#lilly’s everything’s a bit more explosive

[ronnyraygun]

Lilith and Danny tradsies for Halloweener too. :3

[jakesduskwood]

even statues crumble if they're made to wait

Pairing: Jake x Fem!MC

Genre: Post-Episode 10 Duskwood, Post-Episode 1 Moonvale

Words: 8,916

Summary: It's been three months since the explosion in the mine. Three months since Hannah was found. And MC's accepted that Jake is never coming back. When she gets roped into another missing person's case, it makes for the perfect distraction. Jake is dead. It's fine. That is, until she finds herself on the phone with Alan Bloomgate who says he has something to show her. But it's fine. Jake is dead.

Until he's not.

EPISODE-1 MOONVALE SPOILERS AHEAD (MAYBE)!

[ A/N: Hello! :)

I know it's been a while since I've done this, but I finished Moonvale Episode 1 and if you've seen the ending (and used its Duskwood code), you know what happened and how excited I was to receive that bit of Duskwood. So, I took it and ran with it, and out came this extremely long fic. I did not proofread this as it took me literally almost 12 hours to write so it is completely and 100% me and my love for Jake and I hope you love it.

Side note: I suck with anything related to timelines, so I made one up on my own. I know Episode 1 of Moonvale takes place over the course of a day or two, but for the purpose of this fic, it made sense to make it longer, so it's not a typo, or me losing my mind, it's just the way my brain processed this.

Enjoy! :) ]

It’s been three months since the explosion in the mine.

Three months since Richy had been killed. Three months since Hannah was rescued. Three months since I had last spoken to Thomas or Cleo or Lilly or…or Jessy. I didn’t blame her then and I don’t blame her now. Any of them, really. I didn’t share the bond they had with each other. I wasn’t from Duskwood. It didn’t matter that we’d experienced a tragedy together—and yes, perhaps them more than me, but I loved Richy too. I had lost Richy too. And Jake—

But mostly, I think they just wanted to forget. To move on. They didn’t want to remember that their friend had been capable of…of that. And I was a constant reminder of that to them. So I understood why we didn’t necessarily talk anymore.

The one person I did keep in contact with from Duskwood, oddly enough, other than the occasional update from Alan Bloomgate, was Dan. We weren’t best friends or anything, but he allowed me to check in on our friends in a way that I didn’t know how to do with anyone else. Maybe because I thought he was the least affected among them. I knew he cared about Hannah, but he wasn’t to her what Thomas or Cleo or Lilly were. And he wasn’t to Richy what Jessy had been.

I’d learned from him that Thomas and Hannah had broken up. There was no bad blood, but Thomas hadn’t quite figured out how to accept the things he’d learned about his girlfriend when she’d been gone, and Hannah hadn’t quite figured out how to re-trust someone after Richy. Even if that person was Thomas. But I’d hoped they would find their way back to each other in the end.

I thought about reaching out to Jessy every once in a while—even just as an apology for everything that had happened. I’m sorry that Hannah was found at the expense of Richy. I’m sorry that he did this to you. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner. We should have. We should have. We should have. I miss you. But I never send it. I’m not all that sure she’d respond anyway.

Cleo and I were never all that close. She has her best friend back, so I think she’s probably as okay as she can be. Helping Hannah find a new kind of normal in a time where her childhood friend had kidnapped her in order to prove a point. I don’t know how you come back from that—I don’t know how you come back from knowing that you killed somebody at all.

I hadn’t found the courage to ask if somebody had told Hannah about Jake.

Not that I think it would matter anyway. I hadn’t heard from him since before the explosion in the mine, which was, like I said—three months ago. I waited the appropriate amount of time—twenty-five days—before I broke down and concluded that maybe he hadn’t survived. Which just piled a shit-ton of guilt onto my shoulders because it was supposed to be me in that mine. He had gone in place of me and now he was dead.

It was the only explanation that made sense. I was used to Jake disappearing for days at a time, but never as long as he had been now. And he didn’t seem like the type to tell me he loved me and then leave without a single explanation. Not unless he had to. But it had been three months and as much as I missed him, as much as my chest ached with the thought that we would never eat Chinese food out of shitty motels and have that on-the-run ending we talked about, I had accepted that he wasn’t coming back.

I wonder if he had known about Richy or if he had died still thinking Michael Hanson was the one who had kidnapped Hannah. I wonder if his last thoughts were of me. Maybe it’s selfish, but I kind of hope they were, because I’m pretty sure I’ll think about him for the rest of my life.

I wonder what it would have felt like to run my hands through his hair. To kiss him. To spend every waking moment with him and know it was because I loved him. Because I would have. Talking to Jake became about more than just finding Hannah. It became a part of my day I looked forward to more than anything else. He confided in me in a way that told me he never had with anyone, maybe not even Hannah, and I needed that from somebody. I needed somebody to trust in me the way that Jake did. I needed somebody to love me the way that Jake did.

It was strange—and maybe a little ironic—the thought that something so beautiful could come out of something so tragic.

Anyway, my point is: it’s been a long couple of months. Of thinking about my friends. Of thinking about Jake. Of wondering if I should have done things differently. I should have gone to Duskwood to help. Not even with the mine, but sooner. I could have. I could’ve gone when Jessy was attacked on the way home. I could’ve gone when the group made plans to cut out of town and hide away in the house Richy had found. Selfishly, I should have. In that moment, when they were settled around the fire and Lilly called me, I had never remembered wanting anything more. I should have grabbed Jake—metaphorically, maybe even literally—and rode it out with them to the end.

I don’t stop missing them after three months. Of wishing things could have been different. Wishing I could have done more. But exactly ninety-five days after the explosion in the mine, seventy days since I had accepted that Jake was never coming back, twenty-two days since I had last heard from anybody from Duskwood (Dan included), my phone dings with a new message.

And the cycle starts all over again.

It’s somebody named Eric, who claims he needs my help to find his friend Adam, who disappeared while he was waiting for a ride in someplace called Redlog Pines. And much like with Duskwood, I have never heard of Redlog, and the case reminds me way too much of Thomas’ first message to me, so much that it makes my chest ache, but I can’t say no because there’s somebody missing, and if I’d say no the first time, God knows where Hannah would be.

So, I say yes, and I help out where I can, and Eric decides he needs to bring about four more friends in on his little plan and I try my best to stay emotionally unattached because I remember everything that happened the last time and I can’t go through that again. I offer up information when I can and keep my words short and careful because I’m not ready to get attached to somebody else I know I might never meet.

I know how this ends.

Two days in, Ash, one of Eric’s friends, brings up my Duskwood past and the unhealed wound I’ve been trying to mend breaks open again. She asks about Richy, and about the mine, and then because I’m me and I can’t help myself, I tell her about Jake. She tells me the news never mentioned another body and I shove that thought to the back of my head because hoping for something that will never come true will kill me.

Four days into Adam’s disappearance, and the police not giving a shit—as Charlie, somebody who reminds me far too much of Richy for comfort, points out—my phone beeps with an incoming call from somebody I haven’t spoken to in a while.

“Go for [MC].” I answer my phone.

Ever since Hannah had been found in the mine and Jake had…you know, my phone had been more silent than I’d gotten used to. Until this new case. But even that—it was only a few days old and I didn’t want to go down the same path with them that I did with my friends in Duskwood. We didn’t really know each other that long, sure—even though sometimes it’d felt like it—but it felt like I’d finally been a part of something. Like, I had found these people who had chosen me for me.

And originally, maybe they had. Maybe they’d had every intention of keeping me around, but then Richy was the Man Without A Face and Alan Bloomgate had rescued Hannah and nothing was the same as it had been when we’d met each other. We knew too many secrets about each other by the time the town settled. Secrets we would have to take to the grave.

Or maybe I’m losing my mind a bit and I had really only been a means to an end.

Either way.

“Alan?” I raise my voice when there’s nothing but breathing on the other end of the line. “Did you mean to call me?”

His tone is clipped. “I found something.”

“You found something.” I repeat.

My heart clenches. For all I know, it might fall into my stomach. As far I know, from watching the news, from what Ash told me, Jake’s body was never found. Richy’s was. Or what was left of him to find, anyway. I had assumed that there just hadn’t been enough of Jake left. The thought left me nauseous, but it was better than hoping for something I knew I could never have.

“I’m sending it to your phone now.” He responds. “Let me know what you think of this.”

And then he hangs up.

That was a riveting conversation, I think as my phone dings with a message. I do my best to ignore my other messages—contacts from Duskwood I’m still not ready to acknowledge—and click Alan Bloomgate. He sent me a video that looks like—oh God.

Immediately, I’m overcome with emotion as an all-too-familiar forest pops up on my phone. It’s a video of Alan’s bodycam footage. He’s searching the Duskwood forest. A forest I’ve seen too many times in the background of other video calls.

I watch as he stumbles upon an object that’s too dark to make out at first. When he gets closer, it’s clear that it’s a backpack. It’s simple. Black. Nothing about it that screams this is mine and I left it here about anybody in particular. You stupid, stupid idiot, I tell my heart when it rattles against my chest in hope. He’s dead.

Alan stands and treks away from the backpack—I want to scream at him to go back, to open it and look through it and tell me if it’s what my heart aches to believe, but I can’t, because this is a video and I’m simply watching with wide eyes, waiting for…for something. But then. But then, he moves further into the forest and I watch as he stumbles upon an object that makes my knees tremble and tears rush to my eyes and my hands shake. A black hoodie. It looks like it’s been through hell, with holes scattered up the sleeves and dirt cakes into the hood, but it’s unmistakably his.

And then—Alan lifts the hood and picks up something that makes me sink to my knees with a sob that wracks my entire frame. Because I’m staring at Jake’s mask. The mask he doesn’t go anywhere without. The mask that protects him. And so my relief is short-lived, because I realize that even if he’s alive—which seems like a very big possibility at this point—he’s alive without the things that he needs to survive.

And then the anger kicks in. Because if he’s been alive, on his own, for three months—why has he not contacted me? Unless he survived the mine but he didn’t survive the after. But that didn’t make any sense. So, okay, he wasn’t dead. But that didn’t make any sense either. He told me he wouldn’t let them catch him. Because catching that meant he would be apart from me. Did something happen that prevented him from being able to reach out and tell me he was at least okay? A quick text that said didn’t die in the explosion in the mine, you don’t need to mourn me, by the way, going off radar for another year. Did he think I would have given up on him?

I wipe my eyes and shoot a message to Alan.

ME: Recently?? Did nobody search the forests before?      

ALAN: Searched the forests for what, [MC]? The logical assumption seemed to be that if anybody was inside the mine when Richy set the fire, they would have perished alongside him. Officers were stationed outside every known entrance and exit. Besides, after the story you and your friends spun around this town, do you think anybody would have gone back into its forests?

ME: But it’s possible?

ALAN: I would say these items had been there for some time. But I would say it is likely he ditched them when he fled the mine, yes.

Another sob tears through my throat. Jake is alive. I don’t know quite what that means for us as of now, but I know it’s the best news I’ve heard since Hannah was found. Jake is alive. He’s out there somewhere. And even if it’s been three months, and even if I’m a little bit mad at him right now, I know that if he was here, I would throw my arms around his neck and hold on to him until someone dragged me off, and even then—I would fight kicking and screaming.

I close out of my messages with Alan and pull up a conversation I haven’t had the heart to look at in quite some time.

ME: Jake’s alive.

LILLY: …

LILLY: Have you spoken to him?

ME: Alan called. He found some of Jake’s things in Duskwood. I don’t know a lot of details. But I know he made it out of the mine.

Lilly types for a long while, but she doesn’t respond. I don’t take it personally. I think it’s probably hard for her to be happy that her brother’s okay while also trying to accept that her sister may never be okay again. Her sister, who had once-upon-a-time been kind-of-sort-of in love with their brother she didn’t know she had. I think that would probably mess with any family’s heads. And on top of all that, you throw in manslaughter and a kidnapping. I wouldn’t wish anybody, not even my worst enemy, to have had to go through what the Donforts had.

When it becomes adamant that Lilly isn’t going to respond, I start scrolling through messages with the rest of the group in Duskwood. I click on Jessy. I’m here if you need me. That had been the last thing I sent to her, a couple of days after Richy’s death. She hadn’t responded. I click out of Jessy’s contact and click on Thomas’ instead. Thank you for everything. That had been his last message to me after we found Hannah. I’d liked it. I hadn’t expected at the time it would be the last thing we’d ever say to each other. I click out of Thomas’ and click on Richy. So, you want to turn yourself in? I’d asked. That was before he called me. Before he lit a match and burned himself and the mine to the ground. Some people would call that heroic. I mostly call him a coward.

I click on Jake’s name. It’s been a while since I read messages between the two of us. Maybe before I had accepted—thought—he was dead. In that twenty-five-day period when I’d hoped with all I’d had that he would come back. I love you. That was the last message he sent me. I’d responded with I love you too, Jake. Then, four days later: Are you okay? A week later: Jake, please, you’re starting to scare me. I know you said you would contact when you could, but it’s been a week. After twenty-five days, when I had finally accepted our fate, I’d sent one final message: I hope you know that I love you, and I will always care about you, but I think it’s time for me to move on. I’m so sorry that I sent you into the mine. It should have been me. And I will probably feel the guilt from that for the rest of my life. Thank you for everything. Take care of yourself, wherever you are.

After that, I had closed out of our messages and hadn’t looked back. Partly because I couldn’t bear the pain of it. It felt like I had given up on him. I hadn’t—if I had thought for a second that he was alive, if I knew then what I know now, I would have never sent that message. But holding out hope for somebody who I thought was a ghost at the time? That was slowly killing me.

It’s only then that I notice the screen flickering. Much like the way it used to whenever Jake would hack into my phone. I don’t think he’s much in the mood to be hacking right now, but somehow, I know it’s him. When had he done this? Recently? If I had opened our messages, would I have seen this ten—twenty—even fifty days ago? It hadn’t looked like this the last time I texted him. Did he see my last message about needing to move on? Was that why he hadn’t reached out to tell me that he was okay? Because he thought I was moving on happily without him?

No, my brain supplies. He wouldn’t. He would reach out anyway, because he knows how much the thought of him not being okay would have destroyed you.

The screen flickers once more and then a message pops up, bright and blue-tinted and clear as day on my phone.

[MC]

I WILL FIND YOU

And the world around me shifts.

--------------------------------------------------

Maybe it sounds crazy, considering I’ve never seen his face before, but I always thought that if I’d ran into Jake one day, maybe on the street or at one of those motels he stayed at or maybe even in Duskwood, surrounded by all our friends, I would know it was him. I would, because it’s him, and it’s me, and we’re the only two people who understand each other quite the way we do.

I still believe that.

I believe it when I book my flight to Duskwood (or rather, twenty miles outside of town, which is the closest airport). I believe it when I board the airplane and find a seat next to a mother with her screaming child and when I shoot off a quick text to Eric to let him know I’ll be MIA for the next few hours, but to message me if he needs anything—and I think about how much easier this case would probably be to solve if we had Jake.

Maybe it would have been harder to find Hannah without me, but I know damn well they would’ve never found her without Jake.

Dan picks me up from the airport. I haven’t told the others yet. Something about it felt off—like I shouldn’t message them and say hey, I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but I’m booking a flight to look into why my maybe-slash-not-really boyfriend left his belongings in a forest we really wish we could forget about, and by the way, can I crash at your place?

It’s quiet on the car ride back into town. I’m looking through my messages from Eric and the group from Redlog Pines and thinking about how I’m Duskwood with this group and I want so badly to laugh because it’s ironic, but Dan wouldn’t understand. He might just call me crazy. Better yet, he would ask how I manage to get myself into these situations, and really, I don’t have an answer for him.

“How have you been?” I ask, just to break the tension, as Charlie, in my messages, tries to persuade his friends to head back into that creepy cave in the middle of the forest. He’s going to get someone killed, I think.

Dan looks over at me. “Are you still with Hackerman?”

My chest squeezes. “His name is Jake, Dan. And we were never really together.”

“Hm.” He nods like he doesn’t quite believe me. “You already know mostly everything that’s been happening here. Thomas and Hannah called it quits. They say it was some mutual decision, but it’s hard to find them in the same room together. Jessy hasn’t been out with us since. I think we remind her too much of Richy. The group’s all changed.”

“And you?” I ask.

He gives me a cheshire-like grin that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m always the same.”

We make it to Duskwood just as the sun’s going down. Much too late for me to try and trek through the forest and retrace the steps Jake might have taken that night. Not that I think it would help give me any clues as to where he might have gone, but mostly because I wonder if it will make me feel closer to him. We’ve never been in the same place before, and even if he’s not there now—he once was.

“Can you drop me at the police station?”

Dan blinks. “The police station.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“We answered their questions for weeks, [MC]. I don’t think anything you have to tell them at this point is going to help. The investigation’s closed. Everybody knows Richy did it. He died with the fire in the mine. Everybody’s trying to move on from that.” He works his jaw. “Did you come here to open old wounds after all this time?”

I try not to show the hurt look on my face. “This isn’t about Richy. Look, Alan called me. He asked if I could look at some things. I figured it was better for me to do it in person. That’s it. Nothing to do with Richy. Nothing to do with Jessy. Nothing to do with you.”

He sighs, and I’m not entirely sure he’s going to abide by my wishes until we pull in front of a tiny building—tinier than most—that says Duskwood Police on the sign. Duskwood must not have that much crime. Well, not until this, I suppose.

“Thank you.” I tell him as I reach over to undo my seatbelt and climb out of the car. “This is a nice ride, by the way.”

He raises a hand in some mock-salute. “Need me to pick you up?”

“Nah.” I shake my head. “Think I’ll explore the town for a little bit.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugs and then he’s off.

I square my shoulders and take a deep breath before opening the door to the police station. It wasn’t like Alan asked me to come down here. He hadn’t. Even during the investigation into Richy’s death and Hannah’s kidnapping, when he questioned us, he never asked me to come to Duskwood. We’d done way too many video calls and phone calls and at one point, I had asked if he thought it would be easier for me to come to Duskwood, to which he responded back, are you ready for that?

No, I hadn’t been. I’m not even so sure I was now. But knowing that Jake was alive, that here was the last place was, I had to try.

“Can I help you?” The woman at the front desk asks.

I clear my throat. “I was wondering if I could speak to Alan Bloomgate. I’m one of—I was involved in the Hannah Donfort case. My name is [MC].”

Her eyes widen. “Give me a moment.” She stands and heads to some back office—which looks to me more like a closet—and then returns with a clipped smile. “He’ll be right out.”

Apparently, she isn’t lying, because not two minutes later, Alan is stepping out from the same door and staring me down. I hold his gaze and hope it says that I’m not here to argue. I will tell him my truth, but only my truth, not Hannah’s, not Jake’s, not anybody else’s.

“I was wondering when I would see you.” He says.

I shrug one shoulder. “Isn’t a few months later better than never?”

“Let’s go into my office.” He says, and leads me around the desk and back into the closet space he had come out of. He sits behind the desk and motions for me to take a seat opposite him. “I’m just going to guess you’re not here to talk about Miss Donfort.”

“I want to see them.” I tell him. “His things. I want to see them for myself. And whatever you want from me in return, I’ll give to you.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game here, [MC].”

“He isn’t a game to me.” I snap back and then sit back and try to relax. “I appreciate that you called me. It’s—I helped you find Hannah. I would do it again. Even with knowing the things that we do now, I would do it all again. That’s how much that group means to me. That’s how much he means to me. I’m not asking you to break any rules or to lie for him or to—to let him hide in your basement for the next five years. I’m just asking you to show me what you found.”

He stares me down for a moment. Then, he sighs, says “wait here for a minute” and disappears to another room. When he comes back, it’s with an evidence bag in his hand filled with the objects I saw on his bodycam footage. My breath hitches in my throat.

“I can’t let you touch them.” He says as he lays them in front of me.

