#like they are so hit or miss and the potential for disaster is HUGE

[thispit-thelame]

Pokemon White Nuzlocke: Attempt One

Episode 1.2: Crit City

Level Cap: 20

Previous Ep: 1.1

Last we left off we had just beat the first gym, narrowly escaping our first death thanks to Cilian getting an untimely crit. Here's to hoping that our next leg of our journey goes a bit better.

Almost immediately after leaving Striation City we are ambushed by Cheren. Despite us leading Pacifica and Cheren leading Snivy, we get through this fight with little issue.

After a quick trip back to the Pokemon center we find and catch a hasty Pidove named Fugedda (short for fugeddaboutit). The weaker defenses are unfortunate, but a plus speed nature on a pokemone that revolves around outspeeding your opponent is never a bad thing. Unfortunately Fugedda has big pecks instead of superluck as an ability, but also, lol, I may as well have it because Fugedda, along with a little help from the rest of the team, manage to land a critical hit in literally every battle from here to Nacrene. I have given route 3 the unofficial title of "Crit City" and man oh man did it earn it.

The team plasma bit where they steal Bianca's Pokemon was almost a disaster thanks to me constantly forgetting that patrats have bide. Fortunately Pacifica gets a well timed crit and is able to take it out in two turns. Pacifica again is our lead for the multi battle with Cheren against the two plasma grunts. We start the battle off with a strong water gun but have to swap out when it becomes clear that the AI is ganging up on us. We'd likely be safe to stay in for one more turn but a critical hit here would've been devastating so we swap to Broiler instead. A couple turns of incinerates later and we're right as rain.

After resolving the team plasma issue, we take a little poke around Wellspring cave to see what we can find, and end up finding a new friend in a naughty Woobat named Cotton. Not a great pokemon all things considered, but its very quick and has access to some pretty nice moves that lets it be a consistant damage dealer early game, and if I so choose, a good debuffer/suicide lead later on. If nothing else, its pokemon, this is unlikely to be the only cave we'll be running through and getting the "zubat" out of the way early will help us find something more worthwhile down the line.

Despite this being a blind nuzlocke where it is always 100% safer, and 100% smarter to grind on wild pokemon, I have been battling the random trainers on the routes. This finally bites me in the ass when I start battling School Kid Al. Al only has one pokemon, but its a Blitzle, an electric type, which most of my team is weak to. Not only that but its lvl 13, and at this point in my grinding my pokemon are all ~lvl 14, so its not as if we have a huge advantage. Additionally blitzle has access to both charge, and shock wave. Shock wave alone would be bad enough. A 60bp stab move at this point in the game is very dangerous, and one that has been given the boost by charge is cataclysmic. Even worse is that I was leading with Pacifica so we needed to get out of there ASAP. I used a leer, knowing we could survive at least one hit, and blitzle ended up going for a charge. Expecting a shock wave I swapped to Pickles, who indeed does get hit hard by a shock wave but is able to take them out next turn thanks to a crit.

I am slowly realizing how much I hate patrats though. When every chipmunk you run across is a potential grenade, you eventually learn to despise each and every one.

A bit of good news though is the fact that it turns out I miss read pokemondb and Pickles does indeed get intimidate after they evolve. Its a huge help from here on out and Pickles will likely remain in my party until we either run into a fighting gym or I luck out and get 5 other top tier encounters. Intimidate is easily a top 10 ability for me in nuzlockes, especially here in the early game where there's not too much you can do to strategize, especially especially if you know nothing about the teams you will be facing, as I do not.

Well we make it to Nacrene eventually, but instead of tackling the gym yet I decide to head west to see what lies over yonder, and am hoping for another encounter before the gym. It turns out this is the infamous Pinwheel forest I've heard so much about from people trying to nuzlocke gen 5. I vaguely remembered something weird about it that a lot of different people decided to make an exemption for so I ended up looking up what it was. Turns out there's something called the "Pinwheel clause" for nuzlockes. TDLR is that a bunch of people decide to split Pinwheel forest into two different encounters; the outside, commonly referred to as 'Challenge Rock' and the inside of the forest, commonly referred to as 'Pinwheel Proper.' I decide that not only since this is my first romp through Unova that I'll allow myself the Pinwheel clause, but the encounters themselves have always been more fun for me than increasingly tightening my restrictions. This way, at the very least, I'll have two new Unova pokes that I've never used before and now have the chance to. That being said, it turns out the inside is blocked off for now by a wall of team plasma grunts, so no likely flying/grass/bug type poke for me for now.

Challenge rock is open to me for now though and after a quick battle with a nurse who looks to be on break, a Relaxed Tympole named Penzance joins the team, albiet they go to the box for now. I imagine they'll be a great addition to the team eventually with Seismitoad being reasonably bulky, and having a ground type in my 'noticeably weak to electric types' team will be a huge boon.

I do eventually run into a Timbur, and later a Throh here, which would've been really nice since the upcoming gym is normal typed, but I guess we will have to make do.

Thankfully, this time at least, I remembered there was an ambush battle with N before you can access the gym itself, so after grinding up my pokes to ~18, N is taken care of thanks to a combination of Pacifica, Pickles, and Cotton.

We get through the gym just fine and find ourselves face to face with Lenora (love her design btw). Here's the team I've put together for the fight:

Everyone has an Oran berry except for Chestnut who has a Persim berry which I got when I caught Penzance, lucky me!

Since I know nothing about her team, I've picked the pokes who I believe give me the most rounded team, and the most bulkiest one I could bring, which, as you can see, isn't much. The plan is to once again lead Broiler to hit a yawn, and then swap to Pickles who knows workup, and has our second strongest defense defense stat behind Chestnut (which surprises me tbh. I thought Watchog was pretty frail, but I guess this just means that their stats start falling off in comparison to others pretty quick). I don't know what Lenora has as far as team members go, but I suspect that it will be a team of three of Patrat, Herdier, Watchog. What makes anticipating her team harder is that I vaguely remember her blaze black team that has a Boufulant which would be insane to fight right now so I'm dearly hoping that that's not it lol.

I am lowkey nervous for this fight since early normal type gyms are always a danger. Usually normal type pokemon evolve fairly early, and Game freak usually loves to give normal type gym leaders an illegal ace that is fully evolved despite not being at the right level for it. Additionally, usually they have a very strong stab move that you don't have access to yet, usually given to you as a TM after the battle

Here's Broiler and Pickles btw. They're the ones I'll be relying on the most here so I figured I'd give you all a better look at what's under the hood.

The fight starts with me leading Broiler and Lenora leading with her Herdier. I am relieved to see that she only has two pokemon, but that definitely signals to me that the one waiting in the back is either a powerful single-staged poke, or a fully evolved one. I'm still suspecting a Watchog though. Broiler hits a yawn and Lenora retaliates with a take down, which would've just one shot Broiler if it crit. After taking a quick look at the rest of my team, a crit would kill most of my team, so that's great.

My usual strategy for tough fights in nuzlockes is "slow and steady," so I usually waffle when thats not an option if I don't have a designated physical/special tank.

I swap to Pickles who gets an intimidate drop off before taking a take down that does a little over 15%. Herdier falls asleep and thanks to Pickles coming in before it started to sleep, we are easily able to get 2 turns of using work up with no punishment. I believe that in order to one shot whatever Lenora has in the back Pickles will need to be at least +4 attack, so I go for another. Herdier unfortunately wakes up, but Pickles is amazingly able to dodge a take down which means we've got a +3 Herdier with no retaliation whatsoever. Not wanting to push my luck, I have Pickles take it out next turn with a tackle.

Lenora confirms my suspicions and sends in a Watchog in next. It outspeeds and lands a hypnosis which is very annoying, and potentially apocalyptic. I don't really have any other option here since I know this watchog will hit like a tank, so I have Pickles stay in, and they get hit with a nasty Retaliation (there's that strong stab move I expected) which would've just straight up killed Pickles if Lenora used the move as it was intended to be used. Pickles falls from 42hp to 17, which we heal back 10 thanks to an oran berry. Pickles amazingly gets the one turn wake up and hits a tackle that leaves the opposing watchog with ~12% or so, just above the redline.

Pickles doesn't outspeed here, and I don't know when the AI will start to heal here. I decide that if we do indeed get through this gym Pickles will be too invaluable of a member to go down here, so I need to swap them out. Because this watchog hits so hard, I get the fatalistic idea in my head that we aren't getting through this one deathless, and perhaps because I hate facing them so much, and I know that they start to fall off soon, I send in my own Watchog, Chestnut, who I plan on taking the fall.

Lenora does indeed end up healing here, which is unfortunate, but it does mean that Chestnut is able to swap in for free. We outspeed because Chestnut is a speedy girl and hit a crunch that does ~25% while Lenora retaliates with a retaliate that takes about ~45% off of Chestnut.

Its not looking good.

Next turn a crunch does another 25%ish actually gets the defense drop which is huge because I was really debating on just spamming leer until she went down. Even better is that Lenora whiffs a hypnosis, which leaves Chestnut in a wonderful position and it seems like out fates have suddenly reversed. One final crunch and we take out Lenora's Watchog, winning us the 2nd gym deathless!

Post Script:

Again I have a few miscellaneous thoughts I'd like to go over here at the end of the "episode.'

I'd like to talk about the difficulty/perceived difficulty. Obviously things are a little difficult. Its the nature of a nuzlocke, even more so a blind nuzlocke, but that's not what I mean. The fact that we're at the second gym, level 20, and only one of my pokemon has fully evolved is pretty odd when you consider the other games in the franchise. I suppose you could chalk it up to the absence of any bug types up until now, but still. It meas we're lacking some reliable sluggers in terms of stats, and missing the ever useful status moves typical of early game pokemon. Its an odd thing to try and get used to tbh.

I need to clarify and once again state that I don't think that this is an inherently bad change/design decision. I actually think its really really cool how you are only able to use, even see, gen 5 pokemon until you beat the pokemon league. Its a really fun design decision that I wish they would've come back to because it forces you to use new pokes that you might have not even given the chance. Its part of the reason why I love nuzlockes so much. I never used to even consider using a Walrein, but after an Emerald nuzlocke where everything was going to shit, it pulled through for me and has easily become one of my top 10 pokemon.

That being said, its a pretty alien situation I find myself in and struggling to get used to. It seems to me, that in place of having various "early game pokemon" who grow quick and evolve at low levels, but generally have low total stats, we instead have stage 1 or 2 pokemon that might not have the highest of stats, but access to some pretty strong moves, pretty damn early in the game. The easiest example of this is Blitzle who I talked about earlier. A practically guaranteed 90bp move at +1 SpA so close to the start of the game is insane. I get that Blitzle/Zebstrika aren't the most amazing SpA pokes, but those stats are certainly workable and you need to be wary around them. Giving Lenora both take down and retaliate is another great example in that sure herdier/watchog might not be the strongest of pokemon, but at this point in the game, with such strong STAB moves, they're certainly dangerous.

I'm Thinking of adding more photos to these posts yet as well. At minimum I think I'm going to take more detailed pics of the entire team before each gym/major boss fight, just so you all know what I'm bringing to the table. I'd also like to post a pic of what the team looks like immediately after the gym fight so you all can see how much damage we took, and also so you can see I'm not cheating lol. Its something I usually do and I just keep forgetting so lol gotta make sure I do it for the remainder of my playthrough.

As far as thoughts about the game itself go, I find myself a little disappointment in the sound and music design tbh despite me playing on a very real and legitimate DS, I can't help but feel like the sound and music would've hit better back in the day on an original. As it stands though a very 6/10 on the music so far. The main battle theme is a banger though.

And as a final note, a bit of good news! I've actually finished part 3, and I'm hoping to get it out before the end of the weekend, so no waiting another 2 weeks for the next installment as I try to wrangle my ADHD. Its all done and I've taken some meticulous notes to help me keep track of all that I've done.

#thispit's nuzlockes #nuzlocke #attempt one #pokemon white

[makeste]

So, Bakugo didn't loose his quirk. How's your clown mask? Now when you jumped on the lamest time travel theory train I'm relieved. Probably means it won't ever happen

this is one of the ruder asks I’ve ever gotten for sure, but I kind of like the directness of it too lol. yes Kacchan you get to keep your quirk this time lmao. I have no complaints, I’m certainly satisfied with what we did get.

but you gotta shoot your shot, anon! what is the internet even for if not for posting all of your outrageous anime theories and putting them all out there for anyone who might care to read them! the time travel theory is kind of a weird case, because I’m not fully sold on it by any means, but I’ve yet to hear any other halfway convincing explanation for the mystery surrounding the second and third vestiges. putting aside judgements of whether or not you think it’s a terrible or stupid idea or poor character/plot development, and just looking at it from a strictly rational standpoint, I haven’t heard any arguments that have convinced me to write it off as a possibility as of yet. and thus I have not written it off! but I am fully prepared to don my clown mask many more times if need be lol. it’s fun to speculate about it so I will keep speculating.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha theory #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks #got a full blown clown suit on standby if need be! #honestly should have it at the ready every damn week just in case #I should clarify now that my opinion on bak-u-go is basically #'well stranger things have happened and I can't dismiss it outright' #'so I'm willing to keep an open mind' #but I'm also a sucker for that rare unicorn that is a well-written time travel arc #like they are so hit or miss and the potential for disaster is HUGE #but the rare ones that actually stick the landing are just !!! #like the sci-fi nerd in me is all over that #few things get my theorizing gears working harder tbh #so I confess I'm oblivious to the red alert klaxons surrounding this theory that everyone else seems to be hearing lol #basically I'm willing to let horikoshi take the wheel wherever he wants to go on this one

[jimvasta]

Six months on Testosterone

I did an update at five months, here we go again at six months

In case you missed some previous details: I am an older than most ftm medical transitioners. Yep, I left it late mainly because my xennial idiot self had no idea I was trans for a long time - LGBTQ education was illegal when I grew up (Section 28, thanks Thatcher), the internet literally did not exist until I was in secondary school (and was dial up only), and if you get told you’re a tom girl long enough you struggle to figure it out. 

So, I am married, I have children, and a career - I’m your Trans Dad but you youngsters can call me Baba. You can’t tap me for pocket money (my little live in minions have already taken everything), but you can absolutely ask me questions, get moral support (or amoral if required), and if I ever meet you in person I do give great Baba hugs. 

I have been around the block few times and had the usual life disasters here and there. I count myself lucky to have survived this far!

Anyway, six months on T:

Periods are no longer a thing - yay! If I bleed now it’s because I’ve been a dumb arse and injured myself, not because mother nature is being a drama queen.

Hair - So much hair. I was expecting treasure trail and a few hairs on my chest but the extra hairs growing my upper thighs were an eye opener! Fine dark hairs on my upper lip are more fluffy than anything else and I am only shaving to get used to it.

Voice - Oh yes, it’s getting low and the worst of the cracking seems to have gone in the previous month. It may sneak up on me again though, we will have to see.

