#ib is suspicious of both of them the whole time

[metamatronic]

yes i’m drawing 15-years-later ib AU comics 12 years post release date. what about it.

#ib #mary ib #ib garry #ib spoilers #ib game #ib AU #ok but what if though #mary over-confident until she realizes the paintings don’t listen to her anymore #garry like “i’m going to tell them the truth and explain the situation” #and then meets them and immediately crumbles #“HI JUST A NORMAL GALLERY ATTENDEE TRYING TO ESCAPE” #ib is suspicious of both of them the whole time #garry because suspicious nervous man who she feels like she’s met before #and mary because she can tell her sister’s hiding something #oh yeah and garry thinks mary doesn’t remember anything #(she does)

[magnorious]

A Lightning Thief Retrospective, 16 Years Later

Good grief, I am old. *Spoilers ahead*

In the spirit of the resurgence of appreciation for this series, I’m doing a retrospective on the books that single-handedly got me to love reading. No matter how old I get, Percy and co will always hold a special place on my bookshelf and in my soul. 16 years later and I have my own books to show for it.

*Disclaimer, I have read the books multiple times in the interim, but I first got my hands on it, and first fell in love with it, in 2008.

So: The Lightning Thief

The Greek-verse isn’t Riordan’s only series to open with a fourth-wall-breaking element, nor is it the only series to open with a “if you’re reading this, be warned” narrative (Maximum Ride comes to mind) but, at least in the paperback edition circa 2006, the last lines on the first page read:

Am I a troubled kid?Yeah, you could say that.

And I just… it’s so Percy. It’s perfect. You have no idea what it really means on your first read through but sixteen years later after growing up with these books, that line just makes me grin like the little kid that’s still inside.

As I kept reading, I tried my best to remove my “victim of the hellish IB Program, literary analyst” hat. This book spoon feeds you exposition in a really palatable way. We’ve seen the museum scene adapted twice now and while older me thinks that’s really convenient timing, it does a lot of legwork while also being short enough to keep the attention of its intended audience. It is also very, very good at foreshadowing, and setting up major payoffs, for events later in this book and beyond.

“Mr. Brunner” looking at the stele of the unnamed hero like he’d been to her funeral

Luke’s scar in the firelight making him look evil

Percy’s affinity for water and the sea, peeking into Cabin 3 before it’s his

The Fates’ electric-blue (remind you of anyone’s eyes?) string

“Someone summoned it,” Chiron said. “Someone inside the camp.”Luke came over….

Ares’ curse on Percy

Speaking of foreshadowing – prophecies. Since all five books have them, I’m dedicating a section in each review to each one.

You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

The whole point of these things is to drive you crazy trying to figure out what they mean before they play out, making you rotten suspicious and paranoid. The book does go line by line in the end and explains how each element was resolved. It’s both very deceptive, on purpose, but easy to grasp for younger readers. I think the prophecies in Titans Curse and Battle of the Labyrinth are superior, but it does its job well.

—

The whole book, likely intentionally so, with an ADHD protagonist, isn’t filled with fluffy narrative. There’s a ton of one-sentence paragraphs and Percy’s personality always shines through, even from page one, a la Holden Caulfield. Even when it’s an exposition-heavy scene, or just traveling while on their quest, nothing ever *lingers*.

Percy is direct in his observations and his narration jumps about from thinking about some random comment another character made that’s poignant in the moment to funny descriptions of the mythic world, to pitching his two-cents on the matter, expressing his annoyances with Annabeth, etc, all in a snappy and easy to keep up with manner. He doesn’t wax poetic, that’s not who he is and that’s not the story this book is telling.

For anyone intimidated by chapter books (re: me at that age) this book is endlessly approachable. He doesn’t have *too much* personality to be distracting, but he has enough to be more than a reader-insert everyman.

I don’t necessarily believe he’s twelve, but he does have that childish immaturity with his narrating and I forget if it ages with him. Since I brought up Maximum Ride earlier, she’s a child protagonist who does not read like a 14 year old girl, she reads like a quirky caricature written by a middle-aged dude.

**Side note, upon my re-read, it came to my attention that the Disney show inexplicably skipped the cutting of the thread with the Fates scene that is like, foreshadowing for the entire series**

*Side side note, Percy isn’t the one who came up with Wise Girl, it was Clarisse. Chapter 6**

I also forgot just how big a temper Percy has. He contemplates kicking Smelly Gabe in the balls for being mean to Sally, with zero care for the consequences. Not to mention the whole “Gabe would love to give away free appliances” schtick. He’s such a little sh*t and we love him.

For a book that’s largely action adventure, it balances the slower moments with the fight scenes smoother than butter. Percy’s demigod-ness gives him quite a bit of plot armor and excuse to survive these fights as a mostly-untrained twelve-year old without making him unrealistically over-competent.

The world building, at least in my opinion, feels like it looked at Harry Potter and went “I can fix that”. There’s not one cabin of demigods rudely and unfairly and problematically labeled Wizard Nazis, (except Grover insinuating that Hades’ kids were actual Nazis in WWII…. Hmm). The Mist exists to hand-wave away everything mortals aren’t supposed to see. It gets really creative with modernizing these myths and making them more child-friendly, and does a good job at urbanizing it, for lack of a better term. The concept of mapping Ancient Greece onto the US is neat, for American readers, and the explanation of “traveling Western Civilization” makes sense. The Underworld having traffic and toll booths was funny.

It treads the razor-thin line of “paganism is real” as well as it can, I think. It focuses less on “creation of the universe was definitely this” and more “the forces of nature have names and faces,” and sidesteps the giant sinkhole of Christianity and Christian readers with “we shan’t deal with the metaphysical,” and says nothing more about it, or demigods who grew up religious, or the other pantheons (yet). Beyond a throwaway dead preacher who Grover argues likely sees the underworld through his Christian kaleidoscope.

The series also doesn’t suffer egregious plot holes, only some continuity errors (like Blackjack). One that comes to mind in TLT is that if Camp contacted Sally about watching over Percy, Sally knew his dad was Poseideon. So how did the whole “I want to watch over your son cause he’s interesting, hm, can’t put my finger on why. Say, who’s his dad?” never lead anywhere? But it doesn’t break the immersion, certainly not for young readers.

It’s interesting how, looking back after knowing the entire story, how the seeds of doubt are right there, in your face, from the moment Percy learns the gods are real. It’s almost a meta self-fulfilling prophecy how things go so wrong for these characters, it’s so obvious.

SInce it is an adventure, the places they go are all wildly and entertainingly different. The garden gnome emporium, St. Louis Arch, Waterland, the Lotus casino, Crusty’s waterbed store. Each provides their own challenges and take full advantage of “mythology is real”.

Let’s talk about the villains, and how Hades was not done dirty this time. I’m going to presume that it’s bias on part of the characters for the whole “Hades’ kids were Nazis” and it’s absolutely on Chiron for insisting that Hades is the culprit when he sends Percy on his quest. Nowadays, especially with the staggering popularity of Nico, Hades has been pretty well redeemed in the eyes of a casual reader. But I think, at the time it was written, making Hades not the villain here was fantastic. He’s still a god, still a jerk, still dangerous, but he’s not the Devil. He drew the short straw and is an introvert written by salty extroverts.

Luke, for a twist villain (read my post here for a deeper analysis) and Ares as a tool of Kronos worked really well. If anyone got the Slytherin treatment, I guess it would have been the Ares cabin, but… he’s a jerk. His kids got his temperament, thus they are jerks. But even then – Ares was just a tool, a crude hammer swung alarmingly well.

Setting up your series-defining villain as a disembodied voice pulling strings is nothing new, but it comes with the benefit of two thousand years of real-world mythology backing up this entity’s power. Kronos is basically a non-entity in this book, but what he does is effective, and kudos for making readers’ skin crawl with the near-tragedy at the edge of Tartarus (foreshadowing!!!!!).

Something else the book does well is having a very well-written and uniquely motivated reluctant chosen one. Yeah, we’d all rather be demigods than Tributes, but being a demigod has drawbacks that being a wizard doesn’t. They don’t shy away from the risk of kids getting skewered and mauled, even if you don’t actually see it happening. This is dangerous work.

And, Percy calls it out – he exists to be used. That’s all demigods are worth to the Olympians. So, he’s going to use this quest to rescue his mom. He doesn’t give a damn about his dad, he doesn’t care about the looming civil war, doesn’t think it’s even the right thing to do, except to prevent the nuclear fallout that said war would cause.

He’s not one of those whiny “I just want to be normal” protagonists like no child in the history of ever has dreamed of if they were in their hero’s shoes. He’s also not pumped and jazzed and excited about being a demigod. They’re the victims of abusive and absent parents and, for a kids series, I still think such a sobering subject was handled really, really well.

You want to be a hero like Percy. You’re rooting for him from the first page. Discovering all his new powers is fun, daydreaming getting claimed right along with him. It isn’t dated with pop culture references and most of the humor lands (a novel experience that does not last forever, unfortunately). He’s sassy and sarcastic and his in-character ignorance and naivety opens the door for plenty of smooth exposition and letting the reader discover the world through his eyes, without feeling lifeless.

Speaking of personality, his rapport with Annabeth grows pretty decently over the course of the book, from being super catty to getting embarrassed on the tunnel of love ride, as if anyone would really care. They have their spats, but the budding friendship is realistic and she doesn’t feel at all like the girl hastily written in because the author forgot to include one.

She has her faults, but that’s the point. She’s also a victim of godly propaganda, and twelve, and literally burdened with hubris. All three of them bounce off each other well, each bringing different strengths and weaknesses to the trio, building each other up and bickering to tear each other down because, you know – twelve.

—

I read somewhere that the first five books all pay homage to some of the most famous Greek myths. Lightning Thief’s myth is that of the original Perseus with these familiar beats shared by both:

Murdering Medusa via reflective surface

Wrongfully convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and punished by Zeus

Hermes’ winged shoes

Hades’ missing war helm

Obtaining a cool new sword

Rescuing his mom from the Bad Guy

Not dying tragically

Princess Andromeda (the more famous Perseus myth adapted by Wrath and Clash of the Titans) does make an appearance in Sea of Monsters.

The joke people used to make about the fans of the series is that reading PJO does not make a mythology expert, but that isn’t the point. The books opened the door to further research at your own pace and maybe fostered love of a subject and culture you’d go on to study later in life.

This review is about the book, not the show, but it is a disservice to the book to cram nearly ten entire chapters of content, out of twenty-two (156 pages in the ‘06 paperback) into two episodes both less than an hour long. No wonder the premier felt, night and day, far inferior to episode 3. Episode 3 wasn’t sprinting the entire time.

Overall, the missing-persons-turned-possible-child-terrorist subplot stayed its welcome exactly as long as it needed to and every time I think about this book I forget it’s even part of the story. The payoff is really at the end with the free appliances and, of course, Gabe’s just desserts.

The book is absolutely, transparently, the first leg of a relay race, not one of those “I wrote this and it was successful now I have to come up with a sequel” stories and all the seeds of development for the series at large were expertly scattered.

The worst I have to say about the book is this: The constant “Thalia, daughter of Zeus.” There’s at least seven of them across the book and the whole title almost every time she’s mentioned reads a bit strange.

It’s paced excellently, with a few slow beats for good character development in between locations. The foundations of our heroes are solid, all the twists and turns with the true villains and the real meaning of the prophecy was well done. For the book that began a multi-series world of interconnected pantheons with new publications still coming out today, it’s humble and smart and, for a “children's” book, anyone can enjoy it, no nostalgia required.

#the lightning thief #percy jackson #retrospective #pjo #pjo series #pjo hoo toa #review

[truethes]

          @peachiiihearts​​ asked:  👫 || hands u this for garry + ib and leaves

send a 👫and I’ll write four headcanons I have about our muse’s relationship ( accepting! )

ib’s family unofficially adopts garry a couple of years after the game. at first her mother is VERY suspicious of this man, but it becomes clear that while garrys life at home isn’t exactly the best, he’s always taken the time to make sure ib is okay above his own health, and while she would rather ib make friends more her own age, it’s clear to her parents that she trusts garry a lot. it starts off with a trip to the gallery ending with them inviting him home for tea, to babysitting ib a couple of nights hours here or there until one day ib’s mother tells him if there’s anything he needs, he can always trust on them, too. it did, of course, end with a lot of tears - and is a very big motivation for him to get the final pieces of his life together, he gives up smoking very quickly the more he’s around ib, and pursues his own career in art following the interest he gained from childhood.

garry buys ib a new handkerchief! mainly because he probably can’t actually get the blood out of the original one she gave him after however long they both found themselves in the fabricated world. it’s a slightly different colour to even what it looked like before , and while it’s not up to the standard of the original stitching, he does manage to stitch her name back into the corner of it. he hands it over next time they meet with a box of apologetic macaroons, and while he does offer to give her back the original one ... a stern glare from ibs mother and the confusion on the little girls face makes him decide that perhaps that wasn’t the smartest of plans, but he believes it was good enough to perhaps check at least ...

together, they create a small memorial for mary.  it’s very out of place, and garry never brings himself to fully complete her painting lest he brings her back to life and stuck in the fabricated world all over again. but they create a space together to remember mary by without tainting those subtle happy times they did share. they end up keeping her ( and the memorials ) space a secret, due to the fact they know people will most likely not believe them and end up giving a whole new bombardment of questions in a way that if they don’t answer, not many would actually believe them. when garry grows older, he definitely adopts a ragdoll cat and names her mary in return, the name is probably not very lost on ib at all!

garry understands ib’s silence a lot more than others. mainly because of their shared experience together, but also because he can recognise when she’s shut herself off from difficult situations because it has always been similar to the way he tried to, as well. when ib wants something, but does not know / does not wish to ask for it, it’s garry who will notice at first and go out of his way to get it for her. otherwise, he may prompt someone else to take note. it works better as ib learns to navigate new places. considering it was her first trip to an art museum, he tries his best to take her to history and science museums too ... but they’re not allowed to watch anything like night of the museum, following all their previous experiences in the gallery.

#peachiiihearts #❛ ♡ › garry : 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱. #this made me SOOO soft oh my god thank you for sending #long post / #garry is just ibs older brother now canonly i heard it myself

[sergeant-donny-donowitz]

The First Basterd: DonnyxFem!Reader

requested by @marlenemarauders

A/N *Reader is Polish & Jewish, but you don't have to be either to read it :D

@owba-chan @war-obsessed @inglourious-imagines @tammykelly @struggling-bee @frozenhuntress67 @kwyloz @sodapop182 @marlenemarauders @what-the--curtains @taikawho @spookybearlandtaco Let me know if you wanna be added to the IB or OUATIH taglists! :) _________________________________________ ***November, 1943***

You huffed as you walked through the dense forest. A puff of cool air forming a cloud before your lips as you marched through the winter. Your sniper was slung over your shoulders. You gave the bright grey sky a rare glance with a sigh, before returning to the constant scan of forest floor. You were once a lone sniper, far from home. You had been, since 1939. Lone sniper or not, you quickly learned that in order to survive in war, you had to make a few allies. By late 1942, you had more than a few. Things would change then, though you hadn't anticipated that just yet. By late 1942, you had made a name for yourself. Now, none of your enemies quite knew your name. All they could call you was the Basterd. A composite sketch of you from descriptions from nazis who'd barely survived your gaze was sent halfway around Europe and back. By late 1942, every nazi west of the Vistula River knew your face, and knew you as the Basterd. By 1943, they'd learn you were only the first basterd. 

