#the motherfucker can’t escape the cage I put him in the first time but when he acts up he gets put in anotha one on top of that

[anarchistclownery]

The motherfuckin puppet tried whisperin more violent shit in my motherfuckin mind again so I put the cage he’s in now in another cage.

[weasleyswizardpleases]

And the Living is Easy (Fred x reader)

Summary: You spend the first night of summer vacation getting into trouble with the Weasleys + Harry and Hermione. Fred x reader. Fluffy mischief mostly, but sex is discussed and implied. 

Warnings/Notes: Light sexual content but not all out smut, alcohol, heights, language. I wrote this to be a stand alone, but I enjoyed it so much that it might become part of a loose series of slice of life-y reader x twins fics set at the burrow over the summer! ps i did not edit this at all after writing it at 2am so. uh

Summer at the Weasley’s is my favorite time of year. After my mother passed, you were tossed around from boarding school to boarding school, relative to relative, never really having a say in where you went, or with whom. But ever since becoming fast friends with Fred and George while repairing brooms for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, you’ve pretty much been considered an honorary Weasley.

You stow your suitcases in the overhead and squeeze into a seat next to Fred and George. Across from you, Ron, Lee, and Harry are packed in. 

“Do you reckon you’ll ever make it out to the burrow, Lee?” asks George pointedly. 

“Yeah, you don’t know what you’re missing out on. Mrs. Weasley’s hotcakes are out of this world.” Harry says.

“And there’s loads of space to play quidditch.” you say.

“And loads of secret spots not even Mum knows about where we can basically do whatever we like.” adds Fred.

“You know my mum will hardly let me out of her sight for a day. Merlin’s sake, she’s practically ass to elbow on me all summer.” Lee says, faking a pout. “Quit ribbing at me, would you? Or I’ll spend the summer in my room coming up with derogatory names to call you on the Quidditch pitch.”

Murmurs of “Come on, we’re only joking.” and “Fine, fine.” fill the packed compartment. You lift your rat Pansy up to the window to show him the scenery.

“Bet you’ve never seen the fine English countryside like this, eh Pansy?” you baby-talk at him, scratching his little noggin.

“You know that thing is never gonna talk back at you, right Y/N?” says Fred, rolling his eyes. 

“You never know. Look what happened to Scabbers.” you say, wiggling you eyebrows. “This rat could also secretly be a creepy little pervert who watches me undress at night.”

“I suppose it isn’t unprecedented in the rat community,” agrees George. Ron scowls in disdain.

“That’s my pet we’re talking about!” he says, causing everyone to burst into laughter.

“Yeah, fine pet he was.” says Harry, grinning.

“I will say, Ron-” Fred begins, clearing his throat. “You’ll never find another like him.” He claps his little brother on the back and stands up, peering down the hallway. “Oi, it’s the trolley, look alive Georgie.” George rises and straightens his coat. The boys have been planning for ages to charm the trolley witch into selling their skiving snackboxes. They run off down the car towards her. You tuck Pansy back into his cage and watch the scenery go by yourself. Before you know it, you’re being shaken awake by Fred and George. 

“C’mon, Dad is waiting!” says George. 

“Got you some chocolate frogs, but that means you owe us one.” says Fred, shoving a wriggling paper bag into your hands. Delighted, you expertly open the bag, catch a frog, and slurp it up before it manages to escape. 

“Tank -ou” you mumble, your mouth still full. Lugging your trunks over to meet Mr. Weasley, you smile with excitement. Every summer with the Weasleys is a blast, but you know this one will start off with a bang because last week Fred absconded with a jug of top shelf mead from Filch’s office. You’d all agreed that you needed it more, since you want to have fun and have no money, while Filch obviously dislikes fun and ostensibly has some amount of money squirreled away from all his groundskeeping or lurking or whatever his job is. 

After greeting Molly, you and the twins bound up to their room- and, when you’re here, your room- pushing and shoving your way up the narrow stairwell. You toss your things down and throw yourself onto a bed, spreading your arms as if making a snow angel. 

“Oh, boys, it is good to be home!” you say, laughing. Fred and George always joke that their mother likes you, Harry, and Hermione better than any of her own actual children, and you love teasing them about it. 

“Speak for yourself, she’s already got that sending-us-to-de-gnome-the-

garden-while-hungover gleam in her eyes,” retorts George good-naturedly.

“And get your shoes off my bed! Mum will have all three of us beating out the rugs if she sees that.” says Fred. You close your eyes and pretend to be asleep, baiting the boys into attempting to push you off the bed. You wind up making such a ruckus roughhousing that Hermione comes in looking concerned, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. You all three pause from your compromised position to look at her, you releasing a vise grip on Fred, George dropping your left leg, which he had been twisting violently.

“When did you get here?” you ask, running to hug her. 

“Just apparated over, my parents would never forgive me if I didn’t at least drop by for dinner before practically moving here for the summer!” she replies, turning to greet the twins. 

“Are you going to be participating in our little soiree tonight, ‘Mione?” asks George, raising an eyebrow. 

“What are you three planning?” she asks sternly, stifling an excited smile.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” you say. 

“But don’t wear white shoes.” warns Fred. Hermione gives you all a funny look before running off to finish her greetings. 

“Where are we going tonight, Freddie?” you ask, looking up at your tall friend. He gives you a cheeky glance.

“Oh, out by the bog. There’s a huge hill between there and the house, so we can make a fire and nobody will see.”

“And there’s a huge stand of trees and a pond between that spot and the neighbors’,” says George. 

“You two have got it all figured out. And you’ve got the firewhiskey! What a night, what a night it shall be.” you say, your voice singsonging as you dance exaggeratedly. 

“Too bad nobody invited any girls.” says Ron from the doorway. He’s been standing in the hallway looking in the mirror for some time now, fussing with his hair.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Ginny shouts from her open door down the hall.

“YOU don’t count!” Ron replies.

“We know you’ve got someone else in mind, little brother.” George says, flicking Ron in the ear. 

“It’s pretty obvious,” Fred agrees.

“You get all flustered when she corrects your grammar,” you say.

“And you let her braid your hair.” says Fred.

“And you-” begins George, but Ron interrupts, his face beet red.

“Shhhh! Buzz off you two, or I’ll start blabbing on about who you’re interested in as well.”

The twins exchange a somewhat threatened glance, but say nothing.

“That’s right, I’m not as dull as you lot like to think, thank you very much. I notice things. So let me alone or I’ll sing like a canary!” Ron finishes, turning back to the mirror for a final glance at his hair before trotting downstairs. 

“You two have crushes?” you demand, turning to stare down the twins. Fred shrugs with his usual attitude but you notice a light blush spreading across each of their cheeks. You swat him across the chest. “Why didn’t you tell me? Who is it? You motherfuckers.” You grab George by the collar. “George, tell me who it is! A crush, my god.” You throw your hands up in the air. They’re being super weird, so you decide to drop the subject. “When you snog every girl and half the boys in the school, between the two of you, you practically hold us all down to tell us the details but now you’ve got a crush and suddenly you’re like a couple of mimes.” You look each of them in the eyes, and both avoid your stare. “Fine! Don’t tell me.” You throw your hands up in mock anger and lead the charge downstairs to begin setting the table for dinner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~After dinner, you pass the evening playing cards and chatting until Mr. and Mrs. Weasley retire for the night. Then, you’re left with all your friends and Percy, who it has been agreed simply cannot know you’re sneaking out to drink in the woods, because he is a killjoy. Using a previously discussed maneuver, Hermione attempts to trick him into believing that she and Ginny are going to bed, hoping that he will get nervous about being bullied if left alone with you and the twins, and elect to follow them to bed soon after. However, Percy is in an unusually jovial mood, and so Ron and Harry are forced to retreat as well. As a last line of defense, you pretend to fall asleep on George’s shoulder, nuzzling into his sweater. When Percy gets up to go to the bathroom, you dash outside into the moonlit yard, covering your mouth so your giggles don’t give you away. You run to crouch behind the garden shed, doubled over with laughter. 

“I thought he would never stop yapping.”

“God, how are you two related to that bore?”

“We can’t help it.” Fred says, bending to gather rocks from the ground. 

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Watch!” he raises his hand to throw a pebble at Ginny’s window, but you grab his wrist.

“Have you lost the plot? Percy will hear! And probably your mum too, with your aim. I’ve got a better idea,” you say, peeking around the garden shed while gesturing for the boys to stay put. You pop out of the shed with a dusty, rickety broom. 

“Does this thing still work?” you ask.

“Well enough,” says Fred, getting a running start and jumping on the broom. Wobbling a bit, he sails up to Ginny’s window and confers with the girls, then moves on to Ron’s window, where he perches on the sill, one foot dangling out the window.

Beside you, you’re aware of George’s presence beside you in the cool, sticky night.

“Bloody brilliant,” he murmurs, elbowing you gently. “How’d you even know that thing was in there?”

“Lucky guess. I mean, with a family full of Quidditch players, there’s bound to be a broom lying about someplace.” 

Fred jumps down onto the broom and turns a few experimental loop de loops overhead before nearly falling and coming to a shaky landing near your feet. 

“That one belongs on the rubbish heap, honestly,” he says, laughing as he tosses the old thing aside.

“Oh, sure, blame it on the broom,” you tease.

He’s soon followed by Ginny and Hermione on Ginny’s broom. They glide down and come to a halt next to you, stepping down gracefully.

“How are Harry and Ron going to get out? They’d have to go right by Mr. and Mrs. Weasley’s room, unless Harry has his broom up there with him, but I think I saw it in the foyer.” says Hermione, looking at Fred worriedly.

“Well, err, I told them to climb down,” says Fred earnestly.

“What?!” says Hermione. “They’ll be loud as bison, besides probably breaking their necks.”

“It’s not my fault they’re too dumb to pass their apparation O.W.L.S! They’ll be fine.”

As he finishes his sentence, Ron’s window slides open and Harry’s head pops out. He lowers what appears to be a rope made of sheets and blankets tied together. Hermione’s brow furrows as she watches, helpless, while Ron artlessly slips one leg out the window, before even checking to see that the “rope” is nowhere near long enough to reach the ground. Ginny giggles, biting her lip when she sees Hermione’s distress.

“Do something!” Hermione hisses, nudging her. Ginny groans and soars over to boost Ron onto the back of her broom, going back to do the same for Harry.

“Shite! The firewhiskey,” you whisper, smacking your forehead. Everyone lets out a collective groan, but before you can send someone back up to hunt down the alcohol, Ginny opens her backpack, revealing the gleaming jug. Everyone cheers, but then quickly realizes that loudly cheering may have blown your cover. Fred and George scurry off into the brush and you all follow them down a lightly trod path through the countryside, eventually reaching the open bank of a large, murky pond. This is a spot you’ve never been to before, probably because it’s a fair stretch away from the house, and apparently from any civilization at all. 

Hermione quickly conjures a large fire, creating a pocket of warmth in the chilly night air. You lean against a large rock and shiver when the cool stone brushes the back of your neck. Ginny pulls out the firewhiskey and hands it to Fred, who pops the cork, shouting with glee before knocking back a sip and passing it to George, who passes it to you. The familiar sickly sweet liquid burns your throat and warms your stomach, and you feel your (already barely existent) inhibitions begin melting away.

Before long, Ron suggests that you all play a game, and you run through your options: truth or dare, spin the bottle, a wizarding game you’ve never heard of, and hide and go seek. Hermione refutes hide and go seek on the basis of safety, and Fred refutes spin the bottle on the basis of the fact that four out of six of you are siblings. Not everyone brought their wands, so you can’t play the magic game, and you’re left with truth or dare as the apparent winner, which you were rooting for anyway, because you want to see what you can get the twins to do. It almost makes you wish Percy was here so you could put him in a compromising position, but knowing him, he’d find a way to make walking on hot coals boring. 

“I’ll start, I’ll start!” you volunteer, looking around the circle. “My first victim will beeeee…” you look at Hermione, who cringes nervously, then spin around to point at Harry. “Harry Potter. What will it be, Mr. Potter, truth or dare?” you ask.

Harry shrugs. “Hmm.. I’ll do.. Dare, why not?” he replies. 

“Alright Harry, I dare you tooooo.... Oh, easy. I dare you to smack Ron every time he says something you think is stupid tonight. And be honest, or we’ll smack you,” you say. The twins nod in agreement. 

“That’s not fair! That’s barely a real dare!” protests Ron. You raise an eyebrow at Harry, who turns and gives his friend a good wallop. 

“Alright Harry, your turn.” 

You play for nearly an hour, all the while passing the bottle lazily between you, until everyone’s good and tipsy on the strong liquor. Several good dares are exchanged: Fred is dared to give you a lap dance, which he does with gusto and an uncomfortable amount of eye contact. You dare Ginny to race you across the pond and back, and you both strip down to your skivvies and plunge into the chilly water. Ginny wins, of course, but you just wanted an excuse for a swim. Fred lends you his cloak, patting it onto your shoulders to dry them before you pull your pants back on. George dares Ron to walk back to the house and get food, which he reluctantly agrees to after everyone bullies him into it. By the time he gets back with a basket of pastries and jam, you’ve transitioned to mainly truths, because the well of dares has run dry. 

When it’s Hermione’s turn to ask Fred, she blushingly asks if he’s lost his virginity. 

“What, do you all think I’ve snogged every girl we know without scaring? Have a little faith, please.”

“Clever, but that’s not an answer!” slurs Hermione, pointing at him and grinning. “Have you actually had sex before, or do you just talk a big game?” 

“Well, have you?” you ask, laughing as he tries to bluster out an answer.

“”Course I have. Ask anybody. Everybody must think George and I are the male sluts of the century, the way you people talk.” 

“Still not an answer!” you say, looking at him mischievously. 

“How’s this for an answer, then?” he retorts, pulling you to his waist and kissing you on the lips melodramatically, throwing you up against the rock, practically fucking but for the clothes. What’s probably thirty seconds of kissing at most feels like an hour. Everyone goes “Oooooh!” and when he finally lets you go you’re flabbergasted, but you recover your senses.

“Point taken, then. Alright Freddie, your turn,” you say, straightening your clothes and trying not to look like you enjoyed that. 

“I dare Hermione to let us play hide and seek, for fuck’s sake,” he says, lazily.

“Ugh! I might be drunk but I’m not letting anyone stumble around alone in the pitch black plastered out of your mind. Ask me a real question!” 

“What if we weren’t alone?” Harry asks, looking around. “I mean, we could go in pairs or little groups. Like team hide and seek, basically.”

“I call Fred and George!” you cry, throwing your arms around their sweaty necks. 

“Fine, but please be careful. And everyone should be on a team with at least one person with a wand,” says Hermione, who teams up with Ron. That leaves Harry and Ginny on the last team.

George produces his wand and casts an illumination spell.

“Not it!” You shout, immediately echoed by Ginny. 

“Alright, we’ll count to 50” says Hermione, but Harry and George protest until they finally agree to 3 minutes.

Fred tears off into the woods and you and George follow, bushes thwacking you in the face, vines snagging at your ankles. You break through the brush into a field, panting, and stop for a break. 

“Where are we going?” you ask, looking around. “And where are we?” 

“No idea!” Fred says gleefully. 

“What about over there?” George nods towards a patch of grass and trees down in a glenn. You lope down hill through high grass and crash to a halt in the stand of trees, crouching low. Fred huddles next to you and George clambers clumsily into one of the trees, flattening himself into one of its crooks.

You can feel your stomach churning after your run, but you manage to successfully push down the acrid taste rising in your throat. Above you, you hear George belch, and just manage to slip out of the way as he spits a pitiful glob of vomit to the ground.

“Oi, we’re down here, you lout,” hisses Fred, ducking.

“Look at the state of you,” you drawl, bumping into Fred as you readjust around George’s vomit. He groans from his spot up in the tree and lies back down sleepily. To your surprise, you feel the urge to pull Fred closer rather than pushing him away. The earthy smell of the forest floor calms your stomach, and you find your mind wandering to his lips, his hands on your waist and neck. Buzzing with drunken impulsivity, you wrap your arms around his slender waist and pull him to sit beside you. He looks surprised, but readily slouches against the tree trunk next to you. You can feel his chest rising and falling with each breath. The air is still and cool in that settled way characteristic of the night.

Overhead, you think you can hear George beginning to snore. 

“Freddie-” you begin, but before you can say a word, his lips are on yours, his hands tangled in your hair. You push him down and roll over so that you’re straddling him, gripping his jaw in one hand as you kiss him, hard, then gently. His lips are softer and more relaxed than they were when he kissed you earlier, and his body less certain. There’s no false bravado in him now, and you bite his lip gently, your tongues barely batting together. You reach down to unzip his pants but he pulls back.

“Y/N- I- Look, I may have lied earlier,” he says, his face flush with desire and embarrassment. You look at him quizzically, your drunken mind not connecting all the dots. 

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I haven’t… done this before. I’ve only ever kissed. Although I’ve done quite a lot of that.” he says quietly. You blink.

“Oh. Oh! You total freak. Why go to all that trouble to convince everyone you have?”

“Have you considered that maybe I just wanted to kiss you?”

This shuts you up. He pulls you back down to kiss you again, this time on the cheek, on the forehead, the neck. 

“Don’t do anything you don’t want to do,” you say carefully, brushing a bead of sweat from his forehead. 

“No… no, I’m ready. I want this now,” he says, tugging at your shirt. You pull it off over your head and toss it into the grass, the game of hide and seek forgotten. Let the shirt be a warning flag to any nosy passerby. Fred kisses across your chest. 

“Freddie, we’re drunk,” you remind him, your breathing growing heavier as his tongue flicks across your nipple.

“I want you,” he mumbles into the crook of your neck in between kisses. “I want you, I want you, I want you,” he says. You kiss him in reply, and move again to unzip his pants. You feel his hard member ready to burst out of his jeans, and it sends a thrill through you.

You had considered that you might one day wind up with Fred or George, and honestly, you had figured it would be on some less-than-sober whim like this, but you never really pictured it. You certainly never imagined Fred like this, innocent and tame, hoping for someone else to take the lead.

“Will you show me how?”

“Yes,” you breathe your reply into his mouth.

“Will you go slow?” he asks sweetly, his coy submissiveness sending tremors through your body. 

“Yes. Come closer.”

In the morning, you groggily open your eyes at the sound of birds chirping. You sit up, your head throbbing, and look around. Above you and a few feet to your right, George is sleeping soundly on his belly in the flat convergence of an oak tree’s branches. To your left, shirtless and smeared with dirt, is Fred curled on top of his cloak, also fast asleep. 

“Guess they gave up on finding us,” you mutter, running a hand through your hair to smooth it into place. You remember what happened last night well enough, although some parts are cloudier than others, and you don’t remember deciding to fall asleep at all. You suppose it just happened at some point. Your heart beats faster, wondering if you and Fred will be an item after this, or if he’ll want to keep it quiet, or if you just won’t talk about it. You’re not sure what you want, yet. It’s still purple pre-dawn in the countryside, the sun not quite peeking over the horizon yet.

You know you enjoyed yourself, and you adore Fred- as a friend, certainly. As something more? Maybe. You brush away your anxieties and trust that you’ll settle things when you’re less groggy. Suddenly, it dawns on you that you’ve got to get back to the house before Mr. and Mrs. Weasley wake up and notice your absence. You stand up as though the ground caught fire, kicking at Fred and shouting at George to get down.

You fetch your shirt from a nearby bush, and pluck a twig from Fred’s hair as he looks up, dazed.

“God, my head,” he says, squinting up at you. “What the hell time is it?”

“Never mind that, you’ll have worse than a headache if we don’t get back to the house by like, yesterday.”

“Merlin!” George exclaims, perking up and basically falling from his perch to the ground. Recovering he stands up, taking his surroundings in. “Hold on, what the hell happened to you, Fred? Where’s your shirt?”

“No time for all that, go!” you say, shoving George in the direction you suppose the house is in. You muster as fast a pace as you can and follow him, Fred scrambling to gather his cloak and tee shirt before catching up with you. With George’s back to both of you, you exchange a goofy grin and a wave of relief runs through you. He obviously doesn’t consider last night a mistake, either. You slip your hand into his and make your way into the breaking dawn.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Nice to Meet You

For @boxboysandotherwhump - Theo chose soft!Jameson, so here he is! @wildfaewhump gave me the three-word prompt “Space, shell, fair” for Jameson.

CW: Recovering pet whumpees, referenced past torture, scars, referenced dubcon/noncon, briefly referenced past dehumanization, consensual angst, fluff

When he opens the closet door, intending to press himself into his safe spot with his back to the corner, blocked by the boxes, he discovers Allyn is already there.

For a moment, his mind goes blank.

They look up at him and wince as the light cuts into the warm, velvet dark they were hiding in. Their long wavy hair hangs over their eyes, impossibly long legs bent until their knees are under their chin in the oversized sweatpants, gray eyes looking up at him, startled.

They’re more afraid of you than you are of them, whispers Nanda’s voice in his mind, soft and sweet as custard, the first owner, the one who took him on hunting trips where he had him sleep with the dogs and cut a line into the back of his thigh for every animal he slaughtered. All his memories of Nanda are grays tinged in blood - the gray of the sky, of Nanda’s eyes, the red of the bloodhounds, the drips that followed him across the floor. 

Nanda also taught him about bears, while they moved through the woods. They’re more afraid of you than you are of them, boy. Vanilla custard, but held on the edge of a sharp knife, metallic under pillowy cloying sweetness. Nanda’s words always felt like blood in his mouth, spoonfed.

Allyn isn’t a bear - but they are definitely afraid.

“Why-” His voice cracks, shock of earthquake through ice on his tongue, and he considers simply closing the door and walking away. Allyn is his roommate, not his friend. He doesn’t have friends, none of them have real friends. Just other people also suffering nearby. Finally, though, he opens the door just a little wider. “Why are you in here?”

Allyn shakes their head, and it’s only then Jameson realizes their hair is uncombed, hanging lank and limp and lifeless, which Allyn’s hair never does. Their lips tremble, no perfect fucking party smile in place like usual, as they cringe back from him. No pretty blouse, no pretty anything. Just pale and shadowed, freckles standing out like someone stuck them on. “I-I’m sorry, I just… just needed-... a, a minute t-to breathe, I’m sorry-”

“This is my fucking space, Allyn. Yours is under the bed, so… go be under the bed.” His voice isn’t as rough and mean as he wants it to be, but it’s maybe mean enough - they sniff, and he sees their eyes glitter with tears.

His anger melts under something he tells himself isn’t guilt, and he exhales, slowly, before he moves to a crouch. He doesn’t like being loomed over, so they probably hate it, too, right? He’s had too many motherfuckers stare down at him in his cages. He stays that way in silence, right at their eye level, cocking his head as they breathe, wondering what color their eyes really are.

“I’m sorry,” They whisper, and he can see the shift of their oversized sweatshirt, three days past needing a wash. This isn’t like Allyn at all. Have they been like this for days, and he didn’t notice?

Well, why he fuck should he notice, they’re not friends, and Allyn is in his space, the only space in his entire life that’s all his and isn’t ringed in bars to put him on display-

No. 

It’s not their fault, they’re upset, and the darkness of the closet is safer than anywhere else. You can hide in closets, he understands why they’re here. He forces down his irritation, and takes in the miserable worry in their eyes.

“Shit. Allyn, it’s... I don’t mean to be an ass, I just-... uh, what made you… need a minute? Exactly?” He should call for the big guy who runs this place, it’s his whole job to handle moments like this, but he can’t quite make it happen. Instead, he finds the voice he wants to be sharp is softer, his words feel like the heat of a kiss he actually wants, taste sweeter than any kiss he’s ever actually had. 

They’re more scared of you than you are of them.

“Um, I-I was-... I was thinking… about… him.” The poison in the love in their voice is all in Jameson’s head, but he feels it seep into all his scars anyway. Acid, that him. Too much pineapple burning his tongue. They’re lucky to have had an owner they could love. Luckier still, to have one who loved them back.

Luckiest of all, to have an owner who wanted them to be happy.

Unluckiest, though, to get chucked out with the fucking garbage when the asshole died and they weren’t in his will. It’s not fair, but it’s fucking life, isn’t it? And in the end, which one of them is luckier? Him, for knowing it was suffering the whole time - or them, for having the chance to believe it was anything else?

“You miss him.” Flat, crash of knives on the ground, the clink and rattle and smack of their handles. Allyn only hears the words. He is starting to realize words feel inside him differently than they do to others. 

Allyn nods, and the glitter of tears spills finally out. 

He wants to touch their face - he doesn’t.

“I-I do,” They whisper. “I know I sh-sh-shouldn’t, but I… I do. I’m sorry, I know that you don’t-... that you weren’t-”

“Yeah, well.” He waves a hand, dismissive. The scars on his back and legs feel stretched, when he crouches like this, balances on the balls of his feet. He can feel the skin pull at itself, numbed but still here. Couldn’t kill me, motherfuckers, how about that? I’m still here, and three of you are gone. You’re just fucking corpses and your little blow-up doll with a heartbeat is still here. “You’re hurting worse than I am now, so I guess we’re sort of even.”

“I just… I can’t-...” Allyn’s voice buckles under the weight of their emotions, it shatters. Jameson tastes blood from the glass and watches Allyn lift their hands to hide behind them. Long fingers, delicate and graceful, even in this. Nails filed to perfect roundness. His own fingers are nothing special, two of them on his right hand broken until they don’t bend quite right anymore. He didn’t have to have perfect hands. He barely escaped Robert getting to keep his hands at all, and that was only because he was pretty fucking good at using them. 

“I can’t live without him,” Allyn whimpers, muffled and thick. “I feel like… like I was made empty for him to fill up, and h-he’s gone, I can’t-... live without him, I can’t-”

He swallows the glass of their grief, buries it inside him. Wonders if he’ll ever know how it feels to give a shit what happened to the assholes who hurt him. What would it be like, to actually feel bad about the deaths? 

