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tevanavernus · 4 years ago

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Saudade - Chapter 2

|| Prologue || ||Chapter 1 ||

Summary: "Saudade" - A nostalgic longing for a person or thing that was loved once, but is now lost.

Helmut Zemo's life was forever changed when the Avengers picked his country as a personal playground to fight their own creations. He would never regain the pieces of his life where he was a husband and a father of two. But the existence of new Super Soldiers might just bring him closer to that life he once had than he ever thought was possible. Madripoor holds secrets that even Baron Zemo does not know about.

Word Count: 10k

Helmut followed in some sort of a daze, not focusing on the turns that they took as they made their way to Selby's office, barely seeing the money that was piled up on the tables and the armed men that stood guard on seemingly every corner. No, his mind was miles away, trying to comprehend what he heard mere minutes ago.

"What the hell, man?" Sam hissed right by his ear as he overtook James. "You almost blew us."

"Apologies." Was all that he could muster up to say, looking straight ahead. What else could he really say? That for the briefest moment he thought he heard Nic's voice? That if he shut down the logical side of his brain even for a second, he would admit that's how he'd imagine she would sound like now? That he, not even seeing a woman's face fully, picked her as an example of how his girl would look like? Maybe being locked up for few years with nothing but books and solidarity brought him closer to insanity than he liked to admit.

Helmut barely heard Le Petit Homme by Edith Piaf playing over the speakers as they finally approached Selby's office. The woman in front of them turned back. Her brown eyes landed on him for the briefest second and knocked the air out of his lungs once again. Was this a trick of some sort? Power Broker trying to get under his skin, render him useless? Helmut doubted that he would care enough to go to such lengths, but there had to be an explanation. Sure, he knew that theoretically there were around seven people in the world who could look similar to Nic, but his gut instinct was sending him red signals. That this was too much of a coincidence for him to cross paths with a lookalike, in Madripoor of all places, the one time that he was looking for information himself. No, something was wrong here. He couldn't get distracted, couldn't let some lowlife distract him with the face of the dead. He spent most of his life trusting his instinct. The one time that he didn't, he spent days digging through the rocks of a collapsed building.

The woman took a couple of steps behind him, attacking his nose with a sharp, earthy scent that had just a tiniest floral undertone, and stopped in front of Sam. She invaded his space, leaving no distance between them. Helmut followed her actions with his eyes, noticing that James straightened up and he shook his head lightly in a warning. There were too many eyes watching them. She reached for Sam's neck and Helmut was nearly certain that James would lash out. He could tell by the way that he was clenching the prosthetic arm, that the man was considering it. Whatever they thought she'd do, they didn't expect for her to simply unbutton the top button and straighten his collar.

"Are you really going to make me wait for my own guests, Nic?" Selby's sweet voice almost made him jump up in surprise. He clenched his hands in the pockets of the coat, wrapping his fingers around the hard handle of the ka-bar knife he still had in his possession from the army days. A coincidence. Nicoletta, or any similar version of it, was simply a popular name. It wasn't his Nic. Definitely not the girl he buried years ago. Just one big, fat coincidence. He was even prepared to entertain the idea of it being a futile attempt by someone to distract him. In his mind, he knew that. He only needed to convince his heart that hadn't stopped racing from the moment she spoke.

"Of course not." Her voice rang out, making him inhale sharply. She ran her fingers through the suit jacket and with a smirk moved in front again. Right. There was no time for mistakes.

Nic moved out of the way, allowing Helmut to cast his eyes on Selby. She had her back turned to them, sitting comfortably on one of the couches. A power move. She was not threatened by their presence. Not that he could blame her, there were four security guards in the room alone, all holding assault rifles. No doubt more were ready to barge in at a second's notice.

"You should know, Baron. People don't just come into my bar and make demands." Selby said as she tapped her fingers against the couch. Helmut gave her a tight-lipped smile and a small nod as he moved to sit down in front of her. Two of the men stood by the wall beside them while James and Sam moved in to stand on either end of the couches.

"Not a demand. An offer." He elaborated, getting comfortable on the couch. He crossed his legs, his foot landing on the edge of the short table that was in front of him. He noticed a couple of bags lying on the table with a clear powder and a Grand Power K100 semi-automatic pistol within a hand's reach, positioned in a way that she could easily grab it. It was a cat and mouse game. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Nic walked over to the table behind Selby's couch and turned her back on them.

"A lot has changed since you were here last." She took a glance at James before turning back to him. "By the way, I thought you were rotting away in a German prison. How did you escape?"

A lot of things might have changed during the years, but he could tell that she did not. All sweet and smiles, hoping that he would fall into the false sense of security that she loved to provide. That he'd spill his secrets or slip up and give a reason for her to doubt his intentions for the visit.

"People like us always find a way, don't we?" Helmut dodged her question raising his hands in a shrug. The more that he could get away with leading her in circles, the better. "I'm sure you've already figured out what I'm here for."

His smile faltered ever so slightly as Nic came back in the view, moving past James to sit down on the couch. She had taken off her mask. He blinked twice to make sure his mind wasn't playing tricks with him. Sure he had moments during his imprisonment, in the dead of night where he had nothing but his own mind to keep him company. Moments where he could almost imagine Ivana's soft touch against his face and see his children in a flash between one moment and the next. If he concentrated enough, he could've heard their voices. But this was different. This was too real to be a figment of his imagination, no matter how vivid it could be. Whoever she was, she looked identical to his Nic.

He bit inside his cheek, irritating his mouth even more as Nic planted herself beside Selby and mimicked her pose. It was so much harder to keep his composure when she was right in front of him, watching his every move with those same shade of brown eyes that Ivana had.

With her sitting opposite of him, he had a chance to take a closer look at her. The chopped off blonde hair barely reached her shoulders. Unlike the majority of the people in the bar, she did not wear makeup or attire suitable for such a place. Instead, she wore a pair of jeans, a high collared crop top, and a rust-colored leather jacket with a hood.

Swallowing he looked back at Selby, determined to keep his attention to her. He was after the information that she had, he needed to concentrate on that. Not on the hypotheticals.

"So many people with offers and deals these days." She grinned, moving her hand to rest on Nic's shoulder. "Like this one. Promised to look over the bar for a good sum and yet did nothing but drink while your friend had fun trashing it. I feel cheated really."

"The agreement was for me to look over the bar. Not to fight for it. There's a difference…I think." Nic deadpanned but didn't move to get the hand off her. Helmut could feel her gaze burning holes in his skin. He readjusted his pose ever so slightly, hoping to get rid of the feeling entirely if he moved a couple of muscles. It didn't work.

"Funny thing aren't you." Selby chuckled and leaned to grab one of the small packets off the table. "Be a dear and make yourself useful. Our friends in Azimut are offering a share for B163.9. I think they're blowing smoke up my eyes but I was in a good mood that day. Tell me what you think."

Helmut clenched his jaw and shared a glance with James. The longer they stayed, the more difficult it would become to maintain their cover. The opening snap of the bag brought everyone's attention back to Nic. She shifted in her seat, pulling a key out of her pocket.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what she would do next. Helmut cleared his throat and picked different points of interest to look at around the office. He resisted the urge to shift more in his seat or start tapping his fingers. Whatever the young woman was, his stomach rebelled at the thought of watching her snort the powder. Her appearance alone was too close for him to clearly draw the line and separate the two girls. It didn't matter that his Nic would never reach the age this woman in front of him was, would never end up in a sleazy office in Madripoor, snorting God knows what. It didn't stop his blood from freezing in place and a massive pit forming in his stomach.

Helmut settled on looking at Selby instead. He had to concentrate on her or else he wasn't sure if he could keep the content of his stomach in place. It was too similar, too close to home for his mind not to start messing with him with the 'what if' scenarios.

The ride home was dead silent. Helmut was sure that if he clenched the wheel any harder, the leather surrounding it would rip and break. The bright beam-lights of Ivana 's Range Rover Evoque lit up the road in front of him as he sped through the empty streets. He was grateful that there was no other cars around as he wasn't completely sure that he wouldn't murder someone on the spot given the chance.

"Daddy?" Nic pulled his attention from the countless racing thoughts in his head.

"Hmm?" He frowned and tilted his head towards her, not taking his eyes off the road. He needed to concentrate on something else.

"Are you mad?"

"No." Sometimes you had to lie to your children to protect them. He was quite familiar with that concept. Certain matters were best kept hidden. Truths of what his job really entailed, the rumors of human experimentation in outside city facilities, reasons why their country was always on a brink of war or governmental collapse. So what was a small lie about how he felt compared to the never-ending list of half-truths and outright lies he told?

"Are you sure?"

"Don't close your eyes. You'll only make yourself dizzy." He changed the subject instead. He cast a glance at her curled up on the seat and with a sigh, placed his hand on her shoulder. He squeezed it in a warning. The last thing he needed was her freaking out if she started to feel sick.

Helmut had only needed to take one glance at her and instinctively know that it wasn 't just alcohol running through her system. He didn't need proper lighting to know her pupils were still blown out of proportion or look at the way she grounded her jaw to confirm his suspicion.

"I feel sick."

"I bet you do," He muttered under his breath, too low for her to hear. Nonetheless, he pressed down gently on the brakes bringing the car to a smooth stop. "Let's get you some air."

Nic clumsily reached for the door handle and pulled it hard enough that it slipped from her grip and made a loud noise sliding back in place. It took her few tries to actually pry the doors open.

Hearing the door shut, he closed his eyes and leaned further into his seat. Dragging his hand over his face did very little to help him relax the tension that slipped into his bones ever since he answered her call. He could already feel the beginning of a migraine forming.

Helmut sighed deeply and unclipped his seatbelt. He couldn 't let her leave his eyesight for too long. Who the hell knew what she could think of doing in the drug-induced mind. Clearly, there wasn't much thinking involved that got her in this state in the first place. He had to swallow the urge to demand for answers that she most likely would not be able to think of. 'Later', he had to remind himself. They needed to get home first.

Helmut walked around the car from the back and found her sitting on the gravel with knees pulled to her chest. Even with his jacket over whatever it was that she was wearing, she was barely covered. He had no doubt that the gravel that dug into her skin would be painful tomorrow. God, that was never how he wanted to see her.

Slowly crouching down, he put his hand on her shoulder again, feeling it shake under his touch. He brought his other hand into her hair, and stroked it lightly, in an attempt to calm her down. Of course, she ended up freaking herself out. That was what tended to happen when you didn 't think your actions through. Hearing her breath hitch, he forced any emotion he might have felt to leave his voice and moved in closer, dropping down to one of his knees. The gravel was a bitch.

"You're fine. Look at me," He moved his hands to cup her face, tapping her cheek lightly to keep her attention on him for long enough to calm down. "You're okay. Don't work yourself up. It will pass."

She gripped his shirt and lurched herself into his chest, almost knocking him backward. Grunting lightly, he wrapped his arms around her shaking form and let her destroy his shirt with makeup, tears, and snot.

"Come on, mom is waiting for us at home." He encouraged her softly and kissed the side of her head. "I'm sure she has some tea ready for us. That sound good?"

He felt her nod against him and waited a couple of moments before pulling away.

Getting her inside and not waking the entire house was another feat. It seemed that she was hellbent on being as loud as humanly possible. Even with him supporting most of her weight, she found ways to almost trip or knock something off.

"Hey," Ivana greeted them as she stepped from the kitchen into the hall. Her eyes widened at the sight of them. "Whoa."

"Mom!" Nic half screamed into his ear, making him wince in pain.

"Nic!" He hissed in warning. He was this close to snapping entirely. "Carl is asleep, don't be loud."

She turned and looked at him with a wobbly lip and eyes sparkling with tears. Helmut swallowed, feeling the pang of guilt pass him. No, he had no reason to feel guilty. But just because he knew something logically didn 't mean that her expression didn't pierce through his heart.

"Here, I'll put her to bed," Ivana interrupted approaching them and wrapping one of Nic's arms around her shoulder, taking some of the weight off him. "You take a breath."

"I'm fine." He bit out harsher than he meant. Taking a breath in, he glanced at them. "Give a shout if you need help."

It took him longer than a moment to actually let go fully and let Ivana take over. Rubbing his neck, he walked up the stairs to their shared bedroom and dug through the drawers of his bedside table until he found a half-full packet of cigarette carton with a lighter shoved inside.

He took it and walked out into the balcony, leaving the door half-open behind him. He closed his eyes as he brought the bud to his lips and inhaled the smoke deeply into his lungs. Only then could he feel his shoulders releasing some of the tension that he carried. He eventually reopened his eyes, not really looking at anything.

"You're smoking." Helmut eventually heard Ivana behind him but didn't turn to her. At least she didn't sound annoyed.

"Yeah," He mumbled as she joined him and leaned against the railing. "I'll take a shower before I come back to bed."

"I'll let it pass for tonight." She looked him up and down and slightly arched her eyebrow. "Although, do make sure you throw that shirt into a wash. I don't even want to know what's on it."

Helmut could tell she was trying to lighten up his mood but he wasn't sure it was possible at that minute. There were too many emotions swirling under the surface. He wasn't a stranger to saying something in a heat of a moment and then regretting it as soon as it came out of his mouth. Half of their early arguments as a new couple consisted of that. So he kept his mouth shut until he got himself under control. Ivana understood his needs, sometimes more than he did himself, and let him brood in his own misery until he finished his first cigarette and tossed it away.

He sighed deeply and finally turned his head to look at her. She stood beside him in a rich blue, silk dressing gown and some fluffy slippers. For a moment he wondered if it wasn't too cold to stand on a balcony in the middle of the night. A twinge of guilt passed through him. He didn't want his own restlessness to make her cold.

"Am I away from home that often? Going through abandoned bunkers, this. Is this some sort of cry for help or attention? What else don't I know? She secretly dating a fifty-year-old man too?" He pondered, the words rolling off his tongue the moment he opened his mouth. Perhaps he opened his mouth too soon. He stretched out his arm, going for the carton that he threw to the side but she blocked it and took his hand in her own instead.

"She messed up." Ivana agreed quietly, rubbing her fingers against his knuckles.

"She's fifteen, lied where she was, drank and got high off her rockets. I think it constitutes more than just a mess up." He barked out. Fuck. He needed another cigarette.

Untangling his hand free of her hold, this time she didn't stop him as he reached for the carton and pulled out another cigarette before lighting it up again. After a couple of moments of silence, he swapped hands and extended his left for her to hold again. He needed something to ground him.

"I'm not disagreeing with you, love." She reminded him, lacing their fingers together. "But she did call you when she felt unsafe. That counts for something."

"So what? We should congratulate her on making a single sane decision in the mess that she created herself?"

"No one is saying that, Helmut. But maybe you are being a bit too harsh," Ivana said softly, putting a hand on his shoulder. He leaned further against the turning in their balcony, exhaling harshly the smoke out of his chest, causing his throat to burn. "She is a teenager after all. They are not exactly known for making the best choices."

"I'm not too hard on her. If anything, I'm clearly not hard enough on her. Hell if I called my father after pulling these kinds of stunts he would have skinned me alive for disrespecting the family name."

"I'd rather have our daughter mess up and know she can call us than her hiding out god knows where out of fear." She chastised him, her tone hardening. It snapped him out of his tirade long enough to realize the implications of what he said.

"My apologies," He lowered his head in shame at even the notion of it. "It wasn't what I intended to say."

"I have been by your side long enough to know what you mean and don't mean. I know you're angry."

"Of course I'm angry. You didn't see her in that dingy bathroom with skimpy clothes, eyes blown wide. It wasn't just some weed she smoked, that's for sure. Besides where did she even pick up such clothes?" Even talking about it made his skin crawl with dread. He brought the cigarette to his mouth yet again, needing the calm. Chain-smoking was a habit that he picked up years ago all the way back when he was just a private, and needed nicotine in stressful situations. This definitely constituted a stressful situation.

Ivana didn't respond, just kept rubbing his shoulder. Her lack of anger was starting to get under his skin. Almost made him feel like he was in the wrong. He wasn't, not this time.

"Why aren't you angry?" He finally asked.

"Of course I'm angry Helmut, I'm furious. But right now, Nic is in bed and you need me more."

Her words, spoken with such gentleness, forced him to turn to her and really look at her. Here she was, in the middle of the night, listening to his ramblings and quietening down all his inner turmoils. What would he ever do without her? There was no way in hell he ever deserved her.

He clenched his jaw a couple of times as he tried to find the words to somehow justify his behavior. To justify the tornado of rage and absolute fear that swirled inside him. In the end, he settled on:

"A girl died a week ago, overdosing on shit like this."

"I know."

"All I can imagine is that being her," He sighed, rubbing his eyes until he saw stars. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't get it out of his head. It was like the idea itself tried to choke the life out of him. "Of getting a call like that in the middle of the night. Instead of the one we got tonight. I can't. I really can't."

Ivana sighed and wrapped her arms around him, stepping on her tippy toes to land her chin on his shoulder. "We won't. You know we won't. She made a mistake and she is sorry about it. We'll make sure it doesn't happen again. Together."

Helmut felt her fingers slowly run through his hair, easing some pressure off his chest. Not enough to let it go entirely, but just enough for him to feel like he could go back inside.

"Well, she's a sad drunk just like you. That's for sure." His attempt to finally lighten the mood felt flat even to his own ears. Nevertheless, she chuckled and slapped his chest lightly in a warning.

"Watch yourself. One more comment and I'll have you sleeping on the couch." She smiled and turned to go back inside but he tugged her back into his hold before she had a chance.

"I love you." He told her, meaning every word. He loved her, truly. He doubted that he would ever find enough words to express just how much he adored her.

"And I love you. Now come on, let's go back to bed. You can be mad at her tomorrow." She took his hand and pulled him back inside their room.

"You go ahead, I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

"You better." She pointed a finger at him. "And seriously, lose the shirt. Preferably into the trash. It's disgusting."

For once he didn't disagree with her opinion on clothes. He doubted he would ever be able to get the stains and the stench out of the material.

"Nothing special for the price. I'd go for the Stironium that Joy offers. Basically the same thing but cheaper. " Nic's voice snapped him back to reality. Swallowing, he spared a glance at her, half expecting her to look drugged up. He didn't delude himself, knowing where he was. Narcotics in Madripoor hit a completely different level. It was more like a ticking Russian Roulette. You were considered lucky if you were alive by the morning.

To his surprise, the woman didn't even look dazed let alone under the influence. That was…an interesting piece of information to know.

"I knew it," Selby sighed and nodded to one of the men who promptly left the office. Her attention returned to him. "What was your offer again?"

"Tell us what you know about the Super-Soldier serum." Helmut proposed and stood up. He circled behind James, touching him just enough to show that he was the one in control. As expected, James did not move or wince as he trailed his hands down his face. "And I give you him, along with the code words to control him, of course. He will do anything you want."

"Now that's the Zemo I remember." Selby gleamed at the prospect of his offer. Helmut nodded, pleased. "I'm glad I decided not to kill you immediately. Yeah, you were right to come to me. Arrogant, but right."

With his job of selling the bait complete, he returned to his seat. He nodded in thanks as Nic moved her legs out of his way.

"The Super-Soldier Serum is here in Madripoor. You're looking at one example right in front of you." Selby confirmed his speculation and pointed at Nic lazily.

Helmut struggled briefly to keep his face straight. The woman in front of him did not look like a Super Soldier, if anything she looked very much like a regular person. Well, as normal as a person could be when they looked older version of someone else. But human. Nothing like the ones that he killed in Siberia.

Besides, Selby looked eager when he offered up James. Why would she want him if she already had a Super Soldier working for her? He supposed James was pretty handsome for a man but he doubted that she would be interested in him that way. The Selby he knew was always interested in finding use out of a situation or a person, not to take a personal interest.

Too many things weren't adding up.

"Doctor Nigel is the man you want to thank or condemn," Selby released a dramatic sigh, cocking her head to the side. "Depending on what side of this you're on."

"She's your pet?" Helmut asked curiously. He had so many questions about this Nic, but couldn't ask any of them without giving himself away.

"In a way. Power Broker's toy. Such a pretty thing, lethal too if you can afford her." The way she said, with such glee, made a shiver go down his back. She cast her eyes at Sam. "you know all about that don't you, Smiling Tiger?"

"Don't need to tell me." Sam mustered up all could in sounding confident for which Helmut was thankful. But Selby didn't seem to want to let up.

"You're taller than I'd heard."

"It's the shoes." Nic intervened and loosely crossed her arms, kicking up her foot against his couch. If he didn't know better he would say that it was a subtle attempt to lock him in his place. Was she playing something? He couldn't figure out her angle. Not yet, anyway.

"You had plenty of business with him didn't you?" Selby raised her eyebrow at Nic who merely nodded. "Can you confirm it's him?"

Helmut stiffened up, slowly moving his hand closer to his pockets, ready for a fight. He wondered if he would be able to grab the gun off the table quicker than Selby. Any moment now, their cover would be blown. He doubted the security would hesitate in shooting them. Nic stood up and slowly walked over from the couch to Sam. She circled around him like a cheetah ready to play with her food before devouring it.

She walked right up to Sam until there was almost no space between them and looked up. Helmut was ready to pray to the God he had long abandoned if it kept Sam from blowing their cover by stepping back. They were so close to knowing what they needed, it would be nice if they could leave this place without being shoved inside a body bag. He watched with a bated breath as she tilted her head and clicked her tongue.

"Oh, it's him."

Helmut was not expecting that. He looked up to James who also wore a similar expression of surprise. She was covering for them? Why? He doubted she really believed Sam to be Conrad Mack, she gave them more than enough indication that she suspected at least something.

"Good." Selby flashed her teeth as she turned to Helmut. "Had to ask. Too many fakes running around ever since the Blip."

Yeah, like the one sitting right in front of him who just lied about the identity of the Smiling Tiger.

"The Power Broker had him working on the serum, but… things didn't go as planned."

"Is Nagel still in Madripoor?"

"Oh. The bread crumbs you can have for free, but the bakery is gonna cost you." Selby teased him, raising up. "And before you get all cute, don't think you can find Nagel without me."

Helmut pursed his lips. She was right, people like him loved to hide out in the dark, work off-grid in their own little dungeons. He despised the Frankenstein wannabes, too deluded in their own ideals to see the lines that shouldn't be crossed.

Selby just about passed by Sam when a sudden buzzing noise brought the office to a standstill. It appeared that everyone held in their breath as the vibration rang out again. All eyes turned to Sam who dug into his jacket to retrieve his phone.

Fuck. Fuck. Did he seriously not turn off his phone? Helmut looked away exasperated and his eyes landed on Nic just in time to see her stiffened in her seat and clench her jaw. If Sam blew their cover and Selby realized that she covered for them, for whatever reason, she'd be just in as much hot water as they would.

In conclusion, this was very bad for all of them.

"Answer it. On speaker." Selby ordered as the phone continued to vibrate in Sam's hand. James moved behind Selby as the guards stepped up closer to Sam. Helmut glanced around the place, looking for any possible exit routes or what they could use to defend themselves. If they were ever going to get out of here alive, he was going to feed him nothing but expired food, that was for sure. Did he really need to spell it out for them every little precaution when going into a bad place? What kind of moron didn't turn off his ring tone when going undercover?

"Hello?" Sam answered.

"Hey, um, we need to talk about this situation. It's been drivin' me nuts."

"What situation exactly are you talkin' about?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nic move to the center of the couch as she watched the interaction.

"Are you high? You know what situation, it's the only situation me and you have."

Their eyes met as Nic reached for the gun on the table while everyone's attention was focused on Sam and put it in the inside pocket of her jacket before leaning back. She continued to watch him with a cold gaze as she ran her hand through the right side of her face and settled her fingers over her mouth.

He barely heard it. Perhaps he even imagined it happening at all. Maybe she simply coughed. But at that moment, he was certain that she uttered 'grasshopper' in Sokovian.

The call, Sam, Selby; they all became muted. Mere background noise as his whole body froze up on the spot. There was ringing in his ears. Or was it his own heartbeat that was banging against his eardrums? He wasn't sure. A sudden chill swept through him as if a cold wind cut through his skin. The word was not meant for him. He most likely was not even meant to hear it in the first place.

His brain screamed at him to snap out of it. To get himself back in order before he was riddled with bullets. But even blinking felt like an impossible feat. How was he meant to pay attention to what was going on around him? A fleeting, treasonous, thought crossed his mind. Did it even matter if he ended up with a bullet in his head before he had a chance to fight back? No. He still had a job to do. He needed to finish it before he gave in any temptation.

"If that was the case, then why'd they dog you out, Big Time?"

It felt like forever when he finally zoned back into his surroundings. Right. Sam was about to blow their cover. This woman in front of him was or at least knew Sokovian while looking like his daughter. James did what he did best, and stared at Sam.

Wait. Who was she talking to? Was she wired? Who the hell was on the other end?

Helmut tilted his head ever so slightly as Selby walked behind him. From experience, he did not enjoy someone standing behind when he was not in control of the room. Even now, it made his skin crawl with dread. She was circling them like they were the prey.

"Yeah, you damn right I'm Big Time. You'll see when I have that banker killed."

"Cass! What'd I tell you about the Cheerios?" Helmut inhaled sharply. They were done. "I don't have time for this! Sam, I'm sorry. I'll call you back."

The pressure in the air dropped. Selby raised her eyebrow, surprised.

"Sam? Who's Sam?"

"Now." Nic hissed out at the same time as Selby shouted "Kill them!"

Nic ripped the pistol out of her jacket and jumped up. She aimed and pulled the trigger. The sound of that first bullet leaving the chamber pierced through his eardrums. Multiple shots followed, as well as a window shattering into millions of shards. A man in the very back of the office dropped with dead weight.

The second's hesitation, the shock of surprise that passed through the guards, gave just enough time for Sam and James to overpower them. Helmut leaped from his seat as they fought for the weapons, there was no moment to waste.

Nic jumped over the corner of the couch to the table. Slapping the mask over her face she pulled the table apart. By the time that everyone was either knocked out or dead, she had thrown a backpack over her shoulders and secured it over her chest.

James pointed the gun as the doors to the office opened.

"Whoa." A woman with glasses entered the office. It took her one look inside to raise her hands up in surrender. "Wait I-"

"Nothing personal, it's just business." Nic responded and pulled the trigger before James could.

"They're gonna pin this on us," Sam informed them as he looked at Helmut. As if he didn't know that himself.

