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jungkooksmytype · 3 years ago

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A Piece of You (m) | jjk | 3

Pairing: CEO!Jungkook x Artist!Reader

Genre: e2l, childhood friends AU, (eventual) smut, angst, fluff

wc: 1.1k

a/n: Let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist :)

crossposted on Wattpad.

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Without even giving me a chance to take in my thoughts, Yoongi once again dragged me by my fragile wrists. This time it was gentle and towards the direction of his car.

Is that a new car? Damn this boi rich.

"your cereal ran out again. didn't it?"

I pouted and nodded at how well he knew me. It's no surprise too. He has known me for what? 10 years now?

Yoongi was always there for me even when my family wasn't. He was kind of like those comfort blankets we all had as a child and never let go of. Bringing me warmth and emotional support whenever I selfishly requested it.

Don't get me wrong, my family loves me beyond limits and I love them too but they had no idea what was going on with me.

Even with all the love and support from family, I sought for more. As a high schooler with no friends and extreme social anxiety, I felt extremely lonely and isolated from my peers. Why were they able to make friends and I wasn't? What was so wrong with me that no body wanted to be my friend?

I let my mind be evaded by these useless thoughts every single day, not having the strength to fight my own mind anymore. I was on the verge of being consumed by teen depression, that was until he came along.

Min Yoongi, a new student from Daegu who just so happened to be transferred to my class. Although he looked intimidating and hard to approach by others, Min Yoongi was anything but that. He had a kind soul but... how should I put it?... a resting bitch face.

This put him in the same state as me. Not being able to make friends, we noticed how similar we were. This made way for our friendship. Slowly and gradually, and many many late night sleepovers and pillow fights later, we became as close as we are now.

We told each other every secret, every detail of our lives no matter how big or small. Yoongi was my savior and I was his. Nothing could break this bond, this we were sure of.

" Let's go and grab some waffles then I'll take you home."

And before I even knew it, I was being dropped back home after having stuffed my face up to a point where I couldn't breathe. Yoongi did warn me not to go for that 3rd plate of waffles but in an attempt to spite him, I didn't listen. Oh, but the look on his face when I inhaled those waffles like they were nothing was so worth it!

"Shit! I forgot to ask. You wanna go shopping for art supplies with me later?" I bent down to the level of his car's window to ask the man.

"I'm so sorry Y/N my mom just called. Apparently she's at my apartment and Holly's "not behaving."" he made air quotes and rolled his eyes as he said this.

Holly was a well behaved dog so it surprised me to hear that he was acting out. Which is why I let him go without questioning him. After all, he had put so much effort into parenting Holly like a father would.

All I heard was an "I'll make it up to you, I promise!" as his car drove further and further down the street, not even giving me a chance to thank him for the waffles and say goodbye.

"Who do you think you are? Dressing like a slut and showing off that fat belly of yours to everyone! Have some shame and wear some decent clothes at least!" An older looking man shouted as soon as you made your way into your favorite art shop that you had been looking forward to going to.

You've had it. You couldn't have one peaceful day in your life.

It was one thing for your classmates to bully you but having a random stranger pick at your outfit that you were feeling so confident about made you loose your shit. How dare he? Who gave him the right?

"First of all, I am not gonna take "fashion advice" from a crusty looking man like you. Are you sure you're not homeless?"

The man simply scoffs and begins to open his mouth but you cut him off by holding up your index finger up to his face. You may be too shy to confront your body shaming classmates but this random motherfucker who you were never going to see again awoke the bitch in you and now he's going to have to deal with the consequences.

"Second, you better look at your beer belly before you call me a fat," you glance at the wedding ring on his finger, "Your wife is probably out there cheating on you as we speak so you don't really get to call me a slut if you think for one second that whatever bullshit you just spoke from that shitty mouth of yours is going to have any effect on me at all."

"How dare you talk to me this way! Do you know I am older than you! " He spat out.

"Bitch, I don't give two fucks if you're older than me. You don't get to come in here and harass me like you just did. Get the fuck out of here before I report you." You didn't hold back.

By now, people started to gather around to notice the commotion that stopped them from peacefully buying art supplies. Some cheered and while some were recording the whole incident.

It wasn't long before the managing staff asked security to escort the man out. You had a smug look as you watched them drag his crusty ass out the door. Yoongi would be so proud.

The whole crowd cleared out, leaving you alone to shop just like what you initially came here to do. Although nobody stepped in, and you didn't need them to, somebody did carefully notice what was going on.

He observed you as you demolished the old hag and exuded confidence like no other. It fascinated him and you weren't even aware you were being watched until he approached you.

Standing tall with his broad shoulders that could shield your entire being, he now stood in front of you. You looked up, instantly recognizing the man to be the one from the coffee shop. The one who ruined your favorite pair of jeans.

Remembering the name from the card he handed you, you slowly utter just for the sole purpose of testing out the name, "Jeon Jungkook?"Eyes going wide, he hesitated at first. Squaring his enormous shoulders he started to speak before he noticed a presence behind him,

"Do I know you?"

#bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic #jeon jungkook #jungkook fluff #jungkook x reader #bts smut #jungkook smut #bangtan #yoongi #jungkook drabble #jungkook fic #jungkook angst #ceo au #bts f2l #jungkook f2l #e2l #smut #angst #fic: APOY

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sirikenobi12 · 4 years ago

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War & the Jedi

This will be a long meta rant, FYI.

The Jedi Order, specifically the Prequel era Jedi Order, gets a lot of hate these days particularly regarding their involvement in the Clone Wars. Accusations are tossed at their feet constantly ranging from corruption all the way up to warmongering.

Let’s first look at the Oxford English Dictionary definition of these two accusations, shall we?

Corruption - having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.

Warmonger - a person who encourages or advocates aggression towards other countries or groups.

The definitions of these two words are so very misunderstood when it comes to relation to the Jedi. If the Jedi are truly “corrupt” then where are the examples of their dishonesty for wealth or personal gain? In fact, I’d argue that canon (and Legends) makes a point to show us that it is the Sith who are in it for personal gain, not the Jedi. The Jedi have absolutely NOTHING to gain from this war on a personal level, in fact they are losing members in terrifying numbers.

The Jedi are also not advocating aggression towards the Separatists, in fact what we see instead is the Jedi DEFENDING against the Separatists. I have yet to see in either canon or legends an instance where the Republic forces invade a Separatist planet who doesn’t have an army or some military involvement (i.e. weapon factories). However, time after time we see the Separatists forcing peaceful planets who want nothing to do with them to either bow to their cause or die (i.e. Ryloth, Lurmen planet, Kiros, Mandalore) the Jedi and Republic Troops will then follow the Separatists to these planets, but they try to do what they can to liberate the planet from the Separaist invasion and then they give the planet the OPTION to join the Republic for safety and economic reasons, but they never force them, as is super evident with Mandalore.

Yet people don’t seem to see this and continue to drag the Jedi through the mud.

Here are the top 5 other “woke” takes I hear -

Jedi are peacekeepers and should not have gotten involved:

First things first, let’s look at the definition of Peacekeeper - a soldier, military force, etc., deployed to maintain or restore peace.

I’d argue by that definition the Jedi were still peacekeepers, it’s true that they weren’t a 3rd party as they normally were before the war, but their position was trying to maintain or restore peace. Peacekeeper is not the same thing as a Pacifist, the Jedi were skilled warriors (training from childhood to wield a lightsaber), the difference is Jedi used their skills for defense not attack which is what we constantly saw throughout the Clone Wars.

With regards to the idea that Jedi “should not have gotten involved” I ask you then what exactly were they supposed to do instead?

We see at the beginning of Attack of the Clones that the Jedi are worried things will escalate to war, they have obviously gone to the Chancellor hoping that a diplomatic solution can be presented to avoid bloodshed. Or if that isn’t possible then that the Republic have some way to defend themselves other than relying solely on the Jedi (i.e. an army). The Separatists are the ones pushing them to a breaking point, were the Jedi just supposed to stand back and let innocent people be invaded/killed because they didn’t want to get involved? The Jedi were “Guardians of Peace and Justice” which means it was their duty to help bring about peace in the galaxy while also enacting justice.

Then after Geonosis (where they lost approx. 187 members mind you) they learned that the Sith are leading the Separatist army - the Jedi are duty bound by their code to fight the Sith, they had no choice but to join the war.

So, I ask again...what were they supposed to do instead?

2. Jedi used a slave army for their own purposes:

Okay, I can (and probably will) write a whole argument based on just this accusation alone. There are so many fallacies I don’t even know where to begin but I’ll try.

I guess my first question is the same as #1, what were the Jedi supposed to do instead with regards to the Clones?

Technically speaking the Clones didn’t “belong” to the Jedi, they were “property” of the Republic (as stated by Lama Su in Attack of the Clones). In fact, the Jedi Council not only didn’t know about the order, they had vehemently denied Syfo Dias’ earlier request to raise an army in the first place. The Sith KNEW the Jedi would be against it, this was all part of their plan to trap the Jedi (as was EVERYTHING about the war) - they clouded the Force, they literally deleted Kamino from the Archives so the Jedi wouldn’t discover it until the Sith WANTED them to (i.e. Jango just happened to use a Kamino dart?? Come on people). Yoda even states “blind we are if creation of this clone army we could not see” he fully admits they missed it because the Dark Side was clouding their vision.

Regardless, the army was created, there was no changing that fact. Had the Jedi not taken command of the army do you think the Clones wouldn’t have had to go to war? Do you actually believe that the Republic who couldn’t get their citizens to give 2 craps about the war would’ve taken up the mantle and fought instead? Do you think if the Jedi were like “thanks, but we didn’t order this” that the Kamioans would’ve just let the Clones go free?

The answer you’re looking for is...no.

So, like absolutely everything about the Clone Wars the Jedi did the best they could with the cards they had been dealt. They chose to lead the army on the front lines, putting themselves in just as much mortal danger as the men they were leading. They even sent a member of the Jedi Council to oversee the creation of future clones/training to ensure they were being treated humanely (something the Kamioans thought was ridiculous). They were the first to tell the clones that they were individuals, they constantly put themselves in front of their men to protect them (i.e. season 7 Obi-Wan deflecting the rocket from blowing up his men). The Jedi did what they could, just because we didn’t see on screen Jedi stopping to grieve every time a clone died did not mean that they didn’t care - real life Generals can’t stop in the middle of a battle to grieve over their fallen soldiers either, so why is it we consider it a moral crime if the Jedi don’t?

Another thing I’ll add is once the Jedi had evidence that the Clones were actually ordered by Dooku, did they immediately stop and say “oh hell no, these flesh droids can’t be trusted, we should just have them decommissioned”?? NO! They defended the Clones, stating that they were good men and should be trusted (and look where that trust got them in the end).

The Jedi were forced/coerced to fight this war as much as the Clones were!! Why are we willing to forgive the Clones, but not the Jedi???

3. Ki-Adi-Mundi killing Geonosians was the same as Anakin’s slaughter at the Tusken camp:

This is another moment where context is everything because there is a HUGE difference between Ki-Adi-Mundi on Geonosis and Anakin in the Tusken camp. The fact that I have to even spell it out makes me wonder how people can even dress themselves in the morning.

The Geonosians were an opposing military force, attacking Ki-Adi and his troops. Anakin slaughtered unarmed women and children out of vengeance.

Now, had Ki-Adi turned to his men and screamed “to the catacombs!” brandishing his lightsaber with a murderous glint in his eyes and proceeded to cut down the unarmed bugs below the battle then you’d have an accurate comparison on your hands and I’d be appalled right there with you.

But, as it stands this is not the same thing...not even close.

4. The Jedi sent children to war:

So, this is a tougher one and I can even understand the concerns behind it, and I even share some of those concerns. The thing I will say to this is, given what we see throughout Star Wars, what constitutes a “child” seems to be different than our own real world definition.

Padme, for example, was 14 when she was elected Queen, and she wasn’t even the youngest ever elected. She (and her handmaids) were trained as children to defend themselves and their people both politically and in battle (much like Jedi), but you don’t hear people condemning the people/traditions of Naboo the way we see the Jedi being condemned for theirs.

Jedi children arguably mature faster than your standard person, and with regards to Star Wars there are also species’ age ranges to keep in mind. Grogu for example is still a baby at age 50, could it be possible that Ahsoka at age 14 is on the same maturity level as a human in their early twenties due to her Togruta DNA?? We don’t know, it’s never stated other than Anakin saying something about because of her advanced skills he forgets how young she is.

Obviously Boba Fett is treated like an adult by other Bounty Hunters - no one even questions when he picks up a job and is placed in charge of a group at age 12 or 13 (and he is placed in an adult prison without anyone questioning it). It could be that by law according to Star Wars that 13 is actually considered an adult. Throughout history (and in many different cultures) 13 was when people were considered to be “coming of age”, So, once again we’re placing our cultural biases onto a fictional space fantasy world without realizing it might not even be an issue in that world.

But even beyond all of that I ask you again - what else should the Jedi have done?

Their young Padawans would eventually have to grow into Jedi Knights, even before the war by the time they are teenagers they usually followed their Masters on missions (often very dangerous missions) in order to get real world experience. At the time of the Clone Wars the real world they were living in was one at war. If they hadn’t brought their Padawans onto the battlefield how else would they have learned how to strategize, or how to cope with the emotions of battle? They would’ve been ill prepared if the war had continued on for years and years as it had looked like it was going to do...once again, the Jedi had no real choice in this.

5. The Jedi lost their way because of the war:

Did they though?? I’d argue they actually didn’t. We first have to ask ourselves what is a Jedi - well, according to the very first time we hear any type of a description about a Jedi they are introduced as the “Guardians of Peace and Justice for the Republic” I don’t see how the war took that away from them.

The Oxford definition of Guardian is a defender, protector, or keeper. I fail to see how the Jedi stopped being any of these things because of the war.

Here’s the bottom line, the Jedi’s biggest mistake was that they fell for a plot 1,000 years in the making. The Sith spent over a millenia perfecting/hatching this plan, there was nothing the Jedi could’ve done to prevent the war by the time the trap was sprung. As always, I’m not saying the Jedi were perfect (I hate that I have to always specify that when I argue that the Jedi were good), all I’m saying is they tried to do the most good that they could with the situation they fell into - few groups/characters can claim the same thing.

Everyone seems to forget that the Sith controlled BOTH SIDES to that war, there was nothing - absolutely NOTHING the Jedi could’ve done that would’ve changed or won that war. So, instead they saved as many innocent lives as they could and to me, that’s very Jedi.

#star wars #jedi #Clone Wars #jedi appreciation #jedi positivity #jedi positive #pro jedi #stop blaming the jedi #meta #rant post #war #The Clone Wars #attack of the clones #jedi culture #jedi council appreciation #jedi did not deserve genocide

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vyeoh · 3 years ago

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this is your chance: wax poetic about an Empires or DSMP character of your choice to a fan who is new to both. Explain why I should love them. I need guidance in this new and meme-populated land.

okok this is a lot of pressure haha. Spoilers for EmpiresSMP and DreamSMP below, obviously. I wrote a lot so prepare yourself, anon

I watch a lot of empires POVs but the ones I most anticipate every week are Scott and Sausage.

c!Scott (I'll call him Smajor for the sake of simplicity) starts off the series chilling, not really getting involved with the rest of the server, and staying aggressively neutral. After all, he's an elf. He has lived far longer than most of the other rulers already, and will most likely outlive them for many years. So, the best thing is to stick to his mountains and not get invested in the dealings of mortal affairs, maybe sometimes causing problems on purpose and dipping because what's life without a little spice right.

But then, this demon comes to the server, Xornoth. He's going around causing havoc and wants to send the world into an eternal winter, but he doesn't bother the kingdom of Rivendell much so Smajor stays tentatively cautious but ultimately unbothered. But then, the puzzle pieces start falling together. The first thing that the audience noticed was was Xornoth sounded like Smajor, but we mostly thought that this was just due to cc!Scott voicing both of them and there was nothing more to it. However, then, the people the demon starts possessing start chanting in elvish. The demon hates mortals, and the elves are conveniently one of the two confirmed not fully mortal races in Empires.

This culminates when Smajor stumbles across a cave that contains the backstory of the patron god of Rivendell, Aeor. Basically, there's two opposing forces, Aeor and Exor, and both have a champion. In a previous life, those champions were two brothers, where Aeor eventually prevailed and banished Exor. In this life though, the champions are - you guessed it - Smajor, and the demon Xornoth.

So now Smajor is like. Well fuck. It's my literal god-given destiny to be responsible for defeating this demon who is technically my brother, and if I fail the server gets plunged into an eternal winter. And I have no fucking clue what is happening because I've just been here on this mountain actively trying to stay out of the issues outside my kingdom. We watch him panic and teeter on the verge of spiraling for an entire episode, and when the followers of Xornoth go to the End to kill the dragon, releasing Xornoth's full powers, he fails to stop him. Smajor is a character who was used to being the smart one, the prepared one, the one who has the least deaths on the server. But he's also a character who runs away from his problems and ignores them. Before and during the dragon fight, we hear the desperation in his voice, as he's thrown into a situation he is wholly unprepared for, and it's bigger than him going to the Cod Empire to kill their king, or assisting in other people's plans to kill the codfather. He can't run from this. cc!Scott plays this scene so well as well, as I've said before, one of the best parts of Scott's acting is how he's never super dramatic, but he's so effective in the little things like inflection to make you feel, viscerally, the panic and dread.

So after the dragon fight, Smajor realizes, I can't do this on my own. I've tried and failed. So he gets allies. We watch him, someone who has so strongly been an isolationist, learn the benefits of allies and watch him learn to trust others and watch him learn how to get that trust in return.

My favorite thing about Smajor's characterization is that he's an incompetent protagonist, but not in the way of the "plucky young adventurer". He's capable skill-wise, and fairly jaded and very pessimistic. However, his issue is that up until recently, he did not care about the rest of the server at all, and by the time he learned to, it was way too late.

Also, in 3rd Life, cc!Scott and cc!Jimmy were canonically married and they reference it sometimes in Empires. Like, Scott goes over to the Cod Empire every so often both in and out of character to kill and/or flirt with Jimmy, the ruler of the Cod Empire, which may develop as a secondary plot into the future who knows. So ty Scott for giving the gays what they want o7

Now onto Sausage: his is a story of Icarus, his hubris and ambition being his downfall. He's one of the two followers of Xornoth, who promised him endless power in exchange for his servitude. He started the series being eccentric, but not outright unhinged, but slowly gets more and more extreme as the series progresses, as he gets brought more and more to Xornoth's side.

One of the best parts of Sausage's character, in my opinion, is how his gradual corruption affects the people around him. Initially, he got into a conflict with the Cod Empire and was allied with two other people in the Witherrose alliance. They were allies, but also close friends. The fandom liked to joke that the three had sibling energy, and I'm pretty sure the ccs played to that even more lol.

