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perspective-series · 4 years

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Kingdom Perspective (1)

By: @arc852 and @hiddendreamer67

Warnings: Fear, panic, kidnapping, keeping/treating people like pets, threats, and unwanted touching/grabbing

First Chapter (here) || Next Chapter

Summary: Roman has been pleading with his father for a pet human of his own ever since Logan received one a year ago. Now, the day has arrived that he’s worn his father out and agrees in giving him his own. Roman is far too excited about this new arrangement. Virgil, on the other hand, is less so.

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Roman entered the throne room as the guard opened the door for him. His father sat atop his throne with a resigned and slightly annoyed expression. He already knew what Roman had come to ask. So, Roman didn’t waste any time. “Father, I feel as though I am responsible enough to take care of my own human.” The king sighed.

“Roman-” He started but was cut off.

“I am eighteen years old! I can take care of a simple creature!” Roman argued. The king ran a hand down his face.

“Roman-” He was cut off once more.

“Please, you gave Logan one!”

“He is older than you.” The king spoke, trying not to out right glare at his son. Roman huffed.

“But I’m still mature! You trusted me with being a knight, you can trust me with this too!” The king groaned, tired of having this conversation. It had been going on since Logan had gotten a human.

“Alright!” He finally said and Roman paused, blinking in confusion.

“Wait, really?” As the king nodded, Roman grinned.

“Thank you father! You won’t regret this, I’ll take good care of them!” Roman exclaimed, bouncing on the heels of his feet in sudden excitement. The king sighed once more.

“I hope so. You will be in charge of training it after all.” Roman nodded and the king dismissed him, promising he would get his human in a few days. Once Roman left, he turned to a guard. “Send a message to Dee that we need a new human, as soon as possible.” The guard nodded and left to relay the message.

Of course, Dee was not too happy to receive this message.

“Oh, get another human, Dee.” He mocked in a high-pitched tone, pulling spell books and ingredients off the shelves. “As if dimensional travel was as easy as a parlor trick. Hardly a worthy use of my powers, playing fetch for yet another stuck-up prince.”

Despite his grumbling, Dee got to work. He began to uncork bottles, pouring the contents into a large cauldron that sat in the middle of the room. With a puff of violet smoke the mixture began to bubble, the contents writhing around until all at once they stilled. Slowly, out of the darkness a vision emerged, the picture as clear as if Dee was looking through a window. Here was the human world, and the sorcerer could watch the little things scurry about their lives.

“Let’s see…” Dee drifted a finger through the image, causing the view to change as he swept over to another part of the human world. It was critical to find the right target, someone who wouldn’t put up much of a fight or alert others. Dee had made that mistake once. Good lord, the screeching was obnoxious. It was as though the tiny creatures had never seen magic before.

“Here we are.” Dee grinned, spotting a lone human past the edge of town. It was one wearing dark clothing, and seemed to be paying no attention to its surroundings. Perfect.

Taking another vial in hand, Dee poured it on the surface of the image until the vision had a faint green glow. Having now opened the portal, Dee pushed up his sleeve and reached his arm into the depths.

For the human, of course, this was a very frightening sight. Virgil was just minding his business, walking home from class, when all of a sudden the sky above him seemed to glow green.

“What the heck?” Virgil frowned up at the clouds, watching them twirl around the green glow in a circular formation. Had the aliens finally come for him?

Virgil’s eyes widened when a giant hand began to appear out of the light, descending upon him.

“I was joking!” Virgil yelled, running away from it at top speed. He abandoned his backpack to try and gain speed, but with a whoosh Virgil felt himself get whisked up into the air. He screamed, watching the ground disappear beneath his feet as he rose 100 feet, 200, 300-

Virgil blinked, momentarily blinded by the green light. As his vision came back, a giant humanoid face filled his vision, looking down at him with what was almost a predatory grin. Virgil opened his mouth to let out another scream, but just as he did the giant blew some red powder into his face.

“Shhh.” The Giant said, watching as Virgil began to choke down some of the powder on reflex. Whatever it was had to be some sort of drug, and within seconds Virgil passed out.

“There we go.” Dee purred, watching the human fall asleep. He placed it on his desk, closing the portal with another droplet from the vial and watching the contents turn back to their normal grey color. Satisfied, Dee placed the human into the cage that had been provided by the messenger and rang the bell for another servant boy.

“For Prince Roman.” Dee instructed, handing over the cage and noticing the way the boy gawked at the contents. “Don’t get any funny ideas.”

“Y-yes sir.” The servant boy nodded, hurrying down the hall.

Roman paced back and forth in his chambers, wondering when his human would arrive. He was so excited. Finally, finally, he would get his own human! He had wanted one ever since the tiny race had been discovered by Dee and their father had given one to Logan. Roman, for whatever reason, had not been gifted one at the time. Making Roman angry and even more jealous of Logan.

So not only will his brother be the king but he would be the only one with a pet human? Like Roman was going to let that happen. Thankfully, this last year of begging had finally gotten him what he had wanted. His own human.

A knock on his door had him sprinting to open it. A servant boy appeared, holding out a cage towards him. Roman grinned as he spotted the tiny creature that lay within it. He took the cage, quickly thanked the servant boy and closed the door. He was much too excited to prolong this any longer.

“My very own human!” Roman couldn’t help but say out loud. He set the cage on the desk, taking a closer look inside. It appeared the human was sound asleep, which Roman would have to fix here soon. But he also couldn’t help but notice the difference between this human and the one Logan had. The darker hair and clothes for one. He wondered if this human would act different?

Well, only one way to find out.

He opened the cage door and scooped the human up into his hand. He gently prodded its side. “Wakey wakey little human.”

Virgil let out a slight groan, his head pounding as though he had been drinking all weekend. The surface underneath him felt...strange, like some sort of weird heated leathery bed. The voice that had spoken vibrated through his head, sounding much too loud and only increasing his headache.

Slowly Virgil sat up, cradling his head and feeling as though he had had a very strange dream. Something about aliens and giants. It was utterly ridiculous, and yet it had felt so...real.

Virgil opened his eyes, only to realize that it had been no dream. A different giant face filled his vision, looking much younger than the previous stranger.

“AHHH!” Virgil screamed, attempting to scramble backwards but finding he only bumped into fingers as large as himself.

Roman frowned. “No, no, none of that.” Why was it screaming? Logan’s didn’t scream. Oh, wait, the poor little guy was probably a little spooked, waking up on his hand and all. Whoops. Roman gave his human a gentle smile. “It’s okay, you’re safe. There’s no reason to scream.” He pet the top of the human’s head with a finger.

Virgil ducked, feeling the Giant touch his head. “What? What the hell? What’s going on? Who the hell are you?” He felt his chest rising and falling rapidly as his breaths became shallower, his anxiety skyrocketing.

Roman frowned at the human’s tone but grinned as he raised his free hand and did a little bow. “I am Prince Roman and you have the honor of being my human!” Roman grinned once more, unable to stop himself from looking over the human once more. These creatures were just so amazing.

“I- your human?!” Virgil repeated incredulously, disbelief almost making it come out as a laugh.

“Of course! My brother has his own pet human and now I have mine! You!” Roman explained. He pulled out his chair and sat at his desk, still holding his human in his hand. He used a finger to give the human a little poke in the side.

Virgil paled, feeling a bit ill at the idea of being this guy’s pet.

“No!” Virgil exclaimed, flinching away from the poke. “No, you- you have no right to just rip me away from my home and- and imprison me like this! I don’t care how entitled you think you are, take me back!”

Roman frowned, a bit shocked at how his human was talking to him. “Well, we’ll certainly have to work on that mouth of yours.” Roman said, they couldn’t have any of that while they were out and about. Training a human might be harder than he thought it was going to be.

Roman placed the human in the cage and locked him in when he decided that getting food for the two of them would help. “I’ll be right back with some food, little guy. And then we can start training you.” Roman wanted to get training started right away, especially if it was going to take more work than he thought. He needed to prove he was responsible enough to keep this human.

He sent one last glance at the human before heading out of the room and towards the kitchen.

“NO!” Virgil screeched at the retreating figure. He wasn’t sure if the Giant could hear him, but it made himself feel better at least. Virgil ran over to the front of the cage, tugging on the lock as if it was going to make a difference. He tried sticking his hand in to pick the lock like he’s seen in movies, but all that happened was Virgil’s hand got scraped along the inner mechanisms. “Let me out of here, you stupid mother-!”

Roman walked along the corridors happily. He was just so excited to spend time with his human, it was going to be great! Well, once they fixed the talking back problem at least. As he continued towards the kitchen, he noticed a familiar face walking in his direction. He grinned. Perfect, he had been wanting to gloat about this.

“Why, hello there Logan.” Roman greeted, stopping him in the hall.

“Roman.” Logan gave his brother a tert nod in greeting. “Where are you going this evening?”

Roman smirked. “Just getting some food for me and my new human.”

For once, Logan looked visibly startled by this news. “Your ...what?”

Roman feigned surprise. “Oh, you haven’t heard? Father finally got me my own human.” Roman grinned smugly.

“I, no, I had not heard that.” Logan put a hand to his chin, concerned. “Are you quite certain you’re capable of caring for such a delicate creature? Subtlety has never been one of your strong suits.”

Roman gasped in offense. “Of course I can! I am just as responsible as you, thank you very much.” Roman huffed, crossing his arms and turning his head.

Logan gave his own huff, annoyed at Roman’s behavior. “Well, when you have any questions or concerns on the matter, my door is always open.” Logan pushed his glasses further up his nose. “After all, I am quite experienced in that department.”

“I’m sure I won’t need any help.” Roman said but soon after he turned a little back towards his elder brother. “Though...just curious, did your human scream the first time you got him? Or talk back?”

“...oh no.” Logan groaned, shaking his head softly. “Roman, what did you do?”

“I did nothing! He just started screaming as soon as he woke up! That’s hardly my fault.” Roman huffed once more.

“Well, obviously you did.” Logan said, turning to leave. “Because mine certainly didn’t scream.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Roman repeated. It was kind of disheartening to find out that Logan’s didn’t scream though. He’d have to figure that out on his own it looked like. “Whatever. You’ll see, my human will be so much better behaved than yours!”

“We shall see.” Logan’s reply was brief, the older brother not even sparing Roman one last glance before he disappeared behind the corner.

Roman grumbled as he found his way to the kitchen. Stupid Logan, thinks he’s so much better than him. He’ll show him who’s really responsible. He grabbed a serving of dinner for himself and a smaller plate for his human before heading back up to his room.

“I’m back!” Roman called out as he entered. The door shut behind him and he sent the human a smile as he placed the plates of food down on the desk next to the cage.

Virgil only glared at him, deciding to give him the silent treatment briefly since his voice still felt sore from all the screaming he had done in Roman’s absence. He looked at what the Giant had brought, noticing what seemed to be some kind of giant steaming bowl of rice and meat to accompany it. Virgil gulped, wondering how big a creature had to have been killed for that food. Certainly something far larger than Virgil.

“Now, here is your portion.” He opened the cage and slid in the small saucer, full of a few pieces of rice and chicken that the cooks had made specifically for the human. “Eat up, you’re gonna need the energy.” Roman closed the cage door before digging into his own food.

Virgil shuddered at the noise of a Giant eating so close to him. Even if he were hungry, he wouldn’t be hungry now. Roman hadn’t even given him any silverware, just expecting him to eat out of the dish like a barn animal. With a grimace Virgil realized that was how he was currently being viewed.

Virgil walked over to the provided dish, and with a slight grunt he pushed it over and spilled the contents on his cage floor. He turned to Roman with a glare. “I don’t want your stupid food, I just want to go home.”

Roman’s eyes widened at what the human had done and he sighed, setting down his silverware. “Bad human.” He said, trying to sound harsh but not too harsh. “And you are home. Forget about wherever you came from, this is your new home now.” Roman spoke.

He opened the cage door and picked up the fallen food to throw it away. He then filled up the plate once more with some food from his own plate before setting it back inside the cage. “Now eat. And if you do that again, I will have to resort to punishment.” Which Roman didn’t want to do but knew he would have to if his human kept acting like this.

Virgil’s eyes widened slightly, not exactly eager to find out what Roman meant by ‘punishment’. He remembered who he was talking to, and decided perhaps it might not be best to directly antagonize Roman. Still, if he just sat around being complacent there was no way he was getting out of here. Virgil vowed to be the worst ‘pet’ around.

“I’m not hungry.” Virgil insisted, stepping around the bowl and closer to the front of the cage. “And this will never be my home!”

Roman sighed, rubbing his temples. This was definitely going to be harder than he thought. He turned towards the human, giving him a stern look. “Just eat.” He commanded.

“No.” Virgil stood strong, crossing his arms to hide the way his limbs had begun to tremble at the look Roman gave him. “I told you, I don’t want it. I don’t want any of this! I’m not just gonna let you sit there and try and treat me like some pet just because you’re some giant freak. I’m a human being, I have rights.”

Roman slammed his hands against the table, the stern look now filled with annoyance. “Alright, we are setting up some ground rules. One, no talking back. You are not going back to your original world. This is your home now. And you have no rights here, seeing as you are a creature that is below my kind.”

Virgil’s entire body shook when Roman hit the table, scaring him so profusely that he was startled back into silence.

Roman was happy to see his scare tactic seemed to have worked. “Two, you are to listen to everything I say. I am your owner and therefore I know best.” Roman looked down at the human once more. “That being said, you need to eat.”

Almost mechanically Virgil reached down, plucking up one of the grains of rice in his hand. The entire thing was bigger than his palm. At the sight of such an abnormally large food Virgil’s stomach twisted even further, and he knew he couldn’t eat this. Virgil looked at Roman’s face, suddenly reminded of a school yard bully. Virgil’s grip around the rice tightened, his face twisting into a snarl.

I’m going to die for this. Virgil thought distantly, before disregarding this thought and flinging the grain of rice out of his cage at Roman.

Roman sat there in shock as the grain of rice hit him in the face. He blinked and looked down at the human with disbelief. “Seriously?! What is wrong with you!?” Roman groaned, why was his human being so much more difficult than Logan’s!

He suddenly sat up straight, looking at the human. “Fine, punishment it is then. I warned you.” He opened the cage door and grabbed the human within, taking him out.

Virgil’s eyes widened, his heart rate shooting through the roof as he began to imagine all the forms of torture Roman might have in mind for a ‘punishment’. Indeed, Roman’s grip was already tight around Virgil’s body, leaving it difficult to breathe as his elbow was crushed painfully into his side.

“Wait!” Virgil begged, all recklessness beginning to fade. “Wait, dude, I’m sorry, please I won’t do it again.”

Roman paused, looking down at the human with narrowed eyes. “You won’t?” He knew he should probably just punish the human but he really didn’t want to do that. If he could get away with not, then Roman would count that as a win.

Virgil shook his head adamantly. “Promise.” He definitely didn’t plan on throwing rice at a Giant again any time soon.

“...Alright. But this is your last chance. Next time there will be punishment.” The human wouldn’t learn any other way. He placed the human back in the cage, closing it once more. “Now, please eat something at the very least.”

Virgil sat down next to the dish, rolling another grain of rice in between his hands. It felt a bit sticky, and Virgil really didn’t want to put it in his mouth. Regardless, it seemed he didn’t have a choice. Roman wasn’t going to let him skip this meal. So, with a grimace, Virgil bit off a chunk. He felt the rubbery texture with his tongue, wincing as it sank like a rock into his stomach.

Roman smiled, happy to actually see his human listening to him. Finally. “That’s a good human!” He praised and turned back to finally finish his own meal.

Virgil closed his eyes, trying to block it all out as he quickly scarfed down the rest of the rice. He tucked his knees into his chest, hugging them tightly as a terrible aftertaste was left in his mouth from everything that was happening.

Roman finished up and took the plate from the cage, piling it on with his own dirty dishes. He set it off to the side, knowing a servant would come in later to grab it. He then turned his full attention onto the human.

“So, I almost forgot to ask but do you have a name? Because if you don’t I could always give you one!”

“Yes I have a name.” Virgil spat, loathing the idea of Roman trying to give him a new one. It’d probably be something stupid, like Princey or Spot. Virgil shifted slightly, turning away from the Giant. “...it’s Virgil.”

“Virgil…” Roman repeated, getting a feel for the name. “Hmm, yes, I think that suits you perfectly!” How fortunate that the human already had a well fitting name. “Now! I think it’s time to do a bit of training before we have to head to bed.”

Virgil frowned, thrown off by the mention of training. He had thought that training would just be getting him to shut up. Was he going to actually be expected to do something? Virgil hated to work hard under any circumstances.

“We’ll start with something simple.” Roman opened the cage door but didn’t reach in to grab Virgil this time. Instead, he tapped on the table in front of him. “Come here Virgil.”

Virgil winced, the thud of Roman’s tap feeling like the sound of a gavel at a trail where Virgil had just been declared a dead man.

Virgil shook his head, curling in on himself more to try and hide the way his chest ached. “Leave me alone.”

Roman frowned. “Virgil. Come.” He tried again, tapping once more. He had seen Logan do this with his human many times. Logan didn’t even have to say anything for his human to understand what he meant and come to him. So why wasn’t Virgil doing it?

“I said leave me alone.” Virgil growled, his voice breaking slightly as he placed his head on his knees.

Roman sighed. “Fine, we’ll save that one for later.” He reached in and grabbed Virgil, setting him down in front of him.

Virgil gasped, falling onto his back. He propped himself up onto his elbows. “What is your problem? I said I wanted to be left alone.” Of course, it didn’t seem Roman cared what he wanted.

“You’ll be left alone once it’s bedtime. But I want to get training started at the very least, since it’s clear you’re going to need a lot of work.” And he needed to be able to do this. For his own sake. Roman helped Virgil to stand up.

“Let go of me!” Virgil pushed away from Roman’s fingers, standing on his own. “I don’t need your help.”

“Right.” Roman muttered sarcastically with a roll of his eyes but otherwise ignored him. Now that Virgil was standing, he could give his command. The simplest trick in the book. “Now, sit.”

“I’m not a dog.” Virgil’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Stop trying to treat me like one. I know English, you know. You don’t have to be so rude and brash about your stupid ‘training’.”

“Well, how else am I supposed to do this in a way you would listen?” Roman asked as he raised an eyebrow. “And what did I say about talking back?” Roman narrowed his eyes slightly, moving his hand a bit closer to Virgil to try and scare him.

“I wasn’t talking back.” Virgil quickly stepped away from Roman’s hand, looking nervous as he quickly tried to justify his words. “I was suggesting.”

Roman hummed, taking his hand back. “Well, maybe when you actually start to listen, I will be more inclined to speak less ‘brashly’. But as of right now…” Roman pointed down. “Sit.”

“Well, maybe if you spoke less brashly, I’d be inclined to listen.” Virgil raised his voice into a mocking tone to imitate Roman. “Oh Virgil, would you be ever so kind as to please have a seat over here? But of course.” Letting his voice drop to its normal octave, Virgil took a seat with a smirk. He hadn’t dared to disobey again, but he figured his point still stood.