Strength - Hehe, wrestling matches with the hubby are getting good. I go to the gym and lift weights regularly, I can now match him for strength and he is having to come to terms with me being the bear in this relationship. To be fair, I really don’t think he minds,

Surgery - I see the consult for top surgery in three weeks. Given I have rather large moobs (two children will do that!) it will have to be a double incision and the first quote is £7800. In theory I could wait for the NHS, but I’d like to get surgery before retirement so private funding it is. I will see if I can get an hysterectomy through the NHS, but that’s not such a priority atm. The moobs are a huge dysphoria issue since I feel like they stop me passing and during summer it’s too hot to bind.

Hormones - Obviously, I’m now six months in. I started out on Testogel and it worked but timing when to apply it with gym workouts and an active shift working job was a pain. You can’t shower within hours of applying it which has the potential to make you chose between T levels and feeling icky/sweaty all day. My wonderful specialist laughed at me for making the decision to change just as we got my T levels in the right place and then cheerfully stabbed me in the backside with Nebido. In three months time I will go back for another round. A week later and I am already liking not having to do anything and knowing my T is there.

Random - My body temperature has gone up, I don’t feel the cold so much and I struggle stupidly in the heat. Libido, oh boy, that is crazy and hubby is loving it!  My face shape is changing and fat distribution is giving me a belly and my hips are less obvious, while my shoulders are broadening.

Overall - Passing is hit and miss, hubby informed me I am in the uncanny valley stage of transition. 

My workmates and I are running an experiment with the people we meet on a daily basis. I think it’s mostly women who code me as female and men who code me as male. They think it’s age based and the older a person is the more likely they are to see me as female. Results when we have a large enough study.

Remember, you do you. All my fabulous fellow cryptids, you know you’re beautiful. If you’re younger than me beware, I will adopt you if your biological family are being shitty.

#testosterone #nebido #ftm #lgbtq #transition #six months on testosterone

[mellie1409]

Alohomora (ft. knj) - 5.2k

Badum badum badum

That's the only thing y/n can hear in the deep silence the dinning hall is submerged in. Her own heartbeat marking the rhythm of a frantic and desperate song. This is the moment she had so long been waiting for: the moment she would be chosen a family for her to join. A family that would take care of her and love her as one of their own and protect her at all costs for this one short year she would be spending here, at the most magical and hopeful place on planet Earth, at Hogwarts.

Y/n straigtens her back as the hat is lowered onto her head. A sudden smell to old papyrus surrounding her and becoming more intense as the weight of the hat increases on her head. And when suddenly professor McGonagall lets go of the hat, it unexpectedly starts moving.

'I see' he says turning to the left and then to the right, scanning in the process the room and all his different choices for y/n. 'Hmmm, a golden heart disguised because of fear, high expectations for the future... Interesting, well, I'll put you in a house, where they will push you to reach your full potential, to prepare you for your final decision. But before revealing it, do mark my words: the choice has already been made in your heart, by some achieved courage you'll reach your final destination.'

Those words resonate into the dining hall as if someone had fired a gun, a race gun that gives the queue for everyone to start talking at once. It was normal for the hat to mumble about someone's abilities, but to make a prophecy? That only happens when someone's life was about to take a huge turn. Which secrets is she hiding? Did it have anything to do with her far away origin?

Only when director Dumbledore stands up, does the hall fall back into a heavy, thick silence. 'Sorting hat, please do continue as we can't spend this whole starry night in here.' He speaks with his elderly voice aiming for the enchanted roof that was replicating a night sky full of stars.

'Well then! ' the hat grumbles 'Her house will be...

...Slytherin! '

This time, instead of starting applauding like they would do with every other selected kid, a thick silence covers the room like a mantle. Not even a fly can be heard as she slowly approches Slytherin's table and takes a seat next to the people of her age, the 3rd year.

She sits next to a blackhaired boy, although his hair seems to change color every few minutes by some kind of spell Y/n hasn't heard of before in her life.

As the ceremony continues, the coloured hair guy turns to her with a cheeky smile and whispers: 'Hi! I'm Jimin, nice to meet you, I'll be your guide to this castle and if you want to know how to get to a place, just let me know. I know every corridor and stair in this school' he says while winking his eye.

Y/n doesn't know how to respond after the strange encounter with the sorting hat but she just smiles back awkwardly at him as she turns around to continue watching the sorting ceremony.

┈

The day after, they start their classes. And y/n's first class is also her favourite subject: defense against the dark arts. After breakfast at the dining hall, she takes realizes she has forgotten her pencil case at her room, so she quickly leaves her classmates behind to go grab it.

What she hadn't thought about was the fact that she did not know the school. So as soon as she tries to look for the class she is supposed to be in, she finds herself lost and wandering around corridors and rooms she doesn't know.

At a certain point she distinguishes someone at the other side of the gardens. He looks like Jimin with the colour changing hair, but when she calls his name, the figure ignores it and disappears through a different door.

It takes her 15 more minutes to find her class and by the time she comes in running, the class has already begun. As she notices Snape is writing on the board with his back to the class, she silently tries to get to her sit. That is until a voice makes her stop on her tracks: 'To what do we own the honour of you joining us in this apparently not so interesting class today, Miss y/l/n?

Freak, she thinks to herself. She chooses to remain silent as she knows it's the best choice with a teacher such as Severus Snape.

'Well I do hope that cleaning the potions room this afternoon during your free time will be more interesting than this class for you. And now please tell me, what si the first rule in defense against the dark arts? '

And like this the class starts for y/n with a punishment for being late. What a great start of the school year...

As the clock hits 5 o'clock, y/n leaves Slytherin's common room towards the potions room were Severus is waiting for her. Although when she comes in, she can't find him anywhere. She does find a howler from him there. She opens it carefully: 'MISS Y/N! As you can see, this room hasn't been cleaned since last year's trolls disaster so I expect from you to clean it and sort out all the potions alphabetically. Enjoy! ' and the howler desintegrates in a moment.

Y/n takes a deep breath, says some encouraging words to herself and starts working. She starts by taking away all the dead spiderwebs, no way she is touching the ones that are still being used as she is scared of almost all living creatures on earth.

She then continues by sorting out all the potions' ingredients she can find on the shelves: fluxweed, knottgrass, lacewig flies...

┈

Namjoon is running around the castle like a mad man. He needs to win this game, he wasn't going to be paying next round of butter beers! So he looks frantically for it, not caring about who he was passing by or about the fact that his red and golden tie was half way undone and his shirt untugged.

As he reaches the next door he opens it and asks:' has anyone seen a... '

He doesn't gets to finish the sentence as he sees a strange scenery in front of him. A cute, although he wont admit it, and beautiful girl is sitting on the second to highest shelf of the potions' room holding on for dear life.

'... toad maybe? ' she answers silently looking terrified at the ground. As Namjoon looks down he realizes indeed, there is a toad lying on the floor, staring at the girl like it was wondering what about him was so terrifying.

'Well, well, of it isn't the prophecy girl behaving like a little squirrel right in front of me I wouldn't believe it! ' he says with a ironic voice.

'Ugh great,very witty mister toad, as if I hadn't heard that already. And you are...? '

'Namjoon, Kim Namjoon to be exact. Gryffindor member and 5th year student in Hogwarts. ' he answers quickly. 'Now I recommend you clean this up quickly as I hear your beloved professor Snape walking down this corridor. Good luck miss squirrel!! ' and like that he leaves running with the toad he had just picked up.

┈

A creacking door, thats all it takes y/n to wake up at midnight. 'Who on earth is walking around at this hour?!' y/n thinks to herself. Without hesitating she stands up from her bed trying not to wake up her roommates in the process. She changes her clothes to more appropriate ones and takes off trying to find the source of the sound.

As she spots someone leaving the common room, she decides this is the right time for an adventure. So she takes her shoes from the rack and puts them on as quickly as the leather laces allow it.

As she slowly looks into the corridor she spots someone turning right into some ascending stairs. She follows him and carefully looks at the stairs while staying behind the wall. It's then that she can distinguish who it was thanks to the moon lighting. She holds in a gasp as she recognizes the color changing hair of Jimin, and what surprises her even more is that, there are two color changing heads! How is that possible?

She decides to find out what is going on and follows them around the castle for what seems like a pretty long time. Until they stop at the kitchen entrance to say some silent words, a password, y/n can't reach to hear. As they get into the kitchen and the door closes back up, y/n approaches the entrance and tries to listen what is going on behind the door.

'... sure no one was following you? ' a voice asks.

'Of course! Who do you think we are?! ' Jimin answers offended.

'Well, I think you guys senses must have been toned down because of the cold, because there is someone listening right behind that door! ' another voice speaks up.

The door opens so suddenly, y/n doesn't even have the chance to turn around to run away.

As she grows accustomed to the lighting of someone's candle, she starts counting the figures standing right in front of her: one, two, three... seven! There are seven of them!

'Miss Squirrel! 'Namjoon exclaims 'what are you doing here? '

'You know her?! ' someone asks.

'What are YOU doing here?! Shouldn't you guys be sleeping? ' she asks angrily after having surpassed her surprise mode.

Namjoon snorts: 'well excuse me if I didn't want to be sleeping like a lame third year student. '

'Hey!' Jimin reacts 'who are you calling... '

'Can we please focus?! We are gonna get caught if we stay here longer! ' a mint haired boy answers. Y/n recognizes him from the common room, a slytherin 5th year student. 'Miss squirrel, or whatever your name is, go back to bed, you shouldn't be here... '

'Eh excuse me, my name is y/n and no way I'm letting you guys go, in fact I think we should all go to bed or we could visit Snape if you prefer that. ' she retorts sarcastically.

It's at that moment they all hear some faint steps coming in their direction. As they all start panicking they jump into action. Someone y/n can't distinguish, grabs her wrist and sturts tugging into the opposite direction of the sound, y/n so scared she doesn't even resist.

They guide her through a small door and a dark corridor lighted only by the candle the first person is carrying. As the adrenaline rises in her blood, y/n doesn't know if what she is hearing are foot steps or her own heart beating in her ears.

The corridor seems endless, but after a left turn, a right one and a left turn again, they find themselves in front of a staircase with a door on top.

A black haired boy that seems to be the oldest instructs them to put the hoods of their capes on and then proceeds to open the door.

The cold air of the night hits y/n like a truck, the air being punched out of her lungs. It's then that she realizes how tired her legs are and how short of breath she is after running what felt like kilometers. Right! They were running because they were being followed!

She turns around with panic written all over her face only to find Namjoon looking strangely at her. God? Had she always been so cute? 'Don't worry miss squirrel, we are safe here. ' he simply comments.

He smoothly passes by her and leaves her jaw dropped behind as they all start walking towards the back entrance of a pub: the Leaky Cauldron.

She collects herself and follows them hesitantly: it was written in the school rules that they weren't allowed to be there after midnight... Also, teachers used to go there to drink! The were gonna get caught!

As if he had read her mind, the other colour haired boy turned to her: ' Don't worry, J-Hope knows the owner and he owns us a favor. We can go through the back entrance and ask for some butter beer to take away. Do you like butter beer? ' he asks casually.

'Yeah...'

'Great! I'm Taehyung by the way, Jimin's younger twin brother, although most people doubt it because he's a Slytherin and I'm a Hufflepuff, but I promise you we were born out of the same womb. In fact... ' he continues talking casually while y/n thoughts go a thousand miles per hour.

So they were twins! That explains a lot! They look alike but at the same time, they are so different. Taehyung is talkative and innocent while Jimin was known for being a little... dirty minded.

' I was always the one to eat second cause...' Y/n snaps back to reality as Taehyung continues narrating his whole infancy to her while they wait for J-Hope to come back out of the pub.

'... and so he was selected for Slytherin while I went to Hufflepuff. A pretty big family drama, but we're okay now so... '

'Omg Taehyung, leave the poor girl alone she is gonna regret not staying with McGonagall in the castle' Jimin says while putting some butter beers down on the wooden table.

They are know in a tree house in the middle of the woods. Sitting around a round table on the floor, very oriental, in y/n's opinion.

As they all acomodate, y/n looks around at the small room the house consists of. It has glass windows to keep the cold outside and even a small stove they use to keep the room warm!

As the last of the boys sit down, the oldest turns to face y/n and starts explaining: ' Hi, I'm Jin and I'm the oldest member of this friend group: the Bangtan boys. We are seven wizards from Korea who moved here to England to study at the best school in the world: Hogwarts. Let me introduce you to the members. The mint haired guy is Yoongi. He is a Slytherin, as you already know. Then it's J-Hope, a 4th year Hufflepuff. And then Namjoon. I'm guessing you already know each other... '

'Yeah... ' you answer shily without looking at him from fear of the redness of your checks getting caught.

'Great! Then there's the twins' he continues' Jimin and Taehyung. And last but not least we got Jungkook, our youngest member. He is a second year student, who is a ravenclaw. And me myself, I'm a Gryffindor. Why don't you introduce yourself to the rest? '

'Well... Hi, I'm y/n. I'm a third year Slytherin student and I'm also from abroad, from Bangladesh to be exact' she tells them while looking at everyone.

'WELL! Cheers to international friends my loves *hiccup* Jungkook screams while lifting his nearly empty pint of butterbeer.

As everyone starts laughing, they all lift their own pints and exclaim: 'Cheers! '

It is then that y/n feels alive again, with a wonderful, new friend group and many stories to tell. Now it is her time to enjoy, and no one was going to ruin it...

┈

Namjoon has been walking around the castle trying to find some new adventures to live for an hour, when he suddely hears a noise. An unusual noise for him to say the least, always used to the laughter that filled his common room, hearing this now made his heart upset. He starts to follow the sound and when he turns into a dead corner he finds himself in front of a sad scenery.

Sitting on the floor is y/n. With her knees between her arms and her nose buried in them. Crying like there was no tomorrow, sounding so desperate Namjoon has to take a deep breath not to instictively give her the tightest hug of her life.

He slowly aproaches her and he speaks out loud, trying to hold back the arrogant tone he, last time, used with her: 'Y/n, I don't know what's up and you don't have to tell me if you don't want, but please let me help you. '

'There is really nothing you can do, Namjoon. But thank you though, I appreciate it. ' she says while sniffing her nose.

A bit amazed, he wonders what it can be that it's making her so upset. From what he knows and has heard, she is a good student and, although many may not see it, she has a big heart for others. Right then, an idea starts taking form in his mind.

'Then take my hand, I wanna show you something. ' He speaks in a soft voice as he opens his left hand for y/n. Indecisively, she accepts it, slowly standing up from the cold, hard floor.

As he leads her through corridors and moving stairs, the cold air of the night seems to help y/n settle down. Instead of thinking about her problems, she relies on his hands to guide her and closes her eyes so the only thing she can process is the touch of his gentle, soft hands tugging at her so she keeps up the pace.

