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crackedpumpkin · 2 years

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|| ᴄᴀᴜɢʜᴛ ʀᴇᴅ ʜᴀɴᴅᴇᴅ ||

Hello everyone! Welcome to part one of my seven-part series featuring the one and only Neon Leon. I’m so excited to be sharing this with you all, and I hope you enjoy! Part two will be coming next week :)

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You stifle a yawn, rubbing your eyes as you sit back up from where you had fallen asleep in the kitchen. You stretch, feeling your spine pop. Your lips part for a solid yawn to escape, sleepily blinking a couple times.

You glance at the clock on the top of the archway that connects your kitchen to the storefront, realizing that your cookies are about to be burnt. You grab the oven mitts, avoiding the cloud of hot steam that escapes once you swing open the door to your oven.

You take out the tray, hissing when your finger barely touches the burning hot metal. You place it on the wooden counter, allowing the freshly baked cookies to cool. You hurry over to where you had set down another tray from the same batch of chocolate chip cookies you had made, still unbaked. You slide it into the oven, shutting the door with a relieved sigh.

You look down at your crumpled dress, trying to brush out the creases but failing miserably. You shrug, deciding to take a quick shower. You change into a fresh set of clothes, slipping a recently-ironed cerulean dress onto your shoulders. You brush your tangled hair, brushing your teeth after.

By the time you were done, the new batch had finished baking. You repeat your actions from earlier, but this time putting all the cookies straight into a basket lined with a red checked cloth. You lock the door behind you, heading out into the market.

Today was the day before the week-long festival celebrating the return of the long-lost princess. In the years she had been missing, the king and queen of the kingdom had hosted a small celebration of lights, calling it the Sun Festival in honour of their missing child in hopes that she would one day return. However, that had been last week, and now, they had extended it to celebrate her return.

You participated every year ever since moving to the kingdom five years ago. And every year, you repeated the same routine of giving away free samples of your pastries, and you gained recognition for having some of the best baked goods in town.

However, the reputation came with its downfalls. Every year without fail, a thief would steal at least five of each baked good you set out on display. You knew it was the same thief because they'd leave a tell-tale sign - an almost cocky way of letting you know they would never be caught. It came in the form of an italic capitalized '𝓛,' which was their initial, or so you suspected.

You knew almost everyone in the village, and every person whose name started with L had reassured you that they had never stolen a single item before. You believed them, especially since they were all decent people with alright reputations.

As such, the search continued for five years, and the thief managed to escape the countless traps you set each time. It was absolutely infuriating.

You hand a cookie to Margaret, a girl only one year younger than you who helped to run her family's clothing store. They were your go-to for new clothes, and without fail, they'd always produce the most gorgeous dresses with subtle details that made them stand out.

"Thanks, Y/n!" Margaret greets you with a smile, taking the cookie you hand to her. You chuckle at the messy bun she sports, helping to brush a few strands of her hair away from her eyes. She brings the cookie close to her face, inhaling deeply with a blissful sigh.

"No worries, here's some for your parents, too, as thanks for the dress you made me." You hand her another two, and she takes them gratefully.

"Aw, yes! They love your cookies! I had to convince them not to buy thirty like they did last year." Margaret groans at the memory of the entire bucketload of cookies her parents had brought back home. You giggle, remembering how excited her parents' faces were when buying a few loaves, croissants, and cookies.

"The dress looks great on you, though!" She looks you up and down, her eyes calculative as she views how the cerulean compliments your hair.

"It's a little loose on the waist, but I think that's just the stress for this year's festival."

"Oh, that can be fixed in a second! Hang on." She pulls out a few safety pins from her skirt pocket, approaching you and taking some of the material, fiddling with it. She takes a step back after a few moments, a satisfied smile on her face as you beam, the dress resting perfectly and allowing your corset to settle nicely on your skin.

"So, how's preparation to catch the thief going?" Margaret asks, putting the rest of the safety pins back in her pocket. You smirk.

"Safe to say, that thief won't get away so easily this year." You hum, placing your hand on your hip with a smug smile. Hours of brainstorming for ways to catch them had proved fruitful, and you now had various plans in mind.

"That's good. Update me when you can! I gotta go off and finish another order."

You wave goodbye to Margaret, who hurries off, watching her weave through the crowd and back into her shop. You continue to walk, handing out cookies to anyone in sight.

The crowd of tourists almost made it impossible to squeeze through the public, and you had to hold your breath every now and then for some wiggle room. Your basket is practically empty, save for one last cookie. You were almost home, so that cookie would be saved as your late-night snack.

"Ugh!"

You stumble, almost falling to the ground if not for a gloved hand holding your arm. You steady yourself, breathing a sigh of relief and glancing at the cookie in your basket. Thankfully, it was still in one piece. You look back up with a glare, the cloaked stranger in front of you taking a step back.

A hood covers their face, casting it in shadow. You wait for an apology, but none comes. So you stand and wait silently. They're adorned in a simple brown cloak and about a head taller than you.

"Well? Aren't you going to apologize to me?"

Your brows furrow, taken aback by the stranger's question. His voice is deep, yet there is an underlying playfulness within it.

"Excuse me, you bumped into me." You point out incredulously, raising a brow.

The stranger chuckles, shaking his head. "You were the one not looking where you were going. Oh well, I'll accept this as an apology."

Before you can even blink, a gloved hand snatches the cookie from your basket, holding it up to his eyes. (Or where you believe their eyes were. It was hard to tell.)

"Hey!" You protest, "That's mine!"

"What about all the other cookies you were handing out? Aren't they yours too?"

You fall silent, fingers curling into fists as you rein in your temper. You can hear the conceit in his voice as he tucks the cookie into his pocket. So much for your supper that night.

"Fine." You snap, feeling irritated by the man's presence.

"So, you're a baker?" You can almost hear the smirk on his lips.

"Yeah, I am. So you'd better enjoy that cookie because there sure won't be any left tomorrow." You nod towards his pocket where your precious cookie rests, and he chuckles. You cross your arms, ready to end the conversation with the rude man in front of you.

"Is that so? Well, I'll be sure to stop by then." His words have an almost impish edge, and your frown only spurs him to take a single bite of the freshly baked good he had snatched from you earlier.

He hums, and your curiosity overrides your disdain for the man. You wait for his reaction, expecting nothing less than a sigh of bliss.

"Kinda salty."

"Salty?" You repeat, flabbergasted by his response. He shrugs nonchalantly, watching your shoulders slump. You run your fingers through your hair, a few strands falling across your eyes as you laugh in disbelief.

No. You shouldn't believe in the words of a stranger who bumps into you without so much of an apology, much less blaming it on you.

You had better things to do, like catch a thief.

Besides, the thousands of people that flock to your store every year are more than enough to validate how good your baking is.

"Well," You address the stranger, and he shifts his weight to rest on one leg, "Thank you for your feedback, but I will not be changing the recipe to suit the taste buds of one man when many others enjoy my baking." You plaster a fake smile onto your lips, your words are emotionless, and your eyes regard him coldly.

"Goodbye." You walk past him, brushing against his cloak and approaching your door. You can sense his gaze on you, and you almost fumble with the keys. You unlock the door, cooly making your exit and shutting it behind you before heaving a frustrated groan in the comforts of your own home.

You leave your basket on the counter, eyeing the empty shelves of the store. You quickly eat, preparing for the all-nighter ahead of you if you want to get those pastries out by the morning. You push all thoughts of the earlier encounter out of your mind, washing your hands and turning out batches of dough that had been resting.

You work into the rest of the night, restocking empty shelves until the rooster that usually wanders into the empty streets of the early morning crows loudly. You look up from the piles of washed and dried metal trays, wiping off the sweat on your brow.

You glance around the store, a satisfied smile on your lips as you survey the shelves filled with loaves of bread of different varieties and, of course, your famous chocolate chips on a table in the centre of the store.

You head upstairs to your bedroom, quickly washing up in the bathroom before collapsing onto your bed in a tired heap. You nap for an hour, your clock soon ringing to wake you up. You drag yourself out of bed, putting on a new peach-coloured dress after a cold shower that wakes you up.

Sliding on a pair of comfortable flats, you head back downstairs where a crowd of regulars that visit your store every festival await you. You wave hello through the glass windows, setting up the drawer where you store your coins for change after the customers make their payment.

You take off the cloth covering all the shelves of baked goods, everyone outside becoming visibly excited. You fold them and put them away into a separate drawer, taking a deep breath before unlocking the door.

Customers pour in, making a beeline for the products they want. The bell hooked up to the top of the door jingles every time it's open, and it was a constant sound with the stream of people flooding in.

You take your place behind the counter, calculating the right amount of change and bagging the baked goods in paper bags.

"Hey, Mr. Smith, how's the missus?" You greet the tailor, who holds three loaves of rosemary and olive bread and two medium-sized bags of cookies. He hands you three crowns, and you open the drawer to give him the change.

"She's back home with Margaret, but she says hello, and to pass you this." He takes out a small handkerchief with your initials embroidered, and you gasp in delight. Cerulean lace surrounds the edges, the soft material like a cloud against your hand.

"Thank you!" You gush, folding it gently and placing it in your pocket. "I love it." You hand him back the change, bagging up the loaves in the paper bags. You wave him off with a toothy smile, paying attention to the next customer in the queue.

You take a break in the afternoon to have lunch, shutting the door much to the chagrins of others. You wave the tourists off, directing them to other stalls while you have lunch and prepare the first trap of many.

During the past few years, you had noticed that the thief always came around nightfall when everyone was distracted by the sunset.

Not this time.

This time you had a plan and were confident it'd succeed.

You restock the shelves, making sure to leave the last bag of cookies sitting on the table. You grab some pepper, sprinkling some inside the bag. You grab a small jar on the counter, coating the bag's underside and making sure it isn't apparent to the thief.

It was a jar of finely ground rose petals, the pigmented powder a gift from Margaret as a lip stain for your lips. However, you were using it to set the trap instead. Hopefully, she'd understand.

You hum a cheerful tune under your breath, heading into the back and waiting for the familiar chime of the bell. You grab a tray of croissants, heading back into the storefront. You fill the empty shelf, ensuring the wax paper is lined properly so the pastries wouldn't touch the bare wood.

You turn, glancing over your shoulder at the cookie trap you set.

Or at least where the cookies were a minute ago.

The tray clatters to the floor as you stand still, stunned by how the thief had managed to slip in and out without so much as a sound. This was the first time this had happened. You had even locked all the windows as a precaution, so how had he managed to get in??

The door was firmly shut, and the bell hadn't made a single chime or jingle.

The edge of the table has a faint dusting of red, and an italic '𝓛' is once again written in it. You grit your teeth, seething at the fact that the thief had not only managed to elude your sight yet again, but the cocky inscription of their initials was the tipping point.

"UGH!" You throw your hands up in frustration, your blood boiling as you storm back into the kitchen. You see yourself in the mirror, cheeks red and nostrils flared. Your eyes are filled with frustration.

You were so sure that it'd work!

You quickly march out the door to your store, eyes darting around as you try to spot the thief in the crowd. They had to be around somewhere.

You spot a flash of red, and you run, gently pushing past people and muttering, "excuse me!" in a rushed tone. You couldn't let them out of your side. They pause at a booth, and you finally catch up. "Got you now!"

Your words die in your throat when you finally look up from where your hands are on your hips, panting heavily to catch your breath. A tall, muscular man looks at you with wide eyes, confused by your sudden accusation.

You look down at his hands. You had seen red, hadn't you?

He holds a bouquet of roses, glancing down at it and back to you in a mildly unsettled manner. "Can I help you…?" He questions. He looks nervously at the owner of the booth you both are at, the owner shrugging helplessly.

"I must have mistaken you for someone else," You stammer out, cheeks flushed from embarrassment, "Have a free cookie at my store as an apology."

The man's face lights up, smiling broadly. "Gee, thanks!"

You hear a faint chuckle, instantly looking up at the crowd and scanning it intently. You were sure that had to have been the thief. It had to be.

You try to catch every face in the crowd, attempting to narrow down who it could have been. Unfortunately, it seemed that they had made yet another clean getaway. You practically deflate, almost tearing up out of frustration.

"You all good?" The man you accused earlier asks, and you respond with a simple nod, wiping your eyes roughly with the back of your hand.

"Yeah." You trudge back to your store with a forlorn look on your face. You clean the dust off the table along with the initial and restock the bags of cookies before opening for the evening crowd.

You focus on handling the customers, finally closing when the clock strikes midnight. You slide the lock shut on the front door, the now empty shelves a stark contrast to the early morning. You count the profit you made from the first day, sorting it into a small coin pouch and leaving the rest to use as change for the next day.

You wash up and head to bed, your body on autopilot. Your mind races with thoughts as you lay in your bed and stare blankly at the ceiling.

Today, the trap had failed.

That was what Plan B was for. It was only the first day, and there were still 6 more.

A spark of indignation is all it takes to get you fired up for the next day, and you drift off to sleep with a newly steeled resolve to catch that thief, even if it takes you countless plans from A through Z.

The following day, you wake up bright and early, changing into a rosemary-coloured dress, planning to upsell your herbed loaves of bread. You descend the stairs in your flats, brushing your hair back into a low ponytail.

You restock the shelves again, welcoming yet another crowd into the store. The day passes, and you're so caught up in promoting and selling your products that you almost forget to take a break for dinner.

Your hair is slightly dishevelled, locks framing your face as you wipe away the sweat with a damp cloth in the kitchen. You sit down, grab some baked potatoes and load them up with cream, sliced spring onions, and pickles. You set the plate down on the table, preparing the next trap.

You set down five loaves of bread where the cookies used to be(they had all sold out in the morning), securing a small bell to the last one and leaving a small hidden loop on the floor. It was a standard rabbit trap.

When the thief inevitably steals the loaves of bread, they'd pull on the last loaf, which would trigger the bell and the rope attached to it, causing their foot which would land in the small loop, to be trapped in the tightened rope, leaving them dangling and helpless.

Was it too much for Plan B?

Yes.

Would it stop you from using it?

Absolutely not.

So you stay in the back, choosing to sit so that you are close enough to the storefront and can rush out immediately. You eat your baked potato slowly, catching your breath from the hectic morning and taking the time to recharge for the evening crowd.

Minutes pass, and you begin to think the thief will never come.

The bell jingles.

You can hear muffled grunting, grabbing a solid frying pan on your stove, and slowly approaching the front. You peek out from behind the arch wall dividing the store's front and back, seeing a cloaked figure dangling by their green foot from the ceiling.

Wait.

Green?

Your brows furrow in confusion, walking towards them.

You recognize the cloak. It was the stranger you had bumped into the other day. The one who had said your cookie was too salty.

"Juuust great." His sarcastic comment makes you frown. He hadn't noticed you yet. You suck in a sharp and audible inhale through your teeth, and his body visibly stiffens, turning around.

His hood still shrouds his face in shadow, though you were pretty sure the rest of him was green too. His hands are holding down his cloak from exposing more than just his legs, and he gasps.

"Uh, rude?? You can't just stare at people like that, pervert."

Your face heats up at the lazy accusation he throws your way, eyes narrowing into a glare. You hold the frying pan defensively and turn it, so the handle is facing him instead. You poke his chest a few times.

"Ow." His deadpan voice makes you flinch, and you raise your brows.

"Look, this is all just a misunderstanding. I came here to check out the cookies again, and your stupid trap thing," He gestures to the rope around his ankle, keeping him dangling from the ceiling, "is making me late to meet my brothers." When gesturing, he lets go of the cloak, and it falls towards the ground. He yelps, clumsily grabbing it and holding it back to hide his body.

You catch a glimpse of two swords he has tucked away on his waist, along with more green skin. Your eyes study him until something catches your eye. You grab his hand, leaning in and looking at the bright red coating his fingertips.

"Ha!" You gasp as elation begins to rush through your body.

You did it! You caught the thief!

The thief sighs, his hands going limp. "Okay, fine. You got me." He caves easily, and you rejoice with a victorious giggle.

"I did it! I caught you! Ohhhhh, you've been such a pain in the side for five years. Five years! I've waited for this day. Now, pay up for all the stuff you took." You demand, lips pursed as you point the frying pan at him threateningly. You lean back smugly, your head tilted. There was nowhere for him to run, much less escape.

"So, about that…." You frown at his response, firmly pressing the frying pan's tip against his chest. "Wait! I don't have money. Can't you just put it on my tab, and we can settle this later. You can contact me through my lawyer!" He cries out.

You were getting tired of talking to a shadowed face. You wanted to see the face of the man who had been an irritating source of loss for you over the years. You use the handle to flip back the hood.

Your eyes widen, looking down at the thief in front of you.

Was he even human?

His entire body was lime green, a blue bandanna around his face with holes carefully cut out for his eyes. The tails of his bandanna fall out of the hood, dangling upside down above his head. Red crescent-like stripes over his eyes add a pop of colour, and you're stunned by the creature in front of you.

Your grip loosens, the frying pan sliding out of your hand to meet the floor with a loud clang. You take a step back, almost stumbling back.

"So... this is awkward." You flinch when he speaks, blinking rapidly as you process the sight. You don't know where to look, eyes darting from his face to his legs. He watches you with an almost amused smile, and you don't know whether to take that as offensive.

You’re a hundred percent sure you voice is shaky, scrambling to pick up your frying pan - your only weapon. Your legs give out, and you fall to the ground, pointing it at him with trembling hands. Your lips part.

"What are you?"