“You can,” He says, low-voiced, and shifts forward into the closet, settling himself down and closing the door until only the thinnest crack of light can break up their safer darkness. Barely the width of a wire, the light illuminates nothing, only reminds them it’s there. He listens to the soft inhale, slower exhale, of the person beside him. Their presence is a weight, in his safest places, and his nerves are alight with how fragile it is, to have anywhere at all, how easily ruined by someone intruding. He clears his throat, uncertain, unused to being one to give comfort. More used to ignoring its existence. “You, um. You can live without them, I fucking swear it, Allyn. I lived without all of mine, for a while, ‘fore the next one caught me, or bought me.”

He hears rustling, and tilts his head just slightly to see them looking at him. They’re pale, but he is, too, a duller washed-out color from lack of sunlight for so long. Their freckles look like constellations, the stars he would stare at through Robert’s window in the dark. He notes, absently, that they damn near have a Little Dipper along their left cheekbone. “But-... but you didn’t love them… did you?”

He decides he sort of likes their voice. It slips into his mind, subtle sweetness, maple syrup but thinner. Weaker, but maybe it could be strong. 

With time.

He swallows, speaking gruffly to cover up the strange twist of emotion. “No, I-... no. I didn’t love ‘em, but… but you keep going, you know? You’ll do it, too. I’m not… fuck, I’m not good for this. I wasn’t ever supposed to talk, so I’m not… super good at it now. Being, um. Like, helping… with words.” His voice is thick tar on his tongue, colored by his embarrassment. 

But he tries.

There’s a silence, and he leans over, until his shoulder just touches theirs. Allyn tenses and then relaxes, and they sit like that for a while, listening to each other breathe.

Allyn’s head comes to rest on his shoulder, and he finds he doesn’t mind the weight.

“I’m so tired of being sad,” They whisper. 

“Yeah, I’m-... sorta tired of being pissed off, myself.” He huffs a laugh. Then he feels Allyn’s hand - cold, slender, long-fingered - find his own, warmer and scarred. “Feels like we’re just empty seashells that get filled up with whatever the water brings, huh?”

“That… that sounds really pretty,” Allyn says softly. “Do you think pretty things a lot?”

“No. Most of my thoughts are really fucking ugly.” He manages another humorless laugh. “I guess I can surprise you, huh.”

“In more ways than one.”

“What?”

“I saw what you wrote on the wall,” Allyn murmurs, and they shift their head, breath warm on the side of his neck, where his collar is. Or isn’t. For a second, he can’t remember if he’s wearing it or not. He takes his off, sometimes. When he can. More and more often, as the days turns into weeks here.

“You did?” He closes his eyes, not that it makes much difference. They don’t let go of his hand. There is movement, out in the hall, in the rest of the house, but for the second, he and Allyn are alone. 

“Mmhmm. You can read and write? Did your owner let you?”

It’s a secret he’s kept inside him for so long. It’s so hard to give it away, now. “I… no, none of them knew I could. When they took it from me, it… didn’t work. I never lost it.”

“Oh.” They’re silent for a moment. Their breath is warm, and despite himself, he feels a nervous flip of his stomach, his hair standing on end. It’s something trapped between fear and want, and it’s unlike any fear or want he’s ever felt before. “What did you write, on the wall?”

He could tell them anything. He could lie.

He tells the truth. “I wrote out our names. All of us. Um. The, Jake, and… his people. Eli, Nova, Sarita, um, Allyn…”

“Did you write yours?”

He lets his head gently fall back to rest against the wall. His heart might break out of him, bleed all over the floor. A different kind of bleeding, a kind that he sort of wants, even though he doesn’t. “Um. Yeah, I… yeah.”

“What is it?” They don’t move their head, they don’t let go of his hand. “What’s your name?”

He shouldn’t tell them.

It’s been his secret for so, so long. But… fuck, he’s so tired of secrets.

“Jameson,” He says, and it’s the taste of air just before rain, a chill breeze on a blistering day. His name, the one he gave himself. “I’m-... my name is Jameson.”

They’re quiet for a second, and then say, softly, “Nice to meet you, Jameson.”

It sounds better, in Allyn’s voice.

Everything does.

---

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @whumpiary @raigash @moose-teeth @orchidscript @astrobly @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @endless-whump

[gellavonhamster]

ghost stories

Suicide Squad (2016) || characters: El Diablo feat. everyone else || post-canon, sort of a fix-it

ao3 link eng || this was first written and published on ao3 in Russian in 2016 but I didn't attempt to translate it into English back then.  

Harley is the first to see him.

She catches the smell first. Something appears to be burning, and she checks cautiously if there is something wrong with the coffee machine. She doesn’t find anything suspicious – not that the appliances about to flame up smell like that anyway. Could it be that there’s a fire starting? That would be funny, but seems like there’s hardly a chance. It is the smell of a bonfire at the beach, of the fallen leaves being burned in the yards in fall, of a melting candle in the church; weirdly, all this at the same time. A smell that seems too pure for Belle Reve, for Gotham, for everything that makes up her life these days.      

Harley looks around once again – and springs to her feet like she’s been stung.

Chato Santana is standing next to her cage.

“Diablo?” she whispers, unable to believe her eyes. She would’ve thought she’s lost her marbles if there were any left to lose.    

“Harley,” says Diablo, and it’s his voice, his shy, sad smile, his eyes and his tattoos, and Harley squeals in delight as she rushes to him. The bars of the cage are live, so she only dares to stick out the tips of her fingers. He touches them with his hand – certainly alive, certainly not a product of her mind being tortured by boredom and monotony – and she laughs.

“You’re alive, alive, alive! How did you survive? And how did they let you in?”

“It’s a long story. And I don’t think I have much time,” Diablo looks guilty. He’s still holding her hand and looking at her so earnestly it’s almost worrying.  “Harley… don’t go with him.”  

“Huh? What do you mean, honey?”

“He’s coming here. Don’t leave with him, Harley, stay. It sounds strange, but this would really be for the best.”  

“Don’t leave with whom?” she can’t follow him. He gives her a melancholic look – and suddenly disappears. Without any smoke or flames or any other special effects. She can’t wrap her head around how it happened – it’s just that he was here a moment ago, and now there’s no one beside her, and she’s reaching out towards nothing.      

“Diablo?” she calls, and when she gets no answer, she decides to get things straight by asking the guards. What kind of cruel joke is this? Only one person is allowed to joke here, and that person is her. “Hello there! Mister jailer, yoo-hoo! Where’s my friend?”  

No one is in a hurry to respond. Finally, one of the armed-to-the-teeth guards approaches the cage.

“Why are you yelling, lady?”

“Where’s my friend?” Harley asks petulantly. “He was here just now, and we didn’t finish talking. Where did you take him?”  

“There was no one here.”

“What do you mean ‘no one’? I just talked to him!”

The guard examines her from head to foot. Looks like he’s chewing gum, which, combined with his empty apathetic stare, makes him look like a cow.

“Definitely crazy,” he sums up, and leaves. Irritated, Harley forgets to take caution, hits the bars and falls down on the floor right away, writhing in pain.    

“Well, well, well,” she whispers, playing the recent events over in her head. Chato was very much corporeal – not a ghost, then. Yet the guards didn’t notice him, and then he vanished into thin air. Harley thinks about the being Chato transformed into by the end of the battle – an ancient one, as if straight from the walls of some Aztec temple. Could some petty bomb kill such a being? Could the Enchantress’s brother have survived too?  

“I am friends with a god,” she informs the ceiling. “Incredible.”

About an hour later, her Puddin’ comes for her, and she forgets the advice Diablo gave her.  

  Croc sees him on the night of the same day. He knows for sure that it is night thanks to the TV listings – the only reference point for time and days of the week that he has. Not that it was bothering him too much, truth be told. Monday or Sunday, every day in Belle Reve is a carbon copy of the day before. However, Croc doesn’t complain. He has a roof over his head, water, food – even better food than he used to have in the sewers in days gone by – and a TV, and it is honestly not too hard to do without such extras as companionship and fresh experiences. Still, he is glad to see Diablo. Even though first he lunges at him with his fangs bared, because he doesn’t immediately recognize him and supposes that Waller and company are sick of feeding him and decided to kill him. Or to put someone else in his quarters, which would have been no less audacious.        

“Croc, it’s me,” Diablo hastens to say, and lights up a flame over his left palm – so unusual and out of place in the dampness of Croc’s cell. Croc freezes and watches the flame for some seconds. That must really be Diablo; there are hardly many people in the world capable of such tricks.

“Hey, man,” Croc says. “Whatcha doing here?”

“Just checking up on you.”

Well, that must definitely be Diablo. Croc knows that there are hardly many people in the world who’d care to check up on him, but that sounds like something El Diablo would do. Back then, during the mission, he was friendly, asked “You okay?” after each skirmish, and could clap him on the shoulder without shuddering. And there are definitely even less people in the world that would touch him willingly.      

“Did they just let you in like that?” wonders Croc. Diablo gives him a slight smile.

“They don’t know I’m here.”

“So you’re, like, a ghost?” Croc asks. It occurred to him from the very beginning, but it sounds particularly joyless when said out loud.

Diablo gestures vaguely. “I’m still figuring it out myself, to be honest.”

“Hmm,” Croc glances over his cell. A bag of food on the cot catches his eye. “You want a burger?”

“Nah, I’m good. Save it for yourself.”

“They’ll bring more today, I’m telling ya.”  

“Then I want one.”

“Then you’re not a ghost,” grins Croc, and the fact that Diablo doesn’t flinch or try to look away also proves that this is the real Chato Santana, because most people don’t like seeing Croc smile.

And so he and Diablo, who kind of is a ghost but kind of isn’t, sit there eating burgers and watching some crap on MTV. Life has taught Croc not to be surprised by anything, so everything’s fine.  

“So what happened after the bomb went off?” Croc asks. Diablo opens his mouth, and then closes it again, apparently at a loss how to explain.

“I was smoke,” he speaks finally. “Then I was flames. Then I became myself again.”

“I see,” Croc replies, although, of course, he can’t see shit.

“Who are you talking to?” comes the guard’s voice from behind the door. “Hey, scum!”

Croc puts the burger aside.

“Wait a bit,” he tells Chato, gets up, and heads for the door.

When he comes to the bean hole, the guard already looks like he regrets calling him.  

“No one,” Crock smiles as widely as only he can, and the guard, who isn’t among the people able to watch him smile without blinking an eye, steps back reflexively. “But come inside, and I’ll talk to you if you wanna. How about that?”   

When he turns around, Chato has already disappeared, and Croc could have assumed he has dreamed it all, but there are two half-eaten burgers on the cot, not one.

  Digger sees him next, and he isn’t even amazed. The bastards keep drugging him with all sorts of shit to calm him down. Usually after the shot he just lies there, feverish, and can’t even move, let alone stand up, but who knows, perhaps they’re testing some new poison on him. Or they’ve started using something stronger because they noticed that a couple of hours after the usual stuff he’s already able to yell, bang at the door, and do everything he can to get the best of them while cooped up inside. Or it’s simply that there’s already so much of this shit in his blood that it’s impossible not to have any screws loose, try as he might to keep them in place. In any case, he’s not exactly shocked when, as he tosses and turns on the floor after another injection, he turns his head and sees El Diablo, large as life and twice as ugly.

“Fuck me sideways,” Digger says. He doesn’t have any energy to be mad yet. “I must be tripping.”

“You’re not tripping,” Diablo objects.

“You died. So I must be.”  

“I didn’t die either.”

Diablo sits down cross-legged on the floor next to him.

“Has it crossed your mind that if you stop getting on their nerves, they might start treating you better?” he asks.

“Go to hell.”

“Message received.”

There’s a footfall outside; a whole bunch of people must be running somewhere.

“They’ve turned the entire joint upside down,” says Digger, because it’s been ages since he has spoken to anyone who’d at least pretend to listen, so a hallucination will do. “Blondie escaped.”  

“I know,” Diablo replies gloomily. “I tried to warn her not to go with the Joker, but she didn’t listen to me.”  

“Why warn her?” Digger asks. Harley Quinn is no bosom friend of his, but she kind of tore out the heart of the witch who kind of tried to end the world, and anyway, teammates probably should take interest in each other’s lives. Probably. He’s never really made sense of that teamwork stuff. “What’s he gonna do to her?”    

“At best, what he always does.”

Two tiny figures of fire appear on Diablo’s open palm – a man and a woman. The man backhands the woman across her face, and she falls down. Digger watches the dancing flames with fascination, and meanwhile in his head, bit by bit, stroke by stroke, a plan starts to take shape. He wouldn’t be Captain motherfucking Boomerang if he fails to use any opportunity that turns up – even a ghost of one. 

“Listen, mate,” he begins cajolingly. “If you’re really here and it’s not just me tripping… help an old friend out, won’t you? I’m fed up with being stuck here, you know.”

“I’m not gonna help you escape,” Diablo says calmly. “How do you imagine that would even happen?”

“Can’t you just burn the entire Belle Reve to the bloody ground?”

Diablo smiles.

“I can,” he admits. “But I won’t.”

The next thing he knows, the son of a bitch is gone without a trace. Anger and offence must be giving Digger strength, because he manages to leap to his feet. Like a lunatic, he thrashes around the cell, looking for at least some kind of proof that someone else was here a moment ago.  

“Oi!” he shouts, knowing damn well that the guards have long stopped listening to what he has to say. “Grab the devil! A convict escaped! Hey, wankers!”  

But he’s feeling lightheaded, and this shit must be really strong, and he collapses, badly hitting his head.  

  Tatsu sees him next – late at night, in her apartment. She’s a light sleeper, and wakes up as soon as she hears footsteps. The sword is close at hand, and she grabs it instantly, blade swishing through the air.  

“Who’s there?” Tatsu asks, and then repeats in English. “Who’s there?”

There is nowhere to hide in her bedroom. The only furniture is the mattress and the pair of chairs she uses to hang her clothes on. Everything is on the floor or on the windowsill – weapons, her laptop, the book she tried to read before going to sleep but could not concentrate on. It is an ascetic, comfortless dwelling that does not look permanent and is not supposed to become so. Fate and Amanda Waller, though, seem to have other plans in this respect.  

There is nowhere to hide in her bedroom – but someone’s definitely walking in the antechamber; she flings the door open – and sees El Diablo, standing by the entrance and looking around. In a blink of an eye Tatsu is next to him, and the blade of the Soultaker is pressed to his neck.  

“Katana, it’s me,” Diablo says, unfazed. “Chato Santana.”

“Chato Santana is dead,” she says through her teeth. Chato Santana was a gangster who killed, albeit by a tragic accident, his own family – but she fought side by side with him, he sacrificed himself to save the world, he called their squad his family and died for them. That is enough for her not to let anyone use his name as a cover. “Who are you?”    

“I’m alive,” Diablo replies. He puts his hands up to show he’s unarmed, and forks of flame appear on his palms. “Or sort of.”  

Sort of.

Tatsu lowers the sword and looks warily at the man standing in front of her.

“How did you…”

“You’re gonna have a new mission soon. Demand that Waller tells you everything.”

“About what?”

“I couldn’t overhear that,” he says with regret. “But…”

Something knocks on the window. Tatsu turns around quickly, but that must’ve been just a tree branch hitting the windowpane. When she turns back to Chato, he’s already gone, and her apartment is silent.

It’s just four in the morning, but she can’t make herself fall asleep again. Having poured a cup of tea, Tatsu sits down on the mattress and thinks, think, thinks about what just happened. Tatsu believes in ghosts – her sword is teeming with them, so she wouldn’t say that her worldview is shaken. Still, this is strange, very strange. What did he want to tell her? Why did he disappear so abruptly? Like… a broadcast was interrupted.    

Colonel Flag calls her at daybreak and tells her that there’s a shoot-out between two gangs on the outskirts of Gotham, with metahumans on both sides. When Tatsu arrives at Belle Reve, it turns out they must have considered it to be not enough to ruin her Saturday morning, because she is asked – more like ordered, actually – to escort an inmate from his cell, an inmate who attacks anyone who tries to enter and has already injured three guards with his bare hands, and it’s not reasonable to sedate him before the mission, and “he’s likely to obey if it’s you, Katana” – the last is Rick’s argument, and if he told that to her face and not on the phone, she would have had to strain every nerve not to hit him with something.    

No one tries to attack her when she enters the cell of Captain Boomerang – Harkness is sitting on the floor quite still, his arms around his knees, and when he notices her, he even smiles with bruised lips.  

“Hello, gorgeous,” he says. “Am I hallucinating you too?”

“No,” the question is unexpected and confuses her. “Why?”

“Well, they keep injecting me some crap, and lately I’ve been seeing things,” Harkness explains peacefully, even eagerly. His voice is quiet and hoarse, which, combined with his Australian accent, leads to Tatsu being barely able to make out half of what he’s saying. To hear him better, she crouches down next to him, still gripping the sword hilt – there is no telling if he isn’t just making her come closer to take her down and bolt. “Saw the devil yesterday.”      

“The devil?”

“Our devil. Día… de fucking Muertos. Chato Santana.”

Tatsu gives a shiver and, having lost her balance, half sits down, half falls on the dirty floor.

She isn’t the only one to have seen him. She isn’t the only one he wanted to send a message to.

“Hey, luv,” Harkness frowns and reaches out to touch her knee lightly. “You all right?”  

“Same as you, more or less,” she wants to reply, which of course would mean she isn’t, not at all.

“What did he tell you?” she asks him instead.

  When Floyd sees him, he is hardly surprised, since the others have already warned him. Boomerang, Croc, and Katana tell him everything while they’re waiting for the helo, and had it been just Boomerang, who believes inexplicably that he has a sense of humour although he certainly doesn’t, Floyd most likely wouldn’t have believed his ghost stories, but it is even harder to believe that Croc, let alone Katana would agree to take part in such pranks. Which is why he listens to them closely and takes note: okay, then he doesn’t have to worry about his mental heath if the late Santana suddenly appears out of nowhere to give some advice or share some news or simply ask how he’s doing. So the four of them keep whispering to one another like kids at the back of the class until their transport arrives – just the four of them, which is a pity. If there is anyone on the team that he had missed a little, it’s Harley. Floyd knows some things about the Joker, for it isn’t possible, as they write in the papers, to belong to the criminal world of Gotham and not know anything about the Joker. Floyd knows what Flag had spilled to him when visiting him in his cell or escorting him there after a visit to Zoe. Floyd thinks that in his entire lifetime he hasn’t understood a thing about love – is it even possible to understand it, on the other hand? – but he feels like the mad and brilliant Harley, Harley the whimsical, Harley the loving deserves better.                

“What’s with the gossiping?” Flag inquires suspiciously.  

“Nothing!” Croc and Digger answer in unison, in unison, and Floyd facepalms because seriously, are they in some cheesy movie or what? They don’t tell Flag anything yet, but Floyd is almost sure that sooner or later Santana will visit him as well, because Flag is one of them too, after all. Not that he’s even trying to deny it; no one’s making him drop by Floyd’s cell every other day to chat about some nonsense through the steel door.          

So Floyd is hardly surprised when, as he makes his way behind the dumpsters loading one gun after another, he notices a familiar, head-to-toe-tattooed figure standing nearby.  

“There are snipers on the roof over there and around the corner of the shop,” Chato says instead of greeting. Floyd nods.

“I noticed.”

“Eight men in the drugstore on the other side of the street. Each with a machine gun.”  

“How do you know?”

“I’ve just been there.”

“Got it,” there’s no time for lengthy conversations. No time to say: glad you’re alive, man. No time to ascertain: are you alive, though? So he thinks over the plan of action, making a mental note to ask all these questions later, when there are no bullets whistling past their ears.  

People like them deserve no guardian angels, frankly speaking, but they may have managed to earn one for all of them.

[carnistcervine]

Water-Fire Reversal AU

...But then, everything changed when the Water Tribes attacked.

Here's the proper headcanons/outline/AU thing for my own interpretation of Water-Fire reversal AU.

Based on my post here.

-The Water Tribes becomes the perpetrators of the 100 years war, and the Fire Nation becomes the one stripped away and decimated.

-God forgot to nerf the Southern Water Tribe and they joined forces with the North during Kyoshi's time.

-Kyoshi is too busy chillin on her island to bother with them, so they become dangerously powerful by the time Roku rolls around.

-The Fire Nation still goes through with it's industrialization, because, come on it's a volcanic island chain. There's lots and lots of heat, and fossil fuels, and metal ore. They wouldn't not have an industrial revolution.

-The only difference here is that Sozin actually heeds Roku's advice and decides to listen to the Avatar. He accepts that the world needs to remain four nations, and decides to help him uphold the balance.

-Their friendship grows strong once again.

-So when colonies appear in the Earth Kingdom, it's the South colonizing Kyoshi island.

-Roku is like, OH HELL NO- D:<

-He goes to confront the Southern Chief, and she's all, bitch I do what I want.

-But Roku has had time to calm his tits on the ride over so, he tries to be rational and restrained about it.

-So he be like, "Leave Kyoshi alone, or I will string you up by your nipples"(or something like that. :'D)

-Also, uh, Kyoshi may or may not be part of why Roku is so mad. I mean he is her direct successor.

-The uh, the Water Tribes didn't like that.

-At all, lmao.

-They get into a fight, he kills the chief, which only further serves to turn the Water Tribes against him. And makes their chief a martyr. Strengthening her cause.

-However, at the time they see Roku as acting as Avatar, so they leave the Fire Nation be. Their beef is with him.

-The Avatar is at war with the Water Tribes for several years, resulting is heavy destruction for both tribes, and leaving Roku exhausted.

-Rather than see their Tribes destroyed, they decide to temporarily back off, lick their wounds, recuperate, and make a plan to strike back against Roku.

-Tired, Roku retires to his volcano home and settles down with his family.

-Now, volcanoes do not erupt with no warning whatsoever. Roku and the inhabitants of his island simply misjudged when it would blow it's top.

-However, it did not escape the Water Tribe's notice that the volcano was growing increasingly unstable.

-They primed themselves to strike as it grew increasingly violent.

-When the volcano blew it's top Roku was dealing with both an angry volcano, and angry waterbenders using their combined power to summon tsunamis.

-Roku had to stop the volcano and protect the people trying to flee at the same time.

-He put more into protecting the people, as they had nothing to do with it and didn't deserve to be dragged into his conflict.

-Sozin, seeing Roku's island blowing it's top, came in on his dragon and offered his help.

-Sozin works to get the people to safety while Roku battles the volcano and waterbenders.

-Roku is overwhelmed and both he and his dragon are slain in battle.

-Sozin sees the attack as a declaration of War.

-The Air Nomads are not wiped out.

-Not because the Water Tribes are nice or anything. No, in this AU, they are just as bad as canon Fire Nation.

-The Air Nomads are still around because there is no water equivalent to Sozin's comet. And where the Air Nomads live, ridiculously high above sea-level, protects them from the Water Tribes.

-Sozin begs the Air Nomads for help, but they refuse to partake in the war. Even to the point of hiding Aang from the world.

-In this AU, the Air Nomads serve a role similar to the canon North and Ba Sing Se. Where they put up their defenses and sit idly by as the rest of the world drowns.

-The Water Tribes decimate and wash away many coastal communities, only sparing the ones that bow down to them and allow themselves to be colonized.

-Ba Sing Se and Omashu are safe, because they are far away from major sources of water. Ba Sing Se is mostly surrounded by desert and the only water way is protected by sea serpents(plural).

-And also that goddamn wall.

-Kyoshi Island had the Unagi, but... it was killed. :'D

-The South had a feast that night. lmao

-Sozin plans on putting an end to the war using Sozin's Comet(called Agni's Comet or the Great Comet).

-But uh, there's an eclipse.

-It becomes known as the Darkest Day in Fire Nation history.

-The Fire Nation royal family make it out okay, but to say the country as a whole was decimated is an understatement.

-This becomes the catalyst to the war, with the Earth Kingdom being moved to join forces with the Fire Nation to fight back against the Water Tribes.

-The Earth Kingdoms and Fire Nation have some leverage with their metal ships, but the Water Tribes have the advantage of literally being able to use the battle field as a weapon.

-Learning from the Darkest Day, the Fire Nation(with the help of the Earth Kingdom) builds a wall around it's inner cities.

-They make a recovery, but the outermost communities(ie. the fishing villages) are pillaged and ravaged constantly by the Water Tribes.

-Of course, there was a short occupation of the Fire Nation by the Water Tribes as a result of the Darkest Day, but well, let's just say Agni's Comet fixed that. :^D

-As for Aang, he still goes out and explores the world, but only under the strict guidance of the other monks.

-They are careful to hide the war from him, and him from the war.

-However they cannot hide him from his destiny forever, and as the monks grow increasingly worried over the world's state of affairs, they decide to hide him away completely.

-Very, intimately aware of the fact that Water is next in the cycle, and they likely won't hesitate to kill the poor child to get their own Avatar to corrupt to their terrible ways.

-Aang doesn't take very well to be smothered and runs away.

-Unfortunately he ends up in the middle of a battlefield with fireballs, waves and ice going every which way.

-The stress of nearly being killed triggers the Avatar state and he freezes the battle with himself in stasis in the center.

-The other soldiers either escape or die in the icy tomb. :)

-Without Sozin and Azulon perpetuating a cycle of abuse, Ozai, Zuko, and Azula all turn out as much better people.

-On the other side, the familial bonds of the water tribe take a much darker tone. Anyone not within the tribe/the family doesn't matter. The Tribe is all that matters, all others are the enemy. They become colder, much more insular. While they care for one another, they become rigid as ice, family and tradition being valued above all else.

-Also, waterbending lost touch with it's roots, becoming dark and perverted. A way to sway others to your own way, rather than flowing with the natural push and pull of the world, it became the water tribe pushing against all and pulling in what they please.

-This is borrowing from another AU of mine(*eyebrow dance*), healing is perverted into a technique that brainwashes people. Think of Katara healing Jet's mind from the brainwashing, but in reverse. :^)

-Kanna and Pakku are betrothed, while Pakku is willing to let things like only teaching women to heal, and arranged marriages slide, finds actual, genuine brainwashing to be genuinely disturbing. But tries his best to ignore it. It's just how things are, he tells himself.