Roman gave Virgil a deadpan look. “Okay, for one, I don’t sound like that.” He had made his voice much too high. “Second, that is far too many words for a simple command. My brother can tell his human to do something without even speaking words! I want you to be able to do that eventually as well.” At least Virgil had sat down, though Roman didn’t feel very proud of that fact.

“Well your brother sounds like a jerk.” Virgil pointed out. “I mean, c’mon, I can understand you perfectly fine. It’s just rude to not use your words.” Not to mention demeaning. “Even kids know to ask for something when they want it.”

“Well, you aren’t wrong about my brother. He can be pretty jerky sometimes.” Roman said, thinking back to all the times Logan was indeed a jerk. “But see, here is the thing you don’t seem to quite understand.” Roman leaned forward.

“You, Virgil, are my pet. You were caught in that silly world of yours and given to me to prove my responsibility by training a creature as strange as you. If I fail, not only will I be a disappointment to my father but you will be taken away from me. And you do not want that.”

“I think you and I have different ideas of what I want.” Virgil sneered, although he couldn’t help but lean back slightly when Roman got closer.

“Look, I can tell that you currently do not like me. But you will learn to soon enough and get used to how things are. What you can’t get used to is death, which is what my father will do to you if I fail. That, or some experiment for our court sorcerer. Either option is bad though.”

Virgil paled, spooked by what Roman had threatened. “I...you’re bluffing.” Virgil tried, but inside Virgil knew this was no bluff. His knees knocked together slightly.

“I wish I was.” Roman said solemnly. “Now, if you want to have a full and good life, I suggest you actually do as I say. Because I promise, I will take good care of you.”

“I…” Virgil clutched his head in his hands, overcome by an existential crisis. Was that what he wanted? To live a long life as some Giant’s pet?? Constantly looked down upon, commanded, scolded for having an opinion.

“No.” Virgil’s groaned, shaking his head back and forth. “No no no no-”

Roman sighed, running a hand down his face. Apparently, this was not happening today. “Alright. Looks like we’ll continue this tomorrow. Time for bed.” He grabbed Virgil and placed him back inside the cage. He then took the cage and placed it on his bedside table. Just in case.

Virgil felt himself flung about as the cage moved, coming to rest once more. He clambered to his feet, once again feeling desperate enough to ask.

“Please, just let me go home.” Virgil begged, sitting near the front bars. “Find another human, one who’s better than me.” Silently Virgil scolded himself for even suggesting someone else take this torture for him, but he’d do anything to get out of this prison.

Roman just shook his head. He did feel a little bad about it when Virgil begged like that but he knew with enough training and time that Virgil would grow used to him. Would probably even like it here! Just like Logan’s human. “Get some rest Virgil, we have a busy day ahead of us.” And with that Roman quickly went into his closet to get dressed before sliding into bed, blowing out the last candle and plunging the room into darkness.

“I hate you.” Virgil muttered, making sure he was loud enough to be heard.

Roman hummed into his pillow. “You won’t for long.” Was all Roman said before his breathing evened out.

No. Virgil shook his head, glaring at the source of Roman’s breathing in the darkness. He would always hate Roman. Even if he was here for years, even if Roman broke him, even if he became a shell of the person he was now…

He would always hate Roman.

#gt #Giant/tiny #thomas sanders #sanders sides #infinitesimal!sides #au #giants #alternate world #human!virgil #human!patton #giant!logan #giant!roman #kingdom perspective #part 1

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devintrinidad · 3 years

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Well I’m never going to write this. But I do enjoy talking about this au. I think this AD au captures the characters in great way.

Oohh, I like that Macrophage Scientist even better. It helps explain why Macrophage took them in and how they even escaped. Macrophage set off the explosion and made it look like they all died in the process. Macrophage then had them all become Akudama and live in the slums of society to hide better. It would fit even more because I had this idea that 3803, as she got older, sometimes experienced biological issues. She’s perfectly healthy, but her body sometimes might stop working or she gets incredibly cold or hot or something. Maybe even goes temporarily blind. Thankfully 3803 always sees the warning signs a few days before happen so she can manage to work around job offers. Macrophage theorizes as 3803 grows, some stuff the older scientists did to her body went unfinished and her body is trying to deal with the changes as it griws and settles. Macrophage has made medicine to help 3803 (that she has to take daily, different doses depending on how she feels). But she still worries because she wasn’t one if the main scientists who experimented on them (because of her age at the time, Macrophage was more if a assistant in some experiments and caretaker of the subjects. She didn’t have access to everything). But it’s still concerning and they wonder if Platelet will experience them too or if she’s sage since she hadn’t been put through the last few experiments like 3803 had. 3803 also wonders if Cancer had gone through the same process and if she’s becoming a monster or something inhuman or she she can even die from this (3803 has a lot of stress behind her smiles).

Cue 1146 being a overprotective worry wart whenever she gets like this. In fact before he became loyal to her, the one time as a Executioner he almost arrested her after he had had a bad day with a lot of nasty Akudama who had acted nice but deceived a lot of innocent people into their ruin. He even lost a comrade or two in the ruckus. He found her and impulsively grabbed her to ask her why she of all people is a Akudama! Instead of answering, 3803 goes limp and gets a blank look in her eyes like she’s a silent doll. He immediately panics and carries her to his living quarters. He fishes through her clothes until he finds what looks to be medicine. He can’t risk taking her to a doctor because she’s a akudama and he doesn’t know her friends yet. He takes the risk and follows the handwritten directions on the bottle to give her the right amount. Since she’s unresponsive he has to give her the medicine mouth to mouth (he only ever had one lesson so he hopes he doesn’t screw it up. He’s just thankful it’s liquid). After doing this two days, she finally acts responsive and thanks him because she was aware the whole time. She just couldn’t move. He gets down to business and asks her for her story. The implication he’s at a tipping point and he could grant her freedom or be 100% Executioner (being less then before us what got his comrades killed). She understands he’s at the edge and not the normal nice guy she’s been used to so she spills her whole story. She omits Macrophage and Platelet so they’ll stay safe either way but she figures she has no choice but to tell him about Cancer, the corruption and how she had to become a Akudama. He listens and surprises her greatly when he believes her. There are things he’s thought about for a long time and researched that don’t make sense to him. Everything she said fits in line. Plus he has wondered how she can heal so fast. He tucks her in his bed and tells her she can go in the morning. It still takes a few more weeks for 1146 to really leave the Executioners. Despite confirming the truth of the world. He still was attached to his life as a Executioner and all his friends there. He also thought about fighting the corruption inside the system because that’s what a good person would do. It was only when his mentor found out about 3803 from 1146 telling him about her in hopes he get some guidance that things changed. His mentor revealed he was in cahoots with Cancer and was now going to deliver her to him. Before he does though, Mentor makes absolute certainty that it’s her by brutalizing her to the point she should be dead but can’t die. 1146 is horrified by this and kills his Mentor to save 3803 and keep her secret. With those actions, 1146 fully turns his back on the Executioners and loses all hope in the organization with the one person he looked up to most for guidance betrayed him.

Luckily for him, he later meets Basophil Senpai who is a Akudama named, Philosopher. He’s a smooth talker who can discover the truth in any situation and can be quietly intimidating. He can also figure out how to disguise any lie if you need a new life. All for a price. He puts up with 1146’s idolization after they end up on the same mission (1146 is protecting a mob goon who’s having Basophil assist him in figuring which mafia gang killed his brother and lied about it. Then needs Basophil to fake his death after he kills them. Which Basophil does by cutting one of his hands off).

There’s just something funny and tragic about 1146’s friends getting ready apprehend the legendary Deliverer who bewitched the equally legendary 1146 into abandoning them. Only to see she’s this tiny defenseless (normally she has a gun. But it’s gone now) cute woman glaring at them while protecting a sobbing child begging them to leave them alone. They’d be like, we were not trained for this. °_°;;;; After it’s all said and done, 4989 would try the hardest to make up with 3803 and Platelet for scaring them so much and arresting 3803 and 1146. Luckily they forgive him pretty easily after he saved 1146 and 3803.

I like those pairs! How tragic though if 2001 is the one who stays behind? He believes 1146 and helps him. But he can’t be a Akudama. He stays behind to do what he can from there. Maybe try to make sure no one brainwashed Band Cell. Of course he’ll most likely die later. Maybe he still follows orders to fight 1146 like a good soldier would. But when 1146 delivers a fatal blow, 2001 gives him his blessing to go on and commends him for being a better man then him. 1146is understandably grateful for the blessing, but devastated that 2001 thought of himself as a coward.

Yeah I think when it comes to Killer T and NK it’s a lot like in canon. They know they have the jurisdiction and duty to kill other cells if they need to. NK even gloating she can kill any cell she wants to without consequence. In AD verse, I can see them both knowing they have to do horrible things for their job. But they accept it because their world view deems it nessecary for order to not fall into anarchy. NK is known to be a lot smarter then the others so she probably figured out how warped the world is long before Killer T and 1146 did. But unlike 1146, both NK and Killer T don’t have the ideals to think they can have another life or do better. This is their mission and they believe 1146 is selfish and weak minded for turning his back on it.

Yeah I could see Killer T eventually walking away from the Executioners. But again, he doesn’t have 1146’s ideals so he goes down a darker road. One 1146 disapproves of a lot. NK I could see sadly sticking to being a Executioner to the end. Maybe of 1146 doesn’t kill 2001, then she does when she figures out he’s still a little loyal to 1146.

Boy every time I try to give Cancer and 3803 a platonic relationship you just want to throw Abnormalities spin on it. XD Okay. The way I see them is this. Cancer often visited the lab to check up on the progress. He called the subjects his children and eventually picked his favorites who he showed more affection for. Not coincidently those subjects were always the ones who showed the most potential to be successful candidates. 3803 was one of them. 3803 had spent her whole life in the lab. Her knowledge from the outside world came from stories from Macrophage and older kids and adults who were captured. The stories validated her fear of Cancer because she knows there’s something wrong with him and what he does. It gets worse as as she begins to lose friends along the way, like 4201 and 5100 or other kids who pass away. Cancer began treating her like his actual daughter when it was confirmed she was showing signs of being like him. He called her his princess. Often carried her around by balancing her on his hip with one arm around her while he checked up on everything. Kissed her forehead and cheeks. Took naps with her as told her bedtime stories. When she’s older, Platelet was introduced and thanks to all the successful experiments 3803 had undergone. The scientists performed the exact same ones on Platelet to find out she had the same potential. Cancer, to a lesser extent, also began showing his other ‘daughter’ favor. Despite this affection. Both girls are terrified of him because of how easy it is for him to become indifferent and even violent with those he claims to care for. Also despite claiming he loves them, he easily discards them and shows how indifferent he is when they die. He’s very two faced.

Years later when Cancer discovers both of them survived. He uploads his consciences into mechanical animals or even hacking into their phones to spy on them. He sees 3803 has become a women and displays more signs of immortality then anyone else (besides him) he’s seen. He’s then like, my princess has become a queen. Then he starts getting both amused and jealous over 1146’s romantic feelings for her. During a actual confrontation between them, Cancer makes it clear he’s going to marry her himself and won’t share.

I like the idea that, like in canon, Cancer can and will pretend to be a ordinary person just to observe or move things along. He can use technology to alter his voice and appearance. He’ll pretend to be one if his underlings underling, like a secretelary or a driver to get a good read on everything. He even developed a friendship with 1146 before 1146 left. Seeing 1146’s potential, he even recommended his inner circle to monitor and mold 1146 into some one who could be trusted. Maybe he even pretends to be a client to 3803. He, acting like a citizen, requests she bring him a package through a very dangerous area. When she arrives and delivers her package. He opens it to reveal it’s empty. She’s shocked and apologizes, wondering if she got it wrong. But he silences her by giving her a deep kiss on the mouth. He reveals what he wanted was to lock lips with the legendary Deliverer as if they were lovers. Before she recovers from her shock, he hands her a ton of money and dissapears. 1146 is not happy when he hears about this.

Yes. 1146 is a big flippin deal to the Executioners. He was a prodigy from day one. A role model and well respected by everyone. He was already being groomed to be head Executioner one day. Him leaving the organization was a huge blow to morale and strength that they try to downplay and kept it secret from most lower rank Executioners that he’s a Akudama now for as long as they can. If possibly they do want him back. If they have to force him into it by messing with his brain by inserting control chip or threatening what he holds dear and put a bomb collar on him to keep up appearences. They will.

Regulatory T would be a great Executioner. I could also see Helper T, Dendretic and many other immune cells being Executioners. Afterall they probably just can’t believe things can be different or think about whether it should be. They just do what they think they should because Cancer keeps everyone in so much darkness.

3803 is a awesome gun user. It always surprises people because she usually just drives her motorcycle and acts more defensive then offensive. But if it came down to it, don’t think she’s unwilling to protect herself or someone else. She has nerves of steel and she’s seen things most couldn’t imagine.