I stare into the eyes of the mask. “Did you tell anybody that he’s alive?”

“I don’t know that he’s alive,” is all the answer he gives, which is an answer to my question. I slide my gaze down to the black hoodie, to the dirtied sleeves and muddy hood, and think about the fact that Jake wore this. I’m so close to him.

And yet I’ve never been further away from him.

“Thank you.” I tell him. “For—for this. And for listening to me about Hannah. If you hadn’t, I—I don’t know what would have happened. How much longer he would have gone on for. If he would have ever stopped.”

Alan’s silent for a minute. Then, he clears his throat. “You know, it was strange to me. Both Hannah and yourself swore to me that neither of you knew the other.”

“I don’t.” I swear.

It was one of the (albeit many) things that didn’t make sense to me. How Hannah got a hold of my number. How she sent it to Thomas. She’d told Alan she hadn’t really remembered texting him my number at all.

“I believe you.” He reassures. “I just think it’s strange. One mistake, if you can call it that, and you throw yourself into a missing persons case to help a stranger.”

“They’re not strangers.” Even though Hannah is kind of still a stranger.

“But they were.” Alan reasons. “You had no reason to say yes to helping Thomas. I doubt anybody would have held it against you if you turned the other way. But you decided to follow this until the end. To make sure they found Hannah. And you care about them. Maybe that’s why I find that I’m more lenient with you than maybe I should be. Why you’re sitting across from me right now calling the shots. Why I’m not asking you about the hacker.”

“I wouldn’t tell you if you did.” I look him in the eye so he knows I’m telling the truth.

He returns my gaze. “Maybe that’s the other reason.”

“Hm.” I acknowledge before I turn my gaze away—from him, from the objects that I know belong to Jake and it takes everything in me not to snatch them up and run. “Well. Thank you for allowing me to steal some of your time. For letting me—” I cut myself off before I say something that makes me break down in a fit of tears in front of him. “—just thank you.”

Leaving the station is easier than coming in. I’m still not any closer to knowing where Jake is than I was when I arrived here, but there’s a comfort in knowing he walked these streets. I wonder what he would think if he knew I was here. He hadn’t wanted me to come to Duskwood when everything was happening…but now that it was over, would he be happy that I was here? That I had come to Duskwood to piece together where he might have gone? Would he track my location and come to find me and…or was I grasping at straws?

It felt like I had just gotten him back. Not really, not entirely…but knowing that he was alive, that he was out there somewhere, maybe thinking of me and looking for ways to come back, to live the life we talked about when he asked me if I was sure…that was worth it. The thought that we could maybe someday have that—even if it was a twenty percent chance.

I check my phone again to see a new message from Ash. She’s asking me if I’ve heard from Charlie in the last few hours. Apparently, he’s AWOL, and I want to help, really, but…it doesn’t really feel like that’s where I am at the moment. Not just physically—obviously—but mentally. We got lucky with Hannah. And that was really only because we had Jake. Adam didn’t have a Jake. Or…maybe he did and I just hadn’t met him yet. But I already had a Jake and I didn’t want another one.

Maybe—if I found him, I could convince him to help. That was a big maybe. Not because I thought Jake would say no. He would say yes to anything I asked of him. The maybe was whether or not I could find him. More likely, the maybe was whether or not he would find me.

Three months ago, I would have been able to come to Duskwood and have no shortage of things I wanted to do and people I wanted to see. Now, as I stand outside Duskwood’s police station, I feel nothing but loneliness. Nobody knows I’m here. I could pass Thomas on the street and he wouldn’t even know it. I could run into Jessy at the library and she would walk by me without even a second thought. Why would they? I hadn’t told them I was here.

So, with nothing left to do, I walked. Toward the town center. Toward the library that Jessy showed me on our walk through Duskwood. Toward the Rainbow Café where I knew that Cleo and Hannah had spent a lot of their time. Toward the Black Swan. Toward—

Ah, what the hell.

I had nothing better to do and The Aurora seemed like a great place to drown my sorrows. To think about my next steps. To figure out—now that I was in Duskwood—what I planned to do. The thing about Jake being so secretive (and on the run) was that I couldn’t retrace his steps. I wasn’t able to ask if anyone had seen him. One, because he would make sure nobody had. And two, because three months was a long time to forget somebody’s face if you didn’t know who you were looking for.

I pull open the door to the bar and step inside. Immediately, I’m hit with the stench of whiskey and a handful of chatter. Duskwood’s a small town. And The Aurora definitely proves it. The bartenders move melodically around each other, serving patrons on the other side of the bar. If you walk down further, there’s a handful of tables.

And dead in the center is a table with my friends. Or, some of them. Dan and Cleo and Lilly. Could I still call them my friends? Ex-friends, maybe? Acquaintances? I didn’t know what they were. Or how to address them. It wasn’t like we had gotten into a fight. We didn’t stop talking for any reason other than that we did. We stopped talking.

I make a beeline for the bar to avoid a confrontation and plant myself on one of the stools. One of the bartenders—a girl cute with bleach blonde hair and brown Bambi eyes—asks what I want and I channel my inner Dan to order a whiskey—neat.

Looking over my shoulder, I focus on the table of them. On Lilly, who’s smiling at something Cleo said. On Dan, who’s the only one of them who actually knows I’m here. But even he’s focused on the conversation they’re having. It’s strange—to see Dan a part of something I’m not sure he would have been before. It’s nice.

“[MC]?”

I turn my head away from the table of my friends and focus my attention across the bar on someone I should’ve expected to see. “Phil.”

“I thought I recognized your voice from when we talked.” He smiles. “I wasn’t sure, but I saw you staring longingly at them—” He nods towards Dan and Cleo and Lilly. “—and I knew. What brings you around here? I expected you to show up maybe a few months ago, but by now, I thought you’d moved on without us.”

I was tired of the words move on. Like I’d had a choice. Like the people from this town might open their arms and welcome me back into their lives. So I’d been part of the group who’d saved Hannah Donfort. So had a lot of people. It didn’t make me special and everyone here knew it.

I offer him a smile in return. “I’m looking for somebody.”

“Anybody I know?” He asks.

I shake my head. “Nah. At least nobody you would recognize.” I pause. “How’s Jessy?”

“She’s—Jessy.” He answers, like that is an answer. “I don’t know if she’ll ever really be okay with the way things happened with Richy. I wouldn’t expect her to. Obviously. But I don’t know. I think I just thought she would have gone back to her normal life by now. And then I remember that most of her life revolved around him. He was her best friend. She worked for him. And I’m trying to be patient about that. But—” He shakes his head. “Maybe you should talk to her.”

“She doesn’t know I’m in town.”

“Okay.” He hums. “So, you’re not in town for my sister. And you’re not in town for your group of friends because they’re over there and you look like you’d rather be anywhere else. There’s always Hannah, but I don’t think you knew her that well. Or at all. Would I be right to assume this is about a certain hacker who helped to find Hannah?”

“He didn’t help find Hannah.” I defend. “He was the entire reason we found Hannah. I would have never been able to do it on my own. Even with the others’ help. He’s the only reason we found out about—” I pause before I say something I maybe shouldn’t. “It doesn’t matter. He’s the only reason we found her. Everything I did was just dumb luck.”

“That wasn’t what the news said.” A voice cuts in and I turn my attention from Phil to focus on the stranger that slides into the seat beside me. Not too close—a couple inches away. I don’t recognize him. I don’t know him. But I don’t know every person in Duskwood. Maybe a total of like nine or ten. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But I heard you had a lot to do with finding Hannah Donfort. The news said you were some kind of hero.”

I offer him a tight smile. “That’s nice of them. But…if they knew my—friend—knew what he did to find her, I don’t think I would be as much of a hero as everybody says.”

“That’s noble.” He says, eyes meeting mine, and it strikes me at once how handsome he is. He has dark hair. Bright green eyes. Focus, [MC]. I scold. You have a…a someone.

My phone buzzes.

ERIC SENT A PHOTO.

ERIC: What do you make of this?

I sigh and click on the photo. It’s of—some object. Much like the one that was addressed to me on the envelope in Adam’s glove compartment. The image is a bit different—but I don’t know enough about what it means to have an answer as to why.

ME: Was this one addressed to me?

ERIC: Nope. Ash.

“Are you okay?” Phil asks.

I clear my throat. “I’m a popular person—apparently.” A thought strikes. “Have you ever heard of a place called Redlog Pines?”

Phil frowns. “No.”

I turn to look at the stranger. “You?”

“Redlog Pines is a small town about two hundred miles north of Duskwood.” He answers. “Known for their wooded forests, much like Duskwood.”

“Why are you looking into a place with forests as creepy as ours?” Phil asks, incredulously. “Didn’t you get enough of that with Hannah’s case?”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “You would think.”

“Hey, [MC]!”

I wince at the sound of Dan’s voice. Shooting Phil a look that screams please help me to which he shakes his head amusedly, I turn and plaster on a fake smile as I take in the shocked looks on Cleo and Lilly’s faces. I should have known better than to come to The Aurora and talk to Phil when the three of them were having a conversation across the room. I should have known they would sooner or later see me. I just hoped it was later.

“Hey.” I hop off my stool and make my way across the bar to them. “It’s, uh, fancy seeing the three of you here.”

“What are you doing here?” Cleo asks.

“I haven’t really figured that out.” My eyes meet Lilly’s. “It sounds crazy to say it out loud. But I was hoping that—I’m not sure if Lilly told you—”

“That Jake’s alive.” Cleo nods. “None of us ever really thought he wasn’t.”

I don’t think she means it as a dig—but it still feels like one. Like she’s saying you gave up on him you gave up on him you gave up on him even though she’s not and she didn’t really know him and the only person I can talk to at this table who even might understand is Lilly and even—Jake didn’t confide in her the way he did me.

“Right.” I acknowledge. “So I thought that maybe if I came here, I could trace his steps from when he was here and—I haven’t really thought that far ahead. It’s not like I thought he left me any clues in the forest or anything like that. I don’t think he expected me to be here. He hadn’t wanted me to be the last time we talked. But that was before everything happened.”

Lilly’s eyes track behind me. “Does Jake still have Nymos on your phone?”

“Uh.” I furrow my brows. “I think so. I hadn’t heard from him in a while, but I went back and read through our messages after I talked to Alan and…my phone glitched, like it used to when Jake had hacked it. And then this message appeared on my screen.”

“And by chance, can Nymos track your location?”

“What—” I shake my head. “Maybe. I don’t think I ever really asked him. It didn’t seem necessary at the time.”

“Uh huh.” She focuses on me once more. “Let’s say, for one minute, that Jake has access to Nymos who has access to your location.”

Cleo must catch onto something I’m not sure of. “Jake didn’t want you here.”

“Uh, thank you?”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” She waves me off. “He didn’t want you in Duskwood. He had been adamant about that when we were talking about the mine. That’s why he went. If you showed up in Duskwood—”

“Nymos would have alerted him.” Dan finishes.

“Okay…” I’m not entirely sure I’m on the same page as them. “So—you think that Jake found out when I came to Duskwood.”

“Correct.” Lilly beams like she just solved life’s greatest mystery.

“And you think he would—come find me?”

She smiles sympathetically at me—like I’m the world’s biggest idiot for not realizing what she has been trying to say sooner. “I think he already has.”

“You think Jake’s in Duskwood.” I deadpan.

“[MC].” Cleo grabs my shoulders and turns me around. “We think he’s in this bar.”

Stranger, as I had nicknamed him—AKA the guy sitting beside me at the bar, with Phil and Redlog Pines (which he probably only knew about because of me) and the whole Hannah being kidnapped and not taking any of the credit thing—was looking back at me. So was Phil. Like they thought I was the crazy one. Like it would’ve been so hard for him to look and me and say it’s me or anything that might have clued me into the fact that—

“Jake?” I whisper, because I’ve lost quite a bit of sleep over the past couple of months and I’m not one hundred percent sure what—or who—I’m seeing is real. “Are you here?”

He tilts his head and smiles at me. Actually smiles. A bit shyly, like it’s something he’s not used to doing, but maybe like it’s something he could get used to. And I think about how terrible I probably look right now because I’m not wearing makeup and my hair is tousled from constantly pulling at it and my clothes are wrinkled from the plane and the police station and I look like a mess. But our relationship has never been about looks. Clearly. I didn’t even know the person I’d been talking to until Lilly and Cleo and even Dan pointed out the obvious.

“If I—” I close my eyes and open them again. Nope. Still there. “I need you to still be there by the time I reach you because it’s been a—” I sniffle. “—it’s been a rough few months and I don’t think I could handle you disappearing again.”

He stands from the stool he was sitting on and shuffles his feet. Like he’s not quite sure where he’s supposed to stand. If he thinks about moving, I’ll tackle him onto the floor of The Aurora and then apologize to Phil later. It feels like everything I wanted is right here in front of me. And I’m scared to death that it’s not real.

“What’s one thing you would take with you if you were stranded on an island?”

His smile stretches. “My computer.”

And that—that’s what breaks me. I think I might start blubbering like an idiot but I don’t remember the time it takes for me to cross the measly twenty feet between us. All I remember is grabbing his black hoodie—because of course—and dragging him to me. I don’t kiss him, despite how much I want to, because I don’t want our first kiss to be tainted with my snot and tears. Instead, I bury my face in his collarbone and wrap my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life.

Because I can. Because he isn’t dead.

“Y—You’re here.” I pull back and cup his face with my hands. “How are you here?”

“You came to Duskwood.” He responds, and then—hesitantly—he presses his lips to my forehead in a kiss. “Alan called you.”

“He found your things in the forest.” I whisper back. “He said they’d been there a while. The police hadn’t searched the forest because they assume you died in the mine.”

“They aren’t looking for me here.” He confirms. “I didn’t expect it to take so long for them to find my belongings, but I anticipated that you would find out. At the time, it wasn’t safe for me to reach out and contact you. They kept on my trail for a while before they assumed I died in the mine with Richy.”

“Why didn’t you contact me then?” I ask. “Is it because of what I last messaged you? I didn’t mean it—I swear, I thought you were dead. If I had known you were alive, I would have waited, however long it took. I wasn’t trying to give up on you.”

“Hey.” He places both hands on either side of my face. “I know. I know that, [MC]. That was never why I didn’t reach out to you. I know you said you wanted this life with me. But I didn’t want that for you. But I was selfish. I couldn’t let you go. So I was trying to find a way to make both of those things true. But I was always coming back to you.”

“And did you?”

“Come back to you?” He asks.

I sniffle. “Find a way to make both of those things true.”

“Not entirely.” He admits. “Nymos alerted me you had boarded a plane headed in the direction of Duskwood and I—” He shook his head. “I knew I would find you here.”

“You could have found me sooner.”

He lets go of my face and he feels like he takes my skin with him. “It wasn’t that easy.”

“It could have been.” I demand.

I’m angry again. Now that I know he’s alive and okay and that he could have found me, I’m angry that he didn’t. I told him I would choose that life with him. Over and over and over. He didn’t need to make the decision for me. He didn’t need to try and protect me. And yes, maybe the fact that he did makes my heart flutter a tiny little bit, but that’s besides the point.

“I told you before you left me.” I tell him and I’m aware it sounds like we’ve been in a relationship for five years and I’m aware that everybody in here is watching and listening in on our conversation and they probably all know we’re who we are, two people involved in helping to find the kidnapped Hannah Donfort, and maybe that’s all we’ll ever be in this town. But I would rather be the girl who found Hannah Donfort in Duskwood with him than be me anywhere else. “You told me you would let me go with you.”

“That was before I told you I loved you.”

My heart skips a beat. It screams I love you I love you I love you back, but I say— “What does that have to do with anything?”

He looks somewhat amused. Like he knows I would never hold it against him. It’s clear to both of us that I wouldn’t because even though I’m glaring up at him with my furrowed eyebrows and my lips pouted, I’m still pressed tightly against him. His hands—even though they’ve moved from my face—are now resting on my hips. Pulling my tighter to him. There’s no space in between us. If it was up to me, I’m pretty sure there never would be again.

“[MC].” He says, and oh god I wish he would say my name every day for the rest of his life. “Have I—in the short time we have known each other—ever struck you as the type of person who says I love you? But with you…” His words are a whisper against my lips. “It’s easy to fall back into old emotions with you.”

“I want to be angry with you.” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” I agree. “But I might be if you don’t kiss me.”

He brought one finger underneath my chin and tilted it up until our lips were separated by a fraction of an inch. My eyelids fluttered. I didn’t care that everyone in here was about to see just how much Jake meant to be. I didn’t care because I had waited too long for this. And then—just as I’m leaning toward him to press our lips together, he whispers— “[MC]?”

“Hm.” I acknowledge.

“Who’s Eric?”

My eyelids crack open and I shove at his chest. “That’s what you’re worried about right now? Here I am, in front of you, covered in snot and tears and who-knows-what-else because you’re here right now, and you’re worried about some guy I don’t even know?”

“Who’s Eric?” He repeats.

“Ugh.” I run my hands through my hair and take a step back. “I don’t know. He’s the other side of Thomas or whatever you want to call him. If we lived in a different town.” I glare back at him and try not to admit that I think his jealous side is a little cute. “He messaged me. Thought I picked up his friend from some parking lot and I didn’t, but his friend sent him my number, and it was Hannah all over again. I’m trying to help them.”

“This Adam has been sending you a lot of videos.”

“You know I hate when you hack my phone.” I complain, even though I really don’t. Even though I had prayed for him to help me with this case. “I really don’t know Adam. Like—even less than I know Eric.

“But you know Eric.”

“For like a week.” I reassure. “He added me to this group chat with him and like three other friends of his. They’re desperate to find Adam who has apparently dropped off the face of the earth and I don’t know what to do. I had you with Hannah’s case. And you knew her. And they—” I look over my shoulder at Cleo and Dan and Lilly, who are pretending like they’re not listening in even though I know and Jake knows they are. “—they knew her. And obviously Adam’s friends must know him but I don’t and you don’t and there is no Jake in Redlog Pines.”

“I don’t trust him.” He shakes his head. “Any of them.”

I laugh. “Jake, you didn’t trust half the people in this bar when we first started talking.” I look over at Phil and then Dan. “It doesn’t mean they committed a crime. If I had backed off when you asked me to help you find Hannah, we may never have.”

“I thought that was all thanks to me.” He sounds smug, like that little smiley face he loved to annoy me with (AKA make me fall in love with him). “Did he flirt with you?”

“No.” I deadpan. “I think he was focused on his missing friend.”

“I was focused on my missing sister.” He shoots back.

I close my mouth. Alright. He has a point. But I wasn’t flirting with Eric. He was focused on finding Adam and I was focused on mourning—and then finding—Jake. Maybe it felt like Eric and I were two sides of the same coin. Maybe that’s why I agreed to help him. Because I didn’t want to happen to him what I thought had happened to Jake—to me.

“You’re being ridiculous.” I say instead. “How do you think I could ever entertain the idea of being with somebody else when for the past three months—more than that if you count the time we have actually had together—I’ve been focused on you? On discussing Hannah with you and then talking to you about anything and everything and then worrying about you and then hating you a little for convincing me you should me the one to go into the mine and then mourning you when it was hard to even think about you and then finding you?”

His eyes are wide. I think I’ve rendered him speechless. Which—serves him right. I know he’s not somebody who serves their feelings up on a silver platter. I know that. Obviously, I knew that from the first time I spoke to him. Back when he was nothing more than ??? and I was almost convinced that Dan was right and he was the Man Without A Face—a thought that I now hate with everything in me. But I need him to trust me. Jealousy streak and FBI and the missing persons cases aside, he needs to trust me.

“Trust me.” I cup the sides of his face again. “He’s nothing like you.”

He swallows. “Some people might consider that to be a perk.”

“I don’t.” I say.

And then I’m kissing him and it feels like coming home.