Back in November of 1942, just before the basterds left England to jump over France, they were informed at the last minute that a special agent working undercover in France would be guiding them when they landed. They were expecting an older, more experienced, serious, mysterious agent. Probably a British spy, or a rogue Soviet. The kind of thing they saw in old movies. They got you, instead. And they loved you... Maybe a little too much, you'd say. It had been a year since then, and you loved them all to pieces, honestly. But, you were a little more than a little annoyed by now. Each and every basterd loved you in his own way...and consequently, became overprotective. Every time you had to risk showing your face to nazis, Aldo hung around dangerously closely, which only made it all riskier. Smitty tried to convince you to only use your sniper, and never even get close enough to have your face seen at all. Omar called him all sorts of names over that, but then acted even more ridiculously by making a Robin-esque kind of mask for you. Hirschberg ceaselessly and shamelessly flirted with you, and stole your kills, insisting you shouldn't waste your time. Wicki was a little more...mature about it. He was still overprotective, but quiet about it. None was more head over heels than Donny. You liked to hang around with him a little more because he made you feel less like a liability, and more like a basterd. Still, it took every ounce of patience and strength to not remind them every waking moment of your life that you were once the Basterd. Until today. Donny took a bullet for you. Well...it was meant for you, but it was a whole meter away from you. The bullet grazed Donny's shoulder, but it could have been so much worse. When the scalping and interrogating was over, you were fuming as you paced back and forth, gathering all the supplies you needed to take care of Donny. "The basterds need you, Y/n. I need you." He knew exactly what you were thinking, and it scared him. What scared you more was that this was not the first time one of the basterds had done something stupid like that. And, you weren't so sure it would be the last. You were tired of it, and you were tired of thinking that if some day, something happened to them, it would be because of you. "Not now, Donny." You shook your head, and clenched your jaw, knowing that if you didn't, you would raise your voice and all hell. "What?" "Not like this," You were exasperated, shaking your head, "Not now. Not in the middle of a fucking war." You were livid. You and Donny had joked about it before. As time went on, you had to actually talk about it.  It kept you both up till two am. It got you both through gunfire, through rain, through sleepless nights. But you'd both come to the same conclusion. This was war. This was no place for love. "Fuck a duck," Donny reached for your hand, but you pulled away as he called out, "I couldn't fucking let them hurt you! Y-" "I was a whole meter away from the bullet! I am not a child in need of protecting." You did your best at cleaning the wound, focusing directly on the blood. If you looked at him, at that smirk you knew he had, you would probably punch him. "When you Americans were still arguing about joining the war, I was already out here, alone, with a stolen gun, running out of bullets, far from home, and far from any allies. I've seen it all, done it all. I've survived." You muttered, "I don't know what more you expect from me." You finally looked at him, with a reproachful glance that stung him,  "I don't know why you expect so little when I'm one of you!" He stammered for a moment, not able to find any justification for it. "It's not that we expect little from you, it's just that....we....I mean..." Donny wasn't the kind of person that stuttered, stammered, and stalled. Whatever he had to say to you, he was having a hard time putting into words, and you were not happy about it. You gave up, uncrossed your arms with an exasperated sigh, and turned away.  "For fuck's sake." "It's just that..." You stormed out of the tent to grab some more bandages, and he followed you. "What? That I'm a girl? I should be sitting behind a typewriter on a fucking base? I should just stick to being a nurse? Let me re-fucking-mind you that I was not trained to be a nurse, I learned all of this out here on my own, years before you even fucking enlisted." All the basterds were sitting around, and could hear it all too clearly. It didn't matter to you, and it didn't embarrass you as much as it would have any other day. They could hear anyway, and...you wanted them to hear. You wanted all of them to quit it. Omar munched on a sandwich and remarked with a shrug, "...She has a point," not yet realizing how serious you were. "Omar!" Smitty put up his hands in exasperation, shaking his head. Aldo muttered, as he opened his tin of snuff, "Just keep your fucken mouth shut."

"Unbelievable. After a whole fucking year..." you muttered, rifling through the supplies for at least one clean, spare bandage. Wicki turned to the others, whispering "So she's mad-mad..." "What else is new?" Hirschberg chuckled, and all the basterds glared at him, not wanting to collectively face your vengeance. Because, as much as they acted like big bad basterds around you and the rest of the world, they were just a tiny bit scared of you. And rightfully so. You shook your head, "I have a higher body count than all of you combined." That alone would have struck fear in anyone's heart. You finally wrapped a bandage around Donny's wound tightly. "Ow! Fuck, Y/n!" "When will you stop acting like I need saving?!" You put your hands at your hips, finally looking at them all, effectively terrifying them. The only thing more terrifying at the moment would be to lose you. "I'm sick and tired of this ridiculous shit. If this is as far as we can get without one of you biting a fucking bullet 'for me', then maybe I should quit." You were dead serious.

You turned your back on them, walking east, which terrified them even more, as they all jumped to their feet, and rushed toward you. "Where are you going?" Wicki asked, completely concerned. Honestly, that was his thing. Being a bit older than all the basterds, he was usually genuinely concerned for all of you. But...mostly you. "You were all ordered to be on this team. I chose it. Now I'm choosing to go to Frankfurt. If you want to come, be my guest. But don't ever do anything stupid, like that again" You gestured to Donny, and he only grinned, wanting desparately to believe that you were bluffing. But, even he knew better than that. "What the hell's in Frankfurt?" Aldo asked, packing up his few belongings, quickly followed by the others. You turned back to look at them, beginning to grin a little. "You ever hear of a man by the name of Hugo Stiglitz?" There was a resounding no. You sighed, "If you want to know, then walk and talk," you shrugged, slinging your sniper over your shoulder, as you walked east. The basterds trotted by, as you revealed a particularly interesting anecdote. _____________ It was 1939. Sirens had been blaring so long and so often, when they stopped, everything sounded as if you were underwater. There was nothing and no one left in Krakow that you could recognize. There were nazis in the streets. There was glass on the ground. People were missing. You had only one chance to escape. It was on the shore of the Vistula river, under the cover of the dark night sky, and the shroud of a thundering storm that you took that chance. You killed a nazi. You took his sniper, and you took off, hoping to make it to Denmark, which was still free at the time. Then, you were sure you'd find a way to help. You'd been running for days on end. When you finally had a moment to breathe, you were in a land you did not know. You didn't even know what day it was. It had felt as though years had gone by. But when you looked around in the dimly lit streets of a strange and small town, your hands shook, your heart stopped, and you watched as your world collapsed. You were in the middle of Germany, nowhere near Denmark. You were only beginning to panic... You had nowhere to go. You had no way to hide a sniper. You felt a thousand eyes falling on you accusingly. You had just caught the eye of a man in a gestapo uniform. He walked over to you, and people turned away. He had been alerted about a "suspicious figure." When he spotted you, he  walked down the street, not raising any alarms or orders. He walked by you, ushering you to a side street, then to a quiet, isolated alley. He saw how terrified you were, and quickly began explaining he knew a place where you could hide. You looked at him, with wide eyes, and hardly breathing. You saw blood on his knife. (And years later, you'd learn he'd just killed one of his officers, minutes before finding you.) He smiled kindly, thinking for a moment, finding the string of Polish words he'd learned not too long ago. "Nazywam się Hugo Stiglitz." 'My name is Hugo Stiglitz.' You didn't know if you could trust him, but when you saw his eyes, you knew you had no choice. When you realized he was putting himself on the line for you, you spoke to him in whatever German you could piece together, "Ich kann von hier aus gehen. Ich kann es schaffen. Geh, bevor du erwischt wirst." You looked so frightened, he could hardly believe what you'd just said, "I can go from here. I can make it. Go, before you get caught."

Hugo simply shook his head, with an assuring smile. "Frag mich nicht Dinge, die ich nicht tun kann." "Don't ask me things I cannot do."

Hugo hid you in the home of a friend, and then another, and another. There was a chain of them. Some of them were hiding neighboring families, some were hiding childhood friends. Some were hiding complete strangers, like you. Hugo visited you every day, wherever you were hidden. He couldn't help you get to Denmark, but, France was an option. He warned you that part of, if not all of France would probably be invaded in a matter of time, and urged you to find a way out. Anywhere. As far as you could. You promised him you'd stay safe, and stay in France, but...he wouldn't find out, would he? He sighed as he escorted you himself to France, knowing you'd be safe there. But, something told him you wouldn't do as he'd advised you to do. No, you had that restless fire in your eyes that belonged to the rebels and the righteous. He smiled, knowing wherever you went after that moment was out of his hands. But fighters like you were never out of his mind. Only months later, he saw the sketch of your face, and he sighed. He wasn't surprised, but he wished you the best. _____________ Four years later, you studied the bloodied papers and 'wanted' picture in your hands. It was a warrant for Hugo's arrest. He was on the run, believed to be somewhere in France. He was to be brought in alive. You only hoped he hadn't been found yet. But if he had, you were going to do something about it. It was only fair, you smirked. Donny found your smirk incredibly cute, though he was undoubtedly a little jealous seeing you get so worked up about some guy. Some guy that wasn't him. He went along with it, trying to stay out of your way. He'd annoyed you before, but this time you were not budging. Every one of the basterds followed you without question. You broke them in and out of a high security prison all the way in Frankfurt. Aldo had his usual spiel ready, of course, being a slave to appearances and all.  Now, he had you to thank for this new recruit. Hugo nodded briefly at Aldo. But, a faint flicker of his old smile graced that grim cell when he realized just who had led the basterds to him. When Hugo was free from his cell, you hugged him. He couldn't remember the last time someone had hugged him. Donny wasn't too thrilled, but you'd both laugh about it some years later in a diner, back in Boston, far from the war and all the ruins it left. It'd be a long time till then. And you were still upset at the boys. If leading them directly into Germany, and in and out of a high security prison, without loosing a single basterd wasn't impressive enough, you didn't know what was. Needless to say, it only took a few hours to find out. You walked at the end of the group, in case any nazis were still on your trail. You were, after all the best marskman they had. Hugo was just ahead of you, but barely. He was tired, more tense then when you had last seen him, which seemed utterly impossible. You spoke in broken German. Wicki was way ahead, he wouldn't hear. "Du bist verletzt." "You're hurt." When Donny heard your voice, he slowed down a little. You smirked, already knowing that basterd was jealous as hell. Still, he muttered something to himself about not knowing anything other than English, and some Italian. Hugo nodded, simply, acknowledging that though you'd known him briefly, you were the only living person who knew him at all. He said one simple word in your language, "Tak." 'Yes.' knowing there was no use in denying it. "If someone comes up behind us, leave me behind." You smiled and shook your head, "Don't ask me things I cannot do." He sighed, remembering that, but still shook his head, "You made it this far without me, why-" "Without you? That's a laugh." It was then that you noticed Hirschberg making a mistake you had made back in 1941. "HIRSCHBERG GET AWAY FROM THERE!" He was on thin ice. Literal, thin ice. Listening to the roaring bellow of the frozen lake. "HIRSCHBERG!" He was listening to everything but you. "GEROLD." He turned to you with wide eyes, knowing to be fucking terrfiied if you ever called him by his first name. "FOR FUCK'S SAKE, GET OUT OF THERE!" Just as he started to get up, the ice beneath his feet began to crack. Donny, through the throbbing, searing pain in his arm, instinctively flung forward, running, and reaching for Hirschberg. "DONNY DON'T!" He slipped away from your grasp, dropping his bat on the ground as he lunged to save his brother in arms. The ice, already fragile and shattered, could offer Donny less time than it had Hirschberg. Now both of them were flailing in the freezing water, in shock from the slicing and searing cold. "NOBODY FUCKING MOVE." You warned, thinking quickly, knowing all of the basterds were liable to follow without thinking. "BUT-" You turned to Smitty. You'd apologize later, but...there was no time to be sorry now. "SHUT IT." "Y/N." "SHUT IT." You turned to Hirschberg and Donny, calling out, "RELAX. FLOAT HORIZONTALLY, BELLY DOWN! BELLY DOWN, HIRSCHBERG!" Though you were shouting, your words seemed soft, and cut through the panic and adrenaline. They slowed down, and did as you told them to do, as you picked up Donny's bat, tying your jacket onto it, praying the knot would hold. You wandered to the edge of the frozen lake, holding on to the sleeve, and sliding the bat out to the boys, "GRAB ON." Donny made Hirschberg go first. "D-donny, I-I c-can't. I-" His teeth were chattering, as he shook his head, along with everything else. Donny stammered, "Th-that's a f-fucken o-order. Go." Your eyes widened, as you felt the ice beneath you pop. "Y/n, no-" Aldo stepped forward now, but you pushed him away. "It won't hold both of us." You looked back, as Hirschberg shakily grabbed on to the end of the bat. "Stay down, I'll pull you back here!" You slowly and steadily pulled Hirschberg. You would've loved to do it quickly, to save Donny. But, that would only make the ice even more unstable. You couldn't bring yourself to look at Donny yet. You could hear him stammering and chattering, trying to encourage Hirschberg through, with some colorful language here and there to keep himself awake. After what felt like an eternity, you finally looked at Donny. His face was blue, his nose was bright red. "DONNY COME ON!" He wrapped his stiff, blue fingers around his bat, as you pulled him over the edge, and close to the shore. The basterds gave up their coats and sweaters for them, and you looked around. You knew this part of the forest. No one would come near it. Not in this winter. Aldo knew that look in your eye. You'd been a basterd longer than they had. You knew what you were doing, and where you were going.  He understood that look meant you were safe. He nodded, agreeing silently with you. "This here's a p'rty good place to stop, boys." Far from the eyes of murderers, hidden from gunfire and planes, you built a fire, and found a place to set up camp. When the sun set, only Donny remained by the fire. Hirschberg, and the rest of the basterds had gone to sleep. Even Hugo with fresh wounds, fears, and insomnia, was able to slip into a dream or two. "Hirschberg's doing ok. " You sat by Donny, smiling softly as you handed him some makeshift soup that Smitty was made. (There was a 50% chance it was edible, and 50% chance the OSS could use it as a torture device. But that's a story for another day.) "Y/n..." The way he looked at you was different. In fact, it was almost the way the rest of the basterds looked at you for the past few hours. There was a form of awe...An unspoken shield of respect. The only difference in the way Donny looked at you, was that there was a shade of love entwined there. "See, and I didn't have to get shot to save you," you chuckled, playfully leaning your head on his shoulder. He slowly lifted his arm, resting his hand on your head. "Where would I be without you..." He was serious, and spoke softly, which was not something you could say happened often. "Probably with a gangrenous arm," you shrugged, and he smiled a little. You looked into his eyes for a moment, and he looked into yours, and he kissed you. "What took you?" He raised his eyebrow, almost offended, as he raised his voice a little, "What took me?! What took you?!" You both laughed about it, your head resting once again on his shoulders, and his head resting over yours as you watched the dancing stars and the rising trees, as snow began to fall softly. There was a long road ahead to occupied France. And longer still was the road to the end of the war. But, in that moment, that was ok. You'd make it out together. All of you. Once, you'd taken pride in being  the one and only basterd. You'd been proud of being the only one who's face could bring the enemy to their knees, and make them beg for mercy. But things changed in 1942. It took some getting used to, but you knew all along it was the only way for any of you to make it out. Together. You were reminded of that when you saw Hugo's face on that warrant. But here, in Donny's arms, it was clearer now more than ever. The only way out of the war, was just like that.

