#like sorting what i Need to fix versus things i need to change my mind about

[riansdiary]

Hi, I’m new to manifestation and I have a question. Let’s suppose someone is manifesting waking up in the environment of their desired reality. For example, in the 3D, this person has no friends, no job, and can’t get into university. And their desired reality would basically be waking up and seeing their friends, seeing that they have a stable job, seeing that they are studying the degree they like, etc.

Now, my question is: while they are manifesting waking up in this reality, what should they do? For example, what does someone do during the day while they are trying to manifest those friends, but in 3D they don’t actually have any? They have no one to talk to. What can they do to avoid feeling depressed?

I understand that you affirm and visualize, but what do you do for the rest of the day if you truly have nothing to do and you’re alone, stuck at home? What can you do? That’s my doubt regarding the people who have already awakened in their desired reality—what did they do while that reality was still “on its way”?

I'm glad you sent me this ask because I can answer it for you because I went through this exact thing where I was almost depressed and all I do is ask did I affirm enough? Am I doing enough? Should I do more? How is it gonna happen? Where is it? This is exactly what happens when you obsess over your desire, overthink a lot about it and trying too hard to make it happen when that's not your job. This happened very recently and I'm actually glad that I lost my way because I found out that I was just getting in my own way.

I couldn't think of anything except manifesting my desires and overconsumed different teachings that it confused me. This made me very anxious all the time, always stressing and worrying about my manifestations or where is it. This is why sticking to the basics is good enough and it is enough to help you manifest. My mental health was not the best recently because of this.

And that is because I was getting in the way and not letting it happen for me. I was not trusting the law at all.

Now what changed for me, I went back to the basics. Don't worry your question will be answered. I just wanted to set it up and tell you all of this because this is what happens when we don't get out of the way for it to happen. I recently watched a video about the truth about instant manifestation. When you affirm, the bridge of incidents is already made and it's instant. Now we know that the 3d is a mirror and it'll reflect that. All we need to do is stick to it but we have to do that in a more non forcing but trusting that it's done way.

You don't need to bend over backwards for your desire to be here now. The basis of the law is that what you assume is true, is true. So you affirm or visualize or whatever technique you want. However, we have to stop finding it or asking where it is. The how and the when is never our job. This is what made me get in my own way. I was too focused, worried, obsessing and overwatching my desire.

Why did that happen? Because I wasn't letting the 3d or my subconscious mind do its job. I was getting in the freaking way by comparing what it's in my mind versus what I see. I was stressed and always overthinking about it and I was never relaxed recently when that was the key for me before. I was getting in the way by doing all of that. I wasn't letting it happen for me and always thinking in the process of it.

Now how did I fix this? I actually just manifested a simple thing with the basics and what I learned from the video I watched. This is sort of a better way for me to manifest because it's about trusting the law, trusting that the 3d is doing its job, trusting that it's done. Trust is one of the main keywords of this way of manifesting. It also helps you manifest more in a calming manner and regulates your nervous system. Meaning, you're not getting in your own way by thinking how is it gonna come or when or where it is. You just know you've done your job and letting it happen for you.

This is actually connected to what you were asking. About what are you gonna do during the day. So just try this out because it might fix it for you.

1. Set an intention/Decide what you want to manifest

Literally as simple as "Okay I want to eat ice cream" or whatever you want

2. Affirm/Visualize/Subliminals

Use whatever technique you want but what I do is just calmly think what I would say if it's already done. For what I manifested, I just thought "I got to the 10th one. I'm so lucky." I just repeated that 3 times in a calming way not like I'm manifesting but just stating that in my mind like it's done.

3. It's done. You stop worrying about it or when is it gonna happen or if it will happen.

4. Get into flow. Live in the present moment. Follow your happiness.

This is what will help you during the day.

Get into flow state = focusing on something you enjoy or focus on doing something. It could be focusing on your studies or something fun like a hobby or painting or even watching a k drama. Anything that makes you focus on something else or something that takes your mind off your manifestations. Do something you like or what you need to do.

Living in the present moment/Mindfulness/Following your happiness = Getting out of your own way so your desire can manifest

Mindfulness means being fully aware of what's happening right now, without judgment. Observing and enjoying your surroundings and what's good around you. Not forcing your manifestation to happen and just enjoying every moment as much as you can. When I first tried this, it made me feel like I was in a Ghibli movie when I observed what was around me or the calm around the house or the wind that was flowing in the room.

So instead of being lost in "What if it doesn’t happen?" or "What if I’m doing it wrong?" or "Where is it?" you're:

Feeling your breath

Hearing your favorite songs

Noticing the smell of your coffee

Spending time with your family

Being with this moment, not the imagined future or past.

The key is:

Stop chasing the desire with anxious thoughts. Start trusting that what you've asked for is already coming or is already here and then allow yourself to enjoy this moment as is.

It's like this:

You placed an order at a restaurant (your intention and technique)

You don't keep asking the waiter if they got it. You just chat, enjoy your water, listen to music, knowing your food is coming.

Following your happiness is just doing what makes you feel good or better. Ask yourself "What would make me feel good/happy right now?"

This helps regulate your nervous system and distracting yourself so you're not thinking negatively about your desire. Literally think "it's already done" whenever you think about a desire and think about something else or distract yourself by binge watching anime or whatever makes you feel good. Trust me, it helps.

So to answer your question, what do you do during the day? Distract yourself with things you need to do/things you enjoy/maybe even doing new things and trust that it's already done and you did your job because the how and the when is not yours to worry about. It's not your job. You don't just sit and wait for it to drop. You trust that it's done and it's dropping in your reality soon or it already is here.

If you have negative thoughts, don't fight them and just let them pass by. Fighting it just makes more resistance. It's not like you're agreeing to it, no. It's just you saying it's already done, you're just old news and old thoughts.

I would like to share the manifestation I talked about. This is just a simple one because I needed to build up my belief and I did it outta nowhere too for fun.

So basically I play this game called Merge Inn. Me and my mom like to play it sometimes and it has this daily cloche thing where it makes you pick from four mystery items but one of them can have the fish bone which means you failed. I just thought as the person who already got to the 10th game of that mini game and said "Ooh yay I got to the tenth part." That's all I thought and instead of focusing on that. I focused on using my intuition and trying to choose good items with that. It was for fun but you have to know that I usually fail at that and I usually reach just to the 5th or less even. So this was an amazing thing that happened and it manifested. I was so amazed that I actually did get to the tenth part of that game and I said "Nice, okay I wanna win more. Okay I'm getting to the 20th one or more." And guess what??? I got to the 24th one before I got scared to fail and decided that I'm happy with what I got so I exited and claimed them all! I have a picture proof!

I hope this helped you a lot! I might make a new post about this if I'm inspired to do so. I'm so sorry that this is so long but I hope you understood what I wrote and that you really internalized it. It's not like a woowoo thing. It just means you contradict yourself less and you are not thinking the opposite or worrying and stressing and overthinking about your manifestation. You are relaxing and making yourself feel good, making the most out of your day because you trust that it's done, it's handled for you and it's taken care of because making it happen is not your job which we fail to realize sometimes. Feel free to ask if you have any other questions about this!

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

And because...

🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼

WOO!

129 for 🔼:

---

“I mean, couldn’t Eddie and I take a look at it first?” Buck asks. “I can change tires. Had to do snow tires back in Pennsylvania.” 

She thinks of them both changing her tires, all sweaty and greasy, and… 

God, she needs to get a grip. A cool glass of water and a fucking grip. 

“Did you just volunteer my soon-to-be ex husband to fix my car for me?” Shannon smirks.

“And me!” Buck protests. “I’m also handy!”

“I don’t doubt that,” Shannon laughs. “That’s not the part that surprised me.”

“Oh? Eddie? Pfft.” Buck waves a dismissive hand. “He’ll do what I say.”

It’s that easy, is it? Getting Eddie to do whatever you want? Someone teach her the fucking trick.

“It’s all just bad timing,” Shannon switches the subject. “Car wise, I mean.”

“Is it ever good timing?” Buck asks. 

“Well, no. But I had things I needed to do, you know?” She sighs. 

“Anything I can help with?” Buck asks. 

“What? No,” Shannon laughs nervously. She is not asking him to drive her around to pick up prenatal vitamins and probiotics and all the really fun pregnancy stuff she’s running low on. 

“Seriously!” Buck insists. “I have nothing to do after physio.”

“I’m sure you do,” Shannon replies. 

“I really don’t,” Buck says. “My days are filled with exercises, reality television, and cooking more food than I have people to feed, just to pass the time.”

Something about that is very sad, she thinks. He isn’t the sort of person who shouldn’t have enough people around to fill his home. He isn’t meant to be lonely. She might not know him well, but she knows that. 

“Okay,” she relents. “If you are okay driving me to the pharmacy, the dry cleaners, and a maternity clothing store, I would be very grateful.” 

“No problem,” he smiles. She swears there’s a fucking twinkle in his eye.

Shannon is well and truly fucked. 

🔼

Weirdly, Buck enjoys doing errands with Shannon. She’s fun and chatty and witty like usual. But more than that, it just sort of takes his mind off things. 

His leg is fucking killing him, and he knows he’s been doing the exercises like twice if not three times as much as usual. He wishes he wasn’t in so much pain. He wishes he was further along in his progress. Even though, by all accounts, he’s ahead of where he’s expected to be. He’s just been feeling time so acutely lately. Almost three months since he left. What if three more pass and he’s not back? What if they have to find a permanent replacement?

His brain has been noisy for days. Louder and louder. He can’t really quiet it. And yet, for some reason, hanging out with Shannon does the trick. He feels helpful again, for one thing. Like he’s not just wasting his day away alone. For another, the conversation just keeps flowing so naturally between them that he doesn’t have time to think about anything else. 

They talk about a lot of things. How annoying physio is. Favorite movies of the past decades. Their favorite music. The differences between growing up in Texas versus Pennsylvania. Unlike Eddie, Shannon didn’t just live in El Paso. 

“I was born in Santa Fe, actually,” she says as they’re driving from the drugstore to the dry cleaner’s. “Then my dad left when I was little, and my mom just sort of followed the work she could get. El Paso, Kemah, Dallas, you name it.”

“Wow,” Buck exhales. “I moved around a lot in my early twenties. Like as far as Peru. But it must be way harder doing it as a kid.”

“Yeah, but I always had my mom,” Shannon says. “She had a good way of making everywhere feel like home. An optimism, you know?”

“She sounds like she was a good mom,” Buck replies. 

Shannon nods. “She wasn’t perfect, but… Yeah. I mean, I always knew she loved me. And she did her best. She was a really good mom.”

Buck thinks there’s some sort of tragedy in that. His own perfectly healthy mother has no interest in him. Her perfectly good mother is dead. 

“I’m sorry, Shannon,” he tells her. 

She smiles a little sadly and shakes her head. “Thanks, it’s… It is what it is.”

Buck nods. 

“I’m sad she won’t get to meet my daughter,” Shannon admits. “I’ll have to find a way to honor her in the name somehow.”

Buck smiles. He hasn’t heard anything about Little Diaz’s name yet.

“You’re going to name her after your mom? I love that!”

“Oh,” Shannon replies a little nervously. “I don’t know. I haven’t even talked to Eddie about it yet. Plus, her name was Janet. I don’t know if I want to name a 2019 baby Janet.” 

Buck chuckles. “Fair. It’s a tiny bit dated. Middle name?”

“Maybe,” she says. “I’ll just have to get creative, I think.”

When they get to the maternity clothing store, she insists Buck stays in the car. 

“I need to size up my bras,” she admits. “You do not need to be there for that.” 

“Understood,” he says, nodding curtly. 

But it’s too hot to sit in the car, so Buck walks to a coffee shop down the street to grab an iced beverage while he waits. As he does he thinks. He thinks about what Shannon said in the car about wanting to honor her mother, but not knowing how. He agrees Janet is an outdated name and he doesn’t think Eddie would ever go for it. But there’s got to be something she can do.

So, Buck gets ahead of himself. A usual problem of his.  

He doesn’t know why he’s like this exactly. But he is. He likes being of service

[sacrificialarrow]

Regarding Mythal...

I've made it no secret that I do things a touch differently for my blog canon regarding Mythal, both bc my bestie writes her and bc I've traditionally not been super thrilled with canon's decisions with these two. SO. With that in mind, I'm going to go through and hopefully talk about as close to all of their history and relationship as I can.

I'm being fully serious that this is essentially how the two meet. Solas at the time was still a feral little empathy spirit with a terribly mischievous personality and a preference for his Dread Wolf form. He found Mythal's village, and fascination kept him around long enough to both help people and be a nuisance. Keep in mind, he's a giant ass wolf of dubious intent; his messing with people was responded to in similar fashion to a high dragon in the area. So of course Mythal dealt with him. Joke's on her, though, bc Solas admired her willingness to defend others and thus never left.

Much as Mythal claimed the opposite, the Great Wolf grew on her. Definitely the dad who didn't want the dog situation. The closer they got, the more the Great Wolf developed, and thus the spirit named Solas is eventually born. The two are very much mother / son, although it's terminology they don't have until much later. Takes people actually having offspring and developing language for things for Solas to recognize their bond as such. Mythal doesn't until a great deal later, which is why Solas is never acknowledged as her son in the mythos. That, and the fact that he and Elgar'nan pretty well hated each other on sight, so like. Obviously he's not her son, her husband definitely doesn't acknowledge him as family. They're clearly just good friends.

It's Mythal that names Solas. She may not have necessarily realized she views him as a son, but the feeling is there regardless. She names him 'my pride' but shortens it to simply 'pride.' You would sooner change the course of a river than get Solas to change his name; it's very sentimental to him.

Rather than 'needing his wisdom' for the Titan War, Mythal convinces Solas to take to physical form in an attempt to prevent him from being used by anyone powerful enough to summon and bind him. This doesn't make him regret it any less, even if it's not something he holds against her.

Mythal becomes part of the Evanuris with the thought that she can keep Elgar'nan balanced from the inside, versus having to argue with him as a 'lesser.' Begrudgingly, Solas follows suit for much the same reason, albeit with ambitions of dismantling the whole thing. He's considered part of both pantheons bc no one could exactly argue with Mythal's decree, but then again, if they could, he'd have absolutely only been a Forgotten One.

Never let it be said that Mythal's any less complicit in the rebellion than is Solas -- the trick is, she's the shadow partner in these endeavors so that she can continue to keep a good front to be used for later. She's very good at making herself seem separate from it.

Ironically, she was killed by the rest of the Evanuris on the same island Ghilan'nain is killed on during Veilguard. Both she and Solas had been expecting some sort of retaliation and built up defenses, but had not been expecting the rest of the pantheon. She attempts to convince Solas to flee, except it's Solas and he doesn't want to leave her to fight such a massive force on her own. In a last desperate attempt to prevent him from being killed alongside her, she weaponizes their bond and convinces him that she doesn't want him there, and it's the only reason he does actually slink away. No, it doesn't damage his views of her, it just sets the stage for his desperate attempt to fix what he perceives he's ruined. He manages to imprison the Evanuris not too long after this.

Solas doesn't actually kill Mythal when he meets one of her fragments in Flemeth, he just takes the fragment from Flemeth and keeps it inside himself. Part of what he's doing after Inquisition is seeking out the rest of Mythal's fragments to fully put her back together. By the time of Veilguard, there's only one he hasn't collected, and it's the piece Morrigan has.

Also by the time of Veilguard, he's actually managed to revive Mythal, and she's helping him with the ritual to move Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain by moving things that might interrupt him ( constructs and artefacts and the like ) to other areas. She's in a different area entirely when Varric arrives, so that whole interaction still follows canon. In one way or another, she still actively works to help Solas during the game.

At the end, it's Mythal and Dorian ( another gentle reminder that I'm talking about another of my bestie's muses, not the general character ) that talk Solas down; he will actively refuse to consider both Rook or the Inquisitor for the simple fact that he and Dorian already have plans of how to handle things, and he really doesn't care about outside input. ( I'll probably talk about this more in a separate post bc it's not super relevant here. ) The tl;dr version of events is that Mythal apologizes and takes the burden of responsibility off Solas' shoulders, binding the veil to herself so that he doesn't have to, and so that he and Dorian have time to figure out how to dismantle it safely.

There's possibly things I've forgotten, and ofc this is subject to change as we fine-tune our hcs, BUT. To my current recollection, this is where we're at.

For modern muses: canon lore is still to be considered the generally accepted mythos, so I don't expect your muses to be accurate on any of these things. THAT SAID, there's possibly traces of the above in ruins specific to Mythal and or Fen'Harel, so it's not outside the realm of possibilities that your muse knows some things.

For those who see his regrets: Not all of the canon ones are applicable, and I will need to write new ones. This will be updated with a link when I have that posted.

For ancient muses: I'm perfectly fine with your muse knowing some or most of this if you think it's reasonable for them to -- bc it's not like all of it was kept hush-hush. But feel free to come talk to me about it if you'd like.

[the-director]

Bruce Banner Songs

This is not based on what I think he would listen to, rather what i listen to and think would fit him thematically/character arc wise. Basically what I would make an animatic to.

Nightmare by Set It Off

The chorus of: I created a monster, a hell within my head With nowhere to go, I'm out on my own Oh, I'm so scared I created a monster, a beast inside my brain With nowhere to go, I'm out on my own My mind impaired Awake me from my nightmare

the monster being the hulk, the "with nowhere to go, im out on my own" specifically when he's on the run from the government, and then the verse of a suicide attempt specifically "And when my body crashes to the pavement, I'm right back where I was before" because then the hulk would save him by taking control.

The Mess I Made by Parachute

I could see this specifically being about Betty Ross, and Im reminded of the ultimate avengers movie where he is filled with a lot of guilt over what specifically he did in that movie.

Key verse: Should've held my ground I could've been redeemed For every second chance That changed its mind on me I should've spoken up I should've proudly claimed That oh my head's to blame For all my heart's mistakes

I think the benefit for this song is it could be seen for a more general reflection of Bruce's life. Of how he felt before the hulk, his issues run deep and were not started when the hulk grew physical form.

Villainous Thing by Shayfer James

Now this is a more loose thing, but i could picture this as being sung from a villain or someone who views the Hulk/Bruce as a monster. overall I just like the chorus

Oh dear, let me see those smokey eyes 'Cause you're a villainous thing And we can't have you living a lie Oh dear, let's remove those pretty clothes 'Cause you're a villainous thing, oh And I don't think anyone knows, hmm

Tear You Apart by She Wants Revenge

Now I see this as more a Bruce x Natasha sort of thing. The sexual nature of it, the tension of him maybe hurting her, or her hurting him, or overall just their relationship burning up. so yknow specifically first Avengers/age of ultron. (as a sidenote i also like to think of this song with steve. so like. poly steve x nat x bruce. thats another post for another day)

Its cute in a way, till you cannot speak And you leave to have a cigarette, your knees get weak An escape is just a nod and a casual wave Obsessed about it, heavy for the next two days

Like imagine that with their first scene.

They took a step back, thought about it, what should they do 'Cause there's always repercussions when you're dating in school But their lips met, and reservations started to pass Whether this was just an evening or a thing that would last

idk if this makes sense for anyone who doesnt already ship them... but yeah. I like the pairing. despite. what ended up happening. I'll write the fix it.

Freaking Out by Mystery Skulls falls into the same thing as last song specifically

I got this feeling, I'm losing you. And it's got me reeling, I need a clue...

I can't fight this feeling. It's not in my head. And I know it was something I did, baby. I can't fight this feeling. I'm out of control. Got to get back to the life that I know!

Those being about him not sharing the memories with Hulk and thus being scared of what happens when hulk and natasha interact and such.

I see Fear and Delight by The Correspondents the same way as well.

Oh, but I know you'll cause me grief Close friends of mine are in disbelief As they can see what's underneath Fluttering lashes, red lips and pearly white teeth

this going into natasha being the femme fatale assassin type. Im overall just a fan of the dynamic of them being similarly dangerous to eachother even though from an outsider perspective they might see bruce as the more intimidating one because of the hulk. idk its just an interesting dynamic of perception vs reality, emotional strength versus physical, and trauma and how that relates to both of the previous dichotomies and also their histories of being used and hunted by agencies and governments. Im a shipper I'm sorry. when I find a bruce/thor song I'll get back to you.

[elisethetraveller]

Stuff under a read more because slight negativity

So just prefacing with this is not minded at anyone or any one occurrence but rather a recurring theme of rp’ing this character for +5 years and needing to vent so with that in mind…

I get so tired of the weird dance that is having to make the first move versus not being too much.

I think it’s a more-or-less well acknowledged fact that writers of female OC’s (and OC’s at large) on Tumblr occasionally have a hard time finding rp partners. Much cleverer people than me have written about this in much greater detail than I can manage.

What I particularly have noticed in my years of rp with Elise, and which frustrates me endlessly now that I have spotted the pattern, is this dance or “loop” that happens, at least to me. Let me lay it out.

Step 1. Roleplaying begins and you (mun) reaches out to people who you might be interested in writing with while also chatting with the (often few) people who want to write with your muse

Step 2. Mun realizes that a lot of effort has to be put in to finding people who want to rp with you (customary preface of no one owes anyone interactions here but I feel like frustration can still co-exist with this sentiment)

Step 3. Muse begins to be ingrained in a few rps but a lot of work has to be done to keep muse relevant, often (not always) disproportionately to how much interest rp partners put into connecting with your muse

Step 4. Things run smoothly!