After what feels seconds but at the same time hours, she suddenly feels him stop. As he turns around, he realizes her eyes have been closed all the time. Slowly, not wanting to scare her, he whispers: 'y/n, you can look now. '

As she opens her eyes, it takes her some time to get her eyes used to the darkness in this corridor. Nevertheless, as they grow accustomed to the little lighting, she starts to distinguish an old, wooden door carved beautifully but terrifying at the same time. So intrinsic that focussing on the details seems to absorb every last bit of energy in her.

She snaps back to reality when she hears Namjoon speak again. 'Y/n, I've brought you here because I wanted to show you two things... ' he pauses. 'There is a spell that can open all doors, all except for ones. Only you can open the doors to your heart and only by following your heart, you'll reach the right path for you. '

She opens her mouth to speak, words dancing on the tip of her tongue. 'I don't think you'll understand what my situation is. ' she finally answers.

' That's why I brought you here' he replies. 'You are the only one that can open your heart, but in this room there is a window to it. Something that will help you realize what it is that you desire. '

After saying this he gives her a soft, reassuring smile. He stands behind her and instructs her to lift up her magic wand. As she does, he whispers a spell in y/n's ear. So soft only she could understand. A word that sends electric sparks through y/n's spine and as she shivers, she pronounces it out loud with a trembling voice: 'alohomora'.

Like a resort that comes loose, the door opens to the inside revealing a circular room. Marvelled by it, y/n slowly, but steadily walks in. Taking a deep breath she savours the smell of wood and as she looks around she realizes the room is empty except for one covered object.

As she reaches the object, Namjoon has surpassed her and reaches out to take the silk sheet off the tall item. And as if magic, an old, majestuous mirror stands in front of her.

'This is the Mirror of Erised' Namjoon speaks ' it shows us the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. Go ahead and take a look y/n. This is your window, go look inside. ' he encourages her.

Y/n sets a step back to have a full vision on the image the mirror is displaying. But the only thing she sees is a scared girl clutching her wand for dear life. Until... Until the image starts to change.

She grows older, into her late twenties. Her outfit changes color, it becomes a long, white dress... A wedding dress! And she is looking at someone, she can't distinguish who, his face is so... common, it could be anyone. But she looks in love, she is smiling with her whole body.

Suddenly the image looks at her. As y/n slowly starts to walk to her older self, so does the image and as she elevates her hand to touch the mirror, the image disappears and she is left looking back at her young self.

This whole time Namjoon has been looking at her reactions, trying to read y/n as if she was one more of his books. He couldn't see what she was seeing in the mirror's reflection. But when she suddenly touched the mirror, he knew something was wrong. Like she had cut herself glass she takes her hand back. With wild eyes she gives him one last look. And just like that, she starts running.

Aimlessly she runs and runs around the school hoping to loose Namjoon and finding some quiet place for herself. When her lungs start to feel like they are on fire and her heart threatens to jump out of her chest, she stops on her tracks. She can recognize where she is: the stables where the pegasi sleep. As she approaches an empty stable, she lies on the ground and closes her eyes hoping for the morning to never come as she needs to think about her most difficult life choice.

┈

The next few weeks, y/n spends the time wandering around the castle. She manages to stay hidden from Namjoon, while his words of the last time still stay with her like a splinter in her heart.

She also wants to stay away from the Mirror's room. She is afraid of what she had seen as she knows, one day, she would have to face the truth and fight for her dreams. This all, if she chooses for her own destiny of course, and that is a choice she didn't want to make just yet. But as the end of the school year neared and so her return to her hometown, she is aware her time is coming.

Days pass by and y/n doesn't change her technique: she hides from Namjoon everytime she hears his voice and only talks to the other Bangtan boys when she truly needs some help with her classes.

But one day, after a long class of defense against the dark arts, she finds herself wandering around the castle yet again. Although this time, she chooses a different path, she doesn't knows why, but she feels a driving force that lures her into a very specific place of the castle. It isn't until she is standing in front of that same wooden door that she realizes: the Mirror of Erised is right behind there.

She takes her wand and murmurs that one spell she hadn't forgotten. 'Alohomora' and like that, the door opened once again, to her biggest fear but also her biggest desire.

She walks in and silently closes the door behind her. And she stands again in front of the mirror, but this time, she was facing it alone. As the image starts to change, she distinguishes the same scenario she had once seen: herself in her late twenties, happily getting married to an unknown man.

But after some short time, the image changes. This time she has a few white hairs. She is still with that man, but this time, they are surrounded by three children. A kid, a toddler and a baby she is holding.

She gasps, and takes a step forward and, just like the first time, when she goes to touch the mirror, the image disappears.

She is left alone with her heartbeat and the words that Namjoon once told her that still resonate in her head: You are the only one that can open your heart, but in this room there is a window to it.

Is this what she truly desires? She isn't sure, but one thing is for sure: she would be coming back to look into that mirror.

Like this, the room of the Mirror of Erised continues appearing in front of her as she wanders around the school. Day after day she spends hours watching her happy reflection have a life full of laughter. Never touching the mirror as she is afraid that the image will disappear and so her dreams.

But slowly, the images start to change. That man starts to get charasteristic face features. At first, she doesn't recognize him, but then she slowly starts seeing similarities between the image and someone she knows. Of course she doesn't want to believe it and as time passes by and the image gets clearer she decides the mirror is wrong.

Still, she continues visiting the room. She spends her free hours there, in the sweet silence that accompanies that beautiful life movie she was able to watch and live through the mirror. And even accepts that, maybe it was him the one she desires.

It is that, that she is thinking one day when she suddenly hears a noise behind her. She turns around and watches the door open to let a person in. She can't distinguish him in the darkness at first, but when he comes into the light the mirror reflects, she recognizes the dorky, gryffindor boy that had brought her here for the first time: Kim Namjoon.

He looks surprised at her, not having expected her to be here as he thought he had scared her off the last time he had seen her. She looks pale and tired, as if she hadn't slept a single minute for the last two weeks. And so thin her chubby cute cheeks had disappeared and the only thing remaining where her cheekbones under her beautiful chocolate-coloured eyes.

Y/n quickly recovers and turns around to go back into her reflection, but as she frantically looks into the mirror she realizes it's gone for good. She doesn't know if it's the image having disappeared or if it's her not being alone for the first time in some long weeks that makes her break down.

Right as she let's goes and falls into the ground, Namjoon catches her and while holding her tight he sits them both on the floor. As he sushes her and rocks her from side to side he just mumbles things to try to calm her, focussing on his tone and not on what he is saying.

They spend hours like this, holding onto each other for dear life, Namjoon whispering sweet nothings into her ears as she cries her heart out onto his chest. And it is his soft whispering that starts to calm y/n down. As she sniffs and looks back up at him, he can see the sadness gathered in the pearls at the corner of her eyes.

It break his heart and his voice trembles when he speaks loud for the first time since he walked into the room: ' y/n, I'm here for you, I want to help you. But I can't do so unless you tell me what it is that it is making you go under like this. Talk to me, tell me what it is that you see on the mirror. '

She is unsure, she knows no one can help her. Her destiny has been decided for her a long time ago. But she has been carrying this secret for way too long. The weight of it making her heart age by the minute. And so she turns around, still in Namjoon's embrace, to look at her reflection once again.

With a shaky voice she starts to talk: 'I see... I can see my life. I am happy, very happy and all of my dreams are becoming true. I marry a man of my choice that I love and have kids with him. We grow old and spend the rest of our lives together. '

As she speaks, Namjoon heart starts to break, he shouldn't have expected nothing, but yet here he was, that's what he was here for. To see if that was what he desired. His hopes started leaving him with every word she pronounced until...

'And the man I'm with... He is the most gorgeous man I've ever seen. With bronzed cheeks and deep, black, dragon eyes... ' she turns around, and as she looks into those same eyes, she speaks up: 'it's you Namjoon, it's you that I can see myself living my life with. You and only you make me happy. I've come to realize that the last few days, but... '

But she can't finish her phrase as suddenly two soft, plump lips are crushing into her, into a sweet but desperate kiss. She is startled, her eyes open as she never would have expected such a response from him. But as he sweetly starts moving his pillow-like lips against her, her eyes fall close and she starts to follow his rhythm. Soft at the beginning, but frantic by the end, trying to connect to each other not only as much as possible at physical levels, but also emotionally. Their tongues dancing to an eccentric song that only them can hear. But as the oxigen starts to desappear and their lungs start to fill with fire they break their kiss to lean onto each other's foreheads.

Breathing heavily, Namjoon speaks up: 'y/n, I love you. I've loved you since the first day I met you, I just didn't know until now. I came here because I was confused by what I was feeling and wanted to look into the mirror. But now I know, I don't need no mirror to tell me you are the most important thing in my life.'

Still short of breath, y/n can't process what she is hearing. So, the life she so much desired was still a possibility? Still her family would never accept it. What was the point of trying then? Softly, with tears wielding in her eyes, she answers: 'Namjoon...oh Namjoon, God knows I love you more than my life and would do anything to be with you. But our love is an impossible love as my destiny has already been chosen for me. '

Namjoon can't believe what he is hearing. What could possibly be her destiny that she wasnt allowed to be with him? Lovingly, he looks at her: 'y/n, I don't care what kind of trouble you are in, I want to help you, but for that, you need to talk to me and tell me about it.'

'I just... Okay, I guess you need to know the truth if I have to hurt you anyways. '

Namjoon wants to speak up to this comment, but he doesn't want to scare her off, so he silently stares at her as she sits back and starts her story.

#bts #kpop #bts army #bts jungkook #bts suga #j hope bts #rm bts #bts jin #bts jimin #bts taehyung #bts harry potter au #harry potter #hogwarts #bts hogwarts au

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Genji Heavy Industries (Part 6) The Red Sea

This is my fiction writing. There is no scene like this in the novel or the game. But it could have been there.

Enjoy!

Because it involved your abilities, the earthquake preparedness system of Tokyo interested you. You understood that if enough seismic activity were detected, the Early Warning system would activate, giving more people time to seek safety from the seismic activity that could be generated by Soul Skill Eruption. So now, in the hopes of causing as few casualties as possible, you increase the pressure on the fault line at a carefully measured pace taking minutes, rather than seconds to reach the point of no return, where the pressure you were exerting would be released and the earth would move. 

As you grit your teeth in the dark of your improvised shelter of concrete and mud and exert the extreme forces of the earth, You think of Chu Zihang, Caesar, and Lu Mingfei. By this time, Chu Zihang and Caesar would know you were missing and start to look for you. Perhaps they would be trying to find this Hell floor but they wouldn’t know it even existed. It was like you had truly gone into a bottomless pit. They could run around forever and never find you.

But you hoped that Caesar would trust you to make your way out through the underground on your own without his help and get to safety. Once the earthquake hit, it would throw the Hydra in disarray. They would be too busy fighting monsters and escaping themselves to even notice the boys. They could explode the Kaguya computer core and blow things up, as many things that would make him happy to make them pay the debt for Ms. Makoto.

Your smile fades and you huff out a little whimper of a laugh. That would be way too easy and in his leisure mind, he would definitely waste time trying to find you.

All across Tokyo, television programs were interrupted with a message window showing the epicenter of an earthquake under Tokyo. On the radio, two sets of chimes sounded, followed by a voice announcement in Japanese. “This is an Earthquake Early Warning. Please prepare for powerful tremors!” Japanese major mobile phone carriers blast out text messages urging the citizens across the city to take cover now!

People flooded the streets in panic, rushing to shelters and emptying out highrises. Traffic turned from neat rows of shining cars to a snarled mess, as people panicked and collided. Everywhere, hundreds of thousands of feet pounded, creating vibrations on their own.

Five seconds later, it hit.

To most people's eyes, skyscrapers stood still on the ground, unmoving. But this is only an illusion. Skyscrapers use steel as the skeleton. The physical properties of steel are not only strong, but also flexible.  When under pressure from an external force it will naturally bend to unload the force, and then rebound. At the height of the Genji Heavy Industry building, in windy weather, the top floor will also be given a few dozen centimeters of sway. A few dozen centimeters compared to the height of the Genji Heavy Industry is insignificant. The general public will not use laser rangefinder and other sophisticated equipment to observe it, so this sway is usually ignored. But in a high-intensity earthquake, all the skyscrapers in Shinjuku district swayed the moment the shock wave passed through, like a cedar forest in a gale. 

You hold your breath in your own minishelter, feeling the pull of the enormous forces being exerted on these buildings. Each sway was a potential disaster that could mean hundreds, even thousands of lives lost, but the results were out of your hands now. Like a waiter bumping a table full of delicate crystalware, all you could do was observe the whole city as it jostled and pray.

You’re shaking from fear, exhaustion, and mental fatigue, but also lack of oxygen. The shelter was watertight as well as air tight. You force open a small hole in the top and peer out. You had formed a dome shaped earthen shelter for yourself that held back the water and shielded you from falling debris. Fresh air poured in the smell of seawater and fish.

Z was gone. All around you the whole basement was flooded save for the section surrounded by your little levee. A few red emergency lights illuminated the shattered tank and bits of glass block and made them look like you were floating in an extremely large pool of blood.   The tank wall was gone and the room that was already large now seemed more like a baseball stadium in size.

Through your spiritual feelers, you could detect the frequency of vibrations that your mind could interpret as sound. Many muffled voices were desperately screaming and yelling and pounding on doors.

There were still so many people in this building. Why had they not evacuated? The ground was full of tension. Aftershocks were sure to come and there was no way you could stop them. These people needed to get to shelter! Hydra were so organized even by Japanese standards. This disarray was unusual.

You’re struck with a sudden vertigo and dizziness. Your mind becomes aware of the smallness of your body, while at the same time it is still aware of the vast depth of the earth beneath you. You try to take deep breaths against the wave of nausea but the food you ate in the elevator comes up in a single heave. You lay down against the levee and clutch your head against the stabbing behind your eyes. Cluster headaches were normal and actually a good sign that the blood vessels in your head were still working. If you didn’t feel anything, it was likely you had lost too much brain function to ever recover. But they also made it impossible to move or think about escaping. After using such an apocalyptic force you were rendered as weak as a child.

You close your eyes and feel your tired brain rebound from your body back to the residual spiritual energy in the Earth. Every time your mind returns to the earth,you hear something strange. It was as if a long river of metal was flowing underground and scraping against rock, except his metal river hissed with powerful breath. It growled with menace at the same time it breathed, as though there were many of them. 

Something massive was moving near Tokyo. It was underground. It was alive.

In that moment, another sound hits you, a loud explosion, followed by gunfire. This time it was much nearer by. The sound echoed down from the elevator shaft. Because it was connected to the building, these sounds were reverberating through the ground. By the time they reached you they were quite faint, but wherever they were coming from, it must have been a very loud noise.

Caesar and Chu Zihang could be engaging with the enemy, or maybe the Hydra were engaging with the monsters. Either way, you have to start making your way out.