-When Hama developed her bloodbending technique and shows it off to the North.

-She proposes it as a way to get the filthy ashmakers and dirtstompers to submit to the mind melting.

-When they try to get Pakku to learn/teach his students bloodbending, he breaks. He can't take it anymore and deserts.

-He becomes the first to desert the Water Tribe navy.

-Kanna feeling the bite of shame, agrees to marry someone from the South instead.

-But also, daytime bloodbender Yue.

-When Katara turns fourteen, she is deemed a master waterbender and given the rights to begin higher level training and learn the secrets of the Water Tribes.

-She learns of bloodbending, and mind manipulation.

-Having fully bought into Water Tribe propaganda her whole life, she cannot believe this. Horrified, she speaks out directly calling Hama disgusting and wicked for inventing such a technique.

-She rightfully calls out her tribes elders for using these techniques on innocent people.

-Oh, boi, but calling out the elders amounts to treason.

-Because she called out her elders, she had dishonored her ancestors and as such had to best Hama in one-on-one combat to avoid being exiled.

-And uhhh, she lost her fuckin eye instead.

-Disillusioned from loosing his father to the war, Sokka joins Katara in her exile.

-Seeing as Kya is the chief of the South, she gives an in for Katara to return back to the tribe's good graces. A way to prove herself. She must find the Avatar and bring him to the Water Tribes.

-Sokka having grown disillusioned, sees it as a way for him and his sister to finally get away from the darkness infesting their home.

-They spend two years at sea looking for the legendary Avatar who vanished for 100 years.

-Also Katara wears an eyepatch and 100% looks like a motherfucking pirate.

-And Zuko, sixteen year old, grumpy but well meaning and kind-hearted Zuko, fears deeply for his people.

-Unfortunately, he feels like his nation isn't doing nearly enough to protect the people living outside the walls.

-Ozai warns young Zuko multiple times that his is not permitted outside the walls. "That place is no place for royalty." He would say.

-"Come back to your gilded cage" He would mean.

-It's only inevitable that Zuko sneaks out and invents the person of the Blue Spirit to help the poor folk living outside the walls.

-His uncle catches him, but doesn't tell. Instead he watches over him, he knows that he can't stop Zuko from trying to save his own people.

-Unfortunately things go tits up when there is an attack in the middle of Zuko helping the people.

-Zuko is captured, and taken away, but Iroh manages to sneak on as well.

-Together they escape, but by that point that are far, far away from the Fire Nation.

-While slowly rowing their little dingy back, they come across a certain frozen battlefield sitting in the middle of the ocean...

-And as fate would have it, a certain, hot-headed, one-eyed waterbender and her "slacker" brother happen to be sailing nearby when Aang is freed.

-Aang has no idea that he's the Avatar, but he also doesn't feel like going back home. He wants to know why the people are fighting.

-He wants to understand why they hate each other so much. :(

-Iroh picks up that Aang is the Avatar right away though.

-He subtly tries to pry Aang about how much he knows of this or his destiny.

-And Aang knows nothing, the monks never got the chance to tell him because he ran away.

-Iroh thinks of a way to gently break the news to Aang, and tactfully handle his need to be trained so he can put an end to this war once and for all.

-Hopefully before Agni's Comet, because Iroh knows that even though his brother isn't a wicked man, he will do what is necessary to put an end to this.

-You see, the Fire Nation has begun to withdraw, it's mostly biding it's time for the Comet's return so that they can put an end to this struggle once and for all.

-Ozai doesn't want to destroy the Water Tribes, but watching his father drown, his nephew slaughtered, and his own brother crippled and forced into retirement has brought him to some very dark conclusions.

-Iroh advocates strongly against using the comet for war, but Ozai has made it clear if the war does not end before the comet appears... He will do what he deems to be necessary.

-That being said, finding out that his son and brother had been taken by the Water Tribes throws him into a rage.

-And yeah, loosing Lu Ten and Azulon, broke Iroh. Along with being physically injured himself. So he gave up the throne to Ozai, feeling that there was nothing he could do for his country.

-With the Avatar, now found, Iroh decides to indulge his nephew's desire to travel and help in the war effort.

-Because, well, Iroh is terrified that Ozai will use Aang to take down the Water Tribe violently.

-An unfortunate consequence of this is that for a while, Ozai thinks that Zuko and Iroh are dead!

-And Ozai is the opposite of able to cope with this. lmao

-I haven't decided when Aang should realize that he's the Avatar, but it's def gonna be due to him loosing control and lashing out in the avatar state.

-Iroh ends up being the one to calm Aang down when he goes Avatar-Rage-Mode.

-Because Iroh is big soft man, and basically Aang and Zuko's dad.

-It's too soft to for me to resist okay?? :D

-I'm also not entirely sure when to place this on the timeline, but I am highly considering having Ozai find out that Zuko and Iroh are alive at the end of Book 1, so that it can mirror canon a bit. Because as soon as he finds out they're alive he sends his stronk ass, prodigy daughter Azula to go fetch the two and bring them back home safely.

-But also go get the Avatar, so he can be properly trained in firebending.

-Yes, Azula is good in this fic. But she's still not nice. She's very pragmatic and stoic. She does genuinely care about her brother and Uncle, but she considers the safety of the world and the Fire Nation to be more important than their feelings.

-She's cold and detached, but would do anything to protect the Fire Nation, her family or help the world as a whole.

-Azula is also occasionally playful, teasing Zuko and calling him Zuzu or dum-dum.

-Once she's pulled into the story, she kinda serves as a rival to Zuko. Constantly trying to drag the Gaang home to the Fire Nation, so the Avatar can be taught by proper instructors.

-And Ozai is not a bad dude, but he's STRESSED. And seen some very unfortunate things. Let's just say, the war is not putting him a great headspace.

-Like he isn't abusive like Canon!Ozai, but his desperation to save his country and put an end to the war is driving him to do some questionable things. Like considering using Agni's Comet.

-The people of the Foggy Swamp are still good and left in tune with the true nature of water. So when time comes around to Katara to have her heel-face turn, ya already know who she gon go to.

-Also, they sups spiritual, so yeh.

-I am also considering having the Foggy Swamp be the final point of Katara's redemption arc, like her final realization of what he destiny really entails and what she must do.

-But I do want the first step to be Sokka getting injured while protecting her.

-Like she can't believe this, she's about to loose the last piece of her family, and in a desperate move, she rediscovers the lost art of true healing. Saving Sokka's life.

-I’m also considering having Katara join the Gaang at the end of book two.

...

-Sparkle Sparkle Moon Girl.

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

A Writer’s Guide to Viewpoints

Most of us know that there are three major viewpoints from which stories are told:

First Person -- “I tell my own story with the pronoun ‘I’ because I’m just so damn awesome.”

Second Person -- “You are a character in this story, and you can’t do anything about it.  If it makes you uncomfortable, tough shit.”

Third Person -- “He muttered himself and pulled the blankets over his head, wishing this asshole would stop narrating his life.”

Those are the three viewpoints, and that’s all there is to it.  Just pick your favorite, and you’re ready to go.  Right?

Well.  Not exactly.  

You see, my fellow scribblers, there are actually multiple sub categories of each viewpoint -- beyond even the “Third Person Omniscient” or “Third Person Subjective.”

To be specific:

First Person:

First Person Informant

First Person Reminiscent

Unreliable

Second Person:

Reader as Character

I Substitute

Third Person:

Objective 

Limited 

Multiple Selective Omniscience 

Omniscient

This might seem overwhelming, but fear not!  Each perspective is fairly easy to break down, and ultimately, apply to your own work and understanding of literature.  This post will elucidate each.

So let’s take charge of our narratives and delve in, like the active protagonists we are.

What is the First Person?  

I’m sure we all know this, but a First Person narrator tells their story from the pronoun I (or sometimes we, though this is quite rare.)

The different factions of First Person narration are somewhat under-discussed -- certainly not as widely known as the Third Person Omniscient versus Objective viewpoints -- but, as these examples prove, they do exist.

As you read, you’ll likely think back to your favorite narrators, and realize that not all First Person viewpoints were created equal.

The First Person Informant:

“I’m telling it like it is.  As it’s happening.  I’m living in the moment, and watching it unfold with you.  Look at us, charging blindly into the future together.  Isn’t it exciting?”

This dude conveys the events as they transpire, or appear to transpire, in the present.  There’s no “once upon a time” for him.  Merely the unfurling now.

Examples:

“Vampires in the Lemon Grove,” by Karen Russel

“In every season you can find me sitting at my bench, watching them fall.  Only one or two lemons tumble from the branches each hour, but I’ve been sitting here so long their falls seem continuous, close as raindrops.  My wife has no patience for this sort of meditation.  “Jesus Christ, Clyde,” she says, “You need a hobby.” 

Russel’s narrator – a world-weary vamp navigating the tribulations of eternal love and insatiable bloodlust in an Italian lemon grove – is an excellent example of a first-person informant.  He isn’t telling us about the lemon grove as it was, but as it is.  The lemons fall before his eyes as they fall before ours.  We are in this lemon grove together.

“Natural Selection,” by Jacob M. Appel

“The stolen baboon.  On the evening news, she’s an irrelevancy -- a simian mug shot tucked between National Hairball Awareness Day and an interview with the Boston Strangler’s Children.  Six hours later, she’s lounger on the sofa in our living room, smacking together her protruded lips, scratching her back on the damask.  Suburban Tampa is apparently far more fun than a lab cage in Atlanta.”

Here, we are transported directly into a father’s dilemma after his well-meaning yet painfully naive and somewhat spoiled daughter “liberates” a mistreated lab baboon -- a decision that could effectively ruin both of their lives.  The informant perspective amplifies the reader’s suspense, as we are in the moment with him and can only discover the outcome by watching events unfold (or skipping pages.)

“What I Do All Day,” by Hellen Ellis

“Inspired by Beyonce, I stallion-walk to the toaster.  I show my husband where a burnt spot looks like the island where we honeymooned, kiss him good-bye, and tell him what time to be home for our party.”

This one is just great.  We are transported into the perspective of a seemingly chipper, affluent housewife as she quietly goes insane from suffocating domesticity and the horror of a meaningless life.  And, emphasized by the informant perspective, we feel all of this with her!  It is characteristically brilliant and hilarious satire from Ellis’s brilliant and hilarious collection, American Housewife.

The First Person Reminiscent:

“It was on a dark and rainy night when I decided to tell this story.  I tell it as I remember it, after these events have transpired.  Let’s look back on them together.”

In this perspective, the narrator is looking back on events after they have happened.  He isn’t describing these events as they unfold;  he is telling a story.

Examples:

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

There are actually two reminiscent narrators here.  The titular Pi, and the author who has elected to tell his story.  

“This book was born as I was hungry.  Let me explain.  In the spring of 1996, my second book, a novel, came out in Canada.  It didn’t fair well.  Reviewers were puzzled, or damned it with faint praise.  Then readers ignored it.  Despite my best efforts at plating the clown or the trapeze artist, the media circus made no difference.  The book did not move.  Books lined the shelves of bookstores like kids standing in a row to play baseball or soccer, and mine was the gangly, unathletic kid that no one wanted on their team.  It vanished quickly or quietly.”

So opens this immensely clever novel, which, in all regards, blurs the lines between allegory and reality.  However, most of it is narrated by the eponymous Pi, who becomes this author’s muse.

“I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.”

Here we have Pi, reflecting on his spiritual and allegorical companion, Richard Parker (an oddly named tiger whom we come to love as much as Pi does.)  Pi’s retrospective narration allows for the clear-sighted view of his complex feelings that can only come with time and distance.  Thus, this reminiscent narration enhances the power of the narrative.

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

My feelings towards J.D. Salinger are somewhat negative (I recommend you watch the documentary Salinger to figure out why) but this book is timeless for a reason.  This opening line offers up countless questions that leave you thinking long after you turn the final page.  Moreover, it impeccably establishes the voice that will carry us throughout its meandering narrative.  Catcher in the Rye would not be the same without its reminiscent narration, and this line establishes that.

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”

This opening line makes me somewhat sick to read, because, of course, it is the floral soliloquy a frothing, rabid pedophile, about a “four feet ten” twelve-year-old girl.  But, as a piece of art, it is still remarkably done -- the perspective of a monster, putting himself on trial before an imaginary jury, and telling a story that is invariably partial towards his warped perspective.  Once again, the retrospective is integral to this grotesquely fascinating narrative.

The Unreliable Narrator:

“I am the King of the Lizard People, and no one will acknowledge it but me.  Don’t believe me?  Too bad.  I’m the one telling this story, and you have no choice but to believe my dubious rendition of these events.”

It’s widely debated as to whether this should be its own category.  Why?  Because all first person narrators are inherently unreliable.  We just have little choice but to take their information as it’s denoted to us.  Oftentimes, they win our trust;  but other times, it is their unabashed unreliability that makes the narrative memorable.

Don’t believe me?  All of the past three examples were unreliable narrators.  And I examine several more in my post on types of unreliable narrators here.

In the meantime, let’s move on to the oft-underrated Second Person.  

What is the Second Person?

This highly controversial viewpoint uses the pronoun “you.”  Most people associate this perspective with amateur fanfiction or pretentious purple prose, but let me tell you:  when this perspective works, it is stellar.  And I’ll explain why.

The Reader as a Character

“You’re walking down the street, and you realize the narrator is talking about you.  Maybe you like this.  Maybe you don’t.  The narrator doesn’t care.  The narrator is a cruel and indifferent god.  You put in your headphones to tune the narrator out.  The narrator finds this incredibly rude.  You can’t escape me, motherfucker.” 

This is what most people think about when they picture a Second Person Narrative.  Okay, not this specifically -- being frank, most people probably think about reader-insert fanfiction (which can be amazing as well.)  This viewpoint asks the reader to imagine themselves as a character -- usually the main character -- in the narrative.

Examples:

“This is a Story About You,” from Welcome to Night Vale, by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craner

“‘This is a story about you,’ said the man on the radio. And you were pleased, because you always wanted to hear about yourself on the radio.”

Even if you’re unfamiliar to this podcast, I highly recommend you listen to this episode (or read the transcript) immediately.  It shows you virtually everything reader-insert can be, and what a remarkable effect it can have.  It virtually envelops you in this perspective, this town, and this surrealistic reality. 

“The Young Immortal,” by Brooksie C. Fontaine (me!)

“When it started, it was the February fourteenth of 1945.  An American plane was hit in the engine by Japanese fire, fell from the slate gray sky like a shooting star.  Its blazing red reflection ignited the swell of colorless water.  And then it was gone, taking with it all the color in the world.

In that plane was my fellow air force pilot.  The love of my life.

You.

I know what you’re thinking:  you weren’t alive in ‘45, and you weren’t a man.  Well, I’m gonna tell you you’re wrong on both counts.  You’ve been a man before.  You’ll be one again.  It doesn’t matter to me, so long as it’s you.”

This one is unique, because it includes both the First Person Reminiscent (the eponymous immortal narrator) and the Second Person Reader as Character.  The reader is in the perspective of the narrator’s oft-reincarnated love interest, and so I decided to include it as an example. 

The “I” Substitute

“You were fifteen when you realized you could only get hard if you were thinking about carnivorous dinosaurs.  Not me.  You.  This has absolutely nothing to do with me, and I resent the insinuation that it does.  This is your problem, dino-fucker.  This is your story.  This is about you.” 

This one’s interesting.  The narrator is in denial, and using the second-person to distance themselves from the events of the story.  It is a substitute for the First Person, and a thinly-veiled one at that.

Examples:  

“Freaks,” by Alden Jones

“From the cluster of mourners, Kristen’s mother had emerged; she strode towards you.  Her straight brown hair was limp and flyaway.  She wore the expression of an animal who wanted to devour you.  Her eyes were cushioned by the bluish puffed skin beneath them, but they flashed hot with fury.

‘You,’ she said.  She pointed her finger.  She began to gallop.  ‘You think you see something no one else sees?’  she called.  Mourners turned to watch her progress towards you.  Heather took a step away.

You dangled the camera by your side.  You froze.  You did nothing but watch the thing happen.

‘YOU,’ the mother said, charging.  ‘YOU.  YOU.’”

These are actually the concluding lines of this haunting story from Jones’s collection, Unaccompanied Minors.  I had the pleasure of hearing her read this story for my graduate program;  in the Q&A afterwards, she explained how the narrative, and the characters’ mentality throughout the story, depended on the Second Person.  “It was a different story without it,” she said.  

“The Other Person,” by Nathan Leslie

“You write the story in the second person.  It’s your go-to point of view now.  You like it’s edge, its resonance of irony, even if your story lacks said irony (it adds irony).  You makes anything possible.  You is the new me.” 

This one is simultaneously hilarious, sad, and strangely invigorating.  It encapsulates the deep trenches of insecurity that come with being an author, and whittles them into sharp, sly satire.  The “I” Substitute doesn’t just emphasize the story;  it is the story.  This story would not exist without it.

Now that I’ve successfully changed your mind about the Second Person (and if you still don’t agree with me, you’re wrong), let’s move on to the ever-popular yet difficult-to-master Third Person. 

What is the Third Person? 

You know what the third person is, but I’ll suspend my disbelief and pretend you don’t.  It uses the pronouns he, she, or they, but the perspective can be virtually anywhere.  Which makes the Third Person such an interesting thing to explore.

Third Person Objective

“She slaps him.  He touches the red mark her ring left behind, and stares at her with wide eyes.”

This one is also known as The Dramatic, The Camera Lens, or The Fly on the Wall perspective.  It describes the events as we would view them, with no inside information into the thoughts or motivations of the characters.  What we see is what we get, and we have to discern the characters’ feelings based on what they say and do.

Example: 

“Meanwhile.  A Conversation,” from American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

“‘Miz Crow?’ 

‘Yes.’

‘You are Samantha Black Crow?’  

‘Yes.’

‘Do you mind if we ask you a few questions, ma’am?’

‘Are you cops?  What are you?’

‘My name is Town.  My colleague here is Mister Road.  We’re investigating the disappearance of two of our associates.’

‘What were their names?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Tell me their names.  I want to know what they were called.  Your associates.  Tell me their names and maybe I’ll help you.’ 

‘...Okay.  Their names were Mister Stone, and Mister Wood.  Now, can we ask you some questions?’ 

‘Do you guys just see things and pick names?  “Oh, you be Mister Sidewalk, he’s Mister Carpet, say hello to Mister Airplane?”’”

In this unique and hilarious chapter, we witness an exchange between (bisexual icon) Samantha Black Crow and a minor villain who has been assigned to track down the protagonist.  We aren’t privy to either of the characters’ emotions or thoughts, or even their actions, yet we can discern all of it from dialogue alone.

Third Person Limited 

“She’s had enough of his bullshit.  Something in her snaps, and her open palm collides -- hard -- with the side of his stupid, stupid face.  He touches the red mark she left behind, staring at her like he can’t believe she actually did that.  Good.  Maybe that’ll teach him to stop being such an pugnacious fuckwad.” 

This one is tethered to a specific character, whose thoughts and feelings we are aware of.  However, we are not inside the mind of the character in the same manner as a First Person narrator.

Examples: 

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

“Shadow had done three years in prison.  He was big enough, and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time.  So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.”

Though American Gods features an impressive diversity of perspectives, we spend most of the book tethered to the lovable ex-con Shadow Moon.  We are never trapped inside his head, as we would be if the story were First Person, but we know what he is thinking and feeling.  He is our viewpoint character.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry 

“It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.  No.  Wrong word, Jonas thought.  Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.  Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice.  He had seen it both times.  Squinting toward the sky, he had seen the sleek jet, almost a blur at its high speed, go past, and then a second later heard the blast of sound that followed.  Then one more time, a moment later, from the opposite direction, the same plane.”

Lois Lowry’s timeless, haunting dystopia is introduced through the guileless eyes of twelve-year-old Jonas.  We are aloud to see the world from his perspective, but the distance of Third Person Limited allows us to feel the horror of each situation with more clarity.  Lowry demonstrates how to utilize POV to one’s advantage, similar to how Neil Gaiman uses Third Person Limited to enhance the horror of his masterful modern fairy tale Coraline.

Multiple Selective Omniscience 

“She decides she’s had enough of his bullshit, and slaps him.  Hard.  Hard enough that her ring leaves a red welt on his cheek.

He feels his eyes go wide, and he touches the side of his face.  He keeps waiting for her to apologize, but her eyes are narrowed and her lips are pursed.  She doesn’t look sorry.”

The viewpoint shifts between characters.  It can be extremely effective, as long as we are aware of when the proverbial camera changes angles.

Examples: 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

First of all:  if you haven’t read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, do it.  Do it right now.  It is the piece of classic literature I recommend to everyone who hates classic literature, because it’s devoid of all of the traits that make people hate classic literature to begin with.  It has oodles of complex, idiosyncratic, autonomous, and tough-as-hell female characters, bad language, and frank discussions of sexuality, poverty, and classism.  Read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  

Anyway.  Though its protagonist is Francie Nolan, who, like the eponymous tree, perseveres and thrives against insurmountable odds, the viewpoint bounces around an immense deal, between Francie’s family and neighbors to the most minor side-characters.  Because of this, many people believe that the true protagonist is Brooklyn itself, and the people in it. 

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, by Ayana Mathis 

This is a captivating, gut-wrenching book, similar to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in its highly effective depiction of poverty.  The book follows the children of Hattie Shepherd, a formerly young and optimistic mother, who lost her firstborn twins to an easily preventable disease in the aftermath of the Great Migration.  The viewpoint changes with each chapter, showing the perspectives of each of her children and how they are haunted by this loss.

The Vacationers, by Emma Straub 

A far cry from its poverty-focused predecessors, this book focuses on the problems of the affluent and privileged.  It is, however, a deeply interesting read, as it swerves between the perspectives of the titular vacationers after a patriarch’s fore into adultery threatens his family and marriage.

Omniscient 

“She decides she’s had enough of his bullshit, and to his surprise, she slaps him.  Hard enough that he feels her ring leave a red welt on his flesh.

He touches his cheek in shock, and stares at her, awaiting an apology.  But she isn’t sorry.  All she feels is satisfaction.” 

Just what it sounds like.  The character is an all-knowing entity.  Or Lemony Snicket.  Perhaps both. 

Examples:  

Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng

“Lydia is dead.  But they don’t know this yet.”

Celeste Ng’s beautiful and haunting novel begins with the wordless affirmation of the narration’s omniscience.  The narrative knows things the characters don’t, though it doesn’t always choose to relay its secrets.  In this case, it doesn’t answer the mystery of Lydia’s death until the very end -- an answer that the characters themselves will never discover.

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.  Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat:  it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

Tolkien’s book shows us how useful omniscience is for worldbuilding.  He doesn’t need to cleverly sneak this exposition into Bilbo’s dialogue;  he can tell it to us outright, and immediately draw us into this world while doing so. 

Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

“Current theories on the creation of the Universe state that, if it was created at all and didn’t just start, as it were, unofficially, it came into being between ten and twenty thousand years ago.  By that same token the earth itself is generally supposed to be about four and a half thousand million years old.  

These dates are incorrect.” 

This delightfully Pratchett-esque opening immediately puts us into a -- literally -- godlike perspective, in which we are given insider information about the start of the universe.  It immediately establishes the tone of this amazing novel:  one in which life and creation are too important to be taken seriously.  And for this purpose, this uniquely omniscient perspective is the only way to go. 

That’s all I’ve got for now, my fellow scribblers!  As you contemplate perspective, just think about how different the same events would look from a two disparate viewpoints.  Even if two people are sharing a moment, that moment is different for both of them.

The perspective isn’t something you tack on to your story.  Oftentimes, it defines your story.  So choose carefully, and don’t be afraid to explore!

Happy writing, everybody!  <3

[softisdangerous]

Excerpt from Chap 17 of Call of the Blood

Eric’s POV - Thursday July 16th & Friday, July 17th, 2009

I closed the bar for the night. Interrogating the drainers had been useless, and their screams were both irritating and loud, but at least Chow enjoyed his work. Pam had been telling me for months that it was time to adjust our styling again, to keep up with the times and that my long hair was getting to the point of ridiculous. I did not like to change my hair, but I was inclined to let her pamper me a bit. I had been short tempered with her, nearly biting her head off at every question she asked me. My ill-temper was only exacerbated by the fact that I was ridiculously thirsty, and the only thing that sounded remotely appetizing to me was Jane’s fresh blood.

But I wasn’t about to put her at risk again. No, I lacked the control to drink from her right now. It was nearly unthinkable that after a thousand years I still couldn’t master all of my bloodlust, but I wasn’t too proud to admit it, if only to myself. It did have me questioning what made Jane so unique. I was beginning to wonder if she was all human, or if she had some latent ancestry that made her blood addictive, and made the drinker…what? What effect did she have on me? Insanity? Obsession?

Love?

I squashed that thought quickly. No, she was just unique and Godric was missing.

Pam was putting foul chemicals on my head and idly explaining what she was doing, but I wasn’t focusing on her words. I was still attempting to think. Godric missing? He would have told me where he was. He had always informed me when he was leaving, even if he knew that I wouldn’t be pleased by his departure. How could he be missing? The drainers had no methods that Godric wouldn’t have been able to overcome. He was too old, too powerful for drainers to have taken him. And based on the conversation of prisoners downstairs, I doubted there was nothing these racists could do that Godric wouldn’t simply be able to bat away. That wouldn’t stop me from questioning him, most vigorously.

I despised the newest addition to the prison in the basement. Royce Allen Williams. It constantly talked, finally admitting shame for past actions, only now, when confronted with imminent demise. I knew these weak types. If released, he would return exactly to his old ways, claim it was an act of God and continue on with dishonorable acts. My teeth were already on edge and then when it discussed escaping… I couldn’t control my rage.

Pam sighed loudly when she heard its plans to escape.

“Don’t fuck up your hair,” she demanded as I stood to go collect it.

“I won’t Pam, I’ll bring it up, let Chow do the dirty work, and then he can put the rat back in it’s cage.”

She huffed, but didn’t stop me.

I strolled down to the basement silently.