Step 5. Things run “too smoothly” and one part ends up burning out or the other ends up feeling pressured/stressed by the level of engagement (which, again, both are fair and people should take any necessary steps to ensure they are comfortable)

Step 6. Lot of self-doubt as a new balancing act has to be made between keeping muse relevant through engagement but also ensuring no one burns out or feels pressured

Step 7. General blog activity falls, sometimes drastically.

Like I have been through this cycle upwards of 3 or 4 times now. And again, I want to reiterate that it is no one person’s doing or fault or anything of the sort. However, it is frustrating and as I once again feel like I am picking up the pieces in step 6 and 7 I genuinely wonder if there is something deeply wrong with how I do things.

I have tried not being active in reaching out to people, but in my experience as an oc writer you have to reach out if you want people to write with you. (And I might be wrong in that assessment but 99% of long term rp relations I have and have had started with me reaching out).

I have tried writing with people with minor ooc talk which honestly led to a lot of miscommunication and confusion on both sides.

I have tried self-moderation (which I admit I can be bad at, something to do with step 2-3 but also just general excitement levels).

So now I want to try asking for advice.

I know I have mutuals with more rp experience than me. Mutuals with more social graces.

What should I do? Or not do, for that matter?

How do I stop this from happening again and again?

Do I need to change the way I approach rp? If so, how?

Is something wrong with the way or what I write? How can it be fixed? Should it be fixed or should I just drop it all?

I will be forever thankful for any advice, long or short.

Anon is on for those who would prefer for any advice to be given anonymously.

[selormohene]

day 51 (wednesday, august 23rd 2023)

Everything I've done in my life until now, I feel, has been part of a project of hermeneutic self-understanding. I may not have classified it in those terms in having undertaken the pursuits in question, and even now I don't think it's a complete way of characterising my life, but it's a big part for sure. I say this keeping in mind that hermeneutic self-understanding is never fully explicit, nor need it be directly oriented towards the interpretation of the self. Rather, the point is that as a self-conscious being who pursues certain projects, relies on certain modes of understanding and being in the world, interacts with others in a certain way, and inherits perspectives from all of these ways of being and their interplay, I can look upon everything I have done so far, as well as everything I am now, as well as, of course, my view on the world (because part of the idea of the hermeneutic model is that we aren't primarily abstract, purely mental beings against the world), I can consider the relative weights that all these factors have had, how these weights and significances have changed over time, what sort of future I see when I look into the future, my hopes and regrets and inclinations and aversions and resonances, those parts of me which I take to be relatively innate or fixed and those I take to be made or mutable, as well as those which, according to what might be called an objective view of my life, are in fact fixed versus those which are mutable — and come to an understanding of the sort of person I have become.

I feel like I've primarily pursued the sort of self-understanding that came from philosophy, literature, math, the natural and social sciences, and religion, to various extents, and with greater or lesser degrees of mastery and success. I've also sought to pursue self-understanding through aesthetic experience and through conversation and more generally interacting and being with others, though I feel like these are areas in which I haven't gotten as much as I'd like. And I think that I've woefully underdeveloped the perspective I might have had on the world from making and building things, from creating things which don't belong solely to the abstract realm of ideas. I want to do something about these last fields of underdevelopment — aesthetic experience, being with others, and creation. I feel like I've lived inside my head for too long and I want to start living with others, and living in the world. But it's hard to do so, because I feel incredibly vulnerable from not having been able to live in the world or live with others for so long. I feel naïve, or like a newborn, and although my most sincere hope is that I'll one day find the sort of place in the world where I feel completely at home, among the people in the world with whom I feel completely at home, I can't help but fear that I may not, and sometimes even despair of ever doing so. But if life has taught me anything, it's that you never know the real meaning of anything until its end, where you realise what everything really amounted to. When you're still in the process all you experience is the trajectory on which you seem to be going, but obviously every finite path is compatible with an infinity of continuations, and even every complete path is compatible with an infinity of could-have-beens, but one wants to be able to look back on the life one actually lived in such a way that one can tell a satisfying story of it. And I'm still finding it difficult to believe that I'll be able to do that, but I have to have faith that I will.

[wishingstarinajar]

Hi wish! I saw your latest post on Twitter and wanted to see if you are okay. Hiding in Anon to not be a bother. Sorry!

Ah, yes! Thank you, Anon, I am alright. Thanks for checking on me!

That Tweet was something that has been on my mind for a while but didn't really come out until I saw something earlier that sprung all those thoughts back to the front of my mind.

Forcing friendship onto someone is something I do have experience with. I've had people jump at me with the sole purpose of befriending me and while that's fine, some throw themselves full 200% into it and that's WAY too much, especially when they push too hard and have high expectations you aren't ready to meet (yet).

I'll put an example under the cut! ----

I knew someone who really liked my art and more specifically one of my characters. It started out okay with a lot of gift art from their side (PS: In hindsight, it was a little TOO much), complimented me high and low, putting me on a pedestal, and devoting so much time and energy into it all.

Sounds nice, right? Yeah, it was at first but I started to notice the red flags and so did others around me.

This person was dead set on claiming their favorite OC of mine for a ship. They also started to "test the boundaries", see if they/their persona/closest OC could be the only exception to my character's dislikes. When that didn't work, they used a different character more suited to/for my character and pushed HARD.

They tried to worm themselves into whatever I did and wherever I'd hang out.

All their focus was mostly on me, the people around us were of little interest to them unless those people would stroke their ego right and you know... that had always bothered me so much that I tried to give those people the attention that they weren't getting from this person (it was exhausting and caused a major burnout!).

Anyone who showed interest in my character was seen as a threat and the person turned possessive real quick to the point that it was very uncomfortable.

They would apply headcanons to my characters, or do with them whatever they pleased and it was more often than not done without discussing it with me beforehand. And when I would correct them or tell them to not do it? Cue the 'pity me' attitude.

They vented a lot too, exaggerated just as much, did a lot of guilt-tripping or self-deprecation, and relied on me to fix problems for them because I had experience in certain fields.

It was hard to say no because I did consider them a friend and didn't want to lose them, no matter how wrong a lot of things were. This was a mistake on my part (and a very common mistake a lot of people make).

Eventually, after several months of this, they told me they were bothered that they weren't as close to me as my bestie was. They had brought up this concern several times (always sugarcoated in different ways) and I would always tell them that the building of a friendship, ESPECIALLY a strong one, takes time to develop. In this case, it was a several years long *good* friendship versus that of but a few months. I told them the same thing again and, well, they didn't take it too well. We tried to talk it out. Heck, they were alright when they weren't so hyperfocused on me/my characters, lost in their energy and ideas or pushy, but it was safe to say that our friendship was not that great anymore from that point on. They didn't have the patience to build a genuine strong friendship; they wanted it yesterday. I was quietly 'dumped' with the silence and unwatch/unfollow treatment and well, I figured I would give them their space so I did the same afterward. I haven't spoken to them in a long time. What happened to this person afterward? Heh, well, they were very quick to dive onto a popular artist shortly after ending our friendship and went through the very same routine... Step by step, real quick. When that fizzled and died after but a few short months because the strength of the friendship wasn't as mutual as this person had hoped for (sounds familiar?), they did the whole 'dump and dive' shtick again with another popular artist and wouldn't you know it? The same routine. Again. It hurts to see.

---- Now to get back to what this post is actually about... Sorry for rambling! I keep seeing similar situations happen around me, the red flags and all, in many places and with various people. It was why I made that Tweet. I didn't try to accomplish anything with it, it was more a 'let me get this off my chest and out of my head' sort of thing. If it helped someone then good, if not, that's also fine.

I am not the best at friendships but I do want to say this; if a friendship makes you unhappy or stresses you out far too much, you need to start thinking about changing a few things. Not every friendship will click or work and that's okay. There's someone else out there that just might.

Also, don't let others force you into a corner with their ideas *for* you/your work/characters, no matter how nice they are and what they may have done for you. No is no. If they don't respect that, they don't deserve your respect either.

[swan-of-sunrise]

The Winter Soldier (Chapter Three)

Summary: Steve drops by the VA and listens in on one of Sam’s meetings and later that evening, (Y/N) reflects on her unusual day with the super-soldier.

Pairing: Steve Rogers X Reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings/Disclaimers: Brief discussion of PTSD

A/N: Hope you all enjoy!

Chapter Three (Previous Chapter)

After placing sugar packets and stirring sticks next to the coffee maker, (Y/N) took a seat beside the refreshment table and watched as Sam took his place at the front of the crowded room and began the meeting. One by one, each person would share their struggles with PTSD and how it had affected their lives as civilians; with each person’s story, (Y/N)’s heart clenched in sympathy. These vets have put their lives on the line to protect us, they don’t deserve to suffer, she thought with an inward sigh. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d woken Sam up from a nightmare or had seen him suddenly grow silent and have to distract him from his memories of war. But it was wonderful that people like Sam, people who face the same exact struggles, run programs to help each other out.

Seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, (Y/N) turned to see Steve Rogers leaning against the doorframe of the room, his arms crossed over his chest as he listened to the meeting. Smiling and tugging her sweater tighter around her, (Y/N) turned her attention back to the woman speaking. “The thing is I think it’s getting worse. A cop pulled me over last week, he thought I was drunk. I swerved to miss a plastic bag. I thought it was an IED.”

Sam nodded. “Some stuff you leave there, other stuff you bring back. It’s our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase or in a little man-purse? It’s up to you.” Everyone clapped and began standing, so (Y/N) jumped to her feet to man the table. She greeted each person with a smile as they grabbed cookies and filled their cups with coffee, delighted to see so many new faces among the usual crowd. After about twenty minutes of mingling and making small talk, the crowd started to leave so she decided to begin packing up the refreshments as Sam bid them goodbye out in the hallway.

“Don’t take those away those cookies just yet, darlin’, I wanna bring one home to my gran’daughter.”

(Y/N) looked up to see Gary, an older man with an incredibly bushy grey beard and a Vietnam War veteran’s baseball cap, and she smiled brightly before offering him the half-full container. “Take the whole thing if you’d like, Gary, and be sure to say hello to Katie for me!”

That made Gary grin toothily as he took the container. “You know, darlin’, you’re sweeter than this whole damn box of cookies. I’ll be seein’ you next week!” (Y/N) gave him a small wave and resumed cleaning as he limped away.

“You’re pretty popular around here.”

She turned away from the coffee pot and smiled when she saw Steve standing before her, his blue eyes glimmering and his hands shoved in his pockets. “If I am, it’s only ‘cause I give away free cookies; the vets that visit all have a massive sweet-tooth, you know.”

“Are you a vet, too?”

“Nah, I just work here.” She tossed several used paper coffee cups into the trash and chuckled. “A year ago, when I finally graduated with my master’s degree, I started writing my novel and since I was writing about soldiers and government agents I needed to interview some about their personal experiences. So, I decided to come down to the VA. I met with Sam, who had just started working here, and asked if I could interview some people for my writing. He agreed, and I spent the whole day just talking to the vets. All sorts of vets, too; men, women, old, young, you name it. And at the end of the day, after hearing about their struggles with PTSD and how hard their lives became once they returned to civilian life, I went back to Sam and asked if he needed any part-time employees. He said yes, and we’ve been best friends ever since.” Steve smiled, and the impressed look he was giving her caused her to blush so she hurriedly changed the subject. “So, did everything work out earlier? It’s just that it seemed a little serious, so I hope that everything’s okay.”

Steve’s smile fell a little but he nodded. “Yeah, everything’s fine…I was just visiting a friend who hasn’t been doing too well lately.”

(Y/N) impulsively placed a comforting hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, that sounds difficult. I hope they get better soon.” The ghost of a sympathetic smile pulled at the corner of her mouth and Steve’s eyes softened after a moment; realizing that her hand was still resting on his arm, she hastily withdrew it and began folding the tablecloth to keep her hands busy. “Um, Sam and I were planning on going out to dinner after we finish packing up, you’re welcome to join us if you want.”

She glanced up at him and saw a glint of something in his eyes, but it disappeared before she could get a closer look. “Thanks for the offer but I’ll have to pass; I’ve already got some plans later…”

“That’s okay, maybe next time!” (Y/N) smiled, but inside she couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment.

Just then, Sam walked into the room with a stack of pamphlets in his hands. “Pretty good turnout today, huh? Five new faces and Captain America!”

Steve chuckled. “Well, I’m glad that I stopped by.” He glanced at the clock on the wall before continuing, “I should probably get going, but it was good to see you two again.”

(Y/N) shook his hand. “I’m not gonna lie, it was a little weird seeing you in your own exhibit earlier but it was great hanging out with you!”

“You too, and good luck with For Queen and Country, I’ll keep my eye out for it in the bookshops.” His bright smile caused her heartbeat to once-again quicken as their hands dropped.

“It was good seeing you too, Cap, you made me look really awesome in front of Maria, so thanks for that.” Sam grinned and shook his outstretched hand.

“Glad I could help, Sam; see you two around!” Steve gave them a small wave before turning and walking out of the room.

Tearing her eyes away from the doorway, (Y/N) resumed her cleaning and glanced at Sam. “What do you feel like tonight, Thai or burgers?”

Sam grinned and began unplugging the coffee maker. “Burgers. So, did you have a nice day chilling with your new boyfriend, Booksmart?”

“Sam…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later that evening, (Y/N) sat down at her desk and put her music on shuffle before flicking through her notebook to the pages of notes she’d taken that day at the Smithsonian. She bit back a smile when she recognized the difference between the carefully printed notes she’d taken by herself versus the illegible scribbles taken from the elderly security guard’s long-winded explanations. He was kind of a fast talker, wasn’t he, she thought to herself; as a way of honoring the enthusiastic old man, she ultimately decided to name one of her minor characters after him.

“Stan.” She sounded out the name and gave a satisfied nod. “Yeah, that’s got a nice ring to it…”

(Y/N), now finally having all the information she needed to best describe Soviet Cold War missiles, wrote for nearly three hours straight, only taking breaks to skip songs or to glance down at her notes. She would’ve probably continued writing well into the next morning except that her eyesight was beginning to blur around the edges, an unfortunate symptom of exhaustion.

Well, you have had a pretty busy day today, (Y/N) silently reasoned as she saved her evening’s progress and booted down her laptop. Since Sam was already fast asleep in the room across the hall, she went about her bedtime routine as quietly as she could, washing her face and brushing her teeth before tiptoeing back into her room. She slipped on her mismatched pajama set and was about to crawl into bed when the record player on her bedside table caught her eye. Making her way over to what Sam affectionately called ‘The DJ Bookcase,’ she scanned the shelf devoted solely to her record collection until the right one stood out to her, and then she carefully placed the record on the turntable and lowered the needle. After a moment, the soft tones of Glenn Miller’s ‘Stardust’ filled her room and with a smile, she finally got into bed and turned to watch the record spinning on the turntable.

Thoughts of the super-soldier who’d inspired her choice in bedtime music began to fill her mind, making her smile softly to herself. (Y/N) had enjoyed seeing Steve again, even if it had been in a highly unconventional place like the Smithsonian, and she quietly marveled at how effortless it had been to talk to the larger-than-life man. He really was different from how the history books portrayed him: not only was he kind and polite, but he was also intelligent, sarcastic and extremely understanding. Also a little lost, I expect, (Y/N) thought, remembering his guarded expressions and withdrawn replies whenever she’d ask him a personal question; it couldn’t be easy adjusting to a brand-new reality, especially without a fixed support system to rely on.

“Hopefully he ends up getting the help he needs.” (Y/N) murmured to herself, her sleepy eyes continuing to watch the rotating record as more thoughts of Steve Rogers filled her mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all liked my little Stan Lee cameo in this chapter and the last :) I’ve created a Spotify playlist inspired by this series, and I’ll be updating it every time I upload a new chapter. Enjoy!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4BenknAqQQnOWY8NmSa23V

Tagging: @mrs-obrien​ @lahoete​ @awkward117​ @cminr​ @momc95​ @awkwardnesshabitat​ @marinettepotterandplagg​ @khuang3​ @supersouthy​ @benakenalove​ @brooke0297​ @hufflepeople​ @becausewelie​​ @outoftheregular @supreme-tantrum​

Chapter Four

“The Winter Soldier” Masterlist

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

Hi Eff! I've been following your blog for a while and I love hearing about your writing process and your characters; they all seem great. I am really curious as to your process on outlining your wips and how you turn your ideas into a plot, because I love writing, but I get so many ideas that I want to write about that I end up losing focus of the actual point of the story if that makes sense. Keep up the great work! You're doing great and I can't wait to see more of your wips! <33

Oh man, I relate do this so hard!

Most of my ideas die on the initial brainstorming stage, it's very rare that one gets through to outlining or writing, and I finish things only once in a blue moon, so I can't say I'm the right person to give advice on this, lol, though I'm flattered you still asked me.

To me it sounds like you're having issues with losing focus when you're already in the middle of writing something? So that's what I'll try to respond to, sorry if you meant something else!

I used to have a lot of problems finishing WIPs because I'd start hot and strong and then it fizzled out when I'd realize that I'm just writing shit without knowing where it's going. I wrote like 80k of the first draft of Princess Machine (it was so cursed), and I still thought I'd only written maybe half of it at that point? This basically taught me that I'm not a pantser and work better as a planner/plotter, at least in some aspects. I think figuring out where you exist on the pantser/planner spectrum could help a lot, because what gets me writing is usually knowing a beginning and an end, and pantsing only results in sadness and lots of first chapters being abandoned forever, so maybe you're similar?

Once you have a beginning and an end, outlining becomes a process of filling that time between those two points. Your genre can help decide how it gets filled and what sort of scenes and catalysts you have.

For me, I ask myself things like "what am I trying to say?" or "what would I want to read?" If I have a specific genre I'm working on, like romance, then it's easier to know where I'm going. I write out the most basic plot structure and then slap on the details, the fun concepts, the neat worldbuilding ideas in a later draft. For a planner, that's basically like building a skeleton, a frame for your house, and then putting the rest of it that frame. When I'm only starting out a WIP, I try to keep the plan as simple and mechanical as I can, literally just concerned with the plot progression and movement. Character arcs and symbolism and themes will come after, or maybe while you're writing, and will usually only solidify in your second draft at the earliest, so there's no point in wasting time on them now, you'll just get overwhelmed and distracted by details. Keep them in mind or write them down if you come up with something you think is neat, but don't try to get everything right or put every concept in from the start, because you'll just end up losing focus on getting to the end. (I sometimes do a thing where, if I come up with something good while writing but it requires rewrites, I just pretend that I've already done the rewrites from that point on and include the new concept as if it was always there. That's more of a pantser thing, but everyone has their own approach to their writing method, so this is me saying you don't need to adhere strictly to either one and it's ok to do things sloppily, since you can fix stuff later on once you have something to fix.)

So basically if you have an idea or a protag and you have some inciting incident that you're eager to start writing, you could try taking a step back and thinking "but where does this go? how do I want to end this?" and once you have an answer, you can slap that ending down and start trying to connect the two together into what some might call a plot, without the distractions of nebulous shiny things.

It will inevitably change and morph and become different and that's fine, nothing is set in stone with art, but having an end goal in mind might help you keep your focus and also help you figure out how you want to get there. It's like, uh, being adrift at sea and you're paddling in a random direction hoping for solid ground versus paddling toward a distant island. Like you're still struggling, but in one of them you're at least sure you'll get to shore. Ya know?

Hope any of this made sense and helps you figure it out! Good luck and thank you for the nice ask! <3

[heartofsnark]

Can You Feel The Sun? (Chapter Seven): Flying Towards An Early Grave

Notes: Still posting my little backlog, I will warn in advanced, the next chapter is the heist (finally) AND IT IS A CHONKER, but for now have a little appetizer with some fun times, smut, and foreshadowing!~

Word Count: 10860

Chapter Warnings: heavy foreshadowing, food, blowjobs, groping, protected vaginal sex, car sex

If you haven’t yet, you can read the previous chapter here!~

V’s body is heavy as she gets to her apartment door, ready to curl up into bed and call it a day. She’s exhausted with adrenaline gone. She presses her thumb to the panel. The little intercom doorbell is also the lock, scanning and searching for SID validation. It takes a moment to scan, it seems to be lagging more lately. 

Calling. 

The intercom says it’s calling, why is it calling? She can hear the automated ringing and her lights inside are probably flashing. It only does this if the SID doesn’t match the apartment owner’s, assuming them a guest. V presses again. 

Calling. 

She presses harder. 

Calling. 

She tries her entire hand.

Calling. 

She kicks her door, a heavy sound as her boot collides with it. That doesn’t help with the lock, but it makes her feel a little better. Just what she needs; bloody, sore, and locked out of her apartment for who fucking knows why? Her stomach growls as she pulls up the number for building maintenance. 

“Megabuilding Maintenance, how can I help?” 

“I’m locked out of my apartment,” V signs, her choker translator on. 

“What do you mean?” 

“The lock isn’t recognizing my SID.” 

“Can I get your name and apartment number?” 

V gives them the details and they say they’re sending a maintenance guy. All of the services floor is nearly shut down at the late hour, her stomach growling. No doubt the maintenance guy will take his sweet fucking time, so much for getting some decent sleep. She gets a burrito, a Nicola, and a little thing of ketchup from the machines. Sitting on the ground near her door, dumping ketchup on her burrito as she eats it. 

By the time the guy arrives she’s finished eating, drinking, and is a little unsure what’s dried blood versus dried ketchup on her shirt. She hops to her feet when she sees the guy walking up, a massive case of resting bitch face. V doubts he wanted to be dragged out at three am to help unlock a door, but it’s not her fault the tech fucked up. 

“You V?” he asks, voice gruff and annoyed. 

“Yep.” 