The water surrounding you was going to be a problem. Any hole you made at this point would be immediately flooded. Before you could tunnel out, you needed to move the water away and drain it.

A movement catches your eye. One of the floating blocks of glass is spinning rapidly in the opposite direction from the other floating bits. Something knocked into it. You freeze, gasping in fear, and reach for your pistols. With shaking hands, you start to load them with mercury laden armor piercing rounds. Your eyes scan the dark water but every wave could be concealing a serpentine creature. The floating glass created their own ripples. Plus, you were surrounded by water.

A loose bit of metal detached from the glass wall of the tank. It fell, colliding with a piece of concrete slab sticking out of the water with a soft clang. A three meter long tail thrashed wildly and an invisible shape formed a clear wake in the deep water as fast as a jet ski. It exploded from the water. Its claws were like scythes and serrated. It’s golden scales were like copper in the crimson light.

The creature's upper body was six feet long, so that made it a good fifteen feet, enough to rival a saltwater crocodile. It lifted the piece of metal and bit down and the steel deformed between its teeth. Infuriated that this actually was not edible, it flung it high in the air where it twinkled for a moment before descending. After a few seconds, you hear a small splash somewhere else in the room. The beast screeches and dives in the water, heading for the splash it didn’t realize it made itself, soaking you in the process.

Huge, fierce, strong, reactive… stupid. You recall Z’s play with these creatures. They reacted to light and sound very strongly and they were also cannibals. The emergency lights largely meant that there was no power in this place and a quick glance upward at the now-still and silent ventilation fans seemed to suggest the same. The pumps and siphons that managed the tank were shut down. But that may not last either. 

So long as that thing was swimming around there’s no way you’d be able to work. It had to die. You had your guns and your ammunition and you also had a little C4 and a detonator. You remove your trenchcoat and pin it to the levee with a pocket knife. Then you adhere a bit of the C4 to the coat. Once everything was set up. You whistle loudly.

The beast’s roar echoed and  you duck as low into the water as you can. It flies beneath the water toward the flapping windbreaker and seizes it, tearing it away from the knife and stuffing it down it’s throat. You press the detonator. It was so fast to swallow the bait that the C4 must have been half way down its throat. The lower half of the monster’s head shatters in a bloody spray and bits and pieces of it plunk into the water. The beast howls and chokes, still alive but unable to bite, only flailing about uselessly.

You’d scarcely begun to smile when the wake of something else slips by you. Fortunately you’d been standing still so it didn't notice you were there. Another monster of the same kind reared up out of the water and bit down on the other injured animal. While they were both distracted you ran away. Every step sent water slapping and splashing in all directions.

You were heading for the control panel. There was a long wiring run that ran up the wall through metal pipes attached by bracing. You should be able to climb it! You don’t dare look back but take a flying leap and hit the wall. Your fingertips just barely grasp the braces holding up the wiring run. When you look down, the uninjured sphinx is waving its claws just inches from your swaying feet.

But then it’s pulled back! The other sphinx with the half head is now missing part of its right arm but  has pulled your pursuer by the tail and slams its claws into its head piercing its eye while it screamed and flailed its forked tongue. It pulled the eye out. The nerve still dangled like a bloody root. It popped the eye into its upturned throat. It didn't need a lower jaw to eat that.

Using just the strength in your arms and shoulder, you pull yourself to the next brace. Soon you’re swinging precariously 20 feet in the air. From this vantage point you can see that under the water is a massive pile of glass and steel rubble. The water actually isn’t that deep and if you fell from this height, you would probably die due to impact with the debris. But at least now you could see the entire complex. 

It looked like most of the sphinxes were gone from the cavern, only these two were left. But then the world goes blurry. Once again you’re hit with vertigo! You moan softly and squeeze your eyes shut as the room tilts and your mind reacts to movement in the earth. The ground was filled with great tension, like the tension a cold person feels right before they shiver.

Your eyes snap open. Aftershock!

You didn’t have much time. A powerful aftershock could easily shake you off the wiring run and kill you.There was a small ledge next to the ventilation fans. But it was a good distance from the last brace. You wouldn’t be able to just leap frog up to it.

The two beasts below were still locked in a battle but the one eyed monster was winning. Unable to bite and now missing a limb, the one injured by the C4 was grasped by its head and tail while its opponent ripped bloody chunks out of its flesh with its shining bald head.

It wasn’t even swallowing the meat. This was a vengeful tearing apart!.

Finally, it dropped the lifeless body into the water and turned back to you. It hissed, baring its red tipped fangs. It’s body undulated once and reached the wall. It climbed with spider-like alacrity, claws plunging straight into the concrete like it was soft mud. It only took a second to reach your height. It lashed out and you rocked away from it’s claws, coming inches from being disemboweled. It leaped to the side to pounce on you!

And it fell short. The single eye made it lose depth perception!

With a mighty heave you lift yourself upward by your arms. The flat of your foot smashes into its face and using that as a springboard you make it to the ventilation ledge!

The strong aftershock hit the Genji Heavy Building and pounded it. Cracks spread through the reinforced concrete structure, steel was shorn, water pipes burst, steam and cold wind filled the air. The monster was knocked off balance by the sudden quake and plunged twenty feet to be skewered by a piece of steel that was bent upward. It wiggled it’s long serpent body, curling silently like a worm on a hook for a few seconds before it began to scream, a single high pitched note. Over and over and over. 

A single shot to the eye and it goes limp. You hold the gun at the ready, just in case another was needed, but there was no more sound.

You lie on the ledge to catch your breath. But you couldn’t rest. You weren’t done. You had to drain the water.

With what little residual spiritual energy you had left remaining in the earth, you use it to form a channel under the wall, forming a pipette that would hopefully lower the water level. You wave your hand and from a distance your eyes glow gold. Mud rolls in hills pushing the water towards the channel. It takes a long time, several minutes. Meanwhile, you can feel yourself getting more and more dizzy. More and more sleepy and less able to think.

An extremely loud sound banging and crashing is getting nearer and nearer. Something big was falling down the elevator shaft! It crashed with such force that the car folded like an accordion on and one door was blown out, flipped and landed with a loud splash.

Blood oozed from the resulting debris and a golden clawed hand fell limp. You take a few deep breaths and crawl back to the wiring pipe and slide down it easily. You cautiously sift your way through the debris.

By looking at the elevator shaft can feel the scale of the building, the elevator shaft of ordinary buildings are only three or four elevators, elevator shaft area of no more than twenty square meters, but the source of The levator shaft can accommodate more than a dozen elevators at the same time. So it has an area of more than a hundred square meters. In this one hundred square meters hundreds of high-strength angle steel columns stood in the middle of the steel crossbeam. This kind of high-rise building uses super high-speed elevators, and the metal cars pass up and down at a high speed of 5 meters per second, reminding people of the future cities in science fiction. 

You sniffle. Red drops of blood come from your nose. You no longer had the strength to create a tunnel. But you could crawl up above ground and find a way out that way.

The elevator was pitch black and impossible to see inside like an endless starless sky. The idea of climbing up such a massive shaft would be impossible for an ordinary human. But even in your state of fatigue and pain, it wasn’t too far to go when it came to distance. It was just vertical. 

You step over the dead sphinx. Its upper half was in the shape of a woman's body and it’s guts were torn out of it. It was missing limbs and the skin of its face was falling off in a flap. This beast was never a danger to you. It must have been torn to shreds and fallen. It was dead before it hit the ground bottom of the shaft. It served as a warning to you. It would not just be a matter of climbing the elevator shaft out of the Basement called Hell level. The elevator shaft was another level of Hell!

You check your weapons briefly, go to the back of the shaft where the rail created a sort of ladder and start climbing.

#dragon raja

[angst-fairygodmother]

Light Fingers (The Umbrella Academy)

Diego’s vigilantism brings him repeatedly across the path of a young cat burglar. But as he finds himself developing feelings for the thief, he begins to wonder if there’s more to her than meets the eye, and whether they’re really on opposite sides. And as their relationship deepens, it brings with it a plot involving his estranged adopted father, and threatens to destroy all of them.

CHAPTER 7: HEIST, HEIST BABY

Word Count: 2058 Pairing: Diego Hargreeves x Reader Rating: M Content Warnings: criminal activity, canon-typical violence  Cross-posted to AO3: here

Previous Chapter: Laid Bare || Masterlist

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After the first, most intense night of planning, it took three weeks before you were confident that the pair of you was ready to carry out your heist. You spent most of that time on “research,” staking out the warehouse to verify things such as guard rotations, security systems, and surrounding traffic, watching for patterns in shipment deliveries, hoping for a slip up, one missed logo on a shirt or van, anything to tell you who or where the crates were coming from. When you weren’t busy with that, you and Diego were going over the plan, discussing each person’s role and what you would do in different potential scenarios (in addition to being an almost normal new couple, getting to know each other even better and learning how to exist in conjuncture). 

Finally, you were satisfied that you had everything you were going to get from mere watching. Diego, trusting your instincts on the matter, agreed to your decision, meeting you at your apartment for last minute planning and then commencement of the main event.

You picked up the backpack containing your gear, turning back to grin at Diego. 

“Ready?” you asked. 

“Not quite,” he answered with a soft smile, stepping well into your personal space.

“What do you--” your question was cut off as he cupped your face gently between his hands and kissed you. You inhaled sharply, the breath slowly escaping again in a sigh as you melted into his touch. 

“For luck,” he whispered against your lips, eyes crinkled in a smile when your eyes fluttered back open. 

You smiled back. “I don’t think we need luck, but maybe you should do that again, just to be sure.”

“If I do that, we might never leave,” he said, voice low and gravelly in a way that sent your skin tingling. 

“Promises, promises,” you teased, shaking your head. “Alright, let’s get this party started.”

~

The streets were dark around you as Diego pulled his car to a park, about a mile from the warehouse. Your getaway secured, you made your way the rest of the way on foot. The agreement was that, given the size of the building, you would go in together and then split up to cover ground. Each of you would try to find a few worthwhile items to bag that were small enough to go unnoticed, and you’d make note of any information you found in the process that would tell what Reginald was doing with all this stuff, or who he was getting it from and sending it to. Exit the way you came and rendezvous at the car in two hours. You had a series of signals in place in case something went wrong, and what to do if it did (primarily scatter and meet back together when the coast was clear, possibly even a day or two later if necessary).

Partnerships were risky in your line of work, but somehow it felt safe with Diego. 

Covering you both in a wavering reflectivity in case there was a camera that you missed, you tried the unsecured back exit that was meant to be your way in and frowned. This door, by all rights, should have been easy to open, kept unlocked and unhindered as an emergency escape for the employees. 

“Locked,” you said with a frown, deadly serious despite your light tone. “Now that seems like a safety hazard. Maybe we should fix it for your dear old dad.”

Diego placed a hand over yours where it trembled on the door handle. You turned your head to look back at him, heart clenching at the expression of concern and understanding on his face. You breathed a shaky sigh, blinking back the tears (mostly of anger) in your eyes and tried to get your mind back on the work at hand. Examining the lock again, you decided on the right tools and pulled a thin crowbar from your bag, twirling it in your hands a few times before holding it out to him.

“Would you like to do the honors,” you smiled at him, “partner?”

He flashed a grin back, placing his hand just over yours and taking the bar from you. You shifted back, watching - and greatly enjoying the view of - him make quick work of popping the lock, his muscles flexing visibly beneath his tight black sweater. He passed the crowbar back to you and held the door cracked open.

“Ladies first,” he said softly, bowing to you with a flourish that made you giggle. 

“You just want to be able to watch me walk,” you teased, winking.

He shrugged, gesturing as if to say it couldn’t be helped. 

The warehouse had a certain spookiness to it as you entered, slipping carefully through the rigidly arranged aisles of shelf after shelf of crate. Each one seemed to be perfectly aligned as a sharp, straight line from floor to nearly ceiling. Somehow, you weren’t surprised by this, given everything you had heard or learned about the infamous Hargreeves. But it gave you the creeps, nothing should be this perfect, especially not a warehouse of suspicious and possibly illegal goods. 

By now, you had lost track of Diego in the maze, and even though that was the plan, it sent a shiver down your spine. Eventually, you found your way to a more open section, clearly some sort of inventory area with half-opened crates and long metal tables covered in individual objects. 

As you glanced around in the dim light, something moved on the other side of the area, making you jump. Your foot skidded on loose packing material, sending you stumbling into one of the large rolling ladders and it subsequently squeaking across the floor.

“Who’s there?” a voice called from somewhere up above and behind you.

Freezing, not daring to even breathe, you called upon your powers more firmly while your mind raced. There were catwalks that weren’t on the blueprints, or the shelves were such that they supported security officers walking around on their tops. There was security inside the building that you had somehow missed, despite staking out for so long and tracking the comings and goings. How had you messed this up so badly?

Your eyes flickered to the ground where the packing material lay and noticed that it was only on the ground near where the aisles joined with the room, and the ladders happened to be positioned right next to those spots. 

“Shit,” you muttered. You had led the way straight into a trap. 

“I’m guessing you just noticed that this was a setup too,” Diego asked, voice barely audible as he appeared at your shoulder (you had been too busy scolding yourself for your mistake to notice him creep around the edge of the room).

You nodded, biting your lip as you continued to look around, feeling the walls close around you like a cage. 

Suddenly a bullet whizzed past your head as Diego yanked you out of it’s path, pressing tight to you and pinning you against the wall. He turned, whipping something from a nearby table at the guard, hitting him squarely and causing him to stumble back. 

You heard shouts and the pounding of more boots on the metal pathways above.

“Well Master Thief, what now?” he asked, breath ghosting over your face. 

“Now? Running’s always a good option. I don’t think these guys will be so amenable to flirting as a distraction while we make our grand escape as some.” You couldn’t help winking at him, teasing despite the danger.

He stared at you, incredulous at your brazenness, but still he nodded minutely in consent. You waited a breath before linking hands with him and pushing off, moving shadow to shadow and stretching your powers as best you could to aid in your flight. The two of you darted back through the shelves, and you prayed that you were indeed headed for the door you had left propped open and ready for escape. 

‘Why were there no alarms going off?’ You wondered, sure that there should be more concern at your presence. 

You burst through the back door, and kept going, lungs burning as you wove your way through the deserted streets. Eventually, you realized that there was no pursuit and slowed to a halt in a narrow alleyway, still positioned so that you could watch in case you were proven wrong.

Diego doubled over and you collapsed against him, holding each other up as you panted, breathless from the run. His shoulders shook, and you quickly realized he was laughing, almost giddy. It was an unfamiliar sound, and it made your heart light. Unsure why you were doing it or what could possibly be funny, you found yourself joining in, until you could both barely stand for a new reason. 

When your eyes connected, you instantly sobered, breath catching as he leaned closer, one hand finding the back of your neck to draw you in. No matter how many times he kissed you, it still felt like the first time, like a once in a lifetime moment. 

“What was that for?” you asked, dazed as he pulled away. 

