#so she gambles bigger and higher and keeps winning

[aparticularbandit]

I'm. intrigued by what they're doing with Junko here. is the best word I have for it.

I can see Junko doing these things, but I have a hard time seeing Junko being careless.

But I think Izuru summed it up best when he asked: Junko, knowing you couldn't win, why are you here?

And that...plays into my death-seeker Junko theory and plays really well into the way I'm writing her. It's less that she's careless. It's that she honestly doesn't want to win. She wants someone to stop her.

And at every opportunity, no one. stops. her.

Even Makoto, knowing exactly who she is and what she's done, says, Come with us. Leave with us. We can all be friends again.

She loses. She wants to lose. And says, No. I lost. Let. Me. Lose. Let this entire everything be done. Because the only way it ends is with me dying because it doesn't matter what I do or how careless or horrible I've been, no one will just let me be done.

Maybe, if she tries to kill Mukuro, her Ultimate Soldier sister will eventually snap and kill her instead. Or break her arm. Or something other than just dodging and avoiding.

Maybe, if she tries to kill Izuru, he'll kill her instead of kicking her to the floor and letting her talk.

Maybe, if she kills a Steering Committee member and breaks into this super private place (which she is literally risking her life to do because Chisa was risking hers just for breaking into the Steering Committee member's office, which is nowhere near as bad as breaking into Izuru's chamber), they'll catch her and kill her.

Maybe if she starts a Killing Game.

Maybe if she makes Yasuke believe she doesn't actually care about him.

Maybe if the Reserve Course riots.

Maybe if she breaks the entire world.

Maybe if she starts another Killing Game with the students who are left over.

Maybe.

Someone.

Will.

Kill.

Her.

Stop.

Her.

End.

Her.

And no one does.

[physicalturian]

[18+] Deranged Love - Hanma Shuji x F!Reader - Part 16

[Probably contains spoilers from the anime and the manga][She/Her pronouns used for the reader, no physical description; Everyone is +18]

Archiveofourown - Spotify Playlist

Words : 10 129

Warnings : Explicit! / Angst / NSFW / Gaslighting / Manipulation / Gun / Blood / Violence / Sexual topics / Gambling / Mention of drugs

- - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 -Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15

It was to be expected, after all luck had been avoiding us the entire evening. And maybe Shiho had expected it too from how unfazed she seemed to be when the marble stopped on 18 red. None of the stakes she had placed on the table covered that, she had lost all of it, and yet, she wasn’t looking away from the man we had been challenging this entire time. “Whatever you won isn’t gonna compensate for all that you’ve lost so far, you know.” She said off-handedly, barely glancing at the croupier when he gathered the chips from the mat and distributed the winnings to those who had earned some. “You haven’t won jack shit since you joined this table, keep your comments to yourself, and your dog too.” He said, this time raising his chin towards me, dismissively pointing instead of addressing me properly.

Frowning, I stepped closer to him to intimidate him and have his tone change when addressing me. It wasn’t that I was higher ranked than anyone, or that my place in Bonten made me act as such, no, of course not. It was more a need for basic respect that I was asking for, something I’ll later understand I had lost the moment I had kicked him, but at this very moment I did not care. “Say that again without holding your little thinker, then I’ll listen.” I spat, looking back at the table where Shiho had bet some more and was still pointing at some numbers for the croupier to place her bets. While she did so, the man next to me sighed loudly and turned me towards him by grabbing my shoulder roughly, “It’s my balls—you know, from when you kicked me because you’re a crazy bitch?”

“Yeah, that’s the joke I made, it’s your dick, that’s why it’s your brain.” With a roll of my eyes, I gripped his hand to get it off of me and if the action was done confidently, I was shaking inside in fear he’d get mad and throw back the hit I had given. With a grip as tight as I could make it, I dug my nails in his hand and met his gaze, “Are you betting again or are you leaving?” “Ignore him, he’s probably penniless—I mean, look at his outfit. Poor guy can’t bet more than he’s already done.” Shiho said, setting her own bets. She asked me to join her back, her hand on my lower back as she placed her head against my arm, hugging me from the side. It seems he was already worked up because all it took was those words from Shiho for him to dig his hand in the pocket of his suit to pull out a pouch filled with cash that he slammed on the table, “All in on black.” He said in a hurry, pushing his chips to the black part on the table, the croupier adding the chips equal to the amount of money put on the table then placed a marker on it.

Once everyone was ready, he turned the roulette and the stress was back, the anticipation was building inside all of those who had high stakes in this game—Shiho. When I looked around, it looked like more people had joined in, but only to watch because they did not have the guts to participate. Perhaps they knew they did not have the guts to stop or they were not here for such entertainment. They were here for bigger business, probably deals with Bonten or even other people that were into shady businesses like Bonten was. But all of them had that one thing in common, they all acted higher than they were, whispering to their partners, catering their drinks and only taking the smallest sips, considering how expensive it had been to get them.

They weren’t part of this world, not really. They believed they were, but if they did not have money to throw and feared any sort of thrills, then they could sit back and relax—never would they be a part of this.

“30 red.” The croupier called, effectively getting my attention back on the game. I was caught off guard when Shiho suddenly stood up, her hands slamming on the table in excitement, “There we fucking go!” She turned around and lowered her tone to ask me to stand aside before she stood up and got up close with the man that had been annoying, “You can’t play, you’re betting too much, blah blah blah—look who lost all their money! Not me, not fucking me.” She said, tapping the tip of her index finger aggressively on his chest, her nose almost touching his from how close she was to him. He looked at her with pure ire; fearing for her safety, I wrapped an arm around her stomach and pulled her back to her seat. “Get your gains, let’s get to another table—” “All or nothing!” He said, his disgusting hand holding her arm as she gathered the chips. Without hesitation, I elbowed his arm down, earning a pained cry but even through the pain, he gripped my arm and pulled me close to him, his stinking breath reaching my nose quickly. I had to hold my breath.

���I’m not talking to you.” “And you can’t double or nothing when you have nothing, did I damage your thinker that much?” I asked in a fake caring way, glancing down then back at him. I did not know what gave me such a feeling of safety, this place was out of my comfort zone and my friend by my side was clearly not paying attention to what was going on as she was stacking everything on the table. “I’ll fucking damage your insolence-spitting mouth is what I can do—” The moment his hand gripped my jaw tight, it let go instantly, then I saw his head tilt to the side and hit the corner of the roulette table at a frigthening speed. His body fell limp to the ground, people around the table scattering away in shock. The whispers grew and, as they tended to, people were pointing at where the commotion came from: the passed out man on the floor by my feet.

Frozen on the spot at the turn of events, I looked to see who had done this and felt my heart soar when I saw Hanma crouching on the ground, his hands now inside the man’s pockets. A lit cigarette was resting between his pretty lips while a curious expression adorned his features and he said, without much articulation, “He’s not coming back.” “What? Like you went too hard?” I asked jokingly. He let out a barked laugh and stood up, kicking the man’s shoes on his way before reaching my side and bringing the cigarette away, his arm extended to the side. He puffed out the smoke in the air before bringing his face to my height, ignoring everyone around us which I did not mind doing until he pressed his lips on mine, smirking while doing so. I don’t know why I pushed him away and I regretted it instantly when he looked at me confused, his smile falling, but I quickly patted his chest, “Not here, I need to help Shiho first.” As if summoned, the woman in question popped her head between us, a box full of chips resting in her hands.

“Aren’t you two cozy?” She cooed, her eyes switching from him to me a few times before settling on me, “Did I miss… something?” Not knowing if she meant between him and I, or on the whole, I chose the latter and pointed at the ground, “If you hadn’t seen, the bastard’s passed out on the ground.” “No, no, I saw that! It’s deserved, so I don’t really care, I meant more like…” She threw a look at Hanma who was finishing his cigarette and was now looking around the place, one hand in his pocket while the other brought the cigarette to his lips for him to take a drag. “Did something happen with the big guy there?”

Jumping to old habits wasn’t better, but it was safer. I don’t know what I feared would happen if I did admit it to someone else, but I didn’t want to try, so I waved her off. “Have you seen him? Nothing happened—I mean nothing different from the usual, no nothing.” That was too fast, unnecessary and to change from what seemed to be repeating tonight, I regretted it. Hanma didn’t take it too badly since he crushed his cigarette on the box in his pocket before tucking it away, then he smiled manically at me. His eyes wandered to Shiho then to me again, “Nothing? That’s not what you say when we’re together with my dick in your mouth, but then again, you can’t really say much.” “Alright, enough, I—” “No, cause you look ashamed right now, doll. What? You don’t want people to know,” He stepped back and while still looking at me dead in the eyes, raised his tone, enough for people nearby to hear even with the loud music, “That you sucked me off? That any chance we get, you let me fuck you with just my fingers? That you—” Covering his mouth with one hand while the other held the back of his head, I pushed him towards the side of the room, Shiho following right behind me without me having the need to tell her. Of course he was letting me, because he found it amusing to win his silly little show off and even if I stopped him, he knew he had won.

When we were in a calmer area, I let go and fully ignored him to focus on Shiho who was smiling happily at us. “Yes.” I simply said, to answer her question again but it didn’t make sense so Shiho quirked a brow, still grinning, “Yes, what?” She knew what I meant, I’m convinced she knew but she made me say it.

“Yes, something happened,” I put an arm around her back and brought her a bit away, looking back at Hanma to wordlessly tell him to not follow, “Some things might happen tonight, but most of it happened when I—when we weren’t… really together.” I explained, feeling my cheeks heat up by the second. My tongue felt like putty and I had a hard time getting those words out, but Shiho understood and she inquired more. “So you’re together-together, now! It’s so cool!” “Something like that. I think? I don’t know if I… nevermind that, if I do know one thing it’s that I do want to have sex with him, but we’ve been busy and it’s a bit hard to find free time but I—yeah, I like him?” I let out a nervous laugh and ran my free hand over my face before shaking my head, “I don’t know why I’m talking about it like it’s something cute, like it’s something normal. I should stop this, I should keep things professional—” “Of course not! If what he said is true,” I mumbled to her that it was and Shiho continued, “Then I don’t think there’s a way to keep anything professional, plus he’s not ugly.” She hummed, giving me a thumbs up, as if praising me for my choice but I hadn’t chosen him, it all just happened without me ever having a say in it.

“He’s despicable, Shi. He’s fucked up, he doesn’t care about shit—” She cut me off, her hand moving mine away from her waist as she forced me to look at her, “And you do? I’m sorry babe, but you’re kinda being hypocritical right now. It’s not like you were righteous either, didn’t you kill people? Cause I know about that and I don’t care, I don’t think he does either.” For some reason, it made it more real to hear her tell me she knew about the wrongs I did, it clearly showed that nothing was a secret in Bonten. And if she had been informed of that, then there was no way she wouldn’t know about everything else. Meaning, she knew so much that if she ever decided to leave because Sanzu had gone bad—not that he wasn’t already bad from an unbiased point of view—she wouldn’t be able to leave. Sure, the conversation wasn’t about her, and I had heard what she had said, but I couldn’t help the knot forming in my throat from how sad it all was.

“This is not a love story, Shiho. We’re not allowed to find happiness in such a situation.” I didn’t mean it, because I wanted to hold onto something. I wanted to hold onto Hanma. So why was I saying that? Was there still a part of me that believed there was a way out? Was that part still convinced that this was just a side job? It wasn’t. I was involved neck deep in all of this, I couldn’t leave. It’d only get worse with time. “Oh, lighten up a little! I know it’s not fun! Trust me, I know,” She paused, a certain darkness painted on her features for a second. I reached out for her and placed my hand on her cheek, brushing my thumb over it and she quickly grabbed my hand to move it away and hold it. “But it’s fine, because we chose this, right? Who cares if we can’t leave? We got each other! And you got Hanma, I got Haru—and he’s a lot of fun, he helps me forget!”

Furrowing my brows, I looked at her and asked, “Forget what?”

She waved it off as if it was nothing, but said, “Sometimes he forgets I’m not—I’m not part of Bonten for real, so he takes me with him on some of his little outings and I see stuff I don’t really want to see, I guess? It’s kinda hard to sleep at night, but it helps that he can get some stuff for us to get high so it’s cool.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” I said as I wrapped my arms around her.

That was the most sincere I’ve ever been in the past few weeks, there was nothing more I could say but sorry. I was to blame, no matter the outcome of the situation she was in, the blame would inevitably fall on me. Knowing her, she would never accuse me of being responsible for the position she was in, but I would. Because it was true. Because I was the catalyst to her downfall.

I felt her chuckle awkwardly in my embrace as she patted my back, “It’s alright, but don’t you think this conversation is over!” Breaking the hug, she looked at me with determination, completely closing the topic that was her joining Bonten and said, “We were talking about you! Fuck the consequences right? Fuck this shitty organization because—because there is no way we’re coming out of there alive, so you might as well fuck around, literally, and have fun!” She was smiling broadly now, her hands gripping my shoulders so tight it hurt, then she took a deep breath and with finality, said, “That was the point I wanted to make.”

When I stared at her in awe from the short rant she had let out, I smiled softly, about to tell her my opinion but she turned me around, “So go fuck, yeah? I’ll go find Sanzu because I am feeling hot all over and I need to take the edge off.” She hummed happily before pushing me towards Hanma; before she could leave, I grabbed her wrist tight, wanting to stop her from going back but I remembered her speech and let go immediately. My friend looked at me confused, asking me if there was anything else.

I smiled.

“Be safe, don’t be afraid to call me if there is anything. Alright?” The tightness in my throat was not leaving, and as Shiho grinned, it tightened more when I remembered that deep down she wasn’t as happy as she seemed. Because she needed help. Help she wouldn’t have the need to seek if I hadn’t brought her to that club. “Well of course? Same goes to you babe, see you in a few? I think we should definitely play some poker, cause I have some money to spare, so…” She then rushed to my side and kissed my cheek before hurrying off to join Sanzu, leaving me alone and thinking of what I could have done to change what she ended up in.

Two hands fell to my shoulders and gripped them tight, “Are you gonna listen to her advice?” the low-spoken voice said, startling me in the process. My chest suddenly weighed as much as my guilt, it felt like I couldn’t breathe but I still turned around to look at him. He who I had hurt by denying anything we had, by refusing to be close to him just because I feared people’s opinion on us. But it was stupid of me. That I knew. Because Mikey was right, people were monsters—one mistake could not be forgiven, one mistake was a step in the grave, one mistake sentenced one to shame and death.

And the amount of mistakes I had to my count would make me their scapegoat, the perfect monster. So what was one more?

Could I even call loving him a mistake when it felt right? When he would not judge me for who I had become?

“Her advice didn’t entail me apologizing and yet,” I took his hand in mine and squeezed it, hesitant to look at him as I softly told him, “I’m sorry I hurt you. I panicked, I am not ashamed of you.” “But I’m despicable and fucked up, oh, and I don’t care, right?” He said mockingly, but the hurt in his voice was very present. When I met his gaze, my heart stopped.

I couldn’t breathe.

I had fucked up.

I didn’t let go of him even when he tried to pull his hand back.

“I said it out of habit, I didn’t mean it—whatever you heard, I promise my mind has changed. I was just… I was afraid.” I explained as if it would erase everything that happened out of his memory, as if the pain in his chest would suddenly fade away, but it didn’t work like that. People couldn’t read your mind, your emotions. People could misunderstand your words.

“Of me?” He simply asked, face devoid of anything. Because if he showed sadness, he’d be weak, right?

Panicking, I let go of his hand and gripped his biceps with force, how could he think that? Had I shown him so little faith that now he thought I feared him? “What? No! No, not of you. Never of you. Why would I be afraid of you? You…” I trailed off and looked him dead in the eyes, “You’d never hurt me, I trust you.” I finally said, believing every word coming out of my mouth. I felt odd but somehow, it made me feel safer than I ever did before. “I didn’t think—I didn’t think. That is all.”

Hanma wasn’t saying anything. He didn’t move from where he stood and only looked down at me, probably thinking, pondering my words, weighing their worth. I wanted to reach for his face, I wanted to kiss him and tell him we could go back there and do whatever he wanted, that I didn’t care what people thought of us. It was true, Shiho had been right, among her heartbreaking words she had been right—the consequences didn’t matter anymore. Nothing worse could happen because no matter what I did, I was already tarnished and there was no way I could go back to who I once was.

“How about you stop saying shit you don’t mean then? Hm?” The moment he said that, I averted my eyes and focused on his shirt. It was the cowardly thing to do, but I did it anyway. “Look at me.” He said, tilting my head to have me look at him, then did not say anything. He simply stared. Each passing second made it more and more unbearable because all I wanted to do was kiss him and tell him I loved him—loved? Loved?

My brain shut down.

My eyes widened.

He noticed my reaction and clicked his tongue on his teeth, “Don’t tell me you’re afraid.” “I love you Shuji, please don’t leave me.” We both said at the same time. I immediately covered my mouth then his, stopping him from saying anything in return. This had been too much. I had said too much already in the car and he had told me he cared, whatever I said now would be the straw that’d break the camel's back. Letting go of him, I raised my index, “A moment, I need a moment.” Then I walked off to some random door, fully aware that Hanma was following me. He would not drop this, not that I’d expect him to.

Perhaps I ran off so we could be alone together, without anything or anyone bothering us. It had been arrogant of me to think he’d love me back, so why did I blurt it out?

“Are you gonna cry now? Is that how the song goes? Because it’s so bad to be with me?” He asked with a smirk that hid once again how he truly felt. We were standing in the middle of a well-lit corridor with a red carpet, but no one in sight. I did not know where it led, but there were a few doors down the line, and since none of them were open, I could let it all out.

“You look at me! You fucking look at me, truly this time, go ahead! Look me in the eyes and drop the act! Tell me you were hurt, tell me how you really felt!” I yelled, slamming my hand on his chest, feeling my very own tremble under the heartbeats of my fast-beating heart that was hammering against my ribcage, trying to escape and protect itself from the incoming pain. Hanma looked down at me, his smile falling but his eyes speaking so loudly. He was listening, he was hearing me, a battle was happening in his head on what to do next. Taking a deep breath, I continued in a calmer tone, “Because it’s easy to make it into a joke, right? Now tell me you don’t love me or do something.” I felt frustration come up from his lack of response and said in a tone that matched my emotion, “I apologized, because I was in the wrong and I fucked up. I know that! So you either forgive me or you tell me off! You either like me a little or you don’t and it’s fine.”

Hanma chuckled, “Isn’t it hard to be so thick in the head? Don’t know if it’s a choice or if it’s genuine stupidity, but—” “I’m done, I’ve had enough, I can’t take one more joke.” I interrupted him by turning around, ready to leave, but he stopped me and brought me close to his chest, his arms wrapped around my waist so tight I couldn’t even attempt to escape. I wanted that, I absolutely did, but I was afraid he was fooling around, it broke me. “For the record, I’m the one who says when it’s enough. And with these stupid meetings and errands I was sent off to, I’ll tell you one thing: I’ve had nothing and I plan on having everything. All of it.” With that, he cradled my face in his large hands and brought it to his, crashing his lips to mine as he pushed me to the wall, bodies pressed against one another. Both of us were breathing heavily through our noses, unable to do so properly from the kiss being shared, unable to let go of one another, hands traveling each other’s bodies, lifting the hem of my dress, untucking his shirt from his pants.

“I’m not gonna fuck you.” He breathed against my skin, his nose brushing down my neck as he kissed down my jawline to my collarbone. I held the side of his face to not ruin his hair but then moved my hand to the back of his neck, bringing him closer, “Why, Shuji? Am I not enough? Is that why you’re not fucking me?” It made him look up, his lips now ghosting over mine as I stared at him in surprise from the sudden action. His hands were gripping my ass with force, perhaps even anger, “Shit, look at you, desperate for my cock in the middle of a job—this is gold!” He exclaimed out of breath, lifting one of my legs to his hip as he pressed me further against the wall, leaving barely any room between us. I let out a groan from the pain on my back and the feeling of his nails digging in my skin; my head was tilted to the side since it could not tilt back, “But this ain’t about me, this is about you being a fucking princess and you probably telling me I fucked up for fucking you in a casino hall, got it?” He asked, now dead serious, his hand having left my ass to angle my face towards his as he grazed his lips over mine once more, “I said, got it?” He reiterated his question.