"We have a real problem now," He sighed thinking of what they could do. Maybe if they managed to sneak out unnoticed, they'd have just enough time to hide out and eventually get out of Low Town. It was their best chance. "so leave your weapons and follow my lead."

"We have roughly two minutes before every single mercenary gets an alert for a bounty. She was on the no kill list." Nic briefed them as she walked over to them with a phone in hand.

"Two minutes?" Helmut couldn't help but smirk. "A lot can be done in two minutes."

=====

By the time they made it to the streets and turned a corner, Nic's phone chimed up.

"We are about to have a lot of company," Nic called out and held up her phone. It had two notifications:

Messenger | now.

'Selby dead. B1k BOUNTY for her killers.'

Veron | now.

'58324 Ridge Tow. 7 minutes.'

Helmut would have loved to ask about the second message if they weren't about to become biggest practice targets to about every single lowlife in the city.

"What's the plan now?" James bit out as they marched down the street. More and more phones chimed up. Eyes followed their every move.

"Follow me and you might stand a chance," Nic replied, pulling a hood over her head.

"How do we know you're not just going to shoot us? You just said Selby was on the no-kill list and you shot her."

"Oh, you don't. But I am your only hope of staying alive."

"This is not good," Helmut warned, he could see the bystanders arming themselves. They had no choice but to place their trust in her.

The street light went out underneath them and a man pointed a gun at them. Shots rang out behind them.

"Through here," Nic shouted, ducking from the fire. She took a sharp turn behind a parked van that Helmut barely managed not to miss. They sprinted through a small alleyway in between the buildings.

"Why are you helping us?" He called out as they passed yet another turn, barely keeping up with her.

"An interested party is paying a lot of money to keep you alive." She responded and slowed down ever so slightly. As if she noticed that he couldn't keep up with a Super-Soldier speed. She frowned looking behind him. "Are your friends able to follow any basic instructions?"

Helmut looked back as well. Sam and James were nowhere to be seen.

"Not particularly." He sighed, shrugging. "Who is this interested party?"

She did not reply to him. Instead, she tapped her right ear as she held the pistol and slowly walked over to the end of the alleyway.

"We have a problem." She snapped into what he assumed was an earpiece.

"Oh?"

"Forty seconds."

Wordlessly she passed her gun to him and pulled out a blade that he could not recognize in the dim light. She moved out of the alleyway into the open. He followed suit with the gun raised but had no time to see where she ran off to.

Helmut aimed at whoever stood in front of him just as Sam and James cut the corner and appeared into the view. The goon dropped dead before he could pull the trigger. Startled, he squinted to see where the shot came from.

He turned at the sound of motorbikes approaching them. Another shot rang out, right as Nic popped out and dragged the goon off the bike to the floor. He did not rise again.

"You seem to have a guardian angel." Helmut broke the silence, surprised, as he walked up to them.

"Well, this is too perfect. Drop it, Zemo." A voice behind him made him jump and turn around. With the gun in his face, he had no choice but to bend down and slowly put the gun on the floor.

"Sharon?" James faltered, recognizing her. He knew her. A friend?

"You cost me everything." The woman, Sharon, growled at him with the gun still pointed to him. Helmut cocked his eyebrow. Did he? He could not recall ever meeting her before. He raised his hands in surrender and took a step back.

"Sharon, wait." Sam interjected, stepping closer to him. "Someone recreated the Super-Soldier serum and Zemo had a lead."

He was defending him? How sweet. Helmut would have made a witty comment if his life wasn't hanging by a thread. He turned his head to see Nic walking up to them from behind. The knife that she carried had spots of blood on it.

Helmut swallowed nervously. The woman in front of him clearly held a grudge against him and the woman behind him, well he had not the slightest idea what she wanted. Who was to say that they weren't about to end his existence at a moment's notice.

"That explains why you guys are here. And Selby's dead." She gave a pointed look at Nic who just shrugged.

"In my defense, this one did not think to turn off his phone."

"So what are you doing here?" Sam asked, changing the attention away from himself. Helmut wondered if he was embarrassed that he forgot to do such a basic task. He hoped that he was.

"I stole Steve's shield, remember? I also took the wings for your ass, so that you could save him from him. I didn't have the Avengers to back me up. So I'm off the grid in Madripoor." Oh. So that's why she didn't like him. Even though it was hardly his fault.

"Don't blow smoke. I was on the run, too."

"Was. Is. Big difference. I don't speak to my family anymore. I can't. My own father doesn't know where I am."

Helmut looked around uncomfortably. He didn't particularly care about their reunion. Especially when they were still out on the open and could be spotted at any moment.

"Listen… Sharon, we need your help." James said, causing the woman to chuckle.

"Please." He added for the good measure.

Sharon sighed and looked behind them where Nic stood around.

"You alright?"

"Never been better," Nic called out. Even with his back turned to her, he could tell she was smirking.

"This isn't over. I have a place in High Town. You'll be safe there for a while."

Helmut shared a look with Sam and James and nodded. Getting a ride to High Town would be safer for them than navigating their way back to the safe house themselves. The bounty on their heads would not go away anytime soon.

"I'll follow by." Nic nodded to them and walked over to the motorbikes that sat empty. Kicking one of the bodies out of her way, she turned on the engine.

Helmut intended to trail behind them but Sam grabbed his shoulder and roughly moved him to the front, preventing him from seeing Nic take off. He still had so many questions and about zero answers when it came to her. Not knowing something was not his style.

The ride from Low Town was just as quiet but more relaxing than their last one. He imagined that having company that did not try to kill them at any chance they got helped.

Glancing at the side mirror, he saw that a single motorbike was close, trailing behind them.

"Your friend," Helmut opened his mouth, hoping to get even a grain of information. "Nic. Who-"

"Shut up, Zemo." Sam snarled from the back as he leaned into the seat's headrest and closed his eyes.

Helmut raised an eyebrow watching him through the rear mirror. At first, he assumed that the hostility was from the adrenaline of having a whole town trying to feed them bullets. But enough time passed for them to settle down and take a breath in. So there had to be another reason for the snappiness.

Helmut racked his brain through the day's events that would result in such behavior. He had to admit a lot did occur in the space of the twenty-four hours.

Oh?

Perhaps his intuition was correct and there was something going on between these two men. It would definitely explain the constant staring at each other. If he was right, he could imagine that Sam did not take lightly at the prospect of him trying to sell off James. Not that he actually wanted or planned to do it. He had hoped it would not come to that point anyway. James was much more useful to have around than not.

====

Their car pulled in front of a gated building that was surrounded by guards. Helmut had to admit, he was impressed. Not many people would be able to afford such a place, especially in High Town. He followed closely behind Sharon as they walked inside.

The inside was as over the top and sleek as he imagined it would be. They passed through numerous paintings that he had no doubt were the real copies and other artifacts. So she was a hustler then.

"Looks like breaking all those laws is treating you well." Sam chuckled looking around.

"I thought if I had to hustle, might as well enjoy the life of a real hustler. You know how much I'll get for a real Monet?" Sharon explained, leading them further in.

"Also it helps that a lot of high-paying idiots do not realize the real value of art and are willing to overpay," Nic added passing them all.

"Deactivate your hustle mode. You sell fake Monets."

"No. She means real." Helmut interjected, having some experience with places like these. Ivana had picked Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp to hang in their living room by the fireplace. "This gallery is specialized in stolen artwork. Monet. Van Gogh. Classics."

"It's true. You know, half the artwork in museums like the Louvre is fake. Real stuff sits in places like this." Even James reaffirmed their point.

"Okay, guys, I see what you're doing. You're more worldly than good old Sam." Sam rolled his eyes and proceeded to Google it.

"Yeah. What's Google say?" James asked sarcastically.

"No shit."

Helmut glanced at them. They fell behind, referring to bicker with each other than to follow them. Definitely had to be fucking.

"Come on. You guys need to change. I'm hosting clients in an hour." Sharon sighed exasperated.

====

Helmut helped himself to the open bar while James and Sam tried to pick what to wear for the evening. There was no way he would exchange the comfort of his own clothes to whatever Sharon had in stock. He already looked the part anyway. It was one of the many advantages of having a good taste in fashion.

Nic apparently had a similar idea as she threw the backpack by James and joined him at the bar. Wordlessly, Helmut passed her a glass and proceeded to pour himself a good amount of scotch. He would need a lot of it if he even wanted to begin to untangle the mess. Ignoring her existence seemed to be the easier option at the moment.

"Much better." Sharon made a comment as she passed Sam who kept changing his mind on what shirt to wear. His indecisiveness started to grate on Helmut's nerves. Even he didn't take this long to choose a shirt and he was called a fashion diva on numerous occasions.

Sharon sat down beside James and took the bag on her lap. She unzipped it and looked up at Nic with a grin.

"You think you can push it?"

"I know I can." Nic replied smugly and rose the glass to her mouth.

"Hold up," Sam interrupted turning to them with a simple turtle neck in his arms. Helmut crinkled his nose. Really? All this time for a plain turtleneck? "What exactly do you do? Cause you are sending mixed messages with the killing and saving our asses."

"I do whatever you can afford me to do." Nic grinned and looked him up and down as if to make a point. Helmut cringed at the suggestive tone of her voice. It made him uncomfortable to even think of what it could entail. Whether she did look like his daughter or not, it felt wrong. He doubted she was much older than twenty. Practically a kid.

Sam cleared his throat uncomfortably, getting a similar image as he did.

"So what?" He asked Sharon, putting the shirt over his head. "You have a lot of people that need to be murdered on your list?"

"Oh, no." Sharon chuckled. "We're friends. I just buy her out whenever I can to mostly chill. Her being able to sell crap to others on the side are just an added bonus."

"Who is the Power Broker now?" Helmut asked as he held the glass in his hands. He doubted it was the same person from when he dealt with him. People in places like Madripoor usually did not reach pension age.

"Depend on which division you want to talk to." Sharon shrugged. "It's not a single entity anymore but more like a big umbrella organization. Even then, you don't really know who you speak to. Suppose it's easier to hold on to power that way."

"You seem like you know a lot about how this place operates. What's going on, Sharon? You don't ever wanna come back home?" Sam frowned, sitting down on the couch opposite of her.

"They'll lock me up if I step foot back in the States. Madripoor doesn't allow extradition." Sharon sighed, standing up and walking over to another table to pick something up. Helmut watched her, noticing that she did not sit in one place for too long. Interesting. He wondered for a second if perhaps she had some form of ADHD or if it was just her body language betraying discomfort.

"Look, I'm sorry I didn't call, but after The Blip and the chaos, I just…"

"Look, you know the whole hero thing is a joke, right? The way you gave up that shield, deep down, you must know it's all hypocrisy."

"He knows. And not so deep down." Helmut commented, bringing everyone's attention to him. He raised his glass in fake salute.

"By the way, how is the new Cap?"

"He sounds annoying." Nic interjected. She raised her eyebrow as he looked up at her. "What? It's Madripoor, not a cave. We do keep up with international news."

"Don't get me started." James grumbled, turning his head away.

"Please." Sharon scoffed, settling down beside James again. "You buy into all that stars and stripes bullshit. Before you were his pet psychopath, you were Mr. America! Cap's best friend."

Well, that was offensive. To both him and James.

"Wow. She's kind of awful now." James bit out dryly.

"You get used to it." Nic retorted as she poured herself another drink.

"Karli Morgenthau and at least seven others have taken the serum." Sam spoke, playing with his collar. Either the scotch was really good or the day was getting to him, but if Sam kept messing with his attire one more time he wasn't sure he will be able to control himself enough not to strangle him.

Perhaps he was still annoyed at Sam for not turning off his phone.

"You guys really should steer clear of all of this for your own safety."

"We know it's a risk, but we won't leave until we find the one who cracked the code."

"We got a name. Wilfred Nagel." James added.

Sharon shared a look with Nic before rising once again.

"Nagel works for the Power Broker."

Helmut moved out of her way the moment he saw her walk in his direction. He glanced at the empty seat by a glass table and chose to sit there. It was close enough that he could still see them. The only downside was that Nic was directly in his sight now. With no imminent danger to his life, it was harder to concentrate on other matters and not let his mind run miles away. The longer he looked at her, the more exhausted he felt. Weariness seeped into his bones. He focused on the glass in his hands, running his fingertips through the golden strip.

"We need your help, Sharon. I can get your name cleared."

"You haggling with my life?"

"Not like that."

Helmut frowned. He didn't particularly care for their conversation. Or whether Sharon cleared her name. He was itching to get out, preferably as far away from Nic as possible. Maybe he could drink himself stupid until he forgot ever meeting her. Or until he started to believe that it was just his mind playing tricks on him and he simply slapped Nic's face over someone who shared her name.

That was going to take a lot of alcohol. It had been years since the last time that he got so drunk he passed out. Ironically, alcohol never made him forget, if anything it made the noise in his head so much louder.

He stopped paying attention to their conversation. It became a background noise as he zoned out. Even the glass that he kept staring at blurred away.

"I don't buy that. You pretending like you can clear my name."

"Okay, maybe it is hypocrisy. Maybe you're right. What happened to you. But I'm willing to try if you are. They cleared the bionic staring machine, and he killed almost everybody he's met."

"I heard that."

"I don't trust charity."

A pair of boots in his vision snapped him back. He blinked and looked up to see Nic standing in front of him.

"Sorry. Kind of need that." She pointed at the chest that was on the table.

"Of course." He gave her a polite smile and moved his chair to the side so she could grab it.

He gulped as the perfume hit his senses again. It felt weird. Wrong. His Nic always stole Ivana's perfumes that had some sweet combination of coconut, vanilla and touch of floral notes. She had a habit of spraying just a touch too much.

This was too harsh of a scent on her.

Not her. A stranger. Nic was dead. He should not compare how this woman smelled to how she used to. He had no business judging.

His eyes followed her as she walked off with the chest in her arm as if it weighed nothing and stopped by the stairs.

Sharon put her drink down with thud and straightened up.

"Well, I sell to some pretty connected people. Lay low, blend in, enjoy the party. Try to stay outta trouble. I'll see what I can find."

"Trouble." Helmut blurted out sarcastically and shrugged. He watched as the two women climbed up the stairs and left his sight.

"She means you." Sam gave him a pointed look.

"Why is she mad at me again?" Helmut asked as he got up and moved back to the yellow couches. Sam sat down beside James with a drink in hand. They had some time to kill before the party began.

"You don't remember?" Sam scoffed into his drink.

"Sam, if I tried to remember every single person that I may or may not have inconvenienced directly or indirectly, it would be a very long list and we'd spend a long time sitting around."

"Can't believe I'm saying this again. But it's not the time for arguments." James groaned out and let his head fall onto the back of the couch, almost like the idea itself was paining him.

"Alright. But I swear to God if you even move out of our sight for one second. I will send your ass right back to jail before you can make some stupid remark."

"I have no intention of inconveniencing you that much." Helmut smirked. "But be my guest and enjoy the party, I'm simply going to observe some individuals. No tricks."

"No. See, if we are doing this," Sam protested pointing to the three of them. "We need to know that you are not going to stab us in the back the first chance you get. So you gotta be honest with us, and tell us what the hell you're playing at."

"I told you before, I'm here to end the Super Soldiers serum. Nothing more, nothing less." Seeing the doubt on their faces, Helmut sighed in defeat. "And also figure out who the hell the woman your friend hanging out with is."

"You suspect she isn't just Sharon's friend." James guessed, crossing his arms as he stared at him.

Helmut threw back the glass, swallowing the last of it's contents. With the familiar burn that went down his throat, he pulled out his phone from the inside of his jacket and unlocked it. It didn't take long to search up his personal ICloud storage and enter the password. His phone lit up with multiple folders of pictures and documents that he had on his old phone. He clicked on the 'Pictures' folder, somewhat grateful that the contents of it were grouped by dates and had random strings of letters for its names instead of the actual pictures itself. It wasn't something he could deal with today.'Or ever' his mind supplied ever so helpfully.

He didn't need to scroll far to find the pictures dated back to February 2015. Mainly because he stopped taking pictures past May 2015.

In that February, he managed to pull enough strings with his Lieutenant General to get a couple of weeks off at the same time that Nic and Carl had holidays off school. Ivana wanted to go to Switzerland for the ski season while he wanted to go somewhere warm. After a few days of deliberation, they settled on and ended up flying out to Barbados for couple of days.

Helmut hesitated. It had been years since he saw their faces. Dread settled in his gut as he pressed to open the pictures. He did not give himself enough time to look at the pictures. Just tiniest of flashes as he scrolled through the few landscape shots before he found a picture where Nic was in it.

"This was my daughter, Nic," He told them, raising his phone away from himself and for them to see. "Looks familiar?"

Ivana had her arms wrapped around Nic's shoulders while Nic made a face at the camera. In the picture, Nic was with a mess of brown, wet curls that dropped down her back. She was younger, scrawnier, still with some baby fat in her cheeks but it was impossible not to see the similarities between the girl in the picture and the woman that they just met today. Apart from the haircut and the years, they were identical.

"Oh shit." Sam swore, zooming into the picture.

"Any chance it is her?" James asked looking up from the phone to him.

"I buried what was left of her years ago James. Collapsed buildings and flying ruble do not leave much behind." Helmut clenched his jaw. "But I am pretty certain that it is impossible."

"So either it's the biggest coincidence in the world that we met someone with exactly the same looks and name or either someone is behind this." Sam concluded passing the phone back to him.

"My thoughts exactly." He pocketed the phone back. "I simply wish to find whoever thought this was a funny joke and have a chat with them."

James and Sam shared a look. They did not believe a word of that.

"Alright," James sighed. "We'll see what we can find out before we leave this place."

====

Thank you so much for all the notes. I'm so glad you liked the previous chapters and hope you'll enjoy this too :) xx

#tfatws #zemo #helmut zemo #baron zemo #zemo fic #marvel #the falcon and the winter soldier #fanicti #zemo's family

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siriusbunbryist · 4 years ago

Text

In defence of Abed x Annie.

Thanks to the magic of Netflix, I’ve rewatched Community at age 24, and still found Abed and Annie to have hit the heartstrings as much as I did when I was in high school watching the show for the first time.

But watching the series in its entirety just reinforces my thought that Abed and Annie had so much potential that was wasted, and it’s a shame that the writers planted all these seeds to only decide that perhaps this direction was not worth it / too risky / unfavoured by the audience. But I mean, Alison Brie herself (and I’m assuming Danny Pudi as well) endorsed them! Find here and here.

This was a pairing that with all the crumbs scattered throughout the show (I think we are all aware of these crumbs I speak of), could’ve easily played the “oh we’ve been secretly dating this whole time” trope during the last episode and it would’ve still made sense.

Naturally I did some scoping, and of course unsurprisingly the J.eff x Annie pairing takes the cake, while not a lot of love for Abed x Annie. So here are common points of contentions I see surrounding Abed and Annie, and my rationale on them.

Before I start, a note - I fully respect the J.eff x Annie ship and I don’t intend on starting a ship w.ar/debate. I understand where their support comes from! I just needed to vent because no one else in my social circle watches this show. No hate please.

1. Abed doesn’t see Annie romantically

I think on the contrary it’s been set up rather long ago that Abed at the very least is attracted to Annie.

Exhibit A: “What are you making” in Beginner Pottery

Exhibit B: “Flat B.utt and the one Abed wants to nail” in The Art of Discourse

This video basically explains it! The summary: Annie is Pierce’s favourite, Pierce constantly insults Britta, therefore Britta is flat b.utt.

Exhibit C: Not even trying to hide it in Accounting for Lawyers

But, a romantic interest has to be further built upon finding someone attractive right? There has to be intrigue to their character, such as

Exhibit D: “I can only connect to people through... movies” in English as a Second Language

youtube

It is pretty obvious here that Annie is a rare someone who has successfully broken the impartial screen that Abed filters everything through. Jeff saw it too which is why he said Annie was the ark of the covenant before Abed fell for her disney face. I can only imagine Abed to be quite struck with Annie’s infiltration.

A romantic interest should also share common interests, such as

Exhibit E: “Which makes Annie is my third favourite show” in Paranormal Parentage

I’ve said before that for Abed, a guy who lives life and communicates through comparing it with television and movies, it’s not unthinkable for him to be attracted to someone who genuinely watches his favourite shows and commits to roles during cosplay. And who, besides Troy, would fit this profile? Annie.

And finally, the biggest indicator of it all, we also see how Abed views the Jeff and Annie pairing in everyone’s favourite episode Remedial Chaos Theory. Keeping in mind that the timelines are rendered by Abed, out of all the timelines, J.eff and Annie only kis.sed when Abed left the room for pizza. As well, as conjured in Abed’s head, Evil Jeff and Evil Annie only existed as a couple in the Darkest Timeline. To me at least, it’s arguable that this alludes to Abed’s omniscient “director” standpoint that he may be the obstacle in the Jeff and Annie relationship - pointing towards him perhaps harbouring feelings for Annie.

2. Annie doesn’t see Abed romantically The general consensus on this point is that Annie is only attracted to Abed when he’s playing a character. I rather think that being attracted to someone, and being attracted to someone during role play, aren’t mutually exclusive. Let’s take a look at the different characters that Abed played.

Don Draper: serious, sophisticated, and smooth.

Han Solo: immature, flirty and a smarta.ss.

Batman: mysterious, complex, and brave.

Three different personas, yet Annie responded to all of them. Since the common denominator to all three is that they are played by Abed, I would like to offer a counterpoint that perhaps the attraction to Abed has always been there, it’s just emphasized when Abed plays a character. Who knows, role playing might even be Annie’s ki.nk. After all, during For a Few Paintballs More, it is shown that Annie is disappointed when Abed dropped the Han Solo persona after the battle ended.

Annie also loves big romantic gestures. Who’s better than doing that than Abed? Since the beginning, Abed has already been doing big romantic gestures of varying degrees for Annie. With this, it’s not ridiculous for Annie to see Abed as a romantic potential.

Exhibit F: Staying in a room for 26 hours in Social Psychology

Annie: You sat in a room for twenty-six straight hours. Didn’t that bother you? Abed: Yeah I was livid. Annie: Then why didn’t you leave? Abed: Because you asked me to stay and you said we were friends.

Exhibit G: Rescuing her from “captivity” and inviting her to move in in Remedial Chaos Theory and Studies in Modern Movement (even Troy was surprised at Abed’s invitation)

Exhibit H: Tearing down the Dreamatorium in Studies in Modern Movement

Annie: What about the Dreamatorium? Abed: Oh it's staying. The Dreamatorium is more important than any of us. But you're more important than our bedroom so we put the bunk bed in the blanket fort.

Bonus: Confirmed by Alison Brie

3. The show was about Jeff and Annie

Dan Harmon said that Community’s approach is that anything and any pairing is possible. We see this is as the series started with the classic “player vs smart snarky girl” trope with setting up Jeff and Britta as the main pairing. We also see Troy and Annie as the potential B couple in the show. The writers also threw Pierce and Shirley, Annie and Britta, Dean and Jeff, and even Chang and Britta in for a laugh.

And then the show subverted this all by introducing Jeff and Annie, and made Troy and Britta a couple, showing us that Community is a show that intends on breaking these classic sitcom stereotypes by experimenting with different pairings. Abed and Annie was no exception to this, as the writers often pair them up in different shenanigans and hint at possible grounds to explore*.

A few examples: Han and Leia in For a Few Paintballs More, Hector the Well Endowed and the Elf Maiden in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, spy partners in Modern Espionage.

No doubt that the show dabbled in and out of Jeff and Annie throughout the series. However, to say that Jeff and Annie was the primary pairing in the series would mean overlooking Jeff and Britta. Especially when Jeff and Britta have the whole love-hate dynamic, three(?) marriage close-calls, and emotional snippets such as helping Jeff reunite with his father in Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations.

Anyway, not to discredit Jeff and Annie, but knowing that the show explores the possibility of different pairings**, why write off Abed and Annie?

* Not to mention that the cop pairing in The Science of Illusion was originally written with Abed and Annie in mind! ** We also see a stray Abed and Britta during Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps.

4. Annie is in love with Jeff To keep this short and shipper-goggle free, Annie has said on numerous occasions that she’s in love with the idea of Jeff, not Jeff himself. Specifically this scene in Virtual Systems Analysis:

Abed as Annie: "…We love Jeff…" Annie: "No we don’t, we’re just in love with the idea of being loved. And if we can teach a guy like Jeff to do it, we’ll never be unloved, so we keep running the same scenario over and over hoping for a different result."

And this scene in Conventions of Space and Time:

Annie: All right, I may have been play-acting that we were married, and then the staff thought you were cheating, and I had to save face. Jeff: Do I have to worry about this? Annie: No, I was just daydreaming. I mean, I've married you at least a half a dozen times. And Troy. And Zac Efron.

Not to mention that their conversation in the finale says it all.

Jeff: I don't wanna be fine. I wanna be 25 and heading out into the world. I wanna fall asleep on a beach and be able to walk the next day, or stay up all night on accident. I wanna wear a white t-shirt without looking like I forgot to get dressed.* I want to be terrified of AIDS, I want to have an opinion about those, boring a.ss Marvel movies. And I want those opinions to be of any concern to the people making them. Annie: Well I want to live in the same home for more than a year, order wine without feeling nervous, have a resume full of crazy mistakes instead of crazy lies. I want stories and wisdom, perspective. I wanna have so much behind me I'm not a sl.ave to what's in front of me, especially those flavourless unremarkable Marvel movies.

*Shipper-goggle on: Part of me thinks this is a reference to Abed, whose iconic style almost exclusively comprises T-shirts. What Jeff is saying is that he wishes he is 25 again with his future open before him, someone who compatible with Annie, but here he acknowledges that he isn’t, and lets her go in the end.

5. Abed and Annie wouldn’t work as a couple Another point I see is that Abed and Annie are strictly platonic and are more like brother and sister. On the basis that they have made out a couple times and are attracted to each other, I would disagree with the sibling statement.

Troy, in contrast to Abed, I think actually resembles a more sibling-like relationship with Annie. Although Troy and Annie have the strong friendship of Abed and Annie, when disregarding the high school crush stage of season 1, their storylines never dwelled further down an attraction path, nor was there any specific episode that was dedicated to a deep dive of vulnerabilities and confrontation between them. As a comparison, Troy and Britta had opportunities to explore these setups (Troy admitted to lying about his b.utt stuff story and Troy helped Britta face Blade) - an indication that Troy and Britta were heading into non-platonic territory. Jeff and Britta too, had several opportunities to confront their feelings (up till the very last season), a clear indication of a non-platonic relationship.