It was painful to watch the other two members, Gem and fWhip, watch Sausage get corrupted right in front of them, and see them desperately clinging on to this old idea of Sausage in their head because if they faced the truth, it would mean that their friend was gone. Eventually, they do finally cut him out of the alliance, leading him to fully commit to the side of the demon. Sausage felt very clearly betrayed by this, and declared the remaining two Witherrose alliance members to be enemies.

He gets more and more possessed, and we even see the other Empires, his enemies even, slowly realize that something is very wrong with the ruler of Mythland. He starts doing more and more evil things, like killing people more, making sacrifices to the demon, and eventually helping to kill the dragon to free Xornoth. So things are good for Sausage, for a bit. He won, and is more powerful than ever. Then he finds out: he's going to die. Xornoth's possession is slowly killing his soul, and eventually, his body going to be fully taken over and he himself is going to be trapped in the spirit realm. So how do you react to this? Over the next few episodes, we watch Sausage struggle between "the demon is literally killing me" and "the demon has given me so much, and I love it", all while Xornoth takes over more and more of him. We hear him exclaim that "don't worry!! I'm still about 15% there!" while trying to downplay every time Xornoth completely takes over his body. We watch him willingly oppose anyone who is trying to end the thing that is killing him.

My favorite thing about Sausage is that he is undoubtedly evil and proud of it, but he's also undoubtedly human. If you like to watch evil characters go absolutely feral, he's the guy for you. He makes the deal with Xornoth in the beginning, knowing and fully embracing the evilness of the demon, but at the same time he knows what he's doing is detrimental to both himself and everyone around him, but he's gotten in way too deep at this point, and to be fair the demon has held up its end fo the bargain, right?

Also, I would be damned if I don't talk about cc!Sausage's editing. Every one of his videos is like a movie. The way he does camera angles and uses music is so skillful- every lore scene feels like something out of a high fantasy action saga (think: LotR). Every big lore event I always wait in anticipation for Sausage's ep because his editing truly takes lore to another level.

I'm just generally very excited to see where this series goes. Empires is such a good mix of talented builders and good lore. Part of the reason why the series is so immersive for me, beyond any other lore smp, is that they have the settings to back it up. There is a certain charm to the DreamSMP's objectively terrible builds (with a few exceptions) but in Empires, the settings help sell the plot so much.

Another part of why I love EmpiresSMP is how much the ccs are involved with the fan community. I'm sure you've seen the memes about Scott being on tumblr, and Sausage regularly goes through the EmpiresSMP fanart tag on Twitter and likes art, even ones not related to Mythland. Most of the ccs, in fact, have brought up tumblr content on stream at some point or another. Like, several ccs have said that they read tumblr lore theories and hcs and stuff and sometimes take inspiration from them. Fun fact: Rivendell's church was inspired by my pinned drawing; confirmed by Scott Smajor himself. It's just such a good cycle of ccs and fans being excited about each other.

As for DreamSMP, I'm gonna be honest here, the only person I really am invested in in Technoblade. I started watching when he joined the server, and he's the only person whose lore I keep up to date with.

Techno's fun to watch because he's like the Deadpool of DreamSMP. Virtually unkillable, very skilled and scary, but consistently cracks jokes and breaks the 4th wall during plot. His POV is just fun. Like, he does wild plans and gives speeches and some of the stuff that happens to him should be called deus ex machine if it wasn't for the fact that Technoblade is the one who's doing it, and all the stuff is grounded in the fact that cc!Techno is just that good at the game.

However, the fact that he rarely takes anything seriously makes the few times Techno is 100% serious so much more impactful. His whole character has a basis in being perceived as inhuman and being treated as such, and therefore in return trying to hide his humanity. So, when he shows that humanity, whether that's fear, anger, or genuine love for his friends, it really makes you go "oh shit."

Techno's often said not to have character development, but I'd argue that while he remains steadfast in his moral code, he develops leaps and bounds as a person. Like, at the beginning, he's brought onto the server to help Wilbur and Tommy overthrow a government; them knowing he's 1) an anarchist and 2) very very powerful. His character was more of a plot device at that point and was treated as such in the canon. Wilbur and Tommy straight-up lie to him about their plans to establish another government after they overthrow the current one, while he was led on to believe that they were abolishing all governments in the area. But he isn't a plot device. He's a person, as much as he only shows the terrifying, blood god side of himself.

After the establishment of New Lmanburg (the new government its a long story), his friend Phil joins. And for the first time, we see him be fully human with someone and we see someone treat him like a human. Like, we saw glimpses before, with Wilbur and Tommy in Pogtopia, but Phil is the first person we noticeably see he trusts 100%. Then Doomsday happens, and Techno essentially retires to the tundra. During this time, we see Techno learn to be more human, first with Ranboo, then Niki when he establishes the Syndicate. In fact, the two of them, along with Phil, canonically throw him a birthday party, which is a far cry from his treatment in Pogtopia.

Techno's development is one of a god learning to be human, and I just think he <3

#vio.ask #empiressmp #empires smp #dreamsmp #scott smajor #smajor #smajor1995 #mythicalsausage #mythical sausage #technoblade #to be clear i am not an apologist for any character #i fully realize that they are doing wrong and I like to watch it happen #minecraft roleplay got be in full character analysis mode #long post

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mercurytrinemoon · 4 years ago

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Me debunking astrology generalizations and misconceptions or smth idk...

Squares and oppositions aren't pure evil.

I can't believe I have to say this because I thought ya'll have learnt the characteristics of every aspect but here we are. Nothing in astrology is black and white. And I saw some ridiculous statements (not necessary here on tumblr) that said things like "if your Venus squares someone's ascendant then you don't find that person attractive AT ALL". Or "Mars square Mercury people can't speak politely and have an annoying voice". Like????? First of all, that's ridiculous. Second of all, square in not "everything bad" just like trine is not "everything amazing". Squares bring tension, which leads to motivation, they’re stimulating; sometimes excitement or charisma; sometimes they can make you overdo things. I'm not saying they're oh-so-marvelous because the challenges are still there, but they're not as bad as people paint them to be. Squares happen between two signs that are in the same modality so they have a bunch of things in common. Besides, some of them (Sagi-Pisces and Gemini-Virgo) are ruled by the same planet so there's a special type of chemistry between those (especially when applied to synastry). Oppositions work in two ways, planets either meet in the middle - opposite signs usually complete each other and fuel each other up. And worse case scenario? Natally this means being pulled in two different directions; synastry-wise, you can completely miss each other like two passing cars - so there may be some misunderstandings but I don't think that's the end of the world... And, as per usual, may be mitigated by other positive aspects.

This is me debunking other people's attempts at debunking Sun sign compatibility.

Sun IS very important but when people ask about compatibility and go with Suns... and then someone tries to be a smartass and debunk the "compatible-incompatible" and does the same thing without even realizing it. Like, "oh I actually see a lot of Aries and Pisces having amazing relationships because *insert someting that is a total stretch and refers to their Sun sign traits*"... But you seem to forget that they're neighbouring signs... which means they probably have personal planets in those neighbouring signs... which means they're compatible not because of some made-up stuff that you're trying to come up with but because their other planets are compatible with each other. But you're still feeding into the Sun sign compatibility talk. (So like, what I'm trying to also say, yes, the entire synastry chart comes into play; Also, side note, everyone can get along on some level if they’re mature enough).

Planet in a sign is NOT the same as planet in the house.

There may be some overlaps in some of the sign-houses associations (like in the overall energy; like for example, it sort of makes sense that 3rd, 7th and 11th are referred to as “air houses” because they’re the most social) but in NO WAY there are similarities between planet house position and the "ruling" sign. That association started a few decades ago and some would say that NOT linking houses with signs is a purely traditional approach. But there’s plenty of professional modern astrologers with 20/30/40-year experience who still differentiate between sign/house position... because they know (and have learnt along the way) that there’s a huge difference.

I'll give you 3 quick examples: Gemini planets and 3rd house planets both may put emphasis on communication, mental stimulation and gathering data. But Geminis are often scattered in their approach, they may be easily distracted, may be indecisive, may be jack of all trades and talkative jokesters. They actually hate routines and dullness. "Spice it up" is probably a Gemini's philosophy. Now 3rd house planets may indicate you actually LIKE doing things on the regular - like running errands every other day in the mornings or going to that one specific coffee shop to pick up a snack. You may actually work in logistics or as a postman (especially if your chart ruler or MC ruler is in the 3rd). Planets in the 3rd talk about your siblings, neighbours or school experiences - like having Venus in the 3rd may point to positive experiences within those areas - something Gemini Venus has nothing in common.

Venus in the 9th can study at an art/beauty or fashion school (or even teach there if the MC is involved); can be very attached to spiritual and religious matters; can also find love in a foreign land. But imagine it being in Taurus - rather shy, needing those stable values to feel secure, being an exceptionally great student at that art school thanks to its domicile. Venus in Sagittarius on the other hand, likes adventure, things being shaken up from time to time, lightheartedness and exploration. But what if we flip the scenario and that Sag Venus is in the 2nd house. This can denote earing money through travelling and looking for ways to expand but in a financial matters.

Continuing with the Venus examples, having Venus in Aries is completely different than Venus in the 1st. What do people usually say about Venus in the 1st? That it makes the native charming, lovely, well-put together, with great manners, maybe beautiful, graceful, maybe a bit shallow. When in Aries? None of these characteristics fit, on top of that, it's in its detriment. Our poor gal Venus is uncomfortable and confused in Aries. She's like, "conquer? Swords? Selfishness? Obnoxiousness? Sparring? You're telling me to fight people? What am I doing here???"

And I'll leave you here with that cause those examples weren’t that quick lol and in fact, I could give you a 100 of those. Besides, this actually inspired a 3-page rant that I've already posted not so long ago that you can read HERE.

There's no such thing as "more accurate" astrology.

Both western and vedic are valid. Both can show you the same things. JUST KEEP THEM SEPARATE AND DON'T MIX THEM WITH EACH OTHER. And don't say things like "sidereal shows your soul" - omg I saw this statement soooo many times, who the hell even came up with this?! Actually, if anything, it's the modern western approach that "psychologized" (yea I just made up a word, you mad?) astrology while Jyotish still sticks to the very real "here and now", sometimes fatalistic predictions of how exactly your life is going to roll out... But hey, reach for hellenistic methods and they can tell you the same things, just with different tools. So no, they do not show different things, it's just their language is different.

If you say you don't identify with your chart then you're just reading it wrong.

This partially connects to the last one in some ways... Switching to a different astrology or different charts is not a solution. Learn how to read your natal. If you say it doesn’t describe you, I can guarantee you that you haven’t studied it properly. (Now this hasn't turned into a rant yet but I may actually do a whole-ass post on this because if I start elaborating on it now I'll end up with another 3-page essay).

Learn how and when to generalize. Also learn how to take generalizations.

I understand that you have to pick up on every single thing separately in order to put everything together. It's like learning a new language: first you need to learn individual words and then you need to know the proper grammar to create a full sentence. This is 100% understandable and necessary, but it's important to take the entire thing into consideration. And this goes for all branches of astrology, but I guess it's especially annoying with synastry. This, again, comes down to the very black and white approach. You know, like when you see those long paragraphs where people elaborate on all the intricacies of Venus-Pluto aspects or whatever as if that one thing was determining the entire relationship between two people. (Side note, no shade but some of ya'll should start writing fiction or poetry cause the amount of fluffy speech and waffle that I see floating around here on tumblr is insane sometimes). Why are you wording everything as a make it or break it type of situation? And on the receiving end - learn how to take *properly phrased* generalizations constructively. Example: it IS a rule that Aries is a competitive one, maybe you're not one of them (for many reasons) but don't make a fuss about someone saying this. It IS a basic rule that energies of the same sign in two people are going to get along (well that depends on the planets involved but I digress), if that, for some other reasons, doesn't apply to you, don't go yelling that it's bullcrap because you hate people of the same sign. You know? Like, learn the difference.

DON'T SCARE PEOPLE WITH ASTROLOGY.

I had a mini-rant on this one a while ago, but I think this deserves a constant reminder (and refers to the last point), I don't want to see any more posts that would say things like "xxx house placements will bring you suffering" or "stay away from people with planets in your xxx house" or, even worse, making a (completely untrue btw) prediction based on one single thing like "someone with so-and-so aspect is going to harm you". And you're so casual about it??? You know there are sensitive people in the world. Learn some ethics. Learn some counseling skills. Don't be ignorant. Don't throw these random stuff at people just like that. And learn some actual astrology cause most of these aren't even closely describing that particual aspect. LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

Ok now I'm pissed again.

Studying astrology and believing in free will doesn’t go well together.

It's not just psychological and spiritual. It's useful to know that western astrology made it like that because there were still people threatening astrologers for using it as a divination tool. So they moved away from the predictive/deterministic aspect of it. Now, I'm not here to change anyone's beliefs cause that's a very personal thing that everyone should develop on their own. But once you start diving deeper into astrology you'd notice that there's a heavy emphasis on fatedness and things being predetermined. That includes both the good and the bad stuff and you should learn to accept that. And with the bad things specifically, let's not excuse it with some "oh that was an opportunity for growth". Like yea, maybe, occasionally??? But just acknowledge that sometimes things happen not because there was a deeper meaning in them... but because you have a Pluto-Mars conjunction in the 6th that makes an applying square to your chart ruler and you were going through a profection year where Mars was your time lord and it transited that chart ruler while making a conjunction with Neptune so you were attacked by a baby crocodile while swimming and it bit off your toe and you got a nasty infection and that’s it (I just made that up btw, I don't actually know anyone who was attacted by a crocodile). So like, sometimes shit just happens and there's nothing psychological about it. Also, I bet your free will didn't want to be attacked by that croc.

#thank you for coming to my ted talk #that was supposed to be short #i can never keep it short #you know how many ideas i had for that house-sign differences?!#i could write an entire book #also i may do a part two #some day #astrology #mercurytrinemoon

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mochideleche · 4 years ago

Text

captain. | t.oikawa

oikawa x reader

-> synopsis : you didn't really want to be on seijoh girls volleyball team, let alone become captain. But as a good hearted and dedicated student, you accept the responsibilities that come with the role, especially when it comes to dealing with the boys’ team captain.

A/N Thank you so much for all the love you gave the last one, i didn’t really think people would read it >w<, and a special thank you to this lovely lot, your comments honestly made me so happy <3 : @winchtr-67 @dancing-in-the-rain54 @theduvetpirate @sailorscout1902 @weebintheinternet @alexthe80swhore @juns-random-world

“So you down for tonight?”

you catch the ends of a conversation as you approach your classroom.

“Of course I am, who would turn down ramen?”

Oh gosh, is it too late to turn back? you think inwardly as you cringe your eyes closed.

You turn the corner and you see 4 figures crowded around the door to your class. Slowly, you approach them, your heart beginning to pound against your ribcage.

“I mean we haven’t gone out for your celebratory meal yet” you hear matsukawa say, “it would be a waste not to go out for ramen”

Awkwardly you come to stand near them, you didn’t want to interrupt the conversation and bring attention to yourself but they were in the way.

“Oh, hey Y/N” Iwaizumi greets and you send him a smile.

At this point the three other boys’ heads turn to you, all giving you a small greeting too,

well except for one...

“Why, if it isn’t Y/N-chan!” oikawa muses which seems to surprise his friends more than it does you.

“Y/N-chan?” matsukawa asks suspiciously, looking in between you and the offending nickname user, but this comment seems to just go over Oikawa’s head.

“So, you all better now?” he questions, his smile softening as his eyes flick down to your arms which were hanging by your sides.

You follow his gaze and immediately understand, “never better” you say quietly.

He smiles at you cheerily, eyes almost shut. You couldn’t help but redirect your gaze away from his face, you could already feel yours heating up. In the process of which, you catch the three other boys throwing looks of utter confusion at each other, it only made you heat up more.

“SO” hanamaki says, clapping his hands to try to clear the really awkward tension in the air, “ramen after practice for oikawa’s promotion to captain?”

the three boys nod. they were still in the way.

“Hey, Y/N you should come too, i mean, you got chosen to become captain too right?” Iwaizumi says and you find it difficult to answer.

It was nice of him to offer but you’d just feel a bit out of place.

and a certain someone would be there too.

“Thank you, but this seems like a boys thing” you reason, hoping he’d take the bait and brush off his previous statement.

“Nah, it’s fine, the more the merrier right? ” Hanamaki exclaims, “and besides” he continues, slinging his arm around oikawa who stumbles slightly, caught off guard by the other boy’s weight, “oikawa will pay for everything”

You tried not to laugh after seeing the incredulous expression that formed onto the captain’s face, “why me! i’m the celebratee, if anything it should be you lot paying for my food!” he bursts, shoving Hanamaki’s arm off his neck.

And then the two of them erupt into a boyish squabble and you take this as your que to leave.

You quickly dodge past oikawa and hanamaki who were now poking fingers at each other and duck under iwaizumi’s arm which was resting on the door frame who kindly manoeuvres slightly so you don’t have to squeeze past.

“hey Y/N!” you hear Iwaizumi call and you turn back.

“You are coming right?” he questions, momentarily looking to glare at the bickering boys who were now grabbing at each other.

Were you?

but why wouldn’t you want to go? you’re friendly enough with Iwaizumi, matsukawa and hanamaki. it was just...

but you were friendly with oikawa now (if you can call it that), so what was the big deal?

hm, maybe it’s because you want to hate him so badly but you’re scared you’re starting to catch feelings for him-

“sure” you let out, almost regretting it immediately.

it was ridiculous the way you were thinking and you needed to get over yourself.

he’s just a useless flirt, you say to yourself. there's no need to get all mushy over his actions, no matter how special they make you feel.

“i’ll go” you finish, as you see a small smile appear on iwaizumi’s face before he runs out into the hallway to kick both Oikawa’s and hanamaki’s asses.

After practice you find yourself standing embarrassingly in front of the girls’ clubroom as you open the door to be faced with 4 extremely tall 3rd years.

you take forever to change, they must’ve been there for long.

“I’m sorry i made you wait” you say, rushing to lock the door but you’re followed up with a jumble of ‘it’s okay’ and ‘it’s fine’

“You take less time than oikawa” matsukawa lets out and oikawa shrugs accepting this fact.

“Beauty takes time my friend” he explains, taking the lead as the four of you begin to make your way out of school.

The restaurant you were eating at was about a 5 minute walk from school. It was one of those family owned small street side restaurants that made you feel like you were eating in your own kitchen. With loving grandmas, cramped tables and the smell of food sitting heavily in the air, there was no other way you’d want to spend your friday.

Upon reaching the place you allowed yourself to fall behind, trying to avoid an awkward situation. That being, ending up having to sit next to oikawa.

It wouldn’t be good for your heart.

The four of you helped yourselves to a table and you stuck close iwaizumi hoping he’d somehow serve as a barrier between you and the curly haired boy.

alas, he isn’t a mind reader.

He was gentlemanly enough to usher you in the booth first and it had seemed like your plan had worked. You happily shuffle along as much as you could, placing your bag down at your feet. But as soon as you felt a figure bump next to you, your heart jumped at the thought of having to spend the night next to him.