Smirking, I nodded and went to kiss him, but my lips never met his. He had stepped back and let go of me, this time grinning. His emotions were unstable right now; I couldn’t guess what was going on in his head, which was not unusual, but it had been foolish of me to think he’d be clouded by lust like I had been. My smirk was replaced by sudden shame and my face heated up in embarrassment, “Don’t make that face, we’re not repeating your photo booth trauma.” “I knew I shouldn’t have said shit about that. I should have known you’d make fun of me.” I huffed, pulling the hem of my dress down to cover up. Any mood I was in to fuck him was suddenly gone from how bad I felt after his short rejection.

He probably did not think of it as such. But then again, we never really thought the same thing, which made me wonder: if our minds weren’t alike, why did I feel a pull towards him whenever he’d speak, whenever he’d be nearby or when he’d take my hand? Simply because I loved him? Was it really love? I had blurted it out so I couldn’t take it back, and part of me felt it to the core, but there was this remaining small piece of common sense, of logic, that was battling for me to think and make sense out of this.

It didn’t.

At least I didn’t want to think of it anymore. This sensation in my chest was too good for me to let it go, instead of fighting him, I let him do as he pleased. “Make fun of you? Babe, I’d never.” He said in pure shock, only to laugh at his own words before digging in his front pocket for something, “If you weren’t an impatient woman, you’d give me two fucking seconds to breathe, yeah?” There wasn't room for a choice, this man was not known for suggesting or questioning, he ordered. Perhaps they weren’t orders per se, but they felt like it. So I sighed and leaned against the wall, arms crossed over my chest. “You know, you’re right. We have a job to do, so why are we standing here? Shouldn’t we go back?”

Instead of replying, Hanma pulled out something from his pocket and gestured for me to lean back, his hand resting on the side of my throat as he made me look to the side. “‘cause I’m not done.” With that, he rested the side of his face against my head and I felt his fingers on my ear. Instead of scurrying off, I tensed up and waited to see what he’d do. I could smell his strong cologne and wanted to wrap my arms around him, but instead I hooked a finger to the waistband of his pants. With a side glance, I was looking at his exposed lower stomach while he was struggling next to my face, “Are ya hungry or something?” He whispered right into my ear, startling me in the process and making me let go of his pants.

“You’re very close, can you blame me?” I whispered back in all intimacy, not believing I had done and said those things with confidence. But hearing him laugh made me smile—a smile he noticed when he leaned back and looked at me, smirking proudly. With the back of his hand, he brushed back my hair and looked at what he had done. “Looking good with your tag, babe.” He commented. Bringing my own hand to my ear, I felt the coldness of metal dangling and was surprised by what he had done. Wanting to see what it looked like, I patted his jacket for my phone only to have him grab my hands to stop me, “What are you doing?” “I need to see what I’m working with, I highly doubt you have any fashion sense.” He handed me my phone and let me pull out the camera to check myself out—I had to hold back from grinning and instead looked up at him and quirked a brow, “Matching earrings? Isn’t that—” “I’m putting my claim on what’s mine, like a cattle.” Before I could say anything, he grabbed my phone, held it out of my reach and angled towards us for a picture. “Or you’d prefer this?” He then ran his tongue on my throat and started sucking on it, nibbling on the skin, grazing his tongue over the same spot over and over again with the sole purpose of leaving a hickey. “That’s more familiar, less dignified, but you like it like that, yeah?” He breathed against my skin, laughing without ever stopping his actions.

One hand grabbed me under the thigh to lift me just a little bit, pressing me further into the wall, “Gentle isn’t fun, you want it rough.” he punctuated by thrusting his hips against mine, earning himself a groan from my person as I gripped the back of his jacket tight. I wanted to push him off, to tell him that I was not an object he could own, but the pain of each bite on my skin rendered me silent if not for the small gasps escaping my lips. “I mean, you don’t have your tattoo yet…” He trailed off and for the umpteenth time leaned back and gave me a once over, “But there’s nothing wrong with a bit of hand-made work, right?” He smiled manically, wiping the saliva from my throat and handing me my phone back.

Hurrying to get the camera out, I looked at my neck and ran my fingers over it, “Don’t you have any restraints?” I asked rhetorically upon seeing the size of the hickey he had left. Hanma mustn't have appreciated those words since he took off his jacket and threw it on the ground before falling to his knees, “At this point you’re begging for it, doll.” and with those words, he slid his hands up my legs and to my ass, gripping it with force to bring my hips to the level of his head. When he looked up at me, I threaded my fingers through his hair and tilted his head back, “What are you doing?!” I ushered, my eyes flickering between the mischievous glimmer in his eyes and the wide grin on his lips, “You’re funny—bitch is begging for my dick, but hickeys make her shy?” His touch traveled from my ass down to behind my knees where he pushed to force me to rest my knees on his shoulders, his head nested between my thighs. His lips pressed on my inner thighs as he looked up at me, smiling all along. To not miss out on his beautiful expressions, I lifted my dress even more; it earned me a chuckle from the man on his knees. “And then she’s ready to bare her pussy to the world just for me to eat it out, isn’t that right?” He asked, lips grazing lazily on my inner thighs.

“Isn’t it funny that the same bitch talks about restraints? When she’s ready to get fucked in the middle of a place where anyone could walk in on—” “I get it!” I cut him off.

He bit my thigh so hard I had to cover my mouth in pain, “I wasn’t finished.” He stated, his lips slightly redder than they used to be from the color of the liquid tainting them. I couldn’t trust myself to speak, so I kept a hand on my mouth and raised the hem enough to look at the damage. My eyes widened at small prickles of blood on the bite, “And don’t act surprised, because we both know you liked it, understood?” Hanma said, almost bored as he ran his tongue over the wound, making me hiss in pain behind my hand.

“Are you kidding me? Are you for real—I can’t believe this.” We heard someone say nearby.

The sudden shame that filled me made me lose all my senses; I quickly pushed Hanma’s head away from me and dropped the hem of my dress to cover up. I heard him sigh angrily as he stood up, grabbing his jacket from the floor lazily before standing by my side with his arm wrapped around my shoulders. “Never seen two people about to fuck, God of War? If you kept reacting like that when you walked in on your parents, no wonder they left.” “You’re a real piece of shit, Reaper, can’t believe they’re making me work with you.” Takeomi spat in pure hatred. I did not need to know Takeomi’s past to know that Hanma’s words were uncalled for, but he had been ticked off. And if I knew one thing after all that we had gone through, it was to not interrupt whatever he’d be doing—something the scarred man had just done.

“What are you doing, standing there like an idiot? Can’t you see I’m busy?” Hanma asked, bringing me closer possessively, his hand slithering to my hips as he asked me to get a cigarette from his inside pocket. “And you can’t do it yourself, because?” I asked, moving in front of him, my back turned to Takeomi all while taking the cigarette and placing it between Hanma’s lips. “Because it’s cute to see how docile you get after I touch you.” he whispered so that only I could hear. That's all it took for me to huff a laugh—once I had lit his cigarette—and turn around, facing the dark-haired man that still stood in the middle of the corridor with his arms crossed over his chest. “Can’t you just let the woman go and finish the job you were assigned? She’d be having more fun if you let her roam around instead of keeping her on a leash.” He said, convinced of what he was saying. It always amazed me how those men would assume so much about what I was thinking when all they were doing was projecting their hate of Hanma onto me.

Raising a brow, I tilted my head to the side and looked at Takeomi with curiosity, “So you believe women have more fun gambling than fucking? It makes one wonder how good you are in bed, Takeomi.” I commented, a certain pride swelling in my chest when I heard Hanma burst out laughing—a laugh that only grew louder when Takeomi’s eyes widened at my statement, then the penny dropped and he was disgusted, “No, no, it’s alright, if you want some pointers I’ll be sure to help you out!” I added mockingly, feeling like I was floating from how confident I felt at that moment. I was aware it was not natural, that the cause of this burst of confidence was because of the man by my side, because I wanted to prove myself to him for some reason. And I did, since he laughed and pressed his cheek against the side of my head, his eyes never leaving Takeomi as he smirked.

The man that had interrupted us gave us an annoyed look, “I didn’t believe Kakucho when he said she was into it but… yeah she doesn’t need help, huh?” He said with an air close to disdain. His reaction showed how much these men hated Hanma for the very little they interacted together; after all, he hadn’t done anything wrong—except perhaps insulting him, but I blamed it on him being annoyed at the interruption, that was all. “Help?” Hanma asked in disbelief as he puffed out some smoke and moved his hand away before holding my chin between his thumb and forefinger as he looked down at me with hooded eyes, “She’s far beyond rescue, look at her—she’s hooked!” and he wasn’t wrong, whatever instinct I used to have, the one that made me fight back, was long gone. Teasingly, I said, “I’m only staying out of curiosity for what you keep promising, Shuji. Nothing more.” I saw his manic grin grow, his face approaching mine as I let my eyes flicker to his lips. I was about to keep this little banter going until the black-haired man behind me interrupted, making us sigh as I stepped away from Hanma. “Yeah, well, you still have a job to do, so let the crazy woman go and—”

What he was saying rubbed me the wrong way. He hadn’t seen anything I had done and whatever I had done so far was justified, right? I wasn’t crazy, I was still sane. “Crazy? Isn’t it a bit too strong of a word?” I asked with a huffed laugh, more offended than I thought I would be.

The man with the hair slicked back covered his mouth to try and muffle his laugh, but nothing could cover up how loud it came out, “No, yeah, of course not! You’re not!” he couldn’t even finish the point he was making that he extended his arms forward to put Hanma on display, “Have you seen who you’re fucking with?” He asked in pure disbelief, “I’ve seen stupid people in my life, but you’re probably the stupidest, your choice in partners is nothing but shit. If you wanted some thrill in your life, you could have gone to some amusement park or some shit like that because this,” He gestured around him at the building, the situation, then his tone lowered in something condescending, “isn’t a game, do you even get that?” He tapped his finger to his head, to accentuate me understanding the situation, “Cause you seem to literally be fucking around and that’s it.” He finished by getting his pack of cigarettes out of his suit jacket with a sigh.

Without even glancing at Hanma for his permission, I went off, “I’ll make it simple for you because you’re probably a bit thick in the head,” I stepped closer and looked up at him with unwavering composure, “What I do when I’m not running errands is mybusiness. What you don’t do—having a life that is—is yours. I don’t know what you’re expecting of me when I’m just a pawn of Bonten and not an executive, but maybe you should lower your expectations or you’ll get disappointed, God of War.” Once I was done, he seemed thrown off, but only for a second. With fresh vigor, his brows furrowed and I could see he did not like my words; but I wasn’t done yet. I wanted to add to it, so I did, “And trust me when I tell you, I know this is serious. I may not have assisted your little God-like boss in killing people, I may not have joined in on your drug deals and I may not have been there when you were all visiting brothels, beating people up—but I know this shit is real.” I spat. I was holding back from bringing him closer by his shirt, but I knew he’d react to it instantly, at least I was convinced of it. No one would react well to that. “Sorry my trauma isn’t big enough for you to take it into consideration, do you want to help with that, maybe?”

This time he was truly taken aback, his eyes widening a moment before anger took over and he roughly grabbed my jaw. “Show some fucking respect!” Was all he could say before I instinctively reacted by punching him in the nose. We all knew it wasn’t enough to take him down, perhaps that’s why Hanma intervened and punched him with more force, making him stumble back and let go of me, “You show some fucking respect—put your fucking hands on what’s mine one more time and I’ll make you the God of Deads.”

Takeomi countered immediately by splaying his hand on the side of Hanma’s head and slamming it into the wall, denting it by how much force he put in the action, “I’ve always wanted to do that, shit, it feels good!” Takeomi said in pure satisfaction as he moved his hand, shaking his arm a bit to avoid straining it. When Hanma stood properly, his face adorned with that wicked grin I was so familiar with, I knew I had to step back—so I did. “That’s the worst you can do? No wonder they kicked you out of the Black Dragons! Here, try again.” Hanma said, pointing at his cheek; Takeomi did not miss the opportunity and went for a hit that Hanma dodged effortlessly, plunging forward to tackle the Bonten advisor down. “Don’t look down, wannabe God, you’ll bleed down your shirt—I’m being nice here!” The partially-blond man said as he lifted Takeomi’s head and punched it again and again, struggling to keep the advisor’s hands away from his arms when he tried to fight back.

I couldn’t look away from the violent display in front of me. Something that would usually put me on edge, that would bring me such a fear I’d be shaking, now got my entire attention—I was fascinated. Nothing made me want to stop them; if anything, I wanted to see Hanma win just to see him smile elatedly. As I got used to seeing him smiling wickedly, I also grew fond of his proud smile, of seeing him look down at the people he beat up knowing he had been stronger than them, that he had won.

It was sick to think such thoughts, I knew it… but I couldn’t help it. It couldn’t be helped that seeing him with disheveled hair, blood on his hands and laughing in exhilaration made me feel things. It was knowing how violent he could become alongside knowing he had never hurt me that made me feel so safe, that made me trust him. Never had he raised his hand on me in the entire time I was in this organization, that was all I could ask for to give him my trust, so I did. He had my entire trust in those hands that could commit such violent acts without needing to think about the consequences of his actions; in the same hands that held my face so tenderly when he’d kiss me, when he’d touch me with nothing but lust—because what we had couldn’t be called love, right? Has he not shown you he cared many times? Stop doubting him! I told myself off before shaking myself out of my thoughts to focus back on the fight.

Just as I did, I saw someone dressed in red interrupt us— Koko.

“You’re exhausting.” The white-haired man said as he kicked Hanma off of Takeomi to force the latter out of the way, shoving him aside by his shirt with the help of Kakucho that had walked in with him. Hanma was smiling widely, teeth red from the blood in his mouth with his face mostly intact if it wasn’t for the cut on his forehead. “Yeah, that’s why I made him take a nap!” He exclaimed as he stood up and spat blood on the ground, earning himself disgusted groans from the two men that had joined us. “Next time he’s dead though.” Hanma stated as he looked down at Koko with a serious expression, his smile entirely gone. “Some of you are getting too handsy with my girl, but you’re a cool guy, Koko.” He made sure to make quotation marks with his fingers when using the nickname, before patting Koko’s shoulder, “So you’re warned: if anyone touches her, they’re dead. Yeah?”

Thinking he was going too far, I walked up to him and Koko and chuckled to lighten the mood. “Because you think threatening in my stead will help? If the only way to gain some respect here is to tear people down, then I guess that’s what I’ll have to do, right?” I asked, turning around to look at Koko to invite him to answer. There was some sort of pride on his face when he nodded, “Sure, if you think you could take a few hits for talking shit.” Koko chuckled. Of course I probably couldn’t take any hits those guys would give, but it was more about attitude than strength, right? They would never dare punch Mikey because he had proven to be reliable, but they also respected him for his strength—although there must be more to it, not that I cared enough to ponder the topic longer.

Shrugging to answer to Koko, he gestured at my outfit with a raise of his chin, “You’re looking good tonight.” he said before meeting Hanma’s eyes and smirking, “Are you gonna hit me for giving her a sincere compliment?” he asked, tauntingly. That brought Kakucho’s attention, who joined us and looked me up and down, “I mean she’s dressed for the occasion. Is it hot? Yeah, but anyone can look hot with money.”

I threw a look at Hanma and quickly thanked them, telling Koko he looked pretty good too, of course without any ill intention. Even if we all knew that, Hanma had to make sure of it. I felt him pressing himself against my back, then his hands made their way to my shoulders; I tensed up at first from the wet feeling he left on my skin, then relaxed when he squeezed, “Of course she looks good, I dressed her myself. But see, I got to see her in all her glory—that was free, I didn’t even need to pay good money for it.” He drawled boastfully, his right hand sliding to my chin and tilting my head back as he grazed his lips down my jaw, “You can’t buy a body like hers—” “Alright, enough!” I exclaimed with whatever dignity I had left after having him show me off so many times in such a short amount of time. Swatting his hand off, I stepped to the side and looked at Kakucho and Koko. “Takeomi said Hanma had things to do, so I’m guessing you’re here for that?”

Koko laughed and glanced at the man passed out on the ground before looking back at me, “They needed to check on the croupiers, they finished that. Now it’s actually your time to go talk about the boring shit cause I have somewhere to be.” He said casually, handing me a piece of paper with some information on it. “The chairman is here, so find him, coo him, drug him, I really don’t care as long as he’s on our side or dead by the end of tonight.” He explained nonchalantly. As much as it sounded obvious to him, I did not know how he wanted me to do any of that, even less without knowing which chairman I was looking for. How was I supposed to approach him? If I could avoid killing him, it’d be better, but then the question was: how was I supposed to drug him? The mere fact that I was wondering this instead of telling them I wouldn’t do it showed how far my morals had strayed. “And I’m supposed to do that alone?” Asking that was showing weakness, hesitation, but Koko and Hanma wouldn’t use it against me. I couldn’t say the same about Kakucho, but I had to trust he wouldn’t be an asshole.

“A woman wouldn’t intimidate him, that’s exactly why you’re going alone. But,” Koko’s eyes turned to Hanma who was now standing against the wall, another cigarette in mouth, bored, “the Reaper isn’t leaving your side, so take him with you in case shit goes off the rails. Just keep him close by and not right by your side, it’ll be more effective if chairman Arata thinks you’re single.”

Grabbing Koko’s bicep in shock, I asked, “Shouishirou Arata? He already knows who I am!” “Even better! Seeing how the old man has… tendencies for younger women—if not girls—it’ll make it easier to have him listen.” He said as a matter of fact before mumbling something under his breath, his expression turning disgusted for a moment. As I let go of him, I matched his expression and said, “So I have to deal with the predator?” “You’re a grown woman, I’m sure you won’t fall for his tricks.” Koko replied with a chuckle.

“Can I at least beat him up if he touches me?” I asked, annoyed. If it were them, they would not even attempt doing this trick; they’d immediately go for threats and not gentler tactics. It ticked me off, but I was not about to complain since they were ready to rely on me. Kakucho was the one to answer this time, handing me a white paper bag that could fit in the palm of my hand. “Roofies, get it in his drink and he’ll be out in no time. The quicker it’s in his system, the faster you’ll be done.” He closed my hand around the bag then both men stood there, waiting in silence as I stared at my fist.

Looking up at them, I felt my face heating up from their gaze but didn’t mention it. “Once he’s drugged, what do you want me to do?” I asked. As if a bulb had been lit above his head, Koko grabbed something from the inside of his long coat. “You make him sign this, and if he refuses, then you take him out.”

Opening the envelope, I unfolded the papers and read over them quickly, frowning. “You want his shares of the company?” “We need them, and the old bastard isn’t up for negotiation, that’s why you gotta do what you gotta do. Any other questions or is it finally clear in your head?” The white-haired man said. I did not know if he was annoyed and bored or if he was ready to answer more questions if I were to ask him, but I didn’t try. Instead, I straightened my back and nodded with a smile, “I’m good. We’ll get him on his knees no matter what—after all, how could he resist this?” I said jokingly, gesturing to myself with a confident chuckle.

When neither Koko nor Kakucho laughed, I heard Hanma laugh and looked at him; with a raised hand he said, “I wouldn’t babe. Not me.”

As embarrassing as the situation was, I couldn’t help the short laugh that escaped my lips before I turned around, “We should get going.” I threw a quick look at Koko and waved at him. “Well then, have a nice evening!” “Just say bye and leave.” I heard Kakucho say with a loud sigh before noticing he was rolling his eyes. Giving him a look of disbelief and annoyance, I did just that and walked away with only Koko thanking me on my way out.

Once I was back in the large casino room I had been in just before, I felt overwhelmed by all the music and people talking. After all, the hall we were just in was so quiet before Takeomi’s arrival that it had been deafening, even with my earlier outburst. Now that I was just standing by the door, I realized I looked out of it and quickly got a hold of myself. I looked at my side and noticed Hanma standing right next to me, “Didn’t Koko say you should—” “Don’t give a shit what he said, come on.” He then took my hand in his large one and led me to one of the corner seats on the side of the room. He sat down first before pointing at the seat for me to join him.