[tokiwarcube]

Any headcanons on what the boys would call their S/O? like pet names/nicknames? :)

Cute!!! I threw in Charles for this one too, just because <3 Enjoy!

Nathan Explosion

In the beginning of your relationship, he’s very committed to “babe,” and “babe” alone. It’s casual, it’s not sickeningly sweet — it’s perfect for Nathan.

But I think once he gets more attached, and lets himself open up more, he gets a bit softer. Like yeah, he adores the honeymoon stage of the relationship, but actually developing real feelings beyond infatuation? It changes him. Once he hits that point, there’s some… new additions to the petname lexicon. Every now and again he’ll let a quiet little “sweetie” slip, and yeah he’s a little embarrassed about it, but he never actually removes it from his vocabulary. He’s a not-so-secret softie.

Pickles the Drummer

You could probably change your name to “babe” at this point, with how much he uses it for you. Called across the house in summons, whined pathetically in protest, or murmured sweetly against your skin — this man lives and dies by “babe.” Although let’s be real: You’re not exempt from “dude,” either.

You might get treated to a “sweetheart” every now and then, though — that midwestern drawl makes it sound really, really nice. He uses this one just a smidge more when he’s trying to butter you up, for whatever reason. You’re ashamed to admit that it works.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf

I think in the beginning of your relationship, he’s very liberal with them — he gauges your reactions to see which ones you like, and keeps the ones that fluster you most. It’s like a game, really.

But once he’s genuinely comfortable with you? He really starts to narrow them down into ones that feel right for both of you — more tender, more meaningful. “My love” becomes a staple both in and out of the house, but he’s also prone to bringing in terms of affection from his native language. Half of it is because he can hide his painfully deep adoration in a language you don’t speak — Käraste, dearest; Mitt allt, my everything — but he’ll never actually say that. If prodded as to why he’s so liberal with these ones in particular, he just says it’s because he knows how much you like his accent.

Although if there’s a height difference (and let’s be real, there absolutely is), he’ll often attach “little” to your name. Sometimes he’ll take your cheeks in his grasp, cooing out a little “min lillis” — something that after a million google searches, you’ve worked out to be a (slightly patronizing) way of calling you tiny. Throw it’s counterpart back at him though, and he’ll swoon a little harder than he cares to admit.

Toki Wartooth

Frankly, I think it’d be easier to find a petname he hasn’t used for you at this point. He uses them very liberally, watching to see which ones you like the most — once he finds one that really works for you, he puts that one above the others… but that’s not to say he won’t bring out a few sickly sweet ones every now and again, still. Doesn’t matter how cheesy or god-awful they are — he thinks they’re cute.

William Murderface

He’s got a specific way of using petnames — when he’s greeting you, he always leads with “beautiful.” He always says it the exact same way each time too — a very drawn out “hello beautiful,” without fault. Did he get it from a movie? Did he just pick up on the fact that you think it’s cute? You’re not sure, and he won’t tell you. But it does indeed make you soft, so hey, mission accomplished.

But beyond that, he’s more partial to things like “sweetheart” and “babe.” The former is more common for when he’s teasing, but “babe” is his universal go-to, otherwise.

Charles Foster Offdensen

He doesn’t use many petnames — he feels like most of them are far too overused or ingenuine. Why use a name that everyone else uses for their lover, when your name holds thrice the amount of love and reverence when he says it? Although I will admit… he is rather partial to “dear,” and “sweetheart.”

What? They’re classics. There’s a difference between “overused” and “classic.”

[eazy-group]

YouTube bushcrafters want to teach you how to survive in the wild

New Post has been published on https://eazycamping.net/youtube-bushcrafters-want-to-teach-you-how-to-survive-in-the-wild/

YouTube bushcrafters want to teach you how to survive in the wild

It might be hard for us to imagine, but for the majority of human history, people had to figure out how to live in the wild. Our ancestors built shelters, cooked food, and fought off the occasional bear, using nothing more than their wits and the tools they created with their own hands. Sure, a lot of them got eaten by animals or died of exposure, but on the upside, they never had to worry about getting kicked out of a cafe because the barista decided buying one small coffee didn’t justify four free hours of Wi-Fi.

Nowadays most of us couldn’t start a fire without matches, let alone build an entire shelter. Fortunately, there’s a small, but growing, group of people setting out to change that. They’re using some of humanity’s latest inventions, namely digital video cameras and the internet, to show us how to make early inventions like stone axes and rope.

The wilderness skills they’re teaching are collectively known as “bushcraft,” and there’s been an explosion of these YouTube “bushcrafters” in the past few years. Their videos range from six-minute tutorials about how to properly split wood all the way up to full series with 45-minute episodes detailing how to make large multi-person shelters.

“Survival Lilly” teaches her subscribes how to make a windproof torch using pinecones and resin.

  Stephaine Margeth of “A Girl in the Wild” demonstrates how to construct a raised log bed

One of the main things that set these bushcraft videos apart from something like a camping video is their use of simple tools. Watching hours of these videos make it clear that the average YouTube bushcrafter prides themselves on using minimal tools, and the more primitive the better. Many of the hosts of these channels bring little more than a knife, an ax, and a little bit of food into the woods with them—often for days at a time.

The most extreme version of this obsession is a channel called “Primitive Technology“. The channel features host John Plant of Queensland, Australia constructing things in the forest using only his bare hands and the tools he’s already made in earlier videos. While the videos have lengthy descriptions detailing his work, Plant never speaks while one camera. “I get straight into the project instead of wasting the viewer’s time,” he told the BBC in a 2018 interview.

One of Plant’s earliest videos begins with him sitting bare-chested in the forest banging two rocks together. Eventually, after enough banging and scrapping, one of the stones becomes sharp. He then uses a different stone to chop down a small tree. He uses a stone chisel he also constructs in the video, along with fire, to shape and harden the tree trunk into a handle. After four minutes of screen time, and who knows how many hours of actual work, he presents the stone ax that will show up again and again in his later videos.

Using the ax and other handmade tools, Plant has managed to construct everything from an adobe hut with a ceramic-tiled roof to a furnace capable of producing iron.

Along the way, he’s also managed to pick up nearly ten million subscribers. Which brings us to the other important aspect of YouTube bushcraft videos: the money.

It’s doubtful that any of these hosts got into bushcraft for the cash. There are, after all, easier ways to make money than chopping wood and lighting fires with a bow drill, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made by those with the know-how and personality to run a popular channel.

Joe Robinet, a YouTube bushcrafter with over a million subscribers, says that YouTube allowed him to turn his boyhood hobby into a full-time job.

“Its changed everything, for not just myself, but my extended family, and also my wife’s family,” he told the Daily Dot via email. “We moved to our dream home, my wife does not have to work, we are fortunate enough for her to do what she wants, and that is being a full-time Mom. More and more opportunities are coming up all the time because of the channel.”

Robinet outside of an unfinished shelter he constructed from a fallen pine tree.

These YouTubers are not making money solely from ad revenue. They also sell merchandise. Pretty much every popular YouTube bushcraft channel also has its own line of clothing, with some hosts partnering with companies to create things like custom designed bushcraft knives.

Mike Pullman of TA Outdoors selling his “Bushcraft Brotherhood” hoodie.

While almost all of the bushcraft videos you’ll find on YouTube are made by people who call themselves amateurs, that doesn’t mean just anyone can go out into the woods and start building themselves a cabin. Time and time again the hosts of these channels emphasize how important knowledge and experience are when you’re trying to stay alive in the woods. Even an experienced bushcrafter like Robinet can find himself in trouble from time to time.

“I almost flipped my canoe three days into the wilderness in the spring,” he told the Daily Dot when asked if he was ever seriously worried about his safety while making these videos. “It rained for the whole trip. Not only did I almost flip, but hypothermia was a real threat throughout the whole trip. I’ve almost been crushed by falling trees. It’s always weather related.”

Staying alive in the woods can be hard enough, but trying to shoot a well-produced video on top of it makes everything even more difficult. While most campers are trying to keep their packs as light as possible, YouTube bushcrafters are cramming cameras, lights, and tripods into their bags, hoping they have not only enough food, but enough battery power to last for days in the forest. Once you realize that all of that stuff also has to stay dry the entire time, you begin to see what a challenge filming can add. A host may struggle for twenty minutes to get a fire going in snowy conditions, only to find out their camera wasn’t correctly focused and they lost the shot.

“It’s just second nature to me by now,” Robison says of filming. “I’ve been doing this for what feels like forever, it adds time, stress, more work, but I’d be bored if I didn’t have to worry about filming.”

Maybe it makes sense that as we become increasingly removed from our primitive roots, these bushcraft videos are becoming more and more popular. We all like to think that, if we really wanted, we could drop out of society and fend for ourselves, somewhere wild and beautiful, and best of all quiet.

If you’re interested in trying out some bushcraft yourself, Robinet says to go for it but start slow. “Just have fun,” he said. “Read Mors Kochanski’s book Bushcraft, try camping with a wool blanket and a tarp in nice, bug-free weather, take it slow, work your way through skills, figure out just what part of bushcraft you enjoy.”

As far as running a successful YouTube channel goes, Robinet is even more succinct. “Do it for fun, not to try to get rich,” he says. “Be yourself and have thick skin.”

That last bit of advice seems like it would apply to both internet trolls and mosquitoes, which are probably equally as annoying to YouTube bushcrafters.

READ MORE:

[children-of-subcon]

So uh, turns out I messed up the last one on @twipsai‘s request! So! Here’s what they actually meant :D

😈-Villainify a protagonist (for Captor)

😇-Heroify a villain (for Muriel)

While I was coloring this I was wondering why Captor looked so familiar, and then I realized... I accidentally turned her into a Mimikyu (ס_ס;;) Whoops... I guess villain = gamer girl?

Anyways, I have a “few” ideas for this version! It ended up very long, since I covered both the past and present for both of them, so I’ll put them under the cut :)

Everything up to Mu imprisoning Lilly is the same, but this time Mu is convinced by her advisors to execute Lilly sooner, both to nip this whole “plot against the queen” thing in the bud, and so that Lilly isn’t left to rot for months on end. At this point, Mu is not far gone enough to be apathetic towards her sister’s death, and goes into mourning rather than paranoia. She doesn’t start to imprison people willy-nilly. Due to this, her kingdom (while still upset because Lilly was so beloved), is not so much fearful of her as they are sympathetic, because at the end of the day Mu was 14. This also means that the Goofy Mafia goes free, and eventually Mu is informed that Lilly was actually planning a party. For HER. Mu becomes inconsolable, locking herself away in her room.

Lilly, meanwhile, had not had months to fester in grief, and was still somewhat in denial of the fact that her own sister declared her a traitor-- for no reason, in her eyes. When she was informed she would be executed, she was first shocked, and then... outraged. How DARE her SISTER send her to prison, not say a word to her for weeks, and then sentence her to death? How DARE Mu not even BOTHER to hear Lilly’s side of the story? But she was helpless as the guards escorted her to her death. She looked pleadingly into the crowd, begging someone, anyone, to speak out against all this... this NONSENSE. And the people. Did. Nothing.

A few weeks later, Lilly wakes up, eventually realizing she’s dead. Feeling betrayed and abandoned by everyone she loved, Lilly lashes out in rage, destroying most of the kingdom and exuding a suffocating miasma. (Kind of like the thing Blue Diamond from SU can do, but more lethal.) It’s sudden, and there are almost no escapees.

Present-day, Captor roams the forest somewhat aimlessly, with most of her memories fragmented. It’s frighteningly empty and quiet, and even more dead than usual. No ghosts dare to reside within. If she finds any intruders, she’ll attack straight away, because... well, she doesn’t really remember, but it’s what she usually does. She doesn’t try to trap people with her-- instead, she’s called “The Captor” because all those who enter the forest never come out.

Mu, on the other hand, in an attempt to right what she’s done in any way she can, has made the manor into a sort of safe-haven. All of the dwellers, spiders, fire spirits, anything that used to “live” in the forest now resides in that area. She’ll go out regularly to try and rescue any unfortunate souls that have wandered into the woods, such as, say, a crown wearing alien. She might need some help collecting ingredients for her “jams and jellies”, though. Don’t worry, they aren’t made of people or anything, but make sure not to drop them! They can be quite explosive. How else will she keep The Captor at bay?

Mu and Captor still argue, but instead of it being over who rules Subcon, they argue over who DOESN’T. Mu blames herself for the fall of Subcon, and refuses to be put in a position of power again, so she tries to get through to the Lilly she remembers so SHE can take charge. Captor... well, she doesn’t want to be the ruler because she remembers having a negative association with it, but she also remembers this red girl being the queen or something so that means she must be in charge, right?

Sorry this ended up so long! I always find AUs where the good characters are “bad” and vice versa super interesting, so I got a bit carried away with ideas. I’ve even made AUs like that of my own original works ^^” I guess I’ve kind of done that here, huh? I might expand on it further if I feel like... making an evil Prince or something. Or if someone sends another ask with this prompt! Feel free if you want to!

Bye :)

[deliciousangelfestival]

Wicked Romance

Chapter 3

Character : Mob!Steve Rogers x Retired Assassin Female Reader

Summary : Steve was hoping to meet the right one until he met her. But is he ready to be with her? He thought his life already dark because of his job. He wouldn’t able to find a woman that strong enough to face the hardship to stand beside him. Turn out his life is nothing compared to her. 

Warning : No smuts, since I don’t know how to write it. Peace y’all. 

Today (Y/N) drive Peter to his workplace; the business still close, but Wanda wants him to come to discuss which recipe they should use for the grand re-opening.

Usually, Peter use his bike to go to work. But (Y/N) offers to use her car since she’s also going out.

Peter notices a big back on her backseat. “Where are you going?”

“My friend needs my help.”

“Hmm.” He was silent if (Y/N) mention ‘help’ means including guns, explosions, and deadly battle.

“Who’s your friend?”

(Y/N) felt nervous, she bit her lips. “John Wick…??” She answered him with questions because she knew he doesn’t like it when dealing with underworld stuff.

The atmosphere suddenly became quiet.

She felt nervous because he became quiet. “Are you mad? Don’t worry Bambi, I’ll be back before you know it.”

She glanced a bit to see his reaction wondering if he’s mad. Well, she’s right cause Peter’s head is looking out his window and he already put on his earphones. (Y/N) sighed inwardly, she couldn't help it when her former comrade asked for her help.

Their ride was silent until her car stopped at Peter's destination. From her view, she could see the restaurant almost done with the renovation. The worker put in new furniture and chandeliers.

“Have a good day Peter.” (Y/N) rests her on the steering wheels; she smiles sweetly at Peter, but he still give her a cold shoulder.

She doesn’t like it when he ignores her, so when he gets out of the car and closes the door, (Y/N) open the car window and screams, "Bye, I love you!!!"

Honestly, he didn’t play any song to his ears; he only put it on just for show because it’s too early to argue with (Y/N). How shocked he was when he heard her sudden shout. 

Peter was embarrassed because there are many people in front of the store and pedestrians right now. All eyes and giggle are directed to him; he pulled down the hoodie to hide his face.

(Y/N) giggled like a maniac, she shouted again, “Peter, I won’t go until you say it back!!”

Peter huffed before turning around and ran to the car again. “Love you too, don’t get killed and don’t ruin your new carpet with blood this time.” After he said that, he ran into the building. He wishes he could dig a hole and hide right now.

(Y/N) feels satisfied after knowing he’s talking to her again. She drove the car, heading to her battleground.

.

.

.

When Peter stepped inside, he saw his colleague chuckled when they looked at him. He tries to act cool and walks towards Wanda table.

Peter felt a big shadow covering him; it made him stop walking. He glanced through his shoulder and saw his boss, Sam, Steve, and Bucky, looking at him with a weird smile.

“Ehm, can I help you sir?” Peter's shoulder became tense; he has never been this close with them.

Bucky put his arms around Peter’s shoulder. “Have you had breakfast Peter?”

“Yea… Waiitt….” Before Peter could finish his answer, Bucky carried his body like a potato sack.

Peter doesn’t understand why he got treated like this. They enter the private room that is only reserved for the elite patron.

Bucky drops Peter to the seat while Sam offers the kid an apple juice. Steve is standing in front of him.

“That was a nice car Peter.”

A light bulb appears in front of Peter; he could figure out what they will ask him about (Y/N).

Peter is right; three of them are curious even before they heard a woman shout towards Peter.

Why?

Because of the car.

Today (Y/N) drove using her car of the day, which is a Lamborghini Aventador.

Even the sound of the car engine made everyone turn their head to see it—no exception for Steve, Bucky, and Sam.

####

Before Peter arrived.

Steve, Bucky and Sam, are already at the restaurant to supervise the working progress. They were heading out after making sure everything was fine until they heard a loud engine sound.

How surprised they were when they saw Peter step out from the car. Steve could see it was a woman who drove the car.

“Hmm, Peter usually drove a bike here.” Said Pietro, who joined them.

“He acts like a poor kid turned out he’s rich.”

They are still looking outside, trying to see who the driver is. Lucky for them the car window rolled down.

Steve almost popped out his eyes when he saw the woman he was longing to meet is the car owner.

“Hmm is that Miss Lilly?” Pietro recognised his favourite customer. His hunch was correct all this time; Peter and she knew each other.

“Bye, I love you!!!”

The adult male gasped when they heard her shout towards Peter.

“Oh my god, Peter is a sugar baby and Miss Lily is his sugar mama.” Pietro gasped.

Steve knocked the bartender's head lightly. “Go help your sister.” Pietro rolled his eyes and left to help Wanda.

Bucky looked at Steve, who had a jealous expression on his face. “Ask the kid.” He knew his friend had been looking for the mysterious girl for weeks, but they found nothing. It turns out the one who gives them the information is here.

.

.

.

“Thank you, it belongs to my sister.”

How relieved Steve was when the word ‘sister’ came out of Peter's mouth.

"You never mention you have older siblings. "

"Step sibling actually."

"Hmm."

"So her name is Lily Parker?" Bucky opened his notebook and put her name in the database. He thought they could find something, but they didn't.

Peter raised his eyebrow.

"Come on Peter, you know what we do. Our boss here is interested in your older sister."

“We didn’t share a last name. Her name is Lily Belcher.”

Bucky immediately types the last name. He smiled after they finally found what they’re looking “Steve, come and take a look at this.”

Steve looks at the screen; he could see her occupation as Special Project Analyst, skills in archery, karate, and Muay Thai.

“In which industries she’s working?” Steve asked Peter.

“Automotive.”

Steve can’t be fooled; this is must be fake info of her. There’s no way an analyst hide a dagger under her dress. There’s a lot of question in his head right now, but he needs to wait until everything is ready.

.

.

.

Peter and others are having lunch together until Vision turn up the TV volume. Usually, they let it on without any voice. But today, breaking news is different because they could see a camera moving and show Brock and his lackey are asleep on the plane runway.

“Today in the middle of the city, there’s a guy riding a horse and shooting a certain group and some witnesses said a female helping him. Then a private jet that belongs to Mr Rumlow got stolen by them. The culprit put the passenger to sleep as you can see.”

The big bosses are laughing out loud in the office; they could hear it from outside.

“Hahaha, who is this guy? Who ever did this to Brock, I owe him a drink.” Bucky has the loudest laugh. 

While they were laughing, Peter almost choked to death. He was drinking water when he heard the news—only one brave enough to steal in daylight.

#####

Inside the stolen private jet, a woman treats a wounded male with blood everywhere on his body.

“Does it really necessary to steal from him? There’s a lot of empy jet that we could use.” John Wick is lying on the small couch while closing his eyes because (Y/N) stitching his open injury.

(Y/N) answer while trying to finish her job. “That guys annoyed me, because of him my tea time got ruined.”

John chuckled, hearing her childish reason. “Remind me not to get on your bad side (Y/N).”

Another day, 

Another challenge.