#Inglourious Basterds #Donny Donowitz #donny donowitz imagine #donny donowitz x reader #aldo raine #aldo the apache #the bear jew #Omar Ulmer #Smitty #gerold hirschberg #Hirschberg #Wilhelm Wicki #hugo stiglitz #inglourious basterds imagine

[gaycrouton]

Since you already told me you have an idea for this, I need to read the “Mulder accidentally takes Viagra and Dr. Scully needs to help” fic pretty please! The hotter the better of course.

HEY BOO! Guess who finally got around to finishing it! I’ve had this idea for so long it’s ridiculous, and not to toot my own horn…but it’s really hot. It ended up being super long so I’m going to split it up in two parts while the latter half is in beta. Part two will probably be up in the next few days!

As always, thank you to @admiralty-xfd for her beta and her endless support.

Clinical Detatchment

msr / s7 / UST to RST

To say this case had been stressful would be a colossal understatement. They’d been clashing with the police department since they got here; they were flagrantly sexist and rude to Scully and they thought Mulder was insane and, in their words, ‘a pussy’ for listening to her. To top it all off, after a week of intensive searching, the case ended with the police burning down the barn that the ‘creature’ they’d been looking for had been lurking in resulting in a pile of ashes and some unidentifiable bones, much to Mulder’s irritation.

She couldn’t even take joy in the fact that the case was over. After the barn burning, they had to go to the police station to give a final statement and, aside from being offered coffee which Mulder had all but devoured, the police were outright disrespectful. Not that Mulder wasn’t acting similarly to them, after he’d downed the drink he’d talked separately with the officers before storming out of the office, telling her they “were leaving, now.”

She didn’t know what they’d said to him that’d offended him to this point, but she knew something was off.

Now she was at the shitty restaurant attached to their motel, sitting across from Mulder who seemed to be in one of his moods. As soon as they’d gotten there he’d stormed ahead of her, not bothering to hold the door open or even see if she was following him. It wouldn’t be strange if it weren’t for his usual tendencies to be a gentleman, but now it just seemed passive aggressive. All in all, a shitty day.

He’d been quiet since they left and when she asked him anything he’d just give her short answers. For some reason it felt like he couldn’t even look at her. She could only take so much before she called him out. “Mulder, have I done something to piss you off?”

He stopped playing with his glass of water and looked at her timidly before looking away, pretending to find interest in the food that remained practically untouched in front of him. “No,” he muttered.

“Are you sure?” she asked, impatience coming through despite herself.

“Yeah,” he nodded.

She let out an irritated sigh and slouched into her seat. Her movement resulted in her leg grazing Mulder’s and it caused him to jump away from her like she’d burned him. “Are you kidding me?” she snapped.

“I’m-”

“Mulder, I’ve had to deal with people treating me like shit this entire case. I really don’t need it from you too,” she lamented.

Finally he looked at her and she started to feel a little guilty for lashing out. In this moment, looking at him face to face, she realized he looked ill. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes were glassy, and she could see sweat gathering on his brow. “Scully, I’m sorry. I’m not mad. I don’t mean to be short, I just- I don’t feel good.”

“No, I shouldn’t have snapped. I didn’t realize you were sick,” she apologized.

“I think just the stress of the case finally caught up to me,” he shrugged.

She slid out of her side of the booth and moved to sit next to him. “I-I’m sure I’m fine though, Scully,” he stammered, sliding away from her.

“Mulder, you don’t look fine,” she admonished, reaching for his face. She put the back of her hands on his cheeks and forehead and frowned when she felt how hot he was. “You’re burning up.”

He swerved his head, effectively moving out of her hands, and hunched over. “It’s probably just a passing bug, Scully. I promise I’m fine,” he rambled. 

She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. This wasn’t like Mulder to be so unreceptive to her medical attention. She gave him another once over and realized how abnormal his posture was. “Mulder, why are you sitting like that?”

“Scully,” he stated firmly. “I’m fine.”

“If you’re fine then sit up,” she countered.

“I don’t want to,” he whined with near exasperation. 

He looked like he was grabbing his sides while curling in on himself.

“Do you have pain in your abdomen?” she asked. Appendicitis? Stomach flu? Hernia? IBS?

“No,” he muttered childishly, avoiding eye contact.

“How long have you been feeling ill?”

“Please, drop it,” he pled.

Suddenly, testing him, she reached out and grabbed the arm nearest to her, pulling it away from his body. He let out a hissing sound between clenched teeth, his whole body lurching before he moved away from her. “Mulder, you’re obviously in pain. Stop trying to hide it.”

“Scully, please leave me alone,” he begged. “And please stop touching me so much.”

The intensity of his request hurt her feelings, but she tried her best to keep it from showing. Part of her thought about giving up and meeting him with equal stubbornness, but it’d felt like they’d been getting closer as of late and the harsh rejection stung more than she wished it had. “Why won’t you let me help you?” she asked softly.

He must’ve heard the hurt despite her efforts and he turned to look at her. When he did this, she noticed his eyes were unnaturally dilated and her concern grew even more. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he pressed.

She might’ve given up, but this case had been taxing on them both and she knew he had a tendency to forgo taking care of himself in the midst of a stressful investigation. “Mulder,” she rolled her eyes, grabbing at him again. “Please just let me give you a quick examination to see if anything’s alarming.” She put her hand on his thigh and he gasped ‘fuck’ before grabbing her wrist harshly, causing her to let out a little gasp of surprise.

He winced and was silent a moment before whispering, “It’s embarrassing.”

“What is?” she asked.

With some strain, he sat up straight and let go of her wrist, taking the other off his lap to reveal an impressive erection straining against his dress pants, tenting the material away from his lap. He gestured to it in aggravation as if it needed any sort of introduction.

She looked at it, he looked at it, he looked at her, she kept looking at it. 

“Oh,” she squeaked, removing her hand from his thigh but not leaving that side of the booth.

“I-” he mumbled,  covering up again as she struggled to tear her gaze away.

She interrupted him with a raised hand. “It’s fine, Mulder. I know it happens. It doesn’t bother me. I’m sorry I embarrassed you-you shouldn’t be embarrassed,” she rushed, her sentences choppy in her own mortification at bringing attention to it. 

She wasn’t lying - she knew it happened quite frequently, just never to this extent. Usually he adjusted it, calmed down, or left the room by the time the slight hardening in his pants turned into anything that he’d think she noticed. She figured Mulder thought he was being discreet, or maybe he assumed she never glanced at that area of his body, but she noticed enough to know that Mulder was a very healthy man.

It sometimes became a game to her: determining what the cause of any given erection was. Sometimes she thought it happened when the wind blew too hard, it seemed to happen so easily. But slowly, this time, she realized she seemingly had a role in it. All too often it seemed he needed to readjust or take a deep breath or leave immediately following something she’d done. Like a cause and effect but the causes were things she thought were mundane, like standing near him, smiling, laughing, touching, sometimes just looking at him. 

She’d just never called him out on it.

“No, Sc-wait. What do you mean you know it happens?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

“I just-it’s a natural bodily occurrence,” she explained, subverting her true meaning.

They locked eyes for a moment, both fully aware she wasn’t convincing enough, but luckily he chose to move on. “They, um, they slipped me something,” he mumbled.

He shifted in his seat and her gaze flitted down to the area in question, a glance that didn’t go unnoticed by Mulder who started unconsciously bending forward again to hide himself. Feeling a surge of embarrassment for her unabashed ogling, she cleared her throat and registered his words. “Wait, who slipped you what?”

“Sheriff Flannery and his merry band of misfits, they said they gave me viagra,” he murmured the last part so softly that she’d barely heard him.

For a moment she was sure she’d heard him wrong, but he was wearing his earnestness on his face and she knew he was telling the truth.“Why on earth would they do that? Not to mention the fact that’s extremely illegal,” she balked.

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “They said it was so I could ‘man up’,” he admitted. She was about to make a comment about how ridiculous that was, but he spoke up before she could. “Apparently they had some viagra in the back from some guy who retired, yadda yadda yadda, but they slipped it into my coffee while we were in the hallway talking.” 

As he said this, she unconsciously licked her lips and his gaze flickered to the motion immediately before his eyes shot back to the opposite side of the booth while his nostrils flared and he shifted his hips. It was a motion she found undeniably attractive.

“How much did they give you?” she asked, her attention snapping back to the matter at hand.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged.

“How long have you been erect?” she asked, cringing and looking around when she realized her volume.

Mulder did a look around as well and sighed in relief when no one was eavesdropping on them. “Um, I don’t know, maybe two hours.”

“Have you tried…” she made an odd gesture with her lap with her hands as he stared at her with raised eyebrows.

“Did it look like I tried the past two hours we’ve been together?” he asked sarcastically before immediately apologizing. “I’m sorry, this is just the icing on a shit day.”

“It worries me that we don’t know the dosage,” she confided, stopping altogether when the waitress came by to take their plates and drop off the check. Neither of them missed the skeptical once over she gave them for being huddled together on the same side of the booth like teenagers.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Scully resumed, “I’m worried they gave you too much.”

“I’m sure it’ll go away when we get back to the motel room.” Catching himself, he clarified, “When I get back to my motel room. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“Unless it doesn’t go away in the next two hours,” she added, getting out her wallet and laying cash down on the table for the bill and the tip.

“W-what do you mean?” he croaked.

She looked at him with a skeptical brow as if to say ‘you don’t know’ to which his visible gulp replied ‘oh god what?’

“Do you know why Viagra commercials warn against erections lasting longer than four hours?” she asked, stuffing her wallet back into her purse.

“Lightheadedness…” he answered with timidity that told her he knew his answer would be wrong.

“No, do you know what priapism is?” she asked.

“No,” he admitted.

“There are different types, and I won’t go into full detail, but in bad cases the blood trapped in the penis is deprived of oxygen. Erections that last too long can cause the oxygen-poor blood to begin to damage or destroy tissues in the penis,” she explained.

“Destroy?” he repeated.

“Some untreated priapisms can cause erectile dysfunction.”

She might as well have told him he had two hours to live with the look of panic that came across his face. “W-what do I need to do?” he stammered.

“Let’s go back to your room so we can assess the situation,” she stated, trying to sound calm. 

She slid out of the booth, but as she was about to walk away, she felt a hand grab her wrist. “Wait,” he whispered.

She turned and saw him scooting closer to the edge of, but not coming out of, the seat. He glanced around before looking at her nervously. “There are people here,” he told her in a low voice.

She looked around and saw the once empty restaurant was bustling with customers. “But we have to go, Mulder,” she whispered back, not wanting to cause him further embarrassment but not seeing a wormhole for him to crawl into opening up anytime soon.

“Can you walk right in front of me to hide it?” he asked. Mulder usually didn’t care what people thought of him, but he did care when across the room was a children’s birthday party. 

With a sigh of resignation, she nodded and turned around in place as he stood up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders to keep her in front of him. There was space between them, but barely. They were both walking as briskly as they could, but she could feel the warmth of him radiating on her back.

Then, unexpectedly, a waitress passed in front of Scully’s path with a quick “Sorry, coming through,” and the motion caused Scully to stop in her tracks. Which, of course, resulted in Mulder crashing into her and jabbing his hard on straight into her back. She gasped and he squeezed her shoulders tightly and  let out a soft, strangled moan, causing a few patrons to abandon their food to glance up at the pair.

“I’m sorry,” Scully whispered breathlessly. Whether to the interrupted customers having to witness their misfortune, or to Mulder for stopping so suddenly, she wasn’t sure. All she knew as she continued moving forward was that Mulder’s cock had just touched her. It wasn’t skin against skin, wasn’t intimate in any real sense, but her partner’s penis had touched her and it was hot, hard, and he moaned. 

And fuck if it didn’t turn her on.

As soon as they were out of the eyeline of the prying customers and halfway across the gravel parking lot to their rooms, she took a quick step forward, consequently freeing herself from his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Mulder lamented immediately. Truth be told, she didn’t need to be so dramatic with her movement, but she’d rather have him think she was frustrated with him than realize she was getting flustered. But she regretted her action at the absolute guilt that was evident in his tone.

She turned to look over at him and took pity on the sight of a dejected Mulder crossing his hands in front of his pants. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pull away so abruptly. Let’s just get to your room.”

She stood by his side and didn’t say anything more as Mulder unlocked the door and let her in. They’d only been there a few days, but Mulder had sprawled all his stuff about and made himself at home. She heard the lock snick behind her, and putting on an air of complete professionalism, she turned around and faced him. “Okay, let’s take a look.”

He still hadn’t moved more than a foot from the door, the only signs of life were the widening of his eyes and his stammering. “I-I don’t, I can’t-”.

Well, if he was going to be like that. “One of the methods of curing a priapism is to make an incision-”

“Scull-ee,” he whined, his brows furrowing in distress.

“Mulder, I saw more penises in med school than the actresses in all your tapes combined,” she deadpanned.

“But this is different,” he explained, not elaborating beyond that.

He was right. It was different. She’d seen it before, but it was usually a brief glimpse in the midst of dressing  him because of another injury, never was it the main focus of an examination. That, plus the issue that it would be erect and she’d most likely have to come in contact with it for a full examination.

Letting out a long sigh and cursing the fact that nothing in their lives could be easy, she ran her hands over her face and offered, “You’re right. You’re right. Um, how about you go into the bathroom and take a look. Let me know if anything looks abnormal.”

He seemed relieved at that prospect and did as directed, making his way to the bathroom and quickly shutting the door as if to get out of her line of sight. She listened from the other side of the door as the teeth of his zipper came apart and his pants dropped down to the floor. He coughed nervously and called out, “Okay, uh, it’s-it’s out,” he stammered.

There were a few moments in her life, specifically since her time with him, where she couldn’t help but be shocked at where she’d ended up. This was one of those moments.

“How does it look?” she asked.

“Um,” he paused. “Normal?”

“Does it look different than when you’re usually erect?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

“What do you mean?” he called out.

“Is it swollen or red?” she explained, images from med school textbooks dancing around in her head. 

There was a pause and she realized he was misinterpreting her. With a sigh, she added, “More so than normal?”

“N-no, I think it looks normal, but I’ve never had one for this long and it kinda aches,” he explained. She frowned, she didn’t know what to do when half of that information was comforting and the other half was cause for concern. 

“This isn’t working,” she called out. In what world could a doctor assess a patient with a blindfold on? Rarely were patient assessments ever accurate in the first place, let alone when they were in distress. 

“Do you have to?” he sighed in acquiescence.

“Mulder, just let me look. I just want to help,” she reassured, trying to take a gentler approach.

She heard some more sounds of fabric rustling and realised he was stepping out of his pants and shoes. Soon enough, she heard the door unlock and saw a tuft of brown hair and hazel eyes peer from the side of the door. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he joked lamely, trying to lighten the mood and his own discomfort.

She rolled her eyes and gave him a small smirk. “If I ever need an emergency medical exam, I’ll make sure you’re the first person I call.”

“Is that a promise?” he asked, taking a step out and revealing he’d also removed his dress shirt, leaving him in his t-shirt shirt and boxers as he continued to cover himself with a hand towel.

She took a few steps towards him to meet him halfway and the room became tense again, neither of them speaking for a moment as the awkwardness overtook them. “I promise to be clinically detached,” she blurted out. “I know this is uncomfortable, but as soon as it’s taken care of, I promise we can pretend this never happened.”

