#up until the point where I either die or turn ...like 75 and get to retire

[sebille]

I don’t mind working but it’s miserable to only have 2 days off each week

I feel like once i’m done doing my errands/cleaning and maybe hang out with some friends it’s already over and I’ve done nothing for myself and i’m still exhausted 

[therealvinelle]

How many people do u think the cullens have killed?

A lot.

I’ll try to answer on a Cullen to Cullen basis, and make my estimate as conservative as possible. Also, for this estimate I'll look only at direct kills, complicity doesn’t count, which for example means I won’t add Royce King II & friends to Carlisle’s count, even though he made himself complicit when he helped Rosalie plot their murders.

Without further ado:

Alice has had her accidents, plural, so 2≤ humans. After joining the Cullens, mind you, we don’t know how she lived as a newborn. I’d guess her visions told her to feed from animal blood early on, to accustom her to it sooner rather than later so life among the Cullens would be easier. The interesting thing about Alice having a body count is that her gift should be helpful in avoiding these kinds of situations, meaning that Alice’s accidents have caught her unawares. So, we have at least two humans, and considering the newborn army the number might be higher. Might. Jasper tried his damndest to keep Alice safe in that fight, so it stands to reason he killed anyone who got close to her. Alice might not have had the chance to kill any newborns. If she did, and counting kills she helped with, then I’d put my estimate at a conservative 0-1. Then we have Rosalie, who says she has the second best streak in the family, second only to Carlisle. Rose killed 5 humans (she corrects herself a bit later to 7, but this doesn’t make a difference. She’s still second best to Carlisle). She admittedly doesn’t mention Alice, but if Alice had a better record than her she likely would have. Which jumps Alice up another few steps, to 8≤.

Bella hasn’t killed anyone. 0.

Carlisle had a perfect record until the newborn army attacked. So, no humans, but most likely newborns. When Carlisle attacks Bree in “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner”, it’s a fast and brutal attack. I’ll just paste the scene: A blond vampire glanced at me, meeting my gaze, and his eyes flashed gold in the sunlight. (...) I turned and really ran for the trees (...) I was a few feet into the trees when a force like a wrecking ball hit me from behind and threw me to the ground. An arm slipped under my chin. (The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, page 91) For the record, holy shit Carlisle, that was so brutal! I can’t believe that the minute Bella steps off screen the guy rips off his shirt and becomes the Terminator. Damn. ... Point being, Carlisle was an active participant in that battle. It makes ethical sense for him to be, the newborns had to die, it would have been hypocritical to tell his family “you guys go roll in the mud, I’m too saintly to get my hands dirty”, and if he didn’t pitch in his family and the shapeshifters would be in danger. It becomes morally just to join in the battle, and with a zeal at that. Or at least that’s how he appears to have reasoned, because holy shit, Carlisle took the gloves off. So, Carlisle can reasonably be assumed to have killed at least 1 newborn, likely more. I’d say 3 at the most, though there’s the possibility that he co-opted some kills with the others. (I have more thoughts further down).

Edward left for four years to eat people. At first he ate junkies and homeless people, they did not taste good. Would this have motivated him to eat more than one every fortnight? Alas, I’m keeping my estimate conservative, so let’s wager no. So, one human per fortnight for four years. 26*4=104. That’s the lowest possible estimate of people Edward killed, though I’m inclined to think higher. Given his mission to stop evil, if Edward found a rapist it’s not like he’d go “aw shucks, I can’t kill him yet because it hasn’t been a full two weeks!” Add Victoria to that count, and we’re at 105≤.

Emmett killed his two singers, but considering Rosalie’s statement he too falls under the 8≤ number. He helped kill James, which adds +1 to the vampire tally. Then comes the newborn battle. Bree sees him kill one of the newborns, so we know he got some action. I’ll make the same assumption as I did for Carlisle, which is 1-3. So, 2-4 vampires total.

Esme is explicitly stated to have a worse record than Rosalie. She has killed 8 people or more. As for the newborn army, I’m not sure I can picture it. If Esme did kill anyone, I imagine it was along with others. Let’s put her down for 1.

Jasper my poor guy, he’s in another league. Turned in 1863, he lived with Maria until 1938, then met Alice and became a vegetarian in 1948. He’s had a few accidents since. From 1863 to 1938 I think we should assume one person per week, as strength was paramount in the world of newborn armies, blood was a reward for soldiers, and Jasper won Maria a lot of territory. They would not want for blood, and he recounts she rewarded him often. So, 52*75=3900 dead humans. Jasper then runs off with Peter and Charlotte, presumably eating at a normal rate of every other week. We don’t know when he split off from them, but let’s assume an even split and that he left after five years, leaving another five years of lone wandering where he tried to starve himself. So, 26*5=130 for his years with Peter and Charlotte, then assuming he made it a month each fast before surrendering, 13*5=75 for the lone years. We then have accidents. He’s had more accidents than any of the other Cullen children (I don’t think it’s every actually specified that he’s had more accidents than them all, meaning Esme could still have slipped more), putting him at 9≤ accidents. Then comes the vampires he’s killed. We know he killed Nettie, Lucy, and James, so that’s 3. Newborns take time to train, but to make up for that we have a lot of armies. Let’s assume Maria’s army got into one battle every six months. Let’s assume Jasper always killed at least 1 vampire. (See what I meant by conservative? In my defense, Victoria’s army was huge and not at all representative) That’s 130≤ vampires. Jasper also mentions that as a newborn he kept getting into fights with his brothers-in-arms, he killed several. So, let’s assume 4≤, since it sounds like it was certainly more than 2. More numerous are the vampires he executed. Jasper’s gift meant Maria could have a lot more soldiers than most, and he doubled her army’s numbers. His first major accomplishment was to make her an army of 23 newborns. Assuming he kept up this good work, knowing as we do that Jasper was the only vampire Maria never replaced, and assuming some newborns were lost to infighting or battles, we can assume a replacement cycle of Maria needing 20 vampires executed on a yearly basis. 20*75 = 1500. Which... does feel a little high, but Jasper’s backstory is extreme. As for the newborn battle, let’s assume 4.

Renesmée hasn’t killed anyone either, 0.

Rosalie we know for sure, 7 humans. Let’s assume as with Carlisle and Emmett that she took out 1-3 vampires.

(NOTE: When it comes to how many newborns from Victoria’s army each Cullen killed, all we can do is estimate:

The Cullens divided evenly with the shapeshifters. There were 16 newborns at the battle, giving us 8 newborns per Cullen. There were 6 Cullens present, meaning at least 1 each. Jasper did more than his fair share, and Alice and Esme can both be speculated to have been smaller parts in this battle. I think it’s fair to assume Carlisle, Emmett, and Rosalie killed at least 1 newborn each, though likely more, especially if we take shared kills into consideration. I think 1-3 is a fair assumption, and I’m tempted to assume Jasper killed was everywhere and it feels like lowballing to estimate 4.)

Total:

Alice: 8≤ humans, 0-1** vampire. 9 total

Bella: 0

Carlisle*: 1-3**, all vampires.

Edward: 104≤ humans, 1 vampire. 105≤ total

Emmett: 8≤ humans, 2-4** vampires. 10≤ total

Esme: 8≤ humans, 1 vampire. 9≤ total

Jasper: 4105≤ humans, 1638≤** vampires. 5743≤ total

Renesmée: 0

Rosalie*: 7 humans, 1-3** vampires. 8≤ total

*with both Carlisle and Rosalie we have an upper limit. Carlisle’s body count can’t be higher than 15, and Rosalie’s can’t be higher than 22 (I get the number 15 from 16-1 newborns, as there’s one vampire we know for a fact was killed by Emmett alone) and that would be in an extremely contrived scenario where he or she was somehow everywhere at once.

** when adding up the total of vampires killed by Cullens at the newborn army, regardless of the composition of who killed who, the sum is (assuming an even split with the shapeshifters) 8.

Added together, this gives us:

4240≤ humans and 1643≤ vampires.

If we remove Jasper’s past from the equation, because newborn army George who spent 75 years in a newborn army killing every day is an outlier and should not have been counted, then the tally becomes: 

144≤ humans and 10 vampires.

If we remove Edward’s rebellious era from the equation, as he was not a Cullen at the time, the human tally sinks to: 

40≤ humans. (This is counting Rosalie’s revenge. There have been 33≤ accidents.)

This is the lowest possible estimate. The number is likely higher.

Special thanks to @theunexpectedness​ on the Twilight Forever discord for digging up her copy of “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner” for me so I could get my quotes straight.

Also, feel free to point out errors in the math. I’m sure I’ve made some.

[homieswithhades]

why steve rogers returning to the past was wrong

disclaimer: im clearly a stucky enthusiast, but please, do not be thrown off by that. i admit, there may be undertones of bias because of that in the following, but i did my best with trying to lay out the facts and draw logical conclusions, so do please give me a chance. also, i may have accidentaly omitted some moments and some quotes may not be 100% word for word, as my memory lowkey sucks. ALSO this is NOT a peggy hate post!! i think shes a dope and underrated character and quite frankly she was done dirty. but i also definitely h8 the trope of badass woman falls for the hero.

first and foremost, every sane person knows endgame was complete and utter bullshit when dealing with steves character, so this post will be more for you to maybe show (and hopefully convince) some stubborn friend or family member. nice, concise (not) and including proof from the movies (+a few tweets and stucky undertones, if u dont fw that i respect it but bucky is an integral part to steves character regardless of how u interpret their relationship) here is why steves character development was thrown away at the end of endgame.

let us begin at looking at the cap trilogy.

in ca:tfa it should be noted that steve had no one to return to in the 40s, except bucky. i believe steves relationship with peggy was no where near as developed as it should have been to elicit him returning exclusively for her. as we are aware, steves driving force has absolutely always been bucky. bucky was there for steve after his parents died, when he was sick, and always protected him from whatever trouble he got himself into. "until the end of the line" right? steves relationship with peggy was forced and short lived, literally, we're talking a matter of months here. i need to keep emphasising the important disparity between bucky and peggy, as it is absolutely key in this whole argument. steve dropped everything and went against every order just to even attempt to save bucky. even the slightest chance of him surviving being captured was enough for steve to break into a hydra camp and free the 107th division. steve even had the chance to capture zola, one of the main villains and masterminds of the war, but again, steve prioritised bucky. when theyre trying to escape the exploding hydra camp, the exchange between steve and bucky is critical. steve says "go! get out of here!" as all he wanted was bucky escaping safely. he put bucky's life over his own (this wasnt the first time he did this, nor the last) but bucky rooted himself to the spot, and yelled back "no, not without you!". they both escaped safely as we know, and then steve gathers the howling commandos to take down the red skull. bucky then falls off the train, nd steve blames himself for his death, even visibly crying over it twice. steves morals went from "i dont wanna kill anyone. i dont like bullies, i dont care where theyre from" before buckys death, to "i wont stop until all of hydra are dead or captured" after. stuff happens and steve defeats the red skull and is now in control of the flying ship with the bombs. he connects the comms with peggy and she tries to convince him theres another way to disarm the ship. steve was so dedicated at that point he didnt even want to hear it. he didnt even attempt to do anything to ensure his survival. this alone proves, peggy was not important enough to him to return to.

next is ca:tws. The stevebucky movie. in the museum, peggy confirms that steve saved the man from the 107th division who eventually became her husband (steve was never in the 107th, just to clarify) i believe her husbands name was daniel sousa (as revealed in the marvels agents of shield show) steve then finds out peggy is alive and talks to her. she, in short, tells him she's lived her life, and it was his turn to live his in the time hes in. the "my best girl" line was unnecessary and out of place; again, steve barely knew her. again, shit goes down, and steve finds out the winter soldier is bucky and immediately drops everything, and becomes dead set on saving him. not killing, not imprisoning, but saving him. no matter the cost. "he saw me, and he didnt even know me" "hes not the kind you save, hes the kind you stop. he won't recognise you" "he will." god, steve KNEW bucky would recognise him. regardless of the brainwashing, steve managed to break through the barrier hydra fought so hard to drill into buckys mind. nothing ever broke him out of that state exept for steve. "im not gonna fight you, youre my friend." "youre my mission" "then finish it. cos im with you till the end of the line." [[good fucking lord let me break out of my essay-esque semi professional format here and just say how fucking heartbreaking those lines are. oh my god. read them, over and over until it hits you.]] steve shows us again, that he is willing to not only die for bucky, but literally die by his hand. he would let bucky kill him. he'd dropped his shield. he didnt fight back. steve always, always, ALWAYS got up and fought back. always. exept that time. the time bucky could have killed him. that scene is the essence of "im with you till the end of the line" because then, it was true. it was true because steve was okay with dying at buckys mercy. theres a difference between sacrificing yourself for the greater good (steve going into the ice), willing to die for someone (steve risking his life multiple times in attempts to save bucky) and finally, being willing to let someone kill you, because you love and trust them so much (hellicarier scene). the difference between peggy and bucky's relationship to steve is that steve may be willing to die for either, but only willing to be killed by one. not to mention, bucky pulled steve from the river. he recognised him. steve broke through 70 years of brainwashing with such impact it literally drove bucky away from hydra out of his own free will.

in between ca:tws and ca:cw its confirmed (im p sure sam says it) that him and steve looked for bucky for two. years. even off screen, bucky was steves priority.

im going to squeeze in 2 points from from age of ultron here, for chronology's sake:

steves worst nightmare, as portayed in the movie, is LITERALLY going back to the 40s and being stuck there (with peggy too??lmfao) and also the quote "family, stability, the man who wanted all that went in the ice 75 years ago. i think another one came out." objectively confirms that steve isn't the man he used to be, and doesnt want to return to the past. aou may have sucked, but that doesn't mean the character development should be thrown away.

ca:cw. hoo boy. steve went against 117 countries and half of his closest friends and colleagues because he believed bucky was innocent of the bombing of the un conference. god, steve quite literally, did everything to defend and protect bucky. though i shall acknowledge that steve did attend peggy's funeral, however, there was no real connotations there other than the fact he was mourning her death (understabdibly so). steve then proceeds to protect bucky for 2 hours 27 mins and 41 seconds to the point where they escape together to siberia after the airport fight. "i dont know if im worth all this steve" "what you did all those years... it wasnt you. you didnt have a choice." "i know. but i did it" again, absolutely heartbreaking quotes if you read it a couple of times and truly understand the meaning of them. steve somewhat indirectly tells bucky yes, yes he is worth all of this. otherwise, he wouldn't be doing it. a quote to support that would be "for the longest time, i always did what i thought was right." (disclaimer this is not a direct quote i deadass couldnt find it to save my life, i belive steve said it at some point during civil war or tws, but the point is, bucky is the only thing that could have shaken steves morals so intensely.) and finally, the most important part of cw, the fight at the end with tony. bucky and steve constantly protected each other. steve kept fighting because he was fighting for bucky. to keep him safe from tony and the world. he got up, time and time again. "i can do this all day." the fact that he said that to tony, some people consider them the closest of friends, proves again, a million times over, bucky is more important to steve than literally anything else, INCLUDING his shield. his mantle. he dropped it and left it like it was nothing, because his priority was bucky. as always.

theres not much to discuss for infinity war other than their hug whicg was honestly just adorable.

mmmmm endgame. i will not go into how much i hate that movie because it would be a rant quintuple the length of this one. in the support group, steve dead ass fucking says "you gotta move on. you gotta move on" and that sentiment was literally forgotten at the end. my main point for endgame is this. people tend to tell me, the reason steve abandoned bucky and went back to be with peggy is because he knew that he was finally safe. :/. if you had half a braincell youd know that's not true. the steve we know, never would have left bucky for good, ESPECIALLY after the "dont do anything stupid until i get back" exchange [[god i want to beat the shit out of the r*ssos]] mostly because, bucky had fucking no one in the time he was living in!!! no family, no friends and most heartbreakingly, no one he could trust. (yes sam was there but were just seeing their friendship develop now in tfatws, all that wasnt there in endgame) and secondly, what made steve think bucky was entirely safe??? half of the worlds population just suddenly reappeared, which as we see now, there were massive consequences for that. i simply believe steve is not that stupid. steve going back was disrespectful not only to his character, but to bucky AND peggy. most importantly, the steve we've been watching since 2011 would NEVER abandon bucky, no matter how safe he thought he was (he visited him frequently in wakanda, the safest place on the planet arguably ffs) especially for such a dumbass and quite frankly, nonsensical reason as going back to be with peggy, who clearly stated to him she moved on, and so should he (which he did. idk endgame writers prolly didnt watch the previous movies :/) its not even debatable. bucky is more important to steve than peggy. even in terms of screentime.

now allow some tweets to speak for me, this one being the absolute most important one:

ladies and gentlefolk, all of the stuff ive said can be summarised in that last line. "it would be contrary to who he is."

heres some more:

and now finally, id like to briefly mention steve and tfatws, so beware of spoilers (writing this as of ep 4 coming out; praying it doesn't age badly)

bucky mentions steve, unprompted, fucking constantly. he clearly isnt over steve leaving, and im hoping that gets acknowledged and talked out in the show.

in conclusion, tl:dr, steve shouldn't have returned to the past and stayed there, it is contrary to who he is, as shown to us through his trilogy and other appearances in the mcu. not to mention the timeline bullshit in endgame makes zero sense in the first place.

[zintranslations]

Kaleidoscope of Death, Ch. 75

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu Link to Chinese / Link to ongoing Taida Translations

Chapter 75: Qianshan

Though Ruan Nanzhu mocked him about it, Luo Qianshan really didn't dare to 'know this good thing.'

Bottom line was, anyone who could get to this door and still seem leisurely about it, no matter how harmless they may look, was surely no saint. Just like this beautiful woman who called herself Zhu Meng before him—she was not somebody to be trifled with.

"Go on, say what you actually came to discuss with us," Ruan Nanzhu spoke.

"It's about the key," Luo Qianshan said. "We found where it is, but…" His tone went a bit strained. "But we can't get our hands on it."

Ruan Nanzhu, "what do you mean by can't?"

Luo Qianshan, straight-forwardly, "we're not skilled enough."

At this, Ruan Nanzhu's expression was inscrutable. "Not skilled enough? I think you two siblings are actually pretty good at this."

Luo Qianshan didn't make any excuses, just flipped up his palms in a what can you do gesture.

"Continue." Ruan Nanzhu knew there was more Luo Qianshan wanted to say.

Luo Qianshan said, "so I wanted to come and make a deal. I'll tell you the clue to the key…"

Here, he paused.

Ruan Nanzhu waited for him to go on. There was no such thing as a free lunch in this world, after all.

"But when you leave here, you have to bring along me and Qianshui," was Luo Qianshan's condition.

"That's it?" A look of assessment appeared in Ruan Nanzhu's eyes, as if he was trying to determine how much Luo Qianshan was lying about.

"That's it," Luo Qianshan spoke staunchly.

Ruan Nanzhu nodded. "Tell us."

He took the deal.

"The key is in that burning room," Luo Qianshan said. "But the condition to getting the key is particular. You have to go in at night…"

At this, Lin Qiushi questioned, "you two have gone inside?"

Luo Qianshan shook his head. "No. We only saw the key from the door. We haven't gone in."

"Then how do you know the key's inside?" Though Luo Qianshan seemed very earnest, Lin Qiushi kept sensing something off about him. The role of the key inside the door was far too important; this man was so easily giving them its location, so were things truly as he said, or did he have some other motive?

"We saw it," Luo Qianshan said. "The door was open at the time…"

Ruan Nanzhu said, "if the door was open why couldn't you go in?"

Luo Qianshan's expression went a bit awkward.

"Because that mother and child were in there."

Silence.

Ruan Nanzhu spoke: "So you came to tell us because you want us to go in?" He asked, "didn't you see the placard on our door?"

Luo Qianshan frowned.

Ruan Nanzhu, "didn't you see the number on it? Our room's the last one. Even if this whole floor burns, we're going to be the last to die."

Luo Qianshan sighed. "I'm not trying to send you on a suicide mission. If you're willing, we can work together."

Ruan Nanzhu, "how?"

Luo Qianshan, "we'll be responsible for luring the mother and daughter elsewhere, and you guys will be responsible for getting the key."

At this, Ruan Nanzhu lifted a brow. "You're certain?"

Luo Qianshan, "I'm certain."

"I don't believe you," was Ruan Nanzhu's reply. "Unless you give us a demonstration first, and show yourselves to be sincere."

Luo Qianshan was silent for a while. "It's too dangerous to do, we can't give a demonstration."

Ruan Nanzhu, "sorry then."

Luo Qianshan met Ruan Nanzhu's eyes, and each saw in the other's gazes an unchangeable obstinacy. He sighed without further attempts at persuasion, and got up from his chair. He went to the door, and just as he was leaving, he glanced back at Ruan Nanzhu.

"I just want to let you know, if it really comes down to it, the last ones standing will definitely be me and Qianshui."

Ruan Nanzhu stared at him in icy silence.

"See you." Luo Qianshan smiled, and left.

Ruan Nanzhu watched him go, eyebrows furrowing.

Lin Qiushi, "where's he getting that confidence from?" When Luo Qianshan and Ruan Nanzhu were speaking just now, he'd also used the bronze mirror to look at Luo Qianshan's feet, confirming he was a live human.

Ruan Nanzhu shook his head, answering lowly, "if Luo Qianshan can say that, then he definitely has his own trump card."

Lin Qiushi didn't reply.

Ruan Nanzhu, thoughtfully, "if we get the chance tonight, let's go take a look inside that room."

Lin Qiushi nodded. During their conversation, Cheng Yixie didn't speak at all. Here though, his lips lightly parted: "There's that burnt smell on Luo Qianshan too."

"What?" Lin Qiushi startled.

"It's on him too, though it's faint," Cheng Yixie said. "But I really did smell it."

With this revelation, both Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi went silent.

