#my little sister could use my id as a fake without issue

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Star Trek Episode 1.24: This Side of Paradise

AKA Yet Another Creepy Utopia Planet

Our episode begins with the Enterprise heading in to orbit around an Earthy-looking planet named Omicron Ceti 3. Omicon Ceti is a real star, by the way—also known as Mira or Mira A, it’s a red giant and part of a binary star system with its sister Mira B. It’s not a real likely place to go looking for such a nice homey sort of planet, though, because Mira is a pulsating variable star, which means its size and brightness is constantly fluctuating, and it’s hard to evolve life when your sun keeps flickering like a neon sign in a noir movie all the time.

Uhura reports to Kirk that she’s been transmitting a contact signal every five minutes just as he ordered, but she’s only getting dead air in response.  Kirk tells her to keep it up until they get into orbit, then moves on to talk to Spock. “There were one hundred fifty men, women and children in that colony,” he says. “What are the chances of survivors?”

Looks like the chances are, uh...not great. And by ‘not great’ I mean ‘nonexistent’. Spock explains that ‘Bertold rays’ are a recent enough discovery that there’s still a lot not known about them, but one thing that is for sure known is that exposure to these rays causes living animal tissue to disintegrate. Nasty. Evidently this planet is heavily exposed to these rays, because a group of colonists-- “Sandoval’s group”-- came here only three years ago and Spock says there’s no possibility they could have survived. Well why the heck would anyone build a colony in such a place? All Spock can say is “They knew there was a risk.”

Kirk questions whether they can risk sending a landing party down under such conditions, but Spock says the disintegration doesn’t start immediately, so they’ll be alright if they don’t stick around too long. The helmsman reports that they’ve successfully established orbit, and he’s found a settlement—or at least, something that was a settlement at one point. Kirk tells Spock to equip a landing party of five to accompany him down there, including a biologist and McCoy. That’s gonna be a fun mission briefing. “Yes, we're beaming down to a planet bombarded with deadly radiation, but no need to worry, crew, your tissues will probably only disintegrate a little bit."

Sometime later, the landing party—Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, a blueshirt and a goldshirt—materialize into a meadow near a dirt path and a picket fence. They’ve thoughtfully arranged themselves into a nice alternating pattern.

[ID: A shot of a sunny meadow with a dirt road, a few trees and a white picket fence in the background. Newly beamed down are six Enterprise crewmembers standing in two rows: in the front are Kirk and Spock, in the back are McCoy, a goldshirt, a blueshirt, and Sulu.]

The goldshirt, incidentally, is DeSalle, who we last saw back in The Squire of Gothos. The character was originally written for this story as Lt. Timothy Fletcher, but was changed to DeSalle after the production crew realized they’d cast an actor who had already appeared in the series. Yes, really. AGAIN. The blueshirt is Kelowitz, who showed up briefly in The Galileo Seven and Arena, and likewise started out as another character but was renamed after being cast. I don’t know how this situation managed to happen so often on TOS, but apparently it did. At least they both seem to have managed to hold onto more or less the same positions that they had the last time we saw them, a rare feat for any minor TOS crewmember.

The group walks forward towards some nearby farm buildings arranged around a dirt yard, with a horse-drawn cart sitting out in front of one of them. But there’s no horse to be seen, and no people either. They wander through the yard and over toward what looks like a paddock, but without any animals in it. Everything seems quite thoroughly deserted.

Kirk leans on the paddock fence and glumly muses, “Another dream that failed. There’s nothing sadder. It took these people a year to make the trip from Earth. They came all that way...and died.” Hold on, it took them a year? What, do they not give colony ships warp drives? Did they have to hitchhike here?

“Hardly that, sir,” someone says, and suddenly we see three men in green jumpsuits standing at the edge of the yard, looking very relaxed and also very not dead.

As the landing party all turn around to stare in shock the man in front strides forward and says, “Welcome to Omicron Ceti 3. I’m Elias Sandoval.” McCoy looks like he’s getting ready to spray the dude with holy water.

After the titles, we get a brief captain’s log to sum things up, just in case everyone forgot what happened during the commercial break:

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 3417.3. We thought our mission to Omicron Ceti 3 would be an unhappy one. We had expected to find no survivors of the agricultural colony there. Apparently, our information was incorrect.”

The colonists start happily shaking hands with the landing party—but happily as in “oh, it’s so nice to meet you” not “oh thank god you came to rescue us we’re all on the brink of death”. Sandoval says they haven’t seen anyone outside the colony since they left Earth four years ago, although they’ve been expecting someone to come by for a while. Apparently their subspace radio didn’t work right and they don’t have anyone who could “master its intricacies”. Now, I’m no expert on establishing colonies on alien planets, but ‘person who can work our only communication device’ does rather seem like a position you would want to make sure was filled before you left.

Kirk has to explain that they haven’t come to visit because of the dead radio. He does not explain why they did decide to come when they did. Spock’s comment about the colonists knowing there was a risk indicates that whether or not Bertold rays specifically were known about before the colonists left, they at least had reason to believe there was something dangerous about the planet. So why’d the Federation let them go and then wait another three years before sending anyone to check up on them? Eh, probably just another failing of twenty-third century space bureaucracy.

Sandoval’s not bothered about it, though. He tells Kirk that it doesn’t make much difference—the important thing is the party is here now and the colonists are happy to see them. Then he invites them on a tour of the settlement and casually strolls off, leaving the landing party to stand there and try to process what the hell they just witnessed.

“Pure speculation, just an educated guess...I’d say that man is alive,” McCoy says. Thanks Bones.

Spock says that his scans show that the planet is getting ray’d just as their reports indicated, so that’s not the issue. Under this intensity, the landing party could safely hang out here for a week if necessary, as per the usual Star Trek rule that you can be exposed to a deadly thing and be just fine up until the exact moment it kills you, but there’s a mighty big difference between a week and three years. Or as Kirk succinctly puts it, “These people shouldn’t be alive.”

“Is it possible they’re not?” Sulu asks. Great out of the box thinking there Sulu, love it.

Kirk takes a moment to consider that, which is fair—compared to the kind of weird shit they’ve encountered so far, the walking dead wouldn’t even stand out that much. But McCoy points out that when they shook hands with Sandoval, “His flesh was warm. He’s alive. There’s no doubt about that.” Spock fires back with a reminder that, “There’s no miracle connected with [Bertold rays], doctor, you know that. No cures, no serums, no antidotes. If a man is exposed long enough, he dies.” Okay dude, calm down, all McCoy said was “he’s alive” not “my god! Bertold rays have been fake all along! wake up sheeple!"

As Kirk points out, this whole debate is pretty pointless anyway for the moment—they’re arguing in a vacuum, and they’ll need more answers if they want to get anywhere. So they go to follow Sandoval, who leads them towards a nearby farm house, while a few colonists do various farm chores nearby. Sandoval explains that the colonists split into three groups, with forty-five people at this settlement and two more settlements elsewhere on the planet. Apparently they thought that arrangement would give each group a better chance for growth, since if some disaster struck one group the other two would probably still be alright.

“Omicron is an ideal agricultural planet,” he says. “We determined not to suffer the fate of the expeditions that went before us.” It’s rather vague what expeditions he’s referring to here, since at no other point in the episode are any previous attempts at settling Omicron Ceti 3 mentioned. But given that Sandoval specifically mentions the possibility of disease afflicting one group as a reason to split up, and Spock earlier said that Bertold rays were a recent discovery—and that the colonists knew coming to Omicron Ceti 3 was risky-- it seems possible that previous groups tried to settle the planet and, without knowing about the Bertold rays, mistook their effects for some kind of disease native to the planet. Of course that doesn’t explain why this group of colonists decided it would be a good idea to try to settle here again anyway, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few months, it’s that not everyone sees the possibility of dying to a terrible disease as a compelling reason to change their plans in any way.

As they stand in the farmhouse talking about this, a woman steps forward from another room in the house. She’s in soft focus, just in case we might forget she’s a woman, and instead of the green jumpsuit all the male colonists are wearing, she’s wearing green overalls over a lavender shirt, a combination that somehow manages to be an even worse fashion disaster than the jumpsuits themselves. She starts to say something to Sandoval, then stops in surprise as she sees the landing party. But for once the romance-o-vision isn’t for Kirk—it’s Spock that the camera zooms in on as the woman stares at him.

“Layla, come meet our guests,” Sandoval says cheerfully, oblivious to the wistfully romantic background music. He introduces her as Layla Colomi, their botanist. Layla says that she and Spock have met before, but “It’s been a long time.” Kirk gives Spock a bit of a side-eye for that, but Spock offers no details.

Well, all romantic tension aside, they do still have a mission to attend to here, as Kirk reminds Sandoval. Sandoval tells them to go ahead with any examinations or tests they want. “I think you’ll find our settlement an interesting one. Our philosophy is a simple one: that men should return to a less complicated life. We have few mechanical things here, no vehicles, no weapons. We have harmony here. Complete peace.” Oh yeah, that bodes well. Remember the last place we saw complete harmony and peace? At least that explains why everyone on this farm is using equipment straight out of Stardew Valley, which is presumably not the most advanced agricultural technology available by the twenty-third century. I’m not sure why Sandoval’s idea of a simpler lifestyle excludes vehicles, though. They’re not exactly the most recent thing on the timeline of human technological advancements.

Sandoval tells the landing party to make themselves at home, and they all head off. All except for Spock, who lingers just a few seconds more to give Layla a completely neutral look before walking away as well.

Everyone goes off to conduct their respective investigations. Sulu and Kelowitz wander through a yard over towards another farm building. Kelowitz isn’t sure what exactly they should be looking for, though. “Whatever doesn’t look right—whatever that is,” Sulu replies, climbing up to sit on a railing on the building’s porch. “When it comes to farms, I wouldn’t know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me.” I hope you enjoyed that line, because “didn’t grow up on a farm” is about all the backstory TOS is going to give us for Sulu until the movies.

[ID: Three screenshots showing Sulu pulling himself up to sit on the railing of an old-fashioned farmhouse as he says, "When it comes to farms, I wouldn't know what looked right or wrong if it were two feet from me." Growing up from the ground nearby are two large plants with thick brownish-purple stems and large pink flowers on top.]

Hey Sulu, what's that about two feet from you? Oh well, I'm sure it's not important.

Kelowitz opens up a nearby barn and notes that there’s no cows there—in fact, the barn isn’t even built for cows, just for storage, and indeed it only looks big enough to be useful for holding cow, singular. Having a storage barn isn’t itself that weird, although the fact that there is nothing currently stored in the storage barn is a bit strange. But also, as Sulu points out, come to think of it, they haven’t seen any animals here, native or imported. No cows, no horses, no pigs, not even a dog. Which is a bit odd for an agricultural colony. They must have had or expected to have animals at some point—otherwise what was pulling that cart?

Back in the house, Sandoval is asking Layla about Spock (once again referred to as a ‘Vulcanian’). She says that she knew Spock on Earth, six years ago. Sandoval, apparently having noticed the dreamy background music by now, asks if Layla loved Spock. She says that if she did, “it was important only to myself...Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me. It is said he has none to give.”

“Would you like him to stay with us now? To be one of us?” Sandoval asks. Layla smiles at him. “There is no choice, Elias,” she says. “He will stay.”

Elsewhere in the house, McCoy is scanning a colonist. He doesn’t look exactly happy with the tricorder result he gets, but all he says is, “That’ll be all, thank you very much,” and the colonist leaves, passing Kirk coming in. Incidentally, I can’t help but note that this room contains two paintings on the wall and what appears to be a cabinet full of china. I suppose the paintings could have been done by a colonist, but the china could surely only have been brought there. Who decided to pack fancy china on a year-long space voyage to an agricultural colony?

[ID: A shot of the interior of a farmhouse with blue walls, with a large wooden table in the middle of the room, a cabinet with china and glassware in the corner, a wooden desk with a copper tea kettle and some other kitchen items on it against the back wall, and a painting hanging on the wall showing some blurry trees. Sandoval, a middle-aged white man with short brown hair wearing a green jumpsuit, walks past the camera as he says, "Oh, captain, I've been looking for you."]

Kirk asks if McCoy’s found anything yet. McCoy replies that he’s surveyed nine men so far, ranging in age from twenty-three to fifty-nine. And they’re all in perfect condition. Not just healthy—perfect. Textbook responses across the board, from all of them. “If there are many more of them,” McCoy muses, “I can throw away my shingle.”

At that point Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s Spock, calling in from one of the crop fields. He’s made the same observation as Sulu—there’s no life on the planet aside from the colonists and the plants. No animals, no insects. Spock doesn’t have any explanation yet, so Kirk tells him to carry on with his investigation and hangs up.

McCoy notes the absence of animals as peculiar, and Kirk says it’s especially so because the expedition records show that they did bring animals with them to raise for food. And pull their carts, presumably. But it seems none of them are still around. McCoy says he’d like to see the expedition’s medical records, a request Kirk has apparently anticipated because he’s got the floppy disc on hand with him.

Sandoval comes in and says that he’d like to take the two of them on a tour of the fields, to show off what the colony’s accomplished. McCoy says he’ll have to bow out, since he’s still working on the medical examinations. “However, if I find everyone else’s health to be as perfect as yours...”

“You’ll find no weaklings here,” Sandoval says, which uh, sure is a hell of a way to phrase that. “No weaklings! None of those miserable, pathetic sods with imperfect health! Only the strong survive! THE SLIGHTEST BLEMISH SHALL BE CAUSE FOR EXILE!”

Leaving McCoy behind, Kirk and Sandoval head out to the fields, where Sandoval gushes to Kirk about how great this place is: they’ve got moderate climate, moderate rains all year round, and the soil will grow anything they stick in it. Which is pretty miraculous, considering there’s no such thing as growing conditions that are perfect for every plant. But as we’re about to see, that’s not the only weird thing going on with their farming practices.

The conversation is interrupted by DeSalle arriving to give Kirk the biology report. Sandoval excuses himself to attend to work elsewhere, leaving Kirk and DeSalle alone to discuss the report. At first, it seems to be just as Sandoval said: they’ve got a variety of crops growing here successfully. The weird thing is that they don’t actually have very many of those crops. There’s enough to keep the colony going at the size it currently is, but barely more than that. Which tracks with what we’ve seen of the place so far: a couple of tiny fields that look more about the size for someone’s backyard garden than for a prosperous farm, tended by the occasional person idly scratching at the ground with a hoe. For a supposedly bounteous agricultural colony, that’s pretty weird. What have they been doing all this time?

“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle all one color,” Kirk muses, taking a moment to stroll a few steps away so he can say this dramatically in the distance instead of actually talking to DeSalle. “No key to where the pieces fit in. Why?”

Kirk’s communicator goes off. It’s McCoy, saying Kirk had better get back over there. “Trouble?” “No, but I’d like you to see this for yourself.” Of course. No one can ever just explain something over the phone, can they.

So Kirk heads back to the house, where the thing that Kirk just absolutely has to see for himself turns out to be McCoy just telling him what he’s found out, but he definitely couldn't do that over the communicator for, uh, reasons. What he’s found out is pretty interesting, though: McCoy checked up on Sandoval’s medical records from right before the colonists had left, which said that Sandoval had had an appendectomy, and had scar tissue on his lungs from childhood pneumonia (the weakling!). Yet when McCoy scanned Sandoval himself today, the results came back just as perfect as all the other colonists’. Kirk’s first thought is instrument failure, but McCoy says no, he thought of that and tested it by scanning himself, and it recorded him just fine, down to “those two broken ribs I had once.” Which sounds like an interesting story. But Sandoval’s scan? No scar tissue, and one healthy appendix. That’s right, Sandoval’s apparently managed to regrow an entire organ. Do you think you would notice that happening? Like, would it itch?

While Kirk and McCoy try to figure that out, Spock is hanging out in a field scanning with his own tricorder, while Layla stands nearby smiling ominously at him. Spock muses that there’s “Nothing. Not even insects. Yet your plants grow, and you’ve survived exposure to Bertold rays.” Yeah, how are those plants growing without insects? Presumably the native plants have evolved some way around that, but the ones the colonists have brought from Earth would need some help. Are the colonists just manually pollinating everything? Maybe that’s why they haven’t grown very much.

Layla says this can be explained, but when asked to do so, she just says, “Later.” Spock looks annoyed and remarks, “I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.” Hey! Cut that bullshit out. No one on this colony has directly answered a question since you got here, there’s no call to go ragging on a whole gender for it. Besides, just saying “Later,” is hardly a stunningly deft diversion, it’s not like she threw a smoke bomb down and disappeared.

“And I never understood you,” Layla says, walking over and placing a hand on his chest. “Until now. There was always a place in here where no one could come. There was only the face you allow people to see. Only one side you’d allow them to know.”

[ID: Three screenshots of Spock and Layla, a white woman with a lot of long blonde hair wearing a lilac shirt and green overalls, standing outside in a field with a large tree in the background. Layla, seen from behind, is pressing her hand to Spock's upper chest and saying, "There was always a place in here where no one could come." Spock replies "you know that's not where my heart is right".]

If Layla was hoping this little speech would prompt Spock to cry out that yes, she’s figured him out, he does love her but has never been able to show it! she’s disappointed, because he just looks uncomfortable and steps away. He tries to steer the conversation back onto the mystery of the colonists. “If I tell you how we survive,” she asks, “will you try to understand how we feel about our life here? About each other?”

That’s a pretty vague thing to make a promise about, so Spock deflects by saying that emotions are alien to him; he’s a SCIENTIST. “Someone else might believe that—your shipmates, your captain—but not me,” Layla says. Oh sure! Obviously none of the people who have lived, worked, and risked death alongside Spock can be expected to know anything about Spock. Only you are the Spock Expert, gifted with incredible insight by virtue of having a crush on him.

“Come,” she says, sauntering off through the field with her hand outstretched to him. Spock rather pointedly folds his hands behind his back instead and follows her.

Back in the house, Kirk and McCoy are struggling to have a conversation with Sandoval. Kirk tells Sandoval that he’s received orders from Starfleet Command to evacuate everyone on the colony, since, y’know, deadly rays and all that. He expects Sandoval to start making preparations. But Sandoval, calmly, casually, says, “No.” It’s not necessary, he insists—they’re in no danger.

But...but the Bertold rays. Sandoval is unmoved,  pointing out that as McCoy’s own instruments show, the colonists are in perfect health and there have been no deaths. Okay, what about all those animals? What happened to them? “We’re vegetarians,” Sandoval says blithely. Which, as Kirk points out, does absolutely nothing to answer the question. Actually it raises further questions.

Sandoval remains thoroughly unbothered and thoroughly unhelpful. “Captain, you stress very unimportant matters. We will not leave,” he says, and goes back to gazing out the window, evidently considering the conversation over.

Elsewhere, Spock and Layla are still walking, and Spock is getting annoyed that Layla still hasn’t explained just what it is they’re going to see. “Its basic properties and elements are not important,” Layla says helpfully. “What is important is that it gives life, peace, love.” Oh boy.

Spock is dubious, but Layla pulls him forward, over towards another one of those large pink flowers. “I was one of the first to find them,” Layla says. “The spores.”

[ID: A gif of Spock approaching a large pinkish-purple flower and saying, "Spores?" The flower then sprays a cloud of white spores all over his face and torso while Spock recoils.]

For a moment Spock just looks startled, but then he starts clutching his head and falling onto his knees in the grass, dropping his tricorder and gasping, “No--” For the first time all episode, Layla’s absolute serenity starts to fracture slightly. Over Spock’s agonized protests, she insists that it shouldn’t hurt—it didn’t hurt any of them. But, as Spock gasps out, he’s not like them. Whoops, did the biologist forget to account for biological differences before handing out a facefull of spores? I bet you didn’t even check if he had any allergies first, did you?

Just as it’s looking like this might put actually put a crack in Layla’s blissed-out impassivity, Spock stops thrashing about and starts seeming less anguished and more confused. Layla’s concern vanishes once again, and she goes back to smiling happily while stroking his face. “Now...now you belong to all of us...and we to you. There’s no need to hide your inner face any longer. We understand.”

Spock still seems unsure, but then he takes Layla’s hand in his and smiles. Not the slight hint of a smile or sardonic quirk of the lips you’d expect to see from Spock, but a huge, broad grin from ear to ear. “I love you...I can love you,” he says, and then he kisses her.

Hoo boy.

After the break, we get a quick Captain’s Log to recap:

“Captain’s Log, supplemental. We have been ordered by Starfleet Command to evacuate the colony on Omicron 3. However, the colony leader, Elias Sandoval, has refused all cooperation and will not listen to any arguments.”

Sure enough, we see Sandoval exiting the farmhouse, followed by McCoy and an extremely frustrated Kirk. “Captain, your arguments are very valid, but do they not apply to us,” Sandoval says, as calm as ever. He tries to walk off, but Kirk grabs his arm and pulls him back.

“My orders are to remove all the colonists,” he says, “and that’s exactly what I intend to do with or without your help.”

“Without, I should think,” Sandoval says, and strolls off, leaving Kirk standing there fuming.

Sulu and Kelowitz come walking up to report that they’ve checked out everything and it all seems normal, except for the missing animals. Of course, they also both said they had no idea what to look for in the first place, so maybe take that with a grain of salt. Kirk tells them about the evacuation orders, and says he wants landing parties to start gathering the colonists and preparing them to leave. And by the way, where did Spock and DeSalle go? Sulu says they haven’t seen either one in some time, but McCoy says DeSalle was going to examine some native plants he found. Native plants, huh? I think we can guess what happened to DeSalle.

Since Spock still hasn’t reported in, Kirk gives him a call. Or tries to, at least—Spock doesn’t pick up. On the other end of the line, we see why that is: Spock's communicator is laying abandoned on the ground, while Spock himself, now dressed in the same horrible green jumpsuit as the colonists, is stretched out on the grass with Layla, watching clouds. The communicator beeps away while Spock happily describes how one of the clouds looks like a dragon. "I've never seen a dragon," Layla says. BEEP BEEP. "I have." BEEP BEEP. "On Barengarius 7." BEEP BEEP. "But I've never stopped to look at clouds before." BEEP BEEP. "Or rainbows." BEEP BEEP. "You know, I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky, but considering its beauty has always been out of the question." BEEP BEEP.

"Not here," Layla says (beep beep), and they smile dreamily at each other before going into another makeout session. Meanwhile, Kirk is still on the line, and not getting any happier about it. Layla finally picks up the communicator and holds it up for Spock, who takes a break from kissin' to say, "Yes, what did you want?"

Naturally, this throws both Kirk and McCoy for a loop. While McCoy stands there with a "what the fuck" look on his face, Kirk takes a moment to recover and then demands, "Spock, is that you?"

"Yes, captain, what did you want?"

"Where are you?"

"...I don't believe I want to tell you."

[ID: Three shots of Kirk and McCoy standing in front of the farmhouse, Kirk holding his communicator while McCoy looks on. Kirk has a stunned expression on his face and looks around with his mouth open, trying to figure out what to say.]

Kirk plows on ahead, telling Spock that, whatever the hell he thinks he's doing, he's got orders: they're getting the colonists out, and Spock is to meet back at the settlement in ten minutes.

"No, I don't think so," Spock says casually. "You don't think so, what?" "I don't think so, sir."

Kirk has to take a moment after that one. It's rather amazing that McCoy's made it this far into the conversation without saying anything himself. Presumably he's just in shock. Eventually Kirk tells Spock to report in immediately, but by now Spock and Layla have gone back to kissing, leaving the communicator open but abandoned in the grass once more.

"That didn't sound at all like Spock, Jim," McCoy says, putting in his bid for the Enterprise’s bi-weekly Massive Understatement contest.

"No, it--I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little."

"I didn't say that!"

"You said that."

"Not exactly,” McCoy protests, and then somewhat grudgingly adds, “He might be in trouble.”

I'm sure McCoy did say that, or something like it, but "I hope Spock has his brain taken over by alien spores" was presumably not where he was going with it. He obviously sees this sudden change of behavior as something to be concerned about--even moreso than Kirk, who seems more irritated than anything. But then, it's only been a couple episodes since McCoy had his own run-in with an alien influence making people act a lot more mellow than usual, and he didn't enjoy that experience at all, so it's not surprising that "trouble" is his first thought here.

Kirk tells McCoy to take over the landing party detail and start getting the colonists up to the ship, and to make sure the party works in teams of two, with nobody being left alone. Meanwhile, Kirk himself takes Sulu and Kelowitz and heads off to find Spock, using the open frequency from Spock's communicator as a homing signal. They follow a dirt path out of the main settlement and soon find said communicator, laying open and abandoned in the grass just off the path. As Kirk picks it up, they hear laughter nearby, and Sulu points in astonishment further down the path, where Layla is watching Spock dangle upside-down from a tree branch like a kid on a jungle gym.

[ID: A shot of Spock and Layla among some trees at the end of a dirt path. Layla is standing on the ground and holding hands with Spock, who is hanging upside-down by his knees from a large tree branch, laughing.]

For a moment all Kirk can do is stare weakly at this weird spectacle. Then he collects himself with a stern AHEM and marches over like a principal about to deliver some very serious detention.

Meanwhile, back at the main hub of the colony, the landing party seems to have gotten well underway with preparations for departure, with several colonists and crewmen piling up luggage and equipment in the middle of a field while McCoy stands nearby overseeing everything, a job I’m sure he’s enjoying since we all know administrative work is McCoy’s favorite thing. Then DeSalle arrives, carrying a couple of the spore flowers and tells McCoy to take “a good, close look” at them, because they’re very interesting. McCoy steps forward to check them out right before the scene cuts away again, leaving us with little doubt as to what’s about to happen next.

During that little interim, Kirk and his crew have made it over to where Spock and Layla are cavorting. Spock just grins happily at Kirk, clearly not bothered one bit, even as Kirk asks if Spock’s out of his mind. He didn’t report to Kirk, he says, because...he didn’t want to.

Kirk glances back and forth between Spock and Layla, who’s standing there smiling rather smugly, and tells Layla that she’ll need to come get ready to evacuate with the rest of the colonists. Spock cheerfully says that there’s not going to be any evacuation. “But perhaps,” he adds, “we should go and get you straightened out.”

That really doesn’t bode well, but rather than ask just what Spock means by that, Kirk tells Sulu that Spock is under arrest in Sulu’s custody until they get back to the ship. Which will certainly work out well because it’s not like Spock is strong enough to chuck Sulu all the way across the field barehanded or anything. Not that Spock seems especially perturbed about being under arrest; instead he just shrugs, drops down from the tree, and says, “Very well. Come with me,” before heading off across the field, leaving else to follow in confusion. That’s how you arrest someone, right?

Of course, Spock leads them right to another group of spore flowers, which the group stops and stares at obligingly for a moment. Then the flowers explode a bunch of spores at them. Somehow, even though he’s standing right next to Sulu and Kelowitz, Kirk manages to totally avoid getting any spores up his sinuses, while the other two are immediately affected. “Yes...I see now,” Sulu says blissfully, with that trademark Very High grin that George Takei does so well. “Of course we can’t remove the colony. It’d be wrong.”

Kirk grabs him by the shoulders—Kirk’s go-to method for snapping people out of it--but when this somehow fails to bring Sulu back to his right mind, all Kirk can do is say that he doesn’t know what these plants are or how they work, but “you’re all going back to the settlement with me, and those colonists are going aboard the ship.” This stern proclamation has absolutely no effect on anyone. The whole group just stands there happily watching Kirk stomp back toward the colony. “I can see the captain is going to be difficult,” Spock remarks.

Kirk’s day isn’t about to get any better, because upon making it back to the colony he’s greeted by McCoy, who we can immediately tell is under the influence as well because his accent is absolutely out of control. It’s so thick even the subtitles pick up on it.

[ID: A screenshot of McCoy walking through a meadow with his communicator out, saying, "Sho’nuf."]

“Hiya, Jimmy boy!” McCoy very happily says to a very unhappy Kirk. “Hey, I’ve taken care of everything. Now all y’all gotta do is just relax. Doctor’s orders!” With a very resigned look, Kirk asks how many plants McCoy’s beamed up to the ship, and McCoy says it must be going on a hundred by now.

So Kirk beams up to the ship and heads right to the bridge, where he tells Uhura to put him through to Admiral Komak at Starfleet, though what he expects Komak to do about all this I don't know. But it’s too late. Uhura turns around to show that she’s smiling as happily as everyone else, and says, “Oh, I’m sorry Dave, I mean, captain. I can’t do that.” She’s short-circuited all the ship’s communications, except for ship-to-surface, since they’ll need that for a little while yet. Then she leaves, pausing in the door of the lift to tell Kirk that it’s really all for the best.

Kirk stands there seething for a moment, then stomps over to grab a plant that’s been left in Spock’s chair. He throws it across the bridge, and the camera lingers ominously on it as Kirk heads back into the lift.

Things aren’t any better on the rest of the ship. Kirk soon finds a long line of crewmembers of all different shirt colors, patiently waiting to transport down to join the colony. Out of what I can only assume is some desperate futile hope that someone will follow his orders if he just keeps trying, Kirk orders them all to go back to their stations at once. Unsurprisingly, they all ignore him. Kirk points out to one of the redshirts that this is MUTINY! but it doesn't get him very far.

[ID: A gif showing a young white man with brown hair wearing a redshirt as he says, "Yes, sir, it is." The camera then zooms in very dramatically on Kirk's stunned face.]

So...they’re all going down to join the colony? All four hundred thirty of them? Or four hundred twenty-nine, I guess, if Kirk refuses to join the fun. That’s almost ten times the amount of people the colony currently has in it. That seems like it could present a bit of a problem, because if you’ll recall DeSalle told Kirk earlier that right now the colony’s growing enough food to feed their current population, with little left over. How are they going to handle such a large and sudden influx into their population? Do they have housing for all these people? Or are they just all going to eat dirt and sleep on the ground because they’re all too high to notice anyway?

After we’ve had a commercial break to contemplate this shocking turn of events, Kirk takes some time out to give vent to his feelings in a captain’s log:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.5. The pod plants have spread spores throughout the ship, carried by the ventilation system. Under their influence, my crew is deserting to join the Omicron colony, and I can't stop them. I don't know why I have not been infected, nor can I get Doctor McCoy to explain the physical, psychological aspects of the infection."

And indeed, just in case we had any doubt, we then see McCoy strolling through the field and happily telling Kirk, “I’m not interested in any physical, psychological aspects, Jim-boy. We all perfectly healthy down here.” Kirk grumbles about how much he’s been hearing about things being perfect lately. “I bet you’ve even grown your tonsils back.” “Sho’nuf!”

Kirk tries desperately to get McCoy to do something to figure these spores out—run a blood test, take a scan, type the symptoms into WebMD, something, anything—but McCoy is more interested in rambling on about mint juleps.  Meanwhile, back in the farmhouse, Sandoval’s having tea with Spock while they talk about how nearly everyone’s beamed down from the ship and things are “proceeding quite well.” Kirk storms in and demands to know where McCoy’s gotten to, and Spock says he went off to make that mint julep. Which could prove quite difficult unless this tiny half-assed farm colony has somehow managed to set up a working distillery around here somewhere, but Kirk’s got bigger concerns right now than where McCoy’s going to get his bourbon.

Sandoval wants to know why Kirk won’t join them in their private, spore-sponsored paradise. Kirk asks where these spores came from, anyway, and Spock exposits that there’s no way to know—they just drifted through space until they arrived at this planet, which is perfect for them because it turns out they actually thrive on Bertold rays. The plants act as a repository for the spores until they can find a human—or half-Vulcan—body to inhabit. No explanation is forthcoming as to how Spock knows any of this.

Spock and Sandoval insist that the planet is “a true Eden” with belonging and love and no needs or wants for anyone, but Kirk is skeptical. “No wants, no needs. We weren’t meant for that. None of us. Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is.” Of all the things wrong with this situation I’m not sure “BEING TOO HAPPY IS BAD FOR YOU” is the take I would go with, but okay. Spock says that Kirk doesn’t understand, but he’ll come around...sooner or later.

Kirk, disgusted with this whole conversation, goes back to the ship. The bridge is dark, silent, and utterly empty. We get a slow pan of the blinking lights and displays of the consoles, with no one left to man them. Kirk walks over to his chair, hits the intercom, and starts calling one part of the ship after another, with no response from any of them. With nothing else left to do, he sits down in his chair and starts glumly recording a captain’s log so angsty it could be a LiveJournal entry:

"Captain's Log, Stardate 3417.7. Except for myself, all crew personnel have transported to the surface of the planet. Mutinied. Lieutenant Uhura has effectively sabotaged the communications station. I can only contact the surface of the planet. The ship...can be maintained in orbit for several months, but even with automatic controls, I cannot pilot her alone. In effect, I am marooned here. I'm beginning to realize...just how big this ship really is, how quiet. I don't know how to get my crew back, how to counteract the effect of the spores. I don't know what I can offer against...paradise."

