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leviiattacks · 4 years ago

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Two Faced | Chapter Six

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it's all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared. for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au, angst, fluff, slice of life etc word count :: 2.4k author note :: i have not yet proof read any of this or chapter five like i said i would, so i apologize for any mistakes. sigh im sorry for the angst in this chapter ??? T__T i suppose my own mood tends to be reflected in my writing. anyway, i’m working on requests too so if you have any feel free to send them in :D → next part is here!!

Everyone within the estate notices the way your schedule suddenly changes, half of them have no clue what you're doing seeing as it would be unfavorable for them to be aware of it in the first place.

However, after the bitter events of your first ODM-gear session you find it necessary to tell Sasha and Mikasa the truth. It's embarrassing really, and your mind disintegrates trying to find an appropriate way to tell to them about it. Sasha especially considering you've hid so much more from her.

The thought of letting them in on your lie has crossed your mind a number of times, but the image of Levi throwing you to the floor as he shakes in simmering outrage makes itself present. He will have objections against this and if he finds out you may end up in the same vulnerable position as before.

But, you don't care. If he wants to end your life for providing your confidants with honesty, so be it. It's not as if you have much of a choice.

Mikasa is sat in front of you bubbling with rage, she's disinfecting the gash at the top of your head - it has inconveniently tainted the surface of your skin after the second time you accidentally flipped in your gear.

Her breathing is heavy, evidently leaden with acidity it's become background noise to you. You're now increasingly mindful of how she's trying her best to keep calm for you. The realization that you're a liability and a hindrance to those around you makes you wince in shame.

You may as well be considered a synonym for humiliation at this point. That's how badly you're handling everything that comes your way.

Sasha doesn't say a word as she's brushing the knots out of your hair. There's nothing more you want to do than snatch the wooden paddle brush away from her, tell her she doesn't have to do this for you or commit herself to someone as unworthy as yourself. It's shameful that you let her continue - your only reason is that making her feel uncomfortable by the action is a possibility and that is the last thing you wish for.

The corners of your lips twitch upwards but you fight the desire to laugh at your pathetic circumstances.

"We aren't really in love." You finally say it. "He's never loved me." Your voice is ragged, voice trembling, breath laboured.

"You don't need to explain." Mikasa is calm in the way she approaches it all. "All we need to know is that the Duke is a pig."

Sasha has now stopped brushing out your hair now playing with the ends of your strands between her fingers.

"We expect no explanation from you it's been a long day." She gently whispers.

"Everyone deserves to rest. That includes you." Sasha's soft voice provides a kind of comfort that consoles you the way stars provide solace to the night. Your eyes fill to the brim with tears, you've desperately wished for years that someone would tell you that and mean it and here it is. She's smiling down at you, not even an ounce of irritation present in the way she addresses the situation.

Mikasa is silently caressing the top of your hand with her thumb. They aren't outraged or resentful. Even though they should be they aren't.

Heart twisting due to the prickles of relief they've given you your shoulders slump and you give in choking down a sob.

Sasha circles her arms around your quivering form and she strokes your hair. "It was hard, right?"

Attempting to blink your tears away you feebly nod. The weight of it all being kept to yourself has been unbearable. Tolerating this unwelcoming and cynical actuality on your own has been one of the hardest obstacles to come your way. To be swept off your feet and loved with such sincerity only to then be thrown away by that man like a rag-doll. Only to be coerced into doing what he wants or to face the music and face an early death. It's truly had a deeply somber affect on you.

You take one profound breath and you begin to tell them your story.

There are moments at which Mikasa's grip on your hand strengthens in a mix of frustration and protectiveness.

Eventually, at some point Sasha tries to secretively wipe a tear away when you recount Levi's blackened, subdued gaze the day he reverted back to his old self and announced you would never be a wife of his.

It's all too overwhelming for you when you tell them you're only alive sitting in this bed because you've bartered your freedom for a chance at existence. It's always been that way, you had to give, in order to receive, but this is one of the rare occasions you don't feel that way. The beating of your heart steadies, you're thankful for the way they listen and ask for nothing in return.

You stare at them once you're finished worried that you've overloaded them with too much information, you didn't even think to believe how they'd feel associating with a speculated "witch".

"You believe me right?" Your hoarse voice is thickened with worry.

You feel Sasha nod above your head.

"We believe you."

Staring at her glossy eyes you turn to look at Mikasa, she holds your arm in place and squeezes your hand reassuringly, it's enough to convey that she too has faith in you.

The days since have been passing excruciatingly slow. The day after the ordeal with Levi you can sense the way the other cadets look at you. It's a combination of distaste and pity. They stay far away from you, don't want to pair up with you during group exercises or activities - you aren't annoyed at all. In fact it's in their best interest they stay far away from your uncoordinated stiffness.

Oluo seems to feel horrible for challenging you to use ODM-gear when your core strength was not to the best of your abilities, he mumbles an apology for contributing to the gash on your forehead but you tell him it's quite alright and you assure him it isn't his fault that you thought you would be able to master the mechanism of the gear so early on.

On one of your more empty days you finally find the time to make your pit-stop at Hange's office, knocking on their door a breezy "Come on in!" is the response you're given.

To your surprise Levi is sitting there with a map and pen in his hand. Unmoving, his attention is solely on the plans in front of him. Ignoring him you inquire what it is Hange wanted to so desperately discuss with you but they wave it off saying the issue they had has now been solved.

Turning to walk away you don't divert your stare to Levi, simply knowing he's in one piece is good enough for you.

Other than that the repetitive pattern has stayed the same. It's a cycle of waking up, skipping breakfast, training for hours on end, returning completely exhausted, bathing and ultimately passing out in bed almost as soon as you've made contact with the mattress.

Levi and you awkwardly have to share the same bedroom at the estate to avoid any rumours of a broken marriage spreading. You don't understand why it matters, the "rumours" would be factual and true.

At first he sleeps in his office using the excuse of paperwork and planning attack formations but he knows that excuse will soon run dry. Later he utilities one of the armchairs in your room and sleeps in it for an hour or two, it concerns you how he's barely sleeping now, but you aren't vocal about your worry. Last but not least today is what you call a hollow night, the other half of your King sized bed is vacant, you haven't caught a single glimpse of Levi all day despite foolishly being on the look out for him. These nights are the worst.

Silence comes hand in hand with the peace and tranquility of the dark but that isn't what you feel, nevertheless you make the effort to sleep knowing your body will thank you for it when you train tomorrow.

Just as you're at the brink of drifting softly to sleep you feel the weight on the other side of your bed shift, you nearly jolt but your body's survival instincts halt the action. Suddenly, you are eerily alert of your surroundings. This isn't Levi, he'd never dare to come anywhere near you in general, but then shock renders you in place, he's fatigued by your presence perhaps it is him and this is finally your time.

That doesn't sound right to you. Levi is a man of his word if he wanted to go through with it he would have long ago.

A warm palm embraces your cheek and you second guess your previous line of thought. Instead of Levi Is this Lev?

This confirms your suspicions. The magic has yet to fully dwindle away. It's faltering.

Eyes fluttering open with caution you want to tell him how you've missed his presence greatly for this will be short lived. Lev will come and go. Even if you know it'll only obstruct your progress you wish to tell him you're grateful for the affection he gave you when he was around, but as you open your eyes half lidded he presses you into his chest.

The pace of your heart erratically springs, his breath is tickling the back of your neck. You can hear the blood drumming in your ears.

It pains you but you have to push him away.

But when you begin to emphasize the distance between the two of you he doesn't give you the opportunity to speak again, he flares up in want and presses his lips against yours, kisses you hard. You automatically reciprocate and your nerves cause your teeth to accidentally clatter against his.

His fingers run through your hair, frantically, desperately.

You'll be scolded for this later but it's not like you care and it's not like you can talk Levi out of it now. Not when he's like this.

An uncontrolled breathe leaves you and he lightly cups your jaw slipping his tongue inside. It tastes of whisky, you immediately recoil.

He's intoxicated.

"I'm sorry. Go to bed Lev." Your plain response is enough to worry him.

He holds onto your wrists and tugs at you. "My love?" His adoring stare is enough to make you crumble.

This isn't playing out how you want, you can't do this, not right now. You refuse to make this harder on yourself. Turning around you face away from him.

"I'm tired."

But Levi refuses to make it any easier on you.

He pulls you in by the torso again, handling you like a delicate flower.

He asks again.

"Whatever is wrong? I'll handle it for you."

It's abnormal hearing him talk to you with positive regard or even offer to help you. Repeatedly you warn yourself don't give in. The pace your head throbs at is in time with your heart, you're finding hope in the hopeless if you tell him your feelings.

"My Lord. Please leave me alone. Please. When the Sun rises you will regret this, as will I." You're unrestrained in your pleading now, your wailing fills the chambers you and Levi occupy.

"Please." Your voice is straining and urgent.

Thankfully, the maid's quarters are far, they won't hear the way you cry out for him to put an end to this torturous mind game.

Face slippery with hushed tears the tearing of your heart can not be heard. Bloodshot eyes blur your vision, you can't see. You don't think you want to, not when he firmly grips onto you like his life depends on it.

Then. The air changes, he's still holding onto you but his arms stiffen. He feels the way your back shivers against his chest. How your choked, cracked gasps for breath are an indication of how he's destroyed any chances you've had of sleeping.

Wordlessly, he lets go of you. Not a single word is uttered. The only sound amongst the alienating silence is his footsteps.

You hate this.

He closes the door behind him as he departs.

No, you hate him.

An unusual amount of sunlight compared to usual floods into your room and you have to practically block it out with one of your arms. Stirring awake your eyes burn, the whites must still be raw and inflamed.

This is usually the amount of sunlight you'd expect to see midday. Stifling a yawn you look around you. Then it hits you. It's not morning.

It's midday.

Your hands fly to your mouth trying to swallow your gasp down your throat, you're in hot water. It's not permitted for anyone to miss training unless they're excused by one of the higher ups. It's not as if you've missed a hour of training either, you've missed four.

There's no way to explain this, no way at all.

After everything he put you through last night the least Levi could have done was wake you up or at least order one of the maids to do so. It's his fault you slept at that ungodly hour.

An incessant knocking begins and you're almost certain it's Levi who's come to scold you for missing training. For some reason you can't make yourself care about his possible annoyance just yet.

"I'm coming in!"

You let out a short sigh. Thank Heavens it's only Sasha.

The door flings open and she pulls you out of bed not giving you the chance to greet her good morning.

"What have you gone and done???"

Awkwardly you chuckle. "I slept in and forgot training." Her face contorts and twists not knowing what expression is appropriate to express her bewilderment.

"No, no. WHY DID THE DUKE LET YOU OFF TRAINING TODAY?? IT'S OUT OF CHARACTER."

At a complete loss for words, open mouthed all you can manage to do is clear your throat trying to keep your jaw from dropping. "He what?"

#levi ackerman #levi #aot #snk #attack on titan #attack on titan x reader #attack on titan levi #aot fanfiction #aot headcanons #duke levi #levi x reader #levi x y/n #levi angst #levi fluff #levi smut #levi fanfiction #leviiattacks

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nov5aftermath · 3 years ago

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Oh don't get me wrong most fandom is great! Most of the Scream fandom is pretty okay and they make really good art and fanfiction and even though I don't read x Reader stuff since most of it doesn't have amab gay men with Stu or Randy or Dewey, plus I'm just not a big self inserter in the first place, I know those blogs work hard on their stuff and they seem like nice people. It's really only the stuilly's who show their asses whenever someone implies that their fave white serial killer who is is actively participating in the type of misogyny and sexual violence very reminiscent of straight men isn't gay. And what hurts me the most and is worse? A lot of then are like 'aaaww exactly that's totally the rage and anger of a closeted cis homosexual in the 90s 🥺.' Like no, it isn't, I would know, Ive lived that anger and suppression. Even in a small town it isnt (im southerner hence gay cowboy emotie). The rage cis gay men feel is very different from what Billy feels and 99% of the time is targeted towards other men and not women like fandom very weirdly wishes it was and finds alarmingly relatable (they conveniently forget most gay serial killers targeted other men). No gay experience is universal sure, and some few gay men might be like that, but to imply it "makes sense" just cuz you want to project and fetishize maleness and mlm romance and 'deep' tragic gay love stories is so insulting and non-progressive and what we've actively fought against.

So uh yeeah you can put this in the tags for everyone to see, you guys can like or love him or whatever snd thats fine, but I'll never see Billy Loomis as anything but the str8 psychopath he is and Im glad Sidney drop kicked his ass. He'll never be gay rep to me And I'll continue to thirst over Stu instead, who killed people because he was a gay/bi boy who was already mentally ill and in love with his trash friend and would've killed anyway regardless, and not because he's Billy's idiot lapdog who'd uwu do anything for love like everyone thinks. (Plus even his actor thinks he's gay and the writer for Scream says he could be too, which is nice to see support for that theory).

Oh and Dewey because christmas that mustache 🥵

Sorry not sorry for the rage. The Scream fandom is just awful sometimes to gay men and stereotypes regarding us.

🤠

/End anti-Billy, pro-Stu Rant

def feel you on the x reader stuff, my best friend was so shocked when i told her i don't read x reader fics but like none of them have male reader characters?

also yesss exactly gay rage is a thing and it can even be directed against women sometimes but it behaves so differently to straight man rage and the equivalence is fucking stupid

honestly i don't really thirst over any of these characters, they're not my type lol (absolute hatecrime against me personally that dewey was described as "hunky" in the script notes and then they decided to cast yet another random twink), but you go right ahead! Stu is more like my best friend that's very misguided and probably gonna kill me but also... he's really fun at parties so....

i haven't fully delved into the fandom yet bc i don't want spoilers for the sequels, but i look forward to seeing the good, the bad and the ugly when i'm fully caught up

#my famous era #fandom discourse #scream 1996

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sparklingpax · 4 years ago

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A Different Side (1/2)

Summary: Optimus comes back from an unsuccessful mission and seems to be out of sorts...but there’s more to that story.

///

A/N:

-This is a rather silly fic, so do not worry I promise there is nothing inappropriate or heavy in this one at all! It’s,,,a dumb idea I had in History the other day,,,I wrote most of it between/during class periods, and edited the rest when I was supposed to be doing homework at home! :’)

-Please excuse any typos, grammar mistakes, ooc-ness, weird phrasings, punctuation errors, or really just anything that looks weird or isn’t right; I’m an amateur and I do this stuff for fun! So I’m naturally not the best at it....keep that in mind pls...

-WHAT IS THIS TITLE IM SO SORRY--

-Ok but this story is honestly kinda dumb goumen I’ll write better things soon

-Set in the TFP universe!

-This only has two parts, so this be the first and the next update is the end of it.... 😹😹 ^^’’

Enjoy! :D

///

“Eat my dust, Jack!”