“I got a plan. I'm busting us out,” the racist claimed.

“Don't be an idiot,” the V dealer advised wisely.

“I'll come back for you. Promise,” the man claimed. I made some noise so they would know I was coming. I heard their heart rates jump and it was almost enough to make me smile. I hummed softly to myself.

“Shh, Shut up.”

“Shushing won't do you any good, Sweetheart. We hear everything. Since you made me come all the way down here, I'm gonna take out some of the garbage,” I told them as I removed the cape that Pam had placed on me to prevent the chemicals in my hair from staining my clothes. I knelt down in front of the pathetic piece of trash that had burned Malcom, Liam, and Diane’s nest to the ground. “Royce Allen Williams, we have a few questions for you, with regard to a fire which killed three of our kind.” I stared him down.

“No fucking way, man. I don't know anything,” he said, pretending to not be afraid, but I could hear his heart pounding.

“Crimes against vampires are on the rise. We even lost a Sheriff just days ago. We seek answers.” I unchained him and pushed him forward and then, most surprisingly, he turned and struck me across the face.

He screamed at me, “Die, you dead fucker!”

I was furious when I felt the burn of silver against my face, how had I not noticed? The stench of human filth was disgusting and overwhelming. One more reason to not chain prisoners this way; it was impossible to scent silver through the odor.

That silver burn against my skin… it amplified all the emotions I had been trying to resist. My fear, my rage, my bloodlust. It all came pouring forth.

I eviscerated him where he stood, drinking his filthy blood and pulling off several of his limbs. It was, in no way, satisfying. I felt worse than before, still thirsty, and more on edge than ever. I tossed an arm away, and it accidentally splattered against the final prisoner, the V dealer, Lafayette Reynolds.

“If you have any silver on you, now would be the time to reveal it,” I told him.

From his hiding spot behind a post he called out, “No way. I ain't that stupid.”

“Yes, you are,” I replied. And then I noticed how much blood I had on my hands. I went to wipe my mouth and realized I had splattered it all over. “Is there blood in my hair?” I asked the man.

“What?” he responded. Was he an idiot or just hard of hearing?

“Is there blood in my hair?” I asked him again, louder.

“I..I don't know, I can't see in this light,” he stuttered out.

I zoomed over to him.

“How about now?” I asked, looking into his deep eyes.

“Yeah, there's a little bit of blood there,” he stammered, his heart pounded deliciously. At least he was honest. I wished I could scent him more, but all I could smell was the blood of the racist and the foul scent of human waste.

“Well this is bad. Pam is gonna kill me,” I realized out to loud to him.

“Who the fuck is Pam?” he asked and I found it amusing that he had so quickly forgotten his place.

“Why, do you wanna meet her?” I asked, toying with him.

“No. No. I'm good,” he replied, and I found his mock confidence charming.

“Well, you're going to,” I told him as I unchained him.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked as I held him by the back of the neck and pushed him forward.

“To find out what you know,” I explained, kicking the remaining bits of the racist out of the way. “I wouldn't try anything rash if I were you. I'm still hungry.”

I brought him up to the office where Pam and Chow were waiting, I pushed him into the chair opposite the desk as Pam started berating me.

“What the fuck, Eric!” she snapped. “You’ve ruined your hair!”

She had already been upset with me, and now this?

“I’m sorry Pam, it was not my intention,” I told her with a sigh, I didn’t often apologize to her, but it was called for.

I sat on the stool, she put a fresh cape on me, and then she began to assess the damage.

“This is a disaster. We'll have to go much shorter than I planned.”

“Yeah, well, I said I was sorry, Pam. But he took silver to me,” I explained. I looked at the V dealer, Lafayette Reynolds. “You were there. You saw it. Defend me,” I urged him.

“I don't know what it is you wanna know, but point me in the direction, and I give to you,” he told me earnestly and fearfully.

“I've seen your website,” I started, Chow had shown me it earlier. It was an impressive bit of tawdriness, and I was certain it was lucrative. “It's quite, uh, low rent. But your clients miss you, Lafayette. They're wondering if you're ever coming back.”

“Am I?” he asked, and I let the silence linger. “Look, I'm here because of the V, right? How 'bout I give you the names of everybody I ever sold to?” Already so cooperative? Lovely.

“And all this time I thought prostitutes were good at keeping secrets,” Pam snarked, knowing the prevarication of that statement more than anyone. Prostitutes would only keep a secret for a price, and for her the price had always been quite high.

“Don't get it twisted, honeycomb, I'm a survivor first, a capitalist second, and a whole bunch of other shit after that. But a hooker, dead last. So if I got even a Jew at an al Qaeda pep rally shot at getting my black ass up out this motherfucker, I'm taking it. Now, what you wanna know?”

Pam smiled, absolutely delighted, and I could see why. This Lafayette Reynolds was a cut from the exact same cloth as her.

A survivor first, a businesswoman second, and a hooker dead last.

“The vampire you had your little arrangement with. Eddie Fournier. What happened to him?” I asked.

“I don't know. I swear to God I don't. Last time I saw him he was doing real good. But I think he may have been taken by somebody,” Lafayette had hesitated to tell me this information, he must have an inkling of the perpetrator.

“By whom?” I prompted.

“I don't know,” he started. “I mean I ain't sure.”

“Hm, that's not very forthcoming of you,” I told him. I looked over at my enforcer, who had been waiting so very patiently. “Chow, you're up.”

“No! No, chill out. Shit,” Lafayette held up his hand to Chow, motioning for him to stop, and then Lafayette caved. “I think it... I think it was... Jason Stackhouse.”

“Jason Stackhouse?” I asked, nonplussed.

“Sookie's brother,” Pam reminded me in Swedish. “Could be fun,” she added and then I remember him. Handsome, AB negative, and he had come to the bar looking for vampire blood.

“Fun, but also stupid. Sookie is too important for us now,” I reminded Pam. She was an asset, one that I wanted working for me.

“That's true,” Pam agreed, reluctantly.

“Sadly, this information is of no use to me. Not now, anyway,” I told the confused looking Lafayette. Then I moved on to the line of questioning that I had been most anxious to discuss. “I understand dealers of vampire blood sometimes trade product with one another across state lines. Any buyers in the Dallas area?” I asked, revealing some of what I had learned from the drainers before I had killed them. Their blood was all bagged up and sitting in the freezer now, and the irony of draining drainers was not lost on me.

“One,” Lafayette said right away, cooperating fully. “He never gave me his name though. I have an e-mail address. Pussylover9@shemail.com.”

Pam smirked at the email address, and I wondered briefly if she was going to change her online handle.

“A friend of mine in the Dallas area, his name is Godric, has gone missing. Now, while the circumstances of his disappearance are unclear, it stands to reason his blood would be very valuable, as he's over twice my age and ten times the vampire I will ever be,” I said and realized that I had said more than I wanted. That my worries about him were sliding smoothly from my tongue and that I needed to feed again if I was ever going to get myself under control.

“Oh Eric, you don't do humble well,” Pam said teasingly, trying to lighten my mood. She knew with Godric missing, I was more on edge than ever.

“I was not being humble. This happens to be true,” I nearly snapped at her again, and I saw her hurt at my behavior toward her. I focused back on my line of questioning.“Your associate, this ‘pussylover’, has he or she mentioned any new product coming on the market?”

“No, no. And I would tell you. You know that,” he told me and I knew that he was honest, but it frustrated me to no end that he had nothing that could help.

I turned to Chow and asked him, “Take our guest and lock him back out, will you?”

Lafayette jumped to his feet. “Fuck that, I ain't going back down there. I gave you…”

“You gave me nothing!” I shouted, furious that this man had no information that would lead to Godric.

“I'm not going back.” Lafayette tried to push Chow away, and I gave the order again.

“Chow, now.”

Lafayette fought against Chow and I found it curious. I couldn’t help but be impressed by his vigor, his fight, his passion.

“I gave you every... I gave you everything! I ain't going back down!” he continued to shout as Chow manhandled him back down to the basement.

It was then that I heard the sound of an additional human heart beat and the soft scent of roses. I reached out to my blood in Jane and, of course, she was standing in the hall outside the office. What in Hel was she doing here?

The door creaked open and there was sweet little Jane. Her eyes widened as she took in my appearance. Perhaps this would scare her off for good.

“Jane,” I greeted her.

“I guess I should have called,” she said meekly.

“Yes,” I replied. She certainly had the power understatement. I turned to Pam, “Leave us. I need to glamour her.” Pam looked over at Jane and shook her head, leaving the office and shutting the door behind her. Why had Jane even come here? I didn’t want to have to do this, but she left me with no choice! I looked over at little Jane, she looked especially young and doll-like. “I have to glamour you now. You realize that?”

“Why?” she asked, clearly confused.

I prayed for the patience of Baldr, and I rested my hands on my desk. She drove me absolutely insane.

“You saw one of the prisoners, and he recognized you, even. What is to prevent you from telling the human authorities what you saw?” I asked her, and she stared me down.

“I won’t,” she promised. “It’s none of their business. You’re the Sheriff. He was the V dealer, I assume?” she asked, crossing her arms, and pushing her perfect bosom higher.

“Yes,” I acknowledged.

“I won’t tell anyone I saw him. Please��� don’t glamour me,” she begged me and I saw her lip tremble in fear. I believed she wouldn’t give up this information knowingly, but her mind was open to any vampire, and now the telepath as well. I had to glamour her, for her own safety.

“It’s too dangerous for you as well. Especially now that you’re friends with a telepath, your silence could incriminate you,” I explained to her. Those dark blue green eyes of hers steeled and I could help but feel proud of her. She could be quite brave, facing something that she feared so greatly.

“What will you do? Make me forget?” she asked.

“That path leads to many problems, as you saw with Ginger. You will retain the memory, but you won’t be able to think of it. You will know, but you won’t be able to say anything about it.” I didn’t want to have to glamour her, and I worried about this.I knew too much glamouring would damage her mind. And her mind was a unique one.

She nodded at me, drawing her courage around her.

I hated this. I remember what she had told me, that it felt like mind rape. I never wanted to make her feel violated, especially in light of the other trauma she had experienced.

“Fine,” she told me and I began the glamour.

“Jane.”

Her eyes glazed over and I imposed my will on her.

“You will not be able to think of the man that you saw Chow take to the basement. You will not speak of what you witnessed to anyone.”

“Of course,” she agreed.

I released her and she lurched to the trash bin, vomiting. Humans and their fluids. I’d had enough of them today. She sat on the couch, and I felt her through the blood. I felt her upset. Why did she do this? It made me hate myself.

“Why did you come?” I asked her.

“I wanted to talk to you. I can see that you’re... busy. I’ll go. I’ll text or call next time,” she told me vaguely, standing to leave. I grabbed her arm, my intention had been to ask her to elaborate, to explain what her purpose was but I felt her warmth beneath my hand and all my urges to devour and claim her came hurtling to the surface. The look she gave me, the feeling from her in the blood...lust. She wanted me. She wanted me even when I was covered in blood.

My fangs dropped hard and I was seconds away from biting her throat and fucking her on my desk.

What the fuck was wrong with me? I released her quickly and forced my fangs up painfully.

“Jane. Things are...tense. With my Maker missing,” I tried to explain, but I really couldn’t. I couldn’t explain my loss of control around her.

“Let me know if I can help,” she offered sweetly.

She had no idea of the danger I posed to her, I shook my head at her. “I will not hurt you again,” I promised her.

She smiled her strange sad smile, the one that made the area where my heart used to pulse ache.

“Goodnight, Eric,” she said softly, and then she left.

What the fucking Hel!? I slammed my hand against the wall, creating a crack in the plaster and I didn’t give a flying fuck.

What was wrong with me?

****

The next evening I took Pam to the mall and allowed her to shop and style me as she pleased. It seemed the very least I could do and having my childe close brought me comfort. I wore Godric’s platinum coated fang around my throat, as if wearing it would allow me to find him.

As we were strolling through the mall, who should we see but Bill fucking Compton.

Then, in a stroke of genius, I had an idea. Bill’s telepathic human could search for Godric. Sookie could investigate the humans at the Fellowship of the Sun and see if Stan’s assertion that they were behind Godric’s disappearance was correct.

“Go to the bar Pam, I’ll meet you there after I negotiate with Billy boy,” I told her. She brushed invisible lint from the navy tracksuit she had dressed me in and then departed with a smile. While it wasn’t what I would choose for myself, I was fine with indulging my child in her game of dressup.

I strolled through the store, and meandered over to Bill.

“Good evening, old sport,” I greeted him, hoping to make him feel at ease. He would be easier to bargain with if he was in a giving mood.

“Eric?” he said, astounded, by either my presence or my new attire, it was hard to say.

“It's the new me. You like?” I asked, smirking. How many times do we have to reinvent ourselves?

“I do. Very much,” Bill agreed, the Mainstreamer he was, he would likely follow all the latest human trends. I almost scoffed at the idea of him wearing one of those hats that truckers wear. The sales associate that had been attempting to hit on him, backed away sheepishly.

“Oh, okay,” she looked between us and I realized that she thought we were a couple. Hilarious, as if Bland Bill could stir my passions.

“We need to talk,” I told him.

He glared and I led him away from the humans and began to explain.

“The Sheriff of Area 9 in Texas has gone missing. Have you heard about that?”

“I hadn't, but I know the vampire of whom we speak. His name is Godric, correct?”

I wondered how Bill knew of Godric. But Godric’s reputation did precede him.

“Indeed. Now it goes without saying he needs to be found. Which is where Sookie comes in. As she's yours, I'm asking your permission to take her with me to Dallas,” I explained my plan to him.

“Eric, you can do whatever you want with me, but I am not putting her in this position anymore. I cannot and I will not allow you to bring her into these matters,” he said, not even attempting to barter with me.

“We made a deal, your human and I. That if I didn't kill, she would work for me as often as I like. Now, you remember this, don't you? You were there,” I reminded him.

“Taking her across state lines is a far cry from taking her to Fangtasia for the evening,” Bill said sternly, clearly not willing to discuss this further. What a fool.

“I'm only asking your permission out of respect. If I want her, I can simply take her. Is "no" your final answer?” I asked him.

“It is,” he said firmly.

I shook my head, and replied, “Poorly played, Bill.”

He wasn’t even willing to try to bargain with me, and I wondered again about his purpose with the telepathic waitress. I checked my phone on the way out of the mall, surprised to see that I missed several calls from Pam. I called her as I strolled out.

“You rang?” I asked.

“Mmm, yeah, the lovely Lafayette Reynolds tried to escape and Ginger shot him,” Pam said in her usual tone.

“Is he dead?” I asked her in Swedish.

“Not yet, our meretricious little Macgyver dug the metal hip out of his dead compadre with his teeth, used it to break his chains, and then attempted to seduce Ginger into letting him go,” Pam explained gleefully. “I like him, can we keep him?”

“Creative,” I commented as I exited the mall. “I’ll be there soon.”

I went behind the mall and took off in flight. I had to stop and pick up the accounting work from Bruce, and then I was able to return to Fangtasia. I strolled into the back, checking over the numbers for the bar. It was scented with rich thick blood, flavorful and powerful...full of untapped potential.

“Sorry to keep you waiting for so long,” I said as I entered the office. “How's the leg?” I asked Lafayette.

“Shitty. Thanks for asking,” he replied with sarcasm at his pain and Pam grinned again.

“After all your proclamations about what a model prisoner you were going to be, you had to try to escape,” I said, curious about his reasoning, but he did say he was a survivor first. I couldn’t really begrudge him that.

“You were going to kill me anyway, right?” he asked next and Pam smirked. We’d certainly have to kill him now, he wasn’t going to make it without medical care.

“Now you'll never know. So, what's it gonna be, Lafayette? Would you like the leg to kill you, or would you prefer us to do it?”

“I'm gonna go with plan C,” he said and he surprised me, such a rare thing for a breather.

“There's a plan C?” I asked.

“Make me a vampire,” he offered.

“I beg your pardon?”

Then he began to make his case, “And you can put me to work in the bar. I'm a good dancer. You seen it on my site. Shit, I get up there and move Earth and heaven, go-go style.”

I came and stood over him, not sure what he knew about vampires and turning. “You are aware there's a gaping hole in your leg? You're damaged goods,” I tested him.

“Not if you turn me. I'll be good as ever.” So he did know at least that much. “Look, I... I'm already a person of poor moral character, so I'll hit the ground running. And I damn near glamour people already. Give me what y'all got, and it's on me, cracker. Not only will I be a badass vampire, but I'll be your badass vampire.”

For a moment, time was frozen. I was sucked into the memory of Pamela asking me to turn her, and me refusing, and her making her case to me. And then her killing herself anyway and I decided… I chose to have her by side, my companion.

My badass vampire.

I liked this Lafayette Reynolds. He lived with a sort of honesty that was rare, and he had shown himself to have the survival instincts and spirit that would take him through the ages. He interested me, and so very few men did. He also reminded me much of Pam and I could see that they would be excellent blood siblings, thick as thieves. It would be good to have youngling around, so fresh and eager...

I scented his rich blood, his untapped potential and….it all intrigued me.

Was I actually considering this, now, with my control all over and Godric missing? Was this just another way in which I was losing touch? No, best not to make any major decisions now. We could start to drink from him now, I could reconsider later, after I’d fed, and had a clearer head. He had a few good nights left in him still.

“Interesting. I'll take it under advisement,” I told him. “Pam, Chow, chowtime,” I offered and Chow grinned at my play on words, puns really were the height of humor.

Then, I leaned over and bit Lafayette.

He was absolutely delicious.

[one-shot-plus-size]

Crossbow Love - Chapter thirteen - I'm going to kill him

The work was created, through collaboration @bladeroseocrp​ https://www.wattpad.com/user/BladeRose_18

The streets of The Kingdom were empty and quiet, people were sleeping peacefully in their homes. He quietly opened the door to the infirmary. Daryl enters the room, looking around for her. He sits down in a chair thinking she is in the bathroom. Blade slowly wakes up and notices she is not in the infirmary. She sits up quickly looking around "What the fuck?!" She yells "Good morning, Blade," A voice behind her says. Blade jumps and gasps and turns around and sees Negan. "Negan. I... what are you doing? Did you kidnap me?" She questions backing away slowly "You thought you could escape and that you would be safe? The Kingdom people are idiots when it comes to securing their place, it was easy" He laughed. Blade looked at him and was a bit scared and looked around her. "Where am I? What are you going to do to me?" She asks "I don't know yet" He walks over to her and runs his fingers down her cheek "We're sure to have fun" He says smirking

Blade feeling chills down her spine and breathing heavily. "They will come for me and when they do they will kill you especially Daryl." She says softly "Don't dare" He smiled "There are more of us and we can handle them" He says. Blade keeps backing up and has her back to a cold wall and looks away from him. "You're fucking crazy." She says "Just so you know," He laughed, "I'm crazy and driven by revenge. Revenge for Daryl running away." He says. Blade looks at him with wide eyes and glares at him and shakes her head. "You will die motherfucker and I'll shove that bat up your ass." She says. "For now you are at my mercy" He grabbed her hair tightly and tilted her head back, he flicked his tongue along her neck “You taste good." He whispered into her ear.

Blade keeps a dull face knowing what's about to happen and she just knows to stay still and not make a sound she's been through before. "I'll let you rest, I'm leaving three people at the door so you better not try anything" He grabbed Lucille and moved to the door "Daryl will get hurt, I'm sure he's looking for you" He says. Blade stays where she is and breathes out and closes her eyes and leans against the wall with her head tilted back. Daryl when he realizes she is gone has brought the whole Kingdom to its feet, all the people have searched house after house. Blade slides down the wall and holds her knees close to her chest and touches her bracelet and plays with it. "He's going to come find me. I know he is." She says to herself.

Rick yells out at the top of his lungs when he finds two dead guards at a side gate. Blade closes her eyes and gets some sleep now she will have nightmares but she needs to try and get sleep. She is still recovering after all. "I'm going to kill him with my bare hands, first I'm going to shove this bat up his ass and then I'm going to break his neck for putting his hands on her" He says. Blade can tell she has bruises from her being kidnapped she can tell she was in one of their cells and it's dark and cold. "We'll come up with a plan, The Kingdom will back us up, Maggie's working on the Hilltop people, we'll get her back Daryl" Rick says. Blade starts tossing in turning having nightmare of the night her father with rape her but instead of her father in her nightmare it was Negan. She screams awake and puts her head in the palms of her hands. Daryl is roaming The Kingdom like a caged lion, he can't find his place. "I'll come for you, I promise" He whispers to himself.

Blade breathes heavily trying to calm herself from the nightmare and she starts scratching her inner arms. Daryl sat in the window of his loft and stared at the stars, he hoped that Blade was holding on that he would survive these few days. Blade wakes up and shakes her head, looks around the room and rubs her head. "Goddamn how long have I been in this cell?" She questions Daryl nervously tapping his fingers on the doorframe, drifting away with his thoughts to the moment he confesses his love for her. To the moment he said he loved her. Blade closes her eyes touching her bracelet and looks up at the ceiling. "I love you Daryl. Please come and save me and be my guardian angel." She says softly

Negan sits in his room thinking about what to do with this woman, how he can break her since she's already broken. But driven by rage over the fact that Daryl ran away from him he does something to her to hurt Daryl. Blade keeps her head on the wall and keeps holding herself close knowing she can't give up she will not break again. Blade will keep herself from hurting herself. First thing in the morning, Rick laid out his plan of action to everyone, how they were going to attack each of the Saviors' posts one at a time, how they wanted to eliminate them in stages. Daryl stood in the concourse and wondered how much time he had before Negan would do damage. Before he causes damage he can't repair. Blade feeling weak and tired she has eaten or had water in the last 48 hours. She thought Negan wouldn't hurt or torture women but she was wrong. Negan opened the cell door, some light came into the room, he stood in the doorway and looked at her.

"I have a plan" He smiled broadly Blade looked up at him not saying anything or doing anything. "What are you going to do to me?" She asks looking at him dead in the eyes and growls at him softly "You will be here until you agree to become my wife, I will put a ring on your finger and you will stay with me " He smiled widely. Blade looks up at him and shakes her head "You going to force me to be your wife? What if I refuse?" She questions standing up. "You have that right, so you will spend the rest of your life here away from Daryl, but when you agree you will move into my room, it will have a bed, kitchen and bathroom. You will be in bed with me every night" He says

Blade looks at him and looks down and sighs "You know what I'll agree but I'm not sleeping with you." She says."Either you take the package or you get nothing" He says. Blade sighs and looks down."Fine, I agree to not being in this cell." She says softly "Simon take her to my room, make sure she gets a bath and something to eat, I have to go over to Alexandria to tell them the good news" He smiled broadly Blade sighs and glares at him and crosses her arms. "What good news!?" She yells. I hope Daryl isn't going to hear about this and if he does he needs to remember she is being forced. He is trying to hurt Daryl and make everyone against her. "I'll tell them you agreed to be my wife," He smiled broadly, "Although I was hoping for a little fight, but you're weak. Daryl fought to the end." He says.

Blade glares at him and growls she is not weak she just broken and insane in the brain she could kill him in his sleep. The people from Alexandria, Hilltop and The Kingdom come together and split into groups. They each follow the plan they were assigned, Daryl with Rick, Tara and two of The Kingdom people, clean out the Saviors post. Just the clothes her weapons were taken from her. Blade was put in his room. She looked at Simon and she shut the door in his face. She went to take a shower making sure nobody came in to attack her. Simon sat on the bed and waited for her, he had so many things to say to her, he wanted to assure her that Daryl would come for her thanks to his help. "Listen to me," He breathed, "Daryl will come here and I'll help him." He looked at her. Blade looks at him and glares and shakes her head "Not after the fucking news Negan about to give them. They will hate me and think I betrayed them, and Daryl will be heartbroken. He will just give up on me and hate me." She says pacing back and forth in front of the bed. Simon parted his hair "Daryl is a warrior, he knows what we did to him here, he will understand that you had to save yourself. Negan is a madman." He shook his head.

Blade looks at him and crosses her arms “So he would have hurt me or killed me. I knew he would still hurt a woman to get what he wants." She says and looks down "He won't rape you" He shook his head "Don't let him get to you, defend yourself and he will let go. Rick and the group are already nearby, I'll make sure they get here in time" He says. Blade looks at him and holds herself close and tears up a bit and nods worried she would get hurt and killed by Negan. She shakes her head not believing. "Get some rest Negan will probably be back soon, I can't believe your family will believe him" He smiles slightly and leaves the room locking it behind him.

Blade looks down and after he leaves she just sits on the couch and looks at the wall. She will not lay on that man's bed. At the same time Negan arrives at the gates of Alexandria, the citizens circle the town quickly hiding all traces of their plan, nothing can go wrong. Daryl hides in one of the houses hoping they won't find him. Blade lays her head on her crossed arms on the couch arm and closes her eyes but not falling asleep. "My dears" Negan grins from ear to ear as he walks inside "My dear Rick, you know it's me. There’s a price for Daryl running away." He says. Blade thinks about Daryl and messes with her bracelet, she needs to stay strong and alive for him. She had to agree to being his wife or he would hurt her or kill her or kill Daryl. "I'm just here to tell you the good news,” Negan says, smirking.

He circles the streets, stops at the house where Daryl is hiding, sits by the window which is ajar and overhears the conversation. "I wish Daryl was here to hear that his sweetheart has agreed to be my wife," He grins ear to ear. Rick's eyes widen in disbelief, he shakes his head "You're lying" He growls at him. "No dear Rick, she is just lying in my bed waiting for me, she is very willing" He says. Blade crying softly wanting to be in Daryl arms. She can't stand Negan. He was cruel and how she treated her will be afraid and weak toward him but she will act like this to trick him. Daryl holds back tears, he can't believe what Negan says, he's lying, he has to lie. His Blade didn't do this to him, not the love of his life. Yet his brain screams at him that it's his fault, that he caused this to happen because he took bad care of her. Because he didn't deserve to have someone love him. Blade cries more and hits the couch arm in frustration knowing she will never see her family again. "I wanted you to know that, it's a joyous holiday" He looked around the streets "Rejoice all of you" He says.