The Executioners and Akudama they deal with quickly learn messing with 3803 is the fastest way to die by 1146’s brutal hand. He can’t imagine living without her.

~~~

Geeez, I’m getting so into this, I might as well do it. (Hahahaha, I joke, but who knows?)

OOoofff, so many feels for 3803 here. Macrophage definitely feels guilty and tries to make sure that both Platelet and 3803 have a somewhat normal lifestyle outside of the experimental facilities, but there are times where she feels like she’s not trying hard enough. Even more so because 3803 and Platelet have become Akudamas and are at risk of becoming Executed.

Macrophage not being one of the main scientists is also a good take on this character.

Oooooohhhh, love how you put in a little backstory as to how 3803 and 1146 met. Of course 1146 would be reckless and impulsive enough to ask. I bet it was during this interrogation he was starting to have doubts about the Executioner’s role in society and how Akudamas weren’t all what they seemed. Awww, and 3803 does everything that she can to protect her loved ones! It really fits he character and I love it.

Hmmm, who is 1146’s mentor here? You never quite mentioned here? Could it be U-1117 (if I remember correctly, this is the original white blood cell from the original pilot… or what about the Neutrophil teacher during his childhood in that one chapter from CAW canon?). It would be tragic considering that both of these characters are actually quite kind from the original source material.

OH MY GOSH. BASOPHIL AS A PHILOSOPHER???? IT FITS SO NICELY!!! Hehehe, the whole time you’re talking about Basophil reminds me of this comedy sketch.

Yup, the WBC squad are definitely trying to figure out how to deescalate the situation when they realize that 3803 and Platelet are definitely Akudama, but are they truly that bad?

So many tragedies… 2001, in my opinion, is definitely the type of person who is loyal to their life’s calling to the very end, despite how corrupt or bad it may be. He promised to lay down his life as an Executioner and he’s going to stick to it. I imagine 1146 and 2001’s final confrontation might be similar to that Brawler and Master’s fight, except both are wielding sabers and are more focused on strategy over muscle.

Totally agree with you on Killer T and NK. NK would definitely commend 2001 for his continued stay on the Executioner’s side. Like 2001, she would definitely try to change things on their side, but at the end of the day, orders are orders. There are definitely things she has done that she regrets doing, but to be honest, it’s the system’s fault, right? She’s cynical, but she understands that the Executioners are somewhat at fault for what’s happening.

Killer T would definitely be an Akudama and he would be called… I don’t know? Brawler has a nice ring to it, but I suppose if you wanted a new name, he could be called the Lone Wolf? Or Loner? After becoming disillusioned with the Executioners, he works on his own terms. Oooohhh, another one, Vigilante. He executes Akudama and Executioners he deems to have crossed the lines into illegal territory.

Okay, to be fair, I was only suggesting a bit of a twisted relationship, hahaha. I’m not the one writing the creepy stuff in great detail. But, in all seriousness, I love the gradual descent into madness Cancer has with 3803. And his jealousy regarding 1146? He would definitely taunt him and tease him about the whole “Husband” thing that Macrophage has been talking about.

Ooooh, and that last part with Cancer tricking 3803 into kissing him? That is so twisted and diabolical.

I approve. XD

Anyways, yeah the entirety of the immune system are definitely Excutioners. XD It’s basically in their character descriptions, hahaha.

As for 3803 being a great gunman? I was kind of entertaining the idea that she’s a pacifist and that throughout her career as the Deliverer, she has never outright killed someone. Injured, yes, but never killed. She would be the type of person to misaim on purpose so that they have another chance at life. The only reason she missed is because she did it on purpose.

(Have you watched Trigun? I’m kind of modeling her after Vash the Stampede, haha! Love. And. Peace!)

Anyway, at this rate, we might as well be writing season 2 for AD. Seriously, Kodaka where you at?

Thanks for the submission and I hope that you have a wonderful day! :D

#cells at work #hataraku saibou #caw #caw anon #anon ask #devintrinidad author #devintrinidad #devin trinidad author #devin trinidad #akudama drive #akudama #submission

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and-dreaxoxo · 4 years

Text

2020' Rea Parkner Project

5 | Sunflower - Post Malone, Swae Lee (Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, 2018)

Requested by @flowersofparkner @frog-in-tom-hollands-mouth

Character: Peter Parker, Harley Keener

Category: Pre-Relationship | Post Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) | Food & Drinks | Gift |

You're a sunflower, I think your love would be too much.

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

Harley's is 100% sure with his plan today. Not until Peter show up in the lab without any smile or story of his school. He just came up, sat on his desk, and continued his unfinished projects.

That's enough to make Harley confused. Peter never do something like that, not as long as Harley started work in the lab about a year ago and always in the lab when Peter come. It's kind of first time.

"You've got problem, Parker?"

And Peter not answering his questions, he didn't even look away because of course he's already put his goddamn headphones. So, Harley stuck in this silentness, which is weird. After 30 minutes, Peter finished his project and go from there, not even giving Harley a damn smile or wave.

That's more than enough to make Harley rethink about his plan.

---

Peter is always something since Harley first met him. His smile, his Bambi eyes, and his nerd science shirt, Harley just can't. The way his shy face after he realized he talked too much about the last Star Wars movie in front if Harley, red blushing in his cheek after Tony tell Harley some of fire case in lab which is hilarious for him, his happiness every gathering night in tower, whether it's movie night, boardgame play, karaoke...

Peter is everything about happiness, except when the day he came up to the Tower in blood, tears, and failed heroic story. When he got shot, hit, or can't save people, he turn into sadness. That's something to make him fall for Peter.

People would describe him as sadness until he meet his own happiness. And, it's just for his family, Mama and Abby, Tony & Pepper, Happy & Rhodey, and now, Peter

Peter Parker.

Harley look at his gift for Peter. He sighed. May said Peter has something with flower and as she remembers when Peter's young, he really likes sunflower that Ben bought for her as weekly routine. His Mama, Macy Keener said boy like Peter is love something that physically similiar with his favorite object. Tony said Peter likes to eat because of his super metabolism. Ned & MJ confirmed that fact and added fries as symbol of friendly that could led to something, which Peter knew it but he's recognize in the end.

But, now, Peter is not here and looks in bad mood, Harley assuming that, since he can't just ask FRIDAY and had to connect with KAREN which will lead to Peter. So he just laying in the couch, seeing the necklace, gold sunflower that could be opened and there's the seeds with word "you are my sunshine", the thing he want to give Peter so bad. People would say it's too girly, but fuck 'em, he has to ask May, his Mama, and MJ. They're 100% sure and agreed with it and Harley couldn't resist their opinion.

Yeah, now he failed to make the first move, the first move since this feeling started long time ago. Stupid Harley.

"Harley, you have one unread messages from Spider-Man,"

As FRIDAY tell him, he immediately run to his Stark watch that abandoned in couch, and open the messages.

Spideybaby: Meet me in 15?

Harley is confused.

"It's like 5 minutes ago you didn't even look at me and now you asking me to go? The fuck?"

But he answer.

The Mechanic Lad: okay, see you

Harley pack the necklace in his pocket. He also grab his nano tech suit, because it might be trap but it can't be (he sure about that and don't ask him again how he can be). He made it on time.

There's nothing except Peter, in his clothes as before, look like idiot because of he talk alone. Maybe with KAREN but whatever. He's not facing Harley at all so Harley start calling from behind.

"'Sup, Pete? Anything go wrong?"

Peter stops his conversation and turn around to look at Harley.

"Wanna go out?"

---

After sightseeing New York from different ways and way, having new knowledge about this city that he lived for one year, watching people doing painting in some spots and try some (because Peter know these people), now they're standing in front of fries restaurant.

"Tadaa! Here we are! Best restaurant in New York, bet you couldn't get better fries except this,"

He's not wrong, because Harley would order food from here too if he could ask Peter first. But for the goddamn reason he didn't, so Peter make the first move.

Peter let Harley choose for them, but Harley resist and said, "You're the one who taking me out, why would I choose for us?"

So, they're eating together and Peter still talking about the paint they did. His eating behavior became funny.

"You such a mess,"

"Hey, if you don't like me at my worst, you don't deserve me,"

"Oh, really?"

Peter's pouting and Harley laugh. They finished the food and go out, walking for a bit till Peter stops. He turns back and frowned.

"Wanna sightseeing from up?" Peter smirking.

---

"Best view ever!" Harley commented, not lie, it's from his deep heart. New York looks amazing. It's not like from Stark Tower this city not amazing, but changing view is kinda refreshing.

Peter chuckling and look at Harley, "Yeah, best view ever,"

They sat in silence in few minutes, before Peter start again, "Hey, Harley." Harley turn his head over Peter and Peter giving him a box.

"What? Is it for me?"

"Yeah, open it,"

The box is a gift. When he open it, there's a necklace with small pedant. It's...

"Arc reactor necklace? I..." The light blue from arc reactor necklace is so soft and adorable. There's light play that make Harley in awe. "It's beautiful,"

Peter look at the necklace then Harley, "I've been working on it about 3 months. Can't get over easily, 'cause y'know, the detail, the color, it's really freaking me out. I had to begging Tony to tell me about how his old arc reactor look when he first met you. I guess it's something I want to give you for, uhm,"

"What?"

"It's like we just met in one year and I-I really like you, like a lot and it's not just as friends, uhm,"

Harley laugh and take his gift from pocket. His bite his lips, he really should do it.

"Um, actually, I've been meaning to give you this if I could make the first move, but at earlier I thought you're in the bad mood-"

"I make up my plan-"

"That turns out you're planning to take me out which is amazing, so," Harley takes a breath, "it's for you," Harley handed the necklace.

"Oh my, it's sunflower. I, oh my goodness this is the best thing I've ever seen, I really love it!"

"There's something in the seeds, by the way,"

Peter open the cover and read it, "You're my sunshine. Harley, I-"

"You're the sunflower and the sunshine. That's what described you as a person and someone I like,"

They look at each other, softly and warm, like the first when they met each other. It's worth, do it. Their mind tried to convince each one of them.

"Be my boyfriend?"

Peter said "yes" at the same time. Harley grin and Peter blushing. Then Harley kisses first, he makes Peter melt with him, he want to feel 'they'.

When their lips separated, now Harley is the one who blushing.

"Now, you make the first move,"

"Bold of you to assume I wouldn't."

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

I've been thinking so hard to make this fic. Thank you for asking♥️♥️♥️

#2020 rea parkner project #2020 parkner moodboard project #2020 parkner songfic project #2020 parkner project #parkner #parkner fic #parkner ideas #peter parker #harley keener #harley keener x peter parker #peter parker x harley keener #spiderman #iron lad #spiderlad

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legobiwan · 4 years

Note

could you do 18 and 100 for the trope mash up thing? (And if you want two characters, Obi-wan and Hondo?- I got a little confused with your added instructions to the trope mashup)

Circus AU / Accidentally Saving the Day (Hondo & Obi-wan)

Anon, I had to WORK for this one and even did a little research into circus history since I am woefully undereducated about the topic. I think I’ve found an interesting way of weaving these all together and giving a little bonus at the end. Stick with me here, I need to do a bit of an introduction to get this whole idea going.

For the purposes of this AU, please assume that the Clone War and all the events surrounding it happened directly after Naboo, meaning everyone is about 10 years younger than they are in canon. Also assume that Qui-gon was not killed on Naboo, although that has little bearing on this particular story.

THIS GOT OUT OF CONTROL. I was expecting to write a fun little 1,000 word thing, not a whole AU concept. But here we are, so….uh…

We’ll see what everyone thinks? Enjoy. And good luck :D

—-

“How are they doing?” Szimon Tesdak asked, thin, long mustache bobbing up and down at the ends.

The other man patted the Pamaradian prancer’s neck, running his fingers through the thick mane of her hair. The prancer shivered, eyes darting back and forth, hooves tapping nervously on the durasteel floor. The man known as Whisp spoke softly in the creature’s ear, the words foreign to even Szimon’s cosmopolitan ears. A few moments later, the prancer settled, nuzzling her snout into Whisp’s shoulder.

Whisp turned to face Szimon. “They’re restless,” he said. “Fourteen hours in a cruiser is a bit much for anyone to take.”

Szimon waved the veiled criticism away with a flick of his wrist. Yes, it had been a long journey, but the payoff would - hopefully - be worth it. And they needed the credits - or whatever these people were going to pay.

“An hour more and we’ll be there,” Szimon said with false confidence.

Whisp stood, crossing his arms tight against his chest, the black-and-crimson fabric of his worn travel tunic wrinkling with the gesture. There was a hint of beard on the young man’s chin, something that, when it grew in, would likely age him a good ten years. The man peered at Szimon with grey-blue eyes like he was trying to ace one of those vision tests at a local spaceport agency. Always looking for hidden meaning, he is.

And sometimes he finds it.

At least with the creatures, that had been the case. Two years Whisp had been working for Szimon and never had the older circus master figured out the man’s trick. Szimon had spent his life in the circus, from his childhood on Thybaar right up the grand days of the bright Coruscant lights to his now-ramshackle operation held together by thread, petty theft, and the occasional cashing in on favors owed.

Szimon had seen it all - and more, but nothing like Whisp and his ability to communicate with the creatures, like he was reading their minds. “The Whisperer,” the other members had taken to calling him. The moniker had stuck, albeit in shortened form, Whisp’s real name - whatever it had been - long forgotten.

“Remind me again why we’re flying out to the Outer Rim for a show? Seems a bit of an expense when we could just as easily round up a few smaller venues for far less hassle,” Whisp said.

“Ah, Whisp, ever the cynic,” Szimon clapped a meaty hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Don’t think of it as a hassle,” he waved a dramatic hand, as if unveiling something from a behind a curtain. “But as an expansion of our operations.”

Whisp cocked an eyebrow. “Hardly difficult seeing as our operations comprised of three planets the past month, two of which we never actually got to land on.”

Szimon snorted. Well, yes, business had been down because of the war. Szimon himself cared little for the politics of the Republic or the Separatists. A government was a government, with all its little games and corruptions, mazes of betrayal, and endless mountains of datawork. No, Szimon Tesdak would never be chained behind one of those desks.

But many others were, shackled to unfulfilling jobs and lives, stuck in a desert of mediocrity and boredom. That was where Szimon came in. Unhappy citizens tended to breed unhappy revolts. But give them a nice circus, something to laugh at, a little magic that was absent from their day-to-day existence?

It didn’t really matter who was in power. The problems, the outcomes -they were always the same in the end.

Still, the war had been disruptive to his business and over the past few months, the “Great Thybaarian Traveling Show” had been forced into semi-refugee status as planet after planet was devastated by the conflict between a mechanical and clone army. Circuses were part of avoiding war, not conducting it.

Szimon shook off the dark thoughts with a wide smile. “Come on now, Whisp. We’re going to make great friends on the Outer Rim. My benefactor has promised a large sum, maybe even a sponsorship if we play our cards right.”

“I thought they were pirates,” Whisp retorted, half-smile playing on his face.

Szimon made an airy gesture, chuckling. “Pirates, embezzlers, Hutts. As long as we get paid, I’ll work for the Sith themselves.”

Whisp tightened under Szimon’s arm, which was wrapped around the thin man’s shoulders. Some unreadable emotion passed over his face, a premonition of a storm. After a moment, he spoke, hesitant.

“I suppose.”

“That’s the spirit!” Szimon exclaimed, shaking Whisp. “Come on, we have to make preparations for landing and I’m not letting Battlebuzz near those controls again.“

—–

“That was a very impressive show, my friend,” the pirate known as Hondo Ohnaka sidled up to Whisp, unceremoniously dropping into the seat next to him, tankard full of green ale.

Whisp looked up from his own mug, half-consumed, eyeing the pirate warily. “Thank you,” he replied, adding, “I think,” after a moment’s hesitation. It never hurt to be too cautious around pirates.

“All those acrobats, all the flips and whooshes.” Hondo made an extravagant gesture with his arm, nearly taking Whisp’s head off. “And the beautiful women dancing to such music, it shouldn’t be allowed!” he grinned, giving Whisp a knowing look. ”My men, they enjoy that - some of my women, too!” Hondo cackled, downing the entirety of his pint in one go, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“But you, my friend - with the creatures.” The pirate’s voice turned a shade serious and several parsecs more calculating. Whisp bit his lip, steeling himself to steer another drunken conversation away from this dangerous territory. “Yes, the creatures,” Hondo continued, nearly singing. “Now that was something I’ve never seen before. Most beast tamers use weapons.” The pirate made a few motions mimicking a whip. “They use fear and intimidation but you!” He pointed a finger that almost went up Whisp’s nose. “Ah, it was almost like you talked to them with your mind.”

Whisp gave a forced shrug, his pulse starting to race. He needed to stay calm. Needed to focus on the present, not his anxieties. He laughed to himself, bitter, wholly aware of the gross irony of that statement. “Just an ability I’ve had since my youth,” he said, voice flat. “Better me in the circus than those brutish weapons-wielding tamers you mentioned.” Whisp scowled. That much was the truth. Whisp couldn’t abide by their methods, couldn’t stand the way the pain and fear radiated from the abused creatures. He knew he couldn’t save them all, but if he could give a second chance to even a single Borcatu, if he could find a home for those who had been cast out -

Anger trilled at the back Whisp’s brain, a sensuous, lush melody more tempting than any of the ribald pirate ballads in the background.

Hondo beckoned at another Weequay, grabbing two pints from a serving tray, setting one in front of Whisp in an unspoken command. “Yes, your youth. Tell me about that. Your accent is polished, very posh, very Core World.” Very monied. If only, Whisp rued.

It had been too much effort to try and tame his accent, which stood out amongst Szimon’s motley crew of performers like a neon bell weed in the desert.

Whisp took a long sip of his beverage, smacking his lips together. The new alcohol was a step higher in quality than the dredge he had been drinking before. He peered to Ohnaka on his right, wondering if he was about to be drugged, kidnapped, or worse. Oh well, he thought, drinking some more of the beverage. Might as well enjoy while I can.

“I was brought up in the Core,” Whisp recited, setting his glass down, not even needing to think about the words he had said them so many times. “My family, unfortunately, abandoned me, so I took to farming in the Mid-Rim as a means of sustaining myself. It was there I discovered I had an affinity for creatures and then did some work in healing clinics before the war broke out. The Republic Army took over all the planetary clinics so I was forced into finding…” Whisp bobbed his head, “more creative ways to apply my talents.”

“Interesting,” Hondo noted, his gaze greedy as he looked Whisp up and down. Whisp’s other hand moved to his waist. So much for enjoying. He fingered the blaster he had hidden under his red and silver vest, neatly tucked away in a shoulder holster.

Hondo held out a hand. “I don’t mean to cause you alarm, my young friend,” he said with a laugh, sitting back in his chair, kicking both feet up on the table. “You can put your blaster away, I only want to talk business.”

Whisp’s hand tightened for a moment before he raised an open palm in a universal gesture of surrender, his brow furrowed.

“What type of business?”

“What type indeed?” Hondo hummed, rocking his feet back and forth in time to the bawdy, clangorous music. Somewhere on the other side of the room, Tergallian and Lopisa had gotten into a knife-throwing contest with some of the pirates. Whisp had a feeling the Weequay had bet on it and that the pirates were about to lose their shirts, pants, shoes, and who knew what else in the deal. Might have to make a quick getaway if there’s enough of a ruckus, Whisp thought, eyeing the locations of the exits and the best strategies to get there without being shot.

Again, he winced.

“Oh, you won’t make it out, I promise” Hondo commented, his expression still jovial. “All the exits are under full guard and I guarantee there’s no other way out unless it’s by my command.” He pressed a finger into the table, all traces of humor gone from his voice. “Unless,” he began after a moment, “you are a Jedi.”

Whisp was off his stool in an instant, blaster in hand. Not wanting a direct confrontation, he pointed it towards the ground, the table hiding the weapon from the view of most of the other pirates and circus members. Off in the corner, Szimon’s eyes grew wide as he made a series of furious movements in Whisp’s driection.

“I’m fine,” Whisp signed back in the strange language of gestures known only to those in this particular circus, an easy way to communicate on stage while looking artistic and also a not bad method of either avoiding trouble or sometimes finding it - if their pockets and stomachs were empty enough.