I was hesitant to do so, it could ruin whatever chances I had to get Arata’s attention and yet I wanted to listen to Hanma, to sit by his side. Placing the papers on the table, I rested my hands on it without sitting down, “I need to talk to Arata, Shuji.” “Hanma, Shuji, you gotta pick one babe.” He said with a smirk right before grabbing my wrist and forcefully sitting me down next to him. His arm immediately settled on the back of my seat as he grazed his fingers on the nape of my neck. I immediately remembered calling him Hanma when talking to Koko, “I didn’t know if I could call you by your first name—how was I supposed to know you’d prefer that to Hanma when it’s a professional setting? I’m not a mind-reader, Shuji.” I explained, slightly frustrated at his passive-aggressiveness. Without looking at him, I grabbed the papers from the table and started reading over them again until Hanma snatched them out of my hands, making me swear under my breath.

“‘Hanma’ sounds like you’re my captive.” He started slowly then leaned in, his lips brushing over the shell of my ear, “But you’re here entirely out of your free will, make it clear you’re in for the long run, babe.” The sudden feeling of his tongue on the lobe of my ear startled me but I didn’t move. Instead, I focused solely on the feeling of his teeth grazing my skin before biting it along with the earring he had attached, “Show them how much you love me.” He whispered seductively. That alone made me turn around suddenly, forgetting he was biting on my ear and hissing as he let go from my sudden movement. “You like having that over me, huh?” I asked rhetorically, getting my face up close to his in what I thought would make him move further but he approached his too. I continued, “You’re fucking elated that you could make me do anything now, that your little game is bearing fruit, isn’t that right?” I hissed, knowing full well I had made a mistake when I let my eyes look down at his lips when he smirked.

Without making a move, Hanma grinned widely and laughed, “Look at you acting all tough and shit when moments ago you were ready to have me eat you out.” When he leaned in, his lips were now ghosting over mine as his hand gripped the back of my neck painfully, a gasp escaping my lips at the feeling of his cold fingers on my skin. “And I wonder, wouldn’t my tough girl have let me continue if Takeomi hadn’t been the one to interrupt us? Cause you wanna show off, anyone can see that. So…” his tone lowered and he looked me dead in the eyes, that mischievous gleam replacing the one of anger, “What if I had fucked you in front of Ran?” Without missing a beat, I stopped him right there by saying his name in a warning tone, “Shuji.”

It made him laugh, his eyes flickering to each of mine, trying to read me. I feared he could understand what I really thought of that suggestion, I didn’t want to tell him and it seems I didn’t need to. “Shit, you would like that!” He exclaimed, leaning back at the sudden realization—I quickly grabbed his tie to stop him from talking any louder. “I didn’t say that, I never said that, don’t start imagining things when you’re the one projecting—” I tried to defend myself but was cut off when Hanma pressed his lips hungrily on mine, his hands finding their way to my hips. There was no hesitation on his grip as he tried to pull me on his lap but even as I kissed him back, I moved his hands away from my form and sat back properly. Before I could utter one word, he laughed maniacally for a moment before dropping to something low, “There’s a lotta shit you don’t say, but this one takes the fucking cake,” gripping my jaw with enough force to make me look at him, he continued, “and you know I do love games, but we also know you lose when I fuck you, yeah? So, how fun would it be to make you lose in front of Ran? Having you scream my fucking name in front of him, that way you won’t forget it—and he’ll know you’re mine.”

“That’s fucked up.” I stated, my eyes locked on his.

Slowly a smile made its way to his lips, “That’s how you like it, right?”

I was so focused on his speech that I hadn’t noticed his hand had traveled up my thigh until I felt his finger graze between my legs; I quickly grabbed his wrist to stop him, but didn’t move his hand right away. For a few moments, none of us said anything, he simply looked down at my hand holding his wrist then back at me. “Say it, tell me how much you love my insane and fucked up mind. Say it and I’ll stop, admit we’re both as fucked up just because you’re staying after all I made you go through.” “What if I can’t say it?” I said just as fast; his grip on my thigh lessened, then he unhooked my hand from his wrist and looked down at me with an almost bored expression. It had been the wrong move to say that, so I covered it up. “What’s fucked up with staying by your side? That’s what—that’s my problem, I don’t know if it’s fucked up because you said you would protect me, right?”

He looked at me without saying anything.

I took it as my cue to continue, to defend myself, “No one else would get me and it’s safer with you—we both know that, but if you needed to hear it again, here!” I said with a huff.

When Hanma didn’t reply, I stood up mumbling that I would be taking care of the chairman and just as I turned around, he took my hand in his, stopping me. Slowly, I turned to him and saw him smiling from ear to ear, “You’ll get there, princess. Don’t give up on your dreams,” He cooed mockingly before standing, “Give it some time and I’ll break you so good you won’t recognize yourself,” my hand was brought to his lips as he kissed the back of it, “And I’ll be right there when you’ll be begging for me to build you back up—shaping you into exactly who you should be.” With my hand still in his, he cradled my face in his hands and pressed a strangely tender kiss on my lips, “That day I’ll ask you again.”

He didn’t need to continue for me to understand, he was convinced that when the day comes I’ll tell him we’re the same.

And while his words should be scary, I couldn’t help but cling onto his promise of staying by my side even when I’d break down, even when I would be out of control—a control he’d have ripped out of me himself.

Or perhaps at this point, a control I’d have given him out of my own volition.

As I walked away from him and made my way to the bar to get a drink for Arata and myself, I found myself thinking that…

Somehow, it didn’t feel off to have him toy with me.

Maybe I liked being his puppet, his doll.

[Part 17]

[scoobydoofenshmirtz]

LGBTQ Supernatural Character Breakdown

Okay so yesterday I posted this lovely screenshot of yet another stupid reddit post about spn that I thought was funny and shrugged off as another reddit dudebro thing. However, then @thehappyearth went and actually read through the thread and reported back with results. The opinions of OP were unsurprising, but they got me thinking. Part of the post reads "I would prefer a neutral show that doesn't aim to include LGBT people in nearly every episode.. its unrealistic unless they are in a location where this holds true..example (California)". Now that's ridiculous for a lot of reasons. 1) Not having LGBT people in a show does not make it "neutral." Cishet is not the default human experience, neither is male, nor white nor able-bodied, etc. 2) It's not "unrealistic" to have LGBT in literally any location in the world. We exist everywhere you go. Yes, certain places tend to attract LGBT adults and families due to their culture, legal protections, history, etc. but it's not like there's something in San Francisco water that just makes people there gay at a higher percentage. I assure you, reddit user, there are LGBTQ people in every single place Sam and Dean have visited in the show. 3) like literally it's just homophobic shut up reddit bros. ANWAY...

But what really got me thinking was the "nearly every episode" comment. Like, dude. What show are you watching? But then I thought...wait how many LGBTQ characters actually are there in Supernatural, so I did a little digging and compiled this list (google sheets) of every LGBTQ character to appear on screen. This doesn't include characters who are only mentioned (although there aren't many to add with that anyway). I looked into some different criteria and I included each character, the number of episodes they appeared in, their first and last episode, how many episodes they appeared in as a confirmed LGBTQ character, their sexuality, if they speak or not, and if they died. I also included a description and notes, and noted which characters were in episodes nominated for GLAAD awards. I also included "ambiguous" characters who I either felt weren't "confirmed" as LGBTQ (like the man who is possibly a gay porn star or the sassy yorkie) but in that realm, or characters where there were bigger issues that make it more complicated (Dean, Crowley, and Rowena).

And then I got curious and made a whole second spreadsheet with a list of all the episodes featuring confirmed LGBTQ characters. I included which characters are featured, if it includes an LGBTQ couple, if it features an LGBTQ storyline important to the plot, if it features a recurring LGBTQ character, if any LGBTQ character dies, if it was nominated for a GLAAD award, and my opinion on if it's homophobic. I only included episodes where a character was confirmed LGBTQ when it aired, however I did include retroactively LGBTQ characters when listing what recurring characters are featured.

Some findings under the cut:

I counted a total of 32 on screen (reasonably) confirmed LGBTQ characters in all of Supernatural (for the purposes of this I have counted Charlie and apocalypse Charlie as separate characters). Now when I say confirmed this is a range from Charlie to characters who had a same sex kiss in the background. There is a chance I have missed some, so if you look through this and notice someone missing, please let me know. (Also sidenote I say LGBTQ but there's no confirmed trans characters as far as I could tell). That's an average of 2.13 per season. There are 9 recurring characters and 23 that only appear once. There are 6 with 3 or more episodes. The only characters that appeared in more than 2 episodes while confirmed as an LGBTQ character are Charlie (apocalypse world and regular) and Chuck. Of all these characters 10 are dead (with three of these presumably resurrected off screen) and 22 survived.

If we break it down by era Kripke had 4 with 0 recurring characters and half and half dead/alive. This is .8 per season average. Gamble had 3 and (at the time) none were recurring and none died. This is 1.5 per season average. Carver had 10 including making Chuck bisexual. Charlie also became a recurring character (then she died). This is 2.5 per season average. Dabb has 15 including Castiel and Claire. This included 7 recurring characters and 8 one offs, and 8 alive and 7 dead. This is 3.75 per season average.

As far as sexualities go, we have 3 (presumably) lesbian characters (2 Charlies and Donna's niece) 3 gay characters (Max Banes and 2 one offs who die) and 2 bisexual characters (Chuck and Noah the gorgon). No single character ever refers to themself by any sexuality as far as I can tell, but Alan J Corbett (Ghostfacers intern) and Conner (from the church) are both referred to as gay by other characters. Everyone else I based on context. All the other characters were unspecified as to their specific sexualities.

In terms of episodes with confirmed LGBTQ characters (so characters who at the time the episode was written were reasonably confirmed as LGBTQ) we have 39 total, a bulk of them being episodes that feature either Chuck or Charlie. That's about 12% of all SPN episodes. If you take out episodes that only include either Chuck or Charlie as the confirmed character you have 20 left which is 6.25% of all SPN episodes.

There are 12 episodes that feature an LGBTQ couple, 3.75% of all episodes. There are, by my count, 9 episodes with an LGBTQ storyline important to the plot or 2.8% of episodes. I know this is more subjective but I included Ghostfacers, Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo, LARP and the Real Girl, Sacrifice, The Chitters, Wayward Sisters, Ouroboros, Gimme Shelter, and Despair.

If we break down writers from who has the most episodes with confirmed LGBTQ characters Robbie Thompson comes in the lead with 9, Buckleming next with 6, Bobo and Dabb with 5, Yockey and Glynn with 4, Davy Perez with 3, and Nick Vaught, Nancy Won, Nancy Weiner, Eric Kripke, Jeremy Carver, Sera Gamble, Brett Matthews, and Bed Edlund all having 1. As far as writers who introduced new LGBTQ characters or canonized previously existing ones we have again Robbie Thompson in the lead with 7, Dabb with 6 (although 4 were from co-written episodes), Berens with 4, Yockey and Glynn with 3, Brett Matthews, Davy Perez, Nancy Weiner, Eric Kripke, and Nancy Won all with 2. Gamble and Edlund each have 1 and Buckleming sort of have 1 since they introduced apocalypse world Charlie. All of this is quantity not quality, so keep that in mind.

As far as deaths go, Bobo has the most with 3.5. 3 of those are from Despair where the characters were all (possibly) resurrected and the .5 is for Kaia who later turned out to not actually be dead. Yockey has 2 (both from Ouroboros). Edlund, Glynn, Perez, and Gamble all have 1 and Dabb also has .5 for cowriting Wayward Sisters.

The LGBTQ character who appears in the most episodes is very obviously Castiel who appears in 142 total episodes. Chuck is next with 19 and then Charlie with 7. Chuck has the most episodes as a confirmed LGBTQ character with 12 total and Charlie has 7.

Apologies if any of the math on this is wrong or if I left anyone out. Feel free to let me know and I'll correct the documents.

So really I don't know why I did this but basically yeah I don't know what fantasy world those reddit dudes are living in with LGBT people in nearly every episode (unless he's counting Castiel which...win for the gays I guess?). Nothing about this was particularly surprising but it's interesting to see all these things laid out and play around with the categories. Um...hope you enjoyed this i guess. lol

[ardenatkins]

PANIC 01. THE JUMP

tagging → @rosiekang , @theduchampboy , @peteverona 

location → 4th of july, dead man’s quarry

notes → *insert i am no longer baby i want power meme*

Back in her neck of the woods Arden had always been propped up as an example. Used to try to shame other south side kids out of getting involved in unsavory acts or falling into a life of crime. She’d had shitty parents who neglected her to go party, and drink, and bet what little money they had for fun. In fact, they had fucked around so much that she had almost found herself becoming part of the system had her dad not racked up so many gambling debts he had to flee town in order not to end up dead in a ditch somewhere. And even after that it had taken her mom so long to sober up, get a job, and stop finding herself down in the dumps over the loss of the man who had sent her into her downward spiral for her to become the stable parental figure that Arden needed her to be. And despite all that she always managed to persevere.

That had never really sat right with the blonde. Pitting kids who were already looked down on by society against each other. Making them compete for opportunities instead of creating more for those who could really make something of themselves. And that was how a lot of the people she had grown up with, people with even bigger hopes and dreams, ended up down less desirable roads. Every opportunity she got was one less for someone else who wanted it. There was a deeply rooted guilt in her the day that realization first hit but still she continued fighting. Even when it cost her friendships, from people who ultimately thought she didn’t deserve it.

Still, that little girl who had grew up with nothing had a plan. She aimed to make sure that in the future she would never have to want for anything ever again. So she worked her ass off reading, learning, getting involved in as many things as she could to become a well rounded person. She worked so hard that she managed to get a scholarship to Rosewood Academy and later to Ravenwood. She joined pageants and was getting enough exposure that her dreams of becoming a broadcast journalist seemed more achievable by the day. After such a long journey it felt like things were finally starting to look up.

Until the day they finally didn’t.

Her reasons for taking part in the games was pretty cut and dry. She decided to join because like a lot of her south side friends she really needed the money. Whether she needed it more or less than anyone wasn’t her place to say. Everyone had things they needed, things they wanted, or debts that needed to be paid. But what mattered most to Arden was her own family’s situation. It had been a couple of years since her family’s trailer had burned to the ground and they still hadn’t been able to financially recover. Looking back on that day the way every emergency service worker who had arrived at the scene of the accident reassured her that they had got off lucky now felt like a slap in the face. Of course she was thankful that they had all made it out alive but they had all been miserable since.

Her mother spent months in the hospital recovering from all the the burns inflicted from the accident, accumulating a pile of bills that to this day they could only dream of making a dent in. Her grandmother was also at the age that she wasn’t fit to work either. And they still couldn’t scrounge together enough to get a permanent residence, instead paying routinely for a two bed motel room they all barely fit in. And most of the burden of managing that now fell on Arden.

If she was ever going to find her way out of this situation she needed to win Panic. It was her last hope.

As she waited around for her turn to jump she continuously talked herself in and out of going through with it. That was until she caught her co-workers, jump. Watching Pete pull a whole serenade out of his ass, when in all the years they had worked together she could barely get him to hold a conversation with her, and Trevor, doing what he did best and showing off like the pain in the ass he was enough to hit the final nail on the head. All her life she had fought for what she wanted. And at some point she had lost sight of that fight. She had let that edge of hers soften in order to appease others, or to make herself more likable. But no way was she going to just sit by and watch someone else get something she wanted more than anything she ever wanted.

It was a little unnerving how the the blaring music and loud ruckus of the crowd that had gathered for the jump quickly began dissipating the further she made her trek up the cliff. The higher off the ground floor she got the quieter it became, to the point that all she could hear was the sound of the wind and her own heartbeat ringing in her ears; the speed of it and the blood rushing to her head there to remind her that what they were doing here wasn’t normal. With her mind on so many things and her gaze focused solely on her destination she wasn’t paying attention to the ground below her. And because of that soon found herself tripping over a hole in the ground, face planting into the dirt. So much for her pageant grace working out for her in the end. Rosie would probably have something to say with that display once she found out later.

She stood up quickly, ignoring the string of the scrapes left on her knees and the stray taunt here and there from random hecklers who wanted to scare her out of continuing, finishing her walk with her head held high. She refused to keep her head down ever again, even to look down at the quarry she was about to jump into. Lighting her flare and shouting her name loud and proud, she leaped forward.

It wouldn’t be the flashiest display. But the jump itself would at least put her on the board.

Let that serve as a reminder that she was here to play.

[whumpwillow]

Deck of Cards | intro

okay, it’s finally here! this is the intro piece to the Deck of Cards series, which is going to be very different from my other pieces as this will be short snippets of microfiction not done in chronological order. I just felt I needed to do a little something to set the scene, so here is the whumper, Lavinia Montrose, winning her six captives in a gambling tournament. 

warnings: captivity, gambling, dehumanization, noncon touch (nonsexual), collared, leashed, chained, implied future torture, lady whumper

—

Lavinia watched the cards as they were shuffled, once, twice, three times over. Turned from hand to hand, the flick of their edges parting and sifting in between one another. She had no ability to count them—gods no—but she didn’t need to cheat in order to win.

The cards were dealt and Lavinia stared evenly at her hand, then looked up over the top at her competitors. They were trying to keep their faces even, as was the way, but it was ever so amusing to see the subtle tick of a jaw, the flinch of muscle as they tried to contain their anger. Nostrils flared and eyes glared, all at her and her enormous winnings of the evening.

Not her first high-stakes poker game, but the most important. They weren’t betting with money but something that was almost more valuable—the Cards that stood behind her. People owned by the gambling house and used as prizes in tonight’s tournament. Beautiful things, truly, some already marked with scars and others not. It would be lovely to add more. They would be coming with her at the end of this, she would make sure of it. There was no way she’d lose now, not when she’d already collected five of the available six.

The others at the table were furious—they surely would have liked to have just one, or perhaps win the whole set themselves, but no, Lavinia was going to make sure she had them all. She placed down a card and sent the House into an uproar, her winning hand giving her the last beautiful Card left.

The gambling house employees had him collared and leashed yet he wrested away from their hands even if it meant nearly choking himself to death. His throat was already red and raw from the constant fighting.

Lavinia stood up and sashayed over to him, taking in his dazzling blue eyes giving her the fiercest glare he could muster. He had silver-white hair despite his young age—early twenties at the oldest estimation.

“I’ll never go with you!” he spat at her.

Oh, so defiant. She wondered how long that would last.

Lavinia canted her head to the side and raised a brow. “Are you sure? You don’t seem to have any other option. I just won you, fair and square.”

The silver-haired man bared his teeth at her. “You can’t win me! I’m not an object!”

Lavinia held a hand lightly over her cherry-red lips as she laughed. She glanced at the House employees who had their hands on the man’s leash, disregarding him altogether.

“He’s a feisty one, isn’t he?”

One of the House employees, dressed in a nice suit-jacket so presumably one of the higher-ups, stepped forward toward her. He held up his hands placatingly.

“I apologize, madame. We didn’t have any time to break them in before the tournament. Barely had time to get the identification on and everything.” His eyes flicked to the silver-haired captive. “I truly am sorry for this one’s behavior.”

Behavior she hoped wouldn’t be a problem in the long run. Oh well, she didn’t mind. He’d lose that insolent attitude after a while.

Lavinia gave him a gentle smile. “Don’t fret, I won’t fault you for it.”

She looked to the captive and put a hand to his cheek. He flinched back, snarling, but the employees holding his leash yanked on it, causing him to cough and stutter. Lavinia was able to settle her palm on his face them, running a thumb over the tiny spade symbol under his eye, no bigger than the size of a dime. The identification that marked him as property of the gambling house.

“Spade, huh.”

The captive glared at her and wrested away from the touch, and Lavinia drew her hand back and dropped it to her side.

“Not to worry, I’ll have him broken soon enough.” She smiled again. “I like to do my own work anyways.”

—

The House employees brought all the Cards—Lavinia’s six new captives and her collective winnings from the gambling tournament—out to the front of the building, where they stood chained together in a line. Gags had been placed in each of their mouths. Lavinia walked slowly down that line, inspecting each of them.

The silver-haired captive—her Spade—stood at the end, and next to him was a black-haired man with green eyes. He had a similar symbol branded just under his eye, a clover. The third was a heart, belonging to a young man with dyed hair, and the fourth had a diamond marking. The House employees pointed out the last two were the Ace and Jack, and thus had their corresponding letters instead of symbols as their identification marking.

Lavinia tapped a finger against her lips, humming. “I do like them,” she said, with a note that spoke of continuing the sentence, though she did not.