#rottmnt #rottmnt x reader #rottmnt leo x reader #tmnt x reader #leo x reader #leonardo x reader #enemies to lovers #rottmnt leo x female reader #100 followers celebratory fic #CaughtRH #x reader #series

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difeisheng · 1 year

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The first fic idea I ever had for MLC occurred sometime between the airing of episodes 8-14. I used it as a dialogue exercise by writing all the spoken parts first, then going back to fill in things like actions and thoughts. This never got completed as I stopped being as interested in exploring that segment of canon in writing (and I wanted to watch more of the show to ensure I got character voices right). However, I still think this concept was engaging, so here's what I did get finished before my mind wandered away.

"Would it be worse if I let Fang Duobing die in front of you, or just stole him from you?" Di Feisheng asks, stirring a bowl of soup he can't taste, and watches Li Xiangyi freeze.

He's gotten better at controlling his reactions, these last ten years. Harder to get a proper rise out of. The half-second of his entire body locking at Di Feisheng's words, though, before he drops his shoulders, forces himself to untense, is impossible to miss.

"If you can get that nuisance to stop following me around then it'll be a blessing," Li Xiangyi says, too casually, and swallows down a mouthful of wine from his bottle. "I need some peace in my house."

"Interesting." They're jammed close enough sitting together at Li Xiangyi's kitchen table that even by dim lamplight Di Feisheng can read his expression, see the urge to wander away from the topic spelled in his eyes.

"Honestly, I'd be surprised if you could make him leave me alone," Li Xiangyi continues, quick in the silence. "I've already left him by the road twice and he still manages to find me. I say, he's even more stubborn than Huli Ji—"

"Li Xiangyi. Don't pretend to be obtuse, we're both smarter than that. Or I hope you are." Di Feisheng sips at his own wine, and thinks, idly, that there are some things it's better not to sense the flavour of anymore. The smell of wine is off-putting enough; at least drinking like this is finally worth its effects. "I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you've somehow gotten more perceptive about things since Qiao-guniang."

"The past is past. Both A-Mian and I have moved on."

"Right. You've grown beyond that, or however you word what you're telling yourself. Congratulations." He raises his bottle in mockery of a toast. "So you've noticed how that boy acts around you."

Li Xiangyi sighs, lets the sound fade into the night. "He's not being subtle."

"Look at him. Have you never considered it?"

"What... have you?" Li Xiangyi frowns.

Di Feisheng lets himself smile, the one reserved for heralding challenge. "I'm more interested in whether or not you have."

"He's Shan Gudao's son."

"And that's what would hold you back? He's still his own person."

"How many years are there betwe—"

"Even if you don't know what you want, he does."

Li Xiangyi falls quiet.

"He's young. Whatever he thinks he wants, he's wrong," he says, gaze tracing the worn wood of the table. "And whatever it is, it's not really you, anyway."

"Oh, I'm well aware of that."

"Then why think of trying anything?"

"It would be amusing. Amusing," Di Feisheng says, "depending on how you answer the question you're dodging, Li Xiangyi. Was it a yes or no? How much have you thought about him?"

Li Xiangyi just eyes him before tipping his head back, pouring wine into his mouth instead.

"Although even if it's yes that doesn't amount to much, since you'll never say anything to him. He'll be left making hopeless eyes and promises at you." Di Feisheng laughs, the shadow of it wound in his voice. "That didn't change after all this time, did it? Li Xiangyi, the perfect elusive hero, forever chased after but never held. Who will ever really know his hea—"

"Fine. Yes. Once." Li Xiangyi slams his bottle down on the table. It's a proper glare he fixes Di Feisheng with now. Familiar. "Are you happy now?"

"That's all?"

"What else do you want?" He crosses his arms. "I'm not giving you details. You used to be creative, if I remember. Fill in the blanks if you care that much."

Di Feisheng scoffs. "Next question, then." He pushes aside the wine. "You wouldn't like it if I were to go have my own fun with him, would you?"

"Aren't you already enjoying yourself with all this?"

"You call watching you give up on yourself fun?" Di Feisheng snaps before thought, leaning closer, and oh, maybe he's had one sip of wine too many. "You think losing— no. This isn't fun."

Li Xiangyi stares at him. "You don't care about Fang Duobing."

"Never pretended I did, in this. The point is that you do."

#dfs mind games to get llh to acknowledge his emotions #in a horrid little way #anyways idk if character voice in this was actually right but i thought it was at the time lmao #mysterious lotus casebook #liansanjiao #fanghua #difang #feihua #di feisheng #li xiangyi #ashton writes fic #li lianhua

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captains0lo · 6 months

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DOCTOR WHO LOVE AND MONSTERS: An endless rant about fan representation

I recently embarked on an exhaustive New Who rewatch with my partner. We had both seen the entire show up to Capaldi’s seasons (2014-2017), but had not watched everything, together. So we decided to remedy that situation upon finishing our last TV show we watched together, and get into rewatching all of New Who.

Such a rewatch entails, of course, relishing in the sheer magnificence of experiencing episodes like “Dalek” (Season 1, Episode 6) or “The Satan Pit” (Season 2, Episode 9), but also some less glorious moments of television like the ever-farting Slitheen of “Aliens of London” (Season 1, Episode 4), or the infamous and widely hated “Love & Monsters” (Season 2, Episode 10). (You can like the Slitheen, but I find the never-ending fart jokes goddam grating after a while– its five year old humour)

I used to be a “Love & Monsters” hater myself (like most people – it’s a WEIRD episode). However, on this specific rewatch of the show I got something completely different from that particular last episode of the list. A quick search on IMBD reviews and some Reddit forums makes it quite obvious that, although its widely considered a meh-to-terrible episode, a lot of people have latched onto it as an original, quite unique and layered episode.

I so happen to be knee-deep in research for my Master’s Thesis, looking into a bunch of Henry Jenkins’ stuff and fandom, audiences and mass/popular culture and, with a reading of Convergence Culture (Jenkins, 2006) super fresh in my mind, “Love & Monsters” absolutely blew my mind this time around. So gather round, grab a snack and enjoy my unhinged ramblings at the intersection of my fandom and academic worlds. Cause if you have a thought and don’t immediately share it on the Internet, did you have the thought at all amirite? (I really should not be writing this right now I should be working on my thesis but who cares)

Because I’m probably already massively testing your attention span, here is my main point for the rest of this post/crap essay: “Love & Monsters” tells the story of fans coming together and finding community in fandom, only for that sense of community and belonging to be destroyed and commodified as the corporate powers that be attempt to re-absorb and control fan modes of production and communities. (phew, say that 3 times fast). Now why I think my point is somewhat original: honestly even for people who catch the not-so-subtle LINDA as geeky social inept fans subtext, I’ve almost only seen negative takes (its mocking fans, showing them in a bad light etc…). While its definitely not all flattering, I think there is a sweetness and positivity to this representation of a group of fans, so I wanna make my case for it I guess.

Love & Monsters: a brief summary

Quick recap for anyone who has not watched the show or finds the detail of this episode a bit fuzzy.

The episode begins with Elton Pope, a man who becomes fascinated with the Doctor after an encounter with a mysterious blue box in his childhood.

Elton joins a group of people who also have encounters with the Doctor, forming the "Linda" group.

The group meets Ursula Blake, a woman who joins them after witnessing a Slitheen attack.

The group's meetings become more about their personal lives than the Doctor.

Elton falls in love with Ursula, and the group's dynamics change.

A man named Victor Kennedy joins Linda and takes control, pushing out some members and focusing on finding the Doctor.

It's revealed that Victor Kennedy is actually an alien called the Abzorbaloff, who absorbs people into his body.

The Doctor arrives too late to save most of Linda, but Elton manages to escape.

Ursula is absorbed by the Abzorbaloff, but her face remains intact in his body, allowing her consciousness to survive.

The Doctor traps the Abzorbaloff, saving Elton and the remaining members of Linda.

Elton continues his life with Ursula's face in a slab of concrete, grateful for the time they had together.

(summary provided by ChatGPT because I want to get to the good stuff, sue me, this is exactly the kind of stuff AI is good for)

I’ll also quickly add the following important contextual tid-bits about the episode. First and foremost, it was written that way (barely featuring the Doctor and Rose Tyler, focusing on people who’s lives have been indirectly touched by the Doctor and who are looking for him and generally Doing a Fandom about him) because the production schedule required simultaneous filming of a pair of episodes (because otherwise they would run out of time in the production schedule). They filmed the episode at the same time as “The Satan Pit” with a second crew, and the little screen time of The Doctor and Rose allowed them to film both episodes at the same time (and obviously feature a lot more heavily in “The Satan Pit”).

The other important thing about this episode (that I will admit actually harms my argument a little but I will tell you why I don’t care about that later) is that the main monster – the “Abzorbaloff” was designed by a kid in the context of a Doctor Who monster contest. Basically, the winner got their monster featured in a Doctor Who episode. So, RTD didn’t really come up with the Abzorbaloff himself, but honestly I think the interpretation I’m about to make still holds (death of the author and all that stuff, I can interpret this episode how I want and so can you my friend)

Anyways, now that we’ve got all that out of the way lets get into the good stuff.

LINDA: Fandom as community

The members of LINDA – London Investigation N’ Detective Agency – basically come together as a group initially because they all have an interest in “The Doctor”, as an elusive figure, permanently out of reach and that they don’t fully understand, but that has touched their lives quite significantly anyway. The original members of LINDA are Elton (POV character for the episode), Ursula, Mr. Skinner, Bliss and Bridget.

Other people who have discussed this episode in the past have pointed out that LINDA and its members resemble a parody of Whovians (see “thecoolkat”’s review in the links below, but also numerous ScreenRant or other such internet media articles), but I’d argue they serve quite well as a representation of a stereotypical image of fans and fandom more generally. Obviously, they are Whovians because the object of their fandom is LITERALLY The Doctor himself inside the story, but its more than that in my opinion. Let’s not forget when this episode aired (2006), fandom had yet to go fully mainstream – although the situation had markedly improved since the 90s when fans were still almost only the object of ridicule for anyone who was not themselves a fan. I’d argue that the members of LINDA quite accurately represent a few different stereotypes about fans common in the late 90s to early 2000s, but also many of fandom’s “redeeming” qualities that were starting to be acknowledged as well as internet fandom became more popular and visible.

Our in-text fans do have some of the more socially-awkward trappings often associated with fandom by outsiders: they’re shy, unfashionable, perhaps slightly socially inept – possibly even infantilized or desexualized. (for more on fan stereotypes at the beginning of the 90s, see chapter 1 of Jenkins 1992). Its fairly obvious that, as others have pointed out, the members of LINDA are a parody, a stand-in for loser fans who have surrendered any other sense of identity to the object of their fandom. They are the hardcore Trekkies who get married in pointy Vulcan ears. Bliss, Bridget, and Ursula are single women leaning on the older side – although Ursula is the younger of the three, she’s also the most “visibly” nerdy, which “disadvantages” her romantically in other ways. Mr. Skinner is also presumably single, maybe even lonely – divorced, perpetual bachelor or a widower, I guess we’ll never know. Elton, finally, seems fairly normal by comparison, but its his obsession with the Doctor and some mysterious childhood trauma that does give him that slight “I can tell that guy is not fully right in the head” vibe.

Speaking of traumas though, we also find out fairly early on in meeting of all the LINDA members that Bridget’s daughter is a drug addict, and disappeared from her mother’s life, which obviously leads her to worry to no end and carry some pretty deep grief. (sidenote because that is not my main point here and this is already going to easily cross into 2000+ words: theres also some pretty significant amount of stuff written about fandom as a way to deal with trauma, that people retreat into fantasy – often as a byproduct of what we would call fandom – to deal with traumatic life events) (Hinerman, 1992, full source below)

So, our gang of nerds with various levels of social aptitude and trauma find each other, this group and sense of community that they so obviously share in the part of the episode showing LINDA before Victor Kennedy’s takeover. Although pretty much all of them are introduced with some of the “negative” trappings of fandom, LINDA is absolutely represented in the episode as a positive force and community in their lives. They begin by bonding over their “fandom”, theorizing about the Doctor as a metaphor, a role, a figure (like Mr. Skinner brings up in a whiteboard presentation), but quickly their interactions evolve into something more. They sing, dance and share deep personal concerns and difficulties with each other (it’s at one of those sessions that we find out about Bridget’s daughter, for example, and we see the group be quite supportive of her in her pain). The point is, the people of LINDA could only have found each other through fandom, but their collective involvement in that fandom brought them something more; genuine connection and friendship. LINDA pre-Kennedy takeover is something that is good for these geeky, lonely, maybe a bit socially inept people, and would have continued being good for them if it wasn’t for…

Victor Kennedy/the Abzorbaloff as the embodiment of corporate media control

So, the members of LINDA have bonded over their shared passion for The Doctor, they’ve exchanged theories and eventually broadened their social activities to karaoke and emotional support-and even some romantic stirrings for the Mr. Skinner/Bridget and Elon/Ursula. In doing so, they have diverted some (although I don’t think all) of their meeting times to activities other than searching for and theorizing about The Doctor. Their fandom has ceased to be the sole reason for their weekly meetings, essentially. They’ve now made the group their own thing.

Who walks in next? Victor Kenndy aka the Abzorbaloff, a tall, mustachioed, robber-baron coded and snob-ish figure, intent on re-focusing the members of LINDA onto the search for the Doctor, under his leadership and to his own ends.

I think Kennedy’s physicality even before his reveal as the Abzorbaloff is super significant; the robber baron appearance – complete with fur coat, cane and hat- screams “19th century industrial factory owner,” and I do believe that’s the whole point. He represents the modes of cultural production that, in 2006, still didn’t know what the heck to do with fans who take mass culture and make it their own through folk processes. Active audiences that make demands of producers, feel a sense of ownership of shows and characters, organize creative communities and Active audiences that make demands of producers, feel a sense of ownership of shows and characters, organize creative communities and create fanfiction or fanart that basically represents copyright violations NEEDED to be harnessed and controlled by producers (or at least that’s how a lot of producers, writers and networks felt in the early 2000s). So the old-timey 19th century industrialist look given to Kennedy’s human form is a metaphor for that old media magnate mentality, that will only put up with fans that “work” for them and respect their “rules.” And, as we see in the episode, by doing so, he robs LINDA of basically all their fun and connection; they get sat down at individual desks, with piles of work to sift through. Fandom has stopped being fun as it gets controlled. They’re having such a terrible time in fact that the Abzorbaloff can absorb like 2 of them (Bliss and Bridget) before any of the other members of LINDA suspect anything is wrong; they just assume they stopped coming because the group absolutely sucks now.

So now on the absorption part; its not enough for the Abzorbaloff to control everything the fans do, he needs to absorb and incorporate them into him to have full control; LINDA must become part of him to be acceptable. Ok I’ll admit this is pretty far-fetched, but honestly not that much. In Convergence Culture (2006) Henry Jenkins talks a lot about fan theories, spoilers and fan films. The latter, specifically the Star Wars fan films made in the 90s and 2000s, have a super interesting history that I think makes a compelling argument for the move of media corporations from attempts to control fans to trying to ABSORB their work into the acceptable corporate brand when looser control just didn’t cut it (because fans are just like that, were fundamentally ungovernable).

The TLDR of it all is that George Lucas and Lucasfilm (this was before the Disney sale obviously) flip-flopped a lot on their stance towards fan creation, at first praising their creativity, but quickly moving to REALLY intense cracking-down on fanfics and fan movies (spoiler alert: the crackdowns started to happen when fans started to make it gay) (or generally sexual, but mostly the problem seemed to be the gay stuff). The thing is, its really hard to control – let alone know about- everything consumers do or say about a brand on the internet. So what does Lucasfilm do? They start creating official, Lucasfilm-sanctionned fan film contests-even letting fans use some assets like music or effects-but with really specific rules (and claiming the IP for Lucasfilm, making it not belong to fans anymore, of course). So not profanity, no altering canon, and CERTAINLY no sex (AND CERTAINLY NO GAY LUKE SKYWALKER) (with the Chanel boots). You get it now right? Lucasfilm = Abzorbaloff. Or like they WISH they could absorb fans that efficiently, make them a part of the brand, under complete control. That’s still kind of the ideal utopia of media relationships for a lot of these producers too I’m guessing: all the fan labour and productivity, without any of the potential tensions fan creativity can create. Corporate-controlled fan clubs that uphold canon and are basically word-of-mouth and customer loyalty machines.

Except, that’s not how communities work. Communities work like LINDA; a bunch of seeming randos are brought together by shared interest, but eventually a deeper sense of “us-ness” develops, and we start to care for one another and have our own agendas and agencies. (heck, everytime Tumblr staff tries to get this site’s users in line we basically laugh in their faces)

So yeah, caveat about the Abzorbaloff though: as I said earlier, a kid created this monster for a contest, RTD did not create it. Therefore, I don’t know if the absorption power was like thought about as deeply as I have thought about it. Nevertheless, I think the choice to make the Abzorbaloff’s human “Kennedy” disguise look the way it does and interact with LINDA the way he does speaks to my conclusions. While RTD didn’t create the character, he wrote the story around it, and I think he used it to great effect to tell a story about fandom, community, and media attempts at control.

