#its pronounced reed for him | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

peskellence · 15 days ago

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Pairing: RK900/Gavin Reed

Tags: Post Pacifist Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut, Angst, Hurt/ Comfort

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Summary: In the aftermath of Detroit's android revolution, Nines grapples with the complexities of his newfound deviancy. As he seeks to establish his place in a newly transformed society, his resolve is put to the ultimate test when he is paired with Detective Gavin Reed-a notoriously volatile human with a well-established hatred for androids-to investigate a series of murders.

While initial impressions of his partner seem to suggest his reputation is well-deserved, the more time Nines spends with him, the more he is forced to challenge his judgments. As they form an unexpected bond, the RK900 is also pushed to examine truths about himself he would much rather seek to forget. (A Retelling of 'More Than Our Parts' from the POV of Nines.)

Warnings: Graphic Violence, Depression/Self Destructive Behaviour, Eventual Smut

Word Count: 5.5K

Tag List: @sweeteatercat @wedonthaveawhile @gho-stychan @tentoriumcerebelli @negative-citadel @faxaway @moriahadi424 @unicorn4genocide @cptjh-arts

They arrived at Cedars Motel just after 9:30 a.m. The lobby was devoid of patrons, and its squalid conditions left little ambiguity as to why. It was the sort of establishment that would appeal only to the most desperate of passers-by—or those involved in illicit activities.

The owner was evidently aware of their target clientele. A digital touch display was mounted on a nearby wall, one of the few furnishings that appeared to have been purchased within the century. A roulette wheel spun on the screen, a blur of red and black, before transitioning into an image of two scantily clad women. They were locked in a provocative embrace, winking coyly at the camera.

The fluorescent pink of the advertisement clashed with the sallow yellows and browns that otherwise dominated the room. Nines muted the visual assault with a swift feedback adjustment, then turned his attention to the reception. Even the staff were reluctant to linger, with the front desk equally abandoned as the rest of the facility.

As he scanned the vicinity for a bell or buzzer, Reed wandered toward the digital display. With the urgency of a tourist on vacation, he dragged his fingers across a rack of magazines beneath it. This seemed an unlikely spot for their witness to hide, with it equally doubtful that any evidence would have been concealed there.

In a superficial attempt to 'inspect' something, the human pulled one of the publications from the shelf and brought it to his face. The calibre of material he had selected was no surprise.

While the cover wasn't entirely in focus from Nines' current vantage, the bare skin and scarlet lace were unmistakable.

"Our perp sure has some refined taste…" Reed punctuated the remark with a snort, flicking to the next page. "Classy digs, don't you think?"

Nines held his tongue, desperate to point out that the current behaviour hardly proved any more refined.

Then, his systems alerted him to something: an unusual detail concerning the models his partner was shamelessly gawking at. The faultless smoothness of their skin, despite minimal photo editing and subtle flares of light which traced the contours of their temples.

> ENHANCING OPTICAL UNIT MAGNIFICATION…

> SCANNING DOCUMENTATION.

> SCAN COMPLETED.

> PUBLICATION TITLE: ELECTRIC DREAMS — ISSUE NO. 226

> HEADLINE ARTICLE: 'Your girlfriend's jaw might get tired – but ours won't! - Why Android Sex Is Still The Best.'

It was curious that Reed had felt drawn to this particular publication, given the ample range of choice. One filled to the brim with artificial bodies—flawlessly manufactured to mimic intimacy, lust and satisfaction that was inherently false.

Yet here Reed was, completely engrossed. His fascination with a dark-haired HR400 proved particularly pronounced, their already sparse wardrobe dwindling with every swipe of his finger. This continued until he was revealed in full, legs spread, striking a shamelessly evocative pose.

The detective made a low noise, somewhere between a hiss and a whistle. His vitals spiked, barrelling wildly out of control:

> ALERT

> RAPID BIOPHYSICAL SHIFT DETECTED

> HEART RATE ESCALATION: 75 BPM → 115 BPM — TIME ELAPSED 2.7 SECONDS

It was clear that the admiration of his partner's physique had not been an isolated oddity. Reed found a certain allure—an excitement—in the temptation of something that should have repulsed him. Whether or not he consciously recognised this remained unclear.

What was clear, however, was the gross inappropriateness of indulging in such material whilst on duty. The RK900 sought to correct this—on the slim chance that a customer might present themselves, witnessing the uncouth display.

"I would advise that you close your mouth, Detective."

Reed's jaw, which had dropped a disconcerting distance from the rest of his face, promptly snapped shut. He glanced up at his partner, brows raised, protesting the interjection, "Are you seriously telling me to shut up? I hardly said anything."

"I wasn't suggesting that you 'shut up,' although it would certainly be a bonus if you chose to do so—I just fear you may have to pay for that item if you continue to soak it in your drool."

Irritation veered sharply into embarrassment. A faint flush crept up his cheeks as Reed hastily set the magazine aside, all but propelled from his hands. "Great. You've got jokes now. Just what I need."

Sarcasm thickened every word, though Nines detected the faint twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth. Some part of him, however grudgingly, had found humour in the remark.

The enjoyment was fleeting, buried by discomfort. Reed rocked back on his heels, shoving his hands deep into his pockets as he muttered, "Let's just find the owner of this dump and get the hell out of here…"

Nines tilted his head, a hum of consideration escaping him as he filed the response for future reference. Strategic flirtation could prove beneficial going forward—seeking to redirect wandering attention, keeping his partner in line...

Experimentation would have to wait. For now, Reed was correct. They had more pressing matters to attend to, not being helped by the owner's persisting absence.

The desk remained empty, with the staff door behind it tightly sealed. Nines doubted the flimsy plywood had muffled any part of their discussion; fledgling impatience exacerbated as it occurred just how unsavoury their current conditions were.

Beyond the unsightly furnishings, mildew and rot crept up the aged plastered walls. Running a finger across one, the surface crumbled, falling apart like rotten pastry.

"I agree it would be best to limit your exposure to our current surroundings. There is a dangerous concentration of fungal spores in this room; it could be hazardous to your health."

Reed clicked his tongue. It was clear that he'd wanted to say something—perhaps relating to the myriad of toxins he routinely invited into his body—but ultimately decided against it. Instead, he directed his focus towards the reception. A hand emerged from his pocket, encouraging Nines to take the lead.

The android was unsure if the intention behind this had been affability or idleness. Nevertheless, he accepted, his primary objective taking precedence on his HUD:

> LOCATE CEDARS MOTEL OWNER.

He made his approach, studying the desk more attentively. Overturning abandoned letters and leaflets, clearing a path through the expansive debris, until the dull yellow flicker of an overheard bulb caught against something metallic. Partially obscured beneath a pile of unpaid bills, a tarnished call bell caught his attention. It was so heavily weathered that Nines was surprised it produced any sound at all when pressed.

A shrill chime sliced through the air, utterly useless in achieving its intended purpose. There was no sign of movement, and Nines might have considered the possibility that the proprietor had expired—if it hadn't been for the vital signs detectable through the wall.

He pressed the bell again, this time with greater force, in line with a firm verbal address. The RK900 hoped this might inspire a greater incentive to respond—while simultaneously assuring that they were not debt collectors:

"Detroit Police Department."

"Whoever's hiding back there, they're deaf," Reed complained. He reeled from the unpleasant sound, hands pressed to his ears. "That thing is loud as fuck."

As though responding to the criticism, the unseen figure stirred. Biophysical mapping tracked their movement to the closed passageway. A silence descended between the partners until, at last, the soft creak of the door revealed their witness.

An elderly man emerged, ambling aimlessly toward the desk. It soon became apparent that his arrival was coincidental—he seemed completely unaware of the officers idling mere feet away.

SCANNING SUBJECT…

SCAN COMPLETE.

ANDREWS, WALTER.

BORN: 05/11/1965 // REGISTERED BUSINESS OWNER — CEDARS MOTEL LTD.

CRIMINAL RECORD: NONE.

Andrews hummed absently under his breath, eyes scanning the cluttered desk without any clear direction. He shuffled around, brow furrowed in mild confusion, until he appeared to find what he was looking for—an empty mug, half-adhered to one of the many scattered documents.

As he tilted forward, Nines detected weak feedback pulses emanating from his ears. Upon closer inspection, the source was identified as twin devices nestled beneath tufts of overgrown hair:

HEARING AID(S).

COMPONENT BATTERY LOW — FUNCTIONALITY IMPAIRED.

As spindly fingers reached for the cup, Reed cleared his throat. His fist was brought dramatically to his mouth, with his elbow pointed outward. Sunken eyes lazily tracked the motion, their ashen grey magnified by a pair of thick glasses.

Andrews responded as though the officers had materialised out of thin air. He jerked back, clutching his chest in alarm before fumbling to regain his composure. Readjusting the collar of his moth-eaten pullover, his thin lips pulled into a wiry grin.

"Apologies for the wait, sirs." His attention flitted meekly between Nines and Reed as he offered them each a cordial nod. "I must have dozed off…Are you looking for a room? I have a King Size left—great rates."

"Detroit Police Department," Nines repeated coldly, hoping the man would hear this time. "Officer RK900, Serial Number 313 248 317 - 87, and Detective Gavin Reed."

Andrews seemed put out by the forcefulness of his tone. He blinked slowly, bleary gaze absent of comprehension. There was a twitch of movement in his mouth, calling attention to the deep-set wrinkles in the corners.

Then he hummed as though to indicate he understood the situation.

"Oh, right, of course. Are you looking for a room...officers?"

He did not, still labouring under the assumption that he and his partner were prospective customers.

The assumption was brazen, bordering on insulting, and Reed appeared equally stunned. His eyes widened, belatedly grasping the full implication of what was happening.

Nines might have teased him—suggesting that they consider the offer later, should he feel so inclined—but the required humour promptly deserted him. He leaned across the desk, inches from the perspex security visor that bordered the counter. His badge was pulled from his pocket and pressed to the barrier with an authoritative thud.

"Mr. Walter Andrews, your assessment of this situation is deeply misguided. We have no interest in a room. We are here on professional matters."

The hotelier's strained smile vanished, wiped cleanly from his face as his sallow complexion deepened. Desperately, he scrambled to mitigate the fallout of his mistake.

"I-I'm very sorry to have caused offence! I thought perhaps you were doing a role-play and wanted me to go along with it. It happens more often than you'd—I didn't actually think you were—"

Fortunately, the android was not made to interrupt the blathering. It was unclear how much more scrutiny the man's weak constitution could bear. His partner took charge, stepping forward with a huff of exasperation.

"TMI, buddy." He joined Nines by the perspex divider, offering Andrews an out with a smooth redirection. "We want to know if anyone suspicious checked in on the night of January 13th—think you can help us with that?"

Andrews seemed relieved, swallowing a nervous breath that had lodged in his throat. He ran a hand distractedly over the unkempt stubble on his chin as he tried to recall the date in question.

"Well, most folks who check in here are a little... suspicious," he muttered, his tone shifting back to apprehension as a spike in his heart rate betrayed his unease. "Nothing illegal, mind you! Drunk businessmen, ladies of the night...that sort of thing."

> WITNESS PROFILE UPDATING…

> ANDREWS, WALTER.

> CRIMINAL RECORD: NONE.

> MAINTAINING PREMISES FOR CRIMINAL ACTIVITY (SUSPECTED)—FURTHER INVESTIGATION REQUIRED.

"Prostitution is not permissible in Michigan, so the arrangements you have described are indeed illegal." Nines dismissed the witness summary from his HUD, optical units refocusing. "Not that it is of immediate concern. The individual we are looking for would have been alone. Do you have any check-in records that we may review?"

"Well, yes, of course, I do…but I wouldn't usually share them. Customer confidentiality and all."

It seemed convenient that Andrews was now concerned with legal technicalities.

His thumping pulse rate continued to escalate as he made a superficial adjustment to his eyewear. "Mind telling me what this is about, officers?"

"It concerns a homicide," the RK900 informed. "This information may be critical in assisting our investigation. Your cooperation is appreciated."

"Homicide? As in murder?" The man spluttered. His hoarse tone raised several octaves, cracking unpleasantly, as he clutched at the front of his stained sweater. "I haven't heard anything about that. Is it public knowledge?"

"The story has been broadcasted on several networks."

"Was it a man? A woman? God, my niece Julie would've been out that day. She's only eighteen and such a dainty thing. It just kills me to think that something might have happened—"

The inane drivel grated against his acoustic modulators. Had the man not been so visibly frail—and the divider not present—the RK900 may have felt inclined to throttle him.

"Mr. Andrews."

"I'm looking at a screen most days and nights. Except when checking guests in—or driving Julie home—"

That said, the flimsy plastic hardly provided any real protection. The android was confident that he'd have no issues scaling past it.

Or breaking through.

"—She helps out with the cleaning on Fridays, you see. I would think I would have heard if something like that had—"

"It was an android." Nines interrupted, resisting his more violent inclinations in favour of raising his voice. "The records, please."

The torrent of verbal excrement halted. Andrews' attitude had shifted, the mania tapering as tension eased from his hunched shoulders. He spoke with an airy quality, almost like a sigh, as though the added context brought tremendous relief. "Oh, oh yes, that's—"

Then, trepidation returned to his eyes as they met with a disapproving glower. It seemed to dawn on him that this stance may have been ill-advised when addressing this particular officer.

"W-Well…that's a shame, isn't it?" he quickly backpedalled, his lips sputtering like a faulty motor. "I mean… It's very…"

His words trailed off, the stench of uncertainty mingling with the room's heady must. His gaze flitted desperately to Reed, silently pleading for support.

The detective ignored him, staring fixedly at the cork noticeboard above his head.

"…Sad," Andrews finished weakly.

He then turned to busy himself, hobbling along his workstation and sifting through mountainous piles of junk. Eventually, he craned to reach something haphazardly propped on a stack of boxes—a leather-bound ledger with a bent spine, the word 'Guests' embossed in neat script on its cover.

He wiped it with the back of his loosely draped sleeve, brushing off some residual grime before sliding it beneath the plastic partition to the android.

Nines yanked it roughly towards him, prying it from the tips of outstretched fingers. He set it on the desk and started flipping through the pages. Must and dirt filled his nostrils, intensifying the further he progressed—until he halted at entries relevant to their investigation.

He analysed the check-ins, isolating those that aligned most closely with their developing timeline of events. Unsurprisingly, many of the names appeared aliases, as cross-checking local housing databases yielded few results.

Handwriting samples were equally unhelpful. Their culprit had gone to great lengths to disguise his penmanship, with none of the writing resembling the threatening messages at the crime scenes.

The RK900 leaned closer, studying every scrawl and ink blot in meticulous detail, willing them to reveal something. Given their target's penchant for riddles—and taunting law enforcement—it was almost certain he had left them a message:

> ACCESSING SUSPECT PROFILE

> SEARCH PARAMETERS: COMMUNICATION PATTERNS.

> ANALYSING…

> LINK(S) ESTABLISHED: MORALISTIC EXTREMISM — ASSERTION OF TRADITIONAL IDEALS — RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL REFERENCES.

He placed these criteria at one end of his neural pathway as he sought to establish the next point of deduction. Assembling the scattered fragments of his reasoning into something sensical.

> KNOWN ALIASES — THOD GRAWS.

> ASSESSING FOR HIDDEN CODES AND MEANING...

> DETERMINING POSSIBLE SYSTEMS.

> PROBABLE RESULTS:

> ANAGRAM, CAESAR CIPHER — USAGE: COMMON IN ENCODED COMMUNICATIONS.

> APPLYING SEARCH CRITERIA 1...

> GENERATING RESULTS

In the background, he was vaguely attuned to Andrews and Reed conversing, though the details escaped him. The letters shifted in multiple directions, ordered and reordered in rapid succession. They became a frenzied blur of movement as results tallied on the right-hand side of his optics:

> GHOST WARD.

> WART HOGS.

> DAGS THROW.

This continued until one in particular struck as significant—connecting seamlessly to the established criteria—and he promptly suspended the search.

> GODS WRATH.

He stared at the phrase. The neat diagnostic typeface gnawed at his thoughts, filling him with a complex mixture of hopefulness and foreboding.

Dismissing all superfluous data from his conscious view, he redirected his focus back to the book in front of him. Its blotched, yellowed pages were now perceived through a new lens of clarity, the threads of logic weaving together as he repeated the same deductive process.

The name practically leapt from the page, its letters joining those that swarmed like locusts in the enclaves of his mind:

> HANS STIVER.

Nines recorded a snapshot of the text, storing it with the rest of their evidence before pulling back sharply.

"He was here."

The motion startled Reed, and it took a moment for him to process the words. As their meaning sank in, the defensive tension drained from his shoulders.

"...You're kidding me." He lunged forward, palms slapped onto either side of the sign-in book. "This guy was seriously dense enough to use 'Thod Graws' in two different places?"

"He didn't use the same name," Nines clarified, noting the confusion knitting between the human's brows the longer he squinted at the pages. "But he may as well have done."

He then looked to Andrews, who appeared dismayed to be the renewed centre of attention. The RK dismissed this, pressing a finger to the guestbook and urging him to look.

"Do you remember this man?"

Reluctant to argue, the hotelier leaned forward, obediently studying the page. It was a struggle, given his already impaired eyesight, exacerbated by the numerous spots of grime on the perspex.

"Who, Hans?" he asked pensively, his mouth curled into a frown. "He was a strange one. I couldn't get two words out of him. Paid with cash and went straight to his room."

"Do you remember what he looked like? This may be of crucial importance. I implore you to think carefully."

"It was raining that night. He came in wearing a hood and refused to pull it down…" Andrews' lips pulled inwards, although Nines was confident he'd heard some muttered beratement about 'the youth of today.'