“Hard day?”  His eyebrow raises, gaze focused on her blood stained flesh and chrome. 

“Work.” 

“Ah… I see,” he nods, “so, what's the issue with your door?” 

Night City is one of the few places where one can just admit to being a mercenary for a living, even if it did earn her an odd look. V presses her hand to the lock button again and it once again initiates a call. 

“Doesn’t recognize my SID.” 

“Hmm, you are V, right?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“Who the fuck else would I be? The building has a picture of me on file for fucks sake.” 

“Hey, hey, nowadays with enough eddies anybody can look like anybody.” 

“If I had an identity worth stealing, you really think I’d be living here?” 

“Fair enough, let’s check something,” he pulls out a holo tablet, jacking it into the bottom of the intercom lock, “this will show what the lock is reading it as, try again.” 

V keeps an eye on his tablet as she presses her hand back to the lock and the projected information starts to show. And for a moment she sees herself; her face, her name, her information, and all the shit Vik had to set up for her to have SID. Then in a blink of an eye it glitches out and the information shifts. She watches her nearly mugshot like photo shift into that of a man, with short dark hair and dark eyes. V [REDACTED] becomes Robert John Linder. Birthdate shifting from November 12th, 2056 to November 16, 1988.  Birthplace shifting from Seven Devils, North Carolina to College Station, Texas.  

Who the hell is this old man? 

“Looks like it’s reading your SID chip as someone else's, strange, any chance you’ve been spiked by a ‘runner?” 

“No, even if I was, not sure why they’d want to make my SID register to some senior citizen.” 

“Weird, can’t think of how else this would happen? Seems like it starts to read your chip and then changes to this guy’s. Do you know him?” 

“Don’t hang around old folks homes too much, actually. Just some random dude to me.” 

“Hmmm.” 

“I can promise you, I’m not a ninety year old cowboy man.” 

“Somehow I noticed that, actually… looks like the guy is dead.” 

“What?” 

“Mmhmm, scroll down a bit and there’s the date his death certificate was issued,” the guy shows her, “you’ll probably need to have your SID looked at, see what’s wrong with it. For now, I can unlock it for you and have them add whoever this guy is to registered owners, so, you won’t be locked out until you fix it.” 

“Fine, I guess.” 

“But that does mean if this guy’s ghost decides to pop in for a visit, lock won’t stop him,” the man jokes, offering the first smile since he’s been here. 

“Somehow I’ll handle it, thanks for the help, and if it’s not too much trouble can you forward me the details of that SID info?” 

“Sure, no problem,” the maintenance man’s eyes glow and she can feel the very soft warmth and whirr of her neuroplant as it accepts the file. 

She gives one final thanks as he unlocks her apartment and she’s finally able to step foot inside. Thankfully her door locks behind her and she makes a beeline for her shower, scrubbing blood and sweat from her skin; finding bruises, cuts, and flesh wounds she hadn’t noticed in the midst of fighting. 

It takes her a little longer than expected to wind down for the night, the merc putting in her optic contacts and playing with the bot. Looking through its eyes, she has it twist and climb all throughout her apartment, making herself dizzy until she falls out of  bed and bangs her head against the floor. Finally, putting the cute spider looking tech away when she feels the knot starting to form on her head. Then, setting her alarm and sleeping for the night. 

V is still tired when her alarm vibrates beneath her pillow, waking her up as the sunlight streams in from her large window, warming her skin. She checks her phone, double checks the time and that Dex hasn’t sent the car for her yet. The young merc rushes through her morning routine; showering, brushing her teeth, dressing, and taking her medication with some Chromanticore in hopes of getting some energy back. 

She’s out the door and has her  mask on in a matter of minutes, phone buzzing with the message that Dex’s car is waiting for her. As she comes down the steps of her building she sees the same limousine and bodyguard waiting outside of it. But this time when he opens the door for her, there is no Dex, nobody. Chills creep their way up her spine, but she gets in nonetheless, sinking into the leather backseat as Dex’s guard starts to drive them away. 

The guard is quiet, doesn’t explain where they’re going or why, V has a feeling he wouldn’t tell even if she asked. So, she doesn’t. Only the radio drones on, a mixture of news and occasional pop music from bands and singers she doesn’t know or care to know; an anouncer coming over the radio to speak somberly. 

“Today marks the fifty-fourth anniversary of the attack on Arasaka Tower. Fifty-four years ago a group of terrorists stormed Arasaka Tower and detonated a bomb, which forever changed the history of our dear city. Devastating the lives of millions; thousands dying in the initial attack and more perishing in the aftermath as well. Today we ask for a moment of silence to remember those who lost their lives in this senseless act of violence so many years ago….:” 

A beat of silence, barely a moment, then the high energy voice returns. 

“Now, after this short music break, we return with the heartwarming story of Stumpy, the three legged puppy who’s gone viral after the use of  veterinary cyberware has given the pup a new lease on life!~” 

V rolls her eyes, sounds about right, barely a moment for something so somber. No real grief or empathy, time to move on to a cute puppy because that keeps people happy and listening.  She watches the city around her change, spotting the Valentino graffiti starting to cover the buildings and that they’re entering Heywood.  She sends a heads up text to Jackie, letting him know they’re not far from his house. 

A short moment after,  the driver is parking outside Jackie’s garage and she watches the older merc walking out. The guard opens the limousine back door and Jackie relaxes when he sees V, climbing into the seat next to her. 

“Hey, V, you figure out what’s going on?” 

“Was sort of hoping you had…” 

“Asked T-Bug, said it’s a surprise.” 

“Not sure I like Bug’s idea of surprises.” 

“Hey, hombre,” Jackie calls out to the guard as he starts to drive them away, “mind telling us where we’re headed?” 

They’re met with silence, because of they are. V nervously wrings her hands as she watches for signs of where they’re going based on the passing scenery. 

“Has to be something to do with prepping for the job, just wish I knew what.” 

“Speaking of which, you got the bot on you?” 

“Yeah, brought it just in case and if Bug’s there she’ll want to take a look. Wonder if there’s any chance of keeping the Flathead after this?” 

She knows Dex said it’s a single use toy, but...who knows, maybe she could somehow keep it afterwards. 

“Why’s that?” 

“Its cute.” 

“You think a military grade combat bot is cute?” 

“It's a little spider.” 

“You find the weirdest shit cute, I swear.” 

“It is cute!” 

“It’s-” Jackie looks out the window, “shit are we in Corpo Plaza?” 

“Maybe we’re just passing through?” 

As if only to prove her wrong, the limousine parks outside a store on Senate Avenue, the bright sign says Jinguji. Even looking through the window, it looks entirely like a place that her and Jackie do not belong. Brightly lit, immaculately clean with fancy designer clothes on display. 

“We’re here,” the guard tells them and the doors open with the press of a button. 

V and Jackie share a look before getting out of the limousine, standing before the Jinguji store like deers stuck in headlights. 

“Dex can’t be serious, Jinguji?” Jackie says, scratching at the shaved underneath of his hair. 

“Looks…. Fancy.” 

“Corp store, designer; a sock in there will cost you a few thousand eddies.” 

“I know he says we need to play corpo, but… I don’t know, it feels weird.”

“I’m sure Dex knows what he’s doing. But, uh,  you gotta take off the mask, chica.” 

“What, why?” 

“‘Cause its fucking Jinguji, they’re not gonna let you through the door looking like that.” 

“You’re one to talk, you got a ketchup stain on your shirt.” 

“Firstly, that’s blood. Secondly, you’re a wearing a jacket you stole off a dead guy last week.” 

“Not like he needs it!” 

“Jackie, V!” A voice yells out, drawing the merc’s attention into the doorway of the store, T-Bug in realspace, wearing a black netrunning suit, “would you gonks stop bickering and get in here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the mercs speak and sign in unison, falling the netrunner into the corp store.

There’s a large lit up advertisement at the back of the store. Gold decor dripping down from the ceiling, plush white couches, and an ice bucket with champagne. To her surprise, there’s no other shoppers within the store. A man in a tailored designer suit sits at the desk, greeting the two mercs as they walk in. 

“Welcome to Jinguji, an oasis of elegance!~” 

V gives an awkward nod and wave. She’s not sure what else to do. She doesn’t belong here; she knows that much. A dirty black leather jacket under the bright lights and old raggedy boots on shiny polished floors.  The merc wants nothing more than to run out of the store, some of the clothes she sees displayed are nice, if she’s being honest. A few bit tacky for her taste, but others are cute or sexy with dramatic flair, but nothing she would ever really have a reason to wear. 

“Mind telling us why the fuck we’re here, Bug?” Jackie asks and the netrunner chuckles. 

“To get into Konpeki, you two will have to look the part. Rather than blindly guessing what will fit, Dex is flitting the bill and getting you both some corpo threads,” T-Bug explains, taking a seat on on of the couches. 

“Where is everyone?” 

“Store is rented out for the next couple hours, discretion. V, did you bring the bot?” 

“Got it in my bag.” 

“Lemme see, got to make sure it’s in working shape.” V puts the bot down on the table, T-Bug opening the case and looking over the bot, running diagnostics that the merc can’t begin to understand,

“Right this way, you two, I’m sure we’ll find something perfect for both of you,” the man who greeted them, grabs their attention again, “but it would be easier,  if I have a full idea of your features, miss.” 

“Told you,” Jackie taunts and V elbows him in the side, slowly taking off her mask and she feels bare. And she knows people have seen her face before, but this is work and it just feels… wrong. 

“Wonderful, so we’ll begin with the gentlemen, I think you’ll find we have a wonderful array of fine suits in our men’s department.” 

The man, who’s fancy name tag says Zane, shows them a vast collection of suits. They range from slick classic black ones, deep navy blues, florals, brights, embroidered, and every color she can imagine. Its hard to imagine the big merc in any of them. She’s always seen him in muscle shirts or his favorite red and black jacket. His eyes seem to land on a red suit with gold detailing. 

“Well-” 

“Point is to blend in, not stand out, Jack,” T-Bug calls out, scolding him without having to even look at him or his choice in suit. 

“Just black then.” 

“Wise choice, sir, our tailors will get your measurements and get the perfect fit for you.” 

Another employee guides Jackie to a fitting room and V feels the sudden urge to sink into the ground, Zane’s attention now solely on her.  She scratches at her cheek and flips on her choker translator. 

“Now, what about you? We have plenty of formal options in women’s fashion as well. A more androgynous business suit or perhaps a dress?” 

She’s shown mannequins dressed in tight body con dresses with various necklines, materials, colors, and a few well fitted pants suits. Her eyes are drawn to the dresses, if she’s being honest. She has a rather small collection of skirts and dresses, for off days, but she never has a chance to wear anything more formal than a sundress or mini skirt over leggings. These dresses are dramatic, gorgeous; some with mesh inlays or cut outs. 

But, like Bug said;  they’re there to blend in, not stand out. This isn’t an outfit for fun but for work and if something goes wrong, the last thing she needs is this going to shit and having to battle in a tight constricting dress or too high of heels. 

“I think a pants suit in black would be best; keep it simple.” 

“Understood.” 

V taken to a fitting room, given the chance to put on the ready to buy pantsuits in privacy. A stark white button up blouse, black blazer, and black slacks. And she knows immediately it will need to be tailored to suit her; the pants longer than her legs and the shirt loose around her chest. The tailor comes in after a moment and begins measuring, marking where things need to be taken in and raised. V left trying not to get embarrassed each time the measuring tape is wrapped around a part of her.

“Is there a way to make the blazer sleeves easier to roll up?” She signs once her arms are done being measured. The material is stiffer and harder to get tight around her elbows when trying; she wants her Mantis Blades easily used.

“Hmm, lets see, maybe it’d be best to use it more like an accessory rather than wearing it properly?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, you could just wear it over your shoulders like a cape,” the woman drapes it that way across V’s shoulders. 

“Not my thing.” 

“Then you can carry it, like this,” the woman shows  holding the jacket back over her shoulder with her fingers hooked in it’s collar. It looks alright, casual enough, though having a jacket and not wearing it still reads as strange to the merc.

“I’ll consider that.” 

“It can also help keep you cool. Now, lets talk about makeup, hair, and shoes.” 

V listens and nods as the woman gives recommendations; getting V a pair of low heeled black synthetic leather shoes. Then going into advice on hair; recommending french twist, a bun, or a low ponytail depending on how formal V wants to go. The woman recommends simple classic makeup styles and a few other tips for the merc to meet her full corpo potential. Finally, with measurements, adjustments, and everything marked; V is allowed to change back into her street clothes. She leaves the room, seeing Jackie already in his regular clothes again and sitting next to T-Bug. 

“We have all the measurements down and will begin altering the clothes immediately.” 

“Good,” T-Bug confirms with Zane, “remember we need them finished and delivered to The Afterlife by five.” 

“I assure you, our tailors are already on it.” 

“V,” T-Bug calls out when she sees the short merc, “got something for you.” 

V sits down on the couch, watching as T-Bug sets out a pair of white hearing aids. They’re designed like her normal ones, just more boring. 

“Hearing aids? I already have those.” 

“These are special, optic camo. No corpo worth their salt has anything less than top of the line phonic implants, with press of a button or a thought, these will go invisible.. They’ll work just like your regular ones, but look like you’re wearing nothing. Try them out.” 

She switches her blue hearing aids with the new ones, they fit well and she pushes the thought of turning the camo on.  V catches her reflection in a mirror in the store, she can feel them, but see nothing. 

“Perfect, no one will be any the wiser. This also means no signing or translator.” 

“Oh, I see.” 

“I know its not ideal, but it’s just the reality of it. Corpo types like this; lose your hearing, new implants. Vocal chords fried, get a new set in gold. Get paralyzed, new legs or entire nervous system. Go blind, new optics. They see you signing or using hearing aids, you’ll stand out like a sore thumb.” 

“I get it.” 

“No sweat,  I’ll do the talking, V,” Jackie comforts her and then turns his attention to Bug, “So, what now?” 

“We’ll go over the full plan this evening at The Afterlife, you two need to be there by five. We’ll talk with Dex and you’ll be in Konpeki by eight tonight, relic in hand before midnight strikes.” 

“So we get to kick back and relax until five?” 

“As long as you’re there by five and ready to go, I couldn’t care less what you do, Jack.” 

“Said this place was rented out, right?” V asks, noticing a dramatic purple dress that reminds her of a certain tarot card reader’s favorite color.

“Yeah, why?” 

“How much longer is this place reserved?” 

“Another hour, maybe two and again, I ask why?” 

“Ow, hell that for, chica?” Jackie looks up when V kicks him in the shin. 

“Call Misty, dumbass. Buy her something nice, make a date out of it before we go on the job.”  V tells him, remembering Misty’s concerns from the other night. It might ease her mind a bit to have a nice afternoon with Jackie, dress shopping and a fancy lunch in City Center. Just a chance to enjoy themselves. 

“Dex is nice V, but sincerely doubt he wants to pay for Misty a new dress.” 

“Oh no, if only one of us had scammed ten grand off of Militech, oh wait,” V says, pulling the Militech credchip from her bag and sees the twinkle in Jackie’s eyes. 

“You serious, V?” 

“Should get her a hell of a nice dress, maybe you a suit, and a nice fancy lunch; play corpo for an afternoon.” 

“Shit, V,” he takes the credchip from her fingers, “what’d I do without you?” 

“You two are going to make me puke,” T-Bug says, rolling her eyes while Jackie is already calling up Misty. 

“Just wait until Misty gets here and the constant pet names start,  you’ll really lose your lunch.” 

“Ugh, more reason to get out of here, I’ll be taking the Flathead with me to keep in working shape.” 

“Can I ask you something before you go?”

“Got more code you need me to check?” 

“Not quite, had an issue with my SID chip last night, was wondering if there was a chance I was hacked?” 

“You get spiked, jaina?” Jackie asks when he finishes chatting with Misty. 

“Don’t know, couldn’t unlock my door last night, reader thought I was some old dude.” 

“Hmm, SID hacks are tricky, we’re going to be using one for your covers in Konpeki. But they usually only alter your ID a bit and die after so many hours. Thing is, that wouldn’t really benefit anyone.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, I don’t think anyone would get much out of pretending I’m some ninety year old dead fuck.” 

“I can jack in, see if I find anything in your soft.” 

“Sure, if you don’t mind.” 

V shifts her back to T-Bug, sweeping her hair off the nape of her neck and showing her neuroports. The netrunner pushes some loose strands out of the way and slots her personal jack into V’s biomon. A few moments pass and V can feel her cheeks flushing a bit, a weird feeling to having T-Bug directly touch her and jack in to her tech. This is the first time they’ve met in person, may even be the first time Bug has seen her face. 

“Everything looks clear to me, SID is registering as yours, no signs of a hack,” Bug explains, jacking out. 

“Weird, maintenance guy showed last night it was showing as some dead guy.” 

“Strange, must be some sort of glitch.” 

“Or you’re being haunted.” 

“Haha, very funny, Jackie.” 

“Hello… “ 

A soft voice calls out and V lights up seeing Misty poking her head into the fancy luxury store, looking every bit as nervous as V had been. Jackie is up and rushing towards Misty in a heart beat, pulling her into a hug and twirling her around, kissing her head. 

“You’re here, mi carina.” 

“Babe,” Misty says, giggiling as she’s put back down on her feet, then steps up on her tip toes to kiss Jackie’s lips. 

“Gonna puke,” T-Bug comments low under her breath and V tries not to laugh. 

“V, Bug,” Misty smiles at the two, “glad I got here before you two left out.” 

“What’s up?” 

Jackie walks Misty over closer to them, large hand on her hip as she rummage through her purse. After a moment, she pulls out three beaded bracelets. A mixture of beads in black, gold, and blue mottled with gold. T-Bug is already raising her eyebrow and V’s not sure how well Misty’s spiritualism will go over with the runner. 

“These are protection bracelets. Lapis lazuli, black tourmaline, and gold sheen obsidian. They’re all meant to help with creating a protective spiritual barrier, it should keep you all safe from negative energies and frequencies.” 

“Ay, you still in knots over this, mi alma?” 

“It would just make me feel better knowing you have a little more protection, babe.” 

Misty slides the biggest of the bracelets onto Jackie’s wrist and he gives her a soft smile, kissing her temple before starts to give the others to V and Bug. The young merc slides it on with a smile and T-Bug takes it in hand, with a less enthusiasm. 

“Thanks, Misty, I appreciate it,” V tells her and elbows T-Bug in the side, earning her a glare, but the netrunner plays nice. 

“Thanks…” 

“I know it’s not much, but a little protection is better than none and should keep energies bright.” 

“Right….” 

“Well,” V cuts in before Bug can say anything else, “we’ll be getting out of your hair, have fun you two!~” 

“Thanks again, V, see you two at The Afterlife.” 

Jackie waves them off, Bug packing up and V putting her usual hearing aids in their case, away in her pocket. The runner and young merc leave the store, Dex’s guard already left a while ago, so V will have to either call her car or use the public transit. Come to think of it, she’s not sure how she’s going to kill time until its game time. 

“V,” Bug stops her outside Jinguji before they go their separate ways for now, “gotta ask, you really believe in that spiritual crap?” 

“No, but she does and it makes her happy, so, why not?”

“I guess, if she really thinks a bracelet is going to save us from Arasaka.” 

“Won’t kill you to accessorize a little, Bug.” 

“Whatever you say.” 

They say their goodbyes and V is left thinking again about what she wants to do to pass the time. She could do a few short gigs, but her mind is preoccupied with the heist. Ultimately, V finds herself taking the NCART to El Coyote Cojo. Mostly just because she’s bored and maybe something or someone there will occupy her time.  The bar isn’t too active at the early hour and she doesn’t see Mama Welles around. 

“V!” Pepe greets her when she walks through. 

“Hey, what’s up?” 

“Same old, same old. Jaquito is still out, Senora Welles is out shopping, but Jake is taking out the trash in the back if you want to say hi.” 

“I think I might go and do just that.” 

Playing grab ass with one of her go to lays seems like a solid way to waste her time. V walks through the bar and out one of the backdoors that open to the alley with the dumpster. Sure enough, Jake is there tossing away a trash bag. He’s around 6’5 about as tall as Jackie, muscular, with a head of ginger hair shaved down on the shades and a thick beard. 

She throws her arms around his waist, feeling the muscle underneath his shirt. He teases his fingers over her forearms, the chrome of his Gorilla Fingers cyberware sending a soft chill through her skin. 

“Hey, V, new chrome?” He runs over the chrome patterns in her arms. 

She hums against his back in response, not wanting to move. But, he twists in her arms. He cups her face in chromed fingers, for a moment, his browns furrow in confusion. 

“No hearing aids?” 

She pulls away, enough space for her to sign. 

“Camouflage ones, it and the blades are necessary for the gig.” 

“Oh yeah, Jackie’s been talking everyone to death about this heist you two got planned. He better be damn glad no one here’s got loose lips.” His hands drop from her face and loosely wrap around her waist, fingers starting to graze over her ass. 

“Can’t blame him for being excited.” 

“Hmmm and you?” 

“Nervous.” 

“Figured as much,” he squeezes her ass, “you looking for a distraction?” 

“If I wasn’t I wouldn’t be letting you grope my ass in broad daylight, now would I?” 

A low dry chuckle echoes in his chest and he dives in for a kiss. It’s quick and rough, his beard scratching over her skin before he pulls away. She can’t help but giggle as he pulls her back into the bar, hand still shamelessly on her ass. 

“Pepe! I’m going on lunch break!” 

“Yeah yeah, go on.” 

“C’mon,” Jake guides her out of the bar, “lemme at least buy you lunch first.” 