There was the burnt smell on Luo Qianshan too? Did he have something to do with those people burnt to death then? But Luo Qianshan was definitely human. Why would that smell be on a living person?

"Was it there yesterday?" Ruan Nanzhu asked Cheng Yixie.

Cheng Yixie shook his head, and answered with certainty, "no."

This was very odd indeed.

Ruan Nanzhu's expression was ambiguous: "Maybe Luo Qianshan is telling the truth."

Lin Qiushi, "hm?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "he really is guaranteed to be the last survivor."

They just didn't know yet what that guarantee was.

As the day ended, another evening alighted.

On their way back to their room, Lin Qiushi noticed that Xia-jie standing in the hallway, facing a wall and muttering under her breath with an expression so strained as to be scary.

Though she was quiet, Lin Qiushi still heard what she was murmuring. It was one phrase she kept repeating: don't kill me, don't kill me, don't kill me, don't kill me—

Lin Qiushi recalled Xiao Mian, who'd died in an accident by Xia-jie's hands that morning. According to the rules inside the door, it was unlikely that Xia-jie would live through the night.

As he thought this, Lin Qiushi refrained from looking back at Xia-jie, turning and entering his own room.

The darker the night got, the quieter the city went. The darkness was like a canopy, looming over and covering everybody.

Around nine PM, Lin Qiushi heard the sound of glass shattering in the corridor. He glanced at Ruan Nanzhu and Cheng Yixie, but neither of them seemed to have heard it.

After a brief hesitation, Lin Qiushi asked, "did you guys hear that?"

Ruan Nanzhu shook his head. "Hear what?"

Lin Qiushi, "the sound of glass breaking. Should I go take a look?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "go ahead."

So Lin Qiushi got up, approached the peephole, and looked outside.

Because of the angle, he could only see Xia-jie.

Xia-jie was still standing where she had been, but she wasn't muttering anymore. Her eyes stared straight forward, eyeballs bulging so much they seemed ready to pop out of their sockets. Lin Qiushi couldn't see what Xia-jie was seeing, but he did see a pair of hands—a pair of hands slowly descending from the mirror on the ceiling.

Those hands were dripping with fresh blood. They descended behind Xia-jie just like that, and, from the back, clasped Xia-jie's head.

Xia-jie's whole body spasmed. She seemed to want to scream, but the sound gagged in her throat. She wanted to turn to see what had gotten a hold of her head, but as her body tried to swivel backward, her head was kept looking ahead.

Crack. Lin Qiushi heard a crisp crunch—the sound of bones breaking.

The long thin arms coming from the ceiling had taken hold of Xia-jie's head, and then twisted, viciously, counterclockwise. Just like that they'd torn Xia-jie's head from her body.

All this happened in absolute silence. Lin Qiushi held his breath tightly in.

That pair of hands slowly retracted. As he stared, Lin Qiushi seemed to hear the soft giggle of a young woman.

Xia-jie died like that, body toppling onto the floor. Blood gushed out and soaked the carpet.

It was at this moment that Lin Qiushi's body suddenly froze. He felt a cool gaze casted down from above his head. Lin Qiushi slowly looked up, and saw that, at some point, a figure holding Xia-jie's head had appeared in the mirror above him. From her appearance, it was the girl who'd died that day, Xiao Mian…

Xiao Mian was inside the mirror, Lin Qiushi outside.

Through that thin pane of glass, the two watched each other in silence.

Lin Qiushi saw a touch of malice coagulate in Xiao Mian's eyes. She slowly loosened her grip, and Xia-jie's head fell straight out of the mirror and onto Lin Qiushi's body.

Then, her figure disappeared from that side of the mirror.

Thunk! It was the sound of a heavy object hitting the floor.

Ruan Nanzhu and Cheng Yixie looked toward Lin Qiushi, finding him half-drenched in blood with a human head beside him, its eyes still open in death.

Face stony, Lin Qiushi turned to look at Ruan Nanzhu.

"What do I do?"

Ruan Nanzhu came to stand in front of Lin Qiushi. When he saw the bloody head, he cocked his own head in contemplation.

"Throw it out?"

Lin Qiushi, "I… don't want to touch it with my hands."

Ruan Nanzhu, "oh. Then we'll kick it out."

As he spoke he pulled the door open a gap, and then socked the human head on the floor right out. He managed all this in a fluid motion, like he'd done this many times before.

Lin Qiushi cleared his throat. "She won't try to come get revenge on us, right?"

"Revenge for what?" Ruan Nanzhu replied indifferently. "We're not the ones who killed her. And to do something like this and still be scared of dying?" He was talking about how Xia-jie intentionally brought newbies inside, testing the death conditions with the newbies' lives.

Lin Qiushi let out a breath, and eyed the mirror above his head. "Those things seem to be able to travel through the mirrors…"

Ruan Nanzhu also looked at the mirror, but didn't reply.

Xia-jie died as per their expectations. And in a particularly awful way as well. Likely because he'd been psychologically prepared, Lin Qiushi didn't feel particularly shocked either… That was, until Xiao Mian threw the head on top of him.

Just as they spoke, that anxious scent of something burning started up outside again. As they'd hypothesized, the scope of burning rooms had extended further out today.

Lin Qiushi opened the door a crack, and saw at the end of the hallway a smother of scorched black, with flashes of fire licking through the building structure.

Behind the embers, the burnt mother and child were still standing—a bit further forward this time.

People from other rooms also opened their doors at the same time. Lin Qiushi saw Luo Qianshan and Luo Qianshui come out of their rooms as well.

"There's not much time left," Luo Qianshan suddenly said.

After he said this, Lin Qiushi realized the rooms in front were rapidly blackening—it wasn't just one room burning tonight.

"Hack, hack." Cheng Yixie was once again choked into coughing.

"I hope you can seriously consider our offer," Luo Qianshan spoke lightly.

Ruan Nanzhu replied, "we've considered." He and Luo Qianshan were looking in the same direction—at that mother-daughter pair, silently standing at the end of the hall. "You two prove you're sincere, and we'll take the risk."

Luo Qianshan was about to say something, but Luo Qianshui reached out an arm and stopped him.

Lin Qiushi thought that, based on Luo Qianshui's personality, she'd say something provocative. But instead, she nodded coolly.

"Okay, I'll show you we're sincere."

She stepped up to a mirror framed on the side of the corridor and extended a hand.

Something incredible occurred. Luo Qianshui's hand, without any obstruction, reached into the mirror in front of her—she could traverse between the world inside the mirrors and the world outside!

Lin Qiushi looked on, shocked, and even Ruan Nanzhu seemed a bit surprised.

But Luo Qianshui very quickly retracted her hand, saying, "but I' can't stay inside for long." She glanced at the burnt mother and child at the end of the hall. "That world belongs to them. If I stay inside for too long, I won't be able to come back out."

Ruan Nanzhu cocked his head. "If you can lure them away on your own, why doesn't your brother go get the key?"

"I need his help to enter the mirror, he doesn't have time to go get the key." Luo Qianshui seemed somewhat impatient with the explanation. "Will you do it or not?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "we'll think about it." He didn't agree immediately.

Luo Qianshui scoffed. Then she pulled Luo Qianshan back inside their room.

Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi returned to their room as well.

Ruan Nanzhu asked, "what do you think?"

Lin Qiushi thought about it. "I think we can take it." If the key really was in that room, taking this risk would be worth it.

"I think so too." Cheng Yixie clearly hated this world; with his sensitive nose, staying in this smokey high rise was indescribably torturous.

But Ruan Nanzhu seemed to be contemplating something.

"Let's sleep first." In the end though, Ruan Nanzhu didn't say anything, just: "It's late."

Lin Qiushi didn't force the matter either. After washing up, he got into bed.

Before sleeping however, Lin Qiushi's hand went to his pocket, in which that pretty bronze mirror was placed. He thought of something, eyes darkening slightly. Quickly though, they closed, and he fell to sleep.

The next morning, Lin Qiushi bumped into Luo Qianshan in the restaurant.

At breakfast each morning, group attendance was at its max. Lin Qiushi sat in a distant corner and began checking over everybody with the bronze mirror.

Ruan Nanzhu sat beside him, eating a hard-boiled egg. He mumbled around the egg, "how is it?"

Lin Qiushi, "…not great." There were a total of seventeen people in the group. Confirmed deaths were: Xiao Yan who'd burned to death, Wenjing who'd broken the mirrors and died, Xiao Mian who was killed by Xia-jie, and Xia-jie whom Xiao Mian had gotten revenge on. There ought to be thirteen people left alive.

But after using the mirror on everyone around him, Lin Qiushi discovered there weren't as many survivors as he'd thought.

Of the thirteen, at least four had redirected feet—heels in the front, toes pointing back. The way they walked was no different from everyone else, but it was precisely their normal appearances that sent a chill up the spine.

Cheng Yixie's brows pinched. "No wonder it stinks worse." The smell really was getting harder to bear.

As they were speaking, Luo Qianshan and Luo Qianshui happened to come in from outside.

Realizing something, Lin Qiushi guided the bronze mirror in his hand to where Luo Qianshui stood. What it reflected though, made Lin Qiushi freeze.

He even rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things wrong.

Two figures ought to have appeared on the mirror surface, but there was only Luo Qianshan's silhouette. His head was turned to the side, and he was smiling warmly, speaking lowly to thin air.

Lin Qiushi, "…" Luo Qianshui couldn't show up in the bronze mirror. What did that mean? She wasn't human?

Lin Qiushi didn't speak. He reached out and handed the mirror to Ruan Nanzhu, then gestured with a tilt of his chin at Luo Qianshui, indicating that Ruan Nanzhu should look at the reflection in the mirror.

Ruan Nanzhu took the mirror, and saw too the empty space beside Luo Qianshan. He murmured lowly, “interesting.”

Cheng Yixie saw the oddity about Luo Qianshui as well, and his brows puckered. "She's not human?"

Lin Qiushi thought that he couldn't say.

If Luo Qianshui wasn't human, then was she a special case? Everyone else had flipped feet, but she couldn't be seen at all.

So what was her relationship to the human Luo Qianshan then? Could they both be NPCs from inside this door? Though this thought came to mind, Lin Qiushi still felt there was something wrong.

With their previous questions unresolved, new problems were arising.

Lin Qiushi rubbed at the bronze mirror's smooth surface, sighing lightly in his heart.

Ruan Nanzhu though, got up, and walked right on over to Luo Qianshan and Luo Qianshui.

Lin Qiushi startled, getting up to follow, but Ruan Nanzhu said lightly, "you guys stay here. I'll go have a talk with them."

Lin Qiushi could only agree.

Cheng Yixie nodded.

Ruan Nanzhu came to Luo Qianshan and Luo Qianshui's table. Luo Qianshui had never liked Ruan Nanzhu, and this time was no exception; seeing him, she said unpleasantly, "what? You've thought it through? If you got something to say just keep standing there. I'm still hungry you know."

Ruan Nanzhu didn't reply. He just watched Luo Qianshui silently.

"Is something wrong?" Luo Qianshan asked compassionately. In terms of personality, Luo Qianshan seemed a lot friendlier than Luo Qianshui. But Lin Qiushi actually preferred dealing with someone like Luo Qianshui, whose feelings were all clearly written across her face.

Ruan Nanzhu still wasn't speaking.

Luo Qianshui was evidently a bit spooked by Ruan Nanzhu's gaze, and snapped, "there's something wrong with you. Why are you staring at me…" She seemed to think of something, and so declared, "my brother already has a girlfriend, so don't even think about it!"

Luo Qianshan looked on from the side, exasperated.

Lin Qiushi wanted to laugh for some reason.

All of a sudden Cheng Yixie whispered, "what are they saying?"

Lin Qiushi blinked, before realizing that with a normal person's hearing, Ruan Nanzhu's conversation wasn't audible from this far away.

"Lin Qiushi told Ruan Nanzhu that her brother has a girlfriend," Lin Qiushi explained to Cheng Yixie, holding back laughter.

At this, humor too surfaced in Cheng Yixie's eyes.

"Well aren't you full of yourself," Ruan Nanzhu said. "What don't you get about my taste in men?"

Luo Qianshui slammed her hand onto the table. "The hell do you mean! My brother's incredible, how dare you not like him!"

Ruan Nanzhu said, "but I already have someone I like."

Luo Qianshui, "who? Who do you like?!"

Luo Qianshan looked as if a headache was coming on. "Pardon me… What is it that you came to speak to us about? Qianshui, stop talking."

Luo Qianshui clearly wanted to keep talking, but after Luo Qianshan gripped her by the arm, she ceased with a mutinous expression. But it was obvious from her gaze—deep down in her heart, she already had countless objections to Ruan Nanzhu's person.

"I just came to chat about your offer yesterday." Ruan Nanzhu pulled out a chair, sitting down in front of Luo Qianshan like it was the most natural thing to do. "I think we can work together."

Luo Qianshan's eyes lit up.

"But, the hint from this door has to be ours." As he spoke, Ruan Nanzhu watched Luo Qianshui's expression from his periphery. "Will that be a problem?"

"No," Luo Qianshan said. "We can agree on this point."

Ruan Nanzhu tilted his head. "Are you actually related?"

"Yeah, why?" Luo Qianshan smiled. "Don't we look it?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "no."

Luo Qianshui's brows furrowed. "How are we not alike…"

But before she was even finished talking, she heard Ruan Nanzhu say, light as anything: "How could the dead and living be alike?"

The air seemed to congeal in an instant. Luo Qianshui's eyes were wide with shock, while Luo Qianshan's gaze, like nightfall, completely dimmed. He asked, "what are you saying?"

"Exactly what I said," Ruan Nanzhu answered. "Which door did your sister die in?"

Luo Qianshan shot up from his chair and roared, "shut up!"

But Ruan Nanzhu had already gotten the answer he wanted from that reaction. He nodded. "Don't be nervous, I won't use it against you. There's just something I wanted to confirm."

Luo Qianshui watched Ruan Nanzhu, brows pinched.

"Looking forward to working with you."

Ruan Nanzhu got up and left. It seemed these two really did come from outside the door, and weren't NPCs from the inside. If the answer had been the latter, then there would have been no need for their group and Luo Qianshan to work together.

Author's Note:

Halfway through typing up the chapter today, my cat shut off my computer. I could only type it all up again with tears in my eyes QAQ Woe really be me.

[Ch. 74] | [Ch. 76]

[uomo-accattivante]

Great article about Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter - a poker movie that’s not really a poker movie...

Some filmmakers write a hit movie and spend the ensuing years trying to escape its shadow. Paul Schrader never flinched. Forty-five years after his “Taxi Driver” script put him on the map, the writer-director has developed a body of work loaded with alienated anti-heroes compelled to violent and reckless extremes for the sake of a higher calling.

That includes “The Card Counter,” in which Oscar Isaac plays guilt-stricken Abu Ghraib vet William Tell, a man with a gambling addiction compelled to help the revenge-seeking son (Tye Sheridan) of a former colleague. Taking justice into his own hands, Isaac’s William Tell slithers through the Vegas strip in search of questionable salvation, not unlike a certain Vietnam vet named Travis Bickle did from the driver’s seat. As if to cement the comparisons, “The Card Counter” features Martin Scorsese as an executive producer, marking the first time the two men share a credit since 1999’s “Bringing Out the Dead.”

For Schrader, “Taxi Driver” comparisons are inevitable in all his work. “My tendency is to look for interesting occupational metaphors,” Schrader said in a recent interview. “‘Taxi Driver’ hit the bull’s eye of the zeitgeist and it doesn’t die. There’s no way I could’ve planned for that, but it does inform the stories I tell.”

At 75, Schrader continues to churn out movies much like his compatriot Scorsese, albeit on a much smaller scale. “The Card Counter” is the latest illustration of the secularized Christian dogma percolating through his work. “Our society doesn’t like to take responsibility for anything,” he said. “But I come from a culture where you’re responsible for everything. You come into the world soaked with guilt and you just get guiltier.” In his own prickly fashion, Schrader makes movies steeped in empathy for lost souls in search of redemption despite the daunting odds. “We’re all certainly capable of forgiveness,” he said, and chuckled. “Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.”

The “Taxi Driver” dilemma looms large in nearly all of Schrader’s work, from the dazzling high-stakes activism of “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” all the way through Ethan Hawke’s eco-conscious priest in “First Reformed.” While the latter, Oscar-nominated effort brought Schrader new fans, “The Card Counter” is an even more precise distillation of his aesthetic — a moody, philosophical drama about the vanity of the personal crusade.

Schrader, who has labeled his homegrown character studies as “man in the room” dramas, embraces the parallels as usual. “There is this kind of myth that the taxi driver was this friendly, joking kind of guy who was a character actor in movies,” he said. “But the reality is that it’s a very lonely job, and you’re trapped in a box for 60 hours a week.” He saw the same logic with gambling, a wayward profession generally depicted in the movies in the context of escapist romps, rather than the somber rituals that afflict most players. “I thought about the essence of playing cards every day, or sitting in front of a slot machine. It’s kind of zombie-like,” Schrader said. “You see commercials of people in casinos laughing. But it’s a pretty glum place. Today with slots you don’t even have to pull the lever. You just sit there and let the numbers roll.”

The gambling figure led Schrader to the bigger picture of his character’s conundrum. “I was wondering why someone would choose to live in that sort of purgatory,” he said. “He doesn’t want to be alive, but he can’t really be dead, either. What could cause that? It can’t be a simple crime, murder, or a family dispute. It has to be something unforgivable. And that was Abu Ghraib.”

After the fallout of that debacle, William did time in a military prison, and reenters society before the movie begins. That was a world the filmmaker wanted to understand in clearer terms. Though Schrader has received blowback for his controversial Facebook posts in the past, in this case, the platform was an asset: He used it to track down soldiers who had done time in the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, the only military prison in the U.S., to better understand the initial claustrophobic world that Tell endures, as well as the conflict between the justice he’s received and what he deserves. “This man has been punished by his government, set free, and paid his due, but he doesn’t feel that,” Schrader said. “What does he do then? How does he fill his time? That’s how it all began.”

Schrader himself toyed with gambling when he lived in Los Angeles early in his career, but soon gave it up. “I very quickly realized I was only interested in gambling if it was really dangerous and I didn’t want to expose myself to that kind of danger,” he said. Years later, though, the experience helped inform his story. “There is this whole fantasy of gambling movies from ‘The Cincinnati Kid’ to ‘California Split,’” Schrader said. “But poker is all about waiting. People will play 10 to 12 hours a day and two to three times a day, a hand will happen where two players both have chips. Now you’ve got a face-off. But that doesn’t happen very often. Most guys who are there are running the numbers, the probability.”

He envisioned “The Card Counter” as a repudiation of the traditional poker movie, which builds to the giddy release of a final tournament. When that moment arrives in the movie, Schrader takes the movie in a bleak, shocking new direction. “It’s not really a poker movie — that’s a red herring,” he said.

William is immersed in his casino journey when he encounters Cirk (Sheridan), the crazy-eyed son of another Abu Ghraib soldier who committed suicide. Cirk blames the soldiers’ former commander (Willem Dafoe), and hopes to loop William into the plan. Instead, the older man decides to take Cirk under his wing to talk him out of the act, which doesn’t prove so easy. In the process, the gambler forms a curious bond with La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), a gambling agent and pimp whose icy, relentless drive to make the most out of the poker circuit brings William some measure of companionship on his wayward journey.

It should come as no surprise that the “Girls Trip” breakout is nearly unrecognizable in the role of the calculated La Linda, which is also a distinctly Schraderish touch: From his work with Richard Pryor in 1978’s “Blue Collar” all the way through Cedric the Entertainer’s supporting turn in “First Reformed,” Schrader has made a habit of seeking out comedic actors willing to play against type. That’s partly opportunistic on his part. “They’re eager to do it because they want to expand their palette, so you can get them for a price,” Schrader said, chuckling again. “That’s necessary, given the kind of films I make.” But that’s not all: “They will always find a way to be interesting, even when they’re not getting a laugh.”

Which is not to say that the process comes easily to them. Haddish recently told the New York Times that Schrader had to coach her out of speaking in a comedic sing-song. The filmmaker put it in blunter terms. “On the first reading of the script we had, frankly, she wasn’t very good,” he said. “I told her to go back and read every single line without emotion. Then I said, ‘You’re not going to do that in front of the camera, but you can’t hit every line either. So let’s pick five or six lines you can hit where you get a smile or reaction.’ Quickly she got that it was a different rhythm.”

As for Isaac, whose disquieting turn suggests a maniac lingering just beneath the surface, Schrader once again turned to metaphor. “I told him to imagine himself on a rocky coast in the ocean,” Schrader said. “Waves are going to come up and get you all day every day. They’re going to try to batter you. Let them. The waves will go away. You’ll still be there. Don’t compete. In the end, the rocks will win. You have to learn to trust that the way these things are put together has more power than the individual movement.”

William’s routine includes an odd ritual in which he covers all the furniture in his various Vegas hotel rooms with white paper. While the motivation is never explained, Schrader said it stemmed from an experience with production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti on the set of 1982’s “Cat People,” when Schrader realized the man was doing the same thing. “He said, quite simply, ‘I have to live here surrounded by these ugly hotel furnishings,’” Schrader recalled. The concept inspired the new movie’s most compelling visual motif. “Casinos are very ugly places. There are no exceptions,” Schrader said. “Often you aspire to finding pockets of beauty and there weren’t really any here except the only place he could control, which was his hotel rooms, where he could privatize his visions. I came up with this ritual for him to control those visuals.”

At a certain point, Schrader himself couldn’t control the visuals of “The Card Counter” for more prosaic reasons: After an extra tested positive for COVID-19, the production shut down last March, with five days of shooting left, and couldn’t resume until July. Though Schrader initially took to Facebook to fume at his producers, the pause eventually opened up an opportunity to tweak his vision. “I edited the film and put in placeholders for the five or six scenes of consequence that I hadn’t shot,” he said. “I didn’t have a fully finished film but I could screen it for people. Normally you only get that privilege if you have a big-budget film and you’re allowed reshoots.” The early audience included Scorsese, who provided a crucial note. “I asked Marty, ‘What am I missing?’ He said to me that the relationship with Tiffany and Oscar was too thin. So I rewrote those scenes.”