Hold on hold on HOLD ON what do you MEAN the ship can be maintained in orbit for several months? Every time someone takes their hands off the controls for five seconds we get told that the orbit is decaying and they’re gonna plummet into some hapless planet within a few hours at most but now all of a sudden it’s fine to hang out up there for several months? MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

Kirk gets up to go sit at the helm, just to get a change of scenery mid-mope, and as he finishes his log/rant the camera slowly pans down to reveal the spore flower that he chucked across the bridge earlier. Which is weird because we just got a wide shot of the bridge and that flower definitely wasn’t there then.

[ID: Two shots. The first is a wide shot showing Kirk alone on the empty, darkened bridge, preparing to sit down at the helm. There is nothing in on the floor in front of the helm. The second shot is a closer shot of Kirk sitting at the helm with his chin in one hand, now with a large spore flower poking up in the front of shot.]

The flower promptly shoots Kirk in the face, and for a moment he just continues to sit there with spores in his hair and a “yeah, this might as well happen” expression. But then he slowly starts to smile, suddenly as happy as everyone else. Exactly why Kirk’s been unaffected by the spores up until now, even after hanging out for quite a while on a ship that’s supposedly been thoroughly contaminated by them, is never really explained. Maybe he's just on a lot of Zyrtec. But it seems even Kirk’s determination to not be happy can’t hold out against a point-blank spray in the face. He calls Spock to say that he finally understands now, which Spock is happy to hear. Kirk says he’ll be down just as soon as he packs up a few things, so Spock says he and Layla will wait for him at the beamdown point.

So Kirk goes off to his quarters to pack up a suitcase, the contents of which seem to mostly consist of uniform shirts. Apparently paradise for Kirk does not include one of those green jumpsuits, which, really, who can blame him. He opens a small vault by his bed and pulls out a couple of black cases, one of which he opens to reveal a medal. This seems to stir some sense of conflict because he sits down and stares at it for a long moment, but then puts it aside and heads to the transporter room, where he puts the suitcase on the platform and then prepares to set the controls.

But then Kirk hesitates, and stands there for a moment looking conflicted. Possibly he’s still having feelings about those medals, or maybe he’s having second thoughts about whether he packed enough shirts. In any case, he eventually exclaims, “No...No! I...can’t...LEAVE!” Then he punches the console for good measure.

Apparently this little emotional outburst is all it takes to cure the spores, because Kirk gasps a little, looks momentarily confused, and then seems to be back to his old self. “Emotions...violent emotions. Needs...anger,” he tells the empty room. “Captain’s log, supplemental. I think I’ve discovered the answer...but to carry out my plan entails considerable risk. Mr. Spock is much stronger than the ordinary human being.” Then he treats us to this remarkable line:

[ID: A shot of Kirk in profile at the transporter controls as he says, "Aroused, his great physical strength could kill."]

um

Down on the planet, Spock and Layla are still waiting at the beamdown point when Kirk calls Spock up and says he’s realized there’s some equipment on the ship that they’ll need for the colony, and he needs Spock’s help to get it all beamed down. Really, you’d think there’d be quite a lot of equipment on the Enterprise that a farming colony could make good use of, but I guess they’re really determined to stick to the whole no-technology approach. Despite this, Spock cheerfully accepts the explanation, gives Layla a quick smooch, and beams up.

But upon materializing, Spock is greeted not with a smiling Kirk ready to go move some equipment with his bro, but Kirk standing there holding some nonspecific heavy metal rod thing that he’s smacking threatening against his hand. “All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed,” he says, “we’ll see about you deserting my ship.”

Spock reacts to this bar-brawl-starter with nothing more than a nonplussed expression and polite correcting Kirk on his syntax. Kirk, determination unshaken, continues laying into him with a stream of insults that would have made that fucker from Balance of Terror go, “Whoa, hold on there a minute.” Undeterred by not being able to use any actual expletives, he compares Spock both to a machine and to various fairy-tale creatures, makes fun of his ears, and rounds it all off by having a go at the entire Vulcan race. He even insults Spock’s parents.

[ID: 1. A shot of Spock standing in the transporter room looking perplexed as Kirk, off-camera, says, "Whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia?" 2. A gif from Monty Python and the Holy Grail of John Cleese as the French knight on the battlements yelling, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"]

Spock stands there taking it all stoically for quite a while, even as the background music gets increasingly tense. He finally starts to crack when Kirk goes after Spock’s relationship with Layla, and when Kirk keeps going despite Spock angrily telling him, “That’s enough,” Spock finally flips out big time. You know what that means, it’s time for a STAR TREK FIGHT SCENE! This one’s got it all: close-up shots of the actors intercut with long shots of very obvious stunt doubles; cardboard props getting punched; even people picking up random unidentifiable bits of starship equipment that may or may not have ever been there before to use as weapons. The only thing we’re missing is Kirk doing some kind of weird wrestling move.

[ID: Three gifs showing a fight scene between Kirk and Spock. First we see a long shot where Kirk and Spock are clearly being played by stunt doubles, as Spock punches a metal rod Kirk is holding, bending it in half. He then punches Kirk in the jaw, sending him careening into the wall. Then a close-up of Nimoy and Shatner as Spock advances on Kirk and throws a punch but misses, denting the control panel in the wall behind Kirk. Kirk dodges out of the way towards the console, and Spock throws another punch that hits the side of the console. Then back to a long view with the stunt doubles as Spock throws Kirk into the opposite wall, which Kirk careens off of, falling on his back on the floor, while Spock picks up something resembling a square metal stool or stepladder and raises it over his head. Finally, we see Nimoy and Shatner again as Kirk lays on the floor looking up at Spock, raising the thing he's carrying over his head.]

We dramatically cut to black as Spock stands poised above Kirk, raising whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is over his head threateningly. Apparently the ad break gives him enough time to cool down, though, because instead of bringing the thing down on Kirk’s skull, he hesitates.

“Had enough?” Kirk asks. “I didn’t realize what it took to get under that thick hide of yours.”

Spock slowly lowers the thing, looking a bit regretful about having to do so. Kirk says he doesn’t know what Spock’s so mad about, anyway. “It isn’t every first officer who gets to belt his captain...several times.” Dude, you just stood there and unleashed a screed of personal and racial insults at your best friend here. A “sorry” probably wouldn’t go amiss here.

“You did that to me deliberately,” Spock realizes, and then realizes that the spores are gone. “I don’t belong anymore.” Kirk explains that since the spores are “benevolent and peaceful,” violent emotions overwhelm and destroy them—that’s the answer. Which...definitely makes sense, chemically speaking. Sure.

Spock, still looking pretty glum about all this, points out that Kirk’s method might have worked out alright for curing one person, but they’ve got over five hundred infected people down there, and trying to pick a fight with all of them probably isn’t going to go so well. But no worries, Kirk’s got another plan. He wants Spock to rig up a subsonic transmitter that they can hook up to the ship’s communications system and then broadcast to all the communicators. Spock says he can do that, but hesitates as Kirk turns to leave. “Captain. Striking a fellow officer is a court martial offense,” he points out.

Kirk mulls over that one for a moment. “We-ll...if we’re both in the brig, who’s gonna build the subsonic transmitter?” he says, and Spock concedes the point. Besides, it’s a bit late to be worrying about striking fellow officers now.

[ID: A gif from The Naked Time of Kirk and Spock standing in an Enterprise conference room. Kirk slaps Spock across the face, and Spock retaliates by backhanding Kirk so hard he is thrown across the table in the center of the room and falls onto the floor on the other side.]

But what with the insults and the punching and de-sporing and everything, it seems that something has clean slipped Spock’s mind: Layla’s still down there waiting for him to come back. As she stands around the field, McCoy wanders over and asks what’s up. When she tells him that she’s been out here for some time now waiting for Spock and Kirk to come back, he gentlemanly offers to fix that for her and calls the ship. Spock picks up, and Layla asks if everything’s okay up there.

With obvious discomfort, Spock tells her that yes, he’s...quite well. Layla, oblivious to anything being wrong, asks if she can come up there, because she wants to talk to him, and besides, “I’ve never seen a starship before.” Wait a minute, never seen a starship before? You’re on a planetary colony! What, did you drive here?

Spock asks if she’s still at the beamdown point, and if McCoy’s there. Layla says yes to both, so Spock tells her to give the communicator back to McCoy, since she won’t need it to transport, and he’ll have her beamed up in a few minutes. One might think that at this point they might take this easy opportunity to also beam up McCoy and get him cured (it shouldn’t be hard, McCoy is already 85% comprised of negative emotions to begin with), so he can start investigating these spores, just in case Operation Go For the Eardrums doesn’t work. But they don’t. Kirk awkwardly asks Spock if he’s sure about talking to Layla while she’s still spore’d, but Spock just nods and heads to the transporter room.

He beams Layla up, and she happily runs over to give him a hug—they’ve been parted ever so long, after all—but when he just stands there stiffly, not reacting at all, she slowly pulls back and says, “You’re no longer with us, are you?”

Spock says it was necessary. Layla begs him to come back to the planet and belong again, but he says he can’t. She starts crying and saying she loves him. "I said that six years ago, and I can't seem to stop repeating myself. On Earth, you couldn't give anything of yourself. You couldn't even put your arms around me. We couldn't have anything together there. We couldn't have anything together anyplace else. But we're happy here. I can't lose you now, Mr. Spock, I can't." Look, if the only time the relationship you want can possibly work out is when the other person is being mind-controlled by alien spores, I think it may be time to consider whether this is really a relationship you should be pursuing in the first place.

“I have a responsibility to this ship...to that man on the bridge,” Spock gently tells her. “I am what I am, Layla. And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else’s.”

Layla soon realizes that all this anguish has resulted in her getting de-spore’d as well, and she’s not happy about it. “And this is for my own good?” she demands angrily. Well...yes, I mean, it is, but Spock doesn’t say that. Nor does he respond when she asks, “Do you mind if I say I still love you?” but she hugs him again anyway.

[ID: Layla tearfully embraces Spock and says, "You never told me if you had another name, Mr. Spock." Spock replies, "You couldn't pronounce it."]

ROMANCE

We’re obviously supposed to read this little story arc as the tragic tale of true love destined never to be, because Spock is only able to express his feelings for Layla under the influence of the spores. He has experienced paradise, but alas, he cannot linger there, and so on. It’s never set all that well with me, though. The problem is we never really get Spock’s side of the story and so it leaves open the question of how much he actually did want this relationship in the first place. Layla said earlier that “Mr. Spock’s feelings were never expressed to me” so evidently he never outright said “I love you but I can’t be with you” or anything of that sort to her. When they’re alone in the field before Spock gets spore’d he seems stiff, standoffish, awkward, and deflects all of her overtures with what appears to be discomfort, even annoyance. He clearly has no interest in talking about whatever history they had together, even when they’re all alone. For all that Layla goes on about how she can see a side of Spock that his crewmates don’t, we see interactions with those crewmates multiple times throughout the show that prove that Spock is perfectly capable of showing people that he cares about them, even if the ways he does it are usually a bit atypical. We don’t see any of that in his initial interactions with Layla.

If we accept the premise that the spores only make people act as they would if they had no inhibitions or fears holding them back, then yes, Spock saying he loves Layla after he’s been spore’d would indicate that he did secretly love her all along. The problem is that we know the spores make people do things that they would not ordinarily want to do. You think all of those four hundred thirty people on the Enterprise secretly longed for a quiet life among the soil but all chose to instead join the space navy for some reason? Should we believe Scotty is actually deep down perfectly okay with abandoning his beloved ship to a slowly decaying orbit? I doubt that Kirk has always harbored a subconscious desire to give up exploring the final frontier to pursue a peaceful agrarian lifestyle, but he very nearly does do just that. So the question of how much a relationship with Layla is what Spock “really” wanted seems to be a bit hazy.

Mind, I’m not saying this makes Layla an evil person who deliberately drugged Spock so she could have a relationship with him or anything like that. It’s clear throughout the episode that the spores induce those who are infected by them to spread them around to anyone nearby who’s not in the spore fandom yet, so there’s no reason to believe Layla would act as she did if she wasn’t under the influence herself. I just personally find it hard to buy into the tragic romance of a star-crossed relationship when the thing crossing the stars is that one of the participants is only enthusiastic about the whole thing when they’re not fully sober. It makes me question how much of their previous relationship really was Spock having feelings for Layla but being unable to express them, versus Layla projecting a lot of feelings onto him and writing off his disinterest or discomfort as denial.

Kirk and Spock go back to working on the signal, while Layla deals with her heartbreak by disappearing into thin air for the rest of the episode. Spock says that the sound they’re going to send out is on a frequency that won’t be heard so much as felt, but apparently it will be felt quite emphatically. Kirk compares it to putting itching powder on someone. Which may seem like another silly technobabble deus ex machina, but speaking from personal experience, driving someone into a frantic frustrated fit by playing an obnoxious noise just on the edge of hearing sounds totally legit. All they need to complete the sensory overload meltdown experience is find a way to simulate some flickering florescent lights and put tags on the backs of the uniform shirts.

And indeed, as the device starts to work, we see Sulu and DeSalle working in one of the fields—for a certain value of ‘working,’ anyway, they’re kind of just digging around aimlessly—when Sulu accidentally elbows DeSalle in the back. He apologizes, but DeSalle shoves him back, and before long they’re having a full-on brawl right there in the field, which can't be good for the crops. As the device on the ship hums away, two more crewmembers start their own fight over by the farmhouse, and when a third tries to break them up he promptly gets dragged into it as well.

The effects haven’t quite reached everyone just yet, though, as we see McCoy chillaxing under a tree with some unspecified concoction. Sandoval strolls up and says that he’s been thinking about what sort of work he could assign McCoy to. When McCoy protests that he does one kind of work and that’s doctorin’, Sandoval says that he’s not a doctor anymore—they don’t need any doctors here.

This does not go over well.

[ID: A gif showing McCoy reclining against a tree in a grassy meadow, a stalk of grass in one hand and a grass of something brown with several leafy stalks in it. Sandoval is standing over him. McCoy says, "Oh, no?" and then slowly stands up, tosses his grass stalk aside, looks Sandoval in the eye and says, "Would you like to see just how fast I can put you in a hospital?"]

Undeterred, Sandoval says that he’s the leader and he’ll be assigning McCoy whatever work he wants to, but when he tries to walk away McCoy pulls him back and snarls, “You’d better make me a mechanic. Then I can treat little tin gods like you.” Sandoval throws a punch at him, but McCoy dodges and whacks Sandoval in the stomach, putting him out flat on the ground. See, I told you it wouldn’t be hard to cure McCoy. Everyone else on the Enterprise was perfectly happy to give up their careers to go do a bit of light farming, but tell McCoy he can’t be a doctor anymore and no amount of spores are going to save you.

While Sandoval is busy rolling around on the ground, McCoy stands there looking confused for a moment, then—presumably having only just now noticed that instead of a mint julep he’s actually been drinking a coke with a bunch of cilantro in it—throws his drink aside and admits that he’s not sure why he just clobbered Sandoval. But Sandoval has other concerns for the moment. With a look of dawning horror familiar to all us chronic procrastinators, he abruptly realizes that they haven’t actually been doing anything all this time. “No accomplishments, no progress. Three years wasted. We wanted to make this planet a garden...”

McCoy points out that the colonists really will have to leave—they can’t survive here without the spores handling all that radiation for them. But the dream’s not over; the colonists could be relocated to start again somewhere a bit less deadly, if that’s what they want.

“I think I’d...I think we���d like to get some work done,” Sandoval muses. “The work we set out to do.”

McCoy calls Spock and says that Sandoval wants to talk to Kirk. Spock notes to Kirk that the crew are all starting to rather sheepishly call in by now. Sandoval tells Kirk that the colonists will fully cooperate with the evacuation now, and Kirk tells him to start making the preparations. Real ones, this time.

Sometime later, everyone’s back on the bridge getting ready to head out. McCoy reports that he’s examined all the colonists and they all remain in perfect health. “A fringe benefit left over by the spores.”

One would think that this would have been quite the eventful afternoon for the medical sciences, given that they just discovered spores with such incredible healing powers that they can make people regrow organs, and McCoy just confirmed that anything healed by the spores stays healed after the spores are gone. Sure, they’ve got some side effects, but Kirk’s already discovered a simple way to get rid of the things once they’re no longer needed. Strap someone to a bed, give em a facemask full of spores, let them lay there for a while having a nice buzz while they heal their cancer or whatever, then play an irritating noise at them until they sneeze the spores back out again. Boom. Done. You’ve solved medicine. Or, y’know, we could vacate the planet and never speak of it ever again, that works too.

Notably unmentioned by anybody during this little denouement is the fate of the other two settlements on the planet that Sandoval mentioned back near the beginning of the episode. The length of the timeskip isn’t specified, so it’s possible that the crew went and collected them as well in the interim, but we never get any details as to how that little adventure went, assuming that it did happen and that the Enterprise isn’t about to get halfway to the next starbase before Kirk realizes he forgot something.

As they watch the planet diminish behind them on the viewscreen, McCoy muses that this was “the second time man’s been thrown out of paradise.” Kirk disagrees. "No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through--struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums."

Spock remains unimpressed by this bit of philosophizing. “Poetry, Captain. Nonregulation.” Kirk notes that they haven’t heard anything from Spock about this whole ordeal, since, y’know, that definitely seems like something Spock would want to talk about. He says he’s got little to say about Omicron Ceti 3.

[ID: A close-up of Spock on the bridge as he says, "Except that for the first time in my life...I was happy."]

oh my god someone needs therapy

On that INCREDIBLY CHEERFUL note, the Enterprise flies away and the episode ends.

It’s somewhat baffling to me that of all the quite reasonable objections available to the whole situation with the spores, the main problem that Kirk—and by extension, the episode—seems to have is that “the spores make things too EASY and mankind was meant to STRUGGLE!!!” I mean, effectively what we had going on here was people being drugged without their consent into a state that overwrote their own desires, ambitions, emotions and much of their individual personalities and replaced them with bland, happy conformity to a goal and lifestyle none of them actually chose. That seems a bit worse to me than “people weren’t working hard enough.” Kirk goes on and on about how the spores made things too easy, but what they really did was make people apathetic to whether they succeeded at anything or not. Sandoval’s horrified when he’s cured of the spores because the colonists had much different plans for their colony; far from making those plans easier, the spores made them impossible. The dreams and desires of the Enterprise crew for a life of exploration among the stars would have been forever unmet if they had permanently joined the colony, they just wouldn’t have been able to care. Kirk seems to believe that the ultimate evil of the spores is that they deprive people of ambition; to me it seems that the worse evil is that they deprive people of their individuality and their autonomy.

Then there’s the fact that while the spores make people happy and friendly, they also make them remarkably blasé about the well-being of anyone who isn’t part of their collective. They have to be—caring about whether someone else is upset or hurt would make them unhappy, after all. Spock and McCoy are completely unconcerned with the mounting distress of their best friend, and beyond peer pressuring him to get with the program and take the spores like everyone else, they don’t seem to much care if he remains the only unhappy person on the planet. The colonists seem completely unbothered by the fact that all the animals they brought with them died a rather grueling death by radiation poisoning. Everyone on the Enterprise is happy to abandon the ship and join the colony with no message left behind for Starfleet, with apparently not a thought to spare for any friends and family back home, who would only ever know that their loved ones disappeared into space never to be seen again.

Or at least, they would if things actually went according to plan, which they probably wouldn’t, because the spores also made everyone cheerfully oblivious to the idea that anything could potentially cause a problem or pose a threat to them. After all, if Kirk hadn’t had a recovery at the last minute, the Enterprise would have been left unmanned in orbit around the planet, with no way for anyone in the colony to get back onboard. Uhura also goes out of her way to make sure that they no longer have any off-planet communication. So it’s probably not going to be long before Starfleet notices that one of their prize starships has abruptly gone incommunicado, and I’m willing to bet they’d be a bit quicker on that investigation than they were about checking on a tiny backwater colony (although it is Starfleet, so who knows, really). And since they know exactly where the ship was headed on its last recorded mission, it probably won’t take them long to find it. If Starfleet sends another ship along to investigate quickly enough, they’ll find the abandoned Enterprise hanging out in orbit around the planet, and Kirk’s log clearly lays out what happened, so all the other ship has to do is figure out how to neutralize the spores and everyone’s going to get rescued from Omicron Ceti 3 pretty quickly whether they want to be or not.

If Starfleet doesn’t show up in time...Kirk says the ship can be “maintained in orbit” for several months, but then what? It can’t stay up there forever. Sooner or later, the orbit will decay and the ship’s going to crash into the planet, and if it crashes anywhere near one of the colonies, their magic healing powers are going to be put to the test. Also their magic agriculture powers--rich soil and mild weather is all well and good, but is that going to be enough to carry all those crops through the ensuing environmental effects of an impact that big? Especially since, as already mentioned, the colony has enough to feed them and that’s about it—so they really can’t afford to lose any crops for very long.

Sure, maybe the Enterprise wouldn’t crash close enough to any of the colonies to ruin them, but why take the risk? All they had to do was have a helmsman set it on a course out of orbit, then take a shuttlecraft back to the planet. Doesn’t occur to anyone, evidently. Nor do we see anyone bothering to bring any supplies or equipment from the ship to the colony, even though there’s gotta be lots of stuff up there that would be useful. All in all, it seems quite likely that Paradise would have eventually collapsed in on itself simply because the spores make people unable to pay attention to any potential threats or obstacles long enough to do anything about them.

So what’s the moral here? ‘Society can’t survive if everyone is stoned all of the time’? I mean, okay? Sure? Cool? Glad we sorted all that out.

That said, despite having ranted for the past nine hundred words about the weird moral, I’m not saying this episode is bad. As a serious point about human nature I don’t find it especially compelling—YMMV, but I just personally tend to side-eye stories that center around the idea of “wouldn’t it be awful if we all had it too easy??”--but as fifty minutes of extremely Star Trek-y silliness it’s glorious. We’ve got Spock hanging from a tree and talking about dragons while making out in the grass, McCoy going full Georgia and wandering about with something he thinks is a mint julep, Kirk stomping around in increasing agitation as he tries to get some sense out of somebody and then making emo log entries while he sits on the bridge alone...it’s great.

The original draft of this episode apparently had the romantic subplot be for Sulu, who would have been motivated to stay with Layla after having been diagnosed with a serious medical condition that was cured by the spores, kind of like the eventual plot with McCoy in For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky. D.C. Fontana rewrote the story to focus on Spock, since if you have an episode about something that causes a strong emotional reaction, throwing Spock and his ever-present internal conflict into the mix is kind of the most immediately obvious way to generate some pathos and drama. The spores originally granted those affected with them telepathic abilities, enabling them to link with everyone else who’d been spore’d and form a hivemind. There are some traces of this in the final episode with spore’d people talking about “joining us” and “being one of us” and so on, but without the telepathy part it just kind of makes it sound like they’re in a cult. Also, the cure for the spores would have been consuming alcohol, so presumably in that draft McCoy never got infected.

For the purposes of the Trek Tally I’m going to count the spores as a Space Disease, which might be broadening the umbrella of that term a bit but hey, close enough. Next time we’ll be looking for life, Jim, but not as we know it, in The Devil in the Dark.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek TOS season one #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.24 This Side of Paradise #1.24 This Side of Paradise recap

[padfootagain]

The King And You (VII)

Part 7: Farewell

Here comes a new chapter for my Caspian series! Our poor King is going through a lot… but he's building his team up and oh dear, what a team…

I hope you'll like this new chapter!

Word Count: 2504

You talked with Agatha for what felt like hours. Caspian disappeared in the distance, and you wanted to follow him, but the old woman stopped you. She argued that he had a lot to take in, that he needed time. You guessed she was right.

So, you walked back inside, and talked. She told you everything she knew about her mother's family: her sister and brothers dying when they were still so young, the stories they believed in. And for a reason she couldn't fully comprehend, Agatha believed in them as well.

And it sounded crazy. Utter madness. Bananas.

But no matter how many times you turned the story around and around in your head, you couldn't find any better explanation. Maybe you were being conned by a pair of very convincing criminals?

Then, why did your heart tell you it wasn't so?

Narnia. Aslan. Wars. A white witch. Winter. A stone table. Telmarines. Talking animals. A star. The Dawn Treader…

None of it made any sense.

With doubt still blurring your thoughts and questions twirling around your mind, you took a look at the time on your phone. Caspian had left more than an hour before. It was more than time to go looking for him. After all, God knew what kind of troubles the man could get himself into.

You gave your phone number to Agatha and told her to stay home, in case he would come back. Meanwhile, you would drive around the neighbourhood in his search.

You passed tall red trees, and pretty white houses of a too-perfect street. White fences were all that was missing to render a classic American neighbourhood. Above you, the sky was getting grey with clouds heavy with rain.

The distraction of your drive didn't make your mind quiet. But despite your doubts, and despite the fact that you couldn’t believe Caspian's and Agatha's tale, you couldn't find a way to believe that they had ill intentions either. So, maybe they were both crazy, nevertheless, you couldn’t just abandon Caspian like this. After all, he had been nothing but nice to you since he had stumbled into your life. It wasn't fair to simply abandon it, your conscience couldn't allow you to act like this.

Twenty minutes passed and you couldn't find him anywhere. You were starting to fear that something might have happened to him. He could have been attacked, or hit by a car, or kidnapped, or simply lost his way which, given his global appearance and attitude, was already a disaster…

You almost missed his form sitting on the grass, under a maple tree. You parked your car quickly and hurried towards him, but as you approached his motionless figure, you slowed down your pace. There was something quiet and still around him, a saddened aura that you felt reluctant to disrupt, so you approached cautiously, stopping a couple of steps away from him. You stood there for a moment, silent and as motionless as him, your eyes on his shoulders and the back of his head.

"Caspian?" you called in just a whisper.

But he didn't react at all.

"Are you okay?"

Again, your words were left unanswered.

So, you slowly closed the distance between the two of you to sit by his side. He didn't turn to look at you, didn't move at all to acknowledge that he had as far as noticed you were there. His gaze was set on a random point of the horizon, and you were sure that his eyes saw without looking. It was written all over his face that he had been crying for a long time.

You wanted to say something, but found yourself at a loss for words. You merely sat uncomfortably next to him instead, searching for things to say that seemed to fly out of reach every time you opened your mouth.

As you lacked words, you reached to hold his hand instead. His fingers were cold and calloused, but reassuring, for a reason you couldn't fathom. After a moment, he reciprocated your gesture.

And he was grateful that you didn't try to reassure him with empty words about feelings you couldn't understand. He didn't need someone to tell him that things would be alright, that they understood, that he wasn't alone…

Because things would not be alright. Because you didn't – couldn't – understand. Because he was alone…

Did that mean that he would give up? No, he couldn't. He was King, his people needed him to find a way back home. He would fight for them to his last breath, this was a vow he would never break. But for now, he didn't need a denial of the facts. He didn't need lies to be told in reassurance. He knew that he was going to face hard times, he knew that he had lost the help he thought he could get in this world decades before. He was lost and needed to find a way back.

But then, you were holding his hand now. You were sitting on the grass with him, skeleton leaves cracking under your weight as you shifted to sit cross-legged. And just like you couldn’t begin to fathom the kind of pain he was facing, he couldn't imagine how hard it was for you to believe him. Yet, you were still here. He believed that actions spoke better than words.

As he held your hand in his too, giving it a little squeeze, as to check if it were real, he reckoned that maybe, after all, he didn't have to be alone.

"Can you stay with me, for a little while?" he asked in a shaky breath.

You gave his hand a soft, reassuring squeeze.

"Of course."

And no matter how much you tried to convince yourself otherwise, you couldn’t deny that his pain was real. No one could fake pain that well.

Could he?

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Eventually, you went back to Agatha's, and she offered Caspian and you to stay over for dinner, a simple, quiet meal that lifted Caspian's spirit a little. He was silent for most of the time, until you reached the dessert.

"I'd like to see them," Caspian broke a silence that had settled for a few minutes around the table. "Their… tombs, I mean. I'd like to go and see them."

"Well, my mother wanted her ashes to be spread in the ocean, and that's what we did," Agatha answered. "We don't have a tomb. The rest of her family is in England."

"Can we go there?"

"No, you can't," you shook your head. "I mean… you need a passport and everything to go there. And it's not like… getting a ride to New York, you have to take a plane."

"A plane? What is a plane?"

"A… mean of transportation. Nevermind," you brushed his remark away, taking a sip of water. This day had been way too crazy already for you to spend half-an-hour explaining him what a plane was, you just didn't have the strength.

"Is England very far?"

"Yes, it is."

"I see. And what about this… pass… part?"

"Passport. It's an official document that states your identity. You need one to get in and out of countries. And you'll need one to get in England. But if your whole fairy tale is true, then I guess you don't have one, do you?"

"I am afraid not."

"And you won't get one using official ways. I mean, you didn't exist before yesterday."

"And that will be a problem?"

"Yes, they want to know like… where you were born, proofs of who your parents are… and your parents aren't even of this world, are they?"

"No, no… they weren't. I see, that is a problem indeed."

"No, you can't leave the country. I'm sorry, but there's no solution."

"But I need to walk in the Pevensies' footsteps. Go where they found their own passages to Narnia. Maybe one of the doors is still open."

"You can't go to England."

"Actually… I might know someone who could help us get the documents we need," Agatha quietly said.

Both you and Caspian looked at her, but if the King stared at her with hope in his eyes, your gaze was filled with confusion.

"I… might know a man who can get us the papers. We… dated. A long, long time ago. But we kept in touch, and… well, he owes me."

"Who is he?" you asked.

"Roger. His name is Roger O'Malley, and… well… I might have helped him run away from the police a few decades ago."

"He's a criminal?!"

"Well, you said yourself that we couldn't use official channels for this, they will just ask a ton of questions that we cannot answer. Roger must know how to find a passport, I'm certain of it."

"That… is the craziest idea, ever. What did he do anyway, this Roger?"

"Oh, nothing violent. He worked for this… businessman in Chicago and then in New York."

"You mean… he's a mobster?"

"Oh, he's retired now!"

You looked at Agatha with wide eyes, before throwing your hands towards the ceiling in desperation, huffing, your voice turned high-pitched in your near-panic state.

"Oh, yes, of course! Pardon me! If he's retired now, then all is fine! We should definitely ask a retired mobster to get us fake IDs and passport for this gentleman here, who will answer, if asked about his profession, that he's a Duke in a magical land called Narnia! For proof, he walks around dressed up like in a musketeer! You're right, that is a brilliant idea. Actually, the only glitch we could get in this perfectly sensible plan is passing the security checks at the airport with his BLOODY SWORD!"

"Actually, I'm the King of Narnia, not a Duke," Caspian corrected you, which only made your panic worse.

"Oh, pardon me, Your Highness! Of course, he's a King! That'll solve all of our problems! Maybe, as he's royalty, they'll give him a hot towel and a tiny chocolate on his pillow when we're all rotting IN JAIL!"

"Now, now, calm down, child," Agatha replied with an annoyed voice.

"This is a terrible, terrible idea," you fought back, stated a fact that seemed so obvious to you. "Don't call me to bail you and D'Artagnan here out of jail once you get there, huh?"

"Well, do you have any better plan? A single idea, even?"

And you had to admit that you had none.

You and Caspian exchanged a look. He didn't understand the whole issue, but he did get that what Agatha was offering was going against the law. However, he didn't have much choice.

"Agatha, if we contact your friend, can you promise me that no harm will come to anyone out of our actions?"

"Of course!"

"Then, I have to take the risk. Even if the way you describe, as I understand it, seems to go against some of your laws. Going to England might be my only chance. However, considering the risks you might be facing, I will travel on my own and undergo the purchase of this… passport on my own."

"I can go with you," Agatha shook her head, and her tone was final. "In fact, do you have a place to stay here?"

"He slept at my place yesterday," you answered.

"Well, then, you can stay here for as long as you need. After all, my family considered you one of their own."

Caspian gave her a grateful smile.

"Thank you, Agatha. For everything. But I don't want you to get into trouble on my behalf…"

"Nonsense! It's gonna be a lot of fun! Dear, I haven't had so much excitement in my life in a long while. And don't you worry, my dear, I'm sure we'll find a way to bring you home."

"How do we contact this… Roger?" you interrupted, bringing back the conversation towards practical issues.

"I'll call him! I have his number. You were of great help, but I will take care of Caspian now. You don't have to worry about him anymore. Nor getting into jail."

Caspian reached across the table to take your hand in his in a gentle, warm hold.

"Thank you for everything you've done for me. I don't want to be a weight…"

"Don't mention it," you mumbled, uncomfortable. "Anyone would have done the same."

Caspian gave you a warm smile.

"No, I don't reckon that's true."

"Will you be okay?"

"Yes. I think I will. Agatha will help me, you need not worry about me anymore."

You huffed again.

"You're a lot of trouble though. I think I'll keep on worrying about you for a while."

You exchanged a soft smile.

"Well, I guess… Agatha has my phone number, so if you need anything, you can call me," you offered.

"Call?"

You chuckled and showed him your phone.

"You can use that to talk to someone who's away."

"Your society is most impressive. Even if our magic is different, yours is just as strong the magic ."

"It's not magic, it's science," you replied.

"But isn't magic only science that we can't yet understand?" Agatha replied with a mischievous look, and the two of you laughed.

"I guess that's true."

You helped to clean the dishes, helped Caspian to settle down too. But then you were standing before the threshold, ready to leave without him, and you had to admit that it felt strange to part with him. If you were being honest with yourself, you even felt sad. Despite how crazy this whole ordeal was - and that you still didn't believe in his whole backstory - as you looked at him standing there, before you, giving you a warm smile while his dark eyes were tainted with pain, you knew that you would miss him.

"Good luck, then. And… call me if you need help. Otherwise, I… guess it's a…"

But your voice broke before you could say the word, and when you tried again, nothing came out but silence.

Caspian took your hand and brought it to his lips in a soft, slow movement, hesitant. As if he wasn't sure you'd let him go through with it, as if he wasn't sure it was adequate, but it felt right to do so, so he did it anyway. His lips lingered on the back of your hand for a few seconds too long, by Narnian standards of politeness, but you wouldn't have known anyway. You told yourself it was just one more eccentricity. Nothing more, despite the jolt of electricity that ran up your spine then.

He gave you one last tender smile.

"Farewell, Y/N."

You nodded, unable to understand the tears in your eyes, but you freed your hand and turned to walk to your car anyway.

You didn't look back as you drove off the street. You kept on repeating to yourself that at least, now, your life could go back to normal.

And that was a good thing, right?

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

Tag list : @ponycake27​ @horsesreign @xinyourdreamsx​ @jbluevelvet​ @notkeppeki @daynigt-dreamer-stuff @fudgeflyss​ @stuckupstucky​ @snek-shit​ @suchatinyinfinity​ @i-padfootblack-things​  @buckybsarmy @heyohheyitsgabi​@jigsawlover10​ @emyyjemyy​​ @addictedtofictionalcharacters​ @staringmoony​@geeksareunique @giggleberts @sad-orange-thoughts @aylinnmaslow  @benbarnes-world @ladyblablabla @drinix @joelynnp @wearetalkingtoyou @mxrihollxnd @rockintensse @cutie-bug @purplocity  @rockintensse​ @newtstarmander​ @shinebrightlikeafanbase​ @millionsleeplessnights @goldenor5 @raquelbc2003  @carolinesbookworld​ @roses-in-your-country-house @mcrmarvelloki​ @marvelcapsicle​

#Caspian #Caspian X #caspian x reader #caspian fanfic #King Caspian #caspian imagine #narnia #narnia fanfiction #narnia imagine #imagine #fanfiction #fanfic #writing

[kisskissbanggang]

I just woke up from a nap and let me say—political android Jaehyun is a crazy idea. In my dream he killed my coworkers in a planned destruction of scientific data, but got scared of himself and was hiding in my office so I went back 3 days later to go recover what I could and poor boy was scanning and reprinting all the data he destroyed because he felt bad so I brought him into my home and recovered the data with him and then his ai was great but I didn’t know that yet (part 1)

Move along, nothing to see here unless you want to see Lexi’s incredible nap-dream play out and then me screaming about it. 💕

I was just being me, nice to robots, but I started to do more research on the ai his model had, and had him destroy my search histories and found out that I could remove his “person chip” so he could go back to work and have most of his memories that were positive wiped so he was able to continue his government work while he was feeding me information, and the government found out I didn’t die so I lied and faked my support of their actions and they brought me into the ranks (part 2)

But he still preferred to come to my place most nights so I would replace his person chip when he came into my home and we became friends and he expressed that he always wanted to know about human feelings like having parents and pets and falling in love so one night I asked him if he wanted to lay in my bed with my cat since she’d gotten used to him being around and so he laid in my bed and was all stiff and didn’t know what to do because inexperienced robot (part 3)

And he asked what cuddling was like but he was all stiff so I resituated his body to be okay for cuddling and snuggled him and told him to research “body language” and 2 minutes later he moved himself again and wrapped his arms around me because he learned about body language and I kept telling him keywords to research about intimate human interaction and interacting with pets until I fell asleep in his arms and when I woke up (part 4)

He was in my kitchen with breakfast prepared waiting for me and sitting on my couch, petting my cat whom he befriended overnight 😂 and we watched the news about the government again and he said to me “you don’t really like it do you” and I was engulfed in my eggs and said “no I love what you cooked but fuck that guy” at [insert gov official here] and he said “how come you work for them now” and i said “I need a job because my other one was destroyed” and he got all glum looking (part 5)

And he said “I didn’t want to do it, but they decide my actions when I’m in uniform” and I said “I know I don’t blame you for what they make you do” and he said “How can I learn about them to decide if I like them or not?” And I gave him keywords about the government to research and he came back and said “oh those conspiracies are true I saw it with my own eyes” and I said “well shit then I hate them even more” and he asked about keywords to learn about morality (part 6)

And he ended up mentioning his creator and I remembered learning about how that guy was murdered by his creation (Jaehyun) because the government made him, but that that creator always created both the most powerful androids but also the most ethical and I asked him if it was true and he said it was true and that he regrets his actions everyday and that’s why he wouldn’t ever hurt me. He talked about how mean the gov was to him and how I was the only nice person he knew since his creator(part 7)

And it became this cute thing in the mornings, I’d take out his person chip while I adjusted his collar similar to a spouse putting on a tie and he’d go off to work before me and then I’d go off to work and get back before him so when he’d come home I’d loosen up his shirt and put his person chip back in and he’d turn back into a docile friend and one day we ended up “meeting” at work because I reached a higher rank and we had to pretend we didn’t know each other (part 8)

But as time went on the government was still shitty and made him do not great things and my job got slightly less ethical as days passed but I was getting paid a lot more and Jaehyun told me about the plans to destroy the low income neighborhood I lived in to remove those people from the planet and make everyone else there homeless so I took a personal leave from work to both move and also warn everyone there (20% of them outright believed me—they thought I was a crazed scientist) (part 9)

But I moved into a nicer area that wasn’t getting destroyed and that neighborhood was destroyed but only 5 people died, but that was because they thought they could take on the android, but also one elderly lady never made it out even though my neighbor promised to get her out so I was devastated about her loss, Jaehyun could tell something was off and did research on the event and learned about the old lady’s death (who he killed ofc) and felt sadness for the first time in his life (part 10)

Eventually I’m to the point at work where my creation is being tested so I’m told to move back home to be safe and they’d give me a retirement for my work (I guess I lived on the east coast) but couldn’t take a plane because of Jaehyun so we were road tripping all the way back to North Dakota which Jaehyun loved because he never had to pee and could use the AC adapter in my car to top off his charge. He was a great GPS though (part 20)

But because of the global warming and regulations you could only drive 250 miles a day so we had to stop a lot and ended up at a lot of motels so they wouldn’t ask questions about my other guest since he had minimal ID and was theoretically meant to stay on the east coast and never move. And we ended up at this janky place and it spooked me out so Jaehyun actually laid with me again that night instead of just sitting at the desk charging like he did at other places (part 21)

And my car had issues so we ended up having to stay at that place a couple of nights but it was still v scary for me. We ended up going to a saloon near the motel for me to get food, Jaehyun came with because spooked) and they were having a dance night and Jaehyun had never danced before so I decided to teach him and he was having a great time and suddenly a slow song came on and I was so focused on teaching him how to slow dance that I didn’t notice how he was looking at me (part 22)

And so I finally feel like he’s got the footwork down and the song is half done and I look up at him and he leans down to kiss me and his dumb android lips are too great and part of me is revolted because I’m kissing a robot but also part of me loves Jaehyun more than I could ever love anyone I’d ever met because of his innocence and good morals and when he pulls away he looks shocked and he said “I just wanted to copy the movies I didn’t know I could feel that” and I laughed at him (part 23)

And when we got back to the motel and I’d washed up he was like “Can we do that again?” And it was the dumbest most cute thing ever and I sat on the bed with him standing in front of me, way too eager hoping I’d say yes and I nodded and he did a little dance before leaning back down to kiss me again and he kept going and eventually had my back on the bed with him over me, holding me as close to himself as he could and then the moment was ruined bc there was some guy rattling room doors (part 24)

I got spooked and Jaehyun guarded me with his body and the guy kept going and management called the room to apologize for the drunk guy who forgot his room # and I ended up just going to sleep. The next day my car was fixed and we were back on the road. Jaehyun kept touching his lips and opening his mouth to say something, but instead of speaking, he’d blush, look away, and close his mouth. He’d do this ad nauseum until I asked what he was thinking (part 25)

And he just asked “How do I know what love is?” And I choked on air, not expecting that question and I tried my best to describe it and gave up and said “You just know. You’d be devastated without them in your life and you enjoy being with them and you love all of their flaws.” And he asked if I loved Gladys and I said “Of course, platonically” and he asked the difference between platonic and romantic love and he said “I loved Gladys platonically too” (part 26)

I ended up going north to Wisconsin for some reason (I think there was a safety issue?) so it took a while to get anywhere but the day after we talked about love Jaehyun looks at me and says, “What if I think I romantically loved you?” And I pulled over, absolutely shocked by my own internal instinct to say “I love you too” and he looked at my face and sheepishly asked “So is now a good time to kiss again?” And we ended up making out on the side of the highway (part 27)

At that point in the dream it gets fuzzy, we get to the next motel, Jaehyun kisses me again, but puts his knee between my legs and when he moves and up moving against my groin and things escalated from there. The dream cuts to my parents meeting him and my dad having a weird vibe about him but not being sure what to think because the dogs think he’s cool. Piper bit his finger once and he didn’t flinch so my dad was like “????” But whatever he seemed like a nice boyfriend to me (part 28)

I end up telling my sister everything and my mom overheard the part about what my job was doing not about Jaehyun being a robot. My sister was understanding and my mom was worried about my work and told me that’s why she warned me about working at the Naval Academy. And between my sister, her husband, Jaehyun, and I, we came up with this plan to take over the government and it was crazy but Jaehyun had all the information to get into places since I backed him up (part 29)

Okay but OH MY GOD??? I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW INVESTED I ALSO JUST GOT IN YOUR NAP DREAM???????????? This had everything like it had stakes and drama and comedy and suspense and science and sex and what the hell it was a whole movie??? It was a whole miniseries??? ANDROID JAEHYUN WANTING TO LEARN WHAT LOVE IS WHAT AN IDEAAAA

I’ve said Android au’s are my jam I feel discombobulated in the best way this is like three different movies in one I’m still losing it BECAUSE I CAN’T STOP THINKING OF ANDROID JAEHYUN LOVING YOUR CAT HOLY SHIT

#mail #hellapainyo #my children #let me tell you!! this was a ride #and i wish to get right back on pls

[okayoonoh]

best part (1): lee taeyong

“you don’t know babe, when you hold me and kiss me slowly, it’s the sweetest thing.”

---

- PAIRING: lee taeyong x reader - GENRE: ANGST ANGST ANGST, a little tiny tiny smut in there but it barely counts tbh - RATING: it’s a good M for mature. - WORD COUNT: 4,514 - WARNINGS: it’s sad and there’s a little smut in here. it’s not super explicit tho.

a/n: this honestly makes me sad, but i need to learn to write angst and simply doing it is one of the best ways. i hope you guys like it :,)

---

---

Knock, knock, knock

“Y/N please, let me in.”

Your heart aches at every knock. Every fiber of your being is telling you to keep that door shut, to keep him out and forget about him forever. It’s easier this way, for his career and your’s. Everyone knows that nothing about this is okay, you know it and he does as well.

And yet, why do you find yourself standing up and walking towards the door?

You take slow steps walking towards your front door. You hear his knocking becoming even more desperate, almost as if he thought that the louder he knocked, the quicker you would open your door. 

“Y/N please… just let me in. I just want to talk to you...”

Your hand comes in contact with the doorknob, tears still spilling out of your eyes. You keep telling yourself not to open that goddamn door, over and over like a mantra in your head.

And yet, you find yourself turning the doorknob and looking into those wide tear-stained eyes you told yourself you’d never see again. The second the door opened wide enough for him to enter, he wrapped his arms around you, holding the back of your head, pressing your sobbing form against his body. You grasped onto the grey sweater he was wearing, sobbing. You want to break away from him. You want to live far away so you’ll never have to see him anymore. You want to push him away. You want to live a life without him. 

It’s crazy, really. 2 months ago, your mindset about him was complete the complete opposite. 2 months ago, you thought you’d never push him away. 2 months ago you were his best friend, the one friend that stuck with him when he became an idol. You told him everything and he to you. Any little issue and accomplishment, he told you. Any little exam you passed and depressing mood you’ve been in, you’ve confided in him. You never thought you would ever want to let him go, he was your lifeline, the one and only thing you’ve ever wanted to hold onto for the rest of your life. He was your best friend, your ride or die. He made you feel so safe and accepted every when you were at your worst. So, why are you sitting here, the most confused you’ve been your entire life, about him? Someone you used to be so sure, so confident that you would never, ever, have to worry about him of all people. Why him?

---

4 months ago

---

“Y/N! Open your door! I have news!” 

You move your laptop to the side as you walk towards your door, rolling your eyes. You know that voice like the back of your hand. You twist the door handle and pull, greeted by the excited expression of your best friend.

“Hyunzie? Why are you here at 10:00 at night? I thought you were at Sicheng’s place?” you quip.

She rolls her eyes, already walking inside of your apartment, “Wow, I love you too. But I was at Sicheng’s place but this news is way too important for me not to tell you now!” 

She stalks over to your kitchen, making herself and you a cup of tea. 

“Okay, Hyunzie, if it’s this important, why are you making me tea?” You ask while accepting the mug she hands you. 

“Because I would like to ‘spill the tea’” Her eyes light up, waiting for your response. 

You give her a true, mint condition, authentic, fake laugh, “Ha ha. Seriously, Hyunzie. I was finalizing some reports while watching the last episode of ‘The Amazing Irish Cooking Show’. What is so urgent that you had to cut me off from Moira taking home the gold?”

“Okay, first of all, Moira doesn’t even win, second of all, why are you so sassy today?” 

“Hyunzie.”

“Fine Mr. Grumpy Pants I’ll tell you. So, I’m just going to tell you the most important thing now since I don’t think you want the build up. We’re moving to Seoul.”

“Hyunzie, stop messing around, just tell me the news and go home, it’s getting late.”

“No, Y/N, I’m being 100% serious. You remember how Sicheng and Taeyong sent in your song to SM? They’re offering us a job!”

You look your best friend directly in her eyes. You know when she’s lying, but none of those signs are being shown right now.

You stutter, “We-- We’re leaving? You’re not kidding me, right? And-- and us? Did they--”

She purses her lips and nods, “Yes! Sicheng sent in my artwork as well, they want me to work for them for their next comeback! We’re moving to Seoul!”

You open your arms, enveloping Hyunzie in the biggest hug. Tears threaten to spill from your eyes. You did it. You’re finally getting a chance to be heard. You can finally put an end to your mindless desk job and do the thing you’ve dreamed of doing ever since, well, ever. 

You separate from the hug and press your hand to your burning cheeks, trying not to freak out too badly. “So, when do we leave?”

Hyunzie doesn’t miss a beat, “As soon as possible. Sicheng has already laid out a place for us to stay until we find a place. I’m ready to go whenever you are. I know it’ll take a while for you to actually quit your job and stuff, but I’ll help you pack and everything! We’re in this together Y/N.”

You nod and grab your laptop from where you set it down. “I’ll send in the 2 weeks now.” Hyunzie nods back, grabbing the remote and pressing play, putting your favorite show back on. 

A couple hours past and Hyunzie fell asleep on the side of your couch when you added the final touch to your reports and your two weeks notice. You yawn, looking towards your best friend. Your heart fills with so much love knowing that she is sticking with you throughout this entire event. Ever since her secret relationship with Sicheng started, she’s been nothing but the best version of herself. No, Sicheng is not the man who “magically” changed her, he knows that, but he also knows that Hyunzie doesn’t need him. Hyunzie and Sicheng compliment each other so well, not one personality being overshined by the other. The sneaking around between the two is something that most couples would hate, but due to the secretive and private nature of the both of them, they find it thrilling to flirt in the shadows and act as complete “strangers”.  

If Hyunzie never took the chance to talk to the cute regular who showed up in the cafe where she worked, you would have never had the chance to even send in your music to SM. Sure, Taeyong could have given you the inside scoop, but you never wanted to seem like you were using Taeyong. Sicheng was willing to stop by and he felt the same about you and your music. He agrees that your music should be shared and with the help of Taeyong, your music now has a greater chance than ever before. 

Ring ring ring

Your ears perk as you look at the caller ID. Speak of the devil.

“Y/N, it’s me! Did Hyunzie tell you the news? I’m so sorry, I finally got a free chance to talk to you, I’m actually in the States right now with the rest of the member--”

“Hey Taeyong-ie, and yes, Hyunzie is actually sleeping on my couch at this very moment. She told be the information like an hour ago? Look, I can’t thank you enoug--”

“Nonsense, I’ve always known your music should be shared. I just didn’t know what time would be best and apparently Sicheng just sent it in today, and I wasn’t even there to see everyone’s reactions!”

You giggle, “Don’t worry about it, Youngie. I’m still in shock with everything right now.” 

“I know, it’s a crazy feeling isn’t it? I can’t even remember what went through my mind when I passed my audition.”

“I honestly am not sure with anything I’m feeling, but I have one thing for certain.”

“Hm?”

“I can’t wait to work with you on the daily. It’ll be just like when we were kids.”

You can practically hear his smile through the phone, your heart flutters at the thought. 

“I know Y/N! It’ll be just like old times! I can’t wait for you to meet the rest of the members, I just hope Johnny and Jaehyun can turn down the flirtiness when you get here. We have no room for any relationships, except for the godly couple of Hyunzie and Sicheng, they are the exception.”

“Amen. Well, I just finished my two weeks. I’m going to send it in tomorrow and begin packing as soon as I can.”

“I’m glad! You can do so much better than that mindless job, Y/N. I always knew you could… You’ve always been so -- What? What do you mean Xuxi broke the entire light structure? -- I’m so sorry Y/N, I have to take care of this. Look, text me if you need anything, I’m down to help you with whatever you need. We leave the States in three days, so I’ll be home to help you by then. I’ll see you when I get home!”

“It’s okay, Youngie, you have your leader duties to attend to. Tell Lucas to be careful and take it easy on yourself, okay? I’ll see you soon, thank you for everything.”

“Thank you too, bye bye!”

The call ends and you hold your phone close to your chest. Even just the sound of Taeyong’s voice makes you happy beyond belief. Imagining spending everyday with him fills you with so much elation, it’s hard to hold back. Taeyong and you grew up together, best friends before you even met Hyunzie. Together, you and him could conquer the world. Your parents would say that, even his sister. You both were notorious for talking the ears off of anyone and everyone and even conducting elaborate pranks you pulled on his sister and even your family members. When he joined SM, he had to move away to Seoul while you stayed in your hometown. He knew that he didn’t want to lose contact with you, and did all he could to make sure you would never lose this close bond the two of you have. There are underlying feelings between you two, you just can’t quite pinpoint it. Or your mind simply won’t let you knowing about all of that negative backlash that you would receive. 

A loud snore shakes you from your thoughts as your eyes shoot towards Hyunzie’s sleeping form. You giggle lightly, grabbing the blanket that drapes off of the side of the bed and lay it on your best friend. You turn off the lamp then head off to your room, getting ready to start this new era of your life. 

---

2 weeks (and, like, 2 days) later

---

Surprisingly, with the help of your movers and all of the free members of NCT, you were able to move and unpack almost instantly. Hyunzie and you basically sold all of your old furniture to buy new ones, so the only things you both had to worry about was your clothes and such. The new apartment is filled with loud music and laughs all throughout as the members all work hard to help you build all of your new furniture from the iconic Ikea. Hyunzie and Sicheng occupy themselves with the coffee table, flirting and lightly arguing more than building the actual surface. You, Johnny, and Taeyong busy yourselves in the kitchen, sorting out all of the dishes and pans, Johnny’s main goal is carefully placing all of your important bowls and dishes in the high shelf. 

“Again, thank you so much for all of your help,” You say, handing Johnny a decorative bowl your mother gave you as a gift when you moved to your own place for the first time.

“It’s no problem! We’re in between comebacks right now, so all we really do is wait for the Dreamies to post ASMR videos or my JCC stuff, but sometimes taking a break and doing things like this is better than filming everything 24/7 y’know? It’s almost therapeutic.” Johnny says cheerfully, giving you a gentle smile. 

“So Y/N,” Johnny begins, lifting the next box and moving to the next set of cabinets, “How did you and Taeyong meet? I know you guys grew up together, but like what’s the history?”

You smile, looking at the boy in the living room who is currently settling the argument between Sicheng and his girlfriend. 

“Well, historically, we’ve just been close friends,”

“No, no. Like, romantically. I’ve seen the way Taeyong lights up when he talks about you. There’s no way there’s no history between the two of you.”

You hesitate when you hand him the next plate. He is right, it’s not like there wasn’t anything going between the two of you, there definitely was something, “Well… if I’m being completely honest, there was. But it all ended when he left.”

Johnny nods, “I see, I see. Well, never say never! You’re back now, so anything could happen. And I mean, if it doesn’t work with him.... I know this tall, Chicago man that is available…” 

He smirks at you suggestively. You pull the towel that rests on his neck then hit his side.

“Hey hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game.” He laughs. You roll your eyes as you grab the empty box and put it in the pile of empty boxes. 

The rest of the afternoon goes rather smoothly as everyone finishes up with your’s and Hyunzie’s apartment. You and Taeyong sit on the couch while Hyunzie and Sicheng sit on the ground, leaning against the coffee table they assembled together. Hyunzie leans her head on Sichengs shoulder, dozing off. A movie plays in the background while you and Taeyong talk softly.

You stretch while Taeyong grabs your attention.

“Y/N, I just wanted to let you know that I’m so happy you’re here now.”

You smile at you him, “I am, too. I finally feel like I’m doing something worth my time, you know?”

He nods at you, “I know what you mean. Look, I also want to apologize for not being there for you--”

“--Tae, I’m going to stop you right there. I completely understand, I wouldn’t still be your best friend if I didn’t understand. I love you, more than you could ever know, Tae. You never have to apologize to me for anything.”

He gives you a somber smile, then gently places his hand over yours, “Thank you for being you. I love you, too.”

Your heart clenches, hearing him say those words truly fills you with joy. You know that he said it platonically, but you for sure didn’t. You honestly don’t mind it being a one-sided love. It’s better this way for everyone. Well, everyone except for you. But you were at peace with it. You know that Taeyong simply can’t be with you; the repercussions are too extreme. But right now, he isn’t Taeyong, the leader of NCT. He’s Lee Taeyong, your childhood best friend and the man you’re completely and utterly in love with.

---

2 months later

---

Your life as a songwriter has been amazing for its first month. Your song was recorded with all of the boys singing it wonderfully; the head producer said the songs you wrote were some of NCT’s best. 

You sit in a studio, laying some tracks over each other when you hear a knock at the door. The clear glass door shows the handsome features of Taeyong and you smile at him, stepping out of your chair to let him in.

He lifts up a plastic bag filled, two boxes of sushi inside. Your eyes light up as you walk with him to the couch inside of the studio.

“I got you your favorite,” he smiles while taking out a box for you.

“You know me so well,”

“Of course I do! I also know that you’re not going to be able to break these chopsticks evenly.”

Snap. Right as he says that, you broke your chopsticks, unevenly at the top. You stick your tongue out at him, giving him some sass.

“Okay you, you’re right but you didn’t have to be.”

He laughs, “I’m sorry. I just can’t resist. Anyway, how is the song-writing going? Are you giving Renjun any insane lines?”

You shake your head, “I’m actually just working on the beat for the rap track right now. Jaemin and Jeno have really increased their rap game from what I can remember. They can deal with something super complex.”

Taeyong nods, “Who would you say is your favorite rapper right now?”

“Between Jaemin and Jeno?”

“No, just in general.”

“NCT in general? Or in general, general?”

“In general, general! Y/N, stop bouncing around the question,” he whines slightly. You snicker. You know he’s trying to get you to say his name, but you won’t give him that satisfaction.

“Well, my favorite rapper right now has to be the rap god of NCT.”

“See! Was that so--”

“Yes, Mark Freaking Lee. Baby Lion really knows whats up.”

“O-Oh…” Taeyong suddenly finds his sushi really interesting as his gaze isn’t on you anymore.

You punch his arm, “Stop pouting dummy, of course I’m kidding. You’re my favorite rapper by default.”

His expression lights up, “Hehe, thank you.”

You both finish up the meal, happy and full. A chime goes off on your phone and you check it, your stomach drops. Even though it’s only your second month working for SM, other companies have noticed your work and they want you to work for them. SM gives you a pretty paycheck, but these other companies want to give you more. After they saw your work with NCT’s comeback, they want to see what else you can do. Other companies are offering you more money for your songs and you genuinely don’t know what to do.

“Tae, I have to tell you something.”

He knows that tone. He knows that you want to talk to him about something serious. “Let’s go for a walk.” 

---

You walk outside, your breath coming out as puffs of clouds because of the cold air. Taeyong walks beside you, walking perfectly at your side.

You hide your head in your scarf, attempting to warm your cheeks, as you sigh.

“Yongie, JYP is offering me a job. They’re willing to pay me almost double what SM is paying me right now.”

Taeyong stops walking as you do too.  “Y/N! That’s amazing!”

You sigh, “That’s the thing. I want to take it, but I love working for SM and more importantly, I love working with you.”

Taeyong sighs and places his hands on your shoulder, causing you to look up at him, “Look, distance has never been an issue with us. Whatever choice you make, you’ll make the right one. I’ll be by your side no matter what happens.”

“Yeah bu--”

“No! No buts. No matter what happens, we’ll be okay Y/N, I promise.”

You look up at him. You take in his beautiful face, something you’re so glad you can see it up close. You look at his big doe eyes, his angled nose and jawline that seem like they were sculpted by the gods themselves. You pay close attention to his lips that are formed in a slight pout. You never realized how soft his lips looked before. You question how they might feel against--

Woah. Where did that come from? 

You sniff as the lump in your throat isn’t so tight anymore. You look back up to his eyes and nod. You know you’ll be happy with whatever you choose because you have him. He gives you a light hearted smile then he reaches for your cold hand, holding it in his warm ones. Your heart flutters, but you don’t question him. This is exactly the amount of comfort you need right now. 

You guys continue your walk, hand in hand, his warmth reassuring you that everything will be okay.

Click. Click. Click.

---

3 months later

---

This all leads you  here. That night, you were being reckless and you or Taeyong didn’t think about the repercussions. Taeyong walked you home that night and you woke up to your social media and your email and your texts all full beyond belief.

New SM employee already cozies up to NCT’S Leader, Lee Taeyong

“Who is this girl? She’s a nobody.”

“It finally makes sense how she got into SM! It’s all Taeyong’s doing!”

“I can’t believe someone is taking our Taeyong away from us! She’s not nearly good enough for him!”

“What does Taeyong see in a girl like her??? She’s not even pretty.”

You read all those comments and immediately shut down. You didn’t realize what had happened that night until you read who the source was from. Dispatch saw you and Taeyong that night and ran with the story. Your whole career and Taeyong’s career was ruined. Hyunzie ran into your room that morning, throwing your phone away from you. You cried. Because that one night, you were so reckless, you ruined your best friends career. You packed a bag then headed back to your hometown, you needed to be away from there for a while.

From that moment, you cut off all ties you had with Taeyong, not even talking to him after that event. You were only thinking for him. It’s better for everyone this way. You took the job with JYP and you have been working there ever since. 

You moved back in with Hyunzie after everything died down a bit. She promised you that she wouldn’t let Taeyong in when he came, but it seemed that he didn’t want to see you either. He didn’t visit you after he learned you moved away. He was away on tour when you came back, so you knew you didn’t have to avoid him.

Except for now.

He just returned from tour and it brings you back here, he’s knocking at your door. God, of all the times Hyunzie chose to be with Sicheng, it had to be now. You’re weak, you open the door and he lets himself in as he hugs you. Your tears spilling into his shirt. 

He holds you tight and he holds you close, seeming scared that you would float away from him if he let go. He holds the back of your head into his chest as he leans into your neck, crying himself.

“Y/N, why?” he sobs quietly. “What happened?”

You don’t answer. You quietly cry into his shirt. You don’t know why. You thought it would be best for everyone this way, but now, in his arms, you realize it wasn’t.

He breaks away from the hug and holds your face in his hands, his tear stained eyes staring into yours. You don’t think it’s possible for your heart to break anymore than it already has, but it does when you see his glossy eyes. He wipes the tears that spill from your eyes as he places his forehead against yours. 

He whispers so softly, “Please, don’t leave me.”

Again, you don’t respond. You gently brush your lips against his and he returns your kiss. He kisses you slowly, your heart clenches. This moment is the sweetest you’ve ever had, but it’s equally the saddest. You’re finally doing the thing you’ve wanted to do for the longest time, but why does it hurt?

You break away from the kiss as he keeps his forehead on yours. You close your eyes, trying to savor the moment. You feel safe, you feel protected, you feel love. 

You know none of this can’t last.

Those happy emotions you feel make everything so much worse. You know that he can’t stay. You know that it can’t be like this. You know that your heart will just break in the end.

He kisses you again, this time with more passion. It hurts, but you can’t stop.

“Y/N please, I’m sorry.”

“Prove it to me, then. Don’t stop kissing me.”

He doesn’t. He holds you so close because it’s almost as if he knows the second that he lets go, you let go too.

Your back hits your mattress, his lips still on yours. Clothes are shed, tears still fall. Your bodies mold as one as he proves to you, again and again, the extent of his love. You cry even more. You love him so much, but that’s why you can’t be with him. 

When he holds you, when he kisses you, it’s the sweetest thing. That’s why it hurts the most.

The life of an idol isn’t one for you and you know that. It fits Taeyong well, which is why this is your last night with him. You love him so much, that’s why you can’t keep him. He was never your’s to keep.

You look over at his sleeping form, his bottom half covered by your covers. You lean over and kiss his head one more time before you stand up. You quietly pack up your bag then head out the door. JYP has a branch in Japan that they want you to head and you were on the fence about it. 

Seeing Taeyong one more time helped you make up your mind. You leave a note for Hyunzie and send her a text. You found a last minute flight to Tokyo, you bought the last ticket, and you’re on your way.

You love Lee Taeyong too much to stay with him. Staying with him will only taint his image.

When he held you, when he kissed you, it was the sweetest thing. 

But it’ll just have to live on in that memory.

---

i hate writing angst for this exact reason....

this is my first official angsty piece tho! i hope you guys liked it :)

it’s been a while but my writer’s block is finally gone! i’ll continue on with more fluffy pieces for this series :)))

anyway, this part may have a part 2? we’ll see the vibes of the lyrics

- amy <3

#nct #taeyong #taeyong smut #taeyoung angst #angst #nct angst #kpop angst #nct best part series #taeil #johnny #yuta #kun #doyoung #ten #jaehyun #winwin #jungwoo #lucas #mark #xiaojun #hendery #renjun #jeno #haechan #jaemin #yangyang #chenle #jisung #kpop #kpop smut

[mystech-master]

Annon-Guy: What are you personal thoughts on Nu-13 and Lambda-11 In terms of gameplay and personality? You can talk about their character designs too id you want too.

Okay, I need to first summarize what I know of Nu and Lambda at the moment before I give my personal thoughts. A lot of shorthanding and maybe some errors may be involved so plz forgive me.

long post bellow, beware.

Nu-13 and Lambda-11 are both Prime Field Devices, artificial humans made for the purpose of exploring the boundary. Specifically, they are Murakumo Units: PFD’s outfitted with the Nox Nyctores Lux Sanctus: Murakumo as full-on weapons.

When Ragna’s siblings were captured, because of Saya’s innate gift with seithr, she was used as the basis for creating all of these Units. There are usually referred to as “clones” which means everyone treats them as either the same as Saya or also sisters, leading to a lot of incest jokes and rants in the fandom. More on this later but I feel like it has to be brought up.

we first meet Nu-13 as the final boss of the first game Calamity Trigger, where we learn that this is technically the 3rd time she and Ragna have met, since before this Ragna was blowing up NOL branches and cauldrons to stop more Murakumo Units from being made, as they are all just fake copies of his sister who was tortured for their creation.