For Abed and Annie, what I think pulls their friendship towards actual love interest potential is best pinpointed to Virtual Systems Analysis. Annie’s participation in the Dreamatorium prompted her to not only fully submerge into the way Abed thinks and comprehends his surroundings, but she also got to understand and address Abed’s stubbornness and flaws in a vulnerable way, confronting some of her own flaws as well.

Abed as Shirley: Your hospital school, young lady, is a simulation being run through a filter of other people's needs. Abed's been filtered out because nobody needs him. Annie: I need him!

And to point out this little tidbit in VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing,

Annie: That's why Abed is like a brother to me. You guys are so alike. Abed: I can't accept that based on one time machine story.

This whole episode, instead of establishing Abed is like Annie’s brother, I would argue is rather doing the opposite. Abed and Annie’s hyper antics in the episode were basically matched by Anthony and Rachel’s blatant indifference and confusion. For lots of Abed and Annie supporters, this episode was a major setback. But I think it instead highlights how in-sync they are with each other, which is a good thing.

Another point, despite Annie trying to prove otherwise, Abed and Anthony had different vibes, and each shared different dynamics with Annie. And as Anthony pointed out in the end, who were Abed and Annie trying to replace in the apartment? Troy. The person who they are trying to fill is Troy - their roommate, their brother, their best friend. Troy was the brother role that neither Abed and Annie can fill for each other.

In Basic Sandwich, we get this exchange:

Abed: The point is, this show, Annie, it isn't just their show. This is our show, and it's not over. And the sooner we find that treasure, the faster the Jeff-Britta pilot falls apart. Annie: Got it. Thank you, Abed. Abed: You're welcome. I have a girlfriend. Annie: What? Abed: You were about to start a kiss lean. Annie: I was not.

Not only did Abed saw right through Annie’s anxiety and comforted her in his own uniquely Abed way, but he also felt the need to remind her of his girlfriend. The fact that he broke the fourth wall here is likely the writers’ way to be meta, but simply acknowledging the tension and bond there says a lot in between the lines. If tension does not exist, there would be no need for this line.

Besides, instead of thinking that they’re strictly platonic (which of course is also okay), they would rather work great as a couple. In terms of opposites attract, Annie grounds Abed with just the right amount, while Abed clearly encourages Annie to be her true self and be immature. Such as this scene in Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism,

Annie: I’m following him. Troy: You moving in here was supposed to tone us down!

Annie also doesn’t just tolerate Abed’s idiosyncrasies, she actually likes them and fully participates as multiple paintball games and cosplays would tell us. Special shoutout to the missing lovers footage in Wedding Videography, which through Britta, actually shows us that Annie is the only one who would go along with Abed’s projects - while Britta found the project extremely weird and unhealthy, Annie thought it was fun and commits well to her role.

And while others may tiptoe around Abed, Annie isn’t afraid to call Abed out when he’s out of line and makes a point to teach him about empathy in Virtual Systems Analysis. Remember that Britta tried teaching him this but it didn’t work as well.

I am Abed Nadir... And I don't know a lot of things everyone else knows. I wander the universe with my friend, Troy, doing whatever I want. Sometimes accidentally hurting innocent unremarkables. This week, however, Troy went to lunch and I adapted. I now have the ability to enter the minds of others using an elusive new technique known as "empathy".

As well as in the entire episode of Cooperative Polygraphy.

They also know each other best. Abed knew her cushion preferences, was the one who spelled out her true pas.sion for forensics, and after living together, Annie knew how to navigate Abed’s peculiarities and to soothe him whenever he had a nervous breakdown.

Annie also knows him so well that she can predict his reaction.

They are also each other’s exception. Annie was always the one who manages to pull Abed out of a trance and back to reality, usually with touch.

Abed is also very forgiving with her. An example is when Annie seemingly lost all common sense because she broke Abed’s special edition dvd in Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism.

Annie: Well, Batman, on behalf of all of us that aren't perfect, can I just say I'm sorry I broke your DVD? Abed: Apology accepted. But I wouldn't mention it to Abed. That guy's pretty ruthless. And that's coming from Batman.

And in Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas, Annie was the only claymation doll that didn’t have a weird form (except Troy as toy soldier of course). Annie was a ballerina because Abed sees her as a creature of grace. Abed was also the first one who got her “brighter tomorrow” diorama and responded with enthusiasm.

They are also in the same stage in life. As Dan Harmon explains the choice of Abed and Annie being the ones who leave the group, with Troy gone, Abed and Annie symbolize the many possibilities of the future - a possibility that makes them viable. I like to think Annie transfers to the LA FBI office after her internship and they reunite.

And as the Spice Girls said, “if you wanna be my love.r, you gotta get with my friends”. In Paleyfest, Dan Harmon says this about whoever Troy and Abed ends up dating, “I mean a woman that comes into either of their lives is either going to drive them apart or she's going to have to be really accepting of a very special relationship”.

Britta tolerated their friendship but to a point of asking Annie to distract Abed for alone time with Troy, Troy dumped the librarian as she called Abed weird, Robin disappeared, Rachel we never got to see much of, but was pretty quiet and separated from the group. From this, logically speaking, Annie would actually be the perfect match for Abed, as we all know they’re the ultimate trio within the study group and a transition from friends to more will be natural.

Oh, and, Abed is wrong. They’re not Chandler and Phoebe with little storylines together, they’re Chandler and Monica.

Anyway, that’s it for my super long rant/analysis. Community the series is done and over, so there isn’t a need for any ship war. All I want to say is, if #andamovie happens, hopefully, the writers will actually take a leap.

#abed x annie #community #annie x abed #abed nadir #annie edison #sorry if you've seen this already i'm trying to figure out why my tags won't work #mine #thoughts

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elliewan · 4 years ago

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Boom Boom - Behind the Scenes

Hi everyone! As hinted in Chapter 14th notes, here is a (long?) tumblr post for some behind-the-scenes trivia about Boom Boom! I’m sorry it took me some time, but I’ll probably develop my HC for Thermite and Ace in another post :]

So. Here’s a small table of contents for this post. And of course, massive spoilers incoming! haha

Origin of the Title

Chapter and Rhythm building

Thermite’s friendships

Interviews with Harry

IQ/Kali’s background relationship

HC Timeline

In a nutshell

1. Origin of the title

The initial placeholder title was “Norwegian Dynamite”, then “From Texas with Norway”, then… “Boom Boom”. I’m still not happy with the title, but I think it’s good enough. And funfact, it’s kind of a mistake, but not so much. In French, my native language, heartbeat’s onomatopoeia is “Boum Boum”, while I read that in American English (the English I tended to use for my fanfic), it’s supposed to be “Thump Thump” or something like that. But I also read than in most of Norwegian dialects, “Boom Boom” could be understood as a heartbeat too. So anyway, Boom Boom refers both to the beating of their heart and to the explosions of their hard-breaching gadgets. It’s also dual, meaning that each of them is a “Boom” haha And it’s also a cute Mika song about two people being totally in love despite what their families think, and making love everywhere haha (cause in French “Faire crac crac boum boum” [“doing crac crac boom boom”] means “having sex” haha)

2. Chapter and Rhythm building

Unlike most of my fanfics, Boom Boom wasn’t written “as it goes”, I didn’t “discover” the fic while writing it. In fact, I hadn’t contemplated writing a multi-chapter for them until some comments on my Siegetober Ace/Thermite one-shots where people showed interest in the ship and a potential multi-chapter or longer story for them.

So after the Siegetober rush, while I had several wips ongoing, I started working on it. The first blank page was basically: Ace/Thermite – how do they get together for real and a series of bullet points for potential scenes. Then, I opened a PowerPoint file and started filling the following diagram:

Though this is now a bit obsolete, this was the first foundation. Thanks to this diagram, and the several bullet points for potential scenes I had brainstormed, I started building the story in a (ugly) board. Once again, several things are obsolete and I never really updated it – it was more of a working document for the “pre-writing” of the fic, to see if the story really made sense:

And one thing that really didn’t help was Ubisoft releasing the cutscene about Aruni out of nowhere haha. At the beginning, I panicked a bit because I thought it changed several things in my Thermite HC, but it happened to eventually fit quite well and even help adding more drama haha

And once I was ok enough with the board, despite it having several plot holes, I tried to measure the intensity of “love” and “dramatics” to see what kind of rhythm the fic was going to follow and check if I found it entertaining enough:

3. Thermite’s friendships

In the initial draft, Castle had a MAJOR part as Thermite’s best friend. He would help him sort his feelings, see the evolution of his relationship with Ace, and even go to Texas with him to help him face his family. But when re-reading for the umpteenth time Thermite’s file, I realized there was not a single mention of Castle, contrary to Hibana, Twitch and Thatcher. Not to mention Harry’s board where it’s written Thermite has a “sibling” relationship with Ash.

And that’s when everything ticked: Thermite is surrounded by great women. Sisterhood is part of who he is, how he was raised, how he lives. And this is why those women should have a stronger place in the story. So Hibana, Twitch, Aruni and Ash became real sisters to him. Hibana and Aruni being more like the big sisters – they’re reliable, sturdy and coolheaded, they provide him with advice and comfort; Aruni especially is quite similar in temper to his biological sister in my HC. Twitch is more like his same-age sister (though she’s younger), they see eye-to-eye but there’s no authority nor “big sister” feels between them; she’s the confident. As for Ash, she’s more like that distant sibling that has evolved a lot in life to the point where they don’t talk as mush as they used to… but who could move mountains just to get to him if she hears he’s in trouble. This is what I tried to convey :’)

4. Interviews with Harry

Honestly, interviews with Harry were my ultimate cheat code to give more information regarding Ace and Thermite’s psychological statuses, and various hints regarding their mental health. Though I sometimes prefer to bring this sort of nakedness and vulnerability throughout conversations with close friends, it wasn’t very possible here because: 1. Ace had no close friends with whom he could be this vulnerable, and he’s still new at Rainbow. (and he’s not even aware of his coping mechanisms and insecurities) 2. I kind of wanted Thermite to be incredibly good at clouding his issues, changing subjects and rejecting any kind of help, meaning that only Harry could get him to openly talk (or so he thought haha) about his mental health.

As for Harry’s behavior, I tried to render him as this kind of smooth, yet not evasive, therapist. One that wouldn’t be in the judgement, and who could wait whole minutes for the person to take their time to open up, and slowly but gently poking at the aching spots, and providing various resources to help them :)

Also, since in most of his psychological reports he seems to be very aware of friendships at the base, and to push some operators to meet some others, I tried to convey this vibe too. Just like when he says that he finds similarities with Ace, Dokkaebi and Sledge. Or when he offers Thermite to ask Lion and Meghan about their tattoos etc.

Also, here’s a bit of HC on how each of them deals with Harry haha

5. IQ/Kali’s background relationship

I have to admit I may have accidentally mirrored a lot Ace/Thermite’s relationship with IQ/Kali’s. Thing is that I wanted Kali to change too! I wanted her to be this impartial and authoritative bossy businesswoman that would slowly change into someone, though still sharp and arrogant, more human. I wanted Jaimini to show up a bit more. I have given veeery small hints to offer some glimpses at her true self, at what’s behind that mask. For instance, there is that moment in the fic where Ace and Kali argue, and he tells her:

“Jai, you and I both know very well that you didn't take this contract just for the money.”

Which makes Kali pale a lot, because he’s hitting a good nerve. In fact, I kind of headcanon Kali having softened enough around him, throughout their collaboration, to have confided a tiny bit about why she created Nighthaven, and all the frustrations she had grown up with. And thing is, Kali created Nighthaven because she wanted to be a hero too, just like him. She wanted to be at the heart of the battle, to protect people, to save lives, and she dreamed of a soldier life, of self-sacrifice and heroism. She just slid the wrong way, and her childhood dream turned into a private corporation of which she became a ruthless tycoon. Just like Ace, I think things went out of control at some point for her, and she just lose connection to reality and morals.

And the thing with IQ happened quite naturally. At the beginning, once I was okay with the three main squads (especially Alpha and Bravo), the relationship just happened on itself. While Montagne and Twitch were just those lovely and patient sweethearts, IQ was the one that had the hardest time with the Nighthaven folks, whether it were Ace or Kali. Both because she didn’t trust them and their secrecy, and because she has very little patience for people with difficult tempers in general haha

So, Kali being that bossy and defiant puzzle, refusing to let her see Nighthaven’s gadgets’ blueprints, things were just meant to sparkle between them. And Kali just couldn’t resist teasing IQ and reminding her she was untouchable. And through the teasing, the premises of a relationship were born. But unlike Ace/Thermite, I don’t think it followed a Colleagues to Friends to Lovers progression, but more an Enemies straight to Lovers progression haha

So anyway. I wanted to give a little boost to Kali, so that she opens up a bit more with Rainbow, and to bring a truce between Rainbow and Nighthaven’s disputes. And love just happened, once again, to be the perfect last push <3

Another thing that could have helped her would perhaps have been some true challenging from an authority she does respect, but I found it difficult to stage and Kali wasn’t the focus of the fic anyway – perhaps another time ;)

6. HC Timeline

And here is the ugly timeline I worked with haha It’s still probable that there are some inconsistencies, but I tried to avoid them as much as possible and I’m sorry if you find some! I’m horribly bad with figures, years and stuff haha

I used most of the canonical dates, except for Jordan’s mother and sister deceases, which weren’t accurately dated in his biography and which I reinterpreted a bit to fit my story.

Also, isn’t it absolutely lovely that their birthday is only 1 day apart? u_u #ProudPisces!

7. In a nutshell

So, those were my major documents that helped me build the foundations of the fic. What happened next was some drafting and pure writing, following the publishing tempo. I think the gist of what I wanted to convey through the story is still there, even if I reworked some chapters entirely. The journey (and the destination <3) is still the same.

+ I want to once again give a proper shout out to all the wonderful readers of the fanfic, whether they’re anonymous or not! I had never received so much feedback, and so many sweet words on any work before, even back in my time on fanfic.net. I feel so grateful for that, and though I already answered to everyone who commented, and wrote many notes, I still can’t find the way to properly translate just how much it means to me. So once again THANK YOU :’D

And thank you for reading this post too, if you did haha <3

#long post #ace/thermite #iq/kali #writing fanfiction #r6s fanfiction #my hcs #my work

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writingsofmyimagination · 5 years ago

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28 Days |2|

GIF by: @suggamiin

Genre: Werewolf Au (Jimin x Reader) Part 1

Rating:18+

Summary: You’re relationship with Jimin has flourished. Your maker wanting to claim you as his pushes Jimin and your adoptive pack to the old ways.

Word Count:7540

Warnings: Swearing, drinking, violence (wolf and human), Smut - Ice play, slight exhibitionism, sleepy sex. Slight Dom Jimin

Originally this was only going to be one part, now it’s two (I’ve tagged the people who mentioned about wanting a second part...Thank you!)

@safi4x @nerdygaloresposts @sockie-the-dumbass @jimin-75

And now i have basically just finished writing an epilogue for this so if you want to be tagged hit me up! (up by this friday)

Please enjoy all the sin!!

The Yaegerbomb burned your throat with sweet victory after beating all the guys to empty the glass first. The pumping of the bass from the latest dance hit reverberated right through your chest like an irritating drum. You were shoved and pushed from the side alerting you your time at the bar was done, next, move along. Laura glared daggers to the unknowing inebriated guy. You lifted the pair of glasses dripping with condensation from the bar. Over your head of course to preserve the precious liquid inside. Only lowering to normal height when the fanfare of the bar was passed and the booth you were inhabiting was in safe sight.

“Remind me again why we go OUT to drink?” you put to the group.

“To celebrate another uneventful full moon” Hobi beamed, face flushed red, eyes only half focused.

“To celebrate your third one with us” Laura added shifting back into the bright red, fake leather half crescent seating. You chose to remain standing, resting on the sticky table. Jimin hooked his hand round your waist and pulled you in between his legs.

“Yeah but we can do all of that you know, with PYJAMAS on, AT HOME!”

“We’re not all hermits like you babe, we actually like to let off steam after a forced change” Jimin teased, increasing the grip momentarily on your hip. You turned with a smirk

“Being surrounded by a bunch of alcohol infused people all compacted together is not how I’d choose to let off steam” You relaxed in-between his legs a bit more, perching in between the warm thighs.

“Yeah and we all know how you prefer to let off steam” Yoongi blurted out toying with you. Even with the flashing lights momentarily shining on his new dirty blonde hair that did nothing to brighten the dark teasing look in his expression. Your mouth in a playful shocked “o”. The others giggled knowingly; you shared your feigned look of surprise with all of them.

“Oh come on, if you’re both not disappearing to one of the spare rooms at the house you reek of it”

Yoongi was not wrong.

“Your point being?” you chuckled back in response with half a glare. Yoongi just responded with an amused smile signalling his defeat.

“Exactly” The last swig of your drink hit you the wrong way. You needed air! In a trying to be cool rush you zig zagged and criss-crossed your way through the buzzing crowd; completely failing to notice Jungkook watching you leave from across the dancefloor.

You took yourself down the alley that backed onto the club. You attempted calming, slow breathes attempting to ease the chaotic nausea in your stomach. The orange hue of a street light was failing in its job to illuminate clearly where you stood. The pound of the bass was heavier and throbbing more and more around your skull with your enhanced hearing and spinning vision.

Nausea slowly seeping off, a familiar smell painted over the dampness of the alley. You were not mentally equip to deal with Jungkook in whatever approach this was.

“Jungkook now is not..”

“I saw you head out in your ‘I’m pretending to be casual escape walk’ and just wanted to see if you were okay”

His heart was annoyingly in a good place, you were also now low key irritated that it had to be your cheating ex with a years’ experience of you to notice. You had to tell yourself as much as you and Jimin had something completely out of this world you’d only known each other a matter of months. So it’s a given that some delicate details about each other were still yet to be discovered.

“I think you’ve lost the privilege to be concerned about me don’t you” Your defensive tone was also infused with bitterness. His eyes bloomed wide, the annoyance that started to fill in his gaze quickly morphed into deep regret and sadness.

“Well I don’t see Jimin here” he muttered, pettiness shining through.

He had to go there

You straightened yourself up

“What and that gives you some sort of upper hand. Jungkook it’s over, you have to deal with it” Your frown was lethal.

“If I could take it back I would, you’re the one I want to be with, you’re the one I lo..”

“Don’t even! Just leave!”

Your previous relationship with him now finally served a good purpose; the look you shot him was one he KNEW meant you were done and not to be argued with. Your whole body sighed with relief as well as at the daunting prospect of going back inside to the social nightmare of clubbing. You were briefly aware of a shadow shrouded figure entered the alley

Brushing your lack of motivation off your leather skirt you stood up straight and started to head back in, in the direction of the new alley inhabitant

Before you had a chance to react to the unmistakeable scent of a werewolf your back was shoved into the cold wall. Your utter disbelief and shock rendered you near defenceless. His body pushed up fiercely against you barricading you in. One of his hands firmly silencing any cries from your throat. He delved his face into your neck inhaling harshly as you struggled against him

“I’d recognise my scent anywhere” he growled.

“And what a catch you are” he added. The tar like of his eyes, only broken by the raging gold flecks

Wait is he…

One of his hands dipped and started creeping up your thigh. Adrenaline flushed through your system like wild fire, screaming into his hand; trying to thrash yourself free. Your wished you heart that was smashing into your ribcage would smash through your chest and into his jaw.

You drew air into your lungs, the cold fresh air burned down your trachea. The cool air whooshing around you as the creep was flung crashing into the brick’s opposite. With his body out the way Jimin was shooting sharpened daggers to the body on the ground.

“What the Fuck do you think you’re playing at” Jimin snarled taking a step to be more in front of you shielding you.

“Well if it isn’t one of Yoongi’s puppies” The man responded with venom scrambling to his feet

“Jimin…” His attention and head shifted towards you. Big mistake. Your eyes blooming wide was the only warning he got of the impending attack; it was too little too late. A powerful punch landed square on his jaw followed by a loud grunt from him and a high pitch scream from you. His balance lost for a moment. Recovering strong, his eyes now glaring almost glowing red; saturated with nothing but rage. Jimin lunged going for the jugular, your peripheral vision caught intense, sudden movement.

“ENOUGH!” Yoongi’s voice boomed down the alley. Jimin obediently stopped dead in his tracks, fear sparkling in his and the creep’s eyes.

The way they both glared at Yoongi you thought they’d both be bowing. He approached all of you, his presence calming your nerves. Nothing would get out of control with him around.

“Jimin enough, go and sort yourself out, Y/N go with him!” he barked. You nodded dragging Jimin under the street light to evaluate the damage on his face. Blood was dripping down his chin, you managed to catch it on your sleeve before it dripped onto his shirt. His lip was split, not too badly thankfully.

“Trevor I don’t need to tell you this is neutral territory”

“Neutral or not she’s ours and you know it”

“You turned her and left her! You had no idea she existed until tonight” Yoongi snapped back. Jimin kept batting away your concerned hands at his face.

“You know that’s not how it works; Max will be hearing about this. She’s mine!”

“Good, at least this will be handled the proper way according to you guys anyway. And I think you’ll find she’s spoken for. She isn’t property it’s 2020 you asshole” Yoongi spat. There was a warmth inside you, Yoongi standing up for you was sweet and comforting for what it was worth. Trevor spat some blood on the floor through a devil glare and stomped off down the alley.

“Jimin, take y/n back to mine, you can stay there tonight just as a precaution”

“But Jungkook will be home” you protested

“I’ll be fine” you added

“I’ve seen what he’s been drinking and I heard you shun him so he’ll be drinking a hell of a lot more, I doubt he’ll be home for a while and even when he does he’ll be fucked okay! It’s not a request y/n”

Before you had a chance to protest further Jimin pulled you past the others and made your way back to Yoongi’s.

“Stop faffing and let me look after you” You scolded Jimin for the umpteenth time. His split lip had stopped bleeding and had started to swell. You were trying to combat this by holding a tea towel shrouding ice cubes to his face. You were sat on your legs next to Jimin who’d just slouched on the sofa.

“I’m fine, it’ll be cleared in a day or two, stop fussing”

“But it’s my fault, if I hadn’t called you…”

“Babe its fine” he reassured taking your hand that was aimed for his cheek.

“Promise?”

“Yes, stop worrying” After a prolonged stare, ending in his diamond sweet smile reigning victorious.

“God I can’t believe that asshole is my maker” you slumped further down onto your legs.

“What did they mean settle it the right way? Am I going to cause you guys a lot of trouble being in your pack?” In your drunk state your thoughts had started to spiral and Jimin knew it, pulling you onto his lap.

“Hey, hey. Stop! You trust Yoongi yeah?

“Yes, of course I do” you responded almost offended

“Well then trust him to deal with it”

“But what needs to happen?” you pushed further. Jimin was hesitant for a second, wanting to avoid getting into it; especially when he had you unconsciously squirming on his lap.

“Well normally nothing would, we’re normally free to go to any pack as long as they accept you. Technically you don’t even need to be in one but seeing as wolves are social animals it tends to happen. But Max’s group live in the dark ages mentally so they see it as if they made you, you are theirs and that’s it; you have to go with them”

“So what if it’s challenged?” you urged

“The two packs will need to fight for you”

“WHAT!”

“I’m not having anyone fight for me!”

“I know, I know, but it’s just how it’s got to be done with these guys”

“Uggh!” you groaned shifted off of him and headed to Yoongi’s room.

“Where are you going?”

“To get an oversized shirt to wear to bed”

“Wear mine” his shirt was already peeled off and being offered to you. You were not displeased with the view

You chuckled lightly

“Jimin I appreciate the gesture but that won’t even cover my ass”

“Y/N please, I don’t want you covered in Yoongi’s scent” You smiled

He was so sensitive to smell even for a werewolf. You shimmied out of your white off shoulder crop top, taking your bra off under his shirt. He dragged you in between his legs teasing the zip at the top of your leather skirt down. His eyes endearingly looking up at you, chocolate filled gooey eyes consuming you as his palms massaged your behind and tops of your thighs gently pulling you again into his lap.

Your hands sat cradling the back of his neck, fingertips gently caressing his hairline.

“Please don’t worry tonight, nothing is going to be done about it this evening before anything happens Yoongi will call a meeting anyway and you can say whatever you want then” Your hips angled into his lap following the squeeze on your behind.

“Do I get the feeling you want to try and help me not think about it?” You ground your hips into him again. You could already feel your arousal beginning to pool.

“Uggh!” he whined throwing his back.

“What?”

“I can smell you and I won’t even be able to taste you tonight” he whined pouting his ballooned lip to you.

“God I can’t even kiss you!” he added. He was pissed, that boy loved nothing more than to be between your thighs, to have them compress around his head as he absorbed everything he could as you came.

“Well lucky for me you have other assets beside your mouth” you placed a gentle kiss on his forehead before nestling, placing light kisses along his collar bone. His eyes lazy watching you pick an ice cube from the towel. Hissing as the cold water trailed down in between his chest bumping over the definition of his hands leaving the trail a disrupted line. His hand gripped yours when you’d trailed the ice around his right nipple.

“Okay that’s enough, bed!”

“Did you bring it?” Jimin asked in a half pant setting himself lying on top of you, knee pressed to you core. Foreheads touching both fighting every urge to lose each other into desperate kisses.

“Mmmhmm, in my bag” exhaling as he left you on the bed. Jimin had convinced you it would be a good idea if you started carrying your bullet vibrator around with you more often. On multiple occasions he’d more than proved it was a great idea; especially once during a particularly tense break during one of your exams. He’d easily swayed you into one of the dance practice rooms and had you shoved up against the mirror.

“Why have you brought that in?” You queried questioning eyes taking in Jungkook’s bobbly polka dot scarf.

“Do you think he’ll mind if I’ve borrowed it to fuck you?” The wicked grin that crept across his face had you shaking your head, your lip bit between your teeth.

“You are awful Park Jimin” You did not hesitate when he secured it at the back of your head blindfolding you. You had to concentrate on bypassing the scents from Jungkook’s scarf and only the musky, wood and comforting scent of Jimin. The path down your body that would normally be formed by his lips was replaced with the light buzzing of the vibrator. His face wasn’t far from yours, his hot amaretto tainted breath told you that; one of his arms was planted next your head keeping him steady.

