterly horrified at how Assange is being treated, especially given that Siggi the Hacker, a key witness in the extradition case against Assange, admitted recently that he lied. Stone praises Assange’s partner Stella Morris as “the best wife you could ever have. She really is smart, she’s a lawyer … he has two children. He can’t even touch them or see them. It’s barbaric. It indicates America is declining faster than we know. It is just cutting off dissent.”

The mood lightens when I invite Stone to discuss some of his favourite films. He recently tweeted a list of these, which included Darling starring Julie Christie, Joseph Losey’s Eva starring Stanley Baker and Jeanne Moreau, and Houseboat, a frothy comedy starring Cary Grant and Sophia Loren. “I love films, always have. People don’t know that side of me. I could go on forever.”

Between his darker and more contentious efforts, Stone has made a few genre films himself, for example the underrated thriller U-Turn starring Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez. He notes, though, that even when he tried a sports movie, he ended up right back in the firing line. The NFL was furious about his 1999 American Football film, Any Given Sunday. “They (the NFL) are arrogant, very rich people who close down any dissent, so I had to change uniforms and names… but they got the point.”

Last year, Stone published the first volume of his autobiography, Chasing the Light, which took him from childhood up to his Oscar triumph with Platoon. It was well received but it didn’t make nearly a big enough splash for his liking. “There was a curtain of silence about that. Maybe it is Covid… it was not reviewed by many people,” he says. “I wish the timing had been better. The publisher was terrible. They didn’t really promote anything. So now I have to start over again if I am going to do a second book, which I would love to do. But I have to find the right publisher.”

The book contains a barbed account of Stone’s experiences as a young screenwriter working in London for British director Alan Parker and producer David Puttnam on Midnight Express. “I wrote about it in the book, so you got my point of view. They were not very friendly people. I gave my criticism of Parker that he had a chip on his shoulder. He was from a poor side of the English. There is this phenomenon you see in England of hating the upper classes until they approve of you.”

No, they didn’t stay in touch. “And Puttnam is a Lord, right? He reminds me of Tony Blair. He is such a weasel.” For once, Stone feels he has overstepped the mark. He doesn’t want to call Puttnam a weasel after all. “Put it this way, Tony Blair is a weasel. I wouldn’t trust Tony Blair. Puttnam is a supporter of Blair. Let’s leave it at that.”

On matters English, he isn’t that keen on soccer either. He watched the semi-final between England and Denmark but had no intention of tuning into the final.

“Soccer is a different kind of game. It’s a different aesthetic. It is constant movement. The United States game allows you to re-group after every play and go into a huddle and so it becomes about strategy. I still enjoy it although people think I am brutal.”

Ask him why he so relishes American Football and he replies that he “grew up with violence in America … we were banging – cowboys and Indians, a lot of killing and that stuff. How do you get away from that? We weren’t playing with dolls.”

Stone’s feelings about the US are deeply ambivalent. He is old enough to remember a time in the late 1940s and early 1950s when “everything in America was golden” and part of him still seems to love the country but his mother was French and he talks about the US as a nation now in near terminal decline.

Perhaps surprisingly, his real political hero isn’t JFK. It’s the former President of France, Charles de Gaulle. “He said no to NATO and he said no to America. He understood the dangers of being a satellite country to America. You have no power in Europe. Don’t kid yourself. The EU is just an artificial body that was amazingly stupid in cutting off Russia and cutting off China too now.”

He doesn’t much like Boris Johnson either. “Boris, listen. He’d simply throw you in jail in a second.” He rails against the English for holding Assange in Belmarsh prison.

When he is not on a crusade or unravelling a conspiracy, Stone relaxes through Buddhist meditation. “Moderation in all things,” the man who came up with the phrase “greed is right, greed works” says with no evident sense of irony. He enjoys hanging out with his friends. “I have a nice life. I’m lucky,” he says before quickly adding, “I wish I had been more honoured and respected in my lifetime, but it seems that I took a course that is in conflict with the American Empire.”

Stone’s films have had relatively few strong female characters. Ask if he welcomes the #MeToo movement and the challenging of old gender norms and he gives a typically contrary answer. “It cuts both ways, though. There are reasons for patriarchy through the centuries,” he says. “Tribes tend to have a strong leader. You need strong leaders, but I do see the feminine impulse as being important, especially when situations become too militant. The feminine impulse, I’m talking about the maternal impulse not the Hillary Clinton/Margaret Thatcher version of feminism. They’re men. They’re not women,” he says. “I don’t want women in politics who want to be men. If a woman is a woman, she should be a woman and bring her maternalism. It’s a leavening influence.”

The director deplores the rush to judge historical figures about past misdeeds from a contemporary point of view. “I am conservative in that way… don’t expect to rejudge the entire society based on your new values.”

He met with Harvey Weinstein in Cannes a few years ago to discuss a potential Guantanamo Bay TV series. “At that point, maybe he knew he was on the ropes; he was delightfully charming and humble.” The project was scuppered by the scandal that that engulfed the former Miramax boss, who is now behind bars as a convicted sex offender. Stone’s gripes with Weinstein are less to do with his sexual offences than with the way that he attacked films like Born on the Fourth of July and Saving Private Ryan to boost his own movies.

“The press loved him [Weinstein]. Don’t forget, they loved him in the 1990s,” he says, remembering the disingenuous way in which Weinstein portrayed himself as the underdog taking on the big, bad Hollywood system.

“I think he robbed Cruise of the Oscar, frankly,” Stone huffs at the intensive Weinstein lobbying which saw Daniel Day-Lewis win the Academy Award for Best for My Left Foot, denying Tom Cruise for Born on the Fourth of July in the process.

Stone acknowledges his status in Hollywood has diminished. “All that’s gone. The people have changed,” he says of the days when the studios doted on him and his films were regularly awards contenders. Now, he’ll often finance his work out of Europe. He is developing a new feature film (he won’t say what it is). “Never say die, never say it’s over,” he says of his career.

Stone is based in Los Angeles and also has “a place in New York”. During the pandemic, he still managed to travel to Russia to make his nuclear power/clean energy documentary. “I got my shots over there because the EU is so f***ing stupid,” he says of the of the Europeans’ refusal to recognise the Sputnik vaccine. “It’s ridiculous, part of the political madness of this time.”

Now, he is putting all his energy into his new documentary about nuclear power. He waves away the idea that the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters show what can go wrong – they were accidents.

“Accidents you learn from. If there were not a few crashes, how would you fly?” he says. It’s a line that somehow seems to express his entire philosophy of life.

-Geoffrey Macnab interviews Oliver Stone, The Independent, Jul 15 2021 [x]

[themangoyogurt]

Misguided Youth: The First Misunderstanding

Chapter 1

Kylo Ren didn’t necessarily enjoy being an asshole. It just kind of happened that way. Somewhere along the line between puberty and getting his heart broken for the first time, the man evolved into an enigma of darkness and reticence. Somehow he had shucked off the nerdiness and slipped on armor in the form of bad decisions and anger management problems. Looking at this hulking form of a man, you’d never guess his obsession with space or that his hobbies included calligraphy.

Although Hux, his best friend from childhood, sure as hell did his best to remind Kylo of the fact daily.

The biggest joke of all was that Kylo had somehow turned his teenage angst and emo persona into a career. It was pretty straightforward - he just wanted attention. His father was a pilot, and his mother was a senator. Both of his parents were headstrong and stubborn - meaning that neither really had an interest in being a parent. His childhood was a blur of being passed from nanny to nanny. Once, his parents were so busy with their own lives, they actually shipped him off to the Pacific Northwest to live with his reclusive uncle.

So Kylo lashed out. It was a slippery slope that began with wearing dark clothes and piling on the metal hardware. He even gathered his friends Hux and Phasma and started a stupid band where he could croon about abandonment and loneliness. To be honest, they were just kids messing around. Even as he began to collect piercings and tattoos, his parents still didn’t do much. They weren’t exactly present enough to notice their only child spiraling out of control.

Somehow his teenage pet project took off though, and Kylo Ren found himself being signed to a record label alongside his friends. His music resonated with his generation, and next thing he knew Kylo Ren was a college drop out touring the country.

Still, his parents couldn’t be bothered to come to a show.

And so, he continued to act out. It was so fucked really. The more he smoked, drank, and pushed back - the more his fans loved him. Every bar fight, every tabloid photo of his tongue down some model’s throat, every time he flipped off the press - record sales would increase. Finally, he relented to his reputation. If the world wanted him to be an asshole, then he’d be the biggest one of them all. If he couldn’t soothe his aching soul with light and love, he’d find a balm in the form of quick fucks and alcohol.

Which was how he found himself prowling some random bar on a Wednesday night. It was the same routine: if he couldn’t find a good lay, then at least he could get blackout drunk and forget the night. Holding his second or third or fourth (who the fuck cared) glass of bourbon, a sparkling beacon of sweetness caught his eye.

There you were. Pristine and calm, and so fucking good. Perched alone at the bar, your hands were neatly folded over your crossed legs. A stiff peter-pan collar poked out of your pale blue cable knit sweater. A pleated skirt donned your legs, and your feet were covered by a pair of penny loafers. Kylo almost choked on his drink. It was like watching a wet dream straight out of the fifties.

Kylo slowly licked his lips and imagined all of the different ways he could defile you. He’d definitely keep the skirt on while he fucked you into the mattress. He smirked at the clean ponytail - not a single hair out of place. That was definitely staying as well. Better leverage to warp around his hand as he tugged on your hair.

Girls like you were his favorite. Easy pickings as he so eloquently liked to say. There was a reason why the bad boy/good girl trope existed. Women were so eager to fix him. To save him from himself. To make him change for the better - as if he were a fucking conquest. Kylo learned early on that girlfriends would just leave when they realized that he wasn’t some home improvement project they could work on in their leisure time. He was an actual person with actual problems.

They’d usually selfishly move on, leaving behind more damage than there was before their arrival. So Kylo decided to forgo the chore of being in relationships. Instead, he’d allow the illusion that he could be your bad boy for a few hours. Long enough to get his dick wet before he left in the middle of the night.

He thought of it as win-win anyways. He got his rocks off. You got to fulfill some sort of fantasy - really sticking it to your parents for forcing you to take SAT classes every weekend. Nothing said “fuck you” like fucking the boy they’d never approve of.

Downing the bronze liquid in his glass, he harshly set the cup down before cracking his neck a few times. You were still silently sitting alone - not even glancing at a phone. Kylo imagined that you weren’t accustomed to being out on a weeknight. You were probably nervous. The shy type who needed a man like him to shake things up a bit.

He ambled over to your side and slid a forearm across the bar to box you in. His form towered over your smaller one as he smirked down at your placid features returning his gaze with a surprised look.

Jesus, you weren’t even wearing makeup. What an angel.

His deep voice drawled, “Hello, princess. I’m Kylo, and I’m going to buy you a gin and tonic.”

Your owlish eyes blinked back a few times in silence. Kylo licked his lips again. He definitely had you now. Your features were so compliant. So soft. So easy. He could already imagine how he’d probably be the first guy you’d ever allow to go down on you. How he would...

His indecent thoughts were suddenly interrupted as you doubled over in laughter. Hinged at the waist, you had thrown both hands on your knees and bent over to guffaw into the space between your thighs.

What the fuck?

You sat back up and wiped a tear from the corner of your eye. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Seriously? You’re going to buy me a gin and tonic? Just like that? And then what? And who drinks gin and tonics anymore? What, are you like eighty?”

Kylo felt his face redden in agitation as you continued to laugh at his expense. His fists clenched and he felt his spine stiffen in embarrassment. Suddenly, another woman appeared by your side. You clutched her arm and continued to shriek, “Oh my God, Jyn. This asshole over here thinks he’s some sort of dark knight trying to whisk away an innocent dove.”

Your brown haired accomplice gave Kylo a withering glare before grabbing onto your arm to tug you away towards a booth pressed against the back wall. Even as you were dragged away, you turned over your shoulder to cry out, “Oh mister knight! Please show me the dark side, won’t you? Show me how to be a bad girl.” You continued to howl in amusement while Jyn wrangled you into a seat.

Kylo stood rooted in shock. Nobody had ever talked to him like that. All six foot two of him screamed “danger”. Yet here you were, dressed like you worked at a fucking soda fountain while hurling insults at the rock star. Kylo felt offended - it didn’t even seem like you recognized him.

This was his supposed angel?

Meanwhile, Jyn shoved a bottle of water in front of your face. “Seriously? I leave you alone for fifteen minutes, and somehow you managed to still get blitzed.”

You pushed the water away in indignation. “Who said I was blitzed? Was it Finn? That fucking snitch!”

Jyn rolled her eyes and pushed the water back towards your hands. She unscrewed the cap and sighed, “Dude, Finn isn’t even here. Honestly, you hold your composure pretty well when you’re just sitting around. It’s when you open your mouth that I can tell you’re drunk.”

“How?”

The brunette laughed and pulled you in for a hug. “I say this with so much love, but you turn into a total bitch when you’re tipsy.” You huffed into her hair and relented with a swig from the water bottle.

“Oh, here. Thanks for letting me borrow your phone.” Jyn squeezed your shoulder before placing the device on the table. You waved off her gratitude, and the woman continued, “Why are you dressed like a cast member in Grease, anyways?”

You moaned and threw your face into your palms. You were in the last year of getting your MBA. One day you would be a fearless female CEO of some publicly traded company. You’d slink out of your penthouse, get chauffeured around to your job, and change lives dammit.

But that was someday, and right now you were a broke grad student trying to make ends meet before resorting to hawking your organs on Canal Street. Jyn gave you a look of pity as you bemoaned your existence. “I look like Sandy Olsson because I actually do work at a soda fountain now.” Jyn burst into a fit of giggles as you pulled at your face in exasperation.

“It’s one of those stupid hipster joints in Brooklyn where they’re still trying to profit off of nostalgia. So yeah. That’s my part time job.” You moved to kick your friend off her seat as she started to tear up at the image. Just before you could successfully push the woman off, a man cleared his throat.

Kylo was looming over the table, still angry from your confrontation. Somehow watching you laugh it up with your friend only pissed him off even more. He glared down at you and seethed, “What’s your fucking problem?”

Before Jyn could grab the back of your sweater, you leapt up from your seat and squared right up. “You want to know what my fucking problem is? My ‘fucking problem’ is entitled douchebags such as yourself thinking that you can just prowl up to any woman and we’ll drop our panties for you. You’re not good looking enough to act like an asshole.”

Kylo reeled back, completely disarmed and offended. “Well I’m so sorry for misreading your desperate fake good girl look.”

His chest was heaving now, barely grazing your own as it rose and fell with each labored breath. You knew you were about to become annoying, but it was too late to stop. You begin to press a finger into his chest over and over again, punctuating your words with each push.

“Let me tell you something about looks, mister. At least I’m not the old geezer dressed like he’s still holding onto the wonder years of his misguided youth.”

“Misguided youth? Do you know who the fuck I am?”

Kylo was positively seething at this point. Who gave you the right to talk to him like that? Some stupid nobody dressed like a fucking cartoon trying to school him on his wardrobe. Jyn desperately tried to calm you down, but her words were drowned out as you raised the volume of your voice.

“No, I don’t dickwad. And I sure as hell wouldn’t want to. I don’t want people thinking that I associate with grandpas who still wear eyeliner!”

“Grandpa? I’m fucking twenty-seven!” Kylo practically roared as he flung his phone into the wall. You looked at him in shock as the device ricocheted off the wall and slid back towards him across the table. Kylo Ren had participated in his fair share of bar fights, but very few people could actually get underneath his skin. He sure as hell wasn’t expecting his opponent to be sporting a bowtie in her hair.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” A posh British accent suddenly interrupted the feud. A red-haired man appeared next to Kylo, and pushed him away from your shaking fist. He quickly snatched up Kylo’s phone, and apologized on behalf of his friend. Jyn took the cue and quickly moved you behind her as well. The moment was over, and you heard Kylo call the man “General” before the two disappeared through a crowd that had formed.

Still shaking, you sank down into the booth and closed you eyes. You really needed to get your shit together.

[stammiviktor]

yuri on ice & good omens: an analysis

No two shows have ever drawn me in as quickly or as thoroughly as Yuri on Ice and Good Omens. I’d only ever written for two different fandoms before these and, for those other shows, I started watching them young and fell in love slowly. I wrote extensively, but the focus was rarely on romance—usually I was somewhat ambivalent toward the possible pairings, or I liked the pairing only because of a one-sided interest in one of the characters. Up until I got obsessed with YOI two years ago, I thought maybe *I* was ambivalent to romance, which was why falling for Yuri on Ice (and Viktor and Yuuri’s love story) was such a surprise. 

Now I feel like something extremely similar has happened with me for Good Omens and Aziraphale and Crowley’s story, and I’m starting to notice a lot of parallels. I think there’s something similar at the core of both shows that has drawn me to them, some fundamental aspects that they share, and I thought I’d share them in case anyone is interested, in this essay I will—

Sections: 

Relationship Dynamics

Character Similarities

How the Story’s Told

Main Themes

1) Relationship Dynamics 

The main couples are the beating heart of each show, and they actually have a lot of similarities in the ways they love each other. 

In both shows, the main couple defies the world’s expectations. Both couples share a similar niche group—elite professional figure skaters in YOI, celestial beings in GO. Within these groups, the main two characters are adversaries, in the case of GO, and competitors (separated by the non-traversable boundary of their difference in skill level, in Yuuri’s mind) in the case of YOI. The relationships they develop with one another are shocking or even taboo to the people in these groups, and even perhaps to the characters themselves in the beginning. But they are drawn together by something important they share, and they just kind of say “screw the world, I love you, you’re mine”. 

In both shows, part of the reason they fall in love with each other is that they understand one another on a level that no one else could. 

Aziraphale and Crowley are the only celestial beings that love the Earth and humankind the way they do, and over the years they come to enjoy it together, drawn together by this shared appreciation. They also have a lot in common in regards to their situations regarding Heaven/Hell. They each know what it is like to take orders from and report to a Head Office where they don’t feel particularly welcome, understood, or appreciated; to live in the earthly plane in their human bodies for thousands of years; to have no one really understand them; to question the way things are.

Viktor and Yuuri are both VERY dedicated to the ice and have let a lot of their life (and love) pass them by because of it. They had sacrificed a lot and understand the mental toll it can take, for different reasons. They know what it’s like to struggle to accept love, to put on a brave face, and to compete anyway. They understand that drive for perfection that gets them up at 5am six days a week. Yuuri always had a secret drive to beat Viktor and to be the best, though he would never admit it out loud and assumed everyone else would laugh at him if he admitted it—but Viktor immediately was on board with this, and basically said, “Yes, you have what it takes if you gain confidence, let’s get you there”. Viktor, on the other hand, wanted to retire because he was burnt out and nothing surprised or inspired him anymore, but he didn’t think he could. He knew the world would think, “What the hell, you’re at the top of the world, what would you even do if you retired?”—but there was Yuuri saying, “Be my coach!” and not telling Viktor he’s insane for not wanting to skate. He validates him, only pushing him back toward the ice because he sees Viktor longing for it and feels guilty (but not because “You’re the five-time world champion you HAVE to”). They understand and accept one another where the rest of the world would not (or at least it’s perceived that they would not).

They meet each other where they are. This is straight up a line from YOI obviously, but it applies so well to Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship as well. This isn’t all that different from the last point about understanding one another, but here it’s important that they always try to let this understanding inform their behavior towards the other person. 