Conclusion

Ultimately I saw a ton of parallels to phenomena documented in scholarship I’m currently reading in Love and Monsters and I needed to get these ideas out of my head. I’m fairly certain im digging a little bit too deep into certain things, but ultimately my view of this oft decried episode is that it really actually has a lot more to offer than people give it credit for. I also think it presents an actually much more sympathetic view of fans than we’ve previously recognized in it. Especially, it feels WAY more respectful and like humorous than that god awful era of 2010s fandom where writers and actors would routinely shit on us in panels for shipping characters or depict us in their shows as crazy conspiracy theorists who think they own the show but actually can never be right (Looking at you Mr. Moffatt and Sherlock season 3). Personally, I much prefer the LINDA endearing weirdos with trauma, interests, and lives, who find kinship and community in each other.

Holy crap that was long. anyways. Really deep in the DW hole rn so I'm probably gonna write something about Martha Jones soon (instead of my thesis mehehehehehe)

Links and sources

I’m going to properly cite any academic articles and books, but since this is not homework and no one is forcing me to use APA 7, the random webpages, discussion threads and other miscellaneous stuff is getting dumped into a list of links. Anyways enjoy

“Real” Bibliography (nerd)

Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers: television fans & participatory culture (Ser. Studies in culture and communication). Routledge.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York University Press.

Linerman, S. (1992) “ ‘I’ll be here with you’: Fans, Fantasy and the Figure of Elvis.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media (ed. Lewis, L. A.) Routledge. pp. 107-134

OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT (May 2023 version) [can you summarize the plot of "love & monsters" (an episode of doctor who) from beginning to end as a series of bullet points? (include spoilers)] https://chat.openai.com/c/7ef1ccab-c6ed-488c-99c8-3a94b877fe4a

Links

Reddit threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/ex3zvm/why_love_monsters_isnt_the_worst_episode/?rdt=51957

IMDB:

Youtube:

Doctor Who Confidential on the filming of “Love & Monsters” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRGDMg4XZ1s

TheCoolKat:https://thecoolkat1995.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/doctor-who-love-and-monsters-2006/

#doctor who #new who #tenth doctor #doctor who season 2 #dr who #doctor who love and monsters #doctor who love & monsters #russell t davies #doctor who analysis #media analysis #fan studies #henry jenkins #media studies

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meowww-ffxiv · 2 months

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Not that he'd ever acknowledge it (too scary?) But Liios had a gaggle of fanatical fans in Gridania, mostly wealthy women, who would have stalked and harassed him with their "affections" if Tataru didn't run counterintelligence the MOMENT she found out.

Estinien, unfortunately, had run into some of these people before. He was in Gridania minding his own business when Hoary Boulder and another B-list ex-Scion snagged him like. Estinien!!! Someone is having untoward thoughts about your man!!!

And Estinien said, "Liios is his own man."

The way these ex-Scions exchanged a knowing look between them at his words irritated him a little, but he put it out of mind.

"Besides, thoughts do no harm," Estinien continued. "So long as they stay firmly inside their owner's head...which I don't suppose they have, if you two have heard something about this."

"More like her purse," B-list ex-Scion 2 whispered conspiratorially. "She bought a strand of Liios's hair for thirteen million gils. We overheard the exasperated porters talking about it at Buscaroon's Druther."

Estinien's first thought was this woman could be practicing dark arts and she was trying to curse his man-- Liios. Who was his own man. His second thought was about what Tataru told him about certain people's obsession with the Warrior of Light. His third thought had already flown out of his mouth before he could finish thinking it: "Where is this woman?"

Hoary Boulder and B-list ex-Scion were THRILLED that they had proven that Estinien did care. They were quick to supply him with the details, and he had to wonder how long exactly they had been investigating this. But he took them at their words for now because he got his priorities straight, and in true dragoon fashion, broke into the manor in question and looked for himself.

He found an entire large room in her manor filled with trinkets and baubles that Liios might have touched, and many things that did once belong to him. There were dented shoulderpads and arm-braces upon which were engraved the familiar, knot-like patterns Liios carefully embossed into his metal equipment.

Portraits and sketches of him, on the walls in frames or simply pinned with red pins. And several stacks of perfumed letters...

The entire place sent a chill down Estinien's spine. Who the fuck even managed to get their hands on things Liios discarded? Few as those things were, even, given how good Liios was at recycling damaged or outdated equipment?

Anyway. There might have been a small explosion.

Estinien and Tataru tracked down the nasty little bastard who'd been selling those things to the crazy fanatics at a premium, and who could he be but the scraps buyer Liios usually dealt with.

But it turned out that Liios already knew what he was doing and didn't mind. He seemed blissfully unaware of how insane some people were about the idea of him. And Estinien didn't have the vocabulary to tell Liios how this was Bad.

The intensity of his own agitation gave Estinien a "huh" moment, actually. In his travels, he had definitely heard about these types of collectors before. Fury smite the things Estinien had heard were done to Raubahn-related memorabilia when he was still the "Bull of Ala Mhigo".

But this was different. This was about Liios. Someone who Estinien--

Someone who--

...

Liios would've sneezed at those perfumed letters, that was for sure. He also preferred to speak directly with someone and spend a whole night catching up with them rather than receiving words by such proxy. Estinien could see, in his mind's eye, the way Liios would smile awkwardly if he ever saw that room himself. The way he always did when he wasn't sure what to do with a compliment that in truth had crossed some severe boundary with him. He was never very good at rejecting "goodwill", in any of its forms.

And...Liios despised seeing likenesses of himself. He was always delighted to see Ptolemy, but his own face? He turned the mirrors away in his and Estinien's quarters in Razd-at-Han. He brushed his hair without one. And Estinien was the one who applied the kohl for Liios, every morning that they were together. He'd have freaked if he saw all those drawings of himself everywhere.

Estinien truly wanted to burn that room down again. But he settled for the reports of arson around Gridania following that night and the fifty-some million gils the woman apparently spent on mercenaries and soothsayers, trying to find the culprit. And Liios himself, who smiled brightly and with great relief whenever he returned after a long day to see Estinien already waiting in their (unofficially) shared apartment.

#mon writing #liios suvali #liiostinien

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neurunique · 7 months

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Part two of this,

You sit down in the buzzing cafe and take a sip of your favourite drink order; its so delicious, surprising you for a cafe at a campus. The warm liquid fills your mouth, waking you up and refreshing your mind. You look around - and you think how lucky you are to be here, how grateful you are - the scenery is beautiful, it somehow feels both brand new and having been there a long time aswell - you notice in the distance a beautiful garden and wonder if that adorable Thai man had created it; it was absolutely huge and bursting with colour and variety.

You read the map in more detail and then realise you hadn't even checked your schedule first. Time... 12pm, okay, not bad. Class - 1230, building C, what did the numbers mean? There's no way there were 1200 rooms in one building?! You keep checking the map, going back and forth to the map and then the schedule, until someone taps your shoulder, another student; and says

"Don't panic, kiddo. The first number is the floor, the second is the area, and the last two are the room number. See?" He points to the building across from the cafe and shows a room on the second floor. "That would be 2203, for example. You got this."

"Thank you," what a kind stranger. Everyone here seems to be so friendly! You smile and then realise after he leaves to get a coffee that he was actually kind of cute, if only you'd noticed earlier so you could've slipped in some kind of compliment - too late now.

Your class is about healing and medicine, held by Angela Ziegler, although each class is to be held by a different guest speaker. You pay attention closely, occasionally taking notes, trying not to allow distractions so that you truly take in what is being taught. *It is hard*. You have memories of being in class back in school, where you'd be distracted and then have to ask many questions at the end, not PURELY from being distracted, but also from misunderstanding... You were younger then, though, and you knew you could do it this time.

Angela was a very warm presence, calming and reassuring. You could see why she was a regular pick on Overwatch missions; simply being near her brought you at ease. She mentions that some of the guest speakers will be notoriously known, and your ears perk up when you hear Zenyatta's name mentioned. Yay, more omnic teachers! you think to yourself. You love to see it and you can't help but smile again.

The class finishes and you have a break for about 30 minutes, probably enough time for a quick snack, but nothing more considering the large walks between classes and food locations. Your next class is history, which you are sure is taught by none other than Ramattra, and your nerves spike. Something about him just made you... nervous. It wasn't a fear nervous. It was something else... you just couldn't put your finger on it.

You also couldn't wait to see how this would turn out.

You manage to get to somewhere for lunch, but being late is not something you want to do on your first day; so you only buy a small sandwich and another coffee. You eat half sitting down, and the other half while walking; trying to balance holding your ice latte in one hand and your sandwhich and bag in the other. You seem to be managing just fine, as long as no one walks too close to you. Sadly, though, you can't check the time like this, so you just hope that you get there in time... You kind of get the feeling that, while he might not hate humans as much as he used to, he would not be impressed with lateness.

Practically running, you make it to the lecture hall, proud of yourself for remembering the room number (and floor). You've finished your sandwich, and about 3/4 of your coffee remains; fuck it, it'll be fine, it's coconut milk anyway - plus its so unlikely you spill it - but it is a brand new classroom...

You start to notice the anxiety already brewing in your mind. *Maybe I have had too much coffee today,* you think, sadly - but you love coffee - you take another sip and gather your things, and walk into the room breathing deeply, noticing the way that the room is silent. You flick your head around to check that the class hasn't already started, and thankfully, it hasn't.

But... you *are* forced to sit in the front row.

Ramattra eventually walks in the room, and, *he* was a minute late... the room is tense, unsure, quiet. He looks around the room briefly and of course, there is no expression readable - he simply walks to his stand-up podium desk-thing projector combination and turns on his laptop. He looks up again, as if he forgot something, and says,

"Hello, everyone," his chest rises slowly as if he's *breathing*, and maybe he's even more nervous than *you*, which to be honest makes sense, this can't be easy if you've never done this before.

"I am sure all of you know who I am, and if you don't, then it's a good thing you are in this class." He would probably have smiled if he could. His voice commands the rooms attention with every word, extremely precise and sharp, but not too loud. "My name is Ramattra, and I am - or rather, was? - the leader of Null Sector, the omnic rebellion group striving for equal rights some time ago.

"As you know, the war was won and peace was achieved, and that is why we are all here today, sharing this space, human and omnic," He seems much more relaxed now, you notice; and it calms you aswell. "A dream that seemed far from reality when I first began conducting the movement.

He continues,

"While I am happy this is the case, and yes, I can feel happiness, despite what you may have heard," and now you KNOW he would be smiling, because he sort of *laughs* at the end of that sentence; "There is still much we must come to terms with, and much we must learn about... Ourselves, eachother, the world around us, the world that once was, the history we come from.

"And that is why I am here, to teach you these things, well I guess talk about them and hope that you pay attention."

You swallow a dry lump in your throat. You cannot believe how powerful this man is, this *omnic* man, standing so close to you, directing this class. How he can deliver such a speech, AFTER a war,where the motive is not to recruit, but simply to educate.

And it excites you (^^).

You only hope that you can pay attention, because not only was history one of your worst subjects in school, and not only did you always struggle to learn subjects that weren't second-nature (you found them boring), but you realise that up close, Ramattra is actually *extremely attractive*, and you worry that being metres away from him for 2 hours will prevent you from learning a single thing...

The class starts and you manage to take down.. One page of notes. You catch yourself daydreaming plenty, scribbling side notes, and lightly tapping your feet (quiet enough so that students hopefully can't hear it). By the end of the class, you have a beautiful border of symbols and flowers on your page surrounding your notes, however you have probably missed about 80% of the content. *I'm sure it'll be online anyway,* You think, and then you remember WHY you couldn't focus, and that hearing his voice even without seeing him is probably enough to distract you...

"Hello," a calm voice says to you... voice box... Ramattra's. You instinctively bite your lip as if you were talking out loud, and have the urge to apologise...

"Um, hi," you smile, snapping out of it. *be professional, be polite, don't be weird, this is your career... your future.*

"If it is okay, I would like to speak with you," he isn't looking directly at you, he is looking instead at the several students exiting the room, acknowledging each one, leaving himself approachable incase anyone has a question. "Alone."

You feel entirely confused; what? Is this real? How...

"Sure," you say calmly, FAKE calm, of course.

"Not long now." He waves to the last student leaving and faces you, and for the first time you realise he has your attention, and you have his, and you think back to how many times you have wondered what this would be like, to be face to face with him...

"I apologise if this comes across harsh," he says, sighing. "I don't mean for it to be. But I also don't know how to ask such things...

"Do you... need some help? I cannot help but notice you didn't really... pay much attention. And I am not criticising you, I just wonder if there's anything I can do."

He waits for your response, but you can't think of anything to say. He continues

"Um, I heard that there is a department for people with neurodiversity, you know, attention-difficulty related... I'm not really sure how these things work, I am sorry."

He lowers his head and puts a hand to his head, clearly he is stressing about this; you instantly recognise this and speak up.

"No, no no. Please. It is okay." You smile and shake your head, "I totally get it. I was... you're right. And yes, I do struggle with those things, and I didn't know about that department, so thank you," you push your lips together and think of how to finish the sentence... "Ramattra."

He looks up at you at the sound of his name and you can tell that he is at ease; and possibly even... respectful? He doesn't seem like one to give respect *easily*, but...

"Okay, great. Look, I don't mind at all, I'm not offended if you can't keep up, I'm sure you're not the only one too. Just please let me know if you need help or any questions. I am new to this myself and don't want to neglect anyone."

You smile at him and start to gather your things. You're relieved that you could reassure him; but also sort of surprised and grateful that some one had reached out to you this way, especially on the first day.

"Everything's online these days anyway, right? I can just re-watch the lecture..." you say, faintly smiling, wanting to slide in a joke but not wanting to be too awkward...

Ramattra chuckles. "Yeah, like anyone would want to hear my voice twice. You do know I am the only omnic teacher here, right?" He doesn't mean it rudely, you know this, but you can tell he is slightly on edge about his own first day, let alone being the only one of his kind on the teaching list...

"I think your voice is lovely," you say quietly, and the dry swallow is back; butterflies fill you and you *immediately* regret it.

He isn't aware of the intent of your compliment, so he ignores any possibility of flirtation, and simply says "Then I'm sure you won't struggle too much with the content, if you can stand to hear me talking even outside of the classroom. I have full faith in you, student. Now, I must leave, and walk for 15 minutes to my next class. It was nice to talk with you."

You nod and get out of your seat while he packs up his things. As you leave, he adds,

"I am grateful," and you know what he means; the tricky conversation he had to initiate, possibly for the first time in his life; and your help.

You simply smile and nod, walking out of the room, hoping that he goes in a different direction when he eventually leaves.

💜❤️ thank you for reading! This isn’t the end ~

#ramattra #overwatch2 #overwatchu #my writing #overwatch fanfic #ramattra x reader

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pmhusky · 1 year

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It surprised me.

EVERYTHING AFTER THIS IS SPOILERS FOR PAW PATROL: THE MIGHTY MOVIE.

@marshallpupfan So, I actually decided to go last minute (missing out on the AMC Theaters screening.. oh well I'll get the merch soon)

To begin the movie I *believe* this might have been what your friend was talking about as Marshall was supposed to be the main pup on call, being able to battle a fire ablaze in a junkyard, doing a donut and firing his water cannon to put out the fire before... managing to run out of water, Skye then swoops in and finishes Marshalls job in her jet. I paid really close attention to Marshall throughout the film, and either before or just after they find the crystals, they're climbing a staircase, and I noticed something: Marshall's paw slipped and he nearly falls down; its such a tiny detail I think one of the animators actually knew who Marshall was: and even though the camera was from behind, I thought it was extremely cute & relieving to at least see that. Now the only scene that Marshall & Chase directly interact (I did see them standing side by side a few times too) This scene is the only dialogue that the two have together, and its sad to see it like that. Marshall is then not of much importance until the PAW Patrol is cornered in an alley way without superpowers against Giant Humdinger, he along with the Junior Patrol is the one to take down Giant Humdinger, by bravely climbing his ladder and leaping into the Fmr. Mayor's coat pocket to take away his Crystal, Humdinger then grabs Marshall and attempts to crush him in his hands but with some quick action, Marshall attracts the Crystal: and using his powers burns Humdingers hands. Skipping to the finale, Marshall is one of every member of the PAW Patrol who helps take down the Mad Scientist (I honestly don't remember her name), and him alongside Rubble are able to actually use their vehicles: Marshall using his firetrucks... fire cannons (yikes don't use that to put out a fire).

That's everything major with Marshall done, now moving onto what I liked about the movie as a whole

• Even though Skye & Chases backstory has a lot of similarities I prefer Skyes due to presentation and the fact there are multiple flashbacks throughout the movie and it looming over the entire plot much more • Skye, when captured is out of action for much longer than Chase was, attempts to connect with the Mad Scientist, and has a reasonable explanation on why the PAW Patrol knows where she is. • Keeping Mature subjects in (I.E. Fires, jeez you can learn from this) Criticisms: • Rubble is still the clumsy, comedic relief rather than Marshall, like c'mon? • Even though I praised the movie for Skye's backstory being more intriguing than Chase's... its still the exact same besides some minor differences • Music: I get it, some people like random celeb songs in their movies, but I personally like original soundtracks (which it does have, and I thought sounded amazing G.G. Toprak Now, hope for the future

That Paw Slip

I really don't know if Cal, or an unknown Animator did that, but it shows that perhaps, someone knows Marshall's Character who was behind the curtains of the movie, and if that one slip can finally spread into the 3rd movie I might finally have hope that it won't ruin Marshall.... Am I getting hopeful for what could even possibly be an animation error? Maybe, but I finally have straws I can grasp at with the Movies.

Well MPF, if you've read this, this is my thoughts, if you have any questions about more stuff about the movie just lmk and I'll try to remember everything for you.