“Not if I pass you first!!”

“No, you won’t!!!”

“Says who?!”

Two cars raced around the base, one just barely passing the other.

Miko and Jack had gone head-to-head, racing one last tournament before they had to go home—after the tie last round, they just had to know who, really, was the victor of the day. The two of them shouted competitively as they jammed the controls in one direction or another. Excited, Raf looked on. He, too, was curious of the outcome.

At present, only Ratchet had remained at base.

The others had gone out to investigate an abandoned energon mine somewhere in Maine. Optimus had visited the location once before but was not able to reach the source of the readings he’d gotten.

Therefore, since there had been no Decepticon activity in the past week or so, he took his team to search the caverns.

They were due to return in about 10 minutes, according to Ratchet. When they did, each guardian was then going to take their human companion home.

It was a normal day at the Autobot base.

“NO WAY—”

“TAKE THAT!!!!”

Jack threw his fist in the air triumphantly while Miko crumpled to the floor in defeat. Raf burst into laughter as she actually went and laid flat on her back.

“The horror! I’ve let Jack win!!” She overdramatically wailed. Then, after a moment, sat up and giggled along with Raf and Jack. As the two went to retrieve their cars, Raf scampered up to Ratchet.

“Hey, Ratchet. What are you doing?”

The medic sighed, continuing to tinker with what looked like some kind of tool. “Fixing one of Bulkhead’s….accidents,” He muttered. With a sigh, he remembered the large mech smashing it while trying to reenact a fight he had, showing off to Miko. Naturally, the girl had been amazed, but it was short-lived as Ratchet, too, had witnessed that retelling.

Raf fixed his glasses. “I’m sure it was just an accident, Ratchet.”

With an eyeroll, Ratchet responded, “It was, but that doesn’t make it any less of an inconvenience, Rafael. It was quite immature of him, too.” He held it up to the light to observe a small detail of the frame.

“Oh…I see.”

“Thank the Allspark it’s not one of my more important tools,” he murmured, mostly to himself. Ratchet put it down for a moment to check on the progress of the rest of the team’s expedition.

He pushed the comm button. “Optimus, come in. Have you found anything? Is everyone okay?”

“Negative, Ratchet. There is nothing left in these caves,” he reported, a faint note of disappointment in his tone. “Though, everyone is fine. We require a bridge.”

“Understood.”

Ratchet tapped a few more buttons to lock onto their coordinates and pulled the lever, activating the groundbridge. Miko and Jack broke off their conversation and joined Raf to stand by Ratchet, waiting for their guardians’ returns.

Sure enough, after a moment, the team came through the portal with a swishing noise, Optimus the last one through. While the three kids gravitated to their partners, Optimus merely stood at the bridge. He remained for a moment, passing his gaze over his team.

Then, without a word, he turned and headed down the halls—to his room.

“Did you really think….” Arcee trailed off her snide remark at Jack as she heard Optimus’s heavy footsteps go past everyone and down the hall. She and Jack exchanged looks as everyone else, also, noticed this.

After a short spell of silence, Miko finally spoke up.

“Is he mad or something? Cuz I mean, geez—he didn’t even say hello.” She folded her arms.

“No, Miko,” Ratchet responded, sounding a little exasperated. “What could he be angry over, if he were?” More silence followed his words. It was not often Optimus actually showed what he was feeling like this.

Everyone was therefore concerned.

“Do you think…he might be, like, really disappointed about not finding anything in the caves, then?” Jack asked, drifting from Arcee to the groundbridge area. “I mean, from what he’s been saying, you guys really needed that energon…”

“He could just be tired, too,” Raf chimed in. The bots thought for a moment.

Bumblebee shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. ‘I just hope he’s okay…’

Ratchet set his tools aside and headed for the hall. “I’ll go talk to him,” he said. The humans and bots exchanged glances, then nodded.

///

“So!” Ratchet huffed frustratedly, emerging from the halls. “He won’t open the door, and will not talk to me, either!” He threw his hands in the air with a noise of exasperation, trudging back to his station.

Rafael nudged Miko, who had her headphones in. Jack stood up and began down the stairs.

“I guess something is wrong,” Arcee murmured, folding her arms. She caught sight of Jack, regarding her companion with an inquisitive gaze.

“Jack?”

“I’ll talk to him.” He heard his own determined voice, then touched the back of his head with an awkward laugh. “I’ll—I’ll try, I mean…”

“Good luck,” Ratchet muttered bitterly, not taking his eyes off his current repair project. “If he even has the courtesy to acknowledge you at all.” Jack flashed a thumbs up.

He uneasily began to wonder what could have put Optimus so out of sorts that he wouldn’t even speak to Ratchet. It was also rare for Optimus to do this kind of thing, apparently.

Something told Jack it wasn’t just about the energon…but he still wanted to find out for himself.

“Later, Jack!” Raf called, scampering down the steps. Miko followed, slinging her backpack onto her shoulders. She waved.

“Yeah, we’re gonna go home now, but you better text us later, kay?” Bulkhead and Bumblebee then transformed, and the two kids hopped in. Ratchet, remembering he had to bridge them out, audibly sighed, slumping over.

“For the love of Primus, am I able to get any work done around here without constantly being interrupted?!”

That’s my cue to leave, Jack thought. He quickly hurried down the halls, not wanting to be the next victim of Ratchet’s frustration. He knew the medic only meant well, and that his work was important to him.

Still, he internally wished Ratchet had more patience. Even if he didn’t scare Jack, it was still unpleasant to be around the old bot when he was not in a good mood.

Speaking of which….

Jack came upon Optimus’s berth room, which was closed. He sucked in a breath, raising his arm to knock. Hesitation pulled his arm back after a second.

What if he is just resting? I’d be pretty ticked if someone interrupted my long nap…

A memory of Miko pushing him off the couch as a prank resurfaced. He remembered feeling frustrated more than anything else. Of course, she’d apologized, but that wasn’t really going to give him back those precious minutes of sleep.

He rolled his eyes. “What can you expect when you’re friends with Miko Nakadai, right?” He murmured, raising his arm again. But for the sake of satisfying my own curiosities, at least—

“Hey, Optimus?” Jack called, knocking lightly. When he received no response for a few minutes, he sighed and knocked again—this time, a bit louder. “Optimus!! Are you okay in there?”

There was a rustling noise from behind the door, but still no response. Jack decided to stop knocking. He put his back against the metal and slid to the floor. Maybe simply talking it out would help.

“You know, everyone’s kinda worried about you…” He sighed again, laughing a little. “Oh, and Ratchet’s kinda mad you didn’t even acknowledge him. So…you’re probably gonna have to apologize for that later…”

The boy bowed his head a little. It was possible Optimus wanted to be left alone right now. Coming to bother him might have been a mistake. Jack began to think up other ways he and the others could figure out—

“Jack.”

Optimus spoke at last, his voice sounding calm—completely level, actually. Instantly, the teen sprang to his feet and answered.

“Optimus! Ok, good. You’re alive, then,” he joked. When the Prime didn’t respond to his jest—naturally—Jack shook his head and chuckled quietly. “It’s ok, I was joking. Anyway—do you….wanna talk? Is everything ok? You seemed kind of sad when you came through the bridge…and you didn’t even tell us how it went…”

Didn’t tell us anything, actually, but I’ll leave that part out. I’m sure Optimus doesn’t want to be guilted for stuff at the moment.

There was another noise—it sounded a little more desperate before it abruptly came to a stop. Then, the Autobot leader’s hefty footsteps began to approach the door. Jack backed away, glad that his efforts seemed to have paid off. The large metal sheet slid upwards, revealing Optimus’ huge figure.

His face was completely expressionless, but he mustered a somewhat warm look when he gazed at Jack.

Well, at least Optimus said something and…opened his door, Jack consoled himself mentally. Even though I still don’t know what’s bothering him. Guess we’ll just have to wait for him to tell us…

“I will go apologize to Ratchet. It was not my intention to offend him…” He started out the door and down the hall. Then, he paused to face Jack for a moment as he added, “And my apologies also to you, I did not mean to worry anyone. Thank you for coming to get me.”

“Oh—no, don’t worry about that, Optimus. It’s fine.”

The Prime nodded briefly, saying nothing more. Jack watched him go. Now, he was even more confused than before.

So why were you acting weird when you got back to base?

By coincidence, his gaze happened to wander to Optimus’ open berth room. Jack had the sudden realization that he’d never seen Optimus’s berthroom before. Actually, he hadn’t seen any of the bots’ rooms since he’d known about their base.

He left the door open, it wouldn’t hurt to go take a look…I think?

Quietly, he padded inside. Taking a moment to look around, Jack noted that it was quite a huge space—way bigger than he’d expected from the size of the door.

It was also very….bare.

No posters, furnishings, or anything other than the walls, his berth, and a small shelf. On that shelf, there was nothing except for some mystery object shoved in the corner, covered by an old blue cloth.

“Exactly what you’d expect from a guy like Optimus,” Jack remarked to himself. He sighed and began to walk away, when suddenly a noise snapped his attention back around.

Back to the shelf.

Back to the blue cloth.

A noise that had come from….

“What is that thing?” Jack murmured to himself as he drew close to it again.

He jumped back as it vibrated and briefly glowed a bright blue. It seemed to come back to life as a steady humming filled the air of the room. The teen came to a halt right in front of the shelf, placing his hands on his hips as he stared at it, curious and confused.

Was he trying to hide this? Jack wanted even more to know what it did—what it was.

And while he stared at it, the object beneath the cloth made another noise.

“Roadwork ahead?? Uh, YEAH, I sure hope it does!”

For a moment, Jack stood immobile. Then, he burst into laughter.

Optimus was watching vines….he was watching vines….Optimus Prime was watching vines.

He suddenly remembered what had happened to his mom when she watched vine for the first time. For at least two long, painful weeks, the only things she said were vine quotes—in a failed attempt to be funny.

Optimus was watching….vines….oh no.

Jack turned on his heel and sprinted down the halls.

....

I’ll edit and fix stuff later; I’m in class rn lolol :’D

Thx for reading!! Feedback is always appreciated~

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slidewhistlebj · 4 years ago

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TUA Season 2 is finally here! I think it was a really cool season with some really awesome potential, but there are some parts that I think really didn’t work and this is how i think they should have been fixed

(Spoilers for Season 2 of the Umbrella Academy. Obviously)

i think landing the siblings in different years was amazing, they got time to explore themselves and we could see their personalities through what they did

On the other hand, they didnt devote enough time to those storylines so it never felt like they had a solid purpose (for most of the siblings), it was more to show “time has passed”

How did Luther end up boxing under a gangster? How is he adjusting to no dad, no academy?? He was alone on the moon, He was left behind by his siblings in the academy, now he is alone and in a whole other *time* like i wanna hear about that!

Klaus has mansion and a cult and had a girlfriend benefactor lady?? Like: lets get into that! if the show wants humor that can be amazing

but it can also be really interesting and deep for exploring klaus’s need for both personal space (physically and somewhat emotionally) yet also his need for positive attention from whoever will give it to him!

More on that alone now track: the opening scene with their fighting was built to get us hyped

it fucking worked, that shit was amazing

but along with wishing that we saw more of their individual stories, i wish some of their growth had been gradual

like Klaus should have been showing off ghost stuff with his cult which is part of why they follow him which would set up his new ability to summon and conjure multiple ghosts at a time

instead of it being a throw away scene at the end where he gets caught

or Diego could have been shown in his ‘alone in dallas’ storyline to be trying to escape multiple times from the asylum and in that, figuring out his ability to start affecting other peoples shots at him, etc

Stuff like that would have been a great way to both dive into the characters *and* ramp up their abilities

Moving onto The Commission who i absolutely love so so much

Hell yeah u funky lil time-space assassins

I think that the Handler should have stayed dead

her return to the show while awesome (because she is played so well by her actress) continues this problem for the show of seemingly running in place where things dont have consequences like they should

I also think her return made a very campy feel to certain parts which is fine, the story should have fun! but it doesnt fit with the vibe very well with the other more serious plots

Imagine a storyline where the Handler is replaced by Carmichael, a competent replacement with no close personal relationship to Five

A head to head show down throughout the season of Five trying to outthink and outwit Carmichael and Commission Agents to get a briefcase

The misdirects!

The drama!

The action sequences and reveals!

More Screen Time for the Cool Ass Talking Fish 2k20!

All of which culminates in the board of directors scene but now with real weight behind it for the audience because we have been watching these two face off with one another for a season of build up

LET FIVE EAT THE FISH!

Giving that scene to the handler was the worst part of the whole season, u cant change my mind bros

This would also open up Lila to be more of her own person

Her storyline would change without the Handler there so that instead of being actively manipulated by the Handler, she has gone rogue from the commission to kill Five for her parents deaths due to previous planning and programming from her mother

(its only been 14 days for Five, a very normal turn around for him to desert, have the Handler tell Lila her version of the story, get killed, and have Lila get ready to take him down)

its generally the same plot, but Lila is more in the drivers seat

Going from tagging along with Diego in the hopes that Five returns for him to questioning some of her commitment to her mission as she spending time with them, etc

it could culminate in a reveal of her mother to Five and Diego and then a redemption where she helps them get a case from Carmichael in someway, looping her into the main plot in an important way with generally the same story

but skipping the pretty basic “obviously evil character is obviously evil but hero doesn't see it” trope that they fell into

I think that Luther’s arc in this season was awesome 10/10 gold standard

he was still him, but this storyline showcases the softer side of his loyalty and lets him grow from season 1 mistakes which is everything I hoped for

Comforting Vanya? Check

Being there for Five? Check

Being a voice of reason but still being a dumbass? Cheeeeeck

Diegos arc this season fell flat for me which was hard because he was such a main part of the plot

This whole season had a build-up trying to break down Diego’s need to be a hero (which they turned to a fucking 11 from last season?? he was not *this* intense last season, im not quite sure why they made the switch), telling him that he isnt / cant be the hero

I assumed this was leading to Diego having a big moment or sacrifice that proved that hero or not, he cares and the effort that he puts into all of these different things matters

But it just didnt??

He didnt stop the president from being assassinated, he didnt save vanya, at the farm he got trapped under a tractor

it just felt like the point was “haha see he isnt a hero”

which,,,,,,okay? What the point of that??