Finally, Steve business re-opened again. He and his friends are welcoming their guest together. But secretly, he’s nervous, thinking if she will come or not. He kept dreaming about her.

“Punk, your girl is here.” Bucky alerts his friend.

Steve turns his head to the entrance. He became dumbfounded at one moment when he saw her step into the building. She was beautiful, and when not smiling, she looked more dazzling, her presence hypnotising her spectators.

“Great party Rogers.” (Y/N) compliment the host party while handed him liquor as a gift.

Steve was surprised when she gave him a gift. “You don’t have too.” He prepared to decline in the polite matter, but Pietro grabs the bottle.

“The Dalmore 62??!!” He almost screamed when he saw the label. Because of his job, he knew a lot of expensive liquor. The one he’s holding is costly. Even with his salary, there’s no way he could buy this drink.

“Thank you Miss Lily.” Pietro looks at Steve with a big smile. “I’ll put this into your collection boss.”

Steve rolled his eyes to his childish bartender, he felt annoyed, but he became less tense when he heard her giggle. He ordered a drink from Pietro assistant for both of them.

The beautiful couple talks like it’s only them who inside the room.

"Lily Belcher is not your real name right?" Steve twirl the whiskey glass in his hand.

"Maybe, why do you think that?"

"Can I know your real name?"

"What are you gonna do about it?"

Steve smirked; he lowered his head to get closer to her ear and whispered something that made her giggle.

"That sounds fun."

"How about a bet? If you win I will tell you my real name."

"But if you win?"

"I'll get free food everytime I come here."

Steve chuckled, then he let out a big laugh. He never thought a girl like her would ask this from him. Somewhat refreshing actually; well, he won't mind if he lost because he could see her every time she came here.

"Deal."

Steve hug her waist intimately. "What exactly is the challenge?"

"How many spies we could find in your party."

Steve looked at her face with a big question mark.

(Y/N) rolled her eyes and act playfully in front of him. "Ah, come on Steve I know this grand party also a silent announcement that this place is neutral. Like where the law enforcement and mobsters could enjoy their drink and food together."

Steve was impressed with her judgment.

"My guts tell me you already figure who it is."

She tapped her lips"Yeah, not the police cause they don't want to deal with mobster. My guess is���" She whispers to him, "C.I.A."

Steve gripped his wine glass; he felt annoyed he got an uninvited guest tonight.

"They won't target you tonight. I assure that."

"I fell safe already cause an angel like you guarding me." Steve responded.

(Y/N) laugh bitterly that's what man calls her like love, baby, and another sweet nickname, but after they break up, she gets called bitch, or satan.

"Who could figure who the spies the most won."

"Deal."

(Y/n) is walking away from Steve, but he holds her waist. "Let's do it together." Since he doesn't want to let her wander around, other males will try to flirt with her. Nope, not on his watch.

“I forgot to tell you, there’s a time limit.” (Y/N) move away from his embrace; she taps her watch. “We have 30 minutes. Time is ticking Rogers.”

Steve’s hand felt empty when she stepped away, but he more determined to finish their bet. "Okay."

####

Bucky, Sam, are looking at Steve, who acts like a lovesick puppy. They could tolerate Steve for leaving them to attend to their guest. Since the main reason for today party is to impress her. It seems like the plan is a success. Steve and she are inseparable.

Sarah and Joseph Rogers enter the party together. Usually, Steve would welcome them immediately, but they didn’t see a glimpse of their son.

Sarah approach her son best friend to ask, “Where’s Steve?”

Bucky smiled at her. “He’s with a special guest tonight.”

Joseph smirked since he understands what Bucky just said: “I would like to meet her.”

.

.

.

(Y/N) use her skill to seduce the spies; most of them were unprepared for a beautiful lady like her to approach them. They are here to get information. Her method was quiet; she put sleeping pills into their drinks. One by one, the spies excuse themselves to the bathroom to wash their face. That’s where (Y/N) knocked them down.

While Steve uses his status as the host party. He is a proper host; he gave a warm welcome to the spies. The spies knew they are done. They want to refute, but they are already in the wrong since they fake the invitation. Steve is considerate and doesn’t want to make a scene asking them to go back to their car.

When Steve walks behind the spies, he sees her already standing leaning to the car.

“20 minutes, not bad. How many that you found?”

“Three.” Her finger pointed to the three male who fell asleep.

Steve smirked. “Four.”

“No way.”

“Look like I won.”

(Y/N) clicked her tongue. “How?”

“I have the upper hand from the beginning since I’m the owner. I knew who the guests were and the people who work under me.”

“Ah, I haven’t checked the kitchen. My dress-code won’t allow me to enter.”

Steve nodded. “There’s one waiter who I've never seen before, he works alongside Pietro, your favourite bartender.”

The spies felt like a light bulb for the couple; they excuse themselves quietly by dragging their team, who fell asleep, back into their car and drive away. They bet the couple doesn’t notice nor seem to care about their presence. It’s uncomfortable watching the mob boss flirting.

They were right; the couple doesn’t care at all. They went back to the building where Steve takes her to the terrace; he already arranged it to be beautiful; he requests to make the light illuminate the flower perfectly.

“So my mysterious guest would you tell me your name?”

Under the light, Steve saw her beautiful smile “(Y/N) Parker. I’m pretty sure you already know about me and Peter.”

Steve nodded. “He’s lucky to have a beautiful sister like you and your name sounds perfect to my ear.”

He put his arm around her waist and leaned his head near her ear. She could feel his breath kinda tickle her neck. “(Y/N), what kind of reward will you give me since I successfully redecorated this place and won the bet today?”

She always likes a straightforward person like Steve. She doesn’t mind his aggressive touch. This time it (Y/N) turns to whisper in his ear. What she said almost made Steve’s leg become jelly. If he didn’t maintain his self-esteem, he would lose at this moment.

“Oh, I’m sorry I thought this place is empty.” A guest interrupted. 

Steve sighed; another one tries to disturb their private moment. He asked her if she wants to come to his house, to which she immediately agreed.

“Not saying goodbye to your brother?”

(Y/N) doesn’t worried about Peter since she taught him lethal self-defence. There’s a lot of sharp weapons if someone tries to hurt him. “He’s fine.”

Both of them get into the car; Steve drives back to his place.

When they headed to their destination, they got attacked again. (Y/N) and Steve’s make-out session got disturbed.

‘BANG’

Both of them knew it’s a bullet that hit Steve’s car. He already prepared for this kind of attack, all of his car already modified with bulletproof.

Guess who? Brock, he’s made a fuss since he didn’t get the invitation.

Steve felt guilty looking at his date, but his worries are all gone when he saw her look excited.

“Keep driving.”

“What?”

(Y/N) hand move to touch Steve blazer that made him shocked because of her hand touching his abs.

“(Y/N) now is not the time.” Steve hold his breath.

(Y/N) she laughed because Steve seemed misunderstood; she didn’t say anything that made him more frustrated. If the situation is different, he wouldn’t mind.

Her finger found Steve’s gun that attached to his belt. “I’m going to borrow this for a moment.”

“That’s dangerous, let’s stop here.”

Before he stops the car, (Y/N) opens the window; her body still stays on the seat; she puts out her right that holds the gun. She saw her target through the car window.

“Drive to the left a little bit Steve.”

“What?”

“Now.”

Steve does as she told. It gave her a clear shot at Brock's car.

‘BOOM.’

Steve gasped, his head kept turning back, looking at the scene; with just one shot Brock’s car tire got shot that made them lose control and hit the concrete barrier.

He finally able to stop his car. “That was a big crash.”

(Y/N) felt proud with just one bullet, she able to ruin the car chase. “If they die, that’s on them.”

“You’re amazing.” Steve grabbed her cheeks and brought her head closer to him so he could kiss her. It’s been a long time since he gets excited like this.

‘I never met a woman like you.’ 

They only been together for hours but Steve already felt the connection. And tonight even though there’s a lot of distraction, he could be himself when she stay beside him. 

He hope she would be the last one. 

So they drive back to his place and do the deeds. 

(BANG! BANG! BANG!)

.

.

.

While the couple is enjoying their intimate moment, the atmosphere quite different in C.I.A HQ.

‘THUD’ The sound of a pile of document being smashed to the table made the people who stand fidget a bit. They put their head down since they too scared looking at their boss.

“DAMN IT!!!”

“It was perfect, but all of you failed the mission. How?”

The person who just punched the table and screamed at her subordinate is Peggy Carter, also Steve ex-girlfriend. They were together in the military, but they broke up after Steve decided to work with his father.

She is pissed that her plan to get her people to be the informant for the mob, using the party tonight, has failed.

C.I.A has trying to get dirt from Steve group; they even use Peggy to fool Steve since they had a history together. Peggy uses this mission to make Steve quit being a mobster boss, but it’s such a difficult task to change his mind. Her mission was failed when Natasha found out.

Peggy knew she’s finished when Natasha confronted her.

Her betrayal hurt Steve, and he banned her from stepping into his territory.

“Who found you?”

“The big boss.”

“Argh, that even worse.”

“And there’s one more that is helping him. She’s the one who put the other three to sleep.”

“She?” Peggy raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah and a pretty one. This is the first time we've seen her with Rogers.”

“Have you found out who it is?”

“We use facial recognition, her name is Lilly Belcher.” One of the agents gives her a document.

She read the file “She looks innocent to be with Steve.”

‘and beautiful’

Peggy clenched her fist when she looked at the photo. The break-up left bitterness in her heart. From the story, she heard from her agents, seems like this woman is strong and doesn't mind playing along with Steve. The totally opposite of their relationship.

'Perhaps he found his right partner.'

Peggy doesn't like that idea “I won’t let you have a happy ending Steve.”

>>>CHAPTER 4 IS HERE.

A/N: uUHH... Steve has a bitter ex. 

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[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Maybe unpopular; but i’ve never really liked the ending of TFS where we play as AJ. The first time i played it i was so upset about Clem ‘dying’ that i couldn’t really enjoy it, it bothers me that they just did that to shock the player. I would much rather see a scene of AJ running back to the school with Clem in the wheelbarrow, and see everyone’s reaction. It just sorta felt like a cop out to me, like the devs and writers didnt wanna write something so emotional and dramatic

But anon..... they couldn’t show the wheelbarrow bit or everyone’s reactions to Clementine missing a leg... if they did that, they couldn’t take the easy route of emotional manipulation and would have to put more time and effort into the ending. 

...Okay, but seriously, I totally feel you. 

Though I will say that I do enjoy playing as AJ at the end. I think that the transition from Clementine to AJ is done well, though I agree that when you’re in that emotional “fuck Clementine is dying” state, it’s hard to enjoy it, y’know? It’s much easier on replay when you know Clem’s gonna be fine and you can focus on the AJ sections themselves. 

But honestly, the last episode is just kind of a mess....

I know that when it was coming to Clementine getting bit and just this whole story in general, they forced a lot of parallels with Lee.... which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when you go as far they did over the course of the season, it can come off like they aren’t confident in their abilities to create this story on their own so they have to rely on everyone’s love of S1 by drawing parallels and that’s not great. 

I get it’s fun for us to put screenshots side by side and point like “look it’s like S1! isn’t that neat?” 

In the end that kinda fucked over the ending. I don’t have a problem with Clementine getting bit as the season’s final big thing, or her surviving the bite. However, I agree that not showing anything until she magically shows up all like “What’cha doin’ goofball??” is an easy cop-out. 

They knew that by doing that, they didn’t have to go into the complexities of the characters reacting, especially AJ, Louis, and Violet, or show anything about her recovery process but they would still get that emotional reaction out of the player, y’know? 

Though I’m sure if you asked anyone working on the episode why they didn’t show anything, they would blame the budget, time, and the fact that Telltale literally ate shit on its way down and we should be grateful we got a final episode at all.

Which is fair, but those excuses, no matter how true, don’t automatically make the final episode a perfect conclusion. The final episode isn’t exempt from criticism because Kent or Mary or whoever explained something about the behind-the-scenes. 

The final episode is flawed in many ways-

 It’s waaaay too short, it tosses aside most of its interesting cast that it spent all season developing, does nothing with the season’s big baddie Lilly if she’s alive, does nothing with blind Violet and mute Louis, there is no mourning for dead Tenn/Louis/Violet, it gives us a flashback scene that feels shoved into the story rather than being placed in a more natural place, and gives us an ending that, while a happier conclusion to Clementine’s story, falls flat because suddenly everything is okay. 

Many of these things probably could’ve been fixed with a 5th episode, but since the writers were so confident they could tell the story without it, this was the result and I can’t help but wonder if they second guess that confidence or not. Then again, during the commentaries, they talk about how they nailed the final episode so I doubt it. 

It just feels like a missed opportunity. 

You have a cast of characters that I would argue are the most likable group we’ve been in across all four seasons, but they’re tossed aside because there’s no time. I get the main focus is Clementine and AJ and the progress of their relationship, and that’s fine. I love that, but neglecting your supporting cast isn’t great. 

Especially when it comes to Louis and Violet. Whoever you develop a relationship with becomes the story’s tritagonist, meaning they’re the 3rd most important character. Granted, they get more development than the supporting cast if you bond with them.... but I guess fuck the one you didn’t, huh? 

Violet went through hell on the boat [I know this because Clementine had to tell me because the writers suddenly became incompetent and showed literally nothing with Violet’s garbage cell scene] and now she’s mostly blind from the explosion but she’s fine. No lingering resentment for Clementine, no signs of the mental abuse the writers said she went through, no bother to show any recovery or struggle with her not being able to see. Nope, she’s super okay guys. She and Clementine are friends again. It’s almost like she didn’t punch Clem in the face or that Clem didn’t choke her out. 

Because happy ending. 

Oh and Louis? Yeah, he’s fine. It’s almost like he didn’t go through the traumatic experience of having his tongue cut out of his mouth. Sure he doesn’t talk and he’ll never get to sing again, but he’s fine. No recovery time shown, he has no issues eating, no attempts to show how he’s coping without a voice, or how he feels about Clementine because I guess they’re totally cool now. He’s fine. He’ll get over it. 

Because happy ending. 

Oh, and if they’re dead? We get a shot of their grave but like I guess no one really cares that they’re gone because we never got to see anything and they’re never really mentioned by Clementine or any of the others aside from Tenn and AJ so I guess we’re not supposed to care the 3rd most important character much either. 

Because happy ending. 

So yeah, I could go on and on because no, I don’t believe they nailed the final episode. It’s not terrible, of course, but nailing it would’ve required more time, effort, and the desire to get deeper. So anon, I totally understand where you’re coming from. 

[purplerose244]

Thoughts journal Ninjago season 13!! 🖤🖤 (4/4)

Here we are, at the end of just another season of Ninjago! And I've gotta say, until now it has been very good, I think I'm liking this season better than Prime Empire and Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu. I liked them too, but this one feels more complete and deep, also LILLY GOT A BACKSTORY HECK YEAH 😍😍

Prime Empire had one really great ending, so I'm very curious how this season will conclude! Spinjitzu burst? Some last minute plot twist? Cole and Vania confirmed...? 🙄

Here we go!!

THE DARKEST HOUR

So I'm guessing the guys aren't doing too good at the moment 😅

I know this is kind of a tense situation, but honestly Kai looking so confused at having to lead cracks me up 😂 "Do I have to say it? Is that what being in charge means?"

Lloyd: YOU

Jay: SHALL

Kai: NOT

Zane: BE GRANTED THE PERMISSION TO TRAVERSE BEYOND THIS POINT

I have no words, that was such an obvious reference in full Zane style so in character, I have tears. Beautiful 🤣🤣

Also they all look SO COOL 💚💙❤🤍

My ninja babies fighting together screaming NINJA-GOO!! Really this season feels like we're back in the old days, so cool! And they are so in sync, Kai lifting Lloyd up and Zane pushing others away and I LOVE THE FIGHTING ANIMATIONS 🤩

Poor Skull dude, he's trying to do his big bad guy monologue and he keeps getting interrupted 😂

It was cute that both tribes immediately refused to surrender, not sure if it was for pride or they actually care about their new ninja friends, but it was nice

Aahh, near death life experiences, the best way to elicit teamwork 👍 Nice scene, nice cute scene

Nnnnnyyyggg, Lloyd, that's the sacrifice look right there 😱 At least they just turned themselves in peacefully after reuniting the tribes... aaand of course he was lying, I hate that Skull dude 👿👿

THE ASCENT

Back to team Cole! Back to the Upply! 🖤 Quick guys, we're only three episodes left!! NEED TO GO BIG!!

Heeeeeyy, Wu back in business! I kinda missed him a bit taking control of the situation, it used to be him because he was the master. It really is a jump into the past this season! 🤩🤩

Sure let's go with the explosive cart, not like Cole and the other ninja haven't been piloting a falling apart rocket back to Earth before 🤷‍♀️

A Mech on rolleskates, why not? Does Cole even know how to go on those though? He was already out of the Tournament of Elements during Chen's Thunder Blade so I don't really know...

Lolz the monster was actually waiting staring at the wall, guess you don't get much fun in this mine 😅

COOL FIGHTING SEQUENCE COOL FIGHTING SEQUENCE COOL FIGHTING SEQUENCE 🖤🖤🖤

And a poor old couple of civilians traumatized. They need to be trained by the people of Ninjago City on how to deal with weird appearances 💪

I guess we're doing this 😅 Gonna be honest, this is the first very evident sweet look I see from these two. I like Vania, a lot, but another classic love interest? Uuuuhhh, Idk, Imma see the rest of the season and see what happens 🤷‍♀️

A baby dragon on a giant spider, one of my favorite things ever on one thing I fear... I'll let it pass just because Adam is a good boy 🕷🕷🕷

GO VANIA GO GIRL LET HIM KNOW WHO IS THE BOSS HERE!!! 💛💛💛

THE UPPLY STRIKES BACK!

I really like these DnD guys, they've grown on me, let's see what they have in store! 😁

Munce and Geckles under chains, ninja in a cage, the Skull dude has the control, we're back when we started... sucks to be a ninja sometimes 😅

Omg I'm loving that this dude is trying so hard to be menacing and he keeps getting ignored 😂😂 Aww cute, you think you're the first that wants to destroy the ninja? Such a special little snowflake 😘 Evil monologue, we've been going for 13 seasons now with various specials and a movie, we heard it already 🤷‍♀️

Also the reveal, and he's all "Your friend Cole is dead" and Lloyd "That's what they all say, buddy" 👌👌

Poor Cole just wants justice for his mom HELP EMOTIONAL AGAIN

I'm all for Cole's personal team, they should do missions together, like Jay's team in Skybound!... that technically never happened, BUT STILL COOL 🖤💙🖤💙

Oh boy oh boy oh boy got the swords, confrontation ready, BRING IT!! Ninja team is all in for this!! ❤💚💙🤍🌊

REVOLUTION!!!! 💪💪💪💪

Swords aren't usually Cole's weapon of choice... BUT DANG IT HE CAN SWING THEM, HOLY GARMADON!!! THIS IS THE FIGHTING SCENES I WANT!!! 😍😍

How is this the episode prior the finale? It already feels like the finale! What else is going to happen?

SON'S OF LILY

Oh with a title like this, it's a given that I will not survive. Oh boy, here goes, the FINALE!

Chaos, chaos, beautiful dragon of death and distraction, also gently reminder that Mino is also a very good boy 💕 Are the skeletons connected to the skull? Are they gonna stop reform when Cole defeats the Skull Sorcerer?