#paw patrol #paw patrol the mighty movie #review

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infinitetbr · 3 months

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Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - Book review

Rating: 5/5. This was definitely one of my favourite books of all time, here's why...

I started reading this book in March of 2022 but stopped after reading two chapters, mostly because I felt really intimidated by the language (as English is not my first language). So I soft-DNFed it, and I'm glad I did because I was 100% not ready to read it then. I wasn't ready for the language, nor was I ready for the contents of this wonderful book. I came back to Wuthering Heights in January 2024 after a friend convinced me to read it, and I loved it. I read the book in a week (while balancing school and such). The English is not easy, but it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I could understand it without too many problems, and I'd say It was a pretty smooth read.

Short, spoiler-free summary: Wuthering Heights is a classic gothic novel by Emily Bronte that follows the love story (Although it's debatable if you can even call it a love story) between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. The novel is set in Yorkshire, England, and includes themes of passion, revenge, and redemption. Cathy and Heathcliff are forced to struggle against the harsh environment and social constraints of their time, and it all leads to tragedy. It also takes place over several decades (1770-1803ish).

What I liked (Spoiler-free): Now as I'm just starting this blog, I'm reviewing books I read a while ago so my memory isn't super refreshed and they won't be that long and detailed, but I'll post more reviews of books I recently finished after I get the hang of this.

Anyway, my thoughts. If you love a dramatic book that'll keep you entertained but also still be well-written enough to resonate with you when you're finished (and while you read), this is the book for you. To me, there wasn't a single boring moment in the book-- not even the start, which is usually fairly boring as you're trying to get into the story and you know nothing about anyone.

In the opening scene, the book already manages to create a sense of dread and suspense. From describing the melancholic and harsh environment of the moors to the shady actions of the main characters, it all gives you a great idea of where the story is heading.

The dialogue is very lively, though unrealistic (In today's standard anyway, who knows they might've been this dramatic in the 18th and 19th century...) but you will not get bored whenever you read the monologues or dialogues. I also found it very poetic at times, so the dialogue wasn't just entertaining but also very beautiful at times.

Its characters are deeply flawed, and that's what makes it so good. You might relate to Heathcliff for one second and be completely horrified by his actions in the other. They're realistic and human, they're not completely evil or completely good. They are driven (the two main characters specifically) by passion, but they are also stubborn, ambitious, and selfish, which leads them to make mistakes that have dire consequences. The other characters also react very naturally to the events that happen, especially our narrator Nelly, Cathy and Heathcliff's old nurse. But I'd say that the main characters are well-developed, with a clear and consistent arc throughout the story that showcases their transformation into tortured souls.

The novel's pacing is slow and deliberate, building up to the dramatic and explosive climax that reveals the extent of the characters' devotion to each other. But despite the slow pacing, the story stays very entertaining so you won't feel it drag on once/if you're really immersed-- so no I wouldn't call this a quick read you can squeeze in to get to your reading goal or a book you can have in your bag to read a few pages whenever. The experience would be better if you sat down and took your time, and it's truly an experience.

When it comes to tropes, the book is reliant on classic tropes of Gothic fiction, like an eerie and isolated setting, supernatural elements ("Ghosts" and stuff), and the presence of a (usually class-related) forbidden romance.

What I liked (Spoilers): My God this book was soul-wrenching!! The dialogue was gorgeous and poetic, whenever Cathy and Heathcliff talked about each other I was always moved. The part that really got me to get into the book was in volume 1, chapter 3 when Heathcliff almost throws himself out of the window screaming for Cathy after Lockwood told him that he thought a ghost was begging to be let in. The entire dialogue between Cathy and Nelly where Cathy confessed her love for Heathcliff was of course the most memorable and the one everyone mentions the most, and I definitely understand why as it's beautifully written and full of emotions. But my favourite parts (No I can't choose between them) of this book were 100%

When Heathcliff returned after disappearing for years. His reunion with Cathy was so passionate that I almost cried, and the dialogue, the "You have killed me and thrive on it." -- "You have killed yourself... I have not broken your heart, you have broken it, and in breaking it, you have broken mine... I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer, but yours! How can I?" (Volume 2, chapter 1) oh my GOD I was floored. Amazing.

When Heathcliff found out Cathy was dead after childbirth and lashed out. "Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you, haunt me then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe, I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! ...I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" (Volume 2, Chapter 2) I mean if you put the sheer beauty of it aside, you can really see how corrupt and dark these characters are.

What I didn't like (Spoiler free): To be honest there wasn't much I didn't like about this book other than the fact that it was really hard to understand what Joseph was saying because he spoke in an accent and Bronte kind of wrote everything he said phonetically. But this could be made easier if you listen to a British-speaking audiobook while you read because it's easier to understand what he's saying when you're listening to someone British reading it out loud. I recommend this audiobook, it was very fun. (Slight spoilers now, but not really, but I'm putting this to be safe) I also would've kind of liked it if they explored the paranormal aspect of the story more, like the ghost stuff was only mentioned like twice and I think it would've given the book more of a gothic flare if she continued haunting him both mentally and physically. But it's not really something that would ruin the book for me.

My favourite quote would probably be: "In every cloud, in every tree-- filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object, by day I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of me, and women-- my own features-- mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist and that I have lost her!" (Volume 2, chapter 14)

Reasons why you might not enjoy it:

Complex language, this was written in the 19th century and uses language that may be difficult to understand for some readers. Don't feel bad, I was 'readers' when I picked it up for the first time.

Slow pacing, the book's pacing is slow and intense, which may not be to everyone's taste. You may find it difficult to get invested in the story.

Dark themes, the story is pretty dark, some might say a bit too dark so that might be a reason you might not like it if you're not into that.

Unlikeable characters, they're not meant to be likable but they can irritate you and ruin your reading experience (I'm looking at you Linton Jr)

Similar book(s) you might like after (that I personally liked):

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

So if you're interested in Gothic literature or simply enjoy exploring the complexities of human nature, this book is a must-read.

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theorderofthetriad · 2 years

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ehhh, fuck it, here's my WIP of that Loki/Matt Murdock Avengers (2012) fic i'm working on, sans Matt Murdock because good lord i had to establish a lot before i could bring him in.

it's about 3.5K words, remember this is a WIP from my drafts and NOT a finished work! it's rough! this is only represents about half of the planned first chapter.

cw for a suicide attempt

The battle of New York had been hard fought and hard won, but it had been won. Now all that was left for Natsha and the rest of the Avengers was to gather in Stark’s tower to confront Loki.

He was on the top floor, lying in a crater made by the impact of his own body. Natasha kept an eye on him as the Avengers silently took position to confront him. Loki’s eyes were directed towards the ceiling, but his expression was that of someone too lost in their thoughts to actually see what they were looking at. She noticed a slight twitch of the fingers on his right hand.

The Avengers kept silent, waiting on the Captain’s order, waiting on Loki to notice that they were there. A few tense minutes passed while Loki lay on the ground and the Avengers, ready to attack, watched.

Natasha startled a little at the creaking wheeze that came from Loki and broke the moment’s silence, the rest of the Avengers did as well, each of them shifting in anticipation of Loki’s next move.

Loki sat up slowly with a grimace, his eyes still unfocused. With a small shimmer of green, a knife appeared in Loki’s right hand. Natasha could hear the tension of Clint’s bow string as he pulled it back.

Loki, seemingly still unaware of their presence, focused his sight onto the knife as though he was taking in its details. He rotated his wrist so the blade was pointing towards him. With a deep inhale, he held up the blade and tilted back his head, like he was going to-

“No!” Thor boomed, lunging forward and grabbing Loki by the wrist just as Loki brought the blade towards his own neck. Thor’s grip forced Loki’s hand to open, the knife clattering on the ground. With another shimmer of green a knife appeared in Loki’s other hand, but before he could do anything with it Thor grabbed that wrist as well, making Loki drop the knife.

“You don’t get to do that!” Thor bellowed as Loki struggled to pry himself from Thor’s hold, “You don’t get to avoid the consequences of your actions by trying to end your life! Not here! Not again!” Natasha couldn’t tell if the shaking where Loki’s wrists and Thor's hands met was if Loki was being shaken by Thor or if he was attempting to free himself.

Loki began to thrash against Thor’s grip, throwing his whole body into his desperate movements. Thor’s hold on Loki was unrelenting, keeping Loki’s wrist in place in the space between them. One of Loki’s feet planted on Thor’s chest as he used the other to kick at Thor.

“You get everything!” Loki snarled as he tried to stomp on Thor’s face, Thor tilting his head to the side to avoid the blow. “It is all yours, Odinson!” Loki’s next stomp managed to hit Thor right in the nose, Natasha heard a crunch. “Can’t you let me have this one thing?” Loki’s tone almost sounded pleading, but that couldn’t be right.

Thor, blood now running from his nose, turned himself with quickness and strength, spinning in place to make Loki’s leg’s fly out away from Thor. Thor stopped his spin and Loki landed on his knees.

“Midgard is not yours to have, Loki!”

Captain America spoke so silently that Natasha almost didn’t hear him when he uttered “I don’t think that’s what he meant,” in a concerned tone.

Oh.

Oh, of course.

This was a ploy. Loki was trying to get the Avengers to treat him with sympathy, probably so he could find a weak moment to strike, or steal back the Scepter or the Tesseract, or escape, or a combination of the three.

To Loki’s credit, it had caught Natasha off guard, she hadn’t expected someone who acted so proud to lower himself to purposefully acting so pathetic, no matter the benefit. But against all expectations, here Loki was, playing suicidal.

It was embarrassing.

Natasha must’ve missed something Loki did, because the next moment the Captain surged forward and shoved his balled fist into Loki’s mouth with a grunted “No you don’t.”

“What are you doing, Captain?” Thor demanded.

“Loki was about to bite through his tongue,” the Captain turned to look at Loki, the Captain’s eye’s meeting Loki’s with a stern expression, “which I’ve seen plenty of guys try, and let me tell you, Loki, it does not work. You’re only going to cause yourself a whole lotta pain. So I’m going to take my fist out, and you’re going to cut it out, got it?” Loki broke eye contact with the Captain and looked down to the floor. Captain America grabbed Loki’s shoulder and shook him slightly, “I said got it?”

Loki’s eyes darted up to meet the Captain’s and he nodded near imperceptibly because of the obstruction in his mouth. The Captain pulled his fist out, he shook his hand out as Loki stretched his jaw.

With the Captain no longer in the way, Loki returned to struggling against Thor. Trying to pull his arms away as he leaned back onto his feet, attempting to stand from his awkward position on the floor.

“Would you quit it?” from behind Loki, the Captain placed his hands on Loki’s shoulders and forced Loki back down to his knees. “You lost, it’s over, quit struggling.”

This only made Loki more defiant against the hands on him, trying to push up from the Captain's hold and pull away from Thor's grip at the same time.

Thor let out a sudden yell and pulled away. Around Loki's wrists, his armor flaked and fell away, revealing blue spreading on his skin underneath. Natasha could track the progress of the spread as more and more of Loki's sleeves fell away. Soon the Captain pulled back with a hiss just before the blue reached Loki's shoulders.

"Loki! What trick is this?" Thor yelled, but Loki did not seem to register what Thor had said, he was looking at his blue hands with panic in his eyes just as the blue passed over his face, turning his green eyes red. Lines etched themselves onto his skin, making a simple pattern.

Loki's armor had fully fallen away now, revealing an under layer of a sleeveless shirt and pants that were snug to Loki's body. Natasha thought for a moment that the dark blue and purple color scheme of it didn't seem to fit what she thought of Loki. Blue skin and raised lines were visible along his exposed arms. His fingernails were black like a goth teenager's.

Loki made a movement like an attempt to stand up but stumbled onto the floor, his hands leaving a layer of frost on the stone as they made contact with it. Loki stumbled up and then back down again. Natasha realized too late his objective as Loki reached out for the discarded knife, the Captain seemed to notice this at the same time as he reached out to grab Loki, only for Thor to intervene.

"No!" Thor cried, grabbing The Captain's arm to stop him from grabbing Loki, "His skin will freeze yours!"

With a desperate grab, Loki got his hands on the knife. Just as quickly as the thing had appeared in his hand in the first place it shattered, nearly exploding, into minuscule pieces in Loki's grip.

"No!" Loki cried. Without the bulk of his armor, Natasha could see his chest heaving as he struggled for breath. Loki shot out to grab the other knife just as The Captain made a move to pick it up, but Loki managed to snatch it out from under The Captain's hand, but just as before the knife came apart under Loki's touch.

"No no no!" Loki yelled, his voice cracking with the exclamation. There was another flicker of green at his fingertips but nothing appeared. Loki frantically looked around, his eyes coming to rest on something behind Natasha, it only took Natasha the slightest of turns to realize what Loki was looking at was the Hulk.

Again Loki tried to force himself to his feet, launching himself up in the Hulk's direction before stumbling back down to the floor, his knees hitting the stone with a crack and the palms of his hands slapping onto the floor. His face hovered inches above the floor as he took a few shuddering breaths.

Loki pushed himself up to a kneel, eyes fixed on the Hulk. "Well?" he demanded between the heavy wheezes, "finish this, monster!"

Natasha felt her heart stop at the sound of the Hulk's growl in response. Natasha took a hurried step away from the Hulk and turned to see just as he began to change back into Bruce Banner.

Loki looked on as Bruce stumbled back into his form, holding his head with a groan as he steadied himself against Stark's armor. "Oh come now…" Loki paused to take another breath, "you can't…" he wheezed again, "pretend to be a man now!" Loki heckled between gasping breaths.

He pushed himself to his feet again, and this time managed to stand up. But the moment he reached a full stand his eyes flickered close and Loki collapsed onto the floor. He lay where he landed completely unmoving.

For the next fifteen seconds, the Avengers stared at Loki's motionless form in such silence that they could've heard a pin drop.

Bruce, having steadied himself enough to stand on his own, with one hand clutching the waistband of his oversized pants so they still covered him, asked, “What happened?” finally breaking the silence.

“Well we won- hooray!-” Stark exclaimed, “and when we came to capture Loki he tried to off himself, and then turned blue and then collapsed.”

"Yeah, is he dead?" Clint asked, and Natasha couldn’t tell by his tone if he was hopeful or irritated at the prospect.

"I know not." Thor said, his voice dripping with worry, "but we cannot touch him to check."

"He's still alive," JARVIS announced from the ceiling, causing both The Captain and Thor to look up in surprise, "My sensors can detect a heartbeat. I would recommend wearing gloves to touch him as my readings show his body temperature is currently about thirty-three degrees Fahrenheit, which is over one-hundred degrees hotter than his body was a minute ago.”

The face-plate of Stark’s helmet flipped up. “So, what the hell is up with reindeer games suddenly turning into Mr. Snow Miser?”

Thor did not answer, his face was clenched into a frown as he pulled a small pouch from his side and reached his hand- which Natasha noticed was now black on some parts of his palms and fingers- into it with a grimace. And then reached near his whole arm into the pouch- eliciting a “Whoa!” from Stark- seemingly rummaging around a much bigger space than was logically possible.

“Loki is a shapeshifter by nature.” Thor told them as he continued to search through the pouch. “He shifted himself into a frost giant to force us to let go of him as their touch is cold enough to burn skin.” Thor exhaled a soft “ah!” and then a pained grunt, and pulled his arm and a pair of handcuffs out of the pouch.

“Didn’t shift into much of a ‘giant,’ did he?” Stark joked as Thor knelt down next to Loki and put the handcuffs on him, “looks like he’s just frost to me.” Tony laughed. “Though that’s just because he can’t just make more matter, the laws of physics still makes him its bitch just like it does everybody else.”

Thor stood up, “No, no, my brother has taken many forms, regardless of size.” Thor looked down at Loki with a deep frown on his face. “He has, in past, described the process of shifting as reflexive, never having to consider the specifics of the form he was changing to for it to be accurate. I…” Thor looked up at the rest of the group, “I do not understand why he looks so much the same. He should be the size of a frost giant.”

“Can we back up?” Bruce asked, pressing the hand that wasn’t holding his pants to his temple, “Loki tried to kill himself? How does that make sense for a guy like him?”

Natasha responded “He was faking,” at the same moment the Captain said “It makes a lot of sense,” and Thor grumbled “He has tried before.”

The three looked at each other. Thor just as quickly turned his gaze down to the floor.

Stark clicked his tongue inside his cheek, “Yeah I’m gonna go with Natalie- Natasha?- Nat. I’m going with Nat on this one, he’s faking,” Stark turned to look at Thor, “probably was when he ‘tried before,’ too.”

There was a rumble as a clap of thunder echoed through the New York sky.

“I am not sure,” Thor began with a rumble in his voice rougher than the thunder that preceded it, “how one ‘fakes’ falling into a collapsing wormhole.”

Stark's face paled.

"So Loki traveled through a collapsing wormhole and survived?" Bruce asked in the tone of someone who was genuinely shocked by what he just heard. "Your species can do that?"

Thor shook his head, "We all thought it was certain death for him when he fell, as it would be for any of us." Thor turned to look down on Loki again, his eyes narrowing, "perhaps he shifted into a form that could survive…"

Stark seemed to regain his composure with that, "See?" he exclaimed, "faking it! He knew he could shapeshift! He was playing you then and he's playing us now!"

Natasha nodded, "yeah, this is a play." There was no doubt in her mind that Loki would never try to end his life. "He's hoping to prey on our sympathy."