“So, what are you getting?” Oikawa asks you, chin resting on his hand as you twists his head to look at you.

does he always have to stare at you like that? as if he finds you amusing?

“Haven’t decided yet” you mumble out, taking the menu and lifting it up enough so that he couldn’t see your face.

Thankfully he avoids any other conversation as the waiter comes to take your drink orders.

you spend your time behind your menu inefficiently. Instead of pondering of what to eat, you ponder on how the hell you’re meant to calm down. Barely ten minutes had past and you were already fighting the urge to leave, you needed to get your shit together, get over yourself and enjoy this supposed celebration on your newly crowned captainship.

In the end, you pick what you normally get, not feeling too brave to try something new. And with your appetite increasing by the minute, you wanted to know that what your ordered would satisfy your hunger.

“Thank you for the food” the four of you call out as your order arrives. And a flurry of arms float around the table at an instant; reaching over for their meals, shuffling drinks and napkins, passing out chopsticks and snapping them open.

You however, mostly keep to yourself; content with just sitting by the wall and eating with your elbows tucked in as to not bump into the pretty boy next to you.

As a girl, you ate very delicately which was a sight to see amongst the rowdy boys that surround you.

Each one of them had removed their blazers, their sleeves rolled up and their ties thrown over their shoulders to avoid falling into their ramen. You even catch that iwaizumi and matsukawa have one of their legs bent up on the chairs, allowing them to rest their elbows on their knees.

And in your line of sight you also see oikawa’s arms.

Now he was a tall and thin boy, typical for a volleyball player, but with someone whose serves leave bruises that last a week, you could expect him to have pretty ripped biceps.

You could see the way his muscles flex underneath smooth tanned arms as he lifted his bowl closer to his face and the way that his folded sleeves seem to fit firmly on his shoulders and the skin peaking underneath.

They weren’t exactly bulging but they were toned enough to have you staring long enough for oikawa to finally notice.

His eyes flicker to the side and you quickly avert your gaze into you bowl.

Ah shit, you inwardly scream as you feel yourself heating up.

“What you staring at Y/N-chan?” Oikawa smirks, teasing you in a mocking tone.

You see at the corner of your vision that the question pikes the attention of the others, their eyes on you now too.

Was oikawa really going to make you say what you were doing out loud, in front of everyone????

“hmm?” he teases again, bowing his head a little to look into your face which was still fixated on the almost empty ramen bowl in front of you.

You finally let your eyes turn to him, head tilting slightly so that it almost brings you nose to nose with the egotistical flirt beside you.

God you just wanted to shove that stupid grin down his throat.

“how scrawny your arms are” you deadpan, returning to your meal, leaving oikawa’s jaw unhinging and an eruption of laughter to spurt up around you.

“MY ARMS ARE NOT SCRAWNY!” oikawa pouts, trying to over bear the cackles from the other three boys.

“mhmm” you hum, smiling small as to not break your stoic expression (just to up the levels of savageness)

“Look, see for yourself,” he whines, and you find his arm being shoved into your face and you bring your head back in surprise, “feel my arm, it’s toned! see!”

You finally let yourself laugh too, iwaizumi nearly choking on his food at oikawa’s added outburst.

you couldn’t help but feel slightly bad, he seemed pretty riled up because of your comment, but he must surely know you’re joking right?

You pat the boy’s arm, “no need to be upset toru” and you send him a sweet smile.

The look of offence melts off his face in an instant as his expression turns into one of soft surprise. you wondered what you did wrong but then notice the abrupt silence.

The whole table had their eyes on you, wide as saucers.

“What-”

“Oh Y/N-chan” Oikawa cuts, the slight falter in his theatrics immediately disappearing, making you wonder if you had imagined it, “i know you think my arms are incredibly hot, so don’t be shy, you can caress them anytime you want”

As flustered as you are, you manage to bring your finger up to your mouth and gag, “no thanks”

The laughter is back, and you’re extremely glad for it.

But you did however find your anxiety coming back when later on in the evening when you hear hanamaki whisper over to matsukawa, “she called him toru”

---

“So how’s your team going?” Iwaizumi asks you.

you nod, “we’ve got some pretty good first years” you let out.

Gosh you hated talking about volleyball with them. You hated how you always felt so inferior and you knew they didn’t think that way at all. But with you constantly being reminded of how great the boys’ team was, it was hard not to feel jealous every time they talked about their club. You wanted to be able to show how hard your girls worked, how talented they were and that they had every right to be praised just as much as the boys were.

You wanted to talk about your team to them too, but you didn’t want them to know how much you were struggling.

Iwaizumi nods in response and brings his hands up behind his head, “we’ve got some pretty good first years too, some of them even made it to the starting line up” and he turns to oikawa who’s walking in pace on the otherside of you.

“Yeah they’re pretty impressive,” oikawa says, eyes closed and palms up, “but there’s always room for improvement”

You can’t help but agree, “yeah, there are a bunch of other teams who’ve been upping their game these past few years,” you comment, remembering how last year you had just barely lost to niyaami girls.

“Yeah,” oikawa responds, and you notice how his hands are clenched by his sides, “there are other teams who are improving far too much for my taste”

You glance at his face from the corner of your eyes, his jaw is set and there's a determined look in his eyes. You’re wondering who exactly he’s talking about.

But your attention is dragged from your thoughts as iwaizumi begins to stray from your side.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow-”

You soon realise he’s moving to walk down the road you're passing but he stops and scrunches his eyebrows.

You’re confused as to why he’s so perplexed but notice how he’s not staring at you, but oikawa. He slowly raises his eyebrow as he turns to face you and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

you have a feeling a message is sent to oikawa with his eyes and you turn to the tall boy next to you to see the lingering motions of him jutting his chin forward.

“See you guys later” he calls, finally turning around and flashing you a smile as he begins to walk down his road.

The two of you watch him for a bit before oikawa starts to move again, “it looks like i’m walking you home then, come on”

that's it? no teasing, no flirting, just him being nice?

The two of you walk in silence. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, more like you’d both come to the acceptation that there was nothing that you could talk about.

And shortly, you begin to realise that he has no idea where he’s going.

With his longer legs, his pace is a bit faster than yours and you can’t help but notice how he was constantly having to intermittently slow down just so you wouldn’t be left behind.

You note that how every time you reach a corner, there's a slight pause in his step, his feet staying stationary as he waits for you, watching out of the corner of his eyes for you to either walk past or turn. It’s kind of endearing how he wants to take the lead but refuses to ask for directions.

“Congratulations” he says suddenly and you’re lost for a reply.

“What for?”

“Becoming captain of course” he says as if it was plainly obvious, with the slight upturn in his voice which was so characteristic of him.

You feel a slight smile make its way onto your face, “thank you, you too”

You hear him hum contently as the two of you fall into silence again. Was that an attempt at igniting a conversation? and you just put it out in a flash.

whoops.

The small smile naturally begins to disappear as you find yourself contemplating on the fact you were now captain. A whole team to carry on your shoulders, you thought. and how was that going so far?

Deep down you felt as if you didn’t deserve to be captain, you had no intention of carrying on with volleyball after high school. it felt wrong that such an honourable position had been bestowed upon you.

“You’re frowning” Oikawa states and you look up towards him.

“What?”

He smiles but its lopsided as if he’s struggling, “is there something bothering you?”

How is he so observant? not just on the court but in ordinary situations like this too. He was so good at what he did, you felt more complied to be envious of him than to praise him. And the fact that his praises were making their way to your ears almost every day by his adoring fans caused you to lean towards the prior more.

This guy could read you like an open book and it made you feel so exposed.

If he read you, would he soon realise it’s him at the core of all your worries?

You spot how he’s fiddling with the strap of his bag, and his smile is now straining slightly- it’s awkward and more importantly, most likely fake.

You turn away to save the both of you the embarrassment and only to be relived to see a familiar set of brick wall and garden plants.

“Oh, this is my house” you say, coming to a stop and fixating your gaze on oikawa.

“Ah, I see” he comments quietly and you can’t help but think that something’s off.

“I’ll see you tomorrow” you call, opening the gate to your house and standing inside as your stare at oikawa who hasn’t moved yet.

One second,

two seconds,

three seconds,

“Yeah,” he says, and his face lights up that you wondered what on earth he was thinking about, “I’ll see you tomorrow, goodnight Y/N” and he throws you one of his cheery smiles.

You were so relived to see him acting like the flamboyant self he was that you actually smile back at him, “ goodnight oikawa”

You let the gate fall shut behind you, the front porch light finally sensing movement and flooding the courtyard in a sombre yellow light.

he didn’t call you Y/N-chan, he just called you Y/N.

---

Wednesday.

gosh you wish you could say that you nearly forgot but to be honest it was the only thing you could think about.

It was constantly on your mind. in fact when one of your new firsts years asked you how their serve was, you were in the middle of mulling over what exactly oikawa was planning to do and blurted out ‘wednesday’ in a panic.

Luckily, she thought nothing of it, but your fellow third years did.

And that led to a very colourful explanation on to which the two girls could only laugh at the ironicalness of the situation.

“Maybe it’s karma for you bad mouthing oikawa all the time” Ara comments and you roll your eyes at the incredulousness.

“It’s nothing. I can deal with it then i’m done” you mumble, prodding a volleyball that had rolled to you with your foot, “and i don’t badmouth him all the time”

“sure you don’t” mitsuah joins, immediately avoiding your gaze as your glare at her.

and the teasing didn’t stop there. When you offered to close the clubroom and let the others go home early, your vice captain and setter were making love hearts with their hands and calling out, “have fun~” over their shoulders.

It bugged you that they thought extra training with oikawa automatically meant the two of you were dating.

It would be nice though wouldn’t it?

you stop in the midst of locking the door, your hands stuck on the key and your grip around the door handle going limp.

did you really just say that?

you didn’t even think oikawa dated. For a person who had so many fangirls to pick from he hadn’t had that many relationships. One at best you remember, you think it was an older girl you couldn’t recall. But, if he wanted to date, there was plenty of chance to.

You shake the thoughts off, telling yourself to calm down however, when you enter gym 1, there’s a frown on your face and the words ‘useless flirt’ are swimming laps in your head.

“Y/N-chan, you made it, i was worried you wouldn’t come” oikawa greets, his signature smile plastered on his face but he tilts his head and furrows his brows, “what’s up with you?”

You try your best to releax your features your weren’t even aware were contorted into a look of depressed confusion, “nothing”

you’re glad the boy only lets out a ‘huh” as you approach, trying your best not to look at him.

just. a. useless. FLIRT.

“Well,” he starts, clapping his hands together, “I was wondering if your could hit some of my sets for me, would you?” he asks but you can’t help to feel like its more of a demand.

You simply nod in response, as you watch him pull the ball trolley closer to the back line. You follow in pursuit, taking your time to examine his back.

You can see the sweat causing his shirt to stick to his skin, and the dark patches that already seem to be drying due to the cool night air drifting through the open door.

“So all you have to do is spike the ball, i’ll set it up for you okay?” Oikawa says, turning around to face you once he had placed the trolley at the back.

You nod silently as he smiles and begins to make his way to the net, “oh and would you do me a favour?” he calls over his shoulder, “could you spike with your left hand?”

hm, what a strange request. But of course you had no need to know why and not really want him to talk anymore, you kept your mouth shut.

You only nod once again but alas, it seems like not saying anything won’t keep him from doing the same.

“Such an obedient girl” he chuckles under his breath and you cringe at the comment, making an effort to gag and scrunch your face in distaste.

“Shut up otherwise i’ll throw a ball at your head” you grumble, but he doesn’t make any smart remarks to your threat.

You grab a ball from the trolley and wait for oikawa to get in position, he nods at you, his knees are bent and his eyes are focused on you. His hands are floating by his waist and suddenly you find the mood does a whole 180.

Volleyball was something that was like second instinct. Everything else just... fades.

He’s in the zone.

You must say, you prefer professional oikawa to the flirty front he has on most of the time.

You throw the ball up towards him and you begin to run.

With much difficulty actually, just because oikawa was focused, doesn’t mean you were. you had to try to keep your eyes in front of you and not on him, concentrating very hard not to trip over and fall flat on your face before you even pass the line.

You find yourselves inching closer to the net, and your feet begin to push down into the floor and your knees unhinge, springing your body into the air.

Out of the corner of your eye you see the ball on its course- it’s soaring towards you but it’s slightly low. you bring your arm down just a tiny bit, not ideal for hitting hard but your palm makes contact with the ball either way and sends it into the floor of the other side.

Your feet land again and as you stand up straight you turn to oikawa , “you lowered the net”

“Well of course,” he charms, but his face doesn’t hold the same amused smile. you realise that he’s being genuinely confused as to why your asking what seems like an obvious question, “I wouldn’t have you not spiking at 100%, what’s the use of a net that’s too high?”

You smile at him, surprised at the small act of kindness. You don’t know why but you still can’t get over the fact that this guy is actually nice.

“That ball was a little low wasn’t it?” he continues, and you nod in response.

“I’ll do it higher this time but that was still a very good spike” he smiles cheerfully and with that repositions himself and you do the same, heading back to the end of the court.

You did the same thing, threw the ball up, ran, jumped and spiked.

The first ball was too low, the second was slightly too high.

But the third was perfect.

and so was the fourth, the fifth, the sixth-

“you’re honestly incredible” you let slip, after hitting the seventh perfect set in a row.

The minute it slipped out of your mouth, you regretted it. He obviously knew that, he must've had half the school telling him but when you turn to see the shy blush painted across his cheeks, you find yourself shocked more than anything else.

“Thanks” he says and you scrunch your eyes in confusion.

“You act as if you don’t know that” you blurt, not knowing why you chose to say this thought out loud.

Oikawa turns to look at you and brings his hand to rub the back of his neck, “well- people tell me all the time but i can’t help but feel it’s not genuine. Don’t get me wrong, i’m grateful that they say these nice things to me but- coming from you, well- you’re a great player and a good captain too, so that means a lot to me”

you feel your scrunched eyebrows relaxing and you suddenly feel bad.

Who knew that Toru Oikawa was so insecure?

“Hey,” you began, not knowing what the hell you were doing but- it was too late to turn back now.

You barely knew this boy and comforting him felt so strange and unfamiliar. did you really have a place to tell oikawa that he should be happy he’s lucky to be so gifted with such skills and be acknowledged for it?

But the look he was giving you completely caught you off guard. there was no flirtiness, no cheekiness and no smug smile hat made you feel like he found you amusing. He was looking up at you through his eyelashes, eyes wide and soft like a lost puppy; face relaxed from any arrogant expression and one that made him look ever so vunerable.

“I don’t know if you know but you’re one of the best players in miyagi. I don’t really know how you do in volleyball since we barely know each other, but people don’t talk about you for no reason, you know?” you finished meekly, starting to feel a little bit embarrassed at your lame excuse for a pep talk.

“All I’m saying is, that I think you're an amazing player and that you should give yourself more credit”

You then began to turn around, trying to brush off the fact that you had just complimented him ; you expected a snarky remark or some sort of teasing but by the time you had reached the back line all you received was

“thank you Y/N”

#oikawa #oikawa tōru #oikawa tooru #tooru oikawa #Toru Oikawa #oikawa toru x reader #oikawa x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu imagines #haikyuu oikawa #haikyuu fanfic #haikyuu fanfiction #oikawa x you #oikawa x y/n #hq oikawa #oikawa imagine

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grailfinders · 4 years ago

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Fate and Phantasms #115: Sakata Kintoki (Rider)

This time on “Fate and Phantasms”: We’re always trying to make the best build possible. Little do we know that we’re about to face our greatest challenge yet: building a goddamn motorcycle. Join us as we build: Sakata Kintoki (Rider)!

(As usual, his build breakdown is below the cut, or you can check out his character sheet over here!)

Next up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8WvSGNEV24

Race and Background

Yes, we’re still doing that bit from the first time. This means Kintoki’s still a Golden Dragonborn, gaining +2 Strength and +1 Charisma. This also gives you a fiery Breath Weapon once per short rest and Fire Resistance. That’s not very in character, but you’re gold, and that’s good enough!

As a motorcycle delinquent/Kamen Rider expy, you’re a Folk Hero, giving you proficiency with Animal Handling and Survival. You can literally talk to animals. Handling them shouldn’t be an issue.

Ability Scores

You’re pretty strong, which is probably why your Strength should be as high as possible. Your preferred method of fighting is crashing into people with your motorcycle, so your Constitution should be pretty high as well. Third is Charisma- bad boys are in these days. Your wisdom isn’t that bad, we’ll need it for multiclassing and also you know animals well enough to speak to them. Your Dexterity isn’t great; despite wearing leather armor, your main defense is your bike being faster than the enemies. Finally, we’re dumping Intelligence. Changing classes didn’t turn you into a professor.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: Getting your ride is our top priority, but that’ll take a couple levels. In the meantime we should make sure you’re at least a bit competent off the bike. Your fighting style is Unarmed Fighting, giving your unarmed strikes more power and letting you deal damage by grappling. I’d think grappling someone and running your bike would already deal damage, but now it’s RAW. You can also use your bonus action to gain a Second Wind for a smoke break.

You also get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as Intimidation and Athletics. Bikers are scary, man.

2. Bard 1: Okay, now we can get that bike. If you want justification for the class, you did mistake the Rider class for Kamen Rider, so there you go. You’re powered by Saturday morning kid’s shows.

Becoming a bard gives you one skill proficiency of your choice- I’m gonna say Insight. You look like you can read the room pretty well. You can also cast Spells using your Charisma, and you can give Bardic Inspiration to another creature as a bonus action a number of times per long rest equal to your charisma modifier. This is a d6 that the creature can add to an attack roll, skill check, or saving throw within the next ten minutes. You’re a nice guy like that.

This Kintoki’s a bit more thunder than lightning, so for your spells grab Thunderclap and Thunderwave to stay on brand, Friends and Animal Friendship to talk to squirrels, and Heroism and Longstrider to protect your wheels and give them a nitro boost.

3. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, giving you half your proficiency bonus on any skill check you’re not proficient in. This includes initiative, so even with your +0 dexterity modifier you can be a bit faster out the gate. You also gain a Song of Rest for extra healing over short rests if you like that sort of thing.

Also you can Speak with Animals now, so they can tell you how much faster you are than them.

4. Bard 3: Time to make some golden creations! As a Creation bard, you’ll find your inspiration dice are a bit more golden thanks to your Note of Potential, gaining extra effects. If used on an ability check they can roll twice and take the higher number, on an attack roll they force an constitution save (DC 8 plus your proficiency plus your charisma modifier) or creatures around them take thunder damage, and if used on a saving throw the creature gains a bit of temporary HP.

The bigger draw this level, however, is the Performance of Creation. As an action, you can create a medium or smaller item worth less than 20 times your bard level in GP. It lasts a number of hours equal to your proficiency bonus, and you can use this once per long rest, or by burning a second level spell slot to use it again. It’s not enough to make a motorcycle just yet, but you can at least make that cool belt buckle.

