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nani-nonny · 11 months ago

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Welcome to Nonny’s TedTalk about their background characters and their significance to the plot aka my excuse to suddenly lore drop OCs (I guess I’m calling them OCs now)

Anyways, a bit of a long post hehe

Roddy Runes: First Appearance on Distorted Mirror Ch.1: Switch

In front of Leo is a rodent yokai with a huge, bushy tail covered in singed fur. The yokai is wearing what can only be described as scraps of cloth dirtied in, well, dirt and what Leo hopes to be is dry ketchup. Over the yokai’s snout is a purple gas mask of sorts with a small D on the lower jaw—it looks way too close to Donnie’s logo…

The yokai’s eyes widen and his hold on Leo’s upper arm weakens. He drops the teen and looks over his shoulder at a human wearing the same gas mask. He glances between Leo and the human who pressed her finger to her ear.

The yokai finally stops to stare at Leo who stares back at him with the same look of confusion, “This—I don’t—where is the leader?!”

A rodent mutant (species unknown) that Leo meets upon first entering the future timeline. He’s a bit of a worrywart and skittish soldier in the Resistance. He loves children, and if it weren’t for the Krang apocalypse, he would have been a daycare attendant or a teacher/tutor. Leo wasn’t aware of this, but in the future, there was a huge accident with the Krang that mutated hundreds of humans. Roddy was one of them, which explains why Leo mistook him as a yokai in DisMir. Originally, Roddy’s name was Rudolf Thanes, but he changed it to Roddy Runes to better match his new appearance.

Fun fact: He would’ve adopted Leo in a heartbeat if the future timeline counterparts hadn’t claimed Leo as one of their own.

Occupation before the Krang: full-time university student majoring in education, part-time camp counselor

Occupation after the Krang: Scouter. Before his mutation, he was already talented in noticing the near-unnoticeable tracks laid out by any living being, including the Krang, or spotting enemies from afar, etc. But after his mutation, those senses were multiplied, especially as a mutation into the prey category. He’s extraordinarily talented in this area of expertise, to which he jokingly give thanks to his perception of always keeping track of kids he was chaperoning in his past

Significance: He played the part as the guiltripper and backup plan for Leo in DisMir. He unintentionally brings forth Leo’s guilt by mentioning the importance of family and teamwork when trying to reassure Leo’s nerves. Leo would have the option to run back to his side if absolute fear would take hold, and he would have gladly protected Leo with all of his ability and life. His significance didn’t seem all too grand, but he pushed Leo to take anxiety and fear in hand and step forward to responsibility.

Olympia: First Appearance on DisMir Ch.3: Breach

Leo raises a brow and is about to question the weird turn the conversation has made before the person serving the soup speaks up.

Her voice is gruff, limited to a rough but welcoming tone. She’s a mixed yokai, one Leo has never met before or even seen, with features of a bull and snake. She's missing a horn and snake scales travel up the length of her arm to the side of her face. She scoops a hefty portion of soup and drops it into Donatello’s bowl.

Her spoon flicks broth at Raphael’s face when she points her ladle at the turtles, “Watch it, it’s not easy to make balanced meals with what little shit we have. Don’t forget I can spit some venom in your rations.”

A bull/snake hybrid yokai based off of the Ophiotaurus from Greek Mythology that Leo meets with his brothers’ future counterparts. At the time taken during the fic, Olympia’s name wasn’t introduced but she’s the lunch lady that fed all of the Resistance present at the temp-base her bland soup. She isn’t normally the one who makes food, but she was the only one present with experience in feeding large numbers at a time, especially because she occasionally helps her wife in the kitchens back at home base. She is one of the surviving yokai from initial Krang invasion that is able to move and around and speak of the tale. Shes a socially perceptive yokai who likes to dish out people’s stories or secrets without the other noticing.

Fun fact: She was hinting that she was fully aware of how suspicious Leo’s appearance in the future timeline was, hence a part of Raph’s nervousness in talking to her. (Aside from pointing out that Leo looks “suspiciously” like Future Leonardo.)

Occupation before Krang: Battle Nexus fighter

Occupation after Krang: Frontline fighter, focused on giving and taking heavy hits as a tank, honestly not much of a change for her but became increasingly more of a life or death situation

Significance: She played the part of providing a sense of comfort and familiarity for Leo in a world completely strange to him, filled with people who aren’t strangers to the mind boggling situation of the world amidst an apocalypse. She’s kindhearted and warm, strong and easygoing, she truly cares for people. Her part wasn’t long, but it showed readers that despite the war, there are still kindness in people’s hearts and a sense of the mundane in the future. She also played the part of suspicions that are rising within the resistance soldiers present in the throwaway base, no one would voice their concerns, but she played it off as teasing. Very sneaky hehe

Wiler: First Appearance in Dead Man’s Deal Ch.4: Visit & Last Appearance in Return of a Champion

Leo turns to see two yokai who haven’t left the room yet. The shorter yokai, a penguin…of sorts, is seated with a large dumbbell in hand. The taller yokai, a falcon, lay on a bench with a barbell above his head. The falcon halts to a stop while the penguin sneers at Leo’s eye contact.

“Don’t expect us to leave just because Big Mama favors you,” the penguin snapped.

A penguin yokai based off of Maori mythology of tawaki. Just like the myth, Wiler often ventures to the surface under the pretense of being human. Hence his rough and boisterous demeanor, which he picked up from nights in New York observing the harsh demeanors of drunken Yorkers. Wiler was named by a Battle Nexus fighter after being abandoned in the cages and continued to live within the Battle Nexus until Big Mama finally deemed him enough to become a fighter. He only knows of the Battle Nexus, so he went above and beyond when satisfying his curiosity of the outside world and journeyed to the surface. He spent years observing the humans from afar, fear keeping him from actually interacting with them. The closest he got to an interaction was accidentally bumping into a child and apologizing profusely before he hid behind a trash can. He often surfaces to find that child again, to see how they’re doing.

Fun fact: He’s 4’9” (145 cm) in human form and often gets mistaken for a human child on his adventures on the surface.

Significance: He plays the part of providing a sense of normalcy to F!Leo’s life by becoming a close, adult friend outside of family. In the beginning, his short fuse was familiar to F!Leo as a reminder of Raph back in the days, although F!Leo never noticed this. He showed F!Leo how easy it is to talk to people and what it’s like to be normal, despite F!Leo’s reality of being a former war vet and from the future. His boisterous temperament broke through F!Leo’s thoughts and helped the fallen leader from drowning in thoughts of self loathing and regret. He would never admit it, but he thoroughly enjoys being F!Leo’s friend.

Ripper: First appearance in DMD Ch.4:Visit and DMD: RoC

Leo ignores them and just stares, wondering why the penguin is so hostile. The falcon falters under Leo’s stare, but the penguin gets more annoyed by the second. It got to the point the penguin dropped his dumbbell and stormed over to Leo. Leo had to crane his neck down to meet the penguin’s eyes who got angrier by the action.

-continuation of Wiler’s first appearance

A falcon yokai based off of Slavic mythology known as the raróg (or raróh). Unlike his best friend, Wiler, who was practically born and raised in the Battle Nexus, Ripper was sent to the Battle Nexus as punishment for a crime he did not commit. His family are renowned in the black market for a variety of merchandise, especially artifacts. They often sold to Big Mama and she is their best customer, but Ripper grew to fear her the day the family tried to sell her “authentic” artifacts from the human world and she retaliated by framing his father for drug-related crimes and personally sent his father to the Hidden City prison. This led to his elder brother taking over, but was swiftly framed for the sudden disappearance of artifacts within the Hidden City councilroom. His anxious and fearful demeanor made it difficult to speak his truth and was charged for the crime and sent to the Battle Nexus as punishment where he met Wiler. They swiftly became friends, where Wiler helps Ripper steadily overcome his skittishness and anxiety, and he helps Wiler get out of trouble by stepping in before it becomes trouble.

Fun fact: Wiler and Ripper met during training, much like how they both met F!Leo for the first time. Wiler was working on the barbells when he failed a push and Ripper easily lifted the barbells off of Wiler’s neck, saving the penguin’s life.

Significance: He plays the same kind of part as Wiler, becoming a friend to F!Leo and helping F!Leo gain a sense of normalcy beyond the time travel and guilt and strange familial relationship of fathering brothers in the past. Ripper is a softy who would allow anyone to walk over him like a carpet if it weren’t for Wiler, so his skittish demeanor warms F!Leo’s cold exterior. Through himself and Wiler, F!Leo relearns how to be friends and adapt to being an adult in an old world. They teach F!Leo it’s okay to be alive and continue with life, it’s okay to make friends and to continue to grow as an adult, to move on from the past and accept the present.

Griffith: First Appearance in DMD Ch.2: Regret & last appearance in DMD:RoC

Leo looks forward to see a smithy of sorts. It’s not much, especially in comparison to the only smithy he knows of, which he saw in his youth. But he recognizes the type of oven and the smithing instruments. There is a lone, burly yokai slamming a hammer onto red hot steel on a pedestal shaping it with expert precision.

“Griffith,” Big Mama says, catching the attention of the big yokai who immediately stops and rises to his feet. The yokai is taller than expected with muscles stacked upon his torso. He’s a swan wearing a dirtied apron and scars along his splotchy arms where feathers no longer grow.

“Yes Big Mama?”

A swan yokai based off of no myth really, I was watching Swan Lake when thinking about what to make Griffith lol. And I thought it would be funny to see the ever graceful swan reduced (or improved) as a big buff blacksmith in the Battle Nexus. He’s a gruff fellow, observant and meticulous in his work. He has been working as Big Mama’s blacksmith for almost the entirety of his life. He’s a man of little words, his body etched with numerous burn scars and battle scars (he argues that in order to create a weapon, you have to understand the fundamentals behind the weapon). He’s fluent in weaponry, often training with different weapons before using that knowledge attained to creature finely tuned weaponry that earned him a notorious title as the Battle Nexus’s renowned blacksmith. He holds no regard to many fighters, just watches them come and go as time goes on. He’s one of the oldest yokai living in the Hidden City, due to retire although never showing signs of accepting retirement, especially how youthful he seems.

Fun fact: He offered to make Lou Jitsu a weapon during the actor’s time in the Battle Nexus, but Lou Jitsu never accepted. Despite his keen eye, during F!Leo’s time in the Battle Nexus he never saw the similarities between Lou Jitsu’s style and F!Leo’s style—almost as if they were complete strangers.

Significance: His keen eye observed that F!Leo’s style was downright barbaric, almost sloppy had it not been so calculated. For every “mistake” in movement, there was a follow up that filled the gap. He almost opted to give F!Leo a barbed mace if Big Mama didn’t tell him that F!Leo’s weapon is a sword. He, without saying anything except carved F!Leo’s title into the handle, revealed F!Leo’s barbaric tendencies when fighting. He informs F!Leo through the title that F!Leo had long abandoned teachings and opted for desperation and cruelty in fighting. This, in turn, makes F!Leo realize how much he had changed because of the war and his actions. Griffith makes F!Leo momentarily break from thoughts about the past and realize the present—and that tells F!Leo that he’s not acting as the man he once was. Griffith’s part was extremely short, but he played a huge part in F!Leo’s life that F!Leo hadn’t realized. Although F!Leo never acted upon noticing this change, it opened his eyes significantly. But in RoC, Griffith played another part in helping F!Leo accept a new norm, a norm that is beyond fighting to push the pain down to fighting to heal. Another small part, but huge in F!Leo’s life.

Officer Xeni: First appearance in Leonardo Come Down Ch.5: Atone and Alone

The yokai policeman stares at Leon suspiciously, eyeing the young mutant. Leon smiles nervously behind a confident facade, his eyes switching between the policeman and the screen on the desk he leans on. The policeman almost draws his lip up in disgust at the elbow that leans on his desk and Leon quickly retreats.

“Let me check,” the yokai policeman taps away on the hologram, suspiciously eyeing the turtle gang as he does. A few more taps into the system and he says, “Alright… we don’t have a Leonardo Hamato nor a Hamato Leonardo. But we do have a Loathsome Leonard, and… hm. No last name.”

An unnamed badger yokai based off of the mujina in Japanese mythology. He was originally unnamed and species unspecified in the fic as I didn’t want to name him at the time of writing LCD hehe. He’s a pretty laidback guy, a little normal in comparison to the previous characters. He’s simply an officer, born and raised in the Hidden City, normal family of two kids and a wife at home that happened to meet the Hamatos as the strangest part of his mundane life.

Fun fact: He’s the definition of “she’s so boring if she were a spice, she’d be flour” (Louise from Bob’s Burgers) /lhj he’s literally just an average guy doing his job, happy and comfortable with his life

Significance: He plays the part of the informant for the readers and Little Leo. He fills in the readers for what happened in between the time that the Hamatos were asleep and F!Leo escaped to prison. He portrays the readers’ feelings about the F!Leo situation, showing pity to Leo for wanting so desperately to see F!Leo despite the ex-leader running away so often. He’s like a reader insert lol, not too entirely significant toward the plot other than being a bridge between the reluctant and self-isolating F!Leo and the desperate to understand Little Leo.

#nonny nonsense #nonny tedtalk #nonny oc tedtalk #nonny lore drop lol #rottmnt ocs #distorted mirror #leonardo come down #dead man’s deal #rottmnt fanfiction

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bogleech · 1 year ago

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Okay here’s the best (relatively speaking) creatures:

Chakra: the first episode briefly shows another, different realm populated by spiritual concepts, and the Chakra is depicted as this curvy, vaporous protozoan looking figure with pure white eyes. She’s the only design I’ve ever seen in this "universe” that’s outright pretty, and she’s also just a really cool looking alien thing, but she’s never seen again after she helps one of the monsters through his emotional problems. She does this by reaching into his literal heart with an ectoplasmic pseudopod, which forces him to confess his true feelings to himself.

José: José is a timid panicky office assistant who gets into terrible mishaps as a running gag. His species and purpose is never given but he looks like a big blue spider and is therefore one of the most tolerable designs. He would look a bit better if his fangs were actually on his chelicerae where they belong, but instead the fangs are on his cheeks, leaving the chelicerae looking like a weird elongated chipmunk muzzle.

Empathy: apparently Empathy is an anthropomorphic lady owl in a suit characterized like a corporate sensitivity trainer. They don’t do a lot with her but I felt like some of you would like this design.

Lovebugs/Hateworms: Lovebugs are positively hideous puke-yellow human faced butterfly people in charge of love, but they can turn into giant snakes called Hateworms (Hatewyrms?) and vice-versa so that’s interesting at least. They do a fairly creative episode that jumps back and forth between two timelines in which the same character is either a lovebug or hateworm, but it’s actually in the lovebug timeline that she accidentally gets all the other main characters killed, forcing the series to stick with her hate form.

General Malice: the leader of all hateworms and boss of the Hate Department is a nazi-coded lizard woman who of course thinks hate is the superior human emotion. I bring her up mainly because the aforementioned Hateworm character becomes her second in command before realizing it’s actually hatred that she hates the most, or something like that, so she kills General Malice, saves the world and turns back into a Lovebug. But wait...isn’t it hate that just saved the day??? Hate is what just killed that nazi! Hate rocks! I think they should have had her stay a Hateworm, become the new boss of Hate Department and put it to more constructive use, like you know hating and killing even more nazis! There are clearly things in life that need to be hated! They even acknowledge this in an earlier episode when that same Hateworm helps a human recognize that she's being discriminated against, in fact! A final scene almost makes it look like they dismantle the entire hate department forever.........what the fuck does that mean for Earth?! They just don’t elaborate. What about how much the average person “hates” getting hurt, or hurting others? Can’t it be said humans “hate” touching fire or “hate” starving to death, for instance? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE.

Need Demons: these represent basic drives for things like food or sleep, and apparently don’t manifest often past your infancy because those aren’t complex enough feelings to require the guidance of any special entity, but a big loud need demon is portrayed for a newborn baby and a withered, weakened little need demon manifests for the mother. These are animated as blobs of blurry abstract color with crude, shaky black outlines and simple cartoon faces that look way better than the rest of the show’s style.

Anthony Pinata: Anthony Pinata looks like Strong Sad from Homestar Runner made out of plasticy tardigrade-like segments, with a gas mask and a party hat. He doesn’t talk and there’s no explanation for what he is, but he works in the Hate Department and his job is to "pop" employees who get out of line, squeezing their heads until they burst. He gets tricked into popping his own head, but it doesn’t kill him and he just spends the rest of the series with a gory headless neck stump. I always like this type of character who exists to be a disturbing enigma and he’s top quality as far as those go, actually maybe the funniest gag in the show? Just this awful, looming, heavily breathing thing coming to "pop" you and oh that's just Anthony Pinata and that's just what Anthony Pinata does. Obviously.

Miscellaneous Hate Department Creatures: I really like the eyestalk slime that looks like an orange version of the meteor from Billy and Mandy, and this hovering veiny cyst with teeth that looks like a relative of the brain alien from Courage the Cowardly Dog (my tumblr icon) but we only see them in the background.

Tony: viruses are sapient germ people in the emotion creature realm, and making supernatural entities sick is just their job. Tony causes a workplace epidemic for an episode and makes an interesting antagonist because he’s simultaneously a diabolical bastard who encourages selfish disease-spreading behaviors (some clear jabs at covid deniers) but just a nice guy with a job to do, and so friendly about it that his hosts don’t take any of it personally and act like he’s just another friend. That’s until one character gets fed up and sanitizes the keyboard he lives in, forcing him to watch his whole family die.

Tito! This is actually the best one Tito the anxiety mosquito looks like a bad pesticide mascot in a good way. She has that terrible human mouth but it’s really balanced out by her huge eyeballs, crooked proboscis and pathetic chihuahua-like proportions. She’s “the” Anxiety Mosquito because instead of a whole species of individuals, she just infinitely multiplies and all of her copies are Tito. In Human Resources she’s a neutral side character who can be harmful or helpful, since at least a little anxiety can be what drives someone to make an essential choice. It turned out she has a bigger role as a straight up villain in Big Mouth so I went and watched her key episodes and they culminate in an interesting bit where we see the inside of a character’s mind, and Tito manifests there as a city-destroying kaiju. Do all the “entities” have additional forms in their human’s mental scapes? I don’t know. I don’t intend to watch enough of the rest of Big Mouth to see if that ever comes up again. They licensed Mosquito by the band Yeah Yeah Yeahs as Tito’s theme song.