Schrader asked Scorsese to take on the executive producer credit as a favor. “I said, ‘Marty, wouldn’t it be nice to share a card again? I thought it would help sell the film but it would also be a cool thing to do after all these years,’” Schrader said. “Then a couple of weeks later his agent called wanting to work out a deal. What deal? I asked Marty and he said yes. That’s the deal!” Now, the pair are trying to collaborate on a new long-form TV series based on the Bible, though the timing has been delayed by production on Scorsese’s upcoming “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

In the meantime, Schrader has been mulling over the way “Taxi Driver” not only continues to inform his storytelling but the world at large. “Hardly a week goes by that I don’t notice or hear some reference to it,” he said. “But I don’t know how you’d tell such a story today. A number of writers have tried and I don’t think they’ve succeeded because it has to come out of a certain place and time. We have plenty of these incels around, but they’re not as original or revealing as they were 45 years ago when that character came on the scene. I wouldn’t know how to write about it.”

Instead, his next project is a love triangle called “Master Gardener,” which he hopes to shoot in Louisiana before the end of the year. He has several other potential scripts ready to go after that. And while he has expressed trepidation about the future of cinema in the past, he’s not convinced that audiences have given up on it yet. He recalled a conversation he had with Cedric the Entertainer when “First Reformed” made the rounds. “He said off-handedly to me, ‘You know, I didn’t realize there were so many people who liked serious movies,’” Schrader said, and chuckled once more. “Well, yeah, there are.”

“The Card Counter” premieres next week at the Venice Film Festival. Focus Features releases on September 10, 2021.

###

[imagine-loki]

Taking turns

TITLE: Taking turns

CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: One-shot

AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki getting a touch of heatstroke while in Jotun form, and climbing into a bathtub full of ice cubes to cool down.

One slight hitch – his low Jotun body temperature makes the ice cubes stick and freeze together, trapping him in a block of ice

RATING: T

NOTES/WARNINGS: Started out as a comedy idea and ended something entirely different. Some language, suggestions of sex, and soft Loki. 

Forty minutes. Loki was forty minutes late. Loki was forty minutes late and they were all starving.

“Becks, you want to go check on the drama queen? Tell him he’s either here in five or we’re leaving without him!” Tony grumbled, looking a little worse for wear with his black eye.

The team had gotten back from a mission in South America. They were all sporting various colored bruises, cuts, and casts. They were all exhausted. Still, they had decided, as a group, that they would go and grab dinner to celebrate a successful expedition before they all crashed for a week. However, while everyone had showered, patched up, and returned to the common room within a half hour, Loki was still nowhere in sight forty minutes after their accorded meet time. While Loki was known to prod at Tony’s buttons just for the hell of it, he had never gone as far as dragging the full team down. And he was a stickler for a schedule.

Becca sighed, abandoning her spot on the couch with a groan. The angry cut on her side that Bruce had finished patching a few minutes prior screamed in protest. “He’s probably moving slow. He was kinda fading there, at the end of the mission. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

“There better be! If not, why the hell is he not here?”

“Jesus, Tony! Your pockets are filled with blueberries. Have a snack. Settle down.” She skirted around Wanda and Vision on the loveseat before taking off down the hall.

Loki’s rooms were at the end of the furthermost east wing. It was a nice enough area, but there wasn’t much more around. That was on purpose, both on Tony and Loki’s part. Though there was some semblance of mutual respect between them, they generally tried to be as far apart from each other as was physically possible. And Loki liked the silence. No one interrupted his odd sleeping patterns or quiet contemplation. It made it a little hard to make sure he was alive, though.

“FRIDAY, is Loki OK?” Becca asked when she reached his door, finding it locked.

“Er… define OK.”

A million thoughts raced through her mind. The mission had been intense, but it was mostly due to being in unfamiliar terrain and climate. It had been a full week of unbearable heat and dastardly humidity. Her own Caribbean countenance, well-versed in matters of heat, had swayed dangerously under the oppressive temperatures. Ever since Loki revealed the truth about his parentage to the team, Becca always made it a point to check in with him if they were under blistering sun or steamy foxholes. She clearly had not paid him enough mind this time around.

“Open the door.”

“Loki asked–”

“NOW.”

FRIDAY was not about to argue with her, it seemed. The lock clicked under her fingers and the door swung open easily.

The living room and kitchen were empty, as was the bedroom. She could see the door to the en suite slightly ajar and light spilling out into the shadowed bedroom. Her feet moved on their own accord towards the brightness.

“Loki?”

A handful of Asgardian curses accented the air. “Don’t!” He hissed, just as her hand met the wood of his bathroom door. “Just leave.”

He was promptly ignored. “Are you alright?” The door creaked open, but she did not enter.

“Please, just leave.” His voice sounded shaky. It didn’t give her much incentive to turn around.

“Tell me what’s wrong or I’m coming in.”

“Rebecca…” Without waiting for the rest of his excuse, she slipped through the doorway.

Loki’s bathroom was lovely. A large sunken bath took up most of the space that was paneled in dark woods and golden accents. There was the faint smell of sandalwood in the air, which seemed to hover at a perfect 75 degrees. The Asgardian was in the bath, covered in what Becca now noticed was ice. It disappointed her to know that she truly hadn’t paid enough mind to his propensity to heatstroke. Her concern was great enough that she had not even spared an extra thought to the fact that he was blue and his eyes were red orbs that ominously followed her around the room.

“Are you OK? What can I get you? Fuck.” Her right hand reached for her ear, activating her comms. “Tony–”

“No, don’t!” Loki’s instinct was to lunge in an effort to stop her, but succeeded only in moving the awkward lump of ice around his form to leave him slumped forward.

Various expressions flashed through Becca’ face–concern, alarm, confusion, amusement. Her comms buzzed in hear ear, prompting a follow-up. “Er, you guys are going to have to go on without us. Bring us something back, OK?” The hand in her ear lowered to cover her mouth. Loki didn’t need to see her mouth to know she was grinning or that the noise was trying to conceal was a snort of laughter and not a cough. “You, er–”

“Don’t you fucking dare!”

A giggle overcame her. “You OK there, buddy?”

The snarl from his curled mouth gave her a clear view of sharpened teeth and plum-colored gums. Her hand dropped, knowing it was no use to hide her amusement any longer. Bending at the waist, she pulled the laces off of her combat boots, toeing them off, before pulling her socks off after them. Her bare feet pounded tile until she was at the edge of the tub and was able to sink to her knees.

“Go. Away.” The growl that punctuated his words was lost in the shiver of his voice. Maybe Jotuns could get cold.

Becca tutted under her breath, holding her warm hand onto his cheek. Her thumb trailed distractedly over a raised line before sweeping inky black hair away from his eyes. “Loki, you’re stuck in an ice cube. I’m not leaving you here.” The whispered words held no jest or mockery and the warmth emanating from her digits seemed to be well-received, if the way he pressed lightly on them was any indication.

She carefully clambered over his form to reach for the extendable shower-head mounted in the wall behind him. “It’s going to have to be warm, OK?” Her hands fiddled at the taps and experimentally sprayed at her hands to gauge the temperature. “If you start not feeling well, tell me.” Her warm brown eyes maintained contact with his until he was forced to nod.

A hiss leaked through his clenched teeth as water trickled between the ice cubes and found its way onto his skin. By the time that happened, it would cool considerably, but it was still an uncomfortable sensation, nonetheless. Becca mumbled apologies as her hands turned pale, and then a chilled pink from shifting cubes away as they melted.

“This is taking forever,” Loki muttered, resting his head back against the wall, eyes clenched closed.

“I’m afraid of going any warmer when you’re like this, Lo. I don’t want to hurt you.” His brow pulled tightly in a frown before moving back to concern. It was as if he had forgotten he was in his other form, but the tight clench of his jaw told Becca that the detail was sure not to escape his notice ever again.

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, but I do.”

Getting the bulk of the ice not stuck to his body to melt away was the biggest endeavor, but it was happening quickly enough. Once the bath was only about half-full, it was easier to start freeing Loki’s limbs. The problem was that steam was starting to fog up the room and his head lolled to the side every now and again as he became weaker. There was still a layer of ice, a few inches thick, preventing him from moving.

“Hey. How about you talk to me? To keep awake,” Becca urged, carding her fingers through his hair to clear his face. “Tell me a story.”

Loki groaned, eyes barely blinking open to look up at her. The noise of complaint only deepened at the genuine smile that greeted him on the other end. “Once upon a time, I was an idiot and got stuck in ice and a mortal too stubborn for her own good had to get me out of it. The end.”

Becca giggled. “I think you forgot to mention how cute the mortal was or how handy she was with a shower-head.”

“Oh, forget it. Just leave me here to die.”

“You should have just called me.”

“Why on Earth, would I willingly call you to free me of this embarrassment?” His scarlet eyes bore straight into her soul with annoyance and irritation, but couldn’t help but soften at her playful expression. “I don’t want to furnish you with anecdotes to tell Stark and the others.”

“I’m not telling them about this.” At his questioning stare, she continued. “I only need to tell them that you weren’t feeling well and I chose to stay behind. They don’t need details.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I wouldn’t want them to know if it had happened to me.” Most of the loose ice was now gone. Becca put the shower-head down and moved to the other side of the bath to activate the stopper and open the larger tap. “I’m going to fill the tub with warm water and that will probably melt the rest away without much issue.”

“I… I don’t think I can go much warmer without passing out.” Loki admitted, softly, eyes rounded and pleading.

She turned her face to him and smiled. “I’ll be here. I have you. I promise.”

The tub filled and the faint crackle of shifting ice could be heard over the sound of their breathing. Becca fished her cell phone out of her pocket and tossed it a few ways away from the tub, before slipping into the water, jeans, t-shirt and all. Loki was lolling again, so Becca thought the best course of action was to put a little force on the already fissured sheets and easing them off.

Her hands started at his legs, squeezing lightly at places where the ice seemed to give and breaking apart the pieces, watching absently as they bobbed up the surface before melting away completely. It wasn’t until she reached his thighs that it occurred to her that maybe feeling Loki up was not the of ideas. Still, he was drifting in an out and fading fast. She would risk a little awkward groping for the sake of getting him free before he drifted any further. She paused near mid thigh, her cheeks turning a deep pink before she pivoted and worked on his arms. His hands and wrists were already free, and it took little effort to slide off the ice off the rest of his arms. His back was mostly thawed and she could remove a large piece covering his chest. There was only the awkward bit to get through now. Biting the inside of her cheek, she prodded for any loose ice and broke the sheets as gently as she could while not wasting time.

Pulling the stopper, she gathered Loki into her chest, putting her arms under his and pulling him to the edge. He was deceptively heavy, Becca realized; a dense creature like a collapsing star. She struggled with the settings on the shower-head and gradually turned the water spray from warm to cool to frigid cold. She shivered heavily behind him, Loki only stirred, slowly coming back into himself.

Becca clambered out, clumsily. Her extremities were cold and numb and she was shivering heavily. Knowing she wasn’t going to clear walking for another moment, she pulled her knees up to her chest and folded into herself for warmth. Her eyes fell onto Loki who, now alert, was taking the steps out the tub with her zeroed in his sights. Despite the fact that she had just run her hands over every line, dot, and hash of his body, seeing it in plain display felt more intimate. He made no effort to cover himself or change back into his Asgardian form, though she suspected that was more so the fact that he was still weak. Not that she minded. In this form he was terrifying. He oozed brute strength and savagery–very different from his Asgardian counterpart–but she found that she liked it. It was akin to finding money in an old coat–you weren’t expecting it, but you’re glad you did.

“You need to get out of those wet clothes.” He sunk to his knees before her with a guarded look.

“I would, but my hands decided to stop working.” She forced a laugh. “It’s OK. Just let me warm a degree or two and I’ll get out of your hair.” He pressed a hand to her back, making wide circles to create friction. His touch made her shudder gratefully. “At least I’m not warm enough to make you uncomfortable.”

“I like you warm,” he offered after a long pause. His black talon-tipped hands slid under the back of her t-shirt and pulled the material away from her skin, easing it off gently. It took little prodding to make her unwind her arms from around her knees. He discarded the garment beside her before working on the clasp of her bra, which joined it a moment later. Pulling her jeans off her hips was a bit harder, as the denim adhered to her skin like it was another living layer, but he managed to tug them off and down her legs along with her underwear. Reaching behind her, he pulled a towel from the shelf, putting it around her shoulders and proceeding to rub her down. “Thank you, Rebecca.” She got the distinct feeling he didn’t just mean for freeing him of his ice prison.

“Not a problem. Just… maybe don’t do it again without supervision.” The words had left her mouth out of their own volition and the heat she could feel rising in her cheeks was all but impossible to hide. “That came out weird. I didn’t mean it like–not that I don’t find you stupidly attractive–I just–”

He slanted his lips against hers, cutting off whatever rambling rabbit hole she was fixing to throw herself down. “Let me warm you up in my bed,” he mumbled against her lips, his fingertips making sinful shapes against her naked skin.

“But–”

“You can cool me after. We’ll take turns.” With a half-suppressed moan, she threw her arms around his neck and allowed him to carry her off into the bedroom. She would worry about him overheating later.

[novadreii]

my thoughts on castlevania s4 SPOILERS obviously

wow, i was actually impressed with hector for once. he collected the last wit about him to turn his situation around and take his balls out of lenore’s hands back into his pants. i thought he would go sicko mode on her and feared it getting a little revenge misogynistic, but i was pleasantly surprised at how civilized it was between them up until the end.

lenore was a little useless, wasn’t she? i half expected her to go, “you know what? fuck diplomacy” and just go mach 1 on everyone. eh.

isaac, oh. isaac. my favorite secondary character. wanders the desert conquesting, killing and raising the dead which made him realize things. he realized so much he marched right into carmilla’s castle while her beserker and army were away and owned her ass. good for him.

carmilla. oh, carmilla. tied with isaac for my favorite. so determined and single-minded that she sent away all her forces while she schemed in her fortress. she depended too hard on her partners doing all the work for her, and as a result she wasn’t much of a thinker, just a bloody, murdery doer. for example, she didn’t think that there were other formidable forces in the world that may want to impede her whole world domination plan? did she forget about isaac, out in the world rogue forgemastering? that was a threat she should have checked on before going global. she got too greedy, too quickly, and she paid the ultimate price for it. she went out like a fucking boss though, and i was pleased with her arc overall. as far as villains go, her raison d’etre was relatable and hard to argue with. 

the dialogue style is both one of my favorite parts of the show but also at times a pain point for me. when it’s good, it’s relaxed, comfortable and realistic and the characters play off each other really well with it (like quipping back and forth during battle which i normally hate but works well here). when it’s bad, it’s a little cringe. some dialogue scenes went on wayyyyy too long while the characters repeated things they’d literally just said verbatim, which is awkward af in screenwriting. i.e. Isaac telling Hector twice in the space of 30 seconds “Dracula earned his rest.” which is odd because impactful phrases like this usually are not repeated so as not to, yknow, dilute their impact. Also Carmilla waxing spiteful about “evil old men” and repeating some variation of the phrase 15 times in one scene. lastly, the liberal sprinkling of the word “fuck” in every other line is also like, mostly welcome but once or twice just sounded silly given the context of the scene. i’m nitpicking, here.

saint-germain. Idk much about his woman, but she definitely seemed worth slaughtering a village and raising dracula from the dead for. violent and hot as fuck, she never uttered a single word which i want to think is indicative of something but what? did we ever figure out why she kept eluding him via dimension-jumping? imagine she was trying to get away from him all this time lol. yikes.

the smartest people in this whole show are the vampire lesbians who peace tf out immediately when they see their castle is under siege and figure out carmilla is dead. LOL at them assuming useless lenore is dead too (bc, she’s useless) and just leaving her there. they packed their shit up, moved out west, presumably to build a lover’s stronghold where they could just be in vampire love forever. GOOD FOR THEM.

trevor: continued to drunkenly yell Fuck while being masterfully proficient immediately at any weapon he picks up, though eventually always ending up using his fists like the brawler he is.

sypha: if she met the avatar, she'd be like “lmao, you can ‘bend’ the elements, huh? i can use them in ways that would make your skin crawl and your head explode to even think about. sit the fuck down.”

alucard: adorable himbo with a heart of gold, needs a tough as nails gf to jerk him out of his moods and organize his kitchen for him. another round of good for him. i was a little scared they would kill off his gf but that would have been unimaginably cruel considering what he went through in s3. alucard had imo the best/most stylish fight sequences of the season. and they know what we’re about, since he was shirtless or at least in a very deep V cut most of the time. thank you.

i had 2 major predictions for this season going into it: trevor would die (permanently), and sypha would have a kid/get pregnant. i was 75% on the money.

i liked the ending message of why humans win these wars against vampires despite being slow meatbags compared to them. the vampires’ fatal flaw is resistance to change, provoked by their immortality, arrogance, and insatiable desire for power in order to provide themselves long term stability in the world. whereas humanity’s best trait is the polar opposite: adaptability. throughout history, the ability to adapt has been proven to be the determining factor in a species’ survival. vampires, for all their god-like strengths, prove to be no exception to this rule. alucard, with his human heart, is the only one with vampire blood who has proven he can make major changes and overcome personal prejudices to live a better life.

And my final thoughts on the ending are: everyone major got a satisfying end to their arc. BUT. it was just too happy. either trevor should have stayed dead, OR dracula and lisa should have gone back to hell. but not both. having everyone come back to life and go on to skip in fields just seems contrary to the tone and messaging of the whole show, which is pretty high up on the edginess scale.

i love a bittersweet ending in general, so i’m biased. imo, the joy of a mostly good ending is rendered all that much sweeter by reflecting on what was lost to obtain it. imagine:

alternate ending 1: trevor comes back, the gang lives happily ever after at Belmont Village or wtvr they name it, BUT. we see alucard lost in thought thinking about his parents, how he saw a flash of their souls during the penultimate battle. there’s regret there, the regret of shit left unsaid and shitty family dynamics unsolved. we cut immediately back to hell, with lisa and dracula embracing, maybe whispering a few lines of doomed lovers dialogue and something about their son. they’re in hell, but ultimately, they’re together. cut back to alucard, yanked out of his sad thoughts by his pretty gf who won’t let him get too deep in the weeds. shot pans out of them together with the gang. the end.

alternate ending 2: trevor is DEAD dead. sypha stays with alucard and the gang at belmont farms and raises her kid. maybe we get a 2 year timeskip and we see the little shit have some of his dad in him/her. sypha is sad about trevor but doesn’t mope about it. she runs that town like it’s a business. alucard is the best uncle to that kid & the orphans they could ask for. everyone gets trained in ass-kicking next door at the belmont hold. lisa and dracula are miraculously alive through whatever convoluted bs makes it work, and contemplate one day moving back to see their son. dracula has a moment to realize that his family is mostly human, and what he loves in them he can learn to tolerate from all of humanity.

don’t those feel happy but just. TINGED. with just enough sadness to be more memorable? idk i may just be a masochist.

i haven’t mentioned the technical aspects such as animation and direction because they were amazing. really, really incredible animation that is going to be hard to follow up (and netflix is going to make copycats of this formula, you bet your ass they will). where cgi was used, it was excellent and barely detectable, really well integrated with 2d. so engaging to watch.

overall: 9/10

[princegumbxll]

jjba characters as metallica songs (part 1)  Warning- LOTS OF SPOILERS

Risotto is first for obvious reasons

He also gets 2 songs for the same reason (and b/c I really like him)

Risotto Nero: Bleeding Me and Master of Puppets

Both of these seem like obvious choices but bear with me. So we have ‘Bleeding Me’ because of the (sometimes) high amounts of iron in blood, his stand controls that iron to make weapons, sharp weapons cut and make you bleed so on and so forth...This also has to do with the fight with Doppio/Epitaph where Ris turns his blood yellow. He’s probably bled a lot too: physically and emotionally. The bassline in the beginning of the song is mellow and slow, just like Risotto’s chill and stoic nature. In fact, the song stays at a slow tempo the whole time while still having metal guitar/vocals/drums/bass. Lyric: “Can’t stop to save my soul/I take the leash that’s leading me/I’m bleeding me, I can’t take it”

Risotto Nero is the capo for La Squadra Esecuzioni; some argue that he was a better capo than Bruno (I’m neutral on that).Point is, he was a nice leader to a bunch of assassins, whom he all cared about. He was a 6′5″, all black wearing knife man with red and black eyes. So it makes sense that he would be a “Master of Puppets”, he has so much domineering energy. The ‘puppets’ could be Diavolo, La Squadra, Passione, or you, if you’re into that. The version of the song from the album ‘S&M’ has a LOT more bark and bite to it, but the version from the album ‘Master of Puppets’ works too. The chorus is slightly better, it’s timeless. Lyric: “Master of Puppets, I’m pulling your strings/Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams/Blinded by me, you can’t see a thing/Just call my name ‘cause I’ll hear you scream”.