One of the House employees spoke up for her. “But…?”

The captives shifted uncomfortably, giving her a range of different expressions. Lavinia drank in each and every one, from the fear to the defiance to the resignation.

Lavinia cast a glance over her shoulder at him. “Well, they sure do need work, don’t they? I must make them my own of course—simply winning them is not enough.”

She’d definitely need to break them in if they were to be useful. Yes, that would do nicely.

—

The other pieces will be shorter than this one, I just wanted a slightly longer intro. The six cards displayed here are Ace, Jack, Spade, Clover, Heart, and Diamond, who will have a bad time. 

I’ll also occasionally post random info about them as I’m developing the characters. Hope you like it!

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (158/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story takes place about 1000 years before 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[24 December, Age 762.   Planet Namek.]

The mission was simple enough on paper.    The demon Towa had traveled through time and used her magic influence on various fighters throughout history, in order to gather energy from their battles.   This time, the villainous Frieza had been enchanted, making him stronger and more belligerent.  Luffa's job was to join the small band of fighters on Planet Namek who had fought Frieza on that day.    It was up to her to make sure that the enemy’s intervention would not alter the outcome of the fight.  

In practice, the mission had become a debacle.   Once, long ago, Luffa had been the Legendary Super Saiyan, capable of destroying a menace like Frieza with ease.   But now, her powers had been drastically reduced under mysterious circumstances.   Luffa had gambled on the faint hope that her body was recovering from this.   Each mission she performed for the Time Patrol seemed to restore a portion of her former strength.   At times, it seemed like every punch and kick she took from an enemy would bring her a step closer to where she needed to be.    She had expected this curious phenomenon to carry her past the finish line against Frieza in the same way.  

But this time, it wasn't working.   Frieza nearly defeated Luffa with a single blow, and even though the young Namekian Dende had healed her, even though she did see an increase in power, it wasn't nearly enough for her to keep up with this battle.   The one saving grace was that another Namekian, one Dende called "Nail," had arrived to join the fight.    But Luffa knew this wouldn't be enough.    

As she approached the site of the battle, she caught sight of Nail and recognized him as Piccolo, the Namekian she had seen on her first Time Patrol mission.    Piccolo had died in battle on her second mission, and the Earthling's expedition to Namek was intended to wish him back to life, among others.   Luffa wasn't sure if this was Piccolo resurrected, or if Nail was actually someone else who happened to look and dress the same way.  In either case, she had no idea how any Namekian had managed to get so powerful in such a short time.   It would have been reassuring, except Frieza was in the middle of transforming himself into an even more powerful form, one that would surely be too much for any of them to handle.  

In the original course of events, the day was won, however improbably.   But the dark purple aura that swirled around Frieza was a sign that things would not go the way they should.    It was Luffa's job to force destiny back into frame.   Everything ultimately depended upon her, and she was no longer sure that her power would be enough.  

But it would have to be.   Luffa had contacted the Time Vault for extraction, only to find that it couldn't be done.   "Chronal interference" was the term used by the Supreme Kai of Time in her last transmission.   The rest of her message was garbled, but Luffa got the general idea, someone had trapped Luffa on Namek, and Luffa had a fair idea who was responsible.  

"Towa..." she muttered under her breath.    Luffa had brazenly challenged the demon on the last mission, and fought her creation, Mira, to a standstill.   Towa had elected to withdraw, which seemed like a moral victory at the time, but now it was clear what Towa had in mind.   Having taken Luffa's measure, Towa had lured Luffa into a no-win scenario.   Sooner or later, Chronoa would find a way to retrieve Luffa from the past, but Towa was counting on Frieza to kill Luffa long before that happened.  

Or, perhaps,  Luffa considered, Towa wasn't expecting Luffa to die here.   Maybe this was just a receipt for interfering in Towa's business, or a test to further gauge Luffa's abilities.    If that was the best-case scenario, things were truly grim indeed.    

Concerning Frieza himself, his third form looked positively revolting.   The first transformation simply made him bigger and taller, but this one hunched his posture, and expanded the white carapace that surrounded his chest, shoulders and cranium.    The growths on his shoulders now resembled enormous pauldrons, similar to the armored uniforms worn by his henchmen.   Spiky protrusions jutted out from his back.    His head had expanded to an oblong shape, with horns jutting out from the sides.  His face was distorted to the point where his nose was completely gone, and his mouth now resembled the muzzle of a reptilian animal.   Part of his tail was missing, and Luffa could only guess that this had been damaged during the fight while Luffa had been hurt.    Judging by Frieza's smug expression, he didn't seem to think the injury affected his chances.  

Frieza renewed his attack on Piccolo, who wisely kept his distance.   He had done well against Frieza's second form, but the third was simply too powerful to attack head-on.   Luffa chased after them, though she quickly found that she wasn't able to keep up.    Piccolo was moving at top speed, and she reasoned that this was his final card to play.    She didn't know how he had increased his power so dramatically, but Frieza had neutralized any strength advantage he once had.    All Piccolo could do now was to hope he had a speed advantage.  

He did not.   Frieza intercepted him no matter which way Piccolo turned.   With no other option, Piccolo tried to attack, and Frieza dodged his punch with ease, then began battering the Namekian at will.   Then, Frieza fired a ki blast from his fingertip into Piccolo's knee.    The blast didn't leave much of a wound, and from the ki she sensed, Luffa reasoned that it was intended to inflict pain more than injury.    

Then he fired another blast from his other hand.    And another.    And another, until he was bombarding Piccolo's entire body with ki blasts.   Piccolo was helpless against this assault, as he lacked the speed to even attempt to dodge.   He simply flailed in midair, like a flag being buffeted by heavy rainfall.

Luffa knew she had to step in.    Currently, Piccolo was the strongest one on their side, and no one else could help him.    The problem was that she lacked the power to do any good.   She decided the best bet would be to approach Frieza from behind and force him to turn away from Piccolo to deal with her, but as she got closer, she realized that he hadn't noticed her at all.  

This had been a recurring theme with her previous Time Patrol missions.    The Saiyans she had fought on Earth had been unable to sense ki, and while Vegeta seemed to acquire this skill by the time he reached Namek, none of the Ginyu Force had it, and now it seemed that Frieza had the same weakness.    It was a reminder that, for all his power, Frieza lacked any genuine talent for martial arts.    All of Frieza's precise movements and uncanny reflexes were simply a function of his incredible speed and strength.    

It suddenly occurred to her that this was probably why Piccolo and the others had lasted this long in the first place.    Frieza was a spiteful sadist, and was happy to drag out a fight to prolong his enemies' suffering, but he probably also had trouble gauging how hard to hit a powerful opponent without killing them immediately.   It also explained how he lost the end of his tail.    Someone must have managed to sneak up on him and get off a lucky shot.  

She imagined that it must have been a razor-thin application of ki energy, since this would produce intense damage over a narrow range.   She looked at her own hand and began to concentrate her own power to try to replicate that idea.   But as she prepared to strike, Gohan suddenly broke away from the others and flew towards Frieza.    

It was remarkable how much energy Gohan was putting out.    Luffa wasn't sure what to make of the boy, but her main observation was that he was too inexperienced to use his power to its fullest.   As he charged after Frieza, he let out a defiant battle cry, which alerted Frieza to his approach.   Frieza turned to see the boy, then, after firing one more shot to dispatch Piccolo, flew higher into the air to avoid Gohan's kick.  

Undeterred, Gohan turned around and flew at Frieza again.    Only this time, he flew past Frieza instead of barreling right into him.    Luffa couldn't help but smile.   The boy lacked experience, but he was sharp enough to learn quickly.    Frieza was too fast for a direct assault, but confusing him would slow him down just enough to make things easier.   And as Frieza turned to await Gohan's next move, Luffa took the opportunity to make her next move.  

Maneuvering to Frieza's blind spot, Luffa drove her fingers into Frieza's back and dug as hard as she could into his flesh.   He cried out and swatted her away with his tail, but she was prepared for this and wrapped her legs around the base of his tail, and grabbed one of the bony protrusions on his back.   In this way, she could cling to Frieza's backside and he wouldn't be able to reach her.    With her free hand, she slashed at any exposed skin she could find.    

The tips of her fingers glowed with five tiny blades of ki.   She doubted that she could do any serious damage, but it would be enough to buy the others time.    And, with any luck, she could hurt him enough to neutralize the effects of Towa's magic.  

"You should have stayed the way you were, Frieza!" Luffa growled as she struggled to stay on his back.    "Your other forms were smaller, and I never could have hung on like this.   But now, your upper body's so big and bulky that I could stay here for days!"    

His tail whipped around her head, and she finally started slashing her hand at it to keep it at bay.    Frieza reached for her with his hands, but it was useless.    

"Get off me you, damn dirty Saiyan!" Frieza screamed.    

"That's just what your father said!" Luffa lied.   "Right before I killed him!"

She knew her attack wouldn't work for much longer, so it was important for her to push ahead with her earlier plan.    Towa's magic had made Frieza so aggressive that there was a danger that he might kill the others too quickly, and alter the course of history.    Luffa had gotten him to slow down by inventing a tale of secret conspirators and assassins dedicated to dismantling his empire.    By arousing his curiosity, she hoped to keep his mind off of destroying Namek with a single stroke.   So far, it had worked, but she wanted to keep up the pressure.  

"You're dead, you hear me?" Luffa shouted.    "Even if you survive, your life won't be worth a hill of beans.    And the best part of it is that if you knew who I was working for, you'd know just how doomed you really are!"

At last Frieza managed to shake Luffa off his back.   It was only a glancing blow from his tail, but it was enough to knock her senseless and send her tumbling to the ground below.    But Luffa was satisfied with her efforts, and she managed to stay conscious this time, which let her see what happened next.    As Frieza turned his attention to Gohan, he found the boy high above, readying an enormous ki blast.  

Luffa hit the ground with a loud thud, and while she couldn't get up very quickly, she didn't feel too badly hurt.    As she rose to one knee, she saw Frieza brazenly charge into Gohan's attack, only to find that it wasn't as easy to power through as he had expected.    And then, impossibly, Gohan began to drive him back.

It was an awe-inspiring sight.    Luffa's thoughts raced back to her first Time Patrol mission, when she first saw Gohan display a similar radical increase in power.   He seemed to do this whenever he was especially upset, but he could never maintain the power boost for very long.    But this time he was operating at a much higher level, greater than any normal Saiyan she had ever seen, and now he was doing it for the second time in the same battle!  

As Frieza struggled to hold back Gohan's ki, he looked like an oversized tick clinging to a giant light bulb.    And Gohan responded to Frieza's resistance by turning up the pressure.    He was actually getting even stronger, and Luffa was forced to revise her estimation of the boy.    He was not only stronger than any normal Saiyans she had known, but he was also beginning to surpass some of the ones who had enhanced themselves through artificial means.   What was his secret?  

She suddenly remembered the others, and looked around to find Krillin and Vegeta hovering nearby.   Luffa was reminded of Krillin's earlier heroism, selflessly sacrificing himself to save the Namekian child, Dende.   Frieza had run him through with his horn, and Krillin still struggled to put up a fight, even past the point of certain death.    He was an Earthling, like Gohan's mother.    Was there a connection?

Gathering her strength, Luffa flew over to join them, anxious to prepare a new offensive.    

"We can blindside him!" Luffa said.    "If Piccolo or Gohan can hold his attention for a second, the three of us might be able to--!"  

"It won't work!" Vegeta snapped.   "Frieza's too strong for that.    That's why I need one of you to attack me!"

"Attack you?" Luffa asked.   "What the hell are you talking about?"

"He wants me to hurt him so badly that he almost dies!" Krillin explained.   From the look on his face, it was plain that he wanted no part of the idea, but he continued to explain further.   "Then he expects Dende down there to heal him, and then...!"

"And then," Vegeta said, "My power will increase dramatically.   You're a Saiyan yourself.   Surely you're familiar with the concept."

"The zenkai?" Luffa said with a gasp.   "That's your plan?!   It doesn't work when you injure yourself!"

"You think I don't already know that?" Vegeta seethed as he pointed to Krillin. "That's why I need Baldy here to help me!   He's weaker than me, but if I lower my guard, he should be able to deliver a critical wound."

"I already told him it was nuts!" Krillin said.    "If I'm not careful, I might kill him, and then where would we be?!"

"It's the only way!" Vegeta insisted.   "I'm so close, and once that brat heals me, I can finally become a Super Saiyan, and destroy Frieza in an instant!"

Luffa was horrified.    Despite the danger posed by Frieza, It was Vegeta's words that made a chill run down her spine.   "A Super--?!    You think that would make you...?" she asked, unable to finish the question.  "Vegeta, listen to me!  It doesn't work that way!"

"And what would you know about it, woman?" Vegeta scoffed.  

Her eyes went wide as she grabbed him by the shoulders.    "You fool!" she screamed.   "You can't turn into a Super Saiyan just by raising your power level!   If it was that easy, every Saiyan would do it!    And besides, the zenkai is a reward for valor on the battlefield!    You're talking about mutilating yourself to exploit it like some... like some faulty line of computer programming!"  

Vegeta shook loose from her grip and made a contemptuous snort.    "Hmmph!   Exactly the sort of defeatist gibber I'd expect from a low class warrior.    Know this, woman: I am on the cusp of becoming a Super Saiyan, and I would brave hell itself to achieve it.   If it doesn't work on the first try, then I'll just have Baldy hit me again until it does.   If that bothers you so much, then I suggest you look away."    

The determined smile on his face shook Luffa to the core.  She wanted to scream at him, to tell him this wasn't worth it, and that it would never work.    And then, she had to wonder.   What if it could work?

One thousand years ago, Luffa's powers had begun to increase, only for her father to betray her to the insectoid hordes of the Tikosi.   They had struck a bargain with her father.   He would give them Luffa as a subject for their experiments, and in return they would share the fruits of their research with him.    

For months, they tortured her to the brink of death, always healing her injuries before she could actually die.   There had been no glorious battlefields to provide the wounds, but the zenkai effect worked all the same.    And the Tikosi studied this, and reverse-engineered it.    Luffa had grown stronger during that ordeal, but she was kept drugged and restrained so that she could never turn that strength upon her captors.   And so it had gone, until at last, on one fateful day...

And now, a millennium later, Vegeta had stumbled upon the same idea.     What the Tikosi had done accidentally, he was trying to achieve deliberately.    He was willing to stoop to anything, even risking his own life, to attain the power to destroy his enemy.  

Luffa didn't know whether to admire the man or pity him.   At least she was able to avenge herself against the Tikosi, but Vegeta could have no such satisfaction.

He was his own tormentor.  

Nappa was right, it seemed.   It was fitting that the Prince was named for their planet, but not in the way Nappa thought.  Both were doomed.

Suddenly, Gohan's attack on Frieza had failed.   Luffa had expected something like this to happen.   As incredible as Gohan's rally had been, she figured it was only a momentary respite at best.    She sensed his power being driven back, and turned to find Frieza had shoved the ki blast back on Gohan.    It was then deflected again, as Piccolo drove it off course, and safely away from the boy.   Instead, the enormous globe of power soared higher into the air, before finally exploding.    Frieza stood still for a moment, glaring at Gohan, as though contemplating what had just happened.  

"That's it!  Vegeta shouted at Krillin.   "The kid's had it!   That attack was impressive, but he won't have any power left after a stunt like that!  If I'm going to defeat him, I need to become a Super Saiyan right now!"

"But... I can't just--"

Luffa ignored them and focused on Frieza.   He would probably attack Gohan again to pay him back, then go after Piccolo to pick up where he had left off.   In the meantime, Luffa would need to come up with another hit-and-run offensive, only this time, she knew Frieza would be on-guard for such a thing.  She considered targeting his eyes.   Without any ki senses, he relied heavily on sight and sound, but it was a small target, and she would have to come straight at him to hit it.   Then again, she thought, he wouldn't be expecting something so audacious, and it would make things much easier going forward.  

"Pardon me."

A bead of sweat rolled down Luffa's face.   She had hoped that Frieza would take a moment to fight Piccolo and Gohan, but instead he turned his attention to the rest of them.    Suddenly, it didn't seem to matter what plans she and Vegeta had in mind.   They wouldn't get a spare moment to execute them.

"I do hate to interrupt such a spirited conversation," Frieza continued, "but I am running on a bit of a tight schedule.   So, to be fair, I'll let you decide which one of you gets to be my next victim.   Feel free to take a vote, or draw straws, or one of you can think of a number and the one with the closest guess can do the honors.   It's entirely up to you.    But while the rest of you sort that matter out..."

Faster than Luffa could react, Frieza left the ground and suddenly appeared right in front of her.   She managed to raise her arms but not high enough or fast enough to stop Frieza from grabbing her by the throat.  

"... I need a moment alone with your charming friend."

The others were too stunned to intervene, both by Frieza's quick recovery, and the fact that he was completely unharmed by Gohan's efforts.    Frieza threw Luffa into the distance, and then flew after her, catching her before she could crash into the ground.    This was no act of mercy, as Frieza then drove her face-first into the dirt, with far more punishing force than the throw.    

"You're different from the others," Frieza said.   "They're all appropriately terrified, but you seem to want my attention for some reason.   Well, you'll be delighted to know that you finally have it.   I wanted to ask you a question.   I do hope you'll be kind enough to answer it for me.   It would be a shame if our first encounter should end in a disagreement."

Luffa tried to spit in his face, but Frieza planted his foot on her head before she could manage it.    "It's about that boy.   You see, I finally realized that he must be a Saiyan, like you and Vegeta."    

Luffa grabbed at Frieza's leg.   Against a different foe, she might have transitioned into an ankle lock, or some other hold.    She knew this was unlikely at best, but still held out some faint hope.   Frieza crushed that hope by applying more force, driving her head into the earth below.    

"I destroyed Planet Vegeta decades ago," Frieza explained.    "I thought I had wiped out all of the Saiyans, except for Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz.  There might be a few others I missed, but hardly worth mentioning.    Those infiltration babies probably grew up not even knowing what a Saiyan is, and even if they ever learned, they have no homeworld to reconnect with."

Luffa released Frieza's leg and tried to shoot a ki blast at him, but he reached down and grabbed her arm to spoil her shot.    He did not let go.    

"But now I find a Saiyan child working alongside Vegeta, of all people.   And more, the boy is far stronger than any Saiyan I've ever met, including the dear Prince himself.    I must admit, it's made me a bit curious.    And here you are, a Saiyan woman, threatening me with all sorts of tall tales and revenge fantasies."  

He pulled on her arm, and Luffa began to wonder if he was going to rip it off of her shoulder.  

"I despise legends, you see.   As you might have noticed, I have a reputation for being the most powerful being in the universe.   It's the truth.  A cold, hard, irrefutable fact, my dear.   My reputation precedes me, but it's only because it's simple reality, like the speed of light in a vacuum, or the half-life of astatine.   But some people can't handle the truth, and when they can't find a way around it, they retreat into fantasy.    They look for legends to give them false hopes.    Look at Vegeta.   I was so kind to him, and yet he threw away a promising career as my underling, all to chase after the Dragon Balls for a chance at immortality.    And then, as soon as the Dragon Balls were lost, he starts nattering on about this Super Saiyan."

Luffa had been trying not to scream, but that was before Frieza had dislocated her shoulder.    He heard the muffled cries from beneath his foot, and smiled warmly.    "Ah, then you can still speak.   I was beginning to think you had lost your voice somewhere along the way."

He removed his foot and lifted her up by her arm, letting her dangle at just the right height so he could speak with her face to face.    

"I think the boy might be Raditz' son," Frieza said.   "Ironic, since Raditz himself was so pathetic, even by Saiyan standards, but there are only so many candidates, and I just can't see any resemblance to Nappa or Vegeta.   Then again, you Saiyans have always been so fixated on bloodlines.    Pairing off in some futile attempt to breed a better warrior.   It all seemed rather pointless to me.    But maybe Raditz finally hit paydirt.    I wonder who the boy's mother could be.    You, perhaps?"

He slammed Luffa into the ground before she could respond.   This time he planted his foot on her back.  

