#team skull complaints box

[guzmabuglord]

*You receive a package, it's a jar about the size of a large pickle jar, inside is a red liquid, in which floats red orbs about the size of a golfball. Tied to the jar is a note.*

"Howdy there, hope this finds you well. I figured I would share a taste of the Ohrken region with some of my fellow bloggers. These are a berry native to Ohrken called Cran Berries. These ones have been pickled so they may be a bit tart. Stay safe out there."

-- Ranger Sveppir

yo, thanks. me and a lotta my gang liked em. Golisopod didnt as much, but he’s been picky since he evolved nyway.

[guzmabuglord]

WHO YOU CALLIN EDGY⁉️⁉️

But uh. Me and the crew ain’t involved in that shit anymore— it’s fuckin freaky, yo!! It was ONE time!!!

hey rotumblr, specifically gym leaders, elite four and run of the mill trainers! having a debate with my friend, do you guys tend to twist the effects of your moves?

for example, one trainer created the counter shield, using his Pokemon’s attacks to block the hits or attacks of his opponent, his Buizel spinning while using Water Gun. Is that a legit tactic?

[flor4de4amor]

𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤

click for palestine | read before engaging w my work+acc

warnings: smoking, drinking, party setting

summary: you’re the basketball manager of abby’s team. you hate her, and for why? she can’t help but notice you’re at the same party as her.

She’s a tough player. She bleeds stark crimson, screams confidence, and demands respect on the court. She owns the court and the crowd. As captain of the team and star player, she constantly has girls throwing themselves at her.

“Abby can you sign my tits?”

“Abby can I take a picture with you?” 

“Abby will you go out with me?”

Abby. Abby. Abby.

While, it’s an ego boost, huge, ego boost, she can’t lie and say it doesn’t get boring. Which is why, she absolutely adores you. Team manager, pain in her ass, and absolutely gorgeous. 

Always rolling your eyes at her, cutting her off when she speaks, “forgetting” to film her for the team’s social media. You work overtime to stay out of her way, but that only riles her up more. 

Now she’s got to piss you off. Get in the way of your shots of video, flipping off the camera in group pictures so now they’re totally useless, causing problems so you get in trouble. God, you’re so uptight. Can’t you learn how to have a bit of fun? Fucking stick up your ass. A good time has never hurt anyone.You’re the only one who gets her acting this way. Before you started the Anderson smear campaign, she was a dictator of a captain.

So imagine her surprise, when she sees Little Miss. Prissy at the latest frat party. Miss. Stick Up Her Ass, has quite the tolerance it seems, as she admires you smoking a thick blunt coaxed with a solo cup. She sucks her teeth, closes her hand into a fist, and runs over her knuckles with her thumb. Ms. Perfect, isn’t so perfect after all. 

She can’t help herself. She starts walking towards you, with that stupid smile on her face. “Hey L/N,” she says, looking you up and down. You look upwards at her, glancing away from your phone, and rolling your eyes. You grunt in response and offer a sarcastic smile for supplement. “You really gonna be that way?” She raises her eyebrow and presses her tongue against the side of her cheek.

You gulp down the remainder of your drink, and place the empty cup in her hand. “Yes, I’m gonna be that way with you Abby.” Bitterness is laced throughout your voice. 

She grimaces, though there’s no threat in the sound. “Fuck I ever did to you huh?” She questions, leaning into your frame. It’s too loud in here. Mo Mamba is playing for the eightieth time. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to get in your personal space.  Abby discards the plastic cup while speaking, aimlessly throwing it on the floor. If she had been trying, she probably would’ve landed directly in the trash can. Well, if the hosts had half a brain to even set up a trashcan in this stupid trap house.

You lean further back and fail. The back of your skull hits the dry wood with a soft thump. Abby’s cornered you against the wall. “Nothing.” You sigh. Alcohol glued to your breath. Eyes red and lidded, your lips jutted slightly. You’re too pretty to hate her. It’s a crime!  

“Nothing yeah?” She steals the blunt from your hands, holding it between her thick fingers. “So what’s your fucking issue with me?” She holds the drug to her lips, her arms still boxing you close to her frame.

You look her up and down. “I’m a mandated reporter y’know. I’ve gotta tell Coach you’re smoking.” 

She laughs heartily. Her breath fans against your face, and you smell the Fireball on it. “I get someone else to take my drug test for me, anyway.” She winks at you. You’re attempted to cringe, but maybe it’s the lack of space or your intoxication but you feel heat rushing to your face.

You’re complied to roll your eyes at her comment. “I also have to report that.”

She smiles, licking her lips. “Let me know when you send in the complaint.” The blunt still dangles from her hands and lingers on her lips.  

“Let me know when you’re gonna take a hint and stop teasing me.” You regret the words out of your mouth as soon as you say them. 

She inhales, ghosting impressively. “You wanna be teased?” Her smirk growing, “I’ll show you teasing. Anytime. Just say when L/N.” 

You laugh, tossing your head back, carefully so you don’t hit the wall again. “You’re so not my type,” you state firmly.

“That’s what they all say,” she takes another hit, now blowing rings.

You take the blunt once it leaves her lips. Snatching it from her fingers and capturing it within your own. “You’re being greedy.” You take a large inhale, holding for a minute. Once exhaling, you blow the smoke in her face.

She feigns a pout. You smile and take another inhale. But once ready to breathe out, Abby closes into your face, parting her lips. She gladly inhales your exhale. “That was practically a kiss.” 

“Gross,” you retort, but the smile on your face betrays you. 

“Gross yeah?” She wets her lips, staring heavily at yours.  You nod intensely. Your eyes find their way to her pink lips. “Hm, I’ll show you gross.” She kisses you, softly at first. When you don’t fight her, and in fact moan, she slips her tongue into your wet mouth. You follow suit. Her hand finds its way to your hair. She pulls away, a string of saliva connecting the two of you. “Thought you said I was gross?”

“Cause you are,” you say attempting to keep up your facade. 

“I’ll show you how gross I can really be,” her hand coming up to your face, smushing it. 

You swat away her hand, killing your soul a little in the process. “Absolutely not,” you reply without a hint of conviction in your voice. 

“Our secret hm?” 

When she says it like that who’re you to deny? “Fine. But don’t let me end up on the long list of names of girls you fucked.” You toss your blunt into one of the forgotten drinks. 

She pinches your ass, hand finding its way to your waist, leading you out the door. It’s gonna be a long night and embarrassing practice run on Monday.

divider by: @dollywons

[thenixkat]

Hi sorry for asking im just genuinely curious, what are all the changes you'd make to the sun/ moon anime? Stuff like lusamine, guzma, etc. I love seeing you pop up in the guzma tag to rant abt how they butchered my guy, and im curious of all the stuff you'd personally change abt the anime bc it. It has problems. Sorry again for asking i just love disecting my fav media and discussing its flaws and how to better them!!!!

The biggest change would be letting Lusamine be a villain which in turn would let just about every character that got shafted actually get to have their stories.

Not shying away from her abuse which caused both Gladion and Lillie to runaway from home taking pokemon that were tortured by Lusamine with them. (Hell, you could even hint at some of the issues in Alolan society with overlooking/not talking about or helping with abuse)

Getting rid of the pokemon school angle since, the trial captains literally have only approximately an 8 year that they can be trial captains if the age cut-off is twenty and folks are expected to start their island challenge at 11. Those kids don't have the time to be dicking around at school, especially not the older ones like Kiawe and Mallow. Like, being a trial captain is a huge fucking honor in their society and they'd likely prioritize it over other stuff. Also, I don't care for nerfing characters for no good reason.

Storywise, I think using a combination of the story from the Sun/Moon game with some of the stuff from the Manga version of the story that managed to use stuff from Ultra without downplaying Lusamine's shit could make for the best adaption of the story with a few tweaks. -> Instead of the pokemon school plot, why not have Ash try his hand at being a research assistant? It'd be something new to do with him, give him a reason to be around and work with the professors, give him extra reason to explore Alola, and interact with Aether Foundation, and come in conflict with Team Skull. -> I can also see him trying his hand at the Island Challenge b/c of course, he's the protag. Hell, he can even make friends with the trial captains along the way.

-> Let Lillie be the deuteraganist proper! Let her be an actual trainer to Nebby! I hate some much that the games want us to have her pokemon just cause its the fucking box legendary, that's her pokemon and by all rights it would make more sense for her to catch it b/c that would be safer for Nebby in the long run. -> Not putting Hau on a damn bus for 97 episodes! He's the game *rival*, he's a major fucking character. Let this boy be present from jump and be both Lillie and Ash's rival. Explore his feelings about being stuck in Hala's shadow, the MC's shadow, and his sympathies with Team Skull.

-> ( A complaint I have with the games is I don't think Team Skull should be as rude or distant to Gladion as they are. Like, why would they make fun of him for being homeless if they're squatting in a rundown building? If Team Skull are supposed to be a group of homies and found family against the world, why wouldn't they adopt Gladion's prickly ass and tease him for being an edgelord? Also, just while Guzma acknowledges and respects Gladion for also escaping from and abusive household and wanting to get as strong as he can, I want more to be done with that than just paying lip service. Let them bond. ) -> Ah, yes, where was I? Gladion as a member of Team Skull. Not just hired help/an enforcer like in the games but an actual member. Let him bond with them damnit. And also keep him in a rival role to Ash while being a bad guy. Hell, its been a long time since I've watched the older pokemon seasons but it'd be fun to have a bad guy who keeps a long-running win streak over Ash. Let him keep his anime win streak and be a 'bad' guy.

-> Let Guzma have his role as the decoy big bad! Don't nerf him, don't slander him. Have folks mention him and have him show up at several points and have those eps be fucking heavy for one reason or another. He is a problem of a trainer and knows strategy and covers his team's weaknesses. -> While I hate everything the anime did slandering my guy making him the 'Undefeated' b/c he's a chicken that only targets weaklings, I wanna see Guzma being called the 'Undefeated' for serious, like folks thinking he's a chicken b/c of his ace and not taking every challenge sent his way but no he's actually good like that. I wanna see him beat Ash multiple times, yes Ash needs to beat him at some point to kickstart Guzma's character development but I wanna see him struggle to get that victory. -> You have no idea how much I want to see Guzma interrupt anyone who tries to use a Z move in a battle with him out of pure spite instead of just standing around doing fuck all while folks chant and do the poses. It would make so much more sense if he had his golisopod just sucker punch a pokemon in the middle of the z move stuff. It would be a good way to show that he's ruthless and very intent on bucking tradition. -> After I realized that like Guzma got possessed by a nihiligo in the of games and the manga and we were denied a perfectly good opportunity for a monster!Guzma rampage and opportunity to show how much Team Skull cares about each other that a 'I know yer in there come back to us Boss' and a 'help us save our Boss' could have added, I feel a bit miffed. Like I even commissioned fic to have just that and its good and everyone should read it and share with their friends. -> I do like that Team Skull didn't disband at the end of the anime. Them breaking up is one of the things I don't like about the games. Like, the can reform and stay together. (I also commissioned fic for Team Skull reforming while staying together and its good and everyone should read it and share with their friends)

-> Plumeria would have more things to do if Team Skull in general had more things to do and were taken a lil more seriously than they are in the anime. I do like the idea of her scouting and scoping and infiltrating in disguise. Also, I think she should make it farther in the pokemon league conference than she did b/c she's also a good trainer, and smart, and ruthless too. -> I think if she did make it further in the pokemon league conference and had to fight Guzma then that would be a great opportunity to show that the two characters are actually really good friends and know each other well. Certainly, I'd have Guzma win that fight, I'd also have that fight be the only one where he actually shows good sportsmanship towards his opponent. B/c he likes and respects Plumeria.

When it was on Netflix a few years ago I do remember watching some of the Pokemon Sun/Moon eps. And I remember how strange it felt that the ultra beast stuff had like a goofy Power Rangers type bend with folks suiting up as like a task force to deal with the things and just... idk maybe we should play the aggressive and fearful pokemon from another dimension more seriously. Darker at least. Cause like... ultra beasts kill people, they're a lot more dangerous than pokemon, they can do a good number on the environment more so than the invasives that are native to the dimension that the series takes place in.

[richataylor17]

Who Is A Concussion Specialist?

It is becoming increasingly common for primary care physicians to refer patients with concussion symptoms to a specialist. These professionals have extensive experience in conflict management and understand the specific needs and concerns of competing athletes.

A concussion Specialist helps patients create and follow an effective recovery plan based on their age, activity level, work or school plan, symptoms, and other factors. Proper treatment and a proper management plan can speed up recovery and produce better results. 

Symptoms of Concussion

According to the DFW clinic, symptoms and signs of a concussion may be subtle and may not immediately appear. Symptoms can be last for days, weeks, or even longer, not fixed.

Common symptoms after traumatic brain injury are headache, loss of memory (amnesia), and confusion. Amnesia usually involves forgetting an event that caused a concussion.

