#out of the list of targets that all get hit first in a nuclear end of the world scenario. the base 15 minutes down the road is on there | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pendragonsandbuckleys · 1 year ago

Text

Long Lost Papa Bear. Summary: James MacGyver – Oversight to those within the Phoenix Foundation – left his son at the mere age of ten in a pragmatic attempt at protecting him from the growing list of enemies making their way to his door. But walking out and abandoning are two different things, and when his son goes from estranged family to current employee, his methods of keeping an eye on him are only made easier. - A look into James’ time as the boss of the Phoenix Foundation, knowing full well that his own son is working beneath him. Word Count: 4,903 [Also on AO3]

When I was first recruited, I thought I could keep family and work separate and for a while, I did. But the more I worked, the more enemies I racked up and I knew one day they’d come after me like Murdoc came after you. I’d already lost your mother and I wasn’t about to risk losing you.

Your grandfather helped me keep tabs on you. I was never really gone, son. I mean, you think you ended up working for me by accident? I was always in the background, nudging you in the right direction.

— James MacGyver, Season 2 Episode 23.

FEBRUARY 2000

Teeth grinding together; a low hiss escaped past his tongue as he dabbed away the blood with a saline-soaked cotton ball. Of all the places his target had to get a hit in, of course it was right on his temple – not an easy spot to hide from an inquisitive nine-year-old.

He should be relived. A major terror attempt thwarted, the culprits locked up under high security, and – glancing at his watch – the promise of two uninterrupted days with his boy. So why was it the last thought, the thought of being close to his son, that left an uncomfortable pit in his stomach?

It amazed him how bright Angus was, always curious and eager to learn. So much like his mother—

His palms pressed into the cool ceramic of the sink; head bent low as he let out a long breath. He would have given anything for Ellen to see her son now. To see the intelligent little man he was growing into. But beautifully big-brained or not, Angus was still just a boy and he needed his father to protect him. And what better way to keep him safe than to draw the enemies away from his door.

The terrorists, the gunmen, the psychopaths intent on murder. Every day they drew nearer and eventually, whether he prepared for it or not, someone was going to infiltrate his defences and get too close to the thing he loved most in the world.

So if staying away kept his son safe, then so be it.

OCTOBER 2001

Matilda Webber was a force of nature. Fierce and determined. With only seven years on the job under her belt her reputation preceded her, accomplishing twice as much as half of his agents and he wanted her on his team.

Her assignment was simple: investigate him.

Interrogation, surveillance, snooping though information she shouldn’t be privy to using methods she had spent years honing.

Show him what all the hype was about.

Show him any flaws in his security that would need to be patched.

She was incredible, winning him over halfway through the first day, and by the end of the week he had made a firm decision: she would be his handler. She would keep him in check and help lead his team and

– when she found information on his son, his stomach dropped –

she would help him hide deeper within this organisation where even his name would not see the light of day.

MAY 2002

LOCAL TEEN CAUSES NUCLEAR MELTDOWN

…was the headline he had spent days waiting to see plastered across the front page each time he passed the newspaper stand.

Those bold black letters would never be printed of course. Regardless of his hand in the containment of the incident, his son was much too loved in that school for them to let him come into any harm over it.

Only Angus.

And Wilt, he supposed. Though he had a feeling that his son’s best friend had been an innocent – if not eager – bystander as usual. What happened to the days of Angus being satisfied with dismantling a car or stripping a DVD player for parts?

He bet the teachers were wishing they had provided something a little more stimulating for the boy genius. If they had, the giant patch of charcoaled grass might still have a football field in its place.

Then again, this was the same boy who had almost set his gym alight a few months prior with his homemade indoor lightning.

Yeah…there would have been no stopping this. He just hoped for their sake they had some good insurance in place.

For next time.

FEBRUARY 2007

His phone vibrated once against the desk as he was midway through a report. Fingers flying across the keys, he let himself finish his sentence before taking a look.

No words, just a photo.

He appreciated Harry’s lack of small talk but sometimes he did wonder if his father’s straight-to-the-point messages were born more out of annoyance than convenience. His father understood why he had to leave all those years ago, but it didn’t mean he agreed with it.

He tapped on the photo, opening it to full screen.

Dear Angus,

On behalf of the Admissions Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you admission to the MIT Class of 2008…

A warm feeling he probably didn’t deserve to be having suddenly crept into his chest. Seventeen years old no less and his son had been accepted into one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He had dreamt of this day. His son’s excitement at reading those words aloud. His bittersweet sorrow as his son moved far away from home and into his dorm. His pride as Angus donned his graduation cap and gown after three hard years of work.

Only, in his dream, he had been there at his son’s side.

Without a word he closed the photo, returned his phone to the desk and continued with his report.

MARCH 2011

He smiled politely at the gaggle of agents as they passed him in the hallway after a meeting, recognising their faces even if some of their names escaped him. As Oversight, it was his duty to supervise the inner workings of his organisation and he’d grown very familiar with the different teams within DXS and the expertise that each operative brought to the table.

Rather basic as a code name, but conveniently self-explanatory he supposed. To oversee something.

He was aware of all active missions, all new recruits, all ongoing disputes. And though it came with a heavy sense of responsibility, he happily carried it with both hands. DXS was his pride and joy, and he was privileged to be its commander.

Which is why he felt it crucial to employ only the best.

Recruitment came from all over the country; individuals on their radar, fellow Intelligence agencies, his reach even went as far as the US military. Which is why he had been able to pull some strings to get his son paired together with a one Jack Dalton during their time in Afghanistan.

The partnership between scientists and soldiers in the field was something their organisation had been the first to introduce way back after the Second World War. Something he had thought beneficial to every team under his command. He had looked into several servicemen, but Sergeant Dalton – a former associate of Matilda Webber, no less – seemed the best counterbalance to Angus’ scientific prowess. On paper at least.

He had given them the push, but now it was up to them to form the bond that would be pivotal for their eventual enrolment into DXS.

SEPTEMBER 2016

A stolen bioweapon.

A failed mission.

A dead agent; two more injured.

Patricia Thornton’s carefully crafted team had been operating under him for a few years now. A world class computer analyst, a deadly skilled ex-Delta operative and an EOD tech come scientific genius. Far from the first mission they had ever faced, he had expected better from them during their time in Lake Como, Italy. They had been warned of the dangers of the device, the effects it could have on thousands of people if it ended up in the wrong hands.

And still, they let it slip through their grasp.

He paced his office as his eyes scanned the medical report that had worked its way up the chain to him.

DALTON, J.

Agent Dalton suffered a grade one concussion and scalp laceration following a blow to the occipital bone. Four stitches were required. No swelling of the brain identified and minimal blood loss occurred.

Minor cuts and bruises to the face and scalp also identified, not requiring treatment.

Recovery time estimated at 7 days.

Not ideal, but not the end of the world. One week, maybe five days at a push, and he’d be back in the field.

MACGYVER, A.

Agent MacGyver suffered a GSW to the upper left thorax causing approx. 1.5 litre blood loss at scene. Surgery to remove bullet and close wound was successful. Further blood loss managed effectively.

Intervention to reduce water in lungs also successful.

4 units blood transfusion in progress. Blood type: AB Negative.

Recovery time estimated at 4 weeks.

One month recovery time.

Also not ideal. But then, Angus wasn’t hired solely for his physical capability. Even while recovering at home, his brain could still be of use to them.

GSW to upper left thorax.

He let out a grunt as his hip connected with the corner of his desk, inattention to his surroundings prevalent as his eyes were drawn to that point over and over. The chest was a dangerous place for any injury with multiple vital organs and arteries at risk.

He rubbed his thumb over the sore spot, releasing a long breath through his nose as he placed the report on the desk.

Not only was the bioweapon now firmly in the wind, they had also come this close to losing one of their top assets. And all because DXS had allowed two of their agents to cross the line of professionalism.

Angus would never have lost focus and allowed the mission to fail so terribly if only they had reinforced the no-relationship-between-agents rule.

NOVEMBER 2016

Whilst most people would be spending their weekends navigating busy malls in an attempt to get their holiday shopping underway, he was fielding multiple calls from multiple divisions demanding to know what was happening in an embassy building 5.6 thousand miles from his office.

He was keeping up with it all, of course. All comms, all decisions being made, The team on the ground were more than capable of handling it but it was a delicate situation and he had to be ready to step in if needed.

He had just ended his latest call when the phone immediately chimed in his hand.

“Yes?” He greeted, no time for pleasantries.

It was a swift conversation, barely move than five words needed from his end, as the agent provided an update.

Three hours.

He felt his stomach drop.

Three hours until exfil could reach the embassy. Three hours that the boots on the ground would need to hold the fort against the Dieva Roka and their barrage of gunfire. He couldn’t lose—

They couldn’t lose this embassy. It was too important to the inner workings of international relationships between multiple territories.

He was certain that the team would come up with a sure-fire way of keeping everyone safe until backup arrived, but in the meantime, he had a few more phone calls to make.

JANUARY 2017

He had eyes and ears everywhere. He knew about the mole lurking within the US government, he knew they had been feeding information to an outside terror organisation, that they had even gone as far as ordering the deaths of innocents to keep their secret safe.

What he was ashamed to have not known was that the mole was an agent within his own establishment. Instead, the privilege of identifying them had fallen on his own son’s team no less.

Patricia Thornton had been the trusted Head of DXS for many years and the transformation into the Phoenix Foundation had seen her shift in roles to the Director of Operations. A role that, he now realised, suited her agenda perfectly.

How had he missed it? A mole so high up in their agency.

He would be running thorough checks on all of his employees over the next few days. And the new director? He knew exactly who to bring in for that role. Someone who had worked closely with him for several years. Someone he trusted exceedingly.

OCTOBER 2017

As the Head of the Phoenix Foundation, it was well within his right to delegate all missions to the various teams on the ground but where was the fun in that? He hadn’t spent all these years honing his skills as a covert operative just to sit in an office all day once he’d reached the top.

It was a juicy assignment. Reports of a cartel leader operating out of Pasadena had led to weeks of surveillance, days of planning and finally this morning, the successful detainment of said leader and seventeen members, effectively shutting down that chapter of the cartel for good.

A few hours with his operatives and those members would spill enough intel to have them taking down the entire operation. No casualties, 100% success – it felt good to end his morning on a high. And just in time for lunch at his favourite diner.

The drive back had been a breeze in the late-morning, low-level traffic and he had just navigated his car into one of many empty parking spots when his phone began to ring from where it was clipped to the dashboard. Only a select few people had his number, and they wouldn’t be calling unless it was urgent.

He wasn’t sure what to think when glanced down to see the screen lit with Director Webber’s name. As of this morning, she wasn’t scheduled to have sent her team out on any assignments. He answered the call swiftly and let her do most of the talking, grateful that she was as to-the-point as ever with her updates.

Murdoc had returned from whatever dark hole he had last crawled into.

Agent MacGyver had been kidnapped.

Agents Dalton, Cage and Bozer had followed the trail as far as possible before it had run too cold to be of any use.

As her words washed over him, leaving an uncomfortable chill in their wake, his eyes were drawn to a young boy exiting the diner with a man that he could only assume was his father. As the boy lifted his hand for his father to hold onto, he was reminded of the reason he had stayed hidden away from Angus for all of these years.

To stop this very thing from happening. To keep his family out of enemy crosshairs. He should have known that guiding Angus into the same profession would eventually have him racking up enemies of his own.

It sent a shiver down his spine; the known murderer breaking into his father’s old house. Phoenix’s previous dealings with Murdoc had been enough for them to get a clear idea of the man’s psychopathic tendencies and Angus had been in his clutches for a good few hours now if Matilda’s timeline was correct.

Why his son hadn’t secured the house more thoroughly after Murdoc’s previous infiltration was a mystery to him. He thought he’d taught his son better than that.

Dalton, Cage and Bozer were returning to the Phoenix but he trusted that their search wouldn’t end there. And as the young boy and his father disappeared down the street, Director Webber finished her update with a promise to keep him notified as the situation progressed. He ended the call with a thanks and reversed out of the parking spot, heading straight for his office. He didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.

DECEMBER 2017

“Thank you, Director Webber.” He dismissed her succinctly.

Keeping his eyes locked on his computer screen, he could pretend that his Handler wasn’t lingering in his provisional, hesitating with only one foot out of his office door.

He’d been here before, the great mystery of Schrödinger’s scowl. If he didn’t look up, then maybe daggers weren’t really being glared in his direction. But if anyone was going to win a stubbornness contest…

“Was there something else, Director Webber?” He asked coolly, raising his head and accepting the harsh eye contact.

Matilda lifted her chin defiantly, glower only deepening the longer the silence lingered between them. She rolled her eyes with a huff, stepping back into the room to close the door behind her.

“He’s only six floors down, you know. If you fancied checking in on him.”

He knew. Of course he knew. Where else would his son have been taken after being exposed to a lethal nerve gas if not the Phoenix Foundation’s impressive infirmary. The high tech, state of the art medical floor of their building was often overlooked on the day-to-day basis of many agents who successfully made it through missions with barely a scratch on them. But for the more dangerous endings to otherwise fruitful assignments; the gunshot wounds, the poisonings, the injuries that would raise all the wrong questions at a normal hospital; their infirmary was fully manned and copiously stocked for anything that came through their doors.

As head of the organisation, he had access to the running log of those being treated at any one time and often liked to check that his agents were recovering well. That report had been open on his screen for two hours today, only closing once Angus’ name had appeared at the top of the list.

Matilda crossed her arms with more flourish than was strictly necessary, head tilting perfectly to the side. He was obviously taking too long to reply.

“They’ve sedated him so he wouldn’t even have to know you were there.”

Sedated. Made sense. Nerve agents could cause havoc on the body; difficulty breathing, painful muscle spasms, severe headaches, coma, death—

He’d read the report. They’d gotten Angus back to the Phoenix before his condition had turned critical, administered the atropine and pralidoxime before anything irreversible played out. Several words had stood out from the page to leave an uneasiness sitting in his chest though – respiratory distress and seizure amongst them – but considering the devastation the VX gas could have caused to the entirety of New York had it been dropped into the water supply; they had gotten off lightly.

“Jim.”

“Matilda.”

Another roll of the eyes.

“You’re not going to be able to hide away forever.” She said sadly. Though he had a feeling that was more on his son’s behalf than anything else. “For the past few months that boy has spent every waking moment he has hunting for clues that could lead him to you.”

He pushed himself up from his chair as she spoke, moving to stand by the window. It was much easier to hear her words without the scrutinous stare that accompanied them. Even as a young boy, Angus was relentless when he put his mind to something, eager to solve every problem he came across. But this was different. This wasn’t some old television set that could be ripped apart and screwed back together, this was life or death. And he had been perfecting the art of hiding a lot longer than Angus had been alive. His son was going to have to admit defeat soon enough.

“I’m staying away for—”

“—for his own protection, yes, so you keep saying. But whether you like it or not, your son is far too clever not to succeed in this.”

The sun was setting now, long shadows being cast behind trees as the evening took hold. His window was open slightly and the eventide air seeping through was cool against his skin. Angus would be kept in for a few days, at least, medical staff checking in on him regularly to ensure his symptoms were under control and improving. The recovery statistics from such poisonings were typically very good when treated in time – which it had been – so he should be back to normal, and back to work, by the end of the week.

Wordlessly, Matilda moved back to the door, taking his reluctance to answer as her cue to leave and suddenly the question he’d been dying to ask forced its way out before he could think twice. He couldn’t hide behind the impersonal technical jargon of the report, he needed to hear it from the mouth of someone who had been there, on direct comms with the team.

“Was it bad?”

He watched as her faint window reflection paused, took a breath, and turned her head just enough to speak into the room.

“Yeah Jim. It was bad.”

She left the room this time, the door clicking shut behind her, leaving a sickly feeling settling in his stomach and his mind drifting downwards to six floors below. It wasn’t the first time Angus had found himself there and, in their line of work, it likely wouldn’t be the last.

He just didn’t want to know how many more ways his son could think of to try and get himself killed.

JANUARY 2018

Okay, Angus really needed to up his security system; or better yet, move out. He knew the appeal of a safe space – especially one with an already paid off mortgage – but if multiple criminals have been able to break in and threaten your life, maybe it was time to find somewhere new.

He was halfway through his prep for a meeting when his comms completely blew up (…possibly an inappropriate turn of phrase to use under the circumstances). He had already been dealing with two failed missions, three agents stranded on foreign soil without exfil, and an agent in the hospital after being shot by a psychopath that appeared to be haunting their organisation. And now, two of his men had found themselves trapped in their own house alongside a giant bomb.

Director Webber was on the ground liaising with LAPD and the FBI, and he was happy to stay in the shadows, watching from afar while she coordinated their movements. Agents Bozer and Davies were assisting, and he was grateful for their constant communications that he was able to listen in to over the radio.

The staticky chatter filled the room with background noise while he made some calls to keep TV crews and reporters away. The last thing they needed were swarms of nosy individuals crowding the area and putting themselves in danger. That, and the mass panic that would no doubt ensue if it was revealed that there was a bomb primed to explode in the centre of Los Angeles.

His forefinger tapped impatiently against the desk. There was nothing more maddening than someone taking their time to relay information to him when there was an ongoing crisis at hand. It was a tricky situation to navigate and time was ticking. There were a lot of variables to consider when dealing with a threat situation such as this and though his team on the ground were handling the investigation of the bomb with meticulousness, he still had his part to play.

Though if he stepped back and took in the whole picture, he’d be able to see that this bomb-maker, the Ghost, had already taken the hard choice out of their hands should the worst come to the worst. Phoenix had been made aware of the threat and had, so far, been able to clear the suspected blast vicinity, keeping potentially hundreds of innocents safe. Leaving only two to be affected.

The lives of the many, outweighed the lives of the few, but it was harder to be impartial when the few included someone very important – not just to him, but to the whole world.

FEBRUARY 2018

If Director Webber were standing next to him, she would have zero reservations whatsoever about calling him a coward.

And maybe he was.

But if anything, it was her fault for putting the idea in his head. It really was easier to face someone if they didn’t know that you were there. If anything, this at least made him a better father than the man two months ago who had refused to step foot into the Phoenix infirmary for fear of…something. What exactly he hadn’t quite worked out. Being seen? Being recognised? Being forced to have an adult conversation with the son he left all those years ago?

So, now here he was, lingering in the long stretch of hallway, paying the medical staff no attention as they wandered past. He was stood close enough to Angus’ room to see in, but far enough away to keep it from being obvious why he was there.

The distance wasn’t necessary. Not anymore. Not after Angus’ list of enemies had long since outnumbered his own. But hiding was second nature to him now and it seemed not even his son could reverse the trait that had been so strongly ingrained into his very DNA.

Angus wasn’t alone in his room, accompanied only by his overwatch who, up until half an hour ago, had been pacing so restlessly he was sure the man would wear a hole into the polished floor. Now he was sitting in the single chair positioned next to the bed, hand periodically reaching up to run through his mess of hair or across the stubble of his chin.

He could remember that feeling all too well. A mission gone bad. A partner injured in the field. The long night waiting for news.

Angus was asleep in the bed, pale blue sheets pulled high up to his chest exposing a heavily bandaged shoulder. It was a successful surgery, he’d been informed. Bullet removed and skin stitched up with minimal issues. They would let him stay the night but by morning he’d be good to return home with an abundance of painkillers and the instruction to take it easy.

How was it that his son had been shot more times under his leadership than he ever had in an active war zone?