“Jimin, please!” you whined, full of impatience. He’d conducted the bullet passed where you wanted it way too many times.

“You want it?” he spoke in your ear

“Take It” He didn’t have to ask you twice. When the vibrations hit your throbbing clit your head blissfully rolled back into the mattress. Your free hand dug into his hips when his fingers easily thrust into you

“Fuck your beautiful when you’re like this”

“I bet you can’t wait until you finally have my cock inside you, until my hands are around your throat and you’re begging me to give you what you want. You clenched around him panting out obscenities.

“Oh you like that when I talk dirty in your ear don’t you” You’d automatically depressed the small button on top of the bullet to increase the setting.

“You know I fucking do, stop teasing me and just do it already” you ordered breathless. You were pressing your hips harder into the vibrator chasing that seducing rhythm. Just as you were about to fall off the edge his fingers left you and snatched the vibrator from you. Hips chasing nothing.

“Where are your manners?” he teased.

“Jimin I swear to fucking god I…” You both stilled, both your ears catching the noise of the front door clicking open and shut. Jimin being the asshole that he is only saw this as an opportunity when he realised it was Jungkook who was stumbling around.

“Jimin, stop! He’ll hear” you pleaded weakly, his hands easily pinning yours above your head as well as easily securing them with just one of his hands. The other snatching the toy from and cruelly holding it harsh against your clit on full power.

“Only if you can’t be quiet” The vibrations were too powerful to escape and too powerful for you to be quiet. Jimin was using his body weight to keep your body from squirming to ease the vibrations.

Asshole

Even funnelling your moans through your lips seemed futile, they seemed to fill the room.

“Just cum and I’ll stop”

Like you had a choice at this point. Your cries were not quiet, the second your whole body started convulsing he stopped the vibrations and let go of your hands.

Your heart rate steadied, the sweat on your skin cooled. His fingertips ghosting your skin elicited goose-bumps where they traced. He slid the scarf from your eyes, the first view of his smug face had you giggling quietly.

“Asshole!” you scolded whacking his arm.

“Baby I haven’t even fucked you yet”

“You can’t be serious!” He was deadly serious. He crept off the bed and etched the door open as quietly as he could.

“He’s passed out on the couch” Not believing him, you stumbled to where he was. Jungkook was indeed passed out on the couch in an awfully uncomfortable looking position. He hadn’t even closed the curtains so the moonlight sifted in illuminating his flushed out face.

“Happy?” he quipped his head to the side closing the door. You pulled him by his belt into you; only the clinking of the buckle coming undone was heard over your hurried breaths.

“Baby I don’t want to be loud” you whined as your hand crept down his waistband.

“Better get on your hands and knees then” you elicited a groan from his lips when your hands wrapped around him.

He shoved your face down into the pillow gripping at the back of your neck.

“I guess I’ll have to go slow to try and keep you quiet” You nodded into the mattress, already gasping as he soaked his cock in your arousal. His hand left your neck and balled up your shirt in his fist pulling you onto him. Long drawn out groans escaped both of you. Fully inside you he stopped moving

“God, you feel so good every time” he grunted finally moving, your hand scrambling to grip the side of his thighs as he was tortuous in his lack of speed. Your moans deep and prolonged with each thrust.

“I bet Jungkook never felt this good did he?” he panted

“No, faster!”

“Is that what you want?”

“Fuck, yes, I don’t care about the noise”

“You changed your tune quick. Music to my ears”

His hips snapped into faster thrusts; you cried your moans into the mattress. Your knuckles stained white holding onto the cotton barrier. His hand firmly snuck back to the back of throat and pressured on either side. Jimin readjusted himself slightly; each snap of his hips now hitting the velvet goldmine sitting inside you. You started pushing back onto him, the gentle light headedness seeping in. You turned your head to the side to take some fresh air into your lungs

“Fuck Jimin, I’m close don’t stop” you cried out after a harsh thrust. The cry was not shrouded in the pillow. Your words sent him to jerk his hips more sporadically and his grip tightened on your throat. That was enough. Your muscles released the pressure in overwhelming waves. He carried on thrusting into you, shoving you into a state of over sensitiveness which had you whimpering in high gasps until he finally grunted and his hips started jerking. He went to pull out but your hand clamped onto his thigh and pushed him into you giving him no choice but to grunt your name and cum inside you.

Your hips collapsed on the bed with him behind you hand resting docile on your side.

“There’s no way that didn’t wake him” Jimin chuckled. Jimin’s phone screen brightened up and vibrated loudly against the wood side table. You rolled onto his chest as he selected the message that had just come through

-sod JK, there’s every way that I heard it-

“When the hell did Yoongi get back?” you asked burying your face into his chest.

You spent the whole of your lecture staring at your phone trying to coax a message from Yoongi to pop up. Your word document open on your laptop remained empty, not a word typed.

“We’ll know more later” Laura tried to offer

“It will get sorted” She still wasn’t helping. You responded with a blank water filled gaze; eliciting a warm hug which actually was half comforting.

“Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be going to lunch with Jimin after his practice before the meeting?” Laura spread her books and notepad like a deck of cards on the library desk

“Yeah” you replied.

“Well go on then, I’ll send you my revision notes from today seeing as you failed massively to take any”

“Thanks, catch you in a bit”

You’d actually never been over to the dance studios on campus; it was a damn side better aesthetically than the science building. The reception area was neat. The navy-blue sofas pressed against the window matched the scattering of large bean bags beside them. Elegant dance pictures framed and hung on the flawless white paintwork of the walls. You took the door labelled ‘Practice Rooms’ and headed for no.4. Number 1 & 2 were clearly the larger rooms; 1 was clearly more of a show room as there was a large rectangular window peering in. Practice room 4 was much smaller and only occupied by Jimin and Hobi.

Both the boys were glistening with sweat that had permeated in pools on their tank tops; loose trackies sat on their hips. The door lightly knocked shut behind you. Shoes off bag down on the ground. Both sets of eyes glancing their way acknowledging your entrance; bodies still moving flawlessly in sync with each other focused on the music throbbing round the studio. It was definitely something choreographed by Hobi, the sharper more prominent moves contrasting to the softer, fluid movements of Jimin’s contemporary strengths.

“Well that was definitely something” praising the masterpiece you’d intruded on.

“Think so?” Hobi questioned regaining air in his lungs.

“Oh come on, you know it’s good!” When it came to dancing modest was not something he was capable of.

“He’s been a …. Douche this morning” He went to hug you, pushing your palm on his chest in refusal.

“Erm no. Sweaty. I’d like my outfit to not be covered in Jimin sweat” His shoulders slumped, Hobi finding amusement in your words.

“Toold!” Hobi teased retrieving his holdall, slinging it round his shoulders.

“I’ll catch you guys later. Y/N please don’t worry about later we’ll sort it”

“I’ll do my best”.

“Honestly I wish people would stop even mentioning it”

“Well I wish you wouldn’t worry about it” Jimin countered. You slid yourself onto the beech table pressed to the back wall. Jimin swiping the damp hair from his face.

Why is everyone so fucking calm about this.

“So what do you wanna do for lunch. I think a burger from Benny’s will ease my overthinking”

“Yeah?” He stalked over to you nudging himself in between your legs, forefinger tracing under your neck angling your head aiming to meet his lips.

“I was thinking maybe more you?”

“Well that was about as smooth as a cactus” you quipped. Both his hands interlocking with yours lifting them around like they were joysticks.

“And what makes you think I’ll be in the mood with all this fighting stuff?” He edged into you as far he could his cheek brushing against yours

“Because you know when I touch you…” He gripped your thighs tugging your clothed core onto his thigh

“Mmm”

“… just right” the whisper and breath crept along your ear, fingers tip toeing their way up your body creeping to hold snug around your neck.

“I can get you begging for me to fuck you” Your half weak smile powered up to a full-on smirk.

“You know you can’t resist me” he cooed, the innocent beautiful face hiding the demon tempter beneath.

He was right

No matter your state of mind with you both being essences your bodies would take over; completely over fuelling and over writing any processes your rational mind was running. Like animals in damn heat.

Your hand tugged at the drawstrings of his bottoms.

“I think you’ll find you’re trying to seduce me. Sooo…” Your hand wandered, pushing under the elastic waist band. Palm pressing against his cock

“It’s you who can’t resist me” You can’t resist each other. The deep groan in his throat, the slow tilt of his head back. Your senses ran wild. Pupils blowing out like balloons, your irises flaming golden at each other. The primal wolves taking over.

Lips chasing yours plump with need as you slid of the table hand still nursing his growing member

“Tell me you want me” you breathed between heavy kisses. You want to hear his desperate breathes for you

“I want you” A relieved exasperated exhale fanned across your neck, hand leaving his straining cock with no more contact. His own hand under your control to unhook your jean buttons. Forehead nudged to yours watching your hand disappear.

“Want this?”

“Mmm need this” the plea slipping past his lips. Hungry eyes looking down lip between his teeth.

If a look could have you flatlining it was him biting his lips

“You want to make me feel better? Want to make me cum, whine out your name?” Your words were slightly broken, the delicate swirls of your fingers on your clit his hand following your movements.

“God yes!” The growl pried from his lips.

“Then go lock the door” you whispered.

“Okay so we all know why we’re here” Yoongi began stood, the fireplace behind him crackling an orange hue into the room. The five of you all lounged around the option of sofas, determined curious stares all facing the Alpha. The leather jacket was non-existent but the standard white tee and jeans remained consistent. The rest of you were much more at home; slouched in variety of comfy hoodies and trackies. This house was huge and often played host to pack sleepovers.

You and Jimin were snug to each other, his arm cocooning you into his chest. When Yoongi started to speak Jimin felt your heart start to rattle unnerved in your chest; he placed a light squeeze at your waist.

“So I went to see Max last night and safe to say they haven’t changed”

“So you’ll be fighting?” Laura questioned; you sensed no fear in her voice just utter curiosity.

“No” Everyone began shuffling, uncomfortable air and unknown suffocating the room. The unwelcome spirit stirring.

“Trevor was pretty beat up when I went. Max was not too impressed by the whole ordeal if I’m honest he was furious. He’s basically washed his hands of the situation and told Trevor he will not be fighting his battles…but was adamant the old ways are still followed” he continued

“We agreed that is only fair that if one alpha isn’t fighting then neither should the other”

Nausea oozed through your being, uncomfortably smashing your thoughts everywhere. The others all wide eyed still suffering from the shock that:

1. Max actually seemed to been reasonable

2. Yoongi was not going to fight.

Will I have to fight for myself?

I’m not strong enough yet

I’ll have no…

“I’m putting it to you guys. Obviously, Y/N it’s out of the question you’re nowhere near strong enough yet”

Gee thanks!

“Guys I can’t…” you launched yourself up. Jimin wanted to hold you close but he knew you were adamant

“I can’t have you fighting for me this is ridiculous. You didn’t ask for any of this.

“It should be Hobi he’s next strongest” Laura piped up. Everyone completely ignoring you trying to make their point. Arms tightly folded nails digging into the skin of your arm

“Yeah I’ll go, I’ll be more than happy to wipe that smirk of that assholes face” Your glare hit Jimin a call for backup. He shifted to speak

Thank you

“If anyone it should be me” leaning forward with sincerity. You flayed your hands, fingers wide

For god’s sake!

“Jimin I don…” Yoongi began

“I know I’m not as strong as Hobi but I’m not that much weaker either and besides don’t you think out of everyone I’ve got the most motivation and drive; I mean she’s my girl!”

“Jimin we can’t ris…” Yoongi returned

“No Yoongi, I think he has a point, like we all love Y/N but he will have the most resolve and determination and the facts it’s his essence he’s fighting for will be all the better” Hobi giving Jimin a supportive smile.

“I agree” Laura arm raised up in solidarity.

“Joon? Tae?” Yoongi glancing to the quietest two of the group. Nothing would ever be decided without everyone’s opinion being noted.

“Makes sense to me”

“And me”

In the time they’d all ignored you, annoyance had crept into your skin, a toxin flushing out any desire to spend time with these guys this evening.

“Okay, fine it’s sorted then. Jimin you’re in you’ve got 3 days” Yoongi beamed casually, shoulders down, weight lifted.

“Now let’s enjoy the evening” Yoongi went to hand you your glass that had been resting on the mantle. You blankly refused.

“I think I’ll just go to bed” Tone low with agitation seeping over your words. Jimin stood.

“Just leave it” You spat, everyone calling after you as you stomped yourself to the bedroom.

You launched yourself into the chair in front of the mirror with a huge huff. Staring harshly at your mirror image. The glistening glint of fluid filling your eyes.

Nope!

You shoved yourself up and rummaged aggressively through your bag for one of your virology books. Fundamentals of molecular virology by Nicholas H Acheson. Had been you’re favourite so far this course.

Nothing like reading about genius designed killing machines to take my mind off going full breakdown.

You were only minutely disturbed by the low throb of the TV downstairs, and the occasional outburst of laughter.

-Baby, I’m sorry, please don’t be angry with us. Can I come up yet? -

-I’m angry you’re all so easily wiling putting yourself in harm’s way just for my sake. And NO!-

- I LOVE YOU! That’s why I’m doing it. The others love you two-

The three words that you can’t wait to hear in a new relationship. The three words that should fill you with that queasy happiness. They only made you irritable.

-Don’t you dare say that for thre first tiem in this situation. Getting beaten the fuck up is not how I want you ro show it to me -

You cursed yourself at the angry spelling when your words popped up in the conversation bubble of your chat. You lent back kicking the book to the floor snuggling yourself into the duvet as much as humanly possible. Jimin would have to fight you for his side of the duvet later.

You felt his struggle begin, the struggle which disrupted the calm ambience of your sleep. You drowsily rolled over, huffing with your movement. He crept up behind you, a nervous mongoose rolling next to the sleeping snake. You were too dazed to fight for too long and eventually allowed him to press himself up against you, the reluctant small spoon.

“Baby…” he whispered

“Not now” you exhaled weakly. His hand pulling down the collar of your top placing a delicate drawn out kiss against your skin.

“Jimin” you warned softly. He preceded to creep sloping his arm up, resting his hand between your breasts. You were not going react, letting sleep slowly re-capture you. Being the stubborn one he was he nudged his hips into you. You felt his lips crease on the back of your neck.

“Please… baby” The sucrose dripping off every word into a whine.

“What!?” clunking yourself around to face him. Features barely visible, diamonds in his eyes shimmering none the less.

“I Love You princess” You took a few seconds.

The anger draining out of you as you exhaled a forgiving chuckle.

“I also want you” he nudged you to lay on his chest.

“To trust me”

“You know I do” The smell of alcohol diffusing of his skin.

“Let me finish, I want you to trust me to do right by you and fight for you okay” The happiness that had swelled had now deflated to nausea.

“I’ll win okay. There’s no way you’re going with them. You are far too precious to all of us for that to happen”

“Precious?” bemused.

“Okay cheese loaded choice of words but I…”

“Okkkaaay” you exclaimed pressing a forefinger chaste to his lips.

“I’ll try and be a calmer bitch, but I’m well within my right to be scared that my boyfriend is going to be fighting an absolute tank”

“That a low dig at my height?” he chuckled pinching your hip

“You really do have a thing about that don’t you” you teased.

“Well good thing I love you anyway then” You shuffled up kissing him.

“Oh decided to say back it to me then” Your palm flat across his chest, fingers gently circling his chest

“Say it again, I was half asleep before” You cooed, the pleasant beat of his chest, lulling you sweetly.

“I love you, now go to sleep I can hear you heart slowing”

“Mmm I can get used to you saying that”

“Only if you stay mine”

“Mmmmhmm” you mumbled.

“You’re getting so much stronger and faster” Yoongi praised panting the second he heard the human knackered pants from the next. You were on the floor, back heavy on the cool concrete floor. Enough energy was mustered to grab the blanket you kept in your cell. Your exposed body at least had some cover until the energy was mustered to dress yourself.

“You...think?”

“Yeah your doing so well, progressing so much faster than the others did” The light metal clink of his buckles clear as a bell.

“You decent?” he added.

“Enough” you managed, Yoongi creeping around the corner peering down at your feebleness.

“Recovery is tough for me”

“I can tell” he chuckles securing the blanket round you assisting you to your feet.

After your first full moon you quickly learnt it wasn’t all plain sailing from there. Yes in human form everything was enhanced; hearing, smell, strength. Every sense amplified. In wolf form though it was bit more complicated. Stamina and strength needed to be trained, perfected. Yoongi had been taking you out for runs and various exercises. You knew he’d taken you out today to tire you out and distract you like a toddler; I guess in wolf world you were in a way. You were becoming more confident with your capabilities and using the abilities you now possessed. With your wolf form being tested you needed a good few hours of recovery time. Most of which you spent in bed or in a bath.

“Help me to bed please”

“Obviously”

You crashed the second your head graced the pillow

Bed depressing next to you, that addictive scent swallowing you whole; warm arms pushing gentle at your stomach shifting your body closer to him. An unyielding kiss pressed to the top of your shoulders. The subtle nudge of his crotch into your behind signalling his intentions. Half pulled out of your sleep you responded with a weak nudge of your behind into him. Consent given shirt pushed up over your chest. Harsh kisses on the top of your back; your weak spot. Fingertips creeping down your side tugging your hips harder into his already hard cock. He really couldn’t control himself around you, so easily driven wild. Hands now slick in your arousal open mouth bites at your shoulders. No words spoken, just breathier pants slowly escalating. Band snapped; patience dry. Your hips were shoved forward, cock sliding through, coated enough in your juices to thrust into you with ease. Your close-mouthed moan loud in his ears. His even pace torturous and sweet. It stayed even, slowly winding the coil tighter and tighter within you. Part of you wanted to beg him to go faster the other part wanting the steady climb to never end. You wanted to keep feeling anything, anything to keep you away from you fear of later.

Fist flying to his hip gripping his flesh. The restraint he had to muster to not accelerate his hips. He wanted you to come undone hard and slowly.

“Harder” His hips snapped slower, more deliberate pressure harder and your spot.

“Not that your mouth” It had hardly left your shoulder you wanted his teeth sunk deeper.

“Are you sure?”

“Mmm” you choked

“Bite me” you begged breathless, growl pursing through his lips. He was never going to deny you anything you wanted. Canines growing against your skin. The sting of skin being pierced had you clenching around him causing him to choke, pushing the blood swirling in his mouth out the side of his lips. The warm trickle running down your shoulders painting the sheets red. The copper taste swallowed down. Blood wasn’t amazing to were’s; I mean that’s for the vamps but it wasn’t disgusting either. It was mildly nice; but to Jimin yours was so fucking sweet, a delicacy he would savour every chance he got.

One harsh thrust and you were done. Each pulse seeming longer than the last, by the last one he was jutting into you swearing your name. Heat flushing away you rolled to face him. His hand cradling your cheek. His looked completely fuck out, blood staining those pump lips and in the creases of his mouth.

“I love you” he panted; those word hit you again. Salty tears filling slowly over your pupils.

“Oh baby don’t” he pleaded. His thumb brushed away the first droplet to fall down your flushed rose tinted cheek.

“It will be fine, Yoongi wouldn’t let me if he didn’t think it was doable. And if something was to go wrong then he would probably fuck the rules of anyway for you. He’s so bonded to you”

“I know but… what if this is the last time you make me fall apart”

“It won��t be, I’m not giving up your pussy for shit!” He was good at making you smile and giggle no matter your mood. It was a pure talent.

“Now that I do believe”

“There you go”

“Please just get ready and go now before I start completely balling it”

You’d been banned from going, at the request of Jimin of all people. He didn’t want to get distracted and did not want you to see him get hurt. Yoongi also backed this so your fate was decided; not that you didn’t give them hell for it.

“So… who’s the puppy that’s going to lose” Trevor goaded walking forward breaking the crescent of his pack stood for the show. Jimin stepped forward announcing his participation.

“Why am I not surprised”

“Alright stop the bullshit let’s just get this redundant old thing out the way” Yoongi interrupted at the centre of his pack’s crescent.

“Fine, you both know the rules” Max Began

“No jugular attacks! The wolf to be down for 7 seconds loses” he continued. Trevor and Jimin squared up to one another

“I’m going to enjoy fucking your scent off her” Trevor toyed, vicious glare with venomous eyes

Jimin did not even dignify that with a response; shifting and jumping straight to attack.

Animal whines echoed through the blanket of trees surrounding the gathering. Yoongi, Laura, Hobi, Tae and Joon stood, quiet in silent confidence. Max’s pack however were goading and cheering Trevor on like a pack of wild animals, they outnumbered Yoongi’s pack by five.

Snarls seething with venom, blood matting the fur surrounding their jaws. Jimin pressing against the rage trying to keep the cool head with difficulty. An equal fight, both being launched by their necks to the ground. Paws swiping at faces leaving streaks of blood.

“Jimin!...Get Up!” Laura wailed, Trevor had slung Jimin against a tree and he’d not moved.

“1”

“2”

“3”

Jimin’s vision had blurred, indistinguishable noises rattled round his head. Body on fire, the overwhelming taste of copper disgusting in his mouth. His body not responding to commands. Trevor’s wolf walking away, swag in his step already declaring himself the winner. His pack cheering…

“4”

Something illuminated inside him, his body on fire from the inside, like it wasn’t even his pain. It felt like he could feel your pain, your distress; the agony of being without him. It broke him, the tears formed at the corner of his eyes stinging the wound at the corner of his eye.

At the house you rolled over, a sharp pulling in your chest. Something detaching inside you. Your groan and cry falling on no ears.

Jimin snarled quietly, rejuvenated, he would not have you feeling so distraught. If Yoongi’s pack had been smart they would have warned him Jimin had pushed himself up, paws sore but he was past caring. He began to sprint; Jimin being faster than Trevor could react smashing him into a tree. Determined bark growling out past Jimin’s mouth. Teeth clamping down on Trevor’s neck just below his jugular; tugging hard before flinging him into the tree again.

“1”

“2”

“3”

Trevor’s pack were swearing. Profanities thick directed at him.

“4”

“5”

“6”

“7”

The silent pack now erupted with cheer, rushing over to the limping form of Jimin. Both guys transformed back, wounds seeping, a pair of panting naked bodies. Wounds being assessed of both participants. Most of Trevor’s were round his neck, thick lacerations going down to his chest. A covering of scratches spanning his torso. Jimin had one particularly worrying gash in his neck, he was unbothered. Trusting in his friends and their ability to stop the flow of blood. His healing ability would do the rest. Eventually. His right eye was curtained with red, cut above his eye pissing with blood. His torso wounds were mildly more severe than Trevor’s; but Jimin just wanted to get back to you.

Yoongi relieved, waltzed up to Max, A begrudging handshake occurred.

“Now it’s done! I don’t want to hear of anymore shit from your guys. You go near here again and they’ll be hell to pay” Yoongi snapped. Max frowning more at the wailing sack of shit that was Trevor on the floor.

“Of course,” He seethed through gritted teeth.

You’d sat numb in a ball on the sofa staring blankly at the tv. Noise becoming white, words and light becoming indistinguishable mashes of colour. You heard the distinct whirring of Yoongi’s car as it drew closer. You rushed up to lean against the sofa, folded arms, nails anxious between your teeth. The door clicked; feet fast to greet whatever was about to walk through that door. Laura walked in first, holding the door ushering Tae and Joon inside. Hobi and Yoongi supporting Jimin who was just about supporting his weight. You’re not sure what happened first, the hand flying to your mouth or the tears now running down your cheeks. The thought of your fate a speck of dust in the wind compared to overwhelming state of Jimin’s welfare.

“Oh my god!”

The boys lowered him to the sofa, his face creased up wincing. You flew to the first aid kit Yoongi insisted on having for shifting injuries. The others began flapping around and preparing things.

“Can I just be with MY girl please” Jimin groaned. All eyes on the two of you, the antiseptic wipe briefly leaving his eyebrow.

“You mean?”

“Told you” He croaked. Your sweet smiles mirrored in each other. A long kiss against his forehead followed by the others leaving.

“We’ll be at Laura’s if you need anything. Y/N just make sure you slow all the bleeding down, he’ll be fine”

You spent a good hour or so wiping the field of cuts. The alcohol causing a stream of curses from Jimin’s mouth. You went to un-tape the red soaked towel from around his shoulder and neck. His battered hand stopped yours.

“Please don’t. There’s no way you want to see that”

“But it’s got to be cleaned”

“Trust me it will be fine”

“Can we just please go and rest together, don’t know about you but I’ve had a shit day” He teased

“Even the early afternoon?” you countered, feigning insult.

“Well I mean that was alri…ght” You supported him up off the chair.

“Do not make me add to your injuries Park Jimin!” You jested. The fact his sense of humour was intact pulled the plug to your overflowing concern.

#bts smut #ksmutclub #smutcentralnet #btswriterscollective #kwritersworldnet #btsguild #bangtanarmynet #networkbangtan #park jimin #BTS jimin #jimin x reader #werewolf au #28days #bts

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thewebcomicsreview · 5 years ago

Photo

Is it weird that I actually like Homestuck 2, and am at the same time going “Oh Christ, I have to read it now”?

Regardless! New planet! New lore! Will we get a whole new species now? I really hope so, it’d be lame (and nonsensical) is it were just more trolls. I want to see what the natives of Universe C look like!

I didn’t think about it enough in Chapter 1, but the fact that Terezi crash-landed the ship, apparently on purpose and for lulz, is really weird. This is a bit past “prankster” and more in the realm of “the player you stop inviting to DnD”. Wandering out in space for years and fucking John Egbert changes a person.

New looks for everyone! Fun fact: That painting behind Dirk - which is a real painting Andrew Hussie owns - actually made a cameo appearance in Legend of the Hare!

Which was mostly a reference but also foreshadowing that Mary here would be the Horse Champion. Anyway, new looks for everyone! Homestuck characters used to change appearances constantly but it sort of stopped after Act 6, so it’s nice to see the return of Fashion. Apparently, Terezi ditched Jade’s shoes at some point for dragony ones and grew her hair out, while Rose is wearing a statue of liberty tiara, which is probably a reference to all the statues of liberty Alpha Dave made in that timeline for reasons that never seemed to matter at the time but now might.