Physical symptoms and signs of a concussion may include:

A headache

It's ringing in my ears

Nausea

Vomiting

Tiredness or drowsiness

Sight is dim

Other signs and symptoms of concussion include:

Confusion or a fog

Amnesia surrounding a traumatic event

Dizziness or "seeing the stars."

A witness can see the following signs and symptoms in an unconscious person:

Temporary Loss (although this does not always happen)

Unexplained speech

Delay in answering questions

Surprised appearance

Forgetting, like asking the same question over and over again

You may experience symptoms of conflict immediately, and some may occur within days after the injury, such as:

Focusing complaints and memory

Anger and other personality changes

Sensitivity to light and noise

Sleep disturbances

Psychological problems and depression

Disorders of taste and smell

Risk factors

Activities that may increase your risk of concussion according to the DFW clinic include:

Fall, especially in children and adults

Participating in a high-risk sport, such as soccer, hockey, soccer, rugby, boxing, or other social media

Participating in high-risk sports without proper safety and surveillance equipment

Involvement in car crashes

Being in danger of pedestrians or cyclists

To be a soldier in the war

Being a victim of physical abuse

He has had a conflict in the past 

Specialist or concussion center?

In recent years, various multidisciplinary sports concussion centers have delivered around the U.S. & centers incorporate many specialists into one clinic. 

For example, rehabilitation centers in Fort Worth Texas provide patients with access to neurologists, sports medicine physicians, neuropsychologists, physiatrists, physical therapists, and other specialized physicians who have concussion training and expertise. 

When they work together, these specialists can offer more comprehensive care. Some people may be particularly well-served by an entire team of specialists, including:

People who have a history of concussion

People who are at high risk for more skull injuries

People who have other health issues

Team specialists can address the different health issues caused or exacerbated by a concussive event. Rehabilitation centers in Fort Worth Texas provide required rehabilitation for concussion patients.

Imaging testing

A brain scan may be recommended for some people with symptoms and signs such as severe headaches, fainting, repeated vomiting, or worsening symptoms. Imaging the brain may determine the severity of the injury and may cause bleeding or inflammation of the skull.

Cranial computerized tomography (CT) scan is a common practice in adults to examine the brain after an injury. CT scans use a series of X-rays to obtain various images of your skull and brain.

In children suspected of fainting, CT scans are only preferred if certain conditions, such as the type of injury or symptoms of a fracture, are met. It is to avoid exposure to radiation in young children.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) identifies changes in your brain or identifies potential problems after a collision. MRI uses powerful magnetic and radio waves to generate detailed and precise images of your brain. 

Conclusion

A concussion is a painful brain injury that affects the functioning of your brain. Outcomes are usually temporary but may include headaches and problems with concentration, memory, balance, and communication.

A blow to the head generally causes a concussion. Shaking the head and upper body can also cause friction. Some abrasions cause you to lose consciousness, but most do not. Fall is a very natural cause of concussion.

Concussions are also common while playing a rough game, such as soccer. Most people usually recover completely after a concussion. So it’s good to visit a concussion Specialist who will provide comprehensive care and focus on rehabilitating athletes in sports, work, and school.

[n0cturna1-m3]

Hypothermia & Bad Habits | John "Soap" MacTavish x Male Reader | Angst/Fluff

Fem/Minors DNI

Warnings; Violence, somewhat detailed hypothermia side effects, loss of consciousness, mentioned smoking, injury

A/N; I don't think that this is angsty, but I guess it might be?? idk, you tell me. Also, the injuries MC sustains is not mentioned again only because I fucking forgot 💀

MC's codename is Lynx, based off the animal. I had the Siberian Lynx in mind.

2k words (about)

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

It was well below freezing, even colder because of the windy night, and Y/N could feel it even through his thick clothing. Not even his wool socks aided in his suffering. His hands were so cold that they felt hot, being bare to hold his Bambetov SV.

He was lying on his stomach on the outskirts of the forest that shielded the desolate base, patiently waiting for the target he was required to shoot before the rest of task force 141 could proceed, but it was becoming draining. Snow was quickly piling up over him, sticking to his eyelashes and decorating his gun.

141 was nearby, ready to push inside when they heard the boom of Y/N’s gun, but he didn’t know their coordinates, and he couldn’t remember where he started. His head was foggy and his legs were numb and his shoulders shook slightly, his breathing becoming uneven as the minutes passed. How long had he been out there? Maybe an hour.

“Lynx, how copy?” Ghost’s voice spoke through his walkie. It was muffled from being sandwiched between Y/N’s chest and the thick layer of powder beneath him. He moved his hand carefully to disturb as little of the pristine white and grabbed the speaker, pressing a button on the side and opening his mouth. His teeth started clattering immediately.

“Feckin’ f-freezin,” He said quietly, his hand returning to its previous position. He took a couple of shallow breaths and closed his eyes. When he opened them everything was blurry. "I need a cigarette.”

“Have you seen him yet?” Ghost asked, ignoring Y/N's complaints. Y/N scrunched his eyebrows together and squeezed his eyes shut tight before opening them, his vision clearing slightly.

“Uh, no, not yet. Hopefully soon,” He said in a hushed tone. “I’m having trouble-” Y/N stopped abruptly as the door opened, a tall, broad man in a thick fur coat and an ushanka stepping out into the cold night. Y/N watched him pull a box of cigarettes from his pocket and put one in his mouth.

“What?” Ghost said, shuffling on the other end of the line. Y/N shushed him and aimed, closing one eye and leaning into the scope, slowly angling it so the crosshair was over the man’s face. He eyed him as he flicked open his lighter and leaned into it, getting a good shot of his temple and pulling the trigger when he looked back up. The bullet went straight through his left eye and into his skull. The wall splattered with blood, snow soon turning red when he collapsed into the crystal ice, staining its beauty. The forest echoed from the sound, Y/N cocking the rifle again and pointing to the door, waiting for his soldiers to run out the door with their guns.

“Got him,” Y/N said, shooting the first man to run out the door in between his collarbone and Adam's apple. He heard ghost say something, but it rang on deaf ears as he cocked it again and shot a shorter man who was frantically looking around. He caught a glimpse of Gaz sneaking through a side door, but he was paying more attention to the man pointing a pistol at him. They shot at the same time, Y/N getting him in the chest and the Russian sending it into his shoulder. Y/N grunted but cocked it again, his second shot hitting the middle of his forehead.

He could hear the team sharing information as they searched the building for the documents, taking out whoever they had to on the way, but Y/N could barely understand anything, only catching random words that didn’t make sense to him. He didn’t even register the second shot from an AKU-12 that pierced his shoulder. It felt like a bee sting. He shot the last one outside. The rest must be inside trying to take care of the team.

Letting his head hang forward, burying it in the snow that continued to fall, covering him further. He was finally starting to feel warm. The snow on him was bleeding, and the front of the building was just as bad if not worse. It looked like a massacre; a disgusting mess of red amidst the beauty of snow, of serenity. He lost consciousness at that moment, waking up about 15 minutes later. Soap was shouting over the walkie, Y/N catching bits and pieces after hearing his codename.

“Y/N, how copy? Where are… something…”

Y/N grunted and slurred something that was a jumble of “snow,” “cold,” and “outside.”

“What? Repeat… clearly…”

Y/N huffed in response. In his foggy mind, he had assumed that he was making fun of his accent again.

“Gobshite,” He muttered.

Soap scoffed and asked him another question, but Y/N was gone again, face-first into the snow. When he came around next, someone was hauling him up and wrapping their arm around him, another person taking his right side. Y/N’s feet dragged behind him as he was brought to the heli and lifted on, losing consciousness again.

The prying open of one eye had him groaning, a bright light shining into it. He grabbed the person's wrist and squeezed. They exclaimed at his freezing hands and called out an order that he didn’t understand. Something about hot water.

Someone stripped him of his pants and jacket, removing his linens before being wrapped in a blanket.

The next thing he felt was someone crawling into the blanket with him and feeling their skin on his, him elbowing them and lurching away. The person grunted in pain. They felt burning hot. They were burning Y/N's skin with their own. He grumbled as he was pulled in again but quickly sank into the warmth.

Y/N woke up feeling like a corpse. He was exhausted and his skin was tingling, fingers twitching slightly. His attempt to sit up was pitiful, a pained moan leaving his throat when his head hit the pillow under him.

“Easy there, Lynx,” A woman said from somewhere in the room. She walked over to him with a cup and set it on the table next to him, putting a hand under his back and helping him sit up, a blanket being wrapped around him. “You had it pretty rough out there.” He looked at her as she grabbed a small flashlight and checked his eyes. She took the stethoscope from around her neck and plugged it into her ears, taking the flat end and pressing it to his chest. “Deep breath for me.”

He took a few deep breaths as she moved it to various spots on his chest and back, stopping once she deems it enough and taking his arm, holding the stethoscope to his forearm.

“You sound good. Your eyes are less dilated and your breathing is steady,” She stated, picking up the mug she had placed on the table and giving it to Y/N. He held it in both of his hands and took a sip. Hot tea with a plethora of honey. It tasted of raspberry, strawberry, and flowers. He hummed when it went down his throat. “You scared the team pretty bad. Lucky that they got me on the phone. Meeting you at the heli was a sight to see.” Y/N looked at her questioningly as he took another sip.

“You were limp and naked, save for your boxers. You needed skin contact to warm up quicker,” She explained. “Soap was the same, he had volunteered. His teeth were chattering while he pulled on his pants, it was fantastic. I doubt Gaz will let that go,” She chuckled. Y/N could imagine the scene folding out, likely Price and Ghost helping him onto the truck while Gaz laughed at Soap hopping his pants on. A small smile crept onto his face. “You should probably get some rest. Finish that, and I’ll have one of the guys bring you dinner later.”

Y/N nodded and slumped forward as he sipped on the drink, hearing the door click as she left. His mind wandered as he stared mindlessly at the wall in front of him before finishing the cup and placing it to his side, shuffling under the blankets and covering his head. He was out like a light in an instant.

Soap gave Y/N a shove, holding a bowl of tomato soup in one hand. He grumbled and dug further into the comforter, grunting when Soap pulled the blanket off his head.

“Sit up Y/N, I’ve got your dinner,” He said. Y/N huffed and sat up, scooting back and leaning against the wall, keeping one of the wool blankets wrapped around his shoulders. He put his hands out to hold the bowl, Soap handing it to him and pulling up a chair to sit with him. “You gave us quite the scare.” Y/N hummed in response, not bothering with the spoon and bringing the bowl to his lips. “God, you eat like a pig,” Soap laughed, wincing when Y/N playfully slapped the side of his head.

Y/N returned to his soup, drinking it loudly. A bit ran from the corner of his mouth down his chin. Who could have guessed that hypothermia and passing out for almost an entire day would famish someone? Soap crossed his arms and leaned back as he examined Y/N. He had his colour back which made him relieved.

When he finally lowered the bowl from his lips it was empty. He licked his lips and placed the bowl on the table next to the empty mug and looked at Soap who laughed at him.

“You’ve got soup right about here,” He mocked, motioning to his own mouth. Y/N used the back of his hand to wipe it off and licked it off. “You’re disgusting,” Soap muttered, shaking his head.

“Trasna ort féin,” He grumbled. Soap looked at him with a sceptical face.

“What’d you just say?” He asked.

“Nothin,” He responded, wrapping his blanket around himself tighter. Soap nodded sarcastically. “Aye, I heard you hugged me naked, that true?”

Soap put his head in his hands, laughing while shaking his head. “Yeah, I suppose so. You were fucking freezing! And you hit me!” He laughed.

“Sorry,” Y/N mumbled half heartedly , closing his eyes for a moment.

“You really did scare us though.” Y/N opened them and turned to look at the brunette. He looked upset. “You scared me.”

“The weather changed suddenly, it was unexpected.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Y/N,” He said, looking at him with furrowed eyebrows. Y/N frowned and reached out to grab Soap, pulling him in for a hug and wrapping his arms around him.

“Sorry, Johnny,” Y/N murmured, Johnny’s forehead resting on his shoulder as he took a shaky breath, sitting on the edge of the cot. Y/N patted his back a few times before pulling back and grabbing Johnny’s face in his hands, looking into his eyes. “I won’t scare you again.”

“Can you make that a promise?” He asked, one of his hands cupping Y/N’s

“No promises,” He said, grinning. Y/N leaned in and kissed him on the lips, Johnny reciprocating it instantly. His shock of Y/N sharing these feelings was outweighed by his lips. He had wanted this for so long. Y/N pulled away and pressed a kiss to his forehead and adjusted his hand placement to pepper kisses on his cheeks, eventually making his way back to Johnny’s lips and kissing him quickly. “Does that make up for it?”

"Yeah,"He whispered, nodding and leaning forward, burying his face in Y/N’s chest, the latter wrapping his arms around him and leaning back. Y/N decided that he likes this feeling more than cigarettes at that moment.

[postapocalyptic-cryptic-hold]

Writing Tips: Armor Edition

Good lord, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Regardless, what follows is a non-comprehensive, entirely subjective list of advice on how to write characters with armor. This is based on my own experience with hockey equipment and is largely geared towards Star Wars Mandalorian-style armor (including clones and storm troopers), but could hypothetically be helpful to anyone.