Finally, you get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus. I’d go with Athletics and Animal Handling. You’ll need some lower body strength to hang onto your bike while fighting.

You can also cast second level spells now, like Enhance Ability to give a creature advantage on a kind of skill check. Give yourself a constitution boost to help with those Thousand Mile Drives.

5. Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to round out your Strength and bring your Wisdom up to multiclassing minimums.

You can also cast Mending for another way to fix up your bike, or Shatter to break everything else.

6. Bard 5: At fifth level your inspiration becomes d8s, and you become a Font of Inspiration. This means you regain inspiration dice on short rests as well as long ones.

To celebrate, you learn how to put on a proper tokukatsu Motivational Speech from Acquisitions Incorporated, giving up to five creatures temporary hit points, advantage on wisdom saves, and advantage on its next attacks after its hit. The spell ends on a creature once the hit points are removed, otherwise it lasts for an hour.

7. Bard 6: Now we’re cooking! Now you can finally use an Animating Performance to make your motorcycle, a large Dancing Item. The item stays dancing for an hour, and you can use your bonus action to command it. You can animate an object once per long rest, or by burning a 3rd level spell slot to do it again. Plus, your Performance of Creation can make large items now, so a motorcycle is totally on the table!

The movement speed on a dancing item’s only 30′ which isn’t ideal, but on the plus side your bike can fly, so... I’d say it balances out the cool factor.

Sadly bards don’t get Haste, but if we can’t speed up your bike, at least we can Slow down your enemies.

Oh yeah, you also get Countercharm, spend an action to give allies advantage against being charmed or frightened, not really great but you can always use it for an “I know you’re in there” fight.

8. Fighter 2: Now that that detour’s out of the way, we can get back to fighting. Second level fighters get an Action Surge, tacking an extra action onto your turn once per short rest. Cast two spells, multitask with healing and hitting, or just hit people over and over again. It’s pretty versatile.

9. Fighter 3: Cavaliers get an extra skill proficiency, and Performance will really help you sell your Kintoki action figures. You’re also Born to the Seat, giving you advantage against falling off your mount and mounting/dismounting your cycle only costs 5′ of movement.

As a hero of justice, you can also apply an Unwavering Mark to a creature when you hit them that lasts until the end of your next turn. If the marked creature is within 5′, it will have trouble hitting other creatures, and if it still does you can make a special attack against the creature next turn as a bonus action. The attack has advantage, and deals extra damage as well. You can make these attacks a number of times per long rest equal to your strength modifier.

10. Fighter 4: Speaking of advantage and being good at riding things, use this ASI to become a Mounted Combatant, giving you advantage on attacks against creatures smaller than your mount, the ability to redirect attacks to you instead of your mount, and giving your mount evasion, meaning it takes half damage on a failed dexterity save and no damage on a success.

11. Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters get an extra attack each attack action. It’s not very complicated, but it is very useful.

12. Cleric 1: Your dad’s a god, you get more thunder powers. As a cleric, you can cast and prepare spells using your Wisdom. As a Tempest Cleric, you can channel the Wrath of the Storm. When a creature within melee range hits you with an attack, you can react to blast lightning or thunder back at them with a dexterity save attached. You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your Wisdom modifier. (So if you’re using the standard array, once.)

You can also cast Thaumaturgy for more dramatic entrances, Resistance so you’ll wipe out less often, and Light because every motorcycle needs a headlight. You can also kick up some dust with your domain spells, Fog Cloud and Thunderwave. You already have a better thunderwave from your bard levels, but hey why not be redundant.

13. Cleric 2: Second level clerics can Channel Divinity in two ways. You can either Turn Undead to make walking corpses into running... away from you... corpses... (not my best work), or you can channel it into Destructive Wrath, allowing you to deal maximum damage when you deal lightning or thunder damage. Your spells are pretty low level, so the extra efficiency is appreciated. You can use this once per short rest, or you can burn your channel divinity use to Harness Divine Power, refilling a spell slot that’s less than half your proficiency modifier as a bonus action.

14. Fighter 6: Use your next ASI to boost your Charisma for stronger spells and more inspiration.

15. Fighter 7: As a more seasoned cavalier, you could react to add a bonus to a nearby allie’s AC when they’re being attacked a number of times per long rest equal to your Constitution modifier. You could, but unfortunately Warding Maneuver requires a melee weapon or shield, and you do things barehanded.

16. Fighter 8: If your hands are going to cause you this much trouble, they’d better be good at their job. Use this ASI to max out your Strength so they’re great at their job.

17. Fighter 9: Ninth level fighters are Indomitable, letting you re-roll a failed save once per long rest. You probably shouldn’t use this on your intelligence saves, you’re not making those either way.

18. Fighter 10: Tenth level cavaliers actually get something we can use, the ability to Hold the Line. This means your opportunity attacks can activate on a creature moving within your reach, and they also reduce the target’s speed to 0 on hit. A good hero keeps the villains focused on them.

19. Fighter 11: We’re almost done, but first you get another Extra Attack for even more punching goodness.

20. Fighter 12: Use your capstone ASI for more Constitution to get more HP and better concentration. You only have so many spells, you’ve got to make the most of them.

Pros:

Thanks to Animating Performance, you can literally make your motorcycle out of anything, as long as its large enough to ride. It also means you’ve got a flying bike, though if you want to keep it closer to canon you could flavor it as having the ability to ride up walls.

You can deal very consistent damage thanks to your high number of attacks and free advantage from mounting your bike. You’re also able to make your limited spell slots count, maximizing their damage with channel divinity.

Your skills as a cavalier make you good at getting enemies’ attention and keeping it away from squishier party members. Mix in a bit of healing from your cleric levels, and you can be a surprisingly good tank in a pinch.

Cons:

You like to ride on things, and you also use a lot of spells with indiscriminate damage. That’s not a good combination, especially since your bike is a construct.

Having, at best, a leather jacket and a +0 to dexterity means your AC is pretty low. Your best defense is not being near the enemy when they get a chance to hit back.

Having to command your bike eats up all your bonus actions, meaning you’ll have to chose between using your unwavering mark or riding.

#Fate Grand Order #FGO #D&D 5e #Kintoki rider #Fate and Phantasms #Cleric #Fighter #Bard

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duhragonball · 4 years ago

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Hellsing Liveblog Ch. 7-10

This is the “Dead Zone” arc, featuring Luke and Jan Valentine.

This arc is set around... uh, September 3rd-ish, I think. By now, Hellsing has had time to investigate this recent uptick in vampire incidents, and she calls a meeting of the “Convention of Twelve” to discuss her findings. This group represents the heads of various important agencies, political leaders, and noblemen, and the manga states that they “essentially” run the British Empire. I’m not sure how to read that, exactly. Kouta Hirano appears to be establishing one of two things:

1) Parliament Shmarliament, everything is really controlled by this secret group of oligarchs sitting at a table.

2) This is a collection of all the big wheels in British society, so they might as well be calling the shots even if they aren’t a true governing body.

I’m not terribly concerned about which one it is, since we left real-world Great Britain behind a long time ago. The Hellsing U.K. seems to put a lot more power in the monarchy, for example. Also there’s friggin’ draulas runnin’ around everwhere.

Anyway, Integra reveals that the vampires they’ve been killing lately all have microchips installed in their bodies. She says the chips “define the vampire’s status, behavior, intent, and aggression.” I don’t know if that means outright control or a more subtle manipulation. It might exaplain why the couple in Chapter 3 weren’t exactly being subtle.

Moreover, these vampires haven’t been following the conventional rules laid down back in Chapter 1. Vampire bites can turn a person into another vampire, but only if the victim is a virgin. Otherwise, they turn into ghouls. Destroying the head vampire will destroy all the ghouls he’s created. But that hasn’t been happening. The couple in Chapter 3 killed a lot of children, but they all became ghouls. And in Badrick, Anderson killed the vampire, but the ghouls remained active long enough for Alucard and Seras to fight them.

At least, that’s what Integra is saying. We never actually saw any ghouls in Chapter 3, and Anderson killed the vampire in Badrick off-panel, so we don’t know the exact timing. But I’ll take Integra’s word for it.

Something that got lost along the way was the matter of what happens to Seras if someone managed to kill Alucard. According to Chapter 1, she’d die immediately, but we never actually see that play out, and Seras is the only vampire created by another vampire in this story. We never see ghouls die en masse, either, because there’s never a situation where their master dies first, and the ghouls we see from here on out are these rule-breaking microchippy kind anyway.

Never mind that shit, here comes the Seras part. Walter has replaced her bed with a coffin. Apparently she had a bed in this dank-ass dungeon, and then one day Integra got a wild hair and decided “Oh, yeah, she should be sleeping in a vampire bed.” She’s been a vampire for like two months now. I feel bad for Walter, having to lug that big-ass bed down here, only to have to take the damn thing right back out. He must have known it was going to end this way. You’d think he would have said something before.

Seras hates this idea, but Walter relays a second order, one from Alucard: Seras has to sleep in the coffin. Well, that seems kind of redundant, but I guess Seras might have tried to sleep on the floor or something instead. The main thing I find interesting about this is that Seras is mostly irritated by Integra ordering the coffin, but she takes it much more seriously when Alucard is mentioned.

According to Walter, since Seras hasn’t drunk any blood, her powers will weaken... unless she sleeps in a coffin lined with soil from her birthplace. So maybe it’s an either/or deal. Integra was fine with Seras using a big girl bed because she assumed Seras would be drinking blood. But without it, she has to use a coffin, or she’ll be no good to the team. And after two months, it’s become clear that Seras has no intention of drinking blood, even bags of donated blood, like the one Alucard snacked on in Badrick.

Even Seras doesn’t know exactly why she won’t do it, which Alucard finds baffling. If this was a dealbreaker for her, she should have just died as a human in Cheddar.

But Al isn’t entirely unsympathetic either. His words are harsh, but they’re the truth: Seras is a vampire now, and there’s no going back. She keeps trying to resist this, but it’s already happened. Denial will only make this more painful for her. I think that’s part of the reason he offered his own blood to her in Badrick. I mean, there weren’t a lot of other options, but from an ethical standpoint, drinking Alucard’s blood seems reasonable, since it won’t kill him. The unspoken sentiment here is: Listen, I know this is difficult for you, and I’ll try to make this as easy as possible, but you need to do this and there’s no way around it. But even that doesn’t seem to work, and Alucard’s in no particular hurry, so he’s willing to table the matter. Which I suppose is how the coffin thing came about in the first place.

Walter also takes this moment to give the vampires their new guns. Alucard wanted something special for the next time he tangles with Alexander Anderson. Recall that Al already has a special cosmogun with an infinite supply of magic bullets, and he shot Anderson in the face and it didn’t stop him. So Walter builds him “The Jackal”, which is basically the same as his first gun, only even bigger and with a black finish. It also says “Jesus Christ is in Heaven Now”, which drives me nuts because I don’t know if that’s like a message to Anderson, or just some random thing. Kouta Hirano puts these nonsense religious slogans all over Hellsing, and I’m pretty sure he’s just doing it for effect, and not particularly concerned over whether there’s any religious significance to the words.

As for Seras, she gets a giant bazooka-looking think called the Harkonnen, named after a Dune character. One of these days I want to sit down and read Dune. I kind of feel guilty that I haven’t already, because then I could be writing this and get all excited for this moment. “HOLY SHIT!! IS THAT MOTHERFUCKING DUNE REFERENCE?!” Instead I’m like, ho-hum, yes it is.

Let’s move on. This arc is about the Valentine Brothers, two vampires who take the fight to Hellsing instead. They have a small army of ghouls, and their plan is to just drive up in a tour bus and storm the gate. Ghouls are mindless, zombie-like monsters, but apparently they can work a gun well enough, and Hellsing never imagined an enemy would try such a thing.

As soon as Integra finds out about this, she tries to evacuate the Twelve, but their helicopter gets destroyed, cutting off any chance of escape. Then Jan (pronounced “Yon” by the way), calls her on the comm system and threatens to kill them all.

So Integra calls Walter, who already knows what’s happening. Um, how? I feel like the anime explained this better. Maybe Jan’s profanity-laden threats were on a public-address system instead of just for the conference room. But it sure looks like Walter’s just chilling out in a windowless, underground room. But he already knows there’s no hope of reinforcements arriving to save them. He proposes himself and Seras using the ventilation shafts to get to the coference room, where they can defend the twelve, while Alucard can go on the offensive.

Alucard is amused to hear that Walter is going back into action, and calls him “Angel of Death”. We’ll come back to that.

So Walter’s pretty much on top of things here. No one ever considered anything like this happening before. Hellsing is supposed to be a secret organization, so a vampire shouldn’t know to come here in the first place. Moreover, no one dreamed that a vampire would plan it out so well, using ghouls in a military fashion. But he’s optimistic about their chances for survival, because...

Walter has super powers. Specifically, he has these magic wires he can use to bind and slice up his enemies, and this makes short work of the Valentines’ ghouls. He then repeats Jan’s taunts back at him. Okay, so I guess Walter did hear Jan’s message from earlier.

The problem I always had with this development was that it seemed awfully convenient for Walter to have super powers. But then, it took me a while to catch on to Anderson having super powers, and he took a bullet to the face. I think the conceit of the Hellsing world is that these “anti-freak” organizations have to have super-powered operatives, so they use secret techniques and alchemy or whatever to empower men like Walter and Anderson. It’s really not that hard to swallow.

Except that the first vampire-hunter we meet in Hellsing is Alucard, who is himself a vampire. So it seemed like the whole point was that he was the best suited for the job because he had the raw power to do it. Integra doesn’t seem to have any powers, and neither do any of the rank-and-file Hellsing operatives who get mowed down by the Valentines’ ghouls. So it always confused me for Walter to just go “Wassup, I have powers too.” But it only makes sense for Hellsing to have more than one card to play. Clearly, Walter used to hunt vampires on the regular before he retired to become a butler.

Between Walter’s wires and Seras’ giant gun, they manage to subdue Jan easily enough, but he reveals he has a partner, Luke, whose job is to tackle the second half of their mission: to destroy Alucard. Let’s check in on him...

Yeah. I was thinking about doing a blow-by-blow of this fight, but it’s kind of pointless. Luke talks a big game, and seems confident that he’s on a higher level than the vampires Alucard has been fighting recently, and for a hot minute, even Alucard believes that he might be a worthy adversary, “above even a ‘Category A’ vampire,” so he releases his “control art restriction,” to “Level 1″.

I guess I should back up and explain this. Alucard, like all overpowered anime characters, can hold back his full power and reveal it in stages. For some reason he has to announce that he’s doing this, like Windows 10 describing it’s own updating. Presumably, there’s a Level 4 where he usually operates, and that was enough for him to fight Luke evenly. But here, we see him jump all the way to Level 1, which allows him to turn into some shadowy form with lots of eyes and two dog heads.

Also, centipedes. The point is, this is all stuff Luke can’t do. He’s more of a “super speed gun-shooting” kind of vampire, so he’s immediately outclassed. Alucard’s dog form eats Luke and that’s the end of him.... OR IS IT?

Meanwhile, Jan’s ghoul army is beaten, but he still has reinforcements in the form of all the Hellsing soldiers they killed earlier. These men rise up as new ghouls and chase down Seras while Jan makes a break for the conference room where the Twelve are holed up. Walter tries to catch Jan, but only manages to rip off one of his arms. He makes it to the door, only to find...

Integra and the others all have guns, and they shoot him down.

All Jan has left now is his second wave of ghouls, except Seras manages to overwhelm them. At first, she was panicking, but then she freaks out and goes feral on them, to the point where Integra has to jump in and order her to stop. When she does, she seems to have no idea what just happened. This is mostly overshadowed by the sheer horror of Hellsing’s soldiers being reduced to the undead.

All that’s left is Jan, who refuses to talk. He has the same microchip implants as the previous vampires, and the people who sent him are monitoring him in real-time, which means they know he failed, and they can make him self-destruct before he can tell Hellsing anything. As he dies, Jan flips them all off and gives them one word of information: “Millennium.”

After that, Integra tasks Walter with destroying the remaining Hellsing ghouls, until Sir Irons, one of the Twelve reminds Integra that this is the duty of a commander. As Hellsing’s C.O., it’s her responsibility, so she agrees and starts shooting the ghouls in the head.

Meanwhile, Jan’s mysterious overseers talk amongst themselves, and their leader calls for them to resume their “research”. As devastating as this attack on Hellsing was, for Millennium, this was merely a test.

#2021hellsingliveblog #hellsing #alucard #seras victoria #walter c dornez #sir integra hellsing #luke valentine #jan valentine #i guess i should have said more about the valentine brothers as characters #they're all right but they don't stick around long enough to make much of an impression #i mean everyone loves jan because of his foul mouth but what else can i add to that?

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tigerkirby215 · 4 years ago

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5e Qiyana, Empress of the Elements build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Aley Ghallan. Made for Riot Games.)

So it turns out I was wrong about Evelynn: there is another champion who doesn’t have “the” in the title! Leave it to Qiyana to be special. Anyways: after making this post my brain decided to hype fixate on a potential Qiyana build and then... oops. It suddenly got made. Truth be told I still haven’t got a goddamn clue how Qiyana works in-game.

GOALS

Not my fault; they should have bowed - Qiyana’s an assassin which of course means we need assassin damage.

Let us throw rocks at them and laugh - The Empress of the Elements needs elements to control! Earth, Wind, Fire, and Air!

Why are you in my space? - Riot sort of just... decided Qiyana should have two dashes in her kit? I guess?

RACE

Qiyana is clearly human but the Ixtali have some innate magic to them, so for control over the primal magic of (area with trees) go for a Half-Elf for Fey Ancestry to resist charms and sleeping.

But we won’t just be going for any Half-Elf. You know me I use Dragonmarks way too much, but it works since the Dragonmarked houses are above the rest. We’ll be going for a Mark of Storm to control both the oceans and the river! As a Mark of Storm Half-Elf your Charisma increases by 2 (as per usual) and your Dexterity increases by 1. You have Windwright’s Intuition to add a d4 to any Acrobatics checks you may make (as well as Navigator’s Tools which is slightly less important), and the Storm’s Boon to resist Lightning damage. "I see you have mastered the element of wind."

Of course what we’re mainly here for is Headwinds for a bit of elemental manipulation! You can cast Gust at will, and at third level you can cast Gust of Wind once per Long Rest as a very shitty version of your ultimate! You can also learn a language of your choice and Primordial would let you speak to the earth; it’s up to you to make sure it listens!

IF DRAGONMARKS AREN’T AN OPTION: Both Drow Half-Elf and Wood Half-Elf work very well for Qiyana. Drow gives you more spells while Wood makes it easier for you to hide. You’d also get more ASIs by going for a regular Half Elf (as opposed to a Dragonmarked race) so put the +1 you’d get into Strength.

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - Qiyana is a master of acrobatics, doing flips and kicks as she so desires.

14; CHARISMA - A ruler is meant to be attractive... and imposing.

13; STRENGTH - That ring you carry is heavy. Also it’s a multiclassing requirement.