Viktor, as Yuuri’s coach, attempts adjust to his approach to meet Yuuri’s needs. He sees the hang-ups Yuuri has and helps him resolve them (being convinced he can’t do “Eros”, thinking he’s a failure and lacking confidence, etc) instead of just blindly pushing him forward. Yuuri, who previously isn’t shown to be a very touchy person while sober (he doesn’t even hug his mom when he returns home after five years), welcomes and reciprocates Viktor’s touch (which seems to be his love-language, so to speak). Yuuri doesn’t belittle Viktor for his insecurities (like the whole hair thinning issue), just apologizes when he accidentally offends him and only points out the issues again in a sweet gesture (ep7) that means “I see your shortcomings and I still accept you”. They don’t make each other conform to their expectations. They definitely have misfires in communication (aka the “let’s end this” and the “I’ll step down as your coach” scenes) but it’s because they’re trying too hard to meet each other where they are while their understanding of one another is still developing.

Crowley is maybe the definition of meeting Aziraphale where he is— he understands Aziraphale, knows what makes him tick, know he relies on philosophical logic to justify his actions. Whenever he proposes something (like stopping Armageddon or their Arrangement) he works through it logically and doesn’t belittle Aziraphale for his hesitance—he just reframes the suggestion. He doesn’t belittle Aziraphale for things like being a bit neurotic about the paintball stain, or his love of his book collection; when he breaks the news to Aziraphale about the fire (twice), he is so delicate and looks so sad for him. And Aziraphale, despite the whole “You go too fast for me” thing, still meets Crowley where he is, even if he plays dumb sometimes (after all, he does get on board the plot to raise and later kill the antichrist, and the decision to give Crowley holy water). He never ever uses Crowley being a demon as a way to claim he is somehow morally inferior or unforgivable in order to win an argument; he values Crowley for who he is (damned or not). He pushes Crowley by calling him “nice” only because they both know it’s true, and Crowley needs to own up to that in the same way Aziraphale needs to learn to stand up to Heaven. They do this lovely little dance around each other as their relationship develops, respecting one another, getting to know one another and the ways they fit together and it is beautiful.

They just... are so in love with each other in such a healthy way. The way they look at each other with stars in their eyes (there are so many scenes in both shows, but just compare the kiss scene in YOI episode 7 to the 1941 Blitz scene as they stand in the rubble of the church in GO ep3—the looks in their eyes!!). It’s Mutual Pining Up The Wazoo and there is just so much tenderness in the way they love each other. They also each value the things the other person loves (Viktor values and Hasetsu/the Katsukis/Katsudon, Yuuri values Makkachin and Viktor’s skating, Aziraphale and Crowley value each other’s earthly possessions and vices (the Bentley, the book collection, the paintball’d jacket, delicious food). And finally they both take great joy in each other’s happiness and success. 

2) Character Similarities

All of these characters have a ton of depth. They’re complex and flawed, some of them in similar ways.

Yuuri and Aziraphale are anxious kings of cognitive dissonance; they both hold a lot of contradicting things as true and have to find a way to resolve them in order to develop as characters and in their relationships.

In Yuuri’s case, the illogical nature of his anxiety is key. He knows he is objectively a great skater, he’s among the top ten male singles skaters in the world and he qualified for a competition that only takes the top six, but he also feels like an imposter, a “dime-a-dozen” competitor, and he constantly downplays his success and his skill level. Also, in the parking garage scene, he is terrified that Victor secretly wants to step down as his coach, yet he admits a second later that he knows that it’s not true (which I’ve seen people who experience anxiety say is common). Yuuri feels weak and yet he knows he’s strong. He is anxious at the prospect of failure and feels keenly the sacrifices others have had to make for him, and feels like he has a lot to lose even while he doesn’t think his career has been successful. 

Aziraphale is also very good at living with contradiction. For 6000 years, he has been holding on very tightly to the faith that God and Her Plan are Just, and all doubts about this can be chocked up to Ineffability. And yet at the same time, he knows Crowley, a demon cast out from Heaven by God Herself, is fundamentally good. After being friends with Crowley so long, he knows that casting him out was cruel. He knows that wiping out an entire population in the Flood was cruel; knows that Heaven and its angels, and even God, can be just as horrible as demons. Aziraphale has known this from the very Beginning, of course: he gave away his flaming sword, a weapon of righteousness bestowed by God Herself, to the beings God has just cast out for sinning. He loves God, wants to follow Her and believe that She is a being of goodness and love, but he also clearly sees Her destruction and hypocrisy and he’s perfectly willing to act against Her even as he claims She has his allegiance. He has immense sympathy for humans, something he’s not necessarily supposed to feel, but he thinks it’s the right thing to do so he does it. He is just holding onto hope that the right thing to do (the compassionate, empathetic, kind thing to do) is what is going to prevail in the Ineffable Plan. He’s very anxious that his own actions are or aren’t in line with the “good” and he agonizes over that. He feels that he has a lot to lose.

So, it’s only once Yuuri and Aziraphale resolve these mental hangups, these contradictions, that they are able to grow as people and in their relationships. Yuuri gains confidence and starts to undervalue himself less and see himself as worthy of Viktor’s time, and Aziraphale finally rejects Heaven’s demands and stands for what he knows, without a doubt, is good. 

Yuuri and Aziraphale are the epitome of the “looks like a cinnamon roll but is actually a sin-namon role” trope. At first glance, they seem like adorable softies to be protected at all costs, but in reality they are as tough as nails and really don’t need any protection at all.

Yuuri is a tie-grabbing, Eros-laden menace. He is fiercely competitive, the take-no-prisoners type when it comes to his own skating. This is a man who left his family, friends, and beloved dog behind at eighteen to live in a foreign country speaking a foreign language and working his ass off for five years without even letting himself go home. This is a man who skates competitively (a very mental sport) in front of hundreds of thousands of people even with crippling anxiety. He’s a sweetheart but he is tough. 

Aziraphale, according to a reliable source, is “just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing”. He will stand up to God for the things he loves, will gleefully stick it to some Nazis and allow them to be killed in a bomb blast, will steal the holiest holy water out from under Heaven’s nose, will perform demonic acts as part of the Arrangement for the sake of convenience, will possess a woman, will maybe actually almost kill a child, will splash holy water around at some terrified Demons and demand a rubber duck during his would-be execution. Aziraphale is an Angel, but he’s no angel, so to speak.

And now for Viktor and Crowley: they both appear very confident and put together, but are actually very soft and insecure on the inside. They are the characters you start out thinking, “Wow this guy is so confident and he’s got so much swagger,” but it’s revealed that they are actually very soft, unsure of themselves, and (probably) have something in their past that hurt them. 

We don’t know much about Viktor’s past, and as much as I want him to have loving parents, it is very possible based off of s1 that that is not the case. The way he hides himself behind a mask and tries to conform himself to what he thinks other people want could come from a lifetime in the spotlight, or from neglectful parents as well. His behavior speaks of abandonment issues to me, especially the way he tries to handle Yuuri’s breakdown in the parking garage. No matter his past, he’s got some issues behind that confident smile he presents to the world. He’s lonely, afraid of the future, and not quite sure who he is.

Crowley is... probably self-explanatory in this regard. He presents this front of a definitely-not-nice-confident-demon, but in reality he’s *shudder* nice. He refuses to do anything evil (like kill children, or honestly anything more than mildly frustrating people), and he has serious abandonment issues of the divine-parental sort that he takes out on potted plants. 

3) How the Story’s Told

In the context of the series as a whole, both love stories unfold in similar ways that encourage fan engagement.

Despite having two fairly clear main characters, both shows are dominated (in terms of screen-time) by assorted other characters and storylines. In YOI this starts on the back half of the show once the competitions begin and we are introduced to a huge ensemble of other skaters and their programs; in GO, this happens pretty much from the beginning with all of the various side characters and plots that lead up to the Apocalypse. This leaves somewhat limited screen-time for relationship development in both shows (which total around 4-5 hours each).

Because of this, there is a lot that happens off screen in both shows. In YOI, we have the famed Summer of Mutual Pining of which we only get a couple of glimpses; in GO, we have Six-Thousand Years of Mutual Pining that we only see bits and pieces of as well. When we catch back up with the characters, a lot has undoubtedly happened—they get much more comfortable with one another, and in YOI ep7 Viktor says “Should I just kiss you or something?” almost as if they’ve done that before; in GO ep3 in the Globe Theater scene, Crowley references their Arrangement as if they’ve already started helping each other out long before then. The audience is left out of a lot (big examples being Viktor’s POV/the banquet reveal in YOI, and the Body Swap reveal in GO) and left guessing on the infinite possibilities for those moments we didn’t get to see.

And so in both stories, you get a handful of very important relationship scenes spread throughout the show intermixed with other characters and plot. These moments are so rich in subtext and other between-the-lines meaning. How many metas have you seen analyzing every word of the engagement scene in ep10 of YOI, or the parking garage scene in ep7? How many analyzing the “you go too fast for me, Crowley” scene in ep3 or the bandstand “we can go off together” scene in GO? These moments are open to so much viewer-engagement, to analysis and reinterpretation and re-contextualization. These scenes can be read so many different ways but that’s how real life works, isn’t it? We don’t always just say exactly what we mean. Conversations are loaded with subtext and shared experience and preconceptions and the dialogue isn’t always easy to understand, and that’s wonderful.

These important scenes can sometimes be hard to connect to each other just by virtue of how spread out and between-the-lines then tend to be. But it’s not because they are poorly written or opaque— it’s because there is a lot happening off screen and in their heads that you need to figure out and connect. With the way the shows are structured, with immensely meaningful moments peppered throughout with a lot of stuff in between, there’s a lot to unpack. But this is also part of what makes both shows so engaging—by nature they welcome metas, headcanons, fanfiction, and other fanworks to fill in the gaps. I can’t tell you how many fill-in-the-gaps fics I’ve read for YOI that connect the exact same moments in canon, but each is so unique. I’m sure the same can be said for GO.

4) Main Themes

The most obvious overall similarity between these shows is that they both center around love stories between two (mostly-)male(-presenting) beings in genres where this is rare. But to call this a superficial comparison misses some important, deeper similarities.

Both exist in a narrative without homophobia and their love is so normalized. The love stories (between two men in YOI, and between two genderless celestial beings played by male actors) are never reduced to or defined by their sexualities or genders. Yuri on Ice is a love story between two men that is just straight up set in a world without homophobia. In GO, there are bits where outsiders allude to Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship being romantic (Uriel calling Crowley Aziraphale’s “boyfriend”, and the man on the street after their fight saying “You’re better off without him”), but unlike a lot of other shows/movies this isn’t played for laughs—if there is a joke, it rests on the strangeness of applying such banal human terms to their six-thousand years of illicit celestial-being-companionship. Their relationships are treated so respectfully and beautifully and it’s so refreshing.

At the same time, the narratives are still very tied into LGBT+ experiences. People who can speak to this much better than I can have already analyzed this in detail; I’ve seen so many metas about how GO can easily be read as a queer allegory of accepting yourself and letting yourself love who you love, despite what your family (aka Heaven) might think. Yuri on Ice hits a lot of the same points. They are both stories about learning to give love and accept love, unapologetically.

Love itself is also a central theme of both stories, and not just romantic love between the leads. It’s also about Crowley and Aziraphale’s enduring companionship, their love for the Earth/humanity, and their love of God (in a complicated way). It’s about Adam loving the world, his friends, his family, and his dog. It’s about and Newt and Anathema, and Shadwell and Madame Tracy. Yuri on Ice is about Victor and Yuuri, but it’s also about the Katsuki family and friends’ love and support. It’s about loving and taking pride in your craft. It’s about Yuri’s agape with his grandfather and his relationship with Viktor and Yuuri, the skaters he looks up to. And yes, it’s about Michele and Sara’s and Georgi and Anya’s love, too. These shows are not shallow romances. Their scope is huge.

They are fundamentally happy and optimistic stories, despite dealing with very real and very serious problems. Good Omens is about the freaking apocalypse and Yuri on Ice deals with mental health issues. They could have been very gritty and dark and tragic, but they aren’t—they’re the polar opposite and are, imo, all the more impactful for it. 

And at the heart of both shows is a common theme: overcoming who you think you have to be by choosing the life you want to lead and the love you want to surround yourself with. They both end with the main couple sharing a more intimate moment than ever and looking forward to a future of endless possibility that they have worked hard to shape... And then moving forward together.

tl;dr - There might be a reason so many of us have found ourselves drawn over and over again to both of these stories...

[komarto]

“Welcome to the Shadow Records!” (1/2)

I might have went overboard and wrote a fic to intro my OCs to the Hazbin Universe... with a spice of a reader insert! You can also find it on AO3

Summary: After falling into hell, you hired the I.M.P.s to take out your abusive ex. But they can’t seem to find him in the living world, so you have to visit the local information broker for their whereabouts.

Words: 2374

Tws: Implied/ referenced abusive and manipulative relationship, Implied/ referenced suicide

Luna: “Blitz!”

Blitzo: “Yes Luna?”

Luna: “Yeah, dispatch just came back and they can’t find the target.”

Blitzo: “What do you mean they can’t find the target?”

Luna: “They can’t find them in the living world.”

Blitzo: “Well, if they’re not in the living world, then it’ll mean they’re dead. And with all the shit that the customer says that they’ve done to them, very terrible by the way, they would most likely end up here in hell. And frankly, that’s not our job. Hell’s too big to find and kill 1 person.”

Millie: “So what now? We can’t just tell them that we couldn’t find their target, sir...”

Moxie: “What if we asked the Shadow demon, sir?”

Blitzo: “The who?”

Moxie: “Y’know, the Shadow demon that hunted down 25 demons in a month a few years back and killed them with the Radio demon?”

Blitzo: “They gave them a lame title now? Man, the people here really needs to brush up on their naming game.”

Moxie: “She’s an information broker now, has a little collection of something on everyone in hell.”

Blitzo: “And you know that how?”

Moxie: “I… might have asked her about some stuff.”

Blitzo: “Riiiight, sure. Totally not suspicious at all. Well you can give her a call or something and see what happens.”

“This is the Shadow Records, what can we do for ya?”

Moxie: “Ah- hello, um, Shadow demon, this is uh Moxie calling in from the Immediate Murder Professionals.”

“Moxie, how nice of you to call in. And please, call me Deni. This isn’t the first time we talked and you’re a nice guy. So, are the I.M.P.s having some trouble with a client?”

Moxie: “You could say that. Our dispatch team can’t find their target, so we figured that they’re already here.”

“And you need my help to find them.”

Moxie: “Y-yes. Can you?”

“Oh sure, but you know my pricing, Moxie. It’s either money, a favour, or something that I don’t know.”

Moxie: “Well... we can have client owe you?”

“Fair enough. What’s their name?”

Moxie gives the broker your name.

“I’ve heard of them here and there. I’ll have Amelie send an eye over to get them. Have the client there in 3 hours.”

Moxie: “Of course, mam’, thank you so much for this.”

“No problem, Moxie. Just a little reminder of the favour you owe me. I’ll see them soon.”

Moxie: “Yeah, I know, thanks for that… bye bye.”

Blitzo: “What’d she say?”

Moxie: “She said to have the client be here so she can send an… eye to get her?”

Blitzo: “The fuck she going to do with an eye?”

Moxie: “I don’t know! Just call the person over and it’ll get them in 3 hours!”

Blitzo: “Fine! Luna call the client over!”

(Y/N)’s POV

It’s been a few days since you’ve contacted the I.M.P.s about your request to kill your abusive ex that landed you here. In your last moments, you prayed that the Lord would forgive the sins they made you commit as you stepped off the ledge.

You guess not. It was a rather rude awakening when you found yourself in hell. You’ve only recently found the Immediate Murder Professionals from their ad, and heck, you wanted your ex to pay for what they did, what they made you do in your cursed life. Your entire life was a fuck fest of issues and bad memories from everyone around you. Your abusive parents, manipulative and controlling ex, dead-end jobs, etc...

You did your best, you really tried. But it all came to a point where you were just too tired of trying… You just hoped that karma would finally be on your side and burn everyone that has ever wronged you.

You got a call back from them telling you to be at their headquarters in 3 hours. Had they done the job? That was fast. Nevertheless, you were eager to be there on time, maybe reach there a few minutes earlier.

You reached the door to their office 15 minutes before the meeting time. You knocked on the door and the tall imp demon greeted you. “Ah (Y/N), come in come in, here take a seat and Moxie will explain everything.”

“Hey! Wha-” the shorter employee looked at him shock. “Aren’t you suppose to explain the circumstances first?”

“It was your stupid idea! Frankly, we could have just told them the problem and go on our merry way! Now go do your fucking job.” Blitzo waved at him and walked out of the room.

Your mind is filled with question. What problem? What stupid idea have they thought of and why does it concern you?

“Hey, its gonna be alright dear just listen for a minute.” Mille pats you on your shoulder and joins Moxie at his side

Moxie clears his throat. “Well, first of all, thank you for making your way here on such a short notice, I know it can be quite hard to get here for some people. Ah um, secondly, our dispatch team ran into some complications in the living world and uh, they couldn’t find the person that you wanted us to murder. Which means that they’re here in hell, which would make it very hard to find them.”

“But! But, ah, we have a solution! There’s an information broker that I know of that can help. It’s just that well…”

“Well?” you asked sceptically.

“You have to pay for their services.”

“What? I don’t have the money to pay someone else to do the job! That’s what I paid you guys to do!”

“Yes, we know! But! There are other ways to pay them, like owing them a favour or like telling them like something that they don’t know, y’know with the whole information broker deal thing. It's practically free.” Moxie explained.

“Not when I owe some creep a favour, god knows what they’ll want from me!” you snapped back at him. A muffled tapping sound could be heard from the window but you were too worked up to care about whatever it is.

“It’s probably bad to talk about the shadow demon like that…” Millie murmured as he looked shyly to the side.

Your eyes widened at her and your head whipped back to Moxie “The SHADOW DEMON? THAT’S WHO I’M SUPPOSE TO MEET?” you exclaimed.

That’s it, you’re dead. You’ve heard rumours of the Shadow demon. But in just a month or so in hell, they had teamed up with the Radio demon, a feat on its own, and had killed 20 over demons.

Wrapped them up in little bows and strung them on the overlord’s radio tower to be picked off painfully by the angels during the cleanse. Their pleads and screams were broadcasted across hell through the radios like the Radio demon’s previous plot, but never at this scale.

“Calm down (Y/N), the Shadow demon’s a nice person from what I’ve heard, she won’t hurt you if you haven’t done anything to her.” Millie assured you, her voice calm but still held a hint of nervousness.

“Shadow demon’s a “her”? Well that’s a first.” you scoffed. He, they… the rumours never got their pronouns down, but you’ve never heard anyone call the Shadow demon a “her”.

“Yeah well, she said she’ll have an eye to bring you to her. So it’ll benefit all of us, hopefully mostly you, that you follow her orders.” Moxie continues checking the clock on the wall.

You let out a frustrated sighed. “Well fuck that. Nice or not, I’m not sticking around to find out. If you can’t do the job just give me a fucking refund and we’ll be on our merry way.”

“Well no can do (Y/N), the boss already spent it on keeping the TV ad on the air.” Moxie crossed his arms.

You were fuming at this point, and that incessant tapping wasn’t making it any better. “I don’t care about your fucking jingle, I want my fucking money back if you can’t do what I paid you to do!” you hit the table under you in anger.

“Um, guys?” Millie tapped on Moxie’s shoulder as she stared to her right.

“And what the fuck is making that tapping sou-” Your complaints were drowned by the gazed of the most unsettling creature that was outside the window.

Behind the glass, hovered a single eyeball with a pink iris and a black star of its pupil. Its bat wings that kept it airborne tapped against the glass with each flap. The thing had no eyelids so it simply maintained eye contact with you as you stared back at it in shock.

