#no one take this too srs its mostly so if/when i finally watch everything i can reference how off my assumptions were

[sparring-spirals]

There is a universe in which i was caught up properly on CR whenever what the fuck went down and Imogen verbally and definitively declared that- after everything leading up to this and the back and forth and indecision- that she'd be willing to take down her mom if need be. and i would have been deeply insufferable and writing 20+ separate meta posts and liveblog yelling posts and shitposts. This is not that universe so instead we will put this post here where i can have wildly uninformed (aka 20 eps behind) Emotions about it until someday i actually catch up.

(I know. i accidentally wrote potentially wildly off base/deeply out of date meta again. what can i say. i like shaking the concept of An Imogen (even if it is Outdated Imogen) in a jar. sorry.)

Because i was watching long enough, I think, to see Imogen in the throes of the hope for something better, to understand that Imogen was viewing her mom was a figure and an idea and an answer, that would make things easier. Her mom was- gone, so early. And so her mom, in her mind, was not a person she was an idea, and there was so much hinged on that! Dogged determination and anger at her father and a deep seated dislike of the powers in her hands and head even as they gave her a guilty rush. There were promises there that maybe no one else had made, but Imogen believed. Things built up. Expectations made. Lore crafted, even unconsciously, around someone who was, yes, important to Imogen, but more importantly: Missing. Gone. A blank slate to be filled in. A promise of an answer guide to open questions.

And then she meets her mom, and Liliana Temult goes from a figure to a person- with all the bells and whistles and rough edges. She meets her mom and her mom turns her away. Tells her to run. Tells her she should go. Tells her to leave.

And Imogen doesn't. In the same way she kept visiting libraries, keps asking, kept pushing for answers when it was just about her magic and her headaches and the voices. Imogen always, always wants to know. She keeps digging, she keeps trying, she reaches out, over and over and keeps trying to touch this figure in mist until she's real under her hands, and. Evidence piles up- of deeds gone wrong, blood on her hands, a figure standing next to Otohan (her friends bodies scattered, lifeless, around Otohan). She keeps reaching out, keeps trying, and is rebuffed, over and over. Things get worse and the skies get redder and magic goes dead and she's still- unsure, because what if there's a better reason, what if there's a better way, there has to be a reason, why. There has to be, right- maybe if- maybe. Maybe-

Its just like- a person as an idea. As a symbol. As a promise. One you build yourself up around and towards. One you talk about, not talk to.

And then the fog clears, and they are a human.

(And she's your mom, and she's not what you imagined. She's done you wrong. She's done your loved ones wrong. She's hurt you. She's hurt others. She's going to keep hurting you. She is going to keep hurting everyone. She is too far gone to reason with. She is not listening to you. She is flawed. She is. dangerous. She looks so much like you. You look just like her. You are so similar. You have always known you were similar. You always hoped. You.

Are not her. You are not hers. She is not yours. She is not who you thought she was. She was always someone else. So are you.)

Imogen walks through the bases pretending to be her mother. Liliana is a known face- a powerful one, a figure people fear. A well known silhouette. Imogen slips into the shadows of it, sometimes, when it serves her, but we know- she knows- its all an act. All a lie.

Liliana, after all, is alive, and well, making choices that she believes in and fighting for things with a dogged determination maybe only matched by her daughter.

Imogen knows this. I think. There's a part of her that maybe wishes that wasn't the case.

"There is no loyalty with this blood." And after all- only living people bleed.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

You wrote your opinions on the Order of the Phoenix, what about the Death Eaters? That's another way of saying Lucius, Bellatrix, and anybody else. I honestly feel that we're running out of HP characters for you to write your opinion and reasoning about, so yeah~

We honestly are. When people start asking me questions about Harry’s nameless and faceless classmates I feel like we’re scraping the bottom of my barrel of Harry Potter opinions.

Though, that said, this is still a very large ask if you want me to analyze very Death Eater ever or even the Death Eaters as a whole (which is worthy of its own post).

So, we’ll compromise, and I’ll just look at the two you name dropped.

Lucius Malfoy

To me, Lucius is by far one of the more intelligent Death Eaters. He’s the guy who makes them almost look classy. I say almost, because Lucius is still a racist domestic terrorist and as the series goes on Tom gleefully drags him into being less classy by the minute (his house becomes a POW camp and housing for the dregs of society, Lucius just sobs, trying to be thankful he’s somehow still alive).

Lucius is rich, sophisticated, and is probably the most politically powerful man in the country. He has a beautiful wife he has... a son (sorry Draco, but you do not live up to your father) the guy has it all.

Which makes it very surprising that he got dragged into this mess. But you see, Lucius is paying for that tragedy we call youth.

Also, as a caveat, I’m about to headcanon hard and will not bother to get into the details of why I think x, y, or z in this post.

Ten years prior to the start of canon, Lucius is a very young man, probably very charismatic, certainly believes he’s intelligent and probably gets decent grades, but nonetheless the kind of stupid you see in men ages 15-25.

He’s likely chafing under his aging father’s strict guidance, knows he’s not going to be Lord Malfoy for years yet, wants to get out there, prove himself, and make a difference for his country. More importantly for Lucius, there’s this hip, exciting, new thing that all his cousins and friends are getting into called “The Death Eaters” (yes, I don’t believe the Knights of Walpurgis/Death Eaters 1.0 ever happened, I think it’s ridiculous that fandom and JKR does, I could go into why but not in this post). 

The Death Eaters are led by the single handedly most beautiful, charismatic, man in Britain. (Yes, I headcanon Tom’s still blindingly attractive at this stage, because it makes much more sense to me but we’re not getting into that here.) A mysterious man by the name of Voldemort, Salazar Slytherin’s long lost heir, who has come to resurrect the wizarding world’s true heritage and purge the land of the muggle stain. (Yes, I do believe that no one, not even Lucius who is later given the diary, knew who Tom really was. I believe Regulus’ had only the vaguest idea, informed mostly by Tom’s use of Kreacher to place the locket.) This is the most exciting thing to have ever happened, the rallies probably consist of rich kids drunk out of their minds and maybe even high on a little wizard cocaine, and Lucius is down for it precisely because his father says “Lucius, this is stupid, please don’t embarrass the family.” WELL LUCIUS IS GOING TO EMBARRASS THE FAMILY, DAD! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?!

And for a while, it looks like Lucius made the right choice. Things are happening, they’re actually going out and killing the mudbloods! Unlike Regulus, Lucius never has that “wait a minute” moment as he realizes that Voldemort’s actually far more efficiently eliminating pureblood families and sowing dissention in what was once a unanimous force among the Wizengamot (the other pureblood lords aren’t necessarily pro muggleborn, per se, but they get a bit queasy at the thought of blowing them up or Merlin forbid actually blowing up their own public venues wizards use). 

And then October 31st, 1981 happens, and it all comes crashing down. Lucius has to desperately lie his ass off, having only the flimsiest lie to rely on, has to hand out a shit ton of bribes, and manages to squeeze his way out of being imprisoned in Azkaban. 

I’m sure Abraxas looked at his son, with his tattoo on his arm that makes him another man’s slave, at the utter destruction of the Black family, and just shook his head going, “Clean up your mess, Dumbass Son”

And Lucius does to the best of his ability. While some will always suspect him of being a Death Eater, while some know it, he’s able to climb very high in influence in their ridiculously tiny community. Granted, I do think he messed up, and could never for example run for minister given everything (if Crouch can’t rerun then Lucius certainly can’t). He also shows us that in some ways he is not above the law, he’s very afraid his house will be searched without warrant in The Chamber of Secrets, and this is in part why he dumps Tom Riddle’s diary off onto Ginny.

However, he wields total control of the Prophet, has a seat on the Wizengamot, has the ear of the current Minister, is on the Hogwarts’ Board of Governors, and has his hands in pretty much every pie he can.

I imagine during this period Lucius grows up. He brushes the indiscretions of his youth under the carpet, gleefully leaving it all behind him, and the only real friend he maintains contact with from that period is Severus, the least zealot like of all of them. (Crabbe and Goyle Sr aren’t friends, they’re minions). 

Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a racist slime bag, and I don’t think he really regrets the domestic terrorism. He just regrets nearly getting caught and putting his entire family’s security on the line. He witnessed first hand what happened to the Blacks.

And then the worst thing happens: Tom Riddle rises from the dead. He rises, impossibly, from the dead when Lucius has his own hand caught in the cookie jar.

Lucius has been living a life of luxury and influence while his great master, the man he had pledged everything to, was dead. Worse, Lucius took what was described as a treasured item to be protected at all costs, and not only threw it away but sent it to Hogwarts where it caused massive havoc and was ultimately destroyed. 

And Lucius, I imagine, no longer wants to serve a master.

But he has no choice. And so begins Lucius’ descent into misery and hell as he’s given an increasing set of impossible, horrific, tasks in punishment that involve him watching as his wife and son are put through hell.

I believe Tom holds a special place in his cold, black, passive aggressive heart for Lucius Malfoy.

First, Tom makes Lucius’ house his headquarters. Oh, Lucius, you have a very nice, very large, estate? Why don’t you host your beloved, mad, cousin, her equally mad husband and brother-in-law? Oh, Bellatrix threatened to cut off your ear? Well, she’s just so passionate! 

Second, Lucius is told to go get the prophecy. Well, this is easier said than done. He nearly succeeds but then it all turns into the world’s largest clusterfuck that ends in two notable things. First, the prophecy is lost forever, shattered. Second, the government admits that Voldemort is truly resurrected. Both of these things are very bad in Tom’s book. And the blame can easily be put on Lucius’ head.

In response to this, Draco is now given an impossible task that Draco is too stupid to realize is designed to cause him (and his family) as much misery as possible. Draco is to assassinate Dumbledore. 

Likely, Tom was already informed by Snape that Dumbledore was dying. The blackened hand was too obvious a tell coming from too obvious a source for the pair to have hid it. I think trying to hide such information would have immediately blown Snape’s cover. So, Tom knows the man is dying, and doesn’t see fit to tell Draco this.

Instead, he tells Draco, “Kill Dumbledore as soon as possible or I deliver you to Fenrir Grayback.” Draco, however, is young and stupid, so he honestly thinks he is doing this to restore the family honor, earn glory for himself and for the cause, and is expected to do this entirely by himself. As a result, when Narcissa begs Snape to aid Draco, Draco blows them both off and only accepts help from Bellatrix because HE CAN DO THIS ON HIS OWN! DRACO IS A MAN.

This, of course, doesn’t work out either. Draco doesn’t deliver the killing blow, Snape does, but Tom decides to give him a pass.

Instead he moves on to his next plan which is making the Malfoy manor his torture chamber and POW camp. Even Draco, at this point, realizes this all kind of sucks. 

And then Voldemort finally dies a second time, and I’m sure Lucius just stares numbly at his malformed corpse, wondering if it will really take this time.

So that’s Lucius for you, paying always for his mistakes, and pretending he’s just as much of a nutcase as Bellatrix to fit in.

Bellatrix LeStrange

God, compared to the novel that is Lucius’ ridiculous life, I really don’t have much to say about her because I feel like there’s not much too her.

Bellatrix reminds me a lot of the Manson family, she gives off those same vibes. Point being, I think even before Azkaban (while Azkaban certainly didn’t help), she was insane and a little too worshipful of Voldemort.

I guess I can start there, I don’t think Bellamort is a thing, at all. 

Tom may have, probably did, have sex with her before he died but afterwards? In that body? Forget about it.

That said, I’m sure Bellatrix both wanted to have sex and is convinced she did have sex to produce whatever the hell Delphi even is. It just wasn’t with Tom, and probably was Rodolphous with a Halloween mask on his face as they got a little too into role play.

And there we go, I suppose, I can’t take Bellatrix seriously. You often see her portrayed as sexy femme fatale Death Eater, the most competent of all of them, if a bit of a sadist.

Oh she might be a very good duelist but she’s... Bellatrix.

She prances around in corsets, shrieking madly, and just what part of that is supposed to be femme fatale? I literally cannot take her seriously on any level. When I even try to write her seriously, in very serious stories, I end up with lines like the following:

"My lord, if there's anything you need… Anything from me, specifically, as a woman…" 

- Bright Eyes

That was my best attempt. That was the best I could come up with. It’s still something that belongs in a comedy.

So, I don’t think Tom really corrupted her. I think without Voldemort she still probably would have been blowing up Diagon Alley, just in a much less organized manner.

Even in canon she does ridiculous things. For example, Bellatrix, frankly, could have easily avoided prison.

For weeks after the dark lord fell neither she, her husband, Barty, nor her brother-in-law were arrested. Bellatrix in grief and utter disbelief that the dark lord could ever do something so mortal as die, said “remember that other house our lord mentioned, THEY MIGHT HAVE INFORMATION, LET’S GO MURDER THE LONGBOTTOMS!” They torture and kidnap Frank, demanding he tell them where their master is, THEY KNOW HE KNOWS. He doesn’t know. They go too far and torture the man into being a vegetable. “Shit, GET THE WIFE!” They go get the wife, do the same thing, with the same results.

They now have no information on the dark lord, two well regarded aurors tortured into brain damage, and are quickly caught and brought before the court with absolutely no “I was imperiused” excuse they can give out. 

How am I supposed to take her in any way seriously?

I mean, to end your life killed in a duel with Molly Weasley. That just says it all.

[one-boring-person]

Only Traitors Consort With The Damned (Part Eight)

The Lost Boys x reader

Warnings: mentions of death

Context: (y/n) has to stay entertained at the cave, and so goes about setting up defences.

A/N: I think this chapter is a bit dull, but I promise it gets better soon!

Masterlist

Unsurprisingly, no light filters into my room when I wake again the next morning, my eyes having to swiftly adjust to the shadowy sight before them as I sit up, rubbing at my scalp. A pounding headache has set in, thanks to the lack of sleep and the sheer amount of over thinking I did last night, my skull feeling as if it's about to explode as I swing my legs out from under the covers, knowing that I have even more planning and preparing to do if I want to survive long enough to see the end of the year. Stretching out the dull ache in my muscles, I check the watch on my wrist briefly to get an idea of the time: 4:23. Whether that is AM or PM, I have no idea yet, but I aim to find out, quickly grabbing my rucksack and jacket as I stand and leave the room, heading out into the main hall where the boys usually spend their nights.

Bright light streams in from the outside, indicating that it is 4:23 PM, illuminating the decrepit lobby in a new clarity I've not seen it in before, every piece of scattered rubbish given a new appearance. In the daylight, the whole place looks less sinister, and more like an abandoned antiques shop, the dusty bits and pieces casting odd shaped shadows onto the floor as the sunlight hits them from a certain angle, every dull colour suddenly highlighted more than usual. I have to blink a few times to allow my eyes to adjust, but they quickly do so, my gaze swiftly flicking around the looming room so that I can take it all in, a plan springing to my mind as I observe it all.

Silently, I get to work, dropping my bag on the fountain ledge and rummaging around in it, pulling everything out to lay it out in front of me so that I can properly see what I have. It's not much, but it's enough to satisfy what needs doing. Picking up the lightweight chains we are required to own, I grab some dirty old cans lying a little way away, the litter most likely the remains of a meal from sometime before, their rusted forms almost perfect for what I need them for.

Eyeing the brightly lit entrance, I take up a ball of string, too, and go over to it, stepping out onto the rickety walkway, examining the rugged wood with a critical eye as I walk out a little way, putting some weight in my step. Under each step, the wood moves slightly, the material having a light spring to it thanks to its age and exposure to the elements, which makes me frown slightly, hoping my plan will still work even though this is the case. Kneeling down, I measure out a length of string that runs the width of the walkway and use my knife to cut it to size. Setting it aside, I get to work on the chains, making six separate lengths with cans attached to them, each one of them rattling loudly as I shake them out experimentally. Smiling to myself, I connect one chain to the end of the piece if string, doubling it over itself for a better result, quickly doing the same on the other end of the string, weighting it down perfectly. I find a pair of small rocks lodged into the cliffside beside me and place them at opposing ends of the walkway, but not before I've scraped a small groove into their surfaces, where the string rests once I've set it up, hanging the chains over the sides of the walkway. The string sits an inch or so above the surface of the walkway, meaning it is easily tripped over, setting off the rudimentary alarm.

I repeat this twice more, leaving them at alternating distances from each other to provide a crude trap to alert anyone inside the cave of approaching intruders: when someone trips the string, the cans and chains will rattle loudly, signifying their approach. Absentmindedly, I hear a small voice in my head telling me that any SRS soldiers will be expecting this, and won't fall for such an amateur trap, quickly deciding that I need to work on something inside the cave, too, something more hidden.

Going back inside, I wipe some sweat from my upper lip, surprised at the heat of the day despite it being mid-October, my clothes sticking to me as I go back to my rucksack, trying to figure something else out. My eyes are quickly drawn to the grenades I have left. They won't work very well on humans, but the loud noise and subsequent explosion of mist will throw anyone off if caught up in it, meaning they are somewhat effective for this purpose.

Grabbing them, I take the string again and go to the entrance, making sure to set up two of the conveniently placed barrels of charcoal the boys use as braziers, setting them up a little way apart around the front of the cave. Going a little way ahead of them again, I place a seemingly random cardboard box face down on the floor, checking the layout once more, before measuring pieces of string again. Cutting them all to size, I tie one end of each of the length to the ring of a grenade, which I carefully loosen, hiding the two explosives under the cardboard box as I loop the string around the two barrels, pulling it tightly enough that it creates another tripwire across the entrance.

Sitting back, I look at my handiwork, noting that the string isn't too obvious and that the overall look isn't too bad. Cautiously, I pull the string taut again, knowing how tense it needs to be for this trap to actually work. Aware that this is now a near-fatal hazard for the four original residents of the cave, I make a mental note to warn them of the new trap before one of them accidentally trips it and gets a face-full of burning holy water.

Sighing, I go back to my rucksack and pick up the gun, checking the clip for rounds, annoyed to find it only about half-full, most of them having been used over the last few days, meaning it needs reloading. I check over the rest if my stuff, growling when I realise that I haven't got anymore bullets with me, leaving me with a pretty much useless weapon which will need reloading very quickly. Setting it down again, I quickly make a decision, going back out into the daylight and up to the cliff top, where I grab some of the random pieces of driftwood lying around, returning to the cave with an armfull of them. Tiredly, I drop them to the floor and sit down, pull in out my knife so I can start whittling them down - a skill every Hunter is taught is how to make wooden bullets, seeing as they are effective against both supernatural and natural creatures.

A small pile of bullets has steadily grown by the time the boys finally emerge from their sleep, the last rays of sunlight having dissipated an hour or so ago, my fingers sore from scratching the knife over the dry wood for so long, though it has paid off: I have enough to fill four or five clips, now. As they enter the room, I look up at them with a tired smile, glad to have some company now.

"Hey guys. Sleep well?" I greet them, waving slightly with the knife, my tone light despite the tension in my body.

"Mostly, yeah." Marko responds, coming over to me with the others, their brows furrowed as they see what I'm doing.

"What're you up to?" Dwayne questions, eyeing the bullets apprehensively.

"Making some more rounds for my gun. I didn't bring enough ammo, so I'm making my own." I explain, gesturing to the pile dismissively.

"Out of wood?" Paul interjects, looking genuinely curious.

"Yep. It's the only available material."

"That's...kinda cool, but also pretty worrying." The blonde vampire muses, dropping down beside me as he goes to pick one up.

"I'm not planning to use them in you guys, don't worry." I reassure them, rolling my eyes.

"Why do you need so many?" David asks, blue eyes appearing much darker in this light.

I shrug casually, finishing up the one I'm currently working on.

"In case the SRS comes knocking. Speaking of which, I've set up some traps by the entrance, so just be careful of them." I make eye contact with David, "One of them will be very painful if it's tripped."

He frowns a little, but nods in any case.

"Duly noted." The vampire licks his lips carefully, "I'm hungry, so I'm gonna head out and get something to eat. You boys coming?"

Marko and Paul eagerly agree, though Dwayne politely declines.

"I think it's a good idea if someone stays here with (Y/n), and I'm not that hungry so I'm happy to do that." The dark haired vampire explains, watching me for a reaction as I give him a confused look, surprised at the offer.

"You don't need to, Dwayne. I'm grateful for the offer, but I don't want to ruin your night..." I start, only to be cut off by him sitting down beside me.

"Don't worry about it, I'd rather stay here. Plus, maybe you can show me how to do that. It'd get the job done quicker with two people doing it."

"I guess. Thank you." I murmur, still surprised, trying to ignore the blush rising to my cheeks.

"No problem."

"Right, well, we'll be back in a few hours. Want us to bring you something back, Dwayne?" David cuts in, eyeing the two of us carefully.

"No, it's alright. I'll go out when you guys get back."

"Ok. See you two later." Without another word, the three vampires leave the room, the surrounding quickly lapsing into silence as Dwayne and I sit there.

"So, how do you carve these?" He finally asks, pulling a knife from the pocket of his jacket, his thumb running swiftly over the blade to test it's sharpness.

"Oh, it's pretty easy. Just copy me..." I run through the basic premise of what needs doing, the vampire easily picking it up, the two of us starting to produce a good amount of them between us.

Part Nine

[rigelmejo]

listening reading method updates

Some updates because I’ve done Listening Reading Method maybe 10-15 hours within the past week and wow is it worth doing (for me) if done properly:

First some notes of what “properly” means for me: It means I’ve done step 2 at some point (since I’m using all books I have at least vague prior context for whether its this past year or in life I’ve seen them before). It means I do step 2 first. Then I do step 3, with parallel text so I keep my place OR do it in Pleco (doing step 3 in Pleco is strangely super effective for me).

So, I’ve been testing my general listening comprehension. How I’ve tested it: listening to some audio file of a chapter I did with L R method, and see if I can understand it better. So no text aid. Also generally some time gap (at least a few days) between when I did L R, and when I listen to test my comprehension.

Limits of test: this is not new material - I have both prior context of the plot, and doing L R method on the material before means I have intensively studied that audio material with L R method at one point. I’m trying to find some ‘totally unknown’ stuff to test with too we’ll see.

Benefits of the test: its easy to compare my progress, because I’ve listened to these audios many times so I know where my ‘comprehension’ of them was at a few months ago. I can more easily compare.

---

So anyway, has L R Method helped listening comprehension? YES god oh my god. 