His involvement with the Commision was weird too, i didnt care for him being a part of that storyline very much, it just didnt add anything

Allison’s arc was just on the edge of greatness for me

it was an awesome choice to put in her in a position where she wasnt treated equally and show exactly what kind of person she is by how she fights back

her not using her rumors also seems very genuine and character based here like: 10/10 character motivations and work

My one complaint, like with just about all the partners in this season, is that she fell in love with a man and just had to leave him

which makes sense and they talk about it but like: she loves him, its hard to picture someone as loving and loyal as Allison just leaving her husband behind forever

Klaus’s arc just needed more *time*

He is a hella deep character but all of his story lines needed more time to be able to address that complexity

Show us more of the cult and his ghost powers being used there to trick and amaze and how he has been handling being cut off from the family again

I,,,,,,I understand,,,dave’s storyline

I get the time period

but fuck

that just hurts

I think Klaus not trying to rekindle his relationship with a younger Dave, but trying to protect him from the war was an amazing angle and it needed more time to get the full punch of klaus pulling out all the stops to save him but failing to really land it

Five

My Son

My Trash Boy

I feel like his job as ‘leader of the stop the apocalypse’ movement is good but that was his whole story this time around

He should have gotten more to play off of with the Commission (*cough cough* Carmichael) in his fight to get a briefcase instead of what felt like 10 hours of Five trying to herd his siblings and them just fucking up in someway or another

Five and Older Five was a cool dynamic and im glad they brought him in but again, it just felt like another long storyline attempt that didnt have a purpose as they ended the scene without the case or anything new

Ben’s arc was,,,,,strange

I love Ben and i think his interplay with Klaus is really cool!

But the writers made him fall in love which someone so they could give him a reason to want to possess Klaus which i feel like didnt need to happen

The possession was a good part of the season and could have been taken to some awesome places

It was rough and the ‘consent’ wasnt run entirely well but i think the possession is supposed to be on the line and not quite black and white

its Ben asking to take control of Klaus! That can be conflict! Thats good stuff right there! Ben is selfish! so is Klaus! thats a cool story to get into between them and see how they try to work it out

Ben wanting to connect with his other siblings after the small taste of being corporeal that he got and pushing Klaus for more and more of that freedom into possession territory would be A+ shit

and Finally: Vanya!

I think most amnesia plots are lazy and just a way to stall progress and reset a character so you can run a very similar plot again but this one seemed to genuinely grow Vanya’s character, even when she remembered

She definitely has more personality in this season

And while shes quiet, thats just who she is, she isnt as afraid to take space and speak up which is awesome!

And this stays when she gets her memory back which is very good, i dont want to see backsliding for no reason! Give me growth!

I have two complaints about her storyline though

First Sissy and Harlan

I love both of them and I think they are really cool characters!

Theyre pretty similar to vanya season 1, taking whatever is thrown at them which places Vanya in a more assertive position where she wants to protect them which i loved!

but their ending doesn't sit entirely right with me, just like Raymonds

These characters are in love and they all just leave each other so that the siblings can have a clean, no characters permanently added slate for the next season

it just makes me tired and i really want season 3 to have little to no romance if the only way the show can go about it is to do a love interest per season

My second problem gets its own section because it is the culmination of everything else i have said

episode ten

Vanya is strong af so any writer that wants big final fight needs to very carefully weigh out how to give each sibling their appropriately sized struggle so they get equal ability to contribute

Instead of doing that though, they did my least favorite trope: Evil Character secretly can do everything the heros can but better and without a problem or ***training***

It meant that they could do whatever they wanted with throwing commission agents at them because Luther, Allison, and Klaus were completely added on just to react to things

Five sort of got to do some fighting (<3 thats my lil geriatric 13 year old) but it was minor, he was mainly there to very obviously turn back time when the big bad shoot out happened

Diego got the most to do out of the siblings and it was suddenly knowing a new ability and doing it a little bit

I dont want a final fight to be trying to woo a bad guy to the good side because theyre too strong to fight

I want there to be stakes and drama as the siblings show off exactly what the season was all about, what they learned, how they grew together and apart, etc and to take down the big bad which could have very easily been the united front of the Commission instead of 18% Vanya, 15% Harlan, 30% Lila and the Handler, 20% the Swede(s), etc

Lila’s turn to good could have been to help them sneak attack the commission, maybe in their base so as to shrink the fighting to manageable bites for each character?

That would have allowed five’s killing of the board to draw the fighting to a close, a hard decision for him as he is trying to move away from killing but does so to save his family, always to save his family :’(

Luther could protect his siblings from hits like they showed at the beginning in a way that mirrors how he has been doing that emotionally all season

etc etc etc for all of the siblings so that they each get to show off and have their moment in the spotlight as heros

I loved the season even though i just ranted for like 3 pages, and it has some of the best one liners and line readings ever (”Thats where you come in Five” “Nope. No it isnt”) I just wish that some parts of it had been given some more thought / care so they could really show of the amazing cast, effects, sets, etc without writing in the way

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imma-lil-teapot · 5 years ago

Text

TMNT 2003/2k3 Headcanon: Crying - (Leonardo)

Feel free to scroll past this first part if you’re not interested in my silly rambling and nonsense. I won’t mind. Promise. ;)

Okey-dokey then, with the global epidemic that is the Coronavirus well in action and most of the world stuck in lockdown (starting this Friday for us too), felt like getting the ‘ol creative juices flowing with a little headcanon-y thingy in preparation for -possibly- more fandom writings to keep myself busy during the house arrest (well... it kinda is!) and hopefully my mind off all the bad news. :(

Also, this is totally my first one on the blog! WOOT! Please bear in mind that I’m SUPER rusty! Haven’t written in ages so there are bound to be typos and all matter of general errors scattered throughout the post. Don’t pet them! They bite!

Anyhoo~ Despite attempting to create and share with the goal in mind to uplift spirits, I decided to start on a rather upsetting subject (PLEASE DON’T LEAVE! They end on happy notes ;) ) because, Imma just come and say it, I enjoy seeing my favourite characters shed tears (not for just any old reason -their personality plays a huge role in this- and CERTAINLY not for sadistic reasons, land sakes no! But... well, you’ll see~ ;) ) It makes me all gooey and fuzzy inside to see them display such raw emotion and I just wanna leap into the TV screen to hug and console them. I dunno why. Maybe I’m nuts like that. (Remembers Raph crying at the farm when Leo was badly injured and wishes she could just hug them all and take away the pain) Oh well, if you enjoy visualizing the same, then *High Fives*. :)

So yeah, if you read the title, you’ll know this is based on the 2003/2k3 series (my favs). Hope you all enjoy~ :D Grab tissues cause sad turts ahead! :’(

Jibber jabber stops here~

TURTLES~

LEONARDO - You are here

RAPHAEL

DONATELLO - Coming soon

MICHELANGELO - Coming soon

WARNING(S): Because of the subject, Angst and Hurt/Comfort will be present.

RATING: G (General)

WORD COUNT: Don’t have the foggiest.

ANYTHING ELSE TO ADD:

And apparently gifs too, so without further ado: (Completely unintentional but in actuality, totally intentional rhyming)...

TO THE HEADCANONS~~~~

~LEONARDO~

-- It’s no easy feat to make the leader in blue turn on the waterworks. Leo won’t cry for any old reason. It’s not because he has no emotions, far from it, but being the leader of a small ninja clan -who happen to be family as well- is no easy task in itself: he has a lot on his young shoulders and deals with many issues on a daily basis few his age ever have to.

-- It’s because of these reasons that Leo doesn’t cry often. One of the lesser likely to out of the four brothers. But when he does, it’s an emotionally distressing sight to behold.

-- Leo tends to cry whenever those closest to him -namely his brothers, his father/master and truest friends- are severely injured or are in a dire situation. Remember his angry/moody arc? The thought of losing any of them causes him great pain and distress, especially if he were the cause of any of it, and when that happens, he can’t stop the dampness that forms around his eyes and soaks into his mask.

-- He’s not fond of crying, especially in front of others, even though he fully comprehends its normalcy. He feels he needs to be everyone’s rock, their fortress of physical and emotional stability to turn to for strength when things get rough... So when the tears start to fall, he feels he can’t show them, can’t allow them to watch him crumble under the gripling weight of helplessness and anguish.

-- He frantically wipes at his eyes and desperately attempts not to sniffle, but it’s a hopeless battle, for his tears are already a steady stream.

-- He’ll try to hide when possible, usually retreating to his room to allow the worst of the emotions to spill over before returning to the others... Though he may be in there a while: when Leo lets his emotions go, it can be just as powerful as his red-banded brother’s rage.

-- He spares no time in making sure the coast is clear for the tears are already streaming by the time he reaches his futon, and there’s no stopping them now as he lets himself drop to his knees, only halfway onto the mattress. He purposefully leaves the room unlit, cloaking his form in the darkness.

-- He sniffs a few times as he shuffles up against the wall, sitting upright against it, bringing his legs up and hugging them loosely and droops his head against a single knee pad.

-- His voice desperately wishes to escape. To express its misery. But he won’t allow it to, often placing one hand over his face in a bid to quell the sadness and remain silent in the battle against his own inner turmoil. He refuses to let anyone see him in that state of utter sorrow and vulnerability.

-- He whimpers ever so slightly and coughs a few times as breathing becomes difficult. He knows this episode won’t be over any time soon. Fortunately, he keeps some tissues next to his bed for such rare occasions and tries not to blow too loudly. He thinks back to the last time he cried so hard... It’s been a while. It felt like a build up.

-- Time has been forgotten as he’s lost in deep thought. By the time he slips a hand across his eyes, only the material of his mask is still slightly damp. He clears his nostrils a couple of times before considering whether he was ready to return to his family. He’d of course straighten up his bedding beforehand, and would also require a trip to the bathroom to wash his face. A true ninja leaves no evidence.

-- Leo tries to put the horrifying images out of head before leaving his quarters. He doesn’t wish to be weighed down again and thus maybe cause his emotions to come out a second time. He knew someone would catch on that time. Instead, he holds his head up high, focusing on the there and now to carry him forward.

BONUS EXTRA~

-- Failure is also one of his greatest foes. Leo despises it, but not in the irrational sense; he fully comprehends that in order to grow, one has to lose in order to learn and thus, succeed in turn, and while it can frustrate him when he’s unsuccessful at mastering a martial arts technique for example, he understanders it’s part of the process and that no one’s perfect.

-- It’s when his slipups could spell casualties or death to his family and/or friends is when it weighs down on him like a boulder strapped to his shell.

-- A really big one.

-- And it hurts. So much so that it causes him to become despondent and often teary-eyed when no one’s looking.

-- Boi Bloo might also cry from especially sad movie scenes. He gets seriously into the story, and when the scene is just right -perfect music, perfect timing etc.- you may just catch Fearless with watery eyes.

-- He can’t help it. After all, he’s a leader, and very caring and kind-hearted individual, so movies showing children or anyone/anything defenceless getting hurt has him not only visibly upset, but also angry at the cause. He’s a softie like that.

-- He won’t have a meltdown, of course, but the tears are definitely there. Just don’t tease him too much; he’s easily embarrassed by it. ;)

BONUS EXTRA EXTRA FEMALE READER OR S/O EDITION~ (Can also use an OC/FC insert if you wish, up to you)

You had figured something was up by the time you’d finished greeting everyone in the Splinterson household except for the Turtle you’d long to see most and he hadn’t made his presence yet known.

The idea that he must’ve been practicing or meditating swiftly vanished when Mikey told you he’d been in his room in the dark for the past few hours. “The guy hardly ever naps, and even so, never this long.” He’d told you. “I dunno, (Y/N), we were about to check on ‘im when you arrived, but maybe you should be the one to. Think he’d really appreciate it.” And there was absolutely no argument from your side as you were already making your way up to the room.

You didn’t know what to expect as you neared the doorway. Could he possibly still just be sleeping? Meditating in the dark instead of his usual spot by the training area? Or... was he sick? The latter now had you concerned and you picked up your pace... Only to pause mid step when an unmistakable sound reached your ears: a sniffle.

Had it come from within his room? It was the only logical explanation as everyone else was downstairs. You were truly perturbed now as you stood outside the doorway and called out the ‘eldest’ Turtle’s name.

There was some shuffling to be heard but you were unable to tell for sure what he was doing -probably trying to neaten up his bed- “(Y/N)? Just a second, okay?” he responded in a rather awkward verging on frantic tone, and you were certain you heard another sniffle escape him.

That, along with the way he’d replied really didn’t help to put your mind at ease. “Leo, are you alright?” Nor was the pitch blackness in which he remained concealed in.

“Yeah, just... l-looking for something.” There was some more shuffling as if to prove his point, but you were having none of it.

“Then maybe this,” you began, turning around to flick the light switch, “will help?”

“No! Wait!” But it was a split second too late for as soon the brightness illuminated the entire room, you had caught the telltale signs of an emotional meltdown in progress plastered on his face before he quickly turned away and briskly wiped an arm across his face, attempting to hide the shame... or perhaps embarrassment?

“Leo...?” your heart and voice softened, “Hey, what’s wrong?” You automatically walked to him, closing the gap he was now trying to form.

“Nothing,” he lied, and acknowledged it was a fruitless attempt but still couldn’t stop himself. Autopilot panic mode was enabled now. “It’s nothing.”

Unfortunately for him, autopilot mother hen mode was activated for you as you reached with both hands to his carapace and shoulder, gently turning him to face you. “I can see that it’s something.” Your words were gentle, and you wanted nothing more than to take away his pain. “Look at me, Honey.” His body was turned but his head remained to the side. It was clear he didn’t want his obvious distress on display, even to you. “Please, Leo?” You tried again, and slowly but surely, his eyes met yours, and you felt your heart sink further.

The fabric of his mask was wet and eyes were still red with fresh tears that threatened to fall. He appeared so broken and helpless as he stared at you, and even though he uttered no words, you could practically hear him despairingly ask “Is this what you wanted? To see me at my lowest?” from his expression alone.

Never had you witnessed the leader of this band of mutant brothers cry. At times you had wondered if he ever did, and yet here he was; the incredible pillar of strength and dignity you had come to know and adore, in tears and so dejected that you couldn’t stop your own eyes from becoming damp the more you gazed at him. “Oh, Sweety...” You whispered as you felt your soul shatter. It was too much to bear. You slowly wrapped your arms around him, one around the midsection and the other over his shoulder, and buried your face into his leathery neck, offering every ounce of comfort you could muster.

It didn’t take him long at all to sink into the embrace and return the action. Beyond the point of concerning himself with showing the pain he felt -or the wetness now soaking into your shoulder when he placed his forehead against it- he sniffed and finally allowed the tears to fall once again as fresh waves of emotion surged throughout his body.

And this time, he couldn’t keep the whimpering to himself.

“Shh~ It’s okay, it’s okay,” you soothed, lightly patting and rubbing along the scutes of his shell as he weakly sobbed, finally letting go of all the sadness that gripped him.

You weren’t even aware of what was wrong, and you most likely wouldn’t find out til later once he calmed down, but right now, he just needed you to hold him. Hold him until the hurt was gone... And so you would.

AND THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE!