Nu-13 has a full-on yandere crush on Ragna due to 2 factors I believe, 1. she is constantly viewing him through the lens of the fragment of Saya’s soul saying “Ragna is the big brother who loves me”, and 2. Ragna killing her again and again. This causes her to see Ragna killing her as loving her. Not helping is her being made in the Boundary which completely fucks up your mental state when near it.

At the end of almost every ending in CT, Nu defeats Ragna, skewering them both on her sword, they fall into the Cauldron and travel back in time 100 years to become the Black Beast that ravaged the world in the Dark War, creating a time loop. As when a Murakumo does an imperfect fusion with an Azure Grimoire (or at least a piece of the Azure) it becomes a Black Beast, with a perfect fusion resulting in a Kusanagi: the God Slayer (which is what Noel becomes and what the villains were trying to do to take down Amaterasu (the god of Blazblue world). Fitting as a Murakumo, with the Kusanagi being a super version of it, has a Nox capable of resisting Phenomenon Intervention, which is the Mater Unit’s main Power. So when they say God Slayer they do not mean gods in general they mean a SPECIFIC god. Just need to say that).

Anyways, Nu kills Ragna every now and again for like 725 loops before Noel steps in during the true ending and manages to grab Ragna before he and Nu fall into the Cauldron.

In Continuum Shift, the second game taking place right/ a week after the first game, Nu’s body is recovered from the bottom of the Cauldron (yes those things apparently have a bottom they aren’t just portals) by Sector Seven and Kokonoe proceeds to ake Nu’s soul and put it in the body of another Murakumo Unit, Lambda-11 to use as a puppet and fight for her. Her weapons are made of titanium alloy instead of Hihi'irokane (the mythical Japanese metal which is also in the Susano’o Unit and is also the name of a Soul cutting sword in Blazblue), and she is outfitted with an IDEA Engine, an improved version of the Artificial Causality Phenomenon Weapons: a scientific counterpart to the Nox Nyctores using Atomic Power rather than souls.

Lambda’s memories are still in there and she recalls the torture she had to endure by all the scientists creating her, which I assume all Murakumos underwent including Nu, so Kokonoe has to erase her memories to make her an effective tool, even if she regrets it.

They don't really explain where the soul starts and the mind/memories begin and vice versa though, this is another thing I will tackle later.

She sends out Lambda in the second game to do things, she like Tager for the most part just acts as Kokonoe’s proxy, until the climax of the true ending where Ragna is fighting Terumi at the top of the NOL branch. Just as Terumi is about to kill Ragna, Lambda takes a lethal blow for Ragna, and in her final moments, Nu’s soul comes to the surface and is glad she got to see Ragna again, him having recently gone through the character development of not seeing Murakumos as things but as people after interacting with Noel. As she dies and fades into sparkles, weird for a science thing, she grants Ragna her Idea Engine, giving him the power boost he needs to defeat Terumi and later save Noel who was smelted into the Kusanagi.

Now in the third game, because Ragna and Nu have a Life Link, which means one cannot die permanently without the other being killed in a short time frame, Nu is now able to come back as she couldn’t before with Kokonoe shoving her soul into Lambda. She mostly just acts as the villains' combat android until she copies Noel’s power to summon the Master Unit (as both are Saya fragments and also fragments of The Origin, the first PFD who made contact with the Master Unit and sort of.....became it?). Then in the climax, the villains summon Take-Mikazuchi, a giant titan satellite laser thing, and make Nu the core of it. Once the body is destroyed Ragna goes inside to deal with Nu. She proceeds with her usual shtick of telling Ragna they will “become one” and to kill her and all that, saying the backstory of pretty much every Murakumo about how she was made to be a weapon and how she was tortured and shit, this is also her saying Noel’s backstory since Noel ‘Observed” Nu as her which is SORT of true since they are both Saya but not really, it’s confusing as hell. But, basically, she is saying the shared Murakumo Backstory and Ragna sees this as her cries to be saved, while Nu, who only sees her and Ragna’s relationship as a mutually sadomasochistic one, goes bonkers and tries to kill Ragna, not out of yandere lust, but actual anger and hatred. Ragna wins and brings her out of Take-Mikazuchi, where Izanami takes control of her and makes her stab Ragna and he goes berserk and loses control of the Azure Grimoire.

the fourth game Central Fiction is a mess so I know the least here but from what I recall:

Nu is now growing to be her own person, she is less robotic but that means Yandere Ragna mode is on all the time. She is going around absorbing Nox Nyctores to get power so she can kill Ragna and do the merge. Near the climax, she is fighting Jubei and when she almost kills Tsubaki, Hakumen steps in and wrecks her shit. (In a previous time loop Tsubaki was killed by Nu b/c Noel didn’t exist and wasn’t Jin’s secretary instead of Tsubaki, so she went after Jin in the first game who was going after Ragna, she got caught in the crossfire, with Nu’s yandere mind hating any female in the same room as Ragna, and dies. Jin then falls into the cauldron after Ragna and Nu to become Hakumen during the Dark War. More time loop BS).

Meanwhile due to the Embryo, BS plot device, Lambda just.....comes back to life. Even though her soul was technically never a part of the story as it was NU’S soul in the body during CS. Anyways she is basically “good Nu” she is fighting the villains through sheer Power of Love and just wants to see Rgana again, she is pretty unimportant in the overall scheme of things.

After the world is remade Noel and Lambda move into the rebuilt church where Ragna and the siblings grew up and became nuns, looking after the comatose Nu who is kind of a vegetable with her sole reason for existing, Ragna, now no longer existing and all memory of him being erased.

Okay so after that lengthy summary, here are my thoughts.

1. the sister thing.

In spite of them being “clones” of Ragna’s little sister Saya, that hasn't stopped a shit load of ship teasing with the Murakumos by both the writers and the fandom.

Part of me thinks it’s because they go too far in the “They are their own unique people, they aren’t just fake copies of Saya” to which the fans mostly agree, but that just means while they aren’t Saya they are still related/connected to her. It isn't like Ragna can only have ONE sister.

Also, the reveal of Izanami being Saya at the end of CS also factors into this.

My only way to do mental gymnastics around this is saying that by “clone” they just mean copy/looks like her and has the same abilities, but genetically they are different.

I mean, we have no idea how Murakumos....work. They can't have any mechanical bits because we see them get zapped in-game and they have no metal, Noel CERTAINLY would've known she wasn't human if she didn't grow like a normal human or eat, sleep, produce waste, etc.

To me, Murakumos seem to be like software/computer programs given physical form via seithr. More like the Valentines in Guilty Gear, “robots” made up of information.

Plus, the story only ever points out the sibling connection with Ragna and Noel, and that’s in the LAST game and until then she’s just a stranger to him, with Lambda and Nu NEVER being treated the same.

And before anyone goes “BUT THE SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION OF CONE MEANS ‘HUR DE DUR, SAME DNA’ AND THEY USE THE WORD CLONE TO DESCRIBE THEM IN CANON! MEH!”, that could just be an over-simplification as to what they are, and I feel like a lot of series just rely on an oversimplification of terms. Like how Black Holes mostly work in fiction is NOT how they work IRL.

Now, does this mean I would’ve wanted Ragna to get with Noel or Lambda or Nu? Fuck no. I can appreciate cute little one-shots that have nothing to do with canon, but in terms of looking this train wreck of a story and trying to fix it they have other issues that make me not want to ship them.

I might go into why I wouldn't want Ragna x Noel in another post later, but I’ll stay on topic with Nu and Lambda.

Both are kind of boring

Lambda is basically Nu with less personality and is just a plot device for the most part.

As for Nu, even if you redeem her and keep her loving Ragna qualities without the yandere murder, it is still boring. because all her interests are Ragna she has nothing else going for her. Outside of the most generic romance shit what can you see Nu doing with him? it’s a bit upsetting because Nu seems like the type of person who’d have Ragna’s back and punch Jin in the dick if he insults or threatens Ragna, which is something I would LOVE in an S.O. for Ragna.  But without her own interests and character, she is just......boring. And yeah you could theorize that she gains an interest outside of Ragna post-redemption but that is too broad of a statement that I can’t really do anything with it.

So frankly, even IF we ignore the sister thing or do weird mental gymnastics about it, Ragna/Nu and Lambda would just be BORING as they are in canon outside of the most generic BS.

2. The connection between Nu and Lambda

Really Lambda was just made to keep Nu’s gameplay in while killing her in canon, that is a dumb excuse.

Some people like to see Lambda s Nu but redeemed temporarily but then come to CP and it’s like none of the Lambda stuff mattered. You’d think that at least Ragna would use Lambda’s death as an ace for his argument on using the Azure Grimoire as when he wasn't able to use it he got his shit kicked in and someone had to DIE for him because of that. But NOPE.

Then she is revived for bullshit fanservice reasons in CP Extend and is barely a thing in Story Mode

A while ago I made a post showing 3 ways they could've gotten rid of Nu that would’ve made good character moments. I will be focusing on number 3 here: Have Nu and Lambda be the same person.

Instead of Lambda being brought back via Embryo Bullshit, have Nu and Lambda be a split personality deal. Like Nu is the CS Mu to Lambda’s Noel. Say during Ragna’s Arcade mode or Nu’s Arcade mode Nu slightly hesitates when about to kill Ragna, reality flickers a bit revealing Lambda’s color scheme on Nu, showing that Lambda is within her. Nu’s soul spending time in Lambda has given her an alternate identity.

This doesn't just have to affect just Ragna, maybe Lambda remembers that Kokonoe mind-wiped her and tried to make her into a puppet thus making her no better than the villains.

During the climax, instead of Nu’s yandere rage, we have that mixed in with Lambda’s hysterical cries begging for death due to the torture of Nu’s memories. Both side tr and kill Ragna out of rage or trying to force him to kill them in self-defense. Ragna, of course, doesn’t and saves them, thus allowing Nu-Lambda to be brought back to Kokonoe and redeemed.

Maybe her hair is a mix of Nu and Lambda’s making it a Platinum Blonde (making it a mixture of Nu’s white hair and Lambda’s blonde hair), and the tanner skin complexion and red eyes further separate her from Noel.

3. Story roles

The first two games are fine for the most part but I have some ideas for the last two.

For the 3rd game, an idea I had was instead of Nu being the one to summon the Master Unit via stealing Noel’s power, have Amane do something important in this game instead of having him chase Carl.

he is said the be the “Uzume” like the god who stripped and made Amaterasu come out of the cave after her sibling fallout with Susano’o. Simply have Amane be the “herald of Amaterasu”, possibly being a being similar to Terumi, a spirit of a god unit. maybe not AS powerful as the Sankishin, but just under. This means that Nine’s Hino Kagutsuchi would fall under this category as well. Or maybe he simply has a story connection with Noel in accepting the part of her connection to the Origin and the Azure or something.

To go off of the shipping thing above, maybe to at least use the Saya soul thing, she is struggling with her feelings towards Ragna because how much of these feelings are her own, and how many are born from an isolated sibling’s misplaced love? This is probably something a villain taunts her about

I kind of theorize that Saya’s fear of other people instilled in her during the siblings’ days as lab rats and Ragna protecting her made her develop an unhealthy sister crush on him, this, of course, isn't helped by the Origin (who she is based on) wanting Ragan to be her knight in shining armor.

Again, more on this later possibly.

Anyways, so Lambda can get her own feelings in order and prove that she isn’t just a copy of Saya or Noel, she tries to make her own identity. maybe cutting off that large Murakumo ponytail in the process, b.c that’s an Asian culture thing about cutting hair to symbolize the beginning of a new stage in her life. Maybe after forgiving Kokonoe, she joins Sector Seven not as a field agent like Tager, but as Kokonoe’s new assistant and friend, showing that she isn't going to be used as a tool or a weapon.

I still need to get on with drawing Lambda in a lab coat styled after her Murakumo cloak.

As for at least Nu’s connection with Ragna. It is weird because I generally either hate or have enormous contempt for almost everyone Ragna has interacted with for the pettiest reasons. For Nu, while she is crazy towards Ragna and tries to kill him, it's due to her own psychosis and insanity, which is partially Ragna’s fault. Everyone else who gives Ragna shit is either a villain (in which case it’s fine because it is a VILLAIN, which Nu sort of counts as), or an arrogant asshole who KNOWS what they are doing for the lols. So I SORT OF give Nu a semi-pass. But like I stated above I can’t see what she would be if she were redeemed, so I do feel like if she wasn't going to be used as a way to bring Lambda back, she should've been killed.

 The point is, the Murakumos have a lot of potential for smaller things but they are incredibly mishandled in a lot of ways too, including showing up where they really shouldn't a lot of times. Shipping is okay so long as you are capable of doing mental gymnastics to ignore the sister shit, and don’t look at a whole lot of other issues.

These are just my thoughts and maybe I didn’t explain things enough, or I did it weirdly, or I have some different opinions, IDK. This series gives me a lot of feelings

#blazblue #nu-13 #lambda-11 #my thoughts #long post

[katebacks]

Daddy Issues Part I - Jeon Jungkook (M,A)

— pairing | Jeon Jungkook /Reader — word c | 7,592 — genre | Smut, angst, Stalker au! Killer au! psycho au!, horror. — summary |  [ When you started dating Jungkook, he was your gateway to all the pain but when you finally find out who he really is, you realize it’s too late to go back. You are in danger, and you know it, but worst of all is that you don’t want to escape. ]. — warnings/tags |   Bad words, oral (female receiving). violence, use of alcoholic beverages, drugs, sex, harassment. If you do not feel well with these themes, please do not read.

“Joy, this is a very bad idea, if we're seen leaving school at this time, we'll be suspended.”  You said as your friend pulled you down the corridor to the stairs leading to the first floor where there was an exit to the school garden.

“Sure, and where are they going to send us? We live here, (Y/N), they cannot suspend us because our parents pay for us to stay here and not in our homes.” She whispered, looking from side to side, being careful not to catch anyone's attention. “And today is Friday, we should enjoy our teenage years a little while we still have one, or we'll end up like Mrs. Fritz, unhappy at age 45, with a house full of cats to feed, waiting for death.”

“Okay, and where do you intend to go? The college is in the middle of nowhere, remember? There's only forest on all sides. The city is very far.”

“Taehyung is waiting for us at the entrance of the school. We just need to run.” She said and you rolled your eyes. You didn’t like to do wrong things, at least not anymore.

The last time you did something wrong, you were sent to that boarding school as your father's punishment. But being honest with yourself, you would rather stay there than to be forced to see your father taking a different woman to your home every day. You and your father had lived alone since your mother decided divorce him and marry a richer man. Your father spent most of his time working, or drinking in bars. You had lost count of how many times he had come home drunk and yelled at you, saying that it was all your fault, that your mother had left him was your fault, and when he was sober, even knowing what he had done , he acted as if nothing had happened. Your father had never done anything to physically hurt you, he just screamed how useless you were.

So when he decided he would send you to a boarding school after he had picked you up at the police station one early morning, you couldn’t feel any more relieved to be able to get away from him. You loved him, he was your father after all, but you didn’t want to go through all that humiliation any more. You'd miss your old friends, but it was better that way.

It was two years since you were there, and Joy was literally your best friend, she was the first to talk to you when you arrived and introduced you to all her friends, and they eventually became your friends too. Of all of them, Taehyung was the closest to you, he treated you like a younger sister although you have the same age, but Joy always said he had a crush on you, but you never listened, Joy always spoke too much. But you couldn’t deny that Taehyung was a handsome boy, he had those innocent, sincere eyes and that contagious smile. He was tall and always affectionate. But you would never see him otherwise.

After you reached the school gate, running away from all the night guards, you and Joy jumped on the red Taehyung’s convertible and he sailed away from there.

“Girls, you are stunning.” The blonde said smiling at the two who smiled back. You wore black slacks with some ripped, a white top and leather boots. Joy already wore a plaid mini-skirt with a red top with black boots. She always liked showing off more than you and you were okay with it.

"Where are we really going?" You asked after a few minutes on the road. Taehyung looked at you in the rearview mirror and Joy turned back, smiling at you, and did not even have to say anything to let you know where you were going. “Please don’t tell me we're going to Hell hound.”

“Oh yeah, baby.”

“Did you go crazy? They say that place is super dangerous, full of regulars gangs, and dangerous people. They said that many people were murdered and raped inside. Not to mention all the times that the police invaded that place and arrested drug dealers. And fuck, we're underage, if we try to get in there, we’ll get in trouble and...”

“Chill out, doll.” Taehyung said laughing and stretching his arm back, touching your knee, trying to calm you down. “We'll be fine. Nothing will happen to us. There's a lot of underage kids there, we're probably going to find half the school there, they all use fake IDs, but I have someone who's going to get us in there without us needing it. Just stay in ours, we will have no problems, okay? You can trust me.”

"If I die, I'll come back and kill you." You said leaning back and crossing you arms, pouting, which made the boy laugh.

“We have a deal.”

Taehyung really had someone to put them into the Pub without asking for identity or asking questions, which led you to think that he could only have bribed the securities, because money wasn’t a problem for him, since his father was one of the richest in the country. As soon as you entered the bar, you noticed how dark it was inside. You stopped to watch the dance floor and some tables around it. People danced rubbing each other and you didn’t know if you felt claustrophobic or happy to have agreed to go out with your friends. You've never been a fan of crowds. As you went down the stairs to the floor, you found yourself facing some of your classmates, many of them hadn’t even seen you since they were too busy eating someone propped up on the walls, getting drunk or using drugs. And those who saw you three just nodded and continued what they were doing.

Some people bumped into you and forced you to get even closer to Taehyung who was in front, leading the way.

The worst part of the parties for you were the drunks. Sober men can’t hear a no, so imagine drunk men? You hated it. You hated being touched without your permission. In fact, all women hated it.

Somehow, by the time they got to the liquor counter, Taehyung got some drinks for you, and even if you were not a big fan of alcoholic drinks, you gladly accepted it. You sat at a table facing the dance floor and you kept quiet listening to the two of them chat while you watched the place. It didn’t seem as dangerous as everyone said, just a little promiscuous and full of drug users, which really didn’t matter to you, you didn’t care about the lives of others unless they were your friends'.

While you were steeped in thoughts, you felt a chill, as if something was about to happen. You started looking sideways, searching for something you didn’t know what it was, until your eyes fell on a man, which made you totally lose your breath and choke. He had his black hair thrown back, and he was leaning against the wall under the stairs, across the room, almost hiding in the dark. He had his arms folded across his chest and his head tilted to the side. He wore an all-black outfit, from his blouse to his shoe. And he was looking at you.

It was hard to describe in words what you felt when you could even feel the intensity of his gaze on you, and what your body felt when his eyes passed through you. Your entire body warmed and involuntarily you squeezed your thighs, feeling your clit throb. God, what is this?

“I want to dance.” Joy said and suddenly you were being pulled onto the dance floor, losing sight of that man.

“Why don’t you take Taehyung?"

"Because Taehyung is a man and if I rub myself on him while I'm dancing, the guys here will think he's my boyfriend."

“If they see you rubbing yourself in a girl, they'll think you're a lesbian.” You said it loud enough for her to hear, and she laughed.

“Well, men have a fetish with two women dancing sensuously together, whether they're lesbians or not. So do me a favor and dance sensually so I can get a fuck tonight, or you'll have to put up with me masturbating in the bedroom for the rest of the month. Again.”

"You're a bitch."

"I know, honey, I know."

And Joy was right, two girls dancing together call more attention than a girl dancing alone, but you didn’t like the looks you were getting from some men standing around. As soon as a man approached you, you stepped back as he approached Joy. He was very handsome, was her style, so it was not long before the two of them were dancing and kissing in the middle of the dance floor. The music was very sexy and you loved to dance alone in your bedroom, pretending to be a sensual dancer, but you had no ounce of courage to dance the way you wanted to in the midst of all those people. Feeling uncomfortable there, you decided to get out of the crowd and go to the bar or look for Taehyung. But as soon as you moved, you spotted that same boy who was propped up under the stairs. You were hypnotized by him again.

He pushed away from the wall and all the other people in the room began to move in slow motion as he walked confidently toward you, not taking his eyes off you, not even looking where he stepped.

The sensual beats of music just helped you run out of air each time he got one step closer to you.

Push a little further on the edge

And it was closer.

Crawl a little further on the bed, babe

And closer.

I'm burning up, yeah, all I see is red

As soon as he was under the light that lit the dance floor, you can see him better and you were definitely right in feeling horny, aroused and intimidating at the same time, he was simply the most handsome man you had ever seen in life.

She said: Fuck me like I'm famous I said: Okay

“Breathe.” His voice said when he was very close to you, and only then you see that you had forgotten to breathe. Your cheeks burn. You felt like an inexperienced virgin, gasping for breath at the sight of a handsome man. You tried to open your mouth to say something, but the intensity with which he looked at you was making you unable to say anything. “I'm Jungkook.”

“(Y/N).” You answered lower than you should and didn’t know if he had heard because of the loud music, but he smiled and repeated your name, making melody to your ears. You've never been so fond of hearing your name come out of someone else's mouth.

“You don’t seem to be enjoying the party.” He said, looking you up and down slowly. "And you don’t seem to like dancing either."

“I like to dance…"

“Its not what it looked like a few seconds ago.” He said moving his eyes from you to Joy who was busy kissing a guy and then looked back at you. “You don’t seem the type who likes attention.”

“How do you know?" You asked, intrigued.

"The way you walk, you move in a way as if you don’t want to touch anyone, you have good moves to dance, but don’t let go of it with fear that draws much attention to you and I saw how quickly you moved away from all the guys who were trying hit on you. You're wearing black and white, neutral colors, colors that don’t draw attention. And you've arranged your hair in a way that makes it easier to hide your face when you're ashamed.” He said and you lowered your head, trying to hide the redness in your cheeks. “Just like you’re doing right now.”

"You seem to be very perceptive.” You raised your head trying to stand firm and not tremble beneath that man's gaze. "I don’t like crowded places."

"If you don’t like crowded places, then why did you came here?" He asked without taking his eyes from yours. You shrugged.

“My friends wanted to get out of the ... routine.” You answered. "They wanted to have fun in other ways.”

"You don’t look like you're having fun. That's not fair.” Jungkook licked his lips, almost making you stop breathing again, and looked around as if looking for someone. Soon after he looked at you and pointed in one direction. When you looked, you saw Joy walking away with that boy. And as soon as he pointed to another direction, you saw Taehyung sitting at one of the tables with a girl on his lap. You definitely were not amused watching your friends leave to be with other people. Wait, how did he know you knew Taehyung?

You turned to him with a frown and he looked at you with an unshakable expression.

“How did you ...”

"I saw you coming in with them."

“That's kind of bizarre.” You said, and he laughed, making you delighted by his laughter.

"It's not bizarre. I just got interested in you, shouldn’t I?”

You bit your lips and saw his eyes darken, staring at your mouth. He bit the corner of his mouth before approaching your ear, making your whole body shiver.

"Do you want to get out of here? We can talk in my car.”

"Don’t get me wrong, Jungkook, but we just met and I don’t know if I can trust you …"

“I understand.” He said with a disgruntled sigh, you really thought you had spoiled your chances with him, but then he reached into his pocket, took a key ring, and flung it over the people, across the dance floor. You stared wide-eyed, surprised at his action. “Well, I just threw my car keys away and I doubt I'll find them so soon, so now there's no way I can open my car, throw you in the trunk and kidnap you.”

“You're crazy.” You laughed out loud, still not believing what he had done. That was something. He was handsome, looked sweet and polite. What could go wrong? You nodded, giving him a smile.

Jungkook then wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you close as he guided you toward the exit, pushing away anyone who accidentally or purposely approached you. As you left the pub, you walked a few yards to the side of the bar, where there was the parking lot and a black Mustang parked a few feet from where Taehyung parked his car.

You two sat on the hood of the car and started talking like two friends, getting to know each other. It was already past midnight and during the conversation, you discovered some things about Jungkook. He was 23 years old, he was mechanic, had his own car workshop downtown, he was a good student at school and received letters from major universities but denied all, not wanting to spend four years of his life studying and then spend the rest of it behind of some table. Jungkook wanted to live, and as he liked cars, he had decided that he would start his own business. He was not from there, but lived for almost two years in the city. His parents lived in the countryside.

“I don’t have much to talk about me. My story is very boring." You said without taking your eyes off your hands that were on your lap. His hand came to rest on top of yours, making your attention turn to him. He looked at you sweetly, almost innocently, smiling shyly at you.

“I'm sure your story can be anything but boring.” He said it much lower than when you were at the party, since there were no loud songs and no thunderous noises to disturb your hearing. His voice was as soft and sweet as his smile. His fingers began to caress the back of your hand as he still stared at you.

“The story can be long ...”

“I have all the time in the world.”

You then told about what had happened to your family. You told how your mother left you, how things went after she left, how your father acted around you, how many nights you wished you hadn’t even been born. You told him how you became shy at school, how you pulled away most of your friends, and told about the night that ended up at the police station. Jungkook listened to you intently, ignoring the looks of some people walking through the parking lot.

"Has he ever hit you?" He asked with a certain tone of irritation in his voice, which went unnoticed by you.

“No, never, but the way things were, it wasn’t going to take long for that to happen.” You said laughing sarcastically. Jungkook took a deep breath and released the air slowly, looking away, clawing at his jaw. “But let's not talk about it. Tell me about your car workshop.”

So you continued to talk for a long time. And you couldn’t deny that you was attracted to him and him for you, so when you felt an ounce of courage while he talked about something, you leaned over and kissed him. He didn’t look surprised by your gesture, because he immediately reached into your hair and deepened the kiss. It was so intense you could barely breathe and it was so good that you couldn’t contain your moans as he pulled your hair.

In a few seconds he had come down from the hood and was now between your legs, one hand in your hair and the other over your breast, and neither of you cared to be in an open-air parking lot, you were more worried about the horny you were feeling.

"You shouldn’t have thrown your keys away." You whispered as soon as his lips left yours to kiss your neck. Your hands went to his hair and he laughed against your neck.

"There's another way to open a car, my dear."

”Then do it." You said raising his face. "Or fuck me against this car, now."

"I think I'm going to fuck you against this car. It seems more exciting to me.” He said thrusting his hand between your legs and stroking your clit over your pants. You moaned and pressed your nails around his neck, because the only thing you needed now was his dick inside you. “It looks like you're enjoying the caresses.”

“You have no idea, Jungkook.”

“(Y/N)!” Taehyung's voice caught your eye and you and Jungkook looked away, seeing your friend walking towards you. He looked at Jungkook from top to bottom, frowning before looking back at you and throwing his hands up as he stood beside the car.

“What the fuck are you doing out here? I looked for you everywhere. I was worried.”

“She is with me. You have nothing to worry about.” Jungkook replied staring Taehyung that stared back.

"And who the hell are you?"

“This is Jungkook, we met at the pub...”

“And you thought it would be a good idea to come to a dark, empty place with a guy you just met, (Y/N)? Are you crazy?” He didn’t even let you finish speaking before giving the sermon. You opened your mouth to answer, but he held up his hand to signal you to remain silent. “Let's just go back inside and get Joy. We are leaving.” He then turned his back and started walking toward the Pub.

“What if I don’t want to leave?” You asked standing up. Taehyung stopped abruptly and turned to you with frowns, as if he had not understood what you had said. “What if I want to stay for a few more hours? You will force me to go with you?”

“What the hell are you talking about? You said yourself that you didn’t want to come here, that this pub was full of junkies and violent people, but three seconds ago you were letting this stranger get his hand on your body.” He said loudly, almost screaming.

“Yes, I'm letting this stranger touch my body, and yes, I didn’t want to come here, but I came because you wanted me to, and now that I'm having fun you want me to leave?” You answered it in the same tone of voice. Jungkook leaned against the car and folded his arms, watching Taehyung's next actions, he was ready to intervene if necessary.

“Guys, why did you leave me alone in there?” Joy appeared out of nowhere, hugging her body because of the chill of dawn. Her hair was tousled and she had no more lipstick in her mouth. “Can we leave? I'm tired.”

“Sure, we're going.” Taehyung said without taking his eyes off of you as Joy entered the convertible. He was waiting for you to do the same, but instead you took two steps back approaching Jungkook and crossing your arms.

"You can go, I will not go now." You said, and even though it was dim, you knew Taehyung's face was red at that moment.

"I will not leave you alone here …"

"I'm not alone, I'm with Jungkook, and you don’t boss me, Taehyung. I'll leave when I want.”

He was annoyed, irritated, ever since Taehyung knew you, he had this protective spirit, he felt he had to protect you and when he couldn’t, he felt helpless, and that made him furious. Taehyung glanced toward Jungkook, who was in the same position as before, but now he had a more serious look on his face, and stared at Taehyung as if challenging him to say something.

"If you hurt her, I swear I'll come after you."

Jungkook let out a loud laugh, throwing his head back and chuckling at the boy's failed attempt to intimidate him.

“Yeah, yeah, just go, bro. Stop embarrassing yourself.” He said, waving his hand at the boy who took one last look at you before getting in the car and getting out of there. You took a deep breath, hated fighting with your friends but you was tired of always living for other people. You wanted to live for you now.

Reminding that Jungkook was still there, you stared at him with cheeks burning, ashamed that he had witnessed it all.

“I'm sorry... That ended the whole mood." You said putting your hand on your neck and looking away from him.

“It's okay, don’t worry.” He said holding her chin and making her look at him. He was smiling carefree, as if it hadn’t done effect on him. "There's a snack bar two blocks from here. We can go there, have a milk shake and eat something. Then I'll take you home. Or I can call you a taxi if you prefer.”

“I'll take the Milk Shake." You said smiling at him. "But only if it's chocolate."

It had been four months since you met Jungkook, and every opportunity you had to get out of that school and go somewhere else with him, you did. With that, you ended up moving away from your friends because even though you could only use the cell phone once a week for fifteen minutes, Jungkook had bought a new one for you so you could communicate with him, so all your free time, dinner, breaks, you were talking to him.

"What are you doing here, you freak?" You whispered laughing at the sight of the boy leaning against the wall behind the school building, waiting for you. He smoked a cigarette and was relaxed as usual. It was almost five in the afternoon when you received his message, saying that he would be waiting for you behind the building, on the north side of the school, where you used to go to jump over the walls without being caught. One of the only places that wasn’t monitored by cameras. "If they catch you here, you'll be arrested."

"They will not catch me." He said holding your waist and pulling you close to him. “Besides, you worth the risks.” Then he kissed you, a calm, passionate kiss. He dropped his cigarette on the floor and used both hands to hold your face and caress it at the same time. "I missed you." He said between the kiss, lowering one hand to your waist and squeezing it. He bit your lip, making the fire inside you burn.

"Me too." You whispered as he slowly turned his body, placing you back against the wall, lowering one hand to your thigh and lifting it, placing it on his waist. "But I don’t have much time. In fifteen minutes I need to be in the gym." You said as his kisses touched your neck, causing you to roll your eyes and hold yourself so you didn’t moan.

“So I have to make you cum fast." He said putting his hand between your legs, inside your panties, caressing your clitoris that was already swollen and soaked with your juice. You gasped and grabbed Jungkook's arm, preventing him from moving. He looked at you with a sassy look, waiting for you to say something.

"You know I can’t be silent. Someone will catch us."

"No one will get us, baby. Don’t you trust me?"

"With my life." You answered without hesitation, and he smiled, leaning forward and kissing you. Then he kissed your cheek, your ear, your neck, your breasts over your T-shirt, until he knelt in front of you and gave you a wicked look before lifting your thigh and placing on his shoulder, lifting your skirt, pulling your panties to side and start to eat you out. You immediately covered your mouth and threw your head back, your body shuddering as you felt Jungkook's tongue caressing the full extent of your cunt. Your other hand went into Jungkook's hair and you moved your hips against his mouth, unable to control yourself. You needed to come.

“You're so sweet.” He whispered against your clit and his tongue licked again, spurring you even more as he stared into your eyes.  His free hand gripped one of your thighs, increasing the strength he used and the speed of his tongue. You felt your cunt pulsing, You was reaching the apex. Jungkook seemed to focus on one specific point, which made you let out a hoarse groan and finally cum as the spasms spread through my body.  You closed your eyes as you felt his tongue wandering around your entrance, sucking all your juice. Your mind cleared, your muscles relaxed and you felt good.

He stood up and kissed you, hugging your still shaking body.

"I love you," you whispered as he let you lean your forehead against his chest. Jungkook smiled and stroked your hair. That was the first time you'd said that.

"I know." He said and you laughed punching his arm and moving away from him. He laughed and took a step back.

"Idiot, I'm serious."

"Me too." He laughed approaching again and using his large hands to hold your face. And then he looked serious and stared your eyes with the same intensity he had whenever he looked into the depths of you, as if he looked at your soul. “I love you too, my lady.” And he kissed you again. "And I want to see you tonight."

"Same time?" You asked with closed eyes, delighting in the short, slow kisses he gave in your lips.

"Yes, I'll be waiting."

"Okay, now go, or you'll get us both in trouble." You said pushing him away. Jungkook looked indignantly at you.

"You use me and now you throw me away. Women are all the same." You laughed at his failed attempt to be innocent. You gave him a quick kiss.

"See you later, asshole." And so you turned away. Jungkook watched you walk away.

"I cannot wait for this."

You were in love with him in a way you couldn’t explain, you thought about him all day, wanted him all day. You wanted to be with him all the time, because Jungkook was intense, he was relentless, he gave you life, and that was what you loved him the most.

Everything was going well until the day you were discovered by school security. You and Jungkook were in the car, a few yards from the entrance of the school, you were on his lap in the backseat, rolling in his lap and kissing him when a strong light struck your face and you two looked to the side, seeing one of the school security guards there, knocking at the door and ordering you to get out.

That was weird. The security guards only patrolled the perimeter of the school, the gates and walls inside, there was no way they knew you were there. And your suspicions were confirmed when the same security officer said that someone had made an anonymous denunciation of an out-of-school student. And you were already sure who did it.

The security guard woke the principal to tell him what had happened, and he said with a furious expression that he would talk to you the next morning. When you reached the bedroom, Joy was asleep on her stomach in bed. You could wake her up and question why she had told them about your hang out with Jungkook. but if you did, you would yell at her and wake up the entire dorm, putting you in even more trouble, so you waited the next morning.

“Why did you do that? I thought you were my friend. Why did you tell him? "You asked the girl who was confused by both her drowsiness and your questions.

“I told you I didn’t say anything, (Y/N). I swear. The only person I told was Taehyung, because he wouldn’t stop asking where you were and I had to tell him, but I swear it was only for him.”

It was when you connected the points, if she didn’t say anything and only told Taehyung, then he was the only one who could have told the security. You knew he had some anger at Jungkook, but you didn’t understand why. Of all the time you studied there, those were the happiest months of your life, so why would he ruin it?

You turned your back on Joy and left the room already wearing your school clothes, heading toward the men's dormitory where girls were barred, but you were already really screwed, so you just don’t give a fuck.

As soon as you reached the bedroom door, you punched it hard until a sleepy, irritated Taehyung opened the door. The moment he saw you there, his face softened, but after seeing your condition, he knew he had fucked it all up.

“(Y/N)...”

"Why did you do that?" You asked before you let him make an excuse. He sighed and left the room closing the door behind him.

“Look, I'll give you my reasons, but it has to be later. You need to get out of here, if the monitors catch you ...”

“No, Taehyung, I want to know now.” You raised your voice. “Why the hell do you hate Jungkook so much? Why do you want me to break up with him? And why the hell did you tell the security guard that I was with him last night? Are you aware of what this will cause to me?”

"I don’t trust that guy…"

“You don’t have to trust him, you asshole, I have, he's my boyfriend, not yours.” You screamed furiously, your face turning red. “Stop intruding on my life and make the decisions for me, Taehyung!”

"(Y/N), he can be dangerous." He shouted back and some of the students left their rooms, curious to know what was happening. “Look, I've been researching, asking some people, and he might be involved in drug trafficking and even murder. Many people on the north side of the city are afraid to even pass near him because they say he is extremely violent.”

"You went out asking questions about my boyfriend? Throughout the city?" You asked, taking a step back, not believing what you were hearing. “You must be kidding me.”

“Yeah, I did it. I needed to keep you safe ...”

“No Taehyung! You needed to keep me single for one day finally build up the courage and say you like me.” You screamed furiously toward him. Taehyung was paralyzed, his eyes wide for a few moments, simply without reaction or words for that moment. “You want me single because you want me for you and you don’t want me to be someone else's.”

“Where you...”

“Joy told me." You interrupted him and he was pale. “I hadn’t believed in the beginning, because to me you were only treating me as your best friend, but now I understand that you want me to break up with Jungkook to stay with you, but this will not happen Taehyung, because what I feel for him, I will never feel for you.” You hissed bitterly. You were so hurt with him that you wanted him to get hurt too, and from his gaze, you had managed to do that.

“You shouldn’t be here, young lady." The dorm monitor, who was also a student, said, and you turned to him in disgust.

“Fuck you." You exclaimed and turned away, heading to the stairs and out of there. As soon as you stepped into the garden and walked toward the women's building, one of the students said that the Principal was looking for you. You sighed and went to the principal's office, hesitating to go in because you knew what would happen from then on.

As you entered the room, you were surprised to see your father sitting in the armchair in front of the boardroom table. He was red, the expression on his face was the same as he used have when cursed you and blame you for everything bad in his life, but this time he seemed to be sober.

You sat in the armchair beside him, not daring to look at him, just listening to what the principal had to say. He said that your behavior was unacceptable, that leaving school out of the allowed hours was against the rules and dating as well. He quoted everything he had to say and said that he wouldn’t just kick you out because you was a good student and had the best grades but would suspend you for a week. He allowed his father to take you home that week, and he just nodded, not saying a word to the principal.

Once you were released, the principal said you should go to your room and pack your bags, and so you did. You and your father walked side by side until you got to your room. When you opened the door, he pushed you tightly inside, making you lose your balance and fall on your knees on the floor.

“It was for that I sent you here?” He screamed, slamming the door behind him and advancing against you who had no chance to defend yourself when he grabbed your hair and pulled you violently up, making you moan with pain. “Did you come here to fuck with thugs? Hmm?” He threw you violently against the bed, banging your back against the wall and your head on the headboard. "You're a bitch just like your mother."

“This is not true.” You said it trembling, forcing yourself to sit and brush your hair off your face, trying not to stutter, but then you fell back down when he hit your face with a slap, throwing you back on the bed, making you scream and not hold back the tears.

“Shut your fucking mouth. You're never going to change, it's always going to be this bitch that only brings me problems. What is the difficulty of you not getting into trouble, (Y/N)? Do you have any mental problems that keep you from being rational?” He screamed and you cried, with your hand on the cheek that he had hit the slap, curled in the bed. “Do you think it's fun to go out there doing shit so I have to fix it later?”

“Dad...” You started to speak, but he grabbed your arm, squeezing it hard, lifting you brutally, making you even more desperate to see the furious look in his eyes. You had never seen him so violent. He'd never leaned a finger against you to hurt you, so why was he doing it now?

“You and I have a lot to talk about this week, you whore. So you better stop crying and start packing your bag before I lose my patience and drag you out of here by the hair, without any belongings.” He said between his teeth and pushed you back to the floor once more. So he turned his back and left the room, slamming the door behind him and you shrank on the floor, crying, feeling the pain in your body and in your heart. Why was that happening? You had done nothing to deserve it. Why did he seem to hate you so much? What had you done to him?

The cell phone that Jungkook had given you, began to vibrate beneath your pillow, and you knew that at that moment, he was the only one you wanted to talk to. You raised your arm and reached under your pillow, answering the phone, sniffling and sobbing.

“Love, what happened?” He asked from the other end of the line and listening to his voice only made you cry even more. Your chest was aching, you felt lonely, helpless and certainly in danger. “(Y/N), why are you crying? What is happening? Where are you?” He started bombarding you with questions and you could hear his keys on the other side.

“Jungkook.” You only managed to say his name before breaking into tears again. You heard the car door slamming across the line.

“It’s okay, baby, I’m coming to you. Stay where you are, okay? I’ll come to you. Don’t worry, don’t cry, your Jungkook is coming.” He said and before you could try to say something, or that he could hang up, your dad came screaming back into the room, making you scream too and crawl away from him, squeezing the phone between your fingers, afraid he'd take away the only thing that was giving you security at that moment.

“Who are you talking to, you slut? I told you to pack your things.” He yelled as he yanked the cell phone out of your hand, making you moan at the force he used, hurting your wrist. You were desperate and could hardly breathe, your body was shaking too much for you to react so you just started screaming for help and cringed once more. You were horrified at everything that was going on, scared, confused, and just wanted your father to get away from you. He looked at the phone screen, seeing that the call was still active. “Are you the thug who was eating my daughter, your bastard?” The only thing he could hear from the other side was the sound of the car moving, followed by Jungkook’s cold voice.

“You are dead.”

So the call dropped and at the same moment, two security guards who had heard your screams entered the bedroom, then pulled your father away from you, who started protesting in shouts that they should let him go. As they walked away from the room, you finally breathed again and stood up, legs trembling, hugging your body and walking slowly out of the room where some of the girls began to appear and looked wide-eyed at you.

“Oh my god, (Y/N).” Joy approached you, intending to hug you, but you pulled away from her, holding the cry again, a lump forming in your throat. As you walked down the stairs, with all the female dormitory students looking at you, you could hear your father's screams from the security guards outside the building. As soon as you left, the students watching your father now looked at you. Among them was Taehyung who had wide eyes and put his hand to his mouth, horrified. He didn’t hesitate to move toward you, to comfort you, but you pushed him hard back.

“This is all your fault.” You shouted with all your strength to him, making his eyes fill with water.

“(Y/N)...” He started to speak, but the Mustang's engine roar could be heard, and you looked at the road through the forest, watching Jungkook's car come in with everything, knocking over the guardrails of the secondary gate and skidding on the wet garden grass. He stormed out of the car, slamming the door and striding toward the crowd at the foot of the staircase. He had fists clenched and a killer look in his eyes. You had never seen him like that, and honestly, he was scaring you. As his eyes hit yours, he frowned and ran toward you, just as you did, burying yourself in his chest, tearing into tears once more. Jungkook pressed you against his chest and stroked your hair as his eyes scanned the place, trying to identify who had done that to you. That was when he saw the man shouting at the security guards, his voice the same as the man on the phone. He seemed to be blind at the moment.

Jungkook released your body, making you open your eyes, missing his embrace and passed among the students, shoving them all violently away from his way, before approaching the security guards who were on their backs, distracted trying to contain their father, and overtook them, hitting the man's nose with a sharp punch that fell immediately on his back.

The security guards tried to hold Jungkook, but he managed to knock them down too.

“Do you think you can hurt her and not get punished for it, you fucking asshole?” He screamed in a menacing voice, making everyone step back. He then hit a kick in his stomach, making him moan in pain and you cover his mouth, stiffing a scream. “I'll teach you to never touch what is mine.”

And before he could strike another blow, Taehyung stepped in front of him, pushing him back. Jungkook didn’t hesitate to advance against Taehyung as well, and the two began to roll on the floor, exchanging punches and blows. And most of the time, it was Jungkook who hit him. He stood over Taehyung, immobilizing him with his legs, holding him tightly by the neck and began to strike blows against his face.

"Jungkook." You called for him and he stopped his fist in the air, looking over his shoulder at you. You were scared, destroyed. You'd never seen him be so violent with anyone, so that scene was shocking.

He took a deep breath, as if controlling his killer instinct, and stood up, walking on his back for a few seconds, watching the fallen men on the floor, before turning and approaching you, wrapping his arms around your back and beneath your legs, carrying you toward the car where he put you in the passenger seat and got in, driving away from there.

The way to his house was quiet, he did not say a word and you did not either. You were too shaken to say anything. In your head, the images of your father beating you and Jungkook spanking Taehyung looped in your head and that made you wonder if you could trust him, if he would not do you, the same as he did with others.

As he parked in front of the house, he was the first to leave the car and opened the door for you, holding out his hand and waiting for you to pick it up. Still sobbing, you held his and got out of the car, being guided by him inside. You then paused for a moment, not knowing what to do.

"Baby." Jungkook stood behind you, hugging you from behind and placing his chin propped on your shoulder. It was strange how with him, you calm down easily, even after what had happened.

"I want to take a shower." You whispered and he nodded, releasing you. You then walked to the bathroom and leaned against the door. You took off your clothes, feeling the pain in your body, and tossing them to the floor. You turned on the shower and went under the warm water. Still not believing what was happening, you started to cry, sliding to the floor, sitting down, cowering and crying compulsively. Lamenting everything. And without even realizing it, Jungkook was joining you, still in his clothes, sitting down beside you and pulling you into his lap, letting you cry as the water washed away your tears of pain and betrayal.

“It's okay, baby.” He whispered to you, kissing the top of your forehead, staring at the wall in front of him with dark, menacing eyes. "He'll never hurt you again, I promise.”

all rights reserved © katebacks | 2018/2019 — no reposting and/or modifying of any form on any medium is allowed. no translations allowed.

#jungkook smut #bts smut #jeongguk #jeongguk smut #jeon jungkook smut #jeon jeongguk smut #smut #bangtan #bts #jungkook #jjk #jungkook x reader #bts x reader #stalker #thriller #bts horror au #bangtan smut #jeon jeongguk angst #jeon jungkook angst #jungkook angst #bts angst

[mikami]

Death Note Audio Drama 02

Disk 2: Collateral Damage - a summary / partial translation

Disk 1 and an attempted explanation of What This Is are here.

This episode also isn’t particularly wild as far as plot diversion goes, but it changes a key element of how Death Note manipulation works and.... introduces a whole lot of Matsuda trivia, somehow. We also say hi and bye to Naomi.

___________________

We begin with Naomi tracking down the bus driver of the busjacking. The driver is really annoyed that people keep tracking him down to ask him about it. Naomi asks about Raye. (Her vacation pic is from Honolulu in this version). Naomi presses the driver to tell her as much as he remembers about the other passengers.

_____

TITLE MUSIC PLAYS

_____

We’re back in time. Light is trying to think about how to get Raye Penber’s name. His dad’s computer has no notes about it. Light deduces that his dad doesn’t even know about the tailing. Ryuk brings up the eye deal.

RYUK: I can offer you the eyes of a shinigami.

LIGHT: U-uh, you mean a real pair of eyes? That’s disgusting!!

RYUK (amused): No, I just mean the power of those eyes.

The lifespan halving gets brought up and Light just goes “uhm... no thanks”, literally. 

LIGHT: Are there any more surprises? Some kind of bonus point system? Fine print? 

RYUK: Uuuuuhm, can’t think of anything much right now.

LIGHT: You could have written it into the Death Note, alongside the other rules. I don’t like to be led by the nose, I’m not your goddamn----

RYUK: ... what?

LIGHT: I am not your puppet.... But I can get one for myself.

RYUK: I don’t get it.

LIGHT: I know now, how to get my pursuer’s name. And that’s without making any kind of contract with you.

_______

A TV transmission. An attorney has issued a lawsuit against prisons for the way prisoners die. His client died of heart attack after writing a pentagram in his own blood. He was close to being pardoned. The lawyer says that the government has a duty to ensure safety of the prisoners, no matter what they are in for. 

_______

L and Soichiro discuss the murder and other abnormal murders like it. They have Soichiro be the one to discover the “L did you know” message, oddly. But they don’t really detail how it is coded, so it might have just literally been written down word by word in this version. L tells Soichiro to not tell anyone about this, not even his team. Soichiro immediately says he’ll only keep it in her personal data files.......

_______

RYUK: Are you really sure you should snoop around your dad’s office like this?

LIGHT: If you want a useful way to keep your eyes busy, why don’t you keep watch?

RYUK: I am not your partner. Oh, an apple. [eats]

LIGHT: Luckily, I can do just fine without your help. A-ha! Interpol listed them all!

RYUK: All your extremely dramatic deaths?

LIGHT: More or less. Seems like not all I wrote into the notebook actually happened.

They go over the stipulations of manipulation needing to be physically doable for the victim. 

LIGHT: And now I just need... a catalyst.

_______

News transmission. A news entry about the killer of the Amane parents having died. Channel switch. A Christmas-themed advertisement for Space Land. Channel Switch. A news feature about Kiichiro Osoreda and his failed bank robbing.

______

Light meets Yuri and Yuri’s dialogue is kept pretty accurate to the manga, which is something that I found really disappointing actually. Light’s and Ryuk’s dialogue here is also very close to the original. 

Raye Penber complains that he’d like to do real policework at some point again, otherwise he acts the same as in the manga here.

The whole busjacking is just really manga-close. But when Raye says he’s police undercover...

LIGHT: Oh, really? And how do I know you’re not in cahoots with this madman?

PENBER: And who are you? A detective?

YURI: His dad is a detective, that’s why he’s so smart.

LIGHT: Do you have ID? Otherwise I’ll have to deal with you first. 

PENBER: Of course! Here.

LIGHT: Raye Penber... FBI? What is the FBI doing on a bus to Space Land?

PENBER: This isn’t really the time for that, boy.

LIGHT: Alright, cowboy, then toss your lasso already. 

I cannot overstate that he literally says this. Word by word. After that, the scene returns to its canon version. The bizarre thing is that Ryuk explains the plan out loud, including telling Light’s name to Otoharada. Of course, Otoharada is brainwashed and acting according to script, but still weird.

_______

News transmission. The busjacking gets described. Light turns the news off and shows the Death Note entry to Ryuk, who reads it out loud. 

______

We hear a New Year’s countdown. 

WATARI: What in Hercules’ name was that?

INTERPOL REP (still clinking champagne glasses): It’s the time difference, Mr. Watari! It’s midnight, here in the USA. 

WATARI: Oh... I am so very sorry. I must have lost my overview. 

INTERPOL REP: Forget about it. Just a moment.

She leaves the party room. She informs Watari of the deceased FBI agents. It happened three days ago, but she only got the report now, thanks to the holiday crunch. She now refuses to involve the FBI further. 

______

Soichiro calls L. He’s pissed about L involving the FBI, now that he’s heard. 

______

Back with Watari and the Interpol Rep (her name is Paula Virilio and she’ll be referred to as Virilio in the future) are still talking about the matter. She tells Watari that on Dec 28th all the agents asked about names and photos of their coworkers, so she gave the first four the file and asked them to pass it further.

______

Soichiro is really mad about Virilio’s miss-step too. L and Soichiro work out that they need to know who sent the first email about the files. The phone call ends.

The Task Force is really mad about L still not taking the same risks as them. They actually seriously consider L being Kira for a moment. 

______

The Task Force enter the hotel L is staying in. Pardon me for sometimes just saying ‘someone’ as the speaker, I find the Task Force really hard to tell about and without context cues I am often lost.

MATSUDA: A whole hotel suite? How do you earn the money for this stuff?

L: By being smarter than everyone else, Detective Matsuda.

MATSUDA: You are... [He corrects himself from the formal ‘you’ used to address adults to informal ‘you’ here] You are L....?

L: The one. Please sit down, gentlemen.

MATSUDA: He’s still a child...

L (laughs): I am old enough to vote, Mr. Matsuda. Old enough to carry a weapon, to marry, to fall in love... and to catch a murderer.  And you are Chief Inspector Yagami. I also know you from TV.

SOICHIRO: Yes, here’s my ID, for protocol. This is Matsuda, as you know. Detectives Aizawa, Ukita, Mogi...

L: A group of dead men. 

SOICHIRO: Excuse me, what?

L: If I really was Kira, you’d all be dead now. 

MATSUDA: How can we know that, boy?

L: Because you are not dead, detective. 

MATSUDA: We call that kind of thing circular logic.

L: I call someone like you an idiot. 

MATSUDA: I don’t need to listen to this from a civilian, you little shitty---

SOICHIRO (softly): Matsuda. 

L: You name is Touta Matsuda. Graduated from Kumamoto University. Passion for sports cars and every Thursday, you go to the cinema. Big drama. Not in a relationship right now, but in pining hope for something complicated with Noriko Takai. Hm. A very concerning sympathy for both [???? I DONT KNOW THE WORD] as well as country music. Loves Korean cuisine, but....

SOMEONE: He’s got your number, Matsuda.  

MATSUDA: So what? You all can easily figure out the same from social media.

L: Yeah, that’s what I can do. Everything. About you, and your sister, and your stupid aunt who doesn’t know how to properly set the privacy settings of her account. I know where you live, you tool--

SOICHIRO: I think we got it, L. 

L: Really? Kira plays this game to win. I agreed to meet you, because you were all getting nervous about working with an anonymous specialist, so I am here. To get my hands as dirty as yours. But really, is this necessary...?

SOICHIRO: What do you want, L?

L: I want you to take this seriously.

SOMEONE: In the face of 12 dead agents, matters are serious enough, I think.

L: Correct, so you take care to not become number 13. All of you have to disappear. Get off social media, get new email accounts. If you address the public or the press, you will introduce yourself with these names. You are not going to tell anyone your real names. That’s exactly why I am still alive.

And this is how we get the fake IDs.

_____

Naomi at the NPA. The receptionist refuses to let her speak to anybody from the Task Force. Light steps in, to hand in the spare clothes for his dad. His dialogue with Naomi is similar to the manga, but audio drama Light’s insistence and volunteering of excessively much info he shouldn’t have.... it makes me laugh.

LIGHT: And you are looking for my father?

NAOMI: Uh, yeah, I--

LIGHT: I can tell you’re up to speed, miss. You’re definitely correct to not just tell your matter to the next best person. Especially after those FBI murders. We’re all suspects, am I right?

NAOMI: U-uh, I didn’t say that---

LIGHT: If you’d like, I’d gladly get you in contact with my father. I’ll get through to him, even if he usually rejects calls.

RYUK: Take the bait, missy, take it...

NAOMI: Would that be alright, u-uh, Light?

RYUK: Aaand, bullseye!

LIGHT: Why don’t we take this conversation somewhere else?

RYUK: There’s just too many video cams here.

LIGHT: As long as we don’t know how Kira kills his victims, I’d suggest a less public place. 

_______

LIGHT: Okay, where were we? My name is Yagami. Light Yagami.

NAOMI: Shouko Maki.

RYUK: And my name is Ryuk, but you’re not actually able to see or hear me.

LIGHT: I think Kira is capable of more than simply killing people. It seems as if he could influence their actions before their deaths.

NAOMI: I think the same. And here I thought I was alone with it. Yes, he can control people before he kills them. But that’s not all. He can also kill them through other means than heart attacks.

RYUK: Who is this little snooper?

LIGHT: Should that be the case, we might be facing even more murders than thought. There are cases that haven’t been considered in connection to Kira yet.

NAOMI: Exactly. Those might be cases Kira hoped would stay secret. I am fairly sure that someone... someone I know... has met Kira.

LIGHT: Hah. It might be hard to get someone to believe this statement.

NAOMI: That’s why I came in person to explain the circumstances of the case.

LIGHT: Wouldn’t it be even more convincing if your friend told his own story?

NAOMI: He can’t. He was one of the murdered agents. 

RYUK: Oh, now it’s getting interesting.

NAOMI: He was my fiancé. He told me that he got involved in this busjacking. By now, I assume that Kira was on that bus as well.

RYUK: She’s talking about Raye Penber, wow. 

NAOMI: Something wrong?

LIGHT: Why are you assuming that Kira was on the bus?

NAOMI: Name and face of the culprit were on the media day by day. He was on the run after a totally miscalculated bank robbing. And then, 8 days later, shortly after Christmas... My fiancé dies. Together with his 11 colleagues.

LIGHT: The connection seems vague to me.

RYUK: What he wants to say is.... perfect match.

NAOMI: Something must have happened there. I think that my fiancé and the culprit were used by Kira to get to the other 11 agents. 

LIGHT: The culprit was hit by a car, it wasn’t a heart attack. This is how you got to the conclusion that Kira can control actions?

NAOMI: Yes. 

LIGHT: That seems pretty far fetched. 

RYUK: It really isn’t, lady.

NAOMI: Even the first time I heard of the busjacking, the circumstances seemed strange to me. I kept asking my fiancé questions, I basically interrogated him to tell me the story again and again. 

LIGHT: And... what was his story?

______

We flash back to Naomi and Raye talking. Both of their voices are tense.

RAYE: Yes, I showed my ID to one of the passengers, okay?! Are you happy now?

NAOMI: You shouldn’t have done that!

RAYE: I know that! It was complicated. The guy wouldn’t have cooperated without me proving that I’m a cop.

NAOMI: You were undercover, Raye! 

RAYE: Stop that! You weren’t there. 

NAOMI: You had explicit order to not blow your cover.

RAYE: And you are the only person who knows I have done that. If you don’t tell anybody, nobody will ever know. 

NAOMI: But I am not the only one. Isn’t that right? We still don’t know how Kira finds and executes his victims. You can’t afford even a single misstep.

RAYE: You’d probably prefer he’d shot all the passengers then.

NAOMI: Ugh, Raye, that’s not the point---

RAYE (hitting the table): Of course that is exactly the point!! 

______

LIGHT: This whole situation isn’t free of emotions. 

NAOMI: So?

LIGHT: I just want to make sure your feelings aren’t influencing your analysis skills.

RYUK: Which are working quite excellently.

NAOMI: Hey, you. I was a special agent with several decorations before I gave up my career to marry Raye. I’m not just some random brat.

LIGHT: I agree with you, the suspicion warrants a closer inspection. 

They keep talking, Light himself brings out the deduction that the person Raye identified himself to was Kira.

______

We’re with Ukita on phone duty. Someone who thinks they are Kira is calling. Ukita is already pretty annoyed, even before the guy talks of other hallucinations. He hangs up quickly.

_______

SOICHIRO: is it important?

MATSUDA: No, boss. Ukita is just whining again. He doesn’t want to be on phone duty anymore. He texted: “When do I get a hotel suite with 24/7 room service?”

SOMEONE: Does he think we’re just chilling here?

SOMEONE: Probably. Uhm, do you want the final shrimp?

SOMEONE: Take it.

They then move on to talk about surveillance footage of the FBI agent deaths. They have footage from 3 deaths, one of them is Raye Penber. They have the most material on him. They realize he’s done more than a full round on the Yamanote line. They also notice him having an envelope that disappears. They conclude Kira was on the train, receiving it.

______

Light makes his first attempt to kill Naomi, same cause of death as in the manga. Naomi wants to go back to the NPA building now. Light comes with her, as he notices she isn’t dying. 

_____

Ukita on the phone again. Akiko Misora is calling about her daughter Naomi being misses. Ukita is pretty annoyed (”Oh really? Was she kidnapped by aliens or something?”). Akiko explains that Naomi came to Japan with her fiancé,  but he died and shortly after Naomi also fell out of contact. Akiko complains about how much paperwork getting the ashes to the US was, and says how charming Raye was and how good his Japanese was...... Ukita wants to get rid of her, until Akiko tells him Raye’s name.

____

The Task Force discusses Naomi’s existence and disappearance. She left her hotel at Dec. 29th and has been missing since. They all suspect that Naomi, being an ex-agent, has started her own investigation. But they also worry someone found her.

_____

Light explains to Naomi that the Kira team doesn’t meet with people on principle, because of the risk. He calls them ‘us’ and Naomi picks up on it, leading Light to explain he is a member of the task force. (Ryuk: “And if you believed that one, you might as well buy a fake Rolex of him now.”) Light invites Naomi to the team, like in the manga. Naomi does a lot of nervous laughing in this scene, but she does give him her real ID.

______

The task force think about Naomi, and her existence in connection to Raye being the first one to send an email to Virilio. They decide to place cameras and bugs in the houses of those who were investigated by Raye. It’s the families of Kitamura and Yagami. 

______

Light writes Naomi’s name down again, this time her real one. They walk together some more. Light points out that Naomi doesn’t just want to investigate but also to hear the full story about Raye’s death. 

NAOMI: I already knew on the day of that something was wrong. Raye was acting really strangely. He got up and left, without a word. He even forgot his cellphone. 

LIGHT: Oh, is that unusual?

NAOMI: I followed him downstairs. He was at the reception and made them print something for him. I gave his phone to him, but he said nothing at all. He was so.. empty.

LIGHT: Distracted?

NAOMI: ... empty. Not a smile, not a kiss. He took the phone and left. At the time I still thought ‘well, maybe an order’. Next thing you know, the police arrives at the hotel. Asked me to come with them... identify the body. I have no idea what happened in the final hours of his life. 

LIGHT: I do. I know the details of Raye Penber’s death down to the very last second. 

NAOMI: I haven’t even told you his full name yet...

LIGHT: He entered the station via the west entrance. Past the street musician who always plays there. He passed the ticket entrance at 11 past 3. He went down to the Yamanote line, in the direction of Kanda. 

NAOMI: I don’t understand... That’s only too stations if you directly take the Chuo line. Why this giant detour?

LIGHT: Because someone was waiting for him. The Yamanote line is the perfect place for a meeting. It has stops everywhere and nowhere. 

_____

We launch into a flashback to the Yamanote line. Light walks up to Raye and greets him, but Raye does not answer him. Light introduces himself at more depth, even using his full name and calling himself Kira right after. Raye continues to not answer. Ryuk realizes that Raye cannot answer because that is how Light has written it down. Light keeps chatting, explaining his plan to Raye. On the train, he makes Raye watch as he writes the names of all his colleagues. He also touches Raye with the notebook, to let him see Ryuk. Raye can’t do anything.

____

LIGHT: Well, Naomi, I’m afraid Raye was just sitting there. His eyes widened a little. Panicked, you know?

RYUK: Yes, panic just about cuts it. Just like the face you are making right now, darling.

LIGHT: But he couldn’t move. Just like you right now. I was quite precise with my orders, you see? 

Light continues to explain that he needed the names of the other agents and that he can do anything to people whose names he has. 

_____

The task force discusses the family surveillance further. Light says the chance of Kira being among those people is 5%, but this is their only lead. Soichiro tells L to be thorough with his surveillance, like in the manga.

_____

LIGHT: All Raye could do was sit there until the time was ripe. And then get up...

RYUK: Without a word, Naomi. Silent like a fish.

LIGHT: And he left the train at Kanda station. 

RYUK: And then he died. 

LIGHT: Right on the platform, so to say. 

RYUK: He extended his hand like in a bad movie. As if he wanted to say ‘I am cursing you’ or something.

LIGHT: And thus, Raye Penber died. I find it regrettable. 

RYUK: Because he wasn’t a murderer. Which you also aren’t, Naomi. Just wrong place, wrong time... Collateral damage.

LIGHT: But I think you understand, Naomi, that I can’t leave you alive, if I want to keep working. I know you want to move, to hit me. I know that you wish above all else to take the gun out of your pocket. But none of that will happen, because I already put your final moments into motion. And that means I’m the one who’s in power here. 

Ryuk asks what she’ll do. Light explains that he wrote the same conditions as on the first try, about her suicide.

LIGHT: So Naomi, I think you know what to do. Now go. 

RYUK: And there she went. A woman with a mission. 

LIGHT: Hey, Naomi! Want me to call my dad? Still want to talk to him, tell him everything you learned today? Hm? .... and she just keeps walking. 

RYUK: She didn’t even say goodbye. I hope it was worth it. This new direction you’ve taken, it’s going to change everything. 

LIGHT: What new direction?

RYUK: Now you’re no longer simply a criminal. You’re a police killer.

#death note #light yagami #l lawliet #naomi misora #touta matsuda #audio drama translations

[the--sad--hatter]

Frozen Heart (3)

FANDOM - MARVEL MCU, DEADPOOL & X-MEN

WARNINGS - ALL OF THEM, SMUT, VIOLENCE ANGST

DESCRIPTION -  

When Nick Fury finally catches the Ex-Shield Agent knowns Black Ice, The Thief with a Frozen Heart he puts her where she belongs. With The Avengers.

You’re not happy about that decision but you’re the only one who’s kicking up a fuss.

Natasha and Clint are happy to have you back in their lives, Sam Wilson is a big fan, Tony Stark just wants you to keep your hands off his stuff and Steve finds out that not only do you have a connection but you were there for him when nobody else was.

Bucky Barnes is one of the few people who doesn’t have a connection with you but he’d really really like one.

** Everything in Italics is being signed, not said out loud.**

Chapter Three - Comrades in Ice 

Bucky did end up on the roof, figuring the cool, fresh air would help him calm down. He couldn’t understand why he was getting so flustered around you, he barely knew you. Yes, you were beautiful, more beautiful than anyone he’d ever seen. You carried yourself with quiet confidence, meek and powerful at the same time. Your eyes held so much mischief and history and when you laughed, god when you laughed his heart would flutter in his chest wildly.

He was infatuated. Completely, ridiculously infatuated.

He needed to stop being such a moronic idiot and figure out a way to woo you. If wooing was still a thing. Whatever it was called these days, he was going to do it. He was going to dig out the old charm and show you he was more than a blundering idiot.

Tomorrow was a new day and it would be the day he started his quest for your affections.

When you slipped into the kitchen the next morning, stretching your arms above your head as you yawned, you resisted the urge to run for your life. Clint was cooking.

