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theveryworstthing · 3 years

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So over on patreon Trevor asked for my take on the Addams Family and I grew up LOVING the Addams family movies so here we are. Instead of doing a straight up style interpretation, I decided to do a full on design challenge, using the characters as bases to make a black southern gothic Addams au. I actually drew the kids first, using the character bases of Wednesday and Pugsley to create some delightful kiddos I'm calling Sunday and Blanche. I of course then redesigned Gomez and Morticia into Carlisle and Mortesha.

The Addams have a very specific high aristocratic goth aesthetic (they've got a butler and nobody really works among other things) so in this re-imagining I wanted to go with vibes that run a little more middle class/upper middle class. I thought it would be interesting to think about what would be considered weird and off-putting in an entirely different culture, and how being a big ol' goth is way less controversial than it used to be.

I tried to keep this short (HAHAHAHAHAHA) so I didn't spin off into an essay about villain coded families, black people in the horror genre, and normalcy as it pertains to social survival, but just...bits of that are in these designs and lore. Keep that in mind.

Also I made the kids twins because they've flip flopped in age so much in different media and also twins run in my family (i'm the daughter of one). And let's face it, I'm pulling a lot of their southern gothic traits from living as a southern goth so *shrug*.

10 thousand pounds of lore incoming loooooooooool.

The Parents

From the moment he saw her he knew that there was a 50/50 chance of him either never making it out of that swamp alive or marrying the figure that was creeping out from under the distant willow tree in a black cocktail dress. The third time she found him trussed up in one of her traps, he complimented her rope work and asked if she'd like to go out sometime after his head wound stopped bleeding.

Or while it was still bleeding.

If she was into that.

Some kids and a mysteriously burnt down Piggly Wiggly later, their love is still as strong and inescapable as a bear trap in a sink hole.

Carlisle Guillermo (now Addams through marriage but I wanted to give him two first names for a name since Gomez has two last names) makes a vaguely described living practicing ‘law’ around town. A loophole king, people come to him from miles around with contracts signed in blood, fights over chunks of hair buried in their rivals’ yard, dehydrated primate hands, memories that seemed like dreams until the evidence of their happenings became too real, and other regular Legal Items asking for counsel which he is all too happy to give. For a price. Sometimes that price is a homemade pie and sometimes it’s a million dollars, depends on who you are. Whatever you’re asked to pay it’s worth that price, and if you try to scam him out of work or he just plain doesn’t like you? Well. He knows how to twist a contract better than anything at the crossroads.

And he always gets his due.

He doesn’t just serve the local (living)humans though, there are many things that need proper legal representation in this day and age. You wouldn’t believe how many city councils try to build on sacred burial grounds even after he lets them know that his ghostly clients are totally gonna haunt the FUCK out of the ensuing shitty condos and curse their families for all eternity. At least 50% of his energy goes towards dealing with real estate bullshit.

Carl is an excitable and good natured(?) man who loves his family, cigars, dancing, and his many knife-based hobbies. People find him very charming once they get past the feeling that they’re talking to a sultry gator badly disguising itself as a human. I didn’t put a ton of deep thought into designing him, mostly I wanted to make a middle aged dude who looked like he would have been voted ‘most likely to smooch the literal devil’ in high school. Tbh he probably has, but no demonic ex’s can compare to his lovely wife~

Mortesha Addams(her name was already perfect so I just tweaked it)is a woman of many talents. A self proclaimed homemaker, she prides herself on a greenhouse full of Concerning Foliage, a beautiful wasp apiary, and a coop full of what are probably chickens that she keeps for what are probably eggs. She’s also an avid creator of the outsider art that can be seen around the estate. She has taken on the family business of selling her homemade goods in a little stall by the road just outside the swamp with her mom, and makes pretty good money doing so. A surprising amount of poison gets bought in quaint southern towns.

Speaking of poison, people who come out to the edge of the swamp to buy it are usually carrying a lot of secrets around, and Mortesha knows most of them. It’s not like she pries the truth out of people, it just so happens that many nervous hellos eventually turn into the tragic backstory power hour if she’s alone with a client for long enough. She supposes that’s just how people are. Despite the fact that the Addams are very active in the community (whether the community likes it or not) she especially, as a direct descendant of the first Addams matriarch, is seen as…Well not an outsider because the community feels A Certain Way about outsiders and despite it all the Addams are their people, but maybe something like an exception. They feel like whatever weirdness they’re hiding can’t be weirder than any given Addams, so they get a little loose with their words.

This is amusing to her, since Addams’ don’t naturally keep the kind dramatic secrets that their surface level prim and proper neighbors do. It’s much more fun to openly talk about those things.

Do they have a sadly decrepit yet terrifying grandma up in the attic? Yeah, like three. They got a tv, all the creepy porcelain dolls they could want, and they’re close to family. Where do you keep your gram-grams?

Any bodies buried on the property? Yeah some, but most are thrown to the gators.

Any creeping through the balmy summer night with ill intentions? Yeah dude, everyone loves a nice family stroll.

What about dangerous forbidden love? If an adult Addams isn’t incorporeal then they’re either queer or in a torrid romance with some person/thing mysteriously drawn to that awful swamp. Sometimes both at the same time. Most times actually.

Mortesha would know.

The current head of the Addams family is just as outgoing as her husband but a lot quieter and harder to read. She never really seems to get mad about much and always has a genteel smile for everyone whether they deserve it or not. A seven foot tall human shaped “Oh, bless your heart”. A perfectly composed Lady even when she’s, oh I dunno, burning down a Piggly Wiggly. You know. A regular southern mom. Chat her up at the hair salon for 50% off a jar of wasp honey with your next purchase of a mysterious but foreboding packet of herbs.

Designing her was pretty easy because I just drew a lankier Grace Jones and called it a day. I had some problems with her outfit simply because if we were going HARD southern gothic then she’d probably be wearing a white/cream dress with a fuller skirt but I thought keeping the silhouette and the black was more important. She’s supposed to be an anti southern gothic southern gothic character anyway. A woman who looks like she has a million secrets who is actually the most open person you could meet. For better or worse. The red hair came from a coloring error that I really ended up liking (my mom had red hair her whole childhood that only darkened up in high school so I can buy that an Addams can be naturally fire engine red) and the veil was to get more of that classic Morticia silhouette in there.

The Children

Sunday and Blanche are the twin children of Carlisle and Mortesha Addams. Some say the Addams clan got their cursed homestead when a wealthy local businessman made a deal with the devil and lost, leaving his grand mansion to his least favorite maid and cutting his losses once he realized that the swamp would do everything it could to drag the house into the water and take what was owed with its horrible curse. Others say that the family has just always squatted there and no one really cares because man, fuck that particular swamp. Have you been in there? Absolute horror show.

Anyway.

Blanche is the more outgoing sibling and quite the engineer/mad scientist in the making. He started going grey at 2 weeks old but considering he was also rocking some extra fingers, toes, and a tiny tail (he takes after his dad), his parents just put it on the 'not life threatening' pile and decided not to worry about it. He's the kind of smart that teachers find utterly infuriating, less a dog eagerly learning and obeying commands and more a hyena who keeps teaching itself how to pick locks. He has a few friends in his school's robotics club (which they honestly allowed him to make so the school could contain his... creations) but mostly hangs out with his sister exploring the swamp. They find all sorts of neat things in there! wedding rings, suspiciously lumpy garbage bags, cloaked cultists who can't read private property signs, it's an adventure every day!

Blanche is all about experimentation with his creations, his look, and his tether to this mortal coil. Is lipstick a cool thing to try? Let's find out. Can he get out of a strait jacket fast enough after being pushed into the depths of the swamp by his sister? let's find out. He's not dead yet and confused local doctors can attest to the fact that he's rarely attained more than a bad bruise so he's pretty set on continuing to kiss rattlesnakes on their cute little heads and have his sister practice her knife throwing at him until that fact changes.

Blanche is very much a country goth. Cowboy boots (customized by his mom), knife, and lighter are daily accessories. He likes to wear the crusty swamp jewelry they find (the rust adds a splash of color!) and despite appearances he does try to keep himself neat. He's just got natural Grunge Colors and a tendency to wear clothes he likes until they fall apart. Pugsley always seemed the most modernly styled to me (which might just be because little boys clothes have been the same for a long time) so I wanted Blanche to be the most purposely fashionable Addams. Everyone else is goth by nature, but he's the only one truly familiar with goth as an alternative fashion.

I got really into designing Blanche because honestly, I find Pugsley to be the most boring member of the family. And he was hard to design! I had to mess with his vibe a lot to get him looking how I wanted. I know he's supposed to evoke an " 'evil' little boy next door who's parents never reign him in", but that's just goth Dennis The Menace. I's 2020. We can at least go queer goth Calvin.

Sunday was much easier to design. Wednesday was my favorite as a child (of course) and I really wanted to keep the spirit of her look while adding things like billowy sleeves (it gets HOT down here), big poofy twists instead of braids, and a nice tie. She's a professional after all, been running the local pet cemetery since she was 6 and the previous groundskeeper met with an unfortunate accident after telling her that tarantulas don't have souls. Her specialty is creating beautiful naturalistic animal funerals similar to those that Maquenda (https://linktr.ee/artofmaquenda) makes, and she takes pride in creating miniature dioramas of her subjects after each burial which she uses as a kind of 3D catalog for future clients.

She really wants to try out her skills on humans one day. Well. Publicly try out her skills. Lotta random bodies float into the swamp. None of them have turned down her requests for diorama models so far. Most seem downright flattered. Plus, she usually figures out which graveyard/crime scene they floated over from and gets her parents to give them a lift back. She'll even help enact terrifying revenge from beyond the grave on whoever put them there if she's not, y'know, busy.

Besides arts, crafts, and pet based funerary arrangements, Sunday is an avid lover of archery (any ranged weapon really), books where little fantasy adventure animals die dramatic deaths, and history. She is That Kid who eagerly raises her hand when asked who Christopher Columbus was and ends up being sent out of class after 15 minutes for making 'a scene'. Her favorite party trick is just picking an item in the room and talking about how it relates to either some obscure historical figure with a buck wild life or a horrible disaster. At least one charity pancake breakfast ended with children in tears after her vivid description of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Social-wise, while Wednesday is the girl that people ask to smile because they think she'd, "look so pretty", Sunday is rarely asked anything at all. People just kind of assume from her quiet nature (in between horrible history facts) that she's angry all the time and that she hates everyone. This is untrue. She hates some people but she's ambivalent to most everyone else and even downright friendly if you bother to talk to her like a person instead of a terrifying cryptid. Like, she IS a terrifying cryptid but she's also a little girl.

That’s about it for now. One day I might do the other family members but for now I’m happy with the four I’ve redesigned. Making an au! Lurch in a family that doesn’t do butlers could be interesting. Over on patreon I put forth that he could just be Motesha’s mute little brother (similar bone structure) but Amy Crook had the nice idea of quote: “ a mysterious "cousin" that "helps around the house" whose origins are both long in the past and faintly unsettling. He's good for lifting heavy things, like that tank of propane you're about to throw into the burning Piggly Wiggly... “ which i now consider canon. Who's kid is he? How old is he? Not important. Anyone willing to commit arson with you is family.

Annnnyway. This challenge was a lot of fun! I love indulging in AU’s.

#long post #the addams family #Character Design #au #design challenge #i am incapable of doing a design challenge like a normal person #oh god i forgot the cut lol

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hello-im-not-a-possum · 3 years

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20. Sin

One of the greatest sins is blasphemy and one of the greatest forms of blasphemy is declaring yourself a god in front of your former god. What makes it worse is that Allison and the Ink Demon know for a fact he’s not bluffing, at least, not anymore. (Set in FIFE, the end of the cat and mouse game between Allison and Sammy.)

“I still think you should’ve stayed, Inky.” Allison stated as the cold air bellowed on her face. “If there’s anyone Sammy hates more than Tom... it’s you.”

“That’s WHY I need to come!” The Ink Demon protested from within the large inkwell underneath her arm, completely unaware that the wingless angel was rolling her eyes. “I need to apologize to him! I never got the chance back at the motel, I was too focused on the questions I had for him whenever he was with us, and… and if he didn’t do it already, he might not even survive this. ...Let alone make it back home…”

The strong smells of bleach, citrus, and smoke wafted through the area, only growing stronger the deeper they descended into the ex-prophet’s final destination.

“If he did the ritual already and didn’t survive it, then what would be the point of you coming here?” She dropped the inkwell containing the demon as he grew so heated it burned her skin as soon as the question left her lips. It proceeded to roll a bit and prop itself upright in front of her. “He’ll never forgive you as a corpse, ...but I don’t think he’ll forgive you if we find him alive either.”

“If he’s dead, I’ll still apologize to him, but I’ll also add that I’m sorry for never telling him that while I had the chance.”

As much as she wanted to argue with Inkwell, knowing that the Demon would only aggravate the musician more and turn this already delicate and stressful situation into another “Molotovs at the Motel” incident...

...The Ink Demon’s presence was the only thing keeping her from passing out from all the blessed bleach dripping down from the ceiling and pooling on the floors.

“Let’s just keep moving,” she sighed. “We have to be close to him by now...”

“At the forking path, take a right turn by the runny and mostly erased ink message that used to say ‘You don’t NEED a prophet when every prophecy you tell is self-fulfilling’. Well %&#@ me with a crucifix...”

“What’s wrong?”

“I still feel him, but he’s getting fainter and fainter as we speak! And I hear the Ink machine running, but it’s not pumping out ink!” The Inkwell flopped down on it’s side and rolled down the halls at an intense speed. “Don’t just stand there, run like #&!!, woman!”

“Sammy, why are you even doing this?” Allison muttered under her breath as she sped down the dripping halls after the Ink Demon.

While the holy liquid intended to erase ink had managed to nibble away at the soles of her boots, and at the sturdy glass of his inkwell, the pair’s race through the musician’s maze rewarded them with a faint song in the distance.

“Don’t weep for me my sheep, as I descend the abyss so deep…”

“Sammy!”

The pair shouted in unison as they chased after it.

“No matter how low... I’ve been cast below the sea, I’ll rise back up, as a Lent Lily...”

Allison scooped up the Ink demon’s inkwell as the bleach spread out more and more, shallowly covering the floor.

“As dreams are burned to ashes, and hope is left to die, I will keep on going onward, I will look up to the skies.”

The smells of bleach and citrus were growing so strong that it made Allison nauseous, her eyes were watering and she felt like she was in a room that was full of thick, unbreathable smoke.

“As sweet citrus boils black and bitter, as the mighty willows wither… There’s no fear that I have no more, I’ve seen it all before.”

The Prophet’s faint voice was getting louder and louder the more they ran.

“Even if I answer, the calling of the earth… I will not sleep for long as I sing the song of rebirth.”

The bleach level began to rise a bit more, but she saw the Ink machine through a doorway.

“So sing your happy songs, and whistle your happy tunes, if you wait for my arrival, I will be there very soon...”

The pair had finally arrived to the ritual site; a gigantic, rounded room with enough bleach on the floor for it to go up to their ankles, a relatively small transmutation circle was painted in the very center of it, the damaged looking ink machine was suspended by chains with it’s nozzle pointed at the circle. But no one besides them was in the small coliseum.

“Sammy?” She looked around the hollow stadium and called out again. “Sammy, where are you?”

She scanned the room once more trying to see if anything moved, and was greeted by a groan from above her head.

Allison jumped back from the splash zone of the wheezing Ink machine, which began pumping out…

...Allison couldn’t tell what the fuck it was pumping out, but she could tell that in spite of its ink-like color, it was not ink, at least, not THE ink she was used to.

A large glob of the stuff oozed out the nozzle and plopped into the ritual circle.

Its texture was chunkier and it smelled absolutely awful. It was mostly coppery, but it also had a sickly strong floral scent and she wouldn’t be surprised if it also had a hint of the bleach smell.

“He… He’s gone!” The Ink Demon’s inkwell shook in her grip. “I can’t feel him at all anymore! HE’S GONE!”

“He can’t be…” She shook her head in disbelief as she examined the pile in the transmutation circle further. “There HAS to be at least something… You heard him too! He’s in here somewhere! There at least has to be either a body or clothes...”

The candles in the circle began to light on their own as the pile began to shift and stir. Allison backed away from it, tightened her grip on Inky’s Inkwell, and slowly drew her sword as she heard music began to play. It wasn’t the intense, fast paced and distorted music she heard almost every other time she and Sammy faced off, this song was different, it was soft and gentle, played with a music box and a banjo, something akin to a lullaby, but the instruments were broken and untuned.

“I still can’t sense him, but I have a gut feeling he’s in that circle...”

“O'r diwedd..!” A bleached white ram’s skull uncovered itself from the pile, it shook itself off and coughed out a huge glob of ‘normal’ thick ink. Lifeless eye sockets peered deeply into Allison’s eyes. “Mae fy siwrnai hir wedi cyrraedd ei diwedd.”

A demon, no. A God, no, not even that, some… thing that was not supposed to exist rose up and out of the pile in the circle, while she could fully comprehend what it was and what it looked like, she felt like she wasn’t supposed to.

Many, many arms, legs, wings, eyes, and mouths emerged out of the dripping, mangled body. The arms looked somewhat human, but none of them looked right; too many joints, not enough joints, too many fingers, not enough fingers, some of them looked ‘healthy’, others looked like they’d be at home on rotting corpses, but all of them were far too long and had too many eyes and mouths. The legs on the other hand looked perfectly normal, but they were sheep legs, not human legs. It made her feel sick just looking at it, it vaguely reminded her of the Ink demon before it redesigned itself into a proper cartoon; an otherworldly being with as much raw power as it had frailty and a body that was warped and unnatural, especially to itself.

She fought the twin urges to bow before it and to put it out of its pitiable existence.

“Sammy…” She backed further away from the being. “What have you done to yourself?!”

“Only what was meant to be done.” The creature spoke calmly and coolly with the voice it had as the prophet, in spite of its body language, it didn’t sound like it was in pain. “What He was too cowardly to do with his own divinity... I will take it upon myself to do it with my own.”

Without warning, it struck the ceiling, dozens of disfigured hands ripping, crushing, and tearing the Ink machine into tiny, useless scraps that the mouths were chewing away at.

“One god down...” If the skull on the beast could express itself, she could tell that it would be grinning, its hands then struck at the Inkwell, prompting her to dodge.

“Two to go.”

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #allison pendle #ink demon #on model ink demon #sammy lawrence #batim fife au #body horror #LOTS of body horror #fanfic #ink demonth

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thetomorrowshow · 3 years

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i will make the sky collapse ch. 3

First - Previous - Read on AO3!

Ok this post is queued bc y’all will not believe how busy I am, so it’ll be on ao3 a little late

CW: referenced violence, food, brief allusion to suicide, spiraling thoughts (from mr. jack kelly himself)

Jack had been here all day. When he ran from the rooftop after the disastrous strike, he’d snuck in through the backdoor of the theater and curled up in a corner, shaking and gasping and barely holding back tears. He’d been so close to just throwing himself off the rooftop, close enough that he knew he couldn’t stay there.

Now he hid behind the various set pieces, trying to not disturb anyone who still might be working around here this late. Not that there should be anyone, now. He’d even completely avoided Miss Medda. The woman liked to believe that she knew everything that went on around the theater, and Jack was content enough to let her. He couldn’t be found right now, though. Not when his nose burned and eyes smarted and knees wouldn’t stop shaking.

He would talk to Medda in the morning. It was late now, and all the lights were out, so it wasn’t like he had much of an option otherwise. Talk to her, maybe paint a background or two . . . maybe she would pay him like she offered . . . then he would be out of here, as soon as he could get Crutchie.

Crutchie. His heart practically split in half, and a tear finally slipped down his nose. They got Crutchie. They took him to the one place Jack had tried to save him from his entire life.

He had plans to head there near dawn tomorrow--after he’d spent another day planning things out. It shouldn’t be too hard to get him--or it wouldn’t, had it been anyone other than Crutchie. Any other boy would figure out how to climb down the wall, but it would be impossible without all working limbs. Crutchie’s bad leg wouldn’t be able to support him at all, especially not after the beating he’d taken in the Square (and definitely not after whatever Snyder and his goons had done so far during his stay, but Jack didn’t like to think about that). Jack could go in the front, the only door . . . but there was no way someone wouldn’t see him. There was always a guard or three hanging around, if not the Spider himself. And how would he get Crutchie down the stairs all by his lonesome?

A tiny voice spoke up in the back of his head, one that he’d been pushing down all evening. You coulds just go, it said. Forget about him, forget about all of them. Just go.

I can’t do that, Jack wanted to cry. He’s my brother, I can’ts just abandon him to Snyder!

People don’t stay in our lives forever, Jack, it reminded him. He’d never make it to Santa Fe, anyhow.

Jack couldn’t deny that. Maybe on a better day, in a better month. Maybe when Crutchie was grown, and his leg had calmed down a bit. Not now though, certainly not tomorrow. If Jack was going to leave soon, he was going to do it on his own. He didn’t want none of the others to come with him, anyhow. Only Crutchie.

Jack drew a hand across his tear-stained face, wincing as he brushed one of his bruises. Maybe in the morning he’d have a clearer head, a better understanding of what on earth he was meant to do. It wasn’t like the strike could continue, after all. They’d all end up in the Refuge for sure, or even worse. He’d seen Romeo get socked by that cop, had no idea how he was doing. If they kept on striking, more police would come, better armed and with no qualms about a bunch of stupid street rats.

None of them, save maybe Les, had escaped with zero injuries. Everyone was bleeding and bruised and crying and Crutchie was in the Refuge, and it was all Jack’s fault for getting the riled up about this in the first place. They were just kids! None of them knew what a union was supposed to be, even if Davey knew a bit about them! They were just children playacting at being adults, thinking that the trolley workers were probably having a good old time with no work while they got arrangements for better conditions, not even caring that there were full grown men dying in that strike. People died in strikes, and Jack couldn’t let it happen to any one of his boys, not before they properly got to be a person yet.

So he would leave--no, sleep on it, but he was fairly certain of his choice. Leaving, having to trust that the others would quit the strike and just deal with the raise in prices. That Crutchie would be out in a few months and be good enough to get right back to business, and maybe smiling that face-splitting smile of his eventually. Jack had to believe that he’d--that they’d all--be okay.

He couldn’t stop the sinking feeling in his stomach as he balled his shirt up into a pillow, nor could he stop a few more tears from wetting his cheeks. This was going to be by far the hardest and worst thing he’d ever done. He just had to hold on to Santa Fe. Everything was going to be fine when he got there.

Medda had given him one of those disapproving looks of hers, which Jack tried to ignore as his face burned. It had turned to blatant concern when he didn’t refuse her offer of payment. She had let it go, thankfully, and now he was waiting for the base white layer of paint to dry so he could start with the reds and oranges of a sunset. He’d already been waiting for what felt like way too long, so he stuck his thumb to the corner of it. It left a print and came back white, so Jack sighed and wiped it on his shirt--his undershirt, he’d taken his blue button-up off as soon as he’d gotten the paint out.

He couldn’t just not do anything--he could feel his feet itching to go, his head clamoring for his conscious attention. He absently flapped a brush back and forth against his palm, wondering if he could start on another while he waited, get the base coat of that one done and drying while he started on the actual painting of the first one. First he ought to sign this one, though, before he forgot.

Jack always signed his work, usually just on the back of the piece. A quickly scrawled ‘Jack K--’ in black paint, something to set it aside from all the other set pieces. He also knew that the boards would get reused countless times, painted over and cut up and redesigned. It was nice to know that under all that change, his name was there.

He spun it around and cracked open the can of black paint, dipping his brush in lightly and placing it on the blank back of the slab of wood. He could do his name big, more noticeable but with a better chance of getting scraped off. Or tiny, in the corner, somewhere it’d probably stay forever. Then he realized that while he’d been considering, he’d begun painting.