ALL THE FEELS!! I EMBARRASS!!

OMGosh, this turned into a monster! The mother of all HCs!! :O No seriously, this wasn’t meant to be this long! I was suppose to squish all four into one itty bitty little post, but then it just grew... and grew... and GREW! Personally, I blame the Reader Bonus but I’d be damned if I didn’t enjoy writing it! ;P You guys here on Tumblr got me slightly addicted to them and have wanted to attempt some myself so... Anyhoo~ I can’t really say if I’m entirely content with the whole thing, I dunno. I feel some parts are better than others (writing style-wise) but yeah, I really need to get back into the swing of things...

Speaking of which, I DO plan on adding my two cents on the other bois as well, but judging by how this one turned out, they’ll most likely all be this length, more or less, so each Turt will get his own post so I can really jot down those details with all the freedom in the world! That being said, I can’t say when they’ll be added but hopefully soon-ish. :) Raph's next on the list!

Thank you all so much for the read and hope you enjoyed~ :D

~Drag0n Mistr3ss’ Random Fandoms*

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something-tofightfor · 5 years ago

Text

He’s Not Here - Part 24

Pairing: Billy Russo x Reader

Word Count: 8034

Rating: M (language and violence)

Parts 1-23 + the interludes and NSFW alphabet can be found on my Masterlist (link in bio)

Summary: What’s in the box that Billy left for you? Why was it so important that you have it? Does it even matter?

Author’s Note: I’m about to ruin your Saturday.

(Banner made by @the-blind-assassin-12)

It had taken you three days to go through all of the files on Billy’s laptop, starting with the videos in the folder he’d labeled with your name. There were plenty of them, and each one was like a punch in the gut, simply because with every word he said, you heard him in it, the way he’d been when he was with you, even though you weren’t together at the time. They followed a linear timeline - some of them were simply Billy talking to you through his webcam, staring at the laptop with wide brown eyes, features contorted in sadness as he reminded himself - and by extension, you - of what he was doing and why. You couldn’t watch them all that first night; you were crying too hard, and after calling your boss and letting her know that you needed a few days off, you pulled one of Billy’s t shirts on and crawled into bed, bringing his iPod with you and holding it with one hand until you fell asleep, the songs that had comforted him in the desert filling your ears.

You’d cried yourself to sleep, but had woken up early the next morning, determined to make more progress with the videos and the files. You made notes as you went through them, lists of what was in each file, and as you did so, the story unfolded, little by little. Billy had been involved with heroin smuggling, starting with the contact that he’d had with Schoonover when he’d been shot. The man had offered him an opportunity to work directly for him as soon as he’d gotten back overseas, and though Billy had been hesitant because he knew what hard drugs could do to people, he’d agreed. “I didn’t want to do it, you know? But it was good money, and if I hadn’t agreed, he woulda gone to someone else, and who knows what he woulda done to me for sayin’ no. I wanted Anvil, wanted to… just wanted to get started, and figured that once I was back here and could find a new way to… he’d go somewhere else after I’d done my part. He’d find someone else, and I could just…” Billy’s hand had been working the back of his neck as he spoke, still not looking at the camera. “I was wrong. I was so wrong, but by the time I realized it, we were already… it was about more than the drugs, it was … we were - me an’ Frankie were…”

Agreeing to help with the drug smuggling had been just the beginning, and while Billy had assumed that he’d be on the hook for that when he came home - using Anvil as a front until Schoonover could find another avenue for importing and distributing the heroin - things had quickly changed when he and Frank had been tasked with leading two squds of men in Afghanistan, turning from dedicated Marines into something more deadly, more focused - more wrong. “Cerberus, at first was just them tellin’ us to go in and do what was necessary. We’d all been asked to do a buncha shit before, shit that we didn’t agree with but didn’t question, and so it wasn’t anything different. It got bad, Orange… Rawlins had his own agenda, and we just did what we were told, and… and it got out of control. It wasn’t just Schoonover keepin’ an eye on me anymore, it was both of ‘em, and I couldn’t...”

The folders contained information about each of the men - dates and amounts, contacts, phone call logs, requests, meeting notes. “I couldn’t keep track of shit over there, but once I got here? I knew… I knew there was a chance they were gonna get caught, and I’d go down with ‘em, but I wanted to… I know I can only count on myself, yeah? But after Schoonover died … after Frankie killed ‘im, things got… things changed. Rawlins is so paranoid now, but he thinks that… it’s never gonna be on him, never gonna… but he… if he knew I was keepin’ track of things, makin’ these videos? It’s gonna cover my ass, but he’d kill me for it right after he made me watch him kill you.”

Billy outlined everything for you - the way that the operation had changed after Schoonover died and the heroin stopped coming in in the same way, the way that Rawlins stayed as far out of the spotlight as possible and still tried to control the narrative, sending Billy and his men out on missions that needed to be handled quickly and quietly. “An’ I know you won’t want it, but I can only use so much of this money, and if I’m… I’m doin’ all of this shit? I want it to mean somethin’.” There were things that Billy did that were legitimate - he talked about situations where the men and women of Anvil were doing real jobs, where the company was exactly what Billy had dreamed, getting recognition in the papers and in military and political circles. “It’s only been a year, only been… and we’re doin’ it. I’m doin’ it, and I want… I wish I could tell you about it, because I think you’d be proud of me, at least for some of this shit.”

The money that he’d been putting into your account - that he’d opened by using the signature on the contract that you’d both signed for the Anvil party - was, according to him, from Billy’s portion of the legitimate deals he’d been doing, the training and the protection, the missions. “I’m usin’ the blood money, and that’s more than enough. Everything that goes to you? That’s… that’s what I woulda been doin’ for you if we were still together.” But there’s no way to verify that, I don’t… all I have are these records, but… But you realized that there’d be no reason for anyone to look into the account; it had been opened in your name, and the signature was as close to your own as you’d ever seen. You went back and forth about how you felt, knowing that the money you had access to could have come from illegal activity, but at the end of the day, you decided it didn’t matter.

I can… I can use this to help him, I can get him a lawyer, I… You’d actually laughed when he explained what was going on with your rent amount being deposited into the account in one of the earliest videos. “I told you we’d be livin’ together as soon as I came back, that I wanted to… well, since I’m savin’ money by living in the apartment next to my office, instead of paying my rent, I’m paying yours… kind of, even though you don’t know it yet.”

Billy had moved out of his apartment and into the building that he was leasing only a few months after Anvil opened. You weren’t surprised by it - that meant he could be close to his recruits, close to the company, always available, and even though you knew that him doing that would have consumed him, you also knew that it was what would have kept him sane - and too busy to really sit back and think about how far his life had spiraled.

The videos continued, Billy talking about the things that Rawlins and Wolf had him do, the meetings he had with Bennett and the other men, the promises they made him. “I know I can’t trust ‘em, and at this point, it’s more about me bein’ able to somehow cover my own ass when this all goes bad. Not if. I’m guilty, I’ve done a lot of bad shit and I know that, but it didn’t start out that way, and now… now they’ve got me in so deep that… I don’t know what else to do, except make these videos and talk to you like you’re really here because it might matter someday, even if it’s only to you.”

You’d seen the progression in Billy as the time passed. His first video to you, he’d been distraught and angry, trying to explain everything to you in a way that made sense while coming to terms with the fact that his life was exploding. The video after the Castles had been killed had been difficult to listen to, to say the least, but he’d been a combination of heartbroken and pissed, and you’d seen the fire in his eyes, heard the edge to his voice. The one from after Anvil’s opening had been short, but Billy was simply resigned in that one - he’d talked about your kiss, talked about saying goodbye. “I shoulda done it like that in March. I shoulda just been more honest, been more… but if you’ve made it this far, you know why I couldn’t, you know the risk. You know how dangero… You’re right. I have to let you go, I can’t keep pullin’ you back in. I already did, and it’s too dangerous, even though I tried not to, I … The next few, he’d been more calm, matter of fact - you could hear in his voice that he’d accepted his new reality - a life without you, without the Castles and without anything meaningful in it, aside from Anvil - something that had been his dream but that he’d allowed to be corrupted.

Billy had laid out everything for you - the reasoning behind your breakup, the reasons that he’d acted the way he had, the motivations for how hard he was working with the company, the need for him to try and help Frank in any way that he could… and even the ways that he was trying to make it seem as if everything was normal in his personal life. You’d assumed that Billy hadn’t been celibate after ending things with you, but hearing him talk about it? Seeing him looking at the camera and then away from it while he talked about the fact that he had to keep up appearances by being seen with other women, that he’d had to sell it by drawing them in and then cutting them lose? It hurt, and no number of apologies would ever make the feeling that you’d had in the pit of your stomach while you heard him apologize for sleeping with other women - and then remind you that he was doing it because he loved you disappear. He’s not wrong, though, it makes sense, it just…

You believed him, believed every word of what he said, because the things he said in the videos lined up with the other files on the computer - the pictures, the spreadsheets, the documents. They even lined up with the phone calls and the text messages, and you knew without a doubt that they’d line up with Anvil’s records, too. Billy had had to do a lot off the books, but it seemed like before he’d turned over the invoices to whoever it was that had paid him for the ‘special’ missions, he’d made copies of documents, made notes of the transactions. Though Anvil’s headquarters was nothing but a smoking pile of ash, there was a separate portion of the hard drive dedicated to it - and to the records. I have everything. Everything he worked for. Everything he was. “I know that my discharge papers say somethin’ different on record, but I have the real ones, I asked for ‘em when I came home. It was before Rawlins got to… he’s gonna use the ones he did, the ones… but I know. These are real, and you’ll have em, they’ll… they’ve gotta be good for something, right?”

As time passed, you could see that for Billy, things were falling apart and he didn’t know how to deal with it. Frank’s supposed reappearance - and the fact that Madani was also looking for the man weighed heavily on him - you watched the look on his face change, the fear in his eyes grow. “If Frankie’s really back, he’s gonna know, he’s… I’m not gonna be able to explain, because how do you… how do I explain that? How do I get him to listen for long enough to...” Billy had wanted to see Frank again, had been both relieved and afraid to learn that the man was still alive, but it presented him with a lot of problems, too. “I didn’t want to turn him over to Rawlins, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t tell him no, because I’m in too deep now, he still has leverage on me, and I can’t… I won’t risk it.” Billy had been relieved that Frank hadn’t shown up at the docks, and then the bombings and hotel attack had happened, exposing him to both Madani and Frank at the same time. “That’s not how I wanted him to find out, not how I wanted her to find out, either. I don’t… she was a means to an end, but I didn’t… it was never supposed to happen like this, I shoulda known that Frankie wouldn’t let it… fuck.”

There was no doubt that in the few days leading up to Billy showing up on your doorstep, he’d been trying to make sure that you had everything you could ever need on the laptop - and on the phone, which is where the call logs and text messages still were stored, along with audio recordings of meetings that he’d had with Rawlins and other men that you didn’t recognize - because while most of the information was organized, there were also things that were messily added, not labeled thoroughly, just put on the computer so that it would be there after he wasn’t.

But it was the last video - the one that you watched, curled up in bed, wearing his sweats and clutching the dog tag in one hand - that forced you into action, caused you to start thinking about what you could do with the information you had. In it, Billy was in a dark room, and he was wearing the outfit you’d last seen him in, hair hanging over his eyes and his skin pale, but his voice was sure, and he’d done something that he hadn’t in any of the previous videos: he stared directly into the camera for the whole thing.

“So this is it. I’m meetin’ Frankie tonight, and it’s… it’s gonna be one of us or neither of us. I gotta fight, I’ve always fought, and even though after what I did, just lettin’ him have me is what I deserve, it won’t… he won’t… I can’t just lay down and die.” He’d run his fingers through his hair, taking a deep breath. “I gotta say this now, because it could be my only chance, and if I say it to you when I come there in a few hours, you won’t let me leave.” Your heart was pounding as Billy leaned in, staring at you through the screen. “He thinks I’m somethin’ that I’m not, at least not completely. I did a lot of bad shit, a lot that I wish I wouldn’t have done, but it’s always been about survival. For me, for you, for him, for… fuck. You know how I get, so I can’t… I can’t promise you that I’m gonna make it through the night. Frankie and me, we always… we bring out the best in each other, but we also... “ Billy shook his head. “I told you I’d come back to you, no matter how long it took me, but I can’t… I don’t think I’m gonna be able to do that after tonight. I don’t think I deserve it, because this whole fucking thing is just… I just tried to… I’m tired. I’m tired of things bein’ like this, tired of… this isn’t me. It can’t be me anymore.”

He stood and walked away, coming back with the book you’d made him in his hands, holding it up for you to see that it was tattered, the pages bent and ripped at the edges. “I think you coulda forgiven me for the drugs, even though you would have been mad. And I know you woulda told me to … to warn ‘em, instead of… but I couldn’t. I tried to tell you without tellin’ you, but now I’m… You loved me, and I think you still might, but you need to know that it didn’t matter who I was with or what I was doin’, or what any of them say.” Billy tore the last page from the book and held it up, turning it so that you could see the words, even though they were backwards. “I just love you. I always have. And if you love me, you’ll use this - everything I gave you - not to clear my name, but at least to… explain why I did what I did. Maria’s parents, maybe? Frankie, if he makes it… if… fuck. Just promise me that you won’t blame yourself. I didn’t give you a choice - I made it for you.” He sighed, looking down, and you saw that the bloody fingerprint was on the card. “Make it worth it. Help him if you can.” Billy licked his lips, saying your name and holding his hand up to the screen - much like he’d done when he was overseas. “I love you, and I’m sorry.”

The video ended there, and you sat staring at the screen - his face frozen in a mask of sadness, his hand against the screen with his fingers splayed. He thought Frank would win. He didn’t think he would… Without thinking, you reached up to mirror the motion, tears streaming down your face. “Oh, Billy.” You took a deep breath, eyes finally moving away from the screen and down to where the rest of the items from the box were spread out on your bed, thinking. He told me to make it worth it, but the only thing… You shook your head. Frank was still alive, that much was for sure. He deserves to know, he needs to… this can clear his name, too, give him closure, it’ll… You took a deep breath, still thinking. But Billy’s still alive, too.

As much as you hated Frank for what he’d done to Billy, you understood it. From where Frank stood, Billy was solely responsible for the deaths of his family, and there’d been no reason for it aside from Billy’s own selfishness and his desire to become wealthy and respected. That has to change. He needs to… Your breath leaving you in a shudder, you closed your eyes. Billy was in the hospital, clinging to life, and when he woke, he’d have Homeland and the rest of the government pinning crimes on him that he hadn’t been responsible for while overlooking the part that their own men - and women - had played. You knew that they’d likely frozen Billy’s bank accounts; despite the fact that he’d included his own credit and debit cards in a separate envelope, as well as information for two offshore accounts, you were wary of counting on any of that money to be there when and if Billy needed it. But my account, he’s... I can use that, I can... You climbed out of the bed, crossing your arms over your chest as you paced your room, thinking.