“Moxie, is that the ‘eye’ that we were waiting for?” Millie breaks the silence, pointing to the mysterious but obvious eye.

“I-uh, I think so?” Moxie walks over to the window to open it and the eye bat thing calmly flies into the room. The eyeball makes its way over to you and circles over your head whimsically before flying out of the window to watch you from outside.

“It’s actually kinda cute.” Millie walks over to the window to get a closer look at it. The eye turns to watch her and gives her a light bump on her cheek before returning to stare at you.

“See, no harm at all!” Millie giggled, turning back to the both of you.

“I suppose that your cue to follow it?” Moxie nudges you.

You let out another heavy sigh and rubbed your nose bridge. You know what, fuck it. What do you have to lose at this point?

“Fine. And if I manage to come back with their whereabouts I want to see his severed head when ya’ll actually do your job.”

You exit their headquarters, not bothering to slam the door on your way out. You may be mad, but you’re not that mean... Even if this is hell. Outside the main entrance of the building was the same winged eye keeping its self afloat at your eye level. You exit the building and the eye flies around you like it did before. Its makes a full circle around you and flies off in a direction. It stops a few steps away from you before turning back to look at you, beckoning you to follow it.

You bit your lip nervously as you took the first few steps of letting the thing guide you to your potential death.

As you followed the eye, you began to grow interested in the little thing. Was it another denizen of hell or was it like one of the Shadow demon’s minions? As far as you knew, the Shadow demon could manipulate the shadows and hide in them, not eyeball minion magic.

You were also beginning to agree with Millie that it was kind of cute in its own way. As it guided you through the quiet back streets, it would turn to see if you were following and sometimes do a play full barrel roll or loop in the air. You couldn’t help but smile at its antics, your mind no longer worrying about your encounter with the rumoured shadow demon

As you walk about of the alley and onto the main road, you are met with a building with a sign that said “Shadow Records” in black calligraphy. It resembled a multi-story shophouse with a new coat of paint and traditional doors and windows that gave off a sense of sophistication and warmth, unlike most of the bar and brothel filled streets of hell.

At the entrance stood a young demon girl swaying side to side on her thin legs. She wore a pink lolita dress with white ruffles and blue accents. As you stepped closer, you could see pastel pink bandages that wrap her forearms loosely and covered her eyes and forehead. The pink almost blending in with her light pink skin, though her electric blue hair made her stand out from afar.

She does a little pirouette at the top of the stairs and stops in your direction. The eye makes a dash over to her and she lets out a musical giggle as it lands in between her two hair buns. You walk up the stairs and she greets you excitedly.

“Hi there! You must be (Y/N), the name’s Amelie, Deni’s waiting for you upstairs. Come on!” she opens the door and steps into the building.

“Um, okay?” you follow her in hesitantly. This is where you die, you guessed.

The young demon girl, Amelie, hums a whimsical tune as she skips her way up a flight of stairs with you in tow. Your first impression is that she seems to be too young to be here in hell. Then again, everything could be an act to get you comfortable and then kill you so you kept your guard up.

Seeing as how your previous companion was so familiar with the girl, and is still seated comfortably between her hair, you figured that it was probably her minion instead of the Shadow demon.

“Come on, we’ve been waiting for you.” Amelie calls to you as she skips towards a large oak door that looks like it was built of someone thrice you height. You gulped at you looked up at the scale of the door.

Amelie raps her knuckles on the door in a rhythm before opening it.

Before you sat what you could only assume is the shadow demon behind their desk with a manila folder in hand. Their red eyes glanced up at you as the door opened and you could feel their white cat-like pupils bare into your very being. It was at this point you realise that the dark wall behind was also lined with eyes that were staring back at you. In fear, you took a step back, ready to make a mad dash for the exit.

A soft laugh reached your ears and you turned to see a muscular reptilian leaning against the long desk look at you with mirth in his black sclera and turquoise eyes.

The Shadow demon speaks up. 

“Hello (Y/N). Welcome to Shadow records.”

[razorblade180]

Seasons Beatings

[The Void, Vytal tournament ring]

Everyone falls into a random seat. Their weapons right beside them and they are wearing their actual clothes for a change. Lucas checks his katana before putting it on his left hip. Jael examines his baggy Belladonna purple fisherman pants and smoky gray tank top. She’s really into his sneakers that match the whole outfit.

Jael:Yep, definitely a Menagerie kid. Fashionable yet functional.

Lucas:You know it. Why are we?

Jael:Beats me? I don’t hear a test commencing. Also this place is usually blank so this is uncharted territory.

A few rows above them in the north bleachers. is Valerie in a light brown coat with fur around the collar, sleeves, and bottom rim. Underneath is a pink shirt with a white lightning pattern that makes it look like it’s cracking. Navy blue tights and light brown fur boots complete the look.

Valerie:Sup guys.

Jael and Lucas:.....

Valerie:It’s not real fur you two so relax. Geez, so touchy. *smiles*

Lucas:Well....

Jael:You can never be too sure. Did you bring us here?

Valerie:Never been here before in my life.

Nicholas and Summer sit on the opposite side with Tenzen right behind them in th south bleachers.

Tenzen:Hey you two. What’s shaking?

Nicholas:Ooh you know, school.

Summer:Skipping school.

Tenzen:Those are two very different things but I respect both sides. I was in the middle of a nap but this is way more interesting. Anyone see Yujin?

Yujin:I’m over here Tenzen!

He looks to the right and sees her jumping and waving in the west bleachers. Sienna and Jacquelyn sit next to her.

Yujin:You think he can hear me?

Sienna:I’m pretty sure you can just go sit next to him if you miss him.

Yujin:*blushing* Pfft I don’t miss him. I’m just letting him know I’m around.

Yujin:Sssshhh!

Jael:Anyone notice the disturbing lack of Carmine?

Everyone:.....

Valerie:Come now, there’s no way she’s apart of this. Carmine never wants to participate she just naps and brags about being strong.

Spotlights immediately shine down on each of them before spinning around the stadium. They converge in the middle as the platform rises. The giant screens turn on to focus on it. The sound of tapping echoes through the room and keeps everyone’s attention on the middle. They can’t believe their eyes; specifically Valerie. Carmine stands in the middle tapping her right foot and a confident smile clear as day in her face.

She’s wearing calf high combat boots that match her sand colored cargo shorts that stop just below her belly button. Red tear away sleeve hug her arms to show off her toned arms and stop righ before her shoulders. Everyone can see her flat stomach with the red crop top she has on and makes the tips of the X shape scar on her back visible. It’s hard to make out from a distant the Arc crest is visible to Yujin right above her left hip. Around her neck is a silk scarf that matches the same sandy yellow as her bottoms. Despite all that, it was hard not to notice her red contacts were out and the decent sized curved blade on her back that looks like it was dragged right out a video game. It sort resembled a dorsal fin with knicks on the outside of it. The handle had worn bandages on it it and connected to a circular piece before the blade actually started. Last but not least, black fingerless gloves.

Carmine:Hello every-

Tenzen:No combat skirt?

Valerie:No hood?

Carmine:It gets pretty windy and hot in Vacou so no to both of things.

Tenzen:But you’re a Rose!

Valerie:Yeah a hood would be perfect for the sun beaming on you too.

Carmine:My last name doesn’t mean I have to- stop ruining my entrance! I set all this up and this is what you say?

Yujin:I think you look awesome!

Carmine:(At least one person cares) As I was saying, hello everyone. Enjoying the holidays? Well it’s getting better. I’ve decided to be less secretive around you bunch and give y’all what you wanted. A proper match.

Everyone:Eyes widened

Carmine:You heard me. Think of it as my gift. Each one of you will enter the ring one at a time and we’ll show off our skills. Aura matches are too long. So you can also win by ring out or a lethal pin. Don’t worry about tiring me out either. Each match restores all of us to peak condition after fighting. In other words.....

Lucas:Get crazy with it.

Nick:This is a really weird holiday gift. Do we get anything if we beat you?

Carmine:Hmmm I’ll let you all decide that if one of you manage it. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t plan on losing.

Jacquelyn:Few rarely do.

Carmine:Indeed..... Anyone is welcome to jump in first. *stretching* ‘Tis the season and all that jazz. Who am I kidding though? One of you is already dying to jump in.

She closes her eyes and shakes out her limbs. Suddenly her foot pivots and her entir body turns around; putting immense force into a right hook until it’s stopped by a hand. Her left hand raises in front of her face to catch what feels like someone else’s right hook. Carmine opens her eyes to see Tenzen with an excited look in eyes that matches her own. The audience is left quiet as the pressure builds in the air.

Valerie:I....I didn’t even see him move.

Yujin:Don’t feel bad. Most people don’t.

Tenzen:This is unexpected. How’d you know I was coming for you?

Carmine:The moment I talked about fighting I could feel my hair start to stand up. Might as well as screamed “let’s fight!”

Tenzen:What can I say? I’m an eager man!

He slides his leg in between her and sweeps both feet. Before he could follow up with a throw, Carmine twist her body mid fall and one leg on either side of his neck and locks them. She finally lets go of his fist and uses the free hand to support her dangling upper body. All her strength is used to bring her body as quick as she can into a handstand; flinging him in the process. Tenzen rolls out of the throw and sees his opponent standing upright and pacing side to side slowly. Her eyes studying him. He begins to do the same and stretch his neck.

Tenzen:(Okay, let’s not get too eager. Talk about a leg press.)

Carmine:(He’s fast and extremely nimble. I won’t catch him off gaurd like that again. Last thing I need is a drawn out fight. I’ll go for a pin next time.)

He tried taking a step back but Carmine took one step forward. Not just that either. She was mimicking each move he made down to the swing of his arms. Her body tensed the moment his left foot jerked forward then calmly back into a steady pace. Letting him build up speed is dangerous, but giving him time to think wasn’t good either.

Valerie:Geez they’re really trying predict each other’s movements uh?

Lucas:Can you blame them? One just got thrown and the other can’t make a sloppy move and get blitzed. If he body checks her and misses then he might fly out the ring.

Valerie:Can’t you see what we’ll happen next?

Lucas:Yeah but that’s boring. I’m more invested this way.

Tenzen:Alright let’s do this....

Pink lightning crackles around his clothing before vanishing from sight. Orange sparks pop around Carmine as he reappears to her left with is semblance activated. There isn’t enough time to react and connects a jab that digs into two ribs. He then pivots on his front right foot and slams into Carmine’s upper back with a left elbow strike. Letting her counter is not an option. She tries turning around into a side kick but misses completely as he jumps overhead head; grabbing her shoulders. Electric shocks prevent Carmine from grabbing the sleeves and she gets thrown across the ring with incredible force.

Tenzen:Ring o-

Carmine pulls out the sword and stabs it firmly into the metal flooring; stopping all momentum before she flings herself right back at him without the blade. An aura blast from Tenzen pushes her back to the previous direction until she once again manages to grab the sword to slingshot herself with even more speed. This time Carmine pulls out a small black rod from her left pocket that extends into a hollow nightstick that crashes right into Tenzen face when Carmine flies pass him. The impact makes his head fly back and he finds himself starring down the barrel of it right before what looks like a musket round is fired into his back. The impact feels like a slammed against a wall Ursa and makes him stumble forward. His head comes back up just in time to side step what should’ve been a sword still sticking out the ground, yet there was. Spinning like a saw right by him.

It’s no sniper rifle but the gun is nothing to snuff at. Carmine points it backwards and the recoil from the next shot is enough to push her forward slightly keep her from ringing out a second time. The assault continues with her running back at him and catching the sword with her right hand. Carmine front flips into a cross slash with both weapons but is blocked by Tenzen holding his tonfas in front of him. Neither budge an inch in force or from the deafening sound of the clash. However, only one is smiling now. The other is regretting going first.

Tenzen:Your ...your sword.....How did you-

Carmine:If I told you then it makes it less impressive. Like how you and Ren can fit entire weapons in your sleeves. You gotta teach me that sometime.

They finally push apart. Carmine swings her weapons in tandem but Tenzen is more than fast enough to react. Everyone of her strikes his met with a perfect block using his tonfas that protect his forearms. Left, right, above, thrusts, she consistently keeps the pressure on him while constantly trying to sweep a leg. There isn’t one pivot or slight shift in footing that he doesn’t account for and immediately maneuvers around while trying to find an opening. The others are amazed by his footwork except for Yujin. People don’t flock to him when he dances for nothing. Still, it was interesting to see him struggle for once. Also unnerving since she still has to fight.

Yujin:(Come on, show her what your made of...)

Finally an opportunity arises. Tenzen baits her into using her weapons to hook the inside of his. Carmine swipes outward “disarming” him but leaving herself wide open. He immediately drop kicks her in the chest to get a little distance. The spry boy lands on his back spinning with his legs out like a helicopter. Aura swirls outward and knocks her even further away but she braced herself for it. He has more than enough space regardless. Tenzen dismounts backwards of his hands and concentrates aura into his right hand while using it to pull the lightning dust out the sleeve. Stadium lights flicker. Carmine isn’t quite sure what she’s witnessing. All she knows is Tenzen’s hand is now ungulfed in pink lightning while his discarded tonfas lay apart but currently has a current running jumping between the two. The metal floor definitely isn’t helping....

Carmine:(He made a trip wire out of electricity!Won’t let me dodge to the other side huh? Certainly can’t block that attack head on either. Jump into the air? No, I’ll be a sitting duck. Hmph, not bad.) You got skills.

Tenzen:You ain’t see nothing yet!

In a blink of an eye he launches himself at her with an aura kick. Carmine smirks and hurls pass him towards the ground. The spin on them is enough to make them bounce off the floor and redirects the sporadic currents of electrified aura anywhere else while she dives to a safe spot; only getting grazed. One bolt finds it’s way towards the west bleachers where Jacquelyn counters it with her own lightning.

Jacquelyn:Phew......

A second one flies to the south where Lucas bounces it safely off his scabbard and up into the air.

Valerie:Wow....

Lucas:Okay... I might’ve peeked ahead once.

Valerie:No complaints from me!

Summer:I’m glad we’re on this side when Carmine dodged.

Nicholas:Right!?

Back on the area was still far from safe. Carmine was officially disarmed but not out of ideas unknown to Tenzen. He was already on his return trip with a smaller version of his attack; he was losing steam. It was time to put Arc endurance to the test. Dodging twice would be too predictable. Instead she rushed right at him and grabbed the charged fist; shocking her. More importantly, catching him off gaurd. Quickly he pulled his grandfather’s knife out his shoe and tried to bringing down to her chest. The blade was avoided by twirling behind him while maintaining the grip on his hand to pin it. Without hesitation she swept both legs and let her weight come crashing down on top of his back. Carmine reached for the knife and brought it to the side of his throat; all while his clothes shocked her like a bug on a zapper.

Carmine:You’re pinned with a knife!!! Match over!

Tenzen:......crap.

He deactivated his semblance and the aura in his clothes. Carmine hops off of him and lays on her back. Both her clothes and skin are a bit roughed up momentarily before a light shines down; restoring both fighters. Tenzen didn’t move as he was still catching his breath and replaying the last few moves in his head. Yujin could tell from her seat that he frustrated with his performance.

Tenzen:(She had a counter for basically everything I thought of. Even clearing the floor; catching my attack...) *tenses up*

Losing wasn’t new to him and he’s not a sore loser. Still, it felt like a blowout and that’s because it was one. He probably would’ve stewed on the ground longer of his thoughts weren’t cut off by the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. He tilted his head to the side to see Carmine looking at him. No smug look, no pity, just simple curiosity and a hint of amazement.

Carmine:When Yujin said you were basically a ninja she wasn’t kidding. I don’t know anyone who can move quite like you do. Also that hidden knife? If I went for a throw or a different pin then that could’ve really sucked. You’re just full of neat mix ups aren’t you? Who knows what would’ve happened if I let you do anything really crazy.

Tenzen:*red* Yeah well, you are too much to for me. Felt like I was read like an instruction manual. That’s some crazy reaction time. Even if I could reach full speed without flying off the edge, you’d have a plan. I can see it in your eyes.

Carmine:And I can see who I fought is only just finding his groove. Beacon better watch out. Their power bill is gonna suck. *holds out hand* Good match, I’m glad we fought.

Those words. They were so sincere. Carmine wasn’t the type of person to coddle. A few conversations with her was enough to know she has no problem being direct with people. If he’s getting praise then he earned it. In the end Tenzen got a gift after all. He smiled at her before taking her hand to get up. Quickly he grabbed his things and walked to the bleachers.

Tenzen:I’ll be watching the other matches closely. I still wanna know that sword trick you did and what you got up your sleeve.

Carmine:Hopefully everyone is as interesting as you.

Tenzen:*going to west bleachers* Hey Jin.

Yujin:Hey uhhh, you weren’t over here.

Tenzen:Are you saying you don’t want me around?

Yujin:No no! Just....*pats seat* thought you wanted space.

Tenzen:I’ll be alright. Rather spend time with you like I always.

Yujin:*red* Do as you please.... anyways, any good advice when I go?

Tenzen:Not exactly hehehehe. Honestly I’m starting to think declaring herself as the strongest wasn’t just ego.

Jacquelyn:You don’t say....

Sienna:You see anything you think you couldn’t handle?

Jacquelyn:Not really, but’s that’s sort of the problem.

Sienna:I don’t follow.

Jacquelyn:Her semblance, I didn’t see her use it.

........

The three of them tried to recall it but came up with nothing. Their attention turned back to Carmine who was calmly sipping out of a water bottle and shaking her limbs out again.

Carmine:Alrighty then! Who’s next?

[queerchoicesblog]

Mi Luz, Mi Princesa (Secret Santa MoTY Fanfic, Thomas x MC)

So, Christmas is just around the corner: time to take off my dark glasses, wear my brand new Santa hat and...wish @quiero-mas-bean-yo-te-quiero a Merry Christmas from her Secret Santa! 

I don’t know you and to be honest, I’m not fully familiar with the type of fanfic you requested but the gracious host and friend @andi-the-cat paired us and I really hope this Christmassy fluff starring Thomas Mendez I wrote for you will make you happy! Hope you don’t mind if I tagged my tag list too!

Word Count: 1452

Perma Tag: @brightpinkpeppercorn @bhavf @melodyofgraves @abunchofbadchoices @silverhawkenzie @strangerofbraidwood @kamilahmykween @desiree-0816 @universallypizzataco @gayestchoices @embarrassingsmartphonegame  @lilyofchoices @somewillwin @allaboutchoices

___________________________-

Christmas had finally come. Well, almost but with Christmas's Eve just a couple of days away, the jolly festive atmosphere was all around: bright lights in the gardens, the tantalizing smell of hot cocoa and candies in the streets, Christmas songs playing non-stop at the malls. It was that time of the year.

"Thank you for joining me and helping me out today. It truly means a lot" Thomas said with a shy grateful smile, placing a steamy cup of hot chocolate in front of Tara before taking a seat himself.

They got the last free table at the mall cafe after a last-minute Christmas shopping blitz.

Tara smiled back, taking off her scarf.

"No need to thank me, it was my pleasure. And thank you for this lovely treat"

Thomas shrugged, gesturing that it was nothing.

"It's the least I could do after you kindly agreed to endure this desperate enterprise and face the Christmas hysteria with me"

The look on his face as he finished the sentence made Tara chuckle.

"It's okay, I've been through worse shopping blitz"

"For real? What's worse than the pre-Christmas rush?"

"Your question tells me you have never fought your way through a Black Friday" she raised an eyebrow at him, amused, taking a first sip of hot cocoa.

"God no! And I'm positive I never will" Thomas erupted into a cheerful laugh and raised his hands in surrender. 

