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bumblebee-moreno · 2 years ago

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TLOU characters as cats?

general warning for possible spoilers? probably won't go too into detail, but... you've been warned. Also warning: I do not personally own cats, however, I have worked in the veterinary field for over 3 years. So that's where my opinions are coming from lmao

I'm starting with only characters we've met so far in hbo's series (first 6 episodes as of this post), and definitely didn't include everyone, but I might add more later (or if others add on, even better).

--inspired by previous reblog

Pre-outbreak Joel:

You won’t see or hear from him all day… BUT. The moment you’re about to get up to do something, he will curl up in your lap and by law, once an aloof cat is in your lap, you cannot move. You’re running late for an appointment? better just cancel because he’s not moving until the MOMENT the appointment is scheduled to end. You have to pee? You better have a bladder of steel because he’s making biscuits RIGHT THERE. You were getting up to make dinner? No you’re not.

Regularly leaves mouse/rat/bird carcasses for you to find, because clearly you cannot hunt for yourself.

You won’t see him for a week, but then you come home late from work ONE TIME, and he WILL shit in your bed before disappearing into the void again

isn’t outright spicy at the vet, but he WILL be as uncooperative as physically possible: time to go back in the carrier? you now have a starfish cat. Need him to sit still for a blood draw? The whole world will hear about how he’s the most tortured, abused, and unloved cat in existence. Need to catch him for xrays? Better get the stool because he’s on top of the cabinets.

If his water is not moving (like a water fountain type situation), he WILL dump it on the floor, turn on the sink for a sip, and then just. leave the sink on.

Will follow strangers around the house, watching them from a distance. If they try to pet him, he’ll run and hide. Once you’ve gained his trust, though, he can be very affectionate when the mood strikes him. There’s even occasional moments of playfulness

Post-outbreak Joel:

Post-outbreak Joel: absolute scrapper. one of those feral cats that look like they’ve been chewed up and spat back out at least 3 times.

He's very unlikely to approach people, but he will not hesitate to steal their stuff if they leave their garage open.

It’s almost impossible to gain his trust, but once you do, he’s a sweetheart… but only when he’s alone with you—if someone else walks into the room he WILL bite you and run away as if he weren’t just purring and making biscuits on your lap

Will sit on your chest and watch you sleep. If you catch him dosing off… no you didn’t.

Will only ever sleep inside if it’s offered by someone he really trusts, and only on incredibly cold/wet nights. If anyone tried to make him a house cat, he’d be miserable

Don’t even try to take him to the vet. But if you do, be ready to pay for a pharmacy-worth of sedatives, and let the staff know to have the cat gloves ready if they value their limbs.

You will not see him for at least a week afterwards, but you will know he’s nearby because there will be a fresh dead thing on your doormat every morning (hey, he’s mad at you, but he can’t let you starve!)

Ellie Williams:

Will stampede through the house at 3am for no reason.

If you set anything remotely breakable on the counter, she will look you straight in the eye and knock it onto the floor.

I’ve been my old boss’ house sitter for years now. One of her cats LOVES cuddles… unfortunately, in her kitty brain, ‘cuddles’ means sleeping directly on your face. If you try to move her or roll over in your sleep, you WILL get bit. Not hard enough to do any real damage, but just enough to kinda hurt, y’know? I feel like that’d be Ellie.

Loves hunting, but rarely actually catches anything. If she does, it’s a toss-up whether she’ll kill it or just rip a few limbs off and get bored. (I obviously don’t see human Ellie as doing anything like this, but I can definitely see a cat version of her doing it)

Will stick her paws as far under the bathroom door the whole time you’re in there, but as soon as you finish and open the door, she’s nowhere to be found.

There’s no doubt that she’s very much a feral cat, but unlike Joel and Tess who are the overly cautious type, Ellie is the cat that will act friendly for a meal and warm spot to sleep, but if you try to contain her beyond her own terms, she will go apeshit and destroy everything in her attempt to get out.

If she’s in the house, any window that has a screen must be left either FULLY closed, or FULLY open. If it’s not 100% in either direction, she will climb between the screen and the window, get stuck, and promptly SCREAM like a ravenous banshee until someone helps her out… She will claw the arms of whoever dares help her until she is fully free, before hissing and disappearing into the void to sulk.

If you're doing something important, she WILL sit directly on top of it and refuse to move. But only if the thing is important. If she's not interrupting something that you actually have to get done, she's not interested.

Sarah Miller:

If zoom were a thing at the time, she’d be one of those cats that interrupts the entire meeting by sitting directly on top of her person’s keyboard.

Will sit on the other side of your bedroom door and scream until you let her in, only to turn around and scream until you let her back out again. it’s an endless cycle.

Has a million and one toys. Will dump them all on the floor and sit inside the box. If she’s feeling extra fancy, she might take a break from the box to unravel every single toilet paper roll she can reach, before promptly returning to her box

Has a hoard of stolen socks under the couch. Some of the socks clearly do not belong to anyone in the house. It’s extra strange because she’s an indoor cat.

Is the reason her family can never bring food to potlucks… there is nothing that can keep her off the counters, and she thinks she is VERY helpful in the kitchen. The pantry has a baby lock because she figured out how to open doors.

It doesn't matter how much trouble she gets into, because the second she looks at you with that face, it's impossible to stay upset.

Tess Servopoulos:

Much like post-outbreak Joel, she’s a bit of a scrapper, and doesn’t trust easy. If you sit still long enough, she might settle in your lap, but if you acknowledge her in any way (including trying to pet her), she will get up and leave.

She’s pretty friendly, but very skittish.

If she's tried escaping and her boundaries continue to be pushed, she's not afraid to get her claws or teeth involved. Unlike Joel, they're just not her go-to.

She’s been known to take refuge in the occasional garage, but unless hell has frozen over, she will not be coming inside anyone’s house.

I feel like pre-outbreak Tess would be one of those cats that brings home random kittens of unknown origins, despite being spayed. I have no evidence for this, it’s a vibe she gives off.

Tommy Miller:

y’know those cats that convince like. 4 different people that they’re the owners/families of said cat in order to get fed and loved on by 4 different families? that’s Tommy

If his dish is empty, he will act as if he’s being starved to death. As soon as you fill it, he loses interest and ignores the dish entirely. He wasn’t actually hungry, he just likes knowing the food is there.

He’s one of those cats that everyone adores.

Despite being one of the friendliest cats you could ever meet, it takes a LONG time for him to find a family he’ll actually allow to take him in. Until then, he’s very much a street cat, and will allow as many families to THINK he belongs to them as will feed him, but if they tried to limit his freedom in any way, he’d be miserable. Once he’s found the right home to settle down in, though, he doesn’t go too far past the yard, or occasionally the neighbour’s yard.

When he’s on the streets, he’ll never pick a fight, but he’ll sure as hell win if someone else starts anything.

#the last of us #the last of us spoilers #tlou #tlou spoilers #hbo the last of us #tlou characters as cats apparently #joel miller #ellie williams #sarah miller #tommy miller #tess servopoulos #if anyone wants to add on or say anything about characters I didn't include please do!#there were quite a few characters I didn't include either bc i couldn't think of much or for the sake of time/space #tlou headcanons #I spent way more time on this than i should have

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lepusrufus · 3 years ago

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To bargain for immortality pt.4

The first thing to come to her conscious mind as soon as she woke up were always the faint distant sounds of her home. Faint, as not only was Cassandra's bedroom on one of the higher floors, but any staff members knew better than to make noise while their mistresses were sleeping. Distant barking made its way past a window left ajar, accompanied by scribbling noises.

Nicole turned around, legs tangled in the blanket that was shared until not long ago, to look for a colder spot warranted by the warm May weather. The realization that she was alone in bed made its way through the haze still remaining from sleep. That, in itself, was not unusual as Cassandra almost always woke up first and busied herself with something while waiting for her to wake up.

"Cassandra?" She called out quietly, voice still groggy with sleep and eyes not even bothering to open.

"Just a moment," came her response from the other side of the room, likely the desk, as the scratchy sound of pencil on paper stopped.

The chair was pushed away and a handful of steps took Cassandra to the door, where a maid was waiting outside as per routine. After a couple hushed instructions, the door clicked shut again and she finally approached the bed, looking down at her wife with fondness. She bent down to leave a kiss on top of messy auburn hair.

"Good morning."

Her answer came in the form of a returned kiss and impatient tug of her hand, that she gladly indulged by sitting down on top of the soft cushions that she had priorly abandoned. Nicole wasted no time in wrapping an arm around her waist and nuzzling into her side, happy to feel the cool skin underneath a thin grey robe. Cassandra decided that her wife seemed awake enough to receive news, despite the obvious refusal to even crack an eye open.

"Bela wants to go into town later and asked if we'd like to come."

There they were, emerald eyes finally open and staring up at her in surprise.

"Did you say yes?"

Cassandra scoffed. "And finally get the chance to go out and stretch my legs after being locked up in the castle for all winter? Absolutely not."

That got her an eye roll. "In that case I'll keep on sleeping through the whole evening," Nicole said, pretending to go back to the dream she had just left unfinished, something the mild tiredness that had settled in her body seemed more than happy about.

"Oh no you don't."

Two strong hands gripped her shoulders and shifted her into Cassandra's lap, thin lips intoxicatingly close to her ear. "I even prepared the perfect outfits for the two of us, I simply cannot believe you'd pass up this opportunity for some extra sleep."

Nicole laughed at the feign offense, voice finally clear and free from the morning raspiness. She stretched her arms upwards with a few satisfying pops and then let her hands rest on Cassandra's shoulders.

"My, that's so thoughtful of you," she said, leaving a soft kiss on her lips. "Good morning."

The moment was kindly interrupted by a curt knock on the heavy door. Nicole groaned and moved back on the bed, pulling a nightgown that certainly did not belong to her loosely over her shoulders. When she was covered enough to not put on a show, Cassandra chuckled and addressed the still closed door.

"Come in."

A young woman entered the room, one of the latest additions to the kitchen staff as per Cynthia's request, with a tray expertly balanced in one hand, while the other held the leash of one of the thankfully well behaved hounds.

"Eris!" Nicole greeted the black dog, who snapped its big brown eyes in her direction and started wagging its tail. Thankfully for the girl holding the leash, the dog was expertly trained and did not lunge away to its owners. Instead it followed along, not tugging on the leash until both were just by the bed.

"Breakfast, my ladies."

A small assortment of drinks, together with a plate were placed from the silver tray to the small table on Cassandra's side. One wine glass was filled with fresh crimson blood, a cup of hot tea was sitting right beside it, steam rising up from the liquid inside and, in the smaller cup, dark coffee. On the plate, a freshly baked croissant and a small assortment of berries were waiting invitingly.

"And Eris, as you requested."

The girl held up the leash, but Cassandra simply waved a dismissive hand. "Just let her go. And leave the leash on my desk."

She did as was instructed, unhooking the leash with a soft metal click and placing it, coiled up neatly, on the carefully polished wood of the desk. Then, with a slight bow, she left the two alone once again.

Nicole didn't acknowledge that, too busy patting the spot by her side for the black hound to jump up. Cassandra opened her mouth to protest, but was a second too late as the dog was already in her wife's lap getting head and neck scratches. She sighed. At least all the hounds were kept squeaky clean outside hunting sessions.

"Stop spoiling our hunting dogs."

"Oh darling don't worry, I have no power over Carolina's training," she emphasized by snapping a finger and pointing it to the far side or the bed, direction that the dog followed dutifully, curling up on top of a folded blanket. "Good girl," she cooed at the furry beast, which elicited a tail wag.

Cassandra shook her head with a small smile tugging at her lips. She passed the small coffee cup to her wife, who took a tentative sip to test the temperature. It was lukewarm, as it always was, the routine of all the family ingrained into each and every staff member to the dot. They knew how Nicole liked her coffee, what tea to pair with any kind of breakfast and, probably most important for their sake, exactly how much blood, down to the milliliter, Cassandra liked to drink in the morning. Well, early evening, but who kept track.

The bitter liquid was downed in mere seconds, the taste accompanied by a sour grimace. Nicole did not like coffee in the slightest, having lost any possible appetite for the bitter taste after drinking one too many, or a thousand too many, cups during her days in med school. Unfortunately, it still did its job of waking her up, so a compromise with a sweet cup of fruity tea right afterwards had to be made.

She passed the empty cup back to Cassandra, who replaced it with the tea.

"I have to say, seeing your face scrunched up in disgust every morning is most entertaining."

"Happy to see my attempt at waking up is enjoyable for you," she replied with a pointed look thrown over the porcelain edge of the mug.

The look however was replaced by a content sigh upon sipping on the tea, the prior bitter taste slowly replaced by a blissful blend of fruit and lavender. While their cook Cynthia was downright an expert at preparing all kinds of meat, human included, her biggest talent was creating the best blends of tea, never too overpowering but always with a balanced taste. At least according to Nicole, and she would hold that opinion to the day she died.

While waiting for the liquid to get to a more drinkable temperature, her attention went back to the dog now sprawled on its side. "Why did you ask for Eris?"

Cassandra took another long sip of her drink, far more elegant than one would expect from a woman who had no issue regularly walking around covered in blood. "I just thought we could bring her along, I know she's your favorite," she finished with a smirk.

"That's not true," Nicole quickly replied, as if she were a mother accused of having a favorite child, which only made Cassandra's grin grow wider. She cleared her throat in an attempt to save some face. "I love all our dogs equally, Eris is just… particularly well behaved, yes."

Her wife simply chuckled, not having bought any of her excuses for playing favorites. Not that Cassandra wasn't guilty of that either. Her first response to picking a favorite would be not unlike Nicole's, but she had a particular fondness for Freya, one of their Finnish hounds, who always seemed so eager to sniff out prey on the hunts. She would be lying to say that she didn't entertain the idea of asking her mother to infect some of their best dogs from time to time, their short lives feeling like blinks of an eye compared to her own immortality.

She placed the now empty glass back on the table, not quite as graceful as her mother always did after a meal. They had plenty of time, so getting up was not yet in either of their schedules.

"Are we going somewhere in particular, or just out for a stretch," Nicole asked in between sips.

"Bela has to pick something up and Dani, surprising to precisely no one, wants to visit the bookshop," Cassandra started with a slight eye roll, leaning on her side on top of the cushions and starting to toy with the hem of Nicole's sleeve. "Since we're doing none of that boring stuff, I thought you'd like to choose."

Nicole tapped a finger of the white rim of her mug, nail making a soft clink. She sighed. "Just a walk around town, I'm really dying to get out too."

"You do realize you're not confined to the castle during winter like I am right," Cassandra laughed.

"And leave my beloved wife all alone while I go out and about," her reply was overly dramatic, complete with a hand gingerly placed over her heart almost as if such an idea was close to blasphemous. It only gained her a small snort.

"Should I remind you that I've spent decades in this castle? I promise I can bear it."

Okay, grandma.

With the tea finally gone, Nicole placed the tall mug on the nightstand closest to her, effectively freeing her hands. Free to trace tender fingers up Cassandra's arm, her neck and around the intricate lace of her choker to toy with the fine chains decorating it.

"You sure about that?" Her voice was sickly sweet, all too aware of her unbeatable talent of making someone as sadistic as her wife melt with little more than a hushed tone and gentle hands.

Cassandra did not respond right away. She was nothing if not a prideful person and admitting to the fact that yes, she would miss her, even for a handful of hours, was not particularly high on her list of things to be said out loud. It was almost an unbearably clingy kind, their relationship. Or at least that's what someone who did not know better would say. Truth be told, they were both the kind of people that looked almost desperately, although a desperation worn with odd grace, for comfort in other people. People they would then fight tooth and nail, or more accurately fang and claw, to keep close. It was obvious in the way Cassandra took on the role as protector of the family, nevermind the fact that Alcina would cut any possible threats to pieces before any of them had time to lift a finger. Obvious, also in the way she was so protective over Nicole herself, the beautifully engraved dagger always strapped to the redhead’s side either under a lab coat or at the belt of a dress rendered little more than a fancy accessory.

Cassandra chuckled, wrapping long fingers around her hand and taking it away from her necklace. "Why don't we get dressed before Bela comes to nag at us mm?" Then black lips were gingerly pressed to the skin, leaving a small kiss on top of bony knuckles.

With a shrug and a less than gracious stretch accompanied by a yawn, Nicole got out from under the covers, the red velvety fabric of the robe flowing after her like an impromptu cape.

"Are you wearing my robe," Cassandra's voice came from behind her, together with hands placed on her waist.

Duh.

Not that Cassandra ever truly complained. Finding the oversized clothing her wife often wore quite endearing.

"It does look quite charming on me you have to admit."

"You're practically swimming in it."

Nicole rolled her eyes which only prompted a small laugh.

They fixed themselves enough to be semi presentable for the small distance that separated the bedroom and the dressing room. Nicole was about to suggest wearing something more casual, but the fact that going out for the first time after the long winter months was almost reason for a small celebration for all three of the Dimitrescu sisters made her shut down that train of thought. No harm in being fancy on occasion after all.

The outfits Cassandra had picked out were nothing short of perfect for the occasion. Matching black dresses, Nicole's a tad lighter with a lacy collar and frilly hems complete with a white vest-like corset, while Cassandra's was made out of a thicker fabric and went down almost to the floor, surely due to her tendency to get cold easily.

Not being the kind that lingered in the dressing room too long, that was more Daniela's style, it took little for them to get dressed. The occasional helping hand for small things that one could maybe twist and turn to do themselves, but why bother when you have a perfectly willing to help spouse, was something they both enjoyed and took a couple extra precious moments to let a hand linger or fingers to trace expertly done sems. After some makeup was applied and the leash was hooked back to Eris' collar, they finally made their way downstairs.

They were close to fashionably late it seemed, as Bela, Daniela and Anita were already waiting in the main hall, the eldest throwing a miffed expression their way upon seeing them descend the grand staircase.

Nicole noticed the absence of one of their usual party members. "Isn't Laura coming with us?"

"She had to go to Donna's this morning. Spring preparations and all," Bela's reply came dangerously close to being accompanied by an uncharacteristic pout.

Oh. Someone's in a sour mood.

They made their way down the stone paved road that connected the castle to the town in relative silence, interrupted only once by Bela telling them when they would meet up to head back home. Other than that, they just enjoyed the short walk. And for good reason, the road was surrounded by beautiful rose bushes on both sides, with pine trees expanding beyond them and the sounds of birds and nocturnal animals beginning to wake up blending together in a quiet murmur so typical to the forest.

Once in the town square under the familiar angel statue, Bela wordlessly left them in favor of making her way down a small street. Daniela and Anita seemed more courteous and said their goodbyes and see-you-laters as they turned around, chattering about something only they understood.