Though when he had hired Angus, he hadn’t expected a crazed admirer to quickly be included in the package. Murdoc had been popping up on his radar repeatedly since the Phoenix Foundation’s first encounter with him a year prior and his obsession with Agent MacGyver was concerning to say the least. They were lucky he had been feeling generous today, inflicting a non-fatal flesh wound with his bullet instead of anything more permanent.

And now to top it off, he’d received word that Murdoc had escaped from custody, again…

Once Angus found out, that instruction to take it easy was going to need to be a strongly worded command from Director Webber for his son to even consider following it seriously. Though he was sure the team could handle the stubborn ways of their fellow agent.

Glancing through the window, he took one final look at the pair before wordlessly slipping away to get a head start on the search.

MAY 2018

He’d been imagining this day for years.

He just didn’t know why Angus had to decide to quit on the one day he finally got the intel he had been waiting months for. Time sensitive intel too. He couldn’t waste this opportunity to take down Jonah Walsh just because Agent MacGyver had been having doubts about his place of work.

When Director Webber had called to inform him, he’d told her to send Angus his way. Two birds, one stone and all that.

The large country house had been mostly empty when he’d arrived, only one gun-wielding thug who, after a bit of a tumble, had been easily incapacitated. He was having a nice nap in the pantry now, safely out of the way.

It was a big, open house with high ceilings and polished furniture. Not exactly the backdrop he was expecting when notified of the cartel’s latest bolt hole. But honestly, he didn’t care if it was a 5-star hotel or an underground sewer, he wasn’t staying long. As soon as he cracked the safe and grabbed what was inside, he was gone.

Careful footsteps approached from behind and he couldn’t help but smile to himself.

Just in time.

The dial clicked beneath his fingers and as he began rotating it to the left to continue the combination, it occurred to him that he hadn’t actually considered what his first words to his son would be after fifteen years.

“Wouldn’t take another step if I were you.” He said without thinking as Angus softly trod right on the loose board he’d noticed earlier. Good enough start as any he supposed. He never could do things normally. “That weak floorboard is actually a pressure plate attached to an IED.”

“…You’re lying.” Angus replied sceptically, which was…surprising. Not the tone of voice— no, Angus was far too smart to not see through that. But the words. Zero comment, zero recognition of his father’s voice. Maybe it had been too long.

“Maybe. Take another step and we’ll see.” The dial clicked again. “What do you want.”

“Director Webber sent me here to speak with Oversight.” Angus’ voice was steady, if not a little frustrated. Unfazed by the situation he had walked into. Unprepared for what he was about to discover.

“Oh, then you got him.” He turned around to look over at the man standing behind him.

Time for the moment of truth…

Thanks for reading! 🖤

#macgyver #macgyver fic #my fic

4 notes · View notes

heliosthegriffin · 4 years ago

Text

What to do after death; Vampirism

Preface -

I feel the name says it all.

But, I will elaborate anyhow.

I don’t intend on becoming a Vampire, at all. It’s a raw deal and one-way passage into a hell of my own making.

I suspect should I actively pursue becoming a Vampire I will lose my soul to damnation. Vampire’s are often the results of the foulest of magic and consorting with satanic entities with depraved offerings or just as often the results of those black souled individuals who find happiness in the torment of others. If I am not planning on becoming a Vampire, why I am I making this list?

Easy, it pays to be prepared. Just because I don’t seek undeath doesn’t protect me from being turned against my will. I am of the belief, once you have become a Vampire against your will you die and lose your soul, leaving a husk behind. A husk that has all your memories, personality, and desires, but none of the restraint, humanity or compassion. A sociopath with supernatural powers and a need for life essence of others to maintain my own parasitic existence.

I am making the list to give myself direction after death so as to prevent as much suffering as I can, and if possible, try and help humanity grow.

I can only hope my husk listens to my will.

My family is well armed otherwise, they will do what must be done, as I would do for them.

-----------

The List

-----------

Step One - Leave home, let’s not take any chances hurting my loved ones, or former loved ones, I owe them that much.

a) Construct a note though, tell them all how much they meant to me and why I am leaving, be through and leave nothing out, but don’t tell them where I am headed. Leave the code-word I have with our elder brother so he understands and tell him he’s free to what I leave behind.

b) Make a pack, get one of our knives in there and get a gun. Get some blankets so I can cover-up during the day, actually many blankets and some stones so that they’ll be weighted down. This is a temporary solution however.

c) Empty my bank account as much as possible. Cash and coin will be more beneficial if I’m going off the grid.

d) Leave town.

Step Two - Head north and head to a bigger city

a) Buy a sleeping bag and tent at the closest opportunity.

b) Keep an ear to the ground, find out who can go missing and people would be thankful that their gone. Pick my targets carefully, never more than one person at a time and always when their not expecting it, I’m a predator I should act like it. I might have supernatural powers, but I can’t be prepared for everything and people will know my weakness if I get found out.

c) Aim for the scum of the earth, get rid of them, but not until I have conclusive evidence. But, when I do have it, it’s feeding time, make sure to take their valuables, will need it for future plans.

d) Do that for about a month and move on, can’t stay anywhere for too long. But, before we leave buy a couple books on architecture, vampires, morals and ethics, stone-working, physics, building ect. We’re going to need it.

e) Find out if I can sustain our-self off animal blood.

Step Three - Rinse and Repeat. Go from city to city in our state till I’ve cleaned out what I can. Hopefully I’ll have a duffel-bag of money and valuables, along with those books.

a) Study those books. Find out what kind of vampire I am, make sure I learn about building castles.

b) Take some time to practice building.

c) Practice hunting; Hunt some animals to drink their blood if that helps, practice skinning and chopping up the parts. Donate the meat if I can, or leave at a poor home, they probably won’t be able to afford throwing it away.

d) Learn about interior decoration.

e) Get some better guns, drop off the gun we borrowed from our family along with a chunk of changes, leave them another note that we’re doing fine.

Step Four - Time to move. By the time I’ve hit this step I should have hit all the large towns, which depending we’re counting above or below ten thousand as a big town could take us from anywhere three years to around four if I cut off at nine thousand in population for a big town. It’s hard to say how much money I’ll have at this point, but It must be at least ten thousand dollars at a minimum if I’ve spent all my time eating, murdering, and robbing scum of the earth at least once a month for three to four years.

a) Head north. I need to get to Detroit. That place is so crime ridden no will notice a vampire. If there already vampires there leave, go find another crime-ridden hell-hole. I assume vampires get stronger, or at least craftier with age, I am not fucking with any old monsters.

b) On the way there repeat the Step three on any big cities on the way there, cover my tracks.

c) Make sure to pawn off what I can. Invest in urban camo and a bullet-resistant vest.

d) Keep practicing stone masonry, and improve my gun skills. I don’t need to chase anyone down if they can run, plus I can suck the blood from the wounds, it’ll be like a water fountain.

e) Read that book on physics and other science books, I am playing the long game, look into magic too. Nothing is better than magic or science than knowing the rules to both. Don’t fuck with demon’s though.

Step Five - Settle down for a while and then move again, once I get to my crime-ridden hellhole of my choice take some time to start eliminating the seedy elements. If not, start going for the low hanging fruit, I can’t help everybody, but I can help somebody.

a) Find some random kid and become their guardian, a great way to kill time probably.

ai.) By guardian, I don’t mean parent, I’m talking more guardian spirit. A vampire rasing a child is a recipe for disaster.

aii.) Don’t get too attached though, after their in a good place leave. I’m not doing it for good, I’m doing it to maintain a little humanity.

b) By now I should have enough to fund a new identity and since I now live in a corrupt hell-hole it should be easy to enter the system. If I don’t have enough money, then attain it. Don’t try and intimidate anybody just yet me, I don’t have enough influence yet and it’ll just end up screwing me over.

c) Buy an actually house, fake a life for about ten years, then move to another corrupt hell-hole. Start saving valuable, no, start a war found, we’re going to need it.

Step Six - Start prepping for the End. Humanity has conflict in it’s blood, it’s only a matter of time before we go nuclear. Use the funds we have to buy some land in the mountains. Use the stone masonry skills and architect skills I’ve attained over the last several decades to build a fortified castle with space age materials.

a) Create a underground vault for my mortals.

b) Install anti-air defenses, install ground defences, booby-trap my land.

c) Creating a sustainable area for farming if possible, if not work on making sustainable green houses.

d) Start preserving all of human history, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Movies, games, books, porn, all of it. It needs to be preserves. Put it all in the vault. Record all the science, by hand if neccasary.

e) Start stealing relics so that they can be preserved by me. I am definitely going Trazyn the Infinite.

f) Start recruiting people for my cause, screen each and every one.

g) Put my room at the top of the mountain with as long stair case as possible, If these fuckers want to kill me while I sleep I want them to have leg cramps while they do it. Also put booby trap my coffin room.

Step Seven - Rebuilding Society or keep playing the waiting game. If the world has torn itself apart, I will then do what I feel is the best choice. Create bio-augmented techno-knights, or not.

a) Hopefully decades of research on physics, matter, and engineering will allow me to create powered armor knights, but if not, just keep researching.

b) Make a secret castle deeper into the mountains no one else can reach without significant resources, or supernatural abilities. Start moving my lab, my vault, my copies of human history and media, plus my stored blood there.

c) When I finally succeed leave my first castle to my servants and teach them what I have to offer, leave them the blue prints for becoming techno-knights and leave. I no longer have a place among men or their future, I will merely safeguard the past and record it.

d) Go to my new castle and spend eternity studies reality and building more castles.

-------

Afterword: The probability of me becoming a vampire is close to zero, and the idea of my soul-less husk following is these steps is even less, but should it work it will have been worth it.

#My Stuff #Vampire #After death

5 notes · View notes

northoftheroad · 5 years ago

Note

Hi! I'm really sorry to bother you! But I was wondering if you could give us a list of recommended stories with dick after his Robin days. Like after bruce fired him and he became nightwing? All up to the time he had to become batman? I really love your content by the way ☺️!!!

Gosh, this turned out to be even more tricky than the Robin list, and it's frightfully long!

One reason is that storytelling has changed since Dick was Robin. Back in the Golden and Silver age, with very few exceptions, comics were stand-alone short stories. In later decades, it's usually arcs that span at least a couple of issues. Some themes can run for a very long time. For instance, Dick was brainwashed by Brother Blood in New Teen Titans vol 1 # 22 (in 1982), and that would have consequences until The New Teen Titans vol 2 #31 (1987).

There are also a looot of stories – apart from guest appearances, Nightwing is a regular/lead character in several books named New Teen Titans/Titans and suchlike, 1980-1996 and 1999-2009; Outsiders vol 3 (2003-2007); Nightwing vol 1 (1995) and vol 2 (1996–2007). In team titles, several characters compete for attention. Also, I have read and know the Nightwing books more than his team titles, so they will be more prominent on my list.

There are a bunch of stories where Dick has a pretty small role and won't be in a lot of panels, but those panels can be "important" and often quoted when it comes to Dick. For instance, Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive, Hush, Under the Hood...

So, you'll have to take this for what it is. A very personal list, with stories I like (and remember), or have some fun panels, or are "important". Because certain stories are essential to the character's history, regardless if you like them or not. (And if you want more of Dick with Kory/Starfire, read the New Teen Titans titles.) If you'd like to see a synopsis before you commit to reading – because did I mention it is a very long list indeed? – the dc.fandom.com wiki page will often provide.

(Or you could do the sensible thing, and see this as more of "the complete history of pre-Batman Nightwing, and ask somebody else for recommendations...)

The Judas contract (when Dick becomes Nightwing). The New Teen Titans # 39-40, Tales of the Teen Titans #41-44, Annual #3. (1984)

Trivial Pursuits. NewTeen Titans vol 2 # 32. (A nice breather, when the Titans try just to relax together. It goes as well as can be expected.) (1987)

Batman # 416. (First post-Crisis meeting with Jason Todd) (1988)

The Cheshire Contract. Action Comics Weekly # 613-618 (Dick helps Roy find his daughter.) (1988)

The New Titans # 55. (Dick learns about Jason's death when the Titans return to Earth after a long period in space. He goes to Bruce to talk and what follows is the infamous scene when Bruce hits Dick, says he should never have had a partner and tells Dick to leave and leave the keys with Alfred.) (1989)

Batman year Three. Batman # 436–439. (Flashbacks with a retelling of Dick's origin, during Bruce's third year as Batman. In the "now", Dick tries to reach out to Bruce and Dick's parents' murderer is about to be set free.) (1989)

A Lonely Place of Dying. Batman # 440-442, New Titans # 60-61. (1990)

The New Titans # 65. (Tim turns up at Dick's place to learn what it is to be Batman's partner.) (1990)

Total Chaos. (In issues of Deathstroke the Terminator, New Titans and Team Titans.) (Mirage, a woman from an alternate future and who has illusion casting powers, takes the form of Starfire and sleeps with Dick, who is shamed by his team members for being unfaithful to Kory, even though this is rape. So, an important fact to know but not something I would recommend to read.) (1992)

Knightfall Prodigal (Dick's first longer stint as Batman. And he takes care of Tim and the Manor on his own!) In Batman #512-514 and three other titles. (1994-1995)

Nightwing Alfred's Return (Kind of fun, when Dick seeks out Alfred, who left Bruce's service because Bruce wasn't taking care of himself, in London.) (1995)

Nightwing vol 1 # 1-4. (I don't love this, but it is a milestone in that it's the first Nightwing solo series, Dick momentarily decides to leave the hero business, and gets his by now classic fingerstripe suit.) #1-4 (1995)

Like Riding a Bike. (Donna checks up on Dick.) The Batman Chronicles # 7. (1996)

(Nightwing vol 2 began in 1996.)

Nightwing vol 2 # 6. (Tim and Dick talk and fight crooks.) (1997)

Nightwing vol 2 # 12-16. (Batman pays a visit and Dick makes his custom made car.) (1997)

The Flash plus Nightwing. (Dick and Wally on vacation.) (1997)

Then & Now. Teen Titans vol 2 #12-15. (The original four Titan boys find themselves fighting their past selves.) (1997)

Nightwing vol 2 # 25. (Tim and Dick talk and ride on train roofs. Dick has decided to become a cop.) (1998)

Detective Comics # 725 (A heart-to-heart between Bruce and Dick.) (1998)

The Technis Imperative. JLA/Titans #1-3. (1998-1999)

The Titans (1999) # 2. (The start of a new Titans team, Dick tells Superman to give them some room.) (1999)

Nightwing vol 2 # 32–34. (Dick at the Police Academy.) (1999)

Nightwing vol 2 # 35–39. (On a mission from Batman: To take control of Blackgate Prison. Afterwards, he recuperates at Barbara's when her place is attacked.) (1999-2000)

The Titans (1999) #15–16. (The original five Titans try to work out some difficulties.) 2000.

Transference. Batman: Gotham Knights #8-11. (2000)

Nightwing vol 2 # 45-46. (The Hunt for Oracle.) (2000)

Action Comics # 771. (Nightwing and Superman hang out and work together – what's not to like!) 2000

Gods of Gotham. Wonder Woman # 164-167. (2001)

Nightwing vol 2 # 54-58. (Blockbuster, Nightwing's main adversary in Blüdhaven, hires an old enemy of Dick's to deal with the vigilante: Shrike. A character from Robin Year One.) (2001)

Matatoa. Batman: Gotham Knights # 16-17. (Bruce adopts Dick.) (2001)

Who Is Troia? The Titans (1999) # 23-25. (A visit from the Titan's children from the Kingdom Come universe.). (2001)

Retribution. Batman: Gotham Knights # 20-21. (2001)

Nightwing vol 2 # 64. (Nightwing as Santa's elf.) (2001)

Bruce Wayne: Murderer and Bruce Wayne: Fugitive (in several titles). (Dick refuses to believe that Bruce can be a murderer and it causes friction with for instance Tim. Also, a big fight between Dick and Bruce when the latter says he is going to abandon his Bruce identity.) (2002)

Nightwing vol 2 # 75. (Flashback's to Dick's early years with Bruce. Plus the first appearance of Tarantula (Catalina Flores; a controversial figure in Dick's history, she straddled the line between vigilante and villain.)) (2002)

Hush. Batman # 608–619. (# 615 for Dick, but it might be confusing only to read one issue.) (2002-2003)

The Obsidian Age. JLA vol 1 # 68-75. (The Justice League members disappear, Dick leads a new team for a few issues. In # 73, Bruce is quoted:" The only time I ever feel pride is when I look at Nightwing. Sometimes I think he's the only thing I ever did right."). (2002-2003)

Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day # 1-3 (Donna is killed. Dick is devastated and declares that the Titans are finished.) (2003)

Nightwing vol 2 # 80-83. (Deathstroke is in Blüdhaven to kill someone close to Dick. Bruce asks when he will quit the force, Dick wants to stay as a cop, but when he saves Amy Rohrbach, she recognizes that Dick is Nightwing and fires him.) (2003)

Nightwing vol 2 # 86. (Dick, forced to rest after being injured, solves crimes on America's Most Wanted and drives Barbara up the wall.) (2003)

The Outsiders vol 3 # 1 (Roy talks Dick, who dissolved the Titans after Donna's death, into leading a new team, promising they will not be a family.) (2003)

Nightwing vol 2 # 87-100. (Definitely one of the darkest periods points in Dick's life pre-Flashpoint. Tarantula breaks up him and Barbara. Blockbuster destroys his circus, his home and kills people just for talking to Dick. Tarantula kills Blockbuster and Nightwing is too exhausted to prevent it, and afterwards, she rapes him (# 93). Not necessarily an arc I would recommend to read, but fans discuss it a lot.) (2003-2004)

The Outsiders vol 3 # 11 (Roy is angsting about going back to the hero business after narrowly surviving being shot, sparring and heart-to-heart with Dick follows.) (2004)

Under the Hood. Batman # 635-641, 645-650, Annual # 25. (2004-2006)

Nightwing Year One. Nightwing vol 2 # 101-106. (I honestly don't care much for this story, but it's good to know that it's one of several retellings of how Dick became Nightwing.) (2005)

Supergirl (2005) # 3 (Supergirl has a huuuge crush on Nightwing... ) (2005)

Silent partner. The Outsiders vol 3 # 21-23. (Dick goes ballistic when he realizes Batman has been funding the Outsiders, Roy admits Batman has been feeding him information. Only it wasn't Batman – it was Deathstroke in disguise.) (2005)

DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy # 1-4. (2005)

Nightwing vol 2 # 107–117. (Dick leaves Nightwing, starts working for the mob and trains Deathstroke's daughter. I think the author has some kind of resolution to the crisis Dick had gone through the last years in mind, but Infinite Crisis got in the way. Blüdhaven is destroyed in a nuclear explosion.)