I listened to Chapter 9 of Guardian’s audiobook just falling asleep, because I didn’t feel like full on L R Method the chapter (I have done Listening Reading Method for chapters 1-8). I could understand enough to follow the entire main plot and all the main scenes - a few descriptive sentences lost me, but I got all the action-related (touched reached stood cried shouted left side pocket held objects movement and set phrases priest uses for certain expressions), key emotion related (like sad cold warm kind sharp worried investigated pushed shivered and set phrases I remember priest using for certain expressions) details, and got all of the main dialogue (this part context helps for though since words like reincarnation and sundial are fairly new to me and I only understand since I already ran into them in previous chapters I’ve done L R Method with). 

I was freaking FLOORED I could just listen and enjoy the story, so today I listened to chapter 1 again. And YEP - same thing applied. I could follow all of the main plot, main scenes, and certain details. I totally missed the part where he talks about his aunt/uncle but I heard his bad grades, got the letter for a job notice, how he hates phone calls, his plan to go, him getting to the place, what the place looked like and Wang Zheng and all the scenes at the job - so like I mentioned, actions/emotions/real objects being interacted with I can mostly follow. The paragraphs of description background (like Guo Changcheng’s upbringing and how his uncle got him a job) are harder for me to catch everything - I am guessing because there’s more description phrases and less straightforward action=response. (For example - xiao guo sees Lao Wu, they respond, so its easy to follow, or he sees Wang Zheng and faints, or he walks into the courtyard and reads the address - all of these moments directly focus on things and react which is easier to follow). 

For the first time I can say I can listen to just the audiobook and follow it enough to enjoy the plot and what’s mainly going on without any text aid. And I’ve only done the listening reading method for 8 chapters! That’s 40-50 minutes a chapter, around 360 minutes or 6 hours. 6 hours spent Listening Reading Method Guardian, and I already see a huge boost in what I can comprehend in listening! (I also did some random L R method chapters of other stuff so add 1-2 hours - that’s still like 8 hours total... that ain’t much). 

Last time I listened to guardian audiobook without any text aid (a few months ago), I could hear some words I knew and some phrases, and had a vague understanding of when he got to the job (heard courtyard and si ming hao), met Lao Wu (i heard him report for duty), when he talked to zhao yunlan and got generally welcomed, met Wang Zheng and thought ‘he has no feet’ and got scared. No fucking details. The vaguest impression of the main plot mainly because I’ve read the chapter before and knew the scenes coming. But that was still eons better than Before That - around 6 months ago i listened to chapter 1 like 5 times until i could hear some phrases instead of just isolated words. 

This time, I could follow things because I could HEAR what was actually going on, not just because I heard some keywords. I could clearly hear the details about Guo Changcheng entering the courtyard, reading the address and special investigations name, go up to Lao Wu and report in and Lao Wu greet him warmly and excitedly mention how lucky it is he came today that their boss is there! And fawn over how cool the boss is, and all the specifics of the convo with Zhao Yunlan (and half of his appearance like how he’s handsome and heroic looking and had a hand in his pocket and seemed cold until he noticed them and smiled and acted warm and friendly). And all the scenes were like that - like with Wang Zheng I could hear all the details of Guo Changcheng freaking out, eventually noticing her head had been cut and it wasn’t a necklace it was like sewn on and how he passed out. It was soooo much better ToT. The amount of comprehension is sooooo much higher than the last time I tried to listen! It shocks me how much better! This is enough comprehension to actually listen and just enjoy it. ToT

So yeah, I’d say Listening Reading Method, as I’m doing it right now, is making noticeable improvements in my reading skill and listening skill. 

So yeah I’m super curious how listening comprehension is gonna be 20 chapters into Listening Reading Method. 

What I do think this would be good for, if you were studying short term? If you wanted to understand a specific audiobook - doing L R Method with the book until you can listen to the rest. It would probably take a short enough amount of study to do within a month if you already have some skills in the language (since this is with 6-8 hours of study). I saw someone once do SRS Flashcard study based on a show they liked in a foreign language, and within a month they could watch that show they liked without english subs and follow the main plot. I think L R Method with a novel works kind of similar - its intensive study on one story. So within a reasonably short amount of time (10-50 hours maybe, something that can be done within a month) you can get enough comprehension skill of that One story to understand it ok. 

I imagine you need to do L R Method longer, and with either a word dense material (lots of varied vocab) or else multiple stories (ideally different authors and genres), in order to get broader listening skill improvement. Like right now my listening skill in general seems to have improved somewhat... but its more like ‘listening to a show without subs’ is now easier. Not like I can turn on a brand new audiobook and follow it this well. So some slightly easier listening activity is now easier, but for other audiobooks I am probably comprehending more but the listening skill improvement is NOT as drastic as it is specifically with Guardian. 

Testing listening comprehension with materials I have not L R Method with:

Alice in Wonderland (story is shorter/simpler than novel): I can follow it mostly when listening only. I can follow it near entirely (know exactly what’s going on just a few words I don’t recognize) if I’m looking at the video (since it has pictures for context - like watching a show). My listening comprehension drops noticeably if I do NOT look at the video visuals for an aid - since I am used to Alice in Wonderland hitting the original novel beats, not this shorter movie-based version. This level of comprehension makes sense, as its written simpler than Guardian so I should have an easier time following details in this. But lack of context means I have to put more effort into figuring out what scene is what if I don’t have any visual cues. So easier ‘written’ audiobook material is much more comprehensible now (easier than Guardian even since I know most words), but I still need context like an image or prior awareness of the overall plot or else I need to pay more careful attention to follow everything: https://youtu.be/HqCg5y8Nwhg

Sherlock Holmes 血字的研究: Some benefit just like Alice in Wonderland in that I have broad context (I know Watson and Sherlock live and work together to solve issues, Watson is a verteran and doctor). First 5 minutes I can vaguely tell its probably Watson narrating, that he lives in London, that before he might have been injured (I heard bing like sick or?) - I’m truly not sure what happened, and now after 5 minutes I heard ‘great friend’ and ‘touched shoulder’ and ‘gaoxing’ so happy. So I’m guessing Sherlock and Watson are interacting now. What improvement in my listening comprehension I can Notice - is that words stick out, phrases, and sentence structures (like finally, since, therefore, actions). So I feel if I paused I might be able to look up some words I notice but can’t understand, to follow along better. As the 2 of them have their conversation I can catch SOME details and I could probably follow what’s going on IF I had some prior context (like what the general case is about). But I only hear - its a pity, what happened last night, poor lad, fangzi, destination. So i’m not sure if someone died or was hurt or what happened the other night?? But again, conversations seem to be the easiest part to follow. For this particular audiobook I almost feel like if I just kept consistently listening or re-listening, I could understand more... like I probably know more words than I’m catching, but since my brain’s working on trying to catch the main gist plot right now its not grasping any details I might otherwise be able to notice. No prior context of plot, no image - hard lol. Unlike guardian, I cannot follow most of it. But I can catch bits of each scene, most clear are the dialogue parts (but cause I have no surrounding contexts I’m still pretty lost). Also the clear action parts are easier to follow (he spoke, moved, reacted to something). Mostly the lack of context is what’s making me struggle. In the descriptions I hear a lot phrases and words I recognize, but I’m struggling to comprehend them together. Unfortunately context is mostly in the description parts I can’t figure out lol. https://youtu.be/J1sbP6_3680

I suspect an audio DRAMA might be a little easier now. Since they’re mostly dialogue, and dialogue seems to be what I’m finding the most improvement in (from very vague to some of the clearest comprehended parts). I listened to tian ya ke audiodrama a few days ago and it was doable to follow along with - but that was before more Listening Reading Method, and of course my prior context (having seen the show/read part of the novel) means it was muchhhh easier to follow cause I had enough context to guess which scene each moment was supposed to be - so I didn’t have to figure out overall context, just details. 

[pengychan]

A while ago you mentioned you had an idea for a HP fic where Riddle Sr. escaped from Merope with baby Tom. I was really intrigued with the story because I’ve always thought that Riddle Sr was unfairly considered a bad guy due leaving her and his child, but he was basically a victim of the most powerful date rape drug in existence so he had every right to escape. What kind of father did you think he’d be if he had raised his wizard son?

Oh yeah, Tom Riddle Sr. got a lot of shit for being… basically a rape victim? I get the pity for Merope, I pity her as well (she was so deeply damaged by her upbringing and never got a chance to learn what love is really about), but that in no way changes the fact what she did to Tom Sr. was terrible. And I really don’t like how it’s framed, with even Dumbledore going on about how he abandoned Merope as opposed to running away from a forced relationship after the effects of a magical drug wore off. Even the narration goes out of its way to remark on the fact he was an Unpleasant Stuck-up Guy, as though being an unpleasant stuck-up rich kid (he was like 20, he was young) somehow means you deserve to be basically robbed of your free will, taken from home and be magically coerced into a relationship. 

… Okay rant over sorry on to the story idea.

Basically my idea was that Merope would only wean Tom Sr. off the love potion after their child was born, hoping as per canon that he would be in love with her regardless. Of course he wasn’t, and of course he was absolutely horrified when she admitted what she’d done and how. Horrified enough to kill her out of anger and fear she might bewitch him again (with her too stunned and pained to react with any magic). As I said, I pity her, but let’s be honest - to Tom, she was a terrifying being who had enslaved him and could do it again if he allowed it.

Anyway, he’s now left with a dead body and a baby. He gets rid of the dead body somehow, and almost smothers the baby because what if it’s like its mother, but Tom Jr. starts wailing when he looks down in his crib (unusual, that, he was usually a very quiet baby) aaaaand no, he can’t do it. So he takes the baby, and gets to the nearest station. The plan is to hand the baby over to a bobby claiming he found him in a rubbish bin or something before hopping on the first train home. Only that he… doesn’t. He can’t. And so he gets home, trying to explain he was somehow bewitched (he is fully aware no one would believe the full story about a love potion, I mean, come on) and with a baby in tow, claiming Merope left him and the baby and he has no idea where she is now (the bottom of the Thames, probably) and anyway, he’d really like his old life back. 

And the return home… sucks. A lot. His parents don’t believe him being bewitched for a second, of course, and are furious at him. His fiancee, well, she wants to hear no more of him since he just up and left her to elope with the crazy gal. The village as a whole is having a laugh at his expenses. His parents full-on pressing for him to give the baby up for adoption or something aren’t helping, but at this point Tom Sr. is so angry with his lot in life, he decides to keep the child mostly out of spite. He lost nearly everything, his reputation and the woman he wanted to marry, but this child? He’s his. He’s keeping him. His parents can swallow their dentures. Not that he’s going to look after him much, they can hire a nanny to do it and that’s exactly what happens.  

But time passes and the baby grows, and to everyone’s relief he looks nothing like his mother, or anyone from that weird family. He looks like his father and he seems so normal, and little by little, his grandparents are won over. He becomes the apple of their eye, and of course they set upon spoiling him. The boy wants a pony to learn how to ride? Then by God, the boy is getting the damn pony, and new clothes, and just about anything he asks for. What Tom Jr wants, Tom Jr gets. He leads a sheltered life in the manor, his every whim satisfied.

And soon enough he wants to spend more time with his father, who has become increasingly withdrawn and spends a lot of time having long horse rides across the countryside, though never anywhere near the shack where she used to live. And little by little he lets him. He’s still guarded, anxiously waits to see if his son does anything strange, but he does not. There is a certain distance between them, and Tom’s mother is a subject to never bring up, but they… get along well. Tom Sr becomes more interested in what his son is up to, and he does give him whatever he wants because why not, that’s how he was raised, too. And the kid loves his life as it is, the spoiled only child in a big mansion with rich grandparents, long horse rides with his father, and not a care in the world. His mother? Why would he care to know who she was?

Until of course something happens. During one of their rides, they are ambushed by a raving Morfin Gaunt, who spooks the horses, makes Tom Sr fall off it, and tries to hex him - only to be thrown back by a sudden explosion of uncontrolled magic by Tom who is, understandably, kinda angry at this guy who went and threatened them. Morfin becomes unable to breathe and Tom almost, almost kills him before his father grabs him and snaps out of it and takes him away, back home, leaving Morfin to gasp. 

Suddenly Tom Sr finds himself with weirdly dressed men in his living room, his parents’ memories being erased, and his child chasing around a moving chocolate frog while this Dumbledore fellow talks nonsense about a school of magic what the hell is going on.

What is going on is that this is basically his nightmare, his son is like his mother and will apparently go be educated among other people like his mother whether Tom Sr wants it or not. And ten years earlier, the day he broke free, he would have smothered the boy in the crib if he’s known that - but then was then and now is now, this is his son, and he wants him safe. It takes a long time to convince him Tom Jr will be fine learning magic, that everyone else will think he’s going to a really fancy boarding school, and he’ll be back every Christmas and summer, but he finally relents. 

Of course Tom Jr is enthusiastic, a ten year old kid who was just told he’s gonna learn MAGIC, who wouldn’t be? It takes some effort for him not to blurt out too much in the presence of his grandparents. This is gonna be great, he thinks, and oh boy is he wrong. He is sorted in Slytherin, and he finds out at his expenses that being Muggleborn (of course he thinks his mother was a muggle, too, his father surely would have told him if his mother was a witch?) is looked down to. He goes from being a spoiled rich kid to being an easy target, the kind other classmates turn their nose up to. He tries the Draco Malfoy “when my father hears of this” talk, only to be laughed at because literally nobody fears or respects a muggle. You could say it’s one hell of a culture shock. 

And he hates it. A lot. He loves learning magic, but he hates the way he’s treated and how his family is looked down to. Even once his achievements earn him some respect, he still hates it. So he looks forward to vacations at home, when he can be the spoiled rich boy again and spend time with his father - who knows all that well what it is like to be a pariah over something you had no control over. He almost tells him about his mother, but he can’t bring himself to. Instead he uses that time to teach him about Muggle things, about science and mathematics and literature and muggle history, a whole wealth of knowledge wizards discard but oh are they wrong to do it. The older Tom grows, the closer they get. People seeing them side by side could almost think they’re brothers. 

Little by little, Tom becomes certain that Purebloods are deluded - it’s Muggleborns like him that really the best, because they have access to the knowledge of both worlds. And he eventually guesses, as he grows - as he hears whispers about his parents’ eloping - that his mother perhaps was a witch; he can guess what she did. But at this point he doesn’t care, and never bothers to look into her lineage. He’s Tom Riddle, he’s son of a muggle, and he’s going to show everyone what he can do. Instead of throwing away his father’s name to embrace his mother’s legacy, he throws away hers to remain his father’s son. 

And… that’s the long and the short of it. I would need to check my notes to see what was meant to happen at this point, but I think Grindelwald’s war was involved, with Tom taking the opposite side because oh no, he’s not going to trample Muggles underfoot, no sir, not on his watch. All while his father knows vaguely what is going on, and is worried for his son, the way parents are, as Tom tells him and his grandparents to move for their safety. At some point, Tom Sr would have probably told him the whole truth about what his mother did to him and how she ended up. 

I don’t remember if they all made it through to see the end of 1945 - I think I had Tom Sr and Morfin Gaunt dying in the same incident, and Tom visiting the Gaunt shack afterwards to set it on fire, letting it burn with Salazar’s locket inside while he rode back to Riddle Manor, but I’m not 100% sure.

… I was pretty close to making this my NaNo project a few years ago, really. I kinda wish I had gone for it, but oh well. XD

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

Frankenstein: Facets of Filmmaking

Universal Studio’s history with horror was a long one.

The studio’s amazing run with the ‘children of the night’ began in 1923, with the silent movie hit The Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Lon Chaney Sr. (Father of the future Wolf-Man, Lon Chaney Jr.).  The film was a massive success, making $3 million (it sounds like nothing now, but it’d be the equivalent of around $43 million today).  Universal had struck gold, and continued the streak with other hits like The Phantom of the Opera and The Last Performance throughout the rest of the 1920s.

Then, in 1931, their biggest hit yet, Dracula, came to theaters, and audiences went nuts.  Within 2 days, the movie had sold 50,000 tickets, making $700,000, the hugest movie of the year.  Immediately after, the head of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., made the decision to make more horror films.  He gave the job of a new horror film, Frankenstein, to French-born director Robert Florey, and awaited their next big hit.

Following the success of Dracula, it only made sense to try to wrangle their big star, Bela Lugosi, for the film.  Lugosi was willing to play the role of the mad-scientist, Dr. Henry Frankenstein, but Laemmle Jr. wanted him to play the monster, instead.  After multiple make-up tests that weren’t working, Lugosi left the project.

At this point, the ‘monster’ was not the empathetic creature we know he is now.  Script changes by director Robert Florey had transformed the character into a killing machine, without the element of sympathy or humanity that Karloff would later be able to portray.  Fortunately, this aspect of the monster changed about the same time as the director did.

Shortly into pre-production, Florey was taken off the project, (only two of ‘his’ scenes are in the final product: the burning windmill scene is one) and was replaced with highly acclaimed director, James Whale, two weeks before shooting was to begin.  It was here that the project truly began to take shape as the movie we know today.

Whale, fresh off the boat from England, had been given his pick of any projects that Universal had going, and he found himself immediately attracted to the story of Frankenstein.  Upon taking control of the project, Whale revised the script, and added in the elements of pathos, of humanity, that is central to the character of the monster.

The script of Frankenstein was actually a complicated thing.  Much like the monster himself, it took a lot of mismatched efforts for the final product to become realized.

Although the story is based, pretty clearly, on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, that’s obviously not where the script started and ended.  Lots of liberties were taken, to the point where the story is directly inspired by, but everything from the monster’s appearance to the existence of Fritz is the result of creative license: in other words, not in the original novel.

But there was more to the foundation of the script for Frankenstein than the original novel.

Frankenstein’s script took many nods from a stage adaptation written by Peggy Webling in 1927, in which the monster is mute and the mad scientist has an assistant.  Although it was closer to the finished product than the original novel, the script wasn’t a simple copy-paste of the stage-play.  There was still work to be done.

Universal called in John L. Balderston, a screenwriter who had already patched up the script of Dracula, to tighten the bolts on Frankenstein.  He was joined by fellow screenwriters

Garrett Fort and Francis Edward Farragoh, and after a bit of tinkering, the trio came up with a script that was still more sympathetic to the monster than even Webling’s play.  For example, in the play, Fritz scaring the monster with fire is an accident, in the film, it is an active act of cruelty.

But still other changes needed to be made, even after the movie’s script was finished.

The original ending for the film was considerably different to the finished version, and actually had much more in common with the stage play: Frankenstein was to die in the mill with his monster, and then Elizabeth ends up marrying Frankenstein’s friend, Victor  (Originally Henry in the novel).  Test audiences didn’t like this ending, and so the script was rewritten so that Henry survives, and he and Elizabeth live happily (?) ever after.

Once the script was all worked out, they needed a cast to bring this story to life.  Thankfully, James Whale found his monster figure in the best possible choice: established English actor, Boris Karloff.

Karloff had been in several films for decades, working in the movie industry long before sound hit.  He was in his forties when Frankenstein came into production, and a relative unknown, but it turned out, he was the perfect fit for the monster.  Having spotted Karloff in the Universal commissary, James Whale sent him a note, offering a screen-test.  Karloff leapt at the chance to play the monster, although later he would joke about being offended to be considered for a horrifically ugly character, considering that he was wearing his best suit at the time.

With the monster discovered, the rest of the cast fell into place, British actor Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein, and Universal favorite Mae Clarke as Elizabeth Lavenza.  Also in the cast were several actors who would become familiar household names to horror fans: Dwight Frye, (Fritz) had previously appeared in Dracula as Renfield, and he would appear in The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein, and other Universal horror classics.  Edward Van Sloan, who plays Dr. Waldman in the film, like Frye, had appeared in Dracula, and would go on to appear in The Mummy.

With the cast now assembled, all that was left was to begin making the film itself, starting with one of the most important elements of any monster movie: the monster itself.

The makeup job that the brilliant Jack Pierce did on Boris Karloff to turn him into the monster took nearly four hours to apply, and the overall costume weighed 48 pounds total.  The effect was accomplished by Pierce’s creation of a square skull, and the painting of Karloff’s face in a blue-green tone, in order to appear white on camera.  Pierce also came up with the idea to put the electrodes in the monster’s neck, finishing off the monster’s iconic look.

Some of the look, however, was Karloff’s idea.  Said Karloff:

“We found the eyes were too bright, seemed too understanding, when dumb bewilderment was so essential. So I waxed my eyes to make them heavy, half-seeing.”

The effect was immediately striking, as was Karloff’s other idea: removing his bridgework in his teeth in order to hollow his cheeks, giving the monster a gaunt look that showed up brilliantly in the final product.

Although the entire costume looked excellent on film, it wasn’t easy to wear.  Boris Karloff’s memories of the makeup chair were less than glowing:

“I spent three-and-a-half hours in the make-up chair getting ready for the day’s work. The make-up itself was quite painful, particularly the putty on my eyes. There were days when I thought I would never be able to hold out until the end of the day.”

The makeup wasn’t all there was to it, however.  Karloff wore a suit that was too small, allowing the monster to seem truly oversized, and wore platform boots that each weighed thirteen pounds, contributing to the monster’s slow, heavy walk.  

But there was more to the effects of Frankenstein than just the monster’s makeup.

The electricity effects of the ‘mad scientist’ lab were created by Kenneth Strickfaden, which were so instantly iconic and successful that they became essential to every Universal Frankenstein film made since.  (Strickfaden managed to obtain one of the Tesla Coils invented by Nikola Tesla to use in the film, another interesting part of the set.)  These sets and props became so iconic that they would later be used in Mel Brooks’ parody, Young Frankenstein, and some of the props survive even today.

Once the movie finished shooting (5 days late), all that was left was to send it into circulation in theaters, and while the film was successful, (the highest grossing film of 1931) some changes had to be made, according to the censors.

The state censorship boards in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York felt that the scene in which the monster accidentally drowns the girl, Maria, was too upsetting, and cut the second half of the scene before it hit theaters.  (Unfortunately, without this information, the implication of the monster’s actions is far worse than had the scene been shown in full.)  Also cut was Dr. Frankenstein’s blasphemous bragging after raising the monster.  Notably, Kansas’s initial request was to cut thirty two scenes, which would have shortened the film to half its original runtime.  Thankfully, they reconsidered, and an edited version (though not to that extent) was released in the state of Kansas, mostly the same film as released elsewhere.