Left alone, with their dog whose leash was attached to the same belt Cassandra's sickle was, they started walking down the quiet streets. It was almost sundown, so even the small crowd of people usually going about their business was almost non-existent, knowing better than to be out at night without good reason.

Something that Nicole was yet to grow bored of, even after a few years spent at the castle, was the small architectural oddities around town. It looked quite regular, albeit old, at first glance but a closer look would reveal the rich symbolism resulting from the centuries of being quite literally broken off from the rest of the world and almost frozen in time.

The go to flowers planted in front of buildings were crimson roses, the familiar patterns of swirling vines and leaves engraved into walls and lamp posts. A bakery they passed by had three sickles hanging behind the glass, complementing the harvest theme the entire shop had, together with dried wheat in vases and warm inviting colors on the walls. The one fishery that everyone in town knew had a mermaid gracefully swimming in a panel just above its entrance and horseshoes were nailed to most doors leading to houses or small apartment buildings. Even a toy store had a suspiciously Angie-like doll, although without the cracks and signs of time its original counterpart sported, looking out at any passersby.

One thing that could never go unnoticed however, were the crows. Statues of the birds, big or small, could be seen anywhere, from street corners to rooftops and atop building entrances. Some had their wings spread out, ready to take flight were they not trapped by stone bodies, others had their bills open wide in a silent croak and some were simply looking on. Real crows were also incredibly common, replacing the pigeons any other city had in favor of the black birds, ironically roosting on the statues of themselves quite often and kindly providing the city background noise with their caws. Nicole inquired about their presence once, and Cassandra had explained how the locals see crows as good luck, being a symbol to Mother Miranda. Many people fed them and even had buildings upon which small towers were erected with the purpose of giving the birds space to make nests.

Nicole had a strong suspicion that some of the birds were a little more than they let on, especially after seeing their so-called goddess break into a flock on multiple occasions. Sometimes, you would look at one of the crows perched on a power line connecting two buildings, and icy grey would stare back, the depth in those eyes far too human to belong to any bird.

Her slight glare towards one crow that seemed to look at them from a windowsill was interrupted by the memory of a small list she had tucked in her pocket before leaving.

"Oh, I need to pass by the pharmacy to pick up a few things we ran out of."

Cassandra simply shrugged. "Sure," and she looked around for a moment to find the street that would take them there fastest. Not like they had any plans other than enjoying the pseudo freedom that being out of the castle gave them.

The pharmacy was oh so conveniently located on the other side of town, adjacent to the hospital near the reservoir. Ever since Miranda had found ways to lessen the negative effects of his mutation, Moreau was the designated town doctor, but due to the still somewhat volatile transformations he was still mostly confined to the place and it's murky waters, a fact that he despised greatly. It was an obvious choice, then, to erect the hospital there. It was a small building not unlike the rest of the town's architecture when it came to size, no more than three floors high and with a small staff that Moreau himself had to teach the ins and outs of medical practice. If memory serves right, even Miranda and her assistants had taught some people particularly well versed in the sciences how to operate the equipment and patients alike. Medical training seemed to be hard to come by around here and Nicole had a gnawing suspicion that it was the reason she was still alive.

The building coming into view behind the trees and the paved road that cut through the small stretch of woods separating the town and reservoir looked oddly new in comparison to the rest, as it had been erected only a couple decades prior. Attached to it, a smaller house with matching tiles on the roof and a sign that read Farmacie above the entrance's double doors.

Dogs were normally not allowed inside, but who was going to stop them of all people from marching right in, black hound happily walking by their side. They were the only ones inside, save for a short woman sitting behind the counter, panic flashing in her eyes when her gaze fell on Cassandra's tall frame, hand in hand with Nicole who was at the moment too occupied with pulling out the list of meds she had written. She gave it a once over and, sure that she had everything down, passed the paper to the pharmacist, who knew better than to ask if she had any prescriptions.

"You could've sent someone to fetch these for you," Cassandra said, eyes following the woman as she disappeared behind tall shelves full of small boxes and pill bottles.

"I know, I just didn't want to wait. I don't like running out of supplies," Nicole shrugged.

Plus, Nicole was way less likely to be questioned on why she's buying twenty different kinds of meds than a random maid. Partly because the pharmacist recognized her and partly because any sane person here knew better than not obliging when Cassandra was looming behind her. A small smirk graced her lips at the thought and a sly look was given to her wife, who was too busy playing with the dog's floppy ears to notice. Eris raised her head at the unforgivable offense, playfully trying to nip at the gloved hands that were tickling her, getting a giggle out of the brunette.

All three were distracted by the soft clink of a bell hanging above the door, indicating that someone had entered the pharmacy. It was an older man, looking to be in his sixties, heavily leaning on a crutch held in his right hand.

Cassandra's features morphed into a scowl and Nicole could practically hear the man-thing going through her mind. The man was probably on the verge of doing a complete one eighty and exit the pharmacy, when a voice called out from behind the counter.

"Ah Andrei, I have something for that infection of yours, hold on a moment," the pharmacist called out, before handing Nicole a sizable paper bag full of what she had requested.

She felt an unwelcomed whiff of decay as Cassandra took the bag from her hands, and sniffled in an attempt to ward off the stinging sensation in her nose. She fumbled with the credit card, mentally cursing the payment for not transferring quicker when the smell was starting to make her eyes water the slightest bit.

"Is everything alright my lady?"

The man's voice, full of genuine worry came from behind them, having moved closer upon the pharmacist's urging, and the putrid stench of death and decomposition flooded Nicole's senses together with the slick sensation of blood running down her face. She had to force down a gag as she shoved the card back into a pocket and all but ran out the door, worried wife in toe.

"Nicole what-" Cassandra swallowed any words she had at the sight of the blood flowing down and staining the until moments before immaculate white of her wife's corset.

Nicole made her way to a corner of the building that nobody seemed to go to, and leaned against the wall, eyes squeezed shut and trying to ward off the lightheadedness.

For someone who spent years working on dead bodies in various stages of decomposition, one would think that the smell of death did not bother her. And it didn't. But this was different, the stench seeming to make its way into her skin and clinging to her senses, coating her throat as if trying to choke her out in the most disgusting way possible. Not to mention that there was no actual dead body around.

She coughed out the blood that didn't make its way out of her nostrils and instead decided to go the throat route. Her hands were a crimson mess and so were her face and dress, a pang of guilt shooting through her for having ruined the outfit picked by Cassandra. At least the bleeding seemed to stop and so did the horrid stench.

Cassandra didn't seem to care, nor even notice, the ruined fabric. Instead she pulled out a handkerchief from a pocket and started to gently wipe the blood away from pale skin.

"What's wrong?" She asked and Nicole could only shake her head.

"I don't know. I don't know why this keeps happening," she almost ran her hands down her face in frustration but had enough clarity of mind to remember how dirty they were. "I thought it would go away, and for a while it did. I don't understand what the hell is wrong with me," she added, voice rising the slightest bit.

Cassandra grimaced, trying to get her face clean. "We can talk to Mother when we get back."

A defeated sigh made its way past bloody lips. Nicole had her doubts that Alcina would know any more than them on the situation, which was nothing. They knew nothing.

She grabbed Cassandra's hand to steady herself back on her feet, mind drifting to what she didn't want to think was her only solution.

If there was anyone who could get to the end of this, it was Mother Miranda.

#unhinged maiden™ my beloved #cassandra dimitrescu x maiden #to bargain for immortality #fanfic #doggo!!!#some fluff for a break aye #go out they said itll be fun they said

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theanimeview · 3 years ago

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Crunchyroll Expo 2021 - Behind-the-Scenes Story of "The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat" (ft. Masafumi Tamura, Katsuhiko Takayama, Satoshi Motonaga) - Notes

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Credit: Peggy Sue Wood | @pswediting

About the Event

This panel at Crunchyroll Expo 2021 features exclusive behind-the-scene info from the staff of "The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat," Masafumi Tamura, Katsuhiko Takayama, and Satoshi Motonaga. This is NOT a perfect transcription of the panel. It is a close transcription, with some cuts in the dialogue. Still, I have tried my best to remain accurate to what what said in this panel.

About the Anime / Introduction to Panel

Releasing from Crunchyroll in October 2021 comes a new isekai series filled with assassinations, adventure, and magic. This Fall release is based on “The World’s Finest Assassin,” a popular light novel series by Tsukiyo Rui who also authored “Redo of a Healer” (a very different series in terms of tone and direction). The original light novel has sold over 400,000 copies and has a manga adaptation from Yen Press.

The story follows Kenji Akabane. the world’s number one assassin, as he is reincarnated as the eldest son of a family of aristocrat assassins, Tuatha Dé, Lugh. The goddess that grants him this new life with his memories and gives him one mission to complete in this other world: Kill the hero who is prophesied to destroy the world. He must use his vast knowledge and experience gained that made all manner of assassinations possible in the modern world along with the secret techniques and magic of his new fantasy world along with the insight from his powerful family of assassins to complete his task.

While the story and character take center stage to audiences, one cannot overlook the important roles and contributions behind-the-scenes that make the anime possible. At the 2021 Crunchyroll Expo, staff from the anime sat down for a behind-the-scenes discussion of this upcoming series. The panel included Satoshi Motonaga, the producer of “The World’s Finest Assassin;” Masafumi Tamura, the director who previously directed “The Misfit of Demon King Academy” and “Wise Man’s Grandchild;” and Katsuhiko Takayama, the series composer and screenwriter who previously composed for “Ga-Rei: Zero” and “Aldnoah. Zero.”

Motonaga: Could you tell us what you thought when you first learned about this series?

Tamura: In other isekai series, usually someone with a totally different profession becomes the hero or protagonist, but in this case, he keeps the same profession. The goddess was looking for a professional—the best assassin in the world. I think that kind of protagonist makes the series more accessible. There’s no complexity related to his reincarnation. For me, the question was, how do we make the series awesome given that?

Takayama: This is actually my first time working on this kind of reincarnation story. When I read the series, despite the genre being new to me, it felt nostalgic. Ordinary Earthlings or humans visiting another place and becoming superhuman is a nostalgic genre for me. Like “The Skylark of Space,” a human visits another planet and puts salt on his food because it’s seasoned differently from what he’s used to. The aliens respond by asking, “What is this stuff?” The planet doesn’t have salt, so it’s an incredibly valuable material there. A war is started over salt. The enemy wonders if they can harvest salt from the protagonist, and try to kill him. The idea of common knowledge and materials we have here, becoming incredibly valuable in another world has been around for a long time. We’re revisiting that idea in the present, which feels nostalgic.

Motonaga: So while the perspective is new, the currently-popular format of going to another world has existed previously.

Takayama: [nodding] The format itself and people’s interest in it has been around for a long time.

Motonaga: It’s not just the younger generation that’s enjoying it. There’s a generation that’s already experienced it who might be enjoying works in this genre.

Takayama: That’s right. The current popularity of a genre focused on that specific element felt nostalgic.

Motonaga: It certainly is. I see.

Motonaga: Tamura, you mentioned earlier that the protagonist keeps the same profession. In other series like this one, there are surprisingly few in which the protagonist is reincarnated with the same profession.

Tamura: Being able to use his previous knowledge as an assassin again makes a lot of sense. The goddess chose to reincarnate him because he has that knowledge, and can use his skills as the world’s greatest assassin to kill the Hero and complete the mission she gave him. I think it naturally leads into the start of the story.

[Note: At this point in the interview, the panelists showed the official trailer for this upcoming series. We’ve linked the trailer above.]

Tamura: The women on the cover illustrations for “The World’s Finest Assassin” were drawn by character designer Reia. When adapting their design for animation, I insisted that they be the same women. While designing the female characters, we received a lot of help. We asked character designer Osada Eri for her assistance, and ended up with the cure, cool characters you saw in the video. The design for the pre-reincarnation Lugh came from Reia. I’m very glad we were able to apply designs for the characters that looked the way they should.

Regarding the gun models in the anime:

(TAV photos/Peggy Sue Wood, Screenshot 1 from “Behind-the-Scenes Story of ‘The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat’")

Tamura: This is the model of sniper rifle used by the assassin. We wanted to express the fact that he performed a cool job in the real world. We asked Tsukiyo what kind of gun he used. Since he’s the world’s best assassin, he’d use the world’s best tools, so we went with the CheyTac M200. When we said we’d like to see how it looks when a human holds it, for animation reference, Takayama provided this for us.

Takayama: It’s a Japanese model gun, so there’s nothing dangerous about it. Tsukiyo offered a few suggestions when we asked about the gun. Instead of lead bullets, it uses specialized brass cartridges that look like they were produced on a lathe. It’s an extremely accurate and incredibly expensive rifle. We wanted to make it obvious that his employer was a large and wealthy organization, so this is the model we decided on.

Tamura: We had a 3D [digital] model made for the gun. At first we wondered if we should animate it by hand, but the 3D director, Eda, is very familiar with firearms. When we told him about it, he said, “Yeah, sure. I’ll make you a model,” so we took him up on it. We combined that with the characters in the current animation style, which combines 2D and 3D. When the character cocks a gun, it’s a combination of 2D and 3D. The shot of the spent shells being ejected is 3D only. When a character aims and fires a gun, we used a hybrid style that includes 2D animation. I hope we made the gun look cool.

Motonaga: I’d like to touch on the series’ charming characters, so let’s talk about them. First, there’s the protagonist, Lugh. What do the two of you think of Lugh?

Tamura: [Lugh] was very difficult to animate. He doesn’t really act like a child, but sometimes he does. He’s a complicated character to direct and animate. I struggled with how to get the audience to relate to him while working on the series… [During the animation process, the team focused on his looks.] One of the highlights is seeing how he changes throughout the anime.

Takayama: Rather than focusing on his looks, I write about what’s on the inside, like the principles of his action. In doing that, he reminded me of Ogami Itto from the old series “Lone Wolf and Cub.” […] He seems to perform his duty without considering the feelings of others, but the answers he produces are actually overflowing with humanity.

Tamura: It’s one of the things that make us like him.

Takayama: But the character himself isn’t interested in being liked, and doesn’t believe he’s doing anything good. He doesn’t see himself as performing righteous acts, and isn’t motivated by a desire to do good. He’s just doing what he thinks is right according to his own logic, but from the outside, we can see that what he’s doing is righteous.

[Note: The panelists talk about three female leads. I excluded this discussion because it was really more of a dive into their design and flat-characteristics than about the writing or development of the characters in the story.]

Motonaga: Is there anything in particular you paid special attention to, or wrestled or struggled with as part of the series composition?

Takayama: The original work is a web novel, which means it mainly features a ton of short stories. This type of series with multiple short stories is very difficult to compose. I’ve done something similar before. There was a series composed of several short stories told in a row. It was another series about assassins starring the voice actor Akabane, and the original work was structured the same way. The series composition was incredibly difficult. If the individual stories were even shorter, I would have more options. A little longer stories would have been easier too. This series was filled with short stories that are exactly the most difficult length to work with. The series composition required some special techniques.

I can’t tell you exactly what techniques I used, since that would be a spoiler, but they weren’t all the same. Depending on the content, I had to change which technique I used. It was a very difficult series to adapt into a script for an anime.

Motonaga: Tamura, what did you think of what Takayama just told us?

Tamura: When I get the scripts, I apply the characters’ expressions to them, and their performances or acting--a word I don't particularly like [for what I do]... I want the characters to feel alive within the story. I want the dialogue to feel conversational. Having the actors record the lines will add to that.

Motonaga: In discussions with the author, Tsukiyo, is there anything that stands out to you now that you’ve come this far with the recording?

Tamura: Since he’s the original author, we asked if there was a difference in energy between the lines we recorded and the original work. He was very accepting about it. He said he’d leave it up to the anime professionals, and we’ve leaned heavily on that. I’m very grateful for his consideration. He trusts us and we don’t want to let him down. We rely on hims for some things, like if we don’t know how a line should be spoken. We ask him questions like that during today’s recording. When we ask him how a certain moment is supposed to feel, he gives us advice on finding the right energy for the actors and performance. When I read “The World’s Finest Assassin,” I felt it was different from Tsukiyo’s other works, but I could still sense him in it.

Motonaga: Takayama, how was your experience working with Tsukiyo?

Takayama: You can tell when you speak with him, but he’s very smart. Maybe that’s a rude thing to say but Tsukiyo is very intelligent. He has a lot of ideas, and sometimes I wonder if my plans have diverged too much from the original work. But when I ask him about it, he answers my questions fully understanding what my plan is. He’s not just looking at it superficially. He sees the plans laid out in the script, which would normally be difficult to understand, but he responds relatively quickly. He struck me as a very intelligent person.

Writing an anime and writing a novel are two very different activities. Unless the series happens to be of a particular style, it’s practically impossible for them to match up exactly. This is true of writers for comics, novels, and games as well, but there aren’t many writers who understand writing for a field other than their own. In most cases, it takes a long time to explain things. But when I explain to him how writing a script for an anime works and what I want to do, he picks up on it very quickly. He considers the benefits and drawbacks to doing something in a certain way when answering my questions. It made me think he’s a very flexible person.

Tamura: It was important to establish the world in our meetings with Tsukiyo before we began animating. When he told us about his story’s setting, he also described the kind of music he imagined would go with it, and we were able to select the appropriate instruments. I feel like Tsukiyo was integral to the production.

(TAV photos/Peggy Sue Wood, Screenshot 2 from “Behind-the-Scenes Story of ‘The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat’")

[Tamura then shows us one scene’s storyboard from the anime and explains a little about what it is and how it fits into the process of creating an anime. Rather than type this out, I invite you to check out our post on Aniplex’s panel “How to Produce an Anime” from Aniplex Online Fest 2020 here: https://theanimeview.com/post/639260776495038464/aniplex-online-fest-how-to-produce-an-anime]

(TAV photos/Peggy Sue Wood, Screenshot 3 from “Behind-the-Scenes Story of ‘The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat’")

Above is one screen shot from his presentation of the drawn out 3 second scene when Tarte reveals her staff/spear in the PV prior to coloring. It took 46 pages of key frames for that 3 second scene.]

Tamura: It takes the sweat, tears, and sleep deprivation of all these people (production staff, animators, etc.) to make these. Each 30-minute episode is made by repeating this process over and over.

Motonaga: What are those other papers you’ve got over there?

Tamura: When we discuss the storyboards, we draw rough sketches of what we think the animation will look like.

(TAV photos/Peggy Sue Wood, Screenshot 4 from “Behind-the-Scenes Story of ‘The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat’")

Tamura: I meet with the animation director and chief animation director, who are both responsible for checking the drawings, and we lay the corrected drawings over each other, and finally--it’s traced with see-through paper, and the combined finished product is that stack of papers we saw earlier.