Infinite Crisis. (DC had planned to let Dick die, he is central to the story even if he's not very visible.) (2005-2006)

Targets. Nightwing vol 2 # 125-128. (Dick hunts for a day job in New York and gets buried alive, which leads to some retrospection on his behalf. There's also fights with a guy with a weaponized armour.) (2007)

The Brave and the Bold # 15. Nightwing and Hawkman. (Deadman, inside Hawkman, says that Dick Grayson is the one guy that every crimefighter trusts.) (2007)

Outsiders: Five of a Kind – Nightwing/Boomerang. (It ends with Batman telling Dick: "Go back to the good fight, Dick. Leave the bad fight to us.") (2007)

Wrath Child. (A story from when Dick was fairly new as Nightwing.) Batman Confidential # 13-16. (2008)

Freefall. Nightwing vol 2 # 140–146. (Dick starts freefalling as a new hobby; Bruce is not pleased. And he gets a new daytime job, as a museum curator. Oh, and there's Talia al Ghul, too.) (2008)

Robin # 175. (Some fun panels with flashbacks with Dick and Tim.) (2008)

The Great Leap. Nightwing vol 2 # 147–151. (Two-Face wants Nightwing to save a life.) (2008-2009)

Titans (2008) # 10. (Dick leaves the Titans because he needs to go back to Gotham and "take care of my other family." (2009)

Nightwing vol 2 # 152-153. (That time when Ra's al Ghul called Dick detective. And Dick packed up and left New York to move back to Gotham.) (2009)

Batman # 682. (Just for the line about how Dick made colour come into their monochrome lives ;-) ) (2009)

Detective Comics # 85, Batman # 684 (Dick mourning Bruce) (2009)

The Secret Six # 9. (Some of the members of the Secret Six feel they should be the new Batman.) (2009)

Battle for the Cowl # 1-3. (2009)

#ash-devito #Dick Grayson #Nightwing #Robin #Batman #Richard Grayson

61 notes · View notes

one-boring-person · 4 years ago

Text

Whose Side Are You On? (Part Four)

Terminator (1984) reader insert.

Warnings: reference to war, reference to death reference to injury.

Context: Kyle gives Sarah some clarity on the situation whilst partaking in a car chase.

A/N: I had to look up a script to get everything accurate, so I hope it's not too bad!😂

Masterlist

Shrieking horns pursue them as they hurtle down the roads, swerving between cars and other vehicles, tyres struggling to retain their grip on the smooth roads as Kyle takes the corners at record speed, Sarah only staring out of the window in numb terror, forming a plan in her head.

"Are you injured?! Are you shot?!" The soldier demands, shooting hasty looks over at her in between glancing behind them.

His voice seems to snap her from her trance, her hands instantly moving to try and open the door, only for her body to be pressed back into the seat by Kyle's arm, which pins her to the chair with intimidating force, a squeak of terror leaving her.

"Do exactly what I say! Exactly! Don't move unless I say, don't speak unless I say! Do you understand?" He growls at her, before raising his voice when she doesn't respond, "Do you understand?!"

"Yes! Please don't hurt me..."

"I'm here to help you." Kyle reassures her, "I'm Reese. Sergeant Tech-Con. DN38416. Assigned to protect you; you've been targeted for termination."

"This is a mistake...I haven't done anything!" The frightened girl exclaims, staring, wide-eyed, at her rescuer.

"No, but you will. It's very important that you live."

"This isn't true." She shakes her head in disbelief, "How could that man just get up after you..."

"It's not a man, it's a machine. A terminator. Cyberdyne Systems model 101." Kyle explains, hitting another hairpin corner.

"A machine? Like a robot?" Sarah asks, bewildered by what the hell is spewing from this man's mouth.

"Not a robot. A cyborg - cybernetic organism."

"No, he was bleeding-"

"Just a second..." He checks the rear view mirror briefly, "Get your head down!"

As police siren wails just beside the car, Kyle jerking the wheel to the side so that the two vehicles collide with one another, the cop crashing into another parked car as the soldier speeds on, now pursued by another policeman. Yanking the wheel to the side, Kyle steers the car roughly down a dingy alley, leading the police on a tight chase, until he's managed to shake them off for the minute.

"Listen: the terminator's an infiltration unit, part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyper-alloy combat chassis. Microprocessor controlled, fully armoured - very tough. Outside, it's living human tissue; flesh, skin, hair, blood, all grown for the cyborgs." He explains further, voice strained as he navigates the unfamiliar streets.

"Look, Reese, I don't know..." Sarah starts, rubbing her forehead a little.

"Pay attention!" He snaps, casting a quick glance back to where his sister is unconscious, "I've gotta ditch this car."

Veering off into an indoor parking lot, Kyle instantly makes a beeline for the furthest part of the spacious area, parking the car amongst others with precision. Cutting the engine, he signals to Sarah to follow him, grabbing (Y/n) from the back seat and leaving the car, awkwardly shuffling with her cradled against him over to another car, which he quietly breaks into and starts hotwiring, just as the first police cars storm into the area, lights flashing, sirens blaring. Ducking down, Kyle continues his recount.

"The 600 series had rubber skin, we spotted them easy, but these are new. They look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait for it to make a move on you before I could zero him."

Sarah scoffs, closing her eyes as a light passes over them.

"Look, Reese, I'm not stupid! They cannot make things like that yet!" She argues, body tense in her seat.

"No, not yet. Not for forty years..."

"So you're saying it's from the future?" Her tone easily betrays her disbelief, but Kyle almost misses it.

"One possible future...from your point of view, I don't know tech stuff..."

"Then you're from the future?" She questions, breathing heavily, her hand once more reaching for the door handle.

"Right."

"Right." Rolling her eyes, she makes a break for it, trying to wrench the door open, only to once again find herself pinned to the seat by a muscular arm, though she is swift to retaliate, sinking her teeth into the soft flesh of his skin until she tastes blood. Unfortunately for her, he doesn't let go, only gritting his teeth as he stares her down, waiting patiently for her to let go of him.

"Cyborgs don't feel pain, I do. Don't do that again." He growls at her as she releases him, slowly withdrawing his hand.

Sarah whimpers, appearing hopeless and lost.

"Please, just let me go!" She pleads, shrinking back into her seat in resignation.

"Listen and understand: that Terminator is out there, it can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." Kyle tells her, looking almost sorry for her as he reveals the nature of the killer to her, knowing all too well the devastating effects a cyborg hitman can have on a community.

"Can you stop it?" She asks quietly, eyes wide as she looks at him in the dark.

"I don't know." He says regretfully, shaking his head, "With these weapons, I don't know."

They are silent for a minute, listening to the police cars driving around the lot in search if them, Kyle's eyes fixed in the windscreen as he tries to spot an opening.

"Reese, why me? Why does it want me?" Sarah finally says, looking over her shoulder at the body of the unconscious soldier in the back, "And who is that? Why is she here?"

"That's my sister." He lists off her titles, but they go over Sarah's head as she listens, looking over the badly-dressed girl in the back, taking in the oversized police coat and sturdy boots, just catching the glimmer of her handgun in the pocket of the coat.

"As for your first question, well, there was a nuclear war, a few years from now. Everything is gone: all of this, everything you know, gone. There were survivors here and there, but nobody knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah." He continues to explain, looking over at her.

"I don't understand..."

"Defence network computers, new and very powerful, hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence." Kyle gazes down at his lap, "And then it saw all people as a threat - Not just the ones on the other side. It decided our fate in a microsecond. Extermination."

"Did you see this war?" Sarah questions after a minute, his words instilling a deep sense of fear into her.

"No, I grew up after, in the ruins. Starving, hiding from the HKs." A wistful look enters his eyes, as if not quite in the present anymore.

"HKs?"

"Hunter-killers -patrol machines built in automated factories. Most of us were rounded up for work. Orderly disposal. They burned this into our skin by laser, both of us have one," He pulls up his sleeve to reveal an angry red scar in the form of a barcode adorning his skin, "Some of us were kept alive to work loading bodies, the disposal units ran day and night. We were that close to our end, until one man changed that. He showed us how to resist, how to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around for us, he brought us back from the brink."

He looks over at Sarah.

"His name was Connor. John Connor. Your unborn son, Sarah."

As he finishes, a sudden gunshot smashes in the back window, glass shards flying inwards as a police car stops behind them, a horribly familiar face behind the wheel.

Upon seeing this, Kyle curses and crushes the accelerator down, the tyres squealing as the vehicle lurches forwards, avoiding a close shot from the driver behind, Sarah crying out as she is thrown into the door of the car, jarring her shoulder. Deftly, the soldier manages to pull the car into a straight line again, shouting briefly at Sarah to duck as more and more shotgun rounds embed themselves in the car, his eyes focused on the short stretch of road ahead of them, jerking the wheel round again to avoid a wall.

Decisively, he steers the car from the parking lot and back onto the road, where he immediately starts swerving between cars to throw their pursuer off, ducking down as more and more gunshots ricochet off of the car's body. Glancing back, he makes a split second decision.

"Drive!" He commands Sarah, who hesitantly does as he says, taking the wheel in hand as the soldier leans out of the window, shotgun raised and spewing rounds into the oncoming police car. She takes the car round most bends, until one particular problem suddenly pops up.

"Reese!" She screams warningly, sharply pulling on the handbrake as they approach the concrete wall ahead of them, praying that the car will slow in time.

Thankfully, it does, though the Terminator's vehicle is not so lucky, the car smashing into the solid surface at great speed, the bonnet crumpling and shattering on impact, the cyborg's body flying forwards. Pulling the car to the side, Sarah manages to stop the car, leaning back in her seat as they are suddenly surrounded by police, the officers shouting at them to leave the car and raise their hands. Instinctually, Kyle goes to fight back, reaching for his gun until Sarah stops him.

"They'll kill you!"

Just as she says this, a tired voice comes from behind them, movement finally coming from the prone soldier.

"What-what happened?"

Part Five

#terminator #terminator imagine #terminator 1984 #arnold schwarzenegger #Michael biehn #Linda Hamilton

18 notes · View notes

thequirkdetective · 4 years ago

Text

Investigation 10 (4/9/2020): Ranking 1

As we reach the lofty heights of 10 investigations, and look back on the 4 months this blog has existed, we have decided to begin a new type of post to consolidate all we have learned. Every 10 posts, starting with this one, all of our newfound knowledge will be collected together into an objective, inarguably correct BNHA tier list. The list will be ranked worst to best, with the each quirk/quirk holder being able to reliably beat those below them in a 1 on 1 match, and will expose what the true hero rankings should be.

There are a few rules. 1: This list is based on the quirks, not the characters. It assumes the characters are of equal skill level, and simply evaluates the effects of the quirks in combat. 2: some quirks may be able to defeat other quirks ranked higher than them. However, these are exceptions, not rules, and are usually down to strange interactions between quirk effects. 3: This list only contains quirks that have been investigated in ‘the Quirk Detective’ posts.

Please note: all discrepancies between this list and canon are the fault of lazy script writing, thus all criticisms should be forwarded directly to Kohei Hirokoshi. He must answer to my faultless research and reasoning.

With that out of the way, on to the list!

9: Compress – Atsuhiro Sako

The worst quirk on this list is, surprisingly, the one we last investigated. Although at first it seems rather powerful, it has one drawback that wasn’t covered in the investigation, namely the fact it required contact to activate. This was a rather insignificant feature of the quirk when investigated, but it becomes rather crucial when discussing fighting and overall effectiveness. The problem is that very few quirks on this list require contact, and thus the opponent can be fought from a distance. All the while Atsuhiro will be essentially quirkless and on the defence, only being able to use his quirk to compress incoming attacks (assuming he can react in time). It is true that if he could get into close range the fight would be over rather quickly, but all the other quirks make that incredibly difficult, and assuming two opponents of equal skill this quirk is certain to be the least effective.

8: All for One – All for One

Many of you will be understandably confused about the most notorious and powerful villain in all of BNHA being ranked the second lowest in this list. There is good reason for this, however. The issue is that All for One has multiple quirks, only one of which has been investigated. In future we may do an investigation of all the quirks All for One is known to possess, but that still wouldn’t be complete, since it is impossible to know how many quirks he has but isn’t shown to use. Additionally, this is a ranking of quirks rather than characters. Therefore, our only choice is to assume All for One possesses only his own quirk at the start of the fight. Here we hit the same issue as Atsuhiro Sako – the quirk requires physical contact. Again, if contact was to be achieved the fight would end near instantly as the circumstances flipped on their head, and the previous quirk-user would become quirkless and disoriented.

However, All for One does rank one above Compress because their fight would be slightly different. Since both need contact to use their quirk, they would both move into close quarters. Both quirks would activate at the same time, and All for One would be trapped in a marble. However, at the same time All for One takes Atsuhiro’s quirk, and frees himself from the marble. All for one is now able to use Compress against Atsuhiro, and trap him in one of his own marbles.

7: Frog – Tsuyu Asui

Tsuyu’s quirk is the last to require contact, but has the huge advantage of incredibly toxic mucous. Against any long-range opponent, Asui is more manoeuvrable than Atsuhiro or All for One, and thus has a slight advantage over them. Interestingly, Asui could defeat Mr Compress suing the aforementioned mucous, or in the worst case scenario become trapped in a marble and survive for about a week before she dehydrates, whilst Atsuhiro dies of Batrachotoxin poisoning in less than a day. However, she could not defeat All for One. If she manages to poison him, he could steal her quirk. This gives him her frog-like traits, including resistance to Batrachotoxin, whilst the residual mucous on her skin poisons her since she loses this immunity. The reason she is ranked higher than him is due to the slim possibility of her being able to defeat some of the lower ranking long-ranged opponents due to her impressive manoeuvrability.

6: Acid – Mina Ashido

Our first mid to long range quirk, Mina Ashido’s Acid is not very effective as quirks go. The range is not very substantial, and the quirk requires many hits to do significant damage to a target. It is also more effective at closer ranges, meaning an increased chance for the three quirks above to be used. There also aren’t many tactics that can be used to increase effectiveness, and the best appears to be the simple ‘drench the opponent in as much acid as possible from as far away as possible’.

5: Hardening – Kirishima Eijirou

I can already hear the pedants screaming that this quirk is the actual last one to require contact. To this I respond with further pedantry: this quirk does not require contact between the two individuals, and instead places a quartz barrier between them. This means Kirishima can use his quirk do beat up All for One without getting it stolen. This quirk is especially vulnerable to Compress, and would probably lose to it consistently, but it does offer extensive defensive and offensive capabilities against other quirks, namely the other three already discussed. Asui’s poison needs skin contact, and quartz is a silicate – exceptionally unreactive, and thus immune to Ashido’s acid. However, it does have one large drawback…

4: Electrification – Denki Kaminari

Quartz is sometimes electrically conductive, and in a very interesting way. It is composed of a crystal structure of SiO4 tetrahedra, with a central 2+ Silicon ion and four shared 1− Oxygen ions. Whenever an electrical current is passed across a quartz crystal, the oxygen ions move in one direction and the silicon the other, causing the crystal to deform. The reverse is also true – whenever a quartz crystal is deformed it gains a potential difference across its surface. This is called ‘piezoelectricity’ and is the reason quartz can be used as a timekeeping component electronic clocks and watches. However, this is only a property of certain types of quartz, and all other types are electrically insulating (and a dielectric, but that doesn’t matter for the DC current of Kaminari’s quirk). Sadly this doesn’t have much application to a fight between Kirishima and Kaminari, since the piezoelectric effect is too small to be noticeable on such large scales, but since we know that Kirishima can’t be entirely insulated by the quartz (there have to be gaps to allow movement) Kaminari’s quirk can be used against him. The effects on any enemy within a close enough range are spasms, disorientation, and possible unconsciousness and/or cardiac arrest. However, the effect is quite close range, and not necessarily fatal or long-lasting.

3: Explosion – Katsuki Bakugou

The first of our big 3 is Bakugou, with his ridiculously powerful yet still feasible ‘explosion’ quirk. This can be used at multiple ranges, and causes serious damage to opponents. Assuming he has a proper stance he can fling opponents back by tens of metres. If they land well they’ll just break a few bones, if they don’t then they’ll die. This quirk is incredibly effective during combat for manoeuvring, attacking directly, and creating environmental hazards. It can also force opponents back, meaning there is very little chance for anyone ranked below Bakugou to get within a good range of him. It does have the drawback of limited use, but so do most of these quirks, so it’s not much of a problem.

2: Creation – Momo Yaoyorozu

And here we get to the quirks that are sort of cheating. The top two can create energy or matter on demand by violating the current laws of physics, thus allowing them to theoretically do some pretty nifty stuff like time travel and power every house in the world. Momo’s quirk is second for a few reasons. 1: it takes some time to activate, 2: it rips portions of her skin off, and 3: it can only create objects with cross sections no larger than that of her body. This does allow her to throw nuclear warheads at her opponent, but sadly this pales in comparison to the number 1 quirk.

1: Navel Laser – Yuga Aoyama

Step aside One for All, it is with great pride and disgust that I proclaim Yuga Aoyama the most powerful quirk user yet investigated. The quirk can output a nauseating 28 gigawatts, enough to defeat a foe from orbit. Use a set of mirrors to snipe them from halfway across the globe! Shoot the floor and let the ride an expanding column of superheated gas and plasma! Burn things! The possibilities are endless with this quirk, and usually involve vaporisation of the opponent and tummy aches.

5 notes · View notes

filmista · 5 years ago

Text

Noirvember: 10 Film Noirs to discover

Noirvember. The concept is simple: the entire month of November is dominated by dark shadows, tough men, seductive femme fatales and dented fedoras from film noir. With film noir, every film lover immediately thinks of classics such as The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity or Touch of Evil.

The movement (or genre) had its peak from 1941 to 1958 and characterised itself as a series of crime films, permeated with nihilism and dark melancholy. In order to not bore you with obvious choices, I’ve picked ten film noirs that are often overshadowed by the great classics, but believe are equally worthy of attention.

Gaslight (1944)

“Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!”

In the early 1940s, many directors were happy to venture into film noir, including George Cukor. With essential Hollywood films such as Dinner at Eight and The Philadelphia Story, Cukor was used to very different things. The power play between men and women is no stranger to film noir and also returns in Cukors Gaslight. Ingrid Bergman and her new husband move into the old house of her murdered aunt. Soon all kinds of strange events start to happen, which makes Bergman’s character doubt her mental health, without noticing that her husband is manipulating her. Bergman spent time in psychiatry in preparation for her role and eventually won an Oscar for it. Gaslight is also the film that coined the term Gaslighting:

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilise the victim and delegitimise the victim's beliefs.

Instances may range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.

Murder, My Sweet (1944)

"You shouldn't kiss a girl when you're wearing that gun ... leaves a bruise.”

Edward Dmytryk, a director who is now as good as forgotten, nevertheless delivered some films that are worthwhile. For example, Dmytryk first brought Philip Marlowe to the big screen, the well-known private investigator conceived by Raymond Chandler. Not yet plated by Bogart (that only came with The Big Sleep), but Dick Powell. With ingredients such as lies, theft, perjury, deception and the false appearance of Claire Trevor, Murder, My Sweet contained everything that a solid film noir required.

Detour (1945)

“That’s life. Whichever way you turn, Fate sticks out a foot to trip you.”

Detour is a film that was cast aside for a long time as a simple B film, but has enjoyed more recognition in recent decades as a highlight in film noir. According to director Edward G. Ulmer, the film was shot in six days, on only three sets, on a very low budget. Minimal in design or not, Detour proves to be an extremely powerful noir that, with its 68 minutes, perfectly captures the soul of the film genre Not many men enjoy so little luck in film noir as pianist Al Roberts (Tom Neal), not to mention a demonically calculating Ann Savage. More than worth discovering.

Scarlet Street (1945)

“How can a man be so dumb... I've been waiting to laugh in your face ever since I met you. You're old and ugly and I'm sick of you. Sick, sick, sick!”

Fritz Lang: a big name from film history. Lang was not only successful in his German period, but also delivered quite a few hits when he went to look for happiness in America. Scarlet Street is perhaps one of the most pessimistic film noirs in film history. Edward G. Robinson shines as the gullible dope that runs into the treacherous web of Joan Bennet and her equally despicable friend. For a long time, Robinson's character throws himself into a downward spiral from which there seems to be no return. Great watch!