"Ah, you're an amateur, Mr. Lawyer!" Tara teased him once more, shaking her head.

Then she took a moment to observe him, a hint of amusement and cheer still on his lips as he finally sipped his cappuccino. A perfect exemplification of what her mother would have called "a fine man" who went above and beyond to help her out through the court ordeal against Guy. The nicest and most caring man she had ever met, probably. And soon fell for as if they were meant to be from the very start.

"And I knew it was important for you" she added, her voice soft, no longer teasing.

Thomas met her gaze and gave her another smile. His face immediately brightened and softened perceiving the implication in Tara's words. It was as if the mere, veiled mention to it spread inside him that was reflected in the dreamy twinkle gleaming in his eyes that never once failed to make Tara's knees weak.

"It was. I know it's silly, I've been a single parent for a while, I should know how it works but I'm still a bit nervous when it comes to buying clothes for Luz. She's just so independent and strong-willed...and Soledad used to take care of things like this. I was too busy working and I thought she could do way better than me, you know...they were so close and-"

"Luz is close to you too, Thomas" Tara interrupted him, refraining him to dwell into such grim considerations: he gave himself too little credit and too much blame. 

"And as I was saying, I'm glad I could help. I'm sure Luz will love her surprise underneath the Christmas tree and, for the record, I think she loves you pretty much. Don't sell yourself short, you're fun to have around" she added, hoping to cheer him up a little bit.

Thomas smiled, showing that her effort had been noted and appreciated.

"I certainly hope so, Tara. I mean, both for you and Luz. I know that Luz makes a show of being the tough cynical girl but Christmas is a big thing for her. Gosh, I still remember how she used to wake up all the family when we used to spend the holidays at my parents. A little jolly banshee" he laughed softly, reminiscing the past. "She still does it though, to be honest. The first to wish everybody 'feliz Navidad' and to remind her poor father that it's time to put on lights and decorations and the tree, oh Daddy do not forget the tree! You should have seen the purest joy written all over her face when we bought it. And how thoughtful and meticulous she is about the treat for Santa. She prepares it herself every year, I can't tell if it's one last chance to get into the good ones list or because she truly loves it but nah, who am I kidding? She adores this time of the year, despite the memories that bring along...so I just can't let her down for Christmas, I just can't..."

"You won't, Thomas, I promise you" Tara reassured him, but he seemed lost in his own train of thoughts.

He made a pause and looked out of the window into the main hall. She couldn't tell whether he was pondering her words or letting his mind wander. She was about to say something when he spoke again.

"She's...everything to me, I don't know where I'd be, who I'd be now without her" his lips curled in another affectionate smile as he continued. "Mi Luz, Mi princesa...that's how I call her. Even though she hates the last one"

"How come?" Tara inquired, slightly amused but not surprised at all that her little girl's bestie would reject such a cute nickname.

"I'm not a princess, Daddy: princesses are so booooring!" Thomas explained in his best impression of Luz's voice that made the two of them laugh again.

"Well, she could be a warrior princess like Xena" she noted.

"I didn't know you were a fan" he mocked a shocked expression.

"What can I say? I am a woman full of surprises, Mr. Lawyer" she teased, shrugging.

"You are indeed"

His hand reached for hers and his thumb drew circles over her palm before he raised it to his face and placed a kiss on her knuckles, a tender smile on his lips as they brushed her skin. A simple, gentlemanly gesture filled with devotion and adoration that was rather new to Tara: she couldn't remember the last time Guy, "her wrong guy" ever did anything even close to that. That was just one of the many differences between her past and the bright future ahead.

"I can't thank you enough for coming here with me today and for well...choosing me" a light blush reddened lawyer Mendez's cheeks and there was nothing cuter in this world to Tara. Okay, maybe Zoey's sleepy smile and pouty face when she concentrated. "I wasn't expecting any of this, us to happen. After Dolores' death, I devoted myself to Luz, my luz in the dark of all the grief and sorrow and decided to give up on love. How could I love again after that? I had a beautiful, volcanic girl to look after to, to give all my love to...but then I did. When I saw you and got to know you, I did. There is nothing I could do to prevent it, I just fell in love again. I brightened up every time I spotted you, having you around makes me so happy and a better person, I think."

He sighed as if he could feel the weight of his own words. Tara instinctively stroke his cheek as if to reassure him or encourage him to keep going. He leaned gratefully to the touch before continuing.

"You and Luz are the most important people in my life. In different ways you both showed me, no taught me how to live again. To live and love again and I know I'm being sappy-"

"You're not sappy, Thomas" Tara smiled to conceal the lump forming in her throat.

"-but it's Christmas, right?" he said, gesturing at the shiny Santa's cabin and the long cue of excited kids in the main hall. "It's the right time to be sappy, living our personal Hallmark movie...so I just want you to know that I'm so happy that you are part of my life, my life and Luz's life as well"

He straightened up on his chair and leaned a bit closer across the table. Looking at Tara right in the eyes, gleaming with joy and affection he whispered:

"Te quiero con todo mi corazón, Woman of Steel"

Tara pressed one finger over his smiling lips, catching him by surprise.

"No, not Woman of Steel"

Seeing his puzzled look, she leaned closer and added:

"Your Woman of Steel, Thomas"

Then she cupped his face and claimed his lips into a hard kiss. As they kissed once, twice a jolly romantic Christmas tune played on the radio, framing their newfound happiness.

Love is how we do, let no judgment overrule it

Love I look to youx and I sing

Let love lead us, love is Christmas

Let love lead us, love is Christmas 

[the-tactician-magician]

What if characters from FE3H played Splatoon?

AKA the headcanons no one asked for. Also feel free to add.

Black Eagles Strike Force (BESF)

Edelgard (FlameEmpr) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Dynamo Roller

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: X

Hardcore competative player, plays very frequently and won several competitions

Prefers weapons that do a lot of damage, doesn’t mind the heaviness

Very picky about who gets to be on her team

Hubert (Grimoire)

Favorite weapon: Ballpoint Splatling Nouveau

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: S+

Only plays with Edelgard

But is surprisingly good with how little he actually plays

Part of the datamining community

Always wears black

Ferdinand (vonAegir)

Favorite weapon: L-3 Nozzlenose D

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: S+

Competitive against Edelgard, always trying to one-up her

Picks whatever weapon is meta in order to beat her

A fair and honorable fighter, feels bad whenever an opponent disconnects, etc

Petra (kanaloa)

Favorite weapon: Dark Tetra Dualies

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: S+

Her username comes from a spirit in Brigid that takes the form of a squid

Empathizes with the Octolings and their broken English

Fast on her feet and hard to hit

Krakenslayers

Caspar (CHADspar) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Octobrush

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: B+

He came up with the team name and won’t accept any substitutes

Always super jumping into danger, despite warnings

Super aggressive player but somehow does ok

Linhardt (zzz)

Favorite weapon: Bloblobber

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: A

Just press ZR and hope for the best

Takes quick naps between matches

Probably can rank higher if he’s more interested

Dorothea (☆DIVA☆)

Favorite weapon: Splattershot

Favorite mode: Splatfest

Highest rank: B

Not great at this game

But loves the idols and the music (Callie is her favorite)

Is also super salty that Callie lost the final splatfest in S1

Plays a lot less once Splatfests ended

Bernadetta (bbear)

Favorite weapon: E-liter 4k scope

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: A

Screams whenever an enemy approaches

A good shot, but panics in bad situations

She somehow does better when her team is losing

Blue Lionfish (BL)

Dimitri (Areadbhar) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Splattershot Pro (with gratuitous MPU)

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: X

Hardcore competative player like Edelgard, also won several competitions

Adept with any shooter type weapons

Gets angry easily and has broken several controllers

Has a terrible fashion sense and uses whatever gear he needs to

Was going to name the team ‘Blue Lions’, but Sylvain said to use ‘Blue Lionfish’ for the pun

Dedue (Pavise)

Favorite weapon: Tenta Brella

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: A+

Is fixated on Dimitri whenever they play together

A defensive player, doesn’t like charging in

He does his best but he’s sadly the worst of the team

Ingrid (Whitewing)

Favorite weapon: Clear Dapple Dualies

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: X

Expert duelist, can win most 1v1

Whatever weapon she chooses, she gotta go fast

Constantly yelling at Sylvain, blames him for everything

Sylvain (tentaXXX)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Sloshing Machine

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: S+

Would have a more inappropriate name if it weren’t for Ingrid

A deceptively good player that masks his skills with an easygoing attitude

Could probably get into X rank if he cared more

Is a chronic squidbagger

くコ:彡 (Team Squid Emoticon)

Annette ( (´･ω･`) ) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Soda Slosher

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: A+

A cheerleader, always encouraging her friends to do their best!

Overuses bombs

She’s only the team leader because Felix hates leadership

Likes the songs and often makes up lyrics to go along with them

Always booyahs

Mercedes (mercie ♥)

Favorite weapon: Aerospray MG

Favorite mode: Turf War

Highest rank: B-

Not good at this game at all…

Only knows how to spray and claim turf

Still, she loves playing with Annette

Always booyahs back

Felix (L0NE_W0LF)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Splat Dualies

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: X

Only on this team because he refuses to play with Dimitri after Dimitri broke his controller once 

And because Annette is his girlfriend

Always charges in by himself, luckily has the skills to back up such tactics

Will coach the others when he’s feeling nice

Still plays with Ingrid and Sylvain whenever Dimitri isn’t around

Ashe (Decidueye)

Favorite weapon: Firefin Splatter Charger

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: S+

A good shot and a helpful player

Constantly checking the map

Gets nervous in competitions

Got recruited to this team by Felix because Felix can’t stand being the only good player here

Cod-Splattering Stars (CSS)

Claude (insertmeme) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Bamboozler 14 Mk I (with MPU)

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: S+

Always doing things for teh lulz

Would rather troll people than actually play well

Could probably get into X rank if he stopped memeing

Picks the male octoling with the afro because the hair is funny but secretly empathizes with the octolings for being outsiders

Also grinds out weird gear (like the masks) just for the shock value

Was going to name the team ‘I wish squids were real’ but Leonie and Lys wanted a serious name and Hilda didn’t get the joke

Hilda (pnkprncess)

Favorite weapon: Splat Roller

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: A

Doesn’t like others depending on her

Yet if everyone’s splatted but her, she will do her damndest to hold the line

Is actually pretty good but tries not to show off

Constantly complaining and whining about stuff

Adores dressing up her inkling

Lysithea (Miasma Δ)

Favorite weapon: Explosher

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: X

A really good player, has a good sense of spacing and timing to make her weapons deadly

Always goes for the big, explosive weapons

Call her a little kid and she’ll punch you

Leonie (BladeBrkr2) 

Favorite weapon: Custom Dualie Squelchers

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: S+

Only got into Splatoon because it’s Jeralt’s favorite game

And is surprisingly good at it

Replaced Lorenz because she was better and he was getting on Claude’s nerves

A little nervous to be the only commoner on the team but that just motivates her more

Inkblooms

Lorenz (GLOUCESTER) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Foil Squeezer

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: S

Was on Claude’s team, then got kicked out for Leonie which he’s still bitter about

Still, he tries to make this team work

A boastful winner but takes losing well

Only wears the most fashionable gear

Ignatz (ᴄʜαʀᴛʀεᴜsε)

Favorite weapon: Inkbrush

Favorite mode: Salmon Run

Highest rank: A

Also does well with snipers, but has the most fun with the inkbrush

Spams splat bombs and runs away

Also gets nervous in competitions

Raphael (RAPHROX!)

Favorite weapon: Clash Blaster

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: B

Can’t aim

A very loud player

Likes playing with Ignatz

Still uses sticks

Marianne (dorte)

Favorite weapon: Splattershot Jr.

Favorite mode: Turf War

Highest rank: B-

Not good at this game because of self-esteem issues

Freezes up and dies whenever she’s confronted

Lorenz is trying his best to coach her

Jeralt’s Mercs

Jeralt (Jeralt) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Tentatek Splattershot

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: X

A prominent streamer and e-celeb

Played a lot of Splatoon 1 and although he likes Splatoon 2, always complains about ‘back in the day’ like a boomer

Used to be really competitive back in the day but nowadays just plays with family and friends

His username used to be ‘BladeBrkr’

Thinking of passing the torch to Byleth soon

Leonie used to be a sub for his team until she joined Claude’s team

Byleth (AshenDemon) 

Favorite weapon: Enperry Splat Dualies

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: X

Jeralt’s kid

Rarely talks or expresses emotions, which kinda creeps people out

Can dunk people like nobody’s business

Secretly has a fondness for the Judds

Alois (10tickles)

Favorite weapon: Heavy Splatling

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: S

An old friend of Jeralt

Used to run with the Knights of Seiros until they got too competitive for his liking

Appreciates all the fish puns in this game

Sometimes acts like a boomer with Jeralt, but takes the boomer memes in stride

Sothis (fell star☆)

Favorite weapon: Tri-Slosher

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: X

Who is she??? No one knows. A friend of Byleth apparently

Temperamental and emotional but a very good player

Somehow managed to pick the winning team in all the Splatfests

Knights of Seiros

Catherine (thundrcath) (leader)

Favorite weapon: Carbon Roller

Favorite mode: Rainmaker

Highest rank: X

Loud, confident, always takes the opponent head-on

Likes the feel of rollers but can pick other weapons as long as they do lots of damage

Trash talks opponents a lot

Shamir (Raven)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Splatterscope

Favorite mode: Tower Control

Highest rank: X

Complete opposite of Catherine, rarely talks during matches

Can see you coming from a mile away

Makes it her mission to protect Catherine when she’s running into danger

Flayn (cethleann!)

Favorite weapon: Neo Splash-o-matic

Favorite mode: Salmon Run

Highest rank: A-

Likes the fish and the fish puns

Not super great at this game but she has a lot of fun

The team mascot

Cyril (pointblank)

Favorite weapon: Kensa Glooga Dualies

Favorite mode: Clam Blitz

Highest rank: A+

Used to be pretty bad until Shamir coached him, now he can hold his own weight

Doesn’t use the ‘ouch’ button when he dies, even though he should

Has mastered the art of splatting foes when he rolls

Seteth (Cichol)

Favorite weapon: Rapid Blaster Pro Deco

Favorite mode: Splat Zones

Highest rank: S+

Way too busy to play Splatoon now, only a sub for this team

But he is good at this game

Used to be in X until he fell out due to not playing much

Always makes time to play with Flayn

(Hanneman and Manuela don’t play Splatoon because they’re not interested.)

(Rhea supposedly plays but no one knows her username or has even seen her play. She could probably curb stomp everyone at Garreg Mach though.)

[archangel1023]

PJO Mass Effect Story

Wrote this after coming across @anxiouspineapples pjo mass effect stuff. Took a little bit of creative liberty with it, and I hope you all enjoy! Story starts under the cut.

Commander Annabeth Chase was not new to the Citadel. At this point in her military career, there was little that was new to the Commander. Hero of the Blitz, graduate of the N7 program, highly decorated soldier even before she received the Star of Terra, Spectre candidate, XO of the Normandy, the young Commander had been across the galaxy several times over, and had remained, for the most part, unflappable. Until Eden Prime. In less than an hour, the Commander had lost a long time Alliance Marine, Malcolm Pace, lost her biotic Lou Ellen, picked up Gunnery Chief Zoe Nightshade, recovered the dead body of Spectre Nihlus Kryik, who had been shot in the back by rogue Spectre Luke Castellan, defused several bombs set by said rogue Spectre, and been put into a coma after touching a large metal beacon of sorts that had shown her images that would haunt her nightmares for decades to come.

The N7 marine had her blonde hair pulled back into a short ponytail that fell over the back of her armor’s high collar. Her armor was primarily dark grey, with black accents, an N7 emblem on the right side of her chest, and a stripe of red down her right arm, with a stripe of white on either side all the way down her arm. Her armor was scratched and dented in places, as she hadn’t had a chance to get it repaired since Eden Prime, but it didn’t seem to make a difference to the Commander.

“Nightshade, stay close. This is the Citadel, but I don’t trust these politicians as far as I could throw them.” Annabeth said, and Zoe fell in behind her Commander just as the doors finally opened, and the three soldiers walked out into the council chambers. Annabeth stopped on their way up towards the audience chamber, when she heard Luke’s name mentioned by two C-Sec officers. The higher ranking one walked away, and the three approached the remaining turian, who was rubbing the side of his head in thought.

“Jason, correct?” Annabeth asked, extending a hand to the turian, who nodded and shook it. “Commander Chase. I heard you talking about Luke to your CO there. Just so happens we’re here to meet with the Council about Luke.”

“Yeah, you’re why C-Sec even investigated him. I got assigned the case, but with his Spectre status, I couldn’t find anything of use, it makes him untouchable.” Jason rasped, in a duo tone voice, his mandibles flaring in anger, and the light shining on a thin scar that ran from just above his mouth down to a centimeter or so above his chin. He wore black and blue armor, with a yellow holoscreen projected over his eyes, though even behind it, his eyes scanned Chase and Nightshade like an eagle would survey a threatening predator. “Well, I’ve got to go. I’ll be running down one last lead if you want to help.” The turian walked back towards the elevator, and Commander Chase turned to look at Nightshade, who shrugged.

To say the audience with the Council went poorly would be a bit of an understatement. The Council brought Luke in via hologram, and what little evidence the Alliance had, namely Annabeth’s vision, and her word, was openly laughed at by Luke before he was dismissed. The Council rejected their proposal to strip Luke’s Spectre status, citing lack of evidence, and Commander Chase, Captain Chiron, and Councilor Udina, were sent on their way.

“Commander Chase. I suggest you continue this investigation.” Udina said, as the three of them reached the bottom of the steps, and were joined by Nightshade.

“I had every intention of doing just that, Ambassador.” Annabeth said, noting Chiron’s prideful smile at those words.

“Well, when you do, do stop and talk to Officer Harkin. He can put you in touch with the C-Sec officer in charge of their investigation into Luke.” Udina suggested, and left when Annabeth nodded her understanding. As the Ambassador left, Chiron took his place in front of the Commander.

“Be careful, Commander, Harkin is, well, a disgrace to his species. Last I heard, he was suspended for drinking on the job. If you get the chance, go talk to Barla Von. He works for the Shadow Broker, and will likely be able to help, should you be able to pay the price. Good luck, Chase.” He said, and Annabeth shook the hand he extended, starting to walk away, but stopped several feet away when Chiron spoke up again.

“Oh, and Commander, I already have a human biotic I’d like you to work with. I think you’d do very well together.” She turned and nodded to her CO, and started walking toward the elevator, Zoe barely a step behind the whole time until they stepped in.

“Where are we going, Commander?” The Gunnery Chief asked, and Annabeth looked at her out of the corner of her eye.

“Harkin. Then to Barla Von if we need to. I’m not sure I want to make a deal with the Shadow Broker.” Zoe nodded in understanding, as the elevator opened up not far from Chora’s Den. As they approached they saw a massive Krogan threatening the bouncers, but skirted past, having no interest in dealing with that soon to be mess. Harkin indeed told them of little use, only pointing them towards the Med Clinic in the Wards, where Jason was running down one last lead, evidently. When the two Alliance women approached, they noticed that the door was ajar, and they creeped in. A wall, just taller than Chase’s hips, separated the two women from the doctor and the thugs with her.

“I didn’t tell anyone, I swear!” Dr. Michel said.

“That was smart, doc. Now, if Garrus comes around, you stay smart. Keep your mouth shut” One of the men said, before noticing Shepard, drawing his pistol, and grabbing Dr. Michel.

“Who are you?” He yelled, pointing his gun at the Commander.