He let out a long, reluctant sigh and nodded, “Okay. Thank you.”

“Sit on the bed,” she commanded.

He teased her about her bedside manner, but they walked back into the bedroom and he did as she asked anyway. He only started making a fuss again when she began to get closer.

“Wh-what are you doing?” he asked, scooting away from her as she started easing herself down on her knees in front of him.

“I’m looking, Mulder…” she trailed off. Surely he didn’t think she was going to…

“I-but-can you,” he stammered never fully forming a single one of the thousand thoughts swirling behind his eyes right now.

“Mulder, are you genuinely confused or just stammering? I don’t mean to be blunt, but in this situation, the difference matters,” she sighed, righting herself to look at him. Faltering memory. Confusion. Slurred or stammered speech.

“Scully, this is embarrassing,” he whined, so pathetically that her heart went out to him.

But time was of the essence, and they were running out of it. “Fine,” she stated sternly, pretending to grab her bag. “We’ll just have to go to the hospital then.”

“No!” he called out, and if she identified the sound correctly, he even stamped a foot.

She turned around to face him again and demanded. “You’re going to have to be honest with me or we will be going, okay?”

He was giving her puppy dog eyes right now and she had to bite back a smile at the juxtaposition. He looked like a kicked dog, yet was sporting a massive erection. Mulder pulled her out of her thought process by his mumbling something, but doing it under his breath so that she couldn’t hear. “What was that?”

“I don’t want to accidentally come in front of you… or on you,” he muttered. 

This is my life. My partner just said those words out loud to me. She was at such a loss for words that he took it as her not understanding. “I just-I’m afraid seeing you, um, like that-” On your knees.

She held up her hand to stop him from saying anymore. “Lay back and close your eyes or look at the ceiling.” He nodded and lowered himself slowly onto his back, letting out a tense sigh. She wished she had those hanging mobiles like they do at the OBGYN, but he instead just raised his forearms to cover his eyes and she took that as a sign she was good to go. 

Without his prying eyes on her, she mouthed a silent fuck to herself as she lowered herself on her knees and in between his legs, giving her a better vantage point to see. The hand towel didn’t do much to cover, but it was enough for her to be nervous about removing it entirely.  No going back now.

She cleared her throat and decided to be as Dr. Scully as she possibly could. “I’m going to remove the towel.” 

There were no words of affirmation or recognition, but she knew he heard. He was probably just trying to mentally dig a hole to crawl into. With her index finger and thumb, she grabbed the corner of the towel and lifted it off, setting it down gently at his side. Her thoughts were as follows:

Mulder is hung.

How does he walk around with this?

It’s amazing how humble he is for how cocky he easily could be.

My face is a few inches from Mulder’s leaking cock.

“Does it look like a pr-prasi-”

“A priapism,” she clarified. She looked at the pink swollen phallus and didn’t immediately see any of the usual red flags. “No visual indicators.” Dr. Scully left for a moment as Flustered Dana mentally screamed, but she stifled her hesitation and confidently said, “Is it alright if I touch it for a physical exam?”

He was silent and, unlike last time, she couldn’t continue without his permission. She sat there, his penis hard as a rock in front of her face, as he contemplated his fate. Then, she heard a softly muttered, “Okay.”

Being as delicate as she could, she scooted closer, her forearm grazing the sensitive skin of his inner thigh. He jumped like she’d shocked him and she breathed out an apology and continued to lift her hands, gently grabbing the shaft with the tips of her fingers. 

She ducked her head slightly to look at the scrotum and noticed nothing looked out of the ordinary. Just perfectly dropped, engorged, healthy balls. She righted herself and tested the skin’s give by tugging down lightly with her fingers on his shaft, dragging the skin down and revealing more of  his head, and she was relieved to see there was some movement. So he’s not swollen to the point of danger. 

As she conducted her test he took a sharp, shaky inhalation between clenched teeth. Risking a glance over to him, she saw his arms still firmly planted against his face, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. “Um-” she spoke, not even sure what she was about to say, just wanting to break the silence. “Does being touched hurt?” she asked, settling on a perfectly analytical question.

She saw him swallow thickly before answering in a husky voice that shot straight to her core, “No.” 

He didn’t offer any more information and she figured he was trying to spare his pride. Using her fingers as delicately as she could, she moved it around from side to side just to check mobility, but her motion apparently wasn’t as delicate as she’d intended. He lurched away from her, his erection going out of her grasp and bobbing violently in the air at his harsh jerk. “Okay, that was a little rough, Scully.”

“Sorry,” she exhaled before taking the cloth and covering him. At the unexpected sensation, he concaved his hips into the bed and released his arms to look down at her before immediately subverting his eyes. 

Using his knees as leverage, she stood up and cleared her throat, taking in the sight of Mulder actually blushing and wishing it wasn’t such an uncomfortable situation. 

His attention was drawn by her near-declarative cough and he glanced back at her as he eased himself up on his elbows. Now it was her turn to look away. There was something incredibly sexy about a casually reclined Mulder with an erection while she apparently possessed the ability to arouse him.

“It doesn’t look dangerous right now, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods yet. I want you to, um, take care of it and then tell me if the swelling starts to go down,” she explained.

“What happens if I can’t?” he asked nervously.

“I thought you were well versed in that arena,” she teased before seeing the look of panic in his eyes. “Mulder, I’m sure this will all blow over. People snort cocaine and have had two hour long erections like this and they live. Let’s focus on the positive. If you can’t, we can always go to the hospital,” she comforted. Correction- she tried to comfort. She said the H word again and she could see the worry brewing in his eyes.

“Don’t think about it, just think about - whatever it is you normally think about,” she stammered, moving towards the adjoining door. “I’ll be next door if you need me.” Then, at his raised brows, she added, “If you have a medical question or um, you know.” Putting herself out of her misery, she walked into her room and shut the door.

#gaycrouton #my fanfiction #x files fanfic #mulder #scully #msr #smut

[mythologymonsterlover]

M! Werewolf reader x Human love interest

Okay, so if you haven’t read about Yuma or Titi story this might confuse you. Anyways, I gave the King a name, Mita, and thru this story Yuma’s half brother, Guardian, falls in love with one of his soldiers. The soldier themselves is hiding a secret, and what it is only Guardian can guess. Find out how this love grows~

Warning: sexual content, talks about women’s menstrual cycle

Male werewolf reader X Human love interest

I was deem to be a guard since I came to the kingdom of werewolves. After King Mita mistress ran away after giving birth to their son, Yuma, she went to a small town on the outskirts of werewolf territory. There she met my father, a businessman, and they gave birth to me. No one knew why she ran away from her former husband, and even newborn son for that matter. However, before she died from a sickness, she told me about her postpartum depression after she had Yuma. It was so bad, that she wasn’t thinking straight and had terrible thoughts of hurting her baby. From guilt and fear she ran away, while it broke her heart. She told me that I should meet my brother, that even though she left the king and her son in disgrace, I deserve to know him.

So after her death, I went to the kingdom and introduced myself to Mita and Yuma. I was only seven summers old at the time, while Yuma was ten summers. I notice my half-brother had grey and white fur, and stared back at me suspiciously with strong yellow-green eyes.

At first they did not believe me, but after showing both of them photos of mother, my father, and me together in pictures they could see it. The king took me to the side as he towered over my small frame. At that time, I was certain he was going to strike me, but instead, he wrapped his black furred arms around my back.

He told me that he was glad I came forward to them, and that he would allow me to live in the palace. After years from then to now, I became the head guard of the castle and recruit the strongest men around the country. I teach each man very thoroughly, and work them to the bone as I do to myself.

Today I was doing my regular protocols for my new troops. They came from a small forest village in outer werewolf country. As I study each one of them and ask questions, I notice the smallest one, a human, quite fast. They have their eyes cast down, running their fingers in their gear.

I cough into my hand to get their attention. “Soldier, are you ready or not?”

The other guards snicker as the kid looks up embarrassedly, obviously regretting ignoring me.

“I’m sorry head guard, it won’t happen again!” They say in a high but deep pitched voice, which sounds like they are going through puberty or something. I stare down at them though, noticing at least they seem to have a strong build for a human.

“Well guard, I might as well ask you some question.”

He nods enthusiastically. “Yes, head guard?”

“What is your age, weight, and training in this setting?”

My age is 21, weight is 145 Ib, and I worked to get here for about three years.”

As I write all this down, I also notice the guard’s facial stature. Strangely, it looks surprisingly clean and even smooth. Not only that, but their eyes seem also...very feminine? They are a dark blue that even the sky can’t comprehend.

Before I could even look at my soldier more closely, they turn away and look at a framed painting.

“Who are those two if you don’t mind me asking, head guard?”

I look up to see my brother Yuma and his wife Titi, who got married not too long ago. To say it didn’t surprise the whole damn castle when Yuma said he started dating the succubus who was trying to steal from us would be a lie.

I turn my attention back to my new guard, and mummer, “that’s prince Yuma and his wife Titi, an Ice succubus.”

His eyes practically widen like they heard me say the castle is on fire, and they start to speak excitedly. “That so amazing! I’m so happy to hear that the prince found a women of his own!”

I nod in agreement and hate to admit it, but I found it extremely cute when the human speaks like that.

“What is your name soldier?” I say in a commanding but nicer voice than usual.

“Oh, u-um my name is..ahh…Tommy!”

I rise my ears up from hearing such a hesitating reply, but they smile apologetically and scratch the back of their head.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to sound so nervous commander, just a little under the weather.”

“That fine soldier, just don’t let your nerves affect others, understood?”

The young man nods seriously and salute to me. “Yessir!”

I turn away and continue my ranking, and I keep thinking to myself that they have a really cute smile.

After a few days, I get my new guards into different groups and responsibilities to do all over the castle. I train more men to be guards and soldiers, I still come to see Tommy quite often in the halls. He seems to always be running back and forth in a contest state of needing to be everywhere at once. Soon, he moves ranks and becomes apart of my regiment which means twice the work. I order half of my group to the back of the castle for tonight, while I, Tommy, and another guard name Nokia watch the front of the castle. Soon, like always, Nokia pretends to go to the restroom when his really just taking a nap. I decided to not push Nokia to work late tonight and let the fool take it easy, since danger is extremely rare in this time of year.

This leaves me and Tommy guarding the gates alone. Nothing particularly interesting happens until I keep smelling something concerning. I don’t know why, but I smelt blood coming from Tommy. I asked him a couple of times if he was alright, but he just nodded his head.

“Are you sure Tommy, I smell blood from you…”

He looked nervous now, but smiled and shook his head.

“It’s not a big deal captain, I’m completely alright.”

We resume to watch that entire night in silence, and when our time is over we take new tasks.

However I do watch over Tommy, feeling worried for him. He seems more distant than usual, and keeps needing to go to the restroom. Finally I decided to confront my soldier and I pin him to the wall.

“What the hell are you doing in the restroom?”

I look down at him with a snarl, and he has a look of shame on his face.

“I’m sorry sir, I will stop going to the restrooms so much.”

I let out a irritated growl and rub my temples between my eyes.

“I don’t care how much you use the restroom Tommy, I’m more concerned to why I keep smelling blood from you!”

I sniff them again, and in fact it is coming from them. I keep them in place as I sniff all over their body, until I find the source of the scent. It located down between their..legs? I look at him strangely, and I back away further as they suddenly start to sob.

I don’t ask any questions as I grab his hand and we rush to the infirmary. Their I lay Tommy down on the medical table.

“Take off your pants please.”

Tommy look down at the floor, while still sobbing he reluctantly take his pants off.

As they slide their pants down, I see it. Their feminine legs and underwear, and as they take off their shirt, their small breast.

“Your a women.” I say in shock. She wraps her arms around her body and glares at me uncomfortably.

I get the message and turn my gaze away. I hand them a blanket to wrap themselves with. We are silent for sometime until I decide to open my mouth again.

“How long have you been hiding this?” I look at her, not him, in the face. Her short yet long bangs covering her eyes.

“I hid my gender when I was sixteen, and I went through all my guard training and work until-, well, now.”

“Why start at a young age? And why this of all things if it's just for men?”

She looks at me shyly and puts her bangs behind her ears. “Well, since I didn’t have a mom around to teach me how to sew, cook, or be a girl, my father was the one who influenced me the most. He got me into farming, hunting, and sword fighting...” her eyes cast down and become sad.

“But then, he got sick and needed someone to pay for his bills, so I decided to get the best paying job out there; being a guard for the palace of wolves.”

I nod in understanding seeing that she, not he, disguised themselves as a man to enter into the troops to get money for her father sickness. I grunt softly and start to leave the room.

“W-What, aren’t you going to fire me and execute me for being a women in your stroops?”

I gazed back at her and shrug. “I see no reason to kill you. You keep up with your counterparts quite well, and you made it clear that you deserve to be here as much as they do.”

Before I could shut the door behind me, I feel a pair of arms around my back.

“Thank you general Guardian, and my real name is actually Lilac...J-Just so you know!”

I nod and pat her arms around my waist, noticing how strong built but delegate they were. To say that I wasn’t impressed by her strength as a woman now, not just a soldier, would be a lie.

Some months past by as Lilac and I do talk more. I hate to admit it but I love her company. Of course I call her Tommy around her male counterparts, and address her as “soldier” or “Tommy.” I know it’s not good to lie to the troops or upper council about her. However, since I am the head captain and the half-brother of the prince, I do have the overall control to what happens to my guards positions.

As me and Lilac patrol around the gardens one sunny afternoon, we talk about the usual with one another.

“Your not as rough and mean as you think you are, General Guardian.”

She says with a smirk, and nudges my arm.

“Oh, that’s probably because you haven’t seen me in war, soldier.”

I grin back, and after a while we sit down for a moment on a stone bench. We talk about what she wants to do after paying for her fathers medical bills and such. She shrugs and looks at the ground.

“I’m not quite sure, but I know I can’t go back home looking like this.”

I am confused by her statement and nudge her.

“What do you mean, Lilac?”

“Well, I’m not very beautiful to be married off to a man, and since I barely know anything about being a good housewife, I can’t do really helpful service for a women to do back home.”

I’m surprised that she already thought about all this, and feel sadden she thinks of herself like that.

“Well, I’m positive you don’t need to worry about not getting married, you are a pretty women to me.”

For a moment there's an awkward silence and I start to regret what I said, but then she stand up and face me.

“Do you…” she trails off with her words.

I narrow my eyes. “What is it?”

“Nothing, forget it!” She then tries to fun off, but I grab her arm. She looks at me and I can she her cheeks are red as a tomato. I bring her closer to me.

“What is it that you want to say, Lilac?”

She puts her hand on my shoulder and leans into my chest.

“Do you...want to go on a date with me?” She mummer under her breath with her eyes shut tight.

I don’t respond since I myself start to burn up now, and I think that makes her uncomfortable because she starts to pull away. Yet I bring her into my chest again, and lick her cheek.

“I would like that, my cute warrior.”

After we are done with our shift, we plan on meeting on the weekend at a well known restaurant out of the castle domain. We decided that would be the best course of meeting up since we don’t want anyone to accidentally recognize her.

As I decide to come twenty minutes early, I order myself a beer. I’m well known here among the owners, even out of my uniform. I decided to wear a blue jacket with a white shirt underneath it. I sit there waiting patiently, looking at the clock every five minutes. I start to worry a little when I don’t see her after ten, but the doors open suddenly.