Nightmare Alley (1947)

"How can a guy sink so low?”

"He reached too high ...”

Just like Cukor, Edmund Goulding wasn’t necessarily a noir director. Nightmare Alley was his only trip into the genre, but a memorable one. After a lot of tug and war with the then conservative production code, Goulding nevertheless managed to deliver an ambitious film about the rise and fall of an opportunistic fair assistant. Alcoholism, religion, spirituality and manipulation are all dealt with in a film that takes away the joyful experience of a fair from all its frills. Nightmare Alley is a noir that tries to aim higher than the usual conventions and also succeeds at that.

Force of Evil (1948)

"A man could spend the rest of his life trying to remember what he shouldn't have said.”

John Garfield, died at the age of 39, but was a force of nature when he was at his best acting wise. In Force of Evil we see him as a lawyer who deals with illegal draws to help his brother out of trouble. What you get are gloomy settings in New York, poetic dialogues and Biblical allusions. Crime is not a romanticised world in this thriller, but one where it’s a sad stay and you must inevitably face your fate. Among the fans of Force of Evil is a certain Martin Scorsese.

In a Lonely Place (1950)

“I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me. "

And here it is, our first Bogart film on this list. No Bogey as a tough detective, but as a cynical Hollywood screenwriter with loose hands. In A Lonely Place is often overshadowed by the more famous work of Bogart, but his performance in this film is one of the most impressive things he has ever done. His character runs tight with an intrinsic anger, but at the same time radiates a pitiful weakness. Directed by Nicholas Ray (who would later make Rebel Without A Cause), who subtly criticises the moral climate in the American film world and the celebrity cult.

The Big Heat (1953)

"Well, you're as romantic as a pair of handcuffs."

Second film from Fritz Lang on our list. Let us say that the brilliant German director knew film noir well. In this film, Glenn Ford plays a cop fighting against the crime syndicate in his city after his wife is murdered. The fact that the scenario was penned by a former crime journalist made Lang deliver one of the most fierce film noirs of the 1950s. The Big Heat also completely turns the traditional role of the femme fatale on its head. A hauntingly memorable moment is when a roaring Lee Marvin throws hot coffee in the face of Gloria Grahame.

Pickup On South Street (1953)

“So you're a Red, who cares? Your money’s as good as anybody else's.”

Richard Widmark steals Jean Peters' purse without knowing that it contains a microfilm with secret government information. Pickup On South Street dates from the McCarthy period, but that doesn’t stop director Samuel Fuller from throwing every ounce of patriotism overboard. Even FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover turned out not to be a fan. Anyway, still a film with great performances, juicy dialogues and a stubborn outsider as the main character. The film earned actress Thelma Ritter an Oscar nomination.

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

“Kiss me, Mike. I want you to kiss me. Kiss me. The liar’s kiss that says I love you and means something else. "

Kiss Me Deadly might have been a source of inspiration for Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. You get that impression when at the end the mysterious artefact (aka MacGuffin) around which this film noir is built up, is found (sort of). According to some a metaphor for the nuclear paranoia, according to scriptwriter A. I. Bezzerides no more than the result of a search for what worked and what didn't. Metaphor or not, Kiss Me Deadly offers enough adventure, twists and intrigues for an exciting and entertaining movie night.

58 notes · View notes

butterflyinthewell · 5 years ago

Text

Godzilla’s mom! (Heisei era)

Godzilla’s mom was already quite ill when Godzilla hatched from the egg she laid, so he has no memory of her when she was healthy and energetic. She had a very slow growing brain tumor that was putting pressure on her optic nerves. It left her blind and over time it slowly paralyzed her, and she died when it crushed her brain stem against her skull. Not a nice way to go. Godzilla remembers his mother as being gentle, laying down a lot and, towards the end, so thin her bones showed.

Sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like if she lived to get mutated too. I have an idea in my mind of what she will look like, what she would be like and what her name would be.

I call her Okaajira.*

She would be about the same height as her mate, Gojira, so about 164 feet tall (don’t forget, Heisei Godzilla is so much bigger because of “modern” 1970s nukes) with very irregular dorsal spines(fewer than her mate, though), soot black hide** much darker than her mate’s charcoal coloring, long claws (typical for female godzillasaurs) and striking yellow eyes. All yellow, not gold with an orange rim like Shezilla.

Her eyeballs alternate between being crossed (strabismus) and twitching (nystagmus). Had she lived to mutate, she would regain some eyesight because she grows a neocortex just like Godzilla and some of the pressure is taken off her optic nerves, but it won’t undo the damage already done just like mutating didn’t heal Godzilla’s heart defect or take away his palsy.

So any improvement in sight won’t be much for her; the best she would be able to see may be light, shadow, some shapes if the contrast is high enough, and some color. Forget about depth perception, she figures that out via sound because visually she has none. She can find a full moon at night, but not see the stars. She can tell if the sky is blue or cloudy. She can see if there’s a big dark brown boulder on pale sand. She can see the flickers of sunlight sparkling on water. At night she will see the different colored lights from buildings in a city. With no light she is totally blind, and shining bright lights right into her eyes gives her a total whiteout.

The tumor pushing on her optic nerves will go into permanent remission and not metastasize because her internal radioactivity keeps it from changing. Now, if she got shrunk in the Shrinking Project? That would kill her because she won’t be radioactive enough to keep the cancer in check and it will explode in size and get all over her body in a span of days.

Mutated godzillasaurs maintain a very delicate balance. They are as fragile as they are seemingly indestructible because changing anything about how their body works can either kill them or make them stronger.

It may take kaijuologists years to figure out she is blind, because she still turns and tries to look at things out of reflex, so they will need closeup views of how her eyes cross and twitch before they realize she doesn’t use them much. It will take them longer to realize she has some visual perception, and even then they will never know exactly what the world looks like to her.

If Okaajira walks into a city for the first time, she’s going to bump into things and sniff the edges of buildings. She will touch, nibble and mouth things to feel them like blind humans use their hands to examine something. She’ll think the cars on the streets at daytime are moving water at first because of the sparkle, but realize that’s wrong as soon as she steps on them and they go crunch. She will sniff and smell everything until she finds a path to and from a power plant that doesn’t require going through too many buildings.

After a few trips she will memorize how her footsteps echo off things and know she’s close to her target by the soundscape created by her footsteps. Sometimes she will stomp her foot, slap her tail down or roar to get echoes back and figure out where she is. This is more to find gaps between buildings than anything, and it’s not perfect. Cities are noisy and sound waves get absorbed. The weather can affect this too. Fog or snow muffle a lot, but rain is helpful.

While Okaajira can forage alone quite well, she’s more likely to come with Gojira and follow him around. He would totally leave a scent trail for her to follow if she decides to forage alone, but the humans will get wise to it pretty fast and start covering it up with something unpleasant in attempt to deter her. Then she’ll start following the stink and it’s back to square one, lol.

She has been blind for a very long time, so much that she hardly remembers when she could see, so she won’t be much of a scaredy cat until the JSDF and G-force show up. The loud, sudden noises and pain are likely to scare her until she realizes they don’t injure her, then it’s game on.

And God help you if G-Force or the JSDF “corner” her. (She can think she’s trapped when a clear escape path is right next to her, but obscured by smoke, or if there’s smoke all around.) She will crash into things trying to escape. She will whip her tail out to protect her back. She will follow the noises made by all forms of vehicle and take a few beam shots at whoever shoots her. She is more likely to miss than land a hit, but the property destruction will be astronomical, so much worse than Gojira or Godzilla could do. Once you set her off she will blast her beam at any sudden noises. That includes honking car horns, screaming humans and sirens.

She would have the strongest and most destructive violet (purple) beam. Think Shin Godzilla’s beam with a little less range...yeah. You won’t see her use it too often purely because it will cause her visual whiteout, so most instances of her firing it are because she’s pissed off or scared.

Now, her personality... oh boy. Godzilla didn’t get his loud, curious and flirty nature from his daddy. Okaajira likes to talk to anybody and everybody. She likes to explore and check things out. If she hears or smells something weird, she’s going to go sniff it or go find it. Gojira might do most of the hunting and foraging, but if Okaajira comes along SHE is the one calling the shots and saying the godzillasaur equivalent of “Honey, here’s the shopping list. You be my eyes. I’ll handle the rest.”

She is a gentle soul. If somebody is yelling in pain, she’s running over to see what happened and if she can make it better. Godzilla fell down and hurt himself a lot when he was first learning to walk. She kissed the tears off his face, kissed whatever part of himself he hurt when he fell and encouraged him to keep trying. She would still do that today if she was alive.

But as sweet and gentle as Okaajira would be, crossing her is a mistake. She won’t be great at distance combat, but get in close and she will rip you apart with her teeth and claws. This girl isn’t a graceful fighter like Shezilla; she fights dirty. She won Gojira’s heart by kicking his butt and sitting on his chest to dominate him after he underestimated her strength. “If you’re such a tough guy, why did a blind girl beat you up?” Gojira both fell in love and voluntarily admitted defeat for the one and only time.

Okaajira has perfected the Mom Growl. Every mom has The Look or The Noise they make to let their kids know they dun goofed. All she has to do is growl, bare one fang and hiss and Godzilla knows she disapproves of what he’s doing. AND IT WOULD STILL WORK TODAY, TOO. 🤣

And no matter how old Godzilla gets, he is always going to greet his mom the way he did as a hatchling. He will lean over so his nose is under her chin and bump upward to nuzzle her, and she does the same back. It’s because he still thinks of himself as being smaller than her despite knowing he actually isn’t.

He loves his mommy, that’s all. 💕

➖➖➖➖

*Okaajira is taken from okaa-san, which is how Japanese people refer to mothers who aren’t theirs. It’s basically Momzilla or Motherzilla in English. The term ofukuro is for talking to your own mom.

**Godzilla’s grandson, Kage, has black hide, one eye that is yellow and one eye that is brown. He got his dark coloring and yellow eye from his great grandma! The brown eye comes from Filia, Godzilla and Gojira. (Junior’s eyes look kinda brown in some light, but they are very dark hazel.)

His overall appearance is inherited from Junior, since I headcanon that Survival timeline Junior looks like MireGoji. That’s due to being mutated by radioactive chemicals in the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, which were different in composition to what mutated Gojira and Godzilla.

So Kage is a little shadow colored MireGoji-shaped goober who has heterochromia and the palsy like his grandpa. 💕

If you want to know how Filia and Junior met and got hooked up, go read my huge Legacy of Gojira post. https://butterflyinthewell.tumblr.com/post/187359259748/legacy-of-gojira

This post is just an exercise in wondering if a certain character had lived. Okaajira would change the timeline a lot by existing in it and right now I don’t have the energy to write it all up.

And I really hope tumblr doesn’t shadowban this post out of tags. I spent a week working on it ffs. 💥

#godzilla #heisei godzilla #godzilla family #okaajira #disability headcanon #headcanon

28 notes · View notes

v-t-holmes · 5 years ago

Text

1D songs rated by how much I want to hear MCR cover them

wmyb - I’m actually lowkey wondering how that would sound tbh, 7/10

gotta be you - if gerard doesn’t have the vocal range for the chorus, I would rather have him not strain himself, 2/10, but if he does, 6/10, I’m intrigued

one thing - I wouldn’t mind a cover of this one, 4/10

more than this - ooh yes, but there’s a 90% chance i’d cry, 7/10

uan - the way this song is, an mcr cover would probably sound lit, 9/10

i wish - and make me cry and drown myself in tears? 3/10

tell me a lie - change screwed up to fucked up and it’s a deal, 6/10

taken - the only reason i don’t start feeling Sad while listening to this song bc I’m so used to it, if mcr covered it i would be Ugly Sobbing, 5/10

i want - okay that would sound lit, 7/10

everything about you - okay this song is kinda boring ngl, mcr could spice things up, 9/10

same mistakes - this one already gives me existential crisis without thinking about an mcr cover, 7/10

save you tonight - I’m indifferent, it would probably sound lit tho 5/10

stole my heart - dunno if it would work as well while being sung by a guy literally the same age as my mom as it does while being sung by a (in the recording) group of boys aged between 17 and 20 - 1/10

stand up - SO PUT YOUR HANDS UP COZ IT’S A STAND UP, basically it’s an armed robbery, 5/10

moments - the subtle hinting at the fact everyone in this song dies,, fun fact that would just instantly kill me, 100000000/10, I would Cry but it would be worth it

another world - I rather would not be taken to ‘another world’ ‘every day’ ‘in every way’ by mcr, thank you very much 0/10

na na na - the cover would be worth it just for the title confusion, so yes, yes please, 10/10

i should have kissed you - the regret in the original’s is not Expressed At All, 7/10, fuck me up mcr

lwwy - i mean it would probably sound good, but lets be real, mcr doesn’t exactly fit the vibe of this song, 4/10, just because it lowkey has danger days vibes (i listened to it three times in a row before, I know what vibes danger days has)

kiss you - i’m torn between the fact that this is targeted at teen girls and sang by barely not underage anymore boys, and the fact the cover would probably sound lit 5/10

little things - it’s,,, too soft for mcr,,, 0/10

c’mon c’mon - eh, I’m indifferent to that one, 5/10

last first kiss - this one gives me an existential crisis and makes me Sad already, 8/10

heart attack - just for the ow! part, and also for the 1D just doesn’t do emotions right in this one, 7/10

rock me - in summer ‘09, they were literal babies, I’m fairly certain 16 year old harry styles did NOT fuck, mcr did shit other than going to school in 2009, and they probably fucked and this song is just one big innuendo, 7/10

change my mind - ah another song that would probably make me cry, 6/10

i would - idk, a song about high school drama? 1/10

over again - stabbing me would be more merciful than an mcr cover, 10/10

back for you - this one hits differently when you hear 1D promising they’ll come back for the fandom, And with the reunion rumours going around, it wouldn’t sound right if mcr did a cover, 2/10

they don’t know about us - unlike the original, it would make me cry, because it remind me of my gf, 3/10, covers of songs that remind me of my gf that would make me cry are illegal

summer love - the 1D version didn’t kill me, but the mcr version definitely would, 5/10

she’s not afraid - I’m actually kinda curious about what the cover would sound like, 8/10

loved you first - another one I kinda want to hear mcr’s cover of, 7/10

nobody compares - this one is either boring or it’s getting late, either way, mcr would spice it up, 7/10

still the one - it’s a bop already, 5/10

truly madly deeply - soft and tender and,,, can mcr do soft and tender? I mean, probably, but their songs that sound soft and tender end up in people in the song dying, 2/10

magic -THERE’S A 99.99999% CHANCE THE MCR COVER WOULD BE LIT, 219833/10

irresistible - mcr’s cover would make me cry and i’d thank them 8/10

bse - despite the title, not the best song ever out there (home is the best), and mcr could definitely improve it, 8/10

soml - the chorus starts, but with more SCREAMING, 8/10, sometimes you just want a soft song to have more yelling

diana - could be good, but really, I’m indifferent to it, 5/10

midnight memories - the fact 1D says 'same old shhh' instead of 'same old shit' is so unsatisfying, mcr would fix that, 10/10

you & i - yeah, just make me cry or whatever, 6/10, I’m already feeling like a trainwreck

don’t forget where you belong - that would be nice but it would also make me cry, 7/10

strong - the intro keeps reminding me one of the mcr songs and idk which one, probably famous last words, and it’s bothering me, 5/10

happily - I have no objections to this one, 9/10

right now - it would probably make me cry too much to handle, 2/10

little black dress - I’m kinda curious about this one honestly, it’s already a lot more rock than some other songs and I wouldn’t mind a cover, 6/10

through the dark - idk why, but I would definitely pay for an mcr version of this song, 10/10

something great - this one already gives me Feelings, I don’t think I could handle the mcr cover, 1/10

little white lies - it’s an okay song but really, I don’t need an mcr cover of it, 0/10

better than words - mcr wouldn’t censor fuck, 5/10

why don’t we go there - i’m actually running out of ideas of how to express what I want to say about this song, but basically, it would sound good but I don’t think it’s on the priority list, 2/10

does he know - i learnt that gerard is the same age as my mom so I legally can’t listen to him sing about sex while addressing the listener like that, 0/10

alive - it would be a headbanger, 10/10

half a heart - and make me cry even more than I cry while listening to the original? 2/10

steal my girl - not really something I’d want or need covered by mcr -10/10

ready to run - this song made me make this post, a clear 10/10

where do broken hearts go - I mean I’d probably cry, but I’d love to hear a cover, 7/10

18 - it makes me feel similar as songs from bullets or three cheers do, but on the other hand, this song already makes me sad and is crying so much I fill the ocean with my tears worth it? 5/10, probably

girl almighty - it would probably sound fun, I wouldn’t mind there being a cover, 5/10

fool’s gold - do you want me to cry? because that’s how to make me cry, no but also please/10

night changes - an existential crisis sounds nice in these trying times (not), 3/10

no control - it would be okay, I guess, 3/10

fireproof - why not, 5/10

spaces - another one presumably about the break up, it just wouldn’t Hit the same if mcr covered it, 2/10

stockholm syndrome - oh, please, that sounds like it would make a lit cover, 8/10

clouds - why tf not, I’d love to hear what mcr would do with it, 9/10, fuck me up

change your ticket - I can’t think about this song without thinking about that one tik tok where 1D members pop up in the girl’s room when their parts start, imagine that with mcr, I would scream (in a not good way), 0/10

illusion - I wouldn’t mind a cover, but really I don’t know what I’d do with it, 1/10

once in a lifetime - this song already makes me cry, I wouldn’t be able to handle an mcr cover, 3/10

act my age - heheh why not, it would make a fun cover, 8/10

hey angel - I wouldn’t mind a cover, so why not, 6/10 (would I cry? you can’t prove anything)

drag me down - I can see it being a good cover now that I think of it, 8/10

perfect - kinda curious how that would sound, 8/10

infinity - only if mcr is willing to pay for and play at my funeral, 8/10

end of the day - I wouldn’t mind an mcr cover if this one, but mostly I’m just indifferent, 5/10

if i could fly - the intro is too similar to cancer, and the original already makes me Cry, i would straight up get dehydrated and die from mcrying, but also, please 9/10

long way down - more mcrying, a whole party, 7/10

never enough - the cover would be probably pretty good, 6/10

olivia - it’s already a fun song to listen to, I wonder what the cower would sound like, 7/10

what a feeling - it has the potential to make me cry, 7/10, also it hits different in these times

love you goodbye - wanna see if they can be as tender as 1D is with this song,, 6/10

i want to write you a song - i don’t dare sending my gf mcr songs with the caption ‘that made me think of you’ in fear of the song having undertones of murder, collective death, nuclear winter or other dying stuff I haven’t noticed yet, this song is too soft, sorry mcr -10/10

history - it would most likely sound good, but it has a sentimental value that mcr just wouldn’t be able to capture, 1/10

temporary fix - HECK YES, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A SONG THAT WOULD SOUND GREAT AS AN MCR COVER, 475475837/10

walking in the wind - I wouldn’t mind a cover, 5/10

wolves - it would be worth it just for the confusion between this song and house of wolves in search results, 10/10, bc i enjoy chaos

am - the original is soft and there’s really barely any instrumental background for most of the song other than acoustic guitar, so I’m wondering what mcr would do with it, 6/10

home - how much do I have to pay to hear mcr cover that one? 1000/10, it’s my fav 1D song

#well this took way longer than i expected #i got hit by the Big Sad the day after ii said i was gonna do it and then more bleh stuff happened #and i was only able to listen to 51 mcr songs that didn't make me sad #mcr #1D #my chemical romance #one direction #so april was a disaster for me #but now I'm back on my bullshit

5 notes · View notes

zecretsanta · 5 years ago

Text

To: @chessanator From: @whatever-43 / (mechadogmarron@AO3)

Happy holidays! I hope you enjoy this... not even slightly holiday themed fic! :)

“Aum Shinrikyo?”