“Let her go.” She replied, and the two women drew their own pistols, pointing them at the man. Meanwhile, Jason crept around the corner and fired, dropping the man holding Dr. Michel to the ground with a hole in the side of his head. Annabeth and Zoe quickly fired and dropped the other three thugs in the room with several shots, before walking over to join Jason and Dr. Michel.

“Good timing. I was able to get a clear shot off onto him.” Jason said.

“Clean shooting on your part as well. I don’t think Dr. Michel was in any real danger there.” She said, and Jason didn’t so much as twitch.

“Well, everyone gets lucky sometimes. Dr. Michel, you’re alright?” He asked, turning to look at the doctor in question.

“No, thank you, I’m fine.” She replied, and Annabeth turned to look at the doctor as well.

“Why were they threatening you? Who do they work for?” The Commander asked.

“They work for Fist. They wanted to shut me up, keep me from telling Garrus about the quarian.” She answered. “A few days ago, a quarian came into my office. They had been shot, but wouldn’t tell me who did it. I could tell she was scared, probably on the run. They asked me about the Shadow Broker. They wanted to trade information in exchange for a safe place to hide.

“So I put them in contact with Fist. He’s an agent for the Shadow Broker.” The doctor continued, and Jason’s mandibles flared.

“Something wrong?” Annabeth asked.

“Fist doesn’t work for the Shadow Broker anymore. He’s with Saren, and the Shadow Broker isn’t happy about it from what I’ve heard.” He said, and Dr. Michel looked at the turian in shock.

“He betrayed the Shadow Broker? That’s stupid, even for Fist. He must have gotten quite the offer.” Annabeth looked at the doctor with interest at those words.

“That quarian has something that Luke wants. Something that’s worth crossing the Shadow Broker to get.” The commander mused. “Can you tell me anything else about the quarian, what they were trying to trade, maybe?” The doctor scratched her head, looking puzzled for a minute before her expression cleared.

“Yes, actually, the quarian mentioned something about the geth!” She exclaimed, and Jason’s head whipped to look at Commander Chase.

“The quarian must be able to link Luke to the geth. If we could get that evidence, the council couldn’t ignore it!” Jason looked about as happy as a turian could be.

“Well, let’s get going then.” Annabeth said, walking towards the door of the infirmary, but she stopped when she noticed only Zoe was with her.

“What are you doing soldier? Catch up.” She barked, and Jason’s mandibles flared as he jogged over to join them.

“You know, the Shadow Broker sent a krogan mercenary after Fist. We might benefit from her help.” Jason said, as they walked out. Annabeth nodded.

“Where would she be?” The commander asked, as they loaded into the elevator.

“C-sec offices. Heard over the radio that they dragged her down there for a scene she started outside Fist’s bar, Chora’s Den.” He answered, and Annabeth punched the button.

“Humans working with turians, a rare pairing.” Jason mentioned, and Annabeth nodded.

“A criminally rare team. The Normandy was designed and built by a team of human and turian engineers, and it’s arguably the best ship in the galaxy.” Annabeth said, and Jason hummed his assent.

“A shame not everyone shares your opinion, Commander.” Jason responded.

“Well, some of us have good reason.” Zoe muttered, and Jason looked at her.

“Care to repeat that?” He asked, and she glared at him.

“All I’m saying is, some of us remember the First Contact War better than others.” She shot back at him, and she glared at him for a few seconds while he searched her face.

“So you’re General Nightshade’s granddaughter. He made the right decision at Shanxi, saved a lot of lives on both sides.” Jason said, his dual-toned voice level, and his eyes filled with respect. Zoe merely curled her lip in a snarl and looked back towards the elevator door as it opened. Not far from the elevator was a massive krogan in black and grey armor, which was scarred many times over by long dead enemies. The Krogan was face to face with a C-Sec officer.

“Do you want me to arrest you, Wrex?” The officer asked, leaning in in what he likely thought was a threatening manner, but the krogan just laughed at him.

“I would like to see you try.” He said, leaning in to loom over the much smaller human, who had to take a step back to still be able to look at him. Wrex, however, noticed the approach of Annabeth, Jason, and Zoe, and pushed past the officer, shoulder checking him in the process.

“Who are you three?” He asked, towering over all but Jason, who was maybe half a head shorter than the behemoth.

“I’m Commander Annabeth Chase of the Normandy, this is Gunnery Chief Zoe Nightshade, and Citadel Security Officer Jason Grace. We heard you’re looking for Fist.” Commander Chase said, and Wrex shook his head.

“I know where Fist is. I was just about to bust into Chora’s Den and kill him before these C-Sec flunkies showed up.” He shot a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the human officer he’d been arguing with before, and the two turian officers with him.

“He knows you’re coming. We stand a better chance of killing Fist working together.” Jason said, and Wrex looked at him with what passed for a rueful smile on a krogan.

“The krogan have a saying: ‘Seek the enemy of your enemy, and you will find a friend.’” Wrex said, and Commander chase smiled.

“I like that saying. I think we’ll get along just fine, Wrex.” Annabeth said, extending a hand that Wrex grasped in a firm handshake. The krogan led them through the Wards to the rapid transport, from where Annabeth flew the four of them to Chora’s den. The door was unguarded, but Annabeth had Jason and Zoe back up and cover the door as she walked up to it. Commander Chase smacked the button to open the door, and immediately the bartender turned to shoot at her, but was dropped by two shots to the chest, and he slumped behind the bar without a sound.

Barely a second later, Annabeth threw a grenade in, and when the explosion went off, Wrex went charging in to the right, smashing through an overturned table, picking up a gunman, slamming him into the ground, and unloading a shotgun shell into his chest. Annabeth dropped another gunman who aimed at Wrex with shot from her rifle before turning to the left through the doorway, and dropping another one. A concussive blast signalled Wrex launching one more clear across the bar to slam into the wall with a crunch, where he slid to the ground and didn’t move. A thug standing above the bar tried to fire down on Commander Chase, but was dropped instantly by a clean shot from Jason’s sniper rifle, and Zoe rounded the central bar to unload half a magazine into the last one in the bar, leaving him a bloody mess on the ground.

A Krogan burst through from the back, gunning to slam into Annabeth, but she rolled out of the way, throwing an incinerate into his back, forcing him off balance, and into Wrex, who shoved his shotgun into his gut and fired, the fires from the incinerate slowly dying out. They pushed through to the hallway leading to the back office, where two more thugs were waiting, and though a bullet winged off Commander Chase’s shield, both thugs were down in seconds, and they opened the door to reveal two warehouse workers holding pistols.

“Stop right there! Don’t come any closer!” One of them exclaimed, and Annabeth holstered her pistol, holding her hands up in the air.

“Look, I don’t want to hurt you guys. If you leave now, we won’t have to.” She said, and the workers looked at each other before nodding.

“Fuck this. Fist doesn’t pay us enough for this.” The other said, and they left past the group.

“Would have been easier to shoot them.” Wrex mentioned, but Zoe shrugged her shoulders.

“Would have been a waste of ammo.” She said, and Wrex barked a laugh and the four moved on. Fist’s office door opened up in front of them, and the four burst in, only to have to find cover behind some walls almost immediately when they were pinned down with fire from automatic turrets. Annabeth and Garrus popped out from cover just long enough to kill the turrets, which exploded in artistic fashion. Wrex charged forward once the turrets were down to slam shoulder first into Fist, and coming to a dead stop, throwing him back through his desk and into the wall behind it. Fist slumped down to the ground, and started crawling towards the door until Annabeth stepped in front of him, and looked down.

“Wait! Don’t kill me! I surrender!” He cried, staring up at the Commander, who crossed her arms, looking nonplussed.

“That’s a smart move. I’d start talking to, while you’re at it. Where’s the quarian?” She asked, stepping closer to him.

“I don’t know. He’s not here. That’s the truth.” He answered, and Wrex stepped closer, brandishing his shotgun.

“Alright, he’s no use to you now. Let me kill him.” She said, and Fist recoiled.

“Wait! I don’t know where he is now, but I know where you can find him. He isn’t here. Said he’d only deal with the Shadow Broker himself.” He said, and Wrex lowered his shotgun marginally, scoffing.

“Face to face? You’ve got to be joking. Even I was hired through an agent.” Wrex said.

“Yeah, I know. Nobody ever meets the Shadow Broker. Ever. I don’t even know his true identity. But he didn’t know that. I told him I’d set up a meeting. But when he shows up, it’ll be Luke’s men waiting for him.” Annabeth clenched and unclenched her fists.

“Tell me where the meeting is, now.” She stepped up into Fist’s face, and he held his hands up in surrender.

“The back alley by the markets. He’s supposed to be meeting them in a minute or so. You should be able to make it if you hurry.” He barely finished the sentence before Wrex pulled the trigger, blowing him off his feet with the force of the shot.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Jason yelled.

“I don’t leave jobs half done.” Was all he offered up, and Annabeth shook her head.

“I’m not happy with it, but there’s not point arguing it now. We have to save that quarian!” She yelled, and the four sprinted out the door back towards the bar, only to draw to a stop when a shot slammed into Commander Chase’s shields, and she stumbled to a stop, looking for the shooter, only for the thug to drop to a headshot from Jason. Several thugs popped up across the bar, but between the four of them, they were killed easily, and they raced out the door of the club, towards the alley. Up a set of stairs, through a door, and down more stairs, and the Commander and her posse found themselves squaring up against three assassins after the quarian had dropped a grenade at his feet and leaped into cover, blowing the assassins off their feet. A quick few shots took their shields, and then the assassins dropped to normal gunfire easily.

The quarian joined them, emerging from where he had hid, controlling a combat drone during the fight. His suit was maroon, highlighted with burnt orange, and with a burnt orange hood. He walked over the one of the assassins, cursing quietly under his breath.

“That bastard set me up! I knew I couldn’t trust him!” He yelled, angrily kicking one of the dead assassins.

“Are, uh, are you okay?” Commander Chase asked, and the quarian nodded, walking over and extending a hand that Annabeth shook.

“Thanks a ton. I’m Leo’Valdez nar Rayya. I’ve seen your vids.” He said, enthusiastically.

“My… vids?” She asked, tilting her head in confusion, noticing how his hands never quite stopped moving, whether he was just idly playing with his fingers, picking at a loose thread on his suit, or gesturing while he spoke.

“Yeah, your holovids. Well, the Alliance holovids, but you show up in them. Hero of the Blitz! Come recruit and fight for humanity like the paragon of the Alliance! It’s a whole thing.” He said.

“Uh-huh. I’m sure.” She looked unconvinced. “Anyway, you have some evidence linking Luke Castellan to the Geth?”

“Sure do! But I can’t give it to you here.” He said, looking around suspiciously, or, well, Annabeth assumed it was suspiciously. It’s hard to tell with the mask.

“What about the embassy? Ambassador Udina will want to see it anyway.” Zoe offered, and Leo nodded. Annabeth led them through the maze of back alleys back to a rapid transport station and quickly got them a ride to the embassies.

“You’re not making my life easy, Chase. Firefights in the ward? An all-out assault on Chora’s Den? Do you- Who’s this? A quarian? What’s your game, Chase?” Udina asked, when he turned and noticed the quarian.

“He can help us. He’s got evidence that can link Luke with the Geth. I would have told you that if you hadn’t jumped down my throat the second I showed up.” She shot back, and Udina had the decency to at least look apologetic.

“My mistake Chase, this entire business with Luke has me a bit on edge, I’m sure you can understand.” He said, turning to look at Leo. “Maybe we should just start at the beginning, Mr.-?”

“Leo. Nar Rayya.” The jittery quarian supplied.

“Well, Leo, we don’t see many quarians on the Citadel. What led you to leave the flotilla?” Udina inquired.

“I was on my Pilgrimage when I heard reports of geth activity. Weird, right, since they haven’t left the Veil after they drove my people into exile. Well, I tracked a geth patrol to an abandoned world, waited for one to get separated, then I jumped it, disabled it and extracted it’s memory core.” He said, and Captain Chiron cut in.

“I thought the geth fried their memory cores when they died.” Chiron said, the unspoken question lingering in the air.

“Well, yeah, but if you’re quick, know what to look for, and are more than a little lucky, you can recover some of the data. Most of the data got ‘deep-sixed’ as your engineers would say, but I was able to recover an audio file.” Leo said, and pulled up his omni tool, tapped some buttons, and waited. After a second or two, Luke’s voice came through the speakers of his omni tool.

“Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit.” Luke said, before the audio file cut out.

“That was Luke! That proves he was involved in the attack!” Chiron said, and Udina nodded thoughtfully, chin in his palm.

“He said something about the Conduit. Is that some weapon? Prothean, maybe?” Annabeth suggested, and Leo cut in.

“That actually wasn’t all I got.” He said, and he tapped a few more times on his omni tool.

“And one step closer to the return of the Reapers.” A female voice said.

“Who is that, I don’t recognize that voice.” Udina said, but Commander Chase turned to look at Captain Chiron.

“Who are the Reapers? A new alien species?” She asked, and Leo shook his head.

“Not quite. According to the Geth’s memory core, the Reapers were a hyper-advanced machine race that existed 50,000 years ago. Apparently they hunted the Protheans down until they were completely extinct, and then they vanished. Or, at least, that’s what the Geth believe.” Leo said, but Udina didn’t look convinced.

“Sounds a bit far-fetched.” He said, and Annabeth’s eyes widened as a thought struck her.

“The vision on Eden Prime! That’s what I saw! The Protheans getting wiped out by the Reapers!” She exclaimed.

“The geth revere the Reapers like gods, they view them as the pinnacle of non-organic life. And the geth believe that Luke knows how to bring the Reapers back.” Leo said.

“We have to share this with the Council.” Udina said.

“Will the council even believe us?” Annabeth asked, looking at Udina.

“If nothing else, this proves that Luke is a traitor. We have to tell them.” Udina said.

“What about the quarian?” Wrex asked, and Leo’s gaze snapped to the krogan.

“I have a name! And you saw me in the alley, Commander Chase. I can help. My Pilgrimage will have to wait.” Leo spoke earnestly, and Annabeth had to think about it for a few seconds. Udina and Chiron left during this, the door closing behind them on their way out.

“Fine. I’ll take all the help I can get. Wrex, Zoe, Jason, go to the Normandy.” Annabeth said, leaving the room with Leo in tow. They reached the Council chambers as Udina finished presenting the audio recording to the Council. They subsequently stripped Luke of his Spectre status, identified the other voice as Matriarch Benezia, and argued extensively about the merits of an Alliance hunt for a rogue Spectre, until the Asari Councillor spoke up, and suggested that humanity get a Spectre to replace the one they lost in Luke. The whole event passed in a blur, and Commander Chase found herself walking down the stairs, a strange ringing in her ears, and her head feeling light, like she had simultaneously stood up too fast and gotten blasted by an air horn. When she got to the bottom, she was stopped by Captain Chiron and Ambassador Udina, though she had to shake her head to center herself.

“All the relevant intel will be forwarded to you as soon as possible, Commander.” Ambassador Udina was saying, and Annabeth had to make an effort to focus on his words as a single thought blared through her mind.

‘I’m a Spectre.’

“You’ll need supplies, a ship, of course, and a team.” Udina said, and Annabeth cut him off, her thoughts catching up to the conversation at hand.

“I have a team sir.” She said, and Chiron nodded in understanding.

“Of course, Commander, but you’re still down a biotic. A krogan battlemaster, a quarian engineer, turian sniper, and an Alliance marine is a formidable force to be reckoned with, to be sure, but I have someone in mind who can give your battlemaster a little bit more help on the frontline, and make you and your team that much more effective.” He said, and Annabeth sighed heavily.

“Alright, where are they?” She asked, and Chiron smiled triumphantly.

“He’s in my office right now.” He answered. Annabeth turned to Leo only to find him walking away already.

“See you on the ship, Commander!” The quarian shot over his shoulder as he walked to the elevator, and Annabeth turned back to Chiron.

“Lead the way, sir.”

…

“Before he joined the Alliance, he was part of a gang in New York back on Earth. An incredibly talented biotic, called a prodigy by some, he was fast-tracked for the Vanguard program. He was part of that mess with the thresher maws on Akuze, only survivor if I remember correctly, but after that he got recruited into the N7 program, graduated only a month after you did. Since then, he’s bounced around squads, companies, and divisions, been part of all-out assaults, surgical insertion teams, manhunts, covert ops, black ops, wetworks, you think of it, he’s done it. Most recently joined up with the 12th about a year back, but I managed to convince his CO he was better suited here.” Chiron said, and Annabeth nodded her understanding, looking around idly in the elevator, her grey eyes fixating, at one point, on the red and white stripes going down her right arm, before noticing that she had some thug’s blood splashed across her chest, partially obscuring the N7 insignia there.

“How have I never heard of him?” She asked, and Chiron laughed.

“Well, he has a bit of a problem with authority, and a talent to get on their bad sides faster than anyone I’ve met. The Alliance brass, especially the Rear Admirals like your mother, seem to hate him with a passion. Part of why he’s bounced between squads so often.” He mentioned, and she sighed.

“Just what I need, an insubordinate XO. This will be great.” She groused, and Chiron laughed again.

“You’ll get along quite well, I believe.” He said, and Annabeth managed to look completely unconvinced.

“We’ll see.” She muttered, as the doors of the elevator slid open, and Chiron’s office was revealed. It was spartan, as the Captain rarely used it, so it was hard to miss the tall man with messy black hair wearing minimalist black Special Operations armor, an N7 insignia of his own on the right side of his chest, and the marine division insignia of the 12th still on both pauldrons, which was an eagle with it’s wings spread wide, and claws sank into the top of the Alliance Navy’s sigil. Despite the high collar of the armor, Annabeth could see just the ends of tattoos peaking up behind his ear as he turned to face them. Even with the armor on, it was clear that he was muscular, but not so much that he looked like a walking mountain with armor on.

“Commander Annabeth Chase, it is a pleasure to introduce you to Lieutenant Percy Jackson.” Chiron said, and the man, Percy, approached, a hand extended to Annabeth, who had to crane her neck to see the man who was over a head taller than her.

“I prefer just Percy.” He said, and she does her best to fix with an intimidating gaze, an attempt that worked, evidently, as his green eyes locked with her greys, and he stopped moving.

“Heard you don’t get along well with authority, Jackson.” She said, dead serious, a feeling of dread settling like a rock in her stomach when his gaze hardens.

“I didn’t get along with my past COs because they made the wrong calls.” He said, and she spoke before thinking.

“Like on Akuze?” She shot, and something flashed in his eyes.

“Are you hear to dig into my past, Commander, or do you have something to talk about?” He asked, and she decided to figuratively dig in her heels.

“Are you going to answer my question?” She asked, and watched as he took a few steps back, his jaw clenching and unclenching.

“Yes, like on Akuze. We landed at the colonization outpost, found noone. I had a bad feeling, said that we should leave, but my CO insisted that we push out, start looking for survivors. Before we made camp, I approached my CO, told him we should leave, that something was seriously wrong, and again, I was ignored. That night, over fifty marines were slaughtered by thresher maws, and only I made it back to the LZ, barely alive. But you already knew about that, didn’t you?” He asked, glaring at her.

“I did.” She said, and she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as a crackling filled the air, and his hair started to whip in an invisible wind.

“Well? You wanna keep digging? Go into my wetworks history? Maybe the time a few years back when my squad and I fucked up, and the diplomat we were escorting got tossed, and I ended up getting booted from the entire company as a result? Maybe go all the way back to Earth, ask about my time in a gang? I’m dying to know what you’ll ask about next.” Annabeth felt heat rush to her face, and she took several deep breaths to calm herself before she shook her head.

