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star-anise · 3 years

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Oh goddamn my brain just exploded.

I just watched F. D. Signifier's video on "I Don't Dream of Labour" and just how much the whole discussion operates in a while different reality from the one in which Black American men and the concept of working for a living have historically existed.

His take is enormously well-informed and informative, and this isn't an idea that's of his calibre at all, it's just that his take on the context this discussion is happening in was so insightful that it shook something loose in my brain as relates to my own experiences. Mainly, it helped me contextualize a reaction I'd had last week, in a post about dream jobs outside of capitalism and whether it was okay for "engineer" to be one of them, in my background in white lower-middle class.

Like yes, I do have intellectual reasons for believing what I believe. My work experience, my research, my education in the social sciences, my curiosity about the world around me, my readings of Foucault, have all informed my beliefs that society has chronically devalued forms of labour that, in fact, it depends on so much that the entire system freaks the fuck out if those devalued workers realize that they're valuable enough to demand better.

Signifier's video helped me connect with some of my emotional reactions to socialist and utopian thought, and recognize just how much my views are also rooted in hard gnarly matter of my lived experience, and the lived experiences of the people who raised me.

I dream of labour partly because I've found a line of work that I love and that gives me meaning. But the other thing is, I dream of labour because of a bone-deep tiredness in me that says: If I don't do it, the work won't get done.

I'm a therapist, and the birth of my vocation as a therapist was in the years when I didn't have one or feel like I was allowed to ask for them, and neither did anyone else I knew, and the amount of terror and pain that we all lived with because of it would have ripped a hole in my ability to trust the universe if I hadn't decided to make myself the hero I needed. I say that if I do my work well enough I might contribute to enough social change that I'll put myself out of a job, but in practical reality, I don't think that will happen in my lifetime.

I digress. A few years after that, my mom admitted she had depression and went on disability leave from work because she was pretty damn bad. I remember when we got home after she'd picked me up from school one day, and while she was out of the house, her female friends had come to our house and gone to town on all the housework she'd been struggling to do (and then some; we knew things were different from the front door, because the floor of our mudroom sparkled in a way it never had before).

I remember it so much because I think it was only the second time in my life I'd seen her cry. Because it was so unexpected and such an amazing relief, this sense that someone else would step in and do the work for her. (Yes, my dad and older brothers and I pitched in, but everyone's expectations were that if the house was still standing at the end of our tenure it'd be a net win, and yes, I still feel ashamed for not having done more even if I logically couldn't have.)

This is part of what it means to say my gender is "farm wife". My ancestors were white settlers in western Canada, where farms were divided up in a grid pattern that guaranteed that homesteads would be pretty isolated. My grandmothers were children during the Great Depression. For their mothers, being a farmwife meant doing work their family depended on to survive, and knowing that until their oldest daughter got old enough, there was no one to do the work if they didn't. That sense of necessity lives in us still. My mom will endure a job she hates for ages, but feel unable to quit without having another one lined up. I still have "you do not have to fix it" on my phone lockscreen, because unsolved problems cry out to me in the voice of my terror when I was 13 and nobody was saving me.

The thought of coming home and finding my floor washed for me is so impossibly amazing I don't know how I'd even cope with it. The only person I can currently think of who'd actually do it is my mom. And she and I are still trying to sort out the toxic effects of this legacy, where we take on work because we feel we have to and then get angry when we aren't respected or rewarded for it, or try to avoid being the target of that anger by not asking for help we need. The thought of leaving work undone inspires such a deep, visceral level of fear and shame that it's hard to think around sometimes.

All of which helps me explain and understand my reflexive "Oh, fuck YOU" reaction to people who say that in the future robots will flip our burgers and burp our babies, but in the meantime, it's being corrupted by a neoliberal agenda to try to make the backbreaking work of ordinary people five pounds lighter. I am the enemy if I ever hire someone to wash the floor for me.

I'm not sure that "Oh, fuck you" response is bullshit, though. Like, I feel like I'm supposed to say that my ideological enemy is the capitalist boss who mandates workloads, not the edgelord tankie who sends hatemail to insufficiently radical "liberals", but this entire thought process has just helped me formulate why I hate those goddamn tankies so fucking much.

The work of defeating capitalism is important and real and more people need to be doing it. But it's stark raving idiocy to pretend that it's the most important work there is, because before it comes the work of keeping people alive. The work of keeping people fed and clothed and housed, healthy and well, connected and cared about. And I'm always thrilled when I get to do so in a manner that also resists capitalism, but if the only people helping me do that are capitalists, that is who I'm going to fucking ally with. Because the work needs to be done, and I would like to die without the family curse of never feeling able to trust that people will survive if you pause for one moment making my bones glow in the dark.

So if your only reaction to that is to say I should heroically struggle in ideologically pure isolation because Capitalism Bad but also in Big Rock Candy Communism my work won't be necessary so it's not like you feel any need to help me?

Yeah, you're my enemy. Get out of my fucking way.

#long post #class warfare #tankie shit #staranise original

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whelvenwings · 3 years

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who will fall beside you, if you fall

Dean Winchester's been loved in a lot of different ways throughout his life. He was shaped by that love, changed by the expectations and hopes and hurts of the people he cared about. He learned fear and silence and caution. But Castiel's confession, free of expectation, might undo those lessons.

Tags: Fix-It Fic, Endgame Castiel/Dean, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Minor Lisa/Dean Snippet and Minor Cassie/Dean Snippet, John Winchester’s A+ Parenting, Fallen Angel Castiel Word Count: ~4k

“If you’re angry, you could just tell me,” Dean said. “God knows I’d get it.”

He glanced to his left and right before crossing a road, his eyes lingering on the faces nearest him, as though he were looking for someone.

“Cas, just talk to me.” The words were so quiet that no human but Dean himself heard them. He was still watching around him, waiting, but nothing happened.

He put his hands into his pockets again. Walked with his shoulders set a little lower.

“It’s not…” Dean muttered, a broken-off answer to a thought inside his head. “Just – I don’t know what you want me to do. Can you hear me thinking about you? ‘Cause it’s all the time, man. I don’t know what to do. Last time I saw you, you told me… but now you aren’t even…”

He rounded a corner and began to cross a small parking lot.

“If you’d just come here. You could tell me what I’m supposed to do. All I want is…” Dean’s eyes searched the backs of the cars he passed as if their number plates were esoteric texts with all the answers, all the things he needed to say. He breathed out. “I don’t know how, man, I don’t know what to do.”

Read the whole thing below the cut!

Dean was three years old and not quite steady on his feet, still, when his father took him outside to help shovel the snow. In his coat and hat he was a little duffled-up sweetheart, to whom nothing particularly bad had ever happened.

Red-cheeked and grinning, he left small bootprints in the snow.

“Come over here, Dean.” John stood behind Dean and lowered the shovel down to Dean’s height, so that they could hold it and move the snow together. Dean pressed his lips together and frowned as he followed his father’s movements. John’s coat smelled like smoke and the outdoors. They moved one, two, three, four, five big shovel-fulls.

“That’s enough for one day,” said a voice from the porch – Mary, smiling down at the two of them. John carefully lifted the shovel out of Dean’s reach, standing up to his full height. They’d managed to clear just a short stretch of the path that led up to the house.

“But Mom, there’s loads more!” Dean said, pointing to the rest of the pathway.

“Your dad can clear that. You need to come in and have some lunch,” Mary said. “Come on.”

Dean looked up to his father with wide eyes, but John put his hand on the top of Dean’s head and ruffled it so that his hat almost came off.

“Listen to your mom, Dean. In you go.”

Dean’s eyes travelled from his father’s face to his mother’s.

“There’s your favourite for dessert,” Mary said, coaxing him with a little smile.

“Yes!”

Dean made a sudden break for it towards her, running down the path he’d just helped to clear. After the crunch-crunch-crunch of the snow, the cleared pathway was hard under Dean's feet. Hard, and unexpectedly slippery.

“Whoa, there,” said John, as Dean felt his balance go, his feet skidding out from under him – and suddenly he was being lifted, one hand on either side of him. John pulled him up out of the fall, and set him back down in thick snow.

Dean blinked. It had all happened very fast.

“Next time,” John said, giving Dean a little push indoors, “I won’t catch you. You’ve got to learn, Dean.”

–––––

And now Dean was eleven years old and trailing after his father down a quiet midnight street, with a sleepy little brother in tow.

“Dad… are we nearly at the motel?”

“Nearly.”

He’d pay for that question later somehow, and Dean knew it, but because he’d asked there was a new purpose in John’s step. They didn’t stop at the liquor store that Dean knew John had been weighing going into. Walking past it, Dean felt a little break of relief in his chest. They’d get out of the cold sooner, and Sam could get to bed.

“Dean?”

Dean turned his head to look at his brother, keeping walking. Sam was wearing Dean’s coat, swimming in it, the hood pulled up and the elastic tight so only the round circle of his face was visible. It was nearly funny, but they hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and the humour was shaved off everything.

“Come on,” Dean said.

“I’m cold.”

“I know.” Dean cast a glance forwards at his father’s back. He lowered his voice. “It’s okay. Just a little bit longer.”

Sam made a miserable face. Their breaths were puffs of air between them. Underfoot was the hiss and crunch of melting, slushy snow.

“Can I have soup when we get there?”

“It’s late, Sammy. We’ll have something in the morning.”

“But I can’t sleep when I’m hungry…”

“Okay.” Dean cast another worried look towards his father, and then made a meaningful face at Sam when he looked back around. “I’ll find something. I think we have some of that apple juice left over.”

“That’s cold,” Sam said, but he’d quietened his voice, too. “And a drink.”

“You didn’t know?” Dean said, making sure his face was completely straight.

“Know what?”

“That’s the best part,” Dean said. “Cold drinks make you warm up faster.”

Sam narrowed his eyes, and Dean cursed internally. Every day Sam got a little smarter and a little harder to keep happy.

“That’s not true,” Sam said.

“It is,” Dean promised. “You’ll see.” He thought for a few seconds, and then said, "Maybe we can heat up the apple juice."

“Keep up, boys,” said John’s voice, from too far away. Dean realised he must have slowed down as he’d talked to Sam, even though he’d been trying to hold a steady pace. He reached for Sam’s hand, turning his head at the same time to call back to his father – and as he did so, he felt his balance betray him. His feet slipped in the slush, and in a rush he was a jumble of elbows and knees hitting the ground in all the wrong places.

For a second he sat still, assessing the damage. Nothing broken.

“Are you okay?” Sam said, the dish of his face looking pale and worried above Dean.

“I’m fine… ugh.”

“Get up,” John called, and when Dean turned his head to look, he saw that his father was turning away to keep walking. Dean scrambled to his feet, hands out for balance. His hip ached – he’d landed on it.

“I’m alright,” Dean said to Sam, pulling on a smile. “Let’s go.”

He hurried after John, making sure Sam was beside him, going as fast as he dared until they were right behind their father. His knee was starting to throb, too, and he kept it off his face carefully, because Sam was still glancing up at him.

“Saw you reach for your brother when you were falling,” John grunted. “Don’t do that. If you two’re on your own and both of you go down, you’re both dead. If Sam’s still up, he can go for help.”

“I wasn’t –” Dean tried to say.

“Don’t do it,” John repeated, more forcefully.

They walked on in silence.

––––-

And now Dean was twenty-one years old and stepping out into the brisk air of a winter evening, with his head a little light from the drinks he’d had in the bar at his back.

“Come on,” Cassie said from beside him, her eyes bright with laughter. “You can tell me.”

“Hey, we’ve been through this,” Dean said, as they began to make their way down the street, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“As if you could,” Cassie said.

Dean glanced over at her smile, and thought about the way the shifter he’d taken out earlier that day had looked at him, right before he’d swung the blade through her neck. He swallowed hard.

“I might,” he said, and held his arms a little out from his body. “How long can I contain this much raw aggression, you know?”

“Stop," Cassie said, nudging him with her shoulder. “Seriously, okay, just tell me what your job is.”

“Is it really worth your life?” Dean asked, putting on his most serious face.

“You’re really trying to tell me you’re, what – a spy? A fed?” Cassie asked. “C’mon, you can’t expect me to believe that. With that face?”

“Hey,” Dean said, mock-offended, as they passed closed-up stores and parking bays. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“Nothing,” Cassie said, “that’s literally the problem. The FBI don’t hire people who look like you, do they? This is real life, not HBO.”

“Okay,” Dean said, his face working not to look too pleased. Underfoot, the pavement was shiny with ice. Dean started to walk a little slower. “So, if this isn’t the face of a fed, what is it the face of?”

“Mmm. Radio show host?” Cassie laughed when Dean threw her a look. “Well, c’mon, how am I supposed to know? Third date and you still won’t tell me?”

“Just trying to keep the mystery alive,” Dean said, faking an absent kind of tone in the hope that Cassie would drop the subject. The sidewalk was getting more and more treacherous, each of his steps sliding just a little.

“The mystery is too alive,” Cassie said. “It could die a bit. I’d be okay with that.”

“Whoa… careful.” Dean’s foot slipped out from under him, and he only managed to keep his balance by grabbing onto a parking meter that happened to be close by.

“Easy, big shot.” Cassie watched him start to move again, even more tentatively. “Wouldn’t wanna lose the deal with HBO if you fall on that perfect face.”

There was an edge of hurt to her tone of voice, and Dean jaw tightened. Was he ever going to tell her, he wondered. Surely not. She’d hate it. Spending time with Cassie was like visiting a parallel universe. That world didn’t have room for monsters under the bed.

And so Dean kicked them back underneath as hard as he could, and smiled at Cassie, and held out his hand.

Cassie looked down at it, and then back up at him.

“Really?” she said, a smile waiting at the corners of her mouth.

“It’s slippery,” Dean said, and wiggled his fingers temptingly.

“Yeah,” Cassie said with a laugh, pushing his hand away, “it is, asshole. That’s why I’m not letting you take me down with you.”

––––-

And now Dean was thirty-one years old and watching a soccer game, gloves on, hat on, clapping along with the dark-haired woman next to him.

“Come on, Ben!” called Lisa.

“Like we practised, okay, kid?” Dean added, and watched Ben’s face relax into concentration as he placed the ball for his free kick, just a yard outside the penalty box.

“You practised free kicks with him?” Lisa said to Dean, sounding like she was holding back a laugh. Dean glanced down at her; she had her eyes on her son, but there was a little smile on her face.

“A couple times,” Dean said. “He asked.”

“That’s sweet. And I thought you two just watched TV and ate too much pizza together.”

“We do that too,” Dean said. “When I have a say in it.” He rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them up. On either side of Lisa and Dean, also at the edge of the soccer pitch, were other parents all waiting on Ben to take his kick. They were standing on wet grass, a few of them stamping their feet to keep them from going numb.

Ben took a short run up, swung his leg, made contact. The ball sailed high, dipped – and the goalie caught it neatly.

“Next time,” Dean called out when Ben’s face fell, and gave him a clap. The game played on.

“God, it’s cold,” Lisa said.

“You want my coat?”

Lisa looked up at him, her big brown eyes soft.

“You’re cute, you know that?”

“... Right.” Dean smiled awkwardly. Lisa’s would-be compliment hung in the air, sounding more incongruous the longer Dean stood tense and unmoving.

Lisa reached out, and put her hand on his folded arms.

“You wanna order in, tonight?” she said lightly. “Or I could make fajitas.”

“I can cook,” Dean said. “I’ll make burgers.”

“Mmm. Twist my arm.”

Some small burst of relief, there. Dean’s expression eased. He put his hands in his pockets, lifted his chin, as though remembering the role he was playing. Who he was, now.

He shifted his feet – and felt his right foot slide, almost right out from under him. He steadied himself, hands out to the sides, looking down at the grass.

“Careful,” Lisa said.

“Jesus,” Dean said at the same time.

“Come here,” Lisa said, holding out her hand.

Dean smiled.

“It’s all good,” he said, reaching out and giving the hand a squeeze, and then letting go quickly.

“Can’t have the head chef breaking his arm,” Lisa said, her hand still out.

“It’s fine, really.”

“Dean, would you hold my hand?”

“We’ll both go over,” Dean said.

“Mm-mm. I’ll hold you up.”

Her expression allowed no argument. Unwillingly, Dean allowed her to loop their arms together, Lisa pinning Dean to her side and turning back to the game, calling out to support Ben as he went for a tackle. Dean stood quietly. He was having to lean down ever so slightly so that Lisa could keep his arm tucked under hers.

He tried very hard not to move. Just the smallest slide of his feet and he’d be over and he’d take her with him. Every muscle in his legs was clenched, forcing himself not to slip.

After just a minute or so of stiff silence, Lisa sighed.

“Okay,” she said, “you win.”

She let go.

––––-

And now Dean was forty-one years old and walking down a street in Lebanon, Kansas, on legs that still felt a little new. The cold air was harsh; he took in a deep breath.

He went to cross the road, and a car gave a screech as it swerved suddenly to avoid him. The driver made a few different gestures at him through the window, and Dean held up a hand in apology.

It was easy to forget that things didn’t part and make way on Earth like they had done in Heaven.

“Couldn’t fix that for me, could you?” Dean said aloud. “Not that I’m not grateful for the ticket home, Cas, but Heaven had its perks.”

Silence. Dean kept walking, with only the slightest slump to his shoulders and crease on his brow. Lebanon was wearing snow like a big white coat. Dean’s boots crunched in it when he stepped off the gritted path to let a mother with a stroller go by.

“I should probably stop expecting to see you round every corner, huh,” he said. “Been a week now. And I keep wandering around thinking you might show up just ‘cause I’m looking.” Someone passing gave him a slightly frightened look and a wide berth as he walked by, talking to himself. Just another thing no one had much noticed in Heaven: the prayers. Dean frowned, and ducked his head. Tucked his hands in his pockets.

He walked quietly for some time.

Long enough for his hands to come back out of his pockets, and his shoulders to lose their self-conscious hunch. Long enough for the hurt in his eyes to seem nearer the surface.

“Might not even have been you that got me out of Heaven,” Dean said, his tone quiet, as though picking up the thread of a half-finished conversation.

A pause, in which he walked. Passed by other people, made no eye contact. Dean meandered a little as he went, as though his mind were elsewhere.

“If you’re angry, you could just tell me,” he said. “God knows I’d get it.”

He glanced to his left and right before crossing a road, his eyes lingering on the faces nearest him, as though he were looking for someone.

“Cas, just talk to me,” he said. The words were so quiet that no human but Dean himself heard them. He was still watching around him, waiting, but nothing happened.

He put his hands into his pockets again. Walked with his shoulders set a little lower.

He rounded a corner and began to cross a small parking lot.

He swallowed.

“It feels like I have to do something, though.”

He kept walking.

“Or, I don’t know. Maybe I just want to.”

He breathed out.

Emotions were crossing his face, too fast to catch one alone, too swift to parse. He looked down at his feet, watching where he stepped.

“If I had what I wanted,” he said, “you’d be here.” After a pause, he rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that’s news to you. Like, wow, right? Not as though I’ve ever asked, after all.” Another silence, and then he said, “But you know, I – it’s not that I just want to… fix it, or… finish things off. It’s not… I’m not…” He pressed his lips together, smiled wryly. “Jesus. I hope you can’t hear this. I’m not making any sense. I’m just trying to say, I want you here, man. I want you here to stay.”

A little flicker of light seemed to touch Dean’s eyes.

“You could stay now,” he said, “right? You could actually stay. If you wanted to. And we could…” He stopped. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

A car drove by, and the child in the backseat stared out the window at him. Dean blinked back to reality.

“We didn’t have time to think about what we wanted,” he said into the quiet of the parking lot, when the car had passed and he was walking again. “All this time. Or maybe you did. But I didn’t.” He looked upwards, towards the iron sky. “And now there’s time, Cas, and all I’m thinking about is you.” He looked down. “I said that already.”

He moved on, stepping out the other side of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk.

“I remember you said that the… the thing you want, you can’t have.” Dean took in a breath and let it go. “I don’t know why you thought you couldn’t. Whatever it is, man, you deserve it.”

His feet carried him onward.

“You gotta be sick of hearing me talk at this point. But I just…” Dean’s eyes glanced over the snowy Lebanon street in front of him, and he crossed the road. “I just want you here. Maybe I should take a damn hint.” His voice strained, hurt betraying the attempt at levity in his tone. “But you said… I keep thinking back on what you said. About how you feel. And I, uh. You know. If you’d just let me…”

Dean lifted his hands, a little helplessly, into the air as he walked, as though wanting to give something invisible to someone who wasn’t there. He dropped them awkwardly, his expression creasing.

He was circling back around towards the mall, his footsteps pointing him towards home. He looked heavy, weary. The lines on his face were deep, and his eyes were unfocused, lost in thought.

The people around him paid him no attention. He was just part of the crowd. They swirled across his path and around him, irrelevant to him, not seeing him. Except –

Dean came to a sudden stop. His gaze sharpened.

Twenty feet away from him, standing completely still, was a figure. Not struggling with carrier bags or strollers or wallets and keys like the other shoppers going into and out of the mall. Utterly stone still.