Prosciutto: Until it Sleeps

First off, The Grateful Dead aged people up until they died, which is essentially killing someone “until it sleeps”. The whole song emphasizes something becoming less of something else-- less pain, less dirt, less guilt, less time being “awake”. This is just like how your body temperature slowly but surely rises While he *does* kill people in cold blood, you could say that he felt some remorse leaving Pesci behind as he died- or began to “sleep”. The whole sound of the song (the version from the album Load) is slow, mellow, and quiet for the most part, which fits Prosciutto as an assassin as well as his stand’s ability. Lyric: “I’ll tear me open, make you gone/No more can you hurt anyone/And the fear still shakes me/So hold me until it sleeps”

Hayato Kawajiri: The House That Jack Built

Oh my sweet child. I felt for him the most during the Bites the Dust part and when Kira became the Kawajiri family homewrecker. Seriously though, Kira ruins his life over and over again to the point where he tries to k--l himself just to stop everyone from dying. As an INTP, he was observant to, and tortured by what was going on instead of just being a normal child. The “house”, in this case, can very much be seen as Kosaku/Kira’s house and Hayato being trapped in it (you could say this makes Kira “Jack” too). The song itself is about a 3.5 out of 5, but several parts of it sounds very eerie and ominous, like that anxious pit in your stomach. The song’s tempo included. The song is set up so that it feels like the reader is progressing through the “house”, and disappears at the end. All of which is comparable to Kira and Hayato’s arc. Lyric: “Open my eyes, just to have them close again/Well on my way, but on my way to where I’ve been/It swallows me as it takes me in its fog/I twist away as I give this world a nod”

Johnny Joestar- Turn The Page

The initial reason I chose this song for him was because the guitar in this song has a country twang to it, which obviously goes along well with SBR. The vocals also sound a little bit country. I initially chose this song for Gyro, but examining the lyrics, it is more fit for Johnny. But if you want to associate this song with Gyro, feel free to. I really like him too! The song has an easygoing tempo (like 75 BPM), but is still aggressive, like the long, grueling journey of both his story and the race. Like, you can feel the pain. The song happens to progress the reader through what feels like this dusty American road to home, possibly? I specifically say American because the song starts with “On a long and lonesome highway/East of Omaha”. But they never get there, as at the end, the song has the lyrics “There I go” twice. The main chorus repeats at the end, beginning with the lyrics “Here I am/On the road again”. These both imply that the listener is stuck in a cycle of their journey, either physically still travelling or memories are stuck in their head. This is also emphasized sound-wise when the tempo slows down, and the ending beat where everything just drops down. Johnny will never forget the events of SBR, and you bet it haunts him at night for sad reasons I don’t wanna say. Yet he has to move on with his life (and does eventually), hence the name of the song to begin with, Turn the Page. He probably feels responsible for some of it, like when Funny Valentine offered him The Choice™. This comes out in the lyric “You pretend it doesn’t bother you/But you just want to explode”. Likewise, this applies to the foes he encountered during the race that really pushed his buttons. Dio included. Johnny was under a lot of pressure especially during those last couple chapters, and the moments when Gyro wasn’t by his side (like the Sandman fight). Whether or not he knows it, his every move is being watched; he is the star of the show, and we were all waiting patiently to see if he messes up or not. “There I am/Up on the stage/Here I go/Playin’ star again”. Stars are one of the things we associate with Johnny, and another one of those stars is BEING a star. Almost all of the song applies to him, but I feel these lyrics apply to Johnny the most. Lyric: But your thoughts will soon be wandering/The way they always do/When you're ridin' sixteen hours/And there's nothin' much to do/And you don't feel much like ridin'/You just wish the trip was through”

Jotaro Kujo- The Unforgiven

Regardless of parts 4,5, and 6, we all remember Jotaro as the asshole who shouts at women. When we first met him, we probably didn’t like him that much. Over time he DOES grow and change as a person, but he has a trail of his past mistakes behind him. DIO and his henchmen want him dead. His wife and daughter hate his guts. And Jotaro won’t tell you that it hurts him, because he’s not good at expressing his feelings properly. Nor will he tell you that he cares. At age 17, showing feelings shows weakness for a delinquent like him. At 28, he’ll slowly open up to people he cares about. At 42, it’s too late to show affection. This goes along with the lyrics: “They dedicate their lives/To running all of his/He tries to please them all/This bitter man he is”. I chose this song for him specifically because of how the title goes along with Jolyne’s hateful feelings toward him in Stone Ocean. He was “unforgiven” by her for most of that part, and it’s unsure whether or not she fully forgave him before the ending events of Stone Ocean. We’re not even sure if he fully forgives himself for everything that happened, especially in Part 3. This is conveyed in the chorus: “What I’ve felt/What I’ve known/Never shined through in what I’ve shown/Never free/Never me/So I dub thee Unforgiven”. We know that the events of SDC terrorize him, at times with visions and nightmares. Jotaro is an angry and hateful person, so it’s not surprising he would hate himself for these things. This is especially shown in the repetition of “never”. The song is 71 BPM, and personally, I think it sounds like someone trekking tiredly on a lonely path. Jotaro is definitely tired after everything, and probably tired in general. The guitar makes the song sound a bit like a ballad. In a way, it sounds like the song goes through his life as “The Unforgiven”. The song says “young boy” in the beginning, and ends with “old man”, too. Lyrics: He’s battled constantly/This fight he cannot win/A tired man they see no longer cares/The old man then prepares/To die regretfully/That old man there is me” 

[incomprehensiblelentils]

@dollsome-does-tumblr​ does this and opened it up to anyone and I am feeling chatty today SO!

Because I co-write a lot with my lovely wife, I might answer some questions including those co-written stories, or I might not, depends on how I feel when I get there.

name:

Megan but I go by Lentils most places on the internet, Shadowcrawler over on AO3

fandoms:

at the moment: MCU, especially Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil; Terminator: Dark Fate; Halt and Catch Fire. Oh and I wrote Dollhouse fanfics a thousand years ago. Sometimes I will watch a movie/show and think “those two girls should be gay” and bang out 2k of fic about it and then never write for that fandom again. (I THOUGHT this was going to be HACF but as it turns out, no, it’s not done with me yet.)

where you post:

AO3, at Shadowcrawler. I also have a tumblr @lentils-writes​ where theoretically I post links to fics/advertise them in the tags, because I used to be real precious about not putting porn on this blog, but fuck it.

most popular multi-chapter fic:

Co-written, it’s definitely mallverse, which is I think the reason most writers definitely hate us because it’s very long and there are a lot of tags lmao. The problem is that every tagged character HAS shown up in a significant fashion at some point so we can’t just...untag them! It doesn’t update weekly anymore because we’re exhausted by life lmao so at least there’s that???

As for a multi-chapter fic that was just me, I don’t tend to do that so much, so actually it’s say you will, my 3-chapter Endgame fix-it where Clint dies instead of Natasha and Natasha and Laura have a past. It actually has over 1000 hits which is very exciting! I feel like it’s...niche in a way that is frustrating but understandable lol. I put a lot of my heart into it and some people really liked it, so that’s gratifying.

favorite story you’ve written so far:

Co-written, I think our SHIELD Dollhouse AU is very underrated for the amount of work we put into it. Author bias evident here because I love Dollhouse warts and all, and it’s a lot of fun translating episode plots as well as the general trajectory of the show into stuff that will work with SHIELD characters. We don’t just rewrite episodes, we really try and rework them as needed. Also it features both Skimmons and my beloved rarepair Bobbi/Kara, though of course they won’t get together until later.

Of my own stuff, I’m still really really proud of the AU where Kara Palamas didn’t die. I think that was a pretty severe misstep of the show and I think I did a good job of fixing it. (I haven’t forgotten Kara, promise!)

fic you were nervous to post:

lolololol I wrote some uh. Terminator pornography last year and. They are very porny! I had co-written a bunch of smut obviously, but that was the first time I’d posted like, PWP all by myself on purpose??? and that was TERRIFYING. Also I was very nervous to post the Engame fix-it because that was my own personal goodbye/tribute to Natasha.

how you choose your titles:

They are always either song lyrics or jokes (such as Three Lawyers and a Baby, my Daredevil Accidental Baby Acquisition fic). My WIP docs are always titled either obvious shit like “RoseJannah horse girls” or memes like “what if we belonged to a fire cult and we fucked haha just kidding unless...?” or “Morgan has two mommies.”

do you outline?:

B and I typically outline for the co-written fics, although it’s more often chapter-by-chapter outlines since that’s how we write them. On occasion we’ve fully planned multi-chapter stuff out in advance but that’s less common. Oh and the one-shots are nearly always outlined as well, just to keep ourselves organized.

When I have written planned multi-chapter fics in the past I have used outlines - particularly for the Kara one and I had to do that for the SHIELD Kill Bill AU because I was trying to follow the format of the movie. For things that are allegedly supposed to be one-shots I almost never outline, which turns out to be a terrible idea when they inevitably balloon beyond my control and become 45k like say you will. That one, I wrote out a list of scenes I thought needed to be in it and then I wrote about 75% of those scenes and then I wrote a bunch more scenes I hadn’t planned for. Don’t be like me, kids!

complete fics:

According to AO3, 89 as of right now. Uh, you do not want me to list all of them, here’s a link, I guess!

in progress:

I don’t understand what the difference is between this question and the WIP questions lmao help????

posted WIPs that I have active plans to continue at this time:

Cowritten: mallverse as I said, and its femslash smut oneshots spinoff and character flashbacks spinoff and older characters/teachers spinoff (these get updated, uh, irregularly), the first half of a Piper/Snowflake SHIELD s7 fic that we are planning on finishing the second half of soonish, SHIELD Dollhouse AU, SHIELD Teen Beach AU, SHIELD Buffy AU. You may notice a pattern!

By myself, I have: Have Your Elf a Merry Little Christmas, a Terminator Hallmark Christmas fic that I ambitiously posted the first chapter of in 2019 and then lost steam immediately (I am going to go back to it sooner or later bc I had some cute ideas for it); the SHIELD Fate of the Furious AU that has one chapter to go and which I do intend on finishing eventually; Three Lawyers and a Little Lady, the Daredevil Accidentally Baby Acquisition AU that is literally just cute kidfic and poly avocados and which I have a bunch of ideas for and just need to buckle down and finish some.

posted WIPs that I have given up on:

Lol so there’s a Dollhouse Caroline/Bennett Doctor Who AU that I wrote purely as idfic and which nobody ever cared about except me, and I think that ship has sailed! RIP darlings. I also had an ongoing Skimmons series waaaay back when where I posted oneshots that were like missing scenes or gay readings for each s1 episode, and I just feel like it would be inauthentic to even try and finish it at this point. (It does include the first ever Skimmons fic to be posted on AO3! Really truly, there’s one fic that shows up as older but it’s an ongoing fic and was updated with the tag way after I posted mine.)

exchange fics due soon/unrevealed:

I haven’t done an exchange since like 2015 lololol I am so bad at them. I am currently working on finishing up my MCU Femslash bingo card, very late, and I do have plans for almost all of the remaining squares!

WIPs that live in my fanfic folder and are incomplete and who knows when they’ll be finished:

“RoseJannah horse girls,” which has been put on hold temporarily but is literally just Rose and Jannah being gay while riding orbaks

half of a Daisy/Gwen fic from Marvel Rising because I know they’re not making any more of those but I stg those two were really gay

multiple fics about Elise Nelson-Page including: avocados Halloween with smol Elise, Aunt Elektra very reluctantly taking smol Elise shopping until she realizes smol Elise also likes weapons (she buys her a fake katana), Uncle Frank is a pushover and spoils the shit out of Elise, and baby Elise has a high fever and everyone freaks out but then she gets better and smile at them for the first time (inspired by baby me lol).

coming soon/not yet started:

“Morgan has two mommies,” yet another Endgame fix-it where Maya Hansen did not die in Iron Man 3 and she resurfaces and she and Pepper kiss and eventually she adopts Morgan

Claire and Colleen go on a nice date to get coffee/tea where Danny doesn’t interrupt them goddammit

Bobbi/Kara Warehouse 13 AU which is sort of like “For the Team” but gayer ft. grappling hook

X-Men: Evolution Tabby/Amara fluff

Cameron/Donna character study disguised as smut

Grace proposes to Dani with a ring made out of the metal from her power source and Carl officiates the wedding 

Dani gets horny watching Grace eat a peach and jerks off and Grace ends up hearing her and then they fuck (I have been calling this “the peach fic” in my head but I gotta stop being delicate about it lmfao it is just porn)

B and I have plans to do a Nico/Karolina Jasper in Deadland AU but we keep forgetting

I MUST WRITE FOGGY AND KAREN SADLY FUCKING IN A CHURCH WHILE THEY MOURN MATT THIS YEAR I STG

do you accept prompts:

uhhhhhh I have on occasion written a prompt for someone before but it’s pretty rare and I have enough trouble writing the shit I come up with in my own head lol. but never say never?

upcoming story you are most excited to write:

I’ve got a bit of the Bobbi/Kara Warehouse fic written and it’s nice to go back to that world. Also I’m weirdly excited about the Cam/Donna smutty character study I mentioned above, I have a lot of what I think are good ideas for it and it’ll be fun.

tagging @unwind-myself @swiftzeldas @swashbucklery @loved-the-stars-too-fondly and, if you want to, you!

[dyke-remy]

Live And Let Die, part 5

Part 1     Part 2    Part 3    Part 4   Part 6

Description: Agent 008 and Agent 009, professional spies for the MI6 with liscense to kill. Partners in both work and love. After an agent goes missing the partners have to once more go out into the field. (It’s a James Bond AU)

You don’t need to know anything about James Bond to be able to read this fic, trust me

Words: 3505

The train cart was filled with silence. Remy looked at the dog tag, the dog tag which had belonged to Roman. They looked up at their husband. He was staring right through them.

"I- I'll call Q. He'll get us home" Remy hastily let out.

They didn't get a reply. Remus sat perfectly still as they talked to Q. He seemed to be looking at a ghost. Maybe he was dissociating, maybe he was reliving the death. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Eventually Remy got up and took his hand. They held onto him until the train got to it's next stop. Held onto him the long car ride to an airport. Held onto him the entire flight back to England. Held onto him until they back to their apartement at MI6. They knew he would break apart if they let go right now.

Remy was sure M would give them a break from missions. Remus was barely eating, much less sleeping. No one could except him to work.

And yet here they were, 2 days later in M's office. Remus actually sat in a normal position in one of the chairs which was so unusual it even made M uncomfortable. Remy sat in his lap with their arms around his shoulders to comfort him.

"-I assure you 009 that I would let you two have a break if this mission wasn't urgent. Trust me I would be very happy if you two disappeared from my sight for a while" M aka Deceit said. One of his pet snakes had made itself comfortable around his neck.

"Sure girl. What's so fucking important then?"

Deceit pushed a paper over the desk towards them "This. Your luck was in your favor 009. You brought back a document from Ron Stewart's, the man you killed, room on the train correct?"

"Girl I dunno. 75% of the time I'm just like running on instinct and iced coffee but yeah sure"

"Yes well this document talks about Stewart's company partially being bought by this company by the name of Vigur. I didn't recognize it so I asked Q to do some research and-"

"It's a vampire sex ring!" Remy guessed.

Deceit blinked at them "Close. No it's a new company, actually it hasn't even started yet. It will have an opening this week in Manchester. It's an energy company and apparently it's lead by a young new business entrepreneur. It's strange.....When Q looked him up there was nothing. No history, no photos, no educational records. Only a few articles about him and his dad and that he was the leader of Vigur"

"I didn't catch the name"

"Virgil. Virgil Viverno"

Remus suddenly moved his arms around Remy's waist so tightly their ribs hurt. He buried his head against their shoulder. His spouse' placed their hands on top of his.

Deceit looked at him varily. He really did want to let the agents go on a break, he wasn't heartless, but, well, they had a mission to finish, even if it had become an intricate one.

"I suggest you two infiltrate the opening of the company. Find any information you can because somehow this has to be connected to the killings of agents caused by....Jaws...To aid I asked Moneypenny to follow Virgil around a bit and take a few pictures so you two know who to interrogate"

Deceit called for Moneypenny aka Patton. He entered the office with a stack of photos in his hands before sitting down on the edge of the table and laying out the photos. It was all of the so called Virgil. He was sitting in a car far away in all of them so it was a bit hard to see but they got the basic gists of him having short unkept black hair and sickly pale skin.

"Aww Patty I didn't know you got to work out in the field" Remy commented.

Deceit arched his brow "Don't underestimate him"

"I might not be as good in combat as y'all are but I can be sneaky and take a few photos every now and then"

Deceit sent him an unusually warm smile "You did a good job"

Moneypenny blushed slightly "Oh shush you snakecharmer. I'm married"

Remy grabbed one of the photos and looked closer "Betting on him being gay so time for some guy drag. Just 'cause I'm like tots too lazy to get into womany attire. We'll infiltrate the party, I'll take him to his hotel room and look for anything about why this new stupid company exists"

They were quiet for a few seconds before adding with venom in their tone "Or why they murdered Picani"

Patton leaned over and patted them on their shoulder to comfort them. "Yeah it's a bit weird. I followed him around for quite a few days but he rarely ever left the house he was staying at. He never even walked around. Either he was at that house or he was driven directly to the company building. He never stayed there for long so he couldn't have been working"

"Mhm" Deceit began "It could mea-"

Remus slammed his hand down into the table.

"You're all ignoring Roman"

Patton paled a little. Deceit leaned back in his seat. They were all silent.

"I- I mean the dog tag it- it has to mean this- the company- Picani it must have something to do with Roman doesn't it- I mean- I mean- Maybe- Roman could be alive"

Remus looked around at them while holding the tag close to his chest. He didn't look mad. He just looked like a cornered animal, a hurt prey.

"Kiddo" Patton held out his hand, unsure if to comfort or reason with him.

"Killing a 00 agent is quite a big thing. I can imagine that someone would gladly take the dog tag and keep it with them as a souvenir if they'd been in the same building as where it happened. From your reports of what happened there is no chance your brother is alive" Deceit stated bluntly "It is of far greater importance to try and find this 'Jaws' guy before he kills any more 00 agents"

All of the air seemed to go out of Remus. His arms loosened around Remy. They tried to comfort him and whisper sweet nothings to him.

"M don't be so cold about it!" Patton exclaimed. "It's okay kiddo. I'm sure- Maybe- We-" He pressed his lips into a tight line and tried to think about anything positive to say. He gave up and moved to try and hug Remus at least.

Remus stood up from the chair so quickly Remy nearly fell down on the floor. He banged his hands down into the table and leaned close to Deceit. His furious brown, nearly red, eyes stared into Deceit's cold black ones.

"I'll capture Jaws and I'll drag him back here. I'll drop him right here on your bloody desk if that's what it takes to make you take me seriously. And then I Will find my brother! Even if it's just his rotten corpse!"

He stormed out of the room without another word and slammed the doors shut behind him.

--

Remus was driving a black ashton martin towards the company's building where the opening party was being held. He had on a black suit. Remy sat in the passenger seat. They had on a looser fitting black blazer with a white button up under and pants. They'd styled it with a necklace and a few rings on their fingers.

"Babe you don't have to like do this you know that right?" Remy asked while looking over to their husband "Like it's really understandable if you want a break from work or something right now with the whole Roman thing. I can handle it on my own"

"I have to.........If there's a small chance Roman is...is.....out there I have to follow up on.....And even if he's....even if he's...gone....I want to at least stop the people who...killed....him" He held onto the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white "I want to tear them apart for hours upon hours until they're begging me to kill them"

Remy took his hand and intertwined their fingers "I'll be right here beside you" They pressed a kiss to his knuckles "I'mma be cutting people apart as well!"

Remus sent them a tired smile "Mhm. Love you my rotten lil sunflower"

They scrunched their nose "Gross"

"Nu-hu! You're my dear maggot infested heart"

"And you're the human equivalent of a mad scientist's experiment going wrong"

Remus pretended to blush "Awww you're always at your A game with compliments"

"Somebody has to be"

They leaned in for a kiss before getting out of the car. The tall building had an elegant opening door made out of glass.

Remy held onto their husband's upper arm and leaned on his shoulder as they walked in. The entrance was a grand room looking outmost modern. The reception had been turned into a bar and there were cocktail tables here and there.

The opening party was mostly to establish connectioncs between CEOs and such. It was all fake smiles and empty talking between glasses of champange.

"Let's say we're here for my mom's company" Remus whispered.

"Oh yeah the super legal one with a brilliant name" Remy chuckled back.

"Don't you dishonor the name of Octopussy!" He did a dramatic pout "But we'll say we're from the hotel business side of the company and not the y'know jewel smuggling-"

"Or circus business"

"Or circus business yes"

They mingled among the crowd while looking for Virgil. It was ironic how Remy was better at talking about the Octopussy company than Remus was. He'd always been better at the smuggling part than the business part while it was the reverse for his twin. Roman had been chosen to become the full time leader of the company once their mom retired...well that had changed obviously.

Remy was in the middle of making up an elaobarate lie about Octopussy totally being besties with the owner of this company to some business men when Remus pulled them aside. He pointed over to a dark corner of the room.

"Holy shit!" Remy gasped while their eyes widened "That's a total heart-throb!"

"What- No-" Remus looked at them with a confused look before looking back at the corner.

Remy was looking at a tall, broad shouldered, muscular guy in a slick black suit. He stood near the corner with his arms crossed. They were practically looking at him with heart eyes.

"Awww babe are you trying to find me a date? He's just my type!" They said while holding onto their tall, broad shouldered, muscular husband wearing a slick black suit.

"Sorry darling dearest but I was pointing at Virgil"

Next to the muscular guy a skinny man was sitting by a lone table. He had on a black button up shirt with a purple hoodie over. There was a glass of soda in front of him.

Remy pouted "That's not as fun"

"You can try to flirt with him while you get info from Virgil" Remus moved his hand to their jaw and leaned their head up "You horndog"

"Shut up your bundle of bacteria" They teased back before leaning in to kiss him.

"A demon would be jealous of your horniness......because....y'know....demon horns"

"Girl I could walk into a public toilet and press my finger against the wall and I would get the same amount of filth on my finger from that wall as I would get from your skin"

Remus kissed them again "Love you"

"Love you too" They smiled into the kiss.

"Be careful. If I see you leave with Virgil I'll follow you and cut in if I hear anything fucked aight?"