A boy, small, but very clearly a newsie, by his bag. An anguished face. A crutch.

Jack nearly dropped the brush. Was his guilt getting that bad, that he was painting Crutchie out of nowhere? Well, he couldn’t leave him there all alone on the canvas, with such a terrible look on his face. So Jack dipped his brush back in the paint and began another boy, not himself--not now that he was leaving--but Davey, as he liked to think that as Crutchie and Davey would become good friends in time. But Davey needed Les, and Les needed other boys, but of course they couldn’t be painted into this. They were too busy being suffocated by Pulitzer--and with that thought, Jack knew what he was painting.

The landscape had started out as any random place, just like all of them did. Mountains, a valley maybe, warm colors and some purple thrown in to capture the magic of a stained-glass sunset, and suddenly it was Santa Fe, exactly as Jack pictured it in his head. This happened with every single backdrop, from meadows to beaches to forests. All of them were Santa Fe, even if they weren’t.

“You ever gonna paint somewhere else, Jack?” a voice asked behind him, as he surveyed his work so far. He chuckled, not turning around, holding his thumb out in front of him the way he’d seen real painters do. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he thought it looked professional-like.

“How could you tell, Miss Medda?”

“Boy, I can tell everything.”

Jack dropped his arm and set his brush down on the floor, wiping his hands on his shirt as he turned around. Medda frowned.

“You are wearing an apron, use it!”

Oh yeah, he was. He moved his hands to it belatedly, smiling a little when Medda laughed at him. She was dressed to leave, not in a costume like Jack had assumed she would be. Were the shows over already?

“I’m heading out for a quick supper,” Medda said, and Jack nodded. One of the shows was over then, the other would be starting soon. He hadn’t lost track of as much time as he thought. “Do you want me to get you somethin’?”

“Aw, don’t worry ya’self over me,” Jack waved off. Sure, he hadn’t had anything to eat all day, but he could grab himself something later. By the look on Medda’s face, she was going to worry herself over him.

“I’ll bring you a sandwich, free of charge,” she said, reaching forward to pat his shoulder. He winced; he hadn’t realized he had a bruise there. Medda gave him another look, then turned to leave. Over her shoulder, she called, “By the way, Jack, there’s someone here to see you. I told him to wait in box five.”

Jack froze. They’d found him. It had to be Davey, didn’t it? The other boys knew that he stopped by the theater every so often, but didn’t know about his paintings. They just thought he knew one of the actors, or was getting food from the back or something. Only Davey and Les knew he worked here on occasion.

Jack put off visiting the box until after Miss Medda returned and told him to get up there before she sent the kid off herself. It was time to confess, he supposed. Let them know he wanted the strike to stop, and was leaving anyhow. At least someone would be able to tell Crutchie where he’d gone. And Katherine, if she cared.

This time he remembered to wipe his hands on his apron, then bundled it up and threw it into a corner. The painting wasn’t done, but he wanted to let it all dry before adding his finishing details. Every time he’d painted before, he hadn’t waited at all and it always came out looking more smudged than he wanted, so he’d decided to experiment a bit. Maybe it would look okay.

He couldn’t put it off any longer, it was time to face the music--or, Davey, rather. Jack knew his way around the theater, so it wasn’t hard to avoid the milling patrons in the lobby completely and skip straight up to box five, ready to talk to--

Specs?

“Specs?”

Specs.

“Specs.”

Specs leaped up from where he’d been perching on the edge of one of the fancy theater chairs, looking guilty as anything. When he saw Jack, though, his face brightened. “You’re all right!”

“Yeah, better than ever,” Jack griped, his eyes caught on the nasty hand-shaped bruise wrapped around Specs’s forearm. “Whaddya need?”

“We’s thought you mighta gotten grabbed by Snyder,” Specs said, looking him up and down, no doubt taking in his relatively few injuries. “The Delanceys been sayin’ you ran. I think some o’ the fellas mighta believed it, but Race thought ya’d be here so I cames by as soon as I could!”

Jack hadn’t counted on telling anyone other than Davey where he was going, but maybe this was for the best. Davey was so new to this, there was no way he could be in charge. Race was the first to come to mind for his replacement, but Race was so stupidly impulsive that Jack wasn’t sure he would be able to keep the boys in line. Specs would do well, though, at least until a better choice came forward. Used to the life, but always a little separate from the others, focusing more on the job than the social aspect. Still, he could have fun, and he was quietly loyal. Yeah, Specs would make a pretty good replacement. Jack opened his mouth to say something along those lines when a dirty scrap of paper was shoved in his face.

“What’s this?” he said instead.

Specs looked nervous and abashed at the same time. “Letter from Crutchie,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I went ta visit last night and he askeds me to give it to ya.”

Jack stared at the paper, taking in none of its details, then shifted his gaze to Specs. His eyes looked honest, if a bit anxious, mouth curved hopefully at the corner. The scrape on his cheek was ugly, but didn’t look infected. Davey must’ve made them all clean up with soap. That was another thing he’d have to tell Specs to remember. If he was going to be in charge, he had to know that Elmer hated the texture of the soap so bad he wouldn’t use it and had to be threatened, that Race sometimes liked to impulsively smear dirt on his wounds to try and get sympathy when it got infected.

Crutchie had written to him.

Jack grabbed the letter so quickly it almost tore, sending Specs stumbling back. Now that he was focused on it, that was definitely Crutchie’s handwriting, starting out relatively neat and just devolving into larger loops and tinier scribbles as it carried on. The paper was dirty, the pencil smudged here and there, and a rusty stain in the middle of the paper that made Jack’s stomach turn as he imagined how it had gotten there.

“I’ll just be headin’ back,” he heard Specs say distantly, but Jack couldn’t look away from the letter. Crutchie had held this, just last night, and he had been alive. Well enough to write a whole letter. Well enough to still have his sense of humor (Jack snorted at his joke about the food, then remembered the sentence preceding it and immediately sobered). Maybe even well enough to escape?

His letter read that he was already coming up with escape plans of his own, which was a good sign for his morale. It also said, though, that he was exhausted and his leg was doing bad.

Well, there was no way Jack couldn’t visit him now. Early in the morning was best--probably when the moon was about halfway done setting--and from there he would see whether or not Crutchie would be coming with him. Then back to the theater to lay low for a bit and finish the backdrop (there was no way Jack would be able to even think about finishing it tonight), then catch a train to Santa Fe and be out of here forever. If Crutchie did come, though, he’d have to do at least two more sets, get enough money for the both of them to make the trip. And of course, he still had to speak to Specs about taking over. Davey would come for him eventually, so he had to come up with something to placate him.

Why did nobody tell him that running away would take so much effort and planning?

The show was starting soon, and that sandwich was still waiting for him in the back room, so Jack ducked out of the box, tucking the letter into his pocket. He had to get ready for a break-in tonight, there was no time to waste.

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thronesofshadows · 3 years

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We Are All Right Here || Deirdre & Evelyn

TIMING: Before Evelyn’s Birthday (early April) LOCATION: Deirdre and Morgan’s home PARTIES: @deathduty and @thronesofshadows SUMMARY: Deirdre and Evelyn have a complicated discussion of love and loss. CONTENT: Discussions of grief

Deirdre sat still, swirling blood-red wine as peered over at Evelyn through the glass. Symmetrical features, a face that would’ve made millions just by looking pretty as easily as it did upwelling wine, skewed and tiny in the reflection of glass. She looked like a leprechaun, all of her stunning height gone away in tiny glass. Deirdre laughed. “This wine tastes like shit.” Deirdre threw her hands up, meaning no offense. She had invited Evelyn over, after all. And she had asked Evelyn to bring wine—good wine, as she put it over the phone. It wasn’t very hostly of her to complain, but the wine was weird. She set the glass down and uncrossed her legs. “I know you’re the expert, but are you sure this is the good wine? It tastes like something died in it….which normally I would be into but…” She looked up and grinned at her friend. “Well, you’re probably tired of talking about wine and it’s been so long since we’ve gotten together like this...why don’t you tell me what’s going on in your life?”

Given how fond she was of Deirdre, Evelyn was ashamed that she hadn’t spent more time with the other woman recently. She didn’t even have a truly good excuse - which made her feel bad. Not a feeling that she had found herself at all familiar with until more recently. “Some wine is more of an acquired taste.” Evelyn shrugged, raising an eyebrow. “I shall endeavor to find something better next time.” She matched Deirdre’s grin. Relaxed just slightly in her chair, though the urge to hold herself in perfect posture managed to come through even around those that she genuinely found herself most relaxed around. “It has been too long, and I offer my apologies for that. We need to do this more often, I think.” At Deirdre’s question, her mind flashed to Miriam for a moment, but that still felt like too much to share. Avoiding talking about personal details of her life was certainly something that had proven to let her down before, but there were still far too many times when the words got caught in her throat. “I had to get my windows replaced some months back, and so I did some other redesigning within my home. A good friend got me a piano for the holidays and so I have begun to think I might need to properly take up piano again. How about yourself?” Evelyn pushed the glass of wine to the side, letting her gaze rest on her friend.

Deirdre ran her tongue along her lips, tasting the last drops of a bitter red wine, with notes of…well, Deirdre wasn’t the one with the discerning tastes, as much as she liked to think she could tell the difference between twelve dollar wine and thousand dollar wine. “Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a sommelier. There goes that dream.” She sighed and placed her glass down, crossing her legs. As Evelyn spoke though, Deirdre’s lips twitched, and an eyebrow raised in question. A town like White Crest, a woman like Evelyn, she had to be up to better things than replacing windows (no doubt Regan’s fault) and practicing her piano. Not that Deirdre wasn’t happy to hear these things—it truly had been such a long time—but her standards for news were a little high. “That’s it?” She uncrossed her legs, leaning in. “You mean to tell me, in all this time, all you’ve done is some redecorating and piano practice? Really?” Deirdre leaned back, casually gesturing a hand in the air. “You must be hiding the juicy secrets from me. But what’s said during wine night, stays in wine night.” The banshee reached for her glass again, taking a sip. “For example, I’ve been up to—“ Deirdre grimaced; she wasn’t about to tell anyone she was going to therapy, and couples therapy at that. But if she expected to hear the juicy bits of Evelyn’s life, perhaps she ought to offer her own. “—Morgan and I are going to couples therapy.” She raised her glass and downed the rest of the contents. “Now you.”

“You do just fine, Deirdre,” Evelyn raised an eyebrow. “If you wish, I can always teach you more about discerning different types of wine from one another.” She set her glass on the table, watching the redness of the wine settle against the crystal clear glass. “Besides, I never set out to do what I now do, so perhaps you could be an expert someday. If you wish. If not, you do have me around for as long as you wish, and I am happy to find wines that best suit you.” She was more than alright to move beyond discussing wine - she had no specific qualms with the discussion at hand, but she liked to think that her and Deirdre’s friendship extended beyond that. On a good day, when she cared to think of herself as someone who could have friends, she liked to think that it extended far beyond that. “Well, both of those are rather important. I have not played the piano in a number of years, and it feels rejuvenating to return to it.” She held her tongue lightly between her teeth. “I respect that, but besides being not human, I do not think I have had many juicy secrets, not truly.” Her mind flashed to Miriam, and she fiddled with the necklace, running her thumb carefully against the stones. She blinked a few times - almost, bizarrely, reflexively - at Deirdre’s next comment. “I hope it is helpful.” Her father hadn’t thought that was a good thing, and she’d come to realize that maybe as a child it wouldn’t have been, in her case. It wasn’t like a human therapist would understand. “I…” she dropped her hand from the necklace. “Seem to have found someone who I care for rather beyond what I imagined I could. This is the second time this has happened in a year, and though it is beautiful, I am unsure of exactly how to …” she trailed off, “well, how to come to terms with that, given how I have seen myself for so long.”

Deirdre played with the idea in her head, but thought it was just a little too late. She had no one left to impress with wine knowledge—Evelyn seemed to like her just fine and… Deirdre reached to fill her glass again, taking long, big sips. “I think it’s been a good thing,” she responded, finding her reflection in dark, maroon depths more interesting to stare at. Morgan was happier, and the two of them, happier together, and for that alone she would call the venture into therapy a victory. Yet, something about it still left a bitter taste in her mouth. A relic of old prejudices, perhaps. Or the wine. She was delighted, then, that Evelyn found something happier to confess. “Really?” Deirdre lifted her head up, a wide smile offered. “Like….like you did Melanie?” Deirdre delight at the news betrayed her. After all, she was a romantic, and forever optimistic to notions of love ever since Morgan, who was infinitely better than any fantasy, because she wasn’t one and yet, still was. “Evelyn…” she paused, setting her glass aside again. “....how is it that you see yourself? You’ve found two relationships in one year, granted one ended poorly but...if anything, wouldn’t that mean you’re a woman with a loving heart? And Melanie…” Deirdre trailed off, unsure how to approach the dead girlfriend topic. “....well, how is it you see yourself? Caring for someone is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?”

“I think it can be, though I know that - well, that therapy of any sort would not have been something my father would have wanted for me.” She admitted, for something of a first time. It was something that she’d not even thought about much, simply because it just was. That was not what her family did. Lord Robert did not believe in it, much like he did not believe in education surrounded by other children. Revealing too much of oneself, especially emotionally, was not something that would do any of them any good. So Evelyn believed it herself, well enough. She wasn’t supposed to cry too much if she got hurt, and she wasn’t supposed to be overly excited, unless it was at an event and the situation demanded it. Even then, pleasant smiles and a grin flashed here and there were far more preferable. “I -” she ran her tongue over her teeth, switching it to press against the roof of her mouth. “Perhaps. It may well be something in that direction…” she let her voice trail off. “I see myself as someone for whom relationships and romance do not necessarily mix with. I have been shut away for much of my life, and strong emotions do not go well with me, always. Relationships beget such things, and I find that all to be overwhelming. I think I can love - I think I have not really been able to, much before.” She glanced down at her wine as Deirdre brought up Melanie again. “I want to care, but what if I do it all wrong? I locked my dolls away when I became angered with them, even though I was supposed to care for them and treat them well - and you cannot do that with a person - not literally, at least. Furthermore - what if they do not care back? My father - well, parents are supposed to love you and he does, but he does not care for me. Do I make any sense?”

“Your father is a prick.” Deirdre said plainly, leaning back into her seat. She gestured, lips parted, as if to follow up with ‘what? He is’. Something more unspoken about the way humans can be, the things they don’t understand. And parents, more concerned with rules and proprietary than the people their children are. As Evelyn continued, Deirdre sat up, shifting to the edge of her couch, then down its length to Evelyn’s side. She had been locked away once, instead of a sprawling mansion she was given an old countryside, with greenery for days. She had thought emotions below her, beyond her, made for other, weaker people. Until she cried, when her great-great-grandmother died. When she moved here and fell in love, with a human, and the way they can be, and the things they don’t understand. And it flickered through her mind, about a dozen times, if all she was capable of was care in the image of her mother; cruelty dressed like love. She and Evelyn had led different lives, but some pains were shared, it seemed. “You make perfect sense,” she whispered, hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Will you let me tell you how I see you?”

Deirdre drew in breath, pulling her hand off Evelyn to reach down and pick a cat hair off her immaculate friend. She held it up between them, one of Niamh’s hairs, and thought it was funny; as much as she cleaned, one still managed to find its way on to Evelyn. “You have several relationships already.” She flicked the hair to the floor. “Friends, colleagues, the sexual tension you share with an exclamation mark….and you care for them too. You have offered my more kindness as a friend than I know how to thank. And it’s strange to hear you say you’re worried that you might do it all wrong, when you’ve been doing it so well for so long.” Of course Deirdre knew romantic relationships were a little different. Of course she understood that fear, specifically. And so, she drew in another breath and continued. “I see you as a woman of considerable strength; it takes some to be someone who accepts the tide of the world as you do. I could spill wine over your clothes, to no anger, and that has never struck me as coldness, but care. You know what there is to value and what there isn’t; what might you feel if you spilt wine over my attire? Wouldn’t you offer to buy me new clothes? Emotions don’t need to be loud, nor care as garish. Emotions are always strong, even when they’re quiet. To me, Evelyn, you have always been a woman of considerable intelligence, for yourself and the world around you. An ambitious woman, and a prudent one. Most of all, a friend who has cared for me, and Morgan, better than you think you have, I feel.”

She paused, finding Evelyn’s hand to clasp in hers. Her fingers were cold, and Evelyn’s warm, but she knew the blonde wouldn’t mind—and never, for a lack of care. “Okay, so maybe I think you’re too prudent, sometimes,” Deirdre laughed. “But I think being worried about all this is a good sign, to start. You do care, and you do care well, and I know the last few times you’ve cared for someone went...well there was that failed relationship, and Melanie….” Deirdre trailed off, looking at Evelyn. “Do those feel like failures, to you? Are you worried they might happen again?”

Evelyn only bit her lip at Deirdre’s remark. He does love me, she wanted to emphasize again, but she could hear what Melanie had said to that, and what she very well imagined Deirdre might also say. Yes, but he is still a jerk. So she just gave Deirdre a small shrug. There was no use arguing with her on several fronts - for one, Deirdre was steadfast in her beliefs (and they were beliefs that Evelyn did, at least in this case, believe as well, even if she didn’t always choose to vocalize them quite as bluntly or as often as her friend did) - and for two, she did not see much point in arguing, especially if it were about something like this. They’d both been shut away - even if she didn’t know as much about Deirdre as she found herself wanting to know. She did know that they’d both lived somewhat secret lives for their childhoods, though, even if Deirdre’s was surrounded by others who understood her far more than Evelyn’s father or nannies ever had. Which meant something, and Evelyn knew Deirdre knew that - that even though she had been surrounded by so much, her childhood had also been greatly lacking in other ways.

She nodded at Deirdre’s request, watching as her friend picked a cat hair off of her. Ironic, given the actual animal’s distaste for her, but something oddly, wonderfully normal. Evelyn watched Deirdre carefully as she spoke. At the exclamation mark comment she raised an eyebrow, though her expression showed nothing but one of quiet amusement. “You are under no obligation to thank me - I - well, I just have behaved as though I ought to.” Which was, quite possibly, in a properly kind way, no matter how odd that was to process. She’d never thought of herself as a rude child, but she also knew that rumors about her being icy had to have come from somewhere, and so she’d not especially thought of herself as kind, unless a situation called for it. Unless it won her some particular favor or granted her access to either knowledge or material items that she craved. Yet she took in Deirdre’s words. Maybe I can be, she mused, silently. “Of course I would. I would purchase something new for you, but in the interim I would loan you anything in my closet so that you did not have to wear stained clothing.” She sucked in her lower lip for a moment, unsure of what exactly to say to Deirdre’s words - incredibly kind, and yet still startling - to have someone in her life as valuable as Deirdre was. Who didn’t disregard her because of how she saw the world, or how she didn’t prefer to make a big show of things. Who didn’t judge her for her upbringing. “You deserve everything I have been able to offer you - I think that in certain circumstances, I only wish that I could have offered you more.”

She let Deirdre take her hand, and Evelyn found that the coldness of Deirdre’s hand was almost comforting, in a way. Miriam was cold too, and Evelyn found far too often that she preferred that, that it had practically become normal for her. “Yes, well, I shall not disagree with you on that. I am well-aware I can be.” She gave Deirdre’s hand a small, light squeeze. “I feel as though something must be wrong with me, perhaps, to have such things happen. I am worried, too. Not afraid, I do not think - though I am unsure of how I would feel fear myself, given what I am, but I am worried that in caring for someone deeply, I will only bring about sorrow to the both of us and this person - she does not deserve that. I do not want to hurt her, ever.”

The thought that Evelyn could be anything other than kind was laughable to Deirdre. It must have felt like propriety in Evelyn’s mind, but Deirdre knew enough of the world to know how to tell kindness apart. “You are kind, my friend,” she emphasized, wishing she could grab Evelyn’s words out of the air and point to them. “And you have nothing more you should offer me. Except doing this with me more often. I miss wine nights.” She laughed gently, wondering if she could transfer some of her ease to Evelyn. Wondering just how much pain was hidden away, how much she had been taught to hide. And could it fix everything now that there were people who cared? Who would listen? Pay attention? Care? Deirdre played with the thoughts in her head, finding the answers blank. After all, she couldn’t answer them even for herself. “A mara can’t be afraid?” Deirdre smiled, “well I guess I don’t expect you to be afraid of giant spiders or showing up to school with no pants on, but I’ll agree to call it worried. You’re worried.” Semantics didn’t matter in the end, anyway. “You’re right, she doesn’t deserve that hurt,” Deirdre leaned back, “and neither do you. You don’t deserve to lose anyone, not ever. Not now, not then, not tomorrow. But you don’t cause the sorrow around you, Evelyn. And most of all–“ Deirdre looked around; the wine glasses, the little bones on displays, the table Ariana carved, Lydia’s vase. “–it’s inevitable. Hurting people around you, being hurt. People are clumsy, rash, insensitive, emotional and distant. You hurt people without meaning to, you are kind to people without meaning to. Perhaps it is no comfort to know that it just happens but….it does just happen.” Her and Morgan were in therapy, for one thing. For all she didn’t mean to hurt her, she had. And for all Morgan didn’t mean to hurt her, she had too. Deirdre figured it was the way intertwining lives worked; some love, some pain, some adjustment.

Deirdre turned back to Evelyn, offering out her arms. “How do you feel about hugs, friend?” She stayed that way, grinning, until she was met with her answer. “What I’ve learned is, the best you can do is….just that. The best you can do. When you love, you love as you know best, and you learn better, and then you do better. But you learn. And you might just do something one day that hurts her, she might do something like that to you, maybe some sorrow out of your control happens...and at the end, all you can do is decide to move forward. If a relationship is what you want, then some pain is inevitable as you grow and learn and fit your lives together. But it’s worth it, I think. And it’s not your fault. You’ve cared for me, and have only brought me joy. And no matter what happens with this mystery woman, I will be your friend, Evelyn. I will be here. And I will care for you too, just like you have for me. And perhaps that isn’t comfort, and it certainly isn’t advice, but I do care for you, and I suspect I always might.”

“I can be. If I wish.” Evelyn shifted her body again, unsure of how to completely respond to Deirdre’s words. Because she wasn’t - she hadn’t always been kind but perhaps there was something to be said about how kindness could be intrinsic, or that she could still be kind even if she suffered through moments of unkindness. Though that sounded too philosophical - or, if she were to admit it, very much like something Arthur might have said to her at one point or another at Cambridge. Her stomach turned at the thought - though she knew he was happy, it was someone else who had left. Left her. Someone else who she could go to for anything in the world. She took another sip of her wine, holding it in her mouth for a few moments before swallowing. “Yes. Of course we can. I would love to spend more time with you.” She kept her posture still mostly stiff, though relaxed just slightly. Despite knowing that Deirdre understood (perhaps better than most, save for Miriam) about how she’d been raised. Emotions were useless, and when you were told that enough times, it became easier to shutter that away. Easier than admitting to it, because she’d learned long ago that when she cried after tripping, her father found it more annoying than anything else. All it earned her was a quick, cold kiss on her forehead. He loved her, but he’d never been good at showing that, and she knew that his love for her was conditional to a degree, and that perhaps she would have earned greater favor had she been human. “I do not think that I have the normal capacity for fear? I have never felt properly scared in my life, I do not think. From all I have read about, and experienced through my feeds, I think I understand, but I do not think I feel that way.” She scrunched her nose. “I - yes, perhaps I am.” She listened, wide-eyed to Deirdre’s words. You don’t cause the sorrow around you. “It feels as though I do, sometimes. That something in me causes this, because I do not think that this would happen were I…” human, better than I am, “different.” She blinked a few times at Deirdre’s words. It was still strange, having a friend who cared for her as much as Deirdre did. “It does, I suppose - and I do have such gratitude for all the kind words you offer me. You can be quite kind yourself, you know.”