12; CONSTITUTION - Qiyana is squishy in League but that doesn’t mean she has to be squishy for this build.

10; INTELLIGENCE - You must know your legacy in order to rule, and while your magic is a natural gift it’s good to know your way around Arcana.

8; WISDOM - So what if you have a hot head? You can shape the river to cool yourself off!

BACKGROUND

And here you were thinking I’d use Noble... Not many know of the Ixtali people, so you’re more of a Far Traveler than anything else. You get proficiency with skills but they don’t really fit you to be honest, so take Arcana and Nature proficiency to know your natural magic. You also gain proficiency with a musical instrument or gaming set of your choice (pick your fancy) and a language of your choice (also pick your fancy!)

But most importantly you know that you have All Eyes on You. Everyone knows you’re from the great land of Ixtal, and some will offer you service to know of the history of your great land. Won’t they be excited to know they’ll be joining your kingdom too?

(Artwork by Jennifer Wuestling. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

You are an assassin, and an empress needs as many skills as she can get. Take proficiency in Acrobatics (obviously) and the three big Charisma skills: Deception, Persuasion, and Intimidation. You could get Performance instead for some TRUE DAMAGE, but trust me when I say Performance barely ever comes up in standard D&D. You also get Expertise in two skills: Nature and Arcana are kinda your thing, so...

As an empress you know just the right way to word your phrases to sound like Thieves’ Cant, and can understand any roguish discussion of those trying to overtake your throne. But of course as an assassin you’re expected to build lethality and Sneak Attack, doing an extra d6 to any enemy who mispositioned.

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues get their Cunning Action, allowing you to have the Audacity to Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a Bonus Action. It’s really nice when I can recreate League of Legends dashes as just... the Dash action.

LEVEL 3 - ROGUE 3

Third level Rogues get to choose their Roguish Archetype and Swashbucklers can move from enemy to enemy with ease and taunt them all the while. As a Swashbuckler you get two features but it’s more like three features: Fancy Footwork lets you dash away from a foe you’ve just hit without taking opportunity attacks.

Rakish Audacity meanwhile lets you Sneak Attack anyone who doesn’t have bodyguards, and has the added benefit of letting you add your Charisma to initiative rolls! "Some wait their turn, and some take what they deserve." Speaking of Sneak Attack: your Sneak Attack also increases to 2d6, and you also get Gust of Wind from your race now!

LEVEL 4 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get an Ability Score Improvement: Dexterity kind of controls... everything that you do at the moment? So a +2 increase to DEX will go a long way.

(Artwork by eollynart on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 5 - PALADIN 1

Did you swear an oath to Ixtal? Well it doesn’t matter. As a Paladin you have a Divine Sense to know the lay of the land: if there are any Celestials, Fiends, Fey, or Undead walking through your river or if the land is Consecrated or Desecrated. The ability does have a limited number of uses and a limited range however, so be mindful.

You can also heal yourself (or others, I guess) with a Corrupting Potion thanks to Lay on Hands. You can even cure Poisons or Diseases with 5 health points, because no one is assassinating this empress!

LEVEL 6 - PALADIN 2

Second level Paladins get to choose their Fighting Style: while it may not be the most effective you need to control the elements, and Blessed Warrior will give you some more minor control over the world around you. Thaumaturgy is the main one we’re here for because we can’t get Prestidigitation, and while it’s perhaps not the most in-character Guidance is still always useful to have, if only to use it on yourself.

Now would also be a good chance to talk about your Ring Blade ohmlatl: I actually think opting for Two Weapon Fighting with Qiyana works quite well to recreate her weapon! I’d opt for two Scimitars but Shortswords obviously work well too. Alternatively a Rapier and Shield would still let you Sneak Attack while also letting you block attacks.

Of course you don’t just get cantrips: you get actual Spellcasting! You can prepare a number of spells equal to your Charisma modifier plus half your Paladin level (rounded down.) Divine Favor will let you use your passive to get more damage and Thunderous Smite will let you knock a foe down as if stunning them with an icy blade.

Other than that? Command suits you well but there are few other spells we really need. I’d recommend you ignore all of that and concentrate on Divine Smite, turning magic into raw damage with your blade! "I command you to die!"

LEVEL 7 - PALADIN 3

The magic of Ixtal is ancient and to bend it to your will look no further than the Oath of the Ancients. You learn both Ensnaring Strike and Speak with Animals as Oath Spells (one of which is far more in-character than the other, but hey the birds can bow to you too), and you get two Channel Divinity options:

Nature’s Wrath will let you ensnare a creature within 10 feet of you. (It’s supposed to be flavored as vines but I’d reflavor it as ice from the river.) They can make a Strength or Dexterity saving throw or get free, but if they fail they will be restrained until they break out. Yeah there’s no max duration on this! Yes they can repeat the save each turn but the point still stands!

Turn the Faithless meanwhile is your standard turning effect, only this affects Feys and Fiends. The jungle natives know to bow to you, and usurpers shall be made to bow!

LEVEL 8 - PALADIN 4

4th level means another Ability Score Improvement but I don’t think we’ve hidden in the grass enough. The Shadow Touched feat will let you increase your Charisma by 1 and will also give you the Invisibility spell for when you need it. You can also learn a first level Illusion or Necromancy spell like Disguise Self to change up your wardrobe as necessary. You can cast both these spells once per Long Rest without using a spell slot, but can then use your spell slots to cast them some more.

Speaking of spells you can prepare more of them. But again: not much I really want. I’d recommend waiting for...

LEVEL 9 - PALADIN 5

5th level Paladins get an Extra Attack, allowing you to attack twice in one turn for more chances to Sneak Attack, Smite, or both!

Additionally you get a lot of good stuff at this level! You can learn Misty Step and Moonbeam as Oath Spells to recreate Flash and what we’ll call your ultimate for the sake of this build. You can also prepare Branding Smite for more Elemental Wrath and uhhhh... oops that’s kinda all I want. I mean Lesser Restoration is nice in a pinch. Truthfully it’s 3rd level where the true Qiyana spells come in.

(Artist unknown. Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 10 - PALADIN 6

6th level Paladins can evade any danger with their natural beauty. Aura of Protection grants a saving throw boost equal to your Charisma modifier to yourself and anyone within 10 feet of you, so their empress can lead and put those who oppose her in the dirt.

LEVEL 11 - PALADIN 7

Oh did you think a bonus to saving throws wasn’t enough? Well as an Ancients Paladin you get Aura of Warding as well, giving yourself (and your allies) resistance to magic! This means that if you succeed on a saving throw against a spell you’ll take a quarter damage total (half of a half), and even if you (somehow) fail you’ll still only take half damage! "You are right to fear my greatness."

LEVEL 12 - PALADIN 8

8th level means another Ability Score Improvement: cap off that uneven Charisma score as well as your uneven Strength, because a +2 modifier is nice even if you aren’t really using it.

LEVEL 13 - PALADIN 9

9th level Paladins can cast third level spells which means oh boy: I get to tell you all the spells you should prepare to be in-character for Qiyana that you’re never going to be able to cast with your limited spell slots! Regardless Ancients Paladins get Plant Growth and Protection from Energy added to their spell list, to manipulate the elements to their liking. But with four other spells to prepare what should we take?

Elemental Weapon is the “yeah duh” spell, letting you invoke Elemental Wrath and really get value out of your passive. (It also makes your weapon a +1 which is helpful.)

Spirit Shroud is like Elemental Weapon but objectively better except for the fact that it doesn’t deal elemental damage. (Well it can deal Cold damage.) But instead of a d4 extra damage you’ll do a d8, and you can also slow those near you!

And again: I don’t really want any other spells. Almost like Qiyana is an AD champ masquerading as a spellcaster. You are allowed to take Cure Wounds you know? Just saying.

(Artwork by Mavoly on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 14 - ROGUE 5

Hey aren’t you an assassin? Shouldn’t we be concentrating on like, assassin stuff? 5th level Rogues get Uncanny Dodge, letting you spend your reaction to halve the damage of an attack against you. This would affect attack rolls from spells like Shocking Grasp, meaning it would stack with Aura of Warding, but you can’t Uncanny Dodge a spell to only take an eighth of the damage.

Oh and your Sneak Attack (finally!) increases to 3d6.

LEVEL 15 - ROGUE 6

6th level Rogues get Expertise in two more skills. By this point you should probably be at peak performance with Acrobatics. After that pick your poison for one of your Charisma skills if you want to deal in public relations, subterfuge, or pop music.

LEVEL 16 - ROGUE 7

Are saving throws still (somehow) getting you down? Well Evasion just makes it so you take 0 damage if you succeed on a Dexterity saving throw, and only half damage on a failure! It’s probably worth mentioning that you currently have a +13 DEX save. To put this into perspective Tiamat’s breath weapon is a DC 27 DEX save; meaning that you have a 30% chance to take zero damage from an attack from Tiamat.

Oh and your Sneak Attack increases to 4d6, so you can then destroy Tiamat with a Supreme Display of Talent.

LEVEL 17 - ROGUE 8

8th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement: Dexterity still controls our AC and attack rolls (along with many other things) and it still isn’t maxed, so capping it off at 20 would be a good idea. "Jaw-dropping, I know."

(Artwork by LittleKumaArt on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 18 - PALADIN 10

Rounding this build off with a final few levels in Paladin: level 10 Paladins get Aura of Courage, because if you’ve lasted long enough to hit level 18 why would you be afraid of anything? "So basic."

LEVEL 19 - PALADIN 11

11th level Paladins get Improved Divine Smite, letting them add a d8 Radiant damage to any hit with your weapon (not just hits with Divine Smite, despite the name.)

But I’m going to be honest: what I really wanted was the extra third level spell slot. Not that an extra d8 every attack isn’t good though! Show off that Royal Privilege!

LEVEL 20 - PALADIN 12

12th level Paladins get our final Ability Score Improvement: cap off your Charisma for a +5 Aura of Protection, and also more spells to prepare. "If talent were an element, perhaps I could throw some at them."

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Smash these idiots, won't you? - It may be a surprise to you but Rogues and Paladins are both very good at doing damage. 4d6 of Sneak Attack damage is never a bad thing, and that d8 from Improved Divine Smite helps too. And if they’re still standing then a regular Divine Smite will quickly force them to bow. What’s really nice is that unlike other Rogues you are practically guaranteed the Royal Privilege of Sneak Attacking your foes!

I would say “watch and learn,” but unfortunately you cannot learn this - Having a few spells in your back pocket never hurt anyone, and even your weakest spells pack quite a punch. Divine Favor stacks up over a long combat, and Ensnaring Strike can set an enemy up for failure.

Some people are just born better - I swear this happens whenever I make either a Rogue or a Paladin but it turns out that Rogue and Paladin are both extremely good at resisting damage. Evasion combined with Aura of Protection is huge but the biggest factor that makes this build so crazy is Aura of Warding. Ancients Paladin is one of the best Paladins in the game specifically because you take half damage from magic. Add this all onto a Rogue who can dash as a Bonus Action every turn, essentially got the Mobile feat for free, and has 135 health? You can be everywhere at once and you foes can’t do anything about it.

CONS

It is exhausting to crush you so much - While all your spells are amazing they’re also very limited. 3 spell slots for your best tricks means that you won’t pull them off too often. It also means that your Smiting abilities are a little limited overall.

That was no crushing; that was merely a squeeze - Multiclassing does give you a taste of everything but it also means that you miss out on the best of both worlds. Your sneak attack could be higher, and you didn’t get any of the particularly powerful Paladin features.

I'm extremely good... at everything - Well except for one thing: Wisdom. While Aura of Protection helps you somewhat with Wisdom saves +4 means nothing against higher tier spells. And of course a -1 to Perception and Insight never helped anyone.

But your greatness far overshadows your flaws. Show them that greatness and let the nature around you help magnify your magnificence. It is your right to conquer above all, and subject those beneath you for the glory of Ixaocan. Don’t let silly things like “sisters” or “birthright” or “hard CC” stop you. Go fight that 1v5 and prove how great you are!

(Artwork by Jessica “OwleyCat” Oyhenart. Made for Riot Games.)

#dnd #dnd build #dnd guide #League of Legends #League of Legends Qiyana #dnd rogue #dnd paladin #Ixaocan #earth #water #grass?

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itsnothingofinterest · 4 years ago

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So while we’re in this delay-induced downtime, just for fun, I’d like to make a few short term predictions for Hero Aca’s future; Namely I’d like to make some predictions about what I think the next 3-ish arcs will be after the Paranormal Liberation “War” arc.

(Small preface, I am making these predictions under the prediction that the current arc will end with at least 99.9% of the PLF getting away & society as a whole some form of devastated by this arc’s events. Both safe bets, I think.)

Anyway yeah, here’s my predictions on what I think the next 3 arcs will be; the prison break arc, the start of the 2nd year arc, and the 2nd Sports Festival arc.

The Prison Break Arc (early April, in-universe)

A long-expected arc, this is one that finally feels like everything’s in place for. The PLF finally have all their resources to fight against society, but the timing’s not right so they need to be productive between now & their real big attack (which we’ll get back to). But the villains do have a few personal issues to take care of, namely friends in need of rescuing and potato-heads in need of confronting. Also taking out a massive prison before major attack just seems like a smart move.

This arc’s got a lot going for it. First, people are thinking we could see PLF members (usually Dabi) getting captured and needing rescuing from Tartarus; and if that does happen, we could get some cool character interactions out of it.

But even without that, we’ll get reunions with Muscular, Moonfish, & especially Kurogiri. (Also maybe Mustard? It’s yet to be confirmed or denied if he’s in Tartarus, and one the one hand he’s a kid, but on the other we’re 5 for 5 for caught League members/associates going to Tartarus.) We’ve got the potential continuation of the Kurogiri/Shirakumo storyline. We’ve got Stain meeting some combination of Toga, Spinner, & Dabi. We’ve got Shigaraki meeting with AFO again, which could very likely end up rather ugly as he confronts him for his shenanigans, his weakness, & the actions of his vestige. I could honestly see Tomura vs AFO being the final boss fight of this arc.

But before all that, we also have the PLF fighting against Tartarus’ forces. It’s the perfect opportunity to see some action for PLF members that’ve been quiet this arc, like Trumpet or Redestro, and get to know some of the advisors better. And on the other hand we can see the defense systems in Tartarus, as well as meet new...well I’m not sure if they’d be classified as heroes, but I imagine the workers would be licensed to use their quirks. It’d be an interesting battle is what I’m saying.

The Start of 2nd Year Arc (late April, in-universe)

Honestly, I’m not sure what this arc would actually entail, but I do think it would be necessary before the next big arc. A chance to see what the start of the new school year brings, a chance to see how everyone is handling the events of the failed PLF raid, and one last chance to set up another dark horse or 2 for the next arc, like how Jirou, Aoyama, & Mina have gotten some importance in the last few student-focused arcs.

Also it would be the final piece to Shinso’s current arc, with him actually getting into a hero class, and hopefully a chance to start up a new arc. While we’re at it, we could get other new students too, like new 1st years or maybe even a transfer student so 1a & 1b continue having even student body counts.

But what this arc would actually be, I don’t have a clue about. It could be some simple new training exercise for 2nd years to start out the new years. Or it could be something in response to the villains’ rise, perhaps some new extreme exercise mandated by the Hero Commission or even the government itself. It could also be either a decent length or quite short, since not a lot really needs to happen.

As an aside before we move on, I’m not really sure if this would go before or after the Prison Break arc. I mean I say this would be late April and that one early, but they could easily set this arc over the break in order to reverse the order. The only important bits is they have have 2 arcs, one with the villains and one with the students, to see where everyone’s at.

The 2nd Sports Festival (early May, in-universe)

This will be the next big arc. The Sports festival; the one time of year when hundreds of heroes are known to gather in a single location, a massive cultural event to Japan, a chance to see how far everyone’s really grown since the last Sports Festival, & coincidentally taking place 4 months after Toga said Tomura was going to destroy everything in 4 months. Except the entire point of this theory (and I mean the entire theory) is that that’s not a coincidence and I’ve never believed it was.

So put simple, I’m excepting things to go all Chunin Exams this year, so it would be divided into 2 sections...actually 3 since we need to establish why this is happening at all.

And the reason it would happen at all after Jaku is simple; good PR. The hero commission & hero society as a whole is currently running on good PR and the faith of the people, and I’ve long expected the higher ups to get desperate if that faith were called into question. People can do stupid stuff to save face so of course they’re still holding this big event in the aftermath of a major villain victory and the ruined reputation of at least the top 2 heroes; it’ll show how...unwavering they are...or something. Oh but don’t worry, they’ll up security; I mean they’re not idiots.

But yeah, then there’s the tournament itself, which would have a lot going on. Everyone would be affected by the PLF raid in lots of potential ways; maybe some are wondering why they’re bothering with this while others see it as a way to reassure people or to get stronger. We’ll get to see everyone’s growth and have a proper tourney where we know everyone, instead of being introduced to a lot of people’s competence level for the first time. Deku will get to try again to show off to the world, and might even got the the finals this time.

I’m not sure if he’ll win though, a) because this would probably be Bakugou’s last opportunity to fight Deku with even the remotest chance to win, b) there should be a 3rd festival in the 3rd year and we’ve got to keep up progression, and c) who can even say there’ll be a winner if I’m expecting things to go all Chunin Exams?

And yeah, that leads to the start of the war-for-real, the big shake up likely to shape the entire rest of the school year, the big attack where things go all Chunin Exams. I’m honestly not sure what it would entail, actually, since there’s so many options to make this a big status quo-shaking moment for the PLF to peruse. Off the top of my head:

They could launch a big attack on UA, with hundreds to thousands of heroes gathered in an attempt to kill them all and end heroics by default. It’s certainly an effective way to get the students involved, to the point that if this wasn’t the plan, I wouldn’t be surprised if the PLF pretended it was anyway as a diversion. One way or another, I think the students have to be involved in this fight.

They could attack some key target, like the Hero Commission building or whatever base of government japan has. I mean if so many of the heroes are in one place, that must mean there’s not a lot anywhere else, which means a lot of places should be relatively unprotected...in theory. In practice, I wouldn’t be surprised if top heroes met the PLF at where ever they’re going.

Lastly, they could just attack lots of cities at once like they said they would. I’m not sure if this would really be the focus, since this being the big attack implies they want to do it all in one day, where this felt to me more like a long term plan when I heard it; but I’m leaving it on the table anyway. Maybe they will try to physically collapse society in one day, who knows?

One last prediction before we close out: if Endeavor is still alive by this point, instead of dying fighting Touya in the current arc, this arc will be where he dies. This will be to force All Might to the spotlight, both as people reminisce to when he was no.1, and as he intentionally goes out to try & keep faith in heroes alive. As a result, the target on his back that was removed with his retirement will return to him, and his safety will once again be a concern.

And that about sums it up; I think we’ll have a villain arc, a hero arc, and then the next big conflict arc where things get shaken up once again. And then whatever the aftermath of these arcs are, they’ll be what really shapes the status quo and be what separates the students’ 2nd year from the 1st.