After the film hit theaters, reception was wild.  Frankenstein immediately topped the already-successful Dracula in both financial and critical ways, finding acclaim among many critics, many lauding it for its technological achievements, as well as its chilling and fascinating story.

In that way, little has changed regarding Frankenstein.

To this day, Frankenstein is a cultural giant, the grandfather of the modern horror film.  It sits in the United States National Film Registry, is counted as one of the greatest films of all time, and is regularly mentioned on lists of films to see ‘before you die’, and with good reason.

In 1931, Frankenstein changed everything, making horror mainstream and telling a story that was just as frightening as it was thought-provoking, and the years have not changed that.  Nearly ninety years later, Frankenstein, although it might not be as ‘scary’ as it used to be, remains just as thought-provoking, and just as important as the films made and watched today.

Join us next time for our final look and personal thoughts on Frankenstein, where we’ll be wrapping our discussion up on this movie.  Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you in the next article.

[mgrgfan]

Past of the future, future of the past...

Chapter 6. On the brink. "Do you think it's time already?" the Empress asked her husband. "I do," replied the Emperor, who has arrived to the palace via his own supersonic tiltjet not even ten minutes ago. "Look, dear, with this machine in orbit, we can declare pretty much whatever we want." "I don't really think so… but yeah, this allows us for much more freedom. Okay, tuning up to Nation's comm." The Empress opened the communications app on her computer and initiated call to her delegates, which were supposed to participate in talks with Pokemon Nation. Right now, one of the primary priorities will be what to deal with the corpse of Rayquaza - a pretty big radiological hazard... ---- "We're the guardians of heavens / Protectors of the skies / We'll fulfill our duties / We've been born to fly…" the pilot was quietly singing, to, surprisingly, no annoyance of the rest of the crew in the CIC. "About that - it's about time we rotate the shifts. The first shift will take the stations in a few minutes." said the XO. "Aye-aye," replied the rest of the officers. When the first shift came back, the rotation went without problems… but the captain was slightly unnerved by the contents of the transmission, which came to the ship in the meantime. Apparently, there was a possibility, that they'll have to deploy the retro-missiles today… ---- In the Meteor Village, things weren't easy. Right now, Damien and Elder were talking. Even though the head of the man was still somewhat aching, he could work through it. Because of how the Rayquaza was brought dead by the sorisian space warfare ship, the prophecy was rendered nil, and the sheer radioactiveness of the corpse of the Sky High Pokemon made any attempts to recover it equal to the suicide. And, as if to humiliate them even further, right now, there was an announcement on TV about how Soris Empire sent their giant nuclear-powered dirigible to recover the remains of Rayquaza for burial in the radioactive waste storage facility, as well as quite a few government agents, sent to oversee the extraction and make sure, that everything will go smooth. Even though most of the Draconids were against it, Damien has managed to convince the Elder that it was still the best thing to do, since sorisians, given their proficiency with nuclear tech, must have a great experience with decontamination too. Several especially head-strong Draconids, who decided to not listen to his words, got to look at Rayquaza's corpse and got radiation poisoning, only made the talks with Elder easier.. Of course, it was not normal for Draconid to be like this… but Damien was not a normal Draconid. Besides, having a girlfriend, who was a nuclear physicist and, as he recently learned, was involved in Castelia Project, helped to understand full ramifications of nuclear technology involved major time. The only thing Damien was really worried about was how, thanks to the actions of Soris Empire, now there wasn't anyone to stop the Groudon and Kyogre, should the awaken and rage again... ---- Not too far away from Zemlino, the giant launch assist sled track was, after many years of disuse since the pause of the "WHITEBIRD" project, finally repaired and prepared to be used once again. The hypersonic spaceplane for it - the "Dreamwing" - was already loaded with everything and almost refueled with liquid hydrogen and oxygen, awaiting the load on the sled and launch. This machine, unlike the Space Shuttle of the Pokemon Nation or Project 21A Space Ferry, was long, sleek and even somewhat ominous, resembling unovan SR-71 strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It had two short, somewhat angular vertical stabilizers near the the tail, alongside with two similar horizontal stabilizers. However, the most unusual thing about this human creation were three long, boxy engines, suspended beneath the fuselage. The engines of the spaceplane were hybrids between usual scramjets and pure rocket engines. They've needed the spaceplane to be pre-accelerated to more than 1320 km/h before they could be started, but once they were up and running, they would accelerate the spaceplane to more than 7 times the speed of sound and get it to the edge of atmosphere, where it'll switch to internal oxygen supply and finish the orbital insertion. As big as this spaceplane was, there wasn't too much place for payload bay, crew cabin or like this - the machine mostly consisted of giant fuel tanks for the liquid hydrogen, because such was a price of being an SSTO. Because of this, the crew was forced to live in conditions somewhat harsher, than aboard the 12-meter LRV, though they didn't really mind it too much. ---- "Your Majesty, the "Dreamwing" is fully loaded and installed on the launch assist sled. T-1 hour and counting," said one of the technicians in Zemlino. "The "Red Explorer" is ready to receive the cargo," continued the other one. "Wonderful, just wonderful…" the Emperor replied to them via videolink, looking beyond merely pleased with how events were unfolding. "Notify me of any anomalies or mishaps. I'm sure our guys up there'll like this little present…" ---- "Vanya, please, can you explain to me - what's up with all those launches in such a short time?" Empress Svetlana asked her husband. "First - we need to make sure, that our big ship is supplied with everything they need, and there wasn't really too much of a place on the "Water Dragon" to cram everything we needed. Second - we need to get our launch infrastructure up and running again, if we want to continue to hold our advantage in space over the Pokemon Nation." "And the third one? I feel, that there's a third reason for it." "... Yeah, there's one - it's a chance for me to challenge the Pokemon Nation to a space race." "And why do we need it?" "Because it's the future!" the Emperor snapped in all sudden. "Space exploration and exploitation is the answer to almost all questions! The medical researches on both Space Lab stations showed amazing results, but the special drugs, developed during those researches, can only be manufactured in microgravity, as well as some of the ultrapure materials! The orbital solar power plants can easily supply us with enough energy to start rerouting our nuclear fuel production from being used for powering planetary grids to be used in space for engines of long-distance interplanetary ships. With heavy spaceships out there, we can easily deal with any asteroid! And with colonies out there, even if something happens to Earth, humanity will persist!" The Empress was taken aback with the sheer fervor in the voice of her husband. She was always worried about his intense desire for space exploration, but he never got that excited and angry. "However," Ivan calmed down no less suddenly, "we must not forget, how challenging them to the space race will also allow us to subtly steer them in directions we desire." "But they can try to do it to us too." "Yeah, but it doesn't mean, that we shouldn't try. Oh, by the way, the "Dreamwing" will be launched in one minute! Gonna watch it…" "Nearly forgot to ask - why did you resurrect the WHITEBIRD? I've thought you'd rather go with the BLUEBIRD…" "I'd really like to do it, but the BLUEBIRD nuclear spaceplanes are still in process of development, even if nearing the final stages, "Water Dragon", while reusable, takes decent time to prepare for launch again, so, the cheap WHITEBIRD, with pretty short turnaround time and non-extensive refurbishment, is our current best ground-to-orbit ferry." "I guess I can see that." ---- "...Three, two, one, launch!" sounded words of the operator in comm. Crew of the "Dreamwing", trained as they were, still were somewhat surprised by abrupt acceleration. On the outside, the sled, loaded with huge spaceplane and propelled by both electromagnetic forces and hydrolox engines, started to move and gain speed almost as fast as an adult Garchomp. In less than a second, the sled passed the 100 km/h mark and continued to accelerate, soon entering the "ramp" portion of the track, which was going on for several kilometers both in length and in height. The engine ignition on the spaceplane happened mere moments before the sled with it passed the highest point on the ramp and performed the separation. After that, one human-created machine stopped on accelerating and continued to slide down the rails - now towards the depot, where it'll be prepared for another launch assist procedure, while the second one steadily accelerated and climbed into the skies, continuing to squash its own pilots with g-forces in the desperate attempt to pass the atmosphere, the horrible thief of velocity and heat-giver, as soon as possible. A few minutes after, the airflow through the scramjets thinned out to the point, when it was no longer sufficient to sustain the engine operation. The supersonic combustion ramjet engines went silent for several moments, as the air intakes were closed, injectors were reconfigured and nozzle extensions were deployed, before starting again - this time, as pure rocket engines. ---- "Another launch detected from the Soris Empire," noted one of the operators in the Mossdeep Space Center. "Apparently, this time, it's some kind of spaceplane, if we go by the trajectory and acceleration." "They sure do a lot of launches these days," grimly replied one of the generals of Hoenn Self-Defense Forces, who got recently transferred here because of the actions of Soris Empire. "Let me guess - another supply mission to their space battleship?" "We don't know for sure, since the plane is still in the atmospheric phase and yet to begin the actual orbital insertion…" "Whatever. Still, they've decided to bet on their space tech… and Arceus-damn it, they now have a space battleship with WMDs above our heads! And I'm sure, that they're now stuffing even more weapons in there… Can't wait, until usage of Legendaries for warfare is decriminalized again…" Most of personnel, present there, paid no attention (or, at least, played paying no attention) to a horrible, bloodlusty smile, that has appeared on general's face. ---- Several hours after the launch, the "Dreamwing" spaceplane was finally docked to the "Red Explorer". Even though this was mostly a cargo mission, with three retro-missiles for reloading the ship's storages and some provisional supplies, the cosmonauts from both vessels still've had a small chat about the events both on Earth and in space. Pilots of the "Dreamwing" were astonished by the deeds of the crew of the battleship, while their colleagues from the "Red Explorer" were pretty surprised to hear the rumors from the ground. Alas, all good things come to an eventual end, so, after four hours in docked state, the "Dreamwing" separated from the battleship and began the deorbiting burn, with resulting trajectory ending right on the airfield of Zemlino, while the ship continued silently orbiting the planet. Inside the ship's CIC, the things were pretty professional and quiet. The thrill of battle and victory was gone, the tension of the diplomatic talks on the ground (which, apparently, weren't going exactly good, if a few whispers from the crew of "Dreamwing" were to be believed) was in the air and… the very fact, that they've manned a humongous weapon platform was pretty unsettling by itself. Suddenly, the comm came to life and the words from it made the blood of the officers chill: "Zemlino to "Red Explorer" - this is the Emperor speaking. Prepare to perform the Operation D-2." "Acknowledged," said the commander, concentrating and trying to stop his panic, then gave an order to the weapons officer. "Prepare the nuclear ordinance for planetary bombardment." "Aye-aye. Nuclear ordinance is now ready for planetary bombardment," replied the officer, who held himself only so well. "Arm the retro-missile #6." "Retro-missile in silo 3-25 is now armed." "Enter the confirmation code: 12-342-24-553." "Confirmation code entered. Retro-missile is now ready for launch. Key it, captain." "Zemlino to "Red Explorer" - the launch permission is granted, I repeat, the launch permission is granted!" "Acknowledged. Three, two, one, retro-missile away." As those words were being said, both the commander and the weapons officer inserted their respective keys into locks and turned them at once, sending the final confirmation signal to the ship's ordinance systems. On the outside of the ship, one of the round hatches opened again, much like back in the battle with Rayquaza or recent resupplying procedure… but this time, it was different. A small explosive charge ejected retro-missile, shaped like a short cigar, out of the ship. After clearing some distance from the ship, it turned around, received a final package of guidance data from the ship, then activated powerful chemfuel engine, decelerating from the orbital speed and preparing to drop down the gravity well. Onboard microcomputer calculated the burn with great precision to deorbit the retro-missile at designated coordinates. A few minutes later, heat started to build up on the retro-missile, which prompted for separation. The now-empty and useless propulsion bus got detached, while the front cover fell apart, allowing all individual warheads to leave their nestings and enter the terminal phase. The atmospheric ram pressure burned the fronts of conic machines, but arcanotech-enhanced ceramic held well, allowing the vessels of death, now engulfed in plasma, to continue accelerating towards their targets. Tiny steering flaps helped the warheads to constantly correct their trajectories, all of which were converging on the island, placed between Soris and Sinnoh. Roughly 40 seconds later, all warheads reached their target points. In each of the machines, altitude triggers sent signals for the airburst detonation... but there was nothing to respond to it - the thermonuclear devices inside were replaced with mockups, since this retro-missile was a dummy one, loaded on ship purely for demonstrational purposes. All six warheads impacted the ground not even a second later, vaporizing in the bright kinetic explosions. "Wonderful," came voice of the Emperor from the comm. "Great job, guys. We've filmed it. Stand by for additional orders… and deactivate the habitation centrifuge for now. I feel like you'll have to do some maneuvering soon." "Aye-aye, sir," replied everyone in the CIC, relaxing. Of course, the fact, that they've had to launch a dummy retro-missile instead of live one, helped them to get through it, but the possibility of actually using nukes for attacking the targets on the surface of Earth still persisted. A few more stressful hours passed, before the comm received another transmission from the Empire: "Zemlino to "Red Explorer" - this is the Emperor speaking. Perform the trans-lunar injection and enter the Moon orbit ASAP, I repeat, perform the trans-lunar injection and enter the Moon orbit ASAP!" "It will be done, Your Majesty, but… why?" the captain decided to go slightly off-protocol. "We've shown them the power of our weapons. We now need to show, that they'll only be used for self-defence - after all, you'll need several hours to travel from the Moon to Earth. If something really bad happens down there, you are authorized to open the code packages and perform the global thermonuclear bombardment - the hundred PBRM-1 retro-missiles with MIRVs and another hundred with big booms should be more than sufficient." "I don't quite follow that logic, but okay, we are already preparing and will activate the bomb drive in three minutes." "Acknowledged. Good luck to you, guys, and thank you for all of your deeds." Soon after those words were said, the pulse engine started thumping once more, setting the ship on the transit trajectory to the Moon. ---- Young Latias looked in the skies, seeing small white flashes. Even if she didn't know about that, those flashes, which belonged to the working nuclear pulse engine, marked the definite end of the usual flow of destiny, the true beginning of the new age and the new fate of this world - fate, which was not shaped yet. Now, it was up to the inhabitants of this world to create their own fate. ---- "Ram heating has reached threshold #2. Atmospheric ionization detected, blackout imminent," reported the pilot of the "Dreamwing", looking at the MFD. "Acknowledged, "Dreamwing", we're tracking you, return safe," replied the flight control center shortly before the radiolink got drowned in static. "Aaand we're deaf again," noted the commander. "Well, good to fly our birdie again!" "Uh-huh," mumbled engineer, looking at his own MFD. "Wow!" "What's that?" immediately asked him both pilot and commander. "Some kind of a directed flash of arcane energy - draconic one, of Legendary level... or was it? Most likely, just interference from ionization hitting the sensors, like back during the third test flight..." "Draconic, you say? Let us really hope, that those were merely interferences..." grimly said the commander, turning his gaze towards the window. "Because if it's not - we're in the world of trouble..." Author's notes: The launch sequence of the "Dreamwing" is partially inspired by the Silbervogel project and the launch of "America" hypersonic spaceplane from the "Silver Tower" by Dale Brown. SSTO - Single Stage To Orbit. MFD - Multi-Function Display. Hydrolox - a type of binary rocket fuel composed of liquid oxygen (lox) oxidizer and liquid hydrogen combustible.

[mycrofts-girl-blog]

He was my everything (Dead! Moriarty x Sister! reader x Sherlock )

 (Hi guys. This is my first imagine/one-shot released in a long time, and definitely the first one in this fandom. I am Brazilian, so please let me know if there are any serious errors in my writing. Hope you like it. IT'S BIG, I KNOW. But it's worth it, I promise.)

One Shot Jim Moriarty had a sister. And she decides she wants something back that belonged to her. Sherlock has what she wants, and she puts in a big mess to retrieve it. In the end, all she is looking for is to meet the brother. (Words: 5118 Warnings: Suicide, tragedy, sadness, memories, dead brother, insinuation of violence) 

It was Thursday, about four in the afternoon. The Sky in London was exceptionally clean and blue, with no wind or cloud. As you liked.

 You tugged on the black suit that fits perfectly into its curves and twisted its neck, watching its own reflection in the elevator mirror. You did not realize that it would be so easy to get into the safest building in the country, but I was really pleased with the ease with which everyone believed what you said.

 Your brother would be proud.

 You walked slowly through the building, watching everyone around, disdaining your poor mediocre lives mentally. Their ridiculous clothes, their bad hair, the lack of meaning in their lives ... So boring ...

 Your eyes run again through the costume you wore when standing in front of the glass door. With your hands behind your back and formal posture, you receive the eldest Holmes with a courteous smile.

 “Sr. Holmes ... I'm (Y/N), I'm taking you safely to your destination” Your polished voice does not seem to convince Mycroft completely, so you give him the MI6 access badge.

 “Good. I do not know you. Where is the usual driver?”

 "Evan is attested, sir. His wife won her baby last night” Mycroft seemed to be convinced, going forward with a nod.

 You smiled at his back. So silly, so slow ... So boring ...

    Jim was right, in the end, the accounts.

 Mycroft got in the car after you opened the door for him. Slowly, you turned around and got into the driver's seat, savoring every second. He turned on the car, and almost immediately Mycroft raised the glass that separated him from you.

 You just drove in complete silence for about twenty minutes. It was only then that the elder Holmes came down the glass to ask you.

 "We're not on the right track," Mycroft's cold voice made you smile.

 “Oh, we are.”

 “Not. I must go to Buckingham's palace, which is on the other side”

 "There was a little change of plans." You smirked at him. You can see in the rearview mirror a small spark of concern in the ice man's gaze, and his hand immediately went to the tie where, you know, there was an emergency button –“You are free to press one of your panic buttons or even call the police ... But I suppose you do not want to do that ...”

 "And why would not I?"

 "Oh, Your dear little brother would not like that much." Mycroft's gaze flew to you at once, and slowly he took his hand away from his tie.

 "What did you do to Sherlock?"

 "Nothing ... Still." The sadistic smile on your face grew, and you turned on the screen in the back seat, displaying a live image of Sherlock. The detective was in a cage, hung 10 meters high, on top of a lake. You heard Mycroft gasp.

 “Where is he?”

 “You will see. We're going to find it. You know, this lake is populated by more than 30 species of carnivorous fish, including beautiful Amazonian piranhas and a pair of white sharks” You rejoice, bragging, and your sadistic smile increases as you see the look of despair on Mycroft's face.

 “Who are you? And why are you doing this?”

 "Calm down, dear ... We'll get there. Now sit down and enjoy the way” You turn your head to look at him, taking on the expressionless eyes again that you knew as well as do “Oh, and do not and forget that if anyone is warned about it ... Your little brother will make lunch for my little fish ...”

 You no longer hear a sound from Mycroft, so turn on the radio, and a lively pop song sounds through the speakers. You smile, humming some passages about how incredible life was and how everyone should be happy.

 Half an hour later you park the car on a road, next to a large wall of stones. You descend, enjoying the sound your jumps made as you hit the asphalt, and open the door for Mycroft.

 "Leave your cell phone, your suit, your vest, and your tie. And all your emergency buttons. "The coldness in his voice made even the ice man shudder inside, though he would never admit it. Mycroft obeyed you, and as soon as he stepped out of the car, just in his pants, white shirts and shoes, one of his men positioned himself behind him “Juno, please take Mr. Holmes to join our guests. I'll be there in a second”

 The man, the size of a closet, gestured at Mycroft, who followed him without a word.

 You smiled like devil. Every second of it was so fun ... Oh, how you wished you could share that with Jim ...

  Mycroft was in a panic. Cad centimeter of the body cried out in desperation. And this was not only due to Sherlock's situation or the strange girl who had kidnapped him despite all the security he had, but mostly to the fact and that he had no idea what was happening. He had no control over absolutely nothing, not about himself or his own thoughts.

 The closet man never stopped walking behind him, without giving a word. Mycroft kept walking forward, his mind working as hard as he could to find out anything. But before he could finally get anywhere, the giant man behind him opened a glass door.

 The older Holmes walked slowly now. The ground ceased to be marble and became stone. He looked around, noticing that he was inside a cave. It was big, it had some artificial lights. And a small cliff.

 Then he saw Sherlock and the cage, hanging by a steel cable in the middle of a great lake, which was below the level where he was now. Mycroft walked to the edge of the small cliff, looking down into the water, and found the species his hijacker had spoken of in the car. They were real. Hundreds of sharpened animals waited hungrily for their brother's flesh.

 Sherlock was looking at his brother in silence. The cage fluttered above the water, the detective balancing between the iron bars of the single floor he had underfoot.

 “Mycroft! I knew you would come! Get us out of here, for Christ's sake!” John's voice echoed like a cry all over the cave. Mycroft turned to find the doctor in a chair, hands, and feet tied to the furniture, and a hopeful look on his face.

 "You'd better be quiet if you do not want a tape in your mouth." The closet man said, his voice making the two men shudder. He took Mycroft by the arm and dragged him to another chair next to John.

 "Could you be more delicate?" Mycroft grumbled, opening his mouth for the first time since the menace in the car, which only made the big man laugh out loud.

 "Of course, princess. Do you want a cup of tea?” The cupboard man scoffed, turning his back after tying Mycroft's hands and feet in his chair.

 "It would be good," Old Holmes murmured.

 "We're lost," John growled.

  It was only a few minutes before you came in through the same door that Mycroft had just passed. You had changed, you wore a drab and dramatic black dress now, but you kept your bare feet on the floor.

 You fell silent and walked to a large volume covered with a silky red fabric, pulling dramatically and revealing a large golden and black throne.

 You smiled, sitting up gracefully as one of your maids took the red cloth off the floor. The three men watched you in silence until John opened his mouth wide with his typical indignation.

 “Oh, for God's sake. What does all this theater mean?”

 "Speak less, Watson," Sherlock chided, speaking for the first time since he'd been put in that cage.

 "Thank you, Sherlock, darling," you said, smiling sweetly at the detective. "I suppose like the Holmes brothers, you two have already unraveled the whole situation, have not you?”

 Sherlock and Mycroft faced each other, but neither spoke a word, pulling a puzzled exclamation from John.

 "Of course not." You said, crossing your legs, the devilish grin returning to your face. "What fun would it have? Oh, you two are so boring. Boring Monotonous ...”

 “Who are you? Can you put an end to it at once? Say what you want" John burst out again, making you smile and stand up, walking slowly toward him, the sadistic grin on your face and your expressionless eyes penetrating the doctor's mind.