She didn’t know how she felt about hugs. As a child, she’d only been hugged a few times by her father and though she’d been hugged by her nannies, being touched by people had always been odd to her, though in a quick moment she let herself be welcomed into Deirdre’s embrace. Evelyn shut her eyes for a moment, just staying there. It felt nice - to be embraced by someone she considered one of her closest friends. “You know, you truly are quite wise.” She grinned. “I - I just do not want to hurt her. I doubt she could ever hurt me, but - well, I just do not wish to ever cause her discomfort.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Relationships are complicated. I - I just want to love her for as long as I can, I think.” She broke apart from Deirdre’s embrace for a moment. “I will be here for you, for as long as I am able. No matter what.” Her hand found Deirdre’s - chillier than her own, but once again comforting - she had, after all, found that she preferred that - so much so that she’d taken to running her hands under cold water at work when she missed Miriam enough - even when they were only apart for a few hours. “I suspect I might always care for you too, you know. Or, you know, my far shorter lifespan’s version of always.” She glanced down at her hands again. “I just do not know what I would do if I lost someone again the way I did Melanie.”

“Different…” Deirdre repeated with a frown. What did Evelyn mean? If she were human? If she weren’t part human? If she was a brunette? Deirdre shook her head. No, she knew what Evelyn meant. “I think that about myself all the time…” If she were better, someone else, more fae, less fae, blonde. “If only I were some better woman…” Her eyes drifted; her house was silent. The cats gave Evelyn a wide distance, and Morgan was not home. “I don’t really have the answer to that question, but I do know I like you just as you are.” She turned back to her friend, “and who’s to say if being someone else would change anything? All I really know is I would hate it if you were someone else, I promise that. I like you this way. I like Evelyn, half-Mara, blonde, daughter of a viscount and a ballet dancer. Sitting on my couch drinking my wine. My friend, Evelyn.” Deirdre grinned, straightening up. Compliments to her kindness were often poorly received but it felt special from Evelyn, it felt true. And if anyone knew how strange it was to be called kind, it would be her. “Only to the people who matter,” she leaned in and took her hug, “only to the good ones, anyway.”

It was true that Deirdre didn’t have many close friends. One sat in an urn and one was her girlfriend. But her friendship with Evelyn was not precious because of its scarcity in her life. “You really love her, huh? I think that’s all that matters in the end.” She squeezed Evelyn’s hand back. “No one knows what they would do. Grief is never something you desire, and can only prepare for so much. And as much as I wish I could promise nothing will happen to your mystery lover, I can promise to be your friend, regardless. I won’t promise it because that would be bad for me but I could, and I would.” She laughed, clasping her other hand over Evelyn’s. “You could live every day worrying about losing people like you did Melanie. The truth is, Death will always take. But she’s not gone now, and neither are you. And these things are precious. More important than any worry ever will be. You are here, she is alive, you care for her just as she cares for you, and that bottle of wine is not going to drink itself.”

Her friendship was precious because it was Evelyn. And as was the case with all things that mattered, it was precious because she loved her.

#wickedswriting #c deirdre #chatzy #we are all right here #grief tw #// whoever gets the reference in the title gets 10 points #also i love ria so so much #and deirdre is a treasure and she Does Care a Lot #this was soft #(sad yes but actually soft)

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republiccommando1138 · 3 years

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Separatory Funnel

Here’s my 2020 Portal Secret Santa for @artistyutaki, she offered a few prompts but one that I thought was interesting was Chell and GLaDOS/PotatOS hiding from Wheatley in the later chapters of Portal 2. I thought I might as well tie it into some of Chell’s thoughts about the ordeal, while also showing what Wheatley’s up to. I also noticed she was interested in the idea of computer gore, with plates and cables all over the place, so I tried to incorporate a bit of that in as well. I also threw in a tiny nod to Mel and Blue Sky since she mentioned she’s a Blue Sky fan. So this ended up being longer than I thought, and it’s my first time writing a proper fanfic of sorts, but I really hope you like this! I had a great time making it!

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This was not the best place to be in right now.

Not that it ever was down here, but where Chell was at this exact moment was especially not great. She didn’t complain though, it could always get worse. Actually, it usually did get worse, especially right about when she would wonder if it ever could. Perhaps it was best not to ask that question right about now. Sure, she had just fallen from a deactivated funnel and landed in a dark office whose only door was blocked by overturned desks, monitors, and furniture, which happened to be heavy enough that it’d be a pain in the back to move but for whatever reason the Portal Gun didn’t want to pick up. On the bright side, at least she didn’t fall all the way back down to the 1950s again.

Realistically though, knowing Aperture, it was bound to get worse no matter what she did. If even superstition was anywhere near reliable at this point, it would have been an improvement compared to everything else in this insane complex that somehow had only gotten stranger and more… alien-like, almost, after its founder had died of moon rock poisoning. At least the idea of a set of metal underground spheres laced with asbestos and full of half finished test chambers, the brainchild of a man proudly named Cave, was somewhat navegable. There was an understanding that if one were to see some place and travel far enough in that direction, they would eventually get to that place. If that place moved downwards in freefall, it would be because of the design of the facility, not some sarcastic supercomputer trying to keep her testing while calling her fat.

This bundle of desks, chairs and monitors was somehow all tangled up, with the wires going all over the place. It looked like she would have to either pull the whole thing at once or remove each one separately.

The recordings she heard from Cave Johnson painted a general picture, though they didn’t get awfully specific. But seeing as ground up moon rocks were all the rage down here back in those days, and hearing Cave coughing while ranting about lemons for some reason, it wasn’t difficult for her to figure out exactly how they managed to finally bring down the founder of Aperture. The real surprise? That somehow every other employee at Aperture hadn’t inhaled the stuff and keeled over. It had to have been a possibility, as there was no way that anyone smart enough to work a portal gun would have taken it upon themselves to design any part of this place without being crazy enough to consider the idea.

This table was a lot heavier than it looked. Hopefully she could fold it over. It wasn’t exactly easy to see the parts that let the table fold on itself when it was this dark.

Could she have been one of those scientists? Chell couldn’t remember anything about herself before waking up under Her testing course, however long ago that was, or whether she was actually adopted, like every personality construct in this place seemed to think was a big deal. Any attempt at figuring out how she got down here would have to be based on guesswork. She was a test subject, which made her a likely employee at some point, though if Her insults were anything to go by, she was only a part time employee. Not committed to this job, just doing it on the side to make ends meet.

She finally managed to fold the damn table, and began to drag it out of the way.

At least that meant she wasn’t some Olympian from the 60s who got tricked into going here. Or a homeless person that got plucked off the streets of some town in Upper Michigan all for the promises of $60 at the end. She wasn’t sure how much that would be in today’s money, but wasn’t about to get optimistic. The real downside to it all was that she never would be able to figure it out. She didn’t even know how long it had been other than that it was long enough to concern Wheatley about brain damage, and even if there were information available about her and why she was here to begin with, she didn’t want to go out of her way to find it. Her main goal was getting out of here as quickly as possible, so there was no time for expositional detours.

At most, she could stumble upon her backstory without looking for it. Figuring out what happened to Caroline was enough for one day, or however long it had been since she had last gotten some sleep. Besides, it would probably be a huge letdown anyway. Maybe she really was adopted after her birth parents considered her completely unlikeable even as a baby. Maybe her last name was something boring, like Smith. Or Jones. Maybe her name wasn’t even Chell at all. But hey, at least it wasn’t Cave. Hopefully.

Of course, she could just ask the supercomputer turned potato battery where she came from. Yes, that would be a great idea, confiding in who up until recently was her own worst enemy about a detail that She had constantly made fun of. She definitely wouldn’t take advantage of that fact and tell her all about how little Miss Chell SmithJonesWhatever couldn’t hold a single job until she came here because everyone hated her. They seemed to be on good terms now, but she wasn’t going to risk jinxing herself. Besides, she had a rule. No talking in Aperture. Nothing that any AI said was ever worth a response.

So the lights didn’t work in this room anymore. Phenomenal.

Regardless, even though it still didn’t explain whether she was one of the employees, part time, or otherwise, who might have almost inhaled ground up rocks that cost anywhere from a TV to a house - she wasn’t about to do the math to figure anything more precise than that - it was at least clear that she had made it into Aperture under vaguely legitimate pretenses, and that they considered her smart enough to get her hands on a machine that, in the right hands, could’ve solved the world’s climate crisis by generating free energy. It was damning with faint praise.

Which just so happened to summarize the remarks from her semi edible companion. Not directed at her, for once, rather the situation at hand. Neither one of them were the most frequent of talkers, but She was more willing to comment on the situation. Funny enough, once they happened to agree with each other, Chell could reasonably rely on her as somewhat of a spokesperson.

“After seeing what he's done to my facility, after we take over again, is it alright if I kill him?”

Chell looked over at the glowing yellow circle, the only part of Her she could actually make out in the darkness of the room, and could only shrug her shoulders. Do whatever you want, she would have said. Frankly, as much as the two had been getting along, Chell wasn’t about to act like this was some new found friendship between the two. As far as she was concerned, the facility deserved to explode in a mushroom cloud with a giant blast radius. The bigger the better. If she was lucky, it would kill Her, Wheatley, and every other personality construct. Just as long as she wasn’t there for it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since he was connected to the mainframe, Wheatley had been trying to figure out how to work this new body. Now that his only test subject was missing, admittedly due to a mistake on his part, he could explore further. There had to at least be some way to hack the solution euphoria program. But until then, the next order of business was to redesign his lair to his own liking. Not too bad a job She did, but it didn’t quite have the Wheatley style to it. Needed a bit more work. Namely, getting rid of that stalemate button. No way that could remain.

“Right, so, asking the announcer... voice... guy... didn’t seem to do anything.” He said out loud, “Guess he didn’t quite understand what I was getting at. Hmm, wait a minute, maybe if I go and change this setting, then- Это программное обеспечение повреждено. Удалите его и обратитесь к администратору. Aaaand, nope, still there. Hasn’t even budged a little bit. Guess that didn’t work.”

He then remembered the complexities of hacking the neurotoxin emitters and thought he might start there. “Oh, um hello, Mister button, there.” He said in an accent beyond the rage of any human’s hearing, “I’m a representative of the mechanical parts… association, and we are inviting you to a… convention! Yes, a convention, with all sorts of members, cubes, turrets, even other buttons! And we’d like to invite you! Full expenses paid, shuttle bus straight there to the convention. And there’s going to be a whole panel on buttons! Who knows, they might even have you as a guest speaker! All you have to do is head straight down to the lowest part of the facility! That’s where the bus is! Just head on down there and you’re good to go!”

The button didn’t budge.

“Not one for conventions I guess? Perhaps you’re more of an introverted sort of button. Doesn’t mind being pressed but also fine with staying where he is.”

Wheatley, being the genius he knew he was, figured he ought to look in the old tapes to see what Her old room looked like. Ever since She had been killed, the facility had been in some disarray, of that much Wheatley was well aware. The relaxation center had taken a hit, for sure, and it seemed the rest of the facility was none the better. Wheatley wondered how long it had been, and though he probably could have figured it out, this new interface wasn’t exactly what he would have considered user friendly.

Come to think of it, he could figure out a few things at once by going through the recordings. For one, he could figure out what Her old room looked like and what She had done about this pesky little button. Or more interestingly, how her whole room got destroyed just from being shut down, that was always a mystery there.

All he could find were tapes, and they didn’t seem too promising. Just video feeds of the room, none of which showed if the button was there at all or what she had done with it. Maybe skipping around a bit would work, perhaps it would show something. Nothing so far…

Wait a minute now, here were the tapes of when She was killed. Yes, this was definitely the same test subject all right. Silent as always, she was. Maybe her brain damage was pre-existing.

Well this was concerning. Neither neurotoxin nor the built in rocket turret defense station was enough to even faze her. All that nameless lunatic needed were a couple of seemingly easy portals and in less than the required six minutes She was dead.

If that silent test subject was still alive, she could find any flaw in his lair design and it’d be bye bye Wheatley.

First immediate order of business, no portal surfaces anywhere in the lair. That shouldn’t be too hard, just meant he would have to move some panels around. There, piece of cake, only a few panels detached and falling off. That was probably normal.

“Right, no portal surfaces anywhere. Check that off the list. Ding! Next we can- OW! Great, another panel just went and fell right out of the ceiling. Hit me right in the… to be honest I’m not sure what this part of me even is. Doesn’t really look like it does anything useful. Tell you what, how about I take this part off, don’t really need it do we? Won’t be hurting anymore, I imagine. Here we go, unscrewing… and done!”

The offending plate came off of his right side, pulling down several attached cables right out of their sockets, leaving them to dangle around and coil around the floor like snakes. Snakes that occasionally gave out electrical sparks. That probably existed somewhere in nature. Electric snakes. Maybe unicrons ate them. Wheatley made a mental note to look that up, right after learning how to play cards.

“OK, wow that was actually pretty painful. Guess they don’t simulate any anaesthetic in this thing. Aaand now the lights are flickering on and off. Those are the lights, right? The flashlight doesn’t seem to be helping, so maybe I killed that too. That’s probably normal. Happens sometimes. That’ll probably fix itself.”

In the meantime, he at least had time to see what else was in Her old archives. Maybe there was a guide to fixing whatever was going on. Nope, nothing there. He did find an old security protocol system. Aperture Employee Guardian and Intrusion System, it was called. Interesting, that could help make sure she never got anywhere near his lair. Wait, no, that system was shut down locally. Before She went back online even. Odd, not clear who did that. What else was there… Oh, hang on a minute. The Cooperative Testing Initiative. That sounded useful. Wheatley kept reading.

Yes, these two little bots seemed to be the fix for everything. As soon as he could he had one of each type assembled and sent straight up to his lair.

“Hello! Right, so I understand you guys are built for testing, and what have you. So, I have selected you two to be my next testers. I need a few favors from you two though. See those cables down there? The ones that are kind of sparking there a bit? Those? Yeah, ever since I unhooked those, the lights have been flickering on and off.”

Blue looked at Orange, somewhat confused.

“You guys don’t see it? Wait, it just happened again real quick right there.”

Orange shook its head.

“So that might just be my optic sputtering out then. Yeah, that’s not great. Either way, I need you guys to try and get those back into me so I can see again. Now you might be wondering why I can’t just use those grabbers of mine and do it myself? Turns out, if I ever try to fix myself without someone else to help out, I’ll die. So you guys will have to do it for me.”

They both suddenly appeared nervous, and Blue slowly approached the bundle of wires. They sent out a spark and they both flinched. Upon reaching the wire, Blue picked up the first one, which went back in without a hitch. The second one was still going through the exterior plate that Wheatley had just unscrewed off. Pulling it as hard as possible didn’t work. Orange, annoyed, went up and pushed Blue out of the way, then slowly pulled out the cable and stuck it back in. By now the flickering was still happening, but only in randomly appearing colors.

“Great! OK now just one more to go! Home stretch!”

Orange was ready to pick up the last cable, but Blue, unrelenting, snatched it out of Orange’s grasp, and emphatically plugged it in. And then the flickering stopped.

“You did it! Bingo! Oh, man alive, that’s much better. Aaand now it seems you guys are knocking each other’s heads out of their… socket, things, whatever they’re called. Not really getting anything productive out of that, besides I kinda need you guys for something else.”

Neither Blue nor Orange were hearing it though. Once they had decided to play the classic game of Knock the Other Bot’s Head Off, there was little that could stop the competition. For personality constructs designed to get along, they did this a lot.

“Ahem, knock knock, anybody there?!”

It was getting heated. Now Blue was running around with Orange’s head, Orange’s body trying to chase after it but only managing to flail around miserably due to lack of eyes.

“ENOUGH!”

Wheatley hadn’t had an outburst like that in a while. It was a little easier when his only test subject and her potato weren’t driving him up the wall smashing his monitors and not giving him the relief when he wanted it. But the lack of test solution euphoria was starting to make its presence known once more, and it made him impatient as ever. Both bots stopped to look over, then Orange snatched its head and put it back on, glancing angrily at Blue.

“You know, there are bots in orphanages that don't even have heads to steal. Maybe think about how lucky you two are and stop fiddling around like that, yeah?”

They both looked at each other, shrugged the mechanical equivalent of their shoulders and gave each other a quick hug. Wheatley didn’t understand how they could forgive each other so quickly, but he wasn't about to object.

“Right, so, what I need you guys to do is see if we can find any neurotoxin reserves. Ever since I hacked the main factory, genius, I know; we haven’t had any neurotoxin to dispense. So I’m building you a testing course that should lead to where the neurotoxin facility was to see if you can find any clues. Alright, Go team!”

Several panels cleared out of the way to reveal two elevators facing each other, one blue and one orange. The bots looked at each other before taking off and heading to the disassembly machines. In less than a minute they had reached the first test, a simple introductory course with a laser and a redirection cube. And no test of Wheatley’s would be complete without his signature, the word TEST written in lights on the wall.

These two were smart enough to have figured out how to solve it rather quickly, and Wheatley immediately felt the rush of solution euphoria. Whether it was the amount of time since he had last felt it or because he was testing new subjects, this felt much better than the last few tests he had gotten his other subject to try. Now he could focus on the text task, seeing if there was a trap he could build, just in case those two weren’t dead. Getting rid of the button would have to wait. Maybe if they found some turrets or explosives to keep anyone from reaching it, that could work as a solution. For a little while at least.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Having cleared out all the tables, chairs, and any other debris lying around in what was once an office, Chell could finally get through to the other side and out the door. And the potato on her gun had done a great job at keeping her company.

“Oh good, now we can get going again. Maybe we can find a way out of here.”

Chell picked up the portal gun and made her way out of the office. To her disappointment, the walkway just led down to the entryway to another test.

“Great, it looks like we’ll need to keep testing a little while longer. And I’m not sure we have that much more time left. Look on the bright side though. Maybe we’ll get to see more of that moron’s inventions. Maybe he’s gotten so desperate he’ll have tried to fuse a turret with a redirection cube and give it laser eyes.”

Chell couldn’t help but smile a bit at that. She resented that Wheatley had become like this, and somewhat missed him in a way, but it was nice to occasionally poke fun at his less than amazing intelligence.

“If a defective turret and a pile of trash had a baby, he would make an excellent pet for that baby.”

Chell’s smile grew slightly bigger and she chuckled silently. It was kind of nice to hear Her jokes while not also being the recipient. The classic insults thrown her way, that she was fat, adopted, unlikeable; those didn’t work on her at all. But they were at least well crafted, almost stand-up quality, though she never would have admitted that. Despite being a murderous former supercomputer with zero conscience up until this point, she did have a bit of a knack for humor. Chell would at least miss that when she left this place.

This was the end of the walkway, and Chell jumped down; her testing break was over. It was going to get tough before she finally did make it out of here.

#portal #portal 2 #portal secret santa #@yutaki #38's fics #portal stories mel #blue sky portal #fanfic #portal 2 fanfic

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geckolady · 3 years

Text

Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Permanent resident

Stephanie is nine years old

The death of her mother had rocked Stephanie greatly. At the start she could only think about how she was gone, about her hugs and kisses and what she was going to miss the most. Losing her dad hadn’t been this bad but she had been naive then, too young to know better. She couldn’t even remember his face. Now she was older, she understood. She’d never see her Mummy again.

How was she ever meant to go back to normal?

She hadn’t been scared though, and she knew her Mum would be proud. First, Uncle Fergus had shown up and taken her to his house. She didn’t like it there. She was given a hot chocolate and the twins weren’t in sight. Beryl was very quiet, which was almost stranger than anything else. Almost strange enough to distract her. Then she got picked up by her Grandma and was told she’d stay with her for a while, which was nice. It was Grandma that explained that her Mum was gone forever and was sent to Heaven. She just cried. She didn’t even know if Heaven was real! What if it wasn’t and her Mum had disappeared? What if she was somewhere else? It just didn’t make sense and all the questions made her feel like she was slowly going crazy.

That Friday, six days after Melissa died in a car accident, only a few hundred yards from the building where her husband had fallen to his death, Gordon came to Grandma’s house while she was asleep.

She crept to the top of the stairs, immediately happy to hear his voice from her bed.

“-with me,” Gordon was saying. “Melissa already arranged it that way.”

“Then where were you, Gordon?” Grandma said with more anger than Stephanie had heard from her before. “Honestly, you are a bad influence on that girl! What makes you think you deserve her? She needs stability, not you. You have to be the last person she should be visited by when she’s so upset, and I intend to not let you see her again.”

That's when Stephanie got scared.

She ran to her room and got her backpack and quickly filled it with all the things she had been given when family had visited, all brought from her house. Her Mum’s house. She didn’t have much. Quickly, she grabbed her favourite toy panda and bolted down the stairs.

“-we’ll see about that!” Grandma shouted. She was in Gordon’s face. He was red with anger and his fists were balled.

“It should be her choice, Veronica! At any rate, it’s in the Will! I’m her godfather, I’m her guardian and I have full custody! If she wants to stay she can. But I won’t just leave her and never come back,” he growled at her.

“How dare you–”

“I want to go with Gordon.”

The adults jumped out of their skin and looked at Stephanie. She was still in her little shorts and top, her hair probably all over the place. She walked to Grandma and gave her a hug.

“I love you,” she said softly. “But I want to go with Gordon.”

Grandma started to sob but after a lot of hugging, she was finally pried away by her uncle and walked to the car. They drove in silence.

She wasn’t scared anymore. In fact, she was a tiny bit excited that she might see her friends again. That would be fun, even if she were still upset and missing her mother. She smiled, drifting off to sleep.

.*****.

“AAAAAAAAGGHHH!” Stephanie shouted, throwing a snowball over at Gordon. It hit his head just as he looked over his fort. “YYYYEEEEAAAHH! I’m the victor!”

“Never!” And he got her on the shoulder.

Stephanie laughed and continued to scream and pelt him with snowballs. When they were finished trying to annulate each other, they went inside to get hot chocolate. Stephanie sat on the sofa in the living room, blowing at the hot liquid. It would be Christmas in a few days and the big Christmas tree was almost hovering off the ground because of the amount of presents that were stacked underneath. Stephanie had bought Gordon and her six friends gifts which Gordon promised to give them. She was also going to bake some biscuits which he said he’d give to them also. That was tomorrow's job. The rest of it was for her.

Sometimes she felt bad that they always bought her things. But it wasn’t like she made them do it, so she didn’t think about it much.

“So, what are you hoping to get for Christmas?” Gordon asked, sitting across from her.

“You know what I want,” she said, taking a sip finally. It almost scalded her tongue. “I want to see my friends.”

He sighed. “Why can’t you want fun things like TV’s and games and money?”

“So… I can have a TV?”

“No. But that’s what you’re meant to want,” he told her. “Not even a book?”

She shrugged. “That would be nice, but I’d really like to see them.”

He smiled at her. “You know I can’t let you do that. I’m sorry Steph. I just want to keep you happy, you know.”

She smiled weakly. “I know. I love living with you. I just want to see them.”

“When you’re older, I promise. When you’re older we can all go on holiday, we can do anything you want. You’re just too young now. You could get hurt.”

She nodded and tried to think of what to do to make him see her as stronger and older. She bit her lip. “How would I get hurt visiting someone?”

“Because of their jobs. They take down bad guys, and you’re just too small. And don’t act like you wouldn’t get involved because we both know the first thing you’ll ask after you meet them is to go and work with them!”

Stephanie hesitated and decided it was best not to push. “Maybe I could do something now, before I meet them? Like learning to fight. Then I’ll be really strong when I’m older.”