“Do I need a reason?” he countered, smiling at you. 

“Hmm,” you pretended to think about it for a moment before kissing him this time. “No. You don’t.”

A few moments later, he sighed. “What happened back there? Besides a huge disaster. Nothing was what it was supposed to be?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t like it,” you said darkly. “It wasn’t a total failure though. I did get this.”  

You held up a long, looped necklace practically dripping with pearls and chips of sapphire, the jewels and metal glittering in the floodlight over the nearby restaurant back door. He shook his head incredulously, gaping in wonder at you and trying to figure out exactly how and when you had managed to slip that into your bag without him noticing. 

“Plus, you can’t tell me you didn’t have fun.” You grinned, waiting for him to try to deny it. 

But he didn’t even try, knowing that he, in fact, had. It wasn’t so much about the actual theft, and breaking and entering really wasn’t new to him, but having you there with him, working with you. It was perfect. And to see the delight glittering in your eyes as you inspected your prize, your expression too pure to be greed and too calculating to be adrenaline…

“I love you,” he blurted out. 

The necklace slipped from your hands, clattering to the ground, but you hardly heard it, ears still ringing and repeating what you just heard. 

“Diego. Did you just…” you murmured, hesitating, afraid that asking would make him backtrack and that your heart might actually explode if he did.

“I,” he took a deep breath, catching your now empty hands in his. “I love you, Y/N.”

Before you knew what was happening, there were tears rolling down your cheeks. Panicked, he dropped your hands in order to brush them away with his thumbs, cradling your face in his palms and shushing you soothingly. 

“What? Sh-should I have not said--” he looked crushed and frightened.

You shook your head as best you could from this position. 

“No, I just never…thought someone would...what I mean is that they’re happy tears,” you tried to explain. “And I love you too, Diego, so much.”

His grin was dazzling, brighter than anything you could have mustered even with all of your power. Your heart fluttered, so overjoyed that you struggled to focus as he leaned in.

Just as his lips ghosted over yours, a high-pitched scream cut through the night. The pair of you jumped apart, looking around for a source, tense and ready to fight. 

“We’re, uh, going to go investigate that, aren’t we?” you asked with a barely suppressed sigh of disappointment. 

Diego, shrugged apologetically. “We should.”

“Alright, I wasn’t expecting to do this whole ‘step into the other’s shoes’ thing both in one night, but lead the way, my stabby boyfriend.” You gestured dramatically and grinned.

Diego rolled his eyes fondly before taking off in the direction the sound had come from, maintaining a light jog and you kept up pace just behind him, pulling little motes of light from the streetlights you passed, just in case.

#because as soon as I said it out loud there was no other choice but to use that title #another big chapter #which is why I also technically have chapter 8 written #because I decided to terminate here before it ended up being Too Much #Diego Hargreeves x Reader #The Umbrella Academy fic #Light Fingers

[comparativetarot]

The Tower. Art by Katie Whittle, from the Occult Ornithology Tarot.

Element: Fire Ruling Planet: Mars

Great Black-Backed Gull Larus marinus

The Tower is representative of great change and upheaval, often disastrous. Prepare for danger.

The Tower represented by a great black-backed gull screaming defiantly into a tumultuous sea. The platform he stands on is unsafe and precarious, the sea crashes around him. In the distance is another gull escaping.

Gulls are sea birds that are known for their precarious nesting habits on cliff faces as well as their ‘in your face’ attitude when faced by dangerous situations. Gulls are classed as a vulnerable species due to habitat loss, they will either adapt or disappear.

Upright: Massive changes and upheaval, it can be a huge lifestyle change like job loss, accidents or natural disasters, the change will be chaotic and usually destructive. Embrace it and build your defenses higher next time, while the chaotic change. The Tower can bring is often destructive and irreversible, it will make you stronger.

Reverse: You might have narrowly avoided a disaster or huge change, perhaps you need to learn from this near miss to prevent future disaster. It can also mean that you’re avoiding an inevitable upheaval or change.

From the artist’s blog: 

“When it finally came to the time of designing the card for The Tower, I didn’t have a specific bird in mind, I just knew it should be a sea bird or bird that nests in cliff faces, for the life of me i couldn’t think of a more precarious place for a bird to live, especially after visiting Whitby this year and witnessing the crumbling cliff faces on the coast....

Why a great black-backed gull? I have made no secret of my affinity with gulls, they’re a greatly misunderstood species of bird, with high intelligence and strong bonds to their mates and their young. In my country (the UK) gulls are constantly being called upon to be culled, called pests and probably up there with rats as one of the most disliked animals, due to having to adapt to rapidly encroaching human settlements and reduced natural food sources. Of 6 native UK species of gull, every single one is now at risk of extinction, gull numbers have shrunk by 72% since 1969. The great black-backed gull is currently on the amber list. So why am I talking about gull conservation instead of why I chose this bird for the card? Quite simply this species is at the cusp of ecological disaster, chaotic because it is out of the species control and instead in ours.

As I said earlier in the blog, I wanted to have a cliff nesting seabird for this card, when I initially thought about natural disasters that could affect birds the most, the thought of raising babies in a nest with the danger of the winds, the rain, the sea and the precariousness of cliffs just seemed the most terrifying and prone to disaster. I made the connection with gulls because of their precarious ecological position and also their attitude to disaster, most birds fly away from potential harm and danger, gulls square up to it and seemingly accept it or adapt. The gull on this card both represents the disaster of loss of habitat and the act of facing up to a disaster one cannot control.

In British folklore people have traditionally viewed gulls as being able to predict the weather, their flight patterns predicting storms or fine weather, in recent years due to pop culture mostly the gull can be seen as an ill omen.

Symbolism in the card: The Rider Waite design shows a tower, built solidly but on unstable ground being hit with lightening and on fire, while 2 people jump out to their unknown fate below. it represents chaos and destruction. Visually speaking my card is almost completely opposite, instead of flames I have crashing waves, instead of a crumbling tower I have a crumbling cliff face, instead of people diving out of the danger, I have a gull screaming into the waves defiantly. This is partially because I believe a human disaster is often completely at odds to what is a disaster for most animals. In the background of the card is another gull flying, it could be escaping from the danger as the people jumping from the towers are, or just avoiding it temporarily to rebuild and nest again. I didn’t want my gull showing fear at the face of destruction, rather I wanted to show defiance in the face of danger.” ��� Katie Whittle

#Katie Whittle #Occult Ornithology Tarot #The Tower #Major Arcana #Tarot #Animals #Birds #Gull #Favorites

[unsettledink]

Back in the days of LJ, I used to try and do a post at the end of each year, looking back primarily at fandom and fic. I fell out of the habit when everything moved to tumblr, and then it seemed like I didn’t have anything to say since I wasn’t writing or really participating any. 

But I always liked the idea of it, because I love to be overly reflective on stuff. And talk about my fic. Any excuse! I shuffled around some of the topics I used back then and added a few I’ve seen around that I liked. It got… long, because I TALK, so I split into two sections. 

*

Your main fandom of the year? 

    Marvel (MCU) for sure. Primarily with characters from Spider-Man and Iron Man movies.

Your favorite film watched this year?

    The Old Guard - I saw a couple trailers and everything about it looked like catnip. ‘It’s probably going to be so dumb, but I don’t even care,’ I thought. And then it was so good. It was so much fun and so much smarter than I expected and I loved each and every character and it just made me happy in so many ways.

Your favorite book read this year?

    Red, White, and Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston - I read it twice this year actually. It’s so… cute isn’t the right world. Sweet and hopeful and soft and comforting and intense. I liked every single character which is pretty rare. I cried during the sad parts and then again at the happy ending, like straight up sobbed - both times. I already want to read it again.

Your favorite tv show watched this year?

    Schitt’s Creek - I started it on a whim and because a lot of people had said it was good. The episodes were short so it wasn’t a huge time investment. The first season was a little rough, but there were enough funny moments that I hung on, and then… I kept getting fonder and fonder of these idiots as they grew. And THEN… it kept not disappointing me? 

     You grow to expect certain scripts, twists, jokes, especially in queer story lines. To wait for the bad thing to happen, because it always does. Instead, Schitt’s Creek kept going, ‘hey, here’s the set up for that! Guess what? We’re not doing it. Here’s the happy version instead.’ The relief of having that happen again and again - the last season I’ve watched (I’m sort of saving 6) I cried a bunch but it was always because I was happy. 

Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?

    1896 - I’ve been waiting for the new Steam Powered Giraffe album so eagerly for aaaaaages. Finally getting recordings of Zero’s songs! Lying Awake remains my favorite off the album, with Eat Your Heart and Bad Days on the Horizon high up there as well. I’m loving what Zero brings to the band.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

    I don’t know if I really did discover that much? I stuck pretty closely to old fandoms and the ones I picked up in 2019. Maybe Zodiac? It was definitely inspiring, and I want to write and read more in it. 

    Maybe the couple discords I joined? I still really dislike discord and am not on there much, and mostly lurk when I am, but having somewhere vaguely like the comms I remember makes me feel a little less isolated. It’s the potential, that maybe if I said something I might make a friend, or someone might actually want to hear what I say. 

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

    The Watch - I mean, I knew it was going to be a disaster with every word said during pre production. I wasn’t ever going to be happy with it. And then it came out and was even worse and uglier and … disrespectful not just of the source material but of actual people connected to Terry. I’m beyond disappointed that this is what we got, and it’s probably going to be a long time before we get anything else. 

    Devil All the Time was terrible, but I didn’t have especially high hopes. It still didn’t manage to meet them. Yikes.

The most missed of your old fandoms?

    Maybe MASH? Someone I follow started talking about it and I was reminded all over again of the wonderful fics in that fandom. I went looking and a lot are gone (still on my computer, lol, but not online), but rereading was such a trip. A slightly depressing trip, but still. 

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?

    Hmm. I’ve kind of not had the energy to invest in other fandoms at the moment? When The Witcher was having it’s big moment back in January, I had a feeling I might enjoy it enough to fall headfirst into the fandom, so I avoided watching it. Ikr? I don’t have the time or the energy to actively seek anything out. 

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?

    SO EXCITED about Winter’s Orbit. I mean, the third Spider-Man movie for sure, with worry. The second Venom movie, ugh yes. I have tentative hopes for Jungle Cruise? Jumanji was stellar and I always enjoy Dwayne. I have both hope and dread for the new Suicide Squad - I did love Birds of Prey, so if it’s along those lines, yay. The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard because it should be some fun garbage, my favorite kind. I don’t know how I feel about Dune, but, uh, I’m anticipating it. It seems highly unlikely it will actually happen, but The Wheel of Time TV series. 

I want to be excited about Black Widow but it’s hard. It’s not the story I’ve been wanting to see, and I’m angry about Natasha not getting a movie until she’s dead.

You know. If any of it is released for real.

The Good: 

I moved to a better place. I got a better paying, better benefits, better environment job that lets me work from home. The house acquired 3-7 more cats depending on the month. I was able to get some serious problems on my car fixed. I have insurance and was able to start on some health stuff. No one I know got sick or died. I wrote a LOT.

The Bad: 

Aside from the obvious? Depression hitting extra hard during the winter. Having to put two kittens to sleep. Have my car be hit three times in our parking lot. Being driven INSANE by one of the cats for months while the vets were all closed. Kidney stone. Dealing with several health problems. Stalling for months on Gotcha.

The Indifferent: 

Not leaving the house often or easily. Enjoying a new fandom but not doing great at making connections (still real awkward, bud). Raising kittens and saying goodbye. Need new tires. Reading a lot of fic but not a lot of books. Having more pay but more expenses as well (wth insurance??). 

*

2020 fic stats

Number of stories: 39

Number of fandoms: 6? Or 2, if you cluster the others under mcu

Total number of words: 152049

Average word count per story: 4kish

Longest fic: Causality (18k, P/Q)

Shortest fic: Can’t, Won’t (1k, P/Q)

Most comments received: Sieche (49, T/P)

Fandom you wrote the most of: MCU Spider-Man - I only wrote TWO fics that didn’t feature that fandom, wow. And one of those was still MCU.

Fandom you wrote the least of: Zodiac (1!)

Events you participated in: Marvel Trumps Hate, Kinktober, IornspidersGeorg Exchange, Starker Festivals Exchange, MCU Secret Santa, Spiderio Big Bang

*

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?

    SO MUCH MORE OMG. I mean, even just counting posted stuff! (I probably wrote a solid 300k of Gotcha this year.) I did not expect or plan on doing Kinktober, so that’s a whole 31 fics right there. I also wasn’t planning on doing any exchanges - I have a History - but then I did three? And beyond that, I did not expect for everything to get so LONG.

Topic you wrote that you would never have predicted in January:

    Tony/Quentin. Goddammit @the-me09 They were like hey, they could be interesting! And while I agreed, I had no ideas for them. THEN they had to go and write Just Bodies That Collide and next thing I know, I’ve got ten fics featuring them and two-six series focused on them or Peter/Quentin/Tony. What the fuck. 

Leitmotif of the year:

    Vulnerability, I think. I had a bunch of things typed up and they all circle back to vulnerability in the end; sex, being seen, being wanted, sharing trauma, asking for help, trying something new. Offering a soft spot in the hopes it won’t be hurt. 

Favorite character to write about: 

    Tony Stark, for sure. There are just a bunch of slightly different takes, and a lot of canon to work with (kind of frustrating too though). And I’m a sucker for emotionally damaged snarky traumatized characters that are viewed poorly both in universe and out. 

Favorite kind of fic to write:

    This year? Fluff and smut combined. Maybe that’s not the right term really. I keep looking for and writing, even in the angstiest fics, for those soft moments. Sure, maybe it’s a super smutty kink scene, but I want the affection to be obvious. Maybe everyone is consumed by guilt, but I want it to be based in caring too much. Maybe there’s no real love, just sex and even that’s messed up, but I want to find that tiny bit of fondness. 

    And I want happy endings. Or endings that look like they’re going to be happy, at least, even if there’s all the angst first. I don’t think I’ve killed anyone this year? Who AM I? 

Biggest disappointment:

    Not finishing the rough draft of Gotcha. I was making such good progress in 2019, from August to December. Even after the move, I basically finished part 6 in January. I fumbled around and fussed with 1 a lot, but that had already been given one draft, really, and I got through half of 4 before I slowed to a stop. I’ve barely gotten anything accomplished on it since June. Bits and pieces here and there, but nothing significant, not like I was doing. I can excuse October, due to 80k invested in Kinktober (yikes!), but aside from that… I’m sad. I’ll finish it eventually, but I really thought I could have the first draft done in a year. I’m sitting at about 480k out of what I’m almost certain will be 700k. 