If it's your armor, it's going to be so comfortable you won't even know it's there.

Actually, on that note, you'd notice right away if something was different. You'd also be thrown off by the absence of the armor, either in part or in its entirety.

When you wear armor a lot, you don't need to think about putting it on. It's instinctual.

It takes five minutes to put a set of armor on and fifteen minutes to bitch about it, catch up on locker room gossip, and realize that the insides of your boots aren't as dry as you thought they were.

Again with the putting on armor being instinctual thing... If you're distracted, worried, etc., it's not at all uncommon to forget a piece of your armor. You put it on in the same way every time, so sometimes your brain just... skips, and you end up with shinguards and no skates.

There are several ways to put on any given set of armor. It's a pretty flexible process, but there are some things that have to be done in a certain order.

That being said, everyone has their own "right" way of putting on armor. It usually doesn't vary much within a team or squad, but get a bunch of strangers together and you can bet your ass someone will start a fistfight over the order you put your tops on in.

Armor usually has some sort of padding system inside, especially if it's stiff. This is the part that gets sweaty and gross. It does not dry quickly, but it does get cold and slimy quickly.

With the sweat thing, weearing armor for an extended amount of time gets gross. If you're working out, you're going to get hot really easily (example: 20F ice rink + 2 hour practice = 20 people complaining about how hot it is). There are always parts of your kit that get really itchy and sometimes, the best way to scratch is actually to hit. If your character is wearing a helmet, have them punch themselves in the head repeatedly to scratch an itch.

Even grosser, the sweat that accumulates has nowhere to go. Under a helmet, this means that it occassionally escapes captivity and runs down your face in CLEARLY VISIBLE streams that sting your eyes and taste gross. Under parts of the kit like shin gaurds, you will often find an accumulation of white slime on the skin, clothes, and armor. This is salt from your sweat. It's gross. It looks like ectoplasm.

If you've been working out and you take your armor off, you'll be visibly steaming.

Hair under helmets. GOD, this is always how you can pick out a writer who's never worn a helmet. Lots of people who wear helmets often will cut their hair short, but there's a set of rules to it. If your hair is long enough to tie up, it stays up. All the time. Best styles are low ponytails or braids, as anything too high will probably be uncomfortable under a helmet. The real thing to pay attention to, though, is short hair. If you've got a character with short hair, make sure it's short enough to stay FAR away from their face. Hair in your face is the #1 cause of insanity in helmet-wearers. Shit that's hanging around your ears or, God for-fucking-bid, your chin, is a major no-go.

Thick hair is also a fun thing with helmets. If you've got thick and/or curly hair, you'll need more helmet space for it. If you've got hair that's notoriously a problem, the helmet is going to turn it into snarls. When I had long hair, I would put it in two braids every time I put my helmet on. Every time I took it off, I had to cut the hair ties out.

Hair will also make you hot and itchy under your helmet. Some people will wear skull caps or some other form of tight hat under their helmets to prevent this. Then again, I had a teammate who regularly wore waist-length, THICK box braids under her helmet and never had a complaint. Some people are just built different.

Helmet hair is not cute and fluffy. It's a flat, greasy mess. That being said, the concept of helmet hair is hot, so please continue writing this as you wish.

Armor can be a pain in the ass, but ultimately, when you wear it all the time, you form a deep emotional connection to your kit. Obviously, this varies from person to person, but it almost always plays a key role in your identity and often revolves around themes such as safety, body image, pride, privacy, protection, or sense of unity/team/family. (Side note: depending on the character, armor can also be an expression on individuality, rank, affilitation, or superiority)

Armor smells really bad. That's all I'll say on that topic.

Actually, no it's not. Some people's armor smells REALLY bad. Like, extremely bad. It's a problem. Other people take really good care of their armor or magically don't sweat, so theirs smells better.

If your character is on the move a lot, they probably have some sort of bag for their kit. This bag will be full of the most random shit you can possibly imagine. Socks enter and never return. Some people carry around extra shirts. Isn't that my water bottle? Is that an orange or a rock?

Upgrading armor is a big deal. People agonize over what to get, where to get it, whether or not they can make it, how much it's going to cost, and whether or not to spend three months of pay on it for MONTHS.

Really old, ill-fitting, broken, or otherwise subpar pieces probably have a story to them. They might be good-luck pieces or a long-running joke. Sometimes, you just forget to buy a new jockstrap for four years (not that I would know from personal experience).

If your characters wear helmets a lot, they probably head-butt each other a lot. It's the easiest way to show affection through gear. Other ways include fist bumps, picking each other up by the back of the chest plate, and grabbing the front of someone's helmet (if there's a way to do that, of course). Fist bumps are less personal and helmet-grabs usually denote a superior-inferior relationship [think of it like "I could beat your ass" (affectionate)].

Some people like to keep their kit flawless. They don't like marks or dents. Other people (most people, actually) prefer the look of "broken in" gear. It's a mark of experience and also, it's actually kind of nervewracking to work with a new kit. No one wants to be the first one to scratch the $400 skates.

There will always be a piece of armor that pinches you. It's probably on your elbow.

There will always be a piece of your armor that comes unfastened. It's probably on your elbow.

Loose armor is much harder to move in and much less protective than tight armor. It might seem counterintuitive at first, but you want the most form-fitting kit possible.

That's pretty much all I've got to say about armor. As always, if you've got something to add, don't be afraid to leave it in a reblog or comment. I hope you all enjoyed me once again turning my skating into writing advice!

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “Trapped” Part 3

Almost one year ago, someone tried to kill The Joker in a speeding car and Y/N pushed him out of the way, getting hit instead. With a fractured skull and broken bones, she was out of business for 6 months; when she finally recovered, The Queen of Gotham wasn’t the same anymore. Trapped inside her own mind and exhibiting severe cognitive impairment, Y/N’s life switched upside down without any hope of ever returning to normal.

Part 1       Part 2     Part 4     Part 5

Same day, later in the evening

“What are you doing, Pumpkin?” The Joker crawls next to you although he has an idea about why you look upset.

You’re on your tummy scribbling on a piece of paper and he can tell you are concentrating hard while working on the current project: writing down your name. Only got the first three letters then the rest went blank.

“I….I can’t think…” you intensely stare at the blue pen in between your fingers.

“Of course you can!” J reaches over so he can guide your arm since it’s clear you need help. “There you go… done. Now try to copy it bellow, alright?”

“Hm?”

“Try again Princess,” he taps on the sheet and watches Y/N struggling to imitate the word. “Well done!” The King of Gotham praises. “Wanna give it a shot with a few more simple words?”

“Mmmm…” you debate. “OK?...”

You analyze The Joker’s movements as he depicts four letter words, one of them getting your attention in particular.

“Love?” you smile, happy you deciphered the meaning.

“Yes, a basic…”

“Love?” you scoot over, more and more excited and it clicks for your boyfriend.

“It’s just an example for you to exercise and relearn how to write, understand? It doesn’t mean anything!”

You giggle and touch his nose with yours.

“Love!”

“No Pumpkin! I don’t love you, how did you get such atrocity from my note??!! It has no hidden meaning! I barely, from very afar, remotely, not even similar to love, sort of like you and that’s it!”

You snicker and quickly slide to grab the yellow teddy bear, whispering in its ear:

“Love.”

“Aren’t you listening Princess?? Don’t start fake rumors!!”

Still…Y/N lives on her own little planet and her damaged brain grasped a wonderful concept despite The Clown vehemently dismissing his actions.

“Serves me right for being supportive,” he grumbles and resorts to diversion, the best weapon against your new found logic.

“Wanna read to me?” he points at the pile of children’s books resting on the nightstand: they are the best to use in your present circumstance.

“… … Read?... ” you ask, confused.

“Here,” J picks a random publication and gives it to you.

Might as well fully take advantage.

“Spoil me!” he buries his cheeks in your cleavage, guiding your free hand towards his green locks.

You never figured out how he doesn’t suffocate with his face glued to your skin; sometimes he sleeps like that for hours. Must be a special talent.

“The … ummm… the…. The duck…” you read the first page and massage his scalp, frowning at the words you can’t make sense of. “Cross… … crossed?...”  

“Yeah,” The Joker’s mumbled voice agrees.

“… the… g-glass…” you stutter at the sentence.

“Grass,” J corrects you.

“Hm?...”

“Grass Pumpkin, not glass.”

“Ummm… grass…” you continue to read the best way you can and he rectifies your errors until no more sounds emerge: The King is softly purring, a clear indication he’s dreaming.

You toss the book on the floor, fed up with the difficult task of organizing your thoughts; pampering him is better. You slowly tilt his head backwards so you can kiss him: The Joker frowns in his daze and you pinch his butt, chuckling.

“What is it?” he opens one eye and you pull down on his boxers. “Princess, we had sex an hour ago. Do you think I run on batteries?” the complaint is fast to follow.

... … … Batteries?... …                                            

You jump from the bed and stump to the closet, fumbling around for a couple of minutes before returning to a puzzled Clown.

You stretch the elastic of his underwear, dropping two batteries you snatched from the flashlight inside.

“How… how long do we w-wait?” you innocently ask.

The Joker bites his lip, attempting to contain himself yet he can’t: he bursts out laughing at your quirky solution while dragging you on top of him.

“You’re the funniest and smartest person I know, Pumpkin!” he cracks up, actually convinced he’s telling the truth. “Who’s my clever girl, huh?”

He’s talking about a girl again…What girl?...

Y/N peeks behind her and J reminds his baffled half:

“For God’s sake, Princess! I’m talking about you; you’re my girl! Can you get my phone?” he gestures at his mobile ringing by your pillow.

You give the cell to J, ignoring his conversation with Frost: you keep kissing him with the sole purpose of getting undivided affection.

“I guess Adam is here to pick up the cars you damaged,” he finally ends his chat. “Let’s go supervise the process. Don’t be disappointed, Pumpkin, we’ll have fun later. It’s your fault for destroying my collection!”

****************

The Joker watches his crew sweeping the concrete in the garage: broken glass, pieces of metal and debris scattered on the pavement after his vehicles were hauled inside huge trucks in order to be transported to Adam’s workshop for repairs.

“Thanks a lot, Y/N!” he growls, frustrated.

“Y-you’re welcome,” you serenely reply without a care in the universe.

“You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me, Princess!” he huffs at your indifference.

“Love,” you confess to the fluffy toy squished in your embrace.

“I heard that and it’s an aberration! Why do you keep persisting with this nonsense?! I’m literally stating the opposite!” J admonishes but who’s listening to him?

Not Y/N.

“Nolan is texting me,” he changes subject. “He wants me to meet him at his warehouse to inspect the boxes of ammo for the deal. Will you accompany me?”

“Hm?”

“Car ride?” The King of Gotham simplifies his request.

“U-hum!” you nod, preparing to enter the purple Lamborghini which luckily wasn’t in the garage when you smashed J’s cars.

“Frost, if you see me parked up the street in the driving alley, don’t come investigate, got it? This woman’s been pestering me for extracurricular activities, might not make it inside the mansion.”

“Of course, sir!” Jonny finds it wise to consent to his boss’s rambling.

“Tell everyone: if the Lamborghini’s rockin’, don’t come knockin’!”

**************

You’re sitting on J’s lap, completely blocking the arrangements happening at the table: you’re more preoccupied with your game than whatever it is they are negotiating about.

“What are you playing, Y/N?” Nolan curiously inquires because your thumbs are surely moving at a crazy speed on your cell’s screen.

“Hm?” you stop and gaze his way.

“What are you playing?” the man repeats.

“Mmmmm… Tetrixx Bricks.”

“What level are you on?” Nolan leans over, his eyes getting big at the revelation. “Holy shit, Y/N! How did you make it this far??! I’ve been striving to pass level 98 for a month!”

“She’s smart, that’s how!” your boyfriend sassily underlines.

“Do you think that you can help me?” the guy slides his phone in front of you.

“I’m sorry, is this a gaming party or a business matter?!” The Joker scoffs.

“Well, we’re pretty much done: we accepted the terms, we just have to move the merchandise in the morning.”

You are already matching the colorful blocks on Nolan’s game, his face ecstatic when the obnoxious song announces with great fanfare: “Level Up!”

“Holy cow!!!!” he shouts and you return his phone. “Thank you!”

“Hey Y/N,” one of the mobster’s henchmen dares to voice his demand. “Would you help me too? I’m stuck on level 76.”

“I’m dead on 105,” another goon mumbles under his breath, stepping in the line forming to your left.

J would normally cut off this useless waste of his precious time yet he can’t deny the gratification building up in his heart: heavens knows how it feels to be trapped inside your own mind and his girl has definitely battled unimaginable odds to be where she’s at right now.

Living with cognitive impairment is not easy, but she’s still here and it beats the alternative.

“Good job, Pumpkin!” The Clown boasts at the long string of cell phones parading through your fingers while you aid Nolan’s team leveling up on Tetrixx Bricks.