This is a cute little subtle gag. Dirk’s “Terezi, you too” was extending the “Render yourself more symbolically” command, but Terezi thought it was a continuation of Dirk’s line from the previous page. She’s not as immune to his powers as she things. That green jacket is more than a little evocative of Lord English, and the color-loving Terezi could probably be convinced to trade the gold trim for flashing colors. Just a thought to keep in the back of your mind.

ROSEBOT: At the very least, none of us succumbed to substance abuse. Or re-succumbed, I guess I should say.

ROSEBOT: The perks of not having an appetite or a liver, in my case.

ROSEBOT: In yours... I'm actually not sure. Perhaps the underlying cognitive dissonance or trauma you were originally trying to distract yourself from is no longer a going concern?

ROSEBOT: Or... ROSEBOT: No, wait. ROSEBOT: That's not right. ROSEBOT: I'm thinking of a different Terezi. ROSEBOT: Or maybe I'm thinking of a different me? ROSEBOT: Maybe the different me is thinking of a different Terezi, and I'm just witnessing the thought happen as a bystander. ROSEBOT: It's much the same thing at this point. ROSEBOT: ... ROSEBOT: And I suppose I'm also prematurely ruling out the potential of anime functioning as an abusable substance. ROSEBOT: In which case I've got very bad news for all of us.

The plot of Homestuck is so convoluted that even the characters can’t keep it straight anymore. Rose is referring to her struggles with alcoholism in the original Game Over timeline, but this Rose is from the post-Retcon timeline, and going Ultimate is causing them all to blend together in her mind. Also she seems to think that Game Over Terezi’s problem was being addicted to Faygo, not having an abusive boyfriend, unless she’s thinking of some other Terezi.

Also, as someone who was the treasurer of a college anime club despite not liking anime, I can confirm that Rose has some very bad news indeed.

ROSE: Where shall our allegory begin? DIRK: Beg pardon. ROSE: Oh come on. The cave? ROSE: I have to say I’m a little disappointed in you. Three years, and not once did I witness you replacing any parts of the ship. ROSE: How are we to jerk ourselves off philosophically if you don’t lean into your clumsy allusions? DIRK: It's a fair question. DIRK: But since the name you suggested was nothing more than a very juvenile play on words, I can’t say you’ve got much ground to stand on. ROSE: What’s juvenile about The Kant? DIRK: Nothing. DIRK: At least, not when you say it. ROSE: It’s not my fault you sound like a gay cowboy. DIRK: Sigh.

See, this is what the epilogues were missing! Bantz! Rose was practically comatose for the Meat epilogues, so it’s good to see her back. Maybe one day we’ll get Jade back, too.

Who the fuck is this? This isn’t Dirk narrating, it’s black text. Is this the same person who was narrating the last chapter with Calliope? That narrator didn’t address the audience like this.

Dirk is naming the new planet “Deltritus”, which is a Homestucky portmanteau of Delta (As in “D”; It’s the fourth SBURB planet), and detritus. Kind of an insulting name, honestly. If this planet has SBURB on it, doesn’t that imply it’s inhabited? Do the locals not have a name for it?

DIRK: The point is, we will be building intelligent life on this planet from scratch. That was one of our key mistakes with Earth C. We should have started our guidance from the very beginning, instead of letting it grow organically in our image.

Oh, okay, guess not.

ROSE: Our own world was abandoned by its gods. Or, I suppose, its gods never reached it.

I’d actually really love to see an AU where there trolls made it, and Vriska and Aradia guided the human race as immortal gods. Rose is right that it probably would’ve been way worse, especially given how the Alpha Earth went.

I’m deeply curious about who this narrator is, who speaks in a neutral black text and uses more casual language than Dirk or Calliope. Is this Ultimate Dave, maybe? It sounds more like Dave than anyone else. But how?

Oops, I was wrong. It was Dirk, all along. Well I guess you’ve made a monkey - yes you’ve finally made a monkey - you’ve finally made a monkey out of me.

Oh, that’s actually cool! Rose and Dirk are going to create their own species and let them compete to play the game!

ROSE: There's something so delicious about the two of us being the ones to populate an entire planet from scratch. ROSE: The irony doesn't get much sweeter.

“From scratch”, you say?

DIRK: Next step is adding mutations. DIRK: We can use any old shit for this. Literally any captchalogueable object can be added into the mix by inserting its card into one of the slots here.

So, they each clone themselves, and throw random items in the pot to basically alchemize a new species, the way they used to make weapons? The potential for absurdity here is immense, as is the potential for crimes against god.

ROSE: It's amazing what pieces of inconsequential information your mind can recall at a moment's notice, a whole decade after they were last relevant or interesting to anyone. ROSE: ... ROSE: I think I missed this.

I did, too. Behind all the angst and the melancholy and the sci-fi adventures, Homestuck is a profoundly stupid comic and I’m unironically glad they’re remembering it, and bringing back some of the fun of creation.This is a surprisingly impactful line.

Ed....ward......

Incredible. This is all sorts of fucked up and I love it.

Oh god, Dirk is going to make Cherubs and Rose is going to make Squiddles and the long-memed 48-player Squiddle session is actually going to happen, isn’t it?

Edit: Any item that can be captachlouged can be made part of the species, and that includes John’s dead body that’s currently burning a hole in Terezi’s inventory. So Karkat’s shitty breeding chart from Act 5 can come true after all.

#Homestuck #Homestuck 2 #homestuck 2 liveblog

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neopuff · 4 years ago

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hello, i hope you're having a good day!! i was wondering, do you have any tips for making amvs? like, what programmes you use, how you handle the timing, etc. thank you for all the fun edits you make!!

hi!! sorry for the delay in answering this, i just wanted to take the time to answer it thoroughly and i kept forgetting lol & thank you! i already typed this once and tumblr made it disappear so i apologize if anything i say comes out short ‘cause i’m just trying to remember all that i typed before lol

ok so ill just go through my general editing process in Vegas, i dont know any other program well enough to talk about it at length:

(disclaimer: this is just how i do it, i dont watch tutorials and my editing friends and i don’t watch each other edit often so i would assume that my way is very different from other ways you’ve probably seen! i might even do something in a very stupidly hard way, please feel free to tell me if theres an easier way to do anything lol)

1. Song: So skipping past the “choosing song and ship/character/show” theme, I’ll dive straight into CUTTING THE SONG! I’m not about that Editing The Entire Song life, and neither is most of the editing community anymore, so I cut it up into a shorter thing that I’m better equipped to edit to. I’m just using a random example but here I’ve taken this long ass song and turned it into this:

(the next step just kind of depends on my mood, or ill do both, doesnt matter)

2-A. Subclips: if im making a shorter video or a video where i’m not 100% super familiar with the footage, i will immediately start making subclips using the episodes ive already pulled into the project. if it’s a ship/character that i’ve edited before, i’ll just go to Import->Media from Project and import the subclips i made previously. either way, subclips are there!

2-B. Sheets: for ships that i know very well/have a lot of footage/im concerned about potentially repeating something, i will go to Google Sheets/Excel and take the lyrics im editing to and put them in column A, separating by pauses in the singing. then i put corresponding footage i think will go well in column B! im often not super specific because i know the beats are gonna be different than i remember, so i usually stick to referencing whole scenes instead of specifics moments. here’s an example:

3. Clip placement: Then I start placing clips down! Below is how I organize my timeline tho I know a lot of editors who put the music on top, this is just how I like it. I also keep a single muted audio layer in between for the video footage’s audio and then I’ll delete that layer when I’m done (or sometimes I don’t, it doesn’t really matter)

I think it’s good to hit the beats as much as possible, it makes for a more dynamic audio-visual experience! In general I try to make my videos so that, if I didn’t add any zooms or typography or coloring, it would still be a good amv. And don’t limit yourself to just one layer, you can have as many layers as you’d like and put clips on top of each other (cookie cutter/changing the layer to dodge or add or screen or whatever) is a good way to mix things up

when I zoom in you can see I’ve got some variety already in my transitions, I know I use that motion-blur-zoom a lot these days but I still try to mix it up and keep my brain invested

4. Typography: After all the clips have been placed (or most of the clips, ofc sometimes I’ll want to add more later) I move on to typography! I’m lazy so the first thing I’ll do it just put down unedited text where I think I’ll want it to go. It just helps me organize myself. Then I’ll pretty up the text afterwards.

Typography isn’t necessary for a good AMV, but really nice typography can really spruce things up. I’ve only very recently gotten confident in my text editing skills, and I just kept watching typography done by editors I really like until I figured out what they were doing. My recommendation is to just KEEP ADDING EFFECTS! Convolution kernel, gaussian blur, mask the text so it appears from angles that the transitions wouldn’t be able to do - of course there’s gotta be a limit for taste, but just add stuff until you like how it looks. Also changing the blending style of the text layer is good, dodge and difference are my go-tos for typography layers.

5. Transitions: I don’t go crazy with transitions, but it’s fun to mess around with them. You don’t want too many crazy/different transitions, you want them to match the mood of the song and the type of beat you’re hitting. I usually ensure that all similar beats in the song have the same transition type on them, bbbbbbut that’s cuz I’m overly obsessed with parallel structure. There’s plenty of fantastic AMVs where they just go ham and do whatever types of transitions they want to in each part of the song and they make it work just fine

(next step, once again, kind of depends on my mood lol)

6-A. Zooms: Time for zooms! I usually just use the pan/crop for zooming, but often I’ll incorporate Sapphire FX BlurMoCurves or NewBlue AutoPan, especially if I’m trying to zoom typography with the footage at the same rate. I try to keep my zooms short and slower, I mean obv it just depends on the song but yeah. There’s a lot of different ways to do zooms so I recommend experimenting and just playing around with different effects

6-B. Zooms...but different: Another way that I’ll do zooms which is definitely pretty different (but this is what I do for crossovers like 95% of the time because I am laaaaaaaaaaazy) is I’ll drag the project into a new project timeline and start editing it there. It’s similar to how After Effects works and it makes it easier to put effects overtop of multiple layers without having to pre-render anything.

So you can see I’ve just pulled in the .VEG file and popped it in the timeline! So this way I can add zooms and transitions without worrying about layers. And if I see a mistake I need to fix, I can just go back into the original .VEG file and edit it, and it’ll be edited when I come back here. So it’s much easier than pre-rendering or trying to do zooms on a lot of layers. To be clear tho, this doesn’t work well if you have a lot of fade transitions, it’s best for sharp transitions and it’s great when you’re using Sapphire FX BlurMoCurves a lot.

7. Overlays: After that I’ll add more typography (or if you didn’t add any earlier, you can add some here overtop of the new project file) that kind of goes on top of everything. And then I’ll add any overlays or objects or whatever else I wanna add! I’m not someone who uses a lot of backgrounds cuz I don’t have a background-creative-brain so I stick to simple overlays at the most.

8. Coloring!!! This is very sad but I only JUST learned a few weeks ago that you can add coloring/effects to your entire video with this button here, so in case anyone else hates watching tutorials as much as I do here’s where I’m talking about:

This shit would’ve made my life so much easier throughout the years lol But alas. Anyway so for coloring there are some effects that are popular for any colorings you’ll find on YT (but you can certainly just download some, Riverdale editors in particular share a lot of really great colorings but you’ll find them anywhere in the live action editing community):

Channel Blend, Color Curves, Color Blend, Color Balance, Convolution Kernel (best for live action footage or footage that isnt very crisp), Color Corrector Secondary

These are all just fun to mess with. Channel Blend in particular is something of a mystery for me, I haven’t studied it fully to understand what I’m doing so I mostly just mess with it randomly until I like what I see lol

9. Render time! First render, anyway. Usually there’ll be some random problem in the footage or something and I’ll have to either go back into the project and fix it OR if I’m feeling particularly sour (or maybe if I’ve rendered like 3-4 times already) I will just take the finished render and manually remove any errors, stretching out the good footage to cover my tracks. You’d be surprised how often I end up doing that lol

And then it’s good to post! I primarily render as .WMV but I also go for .MP4s every once in a while. If I want to upload it to Twitter I’ll do an .MP4 but it’s a new thing for me so I’m still stuck on .WMV mostly.

Anyway I hope this answered your question at least a little bit, I can go into more detail about certain parts of this if you’d like!

#anon asks #carro answers #sony vegas #magix vegas #editing #long post

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nitewrighter · 5 years ago

Text

Zen and the Art of Hovercycle Maintenance (Part 2)

Read Part 1 Here

----

“So you lost him,” said Genji, pressing his hands together in front of himself. His image on the collapsible table screen warped slightly and Jack glanced up at Junkrat, holding a makeshift antennae to allow for vidcom communication over his head.

“Not... lost,” said Jack, “We should know where he is as soon as he comes online.”

“If he comes online,” said Genji. Jack could feel the glare from behind his visor.

“He transcended as soon as the explosion happened,” said Jack, “McCree’s searching the bottom of the gorge right now and we’ll be joining him as soon as Orisa’s patched up. We were just calling you in case...”

“In case...?” Genji tilted his head.

“In...case you might have anything on you that might narrow our search,” Jack said a little sheepishly.

“Jack, I--” Genji started but was cut off by the sound of pulsefire.

“Genji, any time you could join us would be nice!” Tracer could be heard offscreen as more pulsefire sounded in the background.

“Give me another minute!” Genji shouted back before turning his attention back to the vidcom, “To answer your question, no. I don’t have anything. We don’t keep track of each other like that. He’s not a mission partner, Jack, he’s my teacher. You know I had my misgivings about this mission as soon as I heard Torbjörn and Junkrat were on it--”

“We’re spread thin and we needed a medic--” Jack started.

“And I took your word on that,” said Genji, “And now he’s missing.”

“Admittedly, the only reason I brought him along was because Zhou’s performance proved that you didn’t necessarily need military training to keep up with our current strike teams,” said Jack, stiffly.

“You didn’t think he could do it,” said Genji, “...at least not like Angela or Captain Amari could do it.”

“We didn’t anticipate medical assistance would be that needed,” said Jack.

“So you brought him around for what? So he wouldn’t feel left out?” said Genji.

“We still need a medic, it’s protocol!” said Jack.

“Genji!” Tracer could be heard offscreen again.

“30 seconds!” Genji shouted back.

“Did you think he could do it?” Jack fired back, “When you brought him on board with us, when you and he agreed that he could help out on field missions, did you really think he could handle everything Talon or anyone else could throw at us? Or did you just need him around because you weren’t sure of yourself?”

Genji visibly flinched at his words. “I--” he started but was cut off by more pulsefire in the background.

“Genji!” Angela’s voice could be heard this time, “We need you flanking!”

“You don’t have time for this,” said Jack.

“Update me as soon as possible. Shimada out,” said Genji, clicking out of the comms channel.

The vidcom channel blipped to a blue screen and Jack huffed and massaged the bridge of his nose and the migraine that was just starting to bloom there with his thumb and forefinger.

“Do I still need to keep the antennae up?” asked Junkrat.

“No,” said Jack rising to his feet and squinting in the dry desert wind, “Let’s just get back to searching.”

---

Zen’s gyroscopics were completely out of whack as his vision flickered back on. Immediately he realized he was no longer under the baking sun of the southwest, but rather, in a large, somewhat grubby but well-kept workshop—maybe a garage? A bunker? A massive mechanical hand passed in front of his face and he nearly flinched but then realized his body wasn’t responding enough to him to flinch.Two omnics were stooped over him, one a hulking yet polished multi-use unit donning a fur-collared leather vest and derby hat, and the other a basic laborer unit that had clearly heavily self-modified with yellow and blue visual receptors and a green hood.

Zen’s vision cut out again.

“Oh whoop,” said one, he couldn’t tell which with his orientation still malfunctioning and his vision off, then it flickered back.

“Sorry about that,” said the Omnic with yellow and blue eyes, tweaking at something below Zen’s neck.

“I-I-I-I” Zenyatta’s voice was caught in a loop.

“Hang in there, I got this,” said the skinnier omnic. Zen felt the pressure and brief shock of wires connecting and then being wrapped up in insulating tape, then his voice seemed to return to him.

“Where am I?” he said, trying to move his head but finding even his neck unresponsive.

“Somewhere safe,” said the skinny omnic, “We found you at the bottom of the gorge… y’know, most units with your make would be bricked by that kind of fall.”

“I am not like most units,” said Zenyatta. He tried to move again. The larger Omnic, who was working on Zen’s shoulder, glanced up and made a hand waving motion while shaking his head.

“Don’t try to move just yet. We had to shut down most motor functions to make most of the repairs,” said the skinny Omnic.

“And you know what you’re doing?” Zen tried to ask the question as respectfully as he could.

“More than most,” said the skinny omnic.

“Who are you?” asked Zenyatta.

“I’m Bars. He’s Bob,” said the skinny omnic.

“…Bob hasn’t said anything,” said Zen.

“Bob doesn’t say anything,” said Bars, “He gets his points across fine though.”

Bob started motioning with his hands then. ASL, Zen recognized it but hadn’t downloaded the language into his memory banks from the Iris. Most cochlear implant technology of their day had rendered the language pretty rare, but still Zen resolved to learn it. There were plenty of Omnics who opted for binary over organic languages as a point of pride and distinction, but the Shambali had prided themselves on being ambassadors, and thus had equipped themselves with countless organic languages. ASL was… an interesting choice, all things considered, but there was a gentleness in Bob’s motions as he signed, a strong sense of dignity and purpose of speech.

“Bob says the Boss will want to talk to you about how you got to the bottom of the gorge.”

Bob signed something a little more insistently and Bars moved his head in an exaggerated movement that imitated a human rolling his eyes. “You know I ain’t calling her that. She’s the Boss. Only you get to call her ‘Miss Ashe.’”

“Ashe!?” Zenyatta said the name in alarm. Bob turned around to grab a small screwdriver off of a nearby counter and Zenyatta saw the decal on the back of his vest: the words, ‘DEADLOCK REBELS, EST. 1978’ arching over a winged skull biting down on a padlock and chains.

“Yep!” Bars answered, apparently mistaking the shock in Zenyatta’s voice for excitement, “The Calamity herself! You’re real lucky we found you! You’re in the safest place in the Sonora!”

Oh I very much doubt that, thought Zen.

“You almost done, Bob?” said Bars.

Bob held up one finger in a ‘wait’ gesture, tightened a screw, then gave a thumbs-up.

“All right,” said Bars, “Restoring motor functions.”

Zen felt sensation flood back into his limbs and he pushed himself up off of the table he was splayed on. He circled his wrists and worked his fingers, finding them in suitable working order. He swung his legs over the side of the table.

“Take it slow,” said Bars, “Gyroscopics might not be 100%--”

Zen stumbled off the table and was caught by Bob.

“...calibrated,” said Bars.

“I---My thanks,” Zenyatta managed as Bob helped him up to his feet. Zenyatta glanced down at his feet, clanking awkwardly against the concrete of the workshop’s floor. The nine lights on Zenyatta’s forehead glowed brightly for a few moments before he perked up. “I cannot seem to access most holo-networks,” he said with conern.

“Oh yeah. Security measure. You need clearance for that,” said Bars.

“...may I have clearance?” asked Zenyatta.

“That’s up to the Boss,” said Bars.

Almost on cue the door swung open and an intimidating woman, all black and white and red and gold, stepped in. She gave a sharp look to both Bob and Bars and instantly they shuffled off to the side, practically fading into the background as she stepped toward Zen. She stared down Zen on that worktable, her winged-eyeliner framed eyes narrowing and her lips pursing, before her expression immediately softened (practically collapsed) and she suddenly seized Zen’s hand in her own.

“My friend, I cannot fathom what kinda hell you just went through for us to find you at the bottom of that gorge, but all I can say is thank God Almighty we did. How are you feelin’?”

Zenyatta was caught completely off-guard by the hospitality of the woman who, up to this point, Jesse McCree had described as ‘The most terrifying force of nature this side of the Rio Grande.’

“I... am well,” Zenyatta managed.

She released his hand, “Good to hear,” she said tilting the brim of her hat back with her thumb, “Well, sir--Can I call you sir?”

Sir??? Zenyatta was still trying to figure out how to adjust to the fact that this woman wouldn’t tear him apart and sell him for scrap with one look. “’There is no need for such formality. ‘Zen’ is fine,” said Zen.

“Well Zen,” said Ashe with a slight smile, “I don’t mean to intimidate ya, but I’m basically the law out in these parts, so I’m gonna need you to tell me how you ended up at the bottom of the gorge. It’s for security reasons, you understand. From what I gathered at the scene of the explosion, some punks calling themselves the ‘Sidewinders’ showed up and blew your convoy straight to hell-- but I’m gonna need you to tell your side of the story so we can... piece the whole picture together, as it were.”

“The whole picture?” said Zen.

“Yes, indeed,” said Ashe, leaning against the worktable next to him. She gave a low sharp whistle and Bars picked up an Orb of Destruction from the shelving behind him and tossed it to her. “Care telling me what this is? We found them scattered along the bottom of the gorge along with you. Figured they might belong to you,” she put the orb in Zen’s hand and that still-half-panicked part of him briefly considered using it, causing enough of a disruption to get out of there, but he knew he was outnumbered here and even if he transcended he wouldn’t get far. He realized he had taken too long to respond because Ashe spoke again.

“You’re still a bit shaken, I take it?” said Ashe.

“Y-yes,” Zen said, desperate to buy time while he came up with any possible excuse for what he was other than ‘I’m with Overwatch.’

“Probably a sensitive type,” Bars spoke up behind her, “Artsy-type omnics might take longer to process than Omnics like me or Bob, boss.”

Artsy? Zenyatta thought, and then he blurted out, “Yes! Art! Yes! The orb is.... art. It represents duality. Destruction and Harmony. We omnics exist at the cusp of that. The parts of a machine clicking together to form a greater whole as well as... destroying... things...”

“Guess the triplets were right, for once in their goddamn lives,” said Bars.

“Mm,” Ashe gave a nod before turning back to Zenyatta, “The scene showed signs of a scuffle. Pulsefire indents in the road.”

“Yes, the uhhh, the gang, the...”

“Sidewinders.”

“The Sidewinders were shooting. A lot.”

“Some indents show they came from your rig too,” said Ashe, folding her arms, “Now, ain’t no law against protecting yourself. If you have some ‘pacifist artsy’ reputation to maintain, ain’t no one’s gonna blame you for not letting yourself be a sitting duck on Route 66.”

She really does keep a close eye on these roads, doesn’t she? Zenyatta thought, almost panicking. “Yes. The rig was... equipped with...” Zenyatta’s mind was racing, “Hard-light drones. Of course, those dematerialize completely when they are destroyed, thus having no wreckage alongside the road.”

“Hard-light drones...” Ashe strolled around the room thoughtfully, “Pricey stuff, that Vishkar tech. You must be big stuff in the art world, huh?”

“Yes! Yes, I am... very famous,” said Zenyatta.

Bob seemed to perk up and started signing very eagerly, prompting a laugh from Ashe.

“Slow down, slow down, big guy!” said Ashe, knocking the side of her fist against Bob’s arm. She looked at Zenyatta. “Sorry, he’s excited. Bob’s a little starved for culture out here. I tell him he always was the classier one between us.”

Bob made an ‘Oh you,’ gesture with his hand before signing again.

“He says your work is beautiful,” said Ashe, picking up an orb of destruction.

“Oh... thank you,” said Zenyatta.

Bob continued signing.

“You can’t expect me to say all that--” Ashe started but Bob signed a gesture that was probably ‘Please?’ and Ashe huffed. “He says the intersection of---” she looked back at Bob who signed some more, “The intersection of contours and spherical symmetry evoke the astronomical, but the etchings seem almost religious--likely non-Western. Tibetan?”

“Oh--yes--that... that is what I was going for,” said Zenyatta, “It’s Nepali, actually. You have an excellent eye for art, my friend.”

Bob seemed to swell with pride.

“A famous artist.... I used to keep better track of all that,” Ashe was tossing the orb of destruction up and down in her hand with a sigh, “My folks were always throwin’ these galas and whatnot. More of an oil tycoon crowd than the avant-garde, though. Maybe if I went along with that life, we might have met under better circumstances,” she caught the orb, “But that’s the price of makin’ your own life, and choosing your own family.”

“I... still think the circumstances we’ve met under are fortunate,” said Zenyatta, “Your uh...Bob and his compatriot have done excellent repairs to me.”

“He’s really somethin’ ain’t he?” said Ashe, smiling at Bob.

“Yes, well,” Zenyatta tented his fingers a bit nervously, “If you have any more questions...”

“Not particularly,” said Ashe, “You’re welcome to stay and re-orient yourself as long as you need here, Bob can fix you up a glass of Glenwales--”

“I really must be going,” said Zenyatta, stumbling toward the door, “I still need to connect to your holonet to arrange my transportation.”

“The gang and I can drop you off,” said Ashe, “It’s the least we can do--”

“Thank you, but the... art gallery I was heading towards will probably be very concerned as to my whereabouts.”

“All right, suit yourself,” Ashe shrugged.

“I’ll... still need to connect to your holonet to get in contact with my friends,” said Zenyatta.

“Clearance code is Caledonia-9,” said Ashe.

Zenyatta focused briefly and made a chiming sound.

“My thanks--” He started but suddenly winced from loud feedback of this comm.

“Oh--sorry--Must be some residual damage from the fall--” Bars started but was cut off by the sound of McCree’s voice over the comm.

“It’s connected! He’s got a signal! Zen! Zen are you there? Tekharta Zenyatta are you alive?! It’s McCree! Zen, just ping me if you’re alive!”

“McCree?” Ashe’s face twisted and her red eyes flicked to Zen with fury.

“I--I can explain---” Zenyatta started.

“Bars,” Ashe said the name in command, her voice flat.

Zen barely managed to turn his head in Bars’ direction when felt something jam itself into his neck and suddenly electrical currents were running all over him. His limbs spasmed, and he saw Bars looking at him with that steady bicolored look before his vision cut out. The pain itself was only a brief burning metallic throb before unconsciousness swept over him once more.

---

Zenyatta wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he came to once more. Only this time he could tell all functions below his neck had been shut off. He glanced down to see that, as what was apparently an additional precaution, he was bolted into his seat by several semi-modified industrial clamps, like a vehicle held in place by a parking boot.

“Right,” Ashe’s voice was the first thing he heard when he came to, “Let’s start this again. And I think I should establish that I really, really do not appreciate being lied to.”

#bobyatta #tekharta zenyatta #bob overwatch

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19mrs-barnes17 · 6 years ago

Text

The Move

Summary: You have moved in with your Aunt in Queens and are starting at a new school

Pairing: Peter Parker x reader

Part: 1/2

Warnings: anxiety?