That’s the really safe version of my prediction anyway, but I’m prepared to be wrong regardless. And even so, I’m excited to see where the story will go after Jaku.

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the-great-imagines-of-1812 · 4 years ago

Text

Through The Years- Part 9

tags: @the-romanian-is-bae @a-girl-who-loves-disney

Summary: knowing that you must act now, you make your way to Germany, to S.H.I.E.L.D’s aid.

~~~~~~

MAY 3RD 2012

PARIS, FRANCE

9:00 PM.

You were scared. Scratch that, that’s an understatement. You were petrified.

Dismissing the missed calls notifications from Hill and Coulson, and make your way to a glass the hallway closet. Pushing on the button disguised as a light switch next to it, the door hiss and slide open. The silver suit of armor gleams in the fluorescent light. Over the past 60 something years, it hadn’t changed in the least.

“Hello old friend. Are you ready?” you asked, giving a lighthearted chuckle. As if the suit would answer. Taking it off it’s rack, you put it on. The familiar plates and buckles felt secure around you, and it almost felt like you were on a mission with the Howlies again.

Picking up the ear piece from the hook on the wall, you put it on your ear, making sure it was secure. You spoke into it “JARVIS?”

“Yes, ms. Stark?”

Opening the door to the building hallway, you looked both ways before speeding up the stairs that led to the roof level. “JARVIS, set course for Stuttgart.” specifying the location you saw on the news, too.

“Yes ms. Stark, right away.” The rocket-boots tony had installed on your armor the last time he visited you took off into the Paris night sky, and headed for Germany.

~~~~~~

STUTTGART, GERMANY

10:00 PM.

Landing on the roof of the museum, you tried to keep as quiet as you could, crouching down. From your line of view, you could see Steve, a group of hostages and a tall, reindeer? looking man.

You slid down a ladder off the side of the building quieter than a mouse, partly because you didn’t want to be shot at and partly because you didn’t want to startle the hostages.

“Kneel!” the man booms.

“No. Not today, not ever.” Steve stood his guard, hiding behind his shield. Interrupting the cold, tense night is “Shoot to Thrill” by- what was the band? You remember because Tony made you listen to them for hours upon hours. Oh, that was right. AC/DC.

Tony. Oh my god. It was going to be a shit show. He prepares a blast from his suit’s hand “Your move, reindeer games. Surrender or be terminated.”

Deciding it was time to crawl out form behind the wall, you pulled out not one, but both swords from your side. “Yea me too, Rudolph. You’ve got ten seconds. before I arrest you.” pointing one of the blades to his face while the other was behind your back, ready for any attack.

“Aunty! What’re you doing here?” Tony asked in surprise.

“Tony! Hi! Fury wouldn’t give me a break. So I thought to myself- why not join the party?” you said, inching closer to- Loki.

“You always did, Y/N. Welcome back.” Steve says in relief, with a sort of golden boy smile.

“Shut it, freedom.” Tony almost bursts into laughter. “Now, ‘god of mischief-’”

“The name is Loki and I am your kin-”

“I don’t like you very much. You know, last time I was in Germany, I was fighting a guy just like you.” you had now hooked one arm around his neck, the sword inching closer to his face. “I didn’t like him very much. I don’t like you either. You have 5 seconds.”

“How dare yo-”

It was so easy to distract him. You kick him in the back and handcuff his hands. “By order of the U.S military, you are under arrest. You’re coming with us.”

~~~~~~

THE QUINJET

All was quiet as the quinjet zoomed off from the ground, headed to New York. You and tony were talking on the side while Steve was tying Loki to his seat.

“It’s good to see you, Aunty. Hope you didn’t miss me that much.” Tony said, pulling away from the hug you were both in a second ago.

“Me? miss you? never.” you teased, smirking.

“Hey! you love me and you know it.”

“I guess you’re right.”

Steve finishes the job and walks over to you and greets you with a hug. “Hey, Y/N. It’s good to have you back.”

“It sure feels good to be back. Although I’m not so sure.”

“Understandable. I don’t like this, guys.” he says all in one breath.

“What?” Tony asked, suit whirring. “Rock of Ages giving up so easily?”

“Well Tony, I don’t remember the fight ever being that easy.”

“Say, you’re pretty spry for an older fellow. Do you do Pilates?”

“I’m sorry- What?”

“You might have missed it, spending so much time as a capsicle.” They are now face to face, the tension high.

It was way past time to intervene. “Ok, you two. You might’ve found your ego’s match, but we have way bigger matters at hand.” you said, separating them from one another.

Finally ripping his eyes of Tony, Steve turns to you and asks. “Y/N! So! Fury didn’t tell me he was calling you in.”

“I had no choice. He sort of broke into my apartment-”

“There’s a lot of things Fury doesn’t tell you, Rogers-” Tony began.

“Tony! That’s enoug-”

Thunder is heard, and the blinding white lightning in seen from the Quinjet’s windows. Thunder and Lightning nearly hit the jet, causing it to violently shake.

“Now- where’s all this coming from?” the red haired woman, who you learned her name was Natasha, asked.

The jet shakes again, more violently this time. And you’re afraid it might actually be struck down. Loki looks out the window, as if expecting something.

“You afraid of a little lightning, your highness?” Steve asks in a teasing tone, raising an eyebrow.

Loki looks back at Steve, with a devilish smirk “I’m not overly fond of what follows.”

The jet once again shakes and a blinding light shines through the window. You firmly stand your ground, while helping Tony up, who had fallen down a moment ago. But it’s not a light. It’s a man. A tall, well built man with long hair opens the hatch and grabs Loki by the neck and flies out.

Natasha, Tony, Steve and you stand there in shock, before you approach the hatch where they had both left a second ago.

“And now there’s this guy.” Tony breathed out, absolutely exasperated, putting on his helmet.

“You think he’s friendly?” Natasha asked, eyes darting between the three of you.

It suddenly felt as if you were on The Valkyrie just yesterday. A Tesseract was out there and Loki was using it for his own benefit. The situation seemed more similar than it should.

Coming back to reality, you answered Natasha’s question. “It doesn’t matter. If this guy free or kills Loki, it won’t matter; the Tesseract will be lost.” Steve’s eyes dart to you. He knows what you’re thinking about, and gives a silent nod of acknowledgement to the situation.

You get ready to jump as Tony comes up beside you. “You Starks have and will always be reckless. We need a plan, you two.” Steve said.

“I do have a plan, Iced Americano. Attack.” Tony said, looking at you, then proceeding to jump out, you following close behind.

“How do they even know each other? Why haven’t I met her until now, Steve?” Natasha asked, crossing her arms.

“She- She’s Howard’s sister. She went into the ice with me, couple decades back. She’s his aunt.”

“Alright. Be careful, these men come form legend, they’re practically gods.”

“There’s only one god, ma’am. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.” with this, Steve jumps out of the jet.

~~~~~~

Thor, Tony and you have been falling through the air, somewhere in Europe at least for the past 30 seconds or 30 minutes; you wouldn’t exactly know. You weren’t counting.

The three of you make it to the ground with a loud thud. The rustling of trees and leaves ad the crunching of sticks fills the otherwise silent forest. Before you can comprehend what’s going on, this man- Thor had you in a headlock.

“Don’t touch me again, puny human!” Thor boomed, wrapping his arm tighter around your neck.

“Oop yea, that’s gonna leave a mark.” you said as best as you could, obviously tripping over you words and stuttering, given your current situation.

“Shut it, point break. I won’t touch you ever again, but let my aunt go.”

Thor releases his arm from around you, and you fell to the floor with a gasp of breath. Tony helps you up and lets you lean on him until you gain back most of your strength.

“You lot have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“Really, Shakespeare in the park? Tell me, doth mother know you weareth her drapes?” Tony teased Thor, while helping you stand upright.

“Loki WILL face Asgardian justice.” Thor said, trying to convince the both of you.

“Listen, Thor-” you approach him “If he gives up the Tesseract, he’s all yours.”

“Yea, she’s definitely the smarter one of this pair.” Tony breathed out, putting the helmet back on. “Until then, stay out of our way, Rapunzel.”

This makes Thor angry. He lifts his hand up in the air to catch the his hammer. He then proceeds to throw it at the both of you, knocking Tony and you to the side, harshly.”

I’m saved. Is the only thought in your head as the quinjet makes it’s landing in the forest, and Steve lands in front of it. “Hey, That’s enough!” Steve looks Thor up and down. “Now, calm down. I don’t know what you plan on doing here.”

“I’m here to put and end to Loki’s schemes!”

“Then prove it, if your so tough. Put. The. Hammer. Down.”

“Yeah, capsicle. That might not be the best idea. Dude loves that thing.” Tony said, helping you up from the ground.

“You want me to let go of this hammer?” Thor said, lowering his voice. He then proceeds to bring it high into the air to strike it against Steve’s shield, making a blinding light shine throughout the dark forest.

You and Tony stand there in shock, as the force of the hammer on the shield knocked Steve to the ground. Thor never takes his eyes off the three of you.