"Got it gal!"

Their hands lingered together for an extra moment before they both willed themself to let go. Remy walked towards Virgil. They unbuttoned the top 2 buttons on their shirt, dragged up their shirt sleeves slightly and fixed their hair.

They didn't get to Virgil. The tall muscular man stopped them beforehand by grabbing onto their shoulder. They couldn't honestly say that they were complaining.

"Mr. Viverno doesn't wish to talk to any more strangers for the rest of the night. He's already had enough people try to manipulate him with sweet talking and business deals" The man, who Remy assumed was a bodyguard, said in a stern tone.

Remy sent him a cheeky smile "Aww girl I'm not here for some money talk or whateva. I just hate parties. I was forced here just as much as the next boytoy"

The bodyguard sneered at them but from over his shoulder they could see Virgil glancing at them. In the low light it was hard to see the details of his face.

"Theo it's okay. You can let him in"

Remy had a shit eating grin on their face as they gracefully sauntered past the bodyguard apparently named Theo. They slumped down on the seat on the opposite side of the table to Virgil. He seemed okay with just sitting in silence, Remy wasn't.

"I'm Diamandis. Remington Diamandis" They reached out their hand after saying the totally real and not at all made up name.

Virgil just stared at their hand "You already know my name. You wouldn't be at the opening if you didn't"

They leaned their elbows on the table "Yeah well introductions are always nice either way. Know whats not like nice? Parties. Fucking hate them" They lied.

He quickly nodded along "Everything is so....loud....there's so many peoples. I've never been to any sort of party or anything before but I already hate them"

"Impressive. If I could choose I would have tots been...." Remy tried to figure out what Virgil would react to best "Been staying in my room all alone like just calm no sounds. Sadly my daddy is like involved with this like octopussy company so I gotta be here" They saw how Virgil immediately tried to hold back a smile at the mention of the name "It's okay, you can laugh"

He covered his mouth with his hand while giggling "Sorry- Sorry it's just- that's a bad word"

"I'm aware. I've been looking to get a new daddy anyhow. Someone less boring who doesn't drag me to all these stuck up parties"

"....Through....adoption...?...Or...?"

Remy realized they were talking to an innocent lamb and quickly changed the subject "So you wanna buy us drinks? A fancy cocktail would sound nice right about now" They leaned their chin on their hands and moved closer.

"I uh I can't. Maybe some soda I dunno"

"What? You're waiting 'till marriage to drink or something"

Virgil glanced up at him "No I- I'm not allowed. I'm 15. Theo said-"

Remy reared back into their seat. The smug look on their face was instantly gone as they buttoned up their shirt all the way up. Now when they knew he was a teenager it was blatantly obvious. Suddenly they noticed the subtle acne on his face, how his arms clearly had had a growth spurt before the rest of his body, how he still kind of had baby cheeks.

"I'm sorry. You should have said- I didn't think- I'm sorry that's like tots gross of me- The lightning is really bad I couldn't see- Sorry girl" They babbled out.

"What are you apologizing for?" Virgil asked while tilting his head.

"I the adult here flirted with you- which is so disgusting and girl I'm like-"

Virgil looked like he was one step away from slamming his hands into the table and standing up "Flirting??" His eyes widened "That was flirting??"

"Indeed it was. I was close to punching you the entire time" Theo muttered while eyeing Remy.

"This is almost as cool and as when I got to try out a phone for the first time a few days ago" Virgil pointed over to Theo "He has a bunch of games on his phone. They're really fun"

Theo let out a ridiculously tired sigh "The games are just there for my kids I swear"

Remy zoned out of the conversation. The sheer weirdness of someone who apparently is a CEO 1. being a teenager and 2. not owning a phone had taken them right out. Every step of this mission seemed to make it weirder and weirder. It made their head hurt with unanswered questions.

"-my room?" Remy got forced out of their thoughts as Virgil asked them something.

"What?"

"Do you want to go to my room? I have a room on the second floor in case I ever need to stay over for the night. The place I actually live is quite far away from here" He fiddled with his sleeves "You said you would rather be in your room like ehhh being calm so I thought we could go away from all the loud people at least"

"Sure kid" Remy almost felt bad for how easily Virgil had done exactly what they wanted him to.

He got up and mumbled something to Theo before setting off towards the elevator. Remy blew Theo a kiss before waving goodbye as they walked past him. In response he gave them the middle finger, clearly showing of the wedding ring on his finger.

One short elevator ride later they were following Virgil through a long hallway. It was all cold grey walls and light that gave them a headache. It was quiet apart from the muffled sounds from the people on the first floor.

Virgil suddenly reached out and held onto the sleeve of their blazer. He looked up at them with big eyes "Have you ever touched snow?"

"....Yes-"

He held onto them harder and a smile played at the edge of his lips "Can you describe it?"

Remy was a bit taken aback by the weird question but shrugged and began to describe it. Nothing had been worse than the freezing winters with nothing but their mothers and a cheap sleeping bag to keep them warm. From the corner of their eye they caught a glimpse of Remus following them.

Virgil's smile grew wider the more they described it. His blue eyes looked at them as if they were the most knowledgable person ever. Before they knew they'd reached his room. It was mostly bare. Just a bed, a nightstand and a few boxes. The bed wasn't even comfortable as they sat down alongside the teenager.

They glanced around for anything important. Drugging a teenager so he fell asleep so they could search through his room made them feel really disgusting but at least it was better than knocking him out. Hopefully it would just feel like a quick nap. Hopefully they could hide the sleeping pill in some soda.

"Are you looking for something?" Virgil asked.

"Nah girl. Nothing. I was just-"

Remy turned back to look at him. His smile was gone and his blue eyes suddenly seemed cold. It felt like his gaze was piercing through them.

"Oh 009. You should have paid more attention" Virgil murmured.

Their blood ran cold at the mention of their 00 title. They tried to speak but realized their mouth felt numb. Their whole body felt numb and as heavy as lead.

"Do you seriously think Theo would have let you be alone with me unless he knew you were so stupid you wouldn't even care to look at the most important part of this room" He scoffed at them.

Remy fell back on the bed. Their eyelids could barely stay open as they looked up. Their eyes widened as they saw dozens upon dozens of spiders sitting on the roof.

"Ruthie is such a good girl" Virgil picked up a big black spider that had been crawling around on the covers. He patted her while talking "All it takes is a small bite from her and a human can be passed out for up to 6 hours"

Remy wanted to muster up the strenght to snarl an insult at least. Instead all they could do was fall asleep as their eyes rolled to the back of their skull.

Virgil's smile widened "Goodnight"

He let out a few more of his dear spiders crawl up on his arms. He threw the bed lamp down on the ground and let out a few fake muffled cries. It was too trick 009's equally as stupid partner to rush in.

And he did. Of course he did.

Remus stumbled into the room with a neutral expression plastered on his face. His eyes darted around the room but quickly landed on his sleeping spouse.

"Sorry! I was uh looking for the bathroom!" He threw out "Oh wow one of you is unconcious that's not good especially not while in bedrooms! Maybe I should stay"

Virgil looked at him as he was the biggest idiot on earth. A few spiders started to crawl up Remus' legs. He looked down at them and quickly shook them off before stomping on them.

"YOU FUCKER!" Virgil yelled. He shot up from the bed and closed his hands into fists. He nearly teared up at the sight of the dead spiders.

Remus took a step back and raised his hands "Hey kid I'm sorry but-"

He didn't say anything more. A harsh hit landed on the back of his neck. He immediately fell down on the ground.

The whole room was spinning. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Virgil moving to hug a person. He seemed to be lifted from the ground and spun around in the hug.

The last thing Remus heard before he passed out was Virgil happily letting out a "Jawsie!!"

[paperanddice]

Tears of the Crocodile God Part 5

Mold King’s Throne

This encounter is a bit of a nightmare to convert. It has three separate traps/hazards that interact with each other, a constantly growing supply of minions/low level opponents taking up space and getting in the way, and a puzzle the players will probably want to figure out during the fight rather than push their way through all of the possible enemies. Forty-four enemies, 40 of whom can come back from the dead, just turns into a nightmare slog that has the potential to be either dull or badly overwhelming. Also, if you’re running it properly there’s essentially 3 sides to the battle. The party, the undead, and the living crocodiles (many of which will turn into undead and join that side). The hazards here are going to be the real challenge, figuring out how to stat up pressure plate traps along with the death mold environment traps. They’re incredibly position sensitive things in 4e, making exact movement very important, and while 5e can at least accommodate that 13th Age doesn’t use it at all. If anyone has suggestions for how the system usually does those kinds of hazards I would greatly appreciate the info.

As for the monsters, the challenge comes from expressing how the death mold infesting the undead works. It’s not too difficult, aside from the risks that they all share where a creature reduced to 0 hp instantly dies and reanimates as a new zombie. One big thing with this fight is the river crocodiles swarming in and being killed to produce the death mold crocodiles. 13th Age at least provides the metric of mook mob hp to make tracking them easier, but 5th edition with it actually having hp for enemies can slow that down quite a bit. If you want to make things a touch easier, just make the river crocodiles into pseudo-mooks for this fight. I tracked it where if anything did 16 or more damage they immediately died, while any less and they just got a mark on the token. If a marked crocodile took any damage, it died. Meant that they were 2-shot at worst and helped keep things moving faster as I could just mark or kill and move on without worrying about specifics.

The problem I have with the death mold and the zombies is that the damage output necessary to drop the river crocodiles is higher than what a monster should deal in area of effect attacks, so they’re less likely to die from the spore burst. In 4e, it was easy because minions only had 1 hp, but with 5th Edition and 13th Age that isn’t the case. Even my two strike policy in my own 5E version didn’t have that option, and it was much less likely for the river crocodiles to specifically get killed by the death mold. My way around that was to have the death mold poison, and that getting dropped to 0 while poisoned triggered the zombie transformation, which is a bit more of a pain to track. For 13th Age however, my thought was that it could just deal enough damage to immediately drop the mooks in this encounter. It still doesn’t one shot the sacrifices, especially through their one chance to save themselves, but it puts them at much greater risk without having to rely on an ongoing effect.

5th Edition

Death Mold Zombie Medium undead, neutral evil Armor Class 15 (natural armor) Hit Points 110 (13d8+52) Speed 20 ft. Str 18 (+4) Dex 10 (+0) Con 18 (+4) Int 5 (-3) Wis 15 (+2) Cha 4 (-3) Saving Throws Wis +5 Damage Vulnerabilities fire Damage Immunities poison Damage Resistances necrotic Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12 Languages understands the languages it knew in life but can’t speak Challenge 6 (2300 XP) Death Mold. If the zombie is targeted by an effect that cures disease or removes a curse, all the mold infesting it withers away and it loses its Spore Burst reaction. Dormant Corpse. Whenever the zombie takes radiant damage it falls prone. Undead Fortitude. If damage reduces the zombie to 0 hit points, it must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 5+the damage taken, unless the damage is radiant, fire, or from a critical hit. On a success, the zombie drops to 1 hit point instead. Actions Multiattack. The zombie makes two melee attacks. Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d8+4) bludgeoning damage and 7 (2d6) poison damage. Reactions Spore Burst (Recharge 5-6). When an enemy hits the zombie with a weapon attack, it unleashes a cloud of death mold spores in a 10-foot radius centered on itself. Each living creature in that area must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target is poisoned for one minute and takes 10 (3d6) poison damage. If a Small or Medium creature is reduced to 0 hit points while poisoned this way it immediately dies and transforms into a death mold zombie. The zombie rolls initiative and acts on its turn. The poisoned creature can attempt the saving throw again at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. On a successful save, the target takes half the poison damage and is not poisoned.

Death Mold Crocodile Medium undead, neutral evil Armor Class 13 (natural armor) Hit Points 16 (3d8+3) Speed 20 ft., swim 30 ft. Str 15 (+2) Dex 10 (+0) Con 13 (+1) Int 1 (-5) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 1 (-5) Saving Throws Wis +3 Damage Vulnerabilities fire Damage Immunities poison Damage Resistances necrotic Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11 Languages - Challenge 1 (200 XP) Death Mold. If the zombie is targeted by an effect that cures disease or removes a curse, all the mold infesting it withers away and it loses its Spore Burst reaction. Dormant Corpse. Whenever the zombie takes radiant damage it falls prone. Undead Fortitude. If damage reduces the zombie to 0 hit points, it must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 5+the damage taken, unless the damage is radiant, fire, or from a critical hit. On a success, the zombie drops to 1 hit point instead. Actions Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8+2) piercing damage and 7 (2d6) poison damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 12). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained and the zombie can’t bite another target. Reactions Spore Burst (Recharge 5-6). When an enemy hits the zombie with a weapon attack, it unleashes a cloud of death mold spores in a 10-foot radius centered on itself. Each living creature in that area must make a DC 11 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target is poisoned for one minute and takes 10 (3d6) poison damage. If a Small or Medium creature is reduced to 0 hit points while poisoned this way it immediately dies and transforms into a death mold zombie. The zombie rolls initiative and acts on its turn. The poisoned creature can attempt the saving throw again at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. On a successful save, the target takes half the poison damage and is not poisoned.

13th Age

Death Mold Zombie 4th level troop [undead] Initiative: +4 Vulnerability: fire, holy Moldy fist +9 vs. AC - 10 damage Natural even hit or miss: Both the zombie and its target take 2d6 damage. [Special trigger] Spore burst +9 vs. PD (all engaged plus 1d2 nearby enemies) - 7 poison damage, or 14 to mooks. A creature that is reduced to 0 hit points by this damage immediately dies and becomes a death mold zombie. Limited use: 1/round, as an interrupt when the zombie is hit by a weapon attack. Undead fortitude: Each time the zombie is dropped to 0 hit points, it can roll a hard save (16+). If it succeeds, the zombie is instead reduced to 1 hit point. The zombie can’t make this save if the damage that reduced it to 0 hit points is fire, holy, or from a critical hit. AC 18 PD 16 MD 12 HP 75

Death Mold Crocodile 4th level mook [undead] Initiative: +4 Vulnerable: fire, holy Bite + 9 vs. AC - 4 damage Natural even hit: The target loses its next move action. [Special trigger] Spore burst +9 vs. PD (all engaged plus 1d2 nearby enemies) - 4 poison damage, or 14 to mooks. A creature that is reduced to 0 hit points by this damage immediately dies and becomes a death mold zombie. Limited use: 1/round for the entire mob, when one or more death mold crocodiles in this mob dies from a weapon attack. Each death mold crocodile killed increases the number of targets for this attack by 1. Undead fortitude: The first time a death mold crocodile is reduced to 0 hit points, it can roll a hard save (16+). If it succeeds, the crocodile regains 5 hit points. The crocodile can’t make this save if the damage that reduced it to 0 hit points is fire, holy, or from a critical hit. AC 18 PD 16 MD 12 HP 18 (mook) Mook: Kill one death mold crocodile mook for every 18 damage you deal to the mob.

Chained Hydra

This encounter is built around a single incredibly dangerous opponent in an unusual situation. A portcullis blocks the path, and fighting through the bars of it should pose a challenge to both sides of the conflict. The hydra in the original adventure escapes being simply sniped down from outside of its reach by spitting venom at anything that can get into line of sight of it. Most of its stats can be pulled directly out of the core books, since there are already hydras in both 5th edition and 13th Age, just modifying it to add the poisonous effects and ensure they sit at the right level for the adventure.

5th Edition

This is relatively easy. I gave the hydra poison damage on all its bites and a ranged venom spit attack to deal damage to creatures at range. The extra damage bumps its CR up a little bit, but that’s just even more appropriate for a level 10 party to face off with.

Increase the hydra’s Perception to +8 and passive Perception to 18 Adjust the bite attack to this: Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (1d10+5) piercing damage and the target must make a DC 16 Constitution saving throw, taking 7 (2d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. Venomous Spit. Ranged Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, range 30/60 ft., one creature. Hit: 7 (2d6) poison damage. On a critical hit, the target is blinded until it spends and action to wash the poison out of its eyes with water or a similar liquid.

13th Age

Use the seven-headed hydra as the base, adjusting the gnashing teeth attack to deal 6 damage and 6 ongoing poison damage. Give it the following attack, or give it the nastier special and change the fire damage to poison damage. R: Venomous spit +12 vs. PD (one nearby enemy or a far away enemy at -2 atk, 7 attacks) - 6 ongoing poison damage Natural 16+: The target is blinded by venom, becoming hampered and weakened until it spends an action washing its eyes out.

The hydra is more damaging in melee, but its ranged attacks have a chance of severely limiting a character, forcing a choice to close in and engage it or keep distance. For larger groups, rather than try to cram additional monsters into a scene entirely designed for a single monster, bump the hydra up one level.

Mimic’s Parlor

Ah, the mimic. The classic “gotcha” monster of D&D. How do you even guard against literally any random object being a monster ready to kill you? They’re kind of unfair, but I think essentially every long running campaign I’ve had (as well as my latest premade adventure) has featured mimics at some point. Usually when they’re much lower level than the party, and as a side feature to a larger encounter. It removes the sting of being ambushed by the bed if you can still crush it even after it grabs you. This encounter keeps to that dynamic, with a level 10 party being confronted by a bunch of much lower leveled mimics and the ambushers being more in service to holding someone down for the bigger threats. Their grapples are still quite annoying to deal with even if you’re quite a bit higher leveled than them.

The bigger threats in this case being the advanced mimic leading the others, capable of shapeshifting into the last person it ate, and some cloakers taking up their old role of clinging to a wall and pretending to be fabric. The impersonator mimic is basically a person with body horror morphing kinds of things. I always play up mimics twisting and deforming their faked form as the fight goes on, looking less and less like the thing they copied, and that applies to the impersonator mimic as well. Limbs stretching out, mouths forming where you don’t want them to be, clothing revealed to just be more of the creature’s body rather than something covering it. Lots of good fun.

5th Edition

The mimic spawn are easy enough as regular mimics, and I created a stat block for the impersonator mimic. The cloakers are a bit of trouble, since they’re quite high leveled in 5E and putting even one in puts some restrictions on the fight’s composition, but with larger groups it’s less of a problem.

Impersonator Mimic Medium monstrosity, true neutral Armor Class 16 (natural armor) Hit Points 123 (13d8+65) Speed 30 ft. Str 18 (+4) Dex 19 (+4) Con 20 (+5) Int 17 (+3) Wis 16 (+3) Cha 20 (+5) Skills Deception +8, Stealth +7 Damage Resistances acid Condition Immunities prone (object or true form only) Senses passive Perception 13 Languages Common Challenge 7 (2900 XP) Absorb. As a bonus action, the mimic reduces another mimic adjacent to it to 0 hp. When it does so, it can take another action on its next turn to make a single weapon attack. Adhesive (Humanoid or Object Form Only). The mimic adheres to anything that touches it. A Huge or smaller creature adhered to the mimic is also grappled by it (escape DC 15). Ability checks made to escape this grapple have disadvantage. False Appearance (Object Form Only). While the mimic remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary object. Grappler. The mimic has advantage on attack rolls against any creature grappled by it. Shapechanger. The mimic can use its action to polymorph into an object, the last Small or Medium humanoid it ate, or back into its true, amorphous form. Its statistics are the same in each form. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn’t transformed. It reverts to its true form if it dies. Actions Multiattack. The mimic makes three attacks; two with its pseudopod and one with its bite. Pseudopod. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d8+4) bludgeoning damage. If the target is in humanoid or object form, the target is subjected to its Adhesive trait. Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d10+4) piercing damage plus 9 (2d8) acid damage.

13th Age

None of the creatures in this encounter come standard in 13th Age. Apparently mimics weren’t high on the list of monsters to convert, possibly for the same reason rust monsters didn’t get in until the Bestiary and came with a bunch of warnings. Monsters hidden as other things can be toxic, though removing them doesn’t prevent toxic GMs from doing their thing.

Mimic Spawn 6th level mook [aberration] Initiative: +6 Sticky pseudopod +10 vs. PD - 8 damage and the target is grabbed Natural odd miss: The mimic spawn can make a vanishing trick attack as a free action. [Special trigger] Vanishing trick +11 vs. MD (the nearby enemy with the highest MD) - the mimic pops free from all engaged creatures and transforms into an object. The mimic spawn is invisible until it attacks or a creature spends a standard action to make a DC 25 skill check to identify it. An invisible mimic spawn does not take carry over damage from other mimic spawn. Slobbering bite +15 (includes +4 grab bonus) vs. AC (one enemy it’s grabbing) - 14 damage Ambusher: The mimic spawn can use vanishing trick as a free action when initiative is rolled. If the mimic spawn attacks while invisible it gains +2 attack and +4 damage. AC 22 PD 20 MD 16 HP 23 (mook) Mook: Kill one mimic spawn mook for every 23 damage done to the mob.

Impersonator Mimic 8th level troop [aberration] Initiative: +12 Sticky pseudopod +12 vs. PD - 30 damage Natural even hit: The target is grabbed Natural odd miss: The impersonator mimic can make a vanishing trick attack as a free action. [Special trigger] Vanishing trick +13 vs. MD (the nearby enemy with the highest MD) - the mimic pops free from all engaged creatures and transforms into an object. The mimic is invisible until it attacks or a creature spends a standard action to make a DC 25 skill check to identify it. Acidic bite +17 (includes +4 grab bonus) vs. AC (one enemy it’s grabbing) - 30 damage and 10 ongoing acid damage Absorb: Once per turn as a quick action the impersonator mimic can deal 23 damage to a nearby mimic spawn. If it does so, it can take an extra standard action on its next turn. Ambusher: The mimic can use vanishing trick as a free action when initiative is rolled. If the mimic attacks while invisible it gains +2 attack and +4 damage. Impersonator: The mimic can perfectly copy the last humanoid it ate. It requires a DC 25 skill check to identify that the mimic isn’t the original. AC 24 PD 20 MD 20 HP 150

Cloaker 6th level spoiler [aberration] Initiative: +10 Sharp teeth and flapping wings +11 vs. AC - 15 damage Natural 16+: The target is grabbed if the cloaker doesn’t have a creature grabbed already. While grabbed, the target takes 10 ongoing damage and is hampered. C: Unnerving moans and wails +11 vs. MD (1d3 nearby enemies) - 10 psychic damage and the target is dazed (save ends) Natural 16+: The target can’t use the escalation die while dazed. Limited use: The cloaker can only use this ability when the escalation die is odd. Share damage: If the cloaker takes damage while it has a creature grabbed, it only takes half damage and the grabbed creature takes the other half. Shadow shift: 1/round when the cloaker is the target of an attack it can make a hard save (16+). On  a success, the attack targets a shadow duplicate of the cloaker instead of the real one and the cloaker takes no effect from the attack. AC 22 PD 16 MD 20 HP 75

Next time, we’ll go into the inner sanctum and start wrapping up the last encounters of the adventure.