Blade looks down at her hand seeing the scar from her breaking the mirror and she looks up at the bathroom. As soon as Negan leaves, Daryl comes out of the house. "I'm going to go get her, that psycho made her do it " He pushed past Rick and started towards the gate Blade stands up and walks towards the bathroom she looks in the drawers and sees a straight razor. "Wait, Daryl." Rick stopped him. "We have a plan, let's go for it." He says. “What if he kills her?" He growled at his friend. Blade grabs the straight razor and looks at it and stares at the tattoo on her wrist and then her bracelet and drops the razor and goes to stand next to the window looking out the window. Negan returns to the compound, moving straight to his room. He opens the door and steps inside. "How is my wife doing?" He stands behind her with his hands on her hips.

Blade jumps and flinches at his touch and keeps looking out the window. "Why do you care? What did you tell them? How did they react?" She asks "Rick was surprised, but I think he expected it from you." He moved his lips to her neck. "He didn't mind." He says. Blade frowns and starts tearing up and looks out the window not saying anything or moving anymore she goes numb and just stands there. "Blade, don't you want this?" He asks, coming closer to her, grabs her hand and puts it on his crotch. Blade growls and flinches and takes her hand away and turns around and pushes him away. "No, I don't. Daryl is the only man who can touch me like that!" She yells

Negan takes a step back "You will change your decision yet, I dispise rape but eventually you will come to me yourself" He smiles furiously and leaves the room slamming the door. Blade jumps at the slammed door and backs up into a corner and slides down the wall and starts crying. Rick hastens their plan, realizing that if they keep waiting things could end badly. A young girl wearing a short black dress walks into the room where Blade is sitting "Hey" She says quietly. Blade looks up to see the woman and stands up and glares at her. "Who are you? What do you want?" She asks "I'm one of Negan's wives, my name is Megan." She says sitting down on the couch clutching a dress in her hand, "I brought the right clothes for you." She says. Blade looks at her and growls and looks down and grips her head. "You mean to tell me this asshole has multiple wives?!" She yells. She goes to grab the dress and looks at it, and shakes her head.

"There are 5 of us in total you are the sixth " She looks at her "It is best to surrender to him, not fight him" She says. Blade glares at her and sighs. "I rather die then do whatever he wants to me. He has to torture me in order to get what he wants but I been tortured before he isn't going to get anything." She says "You are condemning yourself to pain and nerves, I don't know you but I know that every woman doesn't deserve that" She gets up from the couch, "I was only going to come and talk to you, but you do what you want" She says. Blade glares at her and shakes her head. "But you rather be with a man who has multiple wives to sleep with. I'm guessing you had a husband before Negan and he told you if you don't become his wife he will kill your husband. Am I wrong?" She asks "Yes" She breathes through her nose "I became his wife and he killed him anyway" She says.

Blade looks at her and shakes her head. "You were forced to be his wife. This is why I'm not giving in to him. I will fight him." She says. She shakes her head and sighs "That's what I'm counting on" She smiles slightly "He's a terrible person when we're at his mercy but we have to put on a good face" She says. Blade looks at her and looks confused "Why not run away why not get away from here?" She asks "There is no escape from here, once you get here there is no way out. His people are guarding us, we don't go outside" She breathes through her nose "I don't have people outside to save me, my whole group is long dead, and here I am safe" She says. Blade looks at her and smirks "I did, I escaped and I went back to my group you could find my group and stay with them." She says softly "Then why don't you run away again?" She props herself up on the side.

Blade looks at her and frowns "Because he's going to kill Daryl if I do and Negan kidnapped me and if I escape again he will kill Daryl." She says "Daryl is the one who was here right?" She asks. Blade nods and goes into the bathroom to change into the dress and sighs walking back out. "I need to follow what Negan says or Daryl will die. But I’m not letting him touch me or have sex with me." She says "Eventually you'll break like all of us " She nods slightly "Come on I'll take you to the rest of the wife" Blade glares at her and sighs. "I’m already a broken woman after the hell I been through but I’m not letting a man touch me or have sex with me." She says.

Daryl is standing in the middle of the road watching the sanctuary, he knows you're there. He knows you're going through hell, but he has to wait here for Simon's message. He's counting on it to say that you're okay. Blade walks with her to the other wives room and she just sits on the couch in the corner not talking to any of them and just sits there. Simon appears in the doorway and looks around for Negan, when he sees him he smiles uncertainty. Blade stays on the couch staring outside the window as she sits there with her legs crossed and arms crossed. She doesn't like wearing heels so she's barefoot in her dress. Simon takes a deep breath and heads outside, the card in his pocket burns him as he passes Negan's men, he knows he is risking a lot but Negan's reign must end. Blade lays there closing her eyes slowly trying not to cry missing Daryl so much. Simon attaches a note to his arrow and fires the arrow in the direction he knows Daryl is. Blade slowly falls asleep on the couch and puts her legs folded on the couch. Daryl pulls an arrow out of the tree it's stuck in and unrolls a piece of paper. His hands trembling, the card contains most of the information they need. The sentence at the very end of the card reads "SHE ALIVE, BUT HE FORCED HER TO BE HIS WIFE. HAS BEEN RESISTING TO SLEEP WITH HIM, WAITING FOR YOU!" He reads. Blade sleeps and holds herself close and tries to keep herself warm. She wondered where the bastard was. Probably killing someone or something. The night passes quietly and without much trouble, just in the morning Negan rushes into the room angry. "You come with me Blade" He grabs her arm tightly and pulls her behind him.

Blade gets dragged away and growls and glares at him. "What the fuck Negan what you want?!" She yells "Rick can't understand certain messages, the bastard came here and demands that we release you " He pulls you outside. in the square in front of the door there are cars, covered with metal sheets, behind one of them stands Rick. Simon is standing on the stairs looking at Blade. Blade looks around and gasps and sees Rick and then looks around for Daryl and then back at Rick. "Rick." She simply says "We are here for Blade." He says straightens up. Negan stands behind her, pulls out a knife from his belt and puts it to her neck.

Blade jumps and gasps softly and tears up and grips his arm and looks at Rick. "Rick just leave, forget about me, don't risk your life for me, you have children." She says He shakes his head. "Not without you" Rick says as an arrow flies past her head and into the shoulder of one of the saviors. No one can see where the arrow came from, but it is quite characteristic. Blade sees the arrow as it flies through the air and gasps and sees the familiar color and looks around trying to see where he is. "Daryl." She says softly to herself as she has tears running down her cheeks. "Well Daryl finally joined the party" Negan smiles and looks off into the distance a bit.

On the access road to the Sanctuary stands Daryl and points his crossbow at you. Blade looks at him and smiles. Negan grabs her by the waist holding her closer to him with the knife on her throat and presses it harder. Blade screams in pain slightly. "Please just leave me here, don't risk your lives for me!!!" She yells Daryl tenses his body and tries his best to aim, but he doesn't have a clear shot. He sees the knife at her throat but can't control himself, he has to save her. This time he won't roll it. Blade feels the knife deeper and blood starts dripping out her neck and screams in pain more. "DARYL I LOVE YOU!" She yells on the top of her lungs Rick can't stand the tension of the whole show in front of him and finally starts to attack, he is about to pick himself up and by force, Negan can't relent. Blade falls to the ground and she coughs and holds her throat and tries to stop the bleeding. Negan grabs her by the hair and pulls her inside the building. "You will be my insurance," He says. Blade screams and reaches out to Rick to save her. "LET GO OF ME!!! RICK!!!! DARYL!!!" She screams "Shut up bitch" He growls at you and pulls her inside.

The door slams shut behind you, and shots ring out. Blade screams and scratches his hands and grabs his wrist and swings her leg to kick him in the face. She runs away after he lets her go. Daryl switches from crossbow to assault rifle and attacks, he wants to get to her as soon as possible. He knows that now Negan is capable of anything, he can kill her for what they did. Blade keeps running away from him and growls and looks around for an exit. She knows what Negan is capable of but she can use her martial art skills to defend herself. Negan realizes with every step how serious this has all become. What a mess he's made of himself by the attack, but now he can't back down, he has to be tough. Blade is lost but she needs to find a way out or she will be hunted down like a prey. The Saviors eventually retreat by locking themselves in sanctuary. Blade finds an exit but there are walkers about to break down the door she backs away and runs to go the other way. Negan gathers people to think of a plan. "Simon finds that bitch, I want her in hands now" He growls at him. Simon goes on her search. 

[the--sad--hatter]

Name Calling (47)

FANDOM - MARVEL MCU, DEADPOOL & X-MEN

PAIRING - BUCKY X READER (female reader, no physical descriptions)

WARNINGS - ALL OF THEM, SMUT, VIOLENCE ANGST

DESCRIPTION -  

Vernichtung - Destruction, Annhialation.

It was what you were named and what you were supposed to be but the only thing you wanted to destroy was Bucky Barnes.

The ongoing and bloody war of words between you and Bucky turns in your favor when a disgruntled one night stand of his lets slip a secret when you run into her in the elevator… Now you have all the ammunition you need to destroy your enemy but you don’t plan on killing him quickly. Oh no, Bucky Barnes was going to suffer and you were going to enjoy every second. You just didn’t count on enjoying it quite so much.

But when your past catches up to you in the form of the mad scientist who made you, Bucky might be one of the only things that can save you from yourself. You can’t run from what you are but with his help, you can fight back.

Current Word Count -  127,743

MASTERLIST  or   Read on Ao3

Moodboard by @talesofakindredspirit

Chapter Forty-Seven - The Doctor Will See You Now

Jack Docherty, like all men was born with the potential for good and evil. There was no deciding factor ingrained in his DNA. At 06:24 am on December 3rd 19 1951 he was born a blank slate and his fate was to be decided by the man and woman the midwife handed him too.

Ian Docherty was a man of faith, a God fearing man. To him, the squealing babe in his arms was another miracle of the lord.

Emma Docherty was a woman who felt she was forsaken by God and her husband. To her, her infant son was nothing more than another burden.

The first three years of Jack Docherty’s life were unremarkable. Seven months into the third year, everything changed.

“Your father is sick. God is punishing him.” His mother told him.

Jack crept into his fathers room and peered at him over the top of the bed. His once vibrant father was nothing more than a bag of bones lying on the bed, his skin sallow and sunken in, stretched over his skeleton. His chest rasped and wheezed as he tried to breathe. Jack reached up and with his little fist, grabbed his fathers hand.

Almost like magic, colour bloomed across his fathers flesh and life returned to him. For the first time in days he opened his eyes. There was a small thump from the next to the bed and he looked down.

“Jack? Jack? EMMA!” He yelled.

Emma Docherty rushed into the room, falling onto her knees next to her sons prone form. As soon as she touched the boy her skin took on a sallow palour. And so at three years and seven months old, Jack Docherty healed his father and killed his mother.

“God knew my wife was poisoning me and gave me a son to heal me and punish her for her sins.” His father told the church.

At first nobody believed him but when his son lay hands on old Mrs Carver and she was healed of her blindness they knew the truth. It didn’t matter to them that Jack was now blind. It didn’t matter to his father. Until he realised that the next person Jack touched would inherit the blindness.

That was the day his father started buying rats. It was also the day Mrs Carver saw her husbands transgressions with the neighbour and killed them both.

Not even four years old and Jack Docherty was dragged to churches up and down the country to heal the sick, no matter how much pain it caused him. And everywhere they went there was a trail of dead rats and ungrateful people.

When Jack Docherty was seventeen years old he laid hands on a man with a painful, terminal disease. And instead of passing it to a rat, he passed it to his father.

“When you see God, ask him why he would do this to me and not expect my revenge.” Jack hissed to his dying father.

Evil is not born in the womb, it festers over time, through tragedy. And humanity was evil, Jack Docherty knew this to be true.

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

Leaving Bucky behind was the only way to keep him safe, if you hadn’t then he would be in a cell next to yours and while you loved him, you weren’t quite that co-dependant. Besides, if you were going to get out of this then you wanted Bucky out there, looking for you.

So you went quietly, letting Docherty lead you to the helicopter. You had planned to kill him as soon as you were in the air and you knew Bucky was safe but he had planned for that and as soon as you stepped onto the craft you were hit with several tranq darts and tazed for good measure.

When you woke up again it was in a cage almost identical to the one you had grown up in, the only difference was the room around it. This room was dark and musty and your grandfather was sat waiting for you to wake up.

He’d never been much of a talker before, apparently he had a lot to share now though.

Of all the tortures Docherty had subjected you to over the years, this was by far the worst. You shoved your hands in your pockets and gave him a bored look.

“So you’re a mutant?” You asked casually, it had been the only part of his story that had picked up your interest.  

“It never occurred to you I might be?” He asked, as if genuinely surprised you didn’t know.

In retrospect, it made sense. Your mother was a mutant, she had to have got it from somewhere. It also explained how he had poisoned a mutant with healing abilities.

“Honestly I never really gave much thought to why you were such a dick and I gotta say... Cool backstory, you’re still an asshole.” You responded with a shrug.

“Such fire. Stark was good for you.”He said mockingly.

“You thought if you could raise me like you were raised I would turn into a psychopath like you did? Well I bet you feel like an idiot now because guess what Docherty? It wasn’t your upbringing that made you the way you are, you’re just a dick.” You mocked back.

“I saw the depravity and selfishness that people posses. They don’t deserve to live.”He hissed.

“I saw it as well, courtesy of you and agree to disagree. There are good people in the world. I’m one of them, despite your best efforts.” You rebutted.

“Ungrateful child. My best efforts made you what you are, into a god! You have no idea what I had to sacrifice to make you into Vernichtung, to bring the world to it’s knees and make people pay for their depravity!”

“Sacrificed? You mean your daughter? My mother. The one you kept locked away, waiting for the right moment to kill?” You snarled.

He looked taken aback.

Locked in another cage by him, you didn’t feel as brave as you sounded. But you were channelling Tony because this pathetic, snivelling excuse of a man would never see your fear again. So you would trade barbs with him and rile him up and you would do it with a smile.

You thought of your father and he gave you the strength to smile at the man you hated above all else.

You thought of Bucky and he gave you the strength to stand tall in the face of your abuser.

“Sorry, did you want to dramatically announce that? Go ahead, I’ll even fall to my knees in slow motion when you do.” You quipped with a signature Stark grin.

“Yes, I killed my daughter. I needed the healing mutation she had but she was weak. So I gave Vernichtung to you, your natural mutations and super soldier serum made you strong enough to survive the multiple volatile mutant abilities in your veins.” He explained calmly.

“She wasn’t weak. All those years and she still remembered me! She loved me!” You exclaimed furiously, determined to defend her memory.

“She was a slave to her heart, to her emotions. She wasn’t like me so all she was good for was her DNA. She died to help make you into what you are supposed to be.” He said callously.

“You’re right. You went to a lot of effort, sacrificed so much and for what? You’re an old man who has achieved nothing. I’m never going to destroy the world.” You scoffed.

“But you will. When you let that mutant escape I saw an opportunity. I let you go, let you be free. And I never stopped watching, waiting. You needed to have it all before I could take it from you.” He said, holding up a picture of you and Bucky, the one of you on the balcony.

“That was your master plan? Let me befriend Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and then steal me away from them? They will come for me. Whatever dank hole you have us hiding in, they will find us.” You vowed.

He chuckled and walked over to a button on the wall, pressing it. You winced as the wall in front of your cell rose and the light blasted in. As soon as your eyes adjusted you looked out of the window.

“Motherfucker.” You swore.

This was why nobody had been able to find Docherty, he wasn’t hiding. You were looking at Stark tower, it was a literal stone’s throw away. Three, maybe four blocks at most. He’d been right under your nose the whole time.

“Do you see? You never escaped. You never could.” He told you.

You couldn’t look at him, you turned your back on him as you tried to get your breathing under control. This whole time, he’d been right here. Those first days at the tower, learning to trust Tony... He had been down the street. Every moment you spent at the compound, Docherty was here where he could get to Pepper. You weren’t afraid anymore. Not even close.

You were pissed.

“Are you with me?” You growled.

“I’m always with you.”He answered.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” You said turning around with a feral smirk.

You raised your hand and blasted the cell door open, sending it spiralling across the room in pieces.  

“Vernichtung.” He breathed out reverently.

“Sorry grandpa, it’s still me.”You snarled.  

“Impossible.” He gasped.

“No, it’s not. Because all of me hates all of you.”

You stood tall and let the black veins ripple across your skin but your eyes remained clear. You and Vernichtung were united as you advanced on him, ready to tear him apart and put an end to him once and for all. In this, in your hatred of him, you were one with your darker self.

For you, for your mother, for every innocent he had ever hurt... He was going to pay.

“The thing about Vernichtung my dear is it is not a natural mutation.” he snarled and grabbed your wrist.

As soon as he touched you, the veins fled down your skin and onto his hand, rippling up his body.

“It’s a disease. That’s why it turns your blood black.” He said victoriously.

“No!”

You could still feel her in your mind, snapping at the man stealing her power. He convulsed as it overtook him.

“You need the healing mutation to survive it. You’ll be ripped apart.” You warned him.

“Not before I rip apart everyone you love, and then you will have nothing. Then you may have your power back and you will finally be ready to use it.”

“I won’t let you do this.” You said desperately.

He only laughed and you were thrown backwards, the Deathwave being unleashed on you and rupturing you from the inside out.

Your broken body landed in a pool of your own blood and you realised there was nothing you could do, he was going to rip apart New York and with it, everyone you loved.

And then he would get his wish, because you would destroy the world if you lost them.

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

Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn.

The next chapter is the penultimate chapter, the big battle, the explosive finale before the dust settles. So strap in folks, next chapter is going to be long and painful.

Also... Jake Peralta: Cool motive, still murder.

@nerdandproud-86 @harrison-shot-first@thejourneyneverendsx @thelostallycat @inquisitor-selvala@the-corruptor @iovher @kendrawr-kitkat @phoenix-whiskey-tears @the–real-wombat @buckitybarnes@fairislesheets@angieptt @meganjonezzzz@dugan365@fluffeh-kitty@memanda17 @krystallynx@theonelittleone@piscesbarnes@free-as-fishes@tarastudiesalot@captainamericasbeard@dropthepizza346@jaynnanadrews@likes-to-smell-books@drdorkus @life-wanderer@metalarmlover @animegirlgeeky@jsmith509

[iscariotsdeputy]

Analyzing Staci Pratt’s Character Arc

    Julian Bailey once said, on February 13th, 2019:  “Yeah, Staci has a real character “arc” and he’s way more complex than he lets on at the beginning…”. And I, Sam, your local Staci Pratt enthusiast, am here to explain why Staci is a deeper character than everyone’s favorite douchebag son. Now, you may look at me and say, “Sam, you dumbass, it simply ain’t that deep.”, to which I say you are completely valid, but you can and should bear with me here for a second. And yeah, you can reblog this if you wish.

    Far Cry 5 opens in the small, backwoods locale of Hope County, a completely fictional place in Montana that’s actually inspired by southern Montana. Early on, it’s set up that there’s this heavily armed religious group that has taken roots in Hope County. And guess what? The cops are doing absolutely nothing about it. That is, until one fateful 2:37 AM. The Hope County Sheriff’s Department and one U.S. Marshal have decided to finally arrest Joseph Seed on the suspicion of kidnapping with the intent to harm.

    Now, as you sit in the back of the chopper with Sheriff Earl Whitehorse and U.S. Marshal Cameron Burke, two Deputies sit up front, flying the ‘copter and pressing buttons like it’s nobody’s business. Their names are Joey Hudson and Staci Pratt, for the intents and purposes of this post, I will be focusing on Staci Pratt.

    Not much is known about Staci Pratt pre-game, except for the fact that an NPC says “Deputy Pratt always came off as a bit of a douchebag, but that doesn’t mean he deserves what Jacob’s doin’ to him”. Throughout the first cutscene, you can occasionally hear some wise cracks from Staci, and although less noticeable, Staci does mess around with Joey up front, offering her his flask and whatnot. Now, Staci’s wise cracks come in the form of hazing the Rookie Deputy (“Maybe we shoulda brought Nancy along with us instead of the Probie. These Peggies wouldn’t fuck with her”) or disrespecting Joseph Seed (“Crazy motherfucker”).

    If you think that Staci calling Joseph crazy is the only time Staci is disrespectful to his elders, you’d be incredibly wrong. Now, it’s not exactly “disrespectful”, but it shows a moment of doubt that Staci has towards the orders of Sheriff Whitehorse. When Whitehorse tells Staci to set down the helicopter, Staci does nothing at first. He just keeps the helicopter completely still and doesn’t move it. He’s completely silent too. Staci does nothing until Whitehorse says “Pratt” and Staci quickly says “Roger that”, like he was snapped out of a thought. So, this is where we set up Staci’s character arc:

    Confusion. Staci’s character arc is moral confusion and also confusion of one’s identity. As of right now, let me quickly state who Staci is: A guy who’s a bit of a douchebag and he doesn’t believe in a word that Joseph says.

    Let’s fast forward to when the Rook eventually goes to the Whitetail Mountains. When you reach these mountains, more often than not, you will hear THIS BROADCAST before you see Staci again. Now, you may say, “Sam, he could’ve just been reading this”. And yeah, definitely, he was reading. The way he stumbles through it and says it so blankly is a very obvious way to say “Yup, that’s false emotion”. So, if I were to put it on a timeline, this had to have been recorded when Staci was first taken in. Maybe within the first week or so of his capture. But, something I didn’t realize at first when I listened to it. Basically, the whole time, it sounds rehearsed. It sounds faked. It sounds like Staci had a gun to his head. But then get to the end. Around 1:10. Please listen close to when Staci says the phrase “Train, Kill, Sacrifice in the name of The Father and The Project at Eden’s Gate”. You hear him, right? Suddenly, he lights up. Suddenly his voice is more gruff, more emotional, more angry. Those cue words, that phrase, and Staci is there again. No stammer. No blank slate. Those are words that Staci believes in.

    So, no matter if he doesn’t believe in Joseph normally, as soon as he hits those cue words, his heart is into whatever’s conditioned along with it.

    While you’re running around the Whitetails, you’ll hear some NPCs talk about Staci.

My favorite thing is that a few people say “Friends might not be friends after Jacob’s done with ‘em.”, “He might never come out of it. The very least he’ll never be the same guy he was before. Not ever.”, “There’s not much of the old Deputy Pratt left. Jacob made sure of it.”

    Alright folks, now we’re at the first time you see Staci in person again. Actually, it’s entirely possible from this clip that Staci is the one who carried your sorry butt to get conditioned. Now, it’s harder to notice because Jacob Seed may believe in culling the weak, but he doesn’t believe in proper lighting: Staci has scars. Staci is roughed up. He went from THIS to THIS. That is the reverse of a glow up. That’s a blow up. In this scene, Staci gets one line: “You shouldn’t’ve come for me. You should’ve run.” Also, the minute Jacob shows up, Staci literally runs to get in his spot. He runs to the back, gets out of Jacob’s way, and just stands there. So, in the time that Jacob has gotten his hands on Staci, our douchebag Deputy has suffered some major wounds to his pride. Believes both Rook and Him were both better off by leaving Staci in the mountains.

    BUT HEY HE GETS MORE LINES IN THE CONDITIONING SEQUENCES HA HA GOD I’M IN PAIN.

    Hey, hello there, welcome to the Time Break (Part I). What’s the Time Break, you ask? This is where I shamelessly yell about Staci’s voice lines because some of them don’t really fit into a specific point in time (You hear them after you free Stace, but these are just like “hey fun fact Jacob eats a kitkat bar the wrong way i wanna die” reminiscing things) , but they really just reveal facts about Staci’s mental state. Hint: It’s not good.

“Jacob took me on one of his hunts. Only we weren’t huntin’ any animals. A couple of prisoners had escaped. They didn’t get far.” FROM THIS AUDIO

Can I point out how at the end of this line, Staci laughs a lil bit? His voice lightens like he’s amused.

Also, Jacob took Staci on a hunt. It sounds like it was just the two of them hunting people down. I feel like it was a way to “”””reward”””” Staci and get him more chill with pulling the trigger on helpless prisoners.

“I had to help round up the wolves. Y’know, to be made into Judges. They were so scared. So scared.” SAME AUDIO AS ABOVE

This is fairly self explanatory, but yeah, this poor man had to round up scared, whining wolves and lead them to their deaths, essentially.

“I had a dream once that Jacob took me on a hunt. We shot some deer and he asked me to skin ‘em. As I was cuttin’ them open, they changed. It wasn’t deer. I...I don’t think it was a dream.” THIS AUDIO

STACI PRATT HAS SKINNED A HUMAN BEING A HUMAN PERSON A REAL ASS PERSON NOT A DREAM LITERALLY SKINNED A PERSON ALIVE Okay, in all seriousness, I believe Staci was going through his conditioning, which is why they changed. Or, worse, Staci hallucinated it in order to justify his behavior. Either way, Jacob Seed stood and watched as Staci skinned somebody alive under the pretense that he was just skinning a deer.

Finally, here’s Staci singing Only You   

    Hey there, buddy. Welcome back from The Time Break. Now, let’s keep moving right along through Staci Pratt’s suffering to the next cutscene, again, this is a one line scene. It’s when Joseph comes to speak with Rook about sacrifices and Rook wakes up to hear Staci “They want you to be strong. One of you will be strong.” And once again, Staci finds himself interrupted by Jacob and as soon as Jacob gets there, Staci moves to stand right in Jacob’s line of sight. First he stands on the right of Jacob, but when Jacob turns, Staci rushes to be on Jacob’s left so Jacob can still see him.

    Now, let’s go to the next scene where Staci has no lines, but he’s there so let me analyze those body expressions and movements. Pardon my French, but Staci is doing his fucking best here. Like, poor dude has to rush to give Rook their mystery meat and then has to shave Jacob’s beard, then washes Jacob’s hands, and then hands the canteen over to Jacob. The most interesting thing here is the whole shaving nonsense because Staci has a literal knife to Jacob’s throat. Staci has a knife, right there, and he doesn’t slit Jacob’s throat open. He doesn’t kill Jacob, even though he has a very good opportunity. Why? The poor bastard was conditioned to believe that without Jacob, he had no purpose. Jacob is the leader. Jacob is strong. Staci can’t do it. Staci is subservient to Jacob in every way. So no, Staci isn’t going to kill Jacob. Staci is lost without Jacob.