The Captain crossed his arms. "I don't think he is. He…" The Captain frowned, looking off into the distance with an expression of someone who was looking inward. "I've captured a lot of enemies. I've seen a lot of guys try what Loki did just now." The Captain's frown turned into a proper scowl, "some guys are just scared, acting on orders to not get captured no matter what. They don't actually want to die, and if they don't succeed at first they don't try again. But…" he looked at Loki's unconscious form, "some guys mean it, and they won't stop trying until they succeed.”

“This psycho’s whole shtick is manipulating people!” Stark said, “He knew he wasn’t going to succeed and was just trying to scare us!”

The Captain took a strained, irritated breath, “You think he knew he wouldn't succeed when he tried to goad the Hulk into attacking him?”

“He did?” Banner asked cautiously.

“Yeah, but you turned right back into yourself when he did.” Stark told him.

“I did?” Banner asked, flummoxed.

"Yeah, and he tried to goad you into changing back as you did." The Captain huffed. "But sure, he, 'knew he wouldn't succeed,' right."

When Natasha had first met him, she hadn't realized that Captain America could be scathingly sarcastic.

"If he's resilient enough to survive the void of space, he probably knew he was resilient enough to survive the Hulk." Natasha pointed out.

"I believe Miss Romanoff is correct." The voice of JARVIS echoed from above them. "Loki was attacked by the Hulk during the battle."

"There we go!" Stark declared, "he knew he would survive the Hulk! He was just trying to fake us out!" He looked pointedly at Steve, "so stop trying to get us to feel bad for the genocidal maniac!"

Steve pulled back with an expression of offense. "Feel bad for- feel bad for him? I'm not saying we should throw a pity party for the guy, I'm saying we need to treat his attempts seriously because an actively suicidal prisoner poses a huge threat to everyone around him.”

“And is the guy that’s been trying to kill us any more of a threat now that he’s ‘trying’ to kill himself?” Stark asked sarcastically.

“Obviously he’s more of a threat now than he would be when he actually valued his life!” Steve shouted, clearly frustrated, "A prisoner that's not afraid of being killed is going to be willing to take bigger risks because the consequences don't matter. He tried to piss off the hulk, even if it couldn't kill him, do you really think all of us would be so lucky had Loki succeeded?"

"You make a good point, Captain," Thor said, "even if this is one of my br- one of Loki's deceptions, we should still treat him with caution."

"Okay but, like, why not just let the guy off himself?" Stark asked, a slight jovial tone to hide behind with the claim he was joking should the suggestion not go over.

"Because that isn't justice!" Steve proclaimed as Thor thundered "Absolutely not!" Banner said "That would be messed up," and Clint mumbled "Fuck no."

"Okay, jeez, I was just joking." Stark said predictably.

"So what do we do now?" Banner asked.

Steve launched into a lecture about practices for keeping a suicidal prisoner. The takeaway Natasha got from it was that Loki's mobility would need to be restrained so he couldn't attempt to harm himself. Thor piped in about the chains he had that should be able to hold Loki, and Stark told them about the weapons testing facility in the basement where they could secure Loki against one of the building's support beams.

Steve was in the middle of explaining how to set up and interrogation when Thor interrupted-

"I think questioning Loki may be useless. He is a liar by nature and has spent a millennia honing his craft of deception." He spoke solemnly.

Natasha frowned at that, taking offense. "I was able to get him to reveal his play with the Hulk."

"And that was all you were able to get him to reveal." Thor softly rumbled. "I do not think he gave you anything that he was not willing to give up. Any attempt to get him to talk now will only serve to his advantage, he will talk circles around us."

"If I may, I think I have a solution for that, my prince." A velveteen voice projected through the room, causing Natasha and the other human avengers quite a shock. There was a translucent golden head floating in the middle of the room.

"Heimdall!" Thor exclaimed, a ghost of a smile stretching across his lips. "I have been calling for you since I arrived on Midgard, what happened?"

"I was not able to see you on Midgard until a short while ago, I believe Loki was blocking my sight and was no longer able to do so after the impact that left him in that." He explained, nodding over to the crater where they had found Loki. “I thought you would benefit to know that there is, a short distance from here, a man with the ability to tell if someone is speaking the truth or lying."

"What." Stark said flatly in clear disbelief.

"And you think this man could question Loki, and see through his lies?" Thor asked.

Heimdall chuckled lightly, "Well not see through, per say," he said, "but I believe he is skilled enough to engage with Loki in a battle of words and come out with more information than Loki intended to reveal."

"Who?" Clint asked, straightening his posture to attention, "Where? How do we contact him?"

"I can speak to him and lead him here if that is what you would like." Heimdall told them, looking pointedly over at Thor at the last bit, making it clear to Natasha that Heimdall would only do this on Thor's request and no one else's.

Natasha frowned, she didn't like the implication that she couldn't manage to get info from Loki, but also she was curious about what this man (god?) meant by someone who could tell the difference between a truth and a lie. She would never admit it, but she’d want to test her own ability to lie against him.

"Well, fuck yeah, send the lie detector our way!" Stark exclaimed with a laugh that Natasha thought was a little hysterical.

"Yeah, bring this guy here right now." Clint demanded. Heimdall looked over at Thor.

"My prince?" He asked.

Thor stood with his arms crossed and a frown lining his face as he looked down at Loki's unconscious form.

"Call him here, Heimdall." Thor eventually said. The golden image disappeared from the room and everyone was silent for another moment.

"Alright, so we need to bring Loki down to the basement and get him set up for an interrogation." The Captain led.

Natasha and the others nodded and then sprung into action. Natasha, Thor, and The Captain brought Loki down to the basement while Stark took Banner to his room for a change of clothes and Clint contacted Fury with an update on the situation. As Natasha was on the elevator down to the basement, she heard confirmation on her com that SHIELD agents were coming up on the other elevator to secure the tesseract and the scepter.

A few minutes into securing Loki in the basement, the glowing golden head of Heimdall returned to tell them that the man was on his way, and would arrive in approximately fifteen minutes.

#set at the end of Avengers (2012) right before they capture Loki #loki #frostdevil #top tino post #mcu #santagno

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druidgroves · 2 years

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Chapter 04: Accentuate the Positive

Fandom: Fallout 4 Words: 6,316 Characters: Georgia Tate (Canon-Divergent Sole Survivor), Piper Wright, RJ MacCready Notes: chapter four is finally here ! enjoy :)

read on ao3 ch. 01 / ch. 02 / ch. 03

When MacCready showed up in front of Publick Occurrences the next morning, the marketplace hadn’t even opened yet, and he was surprised to see Piper and her mini-me waiting outside next to the Boss. The younger girl looked tired, like she’d just been woken up, and was leaning onto Dogmeat, who had his head in her lap as she idly stroked his fur. Piper was the first to spot him though, as the Boss had her back turned, poking through her pack sat on the printing press behind them. He watched as the reporter nudged her with her elbow, making her look up and give him an approving smile when she caught his eye. She likes it punctual, he thought and filed that detail away.

“Mornin’, Mac,” the Boss said (when did she start calling him that?), fixing the straps on her pack before shouldering it on. “You ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied, flicking up his collar again as a breeze blew in over the Upper Stands. He bunched his scarf up as well for good measure.

The Boss turned to Piper, who, like her sister, looked to be a little sleepy. Despite that, the Boss pulled her into a hug that went unprotested and said, “Thanks for everything, Piper. When I said I couldn’t have gotten Mr. Valentine out without you, I meant it.”

“I’ll save a copy of the next issue just for you, Blue,” she replied as she pulled away. “Oh, and let me know about your interview. It’s ready to go whenever you are.”

Mac caught the way the Boss stiffened a little at Piper’s words and he wondered what kind of interview she gave. Probably something about the Minutemen? Thinking it over for a moment, it made him realize something. When they had been talking together at Power Noodles the night before, when he asked how she got to be General, he never got a straight answer out of her.

“Just keep holdin’ onto it for a little while. Please,” the Boss muttered to Piper, the volume of her voice intentionally lowered. She was quick to move past it though. “I told Mr. Valentine I wouldn’t be back this way for at least another month, so when I’m back in town we can talk then. Hopefully I’ll have some new stories for you.”

“You stay safe out there, Georgia,” Piper said, dropping the usual nickname as she gave a squeeze to the Boss’ shoulder. Then, she cut her eyes to Mac, making him flinch. “Watch her back for me, will ya?”

“It’s what I’m paid to do,” he said, earning a narrowed look from the woman.

They both watched as the Boss bent down, knees popping, to talk to Piper’s sister.

“Sorry, Nat, but Dogmeat’s gotta come with us this time,” she said and the hound’s ears perked up at the mention of his name. “But I bet it was nice havin’ him around, right?”

“You bet, lady,” Nat said with the hint of a tired grin before it gave way to a yawn. She looked up at Piper. “We should get a dog.”

Piper grimaced a little.

“I’ll think about it,” she said, though Mac could tell she wasn’t too fond of the idea.

“Well, see y’all in a month,” the Boss said, waving to the two of them before giving a sharp two-note whistle–different from the one she’d done yesterday–making Dogmeat bound up from where he’d been to start trotting happily at her side. Mac joined them, and then they were off.

----------

“How,” Mac shouted later over the roar of gunfire, “How did Daisy manage to talk you into this?!”

“It’s a long story!” the Boss shouted back, leveling her hunting rifle at a super mutant shoving its way through the door of the library’s main hall. She was stood on top of a table, using a bookshelf leaned up against it as cover. She shot twice, hitting the mutant in one of its knees and watching it fall before aiming at another.

She failed to finish the first one off however, but before Mac could do anything about it, one of the library’s many protectrons caught the brute with a few laser rounds to the face.

There were mutant and robot corpses alike scattered around the various piles of old furniture—tables, chairs, rotting bookshelves, and busted terminals, all acting as pretty good cover against the onslaught. He’d even managed to find a nice sniper’s nest next to a turret placed by the last few unlucky souls to die there, surrounded by sandbags and elevated enough to see above the entire room (the lack of tall, imposing bookshelves made this even easier). He’d probably have one hell of a headache later being that close to the turret fire, but it was preferable to being vulnerable and out in the open.

He continued to pick off the mutants pouring through the doors, wondering just how many were holed up in the subway entrance he knew to be underneath the building. While the bullets flew, Dogmeat ran around the room, distracting the super mutants enough for he and the Boss to pop off a few clean shots each. He had questioned her about the safety of the dog going with them, but she insisted he could be pretty useful in a fight, especially in close quarters. To her credit, she had been right, because Dogmeat chased one of the mutants from behind a pile of tables it had used as cover and straight into Mac’s crosshairs. He pulled the trigger after a steadying breath and the mutant went down in two shots.

From her spot in the room, the Boss had mostly relied on the protectrons and Mac’s covering fire, though she was able to do decent damage with well aimed shots to their chests. It did enough that it was short work for the robots to clean up behind her. At one point however, a particularly hardy mutant managed to push through the laserfire and came right up on the Boss’ cover, where she had just popped back up from reloading her rifle. Mac watched as she panicked and yelped, but in a flash of self preservation, kicked the bookshelf away from her to land on the mutant before it could reach over and grab at her. The stunt knocked the mutant into another bookshelf behind it, and in one swift motion Mac was popping a bullet right between the eyes where it landed.

A minute after that, the library was quiet of gunfire and full of dead super mutants. When nothing else could be heard after that, Mac almost jumped when the Boss broke the silence.

“Mighty fine shootin’ there, Tex,” she drawled, nodding towards the mutant they’d taken down together before jumping off the table she’d been standing on. “That one almost got close enough for me to smell its breath.”

Mac let a little bit of pride wash over him at her words, satisfied with the review. He stood up by the now quietly humming turret and safetied his sniper rifle before settling it on his shoulder.

“I aim to please,” he said, leaving his cover and meeting her halfway. “Did you get hit at all?”

The Boss did a quick scan of her own body before she shook her head. “Nope. What about you?”

“I’m good, but there’s probably still some holed up in the station,” he said, ready to finish the job. “How do you wanna hit ‘em? There’s gotta be a last line of defense down there.”

She nodded in agreement, “We’ll have to hit ‘em hard. No tellin’ how many are down there, though.”

“Good thing we have those grenades from that trap we almost tripped,” he remembered suddenly. There had been a tripwire near the main entrance with three grenades waiting to be set off and the Boss had spotted them just in time. “We could throw those at them, catch them by surprise, and then we finish them off?”

“Good idea, let’s go,” she said, then whistled for Dogmeat before they made their way to the entrance of Copley Station down below.

They slipped through the double doors silently, making their steps as light and quiet as they could. Dogmeat walked closely behind, crouched low. Mac had one of the grenades on him while the Boss had the other two, her gun slung over her shoulder by an old strip of leather. She held up one of her hands to stop their descent down the stairs as the rough voices of super mutants echoed off the station walls. He could make out at least two of them, maybe three. Then, a soft beeping noise underneath it all.

His eyes met the hers, an immediate understanding between them. Suicider.

“If you can get a lucky shot, we may not have to use the grenades at all,” the Boss whispered, nodding to his rifle.

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” he whispered back, hands falling into the worn grooves of his rifle where they fit perfectly. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

She nodded, then slowly began to creep down the stairs again. The further they went, the stronger the smell of rotting meat, blood, and viscera became and Mac could see the Boss was doing everything she could not to gag. He simply pulled his scarf over his nose and followed behind her.

The bottom of the stairs gave way to the station’s platform and Mac could hear the super mutant’s faint shuffling and the ever present beeping down the tunnel's left side. The Boss moved quickly but softly, finding cover behind a pillar, Dogmeat low at her feet. She poked her head out just enough to see how far away the mutants were before motioning him over to the pillar across from hers.

“Three of ‘em with one of their hounds, but the one with the nuke is close to the train,” she whispered again as he leaned his head out just enough to see where she was talking about. He spotted the suicider immediately and the brute had his back to him, pacing up and down the platform. Mac ducked back behind his cover and tilted his chin up at the Boss.

“Easy shot,” he said. “You ready?”

“Be my guest,” she replied, bracing herself against her own pillar and reaching down to take Dogmeat’s collar in her hand. Mac leaned out from cover, lifting his scope to line up the shot.

Mac waited until the super mutant turned around to start walking their way again, put the mini nuke in his crosshairs, and took a breath. In that split second between inhaling and exhaling, he pulled the trigger and the group of mutants were blown apart like so much meat, the explosion charing their green skin. Even from their position on the other end of the platform, he could feel the heat of the bomb warm the part of his face uncovered by his scarf, ears slightly ringing. Just like that, the Boston Public Library was cleared of super mutants.

“Nice job, Hotshot. Now that that’s taken care of, though, let's get back upstairs, this smell is startin’ to make my eyes water,” the Boss said, voice muffled by the hand now over her mouth. “Besides, I wanna see what kinda books the library still has left.”

Mac followed her back to the main hall of the library. She took her pack off and tossed it onto a nearby table before making a beeline to one of the shelves pressed against the wall. Most of the books on it were still intact, if a little faded and slightly moldy. Mac watched as she fawned over some of the titles and began piling as many as she could in her arms.

“Crazy that some of these survived two hundred years,” he heard her say, though he could barely see her over the stack of books in her arms. “Surprisin’ no one’s taken ‘em for themselves.”

“Not a lot of profit in hitting a library,” Mac shrugged, leaning against the table where she’d dropped her pack. Dogmeat trotted over to sit by him as the Boss dropped the stack of books beside him, wiping her hands on the denim of her jeans.

“Good thing, too, because now they’re all mine,” she grinned and went back for more.

Mac tilted his head to get a better look at the titles on the spines. He saw Complete Electrical Engineering Formulas and Principles, American Machinist Handbook, and Timber Construction Manual, Second Edition amongst her choices and he looked back at her, confusion clear on his face.

“A bit of light reading?” he asked, holding up a dusty copy of The Civil Engineer’s Reference Book. The Boss laughed, loud and bright, and shook her head.

“God, no, too much technical jargon I have no hope of understandin’,” she said, putting another stack of books on the table beside him. “I’m more of a fiction gal myself, but these are useful.”

“Only if anyone can understand them,” Mac said, opening the book in his hand to a random page and making a face at the complex diagrams and vocabulary. He was definitely more of a comics guy.

“I know a guy who’d blow through these no problem, so that won’t be much of an issue,” she said, taking the book from his hand and setting it on the table. “C’mon, help me out here. I wanna go through everything.”

“Everything? Boss, this place is huge.”

“It’s only–” He watched as she pulled the left sleeve of her jacket back to uncover her PipBoy. “Ha! It’s not even noon yet. We have all the time in the world to go through this place.”

Mac groaned. “Do we have to?”

“If you really don’t want to, I won’t make you, but the alternative is sittin’ around bored for the next however long. Your choice,” she shrugged, and turned back around to start going through the shelves again. The way she said it let Mac know she was dead serious. She really was intent on going through as much of the library as she could. Mac had famously idle hands that almost always got up to something whenever they weren’t occupied (usually nothing good), and he wasn’t about to sit around bored for any length of time. He sighed.

“Just tell me what to look for.”

----------

Hours later, the two of them together had managed to salvage quite a few books, separated into large piles around the main hall by genre. Some of them were almost as tall as Mac himself as he walked between them to the corner the Boss had tucked herself into.

He’d gone off to check the entrances, taking the grenades they had and resetting the tripwire from earlier (sure, they had the protectrons walking around, but you could never be too careful). When he came back, the Boss was sat hunched over one of the few working terminals they hadn’t stripped the innards from, resting her chin on her knee as she read through the entries. Dogmeat was posted up in his usual spot at her feet, eyes closed but still alert, his ears flicking towards the sound of his boots on the floor.