“Hm.” Akane added the group to the growing list of organizations that might feasibly have a religious terrorist, writing as small as she could to leave room for even more names. “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere this way.”

“Without even knowing a nation, it’ll be difficult to narrow it down.” Phi tapped her foot, thoughtful. She and Sigma had signed on to help Crash Keys, with the understanding that as soon as this terrorism business was done, they were out, thank you very much.

“He mentioned it was a nuclear attack, right?” Sigma said. “Most countries don’t have nukes. You can cut off a good chunk of these. Should be workable.”

“Doesn’t matter, if they can provoke a nation with nukes to use them. Or attack a nuclear power plant. Once the bombs start flying...” Phi shrugged. Her friend — coworker? father? — could be an absolute goddamn buffoon, but that went without saying.

“Phi’s right. Speaking of which — Sigma, Phi, did you have any luck using Sean to access Delta’s quantum computer functions?”

“Wouldn’t’ve here listing terrorist groups if we had. Whatever protection he’s got on that thing, it’s way beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Frankly, I don’t think it’s possible without an advanced quantum computer of our own — there are forms of encryption and protection they can solve in an instant that conventional machines will never solve.”

“Takes one to break one, huh? And I assume there’s nothing on the market like that...” Akane sighed.

He shook his head. “His was one of a kind. I can’t imagine how he managed to build it — he must’ve used the teleporter. But we don’t have access to the damn thing, and dead men tell no tales. I’m tempted to try to SHIFT back and see if we can’t save it, but that doesn’t do anything for this timeline.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I wish I could SHIFT into the timeline where I don’t have to think about SHIFTing.” Junpei rolled his eyes.

“But if you did, you would still know about SHIFTing, and that you would be here and forced to learn to SHIFT. You would increase the amount of SHIFTing in the metatemporality, if by an infinitely small amount.” Akane smiled, and Phi had to choke back a groan. “Well, not exactly. It’s actually an interesting question — whether you choose to SHIFT or not already splits a timeline, so ultimately, all it does is let you choose which timeline you’d rather inhabit. In essence, that we’ve attempted to do this at all, or ever would, has already created an infinite manifold of quantum possibilities by which—“ Her face suddenly went blank, and she closed her eyes. Weird. Phi glanced over to Junpei to see if it got a rise out of him, but both he and Aoi seemed calm enough.

There was a moment of comfortable silence, and then Akane threw herself across the room, eyes snapped open. “Everyone, up and out!”

“What’s up?” Junpei asked, not waiting for an answer to rush to her side. Didn’t need to tell Phi twice, either.

“There’s a bomb in the building.”

“Any chance of disarming it?” Phi’d bothered to read up after the A-B; she and Sigma had decent chances versus anything conventional. But if two death games had taught her anything, it was just how ridiculously unconventional you could get.

“The Aoi who told me didn’t know anything about it. Roof collapse.”

“Got it.” Aoi pulled the fire alarm as they scattered, though God willing no one else should’ve been in the warehouse they’d been meeting up in.

It was a huge building, but all of them knew how to get the hell out of a place, in more ways than one. It was familiar: against the ground, go, go, go!; every eye and ear alert for the first second’s notice that it was time to SHIFT, bodies equally primed for the feeling of someone SHIFTing into them, as so often happened in times of disaster. But the door was in sight. Akane first, than Aoi and Junpei; finally, Phi, and then—

Sigma was halfway out the door when they heard the catastrophic boom, followed by screeching beams as the building suddenly weakened from the loss of support and the heat and fire. He froze, and without thinking, Phi grabbed him and pulled him the rest of the way.

“It’s not safe here,” Akane said. “Whoever did that, we don’t know if they’re still around. And none of us want to deal with cops. Aoi, send a message to all the other Receivers and let them know someone’s after Crash Keys — bet SOIS is another target. Phi, you’re driving.”

“Got it.” The five of them piled into the heavy truck, wheels spinning before the last door was even closed.

Whatever their enemy was, they’d noticed Crash Keys. Now, the game was on.

###

“So you can Receive messages even from other timelines?”

Akane nodded. “Not consistently, but Junpei’s been able to cross-Send to me before. Aoi only picked it up recently. I think the Decision Game strengthened my ability to Receive. I’m sorry, I figured you two knew.”

“Water under the bridge,” Sigma replied. Phi wanted to tell him to shut up — it was an incredible skill to have, to transfer information without endangering the consciousness — but they had bigger fish to fry. “I assume you’ve been keeping an ear out for any more information?”

She nodded. “But I only ever get snippets, so I don’t think I’ll get anything useful, and so far we all live in a timeline where no one SHIFTed back to warn us.”

“Hm. Well, we know they know about us, and they’ve got a presence in Japan. I’m guessing they could follow us even if we left the country.” Phi pulled a thoughtful expression. “They may not be a known terrorist cell; could even be something recent. Did SOIS know where we were meeting? They could have a rat.”

Akane shook her head. “I don’t share details of our operations with anyone. We have too many enemies, and a group that big, rats aren’t just likely, they’re inevitable.”

“Hm. It’s possible one of us is a rat, but there are an ungodly number of ways to track someone. If someone had their mind against us, figuring out where they were would be trivial.” Junpei shrugged. “Saw a lot of them, the past few years. You wouldn’t believe how many places you can stick a GPS transmitter.”

Sigma nodded. “We can’t ignore the possibility of a traitor, but we have no evidence towards it and no actionable way to work around it. Either way, our enemies have shown they’re willing to go to lengths against us. We can’t assume we’re safe until this is figured out. They might go after our associates, too... You guys should contact Carlos. Phi, you get ahold of Diana. I’ll talk to Sean.”

“If they have a trace on our phones, that could make the situation worse.” Phi sighed. “We’ll want burners.”

“Already got you covered,” Aoi said. “They’re in the glovebox. Akane, could you pass them around?”

Calls went quick. The critical warnings first, then the usual pleasantries: “keep Eric out of trouble, you know how he gets”; “say hi to Maria for me”; “...love you too, Mom.” As soon as the relevant news had been spread, Akane collected the phones and — checking to make sure they wouldn’t hit anything first — threw them into an odd metal bag.

“It’s shielded to block network communications,” she explained. “I’d love to incinerate them, but we don’t have time for that. We’ll want to stay on the move as much as we can for now. The first question: do you think they know about SHIFTing?”

“If they know about Crash Keys, they almost certainly have some knowledge of psionic potential, but it may be an incomplete understanding. That may be why they went after us when the expected apocalyptic date isn’t for another couple years. If they don’t have a strong understanding of the concept of timelines, they may think it’ll prevent us from using our abilities to send information about their operations backwards. After all, a dead man can’t SHIFT,” Phi said.

“According to the parallel possibility hypothesis, the less likely it is for us to survive to stop the apocalypse, the fewer timelines will be generated in which it happens. Ultimately, that doesn’t matter in conventional metrics, but it means that fewer timelines exist where we can SHIFT, meaning fewer timelines exist overall where we do... Of course, the objective temporal space hypothesis contradicts this, but a lot of psychospacial researchers believe in the former. It has to do with a contradiction between conventional quantum physics and conventional quantum mathematics — we don’t know which is correct. For what it’s worth, I subscribe to the latter.”

“So what you’re saying is that they might be in the know about the whole thing?”

She nodded. “They may even have access to a quantum computer, in which case the answer of how they’re keeping eyes on us is trivial. Awareness of the subject is growing rapidly, after all — I suspect that if the world doesn’t end, governments will begin officially acknowledging psychic phenomenon within two decades. It could be associates of Cradle.”

“Damn, I wish Delta would’ve given us more hints. Snail this and snail that, like, shut up, dude!”

“Junpei, that’s it!” Phi was too calm to jump to her feet, and she was buckled in in a moving truck anyways, but damn if she didn’t want to. “Delta’s snail was what connected all of us — what brought us to our lives. But it wasn’t connected to him. It was only because of him that we were born, and he only had us born because of the apocalypse, right?”

“So, he was bullshitting us?” Junpei said.

Phi shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think he was giving us a hint that he was connected to the apocalypse; that completes the circle, because the snail lead to Cradle, which became a prototype for his Free the Soul. If Delta is, in some way, at fault for the apocalypse, the timeline stabilizes around him; his existence creates the circumstances for his existence.”

“So he needed to create the apocalypse to stop the apocalypse so he could be born? That doesn’t make—“

“I see, I see! Jumpy, you should pay more attention. It’s an example of a bootstrap loop. Essentially, his existence was already a casual loop — as in the bootstrap paradox — so by nature, he was driven to strengthen the connection.”

“Wait, he was connected to Free the Soul, right?” Sigma said. “Phi, do you remember Dio?”

“Unfortunately.”

“He said he was the fourth generation of Left clone, back in 2074. If Delta died in that timeline, the clones would have to be raising themselves, right? So if we assume twenty years between generations, that means the first generation was born 34 years ago. They’re old enough to be wracked with grief over the death of your weird brother-father-figure. Old enough to keep manning his terrorist group, like they did in our timeline. Old enough to plot vengeance. And with Delta, their savior, dead...”

“...they might just decide the world should burn. Bombs are a huge part of their MO, too.” Phi turned to Akane. “Does Crash Keys have any experience with Free the Soul? Only some? Well, let me fill you in...”

###

“Tell me again, why did we bring Carlos?” Aoi gave the man an odd look.

“The more SHIFTers the better. We might be able to pull you along with this many. Hopefully we won’t need to, but...” Akane shrugged. “Best to be prepared. And he’s a better shot than any of us.”

“Guess no one would hear a gun all the way out here.” The remote compound that they’d found — courtesy a SOIS tip — was miles and miles from civilization, disguised as an abandoned old farm. But they all knew that behind that veneer of nasty old wood lay a sizable cell of Free The Soul adherents.

“You know, I heard in some countries they’re taking down old barns for the barn wood. It’s considered a hot commodity,” Akane said as they completed their scope of the outer perimeter. No noise, no movement, nothing. Junpei’s aerial drone hadn’t seen anything from above. By all accounts, the place was empty.

“Maybe we should call ‘em here.” Junpei waved them over to a door. With a nod all around and a creak, he opened it.

“Jesus fuck!” Sigma swore.

If not for the dozens of perfectly identical bloody bodies, it would’ve been a fairly typical cult barn (in his limited but surprisingly nonzero experience), but then there were the bodies — each identical copies, a bit older than the Dio he remembered, each coated in blood from their mouths, their ears, their eye sockets.

“What the hell is this?” Junpei shouted. Akane grabbed him before he could get any closer. “What—“

“Whatever it is, we don’t know that it’s safe. They’ve used diseases before. Did any of you see anything like this during the Decision Game? No? Alright. Mask up, all.”

Although he didn’t get too close, Sigma still took a moment to examine the corpses as best he could. Their clothes were simple and unassuming, not designed for drama and grace in the face of what must’ve been a particularly violent ritual suicide. They didn’t have any obvious wounds; it looked more like it had exploded out of them. Even with the limited viewing angles available, if there had actually been a physical cause, it would’ve had to be visible, unless someone had dressed them all after they’d killed themselves in the nude.

Which… didn’t seem beyond Free the Soul, but he didn’t exactly have a Hazmat suit on him. It definitely wouldn’t be past Free the Soul to poison their corpses, either. And God knew what the hell these men had for diseases. Radical-6 didn’t come from nowhere, after all.

“Do you think there’s a reason they did it?”

“Maybe the next batch of clones is ready to take their place?” Carlos said. “I mean, fewer mouths to feed and all that. These guys are old enough to have kids getting ready to take their place.”

“Not a bad guess, but if they’re preparing to end the world, I’d think they’d need all the manpower they can get.”

“Probably not. Radical-6 didn’t take a lot of people. Just took…” Phi trailed off. “You know. It’s how you use it, not what you’ve got. Although I can’t imagine Delta built that facility of his without some help.”

“Another perk to the clones, right? And if he had the ones who knew the details off themselves, they couldn’t rat on him. If he’d… been alive, anyways. Do they know about what happened?”

“Almost certainly. Unless he wanted them to remain in ignorance, anyways. That happens in cults sometimes, you know.” Akane shrugged. “If they know their leader is dead, it humanizes him, and weakens the cause. But I don’t think Free the Soul’s core adherents had anything to worry about with that. A clone raised in the cult is different from a regular person who joins looking for some kind of meaningful contact and applicable philosophy. Junpei, do you still have your scanner devices?”

Junpei nodded. “Do you want me to scope the place out?”

“Yeah. If this was the cell location, and not just a spot for a mass suicide, they’ve got to have some kind of living quarters.”

“Good point.” He deployed a weird little metal device he pulled from his bag, which skittered across the ground, edges rolling in circles. Soon, it stopped in place over what looked like plain dirt. “There’s something about six inches below.”

“They did a good job on covering it up. Good find.” With six people, it took no time at all to clear the space, revealing a clean metal hatch, out of place in the rustic, rotted space. It had some sort of baffling sliding puzzle lock that wouldn’t really serve to keep anyone out, just inconvienence them — one that Phi popped in a blink of an eye — and then they were looking at a deep tunnel down into darkness.

“Headlamps on. I’ll lead. You next, Jumpy. Then Carlos, Aoi, Phi, Sigma.”

“Got it.” Her tone brokered no argument.

The space beneath them was unlit, a basement of smooth concrete walls. Each door was unmarked, the inhabitants presumably well aware of the contents; opening them revealed the standard sort of things one might expect in a barracks — six simple dorms fitting four each, bathrooms with communal showers, a small reading room with only Free the Soul approved texts; largely, known scriptures, with a smattering of what must’ve been Delta’s own work.

“We’ll come back for them. Living targets first. Books aren’t going to disappear.”

“Got it.”

There were no clone tanks, no technology for producing more Lefts, which suggested that this wasn’t their main facility. But the room at the end of the singular hallway gave off an aura of something’s-in-here — despite being identical to the rest.

Akane signaled Carlos, and he readied his weapon. Then, with a flourish, she pulled the door open.

Behind the door was a familiar man — familiar in his blonde hair, in his graceful features, in his sense of dress, but not in the way he held himself.

The next generation of Lefts? But he seemed different, somehow.

“So you found us here,” the man said, and turned to meet Akane’s eyes. “My name is Left.”

“You’re planning a terrorist attack.”

“Yes. You saw the bodies upstairs, right?”

She nodded. “Killing your own brothers in cold blood.”

“Not exactly. They’re not really mine. You see, I arrived in this timeline eight months ago — the same day my brother died.” His face broke into a sad smile. “I used the teleporter, of course. I’m incapable of SHIFTing.”

“You’re the original Left, aren’t you?” Phi watched him, eyes sharp — tense and ready to respond to even the slightest indication of trouble.

He nodded. “Eight months ago, when I was fifteen, a man brought me to the teleporter and took me forward to this day. He said I might be able to meet with my brother. But I found out almost immediately that Delta had been killed. And there’s no way I can set the transporter to ensure I’ll be teleported into a timeline with him.”

“So you took control of Free the Soul?”

He nodded. “Delta had contingencies, plans. My clones listened to me, and I studied my brother’s research. Eventually, I developed a plan — one he himself must’ve seen me learn through his quantum computer.”

“A plan to destroy the world that took you from him?”

“If it comes to that. Destroying all of human life isn’t difficult, really. It’s hard to destroy it selectively, to keep a few alive. But to just decimate, with no care in the world? Trivial. My brother developed a virus for his Decision Game, one called Fanatic Bio R. You wouldn’t have seen it; it was in a game for the non-SHIFTers. But it’s completely fatal. And I’ve modified a version to be more contagious.”

“So you’ll release it on the world and — what? Even if it’s contagious, there’s no way it could spread to everyone,” Phi said.

“No, it can’t. But that’s the beauty of it — it doesn’t have to. It’ll be obvious to any scientist that studies it that it’s completely artificial. Once the governments know, the fear starts. The wars start. The bombs start. Mankind’s governments have all the power they need to end all human life — they just need a bit of a push.”

“So you’re the terrorist he warned us about.” Akane’s voice was steady.

“Yes. But don’t worry — if you do what we say, no one will get hurt.”

“Why would we listen to you, you sick bastard?”

“Didn’t I just explain why? If I’m killed, my contingencies go off. The plan doesn’t need me breathing; it’s not like I’d survive anyways. And no one has to die for my plan. You’ll even get to save a life. All you have to do is SHIFT back to before you killed my brother, and let him live — and with so many of you, it shouldn’t be a problem to take me with you.”

“You don’t have a body there.”

“I don’t have a body, no. But I have clones. It’s the same idea — I’ll be able to SHIFT into one of them. After all, if there was a transporter copy of you in the same timeline as an original self, you could SHIFT into either. It’s the same concept. And there’s none of the ethical issues with SHIFTing someone into an unpleasant timeline — I’ve made arrangements to be sure that the plan won’t fire once I’m gone. They’ll simply move eight months forward to find that they’ve been spared the work of finding the terrorist. If anything, they’ve got the lucky end of the stick.”

“How do we know you and Delta won’t go killing people in the new timeline?”

“Why would we? From what I remember, before the me left in the old timeline died, he was a normal man. For all his posturing, he only wanted to be with family. Two of you started Nonary Games, didn’t you? You’re not so different. I saw the results of his Decision Game. I saw how many people your mother killed for you in that timeline, Phi.”

Phi opened her mouth to respond, but Akane cut her off. “Let us talk about it. We’ll give you your answer in... fifteen minutes, let’s say.”

“Of course. I don’t have any way of monitoring the facility, and all of the doors here are soundproof. You can speak wherever you’d like.”

As soon as they were out of earshot, Junpei nearly exploded. “Did you hear that bastard? Playing with our lives like that? And—“

“Just a moment. Aoi, I need you to leave. Start making arrangements to stop his Fanatic Bio R plan, just in case. If we do SHIFT, our chances of pulling him are better if you’re not there.”

“Got it. Stay safe. I couldn’t bear to live without you.”

“Plenty of you already are, you know. But don’t worry — an Akane will come home for you. As for everyone else, is anyone definitely in support?”

Carlos nodded. “I—“

“Arguments later. Anyone definitely against?”

Junpei nodded. “That crazy asshole—“

“Arguments later. Phi, Sigma, you’re on the fence?”

“There’s a timeline where we do it and a timeline where we don’t. Each of those has a timeline where it was the right choice and a timeline where it was the wrong choice. It’s hard to say which one is which.” Phi sighed. “I texted Mira, and she confirmed Fanatic Bio R was in the game. Apparently she and the others injected themselves with Radical-6 to stop it from killing them.”

“Hence releasing Radical-6 to stop the terrorist — Left’s plans would’ve been useless in that timeline. Even if he survived, the disease would’ve done nothing, and even if it had, the governments would’ve collapsed before they could go to war.” Sigma nodded along as he spoke. “It makes sense.”