 "You're too hasty, Doctor." Your voice continued in sweet intonation, though Your face was scary. "You do not even know who I am, do you? Oh, so predictable ...”

 "You're some lunatic who wants money or government information, I suppose," Mycroft murmured. You sighed dramatically, coming up to him and holding your face. Her long, black nails pressed against the ice man's silky skin. The smile disappears from his face, giving way to an expression without any emotion.

 "I had bet more chips on you, Mycroft. You know, Jim. I was right all along. You, Holmes, are boring ... I am (Y/N). (Y/N) Moriarty. And it's a disappointment and great displeasure to finally meet them.”

 You let go of Mycroft's face, only to enjoy the mixed expression of panic and confusion emblazoned on all three faces. The sadistic smile returned to your face, and you walked gracefully to the edge of the cliff.

 "What do you say, Sherlock? It had not even crossed your mind, had it? Of course not ... Poor Sherlock, so annoying ... Boring ... You're all so boring." You hummed, turning away from Sherlock and staring at the two perplexed men.

 “Moriarty?”

 "Oh, swallow it at once, Holmes." You rolled my eyes at Mycroft. "I'm James's sister. Or Jim, as you prefer." The smile faded from your face as you sat back on his throne.

 “Clear. Of course, this was so obvious. Moriarty also forged his own death, and now he's back in the game with his sister on stage. How come you two did not think about it?” John shrieked, angry and frightened.

 Your face contorted and pure hatred as you rose again, walking up to John Watson in firm, determined steps.

 "You're terribly wrong, John Watson." You snarled a few inches from his face. "My brother did not forge his own death as your friend's coward. Jim Moriarty is dead” Your voice was cold as an iceberg, causing a shiver go to John's spine “And if you open your mouth one more time only, will serve as an appetizer for my fish.”

 "What do you want from us? Revenge?” Mycroft whispered, now really taken by terror.

 You walked to the edge of the cliff again. Sherlock stares at you, and you reciprocate. Your hands were on your back and your upright posture was imposing something. Fear? Respect? Awe? Maybe all those.

 “I want the ring.”

 “Ring? What ring?” Mycroft asks, confused. You do not even turn to him.

 "Where's the ring, Sherlock? I know you walk with him. I know you look at him every day." You pause, and then resume with a hoarse voice of hate." I want the ring. NOW.”

 Your cry echoes through the cave. Sherlock looks at you and nods.

 "It's in the inside pocket of my coat" the detective says, loud enough for you to hear.

 "Juno, bring the coat on" You orders, without breaking your gaze with Sherlock.

 Seconds later, the closet man arrives with the jacket extended for you. You stretch your hand, going straight to your inner pocket and grabbing the little metal circle.

 Your eyes are fixed on the little ornament you hold in your hands now. Solid iron circle, carved in the simplest and most beautiful form, the small tip, small spots.. It was so simple, so rustic and cheap ...

 Flashback

 The golden light of the sunset illuminated your face, just like your brother's. You were on the porch of your penthouse, in America, on the last day of the little vacation Jim had taken to stay with you.

 "I have something for you," Your brother exclaimed, taking a velvet box out of his pocket. You knew it was a ring, probably one of those that cost millions of dollars and he always insisted on giving you a gift for no reason at all. Still, you smiled and picked up the gift.

 "Thank you, Jim. " He smiled, looking expectantly at her reaction.

 You slowly opened the box, facing a rustic copper braided ring. Your brows drew together in confusion.

 "I did it," your brother smiled. "It's a sign of how much I care and care about you ... I thought you'd think it's special ..."

 “And it is” You smile, thrilled with the gift “Thank you, James ...”

 "Everything for you, my dear." Moriarty smiles broadly, wrapping you in a tender embrace and kissing your forehead.

 You've never taken the ring since that day, until four years later.

 Your brother had appeared by surprise in your apartment, which was nothing new. But he was downcast this time. Something in his gaze showed ... Worry?

 He spent only one night and was so caring and considerate that you made sure something was wrong. The next day, as he said goodbye, he took the ring and put it on his own finger.

 “I'll take this, this time. As a guarantee that I will come back to you" he said, looking deep into her eyes.

 But he did not come back. Instead, he committed suicide on the roof of a hospital the next afternoon.

 Flashback

 "All this because of a goddamn ring?" You were torn from your memories by John Watson's voice again. His eyes flashed with hatred.

 “No. It's not just for the ring." You said, the voice grave for the vivid memory of your brother. Without another word, you walked solemnly to the throne and sat down again.

 “Then why ...”

 "I thought I told you to shut up, John Watson," you shout, making the men jump in their seats.

 Then there is silence.

 You slowly slide the ring down your finger, feeling the metal on your skin.

 Your eyes run through the cave. Jim loved that place. He spent weeks, months there, planning his crimes, laughing at his adversaries ...

 There were so many memories ...

 You close your eyes, your brother's presence was almost palpable to you. It was as if you could hear her voice echoing all over the place, her laughter waking her from the book she read or the feeding of the fish. His scent was still in the air.

 Flashback

 “(Y/N)”! Jim's voice echoed like a scream all over the cave. You took your eyes off the fish that had just arrived to populate the lake, a gift to you, of course “I have a surprise for you.”

 “One more? I thought all those fish were already a big enough surprise for a day.”

 "I never tire of gifting you, my dear." Jim smiles, reaching out for you to stand up. He led her to the center of the cave, where he held his red and golden throne in which you loved to sit. Besides, a giant volume, covered by black silk.

 “Jim ...”

 "Pull it," he urged, pointing at the cloth. You did as he said, dramatically pulling on the fine silk and revealing a beautiful golden throne, padded into the most expensive shiny black fabric.

 A huge smile crossed your face.

 “Jim, this is ... Wonderful ... Thank you!” You smiled, wrapping your arms around your elder brother's trunk, inspiring his signature scent. Jim returned it with satisfaction, leaving an affectionate kiss on his forehead.

 "I am the king, my dear. And every king needs a queen ...”

 Flashback

 You looked at the covered throne next to yours. The cloth was black, the mourning, the pain, death completely enveloped him.

 You swallowed the tears that threatened to fall. He touched the ring and, with a sad smile, rose to walk toward your guests.

 "Tell me, why should not I kill you right now?" your cool voice filled the silence. "Why should not I blow your brains out?”

 "I have a daughter," John whispered, not looking at you.

 "Oh, I know that. Rosamund, is not it? She is beautiful, indeed ... And so smart” You wander. John looks at you with alarmed eyes.

 “What did you do with her?”

 “Nothing” You smile “Yet”

 "Do not you dare touch my daughter" he growls, making your smile widen.

 "She's everything to you, is not she?" John nodded shakily. Your smile falls apart “Jim was everything to me too. And he's dead. ”

 "(Y/N), do not do this," Sherlock says, the fear in his voice amuses you, but you do not smile “ Nothing will bring your brother back ...”

 "Oh, I know." You turn to Sherlock, then giggle. "I know.”

 "That's not funny, miss," Mycroft remarks. Your face takes a serious look when you look at it.

 “No, it's not. It's not funny. You know what I find funny, Mycroft?” He denies “Today is Thursday...”

 “and?”

 "Jim used to call me every Thursday. No matter what happened, he called me every Thursday at 4:00 p.m. I had been expecting it every week since I was three years old, and then we would talk about what he was doing, about my day, about his plans ... I think that's funny. Because it's Thursday, he did not call me at 4:00. Not last week, or the other, or the last five years. Do you know why Mycroft? Because he's dead.”

 “(Y/N)...”

 "I did not think it was funny, Holmes," you said. "It was not funny when Jim did not show up on the morning of my birthday, when I did not wake him up next to me in bed, having entered my house without having the keys, a bouquet of white roses, as he did every year. That has not happened for the last five years, Holmes. Because Jim is dead.”

 You looked at the two men tied up. Tears now pinning your eyes, but you did not care.

 "It was not funny when he was not in my living room on Christmas morning. We had a tradition. He would come, I would make the tea ... Then we would open the piles of expensive gifts he bought me, and he would be glad that I liked them. And then I played the song I had composed for him, as I do every year, and he listened and asked to play again. And then we would spend all day in front of the fireplace, in silence, or play chess or set up a Puzzle. We did this every year since I was three years old, are missing ... Jim was not there the last five years, we did not do any of that. His gifts were. The music too. And the fireplace, the games, the silence ... But not Jim. No my brother. He will never be, Holmes. Do you know why? Because it does not exist anymore. My brother is dead.”

 John had changed his face. There was no more hatred. It was close to compassion now.

 Tears ran uncontrollably down her face, sobs caught in her throat. Every memory was so painful ...

 "It's not funny when I call Jim. He does not answer me anymore. It also does not respond to my messages. Never. I just call and call, but he never answers. I just hear your voice in the recorded message, every time. Every time...”

 You smile through the tears, listening to your brother's voice in your mind.

 "Jim Moriarty was all I had." You turn to face Sherlock, your face blurred with makeup and your lips. "He was my family. My best friend. My brother. My partner. My Tutor. He was my world, Sherlock. But he's dead now. Do you know what that means?”

 Sherlock was silent.

 "It means he'll never hold me again, Sherlock. That I will never hear the voice that has calmed all my crises since I remember. It means I will not have anyone to run when I'm scared. It means he chose you, Sherlock.”

 “No, I do not think he ...”

 "He died because of you, Sherlock Holmes." your voice was shaky now, your hands shaking as he dropped to your knees on the edge of the cliff. "He was all I had" you whispered.

 "I'm sorry," Sherlock lamented, with sincerity in his voice.

 "I was the only one at his funeral. I ... I loved him so much. More than my own life” You said softly, tears dripping from your face “But he's gone ... Forever ...”

 "Kill us will not bring him back, (Y/N).”

 "I know," you said after a moment. "I will not kill anyone." You stood up, slowly moving to a small table near the door and picking up a white pill in a pot. White with red polka dots. You smile, taking a glass of water and taking a sip along with the tablet.

 You pulled the lever close to the cliff then the Sherlock cage was brought back to the ground. You unlocked her with the key she wore on the necklace and stood face to face with the detective.

 Your pupils were dilated, your hands trembled, and an empty smile hung from your lips, while the pale skin of your face was stained by black makeup. Sherlock could see the pain in your eyes, your broken soul. He smiled, noting how many common features you had with your brother.

 "I hate you," you whispered. "You took away everything I had.”

 "I'm sorry," Sherlock said the real feeling in his voice. You were silent for some time.

 "Maybe you'll find something that interests you in Jim's room." You say " Juno will take you there.”

 Then you walked to the throne again, stumbling a little on your own feet. You stood in front of the black cloth throne and smiled nostalgically, pulling the silk off. Folded over the velvety fabric was Jim's favorite coat.

 You took it, dressed slowly, and sat on your own throne. Her brother's scent no longer existed, but you could almost feel it there.

 Sherlock untied his brother and best friend quickly. When everyone was properly free, he turned to face you. Your eyes were closed now, your mind starting to cloud, but you smiled at him anyway. you knew he was looking for you.

 "I do not want a funeral, Holmes. No one would. Not Jim.”

 "So?" He strode to you.

 "The fish," Sherlock nodded, kneeling in front of him. "Do not destroy this place, Holmes. And never come back here. Let this be our sacred grave.”

 "I will. I promise." You smiled, opening your eyes for one last moment and looking at the detective. " I'm really sorry.”

 “Do not feel. It was meant to be.”

 Your eyes closed again, the depth of Sherlock's eyes engraved like the last image you had ever seen.

 You felt your body grow light.

 At that moment you knew that you would never play your piano again. You knew that your feet would never touch the soft sand of the beach, that you would never taste any sweet again. You knew Christmas gifts would continue to be delivered every year, but there would be no more music and you would never read your books again. Your last act would be to feed your beloved fish.

 Jim would like that. It was dramatic.

 Flashes passed before you. All of them from Jim. Your laughter and jokes when you were just a kid, and he was your hero. He had never rejected you, never give you less than all he had, all the attention and love that Jim Moriarty possessed were yours from the moment you came into the world. His heart belonged only to you. His queen.

 The darkness that had enveloped you suddenly dissipated, the memories going with her as a figure appeared in front of you. your eyes were open again, and you could see him now, standing in front of your throne, with a white rose in his hand and the smile that soothed his storms.

 He was there. Jim was there. your brother. Your world. Your Jim.

 "I was waiting for you, my dear ..."

 You smile, running into his arms in a second. His embrace tightening around him, your head over his heart. His scent invaded her nostrils, numbed anything that might be around him.

 “Jim ...”

 "Hello, my queen." He looked into your eyes, his tenderest smile, the one reserved only for you, illuminating his face. "We have all eternity now. Don’t worry.”

   -

  Sherlock heard yout last word. The name. Jim.

 He watched the life drain from your body until your lips turned purple, your body lifeless on the majestic throne.

 "Sherlock," Mycroft called out. The detective turned, watching his brother less than a meter from him. "I'm not sure what happened, but ... I'm sorry. It's ... Tragic.”

 "She was just a scared little girl. She missed her brother. And he did not know what to do about it." Sherlock stood up, staring at his older brother.  “I'm sorry.”

 “For?”

 "Never say I love you."

 Mycroft stared at his younger brother in a momentary shock. Then his critical eyes watched the young Moriarty's lifeless body on the throne. The older Holmes sighed, the gravity and tragedy of the moment bringing him to the brink.

 “Me too. You know" He whispered.

  Juno, the security guard, led the brothers Holmes and John down a long corridor, then a beautiful glass elevator in the middle of the rock, to a room on the surface. A large room, with glass walls, where you could see the vegetation, the valleys and the sunset. The golden light of the end of the day illuminated everything.

 Sherlock was the first to get out of the elevator. The detective walked solemnly through the great room, watching every detail his eyes could pick up on the safe place of his worst enemy.

 It was large and luxurious. All furniture in black and white. A large table, facing the glass wall, caught her eye. A tall leather chair protruded behind her, and several papers, photos, maps, and schemes lay on the black glass. Photos of Sherlock, Mycroft, Greg, John, Rose, Mary, Ms. Hudson, and Molly. Annotations. Magazines.

 Sherlock took the portrait door that took a central place on the table. The picture was old. In her, a little girl with black hair and even darker eyes watched with a smile for the camera, the mouth dirty of something pink and, next to her, a young Jim, with a bright smile and a look of devotion to the girl.

 The detective looked around. The whole place was adorned with picture frames of the same girl. Some pictures showed her as a baby, playing with animals or on the lap of young Jim. Others brought her as a child, and then a teenager. There were hundreds of photos, everywhere, on the walls and on all surfaces.

 In the back of the room, above the fireplace, a photo had stood out. It seemed to be newer than most, it was in a large frame. The two brothers, (Y/N) and Jim Moriarty, smiled purely. They wore white and embraced each other with a mutual, almost palpable devotion.

 Sherlock sat in the center armchair and picked up a letter from the table. It was Jim's. For (Y/N).

 " My dear, precious (Y/N),

 If you read this now, it is possible that I no longer exist on earth or anywhere under the heavens.

 I'm so sorry.

 I swore I would never leave you. And I did not keep my promise.

 I promised to get back to you. And I will not be back.

 Forgive me, my queen.

 I'll be waiting for you when you're ready to come to find me.

 Please, my precious, never forget how special you are. How beautiful and graceful you are. How light you lit my gray days with your light. You are my sunshine from the moment you were born, and it will be for all eternity.

 Do everything that makes you happy.

 And be with me when you're ready.

 Forever and ever,

 James. "

  Sherlock folded the letter and put it back on the table. He felt a weight in his heart, something like guilt and sadness.

 Jim Moriarty was not just a worthless criminal. He was an older brother. That she loved her little sister with all her fibers, with all that he was.

 Rising again, Sherlock watched five certificates on the wall beside the fireplace. All of (Y/N).

 Prodigy of the NASA robotics fair at age 8.

 Graduated at Harvard at age 17, in physics.

 Highlights of the international astronomy fair at 18.

 At Stanford at 21, in space engineering.

 At Oxford at 25, in astrophysics.

 Beside each certificate, a photo of her with Jim.

 And next to all that, a note.

 "We will dominate the whole universe, my dear"

 Sherlock swallowed. He turned his back and took one last look.

 "Come on," I said, the low voice calling Mycroft and John back to the elevator.

 Silently, they reached the stone corridor they had entered for the first time.

 "I need to do something sooner." Wait for me in the car.

 Without waiting for a reply, Sherlock walked into the cave again. The disturbing morbid silence enveloping him.

 Carefully, he took the dead body of little Moriarty. Her skin was already cold, her face expressionless. Sherlock took a deep breath, and without taking his eyes off her, carried her lifeless body down the stone steps to the edge of the lake.

 He knelt down, the girl's black dress touching the water. Black hair flying with the slight artificial breeze.

 "I'm so sorry, (Y/N). We could have ... been good friends" he whispered.

 Slowly, the detective placed (Y/N) Moriarty's body in the water. The dress getting drenched as the fish fluttered around the lifeless body of the one who fed them for years, and now became their last meal.

 Before leaving her, Sherlock left a tender kiss on the girl's forehead lifeless. And then he turned and, without looking back, left the cave.

 Already in the car, he watched Juno lock the door between the stones with a large lock and carefully put a large panel of plants on it, closing forever the grave, the sanctuary of the Moriarty brothers.

[fairygirl34-art-writing]

Deathly Alliance Chapter 2: The Beginning

Tomarry. Death Note AU. Hedwig and Salazar are shinigami. Media-Res. Chapters will be semi-non-chronological order. Chapters will be updated when inspiration hits me.

------

Tom Riddle Jr. doesn't believe in Fate.

But he does believe he was destined for greatness.

It's been his goal since he was a small child to be better than everyone else, to be revered and worshiped. He deserves it after all.

As he stares at the five filled pages of names of criminals he's written and killed, he can't help but feel high off the killings. To think that the innocuous black notebook could have such godlike powers within its pages. Tom wants to covet and and hide it away forever so no being, human or supernatural can ever find it again.

A dark and sadistic laugh escapes his lips. He can now purge the world and filth; shaping it to his liking. At least while the notebook his still in his possession. He has no idea if the book was gifted to him or was dropped by some god, who later might come to take it back, but he is going use as much as possible.

The Death Note.

How fitting this book was for his new persona Lord Voldemort.

The new god of the world.

A knock upon his door startles him from his euphoria.

"What is it," Tom growls out, angered that someone would dare interrupt his glorious work.

"Dinner is ready, Young Master." A maid says from behind the door.

"I'm not hungry." Tom dismisses.

"Please, Tom. You're father specifically asked that you attend dinner." The maid nervously pleads.

Tom scowls. The thought of even eating with his parents makes him want to bash someone's head in. It's not enough that he has to deal with that dreadful woman he's forced to call his his Step-Mother, Cecilia. Even though he's never known his own mother, who died from childbirth because she was weak, he's never been particularly close with his Father either. And when is Father married that vapid cow when he was five, the already unsteady bond between father and son deteriorated into practically nothing.

"Tom?"

Slamming the Death Note closed and placing it in a hidden compartment he created in his desk, Tom prepares himself for the disaster known to be a family dinner.

"Fine. Tell them i'll be down shortly." Tom bites out. He just wants to get it over with, but that doesn't mean he won't take his time going down as much as he can.

When he reluctantly enters the dining room, Tom notices his Father and Cecilia sitting at one end of the long table, with his Father at the head. Tom takes the seat opposite of his Father at the other end of the table. The farther away he is from them, the better for him.

"Tom. I'm glad you finally decided to join us," Tom Sr. says.

Tom says nothing. He watches as the servants bring out trays of food.

Dinner is mostly a quiet affair with stilted questions 'How was school Tom? and answers 'Like any other day.'  Only Cecilia manages to fill the dining room with chatter towards her husband, completely ignoring her Step-Son. Which was fine with Tom. He and Cecilia despised each other and did everything to stay out of each other's way. Only Tom Sr. seemed to want to enforce "Family Bonding" time , which both Tom and Cecilia silently agreed that it was a waste of time.

Dabbing his napkin his mouth, Tom asked, "May I be excused? I still have some studying for upcoming exams to do."

"Very well," Tom Sr. sighs, no doubt disappointed with the lack of participation his son had done during dinner.

Tom nodded and quickly left to his room. Locking his room door so no one could disturb him again, Tom turned on his computer and brings out the Death Note.

Hacking into his father's personal computer and work files is a piece of cake when Tom Sr. is constantly working on cases at home. With a maniac smirk Tom continues his duty to rid the world of garbage. Hours pass in this manner until he gazes upon his clock and sees taht it is already eleven p.m.  

"I think I've done enough for one day." Tom chuckles to himself, stretching his stiff body.

"I see you've been working hard the last couple of days using the Death Note." A gravelly voice says behind Tom, making him jump,up, knocking his chair over.

Narrowing his eyes and barring his teeth, he growls, "Who the hell are you?"

The being - monster - because it couldn't be anything else stood imposingly tall, long lanky limbs, sharp nails and a face close to a monkey's with sharp teeth, gazes interestingly at Tom.

"I'm the Shinigami Salazar Slytherin who dropped the notebook you're currently possessing."

"Shinigami? What's that?" Tom demands.

The monster may have surprised him, but Tom will turn the situation to his favor. He always manages too.

The monster huffs as if the question wasn't worth answering and that Tom was an ignorant mortal for not knowing.

"A Death God." Salazar says.

Tom relaxes minutely, but never let's his guard down. "Are you here to take back your book?"

"In time," The Shinigami answers. "I was just curious to see what kind of human picked up the Death Note."

Tom is a bit suspicious and fearful. If there is one thing Tom fears above all else...it's Death. The thought of his existence ending, sends a chill down his spine. He doesn't care if the monster is a Death God, Tom will fight with everything he has to keep the Death Note and leave his mark. Dying a a nobody is not on his to-do list.

He was destined for greatness!

And the Death Note was his key to success.

"Are you going to kill me? take my soul?" Tom eyes the other, his mind scheming, discarding, and reorganizing plans should he have to fight the Shinigami.

"Once a Death Note lands in the Human World, it becomes a part of it. You may pass the Death Note onto another, but your memories of the book will be wiped away. Essentially, That Death Note belongs to you."

Tom turns to the notebook laying innocently on his desk. It was his. It was his. He gazes at Salazar contemplatively. "What do you get out of it? It seems like that this is all in my favor with no punishment at all for me for using it."