Word count: 2,273

A/N: This is my submission for @beckzorz 1k writing challenge! Idk where this went lol, but, I had fun writing so enjoy! (Shoutout to @asphalt-cocktail for helping me out)

You were absolutely pissed. Why? Why do you even bother?

Your parents decided they were going to ship you off to Queens, instead of letting you get a job to help out so you could stay in Chicago. Now, you stood in front of an apartment building, suitcase growing heavy in hand. There was dread in your heart.

Making friends isn’t easy when you have social anxiety. With friends you could switch from chatter box to complete silence fairly quick. Sometimes within the same conversation. It was almost as if you had a social fuel tank and the more you socialized the more it depleted.

You’d have to explain yourself all over again, find a new lunch seat, and new places to belong. This made you anxious.

Nerves were spiking and your annoying 13 year old cousin, Alec, was not helping in the slightest. He was playing some game and shouting into his mic. You rolled your eyes as you unpacked, your room was right next door. Paper thin walls. Great.

“Dinner!” Aunt Clarissa hollered from the tiny kitchen. You were still unused to being cooked for, it was almost always you making your own meals. Chicken Alfredo to a cup of ramen. The result varied.

Dinner was quiet, fueled by awkwardness that you felt responsible for, and ended rather quickly. Alec was soon back on his game and Aunt Clarissa began to wash the dishes. You sat in silence, alone. This felt normal. But somehow with people in the room it became colder, more isolated.

Your first day began with a tour from Liz, who you assumed was that girl everyone just knew. And then, lunch. Liz offered for you to sit with her and while you were grateful, it felt odd. It wasn’t where you belonged. They talked of homecoming and boys, while you doodled in one of your many sketchbooks. You were no mega talent, but, you had always had this itch to create something. Anything.

“That’s really good (Y/N). You should take art here.” Liz was leaning in to study your sketch of a table across the room, all you had so far was one boy. “You should talk to him.”

“What?” It was the first word apart from ‘hi’ that you had spoken all morning, and she seemed surprised. A small smile danced upon her lips.

You turned back to your sketch, filling in details and outlining the boy next to him so Liz wouldn’t think you were obsessed. When you could feel her eyes leave your work, your pencil gravitated back to detailing the first boy’s face. He had kind eyes. What Liz may or may not realize, was that they were on her and not you.

Class felt slow, introductions were not needed since it was second semester, and you were behind on all subjects. So much for relaxing this weekend. Thank god you had Gym next, at least no homework could stem from that. Though, you wouldn’t be surprised.

Somehow the slow day was better. At least something was going on, now you sat a little apart from Liz’s group on the bleachers. You were currently doing your best to ignore their gossip until you heard a familiar name.

“Spider-Man? Isn’t that the guy who shoots webs?” Liz smiles, but her friends roll their eyes at your lack of knowledge.

“Yeah. He’s like our neighborhood’s personal hero.”

“And Liz is totally in love with him.” Liz shoved her friend playfully as she laughed and confirmed the statement. The others began to throw questions at her and you started to tune out until a boy, one of the two you began sketching at lunch, shouted across the room.

“Peter knows Spider-Man!” His friend was quick to his feet, stammering over an explanation.

Now this, is interesting.

Peter, who was the only complete part of the sketch you had elected to move on from, tried to cover his friend’s mishap. It was clear he didn’t want anyone knowing about his internship with Stark Industries. You grew curious. Liz invited him and his ‘supposed’ hero friend to her party.

“Oh. And you’re welcome too (Y/N).”

Fuck.

You were the opposite of a party person. You were always in the corner on your phone, no one electing to talk to you. You were not a dancer and knew maybe four people there at least 90% of the time. But with her looking you straight in the eye so sweetly, you found yourself having trouble saying no.

“Yeah, sure. Text me the address and I’ll be there.”

Your Aunt was surprised that you had already had an invite to a party, but didn’t have a car to take you there. You were furiously texting Liz in your last class of the day while the teacher brought up the PowerPoint.

Liz: Try asking Peter Parker.

You know the boy you were sketching at lunch?

I think he might live around your area.

Great. Now she was just enjoying matchmaking. You replied with a tongue sticking out emoji before pulling out a notebook and pen.

Peter’s locker was directly across from yours, but your nerves began spiking. How the hell do you just approach someone like this? What do you even say?

“Um, excuse me? You’re Peter right?” He was so distracted he nearly jumped at the sound of your voice behind him.

“Yeah. And… you’re, uh, (Y/N). Right?” He seemed to have the same nerves he had around Liz and you suspected he was the same with all the girls.

“Yup. Um, you’re going to Liz’s party right?” He nods. “Do you think I could tag along? My Aunt doesn’t own a car.”

“Oh, uh, sure. My Aunt May should be okay with that.”

“Cool. Uh, here’s my number and address. You’re a lifesaver.” He slipped the paper in his pocket as you walked away.

Over Your shoulder you shot him a small smile and a wave before heading to your bus. When he began to follow you nearly facepalmed, recalling that Liz said he lived by you. You sat in the empty second seat, right side of the bus, blocking the other half with your bag. Peter and his friend sat behind you. Your headphones were in, and the rest of the ride passed in a blur.

God certainly wasn’t short on humor.

Peter seemed equally shocked that you were both approaching the same lobby door, curious as to how you missed one another.

“I missed the bus this morning.” He stated, as if answering your thoughts. “May drove me.”

“Ah. Oh, Thanks.” You nodded and walked through the door he held open.

Outfits lay spread out on the bed, your mind doing calculations a mile a minute. Settling on black leggings and a Harry Potter t-shirt (Marauder’s Map), you began debating a jacket. When a knock sounded at the door you gave up and tied one around your waist, just in case.

Peter stood awkwardly in the living room/kitchen, your cousin bugging him relentlessly. He looked like a tomato. You chuckled at the sight.

“Is he your boyfriend? He won’t say anything but ‘um’. Is he why you moved here?” Now you were rendered speechless.

“I-uh. Oh Jesus, just go play your game, will ya?” You rushed Peter out the door, grateful Alec lost interest. “Sorry about him.”

Peter shakes his head like its no big deal before glancing down at your shirt.

“My eyes are up here Parker.” His eyes widen and somehow turns a darker shade of red.

“I-I was just admiring your Marauder’s Map shirt.” You giggled at his frantic mumbling, shaking your head.

“Only kidding. Shall we?”

The ride is only quiet when Peter’s Aunt pauses or runs out of questions. She is an extrovert in every way and you wish some of that would rub off on you before you entered the party.

“May this was a mistake. Maybe we should just drop (Y/N) off and go home.” There was no way you were letting this kid ditch. If you were going, then at least you’d have company in that corner you always ended up in.

“He’s so stressed out lately.”

“What helps with stress is going to a party. So, we should go to the party.” Ned was anxious to get inside and he was the only one.

The three of you stood on the lawn, gazing at the already raging party within. You glanced at Peter and saw your own nervousness reflecting back at you.

“Not a party person?” Peter leaned over and whispered.

“Not even close. I'm terrible at saying no.”

Inside the noise was pounding off the walls. Kids stood with actual red solo cups in hand like it was a teen movie.

Some kid was already picking on Peter and it's not even 2 minutes in.

“Hey. You're the new girl, right?” The stranger flickered a smirk as you nodded. “I'm Flash.” His wink had you staring in disbelief. Why would you be interested in someone who literally just insulted a person right in front of everyone on a mic.

“And I'm, not interested. C’mon, let's go get a soda or something.” Peter and Ned did their best to hide smiles as they passed him by.

“That was great. Can you do that again cause I wanna sell tickets to that show.” A girl leaned against the wall, a small smirk on her lips. “I'm Michelle.”

“We could have a Ted Talk on how to not be an ass.” You couldn't help but laugh with her at the thought. “I could do it in like two lines.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. It would go something like ‘Don’t be a dick. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.’” Peter nearly choked on his soda.

“You alright there Peter?” Liz appeared from around the corner, a look of confusion plastered on her face.

He smiles and nods, cheeks flushing. What a dork, you thought.

“Okay. Well... I'm glad you guys could make it. Have fun.” She was gone as quickly as she had arrived.

“I feel like my Ted Talks would have no chill though. I'm told I'm too open about topics that make people uncomfortable. Like periods and such.” Michelle glanced at you, smile growing.

“I think we'll get along just fine.”

It took you a few minutes to notice Peter and Ned had migrated toward the back door. You followed, sending Michelle a wave as you went. They became aware of your presence and their hushed mutterings ceased.

“Its okay if you leave us. Just so you know. You don't have to stuck around. We can find you later.” Peter didn't look you in the eye as he said this, instead opting to stare a hole in the floor.

“Oh.” That stung. You aren't sure why considering you hardly knew them. However, something had you feeling like this might've been your place. Ned. Peter. Michelle. You were a squad of misfits that seemed to piece together.

“He didn't mean it like that. You're more than welcome to hang with us.” Ned sent a sympathetic smile your way before leaning closer to whisper, loud enough that Peter could still hear. “He’s just nervous.”

“What? Why? Cause of the party?” Ned shook his head and pointed at you. “Me? What did I do?”

Peter shook his head. He really was nervous. His hands were constantly on the move, in his hair or smoothing his clothes. His feet kept shifting his weight from one to the other.

“It's not something you did.”

“He just likes you.”

“Dude!”

“Is that true? Peter?” You felt bad because he clearly wanted to tell you himself. But, you couldn't help but smile at the fact that Peter had a crush on you.

Though you weren't quite friends, you could tell he was a good guy. You now knew the lovesick stares he had sent from across the room were directed at you, he had jumped at the opportunity to drive you, and personally came up to your apartment to escort you to the car.

“Peter…”

“I um…. I'm gonna get some air.” And just like that he disappeared out the back door.

You could see him pacing the yard, looking as though he was chastising himself. It was hard to contain your smile.

“I should go talk to him.”

“No. I'll talk to him. You enjoy the party Ned. Rock that hat with confidence.” He beamed as you stepped out into the yard and gave you a double thumbs up.

Peter's head whipped around at the sound of the door, face flushed.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” Your voice was small. Now you were the nervous one. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“Liar.” He chuckles at this. A smile dances on each of your faces. “Is it true?”

Gulp. He nods.

“Peter…”

“Its okay. I get it. You don't feel the same. It's not like we've been friends for years. We're strangers.”

“Not for long.”

“What?”

“Well, Ned basically invited me into your friend group. So I'm not going anywhere. Because, for the record, I think you're a great guy. Also, I expect a seat at your table. Yeah?” Peter's smile widens at the prospect.

“Really?” You nod.

“I'm afraid you're stuck with me Parker.”

“I think I'll live.”

Something, whether it be adrenaline or courage, gives you the strength to grab his hand and lead him back to the party. Or more specifically, the dance floor.

This was only the start. Maybe the move wasn't such a bad idea after all.

#peter parker x reader #peter parker #beccas1kwritingchallenge #marvel #spiderman #spiderman homecoming

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aftermathdb · 5 years ago

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DEATH BATTLE Review: Genos vs. War Machine

So I only recently remembered that my other preferred opponent for War Machine was Steel from DC, and that I still wanted Genos to fight Cyborg.

So throughout the episode proper, Wiz pronounces Genos as “Jen-Os” while Boomstick says “Gene-Os.”

Genos’ Preview.

So to start off, Genos was an ordinary kid until his family was killed by a rampaging robot cyborg. However, he found a scientist who rebuilt him into a cyborg as well, allowing Genos to fight back and take his revenge.

However, Genos would soon meet Saitama, and train under him to learn more after nearly dying to a mosquito lady that Boomstick openly expresses is very attractive.

Regardless, the two became friends, and Genos was very popular due to his appearance and attitude.

But in order to fight giant monsters and evil dudes, Genos would need a lot of weapons.

Some of his weapons, like his adhesive from the heels, were built-in as a response to other threats.

Genos is also equipped with special sensors in his eyes that let him track heat and image signatures.

He has a wide assortment of weapons, like detachable body parts, missiles, and incinerator cannnons.

And when he wants to get really serious, he blasts foes with two of them at once.

Unib- I mean, uh, Spiral Incineration Cannon!

He’s got a stronger one that I unfortunately didn’t get a screenshot for, but yeah. It’s strong.

All of this leads into a Wiz and Boomstick segment where they finally fixed Boomstick’s smile.

Adding on, Genos once used his incinerator cannons on a mountain, which resulted in a blast worth over 66 kilotons of TNT.

He’s even managed to tag and track a massive meteor, which means that he can move 200 times faster than sound.

And remember the mosquito lady?- Her swarm of mosquitoes once covered Genos completely. While that may not sound intimidating, he was swarmed by nearly 65 Trillion of those things. Which equates to 358178 tons of mosquitoes. I doubt that there’s a masochist that would still want to get it on with the bug-lady if those are her party-mates.

But regardless of his weakness of his power core being the one thing that fuels everything, Genos has shown time and time again that he can compete with the best.

And Boomstick provides a nice little heartwarming moment that while Genos hasn’t found his family’s killer yet, he’s found a new family with Saitama and friends. And that he’ll keep getting stronger.

Y’know, I forgot how much of an edgelord he could be before he met Saitama.

War Machine′s Preview.

So right off the bat, we go into a brief backstory about Colonel James Rupert Rhodes and how he wanted to be in the military annd wound up helping out Iron Man, so Iron Man helped him back.

Eventually, Tony offered Rhodes a suit of his own and Rhodes became War Machine.

Worth noting: Boomstick absolutely gushes about the amount of weapons Rhodes has on deck. It’s kinda nice to see him going back to his “Lover of weapons” persona rather than his “pervvy redneck” one.

Anyways, Rhodes has a massive amount of weapons, including a powerful beam that he can fire from his chest. Spiral Incin- I mean, Unibeam!

And all this talk about weapons leads into our next Wiz and Boomstick segment.

Real men wear pink… Except for Dan. Dan just sucks.

Regardless, the hosts go over how Rhodes has gotten multiple suits, each stronger than the last.

The latest one comes equipped with camo and Ghost tech, allowing Rhodes to turn invisible and intangible. Making him immune to most attacks.

And should the suit ever be in danger of falling into the wrong hands, Rhodes can detonate it. I guess that’s a thing this episode since Genos can do the same thing.

Also worth noting is that since Tony isn’t one for half-measures, Rhodey’s suit is just as strong as the Iron Man suit, just not as maneuverable what with all the weapons. This means that it can scale to Tony’s suits in terms of strength. What does this mean?

It means that he can survive massive blows.

This one in particular was worth over 2.5 Megatons of TNT.

And despite the lack of maneuverability, the suit is still fast. In a short ammount of time, Rhodes managed to get into orbit. This means that he was moving at over mach 600.

Rhodey’s PTSD can make it hard for him to keep his head on straight in a fight, but when it comes down to protecting the people, his friends, the planet, or even just punching some dictator in the face, he’s always going to power through.

Also, remember how in Iron Man vs. Lex Luthor, Iron Man’s end quote was just him showing off his weapon?

Same verse as the first it seems.

The Battle Itself.

RT 2D Animation team on deck for this animated fight (directed by Jordan Battle), Genos will be voiced by Howard Wang and War Machine will be voiced by Mark Allen Jr. Therewolf made K.O Computer , and audio by Chris Kokkinos.

So, Rhodes is basically taking a nice flight when an explosion interrupts him and makes him spill some of his coffee. Credit where it’s due, he takes it more in stride than when Leonardo lost his food.

So, after confronting Genos, the Demon Cyborg determines that War Machine is another cyborg. Lack of credit where it’s due: He jumps to conclusions just as fast as Jason did.

So, right off the bat, it’s fairly clear that Rhodes has some advantage in at least one area. As he was just able to catch Genos’ punch with ease. It’s either in strength or defense.

More likely to be defense because Genos’ Incinerator cannons don’t really do much against the War Machine.

So we get a really nice fist clash, and with Rhodes keeping up, he may either match speed or surpass it.

He certainly takes tech. He was able to find some flaws in his opponent that Genos simply can’t counter.

But credit where it’s due: Genos doesn’t go down easy.

We cycle back into another punch clash right before the fight is brought back down to the ground.

Rhodes turns on his invisibility and Genos, well…

He can’t find him. Genos believes that he went home, but then he makes the mistake of insulting the tech, which ticks off Rhodey.

So Genos retaliates by rendering the invisibility useless with his adhesive making Rhodes visible enough to hit, which Genos follows up with…

Rhodes counters…

God I love Beam Struggles. Genos kinda wins this one and gets a bit overconfident. But…

Rhodes was still standing.

Anyways, Genos starts spamming an attack.

Like… You know that one scene in the Days of Future Past HISHE where Mystique just tries to shoot Trask but it doesn’t work? Yeah, this is pretty much like that.

So Rhodes escapes the glue trap and starts his attack.

Finishing Blow in

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Verdict + Explanation.

Okay, so right off the bat, Rhodes was just a better Genos.

Experience was obvious. Rhodes has seen way more than what Genos has, and that’s before putting on the suit.

Genos knocking around the Elder Centipede is impressive, as it clocks in at about 725 meters, and the amount of force to knock it around would be over 15 Megatons of TNT

But Rhodes has taken on far stronger and dealt way more damage.

Tony-Designed suits can bust up mountains, and those feats are worth over 280 Terratons of TNT. And yeah, they made a typo here. Better start asking questions or telling them to fix this. Pretty sure that it doesn’t matter in the long run, but still.

Rhodes was also way faster.

And even if Genos could get in a hit, he’s got no counters for the massive amounts of tech that Rhodey has at his disposal, like energy draining tech or “Ghost Chameleon” mode as Boomstick put it.

Overall impression.

So the previews go by pretty fast, essentially glossing over backstory and personality, and focusing on each character’s stats feats, and arsenal. Which, while I’m not against, kinda makes this episode feel really fast-paced with little room to breathe between each stat. This, while being an interesting way to show the character off, makes it really hard to keep up with what each character can do and what they have at their disposal. In comparison to the previous episode, where they do have room to breathe between each stat, these characters seem as if they are only analyzing their stats and nothing else.

It just seems as if this was written in a rush is all. Trying to get as much information out as possible, and that rush job is pretty apparent when you see those typos.

Not to mention that the animation felt a bit repetitive in certain parts. Like the punch clashes. I like those and all, but there’s a reason why the Jotaro vs. Kenshiro one is a better one. It’s because the punches actually clash. Heck! Even the Venom vs. Bane punch clash was better.

Also, it seems odd that they chose this battle to be a hand-drawn one. I’m pretty sure that there are plenty of fan-made Genos sprites or even official ones too. Not that it isn’t spectacular or anything, I’m just kinda curious.

Also: I was looking around in the comments section, and there are a lot of comments about audio. Maybe it’s because my mother could surpass Sindel’s loudest scream when watching Basketball, but I didn’t notice anything. Maybe you did.

7.5/10. Great fight, just a weird one…

Next Time…

Y’know, maybe I should start watching one of these.

I mean, I wasn’t interested at all in Yu Yu Hakusho until Hiei made his debut, and now I’m pushing for Krillin vs. Kuwabara (People who think that Krillin vs. Saitama is a good fight should honestly just admit that they want a baldy battle and be done with it).

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

From what I understand, a missed opportunity for Icy vs. Elsa.

#Death Battle #Deathbattle #review

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waywardnerd67 · 6 years ago

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Sealed With A Kiss

Summary: (Y/N) has her entire winter break planned out until her childhood best friend crashes her plans and changes her mind on the holiday season all together. Characters: Jensen Ackles, Reader Pairing: Jensen x Reader Warnings: Fluff/Seasonal Depression Word Count: 4102 (with lyrics) Prompt: My Only Wish (This Year) – Britney Spears (lyrics in bold) A/N #1: This is for @julesthequirky Winter Holiday Challenge. This is solely based off my own personal feelings of the holidays because I’m truly a Grinch with it comes to Christmas. A/N #2: As always this is unbeta so all mistakes are mine. Likes, comments and reblogs are splendid and I will love you doubly for them! Enjoy! Special Note: This is a work of FICTION and should be enjoyed as such. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the Ackles family as I truly adore and admire them.

(Y/N) kicked off her work shoes as soon as she walked through her front door. For the next five weeks she would be off work with no responsibilities, no deadlines and no one god awful holiday parties. She always saved up her vacation time to take off from Thanksgiving through the New Year. Everyone who did not know her well always asked what kind of fun holiday plans she had. Her answer was always the same.

“No plans. I don’t do holidays. Just five weeks off to stay home and sleep through until the New Year.” The look on people’s faces always made her chuckle. Pure and utter disbelief that someone would hate the holidays.

(Y/N) changed into her favorite pajama pants that were stolen from one of her best friends and her favorite band t-shirt. Curling up on her couch with the Chinese takeout she picked up on her way home and the bottle of whiskey, she hit play on the horror movie cued up on her Hulu account.

She smiled widely seeing her best friend on the screen. (Y/N) and Jensen Ackles have been friends since they were in grade school back in Dallas. She had been by his side throughout his entire career and watched with pride as he turned into a celebrity. Other than Dean Winchester on his hit show Supernatural, her favorite character was Tom Hanniger from the movie My Bloody Valentine.

Seeing him on the screen made her heart ache. His gorgeous olive eyes and charming smile never ceased to render her weak in the knees. What started as a school girl crush had turned into her falling head over heels for him. Never wanting to risk their friendship she kept her feelings bottled up deep within her. Being the support pal through every rocky relationship he had.

Seeing the credits rolling on her TV she shut everything off and snuggled onto her couch letting the sounds of the blistering wind outside lull her to sleep. She dreamed of the life she desperately desired with the man who held her heart. Being in his strong arms and warming her cold heart to loving the idea of spending the holidays with him. When she woke up, tears streamed down her face as her constant companion loneliness smothered her.

Last night I took a walk in the snow Couples holding hands places to go Seems like everyone but me is in love

The closer to Christmas it was getting the worst (Y/N)’s mood was becoming. It was now snowing which added to her aversion of the holidays. A seemingly quick walk to get dinner had her trapped in a god-awful snow globe of happy couples and holiday cheer. She made way to her lobby door where a black SUV was sitting outside of it. Not thinking twice, she hurriedly went inside and up to her apartment.

Turning the corner to her apartment, she stopped suddenly seeing someone standing outside her door. A wide smile spreading across her face replacing the scowl that had been there for the last couple of weeks.

“Jensen?” she asked as he turned around throwing his arms up in the air.

“About time, pretty girl! My god I thought maybe you were dead in there and I was about to kick the damn door down.” He said pulling her into a hug.

She unlocked the door setting her food down as Jensen walked in behind her, “What are you doing here?” She asked.

Jensen kicked off his boots and shrugged off his coat leaving him in a flannel with a t-shit underneath. She chuckled at him as she hung up their coats. “What are you chuckling at?”

“You, Dean. Did you fly here straight from set?” she said as he looked down at what he was wearing. With a slight change in tone and gruff expression he could easily be Dean Winchester, his character from his hit show.

Jensen rolled his eyes at her and started looking through her bag containing her dinner. “No, these are actually my clothes thank you very much. Except for the boots which are Dean’s, but I borrowed them to come out to the frozen tundra to see you. He doesn’t mind.”

“Jay, as much as I love seeing you shouldn’t you be on your way to Austin for Christmas? I’m sure everyone is going to miss you and your family hardly sees you.” She said grabbing her food out of his grasp.

“Well, that is part of the reason why I am here. I have a plane ticket for myself and for you to spend Christmas and New Years in Austin with the family. My mom and Kenzie have been talking about seeing you for weeks along with Jared, Gen and the boys being there. Stop making that face at me, (Y/N/N).” He said sighing.

(Y/N) was making a horrified expression as panic flooded her chest. The whole reason she took these weeks off were to be secluded and away from everyone possible. She did not always hate the holidays but for the last few years she vowed not to celebrate anything.

“Jensen, you know why I hate the holidays. You know what happened in every gory detail. I-I can’t fake happy around everyone for that long.” Her voice cracked from the overwhelming panic trying to spew out from her lips.

He stood in front of her placing his arms around her tightly. Kissing the top of her head he said, “You don’t have too. You can always go upstairs to my room when it becomes too much. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but I really want to have Christmas with everyone I love there. It won’t be right without you, (Y/N).”

Jensen’s hand rubbed her back as her panic and desire to make him happy fought inside her. She looked up at him sighing, “Okay Jay, I’ll go to Austin.” The breathtaking smile on his face was worth the anxiety threatening to paralyze her.

I want someone to love me And someone to hold Maybe, maybe (maybe maybe) He'll be all my own in a big red bow Santa can you hear me?

They stayed a few days at (Y/N)’s where they hung out and watched movies like the old days. They were flying into Austin on December 23rd the day before everyone was to arrive at Jensen’s house. Being back in Austin was disorienting for (Y/N). She had not been back at all in three years when life took a turn for the unexpected.

The moment she walked into Jensen’s house she looked around in horror, “Jay it looks like Christmas threw up on everything in your house.”

When she saw Jensen’s surprised reaction she knew something was not going according to his plan. That is when his mom and sister walked in from his kitchen. “Mom, Kenzie what are you two doing here a day early?”

The ladies who (Y/N) consider family hugged him quickly and then made a beeline to her. “(Y/N)! It’s been too long!” Kenzie said hugging her.

“Hey Kenzie, I missed you too.” She said trying to push down the urge to run upstairs and hide.

(Y/N) walked over to Mrs. Ackles who engulfed her into the biggest momma hug anyone could get. It took everything within her to keep the tears from falling down her face that welled up beneath her eyelids.

“Let me look at you,” Mrs. Ackles said clicking her tongue not approvingly, “Far too skinny (Y/N). That’s alright we will get you fatten up before you leave here.”

(Y/N) laughed softly looking over to Jensen with pleading eyes. “(Y/N), why don’t you go upstairs and get settled in while Mom and Kenzie help me with dinner.”

She nodded gratefully as the ladies followed Jensen into the kitchen. (Y/N) walked up the stairs to the second floor with all the bedrooms. She instinctively went to Jensen’s room, but then second guessed herself opting to go to the spare bedroom next to his. When he had bought his house, (Y/N) had helped him decorate it and the spare bedroom was specifically decorated for her though she had never slept in it.