Hondo clasped his hands behind his head, looking unconcerned. “I did not mean to upset you,” he said, lips quirking upwards as if he had just figured out some baffling puzzle. “Only warn you about my security system. But let us not talk of such things, as they disturb you and as my dear mother always said - “ Hondo raised a finger. “Son! You catch more apidactyls with honey. And if that doesn’t work, you can still catch them with a blaster.”

Not worth the fight. Not even sure I’d win this fight, Whisp sighed inwardly. Knowing when he was outmatched, or at least when to choose his battles, Whisp retook his seat with a muttered curse.

“Fine, then. What do you want from me?”

Hondo smiled. “Ah, now we talk business,” he shrugged. “Nothing much, my friend. And nothing - mostly - to do with your little traveling show. But the circus isn’t going to pay you forever and a man of your many talents - ” Hondo leaned forward, putting both forearms on the table. “Could fetch a pretty hefty payday if he found himself aligned with the right people.”

Whisp’s eyebrows rose. “Are you offering me a job?”

Hondo raised both arms. “Maybe, if you are willing to - “

“Hondo!” A large, burly man came barreling into the room. At once, the music stopped with a zippered rip of a holodisc jarred from its needle, pirates and circus members alike turning to the wide-eyed, heaving pirate.

“We got trouble out there!”

Immediately, Hondo came to his feet, blaster in hand. “What kind of trouble?”

“I think it’s the Republic! Looks like them, at least. They’re tryin’ a fall back to our compound!”

“We’ll see about that,” Hondo growled, raising his weapon. “No one takes over Hondo Ohnaka’s compound without my permission!”

—-

Blaster fire rang out from all sides, a multicolored lattice of deadly energy. To Whisp’s surprise, Hondo was near the vanguard of the pirates, shooting at the incoming wave of bright, white uniforms with terrifying precision. The pirates were good, Whisp had to give them that, the transition from unruly drunkards to semi-disciplined guerrilla fighters more seamless than Whisp thought possible.

“Any ideas?” Szimon asked next to him, the pair huddled behind a large boulder, just out of range of the real fighting. Whisp knew Szimon didn’t care one way or another about who won this particular battle - one of thousands Szimon had witnessed over the years. But their ship - their livelihood and home, not to mention only asset - lay just beyond the front line of what Whisp was pretty sure were the infamous clones. If their ship was damaged, or, even worse, destroyed - they were all done for.

Whisp took in the scene, applying his natural affinity for tactics that had been first discovered early in his tenure with Szimon, an awkward encounter with the Ruuthian mafia, a highly successful performance, and a jar of…requisitioned heeble eggs belonging to Ruuthian mob boss. It had been his quick thinking that had gotten them out of that mess, a plan so crazy it couldn’t do anything but work. From that point on, Whisp had earned the nickname, “The General,” much to his dismay.

Carefully, Whisp extended his senses, not only his eyes and ears but his other senses, the ones he kept locked away from everyone else - everyone else except his creatures. The creatures didn’t care what his status or title was, if he had succeeded or not, if he occasionally broke some moral law that had been branded into his mind as a child. The creatures didn’t judge - they had never judged and found him wanting.

It wasn’t good. For all of Hondo’s firepower, they were still in the bottom of a cereal bowl in the sandy crevasse, the clone troopers above holding higher ground as they advanced on the compound. It didn’t escape Whisp’s notice that the troopers’ blaster bolts were consistently going wide, aimed to injure or impede, but not kill. Some strange long-buried instinct rose in Whisp’s chest as he watched the men, sensing their similarities, down to a genetic level. Was he was supposed to be on their side? Supposed to be fighting with them, supposed to -

An explosion rocked the compound, bringing down metal, stone, and all kinds of debris on the pirates. Hondo barked out more orders, a line of men running to set up what looked like a short-range missile while the rest of the pirates resumed their firefight.

I’m supposed to be getting us out alive, Whisp fumed at himself. No more distractions. Szimon’s face was covered in dust and sand and for a moment Whisp almost laughed. The circus master looked the spitting image of the Great Lady Devonna in her full makeup.

“Are you alright, Szimon?” Whisp asked, helping the other man to a seat.

“I’ve seen worse,” he growled, swiping debris from tassled gold epaulettes perched on bright red shoulders like two Felucian retrine sparrows. “Just do something, Whisp, I’m not getting any younger here.”

Right. Whisp looked again at the fight, the positioning of the men, their ship. The pirates weren’t going to win an all-out firefight, not like this and Whisp had to assume there would be reinforcements coming sooner than later. It was now or…

Whisp frowned. They could wait for the clones to take over the compound and beg for lenience. But knowing the Republic, they’d probably confiscate the ship. And send them to prison. Besides, Whisp’s own presence might raise too many uncomfortable questions, ones he had no desire whatsoever to revisit.

So much for that idea, he rued, while surveying the scene. The clones were all faced towards the fighting, Hondo’s forces feisty enough to keep them fully engaged. There weren’t that many of them, not a full battalion, for certain, which meant it was likely Szimon’s ship was wholly unguarded and not even considered a threat, as it had no visible weaponry. If he could just…

Whisp closed his eyes, feeling for the familiar energies, the outlines of the creatures he cared for, from the smallest snitmouse to the largest morak. Yes, he thought, connecting his mind with the stampede creatures. They would never see it coming.

A moment later the earth rumbled, the fighting slowing to a small drizzle of blaster fire as the line of clones turned to the oncoming dust storm that hid the three moraks, now prodded on by Whisp, feeding off of his repressed frustration and anger with the representatives of the institution that had driven him to this life in the first place. Of the people who were trying, again, to deprive him of a home, of a place where he belonged.

Unaware the opaque cloud hid anything living, no less animals whose shells repelled most blaster fire - a well-kept secret known not even in the fancy universities on Coruscant - the clones fired to no avail as the moraks descended, sending bodies flying in every direction with desperate shrieks, the remainder of the forces too startled to return fire efficiently. Three bloody minutes later, the remaining clones ran, retreating, leaving the bodies of their fallen comrades as the only evidence of the failed ambush.

Cheers rose the pirates as they lifted their weapons in glee, somehow manifesting mugs of ale in their hands only a scant minute after they had been involved in a full-bore battle. Whisp slowly climbed from behind the rock, pulling Szimon up with him. The Thybaarian looked at Whisp as if it was the first time he had ever seen him.

“Was that you?” he asked, eyes trying to pierce through years of layers, of hidden secrets that were the only true skin of the man known as Whisp.

Whisp laughed, uncomfortable. “What? No, I mean - “

Szimon shook his head, still dazed. “I always had my suspicions, you know. Not just the creatures, although I’ll grant you that’s one hell of a trick.” He paused, his expression unreadable. “I figured there was some reason you weren’t up with them in that fancy tower, figured it was none of my business, but now - “ Szimon’s eyes turned calculating. “This isn’t just some parlor trick, is it, it’s - “

Whisp backed away, palms splayed in front of him, as if trying to stop the words from entering his space. “No, I’m not. I - “ he looked around, wild, feeling just like one of his creatures, feral and trapped. He was going to lose his home again, once they found out, it was all going to be over. “I never - “ Something snapped, then crackled with inside of Whisp, like the breaking of an invisible, electric bone, sparking flying everywhere.

“I never was one, okay!” he yelled, stomping his foot. “Never was, never will be! That man - that child - died over ten years ago. This -” Whisp gestured angrily at himself. “Is what I am. Nothing. More.”

They had been certain leave Whisp with that message. Nothing more. Just nothing.

“A fascinating story, my young friend,” a low, baritone voice intoned from behind them. “I would be curious to hear more of it.”

Whisp spun around. The man was - there was no other word for it - regal, imperious, commanding the attention of every being in the valley, as he moved towards Whisp and Szimon, long brown cape billowing in the wind, deep violet outfit a perfect fit on his broad chest. Hondo’s troops paused mid-swig, ale running down their necks, and even Hondo himself craned his head forward to get a better look at the newcomer.

Fifty blaster rifles rose at once.

The man stopped, surveying the ends of the weapons pointed at him with a disaffected gaze. The compound held its breath, sinews tightening around triggers as an unworldly clarity came over the canyon, as if each atom, each sound wave could be made manifest as a physical, tangible reality. And then the man smirked, wholly unconcerned with his vast disadvantage in the situation as the world returned to its customary blur. Whisp and the others exhaled, noisy phlegm crackling up their lungs, dust tingling in their throats.

The stranger took an unhurried step forward raising one hand.

“You may lower your weapons,” he addressed the pirates, voice betraying nothing but absolute confidence. It occurred to Whisp then that the man had never been at any disadvantage at all. “I intend no harm,” he added in his deep, patrician voice.

Hondo took an equal, ambling step forward, hands clasped behind his back. He circled the newcomer, a hound sniffing for possible quarry, gazing him up and down, as if he were a incoming shipment of contraband. Then, after a moment, Hondo gave a nod, and the blasters summarily disappeared.

“My, my we are popular today,” the pirate began amiably. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Mister…” Hondo gestured at the other man in question.

“I am here for three reasons,” the stranger announced, ignoring Hondo’s unspoken inquiry. “The first was unwelcome, but unsurprising. My ships were caught unaware, en route from a trade post in the Outer Rim to Jybosti. I carry the identification cards and manifest if you desire proof of my claim. The Republic forced our hand, causing us to land here and engage in an unwanted ground battle which regrettably involved your forces.” The man turned to Hondo, giving an apologetic gesture. Hondo answered with cool regard, his skepticism echoing through the enclosure. Whisp had to agree. No one just happened to go by a place like Florrum without reason. Especially someone like this.

Still, it wasn’t the stranger that had been one shooting at them. Maybe he was telling the truth. Or at least a part of it.

“Secondly,” the man continued, opening his arms, “I would like to thank you all for, how shall I say - “ He paused for dramatic effect, lifting his chin slightly. Whoever this man was, he knew how to hold a crowd, perhaps even better than Szimon. “Saving the day, however unexpected your heroics may have been.”

“Yeah, heroes!” One of the pirates bellowed, raising both his blaster and ale mug, several others echoing his enthusiasm with chants of “Heroes!” which quickly devolved into far less elevated rhetoric.

“And thirdly?” Hondo asked, after the raucous had died down.

“Thirdly,” the man drawled, turning his full attention on Whisp. “I would like to know further details regarding this young man’s story.”

Whisp’s eyes went wide as he took an involuntary step back. “There’s not much more to tell, I’m afraid,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. The words were automatic, a defense mechanism so perfectly tuned, it was nearly instinct. But the strange pressure that had been growing at the back of Whisp’s brain spiked with the lie, leaving a dark, velvet shadow in its wake, something immensely powerful yet a balm to his frayed emotions. It was something…

Whisp gasped, eyes locking with the other man.

It was something familiar.

The stranger smiled, all edges as he clasped his hands behind his back, addressing Szimon. “This young man is in your employ?” he asked, brusque, nodding towards Whisp.

Szimon straightened his jacket and his posture, already sensing a deal in the making as he slipped into tell-tale ringmaster persona. “Yes, sir, best creature tamer I’ve ever seen.”

“Interesting,” the man commented, drawing out the word. “And if he were to leave your employ, how would that affect your operations?”

“Well, I daresay it would be quite the inconvenience,” Szimon began, his confidence building as he fell into the familiar patter of a sales pitch. Whisp barely heard the words, disbelief rising like an angry, red ocean. Would Szimon really do this to him? Now? After everything?

“…so you see, unless I would be suitably compensated for my losses…”

The grey-haired man leaned forward and whispered something in Szimon’s ear. Szimon’s eyes went moon-wide, his mouth dropping open, words tripping from his mouth.

“I trust that would be satisfactory?” the man asked.

“I - ah - “ Szimon sent a half-apologetic glance over to Whisp, eyes gleaming with barely-contained avarice. “I think that would be more than fair.”

“Excellent,” the man articulated, ignoring Szimon’s half-gasped ‘thank yous,’ now directing his full attention back to Whisp, drawing himself up to full height. “And you, who are about to enter my employ. What is your name?”

So that was it. No offer, not even a perfunctory question, Whisp’s future once again dictated by the whims of others. Whisp clenched his teeth agains the injustice of his very existence. “Whisp,” he answered, barely keeping the venom from his voice, fists tightening into balls, nails digging into his palms.

“Your real name,” the man growled. Behind him, Szimon gaped, now looking on with unabashed curiosity, a faint patina of guilt oozing from his sweat-beaded forehead.

Long-buried memories, banished ghosts relegated to an afterlife he had not yet experienced rose in Whisp. He squeezed his eyes shut against the assault of emotions, of the sharp knives of betrayal, the deep pools of loss that threatened to overwhelm him. Had it been so long since he had uttered his own name?

Forcing a noisy breath between his teeth, he steeled himself, meeting the icy gaze of the other man, who considered him with keen, intense interest.

“My name is Obi-wan Kenobi.”

For a brief second, the Force surged in a strange, dark elation as the stranger’s eyes glimmered with satisfaction.

“And I am Yan Dooku of Serenno. Come, Obi-wan,” he said, putting an arm around Whisp’s shoulders, leading him away from the confused and quiet scene of pirates, of the doe-eyed stares of what had - for a brief, happy moment - been his family.

From one family to the next, always a visitor. First the Jedi and Qui-gon Jinn, then Bandomeer. Then clinics, then circuses, and now this.

With Dooku.

Something settled in Obi-wan’s gut, not unpleasant. For the first time in years, he allowed himself to open to the Force, wholly and without constraint. This felt right, more right than anything else had in Obi-wan’s life.

“Come,” Dooku repeated, voice warming ever so slightly. “We have much to do.”

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godlyborn · 3 years

Text

and all this time, i’ve been hiding. / bailey pt. iv

date: december 14, 2020 trigger warnings: abandonment mention

part i // part ii // part iii // part v // part vi // part vii // part viii

Bailey walked away from baggage claim, bag in hand. Her stomach was doing flip flops. Bailey wasn’t even sure who to look for. Would Hannah look like her? Or at least, would she look like Hannah? Bailey rocked on her heels, watching the crowds of people disperse, finding their way to their next destination that wasn’t the bus stop. At this point, part of Bailey started to panic. What if she came here for nothing? What if Hannah changed her mind? What if she did this because she hated Bailey? What if--- Her thoughts came full stop when she saw another blonde, looking around too. The woman stepped forward, stopping when her eyes met Bailey. “Bailey?”

Bailey promised herself she wouldn’t cry. She wasn’t sure what to think of this woman quite yet. She couldn’t let herself be seen that way, so she stood there. She nodded at the other, taking a hesitant step forward. Bailey looked so much like her, it felt weird to finally have someone that she looked like stand right in front of her.

The woman took the other in, almost afraid to touch her when she finally got only about a foot away from Bailey. Hannah looked at the other, the blonde braid Bailey had, matching her blonde ponytail, and her eyes, they were her eyes, and they were exactly how she remembered them. “You look so grown up,” she commented, but then made a face as if she shouldn’t have said that. Of course she looked grown up. “It has been eighteen years,” Bailey replied, Bailey made the same face, cursing herself for not being more considerate about it. “Sorry, I uh, that was harsh. I should not have said that.” Bailey half expected her to tell her to go home right then and there.

“Do you maybe, want to get coffee first or something? Before we dive right in?” Hannah suggested. “Are you okay with that?”

Bailey let herself feel relief that Hannah still wanted her here. “I’m okay with that,” Bailey answered. “Coffee at 5 pm? I like the way you think.”

Hannah let out a small laugh. “Of course, I know just the place. Do you need help with one of your bags?”

“If you don’t mind,” Bailey said. “It’s not too much for me.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Hannah insisted, taking one of Bailey’s bags in her arms.

“Thanks…” Bailey trailed off slightly. She didn’t want to add a Mom, it didn’t seem right. They barely know each other, despite Bailey being birthed from her. “Uh, I’m not sure what I should call you.”

Hannah’s face fell slightly, as if she didn’t really think too much of that either. “Uh, you can probably just call me Hannah if you’re comfortable with that?”

Bailey nodded. “That’s okay with me,” she replied.

Hannah smiled back at her. “Great,” she said. Bailey felt weird. This woman was so nice, so beautiful, and Bailey was…. well, Bailey. She was angry and short-tempered, and personality wise the complete opposite of this woman standing before her. But her heart was warm, and for once in her life, she felt like she didn’t need to try to get someone to love her, or try to trust another person. Sure, there were her siblings back at camp, but there was always a part of her she hid from everyone, even them, and it also took her a bit to trust them too.

Besides the over-analyzing part of her brain telling her not to go, Bailey followed Hannah anyway. They packed up Bailey’s things in the trunk of her car, before getting into the passenger seat next to Hannah. “So, uh,” Bailey paused, unsure what to do or say, “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what to say.”

“Uh,” Hannah was at a loss too. For a moment, they sat in silence, awkwardly. “Why don’t we start with questions. I sure have a lot, I bet you have some too.” Bailey nodded in response. “So, are you going to school right now?”

“I uh, graduated,” Bailey replied. “I haven’t started college or anything. I went to uh…” Bailey paused, leaving out the fact she was a demigod at first. She’d rather ease Hannah into that, “a special school. So it was run differently than normal schools. I didn’t know what to do in college so I haven’t gone yet. I’ve been thinking of going to school to be a mechanic though.”

“Oh yeah? That’s interesting,” Hannah commented. Bailey felt scared that Hannah thought she was a disappointment, so she watched out the window as they drove. “Do you have friends from school though?”

Bailey nodded. “Yeah, there’s a group of us, well, sorta, I’m only close with a few of them.”

“Tell me about them,” she insisted.

“The group?” Bailey asked to clarify, as Hannah parallel parked outside the small cafe.

Hannah nodded. “Or the ones you’re close to. Any best friends? Any crushes?” Bailey blushed when she mentioned crushes. “So there is a crush. Come on, let’s get settled and you can tell me all about them.” Bailey nodded in agreement. The cafe didn’t seem to be very popular, there was a short line, and getting up to the front was quick. Both Hannah and Bailey ordered some food and a coffee, before taking a seat at a table. “So?”

“Well, there’s Logan, she’s my best friend. She’s kind of the one who encouraged me to meet you.”

“Oh, I like her already.”

“I’ve known her for a few years, and she kind of sought me out. She’s a bit of a social butterfly, and well, I’m kind of the opposite. She’s my best friend in the entire world and I’d probably die for her if I needed to.”

“So, she’s really important to you.”

“100 percent. She’s always there, and I don’t know if I’d be anywhere without her. We dance together and hang out together. She has a youtube channel, it’s under Logan Vance. I’m in a whole bunch of her vlogs with her, because I’m pretty much with her like 90 percent of the time. I used to date her brother, when we broke up, we stayed friends because I didn’t want her to feel like she had to choose. Plus, I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have her.”

“You dated her brother?”

“Yeah, for maybe about a year? Almost? We broke up a few months ago, because it wasn’t really working out. He’s still really cool though.”

“And who are you with for the other 10 percent of the time that you’re not with Logan?” Hannah asked.

“Well, there’s also Micah, they’re a friend of mine too, but I mostly dance with them,” Bailey replied.

“You dance?”

Bailey nodded. “Yeah, mostly tap, but I dabble in other styles. Micah and I do a lot of contemporary. I really like the tricks from partner dances, and they’re not afraid of throwing me around,” she said with a slight chuckle. “Now, what about this crush?”

Bailey blushed again. “Well, his name is Griffin. He’s new to ca-- I mean town. We don’t know much about each other, but there’s something about him that makes him really easy to talk to.”

“Is he cute?” Hannah asked.

Bailey nodded as part of her answer. “Yes, definitely, but that’s not the only thing. He’s kind of a little shit, a bit rude and passive aggressive, but sometimes I can be aggressive aggressive, so I don’t mind it. He’s actually funny about it, if I’m being honest. He is low-key nice, and he’s fun, and really chill. I don’t think he likes me though.”

“Why is that?” Hannah asked as someone dropped off their coffees and food for them. They smiled and thanked the girl.

Bailey shrugged, as she turned her attention back on Hannah. “He likes another person from our group, Len.”

“Are you close to them?” Bailey shook her head. “Not really, they’re really cool, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t really hang out with them alone. I’m more close to Logan, Griffin, and my cousin, Elias. Elias and Logan are pretty close to Len though.”

“Your cousin?”

Bailey slightly cringed, she meant to keep family from this. “Yeah, he’s one of my best friends. He was a little nervous about me coming to Michigan. He’s also kind of nervous about everything though. I still love him.” She took a few bites from her sandwich.

“Do you have any other family? I want to know all about your adopted family,” she said.

Bailey turned away from her slightly when she said adopted. She was silent for a minute. “No, I wasn’t adopted,” she said. “Uh, they’re my family by blood, Dad’s side of the family. I have quite a bunch of siblings,” she replied.