"I had kept a few Saiyans alive for my own personal use," Frieza said.   "And I made sure not to leave any females alive, but you and the boy have shown me that I missed a few.   Perhaps I might have tolerated this, except the boy shows exceptional strength.   Who can say?    Within a few generations, a genuine threat might arise, purely by chance.   Is that the truth behind the Super Saiyan legend?   Maybe once every few centuries one of you filthy monkeys manages to win the genetic lottery?    Was King Vegeta trying to rig the game by mating all of his 'elite' warriors with each other?    Why, it's positively revolting.   Just the thought of it reminds me of why I segregate my crews by gender.   It's not an ideal solution, but it cuts down on the fraternization, at least.

"Oh wait!  What was I thinking!   I no longer have any ships left, nor the crews to maintain them, because you destroyed them all, didn't you?   That's what you told me before, wasn't it?   You and some elaborate band of conspirators.   Such a fanciful story.    And I could almost believe it.   The Dragon Balls seemed like a fairy tale, but they turned out to be real enough.   This is why I despise legends.   Once in a great while, one of them happens to have a hint of truth to it, and it requires me to investigate.    I find it easier to destroy the storytellers.   For example, I planned to annihilate Planet Namek whether the Dragon Balls were real or not.   Immortality would have been nice, but the important thing is to make certain that no one else is lulled into thinking they can have it.

"As for the Super Saiyan, I give that tale no credence at all.   But it has led so many into ruin.   Look no further than poor Vegeta, desperately awaiting a hero that will never arrive.   My father believed you Saiyans were the perfect slave species.    All you ever do is fight, and he believed he could control you forever, but I knew better.   Your own dreams conspire against you, tempting you to rise above your station.   And now, I finally see that even a handful of Saiyans is too many.   I must eradicate every trace of your misbegotten bloodline.   So I shall ask again: Are you the boy's mother?   I don't really need to know, but it would make it more enjoyable when I kill you in front of him."

Luffa was not Gohan's mother, but the very suggestion brought back painful memories of her own son, and the tragic ruin of his short life.    Ignoring the time travel, the strange things King Rehval did to accelerate his growth, her son would have been roughly Gohan's age.    Her entire body suddenly erupted with power, enough to knock even Frieza off his footing.    

And then, just as she had planned before, Luffa went straight for his eyes.    

If her fingers couldn't reach him, her own eyes would unleash a powerful ki blast into his, and she longed to hear his agonized screams.    But it was not to be.    

Once again, Frieza was too fast for her, and he swatted her aside like a bug.    

"I expected as much," Frieza said after clicking his tongue.   "You won't even answer a simple question.   There really is no reasoning with you Saiyans.   You're a blight on creation.    Perhaps it's time I stopped indulging myself by prolonging your agony.   Feast your eyes then, on my true self.   My final form!"

He stooped down and lowered his head, and Luffa could sense his power increasing.   It felt as though some other creature was struggling to escape, and the gutteral sounds coming from Frieza's throat only made the process even more grotesque.   The power he was generating was strong enough that Luffa would have backed away to a safe distance, but it was all she could do to roll onto her back and scoot a few meters away.  

The ground beneath Frieza began to tremble, and streams of sand and silt erupted through small fissures in the topsoil.   Occasionally, he would pause and look at his hands, then laugh with a triumphant satisfaction.  Mostly, he just screamed, and his skin began to pulse with a crimson glow.

As Luffa watched, she could only wonder if this meant she had failed the mission.   Her job was to prevent Frieza from using his final form right off the bat.   She had delayed him, but she had no way of knowing if she had kept him occupied long enough.   Desperate for answers, she cast about with her ki senses, searching for the others.   A faint energy signature in the distance was the Saiyan Goku, who was recovering in Frieza's ship.    Piccolo's ki was also weak, but it steadily rose, as she could sense Dende healing him, just as he had healed the others before.   Gohan and Krillin were there, but she couldn't pick up Vegeta...

And then she finally found him.    His power level was so low that she had nearly missed it entirely.    It didn't take her long to guess how that had happened.    One way or another, he had convinced Krillin to help him.   The question was: Would his plan work?   Even if he could recover from his wounds, would it be enough to make a difference?   Was this how history was supposed to play out?

Watching Frieza, it certainly didn't feel like things were going well.   As he continued to laugh, every surface on his body began to crack and blister.   With a brutish smile, he raised up his hands and cried out one more time, and then his body seemed to shatter apart to reveal the true Frieza underneath.  Luffa covered her face with her good arm, and the world around her went bright white.   Then she found herself surrounded by a cloud of dust.    She could sense Frieza standing still in the center of it all, but he seemed to be waiting for the air to clear before taking any action.   Luffa used the momentary respite to shove her dislocated shoulder back into place.   Despite the pain, she kept her eyes trained on Frieza's position.  

She had seen this version of Frieza before, when viewing the altered history of this battle.   Unlike the previous forms, this Frieza had a sleek, muscular body that reminded Luffa of a dancer she had seen in a performance on Carber IX.   Gone were the ribbed sections of pink skin and bony carapaces.   In their place was a form of chalky white with purple sections on his shoulders, chest, head and shins.  He looked a great deal like Dewar, the Time Patrol historian she had recently met.   Dewar's people considered Frieza a shame on the honor of their species, and Luffa was beginning to understand how deep that shame ran.    It was one thing to know about his evil deeds.   Facing him in person was an entirely different experience, one that revealed entirely new reasons to despise this monster.   As he glanced around in search of his foes, Luffa could tell from his blank expression that he didn't care at all what his people thought of him.    Like so many other Luffa had fought, Frieza considered himself the only being in the universe that mattered.   Luffa's only regret was that she lacked the power to give him the same treatment as the others she had faced.    

For a moment, his eyes met hers, and she wondered if he planned to attack her next, but then she sensed something, a rising power coming from where she had sensed Vegeta's dying energy.    Dende had healed him after all, it seemed.  And he had gotten stronger.   The only question was, would it be enough?

And if it wasn't enough, would Luffa be able to make up the balance?

NEXT: Unfulfilled.

[bookandcranny]

Rely On The Lighthouse Keeper

So once upon a time, the icebergs melted and the sea levels rose and people died and people lived and now there’s a lighthouse standing half-submerged a half mile or so off the shoreline. Charlotte dreams about the lighthouse every night. Not so unusual, since she thinks about it every day.

Every morning she runs the length of the docks where the fishermen call her Lottie. Her legs are long and lean and her sandals go thwap thwap thwap against the saturated wood two planks at a time. She cuts her hands climbing the tide-battered cliffside and eats clams with every meal for want of pearls. Boiled, steamed, fried. She’s trying to turn salt into diamonds between her chipped teeth and so far? Not much luck.

After her morning run, she works the floor of her uncle’s dive shop, pandering to wannabe treasure hunters. 

“All kinds of hidden beauties in the sunken cities, ripe for the picking,” he tells them.

“Whatever hasn’t already been picked dry years ago, or eaten by fish. Treasure hunting is a sucker’s game,” he tells her.

He’s not really her uncle, except in the ways that count. They sell thermo-control, pressure-control wetsuits that only sometimes tear at inopportune moments and gadgets to evade sensors in the places where such activity isn’t strictly legal. Mostly their customers come back with satchels full of scrap, green with age and algae- worthless except to be melted down for raw material. Her uncle drops a few coins into their open palms, subtracting a generous finder’s fee for the equipment, and sends them on their grumbling way. They’ll be back though, because it’s a bad gamble but it’s one they don’t know how to live without, and one big win is all they need to change their lives for good

Suckers though they may be, Charlotte can’t help but feel for them. Something about the way they cycle through fervent hope and resignation in tight circles like a dog chasing its tail, she’d be blind not to see the resemblance. Every kid in this town has the exact same haunted look in their eyes, tailed by the loss of something that died long before they were born. 

For dinner Charlotte boils rice in a thin salinous bone broth until it becomes pale, barely palatable mush that her uncle can press comfortably into the space of his missing teeth. She eats two boiled clams and her own porridge, marginally thicker and with some actual meat in it to make it more resemblant of a meal. They don’t speak very much as they eat, outside of the same old discussions about Charlotte’s education or the future of the shop which resolve without conclusion and will be forgotten by the next time it comes up. Neither one is much for conversation.

Afterwards the girl pours a bath as cold as she can stand and sits and scrubs and fills her lungs. Hold, hold. She can keep in her breath for over two full minutes on a good day, but it’s not good enough. She needs more practice.

Outside her bedroom window the lighthouse beacon blinks in and out of sight as it turns, winking at her where she sits wide awake in bed. She dips into sleep only long enough to get what she needs, and it comes to her in a pool of golden light and promises. Her and those suckers at the shop, they’re just the same, except where they cast about blindly in the ruins she’ll never lose sight.

In the other room she can hear her uncle groaning as he works the heel of his hand against his bad leg, trying to exorcise a memory. For people who live seaside ghosts are as common a problem as bedbugs or radiation poisoning. Everyone has a story, from so-and-so’s brother’s neighbor’s cousin who had a grandfather who died in the first tidal wave that took Long Island and so on and so forth. In most of the stories though, or at least the good ones, it’s women they see. Ghost women bobbing in the surf and dressed only in moonlight. Always naked. Sailors are so predictable.

So the story goes: “The widow of a navy marine. She went half mad when the call came in and fully mad by the time the war was over. When the waves went up she refused to retreat to higher ground, still waiting for her husband to come home. They say she waits to this day.”

So the story goes: “She loved to dance on the beach even though she knew it was forbidden. A healthy young woman in her prime, but died suddenly of a vicious pneumonia. At her autopsy they found a tiny ocean in her lungs, coral reefs growing all up the sides and freckled with starfish. Real coral, can you imagine?”

So the story goes: “Their daughters were possessed by a longing for the world that was. When at last it was more than they could take, they met under a red moon one night and threw themselves from the cliffs in despair.”

So it goes. In another month Charlotte can hold her breath for almost three minutes. Soon it’ll be four. The rising bubbles tickle her cheeks as she breathes out. Clams every day, still no pearls. Her hair is growing long now and on rainy days it slaps her back and shoulders as she runs. 

A season of fishermen return to the docks while another sets sail and they don’t recognize her there anymore. She’s not Lottie to them but “that girl”. They make jokes to mask their unease. They say she runs like she has the devil on her heels. She knows though, she knows the devil doesn’t chase. He waits.

He waits for her to get slow, to take her eyes off the horizon. She’s seen it happen. As she gets older it’ll get harder to dream except for of her next spot of luck, a good business quarter or a diver with a rare bounty, and her treasure will slip away from her. The devil is a man o’ war, the devil is the scar that streaks diagonal down an old man’s calf as he tells tales of days when sharks swam the seas in great numbers, the devil is a lazy trawling net caught in a propeller. If she waits, someday she won’t wonder who lights the abandoned lighthouse at night. Someday she might not notice it at all. Just another part of the scenery like craggy cliffs and sunken skylines and the gates. 

“The devil is a tall iron gate,” she mutters, disinfecting her scraped palms.

“That’s a new one,” her uncle says. “And I’m pretty sure those gates aren’t made of iron. Would rust, wouldn’t it?”

“Iron sounds more,” She casts about for the right word. “Epic.”

He laughs and his laugh is the only thing still completely dry in this shop. Then he says, “You could be a real writer if you put in the time. Didja give anymore thought to going back to school?” And the conversation is over.

The devil is the slow broadening of her hips. Three minutes and forty six seconds until she can’t take the burn anymore, but instead of resurfacing she sucks in an involuntary lungful and comes up retching. More clams come up, and a yellow starfish smaller than her pinky nail. 

There’s a medicine woman in a shop a few doors down who claims a paste made from dry-earth roots will expand the chest and bellows. It can’t be any worse than pinching crawlies from the bait-box. What she really needs though is a remedy no one’s given her yet. She needs a cure for time.

Another few months and she can run from one end of the docks to the other in sixty six identical strides. Before she so much as hits the docks her legs are shooting out to the bow and stem of her like a dancer. Meanwhile her uncle can barely walk anymore. She isn’t ready to go.

The fog is so constant, so oppressive now that the lighthouse shines not just at night but throughout the day. From sat upon the cliffs she times her blinks in rhythm with the beacon and looks out on the waves, for ghosts, or just for a sign. 

For five minutes this time she quiets the hurting part, the signal that burns bright and angry, and focuses on the chill of the water engulfing her. 

In a year not quite to the day, while preparing dinner, she cracks open a particularly stubborn shell to find a lumpy pearl bigger than her goddamn knuckle. She leaves the pearl at her uncle’s bedside while he’s sleeping, paralleling nicely the way her mother left her once upon his doorstep, though she can’t know this. In the morning the dockworkers see a girl- a young woman they used to call Lottie, sprinting along the boardwalk so fast that she seems not to touch the ground. It’s another gray day, misty and magical, and when they tell this story to their mothers’ good friends’ nephews she will be naked with skin made of gold and ambergris.

She dances the length of the boardwalk and down to the wire fence surrounding the bivalvarium and without breaking stride she begins to climb. Right up and over, planting herself in the sand with a muddy thunk, one foot sailing in front of the other over rocks and ridges and into the chaste waters where fishermen and treasure seekers alike are forbidden. The oysters buried in the earth are singing, chattering their shells like castanets. The coastguard siren sings its angry song too. With no time to spend languishing on the beach, she wades on and begins to swim.

The current doesn’t welcome her, but she wouldn’t expect anything less. The state tried to make her go to a nice inland school once and it felt a little like this. The resistance isn’t anything personal, it’s just how it is. 

“Go back where you belong, land-walker,” it says. “There’s nothing here for you but heartache.” But stroke by stroke she insists herself upon it. Somewhere someone is screaming from the shore. Whether in excitement or recrimination, Charlotte can’t hear any of them now.

Hand over hand, out of the surf and then in again. As she approaches her destination, squinting against the salt in her eyes, she breaches a final time and then nosedives to the bottom. Five minutes. The tide and the air trapped in her ballooned lungs try to buoy her back to the surface so she activates the weighted bracelets filched from the shop. They’re tricky little trinkets, only used by the more experienced or reckless divers. Once they’re cracked a chemical reaction within the donut-shaped shell makes them heavy as anchors, giving the wearer an extra bit of depth but also limiting their movement. Charlotte had her reservations about them, and still does, but right now they get her just where she needs to be.

At the base of the sunken lighthouse there’s a crack. An ordinary crack, worked open naturally by the years and the pressure. It’s down deep though and the point of entry is small. An adult burdened with lots of heavy diving equipment couldn’t fit. She squeezes in, scraped raw on all sides, struggling to release the clasps on the weights when they get her stuck in the gap. 

She’s all through but her ankle now. Two minutes of air left by her rough estimation and she still needs to make it back to the surface. Panic will eat up her air faster. She knows this, she knows. She grabs one of the bracelets and hammers it against the stone until she breaks free. A small burst of blood halos her ankle as she races for the faint light above her, winking at her in a rhythm she knows so well.

There is movement in the ocean around her. Big flat-bodied fish? Monstrous mutant eels perhaps? Or ghosts. So the story goes.

She swims up and breaks through and her ears are ringing. Only now does she let herself feel the cold and the ache in her lungs and the throbbing of her muscles, and she wails like a newborn, her cries echoing to the heavens. She’s survived, and the surviving is an agony unlike anything she’s ever known, ever could have anticipated. The collision of the dream and the reality is less breaking a fever and more hurtling through a pane of glass.

“Well that was dramatic,” say the ghosts. They do indeed look like women, although they have clothes fashioned from layers of seaweed and rubbery fish skins so thick Charlotte can’t tell where it ends and they begin. Their bodies are thin but only in the way flounders are. They twist and writhe like a child’s lost ribbon floating in the tide. One sniffs and touches her wounded ankle curiously as she floats, and she doesn’t feel much like a ghost at all. She feels as plain to her as fish porridge.

So the ghosts who are not ghosts swim her over to a ledge, where the water laps upon the stair. Their ribbon tails shimmy back and forth in hypnotic rhythm and when the pale light shines upon them they glisten like jelly. Charlotte doesn’t know it but sailors didn’t always just tell stories about ghosts. It’s just that tall tales lose some of their zest once they come true.

“Since you’re here I guess you’ll be staying,” says one gilly girl, not cruelly but not kindly either. “You might as well get comfy.”

Another, smaller than the first with a bob of inky hair matted to her cheeks, tugs shyly at the hem of her top. “Did you bring anything fun with you? Oh, do you have any movies? We found a VCR the other day in the old houses.”

“It won’t work.”

“You don’t know that. I want to watch movies again. I miss having new stories.”

“Do you know my brother? He’s a bivalve farmer back on the cape. Unless he isn’t anymore. It has been a while since I saw him.”

“Is the president still a prick? I promised myself I wouldn’t be coming back until there was someone with half a brain in office. Oh hey remind me, what year is it now?”

“I have a blockbuster card in my purse! You can use it if you bring back some movies.”

Two of the girls begin to drum up a chant of, “Moo-vies! Moo-vies!” Charlotte just sits and stares.

A different one swims up to her, shooing away the clinging creatures who poke and prod and inspect her person. Her features are long and angular, more mature to Charlotte’s reckoning, not knowing how meaningless the term is here. Like describing the maturity of a fossil or an insect petrified in amber.

“Ignore them, they’re just excited,” she says. There is something moving behind her dark eyes, flitting about like a school of minnows, yet her expression is peaceful. 

Charlotte, finding her voice, asks, “Are you the guardians of the treasure?”

She cocks her head. “Treasure?”

“Yes, the- the treasure!” she struggles to explain. “I dream about it every night. Treasure from the old world, a golden light, guarded by the lighthouse keeper…”

“You’re in shock, dear. You look pale. When’s the last time you ate?”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“No one is. We’re a self governing body of-”

”Who lights the lighthouse?” she demands, ignoring the fish-woman’s protests. She braces her hands on the slick stone wall and pulls herself up. “Someone must light the lighthouse, but none of you have legs. None of you can climb the stairs. So who lights the lighthouse?”

“Oh, silly girl,” the not-ghosts not-fish not-women fawn. “You do.”

So much love in their eyes. So much love living behind them, wriggling in the shiny shells of their bodies like happy mollusks.

Charlotte’s legs feel weak. The elder mermaid touches the back of her knee gently, comfortingly. When, she wondered, had anyone last touched the back of her knee, of all places. She nods up towards the stairs which spiral skywards in the shape of a conch’s crown.

“Would you like to see?"

So once upon a time, a girl chased a dream to the edge of her world and in consequence fell off of it. Not the worst outcome. Not for Charlotte, who was just one girl against a great big ocean of trouble after all. And still the sea levels rise, and still the lighthouse lantern turns around and around, reliably guiding home ships full of sailors who tell all sorts of old stories and know well enough not to try and see them through to their ends.

[fieryblazes]

It’s better, really, to go out in a blaze, we love the ones who walk right into the fire.

NAME: Rhys Warren / Blaze.

AGE: One hundred and twenty seven.

KINGDOM: Fire sprite.

GENDER IDENTITY: Cismale (he&him).

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Biromantic & bisexual.

Rhys Warren was born to a young couple that weren’t prepared for children.  The pair had never set down roots anywhere nor did they really ever intend to.  One from a traditional Irish family and the other craved a life away from where their family had been forced to live, together they chose a life on the run.  His mother was groomed to remain a part of her own society, where she might take over her mother’s role as an agricultural leader.  The role itself was a good one as far as things went but, it wasn’t exciting.  She was never one for political intricacies and instead, held out hope for a chance to explore the world with another.  Enter Rhys’ father, someone of Irish importance that held no claim to his own name.  Rather than marry into another wealthy family to find a housewife and raise the allotted children that his family hoped for, he met another that he would escape his designated life with and live carefree with until their first son was born.  Rhys had been unexpected but, strangely, still a wanted surprise for them.

When the family was complete with three children, the couple decided to return home for a little while.  Namely, back to where Rhys’ father’s side had settled.  Their life there would be short-lived, however, only a few years were spent there before the fatigue of everyday life hit the couple.  They were advised by both sides of the family to leave the children behind and at first, they obliged.  Rhys lived with his mother’s side of the family where he learned how to hunt, to gather and shadowed other leaders within their society.  He thrived moreover in hunting and in working within the fields.  The manual labor kept his fiery personality in check which was key because otherwise, the child would often pick fights with other children around them.