(TAV photos/Peggy Sue Wood, Screenshot 5 from “Behind-the-Scenes Story of ‘The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat’")

Tamura: The pink and yellow lines are my corrections. We go through four total rounds of corrections before it’s animated.

(TAV photos/Peggy Sue Wood, Screenshot 6 from “Behind-the-Scenes Story of ‘The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat’")

Tamura: Japanese animation is an art. Your favorite series are probably made the same way. Additionally, there are time codes put into the same folders as these frames. Time codes truly are the blueprint of the episode as they show which image goes where in the run-time.

(TAV photos/Peggy Sue Wood, Screenshot 7 + 8 from “Behind-the-Scenes Story of ‘The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat’")

Motonaga: On the official Twitter for this series, after each episode they will be releasing parts of the storyboard for those interested.

----

Season 1 of "The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat" will be available on Crunchyroll in Fall 2021.

#vcrx #VCRX 2021 #CRX #crunchyroll #crunchyroll expo #summer 2021 #crunchyrollexpo #V-crx #V-CRX 2021 #The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat #anime #Fall 2021 #世界最高の暗殺者、異世界貴族に転生する #Sekai Saikō no Ansatsusha Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru #Sekai Saikoo no Ansatsusha Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru #note #notes

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victorluvsalice · 3 years ago

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Sims Challenge Wednesday: Fallout 4

And for my second challenge -- one themed around the settlement-building mechanics of Fallout 4! Because that felt like a better fit than trying to do the main plot. . . here we go!

Fallout 4 Sims 4 Challenge

Premise: It was all going – fine, you suppose. Sure, you were living in an embarrassing imperialistic and xenophobic nation, which was fighting a terrible war with the other superpower over the last of the oil reserves in the world, but you yourself were doing good. You had a nice home in a little suburb, you could take advantage of personal domestic robots, you were getting enough to eat despite the food shortages – all in all, your life was pretty okay!

And then some asshole had to go and drop the bombs. By sheer luck, you’d been admitted to nearby Vault 111 mere minutes before the alarm sounded, and you made it there just in time. The staff there was very friendly too, telling you that your new life underground could start just as soon as you were decontaminated in these weirdly-cold pods. . .

210 years later, you wake to discover that:

a) you were totally lied to and you’ve been frozen for the past two centuries as part of some mad experiment

b) you are the only survivor of that experiment – everyone else’s pod failed, and a revolt by the security staff six months into your freezing means they all either died or skedaddled long before you woke up

c) oh, and the revolt was over dwindling food supplies, so you can’t even stay in the vault, you’ll starve

So out you venture into the world, to find – hmmm. People seem to be surviving, but they could probably use some help. Good thing you’ve got nothing but time on your hands. Time and the desire to make proper homes for the new friends you’re finding. Time to build a settlement and make it something this post-War world can be proud of!

Now if only you could shake the feeling you ought to be looking for someone. . .

This is a challenge loosely based around being the Sole Survivor of Fallout 4, specifically being the General of the Minutemen and building settlements. The goals are to build up the world of Brindleton bay from some ramshackle farms into a bunch of thriving settlements, create and manage a club for helping others and improving the world, and defeat the nasties that are making life harder for everyone else.

Packs required: Get Together, Get To Work, Cats & Dogs, City Living, Eco Lifestyle, Cottage Living, Island Living, Discover University, StrangerVille

Your Sim: Create your “Sole Survivor” in CAS. They can be a Young Adult or Adult, and have any traits. However, they are only allowed to have two outfits – a set of everyday wear (for everyday, formal, athletic, party, hot weather, and cold weather), and a set of underwear (for sleeping and swimwear). They will get more clothing as they survive out in the world.

Optional: Rather than start right out of the vault, you may play a brief one-week “pre-War” period with your Sole Survivor to gain some skills and whatnot. The Military or Law career is recommended if you want to follow the actual given backstories of the Fallout 4 Sole Survivors (Nate and Nora respectively), but you’re welcome to give them whatever pre-War occupation you like.

Their World: Set up the rest of the save file as per these guidelines:

Go to Brindleton Bay and wipe out all the existing architecture – you can keep the pre-made families, but not their houses. The apocalypse has happened, and the world has got to look the part! (If you really want, you can keep the lighthouse on Deadgrass Isle, but give a makeover to look wrecked.)

Pick one lot in either Sable Square, Whiskerman’s Wharf, or Cavalier’s Cove to serve as your “Diamond City” marketplace. This should include a small bar, a small clothing store, a grocery stall, a food stall, and whatever other stalls and vending machines you think your Sole Survivor could use to survive out in the wasteland.

In a different neighborhood to “Diamond City,” pick another lot to serve as your “Goodneighbor.” Build a lounge there (The Third Rail) with a bar, microphone for a singer, and plenty of seating. If you want, you can double up and have your lounge in the basement and put a little spa-type building (The Memory Den) up top. Feel free to throw in a goodies stall too.

All remaining mainland lots should be residential, and need to have the “Off The Grid” and “Simple Living” lot challenges enabled. You may enable other lot challenges or traits at your discretion (“Filthy” is recommended, given the state of post-nuke Boston in Fallout 4).

Pick two residential lots on the mainland (in different neighborhoods) to serve as “raider outposts.” Build up these lots to have three or four beds under minimal shelter, and off-the-grid compatible appliances. Each of these lots should have three or four Sims on it, all with either the “Mean,” “Hot-Headed,” “Kleptomaniac,” and/or “Slob” traits. Put all these Sims into a “Raider” club (you may choose your own gang name) and set their club activities to encourage them to “Be Mean,” “Fight,” “Swipe Items,” and “Sabotage Items.”

Set up the remaining residential lots with the bare minimum for survival: If the lot has Sims living on it, make a small hut for them to sleep in, with just enough beds for everyone, and one outhouse with a toilet and sink. No working lights, and they must have only a small fridge or cooler. If the lot doesn’t have Sims living on it, you can only have two beds maximum, and no food source at all. You can build whatever structure you wish there. Regardless of whether or not it is occupied, each residential lot must have a woodworking table, and an outdoor cooking station of some description. Other crafting items (candle-making, juice-fizzing, fabrication machine, robotics station, etc) may be placed at your discretion.

Choose an uninhabited lot for your Sole Survivor to start on – once they are moved in, set their money to zero.

Goals: Your Sole Survivor is looking to complete the following:

Build up every empty residential lot in the world so it can support at least five Sims, one pet, and one robot helper

Improve the occupied residential lots so everyone has adequate food, water, and shelter

Complete the Master Maker aspiration

Complete the Leader of the Pack aspiration as the “General of the Minutemen” and build up the club to full strength by befriending the other “settlers” in the world

Defeat all of the raiders in fights and force their club to disband

Rules:

Your Sole Survivor cannot have a normal job, as those just plain don’t exist anymore. They must earn their “caps” via selling things they have found or made (or, with the right traits, swiped) to other Sims, or via doing Odd Jobs for the people already living in the post-War society.

Your Sole Survivor is only allowed to purchase basic build mode items (e.g., walls and wallpaper, floors and flooring, roofs, doors, windows, columns), animal sheds, chicken coops, and basic pet supplies (food bowls and beds) directly from the catalog. Everything else must either be obtained by scavenging (dumpster diving for items or harvesting wild plants), building it themselves (making furniture at the woodworking table or using the fabricator), or “purchasing” it at the DC marketplace (either by genuinely buying it from a stall or visiting the lot and spending money on SOMETHING to represent a shopping trip). This includes clothing – you may either visit the marketplace once every three days to buy a new outfit for any category, or “scavenge” one by finding something that could reasonably contain clothing from a dumpster.

In order to increase the variety of their scavenging, your Sole Survivor may visit the Bramblewood of Henford-on-Bagley, or go on brief vacations to Granite Falls. Other locations depend on if you can make them look suitably post-apocalyptic (for example, creating a post-apocalypse Newcrest or Forgotten Hollow shouldn’t be too hard, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to justify San Myshuno!).

Your Sole Survivor must build up every lot in their world to the standards of a good settlement – enough food, water, and sheltered beds for all residents, along with power for items that may need it: Food is produced by farming crops and owning livestock. A small crop counts as 0.5 units of food; a tree or over-sized crop counts as one unit of food; a chicken coop with at least four chickens, a cow, or a llama counts as two units of food. (Yes, you are strongly encouraged to regularly trade animals for meat – or, if you feel bad, ingredients and produce.) You must have enough units of food to cover all residents (so a minimum of six). Water is produced by setting up dew collectors or water generators. Each dew collector or water generator counts as one unit of water. You must have enough units of water to cover all residents (again, a minimum of six). Sheltered beds are beds in an enclosed area with a roof. There must be one bed per Sim – you may use double beds, but they only count as one bed for one Sim! (Think of it as making sure there’s “spare beds” for anyone passing through who may stay overnight – Fallout 4 has traveling traders, after all!) Power is generated by generators, solar panels, and wind turbines – each provides one unit of power. You don’t technically need any power on your lots, but it will make your settlements happier if you can actually power things like salvaged TVs and computers.

Once a settlement is set up with all the basics, if it is empty, your Sole Survivor should go out and find homeless Sims to populate it. You may move the Sims in normally, or ask them to be roommates – though given your Sole Survivor will be moving to each settlement in turn to “renovate” it, it’s recommended you move in at least one Sim normally to look after everyone. Once you have all the human Sims, your Sole Survivor should adopt a stray cat or dog, then build a helpful robot to help with gardening, repairs, or generally just keeping people happy. Optional: If you have the Dream Home Decorator game pack, you may, at your discretion, allow your Sole Survivor to join THAT career and make use of it to renovate the lots of settlers who already live in the world. Given how buggy the pack is reputed to be, though, I’m not sure how much I recommend this! (Though I guess if you’re just willing to go room by room, since those gigs seem to work relatively well. . .)

Your Sole Survivor needs to form the “Minutemen” club to help out others in the wastes, by befriending other Sims living in the world and inviting them to join. The club’s required activities should include any of the activities from the following list: Be Friendly Tend Animals Tend Garden Fish Woodwork Work Out Build Robots Fabricate Objects Fight (Raiders)

Related, your Sole Survivor needs to get rid of the Raiders making life harder for the people just trying to survive in this world! Have regular fights between your Sole Survivor and their Minutemen versus the Raiders and keep track of the winners and losers – once each Raider has been bested in at least one battle, disband the club. Your Sole Survivor will then take over their outposts to turn them into functioning settlements. The Raiders themselves can either be moved out or rehabilitated and allowed to live in the new world so long as they don’t start too many fights.

Optional Hard Mode – Expand The Map: More space, more problems – rather than setting up in Brindleton Bay, set up in WINDENBURG. You are allowed two community lots to build up “Diamond City” and “Goodneighbor” in this instance, and a third of your choosing.

Optional Hard Mode – Join The Clubs: Your Minutemen are not the only faction out there in the Wasteland – there’s three others, and oh look, they all seem to hate each other. Set up three other clubs, one each for each of the mainland neighborhoods:

The Railroad – required activities “Debate,” “Hack,” “Be Mean (Institute),” “Be Mean (Brotherhood of Steel).”

The Brotherhood of Steel – required activities “Swipe Objects,” “Work Out,” “Be Mean (Railroad),” “Fight (Institute)”

The Institute – required activities “Build Robots,” “Use Science Objects,” “Fight (Railroad),” “Fight (Brotherhood of Steel)”

All members of these clubs should live and hangout on the same lot (The Old North Church and its basement for the Railroad; the Boston Airport for the Brotherhood (though if you think you can make the Prydwen, go for it); the CIT Ruins and the labs beneath it for the Institute). Make sure they all dislike each other, and make them all “invitation only” clubs. Your Sole Survivor needs to join all of these clubs, work toward becoming the leader of each other, then decide who stays and who goes based on your “ending:”

Railroad Ending – Disband the Institute and the Brotherhood of Steel once you’re the leader. Exile the members of each from the world.

Brotherhood of Steel Ending – Disband the Institute and the Railroad once you’re the leader. Exile the members of each from the world.

Institute Ending – Disband the Railroad and the Brotherhood of Steel once you’re the leader. Exile the members of each from the world.

Minuteman Ending – Disband the Institute once you’re the leader – at your discretion, the members may keep their lot, though they have to give up their basement labs and live in the ruins up top. The other two clubs may remain depending on how friendly their members are with your own Minutemen club. Check everyone’s relationships with each other – if the majority of either club hates the majority of the Minutemen, that club must be disbanded.

Given the size of this hard mode, I would recommend running it in tandem with “Expand the Map” above so you have more room to breathe with each club!

Optional Hard Mode – Automatron DLC: Create a placeholder Sim, get their Robotics up to ten, have them make a Servo, then kill the Sim and either let the Servo live on the lot alone or have them wander as a homeless NPC. In order to get access to the Robotics station, your Sole Survivor must find and befriend this Servo.

Optional Hard Mode – Vault-Tec DLC: One of your lots is not a traditional settlement, but an unfinished Vault-Tec vault! This settlement must be built entirely underground, and does not have any beds, water, or food when your Sole Survivor arrives. However, it does have at least three generators for power! Also, the first Sim you recruit to live there must have either the “Good” or the “Goofball” trait.

#fallout 4 #sims 4 #sims challenge #fallout 4 sims challenge #oh man this one took WAY longer to whip into shape #I KNEW what I wanted to do with it #but figuring out exactly what rules I wanted was tricky #but I'm decently happy with what resulted #again this is the 'rough draft'#feel free to tweak and adjust to your heart's content #this one's probably an especially hard challenge given the rules but #well hopefully if you like settlement building in Sims 4 #queued

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bronzebtch · 2 years ago

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someone once told her to not trust the people she finds in king's landing. be polite, yes. be courteous and understanding and firm, when she needs to be. but trust ? trust is as good as a dagger. once you've given it to someone, they have the power to wield it against you - to stab you right back when you least expect it. rhea cannot remember now who has told her that in the midst of all the commotion once the keep had gotten word about the arrangement. maybe it had been one of her lady-in-waiting, or a staff in the kitchen, or a squire who's helped her rode broiefort for the last time — though rhea has forgotten whom, she remember the sentiment.

it stayed with her; it has made her docile enough that her tongue remains still in her mouth, as much as they could, while curious ladies flaunt, or some of the handmaids whispers. and yet — yet there princess aemma was. she'd welcomed rhea so easily, held her hand, told her that she'd gained a sister. did she ? it was hard to believe so, and yet, oh. does rhea want to. she misses her own very much; joy royce who is exactly like her name suggests. so full of mirth, rhea missed hearing her giggles echoing down the halls.

❝ if i've gained one then, you've gained two. ❞ rhea finds herself answering, in spite of it all. ❝ my little sister — joy — her full name is jovina, but that is what father called her. his little joy. she would've adored you, ❞ rhea tells the princess truthfully. her little sister were always so curious why rhea hadn't much been interested all the traditional ladylike interests, and though her assumption was right, that she had held little interest them, it was mostly due to lack of talent - and time. preparing for lordship has its own disadvantages. it keeps their people safe, but it has her busy. aemma's calmness, and beauty, for a moment, has rhea envious.

maybe if all else go bad, rhea would still return with the gracefulness to which aemma is showing her. maybe then joy would not be make such ridiculous faces when rhea is too stern, or far too firm on a decision. ❝ — and she would've loved a babe. she once insisted she'd grow to become a nursemaid when one of our staff had a baby in the keep. she had followed miss francesca everywhere, and cried for a week when her husband came to fetch her for her bedrest. truly, i hope i will not be with child so soon; joy is still young yet. she has need of me. ❞

but that seems foolish, even in her own ears. idealistic. if the queen demands an heir out of her husband, who is rhea to refuse ? suddenly the prospect of marriage has her stomach in knot. rhea holds for a cup of tea, and drinks them, only to sooth her nerves, though she is soon distracted by princess aemma's account. oh. her soon good-brother is seasick. how ... incredibly human. it has rhea smiling too, that her idea is received well; that there is much to look forward after all. ❝ oh, you ought to! perhaps, when your babe is old enough yet, you may also come for our spring's singing. we hold it every year — there's dancing, and food, and music. ❞

aemma feels immediately foolish for her words, when rhea continues speaking and lets her know that her mother has passed on already. "oh, please forgive me, i did not know", she says quickly and reaches out for the girl's hand to give it a squeeze. "i am so very sorry you lost them both. but even though it is a small consolation, i know, you have now gained a sister." the princess smiles gently at the other, hoping that they can be good friends in the years to come and find solance in each other. she, too, has lost a mother, but given aemma never truly met her, she assumes it is a very different loss.

"i am sure she would be very proud. not every daughter gets to marry into the royal family." it is mayhaps a questionable honor, given the reputation of all targaryens and daemon's nature, but it will give rhea's family a higher standing in the vale. if anything, it will satisfy her father knowing his daughter is well taken care of. as a member of the royal family, rhea will never want for any material things, just like aemma never has even before she came to live at the capital. it might not make up for the lack of love she is currently facing, but at least it is something.

when it is rhea's turn to squeeze her hand, aemma smiles widely and nods at the suggestion. "dragonstone is magnificent. i have been once with my grandmother, but it was merely a quick visit. i am sure daemon will love to take us. viserys is not suited for the sea. he will not voluntarily step into a boat, i'm afraid and given his dragon is no longer alive, i'm sure he'll pass. he gets seasick, which is quite hilarious in my opinion, because dragons move much more than a boat, but there's that." aemma laughs a little and shrugs. she has been on a dragon before and her stomach found it much more upsetting than a rough sea, at least in the beginning. "once the babe is born and i have recovered, i must visit you at runestone as well. i have heard so much of it, yet never been."

#wcrriorhearts #wcrriorhearts: aemma.#THEY DIDNT KNOW YET!!!! *PUNCHES A WALL*#THEY DONT KNOW IT WILL ALL NOT BE WELL #im emotional!!!#BRONZE BITCH: INTERACTIONS.

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nerdythebard · 4 years ago

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#13: Doctor Strange [Marvel]

By the Eternal Vishanti, I welcome you back!

Today we're making the Sorcerer Supreme of the Marvel Universe-616, Doctor Strange. This spell-slinging master of the mystic arts has been my favourite superhero for quite some time now, and I'm always excited whenever we get something related to him. Now, just a quick note – this build is going to be based on the comic book version of Strange, not the MCU one. We're having real spells and incantations, not some thinly-veiled Clarke's Third Law. #LetMagicBeMagic.

Next Time: The Gods call for us again. The Dragon King blesses us with his presence.