“Are we done here?”

~~~~~~

THE BRIEFING ROOM ON THE HELLICARRIER

“Be careful how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he’s my brother.”

“Thor- I don’t know if you’re aware, but he killed 80 people in two days.” Natasha informed, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms.

“He’s adopted.”

“Um- A-Anyway, I’m doctor Bruce Banner it’s good to meet y-you guys.” The poor man was clearly nervous and shaking, if you squinted your eyes enough.

“It’s good to meet you doctor, I’m Y/N.” you shook his hand, although he seemed hesistant.

“Yes, yes, oh my god. How could I forget? I absolutely love your work I’m a big admirer.”

“Thank you, doctor-”

“Hey, Banner. Hands of the Aunt.”

“Tony, leave him alone.”

“Well, I-”

The doors hiss open, to reveal Nick Fury, with Maria Hill behind him. “Doctor Banner is only here to help u track down the cube. I was hoping Pain In the Ass #1 and Pain In the Ass #2 would like to help him.”

“Loving the nicknames, director.” Tony said, in a sassy manner.

“Gee thanks, Fury. I know you missed me.” you said, in the same way Tony did.

“This is why you two have those. Good god.”

“Moving on to the actual issue- Let’s start with that stick of his- Loki’s. But it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon.”

“Captain, I don’t know about that. But it is powered by the cube. And I wanna know what is it that it does that turns two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.” Fury said.

“Monkeys?” Thor asked. “I’m afraid I do not understand.”

“I do! I understood that reference!” Steve says excitedly, while Tony rolls his eyes from besides you.

“Steve, shut up! You’re making us look bad!” You whispered-yelled.

“Meeting adjourned, ladies and gentlemen.” Fury states.

Tony then turns to Dr. Banner and you, about to strike up conversation “Well, you two. The professor-”

You crossed your arms, raising an eyebrow at him.

“-and the doctor. Shall we play?”

#the avengers #the avengers x reader #tony stark x aunt reader #marvel #marvel x reader #howard stark #Howard Stark x sister! reader #natasha romanoff x reader #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #clint barton #bruce banner #loki odinson #thor odinson

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rora-s · 4 years ago

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The Derivative Chapter 2: Shots

Chapter 1<-

I stared across the darkened classroom at my blinders. They were perched in captivity on my history teachers desk. Stolen away from me and promised release upon the end of class today. The teacher himself was blathering on about something that I didn’t find important about how history continues on today. It seemed rather a redundant point to make. Of course we were living history I mean at one point every person we learn about in history had been in their present time.

There was movement in the corner of my vision and I turned to see Mr. Hopkins had turned on the tv in the room. “...let’s see what’s on the news nowadays as an example.” after flipping past a couple static filled channels Hopkins finally found the news station he was looking for.

I was about to turn back to my thoughts when I caught what the reporter was saying “This is a live breaking report from the channel 8 news. Flying over Central Los Angeles Savings Bank. I can see multiple people lying on the ground. One appears to be a federal agent several bystanders also seemed to have been injured in the crossfire, where the shoot out between federal agents and suspected bank robbers is in progress...”

I felt like ice water had just been pumped through my veins. I froze completely in shock. I remembered back to just the other night when Don had asked Charlie for help tracking bank robbers. Could it be the same robbers? Could Don be in the shootout? Was he injured? The class continued to watch through a car explosion and more gun fire and more cops arriving. Even into the aftermath.

“I’m receiving confirmation that three people were killed in his tragic incident one of which being an FBI agent. ” The bell rang and Hopkins turned off the tv. Seeming only to have been half listening. Most of the students in the class only seemed to be half listening.

I however was shaking. I was terrified. What if it was Don? What if he was dead? Shot down in front of a bank. I swallowed the lump in my throat rising from my desk with the rest of my classmates. I sweeped by the teacher’s desk and rescued my blinders before heading into the hallway.

My next class didn’t seem at all important as I ducked into the bathroom and locked myself in a stall. I pulled out my phone and speed dialed my father’s number. He didn’t pick up. I tried again. More of the same. I tried Alan; he didn’t answer either nor did Charlie. I repeated Don, Alan, Charlie. No one would pick up their phone. After hearing my father’s voice mail for the fifth time. I pocketed my cell and grabbed my backpack.

The hallway was clear as the final class of the day had already started. I headed straight for the exit. I was going to catch a bus to Alan’s house and get some answers. I was stopped by a hand on my shoulder.

“Abby Calvin” the voice spoke. I turned to see none other than the school principal smiling down on me with a fake grin. “Skipping class are we?”

“Sir I was-”

He held up a hand “this is the third time in the last two weeks you’ve skipped a class. It’s not happening again, come on” he led me to the office.

The rest of my time at school was taken up by me being talked at by the principal. I tried to explain what was happening multiple times. He wouldn’t hear it and I was given a note for Don to read when I got home. My stomach churned as I imagined him shot to death in front of a bank. I quickly banned the image and beat my imagination into submission.

I tried each of the men I called family again twice on the bus before I was let off at the apartment building. I hurried up to my and Don’s apartment and let myself in. I threw my backpack on the couch and turned on the news grasping for any information that it might tell me.

As I sat watching the various unrelated news streams and casters talking about things I could care less about. I felt a sharp pain hit my head like a rock and with a blink I suddenly wasn’t sitting on the couch in Don’s living room.

I was crouched by a fire. I could hear the rain. People were talking all around me, there was music, laughing. Then there were shots. They echoed loudly in-

I stood and shook my head like it was wet. Pushing away the intrusive memory. I grabbed my binders out of my pocket putting them on and taking multiple deep breaths to try and calm down. I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to think about her.

_________________ 3rd POV.

Don sighed sitting down on his desk and pinching the bridge of his nose. Tonight was not going well for him. His arm hurt and his head hurt. Worse he had just gotten back from talking to Agent McKnight's parents at their hotel. Nothing hurt worse than the look on McKnight’s mother's face when he told her what happened.

“I should be looking at mugshots, right?” Don voiced to Terry who was at her own desk nearby.

“Did you get a good look?” she inquired.

“Yeah, definitely” the man muttered in reply. Just then his phone rang. He pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. It was Abby he was about to answer it.

“Agent Eppes.” Don turned to see the forensic scientist had appeared nearby. “That piece of evidence you found at the scene. We know what it is”

“Excellent” he told her and glanced back at his phone declining the call from his daughter and making a note to call her back once he got a chance. Then him and Terry followed the scientist down to her lab. ________________________ Don reached the door to his apartment and began digging for his keys with a sigh. This case had taken a major turn and it was really late. He wasn’t here to rest though he was here to pick up Abby and take her to his father’s house. Alan could watch over her while Don worked late at the office on this case. As he turned the knob of the door he grimaced at the shot of pain his arm gave him. Then he entered his apartment and heard the immediate stomping of feet running to the door.

“What the hell were you thinking!?”

It took the FBI agent a moment to register the unexpected outburst to be coming from his daughter. “What?” he asked, confused.

“You were getting shot at!” Abby yelled walking up to him. “It was all over the news! An agent was shot and another was dead and I didn’t know who was who because you wouldn’t pick up your goddamn cell phone!” she yelled.

Don thought back to all the times he had dismissed her calls that day. He hadn’t thought anything about it at the time. However now he realized how stupid it had been not to let her know he was alright. “I’m sorry Abby I-”

“You could have been dead for all I knew!” she cut him off “and where would that have left me? Huh?” Her voice broke.

“Abby I risk my life everyday” Don explained trying to keep his voice level and calming.

“I know but you can’t just act like I’m supposed to be okay with it or just leave me in the dark to suffer you unbelievable jerk” she shoved him harshly in her anger.

“Abby. Abby. Abby!” Don tried to get her attention to make her calm down as she whacked at his chest and struggled against him in anger.

“I already lost my mom, I can’t lose you to Dad!”

Both parties froze at her last outburst. The anger in Abby’s face faded as she realized what she had said. “You just called me Dad” Don muttered.

“No no I said Don” Abby objected.

“No you said Dad” Don countered a small smile threatening his face. Despite the circumstance it was the first time she had ever called him that.

“No I said Don” the girl muttered.

“You called me Dad” Don let off a light chuckle.

“Oh shut up you stupid sperm donor” Abby grumbled as he pulled her into a hug.

“Are you done yelling now?” he inquired. Abby nodded into his chest. “Then listen cause the truth is I’m sorry I should have told you I was alright rather than just leaving you in the dark. I just- I’m still figuring out this father thing alright. We both are and I’m sorry but risking my life and possibly getting shot at is my job” Abby squeezed him tighter “but I will make this promise to you though. For every moment I am alive I will be fighting to make it back here to you. Alright?”

“Alright” Abby nodded as they stepped apart. “Donald”

Don sighed “Dad things not staying huh?”

“I wouldn’t bet on it” Abby replied with a smirk that mirrored her fathers.

“And here I was actually liking the idea of being called Dad” Don murmured. They both chuckled lightly. _______________________ Abby POV.

Me and Don pulled up outside Gramp's house and loaded out of the truck. Alan came out to meet us near immediately with a look of concern clear on his face. “Donnie, you all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. It’s fine- ow! Ow!” he exclaimed as his father touched his injured arm. “Look it’s just, my arm’s a little sore.” he addressed the blatant concern on Alan’s face. “I got a- a scrape during an incident.”

I rolled my eyes at the lame excuse coming over to their side of the driveway. “A scrape? From what?”

“Well, a bullet, if you have to know” Don muttered with a sarcasm very much like my own.

“A bullet oh my g-” Alan exclaimed immediately.

Don quickly spoke over him “but it’s not… dad, please listen to me, okay?Just relax. We had an arrest go bad, and we lost an agent, okay? And three people died”

“It was all over the news” I added “check your voicemail I left messages”

“My word” gramps breathed out in shock.

“Now I’m dropping this one off and looking for Charlie. Where is he?” Don questioned.

“He’s out in the garage with Larry.” the other man informed. “He’s upset. I can see why now.”

“What’s he doing in the garage?” Don asked, confused. I had to admit I was confused as well last I heard they only used the garage for storage and laundry.

“He’s just working on that problem. You know.” Alan spoke directly to Don. “the problem he can never solve.”

“The P vs. P thing?” Don inquired.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s the one.” gramps nodded.

“Aw man” Don groaned in aggravation. I got the sense there was more going on here than I was privy to.

“Wait do you mean P vs. NP?” I looked between the two men. “The millennium prize problem?”

Neither seemed to be listening to me as Don started trucking toward the house. “Where are you going?” Alan called after him.

“I got to talk to him.” the son replied “I need a new equation”

Alan seemed as though he wanted to say more but Don had already disappeared into the house. “What’s the problem with Charlie working on P vs. NP?” I asked.

Alan sighed and looked to the ground “It’s not Charlie working on the problem that’s well the problem Abby. It’s why” I thought on it for a moment but was still not sure what he was saying. “Come on” he finally spoke up. “I’m assuming you haven’t had any kind of dinner yet” I nodded and followed my grandfather inside. ________________ 3rd POV.

Don came storming into the kitchen from talking to Charlie. It was aggravating after everything that happened with McKnight and the shootings. Charlie should be motivated to stop these guys but instead he just such down. Don was a kind of frustrated that only his little brother could make him whether it was rational or not and he knew it.

“Are you okay?” Don turned to see Abby perched sitting cross legged on the kitchen island. She was eyeing him quizzically.

“Yeah” he answered immediately “no.” he answered honestly “been better” he finally decided to go with. Abby nodded and bit her lip in a way that for half second made Don feel like he was looking in a mirror before he brushed the thought away “what are you doing in here?”

“Thinking” the girl replied honestly holding up her blinders which the man could infer she had just removed. “Gramps and your partner Terry are in the living room. She’s nice. I thanked her for the books she got me for my birthday.”

Don nodded and let out a breath feeling his irritation slowly ebbing away “yeah I’ve known Terry for a long time”

“Really?” the girl inquired.

“Yeah about ten years. We met in the academy” he explained.

“FBI academy?” she quizzed further.

“Yeah” Don nodded and a small grin came to his face “what you think I learned all this on the streets. Trial by fire style?”

Abby laughed slightly. “Well I don’t know I’ve only known a real FBI agent for the upside of a month”

Don scoffed and looked to his shoes. “Yeah”

“Is Charlie helping with this bank robbing case still?” Abby inquired, glancing toward the backdoor through which Don supposed she must have been able to hear the shouting.

“Apparently not” Don grumbled. “All he wants to do is work on the stupid P vs. P thing he’s completely shut down.”

“I can’t really blame him for being worried” she stated “and neither can you Don. You could have died and Charlie’s the one who sent you to the bank where the shooting happened.”

Don sighed and looked at his daughter quizzically “yeah I know but like I told you it’s my job to get shot at and I can’t change that. The more he helps though the less likely it is for that to happen and he just doesn’t want to help”

Abby looked like she was about to respond when the door to the kitchen opened and Terry stepped in “hey Don sorry to interrupt but we have to get back to the office.”

“Yeah coming” the man replied to his partner. Then turned to his daughter “I’ll see you later kid”

“Bye Don” the girl replied.

Don nodded and followed Terry out of the kitchen. Thinking in the back of his mind that he really wished she would have said Dad. __________________ Abby POV.

I walked slowly down the stairs of the house heading for the living room. Two books in hand that I wanted to read. I was mildly preoccupied with my own thoughts to the point that I didn’t realize Charlie had returned from the garage until I was about to turn the corner. I paused out of sight of the two men in the living room as the younger spoke.

“Dad. I’ve been working on a problem.” he explained “P vs. NP, it can’t be solved.”

“I think you knew that when you started” Alan replied wisely flipping through his paper.

“I could work on it forever, constantly pushing forward, still never reaching an end.” Charlie admitted. I bit my lip realizing I shouldn’t be listening in on this conversation however my feet wouldn’t move from the place they had planted themselves.

“You know, sometimes you want to think that things don’t end.” gramps mused “but they do.”

“When mom was sick I couldn’t stop working on it.” Charlie’s voice was breaking and I felt something clench in my chest. I had gathered enough knowledge about Margaret Eppes, my grandmother, to know she had died of cancer about a year ago. None of them really talked about it in excess. It was still fresh in their minds. Like my mom’s death and the state of mourning it procured were still fresh in mine.

“Yeah. I know.” Alan spoke to Charlie gently. “I didn’t get it. Uh, not then. And your brother sure doesn’t understand why you spent the last three months of your mother’s life working on a math problem.” I shifted on my feet listening despite my growing urge to leave “But Charlie, you mother she understood why. Because she knew how your mind worked.”

I finally pried myself off the wall and left the house. I wandered through the yard to the garage. My mom knew how my mind worked to. Even though she couldn’t think like I did she always understood why I behaved like I did. She knew what was in my head. _~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_ 3rd POV.

Abby sat another book on her already read pile. Grabbing a new one from her, going to read pile. She had just opened the cover when there was a clearing of the throat from the entrance to the small nook she had claimed in the back of the library.

She looked up to see her mother standing there, arms crossed. “Busted huh?” The girl asked.

“Uh huh” the mom responded. Removing her purse from her shoulder she sat down across from her 14 year old on the floor. “I got another call from the school. You know most moms when their kid ditches don’t check the library first.”

“But you know better” Abby commented with a smirk.

“Yeah I do kid but you still have to stop skipping school even if it is to go read books” Janice stated.

“But the classes are pointless and boring” Abby objected. “They want to either put me in the need help classes because of my spotty elementary school education or in equally boring regular courses and then are shocked when I ace it all” Abby explained adamantly. “It’s patronizing”

Janice sighed “I know I asked again about the advanced courses but they are still sticking to their plan”

“If they’d just give me the chance I could show them” Abby muttered.

“You’re a brilliant girl Abbs one day people will see that” Janice reassured. “But you still have to go to school” Abby groaned “Hey, hey it’s not just about the school work maybe you could make some friends. You know you can’t hide in the library forever. Eventually you will run out of books. Especially at the rate you read”

Abby nodded “yeah I know. But people are well… people”

Janice smiled slightly “yeah they tend to be like that. What are you reading there?”

Abby glanced down at her book. “I don’t know haven’t started it yet”

Janice smiled “alright then you read I’m going to grab a computer and do some of my school work for my new online classes”

“Mrs. Wiat wasn’t kidding about homework never ending was she?” Abby commented as Janice got to her feet the woman chuckled lightly with her daughter. _~_~_~_~_~_~_~_ Abby POV.

I was sitting in the garage with my blinders on just absently thinking when I heard someone else walk in. I raised up the blinders to see it was Charlie. He plopped down in the chair nearby and grabbed his laptop.

After a moment he glanced up at me “Abby’s why are you sitting on the floor?”

I shrugged “it’s comfortable”

The man wasn't interested in discussing the topic. “So your millenium problem.” I gestured to all the boards around us. “Are you going to keep working on it?”

Charlie froze in the typing he had been doing. “I don’t know but, it can wait”

“And Don can’t” I finished his thought. Charlie nodded slightly and continued on his computer. I half wanted to talk to him about my mother for some reason. As I felt he might understand. I wanted to tell him that my mom got it too. However, I didn’t want to reveal that I had overheard him earlier, nor did I want to upset him. “The numbers are easy aren’t they?” I finally voiced after a moment “easier than people anyway. Answers to questions and a solid foundation. Easy to hide in.”

“Yeah” Charlie breathed in response and looked up at me “but we can’t hide in the numbers forever can we?”

“Nope” I muttered, popping the p. We were silent for a moment with the exception of Charlie’s mouse clicking.

Then Larry, Charlie’s friend and fellow CalSci professor, entered the garage. “Well,” he voiced upon his arrival, “I was heartened to hear that you’ve shifted your focus off P vs. NP.” he meandered further into the garage “So tell me what is it that I can help you with?”

“I failed” Charlie admitted and I snapped my attention back to him. “I failed to notice something significant. These robberies display certain highly eccentric characteristics.”

“Okay” Larry murmured, taking a seat on my other side a top some stuff “well how so?”

“Many were conducted in under two minutes, but in many cases,” Charlie explained “the perpetrators remained on the premises far longer despite having the money. Why would they wait around?”

“Don’t know.” the cosmologist replied “leaving quickly would seem to be the essential strategy when fleeing a felony.”

“Or any kind of crime” I added. “It’s risky cops could show up”

“You see this game, Larry? Abby?” Charlie pivoted his computer screen to show he had been playing Minesweeper. “You have to clear mines without blowing any up. Each time you’ve cleared a square, a numerical value is revealed. That number tells you exactly how many squares containing mines are directly adjacent to the square. This allows you to predict where the next mine will be located. And then the more boxes revealed, the more accurately one can predict the location of the mines.” he finished explaining the game and then continued with its relevance “the pattern used in these bank robberies is similar to this same type of problem-solving pattern. These robbers have used the banks they’ve been robbing to tell them which ones to rob next.”

“To what end would criminals be playing Minesweeper with banks?” Larry posed the same question rattling in my brain.

“I don’t know,” Charlie admitted.

“Are they using it to find high cash sums.” I suggested.

“No the takes varied, some as low as one hundred dollars.” Charlie objected thinking.

“Well then you’ll have to gather more information on your robbers” I pointed out “see what they’re after.”

“Information” Charlie murmured then quickly stood up closing his laptop with a snap. “I have to go.” with that he had dashed from the barn.

“It seems you’ve inspired him young Abigail,” Larry sighed.

“Don’t call me Abigail please” I asked the professor “and I don’t know what I did to inspire him”

Larry made a humming noise as I got up from my seat on the floor. “Well does it matter how in the grand scheme of things really?” he asked philosophically. “Whether you meant to inspire him or not it is still the outcome” I nodded lightly in agreement. “So if not Abigail what would you prefer to be called?”

“Abby” I stated thinking it was rather obvious considering everyone else just called me Abby.

Larry let out another humming noise. “You know you are quite a unique being”

“Thanks” I murmured not sure where he was going with this.

“You have a mind such as your uncles but your traits portray your father in quite a respect for you only having known both for a month. A true statement of nature versus nurture” Larry observed “you are an enigma”

“Okay” I sighed “then call me the enigma”

Larry nodded and stood up “very well then” and with that he left the garage. I hoped he realized I wasn’t being serious. _______________ “Here you go, Pop.” Charlie called walking out of the kitchen with a bowl in his hands. “I got it.” he sat it down “now you got it.”

“Thank you,” Alan replied.

“Spoon” Charlie stated holding up the utensil.

I scoffed “I think he knows what a spoon is Uncle C”

My uncle gave me a look and messed up my hair with a small shove like gesture as he went to sit down next to me. He didn’t sit however as just then the main door opened. “Hello” my father called.

“Donnie!” Alan greeted getting to his feet. “Wow, it’s good to see you.”

“Oh, you guys ate. I’m starving” Don voiced coming into the dining room.

“Ah there’s plenty come on” Alan objected quickly.

“Yeah?” the agent clarified “did Terry call, tell you guys what happened?”

“Yeah, she said you arrested every suspect.” Charlie informed shuffling back toward the kitchen. “Only one shot fired, huh?”

“That’s impressive.” I mused “snipers are cool.” Don gave me a look as he made his way to the seat at the head of the table “sniper math is cool” I emphasized pointedly.

“One? How’d you pull that off?” Alan inquired.

“We knew roughly where’d they’d try to hit the next shipment,” Don explained as Charlie disappeared to get him some food. While I turned back to consuming mine. “And I knew they’d have an escape plan.”

“That’s very clever.” Gramps declared digging into his dinner.

“Out thinking the bad guys” I voiced “that’s got to be fun”

“Keep talking like that and someone might think you want to join the FBI” Don muttered giving me a look.

I shrugged and held up my hands in a defensive gesture “hey I don’t even know what I’m doing once I escape high school” I explained “don’t go pegging me to early”

“And I don’t think I can take two members of the family dodging bullets for a career” Alan voiced.

“Yeah well, I guess I was inspired by Mr. Heisenberg” Don continued as he went to grab a beer in the kitchen. “Just like Charlie here suggested”

“Heisenberg?” Alan gave Charlie a perplexed look. “You mean, the physicist?”

“Yeah” Don called in reply.

I chuckled lightly as Charlie took the seat next to me “Don goes to confront a bunch of crazy and armed bank robbers and your pep talk is about the movement of subatomic particles?”

“Yep” Charlie replied simply. Me and Alan exchanged an amused look. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yes” Alan replied. “I guess it did.” There was a moment as Don joined us at the table and we all turned to our food but Alan “I’m telling you,” he began “if your mother could see you two guys now, she would be… so happy” he voiced and turned to me “and Abby. She would have loved to have known you”

I smiled lightly as the brothers exchanged a look themselves. “How are you doing on your P vs. P thing?” Don inquired after a moment.

“NP?” Charlie corrected with an amused breath.

“Sorry” Don murmured.

“I’m not pursuing it anymore.” the mathematician declared.

“No?” the agent questioned.

“I got plenty of problems to work on,” Charlie explained “ones that I think I can actually solve.”

Don nodded “Glad to hear it.” The two clinked their glasses and Alan raised his. I grabbed my glass of water as well and we all knocked glasses in the center taking a sip. As normal table conversation resumed. I found myself smiling. I was among family.

Chapter 3 ->

#Don Eppes #Charlie Eppes #Alan Eppes #David Sinclair #Terry Lake #numb3rs #amita ramanujan #don's a dad #episode per chapter #This will be a series #also on ao3 #also on quotev #Abby Calvin

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chiyuukiaru · 5 years ago

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In regards to the newest chapter of Haikyuu!!, can I say how happy I am that Furudate sensei hasn't shown any "quite decent players, probably could go pro, but anyway they didn't for this or that reason" in pro careers?!

It would be so unrealistic and looks more like fanservice than a solid storyline.

Of course, by me saying that, it means I do have a list (?) of people that I think will and won’t go pro. Yes, I know, unless I am Furudate, I can’t really pinpoint who will be pro athletes and who won’t be. But I believe, we as dedicated fans, can all at least make some sensible guesses about that.