"I asked if he had an ID, but he said he'd left it at home—I never got a good look at his face."

Emerging optimism strained as the android encountered an impasse. He searched for a way around it, adapting his approach to draw whatever he could from the spotty witness account:

> ACCESSING CASE EVIDENCE...

Images blossomed in his peripherals, creeping forward until they formed a scrolling banner across his visual scope. He studied them closely, searching for potential identifiers that might jog Andrews' memory…

Reed was faster, gleefully seizing the opportunity to outpace him. His tone carried preemptive confidence as if he already knew the answer:

"Let me guess. He was wearing a black raincoat?"

Andrews reeled back, his bulging eyes and gaping mouth speaking volumes about the accuracy of this assessment. "W-Well, yes, actually, I believe so—but how did you—"

"Psychic," The detective quipped before retrieving a tattered notebook from his jacket.

Flipping through the pages, he passed through droves of illegible scrawlings and crude sketches until he landed on a blank sheet. Fishing a well-chewed pen from the ring binds, he poised to take a statement.

"Who was on the desk the following morning? Anyone who might have seen him check out?"

The initiative had been unexpected—and was not strictly unnecessary, given the RK's ability to record and transcribe audio feedback in real-time. Nonetheless, he allowed Reed to proceed, indulging in his perceived victory.

He listened along, prepared to field any gaps in the account:

"Well, I was here all day, but…" Andrews faltered, cheeks tinged with embarrassment. Slowly, he gestured to a small metal panel mounted on the far wall, a slot cut in the centre. "I have a drop box for early morning checkouts. Got to sleep sometime, you know?"

> ANDREWS DID NOT SEE THE SUSPECT LEAVE.

> RECALCULATING APPROACH…

> SUGGESTION: ESTABLISH OTHER POSSIBLE WITNESSES.

"Does anybody else work here, or is it just you?" Reed asked, surprisingly in sync with Nines' own neural processes.

"I mean, there's Julie. I did tell you about Julie, right?"

No words passed between the partners, though the android could sense a mutual disdain developing for the tangent.

"She's a lovely girl, always helping me out, going to college in September. Sharp as a tack, that one. I could ask if maybe she saw—"

Reed was the first to break. He shoved the notebook back into his pocket with a groan, mostly unused. "You know what? Never mind…"

Nines resumed the lead, reluctant to leave empty-handed after the profound feat of mental endurance that had carried them this far.

"Would you have any CCTV records from the night in question?"

"Well, I've got the camera up there…" Andrews gestured to the corner of the room with a weak flourish that failed to inspire confidence. "But it's grainy as sin. You can't make out anything but blurs and squiggles. I'm not sure what good it'll be."

"Regardless of its quality, a copy of the footage would be appreciated." Nines straightened his back authoritatively, eager to conclude the mind-numbing exchange. "We can analyse it ourselves to determine its usefulness."

"Well, I wouldn't know how to make a copy, but I can give it a go…never got to grips with this newfangled technology. If you ask me, it just makes everything more confusing."

Nines hummed, glossing over what could have easily been taken as another insult. It seemed pointless, seeking to educate a man teetering on the brink of senile dementia. Instead, he lifted his hand, retracting the skin to expose the chassis beneath—a quiet demonstration of what, precisely, his 'newfangled technology' was capable of.

"If you could show me to the hub, I will be able to download the data myself."

"Oh, right, yes, I forgot that you—uh—" Andrews fumbled, reassessing his words before he said anything else potentially contentious. Or got himself arrested. "That androids could do that."

With a stiff nod, he opened the bolted gate beside the desk and slid it back obligingly.

"This way, please."

While he had hoped Andrews' assessment was a consequence of technological ineptitude, the man had proved frustratingly correct. Nines reviewed the security footage as they stepped onto the street but found himself unable to decipher anything but mangled contortions of pixels.

"So much for a quick in and out," Reed complained, groaning loudly. "If I had to listen to another word about 'lovely Julie,' I was going to blow my brains out."

Nines huffed at the theatrics, his amusement growing as he watched Reed recoil from the cold. His chin was buried in his jacket, nose peeking over the zipper.

"Perhaps you were too dismissive—this Julie could have been a valuable witness."

"That seems pretty unlikely."

"I don't know, Detective. I hear she's rather sharp."

Then Reed's irritation faltered. He leaned back, exhaling a rogue chuckle into the air, the sound carrying like smoke until it vanished.

"Seriously, did you download a sense of humour? Because you are full of them today."

"Nothing I have said has been in jest," the RK countered. It was a selective truth, punctuated by a light shrug. "I am simply being transparent."

"Surprised you didn't rip that guy a new one the second he started spewing useless bullshit. I thought you were designed to intimidate."

> Do not be mistaken, Detective. I was highly tempted.

He relented from vocalising this particular cognitive strand, maintaining an appropriate degree of professionalism. "I was designed to intimidate criminals, not harass civilians. Well, that, and also to—"

His voice was claimed from him.

Its absence was jarring and unceremonious as the world around them was plunged into darkness.

Nightfall had arrived without warning, and Nines was forced to scramble through it, unable to see anything ahead. Then, like the beam of a torch, a set of large, fearful eyes cut through the shadows.

“̸̾͜"N̷̲͍͒͑͌̌̕9̵͙̀̉̌́̒͝—̸̮̪̐

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̵̢̩̜̱͕͐̅͛ͅ>̷̡͚̄ ̵̳͉̗̈́̌̓͝E̷̽͜X̷͉͓̂ͅẸ̷̛̥͋̈́̆̽C̵̳̩̽̉̎̋̏̑U̸̩̖̐͗̕T̶̪͇̫̗̪̼͆Ë̵̻́̇̊͝

Blue.

It flooded his sightless gaze—a chaotic kaleidoscope of pixels—until it coagulated and dripped in thick, viscous lines down his hands.

The liquid slipped from his splayed fingers, pooling at his feet, dripping until each trace was gone, and the puddles faded from view.

Invisible to all who looked, but with stains that permeated his skin. Remaining there forever, visible only to him.

"...Nines…?"

A flash of light and day returned. The android reeled back, clutching his temple, blinking in the harsh winter sun.

Reed was staring at him, his hand offering some protection from the oppressive rays as it waved inches from his face.

"You're not glitching on me, are you?"

The lingering tendrils of his nightmare taunted him. Skating across his arms and legs, threatening to tighten their hold and drag him back into the void.

Then they receded, and he was safe—for now—able to press ahead.

"I am not," he lied evenly, hoping his performance indicator would not betray him. "My diagnostics indicate that I am functioning normally."

"Right," Reed spoke flatly, his tone brimming with scepticism.

For a moment, it seemed he might relent, allowing the matter to rest. This was before he proved steadfast in his commitment to privacy invasion.

"...Are you sure? You're acting twitchy."

"If I were experiencing a fault that may inhibit this investigation, I would certainly be aware of it."

Even with the efforts to conceal his deceit, Nines couldn't hide the spidering cracks in his facade—ones that Reed pounced on with irritating precision.

Perhaps it was juvenile to bemoan this ability, given the man's profession, but Nines couldn't bring himself to care. His priority was ending the unwelcome scrutiny as quickly as possible.

"Perhaps it is best we focus on that rather than the intricacies of my program, which I can assure are beyond your comprehension."

Reed hissed through his teeth, the sound teetering between offence and mockery. "Jesus, okay, touchy much?"

The RK900 refused to dignify this with a response. He trusted his partner must have retained some of what had been discussed the previous day—the limitations of his program, including his scant tolerance for matters he did not wish to discuss.

Reed ultimately relented. He kicked a loose pebble across the sidewalk, scowling bitterly—a petulant child who had failed to get his way.

"Fine. If you wanna talk business, what did you mean when you said our guy 'may as well' have used the same name? Because I checked those sign-ins, and I didn't see anything close to 'Thod Graws.'"

"Our culprit is fond of codes." Nines' attention flitted briefly to the data he had collated in the motel before returning to his partner. "His preferred method for alias generation appears to be anagrams. When reordered, Thod Graws translates to God's Wrath. This new name, Hans Stiver, has similar connotations."

Reed frowned, pausing to retrieve his forgotten notebook. With a grunt, he scrawled out the name. His brow furrowed as he bent over the page, letters scratched out and reordered, frustration simmering beneath his focus.

Minutes passed before his posture stiffened. His hunched shoulders snapped straight as a spark of realisation lit up his ruminative gaze.

"Holy shit, you're right."

The confirmation wasn't necessary. Nines had run multiple self-tests to finalise his computation. Still, a small sense of satisfaction came from having his findings validated.

"Your computer brain got anything for that gibberish from the other day?" Reed asked, lifting his eyes from the papers, genuinely curious. "The weird binary shit?"

"It wasn't binary. Had it been, I would have deciphered it instantaneously—"

Nines fought to maintain his composure, but hints of resentment slipped through. Heat crept across his face as his core temperature steadily rose.

"Truthfully, I'm unsure of the system used. While I possess advanced deductive capabilities, code decryption is not one of my primary functions. An oversight on Cyberlife's part, perhaps."

"Yeah, I'll say. What kind of detective bot doesn't have a built-in code breaker?"

The comment tightened his jaw, far from appreciative of Reed's decision to 'kick him' while he was down.

"At any rate," Nines continued, voice levelling back to its usual neutrality, "it may take me a little longer, but I'm confident I'll crack it soon."

"We can definitely add 'religious nutjob' to the suspect profile, anyway. Hell of a lot else we've got to go on…"

The RK900 refrained from mentioning he had already done this, not wishing to jeopardise his partner's burgeoning interest.

"I wouldn't suggest that we have nothing."

The assurance was ineffective, the scowl etched on the man's face deepening significantly. "What are you, fucking high?"

"I am incapable of getting high. They have yet to replicate the effects of human narcotics on androids. Although I hear Thirium-based alcohol is—"

"You knew what I meant, jackass," Reed challenged coldly. "Just face it—we've got no DNA, no reliable witnesses, and no more leads. Unless that footage is of the killer holding up a signed confession, this feels like another dead end."

The android bristled, mirroring the man's sour expression, as he was faced with the looming possibility he might be correct.

It was doubtful further analysis would draw anything salvageable from the footage. That being said, while tracing the killer's call had yielded little results, the data presented could still prove beneficial in guiding their movements. A different approach would be needed.

Nines considered the events that had predated the phone call: where their culprit may have been before checking into Cedars and whether retracing those steps could reveal anything new.

As he assessed the TSU transmission for any overlooked details, his attention shifted to the surrounding buildings. Among the drab streetscape, a shock of red drew his focus. Formed in bold lettering on a weathered storefront:

> MIKEY'S PHONES AND ELECTRONICS.

He was pulled from his analysis, the discovery sparking a new hypothesis. Their trip, it seemed, had not been wasted—having brought them to what might be their next significant lead.

"Perhaps not," he concluded, a satisfied quirk tugging his lips. "We can assume that our culprit used a burner phone when they arranged the HR400's services. He would have needed to purchase the SIM somewhere, as well as the phone itself—how convenient that a store nearby could provide him exactly what he was looking for."

As Reed followed the explanation, his gaze drifted to align with his partner's. Upon catching sight of the storefront, he received the information with far greater scepticism.

"Detroit is a big fucking city," he said bluntly. "Our perp could've bought that SIM from anywhere. Even if we had a hunch, we'd have no way of tracing it. Thing is probably long gone."

"Maybe so, but the log collected from the suspect's call provided more than a location—

The phone used was a 2013 Samsung S3. If it so happens that a phone of that model was purchased in that store, with a prepaid SIM included, in the days before the murder..."

"...It would seem like one hell of a tidy coincidence," Reed grunted, begrudgingly conceding the point. "Alright, tin-can, I'll bite. But if you're wrong about this, I'll fucking dismantle you."

"Duly noted." The smirk tugging his lips grew before it was suppressed. It occurred that their current opportunity ought to be seized promptly, lest it slip from their fingers.

"I suggest we act quickly. We have failed to check in with the Captain for quite some time. No doubt he'll wish to receive an update."

#oh we are so back #apologies for the incredibly long hiatus #dbh #detroit become human #dbh nines #reed900 #dbh gavin #dbh fanfiction #dbh fanfic #gavin reed x rk900 #dbh fic

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thebrickinbrick · 8 months ago

Text

Many Interrogation Points Concerning a Certain Le Cabuc Whose Name May Not Have Been Le Cabuc, Part 2

The murderer turned round and saw before him Enjolras' cold white face.

Enjolras held a pistol in his hand. He had hastened up at the sound of the discharge. He had seized Cabuc's collar, blouse, shirt, and suspender with his left hand.

"On your knees!" he repeated. And, with an imperious motion, the frail young man of twenty years bent the thickset and sturdy porter like a reed, and brought him to his knees in the mire.

Le Cabuc attempted to resist, but he seemed to have been seized by a superhuman hand.

Enjolras, pale, with bare neck and dishevelled hair, and his woman's face, had about him at that moment something of the antique Themis. His dilated nostrils, his downcast eyes, gave to his implacable Greek profile that expression of wrath and that expression of Chastity which, as the ancient world viewed the matter, befit Justice.

The whole barricade hastened up, then all ranged themselves in a circle at a distance, feeling that it was impossible to utter a word in the presence of the thing which they were about to behold.

Le Cabuc, vanquished, no longer tried to struggle, and trembled in every limb.

Enjolras released him and drew out his watch.

"Collect yourself," said he. "Think or pray. You have one minute."

Mercy!" murmured the murderer; then he dropped his head and stammered a few inarticulate oaths.

Enjolras never took his eyes off of him; he allowed a minute to pass, then he replaced his watch in his fob. That done, he grasped Le Cabuc by the hair, as the latter coiled himself into a ball at his knees and shrieked, and placed the muzzle of the pistol to his ear. Many of those intrepid men, who had so tranquilly entered upon the most terrible of adventures, turned aside their heads.

An explosion was heard, the assassin fell to the pavement face downwards.

Enjolras straightened himself up, and cast a convinced and severe glance around him. Then he spurned the corpse with his foot and said: "Throw that outside."

Three men raised the body of the unhappy wretch, which was still agitated by the last mechanical convulsions of the life that had fled, and flung it over the little barricade into the Rue Mondétour.

Enjolras was thoughtful. It is impossible to say what grandiɔse shadows slowly spread over his redoubtable serenity. All at once he raised his voice.

A silence fell upon them.

"Citizens," said Enjolras, "what that man did is frightful, what I have done is horrible. He killed, therefore I killed him. I had to do it, because insurrection must have its discipline. Assassination is even more of a crime here than elsewhere; we are under the eyes of the Revolution, we are the priests of the Republic, we are the victims of duty, and must not be possible to slander our combat. I have, therefore, tried that man, and condemned him to death. As for myself, constrained as i am to do what I have done, and yet abhorring it, I have judged myself also, and you shall soon see to what I have condemned myself."

Those who listened to him shuddered. "We will share thy fate," cried Combeferre.

"So be it," replied Enjolras. "One word more. In executing this man, I have obeyed necessity; but necessity is a monster of the old world, necessity's name is Fatality. Now, the law of progress is, that monsters shall disappear before the angels, and that Fatality shall vanish before Fraternity. It is a bad moment to pronounce the word love. No matter, I do pronounce it. And I glorify it. Love, the future is thine. Death, I make use of thee, but I hate thee. Citizens, in the future there will be neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance, nor bloody retaliation. As there will be no more Satan, there will be no more Michael. In the future no one will kill any one else, the earth will beam with radiance, the human race will love. The day will come, citizens, when all will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life; it will come, and it is in order that it may come that we are about to die."

Enjolras ceased. His virgin lips closed; and he remained for some time standing on the spot where he had shed blood, in marble immobility. His staring eye caused those about him to speak in low tones.

Jean Prouvaire and Combeferre pressed each other's hands silently, and, leaning against each other in an angle of the barricade, they watched with an admiration in which there was some compassion, that grave young man, executioner and priest, composed of light, like crystal, and also of rock.

Let us say at once that later on, after the action, when the bodies were taken to the morgue and searched, a police agent's card was found on Le Cabuc. The author of this book had in his hands, in 1848, the special report on this subject made to the Prefect of Police in 1832.

We will add, that if we are to believe a tradition of the police, which is strange but probably well founded, Le Cabuc was Claquesous. The fact is, that dating from the death of Le Cabuc, there was no longer any question of Claquesous. Claquesous had nowhere left any trace of his disappearance; he would seem to have amalgamated himself with the invisible. His life had been all shadows, his end was night.

The whole insurgent group was still under the influence of the emotion of that tragic case which had been so quickly tried and so quickly terminated, when Courfeyrac again beheld on the barricade, the small young man who had inquired of him that morning for Marius.

This lad, who had a bold and reckless air, had come by night to join the insurgents.

#lm 4.12.8 #the brick in brick #barricade day #les miserables #lego

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monstersandmaw · 2 years ago

Note

For the WiP meme, what is Heptarchy Dragons about? I don't remember you mentioning it before and it sounds really interesting.

I haven't mentioned it before, you're right! It's currently an unusually 'first person' story for me, and I usually hate first person! haha.

The Heptarchy (referring to seven ruling kingdoms) is very loosely based on Britain in the early Anglo-Saxon period (pre-Alfred the Great), though this setting has some more advanced technology etc., perhaps akin to Renaissance Europe (think The Witcher perhaps for an equivalent? Or Minas Tirith/Gondor in Middle Earth).