Like many in the early 1900’s, Rhys never attended school.  Instead, he labored in fields and worked alongside elders, learning basic education with them.  He learned to read and write at an older age than most would but, technically, it wasn’t something that was truly necessary for him until he was older.  Until his parents decided that they were moving to Florida and hoped to take their children with them, that was.  By then, Rhys was seventeen and his siblings were a few years younger.  They obliged despite how their caretakers felt and soon, the five of them were living in a commune just outside of Miami.  The commune itself was an offset of another that had been created several years back.  It was, effectively, a socialist commune where revolutionary socialists and anarchists of all sorts came to live amongst one another.  It was there that Rhys found his love for boxing and would continue to practice elsewhere later.  Rhys remained at the commune for several years before he made the decision to move on to Miami.

However, Rhys wasn’t the only one interested in the Magic City.  Upon the time that he moved there, the city’s officials had set out to create canals that would create more land and divert water away from the city.  It was soon made clear that they required additional help doing this to finish in a timely manner.  Rhys answered this call for more help and worked his way to a place to live while he looked for more work.  However, this downtime sparked a change in Rhys.  Hard work kept Rhys’ overactive mind at bay but, now that he had precious little to do in the way of manual labor, he started to feel the pull once again to achieve far more dangerous machinations.  Burglary was first but, it certainly wasn’t enough.  No matter how much he stole or how difficult the entrance and exit were, he found that the challenge didn’t do enough for him.  Then came gambling.  He learned the cheap tricks and dirty secrets behind how to win every time and once he had those mastered, boredom wrapped around his mind once again.  But, it would be arson that kept his attention for much longer.

It was also what kept him in jail most often.  He tried to keep his distance but it was difficult to do that but also watch the flames in all of their glory.  So, occasionally, he was caught due to his attempt to watch the art that he had created.  But, sometimes he chose places where people had angered him which made it entirely too obvious that it was Rhys Warren who had set the fire even if he was hidden elsewhere as the blaze burned the establishment down to ashes.  In and out of jail, he had made friends within and outside which slowly created a network of how people knew Rhys.  It wasn’t until his twenty eighth birthday, of which the evening was spent in a jail cell, that this network finally paid off.  He didn’t know the person who had paid his bail but, they had known of him.  A recruiter sent from the mob, Rhys was formally invited to prove himself to something bigger than him.  Something that might actually hold his attention.

Rhys climbed the ranks of the mob until he sat pretty as a rum runner.  He had spent several years building trust with the Miami sect of the American Mafia, where they mainly dealt in gambling and procuring alcohol during a time of Prohibition. However, he was on the fence about moving up even higher within the mob.  It meant more responsibility and as someone born and raised in a world with no rigid schedule, Rhys was free-spirited.  He didn’t adhere to the ideals of time management and strict routines.  He knew, in his heart of hearts, that this would become a problem at some point.  However, after the death of one of his siblings, the itch to leave and embark on a journey that would both keep him preoccupied and offer much needed excitement, Rhys pushed to be a part of the negotiations that dealt with the Dominican Republic.  And so, he stepped onto the Horizons with the belief he would be back soon.

A lot of work had gone into Rhys’ preparation from a presentational standpoint.  He had taught himself while on the voyage to conduct himself in a professional manner, to appear as a charismatic businessman rather than a hot-headed fighter with permanent calluses on the palms of his hands from a life of hard work.  As fruitless as this was, the shore that he awoke on with lungs filled with salt water was beyond his wildest hopes and dreams.  He accepted the deal when it was presented to him as an immediate believer of the sprites.  Here, he could finally lean into the more dangerous, volatile whims that had always lurked underneath his skin.  Rhys Warren was made of fire but, it was Blaze that would embody it.

CONNECTION IDEAS

THE FIRE SPREADS - Anyone who is aware of the laws of the land but still love the idea of bending them.  Whether there’s a reasoning behind it or they’re more akin to Blaze who is the epitome of ‘fuck around and find out’, perhaps they were a criminal in a past life and sometimes, they just need to seek out a thrill or two.  

PASSIONATE EMBERS - Those who Blaze has been with in some capacity.  It’s a running theme for him to be looking for ‘the one’ and though he isn’t a wholly sensitive person, he does have a romantic side.  This might have been a passionate romance with a quick burn out, nights of passion now unspoken or something else, we can figure it out.

A SPARK - This could be anything - a friendship, soon to be enemies, potentially a relationship, etc., but the point is that there’s something there and they haven’t figured out what it is.  But, there’s a push and a pull between them.  

ASHES NOW - They were close for some time and then had a horrible falling out.  Their relationship (be it whatever it was, platonic or otherwise) was one that seemed like it would be lasting but, now it’s bitter.  There’s unresolved feelings and even potentially disdain.

FIRE & ICE - I just really dig the idea of him teaming up with someone from the water kingdom, I don’t really have any solid ideas but, hit me up and we can come up with something wild.

HORIZONS PASSENGERS - Lastly, I’d dig some plots with the people that Blaze arrived with!  They probably didn’t know one another at the time but, that doesn’t mean we can’t get some spicy ideas going.

[linkersint]

The “Rich Getting Richer” Argument

This piece of writing is taken from Bestselling Author Rob Moore book “MONEY”. This book is all about philosophy of money, myths we have in mind about this concept, and how we can achieve financial stability and then financial freedom by understanding the nitty gritty of money!

We normally hear an argument that “RICH GETTING RICHER”. Mr Moore claim that this argument is a myth. Everyone can become rich if he/she follows its fundamental laws.  Those who have more money are doing and behaving in certain way than those who are struggling with it. In below chapter, you will learn why “rich getting richer” argument is invalid.

****

from the book

You hear many people debating, ‘why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?’ Many people get frustrated about this and demand a redress of the balance through higher taxation, setting up unions, and greatly increased philanthropy.

There are simple economic laws that explain why the rich tend to get richer. These economic fundamentals bust many of the myths about the rich and poor divide, certainly in the first world. And guess what? The wealthy know and leverage these, and the poor don’t and are leveraged by them.

Common Sense?

Common sense suggests that something tends to move more easily in the direction it is already going than if it changes direction. You could call this momentum, or compounding or simple common sense. Newton’s first law of physics is this:

 ‘An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion, with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force’.

Of course you’re likely looking for a deeper argument than the rich get richer than ‘because they are already rich’, and the poor get poorer because ‘they are already poor’, but let’s not dismiss something for its simplicity. If you have not attained the levels you desire yet, keep going. Keep on, keeping on, you will get there.

Balanced Economics:

In any monetary system all expenditure must equal all receipts. This means that all spending equals all money received.

People don’t burn money (unless they are The KLF, the British band who set fire to a million pounds of their own money) and even if they did, that money would be out of the system and all existing money in the system would balance between expenditure and receipt. Even when more money is printed, that new money in the system, like all the existing money, balances where all expenditure equals all receipts.

Therefore, of that finite (but huge) amount of money in circulation at any one time: it distributes exactly from those who ‘spend’ the most (expenditure) to those who sell or receive the most (receipts).

 If there is an inequality of balance, which there always is because products and services are not of equal value and humans value money differently, then money moves more freely and in higher amounts from those who value and focus on expenditure higher than receipt to those who value and focus on receipt higher than expenditure.

In other words, money moves from those who value it least (or value expenditure more than receipt), to those who value it most by saving, investing, compounding, (or value receipt more than expenditure). Money moves from consumers to producers.

No matter how many times you may try to use power, rule, unions, regulations, or governments to more equally distribute money, it will always reset its ‘balance’. So, if you want to redistribute wealth more towards you, don’t ever get dragged into the victim mentality of a higher power or system, begging or expecting them to redistribute it for you. The capitalist system is unlikely to change in your lifetime, so it is a huge waste and opportunity cost of your time and energy to fight against it. Instead, learn about and focus on the management, mastery, and rules of money, service, contribution, enterprise, momentum, compounding and velocity, and make it more important to you to understand and value money and wealth. And more will come your way. The more you learn, the more you earn.

Theoretical redistribution of wealth:

It has often been suggested that there should be a redistribution of wealth, from those who have the most to those who have the least. Before we delve into this, there already is a redistribution format: it is called taxation. In most developed countries, taxation is geared towards being a higher percentage of income the more one earns.

The main problem I see in theoretical wealth redistribution is that it doesn’t stay with or serve those it is distributed to. I’m certainly not against sharing wealth with those who need it more, in fact it is contribution that plays a big part in building wealth. However, you can’t manage more money until you learn how to manage what you already have, and the big abundant lack is in education as much as it is in redistribution.

Imagine if a wealthy person owns a betting shop. A gambler comes in and spends all his money, helping the owner make more money. The state increases taxes and redistributes much of the money back to the gambler. The gambler then goes back to the betting shop and makes more bets. The owner might have to increase his margins to compensate for the increased ‘taxation’. This costs the gambler, who keeps gambling, more money. And so the cycle continues, but doesn’t help or change anything other than perhaps the owner moves to another country if too much is taken from him, and the gambler spends more and has a bigger addiction.

Perhaps if the business owner was allowed to create fair profit, was given assistance, protection and tax breaks and incentives to start up, and there was fair competition so that prices self-regulated, then the system would work. Oh, wait a minute, that’s called capitalism. And for the gambler, education and help on the addiction is likely to be far more effective than feeding the habit. While this might seem an extreme example, most people manage their money like a gambler, wasting it and only just keeping their heads above water. It is education that is needed, in our schools and society, on how to manage and master money, not redistribution and handouts that de-incentivize work and contribution.

Lottery redistribution:

   The National Endowment for Financial Education cites research estimating that 70 per cent of people who suddenly receive a large sum of money lose it within a few years. Forty-four percent of lottery winners had spent all of their winnings within five years of winning the lottery. Nine out of every ten lottery winners believe that their new family wealth will be gone by the third generation. Again, you can’t manage more money until you learn to manage what you already have. Interestingly, only 2 per cent of respondents said that they were less happy with life after winning the lottery, despite the data above suggesting a greater percentage can’t handle it, lose it, or feel it will be lost soon enough. Who says money doesn’t make you (more) happy?

   So in fact, there actually is a seismic wealth redistribution right now: from the poor when they get large sums without knowing how to handle it, back to the rich.

Production vs consumption

       Non-wealth, first-world poverty doesn’t contribute. It doesn’t create service, enterprise or economy, and doesn’t care enough about humanity to give value to others. Poverty in this sense consumes more than it produces, and is more selfish than selfless.

      To be wealthy is to give service, to produce for other people in physical (consumable) or ethereal (information) form. To be poor is to consume: wasting or spending money and time-consuming depreciable. The wealthy produce for the poor to consume, and so redistribute wealth towards themselves from the first-world poor. Vast wealth comes from vast production nationally, globally, and in high volumes, whereas poverty comes from a negative differential between production and consumption. Individuals, geography, or governments could cause this.

     The wealthy create enterprise and economy through jobs, value creation, increased flow and velocity of money, contribution to taxes, hope, belief and inspiration to others, service to vast numbers of people. The poor are independent on these to survive.  Virtually all global wealth is now private: 99 percent according to Thomas Piketty in his book Capital. This means that producers finance all state benefits that poor consumers consume. Because poverty consumers more than it produces, this has to be economically balanced by large-scale production, and because of the 80/20 principle, the 20 per cent will produce for the 80 per cent to consume, roughly speaking. And so this will compound in the direction it is already going – the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It is hard to change the velocity once it has momentum, which explains why when starting a new vocation it can be hard to make money in the early years, yet those who’ve been doing it for decades seem to have vastly compounded wealth and passive income, more easily.

For redistribution of wealth to work, consumers would have to take responsibility to produce more than they consume. If you give a drug addict money, you know much of that is likely to go. If you give any consumer more money without the responsibility and education to produce with it, it will be consumed in the same manner all previous money was consumed. If a producer receives more money, mostly through cashflow, increased profits or leveraged loans (rarely through gifts and subsidies), they will invest it to produce more. Of course you could call this greed, but you could also call this growth, evolution and supply and demand. Greed and growth are only differentiated by an individual’s perception. As long as there is demand and a need for the human race to grow and evolve, producers will produce more and more and more, and consumers will keep consuming. The titans of wealth across the last 6000 years are the largest, most vast producers.

The question is: which will you choose to be, a producer or a consumer? Will you get sucked into debating the rights and wrongs of the rich and poor divide, or focus on service, solutions, scale, and contribution, and enjoy your fair share of wealth?

[hilarieburtonmorgan]

MORNINGS WITH HILARIE BURTON MORGAN AT MISCHIEF FARM

In the series ‘Mornings With’, we begin a new day with inspiring talent in film, television and media, in an equally inspiring place in New York. ROSE & IVY founding editor, Alison Engstrom sits down and chats about morning routines, exciting projects and what inspires them and drives them to be their very best. Given the current climate, we had to switch gears slightly, but we are beyond delighted to meet Hilarie Burton Morgan at her farm in Upstate New York.

In this day and age, curling up with a good book that transports, uplifts and makes you want to be a better human is vital. In our newest edition of Mornings With, I am incredibly excited to chat with Hilarie Burton Morgan about her debut book, The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons Down on Mischief Farm. In this heartfelt and honest work, which is part memoir and part DIY with other life antidotes—hot pepper flakes to keep squirrels out of the garden (genius!), the Burton pickle recipe and how to make dandelion wine—she wants to inspire readers to take a risk. She speaks eloquently about what she had to endure in her early days as an actress, her search for meaning, building a life on a farm, relationship obstacles, grief, fertility struggles, losing herself and then ultimately finding herself. I also talked to her about her morning routines, how she lives her life with intention and the importance of creating a community.

Would you say are you a morning person?

I have always been the kind of person who wakes up in the morning in a good mood. I like potential and mornings are full of potential—I have been that way since I was little. I am absolutely a morning person, however, I don’t get dressed until the afternoon because I cherish the morning. I can get a lot of things done in a bathrobe, so I make my mornings last as long as possible

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? 

I have to get my kids going so the first thing I do is I get my son up and make him breakfast, then pack his lunch and then I’ll go and get my daughter up and get her dressed. Then we do school drop off. I am most productive in my morning hours; it’s when I am making my lists and doing the things that require higher brain function, like answering emails, because then I can go into manual labor mode at the end of the day, hunker down and get my work done.

I know that coffee is important to you because you have a section about it in the book—a girl after my own heart! How do you prepare it?

I go through a yearly cycle where halfway through the summer, my sweet tooth kicks in and it’s when I use a lot of creamer, I like putting hazelnut creamer into my coffee that is my guilty pleasure. I also love a good gas station coffee, where it’s like the French vanilla latte— it’s just sugar with some brown food coloring. Then the other six months, I drink it black and as temperatures are starting to warm up, I don’t want all of the dairy and I just like it thin, angry and very, very strong.   At Samuel’s Sweet Shop we serve Partner’s Coffee and we also have a deal with Brooklyn Roasting Company—they created a coffee for us that we are going to be selling on the Mischief Farm website.

“I have always been the kind of person who wakes up in the morning in a good mood. I like potential and mornings are full of potential.”

Do you have a motivating morning mantra or meditation practice that helps to frame your day?

I don’t have a meditation practice; making lists I think is very important for me, it’s something that I have always done. My dad has this phrase that he has had forever, which I talk about in the book. It is: the want to, creates the how-to. If  you want something bad enough, you will creatively think of every way you can get it and how to do it. If you aren’t able to figure out how to do it, and you are like meh, maybe you didn’t really want it in the first place. So going into each day thinking about what I want to do and how am I going to get it is one mantra. And another mantra is, I used to do a lot of student government growing up and one convention had this huge banner with a motto that said: if not you, then who?  It’s one of those universal truths that everyone should probably say, I mean, if you don’t jump on it, who else is going to do it? That’s a call to arms.

Before we talk about your book, how are you and your family doing during this time? Per your Instagram, you have been busy at work sewing masks for frontline workers.

I don’t feel great—I  feel like there's much more that we can be doing. The problem I think specifically with being a mom right now is that we are working, we are mothering, we are housekeeping and trying to do all of these things while trying to be an active member of our community; we aren’t succeeding necessarily at any of them. We are getting by with a lot of these things, but we have to be okay with just getting by right now. There are no wins right now or we have to reevaluate what wins are right now, we have to be very gentle with ourselves and not be judgy. I got mad at myself this morning because I hadn't made masks in four days and I felt like I was letting people down. It’s hard because it’s all I want to focus on—I could churn out like 200 if I could just sit down alone and do it but I have people sending me messages about how to do it or asking me to connect makers with facilities that need things and so a lot of that coordination eats up a lot of time and at the end of the day, I look at my pile of masks and it's not as big as I want it to be. Because it is all unknown, there is no clear directive on what our next best thing is. Right now my daughter is obsessed with Frozen II and it’s been on repeat in our house. There is a song in it The Next Right Thing and I feel like Disney purposefully did this to me (laughs) because it is in my head right now. Do the next right thing, maybe it’s the dishes, the laundry, or making a mask. 

Congratulations on your first book The Rural Diaries! It’s wonderful—you speak so eloquently about love, loss, growth, grief, happiness, ups and downs in a relationship, losing yourself and finding yourself, with so many other real and raw emotions that are very relatable.  What was the process like and did you always want the book to be so honest?

I honestly set out to write a book about the farm and to encourage people to take risks. As I sat down to write it, I was pregnant with my daughter, I started it two months before she was born and then wrote it until last May. It took me a long time, especially the editing process of making sure that everything made sense and was accurate. I was very precious with it. That said, I didn't set out to write something that was so oversharing but I think that in order to encourage people to take big risks, I needed to admit the things that I had done wrong and to admit my vulnerabilities, my insecurities, because I am a deeply insecure person, and that’s not a bad thing, it just means that I care. So I felt like a fraud writing oh, this is my farm and aren’t my flowers pretty, kind of book.  So much effort went into cultivating this lifestyle and it felt cheap not to acknowledge it.

“ I don’t want to be a person who mindlessly does things. I don’t want to coast because I think it’s a disservice to people who I have lost. If I am not taking advantage of every single day, it’s an affront to the loss. ”

As I was reading it, you could feel your blood, sweat and tears and all of  the work that went into making a home and also your DIY spirit. I love that the bigger picture, as you said is to take a risk. If you stay in your comfort zone your whole life you will look back in 20 years and be disappointed that you didn’t even try.  Would you say that it was the biggest leaf of faith you’ve taken?

I would say it was the biggest gamble because I am not near my old support network, there was no family or friends here. It was me and my son in a cabin. Jeffrey (Dean Morgan, Hilarie’s husband) was coming back and forth from work and we were trying to figure out how we were going to create a life up here. You put your energy into your priorities right and a lot of people make work their priority. What we are discovering in this current situation is that maybe what’s going on in your home could be a bigger priority. Let’s make healthy circles, work might be an outer circle and home is an inner circle. Now we have this amazing support network because we made connecting with the people in our town a priority. It’s  paying off specifically right now because we are so interconnected and we can take care of each other in a lot of different ways.

What I loved so much about the book is that it feels like your heart, mind and soul lined up when you found where you belonged in Rhinebeck, New York. It was like a moment of grace.

I remember being a little girl and we weren’t allowed to go to other people's houses or have friends over. I was one of a lot of kids—I have three younger brothers—and it was like, play with each other! I’d hide out in my room all day and just daydream. I was a huge daydreamer and a big reader; in my mind, I had this idea of what my adulthood would be. It involved caftans, a lot of beads, books, crazy hair and this pastoral lifestyle. There was this character in the movie Tammy and the Bachelor—it’s this Debbie Reynolds movie and there was this old spinster aunt who was super eccentric and wanted to paint cats and I was like that sounds great. So living a lifestyle that was a little bit outside the norm was always something that was appealing. And when I came to Rhinebeck it was like walking  into the backlot of a Hollywood movie studio, it was beautiful. Everyone knew each other and it felt like a club that you wanted to join, like when you get into high school and you say, I want to be a part of that club. I wanted to be a part of it, so I made it a priority to get to know people and offer up help. When there is a charity event, it's like, what can I do? It feels nice to have the family that you choose for yourself.

What was it about the acting world that lured you in? Would you say you were a natural performer?