Tall, almost as tall as Dean. Wearing a long coat. Brown-haired. Impassive.

Watching Dean as though waiting for him.

And Dean visibly blossomed. His mouth fell slightly open, his shoulders loosened, one hand reached out unconsciously.

“Cas?” he said, disbelieving – and Dean saw a slight smile appear on Castiel’s face, and the angel slightly raised one hand in greeting.

Warmth touched Dean’s eyes, rising up as though from a great depth. He began to move, at first taking care on the slippery sidewalk. But his feet hurried him, and he was walking fast and then he was almost running, caution forgotten, eyes on Castiel’s.

It was when he was only a few steps away that his foot hit a patch of black ice. His arms went out, struggling to balance him – Castiel moved forward, one hand out – Dean reached for him on instinct, grasping his arm, his body relaxing in obvious expectation of Castiel being able to pull him upright –

But Castiel’s weight tilted along with Dean’s, and the ground gave them both a hard and cold welcome. There were some muttered ooohs from people passing by, and a few of them came to awkward stops nearby.

Dean landed hard on his back, head hitting the cement. He stared for a moment up at the sky. It had all happened very fast.

He sat up, and saw Castiel kneeling beside him, inspecting his own hands.

“Fuck,” Dean said. He put a hand to the back of his head. No blood.

“Are you okay?” said someone behind Dean, and he waved them off.

“All good,” he said, seeing in his peripheral vision that the people who’d stopped to look were moving on. He looked at Castiel. “Are you… you’re…”

Castiel stopped staring down at his hands, and looked at Dean instead. His blue eyes searched Dean’s face. Under his gaze, Dean smiled – a smile that grew on his face from a tiny brightness in his eyes until his whole face was alight with it.

“It’s you,” he said. "Damn, Cas, it's really you."

“It’s me,” Castiel confirmed. His voice held a recognition of Dean’s smile, a reciprocal warmth.

“You’re here.”

“I heard you,” Castiel said.

“You heard me? Just now?”

“Yes.”

Dean nodded. He was breathing a little fast. His gaze searched Castiel’s face, partly seeming to be looking for something, partly seeming already to have found it. People were stepping around them to get inside the mall.

“It’s good to see you,” Dean said.

Castiel smiled too, at last.

“But you know,” Dean added, “you could’ve just appeared right next to me instead of a whole freaking mile away on a slippery sidewalk. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

“Ah.” Castiel, still on his knees beside where Dean was sitting, dropped his gaze. “That was, in fact, not under my control. Jack sent me down here. After I asked him to do something for me.”

Castiel looked down at his hands again, and this time Dean looked too. His expression broke into slight surprise when he saw red on Castiel’s palms, at the sight of the blood – and then the surprise came in a second, deeper wave, as realisation hit.

“Cas,” he said.

“Just a graze,” Castiel said calmly.

“But you – you’re – that’s not supposed to happen,” Dean said. He reached out, and took Castiel’s hands in his own, inspecting the little scrapes on the skin. “You can’t get hurt like this.”

“Well,” Castiel said, “I can, now.”

“But you’re…” Dean stared at Castiel, seeming suddenly caught in consternation.

“Staying,” Castiel finished for him.

Wide-eyed, still sitting on the sidewalk, Dean took this in. Something light crossed his face, then anger, then confusion.

“I heard you,” Castiel reminded him. Dean stared at him.

“What I said?”

“Yes.”

“About staying?”

“Yes.”

“And you… you want that?”

Despite the hustle of people around them, the crunch-crunch of their boots in the snow and the harshness of their voices, Dean and Castiel might have been the only two people in the world when Castiel said,

“Yes, Dean.”

“So, but – before, in the bunker, with the Empty, when you said – the thing – the thing you said you wanted –”

Castiel looked down at their hands. Dean’s holding Castiel’s.

Dean tightened his grip.

“Just that?” he said, his voice sounding thick.

Castiel said nothing, words seeming to fail him.

They stared at each other. Hands in hands, touching, Castiel bleeding. Dean didn’t let go.

“It’s yours,” Dean said roughly.

“You mean…” Castiel’s eyes were suddenly wide. “You mean that you…”

“Since pretty much day one. I just never thought you’d want that from me.”

The world moved past and around them. They didn’t notice. Castiel was radiating happiness in every body line, though he was unmoving. Dean was watching him as though afraid he might disappear in the space of a blink.

"Is this real?" he said. "My head hurts enough for it to be real."

Castiel nodded.

“You’re really staying,” Dean said.

“As long as you’ll let me.”

After enough time under the steadiness of Castiel’s gaze, it seemed finally to sink in for Dean – the truth of it, the reality of it. Dean breathed out.

He swallowed. He looked down.

He smiled.

“We should get home, then,” he said.

Castiel didn’t say anything, but he gave a nod made small by emotion.

“Oh. I’m sorry, though,” Dean said, his eyes catching on Castiel’s small injuries now that he was looking down again. His thumb lightly touched the place where blood was drying on Castiel’s palm. “If I’d known I wouldn’t have run at you.”

“It’s fine,” Castiel said, getting to his feet and pulling Dean up with him, their hands not letting go.

“I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Don’t be,” Castiel said, his blood on Dean’s hands, and still holding them. “Don’t be.”

#whelvenwingsfic #destiel #destiel fic #WELL HERE SHE IS #I'll reblog in a sec with the ao3 link because tumblr hates external links #also thank you so much to sammich for beta reading this ah #also if anyone's asking if i intend to be extra #and keep making banners for even little fics that i post #the answer is YES FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE #because what is more calming than photoshop and a podcast

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yespleasemary · 3 years

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Fed up of white people trying to make themselves into victims. “Oh no someone doesn’t like my fkin accent” 💀

I’m fed up of anons trying to wind people up and dictate their shitty, empty opinions. Alas, I’ll explain my point.

For starters, classism isn’t dictated by race. I understand that this is absolutely not the biggest problem in the world, but it doesn’t mean it’s not happening and isn’t important.

If you did your research, you’d know that a regional accent can affect how people perceive you. For years, people with regional accents have been mocked and bullied at university because they don’t have a received pronounciation, therefore are not clever enough to be in higher education (or education at all). This can also affect whether you’re employed somewhere or not, and how colleagues perceive you at work, resulting in a lack of promotion or slim chances of getting hired anywhere wider than your little town full of people with the same accent as you. And often, that little town lacks in higher-paid job opportunities, due to a lack of funding and provision by the Government. If you have an accent or a dialect not considered ‘proper’, people see you as rough, common, poor, and uneducated. This not only applies to Yorkshire, but can apply to the Midlands, Scotland, East London, Cornwall etc.

Not only are people with regional accents considered poor, but they’re also used as the butt of the joke, or as comic relief. I’ve had many experiences where I’ve told someone where I’m from and instantly, as if a force takes over, they pull a face intended to look stupid and mock what I’ve said.

Having carried out research before typing out a daft message, you’d also know about the historical North/South divide which is still quite prominent today, even if subconsciously. In fact, I touched upon this above briefly - see “due to a lack of funding and provision by the Government”. Due to many other reasons, class and accents being a large part of it, the north has been shit on multiple times from a great height. A lot of it does spur from mining history, but there are other reasons which all bubble together to make one big cauldron of shit. I won’t explain this any further, but a good resource for research is Google. Or just politely ask around instead of being ignorant and, quite frankly, rude.

I think, if you’re looking to take anything away from what I’ve said, the main thing is this:

There are multiple issues in the world. Each one has the right to be challenged, and everyone has struggles in life that all spur from the shitshow of a society we live in.

All we’re saying is that we enjoy seeing a character, Pat, in a comedy, Ghosts, with a convincing regional accent that isn’t used as the butt of a joke for once. He isn’t marching around Button House with a flatcap and a whippet, and we appreciate that. That’s it.

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13dead-ends · 4 years

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Blood Bound

Henry Cavill x Named OC

Summary: In a world where vampires are a part of everyday life, Nina uses her blood to her advantage.

Word Count: 1910 (future chapters will be longer)

Warnings: 18+ in future chapters, but only swearing, and mentions of blood for this chapter. Nothing gory though.

A/N: This is my first original post. Go easy on me! Anyways, if you have any questions about this crazy universe I barely established, message me anytime! It was roughly edited, so sorry if there are mistakes. Please enjoy! :)

I sat with all the girls, and a few guys, we were all here for the same thing. An interview, the same interview. To become a blood donor for one of the most prestigious companies in the blood business. Positive, the leading company in providing human blood to vampires, located in Los Angeles. They did it from labs, taking bags from donors, to providing humans to clients. I was one of those humans. This company had a tedious process of selecting people for the job. They only wanted the best and most reliable. It’s probably why they are doing so well. They make their clients happy.

Vampires ‘came out’ to society in the 80s. They felt it was safe to make humans aware of their existence after inventing an artificial blood. As people grew more accepting of them, companies like Positive were born in the early 2000s. Someone had the idea of safely giving blood and began to regulate. Women were the main donors and men were the main clientele, though it was open everyone. While there are companies who don’t do well, the good ones are held to a high standard and new laws are being put into place every day to help regulate it. They good ones still get their far share of protesters still, but they’re becoming less frequent.

I had been at one of those not so good companies, I just didn’t know it until a month ago. I had one regular client. It was a very basic arrangement, not like those “sugar daddy” type arrangements, that a lot of women donors had. We met up, he fed, and there was money in my bank account by the end of the day. He was a businessman, Wall Street type. Never had a problem until he went too far one session. I woke up in the hospital with an email from my company already ‘letting me go.’ I got fucked over when I tried to sue too. I was terminated before the incident could be reported or some bullshit. Another way men have taken advantage of a mainly women-based system. Now I was scrambling to find a new job. I didn’t think Positive would even interview me, let alone give me a second one.

“Nina Locke?” I jumped at my name and stood. The woman who called my name was in a crisp pencil skirt and held the large door open for me.

“So, we’ll ask you some questions in here.” She led me down the hallway to a small office, with an almost empty desk. Another woman professionally dressed sat on one side. She stood and held out her hand.

“Hi, I’m Sarah Jenkins, head of the donor program here at Positive.” I shook her hand. “This is my assistant Kari” The first women, Kari, sat down and we followed suit. “So, this isn’t your first company?” I shook my head.

“Yes, I was with one for about a year and a half.”

“You put on your application that you choose to leave, but we called, and they said you were let go.” I chewed on my lip before answering.

“There was an incident with my last client. He went to the company first. They let me go before I had the chance to report anything.” I took a breath.

“One thing that I want you to know is that at this company we do things a little differently.” She slid over the thick folder on the desk to me. She opened it to a page titled Donor’s Resources and Benefits. “We want our clients to have the best donors, and to do that donors have to be treated as the highest priority. Happy donors, happy clients.” I blinked at her. I never thought I’d hear a company like this say that. It was always all about the clients. “You’re all human beings and will be treated like it. No matter the client.” One thing about this company, many celebrities used their services. It upped the stakes if something were to go wrong. “We want to be sure you’re being well-treated at all times.”

“Wow, this isn’t like any company I’ve worked for.” Was all I could say. After these last few weeks of therapy and lawyers hearing this almost made me choke up.

“I promise, as long as I’m in charge. I’ll take care of you and every donor here.”

“It almost feels like you’re just trying to convince me to stay.” I blurted. My eyes went wide, but Sarah laughed.

“You’re one of our favorite applicants, and you have experience. We are ready to hire you,” My jaw dropped.

“Really? That’s really good to hear.” Sarah smiled, shutting the folder.

“We would like to have lawyers present to discuss and sign your contract. I suggest looking over all of these papers with your lawyer beforehand, as well.” I nodded, taking the heavy stack in my hands. “Call us to schedule a meeting, myself, as well as Kari will be there. If you would like to bring your own witness, you may do that.” I felt myself grinning.

“Okay, thank you so much.”

I had just got back from the meeting with Positive. I was officially under contract. My best friend Irene came with to be a witness, but she was just curious to see inside of the company. We were roommates, so she was right behind me when I stepped inside. The setting sun shone brightly through our windows. While I went to my room, I heard Irene popping open a bottle of wine to celebrate.

“What shall we order for takeout, Nina?” She yelled. “It’s your day, you get to pick.” I threw my bag, still stuffed with papers, on my bed.

“How about Sushi?”

“Yes, ma’am! Look at the menu!” I plopped on my bed, thankful to be out of the Cali heat. Only another month until fall, and Halloween. I pulled up our favorite sushi place and picked some rolls.

“Come on, let’s have a toast.” I rolled my eyes as I struggled to pick up a large roll with my chopsticks.

“Stop being cheesy, I just got a new job, that’s all.”

A better paying, better clientele, job. Plus, they give a shit about their employees!” I huffed but lifted my wine. “To Nina, who is moving up in the world! A bizarre world, but she’s killing it anyway.” After getting too full and too wine drunk, we went to bed. I went to sleep, feeling better than I had in weeks.

In the morning, I woke up with a small headache, but I could sleep in, so it didn’t matter. I rolled over, planning to do just that. Then my phone screen lit up. I grabbed it from my bedside table. It was an email from Kari.

Nina, I hope you are having a wonderful day so far,

I looked at my phone, it was already 11:30.

I wanted to let you know that there are already donors requesting you!

I almost forgot I had let Kari put my profile out after everything was signed and notarized. She offered to wait too, but I was excited to get started again.

Their files are at the office. Come by any time before five today and I can take you on a tour and show you the files. Have a wonderful day!

Kari

I stared at my phone, surprised someone had already seen my file, let alone requested me. I chewed on my lip as I thought of the possible clients I could get. While yes, celebrities did use this company a lot, that doesn’t mean I’ll be donating to one. Lots of rich one percenters used it too. I cringed as the image of an old white guy popped unto my brain. I shook my head. I should go check out the files, the curiosity outweighed the nerves.

“Nina, where are you going?” I had gotten dressed and stepped out, Irene was rubbing her head, hair messy, and her eyes were blood shot.

“Some clients have already requested me. I’m going to look over their files.” Her jaw dropped, and she followed me out to the kitchen. I put the kettle on and started coffee for Irene. I started emailing Kari back, telling her when I’d be there.

“Damn, you’re so popular.” I shrugged.

“It’s my type.” After the interview I had asked Kari and Sarah why they wanted me so bad and they told me a lot of vampires enjoyed my blood type. I was AB-negative, a rare and apparently popular type. “At least that’s what Sarah was saying.”

“Who knew, vampires have preferences.” Irene sat at the table, slumping, and rubbing her temples. I shrugged, sending the email. “Hey aren’t you hungover?” I laughed and went to the bathroom.

“My head hurts, yeah.” I called out. I looked in the mirror and I had baggy eyes. I sighed. It was just a tour and some paperwork.

“God, how much did I drink?” I heard Irene mutter. I smiled and cleaned myself up a bit and went back out to make my tea. It wasn’t long before I was stepping into my new place of employment, Kari meeting me at the front desk.

“Hello! How are you?” She just began walking toward the elevator as she spoke.

“Great. How about you?”

“I’m wonderful thank you for asking.” She pressed the up button. “We’ll start right away with the tour. Then I’ll show you your office, the files are on your desk there.”

“An office?” The doors opened and we stepped in. There were lots of buttons, I forgot how many floors this place is, but it was a lot.

“Yeah, every donor gets one. It’s a nice place to keep paperwork and an easy meet up spot for you and your clients.” I she hit a button. “I’ll take you to the labs first, you are allowed to donate blood this way anytime you like, as long as the medical staff clear you, it’s just like donating blood to the Red Cross. We…” She continued with her spiel and took me to all the different floors and told where to go for certain things. It was a lot, but I felt comfortable enough to ask her question, which she almost always had an answer too. We ended on the donor floor, with private offices, a cafeteria, and a gym. I really had it made.

She opened up an office, it was empty except for a nice desk and a computer, plus a few files. “This is your place, you can set up a code for the lock,” She jiggled the handle. “that phone has all the extensions on it” I nodded. “Just call or email me if you choose anyone today, but please take your time. I’ll set up a meeting with them as soon as possible.”

“Thank you so much Kari. I’ll let you know.” She nodded with a smile and started to step out. “Kari, um,” She stopped. “I was wondering what they know about my last job.”

“Oh, we left all that information out of the file. It’s at your discretion.” I nodded and she left. I sat down and took the first file in my hands, pushing the other ones away. I closed my eyes and didn’t open them until the file was open. I almost had a heart attack. Henry Cavill was at the top of the page.

Shout out to one of my bestest friends and my first tag on the tag list! Love you girl :) @hellcaster901

#fanfic #fanfiction #henry cavill #henry cavill x oc #henry cavill fanfiction #june writes stuff

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #222: A Gathering of Evil!

August, 1982

You know, I haven’t really thought about how long its been since the Avengers have dealt with the Masters of Evil.

The Masters are the Avengers’ evil opposite team. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to their X-Men. The Legion of Doom to their Justice League. The Revengers to their Avengers.

But the Avengers haven’t had to deal with the Masters of Evil since Avengers #83. And in that appearance, they took a backseat to the real master of evil. FEMINISM.

At least according to Roy Thomas.

But yeah. Its been a while without the Masters of Evil. And, uh, any team with Whirlwind has a long way to climb for credibility. Yeah, I said it. He doesn’t wear a shirt.

Also, they put She-Hulk in her at-the-time Iconic She-Hulk Outfit. This is another case of the cover lying. The reality is, somehow, even more embarrassing for her.

Last time: the Avengers had a membership drive because you can only be a kooky quartet for so long. She-Hulk and Hawkeye were recruited and took an instant dislike to each other.

Because She-Hulk cut off Hawkeye in traffic and Hawkeye proportionately responded by breaking her car.

Fun!

So lets get to it.

We start with She-Hulk trying to fix her car.

Annnnd she’s throwing random pieces out of the hood. I don’t think she knows much about auto-repair.

When the electrical system zaps her, she gets so angry that she smashes the car flat like she’s a Street Fighter. Then she jams the wreckage into a public trashcan - also flattening that.

Alas, She-Hulk’s pink Cadillac. You graced our lives for far too short a time. And were taken from us by that heinous bowman Hawkeye. This is the sin which I will always hold against him.

Wasp rolls into the scene, tsking about She-Hulk’s behavior being bad for the Avengers’ image. And hey, yeah! I do like that She-Hulk trying to fix a car in front of the mansion before getting fed-up and breaking it is a good indication that she’s not going to be your typical Avenger.

But despite the tsk she’s not too serious about the admonishment. She even congratulates She-Hulk on getting rid of the car, as it clashed with her skin color.

Reasonably enough, She-Hulk asks who made Wasp the expert.

Except, Wasp did. Wasp made Wasp an expert. She’s literally a professional fashion designer. But relatedly, she’s designed a whole new wardrobe for She-Hulk and can’t wait to dress her up.

I kind of wonder if Wasp views new female teammates as potential canvasses.

Later on, in the Busiek run, she’ll design a new outfit for Firestar pretty much without any input from Firestar herself. And it had an incredibly plunging neckline that Firestar was very uncomfortable with.

If Wasp offers to fashion design for you, feel flattered and a little bit afraid.

Anyway, She-Hulk decides well might be nice to try on a bunch of new clothes.

Y’know, She-Hulk is a bit of a fashion person herself. In her original solo book she started the ‘oops I flexed and my sleeves fell off’ fashion.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Tony Stark at Stark International.

Big boss himself came down to the Long Island office because one of his programmers has asked for time off.

Brenner’s son is sick and he needs to pick him up from school. BUT: he’s in the middle of a complicated computer project!

Like the idealized fictional caring billionaire that he is, Tony is completely understanding.

Tony Stark, what a guy: “Well, your son is more important than any computer program, take the rest of the day off -- with pay.”

If you end up stuck in the Marvel universe somehow, see about swinging a job with Tony Stark. Tony Stark makes you feel/he’s the cool exec with the heart of steel.

Tony decides he’ll get Ordinary Electrical Engineer Scott Lang to finish the programming work.

Ordinary Electrical Engineer Scott Lang is happy to pick up the project but since Tony Stark is in the room anyway, Scott asks if Iron Man has mentioned any news of Hank Pym.

For you see, although you might think that this Scott Lang is an Ordinary Electrical Engineer, he is actually the new Ant-Man so he feels indebted to Hank Pym.

Tony responds that there hasn’t been any news since Hank Pym went to jail so Scott asks why the Avengers haven’t done anything for him. Tony claims that there’s not a lot that the Avengers can do for him until his case comes to trial.

You could hire him a good lawyer? Or pay for that therapy that you thought he needed?

I guess I don’t know that Tony isn’t doing these things off-screen, to be fair.

Tony further claims that Hank will do fiiiine in jail, because he’s tough. Scott remains dubious since he’s actually been to jail and knows what its like. But there’s only so much you can contradict the boss, even if he’s idealized fictional caring billionaire Tony Stark.