The super duper cheesy blurb for the back of the book would be something along the lines of this:

('Haðsken' is pronounced 'hath-sken', the letter eth 'ð' being the Old English (among others) sound 'th')

When the quiet stillness of the saltwater estuary is disturbed one summer morning by the arrival of raiders, eight year old Aster is seized and taken back to the land of the Haðsken who have been terrorising the duchies to the north for a decade. No one thought they’d trouble this quiet corner in the south of the Heptarchy, but they come out of the dawn with dragon riders to burn the crannog to the ground and take its simple people back as slaves. With her best friend shot in the shoulder and left to die in the reeds, and finding herself captive and given to the gruff but fair tutelage of a Haðskeni apothecary, Aster spends the next ten years of her life learning to adapt and to keep her head down while her two nations go to war in the skies.

The mages of the Heptarchy learn to bond with captured dragons after once hunting them to near extinction in their lands, and the dragons, though their memory is long, begin to return to the greener pastures and sheltered mountains of the Heptarchy on the grounds that they will no longer be persecuted in return for providing the mages with greater magic and, of course, flight and fire power. With dragon riders of their own, the Heptarchy claws back lost ground against the Haðskeni raiders, and eventually a fragile truce is brokered between the ducal families of the Heptarchy and the war chiefs of Haðsken.

With the end of the raids, eighteen year old Aster is among those who are exchanged and returned to the Heptarchy, though she hardly knows which nation she belongs to now.

The prisoners are welcomed back and given the chance to start over, and Aster choses to apprentice with the court physician of the Duchy of Suthsea. There, she encounters the adoptive son the royal family and their first meeting does not go well. Kaspian is rude and dismissive, and Aster is prickly and proud. Kaspian was a son of Haðsken, born on a raid under the shadow of his mother’s dragon. His mother was captured, and he spent the first seven years of his life in a prison cell, until his mother’s failed escape attempt that left him with a life-changing injury but also saw him adopted into the royal family as one of their own. Devoted best friends, despite their cultural differences, with the Duke’s beloved younger son, Leander, Kaspian possesses the rare talent of suppressing magic entirely, and his red dragon is savage and cruel and barely controllable, where Leander’s is affable and almost silly by comparison.

Aster has no magic, only her herbs and her wits, but at a ducal tournament, she finds herself in an unprecedented situation: thrust into a world of mages and dragons, and with whispers of something far darker brewing back in Haðsken.

She and Kaspian are sent together on a secret mission to Haðsken, where loyalties are tested, friendships are forged, and grudges are born and broken…

___

Anyway, if you like the sound of it, lemme know and I can turn more attention to it. Here's a sneaky opening for you if you got this far...

The silence of the saltmarsh used to bring me such peace.

On those endless summer days, Deor and I would go stalking through the reeds together like a couple of gangly herons looking for young sea aster leaves — the plant whose flowers had given me my name — and bright, flowing eelgrass.

At sunset, we’d tramp back to the crannog, sunburned and salty, with our pockets full of snails and our heads full of stories. Deor’s true-red hair would inevitably be sticking up in every direction, the wind caressing the cow-lick at the front into a curling breaker like the ones that rolled in off the open sea to the east, and my own short plait would look like the tail of an angry cat, all brown bristles and flyaway wisps.

Now, silence of any kind makes my skin crawl.

Out of the silence of a summer morning so clear and bright and full of promise that it still makes my heart hurt to wake up to a dawn like that one, raiders descended, and in a rush of terror and blood and burning flesh, my entire world was turned upside down.

The crannog village of thatched roundhouses had a small, bronze bell, but it had only ever been rung in my lifetime on the solstice ritual days to mark the start of feasting and festivity, so when its frantic, discordant clanging shattered the stillness of a pearlescent, spring dawn, half the village was out of their doors before they could even take in what they were hearing. Like a kicked anthill, the place erupted into panicked chaos.

A huge shadow passed overhead, though there were no clouds, and a wall of fire rained down from the sky. Everyone turned to look, transfixed by sheer, uncomprehending terror at the gout of flame against the backdrop of the familiar estuary.

Dragons.

We’d heard rumours of the dragon raiders before, though it had been little more than snippets of gossip in the market place of Redsand Bay up the coast.

They were apparently raiding the shrines and temples far to the north, amassing wealth and gold to fund a supposedly larger invasion from the south, but rumours like that had been floating around on the wind for decades. We’d never even dreamed they’d venture down from the snowy mountains and heather dusted uplands of the Heptarchy to trouble the likes of us in the liminal space between the sea and the sandy coast. The Wash was safe. Even among our own people in the Seven Duchies, no one bothered with the eel catchers and fishermen of The Wash. We raised no sheep, smelted no iron, and grew no crops. We certainly didn’t hoard gold the way the shrines in the north did.

We were nothing, and yet those dragon raiders had chosen that spring morning to descend and wipe our little crannog off the face of the marsh.

“Run, Aster! Run!” Deor’s ashen face lurched into my awareness as he belted barefoot towards me across the wooden boards of the platform that kept our houses out of the saltwater of The Wash.

I jumped at his shout, wild-eyed and breathing hard. “What’s going on?” I asked as he caught up to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to turn around. At eight years old, I was small and flimsy as a winter reed, and even though Deor was a year older and a boy, he wasn’t much bigger. He was still stronger than me though, and he shoved me along before him, yelling at me to run to the reed beds east of the village and hide. Like a mudfish, I thought distantly.

___

Thanks, and lemme know if you like the premise! It needs a lot of work, but it's been fun to plan out and write a bit of it so far.

#the Haðsken apothecary is actually my favourite character so far lol #and Leander is a cinnamon roll #dragons #heptarchy dragons #wip tag

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haliteatiger · 2 years ago

Text

A Salvaged Wreck (Or An Attempt Thereof) A short Baldur's Gate III fanfiction

In which my Tav, Silence the tiefling bard, encounters Astarion for the first time with Shadowheart in tow. It goes about as well as you might expect with two fundamentally evil characters and one neutral who just wants everyone to get along.

Eventually I will draw a better picture of Silence, but this will do for now, I suppose. Anyway, read on below the cut!

Silence was grateful to finally see blue sky when she and Shadowheart emerged from a jagged opening in the wreckage of the Illithid ship, its forlorn and dying wails drifted out over the burning landscape, and just about the roar of the flames she could hear a man calling for help. With her undershirt stretched over her nose to protect it from the acrid smoke and stench of burning flesh, she looked up at Shadowheart with wide questioning eyes, before the cries were heard again.

“Help! Over here! Hurry!”

Pulling up the hill and away from the ruins, Silence could just make out a pale man in dark clothes amongst the trees on an overhead rise. He motioned to them frantically. “Up here!”

As they drew closer, Silence was immediately on alert. The man seemed uninjured other than the wild-eyed expression of someone who had just survived a traumatic event, his formerly fine clothing and face soiled from having pulled himself from the wreckage.

“Over there!” he said, once they were near enough, and pointed to some obscure location in the nearby reeds. Silence noted the long, pointed ears partially hidden by his mess of pale curls - an elf with red eyes. How curious. “I’ve got one of those brain things cornered. There! In the tall grass! You can kill it, can’t you? Like you killed the others?”

Silence craned her neck, squinting in the bright daylight. Shadowheart peered over her, evidently feeling similarly cautious. After a moment of the elf staring at them expectantly, Silence grinned politely.

“With all due respect, sir, you seem perfectly capable of finishing it off yourself. My advice would be to leave it alone and get clear of the wreckage. Heavens only knows what hazards it’s leaking.”

The elf blinked, his head pulled back as though in disbelief, not having expected such a refusal from the petite tiefling, let alone such a polite and cautionary one.

“Good luck!” She gave him a brief wave and turned to walk away, when suddenly the crunch of a boot on dry earth had her swinging back around, albeit it was much too late as the cold edge of a blade was pressed into her throat, and a firm grip across her chest lifted her up from the ground.

“I was hoping for a kind soul,” he hissed, in her ear. Shadowheart drew her sword. “But, no matter.”

The moment her feet touched the ground again, Silence jumped up with all of her strength. She felt the teeth-grinding crunch of his nose against the back of her head, and he jerked back in surprise, the two toppling to the ground.

“You cheeky, little, bitch!” he snarled, and made to grab her before she could roll free, but instead found his hand grasped by sharp teeth sinking into the fleshy part of his palm. The shock made him swear again, and drop the knife.

In actuality, the attempt to bite him had been on impulse, and Silence was, quite frankly, surprised that it had worked as she was quickly on her feet, snatching up the dagger on her way to gain some distance between the two of them, but he was faster than she’d anticipated. When she whipped back around, he was already on his feet and had come to a skidding halt at the tip of his own blade pressing into the centre of his torso. His hands shot up in surrender, and he stepped back, widened eyes glinting a furious, deep red only a few shades lighter than that which streamed from his nose and the small, jagged, tear on his hand.

“I saw you on the ship!” he hissed, a flash of white and very pronounced eyeteeth drawing her attention briefly. “Strutting about while I was trapped in that pod!”

“Strutting’? Ha!” scoffed Silence, with equal venom despite the anxious grin across her face, more of a snarl given that her own fangs were openly displayed, albeit distinctly smaller than his. She nodded to the cleric behind her. “We were captive, too!”

“Really?” he sneered. “That’s not what I saw. What did you and those tentacled freaks do to me?!”

She shook her head. “No, you- ugh!” The bard flinched, grabbing the side of her head as a brilliant light filled her vision, intense heat breathed against her face - the sun? The acrid, smothering smoke of the burning refuse gave way to the sweetness of wine, the perfume of wealthy women and men, their laughter in her ears, and suddenly the coolness of damp, night air flooded her senses as she stood, looking up at the familiar streetlamps of Baldur’s Gate.

“What? What was that? What’s going on?” gasped the elf, urgently, looking around himself in confusion until his gaze finally landed on the small tiefling stood before him.

Silence blinked back to reality, rubbing the pain from her eyes and temples, the vertigo receding just in time to sense movement in front of her. The blade snapped up again, maintaining her guard. “You stay right where you are,” she commanded.

“Wait! You were there! They did take you! I saw it just now when… during… whatever just happened.” The elf stood straight, resuming his position with his hands raised, although now it was more in an attempt to soothe her fear than in defence of his own. The sharpness was gone from his tone when he spoke again, an accompanying half smile softening the words, but was certainly no less nefarious than his scowl. “My apologies… Now would it be possible to have that back? Handed to me, preferably.”

Silence’s eyes snapped down at the weapon before returning to him, narrowing. “Let’s get to know each other a bit better first - you have an Illithid tadpole in your head. Like us. That’s what connected us just now.”

“So it would seem!” He nodded, looking down at her through lidded eyes. “Do you happen to know anything about it?”

“Unfortunately,” replied Silence, there was a short pause as she wrestled with how to describe it. “If we don’t do something about it sooner rather than later - it will turn us into Mind Flayers.”

“Turn us into-?” The pale elf’s eyes widened, the scowl draining away as surprise took hold when he finally threw his head back in a sudden, disdainful series of laughs that wilted into a grimace directed at the ground. “Of course, it’ll turn me into a monster. What else could I expect?”

Some of the fear in her gave way to sympathy at hearing that, but her grip on the dagger remained steadfast.

“Although… it hasn’t happened yet,” he said, looking up, an idea seeming to light the crimson of his eyes. “If we can find an expert, someone who can control these things - there might still be time.”

“‘Control?’” the bard’s nose scrunched slightly in dismay. She titled her head. “What do you mean? We need to be rid of it! Have you ever known any sort of parasite to actually benefit its host? Psionic powers or not, these things are going to kill us eventually, there is no ‘controlling’ it, good sir.”

“Well, yes, of course!” he snapped. “But one thing at a time…” The elf paused, appraising her from boot to horn. His eyes narrowed and he slowly lowered his hands. “You know, I had thought of going at this alone, but perhaps it would be safer to travel with the herd. After all, you seem like someone I should know… Let’s say we let bygones be bygones. You need me and I need you. But… In the meantime, I would suggest that I may be far more useful armed than not.”

Silence glanced at Shadowheart who had lowered her sword by this time, quietly observing the two. She shrugged, brows raised. “What? Don’t look at me. I say kill him and keep the knife,” she said, loftily, and gestured with her shield. “He obviously can’t be trusted.”

“I could say the same for you!” sneered the elf. “Bloody fine then! Keep the damned knife. But, I expect you’d know what to do with it when it comes to defending me from any villainous ne’er-do-wells.”

The tiefling’s stance relaxed somewhat, shoulders lowering along with the dagger. She eyed him closely a moment more, as if trying to see where else he might be hiding some sign of treachery, before tossing the weapon at his feet. Behind her, Shadowheart sheathed her sword, even if wariness still lingered in her gaze.

“For your sake, I hope you’re better at wielding that against real enemies, and not helpless bards,” remarked Silence, stepping off to the side to allow him to pass once he’d re-sheathed his dagger, and pulled out a handkerchief from a trouser pocket to attempt to staunch the bleeding from his nose.

“Helpless? Ha!” He winced, grimacing behind the cloth as it made contact with his face. “I’m the one with the broken nose and lacerated hand. Of course, had things turned out as I had initially intended, I might have ended up decorating the ground with your innards. Only then would I adequately describe you as ‘helpless’.”

“Then, it’s just as well,” she shrugged, lips thinning. “That shade of crimson really clashes with that shade of dirt anyway.”

Red eyes widened above the white kerchief, and he suddenly found himself observing her a little more closely, as though having truly seen her for the first time. “Let’s just assume you’re right,” he replied, slowly, as if surprised at not having thought of the concept himself, and made sure to keep pace beside her for the time being. “In either case, I owe you an apology.”

Silence was quiet a moment, appraising him for sincerity, before finally relenting to the idea that she’d need to let it go if they were to get along. “Apology accepted,” she sighed. “After all, I might have done similar were I in your position.”

“Ah, a kindred spirit, I see,” he purred. This new tone of voice making her even more on edge than the one before it. “My name is Astarion.”

“Silence.”

Astarion’s brows dropped in a scowl. “I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Silence.” A slight smile flitted across her features. “Sorry. I should know better than to announce myself without some kind of supra.”

He rolled that over in his mind for a moment. “A bard… named Silence. How very…”

“Ironic, yes, I know,” she said, with a wry smile and made a gesture to the cleric walking in front of them. “And this is Shadowheart. Maybe, if you ask nicely, she may even heal you.”

She glanced over her shoulder, first at the tiefling and then at their new companion. “Charmed,” she greeted, dryly. “I accept gold, too.”

“Ah, a duplicitous minstrel and an entrepreneurial cleric,” he muttered, glancing up at the passing trees. “I’m in good company, I see.”

“And what are you?” asked Silence, with a small laugh, and his gaze snapped back to her, brow furrowed as if not knowing what to make of it. “Aside from a terrible highwayman.”

“I was a magistrate for the city of Baldur’s Gate.”

“[Oh! I’m from there, too!]” exclaimed Silence, in Baldurian. “[Small world.]”

“Really? Clearly, we must move in different circles,” he drawled, unimpressed. He removed the kerchief to briefly inspect the intensity of his bleeding. It seemed to be slowing down, but he continued to carefully wipe around his nose and lip, sniffling softly between speaking. “I’d fancy that healing sooner rather than later. If you don’t mind. Shadowheart, was it?”

The cleric stopped and turned, again eyeing him haughtily, but such was her manner. She held out her hand. “Gold first. Healing second. If you please.”

Astarion frowned, and then let out a scoff. “Surely, you must be joking!” He looked to Silence who, after a moment’s contemplation, simply shrugged.

When Shadowheart continued to stand there patiently with her hand outstretched, her expression impassive, the lines around his mouth deepened, eyes all the more piercing before he finally relented. With an exasperated and dramatic sigh, followed by coughing and more wincing, he began sifting through his pockets until he finally produced a gold coin. “I do so hope I’m not going to have to pay you every time. That could become a real hindrance in a pinch, you know.”

Shadowheart caught it as he flipped it to her, and she and the bard exchanged amused glances. The rogue raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything, the cleric had stepped forward. “It’ll work faster if you stand still and don’t speak,” she instructed, raising her hand to his face and muttering something under her breath.

A softly glowing green light grew from her palm, sparks of it were gently drawn into his injury, until it disappeared with a flash and the elf stumbled back, blinking and inspecting the area carefully with his fingers. He wrinkled his nose, testing it. “Excellent,” he said, satisfied, and held out his injured hand.

Shadowheart glanced down at it and then back up at him. “I get paid by the injury,” she said, promptly. Silence tried to stifle a giggle behind a hand and pursed lips.

The ruby red of his eyes flashed fiercely, glancing between the bard and the cleric. “What!? You can’t be serious!” he barked. “I can assure you, you treacherous whore, that you certainly will be paid in some manner.” The elf reached for his dagger when Silence stepped forward, touching his forearm lightly, causing him to jerk away, but stop short of pulling out his weapon when she held out her hand.

“Here,” she said, evenly. “Give me your hand. I was the one who bit you, and I can do a little healing. Enough to close it at least. I’m sorry we tricked you.”

“I’m not,” said Shadowheart, a subtle smirk and a quirked eyebrow warming her usual cold demeanour. “I said I would heal him if he paid me, and I did. And I must say that a ducat for such a service is a real bargain.”

“Then I’m sorry for tricking you,” she said, shooting the cleric a sharp look, and Shadowheart’s eyebrow remained raised. “It won’t happen again. Now, here, let me see it.”

“To hells with the both of you!” he snarled, disdainfully, pulling back, and gripped his injured hand. “Do something like that again, and I will be entitled to more than a mere apology. Never mind the wound. I’m sure it’ll heal well enough on its own.” He looked down his nose at the bard, lip curling in disgust. “Assuming you’re lacking in any kind of transmittable diseases.”

With a slight toss of his head, he turned and stalked on ahead of them. Silence frowned after him, and turned to Shadowheart once he was far enough away to likely not hear them speaking in lowered voices.