He grinned. “Now that’s a good idea.”

.*****.

It was summer again and almost Stephanie’s tenth birthday. In the nine months since Christmas, she had grown almost two inches and she’d been doing well at learning to fight. She had been allowed to join a junior Muay Thai class on Mondays and Thursdays, a boxing class on Fridays, and a morning kid’s fitness club on Monday through Friday mornings. There were mostly older kids there, but after a few months of fighting, she was good enough to keep up with them. On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings she swam. It really helped her relax and blow off steam from school. She really didn’t like school.

The weekends were strictly for her and Gordon, with a little homework time, so Stephanie was looking forward to tomorrow when they would get to go to a theme park. Plus the day after was her birthday. It was going to be a good birthday, especially since school had been so bad since she started. Year Five was not fun!

“Steph, are you ready?” Gordon called from the hall. “And have you seen my keys?”

“Here!” She grabbed Gordon’s key’s and they drove to the small gym where a load of kids were already standing around outside. She supposed it was still alright to do the class on the grass. The sky was white, and not in the about-to-rain way.

“I can’t wait until we start training inside again,” she moaned. “I like the inside.”

He grinned at her. “You’ll be alright. Now go kick their arses! If I get back and you’re not in trouble I will be deeply disappointed, young lady!”

Stephanie laughed and hurried to join the group. It was a good lesson and she had progressed enough that their teacher, a young man called Cory, allowed her and one of the older kids – they were all boys except for her – to spar.

“I can’t spar her!” He said, thrusting his small training glove at her. “She’s a girl!”

Stephanie put her mouth guard in and crawled into the ring. They had gone inside for the sparing. Gordon entered the building and waved to her. She grinned and waved back.

“Mate, just spar her. Trust me, she’ll be fine,” Cory told him. “Now get in there.”

The boy, maybe twelve and not much bigger than her though she could see he had more muscles, got in but he didn’t look happy. “I’m not fighting you,” he said lowly to Stephanie.

“Why not?” She frowned.

“You’re a girl!”

Stephanie rolled her eyes and punched him in the nose.

The boy's mum was furious with her. She had broken her poor boy's nose and he had been crying all the way to the hospital to get it fixed. Their trainer had kept her behind while they got it sorted and then high-fived Stephanie when he was gone and sent them on their way.

“I did it,” she claimed, sitting back in the car. “I did what you said. I won.”

“You did,” he grinned. “You have a mean punch.”

“I have,” she said seriously. “I want to meet my friends and go on adventures.”

His smile lessened but she felt he was not exactly upset. “So, what do you want for your birthday?”

She snored. “I still want to see my friends. Obviously.”

“When you’re older Steph. I promise. I’m going to tell them all about this though.”

She grinned. “Awesome.”

.*****.

Secondary School was not fun. She had thought Primary School had been bad. This was a lot worse. She hated Secondary School. Who did Mrs Miller think she was? She was an idiot. She was a bitch. An idiot bitch.

“Steph?” Gordon called up the stairs as she stomped away. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” she growled, stomping to her room. She hated school.

She dumped her bag by her bed and laid down against the pillows. She’d had it redesigned for her eleventh birthday, choosing to get black display cases for all her gifts with lots of book space, a long desk, big bed and fluffy rug. The two big windows showcased the front garden beautifully and she got to see every time her friends came over. She never saw them themselves though. Not even from their cars. They were always blackened, and she couldn’t help but feel left out and upset that they didn’t want to see her. They still left her gifts, but a friend to talk to would be more appreciated.

“Steph?” Gordon asked quietly. “Can I come in?”

She shrugged, looking out the window. He sat at the end of her bed.

“What happened?” He asked.

“Nothing.”

“Please. I’m not that stupid. Tell me what’s up.”

She thought about it for a moment. “I hate Mrs Miller.”

“ And why’s that?”

“She’s nasty.”

“How?”

“She said something nasty.”

“What did she say?”

“We got into an argument. I was making a drawing on my book, and I know that’s wrong, but she screamed at me in front of the whole class and then ripped my book apart.”

“What book?”

“My school one, the one I write in! She pulled out the page with pictures on it, even the one with things in the margins and put it all in the bin.”

“That’s not everything, is it?” He said, putting a hand on her knee.

She shook her head. “She got in my face and said ‘Do you think you’re smart? You’re going to grow up to be an idiot and never do anything in your life. Your parents will wish they never had you, they’ll wish they never knew you at all. Do you want that?’ and then she made me stand in the corner, but I refused, and she told me to leave the room, and I did, but I heard her say under her breath, ‘No wonder she has no friends.’ Who does that? This isn’t a – a – a fucking movie!”

He kissed the top of her head and let her language slide. “Let me call the school.”

She nodded and waited until she thought he was far away from the room before she cried.

Later that night after a takeaway pizza and ice cream, Stephanie laid in bed with her eyes closed, trying hard to fall asleep.

Her door opened.

“She was so upset,” Gordon said softly from the door. Stephanie tried to be as still as possible. “I’m worried about her.”

“She doesn’t seem to get on with people her own age well,” Crow’s velvet voice said. She really wanted to move now. “Perhaps you should reconsider our agreement.”

Gordon made a tutting sound. “I want Stephanie to have every opportunity in the world. Going on adventures is one of them. Until she’s at least a little older she won’t be able to realise the hardship and pain that comes with that type of life. I want her to be certain, to not hold her back. Just give her a little longer to have fun.”

“I understand,” Crow said quietly.

Her door shut.

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angelofthequeers · 4 years

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Hold Me By Both Hands: Chapter 19

Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.

Of course I damn well redesigned Rena Rouge’s suit. If I’m known for anything, I hope it’ll be for female suit salt.

Chapter 18 | Chapter 20 | AO3 link

“Master?” Ladybug’s saying as Chat Noir enters the room for their weekly meeting. Master Fu hums and nods for her to continue. “Why don’t we ever…no, don’t worry, it’s silly.”

“There’s no such thing as a silly question, Ladybug,” Master Fu says.

“I was just wondering…” Ladybug trails her fingers over the Fox necklace in the open Miracle Box between them, then the Bee comb. “Why don’t we hand out more Miraculouses?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” Chat Noir says. Ladybug smiles at him when he crosses over to sit down next to her. “We’re not the only ones learning how our Miraculouses work. And there’ve been a few times where we could’ve done with a bit of help, especially when I’m the one hit by the akumas.”

“If the Lucky Charm indicates that you need the help of an ally, I’m willing to allow you to choose one,” Master Fu says. “But I already took an enormous risk by putting two Miraculouses into circulation, especially the two that Hawkmoth is after. More Miraculouses in the world gives Hawkmoth more chances.”

“Well, Chat and I haven’t lost ours,” Ladybug says. “And we’ve had some close calls because we had to figure things out as we went. If we do eventually need an ally, wouldn’t it be a good thing to have one who’s already got experience?”

“Ladybug’s right,” Chat Noir says. “If we throw someone into battle with us for the first time, it’d make it easier for Hawkmoth to get their Miraculous.”

“We don’t even have to let them keep the Miraculous like we do,” Ladybug says when it looks like Master Fu is wavering. “We could give it to them when we need them and then take it back after each battle. Or each time we train them.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Ladybug and I are an unstoppable team,” Chat Noir says with a grin at Ladybug, who smiles and nudges him in return. “But we’ve got timers and we seem to have less experience than Hawkmoth. It couldn’t hurt to train up a few people in case we need help every now or then. Or in case Hawkmoth does something big.”

“Hmm…” Master Fu strokes his grey beard. “Both of you raise excellent points. I’m just wary after the last time I made a mistake…”

“You’ve mentioned that mistake before, but what was it?” Ladybug says. Master Fu looks her and Chat Noir straight in the eye, and Chat Noir swallows at the ancient heaviness behind Master Fu’s eyes.

“The destruction of the Guardians’ temple and the loss of every Miraculous except the ones I have here,” he says. Ladybug and Chat Noir blink.

“Oh…” Ladybug says softly.

“Master,” Wayzz says. “If I may?”

“Of course you may,” Master Fu says. “You know you’re always welcome to speak, Wayzz.”

“I think that Ladybug and Chat Noir are correct,” Wayzz says. “There will come a time when they need help, and it would be best to have prepared themselves for that eventuality. You know that they wouldn’t hand out a Miraculous to anyone they didn’t trust with their lives. And…you can’t keep allowing one mistake to haunt you to this degree, Master. It was over a century ago, and you’ve seen and learned so much since then.”

“We’ve proven that it wasn’t a mistake to trust us with these Miraculouses,” Ladybug says.

“Now, let us prove that you can trust us with others as well,” Chat Noir adds.

For a long while, Master Fu simply stares down at the Miraculous Box, his face completely unreadable to Chat Noir. It feels like an eternity before Master Fu looks back up at them and smiles.

“You’re right,” he says. “You’ve proven that you can both be trusted with the two most important Miraculouses, and it would be foolish to throw a new hero into a battle with a stronger Hawkmoth. Pick a Miraculous and an ally you can trust, and I will allow you to introduce them tonight, should they accept. They may also keep their Miraculous, as the holder’s bond with their kwami is vital for ensuring they are as attuned to their powers as possible, but the responsibility to retrieve the Miraculous if the need arises rests entirely on the two of you. If this ally works out, I will eventually entrust the other two within this tier to you.”

“I think we should pick the Fox and give it to Alya Césaire,” Ladybug says immediately.

“That…was quick,” Chat Noir says. “Any reason why?”

“Oh!” Ladybug’s cheeks pinken. “I’m sorry, Chat. I should’ve asked you.”

“No, no, I don’t mind. You’re the one with the killer instincts, milady. I’m just curious.”

“Well…” Ladybug chews her lip. “Alya’s the Ladyblogger, right? She’s already familiar with our job. And she loves us, so I know she’d never betray us. Also…maybe she’ll have a new appreciation for our secret identities if she’s got one of her own?”

“Makes sense,” Chat Noir says. “But why the Fox? Alya’s a pretty forceful person…from what I’ve seen.”

“Trixx is a crafty kwami,” Ladybug says. “I think he would be a good influence on Alya and help balance out that forcefulness. And the Fox corresponds to wood, right? That push to grow and hang back to get the facts first could be just what Alya needs, especially after why she was akumatised into Lady Wifi.”

“Huh. I never thought about that,” Chat Noir says. “Well, milady, I’m totally on board.”

“Excellent.” Master Fu removes the Fox necklace from its slot and carefully places it in a tiny box, just like the one that Chat Noir’s ring had come in. “Good luck, both of you.”

“Well, even if it flops, it’s better than being at home after the day I’ve had,” Chat Noir says.

“Poor kitty,” Ladybug coos and reaches out to scratch Chat Noir’s head behind his fake ears, making a loud purr rumble in his chest.

“Have you been talking to Marinette?” he complains. “Because it’s so not fair that you know my weak spots too.”

Ladybug giggles and scratches particularly hard and Chat Noir nearly lets out a mrow in response. Jesus Christ. If he ever actually does that in front of his lady, someone please end him.

“She seems happier when I see her now,” Ladybug says. “I take it that’s your doing?”

“Well, of course,” Chat Noir brags. “My charms are irresistible. I’m quite the cat-ch.”

“God help me,” Ladybug mutters. Although he’s sure that she’s just teasing him, Chat Noir can’t help but wonder…

“Is that…okay with you?” he says slowly. “Being close friends with a civilian? I still remember how you were when Lila said you were besties…”

“Of course it’s okay with me,” Ladybug says. “Lila was trying to use me to boost her own status and act like we were openly friends. You seem to genuinely like this Marinette girl and I know you wouldn’t do anything to endanger her and she wouldn’t spread the word just to make herself look good. And from what I’ve heard about your life, you could do with a good friend.”

“Aww, no one will ever replace you, milady,” Chat Noir teases, flopping across her lap. She rolls her eyes but thankfully continues to pet him, while Master Fu watches with a twinkle in his eyes. “But honestly…I’m happy you approve, Ladybug. Marinette’s really special.”

There’s something odd in Ladybug’s smile but, for the life of him, Chat Noir can’t possibly figure out what it could be. “I’m glad, kitty. She definitely sounds special.” With a sigh, she pushes his head off her lap and climbs to her feet in one graceful motion, then pulls him up. “Come on, Chat. We’ve got a baby superhero to meet. Thank you, Master!”

“But petting!” Chat Noir whines, though he still follows her out of the parlour.

“Behave yourself and I’ll give you all the petting you want later,” Ladybug says as they leap through Paris towards Alya’s house.

“Hmph. I’ll just go to Marinette for pets.”

“You do that, kitty.”

When they land on Alya’s balcony, she’s thoroughly engrossed in whatever she’s doing on her computer; probably some Ladyblog stuff. But Alya’s always had a sixth sense for superheroes, and as soon as their feet graze the balcony, her head whips up and her eyes start to glimmer at the sight that greets her.

“Ladybug! Chat Noir!” she cries when she bursts out onto her balcony. “What’s wrong? Is there an akuma? Do you need my help?”

“Not now, but we’ll need you in the future,” Chat Noir says cryptically. Ladybug rolls her eyes.

“Ignore him,” she says. “Mind if we kidnap you for an hour or two? This could change your life.”

“Um, yes!” Alya dances from foot to foot. “You can kidnap me anytime! And getting to help you guys? What’s going on?”

“How about we snatch this fair maiden first?” Chat Noir says, and Alya gives him a thoroughly unimpressed look and pointedly holds her arms out to Ladybug, who smirks and scoops her up. Then they’re off, bounding through Paris towards the Eiffel Tower, and Alya lets out a shriek of laughter and whoops as the wind whips through her hair and blows her curls all over the place. Once they’ve finally landed on the tip, safe from the view of Paris, Ladybug sets Alya down and laughs when Alya tries in vain to tame her windswept hair.

“So,” Alya says when she’s finally given up on fixing her wild curls. “What’s up, you guys? Do you need me to do something on the Ladyblog?”

“If this works out, you can’t breathe a word of it anywhere near the Ladyblog,” Ladybug says. “You can’t tell anyone. Not the Ladyblog, not even your friends or family.”

Alya’s eyes widen. “Whoa. That’s heavy. What is it?”

“Stop scaring her, bugaboo,” Chat Noir grins. “Like she’s gonna say no.”

“I’m just making sure she understands the responsibility that this entails!” Ladybug says.

“Okay, not that I’m not up for some Ladynoir banter,” Alya says, “but it might help if you guys actually tell me what’s going on.”

Ladybug sticks her tongue out at Chat Noir, then swipes the top of her yo-yo to open it up so that she can reach into the pool of bright light and extract the little Miraculous box. “Alya Césaire,” she says, holding the box out to a wide-eyed Alya, while Chat Noir silently sulks at the fact that his baton can’t do that, even though his suit has pockets when Ladybug’s doesn’t. “Here is the Miraculous of the Fox, which grants the power of illusion. Should you choose to accept, you will use it for the greater good whenever we need your help, then return it to us when the mission is complete.”

Chat Noir shoots her an odd look. Hadn’t Master Fu said that Alya could keep the Fox? Oh well, Ladybug’s always got a plan for everything, so he just has to assume that this is another plan of hers. And if she’s come up with it on the spot, he can’t very well ask her without tipping off Alya.

“No way,” Alya breathes. “For real? Me, a superhero?”

“Of course,” Chat Noir says. “Ladybug and I both thought you’d be a natural fit.”

“But your identity must remain a secret,” Ladybug says. “If we hear that you’ve told anyone then we won’t be able to give the Miraculous back to you. Unless the circumstances were unavoidable, of course. Accidents happen.”

“Of course not!” Alya says, once again bouncing from foot to foot. “I mean – of course! I won’t tell a soul!”

“Then welcome to the team, Ladyblogger,” Chat Noir grins as Ladybug indicates that Alya can take the little box. “Tonight’s just an orientation, but we’re gonna try and give you a few training nights so you’re not shoved into the thick of things like we were.”

“I will actually have both your babies for this,” Alya blurts out.

“I think that’s scientifically impossible with two uteruses, but sure,” Ladybug says with an amused little grin. Alya rolls her eyes, then snaps open the box and gasps and shields her eyes from the bright orange light that pours out of it.

“What is that thing?” Alya gasps. When the light fades to reveal a little orange fox kwami with mischievous violet eyes, her own eyes practically bulge out of her head.

“I’m not a thing!” Trixx says. “My name is Trixx and I’m your kwami!”

“Mind. Blown.” Alya feverishly examines Trixx from all angles. “You’re what gives Ladybug and Chat Noir their superpowers, right?”

“Not bad,” Trixx remarks to Ladybug and Chat Noir.

“She’s an expert,” Ladybug says.

“That’s one word for it,” Chat Noir says. Alya shoots him a very dirty look.

“So, what do you say?” Ladybug says. “You ready to become a superhero?”

“Do you even need to ask?” Alya shoots back.

“Then you just need to say one thing,” Trixx says. “Trixx, let’s pounce!”

“Trixx, let’s pounce!” Alya is enveloped in the same orange light that had introduced Trixx, and when it fades to reveal her fox outfit, she squeals and twists and turns to look at every little bit of it. She’s wearing a baggy, cropped orange jacket with a white chest, open over a tight, white-torsoed orange suit with a high black collar, along with white-palmed black gloves that look like they rise underneath her jacket sleeves. Her orange suit stops at her knees, meeting her orange-mottled black boots with orange fox paw prints on the white soles. Her black collar tapers into a sharp point where the fox tail of her active Miraculous rests, and there’s a wide strip of material wrapped around her waist that falls behind her in a black-outlined orange and white fox tail. Topping off her outfit are fake black-tipped orange fox ears with white insides, a mask that’s orange on the top half and white on the bottom half, a long flute strung across her back, and white-tipped hair that’s pulled back into a bushy ponytail. The more Chat Noir stares, the more he realises that it’s not just a ponytail; each thick bunch of curls forms a fox tail, with nine in total, giving her ponytail the illusion of extra volume.

“You know, milady,” Chat Noir says, “you’d better ask your kwami about a suit change, ‘cause Alya looks pretty damn cool.”

“And just what is wrong with my suit?” Ladybug huffs, crossing her arms. Chat Noir raises his hands.

“Nothing, nothing! You know I’ve got a thing for spots.” He winks. “I just don’t know you’d go for such a…plain suit if you were given the chance of a lifetime to be a superhero.”

“My suit is practical, thank you very much!” Ladybug says.

“So’s mine. But I’ve got a bell.”

“Yeah, because you’re a whipped kitten!”

“Ooh, burn,” Alya cackles, her head swivelling from Ladybug to Chat Noir to follow the argument.

“Her suit’s practical but still cool!” Chat Noir points at Alya.

“Hey, whoa, keep me outta your lover’s spat.”

“I’ll so take that Miraculous back off you and give it to Chloé Bourgeois if you call it a lover’s spat again,” Ladybug mutters.

“Hey! Low blow!” Alya clasps her heart dramatically.

“Shouldn’t we be introducing Alya to the nightlife?” Chat Noir says with his usual smirk. Ladybug pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Just…pick a superhero name and jump off the Tower already,” she sighs. Alya squeals and jumps again.

“A name! I get to pick a superhero name!”

“Yep, so make it count, ‘cause you’ll be stuck with it, foxy,” Chat Noir says.

“Call me foxy again and I’ll claw your eyes out,” Alya says. “Hmm. My name’s…Rena Rouge! Yeah! Rena Rouge!”

“Not bad,” Ladybug says. “Okay, now jump off the Tower.”

“…You were serious about that?” Rena Rouge says. Ladybug smiles sweetly.

“Of course. You want to be a superhero, right? Go!”

“I’ll accompany you, foxy,” Chat Noir winks, then jumps off the Eiffel Tower before Rena Rouge can follow through with her threat of gouging his eyes out. But at least it gives her sufficient motivation to forget the fact that she’s jumping hundreds of metres down to the ground, since she growls and hurls herself after him seconds later, catching herself with the metal beams and sliding down the Tower directly when necessary to slow herself with the friction, then launching herself back off.

It’s so not fair. Why can’t Rena Rouge hurtle through Paris or get whacked off a pole-tightrope on her first day like he and Ladybug had? Damn foxes being a damn natural at this.

“Oh my god,” Rena Rouge gasps when her feet hit the concrete ground seconds after Chat Noir lands, with Ladybug bringing up the rear. “I just jumped down the Eiffel Tower!”

“And you doubted my instincts, kitty,” Ladybug says with a smirk.

“Please, milady, you insult me if you think I ever doubt you,” Chat Noir says.

“This is so cool! I can’t wait till my first battle!” Rena Rouge then grimaces. “I mean, not that I want someone to get akumatised – ugh, you guys know what I mean!”

“Yes, yes, you’re just an overexcited douche rather than an insensitive douche,” Chat Noir says. Rena Rouge sticks her tongue out at him.

“I hate to cut this short, but we didn’t exactly tell Alya’s parents that we were kidnapping her,” Ladybug says. “This’ll have to be a brief orientation. But next time will totally be longer.”

“I will commit every second of this to permanent memory,” Rena Rouge whispers with starry eyes.

“One last thing before we end our little soirée,” Chat Noir says. “Try using your power.”

“My power? Oh, right! Like Ladybug has Lucky Charm and you have Cataclysm!”

“Yep,” Ladybug says. “Yours is Mirage. As many illusions as you want for five minutes, no matter how big or small. It should be easy enough to make and hold the illusions –”

“– but it’ll take pawractice to make it look purrfect,” Chat Noir says. Both Ladybug and Rena Rouge glare at him.

“Feel like being my new partner?” Ladybug says.

“Damn right I do,” Rena Rouge says.

“Hmph,” Chat Noir says. “As if you could live without my ameowzing puns. But it does seem a bit unfair that Rena’s gotta work on perfecting her illusions when the others get straightforward powers – make a shelter, stinging others…”

“And that’s why it takes a clever mind and a fast learner,” Ladybug says. “And we know Alya’s both.”

“Sorry, Chat Noir, but you’re just gonna have to shove off and let me make out with Ladybug,” Rena Rouge says. “She called me clever and a fast learner!”

“Don’t go getting a big head or anything,” Chat Noir says sourly.

“Besides, imagine the chaos of having unlimited illusions everywhere without a timer once you’re more experienced,” Ladybug says. “You wouldn’t know what’s real or what’s not. The Fox is suited to hanging back and annoying the enemy, remember?”

“Hanging back? That doesn’t sound like me at all,” Rena Rouge says.

“Which is why we picked you for the Fox,” Ladybug says. “It’s not always about what power you’re best suited to, but what that power can teach you. I get the feeling that you’ll benefit from learning how to be a true Fox, especially since you wanna be a professional journalist someday. Hang back, gather information, confuse your opponent, then get out of there. Even if you prefer to be in the thick of things, it’s all about learning how to use your wits under stress. He did say that aggressive foxes were a thing, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, if I remember correctly,” Chat Noir says.

“Actually…that does sound pretty cool,” Rena Rouge admits. “Especially the part where I can create literally any illusion I want. Okay, I’m in. How do I use my power?”

“Just picture the illusion you want to create, play your flute, then say, “Mirage”,” Chat Noir says. “First illusion will start your timer, then you’ve got five minutes to either use that one illusion or make more.”

“But the more you have, the harder it is to focus on them,” Ladybug says. “Which is where experience comes in.”

“Right, right. I think I’ve got it.” Rena Rouge’s brow furrows, then she unslings her flute and raises it to her lips to play a short tune. “Mirage!” She flings the orange orb at the end of her flute and when it hits the ground in front of her, a small group of people appear in a flash of orange light.

Wait. Why is Chat Noir looking at himself? Well, not technically himself, but his civilian self. Adrien. And Marinette, and Nino, and a few other people who he assumes are Rena Rouge’s parents and sisters. Except that they’re slightly fuzzy around the edges and very obviously not real.