He glanced up at you and your rumpled appearance and tired eyes.

“I’ll put coffee on.” He gestured at you and turned around without waiting for a response.

Your jaw clenched automatically as Stark sauntered into the kitchen.

"Elsa, Anna. Morning." He greeted in fake cheeriness.

"Good morning Sven." You nodded to him with a smirk.

Sam swung his bedroom door open and padded out into the open plan kitchen living area to see what the clattering and banging was. He stopped dead in the middle of the room with an almost comical look of confusion on his face.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

Clint looked up from the pan he was currently manning, coffee pot at his mouth as he slurped from it.

“M’cooking.” He muttered, passing the coffee pot to you.

You practically drained the pot, unable to help herself. You passed the empty pot back to Clint and looked around the room sheepishly.

“I needed that.” You said, shrugging your shoulders,

Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head in exasperation as Tony glared daggers at you.

"Two things, that's your coffee pot now because ew, germs. And since when do you cook?" He asked Clint.

A memory brought the ghost of a smile to your face. You had been 14 at the time and both you and Tasha had been highly entertained by the chaos and string of curse words coming out of Clint's mouth as he hopped around the kitchen, his arm on fire.

He had never been domestic, bless him. But he had tried and that was what mattered. He was still trying now even though you were all grown up.

You'd never be anything less than his baby sister in his eyes though.

He stayed silent, choosing to focus instead on pushing the bacon around the pan. The sounds of it sizzling were the only sounds in the kitchen as Sam sighed heavily and started setting the table.

"I'm not hungry." Tony announced.

“More for us then.” You muttered.

“I’m starving.” Sam said enthusiastically, a little too enthusiastically if the withering look Tony shot at him was any indication.

“Morning.” Steve said as he came in, frowning at Clint but choosing wisely not to comment.

“Morning Cap.” You said, brightening up at his appearance.

He had clearly been up for a while and looked like he’d just come back from a run. Your heart pitter patted a bit as Bucky came in the room behind him and before you could look away fixed you with a heartwarming, panty dropping grin.

“Morning doll.” He said, internally jumping up and down for joy at having got the words out.

“Mirnong... I mean morning,” You said, blushing and tripping over the words for god knows what reason.

“Eat your breakfast, I’ll get you more coffee.” Clint sniggered at you.

As soon as the two super soldiers sat down he started.

“What was that? Which one of them are you crushing on?”

“Neither, shut up.” you hurried to sign back, the blush spreading down your neck.

Clint slid a cup of coffee to you with a look that said he clearly didn’t believe you and he chewed around the smirk breaking out on his face. Maybe you wouldn’t take the news headed your way too badly. Who was he kidding, you were going to throw a fit when you found out.

“So, Ice. I’ll be doing your physical evaluation today. Is in a couple hours ok?” Steve asked you.

You frowned and looked between him and Clint before very very calmly putting your fork down and standing up.

“Where is she?” You asked Clint in a calm, controlled tone.

“No idea.” He sniggered.

“Hmm, well then. I’ll just go and find her.” You said with a saccharine sweet smile.

Tasha had tortured you for nothing, straight after you woke up from a mini coma and you were furious as you stormed out of the kitchen and went searching for her, deep down knowing you wouldn’t find the tricky Russian fox.

Eventually, you had to abandon the fruitless search and headed towards the gym for the real evaluation, praying Steve would be kinder than Tasha.

“Hey, you going to the gym?” Someone asked and you turned your head to see Bucky Barnes stalking towards you.

Ignoring the stupid butterflies in your stomach you nodded.

He reached out, flicking your ID badge and chortled.

“Level One Clearance huh? Poor you.” He smirked at you.

You frowned and looked at the badge, you hadn’t actually paid any attention to what it said when Stark had flung it at your face about twenty minutes ago and told you that you needed to keep it on you.

“That bad?” You asked.

“Level One means you’re not even cleared to get a pencil from supplies without a higher level agent signing off on it.” He told you.

“Fantastic. What level are you?” You groaned.

“Six. I’m an Avenger doll, only Cap and Stark have higher clearance.” He told you smugly.

“Well, I’ll come to find you if I need a pencil then, seeing as you’ve taken me under your metaphorical wing.” You said laughing.  

Bucky preened, silently congratulating himself for this smooth conversation.

“You can come to me for anything you like, I’d be happy to lend you a helping hand.” He said lowly, laying on the charm.

You started to smile back at him and forced yourself to stop. For someone who didn’t want to be here, you were making an awful lot of friends. You never made friends in the army, in fact you could count the number of friends you had on two fingers and one of those was your brother.

You’d known these people for five minutes, why were you letting your defenses slip down around them?

Your shoulders tensed up and he read the change in your body language and thought he had offended or annoyed you.

“I should get going, won’t make a good impression if I’m late.” You said shortly and jogged away.

He’d come on too strong and he was regretting it. He must have seemed like any other creep trying his luck with you and you had bolted. He sighed and realized he’d have to rethink his approach.

You practically ran into the gym and Steve turned around to look at you curiously.

“Everything ok?” He asked you, frowning.

“What? Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” You asked, putting your hands on your hips and trying to act like you weren’t winded.

“Are you sure you were a spy? You’re a terrible liar.” He said, smirking at you and waiting patiently for you to tell the truth.

“I was worried you’d reprimand me if I was late. And I didn’t really do espionage, I was more on the breaking and entering side of things.” You admitted.

“I’m not Nat, and I watched the footage of her evaluation of you. I was impressed. She’s right about you needed to train more, you clearly have a lot of untapped potential but your marksmanship was really impressive. I haven’t seen anyone that good since Bucky.” He complimented you.

“Oh. Does that mean I can go?” You asked hopefully.

“Nope.” He replied, tossing a pair of boxing gloves at you.

“We’re going to work on your stamina.” He explained.

You resisted the urge to wiggle your eyebrows at him and tried to put the gloves on. He watched you struggle for a minute and when you started trying to use your teeth he barked out a laugh and came over to help.

“We should also talk about your um... ice issues.” He said.

“You mean that little issue where I keep trying to turn people into human popsicles?” You asked.

“Yeah, that one. Been there and done that so I don’t really want to go through it again.” He joked.

“Are my powers an issue for you?” You asked nervously.

“Unless you plan on freezing me for another seven decades then no.” He answered as you got into a hitting stance and started tapping the bag.

“I can’t get my powers under control. I’m really out of practice.” You admitted as he kicked your back leg into the correct stance.

“You left an ice replica of an Iron Suit and Nat showed me the photos. It was perfect. How do you go from being able to achieve that level of detail to not being able to use your powers at all?”He asked. 

You paused your hits and grabbed the swinging bag while you thought about how to answer. You didn’t see Bucky at the door, you thought it was just you and Steve.

“There was a mission in Moscow. Shield never sent me on Missions with Tasha and Clint usually. But this time they did, they sent me and Elijah to back them up.”

“Elijah, he was your...”

“Fiancée.”You confirmed. 

Bucky nearly bit his own tongue at the mention of a fiancée. He shouldn’t be eavesdropping but he couldn’t walk in and interrupt you now and he was too rooted to the spot to walk away.

“What happened?” Steve asked.

“Bad intel. They were more prepared than we’d been led to believe and they were waiting for us. The leader, the guy we were after wanted to make me suffer. He locked me in a room with Tasha, Clint, and Elijah. They were chained up but I wasn’t and there was a gun on the floor with one bullet. He told me I had to kill one of them or he would kill us all.”

You heard Steve’s sharp intake of breath as he put the pieces together.

“You didn’t have a choice.” He stated.

“Actually I did, I had a choice between the three people I loved most in the world. And I killed the man I was supposed to marry. Natasha never quite forgave me for not killing her. She thought it should have been her.”

“Why, why did you choose him?” He asked softly.

“I couldn’t make the choice as a sister or a fiancée. So I made it as a Shield agent. I killed the lowest level agent, the one we could afford to lose.” You said coldly.

Steve was shaken as he silently regarded you.

“Shield arrived to rescue us, too late. They took the mark in, they were going to lock him up.  I lost control, completely. I tried to kill him, and I did. But I couldn’t switch it off, I had to let it out and kill everyone there or blast it skyward.. Do you know what happens if you shoot ice into the sky, rapidly cooling the atmosphere?”

“No.” Steve admitted with a frown, he was betting it wasn’t good.

“Superstorm. I would have killed thousands of people if it wasn’t for Agent Hill. She shot me. When I woke up I told Fury to tell everyone I was dead and I disappeared. I made the hard choice for Shield, made it without hesitating. But I couldn’t live with it. I loved him, I was going to marry him and spend the rest of my life with him and instead I shot him in the head.” You said, punching the bag as hard as you could.

“I can’t imagine having to make that kind of choice.” Steve admitted.

You were expecting a different reaction, deep down that’s why you’d told him. He was Captain America, a paragon of justness and righteousness. He should have been disgusted by you but all you saw in his eyes was sympathy. You couldn’t look at him anymore and turned your back, taking your self-loathing out on the bag.

“That’s why you’re out of practice? You don’t want to use it after what happened?”

“I locked my abilities away and with them my heart. I decided I didn’t want to use them ever again and I know that this kind of life means I can’t ever love someone again.”

“I used to want love and a family but when I went into the ice all those notions went with me. I guess both our hearts are frozen. They have to be.” Steve said.

You huffed out a sad, unamused laugh.

“Comrades in ice?” You asked and he chuckled and fist bumped your proffered boxing glove.

You had no idea Bucky Barnes had heard the whole thing and was walking away, his own heart far from frozen but instead heavy. He knew his silly little crush could never come to anything. No wonder you’d been so spooked by his flirting.

But what he’d heard hadn’t changed his admiration for you, it just added a desire to see you happier.

He’d have to be your friend. You needed a friend and this way he could be a part of your life and get over his infatuation.

Steve left the gym before you, letting you finish up your stretches when Stark came wandering in, whistling casually. You rolled your eyes and ignored him, walking over to the large doors and frowned when they wouldn’t open. You pushed them again and they didn’t budge. You whirled round to face Tony who was smirking at you.

“Why are the doors locked?” You demanded.

“Because I’m not finished with you yet. You don’t get out of this room unless I say so and until you tell me who you really are and why you’re here, you aren’t getting out.” Tony threatened.

A whimper ripped out of your throat and your eyes began darting around the room, looking for an escape.

Tony could see the sweat beading across your brow from where he stood, could see the tremors running through your body. You were scared, he realized with a start of surprise.

You had one of the worst cases of Claustrophobia he’d ever seen since they were standing in a huge room with floor to ceiling windows and he could tell from your body language that you were on the brink of having a massive freak out. He could practically smell the fear on you.

“Let me out.” You demanded, your voice hard and angry.

He met your eyes and noted the sheer desperation and fear in them.

He had no idea you would react like this to being locked in a room, he just wanted to confront you. He genuinely felt guilty and was about to open his mouth and order Friday to let you out when he felt a physical change in the air.  

The temperature in the room dropped several degrees and a noise behind him had him turning around to watch the windows as frost crawled across the floor, creeping up the windows and branching out across them before they shattered, dropping shards of glass bigger than a person onto the floor with an ear-splitting crash.

Barely five minutes later Tony picked up your ID badge, the one you’d dropped by the shattered windows before you ran across the broken glass. Clearly you had realized it could be used to locate you and ditched it before you ditched the compound.

Glass crunched underfoot as Natasha approached, Clint a few paces behind. The two of them regarded the damage with exasperation.

“Could have told you locking my sister up wasn’t going to go well for you Stark, might have saved you a few thousand dollars.” Clint remarked.

“Alright, I didn’t know it was an issue. I didn’t mean to spook her.” Tony admitted with a heavy sigh.

“She’s had claustrophobia since she was a kid, she still has nightmares about it. Something you might have known if you talked to her instead of accusing her of being a spy for Fury. I did know about it, do you know how? Because she is who she says she is, she’s Clint’s sister and as far as I’m concerned, mine as well.” Natasha snapped.

“Doesn’t matter right now, we need to find her. She’s unstable. Any idea where she might have run off to?” Tony asked wearily.

Clint and Natasha exchanged a knowing glance.

You didn't turn around as you felt your brother approach and sit in the barstool next to you.

“We need to talk about what happened with Braxton and with Fury taking me in.”You admitted.

“You think?”

“I knew who he was. Someone gave me a lead to hunt down the rest of the organization responsible for Elijah’s death.”

Clint ground his teeth together at your admittance.

“I couldn’t let it go Clint, I just couldn't.”

“Cut the Bullshit Ice.” He interrupted.

You flinched in surprise at his anger and he took advantage of your silence.

"You fucked up by going after Braxton, two years off the grid, getting close to him and ignoring everyone. Me. And for what? To lose control and end up being forced to join the Avengers?"

“I don’t need your help with my abilities.” You said before he could go down that route.

“Here we go..” He sighed.

“I know how they work, I know how to control them. I’m just a little out of practice.”You insisted.

“You killed a lot of people. I know you like to act tough but that isn’t something you’re ok with, what you did wasn’t a blip because you’re out of practice. Despite your warm and cuddly exterior, you’re a good person and you don’t want to be slaughtering people. You can handle it in the moment but you can't live with yourself afterwards.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing for the past four years? You really think I’ve been serving in the US Army and not killed anybody? There’s so much blood on my hands that it’ll never wash off, those bastards I froze in the desert are barely a dent in my kill count.”

He knew that you weren’t an innocent, but to hear you say it so casually was a different thing. You had become more like him in the time you’d been gone and that wasn’t what he had wanted for you.

“You’ve killed, to protect people. You’ve done bad things for good reasons so don’t you dare judge me for doing the same thing.” You told him.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me and Tasha what you were doing?” He demanded.

“I was trying to protect you.”

“Haven’t you learned your lesson about protecting me?”

“I don’t care that you’re still mad about that, I know you’ll never forgive me for it but you’re hurt feelings ain’t my main concern. I was trying to keep you alive.” You said and threw back your drink and slammed the glass down angrily.

You shook your head.

“I don’t want to relive the same old argument, what’s done is done and neither of us can change it.”

“Don’t I know it.” He said.

“I don’t need to you teach me how to use my abilities, I can figure it out on my own. I do need your help though.” You told him.

He paused, waiting for you to continue.

“We thought The Scorpion was a weapons dealer and human trafficker. We were wrong. The Scorpion was dealing in human weapons, he’s trafficking mutants. And Braxton wasn't The Scorpion, The Scorpion doesn't exist. It's a front, a cover. The whole thing goes deeper than any of us realized,” You revealed.

“Why not tell Fury?” He asked.

“Because he can’t be trusted. Braxton had information he shouldn’t have, he knew what I was. He knows about the school. He has double agents everywhere… I can't tell anyone without putting them in danger.”

“So who’s behind it? Who has you so spooked?”

“I overheard Braxton using on the phone before he drugged me. He said a name.”

“What was the name?”

“Magneto.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And here we are my loves. I hope this was worth the wait, personally I struggled with this chapter but I'm really hoping the effort I put in paid off.

@shirukitsune @thelostallycat @jsmith509@buckitybarnes @aw-shit-nuggets @pleasefollowmeuwu @nerdy-bookworm-1998@boxofteenageideas @jaynnanadrews @psychoredpanda@marbleowl @l0kisbitch @brownlee-22 @fluffeh-kitty @mywinterwolf @poppunkassbitch @angieptt @muggleborngirl @markusstraya @tarastudiesalot @pinkisokay @buckitybarnes @firefly-in-darkness @chipilerendi @psychoredpanda @littledeadrottinghood @boxofteenageideas @pleasefollowmeuwu @aw-shit-nuggets @brownlee-22

#hattersmarvelverse #Bucky x Reader #Bucky fic #Bucky Barnes #The Winter Soldier #Winter Soldier x reader #Bucky x You #Bucky x Y/N #Bucky x OC #Brother Clint Barton #Deaf Clint Barton #Tony Stark x Reader #Avengers x Reader #Platonic Avengers #Captain America X Reader #Steve Rogers x Reader #Steve x Reader #Wanda x Reader #Vision x Reader #Sam Wilson x Reader #Black Widow x reader #Natasha x Reader #Hawkeye x Reader #Clint Barton x Reader #Spiderman x Reader #Peter Parker x Reader #Wade Wilson x Reader #Deadpool x reader #Logan x Reader #Wolverine x reader

[clownbeep]

This is gonna be kinda brutal. But I want to put it into writing

Big vent/whats been going on

Hah... I guess this is like my life story or some shit...

Trigger warning ahead.. Depression and a bit of gore/suicide talk so if you are sensitive to that please, for your own sake and mental state you might not want to continue.

For those who dont want to hear a pretty dark vent, I understand.

And those who are just scrolling by feel free to scroll past. I just personally want to get this out.

If you have dealt with emotional neglect/abuse and need to know it isnt in your head this might be the post.

By writing this it feels like hopefully someone else will read this and realise certain things are NOT healthy.

If you are questioning if you are being emotionally neglected/abused (im speaking in a parental sense but even romantically or sexually) im not someone to give you answers, but the fact you are questioning it raises some red flags. In a healthy relationship you dont wonder those things.

Sorry for the long prelude but heres what I wanted to say

.

.

.

.

.

.

Ever since I was young, ive had bad ADHD, manic bipolar/depression, and sensory issues.

I was diagnosed around 13 I believe. My family (I didnt realise it then) always showed pity. Like I was some wild animal that couldnt be tamed and there was nothing they could do. Id do and say stupid attention seeking things just to try and get a shred of empathy.

My family didnt care.

When I was in the hospital for a suicide attempt regaurding pills and my liver had a chance of failing.. None of my family members cried over me. But a family friend. Someone not. Even. Related. Wept over me.

My family didnt care.

I cant say they never cared. They give me food water and luxuries like internet and a phone. For that I am grateful.

But in many other ways they have hurt me faar more than helped.

Once I got out of a short term stay in an inpatient mental facility I desperately needed contact with anyone who would care for me.

I have a younger sister, quite young probably around 7 at the time. She was a close friend of mine for that time. Id hang out with her so often to fill the gap in love it felt my family didnt give. One day I walked into the dining room and overheard my mother and father talking to my little sister. They told her to keep away because I wasnt "stable" because I was "dangerous" and could give her bad Ideas. And with one single action my only friend at the time and way to find happiness was taken away.

My family did not care.

When I stay in bed every day for months on end not knowing which day ill snap and end it all.... I get called lazy.

My family did not care

When I beg for medication to make me a functional human being they brush me off for years on end. Im losing my grip. I can barely remember things that have happened last week because I try so hard to forget everything its my automatic response to everything.

When I cant get to sleep because all of the memories come flooding back and im hit by wave after wave of horrific memories and the feeling if worthlessness... When I cant watch any videos or read posts about families because it brings on unwanted memories and emotions....

Is it me being dramatic then?

When you hear your family openly mocking and laughing about how stupid and dramatic and fake trans people are... How weird and unnatural and mentally insane these people are not knowing they are the very reason grsm and trans suicides are so high...

Am I a liar now? Am I insane?

When I tried to talk to them about my mental health issues. They took my only way of contact and made me feel like it was my own fault.

My family didnt care.

When I was nearly passed out shaking in a bathtub covered in wounds and blood all over... They showed pity, then lectured me for an hour for not telling them or for being impulsive and basically cleaned my wounds and sent me into my room.

My family didnt care.

Yes. I do agree, they cleaned my wounds, the physical side of showing care. However emotionally they were not there.

When my father drinks so heavilly every day he is home from work that he forgets half the things he tells you and can barely function.. They lecture my older sister for having a glass of wine (legal age)

They did not care.

My sister (23) tried for so many years to cling to what little attention she would get by getting good grades and going to college... She realised that it changed nothing about how my family felt toward her.... She snapped.

My family did not care.

She starves herself for a disease she does not have, she uses religion as an exuse to be one of the biggest christian extremists I personally know. Half the days she doesnt eat... Other days she burns book and gets rid of items for being demonic.

My lovely sister used to be kind and quite normal. However she couldnt find comfort in what little live her family gave. Starved for care she turned to religion to un unhealthy degree. Finding any way to keep her mind busy. Now I worry she will end up in the hospital for weighing so little.

My family did not care.

My oldest sister (27) Is married to a continuously cheating husband who she keeps letting back into her life. She was raised with a failing marrige and doesnt seem to see when she should call it quits.

Not to mention her husband has touched someone legally under the age of concent. Did she report him to the authorities? No.

All of these horrific things stemming from bad parenting. Unhealthy relationships and neglect.

Neglect emotionally can cause just as bad things as physical neglect. They are both horrifically dangerous in different ways.

These are the only big things I can remember... Basically age 15 and below are a complete blur to me and I cant remember much of it without thinking for a looong time. Even then I cant remember a lot of it... I feel like ive lost my whole damn childhood. And it hurts more than if they had just hit me or physically harmed me.

Im not underplaying physically harm. But in my personaly opinion I would rather my family have beaten me badly because at least then id have an easier way to prove to people how severe the abuse was. You can see bruises and confirm broken bones... But years of feeling completely useless and being shut off from most of the world other than the internet... It fucks you up in a way I dont think can be healed.

I dont know if I can ever love myself or... Remember things. Its terrifying to think Ill post this and a few weeks later probably not even rememner unless its brought up. Or meeting people and having conversations... And they are just... Gone.

Gone.

I suppose the biggest reason im writing this is well... In the future I dont want to forget in some ways.. I want like to be 100× as awesome knowing itll start as soon as im out of here..

If I dont have anything to compare it too then what is the point?

Ive layed out basically most of what I remember

A large amount of time I look around and nothing registers... Everything is familiar but I cant remember anything for a moment or two.. I feel like my memory is slipping so fast and im terrified.. I cant do anything to stop it and I cant make my mood be stable without the medication my family cant be bothered to get ...

I suppose this is a bit of a vent. I know its kind of everywhere and unorganized..

If im honest.. Tumblr is the only place where people have given me a home I wish I had..

I came out as trans here... Everyone was so damn supportive.. I didnt say anything but I cried hard and the kindness.. It was amazing.. It was such a jarring difference to how I feel when I say anything in real life.

Ive met friends here and ive had some much fun here. If youve stuck around this far thank you so much.. If you didnt I dont blame you.

I just wanted to share what has been flashing in my head these past few days.. It hurts a lot and ive even considered suicide recently..

Im trying hard. As hard as I can.. I have no escape though.

I cannot leave home. I cannot escape. Im not being dramatic.

I

CANT

LEAVE

And its terrifying because I know without medication or at least being somewhere AWAY from family.... I feel like im going to break soon.

I dont want to do anything stupid.. But some days I cant think straight and do things that harm myself and its not good. Its not okay. Im aware that I need help but I have no idea where to go/turn.. I have no ID or drivers liscence.. I have no transportation to and from a job to get money so I can leave... I live in the middle of nowhere.... I just..

I dont want to lose touch. I dont want to do anything bad.. I want to be functional.. I want to do more than eat and sleep my life away because I have nothing else to do..

Im so damn sick and tired of this all.. And at times I really do feel like there is only one way out.

Its always there and I just feel like one of these days im gonna be pushed over the edge and not be thinking clearly enough to stop it.

Im thinking semi clearly right now which is my im posting this.. Because im afraid and alone.

I have nowhere to go irl I have no friends Irl i just have tumblr and media and thats it. I dont expect anyone to be able to help I just wanted to write this so anyone knows what happens if I leave media..

If I tell my family my issues they will blow me off again for the 11th time or so (not exaggerated)

And if I do something to get sent to the hospital and get the help I need the cycle will continue with them being pissed and me getting sent home in a month or less anly for my family relationships to get worse..

Im spiraling fuether and further and I cant keep up the facade of being fine. I need help. And i have no way to get it. Ive just been suffering for years...

Sitting around and doing nothing but using your phone or drawing or whatever sound fun in theory... But if thats all youve been able to do for years with little to no real life social contact its gonna mess with your head... I dont want to be a shut in... I just

I dont know what to do.

Im sorry for rambling. I will most likely delete this later feeling embarrassed I posted this...

Im just tired..

#trigger warning #triggering #may be triggering #vent #emotional neglect #emotional abuse #suicide #suicide trigger #gore warning #memory problems #ramble #rambles

[ashlan-zeal]

"Who says that dreams and nightmares are not as real as the here and now?"

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Ahsoka asked Ezra while they took to orbit. Her small ship had a cargo ID in rule and didn’t have any problems crossing the tight security of the several Imperial ships around Lothal.

“I… We were returning to the base. To Yavin,” Ezra explained staring blankly at the stars.

“Yavin, huh?” Ahsoka’s eyes lit up with interest. “We have prospected the area before but we were still thinking of our options. Most of the other cells refuse to work together.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Ezra remembered there hadn’t been any transmission from his part or… “Wait. What about Mon Mothma? Is she still alive?”

“Oh… She got captured a while back when she left the Senate,” Ahsoka bit her lower lip. That had been a morale blow for everyone. They hadn’t gotten to her on time. Ezra sunk on his seat. Something in the back of his mind told him that maybe if his parents hadn’t heard the transmission they might be still alive in prison, but Azadi was also missing and… he couldn’t sense them. Just like the Ghost crew… all he could feel was either a void or coldness. They had died. He closed his eyes as a few tears rolled down his cheeks, but he hurried to dry them.

“Just before returning to base, we had saved a few engineers and destroyed a huge kyber crystal. Gerrera wanted to-”

“Saw Gerrera?” Ahsoka frowned. “You were working with Saw Gerrera??” she said with disgust and anger.

“A couple of times… we didn’t part in the best terms,” he said a little nervous. “Why?”

Ashoka was scowling looking ahead. “We lost Lothal because of him.”

“What!?”

“After the Ghost Crew disappeared, no other group took their place… things went downhill pretty quick,” Ahsoka explained and took a deep breath. “When they opened that TIE fighter factory in Lothal... a lot of people didn’t have another option and started to work there. Then, it seems Gerrera caught wind they were doing some kind of secret project there and… he used a service droid to blow the fuel depot… on rush hour.”

Ezra’s jaw dropped. “How many dea-?”

“Several hundred workers died. Thousands were injured. He said that whoever was helping the Empire in any way deserved to go down with them. The people of Lothal lost all trust in the Rebels… Several sympathizers were arrested snitched by locals. They didn’t like the Empire but at least they wouldn’t blow their own, they said.”

A ball of anger started to grow on Ezra’s throat. That’s why they were contracting people instead of droids to do menial tasks at the port. He regretted not looking up further when he was back there.

“Gerrera was… not good… but we had managed to talk to him out of doing a bunch of stuff before,” Ezra said in low voice. “But yeah… he was certainly going on that direction”.

The travel through hyperspace to Garel was short. Surprisingly, Garel didn’t seem too different from what Ezra remembered from his early time here. Ahsoka took Ezra to present him to Sato as Jedi-in-training and left it at that. Seeing Sato was… a shock too. His eyes didn’t have that passion he used to have working for the Rebellion. He looked sad and somewhat bitter.

-Oh no...Mart.- Ezra thought. Mart must have been either killed or taken prisoner over Mykapo. -Dammit...the rest of my friends… Zare, his sister, Jai...- they were gone. Even if he was visibly upset he shook Sato’s hand and promised to do whatever it was possible to help them. Ahsoka and he obviously left out the issue of Ezra coming from another reality… no one else needed to know.

“If Ahsoka vouches for you, then I can’t turn you down. If you are going to stay here you will need some new ID and papers for Garel,” Sato said giving him a curious look. “Please, go to this address with our contact. Give her this code…”

Ezra went on his own, while Ahsoka and Sato discussed the state of Lothal, explaining what she had seen and the increased security. Ezra knew the streets in this city so he had no problem to find the house with the contact. He knocked once, then thrice, then once, just as he was told. The door opened a little and he could see a woman peering through.

“Yes?”

“I need help with a poem. I heard you are a good writer,” Ezra said the secret password too. These Rebels were really suspicious and paranoid, always looking over their shoulders, and he couldn’t blame them. The woman huffed and nodded.

“Fine, fine, I can help,” she said with some reluctance and opened the door. Ezra gasped recognizing her.

“Maketh Tua,” he whispered in disbelief. Tua’s face was washed with fear and pulled him inside quickly and looking outside worriedly hoping no one had heard him.

“Don’t go saying that in the open! I’m not Maketh Tua. My name is Rita Zante. Alright??” she pointed at him shaking with fear. “How do you know me? Have they put a hit on my head? Have you seen wanted posters or something?”

“Oh… no. I… I used to live in Lothal,” he tried to find the right explanation. “I lived in Lothal all my life until recently.”

“Ah… I see,” she straightened up regaining a little of her composure. “I see. Alright… that explains that. You almost killed me from the impression… just… don’t go saying my old name around. Ok, if you come for Lothal making your fake ID will be easier for me… just sit there.”

Ezra sat watching her go through some info on her datapad and comparing it to a stack of papers she had in a desk. Maketh Tua was alive here. She had not been killed when trying to defect when they were being chased by Vader. Ezra remembered Yoda’s words:

Your right, someone’s wrong might be.

If he made things ‘right’ it would mean Ahsoka, Sato and Tua would be gone. Who knows how many other people would be affected. He shook his head.

-Just focus on the problem at hand. Helping the Rebellion. I’m still too weak to do anything about it so there’s no point on worrying on...consequences.-

After an hour or so, Ezra had the best fake ID he’d ever seen. For all intents and purposes, he was now a citizen of Garel. He was also given a tiny private room in an apartment building instead of a shared one on their “base”. It was sad to see this Rebellion so far behind of his own. That night, in the privacy of his room, he cried silently, letting all his pain and sadness out. He knew he couldn’t keep it all in or it would lead him closer to the darkside. Holding at the pillow, he sobbed for his friends and he sobbed for Kanan. He cried for how alone he felt and how much he missed him. But he needed to keep going… even if it hurt. And with that, his new life with the Rebellion started from scratch.

During the following days, Ezra would make small ‘milk runs’, help with scouting, spying and all the normal things he could do without the aid of the Force. On the days Ahsoka returned from some secret meeting or mission they would train and meditate together. As soon as he finished his lightsaber (this time with a regular hilt but with his old blue crystal) he started sparring with Ahsoka seriously. Her training style was very different from Kanan’s, making much more aggressive and dangerous approaches. It was harder than what he remembered, or maybe he was just too far behind? She would push his physical and mental limits with the Force. In any case, Ahsoka was impressed. While his connection with the Force was slowly recovering, luckily, his memories for his fighting techniques were almost untouched.

His nights were restless and every day he would wake up feeling worried and alone. His heart ached, but all he could remember from his dreams was a thick darkness and a sense of hopelessness.

-No, I can’t give in. Kanan wouldn’t want me to...- and that gave him just enough warmth to keep going.

One day, Ezra had been tasked on delivering a package to a group on another city in Garel. He took a bike and headed out by himself. He didn’t expect any trouble… but he also never expected to get his life turned around more than already was.

He was driving down the highway, no other transport on sight, when he heard it. He pressed the brakes so fast he almost thrown ahead from the inertia. He looked around and up almost desperately until he saw it.

The Ghost flew overhead.

A chill ran down his spine. He was frozen in shock. Even though it was repainted, he could have recognized the sound of the engines anywhere, in this reality or back home. Then, after a second he accelerated chasing it. It was also heading towards the same city, but it was going much faster and quickly left him behind. He reached into the Force, trying to feel if he recognized who was flying it but it was a stranger. A ball of anger started to form on his stomach. Someone had taken the Ghost for themselves. He rushed through the gates of the city and the streets to the spaceport as fast as he could, but by the time he found the right landing pad, the ship was already leaving.

“NO!” Ezra cursed watching it go. He turned around and saw a bunch Troopers looking at him. They were moving some cargo around. Ezra became very still.

“Do you have a problem?” one of the troopers asked, suspicious of him.  

“Oh… sorry. I just… I just saw that ship and… I had never seen a VCX-100 modded like that. Wow! I mean, it was a  VCX-100 right? I wished I could see it more closely!” Ezra laughed nervously and looking sheepish.

“Yeah, a VCX-100,” the trooper wasn't totally convinced. “You can’t stay here while we load our cargo to the transport. Now scram,” the trooper motioned him to get back.

“Yeah! Sorry! Sorry, sir!” Ezra turned around, his smile immediately disappearing from his face as soon as he was out of sight from them. He went to ask around the port about details on the Ghost, always under the pretense of being a fanatic of modded ships. He even used a few terms he had heard from Hera and Sabine to sound knowledgeable. All he learned was what he feared…

The Ghost, it seemed, was the propriety of the Empire right now. With some more coaxing, he also learned the ship used to make deliveries from Lothal and a few other systems to this port. They said it should be heading for Lothal right now.