Now then, let's examine what we need to become the mightiest mystic of the Multiverse:

Arcane Artillery: Doctor Strange holds enough mystic knowledge to give Mind Flayers an indigestion. What he doesn't know, he can look up in his Sanctum Sanctorum's library. We need to be prepared to have a spell for almost any situation.

Mystic Fists of Fury: Before opening his Third Eye fully, Strange spent some time in Kamar-Taj under the tutelage of the Ancient One, practising his combat skills in case he was ever in a situation where magic would fail him.

The Old Favourites: Whatever incarnation of the character we encounter, Doctor Strange is almost always certain to have the following items on him: the Eye of Agamotto, the Cloak of Levitation, and occasionally the Book of the Vishanti. After the Last Days of Magic event, Strange found a likeness for weapons like shortswords, staffs, and axes.

---

Stephen Strange was an ordinary human, but due to the years of exposure to otherworldly mystic forces, his biology changed to not accept regular human food anymore. This sounds like a good excuse to make him Variant Human. We get a +1 to two abilities of our choice (Intelligence and Constitution), we know how to speak Common and one other language of our choice, we get to pick one skill to be proficient in (Investigation), and we get to pick a feat. The Medic feat gives us a +1 to Wisdom, proficiency with the Medicine skill, and the ability to tend to our party members' wounds on short rests (Medicine check [DC 15], if successful - the player can use the maximum value of their Hit Dice to regain Hit Points).

Although he started as a simple physician, the turning point of Strange's life was his training in Kamar-Taj. He gained skills and knowledge, vast enough to call himself a Sage. From this background, we gain proficiency in Arcana and History, we learn two more languages, and we gain the Researcher feature; when we're to recall a piece of lore, and we don't know it, we usually can figure out where to find the information (be it a library, a temple, or somebody's private collection).

ABILITY SCORES

Intelligence is our primary stat, serving as our casting ability and our pride. Next is Constitution, all casters need to keep it high. We follow that up with Wisdom, lessons of the Ancient One granted us both humility and broadened our horizons.

Dexterity is a little low, but we'll take care of that later. Charisma is next, even after his training was complete Stephen can be a bit of a jerk and refusing to hear anyone but himself. Finally, we'll dump Strength.

CLASS

Assigning a D&D class to Doctor Strange was a very (and I mean very) difficult task. Starting off, I had to disregard his Sorcerer Supreme title, because in D&D sorcerers are born with the ability to wield magic. Strange had to study and practice to get his powers, so that makes him a Wizard. Kamar-Taj is also dedicated to studying the teachings of the Vishanti, a trinity of god-like beings who give the Sorcerer Supreme their powers, so that would make Strange a Cleric. Finally, he also draws powers from deals he made with otherworldly entities (such as Cyttorak, the Faltine, Munnopor, Watoomb, sometimes even Dormammu himself), which screams 'Warlock', except there's no way to incorporate multiple patrons without homebrewing. It wasn't easy, but I am satisfied with what I've created. Hopefully, you'll be, too.

Level 1 - Monk: We start just as Strange started, by honing our body first. Monks get the d8 Hit Dice, [8 + Constitution modifier] initial Hit Points, proficiencies with simple weapons and shortswords, and proficiency in one set of artisan's tools or a musical instrument (I'd go with alchemist's supplies). Our saving throws are Strength and Dexterity, and we get to pick two class skills (Insight and Religion).

Monks start with Unarmoured Defence. When we're not wearing armour, or holding a shield, our AC equals [10 + our Dexterity modifier + our Wisdom modifier]. We also get Martial Arts, which gives our unarmed strikes some more power. We can now use Dexterity instead of Strength for our unarmed strikes attack and damage rolls, we replace our Strength modifier with a d4 for damage of our unarmed strikes, and if we use the unarmed strike (or a monk weapon) on our turn as an Attack, we can use a bonus action to make an extra unarmed strike.

Level 2 - Monk: We get more mobile with Unarmoured Movement. Our ground speed increases by 10 feet if we're not wearing armour or holding a shield.

We also get access to the Monk's signature feature, the Ki energy. We start with 2 Ki Points, which we can spend on the following abilities:

Flurry of Blows: Spending 1 Ki Point after making an attack, lets us make two unarmed strikes as a bonus action;

Patient Defence: Spending 1 Ki Point lets us take a Dodge action as a bonus action on our turn;

Step of the Wind: Spending 1 Ki Point doubles our jump distance for the turn, and we can take the Dash or Disengage actions as a bonus action.

Level 3 - Wizard: We finally begin our study of spells and arcane arts.

Unfortunately, multiclassing into Wizard does not give us any additional benefits. We do, however, get Arcane Recovery. Once per day, during a short rest, we can choose a number of expended spell slots and refill them. The number must be equal to half of our Wizard level (rounded up), and the recovered spell slots cannot be 6th-level or higher.

Wizards also start with Spellcasting at their 1st level, and they know both cantrips and ritual spells. Our spellcasting ability is Intelligence, but unlike many other casting classes we do not get a full access to our spell list. Instead, we start with six spells in our spellbook and get two more each time we level up. Then, we can only prepare and use [Our Intelligence modifier + our Wizard level] spells at once. Describing all of those spells we pick would make this post over a mile long, and I've made that mistake with Sypha. To not make this a chore for you guys, I decided that from now on whenever I make a Wizard (or, a build where Wizard is a majority), I will simply list the spells we pick without descriptions. Let's be honest, if not here, you'll certainly find those in a different build. Alright, let's begin! First, we get to pick three cantrips:

Fire Bolt

Mage Hand

Minor Illusion

When it comes to our starting spells, let's take these six. Remember, we can only prepare a certain number, and we start with only two 1st-level spell slots.

Alarm

Detect Magic

Fog Cloud (to represent the Mists of Munnopor from the comics)

Shield (of the Seraphim)

Magic Missile (as a stand-in for the Daggers of Daveroth)

Sleep

Level 4 - Wizard: We get to pick our subclass, our Arcane Tradition. For Strange, who can be any combination of Wizard, Cleric, and Warlock, the best choice is to pick Theurgy from 2017 Unearthed Arcana. Theurgists are religious magic-users, who focus more on the arcane research rather than prayer and worship.

With Divine Inspiration, we get to select a Cleric Domain and a deity we wish to follow. Ask your DM if it's possible for you to worship three gods as a collective, a magical triumvirate. For your own Vishanti I suggest Mystra, Mother of All Magic, Azuth, the Lord of Spells, and Savras, the All-Seeing. For a Wizard, I'd say there's no better choice than Knowledge Domain.

We also get Arcane Initiate, which lets us replace spells we learn as we level up with the cleric spells of our chosen domain. What's cool about that feature is, other wizards cannot copy those spells from our spellbook. If we get all of our chosen domain's spells, we can keep replacing spells we learn with spells from the Cleric spell list.

Finally, we gain the Cleric's unique skill - Channel Divinity - except in our case it becomes Channel Arcana. We start with two effects: Divine Arcana and the effect granted by the chosen domain. Unlike Clerics, we can use the Channel Arcana once per short or long rest.

Divine Arcana lets us use a bonus action to control the flow of magic in the area. The next spell we cast gets a +2 to its attack roll or saving throw DC.

Knowledge of the Ages grants us quick insight into a skill we're not familiar with. For the next 10 minutes, we're proficient with one tool set of our choice or proficient in one skill we choose.

We gain one more 1st-level spell slot, and for this level's two spells let's get Feather Fall, and Command from the domain list.

Level 5 - Wizard: At this level we unlock 2nd-level spell slots, and we can access 2nd-level spells. Let's get Hold Person (for Strange's famous Crimson Bands of Cyttorak) and Icingdeath's Frost from 2021 Unearthed Arcana: Draconic Options (for the Icy Tendrils of Ikthalon).

Level 6 - Wizard: Time for our first Ability Score Improvement! As is the rule of thumb with all Wizards, boosting our Intelligence is a priority. That's what we shall put the 2 points into.

For this level's spells, we get another cantrip (Light), and let's take Locate Object and Mirror Image (to represent the Images of Ikonn).

Level 7 - Wizard: We unlock 3rd-level spell slots. Let's get Dispel Magic, and we can get Fly to finally get a representation for our Cloak of Levitation.

Level 8 - Wizard: We get our first subclass upgrade. Arcane Acolyte grants us the 1st-level benefits of our chosen domain. For Knowledge domain, it's Blessings of Knowledge; we learn two languages of our choice and get proficiency in two skills... which we pretty much are proficient in already. To not waste a feature, ask your DM if you can double your proficiency bonus for those two skills instead. If you get a 'yes', pick Arcana and Insight.

For this level's spells, let's get Counterspell and Magic Circle.

Level 9 - Wizard: From here, we get access to 4th-level spell slots. Banishment and Dimension Door seems like exactly what we need to keep enemies at bay and have fun with portals.

Level 10 - Wizard: Halfway through the build, and we get an ASI. Let's cap our Intelligence at 20, with those two points.

For this level's spells, let's grab Arcane Eye and turn back a little and get Speak with Dead from our domain list, as it is one of few spells not available to Wizards.

Level 11 - Wizard: We get access to 5th-level spells. With Contact Other Plane and Legend Lore, we become an even bigger magical know-it-all to aid our party.

Level 12 - Wizard: For our subclass upgrade, we get Arcane Priest, which grants us the Knowledge Domain's 6th-level benefit - Channel Divinity: Read Thoughts. One creature within 60 feet of us must make a Wisdom saving throw, or grant us access to its surface thoughts (emotions and active thoughts, no deep secrets or hidden motives) for 1 minute. During that time, we can also use our action to cast the Suggestion spell on the target; they fail their saving throw automatically.

We also get our final cantrip for this build (Sword Burst), and we get two more 5th-level spells: Planar Binding and Wall of Force.

Level 13 - Wizard: We unlock 6th-level spells. With Globe of Invulnerability and True Seeing, we upgrade our Shield of the Seraphim and give our Eye of Agamotto even more mystic abilities (as it should have had!)

Level 14 - Wizard: Time for another ASI! Let's put one point into Constitution for better HP chance, and one into Dexterity.

Arcane Gate finally gives us a proper yellow sparkly portal thingy, and let's get Chain Lightning for some much needed offensive capabilities.

Level 15 - Wizard: We're getting into 7th-level spells at this level. Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion allows us to recreate our very own Sanctum Sanctorum, and with Project Image we can get Strange's Astral Projection.

Level 16 - Wizard: At this level, we get our final subclass upgrade (and we cross the 100 HP mark, yay!). Arcane High Priest grants us the Knowledge Domain's 17th-level benefits. Visions of the Past lets us spend at least 1 minute of meditation to receive information about a specific object we're holding, or our immediate surroundings:

Object Reading - we learn of the object's previous owner. We know how the person came into contact with the object, how they lost it, and a significant even in their life tied to the object.

Area Reading - we see the events that transpired in the specific location (up to 50-foot cube), going back a number of days equal to our Wisdom modifier.

For this level's spells, let's get Plane Shift and Teleport to double-down on Strange's interdimensional travels.

Level 17 - Wizard: Time for 8th-level spells.

Illusory Dragon is a nice nod to the great "Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme" series (go check it out, it's awesome!), and Maze is another good banishment-type spell to have. Just don't use it on minotaurs.

Level 18 - Wizard: For our final ASI, let's put two points into Dexterity, leaving us unfortunately with an odd number (hopefully, you'll manage to find some ability-increasing item or benefit in your adventure).

For this level's spells, let's grab Power Word: Stun and Demiplane is a good combo to immobilize a foe and send it to the Shadow Realm Mirror Dimension.

Level 19 - Wizard: We unlock the pinnacle of D&D arcane, the 9th-level spells... that is, unless your DM introduces High Magic, which is... whew, a league of its own.

Time Stop and Foresight give us those Time Stone abilities (for all you MCU degenerates. Yes, I know what I said, but Strange was given the Time Stone in his new run, so I did not lie!)

Level 20 - Wizard: Our capstone is Wizard 18, which gives us the Spell Mastery feature. We get to choose one 1st-level spell and one 2nd-level spell from our spellbook and make them our signature moves; we can now cast them at will, without expending a spell slot. Shield and Hold Person seems like a good choice here.

For our final spells of this build, we cannot go without Astral Projection, and let's get Imprisonment a chance.

---

And there we go! Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. Let's see what we've created:

First of all, we're the epitome of Wizard, we're a great utility caster and a pretty good support, with Internet-like capability of finding information. We're don't have a lot of damage-dealing abilities, like Sypha did, but remember - Wizards also get spell by finding them in the world and copying them in their spellbook. This here is only what we get automatically. Go and roam the world in search for that Fireball!

We have AC of 14, but with Shield (and later making it pretty much permanent) it can get up to 19, and we have 130 Hit Points on average. Our speed is also a little better, with 40 feet of movement (plus flying thanks to the Fly spell).

Unfortunately, our Charisma and Wisdom are not great, so those saving throws might be difficult. Our Strength is also not the greatest, so we're pretty much forced to fight with magic.

---

And that is it! Next time, we return to SMITE for a few builds, as I absorbs information about Fire Emblem: Three Heroes. Also, the game devs just released a teaser for Morgana le Fay, and my first reaction was 'Hexblade Warlock'. Do you agree?

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it and your day is going great. I'll see you next time!

- Nerdy out!

#dnd #d&d 5e #dungeons and dragons #character building #marvel #mcu #doctor strange #stephen strange #sorcerer supreme #wizard #theurgy

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dollscircus · 3 years ago

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okokok im gonna explain warlocks, witches, wizards, and sorcerers first then go into some basic lore

witch- a witch is a magic user whos powers manifest as items and potions witches rarely cross over into spellwork but if they wanna get certified as a magical user for magical jobs they'll need to go through spellwork classes. most witches end up as doctors or nurses because of how healing potions can work and help the injured.

wizard- a wizard is a magic user whos powers manifest poorly and often need magical items to support them such as wands or staffs (there are book magic supports but those books are highly expensive) wizards mostly do spellwork since their magic is uncooperative most wizards study more than actually work magic and most often become magical professors. if wizards want to work in general fields of magical study and get certified for those jobs they must take potion making classes since potions are more reliable then spells.

sorcerer- a sorcerer is a magic user whos powers manifest by summoning power most sorcerers are extremely powerful and are naturally gifted in magic. sorcerers summon magic from the world around them though if they go to far they may accidently or purposely summon and lock away magic from others to keep as their own. sorcerers are essential in the M.P.F. (magical protection forces) to seal away and hide dark magic and curses!! sorcerers tend to be M.P.F. officers since they are always in high demand for their abilities.

warlocks- warlocks are magic users who used to be a wizard, witch, or sorcerer but through summoning an otherworldly force and and making a contract with them they gain the title of warlock. warlocks do not fully depend on their contract for magic but it can highly boost ones magic. the forces that care to deal with humans are rarely well intentioned and becoming a warlock is highly frowned upon though not illegal. warlocks will often have trouble finding high paying magical jobs through stigma and when they do get good jobs they often dont last. warlocks are often powerful through their contract though each contract is different in nature, a contract could be for protection, education, or just power contracts are as diverse as they warlocks who sign them.

ok ok ok so lets get to lore

the world this story takes place on is highly different lands are cursed to have certain weather such a cybercity (the cyber punk city) cybercity is cursed to forever rain so the people who live there will forever feel the tears of the skies. theres fairy kingdoms but those are far off and protecting the fae and elves live together and dont find much intrest in the rest of the world.

M.P.F.- the Magical Protection Forces is a government organization that is led by magic and whos head is in cybercity the M.P.F. was originally formed to protect the world by the angel of gaurdianship Michael keystone to protect the world from evil magical forces using magic of their own. the M.P.F. was formed after the war of destruction which almost killed of half of the people alive on the planet.

now angels work differently than what youd think, the gods are long dead now and thats important. the angels were formed when the gods were dying out they chose their most devoted followers to become the new gods but the devotees refused saying that they couldnt blaspheme their holy names so they gained the name angels instead. angels cannot die by normal means only weapons unholy can kill or hurt angels.

theres more but i think this is a kind of basic overview for some of the basic stuff thats been fully thought through

-☣

Oh that’s a lot! It’s really interesting!!

Just making me want to do a huge post if my worlds lore

#☣️anon

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iknikblackstonevarrick · 4 years ago

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Red Lightning (Part 1)

---

“What are you doing?”

Lup ignored Magnus’s voice as she clutched the warm silver glove to her chest. Merle was looking at her too, but with far less urgency. Taako stood beside her and didn't waver.

“How do you know?” she asked, looking up at the human woman on the throne with serious intent. “I asked you a question. You said you’d never acquired one of these things before, so how do you know how to destroy it?”

The Director looked down at her evenly, not showing a reaction to any of her words. “We have gone through exhaustive theoretical study of these weapons based on their observable effects on the world and the traits we’ve managed to record. I am fully confident that this process will succeed in destroying it.”

Lup continued to stare with narrow eyes, and the Director sighed.

“If it would make you feel more comfortable, the glove will not touch any hand but yours from now until its destruction. And you have my word, if, by some unforeseen happening the process fails, you will be immediately re-entrusted with the item’s care.”

Lup’s shoulders fell a little bit. Care didn’t feel like the right word. Eventually, she walked slowly up to the metal sphere and dropped the glove inside.

Throughout the entire drawn-out, flashy process, Lup felt sick to her stomach. When the theatrics were over and the Director declared with far too much joy that the gauntlet had been destroyed for good, she knew in her gut something was terribly wrong.

“Are you afraid?”

The boys around her tensed with apparent fear as the skeletal figure appeared in front of them, Magnus jumping straight to swinging through the thing with Railsplitter, to no effect.

“Are you afraid… of the dark?”

Taako opened his mouth to say something, but he was too late to be heard before she burst out laughing.

The others followed suit after a pause, the dramatic tension of the moment cleft in twain. The Red Robe floated helplessly before them, seemingly at a loss.

“Oh god, oh gods, okay. Gimme a second, it’s just-” Lup attempted to collect herself, poorly. “I can tell you’re trying really hard babe, but the spookiness really isn't doing it.”

“Lup?”

She froze. The lich’s voice had changed completely in the moment- gone was all the distortion and the theatrics, and in its place was… a guy's voice. A regular guy’s voice. And she swore to god she knew it.

The space where the lich’s face should be was nothing but a void, but she could feel the creature’s gaze boring into her with such strong, unbridled emotion. Hope. Fear. Something she wouldn’t dare name, not right now, not like this.

“Yup,” she said. Her attempt at being casual came out small and squeaked.

The lich’s gaze slowly became less intense, until he seemed to be looking through her. He looked back toward the rest of her party and delivered a speech about the people they’d fought up to this point and their ‘Hunger’.