And somehow his hands are holding you tighter, not even bored with the random outcome of his meeting.

**************

You escaped on the terrace for a break and J is discussing the last details with your host: tomorrow you have a routine checkup, thus he has to wrap it up soon.

“Out of my way, half-wit!” Derek aka Nolan’s oldest son pushes you. Would he have done it if you were the same individual from almost a year ago? Nope. Apparently he believes he’s entitled to take advantage of Y/N since she’s alone outside.

“Why did Mister Joker bring you anyway?” he lights up a cigarette, annoyed. “Stupid monosyllabic bitch!” he ogles your summer dress, swiftly lifting it. “Are you wearing diapers?” he chuckles as you walk backwards, trying to process what he’s throwing at you. “Come on, show me!” he approaches and carefully scouts the premises to ensure you two don’t have company.

Perhaps the neurons in your brain are overcharged for the moment; nevertheless, they warn of imminent altercation: the dude’s a total douchebag.

“Are you shy?” Derek grins. “C’mon, lemme see!! Oooohh…fuuuuck…” he bends over in pain when your knee unexpectedly kicks him in the crotch: you used all your strength and he drops down, curling up in a ball. “God…dammit!” Derek shrieks at the defense he didn’t anticipate.

“I…I’m not wearing diapers!” you stammer and because he landed on the edge of the pool you roll him in the water also.

The loud splash makes The Joker wave at you, glad he eventually found you: he’s been searching around the warehouse for the last 5 minutes.

“There you are! Quit playing around, Pumpkin; we have a swimming pool at home!”

You rush by his side eager to bail before the asshole pops up from the bottom of the pond.

“Sushi for dinner?” J suggests and Y/N is not the type of individual to reject one of her favorite dishes.

“I…I love sushi,” you smile elbowing him. “Love.”

“Don’t start with me again!” The King barks at your obvious hint.

*************

“Are you eating the last piece?” he glares at your salmon roll.

“No,” you offer the treat to him. “You…you need it more,” Y/N verbalizes her concern regarding his well-being.

“Can’t disagree, Pumpkin. You exhausted me you naughty girl,” J pretends to be super tired. “What can I do? Princess wants, Princess gets,” he inhales, resigned.

You’re not focusing on his whining: frankly, your intellect has been challenged enough for today. You cuddle in his arms while he chews on his food and watch TV without paying attention to the movie.

“Don’t forget tomorrow morning you have your doctor’s appointment,” J mentions. “I have to stay and wait for the guns I purchased from Nolan; you’ll have to manage without me. I’ll send an escort, deal?”

“U-hum.”

“Don’t yawn, Pumpkin. I’m the one that should yawn,” The Joker scratches his thigh. “This move sucks,” he pouts and turns off the TV. “I have a better idea,” he chooses a kid’s book from the stack. “Read to me.”

You open the textbook and although your brain is overwhelmed, you still make an effort for his sake.

“Mmm… Rainy… sky… Skies?...”

“Yup,” he turns on his side and nuzzles in your hair.

“Float over…hmm… t-town…”, your voice echoes in the room, soothing a worn out Joker.

Strange he can’t properly rest unless you read to him: after all J barely, from very afar, remotely, not even similar to love, sort of likes you.

Also read: MASTERLIST

You can follow me on Ao3 and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[tappytabbyart]

RA Rambles- Someone told part 1

2 years at black mesa and she hadn’t had a single issue to ever complain about at black mesa. Why would she? A cushy researcher job that had served her well and was able to work with limited “ethical” questions asked. Especially when it came to the steroid experiments she was conducting on her current batch of subject of apes. It was going so well too; she was close to a breakthrough. So incredibly close to moving on with what type of subjects she could work on…

But no, on paper the admin’s kid Mathew, was the one close to the breakthrough. Not that the name mattered to her. In her head and in private settings the kids name was Bastard. She stayed quiet of course. Father had taught her to do so. Stay quiet, gather evidence and solve the issue with no trouble. After all, the boy served no use in the lab. He manhandled the already very aggravated apes and could not spell half of the terms she wrote about. A pure example of her father’s model of a useless and broken person who has not been taught how to live by themselves.

Why if she had a choice in the matter at hand, she would have had them removed and taken to wherever the missing black mesa employees went. No questions asked and no looking back. But that approach, the one that involved her being loud and drawing attention to herself would have her taken instantly. And that just would not work in her favour. That or at the very least moved into a least favourable department. Gods, if she ended up with the necromancy department…ugh. No one likes them. Creepy body horror freaks who flaunt their extravagance freely. Barely worth her time, not when she had Bastard to deal with.

She was nearly ready to submit an anonymous complain with the help of her partner Tony. They were going to fill the form in over lunch, a form disguised as some notes for a possible research project. She didn’t need to lose her job over this, and she didn’t want her name attached to it either. The fact that Bastard has stolen other people’s work served this plan well.

Or it would if she wasn’t called into some impromptu performance review of her work. She hated to leave Tony waiting but the message she got about this seemed urgent. However, she had a gut feeling that something was up about the entire thing. She would have asked someone to come with her, but most had left the lab by the time she had to go to the meeting.

The walk there was eerie and made that feeling of dread growing in the back of her skull. The feeling that this was going to be her end and – no. She stops that spiralling thought as she approaches the room, she was meant to have her performance review. Putting that thought into a little box at the back of her head and with a light knock on the door she walked into the room.

Why is it a dark interrogation room?

“I’m here for my performance review? Am I in the right room?” She asks quietly. A stern looking man in a suit crisp enough to cut steel sat in the dark interrogation room looking over a folder. Lifting his head in my direct causing me to hesitate.

“Ms Judith Wells, nice of you to arrive on time. Have a seat” She guesses that’s an answer, but she hesitates a bit.

Something isn’t right, the room is too dark, and she can only see the man and the table containing a single manila folder. When tries to step away she is dragged into the dark room by armed guards and the door closes behind her.

Uh oh.

“We’ve been informed by an anonymous source that you intend to put a complaint in about plagiarism that Mr Andrian has done” That statement implied that they knew. They knew someone was stealing her work and they let it go on.  She decided to stay quiet and just glare, how dare they allow this to happen. Her hard work was being stolen.

“No explanation…oh well. As it stands, Mr Andrian’s father can’t have that serious of a complaint go against his son and ruin his reputation as a result. As a result, he has moved you onto a new project away from his son. “She raised an eyebrow before responding.

“What project?” She inquired.

“Ah, this is where it gets interesting. You aren’t going to be part of the research team” He ended saying that with a sly smile. He did not have to elaborate, and she didn’t want to stay.

“No thanks you, I’ll stay with my current one. “As she got up and walked towards the door to leave, she is grabbed roughly by the armed guards by the door.

“A very bold assumption to make. No, I am afraid to inform you that you don’t have a choice.” He gives a quick nod, and the guards start to drag her out.

“LET ME GO!” As much as she repeats those three words she is never seen or heard from again.

She no longer cared what the man in the suit said or why she was there. She wanted out. She wanted to see Tony again. Wanted free from the tiny dark room and the guards trying to hold her down. She even managed to wriggle out but her escape was instantly cut short by one of the guards tackling and pulling her arm back forcefully.

Too forcefully…her arm isn’t meant to make that much crunching noises all at once. Her arm isn’t meant to be in this much pain. Her arm looks wrong. They broke her arm…She started screaming but it quickly died in her throat as she felt a needle prick on her neck.

The world then went dark and no one would see Judith again.

[miss-ingno]

Amateur Hour

Fandom: RTAH FAHC Ship: Freewood (Ryan/Gavin) Words: 4.5k Tags: pre-fahc, Battle Buddies, Meet Cute, flirting, action comedy, bank robbery, hostage situation, comedy of errors

Summary: Gavin is in the middle of robbing the bank, when a pair of robbers decide to ruin his carefully laid plans.

A/N: Inspired by @soulfishie's tags on this post. It's been sitting on my To Write List for two years, and now I finally got around to writing it. Hope y’all enjoy!

Read here on Ao3.

***

The bank he’d picked was a small one, towards the outskirts of the city. Far enough from anything central and too small for the big fish to bother with, but with enough internal security to deter small fry. Besides, it was easier to attack the weekly armoured transport than bother with the comparatively tiny vault.

If you were a group of people, that is.

Gavin, however, was on his own and on somewhat of a lucky streak. He had intel on a security update, and just the right connections to join the team installing them. It handed him everything he needed on a silver platter: layout, specs on security, and most importantly, an opportunity.

So he bypassed the queue to the teller and approached a guard instead, flashing his temporary work id.

“Hi, I’m with Locke & Steel security consulting? We got a complaint ticket about the work we did last week.” Gavin shrugged, quirking a ‘what can you do’ smile. “I’m here to fix it?”

The guard eyed him with suspicion, and Gavin met him with easy confidence. A touch of affected boredom made it easy to bypass scrutiny, people expected nerves, anxiety from liars. And the best lies were based in truth: Gavin had, after all, worked with the security team to install the new tech.

“One moment, sir,” the guard said, and Gavin nodded, folding his hands and settling in to wait. The guard’s shoulders relaxed minimally, and Gavin knew he’d won already.

Everything was going according to plan. Gavin got behind the teller, making small talk with one of the managers as they ran his id. He wasn’t worried, after all, his cover had passed scrutiny before. From the corner of his eyes he watched as an employee set a jewelry box on the cart inbound for the vault, making a mental note to wait for that to get in before staging his theft.

Then everything went to shit as two men walked in through the front door, one wearing a bright white cowboy hat and the other sporting a skull mask, both of them toting guns. A ripple went through the crowd, attention turning towards them as they strode forward with confidence.

A warning shot echoed through the lobby.

“This is a robbery,” cowboy hat said into the ringing silence, voice pleasant. “Everybody hit the floor.”

Well, fuck.

Gavin dropped behind the teller, mind flashing through contingencies. He could play hostage, but a police background check might blow his cover. Hiding from the robbers seemed like the best choice, but he hadn’t even gotten his hands on anything worthwhile. His gaze fell on the jewelry box. He was pretty sure he saw diamonds earlier, when the owner opened it furtively.

A glance around showed everyone distracted by the robbers.

Perfect.

***

Gavin cursed under his breath, trying to catch the loose screw as it dropped away. It slipped through his fingers, clattering onto the tiles. Gavin stilled, eyeing the door to the toilets over the stall wall warily. 

Silence.

Gavin exhaled, wiping the sweat from his brow, and hefted his backpack higher. Now wasn’t the right time to lose his nerve. He slid the grille from the vent and set it down on the floor as noiselessly as possible. Then he stuffed his backpack in, scrambling up and climbing in after it-

Footsteps, loud and echoing on the tiles, and the door banged open.

Gavin froze.

Bad choice, he should have vanished into the vent or dropped back down to hide in the stall. Instead he was stuck in between, ass hanging out of the vent, clearly visible above the partition. Gavin glanced back over his shoulder, meeting the eyes of the masked man.

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.

Then it was a scramble of who was quicker. The Vagabond - and really, what even was his luck, it had to be the freaking Vagabond - rammed the stall door open, while Gavin kicked at the wall, squirming into the tiny vent. Below him, the toilet flushed as he stepped on the button, and a hand wrapped around his ankle. Gavin squawked, twisting and kicking out, sole connecting with the latex of the mask.

The grip on his ankle tightened, muffled curses followed by a second hand, and then the Vagabond pulled.

Gavin yelped, fingers scabbling fruitlessly over metal, trying to find something to hold on to, some edge to leverage. But the only thing in here with him was his backpack, and he wasn’t taking that with him when he was about to come face to face with bank robbers.

The timing was just perfect.

“Gotcha,” the Vagabond grunted, and Gavin twisted and squirmed, but the Vagabond wrapped an arm around his waist, pinning his arms to his sides.

Gavin threw himself forward with all his weight, and then back as the Vagabond stumbled, hitting him in the chin. Pain blossomed on the back of his head, and the Vagabond cursed under his breath, but tightened his grip.

Something sharp pressed into his side, just below his ribs, and Gavin stilled. A glance down confirmed the Vagabond was holding a knife.

“Will you quit struggling already,” he grumbled, not quite a question, but Gavin nodded anyway and held very still. The knife dropped away as the Vagabond let go of him, only to be replaced with the nuzzle of a gun between his shoulder blades.

“Could I please wash my hands first?” Gavin asked, trying to think, to stall for time.

The Vagabond snorted, gun poking into his back. “Move,” he ordered, giving Gavin a shove.

Gavin stumbled under the force, and then he was slipping, something small and round and hard giving way under his shoe. In a heartbeat of clarity Gavin knew he was slipping on the stupid screw, and then he’s flailing, barely catching himself on his hands before he could break his nose on the floor. His legs tangled with the Vagabond’s, and on instinct Gavin lashed out. The Vagabond faltered, fumbling with his rifle as he tried to regain his balance, and Gavin didn’t stop to think. He took the opportunity, scrambling forward and up, and ran.