“No, that’s not what I’m here for.” She answered, and watched Percy deflate marginally, his hair falling back down to lay motionless on his head.

“Then what the hell are you here for?” He asked, and she took a second to answer.

“You know Luke Castellan?” She asked and he nodded, noticeably deflated.

“Sure. First Human Spectre. What about him?” He asked, and Annabeth looked at Chiron, who nodded.

“He’s gone rogue. We’re going to hunt him down.” She said, and Percy looked surprised before smiling.

“Always did have a bad feeling about that guy. Reckon we’ve got a shot?” He asked, and Annabeth scoffed.

“Please. You and I are N7, we have another tenured and talented Alliance Marine, a quarian engineer, a turian sharpshooter, and a krogan battlemaster. Luke doesn’t have a chance.” She said, and Percy’s smile widened.

“Alright, I’m in.” He said, leaning down to gather the large duffle at his feet and sling it over his shoulder.

“Then we need to get down to the Normandy.”

…

[bountyofbeads]

I am posting a series of articles on the misinformation campaign being waged by the Trump campaign and other nafarious actors including Russia, Iran and China..Its important we recognize, educate and share this information ahead of the 2020 election. The misinformation is 20 fold to the misinformation campaign waged in 2016. WE MUST DEFEAT DONALD TRUMP FOR THE SAKE OF OUR DEMOCRACY. PLEASE SHARE!!! TY🙏🏻🙏🙏🏼🙏🏽🙏🏾🙏🏿

THE BILLION-DOLLAR DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN TO REELECT THE PRESIDENT..... How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 Election

By McKay Coppins | Published MARCH 2020 Issue | The Atlantic Magazine | Posted February 13, 2020 |

(**Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET on February 10, 2020.)

(PART 1 /2)

One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked “Like” on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebook’s algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like “In Trump We Trust.” I complied. I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers.

The president’s reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americans’ understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings. Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.

The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president’s conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video—served up by the Trump campaign—that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?

As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.

I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I’d assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning  every headline. It wasn’t that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself—about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else—felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Stories of Russian troll farms and Macedonian fake-news mills loomed in the national imagination. But while these shadowy outside forces preoccupied politicians and journalists, Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world’s demagogues and strongmen in power.

Every presidential campaign sees its share of spin and misdirection, but this year’s contest promises to be different. In conversations with political strategists and other experts, a dystopian picture of the general election comes into view—one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fearmongering, and anonymous mass texting. Both parties will have these tools at their disposal. But in the hands of a president who lies constantly, who traffics in conspiracy theories, and who readily manipulates the levers of government for his own gain, their potential to wreak havoc is enormous.

The Trump campaign is planning to spend more than $1 billion, and it will be aided by a vast coalition of partisan media, outside political groups, and enterprising freelance operatives. These pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history. Whether or not it succeeds in reelecting the president, the wreckage it leaves behind could be irreparable.

'THE DEATH STAR'

The campaign is run from the 14th floor of a gleaming, modern office tower in Rosslyn, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Glass-walled conference rooms look out on the Potomac River. Rows of sleek monitors line the main office space. Unlike the bootstrap operation that first got Trump elected—with its motley band of B-teamers toiling in an unfinished space in Trump Tower—his 2020 enterprise is heavily funded, technologically sophisticated, and staffed with dozens of experienced operatives. One Republican strategist referred to it, admiringly, as “the Death Star.”

Presiding over this effort is Brad Parscale, a 6-foot-8 Viking of a man with a shaved head and a triangular beard. As the digital director of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Parscale didn’t become a household name like Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. But he played a crucial role in delivering Trump to the Oval Office—and his efforts will shape this year’s election.

In speeches and interviews, Parscale likes to tell his life story as a tidy rags-to-riches tale, embroidered with Trumpian embellishments. He grew up a simple “farm boy from Kansas” (read: son of an affluent lawyer from suburban Topeka) who managed to graduate from an “Ivy League” school (Trinity University, in San Antonio). After college, he went to work for a software company in California, only to watch the business collapse in the economic aftermath of 9/11 (not to mention allegations in a lawsuit that he and his parents, who owned the business, had illegally transferred company funds—claims that they disputed). Broke and desperate, Parscale took his “last $500” (not counting the value of three rental properties he owned) and used it to start a one-man web-design business in Texas.

Parscale Media was, by most accounts, a scrappy endeavor at the outset. Hustling to drum up clients, Parscale cold-pitched shoppers in the tech aisle of a Borders bookstore. Over time, he built enough websites for plumbers and gun shops that bigger clients took notice—including the Trump Organization. In 2011, Parscale was invited to bid on designing a website for Trump International Realty. An ardent fan of The Apprentice, he offered to do the job for $10,000, a fraction of the actual cost. “I just made up a price,” he later told The Washington Post. “I recognized that I was a nobody in San Antonio, but working for the Trumps would be everything.” The contract was his, and a lucrative relationship was born.

Over the next four years, he was hired to design websites for a range of Trump ventures—a winery, a skin-care line, and then a presidential campaign. By late 2015, Parscale—a man with no discernible politics, let alone campaign experience—was running the Republican front-runner’s digital operation from his personal laptop.

Parscale slid comfortably into Trump’s orbit. Not only was he cheap and unpretentious—with no hint of the savvier-than-thou smugness that characterized other political operatives—but he seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder that matched the candidate’s. “Brad was one of those people who wanted to prove the establishment wrong and show the world what he was made of,” says a former colleague from the campaign.

Perhaps most important, he seemed to have no reservations about the kind of campaign Trump wanted to run. The race-baiting, the immigrant-bashing, the truth-bending—none of it seemed to bother Parscale. While some Republicans wrung their hands over Trump’s inflammatory messages, Parscale came up with ideas to more effectively disseminate them.

The campaign had little interest at first in cutting-edge ad technology, and for a while, Parscale’s most valued contribution was the merchandise page he built to sell MAGA hats. But that changed in the general election. Outgunned on the airwaves and lagging badly in fundraising, campaign officials turned to Google and Facebook, where ads were inexpensive and shock value was rewarded. As the campaign poured tens of millions into online advertising—amplifying themes such as Hillary Clinton’s criminality and the threat of radical Islamic terrorism—Parscale’s team, which was christened Project Alamo, grew to 100.

Parscale was generally well liked by his colleagues, who recall him as competent and intensely focused. “He was a get-shit-done type of person,” says A. J. Delgado, who worked with him. Perhaps just as important, he had a talent for ingratiating himself with the Trump family. “He was probably better at managing up,” Kurt Luidhardt, a consultant for the campaign, told me. He made sure to share credit for his work with the candidate’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and he excelled at using Trump’s digital ignorance to flatter him. “Parscale would come in and tell Trump he didn’t need to listen to the polls, because he’d crunched his data and they were going to win by six points,” one former campaign staffer told me. “I was like, ‘Come on, man, don’t bullshit a bullshitter.’ ” But Trump seemed to buy it. (Parscale declined to be interviewed for this story.)

James Barnes, a Facebook employee who was dispatched to work closely with the campaign, told me Parscale’s political inexperience made him open to experimenting with the platform’s new tools. “Whereas some grizzled campaign strategist who’d been around the block a few times might say, ‘Oh, that will never work,’ Brad’s predisposition was to say, ‘Yeah, let’s try it.’ ” From June to November, Trump’s campaign ran 5.9 million ads on Facebook, while Clinton’s ran just 66,000. A Facebook executive would later write in a leaked memo that Trump “got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser.”

Though some strategists questioned how much these ads actually mattered, Parscale was hailed for Trump’s surprise victory. Stories appeared in the press calling him a “genius” and the campaign’s “secret weapon,” and in 2018 he was tapped to lead the entire reelection effort. The promotion was widely viewed as a sign that the president’s 2020 strategy would hinge on the digital tactics that Parscale had mastered.

Through it all, the strategist has continued to show a preference for narrative over truth. Last May, Parscale regaled a crowd of donors and activists in Miami with the story of his ascent. When a ProPublica reporter confronted him about the many misleading details in his account, he shrugged off the fact-check. “When I give a speech, I tell it like a story,” he said. “My story is my story.”

'DISINFORMATION ARCHITECTURE'

In his book This Is Not Propaganda, Peter Pomerantsev, a researcher at the London School of Economics, writes about a young Filipino political consultant he calls “P.” In college, P had studied the “Little Albert experiment,” in which scientists conditioned a young child to fear furry animals by exposing him to loud noises every time he encountered a white lab rat. The experiment gave P an idea. He created a series of Facebook groups for Filipinos to discuss what was going on in their communities. Once the groups got big enough—about 100,000 members—he began posting local crime stories, and instructed his employees to leave comments falsely tying the grisly headlines to drug cartels. The pages lit up with frightened chatter. Rumors swirled; conspiracy theories metastasized. To many, all crimes became drug crimes.

Unbeknownst to their members, the Facebook groups were designed to boost Rodrigo Duterte, then a long-shot presidential candidate running on a pledge to brutally crack down on drug criminals. (Duterte once boasted that, as mayor of Davao City, he rode through the streets on his motorcycle and personally executed drug dealers.) P’s experiment was one plank in a larger “disinformation architecture”—which also included social-media influencers paid to mock opposing candidates, and mercenary trolls working out of former call centers—that experts say aided Duterte’s rise to power. Since assuming office in 2016, Duterte has reportedly ramped up these efforts while presiding over thousands of extrajudicial killings.

The campaign in the Philippines was emblematic of an emerging propaganda playbook, one that uses new tools for the age-old ends of autocracy. The Kremlin has long been an innovator in this area. (A 2011 manual for Russian civil servants favorably compared their methods of disinformation to “an invisible radiation” that takes effect while “the population doesn’t even feel it is being acted upon.”) But with the technological advances of the past decade, and the global proliferation of smartphones, governments around the world have found success deploying Kremlin-honed techniques against their own people.

In the United States, we tend to view such tools of oppression as the faraway problems of more fragile democracies. But the people working to reelect Trump understand the power of these tactics. They may use gentler terminology—muddy the waters; alternative facts—but they’re building a machine designed to exploit their own sprawling disinformation architecture.

Central to that effort is the campaign’s use of micro-targeting—the process of slicing up the electorate into distinct niches and then appealing to them with precisely tailored digital messages. The advantages of this approach are obvious: An ad that calls for defunding Planned Parenthood might get a mixed response from a large national audience, but serve it directly via Facebook to 800 Roman Catholic women in Dubuque, Iowa, and its reception will be much more positive. If candidates once had to shout their campaign promises from a soapbox, micro-targeting allows them to sidle up to millions of voters and whisper personalized messages in their ear.

Parscale didn’t invent this practice—Barack Obama’s campaign famously used it in 2012, and Clinton’s followed suit. But Trump’s effort in 2016 was unprecedented, in both its scale and its brazenness. In the final days of the 2016 race, for example, Trump’s team tried to suppress turnout among black voters in Florida by slipping ads into their News Feeds that read, “Hillary Thinks African-Americans Are Super Predators.” An unnamed campaign official boasted to Bloomberg Businessweek that it was one of “three major voter suppression operations underway.” (The other two targeted young women and white liberals.)

The weaponization of micro-targeting was pioneered in large part by the data scientists at Cambridge Analytica. The firm began as part of a nonpartisan military contractor that used digital psyops to target terrorist groups and drug cartels. In Pakistan, it worked to thwart jihadist recruitment efforts; in South America, it circulated disinformation to turn drug dealers against their bosses.

The emphasis shifted once the conservative billionaire Robert Mercer became a major investor and installed Steve Bannon as his point man. Using a massive trove of data it had gathered from Facebook and other sources—without users’ consent—Cambridge Analytica worked to develop detailed “psychographic profiles” for every voter in the U.S., and began experimenting with ways to stoke paranoia and bigotry by exploiting certain personality traits. In one exercise, the firm asked white men whether they would approve of their daughter marrying a Mexican immigrant; those who said yes were asked a follow-up question designed to provoke irritation at the constraints of political correctness: “Did you feel like you had to say that?”

Christopher Wylie, who was the director of research at Cambridge Analytica and later testified about the company to Congress, told me that “with the right kind of nudges,” people who exhibited certain psychological characteristics could be pushed into ever more extreme beliefs and conspiratorial thinking. “Rather than using data to interfere with the process of radicalization, Steve Bannon was able to invert that,” Wylie said. “We were essentially seeding an insurgency in the United States.”

Cambridge Analytica was dissolved in 2018, shortly after its CEO was caught on tape bragging about using bribery and sexual “honey traps” on behalf of clients. (The firm denied that it actually used such tactics.) Since then, some political scientists have questioned how much effect its “psychographic” targeting really had. But Wylie—who spoke with me from London, where he now works for H&M, as a fashion-trend forecaster—said the firm’s work in 2016 was a modest test run compared with what could come.

“What happens if North Korea or Iran picks up where Cambridge Analytica left off?” he said, noting that plenty of foreign actors will be looking for ways to interfere in this year’s election. “There are countless hostile states that have more than enough capacity to quickly replicate what we were able to do … and make it much more sophisticated.” These efforts may not come only from abroad: A group of former Cambridge Analytica employees have formed a new firm that, according to the Associated Press, is working with the Trump campaign. (The firm has denied this, and a campaign spokesperson declined to comment.)

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Facebook was excoriated for its mishandling of user data and complicity in the viral spread of fake news. Mark Zuckerberg promised to do better, and rolled out a flurry of reforms. But then, last fall, he handed a major victory to lying politicians: Candidates, he said, would be allowed to continue running false ads on Facebook. (Commercial advertisers, by contrast, are subject to fact-checking.) In a speech at Georgetown University, the CEO argued that his company shouldn’t be responsible for arbitrating political speech, and that because political ads already receive so much scrutiny, candidates who choose to lie will be held accountable by journalists and watchdogs.

"Shady political actors are discovering how easy it is to wage an untraceable whisper campaign by text message."

To bolster his case, Zuckerberg pointed to the recently launched—and publicly accessible—“library” where Facebook archives every political ad it publishes. The project has a certain democratic appeal: Why censor false or toxic content when a little sunlight can have the same effect? But spend some time scrolling through the archive of Trump reelection ads, and you quickly see the limits of this transparency.

The campaign doesn’t run just one ad at a time on a given theme. It runs hundreds of iterations—adjusting the language, the music, even the colors of the “Donate” buttons. In the 10 weeks after the House of Representatives began its impeachment inquiry, the Trump campaign ran roughly 14,000 different ads containing the word impeachment. Sifting through all of them is virtually impossible.

Both parties will rely on micro-targeted ads this year, but the president is likely to have a distinct advantage. The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have reportedly compiled an average of 3,000 data points on every voter in America. They have spent years experimenting with ways to tweak their messages based not just on gender and geography, but on whether the recipient owns a gun or watches the Golf Channel.

While these ads can be used to try to win over undecided voters, they’re most often deployed for fundraising and for firing up the faithful—and Trump’s advisers believe this election will be decided by mobilization, not persuasion. To turn out the base, the campaign has signaled that it will return to familiar themes: the threat of “illegal aliens”—a term Parscale has reportedly encouraged Trump to use—and the corruption of the “swamp.”

Beyond Facebook, the campaign is also investing in a texting platform that could allow it to send anonymous messages directly to millions of voters’ phones without their permission. Until recently, people had to opt in before a campaign could include them in a mass text. But with new “peer to peer” texting apps—including one developed by Gary Coby, a senior Trump adviser—a single volunteer can send hundreds of messages an hour, skirting federal regulations by clicking “Send” one message at a time. Notably, these messages aren’t required to disclose who’s behind them, thanks to a 2002 ruling by the Federal Election Commission that cited the limited number of characters available in a text.

Most experts assume that these regulations will be overhauled sometime after the 2020 election. For now, campaigns from both parties are hoovering up as many cellphone numbers as possible, and Parscale has said texting will be at the center of Trump’s reelection strategy. The medium’s ability to reach voters is unparalleled: While robocalls get sent to voicemail and email blasts get trapped in spam folders, peer-to-peer texting companies say that at least 90 percent of their messages are opened.

The Trump campaign’s texts so far this cycle have focused on shouty fundraising pleas (“They have NOTHING! IMPEACHMENT IS OVER! Now let’s CRUSH our End of Month Goal”). But the potential for misuse by outside groups is clear—and shady political actors are already discovering how easy it is to wage an untraceable whisper campaign by text.

In 2018, as early voting got under way in Tennessee’s Republican gubernatorial primary, voters began receiving text messages attacking two of the candidates’ conservative credentials. The texts—written in a conversational style, as if they’d been sent from a friend—were unsigned, and people who tried calling the numbers received a busy signal. The local press covered the smear campaign. Law enforcement was notified. But the source of the texts was never discovered.

'WAR ON THE PRESS'

One afternoon last March, I was on the phone with a Republican operative close to the Trump family when he casually mentioned that a reporter at Business Insider was about to have a very bad day. The journalist, John Haltiwanger, had tweeted something that annoyed Donald Trump Jr., prompting the coterie of friends and allies surrounding the president’s son to drum up a hit piece. The story they had coming, the operative suggested to me, would demolish the reporter’s credibility.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this gloating—people in Trump’s circle have a tendency toward bluster. But a few hours later, the operative sent me a link to a Breitbart News article documenting Haltiwanger’s “history of intense Trump hatred.” The story was based on a series of Instagram posts—all of them from before Haltiwanger started working at Business Insider—in which he made fun of the president and expressed solidarity with liberal protesters.

The next morning, Don Jr. tweeted the story to his 3 million followers, denouncing Haltiwanger as a “raging lib.” Other conservatives piled on, and the reporter was bombarded with abusive messages and calls for him to be fired. His employer issued a statement conceding that the Instagram posts were “not appropriate.” Haltiwanger kept his job, but the experience, he told me later, “was bizarre and unsettling.”

The Breitbart story was part of a coordinated effort by a coalition of Trump allies to air embarrassing information about reporters who produce critical coverage of the president. (The New York Times first reported on this project last summer; since then, it’s been described to me in greater detail.) According to people with knowledge of the effort, pro-Trump operatives have scraped social-media accounts belonging to hundreds of political journalists and compiled years’ worth of posts into a dossier.

Often when a particular news story is deemed especially unfair—or politically damaging—to the president, Don Jr. will flag it in a text thread that he uses for this purpose. (Among those who text regularly with the president’s eldest son, someone close to him told me, are the conservative activist Charlie Kirk; two GOP strategists, Sergio Gor and Arthur Schwartz; Matthew Boyle, a Breitbart editor; and U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell.) Once a story has been marked for attack, someone searches the dossier for material on the journalists involved. If something useful turns up—a problematic old joke; evidence of liberal political views—Boyle turns it into a Breitbart headline, which White House officials and campaign surrogates can then share on social media. (The White House has denied any involvement in this effort.)

Descriptions of the dossier vary. One source I spoke with said that a programmer in India had been paid to organize it into a searchable database, making posts that contain offensive keywords easier to find. Another told me the dossier had expanded to at least 2,000 people, including not just journalists but high-profile academics, politicians, celebrities, and other potential Trump foes. Some of this, of course, may be hyperbolic boasting—but the effort has yielded fruit.

"PASCALE HAS SAID THE CAMPAIGN INTENDS TO TRAIN “SWARMS OF SURROGATES” TO UNDERMINE COVERAGE FROM LOCAL TV STATIONS AND NEWSPAPERS."

In the past year, the operatives involved have gone after journalists at CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. They exposed one reporter for using the word fag in college, and another for posting anti-Semitic and racist jokes a decade ago. These may not have been career-ending revelations, but people close to the project said they’re planning to unleash much more opposition research as the campaign intensifies. “This is innovative shit,” said Mike Cernovich, a right-wing activist with a history of trolling. “They’re appropriating call-out culture.”