I had been doing theater since I was eight. I asked to be put in classes when I was four or five—I was very articulate about wanting to be a performer as a child. My parents, God bless them, gave me every opportunity they could afford. I did all of the local and regional theater in Virginia. They would get off work and spend all night taking me to rehearsals. They would drive me up to New York once a month so I could audition. We would rent a car, it was a big deal. I did a lot of professional theater as a kid so that was always there. My decision to go to college in New York was solely based on wanting to be where the opportunities existed. I just applied to every school  in Manhattan and went to the one that gave me the most money. I love the city because there is so much kismet in it, when Manhattan feels like a small town, it’s magical. I’ll run into people from like 20 years ago who I worked with at MTV.

“I honestly set out to write a book about the farm to encourage people to take risks.”

In the book, you talk about how you were very disappointed when you left One Tree Hill. later in the book, you revealed what you had to endure on set.

I was so disappointed that I got everything that I wanted and it was just so toxic, there really isn’t any other way to describe it. I am very good friends with the cast of that show and I am very good friends with so many crew members of that show but there was an overarching toxic thing. When it’s your first job, you assume that every other job will just be more of that, I was exhausted by that and really second guessed my life. It wasn’t until I got my next big job on White Collar, where I saw what it was supposed to be. I saw what leadership was supposed to look like, how people were supposed to be treated and how your boss can be an ally, as opposed to someone terrorizing you the whole entire time. I remember joking and telling a group of the writers some horror stories of One Tree Hill and laughing about it, saying, oh my gosh and you wouldn’t believe it and I remember them stopping me as a young women, I was 27, and saying, it’s not supposed to be like that and we are so so sorry that happened to you. I was so embarrassed that someone had to take me by the shoulders and tell me that. It set the bar very high for future jobs. When you get the right baseline, it’s all very manageable and fun. I love doing what I do but there was a period of time where I was so scared that what I had imagined this industry was didn't exist.

It definitely made me prioritize my personal life over my professional life. Because in my professional life, specifically on that job, I was told, you are so wonderful! You are the best! You are the best actress, the prettiest, the most talented. I was the one going out and doing all of the press, doing all of the interviews and engaging with all of the sponsors—I played the game hard for that show, because I thought that they loved me but when I raised my hand and said that there was some really bad stuff going on here, it was all of a sudden you are disposable, you don’t matter to us, we can replace you.  So I knew that I had to create something real in my life so that that work thing couldn’t touch the core anymore. It derailed me, it was like a really bad divorce.

While renovating your home you said, “Even with all the blood, sweat and tears. I felt like I was coming back to the truest version of myself.” It’s a great metaphor of how you were also rebuilding how you felt inside. 

I think that manual labor is very important for self-esteem—being an actress you are treated like you are a little idiot. If you have input of what your lines should be or how you want to wear your hair, your costume or what props you want, in good work environments there is collaboration, in toxic work environments there is eye-rolling, it's like oh, you little idiot, stay in your lane—-just hit your mark, say your lines and go home. So doing tangible work, where I could be in total control and that I controlled the end product was so good for my self-esteem and my self-worth. To this day, I still revert back to that. I just ordered five gallons of paint that got delivered yesterday because I feel so out of control in the midst of this pandemic and what I can control is the color of my living room walls. So when my children go to bed at night, I will be painting my living room. 

“It’s very important that our children witnessed us dividing and conquering and playing to each other’s strengths and championing each other’s strengths.”

You talked about how your friend Scott’s death affected you and that you wanted to “Wake up intentionally. Work intentionally. Eat intentionally. And rest intentionally.” I love that.  What does intention mean to you today?

I lifted that whole passage from a journal that I kept right when Scott died. When I set down to write the book, I pulled out my journals from the last 20 years and put them all out and that specific section, I wrote the week after he died. I still want to live by those words. I don’t want to be a person who mindlessly does things. I don't want to coast because I think it’s a disservice to people who I have lost. If I am not taking advantage of every single day, it’s an affront to the loss; it’s being hyperaware. I can’t live up to that every day, no one can, but if we can manage that like three to four days out of the week, that’s good.

You talk about the moment that you pivoted, after you experienced your first miscarriage, you said, “My grief was making me someone I hated.” You channeled that loss into helping others by volunteering at the Astor Services for Children and Families in Rhinebeck. I love how you said, “In working for others, we found ourselves again.”

I feel safe saying that I am a self-loathing person that stems back to some elementary school drama. Everyone carries some degree of that and everyone deals with it. When I have time to sit there and think about myself and woe is me, I can spiral just as much as the next guy, but when I am feeling that time and putting my energy to where people need it and who are desperately seeking help, affirmation or guidance or physical manual labor. It’s not that I feel better about myself but I feel a purpose out of my own self-loathing. I feel like that becomes a tool instead of a liability. You have to use the tools that you have. My self-loathing allows me to rally the troops in town, or put on a show or paint some walls.

So many women are going to relate to your journey to conceive. My heart was breaking for you as you lost your first and then second baby. Was it hard to reflect back on that part of the journey for the book or was it therapeutic?

I needed to write the book that I needed to read when it happened. The narrative with miscarriage is that women are just getting to be open to talking about it, men haven’t reached that yet. James Van Der Beek is one of the only men, who I know, who has spoken on the subject. There was no way for me to know what was going on with my husband and how he felt about my infertility or our losses because the language wasn’t there. Men aren’t allowed to mourn that way, they are expected to be strong and just help me get through it—it’s their job to make sure that I am okay. A girlfriend gave me a book called Vessels: A Love Story by Daniel Raeburn that was written from the male perspective, without Jeffrey even having to come out of his shell, or his garage where he had been hiding out, all of a sudden, I had this guide book for what he was dealing with and it very much softened my perspective. What I wanted to put into the world was for the couple who perhaps was having trouble and that celebrity narrative of oh, this brought us closer together is making them feel like a failure, the same way that it was making me feel like a failure. I wanted them to know that it is perfectly alright for you and your partner to have two different sets of needs in the midst of trauma and it doesn’t mean that you are doomed or aren't destined for each other, it just means that maybe you have to walk two separate paths for a minute. But that doesn't mean you aren’t going to meet back up. I needed people to know that was okay. There wasn’t a lot of information telling me that it was okay.

I love discussing the subject of fear with people because it can often play such a big player in someone’s life. In the book you wrote, “There is an absolute moment of freedom when you realize that the things that used to scare you have no power over you anymore.” I underlined that about three times. Is there anything that makes you feel fear today that you are working to rise above? 

I have to set new goals for myself—I have said out loud I want to direct. I think it’s important to grow female talent in whatever industry. There is this expectation that you become an actress when you are 20 and you just stay an actress for forever, whereas for men, there are a lot of opportunities for them to direct, produce. create and all of that. I would like to grow in that aspect, I mean I am nervous about it because I don’t know if I’ll be any good. I feel like I have been in the business for a long time and I think I am very comfortable in this current stage because I got what I said I wanted, I got my baby and the farm is becoming a well-oiled machine, so then it becomes what types of stories do I want to tell. I want to write another book, so I am thinking about what’s the next book going to be. The fiction book is always there and I have so many short stories, but because you bring it up, the thing I am most scared of is putting fiction out there because it’s something that I have written my whole life for me and the idea of having it scrutinized is terrifying.

“...it is perfectly alright for you and your partner to have two different sets of needs in the midst of trauma and it doesn’t mean that you are doomed or aren’t destined for each other, it just means that maybe you have to walk two separate paths for a minute. ”

What was the process like of creating the book? 

I spoke with a bunch of different publishers and I cannot praise Harper One enough. The second they got my book and my sample chapters, they were like, this is a feminist book. It was a boardroom full of women and they let me pick everything. They let me art direct it and pick every little piece of it because they wanted me to love it—what an amazing partnership. I didn't anticipate that I would be given that freedom. I cannot wait to write another book for them.

In addition to everything that you do, you also help run Samuel’s Sweet Shop, a joint endeavor in Rhinebeck. What’s been one of the biggest lessons you have learned about running a business?

I was very very lucky in that our business partners Andy Ostroy and his girlfriend Phoebe Jonas and then Julie Rudd and her husband Paul have all brought such different skill sets to the endeavor. Andy has had a marketing company in Manhattan for years so he understands business in a way that I don't necessarily do. Julie was a PR executive and knew what we needed to do to create the brand and I was the one who really wanted to do the manual labor part of it. I wanted to be in the shop and touch everything and make it pretty and aesthetically pleasing. It’s very important that our children witnessed us dividing and conquering and playing to each other’s strengths and championing each other’s strengths. I don’t have any illusions that I am good at everything but I have friends who fill in my gaps.

You are currently co-hosting and producing Night In With the Morgans on AMC and have a recurring role on NBC’s new show, “Council of Dads.” What factors have to come into play before you sign onto a new project?

That’s my kismet job. I had a public falling with a former employer because they weren’t as interested in telling as diverse of stories as I did. I just stopped working with them and it was a paycheck I wasn’t getting. I put out into the world that I wanted to tell more diverse stories and then a girlfriend of mine, Tara who I share the same birthday with and who I reference in the book, we were talking about what we wanted to do for our collective birthday that year and I said I wanted to go to Savannah because I had never been. Three days later, I got a phone call and they said, Hilarie, you got to get on a plane, there is this job waiting for you in Savannah, which was Council of Dads. This show is a beautiful showcase of what family, love and connectivity can be. Even though we shot it  pre-pandemic, I cannot think of a better project to put out into the world right now. It feels really weird to be promoting anything right now, knowing how much hurt and anxiety people are feeling, but I feel very comfortable in pointing people in the direction of that show because I feel like it’s a big warm hug.

[personaehq]

INCOMING MESSAGE …

FULL NAME: park eunjae ALIAS: zion DATE OF BIRTH: 2116/08/15 ALIGNMENT: neutral OCCUPATION: n/a AFFILIATION: strategist for the fraternity ACCOMMODATION: pointe units, shinjuku FACECLAIM: choi minho

ACCESSING: BACKGROUND …

alcoholism tw, domestic abuse tw

0.

from an outside point of view, eunjae is supposed to be one of the lucky ones. his father is a respected politician, and his mother is also well known in that circle of people — as such, it’s natural that one would assume the park children are born with silver spoons in their mouths. his older brother and eunjae should live an easy life, much easier than the majority of people living in tokyo. they have immigrant parents, but their residency has little to do with suffering, and more to do with picking the place most fitting for their comfort.

however, the story doesn’t follow through on the same pattern. mr. park has always been too fond of nightlife, and one way or another, he becomes associated with illegal gambling circles. when the honeymoon phase is over between him and his wife, when having another child isn’t enough to mend the broken ties between the two — it slowly becomes clear that they cannot live in the same house anymore. one night, he comes home drunker than any other night, and gets into a verbal fight with mrs. park. words are thrown around, yells reach their neighbours, the boys cower in their rooms. perhaps the pair is being more honest to each other than they have ever been — and separation becomes inevitable.

i.

it’s decided that the oldest child stays with the mother, and the youngest stays with the father. they are both respectable figures that the court process is arduous, and each side leaves with losses and wins. the only reason they don’t fight verbally is because they don’t want to tarnish their reputation anymore. if you ask the boys, however, the worst part of it is that it’s clear the brothers will grow up separated, and the parents have no plans whatsoever to get them to meet regularly.

only occasions they see each other are events both parents needs to attend, but other than that — they are raised in completely different households, unaware of what the other is going through.

ii.

mr. park is — flaky at best, violent at worst. most of eunjae’s childhood is spent either alone, or with babysitters that come and go. when money becomes short, he is left to fend for himself after school, staying up however long he wants, spends time online with his laptop. it becomes his solace, a place of fixation where he can do whatever he wants, become whoever he wants.

earlier on, while he wished for his father to come home so they could spend time together, as he grows up, he wishes he would never return. there are times when he comes late, drunk and angry, screaming about yet another game he has lost. when eunjae didn’t know any better, he had tried to comfort him, get him into bed and make sure he drank water before falling asleep somewhere — but now, all he wants is to hide, hide and never see him again.

it’s a bitter feeling, the idea of his brother and mom being happy somewhere while he hides in a closet, clutching an aching arm to his chest. ’you look just like your mother, that bitch — it’s all her fault! it’s all your fault!’ the voice echoes in his head and he sheds silent tears in the darkness.

the next morning, his father leaves as if nothing happened the night before.

iii.

as eunjae gets older, his hatred for his father grows. slowly but surely, he understands the man cares nothing other than himself, and he desperately yearns to be away from him. if he can’t do so physically, he tries to do it on the computer. all the time spent on the internet hones his skills to a great extent. he becomes zion online, equipping an identity, working with independent hackers for more power and information. it feels exhilarating to be someone else for the day, away from the hellhole he has to call home.

one night, it’s worse than any other, mr. park is pissed to such an extent that eunjae wants nothing more than to get away. he is barely fourteen, but he knows he doesn’t want to stay home anymore. so, he runs away, packs everything he has into a backpack and slips out before his father returns home. the streets feel wider than ever, the world a bigger place, but it has so much potential that he can’t help but smile to himself. the unknown is scarier than anything he has witnessed before but he doesn’t want ever to return.

iv.

until he gets caught. a child wandering around in the higher layer unattended apparently gets noticed. someone reports it to the police, and the next thing eunjae knows is that he is being returned to mr. park. the man’s name is reputable enough that the police brushes him off as an unruly teenager, not digging any further into what’s wrong at the household.

that night, he sees mr. park angrier than he has ever seen before, eyes filled with fire and fury, lashing out with all he has. “you think you can leave me too? just like she did! who the hell do you think you are?” harsh words follow the harsh blows, and eunjae feels desperation like he never felt before. he thinks this is it — i’m done for. time takes a different quality, it gets black before he can hear loud knocks coming from the door — when he is let go, he slouches, hiding his face in his hands. all he knows is he doesn’t want to see him ever again.

v.

his wish comes true — the night is all a blur, but he learns later that the man has made enough noise to alert the neighbors. it’s someone who has also seen eunjae getting dropped off hours ago, so he is told someone put all the pieces together. even though his body hurts and he has one hell of a headache — he is happy to be away from his father.

vi.

it gets better before it gets worse, life in the foster care is more difficult than he would ever have thought, and it only serves to sharpen him up more. he grows a hard shell around himself, and after a few bad experiences too many, eunjae counts the days until he can leave on his own.

luckily to him, he knows he can make money off of hacking, proud of his computer skills, that’s what separates him from the herd. he manages to wire money into his own account, stealing little from the rich, and little by little, he knows how to integrate himself into a new life.

vii.

he flies too high, drunk on his own freedom and independence, he pisses off people he should have stayed away from. when he steps on the toes of the fraternity, it’s one of the worst mistakes he could have ever done, crossing a criminal organization such as them. he is certain nothing good will follow, that he will get killed — and even if he tries to run away, he gets caught.

it’s the current leader at the time who decides to give him a shot, and eunjae suddenly has to work for them if he wants to keep living. it sucks at first, but he gets used to it much quicker than he would have ever thought. it’s a place he can belong, and when the initial fear is over, the fraternity becomes… a good place for eunjae to be. he works hard, befriends people slowly but surely, manages to be important to the gang. six years fly by, both difficult and exhilarating at the same time, and eunjae feels this is his place.

at the beginning of 2142, he gets promoted to a strategist position. having proved that he is capable of what it takes, can act fast and think faster, eunjae only wants to do better for the fraternity.

ACCESSING: PERSONALITY …

POSITIVE TRAITS: driven, analytical, quick NEGATIVE TRAITS: stubborn, guarded, daredevil

he has grown very secretive over the years, especially considering his father is a high ranking official, and his experiences with him are most likely on record. the hard shell he has built around himself still remains, and it’s very rare that he shows his true colors. there are very few people he is comfortable with to do such thing, so he is always careful in his relationships.

analytical and guarded, he can think rationally under high-stress situations, which helped him a lot during his time with the fraternity. he is a good planner, and collecting data is a crucial part of planning. as such, it takes a lot of time to go with every detail and make sure everything is going to go smoothly — but eunjae devotes himself to it fully. at the same time, he is a daredevil when it’s himself on the line. he loves the exhilaration of doing something dangerous, but he has always been better at brains that brawns, so he knows where he should stand during operations.

… END OF MESSAGE.

[sanpatron]

Saint’s Seven Redux: Part 1

Deep within the Fibonacci Ward on one of its higher levels stood a casino; one that looked as grand and marvelous as many of the ritzier ones you could find on the Vegas strip. Despite the fact this building lacked a resort like its real life counterparts, or the Golden Dawn here in Spirale, it still stood as a sort of bastion of glamour and luxury, of vice and splendor. A place where anyone in this city could potentially become a winner and reap their winnings, but at the same time fail oh so spectacularly and lose it all.

But despite the grandeur of it all there were much more sinister dealings at play here. Cheating, botched games, debts, misery, murder, loans. One could enter this building thinking they might have a chance to strike it big and soon leave hours later with their whole life in shambles. Many have been left to ruin because of their time spent in this building, so much so that it’s become quite the hotbed of rumors in regards to the alleged ‘higher management’ this casino works for. Nevertheless many people do not heed the warnings of such talk and soon find themselves in the same sort of misery that’s befallen other people. If you wish the encounter high-risk gambling in its truest nature then there really was no better place to visit. As the proverb goes ‘the house always wins’, especially when it’s enforced.

Yet despite everything none of this particularly mattered to the 3rd Street Saints.

The Boss has been biding his time for quite a while now; gathering whatever resources necessary and acquiring as much information as possible to plan out this attack. He’s had these bastards in his sights ever since they fucked him and that other weirdo over months ago. Hasn’t forgiven them since. But revenge wasn’t the only thing on the Boss’s mind currently. What really fascinated him about this casino were the various rumors in regards to an apparent mob connection. ‘So there are others here.’ he would initially think. It certainly made the goal of taking over this city a much harder one, but in the same vein it felt far more exciting now.

Whoever this apparent higher management was were definitely hard to track down. Maybe they’ll make themselves known once this whole job is over with. Who knows? He was more than looking forward to dealing with them in the future. But for now all that mattered was the acquisition of this establishment by any means necessary.

From the intel that was gathered it seemed as if there was a low number of patrons in the casino currently. Excellent. The fewer citizens they needed to deal with the better. Gave the Saints much more room to really go all out on their enemies. With everything now set in place it was time to move out. A portion of the gang would stay behind as there was an obvious need to have people here to look after their territory. The rest would ride towards the casino in various cars and trucks while the higher ups would find themselves in a limo the Boss had rented for the night. What better of a way to make an entrance then by coming in with style.

Even if tonight wasn’t one of their more particularly busier evenings there was still quite a number of people within the casino. Slots, blackjack, poker, you name it. Any and all forms of gambling resided within this building. The variety helped the people running this joint make quite the profit, not to mention it definitely wet their customers’ appetites into taking part in much more lucrative games with drastically higher stakes. It was a strategy that had helped them make a vast fortune here in Spirale, and it was all going to be toppled down in one night.

Out in the streets of Fibonacci the usual sounds one could hear throughout the ward were immediately drowned out by a limousine hurdling down towards the casino, music blasting from the inside of the vehicle. Several other vehicles followed alongside it almost as if this was a motorcade of some sort. Eventually they all arrived outside of the casino, the limousine pulling up right by the entrance. Stepping outside of the limo were a handful of people, some who may be recognizable to anyone who might have caught a glimpse of a certain weapons store robbery months ago.

Each one of them seemed to be carrying a handful of weapons; rifles, pistols, shotguns, knives, anything to prepare themselves for what was to occur. And as the group from the limousine made their way inside of the building a large number of people clad in purple followed behind them, some staying out by the entrance for what could only be assumed as a means to keep an eye on anyone who may try to enter or leave.

As soon as they were inside of the casino a member of security immediately spotted them and began making his way towards the large crowd. Yet before the poor bastard even had a chance to utter a single word or even make any kind of move, the smallest member of the group from the limousine used the umbrella she carried on her person to stab him repeatedly in the abdomen. Several dozen or so of the people clad in purple stayed behind to deal with anyone else in security, the rest heading into what would be described as the main part of the building which hosted all these casino games.

The largest of the limousine group, a man dressed in a fine suit and wearing what looked to be a high-tech mask that resembled an oni, quickly took the rifle strapped to his back and began firing it into the air in order to gather everyone’s attention. And just like that people were already screaming and trying their damn hardest to duck under any piece of furniture they could find out of fear of getting shot. As this went on security began frantically trying to get a hold of backup with no such luck. Seemed as if any means to communicate with people in other parts of the building or outside of it had been cut off. A panic had soon settled in; various members of staff trying to figure out who exactly were these guys. Did they have any relation to the two madmen who shot up the place months ago? No, couldn’t be. This was far more organized than that spur of the moment massacre.