“Exactly. So the weapon exists, and there’s no reason to assume he wouldn’t use it. But whether a fifteen year old could establish a global network in a span of months to effectively modify and spread a dangerous disease the moment he was stopped, well, that’s more questionable.”

“So it could go either way.”

“Yeah. And that’s assuming his plan worked. There’s a good chance Fanatic Bio R kills everyone wherever he sets it off and dies without spreading. It gets blamed on chemical weapons, maybe, some terrorist group or controversial government takes the fall, and we all move on. I’d say it’s a roughly 30% chance it’s really bad, and maybe a 5% chance it’s apocalyptic.”

“Those are pretty good odds, though, right?” Junpei said. “Carlos, you should just shoot him.”

“They’re not as good as they look. A 5% chance of the apocalypse is huge. What matters is the chance of things going wrong if he’s reunited with Delta. I’m guessing it’s probably comparable.”

“I see. Then why don’t we do both?” Akane said. “Flip a coin on it — that’ll make a good point to split the timeline, so one of us can come back if we’re wrong. Then, if it’s heads, we SHIFT with him — unless someone SHIFTs back first and tells us not to — and tails, we kill him, again, unless someone SHIFTs back. That moves the odds in our favor as much as it can.”

“That’s a pretty good plan. And it works for you two, too. If Carlos is right, when we pull up tails he’ll SHIFT back and stop us. If Junpei is right, when we get heads he’ll SHIFT back. At worst, only one of us is stuck in a bad timeline, and the chance of that is pretty low.” Sigma shrugged. “Any of you have a coin?”

Akane smiled, pulling one from her pocket. “If any of you want out, it’s your last chance to climb that ladder. Goes for you too, Junpei, Carlos. You don’t have to be party to it.”

“I’m not leaving your side,” Junpei replied, and she tossed the coin in the air.

Somewhere in a Nevada desert, a gun didn’t fire.

Somewhere under a barn in western Iowa, one did.

#zero escape #zero time dilemma #chessanator #whatever-43 #zecret santa 2019 #submission

8 notes · View notes

finehs · 6 years ago

Note

only if you want to, 17 for any pair in jtv? :')

So this is, ahem, a little angstier than it should be but I hope you like it. (x)

“Um,” Jane’s approach was measured, warily watching Petra tear into a stack of magazines. No pattern or reason to the small fire she was feeding. “What are you doing?”

“It’s cold so I decided we needed to burn some shit.”

Jane found that extremely hard to believe, especially coming from Petra. “You? Miss I’m-Never-Cold-And-You’re-All-Peasants-For-Being-Cold.”

“I’ve never said that.”

No, she’d just implied it, multiple times.

Grabbing a magazine she’d figured she’d join her, because despite the nasty smell a fire was something that intrigued everyone, including Jane. Shaking her head, Jane took a seat next to Petra in front of the chairs she’d set up by the fireplace. She ripped the pages one by one, stacking them into a neat pile.

Petra had been melancholy all day, full of half-smiles and sad eyes Jane couldn’t address in front of the kids. So she tore and stacked waiting for Petra to tell her what was wrong. She would, Jane was sure of it, it would just take her a while. She was feeding her tenth page into the flames when Petra finally burst. Throwing an entire magazine into the fireplace with enough force to make Jane jump back.

“Maybe I just wanted to burn shit,” Petra growls an explanation Jane hadn’t been expecting. “Maybe I have a fireplace in Florida of all places.” She grabbed another magazine, throwing it into the fireplace to join the other, embers flying everywhere, Petra carried on uncaring, while Jane lept to her feet stomping the glowing embers out. “And maybe, just maybe, I have a big house and no one to share it with.”

Jane stops stomping, and there it is, the source of the literal and metaphorical fire.

Lonlieness.

“Petra…” Jane steps closer but Petra turns away still slightly uncomfortable with any type of emotion that isn’t anger.

“It’s okay Jane, I know what I did.” Petra abandons the fire and after a cursory glance so does Jane, sinking down next to Petra on the couch. “It’s just some days it hits me more than others. Today was one of them.”

It’s been about six months since the night of Abuela’s citizenship party, a night that had been monumental for almost everyone, but especially Petra. JR left and aside from a phone call telling her she was leaving Florida, Petra hasn’t heard from her. The way things ended for them had been anything but ideal and Jane knows it. The closure wasn’t there and sometimes the wound would creep up on Petra, and Petra would let it, content to shoulder all the blame and guilt. On some days like today, Jane was there to help close it.

“Petra,” The holidays had a nasty way of reminding people they were alone. The other day Jane had found herself in the middle of Target with a list that for the first time in ten years was missing a significant other. There was something about the supposed festive days that drew the loneliness out from corners Jane didn’t even know existed. For Petra, it was probably worse. Jane had regained a husband, now best friend, but Petra had lost the small nuclear family she’d built up for herself. It was hard but still, “It’ll get easier.”

“Will it?” Petra asks sniffling.

“Maybe.” It’s the truth and it makes Petra laugh like Jane knew she would, body shaking, a small smirk replacing the downtrodden frown.

“You’re not as idealistic as you used to be.” Petra muses, voice thick with emotion.

“You’re not as closed off as you used to be.” She wasn’t, and part of it was their previous fallouts, but most of it was the effort Petra had put in, to be different for the sake of herself.

“I miss her.” Petra sighs into the mostly empty room.

“I know.” Whatever their issues, Petra had loved JR, of that, Jane was sure.

“It gets easier,” Jane repeated because Petra needed to know that, to internalize it. The image of Petra sitting all alone in this big house, agonizing over past mistakes didn’t sit well with her.

“I know.” Petra had experience piecing herself together, far more than Jane did, and it bothered Jane more than she cared to admit. Despite her occasional faults that were now far and few between, Petra deserved to be happy.

“She might come back.” Jane offers because it’s still a possibility.

Petra shook her head at Jane’s optimism, “She won’t, and it’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay now, but Jane was willing to pretend along with Petra until it finally was.

“C’mon,” Jane patted Petra’s leg, nudging her into motion, “let’s put this fire to use and make some smores, I think there’s still stuff leftover from last week. They’ll taste better than they did out of the microwave.”

“Yeah, okay.” Petra acquiesces, “I’ll go get the kids. They’ll kill us if we don’t share.”

Jane leaves her in the living room to recompose herself like she knows she’ll do. Rummaging around the kitchen she curses the couple of inches Petra has on her. The box of graham crackers sitting just out of her reach. Abandoning them, the grabs the marshmallows and chocolate bars instead. She’ll grab the stool when she’s sure Petra’s upstairs.

“Jane?” Petra’s voice is soft as she stands in the doorway, tucking her hair behind her ear, a habit she has when she’s nervous.

Petra’s feelings have this transference about them, she has the ability to make people feel what she wants them to feel, it’s what makes her a formidable boss and woman. Right now, Jane can’t help but feel a little nervous. “Yeah?”

“Thanks.” She’s gone before Jane can formulate a response, disappearing, Jane can hear her make her way up the stair to the playroom.

Jane stays frozen, hands on the bars she’d been stacking because Petra had smiled, the light reaching her eyes, warming Jane in a way that shouldn’t have been possible and stealing whatever response she could have given her right out of Jane’s head.

Jane stares at the empty doorway, “You’re welcome.”

#i don't know what happened here tbh #fulmentus #jane villanueva #petra solano #jane the virgin #jtv #jetra #-ish #mine; fic #i have this thing where jr leaves and they see each other years later #and i need to write it so maybe that's where this came from #and i also have a post s4 jane/petra thing so this can fit there too #idk i'm a mess

13 notes · View notes

moczothe1st · 6 years ago

Text

Let’s Play Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of the Holy War, Part 26: The Julius Formerly Known as Prince

Part 25

Welcome back to Fire Emblem IV! Last week we had started our invasion of Grannvale, coming up to it through the southern Miletos district, and in so doing got to smack the crap out of Tinni’s crazy aunt, who unfortunately managed to get away. These things happen. This week, we have to start off by opening the gates that will allow us to proceed north to Miletos itself.

I’m just gonna say, if you guys wanna stop now, I’m down for that. How about we just move in to Hilda’s old torture castle and set up there? Do we really need to beat the Empire?

Yes?

Shit.

Ah, well.

Well, to start, we need to take Rados castle, which is thankfully unoccupied after we killed all its inhabitants last week. It’s cool, they were gross people. Though first, I have Ced grab the village right north of it…

Behind the Times: Not so long ago, from what I hear, Emperor Arvis himself forbade ‘em. What the devil could’ve changed his mind? Please, I’m begging you, you’ve gotta save our children! Here, this magic ring oughta help you out.

Niiiiiiiiiiice. This pushes Ced’s magic above the 30-point cap, leaving him even more of a killing machine that he already is. Dude doesn’t even have a holy weapon, he’s just raw badass. Cairpre also continues his path to minor godhood.

This kid was level one on the last map, and he’s going to be promoted and breaking skulls right along with the rest of the kids next map. I’m so proud of him.

Seliph, take the castle and set the story going, my man!

(Yeah, but he had to be a man named Morrigan, so who really suffered the most?)

Seliph: How could they… how could anyone be so savage…?

Lewyn: And that’s why we’ve got to fight this war to the end, Seliph. This is something you’ve got to understand.

(OKAY WE GET IT JEEZ STOP PESTERING ME DAD)

Lewyn: This is the way of the Loptyr Empire. There’s no place at all for the good-hearted… Now, it shouldn’t be too long before the gate to Miletos opens for us.

(…. Why…?)

Lewyn: What’s your next move, Seliph?

Seliph: Needless to say, we must march on Miletos. We can’t afford to rest while those children are still at risk. Or Julia, for that matter.

Lewyn: Good. And after that, Grannvale awaits!

(OH FUCK IT’S ISHTAR)

(Oh, and also Arvis. Man, you have not aged well, buddy. I’d feel bad for you, but you know… the rape and murder and stuff.)

Arvis: Listen, Ishtar. Release the captive children. I know you care no more for these foul deeds than I do.

Ishtar: My apologies, sir, but I’m on Prince Julius’s-

Arvis: Pay Julius no mind. I’ll be having a word with him soon.

(Funny story, bro, he said the same thing about you last week, and I’m a bit more scared of him at this point.)

Ishtar: But…

Arvis: This is an order from your emperor, Ishtar! Has Julius bent you such that you will no longer listen to the word of your liege?!

Ishtar: N-no. Never, your majesty…

(Speak of the [Literal?] Devil.)

Arvis: Julius! How dare you-

Julius: Why, Father, it almost sounds as if you still don’t know any better! Old age must be dulling that once-brilliant mind of yours. Why not retire before it grows still feebler? Unless… ohohohoho! Don’t tell me you still seriously believe that you can banish me?

Arvis: … No. I know better than to try something so futile again. I… have no further objection.

Julius: That’s better. Now, then. Begone! Return to your post and haunt my sight no more. Defending Chalphy is crucial, so don’t fail me for once in your sorry life, Father.

(Daaaaaaaaaaaamn, son, you just got burned. Or should that be Julienned?)

Arvis: Y-yes, Julius. At once…

(God, it’s like every creeper left in the game is all gathering in this one castle to see who can be most sleazy. If Hilda shows up, I’m going to need to stop to take a shower.)

Manfroy: Never would you think this wretch, now clinging only to the ghost of a crown, was once the most powerful man in Jugdral.

Julius: Ah, Manfroy. Where’s Julia? Have you restored her memory yet?

Manfroy: Your dear little sister is in Chalphy, burdened once more by her old memories. Never have I seen such horror as when she recalled how you, her own brother, almost killed her! Or how her dearly departed mother spirited her clear of the castle and your clutches…

Julius: Indeed… near everyone puts up some defiance to death by my hand, yet Deirdre never so much as flinched in the end. She accepted her own demise, all to save Julia with what little strength she still had. But Julia possesses the foul powers of that ghoul, Naga, just as Deirdre once did. Nothing is more crucial than killing her now, Manfroy, lest we lose the chance.

(………. Then… why did you need to restore her memories…?)

Manfroy: You overestimate her threat, milord. After all, the Book of Naga remains under the strictest lock and key in Belhalla. Without it, Naga’s soul could never come to dwell within that girl…

Julius: How many times must I explain, Manfroy?! Every last one of the avatars of Naga, the heirs of Heim, must be purged!

Manfroy: Understood, milord. I’ll have my men see to it that Julia is dead by sundown.

Julius: Do not fail me, Manfroy. Now, then, I suppose I’m needed in the capital.

Manfroy: I shall ensure that holding the Miletos territory is the Order’s highest priority. Before the week is done, Your Majesty, the corpse of Seliph shall lie before you.

Julius: Seliph? … Ah, of course. The one the peasants call ‘the scion of light’. Just as they call me the ‘scion of darkness’. The alleged eldest son of Deirdre and the alleged true heir to my throne. A fairy tale, told to inspire hope amongst fools.

Manfroy: He is still a threat, milord. The sooner we dispose of him, the better.

Julius: Surely he doesn’t truly bear the power of the Crusader Baldur. He couldn’t possibly. I don’t care about him, Manfroy, but you’re welcome to do with him as you will.

Manfroy: Very good, milord.

Julius: … Actually, I have a better idea. I want to play a game.

Julius: Rumor has it that a small army of fresh sacrifices are headed our way. Let’s see who can claim the life of a rebel first.

Ishtar: Yes, Lord Julius. I’d love to!

(Sympathetic anti-villain~)

And then the newly arrived enemies start screwing with me, thus ruining the drama of the moment. Anyhow. The army arrayed against us is arguably the worst in the entire game thus far, given they are almost all dark mages. Dark magic still has no disadvantages to anything in the weapon triangle, and a lot of them have status effect staves to fuck our advance over hard. And of course, standing near the castle…

At first glance, Ishtar actually looks worse than Obvious Final Boss Julius. She’s bulked up considerably since we last met her; her Magic has gone up by six points, speed by one, and resistance by a whopping twelve with the addition of a Barrier Ring to her inventory. He, in contrast, has generally good stats at everything (and is a damn stone wall with 25 defense and 35 resistance) but he’s slower than her and his Loptyr tome is heavier than her Mjolnir. Beyond being a stone wall, he appears to be less dangerous than her.

This is a filthy lie.

You see, Ishtar is stronger than her last fight with us, but we’ve leveled up far more than she has since then. She’s certainly still very dangerous thanks to her combo of Mjolnir and the Vantage ability meaning if you don’t kill her in one shot she’ll wreck your ass on all further battles, but that’s nothing new. It just means we’re playing the same damn game of Nuclear Rocket Tag that we were last time, and Arthur is carrying a much bigger nuke than before. Maybe he still only has like a 60% chance of pulling it off, but I honestly can’t believe I did it at all last time.

And as for that heavy Loptyr tome? It has a little extra trick to it that you’ll quickly come to despise.

See that little note, ‘cuts foe’s atk’ down in the bottom left corner? See, more specifically, it cuts the attack of anyone who gets into battle with Julius by a whopping 50%. So before hitting Julius’s again, stone-wall defenses, anyone who takes a swing at him will first have their attack cut in half, at which point he will swing right back with a Holy Weapon that has no weapon triangle disadvantage to anything and is backed up by his maxed out magic stat. And in his ability list, he has Pursuit and Accost for maximum possible double-attacking potential to go with his very high natural speed, and Wrath to cause his critical hit rate to skyrocket if you do eventually get his HP down below half.

His 80 HP.

So yeah, this is the game’s subtle way of telling you ‘DON’T FIGHT JULIUS’. Indeed, the easiest thing to do here would be to let him or Ishtar kill one of our soldiers and then have Cairpre revive them with the Valkyria staff, because they will both leave if one of them manages to win their ‘game.’ Which, I mean, if I get really desperate, maybe, but for the sake of my pride I’d prefer to beat one of them, causing both to retreat. And by ‘one of them,’ I mean Ishtar. And by ‘beat’ I mean, ‘Arthur, it’s time to play another round of Holy Weapon Nuclear Death Tag with your cousin, please try to survive.’

Oh, and just for fun:

That’s Julius’s Holy Blood screen. Just in case you didn’t have enough unhappiness in your life.

Now then. First thing we need to do is clear out at least some of the enemies in play here. There’s a whole mess of Dark Mages with some melee fighters scattered among them, and they’re operating with a variety of tools, but the worst, as poor Altena found out, are the ones with Sleep staves. Status effect staves in this game are the worst; they have perfect accuracy as long as the one using them has higher Magic than the target has Resistance. In our hands, they’re balanced by only having 2-3 charges before they break. In the enemy’s hands, they have infinite charges because Fuck You, that’s why. Sleep + Hel + Any Hit of Anything is a very bad situation. So first step is to work out where they are:

There, we have a basic cross-reference of where only high-resistance units should go. The dark mages have 16 Magic each, which isn’t much for the purposes of combat but for the purposes of Sleep Staves it might as well be a trillion. Maybe a quarter of our army can go into that crossfire zone without being zapped, and one of them is Cairpre, who can’t fight. On the other hand, he’s also the only person who can wake people up, so his staying awake forever is useful, in its own way.

Back to full power! And now, we clear out the vanguard and move the team up, making sure to keep most people firmly to the east.

There we go. First wave down; the only people in the current batch who can lure out enemies without getting a forced nap are Ares, Fee, Ced, Tinni and Cairpre; Seliph will be able to when he actually reaches the army, but he, Nanna, and Ulster are a bit further back. He had to take the castle and they needed to do some weapon repairs.

End turn!

Ah, yes, some of them have siege tomes too. Because, again, fuck you, that’s why.

Cairpre, you’re just getting silly. But in any event, we’ve now gotten a situation where the only people in the Sleep range are people who cannot be Sleeped, and they should also be drawing in some of the enemies from the west so we can clear out at least one or two of the staff wielders and give us some more movement range. There’s two to the west, and two to the north; the western ones should start moving on this turn now that we’ve cleared out the enemies closer to us. With luck, I can kill them both right away. End turn…

Okay, not bad. With the positioning of the enemies, I thiiiiiiiiink three of the sleep staffs can be taken out this turn without much issue. Let’s see…

That’s one!

And that’s two, and also all we’re going to get. But the remaining two are going to put some people to sleep, but they won’t be able to get anyone killed. That’s worth Ares getting a shit level, I guess. What remains is to clear out the final village-burning bandit of the map…

And killing off this sniper so he can’t kill Fee and ruin everything.

Good times. All right, dark mages! Please don’t kill anyone. End turn.

Lame, but tolerable. We will be able to kill one more staff guy this turn; but the second one is being… troublesome.

He’s one of those charming robed figures firmly in Julius’s combat range. That is not a fight I want to pick. Instead, we’ll take this other dude with the physic staff…

And pull back, trying to lure them out further. Cairpre wakes up Lester to let him do the same, and gets his like seventieth level.

To the south, we need to clear a path without letting Patty get put to sleep preferably. So I have Tinni try to clear a path, which will let Ced get through to the third Sleep user.

….

She misses. On a 90% chance. Dammit. Seliph, please?

That’s why we’re putting you on the throne later, buddy. And now Ced can get through and remove one more stumbling block.

Beautiful. Only one staff jackass left, and the only people in his range are Tinni and Seliph. He’ll have to move, and with any luck at all he’ll do so out of Julius’s combat range where someone can take a swing at his dumb face. End turn!

Heeeeeeeeeey buuuuuuuddy.