Unfortunately, the Vagabond wasn’t distracted for long, raising his rifle and shouting. Luckily for him, Gavin was fast, out of the door and halfway down the hall by the time shots were fired. He turned around the corner, planning to duck behind some decorative plants, when he ran smackdab into the second robber.

He was shorter than the Vagabond, much shorter than Gavin, even. He made up for it with rather broad shoulders and bulging biceps. Orange pants, purple jacket an armoured vest worn under it, orange shirt peeking out in between, the ensemble was topped off with a white cowboy hat. Not nearly as notorious as the Vagabond, but this criminal too had been making a name for himself.

So Gavin ran into Rimmy Tim and bounced off his chest, landing flat on his ass while Tim crossed his arms.

“In my defense,” Gavin blurted out, propping himself up on his elbows. Footsteps behind him announced the Vagabond’s arrival, and Rimmy Tim blocked his way out. “In my defense, I was robbing this bank first.”

“That so?” Tim arched an eyebrow at him, lips twisting into a smirk. “Well, too bad. You’re clearly outgunned.”

There was a click behind him, and Gavin swallowed, all too aware of the rifle pointed at his head. He needed to figure out a different escape plan, and distract them from searching for his backpack.

“Look, I only cleared out that one teller before you burst in, and it was barely enough in bills to pay for my rent-” As long as he ignored the jewelry he took, anyway. “Peanuts compared to what’s in the vault, so really, you’re just wasting time at this point.”

“Why don’t you leave that to us to decide,” Rimmy Tim drawled, nodding to the Vagabond. “You got his backpack?”

“He hid it in the vent,” Vagabond said, and shit, there went that plan. It seemed to show in his expression because Tim shot him a smug look.

“Alright.” He dropped his crossed arms and pulled out a semi-automatic. “Where’s your partner, blondie?”

Gavin opened his mouth, then paused, because what? “Partner?”

Tim mistook his confusion for hesitation. His grin widened. “Nobody’s stupid enough to rob a bank without back-up. Who’s gonna watch the hostages while you’re in the vault, huh?”

“Uh…” Gavin blinked, dumbfounded. “I wasn’t going for the vault?”

“Yeah, right.” Rimmy Tim scoffed. “Pull the other one.”

“So maybe I didn’t have a plan. None of your business, innit?” Gavin snapped, standing up and brushing himself off. In the distance was the familiar sound of sirens, easy to tune out when you lived in Los Santos. Gavin cocked his head as something occurred to him. “Wait. If you’re both here… who’s stopping the manager from calling the cops?”

Tim’s mouth opened, then he paused. Blanching, his mouth snapped shut and he shared a look with the Vagabond.

“Fuck.” Tim’s mouth twisted into a grimace, eyes flickering between Gavin and the Vagabond. A pause in which Gavin could see the gears turning behind Tim’s face, then Vagabond spoke up.

“You got the explosives?”

Tim nodded, expression tight. “Not enough to blow our way into the vault and a way out, though.”

“Tie him up for the cops to find, buy us some time?” the Vagabond suggested. A gloved hand landed on Gavin’s shoulder, pinning him in place. Tim met his eyes, seriously considering that, and no, thank you.

“Or,” Gavin blurted out, because no way was he getting caught because these two had terrible timing, “I could get you into the vault and you can use your explosives to blow out the wall.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tim raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. “And how are you going to do that, exactly?”

“I’ve got the tools in my backpack,” Gavin explained, nodding his head towards the washroom. “Just let me get it, and I’ll clear your way.”

“‘Didn’t have a plan’, was it,” the Vagabond drawled, echoing his earlier words. Gavin huffed, starting to get annoyed by these assholes ruining his foolproof heist. If you ignored the fact that he was improvising his way into the vault. Or his way out, if he didn’t get caught.

“Don’t need a partner if I sneak in by myself, do I?” He shrugged the Vagabond’s hand off and turned to Rimmy Tim. “Your choice. We going or are we waiting here until the cops show up?”

Tim levelled a glare at him, but gestured towards the Vagabond. “You grab his bag, I’ll take him with me to the vault.”

The Vagabond gave him a sharp nod, turning on his heel to follow his command. Tim narrowed his eyes at Gavin, cracking his knuckles pointedly. “No funny business, got it? You’re still outgunned.”

Seeing as he had no weapons on him, Gavin had to give him that. So he shrugged, putting on a shit-eating grin. “After you.”

“Oh no, buddy.” Rimmy Tim shoved him ahead, one hand hovering over his rifle. “You first, I’ll be right behind you.”

Gavin shrugged and led the way. He had a sneaking suspicion that Rimmy Tim was unfamiliar with the bank’s layout, or at least unsure of how to get to the vault. He still had the keycard he’d picked off the shift manager, which allowed them through the locked down security checkpoint without much hassle. The building appeared empty, the hostages clearly using the robbers’ distraction to flee.

Well. At least Gavin messed up their plans as much as they messed up his.

The vault itself was a double-deadbolted, extra thick steel monstrosity with a fancy new lock they installed two weeks ago. One of the fancy new locks, in fact, Gavin had gotten his hands on and fudged with the programming, leaving himself a backdoor in the system. He could probably hack it manually, given time, but he’d bought a shiny new gadget just for this job. Rimmy Tim stared in disbelief as Gavin pulled the scanner out of his backpack once the Vagabond caught up with them.

“Is that-” Tim started, cutting himself off with a strangled noise.

“The Apple Chrome Smart Tech Randomizer 9000 Pro?” Gavin unscrewed the keypad panel, cutting the wires he needed. Connecting his device to the cut ends, Gavin hit the button to start his pre-prepared code. “Yes. In limited edition rose gold.”

Counterpoint to Tim’s disbelief, the Vagabond cocked his head and made an interested noise.

“Fifty thousand combinations per minute?” he asked, and Gavin’s head bopped up in surprise. “With adaptable smart A.I.?”

“Yes!” Gavin grinned up at him, just as the device beeped and lit up green. Gavin held it next to the keypad and started typing in the seven digit code. “You’re familiar with it?”

“I dabble,” the Vagabond demurred. The safe unlocked with a loud click.

“Of course, I introduced a bug into this series of locks, limiting the possible range of valid combinations,” Gavin explained proudly as he detached his tech. “Otherwise it might take up to an hour to crack.”

“Clever,” Vagabond murmured, looking over Gavin’s shoulder, leaning into his space. Rimmy Tim groaned, shoving his partner to bump into Gavin.

“Work first, flirt later.”

With that, Tim shouldered the safe door open, stepping inside. Gavin, face flushed at the insinuation, cast a glance at the Vagabond, who was avoiding his eyes, before following him in. The safe was pretty small, probably because Los Santos wasn’t known to be the safest place to keep money locally, but there was a nice stack of money on a table in the middle. Rows of lockboxes lined the walls, and the Vagabond got to work on picking them immediately, seemingly choosing a box at random. Rimmy Tim pulled out a duffle bag, shaking it out and swiping the money in.

Gavin lingered in the doorway, putting his tech away and zipping up his backpack to hide the jewelry he was hiding from the other two. Instead he pulled out his phone and checked his hacking app, swiping between the images of the camera feed in front of the bank. Cop cars had pulled up along the street, officers in armoured vests and guns speaking to the manager off to the side, organizing into groups.

“You gonna stand there fiddling with your phone, or you gonna help?” Tim snapped, his sharp tone cutting through the silence. Gavin glanced at him and held up his phone.

“Cops are here. We should probably get the explosives now?”

“You hacked into the cameras?” the Vagabond asked, pausing where he was upending the contents of a lockbox into his own bag. If Gavin didn’t know better, he’d say that was admiration colouring his voice.

“I mean, yeah. Logical, innit?” Gavin shrugged. “I wanted to go in solo, not blind.”

“And what’d you do if you got caught without backup, huh?” Tim questioned, shooting the Vagabond a narrow-eyed look and jerking his chin towards the still locked boxes.

“I’d think of something,” Gavin insisted, pocketing his phone and stepping up to push the leftover money into his backpack, since Tim’s duffle was full.

“Sure you were.” Tim sneered, shouldering the duffle and shaking his head. “I’m setting the explosives. Get as much stuff as you can carry, then wait for the big boom.”

Vagabond glanced between the still substantial pile of money on the table and the row of lockboxes. Then he put his lockpicks away with a sigh, dragging his half-full duffle over just as Gavin zipped up his backpack.

“Don’t suppose you have a gadget for lockpicking,” Vagabond drawled, dropping the bag on its side and holding it open with one hand, using the other to shove the bills in. Gavin stepped around the table across from him and slung his backpack over his shoulder before leaning in to help.

“Nah. Didn’t have enough funds left, did I?” He shrugged, feeling the Vagabond’s eyes on him. “Expensive little buggers, those.”

“Sure.” The Vagabond made an agreeable little noise. Their hands brushed as they reached for the same stack of bills, and Gavin paused, eyes flickering up to meet the Vagabond’s icy blue ones. His fingers lingered for two rapid heartbeats, then the Vagabond continued and Gavin followed suit. He imagined he could still feel the touch, like a tingling sensation running up his skin.

Between the two of them, they filled the duffle in record time. And not a second too soon, as the ground shook under their feet, ears ringing from the muted explosion. Vagabond met Gavin’s gaze, adjusting the duffle’s strap across his chest and took out his assault rifle.

“Time to go.”

Gavin nodded, pulling out his phone and glancing at the security footage. He grimaced.

“Cops are out front. They might circle around to cut us off.”

The Vagabond acknowledged his words with a sharp nod, striding forward briskly. Gavin hesitated in the door to the safe, taking a deep breath. Then he stepped through, pushing the heavy door shut behind him.

Gunfire to his right caught his attention, and he saw Rimmy Tim ducking in the blown open wall, shooting down the alley. Vagabond strode past him, spraying the area with bullets to give himself enough time to take cover behind a trash container. Gavin glanced down at his phone to confirm his suspicion: the mouth of the alley was swarmed by cops.

He had no idea which way they had parked their escape vehicle. His own Blista was a terrible choice, at least with the police watching.

Gavin swallowed, stuffing his phone into a back pocket and… hesitated.

He could leave. Surrender to the cops, pretend to be a hostage. But they might search his backpack.

A glance down the hall. Could he make it past the metal detector and into the bathroom without alerting anyone? Without running into the cops? At least long enough to stash his loot?

“Motherfucker!” Tim yelled, blindly firing down the alley. Across from him the Vagabond crumbled down behind the container, holding his shoulder. Red started seeping through his fingers, glistening in the sunlight.

Gavin didn’t realize he’d moved until he was crouched behind Rimmy Tim, out of sight from the coppers. His eyes never left the Vagabond’s hunched over form.

“Take me hostage.”

Rimmy Tim glanced at him over his shoulder while he reloaded, fingers fumbling with the magazine. 

“What.”

Gavin tore his eyes from the Vagabond, who had dropped the rifle to unsteadily shoot at the approaching officers with a pistol one-handed. His aim weaved horribly.

“Take me hostage,” Gavin told Rimmy Tim, his voice growing hard with determination. “They don’t know I’m not a civ, do they? So.”

Tim fired another round into the alley while he thought, giving the Vagabond a short break. Under his dark jacket, the blood was hard to make out, but his fingers smeared crimson streaks over his gun as he cocked it. Gavin swallowed.

“Fuck it,” Tim swore, grabbing Gavin by the back of his shirt and dragging him up and in front. “Better raise your hands if you don’t wanna get shot.”

Gavin did, heart rabbiting in his chest. He was still wearing the ill-fitting suit he bought cheap for his technician cover, but his work id lanyard was long abandoned. Now Gavin wished he still had that along with his fake glasses, to sell his innocence to the hair-triggered cops. With his shirt rucked up and pulled loose, hair a mussed up mess from his little scuffle with Vagabond earlier, he did his best to look scared.

Not hard, considering how many guns were pointed his way.

Gavin swallowed. He could do this.

***

Ryan pushed their ‘hostage’ into the backseat of Jeremy’s green Toros, gun pointed inside and itching to turn it on the police keeping a polite distance. Jeremy tipped his hat to the officers, calling out in a fake Southern drawl that made Ryan wince,

“Nobody better follow us. If ye do, buddy here is dead, got it?” Jeremy gestured with his rifle to the car, pulling the driver’s door open. “We don’t see hide or tail of y’all in the next ten minutes, we drop him off in an alley… somewhere.”

Personally, Ryan felt doubtful it would work. In Los Santos, coppers cared less about civilian fatalities in the line of duty than might be expected of police elsewhere. Ideally, they’d ditch the car as soon as possible and swipe a new, unrelated one. But Ryan knew better than to think Jeremy would go with that, his partner had been going on and on about giving the car purple and orange stripes paint job with the money they were hoping to make from this little heist. He’d settle for switching the plates as soon as they lost their tail.

Ryan met Jeremy’s eyes over the car’s roof, saw his imperceptible nod, and pushed into the backseat, shutting the door behind him. Up front, Jeremy did the same, dropping the gun in the passenger’s seat to start the car. Tires squealed as they shot out of the alley, nearly ramming into a police car, which immediately followed them. Ryan rolled down the window and leaned out to take potshots at the cops, aiming for their windshield and tires.