“Looks like I had a similar idea to the people who got here before us,” the Boss said as he approached. “They were tryin’ to preserve as much as they could on some holotapes, but the mutants took ‘em out before they could finish.”

“Good for us, though, right?”

The Boss shrugged, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth as she continued to read through the terminal. “Yeah, but it doesn’t make it any less…I dunno, sad. What they were doin’ was a good thing. They didn’t deserve to go out like that, y’know?”

Mac didn’t quite know what to say. He’d never really been good with handling feelings, be it his own or other’s. Besides, he’d seen too much death in his personal life to be phased by the wasteland taking its due.

When he didn’t answer, she barreled on. “Found a key to the data room, though. ‘All I ask is that the person reading this does the right thing. Help us protect the information stored on the computers‘,” she read from the terminal, holding up the key in question and nodding towards the locked metal doors behind him. Then she turned to face him, “I have a plan for all this.”

Mac started to sense a theme with her. “I think that could be your catchphrase.”

That got a smile out of her.

“As soon as I’m able, I’m gonna send some of my Minutemen to take back as much information outta here as they can. All these books and holotapes will make buildin’ up new settlements a breeze,” she said, entirely earnest. There was conviction behind her words, and for a moment he wondered why he ever doubted she could be the General. She believed in her little militia and he could tell she probably didn’t have plans for it to stay very little for very long. It was…kind of inspiring, if Mac was being honest with himself. He probably needed to stop doubting her.

“So what you’re telling me is we don’t have to lug around a bunch of heavy books like pack brahmin?”

“Maybe two or three,” she said with a playful smile, spinning the key around her finger by the keyring, “or five. And then there’s all that valuable scrap from those broken terminals…”

Mac threw his head back in a groan, “Really?”

“Where there’s scraps there’s caps, Mac,” she said, her voice lilting as she did.

He laughed, “Okay, that’s a pretty good point. Plus it rhymes.”

“It’s kinda like a mnemonic learnin’ strategy,” she said, powering down the terminal and tucking the key into the pocket of her jacket.

“A nemo-what?”

She laughed, but not condescendingly. “Mnemonic learnin’ strategy,” she repeated again. “They’re supposed to help you remember things by usin’ stuff like rhymin’ or short acronyms. You know, ‘righty-tighty, lefty-loosey’, or Roy G. Biv to remember the color order of a rainbow.”

He still couldn’t help but stare at her, both understanding her explanation but wondering why the hell she knew it at all. That wasn’t really something most people cared to learn about while fighting to live their lives out in the wasteland, and he didn’t know enough about Vault-Tec’s educational standards to wonder if she’d learned it before coming out.

“They must’ve had one heck of a library in whatever vault you walked out of,” he said after a moment, shaking his head a little in amusement. “Probably explains why you took that job from Daisy, too. You two must really like books.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “The actual contents of this place were just a bonus, had nothin’ to do with why I took the job.”

“Why’d you take it, then?” he asked. “Daisy’s been trying to get someone to do it for months, even tried convincing me.”

“That night I hired you, I talked with Daisy beforehand,” she started, hands in her lap as she faced him. “We got to talkin’ and we hit it off, she was real nice. Anyways, I asked her if she knew any good mercs. I had Piper with me after that business you heard about with Mr. Valentine–”

“You’ll have to tell me about that at some point,” he said, still insanely curious as to that whole story.

“You can read all about it in the Publick,” the Boss smirked, then continued, “Anyways, Piper was eager to get back to Diamond City, and I didn’t exactly want to be runnin’ around blind, so it seemed like a smart idea, hirin’ someone to watch my back. But Daisy said she might know of a merc if I could do a favor for her, and then told me about the library job. I said I’d consider it, that if I liked the merc she told me about, the job was as good as done. She told me your name, said you were really in need of some work, and that you were one hell of a shot. I figured I’d take my chances and well, here we are.”

“Any reason you decided to take a chance on some random Goodneighbor gun for hire and not run around with one of your Minutemen?” he asked, curious to her reasoning.

“Before I met Piper, I did, actually. His name’s Preston. I was…new to the Commonwealth when I met him, and in exchange for helpin’ him with rebuilding the Minutemen, he’d get me to Diamond City,” she told him. “We got a bit off track after a while, ended up takin’ back the Castle somewhere in there. But I made it to the city eventually.”

“So that’s how you made General, right? Taking back the Castle?”

She snorted, “Nope. When I said I helped him rebuild the Minutemen, I mean literally rebuild. He was the last one before I said I’d help him. What happened at Quincy was…oh, boy, rough. He made me General faster than you can blink.”

Mac couldn’t help the pang of guilt that shot through his stomach. Yeah, sure, he wasn’t with the Gunners when they massacred Quincy, tearing apart the community without much thought other than getting what they wanted, but he had been willing enough to put up with their type of depravity at one point, for enough caps. He twisted his fist into the fabric of his duster, trying to will the memories of his past away.

“So why’d you need to go to Diamond City so bad?” he asked before his mouth could stop him, to try and change the subject before his feelings gnawed on him like a mongrel on a bone, and he instantly knew he’d asked too much. He’d poked a nerve, prodded at something she wanted to keep well protected and it showed on her face. Her usual smile had been replaced by a complete brick wall. Great fucking job, MacCready.

“It doesn’t matter,” the Boss said, standing up abruptly and almost tripping over Dogmeat in the process. Mac realized it was the most closed off the Boss had been since they’d met, when at all other times she was apparently happy to joke and chatter. She walked past him where he’d been leaning on the wall, Dogmeat whining at her heels.

She stopped, checked her PipBoy and spoke without looking at him, “It’s gettin’ late and I don’t want to travel in the dark. The protectrons should be good enough security. We should get some sleep, I like an early start.”

“Yeah,” he said a little distantly, unable to come up with much else.

Wordlessly, she took her pack and found a place to set up her bed roll. He did the same in the now awkward silence, keeping the Boss at a far enough distance that it wasn’t even more awkward, but close enough that if something did manage to get past the grenades and protectrons, they weren’t entirely caught off guard. He couldn’t help but watch her out of the corner of his eye, though, trying to gauge the energy between them. He watched as she took off her jacket, a marked and faded denim thing with a fluffy white interior, then her PipBoy, wrapping the jacket around it before stuffing it into her half open pack. She sat her cowboy hat on top and her glasses next to her bed roll before sliding inside. When she was comfortable, Dogmeat settled into the crook of her bent legs. She didn’t look his way once.

They had seemed to be getting along pretty well before he opened his big fucking mouth, which had been something of a necessary relief for him. He was so used to just shutting up and following the caps, didn’t matter if the person hiring him was a conversationalist or even nice. He hadn’t found much camaraderie in the Gunners, either, but he wasn’t about to touch anything else in his mind concerning them for the rest of the night, unless he wanted that sinking feeling in his gut to return. Mac didn’t know why the whole situation with the Boss seemed to bother him, but it did. He resigned the feeling to being worried about their contract being called off (leave it to him to relate it all back to caps in the end).

Mac turned to look at her again after getting settled in his own sleeping bag. Her back was to him, but Dogmeat’s big brown eyes blinked at him instead, looking sad.

He sighed, pulling his sleeping bag up, and rolled over.

----------

Mac awoke the next morning with a start, nearly jumping out of his skin as Dogmeat’s slobbery tongue licked half his face.

“Dogmeat, down, boy. That wasn’t what I meant when I said to go wake Mac up.”

The dog jumped off his chest, but still poked Mac’s shoulder with his nose, trying to get him up. Mac gently pushed him away while simultaneously wiping off his face with his sleeve, sitting up in his bed roll.

“Not my favorite alarm clock,” he muttered, instinctively reaching for his hat.

“Sorry about that,” the Boss apologized, rolling up her own sleeping bag. She was already dressed and her pack looked a little bulkier than he’d last seen it, more…book shaped. A pile of four more books sat beside it. “Up and at ‘em, Mac. The sooner we get back to Goodneighbor, the sooner we get paid.”

Mac tensed a little. She sounded different than she did before they tucked in for the night, no longer guarded and stiff. Now, she sounded chipper and eager to beat the pavement. Maybe things were okay between them.

“You’re the first person to sound happy about going to Goodneighbor,” he said, testing the waters with a little bit of good-natured ribbing as he stretched and lifted himself from his sleeping bag.

He heard her snort as she strapped her sleeping bag to her pack, “Don’t let the Mayor hear you say that. But c’mon, get a move on. We’re headed out to a settlement called County Crossin’ soon as we’re done in Goodneighbor. If we make good time, we might be able to get there before dark.”

“What’s out there?” he asked, rolling up his sleeping bag.

“Don’t know yet. Preston, that Minutemen I told you I traveled with for a while? He marked some places for me that he’d heard askin’ for help at one point or another, so we’ll see when we get there,” she explained, throwing her pack over her shoulders and picking up her pile of books. “If anything, it’ll be another opportunity to persuade someone to fly the Minutemen’s flag.”

Mac distractedly strapped his sleeping bag in place as they talked, “What’s so important about that? Flying the flag I mean.”

“Well, not literally, we don’t have the time to make ‘em. But to start, it’d be another settlement allied to the Minutemen. Which means one less tile of hostile land in the Commonwealth,” the Boss began, and he could tell she was about to explain her big picture by the tone of her voice. “Which means traders and supply lines can travel the roads without losin’ their goods or their lives. Which means settlements start getting bigger. Which means, tile by tile, all that dangerous land gets turned into a safe new Commonwealth, protected by the Minutemen.”

“Should’ve known you’d have your reasons,” he said with a shake of his head. Her goal, while noble, was a little lofty in his opinion. That was a big ask, getting the Commonwealth to work together like that. He’d heard stories of how the CPG Massacre went down. “Sounds pretty ambitious.”

The Boss shrugged, unbothered, “I have a–”

“–A plan, yeah, I should’ve guessed.”

She grinned, shining her teeth at him as she said, “You’re catchin’ on! Look at you go.”

He chuckled, opening up his pack to make sure it was in order. His journal, some extra clothes, ammo, a few comics, and the Boss’ ten millimeter pistol she’d handed to him the day before sat on top. He took it out, holding it out to her. “Hey, Boss, your pistol.”

She walked over, balancing her pile of books in one arm as she took the gun. As it left his grasp, her eyes darted to his open pack. An almost mischievous smile appeared on her face as she holstered the pistol, her eyes going from his pack to the books in her arms.

“Hey, Mac…now that you’ve got all that free room in your pack since you gave me my gun back–”

“Absolutely not.”

She huffed, jutting out her bottom lip, “Aw, c’mon! Please? It’s just four more books!”

Mac looked up at her and shook his head. “Nope, not your pack brahmin. You paid me to shoot, remember? Besides, you said we were going outside the city. Why make our packs heavier for all that walking?”

“Ugh, fine, you’re right,” the Boss sighed, staring wistfully at her books. He could barely make out the titles from his angle, but the cover illustrations were bright and colorful underneath all their dust and grime. “They’ll all end up in the same place eventually, I guess.”

She stacked the books into one of her meticulous piles and then hunted for an old scrap of paper, pulling a pen from one of the outer pockets of her pack and sat down to write. Mac focused on getting his things together, and by the time he was done, the Boss had ceased her scribbling, holding up a thick, folded letter.

“When we’re back in Goodneighbor, we’re gonna get paid, recheck supplies, and then I gotta send this off with any traders goin’ the way of the Castle,” she explained, flicking the letter twice with her fingers. “It’s got the key to the data room and instructions on how to get in without triggering all the protectrons and turrets.”

Mac was still surprised they managed to get in without triggering them. He didn’t think the Boss pretending to be a centuries-long-dead library employee would actually work, but it did.

“Hey,” he said after a moment, “how’d you know that ID code that got us in?”

She snorted, “‘One, two, three, four, five, six’ isn’t really that hard a code to crack. Lots of old terminals with hackable passwords, but hey, that’s Admin for you. Now hup, two, Mac, we’re burnin’ daylight here.”

Mac didn’t quite know what she meant by that, but closed his pack and strapped it firmly to his back, and after that, they were off.

According to the Boss’ PipBoy, it wasn’t even ten o’clock when they rolled back into Goodneighbor, and that was after their little shootout with some raiders that had moved into the super mutant den she and Piper had cleared out some days ago. The town was hardly awake, a handful of drifters and traders and the flickering neon signs above Kill or Be Killed and Daisy’s Discounts the only signs of life. The way the Boss strolled over to Daisy’s made her the brightest damn thing in Goodneighbor, with her smiling face and eager eyes. He couldn’t help but step in her light as he followed.

The Boss stepped into the store before him with Dogmeat on her heels, so he couldn’t see Daisy’s face as she said, “You’re back. How’d it go at the library? Get rid of those super mutants?”

“Consider your overdue book fee waived, Ms. Daisy,” the Boss shined as Mac stepped in behind her. Daisy looked pleased, and waved at him when she caught his eye.

“Pretty generous considering it was two hundred years passed due,” she said with a rough laugh. “And it’s nice to see you brought MacCready with you. I could tell he was itching to get outta the Third Rail.”

Mac rolled his eyes affectionately, his soft spot for the old ghoul fanning away any real upset towards her. “Thanks for pointing her my way, Daisy.”

“Hotshot over here came in pretty clutch, actually,” the Boss said, giving him an approving look. When her eyes fell onto him, it made him stand up a little straighter, made him realize she was two inches taller than he was. “He’s pretty nifty with that sniper rifle, ain’t he?”

The ghoul laughed again, nodding in agreement and threw Mac a wink. “One of the best. And hey, I know it was an odd request, but thanks for making the library a safer place. We gotta keep some old buildings sacred, you know?”

“I completely agree,” the Boss beamed, and Daisy bent down to grab payment for the job. She came back up from behind the counter with two pouches of caps, and Mac watched the money change hands before the Boss shoved the pouches into the pockets of her jacket.

She thanked Daisy with a smile, then turned to him, an eyebrow raised, “How’re you doin’ on supplies? Stimpaks, ammo, food for the road?”

Mac paused, going through his mental checklist of everything in his pack. It wouldn’t hurt to get more ammo, especially since they wouldn’t be coming back to Boston proper for a while. Another stimpak or two, a bottle of Rad-X, and maybe some Med-X wouldn’t hurt to have.

“Could use a couple things if we’re gonna be on the road a while,” he replied after a moment, and as soon as the confirmation left his mouth, a pouch of caps was hitting him in the chest. He just barely caught one of the bags Daisy had given her before it fell to the ground.

“Here, take your half and get us whatever you think we’ll need and I’ll cover bullets,” she said, giving a wave to Daisy over her shoulder as she passed him, completely missing the dumbfounded look on his face. He felt like he was short-circuiting, but she barreled on, Dogmeat prancing around her feet. “Then I gotta find a trader to send that letter with and then we can hit the road. Hey, you use .308’s, too, right? Maybe I can smooth talk K-L-E0 into a bulk discount since we both do–”

“Wait, wait, wait, slow down,” Mac finally said as he followed her out of Daisy’s store, his brain finally catching up, “what do you mean ‘my half’?”

The Boss stopped and turned around to look at him, head cocked to the side. She pointed to the pouch of caps still in his hand. “That’s your half of the library job. Hundred for me, hundred for you.”

“What?” he asked, still not sure he heard her right. Maybe he needed to get his ears checked, because the Boss wasn’t making any damn sense. “We’ve barely been working together for what, three days? I thought you said weekly pay?”

“And you’ll get that at the end of the week?” she said, sounding just as confused as he did. Dogmeat whined in sympathy. “I mean, if you would rather wait to get it later in a lump sum, that’s fine, but I’d figure I’d just give it to you now. Save us the trouble.”

“I just–” Mac sighed, nostrils flaring in frustration. “This wasn’t mentioned in our contract.”

“Are you tellin’ me you don’t want the caps?”

He immediately tucked the caps into his duster. “I didn’t say that. I just wanna know if this is gonna be a regular thing.”

The Boss shrugged. “You get out what you put in, on top of the weekly pay for watchin’ my back. If there’s a job you don’t wanna do, I won’t force you, but I got a feelin’ you’re not the type to let caps pass you by like that.”

“You’d be right,” Mac nodded, the weight of the caps pressed against his chest starting to become more tangible. One hundred and fifty caps when she hired him, another hundred three days in, and then whatever his weekly paycheck would be. He didn’t even care how much that one would be, because he was flush with more caps than he’d seen in the last month and a half. He made a mental note to set aside whatever caps he didn’t spend on resupplying to send with Daisy’s caravan for Duncan’s caretakers. Hopefully there would be more to follow.

Once he and the Boss agreed on what supplies to buy (stimpaks, Med-X, dried rations, water, “whatever else he saw fit” as she put it, but surprisingly no Rad-X; she already had a full bottle), she went next to Kill or Be Killed with Dogmeat while he browsed Daisy’s shelves. As he did, he caught snatches of her talking to K-L-E0 through the holes in the walls on Daisy’s side. If he heard correctly, the conversation was leaning heavily in the Boss’ favor. Smirking to himself, he put three stimpaks on the counter and continued down his list.

As he was poking through what little Daisy had in the way of general medical supplies (his own kit needed a re-up), the Boss said her goodbyes to the assaultron and went off to find a trader. With the amount of terminal scrap he had from the library plus his tidy new sum of caps, Mac was able to come out with a good amount left for Duncan after. Daisy gave him a knowing look when he took to the dinky little table and chairs she had pushed against the wall and pulled out his journal.