Niiiiice. With that, there’s only seven enemies left total; one guy with a normal tome, three siege tomes, the boss in the castle, and the two far more dangerous bosses waiting for us to get all up in their business. This will be… tricky. But for the moment, we’re safe, so I have Seliph drop in to have a conversation with Tinni.

(In all this mess, you may have forgotten Lewyn is her dad. He certainly hasn’t been very fatherly.)

Seliph: If you need anything from me, I’ll be waiting over there.

(You see what I mean about her having a character arc, now? Imagine the Tinni we first recruited saying that. She was so broken down she was going to fight us just because she was too afraid not to. And look at her now, electrocuting her aunt! I’m so proud.)

Lewyn: She didn’t treat you well, did she?

(“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA…. Oh, you’re serious…? Wow. No. No.”)

Tinni: Day after day, again and again, she would beat and abuse us. She kept on accusing Mother of being a traitor…

Lewyn: Your mother… Taillte…

Tinni: Yes… after the Battle of Belhalla, she and my brother, Arthur, fled to Silesse. I was born there soon after. I never knew my father. I think he must have died long ago…

Lewyn: I see. Then you went to Alster, right?

Tinni: King Blume and his minions came to Silesse, one night. They dragged us away to Alster… Mother never left there alive…

Lewyn: I… you’ve had such a hard life…

Tinni: Mm… Hilda hated Mother so much. I’ve never seen anything like it. Mother coped with so much, trying to protect me from Hilda. She was always in tears, right till the end…

Lewyn: She… she did…?

Tinni: Lord Lewyn? Is… is everything okay, sir?

Lewyn: … Yeah. Why do you ask?

Tinni: It’s your eyes, sir. Are those… tears?

Lewyn: I… no, it’s nothing. This is just a bit of sweat. I’m fine… I… I’m okay…

I like this conversation for a few reasons. First, it gives Tinni a ridiculous +5 magic, which is wonderful for these conversation bonuses and pushes her to her magic cap of 27. But on a story front, you’ve probably noticed that Lewyn has become kind of a douche in the years since the first generation. This is one of the very few moments where that attitude breaks and he really shows you just how much he’s hurting beneath it all. He manages to hold up the Jerk Attitude for most of his other daughter conversations (he can have one with Fee, Lene, or Tinni if he’s their dad) but this is the only one he breaks down on. Learning your wife was essentially tortured to death will do that, and it probably only hurts more because Tinni isn’t trying to guilt him over it. Just innocently sharing how awful her life has been.

It’s a good, solid, quiet little character moment. I really like those when they’re done well, and I think this one was.

End turn.

Way to kill the emotion, jerk.

After murdering that buzzkill, I have to consider the situation. Ishtar is by far the weaker of the two enemies, but she’s not weak by any means. And unfortunately, anywhere that she can go, Julius can go too, thanks to the Leg Ring in his inventory. Getting them separate is hard. So what I’m going to do is have Ares, with the Mystletainn in hand, stand on a forest tile in Julius’s range. I will also put Nanna, Seliph, and Dermott near him; with boosts from two Charisma skills, Seliph’s leadership stars, and a forest, he gets something like a 45% boost to his dodging, which even Julius should have some trouble with. And even if he takes one hit, his Resistance is high enough that he should be able to survive. And from there, I have all of them run past him with Arthur, giving him a similar bonus to his offense and offsetting Julius’s own five leadership stars when he fights Ishtar. With luck, which I seem to be having lately with these big annoying bosses, Arthur will nuke the crap out of his cousin once again.

This might work. Maybe! Or I might die. End turn!

Gotta admit, the man makes an impression! Ares takes the hit, but survives with 21 HP left, and Ishtar runs up behind Julius, but can’t reach anyone to blast. But we can reach her. Deep breath. Moment of truth. Everyone, get her! NUCLEAR ROCKET TAG GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I’m hoping you don’t notice how many of my problems I have been solving with Forseti. Like… all of them. Seriously, of the three hardest bosses in the game so far, Ishtar, Arion, and Ishtar again, Arthur has killed all three of them on his first move, doing the exact same thing. I have dealt with every serious challenge the game has to offer by nuking it with a wind god.

If this is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Oh, and hey, why not.

This kid is going places.

Now then, not much left on the map to deal with. I have Lene dance Cairpre, so he can grab one of the two remaining villages.

Captain… Nay, GENERAL Obvious: Just a single glance into those eyes of his and you’re gone. You lose yourself. So many of my friends and people my age have all left for Belhalla to serve him… I’ve heard nothing from any of ‘em since.

Oh-ho. So, does this mean Julius can literally warp the minds of others? It can’t be limitless, mind you, since otherwise he could just mind-rape our army into joining him, but some ability to sway the weak-minded to his side would fit with how so few Imperial citizens are actually protesting the whole… you know. Hunting of children.

On the enemy phase, there isn’t a whole lot left. We have only three enemies left outside the boss, and they’re all carrying siege tomes.

And hahaha, they’re not super great at picking targets. That was fun. Now, let’s destroy them!

Not bad at all! One guy remaining, we can get him on the next turn before Seliph takes that castle. Altena grabs the last village, as well.

Extremely Morbid Info Master: Hate t’say it, but sometimes, yeh need t’make sacrifices if yeh wanna keep going…

See, kids, this is why you don’t fuck with Info Master. He is willing to make those sacrifices. End turn!

Dick.

… They can’t all be great, Cairpre. You’ve still grown far beyond anything I ever expected. Now, nothing left to do but send the team up north, preparing to go where the story will dictate after we take the next castle. Seliph, care to set things up?

Lewyn: I hate to admit it, but I doubt we could’ve gotten here soon enough either way. Now, then. It sounds like they’re just finishing up repairs on the Miletos Strait bridge. Ready to move in on Chalphy?

Seliph: Chalphy…. My father’s homeland….

Lewyn: So it is. I’m betting the citizens there will be even happier to see you than usual. Let’s not make them wait any longer!

Seliph: Indeed! Everyone, move out! Onward, to Chalphy!

(“We’re not forgetting anything, right? Eh, I’m sure Julia would remind us if we were.”)

Well. There isn’t a whole lot of this chapter left, but it can take quite a bit of time to successfully pull off, so I do think I’ll stop here. See y’all next week when we head back home to Chalphy! The very first castle we ever had in the game, and now we get to go take it back from another blast to the past, good old Arvis! I sure did miss him.

But my aim is improving.

See y’all next week!

#let's play #let's play fire emblem #let's play fire emblem IV #Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War #fire emblem 4 #lp #my writing #long post #Julius is a jerk

12 notes · View notes

xalucard · 6 years ago

Text

LOVEBIRDS

A Guide to Krav and Regna EDH

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/i-wont-say-im-in-love/

Angel and Demon – star crossed lovers – impossible and forbidden – this tale is as old as time. And it’s cute as hell.

Alright, let’s break this down. What are we trying to do? Gain life and spam tokens to abuse the Lovebird’s abilities. We get a bit of a reanimation sub-theme so we can sac value engines then bring them back for bonus value.

FOR LOVE, IT’S A SACRIFICE I’M WILLING TO MAKE

Since he costs 1 less than his partner, Krav is usually going to hit the table first. Now, for Krav to reach his full potential we need a swarm of disposable creatures. Angel of Invention, Captain of the Watch, Cloudgoat Ranger, Geist-Honored Monk, Grave Titan, Knight-Captain of Eos, Marionette Master, Regal Caracal, and Skeletal Vampire all do an excellent job of this by bringing friends with them when they ETB. Crested Sunmare and Elenda the Dusk Rose also bring friends, albeit they take a bit more work than just entering the battlefield. Grave Titan, Skeletal Vampire, Elspeth Sun’s Champion, Legion’s Landing, and Ethereal Absolution are all also fantastic for this since they can continue spitting out tokens the more time they’re given. Slap an Anointed Procession into the mix and suddenly all your numbers are doubled! Even if Krav isn’t on the table we can make use of our dudes with Ashnod’s Altar. And of course, since we’re constantly throwing all our dudes overboard it only makes sense to reuse their bits with a Black Market.

ARMED AND ARMORED WITH THE SPIRIT OF LOVE

Swarms of 1/1s can certainly end a game, but swarms of 2/2s and 3/3s do it much faster. Angel of Invention, Archangel of Thune, Elesh Norn, Ravos Soultender, Ethereal Absolution, and Marshal’s Anthem all beef up your dorks into a force to be reckoned with. Teysa Karlov makes them all that much more impactful by giving them vigilance & lifelink. Some games Regna herself might even bless your team with a host of +1/+1 counters through Regna’s Sanction!

NOT EVEN DEATH CAN STOP OUR LOVE

What’s better than sacrificing a creature for value? Bringing it back and doing it again! Demon of Dark Schemes, Ravos Soultender, Sheoldred, Nim Deathmantle, Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Debtors’ Knell, Marshal’s Anthem, Palace Siege, Phyrexian Reclamation, Ever After, Reanimate, Thrilling Encore, and Victimize all let you raise the dead to fight again for the World’s Cutest Couple! A display of Krav and Regna’s undying love in Together Forever is strong enough to bring back two creatures as well! As a bonus, since so many of your creatures bring friends with them (nine, to be exact), a single reanimation spell often turns into THREE bodies! Oh, the value! And of course, we have Entomb and Buried Alive to throw high-profile targets in the bin for reanimation.

WARRIORS OF LIFE AND LOVE

Our lovely Regna has a bag full of countless fully grown, fully trained 1/1 warrior tokens. How? Why? Nobody knows. Here’s the thing: she lets them out of the bag 2 at a time, once every end step, assuming you gained life that turn. SO, how do we capitalize on this? Tons of tiny life gain triggers to make sure we’re gaining at least one per turn to satisfy Regna’s quota. Now I’m not going to list everything in the deck that gains you at least one life because honestly, that’s most of the deck. What I *will* list is things that gain you life on your opponents’ turns – something a little harder to accomplish but very necessary to capitalize on Regna’s ability. First and foremost is Krav. Sac a token EOT, make 2 more. Repeat. Assuming you have at least 1 black mana to spare for every opponent, you get +1 token, gain a life, draw a card, and put a counter on Krav EVERY END STEP. In a multiplayer game that gets out of hand fast. Auriok Champion, Blood Artist, Kambal Consul of Allocation, Soul Warden, Soul’s Attendant, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Authority of the Consuls all do EXCELLENT jobs of netting you at least one life per each player’s turn. Pristine Talisman is also a handy toy for this, though it only does it once per turn cycle.

LABORS OF LOVE (AND LIFE)

Regna may not always be on the table, so we pack some extra life gain payoffs. Archangel of Thune, Aetherflux Reservoir, and Sanguine Bond can all go nuclear. I’ve elected not to run the Sanguine Bond & Exquisite Blood combo because I tried not to be an asshole while building this.

THE LOVINATOR 9000

Everyone’s had a moment where they build something and accidentally include an orbital ion cannon, right? Ok maybe not, but I did. Ashnod’s Altar is great for when you want to turn some of your infinite army into extra mana. Nim Deathmantle is great for bringing guys back when you have extra mana to spend on it. Now, when you put them together you get dangerously close to going infinite. All it needs is one creature that produces three bodies… of which we run nine. Oops.

Here’s how it works: First, you sacrifice a token to Ashnod’s Altar. Now you have 2 mana. Then, you sacrifice a creature that creates 2 or more tokens when it ETBs (let’s say Grave Titan) to Ashnod’s Altar. Now we have 4 mana, and Nim Deathmantle’s ability triggers – we pay the 4 mana we just got and return Grave Titan to the battlefield. It ETBs and creates 2 tokens. We can do this forever, each time gaining one token. Now that we have an infinite army, we can wait a turn cycle and attack to kill everyone. Or we can activate Krav and sac a billion tokens for each opponent, causing them to lose from an empty library. Oops.

#mtg #magic #krav #regna #krav the unredeemed #regna the redeemer #magic the gathering #edh #commander #guide

2 notes · View notes

firebunnylover · 7 years ago

Text

Hannah Watches LoSH - Chain of Command

Ho boy... has it been a while since I've been doing this. I apologize to everyone for the wait, but a lot of things been going on for me IRL. I recently got approval for student loans so I’m just waiting for that to come in before school, which will be full time this next semester. I'm trying to resume this on a regular basis as means with coping with recent... frustrations.

Also, if you notice inconsistencies with the different gifs regarding fonts, that is because I was busy figuring out how to make sure they stood out. And then I had computer problems right as i was halfway done making all of them. And then I thought I lost them.

BUT WHILE MOST OF THE FILES WERE OKAY, I HAD TO GO AND FIND EACH GODDAMN INDIVIDUAL FONT.

So if it takes me a while to get the next one out, know that there is a good chance it’s because I had a heart attack OR/AND I seem to take my frustrations out on my pillow via screaming...

Chain of Command

We kick off the episode with the Cruiser going highspeed someplace, while the Legion are trying to maintain contact with people, Lightning Lad seeming to be the most concerned.

Wow the same face syndrome here is worse than with Disney.

Lightning Lad asks the people on screen how they're holding up, to which they reply that they need help as the storm they're experiencing is getting worse.

You gotta give this show credit for constantly making Bouncy pilot on board.

Oh. That ain't good.

DON’T GIVE THIS PLANET SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE TREATMENT GARTH!

… Ohhhh...

As soon as the opening finishes playing, we see the Cruiser is still speeding, and Lightning Lad is incredibly anxious about arriving to his home planet. To the point he's constantly asking for updates from the team.

Sooo history class time?

He then goes to describe Winath, stating it's the "breadbasket of the galaxy", as it provides most of the galaxies food supply.

Certainly makes his farm boy insults from the first episode look weak.

But he moves on to discuss that cosmic storms used to be a big problem for Winath until they built "THE CORE DIFFUSOR STATION". A station that turns storm energy to usable energy. But unfortunately, the current storm is way more powerful than the maximum the station can handle, which makes the Legion's first priority to make sure the station doesn’t overload.

Awwww~

However, as soon as they approach the planet, turns out that storm is way worse than anticipated. Saturn Girl manages to get in contact with the people on the planet that are in the shelter.

SO MANY TWINS.

Ah, parents... gonna have to discuss them later.

Saturn Girl you should have caught him in your arms. You're the only one who hasn't!

Seeing as the Cruiser wasn’t built for the storm either, Lightning Lad instructs the Trips and Bouncy to stay on board while everyone else takes the battle pod.

Wait. Battle pod?

Huh.

Don't crash, this isn't the Intergalactic games.

Well, that's what he get for telling another person to do something outside their capabilities.

Unsurprisingly, Lightning Lad crash lands. Typical.

And that's why Lightning Lad is not the pilot on the usual schedule...

Upon entering, the place looks trashed but Lightning Lad says they got there just in time. Mm-hm.

Whom?

Aww he lookin a little heartbroken for a moment~

Bromance.

And then the introduction between Superman and Cosmic Boy. And honestly, Cosmic Boy starts to fanboy a bit.

JEALOUS GARTH!

Lightning Lad demands to know what Cosmic Boy is doing on Winath, and he states they got a distress call...

Wait. Plural?

Turns out he brought someone along. Ferro Lad.

Ok I can't help but laugh a little bit at this.

Cosmic Boy encourages Ferro Lad to demonstrate his powers, which is turning into Metal. And then Lightning Lad interrupts. He tries to give orders, but Cosmic Boy quickly overrides him, having Superman Lighting Lad and Colossal Boy and Ferro Lad stabilize the building while he and Saturn Girl and B5 go to the core.

Aww.

He snaps out of his emo mode pretty quickly though and goes to work.

The core meanwhile is well beyond f***ed, making Cosmic Boy project a magnetic field over the central part, but doesn't seem like it will last.

Outside, Lightning Lad is whining to Superman about Cosmic Boy about bringing in a new member with no audition, only for Superman to say it seems like a good choice.

Wow, it's like this show loves making Superman compatible with just about everyone.

Unfortunately, the generator they were trying to put back together outside overloads.

Ouch.

He isn't able to contain the core, and Brainy is unable to work on it, and the radiation happens to be building, getting ready to blow. When trying to reaching Superman, due to communication problems caused by radiation from the core. But who needs communicators when you got Saturn Girl?

She quickly instructs Superman to get the core out ASAP, and he does. But when it blows, he passes out, making it impossible for her to reach him.

As Superman is falling back to Winath, Bouncy goes to save him.

What a pure relationship.

Unfortunately, they lose sight of him in what I assume is smoke. THankfully he lands on the ship.

Bouncy then has to maneuver the ship to prevent debris hitting them, which does make superman tumble, but Triplicate Girl catches him from the hatch door.

But the debris decides that the cruiser isn't enough to pick on, and targets the guys that are still on the ground, while throwing in cyclones into the mix. So ground team goes to meet up with inside team.

As there is no core to help pacify the weather, Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad get into an argument on getting the system back online vs saving whatever they can.

When Lightning Lad asks who's going, much to his surprise, Ferro Lad and Colossal Boy volunteer. Brainy stays, being the nerd he is.

And there's the jerk persona again.

While outside and fixing a bridge, Ferro Lad confronts Lightning Lad.

Okay. That would include the entire BatFam on Lighting Lad's suspicious people list.

… WELL NOW I DO.

Back on the cruiser:

TRIPLICATE GIRL IS THE TEAM MEDIC!

Bouncy notices a pattern to the storm, but gets ignored by the ground team. And then despite protests, Superman leaves as well.

I feel u.

Meanwhile, Brainy is building a replacement for the old core. When Saturn Girl asks what she can do, Cosmic Boy tells her to step back so she doesn’t get hurt.

The outdoor squad is still struggling with the damn but Lighting Lad flies off when he sees a farm getting wasted by the debris, despite Colossal Boy's statement on not being able to save everything.

He tries to blast away the hail that's falling, but can only split the largest piece in half, which still does a lot of damage. Superman does arrive to help knock the hail stones away, but the ground starts to fall out from underneath.

DUDE THE HOUSE IS FALLING APART WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO GET YOURSELF KILLED?!

Wait. That room.

Oh.

OH SHIT OW NO STOP MY HEART IS NEVER READY FOR THIS PART

Just as the house is going into the ground, Lightning Lad flies out just in time.

Ow.

After this, we cut to Lightning Lad telling Superman that it was his home.

OW.

Saturn Girl contacts them to inform them that Brainy fixed the power system, and they fly off to go back.

When asked where she’s going, Saturn Girl states she's going to the shelter, to which Cosmic Boy says she's too vulnerable. And thus she lays down the best burn she made yet on this show.

List of things that have happened to her beforehand:

-Carried off by Timber Wolf while he was in full feral mode

-Nearly blasted by Alexis

-Trapped in a fear-feeding abomination of a space station AND GOING THROUGH HER WORST FEAR OF ROLLER COASTERS

-Trapped in the Phantom Zone

She’s dealt with worse.

Ok if even Brainy, one of the least sociable of the group, knows you f***ed up, then you f***ed up big time.

Back on the cruiser, Bouncy predicts where the next massive part of the storm will hit. The damn, where it will rupture, causing mudslide and sinkhole at the shelter.

But the people on the planet won't listen. At first.

YAS BOI

Yeee

With everyone finally getting in line, Bouncy gives instructions.

As the boys are working on this, Saturn Girl arrives to the shelter, offering assurance they will be ok.

Back with the boys, yes I know, that was fast, Lightning Lad starts a fire intentionally, and Superman moves a tornado, directing the flood into what I assume is another river, lake or possibly ocean. It ain't a pond, I know that.

The station finally goes back online, and it seems to be functioning.