    Are you guys ready to commit treason? STACI SURE IS. BUT FUN FACT, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY DON’T THINK STACI THOUGHT OF IT HIMSELF. Let me run through the whole scenario real quick. Staci sneaks out, avoids the guards, goes to Rook, frees Rook, tries to warn Rook about their conditioning, and then shoves Rook onto the truck to free them. Staci thinks he’s being a hero. Staci thinks he’s doing something on his own, but he’s not. Now, why do I think Staci didn’t think of this himself? Because Staci said it himself.

    He (Jacob) gets in your head.

    Now, please tell me, how Staci would evade capture? He yelled at another prisoner that they weren’t strong. He alerted the Judges there because they started barking when Staci freed Rook. Also, it’s funny how there are no guards out there in the cage area. Nobody watching the prisoners. And how there were no guards that caught Staci and Rook on the way up to Jacob’s office. And that Jacob wasn’t in his office. And that there is a bag of weapons there that anyone would have noticed. Jacob sees everything, we learned this early on. He has security cameras everywhere, just like Eli. Anything Staci did, Jacob or a guard would have noticed. And yet, the alarm finally sounds off just as Rook is about freed. And when you wake up, the truck is all abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Staci was set up. Jacob orchestrated that and let Staci run through the motions.

    It was a test. And Staci failed. Staci was weak and traitorous. And we all know what happens to our traitor…

    He’s strapped to a chair. He’s publicly humiliated on TV. He’s strapped to a chair in a cold, wet, dark bunker. He is left to die. He will starve and dehydrate. He will rot. When he passes, his body will get thrown to the wolves. And the video ends with Staci crying to help. And guess what?

    When you find Staci again. It turns out that he has been listening to that video for days, it has to be less than 7 because he would have dehydrated by then, most definitely. Imagine if you were in his spot. Imagine if you were left to die and all you got to listen to was a video of you being called weak and traitorous, and then you crying for help and crying for Jacob to not leave you there. It’s awful. It’s horrendous. And it leads to a major change in Staci Pratt.

    When you meet again, Staci says the line, “Rook, are you real?”. This indicates that Staci had been sitting down there, having hallucinations about Rook and other people. When you free him, he falls to the ground. When he gets up, he says that he was weak. He says that maybe he deserved to die, to starve, to be stuck down there. Then, he takes a sledgehammer, and surprisingly after starvation and dehydration, through that sheer adrenaline and strength, he takes that hammer and smashes everything in sight. Then he takes a gun, says he’s strong and that the people who made him strong are now weak. And that they must be culled.

    WOW THAT’S BAD, HUH?

    YOU KNOW WHAT THIS CALLS FOR?

    Welcome to Time Break (Part II). Now, we’re going to see some of Staci’s lines that happen after you free him and get him to the Wolf’s Den.

“We could’ve died. We could’ve died. And maybe..Maybe I deserved--NO, NO, STOP STOP! The weak! The weak must be culled!”

“Maybe we didn’t survive that crash. Maybe all this is purgatory. We have to atone for all the shit we’ve done before we can leave this place. We have to suffer before God will grant us salvation.”

“Train, hunt, kill, sacrifice.”

“I can’t take it anymore.”

“Jacob. His experiments. He takes us. Owns us. Speaks to us. He hears us.” THIS AND ALL ABOVE IT IS THIS AUDIO

“He was right! He was right! I knew it! I fucking knew it! Shit, Jesus, help us…”

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” 

“Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.” (This happens when the bombs go off)

“It’s just gonna get harder. They want an offering. A Sacrifice.”

“I’m trying. I’m trying my best, you have to know that.”

“The whole time I was locked in that room I just kept thinkin’ about how I got here. Y’know why I became a cop…To get laid! That was it! It was a whim! And then after a while I tried to convince myself that I did it for the “greater good”. To help people. But I can’t. I know that now. Jacob taught me that.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore. I don’t even know who I am.”

“I...I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now. Protect and serve? Out here? There’s no law anymore, Rook. Look around! Someone shoulda been here by now! Nobody gives a shit about what’s happenin’ here. We’re on our own. Survival of the fittest. The weak and the strong.”   ALL OF THAT WAS THIS AUDIO

If you resuscitate Staci, he says “You’re like my Guardian Angel!” 

Alternatively, if Staci’s in pain, he’ll beg The Father to stop his pain.

“This place...do you know what it is? A protector from what’s to come. But it isn’t inevitable. He said to me that you could stop it. But only you, Rook...Only you...But if you don’t...if you don’t listen...if you don’t...We’re all gonna die. Either down here or up there. It won’t matter. We can’t stop it...The Father...He sees what’s coming...He’s right…” FROM HERE

“Nobody’s gonna take anything from me again. Ever.”

“You see that, Jacob?! Who’s weak now?!”

“I’m alive, but I’m weak...weak. Need to be strong. We are meat. We are all meat.”

Also here are four fun videos of what happens when you initiate combat with Staci Pratt: ONE    TWO   THREE   FOUR

    Now that we’re free from the final Time Break, let’s talk about the end of the game. First things first, let's talk about the common factor between the two endings, the confrontation with Joseph. This is when Rook turns and sees Joey and Staci forced down on their knees with guns to their heads. Joseph says that you can go in peace and there’s this exchange between Joey and Staci Joey: Go in peace? You’re fucking insane. Staci: Is he? We never should’ve been here in the first place.

    Then, in the Resist Ending, as he sits in the back of the car, Staci screams a Hail Mary and then he yells about how Jospeh was right. How Joseph was fucking right. Also, Staci is sitting right by Joseph as he screams that all, so you know Joseph hears him.

    Now, to the Walk Away Ending, as soon as they’re let go, Staci is shaking as he gets up and has his hands up to show he isn’t a threat. His back is hunched and he makes himself look small and he’s literally shaking like a leaf. Joey and Earl fight and he rushes to get in the truck. Staci sits in the back with his hands in his lap and staring at the floor. He stays silent until Whitehorse brings up coming back and fighting again. And all he does is say “No. No way. I’m not gonna be a part of this. You heard what he said.”

    I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent together, I really do, but I’ve realized that I seriously need to come to a conclusion here. So, let’s go back to where this all began. We started with Staci Pratt, the douchebag cop who had wiseass remarks to every situation. Though Far Cry 5 follows the arc of a young, Rookie cop who faces something they were never prepared for, there is an arc to Staci Pratt’s character and it’s a path of confusion and not knowing who he is or where he belongs anymore.

    One of the first things Staci does is insult Joseph, and by the end of this story, Staci Pratt believes in Joseph Seed and the Project and culling the weak. Staci’s character arc is so much breaking and breaking and breaking and then being rebuilt in the visage of the Project. In an essence, Staci develops and destroys himself at the same time. Pardon me for a pun, but Staci Pratt is a far cry of the man he once was. As Whitehorse and Joey still fight for the Resistance and loathe Joseph, the same cannot be said with Staci.

    He believes is Joseph, but all of his friends are in the Resistance. He is every single one of Jacob’s lessons, beliefs, manifestos, plans, all shoved into one person. He is a living legacy of the man who orchestrated Eli’s murder and yet he’s sitting there in the Wolf’s Den. And yet, he was treated like shit in the Mountains. He was treated as lesser. Even, throughout this all, Staci’s belonging is a topic that really has no proper place.

    When Jacob Seed said that Staci would die in the bunker, he wasn’t wrong.

    The old Staci Pratt died a long time ago, and now there’s a new man living in his place.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Hidden Gems of the Silver Screen (And, to a Lesser Extent, the Telly)

It can’t have escaped your notice that the majority of my more recent posts (and fuck knows I’m not posting regularly at the moment) are about movies and TV. The reason for that is pretty simple: 2019 has, surprisingly, yielded some great movies and TV... and also some really torrid shite. On the one hand, films like Ma, Brightburn and The Perfection continue to breathe new life into the horror genre. On the other hand, sci-fi as a cinematic and televised thing continues to ignore its actual audience in favour of sniffing its own farts in a sound-proof chamber designed specifically for next-level virtue-signalling. One thing I will say about the dreck of 2019 is that it’s interesting dreck, at least so far. Another Life, for example, isn’t just bad: it’s mind-bogglingly, fascinatingly bad, as though someone set out to make the worst TV series imaginable and accidentally created a portal to another dimension made entirely of crap.

With all the amazingly wonderful and transifxingly terrible visual media on offer lately, it’s easy to forget that there’s a rich repository of films and TV series from just a few years ago that you’ve probably never watched. You see if you, like me, are a snooty, card-carrying member of the elitist intelligentsia, you probably missed films and TV series that looked dumb as soup on the surface on the grounds that they weren’t worth your time. Luckily for you, I’ve dived nose-first into the detritus of our dying culture, so you don’t have to, and I’ve ferreted out the diamonds from the pig-swill. Without further ado, I’d therefore like to present my list Easily Overlooked Gems.

1. Mandy The phrase “Nicholas Cage stars in a sword-and-sorcery rape/revenge thriller” does not inspire confidence. It’s therefore easy to ignore Mandy and the promptly forget it ever existed. Which is a shame, because it’s kind of a work of genius. The plot is exactly what you’d expect: a cult kidnaps, rapes and kills Cage’s girlfriend, Mandy, and Cage sets out on a mission of revenge culminating in a blood-bath. The nature of the revenge quest is what puts a sting in the film’s tail- or tale, if you’re feeling puntastic. You see, a lot of the bad guys exist in a constant hallucinatory haze after taking a drug that sent them mad after one dose. In order to fight on their level, Cage has to take a dose too. As a result, the world around him slowly but surely transforms into a nightmare landscape that looks like a cross between a D&D illustration and the cover of a heavy metal album and his grubby, personal mission of fury takes on the unmistakable resonance of a Conan-esque hero’s quest. By the end of the film, you have to wonder if Cage has actually slipped into some sort of alternate dimension or if he’s just lost his game-pieces completely. In places, it’s nearly as painful to watch as Landmine Goes Click (crikey, there’s one for the history buffs) but it looks and feels like Beyond the Black Rainbow. Worth your attention just because of how weird it is. I give it a solid four-out-five decapitated rapists.

2. Baby Driver Nothing about Baby Driver suggested it would be a good film: the way it was advertised as a car-chase movie trying to be cute; the stupid title; the fact that it came and went through cinemas like a fart in the night. Which is a shame, because it’s secretly brilliant. It’s a highly stylised crime film populated with the archest archetypes money can buy (to the point where some of the dialogue has a weirdly beat-poetic feel to it). It’s saturated colour palette and off-beat affect actually have something of a full-colour Jim Jarmusch flick about them. The hook, of course, is that the lead character (only ever referred to as Baby, because he’s got a punchably youthful face) has tinnitus and therefore has to listen to music constantly to drown at the buzzing in his head. The practical upshot of this is that a) every single scene is overlayed with surprisingly great and situationally appropriate music and b) he goes through life like he’s always dancing, so his way of moving lends to the film’s easy-going sense of flow. It also explains where his preternatural driving skills come from (I mean, not really, but within the context of the plot): he’s used to sliding effortlessly into patterns and rhythms because of the music thing. All of this could make a terrible film, of course, but execution is everything and, to everyone’s surprise, especially mine, this flick was executed with an astonishing level of panache. I rate it ten out of ten grizzly motor way pile ups.

3. Nightflyers It’s not just films that get overlooked as the tide of culture washes back and forth, like a great big sea of effluent. TV series also vanish unduly into the dustbin of history. Case in point, the criminally underappreciated Nighrflyers: Netflix pre-Another Life sci-fi offering that was actually good. It’s a pretty classic set-up: a group of mismatched wing-nuts on a spaceship, all of whom have secrets that that will threaten to tear them apart while they try to make contact with an alien life-form. What elevates Nightflyers is just how fuck-uped the cast are. There’s an angry British psychic whose spent his whole life in captivity in case he goes full Scanners on somebody’s head, a guy who only ever appears as a hologram for reasons too twisted to explain here, his evil mother whose uploaded her mind to the ship’s computer and gone batshit crazy, a genetic superbeing and a hacker who can send her mind into computers via a dodgy implant and who may or may not be drifting out of touch with the human condition. It’s great. 6 and half billion out of 7 billion monkeys, boiling in the void.

4. Hardcore Henry No, I don’t know who thought that title was a good idea either, but the point is that Hardcore Henry has no motherfucking right to kick as much arse as it does. It was clearly made on a budget that would embarrass a Youtube shampoo commercial, but it just flat-out rocks. Shot entirely in first-person, it follows the adventures of a mute cyborg as he seeks revenge against the bastard psychic entrepreneur who first built him then tried to kill him. Along the way, his main ally is a dude who keeps dying and coming back to life in a series of identical bodies but with radically different personalities and haircuts (this is eventually explained, but I’m not going to spoil it for you). It’s premise is demented, it’s surprisingly well-choreographed and its soundtrack is an aphrodisiac for your ears. Also, Tim Roth is in it, so that’s just yer seal of quality right there. It came out to a lot of fanfare and many, many cinema trailers back in the day and was then promptly forgotten about as soon as it launched. So I’m dragging it kicking and screaming back into the limelight. It’s on Netflix right now, so go watch it. I rate it a solid 11 out of 15 creepy duplicates of Tim Roth.

5. Upgrade Another lesser-known film about a cyborg. Unlike Henry, however, this cyborg’s life doesn’t so much ‘rock’ as ‘suck balls’. He gets crippled and then ends up with a sentient computer chip in his head that allows him to remote-control his own body despite not having a working spine anymore. Naturally, his experimental tech attracts the attention of some unsavoury characters and he and his brain-chip have to work together to figure out what’s going on, often through a series of ultra-violent, gory fight-scenes that horrify the protagonist himself. Of course, all might be well, except that the head-chip is a homicidal little shit that clearly has its own agenda. I give it at least 0000 0111 out of 0000 1001 painstakingly restored vintage kill-bots.

6. The Tick The Tick isn’t as overlooked as everything else on this list, especially since there have been a couple of previous televised incarnations of the franchise to lay the groundwork. However, I still feel like the modern iteration doesn’t quite get the love it deserves, so I’m throwing it out here. Following the adventures a mad, amnesiac and possibly stupid superhero and his neurotic sidekick, The Tick explores a world where superheroes aren’t the paragons of good from classic comics, the corrupt psychotics of The Boys or Watchmen, or the eternally struggling, walking moral life-lessons of modern cinema. Instead, they’re just ordinary people operating at various levels of competence/incompetence and mental illness and working within a bureaucratic, wildly inefficient framework. That might not sound like a recipe for a successful TV series, but it really is. Drawing out the mundane, human side of heroes and villains against the backdrop of cataclysmic, civilisation-threatening events makes for infinitely compelling and very, very funny viewing. It’s kind of doing for the superhero genre what Futurama did for sci-fi a few years back. It’s also where the phrase and/or popular song ‘seven billion monkeys boiling in the void’ comes from. My rating is four out of five sapient, homosexual boats (which will make sense when you watch it).

7. The Void Amid the high-budget horror extravaganzas of recent years, it’s easy to forget about the void, which feels like the best story H.P. Lovecraft never wrote and looks like David Chronenberg tried to adapt a Heironimous Bosch painting... in the ‘80s. The actual plot concerns a group of people getting trapped in a hospital by murderous cultists and discovering dark secrets and, arguably, a whole other dimension in its basement. You’re not exactly there for the plot though: The Void is a mood-piece and an exercise in visual FX craftsmanship. You’re there to drink in the atmosphere and see what each new cosmic horror looks like. I am delighted to award it ten out of ten unspeakable whisperers in the darkness. That’s enough for two barbershop quartets, an emcee and a supporting act.

8. Happy Death Day It’s Groundhog Day but as a horror film starring a really annoying lass in her late teens has to keep dying horribly until she learns to stop being such a terrible person... and also kill her murderer with a little help from her newly-minted, non-cunty friend. There’s a sequel that I haven’t seen yet, but the original is a low-key, oft-overlooked delight. I give it 9 out of 11 suspiciously similar corpses.

[fromheroestodust]

Stab Wounds and Lipstick Stains

Summary: in the Neibolt house you have an encounter with Pennywise. Near death situations can lead to secrets being revealed.

Warnings: language, blood, violence

Word count: 2770

Pairing: Richie Tozier x reader

A/N: I know I've been writing a lot of It stuff recently but this idea came to me and I couldn't resist writing it :)

"We're actually going in there?" You ask, peering at the Neibolt house in front of you. The rotten wood and creaky steps seemed all but welcoming. Spiders, dust, and mice seem to come out of every crack and crevice. You feel your breaths become slightly labored as you stagger backwards until you lean against the fence. You could practically see the clown ready to pounce at you, waiting behind every corner and closed door for you to pass to snatch you. But that's bullshit. The clown doesn't exist.

"If I see that motherfucker I'm out." Richie states. You roll your eyes before recollecting yourself, pushing off the fence and coming to stand next to Beverly.

"So who all is going in?" You ask, walking up the steps to stand next to Bill. A smile grazes his face upon seeing your willingness to walk inside, no effort made to hide his relief.

"I'll go." Richie says, joining you at your side. You see Eddie take a large breath before walking up with the rest of you.

"Shouldn't some people stay? To keep watch?" Stan asks. Everyone nods before you four walk inside, leaving the others and stepping into the tomb of a house.

"So what do you think we'll find? Maybe one of those oversized clown shoes." You joke, nudging Richie's arm. Though, he doesn't seem to respond. He's to focused on the paper in his hands. "Rich?"

"It says I'm missing." Is all he responds. "That's my hair and that's my shirt and that's the date-" His voice continues to get louder and louder, prompting Bill and Eddie to walk over with looks of concern.

"Richie you're fine! You're not missing! It's all fake remember?" You yell back, lowering your voice when you realize yelling won't calm him down. You take the paper from him and place your hands gently on his shoulders. "None of that is real, it's all made up, okay?"

He's silent for a few moments, staring into your eyes from behind his thick glasses. You watch a war happen behind his eyes as he debates whether or not to believe you. He shakes his head as if to shake away his emotions before returning to normal.

"Right." He breathes. Bill and Eddie start towards the stairs, you and Richie right behind them after he'd gathered himself.

"There's probably enough dust in here to fill my house." You hiss in disgust, sneezing after taking the first creaky step, the staircase groaning under your weight.

"Or to fill Eddie's mom's tits." Richie adds. You roll your eyes and nudge him, still following after Bill and Eddie.

Something catches your eye in the corner on the landing halfway up the stairs. Curious, you walk towards it before picking it up finding part of an old red balloon. That's weird. Didn't Eddie say he saw red balloons in his encounter with It? By the time you put everything together in your head it's all to late. Every thing around you seems to be raised excluding the small landing of the stairs your on, trapping you in a cage of old wood and humid air.

"What- Richie! Bill! Eddie!" You scream running to what was once stairs but was now a wall, trying desperately to scale it but to no avail.

No one comes back for you, leading you to conclude they're stuck as well.

"It's just me and you now." A sudden eerie voice says from behind you. Your entire body freezes before you slowly turn around, revealing a seven foot clown with a demon like smile. "You look like you have the most meat on your bones."

A step towards you. You back up, nearly crumbling when your back hits the wall. The clown continues to stalk closer and closer, not stopping. The others stories made it seem like It liked to tease you all, but this wasn't teasing. No, this was much worse. Pennywise wasn't just playing with you, he was actually planning to hurt or kill you, and as much as you wanted to deny it, it was most likely to be the latter.

"Is this not real? Is this made up?" He mocks, a claw forming where his hand once was. "This is very real now." A sudden rough movement of his arm sends the claw into your stomach forcing a gasp out of your lungs. It retracts it's hand back to itself, your hands flying to the hole in your body as you lean against the wall and force yourself to stand in fear of never getting back up. A scream rings from upstairs, both of your heads turning towards the noise before back to each other.

"I'll be back for you." He calls before slinking into the stairs that slowly settle back into their original resting place.

Your whole body seems to be raging and fighting with itself, shutting on and off on and off, adrenaline rushing through your vains while your mind tells you to collapse. Pain comes in waves, in between being a numb nothingness where you can't feel anything. Your vision goes blurry and black on the edges but you force yourself to yell out to the others, desperate for someone, anyone to come.

"Rich! Bill! Ed! S-someone... Please..." You yell in a weak voice, slowly staggering towards the stairs. You make it halfway up before you can't force yourself to stay up anymore and your legs give out. You lay in a loose ball, your hands covering your wound. Blood pools around you as you cry - well you try to cry, but you can't force anymore than a few scarce tears out.

"Please..." You whimper. It was hard to focus on anything but the pain. No longer was a numbness taking over, but instead a pain to intense for you to even comprehend. You didn't understand how someone could feel this much pain. Pain. The only thing on your mind. Pain.

"Y/n! Where are you?" You hear a distant voice yell. You pick up your head to look around but all you see is the out of focus railing of the staircase and the blurry stairs leading to the ground floor.

"On the stairs." You try to yell, but it comes out horse and scratchy and more like a whisper than a exclamation.

"Y/n?!" There's more voices now, closer than before. Hope shines through the pain momentarily as you hear footsteps coming closer. Suddenly they're in front of you, multiple pairs of shoes in your view.

"Holy shit, Y/n? Y/n can you hear me?" A familiar voice asks, the body crouching in front of you. Who is it? Richie. That's it. It's Richie. They made it out alive. They're safe.

"Rich?" You answer, barely hearing your own words.

"Yeah, I'm here. Holy shit- where is all this blood coming from? Is-is that from you?" He asks. His voice is frantic. You nod with a small whimper, moving your shaky hands to reveal the hole in your clothes and yourself soaked in a deep maroon.

"What happened?" He exclaims, his hands moving but freezing as if searching for the right action to take.

"I don't... Know. Hurts." You answer. "Hurts a lot."

"Guys we need to get her to a hospital." Eddie speaks up.

"Yeah no shit Ed's." Richie quips. "Y/n, can you see okay?"

You look up at his blurry face, not to blurry to where you can't make out his features, but blurry enough to where you know it's not normal. You again shake your head.

"I'm scared." You say. You see everyone make a small face of surprise. You never admit anything like that. Sure, you were literally dying in front of them, but that's something they never expected. "I don't... Wanna die."

"You're not, we're going to get you help." Richie says. More surprise. Both of you were acting completely out of your usually. But, in this situation, that's kind of the expected.

"We need to get her outside." Stan says.

"How?" Beverly asks.

"We're going to have to pick her up." Ben answers.

Richie moves closer to you, trying to atleast help you into a sitting position but only gets your upper body into his lap before you can't handle it anymore.

"I can't I can't I can't." You cry, gripping Richie's hand. The tears were flowing now, hot and streaming down your face into Richie's clothes.

"Okay, okay it's over. Just stay awake." He says. You nod and focus on staying conscious, not releasing your hold on Richie.

"Should we a-a-all pick her up?" Bill suggests. They all nod reluctantly before moving closer and each taking part of your weight. A loud mix of a whimper and a groan escapes your lips as you force yourself to stay awake, stay aware of everything happening to your body. You know your limbs are limp, probably scarily still to the others but you can't help it. You have barely any control over anything below your arms. You hadn't let go of Richie's hand and he hadn't made an attempt to release you either. Well, at least not that you know of, you can't remember much.

You see Eddie walking next to you with his arm in a weird and unnatural direction, definitely a break.

"Ed's?" You whisper.

"Oh- yeah?" He answers, worry haunting his eyes.

"Why's it so stuffy in here?"

"Probably all the dust and rat shit."

You nod before letting out a cry when you all make it fully down the stairs, the last step being more of a jump sending a wave of pain through you again, fire replacing what little blood you have left inside of you.

They all set you down against the house, Ben and Eddie sitting besides you. You can tell your breaths are going back in forth between being to shallow and to large. You catch the worried glances you keep getting from the others. What if this is it? What if this is the last moment you're conscious and then that's it, all of your friends, everything here is gone; out of your grasp. What if you never get to tell them how you really feel about them?

"Hey, Rich?" You ask gathering your energy to look up at him.

"What?" He sits down next to you and you turn your head, barely being able to make out his eyes through his blurry glasses.

"I... I like you... As more th-than a friend." You confess. "I just want... Ed to tell yuh-you in case I d-die."

You watch as multiple emotions flash through him, his mouth opening and closing a few times before he answers, "I do too. You're not going to die. Bill and Stanley are going to get someone to help and and you'll all be okay."

"Yeah..." You whisper. Your body falls against Richie's as almost all energy is depleted from your body. Everything becomes more blurry and a slight ringing starts in your ears.

"Hey Rich? I don't feel to good..." You mumble, your words slurring together right before everything goes black.

-

When you were let out of the hospital which was surprisingly only two days (your parents saw it as unnecessary) the boys told you a fight broke out splitting you all, Beverly and Bill cutting off from the rest of you. You of course had been sorted into the larger group because of the obvious reasons.

Due to your parents removing you from the hospital much to early, you had to use a wheelchair when you left the house. The doctors said your stitches would tear open if you walked for to long or made any sudden movements. You would need the chair for two weeks, the estimated time for the skin to heal enough for you go actually do things like walking for more than five minutes.

Stanley's bar mitzvah was scheduled for twelve thirty. You sit in your room, struggling to put on the dress you'd made without harming yourself. Finally after ten minutes you'd gotten it on, you walking the few steps from your bed to your desk. You put on some makeup, just a simple red lipstick and mascara.

A bell sound rings through the house, signalling you to walk down the hallway. You stand in front of the door, straighten your dress, and open it.

"Hey Y/n." He greets, stepping inside. He wears s suit, his hair sleeked back on his head.

"Hi." You sit down in the wheelchair sitting idly next to the couch, your arms lying on the armrests.