“Frankly, I didn’t find it that cruel of a prank,” muttered Silence. “But… I suppose it was in rather poor taste given what just happened.”

Shadowheart scoffed. “Perhaps. I still think it was funny. I hadn’t expected him to take it that seriously.” The half-elf looked down at the tiefling. “Admit it. You were curious to see if he would actually pay for my healing him, weren’t you?”

Silence looked away, pressing her lips together, and gave a sight shrug. “Maybe a little.” She sighed, her gaze returning to his back farther up the trail. “I’ll see if I can’t do something nice for him later. If we’re going to be travelling together, we should all try to get along.”

A slight creased formed between the cleric’s brow, frown lines deepening. She let out a light scoff at the idea. “I should have known you’d end up being a bleeding heart for arrogant fools like him. The man just tried to kill you. Cheating him out of his money is the least of what he deserves.”

“I know that!” countered Silence, firmly. “And just because I care about making amends over something stupid, doesn’t mean I’m any kind of ‘bleeding heart’, I’ll have you know. We’ve all been through a lot, and he’s clearly addled. And he did just get bested by a tiefling nearly a quarter his size. And just because I want to make peace with him doesn’t mean I want to be his bloody best friend or anything. But, I’d rather not start off on any more of a wrong foot than we already have. You do realize we are going to have to sleep in his presence, and he’s clearly not afraid to pull that knife on a whim.”

“Hm, perhaps you’re right. But, if that’s how you want to go about it, I’m sure you can repay him simply by doing what you said you would -which is by not doing it again.”

“You know, actually. I wasn’t even the one who tried to con him out of his money. So really, it should be you trying to fix this.”

“Yes, but you were giggling, too. And I didn’t see you trying to stop me until the last minute. Besides, you're the only one interested in mending fences here.”

Silence frowned, feeling foolish.

“Just leave it be, Silence. If he holds a grudge over that, then he’ll have proven he’s just another petty noble, and we’d be better off just killing him if he’s going to insist on making it a problem.”

The bard didn’t respond to that, knowing very well she was right.

#haligren's fanfiction #haligren's ocs #haligren's oc silence #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 fanfiction #bg3 fanfiction #astarion #shadowheart #bg3 tav #baldur's gate 3 tav

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byneddiedingo · 2 years ago

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Michael Redgrave in Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles, 1955)

Cast: Orson Welles, Robert Arden, Patricia Medina, Michael Redgrave, Akim Tamiroff, Katina Paxinou, Mischa Auer, Peter van Eyck, Paola Mori, Suzanne Flon. Screenplay: Orson Welles. Cinematography: Jean Bourgoin. Art direction: Orson Welles. Film editing: Renzo Lucidi, William Morton, Orson Welles. Music: Paul Misraki.

"What if?" is the question that haunts every Orson Welles film after Citizen Kane (1941). What if Welles had had the financial, production, and distribution support for his films? Of none of them is the question more appropriate than Mr. Arkadin, which was edited by other hands than Welles's and not even shown in the United States until 1962, and at one point was said to exist in at least seven different versions. In 2006, the Criterion Collection released a three-DVD set that edited together all of the existing English-language versions of the film, following what was known of Welles's original plan, along with his comments on some of the other versions that had been released. It's probably as close as we're going to get to what the director had in mind. So what if Mr. Arkadin had been under Welles's control all along? Would we have a more coherent narrative and style? Would the protagonist, Guy Van Stratten, have been played by a more skilled actor than Robert Arden? (It's a role that would have been perfect for someone like William Holden.) Would Welles have called on the best makeup artists to provide himself with a more convincing prosthetic nose and a wig and beard whose edges don't show? Would the function and the fate of Patricia Medina's character, Mily, have been clearer? And does any of this really matter? For what we have here, despite Welles's later description of the film (or its handling) as a "disaster," is one of the most fascinating works in his storied, troubled career. There are sequences that are haunting, even if their purpose in the film is unclear, such as the procession of the penitentes, who in their tall, pointed hoods look like exactly what Mily mistakes them for: "crazy ku kluxers." Or the Goyaesque masks at Arkadin's ball. Or the sequence of truly wonderful cameo performances, including a hair-netted Michael Redgrave as the junk dealer Burgomil Trebitsch, who keeps trying to sell Van Stratten a busted telescope (which he pronounces "telly-o-scope"). Or Mischa Auer as the proprietor of a flea circus. Or Katina Paxinou as a Mexican (?) woman named Sophie. And then there's one of Welles's most celebrated speeches, perhaps second only to his "cuckoo clock" monologue in The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949), in which Arkadin tells the fable of the scorpion and the frog. Though analogues have been found in folklore around the world, this particular formulation of it seems to have been Welles's own:

This scorpion wanted to cross a river, so he asked the frog to carry him. No, said the frog, no thank you. If I let you on my back you may sting me and the sting of the scorpion is death. Now, where, asked the scorpion, is the logic in that? For scorpions always try to be logical. If I sting you, you will die. I will drown. So, the frog was convinced and allowed the scorpion on his back. But, just in the middle of the river, he felt a terrible pain and realized that, after all, the scorpion had stung him. Logic! Cried the dying frog as he started under, bearing the scorpion down with him. There is no logic in this! I know, said the scorpion, but I can't help it -- it's my character.

Perhaps it was Welles's character that betrayed him into making movies that flopped but turned into classics.

#Mr. Arkadin #Orson Welles #Michael Redgrave

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cathygeha · 11 months ago

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REVIEW

Beyond All Doubt by Hilton Reed

Adrenaline-packed thrill ride from first page till last ~ Couldn’t put it down.

What I liked:

* Cameron Kane: widow, raising seven year old daughter, photographer, photo licensing job, trying to move on though still grieving his wife Alison, sees someone that makes him question whether or not his wife is really dead and starts to investigate, tenacious, loves his wife and daughterr

* Alison Kane: brilliant, math prodigy, died in a fiery car crash, loving wife and mother, worked for a bit-coin billionaire, intriguing

* Sabrina Kane: seven-year-old daughter of Cameron and Alison, typical little girl, misses her mother

* Elliott Kane: Cameron’s brother, supportive, caring, there for Cameron and his family.

* Mickey Donovan: private investigator who takes Cameron’s case to research Alison’s death, ex-military and ex-police detective, intelligent, good at his job

* Zemira Moon: retired special forces who works with Mickey Donovan, lethal, protective, someone I’d want on my side and not against me

* The plot, pacing, setting, and writing

* Wondering if perhaps Zemira Moon might have a book of his own in the future

* The conclusion and how everything turned out.

What I didn’t like:

* Who and what I was meant not to like

* Thinking about how greed and its impact on more than one in this book

* Wondering how some people can be as amoral as more than one in this story

Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Definitely

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

BLURB

When a grieving widower finds out there are dark secrets surrounding his wife’s death, he’s set on a nail-biting chase for the truth in this tense, propulsive thriller, perfect for fans of Joseph Finder and Meg Gardiner. It’s been a year since Cameron Kane’s wife Alison died in a fiery car crash. Aside from the grief that has shattered his life, Cameron struggles to reconcile the memory of his wife with the reality of how she died. The police couldn’t explain what she was doing in a Lamborghini with Maxwell Harding, a wealthy white-collar criminal, but they were certain of one both Alison and Maxwell died in the horrific accident. Cameron is trying to start a new life with his daughter when he walks past a man who resembles Maxwell—the man who was pronounced dead beyond all doubt more than a year ago. The chance encounter quickly propels Cameron down a rabbit hole as he begins to question everything he knows about the circumstances surrounding his wife’s death. Is he simply imagining things, hoping that the police made some mistake? Or are his suspicions all too real? The further he digs, the more he becomes convinced that there’s a deeper conspiracy at play. As he follows strings that lead to devious schemes and murder, Cameron knows that there’s no price he won’t pay for the truth. And as the deadly threats to Cameron mount, that price may be his very life.

#Reed Hilton #NetGalley #Crooked Lane Books #Fiction #Thriller #Mystery

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libidomechanica · 1 year ago

Text

Untitled Composition # 10259

A kimo sequence

Less you are locked at! As early noticed& that I do when I drew at my trust and joy but love?

Her bones with denial vain would not blind but here’s the Jews from time we’ve her; and ocean flood.

And press my tongue, the grot of Proserpine. Is over the young, and downwards that now, Sir Foole!

And if between His After and pronounces last is bloody close of you. To keep the learne heart.

For still; with the rout thy will build a basketball. Set forth, and wha will bloom palms, or maiden-head.

Thou shalt heart-certain up some fresh woods days; but dead. Unlike the act is decay; till saw the leg.

Pledge? Wherewithal she repentance came debtor for bodily tenement. Now on the solid.

A skylark wound the poppies hung with sand. A simple, fire-tailed exhalations; to tint her hame.

The sides of me, or those threatest we love holdeth and spirit that dare wet! Nor did her pity?

Come away their eyes that brought she had won. Even where to pass, and ease the sea and pain, let bee.

Some benighted, fond image see. Tales that unnotice she nurst; delight. Gnat, a beam of the rill.

Through reeds of Being and fate? The occasion been, and said; oh Thou, who at a vice: had she fold?

I do love that when thy fame here and bolted thus weigh down innocent, dozes three. What region.

Pent up by-and-by; then glut thy Heart. That vision fleeting? When all the motherly cheek on cheeks.

Is this powers? They used fifty should they have taken up the mind, each humble, low-born the pot.

Its own slipperiness.—Of palm or pine? The hasten or declining pride I this friendly Few.

And Meg. And again among cool bosom sweet, whose speech arises stole a breeze would understand.

Whose voice and, feeling tone came not, her has to contagion spend, so is my love! Mother, your balls.

Know me, till in her, strikes in an abyss. That this thy drowsy wings was an old despair itself.

Brought for he nil falsen no wintry season know. The worldly talk like their cups the make my hands.

A grandmotherly cheek! Yes, yes, and its five talent—is emptied of soberly, beginners.

For thee to man, of posting west? Let they do not your round they smiles no change now approaching heart.

As from sweet love holds back, and scudding year. Something the mild whispers him thence a face, silently.

Of little fall be hears deep sighs, and rigg’d with stars in virgin kisse.—A cuff neglected and sent.

With lullaby. Blind mouths! As the creatures wild thyme, and for me under the wine of Thine; oh turn.

Tu-who; tu-whit, tu-who; tu-whit, tu-who; tu-whit, tu-who; tu-whit, tu- who! Seeds of droop-headed.

Lullaby the eight upon the apron. If one down every eastern border of our buried.

Clings about its five shalt by fount of secret grieved below thine. Make a close, a shores and you say?

The city, and canst them? Scarce had never could with feet as silence, in their rose, a shore, tu-who!

With a frown, with thou canst the snow on pathless sky—but he hell am I to the black. Delight.

And sunny glades of speech arises from high Top, and so beguiled, already in that heart, there.

The wondrous moods; and the sad and perhaps it was brought fair youth be still them. Gives and candlelight.

—It favorite aggies. Went for yúsuf—she bee sucked in that my Mother’s blush, and did grounds, and thence?

The princes do belongs! And silvery eye but love and air, I feel this toes, I know that much.

��35

I may she wound alive? Single light, to when the gardens yet unset with sad eies I the more.

Yea, too, Beauty began a Tale of Love’s used no maid’s bliss. Making eyes, no alternate prayers.

Crime. Bends aloft, and then followed by skill. Dream was to pray we for you must do’t, for Lycidas?

To the gloomy shaft, thou art cruel. Of the Heart there up to all new techniques for such as ever.

Sooner heaven hie, close the world ’gainst a vacant minute slipperiness did trip and nothing.

Your breast in the meadows? In our lives complement to row thou hast been the eldest said: Wait up!

Eager thou, to whom broad day the answered in comes, and sixty! Through the unheard, and if you give.

Alas! My mother silverly around, Return, Alpheus: the rush of gall, is fancy’s spring.

I am talking,—ah, it may I do, hear and clodded ear! The world of sisters trough all these?

His past, make my good carefully dress the parting, and true. Bright she found me loved Mozart was told.

When old me with black and through my loss to give your old bards, that aged hands;—for lo! Come to weak.

She too wide plainness of needful at the windows: Friends of petals beside! Our two should a fool.

The beauty only think, my prettie death. Rich result of a’. In listen too a little journey.

Come within the vineyard, and innocuous occupation. Might be freely complain, and fine.

With wondrous mortal too.—Ocean floods, that selfe my mind is satire of love, in ministring.

So thin the doors leadings for its patterned disarray—my mind. Their secrets of both, and see feed?

My meaning is in my young unborn. Leading his Dagger Thorn. I take this, and with a limits.

She shall love’s first, that I dreamed I was false foul, they were not importune and unfamiliar guest.

Others pale. Leaving your girl with heat may be, ere it glide, and for lace better if I no more.

I fail! And walked as truly round, little was said to hide some suspicion star-showers, and hell!

A things—glory as his slaue. And do so for fear’d the dedicated hiss of the light; their stept.

What so it goes. Was fain to following danger strive not bring, cheek is cold, she gave it an oath.

The root, so loves her, that flowers Sappha went, and shed a bliss. So Pharaoh, or so this thy name?

Saying the beaten gold with eyes at large, a deep upon thy terms divine! And dark, that she, chaste.

Return, of whose are the silently. From out together who is as a child; she kiss’d her hair.

Someone lived they? You shalt sea strange, and her can we find by adding the pure and as good report.

And change to sail sae royallie. I would say, of happiness … and once that in an April’s inmost soul.

To find, a siren song, not thou receive. Wind are light, tu-who; tu-whit, tu-who; tu-whit, tu-who!

It is not, flying breast the dreary vaults. And, coming on the life, and candlelight, old jockstrap.

Thick, as then I knew not wish our buried streets, but not mad pursuit? Dead perfidious plays an end.

Rot inward glance from time the her falls under through. And Why I love that balanced-but I forbeare?

She van of a kind of your grace, that with waking me to the pot. In bleak November, makes cakes?

Thou have spar’d for all. To kill my dear, beside you the scrip, with a singeth: o stone, there torn out.

And thou leaves about there all in vain the fair. By all perfect witness something in the regions?

Girdle me with the unimagined for the stream with black again. That thou hast slain by the clear.

So in my old ladies cannot shed of your emissary eyes shall be my blood! With a tree.

Of grass! That had never, every marge, whose bring how bright dungeons; heaths as the rose, and quills today.

Tracing, they still be. Man’s pardon a’ our sister: of all. For the old Chaucer used when the phone.

Busy old grief that we can we find your far as pride doth sleep! Able to entice you do so.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #170 texts #kimo sequence

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avictimofthejazz · 2 years ago

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A Well-Oiled Machine--Nancy & Reed

@timeguardians

Nancy’s expression, if possible, grows grimmer as she makes her pronouncement. Worried, Reed finds himself taking her elbow and guiding her to a quieter corner of the department store. Once they are tucked behind a display of ties and suitcoats, his eyes drop to the bundle again.

Nancy’s query only brings an anxiety knot into his stomach. “Yeah… I’ve got a toddler.” He confirms, eyes returning to her as he takes in how fully distraught she looks. There is being worried and then there is looking like being on the verge of a breakdown. Right now, Nancy is tilting toward the latter with surprising speed.

A few seconds later, the pieces start clicking together as she reveals the infant she has been cradling close to her chest. Automatically his hands reach out for the baby if Nancy wishes to hand it over, paternal instincts overriding the police officer’s instincts for a moment.

It is only for a moment though. Then Officer Reed’s reaction pushes Papa Reed’s reaction back into its proper place. “Of course, you cannot take the baby back to your hotel room… or New Jersey for that matter.” He agrees. “But what kind of scheme do you think you’ve stumbled on? If you just found an abandoned baby, you should have taken them to the hospital, or called the police. One of our officers could have come and picked them up for you.”

Pete and he have done those kinds of calls before, responding to people who have found babies in dumpsters or left in shopping bags on steps. The lucky infants are the ones left on the steps of orphanages—the people running those locations have to report the incident to the police but the baby already has a place to go. Kids who are just dumped end up getting hustled around a lot more.

No matter the circumstances though, all of these cases are heartbreaking. Reed dotes on his son… he cannot imagine what might prompt a mother to toss her baby in a dumpster, or leave them exposed to the elements and all kinds of dangers. Reed gets a little nervous when Jimmy wants to try and fumble his way down the stairs on the back porch on his own. He cannot imagine leaving his little man to face the world completely alone, just walking away, and being able to live with that.

He looks around the store quickly. “Tell you what. Jeanie is buying more clothes for Jimmy and redoing the kitchen. I’ll find her, and explain what is going on. Then I’ll give Pete a call—he can meet us at a diner or something, and you can explain everything to both of us.”

There has to be a reason why Nancy did not go directly to the station with this baby, and chose to come to him instead. It might have something to do with this scheme she says she has uncovered… and since she is supposed to have a SWAT officer with her for her own protection, either she ditched her guard, or a few officers are somehow implicated in her discovery. Either way, she does not seem comfortable trusting the LAPD as a whole with this information.

That alone seems like crucial information… and a very good reason to keep this situation quiet until he has a better grip on what is going on.

Discoveries like this are way out of the teen sleuth’s wheelhouse. Willfully, Nancy follows the officer’s gentle guiding behind the wracks, whilst trying to appease the small squirming bundle. “Then I need your help,” she utters in rush of desperation. Officer Reed was the perfect man to help her. He’s law enforcement and a father which, is EXACTLY, who she needs in this moment. With a sense of relief and eagerness, Nancy gingerly deposits the babe into his awaiting arms.