WElp, Brainy certainly likes to leave his signature.

So pure~

Back with Saturn Girl as she and the Winathians begin exiting.

Sarcastic SG is what I live for.

Lighting Lad arrives, with the picture he saved from the house. But doesn't go for Saturn GIrl.

Hmm.

We cut to the cruiser leaving Winath, and Cosmic Boy and Lighting Lad soon dissolve into another argument.

Wait, MONTHS?! Yeah, Lightning Lad has a right here to be mad, give an update at least once a week.

Fair enough. If Lightning Lad knew where you were, he probably would have made a massive bad impression.

I thought that was Tinya's role... then again I doubt she enjoys it.

Aww, poor ferro lad.

So, to put this argument into the ground, they hold an election. Probably will end better than the american ones can.

Nothing but respect for my team leader.

THIS SHIP IS CANNON!

Is Mekt in jail? Or do you consider him more of a nuisance on the level of STAR FINGAH?

But yeah I guess nothing can go wrong.

… SHIT.

So final thoughts on the episode overall and the characters

This was the first episode without a villain character. The main conflict is among the team and trying to keep the planet from being shredded. It's also the only episode with no villain character. I really wish we got more episodes like this, or even on the Legion's everyday mundane lives.

As for the storm plot point, it does remind me a lot of actual natural disasters and nuclear disasters. Which I think from a writing stance is a good thing.

Now. Winath. In all honestly, I kind of want to do a whole post on Winath culture and on the Ranzz family and my personal thoughts, but I'll put some tidbits of that discussion in here.

Big source for food in the galaxy. How big is that planet? Earth size? Moon size? Seems suspicious they only showed us one shelter and that there's only one station, so I'll have to go with moon, maybe smaller. So that should mean that year-round it is the optimal place for most crops. Minus cosmic storms.

But onto the whole subject of why there are so many twins.

In the comics, it was completely normal for twin births, while solo children are the minority. We aren't given any particular reason why though. We did see some people without twins in the shelter, but that doesn’t mean they weren't born single.

Another thing from the comics I want to mention is that Solo children were stereotyped as psychopaths.

Hmm. Wonder how that could possibly negatively impact kids who were solo on Winath. I said sarcastically, looking at a certain trash baby.

When I first watched this, this was when I started doing research into the old Legion comics. Where Mekt was about as sane as a cat on catnip. And had no sense of fashion.

Yes, of course I'm bringing the Trash Lord into discussion, he was in a photo! Don't worry, I'll keep the topic on him short.

Mm. He doesn't seem very happy. Pretty distant from everyone else. Gonna have to go with the possibility that solo children don't get the best treatment on Winath.

… Wonder how he felt hearing about the whole event for this episode?

And then there is the subject of Mr. and Mrs. Ranzz. How did they treat their sons exactly? Because clearly they love Garth and he did a lot of accomplishments, but Mekt came out as a mess.

In a post from Tom Bierbaum, who worked on the comics, located here, he describes the family as ”...Bit of a mixed bag. There was a lot of good there, but the parents were probably highly accomplished, career-driven people who expected nothing less of their kids but were so wrapped up in their own responsibilities that they weren't giving their kids the kind of attention and support they'd need to reach their positive potentials.”

One thing to keep in mind is that the family were a bunch of farmers. And farming is not easy. So it is possible that being too busy was one of the reasons that the kids ended up as they did, although unintentionally.

But I just gotta mention something based on personal experience.

So most of my Dad’s side of the family live in North Carolina and were in the countryside and worked with farms.

And most of them conservatives.

Like, racist homophobic conservatives.

You can imagine how uncomfortable I, a biracial pansexual Latina girl, can get around them.

So, based on a personal experience, I am suspicious if there was some neglect towards Mekt as he was a minority that was discriminated against, and favoritism towards Garth and Ayla for being twins.

But it’s hard to say given that we barely see them or their behaviors.

Moving on.

Now the actual characters in the episode.

Starting with Superman. His fanbase grows. Not much development but we also see he's a little impulsive here, judging by how fast he went to get back out of the cruiser.

Brainy doesn't get much development either. But he definitely seems far more open to people now, given he was smiling at Cosmic Boy. Smiling. Our little grouchy pants. SMILING. The writers are keeping consistent with how he has been becoming more and more open to people emotionally, as well as expressive.

And then we have Colossal Boy. This is his second speaking role episode. He seems rather close to Cosmic Boy. Not exclusive to pet names. Which does warrant... shipping grounds. As far as character development goes, it is interesting to note that even though he's close to Cosmic Boy, he volunteers to help Lightning Lad outside the core. So, he might be more pro-active than CB1. But he also says Brainy has a big head. This could be seen as a jab at B5 because of his intelligence, but Brainy also asked if he could get any smaller than what he currently was. Perhaps being asked go get smaller is something he has to deal with frequently, and that was one of his ways of throwing it back into another person's face.

Ferro Lad... so, he seems generally nice in this episode, a bit on the social awkward side, and prefers to stay out of arguments that don’t necessarily involve him. But he keeps his face covered to hide whatever is underneath it, saying people don't want to see what's underneath. We can easily figure this means that he has been disfigured somehow, but whether or not he himself is conscious on it as well is another matter.

Which reminds me of Deadpool, who is self-conscious in his movie and that serves as the motivation to find Axe – oh I'm sorry, FRANCIS.

But let's talk some trivia about his comic book origins. Originally, Jim Shooter, a white guy, who worked on LoSH comics, wanted to make him black. However, as writing the character took place during the 60s, DC shot down the idea, saying they would lose distribution in the South. Whitewashing him in the final product.

So, good on Jim for trying with good intentions, bad on DC for tearing it down.

As for where that goes as a consequence overall in most media for LoSH, we'll discuss it in the future.

But... that now begs the question... have other adaptations tackled this race-change? In the cartoon, we can see the skin around his eyes as well as his hands, which are light. So, it’s probably unlikely.

Given Jim Shooter's original idea, I would totally be down for seeing a POC version of Ferro Lad.

But I only found out Ferro Lad's backstory thanks to a friend in the last year, so it's might not well known, and the people working on the show might not have known at the time. And I've stated this before, and I'll say it again, the show originally had Triplicate Girl with darker skin, and given that they made her lighter in the final product was executive meddling, so who knows?

Speaking of Triplicate Girl, this episode once again gives us a lot of character development with her. She seems to be the medic of the group, or at least seems to have sufficient knowledge to give medical treatment. And that's a pretty interesting idea in the show. I personally would love to see more superheroes with more real-world skills. Most of the time.

(Glares at Marvel's Doctor Strange)

But she is shown around Bouncy for the majority of the show. But she has her own individuality, as she has more confidence than him, and reassures him that there was no mistake with the votes.

And now, our lovable Bouncy. This is episode gives him A LOT of development, as we watch him assess the situation and take control, making the best decisions on how to treat the situation. And accidentally becomes the new leader during the polls. Something he also has a hard time believing.

Okay, so he had to try multiple times to get into the Legion, and even when he’s in, he finds people questioning his abilities. So now, all of the sudden, he has been elevated to LEADER. That’s a definitely a big shift.

This does look like a good thing (especially since most of the legion think their worst enemies are behind bars based on what Lightning Lad said), and back when I first watched this show, I thought it was the best outcome. But now I can’t help but wonder, what are the qualifications?

Because as much as Bouncing Boy is a good person and does have skills and can assess a situation, we do have to acknowledge that if he doesn't meet the qualifications, he really shouldn't be in the position. Good intentions don't automatically mean good results in the long run. I think the next episode looks into this a bit more but keep it in mind.

I never thought I would criticize the show on that aspect when I was younger, but given the 2016 election results and where that has led, can you blame me for being concerned with this now?

Which reminds me – PLEASE GO VOTE IF YOU ARE ELIGIBLE THIS NOVEMBER!

And now, the founders.

So this is Cosmic Boy's first major off screen appearance. And the show quickly show he's Lightning Lad's foil. He does take his duties seriously but does leave the team for a time to try establishing themselves to others, without contacting anyone. Diplomacy seems like a more reasonable reason than just because you're going through the ego-emo phase, but still.

Does seem to like Saturn Girl, but unlike Lightning Lad, seems to be more overprotective, where he won't have her do anything. Something similar to Timber Wolf in the degree of unintentional misogyny. Something she calls him out on. And like Lightning Lad, doesn't back down from a challenge. But there doesn't seem to be any malice/anger on his part, unlike Lightning Lad.

Saturn Girl also gets developed as well. But it is in terms of her relationship between the two boys, in a love-triangle sort of way unfortunately. She reassures Lightning Lad that she would be with him regardless of what happens, but as soon as Cosmic Boy shows up, she goes to him. And when Lightning Lad is getting ready to go outside, she chooses to stay to serve as communication. But she makes her own decision on going to the shelter. And later, she lets Lightning Lad go to his parents without intervening or apologizing. She practices agency in these relationships, and makes it clear no one owns her and she is capable of doing things, which I really like to see.

And now our favorite Trash Child.

Lightning Lad is confronted with a threat to his home, so he takes this mission far more seriously than most other missions we have seen so far. He is going out of his way for all efforts to protect Winath. And it is understandable why. As for his jerk-and-pride personality issues, he seems to be in better control, except he seems to have focused most of it on Cosmic Boy. However, it does pop up in the tone of his voice when Saturn Girl stays behind. And has trouble trusting new people. But he seems fast to warm up to Ferro Lad.

But he doesn’t demand any apologies from Saturn Girl for siding with Cosmic Boy, showing he truly respects her.

When Bouncy becomes the new elected leader, he doesn't hold anything against him. Instead, he is supportive. We wouldn't have gotten that with our Lightning Lad in the first episode.

And can I just say the quiet moments in this episode really delivered? Both the moment when he goes to his room and when he goes to his parents show his vulnerable side.

But before I wrap up this episode, I just want to thank everyone who has put up with me taking so long to resume these reviews.

Hopefully the next one won’t take as long to get out, but... we’ll see.

#hannah watches losh #losh #legion of superheroes #legion of super heroes

28 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years ago

Text

Star Trek: Ranking the Stories Set in the Present Day

https://ift.tt/3Eu4Xd0

So the new Star Trek: Picard trailer has dropped and among the big plot twists it revealed are the fact that Picard & Co are going to be travelling back to Earth, circa 2022 AD. We’re looking forward to exciting scenes of people from the 24th century being unable to drive cars (despite the pretty lengthy car chase we saw in the last episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks), Q and Picard sparring again, and wondering how Guinan fits into all this. My personal theory is that after her adventures with Picard and Mark Twain in the 19th century, Guinan decided to stick around on Earth, eventually posing as an actor called Whoopi Goldberg.

This is far from the first time Star Trek has travelled back to the present day – even if “present day” is pretty broad for the 55-year-old franchise. We have no way of knowing why the series keeps returning to this setting that doesn’t need the manufacture of any new props, sets or costumes, but it seems like a good time to look at when Star Trek has done this before and ask “Who wore it better?”

6. Assignment: Earth

This episode would prove to be a particularly tricky one for nearly every single time travel episode that has come since, in that it shows time travel for the Federation is so easy and routine that the Enterprise can just nip back to the Cold War to see why we never Great Filtered ourselves out of existence. Unfortunately, in this episode Kirk and Spock don’t get to see much of 20th century Earth, or indeed do much of anything.

‘Assignment: Earth’ was conceived as a backdoor pilot for a new series about Gary Seven, a human bred and raised by aliens to act as a secret agent on Earth and protect us from our own capacity for self-destruction. This means Kirk and Spock’s role is little more than to sit around and say “Wow, this looks like a great idea for a television show!”

Still, I can’t help but wonder about a Star Trek franchise in the parallel universe where its first spin-off was a spy show set in 1968.

5. Carpenter Street

This episode of Star Trek: Enterprise stands out because it is perhaps the only episode on this list where they decided the present day should be filmed any differently from the space future. The lighting, the camera work, the whole episode feels much more like Angel, or a cop show from the period than the Star Trek style that had been uniformly adopted since The Next Generation.

Usually when Star Trek comes back to our time it is to take us on ‘a romp’, where people point out Starfleet uniforms look like pyjamas and the crew go around misunderstanding pop culture references. This, however, feels like Star Trek invading a much grittier show.

Unfortunately, you can tell that this is a network science fiction show trying to show how adult and gritty it is, because within the first ten minutes of the episode we see a sex worker abducted. Maybe one day science fiction shows will find a way to show that they are proper grown-ups without a drive-by or disposable sex worker character appearing in the first ten minutes, but ‘Carpenter Street’ is not that show.

The other thing Star Trek’s forays into our century do is emphasise how far humanity has come, or still has to travel. This is where ‘Carpenter Street’ really falls down. Because this was Enterprise’s dark, post-9/11 Xindi storyline, we see Archer literally beat information out of someone – not for the first time in this season. It’s a scene that highlights everything that’s wrong with this version of Star Trek.

It’s also the bringer of bad news, as at one point T’Pol asks about fossil fuels to be told that “It’s not until 2061 that…”

The sentence is left incomplete, but that sounds like bad news for our 2050 emissions targets.

4. Tomorrow is Yesterday

This is Star Trek’s first trip back to the 20th century, and it sets the rules for so much that comes later. Agonising about changing the future, having modern day characters remark on how silly everything is, Star Trek characters being taken prisoner and taking the piss out of their interrogators. The formula is refined in many ways from here on, but the ingredients are established here.

It also establishes, as ‘Assignment: Earth’ later confirms, that any ordinary warp-capable ship can perform a manoeuvre to travel forward or backward in time at will, a plot device most of the Star Trek canon has heroically stuck its fingers in its ears and shut its eyes to avoid.

The main reason this entry doesn’t rank higher is that the action is almost entirely confined to US military bases, denying us the fun of seeing our favourite Starfleet officers wandering around our day-to-day world as if it’s the Planet of the Week.

Star Trek: Enterprise – An Oral History of Starfleet’s First Adventure

By Ed Gross

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is an “Encounter at Farpoint” Sequel

By Ryan Britt

3. Future’s End

This Star Trek: Voyager two-parter, on the other hand, gives us that in spades. It knows what the fans want and it is here to give you a big steaming bowl of it. Neelix and Kes watching daytime soaps? Check. Tuvok having to ensure he wears a beanie at all times? Check. Paris getting his 20th century history and slang hilariously wrong? Check. An oddly jarring turn by a young, pre-comedy stardom Sarah Silverman? Okay, maybe you weren’t asking for that, but check!

It even throws us some subtle continuity porn to argue over. In Sarah Silverman’s office we see a model of the launch configuration of a DY-100 class ship- the ship used by Khan Noonien Singh to escape justice following the Eugenics Wars that were supposed to happen in the mid-nineties.

This is more than just an Easter egg (unlike, we’re assuming, the Talosian action figure on Sarah Silverman’s desk). Over the course of the episode we learn that the entire microprocess revolution that created the world we know and love was the result of stolen 29th century tech.

Does this mean history was changed? That all Star Trek following this episode takes place in a divergent timeline where the Eugenics Wars never happened? This has some fascinating connotations that we will touch upon later in the article, and which I will explain to you at length after precisely one and a half pints.

The episode does have its weak points however – Voyager being seen on national television never seems to go anywhere, and neither does the whole subplot where Chakotay and Torres end up prisoner in a survivalist compound for a bit.

As we’ve already mentioned, there’s also a lot of agonising about how Voyager will get to the present, when we already know that they just need to whip around the sun at warp speed and boom, the series is over.

Oh, and this is an extremely minor gripe, but Janeway tells us she has no idea what her ancestors were doing in this time period – despite subjecting us to the tedium of her story in ‘Millennium Gate’ which was set only four years after this.

2. Past Tense

This episode might be considered a cheat, since at time of broadcast it was technically set in the future. However, since it (along with Irish Reunification) is supposed to take place three years on from now, I think we can say it counts.

This Deep Space Nine story is decidedly not ‘a romp’. Yes people make fun of the characters’ clothes, and Kira and O’Brien’s jaunts through history raise a smile, but more than all but a select number of Star Trek stories, this is about just how far our reality is from the hoped-for future of Star Trek.

Bashir lands some lines that hit quite a bit heavier now than they did in the nineties, from “The 21st century is not one of my strong points – too depressing” to the plaintive “How could they have let things get so bad?” at the story’s conclusion.

And while it is set over twenty years in the future from the perspective of the broadcast date, it wasn’t far off. Stories evocative of the sanctuary districts are easy to find, and as writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe says, “We weren’t being predictive. We were just looking out our windows in the ’90s.”

Only two things really mark this episode out as an anachronism. One, the technology looks painfully 90s – our technology looks far closer to the 24th century than the bulky monitors seen everywhere in this. But then again, this episode was broadcast prior to ‘Future’s End’, so maybe Henry Starling hadn’t kickstarted the microprocessor revolution in this timeline yet.

The other, far grimmer element to have dated is the idea that one innocent black person being shot by police could be enough to cause the sea change this episode says it does.

1. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

There wasn’t ever really going to be any debate over this, was there? Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is hands down the one to beat if you’re writing Star Trek characters travelling to the present day. The film itself was something of a departure for the franchise. Rather than Robert Wise’s epic, sombre, proper science fiction in The Motion Picture, or the bombastic action of Nicholas Meyer’s Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home was helmed by a director who would be best known for the cult comedy, Three Men & a Baby.

This 20th century feels far more inhabited than other portrayals, with screen time being given over to casual conversations between bin men, and workplace arguments independent of the former Enterprise crew.

Of course, by now the crew of 1701-no-bloody-A-B-C-or-D should be old hands at Earth in the 20th century. This is their fourth trip here, not counting planets-that-mysteriously-resemble-Earth-in-the-20th-century.

But these fish are never more out of water than they are in this film, and the results are charming. Kirk explaining swearing to Spock, Kirk observing people “still use money”, Chekov standing in the middle of the street asking for directions to the “Nuclear Wessels”, Scotty’s “Hello Computer!” and Kirk Thatcher getting nerve-pinched for listening to his own music on a ghetto blaster. Plus countless more zingers, sight gags and throwaway lines that I’m still finding new ones of after many, many re-watches.

And the cast are clearly having the time of their lives. Shatner’s comic talent was always on display, but in this movie he is really allowed to cut it fully loose giving reaction shots that make you feel bad about every time you mocked his acting.

But no matter how silly it gets, this film knows, more than any other, the point of sending Star Trek characters into the modern day. It is to show us the difference between our ideal selves and where we are – and it does it no less starkly than ‘Past Tense’. With a light comic touch, Kirk and co. encounter capitalism, the spectre of nuclear war, and most of all, the devastating environmental impact we’re having. Even if we reach the ideal Star Trek future, this film says, we could still lose things we can’t replace along the way.

Star Trek: Picard is going to have to work hard if it wants to walk in its footsteps.

Honourable Mentions

While not taking place in the present day, it’d be remiss of this article not to mention ‘City on the Edge of Forever’, which refined ‘Tomorrow is Yesterday’s formula and is just one of the all-out best Star Trek series ever, and ‘Little Green Men��, which twists the usual Starfleet-in-the-20th-century formula by having the Ferengi arrive in the 20th century and find humans far more brutal, greedy and stupid than even they suspected.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Also, I don’t want to alarm you, but by the end of this decade we’ll be closer to the events of Star Trek: First Contact than we are to the release of Star Trek: First Contact.

The post Star Trek: Ranking the Stories Set in the Present Day appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3hzk0s5

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes