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mcmansionhell · 4 years

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The Brutalism Post Part 3: What is Brutalism? Act 1, Scene 1: The Young Smithsons

What is Brutalism? To put it concisely, Brutalism was a substyle of modernist architecture that originated in Europe during the 1950s and declined by the 1970s, known for its extensive use of reinforced concrete. Because this, of course, is an unsatisfying answer, I am going to instead tell you a story about two young people, sandwiched between two soon-to-be warring generations in architecture, who were simultaneously deeply precocious and unlucky.

It seems that in 20th century architecture there was always a power couple. American mid-century modernism had Charles and Ray Eames. Postmodernism had Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Brutalism had Alison and Peter Smithson, henceforth referred to simply as the Smithsons.

If you read any of the accounts of the Smithsons’ contemporaries (such as The New Brutalism by critic-historian Reyner Banham) one characteristic of the pair is constantly reiterated: at the time of their rise to fame in British and international architecture circles, the Smithsons were young. In fact, in the early 1950s, both had only recently completed architecture school at Durham University. Alison, who was five years younger, was graduating around the same time as Peter, whose studies were interrupted by the Second World War, during which he served as an engineer in India.

Alison and Peter Smithson. Image via Open.edu

At the time of the Smithsons graduation, they were leaving architecture school at a time when the upheaval the war caused in British society could still be deeply felt. Air raids had destroyed hundreds of thousands of units of housing, cultural sites and had traumatized a generation of Britons. Faced with an end to wartime international trade pacts, Britain’s financial situation was dire, and austerity prevailed in the 1940s despite the expansion of the social safety net. It was an uncertain time to be coming up in the arts, pinned at the same time between a war-torn Europe and the prosperous horizon of the 1950s.

Alison and Peter married in 1949, shortly after graduation, and, like many newly trained architects of the time, went to work for the British government, in the Smithsons’ case, the London City Council. The LCC was, in the wake of the social democratic reforms (such as the National Health Service) and Keynesian economic policies of a strong Labour government, enjoying an expanded range in power. Of particular interest to the Smithsons were the areas of city planning and council housing, two subjects that would become central to their careers.

Alison and Peter Smithson, elevations for their Soho House (described as “a house for a society that had nothing”, 1953). Image via socks-studio.

The State of British Architecture

The Smithsons, architecturally, ideologically, and aesthetically, were at the mercy of a rift in modernist architecture, the development of which was significantly disrupted by the war. The war had displaced many of its great masters, including luminaries such as the founders of the Bauhaus: Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Breuer. Britain, which was one of the slowest to adopt modernism, did not benefit as much from this diaspora as the US.

At the time of the Smithsons entry into the architectural bureaucracy, the country owed more of its architectural underpinnings to the British architects of the nineteenth century (notably the utopian socialist William Morris), precedent studies of the influences of classical architecture (especially Palladio) under the auspices of historians like Nikolaus Pevsner, as well as a preoccupation with both British and Scandinavian vernacular architecture, in a populist bent underpinned by a turn towards social democracy. This style of architecture was known as the New Humanism.

Alton East Houses by the London County Council Department of Architecture (1953-6), an example of New Humanist architecture. Image taken from The New Brutalism by Reyner Banham.

This was somewhat of a sticky situation, for the young Smithsons who, through their more recent schooling, were, unlike their elders, awed by the buildings and writing of the European modernists. The dramatic ideas for the transformation of cities as laid out by the manifestos of the CIAM (International Congresses for Modern Architecture) organized by Le Corbusier (whose book Towards a New Architecture was hugely influential at the time) and the historian-theorist Sigfried Giedion, offered visions of social transformation that allured many British architects, but especially the impassioned and idealistic Smithsons.

Of particular contribution to the legacy of the development of Brutalism was Le Corbusier, who, by the 1950s was entering the late period of his career which characterized by his use of raw concrete (in his words, béton brut), and sculptural architectural forms. The building du jour for young architects (such as Peter and Alison) was the Unité d’Habitation (1948-54), the sprawling massive housing project in Marseilles, France, that united Le Corbusier’s urban theories of dense, centralized living, his architectural dogma as laid out in Towards a New Architecture, and the embrace of the rawness and coarseness of concrete as a material, accentuated by the impression of the wooden board used to shape it into Corb’s looming, sweeping forms.

The Unité d’habitation by Le Corbusier. Image via Iantomferry (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Little did the Smithsons know that they, mere post-graduates, would have an immensely disruptive impact on the institutions they at this time so deeply admired. For now, the couple was on the eve of their first big break, their ticket out of the nation’s bureaucracy and into the limelight.

The Hunstanton School

An important post-war program, the one that gave the Smithsons their international debut, was the expansion of the British school system in 1944, particularly the establishment of the tripartite school system, which split students older than 11 into grammar schools (high schools) and secondary modern schools (technical schools). This, inevitably, stimulated a swath of school building throughout the country. There were several national competitions for architects wanting to design the new schools, and the Smithsons, eager to get their hands on a first project, gleefully applied.

For their inspiration, the Smithsons turned to Mies van der Rohe, who had recently emigrated to the United States and release to the architectural press, details of his now-famous Crown Hall of the Illinois Institute of Technology (1950). Mies’ use of steel, once relegated to being hidden as an internal structural material, could, thanks to laxness in the fire code in the state of Illinois, be exposed, transforming into an articulated, external structural material.

Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology by Mies van der Rohe. Image via Arturo Duarte Jr. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Of particular importance was the famous “Mies Corner,” consisting of two joined exposed I-beams that elegantly elided inherent problems in how to join together the raw, skeletal framing of steel and the revealing translucence of curtain-wall glass. This building, seen only through photographs by our young architects, opened up within them the possibility of both the modernist expression of a structure’s inherent function, but also as testimony to the aesthetic power of raw building materials as surfaces as well as structure.

The Smithsons, in a rather bold move for such young architects, decided to enter into a particularly contested competition for a new secondary school in Norfolk. They designed a school based on a Miesian steel-framed design of which the structural elements would all be visible. Its plan was crafted to the utmost standards of rationalist economy; its form, unlike the horizontal endlessness of Mies’ IIT, is neatly packaged into separate volumes arranged in a symmetrical way. But what was most important was the use of materials, the rawness of which is captured in the words of Reyner Banham:

“Wherever one stands within the school one sees its actual structural materials exposed, without plaster and frequently without paint. The electrical conduits, pipe-runs, and other services are exposed with equal frankness. This, indeed, is an attempt to make architecture out of the relationships of brute materials, but it is done with the very greatest self-denying restraint.”

Much to the upset and shock of the more conservative and romanticist British architectural establishment, the Smithsons’ design won.

Hunstanton School by Alison and Peter Smithson (1949-54). Photos by Anna Armstrong. (CC BY NC-SA 3.0)

The Hunstanton School, had, as much was possible in those days, gone viral in the architectural press, and very quickly catapulted the Smithsons to international fame as the precocious children of post-war Britain. Soon after, the term the Smithsons would claim as their own, Brutalism, too entered the general architectural consciousness. (By the early 1950s, the term was already escaping from its national borders and being applied to similar projects and work that emphasized raw materials and structural expression.)

The New Brutalism

So what was this New Brutalism?

The Smithsons had, even before the construction of the Hunstanton School had been finished, begun to draft amongst themselves a concept called the New Brutalism. Like many terms in art, “Brutalism” began as a joke that soon became very serious. The term New Brutalism, according to Banham, came from an in-joke amongst the Swedish architects Hans Asplund, Bengt Edman and Lennart Holm in 1950s, about drawings the latter two had drawn for a house. This had spread to England through the Swedes’ English friends, the architects Oliver Cox and Graeme Shankland, who leaked it to the Architectural Association and the Architect’s Department of the London County Council, at which Alison and Peter Smithson were still employed. According to Banham, the term had already acquired a colloquial meaning:

“Whatever Asplund meant by it, the Cox-Shankland connection seem to have used it almost exclusively to mean Modern Architecture of the more pure forms then current, especially the work of Mies van der Rohe. The most obstinate protagonists of that type of architecture at the time in London were Alison and Peter Smithson, designers of the Miesian school at Hunstanton, which is generally taken to be the first Brutalist building.”

(This is supplicated by an anecdote of how the term stuck partially because Peter was called Brutus by his peers because he bore resemblance to Roman busts of the hero, and Brutalism was a joining of “Brutus plus Alison,” which is deeply cute.)

The Smithsons began to explore the art world for corollaries to their raw, material-driven architecture. They found kindred souls in the photographer Nigel Henderson and the sculptor Edouardo Paolozzi, with whom the couple curated an exhibition called “Parallel of Life and Art.” The Smithsons were beginning to find in their work a sort of populism, regarding the untamed, almost anthropological rough textures and assemblies of materials, which the historian Kenneth Frampton jokingly called ‘the peoples’ detailing.’ Frampton described the exhibit, of which few photographs remain, as thus:

“Drawn from news photos and arcane archaeological, anthropological, and zoological sources, many of these images [quoting Banham] ‘offered scenes of violence and distorted or anti-aesthetic views of the human figure, and all had a coarse grainy texture which was clearly regarded by the collaborators as one of their main virtues’. There was something decidedly existential about an exhibition that insisted on viewing the world as a landscape laid waste by war, decay, and disease – beneath whose ashen layers one could still find traces of life, albeing microscopic, pulsating within the ruins…the distant past and the immediate future fused into one. Thus the pavilion patio was furnished not only with an old wheel and a toy aeroplane but also with a television set. In brief, within a decayed and ravaged (i.e. bombed out) urban fabric, the ‘affluence’ of a mobile consumerism was already being envisaged, and moreover welcomed, as the life substance of a new industrial vernacular.”

Alison and Peter Smithson, Nigel Henderson, Eduoardo Paolozzi, Parallels in Life and Art. Image via the Tate Modern, 2011.

A Clash on the Horizon

The Smithsons, it is important to remember, were part of a generation both haunted by war and tantalized by the car and consumer culture of the emerging 1950s. Ideologically they were sandwiched between the twilight years of British socialism and the allure of a consumerist populism informed by fast cars and good living, and this made their work and their ideology rife with contradiction and tension.

The tension between proletarian, primitivist, anthropological elements as expressed in coarse, raw, materials and the allure of the technological utopia dreamed up by modernists a generation earlier, combined with the changing political climate of post-war Britain, resulted in a mix of idealism and post-socialist thought. This hybridized an new school appeal to a better life - made possible by technology, the emerging financial accessibility of consumer culture, the promises of easily replicable, luxurious living promised by modernist architecture - with the old-school, quintessentially British populist consideration for the anthropological complexity of urban, working class life. This is what the Smithsons alluded to when they insisted early on that Brutalism was an “ethic, not an aesthetic.”

Model of the Plan Voisin for Paris by Le Corbusier displayed at the Nouveau Esprit Pavilion (1925) via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

By the time the Smithsons entered the international architectural scene, their modernist forefathers were already beginning to age, becoming more stylistically flexible, nuanced, and less reliant upon the strictness and ideology of their previous dogmas. The younger generation, including the Smithsons, were, in their rose-tinted idealism, beginning to feel like the old masters were abandoning their original ethos, or, in the case of other youngsters such as the Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck, were beginning to question the validity of such concepts as the Plan Voisin, Le Corbusier’s urbanist doctrine of dense housing development surrounded by green space and accessible by the alluring future of car culture.

These youngsters were beginning to get to know each other, meeting amongst themselves at the CIAM – the International Congresses of Modern Architecture – the most important gathering of modernist architects in the world. Modern architecture as a movement was on a generational crash course that would cause an immense rift in architectural thought, practice, and history. But this is a tale for our next installment.

Like many works and ideas of young people, the nascent New Brutalism was ill-formed; still feeling for its niche beyond a mere aesthetic dominated by the honesty of building materials and a populism trying to reconcile consumerist technology and proletarian anthropology. This is where we leave our young Smithsons: riding the wave of success of their first project as a new firm, completely unaware of what is to come: the rift their New Brutalism would tear through the architectural discourse both then and now.

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#brutalism #architecture #architectural history #brutalism post #smithsons #alison and peter smithson #british architecture #modern architecture #le corbusier #concrete #brutalist architecture

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96thdayofrage · 3 years

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The deadly shootings of unarmed Black men and women by police officers in the U.S. have increasingly garnered worldwide attention over the last few years. The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., sparked a week of protests that catapulted the Black Lives Matter movement into the national spotlight. Since then, tens of thousands of people across the country have taken to the streets to protest police brutality of Blacks by mostly white officers.

Since 2015, police officers have fatally shot at least 135 unarmed Black men and women nationwide, an NPR investigation has found. NPR reviewed police, court and other records to examine the details of the cases. At least 75% of the officers were white. The latest one happened this month in Killeen, Texas, when Patrick Warren Sr., 52, was fatally shot by an officer responding to a mental health call.

For at least 15 of the officers, such as McMahon, the shootings were not their first — or their last, NPR found. They have been involved in two — sometimes three or more — shootings, often deadly and without consequences.

Those who study deadly force by police say it's unusual for officers to be involved in any shootings.

"Many officers will go their entire career without shooting — sometimes without pulling their gun out at all," said Peter Scharf, a criminologist and professor in the School of Public Health at Louisiana State University and co-author of The Badge and the Bullet: Police Use of Deadly Force. "It's rare."

Not every law enforcement agency releases detailed information about police shootings. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department, for example, refused to release specifics such as officer names or their race, citing open investigations.

Still, NPR reviewed thousands of pages of job applications, personnel records, use-of-force reports, citizen complaints, court records, lawsuits, news releases, witness statements and local and state police investigative reports to examine the backgrounds of the officers and analyze details of each shooting. We also interviewed use of force experts, criminologists, police, lawyers, prosecutors and relatives of victims.

Among NPR's other findings:

• At least six officers had troubled pasts before being hired onto police departments, including drug use and domestic violence. One officer had been fired from another law enforcement agency, and at least two others were forced out.

• Several officers were convicted of crimes while on the force, such as battery, and resisting and obstructing, but kept their jobs. In one instance, officials in a tiny Louisiana parish repeatedly fired and rehired a deputy who got into trouble with the law: three times over 30 years, records show.

• More than two dozen officers have racked up citizen complaints or use-of-force incidents. A Fort Lauderdale, Fla., police officer had 82 reviews over use-of-force incidents but was never found in violation; a Vineland, N.J., officer had more than three dozen use-of-force incidents over a five-year period.

• Several officers have violated their department policies and been cited for ethics violations, including a Hollywood, Fla., officer accused of trying to steer business to his company, and an Arizona state trooper accused of misuse of state property.

• Nineteen of the officers involved in deadly shootings were rookies, with less than a year on the force. One was on the job for four hours, another for four days. More than a quarter of the killings occurred during traffic stops, and 24 of the dead — 18% — suffered from mental illness. The youngest person shot was a 15-year-old Balch Springs, Texas, high school freshman who played on the football team. The oldest was a 62-year-old man killed in his Los Angeles County home. Nearly 60% of the shootings occurred in the South, with more than a quarter in Texas, Georgia and Louisiana, NPR found.

The killings have led to at least 30 judgments and settlements totaling more than $142 million, records show. Dozens of lawsuits and claims are pending.

An examination of individual cases reveals the myriad ways that law enforcement agencies fail to hold officers accountable and allow them to be in a position to shoot again. In many instances, the criminal justice system refuses to prosecute, often resulting in departments putting officers back on the street instead of desk jobs where they have little contact with the public. Other times, police unions protect officers from accountability. And sometimes, departments are so desperate to recruit officers that they ignore warning signs such as an officer's troubled past and hire them anyway.

"Why do they get passes on killing people?" asked Paula McGowan, Foster's mother. "If the system was right ... they would hold these people accountable."

"Unnecessary and unreasonable"

Nathaniel Pickett II was walking back to his $18-a-night room at the El Rancho, a seen-better-days bungalow motel along historic Route 66 in Barstow, Calif. It was shortly after 9 p.m. on Nov. 19, 2015, and Nate, as his family called him, often took evening walks. As the 29-year-old former engineering student crossed the street, he caught the eye of Kyle Woods, a San Bernardino sheriff's deputy. Woods made a U-turn into the motel parking lot, jumped out of his cruiser and approached Pickett, police records show.

He demanded Pickett's name and birthdate. Pickett complied. In fact, he did everything Woods asked of him, including taking his hands out of his pockets. When Woods asked him if he lived at the motel and where he was from, Pickett said he didn't know. When Pickett asked if he had done something wrong, the deputy said he just wanted to talk to him.

"What's the problem?" Pickett asked Woods nine times as the deputy peppered him with questions about whether he had ever been arrested (yes), if he had lived in Barstow all of his life and where he was going.

"There is no problem," Woods responded.

Pickett asked if he could go to his room where he had lived since moving to Barstow seven weeks earlier. Woods would later admit under oath that he knew he had no probable cause to arrest him and that Pickett had the right to walk away. But when he tried, Woods grabbed him and told him to "stop resisting." Woods threatened to use a Taser on him. Pickett put his arms up and was running toward his room — Room 45 — when he tripped and fell in the breezeway. As he scooted backward from Woods, the deputy caught him. The two scuffled while a male citizen volunteer on patrol with Woods watched from a few feet away. Woods punched Pickett 15 to 20 times before pulling out his service weapon and threatening to shoot him. He fired, hitting Pickett twice in the chest — once with the barrel of the gun pressed against the man's chest.

"Ow," Pickett moaned. One of the bullets pierced his heart and left lung. Pickett was pronounced dead at the scene.

Woods, on the force for two years at the time but on the street for just a few months, said he shot him because he feared for his life.

Woods, who is Black, didn't give a statement to police about the incident for 28 days. And when he did, he said that he stopped Pickett after seeing him hop the motel fence. He thought Pickett was trespassing, and he was fidgety, like he might be under the influence, Woods said. Pickett had marijuana in his system, and his blood alcohol level was 0.01%, far below the level to be considered legally impaired, records show.

The deputy never faced criminal charges in Pickett's death, but the victim's family filed civil charges. And when he testified under oath at the civil trial, Woods told a different story: He said he never saw Pickett jump over the fence and that the gate actually was open. He also said it never occurred to him that Pickett could be mentally ill. Pickett was diagnosed with mental illness during his freshman year at Hampton University in Virginia and had been treated through the Mental Health Court in San Bernardino in 2012 after a conviction for resisting a peace officer and "false personation," records show.

Scott DeFoe, who spent two decades with the Los Angeles Police Department, testified as an expert witness at the civil trial. He said that Woods' use of force was "unnecessary and unreasonable."

"This is probably one of the worst cases I have looked at because of the mental health component," DeFoe testified. "There was no crime. ... He ran as he had a lawful right to do."

The jury in the civil trial was unanimous. Jurors agreed that Woods had no right to detain Pickett; used unreasonable or excessive force against him, which caused his death; and delayed getting him medical care. They awarded Pickett's family $33.5 million, one of the largest amounts ever in an officer-involved shooting case.

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whumptasticwednesday · 5 years

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(Semi) Grown-Ass Man - (Peter Maximoff - X-Men: Dark Phoenix)

!!X-MEN DARK PHOENIX SPOILERS!!

Author’s Note: Hey, LividFigureSkatingLover (Ash) here! I hope you enjoyed the fic posted last week that Jimmy uploaded for me. That was actually something I’d written months ago but we felt like it would be an appropriate beginning fic. This, however, is a fresh fic that I started writing the day after Jimmy and I went to see Dark Phoenix on opening night. Needless to say, we were both disappointed with the critical lack of Peter in this movie. Like, you can’t just yeet your fan-favorite character into the sidewalk and have him carried off the jet in a stretcher without acknowledging anything! Anyways, next week will be Jimmy’s week to upload a fic, so you won’t see me for a while, but I can assure you my next fic is in the works. HINT: It’s addressing the critical lack of Dadneto in this film (although after that I think I’ll be done with the Peter fics for now.) Anyways, enjoy the fic! (This fic is also unedited so if you catch any errors, feel free to let me know!)

Word Count: 5749

It had all felt like an instant. One moment, the X-Men were emerging from their jet to bring Jean Grey home, the next, irreversible and horrific destruction. It all ended with Jean soaring into the sky and disappearing into the clouds with a distraught Scott and an angry and grief-ridden Hank on the asphalt. Charles slumped back into his chair and sighed. Nobody could have expected this. The crushed police cars and house smashed like a Popsicle stick craft project were just white noise to the heavy betrayal, anger, grief, and pain filling the atmosphere. The uncanny silence was only broken when Scott angrily shouted,"what the actual fuck are we supposed to do? Jean can't just, she didn't just, she wouldn't ha-"

"Damnit, Scott, can you shut your mouth for two seconds?!" Hank angrily seethed to the laser-eyed man. "You're not the only one standing here in the wake of Jean's unprovoked carnage. I don't think you can even begin to imagine how I feel right now... at least Jean's body isn't sticking out from a protruding wood spire"

Scott, being an impulsive young man, used every ounce of discipline in his reserve and resisted the strong urge to fire up an argument with Hank, and seconds after seeing Raven's impaled corpse, the fiery retort died on his lips, and it was instead replaced by a sudden realization as to the damage Jean had caused, emotionally and physically. The white noise of destruction was now a heavy screaming siren pounding in everyone's ears. Hank needed something to take his mind off of what had happened, losing his unrequited love due to a selfish impulse from one of his lifelong friends was too much for his mind to process at the moment. Since he couldn't do anything else, Hank did what he did best, took a calculated approach to fixing the catastrophe around him.

"We need to find Kurt and Peter. Scott, come help me... please," Hank trailed off as he turned away from Raven's lifeless body. "Charles, do something with her."

The cold and almost robotic tone from Hank was a sharp, almost eerie, contrast from the distraught tears that, only minutes ago, were streaming down his cheeks. Scott's mind, clouded by his own lovesick thoughts, followed Hank's orders on autopilot. Charles remained silent and observant as Scott and Hank trudged to the wooden remnants of Jean's childhood home in search of Kurt and Peter.

After what seemed like hours of precariously moving rubble and assorted wood pieces, Scott saw a mop of black and blue hair under a cracked 4x4.

"Hank, I think I found Kurt," Scott breathed a sigh of relief.

"Be careful, let's get all this off of him," Hank replied.

The two worked carefully and precisely until all of Kurt's body was exposed. His yellow uniform and his face were dusty and covered in grime and a small amount of blood. Hank gently tapped on the mutant teen's face as Scott hovered over his shoulder. Kurt didn't stay unresponsive for long though, and after a few of Hank's prods, he shot up off the floor with Jean's name fresh on his tongue, unaware of what had transpired after he'd been rendered unconscious.

"W-what? Jean, where's Jean? Is everyone okay?" the words fell out faster than Kurt himself could even process, and his mind hadn't quite caught up with the fact that he'd been crushed under the weight of an entire house.

"Kid, slow down. We'll explain later, okay? How do you feel? Do you know where Peter is?" Scott asked, questions firing faster than intended.

"No, I'm sorry. I can help you look for him though. Let me do something, I swear I'm fine." Kurt shot up off the ground, only to stumble into Scott's unprepared arms.

"Take it easy. Jean collapsed a house on top of you, I don't know how great you'll be functioning at the moment," Hank explained as Kurt nodded slowly with an exhausted and pained wince. "Alright, let's go find Peter."

Scott slung the lanky blue mutant's arm over his shoulder to support his weight as the trio began to search for the silver speedster. Since he moved so quickly it was hard to actually determine what Jean even did to Peter, as their confrontation lasted less than seconds to the average person's eye. The only thing Hank and Scott had seen was Peter being catapulted across the street and out of sight, so neither were all too excited to find out as to how he might be faring.

It took some time, but the three eventually stumbled upon Peter's battle-broken body lying slumped against a tree in a thick wooded area dozens of yards away from the street where Jean had wreaked havoc. Trailing his body was a coarse trail of uprooted grass and dirt, emphasizing the power and distance he'd been hurled across. Peter seemed almost as lifeless as Raven, his body heavily slumped against the tree he'd collided with, blood streaking his X-Men uniform, face, and silver hair, along with dark dirt blotching his sweaty face, which was pulled up into a pained grimace. His signature goggles were loosely strung in his messily kept hair and one of the lenses was very visibly shattered, an ugly spider-like crack pronounced in the center of the lens.

"Oh my god, Peter!" Kurt let out a strangled cry as he laid eyes on his friend. He tried to stop the sobs as each one wracked his battered and sore body, but he couldn't. This was too much for him to bear.

As Kurt's sobs filled the forest, Hank ran his calculative eyes up and down Peter's body as his mind contemplated what would be the best course of action. He didn't want to risk worsening any external or internal injuries by jostling him in a carry to the jet, but he wasn't all too sure what help he could do with Peter out cold in the woods with no real medical assistance or tools around to help. As Scott tried to calm the ever panicked Kurt, Hank gingerly shifted Peter from his half-upright slumped position to lying flat on the ground. He ripped open the top of Peter's X-Men uniform and scanned the damage; bruises as black and blue as Kurt's hair dotted Peter's pale chest and his upper right shoulder. This wasn't going to be fun to deal with. Hank shot his eyes back to Peter's blood-stained face, hoping that tearing off his clothes would at least elicit some sort of response from the boy. Alas, nothing. As the seconds ticked by, Hank devised the one plan that would end in the least harm to all of them.

"Kurt, I know we're far away, I know you're tired, I know you're injured, but I need you to teleport us back to the jet. We can't move Peter like this, it's too risky, he's too badly hurt and I don't want to make this more painful for him than it has to be. You've gotta do this for us, okay?" Hank explained. He knew the kid's power took energy out of everyone he was teleporting, and with the damage eveyone'd sustained from the battle, it would be too dangerous to have Kurt warp multiple times, Peter wouldn't make it, and judging from his hazy eyes, Kurt didn't have enough energy for more than one teleport anyways.

Anxious scenarios began flooding Kurt's mind as his eyes filled with fear, the words he spoke dripping with self-doubt, "W-what if I can't? What if I mess it all u-up and I warp us halfway into a car and kill us all! H-hank, I can't do it."

Instead of coddling the boy like he normally would have, Hank let the dire situation speak for itself when he bluntly stated, "Kurt, I know you're scared, but Peter might die if we can't get him back to the jet. You've gotta take some faith in yourself and your powers and get us home, okay? Don't do it for me, do it for Peter. He needs you to do this for him."

It may have been the stern yet sincere tone of Hank's words, or hearing outright that Peter might die, but Kurt mustered up enough confidence to say, "alright... for Peter."

Hank shifted Peter into his lap as he joined hands with Scott and Kurt. Kurt silently prayed to God that he wouldn't kill all of his friends by pushing his ability's limits in an already weakened state, and with a last tension filled breath, the group disappeared into a dark cloud, appearing, seconds later, in the jet.

Scott felt extremely disoriented after the warp and his eyes raced around the jet before they landed on Hank's face, "shit. That felt weird."

"Indeed," Hank replied.

"I-I did it," Kurt sighed in relief as his eyelids fluttered closed and he collapsed onto the floor.

"Kurt!" Scott exclaimed.

"He's fine, just overexerted himself. He just needs to sleep for a bit and eat. This happened after his fight in Cairo too. Now hurry up and help me with Peter, he's not doing too hot," Hank explained as he set to work.

------

WOW A TIME SKIP... At Xavier's School in the weird bunker area where they do X-Men stuff...

"He's still not up. You're gonna have to do something, Hank. He's gonna start healing and I don't think that his shoulder is gonna do it properly with the way it looks right now," Scott stated as he stared blankly at Peter's bloody and bruised body on the gurney.

Hank ran his fingers through his hair as he tossed his glasses onto the lab table. He didn't wanna set the joint without Peter being conscious, for fear he'd spring awake and cause himself even more harm if he took an instantaneous flight response. But, if he waited too long, Peter's enhanced healing would work against his favor and heal the crucial joint in the wrong way. He had to make a decision, and although it posed risks, it was better than Peter sustaining lasting joint damage.

Hank was just about to grab the limb to jerk it back into place when Peter shot up from the gurney with a blood-curdling scream of pure agony. Peter's eyes were hazy, confused, and full of pain as they raced around in search of what was going on and why everything hurt so bad. His eyes eventually met Hank's as he collapsed back onto the gurney, heaving heavy pained breaths into his cut and bruised chest.

"Hank, w-whass happenin, wha happened to me? E-everrythin's blurry and hurts," Peter slurred as tears unwillingly escaped the corners of his eyes. Throbbing, pulsing pain coursed through Peter's seemingly small frame as he started to unwillingly cry out of confusion and agonizing pain.

"Peter, you're at the X-Men base under the school. Jean threw you across the street with her powers and you hit a tree. You are safe and you're gonna be okay. I'm gonna help you, okay?" Hank said slowly to the shaken boy. Peter only gave a tiny pained nod as he bit his lip to try and stifle his crying.

"Can't we give him anything to numb the pain, like anesthesia or even ibuprofen? Setting the shoulder is gonna be excruciating for him," Scott asked, just wanting to lessen the agony for Peter.

"That's the thing, though. His fast healing and super speed are paired with an extremely quick metabolism. Anything we could give him in a normal person's dosage, he would burn right through."

"Can't we just give him a higher dosage?"

"If you wanna risk him overdosing, then sure."

Scott cast sympathetic eyes down onto Peter's terrified face, and although hidden by the signature ruby-lensed glasses, were full of sorrow as he fully realized what Jean had done. He felt nothing but pity for the pure fear and pain the boy was feeling. Peter's mind was racing back to when they had to set his broken leg and he didn't want to go through that again. He felt pathetic, a (semi)grown-ass man crying because he had to get a limb set. His sarcastic and dry-humored subconscious internally retorted: grow a pair!

"I'm sorry, Peter. We're gonna have to do this now. Bite this," Hank said as he dangled a rag above Peter's now bleeding lips. Peter grit his teeth and graciously took the cloth as the only thing to provide a semblance of comfort to the undoubted pain he was about to experience. "Alright, Scott, I need you to hold him down in case this goes South..."

Scott nodded in affirmation as he grabbed onto Peter's other arm and hovered above his already pretty immobile body while Hank took one more tentative glance over the silver-haired boy before locking eyes with Scott and clutching Peter's bicep in one hand and his shoulder blade with his other.

"Do you want me to count down?" Hank asked, knowing full well he would count to 3 but snap on 2. Peter nodded as he scrunched up his face with terrified anticipation, a visible layer of shining sweat collecting on his features. "Okay, one, tw-"

The last sound of 'two' was cut off by the cracking of a limb and Peter's howl and wailing cries of pure agony as he thrashed about violently on the gurney as Scott tried his best to gently restrain him without causing any more pain. Fat and ugly tears were freely streaming down Peter's face as the crippling pain in his shoulder coursed through his body and started to dull into an acute ache resonating from the base of his neck all the way down his bicep. His vision was blurred not only by his salty tears but by the waves of pain and adrenaline attempting to cancel each other out like an ocean current crashing into a reef bay. It was all a bit too much for Peter to handle. He went to curl in on himself, a primal instinct to go to the fetal position was shooting to his mind, yet when he tried, every dulled injury in his torso screamed back an affirmative and defiant: no!

Hank had sent Scott to get water bottles when he heard Peter's defeated and miserable whimper, which sent his own head whipping around to face the boy using his left arm to desperately clutch at his raw and tender torso, which was covered in dirt filled cuts and bruises that were attempting to heal over. Like any mutant power, there was a limit, and it was clear that Peter's advanced healing was taking on way more than it was able to handle, so his body's scattered attempts to heal his numerous external and internal injuries weren't doing him any favors besides exhausting him of what little energy he had.

"I'm sorry, Peter, I know you're in a lot of pain right now but I can't do anything for you but stitch up your major cuts and scan you for internal injuries. You know you can't have the regular pain medication," Hank stated, apprehension seeping into his every word as he ran his fingers through Peter's messy and unkempt hair that was now rifled with blood and sweat in an attempt to soothe the boy.

"I-I can't it... my c-chest," Peter stumbled through his attempted sentence, taking hasty and pinched wheezes instead of true breaths between his words. He was past humiliation at this point, any semblance of his normally sarcastic and fun-loving self was covered up by his embarrassment and indescribable pulsating torment wracking his body. Here he was, crying like a toddler while Hank of all people was petting his scalp, what an uncanny situation.

Scott returned moments later with extra towels and an armful of water bottles nestled hastily in his grasp. Much to Peter's dismay, Hank was terrified that Peter might choke if he stayed laying down, so his stitches and internal scan were going to be done upright. The simple shift in the gurney's position further aggravated the mysterious angry irritation in Peter's chest and sent him into a series of dry and forceful coughs, each one racking his exhausted body harder than the last. Peter never thought in a million years that the crack of the plastic seal on a water bottle would be so gratifying, yet here he was, face melting at the opportunity to soothe his parched esophagus and hopefully replenish at least some of his lost energy. Scott took to cleaning out Peter's minor injuries, starting the stitches, and helping him drink, while Hank was running a full body diagnostic on the silver-haired mutant. Peter's mind had slipped into a half-conscious yet fully-feeling feverish state where he wasn't really functioning, yet he knew what was happening. It took every ounce of his strength not to just pass out and sleep. He felt the tense prick of the needle every time Scott went back to further close up a gaping wound and he felt the ever present stare of Hank as he started running all his scans. The only time Peter came out of this hazy half-awake state was to drink that delightful and soothing water. Compared to every other sensory input, the water felt like heaven in the fiery depths of hell. The soothing liquid ran down his arid windpipe and seemed to address his every need, until it hit his stomach and he was met with a discomforted static strain in his abdomen. It was uncomfortable, sure, but didn't seem like it needed to be addressed, so Peter plastered on his bravest face (still kind of failing though) as he lightly furrowed his brow and drew his knees up closer to his chest, despite the protest of his aching (and presumably broken) ribs. Scott noticed, as did Hank, but neither thought too much of it as they continued with their busy work. Again, none of them were prepared as to what would happen next.

Fifteen minutes later, just as the diagnostic's results were finishing up, Peter's slight discomfort had warped into a stabbing and indescribable pain as he was wracked with waves of thick and heavy nausea. Scott was almost done with tying off the last gash on Peter's injured arm when he jerked violently to the side and began projectile vomiting, the only thing arising from Peter's forceful heaving being sticky yellow bile and an alarming mix of blood. Each unproductive heave was followed up by another wave of sickening nausea, which was followed up by another (usually successful) upchuck of fluids. Peter was running out of breath, strength, and stomach contents to empty as he grasped desperately to Scott's arm and his own horribly aggravated abdomen.

"Oh, Peter! Oh my god! Hank, what do I do?!" Scott yelled frantically as he reached to hold back Peter's long and uncontrolled hair as the latter's body faltered over into another bout of wheezy heaving. Scott, however, was not expecting to have his hand be met with an alarming heat that seemingly radiated off of Peter's forehead. He touched his hands around the rest of Peter's face and his neck during a calm period of the heaving and Hank took the opportunity to hastily place a trashcan between Peter's legs to lessen the contortion his body had to do in order to avoid vomiting his own bodily fluids onto himself. "He's got a bad fever. Is this from th-"

"It's because his body's working too hard to handle everything happening to it," Hank cut him off "It doesn't know where or when to start or stop and it's confused. He needs fluids to replenish his energy, especially after throwing up every ounce of water you just gave him. We're probably going to have to administer an IV."

The large technologically advanced screen in front of him blinked and beeped, signifying that the diagnostic was finished. At a speed that only Peter could best (at full health), Hank pulled up the imaging and was met with two giant glaring orange marks on an overall blue scan; those being 3 fractured ribs and some sort of internal injury on Peter's stomach lining. Oh my god, Hank thought to himself before nearly shouting to Scott, "He's internally bleeding in his stomach, that's why he vomited. That's why there's so much blood... " Hank took a second to calculate what to do. "We need him hooked up to an IV, NOW. Go get me the supplies."

Scott didn't even nod as he scrambled to his feet and dashed off to find what Hank needed. Peter himself was almost completely unconscious at this point, the high fever , empty reserves of strength, and overwhelming pain from every inch of his body were the perfect trio of unbearable feelings were one stroke away from completely pulling him under a fitful blanket of unconsciousness. He was just about to pass the brink and into the darkness when he felt the abrupt patting of Hank dabbing a soaked rag across his face and the dripping of cool water down his neck. The next thing he felt was the forceful jab in his arm and the strange dull feeling of the unknown slowly overtaking him. His spotted vision gave way to darkness as everything faded away.

"Peter? Damnit, he passed out. It's fine, we just need to keep him stable. I don't know how sustainable this is going to be for him. His body is gonna churn through this fluid faster than a toddler sips a juice box, but it's better than nothing," Hank sighed. And for the first time since Peter had awoken, the room filled with an unsettling complacent silence, the only other thing occupying the space being the exhausted pants from Hank and Scott, accompanied by Peter's tight and wheezy breathing.

------

WOW, ANOTHER TIME SKIP... At relatively the same location we were earlier, but like, a day later...

"Ughh..." Peter groaned. Unlike the previous day's events, though, was brought out less by discomfort, and more from boredom. He fidgeted anxiously with a loose thread on his pants while Hank swapped out his IV for what seemed like the thousandth time between the last 24 hours. "When can I get up and you know" Peter gestured abruptly with his hands "go."

"Give it a few more days, Peter. I know your mind is saying that it wants to get up and run 5 laps around the earth, but your body isn't ready for it. You're still running a temperature, your arm isn't going to be in full shape for a while, you might need physical therapy, the ligaments were pretty screwed up, and I don't want you aggravating your ribs or your stomach just yet," Hank insisted as Peter rolled his eyes. The speedster, despite knowing he wasn't nearly ready to be up and flying across rooms at the speed of sound, wanted to be productive. Part of his motivations for being up and at it was also the fact that he wished to hide his immense shame from the relented sob-fest that was yesterday evening by (like how Peter dealt with most of his problems) running until he couldn't feel his legs or until he couldn't give a damn and cared about nothing except the blurred scenery around him. However, it was hard to do either of those things when you were confined to a gurney in a bunker with an IV drip tethered to one arm and a sling on another.

As Hank left the room, Peter was met by yet another sickening silence, this time, the only thing filling the room was his growing sense of wanting to be productive and just run, but alas, he couldn't. Having just slept for a sizable amount of the day, Peter was just itching for some entertainment, but being stuck in an empty room with no such objects to scratch that itch, he was growing irritable.

Little did the silver-haired mutant know that another certain lanky teleporting teen was standing right outside the door to his room in the medical bay, working up the courage to rebel against Hank's firm: "no, he needs to sleep" statement that Kurt was met with when he asked if he could go and visit his friend. Not being one to break many rules, Kurt was apprehensive about entering, hence his (kind of silly) minor internal dilemma. Mustering up enough courage, Kurt warped inside the room, where he was met with a "Jesus Christ!" from Peter. Kurt, startled by the shout, stumbled backwards and fell. From his position on the ground, he let out a shy,"hi, Peter. How are you feeling?"

"God, dude, you scared the shit out of me. Give a man a warning before you teleport into his private room where he's being held captive against his will next time!" Peter answered, sarcasm dripping in every syllable.

Kurt, being known to take nearly everything extremely literally, responded,"Has Hank been corrupted!? What has he done to you Peter? Do I need to tell the professor that Hank's gone mad, or is it all one big conspiracy?!"

"Whoa there, chill. As much as I'd like the added spice in life that a Hank-and-Charles-gone-mental plot would provide, I think it's safe to say that they're pretty sane... for now."

"Alrighty then. Well, I've come against Hank's wishes to keep you company, what do you want to do?"

"Hank wants me to suffer and die alone? What a traitor!" Peter grabbed at his chest, feigning heartbreak, wincing as his attempt at humor irritated his cracked ribs.

"I doubt that is true. I believe that the correct term to describe your behavior would be a drama queen."

"You'd be correct, buckaroo. Would you mind zipping to my room and grabbing my Walkman and my GameBoy?"

"Um, no problem," Kurt replied as he disappeared in a dark cloud.

Mere moments later, he reappeared with the music player and the gaming device. Peter eagerly reached out for both devices, acting like a hyperactive toddler who'd just been offered a lollipop. Although, the hyperactive toddler description wasn't too far off from Peter's personality normally. The plastic shells of both items were like comfort food and finally brought some form of distraction besides twiddling his thumbs for hours on ends or watching that 'maybe-speck-of-dust-maybe-spider' dance along the bright walls. He switched on his music and popped in an earbud, offering the other to a tentative looking Kurt.

"Dude, you've gotta try this. Please don't tell me Scott's scared you off from American music with his pansy-ass music," Peter insisted as he spun the earbud with his unslinged hand.

"It's not that... it's just, your music, in particular, has, on several occasions, shaken the entire school," Kurt replied as he took the listening device.

"It's called a 'jam session', Kurt," Peter explained as he used very visible air quotes to emphasize his point.

"Alright, if you insist," Kurt sighed as the guitar rifs and crashing of drums filled his pointed ears. He wasn't the hugest fan of all of Peter's loud rock or the deep heavy beats of Scott's rap, but he sat there regardless to try and enjoy a quiet moment with his friend. Moments like these were becoming harder and harder to come by as their world seemed to get even more hectic. The mutants had assumed that the battle in Cairo would have been the worst of it, it sure felt like it at the time, but now they were facing a new evil, one of their friends. Kurt really wanted to talk to Peter about it, maybe even break the news that Raven died, but he felt too timid, and compared to Peter's bold and audacious personality, he felt like nothing. Peter stopped his headbanging for a moment, and that sliver of time was long enough to notice the semi-uncharacteristic silence from the shy yet friendly Kurt, who was awkwardly staring at Peter's feet, caught in an apparent distracted trance, all headed by the semi-somber and contemplative look plastered on his face. Peter clicked the pause and the cassette stopped rolling. This seemed to snap Kurt out of his trance, and the new silence was quickly filled by Peter.

"You got a toe fetish or something? I mean, I know I'm incredibly sexy, but I didn't know you were into that, Kurt. Jeez!" he teased. Kurt just drew his knees up to his chest and shrunk up his neck to try and hide; whether he was hiding from embarrassment of having a strange sexual trigger or something else on his mind was completely beyond Peter's thoughts.

"You never answered my question..."

"What question?"

"How are you feeling. When we went to try and stop Jean, she crushed me with her house, and I couldn't help at all. I felt useless. It... sucked. And then, Scott and Hank dug me out of the rubble and we went to find you. You looked..." Kurt started choking on his own words, scared he'd start crying. Peter felt a strong urge to make another joke about his 'very undoubtedly sexy' body to finish the sentence, but he wanted to hear him finish. He knew Kurt was going somewhere serious when the German boy used the word: sucked, it didn't seem like something in his vocabulary, much less like a word he'd willingly use unless he really felt like he needed to. "I saw you there, laying on the ground, covered in dirt, bleeding everywhere, with this horrible, agonized expression on your face, just... stuck there. I'm so used to you smirking, laughing, or doing that weird thing where you raise your eyebrows up and down after you are sarcastic or make a joke, and to see you like that, still and sad, I just cried. I was terrified that you were already dead. I've never seen you sit still on your own for more than 5 minutes. Even after the fight in Cairo when you had your entire leg broken and in a cast on crutches, you were still smiling, animated as ever. I don't know how you do it, Peter... you're always so happy. I mean, I try, but I can't help but be..."

"Scared?"

"Yeah." For a few moments, the room was silent, seemingly becoming a common theme, and yet again, it did not last long.

"Hahaha..."

"Peter, are you... laughing?"

"You've got me all wrong, Kurt. I may be an impatient wiseass, but don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of moments in my backlog where I felt like I was gonna piss myself. You were talking about after the Cairo fight?" Kurt nodded "Well, during that fight, I went in, guns a blazin', ready to beat the shit out of this weird edgy blue raisin lookin' guy, yet a few seconds later, I'm getting my arm twisted way further than it's supposed to and my leg getting completely fucked up. In that moment, I was sure I was going to die. Had it not been for Raven and Erik, I probably would have."

Kurt gnawed his bottom lip and curled further in on himself at the mention of Raven. Peter didn't know. He doubted Hank would have brought up his resented heartbreak to the seemingly immature speedster. He wasn't sure if he wanted to tell him; Would the timing be appropriate? Would he be able to handle the weight of the loss? Peter'd even said that Raven had been a massive inspiration to him when he was younger on the jet where they had their first real conversation. It'd be hard to swallow the pill that one of your friends had been possessed and just murdered your childhood hero while recovering from blunt trauma. It all made Kurt's head spin and ultimately, he decided against it.

"Sorry to get all deep and edgy on ya. I didn't want you waltzing around screeching about my fearlessness or something, I don't know." Peter shrugged as best as he could before whipping out his GameBoy and waving it in Kurt's face.

"Umm, I don't understand what this is. It looks like a plastic box. Does this one also play music?"

"Naw, this is one of those cool new things from Japan. It's a handheld gaming device."

"Oh. So it's like the large arcade machines... but smaller?"

"Yeah, it's pretty bangin'. I've got Super Mario Land in the slot now, wanna try?"

"Yes!" Kurt took the device from Peter and was about to dive in when he tentatively asked "Umm, Peter? What is the objective?"

"You get the tiny man with the hat from the left to the right and eventually you'll find a lady and win. I guess even minuscule pixelated dudes need a babe," Peter joked. However, Kurt was already encapsulated in the tiny, unlit screen, a little beep going off every time he made the character jump. Peter watched with amusement as he resumed his mixtape with one earbud in, the other listening to the whirring air conditioner and the GameBoy's clacking buttons.

Content with his friend's newfound excitement and ease of mind, Peter felt his eyelids growing heavy and his breaths growing slower and deeper without any conscious feeling of pain with the intake of oxygen. And finally, without any thoughts of his dislocated shoulder, unsolved father-related problems, or his red-haired, newly space-fart-possessed, destruction causing friend, he drifted off to sleep with a content, comfortable, and very quicksilver-y smirk plastered on his face

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teenageread · 4 years

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Review: Uglies

Synopsis:

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. In just a few weeks she'll have the operation that will turn her from a repellent ugly into a stunning pretty. And as a pretty, she'll be catapulted into a high-tech paradise where her only job is to have fun.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to become a pretty. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world-- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally a choice: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. Tally's choice will change her world forever…

Plot:

Tally Youngblood has waited almost sixteen years to be pretty. Not the grow-out-your-bangs-wax-your-eyebrows-and-learn-how-bronzer-works pretty, but the surgical pretty that happens to everyone at sixteen. See, after the Rusties blew up the earth by wasting resources, relying on oil, and war was everywhere, the new generation of people decided to do things better. From a stable government, renewable resources, they eliminated the flaw that the Rusties dealt with, even the physical kind. Each child of both genders’ lives with their parents until age twelve in which they are sent to a boarding school. They stay at that school and live in the dorms until their sixteen. On their sixteenth birthday, they get escorted to the hospital to have their surgery, in which afterward they go and live in the mansion at New Pretty Town until they become old enough to start their government assigned job. This surgery gives them new flawless skin, enlarged eyes, and perfect lips. The Disney-princesses look of pretty.

Tally has been itching to go, especially after a long-time best friend Peris became pretty, the month previously. Sneaking into New Pretty town to see Peris was how Tally met Shay. Like most fifteen-and-three-quarter year old, Shay friends have also turned pretty, leaving her to be the last one. With matching birthdays of September 9th, Tally and Shay had all summer to hang out and cause trouble. Yet the night before their birthday Shay had one last surprise for Tally: she was not going to become pretty. Going off with the mysterious David, to a place called the Smokes, Shay was going to live with all the other runaways that never became pretty. Tally, confuse her friend was not going to become pretty like every ugly’s dream, let her go without her. Going to her surgery the government had another idea. Like if Men in Black were real, Special Circumstances are a rumor in the pretty world, of a government agency to be blamed if anything weird going on. There, Special Circumstances offered Tally a choice: Find Shay and expose where the Smoke’s is, or she would never be pretty. The life she always wanted in exchange for betraying her summer-time bestie? Tally is up for the ultimate adventure that test friendships find love and causes a whole lot of trouble for this perfect world of pretties.

Thoughts:

Scott Westerfeld introduced us to a world when anyone can be pretty, they just must wait until their sixteen. The writing takes place from the point of view of Tally, a sixteen-year-old girl who must find her friend in the wild and report her location back to a government agency. Side characters were her friends of Shay and Peris, her parents who just want her to be pretty, and David, the leader of the camp who is instantly hooked on Tally as soon as he sees her. Westerfeld divided the book up into three parts: Turning Pretty, The Smoke, and The Fire; each more action-packed than the last. The first book of four in the series, Westerfeld gave us the perfect balance of introducing concepts and characters, while keeping the book entertaining and interesting. The only thing that Westerfeld could have given us more of was slowness in David and Tally’s relationship. Maybe she's super trusting looking, but their relationship shouldn’t have kicked off that fast, plus Shay should have said something sooner, but her blow up interaction after the glove thing was accurate to her character. With an ending that changes the game, be sure to check out the second book in the series, as Westerfeld has proven he is not done with this world yet.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

#Uglies #Scott Westerfeld #book review

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boo-cool-robot · 5 years

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Okay fine I saw Dark Phoenix

‘Repression works perfectly and has no lasting side effects!’ says man who pretended to be heterosexual for 30 years

Overall: Even though I don’t hate the basic beats of this story, it all felt very perfunctory. Unlike technically worse movies like The Last Stand or Apocalypse, no one at any point really seemed to be having fun. I think if they go in with appropriately low expectations, the X-Men fan will find things to enjoy. (I AM a known disliker of the comics Dark Phoenix Saga but like does that even matter considering that the people making this movie don’t seem to have read it?)

(No-spoilers review of the Magneto bits: He had nothing to do this movie as a character but his powers ARE still sexy)

Spoiler thoughts in no particular order below cut:

The opening scenes of the movie are surprisingly decent? The dialogue is all Exactly What You Think Will Happen but McAvoy does a good job portraying Xavier as a guy just coming off a 6 year bender that culminated in his sister nearly shooting the president and his ex dropping a stadium on him that decided to immediately and awkwardly adopt a child.

(In that vein, his rebuke of Jean’s father about ~hope~ is also real good in light of DOFP.)

The space mission? Also extremely fun, at least in concept if not execution

Alright fine seeing Charles Xavier get yelled at hardcore is pretty satisfying...world’s worst dad. (Attempting to finally give Hank a personality though? Mixed results.)

I can see how this movie attempts to reverse some of the more misogynistic themes of the comic but uh. It’s not great. There are in fact very strong and obvious thematic threads through the alternate timeline movies about how Xavier seeks to control women that this movie could have highlighted and yet they went with vague and insipid girl power stuff from Mystique and Jessica Chastain.

Speaking of Jessica Chastain, I am extremely relieved she isn’t Cassandra Nova, but really this feels like they could have gotten anyone to play the villain. It Was Fine I Guess

The real-world subtext of Jennifer Lawerence being ready to blow this popsicle stand really overshadows any annoyance I might have about Mystique’s wasted character arc. Also the fact that no one except Charles and Jean have a semblance of character arc in this movie.

Does Evan Peters also hate being in these movies?? While I’m fine with White Quicksilver getting sidelined, it was a noticeably weird plot move to never resolve the Pietro-Erik relationship

Kurt, Ororo, and even Scott also have nothing to do. It’s that kind of movie.

Scott got to say fuck but he said it like he was on the verge of tears. Which hey, points for that I guess. Also they didn’t do the Glasses Scene That Represents Scott Being Topped :(

Hey is it just me or does a lot of Jean’s plot in this resemble comics Scott’s? Like, Xavier adopting her as an orphan and erasing her memory of a family member, her dad who allegedly died in an accident being alive and avoiding her? I mean it’s a solid adaptation choice, it’s just weird

I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS WAS SET IN THE 90S BUT THERE WERE NO DISTINCTIVE CLOTHES AT ALL....WHAT IS THE POINT

The bit where Magneto rips a subway car out of the ground to use it as a battering ram is *chef’s kiss*...lifting all the guns from the car and firing them with his powers is also pretty good. I just wish he was played with literally any style or charm at all. He doesn’t have a character arc this movie and just kind of randomly does things, which is definitely his usual movie M.O., but it’s all so limp. No matter how dumb alternate timeline Magneto’s story is, he’s consistently oozed rage or bewilderment or strut. I’m overwhelmed by Magneto love whenever I watch these terrible movies but Dark Phoenix sparked nearly zero Magneto-related emotion in me! What the fuck!

I am also a known Genosha-hater and I can see where they tried to sidestep the bad racism/colonialism implications by being very vague about Genosha’s history and exact location but they sure do have an island with a lot of brown people living there that got given to Magneto, played by a white guy, to rule. So like that’s fine (it’s bad.)

DAZZLER???

I predicted there would be a scene where Xavier walks because there is in every movie, but god what they did is way worse that I would have ever imagined. I hated watching it, what the fuck

I am deeply surprised that there wasn’t an excruciating attempt to make Xavier seem heterosexual

OKAY FINE THAT LAST SCENE. I’m so mad. A reconciliation between Charles and Erik is not earned at ALL and yet I immediately catapulted to “oh my god this would make a great proposal scene.” They’re in love, fuck this movie, whatever!!

#to the x men then! who do not die the old fashioned way #sounding watches x men #SIGH #brief discussion of racism under the cut

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scifigeneration · 5 years

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Apollo 11 brought a message of peace to the Moon - but Neil and Buzz almost forgot to leave it behind

by Michelle L.D. Hanlon

President Richard M. Nixon welcomes the Apollo 11 astronauts aboard the USS Hornet, the recovery ship for the mission, where they are quarantined. From left to right: Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin. NASA

“How about that package out of your sleeve? Get that?” is certainly not the most famous phrase uttered by a human while on the Moon. And the items nestled in a small packet that astronaut Buzz Aldrin had stowed in the pocket just below the shoulder of his extravehicular mobility unit were certainly not mission critical. They were sentimental objects, intended to be left on the Moon purely for symbolic and commemorative purposes.

Apollo 15 astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin left a commemorative plaque on the Moon in memory of 14 NASA astronauts and USSR cosmonauts. The tiny, man-like object represents the figure of a fallen astronaut/cosmonaut. NASA

More than one hundred sites

You may be surprised to learn that a partial catalog of human-made objects on the Moon fills more than 20 single-spaced pages. There are more than a hundred sites on the Moon with evidence of human activity. The sites contain materials from the European Space Agency, Japan, India, Russia, China and the United States. Not only do these sites contain ongoing experiments, they hold invaluable data. For example, engineers are hoping to examine these materials to determine how they have fared after continuous exposure to the elevated radiation levels on the Moon. Along with scientific equipment, robotic landers and other objects left behind to lighten the load for the return home, there are a number of memorial and tributary items.

But perhaps most important, these varied objects, and their position on the lunar surface, alone can reveal the true story of humanity’s history on the Moon. A chronicle which celebrates the persistence and passion of hundreds and of thousands of scientists, engineers and aviators throughout human history who have supported the effort to “slip the surly bonds of Earth” and reach the stars.

I am not a historian. I am a space lawyer and have made it my mission to develop the laws we need to protect historic artifacts and sites in space. I co-founded For All Moonkind, the only organization in the world dedicated to preserving human heritage in outer space, to assure that archaeologists, historians, scientists and tourists are given the opportunity to learn the valuable lessons of our past.

Messages of peace

Buzz Aldrin and fellow Moonwalker Neil Armstrong chose to go to the Moon with an Apollo 1 patch. It was selected to honor the ultimate sacrifice of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, who perished in a fire during the first test of the Apollo command and service module. The astronauts also chose to remember their fallen Soviet competitors and carried with them two Soviet medals, honoring cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, who died in the Soyuz 1 spacecraft in 1967 and Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the Earth, who was killed in an aircraft in 1968. Aldrin and Armstrong understood that even as Americans raced the Soviets to the Moon, success would be shared by all.

That’s why they also carried a small gold olive branch – a global symbol of peace – and a silicon disk about the size of a United States half dollar. Inscribed on this disk in microscopic text are messages from the president of the United States and leaders of other 73 nations solicited by Thomas Paine, then head of NASA. The messages, intended to be left on the Moon for posterity, are poignant, proud and congratulatory. Some speak of their own national heritage, others salute the courage of the three humans who strapped themselves into a rocket and catapulted into the unknown. From Afghanistan to Zambia, the messages have one common theme: peace.

The Apollo 11 lunar module shows the stainless steel dedication plaque. The signatures are of the three Apollo 11 crew members and President Richard Nixon. NASA

Neil Armstrong’s favorites

According to his biographer, James Hansen, Neil Armstrong identified three favorite messages. The president of Costa Rica hoped the Moon landing would produce “new benefits for improving the well-being of the human race.” The king of the Belgians remained “deeply conscious of our responsibility with respect to the tasks which may be open to us in the universe, but also to those which remain to be fulfilled on this Earth, so to bring more justice and more happiness to mankind.” Finally, the president of the Ivory Coast asked that the first human messengers to the Moon “turn towards our planet Earth and cry out how insignificant the problems which torture men are, when viewed from up there.”

I personally find the message of the president of Mexico rather prescient as he noted “in 1492, the discovery of the American Continent transformed geography and the course of human events. Today, conquest of ultraterrestrial space – with its attendant unknowns – recreates our perspectives and enhances our paradigms.” He went on to remind that human migration to space carries with it “a new far reaching responsibility.”

The figure shows a gold replica of an olive branch, a traditional symbol of peace, an Apollo 1 patch and a silicon message disk. NASA

Forgotten?

Space historian Tahir Rahman, who has published an award-winning book that tells the full story of the Messages of Peace, recounts that Aldrin and Armstrong nearly forgot to leave the disc and other mementos on the lunar surface. Indeed, according to NASA records and transcripts, it wasn’t until the Moonwalkers were climbing back into their spacecraft for the return journey to Earth when they realized their oversight. At the last minute, the disc was tossed from the ladder and settled in the regolith without pomp or circumstance. Once in the capsule, Armstrong verified that “the disk with messages was placed on the surface as planned.”

The mystery is not that these busy astronauts almost forgot to leave the disc behind. After all they were pretty occupied being the first humans to set foot on the Moon. I think it is strange that the two most popular films about Apollo 11 released in the last year, “First Man” and “Apollo 11,” make no mention of the disc and its moving and hope-filled messages.

On July 20, 1969, the world united to celebrate the most remarkable technological achievement in human experience. And in that celebration, our leaders focused on our common hope for peace. This is the lesson of humanity’s effort to reach the Moon. I believe this is the history that we must embrace. It is our responsibility to explore space in peace, together as a species.

Let’s not forget, or forsake, the lessons of our past. The first step is to protect the sites which chronicle our history on the Moon. And hopefully, along the way we can recapture the goodwill that Neil and Buzz left behind.

About The Author:

Michelle L.D. Hanlon is Professor of Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi

This article is republished from our content partners at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#Space Exploration #computer science #Science History #Apollo 11 #Moon Landing #nasa #Technology

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tinyflyingbees · 6 years

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Get To Know Your Followers

Tagged by @ironicosity (Thanks for tagging me <3)

Star sign: Virgo

Name:Steph

Height: 5′4″

Put your music on shuffle, what are the first 4 songs: The Fire by Griffinilla, I’m Gonna Do My Thing by Royal Deluxe, Shoelaces by Elizabeth and the Catapult, Modern Jesus by Portugal. The Man

Grab a book and turn it to page 23, what does line 17 say: If pink walls calm angry persons, why shouldn’t stones of the same color be useful for attracting love?”- Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem & Metal Magic by Scott Cunningham

Do you have a song or poem written after you: Yes!! Eddy wrote a sweet little poem for me for my 19th birthday that I love and treasure.

Last time playing air guitar: I don’t.... I don’t think I’ve ever done that...

Celebrity Crush: I’m not really a celebrity crush kinda person but I do very much appreciate Charlie Cox for how he has inspired me.

Sound you love and sound you hate: I love the sound of a campfire crackling, makes me feel cozy. I’m really touchy about sounds so really anything loud and high pitched will immediately give me a headache and put me in a bad mood.

Do you believe in ghosts: HELL YEAH

Aliens: H E L L Y E A H

Do you drive: So much. I drive a good couple hours every weekend so I can see Eddy and my family.

Have you crashed: Not crashed, per say. I’ve had someone rear end me once on my way back from work one night but it wasn’t anything serious.

The current book I am reading: I am in a constant state of reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Even when I am not reading anything, I am reading Good Omens. Please read Good Omens.

Do you like the smell of gasoline: Meh. I don’t mind it but if I stick around it too long It’ll give me a headache.

Last movie you saw: Planes, though I wish I hadn’t.

Worst injury you have ever had: My little brother tripped me and fucked up my ankle one time. It wasn’t broken or anything but I needed crutches for a few weeks.

Do you have any obsessions: Rocks, Dogs, Daredevil, Eddy, so many shows... Should this even be a question on this website?

Do you hold grudges against people who have wronged you: Yeah... I’m trying to get better at being forgiving but I have a hard time forgetting what people have done to me, even if I know it was on accident.

In a relationship: Yes!!!! My best friend and lover Eddy (@cromagnon-man) is wonderful and amazing and I love him. If you talk to me for any amount of time you will hear about how much I love him. It’s a lot. Please let me talk to you about how much I love him. I have pictures as proof of how wonderful and good and cute he is. Please let me show you. I love him.

I’m gonna tag @yells-at-cats, @angeloftheeasterngate, @royalspacedryad, @pulling-aggro, @softerhopes and Eddy but he’s already been tagged and I’m sure he’ll want to do it anyway. You’re absolutely free to ignore this if you don’t wanna do it, I just think you guys are cool and like learning about people.

#steph stuff #im pretty sure this is the first one of these ive ever done

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janeykath318 · 7 years

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Of Gnomes and Catapults: a Scotty and Reader Adventure

You ducked to avoid a goblin spear hurled in your direction. Curse the creatures, where were they all coming from? There hadn’t been so many daring to come out of the mountains in decades. You muttered a spell and the goblin was blasted with a ray of light, clutching his eyes and howling, now blinded.

“Take that, monster,” you muttered as you swung around to fend off an attack from another foe. You’d been on a simple mission in the hills, gathering herbs for the resident healer to replenish his stock and make potions, when a pack of goblins had ambushed you. You’d fought bravely and desperately, but there were at least a dozen of them and one of you, so the fight boded ill in the end.

Loosing an arrow, you hit a goblin in the neck, who went down howling. Scrambling up the thick forest slope, you searched desperately for a tree suitable for climbing or any sort of hiding place to rest in. Sweat poured down your face, your side hurt from the exertion, and your ankle had an arrow in it.

“Time to amp this up a bit,” you decided, concentrating your energy on another spell. Turning to the goblins, you chanted another incantation then shouted loudly, “You aren’t worthy to carry a feather, you water-boned wimp faces! Go back to your holes, foul fiends!”

Four more Goblins collapsed, clutching their heads from the psychic damage the Vicious Mockery Spell had wrought. Smiling slightly, you continued your flight, knowing you only had enough energy for one more spell before you would be spent and you would need to make it count. Much Further up the mountain there would be cave dwellings that you could seek shelter in. The gnomes that dwelt up here were quite hospitable and known enemies of goblins, who lived much farther down.

Your deep green cloak billowed out behind you as you gathered your skirts and lept up the rock strewn slope. Just as you thought you’d made it, you tripped on a tree root and went down hard, jarring your injury and knocking the air from your lungs. Gasping, you resigned yourself to the worst as the goblins hurried toward you, yelling in glee as they readied their spears to impale you. About two meters away from you, the leader was suddenly felled by a good sized rock that appeared to be hurled out of nowhere.

“Up this way, lass,” a voice hissed to you from above. “You don’t want to be in the way when I finish off these doomed demons.”

Looking up an slightly to the left, you saw a small, round head poking out of an opening in the rock face. It had to be a gnome, you thought and scurried out of the path of the goblins even as another rock hurtled onto the goblins, sending them scattering. You clambered up towards, what was a very narrowly opened stone door and squeezed inside, after which the door shut tightly behind you. Slumping to the ground as your leg gave out, you turned your head to see your host busily loading another rock into what was a very ingeniously placed catapult. A small green creature was rolling more rocks into place as the gnome prepared to fire again. The mechanism released and the rock shot out, hitting more goblins apparently, judging by the excited dance and fist pumping the gnome performed.

“That’s really ingenious,” you said admiringly when the gnome began resetting his machine.

“Thank ye,” he said, grinning all over his round head, covered with a light layer of reddish hair. “I take great pride in my tinkering, especially when it destroys those bloody nuisances. Whatever are they doing out in broad daylight?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “But they’re becoming a danger to the farmers around the village of Enteria. I was just out searching for some healing plants for a friend when they ambushed me.”

You rearranged yourself and winced as your ankle throbbed from the movement. The gnome looked concerned.

“Ye’re hurt, Lass!”

“Took an arrow to the ankle,” you admitted. “It’ll be okay until you have those goblins finished off.”

He nodded and returned to his loading, rolling another rock onto the catapult with help from the creature, who was nothing like you’d seen before. Telepathically, you sent a message to Leonard informing him of your situation and then settled down to observe the gnome some more.

He was a very energetic fellow and judging by the contraptions scattered around, definitely prone to tinkering and inventing. It was a cozy little cave, floor softened with warg skin rugs, the walls lined with various sconces and lamps, shelves filled with jars of spirits, and boxes filled with hammers, chisels, mallets, and saws. Upon the wall near the table were tacked up crude sketches that were clearly plans for new devices and on a special shelf in the far corner, a large set of bagpipes. A closed door in the back you assumed led to his sleeping quarters.

“That’ll teach ‘em!!” crowed the gnome. “They’ll know not to set foot within a hundred yards of Montgomery Scott’s lair or they’ll all get cracked crowns!”

“Did you finish them?” you asked hopefully.

“Aye, I did,” he confirmed. “You’re safe now, lass.”

“Thank you so much, Master Scott” you breathed gratefully, shaking the gnome’s offered hand. It was a bit rough and greasy, but that seemed fitting for his occupation.

“You’re very welcome,” he replied warmly. “And please, Call me Scotty. Let’s see about that hurt leg and then we’ll figure out how to get you home safely.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” you whispered gratefully.

He took a careful look at the arrow in your leg, frowning with concern.

“Should be taken out by the healer,” he muttered. “But if it’s poisoned, we canna wait. Keenser!” he roared, bringing the green creature running. “Fetch me my extracting instruments and the little blue bottle in the medicine chest as well as some bandages. We need to get this nasty thing out of the lass immediately.”

“Have you trained in medicine?” You asked, trying not to tense up too much as Keenser went to fetch the supplies.

“Enough to get by living away up here,” Scotty answered. “You're from Enteria, you say?”

“Yes. I'm a bard in training, but I do odd jobs here and there to pay for my schooling and instruments. Healer McCoy frequently hires me for long errands he doesn't have time to do himself.”

“They'll likely be very worried about ye,” he observed, kneeling beside you and rolling up the sleeves of his bright red tunic.

“I used Sending to let Leonard know where I am. He’ll either send someone or come himself if he can.”

“Very useful ability,” he remarked respectfully. “Now, lass, this is going to hurt a bit.

As he pulled out the arrow, you bit back a scream, hands gripping your balled up cloak with a white-knuckle grip. It hurt horribly, but you were extremely relieved to have it out and let out a gust of breath when you saw the arrowhead out of your body. Scotty immediately rubbed some of the ointment on the wound then wrapped it carefully in bandages.

“I've heard about the Friendly rock gnomes who inhabit this area, but I've never encountered one before. Quite a nice home you have,” you told Scotty sincerely, who smiled sheepishly.

“''Tis nothing,” he demurred. “It's but a hovel compared to my cousin’s abodes. Some dig out elaborate chambers that would put a dwarf to shame. Me, I prefer peace and simplicity to tinker away happily.”

His beady blue eyes took on a far away look as he described his latest ventures in constructing useful devices and how he’d figured out the catapult. He had quite an inquisitive, bright mind that likes to solve problems and figure out how things worked and he had you in fits of laughter over his tales of some of the more hilarious failures.

“Where are my manners? I haven’t even asked ye your name yet!” he exclaimed at length. “Or offered ye any grub! My mum would be ashamed.”

“I’m Y/L/N” you told him. “There’s no need to worry about food. Leonard and my father are almost here.”

Scotty shook his head and opened his larder door. “Twill be a long trek home, though. It’s only right you have some sustenance.”

He pulled out a loaf of bread and some jerky, which suddenly looked very appealing now that you were over the shock and adrenaline of the fight. While you ate, the gnome and his assistant stoked the fire, drew mugs of ale, and pulled up tiny chairs to join you. You were having such a good time, that you almost regretted the sight of your father’s concerned face when he arrived with the healer.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Scotty,” he told your new friend. “I never thought I’d see the day when one can’t even venture into the forest without being accosted.”

“Aye. Keenser and I’ll keep a closer watch out for these beasts. Something must be stirrin’ ‘em up, but I don’t know what it is.”

“The rumors are wild and unsubstantiated as of yet,” your father said. “But now that they have grown so bold, I can’t let you go this way alone.”

Before you could protest he added, “I know you have much improved your combat skills, but twelve against one is not odds I wish you to risk again. If the healer needs more herbs, we will send fighters along with you.”

“Very well,” you agreed reluctantly, secretly not wanting to be surrounded like that again, but determined not to show it.

“Looks like there’s no poison,” muttered Leonard as he examined your wound, muttering a spell to speed the healing process so that you could walk. “Should be right as rain in a few days.”

“Excellent,” your father declared. “Now, my dear, if you are up to it, we should take leave of this good gnome in order to be home before dark. My heartiest thanks once again, sir. I am in your debt for this.”

Helped to your feet by Leonard, you ran to the gnome and surprised him with an embrace, nearly swinging his short legs off the ground.

“You’re the best, Scotty!” you declared. “I hope to come visit you again when I’m not running for my life from goblins.”

“And I you, lassie!” the gnome replied fondly. “Perhaps ye could play a few tunes then? Show off those bardic skills?”

“I’d be happy too. Farewell, Scotty. Farewell, Keenser. Thank you for everything!” You waved as you exited the cave, sad to go, but pleased to find a new friend.

NOTE: Vicious Mockery is a spell used In Dungeons and Dragons.

@kaitymccoy123

@youre-on-a-starship

@yourtropegirl

#scotty x reader #my fics #fantasy AU #dungeons and dragons #star trek #reader insert

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placetobenation · 6 years

Link

April 13th, 1990 from the Tokyo Dome.

A combined WWF, AJPW and NJPW supershow?! Yes indeed. Mostly. Sort of.

For reasons I can’t quite explain, this felt like a festive stocking filler of a show to review, so this my gift to you – it’s better than nothing, eh? Let’s get to it.

First of all, some context courtesy of the Wrestling Observer (by way of Scott Keith’s great Observer Flashbacks):

On 29 November 1989, the revived Universal Wrestling Federation – headed by former New Japan Pro-Wrestling talent Akira Maeda – ran a Tokyo Dome show which broke the records for fastest sell-out and biggest ever gate in Japan. NJPW founder Antonio Inoki was humiliated by this and booked a Tokyo Dome show for the following February which was to feature four reigning world heavyweight champions – Vader/NJPW, Hulk Hogan/WWF, Ric Flair/NWA and Larry Zbyszko/AWA. They weren’t able to book Hogan, however, and the mooted Muta vs. Flair match was cancelled at the last minute, with Flair citing political pressure from Turner Broadcasting System.

Flair’s cancellation, combined with the threat posed by the UWF led to a surprising and unlikely alliance, as New Japan and rivals All Japan Pro Wrestling agreed to trade foreign talent. The deal was facilitated by the man who deposed Inoki as NJPW President, Seiji Sakaguchi, and led to the Tokyo Dome show on 10 February being co-promoted, with the card ultimately featuring the debut of former sumo wrestler Koji Kitao vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, Masa Saito beating Zbyszko for the AWA title and Vader defending his IWGP title in a brutal match against All Japan’s Stan Hansen.

Meanwhile, Vince McMahon had booked a WWF show at the Tokyo Dome for April and a few weeks later (reported 5 February 1990) held a press conference with All Japan owner, Giant Baba, to announce that it would be a joint show with both AJPW and NJPW. It was christened Wrestling Summit soon after.

The advertised card was modified in places, most significantly with regards to NJPW’s matches, two of which took place at the show, but neither of which made it to tape. This was because the show’s television broadcaster, Nippon TV, was home to All Japan and therefore unwilling to promote a rival wrestling company. (Note: there may well be fan-cam recordings of those matches, but I couldn’t find them.) Because of this, the show has since become thought of as joint WWF/AJPW venture only and the two companies have enjoyed a fruitful working relationship ever since. Wait, that’s not right. More on the fallout later.

The opening match (AJPW: Dan Kroffat, Doug Furnas & Joe Malenko defeating Samson Fuyuki, Tatsumi Kitahara & Toshiaki Kawada) wasn’t shown either, so we skip that and match No.2 (NJPW: Jushin Thunder Liger beating Akira Nogami) and go straight to…

Kenta Kobashi & Masanobu Fuchi vs. Jimmy Snuka & Tito Santana

Kobashi, in red trunks and still looked like a teenager, was already drawing a decent reaction from the crowd. He and Santana went back-and-forth for a couple of minutes, with Santana dominating, but Kobashi hit back with a springboard crossbody(!) and made the tag to Fuchi, who unloaded with right hands then scored an enzuigiri to set up Kobashi’s missile dropkick. Fuchi then delivered the same to Snuka, who was tagged moments later. Kobashi earned a two-count with a crossbody out of the corner and followed with one from the top-rope, then Fuchi was in to dump the blown-up Snuka with a backdrop. Tag made to Santana, who ran wild with dropkicks and a leaping forearm, then he scoop slammed Fuchi to tee up Snuka’s Superfly Splash for the three-count. Snuka looked rough here and messed up a couple of things in the brief time he was in the ring, but it was otherwise a fairly decent tag match. I certainly got a kick out of seeing young Kobashi’s flashy offence. **

Bret “The Hitman” Hart vs. Tiger Mask II

Bret Hart vs. Mitsuharu Misawa! This should be amazing (spoiler: it is not). Tiger spent the opening minutes controlling the arm, then dropkicked Hart to the floor and fooled him with a dive fake-out. Hart charged straight into an armdrag before a crucifix earned two and it was back to Tiger controlling on the mat. Hart fought to his feet and reversed Tiger’s crossbody for two-count before cinching in a chinlock, but after a couple of minutes of that a rope-running sequence allowed Tiger to catapult Hart into the turnbuckle and it was back to the arm once more. Hart countered a second crucifix, scored a couple of elbows then applied another chinlock when it threatened to get interesting. Tiger powered up, landed a spin kick and flattened Hart on the outside with a plancha. Back in, Hart reached the ropes from a cross armbar then feigned a knee injury from a leapfrog to take control. Backbreaker from Hart for two, backslide counter by Tiger for two, then Hart threw Tiger to the floor before bringing him back in for a Russian Leg Sweep.

Tiger fought up from of a third chinlock to hit a scoop slam, but Hart delivered a nasty inverted atomic drop and suplex for a two-count. A fourth – fourth! – chinlock was applied, then abdominal stretches were traded before Hart missed the middle-rope diving elbow and Tiger connected with a diving crossbody for a near-fall. Sternum-first turnbuckle whip and just as Tiger hit a running crossbody the bell rang to signal a 20-minute draw. I can’t recall seeing Hart dog it quite so obviously in a singles match. He was the one (very obviously) calling the match, which barely got out of second gear before being put back in a rest hold. A month later Misawa would be unmasked and in June he would beat Jumbo Tsuruta in his first Budokan main event – this was no young boy in the ring with Bret and it’s embarrassing in hindsight that he treated him as such. Bret + Misawa = 4/10 (no, seriously, it’s a two-star match).

Greg “The Hammer” Valentine vs. The Great Kabuki

Valentine’s music was “She’s Got The Look” by Roxette. I have no idea why. Anyway, Valentine – who was cosplaying as the untaped Riki Choshu – started strongly with elbow strikes until Kabuki replied with closed fists, which referee Shane McMahon decided to let go. Double-arm suplex from Valentine for two, then knife edge chops and a sort of rudimentary Jackhammer for another two-count. Kabuki managed to fling himself into the tree-of-woe, from which he was released by Shane O Mac, only for Valentine to stomp low. Kabuki blocked the figure-four, though, and applied a Boston Crab until Valentine reached the ropes. More elbows and a scoop slam from Valentine, followed by a shinbreaker and much mocking of Kabuki’s mannerism, but Kabuki had the last laugh as he small packaged Valentine for the three-count. This was fine and Valentine’s efforts to garner heat were appreciated. *1/2

Big Boss Man vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts

Despite both men being babyfaces at the time, Boss Man worked heel here, catching Roberts early on with a spinebuster then working on the back. This continued in uninspired fashion for several minutes before a chinlock was applied and Roberts tried gamely to get the crowd into it. Nope. Boss Man went to the top-rope after delivering a scoop slam, but the diving belly flop missed and allowed Roberts to make the comeback with punches and the short clothesline. Something went awry with Roberts’ knee lift, but no matter, as the DDT connected moments later to give Jake the win and Damien made a post-match cameo. Boss Man’s offence – which was the body of the match – was awful in every respect. Not good at all. 1/2*

Next up was an IWGP Tag Team title match in which the champions, Masa Saito & Shinya Hashimoto, successfully defended against the challengers, Masahiro Chono & Riki Choshu. Sounds like a good match on paper.

Jumbo Tsuruta & King Haku vs. Mr. Perfect & Rick Martel

Perfect and Martel first dealt with Haku then went after Jumbo, who quickly turned the tide with a jumping knee to Perfect. The commentator loved that one. Haku took control with a nice shoulderbreaker, then a double-team clothesline enabled Jumbo to lock in the abdominal stretch. Martel interfered to break the hold, allowing Perfect to fire back with stomps, punches and the rolling neck snap. A big scoop slam from Jumbo brought in Haku, whose flipping senton missed the mark, bringing in Martel for the first time. A pair of scoop slams and a series of elbows set up the frankensteiner(!) for a near-fall, and after a brief flurry from Perfect, Martel was back in with a slingshot splash, but a second attempted frankensteiner resulted in him being dropped into the turnbuckle. Haku couldn’t make the tag, though, and a double-team slam allowed Martel to lock in the Boston Crab. Now it was Jumbo’s turn to interject, but all it led to was Perfect tagging in for an abdominal stretch of his own. Suplex from Martel and a knee drop for two, then an eye rake and scoop slam, but Haku got his knees up on the diving splash and he finally made the hot tag to Jumbo! Back body drops and scoop slams all round, then he and Haku whipped their opponents together, Jumbo nailed Martel with the jumping knee and the Backdrop Hold got the win! A very basic layout, with Haku imperilled for the majority of the match, but Martel and Perfect’s offence was nice and varied and the hot tag to Jumbo worked a treat. Good match. ***

“Macho King” Randy Savage (w/ Sensational Sherri) vs. Genichiro Tenryu

Nice bird’s eye view of the ring as Savage entered the ring – they should use that again. Savage got a couple of punches in before taking a powder and posing on the turnbuckle, then Tenryu flipped out of a suplex and floored Savage with chops to a big reaction. Sherri’s distraction saw Savage briefly gain control, but Tenryu nailed a clothesline, back body dropped Savage to the floor and followed with a crossbody from the apron! Sherri got involved again, allowing Savage some respite and drawing huge heat, which was amazing to watch. Back in, Tenryu blocked Savage’s charge and scored an enzuigiri, but Savage hit back with a clothesline and punches before pushing the referee to the mat.

Another clothesline got two and one more sent Tenryu to the floor where Savage struck him with the double axe handle from the top-rope. Sherri twice gave Tenryu a smack behind the ref’s back and a second diving axe handle in the ring earned a near-fall, then Savage headed up top and the diving elbow hit the mark! One, two, no! A third axe handle was blocked, but Tenryu couldn’t get the powerbomb and Savage scored a diving crossbody. He seemed to tweak his knee off that, which gave Tenryu the opening for one more enzuigiri and this time the powerbomb connected! One, two, three! This was wrestled at a great pace and, thanks to Sherri, benefitted from plenty of heat. Savage dominated, Tenryu showed fighting spirit and it was certainly a sign of respect that he kicked out of the diving elbow drop. Really good match. ***1/2

WWF World Heavyweight Championship

Ultimate Warrior (c) vs. “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase

Warrior was fresh off beating Hulk Hogan for the title at Wrestlemania VI and had been world champion less than two weeks at this point. This had initially been advertised as an Intercontinental title match.

DiBiase attacked Warrior as he was playing to the crowd, but Warrior quickly brushed him off, sending him to the floor with a clothesline over the top. He proceeded to demonstrate his strength from a few tie-ups, then a criss cross led to a big shoulder block, but DiBiase avoided the attempted flying clothesline and took control. The crowd started chanting something every time he punched Warrior and he got a big reaction for clothesline and two-count. No idea what that was about. Snapmare and a fist drop and another massive reaction for a suplex. What is going on? Piledriver from DiBiase! That got two despite Warrior’s foot being under the rope, then it was time for the champ to make the comeback with a bunch of clotheslines, the flying clothesline and the big splash to retain his title in under 7 minutes. The bizarre crowd reaction made this relatively entertaining, but there wasn’t much to it otherwise. These two would have a far better match on the fourth edition of The Main Event later in 1990. *1/2

Demolition (Ax & Smash) vs. Andre the Giant & Giant Baba

Demolition were the reigning WWF tag champs at the time, having beaten Andre and Haku (aka The Colossal Connection) at Wrestlemania VI, but this is a non-title match because… well, look at the team they’re facing.

Baba began by shoulder blocking Smash and chopping him a few times before tagging in Andre. He was looking rough, bless him, but was mobile enough to stand on Smash before missing an elbow drop. Ax and Smash tagged in-and-out a few times, taking turns at clubbing Andre until he was able to roll over to the corner and bring in Baba once more. Baba trampled Ax, but Demolition quickly took control in their corner, choking him behind the ref’s back. More chops from Baba, and a spinning neckbreaker(!) saw Andre return to manhandle Ax. It all got a bit out of hand, with Baba interjecting and nailing a big boot to Smash, and Andre capitalised with an elbow drop for the (sort of) three-count. Not a good match by any means, but that was to be expected. Still, Demolition flung themselves around and the crowd enjoyed it. *

Special Dream Match

Hulk Hogan vs. Stan Hansen

This was due to be Hogan vs. Terry Gordy (despite Vince McMahon initially pushing for Hogan vs. Dusty Rhodes, according to Dave Meltzer), but that was before Hogan lost the WWF title. Supposedly, neither Baba nor Gordy were pleased with this development and so the match was changed on the day of the show, with Hansen replacing Gordy out of self-interest or selflessness, depending on who you believe.

An even opening exchange saw Hogan demonstrating some technical prowess with double-leg and drop toehold takedowns, then they traded slaps and eye rakes until Hansen threw Hogan to the floor. Hogan fought free and managed to ram Hansen’s head into the ringpost, busting him open! Back suplex in the ring for two, then Hogan targeted the cut with punches and stomps before locking in an abdominal stretch. Knife edge chops in the corner sent Hansen to the floor again, where he was punched over the guardrail and slammed onto a table! Hogan posed in the ring, then brought Hansen back in for a two-count and delivered more chops in the corner. Finally, Hansen was able to block a charge and he bulldozed Hogan with a shoulder block.

Outside, Hansen smashed Hogan in the head with a chair and now Hogan was busted open too! Hansen drew cheers by rolling him back into the ring for a two-count and proceeded to wail on him with punches, then a brief sojourn to the floor saw Hansen use his bull rope, but back in, Hogan nailed a running elbow. The leg drop missed, but Hogan connected with a running crossbody(!) for a near-fall, then pushed Hansen off and nailed the Axe Bomber! One, two, three! What a great match. I’d go as far to say it was one of the best of Hogan’s career. Aggressive brawling, double colour and a clean finish. What more could you want? ****

The usual Hogan schtick to close and we’re out.

The Aftermath

The UWF held what was to be their final show at the Tokyo Dome on 1 December 1990. This came after many months of issues between UWF President, Jin Shinji, and Akira Maeda over the direction of the company, as well as being a consequence of the general economic downturn in Japan. Maeda would go on to form shoot-style promotion Fighting Network RINGS, while a third iteration of the UWF – Union of Wrestling Forces International (UWFi) – would run until the end of 1996, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Only weeks after Wrestling Summit took place, Genichiro Tenryu left All Japan Pro Wrestling. Backed by well-known spectacles makers Megane Super, Tenryu would become the figurehead of a new promotion named Super World of Sports (SWS), who spent big and quickly built an impressive roster.

In October 1990, WWF representatives JJ Dillon and Akio Sato visited Japan and made a deal with SWS for a working agreement (AJPW having been given only a courtesy meeting and NJPW unwilling to meet the WWF’s terms). WWF talent began wrestling semi-regularly for SWS in December of that year and continued to do so until May 1992. A month after that, SWS held its final show in tumultuous circumstances, with talent splitting off into several new promotions. One of these was Tenryu’s WAR, with whom WWF held a joint show in September of that year. Beyond that, WWF ran four house shows across Japan in 1994 and… that was it for a long time. They didn’t return until 2002.

Tenryu’s departure from AJPW led directly to the push of Mitsuharu Misawa, which in turn would lead to the most prosperous time in the company’s history, and despite their absence from the footage, the likes of Hashimoto, Chono and Liger would bring about similar incredible success for NJPW. Coupled with the demise of the UWF and later SWS, this meant neither company was desperate enough to co-promote for the rest of the decade, and they wouldn’t run another joint show until 2011/2012, when they and Pro Wrestling NOAH organised a pair of events in response to the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

Final thoughts: A preposterous one-off event in the middle of an extraordinary time for Japanese professional wrestling – of course it’s a recommendation. Even at its worst, this bizarre spectacle is thoroughly entertaining. Clearly it’s not a high quality show, with the Misawa/Hart match a notable disappointed, but there are couple of very good matches here that would be worth seeing even if isolated from the occasion.