“Oh,” Hannah replied, her face dropping a little. “I’m sorry, I assumed that you Dad never got back into the picture.

“No, no, it’s okay, he did, when I was seven. Well, sort of,” Bailey replied, drinking some of her coffee, as if it would cover up the awkwardness.

“Sort of?”

“Well, it’s a long story,” Bailey replied. “For another time.”

Hannah nodded, respecting Bailey’s wishes. “Why don’t you tell me about them? Your siblings?”

“There’s a bunch of them. Alex, they’re the oldest, they’re basically your typical mom friend type of person. Got me going to therapy, fixes up bumps and bruises, calls you dumb when you’re really being dumb. I’m not the closest with them, but they’re cool, they’re out of town right now, but they check in every once in a while. Then there’s Amber, she’s super sweet and quirky. Her and Rory are really close, she’s in London right now, but I’m sure she’ll come back to visit soon, we have phone calls once in a while. Then there’s Rory who is like one of my best friends, we’re really close. She’s really bad ass, and don’t ever tell her this, but I really look up to her.”

“Oh, so I get to meet these siblings?”

Bailey shrugged, she didn’t want to get too ahead of herself. “Maybe one day.”

“Are those your only siblings?” Hannah asked.

Bailey shook her head. “There’s Jenny and Miles too. I don’t really know Miles too much, just from Jenny, but Jenny is like my go to with relationships and for advice. She’s in Virginia right now, I really miss her.”

“I didn’t know your father had other kids.”

“I think that one is a long story too, which we have the week to talk about,” Bailey reminded her.

Hannah nodded. “How about we head back to my place, yeah? I’m sure you’re exhausted.” Bailey nodded in response, following Hannah back toward the car. “Maybe we can talk more about you when we’re there. I have a lot of questions.”

“Of course,” Hannah responded.

The drive back wasn’t very long, Hannah didn’t live too far from the cafe, in fact she seemed to live pretty close to a lot of things. Bailey expected to pull into some type of parking garage for an apartment, or on the street. Instead, they pulled into the driveway of a nice house, within a van in the driveway too. Why would Hannah need a van? Not to mention two cars?

Bailey got out, looking a little confused, and Hannah unloaded the two small bags she had brought. “I thought you--” Bailey was cut off by a four, maybe five, year old running outside to Hannah.

“Mommy! Mommy!” she yelled.

Hannah scooped up the little girl. “Hi, baby, I want you to meet someone,” she said. Bailey stood there, confused. How could she not see this one coming? She didn’t respond and Hannah continued. “Sally, this is Bailey,” she said.

“Hi, Bailey,” the little girl responded. “Why are you crying?”

Crying? Bailey didn’t even recognize she was crying, but she was. There were tears actively streaming down her face. Hannah’s face contorted into one of concern and she let the child down. “Sweetheart, why don’t you go find Daddy and let him know to set up a bed for Bailey.”

When Hannah looked back up, Bailey had her hands in fists, her nails digging deep into her palms, trying not the panic. It wasn’t working. “I didn’t-- I,” Bailey tried to form a coherent sentence, instead she was backing away from the other. Her fight or flight kicking in. She felt so stupid. “This, this was a bad idea.”

Hannah stepped forward. “Bailey, please,” she went to steady Bailey, touch her arm for comfort, but Bailey flinched back. The wind picked up around the two as Bailey got more and more emotional.

She shook her head, trying to will the tears to stop. “I didn’t…” Bailey cursed at herself to try and find the words. “You wanted to be a mom, but you didn’t want to be my mom.”

Hannah stepped forward again. “Bailey, no,” Hannah insisted.

Instead of responding, Bailey took off running. She didn’t know where to, she just let her feet pound against the pavement, trying to find somewhere that felt safe. No where did though. She was in a strange city, ignoring her best judgements, and getting herself hurt, like she always did. Hannah ran after her for a while “Bailey!” she screamed, but Bailey just kept running. Hannah was no match for Bailey.

It had to have been at least ten minutes of running, before Bailey came across a small playground, with a bench. She sat on the bench, she had no idea what to do, where to go. She felt so alone and hurt.

Bailey sat here for a while, unsure of what her next step would be. That’s when Hannah’s car pulled up. Hannah got out, jogging to Bailey. Bailey didn’t look at her, too hurt to even put anything to words. “Bailey, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you wouldn’t have known. Please, just come back home.”

Bailey shook her head. “This isn’t my home, I want to go back home,” she said harshly.

Hannah sighed, looking as though those words stung. “At least stay the night, and if you want to go back home still tomorrow morning, I’ll drive you to the airport, I promise. You can’t stay out here all night, it’s freezing.”

Bailey made a face. She was right, and Bailey didn’t want to admit it. “Okay,” she said, finally, with a soft tone to her voice. “But only for the night.”

#sp:bailey #bailey #self para

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duelposting · 5 years

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i have been obsessing over the headcanon that seto has bpd almost all day god i feel so blessed to have seen it I LOVE MY BOY

I apologize for taking my time responding to this. I wanted to convey my thoughts on the matter properly, so here we go.

Let’s start with the big one:

Identity: Markedly impoverished, poorly developed, or unstable self-image, often associated with excessive self-criticism; chronic feelings of emptiness; dissociative states under stress.

We all know who Kaiba is, right? Except… We don’t, really. We know he had a traumatic childhood. We know he is a rich CEO. We know of his accomplishments in Duel Monsters. It is almost impossible to divorce him of these aspects. We know that Tea likes dancing and Yugi likes puzzles. What are things Kaiba enjoys? At best we could say he likes dragons.

And you can’t say Duel Monsters. It is a painstaking labor for him. It keeps him up for hours doing research into the night. Not as a hobby, but through compulsion. Though there might be momentary satisfaction to gain from it, I’d be hard-pressed to say it’s for fun. During their second duel he even tells Joey “I don’t have fun.” He struggles with the concept as nothing is ever fulfilling.

You take Joey away from the card game and you still have a funloving, loud-mouthed, knucklehead …But what is Kaiba? He’s probably unsure of the answer himself.

“Dissociative states under stress”

He actually calls himself “nothing.” He is his own worst critic. He determines his worth by how well he can play Duel Monsters because that’s his thing.™ It’s my whole identity, my whole life is based around this so if I can’t be good at it then what’s the point.

“Suicidal threats, self-destructive or risk taking behaviors.”

This speaks for itself. Also, [spoilers] in DSOD Kaiba sacrifices himself so that Yugi may call forth the Pharaoh and then fades, for all we know, from existence forever without so much a goodbye, and consistently rushes headlong into danger for Mokuba. Almost as though he doesn’t care much for his own wellbeing or realizes he’ll be missed at all.

“Feeling fearful, apprehensive, or threatened by uncertainty; fears of falling apart or losing control.”

Do I even need to mention how many times the duel with Ishizu had him freeze up in abject horror? He was utterly shaken. Not only if he lost would he lose humiliatingly in his own tournament, but it’d be a grander reminder he has no control over his destiny after all and that absolutely terrifies him.

Empathy: Compromised ability to recognize the feelings and needs of others, or hypersensitivity.

Remember that time Joey literally died and two other people got sent to the infirmary which Kaiba casually disregarded for the sake of completing his tournament? But, Pegasus summons a toon Blue-Eyes and suddenly he’s highly upset like it burned all his crops, specifically, to slight him?

While that may not seem like a big deal to us, he actually says “you know how much I hate that thing!” In such a frustrated and hurt tone that it’s clearly very offsetting to him. He’s demonstrably apathetic yet pretty sensitive. Certain things seem to trigger explosive fits.

“Pattern of unstable and instense relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.”

He’s always touting Yugi’s skills as a duelist and 100% sure Yugi can beat whoever he’s up against! Except for when he isn’t. Yugi’s losing? Disgraceful. Pathetic. I misjud– oh, Yugi’s winning? I knew it!! Yugi is the best!

This black and white thought process is often referred to as “splitting.” It can occur with anyone, (or anything) but in relation to an FP (favorite person); someone you’ve imprinted on and have a large attachment to, it’s the most drastic.

These can be people you’re so consumed with you don’t bother acknowledging anyone else which, Kaiba has a tendency of doing.

“Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger.”

Recall this outburst from season 4. He’s visibly distressed. And notice just how freaked out everyone is by this reaction. This isn’t usual Kaiba anger.™ He genuinely feels betrayed. He’s so disconsolate he doesn’t even give Yugi a chance to explain himself. If Yugi had unknowingly become his FP, this extreme reaction would make sense.

Hostility: Antagonism. Persistent or frequent angry feelings; irritability in response to minor slightly and insults.

I don’t even have to explain this one. [Insert any given interaction between him and Joey or the gang ever.]

“Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.”

*GESTURES WILDLY AT THE ENTIRETY OF DSOD*

Anyway, I don’t really know how to wrap all this up but, it’s worth noting somewhere that people with BPD struggle with interpersonal relationships and making friends as they have issues with emotional permanence. Meaning, they’re constantly needing to “prove” a feeling, or person is really there. They have trouble believing anyone will stay or are really there for them and tend to isolate.

This could explain Kaiba’s standoffish attitude and why he constantly wants to challenge Yugi to prove he is the best. He may also be seeking validation from Yugi that he is a good duelist. Because there is only now to him. The present defines him. “If I’m not the best at this very moment,™ was I ever the best?”

People with BPD constantly feel that they have to earn the right to exist, and constantly wage battle with themselves to be their version of what’s useful or the “best” so they can feel they’ve made their steak. Kaiba’s narcissism is a defense mechanism. He seems to fluctuate between overzealous manic episodes, and crushing, despairing, depressive ones.

At his core, he is insecure and attempts to fill the void with winning tournaments, or building an amusement park– any project or interest to keep him busy. However, he tends to hyperfixate to the point of obsession. All of which are symptomatic of Borderline Personality Disorder.

Tl;dr: Kaiba’s character perfectly reflects and aligns with a plethora of diagnostic criteria listed for BPD in the DSM.

#ask tag #replies #long post #headcanons #seto kaiba #phew #finally got this post typed #yugioh #yu gioh #ygo #dm #dsod

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lazywhaler · 5 years

Text

Serious actual Dishonored 2 Thoughts

I played through Dishonored 2 completely for a second time and paid a lot more attention this time around and as promised here are some thoughts under the cut (some 1700+ words of thoughts). This post is primarily meant to be like a journal-type thing for my thoughts, but I’ve tried to organize it as best I can with my minimal writing skills:

I was initially disappointed by Dishonored 2: I didn’t play this game at launch in 2016 because at that point I had a laptop that could only run Dishonored on low graphics in low chaos. I watched a bunch of walkthroughs on Youtube, read people’s thoughts on the comments in the wiki and all the meta here. I thought, and continue to think that mechanically, and gameplay-wise it’s vastly superior to the first game.

I was disappointed by the story which was basically a retread of the first but somehow even more simplified. (which even though I love with all my heart, come on, Dishonored doesn’t have a groundbreaking story). The Daud DLCs were so much better in that regard, that I blindly trusted that Arkane would continue to move in that direction.

The characters in this game felt a little more one-dimensional. It felt like almost all the targets were expies of characters from the first game in one way or another, and the Clockwork Mansion level seemed to say that they didn’t care.

Apologies to Stephen Russel, but Corvo’s voice acting is not good at all. Corvo just sounds like he’s staring down a long Monday at the office with a hangover. I might said that maybe that grizzled raspy voice just doesn’t work for Dishonored but Michael Madsen’s performance of Daud pretty much assassinates that argument.

Don’t like what they did with the Void or characterising the Outsider, but this one’s just a personal preference. I can see why people would like it or not care, even if I don’t.

The story also felt much much lower-stakes than the first one. Dunwall really felt if you pushed it with a feather, it would fall over the edge. Karnaca, in contrast felt like a vibrant, ascendant city being held back by gangs and corruption. Even the bloodflies aren’t that much of a calamity.

Having paid closer attention to the story, and other peoples’ readings of this game, I’ve realised that the ‘low stakes-ness’ of Dishonored 2 is intentional.

Arkane could have chosen to show Karnaca as a city on the brink of utter collapse. The bloodfly epidemic could have been bad enough that instead of buildings, entire streets or districts had to be blocked off. I haven’t done a high chaos run, but in my playthroughs, I’ve never seen Nest Keepers in groups of more than two, in stark contrast to the pant-shitting Weeper hordes from the first game. Dunwall was literally blockaded, so there was no escaping your fate. The docks at Karnaca are wide open for anyone who wants to arrive. This is all intentional.

So, the stakes are low. But why would Arkane intentionally make that choice? I think they intentionally lowered the stakes so that all the instances of corruption that you encounter or hear about are thrown into starker relief

In the first game, against the backdrop of a cataclysmic plague that made life very hard for non-aristocrats, it’s pretty easy to see why the City Watch would turn to crime. The plague if not excused, at least justified, a lot of shady behaviour from characters up to and including Sokolov experimenting on healthy people. In contrast, without the threat of the city descending into utter chaos hanging over everyone’s heads, when you try and pull the same shady crap that people did in the first game, now you just look greedy. And I think this game tries to bring that theme right to your doorstep, by letting Corvo/Emily participate in making things worse.

Robbing people’s houses in this game feels a lot worse than it did in the first one. The majority of the apartments that you rob don’t belong to people who are outrageously wealthy and haven’t been abandoned. These are people who are already getting screwed over and you can help make it worse. In Lower Aventa, you get a whole cutscene with the Lady Gaga Black Market woman being threatened by the Howlers and you have the choice to rob her (very likely) after witnessing that.

Dishonored 2 focuses more on repairing damage done rather than avenging it

A bulk of the problems that happen in this game can be attributed to Corvo and Emily not being good at their jobs and more importantly, not being a good rulers. The game highlights the moral failures of Corvo and Emily to turn a blind eye to Luca Abele’s antics and the problems in Karnaca. They fucked up and they can’t really take revenge because they played a part in it too. That’s why instead of the poetic justice fate-worse-than-death types of nonlethal eliminations from the first game, we have more, for lack of a better word, corrective, options. The Crown Killer is cured. Breanna Ashworth can’t do witch stuff anymore. Knocking out Stilton improves so much stuff and literally heals Billie Lurk. Even Delilah gets an ending that kind of rewards her for all the crap she’s been through, without letting her hurt other people. Kirin Jindosh’s elimination comes across like this, but it’s emphasized that we’re taking him out purely so that we can stop him from mass-producing clockwork soldiers, not out of revenge, For my money, the only poetic justice-type nonlethal elimination is Luca’s even if he’s not really going to be in a situation where he’s better off dead.

But here’s the thing: even though I ‘get’ Dishonored 2 a little better now, I still think they did a terrible job of trying to convey a lot of this!

I said that I think the low stakes nature was intentional and I think there’s reasonable evidence to support that claim. But there’s also evidence to contradict it. The Outsider keeps talking about Karnaca being on the brink of collapse. So do a lot of NPCs (I’m looking at you, beggar near the Aventa District Black Market). Am I supposed to take that at face value, ignoring what’s being shown to me in favour of what’s being told? Am I supposed to be like ‘Classic emo drama queen Outsider’ and slap my knee, and marvel at humanity’s propensity to make things out to be worse than they seem? I don’t know????

People being squeezed dry by the Grand Guard on the left and the Howlers on the right, with a light garnish of Overseer harassment? Definitely something in the game. When you rob them, and especially the Black Market shopkeepers? It’s Bad. But I guess a twinge of guilt and judgement from me is all you get, because the game isn’t going to punish you. They could have really committed and made robbing the Black Markets an action that increase chaos, even if you don’t kill anyone, but that Did Not Happen.

What about Emily (and let’s not even pretend anymore that this story holds together with Corvo as the protagonist) confronting her failures as a leader, realising she’s Not So Different from Luca Abele? Well, she gets called out on it a grand total of, maybe, 3 times by Billie and Sokolov, who immediately go ‘Well anyway, here’s the next thing I want to say’ and then at the end of the game, she’s like “My time here living as a Poor has given me Perspective. I deserve to be Empress now because I Want it”. Combined with how low-stakes this game is, it feels a lot like Emily took a gap year to find herself, except that the whole thing evidently took two months. I don’t think they executed any of this stuff well. The fact that I have to question these decisions were intentional or not doesn’t bode well.

Emily kind of faces some reckoning for her moral failings, turning a blind eye to the crap going down in Karnaca, but what about her incompetence and utter lack of interest in being a ruler? Or Corvo’s failings as a Spymaster (like seriously dude, how did you not know how any of this shit was going on, so much of it was an open secret). But she barely gets called out on her disinterest in ruling and IIRC Corvo pretty much gets away scot-free with not doing his job.

Or maybe I’ve just gotten it wrong. I study computer science. Media criticism is way outside my wheelhouse and so maybe I’ve grossly misinterpreted what this game was going for. But the one thing I’m absolutely, 100% certain about is that this game shouldn’t have been about Corvo and Emily.

Even back when we started getting details about Corvo and Emily, I was a bit...iffy about the whole thing. Their stories wrapped up pretty nicely in the first game. “Emily lived to be a wise, just ruler and things were good” or “Emily is a Murder Empress”. The end. And now suddenly it’s not. I hate it when sequels override the endings to previous concluded arcs, and I think there needs to be good justification for doing it. Arkane didn’t do a good job of it and after the wet hork of spit they lobbed at Daud’s arc in Death of the Outsider it seems to be a problem they have. Their story was completely concluded in the first game. No sequel hooks. This game shouldn’t have been about them.

I feel like Arkane were trying to tell a story about corruption and the decay and damage caused by simple human greed, but felt like they had to shoehorn in Corvo and Emily or we’d lose interest. I think the game would have made way more sense with someone from Karnaca’s underclass as the protagonist, maybe a Mindy Blanchard type. Maybe her plan to craft the Mark works, or maybe the Outsider gives her a little push and then she foils the conspiracy to bring Delilah back, kind of like The Brigmore Witches, except Delilah doesn’t actually come back. The main villian in this game could just be people’s appetite for corruption and Emily’s apathy.

I don’t know. It’s too late for any of that kind of speculation. My faith in Arkane took a huge hit with the one-two of Dishonored 2 and DOTO. It makes me optimistic that Dishonored 3 would have a completely different protagonist, but I’m not going to be blindly trusting, like I was after Brigmore.

#dishonored meta #dishonored 2 #i have never expressed so many thoughts about a thing in one place #and i have a few more thoughts too but i feel like theyre even more subjective than these

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sortasirius · 5 years

Text

Ragged Breath

Pairing: Steve/Tony

AN: *record scratch* *freeze frame* I bet you're wondering how I got here. Oh yeah it's because I saw Endgame for the fifth time (I have a problem) and truly find something else gay to write about because the 2012 Stony stan in me is constantly fed when seeing this film. (Also pls let me know what you think I crave validation.)

Words: 1720

On my AO3 here.

Tony had gotten used to losing his breath when it came to Steve. It had taken way way too long for him to realize that he was losing his breath because of Steve.

He didn’t like to be coddled or like to be seen as weak. That had been his thing since....well, at least since the cave in Afghanistan. When Nebula helped him off the ship, with the glowing flying lady in the badass suit having carried the whole thing back to earth (if he wasn’t so god damn tired, he would have been asking her a million questions), Tony tried to hold himself up. He could walk, even if he had been starving to death and fighting off an infection for the past three weeks. That was until, of course, Steve came running up to him, taking him from Nebula and holding Tony, one hand on his back, one hand on his chest. Tony wished that he could look a little better for their reunion, since Steve, as usual, looked like he was carved from marble, damn him.

He chalked up his breathlessness to the change in atmosphere, and not at all Steve’s warm, broad hands holding him steady. Looking up at Steve, Tony spoke the first words he had said in days,

“Couldn’t stop him.”

He almost expected judgement from Steve, not that he had ever judged him before. Not everyone could defeat anything just with plucky confidence and biceps made of gold. But Steve always managed to surprise him.

“Neither could I.”

Tony turned to Steve, not really knowing what he wanted, but knowing that if he didn’t tell Steve, he wouldn’t ever tell anyone.