“Hey, I’m so sorry I’m a little late.” I turn my head to see her, and I’m astonished by the difference when she is out of her uniform, into a red dress instead. I notice her plumb thighs and crives that the dress shape out perfectly, and I glup from seeing it all.

“...It’s alright, would you like to sit?” I say shakily, realizing this actually is my first date I ever had.

She giggles and sit next to me. Her red lips and her short hair looking very lovely, and I can’t help but stare.

“Do I scare you, general?”

I realised I’m looking at her took long, so I look away while taking a sip of my beer. “

No, no of course not, but please Lilac, call me by my name.”

I smirk in a half attempt to hide how nervous I am. Yet, I can tell she isn’t buying it, so she puts her hand over mine.

“Hey, this doesn’t have to be a big thing, we can just talk and stuff, you know?”

I nod in agreement, and throughout the night we just tell each other about how we got to where we are today. Our childhood, parents, ordeals, and outcome of everything.

“That must've been shocking to hear you have a half-brother, and him being King Mita’s kid of all things!”

“It was hard to believe that my mother was with the king himself, but it was harder to convince myself that I had a brother.”

“I find that remarkable.” She says as she drinks more of her wine, and I can tell we are both getting quite tipsy. I decided to pay for our dinner and walk her home now.

As we reach her apartment complex, I open the door for her and say goodnight.

“I had fun Lilac.” I kiss her hand tenderly; she looks very flattered, and blushes again. Yet she on the other hand kisses my cheek and I swing my tail back and forth.

“Goodnight, Guardian.”

After that night, we have couple more dates with one another and slowly but surely I feel myself fall for her. We soon start to kiss one another everytime we meet. It started off innocently enough, but soon they begin to deepen, and I feel myself wanting her body more and more. After two months of going out with one another, I do the usual and head her back to her apartment complex. We kiss tenderly and heatedly for a little bit and she holds onto me tight. I can hear her heartbeat going wild like mine. I feel a heat growing in my loins and It starts to ache badly, so I break the kiss before I do something I might regret. She looks at me dreamily, but replaces it with a troubled look. “why did you stop?”

I grunt to clear my voice, “Forgive me,

I was getting too excited for a moment. I didn’t want to do anything that you wouldn’t like.” with my low husky voice I move away a little so we aren’t so close together, but she refuses to let me go.

I feel her strong arms keep me pressed against her body, and I start to pant as I feel myself grow harder.

“Please Guardian, I’m not a flower, I want you to want me.”

I feel her hands run down my chest, then slowly move down to my crotch. I growl loudly as she grabs my dick in her hand, and start to pump it. I soon can’t bare it any longer, and grab her by the waist and kiss her roughly. I slam the apartment door open and we travel through her kitchen to the bedroom kissing and running our hands over each other.

I regain some self control and gently put Lilac on the bed, towering over her with our mouth inches apart.

“Lilac, is this alright?”

She looks me deep in the eyes, and my green and her blue eyes intertwined together as one.

Yes, it’s amazing.” She smiles her beautiful smile to me, then soon places her lips to my neck. I sigh and feel myself unravel in her smooth touch. I move my hands over her shirt and take it off, exposing soon her bra so I can see her plumb skin. I kiss her down the chest and remove her bra, exposing hard nipples waiting for my touch. I lick them softly and she moans loudly, gripping my fur. She sneakily moves her other hand to my crotch, taking my dick out and pumping it as I gasp at the sudden feeling. She lets out a low laugh at my sudden reaction, and moves her body over mine. She then straddles me around my waist, and begins to remove her pants and panties with a wicked look in her eyes.

“L-Lilac..” I mummer as I rub her nipples with my thumbs.

After she exposed herself fully on top of me, she trials down and engulfs my entire dick in her mouth. She bobs her head up and down my shaft, and I’m ripping the sheets to stop myself from grabbing her head and shoving my dick all the way down her throat. She finally comes up for a breath of air, and that’s where I see my chance to strike. I flip her over, and before she could react I move my dick against her folds. She grabs me in shock as I slowly move it all the way in her wet pussy.

“Do you like that?” I ask, and with eyes closed, she nods enthusiastically while gripping onto my arms to stop herself from shaking.

“Please, ah, don’t stop…”she says with a pleading voice. I do as I am told, and thrust into her. I study her expression to make sure I’m not hurting her, and when I see she is fully loving this, I keep going. I thrust into her as hard as I can, and then slowly come out of her. I do this until I can feel myself needing to get rid of my growing needs, so I move as fast as I can. The bed shakes like it gonna break and hearing Lilac moan in pure pleasure it drives me to my breaking point. She tighten herself around my dick, and that does it as I cum into her core instantly. We sit their for a moment, panting, then when I get some of my strength I pull out. My oozing cum come out and I can tell she will probably be sore. I turn the her worn out body into my chest and lick and kiss her face.

“Are you alright, love?”

She grumbles a yes and kisses my lips.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine, in a couple of days that is.” I grunt and continue to pat her head and give her love kisses she deserves. She slowly open her eyes to looks at me.

“Guardian?” She says, rubbing her hand in my fur chest.

“Yes?”

“I want you as my lover.”

I smile warmly. “Good, because I want that as well.” I kiss her head as we both sit in our afterglow and fall asleep in each other’s arms.

#reader/monster #monster boyfriend #monster lover #monster x human #interspecies romance #human lover #male reader #exophilia #werewolf boyfriend #werewolf

[flowercuco]

Veil 2 - 10 (finale)

Well after a long long time we’ve finally hit the end of this arc of our Veil campaign, with Crescent Moon hopefully safe, finally reunited with her mother/creator, Heartful Vale, and the company and mercenaries that did all of this dealt with, the group tentatively settles down and awaits the concert.

Fortuna checks her e-mails as she is at work, dealing with her new assistant, who she is very suspicious of. One of the messages is from Bicker Boulder, and it so happens to be the alibi of Mia Ann Grace who is, to the entire party, definitely suspicious, and definitely evil. Along with commentary on the events at Snow Vision and if they were tied to the odd actions that Thicker Than Blood did the day prior, Bicker asked her superiors in the Investigation Bureau to try to do Fortuna a solid. Mia Ann Grace, super star assistant is supposed to be that solid. Fortuna, being suspicious, has Mia Ann do basic tasks while she invades a janitor closet to get in touch with her best friend, Senza.

Senza and Fortuna talk about their suspicions and of the events, Senza concludes that even if Bicker seemed on the up and up, that doesn’t mean that Mia is, as the IB was a group that was compromised by the Angelic Threads. She promises to look into the assistant and see if she has ties to anything. 

Back in the new safehouse, Crescent Moon goes from the various groups sitting around, her mother on a tablet, Ariel practising her new Veil manipulation abilities in a simulation of some sort on a tablet, Senza taking a shower, and Will doing her daily workout. Crescent watches intently as Will does pull-ups and is very cool and strong. Synch enters, having done all that they wanted to do by themselves, asking if everyones good, which they basically are. Crescent greets them, and they approach the two, with Will still doing pull ups as Synch tells them that they have evidence of Burning not committing the crime that got him banished from Quid. Will is pleased, as she did like Burning in their brief interactions and confirms that she’ll pass along the information to get Burning exonerated faster. Synch then asks for Will to get more information on Bloodroot and Will promises to look into it, along with a number of other things that she has to deal with. Finally, Synch asks Will to tell them if there’s anyone in the Seat of Judges who needs to be investigated, as they are a detective and will do a better job of it (and are also a psychic but Will doesn’t know that).

Meanwhile, Heartful Vale asks Ariel about what she’s doing, following up with questions on if Ariel learned what she did from Crescent or if she taught it to herself. After an awkward silence, Heartful asks what Ariel considers herself, wondering how similar the android is to Crescent. Ariel tells her that she’s an artificial human on bad terms with her creators, something Heartful feels sorry for, but asks for more details on. Upon learning that they’re a secret society of some kind, Heartful stops asking questions, but is clearly hiding something more. Ariel asks how Crescent moon is so special, to which Heartful responds with something to do with the virtual idol being intertwined with the veil, but not having any more details. Ariel attempts to probe further, but is thwarted by Senza entering the room and stuck wondering if Heartful just wanted to know about any possible corporate espionage... or more.

Senza checks her emails on her smart watch and gets a news alert about the deaths of Denno’s and Swept Coil, then an invitation to Denno’s funeral, and finally a frantic email from Blessed Lee about it. Senza asks for the other player characters to follow her into the private room, goading Synch into fully following in. Senza asks what happened and why she wasn’t told about Denno’s death, with Synch saying that a lot happened and WIll agreeing, then continuing with a full explination of the events that happened at SVS. They tried to deal with things quickly, Denno’s tried to run, and he died. Will, not quite getting what Senza wants, attempts to summarize more when Synch admits that they killed Denno. Senza takes a moment and then says that, it isn’t that she doesn’t think that he deserved to die, it’s that she wants to be told if someone she knows dies. Will apologizes, saying that she didn’t know that Senza would be this affected and that she should have thought about it. Synch admits as much fault as they ever will in their life and also says that they should have thought about it more. Senza just feels like this is surreal.

When the group returns into the main room, they notice that Crescent isn’t there. Ariel texts her and asks her where she is, to which after a bit of back and forth, is revealed to be to go to Fortuna, with an apology. Ariel is shocked and the group decides to have Synch protect Heartful Vale while the rest of them go pursue Crescent. Senza sends Fortuna a text warning her about Crescent’s arrival and the idol mysteriously arrives at her office. Crescent Moon wants the favor Fortuna promised her. Fortuna isn’t ready for this. 

Luckily, Mia Ann Grace is pre-occupied watching Anime while Fortuna makes the idol tea and is asked about how she met her wife. The story is very embarrassing with Fortuna trying to act cool at a party, making kind of a fool of herself and running away. The next day, Audacity went to see Fortuna and asked if they could study together, and after time, they got married and stuff. Love’s weird and lucky folks. Fortuna and Crescent watch anime while they wait for the others, Senza ignores more of Blessed Lee’s emails and when they all make it into the office, Crescent Moon awkwardly fails to fully say what she wants, having Fortuna take over.

Senza doesn’t want to be here and tries to give Fortuna an out.

Fortuna says that Crescent Moon needs to talk to Ariel and Will, but that first she wants to apologize to Ariel for the events that happened the previous night. Ariel tentatively accepts the apology after Fortuna puts more gusto into it, allowing the topic to move to what this whole conversation is about. Fortuna says that Crescent has relationship troubles and goads the idol into saying what she wants to say, which is that she likes Ariel and Will. Will is, slow about it, and asks what she means, to which Fortuna says that Crescent Moon is gay and romantically likes you. Will pauses and attempts to process this information, thinking back to the events of the days prior and then going “Oh!”

Senza makes her move, as Fortuna tries to excuse her, as she’s uncomfortable and probably has something important to do, which Senza says that she does, she has to deal with stuff about Denno’s funeral, a bomb to drop before she leaves.

Crescent Moon rambles about how much she likes Will and Ariel, citing their actions and character traits, the things that she likes about both of them and the things she likes about each of them, going on and on and on. Will tries to deflect, as she does like Crescent but they haven’t known each other for very long and that she’s just been doing her job. Crescent tries to retort with how she’s dating Ariel already despite knowing them both for the same amount of time. Will affirms that they need to slow down, that the dynamic is something to consider, you shouldn’t date your body guard, which Crescent reluctantly accepts. The idol turns to Ariel and asks if she’s mad that she likes will, which Ariel isn’t. Crescent is in charge of her own feelings and can date who she wants. Crescent makes confused sad noises and Ariel moves in to hold her hand and Crescent clutches it tightly and beings to cry. Fortuna goes in for a hug and Will slowly attempts to also come in to comfort Crescent Moon, not even noticing Fortuna’s presence anymore. Crescent Moon unleashes a flurry of feelings and is glad that Fortuna helped her, thanking her for it and feeling overall better and ready for the concert.

With that out of the way, Ariel tells Fortuna how they can become square, asking if Audacity can make her sibling, Ark, a body. Fortuna nods and promises to have her wife help. Senza texts Blessed Lee about the urgency of his situation. It is about the nanomachines, and while it doesn’t seem urgent, it is something Senza needs to check up on. The others leave as Senza goes to see him. As her office returns to being just her, Mia Ann Grace returns from her anime binge and asks for whats next.

Alone with Heartful Vale, Synch is playing the Crescent Moon Gatcha Game when Heartful gets an email and reacts in a shocked manner. Synch probes bluntly, saying that keeping information away from people trying to protect you is a bad idea. Heartful tries to deflect, saying she doesn’t want to put others in danger, something thats way too late to apply now. When Synch looks up information on the deep web and sees Heartful Vale connected with Chasis, the CEO of Snow Vision Structure and Nicola Lelulilo, they probe further, eventually getting Heartful to reveal the message, a picture of her, her wife, Chasis, and her mentor along with the message, “Welcome back. Please find me.” It’s clearly from her mentor and Synch says it’s clearly a trap. Synch reveals to Heartful the misdeeds of her mentor, showing her the data he was given by Chasis on what Nicola did or was trying to do with psychics. Heartful asks how intimate Synch is with psychics, the answer to which is very. When Heartful asks if this has to do with Ariel, Synch asks why the researcher has to know. She’s worried about Crescent and it has to do with her work. Synch says that Heartful should ask Ariel about it herself.

Finally. We go to the concert.

The park has the big stage, various booths, the sky is a cool starry nebula thats clearly going to have cool shit happen to it. The group is dressed in various casual clothes and two characters fully introduce themselves in a way that they haven’t really in the space of the game. The first is Zed Teneberous, Will’s hacker and sibling in the Seat of Judges, who’s robot arms are a lot more industrial and who so desperately wants to be cool. Will introduces them, prompting Ariel to say that she doesn’t see the resemblance. Zed (un)cooly says they’re both adopted. Audacity, Fortuna’s catgirl wife, also introduces herself, finding the hacker endearing as he says that Fortuna’s cool. Audacity approaches Ariel, who has used her veil powers to give herself some Crescent Moon themed galaxy space hair effects, which Audacity comments on positively. Audaicty encourages Ariel to try some fashion or cosplay after saying that she has some sketches and preliminary ideas and stuff for Ark’s body. Ariel tries to decline a selfie with Audacity, trying to explain her killer robot status and wondering how much Audacity really knows. She knows everything that Fortuna knows, and the married couples love manages to get Ariel to agree to a selife. 

Sorry Tuna, Wish U Were Here

The concert finally happens, with Crescent Moon wearing a very cool outfit with tassels rising up into the concert like the moon as she thanks the party for being her friends and keeping her safe and showing her everything Quid had to offer. After a few songs, Crescent says that the next one is for her girlfriend, something that shocks the entire crowd. The concert goes off without a hitch, as Crescent Moon gives a performance of a lifetime.

In the afterparty for the concert, the party, Anemone, Zed, Audacity, Heartful and Crescent’s staff all hang out! Everyone says how much they liked the concert and then they go into small talk and party food as Zed takes Will aside for a second, telling her what they found out about Thunderings Seat of Judges mask. Apparently, the mask was expunged from the records, but Eastern Seabed, who trained Will, knows more. Will really doesn’t want to ask her about this, but she supposes she will have to. Will moves on to the new hustle she has for Zed, which is to find out more about the Angelic Threads, as if they are real and a threat, the Seat should know about them, even if for whatever reason, Will doesn’t. Zed agrees and then immediately moves on to asking about Anemone, asking WIll who the cool girl with Ariel is. Will tells Zed that it’s a bad idea and watches in horror as the hacker moves in to introduces themself to them.