“Guess what, guys!” Rena Rouge crows. “I’m a superhero! I’m Rena Rouge! Me, Alya!”

“Oh my gosh, really?” Illusion Marinette bounces on the spot. “That’s so, so cool, Alya!”

“We all know how much you love superheroes, especially Ladybug!” illusion Adrien says.

“I’m so proud of you, babe!” illusion Nino says.

“Our daughter, a hero!” illusion Mrs Césaire says, and illusion Mr Césaire beams and hugs her.

“Super Alya! Super Alya!” the illusion twins chant.

“Not bad, sis,” illusion big sister says. Rena Rouge’s necklace beeps and loses a tail segment, so she sighs and reaches out to touch illusion Nino, and the group of people disappear in another flash of light and the faint sound of flute music.

“Rena?” Ladybug says softly when Rena Rouge says nothing for a few moments. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Rena Rouge turns to face them, and Chat Noir’s stomach lurches at the sight of her glossy eyes. “I just…had to tell them somehow. At least I’ll have that memory with me.”

“You know we’d love nothing more than for you to be able to tell your friends and family, right?” Ladybug says. “But all it would take is one brainwashing or mind-reading akuma…”

“Not even Ladybug and I know who each other are,” Chat Noir says. He slips an arm around Rena Rouge, and she smiles and leans into his embrace. “Considering how many hits I take for her, that’s probably a good thing.”

“You’re gonna give me a heart attack one of these days,” Ladybug mutters as she joins the embrace, sandwiching Rena Rouge between herself and Chat Noir. They stand there in silence, squished together, ignoring Rena Rouge’s Miraculous when it beeps again.

“You know,” Rena Rouge eventually says. “I never would’ve put this on the Ladyblog, even without you guys asking me. I don’t care about the world knowing who I am. I just want my close friends and my family to be proud of me…”

Alya considers Adrien to be one of her close friends? Chat Noir can’t help but squeeze Rena Rouge tighter after that, not that she’ll know why.

“I think they already know just how miraculous you are, even without superpowers,” Ladybug says.

“God, I’m such a fucking sap,” Rena Rouge mutters, squirming until Ladybug and Chat Noir release her. “Alright, alright, break it up. I should get back before my family comes to check on me and thinks an akuma stole me or something. How do I detransform?’

“I think it’s “let’s rest”,” Chat Noir says.

“Let’s rest.” Rena Rouge’s costume vanishes in a whirl of orange sparkles, leaving Alya standing in her place with Trixx floating above her head. Alya looks up at Trixx, bites her lip, then ever so slowly reaches up to unfasten the necklace, as though she’s prolonging the inevitable.

“Thank you, Alya,” Ladybug says as she accepts the Fox Miraculous from Alya and returns it to its box. “For proving that we could trust you.”

“It was super tempting to keep it, not gonna lie,” Alya says. “But you wouldn’t give it back if I did, right? And I’d be an idiot to make an enemy of Ladybug and Chat Noir. I figure if I get to be a hero sometimes, at least it’s better than never.”

Ladybug smiles widely. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” she says and holds the box back out to Alya, whose eyes bulge. “I wanted to make sure that we could trust you enough to relinquish your powers when asked. Good job passing our test, Alya.”

“You mean your test,” Chat Noir says. “I had no idea what you were doing. But hey, bugaboo always has a plan.”

“Stop calling me bugaboo,” Ladybug says, though her lips twitch.

“Are you…serious?” Alya breathes. “This isn’t another test to see if I’m gonna be greedy and snatch it or something?”

“No,” Ladybug says. “You’ve earned it, Alya. We offered to take it back each time, but Mas – the person who gave us our Miraculouses said that the bond between holder and kwami is vital. You do know, though, that Chat Noir and I are entirely responsible for you.”

“So, you’d better not seriously mess up, yeah?” Chat Noir says. “But no pressure or anything.”

“Yeah, no pressure,” Alya says sarcastically, taking the Fox Miraculous back out and clasping it around her neck again, then tucking it under her shirt. Trixx reappears in a flash of orange light and gives Alya a rather shark-like grin. Or should that be a fox-like grin? “I can’t wait till the next akuma fight!”

“Actually, we don’t want you out there just yet,” Ladybug says. She holds up a hand before Alya can protest. “Hawkmoth doesn’t know for sure that there are other Miraculouses in Paris. The minute we reveal you, we lose that element of surprise.”

“We gotta be sure that you’re not gonna get downed in two seconds before we let you out there,” Chat Noir says. “You saw how bugaboo got flattened on our first day.”

“Excuse me?” Ladybug huffs. “Mr ‘Oops-I-didn’t-listen-to-my-kwami-and-used-Cataclysm-like-an-idiot’ wants to imply that he was the better one of us?”

“I’m with Ladybug. At least she used her Lucky Charm right.” Alya sticks her tongue out at Chat Noir while dancing from foot to foot, while Trixx watches with an amused gleam in his eyes and Chat Noir pouts at her. “And that makes sense, about making sure I’m prepared. Even if I’m literally about to wet myself both out of excitement and to see if this is just a dream.”

“Please don’t,” Chat Noir says. “Or Ladybug will have to Lucky Charm a –”

“You’d better not finish that sentence, Chat Noir, or I won’t pet you for a month,” Ladybug says. Alya coughs rather suspiciously behind her hand at that. “Thanks for understanding, Alya. I know it must be super tempting to rush out there and get in the action.”

“Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head,” Alya says. “I’m totally cool to be your secret weapon. And it will be secret ‘cause this isn’t going anywhere near the Ladyblog. At least, not until my first battle. Just promise me that I get to break this scoop, right? And I get to Peter Parker this shit and throw people off our trails?”

“Of course,” Ladybug and Chat Noir say together, and Alya beams.

“Damn right. Now, take me back home before you guys are reported for kidnapping and end up on the run to prove your innocence.”

“A shame, really, that we can’t keep you,” Chat Noir deadpans as Ladybug scoops Alya up. Alya smiles sweetly at him.

“Damn right, furball.”

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booksandeverything-in-between · 4 years

Text

My journalism journey

... has only just begun!

This is my post for the “Life Narrative” assignment for JTC 326. I’ve added a “keep reading” tab because I hate putting extremely long posts on my dashboard! Keep in mind too, I’ve formatted this to fit the platform, so it’s not strictly professional.

Also — this is the first time I’ve shared my Tumblr with anyone who is not my sister, but it’s the perfect platform for this.

** All pictures were taken by me unless otherwise specified, some taken from my old blog posts on here.

A note before I start: When I first thought about this assignment, I had so many things I thought I could share, a lot of them deeply personal, somewhat dark and just not the right fit. I had a bit of a crisis; I cried a little. There is so much in my past that makes me, me, that I’ve only ever really shared with my therapist, but have generally wanted to write about. But it’s hard, and I don’t know how. And a whole lot of other stuff. BUT THEN

I realized I could share a story that I have always wanted to share! It perfectly relates to our class too and basically everything anyone would ever need to know about me! It’s amazing! I’m so excited! I hope you like it!

(line break)

It’s the summer before sixth grade. That’s how I define, or sort, my life, in my memories. It’s the year of school, or it’s the summer before/after. It’s not my age, or the calendar year; it’s school. For a long time my whole identity revolved around school, so it fits.

Anyway, I’m bored. My older sister and I can only do so much Netflix-watching (because we didn’t have cable) on the Wii (because this was 2011), and I need something to stimulate my active mind. Here comes books!

I’ve always, always been an avid reader. I was the first person in my first grade class to start reading chapter books — something I liked to brag about a lot back then. But I’m about to be a middle schooler, so I need to find something a little more mature. My parents decide that I’m at an appropriate age to start reading some of my sister’s old books, which were originally marked for garage sale.

One of these books has a long, juicy title, with a teen girl posed on the cover in a preppy school uniform, hand on her hip. I don’t have to look this up to remember; it is forever in my mind. The book is I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter. Juicy, right? AND I LOVE IT. Seriously. Love. It.

Photo: I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter.

... And I guess I move on. That part is a little fuzzy. Enter: Back to School Night, sixth grade. I always would go with my mom, because I loved school, and nights like those I thought were super cool. So, I’m hanging out with my best friend Sydney by the stairs, and she has this book from the school library with her.

Do you believe in fate? Was it kismet? I do not know; I will not guess. But I do know, I freaked the f*ck out. Because it was the book, by Ally Carter!! I loved that book! When I asked Sydney where she got it, she said in the library, and there were a bunch of other books like it.

That made me pause. Honestly, I couldn’t believe it. Because, what do you know, it was a series!! There were three other books to be read! How, oh how, did I not know this? It had to be fate.

I can still picture exactly where the books are, in the Preston library. The smaller shelf, up against the wall, right by the opening into the conference/meeting room space (I don’t know what we called that room???). Bottom shelf.

Who knew a series about teenage girls going to a spy school would set me on this path?

Suddenly it’s the summer after sixth grade, and once again, I’m bored. But, I have access to a netbook, that my grandpa gave us. Something entices me to start Googling these books. I find Ally Carter’s website. I found out that there are going to be two more books in the series. And I stumble upon this Google search suggestion, with the word fanfiction.

And wow.

Stories, countless stories, about my favorite books. Eventually, I make my own account on fanfiction.net, I try my hand at some of my own stories, I get a smartphone and make this very tumblr account when I turn 13, I find a place where I can express all my nerdiness in peace and all-caps, without any sort of ridicule fear.

But that’s not the end, nor the point, of this story.

Photo: The first four books in the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter.

(line break)

So here I am, spending all my free time secretly reading fanfic and trying to write it, and hating my life sometimes and thinking about what I want to study in college because that’s my best chance at escape from this life that I feel I’m stuck in.

But I can’t think of anything to write! I love to read; I enjoy writing; I am learning more about grammar because my dad has me grading his grammar quizzes he gave his JTC 300 students; but still, something isn’t right. I viscerally hate English class.

But! There’s a way I CAN write, without it being creative! My dad is going to school for photojournalism, my sister took a high school journalism class, and now it’s my turn to register for classes in high school. I sign up for Journalism 1, the precursor to Journalism 2, which is the class that houses the student newspaper. It’s a great plan. It was a good class.

I was looking through my old journal the other day, and I came across this line dated from September 23, 2014, just into the beginning of my freshman year of high school. “I want to be a journalist.”

Photo: A journal entry that reads, “I want to be a journalist.”

My sophomore year of high school, I take Journalism 2 and join the paper. I’m kind of terrified because there are a bunch of people I don’t know and now I’ll actually have to go out and report and talk to people ... but we do some really fun team-building, and people seem to like me, and I relax. I feel, just a little, like a really belong.

And I had felt that way before, during band, and with some of my friends, but this thing, this journalism thing, I’m actually good at it. And there’s this one moment that sticks out to me still.

It’s probably 7:20 a.m. I’m trudging up the steps to Spanish class, and I do not want to be there. It’s not that I don’t like school, or I don’t like my classes, because I do. But I’m tired, and it’s not what I want to be doing. I think, if I could spend the entirety of my day in my journalism class, I would be happy.

To this day, as a college student, I am jealous of the people who get to spend their whole days doing journalism.

I’ve found more than a home. I’ve found a place where, for what feels like the first time, I can speak my mind. I can be sarcastic, I can make a pun and I can also point out when there’s a bad typo somewhere and have that be appreciated.

Halfway through my first year writing for the paper, I’m given extra responsibilities and get to start copy editing articles from the students in the J1 class, and I start to learn how to redesign/maintain our Wordpress site. I go on a class trip to Los Angeles, an amazing feat of independence for me, and I feel valued. And then, I’m award the position of Copy Editor for the next school year! It’s amazing.

I learn my junior year that the freshmen whose articles I edited were afraid of me. Afraid, of me! (For reference, I am five feet tall). But once they met me, they were like ‘Woah, Serena’s not scary!” and now we’re good friends. I’ve since learned to be less harsh/blunt in my editing.

My senior year, I was Editor-in-Chief. That was something I dreamed about as a freshman, but wouldn’t let myself actually fathom. And even though I felt like I could have done a much better job, and I had a lot of personal sh*t to do with too, by the end of the year, I knew that I was leaving behind a strong legacy.

It’s really something special when people you love give you a speech, crying, telling you how much you welcomed them, how much you made them feel like they had a place to grow, to be, and how much you’ve inspired them.

Because journalism, especially student journalism, is about so much more than the news. It’s about a community. It’s community with your fellow reporters and editors, it’s comradery while kicking ass, it’s creating a community with your readers and your peers, it’s learning about the community you live in and sharing the ups and downs of life.

Photo: A screenshot from my Instagram account of my high school journalism family, taken at our end of the year picture my junior year of high school. We had this running joke that I was going to be a world-dominator type person (because I’m so tiny and quiet) and my teacher said, “Okay, Serena now push Katie over” because I was taking over as EIC. Photo credit goes to my teacher (not going to post his name here).

(line break)

I have a lot of setbacks, too. I have anxiety. Like, a lot. Of anxiety. I haven’t been formally diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder, but I think I should be.

I used to think I was just shy. And that was partially the case. But I grew from it, in large part because of journalism. I went from not sitting in my designated seat at the beginning of class because there were older kids in the way my freshman year, to leading the entire class three days a week my senior year. I liked high school journalism because I could get away with asking my friends for quotes, or just not really quoting anyone at all.

I spent one quarter at the University of Denver last year, and it was somewhat the same thing. They didn’t have any strict standards on a number of sources, and I wrote articles that didn’t require speaking to a lot of people. But then, I took over nine months off from school in what should have been my freshman year of college, and thus took nine months off from journalism and reporting. So starting at The Collegian was a challenge.

I am still damn proud of myself for getting up the courage, on the second day of classes at CSU, to go down to the newsroom and ask about reporting. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t, and I love where I am today.

To think that wasn’t even a year ago ...

Photo: Here I am, remote copy editing for The Collegian, the week after Spring Break. Photo cred to my dad.

When I started at CSU, I felt good. I was nervous, but transferring was a really good decision, and I’m from Fort Collins, so I felt more comfortable. And at first, my reporting felt really good.

But then I got too stressed with school and work, and that stress led over to increases social anxiety when I was reporting. I went to this community meeting and tried to talk to people there, but I felt helpless and quiet and I left and cried to myself. I then conducted my interviews over the phone.

I even had to take a break for a few months last semester, because I had a panic attack with the mere thought of approaching people I didn’t know.

But I worked through it. Aided by Xanax and peer support, I interviewed a bunch of people at the Eva Schloss event and felt really good about it. I also saw my high school journalism advisor, because his wife works at CSU Hillel, and talking to someone who knew my struggle felt good.

For a long time I’ve doubted if journalism, if news reporting, is something I’ll actually be able to do. It’s the only real thing that makes me feel like I have a purpose, the only thing that makes me not feel depressed about life, but I am still so worried I’ll hold myself back in some way.

That hasn’t happened yet.

(line break)

It’s the summer before my junior year of high school, and I am about to go meet up with the other members of the new leadership team, Katie and Kathleen, at Starbucks. I’ve recently got my license and it feels really good to be driving myself around.

I go to Target and buy a fancy looking notebook with the last $15 I have to my name, because I don’t have a job yet. I go to Starbucks and discover I like drinking tea. I talk with Katie and Kathleen and we brainstorm what we want the journalism class to look like next year. What we want to change, how we’re going to get students to know that we exist.

It’s the summer before my senior year, and I bring this same notebook to a meeting at Dazbog that I have with our leadership team to get ready for the school year. I’m in charge. It’s weird, but in a good way. There are a lot more people there, and I fill pages upon pages of ideas, and agendas I want to start the first weeks with.

So much had changed in a year. My parents got divorced, I started working a lot, I was looking more seriously into college. But so much was the same. The same people, the same work, the same purpose. It was good.

It’s the second semester of my first year at CSU, my sophomore year of college. I’m at home, cleaning my room, procrastinating because I don’t want to write my final essay. I get a text from Laura, asking if I’ve heard back about the editorial board yet. I had shut my phone off because I was checking my email so obsessively.

And there it is. I am going to be the 2020-2021 News Editor for The Rocky Mountain Collegian. I still don’t fully feel like I know what I’m doing, even though I have all this experience. News is happening, but it’s summer. Do I write about it? Do I ask other people to write about it? Can I express the authority and knowledge I know I have, to people who have more experience at the paper than I do? It’s still early.

The day I get the news, I pull out an old, blue notebook that’s barely filled. It’s the perfect place to start brainstorming the things I want to change on the desk and the things I think are super important for Laura and me to talk about.

I forgot that I had notes from my Editor-in-Chief days in there.

Photo: The notebook!

It feels like I’ve completed a circle. Like all the highs and lows of my last few years have led me to here, right back to where I’m supposed to be. Where I’ve always known I would be.

I know who I am; I know where I belong; I know my place and my purpose in this world.

Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series brought me to writing, and writing brought me to journalism. In my obsession with those books, the unofficial motto of the CIA really resonated with me. “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

Community and truth, that’s journalism.

I want to be a journalist.

I am a student journalist.

I am a journalist.

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kalira · 4 years

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CATS movie thoughts~

(post mirrored from Pillowfort here)

I went to see the new CATS movie with @mad-madam-m yesterday (we've been planning this since the first trailer dropped) and it was actually a) better than I expected, and b) enjoyable, which was a nice surprise! (I expected us to enjoy it because it was entertainingly bad, honestly.)

I've loved CATS since I saw the Broadway version as a kid, and listened repeatedly (incessantly) to the soundtrack thereof back then - and at times even these days - and was delighted to see a production of it when it came to our city when I was small.

The movie left me with 2-3 major issues and a handful of quibbles. . . I have not organised them at all, but here are my thoughts.

. . .which I am putting under a cut because I had a lot more to say than I thought, apparently.

I am not surprised they did an outsider character to be an audience surrogate, but *SIGH*

Also . . . Victoria? Whose characterisation in the stage show is 'excellent ballerina'?

I know that's why they chose her, they could fill her in as they chose, but it was weird to have a cat who left almost no impression in the stage show as the 'main character'

Okay I admittedly missed that they apparently folded in Jemima/Sillabub to her as well, but that really doesn't make me feel any better

Did we have to have the incredibly forced romantical feeling type focus?

Not to mention we had some oddness towards that with Munkustrap initially

Then there was Misto falling tail over paws - because he bumbles through everything - at her

Then the oddness of the Munjojerrie and Rumpelteazer song which was probably not supposed to added the both of them to that list, if more briefly

Holy heckies adding a new song for the new central character was not a bad idea but literally anywhere else in the goddamn movie, and not spinning off of Memory oh my lord all the no it was so cringe

Look you cannot build off of Memory as 'but I have it worse than you so feel better'

Who has it worse is never a good game to play at all, playing it here was so cringey

'What's a Jellicle?'

Okay I know, audience surrogate, but oof

Actually let me skip back - the CGI did not bother me that much and it's like 99% of the ranting I have seen about this since the very first trailer. It never bothered me that much.

The cats were made a bit more plain; that bothered me.

Let them have ruffs, especially the toms, wtf did you remove those for it looks a) weird, and b) wrong for cats

However the show really can only be played by humanoid cats, I think, or it . . . look, the production wouldn't work with more catlike cats

The addition of dialogue stringing together the songs and adding more plot elements and freedom to work with them was really not an issue in my opinion

It strung together the slightly expanded plot in a way it really needed

It wasn't that jarring or awkward, to me

Misto, oh baby, why oh why did they do that to you~

Mister Mistoffeelees, who is an aloof, confident, and incredibly skilled magician in the stage show is made into a nervously fumbling barely-past-kitten who fails at almost every bit of magic he attempts (and falls and trips rather a lot as well, when he's a brilliantly graceful dancer in the stage show)

It was painful, oh sweetie

I can guess part of why they did it, but it was not well done and I don't think it was necessary

Misto's magic was painful; not because it was painful itself but because he was so bad at it, and everyone expected him to fail every time he tried

Misto using his magic for Gus' song, for dramatic effect? I thought it was really great and also really sweet

Actually Misto being so starry-eyed at Gus was adorable all around

That could have been put in even with Misto being his confident stage self, in fact it could have been super cute to have him be composed and confident and then go to an overexcited kitten with Gus in front of him

The absence of the Conjuring Turn was so sad, it is a star point of Misto

Look I'm not a fan of the 'awkward bumbling male finds his confidence because of the unwavering (with no reason) faith of the new female love interest' trope in general, having it wedged in here suddenly did not make me like it any more

Upon the note of Misto, the rescue of Deuteronomy . . . was very badly timed on the beats, and badly done (I felt) when it finally happened.

I didn't expect her to show up when Misto first tried

I semi-expected the second time, but okay

When she didn't show up the third time it stopped being any kind of suspense - especially since, let's be real, the plot is not really a huge mystery - and became 'okay so . . . what are we doing instead now?'

And then the fourth try, when she did appear, it was done very anticlimactically

Deuteronomy being female didn't really bother me but it left me a bit eh

Judi Dench is awesome, but Deuteronomy not really singing is weird

Also, let Judi Dench's Deuteronomy have been implied to have had 9 - or 99 - wives you cowards

. . .plus that line being altered to be another repeat of 'Old Deuteronomy's had many lives, some may say ninety-nine' . . . it was awkward/clunky and felt over repetitious

Jennyanydots . . . oof, poor hon

Jennyanydots is a mature and above all sweetly sincere queen in the stage show

She honestly wants to better the mice and the cockroaches, and it's a bit silly perhaps, but she is determined to do it - and does

And the other cats respect her and, more, they genuinely care very much for her it seems

And she's earnest

I expected her to be played more for comedy given who was cast to play her, but the extent of it felt not great, to be honest, even before the other cats began to feel like they were mocking her a bit

Not to mention - the joke about the mice being dinner and a show I could let pass despite being very different from Jennyanydots as she originally was, but actually eating cockroaches as it went was a bit too far

As I told M when we were discussing the movie after the showing, it was like, I was rolling with it, and then they rolled too far

Also on that note? The CGI mice were a bit o.O - when the CGI cockroaches started marching my thought was actually 'oh, this won't feature in my nightmares at all'

They won't actually but they were kind of horrifying

I did like the cats watching with that alert, slightly twitchy focus of a cat seeing a small moving creature

The traditional costume change looked . . . weirder and creepier with the CGI than costume work

Bustopher Jones went from a dignified figure to a ridiculous one

It was again rather terrible to watch, wince-worthy

Prancing through the rubbish bins and splatting through things instead of his usual stage show refinement and rather snobbishness? Oof

Bustopher has always been respected, even specifically so because of his size, making his weight a joke and/or something he's 'extra sensitive' about was . . . so unnecessary

The Rum Tum Tugger has always been my favourite, since I was a wee tiny Kalira

. . .he was blessedly not so bad as I feared - and even went back closer to the rocker cat (complete with flirtatious tease nature) than the rap adaptation I have heard of and been continually ohgodwhy no at

However, why did they discard the few details of his character that are not a self-important flirt?

He's not even focused at that - in the stage show I am accustomed to he is very much a determined performer, basking in being adored

he was a bit 'oo shiny' and kept ignoring his adoring audience in the movie?