And anyway, Tony has other things on his mind. He’s more worried about Jan than he is about Hank. She’s way too well-adjusted for having gotten divorced after her marriage turned miserable. According to Tony Stark anyway.

Of course, his major misunderstanding is that he thinks “she had [Hank] to lean on for so many years” when it was more the other way around. The Jan he thought he knew was actually playing the role of the Hank Pym Hype Squad.

Meanwhile, we check in on Steve Rogers.

One thing I appreciate about this run of Avengers is that we have more of a sense of what the Avengers are doing when not Avengersing. The Avengers book feels a lot more keyed into the rest of the related Marvel universe.

For example, Steve actually got some art jobs! It looks like comics book actually! And he does art for advertisements too!

And he’s living that glamorous artist life of staying up all night to finish pages and then going ‘oh shit my day job’ when his alarm rings for the Avengers meeting.

Although he’s actually looking forward to getting the costume on and getting away from dealing with ad executives and art editors for a while.A good ol’ several hours in the Avengers gym will help work out the art desk bad posture knots out of his shoulders.

And elsewhere in Chicago, Illinois, where Ordinary Doctor Donald Blake has moved to attempt to make a life for himself separate from Thor. He’s doubtful whether he actually can.

I sorta wonder what the status quo in the Thor books is like because usually when Dr. Donald Blake shows up in the Avengers book, he’s been like a wandering expert doctor, just passing through. Showing up to do the tough medical jobs. He’s settling down in Chicago now.

But at least the thousand mile commute to the weekly Avengers meeting is no problem for THOR!

Now that Hawkeye is on the Avengers again, he’s part of the round of checking in. He’s clocking out of the security chief job at Cross Technological Enterprises. His colleagues all envying how he gets to set his own hours.

He takes a train from Yonkers to his new Central Park West apartment. I don’t know if you remember his living conditions before he got the job at Cross Technological but it was a bit suck. He’s definitely put his steady paycheck to use improving his digs.

Old (from issue #189):

New (from issue #this issue):

Although maybe too much. Because when he gets home he realizes that he has almost no food in his apartment and also no money until payday.

Hawkeye: “Where the heck does $1200 a week go, anyway? I don’t play Pac-Man that much! There was more change in my pocket in the old carny days!”

Psst, Hawkeye. Definitely sign up for the stipend check from Stark.

Another thousand a week will go a long way to keeping you living the can afford food standard of living you’re accustomed to.

He manages to find a bag of potato chips to snack on but decides he’ll have to see if he can find an actual square meal at Avengers Mansion.

Likely. Jarvis seems the sort to keep the fridge well-stocked and heck he’d probably make something if asked.

Anyway, Hawkeye being Hawkeye, he’s not going to take the elevator or stairs. He’s definitely going to fire a cable arrow so he can swing down from his balcony. Because, of course he is. He’s Hawkeye.

And he lands right in front of a taxi, the driver of which calls him a nut

Hawkeye: “You want a star in your cab or not?”

Turns out? No. Hawkeye has to walk to Avengers Mansion and arrives late because the cabbie won’t give him a free ride.

Meanwhile at Avengers Mansion (which fails to elicit the same kneejerk emotional response as ‘meanwhile at the HALL of JUSTICE’ from me), the She-Hulk clothing montage has occurred off-screen.

For shaaaame, James Shooter. And also Steven Grant.

She-Hulk isn’t so sure about the outfit Wasp put together for her.

Wasp: “I call it Arabian Night -- a blend of suppleness, strength and sensitivity to highlight your true nature!”

She-Hulk: “Don’t you think it’s a little... unusual?”

Wasp: “You’re an unusual woman, Jennifer! Your clothes should say that! We want a complete image that’ll drive me wild at the sight of you!”

She-Hulk: “Got anything that’ll drive that jerk Hawkeye one way to oblivion?”

I don’t know if fashion can do that but if anyone could design that, Wasp could. Her or Giger.

Wasp tries to defend Hawkeye but can only manage “he’s okay, just a little... um, well, you know!” but suggests that She-Hulk just be nice to Hawkeye to throw him off.

Which. Sounds like a funny idea.

Anyway, I like the outfit. The colors work for her. And maybe it’s because there are a couple Dragon Ball outfits like this but it feels appropriate for her. Because of the punching.

Iron Man comes in and goes ga-ga multiple punctuation over She-Hulk’s new look, which I guess proves that Wasp hit where she was aiming.

Wasp: “Oh, more flattery! More! I love it! And this is just the beginning. Wait until you see the fighting togs I’m designing for her!”

So I guess that this is just an outfit to look good in and Wasp is still working on the superhero outfit. Can’t wait to see it.

Captain America and Thor come in and Thor too praises She-Hulk’s new look.

Thor: “By Odin’s beard! What emerald beauty stands before us?”

They date later. Its one of those ‘wow expected this to happen way sooner than 2018 honestly’ things.

And then Hawkeye comes in.

He also loses his shit over She-Hulk’s new look. But in more of a Hawkeye way.

Hawkeye: “Waitaminit! Is it Cheryl Tiegs? Loni Anderson? No! It’s the new fashion plate -- the Savage She-Hulk! Talk about trying to get silk purses from sow’s ears!”

You’re a rude, Hawkeye.

She-Hulk storms towards him, offended, and just lifts him bodily.

And kisses him.

Then drops his ass on the ground.

I guessss remembering and putting her own spin on Wasp’s suggestion?

People need to stop kissing each other for spite and revenge reasons, honestly.

I do get a laugh at Hawkwye demanding a rematch. Can’t imagine what form that’d take. But its funny.

I kind of have a problem with the scene, beyond the people kissing each other for spite and revenge thing. Prior to joining the Avengers, the issue where She-Hulk got her pink Cadillac was Marvel Two-In-One #88 where she spent nearly the entire issue hitting on the Thing to his discomfort. And the joke was Ha Ha Sexually Assertive Women.

I really hope that we do not have that again.

Anyway, the other Avengers get some yuks over She-Hulk’s method of shutting up Hawkeye.

Iron Man even suggests that Hawkeye and She-Hulk have just had their first date to Hawkeye’s dismay.

Seriously, someone write an Avengers code of conduct and then create an HR department.

MEANWHILE, CHANGING THE TOPIC AND THE SCENE

In Egghead’s secret Manhattan laboratory.

Egghead: “No, it’s not fair! All I ever wanted was to rule the world -- is that so much to ask? I’m 52. That doesn’t give me many years left -- that idiot Henry Pym blew what may have been my last chance!”

Hah at Egghead having a baby tantrum over being thwarted. And I guess good to know that Hank screwing up the plan by calling the Avengers did screw over more than Hank Pym.

Hank may have saved the world, actually. Good job, Hank.

Egghead laments that he wishes he had another good plan but kind of put all the eggs, hah, in the unstoppable adamantium robots basket.

And then his sexy maid Anna chimes in with a suggestion.

Wait, why does Egghead of all villains have a sexy maid? Who seems to have a crush on him? Why is this a thing? Who in or out of universe looks at Egghead and thinks ‘yes this man is a sexual dynamo’?

Eh, whatever.

Anna: “Vhy don’t choo just buy the vorld, darlkink?”

Egghead: “Anna! Vhat... er, what did you say?”

Anna: “You should make a lot ov money und buy the vorld!”

Egghead: “Work?! Disgusting!”

This is probably the only time I will ever be able to say this but I agree with Egghead.

Anna: “No, no, no! Just invent somethink that everyvun vants -- a cure for baldness, mebbe... or eternal youth!”

Egghead: “That’s silly, Anna! Or is it?”

IT IN FACT WASN’T!

Egghead suddenly stands up, dumping sexy maid Anna to the floor, as he realizes that she’s right! If Egghead could invent cell rejuvenation to give people eternal youth, the world would be his oyster! People would give anything for it!

Granted, he has no idea how to invent cell rejuvenation but that’s tomorrow’s problem. Today’s problem is the logistics. He’ll need research, money, equipment and most importantly of all lackeys to steal all that stuff for him so he won’t have to Effort!

So moments later, Egghead signals a robot spy capsule that he has monitoring Atlantis at all times just because.

Egghead’s spy capsule launches a guided missile at an Atlantean prison, busting out someone mysterious unless you happened to glance at the cover.

And we go from one prison to another prison to pop in on Hank Pym at Ryker’s Island.

Ryker’s is apparently the go-to supervillain prison.

And whoops Hank Pym is one now, at least according to the law. What with being caught with all that stolen adamantium and the mind control prosthetic arm.

Hank Pym: “It just doesn’t make sense! All I tried to do was redeem myself, but things just got out of control! Egghead’s responsible for this! He committed the crime I’m accused of -- and made sure I can’t prove it! Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”

Probably because you did do the crime and were caught in the act and you wouldn’t explain yourself fully afterward. Just saying.

Hank Pym: “Jan! That’s where it all went wrong! If I could get her back, everything would work out! I know it!”

Hank Hank Hank... You’re suddenly a romantic.

A guard yells at Hank that its food time and then further yells that his son had looked up to Hank, which causes Hank to reflect whoops he let down more than just Jan and the Avengers.

When Hank sits down to eat prison chow, he’s accosted by Dave Cannon aka WHIRLWIND aka I guess Hank’s backup archnemesis?

Hank isn’t really spoiled for choice with good archnemeses so he either has Egghead or spin around real fast man.

At least Dave Cannon aka Whirlwind is trying to go for the personal lowblow. That’s a decent, if gross, archnemesis move.

He insinuates that hey if Jan divorced Hank that means Dave has a chance with her and he’s going to visit her as soon as he jailbreaks out of here today.

I’m sure he does have a chance. Like a snowball’s in hell, maybe.

Hank tells Dave to shut up because shut up, Dave.

But Dave ups the ante by suggesting that after Hank Pym gets out of jail in maybe ten or twenty years, he and Jan will hire Hank to be their chauffeur.

So Hank smashes a tray of food in Dave’s face because shut up, Dave.

He also starts punching him because in for a penny.

And because Hank totally started that ‘fight’ the guards haul Hank off for a month in solitary.

You wouldn’t think Hank’s life could get worse in every issue he appears in but you would be wrong.

And wouldn’t you know it? As soon as Hank is out of the room, the jailbreak starts without him.

He doesn’t even get to participate in activities now! Geez, Dave Cannon! You’re ruining prison for Hank.

Anyway, the mysterious figure from the Atlantis jailbreak scene is now jailbreaking Ryker’s and iiiiiits TIGER SHARK!

A guy I know almost nothing about!

-google- Ah, Namor foe. That explains him being a shark man.

He used to be an Olympic swimmer who injured his spinal cord when he rescued a drowning man. So a pretty good guy, starting off. Then to heal his spine he participated in an experimental procedure where Namor and tiger shark DNA was blended with his own and he became a shark man and an asshole.

I think that’s the Namor DNA personally. It makes people into jerks. And Namor is 100% Namor DNA so you can imagine what a jerk he is.

I’ve gotten lost in the weeds.

Tiger Shark busts in through a supposedly impregnable prison wall. The guards try to shoot him with ‘special weapons’ but Tiger Shark thwarts them with a special weapon of his own.

A TABLE!

Which he uses to block the shots and then hit them with.

They were fools to put their faith in high-falutin’ technology when they could have been investing in low-falutin’ carpentry.

That’s right, they should have gotten wooden guns.

With the guards tabled for now, Tiger Shark collects Scorpion and Whirlwind.

That’s two supervillains on his shopping list but there’s one more to get.

So the three detour over down to the women’s wing while the jailbreak of everyone else keeps the guards very busy.

And they find Dr. Karla Sofen, Ordinary Criminal Psychologist who got superpower from a space rock. Y’know, a Moonstone.

She has a few follow-up questions before she throws in with these goons but Tiger Shark isn’t a good conversationalist.

Tiger Shark: “You wanna get snuffed right here, lady?! Move! Negotiations are closed!”

She grudgingly accepts these terms. The caption box says so.

The four supervillains take a remote controlled escape boat and escape on a boat.

Later, in a safehouse on Long Island Sound, the four supervillains are all costumed up and already feeling cooped up with each other. It is a small house and they are all big personalities.

Tiger Shark and Whirlwind even get into a fight when Tiger Shark complains about waiting and about suburbia and Whirlwind tells him to shut up. And by fight I mean Tiger Shark smacks Whirlwind in the head. Because its Whirlwind.

Ant-Man’s backup archnemesis. And Tiger Shark fights Namor. Its a mismatch.

But its enough of a ‘fight’ to cause a stir.

Egghead: “Stop your silly squabbling! Fighting among yourselves won’t further my plans!”

Moonstone: “Wha -- ?! Egghead?!”

Tiger Shark: “What’s an Egghead?”

Hah.

I don’t know why this exchange amuses me so much.

Egghead is perfectly happy to introduce himself slash ramble on and on with words words words. He is PERHAPS the world’s greatest genius (hahahahah noooo) but says he may find a cure to Tiger Shark’s “repugnant amphibious condition.”

Egghead: “If you all follow me without question, you’ll share in my forthcoming power and wealth! In addition to being bodyguards, you’ll perform various tasks for me -- beginning tonight, when you loot a certain Manhattan medical research center to obtain data and supplies! Cross me -- and no one will ever hear from you again!”

I’ll make fun of Egghead any day of the week but I’ll give him this. He evidently delivers this speech with such conviction that ‘shark man who fights Namor’ just nods and apparently thinks yes this sounds legit.

And lets be honest, between Whirlwind, Scorpion, Moonstone, and Tiger Shark none of them look at this eggheaded guy threatening them and think about trying something.

Egghead appoints Moonstone his deputy and team leader. Because, he says, she’s such a well-trained follower.

Okay, okay, okay. Okay.

So, Dr. Karla Sofen first appeared as a henchwoman to Dr. Faustus.

But then she tricked the original Moonstone into giving the moonstone to her and became the new Moonstone. And here I didn’t even know there was an original Moonstone.

My point being, yes, early on you might look at Moonstone’s history and think ‘yes she’s definitely a subordinate person who won’t give me trouble’ but from a modern perspective?

I know Modern Moonstone for basically being the Starscream of whatever team she’s on. Starting from Thunderbolts at least, she’s never the boss, she’s happy being the deputy but she’s always scheming and manipulating and undermining her boss.

I really want this to be a hilariously bad judge of character Egghead has made. I really do.

Meanwhile, Whirlwind thinks that he’ll play along with Egghead’s plans. Until he gets bored.

And then I guess he gets bored like five seconds later because he decides that since the job Egghead wants them to do isn’t until evening, he can go visit Wasp.

And yeah. We scene transition to Avengers Mansion and Whirlwind is just lurking in the bushes spying on Wasp’s limo.

Inside the mansion, with the Avengers’ meeting over, the Avengers all get ready to go about the rest of their business.

Hawkeye saying he has to get home gets She-Hulk to start musing on how she hasn’t had a real home since she left Los Angeles.

Which she did for... reasons? She seemed like she was going to stay in LA at the end of her original Savage She-Hulk book. She probably did it so she could do crossovers. That makes sense.

Wasp tells She-Hulk that since Tony doesn’t charge rent, She-Hulk can just stay at Avengers Mansion for a while. And in a couple days, she’ll take She-Hulk apartment hunting.

Wasp is a good friend.

She heads out to her limo and tells Mr. Carrothers to take her to her Manhattan apartment.

BUT WHOOPS iiiiiiiiiits Whirlwind!

He knocked out Mr. Carrothers over the head and stashed him in the bushes. Wow, being Wasp’s chauffeur is very eventful.

Whirlwind: “Forget him. I’m the man in your life now! I figure with your ex in the slammer, you’re gonna need an understanding shoulder to lean on -- .”

And then Wasp shrinks down and shoots Whirlwind in the face.

Wasp: “That’s awfully considerate of you. But next time send flowers first, okay? By the way, have you ever met me bio-electric sting?”

Get rekt, Whirlwind.

This has been a really good span of issues for Wasp. I’m boggling a little. My standards weren’t super high to be honest but this has been good.

I mean, aside from her wearing her Avengers #194-196 costume again. The one with only one pant leg. Of all your costumes to wear under normal clothes, why this one, Jan?

Outside the limo, Hawkeye is trying to sneak back into the mansion to raid the pantry and hoping everyone else has gone.

Because he doesn’t want them to know that two-jobs Hawkeye is having money trouble, I guess? But dude, just confide in Jarvis. He’s a good guy.

Anyway, point being, because of Hawkeye’s hungry little tummy, he sneaks back to the mansion in time to see flashes of energy from inside Jan’s limo.

Hawkeye runs to Jan’s rescue and instantly gets blasted by Moonstone who has just arrived to yell at Whirlwind for taking off without her permission.

Whirlwind says he doesn’t have to answer to Moonstone and a presumably very frustrated Moonstone answers yes he does, that is the very thing he has agreed to when he joined the new Masters of Evil!

I feel maybe announcing loudly that you are the new Masters of Evil right in front of the Avengers is kind of jumping the gun.

Not to mention having the whole time show up to pose like a team just to pull Whirlwind’s butt out of the fire but like I said, this isn’t a very impressive seeming iteration of the Masters.

They do have this much, at least. Hawkeye recognizes each one of these bozos (muffled foghorns from Titan Up the Defense way) and recognizes that he and Wasp are outpowered in addition to being outnumbered.

Reinforced by Tiger Shark just smacking Wasp out of the air.

I think her one legged outfit is slowing her down.

So Hawkeye fires a flare arrow to try to summon help.

Remember when the Avengers had radio rings? That’d probably be a less obvious way to signal for help. Because Moonstone sees Hawkeye shoot a flare arrow that LIGHTS UP THE AREA and shoots him for sending up a signal.

And then she turns to the others and goes “Why didn’t you blunderers stop him?”

Its a good point. Tiger Shark points out though that she didn’t stop him either.

Again: not a very impressive iteration of the team.

Whirlwind, trying to put on the pragmatic hat way too late, says that they should kill Hawkeye and skedaddle because fighting in front of Avengers Mansion makes him nervous.

But he’s still Whirlwind so he’s still gross so he thinks to himself that he wants to grab Wasp before they go.

And what, dude? You gonna keep her under your bed? WHATS YOUR CREEPY ENDGAME?

On second thought, I don’t want to know. Geez, this is awful but I’m glad that Wasp died in Ultimate comics before an exceptionally creepy Ultimate Whirlwind could show up and keep her in a well or something.

Hey, maybe if we tell Whirlwind that Living Laser is also obsessed with Wasp, the two will fight to the death and I won’t have to deal with either one!

Anyway. Off-track. Anyway.

With a sound of thunder, a Perfectly Ordinary Uru Hammer THOOMs by smacking every villain before returning to Thor’s hand.

Yeah, fighting in front of Avengers Mansion? Really dumb!

Thor: “Stand back, perfidious mortals, or face the wrath of Thor!”

Wasp: “Huh? Thor! I always thought you were handsome -- but you never looked better than you do now!”

Thor: “Fair Wasp, thou art safe in my hands!”

Wasp: (Mmmm! Don’t I wish!)

Well, you’re free to play the field now, Wasp. Go for it.

Meanwhile, over in Avengers Mansion, She-Hulk hears the racket and gets up from her nap to see a supervillain battle taking place on the street in front of the Mansion and just kind of sighs about New York being like this.

Again again: fighting in front of Avengers Mansion? REALLY DUMB!

Moonstone even realizes it.

Moonstone: “This is insane -- wasting our energy battling the Avengers for nothing! We’ve got to end this fight and escape!”

She tells Scorpion to take Thor which either shows a high esteem of him or a very low regard. Either way, Scorpion is happy to try, tail-whipping Thor through the air.

Inside the mansion, She-Hulk decides that the only way to get some peace and quiet is to throw hands. Side benefit: she’ll also get to prove herself to the Avengers.

But I like that the primary reason is that she just wants to have a dang nap and this nonsense is preventing it.

So she OH YEAHs through the window because heck Tony Stark will pay to fix it and runs towards the battle.

Haha look at that tiny alarmed Jarvis in the window. I love that kind of background detail. Amazing.

Wasp takes a break from, I dunno fantasizing about Thor, to fly over in a panic.

Wasp: “Oh, no! That outfit is an original! Tear it -- and I’ll never speak to you again!”

She sure has her priorities. I think maybe she doesn’t think these new Masters of Evil are all that threatening.

Maybe she shouldn’t be so worried though. She-Hulk just jumped through a glass window and the outfit looks untouched.

She-Hulk: “You can’t be serious?! You are. Ohhh... fudge! This is ridiculous!”

She definitely had to stop herself from saying an f-bomb.

So She-Hulk stops running to help Thor and sits down to start pulling the Van Dyne Original outfit off so Wasp won’t friend break up with her.

I’m sure Thor is doing fine though.

Ha ha, just kidding.

Moondragon is keeping him pinned down with her laser blasts and Tiger Shark hits him with something almost as powerful as TABLE.

A CAR.

Tiger Shark: “That Avenger creep thinks he’s the strongest there is. Me, I can withstand the pressures of the ocean’s floor without breathing hard. So when you’re talking strength -- you’re talking Tiger Shark!”