“You actually trying to be nice today?” 

“Something like that.” 

V settles into his passenger side seat as Jake climbs behind the wheel. They pull away from El Coyote Cojo, driving around Heywood and finding a drive in to go through, Burgers, fries, and pop bought; Jake finds a relatively empty place to park meanwhile V has already begun taking the pickles off her burgers. 

“So, you wanna actually talk about it?” Jake asks, taking a bite of his burger. 

“Not much to talk about,” she signs with salt covered fingers and a mouthful of fries, “biggest job of our career. Nerves are natural.” 

Not to mention the shady client, the fact they’re robbing Arasaka, the fact they’re robbing Yorinobu specifically, the fact they have to play corpo, that V will have to force herself not to sign, and that every fiber of her being is screaming that something  is going to go wrong. Then she has the weirdness of her SID chip fucking up on her mind as well. 

“Yeah, but you overthink, so I know that little brain of yours is spinning in a billion directions.” 

V shrugs, “No more than usual, so,  what’s been going on with you?” 

“Not much, been thinking of quitting the bar.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, get to work the day shift so I can pick the twins up from school and spend some time with them. But, day shift in a bar basically means staring at a wall and waiting for Senora Welles to cut me a paycheck.” 

“You don’t like getting paid to sit around and look pretty?” 

“Not gonna lie, it’d be hard to find a boss as forgiving as Senora Welles.” 

“Not every boss would let you take an hour or longer lunch just to play grab ass with me?” 

“Eh, pretty sure if she knew what I was doing with her precious adopted daughter, she’d already have me fired.” 

“Oh please, she’s known you longer than me.” 

“Yeah, but she likes you more, you’re basically her kid and I’m her employee,” he pauses watching V roll her eyes, “you know, she’s been worrying a lot about you and Jackie, lately. She knows things are getting riskier with the merc work and-” 

V quiets him with a kiss, not wanting to hear another word of this. She comes to him for a distraction. The kiss is messy and he tastes like greasy fast food, but she’s sure she’s not any better, pushing her tongue into his mouth. She cups his jaw with one hand, scratching over his beard and as he deepens the kiss, she drops her other hand into his lap. He’s already half hard in his jeans, pressing into her touch as she gropes him through the denim. Jake curses against her lips, breaking their kiss. 

“You talk too much, honey,” she chastises him, a soft smile on her lips as she undoes his belt buckle, he lifts his hips, allowing  space to pull his pants and boxer down just enough to get his cock out. 

She pulls her legs up into her seat, on her knees so she can fully lean over the center console into his lap. V pushes hair back behind her ear and takes his dick into her mouth; not bothering to tease, swallowing around him. The taste of him on her tongue causes a heat in her center to stir, getting slick between her thighs as she bobs her head up and down. He groans as she strokes and sucks him, teasing her tongue ring along the head of his cock. The bitterness of his precum and the salt of his skin making her dizzy with need. 

His chrome fingers slide across the expanse of her back, reaching out to grab her ass. He gropes and fondles her through her pants, the rough feeling of her jeans and panties being pressed against her sensitive wet folds. Jake curses as V alternates between sucking, licking, and taking him as deep into her throat as she can. 

He tugs on her hair, bleached strands wrapped around chrome, pulling her mouth off him. Drool covering his cock and her lips. She pouts at him for stopping her, cheeks flushed and breathing heavy.  He gives her a swat on the ass, barely hard enough to sting. 

“Want inside of you.” 

That’s all the explanation he gives and she pulls away, thankful that the windows of his car have steamed from body heat, she begins to quickly strip off her clothes. Its clumsy as she tries to strip down in a car seat, throwing her jacket off into the back, kicking off her boots, before yanking her pants and panties down in one fluid movement. She curses herself for not wearing a skirt or something with easier access. A part of her mind recognizes how stupid she must look, still in her shirt, bra, and her socks staying on after tugging off her pants. But lust has killed her ability to think, just wanting him inside of her. Jake has rolled a condom on, but otherwise has simply watched the flustered merc strip down. 

V’s easily able to jump into his lap, straddling him and having her back to the steering wheel. She steadies herself with one hand on his shoulder, the other lining his cock up with her entrance, sinking herself down onto his dick. She’s slick enough that she takes him all in one movement, both cursing out at the feeling. The stretch of his cock inside of her and the tightness of her cunt around him. Jake digs his nails into her hips and bounces her on his cock, fucking up into her. He takes complete control, setting a brutal pace that leaves V reeling with every thrust. All she can do is wrap her arms around his neck and moan against his sweaty skin, accepting each harsh movement of him inside of her. 

The tension inside of her grows tighter with every thrust, every smack of skin against skin like a strike of a match trying to grow a larger flame. She can’t think, can’t focus, every thought consumed with pleasure and a desire to be pushed over the edge. Bruises form on her hips where he hold her, where he uses her for pleasure. The chair of his cheap car creaks with each bounce and a few thrusts slams her lower back into the steering wheel, but she doesn’t care, couldn’t if she tried. She whines and whimpers against his skin, feeling her end nearing. 

And then the tension snaps, orgasm hitting her fast and hard, she digs her nails into his skin, squirming and writhing as she moans out her pleasure. Mind a haze as she’s overwhelmed with her pleasure. He thrusts a few more times and she nearly chokes at the continued stimulation, the feeling of him fucking into her already sensitive cunt. Then he curses, bringing her hips down fully to meet his own one last time before he cums, spilling his seed inside the condom. 

V rolls off of him and back into the passenger seat, hating the empty feeling  Her skin is sweaty and flushed, as much she hates it, she needs to get her clothes back on. Fumbling to get her pants and panties out of the passenger side floorboard. Pulling them on and shoving her feet in her boots. V waits as Jake ties off the condom and adjusts his jeans, opening the car door and tossing the condom away into a nearby dumpster. 

The Night City air feels cool compared to the heat of the car after fucking, she watches him light up a cigarette outside of the car and grimaces. He climbs back into the driver's seat, keeping the window rolled down and she makes a gagging sound as the smoke hits her nose. 

“You coming back to the bar with me?” He asks, blowing smoke out of the window. 

“No,” she signs, thankful the choker translator can survive sweat, “I’ll catch the train back to Watson.” 

“Let strangers see you sweaty and fuck-dazed?” 

“Well, it’s a good look for me.” 

“Can’t really deny that, now can I.” 

She rolls her eyes and grabs her jacket getting out of the car, walking away on still slightly wobbly legs. V takes the train back to Watson, fiddling with her holophone the entire way. The merc gets off at the stop closest to her megabuilding and makes her way to her apartment; lock recognizing her on the first try. 

V checks the time and decides to get ready to go to The Afterlife. Those nerves she had managed to fuck away for a moment creep up on her all over again. She shakes her head not wanting to focus on her anxieties, she strips down and grabs a shower, cleaning off the sweat from her liaison. 

The merc pulls her hair back in a small low-set ponytail and does her makeup to the recommendations of the stylist. She gets dressed and uses the new camouflaged hearing aids, she takes her mask with her too. Though she knows she can’t wear it into Konpeki, she’ll still be walking into The Afterlife. That thought alone twists her guts into nervous knots. 

The Afterlife is the go to bar for the top of their game, Major Leagues mercs and fixers. It’s where the biggest deals are made, the easiest place to catch a drink and a job, but only mercs or fixers of a certain standard are allowed through its doors. Jackie brags about the place like it’s heaven for mercenaries. If they’re going to become regular fixtures of the bar after this, then she’d prefer to maintain her usual level of anonymity for fixers moving forward. She’ll drop the mask when they’re finally in corpo threads. 

V slides on Misty’s bracelet as well, fiddling with the beads meant to provide some form of protection. Her mind goes back to Misty’s tarot card reading, while she doesn’t put much weight on it, her friend’s fortune telling often sticks with her. The Wheel of Fortune is sticking out to her; she could care less if the cards thinks she’s stupid or if she’s about to fall in love, the latter of which so ridiculous she can’t help but dismiss it. But the idea of conflict sticks out, fear of the heist going wrong has been heavy on her mind. Something always goes slightly wrong, no job is perfect. But this has the highest stakes she’s ever encountered. 

V has new cyberware, the best possible tech and upgrades from Vik. She has Jackie, her best choom and partner in crime who’s never let her down. There’s T-Bug, her friend and brilliant netrunner who could bring half of Night City down if she wished. Their fixer is Dex, one of the best in regards to his job, he has everything to gain by having their backs covered. They have military grade tech and an inside look into Konpeki. They are going in under the best possible circumstances. 

She has to remind herself, review this again and again, that if something goes wrong someone there should be able to take care of it. But, those nerves don’t fade even as she leaves her apartment. 

The Afterlife isn’t far from V’s apartment, practically a hop and skip downtown. Barely five minutes pass before she’s under the roofed alley, nearing the club. Vivid cyan and purple graffiti across the wall, trash along the way.

“Porque ya tengo planes para esta noche!" 

The voice is familiar, Jackie’s and V pressed her back to the side of the vending machine, he’s telling someone he already has plans for tonight. He sounds frustrated, like he’s on the verge of pulling his hair out. 

“Virgen Santsima, ma! Te vas a enterar mañana,” a beat of silence, “también te quiero, ma."

The conversation ways on her, he’s talking to Senora Welles. Remembering Jake talking about her feelings, that the matriarch has been worrying herself half to death. And it sounds like Jackie has been on the receiving end of that worry for a while.  V pulls her mask on and rounds the corner past the vending machine, stepping in front of the main entrance of The Afterlife. Her friend standing in the doorway under the harsh green light. 

“Heh, about time, chica,” he greets, tucking his phone into his pocket, she catches the blue of Misty’s bracelet mingled with his usual gold ones. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Ehhh, y'know. She's worried about me - whatever. Can't help herself, y'know - checkin’ to see if I'm not rottin' in some dumpster… like most of the Welles boys. Been worse lately.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“Started climbin' our way up. Got more an' more knives out there, waitin' to stab us in the back. Higher stakes, higher risk. She can see that.” 

“Look like you’re about to keel over.” V reaches out, touching the red blotches on his skin, stress and sweat inflaming his skin. 

“Years of merc work, and yet,  still sweat like a roasted pig when I talk to my ma. It's really startin' to wear on me. More tell her everythin's OK, more I feel like I'm straight-up lyin’.”

“Well, hopefully you had a nice date with Misty at least.” 

“Went about as well as talking to my ma right now,” he scratches at the back of his neck, “for two women who don’t get along, they sure agree when it comes to worrying about me.” 

“They worry because they love you, worse things in life than people giving a damn about you.” 

“Yeah, yeah, don’t matter none. Not anymore, Afterlife, here we come, baby!” 

Jackie changes the topic and she can’t really blame him for it, rubbing his hands together and practically cheering in excitement. This is everything they’ve talked about, everything they’ve said they want. So, why does she still have a lump in her throat? 

“Afterlife… we’re really here.” 

“Does not get any higher, choom. And you know somethin' else? We fuckin' earned it, chica!” 

“No point in standing around then, is there?’ 

“Ready to get your cherry popped?” he laughs leading her into the club, “Yeeeah! Come on!”

“Little late for that one, Jack,” she teases as they make their way down the stairs, a pair of double doors opening up for them. A short step down into a small hallway with mercs and fixers alike talking under the green glow of a sign bearing the club’s name. 

“Place used to be a morgue - you believe that?”

“Really?” 

“I know, right? Way before our time, that. When proper burials were still a thing.”

They come to another set of doors, through the small window V can see the true club main room beyond them. But a man stands guarding them, around Jackie’s height and a similar bulky build. Cyberware indented along his jawline and nose. His face is stony, eyes sharp when Jackie and V stop before him, then he puts a large hand out in front of him. 

“And who might you clowns be?”

“Jackie and V,” the taller of the mercs says with a grin, “Dexter Deshawn is waitin’ on us.” 

The bouncer gives them a look and V is glad for her mask helping hide her emotions. His expression is dismissive, looking down on them, making her feel all at once that she has not earned her place in this club. A baby merc, new to the city, barely six months under her belt and she’s standing at the Afterlife. How the fuck did she get here? 

“Yo, Dex. Got two live ones sayin' they're here to see ya,” his optics glow as he calls Dex, “Yeah? All right, then. Says he needs a second or two. Go get yourselves drinks or somethin'.”

The doors open to a green and cyan lit club. Music louder as the barrier breaks away, people fill the room. Some sipping on alcohol and other’s puffing away on cigarettes; the smell of nicotine and booze wafting from the bar. 

“Way ahead o' you, viejo,” Jackie laughs and leads the way in. 

V follows him around the corner; the large bar coming into full view. It’s lit green, the same neon sign reading Afterlife at the top of it. A bartender in a blue button up slings drinks to the patrons. Floor to ceiling columns, like tubes, are places around the club each filled with water with a dancer twirling around inside with strategically place chrome clothing covering the most private parts of them. Everything is basked in that green neon light, despite being surrounded by mercs like her, she feels so completely out of place. 

Jackie marches proudly across the bar floor, stride confident and unwavering. 

“This is it… The heart o' Night City! That's it right there - beating. Hear it?” he proclaims as they pass by rows of half closed off booths, “Can you imagine? Susan Forrest, Boa Boa, maybe even Morgan Blackhand… All sat on those stools, fell asleep on that same bar.”

Jackie sits in one of the barstools, beaming and brimming with excitement. His eyes wide as he takes it all in, the place he’s dreamed of for all his years. V climbs into the seat next to him, placing an elbow on the bar, leaning her head onto her hand, as she shifts to face him. 

“Doubt that puts us in the same league as them,” V teases, Morgan Blackhand brought down Arasaka Tower. They’re stealing a biochip, hardly the same thing. 

“Oh, but we are. They just don't know it yet,” Jackie tells her with a wink and she can’t help but roll her eyes. 

“We-” 

V drops her hand when she realizes Jackie’s attention has gone elsewhere, an older woman walking past the two. She’s nothing unusual, older looking than most of the crowd here, sure but nothing immediately stands out to V. An older woman with long gray hair shaved on one side and a bright yellow cropped sweater, She marches her way across the bar and into a blue lit booth, moving past a guard.  

“'Ey. See that old lady there?”

“Yeah, didn’t know grannies were your type,” V taunts him again, he’s always given her shit for her taste in older people, yet he’s ogling some grandma? 

“Fuck off,” he playfully smacks her, but nearly knocks her from her chair, “that’s fuckin’ Rogue, best fixer in all o' Night City.” 

“Thought Dex was the best?” 

“Pff… Rogue was linin' up jobs when Dex was still shittin' in diapers, heh. Place belongs to her.”

“What can I getcha?” The bartender cuts in, hands down on the bar in front of them. She’s a woman with long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and a soft round face. 

V doesn’t drink on the job, something she’s always stuck to. But, this is Jackie’s dream and she knows how he likes to celebrate. If nothing else, their banter has failed to undo her nerves, maybe booze will do the trick. 

“You order,” she signs to Jackie and he grins. 

“You drinkin’?” 

“Special night, pick me something nice.” 

“Two Tequila Old Fashioneds with a splash of cerveza and a chili garnish.”

“A duo of Johnny Silverhands, comin' up,” the bartender starts to put the drinks together, “somebody did their homework.” 

“Guessing the dog ate mine,” V signs, confused because what the fuck is a silver hand?

“Age-old tradition. Drinks're named after our regulars,” she explains, putting the drinks down in front of the mercs. 

“What’d I have to do to get a drink named after me?” 

“Snuff it,” she grins, “ In mind-blowingly spectacular fashion, Mid-op'd be best.”

“Aah, what a beaut of a tradition!”

“Steep price for a drink, not going to lie,” V signs, letting her nerves speak for her, if only for a moment. Her guts are in knots, she can only hope the alcohol will untangle. All of the merc’s usual stress relieving tactics other than a weed brownie, have failed to do much of anything.

“Hey, everyone's gotta go sometime, right? Why not in style? Death’s nothing but the final flourish!” 

“To hitting the major leagues,” she signs, holding her shot in the other hand.

“To becoming legends.” 

She pushes her mask just up above her mouth, careful not to smudge her lipstick and  they throw back their shots. Smooth but strong booze with a kick of spice from the garnish, a burn in her throat. Not her style, but she’s had worse. She pushes her mask back down, regarding the bartender, her nametag says Claire. 

“So, who else can I drink here?” She still has no idea who Silverhand is, but maybe there’s a name she does recognize, reading the posted drink menu. 

“All on the menu…”  

“'Cept there's a spot missing. Morgan Blackhand, right?”

“Heh,  true. Morgan's yet to make up his mind he's dead or still kickin',” Claire tells Jackie and V rolls her eyes. 

“Think he’s still alive? It’s been years,” Jackie asks Claire. 

“No way he’s still alive,.” The radio was just talking about the devastation of the tower going down, if that many folks were killed who were just near it, then there’s no way someone who was in the tower survived. 

“Why not? Look at Rogue. Peeps from that era - a species unto themselves.”

“And one day we’re gonna be there too,” Jackie probably proclaims, “speaking of which, name’s Jackie Welles if you want to write down my recipe.” 

“Sure.” There’s a playfulness in her tone, just going along with Jackie’s whims. 

“Shot of vodka on the rocks, lime juice, ginger beer… oh, and most importantly - a splash of love.”

“Haha, I'll remember that.”

“Gag,” V signs just to see the glare Jackie levels her way, the playful smack of her arm. 

“Okay, what’s your drink then?” 

“Literally, the only thing I drink is like cherry cola with a splash of bourbon.” 

“You know those are usually supposed to be reversed, the bourbon and coke.” 

“Maybe so, but, and hear me out… cherry cola tastes better.”  

“Heard you were Dex’s latest finds,” Claire tells them. 

“Just biz, no big deal.”

“How'd you know?” V raises an eyebrow behind her mask. 

“My job to know. Look around - how do you think meres earn their reps? Through gossip rivaling that of schoolgirls, that's how.”

“Mr. DeShawn see you now,” a booming voice rings out behind the mercs, turning around she sees Dex’s bodyguard. The first time she’s heard his voice. 

“Love to hang, imbibe the vibe, but we got an important meeting,” Jackie tells Claire, getting up from his seat and V following suit, throwing some cash down on the bar. 

“Break a leg.” 

“This way,” the bodyguard tells them and the mercs falls in line behind him. He leads them around the bar, past the crowd and through a door towards the back of the club. The lighting shifting, more blue than green as they walk past another vending machine. 

“Damn, holmes, you're huge... Work out?” Jackie asks, unable to stand the silence. 

“Hmm.” A vague grunt as they pass through another door, the music fading as they get further from the main bar. But V can just hear the starting beat of some old dad rock, something about losing another day to pointless drudgery. 

“Same here, y'know, in the ring. You do some kinda exotic shit? Kempo? Ninjitsu?”

Nothing as they turn another corner. 

“Think you could take me, drop me?”

“Jackie…” Why must he sound like he’s picking a fight with the guy?

“In here,” the guard says, stopping and standing in front of another door. 

"Este pinche tipo..."

The door opens and they’re greeted to the first room with warm lighting, though it just seems to be a storage corner. With a cabinet and vending machine. But to the left are barely see through walls of a booth that takes up half the room, through them V can just see T-Bug’s outline and leather couches. 

They walk around, the front of the booth opened. A wrap around black leather couch goes around the back wall and left side of the booth. Dex sat on the back portion, talking into a holo about Excelsior and cold hard eddies. T-Bug sat to side, a table in the center of the room with the Flathead, Jinguji boxes, and shards placed on neat little index cards. There’s a small disconnect leather seat in the right corner, next to the door. 

“Gotta bounce,” Dex hangs up, “well, if it ain’t Miss V.” 

“Whole family in one place! Hah! Finally!”

“That’s one way to put it,” T-Bug teases and a shine of blue catches V’s eye, the netrunner wearing Misty’s bracelet. She can’t help but smile. 

“A’ight, then… Set your butts down comfy,” Dex tells them. Jackie plops himself onto the larger couch next to T-Bug, comfortably spreading his arms over the back of it while V takes the smaller seat, putting her at an angle to see everyone.  She stifles a laugh, seeing Jackie’s leg excitedly bounce up and down. 

“Sweet booth, is it soundproof?” 

“Jackie…” T-Bug scolds and V stifles a laugh. 

“Now, now, Mr. Welles is right. We gon' be goin' over some sensitive material. But if it's all right with y'all, I'd like to start with a question for Miss V… Evelyn Parker - how'd you fare?”

All eyes on her, stomach still twisted in a vise, this is her chance. She’s got to tell him, but she doesn’t want Evelyn hurt. Some fixers will go to any length to get revenge on a client or merc who does them dirty. But, he’s got a right to know the shit she pulled. 

“Intel was good, brain dance was exactly what we needed….” 

“So, she just wanna see wha'ss good, or was there somethin' else?”

“Honestly?” 

“Wouldn’t ask for anything else, Miss V.” 

“She’s high risk as far as clients go. Shady as fuck, naïve as all hell, and genuinely thought she could make me another offer.” 

“Another offer?” Dex’s brow raises about his sunglasses. 

“Wanted me to cut you out for more cash, told her no, of course. But, wouldn’t do business with her again, if I were you.” 

“Cut me out… shiiiit, now that’s rich,” Dex laughs, Jackie nervously laughing along, “Clients... never learn, do they?” 

“You’re not pissed?” 

“Lived in NC too long to blow my top every time some amateur thinks they can take me for a ride. Parker ain't the first and sure as hell won't be the last.”