[kramlabs]

So You Want To Believe The So-Called 'Experts'?*

By Karl Denninger

Let's go down the list.

This virus was newly discovered in January of 2020. FALSE; Judicial watch has now proved that Fauci and the NIH knew that Covid-19 was diagnosed no later than December 2nd 2019 in Wuhan. This was deliberately concealed under confidentiality agreements between China and the NIH. In short Dr. Fauci and the NIH knowingly and repeatedly lied about the time of first discovery and diagnosis and it is documented that this was known in February and early March and not disclosed. We also now know with scientific certainty that the virus was in the US no later than the second week of December of 2019 because antibodies were found in about 1.5% of blood donations from that time. This, along with the sequencing back-computation I performed in early 2020 places the latest the virus entered the US as sometime in October of 2019 and from the blood bank data it is scientifically proved it had infected about 1.5% of the population, or roughly 4 million people in the US, by the second week of December 2019. This in turn means that we had widespread disease which was blamed on something else. Indeed we handled all 4 million of those cases just fine up until the hysteria started, didn't we? You didn't even know those 4 million sick people, and those who died of it, existed prior to the hysteria being ginned up.

15 days will slow the spread. "If we all stay home and minimize contact for 15 days -- including closing businesses, schools and not traveling -- Covid will be under control and we can trace infections and stop it." FALSE and we now know impossible because the virus was already all over the country on an uncontrolled basis by that time and the NIH knew the virus had been circulating for at least a month earlier than they admitted at the time. It is true that if you immediately slam your borders shut 100% you can trace and quarantine yourself out of a transmissible epidemic -- at the cost of essentially all external trade, travel and tourism. But Fauci factually knew when we started that this was impossible because the virus had been spreading here for at least two months at the time and we hadn't done a thing about it for those two months. We were later to learn it was four months and perhaps longer.

If you give us 30 more days (remember, this is now six weeks to slow the spread) it'll work. FALSE AGAIN for the same reason; the NIH and Fauci knew there was no possible way to contain the virus when the original 15 days expired as he knew, factually, that the virus had been uncontained for at least three months.

But the lockdowns and restrictions worked to save lives! Nope; this is called the "exception fallacy" and now a peer-reviewed journal entry demonstrates it. We knew this early on too; indeed for five decades we've had "pandemic response plans" that make clear that once you have widespread community dispersion of an infectious agent attempting to lock down people or impose any other sort of non-pharmaceutical intervention is futile and causes harm. We ignored said decades of hard-won experience -- intentionally.

We don't have enough ventilators! FALSE; not one of the DPA-produced ones was ever needed; NY's Governor lied and had plenty of them, as did everyone else.

Ventilators not only are needed they will save lives. FALSE; they killed nearly everyone put on one then, and still do. We knew they didn't work in February as they killed 95% of the people put on then in Wuhan and this had been reported out by March.

This is mostly a community-spread disease in places like stores, bars, restaurants, churches, concerts and the local city street. FALSE; the CDC itself documented that more than half of all transmission was happening in homes and the next largest, and only other statistically material spread was occurring in industrial (e.g. meat packing) plants and health care settings. Nashville suppressed the fact that they could only trace about one percent of infections to social businesses such as bars and restaurants and now the CDC itself has stated that less than 1% of spread is traceable to such public venues as restaurants and bars. In other words we knew by late spring of 2020 the restrictions, including business closures, school shutdowns and masks couldn't work as that's not where the virus was spreading; we couldn't shut down the industrial plants without starving the population and destroying both energy production and sanitary services leading to an immediate societal and economic collapse. Nor could we invade every house and forcibly segment positive-tested people either; we had neither the resources nor would they get away with it without the cops and government goons being turned into swiss cheese. And when it comes to health care we could have segregated Covid-19 facilities and the people working in care homes but intentionally did not.

Asymptomatic transmission is a major risk. FALSE. Over millions of contacts traced in China not one was ever proved to be from an asymptomatic person. There has never been scientific evidence that asymptomatic spread has been material in any pandemic through history and there is no documented evidence of material asymptomatic spread for Covid-19 in the US or anywhere else. Worse, symptomatic persons least able to afford to call out sick due to lack of paid sick time or even the threat of being fired are those in low-wage and high-contact jobs such as fast food, grocery, meatpacking and other "essential" service industries never mind care home employees who are poorly paid and often moonlight in home health care among extremely vulnerable people.

We had no way to stop the nursing home deaths and did the best we could. FALSE. I pointed out immediately after Kirkland occurred that isolating the employees from all general public interaction, effectively creating a bubble, would stop nearly all of the transmission into these environments. We happened to have a lot of empty hotels at the time too. Yes, we would have had to pay significant bonuses to entice employees to go nowhere other than that hotel room and to work but we could have, and if we did it would have saved nearly 50% of those who died in the first four months. Not one so-called "expert" demanded or even suggested doing so but I was calling for exactly this in March of 2020. This, of course leaves aside the various Executive Orders that intentionally seeded the virus into nursing homes in multiple states by multiple Governors. Indeed even this winter in still-locked-down New York there was still no segregation of employees and residents were killed in size by infection brought into the care home by employees. Recent small case number spikes have been associated with vaccine distribution. How's that possible? There's only one rational explanation: The health care workers are giving the virus to the patients getting the shot! And yet we are still told that all these people are "heroes" and don't you dare forget it.

We didn't -- and don't -- have early treatment options that work. FALSE; Japan spent their effort on early treatment and keeping people out of hospitals. They have roughly a third of our population and only 8,000 dead people. Japan is far more-dense population-wise than us yet did a hell of a lot better despite having a materially older population. What Japan didn't do, in short, is spread the disease via their health care workers. In short if you went to the hospital you were likely to die; this has proved out in my own county in Tennessee with a >60% death rate. Up until we started with the panic porn -- the entire first three months of this outbreak in the US until March of 2020 -- we did fine too despite the virus being literally everywhere for months. We in fact knew of several early treatment candidate drugs, all cheap and available, in March of 2000 and exactly zero of them were investigated by the NIH, CDC or any of the so-called "public health" institutions such as Vanderbilt, IHME, Johns Hopkins and others. Those physicians and even hospital systems who did investigate them on their own were derogated, attacked and in some cases even threatened with license suspensions and other sanctions which continue to this day.

Age is the primary determinant of risk. FALSE; obesity and the panoply of health conditions caused and exacerbated by being a fat-ass is the primary determinant of risk. Nations with lower obesity prevalence have a ten times lower or better risk of death from Covid-19 on a per-100,000 population basis. Obesity is in each and every instance a lifestyle choice. This was known very early on in the NY Coroner data which is updated frequently; only six persons 75 and older have died of Covid without one of a relatively short list of underlying conditions -- and over 10,500 died with one or more. Simply put most of those who died deliberately put themselves in a medically compromised condition through their own lifestyle choices just a person who drinks too much and ruins their liver decided to drink. Absent those personal lifestyle decisions the death rate from this disease, while certainly not zero, is approximately half as likely as death due to an automobile accident over a year's time. Read here -- this is exactly what I pointed out one year ago. Who's been right on this -- and who's been wrong?

Existing drugs will not work and we have no existing treatments until you're hospitalized; we must develop new treatments and vaccines. FALSE. The data is that ivermectin works, among others. A trial out of Australia conducted in Britain (they locked everything in and did not have enough people in Australia who were sick) showed Budesonide (a cheap inhaled steroid used for asthma) works if given immediately when someone becomes symptomatic. The latter trial was stopped because it was ruled unethical to not give the controls the medicine since it prevented ninety percent of hospitalizations. Ivermectin has worked in every trial run thus far except one recently reported study the authors themselves state cannot prove effectiveness as the necessary deterioration in cases to do so was violated to the downside immediately, possibly due to widespread community use of the drug. The data on HCQ says it works if used early but appears to be worthless if not used until you're in the hospital. Remdesivir, which has an EUA, was disproved -- that is, shown worthless in a very large trial called "Solidarity" (along with several other drugs) and yet is still being used as it is on-patent and expensive. No drug works 100% of the time nor should it be expected to, but we should damn well not continue to use drugs that are proved worthless just because they cost $3,000 and the FDA issued an EUA for them. Deliberately not treating people until they're choking to death is monstrous and has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, many if not most of them avoidable at a cost of a few dollars.

Masks are the best tool we have to stop the spread and, if you just wear them for a few -- 4, 6, 8 weeks -- we will have Covid under control. Stated under oath before Congress by the CDC's director in September following multiple previous statements over a two month period in the summer by the CDC and NIH which urged (and got) the issuance of mandates. FALSE and known false as Hawaii took a ten times case rate spike a month after their mandate. This was known before Redfield perjured himself before Congress. There are ZERO states which did not take a monstrous spike in the winter despite mandates including California with the most-strict lockdowns and mask mandates in the nation. Compliance via multiple surveys has been around 90% with no evidence of effectiveness anywhere against non-mandate states and counties next door. Those states including South Dakota and Florida who repudiated the mandates or refused to issue them in the first place had identical or better outcomes than the states and locales that imposed them. The CDC has now itself published a MMWR (weekly report) in which they "claim" masks work -- their definition of "work" is a shockingly tiny 1-2% decrease in deaths and this assumes you ignore the confounding elements in their study that could invalidate even that tiny impact. In other words despite the nearly year-long and continual screaming about masks even the CDC itself now states that out of the 500,000 dead only 5,000-10,000 lives were saved at best and statistically-speaking it is entirely possible zero lives were saved. REMEMBER, WE WERE TOLD IN THE SUMMER AND EARLY FALL THAT MASKS WOULD ABSOLUTELY CONTROL THE VIRUS AND IN FACT THE CDC STATED UNDER OATH THAT MASKS WERE BETTER PROTECTION THAN A VACCINE. THIS LIE WAS REPEATED FOR MONTHS AND IS STILL BEING REPEATED TODAY. This wasn't a random statement made "off the cuff" it was made under oath to Congress five months ago and has, over time and by the data, been conclusively proved to be a lie.

The new strains will cause another spike even worse than the last one. FALSE; this was stated originally in the fall and repeated in December through February and yet since then cases have dropped like a stone despite these "new strains" becoming more and more prevalent. Florida in particular has documented widespread prevalence of one of the "demon strains" that were trumpeted in Fauci's fear porn. There has been no spike. Incidentally viruses mutate all the time; within the first few months there were hundreds of distinct viral RNA strains of Covid-19 known and that was only of the infections sequenced -- a tiny minority. If our actions do lead to new strains (specifically our ridiculously-unsound mass-vaccination campaign) and viral evasion occurs you may well be more screwed if you took the vaccine due to ADE than if you did not!

The Super Bowl will cause a huge case, hospitalization and death spike in Florida due to the ridiculously crowded parties and no masks in bars and similar all over the Tampa area. In fact the mayor threatened to arrest people for exactly this reason (an empty threat as the Governor had banned enforceability of said mandates.) FALSE; there has been no spike. Look for yourself; it's been over a month and cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all falling. Where's the spike?

Texas dropping its mask order will lead to mass-disease and death. FALSE; there has been no spike at all. Biden called the move "Neanderthal thinking" and predicted disaster, as did California's Newsom among myriad others, both among political leaders and so-called "medical experts" such as Fauci. Multiple lefties claimed that "there is no limit to how far Republicans will go to kill people." The truth is that Covid-19 cases fell by 28% in the next two weeks. The histrionics were, once again, wrong.

If we social distance and wear masks we will buy enough time for the vaccines to be developed and approved. FALSE. The case and hospitalization rate on a national basis peaked and was falling before the first jab went in the first arm. That which you do after something happens cannot be the cause. Simply put the vaccines did not stop any of the death; despite the lack of testing and rushed approvals they came too late.

The only people who count for "herd immunity" are those vaccinated. FALSE; never in history has such a lie been propagated for any disease, ever, anywhere. The CDC by its own estimates puts the lower boundary of persons infected and recovered at over 1/3rd of the nation and that's their lowest estimate. By more-reasonable belief the number is over half. Those people have immunity and absolutely count. Further, we knew in the first months that a material percentage of the population has pre-existing resistance to some degree, likely due to previous infection with other coronaviruses. This is why the case rate peaked before fully-vaccinated persons existed in the US; there is no other possible explanation.

Even if you've had the disease and recovered you should get vaccinated. There is zero science behind this claim. If you've had the measles or Chicken Pox would you take a vaccine against either? I certainly would not and have not; that would be pointless and stupid. The claim that there is no durable protection once infected is nothing more than conjecture; note that coronaviruses circulate among us all the time and while immunity may not be perfect (e.g. eventually you may well get it again) the odds are extremely high that if you do it will be a mild case and of no clinical or personal significance. Suggesting that you take the risk of an experimental vaccine if you were previously infected is wildly inappropriate; there is no such thing as a drug without risk and there is zero scientific evidence that your acquired immunity will not protect you against serious disease.

Even if you've been vaccinated or had the disease and recovered you should wear a mask and distance from others. FALSE, unless you believe the vaccines are worthless. If you believe the vaccine protects the person who takes it then you no longer need a mask or to distance and since others can choose to take a vaccine or not you have no reason to wear a mask or distance for allegedly protecting others either. If you do not believe the vaccines are effective protection then why did you take it? In short you either believe that you gain immunity by vaccination or infection or you do not; if you do then there's no reason for you to take any measures beyond either recovery or completion of the vaccination. Further, if you don't believe infection and recovery provides meaningful and durable protection then neither will the vaccine so the same scenario applies to both cases and if you do not then believe the shots are protective then you are stupid for accepting them.

These are the very same people folks -- the NIH, the CDC, State Departments of Health, Fauci, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, IHME, Vanderbilt and many more who now tell you after a solid year of unbroken lies and falsehoods that the vaccines are both safe and effective while at the same time our government has provided a 100% waiver of all liability to the pharmaceutical companies that developed and manufactured them.

I note that unlike the other common vaccines that are safe and effective, and which took 10+ years to so-prove, the mechanism of action of these shots are wildly different; they use only part of the virus and rather than introduce it into your body they hijack your cellular metabolism to produce the spike protein exactly as would a replicating infection with the virus, but since only the "spike" is there rather than the entire virus the hypothesis is that hijacking your cellular metabolism in this fashion will not hurt you. While for other vaccines the immunity produced is metabolically identical to infection because a killed whole virus that cannot replicate is used in this case the shots deliberately cause replication in your body of only one part of the virus, the spike protein. This is not identical to the broad immunity provided by natural infection because it can't be with this approach; if the entire virus was used you'd get the disease and it would be systemic in every case instead of localized to your upper respiratory tract. Further, unlike a killed virus vaccine that cannot replicate in your body at all these shots all cause production of the spike protein by your cells exactly as would an infection and that production is systemic since it is given by injection and thus circulates through the body.

The safety of this approach is unproved and in fact the rate of deaths closely associated with these vaccines is wildly higher than that associated with any of the other routinely given vaccinations including flu and chicken pox. The intermediate and longer-term effects of this approach including the possibility of long-term or even permanent damage as a result of systemically hijacking your cellular metabolism to produce that foreign protein are unknown.

Unlike a mask you can remove you cannot un-take a shot and the litany of those previous lies killed over 400,000 Americans who otherwise would not have died.

What if their statements are false this time, specifically on safety? What if viral evasion shows up as did during early trials for a SARS vaccine in animals, trials that were abandoned and not performed for these preparations? It typically takes ten years to know if a candidate vaccine produces unacceptable side effects including lifetime disability due to immune dysfunction, never mind exactly how effective it is and for how long. Further, the media and these people continually claim that nobody has been killed by these vaccines yet VARES, the CDC's own reporting data which is public, shows roughly two thousand associated deaths. The number of associated deaths with the annual flu shot from last year's flu vaccination which shipped roughly 170 million doses, was twenty-six.

That means the Covid-19 shots are associated thus far with roughly seventy five times (7,500%) as many deaths as last year's entire set of flu vaccines! Remember that we give flu vaccines to old and morbid people just like the first priority for Covid-19 vaccines, so these should produce similar "associated" rates of bad events if they are similarly safe.

VARES reporting is voluntary and thus always under-reports vaccine-associated events. Association does not establish causation but a pattern of 75 times as many deaths as are associated with another commonly-given vaccine in the same population group damn well ought to raise anyone's eyebrows; to claim that such does not represent a "safety signal" is a flat-out lie.

I remind you that the false statements of alleged facts outnumber, by a wild margin, the true ones particularly when it comes to things you were told to do that "would work" to stem the spread of this virus. Every single one of those claims has been proved false over time.

In short you're now being exhorted to believe a cadre of people and government agencies who are proved repeated liars and to trust them with your life after their previous lies killed your mother.

The facts are that Covid-19 basically burned itself out before the first shot went in the first arm and that none of the mitigating factors prevented net deaths from occurring; in fact all these mitigations, from mask orders to lockdowns to closing businesses and others caused more deaths due to ODs, suicides, avoidable heart attacks and strokes not screened for and other maladies by a wide factor than the mitigations, even using fatally flawed claims taken on faith by these very same agencies, could have possibly saved. The actions we could have taken to actually reduce death, specifically as regards care home and other medical facilities we deliberately refused to do and we knew those actions would save lives. Instead of protecting the most-vulnerable while those least-likely to be seriously harmed were naturally infected and built a wall of population immunity we deliberately refused to protect those older and sicker people from infection via the health care system and they died.

Given this record of falsehoods, actions and intentional refusals to act you're willing to bet your life they're telling the truth this time?

Even without full testing there may be reason for certain people to accept the vaccine, particularly those at specifically-high risk who have not had the virus. However, on the data if you are not specifically morbid in known ways the risk of death from Covid-19, by the CDC's own data along with that of the NY coroner, is approximately 3/100,000. From the associated deaths in the CDC's own VARES system it appears the vaccines are approximately as dangerous to materially more dangerous than the disease in non-morbid individuals and that is without having any data on intermediate and longer-term effects which can only add to those risks. Further, if you've already been infected with Covid-19 you already have broad immunity and there is zero scientific evidence that vaccination can be of any value to you whatsoever.

When do we stop allowing people like Fauci, the CDC, Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Governors along with various health departments to lie through their teeth about virtually everything related to this virus?

Is not your dead Grandmother enough reason to put a stop to this horse**** -- and all who support it?

Original article has hyperlinks. Link: https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=241875

[jarmes]

Beating Pokemon Sapphire with (almost) no damaging moves

Last year, I decided to beat Pokemon Leafgreen without using any damaging moves. It was hard, but doable. A few weeks back, I decided to try and find out if you can beat Pokemon Sapphire under the same ruleset. The answer is no. You can’t. It is physically impossible. Let me explain why.

I started the game up, fast-forwarded through the introduction, and chose Mudkip as my starter. Unlike Leafgreen, which features Bulbasaur, one of the best stall Pokemon in Gen 3, all of the starters in Hoenn are terrible for this run, lacking any real way to stall. I went with Mudkip because it’s the most defensive. Tackle is a damaging move, so Mudkip is unable to use anything but Growl. Fortunately, the Poohcheyana is programmed to run away before it beats you.

I named Mudkip GarbageBoyStinkman (technically GBSM because of character limits) and traveled to Route 103 to meet with May. Having no way to deal damage, I ran from all wild Pokemon along the way. Unfortunately, this is the point the run becomes unwinnable.

You cannot beat May without dealing damage. It cannot be done. None of the starters have any moves that can take out opponents through status moves. Now, you may be thinking, what if I caught another Pokemon on the route? Well, you can’t. You can’t buy Pokeballs until after you beat May. And you can’t trade because you only have one Pokemon. We can’t beat May because her Torchic takes us out in a few hits, and we can’t level up before May because all of the wild Pokemon around do the same. So, the run is over. Game over.

Hence the “almost” in the title. Because May is impossible, we’ll try to beat the game without attacking anyone else. It takes four tackles to take out her Torchic. Technically, because criticals do double damage, two criticals could take May out in two hits, setting our minimum attacking moves at two. Getting two crits in a row only happens one percent of the time, but it is possible. I opted for four hits because the battle was already a wash and moved on.

Birch gives us five Pokeballs and we finally have a little breathing room. Our best strategy, for now, is going to be stalling until enemy Pokemon struggle themselves to death. Mudkip lacks the bulk needed to take a few dozen hits and would end up struggling before the opponent, so I need to get some reinforcements. I caught five Zigzagoon: Chocolate, Caramel, Taffy, Lolly, and Liquorice. Full party in hand, I marched to Route 102 and ran into Youngster Calvin, a six-year-old with a single level five Zigzagoon.

Calvin is the hardest trainer that I’ve ever beaten in any challenge run. Calvin is so insanely difficult that he made me question if the run is actually possible.

At level five, Calvin’s Zigzagoon knows three moves: Tackle, Tail Whip, and Growl. Combined, these two moves have 75 PP, meaning I need to stall for 105 turns before the Zigzagoon will struggle. Growl and Tail Whip are fine, but Tackle deals damage, and my team needs to shrug off 35 of them, plus however many struggles it will take for the Zigzagoon to knock itself out.