Billy would have a public defender, a lawyer that was likely going to be able to be intimidated, one that wouldn’t work hard to save the life of his client - someone that he didn’t care at all about. And he’ll lose. And he’ll go to jail, or worse. He’d said it himself - he was guilty of a lot of things, but in all of the coverage you’d seen over the past week and a half, there had been no mention of anyone government or military being involved, aside from Billy and Lewis. He’s going to get blamed for everything, even the things he didn’t… Even Frank’s name had been scrubbed from the narrative; he’d saved the lives of two teenagers as well as Madani’s on the carousel, but after that, nothing. He can’t just… he’ll have to… “He said to help him.” You spoke out loud to your empty apartment, blinking away more tears. Billy had meant Frank, you knew that he had, but you didn’t know how to get in touch with him - and if you were being honest with yourself, didn’t know if you could face him, knowing what you did. I had no idea, I didn’t… You stopped in your doorway, looking back at the bed, and then looked down, realizing that you still had Billy’s dog tag in your hand, uncurling your fingers and finding that you’d been holding it so tightly that there were indentations left in the skin of your palm. I guess you had a preference, Billy. You just didn’t… you didn’t realize it until it was too late.

Taking a deep breath, you slipped the dog tag into your pocket, squaring your shoulders. Figure it out. He did. He … Your eyes landed on your phone, which was sitting on the nightstand, and you hurried back to it, picking it up. Who can I trust? You didn’t know where to begin; you’d never needed a lawyer, never been in trouble with the law, never had to think about what you’d do if you ever needed to defend yourself in public. There has to be someone, but… Leaving Billy’s laptop and everything else, you walked back into the living room, eyes moving over to the TV stand, where the pictue of you and Billy had been, though you’d moved it. That picture started it, it was… Shaking your head to clear it, you moved to the couch, perching on the arm and holding your phone. Focus. You didn’t even know what time of day it was; you’d been in a haze since you’d opened the box, but as your eyes wandered again to the TV stand, you pressed your lips together. It’s only noon, it’s the middle of the day, it’s what, a Friday? You unlocked your phone, opening the browser and took a deep breath before typing ‘criminal defense attorney New York City’ into the window and hitting search.

There were hundreds of results, and as you scrolled through them, you frowned. I can’t trust them, I don’t know if… they won’t take it seriously, they… You set the phone down, closing your eyes and rubbing your fingers over them. You were exhausted, and even though you’d been sleeping, your dreams were once again filled with Billy’s face, with his voice - and even though you had no clue what Frank had truly done to him, the dreams often featured Billy with injuries - scars and raised skin, bandages covering wide swaths of his face. You felt guilty - more guilty than you’d ever felt in your life, and you knew that you wouldn’t be over that feeling for a long time, especially not when you knew that Frank was still - “Frank.” You dropped your hands, picking your phone back up and typing again. This time, the search was more pointed - ‘Frank Castle defense attorney’ - and your eyes widened as you scrolled through those results. Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson’s law office was known for taking on difficult clients, and the two men were also known for getting results. “Can they help me? Help...Billy?” You swallowed, eyes scanning the page and you gasped when you saw a name that jumped out at you - Karen.

Frank had mentioned someone named Karen when he was talking about Billy, and the fact that she was associated with the lawyers couldn’t have been coincidence. You remembered Curtis mentioning her, too, both men saying her name with reverance. She helped Frank, she… You closed your fingers around your phone, squeezing your eyes shut. If she helped Frank when he was accused of… she might… You knew it was a long shot - if she was invested in Frank’s wellbeing, she’d likely be hesitant to listen to Billy’s side of things without rushing to judgement. But she doesn’t know, none of them do. Your heart pounding, you backed out of the news article and typed the woman’s name into your browser. She’s a reporter. You took a deep breath, scrolling, and saw that along with her email address and the newspaper’s phone number, she had her extension specifically listed on her profile. That has to be… You swallowed, memorizing the four numbers and biting your lip. It’s a long shot. But it’s the only… it’s the only one I’ve got.

You started the call before you could question yourself again, taking a deep breath and repeating the extension number when a man answered. As you were transferred, you felt your heart in your throat, foot tapping against the floor rapidly. “Karen Page, New York Bulletin.” Freezing, you didn’t respond right away. “Hello?” You made a split second decision, closing your eyes briefly and then opening them, your eyes landing on the decorated tree in the corner. I have to do this. “Hello? Is there -”

“Miss Page?” Your voice shook, and you paused, swallowing before you introduced yourself. “I… I think you can help me.”

“You’re…” She paused. “I know your name, you’re Billy Russo’s…” She stopped herself and you heard yourself laughing quietly. “I’m sorry, that was… how can I help you?”

“Miss Page… Karen…” Your eyes went back to your hallway, the corner of the laptop just visible. “I didn’t know who else to…” You fought to keep your voice even, trying to figure out the best way to continue. Just say it. “Billy Russo isn’t the person that you think he is.” You heard her exhale, but continued before she could say anything. “I have… I have some things I need to show … someone, anyone that can help, I…”

“Why do you think I can help you?” Her voice was slightly colder than it had been previously, but you heard the interest in it too. “I don’t -”

“You believed in Frank Castle.” She sucked in a breath loudly. “You knew there was more to it than what they…” Now or never. “There’s more to this, too.” There was a long pause.

“I’m listening.” You let out your own breath, which was more like a sigh of relief before you closed your eyes, nodding. That’s all I needed.

---

The next day, there was a knock on your door, and when you opened it, you forced a smile at the blonde woman, inviting her in. You hadn’t slept well the previous night and were nervous - not because you feared what Karen would say in response to what you showed her, but because sharing what Billy had left you was opening up the remnants of your relationship - of his life - to someone on the outside, someone with an allegiance to Frank. But she’s … I have to. “Hello, Miss P-”

“Call me Karen, please.” She stepped into your apartment, shaking her had. “So many people out today, you’d think they would have gotten it all out of their….” She trailed off, noticing the confused expression on your face. “Yesterday… was Black Friday?” Karen cocked her head to the side, frowning slightly. “Day after Thanksgi…” You shook your head, brow furrowed. I didn’t even realize. I missed… You watched her as she watched you, her eyes raking over your body. You’d showered, changed into clean clothes and made an attempt to improve your appearance, but knew that you still looked rough. “You love him.” She swallowed. “Still, even after -”

“I do. And I owe him.” There was no shame in your voice, nothing but the truth in it. “And you’ll understand better once…” You gestured to your kitchen table, where the laptop was sitting, open and unlocked. “Before I show you what he left me, I need to tell you… do you want something to drink?”

Over the course of an hour, you filled Karen in on your history with Billy, starting with how you’d met and ending with the moment he’d left you for the last time the night of the fight with Frank. She’d listened, her eyes growing wide at certain parts of the story, but hadn’t interrupted, a pen held tightly between her fingers as she took notes. You were honest with her, telling her details that you wouldn’t have told anyone else, because you wanted her to know the Billy that you knew, the man that you’d fallen in love with. “And he left me a box, telling me it was the truth… but I didn’t open it, I couldn’t, because it felt like…”

“Like moving on. Like… ending that part of your life, the part that was with him.” She spoke quietly and you nodded, watching as she set the pad and pen down on the coffee table, next to her empty beer bottle. “You opened it, though.” You nodded, recounting Frank’s visit to you a few days after the fight, followed by your trip to the hospital and the encounter with Madani. “I’ve met her. She’s… she saved Frank’s life, her and Lieberman, after…” You watched her eyes flash. “After he killed Rawlins, and again after he fought with…” Karen bit her lip and used her fingers to wipe beneath her eyes. She loves him. You felt a chill run through your body at the realization, but you knew that you were too far in to stop things. “He’s gone, he’s not in the city anymore, you know that?” I didn’t. “He left Madani to look after Billy, told her to call him if anything changed, said he’d come back if he needed to, but even… even after what Billy did to Frank, to his family, he didn’t… he couldn’t kill him.” Karen shook her head. “I don’t know how he… Frank’s a good person, but, Billy, he took -”

“He didn’t do it because he wanted to.” You spoke quietly. “He never wanted to hurt them, never would have…” You met her eyes, feeling yours flooding with tears that you didn’t even try to hold back. “Rawlins gave Billy a choice, Karen. And I didn’t know it until I watched…” You gestured to the laptop, shaking your head back and forth. “Rawlins wanted Frank dead, not Maria and the kids. Billy thought…” You looked down and then back up at Karen, who was watching you silently, hands clasped together on her lap. “Rawlins told Billy that if he warned Frank, if he tipped him off in any way, that he’d…” Your jaw worked silently, but you only paused for a moment before continuing, saying the words out loud for the first time. “He said he’d kill me.”

---

Karen had been on the phone moments after watching the first video that Billy had recorded for you, the woman pacing back and forth in your living room as she talked with somone on the other end of the line. “I need you to pack up everything - not the clothes, but the laptop, the other stuff, the papers… and you need to come with me.” Shocked, you’d nodded, slipping Billy’s laptop and phone into your own bag, adding in the paperwork and few envelopes along with it. By the time you’d finished, Karen was sitting on your couch again, head in her hands and her long hair hanging through her fingers. “We’ll figure this out.” She looked up at you, and you saw that her eyes were shining. “I trust Frank. He’d never… he’s never…” She shook her head. “But that didn’t seem like…” No, it didn’t. She stood, pressing her lips together and then she crossed the room to you, putting her arms around your shoulders and pulling you close. Though you were surprised, you hugged her back, feeling a sense of comfort for the first time since Billy had walked out the previous week. “Matt and Foggy will know what to do, they’ll… Matt will be able to…”

So the two of you had taken a cab to Hell’s Kitchen, entering a large and open apartment. You recognized the man that opened the door as Matt Murdock, and though blind, he’d reached out for your hand before you could say a word, introducing himself. “Karen tells me you have a case...or what you think is a case?” He smiled at you, and out of habit you nodded, opening your mouth to speak.

“I do, Mr. Murdock, I -”

“Matt. Call me Matt. If we’re going to be working on this, you should…” He led you deeper into the apartment, asking you to set up the laptop and play the video you’d played for Karen. You watched him with interest as he listened to Billy’s words, his face giving nothing away. It was one of the longer videos, but as Karen pressed the pause button at the end of it, you felt like it wasn’t long enough. “And he recorded that when, Karen?”

“The date of the file is from about a week before the Castles were killed, Matt.” She sighed. “I mean, we’d need to check it out, and make sure, but… the other videos, they all have dates that line up with things Frank told me, things that we looked into for his case and with The Blacksmith. I mean, it… there seems like there could be a lot of truth to it, and if…” She trailed off. “If there is, then this could get interesting, Matt.” She believes.

“Russo’s voice… he believed what he was saying.” Matt frowned, shaking his head. “He was genuinely upset.” You leaned in, reaching past Matt to open up the file from the day that the Castles had been killed, pressing play. Just keep going, that’s all you can do now. When that video ended, you glanced over at Karen, whose eyes were read, tears streaking down her cheeks. You were crying too, but you were spent, your body almost too tired to produce any real tears. “He really didn’t know.” Matt’s voice was filled with surprise. “That changes things. If there was proof that -”

“There is. It’s short, but there’s a recording on Billy’s phone, I don’t know how he got it, but it’s…” You swallowed. “It’s Rawlins and Billy the day of the…” You pulled the phone out, going through it. “Rawlins tells Billy that there are men outside of where I work, and if anything goes wrong, if Frank isn’t there, or if he seems like he was tipped off, they’ll grab me when I go to lunch.” You pressed play, letting Matt and Karen listen. Some of the audio was garbled, since you assumed that Billy had had the phone in his pocket, but most of the words were clear.

“Does R… Billy have a lawyer?” You told him you didn’t know, and Matt nodded. “We’ll look into it. They can’t try him, or even charge him with anything formally until he wakes up and they assess… his brain function.” You gasped and Matt continued. “It’s been all over the news, I’ve… kept up with it.” Of course you have. “We have time, but we can’t… we can’t let anyone know that this information exists, not until we go through it, and…” Matt sighed. “Karen, can I talk to you for a minute?” The blonde nodded, and Matt pointed at the refrigerator. “Help yourself, we’ll be right back.” They walked slowly away and down the hall, and you turned the laptop to face you, staring again at Billy’s face, paused on the screen. I’m going to help you, Russo. Even if they won’t, I … A few minutes passed and then you heard your name, Matt stepping back down the hallway in front of Karen, who looked determined. “We’ll need to keep the laptop and the phone, it’s evidence. Once we can verify that things were created on the days that … that he says they were, we can move forward.” You agreed and Matt took a deep breath. “I still have to talk to Foggy, but… I think that we can help Billy, and maybe Frank, too.”

You felt yourself deflate, your knees growing weak. “You...you believe him?” That time, your voice shook, and as you gripped the edge of the counter, you felt Karen’s hand on your back, heard her murmur your name. “I know you guys believe Frank, and you trust him, and…”

“Frank’s entire… everything he ever did was to… was for the people he loved.” Karen shook her head, and for the first time, you noticed the faint scabbing on her face, the scar next to her lip. “If Billy really did that for you - and there’s proof? Proof that he…” She shook her head. “They’re going to try to bury him, and no one will ever know the truth if they have it their way. Sweeping what Rawlins and Bennett and Schoonover and Madani …what all of them did under the rug to save face?” Karen shook her head. “That’s not right, that’s not what .... Not what people like Frank and Billy fought for.” Karen nodded, her eyes clear. “I believe Frank. I believe that Frank did what he thought was right because of what they did to his family, but … but that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe Billy, too.”

“There’s a lot of work to do.” Matt spoke again, drawing your attention. “If Billy wakes up, we’ll need to be there almost as soon as Madani’s guy is, so we need to get to work on this.” You nodded, forgetting again that Matt couldn’t see it, but he grinned, continuing. “We need to go through all of these files, and start working on a strategy, figure out what we can…”

“Matt?” You swallowed, eyes moving back to the laptop. “If… if he doesn’t wake up, that laptop… the phone… it’s all… it’s all I have left of him, and it’s the only proof that he…”

“We can make you copies of the videos.” Karen’s hand rubbed against your back, her voice quiet. “I’ll do that right away and get them back to you, just in case.”

“Yeah.” Matt cleared his throat, nodding his head. “It’s probably good to have backups anyway.”