“This is your first lesson,” he finished, and just before he disappeared she felt him look at her one more time. Her feeling as this monster disappeared from the room was unmistakably that of heartbreak. Something deep inside her was tossing and turning and bursting to get out, but she couldn’t put a name to it.

“Lup?” she heard again and started, but it was her brother’s voice this time. She turned to reassure him, but then followed his gaze when she saw he was looking at her hands.

There was red lightning arcing between them, but just as she realized it was there, it was gone.

“Something’s wrong.”

Lup spoke aloud to her brother in the middle of the night. The new rooms they’d been given were too spacious not to share, so the room that had been Taako’s was now an extended closet while the two beds stayed in here.

“You had the nightmare again,” Taako said, not a question.

“We’re being lied to,” she insisted, turning to face the opposite wall. She had had the nightmare again, but they’d already exhausted every line of conversation they could have about it over the last ten years.

Ten years. The same starting point as the relic wars. Static started scratching at her brain, and she knew what that feeling meant, even if she couldn’t comprehend it.

“Probably,” Taako agreed. She could feel his eyes on her back. “Do you wanna bail?”

There was no hesitation in her brother’s voice. It was a line of conversation they’d had a million times, throughout their childhood, and more recently in their adult life, after-

After what?

She stared at the wall and breathed.

“Not yet,” she said. She waited silently for his breathing to even out.

“Hey boys!”

Lup cheerfully twirled her umbrella as she approached the guards stationed outside the brig. It was still the dead of night, and she had half-hoped they wouldn’t have bothered to set up a night shift for guarding their sole inmate.

They looked at each other briefly.

“Miss Taaco,” one of them acknowledged.

“Yuh-huh, so I was just gonna head down to give my friend Pringles a visit, it’s totally cool, if you would just let me through here?” she mimed nudging one of them aside with her Umbrella.

“No one is allowed to see the prisoner without the Director’s permission,” the other one explained.

“Totally got it!” she reached into her bag to subtly Fabricate a note.

“We don’t accept verbal or written permission, she has to be here with you,” the other one continued.

She paused for a moment. Then quick as lightning, she whipped her staff between the two of them and hit them both with Sleep.

She clicked her tongue and stepped over them. There was no one out and about to see them right now, and she would have them cleaned up by the time there were.

Pringles didn’t actually end up being worth the risk. As far as she could tell he was never a real red robe- just possessed by one, briefly. Honestly, she questioned the Director’s reasons for keeping him locked up for so long, but at least she knew the next place she was gonna secretly break into during the night.

Oh. That was probably why. She laughed aloud to herself.

“I cannot imagine what’s so funny.”

She twirled around so fast, shooting off another Sleep right in the direction of the voice, but The Director was faster. She put up a shimmering barrier around herself- and Lup narrowly missed her own spell as it bounced back off.

Before she had time to react there was another barrier, around her this time. Lup could tell this one was for containment, not protection, mostly by the draining feeling of the anti-magic field that came along with it.

She looked the Director in the eye, and the expression on her face was… not what she expected. She looked shattered. Heartbroken. Like she had been betrayed in the utmost way. That last thought made a firelight in Lup’s chest.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Lup asked, walking as close to the edge of the barrier as she could get. “What, are you gonna lock me up in here just cause I know you’re full of shit, too? Newsflash: I didn’t need to come here for that, I figured it out on my own.”

The Director sighed deeply.

“I’m afraid you’ve given me no choice.”

The bubble she was in started moving slowly inside the cell next to Pringles’s, which seemed redundant. She pushed on the bubble wall as it pushed her along with it, but she couldn’t gain any ground.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said as the cell door swung shut, trapping her inside bubble and all.

“This is more important than you could understand,” The Director said in an infuriatingly mournful voice.

“Like hell I couldn’t- You never gave me the chance! You never gave any of us the chance! Does anyone up here know what you’re actually doing? Is anyone up here physically capable of it?” Lup glared at her through the bars.

The Director looked more neutral now. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Then she turned to depart from the hall.

Right before The Director disappeared up the elevator, Lup heard her voice again, softer, kinder. Resigned. “It’s just for a little while,” she said, like a mantra, like she was trying to convince herself.

“Fuck you,” Lup said just before the elevator doors closed.

#taz balance #lup #lucretia #barry bluejeans #lup taaco

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dinapaulson · 4 years ago

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The Top Ten Times Bridgerton Titillated Me AKA Gave Life

After making haste to consume the series in a day, and the next rewatching Simon and Daphnes’ scenes only (highly recommend), at the crack of the following, I realized it was the magic of seemingly smaller moments, sometimes, in the form of behind-the-scenes and back story beauty, woven into the larger storyline expositions that really stayed with me—a storytelling feat Her Majesty, Shonda Rhimes, is known for. Here are the top ten times this happened, causing my cinephile soul considerable thought and feels.

1. Simon’s bedside manner while Daphne is in labor

It struck me the first time while watching how—how shall I put it—calm Simon looked, while Daphne screamed and breathed her head off. No, calm is not quite the word—eerily still, without any emotion or exertion of his own. At first confounded by His Grace, I realized he was terrified; scarred and petrified into a place that had no emotion to rely upon. Would Daphne survive childbirth? Was he having an out-of-body experience, imagining, as I am sure he was told, his immense a**hole of a father pacing outside the room where the Duchess was giving birth to Simon, obsessed with the “outcome” and would not deign to be by her side, what that must have felt like, to be so cold and removed from life, feeling, humanity, and here Simon was, in perfect, firm love, at Daphne's side, being a whole part of their child’s birth? (When their son is born, his stock Simon-ness returns, as he, filled with emotion, gently holds their son from Daphne’s arms, then implies, impishly, because of the Bridgerton family tradition, their son’s name must begin with “A.”)

2. A chocolate will do just perfectly

The perfection of friendship between Eloise and Penelope is well on display throughout the series. There was one moment that caught my breath for the sheer ease of what friendship is—truly relating without needing to fully understand the other but being, sitting, anyhow, in pure acceptance of the other and mutual situation. Such is what happens when Penelope tells Eloise, in gentle expository explosion, her path is and will be different, more difficult to navigate than hers, without having a sister who is a Duchess, and moreover, she thinks she wants a life different than the independent dream the two of them speak of. And, to that, Eloise offers a chocolate, and to that, Penelope's smile-inducing smile and simply reaching for one is friendship goals.

3. “I beg your pardon?”

As others have pointed out, there is plenty of hotness to Simon buttoning Daphne’s cuff as a clear metaphor for the sexual unbuttoning/buttoning to come. But, what gets me every time is Simon’s reaction to Daphne’s question, his face both gently confirming and sexily contorting, which seems to beg the idea that in a different house of language, not one for promenade but perhaps one a rake aka Regency f*ck boy would inhabit, this term had an, o, one might say, slightly less innocent meaning.

4. The nighttime, swing chats between Eloise and Benedict

I dare say it was Eloise who checked her brother on his white man privilege that sent him (still) strolling to Henry Granville’s house to take a (completely protected, see white privilege) risk of himself as a potential new somebody, in this case, an artist.

5. Were others hoping Henry and Benedict would have a go at it?

I think I mistook their mutual intrigue for desire, though I dare say Benedict flinging himself with considerable umph into the ménage-a-trois with Madame Delacroix and her friend, may have been, in part, a turn-on from stumbling upon Henry with his love, Lord Willoughby, making love. I recognize this ponderance might be a stretch, but, if I may—remember that conversation A Happiest Season launched in queer Twitterverse about the likelihood, with multiple siblings, of at least one sibling being gay? Come on, there are eight of them! Tell me I am not the only queer fan who would love to see one Bridgerton explore a truthfully desired same-sex relationship on the show.

6. “Simon” (**heart begins to ache**)

After Simon gives one of his best speeches, in episode five to the queen, in his and Daphne’s effort to persuade Her Majesty to assist them in getting a marriage license, so moved is Daphne by what he says, that she turns to him, as if no one else is in the room, with an emotive quiver, staring watery and straight into his eyes, and out comes a quaking: “Simon.” Indeed, Simon’s speech of the love from whom he cannot stay away nor let be the one who got away is the discursive, definitive foreplay to their physical consumption of each other. Later, he says quietly to her heart twisted back: “Everything I said to the queen was true.”

7. “From the mornings you ease, to the evenings you quiet, to the dreams you inhabit, my thoughts of you never end...”

Um. So, this is just one of the most perfect romantic things I have ever heard one human being utter to another.

8. Also: this was a nearly all-female credited writer cast (with the exception of the series’ premiere and finale episodes, credited to showrunner Chris Van Dusen). I delightfully sighed as each woman writer’s name danced in Bridgerton font across my screen. What genius interplay of words that cut and bit and lobbed and heeled, then healed, revealed, and felt so completely—wonderful. Here are the writing credits:

Janet Lin for episode 2, ”Shock and Delight”

Leila Cohan-Miccio for episode 3, ”The Art of the Swoon”

Abby McDonald for episode 4, “An Affair of Honor”

Joy C. Mitchell for episode 5, ”The Duke and I” Sarah Dollard for episode 6, ”Swish” Jay Ross and Abby McDonald for episode 7, “Oceans Apart”

Additionally listed under writers are Jess Brownell as Executive Story Editor on “Shock and Delight” and “Diamond of the First Water,” Joy C. Mitchell also as Executive Story Editor on “Shock and Delight” and “Diamond of the First Water,” and Abby McDonald as Staff Writer on “Shock and Delight” and “Diamond of the First Water.”

9. Simon goes down—a lot

At least two times we know of, but we may assume more, that giving Her Grace pleasure between her legs is something that comes easily, perhaps even needily, to him. Just that. It is hot and wanting and you know, with various talk about men not wanting to go down on women, well, representation matters.

10. Choosing present over past

This is a Golden Age TV theme of late, strong in the final season of Jessica Jones and luscious The Queen’s Gambit, though, perhaps, choosing to be present is the overall life theme, always, and just manifests differently in all of our journeys. The fabulously eviscerate Lady Danbury says: “Pride, Your Grace: it will cost you everything and leave you with nothing.” What Simon gains by choosing to be in his present is not only the opportunity to feel and develop a love, and family, with Daphne, but he gives himself space—cleans out the leftovers, once and for all—to fully inhabit the now, which means anything could be ahead.

#bridgerton #bridgerton netflix #daphne bridgerton #simon hastings #duke of hastings #daphne x simon #simon x daphne #simon and daphne #daphne and simon #top ten #shonda rhimes #thank you shonda #shondaland #netflix #chris van dusen #women writers #golden age of tv #your grace

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flutteringdreams-matw · 3 years ago

Text

Out of Time (7)

First/Last

Read on AO3

Word Count: 6357

Previously: Danny and Dan clash in the Ghost Zone

Now: What everyone else was doing during the fight, some exposition, angst and answers. Did I mention some angst?

Bonus chapter since I'm feeling generous! Link to the next chapter will be in the replies once posted. As always - please let me know what you think!

---

"Danny!" Maddie yelled as she saw her son's transformation. Sam and Jazz turned around quickly at her outburst. "Wait!" It was too late; Danny dove into the portal, completely unaware of her pleas.

Sam gaped at the almost empty side of the lab; Clockwork – who apparently arrived in the commotion –hovered on the ground, red eyes watching the swirling portal with apprehension. "Why didn't you stop him!" the Goth yelled.

Clockwork turned to her, eyes narrowing at her tone. "It is not my place to alter his decisions. Danny made his choice."

Sam opened her mouth to argue, but Ethelwulf stepped forward, putting a large claw on her shoulder. "He's right – let's do what we can to help him hmm?" Ethelwulf walked past her, yellow eyes filled with burning questions for the Time Master. Clockwork said nothing more. Ethelwulf sighed, but stood ready to fight whatever would come through the portal.

Maddie, observing the interaction, finally snapped out of her disbelief as she determinedly went back to the control panel. Jack and Tucker were bantering back and forth about various codes and systems about the Fento-drones as her violet eyes glanced up at the tracker. She could see Danny flying toward the threat, stopping only once as he interacted with the first ghost he saw. The exchange only lasted two minutes before he took off again, flying deeper into the Ghost Zone. "Jazz – you and Sam get the containment field ready," Maddie told her daughter, a plan quickly coming to mind. "Jack- release those Fento-drones as soon as they're ready okay? We need eyes on what Danny's facing."

"Oh, we'll have more than eyes Mrs. F," Tucker said smugly. He connected the control pad onto the main system, finishing the connection before switching it on. Bright lights flickered as two robots flew from the walls, zooming through the air before dashing into the portal. The screens lit up in green as both robots turned their cameras on, giving two different viewpoints of the action. As the robots flew deeper into the zone, Maddie gasped, pointing toward the screen.

"Damn – we've got incoming!" she yelled, grabbing an ecto-gun from her belt and turned to face the first ghost out of the portal.

She nearly dropped the gun when the blue skinned Box Ghost popped into her lab. He looked around widely, desperately looking for something before his red eyes found Maddie. He turned back toward the portal. "This way! Head for the town!" he yelled into the portal, before flying directly toward Maddie. "Ghost Child's parents!" he exclaimed, moving his hands widely. "I have a message for you!"

Maddie's eyes narrowed as Sam yelled from around of the containment chamber. "Is it from Danny?"

"Yes! It is from the Ghost Child!" he yelled. Maddie winced at the volume but gestured for him to continue. Ghosts started to flood the portal, flying up out of the lab in one fluid movement. "He said to close the portal when we get through. Head to the town just like the Ghost King!" He said nothing more, turning intangible and up through the ceiling of the lab.

Jack grunted in confirmation from his position at the console. "Danny must have a plan," he said, monitoring the Fento-drone's path through the Zone. In the distance, he saw a black and white blur racing away from where they were currently. "There! I've got eyes on him."

Tucker frowned, looking over from his screen to Jack's. "I'm switching mine to manual," he said, typing into the computer before manoeuvring the controls. The Fento-Drone he piloted jerked slightly, but steadied itself as it changed its path to follow the half-ghost. His frown deepened as he realized that it was going top speed, but was hardly moving quickly at all. "Mr. Fenton – these are still super slow."

Jack cringed, rubbing the back of his neck slightly. "I didn't have a chance to test drive these puppies after I added the weapons system," he admitted, also changing his Fento-Drone to manual. "But they pack quite a punch!"

Tucker groaned in frustration, but continued to try following Danny past the multitude of ghosts.

Sam frowned, watching her friend pilot the Fenton's machine almost like he was in a RPG game. "Any sign of Dan?" she asked worriedly, holding one panel of the containment chamber open. Jazz's head shot up at the mention of the name but said nothing.

Tucker sighed, sagging slightly. "No, and we lost Danny too," he replied glumly.

As the last of the big wave of ghosts came through and into the town, Frostbite came through the portal, landing on the metal floor with a loud thud. "Mighty Fentons!" he greeted quickly, before turning his attention to Ethelwulf and Clockwork with a frown. "The Great One told me to seek you out. He's gone after Skulker and Ember."

"Skulker!?" Jazz asked, confused. "Why would he go after him?"

Frostbite looked at the red head. "Skulker and Ember volunteered to stay behind when our ice blockade fell. The Great One wanted to help." He turned his large furry head to Ethelwulf, locking eyes with the friend. "It's started, hasn't it."

Ethelwulf moved to answer, but Clockwork responded instead. "Yes," the Time Master replied, reaching inside his cloak. "And we must act quickly." He pulled out six of his time medallions, gesturing to Frostbite. "Here – one for all of you. Ethelwulf – keep yours close. " Clockwork held a tighter grip on his time staff as he moved toward the humans slowly. "I cannot control Time anymore. With these, you'll be able to move freely."

Frostbite took a medallion, throwing it over his head as he observed the lab around him. "I see," he said solemnly, taking the remaining medallions from Clockwork, passing them out to the humans. His eyes found Ethelwulf's, nodding in an unspoken agreement. As he came to Jack and Maddie, Frostibite gave them a toothy grin. "You will need to shut the portal as soon as the Great One returns –there'll be little time before the Monster follows."

Jack and Maddie looked at each other, concerned, but nodded nonetheless.

Tucker made a noise at the console, making everyone turn their attention to the boy. "There's something coming toward us!" he cried, zooming the camera in to try and get a better image. Maddie moved over her husband's shoulder, looking at both her husband's screen and Tucker's. "It looks like…. Ember?"

Maddie frowned as she recognized the fiery blue hair from her takeover of Amity a few months ago. She was being carried by a robotic ghost, recognizing him from Danny's ghost files. Both looked a little worse for wear. "Danny's not with them," she noted, watching the two ghosts zip past the two Fento-drones toward the portal.

"I think he's up ahead," Tucker said, moving closer to the screen. "I see a few explosions in the distance."

Jack's face paled slightly as he watched a particularly large explosion occur across the screen. "Let's head toward it then," he replied, flying directly in the line of fire.

Both drones moved further into the Ghost Zone, noticing the destruction around them.

"Whoa," Sam said from somewhere over Tucker's shoulder. Somewhere in the commotion, both girls had moved back toward the console.

"Dan did all this?" Maddie whispered. Her mouth grew dry as she noticed the flying debris. "Aren't those all realms?"

"What's left of them," Frostbite confirmed grimly, turning back to the portal.

There was a bit of movement before Skulker flew out of the portal, clutching an unconscious Ember in his arms. He looked at Frostbite helplessly, before he collapsed out of the air onto the floor. "Help her," he said, shaking her gently. Frostbite moved toward the newcomers quickly, trying to assess what he could do to help.

Ethelwulf growled at the scene. "I'm going after him," the black wolf said, running toward the portal. "I'm not leaving him in there."

"Stop," Clockwork commanded. His voice made Ethelwulf pause. "He needs to do this without your help."

"Are you blind Clockwork?" Ethelwulf asked viciously. He gestured to Skulker and Ember being helped by Frostbite in the corner. "We cannot let him fend for himself – he's already compromised."

Clockwork sighed, red eyes scanning the room. "He made his decision," Clockwork repeated. "I'm inclined to trust his judgement."

"There!" Jack yelled, pointing along the screen. Two blurs of black and white gained speed, the smaller of the two disappearing and reappearing closer to the Fento-drones. "He's headed back."

"Not alone!" Jazz exclaimed, watching the bigger ghost speed up slightly. "Mom, the portal!"

Maddie nodded, getting to her place at the main console. "Standing by – as soon as Danny gets through, we'll close it."

The humans and ghosts watched closely, waiting with baited breath as the half-ghost kept teleporting away. As Danny teleported again, Dan also disappeared, reappearing in the same spot as the younger ghost. Dan slammed Danny against the rock, a white glove reaching around the boy's neck. They all gasped, watching Danny's legs thrash as he tried to break free.