Mac started the letter off the same way he always did: Hey there, kiddo. It’s Dad…

First he told Duncan he missed him. Always, that he missed him. He thought about him every damn dang day. Then, he asked how he was doing (he’d have to wait for a reply to come back for that one). After that, he started writing about getting a job with the Boss, what Dogmeat was like, the super mutants in the library, and how “your Dad’s still the best shot in the Capital Wasteland” even though he was stuck in the Commonwealth. He told him he loved him, that his mama was watching over him and loved him so much. Said he would send more caps again soon. He didn’t mention anything about looking for the cure, however. He still needed every cap he could get to hire his own crew to sweep through Med-Tek, but that was leagues away. Hopefully with the Boss, though, that plan would come to fruition.

Mac tried to end the letter on a happy note, leaving a doodle of Dogmeat biting the leg off a super mutant on the back before signing it. He tore the page carefully out of his journal, folding it tightly and putting it inside the pouch of caps the Boss had given him.

“Hey, Daisy, when’s your next caravan come in?” he asked, walking up to the counter again.

“End of the week,” she replied. “Sending a letter home?”

Mac shook his head and held out the pouch, setting a few more loose caps on the counter for the payment, “More than that this time. Make sure this gets to the Capital safe, yeah?”

The old ghoul smiled, taking the caps and the letter from him and tucking it into what he knew to be her own payment for the caravan. Extra safe. “I always do, MacCready,” she said, then nodded her head past his shoulder. “Looks like your General’s excited.”

Mac turned, and sure enough the Boss was strolling back into Daisy’s store with a pep in her step. She was chewing on something, a burlap sack in her hand that Dogmeat was incessantly sniffing at.

“Good news!” she said, swallowing and pushing Dogmeat’s nose away. “Found a trader goin’ near the Castle. And he was sellin’ radstag jerky! How lucky are we? You ready to head out?”

Mac cut his eyes to Daisy, and she breathed an amused laugh through the gap of her nose, “She seems a little too peppy for your speed.”

“You get used to it. See you around, Daisy,” he said, mirroring her laugh before turning back to the Boss. “Yeah, Boss. I’m ready.”

#fallout #fallout fic #fallout 4 #maccready #fic: best laid plans

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lostacelonnie · 3 months

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Now uh. I must apologize it's been about a hell of a month a lot happened at once & I was havin a not so great time. Oh shit really? How was Croatia whats it like there? I hope school is goin well for you. It sounds like you had a lot of fun with it & that's what matters I'm glad you enjoyed yourself with the festival. Oh! Its doin a lot better I need to make an appointment for detail finishing I almost forgot. It's like. A forest at night lit up with a rainbow aurora. Best way I got to describe it. Me yelling at the weather when it rained 2 days ago & is warmer again today. Hot & cloudy sucks that feels like betrayal. I need to call the doctor again & see if they have openings yet that reminds me. Need to get on meds myself. May you one day get seele & sparkle. I too am saving as much as possible for firefly & I hope I can grab ruan mei too. Which happy firefly release day! Im sad it's the last penacony patch from what ive heard. Right!? Hearing she is mei was so cool penacony story is 10/10. Wait did you get through domincus round 2? Ahh I didn't get robin but I got topaz on a lucky pull. So re run time for robin. Boothill is fun but maybe later. I hope they add more ice units that department feels lacking. Did you get pela & bailu done? I still haven't. I'm gonna get clara for my 300. Thanks I did manage to get arlecchino & clorinde too really quick. Gold & gears is great & now new su mode via screwllum too. Also! New march 7th form soon. So that's cool. Clockie event kept up the good stuff & legend of the galactic baseballer too. Somnium files is a mystery detective game that was. Kinda fun. Weird as hell mystery with a lot goin on. Sorry again my life turned to madness hopefully I'll keep up a bit better now

HI HI HI!!! apologies for taking so goddamn long to respond, my already nonexistent sense of time is even WORSE during the vacations. damn i hope its better on ur side now!! i luckily have been Pretty Okay, with the school year ending and all. CROATIA WAS VERY FUN!! it was actually an academic trip for my mother so we did Marginally less exploring as usual but still! my moms colleague took us to a bunch of cool places. no sea trips tho since we were in zagreb which is quite a bit away from the coastline. but ohhh the mountains and the FOOD!! the food was SO good. theres this little [but very popular] place in zagreb called heritage with the best fucking food ive eaten in my LIFE. genuinely. school finally freed me from its grasp the last 2 weeks [altho i Did have to write some random short tests to get my red stripe] [oh wait you dont know what a red stripe is. basically the grading system in poland is from 1-6, with 1 being the worst. if your average grade at the end of the year is 4.75 or more, you get a little stripe of the polish flag on ur diploma, but we just call it the red stripe. im on a 100% streak since i even entered the education system!] so other than all that i just kind of fucked around with the entire 2 other people who even came to school. that is not an exaggeration like there were genuine 2 other people there. but i digress! the festival WAS a lot of fun. unfortunately the people from younger grades pretty often dont want to participate [i mean, i dont blame them, they just got here] so were pretty much Always short on manpower to the point we might not be able to organize one next year but thats just speculation that i hope doesnt come true ahsjfgh. OH AND THAT SOUNDS SO COOOOOOL......... and YEAH god its been a while since we started this topic and the weather STILL doesnt want to make up its mind. literally had one day ~27-30 celsius and the next around 15. annoying. and hey good luck with getting on your meds!! i got my stash covered for the next 2 months so im Chilling. god how good it is to be medicated. i feel like a deflated balloon when im not. and to think i lived most of my life like that...... AND YAYY THANK YOU!!! ALSO HOW DID YOUR PULLS GO?? i managed to get firefly and ruan meis lightcone hehehehe [50/50 won both times!]..... i was torn between rm's and firefly's but i decided i use rm in more teams AND shes like. My favorite character. so she got lightcone privileges this time. god im gonna miss penacony...... i mean were probably gonna come back here on some trailblaze continuance or whatever just like what happened with belobog and now the xianzhou but still. i Will miss it. such a well written arc. also actually im curious, whats ur fav sub-area of penacony? im a dreams edge girlie but i wonder if thats a common sentiment. the VIBE there is immaculate. AND GOD YEAHHH THAT REVEAL WAS SOOOOO GOOD. especially since it had so so many honkai references so it was basically tailored for me to like it hehehe. i DID eventually get through yeah! with slight pain but i Did. very fun bossfight although it was slightly annoying that we couldnt use our own team both times since it wouldve been much easier. CONGRATS ON THE TOPAZ!! and good luck getting robin in the future!!! i Have finally built pela and bailu (well, bailu is Still missing one good artifact but yknow she does her job even with what she has). now onto firefly and harmony tb.... god my relic AND planar ornament luck is terrible for both of them. pain and suffering but at least automated grinding is, as always, saving my sanity. ALSO WELT SINCE I FINALLY HIT 300 AND GOT HIM. IM FREE. JESUS. and WOO CONGRATS ON THE GENSHIN GIRLIES!!! i actually managed to get my laptop to cooperate with me so im also back to genshin. not playing too often since i also got into friday night funkin and its very fun But i will try to save for arle's rerun. about time i got a good elemental dps. THE NEW SU MODE IS SO FUNNNN I LOVE IT A LOT. and yeah new march looks very very cool!!! probs not gonna get her immediately but she will be mine Eventually.

wow i hit character-per-block limit. Coming Back. i Still havent played the clockie event since i heard it fixes acherons slash and i wanna keep it around a while longer..... but legend of the galactic baseballer Was fun i agree. and ooh that sounds cool!! also dont worry about it AT ALL like genuinely nbd. i personally might reply to your Next message slightly later than i already do (sorry...) bc im going on a summer camp for two weeks this sunday... pretty excited And the grass-touching is something i deeply need...

#asks #pen pals

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shelbyluvfoodies · 8 months

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Hat stack(gaz/reader)

Pairing:Gaz/reader

Rating:fluff

Gaz has to have a hat collection; I mean he works for Price. Seriously though, if Price can wear a bucket hat while swimming then Gaz can have a collection of hats. Anyway, I hope y'all like this one.

I manage to recover this from my one-shot book from Wattpad.

You are walking to the rec room sipping some tea when you see Gaz sitting there with a garbage bag. He seems deep in thought until he spots you and smiles, "Hey honey, what you up to." you show him your cup and he nods. You sit down your tea and motion to the bag next to him. He sits down next to you and dumps the bag; a sea of hats floods out the bag and onto the floor in front of you two. At least 20 hats sit there as he exclaims, "So I was doing some spring cleaning, and I found some hats I collected while on mission, so I collected all the hats I own and now are here." You ask him if Price is known. He nods, "Oh, he does, he said to get rid of the ones I don't need. He quotes, 'you can't possibly wear this many hats. " Personally, the man has as many hats as me but its Price." His face drops as he says this, "Honestly I don't know which to get rid of, for example this bowler hat I got on a mission in Spain and this one in Chez-" He continues to explain each hat and where he got it from, all in detail. You smile and laugh at some of the stories. After he finishes his face drops into a pout, dropping the hat he has on the floor. You pat his back as he stares at the hats, lost on what to do.

You both look back at the pile of hats. An idea pops into your head as you tell him to hold still. “Price did say get rid of the ones that don't fit on your head right?' He looks at you and nods, giving you a confused look. You grab a couple of hats off the floor and carefully start to place them on his head. One by one you pace a hat until you can't reach the top. Gaz, realizing the plan, tries to stay still to not topple your hat tower, "How many more hats do he have left?' You glance back at the pile, "A few, where's the step ladder?" He carefully points towards the supply closet, "On your left, look down." You run and grab the strap ladder and continue your hat tower. Taking a step back you admire your work, taking a quick picture for memories. Gaz looks at you, "Amused are we know." You chuckle and hear footsteps coming into the rec room. You turn to see Soap and Ghost standing in the doorway, both looking at the tower of hats. Soap barks out a laugh and the ghost shakes his head. "Aye Gaz, I knew Price was teaching you the ways of hat wearing but this is beyond even him." Gaz flips soap off and attempts to stand up. The tower shakes and he freezes. He collects himself before fully standing, the tower swaying just slightly. A victory smile pastes his face as he slowly makes his way out the room. You follow closely behind him to make sure the tower doesn't fall.

You knock on the briefing room door and giggle as you look back at Gaz. Laswell opens the door and greets you, "Oh Hi y/n, is there something wrong- oh," she looks past you, smiles, and lets out a giggle, " Price we may have a situation." You hear Price mumble something about someone being injured before he comes to the door. He just stares at the masterpiece of a hat tower and sighs around his cigar. You and Gaz smile, "You did say I can keep any hat that I can wear on my head." Price stares at the two of you before walking away, "I swear I'm too old- KEEP THE HATS GARRICK."

You and Gaz turn to each other and high five, the tower of hats swaying before falling. You grab a couple of hats as the rest fall around the two of you. A pool of hats surrounds the two of you and a laugh escapes Gaz. You join in until Price yells and the two of you too clean out the mess. Laughing, you clean up the sea of hats around the two of you.

A hat is placed on your head as you stand up. You adjust the hat and look up at Gaz, a smile pasted on your face. He leans down and gives you a peck on the lips, "thanks luv, I really needed this." You fully stand up and wrap your arms around his neck pulling him close, telling him no problem. He pulls you in for a kiss as the hat on your head bumps his. You both pull back and giggle before hearing a whistle next to you. Standing there is Ghost staring at the scene in front of him, "How romantic, a kiss in a sea of hats." You and Gaz blush as he shakes his head, walking away probably to find a corner or soap. You turn back to Gaz and smile, nodding to the sea in question. Yall finish collecting all the hats and head back to the rec room for a movie marathon. Halfway through the movie Gaz looks at you and gives you a quick peck, "I love you y/n." You look back at him and return the kiss, "Love ya to Kyle."

The next morning there is a hat rack on the back of His door, all the hats he's collected hanging from it. No one admits to getting it for him but you both know Price had to.

#cod mw #kyle gaz garrick

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nemjun · 10 months

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please tell me every detail of u and tsukasa because I am beyond obsessed with you two

would you believe I had 2 whole ass paragraphs written when i switched tabs and lost it all??? this is hell, tumblr is hell.

annyways YES OK SELFSHIP SATURDAY LETS GO, UNDER A CUT BC IM SHY AND IM GONNA BE RAMBLY. TLDR, summed up as Me and the Bad Bitch I pulled by Being Autistic

I GOTTA BE HONEST, tsukasa was not it for me when i first started the series, but i was also busy chewing furiously on senku bc he's Neat. but I was sunk after we found out about Mirai he loves her SO MUCH. big stronk man good with children is an instant K.O., i was smitten so quick.

Dr Stone is actually the first series i ever Blatently self inserted into! it was a really good fit and I felt that i could just, genuinely suit the story setting bc 1) ADHD has blessed me with sprawling random curiosities and an accumulation of trivial but Useful knowledge and 2) I literally studied archaeology for my B.A. and bc I live in Canada most of our archaeologoy is based on the Indigenous population who was still using stone technology when first contact with europeans occurred. random note for anyone who might be parusing, the 'ages of history' such as stone, bronze, and iron, didn't occur across all of civilization unilaterally, and the technology used by people is not an indication of civility or advancement of a social group. Anyways.

My real life plan for after I finished Uni was to go and teach english in asia! This didn't happed for various reasons, but it presents a good opportunity for bending realty into fitting me into the series, ehe. I genuinley think it would be really funny if I got revived by the Tsukasa empire by complete accident, busting outta the stone speaking minimal japanese and being a literal scientist by education - i was put here to cause problems on purpose. Tsukasa and I would absolutely start out as bumping heads, not quiet immediatley but as someone Anti smashing people and pro science it gets hostile fast. Arguments are conducted largely thru translations via Ukyo, who i quickly grow attached to as the only person capable of commincating in fluent english (we also have birthdays close together and I Adore that, we're birthday buddies, v cute stuff) I gotta sidetrack for a second bc as much as I love this series theres SO MUCH STUFF THAT JUST ISNT ADDRESSED AND I GET ITS JUST A MANGA BUT IM A WEIRDO. like, what about the bees??? they were just chill after having simbiotic relationships with humans for thousands of years?? sure y not. k sorry

I do wonder tho, if Tsukasa would see me as a threat to the stability of his Empire. Even with poor communication with the majority of the group, I've got a decent set of leadership skills and a lil bit of charisma, and who wouldn't like me really - esp with all the useful knowledge i can bring to the table (yes im hyping myself but its also true, i know how to do pottery and i've experience with stone tools & the types of stone you can use). I think even if he did, I'd really only get put in time out if I was causing problems, and like Taiju and Yuzuriha I might have someone keeping an eye on me. Thing's between me and Tsukasa start to change when we manage to find common ground, using him to practice japanese and finding out about his sister and his feelings about wealth etc - admittedly this was Not Well convayed in the anime, but when he's beaten up while getting seashells on the beach, the adult is yelling at him bc he doesn't want kids running around and stealing from 'his' beach. And his mom sucks too. I think that's something we could bond over, having lousy times growing up. I think he'd also be sensitive to the fact that I'm so far from Home and all my friends and Family, he's very thoughtful like that.

Man this is already reallly long and i dont feel like I've really said much, but I think when it comes down to it, Tsukasa and I just share a lot of the same values. He's strong and kind and good hearted, and that makes me feel safe. He's just very caretaker coded to me and after thinking about it the last few days, i think thats something I'm really looking for in a partner. I think I also balance him out a little bit, make him look at a bigger picture and slow down to enjoy simpler things. When we start to get along a little bit, I like to think that I'd accompany him on simple outings to forage or something, or maybe I'd be able to drag him away for a little while to show him something Neat, or getting to teach him something. He teaches me how to fight a little bit as well, so that I'm better able to take care of myself.

I think that's all I've got for now, but it's nice to sit and think about it and write it down, maybe I'll do a lil more writing over the next few days :3 OH I ALMOST FORGOT, i did a star chart love compatability thing and what I got to read for free was SO FUNNY like, he's enchanted by my whimsy lmao

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pitagain · 1 year

Text

#365DaysOfVGM Day 154:

Lilac's Treehouse/Beta Dragon Valley 1/Tutorial/Dragon Valley (Freedom Planet/Freedom Planet 2 [2014/2022])

Another indie game I just 100%’d with most achievements, getting a solid 3/5 star rating from me, maybe even a 3.5/5 depending on my experience getting the rest of the Time Attack achievements at a later date! The ambitious soundtrack should already be a great incentive to get the game, with its clear love to Gunstar Heroes, Mega Man X4, Sonic games, and other 16-bit/32-bit inspirations alike, all in the same year of Shovel Knight’s respect to the 8-bit era! Good 1st impressions such as the following might show you that…

Out of all the detailed Dragon Valley variants, I like the treehouse version the most, it’s one of the few cases where I prefer the simplicity. The Guitar here certainly helps matters, making it feel like a comfortable home like it should. And of course I gotta mention the Flute playing the main Dragon Valley melody, it’s what makes this track feel like a treehouse, after all! Being forced to choose between all the 20+ tracks I love from this game was a difficult choice, I’m not able to properly showcase where the soundtrack excels at by choosing any one track.