Petra: Petra is an “ambition gremlin” and as such her kind is responsible for both extreme good and evil throughout history (though if a client goes far enough, the “job” has to be turned over to Hate department) and is also the boss of the main cast. As basically just a business lady gremlin she’s another of the more bearable designs, but I also include her because I want to mention the best plotline I think this show did in any episode: some of her employees are “stuck” on an “assignment” that only involved a little preschool kid who really, really wanted a toy truck, and Petra can’t believe they’re failing something so small until she decides to do it herself out of frustration. The problem turns out to be that he’s a nonverbal autistic child and none of the adults in his life have even noticed that he just has his own ways of communicating his feelings. Petra is infuriated that they haven’t tried to “learn his language” and takes his situation as seriously as she presumably would any other job until she helps him figure out some signals within his natural limits that his parents are finally able to piece together. I can’t say I expected this cartoon to be the first one I’d ever see with a story from this perspective. I think this covers everything I found appealing? This honestly had the makings of a great scifi/fantasy show if you cut some of the stupider plotlines and gave it better visuals. I wish it were puppets. If the same show were done with puppets it might have been so charming I wouldn’t even care about the worse written moments.

The big mouth spinoff cartoon about just the creatures has some of the most original world building in a TV show so it's kind of unfortunate that it's so very unpleasant looking and that 20% of it is repetitive sex jokes. There's truly nothing wrong with sex jokes but they end up demonstrating that you can't really come up with enough new, different sex jokes to fill 20% of any TV show.

Do you want to know the most interesting creature concepts so you don't have to watch it? Do you want to make me do a monster review out of the fucking

big mouth universe

#cartoons #human resources

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simply-syra · 3 years ago

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It's my last chance to get my crazy outlandish Endwalker theories out there. So let's gooooo

*The Ascians have a darker history than they let on. This is pretty much 100% based on Emet's dialog from the Amaurot dungeon wherein he tells the tale of three "dooms" that befell the Ascians as represented by dungeon bosses. The first is a creature that brings star showers and earthquakes. The second is a creature whose bellows inspired a fear that gives rise to more beasts. But the third is very interesting. He describes it thus:

"Yet it was neither claw nor flame, but our very sins—

Stacked to the heavens where they took root, corrupting its halls—

Thus did the third doom undo us."

So the final doom, the final nail in the coffin manifested from their sins. Hey, uh, Emet? What sins? WHAT SINS THAT WERE SO NUMERABLE THEY STACKED TO THE HEAVENS AND BROUGHT THEM RAINING DOWN ON YOU?

Perfect race my ass, Emet. Anyway.

*The same calamity that befell the Ascians befell the Dragonstar as well, which is what prompted Midgardsormr to flee his dying world.

*The calamities that befall these stars are the result of a primordial primal given form "The Magnus Archives" style by the inherent persistent fear of death or annihilation that every living thing is born with. In other words, primals are an inherent part of the universe. An outlet for fervent convictions of any kind that can be summoned even unintentionally given there are enough of them. (See Ga Bu literally summoning Titan out of grief over the death of his parents.)

*Fandaniel is actually manipulating Zenos to kill Zodiark having defected from the followers of Zodiark. His mask is one of the masks that Gaius was carrying and the Convocation believed him dead. (Zenos knows this.)

*Both Zodiark and Hydaelyn will be destroyed by the end of Endwalker. Fandaniel may or may not be in support of this.

*The lady in white featured in the trailer is absolutely Venat.

*We are going to the Dragonstar, babyyyy!

#endwalker #ffxiv #hey here are some thoughts

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mrsdeanwinchester19 · 4 years ago

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Talk is Cheap

Written for @imanuglywombat 4k writing challenge

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Word Count: 4.2k

Summary: Bucky takes his wife on a second honeymoon after their first was cut short. During the trip, an unexpected visitor arrives

Type: Fluff with some scary parts

Warnings: Gun violence, mentions of holocaust, mentions of sex trafficking, like 1 swear word

Author’s Note: The story mentioned about a Holocaust victim is 100% true, I know the woman personally

Prompt: Mountain moodboard/ Talk is cheap by Nick Murphy; Talk is cheap my darling/ When you’re feeling right at home/ I wanna make you move with confidence/ I wanna be with you alone

Actions speak louder than words. It means jumping in front of a bullet, rather than just saying I would take a bullet for you. This is a lesson I learned the hard way, but ironically, it also turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

My now ex-boyfriend David and I were at a bank on a regular day of the week, going to pull out some money out for a vacation fund. Five masked men came into the bank, armed and shouting for everyone to get down. I got on my knees slowly and put my hands behind my head as they instructed us to do.

One of the robbers walked up to the front counter and pointed his gun at the teller. “Open the vault,” he says in a low voice.

“I can’t sir. The vault can only be opened by a fingerprint scan and none of our fingerprints are registered in the system to open it. I’m only authorized to pull out $15,000 at once,” she replies, close to tears.

“Fine then, get to work on that, and you-“ he says, pointing his gun to a young man standing next to the coin counting machine, “There has to be an override code for the vault somewhere in the bank. Open all the offices for my men to look. Ares! Apollo! Go with him!” Two of the men follow the man to the offices in the upstairs half of the bank, both pointing their guns to his back.

While the teller was gathering as much money as she could, one of the men came over to my boyfriend and me. “Give me your phone and your wallet,” he says to me.

“I don’t have them,” I say honestly. “You can check if you don’t believe me.”

It’s then that I notice the emblem on his jacket. A red skull with six tentacles coming out of it. A symbol that always confused me, because a hydra has multiple heads, not tentacles like an octopus. It makes sense now why the leader called two of them the names of Greek gods, considering the hydra is from Greek mythology. However, as a historian and not a mythologist, it’s a symbol I learned about when we discussed Nazi Germany, where HYDRA got its start. This isn’t just regular HYDRA then, it’s their small elite force that robs banks to pay for their diabolical schemes. I let out an aggravated huff of breath when I realize who it is we’re dealing with, horrified that they’ve come back after Captain America took them down TWICE.

“Stand up,” he says. I slowly get to my feet. “Turn around.” I do as he says, a tear escaping my cheek as I realize he’s going to kill me, considering this is how many are executed when a socialist regime takes over a country. I interviewed a woman once who fled Poland when they were invaded by the Nazis, and she spoke of a time when she was in the woods picking berries and saw a group of Jewish people in front of a trench, and Nazis shot them into the trench one by one.

“And you, stand up,” he says, and from the corner of my eye, I see my boyfriend standing up as well. We look over at him and I can see the same fear reflected in his eyes, though they don’t tell him to turn around. “Lift her shirt up.”

My eyebrows furrow in confusion as I feel David’s hands grasp the hem of my red blouse and start slowing lifting it. He lifts it up to where my bra strap is on my back, before the man stops him. “Turn around again lady,” he instructs, before telling David to lift my shirt again. Now I understand what he’s doing, he’s checking to make sure I don’t have a phone, wallet, or gun hidden in the waistband of my pants. He lifts it up to just under my bra again, but the man motions for him to raise it a little higher. He brings it above my bra, showing my cleavage. I close my eyes in embarrassment.

“Women don’t actually keep money in their bras anymore,” I say bitterly once I’ve opened my eyes.

“Don’t get sassy with me miss. You can put her shirt down now.” He turns to my boyfriend. “Where’s your phone and wallet?”

David’s eyes flitter to mine for a brief second. “I don’t have mine either.”

“I don’t believe that,” he says venomously.

A new voice shouts, “Zeus, we found the manual key for the vault!”

They’re using code names, which means there’s a chance they’ll let us go, because we can’t identify their faces or give real names. However, once they get the money, there’s also a high chance that they kill all witnesses. Or, if the teller pressed a silent alarm and the police are already here, they could keep us as hostages for hours.

As the man pointing the gun at us is distracted by the person who found the key, David steps behind me, shoves me towards the man, and tries to run to the front door. The person sees movement, shoots blindly, and an intense pain bursts from my abdomen. I fall over, and the man shoots David in the back before he reaches the door.

I hear someone outside shout “Shots fired!” and the doors burst open. A familiar red, white, and blue shield comes through the door, followed by a suit of red and gold metal, and a man dressed in all black, a gun bigger than the robbers’ held by his metal arm. The robbers don’t shoot the other few people in the bank, considering Iron Man has miniature missiles on his shoulders aimed at each of them.

“They say third time’s a charm, maybe you’ll actually stay dead this time,” Captain America says.

“Mmmm, not your best work,” Iron Man says to him.

Captain America ignores him, “Put down your guns.” They put down their guns, but two of the men fall over. They must still keep poison pills in their teeth. The police run in and arrest the three men who didn’t kill themselves, while Captain America and Iron Man look at David to see if he’s alive. The man in black rushes over to me and puts his flesh hand on my wound, causing me to groan in pain. “She needs an ambulance!”

“You’re Bucky Barnes,” I say, recognizing him from my history classes.

“Yeah, I am,” he says, clearly surprised I recognized him.

“I’m a historian…with a concentration on World…War II,” I say through gasping breaths.

“Alright doll, just save your energy, you can’t go to sleep,” he replies gently, as if he’s soothing a small child.

“I always…knew…you were the good guy,” I say slowly before the world goes black.

“Almost done packing babe?” Bucky asks, peeking his head into our room.

“I just finished packing my clothes. Did you pack the weapon bag?” I ask. Some people think it’s weird that we bring a bag of weapons on vacations, but when your husband is an ex-assassin with 80+ years of enemies, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“No, I told you this place is so safe we don’t even need guns,” he replies, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist.

I sigh, “Alright if you say so. I’m just happy we’re going on a relaxing vacation. You’ve had too many missions lately and my job has been stressful as well.” Columbia University asked museums in the area for a historian who could teach a class about World War II, and to apply for the job, we have to write a dissertation. Luckily, I have someone from World War II with me to answer any questions I have, but it’s taken up a lot of my time.

“Relaxing, but also exciting!”

“What?” I ask, exasperated. “Bucky I need time to lounge around on a beach or cuddle by a fireplace in a cabin or something. This is supposed to be our second honeymoon.”

Our first honeymoon had been to Belize. About halfway through our trip, duty called. We called the rest of the Avengers and spent the rest of our honeymoon breaking up a huge sex trafficking ring. We saved over 30 girls, and were happy about it, but our honeymoon was supposed to be our time to celebrate our marriage away from crime. And we love the team to pieces, but it was also our time to be away from them and the tower. They say bad guys don’t take days off, but I had at least hoped the world could survive without my husband for a while. I’m no agent or Avenger, but after Bucky and I started dating, he taught me over 100 different ways to defend myself, helped me train, taught me about guns and how to properly use them, and how to disarm a gunman within seconds. I was able to help destroy the sex trafficking ring by being bait, which was scary, but I trusted Bucky and the rest of the team to keep me from harm; and they did.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head, doll. It’ll be relaxing during the day, but exciting at night because I have a bunch of new things I want to try in the bedroom,” he says, nibbling on my earlobe.

It tickles and I giggle. “You got some kinks you didn’t tell me about before we were married?” I ask jokingly.

He spins me around to face him before gently pushing me on the bed. “I didn’t want to scare you off before,” he says playfully, dropping onto me but not letting his full weight land on me. He grabs my wrists and pins them above my head. “Now that you’re legally bound to me, if you want to leave, it’s gonna cost ya.” I laugh and he flashes a brilliant smile. He leans his head down and starts kissing me deeply.

“Hey guys I-woah, sorry!” Steve’s voice says, panicked.

“Steve, you’re fine, Bucky’s just being silly. We’re decent!” I say, pushing Bucky off of me and sitting up.

He walks back into the room, face flushed from embarrassment. “Sorry, I just came to say that I filled your gas tank and took the liberty of putting your bags in the car, except that one,” he says, pointing to my duffel bag.

“Oh thank you Steve!” I say.

“Would you like me to take that one for you as well?”

Bucky replies before I do, “No, I’ve got it! You’re not the only gentlemen around here Steve. I can be chivalrous too, she’s my wife.”

Steve raises his hands in surrender, gives a small smile, and backs away.

“You didn’t have to be so sassy,” I say, lightly slapping his bicep.

“Steve always interrupts us right when things were about to get good,” he pouts.

“No, things were not about to get good. The door was wide open and we need to leave so we can get there before dark.”

“You are excited, aren’t you?” he asks rhetorically.

“I’m just happy you’re actually taking me on this second honeymoon.”

“I said I would!”

“I know, I’m just used to people saying they would do things and then not following through,” I say, thinking back to David, who was always making empty promises. I then compare it to Bucky, who has kept every promise he’s ever made me.

I sit mostly upright in my hospital bed, mindlessly flipping through channels. I stop Law and Order: SVU, but quickly change the channel when a character is shot. Baseball it is. There are two small taps on my door. “Come in,” I say.

A nurse walks in the door. “You have a visitor here to see you.” She walks back out the door, and Bucky Barnes takes her place.

“Hi,” I breathe out and a smile breaks out across my face. “What are you doing here?”

He frowns slightly, but then fixes his expression. “You were pretty out of it in the ambulance, but you regained consciousness for a little while. I told you I would come visit you in the hospital. I hope that’s ok. I brought you these,” he says, holding up a colorful bouquet of wildflowers.

“It’s completely ok, and thank you so much, that’s so sweet of you.”

“I figured you could use a little something to brighten the place up, but it looks like I’m not the only one who had the idea,” he says, gesturing to the three other bouquets that my family and my coworkers sent me.

He sets the vase down on the bedside table. I lean over a tiny bit take a deep breathe to try and smell them, since I can’t twist my torso over to them. However, once I do, I grab my neck and start gasping for air. His eyes widen with worry. “Sunflowers…allergic,” I spit out.

“Oh shit, I’ll go get a nurse!” he says, quickly standing up.

My gasping turns to laughing, and he stops, turning around. “I was kidding. You should’ve seen your face,” I say. I begin laughing harder when he pouts, but immediately regret it. “OW!” I put a pillow over my stomach to keep a little pressure on the wound.

He lets out an exaggerated sigh and rolls his eyes, but is smiling. “At least you have a sense of humor.”

“They say laughter is the best medicine, though maybe that isn’t true when you have a GSW on your abdomen.”

“You’re just lucky it didn’t hit any major organs. How long is your sentence?” he asks.

“If this is jail, it’s a pretty nice one. And they said at least two weeks, but it might go longer. If it had hit major organs, they said it would’ve been 5 weeks, if not more.” He hums in agreement but doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “Hey, if I ask you this, will you be honest with me? Everybody around me has been walking on eggshells and avoiding answering this question, so I can probably guess what the answer is.”

He looks apprehensive but says, “I can try. What’s up?”

“My boyfriend, David, is he dead?”

Bucky looks around uncomfortably, “Look, I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask this to…”

“If you’re worried you’ll break my heart with the news, don’t be. Because whether he’s alive or dead, the relationship is over.”

“Why do you say that?” he asks, eyes narrowed in both suspicion and confusion.

“Because he’s the reason I’m in this hospital bed. He pushed me towards the shooter so he could run away. He’s a coward. So if he is dead, then whatever. I know it’s poor to speak ill of the deceased, but he did try to sacrifice me to save himself. And if he’s alive, it’s over. He showed his true colors.”

He doesn’t speak for a few seconds. Probably trying to figure out how to best phrase it, or find out if I actually mean what I said. He very quietly says, “He didn’t make it. The bullet hit his right lung and it collapsed; they weren’t able to save him. He went through 3 hours of surgery before his heart gave out.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“For what?”

“Being honest with me. I’m a little tougher than people give me credit for.”

A small smile creeps onto his face. “I’m sure you are.”

“Talk is cheap, my darling. Anyone can say something and not mean it. My ma taught me never to break promises if I can help it,” Bucky says.

“Your mom sounds like a lovely lady,” I say, giving his cheek a kiss. “I wish I could have met her. I wish I could’ve met your father too. And your siblings.”

“Steve is just as much my brother as my actual siblings were, so at least you met one family member of mine. But my folks woulda loved you. Ma would be happy to see I finally settled down with an amazing woman, and maybe a baby on the way soon?” he asks hopefully.

“Buck, I told you I want to wait until two years after we got married, then I’ll pop out as many babies as you want, as long as that number isn’t over 5. 5 is the absolute most I would have.”

“I think 3 would be good. But I still want to get started as soon as possible!”

“Ugh, Bucky, what am I gonna do with you?” I rhetorically ask, laughing.

“I could make a list,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. “But c’mon doll, I’m not getting any younger here!”

“Oh please, you’re over 100. I think you can wait one more year. They say waiting two years is good for your marriage when the stress from babies comes because then you have more happy times to look back on.”

“Oh screw the studies,” he says, sitting on the bed. He lightly grabs my hips and pulls me to stand between his legs. “My parents got married and nine months later I popped out, and they were still married when I went to war. It doesn’t matter how long you wait before having kids, it’s the people. You gotta be willing to work through the hard times.”

“And you know I am,” I say, running my fingers through his hair. “But we should get going. We can continue this conversation when we’re back. I want to be alone with you.”

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

“Ok, this text from Steve says the key is hidden in the bear’s mouth,” Bucky says. He grabs my hand and we walk up to the plain but nice cabin. It’s sunset, so it isn’t quite dark out, but there’s not enough light to be outside. There’s a small statue of a bear sitting on a stump on the front porch that says WELCOME. Bucky reaches in the bears slightly open mouth and pulls out a key. “That’s deeper than it looks.”

He unlocks the front door and I’m about to walk in but he stops me. “What? Tony said the place wasn’t booby trapped,” I say. This is Tony’s cabin, but Steve acted as a mediator between Bucky and Tony. Tony allows him on the team and to live in the tower, but he won’t go out of his way to talk to him. Cordial but not friendly.

“No it’s not that.” He suddenly picks me up bridal style. “Gotta carry my wife across the threshold.”

“Oh please Bucky, that’s for when you move into your first house together, not a honeymoon redo.”

“I don’t care, I’m gonna do it anyways,” he says.