While Zed is embarrassing, they do reveal their thoughts on the Seat of Judges to Ariel, saying that the ritual and pretence is more harmful than it is good, but that they like being a cool hacker and that the Seat of Judges as an organisation that makes sure that people can stand up for themselves  and have what was promised to them is good. Zed then asks them what their favorite animals are, and then makes Ariel an origami Snow Leapord and Anemone an origami Crane, with paper printed from his arms. Ariel eventually realizes that Zed’s hitting on her and or Anemone and tells her sibling whats up. She doesn’t really care, as she is interested in seeing what the dork of a hacker has to say about art and culture and dumb internet things they like. 

Heartful then takes Senza and Ariel aside, wanting to trade information about the angelic threads that she assumes they have for information on Crescent Moon that she’s been hiding. Ariel does not trust Senza, or rather LACUNA, and doesn’t want Crescent potentially endangered. Senza tries to convince Heartful otherwise, but doesn’t quite manage it. Heartful Vale reveals that Crescent Moon wasn’t made by her as much as she was restored by her, from an old world data-core, one that she hid before she was kidnapped. She needs to know if the data-core was stolen, and if it was stolen by the angelic threads in particular. That kind of thing can’t fall into the wrong hands. Ariel pauses, as it is a lot to process, and promises to tell Heartful Vale more when she figures out how she feels about this, asking the researcher if Crescent Moon knows. Crescent is aware of her true origins, but not of the particulars of why she specifically is in danger. Heartful wanted to hide it from her, but knows that she can’t do that anymore.

Ariel rejoins the party and the night goes on, quietly our party slowly gaining new friends and allies and getting closer to finding out the secrets behind the Angelic Threads...

In our epilogue, we see them, speaking with 9Sigma, who insists that [Ariel] is behind the disturbance at SVS and the death of Swept Coil. They must act before it is too late and we cut to that night, when Ariel, Ark, and Anemone all have a nightmare, a dream of metaphors and numbers, a message, warning, and call from their eldest sibling.

We see Zed, having stolen access to the Seat of Judges library looking into a group of people who were ousted from the Seat by Radiant Historia, leading to her rise to the top of the Seat, a group who supposedly claimed to want to Open Heaven. 

Mia Ann Grace talks to her true employers about her work with Fortuna, wanting to find specific knowledge that only Fortuna should have...

And finally, Senza is asleep in her home, with LACUNA charging. LACUNA slinks to Senza and connects to her, interfacing with her body, and managing to move her fingers while she’s asleep. LACUNA will have the knowledge they need, at any cost...

#quidama dre #concert at quid central

[seasonsofreckoningrp-blog]

Congratulations, Cait! You’ve been accepted for the role of Alicia Ricci. Please make sure to check our checklist, and you have twenty-four hours to send us your character’s blog. We’re really happy to have you in our family!

We are really glad you’ve connected to Alicia and that you’re giving us the chance of watching her come to life. Your para sample and the reasonings behind your choice made us aware that Alicia are definitely in good hands and we can’t wait to see what you have in storage for them once you start playing them on the dashboard.

Introduction

Cait, 25, EST, She/Her (or anything really)

Activity level:

I get online nightly, though some night it is for a longer time than others depending on my work day. I am generally on for several hours on the weekend.

Further contact:

[Removed]

How did you find the roleplay?

It popped up on “Recommended” on my rpg home page and I used to be a member of seasonsofrevenge

Roleplay experience:

I’ve been a member of at least ten different groups (mostly fantasy/supernatural), I’ve had a ton of indie blogs, and I’ve been an admin for several groups including two that I created.

Triggers:

[Removed]

Anything else?

[Removed]

IC INFORMATION

Desired character:

Alicia Ricci

Faceclaim:

Christian Serratos

Why did you choose this character?

I’m often interested in the (non-romantic) relationships and connections that characters have with other characters and really enjoyed the connections written on Alicia’s bio. I’ve written witches before (in seasonsofrevenge and indie rp land) and I’ve primarily chosen witches with abstract abilities and thought an elemental ability would be a fun challenge that parallels a few mutant characters I’ve played while also having an entirely different personality and backstory. Of the three characters I’ve written that were non-binary, one had a binary personality (out of several personalities) and two could actually morph between sexes. This would be the first truly non-binary character that caught my interest. I personally do not identify as nonbinary, transgender, or genderfluid. However, I have never really identified with the concept of “gender” as a whole. Though I use female pronouns, I’ve never really felt any loyalty or belonging to the title of “female”. I feel as if this character would not only be a challenge, but a way of exploring that part of myself in a safe environment.

Para sample:

Laughter filled the air, echoing against the walls of the old house. The sounds seemed to meld with the creaking of the wood floors, but Alicia could hear only the sound of crackling flames. How could those that the witch trusted react in such a way? Brows furrowed as heat rose within their increasingly tense body, the questions in their mind only managing to rearrange and repeat. How could Ibe so stupid to simply trust them? Of course, they wouldn’t understand. How could they? They’d never suffered a day in their lives while Alicia could barely raise their voice without gaining stern looks from their parents, looks of fear which they attempted to hide behind empty promises and encouraging remarks.

No. “Shut UP.”

The witch stood, the temperature of the room rising along with them. Rage of this caliber had never managed to take hold, until that moment. “NO ONE talks about my family that way. And if you’re too foolish to shut your mouths I’ll do it for you!” They reached out to grab the collar of the nearest offender only to find flames leaping from their hands. In moments, the room was engulfed in flames. The screaming sounds of the other witches only had a second to pierce the air before they found silence in the ashes. Time was slow and fast, both fighting for the moments that passed while the flickering managed to subside and wind swept the remains of those who laughed into the air.

With eyes squeezed shut, Alicia savored the moments that remained before the guilt would require claiming and reality would force its acceptance on them. Despite the prior flames, Alicia could feel nothing short of the cold that engulfed them in that moment. The witch would not realize that they were shaking until the moment a pair of arms pulled them away from the rubble while the witch desperately tried to remain. In that moment, Alicia wanted nothing more than to be carried away with them, begging for the flames to return and cease their avoidance of their skin.

“No, please… I only want to burn.”

EXTRA

Personality traits:

Resilient: No one can survive such a traumatic event and come out unscathed. However, Alicia has chosen to learn from the mistakes and thinks of others first, refusing to cause another tragedy.

Loyal: While Alicia has no intentions of allowing Roman inside of their mind, they feel indebted to Roman and have no intentions of betraying him.

Careful: Alicia is careful with who they trust (no one aside from Roman) and what they do, well aware that every action has consequence.

Inhibited: Alicia has difficulty reaching their full potential because they will not allow themselves to use their fire.

Guarded: Alicia prefers if others would not try to understand them.

Volatile: When angry, Alicia can act impulsively and without thought.

Headcanons:

Alicia hates the way their fire calls to them, tempting its way to their fingertips.

Alicia prefers going between she and he pronouns depending on the day. Some days Alicia will feel more feminine while other days Alicia feels more masculine.

Alicia is perpetually suspicious of others unless they’ve proved their loyalty in one way or another.

#accepted

[cacophonouscatharsis]

DM’s Log #10: The Prophecy

Another week, another session. This time though we finally got to the part I’d been waiting for for so long. Just a note, once again our player for Ib wasn’t able to make it. So she doesn’t do a whole lot in this session.

We start where we left off last time, with the party having just struck a deal with a mutineer to kill her former boss and take his merchant ship for their own, and shortly after solving a riddle with the ancient underground structure. The wall it was inscribed on slowly lifts, the low grinding sound of heavy stone echoing through the halls. On the other side was a darkened stairwell, which the group entered. It spiraled downwards for several minutes until they finally reached a large open room. Yorgrax was the first to enter, his scaled foot causing the floor of the room beneath it to erupt in blue fire. Magical energy disperses from the floor and onto the walls, illuminating the room much like the previous halls of the age old complex. Four pillars are set up in the corners of the recatangular room, with a single hexagonal pillar about waist high in the very middle. Atop it an obsidian tablet.

Yorgrax, unharmed by the light show he caused, steps towards the center pillar, and as he does a part of the wall oppisate to him opens, releasing a Helmed Horror. Very similar to the Animated Armors the party fought before, only with actual intelligence beyond its base instincts to serve its creator. It’s armor is black and gold, with a red energy filling into empty insides. Said armor, plus it’s shield and spiked sword, are all reinforced with adamantine. It charges the dragonkin, and it’s time to roll initiative. The party manages to defeat it, however many spells and abilities were used, and Yorgrax took a few hits. The red energy from within the helmed horror is dispersed and transferred over to the walls and pillars around the room. Vercingetorix attempts to transcribe the writing, but it appears to be in a different form of the language, and so the book offers minimal assistance.

The pillars each describe a different being. One is a warlord that will lead an army of savages and wage a bloody war across the world. One is a strong ruler who will see the nations of world bow down to them and their people. Another lurks deep underground, in an ancient and labyrinthian palace of opulence. The last is one who controls a hoard of undead and other subjugated creatures, intent on ruling everything both living and dead. The walls of the room itself tell that if these four beings are allowed to coexist within the world of Lhavosh, then great chaos will erupt, and in that chaos a terrible beast will awaken from at age long slumber and destroy everything. There are of course more details but because of the older dialect it’s impossible to glean anymore from it. The obsidian tablet atop the middle pedestal displays a map. Of some massive continent that looks familiar but isn’t recognized at first. I gave the party the map which I drew, and then after a bit I also gestured to the maps I had already given them. They sifted trough until they realized the map on the tablet must have been a previous iteration of the world itself. Like a Pangea sort of thing. On this map were four small green beacons, and a red energy gathering at the top where the map cuts off. The party surmises that the beacons must symbolize the four beings written about on the pillars. Unfortunately they can’t narrow down specifically where these four are in the world, but it seems as though two of them are located in the same continent the party is in, Vuusrin.

With the ancient complex seemingly ending at the prophecy room, most of the party elects to rest within the structure. Vercingetorix however wants to deal with Dablo now and he ventures out of the temple and cave on his own. Waiting for him outside, while the forest still burns, are two strangers. One it clad in a white robe with a hood that conceals most of his face. His skin is pale and some black hair can be seen reaching halfway down his face. The other is a tiefling with blue skin and even bluer hair. He has a perfect circle carved in his abdomen that goes straight through him. The trunks of burning trees visible if one were to look into the hole. He has a sword sheathed at his hip. The hooded figure demands to see the map the party had just acquired, however Vercingetorix had not brought it with him. The necromancer asks if he can go get it and the stranger allows him to do so. The Elf returns to he rest of the party, asking for them to come with. With that the entire party, plus Henrietta and Grace, go outside of the cave, the two not having moved from their positions.

The pale one pulls of his hood, revealing his deep green eyes with similarly hues trails going down his face like tears. He looks at group and can see that they aren’t at their best. Yorgrax has taken several hits and most of their abilities are spent. He undoes his robe, wearing more form fitting garb underneath that matches the white with black highlights of the second stranger beside him. A hole identical to the one in the others abdomen is also visible, although this one is located at his sternum. He pulls four vials of a mysterious red substance out of his pocket and tosses them on the ground at the parties feet, saying they’ll heal their wounds and refresh their abilities. He needs them at full strength. Vercingetorix makes a check, obviously suspicious of the vials, but it seems the man is telling the truth. Yorgrax, Torix, Vercingetorix, and Henrietta all drink from the small vials, and indeed they are almost instantly rejuvenated. The tiefling steps forward, pulling out his sword and asking the other, who he refers to as Schifar, if it’s finally time to fight. Schifar tells him yes, and it’s time to roll initiative.

Schifar stands back and lets his comrade do all the work. The tiefling rolls low and attacks last, however he welcomes all incoming attacks with a grin on his face. The party complies and does significant damage to him, but is unable to shake his excited bloodthirsty demeanor. Luckily when it’s his turn to attack Yorgrax manages to dodge both swings of is sword. Once the second turn rolls around through Yorgrax rolls a 1. This powerful opponent has an ability that I homebrewed, though it could be on another monster I don’t know about, where if someone rolls a 1 on an attack or damage roll against him, it opens up an attack on opportunity. The warrior catches the Dragonkins claymore out of the air, holding it in place while he swipes down Yorgrax’s midsection. Luckily his feats allow him to not sustain too much damage from the attack, and he ends up taking 11 points of damage. Once it’s the tieflings turn again however, it’s clear that things aren’t going as well as they could have. After all it’s 6 against one, and his body is pretty much covered in his own blood at this point, not that he minds it much. He laughs, commenting on how he now knows he doesn’t need to hold back. He grips his sword, bringing it close to him and positions his free hand on beginning of the blade, on his flat side. He utters the word “Grind” and then drags his clenched fingers up the length of the steel. Suddenly his body is caught in a torrent of blue energy that temporarily conceals his body.

When the smoke clears his sword is gone, and his body is now covered in a thin layer of armor that resembles bones. His fingers are edged with razor sharp claws and all previous wounds he sustained are now healed. This transformation was just a bonus action however, and now he makes his attack, deciding to go for Vercingetorix. He rolls high and is able to hit him three times. He lunges at the necromancer, his clawed hand outstretched. Just before he’s about to strike however, Schifar teleports to his side, grabbing his wrist and stopping him in his tracks. He tells the tiefling, who he names Jeager, that their intention was not to kill the party, but to just measure their strength. Jeager is clearly angered by this, and pulls his hand away, which was mere centimeters from the center of the elf’s chest. I rolled the damage before I had him attack just to see, and yeah he would’ve killed Vercingetorix in one hit.

Schifar says that they’re leaving, and asks for the map once more, adding that he will give it back once he’s looked at it. Yorgrax complies, handing him the tablet. They ask the mysterious person a few questions while he gazes at the obsidian map. They ask he is one of the beings referenced within the temple, he doesn’t give them a straight answer. After giving Yorgrax back the map he seems to open up a black portal in reality with a simple flick of his hand. Before Jeager enters he tells the party that he hopes to fight them again, and that next time they better be a lot stronger. His form vanishes within the portal. Vercingetorix makes a perception check on the tear itself, and discovers it leads to another plane of existence, but to which one specifically is a mystery. The party quickly debates on whether they themselves should step through the portal before it closes. Before they come to a conclusion they actually ask Schifar if he wants them to follow him. He tells them that’s not their intention, but if they’d rather die now rather than later then they’re welcome to join him. This seems to change the parties mind and they decide to stay where they are. Schifar steps through the portal, and it closes behind him, the force emitted from this year in reality causes the fires of the forest to be put out.

And with that the party seemingly have no other option but to return to Central Port and deal with the more pressing matter of Dablo Frinds. Grace and Ib go back to the room they ordered at the Resplendent Melody. Torix, Vercingetorix, Yorgrax, and Henrietta all returned to the merchant ship of the Casanova, owned by Dablo. The party had Henrietta tied up to make it look like they had captured her and were returning her. When they entered the captains quarters, Dablo was accompanied by two armed crewmen. Vercingetorix gave the slimy merchant Henrietta’s ornate sword, which she said was actually not going to be sold by him, but rather that the sword was a key to some ancient place filled with far more valuable treasure, and that he was going to find it for himself. Dablo gave the elf a hefty sum of cash, and the two shook hands.