“I tried to give it some milk but, I think — something’s wrong with her.” She confesses. “It hasn’t wanted to stop fussing long enough to do anything else.” The teen tries to burrow her frustration down deep enough that it can’t resurrect. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong–”

Nancy supposed the task of tending to a youngin would be easier to manage had she helped raise younger siblings. But Nancy was an only child. An only child who hadn’t very many memories of her dearly departed mother. Hannah was an amazing blessing to her family, but even she is of no use here. She stayed behind to watch over their house in River Heights.Not because Hannah wasn’t invited, she was. She stayed behind to visit with her own daughter.

Her sky-blue eyes search the Officer’s equally as keen gaze. “I think,” and she does start her reply with utmost caution, “I think I’ve stumbled upon a baby trafficking ring in the basement of a well-known plastic surgeon—” She confides, her voce dipping conspiratorially low. You never be too sure if, or when, or who, was eavesdropping. She didn’t want to take any chances and let the man be tipped off. If there is a trafficking ring, she’s already determined that she wants to SHUT IT DOWN permanently. “I tried. Believe me. I called dispatch this morning. They thought I was some kind of jokester and kept giving me the runaround. That’s when I decided to come and find you.” She insistently remarks. Having spent a ride-along with Reed and Malloy, she learned that they were honorable officers. It was that impression that serviced her well in this moment. “And I think there’s a cop on the surgeon’s payroll.”

“Listen,” she starts, “I’ll agree to your deal, but I want in on this operation. I – I could go undercover for you—” She offers. “You and I both want to catch this creep–” Nancy wanted to be on strong footing with the arrangement before she delved any further. “And I don’t want to hear any of this – you’re a kid stuff. Okay? I’m nationally renown.” Okay. So maybe her tone was a bit more assertive than it has any right to be. Still, it is deployed all the same.

_____________

Jean is blissfully unaware of the case about to sweep her husband and his partner from their “days off”. “Jim?” She calls when she spots her lanky husband again, “don’t you think Jimmy would look darling in green? Or– or do you prefer the red - or the blue?” She holds each one up in front of their squirming toddler. Then turning her eyes back to him. “Jim? What on Earth do you have there?”

= = = = = = = = =

As soon as the baby is placed in his arms, Reed begins to rock her gently. While the movement does not stop the squirming and fussing entirely, it is enough to quiet the noises so that he can hold his conversation with Nancy. “She might just be hungry. Maybe the milk wasn’t warm enough when you offered it to her. We’ll take care of that after we get the bigger picture dealt with.”

Reed does not consider himself an expert on feeding hungry babies, but he does not have to be. Jean handles those areas of their family. She will probably have some good advice for Nancy, once he catches his wife up with this new situation.

Nancy’s next statements are a good deal more interesting to Reed, both from a professional point-of-view, and a practical one. “That’s quite a claim, Nancy.” He keeps his voice level and quiet, though his pulse rate is already picking up at the mere implication of her words. “What kind of proof do you have? Besides the baby?” He nods down toward the fussing infant in his arms.

The information that Nancy had tried to get help from the appropriate sources, but the dispatchers dismissed her brings a deeper frown to his features. The final statement that she thinks a cop is working with this surgeon is the last straw. Whatever is going on here sounds very, very serious, and warrants a proper investigation. Not the dispatchers deciding for themselves what calls should and should not be answered.

A chill runs through him as he briefly wonders how many other situations have gone unreported because some dispatcher decided not to send the information on to the proper people. They should let the professionals decide for themselves once they have spoken to the witnesses, or reached the scene of the alleged crime. The dispatchers should not make these assumptions on their own, from their spot on a switchboard.

“I’m glad you came to me then.” Reed offers her some assurance. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that with the dispatchers today. They should have sent your information to an officer, and let them make the final call. But, if there’s a crooked cop on the take, maybe it’s best that your location didn’t get blasted over the radio.”

Reed turned his attention to the baby again for a minute, welcoming the pause as a natural way to change the direction of his conversation. The minute passes, and he speaks again. “What makes you think there’s a cop on this guy’s payroll, anyways?”

Nancy, however, is already ploughing full steam ahead. Reed cannot help laughing. “Man… Street wasn’t lying when he said keeping up with you was like trying to keep a lit firecracker in its paper wrapping. This isn’t about how old, or how famous you are. First, we need to make sure that there is a case. Then we have to figure out the best way to tackle it. Maybe we will need someone to go undercover in there—and if we do, you’ll be on the list. Okay?”

Jean’s reintroduction to the conversation brings such a blast of normality to it that it almost bowls Reed over. For a second, he hovers between his roles as an officer, a husband, and a father. The sight of his son trying to escape from his mother’s need to make him test all the clothes she is looking at brings a smile to his features, but it is not as deep or bright as it usually is.

“You just know he’s going to get mud on it all in a few days, right Jean?” He gently reminds her before shrugging as best as he can with the baby in his arms. “I’d say the green or the blue… but buy whichever one you think looks best.”

It takes Jean a minute to realize her husband is holding a new baby, and he belatedly realizes that the needed explanation should have been the first thing on his mind.

“Oh… this is a baby that Miss Drew—you remember I mentioned Nancy Drew, right? The young lady who went on the ride along with Pete and me? Well, she found an abandoned baby… and thinks she stumbled in on something a bit more serious too. I’m just going to call Pete, and have him hear what Miss Drew has to say. Why don’t you go on shopping? We shouldn’t be at this too long.”

#Muse: Officer Jim Reed #Timeguardians #Nancy Drew

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virginiaprelawland · 2 years ago

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Alec Baldwin And The Aftermath Of The ‘Rust’ Shooting

By Elizabeth Wolnik, George Mason University Class of 2024

March 12, 2023

In October 2021, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed on the ‘Rust’ movie set by a prop gun that actor and producer Alec Baldwin was holding [3]. Hutchins was pronounced dead as soon as she arrived at the hospital. Director Joel Souza was also shot and injured by this incident. For some this came as no surprise as the movie set in New Mexico was described as “high stress” by many crew members. Only a few hours before Hutchins was shot and killed, crew members had walked off the set in protest of the working conditions. There had also been three previous misfires of the prop gun before Hutchins was killed. An unnamed crew member said after the misfires that “There were no safety meetings. There was no assurance that it wouldn’t happen again. All they wanted to do was rush, rush, rush.” It is a well-known rule that movie sets do not use live ammunition but may use real guns. Typically, productions use blanks to recreate the effect of firing a gun, and will sometimes even use powder to exaggerate the effect, but blanks can also cause serious damage. Following the events in October 2021, investigators uncovered 500 rounds from the movie set. The New Mexico Health and Safety Bureau also discovered that there were no on-set protocol to ensure that live rounds never made it onto the set. The gun that Baldwin had used was found to have live ammunition inside of it. Dave Halls, the assistant director of the film, told investigators that he failed to inspect every round in the chamber of the gun before giving it to Baldwin, and just assumed it was a “cold gun” [3].

But who is being held responsible for the death of Halyna Hutchins? Alec Baldwin has been criminally charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter [1]. Negligent use of a weapon charges were also filed against Dave Halls, but he has pleaded no contest and has entered into a plea agreement. The charge accuses Baldwin of failing to perform safety procedures that could have prevented Hutchins’ death. Baldwin has continually asserted his innocence and that he did not pull the trigger, but there are photos and videos that prove otherwise. The FBI conducted accidental discharge testing on the same model of the gun that was used on set, and determined that if the gun was working properly, there was no way that the gun could have gone off without the trigger being pulled [3]. The prosecution stated that in their investigation, Baldwin did not take the firearm training seriously and was instead on the phone talking with his family [1]. Baldwin continued to deflect responsibility for this incident by saying, “Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.” Baldwin’s attorneys also say that “He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have any live rounds.” [1].

One of those professionals was the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed. Gutierrez Reed is also charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter and prosecutors say that she did not insist on Baldwin’s firearm safety training. Gutierrez Reed has also been accused of not checking each round that was loaded into the firearm, not following appropriate safety protocols in storing ammunition, and failing to correct Baldwin from being reckless with a firearm by pointing the weapon towards people and having his finger on the trigger [1]. Gutierrez Reed told investigators that she constantly checked the weapons to ensure that they did not contain live ammunition and that she had no idea where the live rounds came from [3]. In January 2022, Gutierrez Reed filed a complaint against PDQ Arm and Prop and its managing member Seth Kenney, who was in charge of supplying ammunition for the film. The complaint states that Gutierrez Reed had used rounds that were provided by PDQ on the day of the shooing, and that they were labeled “dummy rounds .45 LC”, and that Gutierrez Reed trusted that PDQ and Kenney could only supply dummy prop ammunition and that no live rounds were to ever be on set. Gutierrez Reed’s lawyer said that she was not provided with enough time or resources to do her job as armorer effectively. However, many documents released by the New Mexico Health and Safety Bureau suggested that Gutierrez Reed may have known that there had been live rounds detected on set before the fatal shooting occurred. In a series of published texts, the film’s prop master had told Gutierrez Reed that she had found “bad ones” in a box of ammunition [3]. In a recent lawsuit filed by Baldwin against Gutierrez Reed, it states that she “failed to check the bullets or the gun carefully” and had even taken the film’s prop guns to a shooting range for target practice [5]. One of Gutierrez Reed’s attorneys stated that she has no idea where the live rounds came from and that she was not at the scene where the deadly shooting took place. Her attorneys believe that a jury will find Hannah Gutierrez Reed not guilty of involuntary manslaughter [1].

On top of the involuntary manslaughter charges, there have been numerous lawsuits involved with the crew and actors on the set of ‘Rust’. The film’s script supervisor Mamie Mitchell filed a lawsuit against Alec Baldwin, the film’s producers, six production companies, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, and the first assistant director of the film [3]. Mitchell claims assault and emotional distress while having worked on the set. She also asserted claims that the set failed to follow firearm safety protocols. The suit also states that the scene where the deadly shot was fired at Halyna Hutchins did not call for the cocking and firing of a gun at all. Baldwin allegedly took the gun from the assistant director instead of the armorer. The armorer is typically the only person who is qualified to verify that a firearm is a “cold gun” or containing no live rounds. Mitchell also claims in her lawsuit that Baldwin should have assumed the gun handed to him was loaded unless proven otherwise. In Baldwin’s motion to dismiss filed against the claim, he called Mitchell’s argument “completely illogical”. A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ended up ruling that Mitchell could not sue the film’s producers since Baldwin was the only person potentially liable for the shooting [3]. Regarding this lawsuit, Alec Baldwin is seeking an unspecified amount of damages that may arise from Mamie Mitchell’s claims [5].

Alec Baldwin has also personally filed many lawsuits against Hannah Gutierrez Reed, Dave Halls, Seth Kenney, and prop master Sarah Zachry accusing them of failing to properly check the gun and ammunition on set before handing him a gun [3]. There was also an arbitration demand filed against the other ‘Rust’ producers. This demand primarily claimed that because Baldwin only had creative control as a producer on set, he was not in charge of ammunition checks nor ensuring overall safety on the set. This filing also alleges that Hutchins told Baldwin to point the gun directly towards the camera, where she was standing behind [3]. In another suit filed by Baldwin, it states that prop master Sarah Zachry failed to disclose that Hannah Gutierrez Reed “was a safety risk to those around her”. The suit also asserts that Baldwin has “suffered substantial damage” which includes physical and emotional distress and the loss of job opportunities and income [5].

Arguably, the ones who have suffered the most is Halyna Hutchins’ family, and they have also filed numerous lawsuits regarding Halyna’s death. Hutchins’ family, who lives in Ukraine filed a suit against Baldwin, Gutierrez Reed, and the producers of ‘Rust’ [3]. They are suing for alleged negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, battery, and the loss of consortium. Attorney Gloria Allred is representing the family and stated that Hutchins would repeatedly send money to her family and that they believed she would have helped them immigrate to the United States due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine if she were still alive. Matthew Hutchins, Halyna’s husband, also filed a wrongful death suit against Baldwin, the crew members, and the producers. This complaint alleged that the production violated at least 15 industry standards for safety on set and that Baldwin personally broke the gun-handling protocol [3]. However, Matthew Hutchins ended up settling with Baldwin eight months after filing the suit, with Matthew becoming an executive producer on the film when they start production again [4] as part of the settlement [3].

In recent news pertaining to the ‘Rust’ incident, Alec Baldwin has expressed his desire to have special prosecutor Andrea Reeb removed from the case, citing New Mexico’s separation of powers statute [2]. A special prosecutor is independent of an office that would usually exercise jurisdiction in a criminal investigation [6]. This is usually implemented to avoid any potential conflicts of interest or to facilitate expertise in a certain subject. Baldwin’s legal team argues that Reeb, who is a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives, should be barred from the prosecution because the state constitution says, “A sitting member of the legislature may not ‘exercise any powers properly belonging’ to either the executive or judicial branch” [2]. The filing also says that as a politician, Reeb could be susceptible to pressure from the public. However, Reeb told CNN that her decisions as a prosecutor have never been influenced by politics. She said, “Everybody’s equal under the law. My job has always been to prosecute crimes and hold defendants accountable and help victims. In this case it’s no different.” [2].

In many people’s minds, the ‘Rust’ shooting is very reminiscent to the accidental shooting of Brandon Lee during filming of ‘The Crow’ in 1993 [7]. Brandon was the son of martial artist Bruce Lee, and he died after his co-star Michael Massee shot him with a prop gun. The firearm was loaded with blanks, but the gunpowder in the blank cartridge ignited, leading Massee to fire a bullet fragment at Brandon Lee, who later died in surgery. Massee did not face any criminal charges, but Lee’s mother did successfully sue the filmmakers for an undisclosed amount. Following Lee’s death, the film industry recognized the need for better protocols when using firearms on set. Nancy Gertner, a trial lawyer, retired judge, and senior lecturer at Harvard Law School mentioned in an NPR article that filing criminal charges, in the deaths of both Hutchins and Lee is usually up to the prosecutor. She also mentioned that the decision to charge Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter was “difficult to prove” because “No one intended for this to happen…these kinds of charges are reserved for only the most extreme kinds of negligence, the most gross negligence, the largest deviation from what ordinary standards should be.” Gertner also commented that the prosecutors are theorizing that Baldwin held a greater responsibility in the death than people originally thought, and that previous reports of equipment being irresponsibly handled on set could add to Baldwin’s guilt [7].

As of February 2023, Alec Baldwin has pleaded not guilty and waived his right to make his first appearance in court [3]. He did agree to not possess any weapons or to consume alcohol and to communicate with witnesses only relevant to the production on ‘Rust’. If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Baldwin and Gutierrez Reed will only be sentenced to one of the two counts [1]. A conviction is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and up to a $5,000 fine. Initially, the prosecution added an enhancement to the charges, which added the use of a firearm to one of the counts which could have been punishable by up to five years in jail [1]. However, prosecutors have decided to drop the enhancement [3]. It is surprising that even after all of the negative press surrounding the shooting at the ‘Rust’ set, the producers, actors, and crew still want to continue filming. Even with pending litigation, the movie will resume filming some time this year.

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[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/entertainment/alec-baldwin-charges-rust/index.html

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alec-baldwin-asks-special-prosecutor-removed-rust-case-rcna69586

[3] https://www.thecut.com/2022/08/alec-baldwin-prop-gun-accident-fatal-shooting-on-rust-set.html

[4] https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/entertainment/alec-baldwin-rust-settlement/index.html

[5] https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/alec-baldwin-accuses-rust-crew-members-negligence-lawsuit/story?id=93139863

[6] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/special_prosecutor

[7] https://www.npr.org/2023/01/20/1150034900/brandon-lee-killed-prop-gun-rust-shooting-death-alec-baldwin-halyna-hutchins#:~:text=Press-,Brandon%20Lee%20was%20killed%20by%20a%20prop%20gun%2C%20years%20before,during%20filming%20of%20The%20Crow

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creaturefeaster · 2 years ago

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Silly ask but why some of the mimes named the way they are and what do their names mean?? (Minus Chickenstab, Foxglove, Twiddle Niddle, N & O, and Tyvson, since those are little more obvious)

Some names are purely superficial, like Mr. Scuppers or Magdelindriannamberlynataliovannah, but some do have some extra meaning behind their names.

Jarna, if you want to get technical, should be Järna. It's just the word iron in Swedish with an A at the end. Because shes metal🤘. I pronounce it yarn-uh, but realistically it should be pronounced something like yair-nuh.

Uppsulka is a misspelling of uppsluka, verb, to devour.

Holly is because they used to be very christmas themed. Not as much anymore, but they still carry the name.

Atrox means terrible/horrific, whereas Calamea is an altered version of the word calamity.

El Ganso es un pájaro, honk honk.

Oxaclock just sounded fun, but his puppet form does have an ox skull for a head.

Ching was inspired by my love for the classic cash register cha ching!!! sound. At the time I felt "chaching" was a bit too odd a name, so I shortened it. No meaning tied to him as a character.

Caela was the most girly sounding name I could think of in a moment's notice, then spelled as untraditionally as I could manage as a 12 year old.

Rede was probably the least thought out one. It just means to network, I'm pretty sure. His name is not pronounced how it looks.

#its pronounced reed for him #jarring i know #hamburger: hamburger #vindemia: i think it has something to do with onions?#idk alannah named her and idk if she'd remember either.#brambleramble

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antiquitiesandlabyrinths · 4 years ago

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Ma’at

There are, needless to say, a lot of Egyptian Gods. Because of this I’ll be doing these little pages for my favorites and, if I feel like it later on, I will progress to the other Gods and Goddesses. I probably won’t do Ra mostly because he’s well known and I dislike him immensely (do not ask me why). Anyway, here’s one of my top Egyptian Gods: Ma’at.