Cursing in low voice he delivered the package he was meant to and went back to Ahsoka immediately. She had just left from a talk with Sato when he arrived to their ‘base’.

“We need to talk,” he didn’t even wait for a hello, pulling her aside. He explained everything that he saw and learned. “We need to get the Ghost back”

“Ezra…” she wasn't sure of his idea.

“No, no you don’t get it. If I remember correctly the Holocron AND Kanan’s lightsaber could be still there, hidden away in a secret compartment.”

“The holocron that you said had the coordinates to the Temple on Lothal?” Ahsoka blinked with worry.

“YES! Besides… I have seen what other ships this Rebel cell has in the fleet. They couldn’t hold a candle to the Ghost,” Ezra said with sadness. “Hera would never want the Ghost on Imperial hands. She would have wanted the Rebellion to use it for our cause.”

Ahsoka sighed and nodded. “You are right. Let’s get it back.”

They flew to Lothal that same day, wasting no time. They went into the city taking care to avoid the patrols and went to the edge of the Imperial base. They saw the Ghost on one of the landing pads.

“We can use it to flee. If any ship is capable of crossing the blockade while being chased, it's the Ghost,” Ezra said with resolution.

They both headed stealthily towards the ship… but midway, Ezra stopped in his place, a chill ran down his spine. The Force was trying to tell him something. Trying to catch his attention.

“Ezra?”

“I…” he blinked in confusion, unable to explain what he was feeling.

“HEY!” someone yelled behind him. A Storm Trooper had glimpsed them, attracting the attention of his peers and raised their blasters.

“Dammit!” Ezra barely had time to throw himself to the side to avoid being shot. Ahsoka also took cover, trying not to take her lightsabers out and reveal themselves as Jedi.

Somewhere inside the base, Kallus was tensely reporting to the Inquisitor, who had seemingly lost interest on their talk. Something had caught his attention, but with the mask on, Kallus couldn’t tell exactly what. He dared not to ask because from the moment the new Inquisitor had arrived on Lothal Kallus could feel a great hatred towards his persona from him. Kallus didn’t want to give this man any excuse to cut his head off. At that moment, his comm activated.

“SIR! We got intruders on the west landing port. It seems like they are trying to steal a VCX-100 freighter!”

Kallus blinked. He knew that ship. Before he could say anything, the Inquisitor raised from his seat, igniting his red lightsaber.

“I'll deal will them. Send all available troops to stall them,” the Inquisitor ordered him.

“What-?” Kallus started but the blade came suddenly dangerously close to his throat. He stiffened.

“Do it,” it was the last warning. Kallus felt a chill down his spine and pure hatred coming from the Inquisitor. If he did not comply, he would be killed right there.

“As you wish.”

Ezra was returning fire when he noticed the growing number of Troopers showing up between them and the Ghost… And then they saw a red glow coming out of the doors of the base from their right. An inquisitor was running towards them.

“We will have to fight,” Ahsoka took her lightsabers. “We need to get to the Ghost, NOW.”

“I'll handle the Inquisitor,” Ezra said suddenly realizing their situation.

“What?”

“I can't block all those blasters without better Force reflexes, you know that. My fighting technique is the best thing I have right now. I can hold the Inquisitor back while you clear off a path.”

She gritted her teeth. He was right.

“Don't get killed,” she nodded and stood in the open deflecting blast after blast towards the troopers, knocking them out.

Ezra needed to buy time and not get beheaded while doing it. Yes, his lightsaber technique was mostly intact... but not having his full Force proficiency back was going to be a problem as many of the forms required almost supernatural precision and timing to pull off.

“Stick to the basics. Mix it up,” he murmured under his breath. This wasn't an Inquisitor he had met before so he had no idea of his fighting style. He had a feeling of apprehension on his stomach as he ran towards the Inquisitor.

-Yeah, this is dangerous, but there is no other way!- he told himself trying to dismiss the emotion. Ezra went all out with an aggressive approach, combining Form 1 and Form 2, surprising the Inquisitor who immediately fell back to a defensive style. Ezra was glad. It seemed the Inquisitor had not expected someone like him to be able to bring that into a fight. This was risky, but Ezra was almost sure he would be able to go toe to toe with an Inquisitor of a similar level. He knew he needed to dictate the terms of the fight and not give him one moment of respite... and yet...

Something was wrong.

The more he fought, the more the feeling of apprehension grew on him. Now that he had a better connection with the Force he could feel the alarms in the back of his mind. He needed to stop. He needed to get away. The Inquisitor sensed his hesitation and countered back. Ezra had suddenly lost the upper hand on their duel. In a desperate risky move, Ezra blocked then swirled around, rising his lightsaber, vertically slashing off the mask from the Inquisitors face. The inquisitor had jumped back just in time avoiding getting his face slashed too.

The mask fell. The Inquisitor turned to Ezra ready for more. Ezra saw him and his eyes went wide with horror as his whole body reeled back on a state of shock.

NO. IT CAN'T BE.

Ahsoka felt his fear through the Force, making her look back with worry.

“Ezra?”

Ezra couldn't speak. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe.

It was Kanan. Short hair. Tattoo marks on his face. Bright yellow eyes… Ezra's lightsaber fell from his hand and he didn't even notice.

“I can feel your despair. The dread…” Kanan narrowed his eyes with an evil pleased smirk.

“EZRA!” Ahsoka’s scream urged him into action but it seemed so far away and he couldn't look back. He could only see and hear HIM, approaching with the red lightsaber.

“Kanan,” Ezra managed to say. His voice was trembling, his body barely holding up. The name made the Inquisitor stop in his tracks and frown, perhaps surprised to hear the name again.

“...Wrong. Tenth Brother,” he shook his head.

“...No…” tears started falling from Ezra's eyes. He felt the world around him collapsing, the core of his being cracking under despair.

“Strange. You are not afraid of dying. What is it then?” Kanan asked curiously but Ezra just looked at him helplessly. “No matter... it ends here.”

“Snap out of it!” Ahsoka yelled running to him and felt a surge in the Force just like that day in the tower.

“NO!” Ezra cried out just as Kanan raised the lightsaber to strike him. Ezra released a huge Force push sending Kanan flying back in surprise. Ezra collapsed in the floor like last time but Ahsoka was there the next second.

“Stand up! We're leaving!” she picked his lightsaber and grabbed him by the wrist pulling him up. She had finished with the troopers blocking them from the Ghost but soon more would follow.

“No... Kanan!” Ezra weakly resisted.

“I can't fight him and defend you at the same time!”

“Kanan!” he was out of himself but Ahsoka was stronger.

“Move!”

“I have to-” he pleaded.

“He's an inquisitor now!” she was almost dragging him away.

“NO!” he cried out in despair, just as he caught glimpse of Kanan standing up with murderous hatred in his eyes. And that sight made something inside Ezra break and he let himself be guided into the Ghost without another word.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15618783

#Star Wars #Star Wars Rebels #Ezra Bridger #Ahsoka Tano #Kanan Jarrus #Inquisitor #Agent Kallus #Fanfiction #chapter 4

[wordsturnintostories]

show me your rosettes, baby (g)

summary: The world tour is over and the Bangtan Boys finally get their well-deserved break. When Namjoon suddenly can’t find Jimin anywhere, things take an unexpected and pretty unbelievable turn. “Kim Namjoon!” “Hyung. How common is it for people to turn into cats?” word count: 2.3k note: ahhhh. this is one of my favorite bits. wanted to post this later but then decided that @justanemptydream needs a little fluff today. hope it helps, darling ✨

masterlist | moodboard masterlist

[ prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven ]

Bathing Jimin turns out to be a surprisingly easy task. Namjoon knows plenty of people (okay, maybe not plenty, but at least Hoseok’s sister and then a few) whose cats go batshit crazy at the sight of a filled bathtub. Kitty Jimin is a completely different story.

Maybe one part of the reason his curious blue eyes always find back to the tub is that he’s (been?) turned into an inexperienced cub who has never had a first bath and who has therefore not made any bad experiences with it in the past. Maybe he just doesn’t complain because he’s Park Jimin, a person who generally likes water and being in it, be it a pool, an ocean or an aquarium (only the one they’d tried and failed to raise some pet fish in (they’d needed fake ID’s to buy those, what the hell) that they had finally given to Bang Sihyuk as a belated birthday gift and that after a couple years of standing next to his desk got transformed into one of those fancy floor-to-ceiling aquariums).

The younger doesn’t mind the bathtub and is quick to run circles in it, excitement overflowing before there’s even water in the tub. Yoongi and Namjoon both stand outside in swimming trunks, amused at the innocence before them. They are holding their respective yellow-patch-jeans in their hands, trying to get the pesky pee-stains out over the sink. Thanks, Jimin.

Deciding to let the liquid laundry detergent sate the textile, they drop the clothes and finally let water in the bathtub. It’s a little strange, bathing together (they’ve probably never done that before) in swimming trunks (that they have). They have seen each other naked plenty of times, side-effect of sharing showers in their pre-debut and debut dorms and even Jimin hasn’t been a stranger to these occasions (which doesn’t legitimize staying naked around each other, though). Still, he’s tiny right now and if his hyungs sit down, he’s exactly on crotch level. So. Swimming trunks it is. You could call it Child Protection Services.

To their surprise, Jimin becomes oddly vocal as soon as the warm water sloshes around his paws and legs and soon, even higher, up to his underbelly. Excited little squeaks pour out of him and turn into pants whenever the water sloshes into his mouth. But the cub splashes and paddles, a little whirlwind of yips and soaked fur.

“Hyung,” Namjoon requests, “do you want to wash him?”

“Sure,” Yoongi says and fishes the rascal out of the water. Jimin paddles even as they lift him into the air, tail swinging left and right like a rudder. The kitty gasps and meows, whipping around his head as if he can't decide whether he would like to be let back down into the sloshing tides or not. Yoongi holds him against his belly and hasn’t even reached for a shampoo bottle when Jimin starts climbing his body. At first, Yoongi gently puts his hand under Jimin’s ass, receiving a raised eyebrow-look by Namjoon.

“So he doesn’t fall,” Yoongi argues, “could you please hand me Jungkook’s soap?"

“Why Jungkook’s? He won’t like you using his.”

“Because it’s without perfume. Cats have better noses than humans. I don’t want to use scented shampoo on him.”

Namjoon nods, grateful that his hyung keeps the important things in mind. No matter how cheesy it might sound, the members are better together. They complete each other. Like the dough and the filling in a bungeoppang.

Jimin stays elated until the last second of the bath, blessed with an entire new slice of life and two hyungs that serve it on a silver platter. Even with countless mouthfuls of water, the cub doesn’t seem to mind the liquid. His little tail points straight at the ceiling and shakes as he explores. It’s honestly endearing to watch him and Namjoon wishes the others could be here right now too so they could all share this memory. Who knows, maybe it’s even physically benefitting to watch our little dongsaeng like this, he thinks, with the way the kitty makes his hyung’s hearts beat faster and gives them something to laugh about. It’s utterly adorable.

Yoongi asks Namjoon to hold out his hands and lowers Jimin into them so that his belly rests on Namjoon’s fingers like they are a carrier so that his thumbs can support the cat’s sides. Namjoon feels the little wet tail fall against his wrist. When Yoongi gently cards his fingertips against Jimin’s fur, working the soap in, the leopard cub relaxes and even the thumpy heartbeat that hits Namjoon’s middle finger calms down. The hyungs are quiet as they take to washing their dongsaeng. The new, unfamiliar rumbly sound that emerges doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Is he-“ Yoongi says with big eyes.

The other rapper nods, closer to the source. To his hands, it’s like touching the delicate skin of his studio’s woofers. Jimin’s whole body vibrates with every raspy purr.

“He’s purring, hyung. He purrs.”

"I didn't know leopards could purr..."

"They... can't, normally. But you're special, huh, Jiminie? You're so special."

While Namjoon keeps cooing at the younger, Yoongi has got a bright smile on his face as Jimin's direct response to his touch encourages him to keep going. The entire time, the cub doesn’t move a muscle, may it be a consequence of being physically suspended in Namjoon’s hands or just of happy hormones being released. Even as his older brother lets the warm water wash over Jimin’s body to free him of the rest of the washing lotion, the cat remains absolutely still.

Finally, Namjoon just lets the smaller one sit on his thigh. And even then, despite his enthusiasm earlier, Jimin just stretches and plops down. His legs don’t even reach the sides of his hyung’s thigh so he looks like a pancake (flat and spread out) as he falls asleep.

In all honesty, it takes a lot to be manly and Yoongi and Namjoon both seem to not own that much of manliness yet because as soon as they realize that their kitty is sleeping, they both coo without shame.

“He must be drained,” Namjoon whispers, “turning into a leopard baby is probably stressful.”

“He looks so small. Let’s take care of him well.”

“Of course, hyung. But what if-“ Namjoon is afraid to say finish that idea. He doesn’t want to ruin their happiness. But he’s got responsibilities. And carrying responsibility means looking at the future and making good decisions in the present. He wants to make good decisions, for them all, for Jimin, but especially in this time when the younger can’t make decisions on his own. 

“What if he stays like this?”

“Would that be so bad?”

Whatever the leader expected Yoongi to say, it isn’t this. Never in a hundred years. He has to be careful not to break the whisper.

“Yoongi-ah! Don’t talk like this. How could that be good? Jiminie turned into a cat. How can he perform like this?”

The elder looks almost stoic; not displeased, not joyful, just… calm. Like the issue at hand can’t bother him.

“I didn’t think that far ahead yet, to be honest. I don’t think he’s even gonna stay like this until then. He’ll probably come back soon. I just meant for now.”

“What is different between for now and the next months? Jimin can’t do anything like this.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t have to at the moment. We’re on our break. This couldn’t have happened at a better time, Joon-ah. Imagine if this would’ve happened at the beginning of our next tour.”

Namjoon stays quiet. That would have been horrible. He hopes Bangtan will never have to pause a tour because of something like this. Or lie to ARMY about it. Because that would be even worse.

“What I’m saying is,” Yoongi eyes seem deep and full of wisdom, “maybe this is exactly what Jimin needs. Look at him right now, he’s sleeping so peacefully with you. I bet he’ll eat better too.”

“You think his body can use this to recover?”

“Yeah. We all know he’s not fine right now. Maybe his body is even responsible for this. Maybe he would have gotten really sick if he hadn’t turned. You know how poorly he takes care of himself sometimes. Maybe the ghost of Taehyung’s halmoni felt sorry for him and turned him into a cat.”

Namjoon snorts but tries to not wake up Jimin. The little one stays asleep, only his tail curls up and Namjoon knows he will be watching documentaries all day long tomorrow so he’ll know how to read a cat’s body language. He needs to be able to communicate with his dongsaeng.

“You’re good at comforting me. Thank you for being my friend,” Namjoon says and Yoongi sends him a rare, deep smile.

“You’re a great friend too, Joon-ah. But the water is getting cold. Let’s wash up.”

They do, after each other, and lift Jimin out of there so he can’t get in the way. The kitty seems displeased with the cold surface of the counter, mewling, which makes the boys hurry up. Soon, they pat their brother dry with a warm towel.

---

The first mistake was forgetting to bring their clothes. The second one is leaving the bathroom to get them. Together. When they come back, all they see in the suspiciously quiet room is streaks of bright, glittery galaxy-blue toothpaste (thank you for your taste in paste, Taehyung-ssi) decorating the counter. It winds and runs along the sink and some even hangs off the edge, dangerously close to dripping down. It looks like a freaking toothpaste explosion, with how lushly it is spread out and smeared across the marble. The whole room smells like mint.

Yoongi cackles while Namjoon frowns. What the heck is what goes through his mind. On first glance, he’s alarmed. On the second glance, he finds the guilty suspect - animatedly chewing on the plastic tube of toothpaste down in the sink, looking quite galaxy-blue himself. When he notices his hyungs, he looks up wide-eyed, going for his cute-innocent look (typical Jimin). It doesn’t take (thank you, self-control media training), but it does make them want to whine. Too much cuteness. It almost hurts.

“Oh Jiminie,” Namjoon laments, “why are you making such a mess?”

The sticky cat meows absentmindedly before making more toothpaste squirt out of the container. The little one gets up and rolls in the stuff, happily spreading it everywhere with his tail.

Yoongi giggles at the sight, shamelessly taking pictures. A second later, he’s got a new wallpaper. “Maybe he just liked the first bath a little too much.”

They wash Jimin again. But this time, in solitary treatment, cold water, and the sink, which seems to be a new favorite spot of the little leopard’s (despite the fact that this is supposed to be a punishment).

“C’mon, Jimin-ah,” Yoongi nudges the cat that seems to doze off every time he’s left alone for a second. “We’ll eat something and then you can find a sunny, warm spot and sleep, yeah?” Jimin yawns wide, showing off all his sharp little teeth.

“Oh, look at you, you’re so tired. Come here,” Yoongi knows he’s talking to Jimin like he’s a baby but the little one does need some babying right now.

His suspicion (hope?) from earlier turns out to be right. As soon as there is food, Jimin devours it, not caring about his diet plans and the company’s ideas about his figure or even the public’s words. He just eats like he’s never eaten before and when he’s done, he crawls away to lie down and lick after lick, cleans his fur.

“You might be right,” Namjoon says. “Maybe we shouldn’t interfere and just wait what happens.

“Yeah. Don’t pick the flower before it blooms. As long as we’ve got time off, it’s all good.”

Namjoon nods. “Fine.”

---

They watch a couple episodes of some new drama on tv when suddenly, Taehyung calls. Of course, they’ve all texted and talked the last couple of days, none of the members familiar or comfortable with that much distance between each other, but right now, Namjoon wishes he wouldn’t have to take the call. He feels oddly unprepared for an inquisitive Taehyung and he doesn’t want to tell the youngest Kim off, let alone make him sad. His attempt at handing the phone to Yoongi fails. Yoongi is asleep. Typical.

“Heeeeey,” Taehyung drawls, sounding happy and excited. He’s probably having a blast back home.

“What’s up, Tae?”

“I miss you,” he says, a little more quietly, and adds, “and I miss my Jiminie, is he better?”

Namjoon swallows. Should I tell him? He decides no. No, they should see that for themselves instead of hearing it over the phone. It might sound a little too crazy.

“Aw, it’s only been a couple of days, Taehyung-ah. But we miss you too. It’s strange, everything is so quiet, right?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung mumbles.

“But yeah, Jimin is better. He’s uh, he’s running around again.”

“That’s great! Can I talk to him? He’s not answering his phone.” That’s… because of reasons. Namjoon isn’t sure what to say. He looks at Yoongi, who looks so at home with Jimin on his chest. He can’t expect any help from them, obviously.

“Um, he’s with hyung right now. They’re busy, sorry Tae. Maybe you can talk to him tomorrow. You’re gonna be back soon, right?”

“Mh,” Taehyung says, obviously unhappy with the answer. “Tell him I said hi and that I miss him a lot. I wish he could be here with me.”

“I’ll make sure to tell him.”

They talk for a little more, about all the nice things Taehyung’s been up to during his time with his family, on the farm in the countryside (I like countrysiiiiideeee, Namjoon’s mind yells out of nowhere, spooking him). The call ends when Seoul dips in darkness and rises as a sea of lights and Namjoon wonders if he should just let Yoongi sleep on the couch.

He does in the end, not keen on disturbing either hyung or dongsaeng. With compassion in his heart, he pulls a blanket over his two brothers and goes to bed.

[ prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven ]

masterlist | moodboard masterlist

tags: @xmagicxshopx, @taeshuworld, @justanemptydream, @hoodmeup, @gingerpeachtae

#park jimin #pjm #show me your rosettes baby (g) #smyrbg #bts #bangtan #kim namjoon #min yoongi #jimin #rm #suga #kim taehyung #v #supernatural au #bts fanfic #wordsturnintostories #oct6 #oct11

[somniumoflight]

Crossover Idea #5 - Artemis Fowl and My Hero Academia

Artemis Fowl is a Quirkless Villain in the My Hero Academia world

My sister’s a big fan of My Hero Academia, which means that although I don’t watch/read the anime/manga myself, I know at least the basics of the world it takes place in - especially the whole issue of quirks and quirkless and prejudice against the latter.  Seriously, for a world of professional superheroes their society is seriously toxic to EVERYONE, but especially the quirkless.  Like, seriously, it’s fucked up man.  I could go into a whole rant about how toxic the society of MHA is, and I barely know a thing about it.  

But that’s not the point and I’m staying up late to type this idea so let’s get to the actual point - barely thirty minutes ago I suddenly came up with an AMAZING idea for a crossover, and that idea is Artemis Fowl, heck, the entire Fowl Family, being a family of quirkless villains and masterminds in the MHA world - quirkless villains who ALWAYS WIN.

Since I don’t know enough about the MHA world to put a plot to this idea, let’s just go into bullet point details of the idea I have so far.  Heck, if anybody familiar with both of these fandoms has an idea, go ahead and reblog this post with it!

So, ideas for this crossover are as follows:

As quirkless villains in the MHA world, the Fowl family would probably be seriously screwed if they were to blatantly go up against heroes and police in public during their criminal businesses like other villains seem to.  Therefore, my solution - nobody knows that they’re villains.  Heck, nobody even knows that they’re quirkless.  

The Fowls hide in plain sight as a rich philanthropist family in Ireland who doctor the paperwork to make it seem like all their money comes from official channels somehow, and they hide their quirklessness by bribing doctors to mis-diagnose them with quirks instead of quirkless - usually mental quirks, or quirks that could be easily proven to be “real” by their own experience, such as in observation or lie-detecting.

They’ve been doing this since quirks started becoming common enough that the quirkless were the minority, to avoid persecution.

The name “Fowl” is actually the name they use as part of their villain identities, rather than their actual family names.  Well, it WOULD be what they used for their villain names if they bothered announcing themselves to the world at all.  Stealth villains, after all - it’s better to go completely unnoticed in a world where things like human lie detectors are a thing, rather than draw any kind of attention to yourself.

Literally the only people in the world that know that the Fowls are criminals are the Butlers, a family of bodyguards who have been in it with them up to the ears in the crime world for centuries.

Unlike the Fowls, who are all quirkless, the Butlers range anywhere from having full-on heroic quirks to being quirkless themselves.  However, even the Butlers without quirks are dangerous thanks to their training, and the Fowls help those without quirks hide themselves the same way their family does, partially in thanks for their continued loyalty and to also ensure their continued loyalty.

These two families are secretly behind every single major villain-caused incident in Europe, and a good number of them throughout Asia, the least number of them being in Japan (for good reason - they’d rather not attract All Might’s attention, thank you.)  Their motivations for being villains range from just liking to be bad to wanting to prove to the toxic society they live in that quirkless does not mean lower than dirt like the world wants to think.

Artemis would end up hiding behind an intelligence quirk, much to his chargain - he’s very proud of his intelligence, thank you, and does NOT like having to hide behind a false quirk label when his smarts are all him.  Unfortunately, he also understands that doing so would draw the ire of the entirety of society just for existing, so he goes along with it anyway... fo a while.

After his father dies (actually dies in this universe, because hello, QUIRKS) and his mother - who actually does have a quirk and might even be as clueless about the rest of the world that her husband, son, and their bodyguards are quirkless - goes insane, Artemis basically goes “screw the rules” and makes his debut as a faceless puppetmaster, he does so as “Artemis Fowl,” and announces his identity to be quirkless to the world

He then proceeds to run metaphorical circles around the heroes of the world starting at age 12, much to the shock and irritation and possibly fury of the world at large.

As for the fairies in this crossover, they’d probably be actually better off in canon when it comes to hiding themselves - in a world where people can literally turn permanently invisible or be born with animal characteristics, tiny people with pointed ears really won’t attract much attention, so long as there’s not a whole lot of them in one area all at once.

This means that though most fairies still live underground, their exposure is far less likely - heck, LEP officers even have fake human IDs that identify them as people with a quirk that changes their appearance only, and have mesmerized people into accepting the IDs as truth, even in official statements and such.

Of course, this also means that there are a lot more fairies trying to visit the surface because it’s less risky to do so than in canon, which means the LEP have their hands even more full than they would in a world without quirks.

Holly and Artemis’s meeting would probably be a little different from canon.  The idea I have is that Artemis would uncover evidence of the People from either the time pre-Quirks or from somewhere in the modern day - maybe he accidentally witnesses them or something - and then he’d seek them out, because these people are clearly not at all normal and their abilities would make them FANTASTIC assets to his criminal empire.

Basically instead of outright kidnapping a fairy for gold, Artemis would probably blackmail the fairy people into working for him as informants or spies.  After making sure they won’t simply kill them - probably with one of his informants waiting out of blast range of most long-range quirks (and therefore bio-bombs) holding information on the existence of fairies to release to the public at his command in a way they can’t simply erase - the fairies grudgingly agree to work with him.

Eventually though, despite the grudgingness of their agreement, the fairies would go from “unwilling accomplices” to “in it with Artemis up in the pointy ears” because, despite the advantages quirk society gives them, the society at large is ultimately even more risky to them than even a quirkless world would be.  What exactly they and Artemis would do about the whole issue is something I haven’t figured out yet, though.

And that’s it, that’s literally all of the idea for now.  It’s mostly just worldbuilding stuff - I’d need to know more about MHA to make any kind of plots that go alongside the canon storyline, though I think I could probably think something up that could be reasonable for a story like this with what I know now...

#crossover ideas #artemis fowl #my hero academia #The Fowl family is a family of Quirkless villains #the fowls hide as a normal quirk-bearing family in ireland #they are stealth villains who most people never realize exist #except for Artemis #because he's #well #Artemis #he never does anything by halves #basically quirkless genius motivated by spite towards quirk society completely wrecks the egos of heroes worldwide #by announcing that he's a quirkless villain and then beating the heros or outsmarting them every single time #the fairies hide in plain sight too but are almost at more risk in this world than AF canon #which means that eventually the two team up #and become a villain team of AWESOME #fanfic ideas

[i-writeandread-blog]

A Portrait of a Tortured You and I - Chapter 2

Authors Note: I don’t edit or proofread usually when trying to get content out quickly, so I am aware there may be issues with my use of past and present tense. Please know I will fix any and all errors!

I was snapped back to reality, when I heard the horn blow on the ferry.  It was pulling up to the dock.  I was equal parts excited and nervous.  This wasn't my first rodeo, I had been to over 50 concerts, traveling all over the world to see Mars, I was also a Camp Mars alum... but this was the first time I had left the comfort of my home since I had been brutalized. 

Life has a funny way of surprising you though.  Since the attack, my sisters and I have made up.  I don't think we would have, had the unfortunate not happened.

Since I received the anonymous letter and check, I started working on getting better.  I still wasn't out of the woods.  The occasional panic attack and nightmare still happened.  I didn't know if they would ever go away, but they were becoming less and less.  I did have a few issues getting on the plane, but I used the breathing and grounding techniques that my therapist was teaching me.  And here I am, ready to finally enjoy life again.  I was so anxious to get to the island and get settled in. 

Some of the Echelon that I was still friends with were meeting up with me and it was all about strength in numbers.  That gave me comfort knowing that they had my back in the unlikely event I began to panic.

I looked around seeing many unfamiliar faces and was slightly confused.  Having traveled a lot to the European shows, I expected to recognize people I knew, but alas I didn't.  We began to load onto the ferry, everyone in a rush.  I felt a bump and a push and at first just chucked it off as everyone being so eager and not looking where they were going.  I felt an attack coming on and steadied myself against the railing.  "Okay, you've got this. Breathe in, now breathe out." I did my breathing exercises and didn't care if people thought I was crazy.  It subsided and I went to give myself a figurative pat on the back when I turned around and saw an unwanted familiar face.

"No one is buying it, freak!" She was laughing and acting so smug.

"What is your problem, Natalie?" I asked.  I honestly wanted to clear the air with her.  I knew I'd be seeing her at a ton of events going forward, as I had been for the last fifteen years.  I'd like to be able to enjoy our precious time with the band without having to constantly worry about problems with her.

"You honestly don't know, do you?"  She grinned, all the while looking at me very curiously.

"No. I've never had problems with you.  In fact, when you were writing that Jared smut, I was your biggest fan, always complimenting you on your writing.  Last years camp we even enjoyed some time together. So Nat, what's the deal?"

"You don't get to call me Nat anymore.  Just do me a favor and fuck off."  With that she stormed off into a group of girls all high five-ing her and congratulating her on a job well done being the biggest bully.  The saddest part of this was that Natalie is a 44 year old woman acting like a 20 year old.  It wasn't cute.  Not by a long shot.

I was on edge the whole ferry ride which lasted approximately an hour and twenty minutes, but felt much more like an eternity. My eyes were constantly darting around and anytime the boat rocked, I felt absolute dread. I was repeating a sort of mantra over and over in my head, “you’re gonna be in the presence of Mars soon. It’s going to be the best time!” I just knew once I was there and settled, that I would finally be able to let my guard down. I would be able to relax and have the best time.

We pulled up to the island and from the boat, I could see the beautiful art installations and hear the sounds of laughter mixed with music being played on loud speakers. I was home, in my element. Memories of previous camps creeping in my head and replacing all the negative ones from the past year. I watched as Natalie and her groupies got off the boat before me. I was wishing and trusting that she’d forget that I was here, now that she was also on the island.

Check in was literally right at the dock and there were many faces I recognized there, I sighed a great deal of relief. Walking up, I presented my ID, passport, and my booking number. A cheery girl many years my junior, took my items and said, “Hi, Catherine, how was your trip here?” I smiled, “it has been uneventful up to now.” I didn’t need to tell her all of the details, she was just making small talk. “Okay, you are in.... hmm. I don’t see your booking, that’s strange. Hold on a second.” She turned and walked off. I was growing more nervous by the second. Was my email from Shayla fake? But if so, how did I end up with $3,000 dollars? I started putting pieces together. Maybe the email was fake and my parents gave me the cashiers check. This would be so awful, if true.

I was told to step aside while someone else took over that computer and was checking more guests in. I couldn’t breathe and I started crying and shaking. The place I was supposed to feel most at home in was now not feeling so homey.

The girl came back and asked to see any printouts I had from AiW. I fumbled around looking for the email from Shayla and any correspondence directly from Adventures, I grabbed the first thing which happened to be the original confirmation when I bought the package in January.

She took it from me and cross referenced something on an iPad. “Hmmm, I see this booking existed and then it was canceled. But, I also see your name is on the list of attendees. We don’t finalize the list until all payments are made. This is odd. Do you have proof of payment?” I didn’t have that, but I was able to show her the email from Shayla after digging around once more in my bag. “Oh, well I guess this actually makes sense now! Okay, so you had the moonlight tent package. Let me find you one that’s available since we don’t know which one you’re supposed to be in, anyway.” She found one that had a bed free and loaded up my bags onto a golf cart. I told her I didn’t mind walking, and set out to find my tent.

I hadn’t seen any of my friends yet as many people were still being ferried over and we all had different boat times. It was peaceful. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, the music was a great selection of garden variety pop and rock. I was actually feeling great, now that it appeared the email wasn’t fake at all.

As I was walking, I caught a glimpse of Jared and Shannon talking over by some trees. They were wearing swimming trunks and smiling as they talked. I thought to myself that they looked extra adorable and almost tripped from not looking where I was going. I heard a voice that I would know anywhere shout, “watch your step, the ground isn’t even!” Shannon chuckled as he spoke to me from a distance. Jared looked in my direction and waved. I kept going and finally found my tent. Number 4, one of my lucky numbers. I was at peace.

My bags were sitting on the only available bed and I made my way over to it, to start making my little space my own. I heard someone walk in, but they must have walked back out because I never did see anyone. Once, I had made myself comfortable, I decided to lay down and allow myself time to soften up. I needed to unwind in the worst way and the quiet was really tranquil.

I rested for what was likely to be about an hour, but I have no actual idea as I hadn’t looked at the time. I was awoken from reverie to a commotion outside the tent. And I drew my legs up and started rocking back and forth.

The problem with being out in the real world was that everything was so unpredictable. Loud noises were everywhere, no matter the cause... they were most always innocent. People fighting... that was a hard one for me, but I saw my share of it in the airport between husband and wives, or parents and children. Now, here on the island there is it’s own set of issues. I needed to know the cause for the arguing. I needed to know I was safe. So I cranked my neck forward to get a really good listen.

“Ughh, I’ve looked all over for someone who can help me and I can’t seem to find anyone that cares or knows what to do! I’m going to just start screaming. Maybe that will get someone’s attention!”

I instantly knew it was Natalie.

“Don’t worry. This is a great opportunity. We can fuck with her as much as we want.”

“Hahahaha, no! I don’t want to be anywhere near her. She’ll play the victim no matter what and then I’ll get kicked off the island. Nooooo thanks!”

“No one has to know.”