"Tucker – do something!" Sam yelled desperately.

The techno-geek's hands moved quickly, steering his drone toward the fight. Danny started to slow down, legs relaxing as he gasped for air. "Eat this!" Tucker cried, pressing a small red button on the controller. The Fento-Drone opened a hatch on the bottom side, releasing an ecto-gun. It charged green energy for a few seconds before launching a powerful stream of energy at the evil ghost. It hit its target, freeing Danny from his grip. The young half ghost coughed, regaining himself before the floated up to the two drones.

"Thank you, Fento-Drones!"

A collective sigh of relief made its way through the lab as Danny froze Dan and made his way back. The Fento-drones hovered in place, watching the young ghost speed off toward the portal before they floated back to the frozen Phantom left behind. Dan rattled under the ice, steam coming through the barrier.

Maddie and Jack looked between the images from the drones and the radar showing Danny's status to the portal anxiously. As the evil ghost melted his prison, Jack stared at the blue skinned ghost. Danny had told them about Dan – but they weren't prepared for how much the spectre truly looked like their son. He found Maddie's unsure expression, the shock getting to her also. He turned back to the screen, suddenly very angry at the ghost in front of him. His large hands curled around his controller, pressing his weapons system also. "Bonzaii!" He yelled, flying straight for Dan. Tucker followed suit, both Fento-drones attacking Dan with various Ghost Rays.

"Really?" Dan sneered into the camera of a drone. "My parents' dumb inventions?" He dodged them skilfully. "I wonder who's behind this little plan?" Dan roared in anger, releasing a series of ecto-energy toward both attacking robots. The attack hit Tucker's Fento-drone, sending it tumbling into one of the rocks. Tucker tried manoeuvring it out of the stone or attack, but the small robot was unresponsive.

"I've been hit!" Tucker cried out.

Dan grabbed the drone piloted by Jack from the air. His snarling face filled the screen as he laughed, ripping the robot into two pieces. The camera went dark on the one screen. All eyes turned to the radar, eying that Danny was so close to the portal, but had also stopped. The figure behind him barrelled through the zone, heading right for him.

"I still have eyes!" Tucker told the onlookers, trying to zoom in from his trapped bot. People crowded around him, seeing large flickers of light flash across it. "What the-" he started to mutter as the lab was once again illuminated with white light. Humans and ghosts whirled around; Danny was on his hands and knees in front of the portal, panting as large blue and white sparks flowed through his small frame.

"Danny!" his friends and family called out.

The white haired ghost shook his head. "The portal!" he barked, biting his lip as his body contorted in agony. Ethelwulf attempted to move toward the injured teen, concerned, but Clockwork grabbed his paw.

Maddie hit the button, closing the portal. Danny relaxed slightly as the portal doors closed in front of him, sparks still moving through him. He managed to sit on his legs, breathing heavily as he glanced around the lab. Finally, his gaze rested on Skulker, Frostbite and Ember. Skulker's green eyes were wide at the young ghost in front of him. "Hide here," he told the surprised hunter tiredly. "Blend in, don't cause trouble. Should be safe." He grimaced as the sparks increased moving his hands outward to grip onto the ground.

Frostbite stood up, moving away from Skulker and Ember; the latter had just seemed to start to come to. "Great One – those sparks are attacking your core!" He exclaimed worriedly, moving toward Danny. The yeti ghost stopped as a set of large blue energy sparked outward from the teen. Frostbite's eyes widened with disbelief. "Wait… that's not raw energy."

Ethelwulf stopped pulling against Clcokwork at Frostbite's words, turning his gaze quickly to the young boy. The sparks were increasing now, more blue than white. Danny's green eyes were shut tightly, trying to regain any composure he could. "It's not core energy either," Ethelwulf said soflty, yellow eyes widening as he also realized it.

"What are you two talking about?!" Sam yelled worriedly. Danny's eyes flew open, pupils rapidly changing colours between green and blue. The sparks started to form a dome around Danny as he started to stare into space. "Danny!"

"It's time energy," Clockwork confirmed. His red eyes looked pitifully at the young ghost in front of him, who had gotten eerily quiet. Ethelwulf moved to Danny, dodging the sparks that seemed to want to protect the boy. "Time has stopped."

All the humans looked at each other, slightly confused. Clockwork gestured to the corner of the lab and they were startled to find Skulker and Ember, frozen in place. Danny's body tensed as Ethelwulf got towards him, seemingly unaware of the sparks of energy attacking his body.

"Hello Danny."

Everyone jumped as the heart stopping voice came through the main console. As Tucker turned around, he gasped; Dan was staring right into the camera, smiling smugly.

"Let me guess, Tucker and Sam are probably there too." Tucker, Sam and Jazz all looked at each other worriedly. "Maybe even my meddling older sister." He moved closer to the screen. "You probably think you've won with that little trick of yours." Dan split himself in two, not breaking eye contact with the camera. "But I have tricks of my own." The duplicate's hand lit up green, creating a portal before it flew into it and disappeared. The Phantom on the screen then turned around, and released a large ecto-blast toward the portal. It hit Danny's second shield, making his body twitch as he sank deeper to the ground. "You don't think these shields will hold me for long? I wanted to divide your attention." A shrill beep sounded, causing Maddie to pull up the scanner around the town. A large mass of ecto-energy was blasted across the shield. Maddie and Jack paled as they locked eyes at severity of the attack. "One of them will break eventually." Danny's body twitched again, back arching as he continued to stare off into space.

The Phantom outside of the town suddenly disappeared as the Phantom on screen stopped his attack. "I will break you Danny," Dan sneered. "You and your promises won't save your world." His body glowed dark green, before various shadows started to appear behind him. "I can create a shadow army to attack day and night – but where's the fun in that?" He paused, floating backward as shadows continued to appear behind him. "I'll give you a sporting chance. You have thirty-six hours." Dan's hand lit up in green ecto-energy before the screen went dark.

As the screen went black, Danny's body contorted strangely one last time before it fell limply to the ground. Ethelwulf knelt beside the boy, concerned as he transformed back in his human half. The lab was silent as blue sparks continued to move through the fallen boy.

:-=-:

When Danny woke up, he was dismayed to learn that he had passed out and landed him in the infirmary again. He sat up slowly, groaning at the massive headache throbbing through his brain.

His heart felt like it was ripped out of his chest multiple times. How could they just be gone?

Danny gasped, groaning as images flew across his mind. Sparks started to flow up and down his core. "You know," he muttered, doubling over in pain, "I'm really getting tired of this."

Vlad was saying something. He definitely paid someone off – but he couldn't seem to care anymore. They were gone and he couldn't save them. He deserved to live with Vlad.

Danny gasped again, feeling slightly sick as he realized what he was seeing. He buried his eyes in the palms of his hands, stifling a cry of pain as sparks continued to wrack his frame.

"Come now Daniel, this is for the best," Vlad told him. He felt cold icy rage fill his entire body as the man came closer. The jerk at least had the decency to look sympathetic. "I don't want you to have to hide anymore. Going with your aunt would only hurt you more." Danny felt himself nodding.

"Stop," Danny whimpered, pressing his hands into his face a little harder. "I don't want to see this." He heard the door to the infirmary open, soft footsteps turned frantic as someone called his name. He groaned in response, causing the newcomer to rub his back soothingly.

"You're alright sweetie," his Mom whispered from above him. "They're just Time Visions. They'll pass."

He was angry. Everything was wrong – if they weren't alive then he didn't deserve to be either. If he was a ghost all the time, he would've saved them. His memory of that day drifted back as bile rose in his throat. Never again.

Danny bit back an angry sob as frustration washed over him. "Make it stop," he pleaded, hands moving to his head as he gripped his hair harshly.

Maddie stopped rubbing his back and instead hugged her son closer. "You can get through them Danny," she encouraged quietly. "Clockwork said these are just residual visions from your clash with Dan. Whatever you're seeing is part of an alternate timeline. It's not real."

He hadn't spoken to Vlad since arriving. It's been a week since he had to live with him. Three weeks since the Nasty Burger. All the condolences, people who insist they'll be there for him. They need to feel what he felt; The rage, the helplessness, the grief. If his loved ones were dead – then the world will feel his wrath. Green eyes burned as he looked Vlad in the face.

Danny gasped as the final vision left him. He sat up slowly, vaguely aware that he was shaking and clammy before he managed to look at his mother. Maddie watched him, slowly brushing his hair back with her hand. "You're alright now," she said lovingly as he stared at her with wide eyes, not quite believing she was in front of him. "Yesterday was rough for all of us."

Danny swallowed, nodding in confirmation. He looked down, suddenly feeling self-conscious and ashamed as his memory came back to him. Maddie frowned, but didn't comment at his movement. Instead, she patted his leg affectionately and leaned toward the bedside table.

"You must be hungry – you haven't eaten since you woke up yesterday," she said, grabbing a couple sandwiches. Danny realized that she must have brought them with her. "Sam and Tucker will be here soon. After your second battle with Dan, time energy moved through you continuously and then you just collapsed. The shield you put up to protect the portal was apparently interacting with the time energy, so Ethelwulf put one up. He said you should take yours down so you can focus on the one around the town. Frostbite and his people are here to help – and even Skulker's agreed to help keep the ghosts in line!" She handed him the plate. "Here."

Danny took it from her, staring at it absently as it sat in front of him. Maddie came back beside him, staring at him worriedly. After a few moments of silence, she sighed, settling in closer to her son.

"Danny," she said gently. "You can't bottle these visions up. Clockwork said you were being attacked by time energy – left from the time medallion being fused inside you. Those sparks aren't from your raw energy; it's time attacking your core. These visions are all from moments in time that you aren't supposed to see."

"They can keep them," Danny said bitterly, still not looking at his mother. "I don't want them."

Maddie gave him a sympathetic smile as she continued. "Don't you trust us?" she asked.

Danny looked up quickly. "Of course I trust you!" he exclaimed. His mother raised her eyebrow at him. "Mom," he said earnestly, "I wouldn't have made it through this without you and Dad. I trust you guys completely."

"Then why did you neglect to tell us that Dan was made up of Plasmius' ghost too?" she asked him pointedly. Danny looked away again. Maddie sighed, softening her tone slightly. "Why are you shutting everyone out?"

Danny sighed. "I don't mean to," he said quietly. "I just… I'm afraid I guess."

Maddie looked at her fifteen year old son, looking tired and defeated with a frown. "Of turning into him?" she asked.

Danny shook his head. "Not anymore," he told her. "I promised that I would never turn into him. It's all the other stuff I'm afraid of. I don't want to lose you guys." He clenched his fist in frustration.

Maddie nodded, putting a hand over his. "It must be scary, having to relive it."

Danny looked at her desperately. "Do you have any idea Mom? Any idea how hard it is looking at that ghost and thinking that was me? How one stupid mistake keeps coming back to haunt you and can make the world just crumble around you?" A tear fell onto their joined hands. "Reliving it for months on end and now actually seeing how much it took to get to that point? Everything… it was all my fault."

Silence descended on the pair as quiet tears continued to fall, mother and son looking at each other. Eventually, Maddie reached over and wiped a tear away from his face. "You are not Dan," she told him fiercely. "There may have been a point where you would become him, but you beat him. With Clockwork's help you saved us. You may see these images from time to time Danny, but you are stronger than him."

"You don't understand," he mumbled, looking away again.

"Oh really?" Maddie asked him. "Because I definitely know what it feels like to look one of your mistakes in the face every time there's a ghost attack on this town. How one faulty blueprint caused my fourteen year old son to become a half-ghost hybrid and lie to me for almost a year. To watch him carry such heavy burdens on his shoulders like the world would end if he messed up – and that it was my fault."

Danny cringed heavily. "Mom – I didn't mean," he sputtered. "I never-"

Maddie held up her hand. "I know sweetie," she told him gently. "I know you don't blame me -or your father. And regardless of how it happened, your ghost powers are not a mistake. How can I argue with anything you've done?" She smiled at him. "You're a hero Danny but that doesn't mean you have to deal with this on your own. Regardless of the battles you've faced, any horrors you've seen – you're still my fifteen year old space loving teenager. We're here for you sweetheart."

"You're mother's right kiddo," Jack boomed from the door. Danny and Maddie both turned, seeing the orange jumpsuit wearing man smiling kindly at his wife and son. He walked over to the pair; sitting on Danny's other side. "Now that we've seen what we're up against, it's time to put these fears behind you. You won't be alone. Everyone here is going to fight with you Danny. We'll be ready for him."

Danny beamed at his parents, forgetting everything about time visions and prophecies. They were right – he wasn't alone. They were going to figure out a way to beat Dan, together. "Then let's get to work."

:-=-:

Skulker paced in the air, frowning. Ember was recovering slowly, resting from the battle -The battle that the ghost child saved them from. The ghost hunter growled at that. Who did Phantom think he was? Flying in like that, rescuing them from that…other Phantom. Skulker stopped his pacing, lost in thought.

Even Skulker had to admit it; if any ghost stood a chance against that abomination, it'd be Danny Phantom. The halfa took down Pariah Dark! But this foe… he said he was the Ghost child. After Danny Phantom passed out – almost out of the blue- Skulker watched the human hunters gather close to the boy, talking about time energy and visions.

It wasn't until he saw Clockwork that he realized how important this battle must be. No one ever goes up against the Master of Time – let alone cross him. If the abomination went against the Time Master, and Clockwork has aligned himself with the boy, this ghost must be a force to be reckoned with. Skulker left quickly after that – his priority being Ember and the rest of the ghosts hiding throughout the town. Let Clockwork and the whelp deal with this ghost. He was perfectly content to avoid the next battle while hiding out at his human hunting store.

"Skulker."

The robotic ghost stopped pacing, turning to face Plasmius' crossed arm glare. Plasmius floated a little higher from the ground, glaring down at Skulker with his beady red eyes.

"Plasmius," Skulker greeted.

Plasmius grinned, flying down to Skulker's level. "I heard there were ghosts hiding in my town," he told his employee.

"The Zone was threatened," Skulker said simply.

"Ah yes," Plasmius replied, waving a hand. "I heard from the Fentons. They want me to secure the town and grant you all sanctuary. I had a different proposition for you."

"No."

Plasmius' eyes widened. "No?" he repeated incredulously. "Come now Skulker, this is a perfect opportunity to strike. While Daniel is busy with whatever threat he believe is out there, we can use this as-"

"No," Skulker repeated firmly. "Plasmius – this ghost is not to be trifled with."

Plasmius scoffed. "Please, the only ghost that can get me rattled is the Ghost King, and no one has made that mistake again. Not after last time."

Skulker shook his head. "Whoever attacked us had no remorse, no reason. He was cold, calculating and precise in any movement he did," Skulker explained. Plasmius started to pace, Skulker watching him anxiously before he continued. "He destroyed multiple realms with this… wailing cry." Plasmius stopped pacing, looking at Skulker with wide eyes.

"A wail?" Plasmius asked slowly. "Skulker, please don't tell me whoever you're afraid of doesn't have the same attack as Daniel?"

"Worse," Skulker replied bitterly, shuddering slightly. "If it wasn't for the whelp, Ember and I wouldn't have escaped. Even he could not stop him. The boy's allies said they had over a day to prepare for an attack – less now."

Plasmius looked at him for a moment, thoughts racing through his brain. Skulker waited as his occasional employer seemingly came to a decision and schooled his face with a smile. "Very well," he said smartly, taking flight again. "Hide away here Skulker – I won't stop you."

Skulker watched as Plasmius disappeared, letting out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He stared down toward the attic of the hunting store. "If Clockwork has aligned himself with the Ghost Child, then we must too," Skulker said out loud. He grimaced slightly. "Why can't I just hunt easy prey?"

:-=-:

Danny closed the door of his bedroom, leaning his forehead against the door with a sigh. After a bit of training earlier in the day, a small planning session with friends and multiple interruptions by the Box Ghost, he had wanted to clear his head a bit. He could hear the mumble of voices from the various ghosts in the house, but up here seemed like a dead zone. Deciding to join the party, he walked down the hall towards the steps before he stopped, surprised; Sam was standing at the bottom of the stairs, lost in thought and frowning at… old family photos?

Danny frowned, curious as he started to go down the stairs. "Hey," he greeted from halfway down the stairs. Sam jumped slightly, before smiling back at him. She hadn't even noticed.

"Hey yourself," she replied. Forgoing the rest of the stairs, Danny jumped the rail and landed beside her. "Show off," she said, rolling her eyes.

"We're in the middle of a paradox here, there's no time to waste," Danny told her, a goofy smile on his face.

"I'm sure the world wouldn't end if you walked down the remaining five stairs."

"On the contrary, we don't know if could. Thought I'd take my chances."

Sam scoffed, crossing her arms, but a playful smile danced across her lips as he came up beside her. She was back in her regular clothes now, he noticed; hair pulled back slightly but fell gracefully at her shoulders. A time medallion hung around her neck, shining eerily under the florescent lights. He watched as her violet eyes scanned one of the photos from a few years ago. Her hand brushed against one where she, Tucker and himself were in the back of Fentonworks, looking carefree and lighter than they all must feel now.

"Seems like a lifetime ago, huh?" he said quietly, a twinge of sadness in his voice.

"Do you miss it?" Sam asked him softly. Her eyes were still glued to that photo, fingers gently moving over the three friends.

"Miss what?" Danny asked in response.

"Being normal."

Danny looked at Sam curiously, realizing that it wasn't just worry or nostalgia that brought her here; it was guilt. He frowned slightly, the question looping in his mind as he turned back to the photograph on the wall. Of course he missed being normal – that was all he ever wanted for high school. A nice, normal high school life to just… blend in. Normal kids didn't have to worry that one wrong move might destroy all of reality. Normal kids didn't have to stay up late trying to protect the city. Normal kids could date without worrying that their girl -friends would get possessed by evil plant ghosts. Yeah – he'd love to be just a regular fifteen year old kid… and yet…

He glanced over at her from the corner of his eye before shrugging. "Nah – who needs normal anyway? He replied wistfully. "My family were never normal. Tucker's not normal and he's one of my best friends. Besides, you hate normal – we wouldn't be friends if you thought I was normal before all this."

Sam smiled, a small chuckle of agreement escaped her lips and Danny's heart leapt into his throat. He watched her shuffle sideways, looking for another photo to look at. He watched her smile as she found another one, finding a small smile gracing his lips too.

"Where is everyone?" he asked, feigning interest in one of the photos.