The swords are not actually magical? Huh, first weapon in this show that turns out to be a fluke, apart maybe the Dragon Armor of the Firstborne... that one stayed intact at least 😅

HERE COMES THE VALKIRIES!!! *classic related music plays*

THIS. FIGHTING. SCENES. ARE. SO. FREAKING. GOOD 😍 Also wow sensei, full kamikaze with a dragon? I guess the sacrifice gene really runs into that family 😅

COLE NO DON'T HURT ROCK BABY 😭

"Always." KIRBY STOP MAKING ME CRY WITH YOUR AMAZING VOICE ACTING SKILLS ALSO HOLY HOOLA GANG

THAT'S LIKE A SPINJITZU WITH THE TRUE POTENTIAL OMG HECK YEAH SHINE COLE SHINE!!! 🖤🖤🖤

A bit red, could mistake it for Kai's, but it's an orange earth lava burst so I understand

Cole: okay guys, done my part

Cole: wake me up when next season is out

LOOK AT VANIA BECOMING THE QUEEN WITH THAT BEAUTIFUL ATTIRE AND USING COLE'S MOTHER QUOTE BECAUSE SHE LEARNED SO MUCH FROM COLE AWWW 💛

Okay, since there weren't evident references to Nexo Knights this season, can I pretend Fungus shooting fireworks is one? Merlok used to do that almost at every season finale... IMMA PRETEND 🙃

She is so adorable, I really love her. Wished we've seen more of her bond with her father, it felt a little easy her giving up on him. Idk, Sky and Chen didn't have that much of a bond but she struggled a lot! But she is super cool and cute, I ADORE her 💕

This sounds like a pretty good experience for Lloyd who FINALLY spent a season without being scarred for life!!! He even met a princess who didn't plan his death!!! Montgomery things are getting better 💚

Well, that surprised me, I guess Cole and Vania like each other but not heavily? Just a very light mood, like they care a lot but no other step further. I'm very happy about this choice, you can see it as a couple if you want, but you can also say they are just good friends. Nice 👍

Oh no, Wu got his midlife crisis, SOMEBODY STOPS HIM 😱

Wherever the wind will take them okay, wherever the producers will decide to torture them 😗

Overall, great finale! 😁

FINAL THOUGHTS

I think I enjoyed Prime Empire's finale more than this one, but this season with all of its episodes was absolutely AMAZING 🖤

The Skull Sorcerer wasn't necessarily a bad villain, but the story kinda went into another direction in my opinion so his part wasn't fundamental. Which isn't a bad thing for me, it's actually new and exciting see the attention to the story instead of the villain, and I did enjoy how they made fun of how cliche he was being 😂

Vania was GREAT. Wished we had more time with her father to really establish what kind of bond they had, but overall I loved her, new best girl acquired 💛💛💛

FREAKING ROCK MOM!! FREAKING LILLY!! I'm so emotional just thinking about this family, omg, THIS is the content I want for Ninjago! Impactful, that makes sense, connected to the heart that makes you so much closer to a character! Finally the Rock family is getting more complex 🖤

I think this season really gave Cole justice, we got her mom's story, we've got him leading a team again, we've got him with a cool new power! 😍😍

For the other ninja it was okay, I really liked the shenanigans with the tribes and the cultures were really fun to explore. Was kinda like a side quest and for me didn't bring that much to the main story, but it was fun and it's fair, Cole had all the attention he deserved 👌

FIGHTING ANIMATION OMG HECK FREAKING YEAH 10/NINJA-GOOOO ❤💚💙🖤🤍🌊

Beautiful designs for the characters, in particular the Shintaro citizens, and also wonderful backgrounds and sceneries, that I thought were starting to lack but here seems much nicer to look at 🤩

What can I say? Ninjago still knows how to mess with my heart, and I'm so very happy about it. I think the so wanted Cole season was definitely worth it 🖤🖤🖤

Now, I heard voices about a possible Nya season... ABSOLUTELY YES, YES TO EVERYTHING, QUEEN GETTING HER OWN SEASON YES YES YES!!! 😍😍😍🌊🌊🌊 Besides that apparently Maya will come back, which is a dream coming true, if they give Nya the same attention they gave to Cole this season, I will be happy 😊

[teacup-crow]

The Diplomats, Part One

Part 3 of my Carena-in-the-future series is out now! This is the first of two chapters because it got too long. Check out the rest of the series here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019146

Carena is sent on a mission with sworn Fort Canton enemy, Joe. ZRS4 spoilers, very minor S5-6 spoilers. CW childhood trauma, explosions

“Wye aye! It’s “Just Caz”! Or should I say, Princess Carena Skeet herself?”

Joe Garron, Fort Canton’s Runner Thirty-Seven, was clearly equipped for a long expedition. There was no mistaking his stupid freckled face or grating accent, and she’d unashamedly attempted to kick those big gerbil-like teeth in before in a scrum that had got so bad Janine had banned inter-settlement rugby for the foreseeable future. Ever since their first meeting, there had been a mutual distrust, and they’d spent every training exercise since trying to one-up each other, usually egged on by his crowd of leering mates.

“Oh, fuck no,” Caz said, and turned on her heel. “This was not the deal.”

“This was absolutely the deal,” Dr Myers reminded her over comms. “You and a Fort Canton representative are going together to the conference and doing some reconnaissance on the way.”

She remembered the conversation, of course she did. Her foster father was in work boots and a duffle coat, mismatched with the nice tablecloth they’d got out for the King, hands held out to her, saying:

“I could have asked any of my kids. I’m askin’ you because you’re just like me, Caz.”

Years ago that might have pacified her, but now she was adamant. “You can’t expect me to go away for a whole month with people I don’t even know! I’ve got a life here!”

“Thought you always wanted to ‘get out of this dump’.”

“Yeah, well. I’m not a kid anymore. And it’s… it’s… Abel’s not so bad.”

She’d stood up to refill her mug of tea from the pot. He suddenly seemed quite small and old to her, although he couldn’t be more than forty. When had that happened?

“I can’t make you -” he’d broken off. “Well, technically I probably can make you, but I won’t do that. I’ll be honest, I don’t see how it’s any of your business, but it’s about the symbolism of the whole thing apparently. Princess and that. And you’ll get to see the country, make somethin’ of yourself.”

“If the job’s about talkin’ to people, you could send Naveen, or Lilly, or even Jade-”

“They’re not Runners. You’re the one with trainin’, and the most likely person that Fort Canton would approve being out with in the field. And again, it’s more about the… other mission, than the conference.”

“So you don’t want me to go because I’m most like you, then?”

“Caz,” Jamie had sounded tired. “I’ll say again: you don’t have to do this. I can ask Naveen, and Janine will send a Runner with him. But Christ, it would make our lives easier, and I think you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

In the present, Joe winked at her.

“I’m not going with him!” She hissed into the mic. “He’s a knob !”

“Joe is the Runner Fort Canton has chosen, and they clearly trust him, just like we trust you. There’s a huge amount of responsibility on your shoulders now, Carena. The King and Abel need you. Are you going to let us down?”

Carena growled, and stomped towards him. “If you can’t manage to call me Caz, Runner Ten will do.”

“Yes, yes, whatever you say, your royal highness,” he bowed. Carena’s first act of diplomacy was not punching him right then and there. “Should we get going? It’s only 10K to the first rest point.”

She immediately began to run, not checking to see if he was keeping in step. To her irritation, he saw that coming.

***

The diplomats were tasked with visiting several key settlements on the route to the conference in London, “meeting with young community representatives to work out their priorities in rebuilding Britain, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah”. Carena had accidentally zoned out during most of Janine’s brief.

Their other mission was to gather information on a new, particularly nasty fringe group who’d been undermining the uneasy truces Abel and Canton had formed, dragging up muck from years gone and causing chaos all over southern England. Most reports said the group members were young - younger than Carena, too young to even remember a life before zoms. “Oh, you’ve never heard of Lord of the Flies, have you? Well, imagine if Peter Pan and the Lost Boys were, ah, cannibalistic”, Janine had put it. Carena was definitely listening at that point.

On the upside, the mission was a chance to really see the country. On the downside, this involved a lot of walking. And talking, at least on Joe’s behalf. He never seemed to stop, telling her meandering stories about his fiance Emily and long pieces of Fort Canton gossip Carena couldn’t care less about, even as they wandered through the woods they’d been warned about the most.

“Keep it down, will you? And keep an eye out for traps. God knows what they’ve got.”

“I know what I’m doing! Unlike you lot, we actually train our Runners properly.”

Carena couldn’t help but laugh at that, incredulous. “Abel are the heroes of the apocalypse, your lot are just two-bit second-rate cowards.”

“Oooooh, feisty! But you’re not so heroic now, are you? The whole town bowing to everything your dad and his government says?”

The goading alongside the days of nonstop talking was too much, and Carena snapped, a particularly nasty snippet of hearsay coming to the forefront of her mind. It was rolling out of her mouth even as Dr Cohen scolded her for it in her head. Gossip is a sin for a reason.

“Well, what about your mum? Think you’re so much better than me and my dad, but where’s she?”

“Ten, I’d shut it if I were you.” All the laughter dropped from Joe’s face now, replaced with a seriousness she’d never seen from him before.

“Because I’ve heard all sorts of stuff about her. Fort Canton people all have big mouths. I heard she’s crazy . Lives with Kytan in the madhouse, don’t she?”

“Don’t you fucking talk about me mam!” Joe raised his fists and stepped towards her to the click of an IED.

The two of them paused for just a moment, the boy’s face paling before he screamed: “RUN!”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She sprinted, and he dived after her for a few seconds before the explosion threw them to the ground, ears ringing, shrapnel splintering through the air towards them.

***

Carena woke up. Her head sang out. Everything was fuzzy, slightly unreal, drifting in and out of reality. There was a heavy blanket on top of her. Oh. She must have the flu again, Dr Cohen piling on the duvets. Hopefully, someone would bring her a glass of water soon, because her mouth tasted dusty, bloody. Bloody?

She’d bit her tongue. Her headset whistled static - the explosion must have knocked the frequency. Explosion?

Suddenly, she was thrown into the present. Not a blanket on top of her, but big Joe bloody Garron. Joe bloody… lifesaving Garron. Joe, her only shield from the piercing rain of nuts and bolts and screws.

“Thirty-Seven? Thirty-Seven! Joe!”

To her relief, he groaned, and rolled to one side. She crawled out from underneath him.

His backpack had protected his head and neck somewhat, but his legs where he’d rolled up his walking trousers were peppered with wounds and shards of scrap metal. He whimpered as he breathed, conscious despite his best wishes.

“Joe, we have to move. If they can set one trap like that, this whole thing is a trap. We’re both in our uniforms. If they hate Abel and Fort Canton, who knows what they’ll do with us!”

“I know,” he hissed. “I just, I dunno how far I can get.” He began to unbuckle his rucksack. “Take my bag. At least they won’t get any supplies out of it.”

“I’m not leaving you!”

“You can’t.... you can’t carry me, I’m two stone heavier than you… and the mission - we need info on these little bastards…”

“ Fuck the mission, Runner Thirty-Seven! They’re cannibals! Get up. Now .”

“Got my gun. I’ll take a few of them out.”

“Come on, please!”

His tone and resolve barely wavered as the voices of approaching people began to echo through the woods. “Was an honour to serve with you.”

Carena grabbed his bag and held her hand out to pull him up. The voices were growing more distinct, and chilling. They were very childish, but the words were not.

“What are you gonna do with ‘em, boss?”

“Going to cut them into little pieces, see ‘ow they work.”

“Gonna cook ‘em!”

“Gonna do it slow, find out if they know anythin’ interesting, first.”

“Look, if you won’t get up for me, get up for Emily. She don’t deserve to lose you.”

Whether it’s this, or the savagery of the talk of the approaching kids, it was hard to know for sure, but Joe nodded, and through gritted teeth, got to his feet with a cry.

“Hold my hand. Don’t let go. Just put one foot in front of another. You can die when I’ve got us to safety.”

***

The campfire crackled and spat. Joe poked at it absently, the only evidence of Carena dabbing antiseptic on the last of his cuts the slight tightening of his jaw. Dr Cohen had been offering medical instructions over her headset from the minute they got to a secure building - Joe’s headset was unfortunately busted for good.

“Dr Cohen said to try and clean you up but not to take any of it out. We need to get you to a friendly settlement where they can do it properly. Abel’s identified one only eight miles or so off course. Barton Mound. They’re small, but they have a doctor, and maybe somethin’ stronger for the pain than two paracetamol and this shitty campfire tea.”

The boy smiled weakly. She started on the bandages.

“She must be important to you, this Emily.”

“Well, she’s the girl I’m gonna mar… oh no you don’t!” Joe stopped abruptly, dropping his stick and warming his hands over the flames.

“Oh no I don’t what ?”

“I’m savvy now, see.” Carena stared up at him. “Look, if you get me talking about me girl back home, ten minutes later I’ll wind up dead in your arms. It’s a tale as old as time, but I’m no redshirt.”

“Oh, you’re funny ,” she rolled her eyes, pretending she knew what a redshirt was.

“I do my best. But aye, my Emily’s a gem. She’s so smart. An engineer, you know. She designed this new way of harnessing solar power to heat - OW, TEN! What was that for?”

Carena had pulled the bandage a little too tight. “Talkin’ about your girl back home,” she said, mock-sweetly. “Let’s not tempt fate, shall we?”

“Maybe not,” he laughed, and rubbed at his mouth. “Least I’m too pathetic for you to punch me right now. Never forgot you have a mean right hook.”

“Well, I do a lot of fightin’.”

“You got a girl? Or, uh, guy?”

Carena snorted. “Nope. You tryin’ to get me killed now, Thirty-Seven?”

“Someday, Ten. Someday.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are. Shut up and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be hard going.”

Half the time in Abel, she was desperately trying to find peace and quiet. Now, it was almost too silent. She tried to focus on the crackling of the fire, Joe shifting as he stoked the flames, and was almost relieved when he started chattering again.

“I’m sorry for takin’ the piss out of your title. I was thinkin’, how’s it even gonna work, anyway? Succession and all? With sixteen of you?”

“Lots of games of Rock, Paper, Scissors?” Carena sighed. “We don’t really know. People like havin’ a figurehead, but there’s no precedent for any of this. Hopefully Parliament will just abolish the monarchy or sommat.”

“Don’t fancy it?”

“You seen all Jamie’s had to put up with?”

“Fair point. You know, I’d quite fancy meself as a King. Think I’d suit a crown?”

“Your head’s too big to fit one.”

“Ouch, Ten! I’m wounded !”

“Yeah. Which is why you should be asleep.”

“You have a horrible bedside manner.”

“That’s why I’m a Runner, not a Medic,” she snarked back. “Funny, though. My Molly’s great in a crisis; she would be a much better help to you right now. Even little Sara’s probably picked up more about doctorin’ than I have.”

“Molly your girl?”

“No!”

“Huh. You said her name like she might be, ‘s all.”

“You’re about to feel my right hook again, injured or not. Shut up and go to sleep.”

“Shutting up, ma’am. Going to sleep now, ma’am.”

He did drift off shortly, sleeping in fits and starts when he woke from the pain. Carena sat with her back to him, a baseball bat in her hands, watching the night. Finally, she let herself cry.

***

The next morning, Joe looked paler. She made another cup of tea and crumbled more of their painkillers into it, hands and knees itching from her own grazes, her skin burning where the straps of her rucksack rubbed.

“Mornin’, Caz.” He managed a bit of his stupid grin. “Think we can justify eatin’ the jelly cubes yet?”

The nicest rations were tucked in the top of her pack. Without a word to the contrary, she pulled them out and unwrapped the foil, breaking off some strawberry jelly and handing it to him.

“The water don’t run in this house any more, unfortunately. We’ve got a couple litres left. Just got to hope this settlement is happy to see us.”

“Who wouldn’t be happy to be treated to the sight of us two?”

“People with eyes, brains and limited medical supplies of their own, prob’ly.”

His laugh was dry. “Ever the optimist, you.”

“Look, about yesterday. I’m sorry for what I said about your mum. My own big mouth got us into this.”

“‘S okay. It’s true. She is… she isn’t right in the head. Moonchild syndrome, a really bad case of it. Doesn’t remember me half the time. Not so great when she does.” He swallowed, and began to stamp out the last embers of the fire - they’d both slept with their shoes on, ready to go, and the pain of it seemed to be some distraction. “I was ten when she disappeared, and when she came back, she didn’t remember Dad, or baby Rosie either. They’d both died in the outbreak, it was always just us, and she was on the verge of madness for that but… that woman pushed her over the edge.”

“Joe…”

The boy continued, almost robotically, checking his gun without looking up at her.

“She was so confused, and it made her angry, and she used to take… well, I was right there, so... it’s not like anyone was paying much attention...” he trailed off, bit his lip in embarrassment. “Eventually she got convinced I’d gone grey too, tried to strangle me the same way she strangled Rosie. Skipping rope. God knows how she got hold of one, the sight of them always upset her... They wanted to kick her out of the town, let her fend for herself, but I… I begged them not to. So they locked her up instead, hid her from the Ministry till Kytan started helping people with Moonchild syndrome and they could palm her off on him.”

“Mate,” Carena said, buckling her pack, feeling her cheeks redden. “I dunno what to say.”

“C’mon, let’s move. You talk, for once. I need to think about something that’s not me legs.”

At least on the open road, traps were easier to spot. Carena racked her brain for a happy story, some way to brighten the mood.

“Okay, so… one time, me and my siblings tried to bake Dad a cake...”

They’d been really little, still living at the fire station. Archie was alive - she can remember the swish of the woman’s blonde hair against her cheek as she picked her up for a cuddle, how her voice sounded, all light and sing-song. “Now children, I am going upstairs for only ten minutes, just to have a shower. Be very good and we can go to the lake later! If you see zombies, ring the fire bell. ”

Jamie had gone mental at her later for even leaving them that long, but he was out picking up supplies from a military copter drop. In ten minutes, Naveen and Lilly had managed to coat themselves and half of the other children in flour. Jasper, somehow, had egg in his hair. Carena was sitting on the counter, decadently eating butter with a spoon and directing the scene. Archie had just laughed, and sprayed them all down with one of the hoses, and the cake-making fiasco turned into a giant water fight.

“Even the dog got involved!”

Joe grinned. “Sounds like a nice day.”

“It was,” Carena said, her voice a little softer than usual. “When I think back to that year, it’s all sunlight. Wasn’t perfect, ‘course. Archie died a few weeks after, and Jasper got turned. And… well, when Dad found out he was King he went to London for good.”

“That must’ve been hard. Him leaving like that, after you lost so many people.”

“He didn’t have much of a choice. But I didn’t always understand that, like.”

She’d been inconsolable for hours, and decided that night in her bunk that if she wasn’t good enough to make anyone stay, she would never trust them to.

“North-east, this settlement, aye?”

“Lead on.”

***

Barton Mound was a settlement of a few scraggly hilltop farmhouses, ten or eleven families surrounded on all sides by a barbed wire fence and only one gun turret. Joe and Carena both glanced at each other in distaste - it was hardly secure. Still, they had a medic and a well, and that wasn’t nothing.

Joe had got very quiet the last few miles, and Carena snuck worried looks at him as he slowed from an almost-jog to a walk to little more than a shuffle. If they were ambushed now by humans or zoms - which were unlikely but not impossible - they’d be in for it.

As they approached the makeshift gate, a woman holding a broom like a lance peered down at them.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“You should have had word of us in advance? Caz, Abel Runner Ten. This is Canton Thirty-Seven.”

Joe waved, and slumped down against the gatepost.

“He’s been better. It’s his legs, they’re full of shrapnel, and-”

The woman tightened her grip on the broom, a mild note of panic in her voice. “Kids, was it?”

“Yeah…”

“You’d best get in, quickly. Can you walk a bit farther?”

Joe grimaced, and nodded, following after her.

“Dr Renwick should be able to help him. Then you’ll have to get out of here.”

“‘Scuse me?” Carena bristled.

“Listen, those kids… it sounds ridiculous, but they’re savage. They… they won’t be happy you got away from them. They don’t like to leave the woods, but they’ll look for you.”

“Did they take one of your people?”