The Necromancer cast a spell, beginning to rot Dablos hand away. However he rolls so high on damage that the dude literally mummifies before him, barely having time to scream in shock and agony before his body crumbles beneath its own weight. The two guards attack, and in the commotion Henrietta is freed. She grabs her sword and rushes out of the captains quarters, leaving the fight to the party. The henchmen are dealt with rather easily, and the party levels up to level four! Once they get outside the quarters, they find that Henrietta had managed to turn over most of the crew to her side, considering most of them liked her more spunky adventurous attitude anyway. They have the few who didn’t side with her at knifepoint, tied up together in pairs. She explains that she’s not sure what to do with them, but they’ll probably just leave them tied below deck and drop them off in some other continent, rather than kill them. Vercingetorix wants to sell them as slaves, however Immulricks isn’t a slave country. The nation directly to the south, Macron, is though.

Yorgrax decides to take two of them, deciding that if he is to prove to the senior officer of the port town that he did indeed clear out the camp of bandits like he was told to do, then he should bring potential prisoners. On the way though Vercingetorix comments how he still intends to sell them, which Yorgrax clearly doesn’t agree with because he finds the nearest city guards and rats him out, mentioning that he is now in possession of a forged citizenship badge, which Dablo has given to him prior to his timely death. The elf manages to flee before the guards can get a good look at him however, leaving the crewmen he had brought with him to be captured. The session ended with Yorgrax entering the office of Senior officer Logarius.

So yeah that was it! It was actually a lot longer and more eventful than the other sessions thus far, which was awesome! I’m really excited for the one happening tonight cause there’s this NPC I’ve been dying to introduce. Also in regards to the two strangers, yeahif you’ve watched/read Bleach you might notice an uncanny similarity to the characters of Ulquiorra and Grimmjow from that anime/manga, and that’s because I took heavy inspiration from it. The characters aren’t the exact same. Their origins, and some powers/characteristics are different, but yeah I really like the idea of the Espada from that show, and the special honor guard for the big bad type of character. But yeah, I’ll post another DM’s Log about tonight’s session when I can! See you then!

#dm’s log #DMs Log #dungeons & dragons #dungeons and dragons #D&D #DnD

[moonlight-and-dreams-blog]

A WEEK WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

January 14, 2018

            Last night, I was completely not being myself, I was sad; I don’t even know what to do. I felt so tired of everything but I can’t do anything. I just want to sleep for a long time. I overthink A LOT. I suddenly thought what if I try to stay away from social media for one day. What would happen? At first, syempre feeling ko parang no, I’m not gonna do it. But then today, as I woke up, I thought why not try it for a week. I wanted to challenge myself kasi I realized na halos 80% of my day, I spend it looking through my phone, scrolling thru facebook, twitter, check updates from my friends, tweets ridiculous stuff to get everyone’s attention, like I needed a validation from everyone else. Getting those likes or hearts makes me happy, helped me quite boost my confidence pero at the end of the day I always ask myself masaya ba talaga ako? I also tweeted last night na “sobrang mapanlinlang ng social media kasi akala ng mga tao ang saya saya ng buhay mo but in real life hindi ka naman talaga masaya” KASI HINDI NAMAN TALAGA. And I’m tired of faking happiness, I don’t know. Some people would probably think na nagpapapansin lang ako and I don’t fucking care so quits lang.

            Anyways, around 12PM I started deleting Facebook, Messenger and later on Twitter. I logged out my main account on Instagram but I have another account which is where I post daily pics for my 365 days thing challenge AND I CAN’T MISS POSTING so yun lang yung social media app ko right now. I don’t consider youtube as a social media since you aren’t actually interacting with people unless you’re a youtuber or whatever, also di naman ako masyado nanunuod sa youtube. So basically I can’t do anything with my phone, Spotify and Photography apps lang meron ako. I SERIOUSLY DON’T WHAT THE FUCK TO DO. No one’s texting me rin so okay, naglaba ako saka inayos ko drawer ko, I’m also re-reading yung book ni Alex Gonzaga na “Dear Alex, Break na kami. Paano?! Love, Catherine” I don’t know kung itutuloy ko pa hahaha omg.

            Fast forward to evening, nag-paload na ako kasi di ko na kayang walang kausap. You know, isolating yourself from social media makes you feel more alone. No notifications, no messages, no anything. Napaisip tuloy ako kagabi what if di ako nag-post sa ig story ko na I’m doing this, would people really care? Would people start worrying about me? Would they actually notice that I was gone? Okay enough. Maaga ako natulog kasi wala narin talaga ako magawa.

DAY 1 – January 15, 2018

            Goodmorning! Is it? Nasanay akong ino-on yung wifi ko first thing in the morning and waiting for notifs but then I remembered I deleted my apps and went straight to office bcs OJT. And sa office, di naman ako masyado nahirapan kasi I was thinking of doing something else. Kasi syempre since I promised myself not to access any of my social media accounts, may mga ideas na pumapasok sa utak, like what should I do on this certain day or whatever. Right now, since hindi pa maayos yung wall ko sa kwarto naming I decided to plan a design for it and I’m actually enjoying this thing. Kanina rin tinry, I joined this challenge thing na pag-gawa ng User Interface for a Weather App na inemail sakin nung katrabaho ko dito sa OJT and so far, masaya naman. To be honest ang dami na naka-draft sa utak ko na gusto kong i-tweet but then okay next week nalang. HAHAHA. It’s only the second day pero hey I’m quite enjoying this. Being away from social world makes you feel alone for real like what I’ve said earlier, pero through this I realized na mas nagkakaron ako ng time for myself. Time for me to think about what I should do next, hindi lang basta mag-scroll sa fb and twitter and watch kung ano nangyayari sa buhay ng ibang tao. Spotify will be my company for the whole week, and kung walang music? Feeling ko mabibingi ako sa silence.

            Many things happened to me today. VERY UNLUCKY OF ME. It is something sort of traumatizing and I will not say it here. Kahit di masyado naging maganda yung araw ko I made it quite productive by designing my wall. I printed a lot of aesthetic stuff I got from the internet, some of them were my postcards (BTS, Dean, Suspicious Partner) Hindi ko pa tapos tbh kasi I’m planning to include Kimi No Na Wa dun sa wall since it’s really something. I also included the album covers I made dun sa mga playlist na ginawa ko sa Spotify. I’ll be putting the links or pictures below. It is actually really nice na naisip kong gawin to (wall design) since wala naman akong ibang pwedeng gawin hahaha. Pero ayun nga, it’s nice to have something to stare at. Every time na nag-wall design ako tinititigan ko lang after and I feel happiness by staring at it. I don’t know, ang sarap lang talaga kasi titigan nung mga happy faces sa polaroids alam niyo yun. Yung memories it would suddenly all flashback to you.

DAY 2 – January 16. 2018

            It’s Tuesday and it is supposed to be my rest day sa OJT pero I decided pumasok kasi gusto ko narin naman matapos to. I’m tired of waking up tapos pagpasok sa office wala rin masyadong gagawin, kasi wala rin namang maipagawa sakin. Feeling ko tuloy parang ang wala kong kwenta hahahaah dejk. Everything’s going well naman so far, medyo nasasanay na yung self ko na hindi masyadong hawak yung phone ko unless mag-pplay lang ako ng music.Ay nga pala, forgot to tell you all na natutuwa akong gumawa ng playlist sa Spotify ang saya lang kasi talagang gumawa lalo na yung part na gagawa ako ng album cover for that playlist, I think this would become my hobby.

            I just got home and I was alone earlier, di pumasok yung ibang mga kasama ko sa OJT huhu but it’s okay, saying din oras. Pero nagsayang lang din naman ako ng oras sa office kasi wala akong magawa. Since I can’t use social media kung ano ano na pumapasok sa isip ko na gawin. I wanted to read David Levithan’s novel book na “Every Day” kasi ang tagal ko na gusting basahin yun nung high school pero I didn’t when I had the chance. So ayun, pahirapan makahanap ng pdf online, luckily I found one hehe pati yung “Another Day”. And since gagawing film yung Every Day I hopeeee mabasa ko na siya before ko mapanuod haha. Bukod sa paghanap ng pdf ng mga books, I also read articles about sa mga black mirror episodes yung mga analysis nung mga episodes kasi I wanted to understand it more and read reviews. Pati yung meaning ng mga kanta ni Taylor Swift sa reputation album sinearch ko. Jusko I obviously got nothing else to do sa office lmao. Fast forward to uwian (yey) it’s raining outside and I felt the sadness, alone, sad, raining wow really nice di ba. When I got home, kumain muna ako syempre and naisip kong manuod ng horror movie, I watched “Happy Death Day” and it’s actually good. Di naman sya yung type ng horror na sobrang matatakot ka so sa mga di mahilig sa horror, pwede niyo naman panuorin, matutuwa kayo kasi may halong comedy and sort of romance naman yung movie. Although, quite disappointed with the ending, sa reason nung killer bat niya pinapatay ng paulit-ulit yung bida. Basta ayun, panuorin niyo nalang. After that, nakatulog na agad ako.

DAY 3 – January 17, 2018

            It’s raining AGAIN. Actually, ambon lang naman and medyo hassle lang sa pag commute kasi basa. Hnggg. Ang aga ko na naman sa office, and feeling ko it’s one of the effects taking a break from social media kasi hindi nakakain yung oras ko ng pag-aayos sa pagpasok sa work. Walang distractions. And mapipilitan kang kumilos talaga kasi wala ka naman ibang gagawin lol. Today was like any other day sa office, nothing to do as of now huhu (give me something to do please)

            As I got home, I spent my night watching Black Mirror. Lol. Pinanuod ko yung Shut Up and Dance, San Junipero and Hang the DJ, nasimulan ko rin naman yung Men Against Fire pero di ko natapos inantok na ako. Out of all episodes, yung Hang the DJ yung pinakagusto ko, naiyak nga ako eh wala namang kaiyak iyak talaga ng bongga pero na-attach ako masyado dun sa episode na alam mo yun nilabanan nila yung system kasi they both believe na sila yung perfect match ayun la lang, pero sa ending yun pala yung totoong sila, yung Amy and Frank is just virtual lol pero anyways, at least sila yung nag-end up together in real life (hopefully). Honestly, I also spent my time reading articles and reviews about Black Mirror kanina sa office. I got seriously nothing else to do, nag-check ako ng email ko na ginagamit ko sa fb and found some people messaging me pero all I can was “*Name* has sent you a message” and kailangan kong buksan messenger to read the message kaso I have to stick with my experiment.

DAY 4 – January 18, 2018

            Nothing quite special about this day, this is like reliving my day over and over again. Lol. Oh wait, I drank 3 cups of coffee today and I felt like my heart’s going to burst anytime. I realized na wala na talagang epekto kape sakin, after ko kumain when I got home nanuod lang ako saglit ng Black Mirror (again) and I fell asleep agad, ramdam ko yung pagod kahit wala naman ako masyadong ginawa today. Also, I waited for almost an hour sa terminal jusko. Yun lang haha boring no? Gusto ko na bumalik sa social media not because I miss it (Well, sort of) pero kasi yung ka-group ko sa thesis need makausap haha pero nakiusap nalang ako sa kaklase ko to chat him haha.

DAY 5 – January 19, 2018

            Today, akala ko malalate na ako ng bongga kasi it’s Friday and ang hirap sumakay because punuan sa bus haisxt. I can’t even help my officemate sa ginagawa niya although sabi eh tulong kami so ayun I really got nothing else to do, kahit gusto kong simulant yung docu nung UI ng Preventive Maintenance (project dito sa office) di parin masimulan kasi di pa approved yung design huhu. Pansin niyo bang paikli ng paikli yung mga kwento ko per day? Kasi paulit-ulit lang naman hahaha. Di naman din ako naging ganun ka productive lol kahit yung plano kong magbasa ng libro di ko rin naman nagawa.  

            Okay I finally decided to bring back my social media by 12PM because of important matters and wala akong ibang contact sa ka-group ko except sa messenger lang talaga. Di ko na-accomplish yung 1 week but 5 days was long enough to prove some things sa akin. It was fun though.

FINAL THOUGHTS

 TRY. IT. Especially if you are addicted to social media. You need to take a break from it, girl. For the past days wala akong idea about what’s happening with everyone’s lives pero as days passed, hindi naman sa walang pake pero di ko na masyadong iniisip kung ano yung nangyayari sa buhay ng ibang tao. One thing I realized is that, I really spend my time scrolling thru my feed and comparing myself to others na parang why am I not like them, why am I not as creative as them, nakaka-baba ng self-esteem indeed. As I said earlier, I read few articles about people who tried this “Social Media detox” some of them just found an alternative way of distracting themselves with their phones, some of them even said na nagbago yung perspective nila sa social media and it made them happy to learn some things. And for me, I’d go with second one, it was hard but it was fun trying to fill this void within you, once you’re away from social media you began to observe people around you (in real life) and ma-aamaze ka nalang and ma-sasad at some point kasi halos lahat ng tao eh nakatutok sa phones nila, most people don’t socialize or communicate with others narin. Sobrang laki na talaga ng impact ng social media sa buhay ng mga tao, actually based palang sa pinopost natin dapat di ka lang nagpopost basta basta eh, most of us post to gain likes, attention, recognition, the satisfying feeling na you’re beautiful and whatever. I know most of you understand that feeling, and we actually love that feeling. But the thing is, di na totoo yung ibang pinopost natin sa social media. Akala ng mga tao, ang saya saya ng buhay natin but in real life hindi naman. Why? Because nag-base sila sa posts natin sa social media. And if we tried to express ourselves, our frustrations, anxieties, about our depression a lot of people would still say “Ano na namang ka-dramahan yan?” and invalidates your feelings kasi nasa utak na nila na you’re a happy person, you are not that kind of person na malungkot, which is sad, which makes most of us trying to be real have anxieties and all. That’s shitty isn’t it? Imbes na icomfort natin yung tao, ginagago pa natin. Sana maging sensitive tayo about it. Omg wait di ko alam if what I’m saying is still related to what I want to really say. Haha. Anyway, nabasa ko lang din kasi sa isang article na one of the factors kaya tayo nagkaka-anxiety is because of social media and I actually agreed to that. The past days, I wasn’t really that sad, I believe na-lessen yung pag-ooverthink ko, kasi wala akong ibang iniisip kung hindi pano ko ma-eentertain yung sarili ko, how will I be productive, and start to think about what would happen to me in the future, yung mga ganung bagay. You start to think about yourself, about how you would impress yourself and not other people. I guess that’s it. It was a really fun thing to do. 

[harpreetsinghfan-blog]

ISIS has failed to grab a foothold in India. Why targeting UK ??

IS( Islamic state) failure in India despite a large Muslim population, said by Indian home minister Rajnath singh. 

Question is how ISIS failed India despite of living 172 million Muslim in India??

Saying that India has been successful in facing off against the challenges posed by the Islamic State, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Saturday, dubbing the global terror group a failure in the country 

“Mr singh went on to say, noting that over 90 sympathisers of ISIS have been arrested by Indian security agencies. Better coordination between states and Centre on security was responsible for the ISIS sympathisers getting arrested.