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

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fantasy-football-degenerate · 5 years

Text

Ha-ha Clinton-Dix Dix n Clinton

JGFL Tribune, week 3 fantasy football recap

JGFL Tribune

Surprise surprise, trending in the news again this week, Antonio Brown. Cut by the Patriots after sending threatening text messages to his accusers. He should have spent his off-season working out with Shady McCoy, that way he could learn how to have your boys take care of a situation without legal repercussion. Brown has since decided to re-enroll in college, going back to school at Central Michigan University. Just think, that broadens his horizons, opening the door to a whole new pool of vulnerable women he can take advantage of. God I miss college. Yacko, remember the time you came up to campus and I shot you in the face point blank with a fire extinguisher for cock blocking me with this chick, then they had to evacuate the entire building when it was supposed to be 24-hr quiet hour for finals. But enough of my poor life decisions, the Antonio Brown dumpster fire continues to burn. We haven't seen a PRIMETIME celebrity self-destruct like this since Charlie Sheen. Two and half-men, sounds like 1 1/2 more than Primetime had at the draft. Mike and Mark may be the only ones holding onto hope with AB, but that hope is like an anchor, sinking them to the bottom of the fish bowl.

Primetime tanked week 3, with league low 42 points. Danny gave em Hell and showed them how to do a QB-WR/TE stack with the Wentz-Ertz pairing. Cousins-Diggs? Come on Mike, when you stack turds you're left with a pile of shit, get me a skimmer, bowl needs cleaning.

Speaking of Bowl cleaners, Glen's finally drying out after a rough draft. Give him a break, he was at the party table and he only drinks on special GOLLODAYS. Mittens had a week 3 matchup with tablemates UCF. Chop em out, Damian was JONESing. But there was nothing United about UCF as Damian and Jim were overheard arguing over their lineup decisions. Should've started DESHAUN, it's elementary my dear WATSON. No shit Sherlock, we dropped the ball like AGHORLAR this week, 25 point swing benching those two. But who needs the COTY when you're in first.

Army made poor lineup decisions at every position, but they WOOD MOSTERT up enough points to BATTER the HUBBYS.

Some are calling the PIMPS closet Cowboy fans, but we ain't broke back, we got BILLS. No wins, but MILES ahead of where we were last year.

But the highlight of Week 3 had to wait until Monday night. Chicago, known as the Windy City because of the hot air blowing from politicians, took a trip to the Nation's Capital, where there is no shortage of hot air. Scott was rocking 66 with Hell's BELLS, holding a 13 point lead, FAY-cing only the Bears defense.

Did you know that Watson was named 'Bill' after the Bill of Rights. Rightfully so since he was born the year it was written. In his senility, he quoted the 2nd Amendment stating, the GLADHEATERS would like to exercise their right to Arm Bears. This proved to better then Washington, relying on the arm of Keenum. The Bears defense Trumped their CASE, dropping a 30 pack on them. The Bears skinned their hides. Even Adrian Peterson showed frustration on the sidelines. I know, you were expecting me to make AP-ness joke, but I've matured. Ha-Ha, just kiddin, here it comes. It was the former Redskin Clinton-Dix getting the last laugh. He had 2 picks, taking one to the house. Ha Ha, Clinton Dix. Ha-ha-ha-ha, Clinton taking Dix from the white house. Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix right into Scott's PooPah. Final score Gladheaters 83, Poobah 66. The win and 30 points catapulted the Glads from 11th to 7th.

Great week gentleman. Hope your team takes a Clinton-Dix in week 4, Sucka Mike Ditka, on behalf of the JGFL Tribune, Gilbert's back page, over and out.

#fantasy football #antonio brown #clinton dix

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anderfels · 7 years

Note

Your little gil/Scott fics are great I meant to send other prompts but forgot soooo.... gil/scott, 10, or 23 (could be after meridian maybe????), or 65.

aw bby thank you ;; im cryin /////

why not all 3 let’s do t h i s. [slams fist on table] [recoils because ouch]

10: “i think i’m in love with you, and i’m terrified”

title: revelationpairing: gil/scottsummary: gil isn’t entirely used to this feeling.a/n: once again this one was under the fluff category but????? this is like… half fluff half angst??? flangst © isaiah. also i kind of see this as a continuation of this fic?? (it even opens the same way lol)

+ a version for m!reyder

“you’ve been quiet lately,” scott says as he enters the engineering room. the door closes with a soft woosh behind him. ever since that little confrontation in the galley, they haven’t really talked. he misses the banter, the poker games, and especially the smile that graced gil’s face when he told one of his dumb jokes.

gil taps at something on the screen, his back facing scott. “have i?” he doesn’t turn around.

scott feels like stomping his damn foot (and he almost does. dad always said he was childish sometimes). gil brodie is absolutely infuriating. instead, he sighs as he takes a step forward. “gil, is this about what happened on the flagship?”

“no. i’m over that,” gil answers. he looks over his shoulder at scott. “you really want to know what it is?”

“yes.”

“promise you won’t say anything until i’m done?” he turns back to the screen and exits out of something. two taps later, and it’s off.

“i promise. pathfinder’s honor.” scott lifts his right hand as if he’s making an oath.

gil snorts as he turns around. he crosses his arms and leans his lower body against the console. it’s not the most comfortable position, but it’ll do for now. “you heard what i said back there. i care for you.” he watches scott’s face for any change in emotion, anything that reveals what he’s thinking. “i care for you a lot. the truth is, scott, i think i’m in love with you, and i’m terrified.” scott inhales sharply, and gil isn’t too sure if that’s good or not. he looks down at the immaculately polished floor. “i’m terrified because-” he waves a hand- “because you’re the pathfinder. you go off to god knows where, and sometimes i’m not even sure if you’ll come back. call me selfish, but i just don’t want my heart broken.” he uncrosses his arms, letting them hang at his sides.

“christ, gil,” scott breathes out. gil feels like running away and hiding when he hears that. maybe he shouldn’t have said that. maybe he should’ve just let scott think that it was still about the flagship. but he knows that scott likes him too, and he just thought- “you don’t have to be scared.” scott is getting closer and closer and closer, and calm yourself, brodie. “can i…?” scott hesitantly takes gil’s hands in his. he seems afraid that gil would snatch them away, but he doesn’t, thankfully. “you don’t have to be scared, because i’ll always find my way back to you.”

“god, you’re so cheesy, ryder.” there’s that smile that scott loves so much.

“only for you, brodie. only for you.”

ha gaaaaayyyy. tbh not too sure how i feel abt this one but???

next one let’s go

23: “shh, it was just a bad dream. just a dream, okay? none of it was real.”

title: nightmarepairing: y’all know by nowsummary: scott has a bad dream, but luckily gil is there to help him.a/n: i’m always a sl*t for some hurt scott. :))))))

scott all but catapults himself upright, sweating dripping down the side of his face as he breathes heavily. ever since meridian, he’s been having these terrible, terrible dreams full of what-ifs. what if the archon had succeeded and eos was destroyed? he can see prodromos in flames as august berates him for not stopping the kett. what if, god forbid, sara didn’t come out? then he’d be well and truly alone. what if? what if? what if- “scott!” he’s snapped out of his reverie by gil’s concerned voice. “scott, sweetheart, are you alright?” he turns and blinks owlishly at gil, who is sitting up right next to him.

“sorry, i… did i wake you up?” he asks.

gil puts a hand on scott’s shoulder, and he allows it. “whether you woke me up or not doesn’t matter. what happened?”

“i saw- prodromos, on fire- the archon- sara-” it all comes out at once. even he’s not quite sure what he’s saying. shit, shit, he can feel the tears welling up in his eyes. part of him is angry. angry at himself for being so easily affected, and angry at those goddamn dreams.

gil pulls him in close as he lets out a choked sob. “shh, it was just a bad dream,” gil says as he runs his fingers through scott’s hair, “just a dream, okay? none of it was real. we’re still here, sara is still here, and i know for a fact that prodromos is not on fire.”

they stay like that for a while, scott burying his face in gil’s shoulder. if gil notices how his shirt gets steadily wetter, he says nothing, and scott is grateful for that. gil’s hand eventually strays from scott’s hair to his back, rubbing it comfortingly. he hears gil hum a little rhythm, and he clutches at gil’s shirt even tighter.

“feeling better?” gil asks when scott’s sobs die down. scott nods. “wanna go back to sleep? i’ll stay up with you if you don’t want to.”

scott pulls away from gil’s shoulder. his eyes are red and puffy, and gil feels his heart twist. ”can we stay up just a little while longer?” he croaks out.

“‘course. i can put something on, if you want. i think liam just got his hands on that elcor remake of star wars. they archive anything and everything, apparently.”

“an elcor remake? of star wars?” scott repeats with a disbelieving smile on his face. “…put it on.”

give me an elcor remake of star wars you COWARDS

neeeexxttt one

65: “are you happy now? huh? does this make you happy?!”

title: two-timerpairing: gil/scott, side reyes/scottsummary: scott gets himself into some deep, deep shit.a/n: i found it kind of weird that gil never confronts you if you’re in a relationship with reyes and you start one with him. soooooo…… scott dun goofed. messed around with the tone and wording of it as well. you’ll see :3c

gil feels like he’s about to throw up. he braces himself on the table and he stares down at it. god, how could he be so foolish? how could he expect the pathfinder, a man who can get anything or anyone he wanted, to settle for him? he wishes cora didn’t tell him.

his hands shake as he sends a text message to scott asking if he can talk to him in private. he doesn’t trust himself enough to send a voice message and keep his voice under control. steady breaths, in and out, brodie. just talk to him. a ding alerts him to scott’s reply.

…

his heart races as he stands outside of scott’s room. a deep breath, and he announces his arrival through the door. it opens, and he sees a smiling scott greet him. “what’s this about gil?” scott asks, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. or maybe he does. but it’s not gil.

“reyes,” gil says, deadpan as he takes a few steps into the room. he sees the way scott’s eyes widen, the smile disappearing entirely from his face. like a deer caught in the headlights, gil thinks. “i know.”

“who… who told you?” scott plays with the hem of his shirt. he’s uncomfortable. good. he should be.

“you don’t need to know.” gil crosses his arms, and he’s determined not to show any emotion. scott doesn’t need to know how badly this affected him. “but i want to know something. was what you said a lie? all that shit about wanting to be safe? i told you, scott. i told you i wanted trust. and this- this is how you- is this what you think trust is?” through some sort of divine miracle, he manages to keep his voice mostly level.

the tension in the room is so thick, you can cut it with a knife. scott stays glued in his spot, not daring to even sneak a look at gil’s face. “…did you pity me, scott?” gil adds on. the bob of scott’s adam’s apple as he gulps tells him all he needs to know.

“i’m sorry, gil.” that’s all that scott can say. gil wants so badly to believe that it’s genuine.

a few more moments of silence. “are you happy?” he asks, just loud enough for scott to barely hear. “huh? does he make you happy?”

“yes.”

that word is the final knife in gil’s heart. he nods once, then nods again, multiple times. “that’s- that’s all i wanted to hear. have a nice life, ryder.” he turns on his heel and leaves the room.

scott doesn’t try to stop him.

i love writing angst it is my LIFE FORCE….

#my... writing?#thank u for sending all of these in i had fun!!!#please dont be afraid to send in multiple prompts they make me happy bc #1) that means at least someone like my writing lmaoo 2) i like writing and 3) i like making ppl happy #tevinternet

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nothisis-ridiculous · 7 years

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Proxy Cosmos

(An alternate reality where Alec Ryder lived, and both twins were awake during the events of Andromeda.)

Chapter Three:

For what must have been the billionth time, El considered picking up the perfectly placed clump of dirt and chucking it at Scott. At least starting a fight with him would give Elsee a target her father would not eliminate just as she had aimed. Plus it would give her something to do even for a short while, as the second abandoned site proved to be of little entertainment value. Even as a fiend tore through the base, her father was hardly phased taking the monster down with a speed that was almost irritating. Worse than that, her father threw it a compliment on her skill of using incinerate on the plated beast. Elsee honestly felt it made little difference; the compliment twisted through her mind and gut uncomfortably. Scott’s finger made contact with her elbow, drawing her out of that loop. Alec hacked violently against the side of the Nomad, splatters of blood coloring the orange-yellow ground with red. Call her a horrible daughter, but she debated on calling him out on it. Lexi (after finding her halfway through the atrium) had lamented that the Ryders were all being stubborn, and something about rounding them up was like herding chickens. Alec, to her knowledge, had yet to see the doctor after habitat seven. Elsee had died, so how was her father still standing? Maybe he hadn’t breathed in as much of the toxic air, but it was obviously affecting him. Mentioning it would start a fight. Add masochism to her list of ever growing kinks. “That’s not healthy.” “What?” Alec reeled as the Nomad spun into forward.

El was a master of this sort of timing. With the Nomad in motion, and just comfortably out of the safe zones, her father was trapped into having this conversation. Scott gave her the death glare but decided to wait on arguing with her methods just yet. He was curious as to what she had to say but knew that it wasn’t going to be a fun conversation. Especially not stuck in the Nomad between the two hot heads. Please kill him already. Or at least a coma would be nice. “Coughing blood,” Elsee chirped lightly, “it’s the tropiest sign that something is horribly wrong.”

“Are you showing concern about your old man again?” Alec tried to turn it against Elsee. “Or about the driver catapulting us to our deaths because he can’t control the vehicle and his cough at the same time,” Elsee drew in a deep breath, “sir.” Alec tapped against the wheel, his eyes suddenly focusing on the terrain before them. “Dad?” Scott urged. “On a mission, it is ‘sir’ to you!” He didn’t mean a word he said, anger was just easier than admitting a problem, his only apology the softening of his voice, “the mission comes first.” “Before or after the Pathfinder dies in the field?” she wasn’t so easily pushed from the fight, “you need to get it checked out before it becomes a real problem. What happens when you give out in a firefight?” “I have you tw-” “No, no you don’t. We are hardly reliable as soldiers compared to your expertise. Besides, even if we make it through that battle what is the Nexus going to do without the only person who knows what the fuck they are doing?” “They’ve survived this long with Tann running the show,” only Scott chuckled, Elsee wasn’t in on the joke, “relax, I’m not going anywhere.” ====== She playfully shoved her brother aside, his retaliation a hip bump. “Even if I have bad aim at least I don’t make this constipated face everytime an enemy doesn’t go down.” “I do not look constipated,” he argued. Her lips turned downward, and her bottom lip puffed out, furrowing her brow artfully to attain perfect replication of his previous expression, “all I need to do now is constantly flex my fingers, but you know a gun makes that difficult.” “Is this another because you are older than me joke? Or do I need to repeat myself a little louder?” Scott murmured, ignoring the immature tongue poked in his direction. “Oh, let me rephrase that in a way you can understand,” one sibling (Elsee) leaped at the other, attempting to wrangle his head so that she could give him the noogie of a lifetime. “Enough!” Their fun never did seem to last long, as Father’s voice boomed from the doorway. The twins both straightened up in record time. Backs straight and arms folded behind them as nothing had happened. “Scott, good work. Just work on where you hit the enemies, find a weak spot and they won’t take more than one shot to down,” his finger pointed at his daughter, “you must take this more seriously. I didn’t teach you to miss targets.” “Take. This. Seriously?” Elsee balked. “Because you need to be shot at in person to take combat seriously?” Alec returned. “Oh, no. I get it. Get shot, pow dead,” Alec’s forced expression was losing foothold with each word, “but putting Dalek’s in the simulation? I didn’t think you had a sense of humor; I dared to hope but…” “Daleks?” “You know,” Elsee straightened both arms, waving them up and down opposite of each other, “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!” Scott tried his hardest to hide his chuckle, but he knew his father caught it. Elsee held a good poker face and didn’t relent under Alec’s harshening scrutiny. “Hey, Scott, did you see that one ramming against the bottom step? That was classic, their greatest enemy is not the Doctor- but the stairs,” she was misreading the situation, or most obviously ignoring it, “that would be a great episode.” “Right after the battle of the slight incline,” announced the voice with a British accent over the intercom. Of course, her response was to enact it with the appropriate noises, “Rrrrrrttt~ Rrrrrrrrrt, rrrrrrrrtttt~.” Alec’s face went from exasperation to complete rage, shortly. He turned toward the black window overlooking the arena, “to the idiot with the enlightening commentary, you will be lucky to leave here with pay, and you,” he whirled, finger dangerously in Elsee’s face, “you must take this more seriously! The Initiative doesn’t need a deadbeat who can’t take her job seriously!” “Why would I? Before today I wasn’t even sure this was for real. I only showed up because I was worried you got Scott sucked into something,” she scoffed, an eyebrow held high, she was breaking, “ now that I see that this deluded fantasy is happening, I’m not sure I want to be here.” “You would break up the family?” “Elsee, Dad,” Scott’s plea fell on deaf ears. “This?” her arms motioned to the male Ryders, “this a family? Just to name the most recent family trauma: you left me to deal with Mom’s funeral by myself. Awkward speeches, and terrible excuses for why you both weren’t there… that was fun.” “So you’d risk never seeing us again to a grudge?” Alec’s words playing with a fire he couldn’t handle, he wouldn’t have behaved any differently than his daughter under the same circumstances. “A grudge? A grudge? Seriously?!” By now she had already pivoted herself away from both of them, staring down the door that reached within a very reasonable distance. She dearly loved them both, but moving to another galaxy with a family that she barely felt comfortable around? That was a long stretch. Scott would be the greatest loss of the two, but just following them seemed like suicide. For a galaxy, they might never arrive at? And at best one that had undergone six hundred and some years of change before they arrived. It was insane, stupid, tempting. Her father’s silence was hardly surprising, “Here, let me do something you will understand.” Elsee marched out of the room. ====== “Hey, look, the source of that mysterious signal,” Alec taunted with sudden enthusiasm. She decided to be silent, and Scott could finally breathe comfortably again. The fighting would stop for a few precious minutes. Now would be an excellent time to simultaneously beg and thank some deity. If he had one, oh well. Being the quietest Ryder was difficult. Elsee hung behind the group, moping in her own way by being completely useless. Well, useless as she could be, already her wheels were turning, her head craned at the device atop one of the spires. He followed her path, noting that two devices scanned something atop the small towers. Alec went to the more obvious console at the center of the ruin, SAM interfacing with the device to discover its secrets. “Building connection. I apologize for any discomfort. The systems seems unstable.” SAM commenting on the strange tech. “Is this what happened when we tried doing this on Habitat Seven?” Alec asked of the AI. Elsee began climbing the tower, at the corner of Scott’s perception. “Your daughter interfaced directly with the atmosphere processor. That proved extremely hazardous.” At least the AI seemed to have a handle on speaking sense in Alec, “These structures could reveal its control sensor. System remains unstable. Doubling our power input might accelerate the process.” “I’ll give it a shot,” placing his hand over the console. “Wait!” called a blue and purple blur. The blur rushed into the senior Ryder, pushing him into the ground. The thud of his head unpleasantly accompanying the clash of armor plating. The coy look the Asari must have usually worn turned to horror as the man beneath her sputtered, a trickle of blood leaking from the side of his mouth. His cough violently resurfacing at the sudden fall to the ground. SAM within moments warned of unusual vitals coming from the Pathfinder. Elsee interrupted from her scanning was already calling the Tempest to pick up her father. Scott pushed the Asari aside, swooping in to pick Alec up from his back. The Asari scattered backward on her hands and feet, “Don’t rush the glyphs, bad things happen. Also remnant, they shoot people.” Neither of them felt the need to chase after the Asari who scurried away. “No, Scott, I’m fine,” Alec huffed, coughing up an entire glob of blood, “it just caught me off guard.” “No, you aren’t Dad!” “Scott,” the name unrecognizable in the hacking and heaving mess Alec was making on the cool blue ground. “ETA, three minutes,” Elsee called from her perch. Her scanner returning to the spot the machines scanned. With nothing more to do than wait, Scott supported Alec’s weight not allowing him to hold his own footing. The man couldn’t find the strength to fight him off, resigned to the task of keeping dignity in whatever small way he could. For now, that was not peppering his son with blood. With was the second time Elsee’s jetpack ignited that Scott paid any attention to her, watching as she curiously regarded the console. “With Elsee’s scanned glyphs, I was able to stabilize the system. I’m establishing a connection,” SAM drolled as the tallest towers connected with a beam of blue energy. Alec looked in her general direction, sporting a look that held pride in his daughter. But she was too busy looking over Scott’s shoulder to notice it. “Shit!” Elsee’s gun fired over his shoulder, taking down a strange bot that clunked loudly behind him. The sound of several other machines whirred to life behind him. Scott forced himself and Alec behind the console, pulling out his gun to assist Elsee. After a few fired shots, his usefulness in helping had been overturned The shuttle from the Tempest arriving with covering fire from Cora and Liam. The few enemies left went down quickly. Cora’s first goal was to support the curmudgeonly old man who still tried to insist he did not need help. Liam more preoccupied with checking on the robots with Elsee at his side. Elsee pretended to not sneak a look in her father’s direction, but Alec did not fail to catch her attention in a moment of clarity. “Keep going, daughter,” Alec started coughing again, “you’ve got this figured out. I’ll be back in no time.”