The woman ignored Joe’s question, but added: “We’re just trying to live in peace with everyone, all right? We don’t want to draw them on us, and we don’t want to anger your leaders either ‘cause… well, if Abel Township wanted us dead, they’d stop at nothing to do it.”

“That’s not the sort of thing we do-“ Carena began, then realised the woman didn’t care, and wouldn’t believe them even if she did.

Dr Renwick was a tall, imposing person with a serious, strict demeanour. They sighed at the state of Carena’s attempt at field dressings, and shooed her out of the hospital (really, a converted downstairs bedroom of an old family home) with a wave of a bony hand. So the girl sat on the bottom of the staircase and rummaged through her pack, finding a few tins of rice pudding and fruit to offer in gratitude to the residents who watched her with interest and fear, surveying her like a curiosity. She scowled.

“I won’t be long,” she’d promised Molly in the kitchens, the day before she left. “A month, tops. I’ll be back well before Sara’s ninth.”

“That is long, ” her best friend had replied, hands tightening on the scrubbing brush. “How do those cooks manage to burn the stew onto every pan?”

“Stop changin’ the subject, Moll. I know you’re mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you-”

“You are. You volunteered for kitchen duty to try and avoid my last night. And you’re actually not smilin’ at me for once.”

Molly snorted, and splashed her with soap suds. “Not like you to notice. Will you get on and dry these dishes? I’m running out of surface space.”

“I don’t want to go. Dad and Janine, they…”

“I don’t care, Caz. You have to do your duty, I get it. I just… I’m going to miss you. I know you know what it’s like, being left.”

“Yeah. Someone left me to starve in a town full of twisted soldiers.”

The younger girl swang round in a swirl of indignant blonde curls. “Carena, I was a child-“

“So was I. So was I, Molly!” The glasses clinked as she dried them too fiercely; she felt her breath get sharp and hot, like she was losing control of the conversation, losing control of the situation. She took another, and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know there was nothing you could do. But I swear, I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll talk to you on comms whenever I can.”

All she wanted was to talk with her right now, to not be surrounded by suspicious faces, to be thinking about anything except the pain in Joe’s eyes.

***

The settlement couldn’t spare antibiotics, but they did have codeine, and that had already helped bring the cheer back to Joe’s face. “Just please keep the wounds clean,” the doctor grumbled. “I’d advise you to stick to the roads.”

“Are you sure you don’t want someone to pick you up, Thirty-Seven?” Joe’s operator was at the Abel comms desk, and Carena was relaying all of her messages through a bad impression of her accent.

“And miss out on all the fun? Not a chance! Give me that headset, Caz.” He snatched it. “Nadia, I am fine. Tell Emily I’m fine!”

“How much metal did you get out of his legs?” Carena asked out of curiosity as Joe regaled the operator with tales of his heroism.

“Let’s just say an airport scanner would have had a field day,” Renwick smirked, and then at the girl’s blank expression: “Twelve larger pieces. The rest are parts too miniscule to risk removing. He’s pocketed the shards as ‘souvenirs of the time he saved a Princess’. Which you didn’t tell us, by the way.”

“Oh does he ever stop,” Carena growled, and pulled her fellow Runner’s bag straps. “Come on, let’s go if we’re going.”

“Onward! Thanks for the assistance, Doc!”

“If you tell anyone else I’m a Princess I’m puttin’ all that shrapnel back ,” she threatened.

“Oooh, I’m quaking!”

It was only when they got outside the house that Carena realised the day was too quiet. The residents had stopped milling about, leaving various jobs around the farmstead half-abandoned. And there, clinging onto the gates-

Children. Filthy, hissing, angry children, armed with a nasty assortment of blades.

“Dr Renwick-“

The doctor had already slammed the door. She looked around desperately for the woman who’d brought them in, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“They’ve sold us out,” she cried. Joe swore.

“We’re surrounded, the way out is blocked. Any ideas, Nadia, Sam?”

One of the kids rattled the gates, lisp-singing through gap teeth. “Foxy-Loxy get out of den before I count to ten!”

“Not a bleeding chance,” Joe muttered. “Okay. Sam sees an exit on the other side of the settlement, but we’ll have to be quick. Nadia’s suggesting… oh, no way, I’m with Sam, I’m not throwing a grenade at the little shits, Nadi! Yes, I know they tried to kill me, but there’s a line!”

“Fort Canton, noble as ever,” Carena quipped.

“Shut up, you’d be the first to try and blow them up.”

She doesn’t bother denying it. “Okay. That exit.”

“He says it’s risky, but there’s a gap in their fence. Behind the toolshed. Run for it in three, two, one, NOW!”

For the second time in as many days, she ran for her life, the sound of childish war cries in her ears as Joe dragged her through the gap. Over the hill, rounding a corner, trying to find their way onto a trail.

“Barton Mound just cut their CCTV! Sam’s camera feed’s gone!”

“Check your four O’clock!”

He turned and fired, aiming to miss, to warn. “Behind you!” She did the same at her six.

“Ha-ha, you can’t get us, you can’t get us!”

“We’re going to get you!”

“That grenade is fast becomin’ a better option!” Carena yelled.

“An option neither of us will be able to live with! DUCK!”

A knife clipped her ear as it whizzed past. “Thirty-Seven, this is mental!”

“I’m on a lot of painkillers right now, Ten, and even I’m aware!”

“The two of us are the fastest Runners they got,” she reminded him as well as herself. “We can do this.”

They’d reached the bottom of the hill, and met a twisting country road with a few burnt-out cars. The pavement pushed back harder than the grass, giving her purchase, just like the track at home. Okay. She leant forward. Faster, faster, faster.

Then her lungs decided to freeze.

“Did we lose ‘em?” She asked, not daring to look behind her.

“Think we lost ‘em. There’s a back of a truck here where we can… Caz, your lips are blue. Caz?”

***

Someone pushed her inhaler into her mouth. She took a grateful puff of medicine.

“How many is it of the brown one, Dr Myers?” The boy said distantly. “Okay, got it.”

She found herself propped up in the back of a large truck, lit up by torchbeam. Above her, Joe’s moon-like face looked frightened. She’d never seen that expression on him before. Another puff.

“That’s it, Caz. Just keep breathing.” He gave a nervous chuckle. “Think you forgot how for a minute there.”

She reached out for his hand and squeezed his fingers, her own tinged with blue. Thank you.

“We’re only a few days out from London now, Dr Myers, it’s closer than home. We may as well finish the journey and head back in the convoy. Oh, Caz, she wants to know what you think. Can you talk?”

Carena nodded, taking a few more grateful gulps of air and finally grabbing her headset back.

“Dr Myers… Sam?”

“We’re both here,” Dr Myers replied, her tone flooded with relief. “How are you doing, Carena?”

“I’ve… been better. But Joe is right. We’ve visited… four out of the six settlements… and we know more about the militants now.”

“You’ve more than done enough,” Sam said gently. “Those children are better armed and more… persistent than we anticipated. We could send reinforcements-”

“It’s… faster for us to keep going... we’ll rest in London for a while. We can do it. We’re a good team, Joe and me. And two people can hide better.”

“If you’re sure. Joe’s injuries are susceptible to infection, and your asthma-”

“We can do this,” she said, determined not to wheeze. “We’re not going to let you down ‘cause of some kids.”

Sam sighed. “Cannibalistic kids! Sometimes, Maxie, I miss the zoms. Don’t you?”

“Can I... talk to Molly?” Carena asked over the sound of Dr Myers’ incredulous splutter.

“I’ll get her after school,” Sam promised. Carena closed her eyes. “She misses you.”

“I know.” The tight-closed truck, the pervading sweat and damp, the thought of the snarls on those faces. It’s all such a contrast to the homely atmosphere of Abel, fields and understanding and space to scream. A lump comes to her throat. “I miss her too.”

[that-nerdy-ravenclaww]

Who Did This To You?

A/N: Hiya! This is the first piece I’ve ever written to make it past the draft section - with some encouragement from @hufflefluff-writer - and I decided to write it based off of the prompt “who did this to you?” in her contest. It is a Draco Malfoy x Reader one shot and I hope you all will like it. Happy Reading :)

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It all started back on the Hogwarts Express in their first year when all they cared about was getting sorted into Slytherin to make their parents proud. Like Draco, Y/N had come from a prestigious pureblood family who expected her to carry on their family’s legacy of sporting the emblem of a snake all seven years she attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. It was a lot to place on the shoulders of an eleven year old, something it seemed only the Malfoy heir understood at the time. It was that similarity between the two children that brought about a friendship which lasted long into their fifth year. A friendship that was presently beginning to fall apart. 

“You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?” Theodore Nott, ever the preceptive one, asked as he and Y/N made their way towards the Great Hall after a particularly long day spent in the library on their Ancient Runes essay. His voice seemed to startle the sixteen year old girl from her thoughts, something that made his lips tip downward in a frown. 

“Yes, I don’t know why you even bothered to ask. He’s always on my mind nowadays, especially since he’s suddenly deciding I’m not worth his time.” There was a bitter tone to her voice as she revealed what had been weighing so heavily on her mind since they descended the staircase to the second floor. 

“Why don’t you confront him about it?” Her company asked, as if what he was suggesting was as simple as catching a quaffle. Y/N frowned, her eyebrows furrowing as they turned the corner which led to Great Hall. There were two ways taking Theo’s advice could go, one which ended in her being scolded and the other which gained her answers as to why Draco decided to push her away after six years of being as close as two friends could be. Before she could reply, Pansy Parkinson appeared in front of them looking worried. 

“Have you seen Draco? He disappeared after the trip to Hogsmeade.” Y/N’s frown deepened at the girl’s question and she exchanged a look with Theo. 

“What do you mean he disappeared?” The question was met with an exaggerated sigh from the pug-face Slytherin, as if it was exhausting to recount her journey to the little village past Hogwarts with the platinum blonde boy. A trip which Pansy would no doubt claim as a date, much to Y/N’s annoyance, and which Draco would later label as nothing more than a break from the castle. 

“I don’t know. We were walking back to the castle and witnessed some Gryffindor freak rise into the air like she’d been possessed. After that Draco made some excuse about needing air and left me in the snow.” A laugh threatened to escape Y/N’s throat at the girl’s hasty explanation, but she suppressed it with a cough. To her left, Theo looked amused. 

“That sounds like an interesting story to tell the grandkids. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re famished from actually doing our assignments instead of paying some unfortunate first year to do them.” Heat crept up Pansy’s face at Theo’s comment and she turned on her heel with a shriek, her heels clicking angrily against the stone floors as she made her way towards the dungeons no doubt in search of her long time love interest. It was apparent the Slytherin boy didn’t believe her recollection, but Y/N wasn’t so sure. There was something about it that gave her a deep feeling of dread, a feeling she wasn’t so sure she could ignore. Not when it came to Draco, at least.

“You go on ahead, I think I left something in the library.” She said as she turned to face Theo, her face contorted in a way that could only be described as debateful. Theo gave her an incredulous look before opening his mouth to speak.

“We both know you left nothing in library, just as we both know he’s hiding out in the Astronomy Tower.” Realization dawned on Y/N at his words and without a second glance in the direction of the second person closest to her, she turned on her heel and began the walk towards the place her and Draco had made their safe haven over the years. It was their sanctuary, a place they could go whenever they were sad or hurt, and somewhere they kept secret from their friends and housemates. Because they knew it wouldn’t be as special if everyone knew about it.

“Drac?” She cautiously asked as she climbed the stairs to the stargazing tower, her shoes making quiet tapping noises as she walked. There was no reply, just silence and the tapping of her shoes as she rounded the corner, her eyes zooming in on the boy her heart belonged to. He was leaning against a stone column, his eyes trained on the silhouette of the Forbidden Forest and his white blonde hair moving gently with the wind as it blew. He was dressed in his school trousers and white button-up, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top button no doubt undone. He looked stressed, she noticed.

“Shove off.” Came his simple reply, the dismissive tone in his voice enough to make her heart drop. She squared her shoulders, determined not to let him get to her right away. She wanted answers, answers only he could give her, and she wasn’t going down without a fight. She approached the boy, stopping at his side with a set amount of space between them. Not enough to be considered lovers, but less than enough for friends. Her elbows touched the stone and she kept her gaze on Hagrid’s hut.

“What’s going on with you?” She tried again, this time earning an irritated groan and an eye roll.

“What’s it to you?” An incredulous look made its way to Y/N’s face and she whipped her head to face him, not even noticing the dark tattoo on his left forearm. Draco was still facing the grounds, but Y/N knew she had his attention. She always did.

“What’s it to me? Are you being serious right now? We've been best friends since first year." A humourless laugh escaped the blonde and he finally turned his head, his grey eyes meeting hers.

“Best friends? You think we are best friends? Best friends don’t pry information from one another.” He spat, his eyes flashing with temporary anger. Y/N froze and clenched her hands into fists. This is what their friendship had come to? Six years of getting to know everything about one another only for this?

“They don’t hide things from one another either.” She retorted heatedly, her face flushing red from the growing temperature in the room. Her heart rate had sped up and her eyes had begun to sting as if warning her that tears would follow soon. However she didn’t care, he’d seen her cry before when she was angry, he could surely do it again.

“Then I suppose we’re not best friends or even anything close to it.” A bark, dry laugh left Y/N’s mouth, the sound foreign to Draco’s ears. A tear slipped from her Y/E/C eyes and she turned her entire body to face his. He did the same, ready for the tragedy that was about to take place.

“Who did this to you? Who made you into person? I hardly recognize you anymore.” She sounded more broken than angry and Draco bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from apologizing. He had to end things, had to protect you from the life that had been chosen for him by his parents. Lord Voldemort knew his weakness, he knew he’d do anything to protect you from harms way. So he had to get you to hate him, to despise his existence, to keep you safe.

“Who did this to me? No one. I had to realize our friendship simply wasn’t worth my time anymore.” He told the lie with as much ease as he did when breathing and watched as the strongest person he knew crumpled before him. She shook her head, refusing to believe what he was saying, and took his hands in hers. This time she didn’t miss the black outline of a skull with a snake coming from its mouth inked on his left forearm, only stared at it blankely.

“Y-you’re a Death Eater.” It wasn’t a question, more of a statement and Draco nodded his head to confirm what she already knew. She dropped his hands, turned away from him, and began her trek back to the Slytherin Common Room without another word. He didn’t deserve her pity, he didn’t even want it, and so she’d do what he wanted and walk away. She’d walk so far away she’d never have to see him again. So she did.

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Draco Malfoy has never been a saint, in fact he’s made more mistakes in his seventeen years than most did in their lifetime, and one of those mistakes included pushing Y/N Y/L/N away all those years ago when he’d first taken the Dark Mark. He thought he was protecting her, thought that if he pushed her away she’d be safe, but as he stared down at the overpriced crystal sarcophagus all he could think was that he had been wrong. So terribly wrong.

“Who did this to you?” He asked the same question she did the last time the two of them spoke, only his fell upon deaf ears. Part of him already knew, he’d heard she’d shoved one of the Weasley twins out of the way of an explosion outside the Room of Requirement, but the other part of him wanted to believe what he was seeing wasn’t true. It wasn’t Y/N in the coffin dressed in her favorite gown with a bouquet of white lillies in her hands but some doppelgänger out to trick everyone. However when he saw her parents, the friends she’d made back in school, and even the Weasley family sitting in the front two rows, he knew it wasn’t a doppelgänger or a sick dream he was having. He knew she was really gone and he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by pushing her out of his, because as selfish as it sounds he never would’ve if he’d known this is what would’ve become of her. He would’ve pulled her close after hearing her ask who had corrupted him, told her the truth, and done everything he could to protect her even if it cost him his own life. He’d have told her he’d been in love with her since their first meeting and promised to live his life with her after the war, a life he now had to spend with some woman named Astoria Greengrass. A woman who stood beside him, a black veil over her flawless face, who had been one of Y/N’s closest friends.

“We should go.” She suggested, a hand on Draco’s shaking one. She understood, she felt the pain of losing a best friend too, just not on the level her fiancé was experiencing it. Gently, as if teaching a child to walk, she guided him away from the crystal sarcophagus and the young girl inside towards an area less crowded. She ignored the phrase he repeated religiously, the same five words spoken in the brokest voice she’d heard him use, and used every last ounce of energy she had to apparate the both of them back to Malfoy Manor where Narcissa awaited their arrival.

“Who did this to you?” Draco sobbed, his heart as broken as Y/N’s had been all those months ago, the touches of both his fiancé and mother doing nothing to ease the pain he felt at the loss of his best friend.

“What do we do?” Astoria questioned Narcissa, her eyes filled with water and her voice shaky. Narcissa smiled grimly, no ounce of warmth or happiness in her tone as she spoke.

“We do the only thing we can do.” She lifted her wand and pointed it at her son’s shaking body.

“Obliviate.”

[mogekolover]

Athy and Red Spider Lilies

No this isn’s a post about the comparison or whatever with LP!Athy and Red Spider-lilies 

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Mentions of blood, roots crawling under skin and some people exploding.

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Imagine this.

LP!Athanasia has been in a cycle where she dies and goes back in time. At some point, she just becomes an empty shell that only knows how to breathe and eat, but then she gets interested in Alchemy, potion-making, and a whole lot of stuff.

She continues this interest throughout 3 or 4 lifetimes or “rewinds” and little by little you can see she becomes a little crazy, unhinged. 

She didn’t have any kind of power before, and if she DID managed to get power, it will only disappear or be useless... but this, her experiments, they were all made by her, and they were her TRUE power… now she can finally get whatever she wants. 

All her experiments come with trial and error, of course, add to that her fate of dying no matter what she does (apparently), so her mind finally gets some good use to never forget what she does good or bad with her experiments. 

In the end, after 5 more cycles, she decides she will use flowers. 

But it wasn’t easy.

Trying to make flowers change their biological purpose wasn’t easy, but she persevered until she had her perfect sample, she called them “Red Spider-Lilies”. 

The flowers changed their attack depending on the water or magic wave Athanasia sprayed them with(that water was made with drops of her blood). One moment they could only be on stand by, waiting for a fool to touch them so they could be poisoned and killed in seconds, and in the next, they could spread a different type of poison in the air as if it was pollen and a whole lot of other things. (and just like that, they could go in a sleep mode, where they didn’t do anything even if they were touched)

They also were able to spread their seeds in the air, making it so that they could be anywhere, and because they acted as a collective (so-to-speak) even if a group of them were sprayed with special water or Athanasia’s magic wave didn’t reach them, they would also act upon what the other flowers were acting, as all the roots were connected in the depths of the soil.

Of course, the only one that knew how to do the antidote was also the one that had it/could make immunity potions to all the poisons AKA Athanasia.

Everything started little by little, some of the maids died, unfortunately, but what can you do. They decided to ignore her warnings. 

She had them in a little pot at first, only five of them, she made them spread seeds until she was sure more flowers were blooming correctly. 

Then she planted them, and like a plage, more and more grew at a rapid pace. 

Nobody knew where these flowers came from, all they knew was that they looked like Lilies but somehow had an ominous aura around them. 

Of course, this didn’t stop people from selling and buying them, making decorations with them, and a big etcetera. 

Two years passed by, and Athanasia began her move. 

She began by making the Lilies spread a little bit of poison in the air, making it so everyone started getting sick. The weakest people began falling and suffering and then she stopped. Making it seem as if it was just the flu, and then, she waited one more year, near her 17th birthday, and she began the full assault. 

Hundreds of people began falling ill and then dying without reason, it was a pandemic in full course. The only ones who were safe were the ones where little Lillies lived and of course, the residents of the Ruby Palace.

Desperate, Claude summons her asking her to let them make an antidote using her blood.

But that was his mistake.

Skipping on her steps like a child, she threw a Lily directly at Claude’s heart, impaling him.

In an instant, wails of pain and gasps of horror were heard when the Emperor’s whole body started pulsating and everyone could see clearly how the roots of the plants ran amok under his skin, just all to end with a little explosion, making guts fly around. 