“You’re ridiculous,” I say as he sets me down inside. As he shuts the door, I look around. An open concept downstairs area with a high end kitchen. The living room has a vaulted ceiling and an enormous fireplace. At the end of the living room there’s a staircase that leads to what I’m assuming is the bedrooms.

“So should we unpack tonight or wait until tomorrow and just go to bed?” Bucky asks.

“Bed? But I’m not tir-oh,” I say when I see him giving me a suggestive look, biting his lip. “You know what, let’s go to bed.” He picks me up and starts running towards the master bedroom.

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

A loud bang wakes me from my sleep. I lift my head, listening, and am about to go back to bed, thinking I imagined it when I hear the sound of glass shattering. Is someone breaking in? I sit up, holding the blanket to my bare chest and listen more. It’s silent for a few seconds but then thumps like footsteps are heard. “Bucky,” I say, nudging my husband’s arm. He grunts in response. “Bucky!” I say, shaking his arm harder.

“Go back t’sleep,” he mumbles. I grab my pillow and slam it on his face. He wakes up immediately. “What?” he asks, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“I think someone’s in the house,” I whisper.

“Babe, it’s probably just house settling noises. Let’s cuddle until we fall back asleep,” he says, laying down and grabbing my waist in an attempt to pull me back down to the bed too, but I resist. The distinct sound of a frying pan being dropped on the door makes him shoot up in bed. “Ok, nevermind, those aren’t house settling noises. You stay here, I’ll go check it out.” He climbs out of bed and grabs his joggers off the floor. He quietly steps into those before going over to his nightstand and grabbing a knife. He flips it in his hand before gripping it tightly.

“I thought you said no weapons,” I whisper.

“I said no guns, not no weapons. Plus, this was already here; I left it here when Steve and I went on our fishing trip.”

As he walks out, I grab his t-shirt and my underwear and throw them on just in case we have to run. I nervously clutch the sheets as I wait for Bucky to come back. After about 15 seconds, the door noiselessly opens and Bucky walks through, looking oddly calm. He shuts the door behind him. “Y/N, call 911.”

I grab my phone from the nightstand and quickly dial 911. As I do that, Bucky grabs an armchair and puts it in front of the door.

“911 what’s your emergency?”

Bucky pulls the phone from my ear because he didn’t tell me what’s wrong. He starts speaking quietly. “Hi, we’re in the Stark cabin out on 360th street. There’s bears in our kitchen.”

Are you serious I mouth at him. He nods his head. I can hear the woman on the phone tell us to stay in our bedroom, stay quiet, and that officers will be right out. He thanks her and hangs up. He gently sets the phone down on the nightstand and sits down in front of me on the bed, facing away, blocking me in case the bear breaks into our room. I wrap my arms around his bare waist and set my chin on his shoulder. “How many bears are there?”

“Three. There were two cubs pulling things out of the cabinets and I was planning to just scare them away when I saw momma bear coming through the door. I came back up here after I saw her, and I’m not about to knife fight a bear. I must not have closed the door fully when we got here.”

“You promised this trip would be safe, you broke your first promise.”

He turns around and gives me a disbelieving look. I shrug my shoulders and then give him a small smile so he knows I was just joking around. I lift my hands from his flat stomach up to his shoulders. “Bucky you’re really tense,” I say quietly.

“Because there’s a family of bears downstairs!” he harshly whispers.

“But the police are on their way, they’ll take care of it. They probably deal with this kind of stuff all the time.” I begin rubbing his shoulders and he relaxes a little, but just barely.

After about 10 minutes, and more sounds of things breaking, we can see red and blue flashing lights coming from the window, but no siren. They probably didn’t turn it on so the bears wouldn’t get agitated. There are three distinct thuds heard. A few minutes pass and someone calls out “You guys can come out!”

“I’ll go talk to them, you stay here, you’re not dressed and we left out bags in the car.” He walks out the door and I can hear him greet the officer. I decide I want to see what’s going on, so I grab a throw blanket and wrap it around myself before following Bucky. He turns around when he hears me coming down the stairs and holds out his hand for me like Jack on the Titanic. I grab his hand so I don’t trip over the blanket.

I look around and see the entire downstairs in disarray. The couch that probably cost my entire salary is shredded with stuffing hanging out everywhere and a broken lamp next to it. Glasses are broken on the kitchen floor and pots have been pulled out of the cabinets. The fridge door is open and food is littered on the floor around it. Chairs are turned over and the hardwood floors are scratched up. I look outside and see all three bears in cages.

The officer is explaining what happened. “When we arrived and shot the momma bear with a tranq dart, the baby bears freaked out and started tearing up the sofa. We got them as quick as we could so that they didn’t destroy even more things. They’ll be relocated and hopefully won’t come back to this house.”

“Thank you, officer,” Bucky says. The officer bows his head and leaves.

We silently look around for a moment before I say, “Tony’s gonna kill us.”

“Yep.”

“Well, you were right, this trip is exciting at night!”

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #avengers #imagine #vacation #winter soldier #white wolf #steve rogers #ironman #captain america #tony stark #writing challenge #fluff #uglywombat4kchallenge

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oc-and-art-review-reblog · 3 years ago

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i took this quiz for a group of ocs known as the serpent's fang rebellion (+ pulsirnu, the brother of one of the members.)

name: apofis mesome age: depending on the story, 16 to 20ish role: rebellion leader specise: limeblooded homestuck troll (from multi + non fandom canon) pronouns: they/them, secretly thinks they might like snake/serpent

chat handle: ra'sAntithesis

backstory: apofis and the rest of the rebellion are from the planet of draco-elgava, ruled by the tyrant lady igneous. they live during her second reign over the planet, during which she imported their specise as well as carapacians. originally it was just draco-elgavans. (i promise the following is relevant, you just have to get to the bit where it connects) during her first reign, a group of rebels rose up against the lady known as the apophis rebellion. once they won, their leader, the warlock, sealed her in an empty non-dimension. but they knew that, one day, their planet would need them again. so, the warlock cast a spell. this spell was meant to, when draco-elgava needed them most, resurrect the warlock. however, due to reasons that werent anyone's fault, the spell didnt work quite as intended. instead of perfectly resurrecting the warlock with memories intact and the same body as when the spell was cast. instead, it took their consiousness and dna and created an amnesiac twelve year old by the name of apofis. the warlocks grave was deep in the woods by now, it had been millions of years since their death afterall. nearby was a group of fellow twelve year olds consisting of the others in this comment. apofis quickly formed them into a small rebellion. early on, apofis went on a mission to get rid of a nest of mind controlled (all of the rebels are immune to igneous's mind control) LI goons in a disused factory. they were quickly killed. but it turns out that apofis's bloodline posesses a unique form of psiionics that allows them to not only not go to the afterlife of the dream bubbles upon death, but control how corporeal and visible they are at any given time. the only problem is their ghost-white eyes. already being an avid collector of gas masks, they simply put on one with outwardly opaque lenses and refused to take it off ever again, developing a phobia of having their face seen. several years later, the serpents fang were ready to kill lady igneous. they got to the palace just in time to see her thrown out a fourth floor window by syne wake, my moirail (the other contributor to this lore)'s character and queen of draco-elgava's sister planet, elgava. initially, apofis takes this as a stealng of victory. over time, they begein to see it as a failure, as incompotence and a faillure to live up to their ancestor's legacy. eventually apofis gets their memories of being the warlock back (which doesnt just magically turn them back into the warlock) and this gets worse because now they couldnt even live up to their own legacy, but theres not much story beyond that.

name: leppus onwaar age: depending on story, 16 to 20 ish role: rebellion scout specise: purpleblooded homestuck troll pronouns: he/him

chat handle: needs to be redone

backstory: before joining the group that would become the serpents fang rebellion, leppus led a shockingly normal life. he lived with his nameless father and little brother bo in an apartment building, until an otherwise unrelated meth lab in the same building blew up. the explosion killed his father. bo ran away and became feral. and leppus was catapulted to the edge of the woods, where pogtan (next character) picked his unconsious form up and took leppus home with them. he eventually ended up as apofis's boyfreind. there was also a period where leppus let pogtan modify him however they wanted, now he posesses an unknown number of cybernetic modifications and may or may not be unable to die of anything short of total disinitegration. he also lacks eyes a a congenital thing but can either see anyway due to the modifications or has a similar thing to terezi from homestuck. hes directly descended from the intelligencer (meaning spy), part of the apophis rebellion.

name: pogtan thlaat age: depending on story, 16 to 20 ish role: rebellion explosives expert specise: neon teal blooded homestuck troll(?) pronouns: they/them or any emojipronouns

chat handle: unbrokenPyrotechnist

backstory: pogtan is a copy of the mind of the rift, a spatiotemporal rift at the center of elgava that goes from the begeinning of the universe to its end. they were cloned from the dna of the cryptic, a member of the apophis rebellion and probably some other miscellanious troll dna the elgavans had lying around specifc

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amadeus-draws · 5 years ago

Photo

have you ever just looked at Zane’s design and his overall characterization beyond being the goofy drunk irishman? the things he DOESN’T say are almost as interesting as the zany things (ahem) that come out of our favorite operative’s mouth:

his jacket's probably something of his own design, and has what looks to be armor plating lining it (especially around the neck and upper chest; gotta protect your vital areas!) and mesh lining for ventilation around his arms--just a cool detail

the little digistructor (at least I think it is?) mounted on his shoulder for the drone is also armored and heavily padded, because this guy takes good care of his little bud

wouldn't be surprised if that bodysuit he wears under his shirt is something he kept from his black-op days or stole when he was an active operative

said bodysuit also looks reinforced behind the neck and on the shoulders

between the armor in his jacket collar and the armor on the bodysuit, his neck is stupidly well-protected from things like attacks and explosions from behind, because he needs to be prepared for anything at any time

the bodysuit design actually reminds me a lot of the various sneaking suits in the Metal Gear series, where some provide physical augmentation (ie, synthetic muscle tissue), exert pressure to control bleeding from injuries, etc on top of just acting as armor

let's not forget those dope trigger-finger gloves, with the textured tips on the fingers for extra grip, the thinner perforated material over most of the palm for ease of flexing the hand (which also looks well-worn and even has cracking in the texture if you look closely), and the padding on the lower part of the palm because having a very secure grip on a gun is nice

so I'm REALLY reaching a bit here, but you ever wonder about that gun holster on his hip? I mean everyone and their mother has a holster for their shit, but Zane has that nifty high-tech looking one that rivals that of Jack and Lorelei... AND they're all connected to high-tech companies (Hyperion and Atlas respectively). kind of makes you wonder where and how he acquired his gear in general; did he steal these things? keep them from his jobs? get designs for them and/or make them himself otherwise? maybe buy them with the decent amount of money he probably has?

have you SEEN this guy's reflexes, perception, and PHYSICAL STRENGTH? he's obviously not young anymore and past his physical prime--WHEW geEEeeEz and all--but he friggin manhandles a bandit and throws him clean out a window in the opening cinematic, effortlessly tosses a guy into a dumpster in his character trailer, manages to get a guy that’s twice his size and bulk off the edge of the cliff in the same trailer, doesn't even turn around to acknowledge the big mofos coming behind him in the Let's Make Some Mayhem and We Are Mayhem trailers before swapping places with his clone, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY...

in the E3 We Are Mayhem trailer, he manages to deploy his drone, quickly swap between two guns, deploy/trade places with his clone, AND kill 5 mechs ALL in the span of FIVE SECONDS (with an extra backstab on the last guy to boot), with extremely precise and controlled movements; i personally think this is probably one of the best demonstrations of the fact that this is a guy who had black-ops/military training on top of having just killed countless people over the last few decades

and sure, maybe that earpiece might enhance his hearing or some crap and you can probably hear those big guys coming from a mile away but STILL!

I’m not gonna touch the Happy Together trailer because that is clearly an acid trip, but if he actually IS shooting guys without even looking at them WHILE DANCING........ I mean jesus christ, no wonder he’s so deadly

"flamboyant spy man" SHOULD be one of his middle names, given his dramatic hands-behind-his-back pose in the opening movie, his chin-on-hand main menu pose, and that James Bond-y pose he has in the character selection menu

now I'm not saying bandits are thirsty for Zane, but I find it hilarious that they're constantly babbling about how THE GEEZER is good-looking (pretty boy!) to the point of even asking what the hell he uses to look so good (the answer is NOTHING of course, he just looks that good), and most of the lower-tier bandits are probably in their 20s and up or something lmao

as far as family resemblances go, Zane and Baron share pretty similar hairlines (AND SIDEBURNS MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL), facial structure (them cheekbones), the squinty-eye deal, and that default stern, perma-grump facial expression (or “sour disposition” as Zane’s in-game description calls it)

AND BONUS SHIT: he has the wildest little ECHO animation of the VHs when you use the Quick Change station, with him swapping to a full length cloak and his wanderer head (the rice hat with a full gas mask) while everyone else gets slightly less dramatic clothing swaps. because even the friggin little pixel animations for him have to be fun!

Bit of a digression, but I always found it funny how his enemies poke fun at him for being old--I personally imagine him to be probably in his 40s at the youngest--when he isn’t super old by most measures (ffs, full head of hair, not a hint of a receding hairline, and still has color in his hair... friggin Wainwright looks comparatively ancient), BUT!

we know he’s 1) a guy who’s probably been in active combat most of his life and we know life tends not to be long for people like him, and 2) actively being hunted down with at least 36 bounties on his head based off his on-down dialogue

the probability of him managing to live long isn’t all that great, and it’s kind of interesting to think about why bandits call him an old guy: he IS an old guy by virtue of life being short in the galaxy, especially for someone still in the fight

I mean most of the older people we see in the BL universe are usually either civilians or people who’ve been out of combat for a while, like Mr. Blake, Dr. Zed, Crazy Earl, etc

Zane’s pretty much a unicorn in the BL universe, and i for one think his longevity is a testament to his skills and ability to survive (with help from Lady Luck of course); even he’s not sure how he’s managed to live as long as he has in another of his cripple quotes

just so you get an idea of how long this guy has stayed alive, he’s outlived older brothers Baron and Captain by 12 (5 years between BL1 /BL2 plus 7 years between BL2/BL3) and and 7 years (from BL2/BL3) respectively

ANYWAYS YEAH, Zane is just a really interesting character both upfront and when you read between the lines, I dunno how you guys feel hahah

in other news, i’m actually going back in for my second playthrough to collect all them tasty Zane deets i missed the first time around and making my way through the DLC... stay tuned for more Zane ramblings!

#zane flynt #zane the operative #borderlands #borderlands 3 #non-art

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tricksheart · 4 years ago

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Devil May Cry Verse

( mostly the 5th game since that takes place after Persona 5 / Persona 5 Royal / Scramble ).

NOTES

Persona Users: Not commonly known throughout the world, they mainly exist in Japan. Are considered SUMMONERS since they deal with summoning demons, god, and angels to fight terrors that roam the planet. Only appear in time of need or when the world is about to end. Supernatural events on a long scale are usually handled by the SHADOW OP CORPS, headed by Mitsuru Kirijo. Founded in 2010, has gained some type of credibility and fame. Not as well-known as the Demon Hunters Association, headed by Skins and Fujiwara or other independent groups such as Devil May Cry.

Wildcards: After the massive battle of 1999, only a few remained that could summon more than just one persona. These are special cases, wielding such great potential and power. These are handed out at random and not chosen by bloodlines, unless there is an emergency that calls Philemon, creator of the Velvet Room, to do so. Only two wildcards remain.

Summoning: Persona Users summon in different ways but the end result is always the same. Most just call out their names but sometimes it can be somewhat unique. Some use an evoker ( third generation persona users ), others crush a card ( fourth generation persona users ) and finally, some rip off masks that adorn their faces in a bloody gruesome scene ( fifth generation persona users ).

TIMELINE

1974- Katsuya Suou, Akira’s father, is born.

1976- Maya Amano, Akira’s mother, is born. So are two half human / half demon twins, Vergil and Dante Sparda in another part of the world ( and yes, it’s canon that this was the year that they were born, Scary coincidence huh? ).

1981- Tatsuya Suou, Akira’s uncle, is born. 1982- Jun Kurosu, Tatsuya’s life partner, is born. Marries into the Suou family in later years and becomes Akira’s uncle. 1984- The tragedy at the Sparda’s home happens. The house is consumed by flames and only one twin is said to survive the ordeal.

1989- Maya, Tatsuya, and Jun become friends. In the same year, Maya awakens her Persona, along with Tatsuya in the burning shrine sat on fire by Tatsuya Sudou. Jun is said to become corrupted by a space demon god made into existence by mankind itself, Nyarlathotep and becomes JOKER. Reeks havoc, chaos, and turns the landscape into a place for demons to roam in Japan for years.

1993- Minato Arisato / Minako Arisato, the first wildcard, is born.

1994- Events of the third Devil May Cry game takes place.

1995- Nero de Angelo is born. In that same year, Yu Narukami, the second wildcard, is born.

1999- A team of persona users defeats Nyarlathotep at last, consisting of Maya, Katsuya, Tatsuya, Jun, who had gotten cleansed of the JOKER curse put upon him, and a few others. Maya almost dies from a terrible wound but gets saved in time to have herself healed by the power of the combined team’s willpower. However, not everything is well since Maya afterwards has terrible nightmares that haunt her every so often, of the world stuck in a destroyed universe and has pained heart conditions because of this. In that same year, Death, also known as the goddess Nyx, is sealed into the wildcard Minato Arisato / Minako Arisato at the age of 6 by A.I.G.I.S. Peace is slowly returning to normal but for only a short time.

2000- Akira Amano-Suou, the third wildcard, is born. The power vacuum created by destroying Nyarlathotep gets replaced by another source of chaos, the God of Control also known as Yaldabaoth. Evil demon god born from the corrupted wishes of humanity and is known to be the equivalent of the holy grail of legend. Philemon picked Akira as a wildcard, even after the wishes of his parents pleaded with the entity not to do so, saying that the child was the savior of humanity.

2001- Events of the first Devil May Cry game takes place.

2002 or 2003???- Events of the 2nd Devil May Cry game takes place.

2008- Events of the fourth Devil May Cry game takes place.