---

Things moved quickly, and over the course of the next few weeks, Matt, Karen and Foggy worked tirelessly on the case, categorizing all of the information and printing things out, connecting dots. Karen’s position on the paper allowed her to dig into files and reports, getting them more information on the men that Frank - and Billy - had killed. It had only taken a few days for them to come to the conclusion that nothing on the phone or laptop had been fabricated, meaning that while the truth behind Billy’s words couldn’t be validated unless he woke up and remembered, he’d recorded and saved things as he went - not all at once, and not after the fact. It made you appreciate what he’d done for you even more, and it made you hate Madani and the government more, too.

Though you weren’t allowed in the room with Billy again, you visited him multiple times a week, sitting quietly in the hallway in a chair that faced his room, waiting for any sign of change.

Nothing happened - aside from the bandages on his face getting thinner, the bulk disappearing as the wounds beneath them healed. Madani was in the room with him most of the times that you were there, and while you couldn’t hear what she was saying, you watched as she spoke to him, the anger on her face and in her posture palpable. She’s going to try everything to … to ruin him. You kept it together, taking everything in, and reported back to Matt and Karen, letting them know if you overheard anything from Madani or the doctors, but it wasn’t until the beginning of the third week of December that they had to take action.

Billy’s court appointed lawyer had visited with Madani, and though you didn’t catch all of their conversation, you watched the man shake hands with her and heard him say that when Billy woke up, things wouldn’t take long to wrap up. I knew it. You texted Karen as soon as you left the hospital, and not less than 24 hours later, you received a message from Foggy, telling you that he and Matt had officially taken on Billy as a client, letting Madani’s team know that the court appointed lawyer would be replaced, pending Billy’s return to consciousness. You felt relief, but it was short lived, as the next time you showed up at the hospital Madani refused to speak to you, instead glaring at you as she walked by, going back into Billy’s room and blocking your view of the man by closing the blinds.

You weren’t allowed into the room - aside from a short visit on New Year’s Eve, something Karen had advocated for once she’d found out it was Billy’s birthday, but nothing changed with him. He was still out, still unresponsive, and even though you could see that he was healing - bruises and cuts fading from his arms, the doctors (and his own heightened senses) telling Matt that the other injuries on his body were getting better, too, you were beginning to worry that Billy wouldn’t ever wake up.

Even after the bandages came off, exposing the thick and jagged scarring on Billy’s face to the open air, he didn’t stir. You watched his chest rise and fall through the window, watched the monitors, eyes on the numbers, listened as much as you could to the doctors and nurses … and hoped. By the end of January, even Matt had said that things were changing, and he could almost hear Billy’s body as it healed, but he still didn’t respond - not to Madani, not to Detective Mahoney, not even to the medical staff, when they poked and prodded at him, examining him or manipulating his body so that he didn’t remain in one position. His arms and legs were thinner than you ever imagined that they could be, but they were nowhere near as thin as his face; Billy’s eyes sunken in, the raised and angry pink skin stretched tight over his skull. He looked nothing like the man that you knew, but that didn’t change the way you felt. This is because of me. Frank fighting him is because of me.

While at work on a Tuesday in February, your phone rang, showing Karen’s number on the screen. You answered, unsure of why she was calling - but you didn’t have to wait long for the answer. Karen said your name, and at the sound, your grip on your phone tightened, chest growing tight. “He’s awake.”

You made it to the hospital in record time, and even though Karen met you at the front doors, you barely stopped until you were in the elevator, foot tapping on the floor. “Is he -”

“I called you as soon as they called Matt.” She swallowed. “Madani’s been trying to get in there, I guess, but the doctors won’t let her, since Matt and Foggy are his legal council, and she’s not even technically supposed to be in the room.” I didn’t know that. “The cops will usually let her in, but if Mahoney’s here, she stays away, and now that he’s awake…” Karen shook her head. “You can’t go in, not yet, but maybe if he… if he sees you? Sees someone familiar that isn’t… her?” You nodded, nearly sprinting out of the elevator when the doors opened, but stopped in your tracks when you saw that Billy’s blinds were closed. That’s new. Madani was pacing in the hallway, her arms crossed and she swore when she saw you, rolling her eyes. “Agent Madani.”

Karen’s voice was frosty, and you and the blonde woman stopped in front of Billy’s door, waiting. “The lawyers are in there now, along with one of the -” Madani rolled her eyes. “You’re not going in there.”

“I know.” You eyed her, not saying anything else. It didn’t feel any different in the hallway, even though you knew that Billy was awake, but you could feel the anger rolling off of her, saw the way she was looking at you and Karen. “I -” Billy’s door opened and the officer stepped out, talking to Madani.

“He’s lawyered up. We can’t speak to him again unless they’re present, but the doctors also said that he needs some time to recover. He can’t -”

“I don’t care. I want to see him now.” Madani pointed at the door, whch was still open a few inches. “I want to go in -”

“No. Agent Madani, we’ve allowed you to go in up until now, but there’s nothing we can do, both doctors as well as I heard him agree to let Murdock and Nelson -”

“And Page.” Karen spoke up from next to you. “I’m a junior partner, we’re just waiting for my cards to come in.” She shrugged. “I’m on the team too, so I’ll have access to Mr. Russo.” Madani’s face turned thunderous, but the officer nodded.

“Murdock and Nelson and Page represent him, so unless one of them is present, you won’t be able to be in the room with him, and neither will we, except to guard the medical staff.” Swearing under her breath, Madani spun on her heel and stormed off, leaving the three of you - and the single guard outside the door - standing in the hallway. “Ms. Page, if you’d like you can join them in the room.” Karen nodded and squeezed your arm before she stepped away, slipping into the room and closing the door behind her. I just want to see him, I want to see him awake, I… “Take a seat, it might be a while.” The officer - one of the guards that you’d become familiar with sighed as you shook your head. “Suit yourself.” Minutes passed and then the door opened again, a doctor and a nurse leaving and shutting it behind them, walking down the hallway and talking quietly between themselves. What is happening? What… You stared at the window, eyes unfocused, and then, after what felt like a long time had passed, you watched as the blinds rose, Karen��s worried face inches away from yours. She was blocking your view of Billy, and waited until you’d met her anxious eyes and nodded once to step to the right, letting you see him.

His head was turned to the side, looking away from you as he talked to Matt and Foggy, but after a few seconds, Billy’s head moved, even though it didn’t lift from the pillow. Oh, God. Things seemed to be happening in slow motion, your heart thudding behind your ribs as you watched him move for the first time in months. Billy’s head stopped, his cheek resting on the pillow, and you stepped closer to the window, staring at him, even though his eyes were closed. He finally opened them and you felt your eyes widen as you saw them through the glass - the same brown eyes that you’d gotten so used to staring into looking at you as if they didn’t see you at first. Billy it’s me. It… You watched as his eyes widened, eyebrows rising, and for the briefest moment, a flash of recognition went through them, his jaw twitching. Hi. But then it was gone, Billy’s brow furrowing as he kept staring at you. No… what… he doesn’t… Unwilling to give up, you raised your hand to the glass, pressing your palm against it and tilting your head to the side. Come on, Billy. It’s me.

For the span of a few seconds, you thought he was going to respond, but then Billy closed his eyes again, turning his head back toward Matt and Foggy. Feeling crushed but trying not to show it, you stepped away from the glass, dropping into the chair you typically sat in and putting your face into your hands. It doesn’t matter. He’s awake. He’s alive. Nothing else matters.

---

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jewpacabruhs · 5 years ago

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bruv im still jus. wow. theres so much to say but. do u kno how good it feels... to be jewish, to accidentally fixate on one eric cartman & love him more than any other fictional character for almost seven years now, and then to see him in a little yarmulke, standing at kyle's side while he recites from the torah? do you know how validating that is?

i gotta get personal for a second here. idk how, but in the last few yrs my relationship with my own jewishness has been deeply influenced and intertwined with south park, as ironic and ridiculous as that sounds. i grew up secular, completely nonpracticing; as a child, i was only ethnically jewish, and saw jews as strictly an ethnicity, and a popularly hated one to boot. and it scared me. ive talked about it before, but as a child hearing about the shoah and about antisemitism, i couldn't understand. i thought it was looks for a while, which confused me, because ive got blonde hair and blue eyes and all my family that got caught up in nazi europe did/do too. i remember thinking as a second grader that i would've been spared for that reason; why didn't a good chunk of my family? but i grew up in a mormon neighborhood, with plenty of other blonde kids, and they stayed away from me like i had a disease. this was before puberty, before my hair got a little frizzier and my nose got a little bigger, when i looked just like any of them. but already, at age 8, i was an outsider. i wasn't one of them and i never would be, and they wanted me to know that.

and then i started to get it. it clicked even more once i got to high school and got called a kike every other day - but prior to high school, you know what i found, and you know what really pushed me towards understanding what being a secular jew in america meant? south park. and as a dumb little sixth grader with no critical thinking skills, you know what shaped my opinions on my own people? south park.

and that's good and bad. good because i do sincerely think kyle broflovski is excellent fictional representation for jewish people, maybe one of the top few ever shown on television. he gets on my nerves at times, but he's good through and through, he's well written and multi-dimensional, he's not a walking stereotype but he still has prominent jewish features that jewish viewers can look at and see in themselves, his morals and viewpoints and beliefs are obviously deeply influenced by judaism, hes deeply proud of his heritage and culture... and that all means a lot to me. and by the amount of jewish sp fans that adore kyle, it means a lot to them too.

the bad thing is, yeah, i can't deny it, during older seasons, cartman's treatment of kyle probably taught a lot of young and dumb viewers how to view jews in real life. have i, as a kyman shipper and cartman stan, justified that within a fictional and narrative context? yes. but it doesn't change the real-world effect; south park, but specifically cartman, since he's the mouthpiece, likely did cause some easily-influenced people to pick up antisemitic beliefs. did this contribute to the rise of the alt-right? debatable, but to some extent, possibly. was that m&t's intention and should south park be canceled and denounced? fuck no, i'll always love it lol, and fuck censorship. but it is something that should be taken into account.

matt and trey clearly regret that, and understand that it's no longer acceptable or fitting or needed in today's sociopolitical climate - or, okay, maybe they don't even regret it; they just understand that when fiction becomes reality, the fictional jackass isn't necessary when there's one right there in real life, sitting in the oval office, yeah? old cartman doesn't deserve or need a voice, not when real, awful people actually have one right now. and m&t are actively trying to change cartman for the better and really, really backpedal on his bigotry, while still doing it in a way that makes sense from a story-telling perspective. it's not a complete uncharacteristic change of character; it's shifting with the times and writing it into the character's arc so that it's a logical and plausible development in cartman's story.

cartman's behavior in the last few seasons is consistent character development. m&t themselves are pushing it, and clearly it's sincere; cartman's not faking. unless they're building up a surprise twist over the last, what, three to four seasons, that he was faking the whole time! woah! if so it better be a damn good pay off, because that's a lot of time invested. though that seems more forward-thinking than sp tends to be. they're intentionally stuck in the short-term, aren't they? plot-wise. but their character development is pretty long-term, and right now, cartman is consistently decent, and if it comes across as faking, it's because cartman's over-dramatic in how he speaks, and trey does that intentionally.

that's a tonal thing, and it's hard to say in a fictional character, but as someone who struggles with empathy myself, empathy and sincerity don't go hand in hand. you can lack empathy while still caring enough to sincerely and wholeheartedly apologize for something and mean that apology. not feeling remorse doesn't mean you can't apologize genuinely; the two don't go hand in hand. you can be mentally ill in any capacity, even a psychopath, and still deeply care about things or people, just not in the way someone else might. so you can headcanon that cartman's still a psycho/sociopath, though right now that's actually kinda going against canon, but don't rain on other's parades if they're happy he's exhibiting healthy growth. besides, and i repeat: what could cartman exploit out of faking sincerity for several seasons? nothing, so why bother? he wouldn't, unless it's literal in-show subconscious growth.

does that mean he's magically developed empathy? no. is it becoming less probable he's a legitimate sociopath/psychopath (while still possibly having better-disguised antisocial tendencies)? yes. does he seem to have better coping or anger management skills? somehow, yes! he seems to be legitimately healthier. does this mean he's no longer accountable for his past misdeeds, and even his present, less-severe ones? of course not! and you can still hate him all you want, but modern cartman is not the same as older cartman, and shouldn't be treated as such. because is this growth? absolutely.

he's clearly healthier, even happier. he's less angry, he's still a little shit but he no longer relies on bigotry or cruelty or anger to get the negative attention he thrives off, rather he gravitates towards being simply annoying. you know why he called ice? pettiness, immaturity, a little bit of spite, and a need for silly revenge. he's being intentionally petty, but going about it in a sly but no longer psychopathic way. less hannibal lector and more, idk, regina george, lol. extremely different on the antagonist scale. and cartman's been both.

and maybe it's personal bias on what type of human is worse within fiction, someone unstable and bizarre with violent tendencies (which is how he's come to be viewed in pop culture & some of the fandom, as a result of eps like scott tenorman must die), versus someone inclined towards pettiness and more silent and, i dunno, social-status-and-pride-driven types of revenge (cartman in general when he's not being particularly awful, tbh)... but i think it'd be pretty universally agreed that the latter is at the very least more tolerable, manageable, and even likeable - and certainly more redeemable. let's put it this way; if cartman continued on the path he was on, he'd be one of those tiki holding fucks, wearing a confederate flag hat, and he'd treat kyle soooo much worse. instead, m&t have turned him into a hypocritical false-woke ignorant dumbass - but that's strongly less problematique than it's counterpart, and it works.

because cartman simply serves a different narrative purpose now. and that's not sloppy writing; it's well-timed evolution of a character that stepped into a pre-9/11, pre-trump, pre-social media world! so much has changed, and south park is reflecting that in its characters, most notably in a character who was stuck in the, what, 1960s with his beliefs? that was fine way back when, but matt&trey are smart dudes - they understand that sometimes things have to change. besides, they love cartman, too. he's their favorite. but they understand that when real people act like him, it's not so comedic or satirical or funny, & they don't want to look at cartman, at their creation who they've invested twenty-two years in, and see the all-too-real hate of modern radical white america.

i think we know enough about matt&trey's social stances these days, and the empathy they've seemed to develop after having kids, to understand that they're no longer in their "apathy is best, everyone is stupid" phase. current south park is left-leaning and admittedly preachy at times, but i wouldn't want it any other way. g-d knows it's better this way than if they'd embraced and decided to appeal to their right-libertarian following instead. cartman's evolved in a progressive and positive way, and it's fucking dope, especially to us cartman stans who so badly want him to be good. and he is good right! he's doing so good!

and i know im up my own ass rn but yall know how much i myself have campaigned for jewish kyman/cartman and how much i just deeply and truly adore it, and to see it actualized in a canon episode to some extent? that meant the world to me. i couldn't believe my eyes. i was tellin lai - that's the most genuine, pure, almost violent happiness ive felt in my soul in years. that was like a straight shot of serotonin to the heart. that simple little scene made me so fucken happy yall dont even know. & theres a lot to be said about the political commentary and plenty of other people are analyzing that, but im a simple jewish kyman & cartman stan and boy ive been fed good fjskfkdkdkfk!!!