Calmly, she walked to the throne and picked up the Lily, it was immaculate, a perfect new sample.

Everyone was stunned, so she threw another one at Jennette (because leaving her alive wasn’t an option), and sat on the blood-covered throne. 

She gave them a sweet smile, while twirling one of the Lilies in her hand. 

“So, will you fight, or will you surrender?”

[writingonesdreams]

For a Quiet Morning In

Set in @cirianne's Street Magic Spinoff universe, this is a prequel part 2 to the beautiful story from @kosmosian-quills inspired by this amazing picture by @fandomescapades. This just appeared to me after reading your part❤ and I wanted to give you something back. Thank you for the gift! 

I wake up to tiny little whines coming from my right. I have always been a light sleeper and the lifestyle with the rebels kind of required it - but the urgency that runs through me at the sound is very different from what I was used to.

Lilly stirs beside me, her forehead wrinkling a bit, but she doesn't wake up just yet. It has been a lot of waking and falling asleep, disturbed sleep cycles and overthrown regimes lately. Would be great if I managed to let her sleep in for a change.

Jumping from the bed in one smooth motion, and almost tripping at the edge from the rest of sleepiness, I stagger to the crib.

One of the two bundles is moving eagerly, squirming in the flowery blanket. I recognise the orange headband in the dim light from the window and the tiny birthmark on the left hand. Lucy.

"Hey there, ain't it a bit too soon to wake up?" I reach out to offer a finger to her little fists, squeezed so tight together as if she was preparing for a punch. I keep my voice low, and feel the automatic warmth seep through. It's not like I could talk to my daughter in any other way.

I don't remember my own parents or anyone ever being tender to me. Yet it comes so naturally. Like instinct, like breathing or summoning magic. It's like I know what to do whenever the two kiddos need it.

Lucy lets out one more little whine, less angry and more frustrated. Grace beside her stirs under the duckling yellow cover, her violet headband shifting on the first signs of dark hair.

I scoop Lucy up in my arms, gingerly holding the flowery blanket to her tiny body. "Come on, what about we let mommy and Gracie sleep a bit more? You, little troublemaker, are coming with me."

I walk out the room, hopefully rocking her to sleep. Lucy squeaks in my ear.

"Shhh, it's all right. I'm right here. Isn’t that better?"

She calms in my arms, as if listening to my voice, her little fists curling on my chest. She sights as if she was just waiting for me to figure out the right thing to say.

It never ceases to amaze me how sensitive they are to touch and voice. All problems of the world stop existing when me or Lilly reach out to them, like we could chase everything bad away. It's such unconditional trust it makes my head spin sometimes.

I have never trusted anybody in my life. Not until I met Lilly. And now I had these two little girls that completely and entirely rely on us to keep them safe and sound. There was no doubt in any of the demanding little cries that one of us would come running, do anything so they would be happy.

Scary how right they are.

The trust that came with being a kid, trust to be unconditionally loved and nurtured no matter what happens.

There is no worse trauma than being denied that right. The pain that drove me with anger for years, the sorrow that Lilly feels whenever she is reminded of her father. I see only now how inexcusable it is to break that trust, that sacred bond.

I can't imagine of ever doing that to my girls. No, they are going to have a different life from us. They will have so much more.

I sit down on the sofa in the common room, rocking her there and back. Lucy is quiet in my arms, content like it's her favorite place.

I plant a kiss at her little forehead, bring her close to my face as she coos. "There you go, Luce. I'm right here. Always going to be right here."

The sentimentality is new as well, but I trust Lucy to keep it between us. Lilly wouldn't let me live it down.

As I hold the sleeping child, I can't help but think this is the biggest miracle. Not magic, not explosions, mind reading or even healing - this right here, the life in my arms that came from me and Lilly is the biggest magic of them all.

[despairingvacation]

she isn’t perfect, but she tries. { EXECUTION...?: OLIVIA WILSON }

CONTENT WARNING: EXPLOSIONS 

"OLIVIA IS THE MASTERMIND OF THE NG CODE GAME!"

No… She’s not. It doesn’t make sense for her to be the mastermind. She’s spent all her time with Percy, making sure that he was okay. Making sure that nothing happened to him, because she wanted to stay alive. She looks towards her peers, all as confused as she is - looking at her in horror, confusion, anger.

 “Bullshit. You know that’s bullshit, Willie!” Olivia shouts, but the rat doesn’t listen. 

 Instead, he laughs, tormenting her. “Oh, but it is! The pink rabbit, the paint, even the photo Amelia found! You’re in that picture- aren’t you? You were in class 65. You were in the drama club. All the clues point to YOU, OLIVIA!” 

 As Willie laughs, Olivia shakes her head- stomping her foot down to the floor. “I’m being framed!!” She cries- but Willie laughs harder. She steps back from her podium, breath hitched, as Willie wastes no time in pulling out a mallet out of seemingly nowhere (seriously--where does he get this stuff? To be a fuckin’ toon…) and slams it down onto the button that appears in front of him. Again- seemingly, out of nowhere. She is not going to die here.

As Willie slams his mallet down onto the button, Olivia hears the sounds of chains rushing past Willie and coming straight for her. She keeps her eyes on them, frowning - standing her ground, as she uses the back of her hand to punch the chains away from her. Ouch, she thinks to herself, but doesn’t let it get to her. She keeps her focus, as she hears more chains coming straight for her. She feels one touch her ankle, and quickly - Olivia kicks it off. She jumps up onto her podium, fighting off the incoming chains attempting to drag her into a death she doesn’t deserve to be a part of.

She jumps over chains, all coming at her, fighting off chains that threaten to wrap around her wrists, dashing around the trial room in an attempt to throw Willie off as he continues to throw chain, after chain, after chain at her. A small grin forms on her face, as she easily deflects every chain thrown towards her. Her hands hurt, but she still has a ton of fight left in her--

… That is, until she feels something clamp down around her neck, and she hears the click! of a choker locking itself into place around her neck. Olivia’s eyes widen- she just simply did not hear the sound of a chain wrapping itself around her neck until it was too late. She reaches her hands up, grasping the choker shoved around her neck and tries to pry it from her neck, desperately trying to open it--

Until she feels a harsh pull from behind that tugs her away and up off the ground. With a hand clasping the choker, Olivia instinctively reaches her hand towards Percy, and just before she’s pulling into an execution, shouts:

”PERCY!”

She doesn’t have enough time to call out for help, as she’s pulled into her untimely execution - and finds herself thrown into an oddly familiar apartment. The chain around her neck comes loose as it throws her into the apartment, throwing her at the wall roughly. She squeaks, whimpering quietly in pain as she forces herself to sit up, and takes a look at the room she was thrown into.

Her old childhood home - back when she lived in America. Where her, and her family grew up in - before Olivia received an invitation to join Hopes Peak. Not only that, but Olivia was no longer wearing her signature green dress and black heels that she was wearing previously. Instead, Olivia donned the loose fitting dress she wore as Miss Lilly, that dress that gave her enough room to move freely as she ran. Her vision tinted with a light shade of pink, Olivia looks around her apartment.

Everything looks to be the same.

The cold material of the kitchen’s island was the same. The feeling of her couch, when she runs her fingertips across it, feels the same.

Everything is the same, yet, nothing feels right. This is all but an illusion to her, is it not? That’s what she assumed about these executions in the first place. Everything was fake, people were brought back to a place where Willie knows they would be most vulnerable.

It just sucks for her that of all places, it’s her childhood home back in America.

She doesn’t have much time to reminisce, however - as she feels the ground below her shake, and a loud BOOM! from right above her. Instinctively, Olivia covers her ears, quickly securing her balance so that she doesn’t fall over. She takes a step back, as slowly - bits and pieces of the ceiling above her start to fall to her feet, dirtying the familiar furniture surrounding her. Of course if Willie were to kill her himself, he’d do it with explosions, of all fucking things.

The one thing that could kill her, pre-her having her mutated gene taken away from her.

Another explosion goes off, and more bits and pieces of her ceiling start to collapse. She has no time to think, very little time to escape - so she runs to her door. She attempts to open it, only to realize that it won’t. She jiggles the door handle, trying to pry the door open as fast and hard as she can - but, nothing.

If she stays here any longer, she’ll be crushed to death. Turning to look over her shoulder, Olivia bites down on her tongue, and notices the open window - beckoning for her to run towards it.

So she does.

Running as fast as she can, Olivia dashes towards the open window and jumps out of it. If she remembers correctly, there was a building directly next to her apartment that she could land on. It was a bit ways down, but it was better than nothing. So she positions herself, as she falls, to land on the rooftop of the building below her. She had done this plenty of times by now, and knew exactly how to land so she wouldn’t severely injure herself. But as she gets closer, and closer towards the ground- the sound of an explosion goes off behind her.

The apartment building she had grown up in all her life-- blown to bits and pieces. The explosion is enough to send her forward, and she misses her footing when landing. Rather than making a graceful landing, Olivia stumbles forward and falls flat on her face, screaming out in pain as she twists her ankle.

But she doesn’t have time to react.

The building she lands on shakes - an indication to her that another explosion is going to happen.

She has to run.

Get out of here.

So she gets up, her pace considerably slowed down. There’s another building just in her line of sight. She has to get to it.

She runs, unable to hold back to pained cry as she steps on her twisted ankle. The other building isn’t too far away from her, now. She jumps onto it, being careful to land on her non-injured foot - right as the building she just jumps from follows the same fate as her childhood apartment: Exploding, sending bits and pieces of debris everywhere, sending Olivia forward a bit.

She again falls, but gets back up.

Pieces of debris hit her, on the back of her head - her back, her arms, leaving scratches and freshly made wounds that cause her to bleed. She’s hurt, but she doesn’t give up. She can’t.

She’s not the mastermind. She can’t die here.

Olivia makes the run for the next building over, her pace considerable getting a lot less faster than she was previously. She can feel blood running down her legs, her arms - her forehead, but she jumps to the next building.

The same as before.

The building explodes - she’s pushed forward, and new, sharper pieces of debris hit the back of Olivia. They’re larger pieces this time, however, and for a moment, Olivia can’t get up.

It just hurts too much. But she tries.

She’s able to.

She runs, and yet another explosion happens.

This time, however- it happens right as she leaps off. The explosion catches Olivia inside of it, completely messing up her footing. Rather  than being able to land clumsily onto the building like she wanted, Olivia completely misses the building--

and she falls, several stories high, to the ground.

Olivia’s eyes widen, as she looks over her shoulder, the ground getting ever so closer to her. She sees a sharp piece of debris sticking up, and she knows if she lands on it, all it will do is pierce through her torso and kill her instantly. She tries and grasps for nearby things to catch herself, to stop herself from falling - but nothing sticks out to her. All she hears is the sounds of explosions, and--

”STOP!”

A voice calls out. A familiar one, at that. Olivia tries to look for the sound of the voice- but can’t seem to find it. But the next thing she knows is she feels someone jump into her, catching her in their arms - and brings her down to safety. The sounds of explosions are all but distant to her, now - and the adrenaline pulsing through Olivia’s veins seem to stop. All she feels is pain, but what she sees when she looks up to see her savior, she blinks. The white, long hair is the first thing she notices - as well as the tears now streaming down the  person’s face.

The mask that covers her eyes focuses on the woman’s face. The mask- unknown to most, is integrated with technology that tells her when something is a threat. The mask, prior to her falling, was going off like crazy - highlighting over buildings and saying that they were a threat. But she didn’t need a mask to tell her that.

The mask, however - focuses on her savior’s face. The face of a person she’s come to recognize as a best friend.

THREAT DETECTED.

“...Amelia…?” Olivia’s voice is weak, pained.

“Are...are you the mastermind…?”

[maggyme13]

The Last Mission (9/?)

AN: Please dont hate me after this! But this is a dark fic and i wanted to try somehing new.

There are German part in here at the end. the english translation is written right after them like this

Wordcount: around 1500

Warning: grafic description of birth, miscarriage

Masterlist

TLM- Masterlist

Part 8

Next time you woke up, you where laid on the bed, your head resting on a soft pillow. Something cold was pressed against your exposed chest and your instinctivelyd jerked away. It was a different cold than the soldier´s metal prosthetic.

An unknown male voice told you something in a stern voice you couldn´t underdstand.

“He tells you to lay back again so he can finish his check up.”, the soldier rumbled from your left. He stood a few steps away, his eyes fixed on the male stranger and muscles tense. You noticed his flesh hand was resting on the hidden blade, ready to pull it at any moment and kill the man, should he do something stupid.

Knowing the soldier would not allow anything happen to you, you did as the stranger had asked from you.

It took another few minutes for the doctor(?) to finish his check up. He then said somehting to your captor again, who nodded and handed over some money, before guiding the man out of your little appartment.

Waiting for him to say or do anything to you, you did not move from your position on the bed.

“You fainted.”, he finally told you, “I had to find a doctor after you did not wake up on your own after a while. He said to be carefull in your condition and to take it easy. He will check on you again in a few weeks to make everything is fine.”

“Okay.”, you nodded, pulling the sheets around your body to keep warm.

“Your clothes are on your left. get dressed and then sit down to eat.”

Nodding again, you pulled the offered shirt above your head and then sat down at the table- soup was served.

“What you and Barnes did was a stupid thing to do. You did not know where you were and then you left into the blue.”, his voice was angry, but stayed calm and even.

“I am sorry.”, you flinched.

“Good. Don´t do something like this again!”, he ordered staring you down to get his point across, “We will stay here. No one knows who we are and in your condition it is smarter. But you will NOT leave this appartment.”

__

It was hard for you to walk around and do your chores now..

You feet hurt, as did your back and head often times.

It was your seventh or eightth month of pregnancy and trusting the doctor, neverything was going fine.

Bucky had left you to buy some food on the little marked a few blocks away- you had suddenly started to crave plumbs- and you were trying to clean your appartment as best as you could.

You had wanted to mob it for a while now, but both Bucky and the soldier were stating it was to dangerouse. Unbeknownst to you, would they be right.

Hurried steps caught your attention and to stepped away from the door and into the far corner of the room.

Not a second later, did the door open and Captain America entered.

Fury rose in your blood.

He hadn´t notice you yet, and he wouldn´t, because a the moment his eyes would have caught your form, Bucky entered catching the man´s whole attention on himself.

Bucky´s eyes flickered to you to make sure you were alright while at the same time telling you to hide. He didn´t know who can be truste (which included himself), and unlike the soldier, who whould often touch your stomach to dfeel the child move, HE barely did- always afraid to hurt the unborn baby.

The two men started to talk , though you did not really listen; a movement outdside the covered window caught your attention and not a second later, all hell broke loose.

Explosions and smoke filled the room, blinding you for a while and making it hard to breath.

YOu wanted to get away from there, hide and wait until everything is over. But you would not be able to.

You had made it to the flat-door when she burts open again, hitting you. That caused you to loose your footing, when your foot caught the bucket with water.

“POLICE!”, someone shouted, though the only thing you registered was a sharp pain  in your abdomen when you fell onto the edge of the kitchen table; the corner embedding itself into your stomach.

Fuck

At once you curled yourself into a small ball, uncontrolably sobbing. It hurt too much and you hoped your baby was alright.

A presence appeared next to you and you could hear a slightly panicked voice of a man. Hands roamed your body on the search for secret weapons (as you later learned).

“Atlas 100 von 5-3. Wir haben eine weibliche Unbekannte. Schwanger.”, he spoke. ((”Atlas 100 for 5-3. We have an unknown female. Pregnant.”)) ”Verstanden. Negativ. ZP ist ins Treppenhaus geflüchtet. Mit dem Captain.((Understood.Negative. Target left into the stairwell with the captain.”)) Miss. Miss. German federal police. Can you understand me?”

The man tried to uncurl you, but you didn´t. Too great was your panic and pain.

“Frank hilf mir. Wir müssen sie beruhigen und auf das Bett legen und gucken obn und wo sie verletzt ist.((Frank help me. we need to calm her down and get her onto the bed so see if and where she is injured.))”, the man told another man.

“Klar. Gib mir Deckung, ich mach das. ((Sure. Cover me, I do that.))”, a new voice stated and not a few moments later you were lifted into the air, only to be placed onto the bed.

Another shout of pain left your throat upon that movement.

“I am sorry Ma´m. But- Scheiße. Atlas 100 von 5-5: wir brauchen dringend einen Arzt zu unserer Position. DIe Unbekannte hat Blut zwischen den Beinen und es wird immer mehr--positiv--negativ. Aber- verstaden. 5-5 ende. ((Fuck. Atlas 100 for 5-5. We need a medic to our position immediatelly. The unknown has blood between her legs and it gets more and more-- positiv--negativ. But- understood. 5-5 out.)). “

”Miss. I need you to lay on your back and open your legs. I need to see where all the blood is coming from.”, the first voice asked you through your sobbs.

Blood? What Blood? God no!

Shocked hearing those words, you did as the man pleaded and slowly uncurled your body. It was then that the cramps started.

“Shit.”, the second man cursed and you screamed in pain when another hit you and you felt your babies position shift down.

You had just starting to give birth.

“5-3 an alle: Weiß jemand wie man ein Kind zur Welt bringt?-Ja ich bin mir sehr sicher. Verstanden. ZP1 hat das Gebäude verlassen. Gebäude wird gesichert. ((”5-3 for everyone. Does anyone know how to give birth to a baby?- Yes I am very sure. Copy. Target 1 had left the building. Building is being secured.”)) “

You had finally found the courage to open your eyes,only to find two men dressed in black combat uniforms standing and sitting in front of you. THe one standing held his weapon in a way that made it possible for him to either shoot you or anyone coming throughh that door at a moments notice. The other one was tall and broad, his weapon laying next to him, but out of your reach. Both men had a worried glint in their eyes.

“Please.”, you sobbed not really knowing what to say or do.

The police-officers shared a look before the taller one spoke again.

“Miss. I need to strip your trousers and underwear. There is a lot of blood and we think you might have gone into labour.”

You could only nod, because another very painful cramp hit.

“Cut them off. I don´t care.”, you whined, the urge to spread your legs to ease the pain taking over. Hot shivers covered your body and sobbs left your chest. It was far too early for your little boy to see the world.

The standing man had turned his back more towards you, giving you a bit more privacy, while his comrade got rid of your clothing; only to place the covers of your bed over your legs.

You felt your inner walls stretch and your baby enter your birhting canal- but something felt wrong. Now the pain would not stop and it overtook everything.

____ ATTENTION TRIGGERING MATERIAL BENEATH THIS ____

You could not breath propperly and when you finally felt your child leave your body after a very long and painful time- nothing happened.

It was quiet. No cry or whailing of a newborn and you new your baby boy was dead. Even without having to see the looks on the faces of the men.

It was then that three more police officers (dressed like the two with you) entered with medics at their sides. At once the medics took over the situatuion, asking questions and doing their job.

You did not react. or answer. Your eyes cast on your stillborn child that was being looked over by another pair of newly arrived medics.

Everything that happened afterwards, your mind did not register. It was once big blurr.

Part 10

AN 2.0:  Sorry not sorry... So who caught my little GSG 9 easter egg? Any German readers who loved that series as much as I did?

So what do you think and do you hate me now?

Nothing is more discouraging than no feedback at all and maybe you get a quicker update … OR IS MY WRITING THAT BAD; THAT YOU HAVE TO SAVE OTHERS FROM READING IT??????

Thank you all for reading and until next time ;)

~MaggY

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[whoareyouandwhyshouldicare]

To all my fellow LoVe shippers who are feeling down I have one thing to say.

I can’t make the last 8 minute of season 4 disappear but I can recommend some really great LoVe fanfiction that will make you feel at least a little bit better. So without further ado here are a few of my favorite LoVe fics!

A Hard Habit to Break  by  mskatej   Nothing gets Veronica over her failed relationships better than Logan Echolls.    