After unpacking her bag, she sat on the bay window ledge looking out onto the lake behind Jensen’s house. It was much warm here than her city and people were out enjoying their boats on the lake. She watched all the families and happy couples with envy leaning her head against the window. There was a soft knock and then Jensen walked in.

“Mom and Kenzie are leaving now. I told them you would see them tomorrow and that you were tired on the way home from the flight.” Jensen explained as a weight felt like it was lifted from her chest.

She noticed he was nervously shuffling from one foot to the other, “What is it?” she asked getting up and walking towards him.

“It’s nothing.” He mumbled running his hand through his hair another tell that he had something to say but did not know if he should.

“Spill it, Ackles.” She said playfully pushing his shoulder.

He bit his lip looking down at her causing her breath to hitch in throat. “I was wondering why you decided to stay in the guest room? Normally… you stay in my room with me.”

(Y/N) reached out touching his arm lightly, “I didn’t want to assume anything. I mean you have your own life and the possibility of someone being with you is always there. I didn’t want to step on any toes or cause any drama.”

His olive eyes were filled with confusion and then realization hit him, “Do you really think I wouldn’t tell you if I had someone staying with me?”

“I don’t know, Jay. A lot has changed and again I didn’t want to assume anything. Better safe than sorry.” (Y/N) felt as if her heart was weighted down with the thought of Jensen having someone.

He shook his head and grabbed her bag placing her clothes back into it, “First, things haven’t changed that much that I wouldn’t let you know if I was with someone,” once all her things were back in her bag he turned towards the door. “Second, you get first dibs because you mean more to me than anything or anyone.”

(Y/N) followed Jensen into his bedroom that had not change at all in the three years she had been gone. Seeing the familiar room brought her a great deal of comfort and she watched from the bed as Jensen unpacked her things into two empty drawers of his dresser.

“Thanks Jay,” She whispered as he turned around smirking.

“You’re welcome and by the way, I’m not seeing anyone not since my last girlfriend that you know all about.” (Y/N) could not help the small smile on her lips as she watched him leave his room.

The next morning, she woke up alone in bed hearing a bunch of commotion downstairs. Looking over at her phone she saw it was nearly eleven in the morning. She quickly got up, showered and dressed trying to keep her anxiety from consuming her. She stood at the top of the stairs taking deep breaths before nervously walking down them.

We'll be all alone under the mistletoe Santa can you hear me? I have been so good this year And all I want is one thing Tell me my true love is here He's all I want just for me Underneath my Christmas tree I’ll be waiting here Santa that's my only wish this year

“Good morning sleepy head.” Kenzie said from her spot on her husband’s lap.

(Y/N) put on her best smile, “I’m not like your brother who is used to traveling between time zones. Plus, I need all the beauty sleep I can get.”

Kenzie scoffed as she got up going over to her and hooking their arms together, “Come on, the women folk are hanging in the kitchen while the men do manly things.” (Y/N) chuckled waving goodbye to Kenzie’s husband.

When they walked in Mrs. Ackles was shooing out Jensen and Mr. Ackles, “Out of my kitchen. No boys until the food is ready.”

“Really this is my kitchen mom…” Jensen started to say until she glared at him and he shut his mouth. He turned seeing her standing with Kenzie and smiled brightly to her.

(Y/N) laughed as he walked up to her, “Nice bow. Are you sleeping under the tree tonight?” she asked messing with the red bow on top of his head.

“This was my payment for Kenzie wrapping my gifts for the tree. If you take any pictures they best not leak to the press or the fans will have a field day with this.” Jensen said as (Y/N) laughed.

“Oh, the fanfiction that could be written from it!” She said as he groaned.

(Y/N) hugged Mr. Ackles as he pushed Jensen out of the kitchen, “Nice to see you again, kiddo.” He said quietly as she held onto him a little tighter.

The Ackles family had always been more of her family than her own. They knew she had a rough home life and she was always welcomed whenever she needed to get away. They had helped her through college while Jensen moved out to Los Angeles to begin his acting career. Three years ago, when she was preparing for the biggest moment of her life they had all been there when it fell apart.

Soon Gen was had joined them in the kitchen as Jared and their sons were outside with the rest of the guys. With Gen coming in it gave (Y/N) the chance to sneak out the back door to the backyard and have a moment to herself. Spending time with the Ackles women had been great and reminded her of why she loved them so much.

(Y/N) was sitting on the retaining wall watching Jensen, Jared, Thomas and Shep playing their version of football. Jensen was always great with kids and it was a shame that he had not found someone to settle down with to have his own. The thought of him being a father pulled the strings attached to the feelings she had buried deep within her.

“(Y/N/N)!” Thomas yelled out running towards her. She jumped down off the wall and picked him up swinging him around.

“Tom-Tom! I’ve missed you buddy.” She said as he held onto her tightly. Shep had just been born when she left Austin and he walked beside Jared shyly looking at her.

Jared hugged her with one arm while holding Shep in the other, “Hey (Y/N), good to see you again.”

“It’s great to see you as well, Jared. Hi Shep,” She said waving slowly as he buried his head into Jared’s neck.

She set Thomas down who kept a hold of her hand as Jared chuckled, “We’re going through a shy phase. Once he gets to know you though, he’ll never leave you alone.”

She laughed looking over to Jensen who was staring at her strangely. “You okay over there, Jay?” she asked as he shook his head slightly.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Come on, let’s go inside and see if we are eating any time soon.” He said placing his arm around (Y/N)’s shoulders as Thomas kept a hold of her hand walking in.

Dinner had gone better than she could have expected, and she had a feeling it was because of the spiked soda Jensen was feeding her to help with the nerves. After dinner they all piled into his living room to watch It’s A Wonderful Life together. Thomas was snuggled between her and Jensen on the love seat where he fell asleep within minutes of the movie starting.

By the end of the night, everyone had said their goodbyes and made plans to meet up for New Year’s Eve at the bar Jared owned. Before Kenzie and her parents left she smiled widely at (Y/N) and Jensen looking above their heads.

“Really Kenzie?” Jensen said rolling his eyes as (Y/N) saw the mistletoe attached to the beam about their heads.

Kenzie nodded, “Oh going on you two. It’s not like we all don’t know how you two have been pining for one another all these years.”

(Y/N)’s eyes went wide as Jensen’s face burned red. The panic that had not been there all night hit her harder than ever before. It was different this time though, there was also hope attached to it and that was something that scared her even more. Her body began to tremble, and she felt Jensen tighten his arm around her.

“Goodnight Kenzie,” He said firmly as their parents pulled her along while she pouted slightly.

Once the door was shut, (Y/N) wiggled out of his grasp feeling as though the room was closing in on her. Without a single word she turned towards the back door quickly going out into the backyard. She took a few deep breaths trying to calm herself down, but all her emotions were bubbling up too fast for her to control.

As soon as the first tear fell the dam broke free unleashing three years’ worth of tears. Jensen was by her side in a flash, “(Y/N) it’s okay. It’s okay, Kenzie was just trying to get a rise out of me.”

His panic voice may have caught her attention, but it was what he said that had her chest tightening. “W-What do you mean?” she asked sniffling.

He looked down at his feet, his hand running over the back of his neck. “Apparently, my feelings for you have been painfully obvious to my family since we were kids. However, for me, it wasn’t until you were supposed to get married that I realized that you were the only woman I ever wanted to be with.”

His eyes locked with hers and she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. They stared at each other for what seemed like eternity until he broke the silence, “Say something, (Y/N).”

“I… I can’t…” she said running back inside his house and up the stairs to the spare bedroom. She shut the door and leaned up against it fresh tears falling down her face.

Tell me my true love is here He's all I want just for me Underneath my Christmas tree I’ll be waiting here Santa that's my only wish this year

The next morning, (Y/N) woke up to the smell of bacon and coffee. She looked around seeing she was in Jensen’s room snuggled up with his pillow. The last thing she remembered was crying herself to sleep in the spare bedroom. When she heard the door open she looked up seeing Jensen with a breakfast tray in his hands complete with red bow on it.

“Morning,” He said softly as he set the tray down, “I figured you could have breakfast in bed and relax this morning.”

He stood up walking towards the door then stopped not turning around, “If you want to leave early after last night I completely understand. Your ticket home is open ended so you can choose whenever you would like to leave.”

The sadness in his voice broke her heart and in all the confusion of what had happened she did not take into consideration how he must have felt after she ran off. “Wait.” She called out as he turned around his eyes still downcast.

“Have breakfast with me.” She said scooting over carefully to make room for him on the bed.

He approached the bed hesitantly and sat down making sure there was plenty of room between them. Silently they ate together an awkward tension building between them that had never been there before. She could see the internal dialogue going on within Jensen and how he was blaming himself for it.

(Y/N) got up setting the tray on his dresser and then climbed back into bed wrapping her arms around his waist feeling his body tense up. After she did not let go, he finally wrapped his arms around her and laid back on the mattress with her. So many times, they had laid in bed like this, but it suddenly felt completely different and what scared her the most was how much she loved it.

“I’m scared.” She whispered her ear pressed to his chest listening to his rapid heartbeat.

He took a deep breath, “Of what?” he asked.

She leaned up on her elbow looking up to him, “I’m scared that you actually have feelings for me. I’m scared of losing your friendship.” She took a deep breath, “I’m scared that I’m damaged beyond repair and undeserving of you. Most of all, I’m scared of the hope I’m feeling that you feel the same way I do and then I’ll be left at the alter again. I don’t think I could go through that again especially if that meant losing you.”

She heard him suck in a breath and then he moved to sit up resting against his headboard. (Y/N) was surprised when he pulled her onto his lap holding cradling her in his arms. Her arms instantly went around his neck as his eyes bore into hers.

“I’m scare too and for some of the same reasons. Hearing you talk about how you’re damaged or undeserving makes me what to find you ex and not only kick his ass but shake his hand to thank him.” He said as (Y/N) gave him a confused look.

He smiled, “Well I think it’s only polite to thank him for being a complete douche for leaving an amazing woman at the alter so that I can have the chance to win her heart. I should have punch that guy from the get go when he asked you out after setting me up with my ex just to get me out of the way.”

“Wait, what? He knew you liked me?” she asked stunned.

Jensen nodded, “Everyone knew I liked you except for you and me. He set me up saying we could go out on a double date and then he showed up with you. I felt like I got punched in the gut and you were so happy that I couldn’t do anything about it but be there for you. When he left you at the alter it took Jared and my dad to keep me from finding him to beating him within an inch of his life.”

She sat there shocked by his revelation, “Do… do you know the real reason why he left me?” she asked looking down at his chest.

She felt shake his head and she looked up at him, “I received a letter from him on Christmas afterwards. He told me that he had found the woman of his dreams and they were both in relationships. They decided to run off together to elope but that they would be moving back to Austin to start a family in the house he had bought for us. A few weeks later, I saw them walking down the street holding hands, laughing, smiling and I immediately left Austin moving as far away as I could.”

Anger flashed before his dark olive eyes before he shook his head, “Bastard.” He whispered.

“Jensen, what happened then has a huge effect on me now. I… I don’t want to screw this up rather it’s a relationship or our friendship.” She said quietly biting her lip.

He placed his hand on her cheek his thumb gently running across it, “You’re not going to screw up anything. We will be in this together, but I don’t think I can go back to just being friends. It’s too hard to hold back from kissing you and wanting to hold your hand at all possible moments. It won’t be easy especially with my schedule, but you know how I am. If I want something bad enough then I will work my ass off for it. I want this more than anything, pretty girl.”

Jensen leaned in his lips brushing against hers hesitantly then she pressed hers against his firmly. It was not the first time they had kissed, but everything was different. This kiss sealed their future in place and any doubts she had vanished completely.

“Merry Christmas (Y/N),” he whispered against her lips.

“Merry Christmas Jensen.” She said as he kissed her again.

Well he's all I want just for me Underneath my Christmas tree Ill be waiting here Santa that's my only wish this year

If you enjoyed this story then check out my Masterlist!

My Nerd Herd: @waywardbaby @waywardrose13 @carryonmywaywardcaptain @anotherwaywardsister @ladywinchester1967 @dwgrl1903 @akshi8278 @ericaprice2008 @mirandaaustin93 @spnbaby-67 @time-travel-bouqet @1967-essentialghoul @dean-winchesters-bacon @destielhoneybee @-lovepeacenhope- @destiel745 @carribear31 @srsllydunnodoncare @whimsicalrobots @thisismysecrethappyplace @starstruckzonkoperatorbat @adoptdontshoppets @mrswhozeewhatsis @bella-ca @drakelover78 @imascio08 @pisces-cutie @mannls @the-salty-asian @winchesterprincessbride @xostephanie @klanceiscannon14 @superromijn @witch-of-letters @screechingartisancashbailiff

#quirky'swinterholchallenge #waywardnerd67 #one shot #sealed with a kiss #jensen ackles fanfiction #jensen ackles fanfic #jensen ackles x reader #jensen ackles fluff #jensen ackles christmas fic #jensen ackles #fluff

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thechosenferret · 6 years ago

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The Trip to Christmas (Part 2)

First Next

A03

Day 1: December 21

“What do you mean you don’t like gingerbread cookies?” Harry asked, already crunching down on his 15th mini candy cane in the over 2 hours drive of the night as they entered into Birmingham.

“I just never really cared for them, that’s all.”

“But they’re a classic for a reason, you’ll see. Once we get to Ron’s, I’ll have him whip up the best batch that you’ll ever taste in your life.”

“Oh really, and what makes them so great?”

“Well, they… it’s hard to explain, but you’ll absolutely love them. Mrs. Weasley made them for us all the time, and Ron always helped out. They’re the best things on this Earth.”

Draco chuckled, “Well, in the meantime, do you mind passing me another candy cane?”

“Only if you agree that you’ll try and love the cookies.”

“I can agree to try them, but I can’t say I will fall as head over heels in love with them as you have.”

“Deal,” Harry replied, passing an unwrapped candy cane into Draco’s open hand that immediately stuck it in his mouth.

“So where is this hotel you were talking about?”

“Just up the road past the roundabout.”

“Really, you just had to pick one where I have to deal with the hell of those things.”

“What? They’re so fun.”

“Not when you have to drive through them.” Draco gripped on the steering wheel more, taking a second to mentally prepare himself before he drove into the mess of cars going in an endless circle. This is easy, Draco though, you’ve survived last hectic month at the ministry, stared death in the face, and you’ve already driven for 2 almost straight hours, you can easy do this.

Slightly slowing down all the cars behind him, Draco only had to go around the circle twice before he finally got enough courage to pull the car out of the endless cycle, further reminding him why he was not and will never be a Gryffindor, being brave is just too much work in these situations.

In a few minutes, they finally arrived at a cozy stone house covered with snow. Everything inside was already pitch black other than a large window at the front with a light shining brightly through, illuminating the front side of the house enough for them to get to the door to ring the doorbell. Before the ring could finish, a tall lady threw open the door holding a little clipboard, her face grinning from the sight of more customers.

“Hello, welcome to the prince hotel! Please come in.” She moved over to a little desk next to a set of stairs, becoming them in. Before either of them could get another word out, she continued with her speech.“So would you like a queen bed for the both of y’all, we still have one for a good price.”

“Um, no-” Harry replied, looking over at Draco in an attempt to have him explain it all before placing a one small bag he brought on the floor so that it could fall over onto Draco’s bag- “we’re just friends.”

“Oh sorry, it just that from the way you looked it- never mind. Well then we have two twin sized beds that would be good for you two, if you don’t mind sharing a room.”

“That sounds great, thanks,” Draco replied, pulling out his wallet.

“Okay, one night will be 40 pounds.”

Draco looked down at his coins in his pocket, already realizing his mistake of not bringing any muggle cash. Not really knowing how many sickles are in a pound, Draco gave up and tried to give the least noticeable nudge to Harry to prompt him to open up his wallet and handle this for them, which worked for a second before the way too long silence took over them, making the lady look through her book for a second before asking, “You do have the money, right?”

“Uh yea,” Draco managed to mumble out, “I just happened to bring the wrong currency but I’m sure we have some mugg- I mean money somewhere, right?” Draco shot Harry a glare, trying to urge him to get the hint and save the day.

“Oh, don’t worry, we can take whatever currency you have, where is it from?”

“Uh, not near here.” Draco stuttered out, hoping that Harry can find the money quick before they have to do an unfortunate memory wipe spell.

“Of course it’s not from here, that’s why I’m asking.”

“Um, it from…” Draco glanced over to see Harry hurriedly rummaging through his bag, “Harry, where exactly is it from.”

“Here,” Harry replied, pulling out muggle currency from his bag, handing it to the lady.

Counting the money under her breath, she put it in a little container before turning behind her and grabbing a key from a drawer in the desk and handing it to Harry. “Have a good night’s sleep, your room is just up these stairs and the first door on the right.”

Collecting the bags, Draco began the hike to their room, pausing for a bit at the top to let Harry go before him to open up the door.

Inside, the room was painted a lilac color with a a few walls painted a more whitish color. In the room, there was a door which they could only assume went into the bathroom, a little desk, a window, and two twin beds on the wall. The beds both had a fake gold outlining and white sheets that didn’t look too comfy but it was better than having to share a bed, right?

Already making his way over to the bed closest to the window, Harry tossed the key on the desk and flopped down on the bed spreading out as his eyes were already drifting out of this reality, the moonlight from the window shining right on him as tiredly pointed over to the other bed, urging Draco to follow in his footsteps and act like its the comfiest thing in the world, which it was starting to look more and more like as Draco’s brain finally caught up to just how late it was and that it was definitely time to head to bed.

“Goodnight Potter,” Draco whispered, climbing into bed after grabbing a book from his bag to attempt at reading in what little light there was.

“Goodnight Draco,” Harry whispered back, clearly already too asleep to render anything that could happen to him now. Draco smiled, leaning back on his pillow with his book open in his hands, too tired to be surprised at hearing his actual name leave Harry’s mouth like it didn’t mean a thing.

Mondays story may be moved to tomorrow or Wednesday since I’ll try to be offline all day.

Tag list: @aharrypotternerd (The tag was being weird so I don’t know if it worked or not, but here’s my attempt.)

#harry potter #draco malfoy #drarry #drarry squad #drarry fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #draco x harry #harry x draco #my writing #drarry fluff

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mariposalass · 6 years ago

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To Rise Again

Summary: This wasn’t what Mari and her crazy bunch were expecting when they came to visit the Hamilton exhibit with a goal to temporarily bring life to the wax statues to have a talk with them; instead however, they just brought back one guy back from the dead. Let the madness begin.

Setting: The local Alexander Hamilton (more of the musical than the real life stuff) exhibit in a museum at Daly City, California, January 3, 2019

Notes: This is the story of how Mari and Philip met: permanently bringing him back from the dead thanks to Ahkmenrah’s magic tablet. Inspired by the Don’t Be Shocked When Your Hist’ry Book Mentions Me series in Archive of Our Own. It’s ‘future is shocking’ with a heavy dose of curiosity intrigues the cat. The cast used for this story and Mari’s world are the OG Broadway cast. I was listening to Evanescence’s Bring Me to Life (Synthesis version) while thinking of this story.

Tags: Mild language, future shock, fighting and arguments, the dead being revived to life again, life-bringing magic, mild revival angst, the future is shocking but interesting

“Is there any good reason why you had to smuggle in that tablet of yours for just an exhibit on one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, huh, Ahk?” Mari questioned the forever youthful pharaoh’s sanity as he pulled out his magic tablet from his messenger bag in their group (which composed of them, Harry, Issa, Kirby, Kairi, and Karina)’s presence during a visit at the Alexander Hamilton exhibit featuring the wax statues of the people around the First Secretary of Treasury based on the original Hamilton Broadway cast on display in a local Daly City museum.

“Mari, I understand that you’re quite peeved on the fact I had to lunge this thing around to the exhibit for seemingly no good reason, but I thought it would be interesting to talk with the figures for just one day,” Ahk tried to explain his reasoning behind the tablet tagging along.

“Errr… Would that be considered necromancy?” Karina asked him out of concern with fear in the tone of her voice.

“Maybe Ahk is up to something: crazy but still a genius idea,” Issa tried her best to sound hopeful that Ahk knew what he’s doing, “After all, Harry accidentally returned him back to life with that tablet of his when we visited the other local museum years back.”

Ahkmenrah, the former Fourth King of the Fourth King, didn’t pay too much attention to the bickering the girls were having, just making sure that his tablet, the only thing he has left in his connection to his previous life in Egypt’s past, wouldn’t go missing from his sight. Harry should’ve kept his mouth shut about this portion when he nonchalantly mentioned the tablet incident of Ahk’s revival during the exhibit visit planning and he (Ahk) was like ‘Well, why not try it on the wax figures for one day there, Harry?’. Holy shit, the Boy Who Lived was in trouble for sure.

The wax figures in front of them were rendered so life-like as if the artist behind them was able to capture the old Broadway cast frozen at one moment in time. Even the costumes they wear for the exhibit could easily be mistaken for the ones used in the original production in New York City and straight from the 18th Century to the 19th Century; it was quite surreal for Mari, Harry, Kairi, Issa, and Kirby to see them face to face as they have seen the play before in their most recent trip to the Big Apple for the New Year celebrations. Mari though was more morbidly curious than she wanted to admit as she spotted one figure looking like they’ve seen something bad in their line of sight.

That one wax figure in particular catching Mari’s eyes was a young slender man, handsome and quite tall for his age: a head of untamed manly brown black curls, soulful hazel eyes, light brown skin (? Wasn’t the real life man he was based supposed to be white? Oh never mind!), and freckles on the face. Mari felt as if she was drawn to the figure, like a curious moth drawn to the flame and like fate, only weirder that she has fallen hard for a wax statue.

“Hello, Earth to Mari!” Kairi was calling out to her adopted older sister, waving her arms frantically, to snap her out of her trance.

“Huh, what, what?” she shook her head after realizing her sister was right beside her, taking part of looking at the wax man with her.

“It seems that this guy has caught your attention, huh?”she giggled.

“Geez, Kairi,” Mari shrugged, “I mean, this fellow looks freaking cute. Too bad he’s… dead!”

“Gushing over a dead man like him, aren’t you, Mari?” Issa asked her.

Mari blushed in embarrassment, not knowing what to do with her strange feelings and her attraction to the stranger while Kairi and Issa were left dumb-folded on the matter without a single response.

“Poyo, poyo!” Kirby chatted with the wax man, tugging onto the left leg of his white stockings to try to get his attention.

“Kirby, that guy’s already dead for more than 2 centuries already,” Mari told him, which made the poor puffball sad to hear the news as she continued on, “Death by gun shot wound at only 19 years old.”

“Ouch! RIP Wax Guy in period clothing Mari just had a crush on,” Kairi prayed in concern.

Kirby understandably wept for the poor young man’s soul, salted tears running down on his spherical body. Issa went up to pick Kirby up in her arms, consoling him as she said to him it wasn’t the man’s fault that his life ended that way. On the other side of the story, Harry and Ahkmenrah were talking about the problems and concerns arising if they try to bring life to the wax figures for one day which went downhill from there.

“I can’t believe that I dragged everyone into this mess today,” Harry grumbled in his breath, “Seriously: What kind of a stupid plan did I just randomly blurted out loud? This is bloody stupid: bringing dead people to life for just one day!”

“Calm down, Harry,” Ahk tried to console his friend’s dilemma for suggesting a silly plan, “It is just temporary. Once we leave the exhibit, they’ll resume back to their original positions and return back to their still wax state. It’s not like we’re performing a necromancer’s ritual.”

“Ahk, you got to be kidding, mate!” the British wizard sternly yelled at him, “How are we going to explain to the exhibit staff & organizers and the people running the place if at least one of them goes missing? You said if a museum exhibit was left outside when the sun rises up, they’ll be reduced to dust!”

“True, but I did made sure that this one attempt was just a one-off, I swear to the Gods, Harry,” the ex pharaoh countered the argument, “Who knows: maybe the Doctor could get the chance to hear them speak if he’s here with us now.”

“Oh, you idiot!!!” “Harry, please! Just trust me on this...” “Shut up, okay!” “But it won’t hurt anyone in the end...”

Everyone in the group soon turned their eyes at Ahk and Harry playing a rough tug-of-war with the former’s tablet, fearing that it could break at any given moment. Mari was scared to see one of her great friends and her older brother arguing over something petty like temporarily giving life to a group of life-like wax figures. It was so bad she couldn’t hold her tears in great distress.

Unbeknownst to everyone involved, things would get weirder from there: while arguing inaudibly over the whole plan, Harry and Ahk unwittingly messed with the symbols on the tablet and aimed at the young wax man Mari took a great interest in. The girls and Kirby were horrified that the poor young wax figure was in the line of the tablet’s aim and, in a bold noble effort, tried to stop the two men from creating further fuel to the figurative fire: yelling “Guys, stop it! Don’t break that tablet beyond its limits AND kill each other at the same time!”, “Kuya Harry, don’t punch Ahk for this!”, “Harry, Ahk, no!!!”, “Can you guys just stop fighting and get a grip on yourselves before some serious shit happens?!?”, and “Poyo, poyo! Popoyo, poyo, yop, yoyopo, POYO!!!”

Sadly, it was all for nothing: the wizard and the pharaoh unwittingly sent a blast of golden light, hitting the wax man on the chest and knocking him back onto the floor with a great big THUD! It was that very moment that Harry and Ahk realized their grave mistake: the wax man was now lying down on the platform on his back with an extremely blank look in his face, as he was a wax statue after all. Everyone who didn’t took a part of the mess were now staring at the two of them being mad at them for being a bunch of idiots fighting over one tablet of all things.

There was deafening silence among the group and wax figures in that one room: not a single word or sound was made, everything in awkward silence. But the silence would not last for long…

While the group were staring at each other out of confusion and anger, the next thing they heard is a groaning voice as roars of life were emanating from the golden glow from Ahk’s tablet that hit one of the wax statutes earlier during Harry and Ahk’s arguing. They froze for a moment, blank stares everywhere, and turned around to see a sight they never expected to see. The wax young man, or rather the previously wax young man, was now struggling to get up on his own two feet, still lying on his back similar to that of a turtle upside down on its shell, and his limbs wailing around faster than a speeding Japanese bullet train.

“Umm… Hello, if you don’t mind, I could use some assistance over here,” the man cried out, “Where in the world I am in?”

“Mother of God...” Issa gasped in horror, “That man needs some help here! We better help him out.”