“Fair enough,” V lets out a sigh, thankful if nothing else that Dex doesn’t seem prone to getting too mad at Evelyn. Maybe she’s being too kind, but she can’t help but think Evelyn is more naive than malicious when it comes to the offer. A stranger to the merc world. 

“I do appreciate you sharin' this info, though, Miss V. You see, trust… …is essential in any partnership that's to be long-lasting and fruitful.”

“Figured you had a right to know, so, what’s the plan?” 

“This.”

Dex gestures towards the shards on the table, V takes the one in front of her and slides it into her shard slot.  UI and graphics lighting up her mask, a map pulling up on the tech. 

“Me and Dex've already covered the fine detes. Ops wise, should be a stroll on the beach.”

“Elaborate, I wanna hear it.” 

“A Delamain'll drop your asses at the front door of Konpeki Plaza,” a picture of the hotel shows,  then two names, “You'll stroll right in thanks to your false identities. Then, with Bug's help, you'll breach the hotel's subnet…”

“Mine and the Flathead's help.” Images of the hotel’s interior and the bot flash by. 

“Last but not least, you slip into Yorinobu's penthouse and klep the Relic,” his words bring up images of the heir and his suite.

“Goes without sayin' we do this on the hush - ideally no bodies, not a one.” The shard shows them The Relic and then blips out. 

“You'll have T-Bug on comms for the duration. Time for your burnin' questions.”

“What’s our cover?” V asks, they’ve been told a thousand times they’ll be acting like corpos, but that’d be hard to do if they have no idea what their story is suppose to be. 

“Hello, Ramón Victorino,” T-Bug looks at Jackie and then to V, “and you’re Hannah Conwell.” 

“Ramón - yeah, OK. What do we say we're there for?”

“Biz as usual. Corpo arms deal. Case anyone asks, you there for a bogus meetin' with Arasaka's defense rep - Hajime Taki. Anything else?”

“How do we get in the penthouse?”

“Yorinobu's got barely any muscle. Hardest part'll be penthouse security. If we wanna disable, we'll need to neutralize Konpeki's dweller - elite ‘runner monitoring the hotel's subnet twenty-four seven. Only catch is there's no way to get in the dweller's den from the outside.”

“Hold on, how you want us to get inside a room you can't get into?”

“Trust me when I say whatever hitch you think up. T-Bug's solved it already”

“This is where the Flathead comes in. You'll have to get him in the ventilation shafts, guide him to the dweller and force the dweller to… take a break. Flathead'll stay there, jacked into the dweller, but thanks to that I’ll be able to roll out your red carpet into the penthouse.”

“Anything else?”

“Transports a Delamain?” She has no idea if the company has an ASL sign like most other corporations and doesn’t have time to think of one on the fly. 

“Preemest cab company in all Night City… Nada mal,” hackie tells her. 

“DeShawn don't ever work with anyone but the best. I consider Delamain just that.”

“Yeah, who needs creepy, nosy cab drivers when you've got a clean AI to get you from point A to point B in style?”

“And how he bags a permit to operate every year's still a mystery.”

“If everythin' goes as planned, Delamain'll drop you back here. If things get sticky, he'll head for the safe house.”

“Which is?”

“The No-Tell Motel. Quiet, no questions asked. Make our next move from there. But I'm flat certain that won't be necessary. Though, there is one more consideration for if it does.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Hate to put you on the spot, Miss V,” Dex explains, “but if shit goes sour, I’m gonna need to know who I’m letting into the hotel. Mask can’t go with to Konpeki, so I’d sure feel a hell of a lot better if I knew what was hiding behind that thing.” 

“Oh… yeah, that makes sense.”  

Even if she’d have Jackie with her when shit goes down,  Dex is trusting her with this heist. The least she can do is trust him to see her face and not write her off or sell her out to The Herd if the chance arised. Not that she can see that happening anyway… 

“Don’t even know why you wore the thing in, V,” Jackie teases. 

“Well, there are other fixers here, didn’t want to give away my face…” 

V carefully pulls off her mask, feeling exposed all over again, a new set of eyes on her face. The merc knows how she looks; five feet with a head of bleach blonde hair and big gray eyes. Not the picture one conjures in their mind when they think of a capable, strong, badass merc. Sprinkle in her disability and the reactions to her deafness; most people think she’s not a threat, weak. 

“That what you’ve been hiding behind that mask? All that fuss, for what?” Dex laughs. 

“Hard to take,” she stumbles over her English trying to sign at the same time, “be taken- seriously sometimes when you’re five foot nothing, deaf, and look like…” 

“Gutterpunk Barbie,” Jackie cuts in to tease, earning him a sharp kick to the shin. 

“Fuck off.” 

“Trust me, Miss V, you pull off this job; ain’t nobody in their right mind gonna underestimate you” 

“That’s the hope...”

“Any other questions?” 

“I got a question. When do we get to the real reason we're all here?” Jackie asks, shooting a wink V’s way. 

“Now's a good a time as any. Fresh talent gets thirty percent always, but I'm willin' to make an exception in your case. I'ma cut you a nice, juicy forty as a bonus for your honesty, V.”

“Much appreciated.” 

“Ka-ching baby!~” 

“Last thing, Konpeki's got a strict no-iron policy. Security gates, the works. So you dawgs'll leave your lead-spitters in the ride, take the Flathead inside in its case.”

“Got your suits from Jinguji on the table.” 

“¡Chido!”

“Thanks, Bug.” 

“So, not to count chickens, but when'll we see our eddies?”

“All depends how Ms. Parker unrolls herself or her role, but a week, two tops is my guess.”

“And what do we do in the mean time?” 

“You sit tight, heads down, 'cause ol' uncle Arasaka be watching. Now, as that ol’ Greek dawg says, life's a banquet - so don't go thirsty, but don't get drunk, either,” he tells them as he leaves the booth, “Your chariot awaits outside.”

“My cue to delta, too. Gotta prep to jack in, be there when you come on comms. Any other issues, now's your chance,” T-Bug tells them, shifting her feet and something catches V’s eye. Delta V emblazoned on the netrunner’s boots, was that there before?

“Plan - your take?” V shakes the thought from her head, must be a brand or a runner thing V doesn’t know.

“Enough, I hope, to put me in a luxury Creton Villa from which I'll never set foot in cyberspace again.”

“Send me a postcard?” 

“No offense, but I'm gonna burn any and all bridges - need a clean break.”

“Gonna take Misty’s bracelet with you?” Jackie teases, grinning because he caught it too. 

“Shut up,” she tells him, rolling her eyes. 

“Uh, just realized something, what’s gonna happen to our clothes? I don’t want to lose my mask…” 

“No worries, put them in the boxes, we’ll have ‘em sent back to your places.” 

“Alright then, lets get this show on the road.” 

“Let's get to work, go ahead and get changed, Delamain is parked out front, uh, okay-”Bug starts to trip over her words when the two mercs start taking off their jackets, “you can use the bathrooms.” 

“Eh,”

Jackie and V shrug their shoulders, the outfits are right there. Not much point in dragging them out to the bathroom. The pair shared a bedroom for the better half of six months, a room with one bed. They’ve seen each other naked plenty, boundaries destroyed a long while back. 

“Why do I bother,” T-Bug rolls her eyes and leaves the booth, letting the pair change. 

V kicks off her boots and takes off her socks, Jackie tugging off his jewelry first. 

“So, you’re nerves still going crazy?” Jackie asks her as she tugs off her shirt, his own tossed off. 

“What do you mean?”  She tugs off her pants, both mercs soon standing around in their underwear. 

“Can’t hide that shit from me, chica, been giving me twice as much hell as usual. You’re freaking out.” 

“High stakes, Jack, of course I’m a nervous mess. Means I give a shit.” 

She pulls the slack on and tugs on the white blouse, buttoning it up. The two of them putting on the corpo clothes, similar in look. Black slacks, white button up tops, black suit jackets, and Misty’s beaded bracelets for protection. Each perfectly tailored for their body types. 

“Don’t sweat it so much, V, we got this.” He sticks his fist out. 

“Sure fuckin’ hope so.” She bumps her fist to his. 

Their street clothes are packed away in the boxes, V puts in her optic contacts and slide on her heels, then they start to make their way out of the booth. But, Jackie stops her with a hand on her shoulder and he taps his throat. She catches on taking off her choker translator, neck feeling bare and odd without the tech. With that they leave out through the club, Jackie carrying the Flathead case and the smaller merc keeps her head down as best she can. Her stomach still in knots as they spot the Delamain in the parking lot. 

Her life is about to change forever; hopefully for the best. She’s on the cusp of having everything she’s wanted since she’s come to the city. The verge of earning the respect of everyone in this city and finally feeling like she’s someone, like she’s done something. 

So, why does she feel like she’s about to puke?

[2460nodone]

Trophies

Title: Trophies Category: Plays/Musicals » Les Misérables Author: AliceInSomewhereland Language: English, Rating: Rated: T Genre: Drama/Romance Published: 05-19-13, Updated: 05-19-13 Chapters: 1, Words: 3,671

Summary: They meet on their respective fields - his, baseball, and hers, soccer - and it changes everything. Enjonine modern AU for the Fic War on tumblr! Oneshot, rated T for language.

originally written for the e/e fic war and posted to ffnet. prompted with “soccer AU, baseball AU” by tumblr user samthenardier.

Chapter 1/1

He's not quite sure when he first noticed her.

Perhaps it was the weekend Courfeyrac hit the ball out of their diamond, and, as he played in the outfield, she reached him first to return it. He hardly paid her any mind, only nodding in thanks. She was clearly just as busy as he, covered in dirt and soaked with sweat, her shin guards smeared with grass stains.

Perhaps it was the weekend that it rained. Bahorel and Grantaire, playing on his team that weekend, were highly distracted when the women with whom she was playing declared their match to be shirts versus skins. She seemed to be the chief in insisting that it be the girls who played as skins, against the shirted boys.

The boys on his baseball team couldn't help but stare as the girls stripped, their shorts rolled low on their hips and clinging to their thighs in the rain, their tops bare, save for their soaked-through sports bras.

He noticed that she and her friends were frequently shooting glances in the direction of the baseball diamond, delighting and giggling when his teammates and opponents fawned over them.

Perhaps he noticed her the weekend that it was so hot they almost had to cancel – she, again, was shirtless, but this time her sports bra was soaked with sweat. They watched as she poured cold water over her face and head and shoulders – his teammates with hunger and desire, he with disinterest.

Perhaps it was the weekend he saw her running to their diamond, soccer ball under her arm and her hand entwined with another girl's, one with dusky skin and dark hair. They sat in the bleachers, watching and cheering and laughing. It was quite distracting. Afterwards, he watched as she made a beeline to Marius, just as Joly and Bossuet appeared to be racing to talk to her friend first.

He paid her little to no mind, though he did notice when she wasn't there sometimes, especially because his baseball team (and often their visiting competition) and the eternal pick-up soccer game that she participated in often went out for drinks together after their respective games were over. It seemed oddly quiet when she wasn't there, rare though that was, but it also irritated him when she was there, because she spent the whole damn time mooning over Marius and trying to get that freckled fool to pay attention to her.

He never bothered to interact with her; in fact, he didn't even know her name. Nor did he try to learn it. Whenever she came into his peripherals, he merely acknowledged her mentally as "Marius' Shadow."

However, everything changed when he was leaving the park one day, and came across her corned up against a tree, an older man who must have been her father screaming in her face as she cowed. When the man hit her across the face, he lost it.

He dropped his things, and suddenly he was next to her, then in between her and the man, then shoving the man away and shouting things that he didn't remember later. They tousled briefly, resulting in a bloody nose on his face and a black eye on the old man. The man stormed away, screaming and cursing at them.

When he turned, he didn't even have time to react before she slapped him sharply across the face. It left him momentarily dumb; he wasn't sure whether to pinch his nose to stop the bleeding or hold his smarting cheek. Then she was shouting at him.

"I don't want your help! I'm not some sort of damsel in distress that needs rescuing from some bourgeois knight in shining armor!" She shoved him, though it was hardly strong.

Her lip was bleeding and was starting to swell from where the man hit her.

Ten minutes later, he was in the dugout, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Hey," a voice said behind him, startling him. He turned, and there she was – fat lip, messy dark hair, long, thin legs and a torso hidden by an oversized jersey. She held a plastic bag in her hand.

He just sniffed blood, trying to keep it from running down his face more, and stared at her. He was hardly forgiving; if she resented his interference, he wouldn't interfere. He had a bloody nose and probably a black eye (try explaining that one at work tomorrow), all because he was trying to help her. So as far as he was concerned, they had no reason, especially now, to interact at all. He wanted nothing from her.

"Sit down," she ordered. Her tone surprised him; it reminded him of how his mother or his teachers would talk to him as a child. He wondered where she picked it up. Then he sat.

She put the bag on the bench beside him, digging around inside. From it, she pulled gauze, an ice pack, hydrogen peroxide, and band-aids. Without a word, she began mopping up the blood on his face.

"I'm sorry I slapped you," she murmured, keeping her eyes fixed on the blood that was still gushing from his nose.

He shrugged.

"It was my dad. It wasn't the first time," she told him quietly. He wondered why she was telling him this; from the look on her face, she was wondering the same thing. Then, "I'm Eponine. Eponine Jondrette."

He regarded her for a moment, and she finally met his eyes. They were a beautiful, bright brown, flecked with gold, but were dark and angry from the memories that were undoubtedly cycling through her mind. He looked at her lips; dried blood had trickled onto her chin, though she hadn't seemed to notice.

"Enjolras," he said. "Gabriel Enjolras."

Eponine's lips twitched into a small smile, then she got back to work on cleaning him up.

When she was finished, she threw the first aid supplies into her backpack. "I'll buy you a beer," she offered, "as a thanks – and an apology."

*

He's not quite sure why he kissed her.

It was several months after the day he fought her father.

They were heading off to the park together. His league's season was over, but he and his friends still met each weekend for pickup games. She had wormed her way into his friend group, and they had invited her along, eager to teach her how to play baseball. In return, she was going to teach them a little bit about soccer.

She met him on the corner near his apartment – it was more convenient for her to cut through his neighborhood to reach the park, as she lived a few blocks away.

"We need to run to my place," she said when he found her, not bothering to greet him. "I would've gone alone, but my phone was dead and I didn't want you to think I was ditching you.

Though they lived relatively close together, there was a marked difference between his neighborhood and hers. His was more affluent – he was a lawyer, the only son in a wealthy family, and therefore, his apartment was large and well decorated and safe.

Eponine's apartment, however, was one room of a giant, sketchy-looking complex. She joked that this was where the meth-heads came to die.

He worried for her safety.

Inside, however, she had done her best to make the place comfortable. It was colorful, but tasteful – very bohemian, but it worked because it was so Eponine.

She had hung curtains to separate her small bed from the rest of the room, and disappeared behind them for a few moments.

When she reemerged, she beckoned him over. "Enj, these are my soccer trophies from high school. I was being scouted for college, being offered scholarships and even full rides, but then I blew out my knee."

He hadn't known. He knew she was good, but not that she could have started in college. Nor did he know that her knee had ruined her opportunity to get out of – well, out of this life. It broke his heart; she could have truly been something quite incredible. She was smart, she was driven and talented, but lacking the resources to rise out of the life she so despised. To have come so close, only to have an ill-timed physical issue rip her chances away – he couldn't even imagine.

"That sucks, Ep, I'm so sorry," he told her sincerely.

She smiled warmly, though he could see a touch of bitterness in her eyes. "Whatever," she shrugged, "I have all these crazy trophies for my trouble!"

And she did. There must have been more than 30 of all colors and sizes, from participation awards to tournament placements to MVP's.

"My collection would totally kick your collection's ass," he teased, nudging her with his elbow. "I was given a partial scholarship to play in college. I wanted to go pro. I didn't have time for anything else, not even girls. My entire life revolved around baseball and school."

She looked at him. "What happened?"

He stared straight ahead at a trophy she had won her sophomore year of high school for most valuable player. "My priorities changed," was all he said. He could hear the hardness in his own voice; out of the corner of his eye, he saw her searching for something on his face before she turned back towards the trophies. He cleared his throat. "Anyway," he said, reaching out and touching a medal, "all my trophies are at my parents' house."

"I like having mine home with me," was Eponine's soft reply.

He looked at her. There was a faraway look on her face, an absent smile on her lips. "They help me remember a time when I was happy." She seemed to be talking to herself now, and he wondered if she remembered he was there.

He couldn't take his eyes off her, all of a sudden, and he felt something building inside of him that was foreign and, if he had to admit it, a little frightening.

When she turned to him, a questioning look on her face and an inquiry forming on her lips, he kissed her, swallowing whatever it was she was about to say. She responded immediately against him, and he pulled her body flush against his instinctually when her lips parted against his.

*

He's not quite sure why he slept with her.

He had never been with a woman before.

And she was vulnerable; he couldn't shake the feeling that he had taken advantage of her.

Marius and his girlfriend, the perfect, blonde Cosette, had gotten engaged.

Eponine had showed up at his door, in tears and completely inconsolable. So he ordered pizza, and ran to the liquor store around the corner for a bottle of Jack.

Three hours later, she was straddling him on his couch and kissing him wildly, half the bottle abandoned on the table behind her.

The whole experience, as intoxicating and wonderful as it was, was like being with a hurricane. It was wet and strong and dangerous, but he loved every second of it.

When he woke the next morning, she was in his kitchen, dressed in one of his t-shirts, making breakfast.

She kissed him good morning.

*

He's not quite sure when he fell in love with her.

They were out all night.

It was a warm night, in the middle of spring, a summery breeze sweeping through her hair and toying with the hem of her dress as she skipped around him.

Eponine didn't want to go home, and had talked him into staying out with her all night and going down to the docks to watch the sunrise.

"I've never seen the city when it sleeps," she had said.

They weren't together, per se, but Marius was married and Eponine was putting him behind her and now whenever she saw Enjolras she kissed him. He didn't hate it.

They had sat on the docks, swinging their bare feet inches above the water.

She grabbed his hand, humming a song into the wind. She was being strange; it was that mix of happiness and sadness that he'd learned to associate with her. Like she's almost ready to be happy, almost ready to let go of her problems, but she just can't.

She took his hand as the pre-dawn sky turns purple.

She kissed his cheek and then his lips when it turns pink.

When it turned orange, its bright glow lights up her face.

When the sun broke free of the water, she laughed. He had never seen anything so beautiful.

And that was when he knew: he'd fallen for her.

*

He's not quite sure why she wouldn't let him save her.

Eponine was stubborn, and always refused his help. He frequently reminded her that it was his job to help people, that it was his calling, but she would just snap at him that "a calling is a thing for entitled bourgeois boys," and that those he was "called" to help did not always want it.

When her little brother died, hit by a car in the middle of the night, he was not sure she'd ever come back to him.

She pushed him away. Stopped seeing him, stopped meeting him for baseball or soccer, stopped coming to his games and stopped showing up to her own. She wouldn't even answer her calls. Nor would she talk to any of her other friends.

Musichetta, her soccer friend, and Joly were dating, and even Musichetta had not heard from her in weeks.

When he finally saw her again, her face was gaunt. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, and hadn't eaten in weeks. Her already thin frame clung to her bones, her cheeks were sunken in, her hair was dirty and unkempt, and her hollow eyes had dark circles.

He didn't know how to save her, but for god's sake he tried.

*

He's not quite sure why she left him.

It isn't fair – that's the only thought that's cycling through his mind right now.

He's been sitting in this chair for, well, he doesn't even know how long. His friends keep coming to check on him, but he barely hears them. They can't say anything helpful anyway. They don't know.

All he can think of is her, of those precious moments by her side, as he stares straight ahead.

Directly in front of him is her casket. And he can't take his eyes off it, off her lifeless body laying there for those attending the wake to gawk and cry over.

He can't cry, he can't eat, he can't feel. He briefly wonders if this was how it was for her when little Gavroche was killed, and if that was the straw that broke the camel's back in her life.

He wonders, much more extensively, why he couldn't save her. He was always reminding her that saving people was all he wanted to do. He just wanted to help.

Why hadn't he been able to help her?

It was a sunny afternoon. They were sitting on the stairs of her fire escape. She was under his arm, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Not everyone wants to be saved, Enj," she told him. "Not everyone will let you."

"As long as you let me save you, that's fine," he replied.

She said nothing for a long while. "It might be too late for that," she whispered, avoiding his gaze.

And it was. It was far too late.

She was gone.

The only woman he had ever loved, ever cared for, ever had time for, was dead.

This was a woman who had opened up an entire new world for him, and he would never see her again.

He's not sure what comes next; now that he's lived in this world of hers, he isn't sure if he can live without her.

When he's angry at her, angrier than he's ever been before, he curses her name, screaming at her ghost for leaving him behind, for ruining his life.

He hates her; she destroyed everything about him, everything he was, and left this empty shell behind. He was fine before - he didn't know what he was missing, and ignorance truly was bliss. He was settled in his life. But then she appeared in it, and turned it upside-down.

He tries to breathe.

Azlema, her younger sister, walks up to him.

She wraps herself around him, and he lets her, squeezing her tightly. She, of course, knew Eponine too (in a way that his friends didn't), and just as he lost the love of his life, she lost her older sister - and her baby brother. So she understands.

"She loved you, Enjolras," Azelma murmurs, her voice shaking with emotion and thick with the tears that spill from her eyes. "I know she never told you, but she told me. She loved you, and she would've wanted you to know."

He cries.

*

He's not quite sure how he picks up the pieces.

It's been forever, but it's also been no time at all.

His nights are cold and lonely, and his days are torture.