His shoulder twinged painfully, pulling his aim off. Ryan cursed, ducking back inside as the police opened fire on them in turn.

“Gimme that,” a voice said directly next to his ear. The next moment, his rifle was plucked out of his hands, then a body leaned across from his. Their ‘hostage’ poked his head out of the car, aimed, and shot the gun.

“So much for that ruse,” Ryan murmured and grimaced, pressing his palm on his shoulder. With all the rushed activity, the wound didn’t have a chance to stop bleeding, getting increasingly irritated.

“Hold on!” Jeremy called back. Their new friend barely ducked back in in time for Jeremy to tear the wheel around, taking a turn at the last second possible. Ryan grunted as the blond guy landed on his chest, rifle digging into his stomach. He reached up instinctively to steady him by the hip, eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror. The cop cars screeched past the intersection, buying them a couple seconds as they had to find a way to turn around.

“Garage,” Ryan grit out. “We need to switch-”

“I’m not leaving the Rimmy Bull!” Jeremy protested immediately.

Ryan caught green eyes, blinking at him in bewilderment, and rolled his own. Squeezing the hip under his hand in something like reassurance, Ryan cocked his head to stare at the back of Jeremy’s head.

“We’re going to need to switch the plates.” The idiot went unvoiced. “Before the cops are on us again.”

Hands on his jacket were distracting, pushing it off his shoulder, away from his wound. Ryan let it happen, choosing to meet Jeremy’s eyes through the rearview instead. They both knew it’d be best to lay low for a while. Every purple car would be suspect for the next week or so, a risk they really shouldn’t take. Fingers on his skin made Ryan shiver, breaking the staring contest.

“Jeremy. Ditch the car, report it stolen,” Ryan offered. “If all goes well, you should have it back after a week.”

“Ryan…” Jeremy stuck out his trembling bottom lip, clearly torn on this point. Ryan rolled his eyes, about to retort-

“Gavin,” blondie announced, and Ryan blinked, eyes flicking back to what their guest was doing. “This needs stitches. The bullet went clean through, so you’re lucky on that front.”

“Gavin?” Jeremy asked, voice sharp. Blondie shrugged.

“Well, if you’re introducing yourselves, it’s only fair I do too, innit?”

Panic jolted through Ryan, and he played back the last things said… fuck. They hadn’t used codenames, too used to it just being the two of them in the car. He exchanged a look with Jeremy, dropping the subject of the car. They had more important things to discuss. Like the slippery thief- Gavin- sitting in Ryan’s lap.

Heat crept up his neck as Ryan realized their position for the first time. He dropped his hand from Gavin’s hip as if burned, intending to rest it on the leather of the backseat, but landing on Gavin’s lower leg squished between Ryan’s thigh and the car door.

Gavin looked up from inspecting his gunshot wound, seeming to notice the tense silence. He glanced from Ryan to Jeremy, who pulled the car off-road, turning towards the coast.

“If you could drop me off somewhere closer to the city,” Gavin drawled, a twitch to his fingers the only sign to give away his nerves. “I’d appreciate that. I left my car at the bank.”

“Don’t think dropping you off at the bank is gonna work, buddy,” Jeremy returned, just as dry. “Unless you want to leave your stuff with us?”

Ryan glanced at the backpack next to him. On the one hand, he was itching to play around with the Randomizer. On the other hand-

“I did help you get into the vault,” Gavin pointed out, twisting around to glare at Jeremy. It shifted his weight in… interesting ways on Ryan’s lap. “I earned my cut fair and square.”

“Oh yeah?” Jeremy drawled. “And how would you’ve gotten out without us?”

“And you without me?” Gavin retorted, a grin playing around his very pretty mouth. Ryan tore his gaze away, hand sliding up Gavin’s leg to grab his attention.

“I would like to hear that plan of yours,” he said, and it wasn’t an excuse, he was honestly interested. In Gavin’s plan, not just Gavin. Jeremy still shot him a look through the rearview as if to tell him he couldn’t believe him. Ryan would stuck his tongue out, if the mask wasn’t in the way. And Gavin wasn’t looking back at him with a rather attractive smug cast to his face.

“Well,” he murmured, hand stroking up Ryan’s healthy arm, landing on his uninjured shoulder. “I’m not opposed to regaling you with my exploits. It was a very clever plan, if I may say so myself.”

“Oh?” Ryan leaned in, unable to help himself. “Do tell.” He let his fingers dance up the side of Gavin’s thigh, watching him closely. “The tech you brought speaks of preparedness.”

“It’s lovely tech, innit?” Gavin replied, the words a breathless purr, giving them an ambiguity they didn’t convey by themselves.

“Quite lovely,” Ryan agreed, and he didn’t mean the tech, either.

“Aaand we’re back to flirting,” Jeremy commented drolly, amusement clear in his voice. Ryan would switch his purple dye for pink if he didn’t shut up. “Great.”

“Why don’t you drop us off at the safehouse,” he snapped, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice and failing. “Then you can drop the car off at the mechanic for the paint job. Switch the plates, you get to keep the car, problem solved.”

Jeremy brightened immediately, dropping the subject. In his lap, Gavin giggled, squeezing his uninjured shoulder.

“Sounds good to me.”

[thekillerblogofkillers]

Ivan Milat (1944-2019) PART ONE

The Backpacker Murders took place in the Belanglo State Forest, New South Wales, Australia, between 1989 and 1993. They are commonly believed to have been committed by Ivan Milat. 7 bodies of young backpackers were discovered there near the town of Berrima. 5 of the victims were foreign backpackers (3 German, 2 British) and 2 were Australian. Milat was convicted in July 1996 and was sentenced to 7 consecutive life sentences followed by 8 years without parole. Milat died in prison in Australia on 27 October 2019. In previous decades, backpacking through Australia was common and considered to be a mostly safe means of travelling for free. However, thanks to several missing persons cases in the 1970s and ‘80s, backpackers began travelling in pairs. By the time the first bodies were found in Belanglo State Forest, several backpackers had disappeared. These disappearances included Deborah Everist, 19, and her boyfriend James Gibson, 19, travelling from Sydney for ConFest on 30 December 1989, along with Simone Schmidl, 21, a German traveller missing since 20 January 1991. There was German couple Gabor Neugebauer, 21, and Anja Habschied, 20, vanishing in December 1991, and finally, a pair of British friends, 22-year-old Joanne Walters and 21-year-old Caroline Clarke, were last seen on 18 April 1992, before vanishing near the forest.

A hidden body was found by two people orienteering in Belanglo on September 19, 1992. Police found a second body nearby the following day. Dental records confirmed the bodies to be those of Clarke and Walters. Walters had been stabbed over a dozen times in the chest, once in the neck and 9 times in the back – an injury which would have paralysed her. Clarke was shot 10 times in the head, police believing she was used for target practice. Following a search of the forest, investigators ruled out the idea of more bodies in the forest. 13 months later, in October 1993, a local man searching the forest for firewood found some bones in a secluded part of the forest. He alerted police and two bodies were found, later identified as Everist and Gibson. Gibson’s skeleton, curled in a foetal position, showed 8 stab wounds. A large knife had severed his upper spine, again causing paralysis, and stab wounds in his back would have punctured his heart and lungs. Everist was brutally beaten, with a fractured skull, a broken jaw and knife wounds on her forehead. She was stabbed once in the back. Finding Gibson’s body there was a surprise to investigators, as his camera was found on December 31, 1989, and his backpack on March 13, 1990, by Galston Gorge, 75 miles away. On November 1, 1993, a skeleton was discovered during a police sweep of the forest for unrelated reasons. The body was identified as that of Simone Schmidl, who had suffered at least 8 stab wounds – two had severed her spine and others would have punctured her heart and lungs. Clothing found near her body did not belong to her, but matched another missing backpacker, Anja Habschied. Her body, along with that of her boyfriend, Gabor Neugebauer, were found on a nearby fire trail on November 4, 1993, in shallow graves. Habschied had been decapitated and her skull was never found. Neugebauer had been shot in the head 6 times.

As a result of the discoveries, Task Force Air (containing over 20 detectives and analysts) was set up by the NSW Police on October 14, 1993. The following month the NSW government increased the reward for information on the killings to $500,000. Public warnings were given against hitchhiking along the Hume Highway. After creating a profile of the killer, the police faced a huge amount of data from hundreds of sources. Investigators used link analysis to review vehicle records, gym memberships, gun licenses and police records. Following this, the list of suspects was narrowed to a list of 230, before being whittled down to 32. All murders contained similar aspects – each body was dumped in remote bushland and covered with sticks and ferns. Forensics showed that each victim had suffered multiple stab wounds to the torso and many showed signs of sexual assault. The killer, believed to be a local with a 4-wheel-drive, had obviously restrained and spent lots of time with the victims both during and after the murders, as campsites were found near the location of each body. Matching bullets, shell casings and cartridge boxes from 2 different weapons also linked the scenes. It was speculated that this could be the work of several killers, since most victims were attacked in pairs, were killed in different ways and were buried separately. On November 13, 1993, Paul Onions, 24, called police from the UK. He told a very interesting story… on January 25, 1990, he was backpacking in Australia and whilst hitchhiking from Liverpool station to Mildura, accepted a ride from a man he knew as “Bill”. Less than 1km from Belanglo State Forest, “Bill” stopped and pulled out a revolver and ropes, telling Onions it was a robbery. Onions managed to escape while the assailant followed and attempted to shoot him. Onions managed to flag down passing motorist Joanne Berry, and they sped off to file a complaint with the Bowral police. On April 13, 1994, detectives found a note regarding Onions’ call, but the original report was missing from the Bowral police station. Luckily, a constable wrote the details down in her notebook. The statement was corroborated by Berry, who contacted the investigation team separately. Someone else who contacted the police was the girlfriend of a man who worked with someone she thought police should look at. The name? Ivan Milat.

[guzmabuglord]

I heard ya like bugs, I have a surskit if you want to see 'em :) - she's jus' a lil baby

- @4ster-bl4ster

COURSE i wanna see your surskit 💯💯 masquerain does too. give us your photos, yo

[askkrenko]

SWORD AND SHIELD THOUGHTS

Alright, just finished the main game/post-game of Sword and Shield ,and I have... thoughts, general impressions, and feelings about the game. I’m going to try and be spoiler-free, but some things will have to be talked about, and though it might be indirect, no promises. Here’s my thoughts on the game overall...

First off, It’s Pokemon. I’m not going to discuss the parts of it where it’s Pokemon. At this point, you should know whether or not you like Pokemon, and if you DON’T know... start with FireRed and LeafGreen. Still the best gameplay experience.

Graphics are... meh. I understand and accept that they’re really not up to the standard of other Switch games, but you’ve got 400 pokemon, lots of people, locations, etcetera. Battle Animations continue to be pretty weak for the most part, with pokemon mostly wiggling around and a special effect showing up. Nasty Plot’s animation is offensively bad in this regard. Sure, some moves look cool, especially ones unique to individual Pokemon, but this game’s visual advances still result in mostly-static battles where your pokemon doesn’t even move across the screen to use melee attacks. You know how in old Final Fantasy games you rush to the enemy before doing your generic sword swing? Can’t we at least have that? 

The new Pokemon are bitching. Sure, there’s winners and losers, but overall I love Galar’s lineup. There’s new type combos, interesting abilities, a lot of cool designs.

Dynamax is... just not interesting. The idea of giant pokemon are cool, but when you actually use them they replace your cool, interesting moves with heavy-hitting moves that have minor secondaries that are hard to leverage. My best pokemon at the end was a Wishiwashi that knew Aqua Ring and Dive, so my battles involved doing the former, and then Diving, so with Aqua Ring + Leftovers I’d be healing a huge portion of my HP between every attack... In Dynamax, Dive turns into a heavy hitting water move, Aqua Ring turns into Protect, and it doesn’t even last long enough for a tank-build to work. In the gym battles the right answer is basically always “Dynamax when your opponent does so you don’t get one-shot”, and in Raids it’s just “Dynamax when you can.”  Gigantimax is a cool idea, too, but... you just don’t get to do it. You get a Charmander that can eventually do it for free in the post-game, but he’s a baby and your pokemon at that point are level 70+ and you probably already have a fire type who loves you so there’s no reason to train him up.  

On Difficulty: I played a Nuzlocke with no items in battle, so I can’t really speak to difficulty normally but... camping makes healing you party super cheap, and every dungeon and challenge seems shorter than in most games. I only remember one real cave system and it was relatively short, and gyms all seem to have exactly three trainers (or three pairs of double-battle trainers) before the leader. Further, enemies always ask if you’re ready instead of ambushing you, and many will give you a full heal before or after the battle. I had some challenges against gym leaders, sure, and I did wind up losing the Nuzlocke to the final fight against the ‘big bad’ (and then just continued in non-nuzlocke method) but I never hit one of those points like a Rock Tunnel or even one of Alola’s Trials where I felt like the encounters on the way to the boss were really whittling down my resources.