2009- Nyx / Death is summoned back into the world through the tower called Tartarus. Minato Arisato / Minako Arisato and the group SEES are able to defeat said goddess but at the cost of the first wildcard’s life, turning into a seal. Ryoji Mochizuki is reincarnated as a regular human and A.I.G.I.S. is still considered a Chariot based persona user.

2010- The Shadow OPS CORPS is established and founded by Mitsuru Kirijo, due to guilt of not saving their leader and a mission to protecting humans from disastrous otherworldly events.

2011- Yu Narukami gets sent to Inaba, Japan to live with his uncle Ryotaro and cousin Nanako. In that same year, him and his investigation team solve the mysterious murders and the supernatural fog that surrounds the town in the fall and winter months. Marie ( more like Mary Sue ) does not exist and the final demon god is Izanami / the gas station attendant the 2nd wildcard meets during his first day in Inaba. Yu Narukami returns home shortly after this.

2012 to 2013- Persona Arena and Persona Ultimax takes place. Persona users clash and fight one on one in a tournament setting. Mostly due to demon / supernatural forces but those eventually get defeated by the 3rd and 4th generation persona users in the finale.

2016- Akira, going by the false last name of Kurusu, gets sent to Tokyo on probation. Falsely charged and forced to be shipped off into the big city, he lives in Yongen-Jaya with his guardian, Sojiro Sakura. Awakens to his persona, Arsene, and gets a codename, that being Joker. Hates the name because of the implications with it from the past. With café LeBlanc being both his new home and hideout, him and his friends also known as the infamous phantom thieves steal the hearts of the corrupted and then finally shoot the God of Control in the face, killing the evil deity once in for all.

However, the power vacuum still exists after the annihilation of Yaldabaoth and falls upon Takuto Maruki, making him a false god. Creating a new reality, everyone is trapped in this world and leading blissful lives except for Akira and Goro Akechi. Thanks to efforts of Akira finally able to break his friends out of the dreams that they were caught in and Akechi’s refusal to be used as a manipulation tactic for Maruki in order for Akira to take the deal to live in the fake world, the group is finally able to return to the original reality. Akechi doesn’t make the trip back and dies, already being dead in the original reality. Akira returns home shortly after this but still believes his rival will return someday, thanks to the true ending. Akira either has a relationship with Haru Okumura, Sumire Yoshizawa, Hifumi Togo, or Shiho Suzui during this time and will carry over in later years.

2017- Events of Persona 5 Scramble takes place. Two more persona users are added to Akira’s own team. After parting ways, Akira focuses on his dream job, whether that is an actor or race car driver is only up to him.

2017-2018???- Events of the fifth Devil May Cry series takes place.

Akira is visiting Ann overseas and gets pulled into the mess of the story when trying to get back home to Japan. Meets V during this time and thinks the mystery guy is a persona user thanks to the three demons the man has but is promptly shut down. Despite the misunderstanding, the two have somewhat aligned goals and proceed ahead. The two surprisingly get along well and Akira takes a shine to one of the three demon pets that helps V fight, aka Griffon.

Akira meets the DMC gang ( Nico, Nero, and Lady ) in Nico’s van after a certain point and gets the majority of what exactly has happened. He agrees to help as much as he can since Akira can’t leave the supernatural charged land for some odd reason. Finally meets Dante and the two don’t really seem to get along, mainly due to Akira having the same aura as the Demifiend that Dante chased through a maze in a different dimension. After a few fights, they call a truce and try to work with everyone else, Trish joins the group at this point, to stop the already looming threat.

Doesn’t get to see the final battle but is told by the only one that makes it towards the top, Nero, that Dante wanted him to look over his shop sometimes since the other two were stuck in hell. This baffles everyone else, especially Akira, not really knowing why since him and Dante were always clashing. He somewhat agrees, only because there was acting schools oddly not too far away. He secretly hopes that the promise / deal is only temporary because he would like to go back home at some point and start a new life away from all of this dealing with demons / gods / supernatural bullshit.

#long post: tw #[ pull my devil trigger. DEVIL MAY CRY. verse ]#I finally finished it!!;;#now I can rest;;

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thenafics · 5 years ago

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Evil Author Day -- 2020

I saw this going around and I both wanted to feel included and have several WIPs that are probably not going to see the light of day for a long time. Most of these have titles already because I am incapable of writing a fic without having a title first~~~

1. Trouble in the Henhouse- AKA Red Hood joins the Suicide Squad

Amanda Waller thinks she might have made a mistake with the newest member to her team. She’s let the fox into the hen house, except her hens are insane criminals and her fox is a bat who also happens to be an insane criminal. The metaphor starts to deteriorate quickly, but the point remains, this choice might have been the worst one she’s made in a good long while. He is an accident waiting to happen and one of the most deadly assets she has ever managed to get her hands on. He doesn’t kill for money, like Deadshot, or hunger, like Croc, or even some deranged showmanship, like Harley does or Joker’s Daughter did. He kills when he thinks it’s right, because he thinks the target deserves it and that is the most terrifying thing to find in a highly trained killer she’s putting onto a team with a lot of the same type of people he has a habit of offing. Whoops.

2. Ghosts of our Better Natures

Tim can tell the instant that Scarecrow’s formula really starts to kick in. He sees the way Jason’s body language shifts, his muscles pulling his limbs in tighter, in spite of the restraints holding him down. Judging from the smirk just visible on Scarecrow’s sack-cloth face, he notices too. “Is my new formula finally kicking in?” His high, grating voice overlays over the sounds of Jason’s harsh breathing. “Looks like the big, bad drug lord has a bit of a tolerance. I doubt I’ll even need to use half as much on your little friend over there.” Scarecrow gestures broadly at Tim where he’s tied up against the wall and then claps his hands with fake glee. “I know what we’ll do! We’ll use all of the extra I’m saving on him for you!” Jason wrenches at his restraints, eyes wild behind his domino mask, but he remains uncharacteristically silent. He looks over at Tim and another wave of panic seems to crash over him. His struggles increase in strength to the point where Tim can hear the groaning of the rusty bolts holding Jason down.

3. Rafters for Roustabouts- JayRoy based on a piece of fanart I saw and can no longer find

Roy remembers when Jason was just a skinny little twig of a thing trailing after Nightwing with his spindly limbs and closed off smiles. The first time they’d met, Jason had looked up at him and blushed so hard that Roy was a little worried he might pass out from all the blood rushing to his head. Jason was in the Tower pretty infrequently, but any time he was there, Roy could be sure to find him either abandoning Dick for Donna (who he had immediately latched onto, like a baby bird imprinting on what it thinks is its mother) or acting as Roy’s shadow. Roy could often tell when Jason was visiting well before Dick told him because of the glimpses of inky black hair he would catch out of the corner of his eye. Eventually Roy got tired of waiting for Jason to stop being so shy. “Hey, Jason, I know you’ve got that whole stealth thing going for you, but it’s much easier to make friends if you just talk to people.” There was a muted thump and a little yelp as Jason fell down from the rafter he’d been perched on. Roy made his way over to him and crouched down to look more closely at Jason. The younger boy was blushing furiously and had his hands pressed firmly over his eyes, almost as if he thought if he couldn’t see Roy, Roy might not see him. Roy let out a little huff of laughter. “You’re just a little shy, aren’t you Jaybird?” Jason just burrowed further into his hands and seemed ready to just wait until Roy left so that he could tend to his bruised pride and tailbone.

4. Chapter 2 of Release of Liability- My very self indulgent Dresden Files fusion au that nobody asked for or wanted. *Knowledge of the Dresden Files universe up to like, book one/two is v. helpful*

Wayne manor is steeped in the type of magic that can make a place a living thing. This is the home of one of the most powerful wizards in America and has been the home of an incredibly powerful magical family for centuries. There’s history in these walls beyond what the outside world will ever know. All of the wall fixtures are old fashioned gas lamps retrofitted with lightbulbs. It’s a darker paint job and some cobwebs away from being the house from the Addam’s family.

Bruce Wayne himself leads me further into the house and to what I assume must be his office. An older man appears almost the exact moment we sit down and offers tea in a clipped British accent. He disappears as silently as he appeared and rematerializes just moments later carrying a tray laden with tea and those fancy little sandwiches they always show on the BBC. Wayne thanks him and dismisses him with a soft “Thank you,” before the man is gone again.

“So, Mr.Dresden, I hear you’re good at finding lost things.”

“I tend to be. Though I have to wonder what use a practitioner of your caliber could have for my services. With all of Gotham at your disposal.”

“The situation requires a somewhat delicate approach.” I can’t help but snort in response. Delicate and I go together like oil and water. I am not who anyone should call for delicate, subtle, or any synonyms of that ilk. Wayne gives a wry smile and little laugh of his own.

“I misspoke. Not delicate, detached. I am well known to Gotham. You are not. I’ve heard wildcard is somewhat your area of expertise.”

“I’m not going to take offense at that because it’s true. What’s missing?”

Bruce Wayne fixes me with a paralyzing gaze and speaks two words that let me know this is going to be one of those cases that sticks with me.

“My son.”

Bruce Wayne is famous for several things in the magical community. His childhood trauma of witnessing his parents’ murder would make a YA author weep and left him the sole heir to one of America’s most notable magical lineages. That alone made him a Name, capital letter intended, in the world of the mystical. He also worked hard to actually become one of the most influential wizards in America and run Gotham with an iron fist. The most notable thing about Bruce Wayne however, is not either of those. It is his incredible and almost suspicious number of extremely powerful adopted children. A disturbing number of which share his jet black hair and blue eyes. I hope it’s just a weird narcissistic rich person thing.

He is well known to be very protective of his bevy of apprentices. To the point where he’d actually knocked out another wizard with a vicious right hook for making an untoward comment about his eldest son. It was a glorious day and I am thankful to have been within enough distance of the scene to see it go down. I am also thankful to have been far enough away that his fury didn’t turn to me. If something has happened to one of his beloved children, I have no doubts that Mr. Wayne will do whatever is necessary to save them. After the death of his second apprentice he’d practically torn apart the world at its seams in his grief.

5. Windows for Bricks-

“I’m here to pick up Damian. I guess I’m one of his emergency contacts and the lady on the phone said to sign in here before I could take him home.” Jason says to the nurse by the front of the sterile smelling room.

“Oh, are you,” she looks down at her computer screen “Jason Head?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Jason shifts uncomfortably.

“And you are his … “

“Brother. Same mom.”

“I see. We get Damian in here a lot so I see the resemblance. You have the same eyes”

6. Dialogue Snippet- Dick and Steph on the topic of ass envy

“He’s just jealous of my ass.”

“Yeah, no.”

“What do you mean no?” Dick sounds affronted.

“Have you seen his ass?,” Steph gestures expansively in the shape of an ass. A woman at the next table over glares. “Jay has no reason to be jealous Dick.”

“What.”

“And those thighs… unf.” The lady the next table over glares harder at the noise Steph makes.

“Ohmygod,” Dick buries his head in his hands. “Please stop.”

“What? I'm just saying, he's got no reason to be jealous when the dude is bammin slammin bootylicious”

“I'm pretending I don't know you. Can Tim take you back already?”

“Fine. But take a peek next time you and your ass feel so high and mighty”

7. Innocence for Sinners- JayDick prawn. I wrote this at the request of a friend. Very much not what I usually write, kind of nervous about posting it

*warning for Mature rating*

When he thinks about it, of course it makes sense to Dick that Jason is a virgin. He died before he’d even turned eighteen and spent a few years after that being either brain dead or criminally insane. It was really only in the past three or so years that Jason could be counted among the semi-rational members of the population and he had been so busy during that time span that there was no earthly way he had done anything. Still, Dick couldn’t help but be a little surprised when Jason pushes away from their kiss, while Dick’s hand rubs gentle circles over his crotch, and gasps out “No one’s ever touched me like that before.”

Dick pauses and pulls back fully, his weight between Jason’s spread legs still pinning the younger man to the bed.

“What do you mean Jason?,” he asks, seeking verbal confirmation for his suspicions. Jason blushes prettily and turns his head to one side, as if to escape the weight of Dick’s eyes. Dick reaches out and turns Jason’s face back towards him. His eyes trace the delicate flush that brings out the freckles across the bridge of Jason’s nose and blown out pupils in sea green eyes.

“Jason, are you a virgin?Am I going to be your first?” Jason blushes even further at the questions and nods mutely. Dick feels a rush of possessiveness pass through him at the idea of brash, rebellious, Jason being his. It only makes sense, after all, Jason had spent years wearing Dick’s colors and a month or so trying on the Nightwing suit for size. Of course Jason should be his in some other way. Dick leans back forward and kisses up Jason’s neck, ending up right by his ear.

“I’m going to ruin you for anybody else, little wing.” Jason shudders and lets out a soft moan as Dick scrapes his teeth against his neck in punctuation.

“Please,” Jason breathes out. Dick growls quietly and surges up to kiss Jason. He weaves his fingers through the curls of Jason’s hair and pulls slightly. Immediately, Jason gasps into Dick’s mouth and arches his back up off the bed. Dick chuckles and pulls harder. He is rewarded with a moan and a shudder from Jason.

“You like that Jaybird? When I pull your hair?” Dick laughs against Jason’s mouth when Jason nods with downcast eyes. “Let’s find out what else you like.”

Dick leaves one hand in Jason’s hair and worms the other up under Jason’s shirt, brushing over the hard lines of muscle and scar tissue. He thumbs over one of Jason’s nipples gently and feels a slight shudder run through Jason’s body. Taking that as a positive sign, he rolls it between his index finger and thumb. Jason gasps and tosses his head back, breaking the kiss.

“Dick,” he gasps out, “That feels so, ah, good.” Dick smirks and rolls the nipple again “Aaaaaaah.” Dick pulls his other hand from Jason’s hair and starts using it to push Jason’s shirt up while he brings his mouth down to Jason’s stomach, kissing over the places where his hands had traced over.

“Wait, Dick!,” Jason calls out, panting for breath. Dick looks up at Jason’s flushed face. “I… I have a lot of scars there. Some of them might not be ones that you want to see…” Jason trails off towards the end of his sentence and avoids eye contact with Dick until Dick uses his free hand to gently pull Jason to face him. Dick can see in this flustered and blushing Jason the same boy who had been so shyly admiring of him all those years ago. This shy virginal Jason is far more little red riding hood than the big bad wolf that the Red Hood pretends to be.

“I want all of you Jason. All of you.” Dick says softly. He gently pulls the shirt all the way off of Jason, manipulating the younger man’s arms so that he can remove it. Once the shirt is off, he kisses up Jason’s chest to the top of the Y-shaped scar that stretches from collarbone to collarbone and bisects his body from mid-chest to belly button. Dick mouths gently across the raised tissue and grinds his hips down against Jason’s. Jason can only gasp wordlessly in response as Dick uses his right hand to trace down and past the long tail of the scar to the top of Jason’s jeans. He pops the button and undoes the fly with one hand. When he starts to shimmy Jason’s jeans and boxers down, Jason lifts his hips and practically whines. Dick slides down Jason’s body and sits up in order to pull the pants off all the way before settling himself back between his legs.

“Your thighs are gorgeous.” Dick doesn’t even try to hold back a moan at all the exposed skin before him, some spots criss-crossed with thin lines left from slashes and stab wounds or spotted with starbursts from gunshots. He takes a moment to appreciate the way Jason’s waist cuts in and then flares out to almost feminine hips and thick, muscular thighs. Dick slides his hands under the small of Jason’s back and inches them down to the top of Jason’s ass.

“Really? You like them?” Jason asks, blushing.

“Babe, I love them. It should be against the law for you to wear pants. It’s practically a crime to keep all this hidden under your jeans.” Dick kneads at the soft flesh of Jason’s ass.

“Says the one who’s all covered up,” Jason gasps out. There’s Dick’s Jason, blushing and innocent, but still talking back.

“Let’s fix that then,” Dick chuckles and slowly removes his hands, giving one last squeeze on his way. Dick peels off his t-shirt, deliberately twisting his body and putting on a show for Jason who watches with rapt attention. Dick smiles softly at the awestruck look on Jason’s face before making quick work of the clasps on his pants and shimmying out of them completely. Dick bends down and starts to kiss up Jason’s left leg, starting at his calves and working up to his thighs. Once he gets to the sensitive skin on Jason’s inner thighs, he takes his time pressing open mouthed kisses to the skin there. Dick scrapes his teeth against the skin as he pulls away from a kiss about halfway up Jason’s thigh and feels the strong muscles underneath tremble. Smirking, he repeats the action and looks up to watch Jason. The younger vigilante is struggling to hold his composure, but Dick wants to watch him fall apart completely. So he lowers his mouth back down to Jason’s thighs and bites down. At that, Jason arches off the bed hard and lets out the loudest moan Dick has heard from him so far.

8. Runneth Over and all that Jazz- incomplete work for day 7 of Omega Jason Todd Week -Lactation kink au heavily inspired by @whumpbby and @daemoninwhiteround2 and all their stuff. A little R rated

If it weren’t for his chest, Jason would be nearly impossible to recognise as an omega. He’s taller and more muscular than most omegas so with his deep voice, no one would ever guess. If it weren’t for his body’s absolute betrayal. Jason, like pretty much all adult omegas, produces milk. It’s meant to help reinforce pack bonds and keep pups adopted into a pack fed. That’s not the problem, that part of it is manageable with absorbent pads in shirts and semi-regular use of a breast pump. It sucks, but it’s not the problem. The problem is that Jason’s pack bonds are weak, so his body will let down and start producing milk on a hair trigger. He’s peak fertile age and tangentially part of a mostly alpha pack, but not bonded well enough to balance his hormones, so his body has decided to try and tempt his pack into bonds with milk.

It’s a nuisance. He hears Bruce’s voice on the radio and a little dribble of milk escapes. Dick and Tim get into an argument and he can feel his breasts swelling with more milk. Cass gets injured and he ends up having to sneak off to change his shirt when she cuddles up to him for comfort. He saw Damian cry once and that was enough to get him leaking like a fountain and avoiding the bats for a few days. He knows at least one of them can probably smell the milk on him, but they have the good graces not to mention it so long as he doesn’t.