Biggest surprise:

    Kinktober! It was kind of spur of the moment, decided just a week in advance. I’ve tried month long or even like, 20-25 day long challenges and I don’t think I’ve ever completed one. I thought there was a good chance I’d do so again, so I gave myself a little help and made my own list of prompts, things I knew I liked and hadn’t done much of yet. And it worked? I actually completed it, what the hell? Despite spending five days travelling near the end! Despite falling behind in getting ahead and writing a bunch of stories the day they were to be posted! Despite apparently forgetting how to do short form! 

    I, uh, could have done without the spawning of eleven series or sequels or continuations jfc WHY SELF.

Something you learned this year:

    Ideas breed ideas. I swear to god, the second I sit down to think through a current idea, I wake up the next morning with three more. 

    Words need to be restocked. I need to consume new - not rereads, not fic - content every so often to refresh my word bank. It is astonishing how quickly writing goes again after I’ve done so.

    I can write so much more than I thought I could. I can do so much more than I thought I could. Yes, I can complete challenges without dropping out early. Yes, I can do exchanges and not regret it. Yes, I can write more than 100k, more than 200k, more and more - and I can write 10k+ easily too. Though I wouldn’t mind if I could once again write less than 10k without feeling like I’ve cut off in the middle. 

    My time is shrinking, and if I want to write as much, I’m going to have to make the time. I can’t rely on three days off a week, on seven hours of uninterrupted overnight shifts, on hyper focused writing binges that leave everything else around me on fire. 

Most memorable comment: 

    So, so many! I can’t pick one. I’ve been really lucky to get a bunch of really detailed, enthusiastic, analyzing comments across all different fics. One of the types that always sticks with me are the ones like ‘I didn’t think/know I liked this ship/kink/twist, but fuck, apparently I do? You made me, what the hell?’. 

What, if anything, are you going to try to do differently in your writing in the new year?

So with writing Gotcha but not posting until it’s done, my view of what I’ve written vs anyone else’s is extremely skewed. I’m sitting here thinking, hey I’m 400k in and got another 10k done today, so much writing! While anyone looking at my AO3 account (for most of the year) is like, you’re averaging three months between fics :(

    All that to say I want to try and get something posted more frequently while I’m working on Gotcha.

    Also, writing for kinktober was really interesting - pushing myself to write every single day, often for that day’s post, forced me to get back into shorter form fic. Which used to be all I did? But it was surprisingly hard to just stop and not write more. So I’d like to challenge myself to write more fics under 10k at least. Maybe even under 5k though that might be asking a lot lol. I might get there with the many continuations of those fics I’d like to do. Does that count?

Goals:

   I want to hit 365 fics. :) I’m only 32 away!

    Aside from writing - 

    I’ve really enjoyed the reading record sideblog I started this year. I’ve let it lapse a little the past month or so, but I’d like to keep it going strong. 

    I’d like to leave a lot more comments. I want to get better about allowing imperfection - I want to write The Best Comment, but in the end? Probably 90% of fic writers are going to be happier with a comment expressing enjoyment in any way over no comment at all. 

And not just on fics, but on general posts as well. It’s hard not to feel… weird and stupid and invasive and rude leaving any sort of comment on someone’s post if I don’t know them at least a little. I have godawful rejection sensitive dysphoria and a lot of interactions that ended poorly; I’m really not good at people. But as dumb as it feels to say those things, I know I am thrilled and warmed and happier when there’s a reblog with tags or a note or a comment or an ask or just, any small interaction that shows someone out there notices and cares, at least a little. There’s no reason I can’t at least try to offer that to other people. 

    I’d like to make/run a couple challenges of my own, later in the year. I’m still figuring out what I want to do and what I could do. I’m really interested in doing something that’s not focused on creators, but the readers; some sort of comment or rec challenge maybe.

    I want to find a cheerleader for Gotcha. I’m struggling to keep up my motivation to write it when it’s already in my head, where I can ‘read’ it any time. There’s a line between depending too much on external validation and trying to generate all your validation yourself, and I’m getting to a point where I think I need to ask for help (gasp! The hardest thing EVER). 

*

(Part Two: Pick Some Fics)

#end of year #unsettled rambles

[tracle0]

hello hi hey! happy storyteller, uh, monday? I'm very late this week. anyway. question time! what were some of the inspirations for your DIAS worldbuilding? I was reminded recently about how cool it all is, what with all the tech blackout stuff and Spin City? n I really dig the whole split-down-the-middle deal Spin City's got going on with the two opposing sides :D so ye, where did the premise for this setting stem from? I request the worldbuilding inspo rambles if you care to share c:

Hi hello welcome to Monday I hope you had a good weekend and slept proper and well ‘nd all that

Ahhhh yes worldbuilding for DIAS, the one thing that DIAS is actually missing in the draft right now. I got stuff! But it might not be what you’re looking for. However; I will share anyway. I will also share that a lot of these ideas came from a note I made on my phone during the long drive to Cardiff.

The whole idea for lacking tech came from... a video called ‘Grazed by the Apocalypse’ which looked into a number of ways humanity almost died. One of these ways was a coronal mass ejection, which is basically where the sun yeets out a bunch of radiation which has the potential, should it hit earth, to really fuck up our way of living - specifically by targeting tech. When I researched it, I learned it best affected radios, but for plot, I went ‘what if it affected EVERYTHING’ 

Whilst brewing up the world, I decided I didn’t want a disaster story, but a story of the politics of recovery; how would people be divided in this world? What about over this specific issue? Why would people chose one side over another? What drives the theory behind stuff? I found that some of the ideas that I came up with were kinda extreme. Unrelated note, but that’s about the time I decided to set it in America. 

Split down the middle is basically so you can Stay In Your Zone - if you’re pro-tech, you can stay in the more technical part of Spin City, with working lights and all that jazz. It’s decided by the river that runs through the middle of the city, and the centre, more undecided part, is not a great place to live due to constant fights over what should happen. It’s also where Leon lives because it’s cheap and he is poor.

In case you’re curious, Ant lives in the anti-tech side because their parents believe that.

So far, we have a world that’s dead to tech, two sides who are unwilling to co-operate and confusion everywhere. What we need is something to kinda... direct the mob towards progress. 

Enter Spin City!!!!

So, Spin City is a Big Deal. It was the first town to start to recover after tech died, the first place where electricity started to work again after four years in the dark (a district of SC is called Beacon, due to it being where the first lightbulb started to work) and where the disputes are most strongly heard. Other cities draw on Spin City’s progress and ideas to decide what to do themselves. 

For a while, they did great! Then uhhh s o m e o n e got into a position of leadership who was against tech and slowed things down hugely. Only recently did that same position open up to someone who was pro-tech, but not open to other peoples ideas. He was forcing things ahead and would’ve gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for two meddling kids and their dumb factory explosion. 

Because the pro/anti tech is not really the conflict of the story, I try and stay neutral about it in the book itself. Ant and Leon blow up a factory to stop tech productions, but it’s strongly in the question as to whether that was the intention of the mission or whether it was a mistake in their information, whether Leon only made said mistake due t forced rushing, plus Leon is also hugely into building things and fiddling with everything, and Ant enjoys seeing developments made in the city. Pro/anti tech is a debate for their parents. They don’t give a fuck.

It’s also never clear if what Simon is doing is really bad, only that his way of getting what he wants is. 

Other ideas did not make it through, like... the idea that the first leader person who drew Spin City back together was going to be a Silvertongue as well, and was assassinated for various reasons. I mentioned it in the draft, but it was never relevant to the story, so I scrapped it. 

The name ‘Spin City’ came about whilst we were trying to think of a name for our media team during college last year; someone suggested it as a name, and no-one liked it, but I thought it’d be cool for an actual location, so stole it. I also used college name suggestions for newspaper companies that are mentioned during a brief conference c;

Another dumb name origin is ‘Lansea’ where Ant’s sister lives - during NaNo, I forgot to name it, so just combined the words ‘land’ and ‘sea’ together, because it’s a beach town. It’s obvious and dumb but I like it. 

I can say that pro-tech wins out in the end and the world recovers quite quickly after that; in a matter of a few generations, the world looks a lot like we know just with a smaller population, and a population that’s able to use various supernatural abilities. Enter the world of wip4

Hey ho there you go 

#sts #(stm?) #asks #albatris #dias #the worldbuilding feels patchy when I'm asked to talk about it by myself but also I know it well enough to have written an entire book so??? #Simon's big plan was to get radios specificlaly back online because he wanted to see if his voice could work through that #sure being able to control spin city is fun but why stop there? #simon is bad but his actions can have good consequences #he's a very fun bad guy and I really enjoyed writing him :D #also fun fact just for you! he's got a big ol scar across his face cause when he was younger and living in italy #he got drunk on his own power and wanted to figure out exactly what he could do so tried to get a kid there to commit suicide #the kid did and people blamed him; obvs they didn't know HOW but it was his fault and they could tell #the kids mother smashed a bottle in his face and he got a scar from it #he did not return to italy after that but I don't think he regrets it #second fun fact; I have the notes from the phone in a google drive document that I've annotated a lot #it ain't super interesting but I like it so hey ho #anyway yea here you go plz enjoy

[space-------kid]

can’t keep my hands (off you).

Anime/Manga: One Punch Man Pairing: Garou/fem!Reader Additional pairing/characters: platonic Metal Bat/fem!Reader, Zenko, mentions of other heroes such as Saitama, Watchdog Man, etc. Genre: Romance, comedy Warning: Absolute silliness. Language – Garou and reader both ate rainbows for breakfast. Dumbassery. Teeth-rotting fluff, maybe? Reader is hella strong like Saitama. Half-assed spice because you’re good at cockblocking Garou despite being low-key thirsty for him. And LOTS of dumbassery from the reader, most probably. Additional tag: Dream-based fic, canon-divergent, Garou is horny af A/N: This is supposed to be a lengthy one-shot, but I’m a dumbass who can’t keep my word so the supposedly one-shot isn’t a one shot anymore.  Now I have to worry how I should properly divide all those parts (I mean, they’re already divided, but–) 😅

You + your fight instinct + beating monsters up = ? Garou: *feeling horny* MY BODY IS FUCKING READY-

Summary:

Your life had its general ups and downs, pros and cons, the good and the bad.

You were admittedly a coward and afraid of being targeted by people for it. Following the advice of your (best) friend you trained hard, like, FUCKING hard, and now you’re blessedly, utterly strong you can take down enemies with just one hit. A good thing, really. Can’t let any bad guy harass you or something.

But-

You were probably cursed with the biggest, baddest of luck. Not only were monsters chasing you, suddenly there was this fucking hot bastard weirdo who kept on calling himself the Hero Hunter. “I’m not a hero, goddamn it!”

i. and ii. | iii. and iv. | v. | vi. | vii. | [tba]

“i can’t keep my

hands

off…!”

- can’t keep my hands off you/simple plan

viii.

You were right about him being a thirsty bastard.

After inadvertently revealing Badd’s identity a week ago, Garou seemed to have doubled his efforts of acting so flirtatiously around you.

The Hero Hunter would come to your house like the usual, whether if he was injured from his hero hunting or not. But if it was the former, then Garou was at a greater advantage of acting on his… strange… interest towards you.

You weren’t exactly pretty or anything. Hell, you didn’t even find yourself containing even the smallest bit of allure or charm. So what exactly did Garou see in you?

Your strength?

Huh. It might be one.

But why did he have to make such perverted advances towards you?

And you were honestly at fault, too. Your attempts to dissuade him were feeble at best, and you couldn’t help feeling flustered which probably egged him on more than it should.

You were out in the city for a supplies run, your search for goods that would meet your standards taking you out of K-City. Badd offered to come with you, but he received an urgent summons from the Hero Association and gave him the task of escorting an executive since news of Garou attacking some freak named Zeimeet put them on high alert.

Huh. So Garou targeted executives from H. A., too? To you, however, it was highly unlikely since he was only after the heroes.

Eh. It’s as if he shared with you all of his plans with regards to his hero hunting. And it’s been days since he went to your humble abode.

Truth be told, you kinda missed the guy…

You were in a cab going in S-City when the road ahead was blasted by an explosion. The driver swerved and stopped just in time before the cab reached the blast before scrambling out of the vehicle and leaving you inside. That jerk.

Heart in your throat, you got out of the car and panicked when fleeing citizens screamed in terror about rampaging monsters. You were about to follow them to the nearest evacuation shelter when something wet and slimy wrapped around your body, yanking you in the opposite direction. You could only take one horrified look at your abductor – some weird blob that resembled a humanoid clump of seaweed – before your world turned black, your fight instinct rising to the surface to ensure your survival.

 F̖̜̳̼̏͛͐̈̚͢Ḭ̵̛̦̣͓̣̾̎̎̑̋̊͊͘G̷̛̛͇̮͍̰̒͗̾̌̚͟Ḩ̷̢͚͇̅̇͊̅̆̓̉̎̋͘͟T̸̨̛̗̩͎̞̟̾̿̾̍̾̃̈̓͟

 Like the usual, you weren’t aware of your surroundings as your body moved on autopilot, obliterating any monster regardless of their disaster level that crossed your path as you ventured deeper in the city. Both civilians and heroes would openly gawk at you as you intercepted any monster attack and do the heroes’ job for them. Soon enough, the powder blue long-sleeved dress you were wearing was stained with the blood of monsters and you were left walking on foot when your matching flat shoes slipped off your feet sometime after your fight instinct took over.

If you were aware, you would be screaming your head off at how terrified you were of the sudden rampage of monsters. But your conscious mind was blissfully locked in some fantasy it had created which involved a certain Hero Hunter while your fight instinct was having the time of its life killing monsters here and there.

Leaving a trail of monster blood and entrails on your wake, you stopped traveling from roof to roof when your dull eyes caught a silver-haired dude walking away from a beat-up guy wearing a ripped red sweater, bontan pants, and sporting a metal bat. A little girl was stopping the beat-up guy from going after the other teen.

Silver hair, black turtleneck, and loose white pants…

Your fight instinct was familiar with this teen. Wasn’t this the one who attacked you twice and who was with you when your home was almost wrecked by a monster?

Warning signals blared in your mind, alerting your fight instinct of imminent danger. A monster resembling a phoenix flew overhead and you watched as it followed Silver. You tailed it, landing behind the avian beast when it blocked Silver’s path.

“Wha-? Hey, [Name]!” yelled Silver when the dust cleared from the force of your landing. “What are you doing here?”

Your fight instinct perked up at the mention of your identity. Silver knew your name, and your fight instinct was yet again reminded of that one time with the frog-like monster. Was Silver someone your fight instinct should protect, too?

The phoenix monster opened its beak to speak. “You know this human, Hero Hunter?”

The jellyfish resembling a sludge of sewer water chortled at you. “Behehe, maybe we could take her as a hostage, too, as replacement for Metal Bat’s little sister!”

Metal Bat? Little sister?

Images of the beat-up guy and the little girl from earlier flashed in your fight instinct’s mind as your memory supplied it of the two’s identities.

This Metal Bat person was your best friend, and the little girl named Zenko was someone you see as your younger sister.