#in other news #sickly jew shay had her vision white out at school today and almost fell down the stairs #my grandpa has been given a week to live #AND the anniversary of the most important person in my life's death is approaching #and i turn fucking 19 soon and i always have birthday crisises #so fucken superb!#in happier news family guy airs soon and it's unfortunately still a fixation of mine so im unjustly excited #lissen stewie's worn a yarmulke twice in fg canon and i cried then #i love cartman approximately... 50x more than stewie jus bc of longevity and. nostalgia and favoritism #i was in legitimate hysterics #sp continues to be my light at the end of the tunnel jfkskf #mine #txt #sp spoilers #theres so much here im sorry i ramble sm #i struggle w wordz and usin em ironically

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behold-a-wretch-like-me · 4 years ago

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Last Line Meme

Tagged by @goodboiboomer-fc5 (this got lost in my activity until now *sweats*) post the last line you wrote or thing you wrote! thank you for the tag! this is really fun!

He had asked the Blonde to kneel and so Lynx did so in what seemed to be a calm manner upon the Herald of Holland Valley’s bunker floor in front of the chair he had reclined in to ‘confess’. The youngest Kirklyn shifted his shirt up and off, it pooled on the floor. Moving his palms onto his knees Lynx looked straight ahead hearing the pivot of John Seed’s expensive shoes as he humming a tune Lyn placed right away ‘We’ll Meet Again’ from behind him to the right, the clinking of metal as one tool seemed to be picked finally. They still had not made eye contact since Daniel had walked beside him followed by The Father to deliver both of their little brothers to John’s bunker. no doubt they both waited just out of ear shot. After all ones confessions were meant to be private. He still didn’t exactly know how much info Dani had given the two Seeds to lead to this finally happening. Could it really happen? Could it really be this easy? If anyone could mold and rebuild him surely John Seed would be the one. Foot steps had never sounded so loud then they did in this moment. The Baptist ran his tattooed fingers across the brand between Lynx’s shoulder blades, ran a nail across the smooth distorted letters spelling a Latin word in all caps. Lynx had never seen it with his own eyes but he spelled it in his head as the Nail on John’s pointer finger caught on each letter ‘ I - N - M - U - N - D - U - S ‘.

“You are unclean. This sin you have carried isn’t yours, but don’t worry, I will cut it out all the same. I will remove it layer by layer if I must. I will carve it out, rip it out by the roots. You will be free from the corruption they left in you and after all that-” A leather cord came around for Lynx’s green eyes to gaze on and with one deep breath his mouth opened, teeth gnawing into the thick cord that would no doubt become a life line. As welcome as the pain to come was it still wouldn’t be a walk in the apple orchard, he hoped both of their older brothers weren’t in ‘screams of pain’ ear shot either. “Only your own sins will be left.” John leaned in moving the blonde hair to the other shoulder and out of the way. He rested his forehead to the back of Lynx’s scalp. “Then we will work on those, you will leave here redeemed by my own hands and you will be clean.”

I wanted to have this be shorter but uh it just didn’t mean anything in smaller parts so here have this start before the blood spills. who is Lynx, who is Daniel? learn about them HERE I have not posted this story at all as its a work in progress and im still moving stuff around but this scene has been imprinting itself in my head every night and i just needed to write it and thus it was the last thing i wrote! p.s. idk who writes in this fandom yet so not tagging anyone, feel free to do this if you want! tag me so i can see and read!

#lynx kirklyn #john seed #tag #fc5 #oc #daniel kirklyn mentioned #joseph seed mentioned #feel free to ask questions you may have for clarification #cause who the heck knows when this story will be released #lynx is not the deputy #lynx is male

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ohgoddard · 4 years ago

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Fist of Fire.6.

Jade had been going to Reverse’s afterschool activities for around seven weeks now, and it has been hell. Especially after the first meeting. It was like a switch was flipped in Reverse’s head, and Jade had no idea why. But, all of a sudden, training had gotten infinitely harder. And I fucking hate it, Jade thought during one such practice. She had been subjected to miles of running, flights of stairs, and tonnes of weight. And that was just the general training, the specialized training was far more grueling. Reverse, in an act of surprising intelligence, had begun putting Jade into refrigerators and telling her to, “make yourself warm.” Usually this was said with a quick smirk, or a joking look. But ever since that first practice day, Reverse had been anything but cordial and happy.And, for some reason, just to her. He has been so much more serious and pushy to her in her training than to any of the others. So, as Jade sits in a freezing room, she thinks to herself. I wonder what the hell happened to him.Why does he hate me all of a sudden?..I wonder if anyone else is getting it this bad.

Riley was currently being chased by someone whom she considered unable to do such a thing. Her arms were pumping in tandem with her legs and she was moving at peak speed. Yet..

“Not fast enough.” Riley looked to her right and saw Reverse there, running at what looked like a leisurely jog. Then he winded his left arm back and threw a jab for her head. She ducked instinctively and as a result tumbled forward onto the ground, stopping completely. Reverse stopped mere feet away from her, and started slowly walking towards her. “This is the farthest you’ve gone with me on your tail,” he said while taking out a phone,” and I dare say your best time yet. 200 miles in 7 minutes? Nowhere near Whirlwind’s, but you're making good time. However, your reactions are garbage and you slow down too easily. You have to be able to take as many hits than you can give, if not more.” Riley slowly got up and dusted herself off. They were miles away from the city of Atlanta, somewhere in the mountains surrounded by trees and forest for all the eye can see. She looked around at her arms, which had gotten decidedly bigger and more defined since Reverse’s training, and saw the many bruises on them. “Riley, you are making great progress on your speed but running is only going to get you so far. You also have to practice attacking. I want you to do 150 reps of those distance punches we’ve done before.”

Riley hopped to her feet. “Sir, with all do respect, “ she said while taking huge breaths, “I could attack you right now. I was just confused about the drill we were doing. That's all.” Reverse’s face did not change at all at the challenge. Neither did Riley’s, keeping a stone cold gaze the entire time while staring into the face of her teacher. But…

Oh my god why did I say that?! Riley's head was now exploding with terror. He is going to work me even harder than before. Why didn’t I just take the original workout? I'd be done quicker oh no oh no no no - “Really?” Reverse’s singular word cut through RIley’s train of thought like a knife. Riley was keeping her complexion the same, but she had no doubt he looked right through her. He’s going to kick my ass. He’s going to do it right here, right now. Im dead. “Hm. Well then , I have a bet.” A BET??! AM I GONNA- Riley slaps herself in the face. All thoughts are gone, all of a sudden. “Oh yeah? What's your bet?” Reverse started doing stretches, and started to explain. “We’re going to have a race. Back to the school. You win by getting there first, or punching me. Whichever is easier. I win by just getting there first. Sounds stacked in your favor, don’t it?” Riley was eying up the boxer,her arms now crossed and her eyes slit in suspicion.

“What's the catch?” Reverse looks up, and a nasty grin crawls across his face. “You win, you go home for the day. I win? We box until you fall from exhaustion.” Riley’s whole body began to feel numb. The mere thought of going to toe-to-toe with one of the biggest hand to hand professional heroes was suicidal. Reverse has sent more than enough people to the hospital, and about an even amount to the grave. She was going to have to win this..or else. “ Ok, I take your deal.” And with that Riley instantly started running. Well, running isn’t the right word. More like skating on air. She was already 50 miles out from Reverse when he caught up to her. “Nasty trick you pulled, but it only gave you the head start. Not the victory.”

Riley pumped the brakes a small amount and got behind Reverse. He turned behind her in confusion. Why is she slowing down? What is she doing with that rock? Oh no! I'm about to be hit in the head by a rock!...That’s probably what he’s thinking at least. Riley’s thoughts tended to get in the way of things. She positioned herself a bit to the back right of him, and dropped a rock. When she did, her foot came around and kicked it straight at him. Reverse skidded for a bit, tripping over the rock. Riley sprinted farther ahead, only 100 miles left. She looked behind her and saw Reverse gone. Did I trip him?! She turned her head to the front and-

“Peek-a-boo”. Reverse let loose a right hook right into her temple, and Riley almost tripped forward again. But.. this time she caught herself before she made the full fall. And in a moment of inspiration..

Reverse suddenly tripped over his feet and lay face first on the ground. When he looked around, he saw no sign of Riley. And when he looked at his feet. “That clever bastard!” His shoes were tied together. Reverse began laughing.

Back at the school, Riley stumbled into the classroom, exhausted. She walked to her desk and collapsed.”Need something?” Riley slowly lifted her head from her arms and looked in abject horror as Reverse was sitting at his desk, drinking a bottle of water. “How..how!? HOW!” was all Riley could say. “I have to admit, I did like your trick. You pulled one on me. Looks like those legs aren’t the only fast part about you. I’ll have to augment your training.” He stood up and walked over to her, and she noticed his beat up ...feet? “I took off my shoes. Actually makes me run faster. Ain't that something?” He set down a cold bottle of water on her desk and began walking back to his desk. “No boxing for us today, sadly. You did a good job today, and pulled one over on me. Hitting isn't just about pure strength, you know. Go home.” As Riley began to sit up and walk out the door, she turned around. “Was I the only one who showed up to practice today? You only really attended to me.” Reverse looked at her with a preposterous look. “Only you? During our training today I got to every single one of the team member’s training. I took breaks from running to go see them, then I would catch up to you, scare you a bit, then went to go check on another.” “Oh..I see.” Riley walked down the hallway, knowing that at any point today Reverse could have overtaken her, and only chose not to because he had other things to do.

Jade was still in the Refrigerator. And was covered in flames. Up to her collar in it. I did it! I could do it! I can create flame in extreme cold. I just needed motivation! Reverse walked back to the door, swinging a ring of keys in his hands. He peeked his head in the freezer. “Good job.” He then had to immediately duck back out as a blob of fire was thrown at his head.”YOU LEFT ME IN HERE FOR THREE HOURS!!!!!!” Jade screamed as she charged the door. It was closed, but it didn't matter as soon it melted away from her incessant pounding. “I did not expect you to make this much progress.” Reverse said from down the hall. He walked towards her with his hands clasped behind his back. Looking quite smug. “THREE HOURS.I ONLY SWEAT BECAUSE I'M MAD AT YOU!” Jade began to charge him again, but not before he whipped out a long red object and-

Jade was now covered in a towel. The Fire Extinguisher,now spent, rested in a corner. While Reverse was talking over the phone to the Dean, Jade shot daggers at him. He put me in a freezer for three hours today, left me in the south of Georgia for three hours another day. It's like he's trying to make me sweat anywhere. That's when it hit jade. Oh..He doesn't hate me. He is just finding the extremes I work at. He could have at least told me. “Jade there is something I have to tell you.”

Reverse stood up from his desk and started walking over, taking his wallet out. He pushed around receipts and other papers before he found the one he was looking for. He handed her a worn looking photo that had writing on the bottom. “Laurens SHS?” Jade read aloud. She looked at the photo and saw a bunch of people she kinda recognized. She remembered them as the people from Reverse’s ‘quirk assessment’ lesson. And a few other faces, like Huntsman and Meteor, young Reverse(“Wow you used to have a mullet?”), a scratched out face. And also..

“My dad? What's going on?” Why did you show me this?” Reverse took the photo and gently placed it back in his wallet. “Because something is going to happen to all the people in that photo. And, I'm afraid, all those related.” Reverse sat down on a desk next to her.

“Your father Victor, better known as the hero Helios, ran a private hero business called Laurens SuperHero Service. I'm not sure how much to already know so I'm just gonna say all of it, so bare with me. Anyways,” Reverse cleared his throat, “he ran this business. He started small, just himself, and quickly found out he was outmatched. So, he began to look for people to work for him. He could only pay for food and shelter, but for some that was enough. Including me. Before I met your father I was a street rat stealing to make up money for hospital bills. A lot of similar stories from the other people there. Remember Huntsman and Meteor? Your father saved them from a trafficking ring. Tapout was picked up from an orphanage, snowthrone an abusive house. Your father did a lot of good, just getting us out of there. We owed him a lot.”

Jade sat there, listening. She did not know much about her dad. Her mom never talked about him after the accident, not a word. So hearing all this, it was eye opening. My father was a saint.

“However,” Reverse continued, “the jobs we did were tough. We were bouncers at high-class parties,escorts for politicians, bodyguards at international conferences. We had our fair share of big fights, such as Nucleus at the START conference and Quantum at the WHO meeting. And we also had a fair share of fights among ourselves. Usual quarrels,nothing to get into really. Except one. Your dad and one other fought the most. His name was Quentin. You might know him as The Planeteer.” Jade was confused. “The Planeteer? That guy who could ‘talk to nature’?” Reverse chuckled. “Yes, the very same. He and your father would fight often over everything and anything. It got pretty ugly. But, the biggest fight was the one before the D.C. Job.”

Reverse took a deep breath, and took several gulps. Jade could see that talking about this was very uncomfortable for him. She would offer to stop, but she knew he would turn her down. She also had an interest in her own development though. “I remember it clearly. We were at the house, and Huntsman and I were cleaning up after dinner. I was cracking jokes, flirting(I didn’t know she was gay then), when I heard a huge crash. Huntsman and I took a look and saw Planeteer had thrown a chair out the window of the living room. He was pointing at your father and was yelling, ‘you could never take me seriously! You could never listen to me and my plans, my creations! I’ll show you what I can do! I’ll show you what i’ve built!’. After that, he stormed out the door.”

Reverse’s hands began to grip the desk, and Jade was afraid that it might break. “I think i know what happens next. My dad goes to D.C. and dies to the villain San Andreas after she creates a magma flow. You don’t have to explain it to me.” Reverse looked up at Jade, and she was taken aback. The most serious face she had ever seen was looking at her. “Your father would not have lost to San Andreas. Your father was killed and betrayed by Quentin Gaius. Otherwise known, as the Planeteer. And he recently killed Tapout, a member of the Laurens SHS, as well as his family. You are in danger. So, I hav-”

Jade interrupts him.”Tell me what happened. I hate being lied to, tell me right now.”

She stood up, towel falling off her. What she thought was angry sweat on her face was actually tears rolling down.”Tell me what really happened in D.C.”