"Are you ready to go?" Richie asks, pushing his glasses up his nose. Curiosity takes your mind as you pick up on the nerves coming off of him. How was the Richie Tozier nervous? The only time you've seen him slightly nervous is the Neibolt House. You let it be for now, mentally noting to ask him about it later.

"Yeah. Are we the only two going?" You ask as you start to walk outside, pushing your wheelchair out the door and down the few front steps. You quickly sit down, your breaths slightly labored from the small effort.

"Uh yeah. Yeah we are." He answers. You start to push the wheels but they are turned out of your hands as Richie pushes you. You didn't really like having others doing things like that for you but you didn't resist, knowing arguments with Richie last ages and never settle in one direction.

"I hate everyone being separated." You sigh, relaxing against the back of chair.

"It won't last forever but it's not like I'm going to cave in and agree with Bill. He was talking bullshit." Richie hisses. It's silent after that, both of you watching your surroundings as you get closer to the synagogue. Finally you arrive, quietly walking in and taking a seat. You stand up out of the wheelchair, Richie reaching for your hand as he guides you in to the seats before sitting down.

"Thanks." You say quietly. He nods before an awkward silence suffocates the air between you. His hand slowly reaches out for yours, the tips of your fingers brushing together causing you both to flinch before your hands lock. You both look down at your joined hands before looking up at each other, smiles painting both of your faces. It was a weird feeling, to touch someone. Your parents despised coming in contact with you and when they did it was screaming and hitting. Due to all of that, you didn't let people touch you very often and you never touched others in fear of being hit. This was different. It was gentle. His hand wasn't striking you, it was holding you like he actually cared about you. Someone cares about you.

The ceremony starts and you both turn your attention towards the middle of the room as Stanley begins to talk.

-

Stan had to do other things after his bar mitzvah leaving you and Richie to go to the arcade alone, neither of you bothering to go home and change in to something more casual.

"How are you so good at this?" You groan when Richie beats you yet again on Street Fighters.

"How about this, if you win this round, I will stop making sex jokes about you and Bev for a week." Richie offers.

"And if you win?"

"Patience youngin'. If I win, you kiss me."

Your mind goes blank but you bite your lip and give a confident grin, "You're on, Tozier."

Richie ends up beating you by the most out of all twenty games. Your jaw dropped as you turn and face Richie who stood with a you'll admit cute triumphant smile.

"Pucker up, Buttercup." He says, turning to face you.

You stand up, glance from his eyes to his lips, then quickly lean forwards, kissing him for two seconds - probably less. When you pull away you see a shocked expression on his face forcing a giggle out of you.

"That was short." He says, peering at you from his thick glasses.

"Keep dreaming Rich." You sigh, rolling your eyes. You stand on your toes and peck his cheek, leaving a red stamp of your lips. You grin but don't mention it, sitting back down in the wheelchair. You stared at the mark for the rest of the day in amazement. It was from you. You kissed Richie Tozier. You liked him and he liked you. Even with all the Pennywise shit, you knew Richie would be at your side. Maybe things will turn out okay after all.

[chibinightowl]

The Officer and the Hood

I need to not do this...But I can’t help myself. 

~*~

“Why do you always do this?” Officer Dick Grayson shouts, launching himself over a chain-link fence without missing a beat as he pursues the infamous Red Hood down a dark alley. His partner, Gannon Malloy, is somewhere up ahead in their patrol car, trying to box the criminal in.

“Why do I do what, Officer Pretty Boy?” the masked man taunts right back. He doesn’t even sound winded.

To be fair, Dick isn’t either. This chase is a walk in the park for him.

“You’re one of the best thieves in Bludhaven. And yet,” Dick pauses as he jumps over a broken crate and sticks the landing, “And yet, you only come anywhere close to being caught when Malloy and I are around. What gives, Hood?”

Hood laughs, a darkly sinister sound under normal circumstances, but this one sends a different kind of shiver down Dick’s spine. “Perhaps I just wanna see your ass. Those pants hide nothin’.”

It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s made a comment about Dick’s perfectly sculpted glutes. “I’m a gymnast, you know.”

To emphasize the point, he puts on a burst of speed, grabs hold of an overhead pipe, and throws himself through the air to land solidly on Hood’s back. They fall to the ground with a hard crash, Hood taking the brunt of it.

“Motherfucker!” the dark-haired man swears while he struggles beneath Dick.

“I win,” Dick breathes in Hood’s ear. He grabs his handcuffs and yanks one of Hood’s arms behind his back. “Now, here’s the fun part. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”

Hood starts chuckling and stops squirming.

Dick narrows his eyes, but finishes reciting his rights. Hood’s still laughing. “Something funny?”

“Just the look on your face when I do this.” Hood shoves hard against the ground with his powerful legs and rises to his knees, even with Dick’s full weight on his back. He twists again, trying to fling the officer off, but Dick has his own legs wrapped around Hood’s waist in an attempt to anchor himself.  

It doesn’t do much good as Hood gains his feet and promptly slams Dick hard against the wall of the dark alley. His head meets brick and for a brief moment, Dick sees stars. His grip loosens enough for Hood to escape the cage of his legs and he slides to the ground.

Shit. This isn’t going well. Dick tries to stand but stops short at the gun leveled a few short inches from his face. A loose handcuff dangles from Hood’s wrist. “That’s my gun,” Dick manages to say.

“Yup. You really should take better care of it.” Hood looms over him, cutting a rather impressive figure in the faint light, a slight sneer twisting his lips. “Now, the way I see it, I’m fucked if I steal a cop’s gun, so I’m not going to bother. However, as much fun as this has been, I didn’t come out here for the cardio.”

“What did you come out here for?” Dick asks warily.

The cool steel of the gun barrel caresses his cheek mockingly. “I told you already. I came for your ass, Officer Grayson.”

Dick narrows his eyes. Is he…? “Are you trying to flirt with me?”

“Took ya long enough to figure it out.”

“You’re a criminal. I’m a cop.”

“I don’t hear you sayin’ no.” Hood doesn’t move though, waiting and watching him closely.

“I’m not saying yes either,” Dick retorts before his mouth can catch up with his brain. “You’re a wanted criminal. I don’t care if your thighs are God’s gift to mankind, I’m still a cop and this is wrong.”

“You like my thighs, huh?” Hood smirks, obviously pleased with Dick’s slip. “Well, I’d love to see you riding them, as well as my—”

“Put the gun down!” Malloy shouts as he enters the alley, gun drawn and aimed at Hood. “This is your only warning, Hood!”

Dick winces as the man heaves a massive sigh, sounding incredibly put upon. “Yeah, yeah. Cool your jets, Officer.” Hood raises his hands and kneels, placing the gun on the ground and kicking it towards Malloy. “Pretty Boy and I were just having a little talk.”

"You’re under arrest, Hood.”

“He said that to me too.” Hood looks up and grins at Dick. “I guess I’ll have to take a raincheck.”

“The only place you’re being taken is jail.”

“Promises, promises.”

Dick isn’t sure how it happens, but Hood lunges forward and wraps his arms around him, hauling him close as he turns and places Dick between him and Malloy’s gun. He’s getting tired of Hood swinging him around like a ragdoll and tries to put up a fight, but there’s a knife against his throat and he can feel the keen edge pressing into his skin. Malloy shouts, but doesn’t fire.

“Sorry to have to do this, Pretty Boy, but I got things to do.” Hood isn’t sorry and they both know it.

“My name is Dick, not Pretty Boy.” Dick growls as he tries to figure a way out of this.

“Seriously?” Hood chortles in his ear. “Well then. I’ll be seein’ ya, Dickieboy.”

In one swift movement, Hood removes the knife and shoves Dick towards his partner. Dick staggers as he tries to regain his balance, Malloy reaching out to catch him. The sound of boots pounding against the pavement disappears behind them.

“What the fuck was that about?” Malloy asks as he steadies Dick. It’s a nice gesture, but he doesn’t need it.

Dick bites his tongue. There is not a single good way to explain that the entire chase was an elaborate game of cat and mouse just so Hood could flirt with him. Just as there’s not a way he can explain that he was on the cusp of doing it right back.

Because damn, those thighs…

[pendulumprince]

Episode 35, here we fucking go.

Okay, well Blue Angel just went down

Shoichi is Shooketh(tm)

Akira bounces into the crib

FUCKIN SMACKS AOI JR OUT OF THE WAY

Sees Aoi’s unconscious body

And, to no one’s surprise, goes straight into Link Vrains

Goddamn, the Tower is just as pretty as ever

Some sort of weird sigil comes over it

A glowing… pink ball begins to go up the Tower’s center

Ah, okay: another ring has been added to the Tower

Back to Blue Angel’s unconscious body:

“I pulverized your blue love. But it wasn’t much of a love to begin with.”

Omgggg Specter wtf is your damage

Like he hates Blue Angel on a personal level and I need to know why

He goes on: “you can no longer leave.”

I thought she couldn’t leave in the first place?

“You’ll vanish with us. >:D”

Okay, so Specter 100% expects to die when the Tower goes off

Like, we sort of knew that before

But okay, his suicide mission is confirmed.

“How fitting for Link Vrains’s pathetic idol.”

He’s just mad that Blue Angel is better than him in ever conceivable way

He’s not even fuckin talking to anyone anymore, Blue Angel can’t hear his taunting; this is 100% for his own ears

Specter walks off into some portal, off to go fuck up Playmaker’s shit

Frog and Pigeon decide to go after Specter, since they’re the only ones left reporting on anything in Link Vrains—

AND HERE COMES ‘AKIRA’, SCREAMING AOI’S NAME AS HE DASHES THROUGH THE STREETS

Alright, Frog and Pigeon bounce

AND BEFORE ‘AKIRA’ CAN MAKE IT TO BLUE ANGEL

A CAGE COMES UP FROM THE GROUND, TRAPPING HIM INSIDE

He tries to touch the cage, but

“You shouldn’t touch that.”

Someone comes in through a portal!

AND! IT’S KOGAMI

And judging by ‘Akira’s’ face, he sure as hell remembers who this dude is

“There’s a strong computer virus in those vines. If you touch it, you’ll lose consciousness.”

Loving that smug smile you got there, Kogami.

“Dr. Kogami! Aren’t you dead?”

“I did die. Due to SOL Technologies.”

OH SHIT, KOGAMI JUST SPILLED THE GODDAMN TEA.

“SOL Technologies?”

“But I resurrected >:3”

After the opening!

Playmaker on his way to the Tower

He comes across this huge crater in the ground

Ah, even the ground is being turned into data

So he’s running… he’s running…

He makes it to a bridge

According to Ai, they need to make it across before it turns into data

Or else they’ll never be able to get to the Tower

Ai considers creating a Data Storm, but Playmaker tells him not to because it’ll only get absorbed

Thus completing the Tower even faster

Buuuuut of course Specter comes to block off his way

“My name is Specter. We finally meet, Playmaker.”

“Move out of the way!”

“I can’t let you pass. Revolver ordered me to destroy anyone who interfered with our plans. You’ll meet the same fate as Blue Angel.”

Just like the rest of us, Playmaker and Ai are shocked that Specter actually beat Blue Angel

“Yes. Without having to use my full strength.”

SOMEBODY PLEASE COME CHOP THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN.

Back in the real world, Shoichi decides to send Frog and Pigeon Playmaker’s coordinates so he can get a visual

AND YOU CAN BET OUR GOOD REPORTER BOYS ARE HAPPY ABOUT IT

Back to ‘Akira’ and Kogami”

“SOL Technologies killed you? What do you mean?”

AHHHHH IT’S STORY TIME

“Ten years ago, I worked for SOL Technologies.”

“You’re saying that the company ordered The Lost Incident?”

“No. That company can’t comprehend my ideas.”

ALL RIGHT, IT’S BEEN CONFIRMED: SOL REALLY *WASN’T* BEHIND THE LOST INCIDENT.

Kogami goes on: “When the incident came to light, the company imprisoned me and covered everything up.”

I never thought I’d say this, but: GOOD JOB SOL.

Like it’s not cool that they covered up The Lost Incident

But at least they fucked him up lmao

He goes on: “In order to monopolize the ignis I developed.”

You know what? I take it back. Fuck SOL.

He continues: “They smelled money when it came to ignis. If the incident was publicized, they thought the police would seize the ignis.”

“No way…”

“They infected me with a computer virus to put me in a coma. I was able to go home years after the incident. They thought I was dead. But my son didn’t give up. He removed the virus, and he recreated my mind in the network.”

“You formed the Knights of Hanoi to get revenge on SOL Technologies?”

“Revenge is incorrect. Our only goal is to kill the ignis.”

“Why?”

“They were supposed to guide the world. But they’re savages that’ll destroy the world.”

“Savages?”

“No one knows what it truly means for an AI to have free will. They’re far beyond what I imagined. They must be dealt with.”

“Wait! What’ll happen to my sister?”

‘Akira’. ‘Akira’. Listen to me:

This motherfucker kidnapped six kids and tortured them for six months. He shows not an ounce of regret over that.

Why do you think he’d give a shit about killing Aoi?

“Those imprisoned in the Tower can no longer escape. When the Tower of Hanoi is completed, data worldwide will be destroyed. Even us, since we’re part of the data.”

So in other words: your sister is going to die, and so are you. And me too! Death to everyone!! :) :D :3

“You’ve involved everything for the ignis, including yourselves.”

“It’s the only way left. The Tower of Hanoi will be completed soon. If you want to see the world end, stay there.”

Okay but?? He doesn’t have a choice??? It’s either chill in that cage or pass out.

Kogami dips back into his portal

“Dr. Kogami!!”

‘Akira’ turns back to Blue Angel…

Just in time to see her get turned into data! Nice. Nice nice nice.

Back to Playmaker and Specter

“You defeated Blue Angel??”

“She was talking about blue love or something.”

Ai is so flattered?? “Blue Ai (love)? What do you mean??”

“Who knows? I have no clue what that vain girl was talking about.”

Lmao I can’t get over how much vitriol he has against Blue Angel

Specter goes on: “Perfect timing. Please look at that.”

Annnnd there’s here sparking Blue data, floating in the air.

Playmaker sees her face in the data shards

“Now do you believe me? She had no skill, so she wasn’t ready to save me.”

“You…”

“I’ll send you to the same place as her :D :D :D”

ALRIGHT, THEY GET TO DUELIN’

Specter goes first!

He summons a 0 ATKer

Link summons

And look at that, it’s the goddamn tree. What a surprise.

Specter sets a facedown and ends his turn

Ughhhhh I’m so sick of this dude

I can’t believe we’re stuck with him till episode 37

Playmaker figures that is Specter beat Blue Angel, he’s got to be dangerous

But Ai notes that his deck doesn’t seem offense heavy (AND ITS NOT!! LOOK OUT FOR THIS LP BUILDING BITCH ! !!)

“Let me ask one thing before the fight.”

“What is it? Scared before the duel begins?”

Ai thinks all these motherfuckers are vain

Playmaker asks: “Why do you fight?”

“What a basic question. I fight for Revolver, of course.” (Ow, my shipper’s heart?? But fuck Specter, so)

“Then withdraw. Do you know what Revolver is trying to do?”

“I think I do.”

Omgggg why is Playmaker giving this bitch the benefit of the doubt

“If the Tower of Hanoi is finished, the worldwide network will be destroyed. That’ll lead to many casualties in the real world.”

“I am aware of that. Even if the world is destroyed, I’ll always be in Revolver’s side!”

Okay. Okay. I need to know where this deep love for Revolver came from.

“You don’t know anything above what Revolver and the Knights of Hanoi did! It’s been continuing since the incident ten years ago! That incident hurt many people and ruined their lives! An outsider shouldn’t get involved!”

“Oh, so you think I’m an outsider? But I’m full involved in the incident.”

“You’re involved? What do you mean?”

“The Lost Incident ten years ago… six children were kidnapped. They were imprisoned in separate rooms… so the six didn’t know each other’s faces. Just like I didn’t know you, and you didn’t know me.”

“Can it be?”

“It can be. I’m one of the six children.”

SPECTER WAS A LOST BABY, CONFIRMED

AND PLAYMAKER IS SHAKEN TO HIS CORE

“You’re one of the six?”

Ai is equally bamboozled. “Seriously? Then why is he a Knight of Hanoi?”

“If you endured the same hell as me—“

“Hell? What do you mean? :3 Am I different? Seems to, from your point of view:

I grew up in an orphanage. because I never had relatives. I lacked the ability to mingle with others. Even among people, I was always alone and bored.

That’s when that incident occurred. That incident entertained me.”

WHAT THE FUCK

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, PLAYMAKER IS TRULY TAKEN ABACK

“You enjoyed the incident…?”

“Yes. I enjoyed it. It was fun. Even if I could go home, loneliness and boredom awaited me. I lived like a specter, a ghost. No one talked to me. No one cared about me. But it was different there… someone was testing me. Someone expected big things for me. When I realized that, I felt the will to live for the first time. It was like a dream! Unfortunately, that fun time came to an end.”

Yoooooo this bitch craaaaaaazy

Ai jumps in: “Most people feel hurt, right?”

Don’t feel bad for not getting this guy, kiddo

None of us do, either

“You probably can’t understand. Because if the incident hurt you, you must’ve led a happy life before the incident.

“After the incident, I was returned to the orphanage. I was forbidden to talk about my experience. Adults treated me cautiously, keeping me at arm’s length. I was more alone than before. I escaped from the orphanage and went to the restricted area. It was locked after the incident.

“I kept waiting there.”

“Waited?”

“Thinking about that time… hoping those fun times would come back.”

PLAYMAKER IS CLEARLY DISTURBED

Specter continues: “And that hope came true.”

Okay, so baby!Specter’s in the forest, when he sees a hooded figure approaching.

“When I saw him, I knew instantly that he came for me.”

Playmaker figures that it was Rev

And the figure had white hair, so: Mystery Man=Rev confirmed!

Playmaker looks hella confused. “You don’t hate the Knights of Hanoi?”

“Hate? Revolver gave me a place to belong. So why would I?

Am I weird? But I think you’re weirder, loudly proclaiming your sense of justice.”

“Due to that incident, time has stopped moving for me.”

“But due to that incident, time has started moving for me.”

Ai (internally?) thinks. “This is bad. He’s dangerous. Playmaker’s conviction is wavering.”

Out loud, he says: “Playmaker! It’s pointless to talk to him! You and him are totally different! Look! If you waste more time, the Tower of Hanoi will be completed! Playmaker!”

“I know! Let’s go!”

“Sure. Please try to defeat me.”

PLAYMAKER TAKES HIS TURN

HIS DISCARDS A CARD TO SPECIAL SUMMON A 1500 ATKER

HE LINK SUMMONS

BRINGS OUT A 500 ATK LINK MONSTER

SPECIAL SUMMONS A 0 ATKER

LINK SUMMONS AGAIN

BRINGS OUT A 500 ATKER

RELEASES IT

ACTIVATES HIS OTHER MONSTER’S EFFECT

DRAWS A CARD, RETURNS ANOTHER IN HIS HAND TO THE BOTTOM OF HIS DECK

ACTIVATES HIS MONSTERS EFFECT:

BY TRIBUTING IT, HE SPECIAL SUMMONS TWO LINK TOKENS AT 0 DEF

BEINGS OUT A 1400 ATKER

ACTIVATES IT’S EFFECT

SPECIAL SUMMONS A 0 DEF MONSTER

“HERE COMES THREE CONSECUTIVE LINK SUMMONS” OMFG

USES THE TWO MONSTERS HE HAS ON THE FIELD

BRINGS OUT A 1600 ATKER

ACTIVATES SOME-FUCKING-BODY’S EFFECT

SPECIAL SUMMONS A 0 DEF MONSTER

LINK SUMMONS YET AGAIN

BRINGS OUT A 1000 ATKER

LINK SUMMONS ONCE MORE

IT’S A 1800 ATKER

HE GOES IN FOR THE ATTACK

SPECTER INFORMS HIM THAT HIS MONSTER CANNOT BE ATTACKED, AND HE TAKES THE HIT INSTEAD

HE GOES DOWN TO 2400 LP

AND HIS MONSTER’S EFFECT COMES INTO PLAY

HE SPECIAL SUMMONS A 600 ATKER

AND HIS LP IS REPLENISHED

HE’S BACK UP TO 4000 LP

“I was abandoned at the case of this tree.”

Flashback time! Infant!Specter was ugly as hell.

“When I was a baby. I still remember the view I saw from this tree.”

Um?? He has memories from when he was an infant??? The fuck

“This tree was I the mountain behind the orphanage. After I was abandoned, it took days until they found me.”

UM. THE TREE MOVED.

THE BRANCHES LITERALLY MOVED TO PROTECT INFANT!SPECTER FROM THE RAIN

W H A T

OH SHIT, IT EVEN PROTECTED HIM FROM WOLVES.

“For several years, I was raised in the orphanage. But I only felt peace when I was by this tree. When times were tough, this tree healed me.

“And then the incident occurred. I had fun during the incident. My only concern was that I couldn’t come to this tree. But after the incident… when I returned, the tree was gone.”

Oh shit. 

Someone chopped that motherfucker down.

Specter continues: “Adults had their dumb reasons. That’s when my attachment to society completely vanished. The only place for me is by Revolver’s side. I give my soul to Revolver!”

And that’s a wrap! Preview time!

The duel goes on!

“This is a personal fight he must win. He vowed not to get others involved, but reality wouldn’t allow that. Only his sense of justice prevents his spirit from breaking.”

Playmaker is still confused. Doesn’t get how any of the victims can “feel anything but hate.”

[bondedbrotherhood-blog]