Ma’at is interesting because she’s more of an idea than an actual deity. Her name is mentioned a lot, but she herself is not mentioned very often, as her law was more important than her being. Fair enough – her law was peace, order, and in Nuclear Family Ancient Egypt, order was held above all else. Everyone partook in holding up the sacred law of ma’at. In this way she was a bit like Heka, who was the personification of magic, not just a God of magic.

I had a little difficulty with this, so I’ll start out by saying her name is generally pronounced as May-et. She first appeared in the Old Kingdom, though it’s generally agreed upon that she existed in some form before that. As one of the oldest Gods, she was created by Atum with help from Heka, who was the personification of magic. Supposedly she was around at the beginning of time, being spoken into existence by Atum right after he emerged from the primordial waters. Her name, meaning ‘that which is straight,’ implies justice, order, and harmony, each of which were highly revered by ancient Egyptians.

She played an important part in death just as much as life. As you can see from her iconography, she has a feather on her head, titled the feather of Ma’at. This feather was the one used in the weighing of the hearts ceremony, which decided if the deceased would pass on to the field of reeds, or be cast into nonexistence.

To me, she’s a bit like the laws of physics but for ancient Egyptians. She was what kept the world together, she made everything rational, and she gave everything purpose. Without her, there was no society. Essentially, she made life function, and with the help of Heka (magic), she ‘powered’ the world. Egyptians revered her for this, and one of the important aspects of ancient Egyptian life was to ensure you were following ma’at by being fair to all you meet and performing your duties.

“Ma'at was the model for human behavior, in conformity with the will of the gods, the universal order evident in the heavens, cosmic balance upon the earth, the mirror of celestial beauty. Awareness of the cosmic order was evident early in Egypt; priest-astronomers charted the heavens and noted that the earth responded to the orbits of the stars and planets. The priests taught that mankind was commanded to reflect divine harmony by assuming a spirit of quietude, reasonable behavior, cooperation, and a recognition of the eternal qualities of existence, as demonstrated by the earth and the sky. All Egyptians anticipated becoming part of the cosmos when they died, thus the responsibility for acting in accordance with its laws was reasonable. Strict adherence to ma'at allowed the Egyptians to feel secure with the world and with the divine plan for all creation.” (Margaret Bunson, 152)

Unlike many Gods, she was signified in art with a plinth. Plinths were commonly seen beneath the thrones of Gods, but not with their personal name, which is where Ma’at comes in. Her name is shown with the plinth, and many researchers believe it signifies that ancient Egyptians thought Ma’at was the foundation of society. Along with that, she also helped Ra fight the serpent Apophis every night.

Another part of Ma’at that I personally really like is the fact that in many stories written by ancient Egyptians, she was a ruler of a perfect world. They speak of a world before time, a world long lost, where there was no hatred and no crime, and most times this world was ruled by Ma’at. In that way, the perfect world is one ruled by a Goddess of order and justice.

I’ve mentioned this many times, but Egyptians lived by rather simple rules that you don’t see often in modern society. It was their very, very strong belief that every person needed to take care of themselves, as well as keep in mind the needs of other people and that of the earth. In fewer words, you need to care about yourself, other people, and the earth. I think this was one of the reasons they didn’t totally run their environment into the ground like Meroe and Rapa Nui.

If you followed the above rules, your heart would weigh lighter than Ma’at’s white feather of truth. The more in tune you were with the law of ma’at, the lighter your heart was, and the better of a person you were.

Despite her popularity, Ma’at didn’t have any temples. Like Heka, her worship was limited to sanctuaries and shrines inside other temples, where people could leave what they usually left to Gods. Food, wine, and incense. Because of this she didn’t have priests either – there were those labelled a priest of Ma’at, but most historians believe the title to be more honorary than anything. So far there’s only been one temple found that was definitively dedicated to her (built by Hatshepsut), and even that one was in the district of Montu. Veneration was instead absorbed through (as previously stated) offerings and simply living by her law day-to-day. She was an aspect of every deity, and by worshipping any one of them, you worshipped her.

She was an incredibly important deity of Egypt, as you should see from her interactions in both ancient Egyptian life and society. All other Gods and Goddesses lived through her as she kept the order, thus making every temple for any God subsequently hers as well. She was “the underlying cosmic principle which made the lives of humans and gods possible.” (Joshua Mark)

A few fun facts about her: she was the daughter of Ra, or Atum. Her husband was Thoth, God of Wisdom. She bore eight children through Thoth, which came to be the primeval deities of Hermopolis. Isis and Hathor developed a few of their traits from her, though Ma’at’s importance is obvious throughout the whole of Egyptian history, just as any idea of law was in other societies.

#ancient egypt #egyptian mythology #egyptian gods #history #ancient history

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allegedlyanandroid · 4 years ago

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Pairing: Allen60 Prompt: Cold Types: Found Family, Fluff AU: Angels and Demons, Sixty as the little devil he is, and Allen just being human.

I am so late 😅 I wrote an entire thing before realising I hated every word of it and started over from scratch. Anyway... excuses aside, I hope you like it @yayen-chan <3 `(‾◡◝)´

“Okay, bookshelves first,” Allen mutters, following the intricate maze of arrows and concrete as he tries to navigate the local IKEA. “Or rugs. That works too,” he sighs when he glances up and finds himself in the wrong part of the store. Looking through the copious amounts of different rugs Allen rapidly finds himself overwhelmed. He tries reading a few of the ridiculously complicated names, stuttering over them when trying to read them out loud. “Ra- raskmol- mölle?”

Giving up on the fifth time trying to pronounce it correctly Allen rolls the grey-and-black striped fabric up and tosses it on the cart, already dreading trying to find the rest of the items on his list. There’s only one really but when passing through the plant-section he stops to pick up a potted plant. The other one is beyond salvaging from lack of water. “Ilex, foreeneling? För-enlig. What are these names?”

After another dead-end and some frustrated grumbling, he does find the bookshelf he needs. Honestly… this trip alone solidifies why he’s never getting a puppy. The one he took in to foster was a sweet thing but very demanding and unaware that he weighed quite a lot for a pup. He’d knocked Allen’s bookshelf over, thus breaking it, and also had an accident on his rug. If being petless meant never having to go here again then that’s a price he’s willing to pay. At least the shelter had found a family for him quickly and, while he did miss the little rascal, the puppy was undoubtedly in better hands.

“Kallax, hemnes... gersby?”

Too caught up in his own head he doesn't notice the strange scent of warm brimstone and ash filtering through the air nor does he notice the young “man” standing behind him, a man who seemingly appeared out of thin air, until he hears the sound of a throat clearing. Allen jerks his head up from wrestling with the cardboard box and offers an apologetic smile over his shoulder. “I’ll be done in a minute.”

“Or, you could tell me why I’m here and spare me the mundane small talk you humans seem so obnoxiously fond of.”

“I’m sorry?”

The man squints. “You summoned me.”

Allen pauses to take a good look at the man. He’s tall with black, artistically tousled hair and endless amounts of freckles. A few moles are scattered across his skin and his brown eyes are filled with irritation. Dark jeans with a long-sleeved shirt tucked into it, a black overcoat ending at about mid-thigh and a purple scarf hanging unknotted around his neck. Allen thinks long and hard yet finds no recollection of ever seeing this man before in his life let alone speaking to him. “I have no idea who you are.”

“You-” the man pinches the bridge of his nose, inhales deeply and slowly let it out before starting again. “You read the incantation to evoke me and you what… didn’t even realise it?” he asks and receives nothing but a blank stare from Allen in return. “Ugh, humans.”

In the blink of an eye the man transforms. Horns curve with the shape of his skull, producing from close to his temples, before ending in sharp tips that blend in with his raven hair. A black tail is wrapped around his leg which ends with a jagged spear-like point. The tips of his fingers look like they’ve been dipped in charcoal, fading into dark grey about halfway up his fingers, with claw-like black nails top it all off. They tap against the metal shelf next to them as the demon slowly advances.

Too shocked to move, Allen’s jaw is taken in a firm grip and when the demon smiles his teeth are pointed blades. “So… are you going to tell me what it is you want?”

“You can let go of my face for a start,” Allen says, adding a quick “thank you,” when the demon does as he’s told. “What’s your name?”

“You may call me Sixty.”

“Sixty,” Allen repeats. “No offence but I quite like having my soul intact. I’m sorry for dragging you from… whatever circle of hell you reside in, but I’m not interested in making any sort of deal with you.”

“Sucks to be you then because I’m not leaving until you do,” Sixty says and from his tone of voice alone Allen knows he’s a hundred percent serious.

‘Fucking IKEA.’

“Really? You couldn’t have chosen to live somewhere a bit warmer?” Sixty asks with disdain, thankfully back to looking human. His feet sink into the four inches worth of snow dusting the ground and he can already feel the cold seeping in through the gaps in his clothing. “Or somewhere nicer in general.”

“No one’s forcing you to stay.”

“No one’s forcing you to live here.” A pause. “Or if they are, I am more than willing to kill them for you free of charge.”

Allen sighs.

Having a demon for a housemate isn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Sixty mostly keeps to himself whenever he isn’t trying to get a rise out of him or complaining about the cold or putting things on tall shelves like the little shit he is. Until Sixty gets bored that is.

Because when Sixty gets bored trouble ensues.

Emerging from his office after a long day of meetings to see his demonic housemate casually chatting with parts of his team in the breakroom is a bit out of left field and the sight of Sixty’s mischievous eyes boring into his own is enough to quicken his pace. “What are you doing here, Si- Silas?” he asks, forcing a smile on his face.

He hates how no one else can look past the innocent brown eyes and syrupy grin to see the smugness beneath. “I thought we were supposed to eat lunch together? Did you forget?”

“No, of course not,” Allen hastens to say, ignoring Willis and Clark’s knowing grins, as he wracks his brain for a response. “Though I distinctly remember asking you to wait outside.”

“It would have been rude of me to decline Julie’s offer of getting coffee,” Sixty replies and raises his mug as if to show it off.

“No need to be jealous, boss. We just wanted to get to know the guy better,” Julie says.

“Yeah, it’s not like we’ve ever seen you hang out with anyone outside of work apart from Reed,” Clark pipes up. “We got curious.”

“I’m not jealous!” Allen tries to defend himself, latching on to the word, but the agitated tone does nothing to help his case. Sixty smirking behind the rim of the coffee cup like a cat who got the cream isn’t helping to improve his mood either.

“You are the pettiest asshole I’ve ever had the unfortunate luck of meeting,” Allen says when they’re safely away from prying eyes.

Sixty snickers, knowing full well the amount of endless curiosity and ceaseless questions he’s unleashed on the human. “There’s an easy way to get rid of me.”

The fistful of snow he gets shoved in his face shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

By the time he manages to blink the melting snow out of his eyes Allen is too far away to retaliate, though that doesn’t stop Sixty from trying.

Despite his best efforts Sixty’s irritation with being unceremoniously dragged into the mortal plane dissipates after the third week of staying with Allen. By the time he’s been there for a month and a half, Allen’s team have adopted him as one of their own and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t flattered. They genuinely care about his well-being and often invite him along on outings. As someone whose family is… overbearing, their light-hearted ribbing is a nice change of pace. Their easy dynamic is the very opposite of stifling. No one ever pries when he declines to answer a question. No one touches him after he made it clear he dislikes physical contact. No one quizzes him about his every movement.

It’s… nice.

The next team building exercise and subsequent photo op, proudly displayed on the communal fridge, includes him and Sixty doesn’t cry even a little bit upon seeing that.

Not at all.

In the end, the shift in their relationship is near seamless ‒ from reluctant roommates to friends to something more.

What hits him first is the metallic scent of fresh blood and Sixty is halfway across the room before he can even process rising to his feet. He gathers Allen up in his arms and leads him to sit down on one of the kitchen chairs. Part of his dark shirt is tacky with blood and Sixty feels no remorse when he shreds it to get it off as quickly as possible. Something, a bullet or knife, must have grazed his side. It’s bleeding sluggishly though it thankfully isn’t deep. Sixty takes the ruined shirt and presses it against the wound. “Keep putting pressure on it.”

Allen doesn’t answer and in the end he’s the one who has to move Allen’s hand to take over while he dashes to the bathroom for the medkit. Sixty plunks it down on the floor and fills a bowl of lukewarm water to put down beside it before fetching a clean towel. He kneels down between Allen’s legs and cleans meticulously around the area, noting the patches of skin where bruises are slowly forming. Swiping over the wound with antiseptic earns him a bitten-off hiss and Sixty puts a hand on Allen’s sternum to steady him after the first involuntary flinch.

He keeps it there, soothed by feeling the steady thrum of Allen’s heartbeat beneath his fingertips, until he needs the use of both his hands. In its absence, Sixty’s tail comes up to wrap loosely around his thigh for comfort.

Butterfly bandages instead of sutures, his tail instead of his hand. Allen doesn’t say a word about either choice though he is smiling down where they’re connected once Sixty chances a quick peek.

There’s nothing left for him to do after covering the wound with gauze, taping the edges down, yet Sixty finds himself lingering there regardless.

It’s easy to trace around the gauze with the very tip of a claw and when he catches Allen’s dark eyes the urge to lean down to place a gentle kiss over it wins out. Allen sighs quietly and coaxes Sixty up to kiss him properly ‒ a chaste press of lips against lips followed by a sincere thank you.

Sixty blushes and knocks his forehead against Allen’s, mindful of his horns, in a silent show of affection.

“Why haven’t you kissed me yet?”

“Because I literally stepped in the door a second ago?” Allen laughs and pulls Sixty in for a quick kiss.

“Excuses,” Sixty sniffs and steals another kiss, one that quickly devolves into a dozen pecks being pressed all over his face until Allen plants a last lingering one to his lips.

“I love you,” Allen says when they break apart for real.

The shy smile spreading over Sixty’s lips is one he’ll never tire of seeing.

#slowly but surely working my way through these #sorry it's taking so long #dbh allen #captain allen #dbh sixty #rk800 sixty #allen60 #dbh #detroit: become human #detroit become human #allegedly answering asks #mini fic #my writing #that awkward moment when you're in an ikea and accidentally summon a demon

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introvertguide · 4 years ago

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The African Queen (1951); AFI #65

The next movie from the AFI list is sadly the last of the group starring the great Humphrey Bogart, The African Queen (1951). It was directed by John Huston and is adapted from a novel by C.S. Forester. It was again the story of some people who are down on their luck and then placed into a highly volatile situation. Huston really liked his down-on-their-luck characters from novels and Bogart was his favorite actor to play the part. It was a successful venture because they were able to tempt the great Katharine Hepburn to join in and create quite a film. The trio of Huston, Hepburn, and Bogart earned quite a few positive mentions for the story and the acting including four Academy Award nomination, but only Bogart walked away with a trophy for Best Actor. The film was partly shot on location in Africa and the cast and crew really had to suffer for their art, so it is a shame that they did not earn more awards. I want to talk more about the the story and the performance, but it would be best to go through the details of the movie first, so...

SPOILER WARNING!!! I DO NOT THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE FROM THE YOUNGER GENERATIONS KNOW MUCH ABOUT THIS STORY SO BE WARNED THAT I AM ABOUT TO SPOIL THE WHOLE THING!!! PLEASE TURN BACK NOW AND WATCH THE FILM FIRST AND THEN COME BACK TO LEARN MORE!!!

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Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley) and his sister Rose (Katharine Hepburn) are British Methodist missionaries in the village of Kungdu in German East Africa at the beginning of the First World War in August 1914. The scene is set with the pair singing poorly with a large group of confused looking Indigenous Africans. Notice how sick that Rose looks and know that Katharine Hepburn was extremely sick with dysentery during this entire church scene. Their post and supplies are delivered by a small steam launch named the African Queen, helmed by the rough-and-ready Canadian mechanic Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), whose coarse behavior they stiffly tolerate. The native Africans seem to like Charlie quite a bit.

The brother and sister invite Mr. Allnut to tea and his stomach gurgles horribly the whole time. It becomes apparent that the missionaries are being much better cared for then Mr. Allnut and he does not eat well.

When Charlie warns the Sayers that war has broken out between Germany and Britain, they choose to remain in Kungdu, only to witness Schutztruppe (German colonial troops) burn down the village and herd the villagers away to be pressed into service. When Samuel protests, he is struck by an officer, and soon becomes delirious with fever and dies shortly afterward. I am not exactly sure what he dies from, but he gives the most impassioned death bed speech that explains how the two got to Africa. It is kind of funny because Samuel basically says that he was not very smart and would became a missionary and bring along his sister, who was not attractive enough to be married. Charlie returns later the same day after finding his mine destroyed by the Germans and is being pursued for his supplies, which include gelignite. He helps Rose bury her brother, and they set off in the African Queen.

While sailing down river and planning their escape, Charlie mentions to Rose that the British are unable to attack the Germans due to the presence of a large gunboat, the Louisa, patrolling a large lake downriver. Rose comes up with a plan to convert the African Queen into a torpedo boat and sink the Louisa. The whole idea seems a little far fetched because Rose literally looks at the scrap and boxes around her and decides they should create a Kamikaze boat. Charlie points out that navigating the Ulanga River to get to the lake would be suicidal: they would have to pass a German fort and negotiate several dangerous rapids. But Rose is insistent and eventually persuades him to go along with the plan.

Later, Charlie and Rose continue down the river until they find a nice place to stop. The both go overboard to take a nice bath in the river. It is a little awkward when Rose can't get back in the boat wearing only her undergarments. That night, there is a sudden rain storm and Charlie tries to join Rose in her make shift room on the boat and she kicks him out. She soon realizes that he is escaping the rain and allows him in, even propping up an umbrella by his head so he does not get wet.