It had to be a gang. But why target this place? Opportunity? A grudge? Could practically be anything. However, the reason really didn’t matter at the end of the day. These people had had the gall, no, the audacity to break into this building and act like they could do whatever the hell they wanted. That was not going to slide with any of the members of staff on board. They would do what they can to slaughter these fools and remind everyone what kind of power they held here.

Sadly that was not going to happen.

" Evening, people! Hope you’re all doing well tonight. ” says the large man in the oni mask, who at this point was thought to be the one in charge. “ Just wanted to quickly apologize for ruining any of the fun you might’ve been having. We kinda have some business that needs to be taken care of with the people running the joint here. Figured it’d be best to get it outta the way now rather than later. ” As he says this he makes his way towards one of the many tables littered about the area, climbing on top of it to use as a makeshift stage.

“ Now just so we’re clear none of you are involved with this little matter at all. So I figured it’d be best to ask y’all to leave the place and forget all about this. ” His tone now turns to one of sarcastic empathy despite his voice being modulated. “ I know, it must suck real bad to quit in the middle of that win streak you’re having. But I promise you all you’ll be compensated on your way out! Might not be a whole lot of Dust, sure, but I think it’s safe t’ say that with the money you’re receiving and the promise of not being caught in the middle of a shoot out you’re getting a pretty good fuckin’ deal right now. ”

Anyone with half a brain could realize how good this was. If they didn’t then that was their own damn fault, but the man in charge knew how people were. He knew what would sound good to them. A bit of money and their lives intact? In this situation that was basically a jackpot. Bit by bit people would make their way towards the front entrance, the people clad in purple compensating them for their time before shooing them off and making sure they wouldn’t say shit. 

In truth there was bound to be a few dozen or so who would speak to authorities, but by the time any formal investigation would be made there wouldn’t be a trace of evidence to prove what exactly they witnessed.

With all patrons of this casino now having left it was time to actually get this show on the road. “ I think it’s pretty obvious what we intend to do here. You guys are smart, right? I’m sure one of you already went and tattled to whoever the fuck is running the place. Soooo let’s just get to it, huh? ” As he says this more and more of the ‘staff’ begins to enter from other parts of the building. Unfortunately they can’t make due with any outside help, but to them this seems to be enough. “ Oh fuck, where are my manners. Forgot to introduce myself! So, hi. I’m the Boss of the 3rd Street Saints. Pretty sure you might’ve heard of the gang and I here and there, yeah? I’ve heard a lot about you guys too. A whole lot of real interesting shit. ”

It’s difficult to tell with the mask on but there’s a clear sense that the Boss is smiling behind it. If anything the mask acts as a means to represent that given its design. “ I know you assholes are working for an even bigger set of assholes somewhere in this city. Don’t know who the hell they are just yet but I’m hoping t’ meet them sometime soon. Maybe they can take this as an open invitation for just that. ” As he lets out a laugh the rest of the casino’s ‘staff’ begins to draw weapons on the Boss and the Saints surrounding him. Just like his last encounter with them they were all armed to the teeth. How exciting.

Now if only the Boss knew what kind of chain reaction would be caused by this one act of defiance.

There was nothing more to say. Nothing more to do other than let the carnage start. And so with that the Boss gestures to his Saints to begin the fight, shouting out “ LEEEEEEEET’S GET IT ON! ” before racing over to a slot machine and ripping the device out of its place, using that monster strength of his to throw it at the opposition. He uses the confusion over his improvised weapon to begin firing away at much of the security personnel, ducking and weaving behind cover as he slowly makes his way to where he assumes the office of the man in charge here is.

@liketorchwork, @rooksassassin, @trggrhppy, @maxequerade, @harliquinn, @parasmol

[ravenaveira]

Who’s most likely on the chopping block SPOILERS AHEAD

Ok in the latest trailer we see literally everybody's getting bodied and it looks like pretty much everyone's gonna die or at least a majority of them will but realistically speaking I dont think KH3 is gonna be THAT dark

HOWEVER I do believe there will be SOME deaths as KH3 is supposed to be the darkest kh game I dont see Nomura letting this be a and they all lived happily ever after ending, but I believe its going to be a more bittersweet ending where the good side wins but at a great cost

So the next question is, whos actually gonna die? well I have some theories on whos the most likely to die and whos most likely gonna survive

For starters Mickey Donald and Goofy are pretty much set in stone they’ll be fine, its not TOTALLY impossible but I highly doubt Nomura or Disney would kill off those iconic characters so lets just mark them off right now to the SAFE list

Aqua, Terra, Ventus and Lea are more unknown, they could die or they could not but I’ll explain why its so up in the air

Aqua can and will be saved so it doesnt make much sense for her to die after we go through all this to save her, that being said she could die trying to protect everyone just like she did in the past but I still think to bring her back only to kill her off is highly unlikely so IMO Aqua is safe

Terra is a gamble, hes been on thin ice since BBS and I always assumed he would eventually die anyway I just didnt know when but I always figured he would eventually muster up the strength to free himself and die to protect his friends, I felt like Terra would possibly end himself to prevent Xehanort from using him to hurt any more people, in this case, I see Terra possibly doing that in this situation and I feel like Terra’s ‘death’ is long overdue since at least to me its been hinted thats where his arc was heading since the end of BBS, so IMO Terra is marked for death

Ventus is also a high possibility, if it wasnt Xehanort it was Vanitas trying to kill Ven although in Vanitas case his reasoning is alot more complicated but the fact remains they have both tried to ‘kill’ him in some way shape or form and have been searching for him for years and now that they’ve finally FOUND him the chances are pretty high that Ven is gonna die, he is in a VERY vulnerable position and unable to fight or defend himself and thanks to Aqua nobody knows where he is or how to save him so Ven is definitely in the danger zone and thats why IMO Ventus is hanging by a thread

Lea is a gamble too, he’s already ‘died’ once, became Axel, died again and became Lea again, to have him die a 3rd time seems excessive but it would be heart-wrenching if he is killed by one of his former friends Saix, Xion or Roxas which although having Lea die AGAIN as I said would be excessive this would DEFINITELY be a dark and tragic ending for Lea and the impact would be much bigger than it was the previous times and it’ll hold that much more weight to it seeing him suffer from the loss of Isa and then keep remembering Xion and Roxas as well only to have one of them be the one to take him down for good is just beyond sad, so even though it may be excessive the impact would be massive which is why IMO Lea is marked for death 

Now to move on to the main two, Riku and Kairi

For starters even with my personal bias against Kairi Im not stupid enough to think shes gonna die infact I think its the opposite, Kairi is HIGHLY unlikely to die and here’s why

She’s part of the main trio that we’ve followed from the start, she’s Sora’s love interest, she’s technically the main female, she’s a princess of heart, she’s a keyblade wielder, in other words she’s too tightly woven into the story that for Nomura to take her out would not only be bold af but also extremely unexpected, its not often that you see a member of the main cast killed off but if they are its almost never the love interest which is why I believe Kairi is safe

Their also hyping up the romance way too much for them to just kill her off, unless this whole ‘oath’ and ‘dont think twice’ is just one big red herring and they pull a 180 not only would that be risky af but also pretty danm genius cuz nobody would see that coming but I will not be mad at it and infact would appreciate Nomura even more for takin such a huge risk that not many others would take, although I already know majority of the fandom wouldnt agree with me on that and I think Nomura is aware of the shitstorm he would get if he did that aswell so yea Kairi is definitely safe

Riku not so much, unlike Kairi, Riku is not a love interest or atleast not the one Nomura intended, true Riku is also a part of the main trio but the rival/best friend always has the higher chance of dying to protect the MC than the main female/love interest does

You also have to look at Riku’s character arc, his growth from giving into the darkness and doing horrible things to his journey of redemption, I believe his final atonement would be giving his life to protect Sora who in the past he had hurt so much, this and it leaves Sora still alive to save the world and defeat Xehanort since in the scene we see Sora doesnt have his keyblade and hes on his knees about to be attacked by a swarm of heartless and Riku being the last man standing protects him and if not for Riku, Sora would have died there, but Riku despite all odds against him, gives his all in protecting Sora

Someone made an interesting comparison of when Axel was fading away after ‘putting his whole being into an attack’ from the looks of the trailer Riku is DEFINITELY giving his all in this attack, Riku is ready and willing to die for Sora which is why Riku IMO is marked for death

But I also dont think Riku is gone for good, I think he might become a nobody and he IS the only one in the main trio who hasnt had a nobody, granted because he’s never been in a situation TO have one but now is the perfect time with the perfect setup for this to happen and come into play

How exactly this will play out in the future? I have no idea and until we play the game I cant think of any theories BUT I dont think Riku’s gonna be gone for good, I think he’ll have a Lea situation where he becomes a nobody, ‘dies’ then returns to being his somebody again, or in other words is revived/reborn

Anyway thats all for my theories on who’s most likely to die on the heroes side but what about the villains?

Saix is definitely marked for death, same for most of the seekers of darkness, Vanitas and Ventus MIGHT actually make peace and accept one another and reunite so in a way you could say Vanitas ‘dies’ or he could go tragically and be killed being separated from Ven forever once again

And of course Xehanort is definitely gonna die, he’s the only one I am atleast 98% sure is going to die because at this point he has to unless they go the Iron Blooded Orphans route where literally almost all of the good guys DIE and the bad guys actually WIN with our heroes just having to live in hiding defeated Xehanort is almost gauranteed to die so IMO Xehanort is dead

Now to explain my ranking before I end this post so some of you who may be confused understand what I mean

Marked for death - means they have a target on their back and are within the enemies crosshairs and are highly likely to die unless they are saved by some deus ex machina and a miracle happens

Hanging by a thread - means that they are close to death but not quite sure if they’ll actually die hence why their hanging by a thread, maybe it’ll snap maybe it wont just gotta wait and see how things play out

Safe is self explanatory and the same applies for Dead

Thats everything, let me know if you agree or disagree or you think someone else will die that I didnt mention and why

[sclaret]

riley’s official bio under the cut! ill certainly reblog updates!! ^^

Name: ‘Unknown’

Alias: Claret

Battle Theme- GG Magree: One By One

Weapon/s:

The Spectra: Claret’s signature weapon. While its named for the varied colors that illuminates from its blade with no natural or artificial light required to shine, its appearance is as beautiful as it is lethal. Its blade is known to never dull, and will remain sharp until the current wielder dies, and moves to the next one; still remaining its perfect form. The sword has many other features than just a single bladed weapon. The blade can be split, and can be separated into dual daggers from its handle. Both forms can temporarily blind potential enemies if pointed and used correctly, giving the wielder an advantage in combat. The sword requires at least someone who knows their way around a blade with a decent grip. If used recklessly, it has the ability to potentially blind them for good.

Because the blade shines eternally, it is disadvantageous and not recommended to be used at night. Its light can be temporarily dimmed by sprinkling the essence of Ora, for it is the only power source that can outmatch its energy.

The Overrider: Found on her right eye, Claret has a device that allows her to override any given machine with no limit to size. the bigger the machine is, the longer it takes to hack. Since it takes a very long while to recharge, she tries not to abuse it too often and only takes it upon situations that really require it. Using The Overrider, she can turn any hostile machine or weapon (like a gatling gun) to a friendly one, providing as a distraction for enemies she doesn’t prefer on confronting and buying her some time while she heads for her main target.

It cannot be used on humans. when used on an android, its result will only lead to its malfunction and it will attack anyone.

Small dagger: Claret’s old yet trusty dagger, found on the strap on top of her boot. When things go south (and that’s most of the time), the dagger is her best friend. Is considered Claret’s favorite weapon.

Generic space gun: Claret’s solution when she doesn’t want anyone’s ugly face getting too near her.

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Team: ’’Who needs a team when you have yourself?!’’

Personality: Beautifully badass.

Background: Charming and sassy as she is deadly, she is know as a thie  and no one sees her coming. Witnesses so far who have lived to tell the tale say that all they saw when she strikes was the flowing of a red scarf, and smelling the faint scent of wine. With all the similar testimonies and her name remaining a mystery, she earns the name ‘Claret’ from the criminal world, which soon spread everywhere.

She loves fueling her ego, seeing how everyone either hates her or loves her. They either want her hand in marriage or her hand as a trophy. If you’re looking for someone who doesn’t give a shit, Claret will make that a negative. All she wants is a good time.

Origin Story:

It seemed like such an ordinary day in the mining fields.

While her job wasn’t exactly satisfying nor was it considered worth the hardwork, every penny counts when it means feeding her and her younger sister.  The field was soon targeted by unknown sources, exploding from a dirty bomb attack. The dirty bomb resulted to contaminated air, giving the people who worked that day terminal illnesses, body deformities, and even death. It became known as one of the most despicable acts to be done known to man, and remained as a ghost story.

Miraculously, the girl was able to survive but was in a very critical state. With Claret filled with nothing but guilt and desperation to find a way to afford her sister’s medication considering how knee deep they were in poverty, the simplest solution in that point was to turn to a life of crime. Later on, the younger girl who initially thought of this as temporary, finds herself earning her way to the top and being known as a feared, respected and certainly intelligent thief known in Demaxia.

Additional Details

A day before the unexpected attack, Charlotte, Claret’s sister, secretly takes a piece of a brightly colored precious stone with the color of cyan. She carves it and gifts it to Claret for her birthday. Claret treasures it more than any valuable artifact she’s stolen and wears it as an accessory as an earring. She would give her blade if it meant saving it...if only she considered herself noble. Claret would rather give the Spectra, go to their base, kill everyone, and then retrieve it. It sounded easy enough..and it was!

Claret keeps her life as a criminal a secret from Charlotte and hides her in a very remote area that was basically invisible to the galactic map. Whenever she goes back to her and gives her a gift from one of her heists, her sister often questions where she got it from. She simply lies or dodges the subject.

 While the thief usually acts like she doesn’t care and wants nothing to do with the Demaxian Empire, she resents them with a burning passion. After what happened to her sister she could only dream if only the higher ups actually cared about the people on their class and maybe none of it would have happened. But knowing that they think of their lives as expendable, she had every right to loathe them with every fiber of her being. If she could, she would crush the Empire to pieces with her own two hands. But alas, the best she could do in her power was steal anything they considered valuable. They took everything from her. what’s stopping her from doing the same?

When Claret prefers not to get her hands dirty, she uses the next best thing next to punching someone to oblivion to get what she wants: Her charm.

Claret’s a gambling addict who loves to gloat. When the bounty hunter wins a poker match, she refuses the money and asks for something else. Specifically, for her competitors to wear baggy clothes and put on the big wooden name tag labelled “LOSER”. But of course, she’s not satisfied with just that. Claret wants them to serve her, be her footstool, give her shoulder massages, anything that requires locomotion. And with the glowing, sharp blade stained with the color of red glowing through her long coat? She dares them to fight back.

Claret prefers working alone. She doesn’t like anyone slowing her down, but doesn’t like the idea of anyone better than her either. She’s the best in her own mind and heart and that’s all that matters to her.

Skills include: Pickpocketing, lockpicking, hand-to-hand combat, sword wielding, lying, flirting, hacking, stabbing, stealing, piloting

She refuses to take jobs that require her to kill innocent people. She doesn’t see any point or fun in eliminating someone who doesn’t fight back. She’ll only deem it necessary to plot revenge against people who screw her over.

Claret hisses.

Flirts with anything that moves.

[zoeyparker281]

Biggest 안전한놀이터주소 Win Ever - Broke the Bank  #3248

The Queens, except the Queen of Diamonds, hold flowers and wear large embroidered cloaks. The Knave of Hearts is the only one seen in full face, the rest in profile, and the Knave of Spades has his hair in plaits. http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=안전메이저놀이터 Racinos differ from traditional VLTs in that all video lottery games are played on a gaming machine. Thanks to "Divorce," Marriage will be nothing more than the voluntary combination of Modesty and Wisdom, which is what the word "Modesty" means, and the statuette of modest Venus which is placed next to "Liberty", (is) one of its homes. * High Card – any five unmatched cards ranked as the highest card (Example – 5 of Spades, 9 of Clubs, 7 of Clubs, 2 of Hearts and Ace of Diamonds would be considered ‘Ace High’). In the instance where both the dealer and player have hands of matching value by the above table the hand is considered a push and the player’s bets are returned.

If instead the roll is 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10, the Come bet will be moved by the base dealer onto a box representing the number the shooter threw. Understand the way the bets are placed and know that you have a maximum of three bets available to you. You must begin by placing a wager on Ante so you can be dealt in the game. After you have seen the cards you were dealt, you will place a Raise bet that is always 2x Ante. Following the inspection of the cards by the dealer and the verification by the floorperson assigned to the table, the cards shall be spread out face up on the table for visual inspection by the first player to arrive at the table. This made it easier to play with and a cheaper option to print for companies.

Each has their corresponding markings and are split into two color groups; clubs and spades being black and diamonds and hearts being red. Casinos want to keep their best customers coming back. Casino developments have created important contributions to the tourism industries in recent years (Wan, 2012). So who is correct? Both, in a way.

The majority of Caribbean Stud Poker games also offer a side bet usually referred to simply as the ‘Jackpot’ bet. This side bet is optional but if the player chooses to place the Jackpot bet it costs $/€/£1 and the results are based only on the player’s hand. The $1 bills pay at odds of 1 to 1, the $2 bills at 2 to 1, the $5 bills at 5 to 1, and so on. The joker and the logo pay at odds of 40 to 1 or 45 to 1, depending on local gaming regulations or the practice of the casino. 온라인바둑이 Any three cards of the same rank together with any two cards of the same rank. Our example shows "Aces full of Kings" and it is a bigger full house than "Kings full of Aces." Like many casino games, the history of this game is sordid, and there are many different variations of where it originally spawned. This house game was created in hopes to attract more poker players to the tables, but it is not known for sure who invented the game and wrote the rules, though gambling authority David Sklansky claims he did in 1982 under the name Casino Poker, but was unable to patent the game.

Taking vig only on wins lowers house edge. Players may removed or reduce this bet (bet must be at least table minimum) anytime before it loses. Some casinos in Las Vegas allow players to lay table minimum plus vig if desired and win less than table minimum. Lay bet maximums are equal to the table maximum win, so if a player wishes to lay the 4 or 10, he or she may bet twice at amount of the table maximum for the win to be table maximum. The hand with the lower value is called the front hand, and the hand with the higher value is called the rear hand.The dealer may return $5 to the player and place the other $4 on the horn bet which lost. If the player does not want the bet replenished, he or she should request any or all bets be taken down. The known way of playing blackjack and getting an advantage is by counting cards and playing a close to break-even game when the rules are liberal.

For example, after 10 rounds at 1 unit per round, the standard deviation will be 2 × 1 × √10 × 18/38 × 20/38 = 3.16 units. After 10 rounds, the expected loss will be 10 × 1 × 5.26% = 0.53. As you can see, standard deviation is many times the magnitude of the expected loss. As casinos do not allow any kind of computers, a graphical user interface would be of no usage anyway.In the United States, Las Vegas reigns supreme, but Indian reservation casinos across the country are a huge force in the industry as well - despite humble origins. The dealers will insist that the shooter roll with one hand and that the dice bounce off the far wall surrounding the table.

Some casinos (especially all those in Atlantic City) do not even offer the Big 6 & 8. The bets are located in the corners behind the pass line, and bets may be placed directly by players. The 5% vig would be $1 based on the $20 win. (not $2 based on the $40 bet as the way buy bet commissions are figured.)If the shooter rolls any seven before repeating the point number (a "seven-out"), the Pass line loses, the Don't Pass line wins, and the dice pass clockwise to the next new shooter for the next round. This bet must be at least the table minimum and at most the table maximum.

Harrah's Entertainment explains that Profile of the American Casino Gambler is based on two studies: 6/5 Jacks or Better cuts the Full House payout from 9x your bet to 6x your bet, and also cuts the Flush payout from 6x your bet to 5x your bet.While some are down to pure chance (keno, scratch cards), there are other casino games in which you can improve your chances of winning (blackjack, poker) depending on how you play. The House is one the funniest gambling-themed movies around featuring Amy Poehler and Will Ferrel, and it might even stand right next to other classics like Vegas Vacation.