The chat

Written by @AmauroticKing and @LordshipHalogen #Warning #MatureThemes #TriggerWarning Mentions #Torture #Rape *~*~*~* Lassiter: Patience used to be a strong suit. Cause fuck, when you live this long? You learn to both take your time, savor time, and forget time. So it bothered the ever loving fuck outta me that waiting to speak to Wrath was a feeling equivalent to sitting on a live wire while resting my feet in an acid bath. Fucking /brutal/. I was surprised I hadn’t worn a hole in the carpet with my pacing. Raw as I was after that recent chat with Butch, V, Adrian and the King, the last thing I wanted to do was prolong the torture even further. As I bypassed the door again I snapped. “Fuck it.” Snatching at the door handle, I darted back out into the hall and beat feet down the stairs, back along the main hall and straight to the Kings doors. My knock was more a courtesy than a request, because I didn’t wait for the answer, walking straight in and shutting the door firmly behind me. “You wanted to talk? Well I can’t wait for that. M’ sorry, but shit’s hard enough without having to worry about going over this all again at some undetermined time.” Wrath: [Shit was a wormhole these days. It sucked you in and spit you out where whim decided and this whole fucking sitch with Lash ramping up on Angel blood, OUR angel's blood, and becoming some kind of super vampire wasn't flying well with me. And let's give wings to the fact, since I'm on the subject of the flying fuckers, Lassiter thought it a good idea to keep that shit that went down between him and Lash a secret. Not really my biz unless it happens to affect the entire race. Case in point. Lash held Lassiter captive, tortured the winged bastard, as much as we all knew (some more than others, thanks to the fucking human doctor-patient confidentiality bullshit I allowed to pass) any number of things that the male had kept to himself. By which, if I find cause that hiding said things puts my shellan and my son, my fucking race, at risk of annihilation or exposure, I'll pluck and gut the male with my own bare hands and fangs. Don’tcha just love stewing in a toxic soup that sets your very skin to boiling. And let's not forget the very reason why for this tasty treat. Fucking Lash. Damned hindsight says I should have let Qhuinn finish killing the bastard back when he nailed the fucker for teasing JM. My bonded male was going apeshit possessive as fuck and demanded nothing less than I demat right now and shred that piece of shit; if I knew where to find him, Vishous nor Butch would be able to stop me, I would bathe in that bastard's black blood for a fortnight. Logic fucking overrode that. Fucking fuck. Rubbing my temples, I knew Lassiter was pacing outside. I wouldn't push the male to talk until he was ready, but Scribe help me, once we start I wasn't going to hold back. And fuck I was tired of waiting. Tired of waiting for Lash to make his next move, tired of waiting for V and Cop to get their shit sorted, tired of having to hunt the Lessers that chose to hide like fucking cowards instead of dying on my warrior's blades like the worthless pieces of shit they were. Tired of… The rap at the door jerked my head up. FINALLY! ABOUT FUCKING TIME! Lassiter's getting to the point was music to my ears. I sat back, folded my arms over my chest and focused on where the male was standing.] Don't leave out any details. [I dropped my arms to the desk, exhaling a breath as I leaned in and dropped my voice.] Unless necessary, nothing said leaves this room. [Meaning, unless if was life or death, whatever Lassiter was going to relay of his time with Lash would stay between us. I owed him that much at the very least.] Lassiter: Wrath looked about as done with this shit as I was, but the King had a lot more to lose than me, even if I thought this family was also mine. I wasn’t mated to them; they weren’t my shellans, my hellrens, or my children. But Creator damn it… I still thought of them as mine… How did I explain that? How did I make him believe they mattered to me more than my life mattered? I didn’t fear dying at Lash’s hands… I feared being forced to exist under their constant ‘care’; a caged bird that he’d delight in stripping of it’s feathers, of teasing with freedom then breaking wings. “I d-don’t know how to say it in the first place.” My pulse thundered as I looked at my feet, my fingers curling into fists at my sides. It didn’t feel fair, to have to do this. To have to relive it again and again. I thought I’d escaped Hell by being made an Angel, but this still /felt/ like Hell, so what was the fucking difference? I got to have fluffy wings? Please. “You’re pissed at me I didn’t say something sooner,” I tried instead, prolonging the inevitable. “Like I kept all that fucking shit to myself to be selfish. Am I right?” I looked up, and even though I knew he was blind, I met his gaze. Sightless or not, he knew where I was, and he knew I’d be doing it. There was no crown on his head in this moment, behind these doors. There was me and a male ready to do anything to protect his loved ones. I respected it, even as I loathed having to revisit anything I’d endured with Lash. Wrath: I’m pissed that Lash got close enough to Beth he could have.. [Trying to stop the growl from vibrating through me and across the desk would have been akin to trying to stop a 1000 foot tsunami from making landfall with a fishing net. The edge of the desk fared not much better, the wood cracked and groaned under the pressure of my fists as I held back as much as I could. This wasn’t wholly Lassiter’s fault. This was Lash’s doing.] Yeah, I’m pissed you chose to keep most of what happened to yourself. I know from Jane that you were seriously injured, but the deets were kept… confidential. That is, until our little meeting about Lash getting souped up on your blood and going apeshit on you. THAT part, you didn’t think was a little more, oh, I don’t know, a need to know detail that should have been passed along? [After the initial blow-by reliving Lash being near Beth calmed, I worked to keep my voice low and even. Lassiter wasn’t the enemy here and biting his head off, literally, wouldn’t do me, or the others any good. But fuck me if I didn’t want to in some moments.] So why don’t you… why don’t you start with how Lash managed to acquire your “company” the night you disappeared? Lassiter: Bless. Jane. I know I’d given her an orgasm or two recently, but maybe I needed to consider more extravagant gifts, knowing now that she’d kept the details of my torture completely to herself. The fact she’d kept it from Wrath, the King and orchestrater of this whole domain, spoke volumes to her doctor/patient confidentiality ethics. It meant that other than Q seeing the damage, nobody else knew the extent of what Lash had done to me. “Sure, I bet it seems so easy to you,” I mutter bitterly, “just tell all the big, strong vampires that one of their former trainees turned son of the bad guy caught you, broke you down and destroyed you.” I let out a bark of laughter, but there was nothing in it but the pain, humiliation and misery this whole conversation inspired. “Sorry if it wasn’t super high on my to do list after shit hit the fan…” Turning away from the male, I moved toward the fire place. The heat failed to warm me. To be expected when the depths of your soul felt ice cold. Taking in a deep breath, I braced one hand against the mantle and closed my eyes. I’d told myself I’d do this… and I was gonna do it. But fuck if every word wasn’t gonna feel like razors in my throat. “It started when I went after Blaylock,” I said quietly. “When he was… corrupted by the Omega. I thought I’d sensed something wrong. Something off. I thought I could talk to him. Bring him back into light. But when I went to see him that night… he was talking to Lash. I tried to intervene and Blay… he left,” I muttered. “And Lash and I fought.” Wrath: [Lassiter’s hurting sarcasm was expected, so I let slide the fact that his tone wasn’t exactly reverent at the moment while reliving his nightmare in captivity. Listening carefully, it was another tidbit of surprise that Blay was involved in any of this. And again I wasn’t kept apprised of the shit going down until the whole fucking building came crashing down and everyone was back at the manse and accounted for. My molars ground but I didn’t say anything until I Lassiter took more than a pausing breath.] You could “sense” the Omega’s presence in Blay, but you didn’t have the forethought to bring it to my attention. [I half wondered that if the Angel had sensed it, if Butch had as well since he still retained the parting gift the Omega bestowed on him all those years ago: the ability to suck down a lesser to destroy it so it’s energy wouldn’t revert back to the Omega. My mind made a quick wander. Would Cop have been able to suck the evil corruption from Blay when it was first found out and leave the male in one piece, or would it have killed him instantly since he was alive whereas Lessers were basically ass-powder-smelling meat sacks?] And you caught him /talking/ to Lash? [My voice rose, that earlier bit about my bonded male wanting to decapitate the motherfucker and shit down his neck was still waiting on the command GO. Biting down a growl, I gave a sharp nod to the rest of it.] Must have been some fight if Lash got the drop on /you/. [More molar grinding, wood cracking and some chair creaking as I attempted to lean back and pretend to be at ease. Right.] How. I want to know how he caught you. We now have TWO angels, fucking Scribe help me, and I need to know how Lash managed to not only catch you, but keep you from escaping. [I was a little privy to knowing that Lassiter and friend had a type of dematerializing, but that they could also fly. With wings. And that sneaky fucking invisibility bullshit too (just because I couldn’t not “see” them go invisi didn’t mean I didn’t have the intel on it), so they weren't helpless as humans. If Lash managed to get his hands on Lassiter once, what was to stop him from grabbing up Adrian or Lassiter a second time? Fuck.. Just the thought of what that motherfucker could do with /one/ angel’s blood was enough to give me a migraine even the SV couldn’t take away. But if Lash had /both/ angels and an unending supply of super-blood? Not something I was willing to think about.] Lassiter: “I didn’t sense the Omega,” I corrected sharply, eyes narrowing as I looked back to Wrath, frowning. “I sensed darkness. Indecision. Conflict. It wasn’t like Butch, or Lessers. It was something else. I couldn’t have known it was the Omega until it was too late.” Which, ironically, was exactly how it had happened. And boy, if Wrath’s voice doing the little octave climb was any indication, he was furious. How much was V or Cop telling him after shit hit the fan? Were they sparing his blood pressure? I’d have made a comment to as much but the reminder of Lash jumping me had my jaw clenching. “Hold your fucking royal horses, Wrath,” I managed, forcing the words out. “I’m getting to that part and I legit can’t tell it any fucking faster or I’ll have an aneurysm, alright?” Where was Fritz when I needed him? A drink that was a hundred proof would be perfect right about now. Fuck, I’d settle for a glass of water if it gave my hands something to hold and stop shaking. Squeezing both of them into fists, I stared at a spot past Wrath’s shoulder and kept going. “I tried to leave. There wasn’t just Lash. Blay left and then the Lessers came. They ambushed me. I summoned my wings to leave and… and Lash got a hold of me. Apparently, his dear dad also got a hold of angel restraints.” I thought of the manacles, of my wings forced to stay out and exposed, and I shuddered. The rustling sound they’d make rippled through the room, even though I didn’t dare summon them anymore. “Angel manacles, crafted by demons, can contain an angelic being and their power. Like steel can keep vampires from dematerializing? These things can make sure an angel can’t access their power or the power gifted them by the Creator.” I rattled it all off like it was facts, and it was, but underneath the history lesson was the cold, hard truth that once an angel was in those things, they were subjected to whatever a demon wanted. Whatever Lash wanted. I cleared my throat. “Once I was in those I couldn’t get away. Lash had the Lessers truss me up like a turkey and throw me in the back of a van. I was bound, gagged and blindfolded. I had… no idea where they were taking me,” I add quietly. I could still remember the taste of that rag, the frantic thumping of my heart. Wrath: [Patience was not my virtue, not by a long shot. But I gave Lassiter what minute piece I had left. Which wasn’t saying much. That I believed the angel when he said he didn’t sense the Omega /in/ Blay was a good sign that the warrior hadn’t been as corrupted as we’d all feared. But the disrespectful snark earned the angel a low warning growl, otherwise I kept quiet until the male was finished.] You forgot the first rule of engagement. Never go alone. [Even the angel, case in point, wasn’t invincible. Beyond that. These chains? If Lash still had them, it meant he had a weapon we couldn’t fight against if Lassiter or Adrian were caught up in them. If either of the males were hung up in the manacles, they’d be helpless as humans. Fucking Omega and his spawn. ] I don’t suppose you’d know if anyone picked up the chains before that warehouse went up? [I knew no one had, V’s report back after he torched the place was beyond thorough, but I still needed to ask. There wasn’t anything left, and unless Lash took the chains with him when the fuck escaped, the high possibility that they had melted into the ground was all I could hope for. If Lash no longer had them, it might take him a little time to get another set. One could only send a prayer to the SV that another set would never be found/made. The Lessers and Lash had a penchant for torture, like it was their specialty. Bella had endured a similar gruesome experience that nearly drove Zsadist beyond the point of no return. Every available body had gone to rescue Lassiter, but he wouldn’t let anyone but Qhuinn and Doc Jane near him for a long week after they brought the male home.] Lassiter: I grimaced and shook my head. Whatever became of the chains… I had no idea. I wanted them to be gone. Destroyed. Preferably while wrapped around Lash’s throat. But I rarely got what I wanted. After a second I remembered that Wrath couldn’t see me shaking in the negative. “No. I don’t know if anyone picked them up. I have no idea where they are or what happened to them.” Taking a breath, I curbed all the attitude I wanted to throw out there until my voice was perfectly toneless. “And I didn’t forget the rules of engagement. I went to talk to Blay. Not to fight Lash.” I looked at Wrath, even if he couldn’t see my eyes. “Killing that fucker is supposed to be for all of you.” Though now I definitely wanted a piece of it. I wanted Lash’s death more than I’d wanted anything in a long time. “Rest assured, your Highness,” again, still no mockery, no attitude. No emotion at all. “You have a new soldier to help bring him down now. Even if I don’t have a hand in his death, I hope to Creator I’m there to see it.” Moving back toward the desk, I curled my fingers around the wood on my side. I clung to the emotionless state even though it was a lie, even though behind the facade every tortured emotion was screaming to come out. “Do you know what a blood eagle is, Majesty? Because if you don’t, I’m sure you know other things. Like how much greater the sexual high is, feeding while f-fucking.” My voice broke. But damn it. I couldn’t stop. “Lash was fond of it. And my wings. He liked those. He liked to break them, the bones. He wanted to build me a cage, so he could keep me. Keep me on tap for a constant energy source. To rape me whenever the mood took him. Which he did,” I whispered hoarsely, my knuckles white as I clung to the desk, clung to it like it was the only thing keeping me in the world. “That’s what happened… while I was gone. That’s what he did… to pass the time. He beat me. He fed from me. He fucked me. He broke me.” Just like that, the energy fled. The strength, the resilience. Everything. All the pieces I’d been holding myself together with vanished at the confession, the relief of it and admitting to someone just how bad the lasting damage was. My legs buckled. I dropped. Wrath: [Hearing Lassiter confirm that he was onboard with taking out Lash only made me “like” the male that much more. But the string of abuse that Lash dolled out to the male wasn’t a surprise. Lash was a sick fuck on a good day if you could list him ever having had one. Spoiled bastard, and then I let him into the program just because his parents held a high glymera status spoke volumes about me. That I allowed that fucker in and this happened. I wasn’t as stone cold as I made myself out to be. Each bit more Lassiter chose to bite out, and yeah, you fucking bet I could SMELL the emotion rolling off the male strongly as if he’d been drenched in some sort of cologne and set in front of a fan, seared the need to find and end Lash and the Omega once and for all.] Dammit. [Rubbing the space between my wraparounds and my eyes, I looked up at the male, and though I couldn’t “see” him, I could tell he was fighting to hide his hurt harder than he ever had.] I don’t have to tell you… Shit.. [Without sight, I dematerialized and reformed an instant behind Lassiter, catching the male before he hit the floor.] Easy man, I gotchu. [My voice low and soft as I lifted Lassiter. I didn’t need to see him to know how being held captive by Lash fucked a person over. Lassiter is just the lucky SOB that got to live to tell about it and is now gearing up to go back for more.] Lassiter: Wrath caught me. I’d expected it to be the floor. The King was the last person I’d thought to have a gentle grip and to handle me so carefully, but there he was, settling my shaking ass into a chair and moving like I was glass. It put a lump in my throat, a vice around my heart. It was a reminder that at the end of the day, this male and these families were why I’d endured everything I had. For them. To stay with them. Finding my voice, I no longer cared if it broke or trembled. Wrath knew everything now. What had happened, and the clusterfuck of emotions that came with it. I didn’t have to hide it. “M’ sorry,” I managed gruffly, my hands lingering on his arms to give them a thankful squeeze. “For… for dropping on my ass n’... n’ for not saying anything sooner.” Though, after my little meltdown thirty seconds ago, I at least hoped the King now understood exactly ‘why’ I hadn’t raced to share all the gory details. Reliving or thinking about this shit too often was bad for my health. “Qhuinn n’ Doc… they know cause…” Deep breath in, let it out slowly. “My broken wings had to be reset before they could heal and I could put them away. Q was the only one I trusted at the time so… I asked him to help reset them.” I hadn’t sensed it at the time, too lost in my own hell, but the male’s misery and rage at seeing me, at having to hurt me just to help me, had lingered. Not to mention the scar down my spine… “Not everything healed… The blood eagle…” I clenched my jaw just thinking about it. “It left scars down my back. That Lash treated with salt. To leave his mark,” I said bitterly, drawing in another breath like it might cleanse me. “So when I say I’m in this fight, Wrath? I’m fuckin’ in it. Not just to ghost around the edges or play to everyone’s strengths.” Wrath: [Taking the male, by memory rather than feel, to the nearest chair, was the least I could do for him. Fuck. And the feel of his grip to my arms? Yeah, clinch the fucking feelings shit too.] Yeah? Keeping /that/ kind of shit in isn’t good for anyone, even you. [When he released my arms, I gave the male a firm squeeze to his shoulder and stood, shuffling back until my leg hit the desk.] I’m glad you told me, it couldn’t have been an easy thing to do, but you know why I needed to know, Lass. [Instead of walking back around to sit in my chair, I leaned against the side of the mahogany piece of furniture that had once belonged to my father and crossed my arms over my chest.] Q’s been through some tough shit himself, and it must have killed him to have to help you like that. [Qhuinn’s father had sent those males after him to beat him, as per ritual demanded, but they’d nearly killed the male had Blay and JM not found him in time.] But you should know you could have trusted me, Lassiter. Everything leaves a scar, even the good stuff. I’ve heard of the blood eagle once. A very old Viking ritual that usually ends up with the victim 6 feet under before it’s completed. Sweet Scribe, Lassiter…. [Blowing out a low growl, not directed at Lassiter this time, but at Lash for putting the male through such pain and in the eyes and at the hands of others as well.] I’m glad you’re in. We’ll get this bastard one way or another. Lassiter: Q had been in enough pain without me adding to it, but the male had stepped up for me. I’d never forget it. And trust Wrath… yeah, I suppose I could’ve. But at the bottom of the well you’re oblivious to all the people above that could pull you out. You only see the light and desperately try to reach out for it. I bowed my head as even Wrath lamented the suffering of the ritual and all the shit I’d gone through. I entirely agreed with the growl. “What do you want me to do.” It was less a question and more a statement. Because I would be needed. I would fight. And there was always something to be done. Adding an angel to the battlefield changed the field itself. We were invisible and we were immortal. We had power that vampires couldn’t hope to reach. And I’d use /all/ of it to correct the balance in this world and rid it of Lash. “You wanted to know the sitch and now you do. And when it comes to the next fight I’ll be there. So tell me what you want to do.” Wrath: I want you ready to fight. [And was the long and short of it. We needed every available body ready to move when Lash showed his next target. And I’d be damned to hell if we were caught with our pants down again. And in this, I needed to show, tell, Lassiter I trusted him to trust me.] No one goes out alone. I want everyone in pairs, including you and Adrian, and don’t engage in the daytime, just scout and report back. When we’re ready to make a move, then we strike per the plan we’ll work up, no male left behind. [I leveled a look at the male from behind dark glasses without raising my voice. I didn’t need to.] You’ll sit in with Cop and V and myself each night when everyone gets their rotation orders once lockdown is lifted. Take Adrian with you and make sure he knows all the ins and outs of the place where needed as well as scope out some daytime Lesser haunts. Until then, I want you and Adrian to work out a schedule with Butch and Tohr to work with the trainees and get them as ready as you can. Push them to their limits and then push them some more. Lassiter: Nodding along with the King, I gave a murmur in the affirmative, so he knew I was all for it. I may have been a sassy, smart ass, pain in the ass, but on this I’d work with every male in the manse to make sure shit got done. We were in this for the same thing, and there were few more motivated than myself. Training trainees, keeping watch with Ad and going on rotation, fuck, I’d do it all. Taking a second to ground myself, I finally stood from the chair that’d been holding me n’ my emotional weight for the last few minutes. The shakes had stopped, my hands still, calm, in the wake of my new directive. “You got it. I’ll even see if Fritz can get me some bedazzled combat pants or something in leopard print. No reason I can’t look fabulous while totally fucking shit up.” And that, ladies and gents, was about the only way I knew how to transition from ‘emotional shitstorm’ to ‘I got this shit down’. And Creator, Scribe, whoever willing, Wrath would go along with that. “If you don’t need anythin else from me, I’m gonna go drink something strong. Unless you wanna join me?” Wrath: Thank the Scribe for small favors I can’t see /that/ shit. [Now there was the Lassiter that annoyed the fuck out of me on a daily. Chuckling low and nodding once, I stood full height. It felt a little less sour in here with the male’s sense of humor picking up a little, even if I knew he was still nursing both his outer and inner wounds, and would be for a long while. Salt was eternal.] You know what, I think I would like a drink. I’ve had a lot of shit to deal with in the last 24 hours and I’m fucking taking a royal break. But we’re taking one more male with us. [Reaching back and feeling for the phone on my desk, I picked up the receiver and spoke not two words before the door to my office opened. George’s yip and jingle of collar told me the golden-haired four-legged male was as happy as fuck to see me as I was to hear him. The instant the dog brushed against my leg, I reached down and ruffled his ears lovingly and murmured a few sentiments to the animal. His returning licks and whines told me plenty. “Don’t make me leave you again! I don't’ like it!!!” Straightening back up and taking George's harness, I nodded to Lass.] Let’s get that drink, yeah? #TheChat #BondedBrothers

[scoutess-blog]

Summer Project

Tasks

Once I was accepted into graphics course, the class was set a task to introduce us to our first new topic. Which was poetry. To help us get stuck into the tasks we were first asked to look at some poets: Sylvia, Walt Whitman, Eminem and many others. 

Sylvia - Lady Lazarus

I have done it again.   One year in every ten   I manage it—— A sort of walking miracle, my skin   Bright as a Nazi lampshade,   My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine   Jew linen. Peel off the napkin   O my enemy.   Do I terrify?—— The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?   The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be   At home on me And I a smiling woman.   I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three.   What a trash To annihilate each decade. What a million filaments.   The peanut-crunching crowd   Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot—— The big strip tease.   Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands   My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.   The first time it happened I was ten.   It was an accident. The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all.   I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else.   I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell.   I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call. It’s easy enough to do it in a cell. It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.   It’s the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute   Amused shout: ‘A miracle!’ That knocks me out.   There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge   For the hearing of my heart—— It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge   For a word or a touch   Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.   So, so, Herr Doktor.   So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable,   The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek.   I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash— You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—— A cake of soap,   A wedding ring,   A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer   Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair   And I eat men like air.

I particularly enjoy this poem as I feel it has a lot of history and emotion to the point that I feel like I know the person well enough, like I can see her life through her own eyes in just one poem. It uses many illustrative words and phrases to create a very clear picture, almost like a movie. Personally, the poem is a extraordinary piece of work as even though the topic is extremely morbid it almost gives way to a hopeful ending. It uses no rhymes, long phrases or even heavy descriptions. Yet, it can communicate powerful, emotional feelings through single words or small phrases. Especially, once I read it out loud. 

Walt Whitman - One’s-Self I sing

One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine, The Modern Man I sing.

This poem is much shorter than the previous one but uses longer and more complex words and phrases. I believe the poem is communicating the fact that even if society dictates whom is stronger, worthier he will not bend to them as all are equal in life with their own choices. He has freedom of speech as is the modern way. The changes that were currently happening during the time the poem was written. 

Eminem - Lose Yourself

Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment Would you capture it, or just let it slip? Yo His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs, But he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down, The whole crowd goes so loud He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out He's choking how, everybody's joking now The clock's run out, time's up, over, blaow! Snap back to reality. Oh, there goes gravity Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked He's so mad, but he won't give up that Easy, no He won't have it, he knows his whole back's to these ropes It don't matter, he's dope He knows that but he's broke He's so stagnant, he knows When he goes back to his mobile home, that's when it's Back to the lab again, yo This whole rhapsody He better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him [Hook:] You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go (go) You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime (yo) You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go (go) You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow This opportunity comes once in a lifetime (yo) (You better) The soul's escaping, through this hole that is gaping This world is mine for the taking Make me king, as we move toward a new world order A normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to postmortem It only grows harder, homie grows hotter He blows. It's all over. These hoes is all on him Coast to coast shows, he's known as the globetrotter Lonely roads, God only knows He's grown farther from home, he's no father He goes home and barely knows his own daughter But hold your nose 'cause here goes the cold water His hoes don't want him no more, he's cold product They moved on to the next schmoe who flows He nose dove and sold nada So the soap opera is told and unfolds I suppose it's old partner, but the beat goes on Da da dum da dum da da da da [Hook] No more games, I'mma change what you call rage Tear this motherfucking roof off like two dogs caged I was playing in the beginning, the mood all changed I've been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage But I kept rhyming and stepped right into the next cypher Best believe somebody's paying the Pied Piper All the pain inside amplified by the Fact that I can't get by with my 9 to 5 And I can't provide the right type of life for my family 'Cause man, these goddamn food stamps don't buy diapers And it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life And these times are so hard, and it's getting even harder Trying to feed and water my seed, plus Teeter totter caught up between being a father and a primadonna Baby, mama drama's screaming on her Too much for me to wanna Stay in one spot, another day of monotony's gotten me To the point, I'm like a snail I've got to formulate a plot or I end up in jail or shot Success is my only motherfucking option, failure's not Mom, I love you, but this trailer's got to go I cannot grow old in Salem's lot So here I go it's my shot. Feet, fail me not This may be the only opportunity that I got [Hook] You can do anything you set your mind to, man

Eminem is one of my favourite rap artists because he makes all of his songs realistic since it is usually what is going in his life at the time. however, they still seem to relate to everyone like this song as it speaks to people about not missing your chance at life. The language is mainly modern slang but is easily understood and much easier to rhyme with. When I tried to speak it out loud it didn't really sound as good as the original as I found it difficult to just speak it when it should be rapped. 

Step Right Up

For the second task our main objective was create some poetry verses based on advertising, signs and pictures that are around shops and roads. The task is based off from the song “STEP RIGHT UP” from 1977. Honestly, it is not to my taste but is certainly catchy and made it much easier to create verses by using the song as a reference. 

Leave it to dame

Touch you must pay

Only £1

To make a house a home

Spend it all to get it all

Because you’re worth it

I’m lovin’ it

Every little helps

Maybe she’s born with it

Just do it

Karaoke Poetry

Task 3 was slightly more difficult as we had many more choices of content since we had to use our top 10 favourite songs. I chose my favourite songs first then i cost songs that a similar theme like genre or just the topic.

Once  I chose my favourite songs I listened and picked out my favourite lyrics so I could have a variety of choices for the poem as the lyrics could be mixed to create differently themed poems. 

1. Take It Out On Me

-Thought i had it under control

-You wanted it to be picture perfect 

-You don’t have to throw it away

-Just let it go

-Take it out on me

2.Stressed Out

-Nw I’m insecure and i care what people think

-My name’s blurry face and I care what you think

-Wish we could turn back time 

3.Superhero

-Hands up if you’re ready for the fight

-I don’t need you to believe in me

-I know how to change my destiny

-We can change the whole world 

-Tell me that you’re in it

-Don’t you wanna be a superhero

4.Nicotine

-You’re worse than nicotine

-I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back

-Just one more hit then we’re through

5.Satellite

-You have to cross the line

-I’m passing over you like a satellite

-So shine your light on me

-It’s not too late, we have the rest of our lives

-This is the life you can't deny us now

6.Immortals

-They say we are what we are

-I’m bad behaviour but I do it in the best way

-I’ll be the guard dog of your fevered dreams

-Cause we could be immortals

-I am the sand at the bottom of the hour glass

-Pull the black out curtains now

7.I miss the Misery

-I miss the misery

-I’ve been a mess since you stayed

-i’ve been a wreck since you changed

-I’ve tried but i just can’t take this

-I’d rather fight than just fake it

-Don’t let me get in your way

8.The Resistance

Am a soldier, I won’t surrender

-Who’s gonna stand up, who's gonna fight

Heavy as a hurricane, louder than a freight train

-Heart beating faster, feels like thunder

9.Blood

-And rid myself of all my sin

-I swear I have sense

-We will gain nothing from this

-If you come closer I will lose control

-Cause you’ve been asking for it

10.X Gon’ Give To It Ya

-It’s what hearing, listen

-X gon’ give it to ya

-Fuck waiting for you to get it on your own

-I’ll do it again cos I’m right

-Ain’t never gave anything to me

By inserting the key phrases I found it easier to complete a poem and I experiment with different orders.

Poems

CONTROL UNCHAINED

Thought I had it under control

I don’t need you to believe in me

Now I’m insecure and I acre what people think

I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back

I’m passing over you like a satellite

I’m bad behaviour but I do it in the best way

I’d rather fight than just fake it

Heavy as a hurricane, louder than a freight train

If you come closer I will lose control

There is a beast inside, breaking free

[Insert photo sketches]

IMPERFECT TIME

They say we are what we are

You wanted it to be picture perfect

You can change the whole world

We will gain nothing from this

It’s not too late, we’ve have the rest of our lives

Don’t let me get in your way

You’re worse than nicotine

Ain’t never gave nothin’ to me

Heart beating faster, feels like thunder

Wish we could turn back time

DEATH’S DOOR

I’ve tried but I just can’t take it

Take it out on me

I swear I have sense

Am a soldier, I won’t surrender

I am the sand at the bottom of the hour glass

Its what your hearing, listen

Tell me that you’re in it

Wish we could turn back time

Just one more hit, then we’re through

This is the life you can’t deny us now

ME X YOU

You don’t have to throw it away

Now I’m secure and I care what people think

I know how to change my destiny

I’ve lost control and I don’t want it back

You have to cross the line

Pull the black out curtains now

I miss the misery

Who’s gonna stand up, who’s gonna fight

Cause you’ve been asking for it

X gon’ give it to ya

Evaluation/ Reflection 

When I first looked at the starting brief I was surprised about the topic since it was not something I previously associated with graphics. however, once I started completing the tasks it became more obvious that the point of the brief was to introduce us to the relationship between text and image. A graphic artist is not only someone who creates art pieces on the computer but instead communicates through their artwork with a message. Whether that is from product design, advertising or simply creating a comic.