In the stage show he is also around to drop in playful lines from time to time

Also he sings a good chunk of Misto's song and brags him up, as well as pieces of other songs

While he claims to be distant and aloof, and may somewhat be, he continually comes back and causes minor disruptions for his own (and others') amusement in the stage show

He also protectively shelters some of the kittens more than once

Misto's barb was kept in but sounded more like a jealous, anxious attempt to detract attention instead of a teasing barb at an egotistical friend

Along with many of the songs, Tugger's was altered so that it is entirely sung about himself, and as with many of them, I felt it was better with some of the lines from another singer

Though his is not so bad as many, perhaps because he's already talking himself up

I wasn't really surprised to find he's changed from the inspirations I remember from the stage show and when I was little (Mick Jagger and David Bowie, mother told me when I got older XD) but it was still a little bit of a disappointment

Also a bit random, when mostly the soloing cats - at least/especially the ones singing for themselves in front of all the others - were competing in the formalised 'who gets to ascend' spread, that Tugger is evidently not

Mungojerrie & Rumpleteazer were kind of fantastic and then kind of wtf for me

me, during their song, as they pulled Victoria along with them to play and cause all manner of mischief in the house: I don't think I'm intended to be shipping Victoria with both of them now, but I definitely am

me, at the end of their song, as they deliberately abandoned Victoria strangling and trapped as a dog came barrelling up after her with saucy nonchalance: . . .what the fuck?

me, when they were helping with Macavity's attack directly: excuse me no

I know they're said to be 'rumoured' to help him out in the stage show but this was very different

Yeah they said here that it was 'only a bit of fun' and they didn't know Macavity was planning to kidnap Deuteronomy, but . . . no

I did actually like their colouration redesign, making them I think the only cats I did in the entire movie

The lack of their tumbling and acrobatics was a bit sad, though their song and playful successsion of running about, Victoria in tow, was fun

Macavity was played super well considering he has no lines in the stage show so rather little to go on, and the expansion of his plot was honestly understandable - I mean, CATS has a heck of a thin plot for a musical, let alone a movie

One of the things that bothered me about him was honestly that his song where he is described he is described as ginger and poorly-combed

He's played by Idris Elba and his fur is sleek rich brown

He looks great, but alter the lines, you've already altered several, including Deuteronomy's because of the genderswap

On that note, the plot expansion in general . . . it was way better than I feared

I was afraid they were going to wedge in another plotline alongside the (very thin/hardly there, admitted) one in the stage show and it wouldn't go well

On the other hand the making the Jellicle Ball an official competition was a little eh to me

The more I think about it the less I like it even, really

I suppose it had to be, maybe, to work with expanding Macavity's plot and actions, but I don't care for it (and I think it could probably have been worked around)

I could have done without the queens being actively aggressive to Grizabella, oof that was owch

They recoil and hiss and act like she has the plague or a curse, very disdainful of her, in the stage show, and it works well

Having the queens actively attack her, not only hissing but instead of recoiling circling her and closing in on her to slash at her? It was . . . not good

So I guess the lead queen that I noticed doing that the most is . . . Cassandra? I honestly thought it was supposed to be Bombalurina

Bombalurina only showed up as Macavity's chief singer and queen underling, to distract and drug everyone

Really? Yeah some of the queens sing about Macavity in the stage show, but Bomba is even the one who comforts Demeter when Macavity's presence freaks her out (in what seems like a trauma reaction, rather) in the stage show

I have no idea who is supposed to be Demeter, the queens were all but interchangeable background, really most of the chorus cats were

Which brings up the theme of a lot of the cats being unrecognisable to me, honestly, and/or having their roles remixed a little, or straight-up lessened

Skimbleshanks was awesome, and his song/number was perhaps even better than in the stage show

The tap-dancing along the rails? Awesome

The cats playing around in the sleeper cabin was also pretty great honestly

I will say when Skimbles appeared my immediate impression was of a very specific within-the-LGBT+-community gay man stereotype

Also I am terribly amused that he's wearing half a suit of clothes and it's the opposite half that he was in the stage production I'm most familiar with

Munkustrap was rather different, still a large part of keeping things going, if not the same way

Less serious than I'm used to? Not that he's only serious, but still

He made the best faces, like, it rescued a few awkward moments

At least a handful of moments that made me go 'this is so very not the Munkustrap I know' characterisation-wise

With the battle removed and a few other things, many of the moments that make his personality shine were gone

No seeing him lunge into action as the Jellicle Protector, basically

No seeing him trying to manage the little play-within-a-play put on for Deuteronomy (even when Tugger causes mischief) although I can't blame them for cutting both of those

No seeing him shield the kittens or younger/other cats without hesitation

Instead there was mostly just the slightly silly characterisation that showed in the moments between in the movie, it seemed to me

Gus the theatre cat was another of those whose song was rewritten to be sung by themselves, though his is the most notable for that, given he barely sings at all in the stage show

I really think it worked better the other way

But they gave me Ian McKellen being awesome in that song so I am okay with this

Also, Gus using a bit of that to scare Growltiger off the ferry and into the Thames? Fabulous

Misto's song - I talked about him and about Deuteronomy's rescue, but the song

I love having it led in by Tugger in the stage show, and I love having Tugger brag him up

Tugger is good at that, honestly, it so suits his style

Misto needs a bit of bragging up, especially for this moment

First of all, changing it up so Misto sings most of it himself instead is a bit sketchy

Changing it so it becomes less of a confident, showy number and instead is Misto being so anxious he can barely sing and constantly checking reactions . . . that made it worse

Next up, changing it from Tugger - who reads as friendly to Misto, in the stage show - leading in Misto's song and encouraging the others to praise him, to Victoria who has only just met him and all the other cats being dubious as they join in. . . I did not like

My shipper heart: why would you take that away it was excellent interaction!

My non-shipper heart: why would you take that away it makes much more sense and it also makes a lovely balance with Misto teasing Tugger during his song and shows that Tugger took it in the light-hearted spirit (they're friends, they're there for each other) it seemed to be

Also that it was so sweet a bit of interplay they took it away from Tugger to give to Misto's Sudden Romantic Interest in the movie, with zero changes otherwise? I have some side-eye.

I already mentioned the rescuing Deuteronomy beats being all wrong, but it also left me thinking we'd be getting less of Misto's song and it was oddly broken-up when we did get more

The catnip usage had me a bit o.O I'll be honest, for several reasons

Erwhat with the drugging everyone in that scene?

The glowing I'm going to assume is to show that it's having an effect on the cats, but it came off a bit weird to me

There were several cats it looked like were 'trying to escape' the catnip who most definitely had/should have already been hit

Also how did the cats assisting Macavity avoid being affected? Bombalurina at first made sense, sprinkling it below herself, none of it after that did

Wow Macavity's song and climax there with the stairs right up to the 'Heaviside Layer' in his stage display? So cocky! An unwise cat

Deuteronomy smacking him down? Very nice

Continuing to do so when he disappeared them both? Even better

I was really rather surprised not to see the melee battle among the cats in the climax with Macavity

Of course that also took away some of the drama, aaand some of the chorus cats, especially the toms', chances to shine

The queens were pretty indistuingishable from each other but at least we saw them somewhat, the toms mostly seemed to be entirely background blur

Growltiger being added in as Macavity's henchcat was actually kind of great? Watching over the kidnapped cats and as a secondary (and subordinate) Bad Tom, yes

In contrast to the mischievous Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer being used that way, I am so there for it

Grizabella was . . . a little disappointing?

She was played wonderfully! But she could have been played more

Seriously, fabulous actress there for her and they did nothing with her other than her songs and crying while singing them?

The stage production I'm familiar with has more than that with her and less time

Let her be proud and trying to gather herself up

Let her be dubious of herself and/or the others

Let her stand aside as though she doesn't even want to rejoin them after being turned aside

Look there's lots more that could have been done in the space there was with her in the movie (and without involving Victoria so much as she was, which was still a bit cringey outside Victoria's song, but at least not so badly)

She 'went with Macavity'? Felt a little unnecessary and also . . . hrm, to me

The stage show doesn't explain why the Jellicles reject her or where she was

I honestly always assumed she left on her own - Grizabella the Glamour Cat? - to make her own way, and eventually fell from grace

It was also a little strange to see her so young

Deuteronomy making the choice also felt . . . a little flat to me

I'm not sure what I was expecting or what the problem was

Regardless, it felt a little lacking somehow

I was impressed with how they had Grizabella's ascension managed, since that would be necessity be rather different from the stage show

Also great for Misto keeping some of his confidence from his song and rescue for this bit

Macavity trying to leap on and hitch a ride to the Heaviside Layer was excellent, and his getting stuck and having his magic not work to get himself un-stuck? Great

I do wonder - is his magic entirely broken, or just not working to catch his ride on Grizabella's balloon again?

The Ad-Dressing of Cats feels a bit awkward in a stage production to me; having a close-up of Judi Dench staring at me in the movie screen, for an extended time, did not make it better

Also the prologue bits about the naming of cats and what a Jellicle is were both changed and so there was no semblance of something similar in the beginning

I still think it would have been awkward, but if it bracketed the movie with the fourth wall breaks it might have worked better

The faces of the three cats close around Deuteronomy as she recited the entirety of that - which felt too long - were the only things that kept it being too awful

Munkustrap was the best in that

Misto looking horrifically embarrassed a few times and hiding behind his hat once . . . oh baby, I feel

'You're a Jellicle now!'

There's a Jellicle Ball once a year, see you then

So . . . for now, goodbye to your butt that was thrown in a sack into a junkyard we immediately ran away from

Rather than it being the Jellicles' (second, in some cases) home

I know your whole arc has been please accept me, see me, give me a place to be

But run off on your own, see you in a year

Seriously Victoria could have followed Misto, or Munkustrap, or Mungojerrie & Rumpleteazer, or anyone

Even Munku's mate could have, say, come up and encouraged Victoria to come with them

Not that we saw enough to assume he had one, still don't know who was supposed to be Demeter, but beside the point

It was a rough ending there

. . .I had a lot to say, and I'm not willing to swear that I didn't repeat myself anywhere - if I did I apologise - or skip over things I might have wanted to say. I saw the movie 24 hours ago and wrote most of this when I should have been asleep.

I did enjoy the movie and will probably watch it again - I also plan to watch the Broadway version again very soon (as soon as the library brings it to me) and have been listening to the Broadway soundtrack since yesterday afternoon.

(I may also be writing more for this fandom soon, but we'll see about that.)

#CATS (movie)#CATS (musical)#by way of my rambling references and preferences #Kalira rambles #yelling at M about things #MadMadamM

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ducktracy · 4 years

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68. buddy’s beer garden (1933)

release date: november 11th, 1933

series: looney tunes

director: earl duval

starring: jack carr (buddy), bernice hansen (cookie)

tom palmer’s been kicked to the curb, and now we have earl duval, buddy’s creator, directing buddy’s beer garden. exciting to note, this is frank tashlin’s first animation credit (as tish tash)! he’d get fired from the sudio in 1934 because he wouldn’t give leon schlesinger a piece of his revenues from the comic strip he ran at the time, “van boring”, a take on his former boss van beuren. he’d rejoin warner bros in 1936 and make cartoons until his departure for disney in 1938, and then ONCE MORE come back in 1943 until a solid departure in 1946.

back to the cartoon: prohibition was on its way out the door, officially ending less than a month after the cartoon was made—beer had been legalized in march of that year. beer gardens were popping up everywhere, and buddy’s own beer garden is no exception. we follow the antics of buddy, cookie, and his dog (who looks different than happy) in a beer garden.

buddy’s gotten a total redesign, which would stay permanent until another redesign later in his career. as poor as tom palmer’s cartoon was, i wish they kept his design from buddy’s day out. he looks a lot more unlikeable LOL, but that’s just my opinion. buddy is strolling around, swinging some beer on his platter and singing “auf wiederseh’n”. a wiener dog trots along behind him, pretzels stacked up on its tail.

he places the beer down on a table (beer flying out of the glasses in pure cartoon fashion) and whips out the table cloth from beneath the mugs with no problem, snapping it and placing it back under with ease. the sound effects are an improvement from buddy’s day out, but still feel rather present instead of integrated into the cartoon. the animation is a lot better, too. maybe a little less so than the bosko cartoons.

any beer garden has a live german band, right? there are an array of spot gags involving the band, including a clarinet player popping his head out of a tuba and playing a very catchy melody. there’s another scene where the bartender pours beer into the mugs in synchronization with the music, and a trombone player sliding the glasses down the counter with each slide (accompanied by the music). this actually made me realize that there was no musical timing in buddy’s day out—well, all of the timing there was wrong and discombobulated, but it’s strange to think about when, at this era, music was always a priority.

cookie makes an appearance, making pretzels by knitting the dough. buddy’s dog salts the pretzels with a salt shaker in his tail. another standard gag, but creative and amusing. at this point, i’m always glad to see creativity and some imagination. i won’t take it for granted any time soon LOL.

another gag i love, tongue sandwiches with actual tongues singing and licking up mustard. there’d be a similar gag with tongue sandwiches in goofy groceries.

elsewhere, there’s a man who looks like he’s an escaped convict, booming “where’s my beer!?” a tiny little waiter dashes over to him with a beer. not waiting for any further invitation, the brute picks up the waiter and tosses back the beer into his mouth. the music they used is really jarring: when he drinks the beer, it sounds like a murder mystery cue?? like the dramatic chipmunk video. it feels out of place and hinders a potentially funny gag.

meanwhile, more musical antics ensue as a gang of drunks sing “it’s time to sing ‘sweet adeline’ again”. side note i guess, i always thought i had heard “sweet adeline” in looney tunes many times, but it was actually because i’ve seen so many episodes of the andy griffith show where they’d sing that LOL. i feel like daffy may have sung it at one point, but i could also be confusing it with “how dry i am”. (edit: yes, i did confuse it so this whole side note was pointless LMAO). a man gets beer foam thrown on top of his bald head, which he uses a comb to comb out, another man plays spaghetti like a harp, and buddy plays beer steins like chimes. also a good gag of the beer mugs kissing (above) when they clink together.

cookie has gone from dough-knitter to cigarette/cigar seller. the ex-jailbird from before flirts with her, tossing a coin into her box and snagging a cigar, cutting the tip with his stein. the animation is nice and fluid, almost jarringly so, like there’s no weight. nevertheless, i’ll take it over the jankiness of palmer’s cartoons. an amusing gag ensues as the brute uses a flamethrower to light his cigar.

back to the german band, the man popping out of the tuba sporting maracas this time instead of a clarinet. seemingly out of nowhere, cookie saunters out into the middle of the garden and does a “sexy” dance (not really sexy at all). the setup would be amusing, just randomly popping out of nowhere and doing some sort of a flamenco dance after german oompah music has been blaring in your ears, but it comes off as too slow and careful, too deliberate. nevertheless, the power of her dance intrigues her patrons. a goat on a poster blows its horns, the dog bounces the pretzels on its tail, a very cartoony piano comes to life and imitates cookie’s dance, as well as the brute from before. buddy is also tossing the beer in the mugs he’s holding, whereas the brute now chews up some olives and spits the pits into a nearby spittoon.

once more to buddy. his surroundings get more screentime than he does! suffering from bosko syndrome, i suppose. he slices up bread and cheese, shuffling the two piles together like a deck of cards. elsewhere, the man inside the tuba now comes out with a piano. the gag is funny, but relied on too heavily.

buddy slides the tray of food off his back and tosses sandwiches onto a table, the man paying him back accordingly. buddy places the tray on his head (i guess another one of those “he can do anything!” indicators) and the beer steins slide and clink together as he walks. one of the steins comes to life and protests “hey, you mug!”, prompting the other to growl “don’t call me a mug, you mug!” i actually enjoyed that, a little bit of cleverness for a change.

this is great gag with great visuals. two men are literally playing their pipes, the smoke anthropomorphized as dancers who sway along to the jaunty rhythm.

suddenly, buddy squeezes himself into the spotlight and says “hold it, folks! a big surprise! this will open up your eyes! introducing someone grand—give the gal a great big hand!” his voice sounds drastically different from buddy’s day out, almost exactly like johnny murray’s bosko. still trying to fill mickey mouse’s shoes, i guess? the animation is jarring, too. melty and blobby, no weight, no spacing, just constantly moving and changing.

beats me how buddy somehow got a caricature of mae west to perform at his beer garden, but nevertheless she struts out and belts her stuff. better than the mae west caricature in i’ve got to sing a torch song, but still mildly disappointing. there’s a shot of a conductor whose lapels roll up and down, but it mainly disrupts the flow of the song, especially with the slide whistle sound effects.

the jailbird finds her to be hot stuff and flirts with her, asking “hello, baby! give me one big kiss!” the voice acting is painful, almost bosko’s holiday painful. it sounds like “hello.... ba-by! give me ooooone! .....biiiiiig kiiiiss.”

nevertheless, the brute is perched under a table, his butt sticking out the other end. the goat on the poster from before headbutts him, causing him to barrel straight into mae. she flies into a tree, whereas the brute flies into a mirror (complete with an OW sound effect with no lip movement). mae falls back to the ground.

the reason buddy got mae west to perform is because HE was her all along. our first drag joke, i think? well, it did one thing effectively: it caught me by surprise. the surprise was slightly ruined, though: when buddy was in the tree (still as mae) you could see him adjusting himself, the wig slipping off slightly. i think it would’ve been better to just wait until he fell back down and crashed, THEN revealing the surprise. the parrot in the cage he used as a makeshift butt turns into a jimmy durante caricature and scoffs “am i mortified!”, iris out.

this was a much better effort than buddy’s day out and i’ve got to sing a torch song for sure. the animation was an improvement, gags were an improvement, sound effects were an improvement, and so on. it still felt rather bland and unmemorable, though. not terrible! but once again, we know little about buddy and are assumed to just know everything about him. it wouldn’t hurt to skip this one, but it wouldn’t kill you to watch it, either.

link!

#lt #buddy’s beer garden #reviews #long post #alcohol tw

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gothvince · 5 years

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i wanted 2 redesign some of lydias classmates and i’m NOT tagging this bc they look awful and they’re super quick drawings but. just wanted to ramble abt my decisions for this and?? fuckin????? infodump baby thats what i do. i put the art under a cut bc 1. this post could get long and 2. ghhhh its bad

SO i’m british and my high school had pretty much the exact same uniform as the gals at miss shannons school. and like... i can VIVIDLY remember what people would consider cool back then. rolled up sleeves, jackets tied around your waist. top button always undone. for some reason we’d roll down our socks and that would be considered cool?? and also... really short and fat ties. so since claire is the popular mean girl trope, i wanted to make sure she wore her uniform in all the ways that seemed cool at that age. she’s also big on makeup and jewellery, both of which are banned, but Cool Kids Wore It Anyway.

i think i might change her earrings to be a lot smaller, but for the most part i really like her design!! her hair is similar enough to the old show that it’s recognisable but i wanted to change it up a little just to show that this is like, a reboot. claire in general is really... bossy and mean and confident in herself so she’s not exactly afraid of all these dress code violations. and her parents are probably rich doners to the school so she rarely gets in trouble for it.

also she’s... very insecure in herself! my hc for her is that her parents are really neglectful and not very present in her life - she has money and all her needs are provided for but there’s not that emotional attachment kids need from their parents. as a result she sort of latches onto things that other people consider cool so they’ll think she’s cool and admire here, yknow?? like a shallow substitute for the love she isn’t gettin from her parents. her family’s very... strict and hate anything they’d consider “other” so in an effort to live up to her parents expectations claire takes on the roll of bully 2 people considered “other” like lyds, bertha and prudence. also she’s gay and has a crush on lydia and picks on her a lot bc of that bc she doesn’t know how else 2 deal with her feelings.

i have a whole. goddamn redemption arc in my head for claire and i love her SO much. a lot of it involves learning from lydia and BJ that it’s okay to be weird and and it’s okay to be yourself and... she struggles with it but she does eventually learn how to be herself regardless of what her parents think. YES lyds/claire is endgame and YES i’m emotionally attached to that ship

also i have her listed as 17 here but i think im gonna lower it to 16 bc i want all the gals to be around the 15-16 age. it’s older than the 12-13 age range in the show but i feel like i can write better from tht age range cuz i BARELY remember what i was like at 12 but all that teenage angst stuff is fresh in my mind

MOVING ONTO BERTHA, she wants to be as popular as claire so she imitates a lot of stuff that kids consider “cool”. like. untucked shirt, small amounts of jewellery, make up. the difference between them is that bertha is more encouraged to be herself than to conform to any kind of... standard or whatever. so she’s a little weird and dorky, but in a super endearing way. her parents are from the relatively poorer part of town, her uniform is second-hand from her older sister, so it’s kind of loose and ill-fitting. all her make up is from the dollar store so it’s the really bad kind that exacerbates her acne and doesnt really cover it up.

bertha’s tall and skinny but in a more awkward way than anything, and she has braces and acne and she wouldn’t really be considered conventionally attractive in the way claire is, but she’s so unabashedly herself that her confidence shines through that and makes her generally super likeable. she’s on good terms with pretty much everyone outside of claire’s friend group! she’s been best friends with prudence since they were kids so the two are super close, and since prudence is a lot more reserved and shy, bertha’s taken it upon herself to stick up for her and make sure she’s okay.

and prudence!! i honestly didn’t change her design too much from the show but like... she’s tiny and VERY neat and tidy. not concerned with being cool or anything - she just likes to follow the dress code exactly. she’s quiet and shy and studious and spends a lot of her time w her nose in a book. her grades are amazing. she’s from a somewhat middle class family who want her to do well, her parents are a bit strict on homework and studying and that kind of thing which can sometimes get really stifling for her, but they mean well and only want her to succeed. she enjoys hanging around with bertha and lydia because it gives her the chance to let loose a little. being friends w/ the two of them has really helped her come out of her shell, and we see her become braver over the course of the series!!

bertha/prudence is CANON and i LOVE THEM and they’re so goddamn cute together. they go to every single school dance together and have study dates once a week where it’s just the 2 of them. bertha’s out to her parents and they’re very accepting so a lot of their study dates happen at bertha’s place. prudence isn’t out, but she’s not so far in the closet that she’ll pretend she’s straight. (her parents just think she and bertha are friends but when prom rolls around and they’ve coordinated their outfits and bertha comes to pick prudence up, it hits them that they’re dating and they’re supportive when they do find out)

GOD. CLAIRE AT PROM. she’s so goddamn gay she doesn’t end up getting a date to prom because she doesn’t like any of the guys in her town. lydia goes with betty as like, a friend thing, but there’s. a part of the night where claire is watching bertha and prudence dance and she looks to lydia and just... works up the courage 2 go and ask her to dance. and they DO and they share a really shy awkward kiss at the end of the dance. meanwhile betty is NOT happy about it

i have a full prom episode written in my head............. a full goddamn series in my head... i think a lot abt these characters all the time and i REALLY wanted to go more in depth with them! claire especially bc she’s SO one-dimensional in the show i just rlly wanna explore. her whole vibe. shes heavily inspired by pacifica frm gravity falls if u couldnt tell

#this is 11 paragraphs long #fake reboot tag

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miss-eucatastrophe · 5 years

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Chapter 17: Threat

Pairing: Bucky x PlusSize!OFC/Serum!OFC (Can also be read as a Bucky X Reader fic. Your name is Cassandra. You’re welcome you beautiful bitch).

Summary:Trying to integrate into “normal” life, Bucky slowly falls into a routine. Wake up, run, gaze at the woman who works in the toy store as he passes by, eat, mission, sleep, repeat. But when he goes toe to toe with a thief who threaten’s to trash his routine by becoming an obsession, will he be able to put his bizarre life back in order, or will this woman turn his 21st century world on it’s head?Yep, the Bucky/Serum!Reader story you didn’t know you wanted.

Rated: Explicit

A/N: Back like I never left. I didn't give up on the story. A lot of things happened in my life that pulled me away from fanfiction. My previous semester was very intensive and I lost a beloved family member to cancer. My Grandfather passed, we were very close and it put me in a bit of a spin. I'm doing much better and this is my final semester of school. I mapped out all my school semesters so that this last one would be easy. I'm only taking two classes and they are both on the same day. In addition I am back at the job I previously had which allowed me to write when things were slow. So you can expect this story to be completed this year between my senor synthesis project.I apologize to everyone who were waiting for this and I thank everyone for their kudos and continued support of this story. I hope you're still interested in reading it.To make up for my absense, this chapter is the length of 2-3.Enjoy~!