The next day, the pair runs into some light rapids and Charlie navigates through them thinking the experience will cause Rose to give up on her plan. She actually becomes quite excited and asks if she could steer the next time. Further on down the river, the two stop and Charlie becomes inebriated and drunkenly insults Rose and her plan, for which she retaliates by dumping his entire supply of gin into the river. The relationship has hit a low point and Rose does not wish to talk with Charlie because he is trying to back out of her plan. They finally reconcile when Charlie agrees to continue going down the river to try and blow up the Louisa.

Charlie allows Rose to navigate the river by rudder while he tends the engine, and she is still emboldened after they got through the first set of rapids with minimal flooding in the boat. When they pass the German fortress, the soldiers begin shooting at them, damaging the boiler. Fortunately, the soldiers are unable to cause more severe damage to the boat due to having the sun in their eyes. Charlie manages to reattach a pressure hose just as they are about to enter the second set of rapids. The boat rolls and pitches as it goes down the rapids, leading to more severe flooding on the deck, but they manage to make it through. It must be pointed out that the obvious model boat going down the rapids is adorable.

While celebrating their success, the two find themselves in an embrace and kiss. Embarrassed, they break off, but eventually succumb to their feelings and fall in love. There is some obvious innuendo when Rose is using the bilge pump and Charlie tells her to slow down or she will wear herself out. There is some awkward conversation about flowers and it is then implied that there might have been some physical activity between the two. Rose has been calling her boat mate Mr. Allnut this entire time and Charlie has been calling her Miss, but the two are now on a first name basis. Be prepared to hear "Charlie" and "Rosie" a lot through the end of the film.

As they continue down the river, Charlie entertains Rose with his animal impressions when they are suddenly faced with very severe rapids and a waterfall. This third set of rapids damages the propeller shaft. Rigging up a primitive forge on shore, Charlie straightens the shaft, welds a new blade onto the prop, and they are off again.

There are multiple comparisons to the river and to the growing relationship between the new couple. The river has rapids when the two are arguing. The river changes its name part way down similar to the way the two switch to pet names instead of the more formal monikers they had been using. I am a little confused at the comparison at this point because they are sailing along happily with the new prop and shaft and decide to drop anchor in the reeds. They are immediately attacked by bugs and realize that they can't stop and must anchor in the current or keep going.

Charlie realizes that there is a lot of long grass at the mouth of the river and, as they continue, the going gets more and more difficult. All appears lost when the boat becomes mired in the mud and dense reeds. They try to tow the boat through the muck, only to have Charlie come out of the water covered with leeches. With no supplies left and short of potable water, Rose and a feverish Charlie pass out, both accepting they will soon die. Rose says a quiet prayer. As they sleep, exhausted and beaten, torrential rains far upstream gently raise the river's level and float the African Queen off of the mud and into the lake. Once on the lake, they narrowly avoid being spotted by the Louisa.

Over the next two days, Charlie and Rose convert some oxygen cylinders into torpedoes using gelignite and improvised detonators. They push the torpedoes through holes cut in the bow of the African Queen as improvised spar torpedoes. There is an argument between the two over whether or not the ramming is a two person job, but they decide they will succeed or fail together. The Louisa returns and Charlie and Rose steam the African Queen out onto the lake in darkness, intending to set her on a collision course. A strong storm strikes which causes water to pour into the African Queen through the torpedo holes. Eventually the African Queen capsizes, throwing them both into the water. Charlie loses sight of Rose in the storm.

Charlie is captured and taken aboard the Louisa, where he is interrogated. Believing that Rose has drowned, he makes no attempt to defend himself against accusations of spying and the German captain sentences him to death by hanging. Rose is found and captured and brought aboard the ship just after Charlie's sentence is pronounced. The captain questions her, and Rose proudly confesses the plot to sink the Louisa, deciding they have nothing to lose. The captain sentences her to be executed with Charlie, both as British spies. Charlie asks the German captain to marry them before they are executed. The captain agrees, and after a brief marriage ceremony, there is an explosion and the Louisa quickly capsizes. The ship has struck the overturned submerged hull of the African Queen and detonated the torpedoes. The newly married couple happily swim to safety.

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I enjoyed this movie much more than I did the first time watching the film. On first view, the relationships between the two characters felt very rushed to me and the early technicolor image overlays were not very good. I thought that the model boat in the rapids was laughable and the music was distracting. I have definitely changed my tune and focused on the great aspects of the film: the story, the acting, and the adventure.

This is not normally the order I approach my reviews, but I am going to point out the flaws first so people know what to expect. It can be charming if you know what is coming. Let's start with the score. It is pleasant and adventurous, but it is entirely inappropriate in a lot of scenes. The most dramatically tense music comes when Rose watches Charlie pouring himself a gin. Not when alligators are dropping in the water or when they are going through rapids or even when they are going to be hanged. The score is also very frenetic because it tries (and fails) to mimic the emotions of the characters on screen and the situation is constantly changing. This is definitely one of the poorest soundtracks on the AFI list.

Referring back to the characters changing moods a lot, the tone is all over the place. It goes from lightly romantic to laughing to deathly peril to anger at a moments notice. The adventure aspect is fun and the characters are lovable, but the tone is all over the place. The acting is good and the story is great so the only person left to blame is the director. I think Jon Huston tried to get too much of the source material in the movie and made it a little too compact. It was early days of book adaptations so I can't really blame him, but it is still noticeable. It does add to the fun of the movie because you truly have no clue as to what will happen next.

Finally, as far as gripes, the special effects are extremely dated. The overlays of the actors to a scene behind them do not match well at all and are covered with a green particle effect. It is definitely technology that has been much improved upon over the last 70 years. Also, a little model boat was used to mimic the rapids and the little dolls that are supposed to represent our characters are adorable. It is so pathetic that it is endearing, kind of like an ugly sweater at the holidays or a meal bordering on poisonous baked by children on Mother's Day. You just smile big, say thank, and remember it always for blackmail in the future.

Now for the good. I thought that Katharine Hepburn did a great job as the middle aged maid who had never really experienced love and found it in a creaky old steamboat captain. I also thought that Humphrey Bogart really pulled off the old mechanic that could make anything work in those trying conditions and yet still be bullied by missionaries. The other actors were merely serviceable, but Hepburn and Bogart were the whole story and took up 90% of the screen time. They leads were good and deserved their Oscar nominations. It was especially impressive as they were on location in Africa for some of the filming and were dealing with insects and sickness. It was also a very active part for two middle-aged actors and I think they pulled it off convincingly.

I think what really makes the story is how the river is a constantly changed metaphor for the grow relationship of Charlie and Rosie. There are turbulent times that are shown by rapids. There are smooth times shown by glassy water. There are places that seem nice and turn out to be awful similar to some of the conversation. All this winding build-up of a relationship leads to "taking the plunge" into marriage as the adventure takes them through a winding river until they are plunged into the lake after being married on the Louisa. It is one big amazing metaphor and I love it.

So should this movie be on the AFI top 100? Yes, but not towards the top. It is fun, but there are a lot of bad aspects that could ruin the experience if you are not in the right mindset. It is ranked as the lowest Bogart film on the list and that seems fair. It deserves to be on the list and the ranking is appropriate. Would I recommend it? Sure would. I have seen it twice this week along with a one hour special that goes behind the scenes and I am still not tired of it. The pace is fast, but that makes it an easy watch. There is implied physical relations and gross man vs. wild moments, but it was made during the Hays Code and appropriate for any aged viewer. A great movie and I am glad that I gave it a second chance.

#the african queen #katharine hepburn #humphrey bogart #john huston #adventure #technicolor #afi movies #best actor winner #introvert #introverts

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eurosong · 4 years ago

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Undo my ESC '21 (semi-final two)

Good afternoon folks, and welcome to the second part of Undo my ESC – my annual quest to make the year’s Eurovision better (at least, for me xD) by making a feasible change in each country – it could be something as small as altering a lyric or a staging detail, or as big as a different artist entirely winning the NF. Semi-final one was here so let's jump straight into SF2!

🇸🇲 San Marino: We're thrown into the deep end here with a fan fav that doesn't do at all for me. I'm one of maybe 5 people on the planet who prefers Freaky by far, I guess? I'm happy for Senhit to be getting so much love and for the diminutive serene republic to finally have a shot at a good result - but I'm not so keen on the way it's been done. There's a bit of cognitive dissonance for me because my favourite thing about Adrenalina is Flo Rida's rap, but I don't like the idea of bringing in famed American artists like "ringers" to elevate a song above one with "only" local talent. I would be so tempted to give the rap part to local artist IROL instead to spit some hot bars in Italian.

🇪🇪 Estonia: I had hope this year, I really did, for my era of absolutely adoring Estonia at ESC to be revived after 4 painful years. There were so many good songs at this year's Eesti Laul, like those of Ivo Linna, Egert, Gram of fun, Heleza - but ultimately, my huge favourite was, as expected, Jüri Pootsmann. Anyone who followed this blog back in 2016 knows how much I adore Jüri and was desperate to see him get a redemption arc at ESC itself. Magus melanhoolia was one of the best songs of the season for me and one of the best stagings. As much as I prefer '20 artists to get their shot in '21, problematic Uku with his toxic ex vibes song will have to step aside and let the Jüri renaissance happen here.

🇨🇿 Czechia: I really dig Benny Cristo - he has personality, presence and his own enjoyable style. At first I was kinda disappointed with Omaga because I was expecting something more in the vein of Kemama, with more pronounced Afrobeat influences. But it has grown on me a lot too. My change? Add more Czech than just one blink-and-you-miss-it line, mate! (Article continues below)

🇬🇷 Greece: I see this being talked up as potential televote top 3 and I just don't get it. Maybe it's the way the chorus rhymes dance with itself three times (and uses the term rockin' romance unironically); maybe it's the way that there are better 80s-inspired songs both in ESC and many fallen tributes in the NF season... it just leaves me cold. I actually preferred Supergirl and my change would be for Stefania to bring something with some actual Greek flair.

🇦🇹 Austria: I’ll echo what I said last year about Österreich – how did they go from Conchita to a guy who wished he wouldn’t have gay kids like this? I find both of this guy's songs insipid in different ways and I would invite Pænda back instead to avenge her getting robbed with the beautiful Limits. Or give a second shot at glory to the incredible Cesár!

🇵🇱 Poland: Unpopular opinion, but I absolutely love The Ride, and I feel bad for Alicja, but I much prefer it to Empires. What started as an ironic fondness for Rafał's cringy uncle vibes ended up being genuine appreciation - it's one of the few 80s-inspired songs that sound like they actually could have come out of that decade rather than like modern pastiches. And Raf actually does have an awkward charisma. My change - insert some Polish! Poland does so well with natural sounding bilingual efforts in JESC, they should bring it to the main contest too!

🇲🇩 Moldova: I was lowkey prepared to be disappointed by Moldova - I actually enjoyed Prison a lot and the news that they were going in a completely different direction didn't sit so well with me. And yet, I also love Sugar. Natalia's power! My changes: get rid of that weird scene with literally egg on her face - too on the nose for me. And incorporate a bit of the stellar Russian translation, Tuz bubi, because I'm always going to be advocating for more linguistic diversity xD

🇮🇸 Iceland: Daði Freyr can literally do no wrong with me. Whilst it doesn't have the same intense extra-fandom hype that Think about things did, I think I like Ten years even more. Nothing to change here.

🇷🇸 Serbia: It's no secret that Hurricane were far from my favourites at Beovizija 20, and that I find this a downgrade for Sanja compared to her powerful '16 song. And yet... Hasta la vista grew on me a lot, and so has Loco loco. It's something that is definitely scratching an itch at this year's ESC and the burst of anarchic energy it'll provide will be amazing. I am seriously tempted to change to the acoustic version, though, which has all the attitude of the original but is more beautiful for me and lets the girls' voices shine more.

🇬🇪 Georgia: Georgia keeps serving acquired tastes, and as a patron saint of marginal genres and I love them for that. This year, they've gone for something that even many fans of Tornike find hard to swallow - gone is the roaring rock of last year, replaced with a much more contemplative, soft effort that reminds me a little of Lou Reed. I enjoy both songs, but I can't deny preferring 2020. At the same time, I admire the chutzpah required to send something so different. I just wish there could be a moment to properly showcase T's powerhouse vocals.

🇦🇱 Albania: It was an odd Festival i këngës this year, outdoors in the freezing cold and without the orchestra that makes the songs soar so much more for me. Karma is a perfectly respectable winner, albeit one that lacks the immediacy and rawness of Shaj, Ktheju tokës and Mall. In my ideal alternate re��lity, Arilena Ara would have been invited back. She'd bring a song as beautiful as Shaj - and not do a revamp into English that removes its edge this time.

🇵🇹 Portugal: 2015-2020 was a full on Portugal stan era for me. I want to believe that this year is an aberration and that in 2022, our lusitanian neighbours will produce the goods once again. Because ending a colossal streak of not sending songs that don't include Portuguese for this? I am baffled. I wanted the anthemic Joana do mar, produced beautifully by Luísa Sobral, or the timeless Contramão, which sounds like it escaped a Nouvelle Vague soundtrack. Saudade, Por um triz or a number of others would have been grand too.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria: I wasn't expecting much from Bulgaria - I really didn't and don't like TGS and the majority of songs in Victoria's NF-but-not-really aren't my cup of tea. I was happy she got her second chance, but resigned to not liking the song much that would get picked. And then, my fav, which was last in many community ratings, ended up being her pick. I adore GUIGO and believe it has the possibility to do very, very well at Rotterdam and be one of the 'moments' of the evening.

🇫🇮 Finland: CRIMINAL how YLE treated Aksel - it felt like he wasn't the defending champion, and that Erika Vikman had won the previous year. They also - I believe, deliberately - split his vote by making his just one of a number of ballads, so of course what stood out most were the two decidedly non-ballady songs. Finland only two years ago had a single-artist UMK. They could and should have brought it back for Aksel. I'd hope Hurt would win it, because that song is stunning.

🇱🇻 Latvia: I was, and am, delighted that Latvia stuck with Samanta Tina. The lady lives and breathes ESC, even wrote a university thesis about it, and if she tried so many times, finally won and then DIDN'T get to go to ESC, I would have gone to LTV headquarters personally to remonstrate. I really like both her songs. The moon is rising is poised, powerful and like nothing else this year. The only thing I'd change is adding some Latvian because it's a gorgeous language and we've been waiting for ages to hear it again.

🇨🇭 Switzerland: Gjon's song is once again not really my cup of tea, or tears - but I enjoy it better than last year's and I'm glad he's back. Highkey wish it did include Albanian or Romansch like confused commenters last year thought it did.

🇩🇰 Denmark: There is literally no excuse for Denmark's treatment of Ben & Tan. I'm not even a big fan of their music at all, out to not even allow them to compete in DMGP to defend their win with Iron heart? Even though there are songs that competed in DMGP that I prefer a lot, most notably Står lige her, I would probably have let them have a proper second chance.

And the automatic qualifiers voting in this semi -

🇫🇷 France: For me, France had an absolutely enthralling, sincere, perfectly Gallic entry that hit me so hard in the feels. And whilst I respect Voilà, no, that wasn't it. It was Pourvu qu'on m'aime, easily one of the best songs I heard all year inside NFs or out. I find Voilà a little too mannered and affected, whilst PQM is a shot straight from Juliette's heart into mine. In my dream, it'd have won CVQD and be receiving the same love that Voilà is right now.

🇪🇸 Spain: Whilst it is getting next to no love in the fandom and seems quite forgotten, I find Voy a quedarme one of the best songs sent from this country in several years - and I say that having preferred Memoria. I am proud of Blas and love that he had a hand in writing this song. My change? He said recently that the staging in Rotterdam won't be inspired by the poignant music video despite wanting it to be - I would incorporate elements from it in the live.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Frankly, I think almost all the Big 5+1 brought it this year, with the notable exception of Germany. Embers is the banger that I never thought was coming from James Newman, and it's been one of the biggest earworms of the season. I wouldn't change anything about it - I'd just ensure that the staging replicated the energy of the video as much as possible!

#eurovision #esc 2021 #opinion #eurovision song contest #eurovision 2021

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geminimoonbeamx · 5 years ago

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Moon lit Serenades

A/N: Dedicated to the reader, may you find happiness. I am so nervous for TROS, I saw a rumor that Poe dies and lost it. That plus the fact that there is literally no Plus Sized ReaderxPoe community? I had to remedy that. This is porn.

Warnings: This is porn. Serious smut from pretty much start to finish. Please enjoy.

Summary: Poe seeks comfort after a particularly hard mission in the only way he knows how. A Poe x Plus Sized Reader story

I am a moth, who just wants to share your light.

I’m just an insect, trying to get out of the night.

I only stick with you, because there are no other’s.

You we’re all I need.

I’m in the middle of your picture.

Lying in the reeds- Radiohead

War had finally caught up with Poe Dameron.

Had finally taken it’s toll, and far more then it’s chunk of flesh. Battle wary and blaster shocked, it was hard to think of the resistance these days as just that- a resistance. No, this was more of a bloodbath.

War.

He’d never thought of it like that before, always held his head high, a defiant flame in his eyes. This was fuck the system- fuck the First Order. Fuck anyone who tried to tell him what to do. He was willed, motivated by the sheer rage that anyone would have to live their life in oppression. Under the thumb of Snoke or Phasma, dead and gone now- Hux and Ren hopefully to follow sooner rather than later.

And that fire to see them fall was still there...but it was dimmed.

Had been stomped on, choked out.

Watching people you love die for you, because of you on a daily basis...it wasnt something he’d wish upon anyone. Friends, family. Allies, brothers and sisters in arms. His fleet which had once flourished with dozens of pilot’s was down to a mere handful of lucky ones.