What’s notable about this effort is not that it aims to expose media bias. Conservatives have been complaining—with some merit—about a liberal slant in the press for decades. But in the Trump era, an important shift has taken place. Instead of trying to reform the press, or critique its coverage, today’s most influential conservatives want to destroy the mainstream media altogether. “Journalistic integrity is dead,” Boyle declared in a 2017 speech at the Heritage Foundation. “There is no such thing anymore. So everything is about weaponization of information.”

It’s a lesson drawn from demagogues around the world: When the press as an institution is weakened, fact-based journalism becomes just one more drop in the daily deluge of content—no more or less credible than partisan propaganda. Relativism is the real goal of Trump’s assault on the press, and the more “enemies of the people” his allies can take out along the way, the better. “A culture war is a war,” Steve Bannon told the Times last year. “There are casualties in war.”

This attitude has permeated the president’s base. At rallies, people wear T-shirts that read rope. tree. journalist. some assembly required. A CBS News/YouGov poll has found that just 11 percent of strong Trump supporters trust the mainstream media—while 91 percent turn to the president for “accurate information.” This dynamic makes it all but impossible for the press to hold the president accountable, something Trump himself seems to understand. “Remember,” he told a crowd in 2018, “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Bryan Lanza, who worked for the Trump campaign in 2016 and remains a White House surrogate, told me flatly that he sees no possibility of Americans establishing a common set of facts from which to conduct the big debates of this year’s election. Nor is that his goal. “It’s our job to sell our narrative louder than the media,” Lanza said. “They’re clearly advocating for a liberal-socialist position, and we’re never going to be in concert. So the war continues.”

Parscale has indicated that he plans to open up a new front in this war: local news. Last year, he said the campaign intends to train “swarms of surrogates” to undermine negative coverage from local TV stations and newspapers. Polls have long found that Americans across the political spectrum trust local news more than national media. If the campaign has its way, that trust will be eroded by November. “We can actually build up and fight with the local newspapers,” Parscale told donors, according to a recording provided by The Palm Beach Post. “So we’re not just fighting on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC with the same 700,000 people watching every day.”

Running parallel to this effort, some conservatives have been experimenting with a scheme to exploit the credibility of local journalism. Over the past few years, hundreds of websites with innocuous-sounding names like the Arizona Monitor and The Kalamazoo Times have begun popping up. At first glance, they look like regular publications, complete with community notices and coverage of schools. But look closer and you’ll find that there are often no mastheads, few if any bylines, and no addresses for local offices. Many of them are organs of Republican lobbying groups; others belong to a mysterious company called Locality Labs, which is run by a conservative activist in Illinois. Readers are given no indication that these sites have political agendas—which is precisely what makes them valuable.

According to one longtime strategist, candidates looking to plant a negative story about an opponent can pay to have their desired headlines posted on some of these Potemkin news sites. By working through a third-party consulting firm—instead of paying the sites directly—candidates are able to obscure their involvement in the scheme when they file expenditures to the Federal Election Commission. Even if the stories don’t fool savvy readers, the headlines are convincing enough to be flashed across the screen in a campaign commercial or slipped into fundraising emails.

'DIGITAL DIRTY TRICKS'

Shortly after polls closed in Kentucky’s gubernatorial election last November, an anonymous Twitter user named @Overlordkraken1 announced to his 19 followers that he had “just shredded a box of Republican mail in ballots” in Louisville.

There was little reason to take this claim at face value, and plenty of reason to doubt it (beginning with the fact that he’d misspelled Louisville). But the race was tight, and as incumbent Governor Matt Bevin began to fall behind in the vote total, an army of Twitter bots began spreading the election-rigging claim.

The original post was removed by Twitter, but by then thousands of automated accounts were circulating screenshots of it with the hashtag #StoptheSteal. Popular right-wing internet personalities jumped on the narrative, and soon the Bevin campaign was making noise about unspecified voting “irregularities.” When the race was called for his opponent, the governor refused to concede, and asked for a statewide review of the vote. (No evidence of ballot-shredding was found, and he finally admitted defeat nine days later.)

The Election Night disinformation blitz had all the markings of a foreign influence operation. In 2016, Russian trolls had worked in similar ways to contaminate U.S. political discourse—posing as Black Lives Matter activists in an attempt to inflame racial divisions, and fanning pro-Trump conspiracy theories. (They even used Facebook to organize rallies, including one for Muslim supporters of Clinton in Washington, D.C., where they got someone to hold up a sign attributing a fictional quote to the candidate: “I think Sharia law will be a powerful new direction of freedom.”)

But when Twitter employees later reviewed the activity surrounding Kentucky’s election, they concluded that the bots were largely based in America—a sign that political operatives here were learning to mimic Russian trolling tactics.

Of course, dirty tricks aren’t new to American politics. From Lee Atwater and Roger Stone to the crooked machine Democrats of Chicago, the country has a long history of underhanded operatives smearing opponents and meddling in elections. And, in fact, Samuel Woolley, a scholar who studies digital propaganda, told me that the first documented deployment of politicized Twitter bots was in the U.S. In 2010, an Iowa-based conservative group set up a small network of automated accounts with names like @BrianD82 to promote the idea that Martha Coakley, a Democrat running for Senate in Massachusetts, was anti-Catholic.

Since then, the tactics of Twitter warfare have grown more sophisticated, as regimes around the world experiment with new ways to deploy their cybermilitias. In Mexico, supporters of then-President Enrique Peña Nieto created “sock puppet” accounts to pose as protesters and sabotage the opposition movement. In Azerbaijan, a pro-government youth group waged coordinated harassment campaigns against journalists, flooding their Twitter feeds with graphic threats and insults. When these techniques prove successful, Woolley told me, Americans improve upon them. “It’s almost as if there’s a Columbian exchange between developing-world authoritarian regimes and the West,” he said.

Parscale has denied that the campaign uses bots, saying in a 60 Minutes interview, “I don’t think [they] work.” He may be right—it’s unlikely that these nebulous networks of trolls and bots could swing a national election. But they do have their uses. They can simulate false consensus, derail sincere debate, and hound people out of the public square.

According to one study, bots accounted for roughly 20 percent of all the tweets posted about the 2016 election during one five-week period that year. And Twitter is already infested with bots that seem designed to boost Trump’s reelection prospects. Regardless of where they’re coming from, they have tremendous potential to divide, radicalize, and stoke hatred that lasts long after the votes are cast.

Rob Flaherty, who served as the digital director for Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign, told me that Twitter in 2020 is a “hall of mirrors.” He said one mysterious account started a viral rumor that the gunman who killed seven people in Odessa, Texas, last summer had a beto bumper sticker on his car. Another masqueraded as an O’Rourke supporter and hurled racist invective at a journalist. Some of these tactics echoed 2016, when Russian agitators posed as Bernie Sanders supporters and stirred up anger toward Hillary Clinton.

Flaherty said he didn’t know who was behind the efforts targeting O’Rourke, and the candidate dropped out before they could make a real difference. “But you can’t watch this landscape and not get the feeling that someone’s fucking with something,” he told me. Flaherty has since joined Joe Biden’s campaign, which has had to contend with similar distortions: Last year, a website resembling an official Biden campaign page appeared on the internet. It emphasized elements of the candidate’s legislative record likely to hurt him in the Democratic primary—opposition to same-sex marriage, support for the Iraq War—and featured video clips of his awkward encounters with women. The site quickly became one of the most-visited Biden-related sites on the web. It was designed by a Trump consultant.

'FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE'

As the president’s reelection machine ramps up, Democratic strategists have found themselves debating an urgent question: Can they defeat the Trump coalition without adopting its tactics?

On one side of this argument is Dmitri Mehlhorn, a consultant notorious for his willingness to experiment with digital subterfuge. During Alabama’s special election in 2017, Mehlhorn helped fund at least two “false flag” operations against the Republican Senate candidate, Roy Moore. For one scheme, faux Russian Twitter bots followed the candidate’s account to make it look like the Kremlin was backing Moore. For another, a fake social-media campaign, dubbed “Dry Alabama,” was designed to link Moore to fictional Baptist teetotalers trying to ban alcohol. (Mehlhorn has claimed that he unaware of the Russian bot effort and does not support the use of misinformation.)

When The New York Times uncovered the second plot, one of the activists involved, Matt Osborne, contended that Democrats had no choice but to employ such unscrupulous techniques. “If you don’t do it, you’re fighting with one hand tied behind your back,” Osborne said. “You have a moral imperative to do this—to do whatever it takes.”

Others have argued that this is precisely the wrong moment for Democrats to start abandoning ideals of honesty and fairness. “It’s just not in my values to go out there making shit up and tricking voters,” Flaherty told me. “I know there’s this whole fight-fire-with-fire contingent, but generally when you ask them what they mean, they’re like, ‘Lie!’ ” Some also note that the president has already handed them plenty of ammunition. “I don’t think the Democratic campaign is going to need to make stuff up about Trump,” Judd Legum, the author of a progressive newsletter about digital politics, told me. “They can stick to things that are true.”

"EVENTUALLY, THE FEAR OF COVERT PROPAGANDA INFLICTS AS MUCH DAMAGE AS THE PROPAGANDA ITSELF."

One Democrat straddling these two camps is a young, tech-savvy strategist named Tara McGowan. Last fall, she and the former Obama adviser David Plouffe launched a political-action committee with a pledge to spend $75 million attacking Trump online. At the time, the president’s campaign was running more ads on Facebook and Google than the top four Democratic candidates combined. McGowan’s plans to return fire included such ads, but she also had more creative—and controversial—measures in mind.

For example, she established a media organization with a staff of writers to produce left-leaning “hometown news” stories that can be micro-targeted to persuadable voters on Facebook without any indication that they’re paid for by a political group. Though she insists that the reporting is strictly factual, some see the enterprise as a too-close-for-comfort co-opting of right-wing tactics.

When I spoke with McGowan, she was open about her willingness to push boundaries that might make some Democrats queasy. As far as she was concerned, the “super-predator” ads Trump ran to depress black turnout in 2016 were “fair game” because they had some basis in fact. (Clinton did use the term in 1996, to refer to gang members.) McGowan suggested that a similar approach could be taken with conservatives. She ruled out attempts to misinform Republicans about when and where to vote—a tactic Mehlhorn reportedly considered, though he later said he was joking—but said she would pursue any strategy that was “in the bounds of the law.”

“We are in a radically disruptive moment right now,” McGowan told me. “We have a president that lies every day, unabashedly … I think Trump is so desperate to win this election that he will do anything. There will be no bar too low for him.”

This intraparty split was highlighted last year when state officials urged the Democratic National Committee to formally disavow the use of bots, troll farms, and “deepfakes” (digitally manipulated videos that can, with alarming precision, make a person appear to do or say anything). Supporters saw the proposed pledge as a way of contrasting their party’s values with those of the GOP. But after months of lobbying, the committee refused to adopt the pledge.

Meanwhile, experts worried about domestic disinformation are looking to other countries for lessons. The most successful recent example may be Indonesia, which cracked down on the problem after a wave of viral lies and conspiracy theories pushed by hard-line Islamists led to the defeat of a popular Christian Chinese candidate for governor in 2016. To prevent a similar disruption in last year’s presidential election, a coalition of journalists from more than two dozen top Indonesian news outlets worked together to identify and debunk hoaxes before they gained traction online. But while that may sound like a promising model, it was paired with aggressive efforts by the state to monitor and arrest purveyors of fake news—an approach that would run afoul of the First Amendment if attempted in the U.S.

Richard Stengel, who served as the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy under President Obama, spent almost three years trying to counter digital propaganda from the Islamic State and Russia. By the time he left office, he told me, he was convinced that disinformation would continue to thrive until big tech companies were forced to take responsibility for it. Stengel has proposed amending the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability for messages posted by third parties. Companies such as Facebook and Twitter, he believes, should be required by law to police their platforms for disinformation and abusive trolling. “It’s not going to solve the whole problem,” he told me, “but it’s going to help with volume.”

There is one other case study to consider. During the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, pro-democracy activists found that they could defang much of the false information about their movement by repeatedly exposing its Russian origins. But this kind of transparency comes with a cost, Stengel observed. Over time, alertness to the prevalence of propaganda can curdle into paranoia. Russian operatives have been known to encourage such anxiety by spreading rumors that exaggerate their own influence. Eventually, the fear of covert propaganda inflicts as much damage as the propaganda itself.

Once you internalize the possibility that you’re being manipulated by some hidden hand, nothing can be trusted. Every dissenting voice on Twitter becomes a Russian bot, every uncomfortable headline a false flag, every political development part of an ever-deepening conspiracy. By the time the information ecosystem collapses under the weight of all this cynicism, you’re too vigilant to notice that the disinformationists have won.

'POWERS OF INCUMBENCY'

If there’s one thing that can be said for Brad Parscale, it’s that he runs a tight ship. Unauthorized leaks from inside the campaign are rare; press stories on palace intrigue are virtually nonexistent. When the staff first moved into its new offices last year, journalists were periodically invited to tour the facility—but Parscale put an end to the practice: He didn’t want them glimpsing a scrap of paper or a whiteboard scribble that they weren’t supposed to see.

Notably, while the Trump White House has endured a seemingly endless procession of shake-ups, the Trump reelection campaign has seen very little turnover since Parscale took charge. His staying power is one reason many Republicans—inside the organization or out—hesitate to talk about him on the record. But among allies of the president, there appears to be a growing skepticism.

Former colleagues began noticing a change in Parscale after his promotion. Suddenly, the quiet guy with his face buried in a laptop was wearing designer suits, tossing out MAGA hats at campaign rallies, and traveling to Europe to speak at a political-marketing conference. In the past few years, Parscale has bought a BMW, a Range Rover, a condo, and a $2.4 million waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “He knows he has the confidence of the family,” one former colleague told me, “which gives him more swagger.” When the U.K.’s Daily Mail ran a story spotlighting Parscale’s spending spree, he attempted deflection through flattery. “The president is an excellent businessman,” he told the tabloid, “and being associated with him for years has been extremely beneficial to my family.”

But according to a former White House official with knowledge of the incident, Trump was irritated by the coverage, and the impression it created that his campaign manager was getting rich off him. For a moment, Parscale’s standing appeared to be in peril, but then Trump’s attention was diverted by the G7 summit in France, and he never returned to the issue. (A spokesperson for the campaign disputed this account.)

Some Republicans worry that for all Parscale’s digital expertise, he doesn’t have the vision to guide Trump to reelection. The president is historically unpopular, and even in red states, he has struggled to mobilize his base for special elections. If Trump’s message is growing stale with voters, is Parscale the man to help overhaul it? “People start to ask the question—you’re building this apparatus, and that’s great, but what’s the overarching narrative?” said a former campaign staffer.

But whether Trump finds a new narrative or not, he has something this time around that he didn’t have in 2016—the powers of the presidency. While every commander in chief looks for ways to leverage his incumbency for reelection, Trump has shown that he’s willing to go much further than most. In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, he seized on reports of a migrant caravan traveling to the U.S. from Central America to claim that the southern border was facing a national-security crisis. Trump warned of a coming “invasion” and claimed, without evidence, that the caravan had been infiltrated by gang members.

Parscale aided this effort by creating a 30-second commercial that interspersed footage of Hispanic migrants with clips of a convicted cop-killer. The ad ended with an urgent call to action: stop the caravan. vote republican. In a final maneuver before the election, Trump dispatched U.S. troops to the border. The president insisted that the operation was necessary to keep America safe—but within weeks the troops were quietly called back, the “crisis” having apparently ended once votes were cast. Skeptics were left to wonder: If Trump is willing to militarize the border to pick up a few extra seats in the midterms, what will he and his supporters do when his reelection is on the line?

It doesn’t require an overactive imagination to envision a worst-case scenario: On Election Day, anonymous text messages direct voters to the wrong polling locations, or maybe even circulate rumors of security threats. Deepfakes of the Democratic nominee using racial slurs crop up faster than social-media platforms can remove them. As news outlets scramble to correct the inaccuracies, hordes of Twitter bots respond by smearing and threatening reporters. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has spent the final days of the race pumping out Facebook ads at such a high rate that no one can keep track of what they’re injecting into the bloodstream.

After the first round of exit polls is released, a mysteriously sourced video surfaces purporting to show undocumented immigrants at the ballot box. Trump begins retweeting rumors of voter fraud and suggests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers should be dispatched to polling stations. are illegals stealing the election? reads the Fox News chyron. are russians behind false videos? demands MSNBC.

The votes haven’t even been counted yet, and much of the country is ready to throw out the result.

'NOTHING IS TRUE '

There is perhaps no better place to witness what the culture of disinformation has already wrought in America than a Trump campaign rally. One night in November, I navigated through a parking-lot maze of folding tables covered in MAGA merch and entered the BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo, Mississippi. The election was still a year away, but thousands of sign-waving supporters had crowded into the venue to cheer on the president in person.

Once Trump took the stage, he let loose a familiar flurry of lies, half-lies, hyperbole, and nonsense. He spun his revisionist history of the Ukraine scandal—the one in which Joe Biden is the villain—and claimed, falsely, that the Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams wanted to “give illegal aliens the right to vote.” At one point, during a riff on abortion, Trump casually asserted that “the governor of Virginia executed a baby”—prompting a woman in the crowd to scream, “Murderer!”

This incendiary fabrication didn’t seem to register with my companions in the press pen, who were busy writing stories and shooting B-roll. I opened Twitter, expecting to see a torrent of fact-checks laying out the truth of the case—that the governor had been answering a hypothetical question about late-term abortion; that a national firestorm had ensued; that there were certainly different ways to interpret his comments but that not even the most ardent anti-abortion activist thought the governor of Virginia had personally “executed a baby.”

But Twitter was uncharacteristically quiet (apparently the president had said this before), and the most widely shared tweet I found on the subject was from his own campaign, which had blasted out a context-free clip of the governor’s abortion comments to back up Trump’s smear.

After the rally, I loitered near one of the exits, chatting with people as they filed out of the arena. Among liberals, there is a comforting caricature of Trump supporters as gullible personality cultists who have been hypnotized into believing whatever their leader says. The appeal of this theory is the implication that the spell can be broken, that truth can still triumph over lies, that someday everything could go back to normal—if only these voters were exposed to the facts. But the people I spoke with in Tupelo seemed to treat matters of fact as beside the point.

One woman told me that, given the president’s accomplishments, she didn’t care if he “fabricates a little bit.” A man responded to my questions about Trump’s dishonest attacks on the press with a shrug and a suggestion that the media “ought to try telling the truth once in a while.” Tony Willnow, a 34-year-old maintenance worker who had an American flag wrapped around his head, observed that Trump had won because he said things no other politician would say. When I asked him if it mattered whether those things were true, he thought for a moment before answering. “He tells you what you want to hear,” Willnow said. “And I don’t know if it’s true or not—but it sounds good, so fuck it.”

The political theorist Hannah Arendt once wrote that the most successful totalitarian leaders of the 20th century instilled in their followers “a mixture of gullibility and cynicism.” When they were lied to, they chose to believe it. When a lie was debunked, they claimed they’d known all along—and would then “admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” Over time, Arendt wrote, the onslaught of propaganda conditioned people to “believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.”

Leaving the rally, I thought about Arendt, and the swaths of the country that are already gripped by the ethos she described. Should it prevail in 2020, the election’s legacy will be clear—not a choice between parties or candidates or policy platforms, but a referendum on reality itself.

______

This article appears in the March 2020 print edition with the headline “The 2020 Disinformation War.”