Grantaire has moved in with him, though perhaps that wasn't the best decision on the part of his friends, as the other man is so full of anger and sadness himself that all they do is spend their time drinking.

Combeferre seems to catch on, because then he comes to stay, too.

Suddenly, he's forced to eat the food Combeferre has cooked. He's forced to look at Grantaire's artwork and give his opinions, he's forced to go to work and do a good job again.

He's forced to look at her photographs every day (but that one he does to himself), too. In them, she seems happy. She's bright and beautiful and alive. God, she used to be so alive, even when she was miserable, even when she was depressed. She could be in the worst mood, but being around her was like being in the middle of a beautiful storm.

He misses that.

Eventually, Courfeyrac convinces him to come play a pickup game.

It feels good, being back on the diamond. The power of the ball as it flies from his hand, the feel of the wind in his face as he runs from plate to plate. He especially likes being at bat, because smacking that fucking ball into oblivion is suddenly the most therapeutic thing.

And then the game is over and his friends leave and he's slamming his stupid bat into the ground, raging in the middle of the field, screaming at her at the top of his lungs and undoubtedly causing quite the scene.

He collapses, and then someone is there – Jehan, perhaps? – speaking to him, trying to calm him.

But what does it is Eponine.

No, she's not there, of course, but he sees her team playing soccer on the next field. Or maybe it's a different team, he isn't sure if her friends play here anymore.

He looks up into the overcast sky, closing his eyes to the clouds, and can almost hear her laughter carried to him on the wind.

He goes home, pulls out the trophies he took from her apartment and those he took from his parents' house. He places them in pairs around the apartment, wherever they fit - his next to hers and hers next to his wherever he can find the room for them.

"They help me remember a time when I was happy," she had said that first time he kissed her.

And she was right.

There they were, once again – playing baseball, playing soccer together, just like when they had become friends. This time, however, their endless games were in his apartment. But looking at their trophies together was, for some stupid reason, extremely comforting. It made him feel like she was there, in these dumb objects she had been so proud of.

He sees her in them. They make him think of her. And he misses her, he does, but she would want him to be okay.

She would want him to keep on playing, because she wasn't able to.

And that's exactly what he's going to do.

Fin.

[lizacstuff]

So what do you think will finally be the tipping point for Serkan to start questioning what he has been told about Eda? I would prefer he admit to falling in love with her and kick Selin to the curb even before he gets his memories back but guess we will see. The emotions were super charged (of course) last episode for Eda & Serkan so hopefully they are both able to go into things a little calmer going forward. It sucks to say but I think with Eda backing off on the “we were in love and you need to remember” that he will slowly or maybe quickly start to pick up personality traits that we all know & love and start to remember her. But we all know that Selin will do her best to stop any of that before it starts. I just hope the show does a better job of not using Eda as an emotional punching bag to show us that she is such a kind & loving person. That ending was humiliating for her and even though I know she will pick herself up again, it was still tough to watch. Going to be even tougher for Serkan to forgive himself for doing once he has his memories back.

This right here:  "I would prefer he admit to falling in love with her and kick Selin to the curb even before he gets his memories back."

Yes, that's what I need and what should happen. I can not get past the line, "If I were to live 100 lives, I would fall in love with you 100 times," said right before he went missing and got amnesia. 

To me that line foreshadowed that the entire point of this storyline was for us to see that Serkan would fall in love with her no matter what.  It did not foreshadow that Eda would always be able to break through and make him remember her.  And if that's the story they wanted to do, that Serkan would always remember her, then the line should have been about that. It's not like there's not precedent for that in the show. There have been a couple of episodes with, "I want to remember this moment forever" type moments, so they could have done that again here, setting up that he would never be able to forget her.

THEY DIDN'T DO THAT.

They set up that he would fall in love with her if he was born again, starting from scratch, and that's what's happened with the amnesia.  So if we don't see him fall in love, before he remembers everything, then what was even the point?   As far as when things start to gel for him, I assume that's what the next episode is primarily about. My guess is Selin will be pushing forward as fast as she can. However, we know old Serkan was very commitment-adverse, so I think he's going to be internally freaking out about what he did. So I think we'll see him sort of become disengaged with her. Realizing he made a mistake by acting so rashly, but not admitting it. 

At the same time, I assume we'll see him drawn to Eda, they'll probably have something that forces them to spend time together. Also we see it already in the first fragman. He knew about the lemons. I assume there will be things like that throwing his mind into a whirl and it will all climax with the mounting wedding pressure and he'll be feeling like something isn't right, and hopefully he'll start to recognize his feelings for Eda.

As for Eda being humiliated by Serkan's actions, I think it's more about being hurt. Every person in that room knows her rightful place in Serkan's life. They know how much Serkan loves her, no one but Selin is going to judge her for trying to get through to him with that kiss. It's much more likely that they're shocked at his actions and hopefully that will be the thing that jogs some of them out of their bizarre complacency about what Selin is doing. 

As for your point about Eda being calmer and changing tactics, that's exactly what she needs to do. Imagine the scene at his house last episode, but instead of charging in at an 11 out of 10 and crying and throwing the pictures and breaking the glass, she instead very calmly said, "You went missing on our wedding day, I looked for you every day that you were missing, I dreamt about you every night, I took care of your business and your dog and your life, you at least owe it to me to hear our story from me. And then she proceeds to tell him their story using the photos.  Imagine the results of that versus what happened. 

He probably would have still been resistant, and nothing would happen in the moment, but think of the food for thought he would have had, instead of thinking she's crazy, scary and angry. 

SPOILERS AHEAD (spoilers under the cut, enter at your own risk)

There are spoilers out there that Serkan gets his memories back by next episode and there's a big Edser moment with him kissing her after he remembers, while she's giving a speech.  So are the spoilers wrong? Or does he fall in love with her before he gets his memories back at the end of the episode?  Or is there no consistent storytelling at all and they're just going to forget Serkan falling in love with her 100 times in 100 lives and just go with "poof, problem fixed, his memories are back?"

Also if this storyline wasn't set up to reset things (with Serkan and Eda starting from scratch) and fuel a whole bunch of episodes, then I have no idea what the point was. At first, if this was only going to be a couple episodes of memory loss I wondered what the point of bringing Selin back even was. Plenty to fuel two episodes of story in Serkan losing his memories on his wedding day. Then after this episode I realized it might be so that even when Serkan jettisons Selin in the near future, what happened will be a stumbling block between Edser.  Eda is going to be so hurt, I can imagine she'll need some time before jumping back into a relationship with him. 

So to sum it up, I can't figure out what they're doing. It seemed to me they were trying to set up a do over so we could watch them fall in love a second time as a way to give the series new life, and to fuel a good 10 episodes, but if the spoilers are true, that doesn't seem like what they're doing, so I'm at a loss. 

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 71 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 176 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

--

RATE THE EPISODE 172 responses

This week’s episode keeps up the high mark of the previous episodes, with 98.8% of respondents giving the episode a score of 3 or higher (overwhelmingly 4s and 5s). Nice!

It was aight. 

It's cool

8.5/10 

great!

Very rocky imo in terms of animation, as the cracks are beginning to show but overall look like the backgrounds and music choices were top tier.

Really good episode, I was disappointed in the jacket scene but it’s not the end of the world

loved it

It was overall a great episode I loved it. 

🔥🔥🔥

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 174 responses

46.6% of respondents overall were most excited to see Eren meeting up with Floch and the others, with 23.6% of those respondents favoring the scene of Eren putting on his jacket specifically. 12.1% most enjoyed seeing the angry citizens shouting out the Survey Corps motto. 9.8% were thrilled to see Zackley’s death animated. 8% were psyched to see Pieck in disguise at the end, and 6.9% most enjoyed the moment where Hitch caught Armin red-handed trying to touch Annie’s crystal.

YOUR REACTION TO EREN PUTTING ON HIS JACKET? 171 responses

Eren putting on his jacket was a scene many obsessed over when it first appeared on page and many looked forward to seeing it animated. Most of the response choices were focused on various forms of swooning over Eren and his abs. Some (13.5%) stated that they didn’t really understand the dramatism and some others (another 13.5%) simply stated that they did not see much in Eren outright. We’ve gotten a lot of write-ins about comparisons to the pre-animated trailer shot of said scene. More on that in a later question. 

i mean i understand the thirst, but eh

Prefer manga :/

The trailer did it better 

Meh. Better in the trailer and the manga.

TF was that? Well it's still good in its own way. 

YES! YES! YES! YES! Y E S! 

both "HOOOOOLYYYYYY 😳" and "so dramatic and for what?"

Trailer/Manga shot was way better

Manga shot/trailer version are way better. Dissapointed

Trailer looked better :(

Mappa only made Reiner thicc, why Eren is so frain he has 1,85! He is so strong in the manga

I don't care

Manbun.........👀

He can have my babies anytime 😌💅🏻

Not as sexy as advertised; that’s okay, though.

That scene looked weird af ngl. It looked better in the trailer 😔

Me after THAT eren scene: 🤰🏻🤰🏻🤰🏻

Eren makes my dick rise

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW HAPPY ARE YOU NOW THAT WE APPEAR TO BE GOING BACK TO LEVI AND ZEKE’S PERSPECTIVE NEXT WEEK FOR A BIT? 171 responses

Levi and Zeke’s chemistry has been the subject of praise for many, so it’s no wonder that 87.1% of respondents are rather excited to get back to seeing Levi and Zeke again. Wow!

ARE ARMIN’S FEELINGS FOR ANNIE GENUINELY HIS OWN? 173 responses

Armin’s feelings for Annie have been looked at under a microscope for a variety of reasons, which is why we’re asking if you believe that his feelings for her are genuine. A plurality, 49.1% think that they’re a mixture of his feelings for her, as well Bertolt’s. Slightly less (30.6%) believe that Armin’s feelings for her existed since before any of the recent developments. Only a select few believe that he either became interested in her post-timeskip or that his feelings are solely influenced by Bertolt. One person doesn’t think Armin has any feelings for Annie at all. And a few others just don’t care.

Bertmin simping for Annie and that apparently being enough for her to start considering him as boyfriend material is the fucking worst. I hate this shit. It's made me like both characters considerably less.

Uhh Armin where ya reaching?! 

He was interested with her even before it was revealed she was the Female Titan and now that he has Bertholdt's memories, he sympathizes with her too and wants to understand her more so maybe Bert's memories intensified his feelings

His feelings for Annie are mostly his own. Bert's feelings might be in there a little, but the feelings are still Armin's.

CONTINUITY ALERT! EREN HAS HIS HAIR UP IN A BUN IN YELENA’S FLASHBACK. THOUGHTS? 173 responses

Uh-oh, Eren’s hairstyle moment. It would appear that there might be a continuity error with Yelena’s flashback and whatever that means for the timeline. A slight plurality (37%) didn’t seem to care about this, actually. But 33.5% appeared to believe that it was a mistake on MAPPA’s part that might get fixed in the BluRay version of the episode. 16.8% also believe that it was a mistake, but don’t believe it’ll get fixed. 9.8% think that it’s actually a retcon and that Eren’ll have the man bun when Chapter 123 gets adapted in Final Season Part 2.  

I hope it gets fixed because it's bugging me.

I really wish it was like how it was in the manga. Eren looks good with his hair down in his 16-17-year-old phase. Despite the error, it wasn't a deal breaker for the episode.

He looks totally gorgeous with his hair up in a bun, please let this mistake be

Honestly I don’t mind it. It looks great either way.

Eren in a manbun is a total win for me!

WHICH PIECES OF INFORMATION MISSING FROM YELENA’S ADMISSION IN THE MANGA DO YOU WISH WOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE ADAPTATION? 163 responses

As with almost all dialogue-heavy chapters in this series, there are cuts. In this episode, these cuts mostly affected the conversation between Yelena and Pixis. The most yearned for cut material was Yelena never telling Eren to go along with the plan and Yelena saying that she used Floch as a “go-between” between her and Eren. Others also noted missing lines about Yelena wanting Eren to stand up for himself, Yelena stating that Zeke gave the volunteers a hopeful future and the idea that her and Eren came to quick agreement. The plurality (31.9%) however, didn’t seem to mind any cuts. 

WHAT ARE YOU OVERALL FEELINGS ABOUT SOME OR ALL OF THE AFOREMENTIONED DETAILS BEING CUT? 161 responses

There is often a sort of expectation to have everything (or almost every) line from the manga adapted in the anime, so it’s interesting to see how people react to that sort of stuff. An almost 50% of respondents stated that they didn’t really care about the cuts, whereas smaller handfuls of respondents stated that the cuts either took away from the characterization of the conversation, or from the context and timeline-building purposes. 

I'm not thrilled about the cuts, but I understand MAPPA can only fit so much in on each episode, so I'm okay with it

the yelena/volunteers plot has always been wonky and hard to follow

I don’t think it’s a problem, they need to cut certain things. 

i literally never notice but i agree that it makes it harder to piece things together 

Meh

It might seem for anime watchers that Yelena didnt do much, and Floch and Zeke that did the most part, in their own plans. Floch to betray and Zeke in predicting Eren wouldnt be on his side in some way. Yelena helped Zeke a lot to where he arrived in the rumbling 

All of the above

ZACKLEY WALKS OVER TO HIS TORTURE MACHINE IN THE ANIME BEFORE MIKASA ASKS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO EREN, RATHER THAN GLANCE OVER AT IT AFTER HER QUESTION. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGE? 170 responses

There was a partially comedic insinuation in the manga that Zackley thought about strapping Eren to his “art piece”. The insinuation is possibly still there in the anime, but in a different form. So we asked how you felt about it. Slightly below a half (48.8%) stated that they thought the subtlety was still there. 18.8% thought the subtlety was lost with the small change and 8.8% believed the change made Zackley seem less unhinged. 21.8% really didn’t care at all. 

Why is this a question?

The glance was funny as fuck in the manga, but might have been awkward to pull of in the animation

They're blown up tho, does it even matter?

DID EREN KNOW ABOUT THE BOMB? 170 responses

Whether Eren truly knew about the bomb is a bit unclear to this day and with how it endangered Armin and Mikasa. A plurality (40%) believe he knew about the bomb, but did not know about his childhood friends meeting Zackley. Slightly less (30.6%) think that Eren did not know about either the bomb or AM meeting the Artist. A minority (7.1%) does believe that Eren knew about both the bomb and meeting and 21.8% simply aren’t sure!

Even if he didn’t know, he obviously doesn’t care either way.

THERE IS SOME DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER EREN’S JACKET SCENE WAS BETTER ANIMATED IN THE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO OR IN THE EPISODE ITSELF. WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE? 170 responses

Here we go… The elephant in the room… Which Eren abs scene did you prefer? The Promotional video or the actual episode? A somewhat slight majority (57.1%) seemed to like the version seen in the promotional video more than the episode itself versus the ones who preferred the episode’s style (42.9%).

THE EPISODE MARKS THE BEGINNING OF FLOCH’S ACTIONS AS THE VOICE OF THE YEAGERISTS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT IT? 170 responses

Floch has always been a controversial character and the developments seen post-time skip have not been any less debatable. You may floching love him or floching hate, but he’s here and he’s staying for a while. A plurality (48.8%) notes that although they may not personally be a fan of the character, they truly do appreciate the nuance his appearance gives to the story. Just over a quarter (25.3%) stated that as big fans of the character, they’re looking forward to all the screentime the Flochster will receive. In contrast, 20.6% despise the man and his questionable haircut and are also dreading the showcase he’ll soon receive.  

I hate Floch and will cheer again when he dies, but I enjoy his character.

I detest Floch but I'm not dreading all the screen time he'll take up.

Since he died in the manga, my hatred for him has cooled down somewhat now that I'm watching the anime.

I am once again asking for you to shut the fuck up, Floch.

WE KNOW NOW THAT EREN DID CONSPIRE WITH FLOCH TO BETRAY ZEKE TO ENACT THE RUMBLING. STILL, DO YOU BELIEVE HE DID IT BECAUSE HE HAS THE SAME BELIEFS AS FLOCH, OR WAS HE JUST USING FLOCH AND THE YEAGERISTS AS A MEANS TO AN END? 161 responses

An overwhelming amount of respondents (87.6%) stated that they believe Eren never truly saw eye to eye with Floch and his ideology and that Eren was simply using Floch as a means to an end. In contrast, 9.3% truly do think that Eren was ideologically similar to Floch and the “New Eldian Empire”. A select few thought you couldn’t just say one way or another. 

They both wanted to protect Paradis

DO YOU THINK IF THE YEAGERISTS, BESIDES FLOCH, KNEW ABOUT THE FULL SCALE RUMBLING BEFOREHAND THAT THEY WOULD WILLINGLY FOLLOW EREN? 167 responses

The majority (53.3%) feel that the Yeagerists would see a divide if they knew beforehand that Eren wanted to initiate the rumbling, with some sticking around for the cause and others possibly leaving because it’s too extreme. 25.1% believe that they all would have fully supported the rumbling in the name of their own survival. 15% believe that every Yeagerist already knew about the plan to commence the rumbling, and only 6% feel that they would most certainly have betrayed the Yeager brothers (and Floch) if they had known. 

I don’t know, this is a loaded question and I’m tired.

DO YOU THINK THAT, IF THE STORY ENDS PEACEFULLY, MIKASA WILL HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN HIZURU? 170 responses

While this plotline may not be going anywhere in the manga (or so it seems), the reminder of its existence is brought to light again as we revisit these older moments from the manga. 32.4% feel that Mikasa wouldn’t leave Paradis behind to start a life on Hizuru. 23.5% think that she wouldn’t leave Paradis behind, necessarily, but will still have a role to play in Hizuru. 21.2% think it doesn’t matter because Isayama has completely discarded (or forgotten) about this plotline. 12.4% don’t know what to predict (if anything) and only 8.2% believe that her future lies in Hizuru beyond the main storyline.

The last two options plus me not caring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

hizuru is already rumbled, gone, but she will continue the azumabito clan in paradis

Is no one else gonna question Kiyomi's hair being sucked into her skull??? HELLO MA'AM???

Hizuru is likely flattened

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 171 responses

Episode 72 has already broadcasted as of the completion of this poll. For scenes that were most anticipated, 35.7% were most looking forward to seeing Levi and Zeke’s interaction in the forest. 33.3% most looked forward to Niccolo leaning straight from Gabi’s mouth that she is Sasha’s killer. 18.7% highly anticipated the Blouses learning about Gabi killing Sasha, and 9.4% were looking forward to Gabi/Falco and the Blouses gathering at Niccolo’s restaurant. Only a small amount were looking forward to Niccolo protecting Jean and Connie from drinking the wine.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Man the animation was gonky 

no levi </3

So many faces of Niles are weirds !

Let hange aloneeeeeeee and happy, please

I have no word for this, but I feeling good

Shit is getting really real now! 

Everyone talking about Eren’s abs and I just wanna say the music in that scene was amazing!

I loved how it was all neatly put together and fast moving

Armin looked so good. Homie walked from point A to B and i SCREAMED. Thank you. 

i wish they included eren's warhammer escape from the prison, besides that solid episode all around, the people chanting 'dedicate your hearts' gave me chills 

I can't stand Hitch at all but MAPPA made her really pretty. Re: The jacket scene The trailer version was pretty much identical to the manga panel. But I liked the version that made it into the final episode too. People have been so ridiculous about MAPPA ""ruining everything"" this season, they should stop watching if that's how they feel. I thought Eren looked great and found the sun shining on his abs funny. The scenery was better in the episode, imo. I hope they don't cut Jean's line about booze not caring about what race you are. Lmao

Meh. It's not bad of course, I just find the rythm weird and I don't really feel many emotions watching the episodes. And I was so thirsty for the jacket scene, and it turned out weird too.

Mappa pls stop drawing eren like shit he is gorgeous in the manga

MMGH SOON!! LET'S GOOOOOOO

You friccin moron, you just got zooked!

i miss eremin </3

Wish they had shown how eren used his titan powers to escape.

I'm so not looking forward to the controversy that's gonna be reignited during the EMA talk scene. I'm actually dreading it, but we'll finally get the Levi vs Beast Titan scene so I'll be fine

112 will destroy ships 

I felt the animation was flawless as usual but the script was kinda boring, I expected more of these aspects: -Yelena, it was bland with the cuts -Hange, they cut something I cant figure what in this Yeagerists coup act that turned her scenes a little bit lacking? Idk something -Again the soundtrack in the episodes is so silent. The only episode so far I liked the ost beyond the Opening and Closing themes is Reiner episode. I miss the melodrama of Witstudio osts

Eren putting his jacket on in slow-speed whilst talking at regular speed is fucking trippy

Just happy to see Hitch!

It was slow and mainly plot driven. I enjoyed it despite the changes.

goddamn is that a hella well-animated explosion

more abs please

Great episode. Really ridiculous how many people overreacted about the jacket scene. It's ok to perfer the way the trailer did it but to those who say Mappa is ruining the adaptation because of minor things like this, calm down. 

I wish the jacket scene was better But over all the ep is pretty good

Boring, but then again so was this phase in the manga.

I really like the VA they chose for Onyankopon! His voice is very warm and genuine, which suits his character well

The sunset was so aesthetically pleasing 

yoooo just read ch. 138 and im crying in da club :(

These MAPPA episodes have been a low point for me. I’m trying to enjoy them because I love this story but it feels like a chore.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 161 responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

[raleighliving]

Raleigh Apartment Culture

So I'm of the mind that Raleigh is a great place to live. It has my favorite things, my favorite people, and I'm too broke to move anywhere else.

Raleigh works for me, but I recognize it doesn't work for everyone. Some people had less than ideal childhoods and wanna escape the state ASAP, some just want to live closer to their dream jobs or have new opportunities. That's all fine, but what if this describes where you are now?