"Just think of it as you becoming my entertaining to fight off my boredom. But be warned, you will feel the fear and pain known only to humans who have used the Death Note." The Shinigami smiles sharply. "Do we have a deal?"

Tom contemplates the pros and cons of the deal. "Is there any consequence for using the Death Note? Like every time I write down a name, part of my soul splits off?"

The Shinigami chuckles. "No, nothing that drastic. However, when it is your time to die, I will be the one to write your name in the my own Death Note. When that happens, your soul will neither go to Heaven nor Hell. So, again, do we have a deal?"

The silence is heavy in the room for only a moment.

Tom smiles sharply, a determined and maniac glint in his eyes.

"I'll change the world. No, Lord Voldemort will change the world!" Tom laughs darkly.

Lord Voldemort's reign began now!

-----

Hope you guys liked it!

@bookreadervirgo

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT 1X18 - The Stable Boy

I’m very interested to see my reaction to this episode this time! On my first watch, I didn’t like it (At least the past portion), but with time and more insight into Regina’s character, that just might change!

It’s not because of you, Reggie! i love you!

But what was my deal then, and how has it changed?

Find out alongside me under the cut!

Press Release Emma continues her exhaustive search for evidence that will prove Mary Margaret’s innocence in the murder of David’s wife, Kathryn. Meanwhile, in the fairytale land that was and before evil blackened her soul, Regina must choose between betraying her mother, Cora, and marrying for true love, or betrothing royalty and living a regal - but loveless - life; and the event that caused the Evil Queen to loathe Snow White is revealed. General Thoughts Past It’s weird. I know Cora is an amazing villain, and it may be the fault of time, but I sometimes forget just how menacing and evil she was. So seeing the evil she’s capable of show itself again with such intensity was like when you touch someone else after getting a good dose of static shock going through you. Just as with Regina’s villainy up to this point, Cora’s is overt and strong. Even when she’s praising Regina, it’s a backhanded compliment (“You’ve finally done something right”). But oddly enough, it’s when the abuse is less over the top that it’s at its worst, and by that, I mean accepting Leopold’s proposal on Regina’s behalf and getting Snow to divulge Regina’s secret. How Cora’s lunges at insecurities and just makes the bold yet quiet moves to get everyone to do what she wants is terrifying. I don’t have a lot to weigh in on the plot, but I do think that watching it on the second go did a lot more for me to highlight Cora’s abuse and make me realize the quality of the flashback. See, for me, I always felt that Daniel was the main thing for Regina’s revenge about Snow, and I felt on the first go that that was a pretty lackluster approach for such a cool villain because I found Daniel boring (I still do, and I swear that I tried to like him). However, it’s occurred to me recently that this isn’t so much as the main point, but the final straw after a long line of Cora’s abuse. Cora’s abuse is what drives Regina’s character and with this in mind, I went into my rewatch of this episode and found it much more compelling. I mean, all you have to do is look about to see the impact Cora had on me.

Also, as I said before, I don’t like Daniel. I find his character boring and bereft of chemistry with all who he interacted with despite his decent dialogue. Given that a lot of (Not fully, but still a fair amount) Regina’s backstory is dependent on their interactions, it sucks, but I just wasn’t feeling like there was much of a character to connect to.

Finally, I wanted to take this moment to drop a theory I’ve held for a while about this episode. I feel that Regina has a secondary purpose for going after Snow. Now, of course, she blames Snow for Daniel’s death, but that’s lead her to be mislabeled as overly petty. However, I think that that blame has something behind it. Regina doesn’t have magic at this point, and her beloved was taken from her. She has a lot of anger, and no place to responsibly place it. Of course, it belongs with Cora, but Cora just killed her boyfriend and has been magically binding her for quite some time. What chance does Regina have up against someone like that? But Snow? Snow’s just a little kid. Snow’s vulnerable and trusting. Snow was the one to tell the secret. And suddenly, for as wretched as it is, you see how the cogs turn. Present I loved August’s advice to Emma here. Sometimes, I find that skill helpful when I’m writing fanfiction, and the way it fits into the murder mystery was interesting. Their rapport, alongside August’s mystery is a large driving force behind the plot as Emma looks for the way to connect the crime to Regina. They also did a really good job establishing Sidney and then exposing him with that flower pot. For a while, one can forget that it’s there, but once you see it, you know what’s going to happen. Still, the journey to using the plot device was an engaging one. As for the rest of the plot, I cover more of it in “Arcs,” but I found that it was well placed and dramatic. Mary Margaret’s conversation with the DA was especially helpful in reinforcing after last week’s “breather” episode just how bad things are and how important it is that Emma solves this case and fast. Insights -I love watching Rumple and Regina negotiate. Theirs is such an engaging push-and-pull relationship and even in the case of foregone conclusions like the one the audience goes in knowing here, the exact what and how are never what you expect it to be. Because of their power, influence, and shadier dispositions, there’s always something up their sleeves and seeing them poke and prod in search of those secrets is just the best. Also, I love that clash of tones. Regina’s harsh words clash brilliantly with Rumple’s more flowery language. -Hair and makeup really did a wonderful job on the younger Henry Sr.! -”She’s getting a little old for fun.” “Stop coddling her.” I like the implication that Cora’s abuse of Regina started out smaller than it is today and that Henry Sr. was allowed to have a bigger influence on Regina’s development during her childhood. -”I’m not criticising you. I’m helping you.” Holy shit. That is such an abuser line. If it wasn’t coming out of Cora, I’d almost call it heavy handed, but since it s Cora, it’s such a good moment of character establishment. -There’s this great frame where Henry Sr. is walking towards Cora with a face that screams “I’mma kill you if you harm a hair on our daughter!” Even though Henry Sr. was definitely afraid of and overpowered by Cora, it’s clear that he was always on Regina’s side. -The segues on this show between the past and present crack me the fuck up! -In regards to young Snow...HOW DOES THIS SHOW CAST PEOPLE SO PERFECTLY?! -Thank you, Gold for acknowledging the skeleton key! -Gold just has the best expressions during the Q&A with the DA. Every look he gives MM just says “you’re lucky your daughter is breaking this curse.” -Mary Margaret, that’s not true. After Kathryn hurt you, it was your denial of David that kept you two apart. Not saying you were wrong for that you definitely weren’t - but facts are facts. -Regina looks so cute in that blue dress! I’m pretty sure anyone on OUaT can pull off a blue dress! -I love how Henry Sr. reflects both Regina and the audience’s reaction to this horrifying proposal. -So is Daniel just the Mills’ family’s stable boy or both theirs and Snow’s family’s stable boy? -Regina unknowingly gave Snow and Charming the perfect lyrics to their big show-stopping musical number about how they’d overthrow her! XD -I love Regina’s suit in the warrant scene. Red and black - despite her rocking blue as well - are totally her colors! -That whole sequence of Cora trapping Regina and Daniel in the stable reminded me of The Haunted Mansion! -Snow looks so cute in her flower girl dress! -So, the camera doesn’t show Regina’s face as she’s telling Snow how Daniel ran away, but you can just hear the pain behind the monotone in her voice solely because of how different it is from the rest of her lines. Regina’s lines usually host such passion and ferocity, but here, she’s bereft of it. Arcs Kathryn Nolan Case - So, we sort of come to an ending here. Now all that’s left to find out is the “who-dunnit,” so to speak. Personally, I found the case itself boring as well as the conversations about the proceedings. That said, in a way, I’m glad we had it. I’ve seen fics without it happening and they leave David and Mary Margaret with so little to do. Besides, we got some really good character moments because of it, mostly those that go through Emma and I feel comfortable saying that this doesn’t have to do with the fact that Emma is my favorite character because for everyone else (Barring Rumple and Regina who also had amazing interactions), the events of this arc for everyone else become completely irrelevant going forward. Emma and her interactions (Barring those of the other awake people’s) are the only moments that retain prevalence for their characters in the future That’s not a problem: The character moments still stand out - I still adore everything with Ruby and the scene with MM and David in the jail cell was powerful - but it needs to be accounted for. The Mystery of August Booth - We finally get those first glimpses of Pinocchio. It reminded me a lot of Michael’s symptoms in Season 3 of Jane the Virgin. They’re so small that you forget about them with the plot, but as they happen, they make you wonder just what it is. Why throw in a splint? ...I guess we should say a splinter! XD Favorite Dynamic Snow and Cora. I know these two only had one scene together, but damn, it was a good one! When Cora talks to Snow, she’s so warm and very much like a grandmother in the way she speaks, and you can see through Snow’s expressions just how much that paired with what she’s saying is preying on her still present grief over her mother. It’s like that study about the bullfrogs when the water gradually increases. Snow’s about to hurt her friend, and she doesn’t even recognize that she’s being played because of Cora’s delicate manner of approaching things. Writer Adam and Eddy did a really great job here! They have a way of writing very iconic lines, and  “Love is the most powerful magic of all” has proved itself lasting - both in verbal and song form! XD In addition, A&E know how to make a villain sympathetic while not forgetting that they’re evil and following through on that. I’ve seen a lot of bad writing of villains (And some of it comes from OUaT too) where they just throw a sob story on a villain and then just flip a switch from villain to hero, but Regina still retains her villainy  even as we’re learning about her tragedies, and that makes her feel more alive! Rating 9/10. I love all of the character development we get here. The introduction of Cora gives us that taste of all that’s to come and she’s fucking petrifying, even with the knowledge that she dies! And seeing Regina’s awful childhood really sticks where this resentment of Snow and Mary Margaret is coming from and it makes it glorious! Additionally, the present had a great story too and delivered a cool sort-of ending to the Kathryn Nolan case while giving Emma and August an interesting conflict to work with. I took off a point for Daniel just because of his impact on the story that I actually got compared to what I felt that I needed.  ()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Thanks to @watchingfairytales for putting this project together and to everyone who read! I’ll see you next time when we...RETURN! ...These puns don’t get all that subtle. Season Tally (157/220) Writer Tally for Season 1: A&E (50/70) Liz Tigelaar (17/20)* David Goodman (33/50) Jane Espenson (36/60) Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg (29/40) Daniel Thomsen (8/10)* Vladimir Kvetko (9/10* (* = Their work for the season is complete)

Operation Rewatch Archives

[chilly-territory]

K Case Files of Blue 2, chapter 2 (part 2 out of 2)

The next part of the novel, featuring Munakata’s family.

Case Files of Blue 2 by Miyazawa Tatsuki

Chapter 2 (part 2/2) (volume 2, pages 80-111)

†

On that day, Munakata Reishi had done a nearly unimaginable amount of work with utmost efficiency and maximum energy and, after sowing some hope among his men, left Scepter 4. Munakata, always having an air of composure about him even when he went to visit the ruler of all things on the ground, Kokujouji Daikaku, was now walking with a hurried gait, glancing at his wristwatch worriedly and painting the picture of a terribly busy man.

For he had an appointment he absolutely could not be late to.

"Well now. I hope she will like it."

Nearby, there was a present he bought in a short break between his demanding work - an adorable plush teddy bear wrapped in pink wrapping paper. It was Munakata Ume's birthday, and as her uncle, Munakata Reishi was invited to her birthday party. Last year, due to an emergency matter coming up, Munakata wasn't able to make it to his niece's birthday party which had hurt her feelings deeply. So half a year ago he had promised her that this year he would be there without fail. As far as Munakata was concerned, he wanted to keep his promise no matter what.

Strangely enough, for him, the little girl's birthday party and the Great Cause of protecting the country had about equal weight. Neither was less important than the other. That's why he chose to head home even at the time of what could very well be called a crisis.

The moment the door opened, he was ardently welcomed.

"Uncle, you really came!" Umi was overjoyed as she popped up first.

Umi's younger brother, Kai, approached Munakata timidly and clutched at his sleeve. Although later, next Munakata's mother, then his father and finally his older brother Taishi with his sister-in-law appeared and gave Munakata Reishi a warm welcome as well.

In this house, he was neither a shrewd government official nor the Blue King chosen by the Dresden Slate and possessing supernatural powers. He was just a person, Munakata Reishi, a second son of the Munakata family.

"Sorry I'm late."

Hurriedly done with his greetings, he was pulled into the house where they all sat down around the tea table, and the feast began. The table was tightly packed with croquettes and meat and potato stew that Mrs Munakata whipped up, roast beef and minestrone that Taishi's wife made, beer and authentic Japanese sake that Taishi bought, a chocolate cake that the children had picked and sashimi out of mackerel that Munakata Sr caught - a popular commoners' menu, maybe lacking in class and consistence, but overflowing with warmth.

"Congratulations, Umi!" the present toasted, the adults with beer and sake, the children with juice.

They talked about everything that happened to Umi at her school, about the swimming pool Kai had recently started attending, Taishi brought up a professional baseball discussion, his wife demonstrated embroidery she was into lately, and the senior Munakatas brought a pamphlet about Izu where they planned to go for their end-of-year trip.

When they were done eating, games started - Othello, cards and other typical party games. All the members of the Munakata family were spirited and doing well. After that, they sang the birthday song, cut the cake, and the children ate the cake in utter happiness, smearing their faces in the process.

Full and happy, the children started nodding off, and the older brother's wife took them to take a bath. With them gone, the living room suddenly became very quiet. Quiet clicking of tableware as Mrs Munakata washed it and the rustling of running water were the only sounds filling the room.

Munakata Sr, taciturn by nature, took out the shogi board and, holding a book in one hand, began solving shogi problems. On the TV, its volume muted to be only background noise, a news story about a large-scale typhoon closing in on Japan ran. Taishi was idly lying on the tatami with his hands behind his head.

"What a feast we had today!" He looked up at the ceiling happily.

Munakata sat in seiza, quietly sipping tea.

"Gotta thank you" Taishi suddenly added, "for coming, despite being busy."

Munakata shook his head to that. "Oh, there is no need. I had fun, too. And I'm glad the birthday girl seemed to like my present." "Haha," Taishi chuckled. "You should make kids of your own, y'know. Kids are cute." "Indeed. I shall see what I can do."

The wandering conversation continued, with Taishi mostly being the one to do the talking and Munakata only replying from time to time. But it wasn't like Munakata was being reserved or something of the sort. Time flowed slowly and relaxedly.

It was a curious relationship, to say the least. Munakata Taishi made a living with landscape gardening, had a family of his own, spent his free time watching TV and sometimes going to pachinko, took his children to the local park to play on Sundays, and liked fishing as a hobby. Once a month, he played grass-lot baseball with his old friends. He was much better at manual labor than at mental work, he hardly read any books and wasn't really interested in what was going on in the world around, being the type of wholesome man who could smile, showing his pearly whites, when his close people were healthy and smiled themselves.

Munakata Reishi, on the other hand, was completely and utterly different - not just from Taishi but from anyone else in the Munakata family. From his father, his mother, his brother, his brother's wife, his niece and his nephew. None of the family had ever written a report on Confucius and Spinoza as a grade schooler, taken the first place in mock exams countrywide for many years in a row or served as the student council president from starting elementary school to graduating from university.

Munakata Reishi was a superior being from the day he was born. He outstripped those around in intelligence, physical ability, character and culture. Everyone who he ever came across were under the impression that he had to be a son of a very distinguished family. And when they learned about the actual environment he was raised in, they all couldn't help but being puzzled and amazed how someone like him could be born to an ordinary family like that.

His father was a taciturn man taking pride in his work, with shogi and occasional fishing trip being his hobbies. His mother and sister-in-law, although both women of virtue and good cooks, didn't go in any area past what is considered ordinary and average, and the children they produced, although were quite cute, for now displayed absolutely no ability out of common.

In the Munakata family, only Munakata Reishi was an exception. A child, who insisted on not speaking casually even with his parents and brother, was much too out of place for the family of a mediocre craftsman from the low-lying part of Tokyo.

Truth be told, Munakata's parents must have had quite a bit of trouble deciding how to treat a child prodigy so unlike the rest of them. But it was somewhat different for Munakata's older brother Taishi.

Being unruffled and unfussy about the small stuff, from their childhood years on, he kept treating Munakata Reishi in a way that could be seen either as largehearted or insensitive. While their personalities and nature couldn't have been more different, the two always remained siblings that got along just fine. Munakata held respect for his cheerful and honest brother who had not a prodigious bone in his body.

"Ah, speaking of," Taishi asked, following the flow of the conversation, "how's your work lately?"

Taishi only knew that his little brother was the 'boss' of 'a place that was something like the police'. Being content with only the roughest and broadest idea of things was something that was in Taishi's nature.

Munakata took a pause to ponder before answering, "Well, not very well, I have to say." "Oh?" Taishi let out a surprised noise. "You don't hear something like that coming from you every day, Reishi." Munakata let out a chuckle. "Indeed. I'm afraid I made an enemy of a troublesome person. He is even more resourceful than myself, so I'm having a little bit of a hard time."

Taishi abruptly got up and took a seated position, crossing his legs. "For real? You mean to say someone smarter than you actually exists?" he asked bluntly. Munakata flashed a little wry smile.  "Yes, they do, in spades." "So what? Are you being cornered?"

Munakata simply nodded, without pretense, embarrassment, self-derision or eagerness.

"Whooa~," Taishi elongated, stunned. "That gotta be a first, eh," he remarked, seemingly very impressed. "At least the first from what I know." "No." A shogi piece touched the board with a nostalgic click. "It's not," the two's father, Munakata Jirou, murmured quietly. This time, it wasn't just Taishi who was surprised by their usually taciturn father's remark, but Reishi as well as he gazed at Jirou.

For a while, Jirou only stared down at the shogi board, his back to his sons and seemingly oblivious to the gazes they fixed him with.

"You know, with that substitute teacher that was in charge of Reishi's class for a short while back in 5th grade when their homeroom teacher got injured in a traffic accident."Not changing his cross-legged position, he turned his head to the brothers. "What was his name, again?" "...Mnn..." Of course, Taishi, being as uncaring about details as he was, could only cock his head in puzzlement. "...Right." Munakata recalled immediately. "It was Kasuga-sensei." "Oh, right, that's right." Jirou's eyes narrowed. "The only teacher Reishi couldn't get 100 points from on tests."

Inside Munakata, a spark suddenly flew, and his eyes glinted mysteriously behind his glasses. In a voice, that had the slightest of quivers in it, he asked as he got up, "Father, brother, would it be alright with you if I went to my room for a while? An idea regarding my work has struck me."

Slight surprise crossed the features of Munakata Sr, but he simply nodded, "Mn-hm," and turned to his shogi board without saying anything else.

Taishi lied back down on the tatami, asking with interest, "What, Reishi, something about that guy you mentioned?" "Yes, correct. I just might have the chance to kick his behind," Munakata provided an explanation for his brother, using the simplest and most understandable words he could find.

Taishi burst out laughing. "Good to hear," was his reply.

†

"What I'm doing is actually very simple," Kounomura said after they had finished the driving the advertising van job and relocated to a members-only bar in Nanakamado.

They were in a deluxe room where only a handful of VIPs from even among the members of this closed establishment were allowed to enter. The sofas, the tables and all the other furnishings were stunningly extravagant and posh, but what drew the eye was the masterpiece works of a certain famous maestro. If they were put up for auction, there was no way the price offered would drop lower than a hundred million at worst. In this room, there were 2 such gems that by all rights should have been in possession of an art museum.

Like the regular customer he was, Kounomura came in front of the glass case where expensive Western liquors were on display, and casually took out a bottle of aged whiskey, pouring it into glasses - for himself and for Gouoku. He took a sip, held it in his mouth, then lied down on the floor on the fur spread on it.

'As usual, this man looks so out of place in this kind of furnishings,' Nakamura Gouoku thought. 'Just the other day he was sprawling on mats by the riverbed, slurping up some cheap plum shochu, and frankly, that place fit him perfectly, and certainly a lot more than this one. Though the same could be said about me.'

A penguin-like shortie of a man and a balded giant in a place where only the cream of the crop could enter certainly was a sight to behold. What's more, Gouoku was in his priest's garb while Kounomura had yet to change out of the fatigues he drove the van in just a short while ago. It was pretty amazing how none of the reception staff so much as batted an eye as they took the two such guests to the back rooms.

Gouoku took a gulp of straight liquor out of his whiskey glass - his palm easily wrapping around the thing in its entirety - and chuckled a little. The fact that both of them were completely out of place here still stood unchanged though. If anything, it was probably Munakata Reishi, with his gorgeous looks and commanding presence, who would fit right in.

"Mn? What's wrong?" Kounomura asked. "Ah no, nothing," Gouoku shook his head. "Go on with what you were talking about." "Erm? What was it I was saying, again?" Kounomura asked back slowly and drowsily. "You talked about Munakata Reishi," Gouoku reminded him. "Actually, there's something I wanted to ask you for ages," he continued, his interest in the topic apparent. "You may have incredibly exceptional brains, but that Munakata Reishi guy is one hell of a sharp fella himself. So there has to be a reason why your clash is so one-sided so far and you're messing with him however you like, y'know?" "..." "That's something I want to know. Just what kind of witchcraft did you use to achieve this?" "Ah well, it's actually pretty simple. You could say it's 'love', I guess? It penetrates the perception gap between the sense of self, of others and of the world. Umm~m."

Gouoku patiently waited. If he kept waiting, his prodigious friend would eventually give him an explanation in words simple enough even for him to understand.

"Well, let's see. The reason why Munakata-kun is so confused this time is because in a sense he's too smart for his own good." "Meaning?" "Gouoku. When you're so smart that you have no equal, you end up seeing through everything like an open book and forgetting that you yourself, too, are part of this world, as well an influence on it. Well, maybe not exactly forgetting but never even realizing it. Perhaps, picturing yourself on top of a big mountain would be an adequate epithet."

Kounomura slowly rose and put the bottle on the table.

"Munakata-kun is currently here." He indicated the top of the bottle. "And those around him, people and circumstances alike, are this."

He placed a glass next to the bottle.

"In his case, he basically has a bird-eye view of all kinds of life's problems, and he can easily solve any problem by moving it in whatever direction is required or switching something with something else."

The glass was placed in different spots in sequence.