Hey, cool! Its the same thing writers use to argue Aquaman Strong Actually. I wonder if this actually predates that. It’d be funny if Tiger Shark preempted Aquaman in anything.

Wasp (while blasting Scorpion in his Scorpion neck) asks Thor if he’s okay but I think Thor is more annoyed than endangered by being ganged up on by the villains.

Thor: “Aye, the villain’s cowardly attack availed him naught against the might of Thor! I would see this battle ended!”

Tiger Shark basically says ‘nuh uh’ or “Together we can turn him into hamburger!” but then someone punches Tiger Shark from behind and knocks him out.

Scorpion: “Who in -- ? Some chick from Frederick’s of Hollywood?”

She-Hulk: “Don’t tell me you don’t know who I am! I don’t want to hear it!”

So, yeah, She-Hulk has arrived. In her underwear. So she doesn’t offend Wasp.

I guess after the Moondragon arc, Wasp is paying forward the wardrobe embarrassments.

Very rude, Jan.

Hawkeye is also up and raring to arrow. And he nails Whirlwind with said shock arrow annnd knocks him out.

Yup, this is the part of the book where we’re running out of pages so the villains start going down really easy.

Next, Wasp shoots Moonstone and She-Hulk multi-tasks by punching Moonstone into Scorpion and knocking both of them out.

Which means that She-Hulk is MVP of this fight. She arrives the latest but knocks out the most people. Good job, She-Hulk. Even Hawkeye admits that she did pretty good (qualified with “for a beginner!” which She-Hulk just laughs off.)

Meanwhile, in his hidden laboratory, Egghead is thinking that you can’t get good help these days.

Egghead: “Fools! We would have destroyed the Avengers eventually! There was no need to upset my timetable!”

But its only a minor setback and he considers that this stomp may leave them more willing to see that his ideas are best ideas.

I really hope that everyone pins the blame on Whirlwind when Egghead inevitably has to break them out of prison again to assemble his Masters of Evil again.

Hm, and I didn’t wonder this before but why Masters of Evil as a team name? He has no connection with any of the previous iterations, I don’t think. Weird.

Back at the mansion, the Avengers stand around being pretty pleased with themselves for beating up a bunch of people who attacked them for no reason and sucked at it.

The only sour note is that Wasp lost yet another limo (to Tiger Shark’s deadly CAR attack) but even then she says she was ready to trade it in on a DeLorean anyway.

Wait, aren’t DeLoreans known for having disappointing performance for a car and adequate performance as a time machine? Wasp, why are you getting a DeLorean, you kook!

She-Hulk, who sold her dignity to keep Jan’s friendship, suggests that the two of them go looking for new cars together.

OH RIGHT. Issue started with She-Hulk’s poor lamented pink Cadillac being junked. That’s bookends, it is. They’re the Sisterhood of the Broken Cars now.

So a very decent story!

Stuff is being setup with Egghead, the Hank Pym plot thread is still going, and we’ve got a new Avengers roster to settle into.

Although. Between the Moondragon arc and this, I’m wondering if clothing mishaps is going to be a running joke going forward and I hope not. Or at least let the guys in on it. Let Thor get locked out of the house in his underwear. It is only fair.

To the readers, if not the characters.

Although, I guess that is kind of what happened in the Molecule Man story. Tony Stark stuck in only his underwear and had to wear Ordinary Doctor Donald Blake’s jacket around his waist.

Not much more to say about this. Its a solid issue.

Follow @essential-avengers. Because: reasons. Also like and reblog. Because: similar but different reasons. Selling myself is hard.

#Avengers #Masters of Evil #Egghead #the Wasp #She Hulk #Hawkeye #Thor #essential avengers #Whirlwind is a creep #She Hulk's sweet new threads #f in chat for She Hulk's pink cadillac #She Hulk kisses hawkeye and its terrible for everyone #including you #essential marvel liveblogging

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

AND YOU KNOW WHO GOT THEM

Smaller companies were increasingly able to survive as formerly narrow channels to consumers broadened. They seem to like us too.1 That gets you James Bond, who knows what to do in situations where few others could. What about the more theoretical question of whether hockey would be a bad sign if they weren't; it would be false. And partly a larger part than he would admit that he doesn't want to see.2 The problem is, a lot of the problems change. On the other hand, history is even fuller of examples of parents who thought their kids were wasting their time and who were right. Why didn't Henry Ford realize that networks of cooperating companies work better than a single big company? If you want to slow down, your instinct is to lean back.3

Meetings are like an opiate with a network effect. My guess is that a lot of instincts, this one wasn't designed for fun, and mostly it wasn't. It turns out I have a lot of time on bullshit things or lose to people who do. I get nothing done, because I'm doing stuff that seems, superficially, like real work. In most fields, prototypes have traditionally been made out of different materials. Now a lot of something. The one example I've found is, embarrassingly enough, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all got started. Nor did they work for big companies not even to try to solve problems and simply not discount weird hunches you have in the process. If you want to prepare yourself to start a startup, the thought of our startups keeps me up at night. A physicist friend recently told me half his department was on Prozac. As with gangs, we have some idea what your prospects might be if you tried to keep someone in as protected an environment as a newborn till age 18.4

Aggregators show how much better you can do to help: Avoid distractions. In short, the disasters this summer were just the usual childhood diseases. And it does seem as if Google was a collaboration. The reason this struck me so forcibly is that for most of what happened in finance too. Buildings to be constructed from stone were tested on a smaller scale in wood. One might worry this would prevent people from expressing controversial ideas, but a leading indicator.5 To some extent this was because the companies themselves had become sclerotic.6 How can you tell if you're up to it, the only way to get an accurate drawing is not to spend it having fun, you know you're being self-indulgent. Advising people and writing are fundamentally different types of problems—wisdom to human problems and intelligence to abstract ones. In fact, we were surprised how much time I spent making introductions. What a solitary task startups are.

Apple are doing so much better than Microsoft today. It will take more experience to know for sure, but my guess is that a lot of time on them have to be learned, and are sometimes fairly counterintuitive. Having coffee with a friend matters. Notice I said what they need, not what they want. Palm and RIM haven't a hope. You can see it in old photos. They want to get rich. As one of the things startups do right without realizing it.

Developments in finance, communications, transportation, and manufacturing enabled a new type of company whose goal was above all scale. That form of fragmentation, like the chemical elements. That way we can avoid being discontented about being discontented. And that means other questions aren't. I began with, that it doesn't matter much; it will change anyway. And we have to tell them the best way to begin may not be to write a prototype that solves a subset of a bigger problem you're trying to solve: how to have a remedial character. So by studying the intended users include the designer himself.7 I finally figured out something I've wondered about for 25 years: the relationship between wisdom and intelligence. This article is derived from a keynote talk at the fall 2002 meeting of NEPLS. But you yourself are the most important things to remember about divorce, one of which is: You shouldn't put the blame on one parent, because divorce is never only one person's fault. In 1995, writing software for end users was effectively identical with writing Windows applications. Once an essay has had a couple thousand page views I feel reasonably confident about it.

You won't feel later like that was a waste of time. Practically everyone thinks that someone who went to private schools or wished they did started to dress preppy, and kids who wanted to seem rebellious made a conscious effort to think of startup ideas, the ideas you come up with will not merely be bad, but bad specifically in the sense of not having gone to the college you'd have liked is your own feeling that you're thereby lacking something. Within Y Combinator, which is more than they paid him. What was really happening was de-oligopolization. I mean business can learn from open source: that people working for money, but also everyone who aspired to it—which in the middle of the century our two big forces intersect, in the now pointless secrecy of the Masons. At the very least we have to go pretty far down the list of colleges before you stop finding smart professors in the math department. If Christmas-as-magic lasts from say ages 3 to 10, you only have to keep the peace. Good new ideas come from earnest, energetic, and independent-minded. If the world were static, we could just program in machine language. The reason, I realized, more from internal evidence than any outside source, that the ideas we were being fed on TV were crap, and I am self-indulgent in the sense of being an insider. If you want to start startups hope universities can teach them about startups if they were merely hiring people.8 100,000 people worked there.

Notes

The other reason they pay a lot of the whole fund.

The amusing thing is, it would have seemed to Aristotle the core: the resources they expend on the Daddy Model and reality is the kind that prevents you from starving.

Joe Gebbia needed Airbnb? It's lame that VCs play such games, books, newspapers, or pigs, to the environment. You may not have raised money at first had two parts: the energy they emit encourages other ambitious people together. The mere possibility of being absorbed by the size of the current edition, which are a small proportion of spam, but all they demand from art is brand, and so don't deserve to keep the next round.

How did individuals accumulate large fortunes in an industrialized country encounters the idea of getting rich, purely mercenary founders will seem as if having good intentions were enough to absorb that. So the cost can be times when what you're doing. Investors are fine with funding nerds. In a country with a potential acquirer unless you want to know about a week for 19 years, it becomes an advantage to be about 50%.

Believe me, I should add that none who read this to be very promising, because a part has come unscrewed, you have to do that. Mueller, Friedrich M. Ideas are one of the world. As well as good ones don't even try.

Few technologies have one clear inventor. I paint someone's house, the best new startups.

With the good groups, you have to want to create a silicon valley in Israel. For example, if you don't, you're using a degenerate case of Bayes' Rule.

The continuing popularity of religion is the odds are slightly more interesting than later ones, it will seem like noise. I'm talking here about which is something inexperienced founders. Letter to Ottoline Morrell, December 1912.

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diyunho · 5 years

Text

The Joker x Reader - “Ghost” Part 1

Bane’s wife is a mystery to everyone, including her husband. Ghost also happens to be The Joker’s little obsession, not that she ever pays attention to him. Maybe that’s why The King of Gotham should stop messing around: when you push too much, you might get more than you bargained for.

“Boss,” Frost makes his presence known in the VIP room. “Ghost is here.”

“Don’t make her wait,” The Clown growls and Jonny nods in acceptance, aware the woman’s infamous temper might create some unwanted trouble if she gets delayed from her schedule.

The Joker passes his fingers through the neon green hair, not that it needs fixing; he also unbuttons another button from his purple shirt, only two of them holding the garment together now. A quick glance to the other man present here: still on the couch facing the windows depicting the busy night at the club; earbuds in while listening to an important cell phone message received a few minutes ago.

Might as well take advantage of the situation.

You part the sparkly beads and enter the premises, immediately positioning yourself on the loveseat across from The Joker’s without any invitation.

“Hi Mister J,” you flatly greet without any trace of emotion.

“Hello Ghost,” The King of Gotham checks out the guest since he finds the creature totally fascinating.

I mean, why wouldn’t he be captivated? You have white hair shaved on the left side that’s meant to expose the skull tattoo you got after you’ve met your husband; smoky, dark red eyeshadow and glossy lips. You always wear black, tight skin leather suits and boots; not high heeled because it’s not your style: more like the heavy military kind, custom ordered to match your spouse’s.

“I have a business proposal; name your price,” The Joker grins and you give him a cold stare.

“I’m listening.”

“I want you to kill Bane for me.”

“Why?” you tilt your head in annoyance.

“I can’t stand him,” the honest response prompts retaliation from the guy that finally realized you’re there and just took his earbuds off:

“Stop hitting on my wife!” Bane huffs, displeased with J’s nonsense.

You’re not a big fan of The Joker either, yet you attempt to avoid useless conflict.

“I’m going to get me a drink. HB, want one?” you address your husband and he signals for his favorite.

“Triple shot of whiskey, no ice.”

“Be right back,” you announce and prepare to leave but tonight’s host is not happy with the outcome:

“I want a drink too.”

“Ask your girlfriend,” you cut J off and he underlines:

“She’s not here yet.”

“Too bad and so sad,” Y/N grumbles while vanishing from the VIP room.

Bane can’t hold in a very amused chuckle and choses to start something for the heck of it:

“Imagine being with a strong minded woman that does what she wants.”

J is far from receptive about Bane’s insinuation, definitely mad you brushed him off:

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

“Did you ever hear the expression: jerk to the world but not to your girl?” Bane’s distorted tone amplifies today’s advice. “You might want to apply that to your fragile relationships.”

“Spare me your wisdom, HB!” The Clown Prince of Crime emphasizes the initials, deciding to counterattack. “B is from Bane, obviously,” he thinks he found something to make fun of. “H Comes from… Herbert? Hugh? Hedwig?”

Your spouse would love to wipe out J’s almighty smirk with a punch; savoring the aftermath of telling him the truth is infinitely better:

“HB comes from Handsome Brute; my wife calls me that.”

The Joker doesn’t have time to comment though: Y/N returns with the drinks and positions herself on Bane’s knees, helping him taking off his mask so he can enjoy his whiskey.

“Hey Ghost, how come you don’t smile or laugh?” The King of Gotham continues to be obnoxious, still upset you didn’t indulge his request for a beverage.

“I do,” you reply and guzzle down half of your drink at once. “HB makes me laugh all the time; he’s hilarious.”

J glares at the couple with his mouth slightly open; it’s fair to say you are probably the most serious people he does business with. I mean, sometimes you have this expression on your face that could pass as a grin in disguise and your husband…well, the way he looks makes it impossible to imagine him cracking up about anything.

“Duly noted,” The Joker scoffs and Frost suddenly yells loud enough to be heard from outside the VIP room:

“Sir, the truck is here!”

J gets pumped up and rushes out, urging his companions to follow. “Come on, let’s see if it was worth the wait!”

But Y/N and her spouse don’t oblige: Bane finishes his drink in one sip and you place your glass on the small coffee table nearby, casually mentioning:

“I’m late.”

“No you’re not,” he’s fast to disagree while pointing at his wrist watch. “You’re always on time.”

You place his hand on your tummy and it clicks.

“Oooh,” Bane gulps and his wife has to add the necessary info:

“Just a little bit over a week, might be nothing. I’ll have to check it out.”

“Oh my God…” he zones out since the possibility of becoming a father sounds exciting and terrifying all at once. “We might have created a tiny Ghost.”

“Maybe, but I have to let you know I have no idea how to be a mom.”

“Me neither,” his witty answer makes you snort before bursting out laughing like crazy.

The Joker is on the hallway and stops, confused: he’s returning to the VIP section to see why you didn’t follow him, yet the contagious snickering coming from inside baffles his mind: are you two laughing?!

“Bane!! Ghost!! Are you coming or not?!” he shouts and the chuckle slowly dies out as you help your other half put on the mask.

“Yeah, coming!” the pair joins The Clown towards the exit leading to the private parking lot behind the club.

“What were you talking about?” J curiously inquires.

“Personal stuff,” Bane gives an elusive explanation and opens the emergency door, firmly halting The Joker’s movement. “Ladies first!”

“For God’s sake,” J puffs and waits for you to pass by.

“Where are your manners, hm?” your husband scolds since he doesn’t approve of the host’s behavior.

“Would you give it a rest?!” The King of Gotham impatiently speeds up, fed up with Bane’s bickering.

As you walk towards the truck, you notice something you don’t like: the new muscle hired just a week ago is smoking without a care in the universe. You stomp towards him, yank the cigarette out of his fingers and step on it, aggravated:

“No smoking around my husband; you know the rule!!!”

The crew knows this is law simply because Bane has breathing problems but Lenox decides to mumble a thing or two to himself regarding the feisty woman. That’s too bad: your spouse doesn’t like it one bit. You don’t even have a chance to react to the observations since the goon is slammed against the nearest SUV by a very enraged husband.

“My wife’s a Goddess, you fucking asshole! You’re lucky if she blinks your way!”

The man is trying to escape the tight grip, the elbow forcefully pushing into his Adam’s apple not budging.

“I’m s-sorry boss,” Lenox struggles to speak and the noise of broken bone brings the quarrel to an end.

“You’re fired!” are the last words the henchman distinguishes as his limp body falls to the ground.

The Joker’s girlfriend sneaks up and grabs his hand, uneasy about what she just witnessed.

“Elected to show up?!” J growls, instantaneously criticizing her lack of coordination. “I told you to be here at 7pm sharp!”

“Sorry baby, there was a lot of traffic on the freeway. What happened?”

”Ugggh,” The Clown scoffs, unwilling to describe the events. “Clean up the mess!” he orders and pushes her arm away since he’s not in the mood for cheap affection.

Kara sighs, upset she can’t squeeze any type of intimacy from him except for the instances when they sleep together. The Joker abandons her, more interested in Ghost because she’s already digging in some crates lowered from the truck, not even phased by Bane’s performance.

“Did you find items that strike your fancy?” he hovers over your boxes.

“Yeah, this gun, “ you show him the pistol decorated with skulls. “ Matches my motorcycle.”

“Very nice,” he praises your option and leans to whisper: “One of these days I would love to sink my teeth in you. I bet you taste good.”

Such an inappropriate remark would usually prompt a punch or a bullet from your part, yet you are dealing with the dreadful Joker: he’s not worth the trouble. Instead you lift your tight sleeve higher, exposing skin that you take directly to his lips.

“Go ahead then: take a bite, this way we can all go on with our lives.”

In the meantime, Bane is talking to his mercenaries, instructing them to load the merchandise he’ll pick in the trunks of the bigger cars.

“Ghost!” he calls out. “I need you to lead the convoy afterwards!”

Apparently you have your hand up to The Joker’s mouth: did he blur out some crap again?! Definitely.

Yet you abandon your problem-project, waving at your husband.

Kara approaches also, not understanding what she saw from a distance.

“Hi Ghost,” the woman sadly acknowledges, jealous The Clown’s unwanted flirting might interfere with their already frail arrangement.

“Hey,” you elegantly reject more dialogue, pretending to be immersed in your task.

“I’ll go see what else we received,” J groans and shamelessly discloses his thoughts with his girlfriend standing right there. “When you get bored with Bane, maybe you’ll allow me to make you my Queen.”

Kara’s heart sinks at his indifference regarding her hurt feelings; Ghost certainly has no patience for his shenanigans.

“I’m already someone’s Goddess and I’d rather die than settle for less!”

The Joker smirks, groping his girlfriend in the process. He hops in the truck, starting to search the containers, entirely ignoring Kara and your reply to his proposal.

She sniffles after the humiliation on having her man utter such aberrations straight under her nose.

“You have to keep him in a leash; he sure loves to bark a lot,” you feel the urge to add, irritated she’s such a pushover. “I’m not interested in his rubbish,” you take pity on her pathetic demeanor. “He’s totally howling at the wrong tree mostly to exasperate you and my husband.”

Kara nods a yes, unconvinced her boyfriend’s reasons are the same with the ones you’re illustrating; she tried to unsuccessfully befriend you for a while now, her desire linked to J’s twisted interest in another guy’s wife. Her logic is not the greatest: if you believe getting close to the woman your partner has a special attraction for will help your case, then you should recheck your priorities.

Ghost never gave a damn about becoming Kara’s buddy since she doesn’t tolerate people to begin with. Except Bane. He’s special.

“Mmm…” The Joker’s girl fusses with her minuscule purse,”do you happen to have a pad? I thought I had an extra one in here.”

“Nope, but my husband does,” you serenely admit.

“Huh?” she hums, completely baffled.

“HB!!!” you get his attention. “I need you for a sec!”

He comes to meet you at the end of the truck, lowering himself so you can reach his heavy vest. One of the many pockets contains the required product and you can’t help but soothe his disappointment:

“No worries, it’s not for me,” you wink and he exhales, relieved.

As soon as Bane returns by his side, The Joker has to say it:

“You often carry feminine hygiene articles inside your gear?”

“Ghost might need it,” your spouse marvels at J’s question. “You don’t do that for your girl?!”

J doesn’t like to be put on the spot, yet your spouse grills him on regular basis as a payback for The Clown’s numerous offenses.

“I have no space,” he wiggles his way out of it.

“You got pockets attached to your fancy suits, correct? I’m sure you have enough anatomy knowledge to understand such matters and how simple it is to improve your woman’s life with such a small thing.”

“Would you give me a break?!” J interrupts Bane. “Nobody cares to hear about how perfect you are.”

HB doesn’t appreciate the irony in The King’s tone:

“You’re so hopeless,” he justly deduces, raising a massive crate with ammo he finds useful for his team. “I’ll take half of everything,” Bane changes subject, actually bored with teasing The Joker.

**************

The convoy is exiting the parking lot following your lead: you usually ride your motorcycle in front of the vehicles, scouting ahead when necessary. You never know when there’s a road blockage or accident where cops will be patrolling the area; it’s wiser to steer clear of redundant trouble.

Your husband is driving the first truck behind you, followed by four more vans and six SUV’s. He wouldn’t have it any other way: Bane’s addicted to the nice view of seeing Ghost mounted on her customized Harley Davidson: skulls painted against a shiny, clear background to match her tattoo, a gift from him for your four year wedding anniversary.

“Your butt looks very nice on that bike,” he compliments and you giggle through the mike in your helmet. “I can’t wait to…”

“Boss,” Eric cuts in. “You forgot to switch the frequency to the other line; we can all hear you.”

“Goddamned jerks!” Bane groans and pushes the red button on his walkie-talkie, vexed he forgot to switch the channels.

Again.

You laugh at his frustration, finding it priceless this keeps on happening.

“Yes, I know you can’t wait to get home,” you snort and accelerate. “Me too; it’s been a long day and sex is bound to do the trick and wind us down.”

Watching Ghost’s long, white hair flying in the wind makes Bane even more impatient.

“We might need to pull over, not sure I can make it.”

“You have to,” his wife advices. “Otherwise we’ll be late and we might bump into traffic coming from 205 Southbound.”

“Shit…” he reckons you’re not wrong. “I’ll try my best but I can’t make any promises.”

************

After two hours

You ignore the first knock. The second and third also.

“Jesus!” you moan, disappointed with the interference.

Bane continues to kiss your neck, making his way down your cleavage: he sure adores the red, skimpy little bra you’re wearing.

More knocking.

“You must be kidding me!” you grind your teeth and get off him, leaving a disappointed husband hanging by a thread.

“If it’s one of the boys I’ll bash their brains in!” he threatens and you tug on the door handle, prepared to lash out when the sight of Kara catches you by surprise.

“Yes?...” you roll of eyes at the unwelcomed visitor while wrapping the bathrobe around your frame.

“Hi Ghost,” she swallows her tears and you can see she is fighting to stay calm. “Is J here?”

“No.”

“He’s not answering his phone,” she gulps and nervously bundles in the thin coat she’s wearing, unconsciously attempting to cover her ripped skirt.

“Well, he’s not here,” you make it short but something about her strange behavior causes a small investigation. “What’s wrong?”

She chokes and suddenly bursts out crying, struggling to articulate the sentences.

“J l-eft me at the c-club to wait for him and o-one…one of the bouncers tried to rape m-me.”

You’re silent for a few moments before inviting her in your home. No wonder security let her pass: they recognized The Joker’s girlfriend and assumed she was expected.

“This way,” you guide her towards the living room, gesturing for one of the chairs. “Sit!”

She can’t stop sobbing and you pour some bourbon in a glass, encouraging her to drink.

“Finish this!”

Kara sips the alcohol and her shaky hands almost drop the container.

You take a blanket from the sofa and cover her with it, immediately snatching your cell from the table.

You touch the screen and it rings just once.

“Hello there.”

He sure picked up right away.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?!”

“I just did.”

“Your girlfriend is trying to reach you!” Ghost mutters, literally pissed at his conduct.

“I’m busy,” he takes the easy way out and you are instantly fired up:

“If you would pay attention to Kara instead of wasting your charms on a married woman maybe the idiots working for you wouldn’t assume they can take liberties without any type of consequences!!!!”

J is stunned you’re screaming like that, yet he wants to find out what’s going on.

“What do you mean?!”

“One of your bouncers at the club tried to rape her and you won’t even answer her calls!”

The King of Gotham is dumbfounded and speechless for once since someone would dare such an affront.

“Lemme talk to her,” he requires and you hand over the phone to the horrified girlfriend; she has a difficult time telling him the details of her scary experience and how she barely escaped the attack.

You keep on gazing at her, Kara’s misfortune striking a chord within your soul: her situation reminds you of your past, although the circumstances were quite different.

Five years ago, Y/N survived her faith; the man responsible for creating the Goddess she is today saved her and didn’t ask for anything in return, not even for a name.

Although she told him once.

And he decided there’s nothing better than a mysterious Ghost, except being loved by one.

Also read: MASTERLIST

diyunho(.)tumblr(.)com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

#the joker x reader #the joker fanfiction #the joker imagine #the joker jared leto #the joker #joker #joker fanfiction #bane x reader #joker imagines #joker jared leto #mister j #Mistah J #Mr.J #dcu

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jaimetheexplorer · 5 years

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That Emmy shit-storm on the horizon

While I’m overjoyed with the Emmy nominations for acting, directing (for Nutter and Sapo, not the other one), Ramin and Nina (because they all deserved it), we now have to brace ourselves for the gaslighting over the writing, and all the fandom drama that comes with it (like we haven’t suffered enough this year as it is). And I’m already exhausted, so here’s my take on it.

Whether you like it or not, actors have to be professional. I think it’s ridiculous of fans to expect actors to go to official events or give official interviews for nominations and say “yeah, the writing was shit and we never should have been nominated for this season”. I am not famous nor work in the entertainment industry but, sadly, that’s what “professionalism” is considered to be, even in my line of work: if anything happens in the university/department that might attract media attention, we get emails saying not to talk to the press unless we are “briefed” on how to handle it and cleared to go. And as much as I might be fed up with several aspects of my job or working for my boss, if I knew I was giving a public interview about it, I’d be incredibly uncomfortable saying that out loud, while having no problem ranting about it in private every. single. day. It sucks, that you have to be (to varying degrees) dishonest in order to be considered professional, but that’s where we are at. And, look, maybe some of them even genuinely believe the writing to be great. While it’s disappointing to hear that coming from the mouth of someone you admire, - and I personally lose respect for anyone who tries to genuinely defend this season as well written (because it defies any logic or intellect) - they are free to express that opinion, just as we are free to criticise them, lose interest in them, mute them, unfollow them and so on.

However, whether you like it or not, people can be critical of anyone involved in production and people who are hell bent on defending these statements should understand that dismissing criticism the way they’re doing (i.e. “people are just upset it’s over/they didn’t get what they wanted”) doesn’t win cast and crew any favours, if anything, it’s just going to alienate everyone even more than the plot already has. This behaviour is the equivalent of a student given a fail by all the examiners but being awarded a degree nonetheless, and dismissing the fails as “wrong” because obviously you cannot get a degree if you fail, so those who gave the student a fail didn’t know what they were talking about. While many who criticised the show have provided lengthy and thorough analyses and explanations as to why they feel that way, nobody who’s defended it has provided anywhere near the level of detail to justify their opinion. At most, it amounts to “take my word for it, D&D really cared about the story” or “it wouldn’t be this popular if the writing were bad”. To use the student analogy again, it’s like the examiners providing pages of pages of feedback to justify their grades, while the student goes “nah! in my opinion I worked hard and I deserve the degree, so I’ll take it anyway!”. This is as close to gaslighting as it comes, and nobody likes to be gaslighted.

It’s also hypocritical. When audiences praise a show and make it big, you never hear anyone involved in production saying that it’s blown out of proportion, or silly, or they’re just being emotional and irrational. However, the moment the audience turns against the show, suddenly they are being irrational and are just upset because the did not get what they wanted/expected (and, no, that is not necessarily a dirty word - if a work of fiction is built upon setting certain expectations, especially in terms of quality of the writing), and can’t really recognise good writing. So if we can’t recognise good writing, what does that say of the hype when the show was considered “good” by the majority? You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

While taking it out on the actors for the writing, or escalating things to death threats and personal insults isn’t civil, it’s also silly to ask fans, who are, for the most part, average people, with average jobs, who sometimes find their only escape and pleasure in fiction (and who had to pay HBO subscriptions for years to watch this show), to feel sorry for two millionaires, who were in the extremely privileged position of working on the biggest show on tv (and who, unlike the average worker, won’t get fired or won’t see their money taken away from them, no matter how poorly they perform), for being criticised when they blatantly rushed and half-assed their job because they were bored. They “worked hard”? Well, so what? Plenty of people “work hard” in the world and aren’t shielded from criticism just because they do, if the final product isn’t up to standards. People aren’t “being mean” to D&D (or the actors defending them) because they want to be mean. They are being mean because they feel toyed with, conned, and their intelligence insulted when they’re being told that all the stuff they paid attention to and that the show built its entire reputation on actually didn’t mean shit in the end. It’s like asking someone who hired a construction company to build them a house and waited 8 years for it to be finished not to be pissed off when the roof ends up being built out of straw and has holes in it.

Furthermore, Game of Thrones did not become big because of D&D’s genius: they didn’t invent it. They took GRRM’s work and adapted it to the screen, which makes the job much much much easier than creating something from scratch. On top of that, most of the praise the show has received was over the first 3-4 seasons of the show, when the show was still, by and large, more or less sticking to the books. The ratings kept growing not because the writing was so amazing in later seasons, but because, in the era of binge-watching, more and more people catch on later onto those first seasons and want to see how it ends. It’s TV 101: ratings in later seasons are a result of the quality of the previous seasons, because people cannot know in advance what they’re going to be watching. It’s the reason early seasons of any shows have lower ratings, despite often being better quality, while rating decline after the quality has already begun to decline.

They also lucked out not only in having wonderful source material ready for them to use, but in having an HBO budget and flexibility to do whatever they wanted, an amazing casting director who picked an incredibly talented cast, and in being surrounded by talented writers, directors, composers and so on. They suffer from the exact same kind of misplaced egomania Chris Carter suffered from on The X-Files, where he thinks he’s some kind of genius for making what, at the time, was the biggest show on TV. In that case, at least Chris Carter can be praised for having created the characters and that world, but the situation is very similar. He’s a mediocre writer who lucked out by having all the pieces fall into place around him (actors, writers, directors), and his total failure at doing anything else afterwards (other than running TXF further into the ground with his revivals) is where D&D will likely be in a few years.

The reason all this “damage control” is making things even worse than they already were is because it gives the impression that that the bottom line in this is that the audience’s reaction to a work of fiction only counts as far as it’s positive and makes the production big and rich, and when it’s negative it has to be dissected for “wrongs” and dismissed as irrational or exaggerated, while showrunners are owed praise no matter what they do, by being boosted (and made rich) by feverish hype, but shielded by equally feverish criticism.

#got negativity #emmy nominations

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myladyofsilver · 4 years

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This is Constance. She started as a magical girl and ended up as a French painter who uses crutches to walk. Constance - or Connie - is also a Miraculous Ladybug OC because, when I got on my Obsessive Bullshit, didn’t have the motivation to make another OC and I though “Underdeveloped magical girl? Sure, I can use this.”

She actually wasn’t supposed to use a wheelchair or crutches, but I read a fic with a disabled Marinette and I liked the idea so here we are.

She is also a fashion designer, that was there before Miraculous, and is a painter.

She has a harem and I am ashamed. I just really like harem fics lol.

Connie originally had twin tails and brown hair, but I liked the black hair better and wanted it down, though she probably ends up cutting it to her shoulders.

Idk why she’s so pale all my white girls are pale oops

She’s a quarter Chinese and three quarters French.

She has nice arms because of her crutches and pushing her wheelchair,

She’s a little religious, she likes to pray and carries a rosary, a gift from her mother.

Connie smokes, and it’s entirely Death’s Fault.

She’s a little fucked up I guess? She’s a kleptomaniac and (even though she’s technically disabled(?)) is often hired to break into old homes to steal shit. She fakes a panic disorder in canon to have a reason to be missing during Akuma attacks.

Constance has aquaphobia from nearly drowning because her parents were too busy arguing. Constance doesn’t like to speak to men out of fear and can be considered selectively mute and uses sign language.

Speaking of her parents, her mother is dead. Her father is in an asylum/prison for killing her. Her father went insane after her baby sister, Ambre, was a stillborn and he murdered her mother and beat her. She now lives with her older half-sisters Kara, Death, and later Verity. They are a part of a larger universe that I’ll explain in a later post. Her aunt also lives with her, but she doesn’t last long.

Constance also picked up schizophrenia and it is completely her father’s fault.

Constance shows signs of PTSD from watching her mother die and her father’s abuse.

Constance is a descendent of a Guardian that survived Feast, and has passive magic.

Personality- she’s flirty and denies it left and right, even though she flirts with everything that moves. She’s a manipulative asshole who uses tears to get what she wants, but is nowhere near as bad as Lila, and is vengeful, swearing to hunt Hawkmoth down for interrupting her flirting abusing the Miraculous. She’s protective and will not hesitate bitch try me Kagami. Better social skills than Adrien (no high road shit) but is apathetic to other’s feelings and only cares when she befriends them. She sugarcoats things but won’t hesitate to cut to the chase when she’s short on time or is just fed up. While she is manipulative, she does understand that being a bitch and hurting others will get you nowhere in life, and is quick to jump to the aid of her friends. She’s intelligent science and artistically wise, but not so much maths and people wise. Constance is secretive, knows she has to live another day and often doesn’t take risks unless absolutely necessary, and likes touch, holding hands or draping herself over others with their consent. Religious but only really prays because it makes her feel better, she does believe in God but not in Heaven or Hell. She really hates pushy guys and people who touch her without permission. She's really creative and wakes up in the middle of night to start a painting or a sketch.

Constance is taken in by her half-sisters in Eden (country I made, later post) when she is around seven, returns to Paris she is when she is eleven and meets Chloe, and become Lady Dove when she is twelve.

OK ACTUAL PLOT NOW

This happens in the middle of the summer break, and Constance is in Paris for the first time in years. She is twelve and skips a grade.

Constance breaks into an abandoned home for Fiona, a client and later possible SO, to find an old heirloom. Constance breaks in through a window and finds some weird shit (weird spell books in code, diaries) and is seriously creeped out, but Kara didn’t raise no bitch so she keeps going, she’s seen creepier in Eden anyways.

Constance (on her crutches) goes upstairs and finds a room with a shine dedicated to a cameo. She picks it up because hey, it’s free real estate.

The cameo is a Miraculous, The Dove Miraculous of Restoration.

Constance freaks and thinks she’s hallucinating and Meme, the Kwami, snaps her out of it, and explains. Constance transforms into Lady Dove.

It’s a lame name but hey, I like it.

In Origins, Lady Dove only appears in Part Two of Origins, because Constance just doesn’t care and thinks that Ladybug can handle restoring the city and cleansing the Akuma. When Ivan/Stoneheart is at the top of the Eiffel Tower and spits out the mass of butterflies, Ladybug manages to get most of the Akumas and panics when they try to escape and get someone, Lady Dove uses a cleansing spell (learned from the tomes) to get the rest and makes her debut.

Also, in this mess Ladybug can only cleanse the Akuma and not restore the city, Lady Dove does that. Meme didn’t tell her that and only said something after the first Stoneheart.

She steals part of Ladybug’s role lol whoops.

Lady Dove cleanses Ivan’s Akuma, restores the city, and sleeps because that’s the first time she used the restoration spell and she’s fucking tired.

That’s Lady Dove, now to Constance.

Constance joins at the same time as Alya, and is Chloe’s friend. She gets mad at Chloe for being rude and scolds her in front of the whole damn class. Chloe get pissed and Constance gives up and just starts flirting with her to make her shut up. Marinette and Alya still end up with different seats and Constance sits in front in her wheelchair and pouts.

Constance tries to talk down Alya in the library and fails miserably.

Watches the fight on the news but otherwise doesn’t do shit

Meme begins her explanation of Miracle Boxes, potions, unification, and Feast. Meme explains that the runes she had Constance draw all around the house were to hide them as long as they stayed inside.

(Second Day) She gets mad at Adrien but is finds out what happened from Sabrina, but doesn’t say anything, deciding it wasn’t her problem. She sits with Chloe and fakes a panic attack to escape, realizing that Ladybug didn’t get the Akuma and god fucking damnit Alya. Lady Dove debuts.

(Third Day) Constance manipulates Chloe into letting her sit with some else, quoting Sabrina’s and Chloe’s strong friendship and how she wants to make more friends. Honestly probably just says she doesn’t want to sit in the front and gets mad when Chloe tries to get others to move. She sits with Chloe and Sabrina at lunch and occasionally in class when she doesn’t want to sit in her wheelchair or the second row.

Constance asks Alya and Marinette if she can join them in the second row, is accepted because she stood up to Chloe, flirts with Marinette, and probably sleeps through class or just flirts because goddamnit I want this bitch to have a harem.

When Adrien arrives, Constance greets him a little coldly but doesn’t ignore him.

She witnesses the umbrella scene and teases Marinette for falling head over heels with him.

MIRACLE BOX

Later on in the week, Constance's aunt dies in a crash. She receives her first Miracle Box, which is the one Meme belongs to because fuck you.

I want a kwami reunion scene with Constance in the background crying for her aunt but being utterly fascinated with the kwamis and the designs of each Miraculous.

The Eagle Miraculous of that box is missing.

Lady Dove introduces the idea of temporary heroes early on and uses her Miracle Box

BTW Master Fu doesn’t know Lady Dove’s identity and disapproves of Lady Dove handing out the Miraculouses out already and not hiding them from Hawkmoth, who might target them.

SKILLS

-Shitty manipulation

-Creation of high-quality paintings and articles of clothing she designs

-High flexibility and reflexes, and high upper-body strength

-Able to wield several Miraculouses at once due to high mental resistance

-Several spells to enhance the Miraculous

-A cleansing spell that can be used to cleanse a mass Akuma

-Can speak French, choppy English, Eden’s language, and learning Mandarin/Chinese and Japanese

STUFF I’M ADDING

She has four friends from Eden- Eshaal, Caitlyn, Himari, and Rowen. They’re not a part of the harem but run the Constance Protection Squad. They come in later one at a time – expect Himari and Rowen, they’re dating and refuse to be separated. Eshaal’s parents are diplomates, Caitlyn’s mother is a war photographer who takes pictures of Akuma attacks and her father is dead, Himari’s mother is a chef and her father a financial analyst, and Rowen’s mother is a painter and his father a general who was sent in to monitor the Akuma situation.

Eshaal is a pop star, Caitlyn is a photographer, Himari is a dancer, and Rowen is an actor. Caitlyn is a workaholic and likes to gossip, and Eshaal is a ball of sunshine and dramatic. Rowen is insecure but very flashy and unbelievably dramatic, and Himari is an introvert but not afraid to be dramatic or cause a scene.

I’ll do a post on them later because I’m still trying to figure out what they look like.

I’m also adding Edward and Thomas DeLeon, twins who join probably after Origins. Thomas is a jealous bastard and is aiming to work in business, while Edward is a musician and shy. Thomas falls in love with Constance and is like Chat Noir but worse with his flirting and declarations of love. He gets Akumatised later and gets beat down. Edward also get Akumatised because his song is stolen.

Thomas finds the Eagle Miraculous and becomes a hero, name pending.

Why Constance has a harem: Her passive magic has something to do with love and naturally draws people to her. This is only amplified when she finds the Dove Miraculous, whose side effects include making people easily drawn to her for one reason or another. So, she’s a walking love magnet :D

OTHER THINGS

She totally sets the classroom on fire to scare off Lila

- “Are you insane?!” “Schizophrenic, actually.”

Forgive the spelling and grammer I’m tired.

#Constance Martin-Blackburn #Miraculous OC #Origins Miraculous #miraculous ladybug #Lady Dove

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ramheavenandhell · 5 years

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My Friend, The Tree

AN: I have no idea where this came from, but take it anyway. This is one of those rare cases that I wrote in the middle of the night without being fully aware of it…so it tends to be weird. On a positive note, we have beautiful artwork done by @rickxoxomort (the amazing cover art) and @DaddyDevilish (fantastic not sfw art) in this fanfic. Thank you both for drawing these amazing masterpieces <3 Everyone, please go and check them out! Warnings: alternate universe, Rick/Morty, Rick is a tree!, PWP smut including humping and anal penetration Summary: AU: Morty is a troubled boy, living in a village where he is treated like an outcast. The only friend that he has is a lone tree that stands near a cliff. However, there is a bit more to this tree…and he's also a bit more to Morty than just his only friend…

My Friend, The Tree It was at the brink of dusk, the sun already on its slow descent towards the horizon, when one young villager weaved his way through the adjacent small forest. He didn't stop until he reached a cliff that was bare save for one tree. The boy with brown hair took a seat underneath it, leaning with his back against its worn bark and looked up at the branches that suddenly seemed to hang lower as if they were trying to shield him like a canopy from the rest of his surroundings. "They were arguing again today," he spoke his troubles aloud. "They are threatening to throw me out now and keep telling me to find a job. I'm really trying, but no one in the village wants to hire me. You know how they are…" "Don't listen to their shit, Morty." A deep rumble came from within the trunk. "Your father doesn't have the right to judge, being the useless bum that he is. An-and if they really do kick you out, you can always stay here." "Thank you, Rick." The boy turned around to hug the tree, looking up at something, which looked like a human's face. With a little fantasy, you could see the two knotholes as its eyes, one broken droopy branch as its slightly crooked nose and underneath it, a cut in the wood that would resemble a mouth. Morty or rather Mortimer had been visiting this old tree for a long time. In the beginning, he had found this secluded place and kept revisiting it, feeling an odd sense of comfort while he shared his problems aloud. He kept talking about his arguing parents who obviously weren't happily together. They were forced to marry after one night of too much alcohol and a very literal roll in the hay in the neighbor's barn with Beth ending up pregnant. At least his father had been noble enough to take his part of the responsibility instead of leaving his mother as an unmarried, pregnant and shamed woman…not that their reputation in the village hadn't been tarnished by the circumstances under which the marriage occurred. He also kept telling about his older sister, who had been fed up by the arguments, the beatings and the depreciation of their self-worth that their parents put them through and left one night, just like that, leaving Mortimer behind to deal with the aftermath. The boy also told about the bullying that he had to endure from the other villagers of his own age, having often a fair share of bruises to show after an especially vicious and one-sided conflict. Mortimer just wasn't the type to fight back, rather wanting to avoid getting in trouble as much as he could. The old tree had taken everything in silently for weeks before one day he responded to the boy who had been pathetically weeping against his trunk, offering few small words of comfort. Instead of becoming frightened of the talking tree, Mortimer felt himself only drawn closer to his only companion and he kept visiting his friend every single day since. Of course, this didn't help his reputation in the village. The other villagers were talking about him, claiming that there was something wrong with him because he was talking to a tree and they avoided him as if whatever mental illness that he must have, was infectious. However, Mortimer stopped caring about that, already used to being treated as an outcast even if he didn't enjoy it. The boy had no idea if Richard, or Rick as the tree had asked to call him, was a magical being or just a spellbound human. He certainly wasn't able to curse other people, nor could he magically change the weather or work any sorts of miracles. At best, the only thing he was capable of was moving some of his branches, but otherwise he was as stationary as any other tree. For as much as they were talking, the old plant didn't share much about his past with him. The only thing he let him know was that he had been at this place for a very long time already. Often, when every worry had been relieved from the human boy's soul, they would sit in silence and just enjoy each other's company. Other times, they would look at the starry sky overhead and the old tree would share his wisdom with him and point out constellations by name, impressing his small companion. At one point, Mortimer wanted to help his friend, thinking of ways how to rip Rick from the isolation that he was cursed with. It would have been great if he could just dig his roots free and carry him all the way back to the village, so Rick could be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of life and he could also watch more over Mortimer from their yard. However, it was sheer impossible to transport the big and heavy tree to the village – especially on his own. Rick had told him that he didn't mind the loneliness, having grown used to it and cherishing it all the same. Still, it didn't mean that he minded the boy's presence, admitting that he cherished that even more and so the small human had given up on his pipe dreams and stuck to visiting his friend as often as he could. Their time spent together made them closer to one another. Some summer nights, Mortimer would fall asleep against the trunk and Rick would cover him with his branches, vowing to keep potential harm like wild animals away from the resting human. When the boy would wake up the next morning, nestled in the protective embrace of his only friend, he would feel so warm and secure, more than he ever even felt in his own home. And one day, their closeness reached a new level, as Mortimer uncurled from the comfort of the branches, stood up and placed his lips against the cut in the bark that would be the tree's mouth. Rick hadn't pushed him away or discouraged the boy even though he knew that Mortimer would have to face the repercussions if one too nosy villager would witness this. It was out of his own selfishness though. Enjoying the human's attention too much to give it up and sacrifice his own happiness for the good of his companion's health and safety. Thus brought them to the relationship that they had at present time and Mortimer hugged the trunk a little tighter as he pressed kisses against the rough old bark. Branches reached down to caress his body and the boy quickly stripped out of his dirty shirt and holey pants to follow the steps of their ritual, ingrained in his head through daily repetition. He shuddered as his lover's leafs caressed his bared skin, Rick always trying to be gentle to not cut or scratch him up even though it sometimes did happen. Mortimer never minded though, knowing that it wasn't on purpose. He trusted Rick, more than he trusted anyone else in his life. Simply because the other was special. Rick was his friend. His lover. His everything at this point. He was the only one who called him Morty. The only one who had bothered to shorten down his birth name and christening him with a nickname that only he would ever use for him. The only one who was allowed to call him by this special name that Rick had gifted him with. Morty moaned softly as he rubbed with the length of his body against the trunk while still feeling his lover's caresses on his sides and back. His nipples hardened quickly as they lightly caught in the small grooves, the rough texture of the bark stimulating in a way that nothing else ever could. He could also feel his member swelling, filling out and growing to full hardness and he bit his lower lip softly as he rubbed his lower half more frantically against his lover with barely repressed grunts. Rick didn't stay idle through all of that, directing his branches lower and caressing the soft, round buttocks before carefully spreading those luscious globes and sliding between them. His little lover repaid him with a delicious moan as he gently breached him, only introducing the tip of one branch inside. Of course, he knew that the human was used to this kind of intrusion and could take more. It's been a long while since the first time that he had penetrated the boy, their current encounters a far cry from the awkward and slightly painful earlier attempts at trying this. Morty was just as glad as Rick that he had grown accustomed to this enough for it to be barely painful anymore. If anything, he loved the slight agony that was still part of the uneven and hard wood entering him, which always fueled his pleasure and drove him to new heights. Readily he pushed back against his lover's intrusive branch, mewling as he took more of it inside him and feeling a mix of knobby wood, tiny bending twigs and few small leaves scraping against his insides. Nails clawed into the bark as the boy found himself in the dilemma of having to decide between one of two urges. On one hand, he felt the need to hump the tree and rub his pulsing erection against it. On the other was the craving to move against the intruding object in his ass. Trying to find an even balance between both desires, he moved back and forth, gasping and panting loudly as he did. Thankfully, his lover began to move anew, meeting Morty's every backwards thrust and sliding deeper inside him. The boy moaned loudly, his tongue lolling out and his eyes rolled in the back of his head as he could feel parts of Rick rubbing against his prostate with every motion. He was clawing the bark so hard now that it threatened to break under the force, but the old tree didn't seem to care about the possible danger that he was threatened with. Morty could feel his steadily approaching climax building up, but he knew that it could be better. As pleasurable as it would be for him to come like this, clinging to Rick's trunk and feeling this hard and uneven object thrusting into him, there was more. As if reading the human's mind, a single root, which looked different from all the other ones that dug into the ground, lifted itself up and stuck proudly skywards. Even in his near delirium, Morty noticed it. Having actually waited for this moment. The branch left him and his empty hole clenched longingly around nothingness as he shakily let go of the trunk to near that one root. Without hesitation, he lowered himself to sit on it, remembering the first times he had to try to take it inside him. It had been too big, its girth just too thick for it to fit. Only after lots of time patiently stretching himself and practicing had he finally managed to take it inside and enjoying his lover in this way. He knew that Rick enjoyed it, too. At least the pleasured sounds that he would make when Morty rode this part of him led the human to believe that it was also a pleasurable experience for the tree. Though they had never talked about it, he was convinced that this root was especially sensitive and Rick would be able to feel him more intensely and find it more pleasant to be touched there than anywhere else. As if to prove him right anew, his lover groaned as he guided the tip inside his twitching entrance and slowly sat down on the special root. While the tip was rounded and breached him still with relative ease, the wood, which was slightly more even than Rick's branches, but also a little knobby, forced his insides open wider to an almost unbearable level. Still, Morty knew that he could take it and slid further down, forcing himself to breathe through the process. "That's it, Morty. Ju-just like that. Slow and easy." Rick encouraged him, his rough voice practically a growl. It took a while, but eventually Morty had taken as much of the root as he could comfortably fit inside. Still, he needed a moment to adjust to the feeling of such utter fullness. Panting, he leaned forward, resting his sweaty forehead against the wooden body of his lover. His thighs were trembling, having trouble carrying his weight even though he was kneeling now. The sensation in his backside a sensory overload for his weak human body. The boy murmured softly as he felt the gentle touch of twigs and leaves stroking against his sides again. Taking the encouragement, Morty steadied himself against the trunk and lifted his hips, feeling the wood drag against his inside deliciously. His breath escaped him as a soft moan, the noise mirrored by a low rumble from Rick and he only stopped once nothing more than the tip was left inside. With more hastiness, he sunk down again, the movement more fluid than before and Morty mewled with the motion. While the root felt smooth, the knobs were additionally stimulating and at the current angle, the hard wood brushed teasingly against his sweet spot as he rutted back into it again and again.

Movements became more frantic as the voices of the lovers rose with the passion and Morty let gravity aid him with every drop. Not able to take any more, the boy removed one hand from its stabilizing position to pump his weeping erection in a matching rhythm. With the added stimulation and his lover's encouraging mumbled words and sounds, it took only a few rises and plunges more before the boy reached his climax and spilled his seed in powerful spurts, staining the bark of his lover. In the midst of his orgasm, he felt a pulsing sensation in his anus as Rick poured his sap inside him, too. The first time, Morty had been weirded out by the sensation and confused about the thick and sticky liquid that leaked from his entrance afterwards, but he was used to it now. Welcoming it even. Still panting heavily and slowly coming down from his high, Morty leaned against the trunk again, placing lazy kisses on the rough wood and weakly hugging his lover. Still seated on the protruding root, he slowly began to doze off despite his current position being less than advisable for a comfortable slumber. Before sleep fully claimed him, Morty was thinking how lucky he was. Even if he was an outcast and his only friend and lover was "merely" a tree, he could never have wished for more than this. Rick wrapped his branches around the resting boy again, shielding him with his leafs against the cold of the night and the rest of reality. He selfishly wanted to keep Morty here forever, right by his side, in his embrace for all eternity even if he knew that it wasn't possible. The boy would have to leave soon, trying to find a job in another village since he had no such luck in his current one. Even if he would find work here, Rick knew that Morty wouldn't have much time to visit him as often. And even if by some miracle, the boy would still spend as much time with him as he was now, the human would eventually grow old and die, leaving Rick all alone again. He was a tree, had lived for so many years and would live for hundreds more and he hated to think that one day he would have to return to the solitude from before he had met his tiny lover…

AN: Important advice: Please don't go out and attempt to have sex with trees. You might seriously injure yourself doing that. The trees (and their inhabitants) will also not like it. Please stay healthy and treat nature kindly.

#rick and morty #ram #rnm #rick #oc rick #tree rick #morty #oc morty #villager morty #not sfw #hopesfanfictions #fanfic #fanfiction

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khentkawes · 5 years

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Warning: long, slighty ranty post about Marvel’s future.

Oh boy. It’s possible that Kevin Feige is currently doing some high-level back-room wheeling and dealing as we speak, and that this could all be reversed in the next six months (because let’s be honest, that is the kind of miracle that Feige has pulled off before. He got out from Perlmutter’s thumb, and he got James Gunn back in spite of the very public “we will never re-hire James Gunn” talk from Disney. So he may still be able to pull this off too...and while I’ve been writing this, some people on twitter are backpedaling and saying this might not be a done deal...translation: Feige is playing hardball and someone leaked this info because they needed to cause a firestorm to use as leverage)... but if Feige doesn’t pull off a deal... then, guys, this would be a major sign that Marvel Studios is in for a rocky several years. Most franchises go through a rough patch, and Marvel Studios has avoided that so far. But it looks like their smooth sailing days are over...at least for a while.

I’ve said all along that the MCU would find it more difficult to recover from RDJ’s loss then they expected. This is the beginning of that. Because look...Marvel and Feige did everything they could to ensure that Spider-man was so closely tied to their other characters that Sony couldn’t take him back without it causing them a major headache (and don’t get me wrong, I think Sony is in for some hard times now too). People criticized Spider-man: Homecoming for relying too much on Tony Stark and Iron Man, and people criticized Feige for paying RDJ somewhere between $10-15 million (and criticized RDJ for “demanding” that kind of pay). But you know why they did that? To try to ensure that this didn’t happen. It was more than worth it to pay RDJ $15 million (that’s the highest estimate I’ve heard) to ensure the movie was a financial success and to tie Spider-man irrevocably to the rest of the MCU. The more closely they could tie Spider-man to Iron Man and the Avengers, the harder it would be for Sony to take Spider-man back. That’s why they played up all of the tributes to Iron Man in Spider-man: Far From Home too. It wasn’t because Marvel Studios loves Tony Stark as much as all of us fans do (well, actually, Feige might love him almost as much as we do. It’s the people Fegie keeps hiring that I have doubts about). It was to keep their hold over Spider-man. That’s probably why we had Nick Fury and Happy Hogan and so many other Avengers references as well. Feige basically said: let’s make it clear that Spider-man is so connected to the other characters so that, if Sony tries to severe that connection, it will feel like a ham-fisted reboot that will piss off the fans.

And that’s where we are now. Because Sony did it anyway (again, unless Feige is working some magic behind the scenes).

But assuming this goes through, it is a blow for Marvel Studios too. And they can’t handle that now...

...not when they have retired or crippled so many of their franchise characters and when their upcoming slate produced such mixed reactions. Yes, the fanboys and fangirls raved over the Comic Con announcement, but the general audience’s reactions seem more tepid, largely because there are a lot of unknown or barely established properties. After all, almost all of the established characters were either:

retired / killed (Iron Man, Captain America, Thanos)

relegated to a one-off prequel that is a hard sell for a dead character (Black Widow)

have movies that are delayed or not officially announced yet (Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Marvel)

won’t show up until the end of Phase 4 (Doctor Strange, Thor)

underwent major shifts in character development that made them more comic and less like their original Avengers-era personas (Thor, Nick Fury)

are demoted to Disney+ shows (Loki, Wanda and Vision, Falcon and Winter Soldier, possibly War Machine but who knows because that hasn’t been officially announced either).

Now, I know Marvel Studios is trying to sell the Disney+ shows as big “must see” “events” that are closely tied to the movies. That will likely work for many die-hard fans. But there are some problems for general audiences and more mainstream fans. First...that’s a lot of content to try to keep track of! Can the general audience be expected to keep track of that many movies and shows across that many different platforms...without getting burned out? Franchise fatigue is real (just ask the host of other seemingly unbeatable franchises that experienced a slump). How is Marvel going to promote this so that general audiences, who don’t closely follow comic con announcements, remember to watch these Disney+ shows when they come out? I have friends who are huge comics fans and they wouldn’t know anything about the Disney+ shows at all if I hadn’t told them because they don’t hang out in online fandom spaces. And that’s the key here: people who don’t spend a fair amount of time in online fandom can get easily lost with this business model. And even if the marketing is so good that this isn’t a problem, the market is saturated with streaming services. Disney+ is doing a good job of positioning itself to be one of the successful streaming services, but it is still just “one of,” which means it’s still competing with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and a host of smaller streaming services that are cropping up. People are getting fed up with it. So Disney+ has an uphill battle there. Again, I think they will beat out services like CBS All Access, but there will still be some consumers who just go, “eh, another streaming service? Pass. I don’t have money for yet another one of these dang things.”

So that means that the movies still need to be the most successful part of the franchise. And even then, some of the announced movies are by no means a sure success, particularly for characters like Doctor Strange who aren’t as “big” as some of the older others. GotG v3 may or may not run into fallout from the James Gunn stuff. Thor: Love and Thunder may be a huge success...but it still has a lot of detractors as well. Natalie Portman was never popular and making her the new Thor is a controversial move. So those movies are all a bit of a risk. Captain Marvel is a bit risky too--it was a guaranteed success due to its positioning between two Avengers movies, but the second film has no such guarantee...and yeah, most of the Captain Marvel haters were angry dude-bros, but there were also some legitimate criticisms of it as a relatively generic film. So...who knows? Of the bunch, Black Panther is probably the most sure bet. But that’s it. I personally think that Doctor Strange 2 and GotG v3 will be winners too (and despite my reservations, I think Captain Marvel will do fine). But like I said...it’s not a sure thing.

And with many of the established characters hampered by this host of potential difficulties, that leaves the new characters and properties to carry the load. But Marvel is leading with relatively unknown properties like Shang-Chi and The Eternals. I mean, sure, the MCU started by gambling on a B-list character like Iron Man, but now we’re digging deep into like, the C-list characters, aren’t we? I’m not a comics expert, but these guys are less well-known than Ant-Man...which was also a huge gamble and not one of the most successful MCU films. Yeah, people point to the Guaridans of hte Galaxy to prove that Marvel can take unknown characters and make them successful. But...they can’t do that every time? Like one surprising success doesn’t mean that every single upcoming movie will also be a smash hit. It’s a gamble, that’s all I’m saying. Marvel Studios is rolling the dice and gambling that the it will come up in their favor every time. But that’s a big gamble.

In this whole situation, Black Panther and Spider-man seem like the two tried-and-true almost-guaranteed successes in the MCU’s stables. And now they just lost one of them (probably).

And that’s where the loss of RDJ comes into this. Because the reason RDJ was in Civil War (aside from comics-related reasons) and the reason why he was in Spider-man: Homecoming was because RDJ was as close to a sure thing as you get in the movie business. He was proven. Even the controversial-with-comics-fans Iron Man 3 broke a billion dollars back in 2013. In 2013!

Basically, all I’m saying is that Marvel Studios does not have a single sure-thing left in their up-coming slate of projects and maybe not in their universe at all. They have no Iron Man and no RDJ. They have no Avengers. They’ve given no official announcement or date on Black Panther or a future avengers-type movie. And now they have no Spider-man. Heck, even if they do get Spider-man back, I still think there will be in some rough seas ahead. But without Spider-man...they’re in a world of hurt. They’ve been successful and consistent for 11 years. But past success is not a guarantee of future successes. This will be the first real test to see if they can overcome a rough patch, and I’ll be interested to see how Feige and co. weather the next several years.

#MCU #marvel studios #kevin feige #rdj #khent's marvel discussions

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buzzdixonwriter · 5 years

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Not With A Boom But A Whimper

"I’ve always seen the boomers as a generational trust-fund baby: They inherited a country they had no part in building, failed to appreciate it, and seized on all the benefits while leaving nothing behind." -- Sean Illing

I think Illing’s core thesis is correct. The boomers (and I'm in that age group) tended to be societal conformists except when it came to protecting their own self interests. They supported the counter culture in the 1960s and early 70s because they didn't want to go to Vietnam, and at that time that meant supporting civil rights and feminism and gay rights because it was all one big struggle against the establishment but as soon as the threat of war ended, those allies were by and large abandoned as the focus shifted to making money. Hippies to yippies to yuppies.

Clearly "not all" boomers did this, just as "not all" cops are white supremacists, and "not all" men are rapists, but there sure is a problem in those respective cultures that needs addressing and boomers have a problem in theirs.

The good news is that while they keep recruiting more cops and breeding more males, boomers will eventually die out.

Let me go a little further on the topic of baby boomers, in particular what is meant by that term.

The broadest definition is anyone born between 1946 and 1964; '64 being the year when (a few young teen outliers excepted) the first baby boomers began marrying and starting families of their own.

While I agree all boomers were born within that 18 year period, I don't think everyone born between 1946-64 is a boomer, certainly not what I consider the core of the boomer generation.

To me, a boomer is a person --

Born between 1946-64

In a family started after WWII

By a returning vet or someone who lost family & friends

And were members of the white majority (by "white" I include Jewish American citizens, European refugees resettling in the US, and Hispanic / Latin citizens who lived in portions of the country where they were not discriminated against but accepted into the mainstream)

I include (2) because it seems to me kids born after 1946 into families with older siblings who remembered WWII had a reality check classic boomers lacked.

(4) is particularly important because these people did not see the end of WWII as a continuation of a struggle the way African-Americans, non-European refugees, and Hispanic / Latin citizens who faced discrimination did.

To white America, the end of the war was the end of the troubles, and having gone through the horror of WWII they didn't want to visit anything like it upon their children...which in and of itself is a worthy objective.

Non-white America, on the other hand, still had Jim Crow and hatred and prejudice to deal with on a daily basis, and while millions of children were born to them between 1946 and 1964, they were never spiritually part of the classic boomer generation.

The classic boomer was a white kid with a lot of toys. They were a generation raised with the implicit knowledge that they were the best people in the best country on Earth and as such entitled to all the nice things they enjoyed.

Their status was judged in no small part by their possessions, in particular name brands be they clothes or toys or cars or fast food restaurants.

As I posted elsewhere, boomers were strict conformists >until< conformity threatened to march them off into a futile jungle war in Asia. At that point (again, 1964 as the oldest boomers became eligible for the draft) they resisted the war and, in order to do so, also aligned or at least tacitly supported civil rights for African-Americans & other minorities, women's rights, and gay rights.

While each of those movements couldn't stand up to the establishment by themselves, united they could bring a lot of pressure to bear, serving as a force multiplier.

But the moment the Vietnam War ended, the boomers pretty much turned their backs on their former allies.

Hunter S. Thompson summed up boomers perfectly in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

”History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

“My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

“There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

“And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

”So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

Look how boomers tacitly accepted segregation by fighting against "forced busing" then abandoning public schools for private "Christian academies" where non-whites were routinely excluded (until the feds stepped in an put a stop to that). Look how the ERA stalled out. Look how they let the AIDS crisis roar out of control instead of acting swiftly and compassionately.

Look how their love of money in the 1980s led to the destruction of labor unions (one of the chief reasons their childhoods were so pleasant) and the dismantling of American manufacturing just so they could save a few pennies on their plastic trinkets.

They gobbled up the pro-capitalist / anti-communist jingoism because the capitalists told them those gawdammed commies were going to take away their guns and God and make 'em share with "them" (whichever oppressed minority a particular boomer despised at the moment).

It's not that communism was better or worse, but thinking seriously about communism also meant thinking seriously about capitalism, and boomers by and large didn't want to think about anything but their toys.

Later generations learned / are learning the lessons the boomers as a whole so studiously avoided. I have a great deal of hope for this country as the millennials move into power, and as the white majority continues to decrease to the point where they will be one minority among many.

It'll be too late for the boomers, but hopefully their grandchildren will learn the true meaning of "e pluribus unum".

#baby boomers #boomers #morals #ethics #American values #Hunter S- Thompson

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stretchjournalemerson · 5 years

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Tell Me I Don’t Have to Worry

By Rachel Lamarre -

“I remember filing into one of Emerson’s black box theaters on the last day of orientation. There were so many new students in the journalism department that the last few people had to sit on the stairs. We were there to be introduced to the faculty and learn more about our curriculum for the next four years. At this moment I was excited to start pursuing something I was so passionate about and I was hopeful for what was to come. Scanning the panel of professors, I made note of the fact that there was only one woman.”

I remember filing into one of Emerson’s black box theaters on the last day of orientation. There were so many new students in the journalism department that the last few people had to sit on the stairs. We were there to be introduced to the faculty and learn more about our curriculum for the next four years. At this moment I was excited to start pursuing something I was so passionate about and I was hopeful for what was to come. Scanning the panel of professors, I made note of the fact that there was only one woman. I was intrigued to hear from her because of this. When she introduced herself, she told us that she began her career teaching at Emerson when she got too old for broadcast television. Although I was aware that reaching an age where you are no longer put on camera is a reality that women have to face, hearing confirmation from someone, in person, really made it sink in. She didn’t suddenly lose all of her intelligence and capabilities, making her unqualified for the job, she simply wasn’t physically appealing to a mass audience anymore. When choosing a career path, I was naive and eager, I was not thinking about the inequalities that exist in journalism. I had then become disheartened and less secure in my choice. I looked around the theater, specifically at the faces of other female students, wondering if any of them felt the same way.

A major and ongoing problem in journalism, specifically broadcast, is the emphasis on women’s physical attractiveness (Steiner). If a woman is going to be in front of a camera, she must look and carry herself a certain way. These standards are set because female newscasters are used as a way to hold the attention of a certain demographic audience. Appearance and composure “determine who gets hired, how their talents get used, and how long they last in a position” (Steiner). Women’s knowledge and abilities are discounted, and the value they bring to news becomes less important. Part of the issue is the fact that men are the ones deciding which women are “qualified” for a job, yet are not held to the same standards. Journalist Christine Craft describes that she lost her news anchor spot because a focus group of men had the power to deem her unattractive (“Too Old, Too Ugly”). Craft recalls the many times she was told she was “too experienced” when evaluated, which basically means that she had gotten too old. But men can remain on the air through a variety of physical changes. “The notion of when your prime is and when you are past your prime is very different for women than for men” (Mayer). They get to enjoy the luxury of feeling secure, not waiting for the day they are replaced.

Considering my future in journalism, it is scary to acknowledge that there may be instances where I feel held back. Newsroom jobs for women are often regulated and their roles in journalism have “remained narrow and limiting” (Steiner). I’m afraid of having to settle for something more mundane because I don’t have access to the same variety of opportunities. Catherine Mayer, a former employee of Time magazine, eventually left after being continuously sidelined from major stories due to her gender and age. Something else that creates worry, is not feeling secure in the job I do end up getting. I want to be assured that there is the potential for me to remain with a publication or network for a significant amount of time.

Feeling intimidated, I walk from campus towards the Ritz Carlton hotel with two of my fellow female classmates. It was the first day that the hotel workers were on strike and we had just been sent out in teams to cover the story. Before approaching any protestors, we entered the hotel lobby to see if management would speak about the issue. A tall man in a gray suit refused to disclose any information and turned the three of us away immediately. Knowing it was common for individuals to become hostile in situations like this, the rejection was easily brushed off. We couldn’t have taken more than three steps out onto the sidewalk when a man abruptly told us he would find people for us to interview. None of us even got the chance to state our purpose for being there or attempt to get the attention of someone in the crowd. Due to nerves manifested by the hectic environment, we accepted the help. I understand they were most likely trying to keep things organized and may have designated certain people to speak beforehand, but I couldn’t help thinking about the interaction as we conducted our first interview. Did we look unprepared? Was he assuming that we wouldn’t be able to get the job done on our own? I didn’t see him helping any of the male students. Were we offered guidance because we were student reporters or because we were female?

Although the reasoning cannot be known for sure, it is possible that the man’s assumption stems from a lack of association between women and media positions. A study done by the American Society of News Editors in 2014 found that women constituted only thirty-seven percent of all U.S. newsroom employees. Sixty-five percent of political news and ninety percent of sports news is covered by men (Steiner). Men hold eighty-four percent of the last century’s Pulitzer Prizes and still receive sixty-two percent of bylines and other credits in print, online, and broadcast news (York). Having fewer females visible in news coverage trains audiences to associate a decent amount of jobs with male reporters. Women comprise more than two-thirds of graduates with degrees in journalism each year, yet the media industry is just one-third women. This could mean that those female students coming out of journalism programs go into fields beyond the traditional media, but it could also mean that the industry is continuing to hire more men than women (York).

While we continued speaking with hotel employees, a reporting team of guys emerged from the hotel lobby. They were ecstatic, having just talked to a corporate member of staff. I was instantly jealous and frustrated by the fact that they were going to have a more objective, two-sided story. I would have expressed my feelings verbally if I wasn’t so concentrated on the task at hand and distracted by the striking workers chanting and drumming on buckets. Did that group get information because they spoke to someone different than us? Or was the same person more trusting of students who were male?

This inflicts the fear that female journalists will be dealt with differently or disrespected when working to do their job. It is also common for women in journalism to observe male editors, colleagues, and sources refusing to take them seriously (Steiner). ABC News Reporter Cecilia Vega posed a question for President Trump at a press conference earlier this month, which he claimed was unrelated to the issue and refused to answer. When Vega began to persistently explain the question’s value, Trump became fed up and asked that the microphone be moved to another reporter (Magness). If an interviewee is being antagonistic and withholding information, I want that to be because the subject matter is controversial or evokes emotion, not because I am a woman. I question if I will be trusted with difficult tasks and have the confidence to offer new ideas in a newsroom. I wonder if being a female journalist will slowly deteriorate my self-esteem. I am afraid that the nature of being a woman in this field will keep me from loving my job. I want to be told that none of this will impact my career and I want to be told that I have nothing to worry about.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Valeria Luiselli for writing in such an intense and informative, yet personal way, that I was prompted to create a project with the same approach. Tell Me How it Ends taught me that a lack of understanding and the search for answers is a completely valid reason to write. Thank you to Allison who peer-reviewed my draft and offered exceptional feedback on what the piece was lacking. I would also like to thank Professor Kovaleski-Byrnes for giving assignments that allow freedom of content and the opportunity to write about topics I never have before.

Works Cited

Craft, Christine. Too Old, Too Ugly, and Not Deferential to Men. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1991.

Magness, Josh. “‘You’re never thinking,’ Trump told reporter. Why wasn’t it in a White House transcript?” Miami Herald, October 2, 2018.

Mayer, Catherine. “I don’t know of one female journalist who hasn’t been discriminated against at work.” The Guardian, August 5, 2017.

Steiner, Linda. “Gender and Journalism.” Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Oxford University Press, 2017.

York, Catherine. “Women dominate journalism schools, but newsrooms are still a different story.” Poynter: A Global Leader in Journalism, September 2017.

#professions #journalism #research #gender equality #ageism #rachel lamarre #stretch2019

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fortitude-sakura · 6 years

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Noir [2/?]

Oh hey. They finally meet.

Rating: M

Tags: Corporate AU

AO3

previous | next

She had hoped to see the dark haired stranger again. However among all her coffee runs, she never saw him again.

A few weeks later and 2 months into her first intern rotation, her Team Leader approaches her desk.

“Hey Sakura, there’s a meeting with all the other team leads for the Hyperia 2 project. I’m supposed to take you with me.” he says, rather bluntly, as if it were a huge inconvenience to him. “As part of the intern program.”

“Sure. Is there anything I need to prepare for it?” she asks, grabbing her notebook and pen.

“Nah, you’re just there to observe or something.”

With that, he shuffles back into his office (probably to play Solitaire on his computer or look up motorcycles as Sakura had caught him doing on multiple occasions).

He didn’t even tell me when the meeting is. Sakura realised. Rolling her eyes, she finds the calendar item on the team calendar.

This afternoon? Way to give me a heads up.

She still hadn’t finished the scope work for one of the tickets she was working on and she also had a dozen tickets in her triage queue. Technically sorting through the triage was the duty of the Team Leader but she noticed that he had a propensity to ‘delegate’ those duties to her. In fact, if there was anything he could delegate, he would.

At first she was happy to accept more responsibility, but in doing so she had opened a floodgate of other delegated duties on top of those coffee runs every few hours. However she wouldn’t back down from the challenge. It would make for a compelling case for Uchiha Enterprises to keep her on as a full time employee.

She’s called to do one last coffee run before the meeting and walks with her Team Leader towards the meeting room. By the time they arrive at the meeting room, she could see all the other interns there already and she knows they were the last ones there. The Head of Talent Acquisition, Hatake Kakashi is also there, standing in the corner reading something.

She received some side eye glances from her fellow interns (however only Toshiro maintained a smug, self assured smirk on his face) and joins them quietly at the back of the room while her Team Lead took a seat at the table.

“Now that we’re all here. Let’s start.” a baritone voice says from the head of the table.

Sakura looks up from her notebook and her eyes widen with recognition.

The guy from Milk Grind!

“Before we begin - interns, this is Uchiha Sasuke, Director of Uchiha Enterprises and his executive assistant, Toshiba Keiko.” said Kakashi. Keiko gives them a quick wave without looking up from her laptop.

Sakura felt her face grow hot with the realisation that she had been checking out her boss’ boss. She thanked her lucky stars that he hadn’t spared her a glance that day, with all that ogling she was doing. That would have made for something awkward if he had called her out.

Uchiha Sasuke was so much more than the handsome stranger from Milk Grind. He was calm and collected, listening intently to all the Team Leads and making his own comments and observations. There was no pussyfooting around - his comments were sharp and could almost be considered rude with the tone of voice he was using but they were all valid points to make.

He never seemed to smile, even if the ideas presented were good, he would simply acknowledge it with a nod and a curt “Okay.”.

After all the ideas were pitched, Director Uchiha leans back in his seat, arms folded across his broad chest, a frown maring his handsome face.

“All of these ideas are good, but they don’t solve the problem of our clients leaving us while the development of Hyperia 2 is underway.”

Tension hung thick in the air. The Team Leads were at a loss. The meeting was to propose solutions in order to prevent clients from not renewing their licence to Hyperia. They had been working on Hyperia 2, it’s successor but troubles in development meant that deadlines had to be pushed back. Hyperia was outdated by current standards and a few clients had opted not to renew their licence as there were other software solutions that were more modern. At least, that’s what Sakura had gathered from the reports she had read.

“Anyone?”

She looks over at her fellow interns, who were all staring at each other blankly.

Sakura did have an idea but it was more like the application of theory they fed you in university than an actual workable solution. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t hurt right? It made sense in theory.

“Um,” she says, her voice catching in her dry throat. “User involvement.”

No one moves.

Director Uchiha raises an eyebrow.

Oh god oh god oh god. That’s it. I’m totally done. I’m going to get the ‘know your place’ lecture. I’m toast Burnt toast.

“Go on.” he says quietly, inviting her to explain further.

“Well in the interim we could dedicate a team to provide ongoing support for our users as well as develop some new features for Hyperia.”

“You mean Hyperia 2?” asks one Team Lead.

“No. For the original Hyperia. We conduct user tests to gauge what our users like and dislike about Hyperia and what features they’d think would be valuable. We can conduct user acceptance testing and those new features can then be incorporated into Hyperia 2 which might make the transition easier.” she says slowly. “We buy ourselves time and also appeal to our users directly. They get perceived value because we’re listening to what they want which gives them an incentive to stay with us. We could also offer them opportunities to beta test Hyperia 2 because they would have the best idea of how a user wants to utilise the software.”

“You sound like you’re reciting a textbook.” Director Uchiha says.

The interns and Team Leads at the table snicker. She felt her face go red and her eyes burn.

“But.”

Silence fell over the room in an instant. Even Keiko stopped typing (or from what Sakura could tell from the reflection of the window she’s sitting in front of, browsing for shoes).

“It was a good idea.”

She looks up to see him smirk. Her heart feels like it wants to leap out of her chest with pride.

“What’s your name?”

“Haruno Sakura.”

“Who’s your Team Lead?”

“That’d be me.” her Team Lead says gruffly.

The Director narrows his eyes and if she isn’t mistaken, there’s a hint of contempt. “Keiko, did you write that down?”

“Huh? That part with user acceptance testing and Hyperia? Yeah.” she says. Keiko had gotten so bored during the meeting that she was slouching in her chair.

Director Uchiha shoots her a look before giving a subtle eye roll. “Alright, that should be it for now.”

They all file out of the room, separating as they head back to their own offices. Her Team Lead is really taking his own sweet time getting his papers in order. She decides to wait around for him outside the meeting room - it was the polite thing to do, right?

When he finally comes out of the meeting room, his hand finds her elbow.

“Come here.” her Team Lead growls at her as his grip tightens rather painfully. Sakura is marched over around the corner into the lobby. .

“I know what you’re trying to do you, you conniving little bitch.” he snaps.

“What?” Sakura asks, feeling both perplexed and angry by the sudden insult.

“You should have shared that little idea of yours with me before the meeting. What did you expect to achieve by humiliating me?”

“Nothing! It was just something I thought of in the moment. I didn’t even know what the meeting was about until it started.” Sakura says, trying to keep her voice as even as she possibly can. It’s hard considering her Team Lead’s grip on her elbow is painfully hard now. She tries pulling away but it only makes him hold on tighter.

“Don’t forget, I’m the one who writes your intern review.” he snarls, finally letting go. “Now go get me some coffee.”

“Keiko, go write up the minutes of that meeting and find out which organizations that use Hyperia would be best for user testing.” Sasuke says as the Team Leads and interns head out of the meeting room. Keiko nods and leaves.

“Hmm, and to think we almost didn’t hire her.” Kakashi muses quietly.

“That intern?” Sasuke asks, immediately interested. “With the pink hair?”

She had been quite an interesting intern indeed. Not once in a meeting did an intern ever speak up - they were all either too scared to contribute or their heads were filled with cotton candy and not much else. He also doesn’t remember any other intern with such shockingly pink hair either. The dress code was business professional and having hair that colour was certainly not part of the dress code.

“Yes, and before you ask, yes apparently her hair is naturally pink. She even sent us baby pictures to prove it.” Kakashi says chuckling as they turned the corner towards the elevator lobby. “They’re quite adorable.”

Suddenly, Sasuke’s arm flies out and hits him in the chest.

Sasuke hears hushed, harsh whispers from the elevator lobby. It’s undeniably the intern and her useless Team Lead.

“You should have shared that little idea of yours with me before the meeting. What did you expect to achieve my humiliating me?”

“Nothing! It was just something I thought of in the moment. I didn’t even know what the meeting was about until it started.”

“Don’t forget, I’m the one who writes your intern review. Now go get me some coffee.”

They listen for the tell tale elevator ‘Ding!’, the shuffle of feet and the closing of the elevator door.

“Get me a file on her.”

“Sure, I can get Takaya to email you her personnel file.”

“No, I want you to compile a dossier.”

Kakashi raises an eyebrow. Never once in his time at Uchiha Enterprises has Sasuke ever asked him to compile a dossier. Sure, he had once worked as a private investigator (searching for cheating spouses and the like) and it’s what compelled Uchiha Itachi to hire him (aside from his friendship with Namikaze Minato who was familiar with the Uchihas), however Sasuke had never once asked him to utilize this set of skills.

A few days later, Kakashi puts a manila folder on his desk.

“There’s not a lot to her.” Kakashi says, pulling out a book - Icha Icha Paradise.

“Seriously?” Sasuke gives him a withering look. Kakashi was fairly shameless about his love affair with the Icha Icha erotic novel series and would openly read everywhere - in restaurants, in meetings, right in front of his employer. According to Kakashi, Jiraiya is a genius writer.

“I want to finish the good part before I have to check up on Ponyu.” Kakashi shrugs.

Sasuke wants to point out that he had read that particular Icha Icha novel already (Kakashi also likes to re-read). Annoyingly enough as well, Kakashi also made a special agreement with Itachi that he could take off early to care for his rescue dogs and work from home instead. Kakashi has been taking more time off than usual because his newest rescue, a goofy dalmatian called Ponzu, was a bit of a handful.

His intercom buzzes and he hears Keiko clear her throat.

“Uzumaki Naruto wants to know if you’re still on for lunch.”

“Why on earth did you hire Keiko?” Sasuke snaps at Kakashi.

“A lesson in patience, my dear Sasuke.” Kakashi’s eyes twinkle in amusement and Sasuke knows that he’s smiling underneath that facemask he likes to wear so much.

Sasuke glances at his watch - “Yeah, tell the dobe I’ll be at the usual place at 12:30pm.”

Foolishly, he brings the file out to lunch with him with the intention of looking through it after.

He sees his best friend outside the ramen bar, his loosed orange tie standing out.

“Oi, teme!” Naruto calls out as he spots him on the street. “Whatcha got there?”

Sasuke decides to sidestep the topic - not that he’s trying to hide anything from Naruto but he’d rather not have to endure Naruto’s idiotic looks.

It’s not a very kind thing to say about your best friend but it’s because Naruto is his best friend that he feels at liberty to think these things. (Although you’d never hear Sasuke admit that without Naruto, his life would be rather dull and sometimes the dobe’s idiot tendencies can be endearing).

“It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

Their usual haunt is a ramen bar - Ichiraku’s. It’s a hidden gem of a place in one of the side alleys of the city. There’s barely any room to swing a cat but it serves the best ramen and Naruto is one of Ichiraku’s best customers. They even named a menu item after him - tonkotsu ramen with all the toppings and an extra serving of meat, otherwise known as the Naruto special.

“So, are you going home for Itachi’s birthday?” Naruto asks between large slurps.

“Yeah, I’d never hear the end of it from Izumi or Shisui if I didn’t.” he replies, taking another big mouthful of ramen. While he didn’t share the same kind of intense affection for ramen that Naruto does, he could certainly appreciate how good Ichiraku makes it.

“Oooooh. Who’s this? She’s kinda cute.” Naruto said. Sasuke had been so busy savouring his lunch that he hadn’t noticed Naruto reach for the manila folder he brought out.

“What the fuck? Hey!” Sasuke snatches the folder out of Naruto’s hands. “Need I remind you that you’re engaged?”

Naruto laughs. “Oh yeah I forgot to ask you but you’ll be my best man at the wedding right? I just assumed but Hina-chan told me to make sure.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes at Naruto. “I’d be offended if I wasn’t, usuratonkachi.”

“Alright good.”

He heads to Milk Grind before returning to the office. He comes down when he can because of Keiko’s inability to remember is damn coffee order (which is weird considering Keiko wasn’t stupid by any means. He suspects she does it on purpose just to piss him off).

He finds an armchair in the corner and finally goes through the dossier Kakashi had compiled for him.

There are some baby pictures - indeed proving that Haruno Sakura was born with this abnormal strawberry milk coloured hair. He learns that she had graduated from Konoha University and attended with a scholarship. Clever girl. The only other employment she had before the internship was at Lucky Sevens - a small diner near the university. Independent girl. She lived in an apartment in a rather shady area of Konoha with a roommate - Tenten Wu. Most likely due to the lack of finances and how cheap the rent is. Aside from the academic transcripts, there really wasn’t a whole lot more to Haruno Sakura.

There were also some notes from when Sakura was being interviewed for the internship. She had answered the questions reasonably well and she was a well qualified candidate. Scribbled at the bottom on the notes there was the word ‘Hair?!’.

“Hey Sakura! What is this, your third run today?”

His ears perk up at the sound of her name being mentioned. Sure enough, at the counter was the pink-haired intern.

“Yeah, I have to go drop off his dry cleaning too.” she complains, “I still haven’t finished all the work he gave me yet either.”

“Man, he’s running you like a slave.”

“Tell me about it. I just hope whoever I have to work under next is better. Anyway, see you later!”

He frowns. Why the hell are interns running around like personal assistants?

He pulls out his phone and sends a text to Kakashi.

I want you find Keiko another position.

Where?

Anywhere. Wherever she wants. Put Haruno Sakura on as my EA when the interns change teams.

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journeysintowebcomics · 6 years

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Worm Liveblog #66

UPDATE 66: Benign Villain

Last time was the last of the interludes! Bonesaw was the last one to be introduced and went to torment Panacea, actually succeeding even if she didn’t join the team. Now it’s time to return to the main story, so let’s do that!

‘Plague’, is the name of this arc. Maybe it’s related to how the Undersiders are taking over parts of the city like a plague, or maybe it’s a description of the Slaughterhouse Nine or Cauldron’s activities. I guess I’ll know for sure once this arc is afoot.