#FoF:og #writing #creative writing #creative #original writing #original #original female character #original character #original story #superhero #superhero story

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ireniics-blog · 5 years ago

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why, hello all !! i’m a bit late, aren’t i....but that’s okay, i come bearing a gift !! he’s a muse i’ve brought on impulse, but i couldn’t be happier to be apart of the first wave of wonderful muns here !! anyways, my name is pandora (she/her, est, 19) and this is my kid, kwon iseul !! he’s 20, a nosy journalist, and trying to get all the info about the shady happenings at project cafe !! i’m so excited and intend on developing him further as the rp progresses, but for now you can check out his plots here, profile here, and tidbits under the cut !! hey, it’s only 14 of us here - might as well get acquainted, right ?? well then, if iseul rings you or your muse’s bell feel free to like this for plotting (i’ll im you!) or hit me up on d!scord at binu, binu !!#2500 !! until then, happy roleplaying & i hope to see you soon !!

from icheon, south korea!! i-c-h-e-o-n, not incheon, don’t get it confused !! much smaller city, but he loves his hometown a lot & you’ll always find him repping it !

born kang iseul, but had his name legally changed to kwon iseul for reasons i’ll explain a little further down! (pls forgive me and i slip up & call him kang now they’re so similar!!)

his dad was a gang lord around icheon which was kind of rare, but they worked more underground ? so most citizens knew he was involved in shady business but not exactly what, but those in the gang scene definitely know him !

his dad met his mom through a business deal, he was supposed to collect money the gang had loaned her family but found her v pretty !

child abuse & abuse tw - begin!

his dad settled down & married his mom for a while, until his bad habits started resurfacing. they had 1 kid, jihun, but things didn’t really get bad until iseul was born ! his dad was angry they had another kid because though she was a family person, to him 1 kid was enough and he started becoming abusive to the kids & her ! things only got worse when they had yet another kid,

which is why the oldest jihun, chid/iseul’s brother was always so protective & tough - he’d been through it the longest & didn’t want his younger siblings to get hurt.

but not all things in his childhood were bad ! his mother was super loving to them all, and she was who supported his dream to be a writer after finding his journal with all his poems & stories in it ! which is why he really wants to be one now~

death tw - begin!

flashforward though, to right when his mother was pregnant with the youngest child and only daughter, jieun ! she didn’t want to tell him, but eventually he found out and got very angry. he flew into a rage at home & things got so bad that 14-year-old jihun had to step in, but when he did his dad was mid-punch & the impact was much harder than anticipated. jihun had to get sent to the hospital, but he died because of internal bleeding.

this shook the entire family. his dad fled & iseul hasn’t seen him since, but no one wantd to call the police because he’s well respected in the gang & the family would risk getting hurt. so his mom was forced to handle things on her own & when her daughter was born she named her jieun, similar to jihun, honoring the fact that he sacrificed his life to save his mom & baby sister’s.

this is when iseul developed ptsd, after witnessing his brother’s death & constant abuse of himself & his family by his dad.

death, abuse, & child abuse tw - end!

but this is also when he got so invested in ridding seoul of their gangs & bad people. he hated how easily his father got away w/the crime & wanted to end it ! but he’s never wanted to turn out like his father, so instead of resorting to violence he used the power of his writing by exposing all their activities !

also, he’s changed his name legally to kwon for 2 reasons - his mother’s given name is kwon, and when she legally changed it back they all did bc they didn’t want to be related to such a bad figure. the 2nd is his stepdad’s last name is kwon & though he’s not legally adopted by him yet, he sees him as far more of a father figure !

anyways - time skip ! isuel’s now a sophomore at snu, majoring in communications, minoring in journalism, and working as a journalist ! he makes near no money, sigh.... but that’s alright ! he’s doing what he wants, and hopes things will look up !

sidenote he has VERY bad vision due to the hours spent staring at screens...so he wears glasses nearly 24/7 ! he hates the feeling of contacts & he’s so used to glasses !

but here’s the real drama !! he has an exposé blog, written in the stars, where he writes under the pen name pluto ! he’s very disliked by gangs & such because he tries to get info on them & take them down, & has gotten very close to getting caught as the one behind the blog many times !

originally he went to project coffee because it was the closest place & had a nice atmosphere, but after staying a while he thinks things are....fishy. he hopes to find out what’s going on behind the scenes, so gang muses beware !

he’s not telling anyone (unless by accident or he reeeally trusts you) that he writes written in the stars so !! for now you can find him at the cafe a lot of the time, peeking at everyone and trying to see what’s going on !

i think that’s all i’ll say for now, i want to leave some things to be discovered at all ! but yeeeah....that’s it ! heart heart.

#( & ooc. )#pchqintro #wooh so excited!!#abuse tw #child abuse tw #death tw #<-- but there's a tw within the post so u can skip!

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langxue · 6 years ago

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Avengers Endgame Initial Thoughts

Okay. I have some Thoughts about Endgame, most of them fairly critical. Also highly subjective. So here goes. Spoilers abound, for Endgame and other MCU content.

1. OMFG they completely wasted Captain Marvel.* In her own movie, Carol is a fairly laid back, adaptable, competent, and Silly person. She has a wonderfully casual charm and sarcasm that’s really fun to watch. She’s also a powerhouse, and by the end she definitely knows it. (Like seriously, she destroyed multiple of Ronan’s ships in under a minute. In GotG, it took a whole fleet just to slow one of them down, plus a team on the inside to blow it up. And then Carol’s just like “nah, you’re done now.”) And then you hit Endgame. And we have a stoic, closed off Captain Marvel, who shows up, talks a lot about how awesome she is, and then spends fucking 80% of the movie on a shelf on the justification that she’s helping other worlds that are also in trouble. Which is a fine justification to keep her away for some of the setup. But the heroes’ main plan is time travel. Which means it’s not time sensitive, and they keep making a big deal about only having one shot. Why, in that case, wouldn’t you wait until you could get Carol on your team?? Thor is a psychological mess. Keep him on the bench and bring in Carol. OR have her on hand to use the gauntlet after all the stones are collected. But no, they just went with “eh, we’re not sure how to contact her, so we’ll just skip over that option entirely.” So they wasted her character as a character with minimal interactions with the others, and zero of those interactions actually being in character (except maaaybe with Peter at the end, but that very much felt like two actors trying very hard with very little to work with), and then also wasted her as far as plot impact, opting for a heroic re-entrance most of the way through the movie.

2. The time travel felt extremely poorly explained, which is really bad when your plot completely hinges on it, and is especially bad if you’re gonna rag on other movies with time travel. Back to the Future is paradoxical nonsense, but it’s self-consistent paradoxical nonsense. Endgame was some kind of multiverse with zero clear understanding of how different timelines/realities could and could not interact with each other. I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of the possibilities and whether there actually is an internal logic, but at the very least, while watching the movie, it entirely felt like they were doing whatever they wanted to suit the plot. Which is a bad sign when dealing with time travel. (My general approach to time travel is that you either have to completely handwave it or completely explain it. And that explanation doesn’t have to be an info dump! It can just be apparent in the story itself, such as with Time-Turners. Though I personally don’t mind time travel info dump tbh.)

3. Relatedly, the secret to time travel is to model an inverted Möbius strip and get the eigenvector of that one particle there. I don’t think I’ve been that annoyed but technobabble in a long time. That’s math word salad, as far as I can tell (though I’m admittedly not a mathematician. If any mathematicians can clarify how this makes any sense, I’d appreciate it, but in the mean time, I’m going to assume it’s garbled nonsense.)

4. Still on time travel but I’m having one hell of a time figuring out Steve’s ending. Like, how can he do that within the confines of the time travel mechanics? Why wouldn’t he come back and spend that time with Bucky?? Since, you know, they’ve like barely spoken being reunited?? For Pete’s sake, don’t set up their bond like that, spend two full movies on the turmoil cause by Bucky’s return, and then just fucking drop the plot line on the floor because you wanted to stick Steve back with Peggy. What in the fuck.

5. IM. SO. MAD. ABOUT. GAMORA. (And also Natasha, though that’s a slightly different anger.) GAMORA’S DEATH WAS THE MOST BS THING IN INFINITY WAR AND WAS ALSO THE DEATH I WAS MOST CONCERNED THEY WOULDN’T CORRECT. AND GUESS WHAT. THEY DIDN’T. SHE’S STILL DEAD.** The soulstone mechanic can get Fucked, because Thanos should never have been able to get it like that (and relatedly, should Hawkeye have gotten it, since Natasha threw herself, rather than being sacrificed? I’m undecided, but mad either way).

6. Is Loki still dead? Was he ever dead? We just don’t know. If he is dead, that was an amazingly dumb end and I object. If he’s not dead, that is a dumb cliffhanger and I object.

7. I don’t love Thor + Guardians’ dynamic? It feels very off, and I can’t tell if that’s just because it’s Avengers and therefore all the characters have gotten slightly flattened or if it’s just an unappealing dynamic to me. But we already had Quill vs Rocket leadership tension. I don’t was more of that but with Thor. That’s dumb. I’m hoping that it gets more nuance/resolution going forward, but I’m not holding my breath.

8. Relatedly, why would you put Valkyrie in charge of Anything but a battle plan? Nothing I’ve seen of her makes me think she’s well suited to general leadership, and I think she’d chafe under it just as much as Thor does. She’s not the Responsible One to take things over so Thor can go have another finding himself adventure. Ffs.

9. Probably no one’s fault because actor contracts are complicated, but I’m still salty about Lady Sif being 100% absent and unacknowledged for this whole thing. Largely because I haven’t gotten to see her interact with Valkyrie OR Carol and I feel cheated.

10. Some quick minor things before I go on a big rant. It bothered me that Thor’s depression and poor coping was just a joke, basically just “Oh look he’s fat and scared now, isn’t that funny?” I’m so tired of Tony vs. Steve, and I hate that they waited until the last fucking movie to sort of kind of resolve it. You don’t get to pull on found family heartstrings and tropes when you’ve done such a bullshit job of actually showing us a family. You’ve had 20-odd movies to do so. Do better.

11. Okay. I like battle scenes. They’re fun! They’re dramatic! If done correctly, they can give a very tangible sense of odds and stakes. But. Not every movie with high stakes needs a big final battle.

Okay, to clarify a bit, I’m specifically referring to army vs. army battle scenes here. Big punch outs between titans, or scrambling to minimize damage from a disaster are different, and have their own applications and pitfalls. All clear? Great.

Battles, with two armies facing off against each other in fronts, look cool, but fundamentally make no sense in the context of Endgame. Battle lines exist so that you have not very many people actively fighting at once, and so that you can protect the people next to them. When the frontline gets tired, they rotate back and others take over. Battles are not the same thing as skirmishes and they are not mass melees. If a battle turns into a mass melee, something has gone very wrong and you should in all likelihood pull back immediately to regroup.

All of this breaks down when you have an opponent who can break up or ignore your battle lines. Historically, this was artillery and guns—things that forced battles into a cover-based issue. In superhero movies, it’s... pretty much every character of note.

Thor’s lightning —> broken battle line

Black Panther’s suit discharge —> broken battle line

Falcon attacking from above —> pointless battle line

Wanda or Carol doing... anything —> pointless battle line

All of Thanos’ many flying troops —> pointless battle line

Thanos’ warship overhead —> what are you doing pls stop this

All of which is to say that traditional battle tactics don’t apply to this conflict. But the battle we’re shown doesn’t reflect that, and it feels very... weird as a result. Where who’s winning is entirely arbitrary, rather than any kind of steady build.

This tends to lead to a very episodic battle, where you show off individual characters or small groups of characters fighting. Which is fine, though contributes to battle progress being unclear. But there’s a temptation then to give everyone equal levels of badassery in their vignettes, and I think that’s a mistake. The avengers et all are a complementary group. They have members suited to a battle field and members that aren’t. That isn’t to say that Hawkeye and Black Widow can’t hold their own, but their skill sets aren’t specialized for something like this, and so any attempt to make them seem equal in this way is going to either fall flat or cheapen the battle suited heroes’ specialty.

And this tendency to level the field of badassery can also lead to situations where Okoye is backing up Carol for a charge, and I just.... gah. I love Okoye. So much. Carol does not need her help to rush a group of enemies. Carol doesn’t need help from any of the women who showed up behind her except for maybe Scarlet Witch. I get what they were going for. I get that it was supposed to be a Girl PowerTM moment. It wasn’t. It was dumb. It was so very much the wrong time for that moment, because this was not a context where Carol needed help. She just flew through a spaceship. She can fly through some enemies no problem. And it’s probably easier if she’s not worried about her allies getting caught in the blast. And then they had to make the backup team useful, so they made Carol struggle in a moment where she just shouldn’t have. You don’t get points for Girl PowerTM if you have to de-power one of your women just to make it make sense. Give me more scenes with Gamora and Nebula helping each other through Thanos’ abuse. Give me scenes with Carol and Okoye bonding over putting up with impractical people. Don’t give me this battle scene bullshit, I don’t want it.

11. I remain pissed off that there are no actually articulated arguments against Thanos’ fucking stupid plan. What the actual fuck, this is not that hard.

Okay. Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, some things I actually really liked.

1. Steve wielding Mjolnir was fucking amazing and I’m so pleased.

2. Any time Scott was on screen.

3. Peter Parker is a precious child and he needs to be protected.

4. I actually really like the set up for the time travel nonsense, and I liked that they seemed to be doing something other than a mass melee battle. That the group was divided into manageable teams, and sent on different kinds of missions that required them to be clever and play to their different strengths and help each other through. And then they shoved in a giant battle anyway, because fuck you that’s why.

5. I can appreciate what they were trying to do in giving all of the non-returning Avengers decent send-offs, even if I didn’t like some of those conclusions.

6. There were some genuinely funny moments, but I’m struggling to recall them right now.

7. Oh wait! “It’s an earthquake in the middle of the ocean. We handle it by not handling it.” That one was great.

Okay, that’s all for now. I might have more later, once I’ve picked apart the time travel a bit more and dined some processing.

I think it’s also worth noting that like... ensemble movies with a cast this big are *hard.* character are going to end up feeling confined, and there’s less time to grow because there’s just less time per character. But I think we could’ve had better, and I think if they focused more on group growth in the group movies instead of just drama, then they would’ve been in a better place and had a better story.

It’s probably also worth noting that I really liked Thor: Ragnarok, really like Captain Marvel and really didn’t like Infinity War. So I sort of went into Endgame feeling like it had to make up for Infinity War and live up to the higher at from the recent solo movies. And I really wanted to like it. I really wanted them to pull it off. But those are high and fairly specific standards, and so they fell quite short.

*This should be taken with a grain of salt, because I’d been dreading Endgame as an obligation to watch, and the Captain Marvel movie was the only thing that sparked my interest again. And then Endgame massively dropped the ball as far as I’m concerned.

** there was some stuff at the very end that makes me wonder if there’re plans to still bring her back in a later movie. But it doesn’t change me call bullshit on everything that Infinity War/Endgame has done to her.

#spoilers #Endgame Spoilers #Captain Marvel spoilers #just #general MCU spoilers #ye have been warned

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