"As it keeps on going, curiously enough, a gap born between himself and his surroundings comes into existence," Kounomura went on, his voice having notes of sadness in it. "Misunderstanding becomes commonplace, leading to creation of an idol molded to people's wishes and expectations without his consent. Those around start to assume things, abandoning all attempts to actually understand and starting to pretty much deificate him instead. All because he is much too capable and outstanding. And yes, he is capable, but there is not a single soul who understands him, and it doesn't cross anyone's mind to even attempt to anymore. Munakata Reishi is a genius beyond anyone's reach. This conviction prevents people from thinking on the matter further." "So they just label him Ubermesch and leave it at that, huh? Just like they do you." "No, no." Kounomura flashed his pearly whites. "I can't hold a candle to Munakata-kun. He's the real authentic elite here. I'm just barely keeping up with him in this competition by making use of all the years I've lived, nothing more."

Kounomura took out another bottle out of the glass case and placed it next to the one that was already on the table. The two were of about the same height.

"That said, it's still probably a first to him, chancing upon someone of his own class who is actually trying to analyze him. And it's due to that unfamiliar experience that the thinking processes of even a genius like Munakata-kun automatically slow down, like a heated swimming pool becoming lukewarm, and the boundary line between himself and those around him becomes blurred. So what I'm doing is simply preventing him from doing his best. Simple as that." "You're sure being some nasty life senpai to him, eh. So basically you turned the supposed-to-be intelligence battle into psychological warfare, is that it?" "It can't be helped, Gouoku," Kounomura laughed at Gouoku's teasing. "I wouldn't stand a chance if I fought a person like that fair and square." "So, in short, it's because Munakata never met his equal that he's now falling for your tricks, or something?"

Kounomura shook his head.

"Not quite. Like I said earlier, the point here is that Munakata-kun is too smart for his own good. Let's use the chess analogy, shall we? He's an impossibly excellent player. He can win in virtually any position, at any point of the game, just after one look at the board, and that's precisely what he's been doing repeatedly. That's why he's accidentally forgotten that he, too, is one of the factors composing the world, one of the elements that determine strategy and tactics. One of the pawns on the board called fate." "Hmmm." "Putting this into even simpler terms, until now he was a chess player who never moved the pawn that he himself is. No one ever presented enough threat for him to, so he naturally leaves himself out of his calculations and predictions. ...No, it's not quite that he leaves himself out, he's just lacking in self-awareness a little, I guess." He grinned. "But that's enough for me."

Kounomura really was a terrifying man, Gouoku reaffirmed once again.

Said Kounomura yawned. "Everyone stopped trying to seriously figure him out. They don't see Munakata-kun's typical thinking patterns, habits and tendencies even though everyone naturally has them, no exceptions. But I..." "But you're seeing through them." "That's right. Because I have 'love' for him. I didn't treat Munakata-kun as an unreachable genius or a monster, I simply tried my absolute best to get to know him thoroughly. And then I made use of the tiny chinks in his armor that I had painstakingly searched for and found. That's all there is to it," Kounomura simply said, but even Gouoku was well aware just how uncommon and outstanding the ability to do that was. Yes, it really was Munakata's disastrous misfortune to become possessed by this man.

Under Gouoku's gaze, Kounomura let out another small yawn and sprawled listlessly on the fur of Russian sable.

"So how is it? Do you feel you can usurp the throne of the Blue King with this plan of yours?" Gouoku changed his question.

Kounomura was silent for a while.

"Hmmm. Dunno. Like I've told you many times before, the nature of the Dresden Slate is too mysterious. After all, even the brilliant Gold King, ruling all things on the ground, Kokujouji Daikaku spent half a century on researching that thing and is still hardly even closer to figuring it out than he was in the beginning." "Speaking of, I wonder what said Gold King wants to achieve through this affair." "Beats me. Maybe he regards us as nothing more than an experiment to advance his research of the Slate. Or maybe it's his way of testing Munakata-kun. Or..." Kounomura paused. "The fact that you became a strain proves that the Slate is responsive to human will to a certain extent. But beyond that, I have no idea." "So even you can't figure out the inhuman Slate, although you could the human Munakata Reishi, huh."

Kounomura didn't reply. He lay curled in on himself.

Gouoku's shoulders shook with laughter. Now he could see clearly the reason why Kounomura was so unmotivated.

"You're such a greedy man, as always. You're gunning for the throne of the Blue King, yet get dejected when the Blue King's not resisting your ususrpation attempt hard enough," he accused in a teasing manner. "You're mistaken," Kounomura denied Gouoku's words, but not hard enough for it to sound convincing.

"Hey, Zen'ichi. Tell me something. What exactly Munakata Reishi can do to turn the tables on us in the current situation?" "Well," Kounomura replied in a quiet sleepy voice. "Since we're striking at the structural flaw that we found in Munakata Reishi as a human being here, he could just remember his own existence - recall who exactly he is. Or..."

But that what all Kounomura said, a peaceful sleeper's breathing being the only sound escaping him anymore.

Gouoku chuckled and took another gulp of his drink. He wouldn't mind drinking in the company of the man named Munakata Reishi together with Kounomura Zen'ichi someday, he thought.

†

It felt like he was drunk, or maybe delirious with fever. But Munakata pushed forward, shivering only slightly.

Ascending the wooden stairs, he headed to the room he used to use as his own. After Munakata became independent and left, his parents kept the room as it was, so he could use it to stay at on the extremely rare occasions when he came to visit them.

It was a straw-matted room, of the size about 6 tatami mats. Out of furniture, it only had a bed, a desk and bookcases. The massive amounts of books from when Munakata was indiscriminately reading during his being a student were mostly gone, but certain materials and albums were still lined up in a strict orderly fashion on the shelves.

Out of them, Munakata took out his grade school graduation album and opened it.

The memories revived with ease.

"Kasuga-sensei."

Munakata's brain was fast pursuing several concurrent trains of thought at once. If the process inside his cranium was to be visualized, it would probably look like a multitude of multicolored lights flashing all the time. The past data stored in the memory field were retrieved, assigned meaning through reasoning and interpretation, linked with the next piece of information and given the unity of a whole.

At the moment, Munakata was engaged in ultra-fast computing of frightening speed magnitudes. That influenced the part of his brain that controlled his body, so he was currently reeling. Or, putting it in layman's terms, he could also be said to be concentrating extremely hard.

'You are an exceedingly capable child, Reishi-kun. No, maybe I should call you too capable for your own good?' his teacher, about to retire, said once with a wide smile.

Munakata's brain reconstructed the details of the appearance of the teacher in question without any problem. His features were like a visual illusion picture meant to form a human face even when turned upside down. He wasn't particularly fat, but the vertex part was prominently rising, some straight completely white hair looking like fuzz still left on his head above his ears. His nose was bulbous, and behind the Lloyd glasses, his eyes smiled with kindness. Like a professor from an old school manga, as one of Munakata's classmates described him once.

Next, Munakata recalled the teacher's personal background. From the scrapes of rumors, Munakata's own investigation and what Kasuga-sensei told them about himself, it was a rather eccentric history for a grade school teacher. From it, it followed that Kasuga-sensei earned a PhD in political science in the USA, got a job with the UN as a member of an arbitration committee for disputed territories and worked there for almost 10 years until suffering severe injuries to his right leg. Reluctantly, he had to resign. He had job offers from several business corporations and research institutes, but he declined them all, becoming a teacher for a public elementary school instead.

"I'm sure where life is concerned, you won't get anything less than 100 points, now or in the future," Kasuga-sensei predicted with the same wide smile.

He really was a strange teacher who would cut a lesson short and take the kids to go watch bugs and flowers outside or would recite poetry non-stop for an hour. But it was during that teacher's tenure that Munakata had received anything less than full marks twice: 95 the first time and 98 the second.

To Munakata, that was completely outside his expectations.

Perfection. That was the undeniable nature inherent of the human named Munakata Reishi, even if he was only alive for a little more than 10 years at the time. On the day when their regular homeroom teacher came back, which simultaneously meant the end of Kasuga-sensei's short substitution, Munakata Reishi, whose features were still those of a young child, knocked on the door of the faculty office with the intention to directly ask Kasuga-sensei the question that needed to be asked, in the boy's opinion.

Kasuga-sensei welcomed him with a smile on his face. Munakata's question was straightforward and clear.

'Sensei, please explain why I did not get the full marks on your test?'

Let's just say that in addition to the question not at all being what a young child would ask, it was also somewhat arrogant and warranting the need for some guidance, from the educational perspective. An ordinary teacher would get angry at that. But Kasuga-sensei only burst out laughing, looking like he really did find it very funny.

'It's only natural that you would come throw this question at me. I'm happy you did, Reishi-kun. But it's only just as natural in a sense that you could not get full marks on that test.' He giggled like a prankster kid. 'After all, I designed that test specifically for you. Through observing you, I drew up all the questions in a way designed to lead you astray and guide you to make a mistake. All of them were a trap custom-made specially for you, Reishi-kun.'

He was not shy about what he'd done in the least.

At the time, Munakata was lost and bewildered.

'But sensei, is that not an inappropriate manner of conduct for an educator?' Clearly, this man's attitude as a teacher was supposed to be the opposite. 'Even if you managed to stike me down, in essence the test would lose its meaning as an educational testing tool, would it not?' 'Hahahaha!' In response to that reproving statement, Kasuga-sensei laughed loudly. 'This too is an educational method, Reishi-kun. Make sure you remember it,' he said and patted Munakata's head.

In all honesty, at that point of time what his teacher was talking about was beyond comprehension even to the prodigious Munakata Reishi. Only, Munakata Reishi still made sure to store those words in the innermost depths of his heart.

Because he had a hunch he should. Because he felt what his teacher taught him might change something in him unnoticed.

'I love you very much, you know.'

The instance those words of Kasuga-sensei's came to mind, a spark flashed in Munakata's brain. Pieces connected, instantly falling in place and unraveling the mystery of the events that until then seemed inexplicable. The riddle stopped being a riddle, becoming nothing more than its real structure instead.

At the same time, the exceedingly simple swindling scheme Kounomura Zen'ichi was running was laid bare before Munakata in pretty much its entirety. It only took mere 20 seconds for all of the above to happen.

But even Munakata Reishi ended up dizzy and unsteady from concentrating and thinking as hard as was humanly possible. Beads of sweat dripped from his brow, and his breathing was rough. That's how intense a thinking process was required.

In addition, at mostly the same instance, Munakata noticed the key that could break down his current predicament. He had understood that for besting Kounomura he absolutely needed to recall who he, himself, was. And once he realized that necessity, coming up with a solution was easy.

Munakata Reishi's obvious reason d'etre.

He got up, straightened his back and said a single phrase then. "I see. I remember now."

Pushing up at the bridge of his glasses with a finger, he whispered with grace and elegance, "That's right. I'm a king."

A flash of a smile that tugged at his lips was that of the Guardian of Order, of the Fourth and the Blue King Munakata Reishi, most clever and most young.

†

Driving his car at high speed, Munakata Reishi hurried back to the HQ. He didn't plan to stay overnight at his parents' house, but even with that taken into account, he left the family gathering a little earlier than expected.

He stayed just long enough to say good night to his niece and nephew before they went to bed.

"Uncle, will you visit again?" the two children asked, rubbing their eyes sleepily. "Of course I will," Munakata smiled and placed a gentle hand on the two's heads.

His brother who came out to see him off wrapped a hand around Munakata's shoulders as he grinned, "Say, Reishi. I made a baseball team with friends, but we don't have enough people. So... are you free next Sunday?" Munakata had to think a little. "Let's see. If I'm finished with my current matter, I might be available." "Great, I'm counting on you then. Let's form a sibling battery while we're at it, 'kay? You'll be the pitcher, and I'll be the catcher. The other way is fine, too. Yeah, now I can't wait!"

Taishi remained Taishi no matter what.

Unusually enough, Munakata Sr appeared in the entranceway to see his younger son off, too. It was anyone's guess what exactly the taciturn craftsman Jirou figured, but he clapped the younger Munakata on the arm and said, "Nm. Do your best." With that he slowly returned to the hallway.

Munakata bowed deeply to his father's back.

He sensed that his father constantly lived with the feeling of confusion when it came to him. And if he was honest, he knew that neither his parents nor his brother could ever gain a thorough understanding of who and what he was. He wasn't disappointed by it or resigned to it, he simply acknowledged it as a fact. At the same time, never once had he doubted the love they offered him.

'A kite has bred a hawk,' was what those around kept saying, and both Munakata's father and mother thought so too.

But still, the kite loved the hawk.

And they did too, in their own clumsy way, but sincerely and unhesitatingly. That's why Munakata could always return to their household as their second son Reishi, without the need to be cautious or anxious.

Before awakening as a king, Munakata Reishi lived his life without truly knowing who he was. His overly superior intelligence, his insight allowing him to foresee every manner of matter, his prodigious physical capabilities and talents... no matter what he did, he did it so well that he ended up eclipsing others as if it was only natural. What was a challenge to ordinary people, to Munakata was like walking a straight flat road, coming as natural as breathing. Not even an obstacle preventing him from seeing dozens of meters ahead. He was someone who surpassed in a heartbeat others' long and painstaking hard work with just his natural talent.

What would it even lead to if someone so superior and reality-defying tried to lead a school life among your average people?

The answer was, exclusion from the collective under the guise of admiration, and alienation from the mass with no even feeling of jealousy involved.

Because Munakata-kun was special. Because Munakata-kun was not normal.

How many times did he have those words, full of understanding on the surface but essentially ruthless and intolerant if you dug deeper, thrown at him?

His superior intelligence let him see through the pretense of respect veiling people's wish to distance themselves from him, and the Munakata Reishi of the past allowed it, resulting in his all-encompassing loneliness.

No matter how much he wished it, no one could stand equal to him. No one could see what he saw even if they looked at the same thing.

Before becoming king, Munakata Reishi was always lonely.

Munakata operated his PDA via voice input as he drove.

During his intense brain storming earlier, he exposed most of Kounomura's scheme, but there still remained a few unclear points. To figure them out, he absolutely needed capable people who could conduct field operation in his stead.

The line connected. Using a hands-free set, Munakata inquired, "Ah, Fushimi-kun?"

As he said the name of the person he was calling, a thought flashed in his head that maybe he head-hunted this person for his organization because he projected parts of his own past on the way the young man lived at the time. Needless to say, their personalities and environment was nothing alike, and unlike himself, Fushimi had a friend he could confide in, but still, the way the two of them felt out of place and alienated by those around them due to how outstandingly capable they were was very similar.

'---What is it?' The voice on the other end of the line was openly annoyed despite its owner talking to his direct superior.

Munakata's lips curved up in a smile.

"I have something to ask of you."

He then explained the contents of his request, keeping it short. Since the order was almost too concise, a normal person would likely fail to see what exactly Munakata wanted to achieve by giving it.

But Fushimi was not normal.

'---Understood,' he answered back after a 2 second silence, sounding like he had grasped Munakata's goal behind the directive in full.

The line went dead almost immediately after.

'He really is capable, extraordinarily so,' Munakata thought to himself from the bottom of his heart.

Afterwards, until arriving to the HQ, as he was driving, Munakata mulled over the topic of the grass-lot baseball game his brother invited him to. He was even humming to himself, an occurrence almost unheard-of for him.

Munakata knew he was in an uplifted mood. His drive and motivation were back.

[inyri]

Befores and Afters (a Mass Effect story)- for Kaidan Week 2017

(OK, so I’m really cheating on this one with 0 writing time so far this week- I wrote this at Christmas 2012 for a gift exchange. Sorry.

Mass Effect 3. FemShep/Kaidan.)

***

Befores and Afters (Some things change. Some things don’t.) I. Mako Her drone just barely fits under the Mako. She wouldn’t need it, normally, but her hands are full with the torque wrench, she’s got a bolt between her teeth and her headlamp keeps threatening to fall off. The light from the drone offsets the shadows from the maintenance trench just enough, and when she mutters around the bolt it chirps cheerfully in response, its tinny voice reading off the next set of pre-programmed instructions. USING A MALLET BREAK THE CONTROL ARM FREE OF THE SPINDLE Mallet. Shepard rests the wrench on her stomach, feeling around her for the appropriate tool without result. Which is still on the workbench. Damn it. She bends her knee to kick the edge of the hoverboard with one booted heel, sending it scooting out from beneath the Mako- and squarely into Kaidan’s ankles, knocking him back a step before its momentum dies. “I thought I heard you muttering under there.” He crouches down beside her. “Isn’t it supposed to be impossible to break a Mako?” “Whmph-” She spits the bolt at him; it clinks off his belt buckle and lands on the floor beside his foot. “Whoever said that wasn’t trying hard enough. I think we cracked an axle on that last slide down the mountain.” Kaidan picks up the bolt, twirls it between his fingers. “That would explain the loud noise and the wheel wobble. I knew that terrain was impassable.” “We passed it just fine.”

“Until you broke the Mako.” He sets the bolt on her stomach, next to the wrench. “At least the system’s clear of geth. Maybe they’ll even give us a real mission soon, instead of mopping up stragglers in the Terminus.”

“Yeah, well. The medals were pretty shiny.” Her scar twitches, pulls her right eye closed into the semblance of a wink. Kaidan snorts. “And that and a dead Reaper’ll buy you a cup of coffee. Did you need something?” She gestures awkwardly toward the workbench. “I forgot the mallet- I haven’t fixed an axle since Basic. Wires and lasers are more my thing, y’know? But the mechanic’s on shore leave until tomorrow morning, so-” her drone peeks out from the repair bay, chiming impatiently, “-I figured I’d take a stab at it.” “A stab?” “Metaphorical stab. With hammering.” Lifting and setting the wrench beside her on the hoverboard, Shepard powers down the gravity control and starts to sits up even as he pushes her back down, one hand on her chest. “Hey, now- watch those hands, Alenko.” He grins and waves her off. “I’ll get it for you. Mallet, right?” “Yup. Should be on the… right. I think.” “So it is.” He rises and his footsteps move away for a moment, then pause. “On one condition.” Something scrapes along the bench surface; his footsteps come back, closer, and she turns her head to look at him as Kaidan waves the mallet in front of her, crouched down to whisper in her ear. She rolls her eyes at him. “On what condition?” “Promise you won’t steal the blankets again.” His voice is barely audible, even so close. (They were always careful, in those days- regulations and all- but caution turned every moment into an opportunity, like how the elevator just happened to get stuck for about a minute whenever they were in it together.) “You have seriously cold feet, Shepard.” “I promise.” Kaidan nods solemnly, reverses his grip and hands it to her, handle-first. “Have fun.” “Will do.” She kicks the hoverboard back into gear and slides back under the Mako as her drone reactivates with a happy-sounding hum. USING A MALLET BREAK THE CONTROL ARM FREE OF THE SPINDLE “Yeah, yeah.” After a moment, the drone’s synthetic voice is lost beneath a flurry of hammer blows. *** Shepard didn’t expect to find much left on Alchera, honestly. Her ship- Joker’s baby, but in her heart it was hers- sits in a dozen pieces on the surface, scattered armor pieces and dog tags like deformed metal flowers on red dirt but then she comes down a hill and there’s the Mako, resting on a rocky outcropping like she just drove up and left it there yesterday. Never mind that it’s been two years. Never mind that it must have fallen out of the sky, landed there when the Normandy broke up during re-entry (though she was mostly broken up already, long before she hit the atmosphere). Never mind that the rear axle she replaced so carefully is still intact when she peers beneath the vehicle, complete with the scratch on the right-hand side where the torque wrench slipped out of her hand. Maybe it really is impossible to break a Mako. She scales the rocks and kicks at the door until it opens, reaches inside and pulls the dangling fuzzy dice off the viewport; they fit neatly into an empty ammo pouch, and when she returns to the SR-2 she drapes them over the corner of the frame that holds his picture. ***

II. Armor “But now we’ve got reports about you and Cerberus.” She denies it, of course. She’s working with Cerberus, not for Cerberus, the change in preposition making all the difference in the world, but the words seem interchangeable to everyone but her. The armor doesn’t help. The style’s the same that she always favored, with plenty of pouches and pockets for spare wires and ammo and odds and ends. Her shotgun sits comfortably at the small of her back; her sniper rifle, an upgraded version of the gun she’s used since her trips to the firing range with Mom, rests along her spine in its scabbard. She looks the same- except for the orange blazon on her shoulder like a traitor’s brand. In the end, Kaidan walks away, and Shepard doesn’t fault him for it. When she gets back to the ship she dismantles one of the pop-up turrets and uses the laser to blast the painted logos off her armor. She’s finished with the body armor and halfway done with the helmet by the time Miranda stalks into the armory. “Shepard, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Her speech’s particularly clipped today, the consonants sharpened to knifepoints. “Making some adjustments to my gear.” Shepard finishes with the laser and makes a few passes with a buffing pad before picking up enamel and paintbrush. “Orange isn’t my color.” Miranda scowls, picking up her breastplate in one hand and one spaulder in the other. “This is Cerberus property, not some off-the-rack Alliance garbage. It’s not yours to deface.” She finishes the white stripe down the armguard, looks up and snorts. “Oh, really?” “We’ve discussed this, Shepard. You’ve already made non-standard adjustments to your weapons, the drones-” “-and half the crew are aliens and it pisses you off, Miranda. I get it.” The stripe’s still too damp to tape over; she’ll have to do the red later. “But I’m pretty sure we’ve established this is a non-standard mission.” Arms folded across her chest, Miranda stands in the doorway. “Field research suggests that this armor pattern is optimal across nearly every combat condition. You may lose the element of surprise.” She pushes a few buttons on her omni-tool and her drone flickers to life, hovering just at eye level in front of the other woman’s face. “If people see me coming, lady, it’ll be because I want them to.” Shepard smiles over the static buzz of the drone’s energy field. “So if I want to paint my armor bright fucking pink with lime green polka dots, I will.” Miranda narrows her eyes. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some work to do.” She turns her back to the door and doesn’t look up until she hears it close. *** She always liked the way Kaidan looked in blue- the color did something remarkable against his hair- but she has to admit his new armor is pretty spectacular. Maybe it’s the pockets. You can never have enough pockets. The first time she fights beside him when he wears it, they end up pinned between two buildings with a turret on their rear and an Atlas shooting rockets up their noses. Shepard hates Atlases- can’t get close enough to shotgun them, sniping takes forever, so she’s stuck plinking away at the damn thing from behind a crate between carefully timed Overloads. “Low on ammo here,” she shouts across to him, sending her drone behind them toward the turret. He throws a clip across; she reloads the rifle and aims across the crate, finally getting a clear line of sight to the mech’s pilot through the shattered bubble. Her shot catches the Cerberus soldier just between the eyes, and as he slumps out of the cockpit the mech powers down. Behind them, the turret explodes in a shower of sparks. “Clear?” Kaidan checks their tail. She crawls out of cover, looks right and left around the empty Atlas. “Clear.” The turret’s dead, a few parts still useable- she tucks those into her belt pouch- but its thermal clips don’t work with rifles. Shepard looks back to Kaidan with a shrug. “This rifle’s an ammo hog. Can you spare any more?” “Eh, I’ve got plenty.” He opens one of the front pockets. “The ammo pouches on this thing have ammo pouches. I feel like a munitions factory.” Shepard resolves at that moment to get a suit of it for herself. It would figure, of course, that the Ajax was a Cerberus design, stripped in bits and pieces off a couple dead engineers after a raid and retrofitted to Alliance spec. (Of course it was for engineers- practical, elegant design with plenty of gear space, easily adapted to different loadouts, better-than-standard performance enhancement. Only an engineer could create such a thing.) She can’t help but tease Kaidan about it, if only a little. “So I guess not everything Cerberus worked on is so bad, hm?” She brushes off the engraving on the chestpiece- SHEPARD, in big block letters, unmistakeable as anyone’s but hers. “I guess not,” Kaidan says, inspecting his own suit with its matching engraving; he looks her up and down, and grins. “I can think of a few good things they’ve done.” “This armor is pretty great.” She doesn’t notice he’s still looking until she turns around. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it is.”