...And Long For You  by  AbsolutelyIris It was moments like those Veronica wished she could be like Lilly- storm into his house and curse and yell and damn him to hell before demanding he fuck her...and like with Lilly, he would gladly, if reluctantly, do so.      

 “Any Love Is Good Love, Baby”  by wily_one24   Apparently, Hollywood was wrong, the devil did not wear Prada, the devil wore butch black boots and tiny little skirts.                                

The Best (and Only) Kept Secret in Neptune  by  vixleonard Even when they hated each other, Logan and Veronica just couldn't stay away from each other.                     

The Burdened Vessel  by  vixleonard   Veronica needs a favor only Logan can help her with.              

Every Belt That Ever Hit Someone (Is Still Made to Hold Something Up)  by igrockspock   Logan doesn't get any votes for Most Changed at the ten-year reunion, which is bullshit when you think about it.  In the past ten  years, everything in his life has changed.  He's joined the Navy, dated a pop star, and figured out that Dick Casablancas can occasionally behave like a real human being.  Only one thing hasn't changed: he's still in love with Veronica Mars.  Oh, and he's suspected of murdering his girlfriend.

"Fear and Loathing in Neptune"   by wily_one24 Veronica Mars was going to get herself laid. Series  Part 1 of Any Love  

A Fine and Endless Cycle  by kartography A freshman year at Hearst and the cyclical nature of love                                         

Fireworks by AliLamba Veronica is technically not a virgin, and awkward results ensue. An AU version of LoVe's first time.                

For the Sake of a Friend by jacedesbff   What if Logan and Veronica were involved in a secret relationship throughout the events of Season 1?     

The Game of Trust  by Kantayra of Yore (Kantayra)   This time Veronica really did trust him, and she knew how to prove it...    

Getcha, Getcha, Getcha, Getcha  by  Kantayra of Yore (Kantayra) Veronica and Logan prank each other. Really, it's shameless the way they flirt...  

Give Me The Ocean  by scandalpants   Post Season 3 AU.  Veronica decides what she really wants.  Spoiler: it's not Piz.                                              

Home Is Where The Heart Is by: lv63   AU preseries and forward, begins in season 1. this story is all about veronica and her friends. angst, mystery, humor and romance, LoVe and MaDi. summary in prologue. 

I Hate You Because by: SilverLining2k6   Mid 1X3 - Meet John Smith.    Logan, Veronica, a pool, snark, and a made up drinking game.

i knew you were trouble when you walked in  by youcallitwinter   And, it's just—  Logan had always been her intense high-school romance, sure. But she had, somewhere along the way, in some secret corner of her mind, convinced herself that was all he was; a high-school romance. Explosive, powerful, passionate, and bound to burn itself out eventually

(Im)Perfection  by  AbsolutelyIris The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.                

In a World by: my shangri-la   A/U! Exploring the 'what ifs' that could have happened if Lilly Kane hadn't been murdered, and her secrets – and others – had come out anyway. Pairings: Lilly/Logan, past Duncan/Veronica, eventual Logan/Veronica. (Story begins with Lilly as a senior, the rest are juniors.)

In the kind of world where we belong  by  Anonymous  There was always something missing.  A Lilly Kane sized hole in both their hearts.  Instead of going to see Aaron Echolls on October 3rd Lilly decides to comfort a friend and their lives change forever.A very smutty OT3 take on what might have happened if Lilly had lived.

Kid Things  by sowell   5 years after graduation, Logan comes back to Neptune to ask Veronica for help.                      

King of Mars  by: HGRising   AU. In which everyone has a story to tell but not everyone gets the chance. And, things make more sense from a different perspective. Ever wonder why Veronica Mars was Lilly Kane's best friend? There's redemption for some and condemnation for others when the secrets come out. And everyone's got a good one.

Landmine  by  AbsolutelyIris It needed to be forgotten, and quick.             

The Long Way Home  by  AbsolutelyIris   "We should take the long way home." 

Matching Pink Bikinis  by  Anonymous Veronica and Lilly wear matching pink bikinis to Logan's for a pool day.  This is pure threesome smut, folks.                

Pink Lemonade (Logan/Veronica/Lilly)  On a trip to Honolulu, Lilly manages to bring Veronica out of her pink, frosty shell. Spoilers/Warnings: This is a threesome fic and therefore includes some femslash.        

Playing Hide and Seek With the Truth by: jenwin23   Continuation of the Truth series. The kids go back to school. Old issues remain while more secrets will be revealed, relationships will change and lives will crumble.

The Real Thing by: Josielynn   AU. Logan and Lilly are off again/on again. Duncan is dating Meg. Veronica was never friends with Lilly. Logan sees Veronica in her soccer uniform and wants to date her.

Scotch on the Rocks (A FanFic Tribute)  by kmd0107   A long time ago...there was an incredibly hot LoVeLy trilogy fic (Pink Lemonade & Sex on the Beach) started over on Live Journal that never got its third part.  This is a tribute to what that might have been.   Logan POV of the evolving sexual and emotional relationship between himself, Veronica, and Lilly.              

Scourging Fire, Blazing Soul  by Nerdyesque   What if Veronica didn't grow up with the 09ers, but came into their lives prior to Lilly's death? How would her presence affect Duncan, Lilly, Logan, the Kanes, and the Echolls? Also, who is Veronica without Keith Mars' loving protection?      

Sex on the Beach (Logan/Veronica/Lilly) NC-17 Lilly's chapter in my Drinks Series. Nobody wants to talk about what happened in Hawaii, and it's driving Lilly crazy. How could she possibly make what happened less awkward? By making it happen again, of course!        

Some Truths Hurt by: jenwin23 Jumping off point: V gets Duncan's journal in Echolls' Family Xmas. AU from there but many canon events happen too. All characters in the VM-verse make an appearance, but it is a LoVe story. In script format-but give it a try, it's well written.

The Third Kane by: Mac-alicious   Lilly, Duncan and Veronica Kane rule the social scene in Neptune. The three are loyal and inseparable. They once believed there was nothing that could come between them. They didn't count on Logan Echolls.

Time, Make It Go Faster Or Just Rewind  by  kmd0107  Logan being ‘the real-Logan’ is so familiar that she almost can’t help but give in to it, even if it’s just a one night pass.   She’ll embrace this moment out of time and the walls and armor can go back up tomorrow.AU from 1x4 Wrath of Con              

Truths Too Big to be Told  by: jenwin23 Sequel to Some Truths Hurt. It's summer time and more than the weather is hot. Neptune is embroiled in class warfare, Veronica is looking into the mystery of another dead girl, the fallout from Lilly's case continues, and more secrets will be revealed.

I’m also throwing in some of my favorite MaDi (Mac and Dick) fics because Dick needs a hug too.

The ABCs of Mac and Dick by: jenwin23   The ABC challenge with Mac and Dick. Created for Madi lover at VM Santa 2010 at livejournal. Cross-posted. In letter order, not in chronological order.

Bodycount by: BIFF1   Cassidy and Mac meet a little earlier and a little blood-lust gives him an entirely different problem when it comes to forming a real relationship with Mac. AU with MAJOR season two SPOILERS! Mac/Cass, Mac/Dick, Mac/Cass/Dick

Casablancas Kryptonite By: BIFF1   "You just don't get it. She's like kryptonite or something." Dick looked at his brother and thought about those blue eyes that cut and the way her mouth twisted around insults. Yeah maybe she was kyptonite. Casablancas kyptonite because isn't he just as weak.

Casual? By: BIFF1   It's just sex. Casual sex. no attachments, just good hot sex. But that was the summer and now school is about to start up again and Veronica's back from Virginia and can tell that something is up. They can stop, no problem...

The Charm Bracelet by: DalWriter   Future Fic. Who Knew Prince Charming Would be Dick Casablancas? Mac reminisces as she looks at a charm bracelet Dick gave her.

Commitment Buffers by: BIFF1   Dick and Mac live with Logan and Veronica in their attempt to have some sort of commitment buffer between them. Only problem with the arrangement is that Mac and Dick tolerate each other at best which is a big improvement as far as their concerned. However living in such close quarters may prove difficult when it becomes obvious that they may actually sort of like each other.

Dark Day by: BIFF1   It's Cassidy Casablancas' birthday and the two people closest to him are falling apart. She just wants to hide away from the world for the rest of the week, just drink and cry and be with someone who gets it and no one gets it more than Dick. Not as angsty as it sounds, promise. Now complete with happy ending!

Electrify by: BIFF1   A guilt trip from Logan has landed Dick in a crowded tent with Mac. With a lightening storm raging outside he can't sleep and it appears neither can she.

Rendezvous by: BIFF1   A collection of one-shots. In which Dick and Mac are forced together by fate or friends and hook up. Because I apparently really like writing them hooking up.

Secret Santa By: BIFF1   Saw this homemade sweater from hell prompt from VMficRec. It's a November challenge but I couldn't help myself. Just some fun when Mac pulls Dick's name for Secret Santa. She figures a six pack and porn until he makes a big deal about not wanting anything handmade. She can't really help herself, she spends the month knitting Dick a sweater.

[oltnews]

They really don't say anything to Scarlett Johansson. She may be the star of "Black Widow", but that doesn't mean that she has any idea when the movie trailer will be released. You may remember that we had a first surprise glimpse of "Black Widow" earlier this week. And when we say early, we mean early. Tuesday, our story was published just before 2 a.m. The trailer fell late Monday without fanfare or advance warning, and Johansson told Stephen Colbert Thursday evening that even she didn't know it was going to happen. "I woke up and received a text from Chris Evans saying," The trailer is superb. "I don't know what he was doing at 5 a.m. It's another story. Yeah, getting up, of course," she said, responding to Colbert's joke. haven't said it! They hide everything from me. " Also read: 'Black Widow': Natasha Romanoff has a family reunion and kicks ass in the first trailer for Marvel Prequel (Video) Johansson was on "The Late Show" to promote "Marriage Story", which she performed with Adam Driver, aka Kylo Ren from the "Star Wars" trilogy. So Colbert asked if she had any idea who would win a fight between Kylo and Natasha. She didn't have a lot of response, nor about the details she was allowed to say about "Black Widow", other than the fact that it was between "Captain America: Civil War" and "Avengers: Infinity War ". Johansson says the film is a "homecoming" in which Natasha must now face some of her guilt over the things she did before becoming revenge. However, fans wondered why a solo film, Black Widow is not an origin story that goes back to its training beginnings in Russia, and she explained why this story was better. "I could never have made this film 10 years ago when we had just started our journey with Marvel. It’s a film that speaks so much… the character informed this film. My trip with Natasha informed this film. She’s a character who’s a fully recognized woman. It has a complexity that it is delicious, "said Johansson. "Not to say it would have been something else or totally entertaining in 10 years, but we can do things that are good." Also read: Review of the film 'Marriage Story': Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver split up in the devastating drama of Noah Baumbach Colbert also had another theory to direct by her: that it was Johansson's last go-around as "Black Widow". Here is why: it is his eighth appearance because the character and the spiders have eight legs. Can't it be a coincidence? Of course, Stephen. Check out Johansson's appearance on CBS "The Late Show" above. All 23 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies ranked, from worst to best (Photos) No one on the Internet wants to talk about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it's something we simply can't continue to ignore. But seriously: even if this seemingly unstoppable franchise has rabid fans around the world, nobody can agree on those they prefer (or at least, for that matter). TheWrap film editor-in-chief Alonso Duralde gets into the subject - and no, he's not paid by anyone at Disney to love (or hate, for that matter) any of these films. wonder 23. "The Incredible Hulk" (2008) Released just five years after Ang Lee's "Hulk", this second attempt to make a man a leader in the great green creature radiated by Gamma proved just as disappointing. If we've learned anything from the Avengers movies, it's that Bruce Banner works best when he's a supporting character (and when he's played by Mark Ruffalo). wonder 22. "Ant-Man" (2015) Although this film deserves to be rewarded for not having put the fate of humanity at stake - the stakes are more than the size of a child's train - the stabs to the humor of the film seem to be overestimated , and little natural charm from Paul Rudd comes to the fore in what should be a breezy caper. We can only wonder what the original version of Edgar Wright might have looked like. Disney / Marvel 21. "Thor" (2011) Director Kenneth Branagh tackles the the-and-thou of Asgard's segments, but the little town where the pinnacle is played out has been one of the most cheesy fake towns on the screen since the terrible movie "Supergirl" in years 80. On the positive side, actor Chris Hemsworth shows a scintillating spirit in this adventure of the god of thunder, coupled with an impressive musculature. wonder 20. "Iron Man 2" (2010) The best MCU movies do a good job of distracting you from all the setup of future franchise entries; this one offers so much empire building that it might as well have a "Pardon Our Dust" sign on it. Still, Scarlett Johansson's first appearance as Black Widow, dispatching opponents down the hall, made an unforgettable impression. Disney / Marvel 19. "Captain America: the first avenger" (2011) Just like he did in "The Rocketeer", director Joe Johnston excels at portraying the brilliance of the 1940s, although the characters are not as vivid as the USO sparrow. But fear not, true believers - the screen adventures of Cap have improved a lot in his later solo and team movies. wonder 18. "Thor: The Dark World" (2013) Firmly average, yes, but an improvement over its predecessor and a good time, skillfully balancing superheroes, second bananas, entertaining villains and the occasional killer one-liner. In no way a cornerstone of the MCU, but this one, mainly, works. Disney / Marvel 17. "Iron Man 3" (2013) Director and co-writer Shane Black doesn't always have the narrowest understanding of history - what is the infamous Extremis still doing, and why? - but he shows his skill in witty jokes (which Robert Downey, Jr. can make within an inch of his life) and breathtaking action (a flight rescue of a dozen passengers who have just fallen from Air Force One). Disney / Marvel 16. "The Avengers: Age of Ultron" (2015) It's always fun when the group comes together, but it's also hard to rediscover the magic of this first time. This sequel offers a lot of excitement and banter scripted by Joss Whedon, but it's also a bit overloaded with characters and support setups for the next MCU movie series. Both fans and enemies of superhero movies can find arguments for their arguments here. Disney / Marvel 15. "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" (2017) The group is back together, and they are as hilarious as when they first came out, but overall, this sequel gives the impression that it is only vamping (entertaining) until the next major change of the intrigue in the MCU. Kurt Russell appears as Ego the Living Planet, who claims to be the long-lost father of Peter Quill / Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), and although the film is more concerned with character and emotion than intrigue , not all the movement the moments ring true. Disney / Marvel 14. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) This sequel has a better idea of ​​his own stupidity than his predecessor, as Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) flee the Feds, fight the phased-in ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and thwart plans of a gangster (Walton Goggins), while planning a rescue of the mother of The Wasp (Michelle Pfeiffer) from another dimension. Feels more Disney - in the sense of Kurt-Russell-as-Dexter-Riley - than Marvel, but still fun. Disney / Marvel 13. Captain Marvel (2019) Both the personal development and the retro of the 1990s are played with a fairly heavy hand, but it's a lot of fun to have here, Brie Larson's heroine, both bubbling and haunted - nothing like amnesia to spice up another story of origin - to one of the biggest feline bananas in the history of cinema. 12. "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018) It's a little difficult to judge this one on its own merits, because it is clearly a half-film; we will not really know how this film will materialize until we have the sequel. But in the meantime, he does a pretty impressive job of juggling some 25 major MCU characters and keeping his sense of humor even in the face of mass destruction (and intense scenes involving torture and genocide). Disney / Marvel 11. "Avengers: Endgame" (2019) You get all the T-crossing and I-dotting required at this point in the game, but the capper for the first piece of the MCU saga is a mostly satisfying season finale that offers rare moments of catharsis among moments of entertaining characters. which will cause laughter and maybe even a few tears. Disney / Marvel 10. "Spider-Man: Far From Home" (2019) This second outing from director Jon Watts and leader Tom Holland maintains the lark tone and focus on the characters that make these films feel like such a unique corner of the MCU. This time, the post-snap (or "blip", as the film says) Peter Parker and his friends are heading to Europe in a film that looks like a road comedy that sometimes blows up some superheroes. Disney / Marvel 9. "Thor: Ragnarok" (2017) Director Taika Waititi ("Hunt for the Wilderpeople") strikes a delicate balance between breathless action and the fate of the universe on the one hand and ironic stupidity and catchy jokes on the other. Fortunately, he has Chris Hemsworth, who excels in both, surrounded by spirit like Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo and franchise beginners Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum and a glorious Cate Blanchett. Disney / Marvel 8. "Captain America: Civil War" (2016) The plot and the pace aren't as tight as in "Winter Soldier", but if you're looking for somber human conflict and exciting superhero-on-superhero action, this movie does a lot of good as "Batman v. Superman : Dawn of Justice "did wrong. Disney / Marvel 7. "Iron Man" (2008) It all starts here - a story of superhero origins for literalists who cannot hide behind explosive planets or radioactive spiders. Jon Favreau, then most famous for directing "Elf" and writing and co-starring in "Swingers", seemed a strange choice for the material, but he knows how to give us the two characters (played by Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow with plume) and ka-blam. wonder 6. "Black Panther" (2018) While the titular African superhero king of Chadwick Boseman takes something from a back seat to a troika of fascinating female characters - played by Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira and Letitia Wright - the film nevertheless overflows with excitement and of a rich history. (And Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger ranks among the franchise's biggest villains.) Disney / Marvel 5. "Spider-Man: Homecoming" (2017) Less motivated by guilt and haunted than previous versions of the character (on the page or screen), Tom Holland's Spider-Man has enough on his plate to manage his superhero growing pains. Hungry to join The Avengers but still struggling with everything he has to learn - he's only 15 years old after all - our hero faces the evil blue collar The Vulture (well Michael Keaton, Birdman) in a funny adventure all by presenting real challenges, formidable characterizations and a wonderfully detailed cast. (You must love a teen movie that works for Zendaya, Tony Revolori, Abraham Attah and Josie Totah, as well as scene-robber newcomer Jacob Batalon.) Sony / Marvel 4. "Doctor Strange" (2016) It would be too easy to ridicule the master of the mystical arts on the big screen, but director Scott Derrickson and his team somehow gave us a version of the surgeon-turned-magician, Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who seems at ease in the real world, rubbing shoulders with the Avengers and crossing tripping and dazzling dimensions where no one else could go. 3. "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014) Pleasant, casual and steeped in the super hits of the 70s, this comic adventure is something of an outlier - both tonal and geographic - in the Marvel universe. Yet whether Rocket Raccoon and Black Widow intersect or not, this saga that covers the stars reminded us that there is more than one way to tell a story about superheroes. Disney / Marvel 2. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014) Aggressive patriotism meets anti-government paranoia in this fascinating tale that pits the captain against labyrinthine plots. It also turns out that Steve Rogers is much more interesting in time travel in the 2000s than firmly at home in the 1940s. And you will believe that the Falcon can fly. Disney / Marvel 1. "The Avengers" (2012) Still the gold standard of the MCU, this film reveals that Joss Whedon gets comics in their DNA, in the same way that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were fluent in the language of serials in the "Indiana Jones" movies. Putting all of these heroes in one room (or helicopter, anyway) has produced tremendous results, although the success of the film has led to the all-superhero-all-time ethos of contemporary Hollywood. Disney / Marvel Previous slide Next slide TheWrap reviewer Alonso Duralde orders the MCU, including "Spider-Man: Far From Home" No one on the Internet wants to talk about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it's something we simply can't continue to ignore. But seriously: even if this seemingly unstoppable franchise has rabid fans around the world, nobody can agree on those they prefer (or at least, for that matter). TheWrap film editor-in-chief Alonso Duralde gets into the subject - and no, he's not paid by anyone at Disney to love (or hate, for that matter) any of these films. https://oltnews.com/even-scarlett-johansson-didnt-know-black-widow-trailer-was-falling-video-thewrap?_unique_id=5ea1a7409999e