And, oh. Did Jelly-freak just imply that it had tried to kidnap this Zenko?

 T̶̡̗̖̞̻̣̹̻͂̀́́̚H̵̞̺̥̦͍̲̄̀̆̑̆R̩̜̮̫̠̋̅̂̋̈͡ͅE̹͎̘͈̿̒̌̇̑ͅÅ͉̩̪͔̝͆͊̌̀̆͗̽́͝ͅͅT̵̪̥̤̣͖̞̞͉͍̦̉̀̎͗̔̇͘͘.̵̡̪͕̱͇̬͉̥̙̀̉͂̎̉̂̕

̸̧̣̯̠͇̪͛̓͒͑̀̆̇̏ͅ

̴̰̩̳̳̳̞̩̣̇̏͋̓͊̈͢K̶̳̦͉͍̞̆́́̏͗̅̑̊I̴͍̲̞̦̖͛́͒͆̍̿̕͘͞͝Ļ̶̥̩͙͓̻̻͈͉̺̃͂͗̎̀̓̄̓͝L̠̫͚̣͎͛͒̍̓́̀͟͠.̶̢̡̤̯͚̝̬͈̏̈̈́́̋̚

̧̥͓̦̹̙͉͊̏́̎̔͊̏͛͟

̷̧͚̫̬͕̭̤͓̇͊́̉̉͡A̙̳͓̮͈͔̎̒̽͐̾̑́͐͞N̵̙̟̤̣̙͒̓̆͗̀̂ͅǸ̴͔̦͍̫̘̥͉́̍̈̓̎̃̈́͜͞͞Ḯ̡̦͚̫͔̝̝̪̎͆͒͟͡ͅH͇̫̪̪͎̩̒͆͋̊̍Į̵͎̞̜̝͋̓̀̂̂̇̎͊̓͟͠Ĺ̵̢͇͇͙̻̀́̒͗̐̔͜͡͡Ă̸̧̛̙͚̣̰̣͂̑̈̑́͜͠͝ͅT̲̰͉̰͉͓̆͛̀̎̿̒̇̎͐È̢̝͇̞̠̍̔̈́̇̈̚.̣̜͎͉̭̥̦͗͒̉́͜͞

 Before any of the other three could blink, you had already crossed the distance between you and Jelly-freak, your hands crushing its liquid body repeatedly. Jelly-freak tried its hardest to reform itself but it was no match for you as your god-like, ferocious strength continuously pounded it to the ground. Your fight instinct assessed any possible weakness that could be exploited and realized that the more of that oil-like substance seep out of Jelly-freak’s body, the harder it was for the monster to regenerate. So beat it up brutally, you did, until all that stuff left Jelly-freak’s body which eventually caused it to die.

“Hedro-Jellyfish!”

Startled by the sudden development, Bird-freak took to the skies before nose-diving straight at you, beak poised to put a hole on your chest.

“[Name]- whatever’s in charge, look out!” Silver shouted in warning, moving to intercept the attack but you were faster. You met the winged monster’s assault head-on and caught its beak with your bare hands.

With a derisive snort, your fight instinct directed your hands into tearing Bird-freak’s beak apart. Taking no heed of the humanoid figure screaming from within the monster’s body, you viciously swung one leg up to crush its internal organs.

Silver’s eyes were on you, but your fight instinct wouldn’t stop until it could no longer sense life emanating from Bird-freak’s body. And so you pummelled your fists brutally against it until nothing but a bloody smear and loose feathers were left.

Satisfied that Bird-freak was well and truly dead, your fight instinct pulled your body away from what was left of the monster.

“W-Whoah… [Name], what the fuck…?”

Lifeless eyes found Silver’s golden eyes sparkling with excitement, a huge, impressed smile on his face.

.

.

Garou couldn’t believe his luck at what he had just witnessed.

He was left dissatisfied with his bout against Metal Bat, but thankful enough that his little sister had come to intervene. If that moron’s bat connected with that final attack, Garou was sure that his hero hunting days would be over.

You and Metal Bat sure were compatible as best friends: a little lady who got taken over by her fight instinct that utilized your strength to its full potential and kill anything with one hit and a delinquent who got stronger as his fighting spirit got pumped up. You were weirdos, the both of you.

Insanely strong weirdos.

He wanted to continue the fight, but Metal Bat’s sister – he called her Zenko, right? – had made Garou adhere to some stupid family rule about her older brother promising never to expose her to violence. The little girl’s got guts, kudos to her, and Garou somewhat admired her for it. And so he left, making some half-assed excuse that he had to be doing something else.

Oh, well. His original target was Watchdog Man, anyway.

Without so much as a by your leave, Garou left the siblings with a reminder to Metal Bat that he was lucky to get to live another day.

The Hero Hunter smirked upon remembering your request not to kill your best friend. Guess he had to check that off his mental list, huh? And besides, he was done with Metal Bat. Garou already knew the S-Class hero’s fighting style and how to knock the latter up before his strength could rise due to his so-called fighting spirit.

Garou took a detour the moment he felt eyes on him. He took a side street and arrived just in time to see some sludge-looking freak appear and talked to itself about kidnapping feisty little Zenko. Without hesitation, he struck the monster with enough force that could kill anyone.

Nuh-uh. You ain’t kidnapping little kids. Not on my watch.

Sludge-freak reformed its body, surprising Garou that it had survived the attack just in time for the owner of the second pair of eyes to make itself known.

The bird monster introduced itself as Phoenix Man, telling Garou that he and Sludge-freak weren’t the Hero Hunter’s enemies. The monster even went as far as to praising him for his hero hunting gig and inviting him to join some organization called the Monster Association.

Garou not only showed his indifference by telling the oversized chicken that he wasn’t interested, he also ripped the card it offered him to pieces to emphasize his point.

Did these idiots think that he would join them just because he called himself a monster?

The nerve of these disgusting freaks.

Before Birdbrain nor Sludge-freak could react to the impudence he displayed, something – someone, rather, landed powerfully a few feet behind the avian monster. Garou’s eyes widened with astonishment when the dust cleared to reveal you standing in the middle of the crater, sporting the same expressionless look on your blood-stained face.

Monsters were out and about, rampaging to their black hearts’ content. Why the hell were you out here when you should be staying at home, cowering on your futon and under the sheets?

It was pointless asking why you were out when you gave him no reply, staying silent as Birdbrain asked him if he knew you. But when Sludge-freak opened its mouth to suggest kidnapping you, you were suddenly spurred into action.

Garou himself ought to kill Sludge-freak for even proposing to take you as hostage but you beat him to it. He and Birdbrain could only watch as you obliterate Sludge-freak with your bare fucking hands-

You even beat him in defending you when you met Birdbrain’s offensive head on, beating the crap out of that chicken with your hands still stained by Sludge-freak’s muck.

The way the skirt of your dress flowed as you moved, your [length] hair wet with monster blood, and the blank look on your face while you killed those two…

Fuck. That’s so hot.

Saying that the sight thrilled Garou to the bone was an understatement. Lucky his pants were made loose, or else it would be hard to walk without you seeing the excitement between his legs.

“W-Whoah,” Garou muttered, grinning wickedly. “[Name], what the fuck…?”

He watched as you turned to look at him, gaze dull. You looked as if you were assessing him as you crossed the distance between the two of you, lips parting slightly as if you wanted to speak.

Despite the dead look in your [color] eyes, Garou could see recognition flashing briefly over them.

“[Name], hey. It’s me- oi!” he exclaimed when you ignored what he was saying and started to walk past him. “Where are you going?”

As expected, you offered him no reply. Garou was left walking after you, quietly assessing if you had taken any damage from your fight – albeit one-sided – against those two freaks. So far, he could tell from the mix of green, blue, and red blood on your feet, face, and dress that nothing was yours. You didn’t appear to be minding any sort of injuries, so that was one thing he wouldn’t be worrying about.

Garou halted when he recognized the path you were taking and immediately caught sight of an unconscious Metal Bat, the hero’s little sister sitting on her haunches and poking him on the back. Zenko looked up and saw you and Garou, her eyes widening at the sight of you.

“[Name]-san? Y-You’re covered in blood! Are you okay?” she asked you worriedly, rushing up to meet you. “And it’s the weird man from earlier! Why are you with her?”

The Hero Hunter caught the protectiveness in Zenko’s voice and shot her a cocky smirk. “And why are you still here, runt? Shouldn’t you be calling someone to take your brother to the nearest hospital, considering that I beat him up pretty bad?”

Alright, maybe that was tactless of him, boasting how he beat up your best friend while your fight instinct was still commandeering your body. Your aura shifted from calm and collected to murderous in a fraction of a second, your previously blank expression turning malevolent when you looked at him over your shoulder. Lucky the kid couldn’t see it, though.

Oh, shit.

Was he going to see his life flash before him today?

Before he could take a stance to defend himself should your fight instinct tell you to attack, however, Garou had to mentally scream a command to his body to move and catch you before you hit the ground when your eyes rolled back. He was deaf to Zenko’s frightened call of your name, his focus solely locked on your prone form in his arms.

You looked tired, and it was just what Garou had expected. Maybe you finally had had enough killing monsters today, and tell your fight instinct that there really wasn’t any more reason to go on a rampage.

But the way you looked at him when he made the mistake of bragging his win against Metal Bat was alarming. Garou only ever saw this fighting side of you looking so dull, and to sense and see such protective killing intent in you was nothing short of… terrifying.

And hot, fuck.

Garou ought to beat his raging hormones for even thinking about it. Goddmanit, you very nearly killed him had you not fainted, and all he could think of was how hot it would be to see you try to beat him up?

Damn it. The things you do to him…

Feeling your breath even out as you shifted from unconscious to asleep, Garou hooked his other arm under your knees and turned to Zenko as he lifted you up bridal style. Fuck you for fitting so perfectly in his arms and fuck him, too, for enjoying the feel of your weight. He grabbed the perfect opportunity to clutch a handful of one of your thighs and wasn’t disappointed.

Fucking finally. He’d make sure to do the same once you wake up to see your reaction-

“Hey! Are you groping [Name]-san?!”

Garou blinked and raised a brow at Zenko who was glaring up at him angrily. He clicked his tongue at her and turned around to leave.

“I’m just making sure that she won’t fall off, stupid,” he spat, feeling dumb himself for even making a lame excuse just so the kid would stop accusing him of being a pervert even if he was actually one for you. “Seriously, you should be calling for help now. That giant centipede’s still out there, you know. Got a phone or something? Call an ambulance already!”

“Where are you taking [Name]-san?”

Garou rolled his eyes and turned halfway to look at Zenko. “I’m taking her home, I know where her house is.”

The little girl narrowed her eyes at him in warning.

“If you think I won’t tell Badd onii-chan about this, then you’re totally wrong, mister,” she sassed him. “So, answer me truthfully: What are you planning to do to [Name]-san?”

Garou couldn’t believe the situation he just got himself into. Did he really have to explain himself to this child?

The defiant look Zenko was giving him answered his own question.

“Oi, brat,” he began, carefully adjusting his hold on you when you shuffled slightly in his arms, “[Name] is my friend, alright? If I wanted to hurt her, I would’ve done that so easily! Jeez!”

Garou turned one last time and began the long trek to your home. Well, maybe he should make a stop first at the shack he was staying in a few days ago to fully check on you.  He heard Zenko’s faint huff and opted to ignore her as he walked further away.

---

to be continued

#garou x reader #platonic metal bat x reader #garou #garou the hero hunter #garou the human monster #metal bat #badd #zenko #opm x reader #one punch man #one punch man season 2

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: 12 Mar 2020 (No health care for part-time TSA screeners, Akil Augustine on Radicalized, Wendell Potter rebuts Joe Biden, best Covid-19 explainer, Boeing's self-inflicted wounds, EU Right to Repair, virtual classrooms)

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Pluralistic: 12 Mar 2020

TSA boss doubles down on taking away health care from part-time screeners: They're touching your junk with diseased hands.

Akil Augustine on Radicalized: My book's Canada Reads champion lays out the case for Radicalized.

A former top Cigna exec rebuts Joe Biden's healthcare FUD: Wendell Potter is the prodigal corporate villain.

Ars Technica's Covid-19 explainer is the best resource on the pandemic: Beth Mole has outdone herself.

Boeing is even worse at financial engineering than they are at aircraft engineering: The $43B they incinerated through stock buybacks would sure come in handy about now.

Senate Republicans kill emergency sick leave during pandemic: Sick leave is cheaper than pandemics, but pandemics generate cost-plus contracts for the donor class.

The EU's new Right to Repair rules finally come for electronics: Snoods cocked at Apple and other US Big Tech monopolists.

How to run a virtual classroom: Masterclass from the 14-year-old Stanford Online High School.

This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

TSA boss doubles down on taking away health care from part-time screeners (permalink)

TSA agents handles the personal belongings and touch the bodies of millions of fliers. Part time agents don't get health-insurance. If they think they might have Covid-19, they might not be able to afford to seek care.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/11/politics/tsa-health-care-part-time/index.html

TSA chief David Pekoske told Congress that the Trump administration's decision to take away health-care from part time TSA employees was a good one: "I have no intention of restoring health care coverage for part-time workers. I think that was a good decision."

About 100 TSA agents have been sent home after it was believed they came into contact with Covid-19. The TSA will not try to track down passengers who also might have come into contact with sick people.

Akil Augustine on Radicalized (permalink)

My book Radicalized is a finalist for the Canada Reads national book prize. Each of the five finalists is defended by a Canadian celeb: my champion is the amazing and articulate Akil Augustine.

Akil just appeared on the @CBC's Canada Reads podcast to give us a preview of his defense, which he will field during several nights of nationally televised debates next week.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1708600899815/

He did an OUTSTANDING job! Here's the MP3:

https://cbc.mc.tritondigital.com/CBC_CNDAREADS_P/media/cndareads-3NLwEPaV-20200309.mp3

A former top Cigna exec rebuts Joe Biden's healthcare FUD (permalink)

In a recent and important essay, Maria Farrell wrote about the road-to-Damascus conversions that ex-techies are having in which they recant the damaging product design work they did and begin to campaign against their former employers.

https://conversationalist.org/2020/03/05/the-prodigal-techbro/

Farrell noted that these techies had missed an important step in their transformation from venal attention mercenaries to noble attention freedom-fighters: they had yet to hit bottom, to truly repent their earlier sins.

They skipped like stones over the waters of privilege, and never sank, unlike so many of their victims.

Contrast those journeys with that of Wendell Potter, the former Cigna exec turned whistleblower, who has devoted decades of his life to revealing dirty tricks and lies. Potter campaigns tirelessly – and shrewdly – for Medicare for All, and is always at pains to point out that the anti-M4A talking points his adversaries parrots were all developed by him, when he was on the wrong side of history.