What if, for the sake of argument, you're outside of NC and wanna move in? Moving is expensive, time-consuming, and risky at the best of times; so you wanna make sure that wherever you're landing is at least as good as where you started 90% of the time

"But RL," I hear you say, "you make Raleigh sound like an idyllic dreamscape populated with parks and a diverse kumbayah of peoples living in harmony"

I do talk about Raleigh in a positive light but, like a life saving medicine flavored like ass, sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.

So before you spend thousands of dollars on moving vans, boxes, and grits; here's a crash course on what it's like living in a Raleigh apartment, coming from someone whose majority of Raleigh Living (heh) has been in apartments.

First off, location. Any realtor will tell you that location is 80% of the sale to sound profound, and as anyone who has lived in the middle of ass-backward nowhere can tell you: It sucks having to drive 30 minutes to go anywhere.

Good news: With the Raleigh Beltline and connecting roads, there are very few places in Raleigh where your trip will last longer than thirty minutes one-way. Bad News: where you set down still matters because cutting down on travel is important for car and mental health.

North Raleigh is different from south Raleigh is different from northwest Raleigh, and the locals aren't the only difference you'll find between locations. Each segment of Raleigh has something to offer, with easier access to some attractions than others and neighboring cities for when you need something outside the RDU area.

Using downtown as the center of our wheel, people generally divide Raleigh into North and South Raleigh (with distinction given for NW, SE, NE, etc when needed). N.Raleigh is considered generally more upscale, a slice of suburban living interspersed with plenty of shopping centers for families and the moderately wealthy; but it's boring as all hell.

Want some fun? Excitement in the evenings and a more traditional urban experience with bars, night clubs, strip clubs, and more? South Raleigh is your best bet, at the cost of being the "sketchy" side of Raleigh. That kind of place where you'll see a bunch of auto shops that look abandoned but haven't been closed in the past 5 years and there's at least one customer from time to time.

Of course, this is a lot of generalizing but you'll find that it's still mostly accurate. The main exception in this is Capital Blvd, a highway cutting across north and south Raleigh on the eastern half of the city; a high crime corridor that's undergoing some changes in the northern half that have (somewhat) reduced crime but most people will still associate that area with the majority of Raleigh's crime and debauchery.

More importantly, is the distinction Raleigh citizens put on inside the beltline versus outside the beltline. The I-440 and 540 highways that wrap around Downtown form the mythical beltline, and to a degree what you have access to. Inside the beltline is the majority of workplaces, stores, and shopping centers; while outside you'll still have these things just to a more... dispersed extent.

North Raleigh actually kinda exemplifies this perfectly. Living inside the beltline, you have access to places like North Hills, Crabtree Valley mall, and Triangle Town Center. Live outside the beltline, like I currently am, and you're looking at 10 to 15 minutes to the nearest sheetz for that late night double hot dog fix.

So for point one: How important is it that you're near things? The majority of apartments and rental properties are in or around the belt-line, but if you want to save some cash on rent checks the cheaper properties are gonna extend your trips a bit.

Next, what can you expect in terms of neighbors? Does Raleigh have a hip party scene full of teens renting cheap apartments and blasting trap music at 3AM?

Depends on where you live

I swear not every point is going to be this, but there's an important distinction this time that affects the type of people your complex will likely have surrounding you; are you in North or South Raleigh?

North Raleigh has a ton of pre-schools, k-12 public schools (Leesville, Hillburn, Lead Mine, just to name a few), and office complexes that make up the job market. As a result the majority of apartment renters in north Raleigh tend to be families with a few small kids or so.

As a result, living off of Glenwood North and Edwards Mill I never had any noise problems from neighbors, the worst being kids playing outside at 3PM sounding like they were being murdered (which apparently is a common thing and I apologize to any neighbors I frightened with ghastly shrieks).

What I did have a problem with, however, was the typical Karen's you hear people complain about online. Renting a property now, we have access to our neighborhood's NextDoor page and it's hilarious sometimes to go on and read the comments, but living at a certain property we had a sort of mini-Facebook for residents

That thing was always full of either people who were moving out looking to sell their furniture or people passive-aggressively challenging each other/the apartment managers with comments about things happening around the complex.

Once I logged in to see one man accuse another, without ever actually accusing someone specific ("I know who did it and they should be ashamed" type post) of putting glass beer bottles under the tires of his truck to try and puncture them. Everyone acts civil in public, but then online they'll stir the pot harder than a chef with a hand mixer.

South Raleigh, you have the schools like Shaw University, Meredith, and NCSU; so the people renting down there are typically college kids. You'll see more apartments that cater towards them like University Village or University Woods, but sometimes these places will cater to both college kids and working adults

Avoid these places like the plague, because despite sometimes having a lower cost to live there the neighbors and their shenanigans will drive you up the wall (unless you're the type to join in, then go wild).

I've had friends stay at places like University Village and The Proper (formerly The Vie, formerly Wolf Creek) who've shared horror stories. 3AM parties ending in property damage or vomit in inconvenient places, drug deals not even trying to be subtle, and maintenance workers doing nothing because regardless of the apartment conditions; no school's gonna pull their contract with them unless news articles start getting written.

http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_898ddf34-82f5-11e7-b3d8-07059d248619.html

https://www.wral.com/vie-at-raleigh-residents-finally-able-to-move-into-clean-units/16887833/

http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_ea8ed7aa-a092-11e8-a2af-e70af36566d0.html

Otherwise, south Raleigh apartments are largely like north Raleigh apartments; except the crime rate tends to be a little higher and you'll run into more singles and people working full time.

Otherwise, Raleigh apartment culture is like apartment culture anywhere else in the country. You have a mix of apartments catering to those just looking to live versus more ostentatious luxury apartments with fancy pools, exercise facilities, and tech packages to draw people in.

If you're renting in Raleigh, however, do try to get a roommate or two if you can manage. Even with a decent job paying 800+ on a one bedroom one bath apartment can be exhausting at best, but with even one other person that can functionally halve your expenses

So if you're a young professional, or a student, or even if you have a small family, I can safely recommend renting in Raleigh. There's plenty of places that'll accommodate you, and cater towards your needs.

But what about everyone else? Are there people who shouldn't rent in Raleigh?

No

But there are groups who I'd seriously ask to consider their other choices before picking Raleigh as a destination for their new home.

For instance, are you a member of the LGBT community? A trans or non-binary individual? Well then, first off, I want you to know that you're loved and valid. I'm accepting of who you are and appreciate everyone's right to identify how they choose, but I'm not everyone.

Raleigh's bluer than other parts of North Carolina, as I've stated in other blog write-ups, but it's still part of North Carolina unfortunately and as a result, you'll face some challenges.

I doubt anyone's gonna burn a cross in your yard or knock over your mailbox, but Raleigh doesn't offer LGBT protections for housing, jobs, or credit/lending discriminations according to the Movement Advancement Project's website.

We have support organizations for LGBT and NB individuals, plenty of high schools and colleges have Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, and there are numerous businesses downtown that cater specifically to those individuals... but we're also the state that got into a lot of hot water because of a stupid bathroom bill, and our politicians are trying to pass anti-trans sports legislation (because they now magically care about the integrity of womens sports).

By that measure, but to a lesser extent, if you fall outside the Liberal/Conservative political spectrum then be prepared to have no one to discuss your politics with outside of a few sparse networks like the DSA.

Additionally, if you don't have someone to room with or a significant other to split costs with; you may want to try searching somewhere a little cheaper.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Raleigh housing prices aren't terrible for a major metropolitan city, but we're not the best prices in the world.

You can get prices on apartments and rentals lower than say, California or New York. However, compared to other parts of NC like Greensboro or Garner; rentals are still a bit much.

On average, a Raleigh apartment can run you about $900 for a single bedroom and a single bathroom. You can find cheaper, but often times there's some risk associated (Crime levels, quality of the room, quality of the property manager, etc.) Looking for a two bedroom? Then your average price is gonna jump up to around $1,200, and this is all before utilities and cable come into play.

It's true a lot of companies around here will pay more than the $7.25 minimum wage, but most low-skilled jobs will pay around 10-11 an hour.

I guess though, that's kind of an obvious statement. "Don't live in Raleigh if you can't afford to live in Raleigh."

I might expand on these thoughts at a later time, but hopefully for now I've given you some food for thought; or at the very least an entertaining read for a few minutes.

I love my city, and I love the friends I've made in it, but the sad truth is that nowhere is perfect for everyone; leastways Raleigh. If Raleigh sounds like the kind of place you'd like to live in, at least take a day trip to come visit and see how things go that way. Visit some stores, meet some locals, and form an opinion off of more than travel blogs and youtube videos.

[angrylizardjacket]

mouth full of white lies {Machine Gun Kelly} 1

1. you look like my next mistake

Summary: You’re Douglas Booth’s adopted little sister, a YouTuber moonlighting as an assistant on The Dirt. The fact that your brother’s the lead is a happy accident. Another happy accident? Getting drunk with MGK and becoming fast friends with him. Until, of course, everyone assumes you’re together. What better way to make everyone shut up then by agreeing. Sort of. Okay so you’re not really dating but you’ve got to convince your respective fans that you are. And the rest of the cast and crew. It’s okay, flirting is totally harmless. The feelings? Everything else that comes after? Less harmless.

A/N: we meant to be a much different, much shorter fic for @kellysimagines, but i hope you like it!! fake dating AU. reader is adopted, not blood related!! warnings for drunken-ness.

the brainstrust: @sataninsatin @silvertonguedserpent @juliarose21 @kellysimagines @estxxbritt @machine-gun-casie @siriuslymooned @harringtonstudios @misscharlottelee @narcvissa @hiworlditishumbleme @angelwarner28 @nevilles-insinuations @rumoured-whispers @mgkobsessed @edwardtriggerhandzz @suckerforbarnes @wastelcve @bakerkells @local-troubled-writer @freddiessmallnipples

----

The fact that you and your brother ended up working on the same project was purely coincidence, and that actually wasn’t a lie. Douglas had landed the role of a lifetime, Nikki Sixx in The Dirt, and was immediately up to his eyes in nondisclosure agreements. You, on the other hand, had been scrolling through Facebook when a friend of yours, Josy, who happened to be an assistant director who had been talking about a ‘huge project for Netflix she wasn’t allowed to discuss’ asked if you wanted to come onboard as her assistant, since you’d proven to be good under pressure and fast on your feet when she had still been filming student projects only a few years ago.

“Hello! Hello and welcome back, ducklings! Today is a ‘Get Ready With Me’ for my flight to New Orleans! Can you believe it? I’m working on a big project and I have to travel - they’re paying for my travel! I’m so excited! This is going to be such a fun project, even though I can’t tell you too much about it just yet. So to start with, I’m going to run you through my every-day shower routing.”

You hadn’t been at the table read, but you had been at rehearsals, had turned up on the first day looking all done up, excited and professional, only to be met with your brother in eyeliner. 

“Duck!” Of course he was elated to see you, grin splitting his face from ear to ear. He calls you by your childhood nickname, he always has, and already you can feel every pair of eyes on you, but you don’t care. The nickname had followed you through life, of course less than a day in the project and it was already spreading. 

Everything making sense after you mention Josy had gotten you the job. She was a mutual friend, had always been fond of the two of you.

“This,” you enthuse, clutching your clipboard to your chest, “this is what you’re doing? You’re doing the Motley Crue biopic?” You’re looking at him with stars in your eyes, your talented big brother, who seemed to bring you along for the ride in one way or another. 

And finally he can tell you about it, because damn it had felt like forever since the two of you had spoken simply because he’d been hiding the biggest news in his life from you. 

“Oi, Booths!” You hear Josy’s distinct voice the moment she steps in the rehearsal room, though she’s clearly smiling, “good to see you both, but Doug, I need you up and in the space; I’m running warm ups before we get started. Duck, could you go on a coffee run for me?” She asks it sweetly; she’d picked up the nickname for you years ago from Douglas, and of course it had stuck, not that you minded. With that you’re both off. 

You’d been so distracted by getting to talk to your brother, who had been early just as you had been - there’s something to be said for nature versus nurture, despite not sharing genetics, you certainly shared a sense of punctuality - that you hadn’t even seemed to notice the rest of the cast getting in. But they’re not your job; you just have to keep Josy happy, get her food and drinks when she requested it, and type out emails she dictates. Easy. 

Of course this isn’t how things stay; you’re in close proximity to the cast for at least five hours a day, in a corner somewhere working on your own emails or scrolling through Twitter when you weren’t needed, but always around. For the first few days, no-one pays you much attention. 

“Hello! Hello and welcome back, ducklings! It’s my first week with The Project, and I’ve finally got a day off; it’s Sunday so I’m dragging my brother to a whole bunch of places you lovely people have recommended for me! Wish us luck!”

You’ve been in front of a camera for about as long as Douglas has, though never quite in the same way. You’d tried your hand at all sorts of jobs, both in the entertainment industry, and not, and while you enjoyed the entertainment industry well enough, you found that you had a passion for making your own videos. Your YouTube channel, which was almost at a million followers, had been going strong for almost four years, as you made videos about the lesser known roles in the industry. Sometimes your brother was in your videos, but often he wasn’t, and you felt lucky that you never really needed to use him for clout. He was just Doug, and your followers knew that if he was in a video, it’s because he wanted to be, but he wasn’t the reason the video was being made.

Douglas was nothing if not supportive, and when Sunday rolls around and when production gave you and the main cast the day off, while the second unit team worked with some of the secondary characters, you were both more than happy to take advantage of the freedom.

“Dude I have such a long list of places we could go, I don’t even know where to begin - haven’t you been here before?” You pressed the phone to your ear, frowning at the two outfits you had laid out on the bed before you.

“Yeah, for like,” Douglas hums at the other end of the line, “like press things, and like a week and a half for some Jupiter Ascending stuff-”

“Did that even make it -?”

“No, it got cut -” somewhere behind him, the milk frother of a coffee machine squeals, and someone’s indistinct name is called.

“Get me a drink,” you tell him, instinctively.

“Get one yourself!” He half laughs, and you hear him cover the receiver and muffle his thanks as he presumably picks up his drink.

“Who are you talking to?” When he uncovers the phone, you can hear another familiar voice; it’s Colson, you’re pretty sure. You know him from rehearsals, and a bit from his music, but not much beyond that.

“My sister,” Douglas offers, flatly, to which you make a noise of indignance. 

“Ask him if he’s ever been to New Orleans -” you instruct, putting the phone on speaker and opting to change into your more practical jeans and sweater option.

“She wants to know if you’ve ever been to New Orleans -” He relays easily, and you hear a snort of laughter.

“Of course I have.” You hear Colson say.

“Of course he has -” Douglas tells you, as if worried that you hadn’t heard.

“Ask him -” You begin, but you’re cut off.

“We’re across the road,” Douglas tells you, and you know without having to see him that he’s rolling his eyes at you. Audi ambassador, philanthropist, movie star, and occasional model Douglas Booth had the composure of a saint for everyone but you, though neither of you would have it any other way, “just come over here yourself.”

“Get me a drink?” You asked hopefully, and you heard him sigh, knowing you’d already won.

Your favourite drink is waiting for you when you arrive, as are both Douglas, and Colson, sitting hunched over in a booth with dark glasses. You can’t help but chuckle.

“Booths in a booth.” You mutter, and at least that gets their attention. Sliding in next to Douglas, you make eye contact with Colson as he lowers his glasses and frowns at you, just a little, as you sip your drink.

He looks between the two of you for a moment; you don’t share a whole heap of similarities with him, but after a beat, he nods, and gives you a curious look.

“Alright, good to meet you,” he paused, narrowed his eyes for a moment, “you’re part of the crew, aren’t you?” Is what he focuses on.

“Assistant to the AD,” you nod, before adding, “Duck, you might know me as Duck,” and that he seems to recognise at least. Colson hums thoughtfully, nodding and sliding his glasses back up his nose as he leans back against the seat. Drinking your drink with a surprising focus, you hand over your list of recommended places to Douglas, who nods approvingly, but quickly turns it over to Colson. He makes short work of it, crosses quite a few spots off, adds a few of his own, and takes pause to look up from it.

“Why are we going all over town? Why not just like... chill and maybe go over lines and shit? Isn’t that what we’re meant to do?”

“Didn’t take you for the cautious type,” you tell him with a teasing edge to your voice. Colson fixes you with a half-smile, handing the phone back pointedly.

“I’m not, I just don’t want you to narc on me if we start at bourbon street and spend our precious Sunday getting drunk in The Big Easy,” he matches your tone, sitting back with a posture so relaxed it’s almost scripted, and you’re pretty sure you like his nerve. 

“I’m...” you hesitate a little, “a YouTuber,” and though Colson winces a little, it still stings. With so much stigma surrounding your profession, even in 2018, it’s hard to explain to people what you do for a living and not receive criticism.

“So you’re gonna catch all the stupid shit we do on camera?” He asks, and oh, so that’s what he’s worried about. You let out a breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding.

“If you don’t wanna be in it, then you don’t have to be; anyways, I’ll edit out all the bits that break our NDAs,” shrugging, you shoot for casual, and Colson looks like he’s actually weighing up his options. 

“You still haven’t told him you’re not a narc,” Douglas stage whispers to you, which makes your expression sour and Colson laugh.

“You’re a narc,” you hiss back, reflexively. 

“We’re method acting,” Douglas offers, aiming for that same casual confidence that Colson was exuding, but not quite getting there.

“Fuck yeah, dude, that’s the spirit,” Colson’s expression breaks out into a grin, and he offers Douglas a fist bump, which your brother gladly returns. Then Colson’s looking back at you, bright and excited rather than judgmental; “you in?”

“We’ve gained a newcomer! A tour guide, if you will, Mister-” and you turn where you’re filming yourself and the two men beside you, the camera shaking in your grip as you head down the street, and your voice lowers, “what do you want me to introduce you as-” but he buts you off, moves around Douglas, who’s laughing quietly to himself, and grabs the camera.

“It’s MGK, motherfuckers! We ‘bout to hit Bourbon Street - we’ll bookend this shit; open with it and close with it, we’ll be back here tonight!” He sticks his tongue out, and throws out the devil sign with his hands, before turning the camera to catch Douglas laughing, and you looking both excited and concerned.

“We will?” 

When you ask about Daniel and Iwan, the other two members of the film’s Motley Crue, all you get is vague answers; in time, they’ll all come to be good friends, but it’s their first Sunday off, and no-one begrudges them for them choosing to take time for themselves. Douglas and Colson, however, had decided early on to try and make their friendship both on and off screen as authentic as possible. 

“Fuck, man, Tommy’s like, opening line in the book is that he and Nikki were like an old married couple, for like twenty years, dude, that kind of connection is insane!” Colson is nothing if not good casting, waxing poetic at a diner he’d spotted around midday, your little group already tipsy and hungry since your less than substantial cafe breakfast.

“I give this bacon and egg roll,” Douglas is in his own little world, only aware that you had your camera pointing at him as he devoured his lunch with a surprisingly messy gusto, “four-and-a-half out of five cups.” He announced with a mouth full of food, using the rating system you’d devised earlier in the day. After a moment, he swallowed, before turning to Colson, expression serious, “I’ve known you for about a week, and as much as I like you, I don’t think I want to marry you.” 

“No, that’s the thing, man, twenty years is a long-ass time to know someone; I just, man, by the end of this, we are gonna be tight, okay? That’s all I want. Bros, you know?” And he wrapped his arms around Douglas, pulling him in for a hug, and your brother nodded seriously, wrapping his arm around Colson in return.

“Bros.” He confirmed, giving the camera a very pointed look. You make sure the camera catches when you flip him off. All it does is set off all three of you laughing.

It’s an incredibly fun day, the three of you traipsing around, visiting sound studios and memorials and sites that paid homage to the great city you found yourselves in. You know you shouldn’t be surprised, but Colson’s rather reverential when it comes to the history of music, and when you look back at your list, you see the sites he’s added all have to do with it. Honestly, you’re a little endeared. It’s also a fun night, the parts of it you can remember, stumbling, leaning on one another. There’s bound to be something about it in the gossip rags in the following days, not that the three of you were badly behaved, just that they had both stopped caring about avoiding paparazzi, and, alright, being a little bit raucous. 

In bed by two, you know you’re gonna have a killer hang over for your nine-am start, but it was a fun night, and you’re looking forward to reviewing your footage.

“I give this bourbon from - hey, where’s this bourbon from?” You turn to look over your shoulder, and the cup in your hand slops over with drink, splashing out onto the street, not that you notice. Douglas is talking to someone running a stall, but Colson joins you, wrapping an arm around you.

“We give this bourbon a cup out of cup,” he announces, and you nod seriously.

“Cup out of cup.” You agree, and lift up the cup, before an idea lights up your face. “Drink it with me, like same cup, try and drink it with me.” It’s a terrible idea, your cheeks pressed together, tongues out as if it would help you drink better -

“You guys look like incredibly stupid,” Douglas calls out from out of frame, finally noticing the two of you. You go to respond, but that’s when Colson tips up the cup and it manages to hit neither of your mouths, instead it splashes against where your cheeks were pressed together, and all down your clothes. “Told you.” Douglas adds. 

Colson licks the bourbon from your cheek with a grin, but moves on quickly. You look around shiftily once the boys had left, still holding the camera with one hand, and you pull the hem of your shirt to your mouth, sucking liquor from it as you follow behind them wearing a pleased little smile.