Now, moving on. The players that I actually think would go pro so far have appeared in manga as pros (cheers me!). As for the rest of them, I’ll try to break it down by teams coz it’s easier and tidier. Mind you, I’m not athletic and can’t do any sports at all. So technique-wise, I can’t explain much. I go by intuition and deep thinking for pretty much all of my guesses below. So if you’re going to read my analysis (?) or opinion (?), please don’t be too harsh on me just because I can’t give you the logical reasons behind it. Maybe, I should apologize in advance for this.

Karasuno (brace yourself, it’s gonna be long)

Kageyama is the first one. I honestly can’t see any other career choice for him except going pro and finally be a coach after he retired. Kageyama has been playing and practicing volleyball the longest, since he was 7 (Hoshiumi too). And this is the reason why he’s so far ahead of everyone. Also, he’s even worse than Hinata in school, so there’s no way he went to university to me. So, pro it is.

Aside from Kageyama (and Hinata, but I believe I don’t need to explain Hinata to you coz we’re currently the viewers of his journey to be a professional player), I can only see Nishinoya going pro. For me, he stands in the same category as Kageyama. And he’s not going to university with a brain like his. Not trying to be rude or belittling him, but I just can’t see Nishinoya voluntarily enrolling in college. Other than that, Nishinoya is one of the best Libero in the series. It still bothers me even to this day, that he wasn’t invited to the Youth Camp with Kageyama. But I think I understand why: there are just too many great Liberos and The Youth Camp wouldn’t be able to hold everyone there. Besides, there’s the “positioning after receiving thing” that Kageyama had to tell him. Who knows if Nishinoya has been doing that for so long?! An observant scouting staff or professional coach would definitely think it’s a minus point. And there’s the suspension he got too. Idk about other countries much, but I know how Japan really takes care of their background and portfolio. His suspension may be not for something dangerous like drugs, but it definitely marred his resume for the Youth Camp a bit. But Nishinoya has moved past that now and pro career is not so impossible for him.

For the other 2nd years: Tanaka, Ennoshita, Kinoshita, and Narita, they probably won’t go pro. Tanaka has a higher chance though, and deep down I want him to shine more in volley, but I still don’t think so. Tanaka & Kinoshita look like they will go straight down to labor working right after graduation. Ennoshita & Narita were in class 4 and can be assumed as pretty smart, so college and office working probably.

Tbh, I actually can see Asahi be a pro. But, he’s a bit tricky. It all depends on whether he got scouted after Spring High or not. Coz he already chose not to go to university, so it is not impossible as well. As for the rest of the 3rd years, no. I think they have other things (or a career) that they want to pursue and they are smart enough to do it (Daichi and Suga were both in college preparatory class). Though, I would love to see Daichi graduating from sport science or something and go back to Karasuno and be an assistant coach hehe.

For first years, I don’t think Tsukishima & Yamaguchi will go pro. Same like Daichi & Suga, I believe they both have a dream job in their mind, hence why they chose to go to university. Ofc, they can go pro after graduation, but I have little faith in it. Now, I think Tsukishima wanted to be an archaeologist or something along the line (all those dinosaurs!!!), I would be so happy if it turned out to be true.

Aoba Johsai

Except Oikawa, I honestly don’t think the rest of Seijoh will be pros. Maybe Iwaizumi or Kyoutani, but the others, not so much. On a side note, Oikawa (and Hinata) is the most surprising outta the rest of the Haikyuu!! characters. I mean, I never would’ve thought that he’d fly to Argentina and join a league there. I always think he’d join a Japan team. But I love the element of surprise, so I guess it’s fine.

Datekou

Aone has the best chance. Simply because he has all the necessary skills. But he’s so quiet I can’t guess anything from him. I could be wrong, really. Futakuchi and Koganegawa aren’t so bad either, but Idk tho.

Johzenji

I have no idea, truthfully. But I’m leaning more toward the opinion that no one from the team will continue playing professionally.

Kakugawa

I really really wish Hyakuzawa going pro. He’s blessed with the height and also power. With enough practice, he’ll be great. But that’s just my wishful thinking. I can’t really guess him, similar to Aone.

Shiratorizawa

Ushijima is another one of my “definitely going pro people”. He’s just a complete package. He has the sense, the height, the power, the… everything. It would be a big waste for him to just stop. And Ushijima is a volleyball baka too, so he loves the sport too much to not continue playing.

I also think that Goshiki might try to get into pro teams too, maybe after completing college. I don’t think he’d stop just like that. I mean, after Ushijima retired, Shiratorizawa never went to National again. I think that hit him hard. Especially because Ushijima left the team on his hand as the next ace. I would really love to see Goshiki improving himself and kinda get a revenge by getting much much better than before. But, if he doesn’t go pro, it won’t be really disappointing to me. After all, Haikyuu!! always tries to be as close as possible to real life, and in real life not every good player can be pro.

Tendou is a no no. He said he’d stop and he wouldn’t lie about it. Shirabu is confusing, but I think he’d stop in high school or maybe university. He’s not a bad setter, he’s good, but even within Shiratorizawa, his ability is not better than Semi. He was the starting setter just because he was able to blend into the background and be a support for Ushijima so he could shine. So, I really don’t think he got scouted or still pursuing Ushijima.

For the rest of Shiratorizawa, we didn’t see much of them so I can’t make clear guesses. I apologize once again.

Nekoma

Nekoma is also a bit confusing. But, I could see Lev go pro. He’s not super duper amazing per se (I say this based on his performance up to National, idk how he is now okay), but he has the talent and all those height and power. His progress is fast too. I think it’d catch the scouting agents’ attention.

Now, Kenma definitely wouldn’t go pro and we’re shown that XD. Surprise though, I always had a headcanon that he’d be a pro gamer or secretly doing stock trading. Just never thought he’d be a YouTuber and a company board member (or is it CEO?!). Imagine my feeling when my “simply headcanon” became real.

Kuroo is a bit like Asahi, but I honestly believe he is really smart and probably wanna do something else. I wish Yaku would go pro coz he’s a really top caliber Libero (and I would really like to watch his rivalry with Nishinoya grow more), but he didn’t really show much “ambition” for professional career for me. The rest of the members wouldn’t go pro too imo.

Fukurodani

Now, as much as it breaks my heart to say this, I don’t think Akaashi is going pro. He gives me “doctor/scientist/basically high and smart position vibe” somehow. And he’s very clever as well (all those thinking he does lmao), I think he’d pursue something else. So volleyball stopped in high school or university for him. Idk about the rest of Fukurodani though. I definitely wanna see more of Konoha, but the chance is small.

Bokuto >>> pro for me. Been that for a long time. He doesn’t strike me as academically gifted, but I can be wrong ofc. He could: a) straight going pro after high school or b) finished college then go pro. Either way, he’s definitely pro athletes material.

Inarizaki

Atsumu (I’ll call him Atsumu to differentiate him with his twin, even though I prefer last name tbh) also >>> pro. The reason is pretty similar to Ushijima/Kageyama/Bokuto. He’s just that good. Oh on this, I really should mention that I believe all the Youth Camp candidates are going to be or already pros (this by extension means Sakusa & Komori from Itachiyama).

For the rest of Inarizaki, the ones that will be pro are Aran and Osamu. Aran is awesome and one of the best 5 aces in the nation. I know he would get scouted. Whether he go pro after high school or after finishing college, idk. But he will be pro. I would riot if he isn’t. And for Osamu, it would be really cool if he goes to a different team than his twin and they will fight it out on court.

On a side note, Kita is one of my favorite characters and he’s the one that from personality and mindset, can resonate the most with me. But tbh, I’m certain he’s not gonna go pro.

Kamomedai

The only Kamomedai members that would be pro for me are Hoshiumi and Hakuba. Hirugami is high level himself ofc, but idk, I didn’t get the pro ambition vibe from him, similar to Yaku.

Hoshiumi is another one in my list that I think would be revealed as a pro. He’s small, yes, but there’s a wing spiker in Japan National Men’s Volleyball Team that’s around 178cm, and I believe Hoshiumi has grown around this height too. I mean, Hinata has reached 171cm, so it’s possible that Hoshiumi has grown taller as well. Besides, he’s really really really good. He has one of the highest overall skill after Kageyama. He only lose in power coz well, he’s smaller. After all, there’s the promise he made to Hinata. So a showdown between them will definitely happen. So, I think it’s safe to assume Furudate will make him a pro athlete.

Hakuba >>> same vibe as Lev and Hyakuzawa. He’s tall af. Not many people can reach 2 meters (especially Japanese), so he’d bring an advantage for any pro teams.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention Kiryuu. He’s definitely going pro (or he already is?). I really really like and admire him. His character is so wholesome and amazing, he deserves the best. And that translates to the best career too. I would be so disappointed if he isn’t a pro.

There’s also Tsubakihara High School that Karasuno fought in the first round National. Out of those players, the ace (Teradomari) and their wing spiker (Maruyama) have the best chance to get scouted. But there’s little information that we have about them, so I’m not sure. Furudate might not bring them back to the present. This also applies to Ubugawa and Shinzen High School captains from the training camp. Oh, Daishou-kun is also an interesting character, I would love to see him again. But maybe he won’t come back as pro player tho. But him giving commentaries will be very appreciated hehe.

PS: I kinda wish Furudate was a fic writer, lol. They would be able to write absolute masterpiece of crack-pair fics considering how they are able to make sense of Bokuto-Atsumu and Ushijima-Kageyama, lmao. Who else after this? Hoshiumi-Sakusa? Nishinoya-Kiryuu? XD

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dbh-is-a-crime · 5 years ago

Text

All Dbh Chapters

@kaydel your reply to my ask has inspired me to give my thoughts on each of the chapters.

Chapter 1: The Hostage

Is honestly a good first chapter, the tension and stakes are high, it pulls you in. There's a reason people who played the demo were hyped for the game. And regardless of what I think of Cage's writing, it's not the first time he's done a solid intro to a game. (Swiftly followed by garbage but I digress..)

We learn something about deviancy and how it starts, we get a sequence of dialogue based gameplay to set up how important it is to the story, and we get a taste of Connor’s somewhat underdeveloped investigation gameplay.

I will admit that there are several lines I kind of like in this scene (’You can’t kill me, I’m not alive’ I’d like this even better if Bryan didn’t love it so much) And most of the outcomes are very cool!

Chapter 2: Opening

Is not a chapter, it's the opening credits. It's not really interesting, but it's not as bad as Heavy Rain's, only because it's about half as long. Kara was robbed.

Chapter 3: Shades of Color

What a title am I right! And no, it's not just because of the paints. This chapter, title aside, isn't bad! We don't learn anything about Markus but it sets the world up nicely. It's one of the cooler open areas. It shows off the graphics nicely.

And all of that is promptly ruined by the overly heavy-handed scene with the protesters. With the follow up of the back of the bus! Also the preacher guy is weird what was the point of that.

Chapter 4: A New Home

Easily one of the most (if not The Most) boring chapters in the game. Mundane QTEs? We all looooooove those! At the end of the chapter you get some exposition to a very nice composition (this game really would be nothing without the music) and that part is actually ok. But the mundane housework gameplay doesn’t get a pass, even if it is to give context for what the life of an android is like. Would be 100% better if there was 40% less housework.

Chapter 5: The Painter

A solid chapter! Learning about Markus through his interactions with Carl? An actual good narrative device? Unbelievable. At surface level their relationship is sweet and Carl is so supportive of Markus growing beyond his programming. Though there is a darker undertone that mirrors the caged android birds. And that it’s all a gilded cage. And I like both of those interpretations, they’re interesting.

The music mini game is interesting the first time you do it but after that I’m never picking it again, chess it is from now on.

Chapter 6: Partners

Connor’s return after 5 chapters. I think that might be the longest break between appearances for any of them. Anyway this chapter is mostly fine. It sets up Hank and Connor’s troubled partnership and shows us what most of Connor’s gameplay is going to be. (Detective work and trying to reason with Hank) It would be interesting if there was an option to let Ortiz’ android go, seeing as there if a version of the scene where you don’t find him. But I guess it’s too early for Connor to be disobeying.

Chapter 7: Stormy Night

Classic David Cage has women being abused by men! Unfortunately this is one of Kara’s best chapters. The tension from the very first moment if real, and as soon as Alice runs up stairs, you just know what’s going to happen. Without fail, every person I’ve ever watched, immediately tries to follow her. Honestly? Solid way to make me care about the kid.

I know some folks have problems with showing child abuse on screen, but my opinion is that they kept the worst of it as implied, like in the failed ending of the chapter, you don’t see it actually happen. So I’m personally okay with it, but I can understand why some may disagree.

10/10 for the chase/escape scene. It’s stressful as hell but honestly the music just makes it...like idk the moment Kara deviates? I nearly, literally screamed the first time. The build up to it is so good, and you as the player are determined to protect Alice and will fight through the programming to do it.

Chapter 8: Broken

Gonna be honest, Markus’ deviating scene falls a little flatter for me. I’ve watched several people play for the first time and actively not want to break programming and retaliate. Which makes the fact that its a scripted event you can’t avoid frustrating to them. I guess we just haven’t seen any anger from him yet so it doesn’t feel like the reaction you expect? (I get that it’s supposed to be him finally cracking, the story just...doesn’t convey that very well.)

Also the fact that you get punished for staying silent with Carl dying is shitty.

Chapter 9: The Interrogation

Talk about fucking tense! This scene is a real challenge, in either difficulty. Unless you don’t care about the android self-destructing?

I don’t have much else to say, it’s not a bad scene but there’s not a lot of substance to it. The ‘the day will come when we will no longer be slaves’ line is...the start of the truly terrible writing choices in this game.

Chapter 10: Fugitives

Not a bad scene. Getting to choose to steal a bunch of stuff is fun, and the fact that you can steal all this shit and then go and sleep in the car is pretty funny. I don’t like the house or Ralph, just because it’s another chance to put a female character at risk from a male character. 7/10 I’m never picking the house. (Also did you know you can fail to steal from that guy in the laundromat and he wakes up lmao)

Chapter 11: From The Dead

Ok this is going to be kind of a controversial opinion...but I’m tired of this scene. While it’s true that no scene in the game holds up on the 20th watch/play, this scene lost most of it’s shock value on the 3rd watch. Now that being said, the sound design in the scene is brilliant. And putting the audio processor back in does still give me chills, but the rest of the scene? I mean, I guess cannibalising other androids is a pretty powerful story action. But the fact that you can take all of the things you need from dead androids if you search hard enough kind of ruins that for me.

Also idk why but everyone collectively thinks that Markus screams when he reaches the top of the slope and I have no idea why.

Chapter 12: Waiting For Hank

Boooooooring. Ok, getting beat up by Gavin after refusing to make him coffee is mildly interesting. But the fact that Hank just hates you in the scene is honestly quite tiring. Like, his opinion of Connor will inevitably go down at least once, you can’t avoid that. Also there’s nothing to explore in the office so...

Chapter 13: On The Run

Both versions of this scene are very tense. And not in...a super fun way. Like ok, Kara has that empowering woman moment where she cuts her hair, great, but the rest of the scene isn’t that good. (And the version with Ralph is downright disturbing.)

Chapter 14: Jericho

Oh god let’s players cannot do this part. And the amount of time I’ve spent watching people run around clueless because they weren’t paying even the slightest attention or follow the obvious path, makes me hate this chapter. I also hate it because the gameplay isn’t very interesting. Markus’ precog is mildly interesting, but that’s really it. (The end of this chapter has some pretty stunning visuals tho)

Chapter 15: The Nest

Ok, the opening conversation with Hank is cute if Connor is trying to be nice. Though the actual chase is pretty tense. The music is on point as always, because the composers for this game were very overqualified for the job. Also the fact that you get punished for not saving Hank both amuses and vexes me. You don’t catch the guy because you were a shitty partner. But what was the point of taking the risk with Hank if there’s no reward? (Yes I know he still ends up in evidence lock up but that’s hardly reward enough for risking your partner’s life)

I mean okay the pigeons flying through the roof is pretty funny, but the investigation in the apartment isn’t all that interesting. Also I’ve just realised I haven’t mentioned the Zen Garden once but honestly most of the scenes there aren’t that interesting anyway.

Chapter 16: Time To Decide

Wow where do I start on how uninteresting this chapter is. You learn very little about Markus’ companions, you get to have a conversation with a magical minority, and you get a line about an android being dragged behind the back of a car. (After reading the wiki about James Byrd I feel genuinely sick and could not be more disgusted that this was used so clumsily in the game.)

Chapter 17: Zlatko

His name sounds like a brand. Also this is my least favourite Kara chapter. They go to his place for almost no reason (just so they can get caught) and we get a 20 minute scene of Zlatko being a cartoonish monster of a man. Also this has been pointed out and now I can’t stop thinking about it. Why is Kara scared of Luther when she sees him? Like...??? Anyway re-finding her memories is boring, finding Alice is also boring, and hiding from Zlatko is just stressful. Nothing interesting to the story happens here, except that Luther joins Kara and Alice.

Chapter 18: Russian Roulette

Perhaps the shortest chapter in the game. It’s not like...super boring, but it’s not interesting either. Also don’t forget to notice the picture on the table or you’ll have no chance of getting the good ending later! Seriously, they should have made it a requirement for the scene to move on if it’s going to be that important.

Chapter 19: Spare Parts

The whole freerunning thing at the start is lame. And the fact that you have to grab the android and then release him to get the best outcome is confusing as hell. (I have seen many folks fuck this up.) The part where you sneak around in the guard house is actually kind of cool. Also North go down if you’re nice to people....I love this game.

Chapter 20: The Eden Club

Pity the lesbian sexworker androids!!! In all seriousness though this is a chapter I do not like. The endings are unfulfilling, the whole storyline is gross, poorly written and very Cage-esque. (Also why would you make the two android lovers the same model?! Just make one of them one of the other 8 female WR800 models you have!) I mean I guess I can say that the glowly design of the sexclub is nice or whatever.

Chapter 21: Pirate’s Cove

Ok this is a personal one but I don’t like this chapter. Something about the family dynamic between the three falls flat for me and so the whole scene being about them makes it...ehh. Also Kara under threat again! Woohoo! The scene on the carousel is kind of cute and the scene composition is nice, but the fact that all the Jerrys are standing around watching is a little weird. Also bait us with rA9 crap why don’t you! we’ll just never learn anything about this i guess

Chapter 22: The Bridge

I like this chapter to be honest. I know Pirate’s Cove is meant to be relaxed but I find this chapter more relaxing. Even if it ends with a gun to Connor’s head. I mean it’s not that hard to not get shot really. And seeing Hank start to care and question their mission is interesting. I don’t know, I guess I just like the visuals of the snow and the bridge. (Anyone notices that it goes from raining to snowing like three days later, wtf)

Chapter 23: The Stratford Tower

Now this one is complicated. Because I like the breaking in and getting up to the broadcast department part, I even like the pre-speech tension. Markus carrying the weight of history and knowing his words will shape what people across the world think of androids.

The music as he gets ready to start the speech is....just so good. But then he starts talking and.....mmmmm press x for civil right yes please! Press square to end slavery? Absolutely! God...the writing in this scene is Bad. Which is a shame! Because it squanders the carefully crafted tension built up until this point. I like the energy going into this scene, the idea that they’re about to take a stand, make history. But it is unfortunately ruined for the sake of a poorly executed racism allegory.

Chapter 24: Public Enemy

Ok, going to investigate the crime scene of what you just did as Markus is pretty good. Its not an original idea, that was the opening sequence for Indigo Prophecy, but it still works I’m not going to lie. Also the cop from the Hostage showing up to thank you if you saved him is cute. The fact that Hank is starting to question Connor and look for signs of deviancy in him is also nice! Also I hate it but going after Simon gives you a more cohesive storyline if you’re going for a deviant Connor route. (Can I get an F for Simon? He can die so many different ways)

Chapter 25: Midnight Train

Can’t believe that the chapter about the underground railroad is literally called Midnight Train. Yeah the dialogue in this? Shocking, terrible, absolutely unforgivable. Rose I am so sorry this happened to you. Also a cop arrives to....put Kara in peril at the hands of a male character again! Can’t go a chapter without that!

Chapter 26: Capitol Park

Hmmmmmmmmm. ‘We have a dream’? ‘I can’t breathe, but I’m still alive’? Hi, yes, hello? David Cage is doing it again, yeah he’s co-opting black history for his story about androids, somebody needs to stop him. Why did no one stop him.

Ok, most of this chapter other than that is ok. It’s not particularly good, but it’s ok. (wiLL yOu bE gOoD oR eViL?!?!1)

Chapter 27: Meet Kamski

Ok this man is so creepy and emotionally manipulative and as a narrative tool I’ve actually come to love it. Like the tone of this chapter is such a breath of fresh air. Maybe it’s just the fact that they added a new character after such a long time and that he knows more than he ever lets on. rA9 baited again...

Also this is Connor’s turning point in a way. You can still choose to change your path later on, but this is the real moment of truth where a character pushes him to reveal where he’s at. (Also the fucking MUSIC)

Chapter 28: Freedom March

Oh no. I’m so sorry Markus you deserve better. I hate this chapter if you can’t tell. The combo of the black history slogans and the jesus music is too much for me. Also the good ending is locked behind Simon being alive/Spare Parts success route??? Also F for that random android who’s name is John that we hear about twice.

Chapter 29: Last Chance, Connor

I usually keep a low profile with Gavin so I miss out on the beatdown unfortunately. But having the option is hilarious. If you don’t sacrifice at the march, Simon is alive, interrogation bad end, Rupert and the Tracis escape....can you even find Jericho?

Just a thought, anyway this is short but tense chapter. Don’t hate it.

Chapter 30: Crossroads

Kara’s part of this is dumb as hell. The Alice twist literally destroys the storyline but anyway...

Markus has very little to do until the end. His version is ok, but Jesse’s line delivery leaves something to be desired. (You’re one of us....)

Connor’s is easily the most interesting of the three concurrent stories at this point. Going in to capture Markus/North, chasing them through the hold if ur a machine..very good.

And....going deviant. Okay yes that still gets me, I did actually shout YES!! out loud the first time I witnessed it. The music’s slow build in the scene, and most of the dialogue (if you choose carefully) swells to this point and...and..it happens!!

Like idk I’ve only been slowly building up to this for 9 hours, sue me.

Chapter 31: Night Of The Soul

I like this chapter! Or Markus’ version anyway. Connor’s...well the Hank version is just sad. The Jericho version is fine.

But Markus? Visiting Carl’s grave or the man himself is such an emotional moment for the character. And the single humanising moment he’s had in several chapters. The conversation is so weighted with his doubts and fears and Jesse Williams gives a beautiful performance! (Also as I’ve said, the alarm system saying ‘welcome home markus’ kills me on impact)

Chapter 32: Battle For Detroit

Is a good chapter. What, did you expect me to say it isn’t? Cause it is. Or some versions of it are.

The tension in all three characters stories, regardless of which version, is perfectly hit at this point.

Kara’s....ah fuck idk I mean the border version is ok? The others....kind of suck? The guy letting them through with high public opinion and Markus doing a peaceful demonstration is kind of cute and sort of makes sense in a way.

Markus’ versions (both in which he is alive) are pretty cool. The revolution is hard, and I do like that it ends with him saying that they haven’t won, they’ve only started a war. The demonstration is kind of dumb, and I actually prefer them getting shot and then the news anchors suggesting that maybe androids are people in their own right that humans refused to acknowledge. (Feels more real, ya know?) Also black folk song!! Why??

Gonna be real, most of Connor’s versions of this scene are pretty good. Cyberlife tower is tense as hell but he’s a fucking badass. Machine Connor on the roof gives us the best line in the game. ‘What’s up lieutenant, ran out of whiskey so you came here looking for trouble?’

So that’s some of my thoughts on each of the chapters of dbh, I could go into more depth but my eyes hurt and I’ll probably hit post limit soon.

#dbh meta #ramblings #mine

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