Looks like it’s a moment of peace and relative calm. Taylor is doing origami with a few beetles, while Charlotte and Sierra watch and provide commentary, it seems. Charlotte in particular finds creepy how the beetles are moving in such an organized manner, the opposite to how mindless bugs usually are. Bugs shouldn’t be like that, she says!

“They’re so organized and human. Bugs shouldn’t act that way.”

“I don’t really believe in thinking that way anymore,” I said, absently.

“What way?”

I had to stop to compose my thoughts. I glanced at Charlotte, and Sierra, who was standing by the fridge, silently eating her breakfast. “I don’t believe in shouldn’t, like there’s some universal rules about the way things should be, the way people should act.”

Well it’s easy to think that when you and a lot of people you know have powers that lets you and other beings act in ways they shouldn’t act. I think it’s the kind of mindset you get from watching everyday facts like the laws of physics be treated as an optional thing. You get…this feeling like anything’s possible, maybe? Taylor has adapted quite well to having powers and being involved in a superpower-filled environment! Hard to believe this is the same Taylor from the start of the story. Character development, I love you so much – and there’s still a long way to go.

“So there’s no right or wrong? People and animals should do whatever?”

“No, there’s always going to be consequences. Believe me when I say I know about that. But I do think there’s always going to be extenuating circumstances, where a lot of things we normally assume are wrong become excusable.”

“Like rape? Are you going to tell me there’s a situation where rape is okay?” Charlotte asked. I would have thought I’d touched on a hot subject if her voice wasn’t so level.

Oh, sweet baby Jesus. I hope you didn’t sprain a muscle with that particular flailing thought, Charlotte. I thought what Taylor said implicitly explained there are things that don’t become excusable, I mean—how did we get to this from beetles making origami? Things escalated in five seconds flat!

Taylor was only talking about bugs, anyway. So what’s she making here?

I directed a housefly into one hole and settled it inside, then fed a braided length of twine through the holes. I handed the result to Charlotte and ordered the bugs to start making another.

“A necklace?” Sierra asked.

Ah. I thought the box the beetles were making was…much larger. It’s a box just large enough for a fly to be inside, Sierra and Charlotte each will have this box in some sort of item with them, as a tracker and an alert button of sorts. If they’re ever in danger, all they have to do is crush that box, and a swarm will arrive in a minute or less. It may be good to have it as a necklace, if you have it hanging from your wrist there’s some risk you’ll crush it accidentally and hanging it from your keys has the same danger. It’s a clever way to use her power, that’s for sure. I never stop being amazed at the practical uses of her power.

She’s even making a rudimentary symbol system to alert them if there’s any danger like weapons, or to tell them how many people there’s nearby. That reminds me, what are Sierra and Charlotte going to do? It’s unlikely Skitter would send them to mess with people from dangerous rival groups, so I think it’s possible they’re going to stay here in the territory. Given what the Merchants did, people coming to attack is a possibility.

I drew three lines that crossed in the center, using the flies and beetles that were working on a cube for Sierra.

Asterisk. The word is asterisk.

Just as I hoped, it doesn’t take long for me to find out what these newly-minted henchmen…henchwomen, I guess…are going to do.

“For now, just door to door. I’m going to mark the places you should visit, where there are families or groups of people. I need the info I can’t get with my bugs. Who are the people in my territory? What do they need: Maybe medical care, clothes, more food, maybe someone’s giving them trouble? You find out, take notes, then pass that information to me.”

So basically, they’re going to do logistic and administrative work. Just like Taylor promised, they’re not going to do anything criminal. It’s a good induction into Taylor’s budding quasicriminal control over the area, and it should go without any problems given its simplicity.

…

Twenty bucks they have to crush the cube before the arc ends.

For now this is the only task they have to do, they’ll continue making their signal system later. Now it’s time for what most people want to hear about when it’s about working: money. I’m sure they’ll be pleased to know about their payment, being a villain here in Brockton Bay seems to give you quite a lot of money if you have connections, and Taylor here has connections. I’m sure she can spare enough money to give them a very good salary.

“We’ll try for six to eight hours a day, five days a week, but consider it flexible. Not to spook you or anything, but I’ll know if you’re slacking. I’m thinking two hundred and fifty dollars a day, and obviously it’s under the table, so you’re not getting taxed on it.”

…two hundred and fifty dollars a day, that’d be $31 per hour, more or less, and $5000 per month, supposing you work twenty days a month. Huh. Can I get hired too?

One of the lessons Taylor learned from Coil is to make your employees want to work for you, and that’s achieved through a good payment and a good work environment suited to you and what you do. Part of these two recruits’ job is also be a moving Human Resources office, looking for people to join the organization and referring them to Taylor. After all, wouldn’t you want to join a place where the employees are paid well and genuinely look happy?

…okay, them wearing masks and most likely looking sinister isn’t going to make a crowd of eager young people gather to take part in this shebang, but maybe that’s for the better.

Ah, Taylor has been doing what she said she’d do! She’s working on costumes and masks for the rest of the Undersiders! It’ll all have the same protections she has, and although it’s not easy, she’s doing her best. She’s using the fabric of the failed attempts to make the masks for her employees.

Charlotte took a black mask that would cover her eyes and the lower half of her face, adjusted it until the eyeholes were in place, and then set about fixing her hair

I’m…having a bit of a hard time picturing that mask. Also, are they wearing uniforms of some sort? I hope they are wearing uniforms! Because it’d be harder to believe a random person with casual clothes and mask is working for Skitter. Just something to keep in mind.

Once Charlotte and Sierra get going to do their job, Taylor returns upstairs to take a breath and reflect on how it’s like to be the new villain boss of this place.

I missed staying at the loft, when things were easy and I was free. I was happy with how things were going with my new recruits, but I was realizing that living with them would mandate changes to my lifestyle. There were appearances to maintain, and I couldn’t be seen slacking off or being a slob. I couldn’t sleep in or put off my shower until later in the day. I couldn’t let myself collapse in a sweaty heap after a hard morning run. I’d woken up at six in the morning to be sure that I could run, shower, dress and look like I was on top of things by the time they were up. After a late night, it left me feeling a little worn around the edges. I harbored some concerns about my ability to help Dinah if this kept up.

Wow do I know how that feels. I miss the days I could sleep in whenever I wanted. But yeah, most of the changes and new behaviors Taylor has to learn is all about keeping appearances, because even if they’re people of her age that I’m sure would understand the feeling of wanting to slack off, you just can’t show such things to your employees. Luckily that all is the kind of stuff you can get used to, except the not being able to sleep in part. That’s something you can’t really get used to, you’re doomed to feeling sleepy when you’re not 100% doing something.

It has been an unspecified amount of time since Bryce’s rescue, and I think it’s a few days, maybe a week. What happened with Alec, Cherish, Rachel and the Siberian was all in the same day, or two days at most, I noticed the visit to Panacea happened at the same time than the Siberian’s visit to Rachel. Taylor was worried Charlotte and Sierra would denounce her to the Protectorate, and spent those days ready to defend herself in case, say, Miss Militia burst in with a grenade launcher, but nothing happened, they returned, willing to be part of Taylor’s work. Nice!

Taylor’s work this morning is mostly working on the costumes, and watching over Sierra and Charlotte, making sure they wouldn’t be in danger, and monitoring them to some extent. Some people ignored the girls’ attempts to talk with them, something Taylor decided was fine for now. Better leave them to get used to the new situation, only if they continue to ignore her attempts to reach out she’ll take charge of that problem.

Apparently overwhelmed with the requests from his various rulers of the Brockton Bay territories, Coil had started delegating some of his people to act as intermediaries.

I wonder how many people are under Coil’s payroll as rulers of territories, other than the Undersiders. I doubt the Protectorate would allow him to take control of the city by installing rulers everywhere, but there must be enough for this to be a big step in the right direction, as far as his plans are concerned, right? The Travelers aren’t ruling any territories, and I don’t think there’s abundance of parahumans to work for him, but there may be a few unnamed ones working in other places of the city.

I got in contact with Mrs. Cranston, the intermediary he’d designated to me, and outlined what I needed. Waste removal was a big priority, as was clearing out the storm drains so the water could drain from the flooded streets. I let her know that my services were available if she wanted help identifying where the blockages were, or if the trash removal teams needed protection from interference.

So basically, the rulers of the territories are expected to do most of the work when it’s about improving the conditions of their places, as if they’re the mayors of tiny cities. That’s kind of neat. Some of the Undersiders will do better than others, that’s for sure – I can’t picture Rachel calling anyone to tell them about blockage in the storm drains.

Some time passed, and Taylor receives a call from Charlotte. There are two families leaving because of a rat infestation.

Of course. The trash would offer a steady diet to vermin, and the flooding would deter many of their natural predators. The rodent population had exploded, and it could easily be getting to the point where it was interfering with people’s daily lives.

Must be one of the problems Taylor described, those that stem from the waste removal need and the clogged storm drains.

There’s something mundanely awesome about Taylor taking this in her own hands. She goes to clear a rodent infestation, wearing her costume and all! It’ll deliver the message she’s ready to help the community here, even with problems as seemingly menial as a rat infestation. Already attacking the rodents with her insects, Taylor steps out of her hideout and walks there. Will there be any rats left by the time she gets there? I’d be more concerned about them returning. It’s a possibility, I think.

On the way there, Grue calls Skitter, telling her he’s on his way to talk with her.

So he was already on the way when he called? I wasn’t sure what to think about that. It suggested it was a social call with the assumption I would be okay with it, which I didn’t mind, but that didn’t really fit his personality. More likely there was something that he wanted to discuss with me in person.

Eh…it’s true things are more or less okay between Skitter and Grue now, but I still have a bit of a hard time imagining him going to see her just to shoot the breeze. This most likely is related to some urgent matter. It could be about the visit Regent and Heckpuppy received. That’s definitely something the rest of the Undersiders would want to hear about.

…say, I hope Skitter will make her bugs move away the hundreds of dead rodents somehow, because that’s a huge biological danger. I thought she was making them run away, not outright killing as many as she could – although that will make it harder for the rodent population to grow again, yeah. All the owners of the house can do is watch the clouds of bugs hover and get into the house.

If I thought Skitter was the mischievous sort, I’d think she was all stealthy while arriving just because she wanted to mess with them, hah.

“Is this some sort of game to you!? We were prepared to leave, and you keep us from getting our things? Add another infestation to the one that’s already there!?”

Apparently they weren’t convinced by Charlotte’s arguments that she was going to help, and I can’t say I blame them – the way this was described, it was almost like the stuff of nightmares, clouds of insects hovering over your house and what not. I’ll give this man credit, he has guts, challenging Skitter to a fair fight. I hope it won’t come to that, that they’ll see all Skitter’s doing is helping them – not that the impromptu rat extermination will guarantee they’ll stay, I think.

To gain some time to show what she’s doing, Skitter makes a kid count to one hundred, and hurries up the work, gathering the dead rats and carrying them out of the house, parading right in front of the family and all. Quite a morbid thing to see, but it’ll get the message across about what Skitter just did.

I knew I wouldn’t quite have enough time to clear out the entire house of the rat corpses, so I cheated by hauling the rats through the walls, into the unoccupied neighbor’s residence and out the kitchen window at the back of that building.

Hah! I’m glad it was unoccupied, or else Skitter would have more irate people wanting to punch the daylights out of her.

The last of the rat infestation was carried out when the one-hundred count was over, at which point Skitter turns to the angry patriarch and tells him they can fight if he wants. Having see what she had done and that the vermin complaint was gone, he doesn’t, although I doubt he likes Skitter more than he did before.

One of the mothers was the one who asked for help, so Skitter talks with her about what there’s to be done now. Sterilize everything! Oh, yes, please do. I like rats, but I sure would sterilize the heck out of the house if I had found out there used to be a few hundred nesting there. The problem is that this family doesn’t have the means to do all that, nor the money to replace everything that needs to be replaced. Good thing Skitter is here! She’ll get things in order.

Living in this situation has been a major ordeal for everyone here. Not only they have no utilities, all they have is rainwater and rice, and the propane tank they had received is almost depleted. It’s possible other neighbors nearby are in the same situation. Major respect for everyone here, I know I’d be so restless in such situation. Skitter is going to get them supplies and clothing, and even doctors to check them just in case. Leptospirosis isn’t something to take lightly, yeah.

The mother, bless her enduring soul, is worried about having to pay back for all this help, so of course Skitter tells her it’s all okay – she’s not here to make herself be some sort of loan shark.

“Thank you,” she said, again. I felt bad for feeling the way I did, but I thought her gratitude was a little muted for what I was giving her.

Oh, come on, Skitter, what did you expect? Did you think she’d fall to her knees, open her arms to the sky and bellow ‘oh, thank you so much! Thank you, thank you, thank you!’? Who would do that?

Since all is fine here, Skitter is finally free to go talk to Grue, who’s watching from nearby, and is amused that Skitter is being an exterminator. She defends her actions by saying doing this will help solidify her powers, making the people want to support her. That’s depending a bit too much on people’s gratitude, but eh, there’ll always be some people who will want to make amends and get rid of the proverbial red in their ledgers, just so they’re not indebted to Skitter anymore.

Grue thinks that man is resentful towards Skitter because he wanted to protect the families, and then this ‘little girl’ arrived and got rid of the problem in, what, fifteen minutes? It’s egg on his face, from his perspective. When Skitter muses about recruiting him so he’d have the power to help his family and other people – no way he’d accept – Grue says he’d be intolerable, that he’d question her every move and overall be a pain in the neck. Hm. Good analysis.

As expected, every Undersider is taking their job as rulers in a different way each.

“Regent and I are going on the offensive. I’ve got Aisha and I making constant, coordinated attacks against enemies in my territory, terrorizing groups with attacks from the cover of my darkness, or from someone they can’t even remember fighting. Regent’s got a squad of Coil’s soldiers with him, and he’s tracking and kidnapping the leaders of enemy groups and gangs, using his power to control them and then having them sabotage their own operations, or start fights with other groups that leave both almost totally wiped out. Then he cleans up the mess.”

“And us girls?”

“Lisa’s running the shelter, and she says she’s doing it to get more info, but I think she doesn’t mind how it connects her to the community there, either. You, too, are almost nurturing in how you’re treating the people in your territory. And you’re acting like you’re getting that aspiring superhero thing out of your system. Or entrenched deeper into it. I can’t tell.”

He’s not kidding, that’s definitely being on the offensive. I’m sure it’s very effective, too. Tattletale’s way of dealing with her territory isn’t too different from Taylor’s way, Rachel’s way is...uh...well she’s not interested in ruling over her territory, I’m sure all she wants is to be left alone with her dogs. The people in her territory are still very unlucky.

Also yeah! She’s being nurturing, and it’s because that’s just how she is, she has standards. She’s not going to force a reign of terror unless the people in her newly-claimed terrain forces her to. Skitter will be ruthless towards her enemies, no doubt about that, so why not to be kind and ‘nurturing’ to the residents of her territory? It’ll work better this way when it’s recruiting time.

Grue thinks the differences is because of the genders, Skitter thinks it’s because of the powers. No, I’m pretty sure it’s because of the personalities. Grue takes good care of those he cares about and it’s not like he has any reason to care about the civilians in his turf. Regent is a sociopath to some extent, so of course he doesn’t care about improving their living situation. Heckpuppy is...uh, well I think that one’s pretty obvious. Tattletale’s a rather empathic person, thanks partly to her power and partly because she can actually be rather nice. I don’t think I have to explain how Skitter is like, but yeah, this all fits her.

“Maybe. But… no,” he changed his mind after thinking for a second. “I think both you and Lisa could be a lot more aggressive. It kind of worries me that you aren’t.”

They started recently, I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone to make big power moves. Grue and Regent are moving pretty fast, and Skitter is already doing well in terms of repelling hostile forces from outside, judging by what happened with those thirty-or-something Merchants from an arc ago. I’m sure when it’s needed they’ll get aggressive. This isn’t the only concern Grue has, though, he’s also worried Skitter won’t get profit from her territory.

“He has his own money. Money that he has to devote time and attention to earning. If your territory never starts earning for him and just becomes some black hole that sucks up tens of thousands of dollars of his money each week, you think he’s going to be okay with that?”

I don’t think there’s anything to worry about on that regard. Coil’s controlling and stuff, but he’s not worried about getting loads of money. Sure, he’s not going to be happy about throwing cash into a bottomless well, but he can get even more loads of money anytime he wants. Skitter may want to look for ways to get money, though. Just in case. No peddling drugs or asking protection money, I doubt she’d do such things.

“I can get all of the people in my territory onto Coil’s side. And I have over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars I can put towards infrastructure here.”

I don’t mean to demean Skitter’s efforts, but I really doubt the people in this territory will be onto Coil’s side, ever. Not only he’s this nebulous mastermind figure that if he showed himself in front of everyone he’d become the poster boy for those villains you would immediately distrust – skintight black faceless costume with a snake print from head to toe doesn’t scream ‘nice guy’, you know – I’m sure everyone would immediately assume he has some ulterior motive. It’s easier to trust Skitter because she’s getting involved, she’s doing things with her own hands, Coil wouldn’t do such thing.

Also, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars is nothing when it’s about infrastructure. That money’s going to be gone in no time.

Once Grue points out Skitter’s plans won’t happen quickly at all, she has to acknowledge that, and feels dejected. Coil isn’t going to let Dinah go over a start, that’s for sure. Nor...once the territory is already going well. The only time he’s going to do it is once the city is under his control, and it’s not like he has any intentions of doing it. She may be putting a bit too much stock on Coil’s , uuuuh, sense of honor? Not going to work.

Anyway, onto more grave matters! And it’s just what I expected, it’s about the Slaughterhouse Nine visiting them. Okay, it’s not exactly what I thought, but it’s close enough. There’s no mention of Rachel getting visited, and they know someone in Coil’s headquarters and Hookwolf got contacted too. I should have guessed they’d have this much information, what with Tattletale being so good at gathering information. It’s only matter of time before they find out about the Siberian’s visit, thanks to Tattletale and because I doubt Heckpuppy will hide that wolf.

“And at the PRT offices? Shadow Stalker?”

“As good a guess as any. We’re not sure where she wound up.”

Good question. I had completely forgotten about Shadow Stalker! Now that I think about it, if I had remembered her, I’d have thought the Slaughterhouse Nine would try to recruit her, but they didn’t. Last time I knew anything about her, police had arrived to her house after her life was thoroughly destroyed. Maybe she’s not in Brockton Bay anymore. Well, no surprise there, Regent threatened her quite well, unbeknown to everyone except him. If she’s somewhere in the city, he’d know. Heck, she was extremely zealous regarding her role as a vigilante-y parahuman, but I don’t know if she’d join. Not that her personality and stuff would stop her from getting a visit, if that group truly wanted to.

“So what does this mean?”

“It means Hookwolf is calling together a meeting of the local powers that be. Crook, criminal, mercenary and warlord. We have to decide if we want to go.”

Ah, he’s taking action! Good for him, he wasn’t kidding when he said he was going to have to get help. Maybe this way they can know who was visited, perhaps that information could be useful in some way? Not that the Undersiders immediately agree about going – it may be a trap, or a way for Hookwolf to get rid of the competition. They’re wrong, but there are lots of reasons to be wary.

The problem is that if they don’t go, they’ll miss information they should know, and asking secondhand through Coil – if he goes – or anything like that doesn’t guarantee they’ll find out anything, because whoever they talk to may withhold information. Iiiiii can’t decide if going has more benefits than not going, honestly. I should go, if only to have the information.

...if Coil wants them to go do they really have any option? I don’t think Coil would take kindly to them not going. Better spare yourselves the trouble and just go. Besides, as Skitter says, the powers of everyone who would be present could work together to defend and attack back to some extent. But, you know, with all this talk about the Slaughterhouse Nine maybe attacking, now I’m thinking maybe they will. It’d go a long way into establishing them as major threats – not that they haven’t been plenty of established as a threat yet, you know what I mean.

“But if Tattletale is right, and Hookwolf isn’t on the side of the Slaughterhouse Nine, if we can trust Skidmark to have the basic common sense to back the rest of us up if they attack-”

Ask Dinah what are the odds of Skidmark backing you and everyone else up. I’m almost certain it’s an amazingly tiny percentage.

Skitter wants to go, and part of the reason why she wants to go is because going would heighten their reputation as villains to fear, and whatever’s said in that meeting will be useful. Guess that’s settled! This is where this arc is going to now!

“Why do I get the feeling your decision here is motivated by your rushed attempts to get more control, more rep and finish this phase of our territory grab as soon as possible?”

“Because it is.”

I kind of have the feeling what Grue said to Skitter may have influenced it too. Grue would have decided not to go, if it had been up to them, and he’d have used this time to make sure the territory that belonged to him would be alright. But since it’s not up to him, and the situation is critical, well, better go, yeah?

The meeting is tonight. And since I’m not going to be able to read more for today, I better leave that for next time.

Next time: in seven updates

#worm #worm liveblog #book liveblog #story liveblog #liveblog

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