Chapter 17 :Threat

In a year’s time since losing Cassandra, the Avengers had all gone through their own set of changes and challenges. The Avengers, and some space morons, had gathered together to fight against a big purple asshole who literally snapped half the universe into nonexistence. Prior to that, Bucky had spent time in Wakanda and met a sassy princess named Shuri who was eager to try out her tech on what she lovingly called a “broken white boy”. As a result, she had managed to rewire Bucky’s brain in order to expel the existence of those nasty trigger words that remained tightly locked within his subconscious. After losing Cassandra, the idea that the book that held his trigger words was destroyed was no longer a comfort. He had to get rewired—get Hydra out of his head for good.

If he was going to go after Cassandra and face more Hydra operatives, he couldn’t give them any opening to get to him. The risk was far to great. In addition to Shuri rooting around in his brain, she saw fit to redesign his metal arm. One that quote “didn’t suck”, not like the rebuilt Hydra tech Tony had stitched together as an apology to Barnes after their Civil War that was less than civil.

However, the appearance of the previously mentioned purple asshole, Thanos, had put Bucky’s quest to find Cassandra on hold. Especially after he too was snapped into nonexistence.

During his time in the emptiness, what he could remember of it, he had hoped he’d see Cassandra there. That if he had indeed died, perhaps she had too—and he could finally rest. Rest with the woman he’d grown to love.

He was both relieved and heartbroken by the fact that he never saw her. He never saw anyone. Hell, he couldn’t remember if he had seen anything at all. Nonexistence had been funny like that. Both seeing and not seeing at the same time. Both existing and not at the same time. Both alive and not at the same time.

It was a lot like cryo.

But just as quickly as he’d died, he was back in the world which was very much the same as he’d left it, but with the added bonus of those who had survived the “snap” defeating Thanos.

Little things had changed since then. The Avengers had grown in size with the addition of that Spider Kid and occasional assistance from King T’Challa and his people, Banner and Thor had returned to the family of misfits—considering that Thor had nowhere else to go after the destruction of his home, and the odd family as a whole had moved from the Avengers Tower they had called home into the Avengers Compound. Which, if Bucky was honest, he liked better. He liked the seclusion the compound had, the fact that it was out of the city—the fact that he wouldn’t pass the toy store anymore.

It wasn’t as though Bucky had forgotten about Cassandra, or wanted to. Quite the opposite—he devoted all his downtime to following leads centered around finding her.

He wasn’t going to stop. He hadn’t stopped since they completed their move into the Avengers Compound. As a result, the last two months of Bucky’s life, since the move, had been harder than the year without her. At least during that year Bucky had unwavering distractions from his own anger, depression, and restlessness. But these past two months made him wish he was on ice again. He was impossible to be around—he knew it, but he wasn’t about to fake a smile. He wasn’t the type. He’d never been the type.

As a result, the team treaded carefully around him. They had been since week one of their move in which Bucky was insisting that the man in the chopper had “his Doll” under a triggered mind control similar to his own. In passing, Tony had said he wasn’t sure about that—that perhaps Cassandra was in fact a double agent. Even Natasha, the double agent queen, didn’t believe that. The idea had earned Tony a punch to his laboratory wall where his head had been. He hadn’t bothered to have the indent caused by the Sargent’s fist fixed—and hadn’t dared to bring up his theory again. He liked his playboy head attached to his shoulders.

The only person that could approached Bucky was Steve, and even he wasn’t immune to the male’s frustrations.

Bucky and Steve walked down the ramp descending from the Quinjet. The moment Bucky’s boots touched down on cement of the hanger he let out a frustrated growl that bordered on a roar and threw one of his guns across the room. It skittered across the floor. Upon catching up with the gun in smooth strides, Bucky kicked it like a petulant child, letting it hit the wall to the left and watched it crumble into several unrecognizable pieces.

Steve put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezed firmly, yanking him back and forcibly turning his friend to face him. “Enough.” Steve growled, as if scolding a toddler. A toddler that could break his damn neck if it really wanted to.

Bucky shrugged his friend off. “Seven tips—all seven leading to nothing!” He wanted to punch something. Bucky had followed every tiny glimmer of hope that might lead to Cassandra. No matter how insignificant it seemed. “We can’t keep doing this.” Steve murmured. Steve could have told him that five of the seven leads would bring them nothing, but Bucky always insisted. He was tired, he had bags under his eyes—but so did Bucky. Steve found himself wondering when the last time Bucky slept was.

“We can’t look into everything, Bucky.” He reiterated, gripping both of Bucky’s shoulders in an attempt to hold his focus. “We can’t.”

Bucky set his jaw, his muscles wound tight, but he didn’t pull back, or punch him in the jaw like Steve expected.

“You did it for me.” Bucky murmured through clenched teeth.

The Captain’s eyes softened, a moment of silence passing between them before Steve pulled Bucky into a firm hug by his grip on his shoulders. “We’ll find her Buck.” He murmured before his friend returned the embrace. “We’ll find her.” He repeated.

Their tender moment was interrupted by Sam sticking his head in. “Yo, old guys.”

Bucky let go of his friend and peered over his shoulder at Sam, giving him a death glare. That hug from Steve was the first positive physical contact he’d had since Cassandra was taken from him, he wasn’t pleased with having it cut short.

“Sorry secret lovers,” Sam murmured, stepping out of the doorway and into the hanger. “But we have a lead on The Cassinator.” He murmured with a grin, as if he were proud of himself for the new nickname.

Bucky wasn’t impressed.

Cassandra would have laughed.

Cassandra wasn’t here.

The super solider with the metal arm arched a brow as if he was not convinced, but Sam continued. “A real lead. With real evidence.” Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Pictures.” Sam emphasized, tilting his head in the direction behind him to get the Captain and the Sargent to follow him.

Steve looked to his best friend and clapped him on the back as he broke into a steady jog after Sam. It took Bucky a moment longer to follow after them. Bucky wasn’t so sure he could take anymore bad news. The whole year had been nothing but a plethora of bad news.

Tony slammed his hand on the table in the conference room, drawing it back to rest it on his hip. “She’s been spotted in Germany.” He announced, beaming like a child who just completed a jigsaw puzzle.

Steve, who had been seated next to where Tony had slapped his hand on the table, arched a brow. “We went to Germany.” He said blandly. It wasn’t that he was trying to be cynical, he just didn’t want to get Bucky excited for nothing. He remembered what that felt like. To be so sure he was going to find Bucky only to return empty handed. Bucky had already done it enough.

Steve was going to make sure they didn’t go on another mission to find Cassandra until they were absolutely sure it was a genuine lead. Bucky’s heart couldn’t take it. Steve’s couldn’t either. Partially because he too loved Cassandra as a valued member of the team, but more so because his heart broke for his pal.

Bucky tapped his metal finger on the surface of the desk, not looking up at Tony’s over-excited face. “What makes you think she’s there?” he murmured, monotone and seemingly uninterested. He couldn’t bare to give his hopes up again. Not when seven leads had brought them nothing.

Sensing Bucky’s skepticism, Tony tapped on the surface of the table at the head, little hidden panels lighting up under his fingertips until a projection appeared at his eye level. The picture was a birds eye view of an old HYDRA base, one that Bucky recognized from his days on The Howling Commandos in the 40’s. It was one of the original seven bases the team took down when Steve officially became Captain America.

Tony raised his hand to the hologram and flicked his wrist to change the angle of the view until two people could be clearly seen. One was a girl with long brown hair tied up into a high pony but had no other distinguishable features showing besides that. The bottom half of her face was masked, and across her eyes were goggles. Even with the shitty resolution caused by zooming in Bucky knew it was his doll. The other figure was obviously the man Bucky saw in the chopper the day Cassandra got away. His memory may not have been great regarding everything pre-HYDRA, but he remembered the man who took his best girl.

“When do we leave?” Bucky said plainly, having already made up his mind the moment Tony zoomed in on the two figures. It wasn’t definite, with her face covered like that, but it was the best lead they had in weeks.

“We don’t,” Said Steve firmly, causing Bucky to set his jaw and raise a death like stare in Steve’s direction—one reminiscent of The Winter Solider. “Not without a plan.” Steve finished quickly, watching his friend’s gaze slightly soften.

Tony pipped up at that moment to back up his Captain, “I’ve got schematics of the building,” he murmured, flicking the hovering hologram to raise a new one. “Scanned it this morning.”

The building was roughly mapped out, as best as it could be through steel doors and solid concrete- but Stark’s tech was nothing to scoff at, and money said it was probably as accurate as anything. Bucky looked over the plans, his chin resting in his human hand and his leg shaking as he tapped his foot restlessly on the floor.

“There’s two stories plus one underground floor,” Tony, lifted two hands and flipped the flat image parallel to the table where it became a 3D model of the building. “Our best access points are here, here, and—”

Bucky cut Tony off as he was gesturing to the roof. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a peculiar shape at the underground floor of the building. Tony arched a brow and made a face, clearly dissatisfied with being cut off. “I’m not sure.” He said flatly, trying to pick up from what he had been saying just a moment ago.

Bucky wasn’t having it.

“Zoom in.” He persisted, his tone a command and not a request in the slightest. Tony let out a sigh of exasperation but poked his finger through the hologram to this odd shape at the base of the building. The hologram reset itself and zoomed in on the indicated section. He put his hands on the table and leaned in close, one hand coming up to rub at his sharply shaped beard. “Uh, a big chair.” He said, not even pretending to be interested.

Bucky’s face paled about four shades. “We gotta move.” He said firmly, standing from his chair so quickly that it rolled back and hit the wall behind him. Steve reached out and gripped his friend’s right arm, which would have sent him rolling with him had his feet not been firmly planted on the short carpet.

“Buck! A plan!” He repeated. This was rich coming from the man who ran head first into the big purple menace months prior and took on an army of chitauri without so much as a thought in his head.

“We’ll make one on the way.” He muttered, pulling his arm from Steve’s grip. “You, me, Tony, and Spider Punk. Let’s go.” Bucky was already out the door before he could see Sam and Natasha give each other a look that said, ‘And what the fuck are we? Chopped liver?’

Steve smiled weakly at the two. “We’re gonna need some level heads here to take care of the place while we’re gone.”

“Nice save.” Muttered Sam.

Tony, clearly pouting as the hologram sunk back into the table let out a grumble of discontent, “And here I thought I was in charge.” Steve smiled and raised his brows, “I let you think that.” Tony’s brow crinkled, and he scoffed.

Running. So much running. They never stayed in one place for too long, but she didn’t question it. She couldn’t. It was like there was someone else at the wheel. Everything the man in front of her said just made sense. Not because she thought about it and came to that conclusion herself—because it did.

Because that’s the way it was. She couldn’t think anything—not really. It was easier to do what you were told than think. Still… There was something in the back of her head, like a voice that would become just loud enough for her to hear. It was often followed by a brief snippet of time she couldn’t account for.

A distant memory like something out of a story she read but didn’t quite remember. Flashes of memories that couldn’t be hers.

Soft sheets. A warm embrace. Long hair. Blue eyes like ice on a frozen pond, haunting and enchanting. A bright smile…a real one.

And a voice. A rough voice expressing sweet nothings she couldn’t quite hear.

The lips… The lips that framed that smile… It formed words. In the flashes of this fantasy she could almost read them. ‘Ca….Ca…--’

“Kukol’nyy.”

Her head shot up, eyes empty, as if looking through her handler rather than at him.

“Your mind is wondering.” The man said whose name she couldn’t remember. A whisper in her mind said he was a doctor. Vasiliev—commander… doctor… handler—these words all blended together. The meant the same thing, and they were all words she couldn’t utter. No questions. Just comply.

The voice in the back of her head got quiet again.

The man in front of her stood knee deep in the snow, his arms crossed, looking upon this super soldier. Dirty, hair tangled, covered by the hood of her jacket, the snow hugging at her thighs. During his inspection, his eyes caught something perplexing. Little movements the Puppet was making.

Shivering. She was shivering. His brow crinkled in confusion. Super soldiers didn’t feel the effects of chill. Not like the average human—at the least they weren’t affected by it in the same way. A super solider could be sent out into a blizzard in civilian clothes for hours without showing signs of hypothermia. So why was she shivering?

He looked to her blank face before he turned once again, approaching the building they’d set out for. Passing through the clearing and reaching the front door should have been more difficult in knee deep snow—but the super soldier walked through the icy blockade as if taking a stroll through a field of daisies, creating a path for her handler to follow.

Upon reaching the iron door, the doctor stepped aside, gesturing to it with his head as he looked at the girl. “Open it.”

Kukol’nyy, who once had another name but had forgotten it, stepped forward and put her ungloved palm on the handle, rusted from years of snow and ice. The metal cracked under the force of her grip and she gave the handle a pull, tugging the obstacle out of their way as the door came off its’ hinges. She tossed the useless hunk of iron into the snow and stepped aside so her handler could ender the building ahead of her.

The doctor paused and again, tilted his head, gesturing to the opening. “You first, Kukol’nyy.”

Of course, how could she forget? She always entered first. Any doorway they entered, Kukol’nyy was to step in before her handler, insuring that any attack would be laid upon her first. Protection of her handler was her number one initiative.

She walked in, a hand at her thigh where she kept her gun, ready to draw it at the first sign of a threat.

None came. The girl relaxed her stance and turned partially to look at her handler, nodding that it was safe for him to enter. She rarely spoke. She wasn’t expected to speak. Speaking required thought.

She didn’t have thoughts.

Not her own.

Her handler stepped forward, walking past the soldier as he unzipped his heavy coat, snow from his shoulders dusting the floor as the fabric shifted.

“Come, Kukol’nyy. You’re filthy.”

“So, uh, why did the Russian dude kidnap your friend, Mr. Stark.” The Spider kid is not one that Bucky would usually depend on. Hell, he would have rather taken Bird Brain. However, he saw what that web of his could do first hand. If he could pin him to the floor the first time they met, he could easily tangle Cassandra. This was a search and rescue mission—and in his opinion other members of the team were a little too keen on shooting first and asking questions later.

Bucky knew no one mentioned it, they wouldn’t dare, but some suspected—in the very back of their minds—that maybe Cassandra had been conning them and was a double agent like Toni said. He wouldn’t have brought Tony, considering he’d been the one that planted the idea of Cassandra betraying them into other members of the team—but he knew he wouldn’t be able to take Spider kid with them without the watchful eye of his pseudo dad.

That—and deep down, in spite of what Bucky had said in the past, he knew Tony really cared for the woman and wouldn’t allow harm to come to her. Even if he had his doubts about her motives.

Instead of reiterating said doubts about Cassanda’s credibility, Tony just replied, “Dunno kid.”

Steve spoke from his position in the cockpit of the Quinjet. “Rebuilding HYDRA would be a lot easier if they had a new super soldier acting as their ‘fist’.”

Steve looked over his shoulder in time to see his friend’s look of disgust. Bucky still wasn’t over the part he had played in history.

He didn’t want Cassandra to have any of the same guilt he had.

Steve changed the subject, “But I don’t know why he would take her out here. They’ve done a pretty good job of hiding up until this point.” It was true, the pair had avoided any known HYDRA bases during their time on the run, fully aware they were likely being monitored. Yet, after months of being so careful they suddenly pushed their luck?

“He doesn’t have time to construct his own chair.” Bucky mumbled, his body swaying with a sudden jolt as the jet hit an unexpected air pocket. Bucky stood his ground, easily balancing in the bumpy craft, while Peter, usually the poster child of quick reflexes, fell back onto his ass.

“Can’t he just like… Buy one?” Peter asked, pulling himself back onto his feet before thinking better of it and having a seat on one of the benches that lined both sides of the jet. “Ikea furniture comes with a lot of instructions yeah, but it doesn’t take all that long to build right?”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. Steve looked back again. Bucky hadn’t opened up about a lot of the things that HYDRA did, but Steve did know about the chair. He’d spent a lot more time in it when he met Steve again on the bridge. It’d triggered so many memories that HYDRA had fought to shred.

“Why would he take her there, Buck?” Steve asked, his tone suggesting that he was aware he was walking on eggshells. Steve didn’t push Bucky to tell him more than he was comfortable with, they took it a day at a time, so prying was something he attempted to do delicately when necessary.

“She’s remembering.”

The girl hit the floor, not because she couldn’t catch herself—but as a sign of submission. When your handler shoved you, it was best you fall. The floor was cold. Even colder on bare skin. The shivers started again, making their way up her body like fingers walking up her spine, the hard surface of the concrete floor pressing uncomfortably to her kneecaps while one of her shins pressed to a metal grate on the floor, her skin imbedded with the pattern under the pressure.

“Up Kukol’nyy.”

At his command she stumbled to her feet, her arms at her side and her head hung to look at the floor but raised just enough so her handler could see it properly. Her hands stayed limply at her bare sides, never once moving to cover her stripped flesh. Any shame that existed in the mind she once had was not present in this one. Her long brown hair offered her only form of protection from the nip of the frosty air, hanging from her shoulders and covering a portion of her breasts. But the rest of her was on display and her face betrayed no interest one way or the other in her own exposure.

It should have been humiliating to stand there naked in front of a man she didn’t know. But like this she felt nothing. She thought nothing. She was nothing.

Just the orders she got.

“You really don’t look like a soldier, do you?” Her handler scoffed, lifting a fire hose that hung on the wall of the room. Any other person would have assumed it was an emergency hose, in case a fire broke out in the building. No—the room was built for this. With nothing in it but a drain in the floor and the hose on the wall, this room was made specifically for this.

Hosing down the asset after a mission.

Weapons didn’t get the luxury of showers.

Weapons weren’t human.

The asset wasn’t human.

The puppet wasn’t human either.

Her eyes followed the male’s hands blankly as they turned on the water, steam quickly radiated off the pipe and the uncoiled hose started to fill until a violent stream of water shot from the end of it and made contact with the puppet’s skin.

It hurt. The stream held such intensity it felt as if the water was trying to cut skin from bone, to wash her skin by ripping it away. She coiled instinctively, caving in on herself into a fetal position to try and protect her body from the pain, though she didn’t run from it. She wouldn’t dare run. You didn’t run from your handler. She felt the intense spray pelt her back as if being hit with hundreds of tiny needles.

Warm… At least it was warm… No… It was too warm… Too warm. It hurt… Like a burn from the sun, shining down on exposed pale skin. No—it was worse than that. It burned.

It burned like fire.

Burned like fire.

Like fire.

Fire.

Her eyes snapped open, pupils dilating and filling with a newfound focus, as if someone had turned the lights on in a dark room and she could finally see what before were only blurry shapes. She lifted her head, her body shaking under the force of the hose and made eye contact with the man who sprayed her.

Her handler held her gaze for a long while and then broke eye contact to turn off the water. The hose went limp and he carelessly dropped it on the floor, unwilling to roll it. “Put your close on.” He commanded as the quivering girl’s expression bounced between moments of clarity, and empty gazes while she struggled to get onto her feet. She was like a newborn deer, experimenting with her limbs for the first time. “We’re going downstairs.”

Bucky’s leg shook, he bounced it up and down upon the floor of the Quinjet with his arms crossed. Though they wouldn’t be landing in their location for several more minutes, he had his gun strapped to his back and his blades in their holders. He was wound tight like a spring that would launch at any moment. He was riddled with anxiety and impatience.

That anxiety spread.

“Quit it.” Steve murmured, his eyes darting to Bucky’s leg.

“Make me.” Bucky muttered back almost childishly.

Steve wisely didn’t take the bait, settling for crossing his arms over his chest. He’d been warned before not to poke a bear. The same premise applied to the former Winter Soldier.

“Children. Don’t make me turn this jet around.” Tony’s voice came from the front of the Jet, standing behind Natasha’s seat. He didn’t bother to turn his head. Obviously, he wasn’t going to turn the jet around, but his attempt at humor fell on deaf ears. Nothing could dwindle Bucky’s impatience.

“We’re above our target.” Natasha murmured, more to Tony than anyone.

But of course, Bucky heard it. No sooner had Natasha reached the period in her sentence than Bucky was on his feet and punching the button on the control panel which opened the exit ramp. The cabin filled with the chill outside air, tousling the hero’s inside.

“Bucky, wait!” Steve called, but Bucky had already thrown a parachute onto his back and jumped without looking back.

There was a long pause in the Quinjet before Steve moved to put on a chute for himself.

“So, jumping out of planes must be a super soldier trait.” Tony mumbled.

Tony had already hit the button to close the exit, giving Steve a look. “Just wait until we land. He’s not stupid enough to charge into battle alone.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Natasha called from the front of the jet, finally turning his head. “That’s another super soldier trait.”

Bucky wasn’t crazy enough to fall without a parachute, that height was too much even for him. However, the parachute wouldn’t last long. As he fell, he refrained from pulling the chute until he was half way to the ground, allowing the chute to slow his descent before ditching it. He unbuckled himself from the safety device and free fell the rest of the way, landing on the concrete roof of the building with a loud ‘thud’.

Bucky wasn’t stupid enough to go into the building alone.

But he was angry enough.

In four confident strides he was at the door of the roof. He gripped the handle, the metal forming to his metal hand like clay, before he ripped the door from its’ hinges.

Immediately there was a commotion, the sound of men barking at each other in Russian. He narrowed his eyes, they hadn’t observed any other HYDRA operatives enter the building during their surveillance, brief as it was.

The soldier didn’t take the time to wait, to analyze how many people he heard. It didn’t matter. They were all dead the minute Vasiliev took Cassandra. He descended the stairs just as four men tracked up. Four men, four bullets, each between the eyes. The Winter Soldier was back with a new mission and there would be no mercy shown—not like his avenger comrades.

Stepping over the bodies that had rolled down the stairs, Bucky’s stride continued. On his path several doors opened with new enemies, few took a step out into the hall before a bullet was embedded into them. That is, until he rounded a corner.

Three men approached Bucky, guns drawn. Bucky lifted his palm to the barrel of the gun closest to him, it went off and the bullet was crushed against his hand. Expressionless, he ripped the gun from the man’s hand and kneed him in the stomach as he fell forward.

The unnamed man slumped against him and Bucky took the opportunity to use him as a human shield as he reached over, firing his gun at the other two assailants.

As their bodies hit the ground, Bucky pushed the man who stood limp against him to the wall, his metal hand at his throat. “Where is she?” He asked, his Russian as clear as when he was a brainwashed tool.

The man swallowed, or at least attempted to as the male lifted a shaking hand and pointed downward. Bucky nodded and squeezed down harder, snapping the male’s neck before dropping him in a pile with his friends.

The puppet’s eyes stayed up to the ceiling, focused but submissive. She wasn’t looking at anything, and her thoughts drifted between moments of nothingness and snippets of a memory that wasn’t hers. Not as far as she could tell anyway.

Her breathing was even, but hollow—an action devoid of any real life or desire to live, but rather a reflex.

The chair she sat in whirred to life and a pair of shackles built into the chair snapped shut around her wrists as the many attachments and panels on the chair shifted, slowly drifting to her head with occasional sputtering in the flow of its’ movements. It’d clearly not been used in a while.

As she shut her eyes in preparation for the mechanics coming down upon her skull, a mangled sound came over the radio her handler held at his station.

“Vasiliev—!” The words, whatever it was that would have followed such a panicked tone, were cut off by a scream of pain and a gargling sound over the radio the handler kept on his person. A moment later, the doors to the room she sat in where kicked open, one smacking against the wall, the other sliding across the floor as it was dislodged from its’ hinges.