______

MCKAY COPPINS is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Wilderness, a book about the battle over the future of the Republican Party.

*********

[junker-town]

Chris Jones made 3 big plays to help the Chiefs win Super Bowl 54

Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones batted down two passes in Super Bowl 54.

Retired defensive end Stephen White breaks down the three big plays free agent-to-be Chris Jones made in Super Bowl 54.

There were several heroes for the Kansas City Chiefs defense during Super Bowl 54.

Bashaud Breeland was fantastic both in coverage (he picked off 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo early on) and in run support as their leading tackler. Edge rusher Frank Clark cashed the check that his mouth wrote by putting a ton of pressure on Garoppolo late when it mattered most, and he also got home with a fourth-down sack that effectively ended the game.

Comparatively, Chris Jones’ stat sheet doesn’t look nearly as impressive. However, the big plays Jones did make may have had just as much of an impact on the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl.

Some folks might say it had even more.

3 plays Jones made that helped the Chiefs win Super Bowl 54

The stat sheet might not have shown it, but the film told a different story. I said in my Super Bowl preview I didn’t think the Chiefs would have much of a chance if Jones was only in sparingly, and sure enough he was back to full-time duty and in there on early downs. Once again, it was on several passing plays where Jones truly left his mark.

1. Jones’ almost-sack forced Garoppolo into a terrible decision

The first play came early in the second quarter, just after the Chiefs had scored their first touchdown of the game to go up 7-3. After one of Breeland’s tackles for a loss threw the 49ers’ offense off schedule, Jones knew they would probably have to throw. He then unleashed the rarely seen, and even more rarely successful, forklift-to-an-arm-over move on San Francisco right guard Mike Person to blow by him and get almost immediate pressure on Garoppolo.

Although he missed the sack, Jones’ pressure forced the quarterback up into more pressure from fellow Chiefs defensive lineman Mike Pennel. That directly led to Garoppolo making one of the worst decisions of the game, an absolute duck down the field in Emmanuel Sanders’ general direction that Breeland easily picked off:

Stonecold and Big Mike with the pressure, Breezy with the pick pic.twitter.com/9G79wL3jyV

— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) February 3, 2020

Hell, he probably could’ve fair caught it.

Sanders wasn’t open at any point in his route and, had he had time to notice, I highly doubt Garoppolo would’ve even attempted that throw. Thanks to Jones’ quick manhandling and discarding of Person, Jimmy G did not have that time, though. After that interception, the Chiefs’ offense marched right down the field and scored a field goal to take a 10-3 lead.

That was huge, but maybe not as huge as Jones’ second big play against the pass on Sunday.

2. Jones batted down a pass, and it might’ve been the turning point of the game

With 5:26 left in the game, 49ers were trying to protect a 20-17 lead.

San Francisco elected to pass on second-and-5 after 49ers running back Raheem Mostert had rushed for a 5-yard gain. Not what I would’ve done, but the reality is the play did have a great chance of success.

The 49ers had rookie wide receiver Deebo Samuel — who had been an early star on end-arounds and jet sweeps — motion away, with all-world tight end George Kittle in between the numbers and the hash marks to that side. When the ball was snapped, Samuel went out wide as if waiting for a screen pass. Kittle went upfield kinda looking like a blocker, but then he curled inside a couple of yards beyond the sticks. It should have been a relatively easy completion, especially since KC’s defense blitzed on the play and had the 37-year-old edge rusher Terrell Suggs in coverage on Kittle.

Yeah ...

They probably would have succeeded, too, if it weren’t for that meddling Jones. Him jumping up and knocking the pass down may well have changed both teams’ fortunes that night.

On the one hand, if Kittle catches that ball, he is probably getting the ball at least to the 49ers’ 35-yard line, in the middle of the field with the clock still running. That also would’ve meant a new set of downs and more plays to run the clock. Maybe, just maybe, after picking up that first down, 49ers head coach/playcaller Kyle Shanahan would’ve come to his senses and gotten back to running the ball, including giving Samuel another opportunity on an end-around or jet sweep.

(Side note: This is exactly why the criticism of Shanahan not running the football late is more than fair. Even when you call a “good” pass play, there are just so many more variables that go into whether its actually successful than if you run the ball. That is especially true when running the ball is what you do well and best.)

But Jones did knock the pass down and that not only stopped the clock, it also forced the 49ers into trying to throw the ball again on third down. That throw was also incomplete.

In a situation where they were, at least in theory, attempting to salt the clock away, the 49ers ended up punting the ball back to the Chiefs after their drive lasted only a minute. The Chiefs didn’t use a single timeout, which is f’n absurd.

You can at least partially thank Jones for that.

3. Jones’ other batted down pass killed what could’ve been a large 49ers gain

The third big play of the night was another pass that Jones knocked down at the line of scrimmage. Now it was the Chiefs trying to defend their four-point lead with less than two minutes left in the game. This time, it was on a ball meant to go to Samuel in the middle of the field on a route where he broke outside, then back inside. It, also, should’ve been a relatively easy completion.

I don’t know if you’d seen Samuel running with the ball in his hands a lot before the Super Bowl, but if he catches that pass with that much space to run, there really is no telling just how many yards he might’ve picked up. He already had cornerback Charvarius Ward in his rear view, and it appears that Tyrann Mathieu could’ve been shielded off by Kittle up the seam, giving Samuel at least a small lane to turn up field.

That could’ve made things really interesting, considering the 49ers were already at the Chiefs’ 49-yard line. But, once again, they were foiled by one of Jones’ mitts.

He also got his right pinky finger on the second down play as well, but I’m not sure that pass wouldn’t have been picked off if he hadn’t, so I will just mention it and move on, lol. The aforementioned Clark sack came two plays after that.

Game over.

Mind you, back when I played, many moons ago, we actually made fun of guys who knocked down a lot of passes because we thought it was a sign they couldn’t rush the passer. But I have come to appreciate those batted down passes a lot more after I finished playing, especially when a player like Jones is the one doing it.

Jones earned himself a big payday in free agency

I’ve been a Jones fan since back when I was working on his pre-draft breakdown in the spring of 2016. At 6’5 and over 300 pounds, the fact that Jones was as quick as a cat really stood out, and his athleticism was readily apparent on film. The only question I ever had about him was whether he would play hard enough, consistently enough, to be the dominant player he should be.

Four years into his career, I think it’s safe to say he has answered all those questions about his hustle, though.

I knew he was playing his ass off this year, but I admit to being shocked at seeing this graph on my Twitter timeline:

Double team rate as a defensive tackle (x) by pass rush win rate as a defensive tackle (y) for the 2019 regular season. PRWR = rate pass rusher beats blocker in 2.5 seconds. ESPN metrics, NFL Next Gen Stats data. pic.twitter.com/sUCFwARoJi

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) December 30, 2019

Jones was one of the most double-teamed interior pass rushers this season but still managed to have more success than just about any interior rusher not named Aaron Donald or Grady Jarrett — and Jarrett was double-teamed way less. For him to be playing at a similar level to Donald goes to show how just far Jones has come in maximizing his ridiculous amount of talent.

Jones one-upped himself with how he played in the Super Bowl, which was good timing because he’s set to be a free agent this offseason.

I am not a “cap guy,” so I don’t know what the Chiefs can afford to pay Jones, or if he would be willing to take a “discount” to stay with a team that looks to be built to win, or if cash rules everything around him, cream get the money. What I will say, however, is that whatever amount of money you thought a young Ndamukong Suh was worth in free agency? Go ahead and apply that to Jones if he decides he wants to go to the highest bidder.

Because that should be his value.

In fact, Jones is the pass rusher people always seemed to think Suh was. They both are hellafied power rushers, but Jones has the edge when it comes to quick finesse moves and changeups.

Oh and, stats wise, the sack numbers in their first four years aren’t even close. Suh has only had nine or more sacks once in his career, ever. Jones has already done it twice, including a ridiculous 15.5 sacks he notched last season.

All a young Suh has over Jones is a better motor, but few people have ever had the kind of motor Suh had, and Jones has certainly closed that gap since becoming a pro. I’m just telling you that with his skill level and versatility, any team could build their defense around this Jones guy and be set for many years to come.

Not that he needed an exclamation mark after the start to his career that he’s had, but Chris Jones’ performance this year has certainly provided him with one. His play against the 49ers not only secured his legacy as a Super Bowl champion, but he also likely helped to secure an even bigger bag this spring, as well.

Not bad for one evening’s work, even if his impact did fly a little under the radar for some people.

That’s that I’m here for.

[purple-pen-reviews]

Look Who’s Back [German: Er Ist Wieder Da] (2015)

Rating: 9.4/10

Look Who’s Back is a 2015 German comedy film directed by David Wnendt, starring Oliver Masucci, Fabian Busch, Katja Riemann, Christoph Maria Herbst, and Franziska Wulf. It is based on a novel of the same name, written by Timur Vermes, and features certain parts containing Oliver Masucci engaging with actual German citizens as the Hitler character mixed with scripted segments. The film’s plot revolves around amateur reporter Fabian Sawatzki (played by Fabian Busch) discovering a man who appears to be Hitler (Oliver Masucci), and trying to make him famous on the internet. The two traverse the German countryside, shooting comedy skits as well as various political vignettes. Eventually, Hitler and Sawatzki score a TV show deal, where Hitler begins to gain serious political traction.

The film presents an several interesting morals, one of the most important being about how history is subject to repeating itself, and that we are usually too busy telling ourselves that “it could never happen to us” to see it actually happening to us. The movie goes about doing this masterfully, and in a way that is paralleled by the character of Hitler itself. It starts off as a hilarious, mockumentary-style comedy film, but slowly transitions into a serious drama that presents hard-hitting moral questions. Both the comedy and the drama of this movie hit the nail on the head, and it is both gut-bustingly funny as well as ethically intriguing. There are two excellent performances in this movie, one being Oliver Masucci as Adolf Hitler. Masucci’s interpretation of Hitler is spot on - there were times during the movie that I got so invested in his acting that, for just a split second, I believed that I could actually be watching the real Hitler walking around Germany. This suspension of disbelief is further aided by the film’s second excellent performance - the citizens of Germany. Much like the American film Borat (dir. Larry Charles, 2006), Look Who’s Back features many unscripted moments of the main character interacting with regular people. I hate to say that some of the best acting done in this film isn’t acting at all - many of the lines from this movie are the actual opinions of actual people. Which is eye-opening, because you would think that people wouldn’t be so quick to agree with a man dressed up as Hitler, yet scenes involving just that make up a good 15 minute section of the film.

Regardless, Look Who’s Back is both an excellent comedy and drama film, and I would recommend anyone who enjoys dark comedy or historical/political satire see this movie (currently available for streaming on Netflix) immediately.

One of the best parts about this movie is it’s excellent comedic timing. Oliver Masucci’s Hitler narrating the ridiculous events happening around him create some of the most quotable moments in movie history. The level of quotability of this movie is on par with that of a Mel Brooks or Monty Python classic.

 The movie begins as such, with Hitler narrating himself as he wakes up in modern-day Germany, and from there, the comedic roller-coaster begins. Hitler stumbles around, being mistaken for a street performer, is almost run over by a mob of segways, and then maced by a woman who thinks he is insane. Blindly, he shambles over to a newstand, discovers the year is 2014, and passes out into the arms of a newspaper salesman. During this time, the jokes come full throttle like charging bayonets, and only stops when the story switches over to several expository scenes about Fabian Sawatzki, Mr. Sensenbrink (Christoph Maria Hurbst), and Ms. Krömeier (Franziska Wulf). The movie slows down, and in my opinion, gets pretty boring, and the writing is pretty cheesy as well. The jokes don’t flow as well as the others during scenes without Hitler. Attempts at comedy during these parts seem forced, and aren’t all that funny. The whole time during these scenes, I was thinking to myself, “when will we get back to Hitler?” - which is disturbing, when taken out of context...

The history nerd in me was laughing out loud at some of the things Hitler says in this movie, like “Turks in Berlin? How remarkable! The Ottoman Empire managed to turn the war!” and, “Yesterday I was moving the 12th army... Today, it’s a newspaper rack!” However, the jokes in this movie aren’t just for history buffs - in fact, most of what Hitler says is pure comedy gold, due to Oliver Masucci’s excellent deadpan performance as the most reviled man in history (who seems completely aloof to the fact that he is regarded as such). The line between Masucci’s comedic performance and his dramatic performance is almost indistinguishable, meaning you never see a joke coming until it’s hit you straight in the face. One second, he’s grilling Sawatzki on how to defeat Poland in a land war, and the next, he’s unintentionally making a joke about the dry-cleaners “blitz cleaning.” Most of the comedy from these scenes comes from the belief that, if the real Hitler actually had to go through these absurd situations, he’d probably react in exactly the same way. 

The scenes where Masucci, while impersonating Hitler, discusses politics with real German citizens made me laugh when I watched this movie the first time, but upon rewatching it, they became less funny. At first, I kept thinking, “How crazy would you have to be to openly agree with a man dressed as Hitler?!?” but as I watched the movie for a second, third, and even a fourth time, I realized these people weren’t all that crazy. Sure, their beliefs about politics and society were ignorant, but were the people themselves evil or crazy? Not at all. Every single one of the people Hitler met with were sane. They were just normal citizens with different points of view. Whether or not their opinions were correct is a subjective matter, but were the people themselves wrong or evil for thinking that? No; and that’s another one of the subtle messages that this movie conveys. You don’t have to be crazy or evil to have these kinds of opinions. We’ll come back to that subject later. 

(Side Note: there was a scene in which Hitler discusses how the effects of race-mixing are detrimental to people with a German woman in the movie, and I just so happened to be watching it with two women who are of mixed-race descent themselves. It wasn’t supposed to be funny, but given the circumstances, we laughed the hardest at this scene.)

I cannot stress this next sentence enough; everyone needs to watch the scene with Hitler and the dead dog. It’s absolutely hilarious. Going into this movie the first time, my friends and I thought that Look Who’s Back was going to be some stupid, badly acted, horrendous foreign film that we could ironically laugh at. This scene was the moment we realized that this movie was a cut above the rest. This movie vastly exceeded my expectations, and this scene is exactly why. The only gripe I have with it is that the dog, when Hitler shoots it, is very obviously fake, but can I even complain about the fact that I obviously didn’t just watch somebody shoot a dog? Is that really even a complaint?

There are many more funny moments, including when Hitler goes to the Central Square in Bayreuth to raise money by drawing caricatures of people, the montage of Hitler & Sawatzki’s exploits around the German countryside, as well as Hitler and Sawatzki’s banter on the road, but I wouldn’t want to spoilt everything. Just go see the movie. You won’t regret it. 

Two of the subsequent scenes seemed weird; one being the YouTube community’s reaction to Hitler’s new popularity as well as Hitler’s weird narration of his feelings about Katja Bellini (Katja Riemann) seem out of place, and honestly, a little unsettling. I feel like the movie would have been fine without them. 

I also find problems with Sawatzki’s decision-making skills. Why would he bring this killer new idea to Sensenbrink, who obviously hates him? There has to be other options for him. Later, he does the right thing by giving Hitler’s new manuscript to Katja, but that only exasperates my point. Why did he even bother going to Sensenbrink in the first place?

The scene in which Hitler discovers the Internet is decidedly reminiscent of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. When asked to type into the Google Search Bar what he is interested in by Ms. Krömeier, he types, “weltherrschaft,” which is the German word for “world supremacy.” Makes me giggle every time. His infatuation with Wikipedia, his struggle to find a username, and his complete bewilderment with modern technology only adds to the suspension of disbelief I previously mentioned. 

Look Who’s Back also makes excellent use of foreshadowing. Firstly (and in a more minor way), while Sawatzki and  Krömeier are making out on  Krömeier’s couch, a menorah hits Sawatzki in the head, foreshadowing that the  Krömeier family is Jewish, which becomes a conflict of interest later in the movie. Secondly, there is a line in which Hitler describes Sensenbrink as a man who, “hopes he is a success, but he’s only an accessory to success. Because he suspects this, he fears the moment it is revealed that the success is neither his, nor was he an accessory to it.” Sensenbrink’s moment of realization comes when he sees how much success Sawatzki is receiving from Hitler, and how little he himself is receiving, as highlighted by the insulting minor role he plays in the movie’s script. Interestingly, he says the line, “You could’ve gotten Benno Furmann or Bruno Ganz,” when commenting on the no-name status of the actor portraying him. Fun fact: Bruno Ganz was the name of the actor who portrayed Hitler in Downfall (dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004). My theory: someone didn’t like the fact that Oliver Masucci was cast to play Hitler during pre-production, and this line was added to the script out of pettiness. 

It is around this point that the movie takes a turn for the dramatic, and there are some shocking parallels to current-day American politics taking place all throughout this movie, but none more so than when Hitler begins going around the talk-show circuit. He even says his plan for the future is, “to make Germany great again.” Sound familiar to anyone? Also, quotes like, “You know how many people are cheering him on? Not because they think he’s funny, or ironic. They think what he says is cool! They think he’s right!” and, “People can’t stay mad at Hitler for very long. Even the people who hate him go buy his new book, just to see what his next crazy move is,” as well as, “Back then, people were laughing at first too,” from later points in the movie are very telling. I won’t go so far as to say that anyone should take my words as correlation between Hitler, the most reviled man in history, and any current politicians, but I would say that this movie does have a message to tell us; that we cannot let ourselves become blind to the repetition of history. 

There is also a line that Hitler says that I feel perfectly encapsulates the movie itself. He says, while on a talk show talking about how some people see him as a comedian, “I want to reach people, and you can’t reach someone who isn’t listening.” This movie begins as a comedy, but over the course of the movie, important questions begin to pop up, until you’re hit over the head with the movie’s ultimate message at the end. That’s what makes for a good movie; when the experience of watching is it improved a second time around. Rewatchability makes good movies great.

The scenes where Hitler interacts with various political groups were hard to follow, as I am rather ignorant on German politics. However, from these scenes comes one of the greatest insults of all time, delivered by Hitler about a group of vegan Neo-Nazi cooking show hosts; “They want to be the heirs to national socialism? They are nothing! Build the Fourth Reich? They can’t even build an Ikea shelf!” However, these are the last truly comedy-oriented scenes. The last truly funny moment in the movie before it makes a turn for the dramatic is a parody by Sensenbrink and the MyTV staff of the breakdown scene from Downfall. 

The scene where Grandma Krömeier recognizes Hitler is phenomenal, as well as the following scenes where Sawatzki begins to realize who he’s truly dealing with. Even if you don’t particularly enjoy the dark comedy of the first and second acts of the movie, you need to watch this movie for the drama of the third act. The final scene in which Sawatzki confronts Hitler has some of the best dialogue of the entire movie, and drives the point of the movie home hard. The music accompanying this scene is perfect too. Enis Rotthoff really did an excellent job scoring this whole movie; every scene’s music perfectly accompanies it’s content, and nowhere more so than the final confrontation between Sawatzki and Hitler. He isn’t John Williams, to be sure, but he’s at least got all of his bases covered as far as matching musical tone to cinematic tone. The movie ends perfectly, too, with images of actual right-wing demonstrations over a song. 

By the end of this film, my jaw had completely dropped to the floor. I was amazed at how slowly and steadily this film had transitioned from one of the funniest mockumentary comedies I’ve ever seen to some of the most impressive storytelling I’ve seen in the last few years. This movie was so amazingly believable; not I thought it would ever be possible for Hitler to return from the grave, but certainly that if Hitler were to ever come back, it would 100% happen like this.

I loved this movie, and it greatly exceeded my expectations from what I thought it was going to be like. Go watch it now on Netflix; I don’t think you’ll regret it.