"Tucker's downstairs at the main console," Sam said, not looking away from the photo on the wall. "He and your parents are working on separating your ecto-signature from Dan's." Danny frowned, reality slamming his happiness down in full force. "Jazz, Frostbite and Ethelwulf are prepping the lab and weapons for a planning session later. No idea about Clockwork."

"Ah," he said softly. Sam looked at him suddenly, and he inwardly cringed.

"I wanted to get away for a bit," she replied. "Everyone's working hard to help you Danny. You're not alone."

Danny sighed, berating himself for ruining the moment. "I know," he told her. She raised an eyebrow at him. "I do! I just…"

Sam turned back to the wall of photos, smiling sadly as she looked at family photo with a baby Danny hiding under a table while Jazz sat on top of it with a broom. "Wanted to get away from it all?" she supplied.

"Well, yeah."

Sam nodded. They fell into a comfortable silence after that, looking at the wall of photos and lost in thought. It was just the two of them – no battles, no plans, no fear. Danny felt lighter again, content at this small moment of time.

Tell. Her. Danny jumped as he felt the presence of his ghost half awaken in his mind. He glanced at Sam briefly, his heart bursting with emotion. They were in the middle of the biggest threat they've ever faced… was this really the right time? It could be the only time.

"Sam?" Her name escaped before he could stop himself.

"Hmm?"

Suddenly, his mouth went dry and words were very difficult to think of. "I… um.." he sputtered, cringing at the high pitch that came out of his mouth. She turned to him, amusement sparkling in her eyes. His stomach flipped with nerves. "Do you remember when we faced Nocturn?" he blurted out, panicked that he was pushed into a corner.

Sam's brow furrowed, eyes darkening with embarrassment and confusion. "Uh-huh…"

"And how I had to go into other people's dreams to wake them up?"

Sam blushed and turned away. "I think I hear-" she started, before Danny cut her off.

"I had the same one." The words came out of Danny's mouth before he could stop himself.

Violet eyes met blue, both slightly shocked at the admission. Danny's hand went to the back of his head, rubbing it nervously. There was no turning back now. "Sam, I –"

"Stop" Sam cut across, breaking their eye contact. Her arm grabbed the other, gripping it tightly as she seemed to fight with herself. Confused and hurt, Danny stopped talking, looking at her. "You don't get to do this."

Now thoroughly confused, Danny asked the first question that popped in his head. "What?"

Sam met his eyes again and he saw anger and hurt reflected back at him. "You don't get to say what you want to say and just run off into battle. This isn't some cliché movie scene Danny – this is real life. You had plenty of time this year to say what I think you're about to say. Why now?"

Danny stood there, wide eyed as he watched Sam seethe in anger. "I-" he started, but his voice cracked. What could he say to that? She whirled around suddenly, making an attempt to head back to the kitchen before he broke out of his stupor. "Sam wait!" he reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it slightly. Sam didn't turn back towards him, but did stop. "Sam…" he whispered sadly. "I didn't –" he sighed heavily, staring at her tense back in concern. "You're right. This is real life." She stiffened slightly in his grip, but said nothing. "I didn't know how to tell you – to change things. I guess I was afraid before," he breathed. "I'm not now."

Sam relaxed in his grip and turned around, watching him curiously. "Why?" she repeated, her voice full of gentle curiosity. She moved closer to him, staring up into his face.

He struggled slightly, trying to find exactly what he wanted to say. Sam, to her credit, waited, giving him all the time he might need. "I'm not afraid anymore."

"Right now you're not afraid," Sam told him, frowning at him. "What happens after this Danny? After you say what you want to say and go off to face Dan… would you regret it?"

"No," he said simply. They were inches apart now, staring at each other. Something was shifting in their friendship; it was terrifying for them both, yet it seemed so natural. This was his moment. "Sam –"

A cough from behind them made both teens jump apart, blushing furiously. They both turned, looking at the intruder darkly, before their expressions turned ones of surprise.

"Clockwork!" Danny exclaimed, his voice going higher than intended. "How… how long have you been there?"

Clockwork ignored the question. "We need to talk," he said. Danny's brow furrowed at his tone.

Sam sighed, bringing the boy's attention back to her. "I should be heading back down anyway," she replied with a small smile.

Danny frowned. "Sam wait," he started, but she shook her head.

"It's fine," she told him, her smile was bittersweet. "This can wait."

No it can't he thought bitterly. His frustration must have shown on his face because Sam gave him a look of bemusement.

"It can," she said again. She turned, giving him a small wave. "Let's talk later."

Danny watched her go, sighing as Sam disappeared into his kitchen. Later; he could do later. Turning to the ghost hovering at the entrance of his living room, Danny cleared his head. Clockwork, as always, betrayed nothing. "That was important," Danny said quietly.

"Not as important as this," the time ghost replied honestly. Clockwork turned, floating into the empty living room. Confused and slightly concerned, Danny followed him. Back still turned to the young half-ghost, Clockwork sighed. "Have you had anymore glimpses of the future?"

Danny crossed his arms. "You're the one who's all-knowing. Wouldn't you already know?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. When Clockwork didn't answer nor turned, Danny's stomach dropped in anticipation. "No," he answered. "Nothing else from what I've already told you. Just glimpses of the alternate timeline."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Clockwork's head dropped slightly, making Danny frown in worry. "What's this about Clockwork?"

"Do you remember what I said about paradoxes?"

Not quite seeing the connection, Danny answered anyway. "That they're like dead ends. Eventually they'll go into roads where they have to go on and not have as many turns right? Eventually, they just come to the main parade road and branch out again."

"My powers are fading Danny," Clockwork reminded him. "The paradox is solidifying, meaning that once it starts, my ability to control time will disappear temporarily. As will my ability to foresee any possible futures. The paradox already can manipulate time – as it has already done during your most recent encounter with your future self."

Danny sighed tiredly. "I'm guessing this paradox solidifies when I face him, huh?"

Clockwork finally turned; his solemn face more grave in his older form. "Danny, there are three possible outcomes here. Only one of them is favourable."

Danny sighed again. "Clockwork, I appreciate you giving me the heads up, but –"

"Stop," Clockwork cut Danny off. Danny stared, mouth open slightly before closing it. Clockwork's usual demeanour was gone, replaced by something Danny only vaguely remembered from their first meeting. "The first time we met, you escaped into that possible future attempting to face Dan. Do you understand why I let you go?" Danny, wide eyed, shook his head. "Think – what happened in the future?"

"Ghostly Wail," Danny said automatically, listing it off his index finger. "Faced Valerie and Vlad, found out about the Nasty Burger Explosion, the Time-" Danny stopped, looking at Clockwork in confusion. "Dan fused the Time Medallion in my chest keeping me in the future."

"Precisely," Clockwork said. The old ghost floated closer to him, looking down at the confused teen in front of him. "Time let you see glimpses of the future due to that Time Medallion but contrary to how I describe it – time isn't just a parade. It lives continuously; pulling from wherever it feels is needed. When Dan merged the Time Medallion with your core, Time gave you access to every ghost power you could possibly develop between your time and his. That's how you developed your Ghostly Wail."

Shaken, Danny sat down on the couch, rubbing his chest absently as if to placate his core. "So the Ecto-storm? My core powers?"

Clockwork nodded. "Were all dormant until that point."

Danny swallowed. "But you saw that," he said, frowning in concentration. "You saw all that and still needed to save my family? Why would I need to gain all these powers if I wasn't powerful enough to stop him?"

Clockwork looked at Danny expectantly. "Parade, Danny," he said, a hint of annoyance directed to the boy. "And you did stop him- you just didn't stop the rest of it from happening."

Danny looked down at his hands. "But, he exists outside of time," he retorted. "I sucked him into a thermos and because I couldn't save my family fast enough, he's here and your powers are weakened."

Clockwork sighed heavily. "Danny, you have come a far way from letting your fears control you. Do not let your doubt do the same." Danny sighed, acknowledging he heard the ghost's words. "And you're still missing the point. I knew the outcome of that battle. I knew what you acquire in going to the future. I knew you would need my help, which would make Dan exist outside the time stream. So if I knew all that, why would I let a fourteen year old child create the only paradox that does not let me see past it?"

Danny looked up at Clockwork, realization slowly dawning on him. "You… you wanted this," he said astounded. "The powers, visions… All of it."

Clockwork smiled supportively. "Dan Phantom grew up to be one of the worst ghosts in the history of the Ghost Zone; he destroyed the world, and the ghost zone, multiple times over. In meeting you, he inadvertently created the one ghost powerful enough to stop him. He would have continued to raze the world if I hadn't saved your family, leaving no one left to stop him." Clockwork's smile fell, and dread started to pool in Danny's stomach again. "This paradox is the best shot of defeating him once and for all."

Danny nodded, feeling the crushing weight of his powers and responsibility. "Three outcomes?" he asked, bringing it back to Clockwork's original conversation.

"Three outcomes," Clockwork confirmed, frowning.

"One favourable," Danny finished, closing his eyes. Silence descended on the pair for a few minutes, Clockwork watching Danny's body stiffen as he slowly realized what that meant. "Clockwork," he said eventually in a small voice, looking up at the Time Master. "I'm not… I don't… survive this…. do I?" Clockwork didn't answer. A memory of the Ghost King fight fluttered through his brain. I don't have to win, I just have to make sure that you lose!

Again, silence blanketed the pair, the tension and unease of the current situation suffocating the younger more than he cared to show. "That's why you asked Ethelwulf to train me, why more of these ghosts seemed to help train me rather than fight me? You knew that it might come down to this." Danny put his head in his hands, distraught. "All this time… you knew."

"I thought we had more time," Clockwork said sombrely. "You're fifteen; I gave you this second chance so you could live more -learn more. Even I cannot deny fate for a moment of my choosing." Clockwork's face softened, genuine concern for his young charge peeking through his indifferent persona. "The observants have barred me from interfering with the events of the paradox. It's why I'm telling you this; if there's anyone I believe can defy the rules of a paradox, it is you Danny."

Danny nodded, swallowing determinedly. "One favourable…" Danny repeated, curling his hand into a fist. Determined blue eyes looked up into saddened red eyes. "Okay."

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johnstibal · 4 years ago

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Career advice for law students wanting to practice in international law

Hello,

I was recently asked by a law student for some career advice on how to get a job internationally, and particularly how they could get engaged in international (public and private) legal work.

While my legal background stems largely from doing multinational corporate work, particularly in the IT sector, here are my basic ideas outlining a few generic things to think about in terms of your career planning and some key approaches to pursuing these types of careers.

My background. For the past several years, I have worked primarily in London, and secondarily in Paris, for a very large telecommunications company. I was originally working for another one of this companies' affiliates in USA, and this enabled me to move internally to another one of their companies in the UK. Making this move internally within a large company allowed me to move abroad far easier, especially in terms of sorting out work visas and professional qualifications, etc.

Three Career Principles to Never Forget. In terms of general career advice, there are three principles which you must keep in mind to work in international law related field. While I recognize the risk of sharing a 'firm grasp of the obvious' (and I can almost hear some cringing already) most law students do not receive this message framed in this sort of a utilitarian light. So, here it goes:

The sole purpose of your first legal job is to enable you to get a better second legal job.

It is all about Brand. Your CV / Resume is a personal marketing tool. It is your personal ‘brand’. The choice of your first job should strongly take into account the value which the ‘brand’ of your new employer will add to your CV, and your future ambitions. This lasts for decades.

You cannot save the world if you cannot pay the bills. Public international law has some of the most interesting legal work around. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it also has a tendency to attract incredibly brilliant people who will work for a minimum salary. If you are independently wealthy, then great, no problem. If you have large education debts, please do not neglect the fact this will undoubtedly impact your choice of jobs in the short term, even if not necessarily in the longer term.

Your first Legal job. Getting your first Legal job is always a nerve wracking experience at best, and especially if you want to take a track other than going directly into a large law firm. Unfortunately, nearly all major law schools are set up to build a funnel for large firms. For your interests, even if you do not wish to 'end up' in a law firm or major global corporation, it usually makes considerable sense for you to go out to find the best ‘brand’ firm which you can, either in the US, UK or elsewhere. You will be able to extract the majority of the benefits during this time by working at a firm for exactly two years (or three years, if in New York City) doing whatever type of legal work - - of course, its even better if your firm or company has a public international law practice, but this is not required. By the end of this time, you will have ‘checked the box’ on your CV, and you can happily move on to what you really want to do. This is by far is the safest option for most, and also incidentally, completes one of the requirements enabling you to be admitted to practice in other common law countries (e.g. the UK). I’m not certain whether this is as helpful in other civil law countries, but I suspect it would be.

There is no question that working at a law firm, and potentially billing in ‘6 minute’ increments gets very tiring. Reviewing e.g. commercial leases is even less fun than watching paint dry. But this said, you will probably be practicing law for a very long time off and on anyway. Having a good initial first employer on your CV, who has ‘trained’ you is always a good investment for your CV even if not necessarily beneficial to you over the long term.

As a lawyer who has graduated from a US law school, you are able to come to Europe with a well respected professional background (speaking generally). In terms of global perceptions, US lawyers are highly respected, maybe in a similar form of the admiration to being world-class in other professions e.g. French engineers, British accountants, or Indian mathematicians - - not to foster bad stereotypes… But, needless to say, the USA legal professional qualification travels well around the world, particularly among global employers.

This being said, there is a particular area of confusion when you first come out of law school. Legal training is not the same around the world, meaning in France, a jurist has may have only attended the equivalent of undergrad and not graduate school (in terms of USA style nomenclature, depending on their qualifications). In the UK, while there are some permutations, most young associates at large law firms will attend around a year and a half or so of graduate school, followed by two years of a training contract to learn how to practice law. In Germany, many associates hold an LLM, or a PHD, at minimum, staying in school much longer. While you probably can research the differences in the number of years of schooling better than me, you should be particularly aware of this issue when you turn up to speak with a new potential employer in Europe. There is a risk of being perceived as wanting to find only a training contract, which is not needed as a USA law school graduate. After your first job, the timing issue goes away as you accumulate more PQE (Post Qualification Experience). The same is true in France, as I understand it.

An alternative path in human rights / non-profit sector for law students. This is an area where my knowledge is limited. But, if I wanted to pursue a career in this field, I would adopt some of the following key approaches.

First, figure out who are the heavyweights thought leaders in your particular field of interest, either individuals or organizations - - and, do your best to somehow associate yourself with their organization or sphere of colleagues. You want to try to figure out who these organizations interact with, and by extension, which of these organizations might hire you. Linkedin is an extraordinarily powerful resource for this research. To test your hypotheses, try calling up or meeting up with the General Counsel of any public interest foundation (if not possible to meet in person, then email / Skype also works but is far less effective than in person). Introduce yourself, and ask him or her for some general advice, in particular what ‘outside counsel’ their foundation typically uses - - make clear that you admire the work of their foundation, and look to gain relevant experience by doing similar work in the future. Ask about their Legal department organizational structure (General Counsels - GCs) love talking about this stuff), and what skills they look for over the long term, but even if not necessarily immediately. If it goes well, you might get some really good information, and maybe even a referral to a firm or sister organization. Senior Executives are very used to people asking them for jobs on a daily basis. But, they get asked for their advice far less often. Use this to your advantage... but do not be a pest.

As an example coming from NGOs, from time to time, I have occasionally dealt with some of the affiliates of the United Nations as a supplier. There are probably 20 of these, e.g. World Bank, IMF, UNHCR, IATA, WIPO, Red Cross, Red Crescent, and Red Crystal. Some of these organizations you are probably more familiar to you than others. There are two consistent traits that I see when dealing with their personnel. First, many of the staff are about to retire, and second, their staff have all consistently bounced around the world working in many different UN affiliates and national governments doing all sort of different roles, both legal and non-legal. The first of these is a well known problem for the UN and its agencies, at least, at a macro level, which might be helpfully to you. While I’m not certain what formal hiring programs may exist in these orgs, you should check with them around world, and particularly in Geneva, Switzerland and New York. Also, in terms of firms which advise this types of groups, you should also talk with McKinsey & Company. They do some very impressive pro bono work consulting for non-profits, and like to hire people with diverse backgrounds often having law degrees.

To get the attention of any large organization, and not just the UN agencies, you will always want to first find a way to get through the door, even if you need to do the unsexy type of legal work. Once you are inside, it is usually far easier to move internally. For example, if you work for a big organization like the UN, they have a vast array of legal needs, ranging from the basic to the exotic. It is undoubtedly the case that a large portion of the UN’s legal budget goes to HR and Procurement legal advice (e.g. doing commercial leases, procuring pencils and IT projects) (whether done in-house or by external firms.) When a UN agency needs to lease a building in sub-Saharan Africa, some lawyer somewhere in the world needs to review and advise on the tender process (often in combination with other local lawyers). Therefore, this is an opportunity to target. Yes, this is not sexy work, but it gets you a pass into the ‘club’ to work on other more interesting projects in the future.

As a final thought. Having outlined all of above, if you truly want to work in the non-profit / human rights space, it might be the case that being a ‘junior file clerk’ for Google.org or the Gates Foundation is equally beneficial (from a brand perspective to get your next job) as being a senior associate at Skadden Arps.

On the one hand, being at a big firm allows you to potentially develop a deep legal specialty, which might be later retooled for a good purpose. For example, undoubtedly, at some point, a brilliant lawyer in some large law firm will figure out how to package up millions of ‘microfinance’ loans using mezzanine financing techniques (i.e. allowing Wall Street money to start funding billions of very small loans around the world) - - in so doing, they could indirectly create prosperity in Africa for a life time.

At the same time, NGOs have a potential to do great things too. These are the people who are likely to generate the next generation of new legal concepts / quasi-regulatory regimes. For example, a newer area which I am following lately relates to 'conservation services' and 'natural capital' (see Conservation International) (www.conservation.org). These structures are, essentially, quasi-voluntary regulatory schemes to allow companies to share and manage ecological externalities (see Jennifer Morris's speech at Stanford). For me, CI's approach is just a start of a major trend in this area: soon there will be ISO certificate schemes covering externality pricing, as well as voluntary business case weighting methodologies which hopefully over time will become a standard approach in global commercial activity - - yet, this said, few individuals in the world understand how these types of governance tools work in practice. It simply cross too many intellectual domains, which so far has stymied adoption on a global level. 'Deep Greens' are not well suited to create these types of applied 'corporate' innovations around externalities, but maybe you are the one given your legal background.

Highly innovative organizations, such as the Gates Foundation, look great to onlookers because, in large part, by comparison, the other large global NGOs have tired ‘business’ models. Often major NGOs have been doing the same exact thing for decades. For me, I could see this as creating an opportunity. It might be great fun to join one of these NGOs for the express purpose to reshape it, remake it, and help them to reinvent their bag of tricks as an NGO. As a lawyer, you can have this level of influence within these types of organizations - - but, remember, always ask for forgiveness, never for permission when trying to affect major change within large organizations.