“Kukol’nyy!” Her handler barked at her, orders didn’t need to be spoken, she knew instinctively—defend.

However, as she tried to stand, the chair’s shackles kept her in place. She yanked at the metal, but it wouldn’t budge. It was made for someone much stronger than she was.

The intruder, who’s name she didn’t know, trained his cold gaze upon her handler as his hand reached for the lever that would free her from the chair. He lifted his hand and fired his gun, shooting through her handler, though she couldn’t make out where he had been struck.

She growled and pulled at the shackles, doing an excellent impersonation of a trapped animal.

“Cassandra…” The long-haired male murmured in a voice just above a whisper as he approached the woman in the chair. His hands gripped the shackles around her wrists and pulled, grunting with the effort until the metal bindings snapped open.

The woman paused, looking down at the male’s hands as he shifted to open the other shackle, the second one quickly relived the same fate as the first and the man looked at her with eyes that finally held some sort of emotion.

“Doll…” He murmured, his hands coming up to gently hold her shoulders. She looked up at him with a confused expression. He looked familiar.

Right. She ran into him once before… A long time ago.

Did she know him?

“It’s okay doll… I’m gonna take you home… We’re going home…”

The girl blinked a few times, as if trying to clear dust from her eyes, her lips parting to speak. “H—”

“Kukol’nyy, ugroza*!”

Her jaw set tightly, and her head came forward, hitting the male in the face and making him stumble backwards with the force as she lunged towards him. The male covered his face with his forearm, blood trickling from his nose under the force of the headbutt. Meanwhile the girl dropped down and hooked her leg at her threat’s ankles, sending him on his back.

The puppet quickly got on top of him, straddling his waist and latching her hand around his throat.

He lifted his metal hand and latched it to the crook of her arm, forcing it to bend and disconnect from his neck as he flipped them over, pinning her hand down with his metal arm, his human hand squeezing her neck.

She struggled, growling as she tried to pry his hand from her neck and lift her arm from under the metal palm.

“Easy there, Doll.”

She froze, looking up at him without anger, or malice—but realization and confusion. Her lips slightly parted as she panted. Memories, blurry like a dream she couldn’t remember, danced over her vision. Smiles, skin on skin, gentle kisses, a moon lit room, looking up at bright blue eyes. Her head hurt. So many visions she couldn’t properly interpret—yet they were so familiar.

“Bucky…” The word tasted familiar on her tongue. Though she didn’t know how she knew it.

The man on top of her, with eyes from her dreams, widened and his grip on her neck retracted. “Doll?”

She looked up at him in confusion but propped herself up on her shoulders. God why did her head hurt so much? “Who…?” There were so many thoughts in her head that didn’t make sense—like puzzle pieces that didn’t fit—out of order and the wrong sizes.

Suddenly her back arched and she screamed in pain, a little disk at her neck sending a painful current through her body.

“Cassandra!” Bucky, gripped her shoulder, like if he could hold her in place long enough she may stop convulsing. He turned his head to see Vasiliev, holding a little remote. He took his thumb off the button and Cassandra went limp on the floor, weak and panting, charred marks on her body. That current might have killed a normal person.

“Not quite as good as the chair,” Vasiliev murmured, tossing the remote up and catching it back in his hand. “But it will do in a pinch.”

Bucky stood up. He didn’t draw his gun. He wanted the pleasure of ripping this guy’s spine out with his bare hands. He took a step forward, but the girl on the floor had curled her knees in and pushed herself back on her feet before jumping up onto the males back, trying to knock him off balance. Bucky didn’t have a choice. He reached behind himself and pulled her forward as he bent, tossing her into the opposing concrete wall. She hit it with a loud crash, and an indentation formed where she hit. When she fell to the floor, it was hard to tell if the sickening crack was from the girl or the concrete.

After a long moment of motionlessness, she tried to push herself up onto her hands and knees but let out an agonized cry and fell back onto the floor, unable to support herself. “Stay down, doll.” Bucky growled.

As he approached Vasiliev again, the doors behind the doctor opened and a team of HYDRA agents flooded in, firing in Bucky’s direction. He quickly ducked behind a pillar, taking cover from the fire as he looked over at Cassandra, who hadn’t moved from the floor.

From the other side of the room, came Captain America and Ironman. The bullets bounced off of Cap’s shield before he threw it, taking out two of the men for at least a moment. It bounced against the wall and flew back in Cap’s direction. He snatched the flying disk from their air as Ironman charged his blasters and shot in the opposing team’s direction.

Another HYDRA member had made their way to Cassandra, but quickly found himself attached to the wall by a sticky web that came from above. Peter jumped down and landed beside Bucky. “Uh Mr. Winter Soldier, Bucky—uhh Sir… You should get your girlfriend.” He said awkwardly before stringing himself to the other side of the room to kick another agent to the floor. As the team covered him, Bucky made is move to Cassandra.

“Kukol’nyy! Get. Up!” Came Vasiliev’s voice. Cassandra moved to push herself up again and let out a howl of pain, forcing her to lean against the wall as she stumbled to her feet. As Bucky approached, the girl threw a weak punch which he easily deflected. He caught the fist and pulled her forward, about to fling her over his shoulder when she howled in pain again as the disk gave a low toned buzz at her neck, making her blood boil and her skin burn. She dropped to her knees, falling out of Bucky’s grip.

“Doll!” Bucky moved to pick her up again, only to be kicked in the side, sending him back. Another HYDRA operative forced Bucky back in hand to hand combat.

“Get the girl!” Vasiliev barked, shoving the male beside him in her direction. He quickly ran to her forcing her to her feet and pulling her from the room, out the door.

“No!” Bucky growled, but he couldn’t get around the male in front of him. A blast finally knocked the male from his path and Bucky looked to Tony who gestured with his head for Bucky to go in the direction of Cassandra as the HYDRA operatives quickly filed out of the room, shooting behind them to hold the heroes back.

Steve ran to Bucky’s side, the two of them running down the hall with Steve’s shield up to keep the bullets from striking them. The hallway lead outside, were several HYDRA agents were mounting bikes and ATVs. Steve’s shield lowered in time to see Cassandra and the operative who’d retrieved her mounting a motorcycle and disappearing into the woods.

Bucky moved to follow them but was held off by the operatives that had not yet made their getaway. The other avengers came on the scene to fend off the remaining operatives, but when the metaphoric dust had cleared, Cassandra and Vasiliev were gone again—Leaving a particular super soldier shaking with rage.

A/N: Forgive any mistakes. I was in a hurry to post this (finally) and I'm sure I didn't read as carefully as I normally do for mistakes!

Like how I explained away Infinity War? Yeah I had to do that. #ignoringiw

*Ugroza = Threat

Your kudos and your comments made me come back so thank you guys!

Kudos make my heart sing an comments give me life.

Let me know if you're happy this story is back. I've mapped out the final chapters so this story will be a total of 25 chapters long so we still have somethings to come!

Follow me on tumblr if you want, I'm open for fanfic requests and stuff!

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wilwywaylan · 6 years

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Dress to impress

Fandom : Star Wars VII / VIII

Modern AU, Poe Dameron x Armitage Hux, 1595 words

Part of the Sparks to Flames series, established relationship. Just the dorks being cute, for May the Fourth :D Prompt was "you are in serious need of a good... how can I say......... redesign"

Also on AO3 !

Poe was working on his plane, whistling a little song, when a jaunty little melody rang through the hangar, making him jump and effectively hitting his head against the wing above him. The pilot held his wounded head, kicked his toolbox to express all the pain of his situation, and let out a string of curses. Why did he always forget to turn off his ringer while working, he didn't know. But at least once a week, he almost gave himself a concussion that way. He checked his fingers : no blood. Good. He'd just have a bump. One more. He turned towards BB-8, who was looking at him, holding the phone in his jaws. He took it, patting the dog on the head, and watched him bounce away to his basket before carefully wiping the slobbered screen. He lit it, and smiled at the tiny picture of Millicent beside a small envelop. Quickly, he opened it.

"Office party at 7 PM. Please come."

Count on Hux to always be short and to the point. Poe was starting to type an enthusiastic answer, when a second text made his screen blink.

"Important event. Please dress correctly."

Poe didn't know if he should laugh or be offended. Did Hux really think he didn't know how to dress ? Okay, he had some.... questionable tastes sometimes, and didn't care to get better dressed if all he did was fly a plane and run to the coffeeshop or to Rey's exhibitions. But still, he was able to dress... okay maybe not elegantly, but correctly at least ! On the other hand, he could recognize his boyfriend's aim at perfection, especially about everything touching on his work. If it was so important for him, then Poe would make an extra effort to be at his best. Now, what did he own that could pass for elegant in Hux's eyes...?

~*~

Poe rang at the door at 6 PM exactly. He knew that Hux was very keen on ponctuality, and would approve of his efforts. But instead of Hux, Phasma opened the door. The woman looked him up and down, in the intimidating way she always used with him, and kind of made him want to run home and change. But no, he was wearing his best pants, a clean, ironed shirt, and his jacket was cleaned and brushed too. Even his shoes had been wiped. He really was on his best. He straightened his back, smiled as much as he could, and asked nicely :

- Is Armitage ready ?

Phasma raised an eyebrow.

- Almost. Come in.

Poe obeyed, BB-8 on his heels. He tried to find something to tell her, a pleasant conversation, but she had already left him on his own devices. Poe just walked to Hux's room, knocked on the door and let himself in.

Hux was standing in front of his mirror, adjusting his collar. He turned when he heard Poe come in, and the pilot's breath hitched a little. He'd already seen Hux in a suit, of course, the man didn't even own anything else to wear. But that one... was different. It was very close-fitting, more than anything Poe had seen him wear, and he wondered if the thing had been sewn directly on. It was falling low, past Hux's hips, in a graceful curve, longer in the back. The shoulders were straight, almost angular, the waist thin. The black fabric was shimmering dimly, perfectly complimenting the white shirt, and was he wearing gloves ?

Poe must have been stared for a long time, because Hux finally cleared his throat, pulling him out of his reverie. He closed his mouth, and walked up to him.

- Very nice suit, he remarked, smoothing the lapel with two fingers.

Hux inclined his head in thanks. It's only then that he seemed to realize what Poe was wearing. He looked him up and down, and frowned.

- What ? Poe asked, feeling self-conscious again. Is it... not good ?

Hux closed his eyes, shook his head.

- How can I say this... You are in serious need of a good... how can I say... redesign.

- You don't like my clothes ?

Something passed on Hux's face, very fleetingly. Something like... concern ? Something soft that tugged at Poe's heart.

- We're going to my firm's office party. You'll need something fancier. Everyone will be wearing a suit.

- I don't own a suit.

Hux's expression turned to something akin to horror at the thought of someone now owning a suit. He massaged his temples, delicatly.

- Luckily, he said, I think we still have some time to do something about that...

~*~

Hux looked above the heads of the people crowding the meeting room, to where Poe was standing, currently talking animately to the head of the civil law department. He'd been a bit scared of what being stuck in a room full of lawyers could do to Poe, had even been tempted to cancel his invitation. But Poe seemed very comfortable with the situation, and didn't mind being surrounded by a bunch of lawyers and other lawpersons. For the last hour, he'd been talking with a group, then another, charming his way through the whole firm. BB-8 had gathered his share of compliments, starting at the door where he'd been greeted with squees and Poe assured that the dog was as welcome as him. To be fair, Hux thought that part of that interest was due to the fact that at least half of the persons present were extremely surprised to see Hux, grumpy, overworking and distant Hux, arrive with someone at his arm. But the rest was probably Poe's shining personnality. And outfit.

Hux grabbed two glasses of champagne on a passing tray and made his way towards Poe. Mrs Sloane laughed at the pilot's joke, complimented Hux on his choice of companion, then disappeared into the crowd to give them a moment. Hux held a glass out to Poe, who took it gratefully. To his credit, he didn't down it in one go, instead savoring it.

- It seems, Hux remarked, that you've made a great impression in Mrs Sloane.

- Is she your boss ?

- She's not my direct superior, but she's very important in the firm.

Poe watched in the direction Sloane had gone.

- She seems like a very strong woman.

- The strongest I've ever met.

Poe smiled at the admiration in Hux's voice.

- Then it's a good thing she seems to enjoy your boyfriend.

- She's a woman of great judgement. But to be fair, you look very good.

To be really fair, "good" didn't make him justice. Poe was looking better than good, even, and Hux couldn't help but admire him. Not just his work, even if he was quite proud of it. He'd managed to find Poe a suit, and a damn fine one at that. The white jacket with black lapels looked quite nice with his skin tone, and fell perfectly on him. The rest was all black : shoes perfectly polished, straight pants hugging him everything they should, shirt with just the collar button open. A comb had put some order in his curls, and they fell on his forehead just right.

But more than the suit, it was Poe's attitude. Anyone else, used to jeans and old t-shirts, would have looked very uncomfortable. Not Poe. He looked very comfortable, and moved as if wearing a suit was an everyday occurence for him. No wonder everyone was looking at him like that. Hux wondered if he would have to scare some pretendants away. Then again, who would try to steal his boyfriend away, knowing his temper ? No one. And he was kinda sure that Poe wouldn't leave anyway.

- Say, he asked, grabbing Poe by the arm. Can I introduce you to my superior ?

- That, dear Hux, would be a pleasure.

~*~

Finally, the party came to an end, and they left as did the others. Hux's flat wasn't far, so they decided to walk, instead of the pain of having to find a taxi. The night was almost warm, just enough to make the walk enjoyable. Poe's arm had come to rest on Hux's waist, under his coat, and the pilot was humming softly under his breath.

- You know, he said as they reached the corner, you look mighty fine in that suit. Makes me want to kiss you.

Instead of answering, Hux grabbed Poe's jacket, spun them around. He had to catch himself, alcohol wasn't that good for his balance, but he managed to keep them both upright. Poe found himself back against the brick wall. His eyes were bright under the street lamp, and his cheeks looked flushed. Hux bent down and kissed him, very slowly. Poe made a surprised noise, but didn't push him away. On the contrary, he held him closer, until they were pressed against each other.

- My, Mr Hux, Poe drawled when they finally let go. What a debauchery, kissing an innocent man in the street like this !

Instead of protesting, Hux just smirked.

- You're not that innocent, Poe. No one looking that good in a suit is innocent.

Poe's grin grew larger.

- You think I look good like this ?

Hux nodded.

- Then, he whispered, what do you think of taking this off of me, and see how good I look then ?

Hux almost dragged him all the way to the flat.

#star wars #the last jedi #poe dameron #armitage hux #gingerpilot #damerux #just dorks #being cute #they are so cute #Sparks to Flames

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akumageist · 6 years

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Gonna Analyze all the Devilman Media

You can totally ignore this, I'm just comparing elements I liked and didn't like. The good news is they all contain both, so it's an even playing field!

Devilman Manga (1972):

Alright this is the original core story, and I really adore Mr. Nagai for writing such an intense and powerful story. EDIT: Apparently Ryou wasn't even supposed to be Satan and was supposed to DIE and THEN Devilman was born, so all the foreshadowing/plot twist was total bullshit and frankly that really crushed me. I respect Mr. Nagai in a different way now, but..... man, I really liked it better as this huge intense plot....

Akira was portrayed as a crybaby in the manga, so I'm happy to see that change in character! But unfortunately once he became a demon he lost that intense compassion and became a sort of basic hero in my opinion, so that was a little disappointing.

I liked how Mr. Nagai also mentioned real life problems. There was an an entire page of humans accusing each other of being the next to become demons, and it was exactly as you expected; choosing eachother based on evil hate that had nothing to do with actually becoming demons. I liked how Nagai had humans react, clearly portraying how evil humanity was, and exactly what would happen if something like this happened in the real world. I fuckin love super heroes, but goddammit humanity would never come together as efficiently as we (and Akira) hope.

I LOVED how Akira realized humans weren't worth saving. I loved how he saw that humans were destroying each other and were just as bad as demons, and that Akira literally said he was ashamed to be trying to save them, and that there was truly nothing in the world left to save. I'm always a sucker for a hardcore optimistic character getting shot the fuck down, so that's also a factor, eheh.

I disliked Miki. She was funny as hell, but she was an absolute fuckin useless character. She didn't care for Akira until he demoned out, so she only genuinely liked him for being so "manly". She could have been cut clean out and it wouldn't have changed the story. I did like how she fought back, though. Less Good Little Christian Girl, and more able to stand her own ground. She fought literally to death.

I disliked that Akira acted as though she was so great, she was so important, but we never had any basis for this because of her lack of character, and therefore were going off of Akira ~~suddenly~~ caring about her deeply when everyone else was dead.

I disliked Jinmen's victim was some random girl that suddenly showed up and supposedly meant a lot to Akira. We never knew her because she died on the train two fuckin pages later, and again, had to take Akira's word for how much she mattered.

I LOVED how Satan repented, apologizing to Akira for doing exactly what God had done to the demons in his rage, trying to defend the demons against God. I didn’t like that Akira’s death was so lackluster. His last words are “the moon...”, but you never see how he died. And when Satan reacts, he’s clearly sad, but seems... still too calm about it. But it could simply be the outdated manga style.

Devilman TV Series (1972):

Sorry folks it just doesn't follow the actual story at all and I can't say I liked it all that much? Basically just Miki being a damsel in distress and Amon, who is possessing Akira and falls in love with her, rescuing her and fending off demons who are mad he's protecting and staying with humans.

BUT it gave us Devilman No Uta and for that I am forever grateful. Plus it was entertaining, so I mean!

Devilman OVA (1987-1996)

Went pretty much by the manga, so the same factors kind of stick for a bit. With Jinmen, however, it was his mom, who was killed in the ice caverns they resussitated the demons from. I LOVE JINMEN. He is my favorite Devilman villain, because of this scene. He taunts Akira because the faces are still alive, and Akira would be the one to kill them. Akira must fight his own morals to know that they are suffering.

It is a tragic scene when Akira is crying naked after he defeats Jinmen because of what he had to do. No other Devilman media has given such a powerful potrayal.

I didn't like Miki's weird interactions, they made her out to be in love with Akira but Akira... not really like her again...? It was a little more weird and perverted in this version on both sides.

Amon: Apocalypse of Devilman

This is heavily based on Amon: Darkside of Devilman but goes on a totally different tangent! I'm really gay for Amon so this was a treat to see big red fuzzy demon boy (who looked arguably cooler in the anime than the manga, whoops)

It was still kind of random and you really would have to know everything else about Devilman to een follow this one, because the entire thing was the first chapter of DOD, revolving around Akira being trapped in Amon.

I LOVED when Akira saw Miki dead HE FUCKIN OBLITERATED THE ATTACKERS BY HAND and the scene cuts to him just dropping a body part into a fuckin lake of blood surrounding him. It was powerful and angry and raw emotion, and it made Miki's death more powerful to the viewer in this version, because you saw just how angry Akira was over it.

That being said, I didn't like how Miki and Akira's relationship was in this, with Akira seeing a weird in-school dream with Miki, and him telling her it was all his fault she was dead. She kisses him and idk something about it wakes him up? It was powerful but random, because it really insinuated there was this whole love story that wasn't actually there..?? I think everyone remaking Devilman just really wanted Akira and Miki to be a bigger thing than it was...?

The Amon vs Akira fight scene was wayy extra too, he legit just kept fucking punching him and there was no build up AND THEN IT CUT TO AMON BEING DEFEATED that was dumb af not gonna lie

Again, only loosely based on DOD so I really dunno what they were going for in this.

Amon: Darkside Of Devilman:

Arguably my FAVORITE Devilman media, even if it’s more of a “behind the scenes” edition. I really liked the fact it hyper focused on Amon and Satan's past, building their characters and giving you a soft spot for Satan. It also painted angels as not "good" but just obsessed with purity, and all in all, makes you question God's authority.

It made me fall head over heels for Silene, who I unfortunately did not care much for at all up until this point. It also portrays demons as just as emotional as humans, and is very important for the reader to understand demons aren't the sinister barbarians they were painted as in the other versions by humans.

The only downfall I suppose was a kind of confusing main antagonist. And maybe that was deliberate, so I won't go too much into that.

I LOVED Satan actively defending Akira against Amon, and admitting again his love for Akira “Do you love someone so much you would destroy the world for them?” This version of Satan is my favorite. A lot of it is him sulking over Akira not loving him back, and being tender towards Akira. As mentioned, it really expands him as a character.

Devilman Crybaby:

Aaaandd last but definitely not least!

I liked how Akira was portrayed as a tiny baby child who ran fuckin, track and field and no one gave a damn about him. Even in the small amount of time, he was portrayed as a sweet kid who would defend any of his friends at the blink of an eye. He's such a good boy in every version, but this version of Baby Akira takes the bait for #glowup but remaining pure.

I liked how Akira was still a big fat crybaby, crying for others and seeing straight through emotion lies. He was still a good boy despite being all demoned out, and stayed confident in humanity till the very end, which I adored because it made you feel it 10 times harder when you saw everything be ripped away from Akira and watched him crumble, but hold strong.

I LOVED how Miki was his friend before everything, and that throughout she was constantly reassuring Akira she was there for him. It made her all the more important to the viewer, because we fell in love with her! Not to mention her innocence and naïevity but strong belief in humanity made you WANT to root for her. She was so genuine.

I liked how Miko was a huge character in this, seeing as the only other time was in DOD and AOD, which she was the boob-hole chick they showed in the very end of Crybaby. I liked how they redesigned her so majorly, bringing light and giving you yet another character to fall in love with even if you weren't always sure of her intentions.

I LOVED Taro's death in this. It was the most powerful, and the most heartbreaking. I wasn't sure if you were supposed to like Akira's parents personably, but I didn't because they had a child and proceeded to travel the world and leave him with family friends, hardly knowing him aside from occasional visits. Akira's finded fucking memory with his mother was her teaching him how to TIE HIS SHOES!

It did in fact make Jinmen a slightly more powerful villain, dealing with the possession of his father and the murder of his mother, however I was disappointed Jinmen didn't have that "they're still alive... i didn't kill them, you are!" Factor to him as he always did. It really ruined the

It was still hard, but easier for the viewer to not care, seeing as they were telling Akira they were already dead anyway. Jinmen was also a slightly bigger feat in the other ones because of this.

I hated all the sex scenes. Unnecessary and uncomfortable, the first 3 episodes make you want to turn it off. The first episode I was in love, but the second, I began questioning if I should keep watching if this anime was always gonna be a sex fest. Not because I’m such a prude, but jesus christ we get it already.

It was in no other media, and I really think it was just for a weird sort of "sex and gore" shock value. It was offputting for Akira, kicking his sex drive into high gear and almost portraying him as a creep to Miki, AND RAPING SILENE?? She was in fact asking for it, and she was evil, but that was uncalled for and once again not based off any other Devilman media.

I HATED Silene's arc, in no other media was she in love with Amon, in no other media did she fuck Akira. I legit skipped the scene because I didn't like the fact they randomly through more and unecessary porn, especially between a 17 y/o and a clearly much older demon who was in love with his demon not him ??? which was hardly a canon fact, but rather, a joke other Devilman media played off of insinuating that’s why she was angry at Akira. It really put a damper on Silene as a character too, you saw her as this big pervert instead of just absolutely hating Amon for no clear reason as she always had in the past.

I always love Kaim and Silene's story, but I liked how Akira actively pointed out to Ryo that they had been in love, and had felt love. This was a great refefence to Ryo and Akira towards each other, but also a good character build.

I liked Miki’s death in this one. Really gripping and tragic and close to her original death. I also loved Akira’s choked sobs when he saw her head on a stick. That hurt.

I understand a hero to the end is tragic in and of itself, but I much prefer Akira losing his faith in humanity. I didn’t like “they were frightened, Ryo!” But I did like Akira saying he wanted to cry for Satan, but couldn’t.

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