Even when my team has used Growl six times and Calvin has avoided all uses of Tail Whip, Calvin’s Zigzagoon can take a member of the Candy Squad out in five hits and GBSM out in six. Now, looking at those numbers, it seems that Zigzagoon should just barely be beatable. Unfortunately, it isn’t. Cal’s Zigzagoon is able to take out the first two of its brothers before they minimize its attack and tail Whip lowers the number of hits we can take. Plus, Struggle does just as much damage as Tackle but only does half as much in recoil, meaning that, if my math is right, it’ll take ten struggles for it to die, meaning that even in the absolute best circumstances, we’d need to survive 45 hits when we only have enough HP to take 36.

Now, there are a few random factors that make me think this battle may be technically possible at this point. Zigzagoon chooses its moves at random, meaning that it could in theory save all of its Tail Whips until after wasting its Tackles. And, as previously mentioned, Tackle can miss, which gives us a free hit to survive. But, at the same time, Zigzagoon can get criticals which effectively doom us. After two more tries, I decided that this battle wasn’t winnable, at least not yet.

So, we can’t beat a level five Zigzagoon. But, the question is, can we beat a level two Wurmple? Because if we can beat some wild Pokemon on Route 201, we can get some EXP and become strong enough to beat Youngster Calvin. Unfortunately, my team right now is just barely too weak to survive a single battle.

Fortunately, I bought a couple of potions. If I use a potion right before the Wurmple can take out Mudkip, I can just barely survive. Now, I only had a few potions, but I wasn’t too worried. After each battle, Zigzagoon has a 10% chance to give a random item after battle, including Super Potions, Rare Candies, and things like Nuggets and Full Restores that I can sell for money. With five Zigzagoon, I had a ~40% chance of getting an item after each battle I won.

But, luck wasn’t on my side. By the time Mudkip reached level eight, I was completely out of items. And Mudkip still wasn’t tough enough to survive a battle without a potion. Game over.

So I completely restarted. This time, I was smarter with my Pokeballs. Instead of throwing them willy nilly and having to buy ten more after running out, I saved and reset until I caught five Zigzagoon using the five balls Birch gave me. I also avoided Calvin until I was ready for him, because losing to him wasted money. The extra money this run gave me was enough to start my grind with ten potions instead of three. Also, I made sure that all of the Zigzagoon I caught were level three this time, hoping that the one extra HP would help. I made a save state and started grinding.

I also switched to hunting Poochyena instead of hunting Wurmple. They deal the same damage at level two and don’t know string shot, which made things go quicker. After my first Poochyena defeat, one of the Zigzagoon picked up a Full Restore, which I was able to sell for five extra potions.

Finally, after hours of grinding, Mudkip hit level ten and was able to survive a battle without a potion. I was ready. I marched up to Calvin and stalled. The battle came down to the wire, with Mudkip being the only team member standing when Calvin started struggling.

And then I ran out of Growls. I could not switch out, I could not attack. I was at full health from the last potion, so I could not use another. Calvin was struggling and I was without any means to beat him. Fortunately, one of the Zigzagoon picked up a Revive while I was grinding and I was able to use it to revive a Zigzagoon and switch to it. Still, I came dangerously close to losing.

After Calvin was defeated, I knew the run was possible. There were half a dozen trainers between me and Petalburg Woods, but fortunately, all of them could be avoided. Petalburg Woods contains two things that were useful for me: Cascoon and Silcoon, who only know Harden and can be trained on easily, and Shroomish, the first member of my actual team.

I caught the Shroomish with an Ultra Ball one of the Zigs picked up and named it Plus Ultra. Shroomish didn’t have any status moves yet, but it did have the ability Effect Spore, which could in theory be used to poison opponents. Effect Spore was too unreliable to rely on, though. I trained Shroomish up to level ten, where she learned Leech Seed. Finally, I had a consistent, controllable means to deal damage. Leech Seed drains one-eighth of the target’s health each turn, giving me a way to slowly whittle down opponents. It doesn’t work on grass types, and it’s slow, but it works well enough for now.

I stormed my way through the early game, beating Roxanne without issue. In Dewford Cave I got the TM for Flash and taught it to Shroomish. Flash is actually a decent stall move; the lowered accuracy does wonders to help Plus Ultra survive while waiting for Leech Seed to kill. I also grabbed the Everstone and gave it to Shroomish to keep her from evolving. Brawly was tough. His Pokemon hit hard, especially after a few Bulk Ups. I managed to get lucky and beat him on my second attempt. All of what I’ve said so far happened in a single six-hour play session, by the way. After beating Brawly, I saved the game and went to bed.

I booted up the game the next day and, for some odd reason I was back in Odale town. That’s weird. Also, I didn’t have any badges. And I didn’t have Shroomish. And all of my Pokemon were as weak as they were before the grind. That’s really weird.

I’m sure I saved after Brawly, but for some reason, it didn’t go through. I reverted to my last save before that. So, naturally, I did the only sane thing: redid everything until I got back to Brawly. It was...fun.

I went through Slateport without much issue; I ran out of Leech Seed PP against a Marill in the Seashore House and had to struggle it out, but that only took an eternity. North of Slateport I caught a new team member: Tex Mex the Gulpin. Gulpin had a decent bulk and comes with Poison Gas and Yawn, giving me a second way to take out opponents and a way to deal with Grass types.

I ran into a trainer with a Roselia on Route 110 and was reminded that Grass/Poison Pokemon are nightmares. Fortunately, I was able to walk around her. I mean, in theory, I could either take a Roselia out with a Zubat that knows Supersonic, by struggling it out, or getting it to kill itself by using Mega Drain on Gulpin because of her Liquid Ooze ability, but none of those plans are worth the effort.

May was, like before, annoying. I took out her Wailmer and Numel easily enough, but her Grovile took out Gulpin with Quick Attack. Fortunately, it poisoned itself thanks to Effect Spore. I made my way to Mauville, grabbed the Mach Bike, and made my way to the Day Care. I abused the Day Care to get both of my main team members up to Level 28. Gulpin evolved into Swalot and gained the new, fantastic moveset of Toxic/Poison Powder/Encore/Amnesia.

Leech Seed and Poison Powder both kill in eight turns. Toxic kills in five, making it our new method of taking things out. Also, I kept Poison Powder because it has a lot of PP making it a good move to waste time with.

I also evolved Mudkip, hoping the new Ground typing would help me beat Wattson. I ended up not needing it, because Shroomish and Swalot took him out with ease. I kept moving through the game until I reached a roadblock on Route 112. An unavoidable trainer with a Roselia. Fortunately, I had a plan.

In the Fiery Path, you can find wild Slugma. Slugma has the ability Flame Body, which has the ability to burn your opponent if they hit you with a contact move. The roadblock Roselia knows Poison Sting, which is a physical move. So I caught a Slugma and named it Sheers. Unfortunately, it has Magma Armor instead of Flame Body. So I caught a second one and named it Sheerz. It also had Magma Armor. The third Slugma, Shers, did have Flame Body. I took it to the Roselia, let it get pounded by Poison Sting, and...it fainted. Turns out Poison Sting doesn’t do contact.

So anyway I released the three Slugma and struggled out the Roselia. On Route 113 I caught a new team member: Punji the Skarmory. Skarmory is a famously bulky Pokemon, with great defensive stats, fantastic typing, and access to the interesting combination of Spikes and Whirlwind. Unfortunately, it doesn’t learn Spikes until level 42. And I caught it at level 16. So, he’s going to be wearing the EXP share and working as a tank for a while.

I stormed through the game until reaching Lavaridge. Lavaridge features cheap herbal medicine, which I used constantly throughout this run. Flannery’s fire Pokemon were a nightmare for Shroomish and Skarmory, but Swalot saved the day, using Amnesia to boost her Special Defence and tank Torkoal’s Overheat. After Flannery, I ran to the desert and grabbed the Sandstorm TM, which I taught to Skarmory to give him a way to deal damage. Sandstorm kills in sixteen turns, which isn’t great, but it does give us a way to take out Roselia. I also caught a Baltoy. I named it Tick because the first two I tried to catch Self Destructed. Baltoy doesn’t learn any status moves until 31, so I taught it Flash and kept it on the bench for a while.

Norman was tough. Poisoning his Pokemon allows them to decimate me with Facade, so I was forced to rely on Leech Seed for damage. Even then, he was able to use Focus Punch flinching, making the battle brutal. Fortunately, Truancy gave me time to heal my team and Norman eventually went down.

I ignored Wattson’s pleas for help and made my way to Fortree City. Along the way, I picked up an Absol I named Obama. His only good move at that point was Taunt, meaning that I had another near useless Pokemon to babysit. Wiona was tough, but Skarmory’s bulk and Swalot’s toxic helped me survive. I had my new Absol Taunt her Altaria to keep her from spamming Dragon Dance. Her Skarmory ended up being the most frustrating one to take out, because it kept killing Shroomish before I could get a Leech Seed off.

After Wiona, Baltoy learned Sandstorm and I taught it Reflect and Light Screen via TM, giving it a use. I caught a Duskull and named her M87. She started with Confuse Ray and Disable, making her a good Pokemon to shut down opponents while waiting for Toxic to kill them. Tate and Liza hit hard, but they only had two Pokemon, both of which Swalot was able to Toxic before going down. At the end of the battle, only Duskull and Baltoy were still standing, but the twins were down. I saved the game and ended another lengthy play session.

And I ended up back at Norman. It was at that point that I learned a fun quirk of my emulator. If you make a Save State, then play for a few hours, then make a battery save, it deletes the battery save and instead opens the save state next time. This also explains the weird issue with me ending up back at Odale Town.

This time, I didn’t have the patience to go through the game fighting trainers. Instead, I snuck past trainers until I caught Absol and Duskull again then abused the Daycare to get all of them up to level 42. This left the team without EVs, but I considered it a good sacrifice for not having to sit through dozens of slow battles.

After my Day Care abuse, I had a few new toys to play with. Duskull evolved into Dusclops, learning Will-O-Wisp and Curse along the way. Baltoy learned Cosmic Power and evolved into Claydol. Finally, Skarmory learned Spikes which, when combined with the Roar TM, gave him a reliable damage method. I also taught Obama Protect from a TM. I stomped the rematches against Wiona and the twins and made my way to the undersea cave.

The Undersea Cave was annoying, both because I had to leave Claydol and Absol behind for HM requirements and because the grunts kept using Taunt. Archie revived Kyogre and I went to Sootopolis to defeat it. Kyogre, the monstrous God of the sea, went down in four turns thanks to Dusclops’s Curse.

Wallace’s Milotic’s spamming of Recover was annoying, but I taunted it and stalled it out. With my eight gym badges, I was able to take on Victory Road. But I wasn’t ready, not quite. The late game battles had been getting harder and harder, so I decided to do a bit of prep work. I fought one hundred different Marill to give my team some HP EVs. I was going to do the same with Cascoon/Silcoon, but decided that I value my own time too much. I grabbed the Focus Band from Meteor Falls. I also made my way through the Ruined Ship because I remembered that the Leftovers were located in a trash can; they aren’t, they’re on the boat that you unlock by beating the Elite Four. Finally, I went back and fought some of the trainers I skipped so I could get money for healing items. My prep work done, I marched through Victory Road.

The trainers were tough, but beatable. I did have to keep leaving to heal my team at the Pokecenter, which was annoying. Waiting at the end of Victory Road was Wally. He sent out his Roselia, that devil, and I took it out with Dusclops’s Curse. I did some quick grinding before the Elite Four and Absol learned the move I caught it for: Perish Song. Perish Song essentially allows me to automatically win if I can get an opponent down to a single Pokemon. Going into the Elite Four, this was my team:

Plus Ultra (Shroomish)

Leech Seed/Flash/Stun Spore/Toxic

Tex Mex (Swalot)

Toxic/Amnesia/Protect/Attract

Punji (Skarmory)

Spikes/Sandstorm/Roar/Sand-Attack

Tick (Claydol)

Sandstorm/Cosmic Power/Reflect/Light Screen

M87 (Dusclops)

Will-O-Wisp/Confuse Ray/Disable/Curse

Obama (Absol)

Perish Song/Double Team/Taunt/Protect

I started out my battle with Sidney with some Spike/Roar comboing from Skarmory. After Skarmory went down, I switched to Swalot and took out a few Pokemon with Toxic. His last Pokemon, his Absol, went down to my Absol’s new Perish Song.

Phoebe’s team of Ghosts abused status moves, forcing me to keep switching out Pokemon. None of the team was knocked out, but the whole team had to step in to get rid of Phoebe.

Glacia was a challenge. Her super effective Ice Beams and Shadow Balls cut through my team. Worse, she managed to freeze Swalot twice. Her Walrein hit like a truck and would have taken out the entire team without Perish Song. At the end of the battle, all I had left was a red health Absol.

My plan for Drake was to have Swalot use Toxic then switch to Claydol. Unfortunately, I was out of Toxic when the battle started. Shroomish managed to take out Shieldon, but was one-shotted by Drake’s Flygon. I sent out Dusclops to use Will-O-Wisp, which missed three times in a row. Dusclops went down to a super effective Crunch, but I revived it and took out both Flygon and the Salamence with Curses and heal item spam. Altaria went down to a Perish Song, opening up the Champion battle, but I knew I was far from ready.

I used my Rare Candies I’d collected over the run, thanks to my Zigzagoon, to get a few last minute levels in. Shroomish finally learned Spore. I took off the Everstone and my boy finally evolved into Breloom. Would it have been easier to just forget about Spore and evolve at 23, as opposed to carrying around a near useless Shroomish for half the run? Yeah, probably. But whatever, I wanted the cool 100% sleep chance.

So, how did my fight with Steven go? Well, I recorded it and uploaded it here.

By the ingame timer, this run took 72 hours. But, I used superspeed. In reality, it only took 17 hours, mostly done during college lectures. I enjoyed this run, it was a fun challenge. I’ve already started on another run, this time in a much more difficult Pokemon game, so look forward to that. Thanks for reading.

[cherry3point14]

Stranger Than Fanfiction: Ch 2

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x Reader Warnings: Other than worrying about being killed, not much. Word count: 3,566. Chapter Summary: You never know where those pesky boys will show up. A/N: Sometimes I put things in that I think no one will ever notice. This chapter has one.

Ao3 if you prefer

“My imminent…?” You're stuck at your desk whispering to yourself.  Every inch of you frozen in place so completely that you can’t do anything except stare at the cream folder in your hands like it might be a bomb. As if the last five seconds have started ticking away and you have to choose which wire to cut.

It must have been a mistake. There was no way you were going to… die. Soon anyway. You couldn’t be… how could a folder kill you? Forget about the voice in your head that knew your secrets, how could this card and paper in your hands kill you?

This whole thing. This day. It must be a fever dream or a very vivid daydream. Of course, the voice knew your secrets because it was all a figment of your own imagination.

Imagination or not suddenly you were hoping to hear anything, answers to any of the questions buzzing about your head. It would be so much easier if you could hear the answers. The voice, that stupid godforsaken voice, it had done this to you, so it could fix it. But now that your fate had apparently been sealed everything was achingly silent.

“Answer me.” You finally move, leaning into the folder with a stern command but your voice cracks before you start.

Silence, except the normal office din. Phones ringing and fingers tapping away on keyboards but the voice stayed quiet.

You drop the file on your desk, not out of choice but because your hands start shaking if you get close to opening it. Though you are loath to admit it, the voice was right. Something about today and this file, in particular, feels different. Could different be enough to make everything true? If it's true can you stop it? You don’t know the impossible danger you’re trying to avoid.  Although yesterday you'd have said a voice in your head was impossible, let alone dying tomorrow.

You wouldn’t open it then. How could something hurt you if you didn’t engage? You could put the folder in the back of a filing cabinet somewhere and never look at it again. Or you could shred the thing. Coerce Laura into shredding it for you? You could convince her she’s not doing anything wrong.  This could be one case that got lost in processing—the client will get paid out because the company failed to investigate and you’ll go on breathing. Everyone’s a winner.

“Oh good, you got twenty-four zero one.” Your manager appears, hovering over you, coffee in one hand as he reads out the files’ label number.

“What?”

He takes an exaggerated sip, like a bad Folgers commercial, before explaining himself. “I thought you could use a little treat is all.”

“Treat? A treat?” You splutter; exasperated and unbelieving. The file might be your end and he thought this was a treat? “I’m sorry, why is this a treat?”

Your office was not normally a place for dramatics. You yourself were not normally one for dramatics.  It was only of the many reasons your boss liked you so today he ignores your sarcastic, borderline angry tone. He doesn’t make assumptions about your attitude, he simply chooses not to hear your tone at all.

He winks, “it’s right up your street.”

You almost dry heave,  barely choking it back. “I’ve got to go.”

“What?” He parrots, glancing at the clock on the wall reading 9:15 before turning back to you, your laptop not even switched on for the day.

“I’m sorry Mark,  really  I am.” You hastily stuff your laptop into your bag. Followed by your phone.  Pausing only a second after throwing the bag on your shoulder to decide if you should take the case file, before finally hugging it to your chest. Losing the file would be worse than taking it with you. “I’m feeling under the weather. I-I thought I would be ok but  I think  I should have stayed home this morning.”

There’s an air of patronizing manly-ness in the way he looks at you, “o-oh well. I appreciate you trying to make the effort.”

There’s no time to argue against Mark’s casual sexism, you have to get out of here,  quickly. “I’ll work from home for today. Sorry, again.”

He doesn't get a chance to say anything as you make your way erratically to the exit. Some desks you clip the corners of as you swerve to avoid people, plants, even the printer finds itself in your way.

Laura gets out a questioning, “Y/N?” before you’re back in the elevator you’d only recently vacated. The doors close behind you while you try to calm your racing heartbeat.

No getting rid of the evidence then. Mark knows you have the file now. Even if you hadn’t taken it with you he’d seen it at your desk, in your hands, he chose to give this to you.  Obviously  Mark has no idea he’s signed your death warrant with whatever was inside. It’s not even the first time he’s given you that dumb wink and treated you to cases he thought you’d enjoy. Like the time he had you go investigate the fire at that bakery because, quote, ‘you love pastries’.

The drive home is as silent as the rest of your life had been yesterday. You turn off the radio in case the voice cames back with more information but it doesn't. Which means the soundtrack to your journey is the clunky engine sound, again.  You absolutely needed to take your car to the garage, but who has the time with imminent death hanging over their head?

It’s 9:45 when you scuttle back into your house, bag in hand, and still clinging to the file like hiding it in your chest will make it disappear. You’ve only been out of the house for an hour but there’s something eerie about being back so soon. It’s almost like you’re interrupting your house’s private time. You’re not supposed to be here now and the dust bunnies hanging in the air seem disturbed by your presence.

There’s no time to dwell on the eerie presence of your usually comforting home. You put everything on your table and look around. Half hoping some insane stalker comes out of the woodwork with the exact voice you’ve been hearing. Unfortunately, that’s too easy.

Then you go back to the sofa. Yes, that’s where it had started. Your half-drunk tea is still on the coffee table where you’d been rushing to get to work. Instead of taking the mug into the kitchen you fall into the seat and pick up the cold cup. You have no intention of drinking it but you’re hoping for a miracle. If you do the mundane things she had taken so much pleasure in narrating earlier then can you force her to come back?

Although you sit there for a few minutes it’s painfully obvious after a few seconds that nothing is going to happen.

And then you remember the folder. The new bane of your existence. What if the only way out of this is to keep going? One step forwards, two steps back.

Maybe you have to open the folder that your narrator—there isn’t another name for them at this point—seemed so interested in earlier.  Maybe rushing out of the office hadn’t been what she wanted, so she had nothing to say.

You were going to open it eventually anyway. It’s your job and you couldn’t live with not knowing.

There's a glimpse of Manilla on the table in front of you, trapped under your purse. The voice had called it innocuous earlier and the description is apt. It is the next folder of thousands that you will ever hold. Unless, of course, it’s your last. If it’s your last then that explains why this one feels heavier than it looks as you slide it free.

Once it’s in your lap you frown at it. Mentally preparing yourself. For the voice or the contents, it doesn’t matter, either way, you try your best to steady your breathing.  Despite your reverence, as you flip the cover open, the first page is exactly what you expect to find: a summary of the claim, dollar amounts, and beneficiary details. And your head still stays silent.

You could get angry. You could shout and plead to whatever cruel twist of fate decided today was the day that you'd go insane. Anger won't change anything though. Screaming won't get your answers. But, your work is something you know how to do. It's always been a safety net, if not a little dull.

Yes, you could get angry, but there’s a file in your lap that needs investigation. The same as all the other claims you've ever closed.  And now that you’re in this ridiculous situation, caught between crazy and scared, you only had two options.  The first was to ignore the situation—return to bed with that half bottle of wine in your fridge and wait for something to break down your door and kill you. The second was to continue to do your job and ignore that everything in your life is absurd right now.

Those two options aren't options at all because you're not quite ready to start drinking before noon. Which leaves carrying on with your life. Mark was right about one thing anyway, it is right up your street. Well, a couple of streets over anyway.

You knock on the door and wait. The red paint is curling and peeling at the edges. The ‘5’ in ‘75’ is slightly askew, but nothing else is out of place. Even those small things you only notice because you’re waiting on the doorstep staring at them.  There’s sound inside the house, like muffled voices and then footsteps before the door bursts open.

“Hello?” The woman seems agitated already, which usually doesn’t happen until after you introduce yourself.

“Hello. My name is Y/N Y/L/N and I’m here on behalf of First National insurance. Are you Margret Hall?”

“Call me Maggie. Yes but…”

“I understand that you recently filed a claim with us for….”

“For my dead husband, yes, but what about the two guys who are already here?”