Although I have to say, it feels like I’m cheating with the Freedom Planet 2 track’s inclusion here, because it sounds NOTHING like the 1st game’s until the very last 29 seconds via a soothing Flute (Is it a Dizi? I’m not certain, but I like it!) carried over from the intro, but goddamn, the soundtrack of Freedom Planet 2 already feels like nothing short of a masterpiece from the little I heard before playing the 1st game! I already feel this uncommon desire to put its music everywhere I go, I mean, just hear that Saxophone, its gone places I’ve never seen that instrument ever reach before! The Piano and Guitar combo breaking up the exciting Saxophone in specific segments is also nothing short of beautiful!

In case you’re wondering, yes, I did push the day for this specific track back a few days just so I’d have more to talk about by finishing the game in question! Its got some Mega Man logic in some of its design aspects, which I think works in its favor more often than not, rewarding your precision plenty. The way health and the energy bars are managed also preserves the flow nicely without coming to a halt, even upon taking damage.

The comfortable gameplay flow goes for the boss fights too, which are quick and easy to learn, then the playable characters help complement this with their variety in gameplay styles that switch up the difficulty of stages and bosses alike, although Carol definitely got the short end. Thanks to all that, this game benefits nicely from replays, which I feel not many platformers I’ve played lately have been able to accomplish quite as much.

Lastly, I don’t see the so-called “cringe” others do in the story, but rather a lack of quality coming from the incomplete feeling caused by the sheer amount of unresolved seeds it plants (As well as a left-field moment or 2 that might force the sequel to slow down a bit, all to justify it), making it a mere prologue to what I assume Freedom Planet 2’s story will actually attempt something interesting with. I highly look forward to what I can find in that sequel in all areas!

(Length before loop [All]: 2+ minutes)

youtube

#freedom planet #FreedomPlanet #freedom planet 2 #FreedomPlanet 2 #sash lilac #SashLilac #Lilac #365daysofvgm #youtube #Youtube #Woofle

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zbeez-outlet · 2 years

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Hello, I have another Levi Ackerman x femreader request after the amazing job you did on my first one! I would like to request one where the reader is sick and Levi has to look after her. Like one where the reader is sick during training and Levi carries her back to his office and claims it's his duty to look after her as he's her Captain. Fluff, hurt/comfort and angst would be much appreciated. Hope that's okay :)

Fever

Levi x FemReader

Canon Universe

Pre-relationship

Concept: See request above!

Summary: As the newest member of the Special Operations Squad, you're eager to prove yourself not only to your Captain, but also to yourself that all of your hard work has paid off. Weakness breeds doubt, something you're not willing to entertain for a moment. Waking up with a fever and nausea curling in your stomach makes proving yourself just a pinch more difficult. Maybe no one will notice.

Warnings: Angst, illness, vomit, fever, some cursing, (If I missed anything, please let me know)

A/N: I am now tackling the amazing requests I've gotten in my inbox. If you've made a request, know that it's on its way and I'm writing as much as I can. You all have some great ideas! If you want to make a request, check out my Submission Guidelines for more details and keep an eye out for my inbox to reopen :)

The world tilts dangerously about a third of the way through your ninth lap around headquarters and you're starting to think the ache you'd felt that morning in your stomach was more than just residual cramping from your last period. Since then, you've gotten dizzy, become prone to sweating and sudden chills within seconds of each other, with a sore throat and a heavily congested chest, and you've had to swallow down the threat of nausea several times since breakfast.

You're sure the sloppy oatmeal you'd choked down will look just as appetizing coming up as it did going down.

Sweat drips into the divots of your collarbone, soaking unpleasantly into the fabric of your uniform and making everything disgustingly sticky. You struggle to suck in air as you run, already several meters behind the others in your new squad, but something heavy has settled in your chest, pushing on your lungs.

You feel pathetic.

It's been nearly six weeks since you were transferred into the Special Operations Squad by request of Captain Levi himself. They welcomed you with open arms and teasing taunts for the newbie, but you were quick to give as good as you got once you got a feel for their dynamic and boundaries. You'd managed to keep up well despite being several years younger and with only a fraction of the experience they'd survived, making especially close friendships with Petra - as the only other girl - and Eld, who tended to act particularly brotherly. Just those few weeks and already you feel like you've gained a new family.

And now here you are, two weeks from the next expedition, sick pooling in your stomach and pulsing in the heartbeat behind your eyes, unable to finish your squad's morning lap rotation. Shame swirls in your throat, a part of you angry with yourself that you can't just shake this off. The larger part of you is just trying to stay on two feet while the world seems to shift unnaturally below you, practically praying that the tears you feel building in your eyes don't overflow.

At the sound of someone calling your name, you trip to your knees when the vertigo of looking up has you stalling. Strong hands steady your shoulders so you don't completely face plant into the grass, and before you think too much on it, your own fingers grip at their wrists as a grounding point.

"Cadet, talk to me," a deep voice you know all too well barks by your ear. Your Captain was the one to catch you, how embarrassing. You wonder how much he's questioning your addition to the squad.

"Captain I - sorry, sir...dizzy." You lean further forward passed Captain Levi's shoulder, practically folding yourself in half as you try to steady the shifting haziness in your vision. "Woke up not - not right...thought it'd pass but...but got worse."

Even you think what you just said makes about as much sense has one of Squad Leader Hange's rambling titan tangents.

Fingers cold like ice press to your forehead, the shocking sensation having you flinching back onto your heels. "Tch, don't move so much," your Captain orders, holding you in place by the scruff of your neck and laying his palm against your forehead again. "You have a fever. You're done for the day, Cadet."

"Wait, no - I can...just give me a minute - "

"You disobeying me, Cadet?"

You swallow, both to keep the rising nausea at bay and at the subtle sting of the harsh authority in his voice. "No, Captain Levi, sir!"

"Lose the equipment, the others will take care of it. I'll help you back to the barracks." He sounds uncharacteristically soft when he says it, helping to guide your hands along the straps. You always train in full kit to make sure your bodies are toned and used to the extra weight.

As you go about unbuckling the various straps, you finally notice the rest of your squad huddled around your pitifully kneeling form. You expect to see teasing smirks barely holding back biting jabs about being new and weak and young, but you only spot the curving worry of Petra's frown and the matching concern sparkling in Eld and Gunther's eyes. Even Oluo, who's always had the iciest barbs to through about your age and minimal experience, seems gruffly perturbed by your downed state. It almost makes you want to cry, realizing how much they already care about you in such a short amount of time.

You pass off the last of your equipment to Eld who has taken to kneeling beside you, heavy hand on your trembling shoulder. "Getting sick happens, just take care of yourself, alright? You'll be running laps around us again in no time." He smiles at you, gently cuffing your chin with a soft fist. You nod and manage half a watery grin in response.

"Eld, I expect you to lead the rest of training today. No slacking off you four," Captain Levi orders, not even bothering to watch as they salute him and head back to the lap route. His eyes are strangely focused on yours, and you briefly wonder how disgusting you must look between the cold sweat and the dirt that's built up on your uniform. "Think you can stand?"

Honestly no, but you think you can try, so you nod anyway.

Standing turns out to be the easy part, as long as you go slow. Your Captain stays close, hands hovering like he expects you to fall. A fair assumption, but you're proud to say you got to your feet with little to no issue - except the ache in your joints and migraine sharpening in your temples and the shivers wracking your body. Then you attempt a step forward, and it feels like the grass and the clouds have suddenly switched places as you try not to collapse again.

"Tch, yeah thought so," Captain Levi grumbles behind you. You're about to apologize when his hands are abruptly turning you just so, arms winding around your shoulders and below your knees. He holds you close to his chest, quick steps heading towards the barracks, and all you can do is stare at the sharp curve of his jaw as a blush you want to blame on the fever rises to your cheeks. His silver eyes glance down at you and he scoffs. "You throw up on me and you'll have stable duty for the next two months."

You snap your gaping mouth shut, choosing not to question the bizarre situation you've found yourself in, and hope the way you relax into his arms isn't too obvious.

"Sorry Captain, for disrupting training," you mumble, daring to rest your head below his chin because your muscles are aching and your neck was struggling to hold you up.

He hums, the rumble of the sound vibrating against your arm. "Not your fault you're sick, brat. You tried to work through it, I get that," he sighs like he's as exhausted as you are. "Just, listen to your body next time. Go to the infirmary, ask for some rest. We take training seriously here, but not at the expense of your overall health and wellbeing. It would do more harm than good. Don't be an idiot."

That makes sense, and you probably would have done so if you weren't so caught up in the pressure associated with being in the Special Ops Squad. Only a few weeks into your new assignment at that. This feels like a major step back from your progress in the military, not to mention a hit to your pride.

But still, sloppy training at the risk of your health is dangerous. You should have known better.

"Apologies then sir, for not speaking up sooner."

"Stop with the apologies, I already said it's not your fault," he huffs, rolling his eyes as he steps into the cool corridor of the barracks. You've never been this close to him before; his eyelashes are beautifully long and his cheeks seem soft. "Besides, as your Captain, I should have noticed something was off."

You're quick to shake your head despite the way it makes your vision spin. "Captain no, I - "

"Shut up, we're not going to argue about this now. Or ever." But you want to argue because the decision you made to move forward with training despite not feeling well was hardly his fault. You bite your tongue, focusing instead on the startling fact that he's not leading you to the infirmary or your dormitory.

"Uh, sir?" You frown, slowly recognizing the bend of the hallway. "Are we...are we going to your office?"

"We are." He slightly adjusts his hold on you, a fresh wave of heat highlighting your cheekbones when you're reminded of your position. "That a problem?"

"No, no I just...don't understand. The, um, the infirmary - "

"Is crowded with disease and noise and not a suitable place for getting any real rest. And someone needs to keep an eye on you so you don't choke on your own vomit or something."

It suddenly hits you as he's deftly maneuvering his body to nudge the door to his office open, outside of orders and mission briefs, you've never heard him speak this much before. You chew on your cheek, fingers fiddling in your lap. He has a really nice voice.

You can't really imagine him bringing someone like Oluo, or any of the others, to his office like this - except maybe Petra, but they've always been especially cordial - and you feel overwhelmed by the whole situation.

The Captain's quick to leave you standing on your own, leaning against the edge of his desk for balance, while he disappears into his adjacent quarters. You're left stumped and still a little dizzy while you wait for him to come back. Idly, your fingers trace the dark wood of his desk, coming away clean of course, noticing the intricate alignment of every little knickknack and stack of paperwork on the surface. You end up having to grip the surface when you feel yourself start to tip over.

You blink, and Captain Levi is standing in front of you, brow furrowed as he steadies you with one hand, the other holding a pile of blurry fabric. Blurry? No, no wait, that's just you.

"Showering's out of the question until you can stand more than a few seconds without falling over," he mumbles - to himself, you think because he doesn't seem to wait for any kind of response from you. He pushes the fabric into your hands. "Change into these so you're at least in clean, comfortable clothes. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Where...?" But you don't finish, exhaustion suddenly pulling at the weight of your tongue.

"Some tea will help, and Hange has a store of medicine in their office. Get changed, sit on the couch, I'll be back soon." It's gruff and curt and the familiarity of the tone has you relaxing into the strange circumstances that have lead you to your Captain's office today.

He's out the door before you have a chance to nod that you understand, so you sigh and take a moment to just catch your breath.

That turns out to be a bad idea.

Your stomach churns, and you only have the warning of your throat constricting before you drop the clothes and scramble towards the bathroom you know is in the Captain's quarters with your palm holding your mouth shut. A few agonizing milliseconds later and you're heaving into the porcelain bowl of his toilet. You're so fucking grateful you made it to the bathroom, pretty sure that if you had thrown up all over your Captain's clean floors, not only would you be off his squad, but you'd probably also find yourself dishonorably discharged from the military entirely.

The way your stomach cramps brings tears to your eyes. You were right, the oatmeal looks about the same as it did going down. A mix of sweat, tears, and saliva drips off the point of your chin, and you can't think of a way to be more miserable.

You're not sure how long you sit there, fingers white-knuckled on the porcelain edge, throat gagging even when there's nothing left in your stomach.

"Shit," you hear, cold hands dragging across the clammy skin of your neck, tugging back your hair. The Captain's back, pulling your hair from the slick of your sick. Walls, you hope you don't look as pathetic as you feel. "Okay, okay just...let it out."

"Hu-hurts," you whimper, spitting into the toilet.

He shushes you, swiping what you think is a cold damp cloth across your sweaty forehead and spit sticky chin. It feels nice. "I know, I know. It'll pass, just let it out."

Minutes pass stuck in the miserable cycle until you finally feel steady enough to push away from the bowl, leaning back against the wall to take deep gulps of air. You flinch at the clear glass of water held to your lips, but manage a few stale sips without feeling the urge to cough it back up again.

Captain Levi runs the cool cleansing cloth along your skin, sharp silver eyes tracking all over your face so intently you find yourself swallowing for a different reason entirely. Eventually his gaze settles on your own, the concern softening the stoic glare you're so used to seeing, and you nearly want to cry again.

"Thank you, Captain," you manage between labored breaths, eyes half-lidded at the drop in your energy.

"Levi."

"Hmm?" Your brows furrow, head lolling back against the wall in your confusion.

"Just Levi is fine, we're not on duty right now."

You're not sure what to say, stalled by your tongue stuck in your throat. Actually saying his name like that, so familiarly...you don't think you can.

Levi.

Maybe you can just think it.

Instead of replying you just nod, sniffing a little as you flush the evidence of a disgusting half hour down the toilet. "Sorry about that."

"Couldn't be helped, don't worry about it," Levi - wow, that's strange - dismisses with a wave of his hand. "Thanks for sparing my floors."

A halfhearted and decidedly painful chuckle shakes your shoulders, though you're grateful for the levity. "Anytime, sir."

He scoffs at the honorific, but can he really expect you to drop decorum so easily? You hardly think so, though he's already treated you a fair bit better than some friends of yours in this situation, let alone a superior.

Levi tosses you the same clothes he'd picked out before, standing to his full height, seeming as imposing as ever from your spot on the tile. "Try to change, go slow if you feel dizzy. Drink the rest of that if you can," he points to the water glass on the vanity. "I'll be right outside in case you fall or something."

Changing clothes turns out to be less nausea inducing and far more exhausting than you expected. You fold your uniform as neatly as possible, stacking the clothes on your discarded boots in the corner of the bathroom. The pants Levi gave you fit well enough, a little short on the ankles and tight at the hips - not surprising given his slimmer waist. The socks are warm and thick, almost cozy. He gave you a larger t-shirt that you almost wonder if it even belongs to him, the shoulders of it broad and length extra baggy, but you've been known to buy oversized sleep clothes for the swaddled comfort, so you don't think on it too much. The fabrics are soft and smell like fresh linen, clean and slightly lemony.

You pull back your hair to quickly rinse your face and gurgle some water to get the acidic taste of bile off your tongue. Without a toothbrush, you try to scrub at your teeth with your finger to clean out as much as you can. Dutifully, you tackle the task of drinking the water cup, both parched and fearfully nauseous at doing so.

It goes down relatively smoothly, which allows at least some of your lost pride to trickle back in.

You clumsily stumble from the bathroom, surprised at how quickly Levi's arms find their way around your waist to steady you. He keeps one hand high on your hip, the other gripping your elbow, as he leads you back into his office to sit on the couch. He sits on the table next to the tray of tea he'd promised and a bottle you know is some tasteless medicine you'll have to choke down.

"Better?"

"Much." You lick your lips, looking from your Captain to the tray of tea. "I have to drink that now, don't I?"

A dry smirk pulls at his cheek as he goes about pouring you a cup with a small drizzle of honey. "If you want any chance at feeling better, yes. The tea will settle your stomach, the medicine is for the rest." He takes what looks like a comically large table spoon in your hazy eyes and fills the curve of it with the amber colored medicine. Your nose scrunches, lips drawing into a thin closed line. "Don't be a baby, just take the damn medicine."

"Gross."

"You fight titans for a living."

"They're gross too, what's your point?"

"My point is, a talented soldier like you shouldn't be afraid of a little medicine."

Your chest puffs up, a weirdly teasing smile drawing across your face. Everything about this has been strange and otherworldly as Levi actually cares for you on your sickbed - er, couch. "Talented, huh?"

"Shut up and take the shitty medicine before I force it down your throat," he grumbles, and you have to blink away the illusion of a dusty pink warming his ears. You lean forward to accept the spoon, fully aware of the reality of his threats. Like the water, it goes down smoothly if a little bit thick, and tastes of the herbs you remember from childhood under the care of your mother's kindness when illness struck. Once Levi proves you've swallowed it with a hilariously thorough scan of your open mouth, he brings the warm cup of tea to your lips and encourages you to drink the whole thing in a string of gentle sips. The warmth of it spreads through your body, soothing the ache in your throat and relaxing your muscles, helping you sink further into the cushions of the couch.

He's wonderfully patient with you, and you're not really sure how to feel about it besides grateful and maybe a bit embarrassed.

You blink slowly, lids drooping and chin dipping towards your collar when staying upright proves to be a challenge.

Strong hands you trust with your life guide your head down onto a pillow, lifting your feet from the wood flooring so that you're lying across the length of the couch. A heavy quilt is draped over you, curbing the rising shakes you feel building up in your spine, and you can't help but snuggle into the plushness of it all.

"G'night, Levi," you mumble in the exhale of a yawn, eyes slipping shut with a gentle flutter.

"Get some rest." Your name rings from between his slips, quiet and fond and almost reverent if you were coherent enough to be aware of such things.

You fall asleep to the loving touch of something soft and rare and precious against your forehead.

#levi x reader #levi x you #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman x you #levi ackerman #sick reader #aot x reader #aot fanfiction #attack on titan #fanfic

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