So Jason distances himself from the pack. He figures if he doesn’t see them, his body won’t decide to go into hormone overdrive. Except it just ends up compounding the problem. More time away from the pack means even weaker pack bonds, which ends up kicking his hormones into even higher gear than they would have been. Soon, Jason’s having to empty his milk every day, then twice a day, then eventually he has to break in the middle of patrol to empty his breasts so they aren’t incredibly sore as he’s flipping around rooftops. He switches from plain absorbent undershirts to nursing undershirts in all black so that if he leaks it won’t show. It’s gotten way out of hand but the only way to fix it is to either break his pack bonds entirely, which might make it worse, or go to the pack and suffer through some potentially very embarrassing bonding.

He shudders at the thought of his pack finally drinking from him. The vulnerability it would bring stirs up something like panic in his stomach mixed equally with want. Letting them know that he can be manipulated just because of a biological response would put him at a huge disadvantage. If they knew he could be made to let down and go into a pheromone drenched haze with some carefully chosen vocalizations they could use it to their advantage when Jason inevitably pisses one of them off. Still, something has to be done, his chest hurts so much that when he got hit there on patrol, he almost blacked out.

He decides to go to Tim first. The slightly younger man is the easiest for Jason to get along with, and despite his tendency for general sneakery, he has enough respect for what Jason does that he probably won’t use it against him too much. It’s a risk, but the potential for relief from the pain of his swollen nipples and frequent breast pump use are enough to take it. Tim is practical and doesn’t seem like the type to get physically aggressive. Even if he does, his small stature means that Jason should be able to escape. Hopefully he won’t be weird about it. Fingers crossed.

Jason knocks on the door of Tim’s apartment, about an hour before patrol typically starts. Tim answers the door looking sleep deprived as always with a mug of coffee in one hand. Jason gives him a sheepish smile and a half hearted wave, after which Tim gestures him into the apartment, one eyebrow raised in question. He shuts and locks the door behind him.

“Hi Jason. It’s been awhile. What are you doing here?” Just the sound of Tim’s voice is making his chest swell a little.

“Can’t I just come visit?”

“Of course you can, you know I like your company. You just usually … don’t. So… ”

Tim pins Jason in place with his calculating stare as he waits for a response. The silence is incredibly awkward for Jason because every second that passes he can feel the slight swelling inch closer and closer to potential leakage. He finally breaks when he feels a small dribble of milk start to leak from one nipple.

“I need your help.”

“A case?”

“No… “ Jason trails off, still unsure.

“Are you okay Jason?” Tim sets his coffee down and sits next to Jason on the couch. Their arms brush and Jason fucking gushes. If Tim couldn’t smell the milk on him before, he sure as hell can now if the way he sniffs the air is any indication.

“What’s wrong Jay? Why are you, umm, … “

“Leaking?”

Tim nods, nostrils flaring as a blush steals across his face.

“I’m letting down at the drop of a hat right now. I’m overproducing so much that I have to stop in the middle of patrols to pump. It hurts real bad.” Jason couldn't stop the whine from leaking into his tone if he tried. Tim unconsciously responds with a swell of alpha scent. The pheromones set Jason off again and he gasps as he involuntarily lets even more milk escape.

“Jason,” Tim’s voice is practically a whisper. “How can I help?” Jason takes a moment to steady himself under the force of Tim’s gaze, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to see his reaction to the answer.

“ I need you to drink enough to solidify our pack bond.”

Tim makes an interested little noise in the back of his throat and places one delicate hand over Jason’s on his lap. He gives a gentle squeeze

“Are you making enough to do it in one go?”

“Were you even paying attention? Yes. I’m producing enough for the whole pack.”

“Why me? If you go off pack hierarchy aren’t you supposed to go to Bruce? Even if you don’t trust Bruce, you could have gone to Dick or Barbara.”

“If you’re not willing, I won’t pressure you.” Jason’s voice is flat as he starts to stand, but he’s stopped by Tim’s suddenly much stronger grip pulling him back to the couch.

“I never said that. I just want to know why you chose me before I potentially upset pack structure.”

“ ‘M more comfortable,” Jason mumbles, avoiding eye contact. “Dick’s too clingy and Babs still thinks I’m crazy most of the time. You’re … nice to me. Helpful.”

“You’re nice to me too Jason. We take care of each other.”

An unfamiliar throaty purr starts up in the back of Jason’s throat as Tim gently presses his shoulders back into the couch. He pushes up Jason’s shirt, making sure to be extra careful right around the chest area. An accidental brush from the back of his hand as he pulls the shirt off causes a whimper to interrupt Jason’s purring. Tim shushes him gently as he sets the shirt to the side in a crumpled ball. Jason glares at him until Tim sighs and folds the shirt semi-neatly. He rearranges himself until he’s draped halfway over Jason’s lap, face centimeters from touching Jason’s chest. Tim stares unashamedly at the plump flesh where he can see the wetness where milk has already escaped.

#thenafics #thenawrites #writing prompt #wip #wips #Jason Todd #Tim Drake #bruce wayne #dick grayson #Stephanie Brown #Damian Wayne #alternate universe #dresden files #harry dresden #roy harper #batfam #evil author day #evil author day 2020

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amplesalty · 4 years ago

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Halloween 2020 - Day 8 - Body Bags (1993)

Each corpse has been individually wrapped to ensure freshness

I can only assume I was sifting through John Carpenter’s filmography when I found this, an anthology film in the vein of Creepshow, The Twilight Zone etc. Apparently this was meant to be a TV show but a full run didn’t pan out so they cobbled together a handful of finished stories and put out this TV movie instead. This is perhaps more interesting for the sheer number of strange cameos in it, like a who’s who of horror directors. John Carpenter himself plays a coroner who serves as a host of sorts, these anthology films often have a framing device that link all the stories together and this is Carpenter looking at various body bags in his morgue and telling us the story behind them, leading into the films themselves.

But there’s also Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, Sam Raimi and Roger Corman that show up throughout the different segments. There are also small parts for Twiggy and Debbie Harry. I didn’t realize Debbie Harry had such a vast filmography, she was in Videodrome when I watched that a few years ago but she seems to have been acting since the 70’s.

I say the cast is more interesting as the stories themselves are all pretty dull and overly familiar. In the opener, “The Gas Station”, a young lady starts a new job working the graveyard shift at a remote gas station and has to deal with the suspense and fear that comes with being alone in the middle of nowhere whilst strangers come and go. She hears on the radio that a psychopath is on the loose in Haddonfield, Illinois which is obviously the setting for Halloween so I wondered if that was just a nod to Carpenter’s famous series or maybe some sort of shared universe thing. Turns out however that the psychopath isn’t Michael Myers at all but someone who masquerades as one of her colleagues who worked the shift prior to hers but actually killed off the real person before hiding out nearby in order to kill her too. That twist is sort of neat in an urban legend sort of way but overall it’s nothing you haven’t seen a thousand times before with some axe wielding maniac out to kill the last pretty girl left standing.

The second story centers on Richard Coberts, an older gentleman who is suffering a crisis of condifence due to his thinning hair. Worried that his girlfriend might leave him for someone younger with more flowing locks, he tries everything to try and mask his growing bald spot; the patented combover, a professional hair stylist and basically everything vaguely hair related from his local chemist.

Including a rather strange one in the form of extract of lamb fetus. Gross.

Whilst nothing seems to be working, he keeps seeing adverts on TV for a new hair clinic run by Dr. Lock, played by David Warner. This all reminds me slightly of that segment of Cat’s Eye where James Woods visits the slightly shadowy health clinic in order to get help in quitting smoking. Not quite the same as the motives are a bit different but both are vaguely about self improvement and I remember the company in that one being a bit more outwardly suspect.

DIMOXINIL! Rich is offered a range of new hairstyles and settles in ‘The Stallion’, long flowing locks that make him look like the aging lead singer of an 80’s hair metal band. Only, not everything is quite what it seems.

His hair grows at an exponential rate, even in places he normally wouldn’t get hair. Plus he seems to be getting sick with sores all over his face. He looks more and more like The Wolfman, even if he doesn’t have Talbot’s degree of depression.

Turns out his hair is actually now little parasitic creatures that are taking over his body and the hair clinic is actually a front for aliens from a distant galaxy looking to slowly overthrow Earth by infecting host bodies by preying the narcissistic members of society who would stroke their own ego by getting this hair treatment.

Well I certainly wasn’t expecting that. This one isn’t particularly interesting either, though there is something amusing to see this change in character in Richard pre/post hair, this level of confidence he gains to the point where he’s practicing all these lines in the mirror. “I’m sorry, you can’t touch it. If I let you touch it then I’d have to let everyone else touch it too!”

Often with these anthology films they seem to be strongest with the opening and closing segment and that’s certainly true here at last for the latter with the third and final segment titled simply ‘Eye’ in which Mark Hammill plays a baseball player who is going through something of a career resurgence and there is even talk of him getting picked up by a major league team.

Hammill is rocking the kind of moustache I remember him having in that brief cameo in Sleepwalkers. I guess I just have that image of him being the baby faced Luke Skywalker but the moustache makes him look like 20 years older. Granted this is like 20 years since Star Wars but you get my point.

Trouble strikes though when he’s driving home late one night in the middle of a storm and has to swerve to avoid a deer, promptly crashing his car and taking a shard of glass directly to the eye. Christ.

Luckily, there’s a experimental surgery that one of his doctors wants to try to replace his eye with a donor one.

So everything in his life seems to be back on the up again, he even finds out his wife is pregnant and she starts to read up taking care of the wee one in a book written by a Dr. Spock. Huh, I guess if you follow the tips in that book then your baby will live long and prosper.

Only, it seems like maybe someone is wrong with this eye as slugger here keeps having weird visions like a dead body rising up out of the dirt in his back garden. This is where I thought maybe they were going for an angle of the donor body coming back to life to claim it’s eye back but what they’re actually going for is this eye came from the body of a recently executed serial killer and the eye is taking over his mind, making him more aggressive and giving him flashbacks to the killer’s life. The immediate thought is the Hell Toupee segment in Treehouse of Horror IX in which Homer has a hair transplant from Snake and Snake’s personality starts coming through in Homer before starting to kill off the witnesses that testified against him. Even that is cited as drawing inspiration from the 1989 film Shocker and an episode of the 1985 Amazing Stories TV show so clearly it’s a very well used idea. Actually, you would kinda get Hell Toupee exactly if you mixed the hair segment and this one.

Hammill’s performance is what really ramps this segment up compared to the other two, especially when the eye really takes hold and he becomes really deranged. I suppose it’s only to be expected coming from a guy who is beloved for his vocal turns as The Joker. His facial expressions help a lot, as does the makeup work done from stuff like his pale, bruised face in the aftermath of the accident to the bloodshot eye.

This is definitely among the weaker of the anthology films I’ve seen and one I would recommend skipping if not for Hammill. Check that part out but avoid the rest.

#Halloween 2020 #Body Bags

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thedcdunce · 6 years ago

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The Question

“For certain questions, sometimes the best answer is no answer at all.” - The Question

Real Name: Charles “Charlie” Victor Szasz

Aliases:

Vic Sage

Gender: Male

Height: 6′ 2″

Weight: 185 lbs (84 kg)

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Strawberry Blonde

Abilities:

Acrobatics

Disguise

Genius Level Intellect

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced)

Indomitable Will

Interrogation

Intimidation

Investigation

Journalism

Dragon Style Kung Fu

Philosophy

Shamanism

Weaknesses:

Lung Cancer

Equipment:

Pseudoderm Mask

Universe: New Earth

Base of Operations:

Hub City

Chicago

Gotham City

Metropolis

Citizenship: American

Parents:

John Grayson; father

Mary Grayson; mother

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: Television Investigative Journalist

First Appearance: Blue Beetle Vol 6 #4 (September, 1986)

Appearance of Death: 52 #38 (March, 2007)

Abilities

Acrobatics: He has shown to be a proficient acrobat, and has used this skill to survive a fatal fall by rebounding off building sides and somersaulting to create more drag. He can get around by jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

Disguise: The Question has and can assume many aliases and has, as he describes, "many different faces".

Genius Level Intellect: The Question possesses genius intelligence and has an extremely unpredictable way of thinking. He can make a weapon out of common objects and often uses his mind to win fights.

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced): Easily capable of incapacitating large groups of criminals and has knocked out trained policemen and soldiers with minimal effort. Vic has shown enough skill to take down two vicious attack-dogs and their highly-trained owner spontaneously, one after the other.

Indomitable Will: His training and lifestyle demanded much determination, and he was rarely known to give up or surrender especially in physical confrontations.

Interrogation: His opponents often fear him due to the rumors of his insanity and ruthless tactics.

Intimidation: He has on many occasions frightened criminals into giving him information he wants, and sometimes resorts to methods that many heroes shy from, like threatening a killer with a chainsaw.

Investigation: He has a superior inquisitive mind and has years of experience as an investigative reporter as well as his life as The Question.

Journalism: Victor was a TV investigative journalist. He had his own show and appeared on local news which sought out conspiracy theories, local crime rings and other violent or mysterious news. His Journalistic techniques were what drove him to become the Question.

Dragon Style Kung Fu: He was trained in Kung-Fu and had exceptional martial arts skills.

Philosophy: A self-proclaimed philosopher, Vic Sage has spent years surviving and understanding in the modern to postmodern world of big city life. He understands the functions of the people within the city and even the city itself on a deeper level.

Shamanism: The Question sought out to learn shamanistic techniques which applied to his city. He used these skills and techniques to "feel" the city and better understand it.

Weaknesses

Lung Cancer: Due to his smoking habit, Vic Sage developed terminal lung cancer, of which he eventually died.

Equipment

Pseudoderm Mask

Origin

When Vic Sage, a television investigative journalist, encountered stories he couldn't investigate by normal, legal means, he donned a special mask that made it appear that he had no face. As the Question, Sage investigated corruption in the face of all danger, leaving a blank "calling card," which, when touched, emitted a smoky question mark.

Childhood and Early Career

Victor Sage was born Charles Victor Szasz, and grew up an orphan who had a reputation as a troublemaker. Szasz prided himself in defiantly enduring the physical abuse of the Catholic orphanage where he was housed. Though he managed to get into college, higher learning did not mellow his violent tendencies. Some time during college, he brutally beat a drug dealer for giving him LSD, which had caused Sage to doubt his own senses under its influence.

After graduating from college, Sage made his mark as a highly outspoken and aggressive reporter with a reputation for obnoxiousness in Hub City. He then moved to television journalism, which eventually led him to investigate Dr. Arby Twain. This particular story would alter the course of Sage's life permanently.

Birth of the Question

Sage was approached by his former professor, a scientist named Aristotle Rodor, who told Sage about an artificial skin called Pseudoderm, which Rodor had co-developed with Dr. Twain based on the notes of Gotham criminal Bart Magan and research into Gingold, the chemical responsible for the Elongated Man's powers.

Pseudoderm was intended to work as an applied skin-like bandage with the help of a bonding gas, but had an unforeseen toxicity which was fatal when applied to open wounds. Though Rodor and Twain agreed to abandon the project and parted ways, Professor Rodor later discovered that Dr. Twain planned to proceed with an illegal sale of the invention to Third World nations, despite the risk to human health.

Sage resolved to stop him but had no way of going after Dr. Twain without exposing himself. Rodor suggested that Sage use a mask made of Pseudoderm to cover his famous features. Disguised by the Pseudoderm mask and armed with information, Sage eventually caught up with Dr. Twain, stopped the transaction, and extracted a confession from him. He then left Twain bound in Pseudoderm in an ironic twist. On television, Vic Sage reported on Dr. Twain's illegal activities.

With his first venture a success, Sage decided that this new identity would be useful for future investigations. He continued to work with Professor Rodor, who supplied the Pseudoderm and eventually modified the bonding gas, giving it the ability to alter the color of Sage's hair and clothing, as well. Vic became good friends with "Tot," who became a mentor to him in both of his identities.

Shortly after debuting in Hub City, Vic Sage relocated to Chicago, IL in order to join the staff of WWB-TV as a crusading journalist. He would continue to operate as The Question there, and would make an ally of Chicago's other resident hero, the Blue Beetle. He would also travel to other cities in the course of his investigations, and eventually teamed up with Batman and briefly participated in the Crisis.

The Question's early crime fighting career was somewhat successful, but his black-and-white moral viewpoint and lack of commitment would soon lead to a turning point for both Sage and his alter ego.

Near-Death Experience and Further Training

After his time in Chicago, Vic Sage returned to Hub City and KBEL television, where he worked alongside news anchor and occasional love-interest Myra Connelly. During a mission as The Question, he was badly beaten in personal combat by the mercenary and martial artist, Lady Shiva, and then nearly fatally beaten by her employer's thugs and shot in the head with a pellet gun. Though he was thrown in a river to drown, Shiva rescued him for reasons of her own and gave him directions to meet Richard Dragon as soon as he was recovered enough to get out of bed.

Following a vision of Batman while in his sickbed, Sage sought out the master martial artist, who retained all of his skill even while confined to a wheelchair. Sage spent a year learning martial arts and Eastern philosophy from Dragon. The training changed and deepened The Question's moral perspective, and the crimefighter became more understanding of the moral ambiguity of his chosen work.

Vic Sage returned to Hub City and resumed his career as The Question with a new, broader worldview, and a belief that crime had to be fought at more than one level.

The New Question

Though The Question had originally established himself as a crime fighter by stopping street crime, his post-Dragon career found him attacking the systematic corruption of Hub City at its highest levels. Hub City was noted as being "synonymous with venality, corruption, and violence," and perhaps even outranked Gotham City as the most dismal city in the the United States.

The Question's work in defending the city extended beyond street crime and into the realm of politics and social justice. He re-enlisted as an ally his former girlfriend, Myra, who had married the corrupt, alcoholic mayor of Hub City, Wesley Fermin, in his absence. He also met Batman again and have the first of what would be many encounters with the Green Arrow.