Quality of life: Infinite Escape Ropes and free Fly make Krenko a happy gobbo. Except I never used the escape rope because there’s nothing to escape. Other basic QOL stuff is updated, too- moves are marked with effectiveness once you’ve seen a Pokemon before and presumably know it’s types, the menu felt very comfortable overall (though with all the different types of items I’m starting to think the bag needs MORE pockets), and the hotbutton to pokeball in an encounter is great. Having an EXP ALL as a core mechanic makes leveling up pokemon so much easier. There’s now a name rater and move-rememberer in every pokemon center, and I use that guy so much. Any time I newly catch or evolve a pokemon, I take it right to him to see what else it can get.

Dynamax raids I... didn’t do much of. Because the difficulty of the ones that show up apparently increases with the story or something. The first few I encountered I could handle with my pokemon at the time, but now that I’ve beaten the champion, it feels like every raid location I see is five stars and I need pokemon higher than the level 70+s I have to handle it. It doesn’t help that the NPCs they summon to help you are incompetent. Sure, a few have useful abilities, but why is there a level 49 Magikarp, and why doesn’t this Solrock seem to know any attacks, and what even is this Wobuffet doing here?

Story:  Story is easily the weakest part of Sword and Shield. The story is both boring and too exciting for the game itself. The characters are both too cool and too bland. In the ‘main story’ where previous pokemon games have it, you are doing the gym challenge. This is fine. This is normal. There’s some cool stuff in there that makes it more of a proper sport than just a kid wandering around. You ocassionally have encounters with Team Yell who are trying to stop you, but... Team Yell is never threatening, they don’t accomplish anything, and the game seems to be very inconsistent on whether or not you have to accept that they’re in the way or if you can just kick their butt. When you finally get their super secret origin story, it’s... fine, and I like it, but I’d have liked it more if they had literally any impact on the game. The worst thing is, they compare unfavorably to Team Skull. Team Skull had strong leadership, and though you kicked their butts, they were regularly in the way and up to no good. Also, Guzma was awesome. Team Yell is just... running around being a general nuisance. Which would be fine if there was another real villain but...

Well, it turns out there IS another real, main villain... Who you don’t have reason to believe is a villain until after you’ve beaten all eight gyms, whose plot and motivation makes no sense, who has no convictions, and who you as a character have no real relation to. I literally don’t understand why this character was doing villainy.  And their evil team you only fight in the handful of battles immediately leading up to the big fight, and they make absolutely no impact other than standing in your way for reasons that you don’t really understand. That whole segment had nothing to do with anything, wasn’t properly built up, and didn’t feel like it went anywhere except the game handing me a Legendary pokemon.

Then there’s the post-game villains, who are... eh. They’re a lot more interesting, and I’m not even sure it’s fair to call them post-game. Unlike in most pokemon games, once you become champion the plot doesn’t just stop or say “now go to the challenge areas.” Instead, you have another, shorter storyline where you revisit all the old characters (who are all really cool on the surface and have NO DEPTH so you can’t get attached to them) and deal with stuff involving more dynamaxing and the box-art legendaries. This isn’t the worst plot, but it again suffers from no dungeons. You just fly from Gym to Gym having one fight at each gym. The game wants you to get to know and appreciate each Gym Leader, but because there’s so many of them, plus three rivals, plus the Champion, plus two professors, plus a handful of other NPCs, even the one that spends a fair deal of time with you in the post game never gets any real development. Here’s a key for story-writers: If your character’s not going to develop over the story, you don’t need to make a point of them showing up four different times. I don’t feel more connected to Nessa than I do to Flannery because she kept showing up and I got a card detailing her backstory. I just feel like you could’ve let me play faster instead of waiting for cutscenes.

I could rant about the story for a long time, but the point is: It’s bad. And the worst part is, there’s a bunch of cool stuff that seems to happen... that I don’t get to see.

So, my BIGGEST, absolutely most major complaint about the story is that two of the characters closest to you, Hop and Leon, do all sorts of really cool and interesting stuff... just offscreen. Hop is your main ‘rival’ and best friend, and he’s sharing in your adventures but also has some of his own. He has battles, he has a character arc, he starts really annoying but grew on me over time and I genuinely like him... But it’s hard to feel attached because all his formative stuff happens just off-screen. This isn’t a ‘Blue’ situation where he’s doing the stuff you are but faster and getting in your way, and you want to smush his stupid face in. This certainly isn’t like Hau who was just one step behind you the whole time. Hop has a couple battles that he talks about that alter who he is as a person that you don’t get to see because the game decides you don’t watch them. You’re not racing this guy- you hang out all the time- but for some reason you don’t get to watch his fights. I understand it’d be boring if they forced it and it played out like a normal fight, but give me a cutscene! Hell, I wanna know who he faced at the end! Hop has a mystery battle against someone else who completed all eight gyms that he beats and we never find out anything else about this person... 

But it’s even worse with Leon.

See, a big part of the game’s storyline is giant, Dynamax pokemon running amok and the Champion having to stop them. This means for the FIRST portion of the game, Leon is going out doing heroic things, battling giant pokemon that you never see. Sure, you can dynamax battle, but he’s involved in all these cool, great, crazy adventures... just offscreen. And then when you become the champion, YOU get to fight these rampaging dynamax pokemon... ... by walking to the area you’re told they are and immediately showing up in a dynamax fight. The game has models for pokemon walking around the overworld. Pokemon all have various attack animations. If Dynamax pokemon are running wild, can’t you SHOW me them running wild? There’s so many ‘cool things’ that happen in the game that I just don’t get to see, even when my character should be able to watch them, and it’s annoying as hell. If you can’t SHOW ME rampaging giant pokemon, don’t make the story ABOUT rampaging giant pokemon!

....Okay, done talking about story.

THE WILD AREA is a cool idea with poor implementation. I absolutely love this big area with all sorts of pokemon that change with the weather and different sections having different levels, except the wild area only really connects two locations (you get there via train the first time,) so there’s not much in-game reason to go back except for grinding, it’s small enough that it’s mostly the same terrain, and the level progression of the area doesn’t really match where you are in the game in the way just having routes used to. Also, for some stupid reason once you’re champion everything there suddenly becomes level 60 instead of scaling to different areas.  Which, sure, I get it, for post-game stuff people just want higher level Pokemon, but it’s so weird that suddenly there’s level 60 zigzagoon running around.  The Wild Area would have been much cooler if they’d just done away with traditional routes entirely and had free wilderness between EVERY town- blocked off in part by tunnels and forests which still counted as wild area, sure, but not gated by ‘you must have this many badges to progress.’  Just gated by ‘the pokemon here are level 30, are you sure you want to proceed?’ The only reason the game forces you to face the gyms in a certain order is to lock you into a narrative that’s mostly a waste of time. Not being allowed to catch ‘very strong’ pokemon is dumb, too. You could’ve made us able to catch them and just not train them because they’d do things like go to sleep and use the wrong moves and loaf around like a traded pokemon.

Camping with your Pokemon is cute, but needs more variety. There’s like seven toys, but only one of them isn’t a ball you throw and they fetch. You can make curries, and you will because it’s the cheapest way to heal your pokemon on the go, but the curry minigame is identical every team and gets very boring very quickly. You can talk to your Pokemon, but none of their responses have any meaning or impact or anything at all. It’s not like they’ll give you hints in the game or randomly give you items or ask for specific items for huge happiness boosts or whatever. It’s cute, and they get experience from it, but camping feels like it should’ve been expanded a whole lot.

....In summation: Pokemon Sword and Shield is not one of the better Pokemon Games. It’s still Pokemon, and if you’re into that, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in it, but it’s heavily flawed. 

[dikdikrising]

Thog and Linda Go On A Date

Chapters 1 | 2 | 3

Chapter Two

Linda held her Playbill up to the marrow-red light of a Plaguelands sunset. “Gotta say, I am in love with this casting! Very challenging choices. I am over the moon that they got a fellow boggie to play Gladebringer! Eeeee! Odd credit, though. ‘Mistress of the Marshes.’ Is that a stage name?”

“No idea. But Thog figured Linda would like it,” said Thog, feeling more than a little satisfied with how the evening was playing out.

“And a Windy as the Plaguebringer? A wildclaw as that scrawny little Arcanist? Oh, this is going to be spicy.” Linda rubbed her claws together in excitement. The brand new chroma stone Thog had gifted her earlier clacked vigorously against the rings she was already wearing. 

“Thog wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss any Wind dragon, but this one has garnered quite the reputation,” said Thog, tapping on Vermilion, the name of Plaguebringer’s actress. “Even outside of the Wasteland, it’s difficult to find a toxin that Vermilion hasn’t herself invented or improved upon. Thog favored her signature blend of dart frog and onyx cobra venom to tip blades and arrowheads with prior to a raid.”

“Huh! No kidding,” said Linda with genuine curiosity. “Wouldn’t figure acting would be part of her wheelhouse.”

“All acting is a form of subterfuge,” Thog reasoned. “No need for method when that’s already the life you live.”

“Well, look at you, you little fan-so-and-so. Is that the whole reason you dragged your extra nice fursuit out of the closet? Trying to impress a certain... poison peddler?”

Thog darted their eyes from under their lionskin headdress. “Thog… wouldn’t be lying if Thog said Thog brought an extra thick marker for... signature purposes.”

“HA!” Linda pointed squarely in Thog’s face. “Can’t pull a fast one on me! I can always sniff out an ulterior motive.”

“Well, Thog wasn’t lying earlier,” Thog said in a defensive tone. “Thog had Linda’s interests in mind first.”

“Potayto, potahto,” Linda said, folding her arms and looking away. “And since when do you like theater?”

“Thog gained an appreciation for the performing arms during acting class at Radiant U. Only ever got bit parts, but Thog had fun watching all the chaos behind the scenes. The props, the lighting, the backgrounds. It’s so fascinating, but Thog can never see a play now without thinking about the stagehands scrambling around in the dark.”

“Hmmm! You know, I tried out a couple of times, but I never ended up impressing a casting director. They always had a comment about my ‘onstage silhouette.’ Sexist pricks.” Linda and Thog shared a mutual sneer. “I caught a couple of uni productions, though. Ever been in anything I would have seen?”

“Eh, Thog was one of the extras in Firebreather Uprising. The Theater head looked at Thog’s background and figured Thog would make a good Pillager #1. And that was after Thog told her Thog was trying to get away from that life.”

Linda winced. “Ugh, typical typecasting.”

“To be fair, they were right. Thog do have an excellent war bellow. It even got a mention in the Sunbeam Press write-up. ‘Hauntingly real,’ they wrote. But really, the magical effects team did half the work.”

“Oh, don’t be modest, you lion, you,” said Linda, letting herself rest against Thog’s chest with a lascivious look in her eyes. “I’ll bet you have another roar left in the tank.”

Thog chucked in what they hoped was a wry manner. “Right now? In the middle of the lobby?” Lobby was a generous word considering the facility was open-air, but there was a decent-sized crowd in attendance.

“Well, let me check my schedule, tomorrow’s good-yeah, right now! Come on, don’t be chicken,” said Linda, nudging Thog playfully with her shoulder. “I’ve taken complaints about half these people, they wouldn’t bat an eye if a hippogriff flew right over and took a big dump on ‘em. C’mon. C’mooooon!”

“Well... Thog not sure tha-

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHH”

Everyone jumped, including Linda. Thog wasn’t exaggerating - the sound that emerged from deep, deep within their lungs reverberated from the lobby grounds to the stage and back with the force of several howling gales. Thog’s eyes had sunk back into their skull, and it took a few prolonged moments for the shaking to end even after their mouth closed shut.

After collecting themself, Thog noticed Linda’s fins - and entire body - completely blown back by their bellow, and they went into a mild panic. “Oh! Linda, sweetie, Thog’s so sorry, are you all r-”

“Got to freshen up.” Linda, wide-eyed, made her way over to the bathroom area - which, admittedly, was just a series of holes with optional privacy curtains, which she hurriedly utilized. Thog’s worries lessened when they caught a manic grin curling at the very edge of Linda’s lips as she left.

The rest of the crowd stared at Thog for a full minute before going back to their own conversations, but Thog could care less. Thankfully, Thog did have the presence of mind to retape their next gift box - containing a custom embroidered starsilk shawl - to the bottom of Linda’s seat before she came back.

[helshades]

Hard to deny that we live in an age dominated by the superhero. That classic Superman chestnut, “Look up in the sky!“, feels as apropos as ever when you can’t drive down a major road without Tony Stark’s mustachioed mug or Clark Kent’s Kryptonian biceps flexing down at you like judgemental gods. They rule the box office, they rule the pop culture conversation, they rule the graphic t-shirt real estate at every coffee shop. We’re about one particularly effective after-credits scene away from fandom spilling over into actual worship—pull up any video from inside Hall H if you don’t believe me—which means there’s no better time to ring up The Boys.