You can’t help your flinch at ‘dead husband’. In life insurance cases you always try to use tactful language even if it's the spouses or family who cut to the chase. Still, that’s not the part of what she said that’s worrying.

“Excuse me? There’s somebody already here?” Hope surges through you at the prospect of being mistaken. You have the wrong case, the wrong file, you’re not going to die. She crosses her arms over her chest.

“Yeah, I have two guys here now.”

Two guys? The company never sends two men to do one woman’s job. Especially not on a run of the mill claim like this. You slump your shoulders a little, deflated. It's your own fault for hoping.

“They’re still here?”

The woman grimaces in a way that tells you she wants to roll her eyes but she’s resisting. Instead, she purses her lips before she looks back into her home to confirm. Her answer is dripping with sarcasm, “still at the table where I left them.”

You’ve had worse from a widow—you’ve had screeching and accusations—and you let all that go because it’s a difficult time. So, when Maggie Hall twists her face and offers you her bored cynicism it's easy to not see it. You are more focused on the suspicious situation instead.

“Can I meet them?” You lower your voice because you don’t know how close they are to where you’re standing. “I, eh,  just  want to make sure they have all the correct information if they’re taking over.”

That's a lie. You don’t want to scare the poor woman by telling her she has a couple of strangers in her house but she definitely has. The claim file is reassuringly tucked under your arm. It is your proof, it’s your shield against their criminal behavior, their lies.

You’re so distracted by the drama of the situation that you seem to have forgotten,   momentarily, that you’d be more than happy to be wrong  . Overjoyed even. You’d quite like Harry and David from the office to be sitting there with an identical file offering you an escape. Yet you know they won’t be, because this has never happened before. There’s never a duplicate file. There’s never more than one adjuster accidentally sent. Until the voice in your head offers more information there’s no getting out of this.

Then you allow yourself to be distracted. You treat the situation seriously because it is serious.  While you can’t imagine why anyone would want to pretend to be an insurance adjuster, for some reason these two men are. The best you can hope for is that the strangers are as dull and harmless as the men who genuinely  work in your office.

Maggie, who is only a decade older than you to have lost her husband, steps back and finally ushers you inside with a tight-lipped smile.

Two men are sitting at her round kitchen table with their backs to you as she shows you in. They’re whispering and leaning into each other for their secret conversation.  If you didn’t know any better you’d swear you hear the words ‘silver knife’, which only perpetuates the criminal label you’ve already assigned them.

“Hello.”

They both turn their heads to look at you, startled by a new voice. Then they stand up in unison causing their chairs to scrap against the kitchen floor. They are definitely not the soft, unassuming men that you hoped to find.

You want to stand your ground and keep your body language confident but your hand still creeps into your purse as you puff out your chest  . Fingers searching blindly  for your phone while you speak. “I’m from First National insurance. I’m here to investigate Mrs. Hall's claim but she said someone was already here.”

They have excellent poker faces, you’ll give them that at least.  If you had to read anything it’d be a small hint of panic from the taller one and a flash of anger from the shorter one, like an animal backed into a corner  .  But their reactions are instantly hidden under steeled expressions so you can’t be sure if your elevated heart rate is making you see things  . It dawns on you then how stupid a plan it was to try and seem imposing to these two behemoth men who fill up the entire room. Would you even be able to dial 911 without taking your phone out? There’s a pause before the taller guy runs his hand through his hair  nervously , “that’s a crazy mix up, huh?”

His attempt at friendly casualness bolsters the last shred of confidence you are clinging to  . He’s nervous because he knows he’s been caught, which means that you are right.

“It would be if I had ever seen you two around the office.” You narrow your eyes at them and open your mouth, ready to unmask them for the imposters they are.

Mrs. Hall chooses this moment to decide that three uninvited insurance adjusters are two too many .

“Can someone explain what the hell is going on?”

Tall guy is quick on the draw and jumps on the opportunity to run. “I’m very sorry Mrs. Hall it looks like there was a mix up at the office. We’re going to head back now and straighten this out but we’ll leave you in the capable hands of… um… our colleague here.”

They’re already walking. Taking big strides with their long legs and your widow is glad to guide them out. Your fingers finally wrap around your phone  securely  and you protest as best you can. “You don’t even know my name. Why were you…?”

A deep and unsettling emotion brewed within Y/N as she watched them leave, one she didn’t ever remember feeling ever before. She might not have a name for it but knew that this was one of those important moments. The ones that stories are written for, that songs are created about, the kind of moment that changes a life.

“Oh for the love of God, not now.”

She was, of course,  absolutely right. Her life had changed as soon as she’d opened her eyes that morning. Knocking on this particular door was not a choice made for her by her boss or even herself, it was destiny. She could never go back to a time before she crossed this threshold and in time she wouldn’t want to.  Although at this moment—trying to stop these strangers from leaving like she’s a detective in one of her mystery novels—she doesn’t realize what’s happening. All Y/N knows is that feeling in her stomach. The glaring klaxon sound echoing in her head. The icy determination that has locked her chin into an unwavering line. All Y/N knows is that these men broke the rules that dictate her life.  If they could so effortlessly disrespect her tenuous sense of self, then there was no limit to the heinous crimes these madmen might commit. She had to stop them.

You’re only dazed for a second by the implication that you might, at some point, not regret any of this, or them. It's enough time for them both to make it to the door. The taller one is quick to open it, ready to make his escape. “Wait! What were you doing here?”

It’s the shorter one, although shorter is all relative when he still towers over you, who spares you a frustrated glance before he leaves. “Above your pay grade, sweetheart.”

And then the door closes. Maggie finally rolls her eyes as if she’s been waiting a lifetime to do it, except the action is not at you, it’s with you. Their rude and haste exit has catapulted her firmly onto your team.

The door tried it's very best to separate her from the strangers she’d just met. It stood as opaquely as it could in the hopes that, without the visual aid, she might forget they had existed.  It tried, oh, how the door tried to divert her attention from the unknown men who could be terrible, rule-breaking influences on her.  However the door was only wood and she was a stubborn woman made of free will and limbs—a woman who refused to be deceived.

Your hand is on the doorknob before the mention of your limbs has finished rattling around your head.  Realistically you don’t want to encourage the voice by doing what it says. After all, the voice's ultimate goal seems to be killing you. It’s just  your need to open the door goes deeper than your fear of the voice. The voice isn’t proven yet. It could still be a psychosis or a brain tumor. Those men are concrete. Real dangers that you can chase down and confront. Or at the very least you can see what direction they head off into. That would be good information for the police.

The doors of a black muscle car slam at the same moment that you step outside again, phone in hand. The engine revs loud enough to alert the entire neighborhood of their exit. The police will never get here on time so you do the next best thing. You snap a picture of their big, noisy car and make a mental note of the license plate in case the picture’s blurred.

Watching the unknown car hurtle into the dusky, afternoon daylight felt like an ending. The proverbial full stop in a sentence she hadn't been finished with. Were it any other day, any other encounter, then Y/N might be right about this ending.  Perhaps this might have been an intriguing story to recount to her coworkers in the office. A fable to paint herself as the insurance adjusting sheriff around these parts. She scared off the bad guys. However, this was not any other day and those were not any other bad guys. In fact, one of them would change her life.

It was hard enough typing the license plate into your notes app while the voice distracted you.  Impossibly  you manage to note down the Ohio plate to go with your hasty picture.

Googling that would be something for later, for now, you had a whole other job to do. Something simple and easy. Something you knew how to do in your sleep.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Hall, I mean Maggie, let’s get these questions answered so First National can stop sending people around . Huh?”

Contine to Chapter 3.

5eva tags: @divadinag @darthdeziewok @fluentinfiction @witch-of-letters @supernatural-teamfreewillpage @magnitude101999 @alexwinchester23 Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles @akshi8278​ @bloodydaydreamer StrangerThanFiction tags: @jaylarkson

[shirtlesssammy]

6x17: My Heart Will Go On

Then:

You never really die on Supernatural

Now:

Chester, Pennsylvania

In a Rube Goldberg-esque bit of murder mastery, a man fumbles his way around his garage, nearly dying several times, only to finally get taken out by his falling garage door. What a ride. 

Meanwhile, in Bobby’s neater than normal home, Sam and Dean watch him open another bottle of booze. They silently egg each other on to talk and finally decide on Rock-Paper-Scissors. Oop, it looks like you’re going to have to do the talking, Dean. 

Only, wait, Dean won! They think he should take some time and sleep, and process losing Rufus. Bobby’s DOING FINE. He just needs some Irish coffee. Sam suggests taking him on a hunt. Seems like different family members are dying in Chester, Pennsylvania. Bobby kicks them out of the house, so they decide to head out alone. 

They get in their trusty Mustang, and hit the road. 

...

Bobby keeps drinking until Ellen (!) shows up. 

…

She consoles him about Rufus and tells him to get ready for dinner. 

And she’s his wife. 

…

At the garage of horror, Sam finds a thread of gold. 

They split up. Dean interviews next of kin. He first meets with a Saul Goodman wannabe Shawn Russo. The guy isn’t too upset by his family members dying --he wasn’t too close with them. He also doesn’t have a lot of time for Dean’s genealogy questions. 

Dean tries sussing out any past family curse --poorly.  Shawn wants Dean to go, so Dean just comes out and tells him, “Your life is in danger.” Shawn thinks Dean’s threatening him. 

He connects with Sam who can’t find a single thing wrong with the family. 

At a travel agency, we watch Anne Witting chat on the phone, and time suddenly stops. Another woman, looking like Sam’s kind of librarian, takes Anne’s keys from her purse and throws them on the floor next to the copier. She leaves and time starts again. 

The woman gets off the phone and notices her keys are on the floor. Grabbing for them knocks a vase of flowers onto the copiers, which creates an electrical nightmare, which causes her to start slapping at it and finally reaching behind it to turn it off, which then causes her scarf to get stuck in the autofeeder, which the copier then tries to make a copy of, which strangles her. (Note to self: BE NICER TO THE COPY MACHINE.) 

The blonde woman comes back and marks a name off in a book, and drops a gold thread. 

The brothers check out the travel agency that night. It turns out that Anne isn’t part of the Russo family --so they’re not dealing with a family curse. Dean wonders what then. He then finds another gold thread. 

He calls Ellen, who reports there’s been about 75 deaths associated with this across the nation. The only thing Ellen has that connects the people is that their ancestors all immigrated to the US in the same year, on the same boat: The Titanic. Neither Dean nor Ellen had ever heard of it. 

…

Sam either. (And that’s when I call bull --unless this Sam isn’t a history nerd-- because the Titanic was a BIG deal before it became a BIGGER deal. It was the largest ship of its time. But as I typed this out, I feel like I should eat my words because there was another sister boat built with the Titanic, and I can’t for the life of me remember its name, so, yeah, chances are good it would have been lost to history for most people.) 

During their research, Sam notes that the ship almost hit an iceberg, but the First Mate, I.P. Freely saw it in time. 

Balthazar!

They summon Balthazar for answers about the boat. “It was meant to sink, and I saved it.” He hated the movie. (Boris is still one of the few and proud that’s never seen it --I cheered SO hard for Balthazar here.) He hated the Celine Dion song. Sam doesn’t even know who that is (HIS FAVORITE SINGER!) Sam points out that he thought that history can’t be changed. Balthazar points out that there’s no more rules. Anyway, only minor details have been changed --like no Impala. 

More importantly, Ellen and Jo are alive. They are supposed to be dead.

Dean and Sam focus on the here and now and point out that something is killing the descendants of the Titanic travelers. They need to find out who. Balthazar drops a truth bomb out of nowhere --pointing out that Cas is in love with Dean. Sigh. Also, he doesn’t care, and flaps away. 

They talk with Bobby on the phone and he thinks they’re dealing with Fate. How do they stop fate? Bobby suggests that they get Balthazar to re-sink the boat, but Dean nixes that idea instantly. Bobby wants to know what set him off --Dean tells him that if the boat sinks, Ellen and Jo die. Yeah, no way is that boat sinking.

The boys lurk in their iconic, uh, Mustang to follow Russo. 

They follow Russo in an attempt to keep him safe from Fate’s machinations. They manage to save him from one deadly accident, only for the guy to die under the wheels of a bus seconds later. Sam notices a woman watching over the accident. She looked kind of like a librarian. “Your kind of librarian or my kind of librarian?” Dean asks. Oh, Dean, why does it have to be a binary choice? Eyebrow waggle. Dean decides to head over and confront Fate in a shadowy building. 

Fate, meanwhile, is up to nefarious deeds. She turns burner knobs, releasing gas into the building as time stops around the Winchesters. When time starts up again, Dean’s flashlight flickers out in the dark. Sam suggests using a lighter and....

Just as the room starts to ignite, the Winchesters get yanked out of there! Cas saved them! He’s pulled them to Belarus. I will never not be able to watch this scene without thinking of the gag reel and Misha stag leaping around the woods. 

“[Fate] harbors a certain degree of rage towards you,” Castiel explains. Since the Winchesters foiled their apocalyptic fate, they’ve made it into Fate’s bad books. Cas suggests the best solution is for the Winchesters to kill fate. And they can use themselves as bait!

For CAAAAAAAS! Science:

Ellen tries to talk through the case with Bobby after Jo reports more and more dead on the West coast. Ellen suggests that the best solution would be to re-sink the Titanic, a suggestion towards which Bobby reacts...poorly. Bobby’s horrified at her casual suggestion. Ellen senses something is off with Bobby. Over drinks, Bobby spills everything to Ellen. He tells her that he needs her. 

After that solemn, emotional scene, we cut to Dean and Sam experiencing wacky near-misses. A skateboarder almost takes them out. Then a jumping BMX rider. Now a pair of aggressive dogs on leashes. (Extreme close of up Dean for extra sad jokes.)

They walk past a pair of jugglers tossing HATCHETS and KNIVES who proceed to LIGHT THEM ON FIRE - and I do love it when this show gets ridiculous. After several near-misses, a falling air conditioner finally plummets towards them. This looks like the end for our heroes!

For Looney Tunes Quality Science:

Time freezes the Winchesters under the air conditioner, and Castiel approaches. He greets Atropos, the Fate who’s after the Winchesters. She complains about the fallout of the recently averted apocalypse. 

Cas tries to argue for freedom. It’s a bold new world! But Atropos isn’t buying what he’s selling. The last straw for her was the unsinking of the Titanic. Cas tries to shift the blame to Balthazar, but Atropos calls him on that too. That wasn’t Balthazar following a whim. Cas needed more souls for his war machine, and sent Balthazar back to unsink the ship. She’ll make Cas a bargain: if the boat stays unsunk, then she’ll kill his “two favorite pets.” She may not be strong enough to escape Cas’s retribution, but her sisters will take the Winchesters down after she dies. Cas contemplates Sam and Dean.

Balthazar shows up, ready to kill Atropos, when Cas stops him. Cas is ready to take the deal. Balthazar gets Cas’s new order: it’s time to save Sam and Dean! I mean, it’s time to sink the Titanic. 

Sam and Dean wake up to Sam’s favorite singer belting “My heart will go on” on the radio. They talk about their weird, shared dream. Cas flaps in to greet them. He tells them that he had Balthazar re-sink the ship to ensure Sam and Dean’s safety. 

Sam and Dean try to process the balancing equation Cas dealt with, where their lives were more important than 50,000 people (who were never born, Cas hastily points out). Dean asks about Ellen and Jo, and the answer is NOT GOOD. What could have been! 

Dean asks if that whole alternate timeline was erased when the boat sank again. “More or less,” Cas says. EYEBALLS EMOJI. Cas wants the Winchesters to remember the alternate timeline. “You can make your own destiny. You don’t have to be ruled by fate. I still believe that’s something worth fighting for,” Cas tells them. Can I get a HELL YEAH? 

While it seems for a short while like Cas is edging towards telling them the truth of his war, he ultimately plays off the Titanic as only stemming from Balthazar’s hatred of the movie. “Titanic didn’t suck THAT bad,” Dean says. There’s my soft boy. Cas flaps out, and the Winchesters head inside to check on Bobby. His house is back to cluttered, gloomy chaos. Bobby’s asleep on the couch. Sam and Dean vow never to tell Bobby what he could have had.

It is Your Quotedany:

Accidents don't just happen accidentally

"What's an Impala?" Trust me, it's not important

You have me confused with the other angel. You know, the one in the dirty trenchcoat who's in love with you

Can’t avoid fate

Who do we gotta kill to get killed around here?

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[damienhaasbaybee]

Figured it out 😂 for the let's get personal, can I request that you do them all?

I DID IT BAYBEEEEEEE.

* 1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

I’ll Be There For You and Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi, In My Head by Ariana Grande, I Believe by Jonas Brothers, Air Force Ones by Nelly, and Chasing Pavements by Adele

* 2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Harry Styles or Damien Haas so they can fall in love with me.

* 3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

“me that it was a sometimes temporary paralysis that causes damage”

* 4: What do you think about most? the fact that I have nothing to really work towards

* 5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

“I’m tireddd”

* 6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

without most of the time

* 7: What’s your strangest talent?

number and address recall 🙄 its embarrassing sometimes lol

* 8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)

girls go to college to get more knowledge boys go to jupiter to get more stupider

* 9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

fuck no lol

* 10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

um... today.. in the car

* 11: Do you have any strange phobias?

raw chicken.

* 12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

a piece of ice so i could pierce my nose.

* 13: What’s your religion?

christian

* 14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

um... if its for pleasure... swimming.

* 15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

behind lol

* 16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

of all time... linkin park or one direction

* 17: What was the last lie you told?

that I’m fine lol

* 18: Do you believe in karma?

v much so

* 19: What does your URL mean?

um... i am damien haas’ baybee and he is also my baybee

* 20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

weakness, helping people until I die strength, i am honest

* 21: Who is your celebrity crush ?

james marsden, david dobrik, zac efron, miles teller, damien haas...

* 22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

no

* 23: How do you vent your anger?

i sing real fucking loud

* 24: Do you have a collection of anything?

one direction memorabilia lol

* 25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

either works with me tbh

* 26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

yes.

* 27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

sound I hate: hearing others talk on the phone, sound I love: rubbing clean hands on a clean table

* 28: What’s your biggest “what if”?

what if I’m just crazy and none of this is real

* 29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

yes and yes. anything is possible.

* 30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

my comforter both times lol

* 31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

a clean house lol

* 32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

uhhhh Louisville

* 33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

west coast because i have never been

* 34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

Harry Styles

* 35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

to leave the earth better than I found it

* 36: Define Art.

art is everything and nothing that a person wants it to be

* 37: Do you believe in luck?

I do. circumstances create luck.

* 38: What’s the weather like right now?

pretty clear

* 39: What time is it?

10:08pm

* 40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

yes and yes! I won’t say what it was but it hit ME.

* 41: What was the last book you read?

I tried reading Girl Wash Your Face but couldn’t get into it.

* 42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

Yes

* 43: Do you have any nicknames?

yes I do... you can call me queen tho.

* 44: What was the last film you saw?

Legally Blonde

* 45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

several ankles sprained severely on each side.

* 46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

no

* 47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

yes. damien haas.

* 48: What’s your sexual orientation?

bisexual, demisexual, pansexual????

* 49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

yes. I was pregnant.

* 50: Do you believe in magic?

no.

* 51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

yes, unfortunately.

* 52: What is your astrological sign?

cancer

* 53: Do you save money or spend it?

both!

* 54: What’s the last thing you purchased?

a carwash for my dads truck

* 55: Love or lust?

both

* 56: In a relationship?

somewhat

* 57: How many relationships have you had?

two

* 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

no

* 59: Where were you yesterday?

home

* 60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

yes, my water bottle

* 61: Are you wearing socks right now?

no, never

* 62: What’s your favourite animal?

polar bear

* 63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

my hospitality (including dis mouf)

* 64: Where is your best friend?

idk, at home?

* 65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

oooooo bisquett, thebasketcase101, persistence-ofmemories, creativegoof, and zanesgirlfriend

* 66: What is your heritage?

I am part native american and european as far as i know. i want to do a 23andme so I can find out. My skin tans realllllly dark even with tons fo sunscreen on so that makes me think I have more Native American than I thought.

* 67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

I was definitely watching New Girl

* 68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?

idk... Jones?

* 69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

biiiiitch of course I have.

* 70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Yes. I may suck but I am loyal as hell and I’ll do anything for my friends.

* 71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

save the dog, fuck that job.

* 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

a) yes b) spend it with family and write a book c) fuck yes. i am terrified of death all the time.

* 73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

trust. love is nothing without being able to trust.

* 74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

It’s A Great Day to Be Alive by Travis Tritt

* 75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

1389.. not in that order.

* 76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

honesty and communication.

* 77: How can I win your heart?

buy me food and show me that I can trust you with my heart. I sturggle to trust people. I also NEED to be called pet names.

* 78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

Yes.

* 79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Quitting my toxic ass job.

* 80: What size shoes do you wear?

9.5

* 81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

She did her best, even when odds were against her.

* 82: What is your favourite word?

I dont have a favorite but my least favorite is “creamy”.

* 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Love.

* 84: What is a saying you say a lot?

“ooooo bitch”

* 85: What’s the last song you listened to?

Always You, Louis Tomlinson

* 86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?

darkkk red and black

* 87: What is your current desktop picture?

bitch I aint been on there in so long, I have no clue.

* 88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Donald Trump

* 89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

depends on who is asking, if its my family... asking my sexuality.

* 90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Fucking scream and run.

* 91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Mind reading.

* 92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

Seeing my dads face when I walked across the stage at graduation or him telling me how I looked in my junior prom dress.

* 93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Watching my dad die.

* 94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

Harry Styles.

* 95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

The beach, pronto.

* 96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

Not anymore

* 97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

No

* 98: Ever been on a plane?

Yes. I loved it.

* 99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Love others like you would like to be loved and see where that gets you.