After spending months running Hub City while her husband descended into mental illness, Myra Fermin announced her intention to run for mayor herself, and received Sage/The Question's full support. Though Myra's marriage to the mayor was loveless, she resisted the temptation to reunite with Sage, but she eventually gave into her temptation and had affairs with both Sage and The Question, whom she did not realize were the same man. When Myra lost the election by one vote, she was elected to the position anyway, as her challenger had died as a result of what was called "the worst tornado in history." However, during her victory speech, her husband, Wesley Fermin, shot her in the stomach for supporting what he called "Communist beliefs." Wesley was subsequently killed during a police stand-off, but Myra entered a coma, and Hub City was plunged further into chaos. For some time, the Question, became the city's only guarantor of justice, though Myra eventually awoke from her coma and assumed her role as mayor.

The gang warfare in the weeks following the election led Sage to a reunion with Lady Shiva, who at first resumed her adversarial relationship with The Question and then became an ally to him. Through Shiva, The Question was able to meet with the gang-leaders who were creating chaos in the city.

Although he had the support of Myra and his mentor, Tot Rodor, Sage/The Question often felt troubled about his role as the city's protector and as a fighter of crime. Reconciling his original, stark, mindset with the enlightenment he had received from Richard Dragon continued to be a source of conflict for The Question, who struggled to determine how far he should go in his pursuit of justice. With the help of his allies, The Question realized that a perverse part of him wanted to know what it felt like to take another person's life, and he managed to successfully defeat his temptation to kill.

Leaving Hub City

Though The Question did his best to contain the chaos around Hub City, he felt himself growing increasingly dark as time wore on. A hallucinogenic trip caused his subconscious, in the form of his mother, to tell him that he would never be able to lead a happy life unless he left Hub City. Richard Dragon echoed this viewpoint during a visit to Vic Sage, when he sensed that Sage was on the verge of a major turning point in his life. Lady Shiva soon after arrived by helicopter to spirit The Question, Rodor, and Myra Fermin away from the city, though she herself decided to embrace the Hub's chaos and remain there. Sage nearly convinced Myra to leave the city with him, but her sense of duty convinced her to remain. Before Sage left, Myra gave to him her only daughter, Jackie, and wandered back to the city alone to meet her duties as Mayor and do her best to stand for what she believed in.

Sage took Jackie with him to South America, hoping to rid himself of his "No Face" alter ego and find a land free of the clutter and corruption that filled Hub City. However, this sense of serenity did not last long. Sage was quickly drawn into a drug war which ultimately forced him to kill a man in order to save Jackie's life. The Question's philosophy from that point changed once again, as he realized that he had no guilt over the killing and would do it again if necessary. He would kill again.

Unfortunately, Jackie would die anyway, en route to her mother in Hub City.

Career after Hub City

After leaving Hub City, Victor Sage held a series of journalistic positions in various cities, while reviving his Question persona when necessary. Previous experiences teaming up with such heroes as Green Arrow and Batman had established the Question in the superheroic community, and he would participate in major events such as the Alien Invasion and Brainiac's attack on Metropolis. Following his abandonment of Hub City, The Question helped protect an Indian reservation alongside Green Arrow and John Butcher. He traveled the United States and would meet Steel and Azrael. He even very briefly became a member of a team, when he joined the L.A.W. alongside his old comrade Blue Beetle and Nightshade, Sarge Steel, Captain Atom, and Judomaster during a disappearance of the Justice League of America, in order to stop Judomaster's former sidekick, Tiger, from conquering the world. On that mission, the Question would also first learn of the mysterious land of Nanda Parbat. He would also return to Hub City several times, and eventually got a bittersweet shock when he learned that Myra had finally moved on.

Following the near-destruction of Gotham City after a major earthquake, the Question relocated to Gotham and teamed with the Huntress, with whom he had a short-lived affair.

After years of dabbling with hallucinogens, meditation, and his mask-activating gas, The Question developed a shamanic awareness, in which he was able to interpret coincidences and thus "talk to the city". In this state, he was also able to sense chi, or life force. He became able to "walk in two worlds" for an increased awareness of his surroundings and of any disturbances in a city's natural order. This ability came in handy when Sage relocated to Metropolis and teamed up with Superman against Lex Luthor and the Psychopomp.

Infinite Crisis

During the events of the Infinite Crisis the Secret Society of Super-Villains coordinate a planet wide breakout of super-villains from every major prison. With the JLA otherwise occupied Oracle with the help of the telepathy of the Martian Manhunter is able to organize a group of second string vigilantes to oppose the escapees at each prison. The Question joins up with these heroes and when they make their way to Metropolis he is transported with the other heroes to fight in what would become the Battle of Metropolis.

Following the events of the Infinite Crisis and Batman's disappearance, The Question returned to Gotham City to assume the role of its protector.

His first act was removing the bat symbol sticker from the Bat-Signal and spray-painting a giant question mark in its place. This was not strictly an act of ego, however- he shone the light on Renee Montoya's apartment building in order to get her attention. Three days later, he entered Montoya's apartment and left her an address: 520 Kane Street. When Montoya visited the location, he hired her to watch an abandoned building located there for "two hundred dollars a day, plus expenses," and implied that it would be used by a third party. This mysterious behavior would lead to a partnership that would last nearly a year.

Two weeks and one night later, the two teamed up against a strange creature who entered that building. The course of their investigations then led them to Kahndaq, where they investigated Intergang dealings and prevented a suicide bombing during Black Adam and Isis's wedding, an action that earned The Question the Order of the Crescent.

After returning to Gotham City, the Question learned that he was suffering from lung cancer. Though Montoya immediately had Sage hospitalized and later took it upon herself to transport him to the Himalayan city of Nanda Parbat in the hope of using its mystical properties to save him, she was too late. After suffering through great discomfort and hardship, Victor Sage, The Question, passed away.

Blackest Night

During the Blackest Night crossover, Vic Sage is reanimated as a Black Lantern. He goes after Renee, Tot and Lady Shiva, who manage to elude him by suppressing their emotions, making them invisible to him.

The Question's legacy lives on, however: Renee Montoya has been seen wearing the mask and garb of the Question in Gotham City, and, on an alternate version of Earth, a version of Vic Sage lives on.

#the question #question #charles charlie victor szasz #charles victor szasz #charlie victor szasz #charlie szasz #charles szasz #vic sage #l.a.w.#law #l.a.w #jla #justice league of america #Black Lantern Corps #dc #DC comics #thedcdunce #Living Assault Weapons

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realityhelixcreates · 6 years ago

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Lasabrjotr Chapter 11: Dark World

Chapters: 11/? Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Teen And Up Warnings: Mention of genocide, casual racism, mentions of past death Relationships: Loki x Reader (if you squint) Characters: Loki (Marvel), OFC, Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending, Loki needs to Work on the Racism, Have More Headcanons, Loki is Not Fond of Stephen Strange, Loki is also Not Fond of Reliving Certain Memories Summary: Reader gets an impromptu astronomy/history lesson, but Loki glosses over the important parts, not wanting to dwell on the very history that he himself made

Loki was still reading the Alfar book when you returned, but he set it aside for a moment to inquire about how your check-in went.

“I told him the truth.” You said simply. “I’m not gonna lie to Captain America.”

“Oh, you fancy the old soldier?” He teased.

“I believe in what he stands for.” You said, lifting your chin.

“And what is that? Ah, don’t tell me.” He stood, and began to prowl around you like a cat. “Courage. Nobility. Self-sacrifice. Honor and glory! For God and Country! Amen!”

“Justice.” You said, as he completed his circle. “No more billionaires getting away with slavery and murder. No more cops killing you for having the wrong skin color. No more people thinking there even is a wrong skin color. No more kids going hungry in the richest nation on Earth. No blindly following unjust laws. Standing up, and making your little corner of the world a better place. We wanna believe America is exceptional? Then we have to make it that way. We haven’t, but we could.”

“And what do you bring to that table, little baker?” He questioned. “What’s exceptional about you?”

You had never been anything special. You were average. You had gotten average grades, came from an average part of the country, looked average. You were a hard worker, but you couldn’t be anything less, or you’d be homeless. Average jobs meant starvation wages. You hadn’t gone to college. You’d never stopped studying, but without a degree, all your extracurricular learning meant nothing. What could you have been, if only you’d had the money to make anyone believe in your worth? What could you do?

“I can do magic.” You offered.

“Can you? Why don’t you show me?”

So he was still going to be like that, was he?

You quickly grabbed him by the hand, and reached for a nearby glass. He caught you by the wrist before you could pick it up, and shook his hand loose from yours.

“Okay, yes. But can you do it without our contact?”

“Not yet.” You conceded. “But once you teach me how, I will.”

“So what you’re saying is that, for you to grow and reach your great potential…you need me.”

He fixed you with a positively wolfish grin. It made your stomach flip. You crossed your arms and stared up into his teeth. He just wants you to react.

“Or, you know, that wizard we saw before.”

“That presumptuous dilettante?” He growled. “The arrogant dabbler would have you scrubbing his floors to distract you from his lack of ability! He wouldn’t know what to do with you.”

“And you do?”

“Moreso than that cocksure novice!”

“Sure don’t like him, huh? What’s the deal? Did he scuff up your shoes one time, or something?” Now this was amusing! He sounded like an overdramatic teenager ranting about a rival.

“He’s a swaggering pretender playing with forces he barely understands. A baby given an incredibly dangerous toy. I have had centuries to grow and mature in the Art, he has the equivalent training of picking up a pamphlet and thinking he’s learned everything.”

“Mature, huh? Is that why you turned my hair green?”

He snorted. “It’s not green, you little fool.” He waved his hand in front of your eyes. “Go look.”

You did. Everything was normal again.

“The illusion was not on your hair.” He informed you. “It was on your eyes. Did you think nobody said anything about it out of respect? My brother would have mentioned it, even if no one else did.”

“Okay, I’m…actually less mad about that than I thought I would be. I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I can do an untold number of things that you don’t yet know about.”

“Oh.” That sounded mildly threatening. “Well…can you tell me more about Svartalfheim? I couldn’t finish my lesson yesterday, Miss Valkyrie was a little unsure about the details of its recent history.”

He frowned. “You’re still on about that? I suppose it’s lucky that one of my meetings has been cancelled. But I cannot always waste time on your curiosity. “

“Rude! You think teaching your history is wasting time?”

“I don’t.” He sat down, patting the bench, inviting you to join him. Why did he do things like that? His moods and actions in constant flux. You never knew where he’d be a few moments down the line.

Loki is the trickster of the gods, an untrustworthy god of lies, deceit, treachery and evil. The father of lies and monsters, a patron of misleading actions.

You sat down next to him.

“It’s just that I hate Svartalfheim, and I hate the Svartalfari. Living through events that make it into history books is nearly always unpleasant in some way. But you are so cursed curious, so I suppose I must fill you in.”

He conjured an image of a black, cloudy world, orbiting a dim, eclipsed sun. There were no visible stars. Swathes of dust obscured the already weak light.

“It’s beautiful.” You breathed.

He gave you a look. “It’s dismal. Just look at it. It’s colorless, dry and depressing.”

“But how is it like this? How is the sun like that? Where are the stars?”

“Do you want history or astronomy?”

“Both!”

He sighed. “The galaxy in which Svartalfheim is located contains a great deal of dust and dark matter. Svartalfheim itself orbits a small, young star within an absorption nebula. Do you know what that is?”

“I know what a nebula is.”

“Okay, well there’s more than one kind. This kind does not glow with the light of the stars within it; no light escapes or enters. So, no stars, no constellations, no inkling that there might be someone else out there. There are but two planets in this system, no others have had time to form. There is Svartalfheim, small, dark, dirty. And then there is this enormous gas giant, just barely not a star itself. Both planets are very close to the star, so Svartalfheim is warm, despite the darkness. But by some fluke of development, both planets have the exact same orbital period. Meaning-“ He continued, noticing your slightly confused expression. “-that they have the exact same length of year. And so, this gas giant is forever between Svatalfheim and the star. The eclipse is permanent. A day on Svartalfheim is very long. Long dark days, and long black nights. Do you follow?”

“Stuff’s dark. I got it.”

“Yes. And so, no plants larger than lichens grow. That’s really all they have there. Lichens and mushrooms. The soil is poor, as is the ecosystem. Only a few species can live there, and the majority of those are carnivorous, feeding off small eaters of lichen, and each other. All of this contributes to the overall dreariness of the place. “

“I still think it’s beautiful.”

“Why?” He asked, seeming annoyed that you hadn’t instantly taken up his same dislike of the place. “It’s bleak. It’s empty. It’s hostile.”

“It’s different! It’s new, and young, and we’ve never seen what might live on a young planet. I didn’t even know life could form on planets in such weird circumstances.”

“Midgardian attitudes toward space are rather amusing, do you know that? You all have such a passion for it, but you’ve barely done anything with that passion. It’s as if you are obsessed with looking through your windows, but won’t take but a few steps outside your own door.”

“Well, I mean, we didn’t have a Bifrost, and we need, just, so much air? To survive? I already know we’re less tough and have shorter lives than you all, so that probably has something to do with it. We haven’t been able to build ships that could hold everything we need, and go fast enough to get us places within those short lifespans. And then I think some weird things happen to our bodies when we stay in space for too long? I’m not sure, I haven’t studied it before. Kinda want to now, though.”

“There is a Bifrost here now.” Loki pointed out. “Someday, it will be like our old one, and able to transport people to all of these planets. Svartalfheim is forbidden though, on order of the king. And myself. I’m afraid I can never take you there.”

“Oh. But why not?”

“Because we hate it. Or rather, I hate it, and my brother hates it and also sympathizes with it.”

“You’ve been beating around the bush here. Can’t you tell me what happened?”

“I can. But it’s unpleasant. You know, I assume, of my grandfather’s battle with the Svartalfari?”

“Yeah. And the Aether, and that it came back later in a human lady. Did you meet her?”

He cleared his throat. “Yes…we met.”

“What was she like? She had this stone inside her?”

“She was…interesting. Secretly powerful. You know only a few can handle the stones without terrible consequences. She didn’t exactly handle it, she could not utilize its powers, but she did contain it. If you were to touch one of these things, it would likely consume you entirely, understand? She held it within her body, and all it did was weaken her.

In the end, we rid her of its influence, but it fell into our enemies hands. Behold.”

A small figure emerged. It was entirely white and black; white skin, white hair, white armor that looked carved from bone, all wrapped and strapped in leathery black clothing. It wore an expressionless, hollow-eyed, white mask over its face.

“Okay, that’s creepy.”

“That’s a Svartalfar. Hideous, cave-crawling, hateful creatures.”

“Why do they look like us? Why do they all look like us?”

“What do you mean?” The planet and the person dissipated.

“Vanir, Asgardian, Human, Svart-al-far, we all look the same. Same body shape, same faces. We all have written languages, wear clothes, make fashion choices. Some worse than others. We should all be extremely different from one another, shouldn’t we?”

“Convergent evolution?” He suggested.

“I’m gonna have to look that up. So is that why they’re so pale? Because they live in caves?”

“Precisely. They are very insular, unforgiving of any weakness. They used to war against each other, having no idea there was anything or anyone outside of their tiny star system. They couldn’t do what humans did; they couldn’t look out into the stars and wonder if they were alone or not. When they found out that they were not, they did not react with wonder, or even fear. They have only hatred for anything that isn’t one of them. They try to destroy anything that is not Svartalfari.”

“Okay, but you guys didn’t exactly come with open arms, right? You wanted something that was on the planet, didn’t you?”

He sighed. “Metals. Mostly zinc and silver.”

“Uh-huh. So their first contact with another species was a bunch of warlike invaders who wanted to steal their stuff. But of course, they’re just ‘naturally inclined’ to hate all outsiders.”

“Now I know it seems like that, but we did attempt to open trade agreements first. We saw how poor the ecosystem of the planet was, and offered to trade food with them. Grain and such.”

“Did they not want that? Was it taken as some kind of insult?”

“No, not exactly. It just turned out our food was poisonous to them.”

“Oh no!”

“Yes. Our existence, what we represented-that is, an entire unseen universe beyond what they thought was ‘everything’-upset their cultural understanding of their place in existence. And this death we brought could only be interpreted as a deliberate attack. The Svartalfari are truly immortal, you understand; they can be killed, but they do not die on their own. Old age is an unknown concept to them. Due to this, their birth rate is incredibly low. They had a stable population of only a few tens of thousands, that’s it.

Hundreds died in the initial poisonings. That was when their hatred truly took hold. As the deaths continued, one of them rose to a position of prominence. He spread a doctrine of genocide among his people; that all others were a mockery of what the universe should be. That all others must die. They began by killing the Asgardian miners and merchants, and continued doing this until the armies came. This one man mustered all of his warring people under one cause, and claimed to have a weapon to back him up.

He had discovered the Aether. You know it as an Infinity Stone, the Reality stone specifically. With it, one can influence, or even change reality itself. He intended to use it to revert the universe to its initial state of darkness. It was possible only under a cosmic convergence that brings all the realms into line, and breaks down barriers between those worlds. He thought to use the stone then, to reach as far into the universe as he could, extinguishing the light along the way.

My grandfather and our armies routed them. Nearly the entire species was wiped out, and we left the planet permanently.”

“Didn’t stay for the silver?”

“I think, for perhaps the first time, my grandfather regretted a battle. He certainly liked to fight and conquer, but I do not believe he was genocidal. That takes a…a certain kind of insanity that rarely looks like what it is. So he forbid his people from returning, leaving the planet as a graveyard.

But, of course, they didn’t all die. Their leader, some of his soldiers, and a very few children survived. And so, thousands of years later, they tried again. In search of the Aether, which was within that woman, they actually invaded Asgard.

I was imprisoned at the time. You know, for my oh-so heinous crimes against your world, which my father had abandoned a millennia ago.” He sounded positively venomous for a moment. “You know, they broke all the other criminals out. Offered to free me, but…I just didn’t take the opportunity. You know, I think I still believed I’d be forgiven in time. ‘Look Father! I had the chance, but I didn’t take it! I still have some honor after all!’ Hmph.” He grimaced. “The Svartalfari invaders murdered the queen while I stayed in a cage.”

And there was the reason their mother had never been mentioned. She wasn’t here. You opened your arms almost on reflex. Who had hugged him after that?

His hand was on your forehead in an instant, halting your compassionate advance.

“Spare me.” He said dryly. “It wasn’t the worst thing to happen to me that day.”

“What?”