Adapted by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Eric Kripke from the Dynamite comic series by writer Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the eight-episode Amazon series has a wickedly sharp eye for what an actual modern age of superheroes would look like. Costumed vigilantes come with an army of publicists to craft public apologies. Major media corporations schedule the crime-stopping “team-ups” that would drive the optimal amount of social media engagement. And there’s the possibility that the superheroes themselves, so shiny and glossed in front of a camera, are the type of A-list TMZ trash-monsters in their private lives who might smash a man’s skull during a particularly aggressive round of analingus. This is an actual thing that happens in The Boys. A lot of wild things happen in The Boys. But underneath all that superpowered ass-murder is genuinely one of the most timely TV series I’ve seen in a long time.

Our way into the mayhem is “Wee” Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), a completely normal A/V salesman living a completely ordinary life until a super-fast superhero named A-Train (Jessie Usher) literally runs through his girlfriend Robin (Jess Salgueiro), turning her into a cloud of blood and guts. A-Train is essentially untouchable as a member of The Seven, the world’s premiere superhero team, along with aquatic fish-talker The Deep (Chace Crawford), silent ninja Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), the invisible Translucent (Alex Hassell), superstrong ass-kicker Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), and the squad’s Superman-esque leader, Homelander (Antony Starr). Quieted with a half-assed apology and ironclad Non-disclosure Agreement, Hughie’s thirst for revenge leads him straight to Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), former leader of an under-the-radar squad that worked to keep the “supes” in check: The Boys.

Running parallel to Hughie and Butcher is the story of Starlight (Erin Moriarty), The Seven’s bright-eyed and optimistic new recruit who quickly learns she’s joined a team of corrupt corporate suits, perverts, and murderers. The two plots intertwine, and soon a grand conspiracy emerges surrounding the mysterious super-steroid “Compound V” that could completely destroy the superhero game and the mega-corporation that funds it, Vought.

The Boys operates on a few different levels, all of which the creative team nails on one level or another. It’s your classic gettin’-the-band-back-together story, as the Compound V conspiracy convinces Butcher to track down the rest of the retired Boys, Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) and Frenchie (Tomer Capon), who are eventually joined by the hyper-violent killing machine known only as The Female (Karen Fukuhara). It’s also a pretty dang intriguing mystery tale dressed up in tights and capes, as well as a pitch-black comedy filled with enough flying guts, exploding dolphins, and C-4 shoved into a person’s unholy crevices to keep even the sickest of you puppies squirming.

But where the writing staff really excels is in the world-building. They’ve kept large chunks of the comic book story intact while also stripping away a bit of the X-Treme Edginess—I like Garth Ennis a lot, but Garth Ennis is occasionally too Garth Ennis for his own good—and setting it firmly in a setting that’s both comic-book elevated and so perfectly 2019. Superheroes argue not about the number of lives saved, but their cut of the merch and box office sales raked in from the Vought Cinematic Universe. ESPN runs 24/7 coverage of a race between speedsters. SEO experts and video editors cut together image-boosting clip shows of The Seven interacting with the common folk. (Possibly my favorite joke in the entire show is the fact newcomer Starlight’s segment is placeholder text that just says “Starlight relating to people.”)

And with that comes a really dark, unique relatability to the material that’s completely different than any on-screen comic book series out there. Though we don’t live in a world of actual superpowers, we do live in one filled with supremely shitty people in extraordinary positions of power and wealth. Tune into literally any news outlet of your choice—or just log on to Twitter dot com—and you’re bombarded with the latest government figure or Hollywood elite who was caught and/or just outright said the depths of their sheer shittiness. It makes you long for the days when a celebrity’s name trending meant they were just dead, not a sexual deviant. The Boys, similar to the comic series, leans hard into this idea: What if the rich, powerful fraudsters and public masturbators of the world were actually sitting in the position of the gods? It’s the darkest material on the show, but the story approaches it unflinchingly. There’s a real stomach-churning familiarity to a high-ranking member of The Seven dropping his pants in front of Starlight and asking how badly she wants to be a part of a superhero team. But even the worst parts come with a sense of wish fulfillment; as awful as it is to see and recognize a world run by all-powerful assholes, it’s thrilling when you realize The Boys is really about how ordinary people can fight back.

As Starlight, Moriarty shines brighter and brighter with each episode, a fantastic foil to Quaid’s increasingly twitchy Hughie. The cast is pretty electric across the board—especially Karl Urban out there throwing around c-words like his name is Cookie Monster—but there are two performances in particular that really make the story tick. Antony Starr is terrifying as Homelander; he plays the main supe like a petulant child given the strength of a nuclear bomb—a Shazam who also burns people’s faces off—and it’s chilling how quickly the actor switches between Homelander’s toothy-smiled choir boy image and the stone-cold persona below. Standing behind him is Elisabeth Shue as Madelyn Stillwell, Senior Vice President of Superhero Management at Vought. The Oscar-nominee is perfectly icy in the role, and low-key the most terrifying character on the show. As the mass murders and war crimes pile up around her, Madelyn is just booking the dates and scheduling the meetings, proving there’s nothing more horrific than a suit who signs lives away with a smile.

If there’s a complaint to be had about The Boys, it’s that its first eight-episode run ends awkwardly, right in the middle of the narrative with several loose threads dangling and a few key characters left forgotten in the home stretch. You have the sense the creators were pretty confident given the fact casting announcements started to pop up before a season 2 was confirmed. [UPDATE: Which it was, just now, at Comic-Con.] But the roller-coaster ride to that abrupt end is something you must experience. Like Alan Moore‘s Watchmen in the late-80s, TV series has the chance to be the superhero deconstruction of our time. Less a peek behind the curtain, and more a seedy glimpse behind the social media likes and box office numbers, a story that manages to be heartbreakingly relevant while still finding time to have Karl Urban kill a room full of goons with a super-powered baby.

Oh shit, did I not mention Karl Urban kills a room full of goons with a superpowered baby earlier? Yeah, man. Watch The Boys. A lot going on there.

[obfuscateyummy]

Help You Forget part 6

I was slacking, i am sorry. Here’s part 6 guys!

1,453 words.

i feel like this is all filler 

Thank you all for your support you know it means the world to me. 

“Good morning, beautiful,” was the first thing you heard as you opened your eyes to find Rafael sitting in front of you, already in his suit, with two coffee mugs in his hand. He extended one towards you.

“I could get use to this,” you said as you smiled, sat up, and took the mug from his hand. He smiled back at you.

“Me too.” His emerald eyes stared into your eyes as he leaned into kiss you. You wanted that kiss to last forever, then he broke away a few seconds later.

When he broke away from the kiss, you spoke. “So, today’s the day…”

He sighed, “Yeah, I probably won’t get to you and Nick until tomorrow, but I need you to be ready to go today.” You smiled, but it felt like you had butterflies in your stomach. He moved your hair out of your face. “I’m headed down after breakfast. Nicolas and his lawyer want to meet with me again. I want to see if I can get a plea,” he said, “Do you want to ride down with me? We can go over everything one more time?”

You nodded, “Give me 20 minutes?”

He kissed your forehead. “Of course. I’ll make us some breakfast.”

You began getting ready. Makeup and hair before getting dressed. When you slid the skirt on Rafael brought you from your apartment, you rolled your eyes, of course he brought the one that makes my ass look amazing, you thought. When you put on the shirt, and noticed how much cleavage it showed, you laughed. That horny bastard.

“Good luck hiding that erection you’re going to have, counsellor.” you said out loud as you checked yourself out in the mirror. When you walked out of the bedroom and sat at the table, you swore Rafael’s eyes turned into hearts.

“Damn, you look breathtaking,” he said as he sat the plate of food in front of you and kissed your cheek. The breakfast Rafael made was nothing out of the ordinary; just bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee. Nonetheless, it was still amazing.

“That was the best breakfast, ever. Thanks Rafael.”

He laughed at you, “Ever? Really, Cariño?” He walked over to clear the plates from the table and kissed you as he took yours. “I’m putting these in the dishwasher, then we can head out,” he said. You nodded your head, and hesitated before flashing a smile. Rafael saw the hesitation, “Cariño, are you okay, amor?”

“I’m nervous, Rafael. I...what if I say the wrong thing? What if he goes free because I fuck up?” Your bottom lip quivered.

Rafael rushed back to your side, “Hey, don’t think like that, Cariño. You are going to do fine,” he rubbed your back, then started to play with your hair. He saw tears start to form in your eyes. He whispered in your ear, “Please don’t cry mi amor.”

You closed your eyes. Praying the tears wouldn’t fall. You spoke softly, “The nightmare last night was different.” You felt nauseous as you opened your eyes and made eye contact with Rafael. “I was on the stand, and he started yelling that everything I said was a lie. He called me a bitch. Then he got up, and started punching me.” Your eyes were full of tears that wouldn’t fall from your eyes.

Rafael got down on his knees besides you. “He tries to talk to you, hell, he looks at you the wrong way, I’ll do everything I can until the judge throws me in contempt. He won’t hurt you. Cariño, I promise.” He pulled your hand to his lips as he kissed you.

“I know, I know you won’t babe. I’m just...I’m scared to face him.”

“I will be right there, focus on me. Okay?” You nodded at Rafael’s instruction. He held your hand in his as the two of you got up and headed out the door.

Rafael instructed you to sit on one of the benches outside of the conference room as he met with your father and his attorney.

“Good news, Mr. Barba, my client is willing to plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit”

“You know the DA won’t accept it without an admission of guilt.” Rafael said.

“May I remind you, you have no cooperating complaint, and no witness. Let’s drop this to disorderly conduct and call it a day,” your father’s lawyer, Mr. D’Angelo suggests.

Rafael shook his head, “He cracked her skull.”

Your father decides to speak up, “No one saw it happen. Besides, Gabriella will testify on my behalf. You have no case. Besides, you really think Nicky and Y/N are going to go through with testifying? They’ve never had the nerve to go against me.” He laughed, as if he was mocking Rafael.

Rafael paused. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to hurt you. Hell, he didn’t even want to hurt Nick. He realized he had to try to make a deal, again. “Assault 3, 60 days at Rikers.”

Your father laughed, “No deal.”

His attorney begged to differ, “Nicolas, it’s a good deal.”

“I don’t take crumbs,” your father said as he looked at Rafael, “Especially from gentleman who wear suspends, and sleep with my daughter.” Rafael huffed at his comment as Nicolas and his attorney walked out the door.

While you were waiting outside, you tired to clear your head, you thought of anything to get your mind off the pending trial. You heard someone calling your name, you looked up to see Nick. You smiled softly as your voice was barely a whisper, “Hey brother.”

“You okay?” Nick sat down next to you.

You shook your head, as you spoke, “I’m scared, nervous, and nauseous.”

Your brother made eye contact with you “Yeah, me too.” He moved a stray piece of hair out of your face. “I’m really sorry about last night, Y/N.”

“Me too.” You smiled

“Let me finish,” Nick said, “You are nothing like him, and I know you’re not just doing this for Barba.”

You smiled, and went to speak, but stopped as you got up and ran to the restroom. The nausesa finally caught up with you. After you freshened yourself up and exited the restroom, you laughed as you said to Nick, “Sorry I ruined our sibling moment.”

Nick also laughed, “Wouldn’t be an Amaro family moment if someone didn’t ruin it.” He playfully elbowed you. “He really loves you, Y/N.”

“I’ve only been telling you that since you found out.” Now it was you elbowing your brother.

The door to the conference room flung open, and your father and Mr. D’Angelo walked out. Your relaxed body became tense at the sight of your father. He seemed to ignore the fact that Nick was there and focused solely on you. “Hey Y/N, you need to talk some sense into that boy toy of yours. He thinks you’re actually going to go up against me,” he laughed in your face as you turned your head away.

“Leave her alone!” Nick said standing in front of you.

“You two a team today? Not fighting anymore?” Your father laughed, again.

“We need to go, Nicolas.” Mr. D’Angelo pulled his arm.

“What, I can’t talk to my own children now?”

Rafael walked out of the conference room to see the scene beginning to unfold, “Mr. Amaro, It’s witness tampering for you to be talking to them.” He said as he walked up to you, and Nick. He wrapped his arm around your waist. You sighed a sigh of relief. Your father huffed as he walked away with his attorney.

Rafael took your face in his hands, “You okay, Cariño.” You nodded as he went to kiss you, you ran away from him and back to the restroom.

“That’s the second time.” Nick commented as he stood by Barba. “It’s really getting to her.”

“I just want her to forget. I want to make it better, and for her to know how much I really care for her. I just...I can’t find the right time.”

Nick padded Rafael’s chest, where there was a velvet lined box inside his pocket, “You’ll know when the time is right.” Nick smiled at Rafael. “You’ll know buddy.”

You walked out of the restroom, “Sorry. I just..” Rafael pulled you close and planted a kiss upon your forehead.

“Don’t apology.” Rafael said as he looked at his watch. “I gotta go in, wish me luck.” He kissed you.

“Good luck, babe,” you said as he walked away.

“You got this, Barba,” Nick said as the two of you sat outside the courtroom, and waited to be called in to testify.

TAGS: @serendiptious-esparza @whatmarisays @lyssa1385 @dreila03 @imagine-hopper