***

III. Rest It’s a travel day, which means mission planning. There aren’t many travel days, now, with the Reapers in almost every system, but this outpost’s at the furthest edge of the cluster and they decide to play it safe. If the Reapers follow them, there won’t be enough time for a full evacuation before they lose the whole thing- or the planet it’s on. Like Bekenstein. Shepard closes her eyes and flops back onto the bed. “I need a nap.” “You need a vacation.” Kaidan snatches the datapad from beneath her just before she rolls over onto her stomach. “A long vacation.” “Hmph.” She turns her head to the side, keeps her eyes closed. “Didn’t they tell you in Spectre training? We don’t get vacations. We just keep working until our bodies give out, then get replaced with new models. Like machines.” His hands slide under the white cotton of her shirt, fingers working at the knots that run like parallel ropes along her spine. “You’re not a machine, Shepard. You get to be tired once in a while.” He digs into a particularly stubborn spot; she winces, then relaxes. “Besides, we’ve done as much planning as we can.” “I keep telling myself that, but it’s never enough.” She rests her head on her folded arms. Kaidan lets it go for a while, brushing her hair away to get at her neck, pulling up the elastic cuffs at her ankles to work along the backs of her legs. “It has to be.” “What if it isn’t?” He stops, then, and when she turns to look at him he lifts her hand in his, presses his lips against the tattoo on her little finger. “It will be. Get some sleep, okay? EDI can let you know when we’re getting close.” “I don’t want to sleep.” “I thought you said-“ Shepard sighs. “I did. I lied. I want to forget, I guess- when I sleep, I remember.” She rolls onto her back again, looking up at the passing stars through the skylight. “Can I help you forget, then?” Kaidan, still sitting cross-legged on the bed, looks down at her. “Not if it involves tequila like last time. I was hung over all day.” Her nose wrinkles at the memory. (She’s had to stay away from it ever since; she’d always thought he was a whiskey drinker, anyway.) He chuckles, and bends down to kiss her stomach, just at the gap where the hem of her shirt pulls away from her waistband. “I can probably think of other ways.” “Mm?” She smiles. “Mm.” He gets the drawstring between his teeth and pulls.

*** Communication lines were spotty after the war ended, and it took some time to repair enough of the damage to get the Normandy airborne again. He knew she wasn’t gone, though. The others called it wishful thinking, made a plaque with her name to put up on the memorial wall, but he wouldn’t do it. Not yet. When he gets the message he’s already back on Earth, helping clean up the wreckage that used to be Vancouver, but half an hour later he’s on the first transport to London. “They found her.” Liara meets him outside the hospital- she’d been the first to know, as she was so often. Her voice cracks. “She’s in rough shape, but she’s alive. I’ve spoken with Miranda, and she’s coming to help, but-“ “That bad?” He swallows. He’d seen the records. “No, no. Alive. Awake, now. Shepard’s a hard woman to kill.” “Let me see her.” She’s terribly pale and wrapped nearly head to toe in bandages and clean white sheets, but when he comes through the door she smiles. “Hey, you.” “Hey.” There aren’t words for this, for the moments between ‘I thought you were dead’ and ‘don’t ever do that again’ and ‘I love you,’ so he settles for the first thing that comes out. “You did it.” She laughs like it hurts her, but she nudges his hand where it rests on the bedrail. “Just doing my job.”

[raidpirate52]

The Loud House Season 3 Scorecard by raidpirate52

More in-depth analysis under “Keep Reading”. 

Tripped: A good, entertaining episode. Not the best of the 30 minute specials, but still quite enjoyable on its own. I give the episode a "B". White Hare: I feel the number of rabbits was a bit too high to really focus on the episode and it was overall distracting. Originally it was the plan for the cast to be rabbits with various other animals, and I have to admit I'm glad they decided to go with what they did with humans. Probably wouldn't have been as popular of a show with animal humans. I give this episode a "C". Insta-Gran: It had a nice ending with the Loud kids being there for Myrtle learning she didn't have much of a family like hers after spending the episode loathing her, which was caused by some funny moments like her deleting Lori and Leni's shows.  I give this episode a "B". Roadie to Nowhere: So this might be controversial, but I don't like this episode. Everyone seems to call it one of the best and I just get so bored watching it. Sorry, but I give this episode a "D". A Fridge Too Far: It was clever to see the ways the Loud's protected their leftover food. Also when throwing away dad's food and Cliff having himself a feast.  I give this episode a "B". Selfie Improvement: Lori getting into a selfie competition with Carol was pretty funny, but it felt fairly repetitive and not exactly the most compelling plot. It was nice that she and Carol became friends in the end, so I give this episode a "C". No Place Like Home School: I really liked that Lola decided to help her siblings out to help them pass their tests and them returning the favor to go back to regular school so she can continue home school instead. Was a great episode, I give it an "A". City Slickers: It was funny how Lori struggled with the city life. I think the Lincoln and Ronnie Anne story was alright. A bit cliche with the hide from origins angle, but it was nice she embraced Royal Woods at the end. I give this episode a "B". Fool Me Twice: The different ways Luan's prank to humiliate the family was pretty ridiculous but in a funny way. Also, finally Luan gets some comeuppance in the end for the April Fools saga. Not sure if this will be the last April Fool's episode, we'll just have to wait and see. I give this episode a "B". Net Gains: It was nice for Lynn to learn teamwork in this episode, despite her team not winning in the end. Also nice that Flip wasn't terrible for once. I give this episode a "B". Pipe Dreams: An interesting plot idea with the Loud parents wanting a bathroom in their closet. Feel it had some similarities to Lock 'N' Loud from the last season with this time the parents trying to secure their new bathroom. Not as good as that one in my opinion, but I still give this episode a "B". Fandom Pains: A nice episode that gives focus to Lucy's relationship with Lori and Leni, a trio you wouldn't think to see much. It was a great episode and I enjoyed seeing the three of them hang out. I give this episode an "A". Rita Her Rights: This one is alright. Highlight was seeing which ways Rita could find ways to get community service and returning to a house of chaos. Other than that, not the most entertaining. I give this episode a "C". Teacher's Union: Only part I liked was Lori assuming Lincoln was talking about himself when asking for advice, other than that I didn't really care about the Coach Pacowski and Mrs. Johnson plot. I give this episode a "C". Head Poet's Anxiety: So this episode has Lucy interacting with Luan. Definitely a great episode. Despite initially being jealous, it was nice Luan came to her senses and in the end supported Lucy. I give this episode an "A". The Mad Scientist: A fairly good Lisa episode. It was nice that she remembered the time with her family and how much they really mean to her. I give this episode a "B". Missed Connection: A good episode with Lori and Bobby trying the long distance thing. I liked them coming together and despite not having their best dates, they still work things out. I give this episode a "B". Deal Me Out: Lincoln and Clyde feel their too old for Ace Savy. Not sure how I felt on this episode, just felt it was okay. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing spectacular to me. I give the episode a "C".   Friendzy: Another episode the siblings fight each other, but this one has a good resolution in the end with them making up and working things out. I liked the part when the sisters caught on to the friend card and caught Lola watching TV with her friend, Lincoln cried for his mom. It was pathetic but in a cute kind of way. I also liked that Lincoln's first friend to tag along him and Clyde was Liam. Great moments in this episode, I give it an "A". Pasture Bedtime: Liam actually gets a spotlight role. It was fun to see him have so much energy around the farm. Also unfortunate what happened to Lincoln, Clyde, Zach and Rusty at Girl Jordan's party but they had it coming for double-crossing Liam. Also some hilarious dark humor at the end. One of my favorites of the season. I grade this episode an "A". Shop Girl: So the Loud's try to teach Leni to be assertive. Not as good as "Walking Small" in SpongeBob, but still had some fun moments. I liked the part at the end when Lola tried to be rewarded for being nice only to push fries on a poor guy.  I give this episode a "B". Gown and Out: A great Lola episode where she spends most of it with Lori. I liked Lincoln helping out, a nice call back to Toads and Tiaras. Was nice for Lola to congratulate the winner of this episode, and I liked when Lincoln got ahead of himself and scared Lola only for Lori to hang up on him.  I give this episode an "A". Breaking Dad: It was nice to see Lynn Sr. spend some time with Lily in this episode. Quite repetitive though, but not a bad episode by any means. I give this episode a "B". Ruthless People: Not really hard to see why a lot dislike this episode, but me personally, I thought it was funny. A lot of fans want to feel bad for Lincoln's group, and that's fine, but you should keep in mind they brought their misfortune on themselves for the most part. Had they just stayed where they were and not bail at the first opportunity, they wouldn't have had such a bad time. Also, a bit of their sympathy goes away when their motive was to get the others to have a miserable time they were having, so they kind of deserved it. Overall, I give this episode a "B". What Wood Lincoln Do: The highlight of this episode was definitely Walt demanding he get his bird house back.  I also liked Lincoln trying to bribe his own mom to do his wood shop projects. Overall I'd give this episode a "B". Scales of Justice: Just like "Frog Wild" of the last season, this one compliments it by having Lana try to save a new breed of animals. It was funny when Leni would run into walls/trees.  Definitely a great episode as it showed how Lana gets along with the wildlife. I give this episode an "A". Crimes of Fashion: I liked what Clyde and Lincoln did for Leni to fight and help get her job back. Also was kind of amusing they were in their Ace Savy costumes the whole time. I give this episode a "B". Absent Minded: Kind of a meh episode. Clyde worries about his perfect attendance being tainted. Not really the most compelling idea for an episode. I give this episode a "C". Be Stella My Heart: I liked the episode pointed out that not all male-female friendships need romance. Also had some good moments with Lincoln's friends. I have to say my personal favorite was they hit each other with dodgeballs and stated the reason was for what happened at lunch. "That's for the meatball." "That's for the mustard." "That's for blinding me!" -Then Clyde misses Liam-.  I give this episode an "A". Sitting Bull: It was nice seeing Lynn take some responsibility. Even though she wasn't the best babysitter through most of the episode, it was still pretty funny. At least she wasn't neglectful. A good episode with the older Loud sisters. I give this episode a "B". The Spies That Loved Me: It was pretty funny how the family worried about Ronnie Anne but didn't seem to pay any attention that Carl was the one who fell victim to everything they worried about. I give this episode a "B". Really Loud Music: Probably my favorite of the season. While I wasn't a fan of every song in this one I still really enjoyed the overall plot. My personal favorite songs were Lana's, Lola's, Lori and Leni's, and all of Luna's. I really liked the part where when Michelle and Doug tried to pull the plug on Luna, it was Lana and Lynn who teamed up to stop them. This episode easily gets an "A". House of Lies: I did enjoy this one. I liked the Loud's working together to destroy Lisa's lie-detecting glasses and later to destroy the over-sensitive system. The montage of them having to tell full truths was pretty funny too. I give this episode a "B". Game Boys: Not a bad episode, but compared to some of the others recently, this one kind of pales in comparison. It's good, but not a standout. I give it a "C". Everybody Loves Leni: I really liked the episode showing off how Leni puts everyone before herself, but I kind of wish her friends were more interesting of characters. Overall, a good episode though. I rank it a "B". Middle Men: The horrors that was Middle School. I totally see where Lynn was coming from in this episode. Not really sure how I felt about the happy ending to this one, it was nice, but all the same, the drama of middle school doesn't ever go that way, especially for characters like Lincoln and Clyde. I still grade it a "B" though because I like that Lynn tried to help Lincoln through it. Jeers for Fears: I definitely liked seeing Chandler in another episode. Though, he was mostly only in the beginning and end of it. In the middle is where the episode kind of drops in quality for me. I didn't enjoy seeing Lincoln be a coward in Price for Admission and I didn't really like it here either. It was nice for the Loud sisters to help him out and later Bobby too. I also liked that Chandler comes to respect Lincoln and Clyde too so overall give this episode a "B". Tea Tale Heart: Lola thinking the doll was haunted was an entertaining episode. I liked that at the end it was revealed Lana just always happened to be at the same places at the same time. Of course Lucy loving the thought of the doll being supernatural too. I give this episode an "A". The Loudest Thanksgiving: Was nice to see a Thanksgiving special, but I felt it maybe had a bit too much conflict for a Thanksgiving episode. Also felt that there were too many characters to focus on. Not bad, but I feel it could've been done better. I give this episode a "B". Predict Ability: I did enjoy seeing Lincoln mix things up with his daily routine. I also really liked his hipster outfit. Also had a good mix of focus with the other characters. I give this episode an "A". Driving Ambition: It was a nice Lori-centric episode. Overall though I feel it was a bit forgettable. I give it a "C". Home of the Fave: I did really enjoy seeing Lynn Sr. interact with all his kids, though wish they evened out a bit more. Most of the first half is with just Luan and Lola. I did like how he tried to give his kids equal time, only driving himself crazy. Also, at the end when the pets started to get jealous.  I give this episode an "A". Hero Today, Gone Tomorrow: Was nice for Lynn to share the spotlight with her friend for once and seemingly keeping her lesson in tact at the end. Nice to see Paula get a second appearance. I give this episode an "A". Cooked: It was a good special. I did like seeing the Loud kids come up with different ways to promote their dad's restaurant and seeing it get put into action like Lincoln trying to drive every bus that stopped by or Lana allowing patrons to bring pets to Liam bringing his whole barn. Very entertaining episode, I grade it an "A". The Write Stuff: A pretty mundane episode where if not for Lucy would probably be the sole F of the season, but her addition keeps me from ranking this as the least. I don't care much for Principal Huggins but this episode gave him a lot of focus and I liked that Rita stepped in to take over Lucy's group, but still, not the most entertaining episode. Racing Hearts: I liked that we got a focus episode on Sam and Luna. I do like that it was shown that relationships can work even with personal differences but I wish they showed more of what they have in common to balance it out. Still a good enough episode to get a "B" grade. Stage Flight: I liked the Benny and Luan interactions in this episode, I thought it was cute. Definitely had me on board with the two. Funny how Benny has a puppet of his own. I give this episode an "A". Antiqued Off: The last episode that features Lincoln and his friends. Though most focus was on Clyde and Zach, not exactly my favorite of Lincoln's social circle. Still, it was a nice episode with a good lesson that friends should try more things that their friends like so I give this episode a "B". No F's in this season, lots of A's, so that's good. Overall, a great season. Looking forward to see what Season 4 brings.

[danmacrae]

Silly 90s Intro Blab: A Thing To Skim Through On The Toilet

Hello! I’m semi-tolerable nuisance Dan MacRae! Why am I shouting at you? Not sure! Sorry, I’ll take it down a notch.

Instead of learning how to pleasure a woman or how to unlock the mysteries of grooming, I have devoted my life to TV nonsense. Blessed YouTube presence RwDt09 has been collecting these amazing compilations of era (and sometimes season) specific TV intros and they are my everything. Imagine having a child that didn’t suck? That’s the feeling RwDt09′s videos put in my heart.

I've been obsessively rewatching this collection of mostly forgotten early '90s TV intros. The bulk of these shows died a quick death and feel like the product of whatever drugs TV execs take. (Probably something snorted from one of those awesome McDonalds coffee straws they ditched in like 2002.) Because I'm a handsome pin-up hunk of the year, I wrote some dumb blurbs about the first few shows and have some stray thoughts on the rest. This appeals to no one but me AND I APOLOGIZE TO NO ONE!

In the immortal words of John Lennon, let’s get biz-zay!

DINOSAURS: I’m at a point in my life where I can acknowledge that Dinosaurs sucked. It’s incredibly freeing. Christ, this is like that stupid-ass Norman Lear show where dogs did social commentary BUT WITH HENSON PUPPETS! I hope Baby Sinclair was stomped to death and eaten as pudding before the extinction series finale. (Yes, that happened.) The intro isn’t bad, mind you. You get the lumbering theme song and Earl gets stuck in a door CUZ LAFFS! TIMES SURE HAVEN’T CHANGED HO HO HO! God I hate these fucking dinosaurs.

Intro MVP: It’s not a stellar pack, but we get a bit of Robbie Sinclair who census data has shown led to a variety of surprising sexual awakenings for youths at the time.

SCORCH: A 1300-year-old dragon named Scorch visits the 1990s on a budget that looks not far removed from Skank on The Ben Stiller Show. The song will make you want to barricade your sex organs from a world where you can bring children into a world with THAT CAWAZZZY SCORCH! The theme song really is a special brand of irritating and Scorch looks like a malformed Deviant Art dildo with a vaguely religious bent.

Intro MVP: Probably John O’Hurley for not actually appearing in the intro. (Even with O’Hurley’s weird résumé.)

FISH POLICE: Not to be confused with the (ARF! ARF! ARF!) Dog Police, Fish Police and Family Dog are shows I know almost exclusively from being mentioned as examples of the crappy post-Simpsons primetime animation gold rush. Fish Police actually looks good animation-wise, but it’s pretty clear you’re gonna be sledgehammered with endless “COULD YOU IMAGINE FISH DOING THESE OLD TROPES? DO WE NEED TO CALL A SEARCH PARTY FOR YOUR SIDES? ARE THEY SPLITTING ALREADY?” jokes. Congrats dipshits, you made a cinema-touched precursor to Frankie & George. You dummies. Also there’s the tone of casual racism UNDER THE SEA so do with that what you will. DID YOU SEE CHINATOWN? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT SHIT?

Intro MVP: Thank goodness they specified who John Ritter voices so we could all bask in Inspector Gil as a character name. Fuck you, Fish Police.

CAPITOL CRITTERS: Christ, this looks UNWATCHABLE. Like walk into oncoming traffic as an alternative unwatchable. Capitol Critters centers around an animated mouse named Max (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) witnesses his family being murdered in Nebraska and moves to D.C. and wait what the fuck is going on with those roaches? (Racism, mostly.) Who thought this was a good idea to invest time, money and animator joint damage in? Stephen Bochco, baby! I have a perverse curiosity to see an episode but after 90 seconds I know I'd be dying to eat a fucking gun instead of suffering through any more of Capitol Critters.

Intro MVP: Gotta be Bochco. Also, EAT SHIT BOCHCO!

And now a really tiny blab about the rest. Watch this clip package, ya goofs!

FAMILY DOG: Folks were fucking horny for Spielberg TV shit in the 90s, ditto Tim Burton too and that's how an Amazing Stories, uh, story was morphed into a shitball TV series that Brad Bird wanted no part of. Also, I have no idea how to explain things like the CBS StereoSound chyron to anyone born after Clinton left office.

THE CRITIC: Nice to see you, Jay Sherman! This is a lovely intro and you likely know that already. I've done a few rewatches of The Critic (not the web series season, though) and I say the show definitely holds up and is far from a duketastrophe. That said, some of the parody film clips that got raves at the time are kinda creaky in hindsight.

CHARLIE HOOVER: Can I say something? Fuck Sam Kinison. Hmm... That's a bit harsh. I guess I just don't get him on any level. The only thing he's done that I've ever found all that funny was when he said he wished Andrew Dice Clay die of stomach cancer from the inside out, like Bette Davis. Kinison's not my cup of tea is what I'm getting at. In Charlie Hoover (GET IT HURF HURF), Kinison is a foot high loudmouth in a long coat that's getting 40-year-old square Tim Matheson where he needs to be in life.

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN: Or... "Betty Spaghetti's Here Which Is All The Star Power You Need!"

HARDBALL: A League Of Their Own had a fun, feel good intro with all the corny touches of ol' timey baseball. Hardball tries to sell you on Joe Rogan: Baseball Fella and the vague scent of urinal troughs.

GOOD GRIEF: Howie Mandel golfs in a cemetery and it's not particularly clear if he's just fucking around on strangers graves for fun. (Alternate Theory: Those graves belong to the family from Bobby's World. All the Generics!)

THE FANELLI BOYS: If enjoy broad Italian-American stereotypes to the point of falling down laughing at the sight of a pizza box, you'll love The Fanelli Boys! Joe Pantoliano and Christopher Meloni both star.

SOMETHING WILDER: Something Wilder was the sort of show where I wished Gene Wilder well and still kept 5000 miles away from watching it. Also, Wilder's face on that house is CHILLING.

DUDLEY: Embrace the luxury hotel elevator elegance of Dudley! Does it feature Dudley Moore make a series of faces where he seems surprised by everything? You better believe it. This was also where Max Wright got work in-between taking abuse from a cat eating alien and Norm Macdonald.

CAROL & COMPANY: It's a bit Carol Takes On in the intro with Carol Burnett in assorted costumes and that's alright because everyone does the assorted costumes intro thing. Tickets to the show are blown across America and get in the hands of whatever Orphan Black Carol happens to be in the area.

THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW: This is an extremely 90s sort of intro that feels like something more upscale soft rock stations did in TV ads at the time too. Richard Kind directs a bit of paper at someone midway through.

DREXELL'S CLASS: One of more storied entries in the Dabney Coleman being an asshole catalogue. The first intro features Dabney, ol' Drex himself, just hanging around in class being hot shit and occasionally mimicking a flying dinosaur. The second intro is a more traditional clip collection highlighted by a young Brittany Murphy (WHO WAS MURDERED! FACT! REMINDER!) and Coleman in a wild 8 ball jacket. Rembrandt off Sliders also makes an appearance.