“I lost the kid.”

Steve face, which was so full of concern for him, only deepened in its sadness.

“Tony we lost.”

God damn Steve Rogers and God damn his ridiculous need to care about Tony when Tony didn’t fucking deserve it, but there were more pressing matters at hand.

“Is...um-”

Pepper appeared before he could make another sound. And the way Steve made him breathless, Pepper made him feel like he could breathe for the first time. Opposites that Tony adored.

They cleaned him up, Bruce put an IV in him and Tony, forced by Pepper to accept that he could not, in fact, stand on his own, sat in a wheelchair and watched the faces of the vanished flick by like grains of sand in an hourglass. Wilson, Barnes, Lang, Fury, Maria, Wanda, T’Challa, and Peter. He barely registered what anyone was saying, as the bowl of oatmeal that Bruce had made him grew colder with every passing second. And as the oatmeal got colder, his anger grew hotter. He was angry, so angry at Steve for abandoning him, for not speaking to him, for choosing Barnes over him.

He sat, seething as Natasha talked to the room. His eyes wandered, trying to find a distraction, and he alit on Thor, sitting silently away from everyone else.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s pissed,” said the raccoon...wait...what? Tony didn’t even hear the rest of the literal raccoon’s sentence.

“Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear.”

Tony saw Steve’s mouth twitch in a smile. The way it made his heart jump only made him angrier.

“Tony, you fought him.”

Are you fucking joking?

“Who told you that?” he said, unable to keep his mouth shut, “I didn’t fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleeker Street magician gave away the store. That’s what happened. There was no fight because-”

“Okay.”

Steve was trying to placate him, but Tony was done being placated by Steve.

“He’s unbeatable.”

“Did he give you any clues? Any coordinates? Anything?”

Fuck this. Time to lay it all out.

“I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision, didn’t want to believe it, thought I was dreaming.”

“Tony,” fuck the way his name sounded when it came out of Steve’s mouth, and fuck the way he came closer to him, “I’m gonna need you to focus.”

“And I needed you.”

There it was. Simple. Four words. Exactly how he felt about Steve, all out on the line.

“As in past tense,” he was starting to build up steam, even though the way Steve was looking at him threatened to break his heart, “That trumps what you need. It’s too late buddy. Sorry”

It was too late because how the hell do they move past this?

“You know what I need,” he said, struggling to his feet because if everyone else could stand he would too, “I need a shave.”

The bowl of oatmeal clattered to the floor, splattering on the table, just like Tony’s heart splintered when Steve tried to kill him in Siberia.

“And I believe I remember,” he said, ripping the IV out of his arm while Rhodey protested, “Telling why that otherwise that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world. Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not. That’s what we needed.”

“Well that didn’t work out, did it?”

If it hadn’t been Steve, and Tony hadn’t been shaking, he would have decked him.

“I said we’d lose. You said we’ll do that together too,” Tony could see the pain cross Steve’s face, and it gave him some kind of small vindication to know that he might feel just a little bit of guilt for choosing his mother’s killer over him, “And guess what Cap? We lost. And you weren’t there.”

Tony voice started to break. He could feel the tears, hot and wet, in his eyes, so he let the anger take over again, because anger he could control. He could rage and storm at Steve all day long and not have to think about that betrayal and about how Steve made his heart race and his mouth go dry and his lungs stop working.

“But that’s what we do right, our best work after the fact. The Avengers, we’re the Avengers, not the prevengers, right?”

“Okay,” said Rhodey, holding his shoulders, “You’ve made your point, just sit down okay?”

“No, no no,” Tony said, talking over Rhodey and pointing to the badass ship-carrying lady...Carol, “You’re great by the way. We need you, you’re new blood.”

“Tony, sit down!”

“Bunch of tired old mills.”

But that’s just it. He hadn’t made his point. He forced his way over to Steve, meeting his eyes with desperation in his own. Steve had to understand what he had done to him. That Steve had broken his heart. How do you tell someone that your heart was shattered into a million pieces by them? Unfixable. Broken even to the mechanic.

“I got nothing for you, Cap. I got no coordinates, no clues no strategies no options zero zip nada no trust...liar.”

He could feel the energy draining out of him, the venom in his words and the pain on Steve’s face sapping him of his resolve, so he did the only thing he could do. He ripped the arc-reactor out of his chest and forced it into Steve’s hand.

“Here, take this. You find him, you put that on,” his legs started to give way, “And you hide.”

He collapsed onto the ground, and Steve immediately dropped too, putting his hand on Tony’s arm. The room was spinning, but he would not be weak, not when he had finally given Steve Rogers his heart.

“I’m fine. I-”

The last thing he saw before he passed out was Steve unfairly blue eyes.

Tony woke up in darkness. He was disoriented and wanted immediately to be away from wherever he was because there was beeping and softly glowing screens and he hated hospitals, but the person in the chair next to his bedside made him stop. Steve was still holding the arc reactor, which was glowing faintly in his hands.

Steve looked so much older than when they had first met. They had been coldly distant with one another, essentially only speaking to argue with each other. And if you had asked Tony then that the very sight of Steve would essentially render him useless, he would never have believed you.

Sure, he could appreciate Steve for the fine piece of ass that he was. But Tony had insisted, before the battle of New York, that everything special about Steve came out of a bottle. As the years went on, Tony realized that Steve was far, far more than a bottle of chemicals. He knew that Steve loved playing Stardew Valley on Tony’s PS4, that he refused to reach level 100 in the desert mines if it meant not feeding and giving his livestock their daily dose of affection. He knew that Steve liked to bring Tony coffee in his lab at 2 am, when they were the only ones in the tower that were awake. He knew that Steve smiled in his sleep sometimes, and that Tony would unconsciously mirror that smile when he saw it.

He wasn’t sure when Steve had gotten the power to take his breath away, and he knew that Steve would always have that power, no matter how angry he was at him.

A part of Tony wished that he could forget Steve and forget all the little things they knew about each other. But even though he was angry and hurt and grieving, he still found himself smiling when Steve, dozing in the chair, smiled in his sleep.

Tony stirred a little and Steve jolted awake, looking at him with guilt and a little bit of fear in his eyes.

“I can go if-”

“No. No. Stay.”

Tony saw some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

“Unfortunately, you’re gonna have to be more specific, Cap.”

“For it all but...mostly for Siberia. I shouldn’t have left you.”

“And I probably shouldn’t have tried to kill Barnes. Even though he...yeah.”

They both looked away from each other, the weight of what they could say hanging over each of them.

After a while, they looked up in the same moment, and Steve reached out to take Tony’s hand. Tony took it, and watched Steve’s radiant smile, holding Tony’s hand and his heart in each hand.

#stony #superhusbands #steve rogers #tony stark #avengers endgame #endgame #spoilers #writing #fanfiction #ficlet #marvel #steve #tony

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ser-pea-nt · 5 years

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☆ﾟ*・ﾟ┊Jordan Connor, He/Him + age (21), cis-male┊❝ isn’t « Sweet pea » totally tubular looking? they seriously remind me of a character from « riverdale ». i started seeing them at « Palace Arcade » a few « days » ago, humming to the tune of « Nocturnal Me + Echo and the Bunnymen » when they think no one’s looking. also, they’re like totally known as the « hothead » of town, so i’d keep my eye on them. seriously. ❞

tw: victim of war death, alcohol and drug abuse

GENERAL

Name: Sweet pea

Age: 17

Place of birth: Riverdale, USA

Spoken languages: English, very little Chinese (spoken by his grandmother who lives in China and used to be close with Sweet pea)

Sexual orientation: heterosexual

Occupation: Part time as a mechanic at a Southside garage, Serpent ‘run boy’

APPEARANCE

Eye color: Dark brown

Hair color: Black

Height: 6′4″

Scars: minor scars from fights or working on his motorcycle or truck, fell off a roof once as a dare and had a scar along his back from the fall

Tattoos: Serpent tattoo on left side of neck, pointed thumb rings on both hands, wolf head tattoo on calf (about the size of his serpent tattoo)

FAVOURITE

Color: sky blue or burnt orange

Entertainment: Reading, going to the bar, playing pools and darts (hes very competitive), going to the drive-in, hanging around the Serpents

Pastime: reading, listening to music, drawing

Drink: water, rum and coke, black coffee

INFORMATION-

Tw: drug and alcohol abuse, toxic parental relationships

➤ So, here is the tall glass of Serpent water! Sweet pea is the fighter of the younger Serpents and pretty much does anything he can to revolve his life around them proving he is completely loyal to them and his closest friends. ➤ We don’t know anything about the Serpents in season one besides maybe someone bringing up they are thugs who do crime on the other side of the tracks. But obviously that is not the case the more they are introduced. But I am going to work on what little we have with Sweet pea and add in a few things of my own that I think make him more interesting.

➤Sweet pea was born a Southsider and shows that is his legacy, he hates the Northside (more so in the beginning before Jughead joined in season 2) because they resent the Serpents and consider all of them thugs and miscreants, sure, it’s a bit of a contradiction and he doesn’t give some of the more understanding Northsiders a chance but they haven’t shown him any reason too… not yet at least.

-From what we are given, he lives in a small trailer alone and has no parents around. I would guess from abuse or just mistreatment. His father was heavy on the bottle but when he was a kid he went off to war with FP Jones so get better chances on money, the only thing is he died at war leaving Sweet pea and his mother alone and due to this his mother slipped into drug abuse leaving Sweet pea 100% dependent on himself; at least until FP took him under his wing and introduced him to the Serpents a few years back and this is where he found his true family and he became devoted to them and willing to do any job or task they need of the boy while he also gets himself in dumb situations with his friends.

➤Sweet pea has been shown being both a total brute; fighting ghoulies and Northsiders whenever he can, standing up for the Southsiders when they were being pulled under the bus, or just destroying property when he gets angry; he solves justice physically and irrationally which is not always smart but he feels he’s only good for his strength. Sweets has a lot of problems seeing good in himself even though there is more love in him than anyone will ever know he just shows it differently. Instead of being emotional and letting his feelings out the boy is extremely protective and quick to react to violence if the people he loves are threatened.

- Sweet pea has always had it hard when making friends. Of course, the younger Serpents hang out with him but his intimidating personality and hard to scratch surface doesn’t let many people in. H O W E V E R, there are two Serpents that literally means more than the world to him. Toni Topaz: Sweets met her first, in kindergarten and the two have barely been seen apart. This girl has been through every dark corner sweet pea has ever been in and when he says he can’t live without her he means it. They consider each other their soul mates. She is his calm, when he’s about to explode all it takes is one word from Toni and he instantly steps back. She really is the love of sweet pea’s life. Then there is Fangs Fogarty: he is the second person in sweet pea’s life that sweet pea let in and will never let go of. Sweets knows Fangs can always protect himself but that doesn’t stop pea from doing it too. Fangs is the softest one in the trio and pea treats him like a brother often doing wild and reckless things as long as toni isn’t there to knock some sense into them or patch up their wounds when they hurt themselves. If there ever was a poor fool to mess with fangs or Toni they saw hell in sweets’ eyes and would pay for it.

-We’ve recently seen the softer side of Sweet pea though, when he has shown he wants to be in a real relationship, his love for Fangs and Toni, and the fact he wants to see the Serpents strong. I have the idea that due to experiencing abuse and thinking he was alone he stands up for anyone who is in a bad position and will give the clothes on his back to anyone who needs his help.

➤It’s not canon but from the way he is shown to always be in the front line of the younger Serpents I always imagined he wants to be able to climb the Serpent ladder and be a big leader of the gang at some point which is going to really be his main focus in life until more plots come, while he will always remain loyal to the people who have never done him wrong. There is nothing that can make him stray from the serpents.

➤For extra money to pay the bills for his parent’s trailer Sweet pea runs product for the Serpents. He is young so he is usually seen at parties and any thing that is directed toward teenagers who need a fix. This is the only reason he goes to these events because he really doesn’t do the whole big group scene. Over the summer he has picked up some hours at the local garage as a mechanic. He knows a lot about cars and is always finding scrap pieces to keep his old truck running. He has a motorcycle as well but his truck serves him better unless he is trying to show off.

➤He despises the Northside; not only because more than half the town only believe the lies they have been told but because every Northsider is better off than anyone from the Southside and even the people who claim they don’t mind the Southside not one of them has ever tried to help out to make the place Sweets calls home a better place.

AFTER THE SWITCH:

➤After finding himself in Hawkins he’s only confused. He has only been around for a few days so he is really just trying to wrap his head around this whole thing. Yah boy has never really left the Riverdale/Greendale area so imagine how he feels in a place that doesn’t even exist in his world or time even.

➤ So, his background with his parents is the same but now he’s just been abandoned by his mother but instead of being stuck on the Southside in Sunny side trailer park he is in the Hawkins parallel version of the southside which is the outskirts in the trailer park by the Junkyard. He is still in the Serpents and not much has changed with him disliking most of the people who live in Hawkins and are more privileged than him.

➤ He was lucky and had a good amount of cash to get him through the week at the Hawkins junkyard trailer park but hes running low on funds and might need a place to crash and a job. So far he’s really interested in the Arcade, he loved the nostalgic (lol not so nostalgic) games and figures it will pay enough to scrape by. He is more than used to doing it at Sunny Side trailer park.

➤ Find Pea scarfing down a burger at Benny’s but something in him feel like something is missing. He sometimes thinks that he needs a milkshake to take it down with... but nothing ever suits his tastes. Is this the parallel pull he feels making him crave the all famous Pop’s burgers and shakes? probably. This is where pea goes when he feels homesick. Benny’s never fully helps but for some reason it’s the only place he feels a bit closer to what his body has been screaming for Riverdale food.

[[ I’m open for all plots and connections so please, if you want to do something fun with my baby DM me (here or discord) and we can figure something out! Or just chat! I promise I don’t bite lol ]]

#1986:intro #about

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notspoondere · 5 years

Text

How to Scoop Less: Sky Strikers

I promised I'd make this in a banlist analysis post I never put into a public tag and which nobody remembers, but I'm nothing of not a man of my word.

[This has honestly been sitting in my drafts for months. Nats season has already come and gone. I don’t know how much longer this will be useful for, but better late than never.]

If you've played the game at all since the release of Dark Saviors, you might recognize this little old deck on account of it dominating the competitive scene for... a few formats here or there, sort of. It's hard to call this deck broken given that tournament results don't 100% agree with me (Gouki was arguably better until Firewall was banned, Sky Striker Trickstar only dominated for a few tournaments, and Hornet Drones dominates in every deck), but if you've played the matchup without teching against it, you probably know how impossible it feels. So let's fix that.

I've heard Sky Striker most often labelled a "tempo control" deck, which I believe means that it's a deck that has 1 card combos and multiple +1s but can't OTK you with them. Alternatively, you can view it as a deck that uses its inherent card advantage to back up a simple engine by accruing backrow. So you should be able to deal with it like any backrow deck, right? Not quite; the backrow is mostly quick-play spells, so Red Reboot is out of the window, and you can't easily OTK them because Kagari gets big and Shizuku debuffs everything and both can float into Raye who can tag into the other. Well, okay, those are Extra Deck monsters so I can just use Cherries, right? Well, you can, but you'd want to hit Kagari with that and Raye can tag out into Kagari in response, so their first turn is essentially impossible to stop with Cherries if they open Raye. And they play a hell of a lot of cards that get to Raye.

In short, a lot of the usual suspects are invalid here. That doesn't mean you don't have options. If you can view Sky Striker as a deck with two main components (monsters and backrow), one of the best ways to deal with it is to find a way that best disrupts both.

Before we begin properly, several Sky Striker cards are mentioned by name in this post. The Yugipedia page contains a list of all of them, so I won’t link them individually.

Going first, Shared Ride is such a common answer that it's become an occasional main deck choice. It is favored over Droll & Lock Bird because you will get to draw off of Engage, Kagari, and Shizuku, putting you in a good position to win the game after keeping up with their card advantage. It also can't be negated by Called By The Grave, but it can be negated with Ash Blossom.

Anti-Spell Fragrance, Secret Village of the Spellcasters and Imperial Order are similarly strong choices for hopefully obvious reasons. If they resolve, you will probably win the game, provided you kill them before they draw an answer.

If you're running a lot of floodgates, Gozen Match is the best versus Striker. Flip it before Raye hits field and they won't be able to summon anything else.

As for going second...

Starting with hand traps. Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring is obviously the best card ever and it's great here as well. If Multirole has resolved, you can't ash Engage, but if they use Multirole to send Area Zero to summon Raye, you can definitely Ash that. Droll & Lock Bird was mentioned above and it is decent as well. Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit is worth playing solely to interrupt Multirole. Effect Veiler is kind of meh, but playable--Infinite Impermanence is even better since it can stop their backrow once set. Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion is actually better than both unless you really can’t afford to take hits from Hayate, since it can negate Kagari, Shark Cannon, and Called by the Grave. Speaking of which, Called is really good against Raye, so bring that in if you’ve got it in side instead of main for some reason.

Now that you aren't obliged by Gouki to run Sphere Mode or Cyber Dragon etc, you can safely start running Kaiju monsters. Any will work, but they get special mention because giving them a Kaiju will not trigger Raye and will actually prevent them from activating Sky Striker spells while they control it. Just tribute over Shizuku, deal with the backrow, then kill the Kaiju. (One of my all-time greatest moments in tournament was going to time vs a Sky Striker player who was slightly up on life with Kaina... With 5 seconds on clock, enter Main Phase, give you a Gameciel, give myself a Dogoran, declare Battle Phase, time called. Who needs engine cards when you see this much side?)

Speaking of making Raye not float, if you can make a Rank 4 undisrupted, Number 101: Silent Honor ARK can gobble up Shizuku and leave Raye alone in grave. This works because a monster isn't considered to have left the field once it becomes an Xyz material. That tech saw some minor play in Pendulum but has fallen out of favor as the deck has abandoned utility options for MORE COMBO. Other techs that function off of the same mechanic include Mind Control and Instant Fusion (summoning Thousand-Eyes Restrict, equipping the opponent’s Link Monster and linking it away).

Evenly Matched is also a decent choice, and if they don’t keep the monster, Raye will not float. The situation involving this card has become much more complex, though; seasoned players will play around it in games 2 and 3 if they haven’t seen their own sided-in copies of Solemn Judgment. The question then becomes whether it’s worth it to side Evenly Matched with the expectation that it’s there to bait Solemn Judgment... verdict’s still out, but I think it might be. Also worth mentioning: Sky Striker is not a deck that can kill you in a turn for leaving an empty board, so if you sae sided copies of Evenly Matched, but your opponent makes you go first, it might be worth passing turn without playing a card. Just play it off as though you bricked really hard. (smile)

Denko Sekka won't deal with the monsters, but it will totally shut off all of their other backrow (Shared Ride, Twin Twisters, etc). If you can spare the normal summon, she's worth it. Note that Denko is searchable off of Thunder Dragon Fusion.

Of course there’s a solid chance you’re not even losing to Sky Striker cards, but rather, Mystic Mine. This complete mess of a card absolutely demands answers by itself, so if you aren’t playing Twin Twisters or Cosmic Cyclone somewhere in your main or side, make sure to do that. Sky Striker typically ends up with one monster on board after breaking the Mine-induced stalemate, so intentionally linking your own board down to a single Knightmare Phoenix might be the play that saves your hide if it ever comes down to it.

All done. Hopefully the dust on this one doesn’t show through. I have some ideas cooking, but in order to avoid this situation happening again, I’ll keep them a secret for now. See you soon.

#yugioh #yu-gi-oh #yugioh tcg #how to scoop less

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kinetic-elaboration · 5 years