Take this thread, rebutting Joe Biden's FUD about M4A, delivered in the midst of a pandemic that has been worsened by the 77 million un- and underinsured people who can't get care or screening and disproportionately work in food-service and cleaning.

https://twitter.com/wendellpotter/status/1237438497218105344

As Potter points out, Biden's assertion that M4A costs $35T is just a lie. Once you factor in the savings of not paying for private healthcare, M4A SAVES at least $450B/year.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33019-3/fulltext

Biden's plan to cap premiums on a public option at 8.5% of your income is more than double what M4A would cost you. The corporate plans Biden lionizes shackle good workers to bad employers, and put millions at risk of having their care arbitrarily withdrawn or limited. And, of course, private care doesn't cover much. Surprise bills, deductibles, co-pays, out-of-pockets… Our plan – a blue-chip employer's top-of-the-line Cigna plan – costs us $24K/year.

We're rationing our family's health care because in addition to the $20K/year we're paying out of pocket, Cigna refused to cover a pain procedure that my doc – the most-cited pain doc working in California, who runs a major university pain clinic – says I would benefit from. That procedure might let me get a good night's sleep for the first time in 15 years and allow me to live a more normal, pain-free life. But because Cigna won't cover it, it would cost $55K, which we do not have. So I'm foregoing it.

Ars Technica's Covid-19 explainer is the best resource on the pandemic (permalink)

I've been reading Beth Mole's outstanding science journalism for many years and I've always admired it, but even by the high standards of a Beth Mole explainer, this soup-to-nuts Covid-19 explainer is just spectacularly good work.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/dont-panic-the-comprehensive-ars-technica-guide-to-the-coronavirus/

Mole's calm and comprehensive coverage relies on the most reliable sources and turns the results of our best evidence-based studies into a coherent narrative, from the disease's origins to its spread to its symptoms to its resolution.

Just this symptom-by-symptom breakdown was enormously informative and filled in a huge gap that I had previously mentally signposted as "flu-like".

According to data from nearly 56,000 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients in China, the rundown of common symptoms went as follows:

88 percent had a fever

68 percent had a dry cough

38 percent had fatigue

33 percent coughed up phlegm

19 percent had shortness of breath

15 percent had joint or muscle pain

14 percent had a sore throat

14 percent headache

11 percent had chills

5 percent had nausea or vomiting

5 percent had nasal congestion

4 percent had diarrhea

Less than one percent coughed up blood or blood-stained mucus

Less than one percent had watery eyes

The sections on transmission, self-protection, and care during a social distancing lockdown or quarantine are likewise levelheaded, clear and informative.

This is a tab you should just keep open in your browser, IOW. Mole's updating frequently, too.

Boeing is even worse at financial engineering than they are at aircraft engineering (permalink)

Boeing is experiencing a potentially terminal slump. Between losses due to its 737 Max scandal (a self-inflicted injury), and the dropoff in travel during the pandemic, it has had to draw down its entire line of credit and institute a hiring freeze.

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/03/11/boeing-crashes-as-43-billion-in-past-share-buybacks-turn-into-existential-threat

Obviously, Boeing can't be blamed for the pandemic.

But you know what is absolutely the company's fault? Its financial engineering.

Since 2013, Boeing squandered $43 billion on stock buybacks, whose sole purpose was to goose its share-price.

As Wolf Richter writes, Boeing, this "master of financial engineering – instead of aircraft engineering – blew, wasted, and incinerated $43.4 billion on buying back its own shares."

The company just had to borrow $13.825B. Its shares are down 46% since March 2019.

The entire company – a jewel of American industry – might not survive, because it focused on short-term enrichment of shareholders, rather than safe aircraft or financial prudence.

Reality has a well-known anti-capitalist bias, part MMMLVII.

Senate Republicans kill emergency sick leave during pandemic (permalink)

Senate Republicans have killed emergency sick leave legislation, a move that will force millions of low-waged cleaning and food-service workers to choose between homelessness and potentially spreading Covid-19.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/coronavirus-paid-sick-leave-us-republicans-block-senate-bill-new-york-washington-a9395821.htm

The GOP says that paid sick leave will endanger the fragile bottom lines of employers and also that the feds have no money to pay for such a thing – despite finding it easy to blow $2.3 trillion on tax-cuts for the super-rich.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/28/tax-cuts-trump-gop-analysis-430781

They also found $20 BILLION in the senate's sofa cushions to give to the Pentagon, an agency whose auditor found more than a trillion dollars in off-the-books transactions in its financial records.

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/12/19/pentagon-finally-gets-its-2020-budget-from-congress/

Refusing to help poor Americans stay fed and sheltered isn't just cruel, it's lethally reckless, and it demonstrates the moral hazard of oligarchic capitalism. Subsidizing sick-leave would merely afford survival to millions of Americans, after all.

Whereas the crisis that this will produce – a pandemic that is made worse and longer – will cost billions more, but that money will go to the donor-class, the Beltway Bandits whose cost-plus, no-bid contracts will transfer even more money from the poor to the wealthy.

It's disaster capitalism at its worst. The Senate GOP is dooming you and everyone you love to the risk of disease and death because preventing that risk would help millions of poor people, whereas creating the risk helps a handful of ultrarich people.

The EU's new Right to Repair rules finally come for electronics (permalink)

The EU Commission's latest "Circular Economy Action Plan" has enormous significance for Right to Repair and electronics.

https://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/pdf/new_circular_economy_action_plan.pdf

In addition to a host of eminently sensible, long overdue measures (bans on single use items and the destruction of unsold goods), there's a renewed emphasis on electronics, through the "Circular Electronics Initiative".

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/11/european-lawmakers-propose-a-right-to-repair-for-mobiles-and-laptops/

The initiative mandates that components be reusable, repairable, and upgradable, and requires long-term software support to keep IoT devices useful for longer. These mandates – also long overdue – show that the EU is finally willing to ignore the priorities of Apple and other US Big Tech companies in favour of Europeans' rights to the long-term enjoyment of their property and the right not to drown in e-waste).

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/08/ghost-flights/#eurighttorepair

How to run a virtual classroom (permalink)

For 14 years, Stanford Online High School has been running fully virtual classrooms, with continuous, ongoing improvements in their tech and methods. They've just published a new guide to "the essential steps for preparing to teach online in a short period of time." They're also conducting a series of webinars on the subject.

https://ohs.stanford.edu/how

(I just realized that I've got a decade-old mail rule that autodeletes anything containing the word "webinar" that I probably need to turn off now that the term is being used by people other than hustling spammy grifters)

This day in history (permalink)

#10yrsago Leaked UK record industry memo sets out plans for breaking copyright https://craphound.com/BPDigitalEconomyBillweeklyminutes.pdf

#5yrsago Portland cops charge homeless woman with theft for charging her phone https://news.streetroots.org/2015/03/06/homeless-phone-charging-thief-wanted-security

#5yrsago How Harper's "anti-terror" bill ends privacy in Canada http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/03/why-the-anti-terrorism-bill-is-really-an-anti-privacy-bill-bill-c-51s-evisceration-of-government-privacy/

#5yrsago RIP, Terry Pratchett https://web.archive.org/web/20150312202353/http://www.pjsmprints.com/

#1yrago Security researcher reveals grotesque vulnerabilities in "Yelp-for-MAGA" app and its snowflake owner calls in the FBI

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org), Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/).

Hugo nominators! My story "Unauthorized Bread" is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Museums and the Web: March 31-April 4 2020, Los Angeles. https://mw20.museweb.net/

Currently writing: I'm rewriting a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I'm also working on "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel afterwards.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: A Lever Without a Fulcrum Is Just a Stick https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_330/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_330_-_A_Lever_Without_a_Fulcrum_Is_Just_a_Stick.mp3

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

#pluralistic

[mr-jokester]

It All Falls

INVOLVED: The Joker, Charles Chesterfield, and Batman TIME FRAME: ― LOCATION: Mayor’s Office; Gotham City, New Jersey SUMMARY: The Joker in attempt to kill two birds with one stone, literally, devises a plan to take out Batman and mayor Chesterfield. Only to be caught by Batman and sent to Arkham Asylum.

Joker stood there in the long corridor of the mayor’s office listening around, he moved across the marble flooring filling the quiet space with the click of his cane and Ferragamo shoes. He pushed the door open as he entered the chaos that was his master plan, his men were fast at work disarming guards and killing whomever moved to their disdain. Joker moved past the huge mess slowly, his cane still clicking against the floor as he moved. A shot was fired close to his ear and to his disgust brain matter, skull fragments, along with some blood splattered against the side of his face and onto his expensive suit. He didn’t react as the body fell by his feet; instead he began to swing his cane in his hand, twirling it slowly and he whistled as he moved further into the building. 

Joker continued to whistle his tune as more innocent men were killed at his command. He ignored the bullet that flew past him just five feet or more ahead, glass shattering in the wake of it to his left as the office building was completely destroyed. Joker continued to twirl his cane as he rounded the corner to find the man tied up against his office chair. Joker smiled; red lips plastered in a wide grin as he placed his cane back down against the ground. “Ha, ha, ha, ha” he said in a very slow monotone. “Charles Chesterfield” the man spoke as he looked at him, he grabbed a chair and sat before him slowly making them both eye level now.

He looked to his trusted henchmen, before his pale face turned back to the mayor of Gotham City. The henchmen ripped the duct tape from the man’s mouth so that he and the Joker could speak. In meantime the Joker grabbed a handkerchief from his suit pocket, and he dabbed the mess off his face and brushed it off his velvet suit a bit with a head shake. “Your office is a disaster” he told the man as he tossed the handkerchief to the side and looked back up to him. He rested both hands above the cane and he rested his chin on top of them as he gazed at the man. “Why so serious?” he asked, before he chuckled.

“What do you want, Joker?” Chesterfield asked the man as he gazed at him scared out of his wits about what was going on just around the corner and what could potentially happen to him.

“Want?” The Joker repeated to the older man as he tilted his head “right now I could go for a steak” he said another chuckle leaving his lips. “I want to play a little game,” the man said, as he leaned up and reached inside of his coat pocket, he pulled out a deck of cards. He flashed them to the man “I am a blackjack man but pick your poison” he told the man seriously. Joker handed his cane over to a henchman and he slid the deck into his hand, he shuffled the waterproof matte black cards in his hand as he waited. His eyes stayed focused on the man even as he shuffled quickly, not missing a beat.

Chesterfield looked at the Joker, he always hated the man’s particular version of comedy. He felt if he played into his game and his wants, he could make it out of all of this alive however. As the man pulled out the deck of cards stating he wanted to indeed play a game he nodded his head slowly. “Gin Rummy” he called out to the man, he knew this particular game and though he wasn’t too sure if he were really good or not, he was going to have to try his damndest to win it today.

“Gin Rummy” Joker called back out to the man “ha, ha, ha, ha” he said slowly to the man as he looked to the henchmen on his far right. Two men walked off to grab a makeshift table for them, hoisting it up and placing it between the two men to use in their game. “Untie him” the Joker commanded to the men “cuff him instead” he said as he licked his lips.

Chesterfield watched the men disappear and reappear with tables of some sorts for them. He sat still in the chair as he was untied and handcuffed instead, he rested his cuffed hands in his lap the man agreed to the game, he never knew if a laugh was a good thing or bad thing. However, he was hoping with high hopes that the attempt to alert Batman had been successful in his case right now.

Joker spread the deck out against the table for the man, swiftly and he said “pick your poison” again.

Chesterfield picked up a card and showed it to the group “it was a black nine of spades” and he licked his lips slowly, eyeing the Joker’s scars a bit up close. They rested just at the corners of his mouth, but they were there and noticeable when up close.

Joker looked at the man as he picked a card and he smirked, “hm” he said as he picked a card and showed the man a red Jack of hearts. “At one point of time Mr. Chesterfield I tried to be a hero… “ he breathed as he collected the cards and their draws. He shuffled once and began to deal the ten cards to himself and Chesterfield. Once he did that, he sat the deck down and pulled the first card off the top and placed it next to the deck, it was a red seven of hearts. He allowed Chesterfield to start the game as he was supposed to, and he held the ten cards in his hand nonchalantly.

Chesterfield began the game of Gin and he looked up at the Joker as he did. “How so?” he asked the man knowing he was lying or perhaps he was telling the truth. He didn’t believe bad men were born; they were created.

“My father” Joker said as he played his turn and licked her lips “never were there a day” he said licking his lips again. “Did he not put his hands on my mother” he told the man. “I stood up to him finally, like the dumb kid I were known to be, I chose the day when he used something sharper than his fist to make his plea” he said. “I think my father knew he was no good for me, and hit my mother to make her leave,” he riddled. “But she never did, and so I bleed to make sure her smile remained pretty unlike me” he told the man as they continued to play the game.

Chesterfield tried his best to hold the cards in his hand and utilize the deck before him as the man went on to explain what he meant. “Your father did that to your face?” he asked the man.

Joker looked up quickly and he laughed slowly, “he laughed” the man said in response as he continued to play. As he did the Joker kept his eyes low, he heard shuffling behind him but paid it no attention he knew who it was. His playing was falling into place, to eliminate both of his threats at one time. It would be a glorious day for him in Gotham.

Chesterfield looked at the Joker a bit shocked, he didn’t know if he were supposed to believe the man or not, but he felt there was some truth to it. Why would the man desire to do such a thing to himself? He licked his lips and he looked back at the game moving to complete it. “I still don’t know what you are here for, what you want and desire...” he told the man easily. He looked up behind the man seeing a dark shadow fly past the building.

Joker looked up at his words and he smirked knocking on the wood slowly he dropped the hand he had down on the table. “Gin” he said easily to him. He had cheated, but when he asked the man to play the game, he never said he would play fair.

Chesterfield looked at the Joker as he placed his hand before him “how?” he asked in confusion. Did this mean he died? Was that what his entire life and existence was banking on? A game the Joker had to rig in his own favor to win.

“He asked me something,” Joker said as he heard the crashing of glass and he looked back to see the Dark Knight, coming in to save the day. “Why so serious…” he finished as he stood up turning towards Batman. “Just in time, I was waiting for you” he told the man with a smirk “ha, ha, ha” he added. He slammed his cane down against the floor and he fixed his tie with his glove covered hand as he moved out of his henchmen way. Just like that Batman was being swarmed by his crew.

“You were using me as bait for Batman?” Chesterfield asked the Joker as the man stood across the room from them both in anticipation for Joker’s men. Joker’s henchmen went after Batman and Chesterfield dropped his hand of playing cards deciding if now wasn’t the best time to go, he wouldn’t get a better time in the future. He had to take this chance.

Joker watched the men run towards Batman and he smirked at Chesterfield, his hand gripped the trigger of his gun shaped cane and he said easily to the man. “No” with a head shake “I wanted to play a game” he told him “I won” he said as he separated the cane from the real device. “And you lost” he told the mayor as he shot him in the head. He watched the man’s body slump in the chair and he looked towards Batman “ha, ha, ha, old friend we meet again” he said as he moved towards the Dark Knight.

#thread #thread: it all falls