“Well of course we sought revenge. Did you know my brother and Heimdall are traitors to the Crown? It was never just me. We broke so many laws together. Ah, good times. We headed right to Svartalfheim, got the Aether out of that woman, and tricked the Svartalfari easily. And then I was killed, and left behind on that miserable place.”

“What?” You repeated.

“Obviously I wasn’t completely dead, but I was very close. It certainly seemed like it; enough to fool absolutely everyone. Including myself. But I am Aesir, and I did not die. Oh, but they did. All of the invaders. I ended the life of my mother’s killer, but if I could have taken the head of every remaining member of the species, I would have.”

“Genocide takes a certain kind of insanity-“ You began to repeat his earlier words.

“Yes. It does.” He stared at you, face sharp and serious. “My brother has once again forbid contact with Svartalfheim. Any who survive may someday rebuild the species. I cannot bring myself to care.”

“Your highness.” You said firmly. “You should allow me to hug you.”

He gave you a long, silent side-glance.

“You do not command me, tiny mortal.” He proclaimed darkly. But he did lift his arm, and look away, giving you the opportunity to wrap your arms around his middle.

You took it.

#lasabrjotr #loki x reader #loki (marvel)#marvel fanfiction

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xfirechickx · 6 years ago

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Arrow Rewrite

So I’ve (finally) caught up with the latest seasons of all the DCTV shows on Netflix, and to the utter surprise of no one, including myself, Arrow has definitely not gotten any better since the first two seasons, and the only good thing that’s come out of this train wreck of a show since killing off the Black Canary, is bringing Katie Cassidy back as the Black Siren. But still, to say that this show is a huge disappointment is a gross understatement, so much so, that the only reason I still watch is for Katie and for the annual crossovers. But, to actually make keeping up with the show tolerable, I had to pretty much mentally rewrite most of the show and headcanon the shit out of it, and make my way through with all the denial I can manage. So, this is how I like to pretend that the show actually went. And even though I doubt anyone will read this - this is more for my getting my thoughts down - bear in mind, this is super anti F*licity with all the nolicity feelings I have. Also, after reading a whole bunch of posts with the same feelings as me, this became a sort of mashed clusterfuck of ideas that came together from everywhere.

SO first of all, Laurel is a metahuman, you know, like she should have been. What the fuck was the idea behind not giving her actual powers? That’s just stupid. So yeah, either Laurel was in Central City when the particle accelerator exploded, or some other freak accident gave her the canary cry. I don’t care how it happened, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Laurel is the team’s meta, and it caused her to want to don a mask even before Sara was killed.

Next, I’d like to think that she got the hang of street fighting a lot faster. Like, I appreciate that it took her awhile to be able to handle herself on the streets, but this “Oliver is the best fighter” mindset is absolute bullshit. Ik we’ve all been thinking of the Arrow as a bargain-bin Batman (and the horrendous bullet we dodged that was the mere suggestion that F*licity could ever be anything close to Oracle didn’t help), but I am so sick of Oliver’s fighting abilities being thought of as if he was the freaking Batman. Bullshit. I’ll admit, Oliver can fight and hold his own; he’d have to to be a vigilante facing down supervillains on a constant basis, that’s fine. But the Black Canary is one of the best fighters in the DC universe, and I will be damned if that was never acknowledged here.

So the way I see it, Laurel not only kept up with Oliver and Roy while on patrol, but after he came back from his new life in Ivy Town, Oliver comes to realize that she’s actually better than him. Like, I want them to be out on the field, and she’s literally outdoing him at every turn. And at first, he’s all, “Damn, I must be a bit rusty,” but it becomes clear after a couple more episodes, when he no longer has that excuse, that she’s actually running circles around him, whether it’s on patrol or while they’re sparring. In fact, I want an entire scene of them sparring in the bunker, and as distracted as everyone else is doing their own thing, everyone can clearly see that she’s holding back, and Oliver thinks that her head’s just not in it.

Oliver: Come on, I know you can do better than that!

Laurel: Nah, it’s okay. This is a good pace.

Oliver: Come on, you’ll never get better if you don’t give it your all. Let me have it!

And then she brutally knocks him on his ass.

“Lucky shot,” he grumbles as he gets up and gets ready for another round, and Laurel has a look on her face that’s almost annoyed, but honestly, she’s been waiting for forever to knock him down a peg. Diggle, Thea, and Roy are trying not to laugh in the background.

And speaking of Thea and Roy, holy shit, Roy doesn’t leave! Whoever came up with that idea needs a good smack. Team Arrow comes up with literally any other plan and Roy fucking stays! Thea, is instead given the mantle Artemis with her own outfit. Yeah, ik it still wouldn’t give us the Artemis Crock storyline, but it’s still better than the Evelyn Sharp bullshit that we ended up with. We currently have two tech geniuses on the team, what’s wrong with three archers? They could continue having their relationship ups and downs as subplots as the show goes on. I would even like that at some point, they decide to get their own place together, and Thea decides to sell her old apartment (you know, the one she was brutally stabbed in) to afford a nice one with Roy. And I would like F*licity try in vain to hide how much of an asshole she is by getting all indignant about it. Like, Thea offers to sell it to F*licity first, but she tries to spin it like, “You didn’t want it anymore, so I took it, so it’s mine now?” And everyone’s like, “What? No, that’s literally her apartment, which she bought with her father’s money? Idk how the hell it came to be thought of as yours anyway?” And she eventually has to break down and either buy it or move out because Thea and Roy have their hearts set on getting their own place.

As far as nolicity goes, I always thought that they would at some point have a brief relationship (a ship that I originally didn’t care for, but quickly became my ultimate notp) which would be doomed from the start due to having little to no romantic chemistry, and even though F*licity definitely had a strong sexual attraction to Oliver, she mostly seemed to view him as an older brother; or at least, Oliver viewed her as a slightly annoying younger sister.

But because of Guggenheim’s constant interference, the will-they-won’t-they crap just kept dragging on and on and on until holy fuck I have negative five care points to spend on these two assholes, just give me more BC! Their relationship has to be the most boring aspect of the show, something that’s definitely not helped by the fact that F*licity is an emotionally abusive and manipulative piece of shit Mary Sue. Seriously, for the amount of times that she’s been really vocal about how hypocritical and controlling she is, it just boggles the mind how few times anyone has called her out for it. I say few, because it has happened before, twice I believe, once by Oliver, who calmly insisted, “Enough,” and once by Ray Palmer after she threw his dead fiance in his face. Classy lady, isn’t she? But the farther this show goes on, the more she gets away with and the more infuriating it is that Oliver becomes the bad guy in her place. And holy shit the fact that literally everyone needs to assure Oliver - and the audience - that they are, in Guggenheim’s world, the perfect couple. I honestly can’t tell anymore if he actually believes this, and is just trying to shove his own weird obsession with EBR down everyone else’s throats, or if he’s just trying to get those of us who don’t like the ship to come to the dark side. Either way, I’m not buying any of this shit. SO, for every time that there’s a character to remind everyone how “good” Oliver and F*licity are together, take a shot, and then block out their words and then replace them with various observances and reassurances on Oliver’s behalf. I’d like to think that those closest to him, like Diggle, Laurel, and Thea were totally ready to call F*licity out on her shit whenever she started taking things out on Oliver, but he would subtly shake his head and calmly assure them later on that “F*licity’s right, I’m wrong. But no really guys, we’re totally happy together, I’d just appreciate it if you guys not confront her because she’s the queen of right on every subject ever and I’m just lucky to be with her.”

And the rest of Team Arrow just reluctantly agrees not to say anything unless Oliver is the one to bring up that he has a problem with her, but are totally ready to throw down at moment’s notice. Even people outside of Team Arrow notice it and tend to comment, with characters like Mick and Constantine on the crass side of the spectrum with phrases like “Does she occasionally let you take your balls out of her purse?” and more sensitive words from people like Barry and Sara, who actually try to get it through his head that, despite what F*licity says, not everything is his fault, and he does not deserve to be kicked around by her over situations that he had little to no control over (Samantha and William, anyone?)

And then there’s Damien Darhk. Hoo boy, my hate towards him killing Laurel burns with the fury of a thousand suns. There was literally no reason for it, you know, besides eliminating her as a threat to Nolicity. Except, she wasn’t even a threat?? It was pretty clear that Laurel and Oliver weren’t even considering a romantic relationship, and even I, as a hardcore GA/BC shipper, didn’t even want them to get back together at this point. Despite the unintentional victimization of Oliver, Laurel absolutely did not deserve any of his shit. So, as much as I wished that F*licity was the one who died, Laurel was still targeted by Darhk in order to get back at Lance, but she doesn’t just die and that’s it! She gets to be critically injured - getting intentionally stabbed by a former member of the League of Assassins tends to be pretty life-threatening - but she does get to heal while in the hospital and make it back out onto the field to continue as BC.

Hell, I’d even be okay with her actually dying that night if, and only if, they brought her back. For a universe based on superhero comic books, Guggenheim and company seemed to have totally forgotten (or just outright ignored) how often characters get brought back from the dead, at times in pretty nonsensical ways. But here, there was a way to conceivably bring her back; there were three in fact: In Arrow, the Lazarus pits would have been available; Flash could have brought her back with the introduction of Flashpoint, or you know, Sara, who happens to captain a fucking timeship could have brought her back, either by manipulating the timeline, or by pulling a Kingsmen II and had just shown up right after Darhk stabbed Laurel to revive her. I would’ve happily gone along with Team Arrow believing that Laurel was dead if the plot twist was that the Legends brought her aboard the Waverider so that Gideon could heal her.

Sidenote: ik that this would have never have happened simply because all of the Arrowverse shows have to check in with each other to some degree so that they’re all on the same page, but wouldn’t it have been absolutely fan-fucking-tastic if, after Arrow had confirmed that BC was for sure dead and wasn’t coming back, that Flash and LoT just totally undermined it. Like, if Laurel was brought back with either Flashpoint or the Waverider, and KC’s just hanging out on a different set while Arrow just tries its damnedest to discredit them?

Arrow: She’s dead.

Flash/LoT: Well she was, but she got better.

Arrow: She’s def not coming back.

Flash/LoT: Not until you learn to be nice to her anyway.

Arrow: She’s not the real Laurel. Our Laurel is D E A D

Flash/LoT: Nope, this is definitely her, and she’s going on cool adventures with us because SHE’S A DAMN GOOD CHARACTER AND YOU DICKBAGS NEVER DESERVED HER

All the while more of Arrow’s fans flock to every show except Arrow until the assholes in charge of the decision to kill Laurel finally have to (publicly) beg to have her back because literally no one will watch their shitty show anymore without BC, and then they’re forced to respect her character and give her a fair amount of screen time. That would just be poetic justice in my book.

So as season 5 kicks off, Oliver, Roy, AND Laurel take in and train the new recruits to join Team Arrow. I don’t have much to change about this season except that since Laurel isn’t dead, and as much as I like Juliana Harkavy, there’s literally no reason to bring in Dinah Drake. Also the shared hallucination in the Invasion! crossover partially rekindles the romance between Laurel and Oliver, which actually feels pretty heartfelt and like it could possibly lead to them getting back together for real.

And then F*licity ruins it because that’s what she does.

F*licity and Oliver get back together and things progress normally, with the rest of Team Arrow quietly building up a resentment towards the abusiveness of their relationship. I’d also like to think that since Curtis had progressed as a team member, that there’s a slight undertone of “what is she even here for anymore?” among them. Like, whenever she butts in with her hypocritical opinions, someone else will actually step in like, “Hey, you’ve had a long day, so why don’t you go ahead and go home. Don’t worry, Curtis knows what he’s doing, so we’ve got this. Yes, we’ll call you if we need something, but don’t worry. You’ve worked hard today! You deserve a break!” Meanwhile, the rest of the team is literally patching themselves back together with bandages and whatnot, blood and sweat everywhere, all giving each other The Look™ when she nods like, “Yeah, you’re right, I could use a hot meal and a shower. Plus, this tracking system is so simple an idiot could use it, just try not to fuck it up while I’m gone.” Still, no one says anything because Oliver is back to trying to make it work between them, and she occasionally helps William with his homework, so he can’t complain.

William btw, while appreciating the fact that F*licity brings intelligent conversation with her, has not forgotten how much of a bitch she was when trying to save him. Sure, he wasn’t present while all the shit-talking was going down, but there was no way that Samantha didn’t mention it at least in passing later on. “I’m amazed at how much Oliver has grown as a person. He was a real jackass when I knew him before, but he was genuinely worried about you and how we’d get you back. I just wish that the blonde chick he was working with wasn’t being such a pain about it. Like she had any right to any of our business, or any right to be a bitch about the rescue mission.” At this point, nolicity’s domestic life is pretty much out of some crappy fanfiction, and I will be damned if William doesn’t get to bring up F*licity’s pettiness at least once.

And since F*licity apparently feels threatened when Oliver’s past love life gets brought up, William tends to go to his Aunt Thea whenever he feels the need to talk about his mom without having to feel as if he’s the one bringing up a touchy subject. She’s also the one to get him out of the house whenever Nolicity gets especially nauseating at home, and he ends up growing a bond with the rest of Team Arrow in the process. While he still doesn’t want Oliver to be the Arrow anymore, he grows to respect the rest of the team, and ends up with all of their numbers in case he needs any of them to kidnap him for the day. He gets to spend some time in the bunker while they’re out on missions (with Diggle under the hood, of course). Funnily enough, after one mission without F*licity or Oliver, he asks Thea, “So what exactly do you need F*licity for anyway?” And Thea explains that she’s usually down in the bunker handling all the tech stuff while they’re all out in the field, but then he says, “Yeah, but Curtis was handling all that and working in the field??” And Thea and Roy exchange The Look™ again and change the subject.

Things finally come to a head during the Crisis on Earth-X crossover. Oliver, totally taken by the magic that is WestAllen still proposes during the rehearsal dinner, and F*licity, still very publicly says no. Classy. Naz*s invade and everything goes to shit, and Oliver and F*licity still try to make things about them while shit is literally falling apart around them, and to the people whose wedding actually got ruined for some reason. To her credit, Iris doesn’t outright tell F*licity that she’s being a self-obsessed drama queen at what is literally the worst possible time, but she does put out a few comments that both remind F*licity that it was in fact Iris’s day that was ruined, and gets her to shut the fuck up.

F*licity: Oh, wah! Oliver and I had a fight and then naz*s ruined any chance of makeup sex! Wah!

Iris: They literally ruined my wedding and abducted my groom.

F*licity: *internally* oh fuck I forgot about that

Meanwhile on Earth-X:

Oliver: Oh, wah! F*licity said she wouldn’t marry me after I proposed at your rehearsal dinner! Wah!

Barry: Yeah, what the fuck was that about anyway?

Oliver: Ikr? She wouldn’t say yes even after all the beautiful things that were said during the speech! If that doesn’t scream romance, idk what will!

Barry: I actually meant, why the fuck would you propose at the rehearsal when you can do it at literally any other time that isn’t supposed to be about Iris and I getting married?

Oliver: There was magic in the air!

Barry: *facepalm*

No, but the conversation between Barry and Oliver would go on to a touching, if not repetitive explanation about how Oliver was so taken, not just with Barry and Iris’s union, but the idea that Barry has been able to balance his life as a hero and his personal life. Oliver had once told him, “Guys like us don’t get the girl,” but Barry actually did it. And Oliver was envious, because his own life was one clusterfuck after another, with an on-again-off-again relationship that he’s only sort of making it work, and after the Dominator’s simulator, he realized how much he wanted his life as Oliver Queen to be fulfilling and filled with love, and how much he wants a partner in both halves of his life, like Barry and what he has with Iris. And throughout all this, Barry listens and quickly notices that throughout his whole explanation, Oliver never once uses F*licity’s name; he doesn’t even bring her up specifically. Barry probably means to point this out, but Oliver brushes him off thinking that he’s just going to tell him off some more, because that’s what he’s come to expect from having F*licity around all the time, and that’s what people who love you do, right?

It’s actually Snart’s doppelganger who points this out (after eavesdropping on their entire conversation) and suggests that maybe Oliver just hasn’t found the right person to be his partner the way he wants. “Just look at Barry and Iris, or me and Ray.” Oliver shrugs him off too, and just resigns himself to the loneliness of either being without F*licity, or being with her in all the wrong ways.

They get back to Earth-1, Supergirl is saved, yadda yadda yadda. I would like to change Stein’s death into him also making a miraculous recovery and leaving the show still intact. Just, using naz*s to kill off a Jewish character? REALLY?? Fuck all of that. Anyway, Barry and Iris still decide on an impromptu wedding right after *insert literally any event that doesn’t involve killing off Martin so disrespectfully* and Barry still brings Diggle to perform the ceremony, and Joe, Cecile and Wally are present because of course they fucking are. You could even argue for Cisco and Caitlin, but it doesn’t matter to me as much if they’re there. So Barry and Iris exchange vows, say their I do’s, and-

Fucking F*licity interrupts. Because of course she fucking does. “Would you marry us, too? Would you marry me?” A moment of silence and then everyone just explodes.

Barry: Seriously, though? After waiting my entire life for this, two more seconds is literally all I could have asked for

Wally: I’m a speedster, and I could have waited a couple more seconds

Iris: Really? Can I not just have one (1) wedding go uninterrupted?

Joe: In retrospect, we probably should have waited until these assholes left and done this at STAR Labs or something

And F*licity just gets overwhelmed because she’s literally never had so many people tell her she was wrong in her entire fucking life and Diggle tries to mediate (no matter how much he agrees with the rest of Team Flash).

Diggle: F*licity, you don’t even have a marriage license.

F*licity: Oh, no, it’s okay, John! We could just share the moment with Barry and Iris, and then go get a marriage license when we get back to Star City and have our own wedding there.

And then everyone explodes again because, seriously what the FUCK? “So I have to share my second interrupted wedding, and you’re just going home to have another one of your own?” And literally everyone is so fucking frustrated and angry, even more so because they all knew they should have been celebrating at that very moment but F*licity seems to think her awkwardness is still cute when it might just be the most infuriating thing ever. Finally she turns back to Oliver, who hasn’t said anything since she proposed like, “Hey?! A little help here?!” And Oliver is busy with finally seeing her without the rose-colored glasses and seeing her as the selfish and problematic person she is and it’s fucking glorious because he’s just so calm but everyone hears him when he just says, “No.”