“But wasn’t that supposed to be the wax-” Kairi was about to counter the situation but it was vain when Harry regained some senses.

“There is no time to explain it to him right now, Kai!” he lectured her immediately, “We should help this guy out first, then we can break the… unpleasant news to him later.”

“Poyo...” Kirby nervously squeaked, shaking in fear of the man’s bizarre awakening.

“Then we should start helping him in getting up from the platform, shall we?” Ahk nodded back.

It took a while for the humans to get the newly revived man up with around 2 boys and 4 girls involved, but they were able to get him up at last. They were tired but relieved that the man was able to stand up again, though questions were being to stir in their minds and worries were forming that they may have done something really terrible that very day.

“Alright, sir. Are you okay now?” Mari was at a loss of breath, sitting down on the stage platform, as she asked him how he was feeling after finally regaining his grip.

“A damned sight better, Madam,” he remarked as a response while brushing off dust from his outfit before continuing on with what else he was going to say, “Now how I can repay you lot back… Wait a minute, this isn’t the dueling grounds or Aunt Angelica and Uncle John’s house...”

“Oh God, if it ain’t Philip Hamilton himself!” Karina’s eyes widened in shock as memories of reading about the life of his famous father with everyone else flashed back in her mind.

“We knew it!” Issa shouted.

“By Merlin’s beard!” Harry freaked out with his jaws dropping to the ground.

Ahkmenrah, having been through the same thing as this Philip Hamilton (as the man is called), couldn’t help but to feel bad for him with being sent back to life and reality once again but in a more modern era, decided to approach him with caution and spoke on behalf of the bewildered group, “Well, pardon me, sir. What was the last thing you saw before… you just came back?”

Philip, whose facial expression now went from bewilderment to mourning, meekly replied back to the pharaoh’s question, “I… I was at Uncle John and Aunt Angelica’s house across the (Hudson) river… The doctor was there checking on my dire situation then...” He then pointed to the group at the direction of his right hip, “Good Lord, I’ve been shot! That Eacker fellow is going to be in trouble once I can find him again-”

“Whoa, whoa, back up a minute!” Karina busted his moment of rage, “What did that guy did to you that has made you wanting to gang up on him?”

That was when the younger Hamilton came to realize to see the group’s more contemporary appearance, quite unusual for his time in their clothing; never mind the fact that Ahk was holding onto the same golden tablet that brought both of them back from the dead. Was he in some sort of a time displacement?

Mari sighed, knowing that they can’t keep away the fact that he’s in the wrong century now, and came “Mr. Hamilton, I know we just met within a few minutes of your reawakening, but I feel we need to properly introduce ourselves. I’m Mari Tan, assistant librarian at the Daly City Public Library. The people and puffball with me are my friends and adopted siblings: Karina Lyle, Ahkmenrah, Harry Potter, Isabelle Miravelez, Kairi, and Kirby. I hate to break this to you, but you’ve been asleep for far too long until now.”

Philip was left even more confused than when he got revived, asking her again, “For how long?”

“It’s January 2019, in Daly City, California. I don’t think we’re even in New York anymore,” Harry stepped in, adding more surprise to the 19 year old man, greeting the British wizard with a dropped jaw of shock, to which he replied, “I could tell that even California as a state is foreign to you: back when you’re still alive in your original timeline, it was under Spanish rule before the Mexicans took over, followed by a brief moment of independence when the Americans came into town.”

“Welcome to the Golden State, you’re going to be in a really rough pickle now that everyone you know then is, well…, dead,” Kairi dropped another major info bombshell with equal parts of concern and uncertainty.

“Uh… Kairi, I don’t think you should drop that information…,” Issa tried to reprimand her in a stern manner.

“Do we need to also tell him that he’s the only wax statue revived to life with the others being-” Karina bombarded her with another question of concern, only to be cut off when they turned to see Philip noticing that the wax replicas of the many people he knew in his old life, such as his parents, weren’t moving or even revived like him.

Mari, her siblings and friends watched in sadness and pity as the poor man was trying to get the still statues’ attention and failing miserably, eventually sulking as he sat down on the podium stage where they were standing and shedding bitter salt-laced tears. Many versions of ‘Poor guy’ were murmured among the group.

This was not his day, and yet, Mari couldn’t help to feel bad that she then sat down beside him and began to carefully explained of what happened after his first death, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but shortly after you died the first time, your entire family wasn’t the same: your sister became mentally wrecked, your mom gave birth to a little brother and named him after you, your dad died on the same grounds you died on 3 years later, and your mom would outlive nearly everyone else upon dying at age 97. Please don’t get mad at me and my friends and siblings for just bringing you back life and not everyone else, we didn’t mean to cause you any grief because of it.”

Tears began to slowly gave up when he heard her speak and, while the words did made him feeling guilty for causing so much grief onto his family, she delivered them in a gentle tone with no ill will to ruin his mood or even his sanity. Harry then quietly approached Philip and continued what Mari said, “Yeah, it’s actually nearly 218 years since your ‘passing’, and everything did changed a lot. Trust me, if we get out of here sooner or later, you’re going to be in a big shock for your life, mate.”

“We better be going then,” Ahk informed everyone in the area, “We all don’t want to be locked in for the night nor do we want to get into trouble with people in this museum over with what happened today.”

“Ahk has a point,” Karina couldn’t agree more, “It’s getting late right now as well.”

“Well, if you say so, then we can all go out now,” he remarked, “Besides, it is true that I haven’t seen the outside world for that long. Although if I was presumed dead for the last 2 centuries, I highly doubt that I have any monetary funds or a place to stay in.”

“We have a house at the Westlake neighborhood,” Mari suggested to Philip with a beaming smile in her face, “The place is more known for its Mid-Century houses, though plenty of the other houses do range in style lately, including ours. You can stay with us, even Ahk lives with us since he didn’t have anyone else to run to when he got revived back to life. Then we try to get you a job some time after that can fit with your education credentials.”

“Mari has a point, Philip, son of Alexander,” the pharaoh pointed it out to him in a wise manner, “Perhaps, I could be of some assistance as well. I have went through nearly similar situations like you do now a few years ago, so I’m more than happy to give you some advice and help along the journey.”

“Also, we’ll introduce you to everyone else. Just imagine the response they’ll get from knowing that you’ve just been awaken again and they can also help you out,” Karina continued what her two friends left off.

“The Doctor is going to be so happy to hear about this,” Harry sarcastically whispered to Issa on the side.

“Definitely,” she agreed.

“Poyo,” Kirby sighed.

“I would be in your debt, everyone,” Philip replied back, “And should be so for a long while, I’m afraid. Though I have another question: would I get some unwanted attention in these clothes?”

“Nah, nobody wouldn’t care too much right now, but we should need to get out of here just to be safe,” Kairi reminded him as they began to leave the exhibit.

Once they managed to get out of the museum, Philip’s eyes widened up: not merely out of shock (although Mari admits that could be the case), but mostly in awe and curiosity with cars and buses running along the asphalt roads, people going about their normal days in modern clothing, and an assortment of buildings in various styles scattered across the city. If someone smart enough would have taken a note, they would’ve been shocked by one man’s old-fashioned outfit, but since it’s nearing time for the rush hour leaving for home, nobody paid them and Philip any unwanted attention.

“Those unusual conveniences...” Philip gasped upon seeing the changed landscape, a far cry from what he was used to seeing in early 19th Century New York, while pointing at the moving vehicles in front of them.

“Horseless carriages if you could call them that,” Ahkmenrah informed him, “A majority of them are actually called cars. Quite convenient and swift, though they can cause more problems in plenty of places. But they’re easier to use than with chariots on the sands of Egypt though.”

“I must say, at least the streets here are cleaner,” he mused on and Ahk honestly knew that it was true.

“Well, Philip, you might need to get used to the pros and cons of living in the modern day city: city living can be stressful if you’re not ready to brace for the madness around it,” Issa reminded him gently ahead of time.

Just then, Mari’s smartphone began to buzz, startling the revived man a bit from the noise it was emitting as she pulled out her phone to check on her message inbox. However, he was also at the same time morbidly curious at the strange device she and, he assumed, nearly everyone but Kirby has in their possession.

“A message from Belle,” she reported to the bunch and their new friend, “She is coming over to our house with food delivery and Adam is coming along with her as well.”

“So… How does this thing work?” Philip inquisitively questioned her about the smartphone.

“Well, it’s quite complicated to describe how a smartphone works without sounding like a tech nerd,” Mari shrugged a bit before she continued on her lesson, “But it’s quite a marvel in communications, if you ask plenty of people that. Anyone can pick it up, send a call or text to anybody, surf the internet, or even do things like playing app games or reading e-books… It’s like an encyclopedia, a very small encyclopedia that is a jack of all trades.”

“An encyclopedia, isn’t it?” he couldn’t help but to smile a bit, before he thought about the reading part, “Did you mentioned about these e-books, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I sure did. That’s the wonders of modern technology these days,” she replied back, “Maybe I can recommend you something from this period or something? We can do that once we get back to the house tonight.”

“Why, yes. I don’t mind at all,” his grin grew wider as she responded, “I happen to work as an assistant librarian in the city, I can show you the city’s public library someday.”

“I would happily take that offer, madam,” Philip noted the last sentence, “When we can arrange that day out trip?”

“Oh God, he’s speaking her language of books already,” Karina gasped in shock upon hearing those words.

“Wait till Hermione hears about Philip and his bizarre day today: she’ll be so happy to hear about another person to geek out about books with 24/7,” Harry shrugged back.

“Brace for it, world, because Philip Hamilton has finally returned from the grave,” Issa muttered to herself, wondering how the world and the US will react about one of the children of the one of the American Founding Fathers has come back home after nearly 218 years of being dead.

The End

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californiannostalgia · 6 years ago

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Holy Shit Voltron Season 6

They did NOT pull their punches, WOW. This has gotta be my favorite season yet. Emotions were flying, space was beautiful/terrifying, important plot points were coming together, and the action was AMAZING.

*SPOILER ALERT IMMA GONNA START BLATHERING*

1. Lotor: Lotor is fucking insane and the creators played it PERFECTLY. His childhood was obviously one of continuous abuse, and I’m guessing the derision he faced for being a half-breed was worse than we’d thought, because he outright despises the Galra. He doesn't want to hear an apology from the monster that wears his mother's face, and when his father is mentioned, he FLIPS.

It’s hard to wholeheartedly hate him because we’ve seen the potential for goodness inside of him, but with no one to teach him that genocide or forced sacrifices is wrong, he's grown up warped and twisted. What he did to the Alteans strikes me as especially awful because he genuinely sees himself as a savior of Altea. I think his falling for Allura might have been partly because she was the first sincerely kind being he's interacted with, and partly because his ideals of a perfect Altean future included the Princess in it.

Whereas Zarkon felt like a dark, immovable force, Lotor is intelligent, flexible, and much, much scarier. He fooled the Paladins, his Generals, the Galra, the Alteans—like Lance said, he fooled everyone. If he emerges from that overcharge of Quintessence for a final boss fight, he's going to be utterly terrifying. Madness runs in his family, it seems, and it's rendered more disturbing by the tragic circumstances behind it. Lotor should be proud, though. He has more than outdone his father.

2. Allura: Her Altean magics gave the enemy an impossible advantage, but also saved everyone over and over again. When she blasts Lotor with that crazy amount of Quintessence, a part of me felt disturbed by how sad the situation was. This stupid war is forcing a kindhearted child to push someone she cared about (even if it was a relationship built on falsehoods) straight into madness's open arms. Fuck war, really.

Part of her wanted to save him from becoming even more of a monster, but Allura knows where her duties lie. She doesn't have the luxury of feeling sympathetic towards the enemy. She leaves Lotor behind to his madness. She doesn't even blink at destroying the Castle of Lions, the one last piece of Altea she has left. She's a lion goddess, and I love her.

3. Keith: THAT'S WHAT I CALL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Marmora training plus two years in the presence of a solid parent figure and a space pet did him good. When he returned, he came back decisive, hardened, and completely ready for Black. Watching him claim his seat without a moment of hesitation gave me the shivers. The backstory episode was so good, too. This kid loves his fellow paladins with all his heart, and it's great to see his love giving him the strength to save the people that matter to him. Especially Shiro.

Oh, and you know that moment at the end of the fifth episode, when Keith nearly gives up on himself? Not caring about himself is what he does, what he’s used to. But at the last moment, he remembers how Shiro pleaded him not to give up on himself, and opens his eyes. That moment he decides to live is the definition of epic. (Also, HOLY FUCK THAT MARK WAS A SCAR??)

4. Clone Shiro: I can't believe they made us grow fond of the Shiro Clone through the D&D episode (showing off Takashi's dumb nerdy core, god I love him) before pulling the inevitable betrayal. Even though we saw it coming, they made us remember that part of him is the Shiro we love, so that the battle between the two Black Paladins could carry a sufficiently devastating note.

I now understand why Shiro seemed so obsessed with playing a Paladin. It was because a Paladin is what the Clone was programmed to be, the only thing he knew how to be. Add that to the fact that the last thing the Clone says is Keith’s name? Yeah, the Clone Angst was strong.

5. Shiro: I'd forgotten how good and pure the real Shiro was. His acceptance and encouragement is like hot chocolate. BUT WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN YOUVE BEEN DEAD ALL THIS TIME. WHY WOULD YOU DROP SUCH A BOMB SO MATTER-OF-FACTLY?

God, I'm ecstatic to have him back, grandpa hair and all. Thank you, Lion Goddess Allura. (Since this means he didn't go through any more suffering after the end of season 2, I'm strangely relieved?) (Does this mean we get a Shiro video diary now?)

6. Hunk: That first episode of him using his understanding of Galra culture to save an innocent planet was amazing. (I also really liked the command structure the team has. They readily defer to whoever has the most knowledge about a given task and follow that paladin's orders. It's a jarring contrast with how Clone Shiro was acting last season. But I digress.) Watching Hunk being a genius engineer in action is the best. I love one sarcastic, pessimistic child who basically has a heart of gold.

6. Pidge: She hesitated once and failed to stop the Clone Shiro from leaving with Lotor. When the Castle is hacked and her programs are being taken down, she pulls out her last resort card. Using that program is tantamount to admitting that she cannot trust her Shiro, and it is a crushing revelation for her, the team, and us. But she doesn’t hesitate again. (Always a joy to see her work her programming magic.)

7. Lance: The rapport Allura and Lance have with each other is the purest thing. He throws himself into harm's way for her and nearly dies. She jumps out of her lion to go help him when there's a radioactive flare moments away from coming into contact with her position. If one of them is sad, the other is there to offer emotional backup, without question. I dig this healthy supportive relationship.

What’s special about his character is that Lance is a solid presence to lean on for the others—whether he’s providing emotional support for Keith, Clone Shiro, and Allura, or taking command in the absence of a clear leader. Funny thing is, he can’t do shit for himself. His self-esteem is getting lower than ever. He openly cried (something he never lets himself do) thinking he failed Shiro. The self-hatred at his own mistakes and supposed uselessness is gonna blow up sometime soon, and I look forward to the day that time bomb finally goes off.

8. Coran: I could feel his grief for his dead planet, his sense of inadequacy compared to his grandfather. Very pleased that they gave us quality Coran Feels. (Also, Dungeonmaster/Dragon Coran was amazing.)

9. Krolia: Keith's parents fought so hard to protect the universe and their child. I can't forget the look in Krolia's eyes when the memory beam showed her a tiny Keith standing in front of a tombstone.

10. Acxa, Ezor, and Zethrid: They're trying to be loyal to the Empire, trying to save their people. They're being faced with impossible decisions left and right, and I'm curious what they'll be doing next.

11. Haggar/Honerva: She is genuinely sorry to Lotor, but sorry can't erase a millennia's worth of abuse and she knows it. I wonder what she will think when she finds out her son has followed her and Zarkon's descent into madness? I wonder what plans she has in place. (Could she be the final villain?)

12. Team Voltron: Here's the thing. In previous seasons, they were Paladins, yes, but they were still kids. They messed around with cows, made stupid jokes, generally powered through hard battles with the help of luck and sheer determination. But this season, when they charged into battle screaming, shield up and sword drawn? They no longer felt like brave kids going to war. They felt like the motherfucking Defenders of the Universe, through and through. (I didn't think I'd ever be this into a show about color-coded robot pilots. I was wrong.)

The scene where they pack their things to leave the Castle behind communicates the sense that there is no going back for them, that they are permanently changed and will constantly continue moving forward. It’s exciting. I can't wait for them to return to earth as hot badasses and bask in the respect they deserve. (Also someone needs to punch Iverson.)

13. Overall: The gorgeous backdrops, the pacing of the plot, the presentation of the scenes, the action sequences, the sound effects and acting—they were faultless. The soundtrack was great. There were countless moments of pure badassery: Krolia's fight, Keith vs. Clone Shiro, that Pidge-and-Lance tag-teaming action, Hunk's powerup, Voltron tearing a rift into the fabric of reality, etc. I loved it, I loved every precious second of this season, and I am blessed to be able to witness this masterpiece unfold before my eyes.

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middle--fingering · 7 years ago

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Charming Town - Opie Winston (2)

| 1 |

Another chapter of Charming Town for y’all! Our main character is played by Alicia Silverstone! (yes the girl from Clueless)

Taglist: @soaimagines @straight-toheck @yourcroweater @gl-st @homicidalteenagedream @sam-samcro @samperv @telfords-glasgow-smile @telford-ortiz-teller @calumonoxide @masterdreads @buckysjuicyplums @soafan99 @spaz8550

Tara took a deep breath and rubbed her sweaty palms against her jeans. It was her day off, yet she was still at the hospital. Tara didn’t know why she was nervous as she headed down the bleak corridors towards the psychiatric unit of St Thomas Hospital. Tara rarely came down to this unit as she was a surgeon in the neonatal department. There was nothing for her to be nervous about. She was just going to visit her friend that was all. Today was Doctor Oatfield’s day in the psychiatric unit instead of her office in the main building of the hospital. Tara scanned herself in with her all access scanner card and walked toward the guarded and boxed in nurses desk. Tara remembered doing her practical’s in a ward like this when she was studying in Chicago.

A familiar nurse smiled at Tara.“Dr Knowles, what are you doing this side of town?” The nurse laughed at her own joke.

Tara laughed and smiled along politely. “I’m here to see Doctor Oatfield, do you know when she’ll be finished?”

The nurse nodded. “She should be finished in ten minutes and then she’ll be finished here for the day. Do you want to wait in here or outside?”

Tara bit her lip. “I think I’ll wait outside. Could you please tell her I’m waiting for her?”

The nurse smiled and nodded.

Tara turned on her heel and scanned herself out of the ward.

Tara stood in the waiting room outside of the psych unit and paced the dreary, antiseptic smelling waiting room. Tara was terrified that her friend would think that she was taking advantage of her, that somehow all this sneaking around behind the hospital system’s back would lead back to her and the club. Tara knew she was taking advantage of her situation and privileges but she wanted to help the club in any way she could. She was an old lady now, and she needed to act like one. She heard the familiar buzz of someone exiting the unit and Tara took a deep breath and straightened herself up. Doctor Oatfield breezed out of the ward with a smile on her face. Her blonde hair fell around her collarbones and was pushed behind her ear. Tara smiled at her and the doctor rushed to hug her friend.

“Tara Knowles! How are you?” Doctor Oatfield gushed, hugging Tara with one arm.

“I’m great Hayley. How are you?” Tara smiled as she disengaged from the hug. Something about Hayley always calmed her down.

Hayley grinned. “I’m great, it’s been a successful day. The nurses said you were looking for me, what do you need?”

Tara chewed on her lip. “I just wanted to check on Gemma. She’s been coming to her sessions right?”

“Every single one.” Hayley nodded. “She’s been doing great.”

Tara nodded. “Good. You’re not angry that I asked you to do that right?”

Hayley squinted and shook her head. “Of course not. It’s my job to help people. Why Tara? What’s going on?”

Tara shook her head. “I need to ask you another favour.”

Hayley sighed. She knew that Tara wasn’t trying to take advantage of her but that’s what it seemed like. It was in Hayley’s nature to help, she couldn’t refuse if someone asked for her help. It was her biggest strength and her deepest flaw.

“What is it Tara?” Hayley asked, trying to keep the effervescence in her voice.

“Gemma asked if you could possibly add someone to the front of your line. Like when you have a cancellation or something. He needs help immediately or he’s going to go off the edge.” Tara tried to sell it as best she could, hoping to tug on Hayley’s heartstrings somehow.

“Who is it?” Hayley asked.

“The guy whose wife was brutally shot in a drive by a month ago. He needs your help Hayley.”

Hayley swallowed back any irritation she had when she heard whom she needed to help. Hayley knew that woman was a young mother of two, that it was a senseless act of gun violence committed completely by mistake.

“I’m going to check my books and let you know okay? I’m happy to help.”

Tara wrapped Hayley in a hug. “Thank you so much Hayley. Call me once you know.”

Hayley Oatfield began to make her way back to her safe and warm office in the main building of the hospital. She loved what she did, but her days down in the psychiatric unit never failed to spook her. Hayley mulled over what Tara had asked of her. It wasn’t a huge issue for Tara to refer people, so Hayley was confused as to why Tara was acting so strangely. Hayley didn’t want to take people without going through the system but she didn’t see it as a huge deal. Once Hayley arrived back at her office, her friendly secretary Lucy greeted her.

“Hey Luce, can I look over my bookings for the next couple weeks?” Hayley asked, swinging around the wooden desk so she could be behind it with Lucy.

Lucy nodded and pushed herself away from the computer so Hayley could use it. Hayley began to furiously type and scroll through her schedule and client books. It turned out that next week she had a cancellation right before Gemma’s session. It was perfect timing. Hayley exited all browsers before thanking Lucy and leaving the office. Hayley was pleased to be going home after a long day. Hayley headed towards her black sports car and unlocked the door. She took her place behind the steering wheel and started the engine. Slow synth pop began to play from the stereo as she pulled out of the hospital parking lot. She sang along to the music as she drove through the quiet streets of Charming. Hayley was always reminded of how pleased she was to be back in Charming when she made her commute home. She had grown up here for most of her young life until she moved to Chicago with her parents when she was sixteen. Hayley made the move back to Charming a few months ago, three years after acquiring her psychology license and garnering a reputation as one of the best psychologists in the USA. She received an offer for a residency in her hometown of Charming and she took it without hesitation. Hayley pulled into the driveway of her small one story house and locked up her car when she exited it. The small house with deep brown rendering was the one she grew up in. Her parents still leased it and gave it to her when she decided to move back to Charming. Hayley walked inside and was greeted by her large black Labrador that she affectionately named Buddy.

“Hey Buddy!” She smiled and ruffled his fur in her hands before walking into the kitchen.

Hayley fed Buddy his dinner in the kitchen and then headed toward the living room adjacent to the kitchen. She sat down on her couch and began to flip through channels on her large TV. It was quiet and peaceful and that’s how she liked it.

Hayley began to think about the person Tara referred to her. He was the husband of the woman caught in the crossfire of a suspected gang related crime. It was known that the woman was the wife of a member of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club and Hayley always had a suspicion that the Sons were involved in the murder. Hayley had to ignore that opinion if she was going to evaluate and help the suffering husband. Hayley began to think of how Tara knew the man well enough to risk asking Hayley to go behind the hospital system’s back. Tara didn’t even give Hayley the man’s name. Hayley’s mind began to race as she worried about Tara. Was she caught up in the Sons of Anarchy? Hayley wasn’t afraid of the club, but it was a motorcycle club and Hayley knew better than anyone how dangerous motorcycle clubs could be. Hayley tried to mute her overthinking and reached for her cell phone. She dialed Tara’s number and awaited her to pick up.

“Hey Hayley, I was waiting for your call.” Tara answered after the first ring.

“Sorry Tar, I got home and completely forgot to call you. I checked my bookings and there’s an opening right before Gemma’s session next Wednesday. Would that work?” Hayley explained.

“I’ll ask Gemma and let you know tonight okay?” Tara replied.

“That’s fine. Oh, and Tara? You never told me the guy’s name.”

“Oh! I’m sorry! His name is Harry Winston, but everyone calls him Opie.” Tara explained, a happy tone evident in her voice.

And with just the utterance of a name, Hayley felt a crack go right through the centre of her heart.

Tara felt so relieved once she got off the phone to Hayley. She felt as if the weight of Gemma’s request rolled off her shoulders. She could hear Jax’s bike roar into the drive and a wave of happiness crash over her. She loved having Jax to come home to every day, and his beautiful son Abel. It was a blessing to have the two men in her life to keep her grounded and focused. Jax and Tara were high school sweethearts with only eyes and hearts for each other. They were torn apart when they were nineteen when Tara had the opportunity to chase her dream of becoming a surgeon in Chicago, plus Tara was desperately trying to escape the Sons of Anarchy lifestyle; a lifestyle she now fully embraced. Tara waited patiently in the kitchen for Jax to walk inside and sweep her off her feet. No matter what, Jax would always make her feel giddy, as if she was walking on clouds.

“Honey, I’m home.” Jax called out with a laugh as he opened the front door.

He walked a few steps into the entryway and turned on his heel to the kitchen where he knew Tara would be waiting for him. Tara smiled when she saw him, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder. She embraced him tightly before planting a kiss on his lips. She pushed his blonde chin length hair behind his ear while she gazed into his eyes. A cheeky grin appeared on Jax’s face as he watched Tara.

“What are you thinking about babe?” He asked, squeezing the sides of her small frame.

Tara shook her head. “Nothing.”

Jax laughed. “You were thinking about me weren’t you?”

Tara felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “Maybe.”

Jax pressed in and kissed his girl more passionately, their bodies melting together as if they perfectly aligned. He pulled Tara onto the kitchen counter and fit perfectly between her legs. Tara’s hands roamed the back of Jax’s leather cut, feeling the rough embroidered Sons of Anarchy patch against her fingertips. She was still getting used to the lifestyle and all it entailed, but all that mattered was that she had Jax back. Suddenly, Abel’s cry began to resound all throughout the house. Jax pulled away and groaned.

“Why does this always happen?” Tara whined.

Jax laughed and began to walk off. “Welcome to parenthood babe.”

Once Jax was out of sight, Tara took out her cell phone and dialed Gemma.

“Hey Gem, it’s Tara. Doctor Oatfield got Opie in for a session. Should I tell him or should you?”

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