Honestly, things get more lively in more ways than one, after that. Now that Colson knows you, it seems the rest of the cast do too. Slowly but surely you’re developing a friendship with both Iwan and Daniel, though Colson’s been surprisingly quick to treat you like an old friend.

“Trial by fireball whiskey,” is what he tells you after rehearsals one Saturday night. You’re doing a dinner run, picking up pizzas before the four of them go out, with you as their chaperone, as directed by Josy. 

“Speaking of,” though you can’t help but grin a little at the fact that you’d earned his favour so easily, “I’ve almost finished the video.” 

“Oh God,” he groans, laughs, and covers his face with his hands, “do I even wanna see it?”

“It’s not that damning, I promise, I need to stay monetized, you know?” You laugh, but it’s a sad truth you’ve had to deal with a lot since choosing to become a YouTuber. 

“I’m not exactly PG-13,” Colson’s smirking when you look at him, and his gaze meets yours and what does that tone mean and why are you reading into this all of a sudden.

“So I suppose you were on your best behavior that night?” You ask, voice innocent, though you can feel yourself getting flustered. His smirk grows wider.

“Only for Douglas’ sake.” 

And then your name’s called for the pizzas and the mood vanishes and Colson just asks if you can send him a link when you put up the video; you tell him you can send him it before it’s published, just to make sure he’s happy with it, and he gives you this genuine smile that you feel warm your heart, just a little.

But it’s when you publish the video that all hell breaks loose. 

Having a famous brother is one thing. Having a famous brother is allowed. Knowing someone famous is clout chasing, is gold digging, is not allowed according to the internet. Making someone famous laugh is downright illegal, surely he can do better than you. Because with the views come assumptions, and your burgeoning crush aside, they’re baseless. You’ve known him for three weeks. Twenty one and a half days in total. Flirting aside, the internet doesn’t know shit. 

It still hurts. 

The video kind of blows up, because everyone loves relatively harmless drunk celebrity shenanigans, and Colson’s kind of been blowing up recently between his music, and his upcoming film Bird Box. So now there’s invasive questions and death threats filling up your DMs on every platform, and along with a new influx of followers comes a new wave of toxicity. You know how to deal with people accusing you of using your brother for clout, but this is a whole other level. 

“So you’re with Colson,” Douglas looks smug when you answer your door on the day after the video drops. Though quick to defend yourself, there’s already tears in your eyes having had little sleep from the stress of everything that had happened, his smug aura drops and he wraps you up in a hug. “Hey, I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” his voice is soothing and level as he walks you back into your room, closing your door.

“You’re an ass,” you tell him, sulkily, but you hug him back.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you in earnest.

“I’m gonna get fired-”

“You’re not gonna get fired, Duck, you didn’t break your NDA, you didn’t break YouTube’s terms of service, you bleeped out all the swearing, you had an alcohol disclaimer at the start; this is the fans and the media blowing things way out of proportion.” He assures as you sniffle, still hugging him tightly. 

“They’re gonna fire me,” you murmur, voice a soft, sad whine.

“They’re not.” 

This is the point at which your phone starts to go off; someone’s calling you, and the caller ID says it’s Colson. He must have just woken up.

“He okay-ed the video, didn’t he?” Douglas asks, and you nod. “Then he won’t be mad; he’s dealt with this shit more than us, you know?” He gently pushes you towards the phone where it’s sitting on your bed, and steps back. “I’m gonna give you and your boyfriend some space,” and it’s teasing again, his grin sharp as he ducks out of the way of the pillow you throw.

“Asshole!” You yell after him. Once’s he’s out of the room, however, you take a moment to compose yourself before picking up the phone. 

“Hey, I’m so sorry -” you start, but Colson seems surprised to hear your apology.

“Nah, Ducky, don’t worry about it, I called to apologise to you; if I’m ever seen with a chick everyone thinks I’m dating her, I should have realised, I should have -”

“No, I mean, I can’t post a video with a guy who’s not my brother without five different tea channels claiming I’m in love,” you laugh, trying to hide your distress. An awkward silence follows, in which you sniffle, and reopen your laptop.

“I am really sorry,” Colson says, and there’s regret in his voice that you hadn’t expected. “If I could get them to all shut the fuck up, I would; you shouldn’t be all torn up over my shit.”

Something about what he says plays in your mind over the next few days, watching, subdued in rehearsals. The rest of the cast ask if your alright, sympathizes with you, all of them having had run-ins with the media in one way or another. Josy, in her own way, sympathizes too, in that she doesn’t treat you any differently, she doesn’t pity you. She, like you, like all of you, knows it will blow over. Probably.

“Hello,” your tone is so damn subdued, “hello and welcome back. I’m here today to address some rumours you may have heard. To all my new ducklings, hello. And to all my old, hello again.”

“They’re not gonna believe you if you deny it,” is how you greet Colson, barging into his room after rehearsals on a Wednesday. It had been a good day, things had calmed down somewhat online, but still gossip rags were still going hard, seeing as the paparazzi had managed to spot the two of you together during a break in rehearsals. 

“Yeah, no, they generally don’t,” he says flatly, frowning a little as he closes the door, running with whatever train of thought you were on.

“Then don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Deny it.”

Silence.

“Are you asking me out?” He actually wears a little smile at that, but you fix him with a serious look, not even a hint of a joke in your tone or expression. 

“Yes, because we’re twelve,” you rolled your eyes, tone so flat it’s almost comical, before you snap “- fucking no I’m not asking you out -” the thought had crossed your mind several times before shit had hit the fan, but there was no way in hell he’d genuinely want you now; you both came with a mob of crazed fans, and a sweet, if fake relationship with an amicable end would be far easier to manage than crazed rumors, “I’m fake asking you out. If you’d have me, I want to date you to get our fans to calm down.”

“How?!” He splutters, both confused and overwhelmingly amused. “That’d never work.”

“If we tell them we’re together, and we’re both working on projects, the industry won’t see either of as distracted by outside sources; we talk up how we’re supporting one another through this process, and that if our fans ever wanted what’s best for us, they’d support us too.”

“You’d...” he swallows hard, though he’s certainly contemplating the thought, “you’d still get death threats, you know that-”

“I get death threats when I don’t post feet pics;” you snorted dismissively, and his eyebrows rose, “I can handle them, but if you said this made you happy, well I think a majority of your fans would calm down. Stan-culture is weird and frightening, but a lot of them, most of them,” you corrected yourself, “want what’s best for you.”

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?” And he’s smiling now, watching you with something that almost resembles admiration in his eyes.

“Tell me you haven’t had a hundred tweets yelling about how you’ve corrupted me,” you cock your hip, and he casts a glance to his phone, before admitting he has, “well if I go back to posting non-drunk content with you in it, they’ll die down, I guarantee it.”

“What about your brother?”

“He’ll support me no matter what, it’ll be more believable if he, you know, believes it.” You hold out your hand, waiting. There’s an almost intimidating spark in your eyes, a focus that Colson hasn’t seen before. “Are you in?”

“Yeah, fuck it, why not,” and he shakes your hand, firm, grinning brightly.

“I’m here to address some rumours regarding my...” you took a deep breath, “boyfriend.”

[popculturebuffet]

Darkwing Duck Reviews: Darkly Dawns the Duck Pts 1 and 2

It’s a Darkwing Double Feature! Just in time for his ducktales special, I take a look at the introduction of everyone’s favorite Daring Duck of Mystery. In his daring debut we meet Darkwing Duck, an egositical and attention hungry superhero who soon finds himself having to look after a feisty orphan to keep her from getting nabbed by local kingpin of crime Taurus Bulba with the help of his biggest fan. Darkwing owns the night under the cut with decades old spoilers. 

Let’s Get Dangerous.. is tommorow so with that in mind i’m doing a darkwing double feature to refresh myself before the big special. So i’ll be covering both the original series pilot “Darkly Dawns the Duck” and the ducktales reboot episode “The Duck Knight Returns”.  Let’s Get Dangerous Itself because I was so wiped yesterday I didn’t get the other review done and unexpectly got acess to the new episode way earlier than usual so i’d rather focus on that. Got it? Good. Let’s continue past me. 

As usual with a new show a breif bit about my history with it: I watched it years ago, as a friend of mine lent me the first two discs of the season 1 dvd and never found the third one nor asked for them back, nor cared I had them. I thoughtly enjoyed it, had a great time and then it took me a decade or so to actually watch the series again due to a combination of being too stubborn to just buy the season 1 dvd again, a very darkwing move of me in hindsight, and then when disney plus meant I had all episodes at my finger tips I.. sat on them till now.. though to be fair i’ve sat on a LOT of great shows on there including the mandalorian, gargoyles and boy meets world. I have a bad tendency to procastinate, the fact this is coming out so late in the day should be a giveaway. I did read about half of volume 1 of the comic and all of volume 2, so there’s that at least.  Point is this new episode finally made me decide to get off my ass and watch darkwing once again, starting with the pilot and the episodes related to the fearsome four to be ready for tomorrow to see what the differences are (Thoguh I did remember bushroot vividly, so I had that at least).  Something to note before I get started talking about the pilot itself though, is the episode order for Darkwing Duck is a Darkwing Clusterfuck. Now I do understand WHY they aired this way: While some episodes do logically take place after other episodes, you can reasonably pop on just about any darkwing and watch it and enjoy it with minimal need to know what happened in previous episodes, kinda like batman the animated series oddly enough. It was also aired between two networks so on some level I get disney’s confusion here.. but on the other hand it’d take ten minutes, they clearly can call up the creator easily as Tad Stones made a cameo in ducktales 2017 we’ll get to so they could easily get a better order from the creator himself, so they really don’t have an excuse for this, or for slapping the pilot in the middle of season 1. Then again both ducktales 2017 and x-men the animated series were sort of a mess order wise when first put up, so not giving a shit about where episodes are placed for re-watching clearly is a pastime of theirs. 

Now i’ve got that out of my system we can dive into the episode itself and a breif plot synopsis. Darkwing Duck is the superhero protector of St. Canard, a masked vigiliante who takes out crime but wishes he actually got fame and credit for his work. Kind of like Booster Gold but without taking endorsments or as far as we know coming from the future. He also has nothing else as shown by the fact he fights crime, does a training regimine to prepare his breakfast that’s a delight to watch then prepares to sleep. It’s an intresting concept, a hero who HAD a civlian identity once, as the rest of the series would play out, he just no longer needs it. And it’s also ahead of it’s time as batman would explore this idea both seriously with bruce wayne murderer and comedically and seriously with the lego batman movie LONG after this series aired, meaning the writers here figured out what many probably knew about batman and put it into their parody version: Batman is the real identity and Bruce is the mask. Batman only keeps his old self because the bruce id is useful to him: It keeps people away from his company, puts up a playboy facade that draws attention away from him being batman, and allows him to do various charities and what not and help honor his parents in a way that dosen’t involve swooping in and kicking people in the throat. And as seen with bruce wayne murderer when the option to throw bruce away for good came up Batman gladly took it.  This is the same idea: Drake Mallard ONLY cares about crime fighting, has no friends no family, we never do find out jack about his family hopefully if there’s a full reboot series Frank and Matt fix it for their version. He has nothing, and is fine with that. He hasn’t really had a reason to care about anything else than his own glory and works alone not because it’s less efficent but because his oversized ego means he dosen’t want to share credit. IT’s an intresting start and his ego would be a defining bit of who he is and used intrestingly int he reboot but we’ll get to that there. 

His life changes forever though when local crime boss Taurus Bulba unleashes his latest scheme: To steal the Ramrod, a gravity manipulating device created by the late Dr. Quackmeyer.. late because Bulba’s men killed him and were dumb enough not to get the arming code for the ramrod first a year ago. Bulba is also behind bars but in one of my faviorite gags of the episode despite the warden’s constnat gloating, Bulba has taken the “Supervillian makes jail into a base” Or “Jail is nothing to a supervillian who can easily get out trope” to ludcrious machines. He has whole meetings with his minions, keeps the ramrod once he gets his hands on it in the laundry and has a ship SHAPED LIKE HIS FACE built into his cellblock. I’ts just so over the top it’s glorious. But yeah since Bulba can’t go after it at first he sends his three goofy minons, one played by eddie “Mandark” deezen in.. love that guy. 

THey do end up stealing the ramrod thanks to the help of bulba’s cool, non-anthromporhic condor who he uses as his right hand man and as his link to his minons via a small tv aroudn it’s neck. That.. is awesome. Darkwing spots the condor but fails to stop the three stooges or the condor and gets unknowingly blamed for the robbery..and stopped to get glamor shots not realizing the guy thought he was a criminla which.. fair enough. It is a shadowy disguise after all. 

Darkwing ends up grabbing onto the vulture sonic 3 style, but ends up falling off him into a hangar where we meet the original version of Launchpad McQuack, whose apparently quit working for scrooge and has his own hangar now though it wouldn’t be a stretch that scrooge bought it for him.. he does , stingy as he is, appricate hard work and launchpad wanting to start his own buisness and while hte planes were probably all on launchpad, Scrooge would gladly buy a run down buliding for a loyal friend who wants to put in some hard honest work. Plus it’s a free place to store any vehicles he has in the st canard area.. I mean it’s still scrooge. And yes I know the whole “Tad stones said they aren’t the same universe” non sense. I do have the utmost respect for the guy and he seems really, nice but I don’ tlike that, no one likes that and both the comics and the current duckverse with the ducktales reboot entirely ignore that for good reason.While the two shows are diffrent in tone they stil lfit and it’s not a stretch for launchpad to want to spread his wings or failing that scrooge to help push him out of the nest and give him his own buisness or one of scrooge’s to run. 

But while Launchpad does help DW with a propeller plane they fail and while launchpad offers to be his sidekick, DW gives him the old I work alone bit.  However him being alone won’t last for long as Bulba still needs that arming code and since his only lead is Waddlemeyer’s grandaughter who grew up in his lab, he sends his buffonish minons to go get him. Why he never sends his lone female minon with them is because it’s funnier if she dosen’t I guess. Which it is so fair enough.  So thus we enter Goslyn, who the head of the orphanage is fed up with due to her antics. Goslyn is played as most of you knwo by christine cavanagh.. I honestly forgot and it still throws me off a bit she’s using what would later be her chucky finster voice for a character so completely diffrent. Granted it’s not unusual in voice acting, just weird here and only for me personally having grown up with rugrats but not darkwing. The orphanage head is a bit less jarring as she’s played by Marcia Wallace, aka Edna Krabable from the simpsons but A) that show was already running at this point and B), the character is basically a nicer version of edna versus chuckies voice coming out of a tiny if immensly fun to watch hellion. I do like goslyn, sh’es a fun character even in her shadier moments, it’s just something i’d forgotten about i’ll need to get used to is all. 

Bulba’s hired goons come in claming ot be friends of her grandpas and we actually get some really heartwrenching context for Gos’ behavior: While she does act out she actually LIKES THE orphanage.. ti’s just her friends keep getting adopted while no one wants someone “full of spirit”. It’s heartwrecnhing to hear.. and only gets worse when the goons try and kidnap her.  Thankfully Darkwing.. also kidnaps her, but he kindaps her from kidnappers and while Goslyn naturally takes a second to realize he’s the good guy them shooting at him clues her in. Darkwing, in a rare for the series as a whole moment of reason and not wanting to just power though something himself TRIES to do the responsible thing and leave gos with the police where she’ll be protected.. but given they think he’s a wanted criminal they shoot at him.. and the small child in his motorcycle. Yup that’s the police alright. 

So with no other options Darkwing takes gos home, hyjinks insue including her activintg the breakfast thing. But the two genuinely start to bond. While Darkwing dosen’t WANT to keep her around, the whole not wanting connections thing, it’s clear he’s growing fond of the little snot as she holds her own with his trianing course, they have a tickle fight and in the sweetest moment of the episode the two sing little girl blue, a song her grandfather used to sing her to sleep that she teaches darkwing. It’s an utterly heartmelting bit and Cummings and Cavanagh really sell the hell out of it. It also however turns out ot be plot relevant: Turns out just in case Dr. Waddlemeyer hid the code for the ramrod in the song, and when Darkwing sees a photo Goslyn got from bulba’s goons, he realizes this and realizes that depsite thinking she didn’t know it Goslyn had it all along.. and that as long as h’es around she won’t know.  Bulba is naturally livid at his minons failure and decides now’s the time to take this into his own hands and while he actually liked the prison hq setup, as it did make sense as it was the perfect cover and the warden was too full of himself to realize Bulba was still active and too convinced the bull was beaten down when he clearly wasn’t, but instead as mentioned above awesomely converts his cellblock into a flying ship in the shape of his own head.  Bulba.. is a great villian and I only think the show didn’t use him more because he’s a dead serious, deadly dangerous villian in an otherwise goofy but fun superhero parody show. The show later gained Negaduck, so they had a more dangerous threat for darkwing that fit the show’s tone better while still being utterly terrifying, and likely simply didn’t need him till the idea for the steerminator came up. But I love the guy: he reminds me a lot of the kingpin, a threatning villian who uses his sheer size to beat our hero down, is cool and suave and is an utter mastermind at planning. He also wears a nice suit.  And naturlaly he has a plan to take out darkwing since despite the two never having met, as Darkwing disparages when Goslyn assumes their lifelong mortal enmies like in the comics, they know of each other.. and thus bulba knows exactly what trap to spring to get him out of the way and goslyn into his ship: He flashes a message in morris code that he wants to surrender to Darkwing while stroking his ego a LOT. And it works... while i’ts an obvious trap Darkwing’s so full of himself he goes despite Goslyn telling him it’s very obviously a trap.  Naturally everything goes pear shaped as a result: Bulba shows up, revealing gos not only to be right but easily pummling Darkwing. Which makes sense: While Darkwing is a vetran crime fighter and secret agent, Bulba’s been at being a villian longer clearly as he’s built up enough of a rep both for Darkwing to know him out of hand and for the warden to be proud capturing him. Given what univese this is, it probably isn’t Bulba’s first round with a superhero and given at this stage St Canard only has one.. yeah Darkwing is outclasssed and the police grab him while Bulba scarpers. And while Gos puts up a good fight using the trianing course, Bulba’s vulture gets her. Bulba has everything he needs.  Darkwing meanwhile actually bemoans what a dick he’s been, that the first person he’s cared about besides himself in possibly ever is now in the hands of a murderous mastermind, and that he’s stuck in jail with no one to call on for help. Thankfully.. help arrives.. and by help I mean launchpad backing the ratcatcher, Darkwing’s bike, into the prisoin. He DID come just to bail DW out despite his earlier jerkishness, but backed in and Darkwing not beliving superheroes have time for paperwork, decides to just bust out. And to be ifair int his case he’s probably right as you know, a ten year old might die if they don’t get there in time. So off they go.. but with Bulba in the air they need something with wings to catch him. ANd luckily as Launchpad mentioned earlier he’s been working on something special for darkwing.  It’s with this we enter the thunderquack, which is DW”S awesome headshaped plane. It’s just cool it’s got a nice design, goofy enough tof it the universe but cool enoguh to still be fun to watch. Darkwing has really damn cool vehicles, as the ratcatcher is also awesomely iconic. But yeah the thunderquack impresses darkwing and rightfully so and he decides to make LP his sidekick afterall.  So now our heroes fly into the danger zone and attack bulba’s airship with Darkwing landing on the bow and a scuffle insues with darkwing and hte minons.. who use actual guns which for a 90′s kids show is  a suprise, especially one this intentioanlly goofy, but boy is it nice. However Bulba, being awesomely evil, isn’t dumb and instead of fighting darkwing, which he could win but would win him nothing and having gotten nothing out of goslyn, figures the hero might know the code.. and while Darkwing lies and says he dosen’t, Bulba points out .. he’s right.. but he’s always been a gambling man and has his condor drop goslyn to lure drake into telling him , with DW putting in the code and bulba testing it with a bank robbery.. before predictably having his condor drop the girl because he no longer needs her. Thankfully launchpad catches her in time and then they get revenge on the condor with the thunderquack BITING IT.. which is awesome. Hopefully the reboot version does that. 

Darkwing meanwhile saves the day, his new daughter and the city by simply sneaking over to the ramrod and mashign the keys till it overloads, silly, but undeniably awesome and effective. Bulba TRIES to finish off darkwing this time for foiling his plan.. btu the ramrod explodes and while bulba’s minons and goslyn and launchpad are safe... bulba and darkwing are apparently dead and it’s effective.  A few weeks later Goslyn’s back at the orphanage utterly distraught and broken at being basically orphaned again. Naturally though Darkwing’s alive, having taken his old identnity back since now he has something worth using it for and adopts her, hinting at who he is so she goes with him. And Drake has changed.. sure he’ll still be as egostical and impuslive as he was here.. but he’s no longer just darkwing.. he’s drake again as he has someone worth fighting for.. two someones in fact. He has a friend, a loyal partner to help him fight cime. And more importantly.. he has a loving daughter. And both needed each other: Goslyn needed someone who understood her despite her manic energy, and Drake needed someone who needed him and not darkwing, a reason to be a person outside the cape and cowl and outside the attention again. He needed a reason to live again... and he’s got it. And it’s going to be great. 

Final Thoughts: This pilot is excellent. Well paced, plenty of laughs, tense action and great introductions for everyone involved as well as a hell of a vilian> This is how you do a first episode: it introduces the main themes of the show, both comedically and dramatically, introduces the cast and gives us a one off , or rather two off it’d turn out, villian whose compelling and intresting. IT’s really damn good stuff and I can’t wait ot see what frank does with a simlar story tommorow. Until then, stay safe, and happy hallowen. We’ll be back shortly for The Duck Knight returns and then Let’s Get Dangerous tommorow.