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September 2: Thoughts on The 100 2x05, Human Trials

Thoughts on Human Trials

They set up an electronic gate really fast, didn’t they? An efficient people. I think of the big Arkadia wall as really being a S3 thing, but they had to specifically unlock the entrance to get Clarke in.

Clarke & Abby was another relationship they really destroyed, huh? “That’s not a prisoner. That’s my daughter.”

Omg, Clarke thought Abby was dead this whole time. I completely forgot about that. I mean, I remember that she saw the Exodus ship explode, but I forgot that she had no way of knowing up until now that Abby wasn’t on it. Technically, Abby should have been a bit of a surprise to Bellamy and Finn, too, but I guess they had bigger surprises to deal with at the time.

I kind of miss Byrne tbh.

Six people made it to Camp Jaha. That’s Bellamy, Finn, Monroe, Sterling (RIP), Raven, and I guess Murphy is the last one, although as far as I can remember, the last Clarke saw him he was blasting a hole in the dropship and running away into the woods. So she probably wouldn’t guess he was one.

Jasper looking for Clarke 3-4 times a day in medical just tears me up inside. He’s so loyal. He feels all emotions on such a large scale. And his disbelief that Clarke would abandon them.... Who was it who theorized that Jasper was more upset about Clarke abandoning them in Mount Weather than abandoning them in 2x16 because I’ve never been certain I agree but I am intrigued.

Raymond J. Berry is so underrated.

I tend to think that Dante is sincere in offering Jasper the chance to leave and come back but I also think that this is a perhaps unintentionally cruel test because of all of the 48, Jasper is the one for whom it would be hardest to step back outside the bunker even on a mission of great personal importance.

“I have to believe they didn’t survive here all this time by fighting.” But like, actually.... didn’t they? RIP to my mom’s theory that ALIE kept the Grounders in a constant state of war to discourage population growth.

“In Grounder Creole.” I mean I guess that’s one word for it.

Clarke’s incredulousness that her mother is Chancellor is semi-hllarious.

She keeps on mentioning Finn and Bellamy as the most important people--were they among the six who made it? Where are they?

And yet RAVEN was the one who was waiting outside for her all night. Outside that shitty little medical tent. With her little tablet, reading. RIP Princess Mechanic.

Too bad Clarke put on pants before The Hug or think how much better it could have been lol.

I could watch them hug all day. Just this scene man. The best. I’m such a simple person. This is all I want. People smiling and being fond of each other.

Bellamy’s face when Clarke says she’s the only one who came back.

That Mount Weather/Reaper stuff is fully fucked up and I don’t think the show ever did anything more outrageous than this season. Which is why it should have stepped back from trying to be outrageous.

I really like scenes like this one with Bellarke and Abby, the tension in the power structure being so uncertain. Kane is the Chancellor, but Abby is also, and there are multiple groups of people out there with different levels of information, working toward different ends, and different ideas about who should be prioritized, and why, and Bellamy and Clarke are used to having the power to make those decision but now they don’t--just the intricacy of the plot at this point in the narrative. I love it. I love power dynamics and stuff like that. Also, while I get why Abby doesn’t want Clarke to leave, Bellamy is 100% right that she owes aid to Murphy and Finn, and Clarke is 100% right that, tactically speaking, cutting them loose is dumb, because they could easily create problems with the Grounders--which, in fact, they do.

Clarke’s “We’re gonna need guns” is so hot.

Adventure Squad to the rescue!

Electric fence. And Wick helping them out. I love Octavia actually looks younger than them here even though objectively speaking Marie is not. ALSO the massacre happens at Lincoln’s village but isn’t he from TonDC, which also had that bomb drop on it? Or am I confusing things? Because if so, damn, that’s a lot of bad luck lol.

So Monty would have left immediately to go after Clarke and Jasper wouldn’t--in part because he’s afraid but I also think he does feel betrayed that she left them, which Monty really doesn’t seem to care about. Interesting. And then of course the containment breach, organized to distract them and keep them from leaving. Not sure how to fully unpack that. I will note that Monty sees Maya being irradiated, which is to say that when he opens the vents in 2x16, he knows what that will do, down to the details, what it looks like, everything, and Jasper does too. Also interesting that Maya doesn’t want Jasper to leave, thinks it’s “smart” to stay. Because she doesn’t like Clarke? Because she fears the outsiders? Yet isn’t the greatest wish of her people to see the ground?

Also looks like they’re already prisoners given that you need a keycard to get out of the dorms.

I find it intensely suspicious that the Grounder blood didn’t work on Maya, since I’m sure they’ve seen radiation that bad before--the guy Clarke saw was pretty well covered if I remember correctly. I think they just weren’t doing anything, to try to get Jasper to volunteer as a subject. But is this done with or without Dante’s knowledge? I am going to say without personally.

“I know that look.” Monty knows Jasper’s ‘I’m gonna do something stupid’ look lol. Also, he is brave! He is!!

Bellamy looking at Clarke by the fire is so capital-R Romantic. They’re so efficient at comforting each other that he literally does the entire conversation re: guilt over closing the dropship door on him by himself. Don’t worry babe, I got this forgiveness narrative down.

Finn... is such a weird character. I don’t actually dislike his arc but it’s so hard to tell, for example, how smart he is, the details of him. He’s certainly very weak. Cracks under pressure, loses whatever moral compass he had at the first convenience. And what of Murphy? He’s uncomfortable with what is happening but for whatever reason seems to find himself unable to stop Finn even as he inches closer and closer to something terrible.

Is their leader... Indra?

Jasper’s “heavily sedated” face and Monty’s reaction lol. “Nothing, I feel nice.” And Monty’s eye roll. Bitch why are you so judgemental? Like you haven’t heavily sedated yourself for fun. And the classic ‘no, not going anywhere’ Monty gesture. Truly an Icon.

Ooh, I like this little outdoor cafeteria/bar. Forgot about that. Forgot about how much in S2 was outdoors or in tents.

I remember when Doctor Mechanic was a significant rare pair/side ship and you know what, I rather miss it. I was never really on board but I can see the appeal.

Minus the slapping, obviously. Which doesn’t even really fit in this scene imo.

“She stopped being a kid the day you sent her down here to die” is of course an iconic line but tbh it’s not really fair. More fair since Abby just slapped her but like--it’s a little late to be pulling that card. If they’d stayed on the Ark, more of them would have died than died in S1 on the ground, imo. And at this point that’s basically already known.

I wonder what all the ‘warning radiation area’ signs are from. Was there a post-bomb period where survivors lived on the ground and divided the worst radiation sites from the more habitable areas? Also the “no weapons beyond this point” sign clearly pre-dates the Grounders. And it’s in English.

Kane’s optimism/pacifism is really halfway and to that extent, what does he expect. Also is there prison a subway station? What a ridiculous but great way to bring Kane and Jaha back together again.

Yet again floored by this set design at the Grounder village.

Tbh I find it highly unrealistic that that amount of forest could have grown up on the National Mall in 100 years. And where are the other monuments?

Bellamy’s handdddddddddddddddddds.

Or maybe they just made Maya extra sick. So the treatment of circulating her blood through Jasper’s system is the same one they use with the Grounders, so it isn’t so much taking Grounder blood, as I tended to think of it, as using the Grounder circulatory system. But obviously this can be done without kiillng the person--so do they just use each body repeatedly until it... dies? I realize trying to find order in this is futile but I’m curious anyway.

“We all have jobs to do. Mine is to be obeyed” should have gone down in the canon of great lines. It’s certainly much better than some others I can think of.

I don’t believe Dante took the kids to experiment on them, what with his intense aversion to the experiments, and the way he gets attached first to Clarke and then to Jasper. But then, truly, as Tsing says, why take them? What was the endgame here?

“We have no choice but to move ahead with the 47″ is truly one of the weakest forms of ‘no choice’ on this show. Because, I mean, you do have a choice. You’ve discovered that they’re useful to you, but that doesn’t mean you HAVE to do the useful but completely immoral thing, that’s quite an obvious example of wanting, not needing.

No one can convince me that Dante is straight with scarves like that.

So in other words, Delano, of one-eyed Delano fame, was like the Murphy of TonDC. Don’t cast people out, nothing good comes of exile.

Finn’s “I found you” at the end is top 5 creepiest moments in this series and no I am not taking criticism on this post.

#the year 2019 #2019: fandom thoughts #2019: the 100 s2 #the 100

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afraidof-thedark · 5 years

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One comes across many different kinds of strange phenomena reported in the old newspapers, but I have to admit that Mad Milking Machines is a new one for me. In 1949-50, the odd goings-on at the Tarcutta, Australia farm of Lawrence "Laurie" Wilkinson had everyone puzzled for months.

From the "Cootamundra Herald," January 29, 1949:

Residents of Tarcutta are still mystified by the behavior of pulsator plates from a milking machine on a dairy near Tarcutta. The plates have been hurled up to 250 yards from the machine by some "unknown power." The occurrences have been reported to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, but the council has not yet moved to investigate the happenings. Mr. A. Portors, Tarcutta engineer, has asked the C.S.I.R to send a scientist immediately to investigate the matter. Mr. Portors said last night that he wanted to find out what power was hurling the plates such distances at a speed so fast that the eye could not detect them. The plates, he said, weighed 13 ounces, were approximately three inches long, and approximately one and a half inches wide. Mr. Portors, who has been an engineer since 1917, said he had rectified engine trouble in the machine some weeks ago. Since then the plates had continued to fly from the machine. "It is no good sending an ordinary engineering man down here, because he will not find any mechanical defect," said Mr. Portors. "If a scientist comes I will assist him, and put the machine through its past routine. I think I can make it hurl the plates again," said Mr. Portors. He said no plates had been thrown from the machine since Monday. Mr. Portors denied the suggestion that a power line near the farm might have something to do with the occurrences. Mr. R. Donohoe, of "Innisfall," Tarcutta, who has a similar machine, said: "It is impossible, but I saw it happen." Mr. O. Gorman, of Elwood, Sydney, who is holidaying with Mr. Donohoe, said, "I wish I had not seen it. It was uncanny." Three Tarcutta residents say they saw a young boy moving a pulsator plate with a short iron rod. The plate flew from the machine, hurling the rod from the boy's hand, and imbedded itself In a mud heap 200 yards away. When they picked it up it had an odor similar to that made by a high voltage electrical discharge. The machine was operated on the farm for several years without trouble. It is a five-ball machine. Any one of the plates was likely to go, it was stated. An expert from Albury examined the machine, but it worked perfectly. He said he was unable to explain the cause of the trouble. Mr. Wilkinson bolted down the steel bar which keeps the plates in position, but they still flew off. He is so alarmed at the behavior of the machine that he has abandoned the use of it, and has reverted to milking his 100 cows by hand.

The plot thickened in the "Braidwood Review," February 8, 1949:

While a report states that an engineer has described the Tarcutta milking machine mystery as "fantastic and utter rot," the owner of the farm, Mr. Laurie Wilkinson, threatens to sell out if the mystery is not solved. He announced his intention of doing this to Councillor A. O'Brien, president of Kyeamba Shire Council recently. Mr. O'Brien said on Tuesday night that the people who should be concerned at the mystery, such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, were not taking enough interest in the matter. "It seems to me that they won't send a scientist down here until someone is killed or seriously injured. We don't want that to happen," said Mr. O'Brien. The machines "played up" badly on Tuesday morning. "Mr. Wilkinson was very distraught when I saw him on Tuesday," said Mr. O'Brien. He pointed out that Mr. Wilkinson has a maimed hand and because of the peculiar behaviour of the machine he and his young son had to milk 50 cows by hand. Cr. O'Brien said Mr. Wilkinson believed that if he installed a new machine on his property there was a strong possibility that it would also "play up," and he was not prepared to take the risk. Mr. O'Brien said that plates had been thrown from the machine when the power was off and the works stationary. Mr. O'Brien telegraphed Mr. Graham on Tuesday and contacted Mr. Fuller, M.H.R., by telephone. He asked them both to make further representations for a scientific investigation of the mystery. The Sydney "Telegraph" reports that Mr. Dowsett, assistant engineer of the Southern Riverina Council, investigated the milking machines. He found no evidence to support earlier reports, and in a caustic report referred to a boy and girl on the farm between the ages of 9 and 12 years, and commented: "To those who have seen these plates vanish before their eyes, I can say: 'Look again, but don't look too hard.' "The plates, if found some distance from the dairy, have been thrown or placed in position. Marks on the ground and on posts have been made by man or beast, and the whole situation is fantastic and utter rot. "I would suggest that no further trouble will be experienced, at least with the afternoon milkings, after the termination of the present school holidays." Mr. A. Portors, Tarcutta engineer, completely discounted the suggestion by Wagga engineer, Mr. J. H. Dowsett that a young boy was responsible for the plates leaving the machine. He said one of the original plates had been found and placed on the machine at the weekend. A man had kept a careful watch on the machine, but the plate disappeared before his eyes on Sunday morning. "The man was the only person present at the time," said Mr. Portors. He pointed out that Mr. Wilkinson had only had two trouble-free milkings in more than three weeks.

So. The "Central Queensland Herald," November 3, 1949:

Farmers and others In the Tarcutta district of the Riverina think their famous mad-milking machine has Canberra scientists bluffed. Five months ago they invited the CSIRO to send a scientist to Tarcutta to discover why the milking machine kept hurling off its pulsator plates and other parts, but the CSIRO did not accept the invitation. It told the machine's owner, dairy farmer L. Wilkinson, to send for an expert from the makers. The milking machine expert, as well as local engineers and neighbouring dairymen, have all tried their hand at making the machine behave. All have failed. Mr. Wilkinson, a hard-headed farmer, does not believe in poltergeists (obstreperous ghosts), but he has had enough of the machine. When he wants to milk his cows he takes them to a neighbouring farm, where the milking machine does not throw things at him. Farmers say the machine shows a sort of intelligence in its tantrums. When wire-netting was placed on one side to catch the parts the machine changed the direction of the throw. Tarcutta engineer A. Portors yesterday summed up the local view when he said : "Canberra scientists may laugh at a distance, but let them try to explain these happenings. At first, all the parts flew off in a northerly direction, but when we put wire-netting on the northern side of the machine it threw the parts to the south. Mr. Portors said that the latest happenings had caused many people In the district to think that some supernatural force was at work.

On December 4, 1949, the Sydney "Sunday Herald" devoted an entire page to the mystery. They published testimony from 15 people who had personally witnessed hundreds of metal parts from the machine flying as far as 250 yards. They told of seeing a cast-iron axle weighing 65 pounds lifted two feet off the ground with "a terrific bang." It described how "in an effort to stop the machine from flying to bits," Wilkinson tied every moving part of the machine to walls and rafters. "Yet parts of the machine, both moving and stationary, continue to fly about, twisting the heavy iron dog chains that secure them as if they were soft copper wire. Since January 10, when the disturbance started, every moving part of the machine had been thrown off mysteriously. Twelve of those parts were still missing."

The milking machine was not the only thing flying. Eleven-pound grease tins. Empty cigarette tins. Cream cans. All were seen to fly through the air on their own uncanny power. Several diesel engines were found mysteriously dismantled.

Over the next few days, the "Herald" went through the various theories being proposed for these bizarre happenings. A member of the London Magic Circle (a society of amateur and professional magicians) was convinced it was due to a poltergeist, with the unwitting human agent being Wilkinson's 15-year-old son Robin.

Mechanical defect? No. Wilkinson's machine had been repeatedly examined by a series of experts, who agreed that it was in perfect working order.

Magnetic disturbance? No. Most of the machine's parts were brass, which is not magnetic. Tests for ground magnetism were also negative.

Radio beams used to guide aircraft that flew over the "haunted dairy." Uh-uh. These beams were believed to be far too weak to cause such spectacular results.

Hypnotism? Hardly. The phenomena had been seen too many times, by too many different people, to make some sort of mass hallucination credible.

Trickery, probably by young Robin Wilkinson? No. The milking machine continued to run amok when the boy was far away from the farm.

A Sydney physicist, Leonard Gulson, delivered a truly impressive display of scientific special pleading. "Thousands of miles below the surface of the earth," he said, "far below the earth’s hard crust, vast masses of molten matter rotate at great speeds, setting up gravitational turning torques about a line drawn at right angles through the centre of each rotating mass.

“Now if the centre lines from two or more of these great rotating masses of molten metal cross at a point near the earth’s surface an increased force or torque will be created at that point.

“And if this point where the forces cross is above the earth’s surface, a distinct lifting and turning motion will be created at that spot, causing stationary objects to be whirled or whisked first upward and then outward toward the direction of whatever force is the stronger.

“Naturally, it is only at very rare occasions when such converging forces would cross in the ether at a point low enough to the earth’s surface to be observed by man in the manner experienced on this farm, and in any case, the phenomena would disappear in time as the moving masses of molten matter harden and the angle of their forces change direction.

“This theory is a more scientific and reasonable way of accounting for the mysterious behaviour of metal objects on Mr. Wilkinson’s farm."

Alas, another physicist snorted that Gulson's "nebulous theory" " "cannot be regarded as a serious solution of the problem.”

Underground mineral force? Underground whirlpool? Black magic?? A "new theory of gravitation???"

The milker was obviously not the only thing going a bit nuts.

The last report that I have found on the mystery dates from February 1950. It indicated that peculiar behavior was still going on at the Wilkinson farm, but less frequently. The cause of the Mad Milker was still being debated.

#strange #bizarre #vintage #odd

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qqueenofhades · 6 years

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“I want to finish what we started.”

Aka, I was always probably going to write this meta at some point, lbr.

There was not nearly enough Flynn in the episode overall (though I do think he’s out next week and then hopefully will kick off his return to major-character status with 2x04) but. I personally loved the shit out of that 2x02 Garcy scene for like all the reasons, and my angst-junkie heart is just like yaaaaaas queen. And one of the main reasons is that line above. Because it embodies a) Lucy still instinctively seeing them on the same side, and b) all the ways in which she’s changed and Has Not Come To Play. Which yes. Give me the dark and twisty and complicated-fucked-upness of all of it. It’s why I love this ship, no matter what it ultimately ends up being in canon, so damn much.

I touched on some of my thoughts in my general meta post here, but I’m 101% here for Dark Lucy and her continuing to push down a more and more focused and ruthless road. As @extasiswings pointed out, I’m also 101% sure that Flynn asking her if she’s willing to kill her own mother is foreshadowing, because Lucy is definitely going to be put in a position where she has to make that choice, and because it was Flynn who brought it up, he’s probably going to be the one to either walk her back from it, or have to do it for her (though I think, especially after Carol’s misgivings about Nicholas whereas Emma is clearly the true-believer zealot, Carol herself may choose to abandon Rittenhouse in the eleventh hour. Anyway, I’m just saying, that line will come back).

I also wrote a lot after 2x01 aired about Lucy straight up paralleling Flynn in her willingness to sacrifice an innocent man’s life for the greater cause. Now 2x02 sees her acting like him in other ways. Just think how far she’s come from the teary, terrified person who met Flynn by the Hindenburg in 1x01 and thought he was this terrible monster. Now she knows everything about him, she wants to give him a chance to help them, she tells him she’s still committed to the mission of taking down Rittenhouse... and he can help, or he can get the hell out of the way. She didn’t come here to play nice. We can assume she feels bad (and because the “we need you more” line is still coming) but Lucy isn’t really in a place where feeling bad about prior actions helps her, or anyone. She has a mission in front of her, this huge and dark and terrifying mission that gets more complicated all the time, she finally gets what Flynn was up against, and yeah. She is just getting her feet wet.