F*licity: What? NO? What do you mean, NO?

Oliver: No, F*licity, as in, no, I’m not gonna help you ruin their second wedding, no I’m not going to defend you after fucking this up, and NO I won’t marry you. Not here and definitely not now.

Everyone else is pretty taken aback because up until now, no one’s ever told Queen Fefe off and they’re all doing an internal happy dance at how, for once, Oliver isn’t backing her up. Oliver and F*licity have a staring contest, F*licity waiting for him to back down, and Oliver holding his ground, until F*licity, finally realizing that she’s been unanimously outvoted, just storms off without saying anything, probably expecting Oliver to come running after her to apologize. But he doesn’t. He actually just quietly apologizes to Barry and Iris, and stays in his place as a groomsman (best man, my ass) and stands and waits for Cecile to take up her new place as matron of honor (how the fuck Fefe got that position is beyond me) all the while having this look on his face that says “It had to be done, but I’m gonna catch serious hell when I get home.” Diggle repeats himself in pronouncing Barry and Iris as husband and wife, they kiss, and the crossover ends with an UNBLOCKED shot of them two while their remaining wedding party claps it out.

I would keep everything in the gift scene in next episode of The Flash exactly the same except for Iris’s line is changed to, “Okay, not on the registry, but I guess trying to get married during our wedding wasn’t on the registry either. I’m not bitter.”

The whole wedding reception scene in Arrow is also completely done away with, and replaced with a long-awaited breakup scene, the one to end all breakup scenes (between nolicity anyway). Down in the bunker, it starts off with (what else?) F*licity trying to blame everything on Oliver. “Shit like this is why I didn’t wanna marry you. And then I put MYSELF out there and what do I get? Rejected, that’s what! I get rejected and humiliated in front of everyone!” And then she rambles on and throws in a couple references of the island and how he hasn’t changed since his frat boy days for good measure. Some guilt tripping and a few hypocritical statements later, and then she ends it. Or, at least, that’s what it’s supposed to be, but it really comes off as more of a threat to end it. Her closing statement sounds a lot like “You better straighten up because you’re damn lucky to have me.”

And Oliver just kind of silently stews until she finishes and he immediately jumps into how far he’d obviously come since his five years on the island, and how unfair it was for her to throw that in his face, and even worse how she tried so hard to justify butting her way into Barry and Iris’s special moment to further put herself in the spotlight. She tries to butt in a couple times (like she does) but gets immediately shut down because hell to the fucking no that was not okay. It ends with them trying to yell over each other, and F*licity yelling, “Well maybe I shouldn’t even be on this team anymore since you’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t need me!” right as the rest of the team walk in. They immediately try to backtrack, but F*licity, being her usual dramatic self yells, “No! No, you stay! I’ll go! He obviously doesn’t need me anyway!” and just leaves.

The rest of the team is just so shell shocked and embarrassed at having walked in at that exact moment (they’d all secretly been hoping to be there at that exact moment because that’d mean they’d officially have permission to drag F*licity the way she should have been several seasons ago) but the moment turned out to be more awkward than anyone could have hoped, so no one really knows what to do. “You alright, Hoss?” Oliver pretends that the past minute never happened and redirects everyone’s attention to the latest update on Cayden James. Meanwhile, Laurel, recognizing that Oliver is going to opt out of dealing with the problem, quietly excuses herself and leaves the bunker after F*licity. And Laurel finds her just outside the bunker, pacing because was she was actually expecting Oliver to run up after her after causing that big scene.

Laurel: That was some fight you guys just had.

F*licity: What, oh that? Nah, Oliver’s just being a jerk. Don’t worry about me, we’ll be-

Laurel: Where the hell do you get off talking to him like that?

F*licity: Wait, what?

Laurel then unleashes the mother of all lectures, bringing up every single problematic thing F*licity has ever said or done, which is pretty much anything and everything anyone has ever had to complain about the Mary Sue-ish nature of her character, every time she’s been an asshole, every time that she and the rest of the team has wanted nothing more than to tell her to shut the fuck up but how Oliver had asked them not to because of how much he wanted their shitty relationship to work, whether they were together or broken up at the time. F*licity tries to keep a stoic facial expression, but it’s pretty clear that she’s embarrassed and angry and incredibly surprised because damn, first Oliver and Team Flash, and now Laurel is calling her out on her shit and she was so far from expecting it. Laurel, to her credit, never even raises her voice, because she doesn’t want the rest of the team to hear and get involved, and she makes it clear that no one is kicking her off the team (if she wanted to leave, then that was her own prerogative) but she’s just so glad that she finally gets to unload everything she’d been holding back since Oliver and F*licity had gotten together and the bitch was not going to worm her way out of it this time. Her rant ends with the sentence, “Don’t think for even a second that you’re in the right about any of this,” and she turns on her heel and heads back down to the bunker while F*licity stays frozen where she stands, still trying to absorb that she’d just been told off, and how no one was going to apologize for it.

In the upcoming days, it seems like F*licity is gone for good; she hasn’t come back down to the bunker or contacted anyone on the team, and the team slowly adjusts to not having her around (and encouraging Oliver in that he did the right thing by breaking it off). Curtis pretty much takes over her role on the team (he’s the third smartest person in the DC universe, dammit! Why in the fuck has he been reduced to Fefe’s sidekick?!) and makes time to go out on patrol with the others and besides not having anyone back in the bunker, the team dynamic really doesn’t change. But just as things escalate with Cayden James, F*licity comes back; she shows up unannounced at the bunker after the team comes back from the field, and insists that she’s ready to resume her role as Overwatch. The rest of the team is pretty iffy considering all the drama that she’d left in her wake, but they agree to take her back because they’d probably need all the help they could get against Cayden. So the show goes on, with some tension still between Oliver and F*licity, but Laurel quickly shuts her up with a look every time it looks like she’s about to start some shit.

Team Arrow obtains the list of people on Diaz’s payroll, and after some celebrating on taking down the bad guy, F*licity announces that she was officially leaving the team. There’s a lot of confusion, since she made such a big deal about wanting to come back, but she explains how she only wanted to finish what she started with Cayden James, and now that the mission is over, she’s ready to go back to a normal life, like what she had originally planned when joining the team back in the first season. This scene is actually a bittersweet one; no matter any of our opinions on how badly this character was fucked up, she was a part of the original team, and her departure from it should be treated like the end of an era. She leaves, but not before assuring them that she would help out if they ever need it.

Idk what the future holds for the plot, but as far as GA/BC being endgame (because they were, dammit) I actually wouldn’t want it to happen in the next season. Now with F*licity gone, Oliver got bumped up from the second to the biggest asshole in the Arrowverse, and like I said before, Laurel absolutely does not deserve his shit. So I don’t want there to be any romantic relationship between them at all, for at least one whole season. Hell, I want them to date other people during this season. At this point, I’d just really like to see their friendship to become more solid. I want them both to come to terms with what happened between them in the past, and decide to extend their partnership. I want Oliver (and the rest of the team) to see Laurel as his equal, not as his potential love interest, and definitely not his sidekick. I want Oliver to start resembling his comic book counterpart at this point. I want him to more frequently crack jokes and become less like a Batman wannabe. It felt like that’s the Oliver we were supposed to get when this show started, after he’d had a chance to deal with some of his trauma.

The eighth season is when Oliver and Laurel start showing romantic interest in each other again. They maybe start flirting while on the field, and eventually they go out on dates without the masks. And at first it’s weird, because of all the history they share, and a running gag where every time they sit down, they’re immediately summoned on a mission (original, ik). But they not only find the time to be together, but they actually realize that the life actually works for them, because there are no more secrets between them anymore. I want them to start calling each other Pretty Bird and Robin Hood and pretty much all the fluffy (and probably smutty) scenes that it would take for their relationship to better resemble their comic book counterparts. And their chemistry is just as good as it was in the first season, when you could just look at Oliver and see just how in love he was with Laurel, only better now that they both share the vigilante lifestyle.

This all eventually leads to them getting married; it doesn’t matter if it happens in the eighth season or the ninth, but the proposal is similar to the 2010 Green Arrow short, where he proposes while in full costume after completing a mission together.

Their wedding could be the premise for the annual crossover, but I wouldn’t mind if it was purely an episode of Arrow. If it’s not a crossover, then I would at least like a brief cameo of Barry and Iris, probably calling or video chatting them before the wedding, wishing them luck because they sadly can’t make it due to having to deal with this season’s villain. But Sara has to be there, for sure; with or without the rest of her team, she needs to be present as the maid of honor.

And their wedding gets interrupted, because of course it does (probs by Orm leading the Atlanteans or some shit) so they break up the wedding party to suit up and join the fight. This is actually the first time we see F*licity since she left. They need her tech skills yet again because Curtis was either incapacitated during the fight, or he’s off on a trip somewhere with the hot police officer from this past season. Anyway, they’re at whatever office/genius bar she’s working at, hovering while she does her thing, and she’s rambling on as per usual until she says something like, “I expected to hear from you like everyday, tbh. I’m honestly surprised everything didn’t fall apart the moment I left.” And everyone just kinda rolls their eyes like, damn, what a bitch. And then she makes it more awkward when it comes out that Oliver and Laurel’s wedding was supposed to take place earlier that day, and it’s like, “Oh, so I guess you are willing to get married, just not to me!” And Oliver has to physically hold Laurel back from cussing her out because, “We need her, okay?”

The episode/crossover ends with the team (and William and F*licity because reasons) back in whatever location they’re using as the Arrow Cave at this point, everyone in full costume, patching up their injuries, and it overall looking like the shawarma scene from the first Avengers movie. And despite having just won the day, everyone’s still sorry that they couldn’t finish the wedding. So, just like how Barry and Iris should’ve had their second wedding in STAR Labs, they decide to hold their wedding in the Arrow Cave. So, everyone still tired and dirty from their recent fight, but it still makes for an interesting ceremony. But it’s mostly because I want Oliver to lift Laurel’s mask the way he would’ve lifted her veil. And not only do they actually have vows, they’re actually pretty fucking beautiful. Like, Oliver’s are about how he’s loved her for most of his life, but how this is the first time where he feels like he’s finally worthy of her, and how he sees her as an equal, and as his partner in both halves of his life. Laurel’s reflect on how they went from friends to lovers, to strained acquaintances, back to friends, to actual partners, and eventually back to lovers. And no matter how many times their paths lead away from each other, they were forever intertwined. And then Diggle pronounces them husband and wife and everyone cheers.

F*licity hangs back from the rest of the crowd that’s hugging and kissing and congratulating, because she really can’t stop herself from thinking “That should have been me,” but she manages to keep it (mostly) classy and only hints towards the thought twice in her rambling congratulations. In the end, she hugs the both of them, and makes her exit right after Oliver and Laurel stroll out to catch their plane to their honeymoon.

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carryonmywaywardcaptain · 6 years ago

Text

Star-Spangled Douchebag-- Part 2

CarryOnCap Masterlist

Series Masterlist

WC: 1,503

Warnings: none? Some Dean fluff, typical SPN mystery, and no Marvel characters in this one.

A/N: This is a flashback to help set up a little of what was going on in Part 1. Steve will be back in the next part! :) Catch up on Part 1 Here.

[minor edits made 8/4/2020]

A Few Weeks Ago

“Guys, I think I might have something.”

You stopped pacing and tossed the lore book you’d been reading on the war room table. It seemed like it had been ages since you and the boys had caught wind of a case and you were starting to go stir crazy.

As you made your way into the library, you saw that Sam was leaning forward, intently scanning the screen in front of him. Dean had his feet propped up on the table and was cleaning his pistol-- a habit that seemed to become more frequent when he was feeling frustrated or impatient.

“Whatcha got, Sammy?” you asked.

Stopping behind Dean’s chair, you snaked your arms around his shoulders and rested your chin at the crook of his neck. He hummed happily and twisted in your arms to place a soft kiss on your cheek.

“Ugh. Look, I’m glad you guys finally sucked it up and admitted you’re into each other. But can you try to keep the PDA to a minimum?” Sam groaned.

Dean smiled and wrapped a large hand around one of your forearms, holding you in place when you tried to pull away. “C’mon, Sammy. Can’t you be happy for your big bro and prettiest friend?”

“‘Prettiest friend?’” you swatted Dean’s chest lightly with your free hand and wriggled out of his grasp. “And here I thought you liked me for my personality, Casanova.”

Sam rolled his eyes while you took a seat in the chair beside Dean. “Of course I’m happy for you two, it’s just...whatever. Ok, so get this. Apparently there’s been so many bizarre incidents in New York City lately that people are demanding answers from the CDC. Everything from higher rates of people going missing to more crime-- and lots of reports of people acting out of character before turning up dead. Basically all the family members, friends, coworkers, or anybody else that knew the suspects say something along the lines of ‘none of us saw this coming,’ ‘they’d never be capable of something like this-- it has to be some mistake.’ The CDC’s claiming there hasn’t been like, an outbreak of anything to cause weird behavior and there’s no reason to panic but--”

“So New Yorkers are stealing stuff and might have a serial killer-- so what?” Dean interrupted. “Doesn’t exactly sound like our kind of thing, Sam.”

“See, that’s what I thought, but something still wasn’t adding up. So I kept looking into it and even for New York the rates are weirdly high. There’s not a link that they can see, but it’s like across the board these incidents are getting more intense. And the last body to turn up? Turns out it was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.?” you asked. “Like...real life agents?”

“Yeah,” Sam continued. “And before that, an NYPD officer. There’s been other stuff with ATMs, convenience stores, and now jewelry stores and bank robberies.”

“Could be demons, maybe? Or even--”

“You guys can’t be serious.” Dean kicked his feet down and cut you off. “Do you have any idea how long of a drive that is? It’s gotta be at least 20 hours.”

“Oh, come on. You’re telling me you guys have never made that kind of a drive for a case before? And what if it is something? High stakes robberies and a dead S.H.I.E.L.D. agent? It’s worth checking out, especially since it’s been ages since we’ve had a case. Even if it does turn out to be nothing, we can at least get out of the bunker for a while. And how cool would it be to get out of the Midwest and go some place like New York for a case?? Pleeeaaasseeee?”

After stating your argument, you leaned over to wrap yourself around Dean’s upper arm. Resting your head on his shoulder, you peeked from under your lashes to give him your very best puppy dog pout.

“She’s got a point, Dean,” Sam said gently. “It’s not like we’ve got anything else going on right now.”

Dean sucked in a large breath and held it for a moment as he debated.

“Fine,” he finally sighed.

“YES!” You jumped out of your chair and pumped one fist in the air like the last scene of The Breakfast Club. “Think we’ll see any of the Avengers? Oh! We should go see the Statue of Liberty!”

Sam laughed as he shut his laptop and rose from his seat. Dean simply shook his head and tried to suppress a smile. When the two of you stood up, he casually slung an arm around your shoulders and guided you down the hall to pack.

***

You groaned, stretching your arms to the sky as you bent this way and that. “Jeez, that was a long drive.”

“Yeah, well whose idea was that?” Dean grumbled as he slammed his door shut.

“Oh, don’t be a Grumpy Gus,” you snapped.

Sam had made some calls to the NYPD to get more information on the robberies, believing they were the best place to start. When you were about 20 miles south of the city limits, he received a call that there had been another bank robbery so you had stopped off at a gas station to change into your FBI clothes before arriving to the scene.

“Agents.” An officer nodded in acknowledgment as the three of you flashed your badges and slipped passed the police barricade. “Your timing is impeccable. I’m Lieutenant Hunt.”

Dean shook the man’s hand as he made introductions. “Lieutenant. I’m Agent Rossington and these are my associates, Burns and Collins. Any leads so far?”

“This one more than past robberies, actually.” He waved for you to follow him and turned to lead the way up the steps into the bank. “I’m surprised the Bureau took an interest in these robberies, but I’ve gotta say I’m glad because I’m at a loss. We’re starting to suspect it’s the work of some sort of organization. Can’t find a link between any of the suspects, but their families are beside themselves. Genuinely believe the individuals were good people and could never do such a thing…”

When he trailed off, you saw Sam snap his head to the side as he made some sort of connection. “Lieutenant, do you happen to know anything about the deceased police officer or S.H.I.E.L.D. agent?”

Lieutenant Hunt cleared his throat and paused before answering. “Not the agent. But the officer… He and I were in the same class at the Academy years ago. Good man. We stayed in touch over the years, even got together with our families for barbecues once in a while. When I heard he’d robbed a jewelry store at one of the shopping centers…”

“You found it hard to believe,” Sam finished for him. Lieutenant Hunt nodded but said nothing more.

You arrived at the security office and the policeman ushered you in the door. “Seems these individuals keep getting bolder. They don’t even bother wearing masks or avoiding cameras. This one is particularly interesting.”

He motioned to the security guard to play the footage of the robbery. A woman entered the front of the bank with a large automatic weapon in hand. She fired a few rounds in the air, prompting the patrons to panic and duck to the ground with their hands in the air. She pointed the weapon at one of the tellers, presumably demanding money. When the bag was full, she looked up at one of the cameras with a smirk before darting down a side corridor.

“We know who she is?” Dean asked.

“That’s where it gets interesting,” Lieutenant Hunt answered. “We looked her up and she’s a lower level S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Does some sort of data entry over at the Avengers Tower. Turns out she didn’t show up to work yesterday or this morning. She was in and out of here in just under 15 minutes and we’ve got no clue where she exited the building from. None of the alley or street cameras picked her up after she slipped through an office door in that side hall.”

“Can you run it back again and freeze on her face?” you asked.

The lieutenant quirked an eyebrow. “We already identified her but, uh, sure.”

The security guard ran the footage back and let it play through once more before hitting pause--at the precise moment her eyes flashed white. Dean shared a look with Sam before glancing at you. He licked his lips and pressed them into a firm line, trying to hide his impressed smile.

“Damn technology,” the guard muttered. He hit play before immediately pausing it again and the woman’s eyes returned to normal. “There we go.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” you said while committing the woman’s face to memory. “I think it’s time we pay a little visit to the Avengers.”

Part 3

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