India has third largest population of Muslim in the world. Majority of then are sunni Muslim.  But some of them think Indian Muslim are best land for recruitment ground for radicalism .

ISIS also threatens many time to wipe out SHIA & HINDU population from the country . India is not inexperienced in dealing with terrorism whether in India or abroad. 

According to global terrorism index India rank as 8 most effected by terrorism in the world. But India has learn from terrorist attack happens in Mumbai terrorism attack 2008 there are many loopholes at time . 

Now India started  counter radicalization & de-radicalization strategy  on spread of ISIS in India .

People who are suspicious on the link with ISIS have been put under full time surveillance. India also set up WAR ROOM it’s work 24/7 , design to continues  monitor social media. Officials of Ministries of Home and Telecommunication and agencies like the Intelligence Bureau (IB), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) and Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERTIn) are deliberating on immediate measures to combat the growing use of cyber space for spreading communal hatred and targeting youth and spreading radical ideology.

But despite all this, another major factor, that Indian Muslims are unwilling to haunt to extremism. his is grounded in India’s historic roots of harmony, tolerance, mysticism and diversity. India have strong family values, India has a very strong cultural and national identity that cuts across religious beliefs, which has played an important role in preventing radicalization. India has also experienced immense success in execution of de-radicalization programs.

Moreover, the majority of the Muslims in India have historically also followed the Sufi strain of Islam, which is liberal and spiritual, unlike the radical Wahhabi and Salafist strains followed by members of ISIS. Nearly 70,000 Indian Muslim signed a fatwa against ISIS .

Indian Government has chosen not to join the US-led coalition against ISIS.

Indian Prime Minister Modi addressed a four-day conference of Sufi scholars in March 2016, intended to promote tolerance as a counterpoint to the rise in terrorism and extremism. The Prime Minister’s presence was seen as an outreach to Muslims and a bid to ease concerns that his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is pursuing a Hindu revivalist agenda. It is also important to educate unemployed youth who are at risk radicalization. For this reason, the ministry of minority affairs has been asked to implement various welfare and employment-oriented schemes, especially in the “vulnerable pockets” of the country.

Attacks that have taken place in France, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the last year point out the increasingly diffused nature of terrorism in the global context which has seen manifestations in the form of regular lone wolf attacks. 

Ajit Doval (current National Security Adviser to Prime Minister of India). offered a rather simplistic explanation to the situation suggesting that ISIS attempts to lure young Muslims from India has largely been unsuccessful because of a system of strong family values prevalent in India, wherein parents have consistently reigned in on youths who appear to be going wayward.   Muslims getting radicalized to join the ISIS and adopting the macabre of violent Jihad as the ultimate destiny of their lives. While the strategy of de-radicalization and parental supervision has worked as a counter terrorism response, it has only been able to treat the symptoms and not the disease itself. So the  question arises as  what can be done by the government to strengthen the current counter-terrorism response to the looming threat of an ISIS incursion into Indian Territory?

—  the first and the foremost priority should be to distinguish ISIS from other groups like Al-Qaeda at the international level and groups like SIMI and Indian Mujahedeen at the national level . India has a very strong cultural and national identity that cuts across religious beliefs. They are nationalist first. Muslim love there country equal as Hindu , sikh loves .

Country should provide individual’s  liberty to freely access social networking without supervision of intelligence agencies, but in the interest of national security, it is necessary to curtail such rights but in a reasonable manner without hurting basic fundamental rights of citizens. 

The travel by any Indian citizen to Middle East, including for religious pilgrimage ( Mecca) by Muslim community must only be allowed after a thorough and detailed background check & counter vigilance in that country if required. Like in London salman abedi visited Libya , intelligence agency should do detailed background check, purpose of going and if suspicious that surveillance on them. UK intelligence agencies already know about him & about his father background. Manchester arena attack happens because the delay in action by intelligence agencies against the radicals .

MI5 assesses the threat level to the UK based on how likely it is an attack will happen. The five threat levels range from low, when an attack is unlikely, to critical, when an attack is expected imminently. Severe, the UK’s current threat level, is second highest on the list and means an attack is highly likely.

The Manchester bombing marks the first time jihadis have launched a successful major terrorist attack in a city outside of the capital.

Abedi’s massacre had the highest death toll in Britain since the 7/7 bombing and was second major attack in a year following Khalid Massod’s rampage on Westminster Bridge.

Kyle Orton, research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a counter-extremism think tank, said ISIS will now attempt to find the “softest of soft” targets in the UK to maximize casualties.

Another article, which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), also warned the UK and “its sister” countries that if they “continue on their path, [in a state of] unbelief and animosity,” then IS will continue striking until the end of time. It also questions the effectiveness of the UK and Europe of fighting ISIS and the ability to stop attacks on European soil.

The article attacks the UK’s reliance on America and accuses the Government of being unable to make any decisions about fighting ISIS without the approval of Washington.

UK is the important member of NATO and US . If US strike in Middle East then NATO also supports the USA. There are many reasons to target UK, NATO and US has broken the back bone of ISIS. They begging for comeback. People of U.K. Need to make patience. Terrorist attack on U.K. Mean attack on whole NATO . 

Let me be very clear at the outset of my remarks: the U.S. commitment to NATO is strong and this Alliance remains the bedrock for transatlantic security. This Alliance was forged from the ashes of World War II, and for more than half a century has been a necessary defense measure against common threats. Our bond remains essential for facing national and international security challenges in an increasingly unstable world. At the top of this list is defeating ISIS, which is a threat to all member countries and partners. The NATO alliance is also fundamental to countering both non-violent, but at times violent, Russian agitation and Russian aggression. The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense. We understand that a threat against one of us is a threat against all of us, and we will respond accordingly. We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies. These are not just words. Tomorrow, a U.S. enhanced, forward presence battalion will be deployed in Poland. However, as President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO’s defense expenditures. Allies must increase defense spending to meet their commitments in accordance with the Wales Pledge on Defense Investment. The Alliance’s ability to secure the transatlantic community depends on it. The President supports NATO. The U.S. Congress supports NATO. The U.S. Senate has just overwhelmingly approved Montenegro’s NATO accession protocol. We are now one step closer to welcoming Montenegro as a full member of the Alliance. Allies must demonstrate by their actions that they share U.S. governments commitment.   On fighting terrorism, NATO can and should do more. Fighting terrorism is the top national security priority for the United States, as it should be for all of us. NATO has a number of unique capabilities it can bring to this fight. At the Warsaw Summit last year, NATO members recognized cyberspace as an operational domain, alongside land, air, and sea. I am encouraged by our efforts so far at cybersecurity and preventing cyberattacks ( but wanna cry hacks Compuer all over the world). As

ISIS increasingly leverages the internet as a powerful tool for recruitment and propaganda,

we must consider how we can disrupt and aggressively counter their online operations. I want to be clear on one point: we do not believe NATO has to lead everywhere in the fight on terrorism. Others will often have that role, including national governments, the Coalition to Defeat ISIS, or the European Union. But NATO must add value where it can and provide greater support. The security of our people requires it. Particularly in bringing stability to Iraq and contributing to the Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

NATO’s work in Afghanistan remains critical. The United States is committed to the Resolute Support Mission and to our support for Afghan forces. NATO’s “Train, Advise, And Assist” mission is essential to our shared goal of ensuring that Afghanistan develops the capability to contribute to regional stability and prevail over terrorist threats, including al-Qaeda and ISIS.

While meeting the challenge of the fight against terrorism, we must remain vigilant in strengthening NATO’s eastern defenses. Allied commitments to Operation Atlantic Resolve and Enhanced Forward Presence have sent a clear message. But long term stability, from Baltic to the Black Sea, depends upon all allies, not just those who are the most exposed, paying their full share for defending the Alliance.

In closing, I repeat the American commitment to this Alliance. The United States will not abandon its allies or forget its friends. Many of the nations in NATO have been working together for decades to protect shared freedoms, shared values, and shared security. But we cannot keep protecting them without meeting our shared responsibility of financial and other resources.

The Global Coalition – Working to Defeat ISIS — Fact Sheet , Washington, DC, March 22, 2017 The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), working on the ground in Iraq with local partners, has implemented more than 350 projects to date, all of which have achieved their intended objectives on time and at cost. 

Building resistance to extremist propaganda and countering terrorist use of the internet is vital to our effort. Counter ISIS content is now more prevalent online and pro-ISIS content is declining in open forum social media channels. This is a terrorist group that is increasingly struggling in the face of an increasingly organized and sophisticated set of initiatives by the Coalition.

They didn’t mention that ISIS members are from barbaric nations , they were getting constant aid in form of money, arms & resources. How they get internet connections. If they really wanted to erupt terrorism first counter down there communication system and counter vigilance in Saudi Arabia.

Global Coalition member countries are producing national responses and coordinating counter ISIS communications efforts regionally and globally. The Global Counter ISIS Coalition Communications Working Group (led by the UAE, UK, and U.S.) regularly convenes over 30 member countries with media and tech companies to share information and strategies to counter violent extremist messages online and present positive alternative narratives: its last meeting in London on February 28 was attended by a record 38 countries.

With the local partners for military operations; supporting the stabilization of territory liberated from ISIS; and, enhancing international cooperation against ISIS’ global objectives through information sharing, law enforcement cooperation, severing ISIS’ financing, countering violent extremist recruitment, and neutralizing ISIS’ narrative.   The Coalition’s combined efforts have diminished ISIS’ military capability, territorial gains, leadership, financial resources, and on-line influence.

The 68-member Global Coalition is the largest international coalition in history.  THE MILITARY CAMPAIGN Twenty-three Coalition partners have over 9,000 troops in Iraq and Syria in support of the effort to defeat ISIS. Working by, with, and through our local partners, the Coalition has made significant progress in denying ISIS safe haven and building the military capacity of those engaged in direct action against ISIS. The number of ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria is at its lowest level since the group declared its “caliphate,” down by more than half since its peak in 2014. Coalition air assets have conducted more than 19,000 strikes on ISIS targets, removing tens of thousands ISIS fighters from the battlefield and killing over 180 senior to mid-level ISIS leaders,

including nearly all of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s deputies, his so-called ministers of war, information, finance, oil and gas, and his chief of external operations.

The Coalition fight to retake Mosul. Iraqi Security Forces officially liberated eastern Mosul on January 24, 2017 and now are making significant territorial gains in the western portion of the city. To date, Coalition efforts have trained nearly 90,000 Iraqi Security Forces members, including Iraqi Army soldiers, Counterterrorism Services soldiers, Kurdish Peshmerga, federal police and border security soldiers, and tribal volunteers. Coalition members have also donated some 8,200 tons of military equipment to our Iraqi and local Syrian partners in the fight against ISIS. With the support of the Coalition, our Syrian partners have liberated over 14,000 square kilometers of terrain in Syria, including more than 7,400 square kilometers of territory since isolation operations around Raqqa began on November 

Operations have also cleared more than 2,000 square kilometers of territory, including removing ISIS off the remainder of the Turkey-Syria border, cutting off a critical transit route for foreign fighters to Europe. 

As part of these efforts in Syria, the Coalition has helped train thousands of Syrians who have joined the fight to defeat ISIS.

THE CIVILIAN EFFORT STABILIZATION, HUMANITARIAN, AND ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE Since 2014,

Coalition members have provided more than $22.2 billion in stabilization, demining capabilities, economic support, and humanitarian assistance in Iraq and Syria – all of which guard against a resurgence of ISIS. 

Last July, at the Iraq Pledging Conference held in Washington, partners pledged more than $2.3 billion for humanitarian assistance, stabilization, and demining in Iraq. The Coalition expects to raise approximately $2 billion for these efforts in Iraq and Syria for 2017. Support for stabilization efforts is a strategic investment in the fight against ISIS. As a result of this support, local partners in Iraq are holding ground against ISIS, restoring services, clearing schools and clinics of explosive remnants of war and improvised explosive devices, helping families return home once they are ready, providing security, and contributing to re-establishing the rule of law in liberated areas. 

Internationally, coalition partners are exploring ways to also hold ISIS members accountable for international crimes such as genocide and crimes against humanity with international investigative mechanisms.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), working on the ground in Iraq with local partners, has implemented more than 350 projects to date, all of which have achieved their intended objectives on time and at cost. The first projects for Mosul have already started in the outskirts, and $43 million in prepositioned equipment is being deployed. 

Five countries have joined the Italian-led effort to train more than 7,000 Iraqi police to date, now graduating approximately 900 new police officers each month. Iraq’s central government has proven its improved capacity to handle a range of important issues, to include supporting local governance, maintaining security, providing electricity and other essential services, managing the economy, defending its territorial integrity, and upholding the rights of all Iraqis irrespective of their ethnicity, gender, religion, or beliefs. Iraq’s success in rehabilitating liberated communities is due in part to the partnership it forged with Coalition members that has enabled the UNDP to provide more than $240 million in stabilization programs over the last two years.

Canada, Denmark, and Germany provided generous funding that has allowed Janus Global Operations to clear an estimated 1.7 million square meters of at least 21,248 kilograms of explosive hazards in Iraq’s Anbar Province.    NGO partners have provided assistance to tens of thousands of IDPs  Humanitarian and stabilization efforts are also reaching civilian populations in the liberated cities of Jarabulus and Manbij. have been cleared of explosive remnants of war, 400 schools have reopened, over 70,000 children are back in school, markets are open and bustling, and local medical and social services have resumed. There is now a longer-term effort by a commercial partner to survey, mark, and clear key infrastructure areas in Manbij, while simultaneously training a local Syrian capacity. We intend to expand this project to cover the road to Raqqa and, eventually, Raqqa City.      The Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) has developed a series of initiatives, training programs, and global good practices to address the lifecycle of a violent extremist. Such steps are essential to curbing ISIS’ ability to operate freely across international borders.

COUNTER-MESSAGING Building resistance to extremist propaganda and countering terrorist use of the internet is vital to our effort. Counter ISIS content is now more prevalent online and pro-ISIS content is declining in open forum social media channels. This is a terrorist group that is increasingly struggling in the face of an increasingly organized and sophisticated set of initiatives by the Coalition. ISIS Coalition Communications Working Group (led by the UAE, UK, and U.S.) regularly convenes over 30 member countries with media and tech companies to share information and strategies to counter violent extremist messages online and present positive alternative narratives: its last meeting in London on February 28 was attended by a record 38 countries. The Communications Working Group also supports a network of messaging centers that expose, refute, and combat online terrorist propaganda.  We are making it increasingly difficult for

ISIS to spread its poisonous ideology among vulnerable audiences.

We remain focused on growing our online presence. Global Coalition Twitter accounts in Arabic, French, and English continue to increase their number of followers. The Coalition Communications Cell in London, with staff from 10 countries, guides our public global messaging through daily media packs that are distributed to 850 government officials in 60 countries worldwide. COUNTER-FINANCE Coalition collaboration on financial intelligence and broad-spectrum information sharing has supported our military effort to damage or destroy more than 2,600 ISIS energy targets. Coalition airstrikes against energy assets have impeded ISIS’s ability to produce, use, and profit from oil. Coalition airstrikes have also targeted more than 25 ISIS bulk cash storage sites, destroying tens of millions—and possibly hundreds of millions—of dollars. The Government of Iraq has cut off over 90 bank branches in ISIS territory from the financial system and Iraq’s central bank has created a list of over 100 exchange houses and money transfer companies operating in ISIS-held areas or with links to ISIS.            In

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2rSOjS8