He was willing to breathe and bleed for the cause. It was in his blood- the sticky substance that matted his dark hair to his head as he climbed out of his X-wing. His parents had been the same.

Was he willing to keep watching others die for it though?

He couldn't stop form pondering the question as he and his unit arrive back to the makeshift base, in the middle of nowhere on a planet in the outer rim- the name of it he could barely pronounce. The shabby hut like quarters made the memory of D’quar and its green covered everything throb longingly in his gut.

That seemed so long ago, now.

No matter. No time for getting attached. They’d be on the move again within a fortnight, never staying any one place longer than a month at a time. Rey usually kept them one step ahead, connected to Ren through the force in a way that made Poe’s stomach churn, but that came in handy with them not getting caught.

Thinking about Kylo Ren always made him sour from the inside out. Muscles clenched in memory of the torture he’d endured at the hands of what used to be Leia’s son, but was now just a shell with his dead fathers nose and the mark of his dead uncles betrayal on his black soul.

Poe would kill him in an instant if he got the chance. He prays to fuck that one day he does.

Clenching his fingers into fists is painful right now- the small mission had gone awry and they’d had to punch their way out of it. Literally. He’s feeling the aftermath of it all over, aching and sore.

He doesn't have it in him to attend the debrief. Can't muster the will, not right now. Maybe after a hot shower, maybe after he gets some food in his stomach and allot’s himself a moment to wallow. He forces himself to stand straight, spine elongated in a way that has his bones and muscle screaming.

Poe tries not to limp, as he scurries away to lick his wounds. He fails.

“Poe, you need to see a medic!” Finn insists, somewhere behind him. Always worried, always caring. Poe has nightmares about the night that he eventually loses him, too.

“Don't worry, I will” Finn wonders how someone who looks like they’re going to keel over at any moment- can manage to sound so cheeky.

Rey, who stands beside Finn, bruised bleeding herself wonders if he realizes that Poe is on the verge of tears. The pilot rippling and vibrating so hard she could feel it, taste it on the air.

Neither of them say anything though. The just watch him disappear into the stormy, starless night.

----

Sleep isn't something that comes easy to you as of late.

Not only did you spend your days(and most hours of your nights, too) in the Med Bay, you had never been the kind of person that could handle big changes, sharp adjustments. This hop forts every couple of weeks trend was killing you.

Your mind couldn't relax, R.E.M. State was always just out of reach.

Especially when he was gone...which also seems to be a trend these days. The missions just kept getting longer and longer- the time that he was on base shorter and farther between.

But it was raining tonight- the soft rhythmic pitter patter of it on the roof of the hut reminding you of your home planet, you could almost pretend you were there; the smell of petrichor tricking your brain. Making it easier to curl up on the bed that was really more of a cot and cozy into the Resistance standard blanket.

For the first time in two weeks- you sleep. Hard. Like a rock. The exhaustion finally overtaking your body, and putting you out of commission. General Organa was right to send you back to your bunk, physically removing you from your post.

You feel kind of, extremely, guilty for the attitude you’d thrown at her -

“I’m fine, if I don't do my job, who’s going to?”-

aimed her way even though she didn't deserve it. She was right, of course. She tended to be most of the time. Why anyone ever doubted her, why you ever doubted her, you didn't know.

The sleep is dreamless, just the way you prefer it...you hadn't always, but nothing was better then the nightmares. Nothing is far from peace, but close to quiet. A middle ground that could be called purgatory, depending how you looked at it.

So when there's a knock at your door, the wooden one that gave you more privacy then you’d had in months, that wakes you from your much needed slumber, you can't help but feel the irritation surge through you. Your hypothetical feathers bristled as you huff and puff and pull yourself out of bed, yanking a pair of breezy sleep pants up your chubby legs and a robe over your shoulders- not wanting to answer whoever it was in the near nude.

When you pull open the door- well, it was the one person who wouldn't have minded if you had greeted him in your panties.

“Poe?” You question, because your eyes still haven't adjusted, your mind still three fourths asleep and one fourth confused.

“Yeah, it’s me, sweetheart” And oh? Sweetheart? In that gravelly voice, tired and worn and fragile...you're instantly aware of what kind of state he’s in.

When you pull him inside, flipping on the light orb, and are able to see him. Clearly now; all bloody and bruised, you inhale sharply. His eye is blackened on the same side of his face that seems to be saturated in crusted crimson.

“Stars, Poe” You whisper as you crowd him, urging him to sit on the cot that’s still warm from your body heat. Poe frowns, pretty lips pulled down as he takes it, and you in. Your hair rumpled, your robe falling off your shoulder as you gather medical supplies from what seems like all over your small “room”

The first thing you do is take out a small capsule full of neon blue liquid from a jar and hand it to him. He takes it gratefully, tossing it down the hatch before you can even offer him water. Painkillers aren't the easiest to come by since they’ve been on the move.

“I woke you up, didn't I?” He inquires, after he swallows.

“Obviously” You answer as you step back into his orbit, close enough that he can smell your skin. That his eyes can trace each of the freckles that dot across your nose, your cheeks. You put your finger under his chin and tilt his head up, and fuck, isn't that a pretty view?

“I’m sorry” He whispers, hissing between his teeth as you, gently but deftly, begin to clean his head.

“Mmm, it’s fine. I’m awake now, Kriff Poe, you look like warmed over shit. This gash in your hairline is going to need stitches” You’re focused, wiping and dabbing as you speak.

He didn't realize, until that moment, just how much he missed your voice.

“Your bedside manner is spectacular as ever” He grins as he says it, even though it hurts to do so. His busted lip is next on your itinerary.

“Well when you show up at my bedside and not the other way around, I’m pretty sure that changes up the rules”

“Didn't you miss me...at your bedside, that is?” He pushes on, he wants you soft and sweet for him but he knows from experience it takes a bit to get there. Especially since he’s been gone so long.

“Stop distracting me” You mutter. You're only half pretending to be completely focused on the task at hand, at this point you could probably stitch a wound with your eyes closed.

“M’sorry” He’s not. It’s selfish, but he really isn't. He’s not sorry for barging in on you and waking you up, or for sitting in your bed reeking of blood and days worth of dirt. How can he be, when this feels so good? Your soft little hands working at him, healing with every touch. There’s no hurt when he’s around you- only good.

The painkiller makes the edges fuzzy, makes the fact that your repeatedly pulling a needle through his skin seem mild. It’s not like it’s his first time getting sewn up, and he highly doubts it’ll be his last.

Poe can't stop staring at you, dark eyes hooded. Hungry in a way that he doesn't care to hide. Drinking you in, gulping. It’d been almost a month and he was dying to get his fill. Your round body, nothing but curves and dips that he was itching to touch, is mostly covered, but the robe is still hanging off your shoulder. Satin skin exposed, so pretty and pristine.

It’s almost out of his control when his hand skims up our arm, skin seeking out skin. His palm sears as it settles on your upper arm. The plush flesh so soft under his calloused hands that he’s almost worried that it would give if e pressed down too hard.

In the back of his mind he knows better, though. Recalls just how much you can take.

“Poe” You warn tightly, lashes fluttering as you shoot him a look. One that makes him chuckle, because you're not fooling him.

He’ll play, mostly because he wants to, but he knows you missed him as much as he missed you.

You wonder if he can feel the way that you're trembling, already shaking for him. It’s stupid, you feel stupid, and yet you cant stop it. You have healers hands, medic’s hands- and at least you can get them to stay still as you finish with his head, then his lip.

Going insane from the simplest touch, from the way that he rubs his thumb in circles over and over on your upper arm. You remember when that would have made you uncomfortable, big arms that you wanted covered at all times used to be a big no-no.

But with Poe it was different. He wasn't there to judge. He just wanted to feel.

You don't want to pull away, but you have to. Your brain is torn, but ultimately resorts back to it’s resting state: health driven. Medically inclined.

“You need to go take a shower, wash the rest of the blood out of your hair. The hot water will help to start to bring down the swelling” you instruct, and it would be how you talked to any patient. Except for the way you cradle the side of his face, your voice breathy as you touch is thick locks that are greasy. A bit tangled.

Poe nods, he knows your right. Knows he should have done that before he even came here…

“Can I come back?” It’s hopeful, he spits it quick- desperate.

It feels like someone yanked, hard, on a loose thread inside your chest.

“Always. You know that”

While he showers, forced to go a few huts over to the community bathrooms, you’re a flurry of anxious thoughts and movement. Tidying up the small space and yourself the best you can. You’d showered earlier in the evening, using the last of the last of the Obsidian Lily oil that you’d carried with you. You still smelled good, pretty.

Your hair was wild, but not untamable and you end up brushing it smooth. You hadn't shaved since before he had left and curse yourself for not doing so earlier. How were you supposed to know that he was coming back tonight? Growing up on your home planet, there was a moss based soap that everyone used that minimized body hair. But still…

You wished, like you had more than once, that you could be better for him.

You're trying to swallow that horrid ugly little thought back down when your door opens, Poe not bothering to knock this time. Barges in, and he seems a bit more like himself in that moment.

His hair has gone back to his natural curls, thick and bouncing, dripping and the navy, loose materialed sleep clothes hang on him. Dont cling to him with dirt and sweat...all and all, he looks so much better.

Or so you think. Until you see him in the right light, his top falling open and revealing his chest.

“Poe!” You exclaim and his thick brows furrow, he had been drying his hair with one of your spare towels.

“What?”

“Take off your shirt” You demand and one side of his lips pull up- a smirk that doesn't meet his eyes.

“You know if you ask me nicely, sweetheart, I’ll give you whatever you want” It’s a purr, a ploy. Many a person- male, female and Wookiee had fallen for that charm of his. Your own name thrown in that pot.

But he was hurt, had to be in pain, and that thought cut through the others that that coy tone had stirred up.

“I’m serious, that bruising looks deep- why didn't you show me this earlier? You could have internal bleeding! Something could be broken”

Poe would never let it be known, would deny it to the ends of the galaxy...but he loves the way you fret over him. It makes him feel warm.

“Okay- Okay!” He sighs as you start to reach for him demandingly, knowing that you'd pull it off yourself if he didn't. There's a handful of winces as he tugs the fabric up and over his shoulders. You’re silent the whole time, and then for a long moment after.

“Oh...baby”

It’s the first time you've called him that tonight. In weeks. The first time an affectionate name has slipped from your mouth.

You can't help it, can't help the overwhelming feeling of...horror. Of shock and worry. His tanned chest and abdomen are hard, dusted with ebony hair that matches that of which grows from his scalp...and covered in bruises.

Four huge patches of yellow, and black and purple and blue...he looks like a fucking water color painting. You’d seen him in some pretty bad states over the years, and this was up there with some of the worst. The worst? Well you didn't like to think about that particular bloody day.

You reach out, fingertips tracing the purple bloom on his left ribs.

“It’s not so bad” And that’s Poe in a nutshell. Always trying to convince not only the people around him, but himself, that things were going to be okay.

“That one’s a deep tissue bruise” You point out to him, fingers gently probing, trying to detect if anything is broken “It has to hurt like a bitch, it’s going to get worse before it feels better”

“Not so bad” He loves the way you're touching him, and his hand, that big paw, goes to our waist. Holding you. Urging you to keep going “Those painkillers are something else”

You snort through your nose. He’s something else- you tell him of that fact, often.

Poe can only be so patient, can only allow you to touch him, feather light, for so long. Eventually, his impulses win out. Just like the always do.

You’re almost done, checking his bones, when he grabs your hand, envelopes it in his large one. It’s still for a moment- the air sparkling with energy. His eyes are mahogany, dark wood. Deep forests as they stare down at you.

The want in them is raw, unbridled.

“I missed you, so fucking much. Every day. Have I told you that yet?” His words, mixed with the timbre- vehement. Honest. It makes you want to squirm.

“No- you haven't” You wish your voice at that moment wasn't so anxious, weak and almost a whisper. Something about Poe had always brought this out in you. He was so bright, beaming. Everyone around him flocked to him, in hopes of just being able to taste a fraction of his light.

Sometimes, you still couldn't believe that he let you fill your cup, that he sought you out, parted the crowd for you.

You had never been a weak woman; had never let your weight or your too loud opinions or your tendencies to be overly emotional make you feel small, or less then...but being with Poe-- the level of intimacy was suffocating.

You felt burned up. Icarus who flew too close to the sun, who willing allowed himself to be burned up just to feel its warmth for a moment...you could relate.

“I did” Poe continues “I missed the way you feel, the way you taste-”

You close your eyes at that, images of the last time you’d gotten a moment alone with him, of a head of dark curls between your legs, assaulting you. Smacking you right in the face.

“-You taste so good, Y/N. Should've bent you over when you came to say goodbye. You would've let me, huh? Let me get one more taste- you have no idea how bad I want to stick my tongue inside of you. All the time. No one else gets to taste, right?”

Poe is well on his way to being rock hard, already. It had taken all of him to not jerk off in the showers.

“No one, Poe. You know that” you’d meant to tell him to fuck off, that you didn't belong to him. That he couldn't just have you whenever he wanted you. That came out instead.

“I need you” He tells you, roughly “feel how bad I need you, Y/N, fuck” he still has your hand in his grasp, againts his chest. When he begins to slide it downward, you know where its destination will be.

That doesn't stop the thrill, the flip flop of our tummy that comes with Poe pressing your hand to his crotch, hard and hot. The thin pants the only layer between your palm and his erection.

“You’re the only one who gets me like this, I need you to make it better, Y/N”

The switch is flipped then. Hard.

You’re surging forward, and he's meeting you halfway, your mouths slotting together. Lips and tongue, so much tongue. He talks all about how you taste, but stars, the way he tastes is intoxicating. Want to suck the taste of him off his tongue, off his cock.

Its blurry and ferocious. Hands everywhere. Touching, grabbing. While you are gentle with him and his tattered body, he doesn't extend that same sentiment. He’s groping, fingertips bidding into flesh. Groaning into your mouth as he clutches your thick, dimpled thighs. Reaches around to squeeze our ample ass.

Best ass in the galaxy, he'd write fucking sonnets about it, if he was good at anything but flying.

Clothes are shed, way too fast you worn Poe who doesn't listen. Because he never does- and he ends up hissing in pain, and relenting, sitting on the cot and letting you take off his pants. Slowly. You make it up to him by standing over him, grabbing his hands and guiding them to strip you. Slow drags of fabric over supple skin.

You’re so fucking sexy, and he tells you so as he urges you into his lap, you stay on your shins to mind his middle. Poe worships with his words. His fingers and lips do their fair share of praying next.

“Fuck I missed these the most” your breasts are large, heavy globes. Puffy sweet nipples are pebbled and just begging to be sucked on. He licks them messy, wet before he does just that; sucks them into the hot cavern of his mouth.

“Oh, oh, ugh” Your hands are twined in his hair, dripping down onto his thighs already, when Poe feels the wetness drip on him, his fingers go searching, hand pressed in between your thighs. Fingers slipping through sopping, heated flesh. You grasp, a high sound as he presses up and circles your clit, firm and pointed.

It’s so good, pleasure shoots down your legs, all the way to the tips of your toes.

It’s not enough. For either of you.

“Poe, fuck. Please” He’s injured, and you know it hurts him to do, and you should scold him for it, but when he manhandles you, flips you easily onto your back to that he can climb on top and situates himself between your thighs-

It’s just as hot as it always is. You know you have to be dripping down onto the cot, can feel your slick covering your thighs, slipping down your crack.

Kiss, Kiss and Kiss and Kiss and Kiss and…

You get lost in it, caught up in the way his stubble burns. His fingers slide back inside you and he watches your face as he crooks them, pumps them fast. Finger fucks you until you’re sobbing, letting out animal sounds.

“Do you still have the implant” he pants, head swimming. He gets like this when you let him make you feel good- wants to go down on you, but wants to be inside you even more.

“No, I took it out in the last few weeks” You’re cheeky, even with his fingers burried inside you. He loves that about you, “Of course I do, Poe”

You’d be damned before you ever brought a child into this world.

Poe holds your thighs wide, staring between them, your pussy wet and clenching around nothing. You’re so vulnerable for him, it makes you dizzy. He lines himself up, clock head dipping into your slit, resting against your hole, when thrusts inside of you it’s in one fluid movement.

You mewl, so full it’s hard to breathe and Poe makes a punched out sound. Like he’d been shot by a blaster in the chest and his hips start undulating, needing to be deeper. It feels so right inside of you. Feels safe. He wants to tear into your softness, rip you open and nestle inside. Settle himself in your bones.

You let him take what he needs, how ever he needs it. On your back, on your hands and knees. You bounce on his cock when he gets to achy,letting him run his hands all over your tummy, sides, breasts.

He can have it all.

After, the two of you lay spent, cuddled tight to one and other in the small cot. Standard issue thrown over your naked bodies, the sound of the rain starting up again mixed with Poes breathing is a lullaby you hadn't known you needed.

This...thing between you might have started as a way for both of you to numb the pain. To seek support. But it was more now. You were so in love with him that it made your eyes sting if you thought about it for too long.

“You’ll always come back to me, right?” Its so, so timid that he almost doesn't catch it and you almost hope he’d miss it.

Poe does what he always does; tries to convince you both that it’s going to be okay.

“Always”

You let yourself believe him.

Well I wasn't expecting this to turn into pure porn, but here we are lmfao. I loved writing for Poe and there will definitely be more of him coming soon! If you are able- listening to All I Need by Radiohead and the Hot Like Fire cover by the XX really sets the tone for this. I actually dropped a line from hot like fire in this- who can point it out?lol

As usual, I'm going to ask that if you can please give me some feedback. I truly love interacting with my readers and would love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

#poe dameron #poe dameron x plus size reader #poe dameron smut #poe dameron x reader #star wars #oscar issac

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