Keep in touch. If you like this or have other items to add, please drop me a note. I always enjoy hearing from people and what they think. These are changing times!

Best of luck,

John

#UN affiliates #career advice #career planning #change management #emory school of law #gates foundation #international law #law school #law student #non-profit #open precedents #public law #skadden arps #united nations #conservation services

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moondrop04 · 4 years ago

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RWBY VOLUME 8 EPISODE 12 SPECULATION AFTERMATH!!!

SPOILERS!!!

Alright!!! Finally time to get this AFTERMATH post on the way!!! As usual my job has been making it a bit hard for me to write these posts right after an episode appears, but it does not mean I haven’t been able to keep up with everyone else’s reactions and reviews of the latest episode......and there is a lot. I will admit this episode in particular has made myself confused at certain points, but after rewatching the it multiple times and watching other people’s reviews on certain subjects I now have a much better understanding and clarity to let myself express my thoughts on this episode. So as always let’s get dive right in and get straight into the AfterMath 😁

-(Phase 1) Ok from what I wrote from my speculation post it wasn’t all that hard to guess that Emerald would be a key part in handling Ironwood. What I was not expecting that the plan would involve her taking his weapons, as he is followed by an attack from Jaune, Nora, Ren, Oscar and Winter. Now admittedly I was a bit disappointed by how this scene was played out ��.

After rewatching it multiple times I have a clear understanding of what the writers were going for when having to deal with Ironwood personally. A fully outfitted Ironwood and the Ace-Ops to back him up would make for a tough fight and would likely take too much time to deal with. If our heroes would take away some of his advantages (his weapons and the Ace-Ops), then surrounding the general in a surprise attack would make for the ideal strategy, given their short time constraint to finish their plan before Salem returns.

Now as much as this phase 1 of the plan works on paper, I would have to say my biggest issue with this scene solely revolves around the animation and choregraphy of the fight. While it is cathartic to watch Ironwood get hit after hit by everyone, each attack from each character felt a bit stale compared to earlier fights. If I had to compare it to another fight it more or less felt the same as the JN_R Vs Neo fight was animated, to me at least. Now I may have some had some nit-picks about the scene but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna blame CRWBY’s animators for not doing a better job. With everything that had happened this past year, especially with COVID, I understand if the animation team weren’t able to produce the kind of quality they would want to put into their fight sequences. In fact they have produced much better quality content on other fronts, such as lighting, special effects, facial expressions and movements so far within volume 8 that completely makes up for the of quality of Vol.8 fights. So while I would have liked to have seen this fight done a bit better, I understand and accept with what we were given and anticipate what the animation team will give us in the future. 😊

-(Spirit of Creation) Wow! I was really not expecting there to be more spirits within the other relics after Jinn, but after seeing the introduction of Ambrosius I am now kind of excited what the other two will be.

You know....If the spirits of knowledge and creation are “blue”.....then maybe the spirits of destruction and choice could be “red”? Because you know.....Red and Blue......”Red Vs Blue”......shut up I think it will be cool 😡

-(To Bring The “Real” You To The Surface) Alright it took me several rewatches to understand Penny’s “recreation” and I can confidently say I am 90% sure how it happened 😤. With that being said I want to say that I am really glad that the writers went this route with Penny’s character. I had believed that there would come a time eventually that Penny would gain a more “humanoid” body and I am so happy it’s happening now.

The reason why I like this is because I had imagined if Penny were to lose her robotic abilities and become more human, then maybe she could follow a different path, other then a huntress, to helping her friends in the future. Maybe she could follow in pietro’s footsteps and become an inventor and craftsmen for team RWBY and JN_R if they ever require her assistance?

It would be disappointing to not see Penny using her robotic abilities anymore, but I think if she can find a path to helping her friends and other people without being a huntress, then I would be very pleased to see what she could come up with 😊.

-(MoonDrop Real Talk) Now with all that being said there’s something I would like to talk about regarding the apparent backlash about this direction in Penny’s story. For the past few days I have noticed numerous fans criticize harshly about how the writers wrote team RWBY’s request for Penny’s new body and how they have showcased the abilities of the staff of creation......and it has given me a bit of clarity to tell you guys why I treat RWBY and the fandom with so much positivity.

For myself I have liked RWBY so far because I have seen and read so many different stories, from so many different forms of media, that I’m not incredibly picky to what direction I want the show to take. If there is a point in the story that doesn’t go the way I thought and I become disappointed about it, then instead of being mad I just take a step back from my own thought process and try to see what direction the writers are taking their story in.

When I do this it brings about one of the great joys I have with this show and that is creating new and interesting ways on how the show could go forward, which I love to do when I write my speculation posts.

Do I think there should be different choices in how the characters should be? Absolutely!

Do I think fights could be better and a lot more epic? Hell yeah!

But I don’t want to be the type of person to express their dislikes of a show so negatively that my words and feelings could hurt, or make someone feel much worse. To me I have always been self-conscious of how others are feeling when they express their thoughts on a subject. So when I see others express their dislike on how the story is going so far, I become worried of what is actually going on in their own lives to make them express their dislikes to the world in such a negative way, that I don’t attack them back and tell them that they are wrong in how they are feeling.

I understand you don’t like how RWBY is going the way you want it to, so I just want to ask if you don’t like it then just walk away from it. It would definitely make your life much better to walk away from such dark thoughts and it is a consideration worth wondering about 😥.

-(DO NOT FALL) Ok with all that personal talk out of the way, let’s speak about the last portion of the episode. After the creation of the doorways to Vacuo for the civilians of Mantle and Atlas to escape through, it was very interesting to hear from Ambrosius to warn team RWBY not to fall off the walkways in the dimension he created.

If the opening of Volume 8 is any indicator of what’s about to happen, then the girls are potentially gonna fall. Could this possibly be a hint on what the story could be in volume 9, and on how the girls will escape from this dimension before continuing their journey in Vacuo? We will just have to wait and see at the finale of Volume 8 🤔....

So with that I will say with some minor criticisms that I did enjoy episode 12 and I cannot wait to see the last 2 episodes of the volume. Till then I will see you guys in the next speculation post.......

BUH-BYE!!!!

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #rwby volume 8 spoilers #rwby ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake bellodona #yang xiao long #oscar pine #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #lie ren #james ironwood #rwby salem #winter schnee #emerald sustrai #cinder fall

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jetsetlife138 · 5 years ago

Text

Imaginary - Chapter 4

Rating: Mature for this chapter, but Explicit in future chapters

Pairing: Alastor x Fem!Reader

Summary: A mysterious device throws you into the animated world of Hazbin Hotel. Once an average human living in a three-dimensional world, you’re now transformed into a two-dimensional human that has been cast into Hell. Pentagram City’s residents are curious and most harbor ill-will towards you. Charlie and the staff of the Happy Hotel take you in and offer you protection while they try and figure out how to return you to your world. That is… until you come across a certain Radio Demon with different intentions. Chapter Warnings: Suggestive language, explicit language

Previous Chapters: 1 - 2 - 3

Note: Just a reminder to my uninformed and curious folks out there: Asexuals can become aroused. Asexuals can have the desire to become aroused. Asexuals can enjoy being aroused. Asexuals can take steps to becoming aroused. Asexuals can be aroused by someone else. Asexuals can be curious about arousal. Asexuals can alternatively have no interest in arousal. Asexuality doesn’t mean that you are celibate and have no interest in sex. Do yourself a favor and do some research. Talk to your ace friends. Trust me, they’re more than happy to educate you on that subject. Brace yourselves for another fun-filled chapter!

Looking back, acting so aggressively towards the infamous demon was probably not the smartest plan. It may have been a bit premature to assume that he was making any kind of sexual advances towards you. After all, he never really confirmed that was his intention. You may have just dug yourself into an even deeper hole.

Then again… you wouldn’t put it past him considering how he carried himself and also by the way Angel Dust encouraged more illicit behavior. Even with the small amount of time that you had spent with him, it was obvious that the Radio Demon was an opportunist, and also a crafty bastard who got off on manipulating others for his own personal gain. You had wondered if there was a part of him that genuinely wanted to help Charlie with the hotel, or if he had any ulterior motives. Maybe Vaggie had the right idea about him after all.

Whatever the case, you had to be smart about this. You weren’t going to get anywhere by being so negative. However, it was also important to brace yourself for any impending threat, especially considering that you were, after all, in Hell. Cartoon or not, this place was filled with evil creatures, and you had to watch your back.

Taking a deep breath, you braced yourself to leave the safety of your room, equally curious and terrified of what would await you in this mysterious land. Stepping out into the hall, you took a moment to really look around, admiring the creepy hotel structure as well as the art on the wall. Painting of strange beings lined the halls in old, corroded frames. You weren’t sure if the creatures on the canvas were important historical figures, or if they were just members of Charlie’s family. Either way, they were haunting.

Hearing a commotion downstairs, you decided to go and investigate. Following the noises, you had eventually found yourself in a large room where Charlie, Vaggie, and Angel Dust were gathered together, bickering about something with an odd, furry cat demon who was positioned behind the bar next to them with an annoyed look on his face.

Upon seeing you enter, Charlie cut the conversation short, forcing a nervous grin. “Oh, hey there! How’s it going?”

Keeping your expression neutral, you replied, “I’m hanging in there, thanks. Am I interrupting something?”

“Not at all!” she assured you, clearly deflecting. “We were just, uh… discussing tactics to get you home. It would help if we had a little more to go off of. Can you tell us more about you?”

“Just ask Alastor,” Angel suggested, wiggling his eyebrows. “The two a them were gettin’ real familiar upstairs. I’m sure he’d be happy to fill you in.”

“Um. What?” Vaggie snapped, her expression equally enraged and horrified.

Glaring at the spider-demon, he merely blew a kiss at you in return before snickering fiendishly, eager to see how this would play out.

“He came to my room after the two of you left,” you admitted, noting the nervous glances between Charlie and Vaggie. “It wasn’t a big deal. We just talked.”

“Oh, honey,” Angel began. “You was doin’ a lot more than that. These walls talk, babe. And these walls told me they saw you two in bed together.”

Oh, fuck. Not good.

Charlie looked horrified while Vaggie seemed to be on the brink of a conniption. “No, no, no, it wasn’t like that,” you urged, putting them slightly at ease. “He was trying to help me.”

“How is being in bed together helpful to your cause?” Vaggie pressed, clearly not buying it.

“He did something to me… I’m not even sure. He said that he could help me and then he put his hand on my head. Next thing I know, I’m blacking out. I woke up later in the bed, and he just happened to be lying next to me. That’s it.”

Angel Dust rolled his eyes, crossing one set of his arms in disbelief while Vaggie pursed her lips in a disappointed manner. Charlie took a moment to find her words before she asked, “What exactly did he do to you?”

“Apparently, he could see inside my head. By looking through my memories he could see what my world looked like. I’m not sure how that’s beneficial. Maybe he just wanted to see if I was telling the truth. He didn’t say. He’s… weird.”

“That’s an understatement,” Vaggie murmured, earning a chuckle from the cat-demon behind the bar.

“Was that all?” Charlie inquired curiously.

“Yeah, toots. Was that all?” Angel teased, biting his lip to keep from laughing. Ugh, he was going to be the death of you.

“He tried to make a deal with me,” you finally divulged.

“Hijo de puta,” Vaggie seethed, baring her teeth in anger.

Swallowing thickly, Charlie asked, “What kind of deal?”

Shrugging your shoulders awkwardly, you replied, “If he succeeded in somehow returning me to my world, he wanted me to take him with me. I guess he thinks my world would be entertaining for him.”

You glanced at Angel, knowing that he was well aware of the other services that Alastor allegedly offered you. Pleading with your eyes, you hoped that he would take pity on you and keep his mouth shut just this once.

A smirk graced his lips as he considered your silent request. Much to your relief, he kept quiet. You’d probably pay for that later, but it was worth it to avoid more horrified expressions from the others.

Charlie wrung her hands together nervously while Vaggie approached you, worrying her lip. “Please tell me that you didn’t make a deal with him.”

“No!” you confirmed, shaking your head. “Of course not. I barely know him.”

“You gonna give her a history lesson? Looks like I’m not the only one around here who isn’t familiar with the Strawberry Pimp,” Angel drawled, now apparently bored of the topic.

Rolling her eyes, Vaggie sighed with exasperation. “Alright, look. No one knows how he’s accomplished so much since arriving in Hell. Overlords that have ruled Hell for centuries were no match against him. To prove his dominance and establish a reputation, Alastor pretty much massacred anyone who posed as a threat to his power. He broadcasted his carnage all throughout Hell, the mere savagery of his slaughters attesting to his abilities. That’s how he got his name, “The Radio Demon”. How original, right?” she jeered.

Furrowing your brows, you continued to listen intently. “It’s still unclear as to how he attained the power to overthrow our world’s most ancient and devastating evils, but it’s evident that he's a nefarious demon and dangerously unpredictable--capable of unimaginable destruction.”

Holy fuck. You knew he was dangerous, but you had no idea what he was actually capable of. And you had the audacity to berate him.

Struggling to keep from trembling, you asked, “So… if he’s so dangerous, why are you partnering with him?”

Charlie smiled timidly, trying to maintain her optimistic demeanor. “He offered his expertise because he supports what we’re trying to do here!”

“You cannot possibly believe that,” you countered skeptically.

“I don’t,” Vaggie barked back, scowling. “I want nothing to do with him.”

“Vaggie, come on,” Charlie implored. “We’ve been over this. We’ve got to at least give him a chance. Everyone is capable of redemption. He hasn’t done anything to hurt us or the hotel. He could be the best thing to happen to this place. Other than you,” she finished with a smile, earning a flirtatious eye roll from her girlfriend.

“You could always try commanding him to leave,” Angel taunted. “I’d like to see how Hell’s princess pairs up against Hell’s most powerful demon.”

It was then you remembered hearing her mention that she was a princess the day before when she had saved you from the mob. In all of the calamity, it had completely slipped your mind. “Wait, so you’re actually a princess?” you asked. “How does that work?”

“Jesus, you really are from another world, aren’t you?” Angel interjected, reaching for a drink at the bar. “Ever hear of Lucifer? The Big Bad of Hell?”

Nodding your head, Angel then pointed to Charlie. “That’s his kid.”

Your eyes were probably the size of baseballs as you stared at Charlie, completely at a loss for words. “It’s really not a big deal,” she assured you, her face flushed with embarrassment, which only added to her already rosy cheeks.

“Wait, you’ve been here for less than a day. How do you even know about Lucifer?” Vaggie questioned.

“I mean… I don’t know about your Lucifer,” you clarified, trying to find the right way to explain yourself. “In my world, Lucifer isn’t an actual person. He’s more of a myth, or a religious figure, depending on who you ask. There’s stories about him and no one knows if he actually existed. He’s always been portrayed as evil incarnate. He brought sin to the world and God cast him down into Hell. That’s the extent of my knowledge.”

“Interesting,” Vaggie commented, pressing a finger to her lips inquisitively. “Your world’s version of him isn’t too far off. Rest assured, he’s real. And he’s not really a fan of our business.”

“Yet,” Charlie corrected her.

“Yet,” Vaggie agreed, grinning slightly.

“Wow,” you huffed, trying to comprehend everything.

“I know that this is probably a lot for you to take in,” Charlie sympathized, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through, but we’re going to help you. All of us.”

“Speak for yourself,” the cat-demon commented before taking a swig of his booze.

“Oh! I forgot to introduce you! This is Husk. He’s a friend of Alastor’s--”

“I ain’t his friend!” he barked back, seething. “That stupid son of a bitch dragged me in here outta nowhere! I’m just biding my time until the booze runs out.”

“Got it,” you acknowledged, thoroughly enjoying his callousness. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“I can’t say the same,” he grumbled, reaching for a new bottle of alcohol after pitching the old, empty bottle behind him.

Clapping her hands together, Charlie quickly changed the subject. “Right! Let’s get started! What can you tell us about how you got here?”

It was mostly a blur, but you tried your best to concentrate and remember exactly what had happened. “I was out with my friends and we had passed by this old thrift shop,” you began, trying to recall the details. “It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I was looking around and saw an old television set on display. It looked like it was at least fifty years old, still in prime condition. I love that kind of retro stuff. I remember grabbing the remote for the t.v. to see if it still worked. I pressed the power button, and bam!” You threw your hands up dramatically for affect. “That’s the last thing I remember.”

Charlie hummed in thought, looking to Vaggie for her input. “I’ve never heard of anything like that,” the moth-demon thought aloud. “Could it have been cursed?”

“That kind of stuff doesn’t exist in my world,” you countered. “Magic and curses and stuff… none of that is real. It’s all mythical.”

“If none a that stuff is real, how do you explain this place, sugartits?” Angel chimed in, cackling.

He wasn’t wrong. You weren’t sure how to explain your situation. “I… I don’t know,” you stammered. “Maybe magic is real. Or maybe it’s something other than magic. Of course, there’s always the very real possibility that I’m just insane and all of this is in my head.”

“Oh, no, my dear,” an eerily familiar voice resounded ominously throughout the room. “I’ve been in your head, and I can assure you… you’re as sane as I am.”

Everyone was looking around frantically, wondering where Alastor was hiding. Moments later, a shadow appeared on the floor close to your feet, causing you to jump back and yelp as it grew rapidly until the Radio Demon himself materialized next to you, grinning widely. You briefly caught the glares and nervous expressions from the others out of the corner of your eye as he loomed over you. Wincing at his misguided assurance, you replied, “Great. That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Ha! I do so enjoy your brazen disposition,” he jeered boisterously.

Your automatic response was to bite back with an aggressive jab, but after hearing what he was capable of, you instead avoided his gaze as you fought back the urge to antagonize him.

Immediately picking up on your hesitance, he carefully gauged your reaction as he stepped closer to you. “Now, now, darling. No need to muzzle yourself.” He then reached forward to place one of his slender fingers under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his. It took everything you had to remain still and maintain eye contact rather than smack his hand away.

Baring his teeth in a leering smile, his eyes morphed into intimidating red slits as he purred softly. “We are going to have so much fun.” Tags: @beetlewise-and-pennyjuice @edgy-drama-queen @chasingfireflies1999 @galaxy-meteor @cecidit-31 @shadowclawstudio88

#hazbin hotel #alastor #alastor x reader #alastor x you #hazbin alastor #radio demon #charlie magne #hazbin charlie #hazbin vaggie #hazbin angel dust #alastorxreader #alastorxyou #self insert #afab

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