#rydam #alec ryder #ryder twins #mass effect andromeda #au #fanficiton #procos

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your-highnessmarvel · 7 years

Text

Burn - chapter nine

Chapter nine: Rebarbative

The mat resounded with the sound of a body being harshly thrown to the ground. She never knew how hard she could catapult someone until she had successfully thrown Sam over her shoulder.

"Damn girl," he whined. He had sweat glistening on his forehead, sliding down his temples. His face was contorted in many different variations of pain as he begrudgingly climbed back onto his feet, breathless and tired.

Addie herself was not on her best appearance. Her curly dark hair was sloppily hanging in a ponytail on the right side of her head and she had flyaway hairs stuck to her cheeks and forehead. Sweat had managed to get in every single fold and crevice of her body, and her t-shirt was sticking to her body like glue.

"Again," she ordered, her voice wavering somewhere between breathlessness and determination. She locked eyes with Sam, her hands in fists in front of her face, standing slightly turned and shoulder width apart.

"We've been at this for hours now," Sam breathed. "Let's take a break."

"You're a pussy, come on!" she exclaimed, stepping in for a punch. She got him in the ribs, her knuckles ringing against bone. He winced but tapped her hand away, obviously tired. There was no trace of humor on her face, no glint of wit in her hazel eyes. Her jaw was clenched, teeth gritting against each other. "Hit me," she growled.

Sam shook his head, taking small steps back, his breath wheezing out of his lungs. "Let's just take a water break, birdie," he suggested, his voice low and tentative.

Addie looked around in feigned astonishment. The gym was remotely empty for a Saturday morning; not one of the other Avengers was training either on the mats, the treadmills, or the punching bags. It was a little passed ten in the morning, which was a rare time for the gym to be empty.

"I'm going to kick your ass, Wilson," she growled, her jaw twitching with anger. She charged for him, but instead of throwing a punch back or counterattacking, he simply stepped out of the way.

Sam shrugged apathetically. Addie had thrown herself into training like a mad dog ever since the epic failure at the industrial plant two weeks ago. She had transformed into something terrible, obsessed with perfection and achievement. There was never a day where she didn't spend five to six hours in the gym, training in various dangerous techniques and pushing her body to the limit. She took on anyone who was willing to accept a challenge. She was, however, not humorous in the way she trained, often purposefully hurting her partner and being outright rude; inciting a fight. Wanda and Scott had been the firsts to give up on Addie's savage and outrageous obsession with training. Clint had offered to coach her in computers, which he assured was a way for the girl to relax and let off steam some other way. Steve and Sam, however, were powerless in refusing to fight with her.

"You need to relax," Sam said, brows crawling up his sweaty forehead.

"You need to shut the hell up and fight with me," the brunette growled back, her teeth bared like a wolf.

Sam shook his head, hands on his hips. She had been driving him crazy, acting as if there was nothing of more importance than fighting. She talked of nothing but that, insisted they do nothing but quarrel. She was utterly obsessed with training. Even in the early hours of morning, Sam would find her in the gym on a treadmill, at the punching bags, or outside with Bucky shooting guns.

"Take it easy, Addison," Sam whispered.

"I'm not going to take it easy, Sam!" she barked, her easy glistening with acrimony. "I need to get better!"

Sam rolled his eyes with a low growl rising in his chest. "You are getting better!" he answered. "Stop throwing yourself into training and putting everyone around you at arms length."

Addie huffed, waving him away like there was a fly in her face. She reached for the strings on the side of the fighting rink and slid between them, officially calling the training session to an end.

"You know!" Sam called after her as she stomped away, her messy ponytail swinging behind her head. "Everyone here thinks I'm right! You don't have to prove to us you're better and-"

She cut him off by slamming the heavy metal gym door shut, the sound reverberating on the walls of the bathroom she now found herself in. She leaned her back against the door, her head knocking against the metal. Her chest heaved as she breathed in heavily, her eyes closed, jaw clenched.

Steve kept telling her that she hadn't failed, but that she had learned. Bullshit. There was nothing to learn from bruised ribs, swollen lips, and cuts all over her face. Instead, she bore the scars of her failure, which reminded her everyday that in that moment, she had been so full of herself, so sure of victory that it had almost ended in her death. She had healed significantly fast; her scars had stayed an angry red for no more than three days, and by the end of the first week, they were pastel pink and almost melded with her skin. Except for a particularly red gash over her brow that would forever stay imprinted in her flesh.

She knew all this fast healing and strength was from the serum Wanda told her about. She had asked Clint and Steve to tell her more, revealing she had in fact been injected. She finally read her own file. There was something haunting in the photo that HYDRA had of her, a picture she had never seen before. Steve said they had probably snapped the picture when Addie was with HYDRA. There were lists upon lists of experiments directed on her of which she had no memory of. Pages and pages of notes and feedback about her progress was what made the file so thick.

Subject x98 has successfully passed experiment 1738.

Subject x98 has failed experiment Z70. Must be wiped. Return to the oven.

"What's the oven?" she had asked, her brows furrowed in confusion.

"I think that's where they would wipe your memory and reprogram you with whatever they wanted you to learn," Steve had mumbled back, leaning over in his chair so his saddened blue eyes could look into hers.

Subject x98 has commenced experiment Y00. Serum injected. Gene isolated.

She had almost thrown the file at arms length. There notes in the margins about how "well" she had performed on several cognitive evaluations and physical tests. She hated those people; people that had torn her life apart.

"Don't let this play with your mind, birdie," Steve had whispered, his delicate hand reaching for hers.

Addie decided now was a good time for a scorching hot shower. She ignored the past that was knocking at her door, instead opting for a lavender smelling body wash and shampoo. Even though she had spent the last two weeks sobbing under the hot jet of water, now she was just standing there, her eyes fixed on the marble grey walls. Bubbles glistened down the length of her body, hiding the various array of bruises that marked her skin like a map. Her dark wet hair clung to her neck. The hot water relaxed her tensed muscles, making her skin the color of pale blood.

She scrubbed along her glittering skin, the soap sending a nice smelling aura around her. Steam rose off her skin like smoke as she took the time to massage her scalp and exfoliate her skin. Then she reached over the semi-transparent door and gripped for the woolen towel, wrapping it around her humid body. She turned the water off, stepping out of the shower into the frigid air of the bathroom.

Her heart almost wrenched out of her chest when she spotted the lonely figure lingering by the entry of the bathroom, the one that led from the gym. She gripped the towel over her chest, a yelp escaping her mouth.

"What the fuck, Bucky!" she yelled, almost slipping on the humid floor. Her cheeks flushed with red so crimson she could compete with tomatoes.

He stood there, startled as if he was a child being caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His mouth was parted in surprise, his enigmatic blue eyes wide open, cheeks tinged with red. He had an especially hard time keeping his eyes on her face as he shuffled from one foot to the other, his fingers fidgeting in angst.

"What are you doing in here!?" she shouted again, her chest heaving, her mind going all over the place; in places it shouldn't go.

He was wearing a white tank top and grey sweatpants, and by the way his tanned skin was glowing with sweat, she could tell he had been outside. He often shot guns in the morning and if Addie didn't ask for training, he'd work on the land with Steve and Clint.

"Answer me, God dammit!" she shouted again, startling him even more. "Why are you in here gawking like a seventeen year old boy!?" It was the first time she had seen him at a lost for words, his eyes wide with fear and embarrassment.

"Jesus, relax," he mumbled and he finally took those daring blue eyes off of her. She let out a breath, feeling like his eyes had poked holes in the shield she kept up. His presence was making her skin prickle with something unknown and her stomach was pooling with a warmth that sent tingles to her toes. She hated him so much she felt it in her body.

"Get out, oh my God," she growled, shuffling on her feet, the water sloshing around her toes.

"No," he mumbled back, his eyes going anywhere but there. "I need a shower too."

He took his bottom lip between his teeth and Addie felt like frying him right then and there with her electricity. Her body was reacting in ways she refused to acknowledge, which made her anger peak. The lights overhead flickered, drawing Bucky's attention.

"I'm going to go shower now," he said, gesturing to the other stalls, clearing his throat as he moved carefully. He passed dangerously close to her, making her skin react with pigments of red.

"Yeah, you do that," she said, her voice timid, a shiver slicing down her spine like liquid fire. She watched him carefully as he moved, his arms coated in a sheen layer of sweat, his face adorning a week long stubble, and his hair messy and tangled. She wanted to look away, really, she did, but he was like a magnet to her metal and the more she watched him the more that warm feeling in her tummy intensified. His metal arm reflected the glinting light, the plates calibrating and moving. He reached into a stall with his metal limb, opening the water in a graceful gesture. When he turned back, his eyes found hers in a beat, making her look away quickly.

She headed for the locker where she left her clothes, but before she could get there, Bucky called her name. She turned on her heel, her cheeks burning, her lips pinched together.

"You called me Bucky," he said, and a ghost of a smirk stretched his lips, but she had no time to fully admire it as she stomped right out of the bathroom.

The next evening, she was sitting with the whole gang, their heads bent over spaghetti that Steve and Clint so professionally cooked. They were enjoying pleasant chatter, but the girl was trying her best to avoid any eye contact with Bucky. She still had the image of him, staring wide-eyed, cheeks flushed, looking as surprised as ever.

"We should get a toaster oven," Scott commented, his fork chubby with spaghetti.

"That's the best idea I've heard today," Wanda answered, her mouth full, red sauce on the corners of her mouth. She was nodding vehemently, her big blue eyes glistening with content. It was nights like these, spent sitting around the table with food stuffed in their mouths, that they all felt as normal as they could ever be.

"Losers, we already have a toaster," Sam added, his own fork pointed upwards.

"We could do so much more with a toaster oven, Sammy," Addie said with a smirk.

"What we really need," Sam interjected, taking his sweat time to swallow his food, "is a new fridge."

"Don't start with that," Steve grumbled.

"I mean, we are seven here and that fridge does not store enough food for all of us," Sam continued, talking as if he was on a Judge Judy episode. "And it squeaks on its hinges." The table erupted in subtle laughter. "I don't know what kind of old appliances Tony gave us, but they squeaky."

Addie smiled and rolled her eyes, but when she looked at Steve, he was looking at his plate with a serious look on his face. "Speaking of Tony," he said solemnly.

"Shit," Wanda mumbled, her eyes turning from bright to somber blue. There was never a long moment of normality. Their lives were plagued with tiny moments like these, which were always interrupted by the real matters lingering not far out of reach.

"He said he went to investigate the plant we were at a couple weeks ago," he started, wringing his hands nervously, risking a look at Addie. "He didn't find anything. Not a trace of life. Whoever had been there picked up their dead bodies and sauntered out of there."

"They must have left something behind," Scott said, his brows furrowing.

"They did actually," Steve answered. "They left a half burnt map. They hung it over something and put tacks in them. Tony found holes on the map and he thinks that indicates more bases. He also thinks we should do some investigation of our own."

"You seem to agree a lot with what Tony thinks," Sam grumbled under his breath.

"I do, yes," Cap answered rather brusquely. Addie risked a look at where Bucky was silently eating, wearing a black woolen shirt. His eyes were concentrated on his meal, but his hands were gripping his utensils. "We have no idea what Loki wants with HYDRA. We are the ones in the dark and unless we find out something, we'll get blindsided."

"We need to know what he wants with Addie," Clint added lowly, his timid eyes locking with Addie's. She knew he had been in Montreal, so it was no surprise to her when her name came up along with the alleged alien tyrant.

"It's like a fucking scattered puzzle," Addie grumbled, massaging her temples.

"Yes, and when we make a connection," Steve said, "it'll be easier for us."

"So what's the plan?" she asked. Everyone looked at her surprisingly, their eyes speaking more than their mouths. She felt the blood rise to her cheeks, her mouth twisting as she realized what they all must be thinking. "I'm not going to hide here because I got a few cuts and bruises last time."

"Correction," Wanda said, her pointer finger up, "you almost died."

"That's besides the point," she mumbled back, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm alive now. And I got better."

"Yeah by being a bitch," Sam grumbled, still not over how easy Addie had thrown him over her shoulder yesterday.

"So," Steve said before things could get out of hand, "we will be going to California soon, probably Friday."

"There's underground tunnels that Tony said were in construction, but the city has barely any legal records of it," Clint added. "Something's fishy."

"Alright, let's get a hard on for jungle fever!" Scott laughed.

They ended dinner on quite the humorous note and proceeded to dishes as always. It's crazy how normal, stupid daily things could get these somewhat abnormal beings to collaborate intricately. They had this thing going; a routine, whether it be dishes or not. Even Addie, as she stepped away from the group to observe them, she could see how everything about them was routine, inbred in their friendship. They knew each other on levels unimaginable; they had delved in each others' pasts and there was not a trace of maliciousness between them. They were incredible human beings, normal and abnormal, huge and small, crazy and silent. They threw water at each other and shoved one another, but they all knew how dangerous life could be, and that is what made them all enjoy small moments like those.

She was startled when she saw a shadow on the wall from where she was silently observing her friends. She turned to face a freshly shaved Bucky, his face smooth. He gave her a sideways smirk, his eyes tired from the harsh day.

"You don't have to come with us to California, you know," he said casually, leaning his shoulder on the wall. She turned her back to him, effectively hiding how red her face became. She still thought about their encounter in the bathroom yesterday and she hated how much she reacted to something so girly and trivial.

"Shut up," she mumbled. Her hair curled around her face and fell down her back in a cascade of midnight waves. Bucky leaned in slightly, his eye catching the glistening of her hair in the warm glow of the kitchen.

"You don't have to prove anything to us," he continued, his voice quiet.

"And you don't have to talk to me," she answered. "You told me to stay away from you in the plane. You keep your distances. You're cold and conceded, so you can eat shit for all I care." Her choice of words left him a bit wary of her mental state. She kept her eyes glued to her friends but she didn't see them. Her mind was preoccupied with the man who was too close to her.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," he mumbled. She felt his breath on her hair and a shiver passed through her body. Bucky could see the goosebumps on her neck. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Whatever, James," she sighed, turning to face him, realizing how close he was. "I'm over it." She made to walk passed him, but he effortlessly stepped in front of her, blocking her with his body. She looked up from under her lashes, her jaw clenched, eyes alight with anger.