Y’all. Lucy isn’t the daughter of two Rittenhouse grand poombahs (speaking of which, are we seeing Cahill’s slimy face again this season, or has he been discarded?) and the great-granddaughter of Batshit Cray Cray Rittenmaster, the “prodigal princess” as Emma calls her, for nothing. She comes from a whole LINE of people willing to do whatever the fuck it takes to win. They happen to be on the opposite side of things from her now, but as Lucy is discovering who she is... she’s discovering who she is, and that is hella dark in ways that are more than just tangential. She’s using the same techniques her family has done (and is of course still comparatively mild by their standards AND by Flynn’s) to oppose them. So the question becomes, can she do that, and go down that road, without becoming like them?

Wyatt has a dark past, as we’ve seen. But he’s a soldier, he’s used to killing people, he’s used to that fight, and it’s not specifically and personally against Rittenhouse for him. It is for Flynn. It took his family, even if not quite in the way it took Lucy’s. He’s the one who has been fighting it alone. Lucy is getting that now. She won’t tell Wyatt what happened to her while she was with them, because it’s not important to her. She is throwing herself into this mission, this quest to eradicate Rittenhouse, in some of the same ways Flynn did. And she’s probably going to keep doing it, especially after the Jessica return disrupts the burgeoning Lyatt romance, at least temporarily. She’s going to have lost another thing/person she cared about, because Rittenhouse doubtless has something to do with Jessica’s return (trying to distract Wyatt, cause tension, etc). Because of them.

And you know what? That’s gonna make her even more angry.

And who gets that? Yep. Flynn.

The same way I yelled OH SHIT when Lucy shot the guy in 2x01, was kind of how I felt when she, having zero fear of this idiot in the cell, tells him to his face that she knows he doesn’t want his wife and daughter to have died for nothing, and that his sass, while it’s understandable, is a hollow self-defense mechanism that isn’t going to get him anywhere. She doesn’t want to leave him there, she doesn’t want him to snip at her, she doesn’t want to be fighting this war without him, because she knows just how much they need him (ding ding ding, again) and how much SHE does. (And lbr, Flynn is a grumpy bear who needs a lot of direct poking with blunt objects.) So guess what? Lucy calls him straight out on his BS, and all of a sudden, Flynn’s willing to talk.

Honestly, I think it was that -- seeing that she 100% meant the “I’m willing to do anything it takes to stop Rittenhouse,” and proving it -- which made Flynn help, however grudgingly. He challenged her to show her that she meant it, so she did. He hasn’t changed his mind about what he wants to do, but he’s not gonna muck around with empty morality games and what have you. Lucy says she wants him on her side, says she wants to finish what they started together, and that she’s going to do just that. And Flynn can see right away (”no offense, Lucy, but you’ve looked better) that something’s changed, but when she lays down the law flat, that’s when he can actually feel it.

So yes. Give me all the fallout, slow-burn, angst, stubborn, ruthless-but-vulnerable soulmates fighting each other exactly as they know how to do and realizing how much they are paralleling. Give me the whole messy situation at the end of 1x16 worked through and developed and turned into something lovely. Give me 2x04 for literally all the reasons, but also give me that scene presumably in 2x03 with Lucy softening and almost crying as she tells him that they need him, because that’s the point she was trying to make all along. That’s what she wants them to be. But Flynn is, as well attested, an idiot. He’s not wrong, and Lucy’s not wrong, and yet. They obviously cannot see eye to eye right now, and that’s how you make good drama. Your characters are flawed and motivated and even, in this case, agree broadly on their goals (stop Rittenhouse by any means”) but their past history makes it very complicated for them to cooperate, even though they want to.

Like I keep saying: Do not, do not, fuck ye with Lucy Preston right now, ladies and gentlemen. Because her whole world is burning down behind her, and she will not shed a single tear.

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy meta #timeless meta #garcia flynn #lucy preston #look i need so much more okay #but yes like #if this goes where i think/feel it will #please sir may i have some more #timeless spoilers

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bladesmcna · 7 years

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Time for me to meta about everything the Keith video touched on. PSA it’s a long read. It’s just over 2k words. Also psa DO NOT REBLOG.

I’d like to start off this with a song lyric that I feel really resonates with keith.

Have you ever felt like nobody was there? Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere? Have you ever felt like you could disappear? Like you could fall, and no one would hear?

I’m going to start from the beginning of Keith’s life because frankly, that’s where all of his problems started. Keith has never canonically mentioned his father other than in the blade episode so there’s not much to go on there. BUT now that he’s mentioned his mother leaving him we can infer that Keith has abandonment issues. He blames the way he is now on the fact that his mother left him. His biggest question is WHY she left him. What did he do wrong? Why didn’t she love him? It’s all these questions that he’s asked himself for years now.

The next point I’d like to move on to is the abandonment issues that came along as a result of his mother leaving him. Now while I hc that his father died ( the show could prove me wrong but whatever ) and then Keith was shipped off to the Garrison instead of going into foster care that’s another issue of Keith being alone. His father left him by himself, no other family to contact. Instead they shipped him off to the Garrison where he tried to bust his ass to make something out of himself. He needed to prove to himself that even with all the shit he’s gone through that he could be more than his parents deaths.

I’d also like to point out how Keith is never taught any coping mechanisms on how to deal with loss or anger or anything that could make him uncomfortable. He’s literally been shown to lose his cool and get angry the second he feels uncomfortable. Why? Because he doesn’t have any other way of dealing with. It’s not like he wants to get angry all the time he just doesn’t know how to control it. He gets worked up and then can’t stop himself until it’s too late and then whenever someone such as Shiro or Lance call him out and ask him to calm down he’s calm almost immediately, why? Because he never intends to get that angry in the first place. After being called out about it it’s just another slap in the face that he can’t control himself or his emotions because he never had someone there to teach him.

This is where I wanna bring Shiro into the picture. They obviously knew each other through the Garrison ( my ships aside here ) they were most likely friends before Shiro went off to Kerberos. So not only had Keith finally made a friend, but he then had to watch them go off into space and then be reported missing. There’s another instance of loss in his life and he doesn’t know how to cop so what happens? He drops out because of disciplinary issues. Aka he couldn’t keep his temper in check because again, he bottled his feelings until the point where he was a human catalyst and exploded.

After dropping out Keith had basically no where to go so he found himself in an old shack. Where he got to stew on his feelings alone for a few months. This is when the realization that everything in his life as amounted to nothing hits him. His parents are both gone, his one and only friend is presumed dead in space and he dropped out of a top flight school where he was at the top of his class only to end up ALONE. Out of the 3 canonically relevant people he’d ever been close to in his life, all of three of them had left him. That’s when the depression hits him harder than before. He struggles waking up every day he struggles taking care of himself. His hair grows out he forgets how to interact with people. He doesn’t know how to function as a person anymore.

After awhile it was too much for him. He feels like he never deserved a chance to be born with in the first place because whatever high being there is out there ( I personally don’t think Keith is religious ) gave him this sort of life even after he busted his ass to try and become someone. Yet there he was, thrown out in the dirt once again.

Another thing I’d like to touch on is how Keith actually views himself because that’s super important to me and how I write him.

Keith doesn’t view himself in a good light at all for all the reasons I’ve already listed. Keith doesn’t see himself as the ‘number one pilot’ the rest of the team might see him for. He’s flawed. He can’t deal with most social situations without getting aggressive or awkward because honestly he’s had more interaction with people in the first two episodes of voltron than nearly his entire life prior to him finding Shiro again. So of course he’s awkward and quiet unless provoked. ( which honestly isn’t a hard thing to do BUT i digress ) He also has a hard time grasping a lot of social concepts that many people think are second nature. ( insert the i say vol you say tron example here ) The reason why he’s so hung up on the whole i say voltron deal is because to him, it makes more logical sense to just say voltron than to say something that, while yes it’s supposed to be humorous, just doesn’t make any sense to him. Keith isn’t one for humor that isn’t direct/blunt because a lot of the time his brain can’t wrap itself around the concept.

I also want to touch on his the relationships he holds with the paladins themselves and how he views their input.

I’d like to start this off with the beginning of season three whenever they were all deciding who was going to pilot the black lion. Their aggression towards him confessing that Shiro kept being like ‘i want you to lead voltron’ but having never mentioned it to anyone else, not even to coran or allura is like a huge kick in the face to the little confidence he had in himself. One because he hates being rejected because that’s all he’s ever been his entire life. Two, is because he thought the team thought more highly of him than just the loner and yet there they were calling him out and making him feel like he was at the bottom of the barrel. The only talent any of them ever acknowledge is his piloting skills. Nothing else about him shines, he’s just a good pilot to them.

Moving on to whenever they all actually go in the black lion. Keith was the LAST to attempt and honestly he probably only attempted because everyone else was pressuring him to. He had to try right? Except he never wanted to lead voltron in the first place. He doesn’t have the skill set to lead he doesn’t have the qualities of a leader. Even after the black lion responds to him he wants to deny it, he wants to let someone else do it because he can’t have such a big responsibility placed on him whenever he knows he’s going to fail.

That’s when everyone starts to congratulate him and he feels like he’s just been kicked in the teeth. He knows their true feelings, he knows that know of them really value his ability to pilot over him and yet there they were being like ‘oh you’re going to be a great leader.’ Yet he wasn’t. He almost got Allura killed. They wanted him to lead so he did, and he failed.

Once again he’d failed. He failed his mother’s love, his fathers legacy, and how he’d failed Shiro. That only made the depression worse.

Moving back all the way to season 1 I want to talk about the famous ‘bonding moment’ that was humorously touched in the show.

The reason ( I feel at least ) Keith is so upset about Lance not remembering it is because for the first time since Shiro, Keith had found someone that had seen him in a good light. Someone that had complimented him. Even after all the headassery that Lance had started with Keith he thought they made a good team, and this good team work is shown time and time again throughout the show and yet the fact that Lance forgets it just solidifies to Keith that nothing he does is worth remembering.

This is the time where I put my little blurb about Lance and Keith and their interactions

So Lance starts basically everything in the rivalry between the two of them. Literally within the first five minutes of meeting Keith, Lance is already shoving his superiority down his throat. At first Keith didn’t understand why Lance was like this and why Lance kept pushing it on him. ( he even finds it somewhat annoying and like Lance has a problem ) Yet as time goes on the rivalry turns into a more competitive nature that Keith starts to play back with. At first Keith really just wanted Lance to get off his case, and now it’s like their rivalry has brought them closer together by the time season 3 rolls around.

My last few little blurbs before I close off this novel of a meta

Keith deals with anxiety and depression that’s almost without a doubt 100% canon in my eyes. The way he acts and the way he carries himself and how he speaks and the way he words things and all this stuff is clearly a sign that he’s struggling with it and he doesn’t know how to control it, yet he also doesn’t want to admit that he has a problem because he doesn’t want to fail everyone on the team yet again.

Keith also values everyone on his team way more than what he lets on. He protects Allura from the arusian that comes to the castle asking why the lion goddess is mad. He catches Pidge from being thrown and all the times he’s thrown his sword to protect Lance and everything else he’s done. He wants to protect the team because they’ve become almost like his first real family. Yet he’s also terrified that this new family will drop him too, just like everyone else.

Keith struggles with his galra side. He struggles taking in the fact that he’s not what he thought he was his entire life and that just makes him not know who he is even more. Sometimes whenever he looks in the mirror he doesn’t see himself, but instead Zarkon or Lotor because that’s where part of him is from. He hates the term ‘galra keith’ because it’s like the fact once everyone knows that he’s galra he’s instantly not himself anymore but instead this evil abomination that’s wiped out entire systems with his army. Him being Galra is just the nail in the coffin that once again, he’s a huge disappointment to everyone.

He fears rejection big time. Because all anyone has ever done from the get go is reject him. His mother rejected him by leaving, he rejected himself from the garrison. Lance rejects him by throwing all of his flaws in his face. He can’t catch a break. He tries so hard to prove to everyone that he’s more than the broken parts of him that he hides away. He wants to try and prove to everyone ( including himself ) that he can be more than just some socially awkward teenager.

In closing I’d like to bring up the song lyric I put at the top of this post

Have you ever felt like nobody was there? Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere? Have you ever felt like you could disappear? Like you could fall, and no one would hear?

This is basically how Keith views himself. He honestly thinks he’s replaceable. They could find someone else in the galaxy with his piloting skills. They could find a new red paladin that wasn’t the loner emo brooding hot head. He feels like everyone on the team has forgotten that hey, he’s a person with feelings too. Not just some teenage kid who gets angry all the time for the hell of it. He feels like if he died, he’d die alone. If he died no one would care because he never really amounted to anything in life. He never changed anyone’s life or impacted others the way some have done for him. If he died no one would miss him because he doesn’t even have a family on earth to go back to. He thinks that if he died, everyone would just keep on living and forget about him.

And being forgotten is his biggest fear.

#★ ┊ KEITHISMS. headcanon #I STG IF ANYONE REBLOGS THIS IM GONNA STAB THEM

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eternallybroken7604-blog · 5 years

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We have been up for 2 days. I accepted years ago that this has to be part of my life. He's a package deal. But I am so tired. I do it with him. Idk y. I don't enjoy it most times. But I'm also afraid and to sleep while he's up. I learned not to the hard way.... A part of me wants my life back. My before life. But I know it will be the fight of my life. And I'm not ready. I sometimes tell myself that this was God's plan. I believe that each of us have at least one person that they are mentally to impact in some way and set in motion a positive path. Or bring a lost soul to God. God made me strong and brought me this man. He had to put me thru it to equip me to be wha this man needs. Maybe I'm the only one capable of sticking this journey out with him and bringing him out other side with me. That's why my addiction is so odd. My husband gets locked up from time to time, and when he's gone, I don't do any dope, I smoke my weed. But with the dope, he does my shots, from start to finish. He twirls the bowl. I don't want to know how. I tried once, he got arrested at the end of an 8 month horrendous, traumatizing bender. Suddenly my person is gone and I've been up for weeks. I tried to do it myself. I had the audacity to tell him about it at visitation, because he has always hated doing my shots. He feels enough guilt over where my life is and where it was. He's scared that bnb if I die, he will go to prison. So I always take sure my prints are on it too. He's not ready to even see that he needs to change. I can see that it weighs on him sometimes. And he will want to do better. But then he has no way to stop the guilt, the pain, self hatred. The high and associated relief are his constant and a very erratic life. I'm aware of all this and more. I'm aware I could be completely wrong and he really is just a piece of shit junkiethat destroy a family by joining it. I can't even fault him for that. My kids adored him. And he them. He had a family finally. He was know where near ready to be a step dad. But he gave it an honest try. Then again maybe I just rrwa lly ne ed there to be a greater purpose beh9nd all this, losing my babies, my self respect, my family. Everything.

I can't hate him for being selfish and out for number one, it's all his life has really ever been. I can see what drives everything about h, I study him cause I have never met someone that level of addicted. I cant explain why his thought processes fascinate me, I have to study them til I understand them. Which is hard to do because it's so complex and I'm juggling moneyissues, homelessness, the hustle, him in general, and the dope. The more I learn him, the more pity I feel and I cant leave. I love him to a fault, but I am not ready to abandon him to his demons. He won't survive it with any sort of sanity. He would argue with me on that but it's the one thing I believe with no doubt, he does need me. I think he knows it deep down. He knows I'm 100% on his side. Even if he dont like how at times. He knows I'm real. Even if he tells u I'm not. It's like his pride and years of telling me in so inferior refuse to allow him to recognize anyachievements, no matter the size. I know this but I forget every time we fight, cause it's his defense mechanism with me, it's about the only thing that works. He will reach I to the depths of cruelty and verbally destroy me. He knows what hurts me too. He has left scars that will never go away. I will never forget his eyes and voices and the feeling of my own pain at things he has said. My first husband beat me, that's not how u hurt me. The act of being able to hurt me, that really hurts. My now husband has gotten physical a few times. I cant hate him for it long because I see how much he hates himself for it. But that pride tho, he wont apologize verbally, but he will show me best he can that he's sorry. He knows I deserve better. He went thru a phase where all the blame was put on me for not leaving when it first started, woth the dope and us losing the kids. I tell myself I pushed him too far. It's no excuse I know. But I know how much weighs on him daily, and when substances are u introduced, well I am the embodiment of a large portion of his pain and stress and guilt. I forgive him because I know he's not mentally able to deal with all that and day to day life without help. To stubborn to ever agree with me but I just k ow I'm right. Cant explain that but it's never led me wrong. I shoulder as much as he will let me. And getting high and drunk and my mouth can sometimes push him too far, exacerbates things.

I knew he was a 'recovering' addict when we met. But he only smoked weed when I met him. I thought all that was his past. I didn't mind weed. I didn't personally smoke when we met. I was a divorced mom to 3. We were all finally happy and stable after my horror of an ex-husband. Idk y I fell in love with this man. But I did. He was my first serious relationship in the 2 years since. I never even missed sex, I wasn't lonely. I didn't miss that kind of love until...I was reminded.

8 mos later, we have a place together with my kids. Then a neighbor moved and offered my husband dope. He hid it for a little bit. But I picked up on his different behaviors and made him tell me. Then I wanted to smoke some too. I'd heard of Meth. But I grew up very sheltered by a pill head. I didnt know that when this gorgeous man told me he used to be an addict that he meant thousands of dollars and many hears of hardcore IV drug use. Herion, bar salts. His drug of choice was simply, more. He named his addiction Maria. He needed that relief so badly that once he discovered its power to 'fix' things, he personified his addiction. Maria has been his stability. Shes lways there when everyone else let's him dow. I can understand the desire not to feel. So badly u wanna die. But I was raised different. U can be weak, but dont stay weak. .

But by the time I realized that he didn't recover from his addictions, he fled his former home state and had no access to those things here. He was big on the run big ti.e qhen we met. Hes a hardened city boy. I'm a small town countrygirl. He let me smoke with him. A week later, hes got a needle. I have never seen a pill snorted. I wanted him to let watch him and he did. Seeing the man I love so in thrall to drugs, it broke my heart for him. Women pray to God to see a man look at them with that look. His addiction borders worship. As I write this we are also high with a few friends, he just finished fixing his shot and has decided to ask them to film him. I cant keep going. Thats bothers.me and ill to tore up now to try to figure out my feelings. So I'll wrap this up. My emotions are going every where and I really hate him like this. I hope he watches his video and hates himself. I love him and wint leave him to feel all that guiltalone, that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to feel most of it. God knows I feel my fair share. I promise myself one thing, I will not live like this forever. I'll keep looking for my way out. I'll keep praying for strength to leave. Or for God to open his eyes. I know better than to preach too much at him. He usually shuts down as soon. as he realizes what I'm saying. But I still try. He doesn't know it yet, cause he has never felt it before, but I love him enough for this. I will win this fight. Even if he hates.me in the end. (Forgove any typos, I'm intoxicated and when I get adamant about a topic, I type too fast)

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