TEECH: If this intro looks exactly like a sitcom where a Cool Black Music Instructor™ teaches Prep School bad boys in Bush Sr era America that's because it is exactly that sort of sitcom. Maggie Han deserves better.

THE ROYAL FAMILY: It seems extra cruel to take Redd Foxx's popcorn away considering he'd be dead before the fifth episode even aired. Della Reese is in this, die-hard Della fans.

ROC: This intro works perfectly. We get Charles S. Dutton, Ella Joyce and an easy to digest Jerry Lawson theme song. (En Vogue would do the theme later.) It’d be nice if they could get Edgar Allan Poe wagging a finger at seafood or something else in the background to push that Baltimore thing even more, but I still wish this intro from 25+ year old Fox comedy all the best in its future endeavours.

BREWSTER PLACE: Speaking of good intros, Brewster Place is a first rate brand of TV welcome. Brenda Pressley is the MVP of the intro over Oprah Winfrey which might explain why Brenda Pressley has been missing since 1992. (I know she’s on The Path. Just play along.)

SUNDAY BEST: The intro equivalent of getting someone to throw shit at a wall, we get an early 90s NBC grab bag of fuck it whatever shots of TVs and TV dinners with poor Carl Reiner trotted out partway through.

AMERICAN CHRONICLES: Mark Frost and David Lynch paired for a documentary series in the early ‘90s on Fox because Fox was like fucking UHF at the time. The industrial strength creepy opening doesn’t include any shots of narrator Richard Dreyfuss turning towards the camera and that’s a damn shame.

AMERICAN DETECTIVES: If you get horny for stressed out real-life detectives, this will send your undergarments to Mars! Lots of mustaches here. A whole Safeway bag’s worth. Some real rural gas station rock going on with that theme tune.

FBI: THE UNTOLD STORIES: The tone of this entire intro is: “Hey kid, wanna see a dead body? Or twenty?” Creepy music blasting over Jackie Kennedy on the back of JFK’s death limo and Wayne Williams heading to trial equals primetime party fun!

ENCOUNTERS: THE HIDDEN TRUTH: Suck it, Sightings! Encounters is leading a new dawn for crackpot horseshit to eat Bugles to! I appreciate the shameless X-Files knockoff intro thing Fox is doing (cuz it’s their show) that comes complete with head shop blanket alien head popping up midway through.

STEPHEN KING’S GOLDEN YEARS: Essentially Garth Marenghi's Darkplace with one hell of a music rights win tacked on.

TRIBECA: This opening reminds me an awful lot of terrible movies I was bullied into watching on VHS at a friend’s house.

WIOU: One thing I like in a TV intro is when something fun happens with the title onscreen. It’s a minor thing, but the way those WIOU letters turn into view? HOOCHIE MAMA! Eight is Enough’s Dick Van Patten does a fantastic job of conveying that being a weatherfellow is tough work.

GABRIEL’S FIRE: I will never for the life of me understand how the early ‘90s could not sustain a James Earl Jones fronted program titled Gabriel’s Fire. Those worlds are supposed to meld beautifully.

PROS & CONS: Gabriel’s Fire would morph into the more lighthearted Pros & Cons which symbolized its new form by laying it on thick with the Video Toaster touches. Instead of James Earl Jones peering at you from the darkness, this go-around it’s a lot of smiles and silly moments with Richard Crenna.

BURKE’S LAW: Hearing “it’s Burke’s Law” at the start of that intro is like when “Do you smell what The Rock’s cooking?” would play before Dwayne Johnson would wander down a ramp to kick Triple H in the stomach. In this case, it’s to get you fired up that Gene Barry’s back on television. This particular episode promises Dom DeLuise and Tawny Kitaen together at last!

MAX MONROE: LOOSE CANNON: If you only see one intro for a Shadoe Stevens vehicle that transitions from a Donut Hole shot to an extended leer at a lady’s bum, make it this one!

TEQUILA AND BONETTI: The creators of Tequila and Bonetti know that if you want folks to get on board for an L.A. dramedy about a New York cop and streetwise police partner dog, you should kick things off by trying to make you feel sorry for this asshole who “accidentally” murdered a kid. Seriously, that’s the route Tequila and Bonetti goes with this fucking insane opening that begins with newspaper headlines screaming “COP KILLS 12 YR OLD” while he cradles a black girl in her arms and then BOOM! we’re spun around to JACK SCALIA GRINNING AROUND WACKY LOS ANGELES AND ALL ITS CRAZY CHARACTERS LIKE A DOG THAT JUMPS THROUGH A FUCKING WINDOW WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? THIS IS LIKE IF SOMEONE STROKED OFF THE HANNITY VIEWING AND KEPT WHAT WAS SPURTED OUT ONSCREEN! It’s just a really, really, really bad intro.

[bwprowl]

Not all stuff here is the newest, but there is a freshly-seen cute Gundam mash-up, as well as a statue from a decent new show this season, and an early-reveal Nendo from this season’s sleeper hit! In fact, there are a ton of pre-orders from Tamashii and Good Smile just up, and we’ll be giving at least cursory glances to most of them. Meanwhile, I take a break from those transforming robots to fiddle with a *different* kind of transforming robot. All this and good boys too, here on Tuesday Night Toys!

New Stuff: Fortunate Guy

The Gundam Build Fighters series deserves to have its success milked (are we ever getting a second season of Try?), and among other things, that means more Beargguy variants! The newest spin is the Chara'GGuy, a little version of everyone’s favorite moe-bile suit done up like it’s a chibi costume being worn by one of the anime characters. The first ones, somewhat expectedly, include Fumina (who already has a few kits made in her image), as well as Gyanko. and they look like cute little distractions. It’ll be neat to see if they do Chara'GGuys for the other main characters from this series, to say nothing of branching out to the earlier Build Fighters season, or other Gundam shows altogether!

Toyscity is coming out with this 1/6 scale statue of a ‘working dog’, a German Shepard that can don different military/police body armor and pose alongside your similarly-scaled movable fighting man figures to add a touch of companionship. It’d be nice if it was a fully posable dog (there…aren’t enough of those), but as a display piece it works well, and is a cool idea for something to get a toy at all.

Urara Meirochou is not a series I’m watching this season (I’m going kind of light, currently, though it looks like next season will have plenty of stuff I want to watch), but select members of my readership I know are. It seems like a cute enough show, and at least uguu fortune tellers isn’t a specific corner of moe I think has been covered before. To that end, apparent main character Chiya will be getting this big expensive statue from Stronger out at the end of this year.

I’m also not watching Kemono Friends, though its shocking ascent to popularity has been worth following out of the corner of my eye. Good Smile took notice too, apparently, and wanting to strike while the iron was hot, revealed and put up pre-orders for a Nendoroid of cover girl/cat Serval without even a finished product to show off. Eschewing their usual practices, the page currently just has the in-development prototype, and illustrations of what else to expect from the figure. It is an impressive testament to how FAST GSC can move on these sorts of things, as well as perhaps a meditation on how fleeting this series’ found fame may be, that they want to lock in those pre-orders while people still care.

Wishlist: Aisle Reset

Tamashii’s latest round of Figuarts pre-orders went live in the wee hours of Monday morning. I already threw up pics of the new Shinkocchou Seihou version of Kamen Rider Skull, and he’s way gone already anyway (the pre-orders were closed within two minutes, and AmiAmi doesn’t even have him listed on the front page anymore; I’m really glad I was able to squeak my pre-order through). Definitely one to keep an eye on though, Skull’s always been an impeccable design (full disclosure: seeing pics of this design, specifically the original SHF of it, is what convinced me to first start watching Kamen Rider), and this is the first retail release of an SHF for him, and looks to be the best one ever.

Other SHFs include the next Street Fighter entries, Cammy and Rashid. Now that we’re past the obligatory Ryu and Chun-Li, we can get to the interesting stuff. Cammy’s had plenty of figures before too, but this is, I think, the first of her SFV design, and works well with the SHF design. Rashid, being a brand-new character, gets his first figure here, and it captures the look and movement of the guy perfectly. Rashid’s quickly become one of my favorites to play in the game, and he’s so much fun as a character. I’ll keep an eye on this one.

As well, both Tigers from current long-running franchise wrasslin’ series Tiger Mask W are up for pre-order in SHF form. Tiger Mask himself and his angsty anti-hero counterpart Tiger the Dark are both available, and if they’re the only ones so far from their series, you can easily have them also square off against either the Kinnikuman or WWE Figuarts. SHF wrestling is quickly becoming a subgenre on the level of toku from the same line.

And finally an SHF of Yuki Mori from the latest Space Battleship Yamato series is being made too. I haven’t watched this series at all,  I only know it from pics and, uh, other toys I’ve seen throughout the years. This is mostly of interest to me because I REALLY hope it means they make an SHF of Akira next, since I utterly love her design.

On the figma side of things, Max Factory didn’t want to be left in the fighting-game dust by Tamashii’s Street Fighter releases, so they put up the first two for their King of Fighters series: Kyo and Iori. Both come with great effect parts, though I must admit I’m somewhat concerned about how Iori’s posability will be hindered by his trademark ridiculous pants-strap. You’ll be able to make it work, it seems.

As well, extra Nendo bodies in suits are being made available. You’ll get six in the pack, including a ‘secret’ type complete with a ‘secret’ accessory. They do know their marketing. These look super-cute and cool though, and would definitely be worth it for setting up more fun little scenes if you had a lot of Nendos you wanted to mess around with.

Man, generic figma bodies in suits like this would be a cool idea

Oh and that statue of Jam from Guilty Gear Xrd by Aquamarine is up for pre-order too. The AmiAmi-exclusive version comes with a bonus cute little acrylic standee!

On Desk: Smoke Weed Everyday

I’ve actually got a Gundam kit and some Sentai mini-pla I’d love to talk about, but sadly a recent relapse into Overwatch addiction (finally got my computer to run it properly again) and finally diving headfirst into playing Life is Strange means I just haven’t found the time to put them together. And while I’m super-psyched to have found the Chaos on Velocitron box set over the weekend, I think you all have had just enough of me talking about Transformers Titans Return for a little bit. So instead I’ll go on about a new Go-Bot for a bit!

Blackbird Robo was the latest release for Action Toys’s remade Machine Robo Revenge of Chronos line (and I skipped Mixer Robo since he looked, ah, boring). Blackbird Robo has a lot going for it though: It’s based on a vehicle I think is really cool, it was one of Go-Bots’s female characters (who shamed Transformers in the regularity they appeared with), and her old toy has an arcane, nerdy history in not actually being released in the US originally. So how is new Snoop herself?

Pretty cool, as it were! There’s definitely a bit more polish on this one compared to the original four releases; everything on Snoop is so smooth and easy, there’s a reduced amount of tricky, fiddly bits compared to those more overly detailed toys. Part of this might have to do with Snoop’s quite Basic transformation in the first place, but they don’t skimp just because they can. There are plenty of little details like the way the little bit from the groin flips out for jet mode, to how the arms compress and lock in. And really, being simpler means that unlike Leader-1 or Cy-Kill, Snoop’s actually really fun to just flick back and forth between modes, the way a transformin’ toy should be!

Her vehicle mode is thankfully tidier and more detailed than initial pics made it out to be. The SR-71 has always been a plane that I thought looked exceptionally cool, and it’s represented well at the new Machine Robo size here. Not as niftily undercarriage free as Eagle Robo was, but still impressively sleek, and razor-sharp in places like the nose (which it can get away with, on account of not actually being a kids’ toy).

I really like the weapons in this figure. She comes with two blasters that snap onto her hands, and they’ve got this distinctive, formed-off-of-the-arm look to them. It’s almost reminiscent of the TF Movie weapons, but they still fit in well with the more retro aesthetic here. They look very cool either equipped singularly or with her dual-wielding them.

I don’t know that I’m gonna always go all-in for this new Machine Robo/Go-Bots line, but Snoop here was definitely worth getting, and reminds me to at least keep my eye on the cool-looking ones. I can’t wait to see when we can get Fitor and Spay-C.

You have fun with the rest of your night everyone, and I’ll see you next time!

[ohlawsons]

the things that matter.

SUMMARY. Commander Natalie Shepard has a bit of a history with her flight lieutenant, but they've long since worked through any lingering awkwardness. Mostly. When she and Kaidan go on a double date with Joker and his girlfriend, it leaves them all thinking about the past, what-ifs, and all the things that are most important. Inspired by a double date prompt. NOTES. nat belongs to @reagans-ramblings! thank you for letting me write about your beautiful bi shepard i love her so much now with an ao3 link! LINKS. [ AO3 ] [ FFN ]

Thinking back, Joker wasn’t sure exactly whose idea it had been.

Setting up an elaborate double date between three of the galaxy’s busiest people and a woman whose job required her to be virtually impossible to track down was, strictly speaking, a terrible idea. Maybe Cal had suggested it, because she loved social shit like that. Or maybe he had, because social shit like that was a surefire way to convince Cal to take some shore leave on the Citadel. There was a pretty decent chance it had been Kaidan, for no other reason than Joker was more than willing to put some good-natured blame on the major. Hell, it might’ve even been EDI who’d brought it up, and in that case he was just glad he wasn’t on his way to meet her and Sam.

Although, awkward as EDI could be, a double date with her and the comm specialist could potentially be less awkward than a double date with Major Alenko and Commander Shepard — the now very pregnant Commander Shepard, who he’d once dated, and who his current girlfriend was definitely a little bit into.

Yeah, he’d rather take his chances with EDI and Sam.

But then his omni-tool chimed with a message from Kaidan saying they were running a few minutes late, and Joker typed up a reply that Cal was still MIA, and it was officially too late to back out. He fidgeted with his suit — again; it was only at the insistence of both Cal and Kaidan that he’d even agreed to wear it in the first place — and opened a vid call to Cal. “Any chance you’re still in another system? Running tragically late and we’ll have to miss dinner?”

She laughed. “Just landed, unfortunately. I’m on my way over.”

“Alright. See you then.” Not leaving the crew quarters just yet, Joker glanced reflexively over to where EDI’s display had once been. “EDI, let me know when Cal gets here.”

“Of course, Jeff. I can also alert the Commander with an updated estimation of your arrival, if you’d like.”

He groaned in response.

Fortunately for Joker, the Normandy was blissfully empty given that they were finally getting a rare bit of shore leave. Adams was still down in engineering, and he was pretty sure Tali and Traynor were both around somewhere, but with EDI’s help it had been easy enough to avoid them all evening. This whole ordeal — dressing up and looking presentable and going out to a fancy restaurant — was certainly not high on his list of ways he typically preferred to spend his time on the Citadel, and the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with comments from the rest of the crew.

But by the time he’d met Cal down in the CIC, he’d almost changed his mind about dressing up and going out; her short hair was combed back into its usual style, and she wore simple heels and a fitted suit with a black jacket and a crisp white shirt left partially unbuttoned, and she was quite possibly the best damned thing he’d seen since the start of the war. Or ever.

Joker pointed to her shirt. “You missed one,” he said, clearing his throat as he tried to find his voice.

“I prefer to think of it as giving you a head start, you know, for later, but I can always—” Cal moved to fasten another of the buttons, and he quickly retracted his statement.

“Actually, on second thought, it looks great.” He paused, not bothering to hide how his eyes roamed across her figure. “You look great,” he added, voice filled with sincerity, and emphasized the statement with a kiss, just a light brush of his lips against Cal’s.

“I look fucking fantastic,” she shot back, stealing a quick kiss of her own, “and you’re not so bad yourself. But I was promised dinner, and company that I haven’t spent the last four months with.”

He took her hand as she led him out through the main airlock and towards the skycar she’d brought. “Is it that bad?” Joker frowned; Alliance special ops weren’t easy during the best of times, but with the war, Cal’s N7 training had been pushed to the limits. He knew it had been draining her, but the level of exhaustion in her voice was still unexpected.

She gave little more than a shrug in answer, climbing into the skycar and not surrendering Joker’s hand even as she keyed in the location of the restaurant. “War sucks and everything’s classified.” Despite her words, Cal launched into a vague explanation of her most recent mission, detailing the soldiers she’d lost and the relative lack of success they’d had against the reapers. Joker chimed in where he could, adding sarcasm or supportive comments as needed., and Cal’s mood had nearly lifted by the time they reached the restaurant.

They were the first ones there, and a quick message to Kaidan confirmed that it wouldn’t be a long wait. The reservation was under Natalie’s name, and apparently being Commander Shepard meant no waiting in lines, because Joker and Cal were almost immediately led to a relatively secluded table near the back. The second couple joined them before they’d even ordered drinks, and Joker wasn’t sure whether he or Cal was being more obvious about their staring; he’d long since accepted that Kaidan would always manage to look unfairly handsome — and it didn’t hurt that his suit actually looked like it fit — but it had been a long time since he’d seen Nat out of uniform and she was practically glowing, with her hair pulled up into an elegant bun and the contrast of the deep green of her dress against her warm brown skin.

“Calliope Olson.” Cal stood, just a bit too quickly, and held out a hand first to Kaidan, then to Nat. “Joker talks about you all the time.”

Nat raised one perfectly arched eyebrow as she sat across from Cal. “Does he?”

It had been years since they were together — they were just kids on Arcturus, back then — but damn if it wasn’t suddenly very, very awkward. Repressing the sudden urge to get up and head straight for the bar, Joker shrugged. “What can I say? Cal’s a longtime fan of yours, and I aim to please.” Cal snorted at that, and Nat gave her a pointed, knowing stare; the urge to leave grew, and was accompanied by a rush of heat to his face.

“No, he’s right,” Cal admitted as she recovered from her laughter. “I’ve been following your career since Elysium. You caught my eye after Eden Prime,” she continued, turning towards Kaidan. “The only biotic originally on board, and with the woman who would become the first human Spectre? Of course I was interested.”

The two shared a sidelong glance; Kaidan looked a bit overwhelmed, but Nat seemed to be thoroughly unimpressed. She got recognized far too often for Cal to even phase her. Joker, who was fairly certain that his attempt to disappear into his chair was not working, was nearly prepared to intervene — as much as he loved how excitable Cal could be about everything from Nat to sniper rifles to wheat fields, this was not a good time — but was saved by a waiter bringing their drinks. The conversation lulled, and after a moment Kaidan set down his whiskey and cleared his throat. “So, Calliope, how’d the two of you meet?”

“He doesn’t shut up about you,” Nat interjected, sipping at her water, “but none of us ever really paid attention. ‘I’ve got a girlfriend, she’s just involved with top secret Alliance missions and she’s really hard to get a hold of’ isn’t exactly the most credible story.”

“Just Cal. And well, it was… actually…” She trailed off, giving Joker a look that clearly said help; it was never easy to bring up the two years Nat had been gone, especially for those who hadn’t actually discussed it with her before.

“It was while I was grounded,” he offered, knowing Nat would catch his meaning. “We were at a bar, she asked me to dance, I told her I didn’t feel like breaking a femur.” He shrugged. “Typical meet-cute. You know.”

If Kaidan was shaken by the mention of Nat’s death, he didn’t show it. “Somehow, I don’t have too hard of a time imagining that,” he said dryly, not quite rolling his eyes.

“What about you?” Cal asked, pausing to take a drink of whatever bright pink concoction she’d ordered. “How’d the two of you meet?”

Nat gave a flat, “My father,” at the same time that Kaidan said, “A tech issue.” They both laughed, and Nat explained, “My dad handpicked the original Normandy crew. He chose Kaidan specifically for his biotics, and Joker specifically to piss me off,” she added with a mock glare in his direction. “But actually met face to face? That… yeah, I guess that’s what it was. I had an issue with my omni-tool and Kaidan helped me work it out.”

“That’s so much better than ‘we saved the galaxy and they hooked up.’” Cal emphasized the words with air quotes, tossing a teasing grin in Joker’s direction.

“In my defense, I did try my best to stay out of their way.”

With dinner out of the way — which, if Kaidan were being honest, hadn’t gone as badly as he’d feared it might — the four of them began walking back towards Nat’s apartment. It wasn’t far, and the streets were quiet enough that there wasn’t a need to get a cab. They were in no particular hurry to get back, and Kaidan walked with an arm around Nat’s waist as they made their way through the Strip.

The bright spot of the evening, he thought, had been getting to spend so much time talking and reminiscing about their time on the SR-1, before things had gotten so damn complicated. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it were.

He watched as Cal and Joker walked a ways in front of them, hand in hand, laughter occasionally ringing out into the night. Kaidan had known that Nat and Joker had been together, before, but their double date had piqued his curiosity — less about the two of them, and more about Natalie, and how she’d been when she was younger. He wondered if she’d laughed more, back on Arcturus, back before she’d fought her way to hell and back and returned triumphant. Before life had hardened her, before all the scars that he knew so well — the ones he’d once learned and re-learned, after Alchera, and the cybernetics from Cerberus that still sometimes flared up.

Kaidan wouldn’t ever give up the woman Nat had become, but sometimes he still wondered.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Nat observed with a tilt of her head, eyes searching his face.

“Just thinking,” he assured her.

“About?”

“You.” He leaned over to place a light kiss on her forehead, right above her eyebrow, where he knew the bright lights of the Strip hid the soft glow of her cybernetics.

Nat gave a quiet laugh. “You’ve already got me, Kaidan, you don’t have to butter me up.”

“Mm. Let me enjoy it.” He fell silent for a moment, attempting to collect his thoughts; in front of them, Cal stripped off her jacket and tossed it at Joker, following it up with a less-than-subtle innuendo and laughter at his half-hearted protests. She wobbled a bit as she slid out of her heels, tucking them under one arm and falling back into stride with Joker. “It’s just— Do you remember being that… carefree, I guess?”

“No.” Her answer was automatic and unhesitant, but after a few moments she amended, “More than now, maybe, but never entirely. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone without some sort of weight on my shoulders.”

Kaidan’s only response was a thoughtful hmm as he considered all the things that had weighed her down over the years — himself included. He was under no illusion that the state of the galaxy was in any way his fault, but things could’ve perhaps been different if he’d been the one to receive the vision from the beacon on Eden Prime, all those years ago, instead of Nat stepping in because she’d wanted to save him.

But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it would always be complicated, and what mattered was being at Nat’s side when those complications arose.