It ticked her off just how close he was. He stood over her, his chin almost touching the top of her hair and it made her skin crawl. She could feel the very visible blue rivers of energy glittering under her pale flesh. His eyes clicked to her neck, where he could clearly see how affected she was. He saw her pulse, straining against her skin. He saw the light blue under her veins and he rose a brow, a sly smirk playing on his lips. "Nervous?"

"Shut the hell up," she said through clenched teeth. Her heart was subtly gaining rhythm, throbbing in her throat and in her ears. The hairs on her arms and at the back of her neck rose.

"Come on, Addie," he whispered, his eyes checking over her head if their friends had seen anything. "I'm not saying I don't want you to come with us. I'm saying you don't have to throw yourself in the fight right now." He reached out and seemed to think twice about it, his eyes shyly searching her own.

"I'm going to go whether you want to or not," she growled back. "And I'm not doing it to prove anything to you or Wanda or Steve or anyone." She dug her nails into her palms, knowing her skin would be marked with crimson.

"You're not as strong as you try to let everyone know," he spat, his face morphing into disgust. "I've never seen someone as falsely confident as you. You're going to get yourself killed and drag us all down with you."

"What is wrong with you?" she barked back, her face coming closer to his own, her eyes boring into the rich velvet blue of his. "Seriously. You need to get a grip of how you feel. You always give me two sides to the mask, and frankly, I'm fucking tired of it."

He sighed through his nose, his eyes glazing over in apathy. "I'm just trying to make you see that you saunter around here like your fists are stronger than your electricity."

"What are you trying to say?" she asked, her mouth twisting into something between angry and curious.

"Maybe," he started, and he leaned in like he had the biggest secret to tell her, "you should concentrate more on your electricity than your physical training." His mouth grazed the shell of her ear, his hot breath warming her skin. The feeling of liquid fire returned to her stomach and she gulped.

She felt like her emotions had been thrown in the blender. "This conversation isn't going anywhere," she said blandly as he leaned away, his head tilting slightly. "You make me want to puke."

"Lovely."

"That doesn't mean I won't go to California, James," she sighed. "I'll be there to bug the shit out of you."

He shrugged with a nonchalant smile on his lips and walked by her, leaving her to stare down the hallway, her heart raging against her breastbone.

Thursday morning, she sat with Wanda in the grass, their long brown hair gently swaying in the wind. Their eyes stared down the little valley while the warm rising sun patted their glowing skin. They had picked a warm morning to attempt training; the air was leading to believe that the day would be humid and heavy, while the sun promised a very hot afternoon and an even hotter night.

"So how do you want to start?" Wanda asked, her mouth twisted in a humorous smile.

"I don't know, maybe we should touch fingers," Addie responded sarcastically. Wanda laughed, hitting her friend in the shoulder.

"Yeah, then we can mold into each other to create one big and great super hero," she laughed.

"That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard," Addie grumbled, but nonetheless, she had a smile on her lips.

"Oh my God," Wanda sighed. "Okay. Tell me what you want to practice with your... your power."

Addie shrugged, looking out towards the sky again. She had never really used her electricity on a grand scale. She had used it for the minimal and small cases, like turning on or off appliances or taping into a cellphone conversation. She hadn't ever had the need to really use it for something drastic, until Florida, when she had fried that guy.

"I have no idea, Wanda," she admitted. "I haven't had to use it to end the world yet."

"I love how you had to say yet," the other girl giggled. "But I know what we'll do first."

"Don't make me kill someone," Addie grumbled as both the girls got on their feet, patting themselves down.

"Listen," Wanda started, her eyes squinting against the hot rays, "when I first started mingling with my power, I was terribly scared of it. I was scared that once I let it out, let it all out, I would lose control. I would generate something unstoppable."

Addie nodded, wiping a loose strand of dark hair away from her eyes. "But once you did, you figured out it was like playing with Play-Doh."

Wanda's lips stretched into a wide smile, teeth and all. "Not exactly, but yes, you get the point."

Addie shook her head like there were a million flies buzzing around it. There was no way in hell that she would let all that energy out of her. There was a chance that she could control it, but there were more chances that she would wipe the entire continent.

Wanda reached out, a delicate hand resting on the other girl's elbow, seeing the chaos in the hazel brown of her eyes. "Maybe we could try just a little, right?" she said calmly.

Addie shrugged. "I can show you something," she answered. The other girl nodded, lips stretched into a sympathetic smile.

Addie lifted her left hand up before her, brown eyes concentrated on her palm. There was a slight tingle in the air, like static crackling among the atoms, as the girl focused her energy like she had practiced many times before. Slowly, and carefully, the palm of her hand lit up, glowing faintly. The blue light reflected in her pupils as the energy grew. She was creating a small, refined ball of electrical impulses, buzzing and sizzling in her palm. She strained against the whispers and the calls of everything electrical. Her senses were raw as she felt and heard all the murmurs, patting against her ears, begging silently.

"I think I know what you can hear," Wanda whispered, and when Addie flicked her eyes up, she saw the girl wide-eyed with surprise. "I can... I can hear it." Her face contorted in a frown, eyes alight with curiosity.

Addie was beginning to feel the usual familiar ease of her energy, her brain not as cloudy, her senses raw but aware. When she looked around, she could see things she could not usually see. Feel things that were usually fiction.

"Addie, I can feel it," Wanda whispered again, taking a tentative step forward. She raised her right hand, crimson ribbons of magic spiraling between her fingers. Addie's eyes widened, her heart racing violently in her chest. "I can mold it, like my own."

Addie played with it, stretching it in and out, the electrical impulses spanning over her arms and fingers, then focusing back into her palm. It was a real marvel to look at. She cupped her two hands together, holding her little ball inside her two hands.

She saw the string of red before she could react, her own electricity becoming victim to the magic of Wanda. Slowly, the crimson mixed with the electric blue, turning the glow into a purple magenta color. The violet burnt bright, cold blue at the center and rich red around the rim of the ball.

"Wanda, what is this?" she asked, her brown orbs wide as she stared between Wanda and the ball of condensed magic and electricity in her palm. "What have we done?"

Wanda smiled; a smile that meant more than anything. They were like a puzzle, once broken and now put together. What had been so brutally given to them through force and blood resulted in their kinship. They were a force to be reckoned with now, and nothing could stand in their way.

Now here I have established how Wanda and Addie will work together. You can all probably guess how.

#marvel #avenger #captain america #captain america civil war #Captain America the winter soldier #wanda maximoff #steve rogers #sam wilson #Clint Barton #scott lang #bucky barnes #bucky #fanfiction #bucky x oc #bucky fanfiction

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celticnoise · 4 years

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EUPHORIA will never fade from the recollection of Fraser Forster’s majestic and triumphant goalkeeping exhibition at Hampden on Sunday, December 8.

The awesome shotstopper was simply unbeatable as he stubbornly refused to yield a solitary goal in the victory that earned Celtic their tenth successive domestic honour.

Forster dived, twisted, blocked, parried and held a variety of efforts throughout a breathtaking Betfred League Cup Final confrontation that was settled by Christopher Jullien’s winner on the hour mark as the £7million French central defender turned a Ryan Christie left-wing free-kick beyond the static Allan McGregor.

Three minutes later, Alfredo Morelos had the ideal opportunity to score from a penalty-kick with the holders now down to 10 men following the expulsion of Jeremie Frimpong, the 18-year-old playing only his eighth first-team game and settling into the difficult duel with Steven Gerrard’s side with remarkable ease. The much-vaunted Colombian striker steered the ball towards Forster’s right-hand corner, but the towering netminder anticipated the direction of the attempt and sprawled magnificently to beat the ball to safety.

SPOT ON…Fraser Forster moves swiftly to his right as he prepares to save Alfredo Morelos’ penalty-kick.

There was only one destination for the silverware after that most recent act of defiance from the England international. In a couple of heartbeats, Celtic’s advantage had been maintained and, despite the burden of being a man short, they played with spirit and vigour for more than a third of the encounter to grind out the sort of result and performance that are the required hallmarks of winners.

Author Alex Gordon, whose fifteenth book on Celtic is due to be published later this year, had little doubts about the merits of Foster’s display as he told CQN: “I have never seen a better all-round and sustained performance from a Celtic keeper in my life.

“I have been watching Celtic since the early sixties when the regular No.1 was a flamboyant chap by the name of Frank Haffey. The trouble with this individual is you never knew which Frank Haffey would turn up. There was the wonderful Haffey. Unfortunately, there was also the woeful Haffey.

IN WITH A SHOUT…a jubilant Fraser Forster with the League Cup after his heroics at Hampden.

“For me, as a kid watching the game from the old Jungle with my dad John and uncles Hughie and George, he was the first in a long line of eccentric custodians. Anything could happen with Frank between the sticks.

“He had his moments, though. There was a memorable occasion when he denied an exceptional Rangers team for lengthy spells in a 1-1 Scottish Cup Final stalemate in May 1963. It was known, quite rightly, as ‘The Haffey Final’ by the Celtic support.

“I recall being excited as I went to the replay with my best pal John Paterson. I was eleven years old and smack in the middle of a swaying Celtic end at Hampden. It was by far the biggest sporting occasion in my young life. No-one knew what to expect. Big Frank was slow to react to two moments of danger early in the first-half and it was virtually game over. He misjudged another long-range shot after the interval and my pal and I joined the serene exodus from the stadium, half of it in eerie silence while the other half danced and sang with joy. A surreal moment.”

Former best-selling national newspaper sports editor Gordon, who has penned the autobiographies of such club greats as Lisbon Lions Tommy Gemmell, Bertie Auld and John Hughes and also the legendary Davie Hay, continued: “John Fallon came in and for awhile it was a straight fight between him and Frank for the top spot.

PRIZE GUYS…skipper Scott Brown and Fraser Forster with the silverware.

“Fallon was a steady sort of last line of defence who was not quite as colourful as his rival. Sifting around in my memory bank, I recall a save Fallon made for which he hardly received credit, but it went a long way to Celtic beating Dunfermline 3-2 in the Scottish Cup Final in April 1965 to lift their first trophy in eight years. It was the first piece of silverware I could recollect the team winning.

“Of course, it will always be remembered for immaculate captain Billy McNeill’s flashing header from Charlie Gallagher’s left-wing corner-kick near the end of a rollicking grand finale. The ball thudded into the net and, for the briefest of moments, Hampden was silent before the most glorious roar erupted that shook the famous old stadium to its foundations.

“Celtic had come back twice from a goal down with Bertie Auld equalising on both occasions and that was the first time a club had managed that particular feat in this fixture. Could they have come back a third time? At 2-2, tricky little Fife winger Alex Edwards had the opportunity to swing the Final back in favour of the East End Park club. Deftly, he tried to lift the ball over Fallon’s head from 16 yards and, from my viewpoint, it looked as though the ball was arcing towards the keeper’s top right-hand corner of the net.

“As the Celtic fans held their collective breath, Fallon managed to take off on an athletic leap and not only get both hands to the ball, but hold onto it, too. It was a blinding save now lost in the mists of time, but, trust me, that magical moment provided the launching pad for Big Billy’s soaring winner.

FOUR JUST MEN…Fraser Forster with boss Neil Lennon, goalkeeping guru Steve Woods and assistant gaffer John Kennedy.

“Bertie Auld has always insisted that triumph was the most important turning point in Celtic’s resurgence under Jock Stein and led to the wonderful sequence of success that fell into place afterwards. Who am I to argue with such an icon?

“Ronnie Simpson came in, of course, and the sprightly veteran made the position his own until a shoulder injury forced his retirement at the age of 39. He was reliable and rarely showy. Like the best of keepers, he relied on his concentration rather than his ability to catapult across his penalty box.

“I recall one save he made against Rangers which I still rate as the best I have ever seen from a Celtic keeper. No-one remembers it as it was buried amid the debris of an upset 4-2 league loss at Parkhead in September 1968. In two previous League Cup-ties, Celtic had won 2-0 at Ibrox and 1-0 in the east end of Glasgow – Willie Wallace providing all three goals – and were expected to triumph in this one, as well.

“Let’s not dwell on mystifying proceedings that bizarre afternoon, but Ronnie produced a save of such stunning quality I had to make sure I watched the TV highlights later to see if it looked as good as it did in actual time. It didn’t – it was even more spectacular.

“Willie Johnston fired a low ball over from the left wing and Swedish forward Orjan Persson – or ‘Orange Person’, as he was wittily known among the Ibrox support – first-timed a ferocious shot from the six-yard line. It arrowed low towards Ronnie’s left and he had no right to even attempt to go for it. In a flash, though, he got down to stun the ball with his left hand and gather it in with his right. It was a moment that defied logic, physics and anything else you want to come up with.”

Gordon, who wrote the acclaimed tribute book to Billy McNeill, entitled ‘In Praise of Caesar’, which was published last year, also interviewed the existing European Cup-winning heroes for the ‘Lisbon Lions: The 40th Anniversary’, which was printed in 2007. He can rattle through his recollections of goalies performing miracles as they guarded the the Hoops’ goal.

He said: “Evan Williams was immense in the San Siro Stadium in the European Cup Final in 1970, but was an unsung hero with the team losing 2-1 to Feyenoord in extra-time. Similarly, Pat Bonner put in a marvellous showing in a European tie against Juventus in Turin in 1981, but Celtic again went down, this time 2-0, and the performance was largely overlooked. Billy McNeill had taken his team to Italy with a 1-0 advantage courtesy of a whizzbang effort from Murdo MacLeod in the first leg and they faced an almighty onslaught in the return leg with, ironically, future manager Liam Brady playing a key role for Juve.

“Peter Latchford was always a favourite and he was a real safe pair of hands in the 1-0 Scottish Cup Final of 1980 which will be remembered for George McCluskey’s clever back-heel beyond Rangers’ Peter McCloy and, for all the wrong reasons, the rioting fans who took the headlines the following day.

“A young David Marshall against Barcelona in the Nou Camp in 2003 was sensational. Pitched into such an important confrontation against an array of some of the world’s biggest names, he was unflappable and helped Martin O’Neill’s side claim a well-merited 1-0 aggregate victory courtesy of Alan Thompson’s goal at Parkhead.

“Artur Boruc? So many excellent, eye-catching saves from the Polish showman. It’s a case of take your pick, but one everyone remembers was his penalty-kick block from Louis Saha in the Champions League victory over Manchester United at Parkhead in 2006.

READ ALL ABOUT…author Alex Gordon with a collection of his Celtic books.

“Shunsuke Nakamura had Gordon Strachan’s side one goal ahead following one of his trademark free-kicks that flew straight and true from about 35 yards high into the left-hand corner of Edwin van der Sar’s net. A combination of two very different talents from two geniuses had fused to overcome Fergie’s men. Happy days.

“It’s worthwhile also noting a mesmerising reflex save from Craig Gordon in the Betfred League Cup Final only two years ago. A goal from James Forrest had Celtic ahead against Motherwell, but only four minutes after his clever, curling strike, Louis Moult was given a free header from six yards after a left-wing delivery from Andy Rose. The Fir Park dangerman threw him at the ball and must.have thought his effort was destined for the back of the net.

“The keeper, with the most acute of reflexes, threw up an arm and deflected the header onto the crossbar and Kieran Tierney booted the rebound clear. Shortly after that, Moussa Dembele stroked in a penalty-kick and the second successive League Cup was heading for the Parkhead trophy room.”

Gordon sighs and smiles: “It’s a veritable treasure trove of recollections. You could also add Fraser Forster’s display against Barcelona that earned him ‘The Great Wall’ moniker. Utterly deserved, too, and fabulous memories of displays of defying Messi and Co.

“However, it has taken me over half-a-century to witness the greatest-ever performance of a Celtic goalkeeper and Fraser Forster provided that at Hampden on Sunday. In my eyes, nothing will surpass that heroic accomplishment.

“It’s not often you instinctively know your goalkeeper is going to save a penalty-kick. I had that feeling at the weekend and I mean that as no disrespect to the kicker. It’s merely a tribute to the yellow-clad giant standing on the line who confronted him.

“I am not being wise after the event, either. I actually turned to my wife, Gerda, and said: ‘This guy is not going to lose a goal today’. In a blinding flash, he proved me right. The words, I hasten to add, were not said in desperation or even hope. I was convinced Forster would save that spot-kick. And, wonderfully, so it proved. The keeper had an aura of invincibility at the national stadium, a sheen most custodians seek to project, but only an exclusive band can actually achieve. He had it well under control on this showing.

“I’m sure legendary Hollywood funnyman and actor Bob Hope would not mind me borrowing his signature theme song as I convey one last message to Fraser Forster.

“Thanks for the memory.”

ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT…

CQN would like to thank our readers for their patience in the interruption to the launch of Alex Gordon’s latest Celtic book, ‘Fifty Flags’, which was due to be published in March.

Unfortunately, production of the tome, which thoroughly examines the half-century of seasons in which the Parkhead men were crowned Scotland champions, came to an unfortunate halt due to the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

The support for ‘Fifty Flags’ has been overwhelming and author Alex said: “The response to the book has been utterly astonishing and I can only say how totally grateful I am to CQN readers for their backing. I can only hope it will be worth the wait.

“We are depending on the printers letting us know when the run will commence and we are in their hands at the moment. It will be published this year and CQN will keep the readers up to date. Thanks for your patience, folks. It’s much appreciated.

“Main thing, though, in these testing times is to take care and stay safe. See you all when we get the green light.”

https://ift.tt/38tsf2x

#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #CelticQuickNews

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