“That’s true! Oh wait, there’s Shayla. Let’s get her attention.”

“Shayla, we desperately need your help!”

“Not now ladies. I’m looking for someone. Can it wait?”

“No, it can’t. We are stuck in a tent with someone we don’t like.”

“That’s hardly a reason to throw a fit. Can’t you just ignore each other?”

“Me? Of course! I can avoid her, but it’s not me to worry about. Catherine, will be the problem. She’s gonna hurt me in my sleep or something. She’s really unstable.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. She was actually trying to make me sound like I was a monster. What’s worse is we were to share a tent for three nights. I became violently ill and threw up right there in the bed.

“Did you say Catherine? Where is she?”

“Hell if I know.”

Shayla stepped inside and took notice of me.

“Oh my goodness, are you okay, Catherine?”

I nodded. “Let’s get you cleaned up and out of here. There was a mistake at check out. This isn’t your room. I’ll have someone clean up in here, don’t worry.” I went to protest, but she waved her hands at me. She picked up a towel and wiped my face. I was so humiliated. I had known Shayla for a few years and she was always so kind, we were nothing but acquaintances so to have her help me when I’m at my lowest was really humbling and extremely embarrassing. She handed me clothes from my suitcase and I quickly changed into them. “You ready?” I sighed, then nodded.

Shayla had her arms around me and walked me out of the tent. She gave Natalie a stern look and said nothing. We took a few steps and I overheard a scream followed by, “that nasty cunt threw up in here, how fucking gross!” Shayla reassured me and told me to just ignore it. I tried, but I still couldn’t get over how things were unfolding. I was still so confused as to how it ended up the way it did with Natalie.

We arrived at some bungalows and Shayla motioned for me to follow her. At first, I thought this was where she was staying or maybe it was first aid. I was really perplexed, but I followed her in. She turned around and said, “I’ll have your things sent here. Is this room okay? I wanted you to have something peaceful to wake up to, this was the only room with a direct view of the sea.”

“Shayla, I’m completely baffled. This isn’t my room. Why am I here?” I had to ask because I knew there had to be a mistake. “I must have forgotten to tell you, the donor upgraded you to the VIP experience and this was meant to be your room from that moment on. Unfortunately, when I went into the system to change everything, there was a glitch so it erased your booking entirely. You shouldn’t have been in that tent and it’s my fault you had to experience that unpleasantness.” She looked truly sorry.

“Shayla, you couldn’t have known. But is there anyway you can refund back some of the money to whomever paid for me? I’d like to just be where I was if I had paid my own way?”

“Catherine, I’m under strict orders to make sure you have a smooth vacation and that you have a wonderful time. I can ask, but I don’t think there’s a chance that they will allow that to happen.”

“Shay, who was it? I won’t say anything, I just am a little freaked out that someone did this for me.” I pleaded with her to tell me. Honestly, I was more scared now then I had been traveling here alone. What if this person meant me harm?

“I can’t say. But they’re not a threat to you. I can assure you of that.”

“Okay, whomever it was is trustworthy? I have your word?”

“Yes. Now, I suggest you do whatever it is you need to, because your itinerary is completely full starting in about an hour.” She handed me a paper filled with activities and times. She was right, completely full, starting with front row seating to the soundcheck.

#thirty seconds to mars #jared leto #30 seconds to mars #campmars #shannon leto #marsisland #jared leto fanfiction #jared leto fanfic #jared leto fic #jared leto fiction #jared leto fan fiction #jared leto fanfics #aportraitofatorturedyouandi chapter 2

[axelsagewrites]

Welcome Home*Shadowhunters

Masterlist HERE

Wattpad HERE Alec, Isabelle, Magnus, Jace, Clary X Platonic!Lightwood!Reader

"uh," I groan and squeeze my eyes shut as sunlight blinds me in my bed. The shrill ringing of my phone is still going on. I roll over and lazily feel around for it before turning the alarm and prying my eyes open to see the time. 4:23 am. Uhh. I fling my phone somewhere and curl back up. Why am I getting up at 4 anyway? Wait, "Is it..?" this time I actually sit up and grab my phone, "It is. I'm late!" flying the covers off, I run to my wardrobe and stuff on jeans and a jumper over my pajama top. Grabbing the first suitcase, I begin cramming all my clothes inside, flinging my shoes in as well with some non-breakables. Suitcase 2. I sweep everything off my shelves and out of my drawers into my suitcase. mi not stupid so I save all my souvenirs and breakables for my backpack. Glancing over at my desk I sigh. I don't even pay attention to what papers I'm gathering as I try to make them neat enough to fit in a folder then in my bag. Finally done. The clock reads 4:56 here. Okay, this is fine. I double check for loose ends and when I'm sure I stand in the doorway and look over the room. This was-had been my room for the past year. I'd grown accustomed to it, loved it even. Despite its faults and culture shocks. As I walk along the hallways for the last time I nod to the few awake at 5 am. Most people awake were night shift desperate for a bed. They give me smiles and nods in returns, even a few goodbyes. I quickly duck into the kitchen. Hayato was hunched over the coffee maker. An older man with greying hair and wrinkles deep in his forehead and in his smile lines. He was always smiling, a good thing really as he was my mentor, "Morning," I said. He rolled his eyes and scrunched his lip up to his nose, "Or evening," I laugh. "I'm 58, I shouldn't still do the night shift," Despite his grumbles, he pours me a mug as well, "Here," "I should really be going; I only came for..." I trailed off knowing id sound stupid. He raised an eyebrow, "Your mug? It's in the cupboard," he smirks at my red face, "Nothing wrong with being a little sentimental," I shrug as I grab the 'I heart NY' mug my friends had given me before leaving. "See you later," Hayato didn't say goodbyes. He nodded, grabbing something from the cupboard, "For your collection,"  he added as I took the box. "Open it later." I nodded and left. I don't bump into anyone else as I head to the portal. We said goodbye last night. When I get their Kaori was waiting, "It was good to have you," I smile, "Good to be here." Normally her hair was pinned back but she left it down for once, a waterfall of ink down her back, "if you ever need anything just send word," "Same goes," She grins, "Okay go. You're missing them after all," I take a quick breath before stepping through the portal. I hate portalling. You feel weightless and there's always the chance of getting stuck. My eyes open to a sight and a half. All the stations were filled with people silently doing their work, like a perfect machine. Frightening. But New York had always been like this. When I didn't see any of them I began to retrace the hallways. Sure, it was a little different but also the same. It was dinner time here and it smelled like takeaway. The dining room was filled with quiet chatter. It used to be before I was even alive, that a cook would make the food for everyone and the dining room would always be filled. It's different though. Maybe 10 to 20 people are in here. Tony and David, two older men sit up at the top of the table playing cards like always and drinking a pint. Tony had been my teacher so when he saw me he nodded but cards were important. A group of pencil-pushing 30-year olds sat at one table, no one attempting to talk to them, eating their food while talking about work. About halfway down the middle table was a group of 4 teens. I leave my suitcases at the door and walk over. I drop my bag into the crook of my right elbow, silently. Moving silently without notice is one area of being a shadowhunter I always excelled at. I dropped the bag next to a chair, grabbed a chip off someone's plate, and sat down, "So what's the gossip?" I ask. They all turn to me, "(Y/N)!" Alec smiles, arms pulling me into a hug, "I didn't think you were back today," "It was a secret," I laugh as he finally realizes me. "Stop hogging (Y/N)," Izzy whines, forcing me to sit in between her and Alec and across from Jace. "I missed you," she says, hugging me as well. I let out a breath and look at Jace, "hey," "Hey," He said plainly before we both burst out laughing. He stands up gesturing me to do the same. Despite the table making it awkward we sort of hug over the table. I plonk back down, sliding Alec's plate my way, "Ah breakfast," I grin.  Alec rolls his eyes and moves his plate in-between us so we can share. "And this is..?" "Clary, (Y/N). (Y/N), Clary," Jace introduces us. Holding my hand out to her, "Hello. I'm the loveable one of the groups," she laughs, and I grin and shake her hand. "I'm lovable," Isabelle says. "Same here," Jace joins in. Rolling my eyes, "Isabelle, I may love you but your lustable, not lovable," She smirks as Alec chokes on his food. "And as for Jace," he grins, "you're a prick." The table laughs. Before Jace starts a fight Alec cuts in, "How was Japan?" And so, I began recounting my tale. Obviously making it more interesting. "But that's boring," I say after telling the tale of Hayoto and I fighting this rare Japanese demon. My friends roll their eyes but clary's impressed. This would be fun, "What's happened here?" By the end of it I'm staring at clary, mouth gaping, "So you've been here for two months got your friend turned into a vampire, starting going with Jace-" She went to protest but I continued due to his arm being around her shoulder, "brought valentine back, and became a shadowhunter? No offense but please don't plan my return party. I don't think I could handle that," "Technically she didn't bring Valentine back," Jace said. "Is now really time for technically?" I ask, "And besides I think the biggest issue is I wasn't informed of Alec's boy toy," "Magnus isn't a boy toy," he argued with red checks. I give him a look, "Boyfriend then," "He's not," he mumbles. "What are you then?" He shrugs and looks down, "Dunno," I give him my best-shocked look before turning to Izzy, "And you allowed this? If Alec is dating someone it needs to be official so we can spill the tea," I get up from my seat, "Come skyscraper," he rolls his eyes at his nickname, "This cannot last," "What?" Rolling my eyes, I drag him up, "We are going to Magnus' to make this official," his face went pale, "And I need to meet this man," "No," "You act like this is optional,"So, there we are standing outside of the high warlock of Brooklyn's apartment at 8 in the evening for 'no reason'. The rest of the group had joined for 'moral support'. Alec didn't press the button fast enough, so I pressed it. "Who dares disturb the high warlock of Brooklyn?!" a voice boom. When Alec makes no move I step forward, "Hi it's (Y/N), Alec's sibling. We're going out for drinks and Alec wanted to see if you wanted to come," Alec tried to pull me away, but I managed to finish. He held his head in his hands while we waited for a response, "Give me 5 minutes," The door buzzed, and we all looked at Alec. "I'm going to kill you, slowly and painfully," I roll my eyes as did my sister. "Alec, calm down. You'll be thanking (Y/N)," Isabelle said, linking arms with me. 5 minutes isn't as long when you are taking the rise out of your blushing friend. Magnus walks out and I have to take a moment. I get he's not straight, but I thought this was a stereotype; skin tight blue glitter trousers, a black button-up shirt (clearly expensive), smoky eye, and the best highlight I've ever seen.  Why does he look so good? Alec one this battle. Magnus grins at Alec and looks over the group, "You," he points at me, "Must be (Y/N)," "Yes, I am that lucky," I say. Jace rolls his eyes. "And you say I'm cocky," "But the difference is I have a right to be cocky. I'm amazing," I say in a 'duh' tone. Magnus cuts us off, "Well who's leading the way?" I look at Jace. "Why me?" "You'll know the way," I grin. He rolls his eyes, "Twas a compliment. Now onwards." As we're walking I hear Magnus ask Alec, "Has (Y/N) been drinking already?" My brother chuckles, "(Y/N) may be weird," understatement, "but it's never boring," "I can tell," I grin and turn, "Thank you," I fake curtsey before linking arms again with Izzy. I couldn't help but notice Alec holding Magnus' hand. The bar wasn't packed, so we were able to have space and play a couple games of pool. Clary had called Simon to join, (who was kinda cute and not as irritating as Jace said) and I bumped into Raphael. We weren't friends but we were? It was strange. We swapped insults, wit, and good gestures. Going back up to the bar I order a coke (pretending it was vodka coke) and sit down. I glance over the bar. Alec was playing pool with Jace, taking it too seriously, clary was watching and rooting for Jace making him smile for real. Isabelle was talking to Simon, making him uncomfortable and giggling at his mundane jokes. Giggling? Really? I smiled at the sight, taking my drink from Maia. "I'll have a Cosmo," Magnus said sitting beside me, "Thanks," he turned to me, smirking, "Do you drink? You can't pretend that's vodka coke with me," I shrug, "I don't need to be drunk to enjoy a night with the family. Someone's got to make sure they end up home in one piece," Magnus chuckled as he got his drink from Maia, "I never thought I'd get on with this many lightwoods," "We're a confusing bunch," He nodded, "Alec has defiantly proven that," "Your...?" He rolled his eyes with a smile. "Boyfriend, official if you must know," he said. I grinned, "Though I suspect you were the one that got him to talk," I shrugged, "Prove it," Magnus chuckled and held up his glass to me. We clinked glasses, "Welcome home,"

#shadow #shadowhunters #shadowworld #shadowhunters imagine #shadowhunter cast #tmi #tmi imagine #the mortal instruments #the mortal instruments imagine #platonic #lightwood reader #lightwood #Alec Lightwood #alec lightwood x magnus bane #alec lightwood imagine #alec lightwood x reader #alexander lightwood #alexander lightwood imagine #platonic alec #platonic alec lightwood #magnus #Magnus Bane #magnus bane imagine #magnus bane x reader #platonic magnus #platonic magnus bane #Isabelle Lightwood #isabellelightwood #isabelle lightwood imagine #platonic isabelle

[parabcllums]

⌜   ZOE KRAVITZ, NON BINARY, SHE / HER / THEY / THEM   |   truth hurts by lizzo, choleric, the philophobe   ⌟    ⏤   blink and you’ll miss MAKENA RENÉE THURMAN, the TWENTY SEVEN year old daughter of NEENA THURMAN ( & LOKI ) / NATHAN SUMMERS ! they’re a RECEPTIONIST at paragon academy and BOOKING AGENT & ACCOUNTANT at karma club, and i’ve always found them to be pretty INTUITIVE & STAUNCH, though i’ve heard that they can also be really IRASCIBLE & INSCRUTABLE. i don’t think getting their way is a smart thing to do - everyone knows that their ability is TYCHOKINESIS & LATENT TELEKINESIS. you can check out her stat page HERE.

    she was BEAUTIFUL in the way a ( forest fire ) was beautiful:              something to be admired from a DISTANCE, not up CLOSE.

SECTION ONE OF THREE: BULLET POINT HISTORY trigger warning for talk of car crashes, alcohol, drugs and pregnancy

MAKENA RENÉE THURMAN. she was born by c section at 4:23 am on august 20th, 1992, for all intents and purposes the daughter born of the love shared between neena thurman and nathan summers - only the FAMILY ever REALLY knowing that in truth, she was something of their blessing, moreso than she was a MIRACLE. the techno-organic virus that infected nathan meant it was unlikely, if not flatout impossible, for he and neena to ever have a child of their own. they made the decision to go the route of sperm donation after all attempts ended the exact same way, and little makena was the result.

the truth of their circumstances was not a secret they felt was appropriate to hide from their daughters curious mind. even young, she had QUESTIONS, and to their credit, they gave her ANSWERS. the first time she asked she was four, and the question amounted to “why [she didn’t] have a younger brother or sister yet”. she LOVED hope - squealed with childish excitement every time her older sister so much as APPEARED around a corner, held onto every word she said, followed her everywhere that she went, had to be patted down for weapons every time she left. but she wanted to be a BIG sister, she said, sullenly, and nathan didn’t hesitate in explaining. MOMMY AND DADDY LOVE EACH OTHER VERY MUCH. WE ALWAYS HAVE. AND WE WANTED YOU SO MUCH THAT WE FOUND A WAY TO HAVE YOU, EVEN THOUGH IT WASN’T EASY. AND MAYBE SOMEDAY, WE’LL FIND A WAY TO GIVE YOU A YOUNGER BROTHER OR SISTER, TOO.

the next time the subject was broached, she was ten, and it was by her mother. neena sat her down to have the talk about the birds and the bees and after a previous nights discussion, had decided, with nathan, that it was time for makena to know DETAILS. she threw them in at the end. THAT’S WHAT DAD MEANT, WHEN HE SAID WE FOUND A WAY TO HAVE YOU. MY EGG, AND SOMEONE ELSE’S SPERM. YOU AREN’T HIS, BIOLOGICALLY, BUT THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU ANY LESS OF OUR DAUGHTER.

and it was true. it ALWAYS had been. in spite of the fact that she was not born belonging to them both by blood, neena and nathan were HER PARENTS, mostly for better, and sometimes for worse. she grew up safe in the knowledge that she was LOVED beyond comprehension, and was allowed all the space that she needed, to grow and develop into a young woman who knew her own mind, first and foremost. they took in turns being the strict voice of reason, but MOSTLY, so long as she wasn’t taking the mickey, makena was allowed to make MISTAKES and learn from them. neither blew up, the first time they were called for her causing trouble in class and having to be removed. they sat her down to discuss WHY, and they worked to resolve her issues - which at the time, were to do with girls that wouldn’t BE NICE, and a teacher that refused to DISCIPLINE them. when she was scared to go to the doctors, they asked her WHY, and when she said it was because she didn’t like their USUAL, they simply changed. they made sure that makena was comfortable in expressing her thoughts and feelings, and ensured that she never thought twice about doing so. when she wanted to try a cigarette, she didn’t resort to joining friends behind the bike sheds, but simply asked whether she could. likewise, when she wanted to go ALL THE WAY with her first boyfriend, she told her mum and neena ensured the house was EMPTY - and after the breakup was there to stroke her hair and tell her that boys were rarely worth it. they were GOOD parents.

it was a double edged sword. neena and nathan taught makena to be INDEPENDENT, and this was a lesson they considered most important - because BOTH were aware that they wouldn’t ALWAYS be around. they were GOOD parents, but they also DIDN’T discipline her when it was seriously NEEDED, and they weren’t always such a steady presence in her life. sometimes, nathan would disappear into the timestream for weeks at a time, leaving her with neena. sometimes neena would take a job that required her to be gone for months, leaving her alone with nathan. sometimes BOTH had responsibilities to their teams that required them to leave TOGETHER, and though they entrusted makena to the care of xavier’s, she had been given too much freedom by them for too long to accept rules and regulations that came with living under those roofs. she caused TROUBLE. she got herself into STICKY SITUATIONS. makena had always been a girl too quick to react, and too willing to use her FISTS. they returned once to find that she had been literally locked in her room just hours before for everyone’s protection bar her own. they returned another time to discover that in their absence, she had run away from xavier’s a pro brotherhood rally - a trend that would continue for YEARS. neena and nathan operated often in shades of grey. the world was not black and white, and neither was their outlook upon it. makena took after THEM, more than they could have imagined.

she was ANGRY. she was resentful to her parents for leaving her BEHIND, and she found herself filling with rage each time she turned on the tv to see more and more people like her, like her family, like the POWERED individuals she could relate to, being prosecuted for being DIFFERENT. she acted out, because that was the logical next step - and in the process, she became the pain in her parents backsides. they were GOOD. but they were also all too quick to believe that makena could handle these long stints alone WELL. it was only when they started seeing her in the background of news reports and started receiving calls from xavier’sl for some new stunt she had pulled - such as the time she hung a crude “charles xavier, eat my ass” banner from the front of the school, or the time she turned all the ‘x’s’ on their uniforms into criss crossed dicks with sharpie - that they started to see one of their biggest parenting faults.

and then a phone call came that wasn’t about makena’s antics. and it scared them - it REALLY scared them, more than they’ve ever been able to SAY. she was YOUNGER than most of the group, on that fateful night. she had always gravitated towards the OLDER KIDS, always found herself getting along with them much BETTER. one had stolen a car from the garage, and they were all laughing and talking and singing along to music that was playing FAR TOO LOUD and they weren’t really focusing on the road,  which they SHOULD HAVE BEEN, because it was ICY, and because the fog was impossible. they drove off the side of the road. the car fell into the water, below. it broke through the layer of ice, shattering the windows enough that the ice cold water begun to spray in, and makena went into SHOCK. she doesn’t remember what happened. just the water. how she ended up with a lungful. how it was dark and unrelenting and she thought, THE WHOLE TIME, that she was ALREADY dead. she remembers the burn of her throat as she had thrown up the water that had been stealing her lifes breath away, and she remembers the fog clearing and the stars above her in the sky, and then after that, she doesn’t remember anything until she woke in the hospital with her mother and father sat on either side, grasping one hand each and PROMISING not to leave.

they kept the promise. for a WHILE, at least. a few months. and they were more strict with her, too. wouldn’t let her out without knowing where the end destination was and who she was going with. wouldn’t take her back answering even LESS so than usual. but they slipped up, eventually. when she was BETTER, when she had been for a WHILE, they started to ease themselves back into work - one would leave, then the other. and then, when both had to start leaving AT THE SAME TIME… well, the only LOGICAL way around fully breaking the promise they had made was to take her with them.

they had moved around a lot, when makena was younger. they had spent months living in different cities across the states, sometimes across the world - they ALWAYS came back home. now, it seemed as if they never WOULD. she was constantly shuttled between whoever had the most free time to spend with her, their time together as a family growing less and less. they said they kept her with them, said they kept moving her from school to school and place to place because they LOVED her and wanted to keep an EYE on her, but RESENTMENT grew in her heart, unbidden. she loved to be cultured, don’t get me wrong, loved to see the sights and experience what the WORLD had to offer - but she would have given anything to stand STILL, something she had never really realized she liked doing ‘til she couldn’t.

so she rebelled. she did what she was learning she was GOOD at. soon enough, she wasn’t leaving schools behind because they were upping sticks once again, but because she was getting FORCIBLY removed. she would sneak out of whatever house or apartment or studio flat they had for the time being, fake id in hand, and she would join friends that she wouldn’t have a week later at the seediest nightclubs they could find. her parents or parent, however it was set up for a time, would return home to discover that she hadn’t returned from school that day and instead chose to head to a rally. worse: more than once, they had come home to discover that makena had RUN AWAY, joining whichever group would TAKE her. her time on the streets was often short lived, but the girl who had always used her fists to solve her problems learnt, over time, an ART OF SURVIVAL. she had always been taught to be independent. she learnt, now, how to be STRONG.

and then she was eighteen. and she realized, as the first rally that she had attended since her birthday dissolved into a maddening sort of VIOLENCE, that her parents weren’t going to come and GET her, anymore. it wasn’t their JOB. she was an ADULT. she had to make ADULT choices, and when she returned home that night, battered and bruised, she informed them that she was LEAVING.

and to everyone’s SURPRISE, it wasn’t to join those insurgents that existed, out in the world. it wasn’t to become an EXTREMIST. makena decided, ON HER OWN, that she wanted to get an education - a steady, stable education, one that she wouldn’t have to always be running to catch up on. she found a little place of her own, she got herself settled, she started attending paragon academy - and she, to NO ONE’S surprise, kept up her regular ANTICS on the side. one grown up decision does not a grown up make, and makena couldn’t shake habits of her past. she was selfish, and reactive, and she had great difficulty in keeping herself in check - and with a pretty SEVERE partying habit also on the board, it goes without saying she got herself into quite a bit of trouble. she lost almost every job she held, in college, because she was FIRED - not because she WALKED, like she so often claims. she got suspended TWICE for brawling and for indecent exposure ( it was a dare ), respectively. she got kicked out of her first ever shared flat because she and her roommate had a disagreement that there was no going back from. and she, terrible as it sounds, loved every second of it. she loved to be free. she loved to do what SHE wanted. no longer living a life on whatever whim her parents had, they were able to once again develop a CLOSE relationship, and once again, felt comfortable in allowing her to make the mistakes she needed to make, and learn from them.

and then came her ex. her father might have said, at one point, that he was the biggest mistake his daughter ever made - and when ANGRY at him, she might have agreed. but the truth is, he came into kena’s life at a time when she didn’t really know she NEEDED someone, and he taught her… so much about herself. after her one SERIOUS relationship ended, kena had settled into a life of casual dating, because it fit who she WAS, or at least, who she has always presented herself as - a free spirited, free talking, wild hearted woman. and it was CASUAL with him, at least for a long while, but then came so much more love than she had ever thought she’d feel, and SO MUCH heartbreak, too. she should have known way back when that it was BECAUSE she loved him so much that it always hurt so bad, when they ARGUED - if their explosive conflicts could even be called so, sometimes. neither were perfect. neither was the relationship. but they always came back to one another.

and then - THEN came ZARA. she wasn’t a part of the PLAN that kena had for her life, not in the least. and when she thinks back to the day that she finally bought the test that her friend had been insisting on FOR DAYS, she remembers how she had sat on the bathroom floor, eyes tightly shut and her fingers crossed PAINFULLY, wishing and hoping and even PRAYING that what she knew was TRUE wasn’t - and she feels ASHAMED. she hadn’t wanted a baby. had never really thought of herself as cut from the cloth of mothers, and felt like she had too much left in life to do - too much to achieve, too much to see, too much to drink - before she could COMMIT to such a thing. she went through all the motions, she sat through the appointments, she grinned her way through the first scan, but she was SCARED and in her mind, ALONE. and then she felt a kick. just ONE. the baby had moved before - she’d felt it fluttering at times and thought how real it all was, and how out of her depth SHE was - but she was sitting on the couch one evening, watching the real housewives, and she had shouted something rude at the tv, and where her hand had been resting atop her so far, so small belly, she felt a tiny kick. and everything changed. EVERY SINGLE THING. it was like the world had shifted on its axis, and makena asked the bump she’d felt no real connection to, to ‘do it again’ and it DID, and once upon a time, she’d thought that she wouldn’t love anything more than she had loved HIM, but god, how wrong she had been. how STUPID, and how small minded, to ever think that ANYTHING would matter more than the little life that was growing INSIDE OF HER.

she promised her bump, every night before she fell asleep, that they would make it WORK. all of them. EVERYTHING. she was just finishing up her degree - she started sending out resumes immediately, to try and secure a job for when zara had come along, and she got LUCKY. the job as BOOKING AGENT, something she had always kind of WANTED, sort of fell into place. and she promised she’d sort herself out. and no matter what - no matter what happened between she and her ex, she knew both of them would do right by their bean.

zara thurman came into the world, and makena’s WHOLE LIFE changed. her lifestyle slowed down, big time. she settled into her nine to 10 jobs. her relationship with her boyfriend came to one, seemingly FINAL end. and she kept her PROMISE. they made it WORK. she learnt, quickly, she didn’t need to hit a club every night to be CONTENT - because staying home to read zara a book was just as THRILLING. she didn’t need to drink so much she couldn’t remember or take little pills that were offered at the bar, because getting home in one piece was a PRIORITY, now. she didn’t have to BRAWL. not as much, anyway. fight club came in handy, for a woman who had always found the answer laying on the other side of her fists. her job was satisfying, at least one of them. and she and her ex - they still had their MANY differences and disagreements, but they weren’t so BAD at the co-parenting thing, if makena said so herself.

things CHANGED. she learnt, fairly quickly, that change wasn’t a BAD thing.

SECTION TWO OF THREE: HEADCANONS

owns a two year old polish lowland sheepdog that she named “mr clean” because, and only because, he reminded her of a mop the first time that she ever saw him. insists that she adopted him from the pound with that name already ingrained in his memory and often will say she “tried to change his name, but he wasn’t having it”. is lying. loves him more than life itself, weird name and all.

tychokinesis ; the ability to manipulate probability, causing unlikely things to happen or likely things not to happen. like her mother before her, makena is something of a lady luck - however, her power manifested AFTER the car accident that could have easily claimed her life, and… she doesn’t really know about it. SOMETIMES, when she’s ANGRY, things will move. she’s always known she possesses a level of telekinesis. but she knows very little about her ability to manipulate probability, little enough that she doesn’t really know she HAS that power, and hasn’t really honed it.

SECTION THREE OF THREE: WANTED CONNECTIONS 

xaviers kids she grew up w ! 

exes cos she has ... so many. room for ONE srs high school sweetheart !

the father of her child , the love of her young life ! im putting a connect on the main lates but .. its imp

hope summers ! 

hr main ride n die. oldest friend. was there whn she found out abt being pregnant n whatnot

members of FIGHT CLUB ! 

ppl she hired for the karma klub. any char in a band welcome

current flings ! she’s tryna work thru any residual feelings towards her ex and casually dates a LOT, but she never gets as far as introducing them to zara. 

ppl she still parties with

the ADULTHOOD SUX SQUAD ! 

ex housemate who absolutely fuckin hates her for completely valid reasons

#⌜ ･ﾟ ⸰ ･ * you’re the kind of disaster that they wrote the epics for ― biography. ⌟ / thurman.

[inviictas]

⌜   NON-BINARY, SHE / HER / THEY / THEM   |   killer queen by queen, slytherin, entj   ⌟   ⏤   meet MAKENA RENÉE THURMAN ; a TWENTY SIX year old who kind of resembles ZAZIE BEETZ, don’t you think? they originally hailed from HAWAII where they lived with their parents, COBRA BUBBLES & NINA THURMAN (   LILO & STITCH / OC   ), but word is that they’ve been focusing on spoiling their daughter this past year. they’ve always been pretty INTUITIVE & STAUNCH, but have gotten way more IRASCIBLE & INSCRUTABLE since they woke up. maybe their powers of TYCHOKINESIS & LATENT TELEKINESIS can help in taking down the dome. you can check out her stats HERE.

     she was beautiful in the way a ( forest fire ) was beautiful:               something to be admired from a DISTANCE, not up close.

SECTION ONE OF FOUR: BULLET POINT HISTORY trigger warning for talk of car crashes, alcohol, drugs and pregnancy

makena renée thurman. she was born by c section at 4:23 am on august 20th, 1992, for all intents and purposes the daughter born of the love shared between cobra bubbles and nina thurman - only the family ever REALLY knowing that in truth, she was something of their blessing, moreso than she was a miracle. cobra couldn’t have children. they had discovered it LATE, and had always felt just a small bit hopeless about their situation. it was outright impossible for them to ever have a child of their own, but after a great deal of deliberation, they made the choice to go down the road of sperm donation. little makena was the final result.

the truth of their circumstances was not a secret they felt was appropriate to hide from their daughters curious mind. even young, she had QUESTIONS, and to their credit, they gave her answers. the first time she asked she was five, and the question amounted to “why [she didn’t] have a younger brother or sister yet”. she loved thayer - squealed with childish excitement every time her older brother so much as APPEARED around a corner, held onto every word he said, followed him everywhere that he went. but she wanted to be a BIG sister, she said, sullenly, and cobra didn’t hesitate in explaining. mommy and daddy love each other very much. we always have. and we wanted you so much that we found a way to have you, even though it wasn’t easy. and maybe someday, we’ll find a way to give you a younger brother or sister, too.

the next time the subject was broached, she was ten, and it was by her mother. nina sat her down to have the talk about the birds and the bees and after a previous nights discussion, had decided, with cobra, that it was time for makena to know DETAILS. she threw them in at the end. that’s what dad meant, when he said we found a way to have you. MY egg, and someone else’s sperm. you aren’t his, biologically, but that doesn’t make you any less of OUR daughter.

and it was true. it ALWAYS had been. in spite of the fact that she was not born belonging to them both by blood, nina and cobra were her parents, mostly for better, and sometimes for worse. she grew up safe in the knowledge that she was loved beyond comprehension, and was allowed all the space that she needed, to grow and develop into a young woman who knew her own mind, first and foremost. they took in turns being the strict voice of reason, but mostly, so long as she wasn’t taking the mickey, makena was allowed to make MISTAKES and learn from them. neither blew up, the first time they were called for her causing trouble in class and having to be removed. they sat her down to discuss why, and they worked to resolve her issues - which at the time, were to do with girls that wouldn’t be nice, and a teacher that refused to discipline them. when she was scared to go to the doctors, they asked her why, and when she said it was because she didn’t like their USUAL, they simply changed. they made sure that makena was comfortable in expressing her thoughts and feelings, and ensured that she never thought twice about doing so. when she wanted to try a cigarette, she didn’t resort to joining friends behind the bike sheds, but simply asked whether she could. likewise, when she wanted to go all the way with her first boyfriend, she told her mum and nina ensured the house was EMPTY - and after the breakup was there to stroke her hair and tell her that boys were rarely worth it. they were GOOD parents.

it was a double edged sword. nina and cobra taught makena to be INDEPENDENT, and this was a lesson they considered most important - because both were aware that they wouldn’t always be around. they were GOOD parents, but they also didn’t discipline her when it was seriously needed, and they weren’t always such a steady presence in her life. sometimes, cobra would disappear for weeks at a time on a particularly important job, leaving her with nina. sometimes nina, an agent in her own right for a separate government branch, would take a job that required her to be gone for months, leaving her alone with cobra. sometimes BOTH had responsibilities to their work that required them to leave together, and though they entrusted makena to the care of boarding schools, she had been given too much freedom by them for too long to accept rules and regulations that came with living under those roofs. she caused TROUBLE. she got herself into sticky situations. makena had always been a girl too quick to react, and too willing to use her fists. they returned once to find that she had been literally locked in her room just hours before for everyone’s protection bar her own. they returned another time to discover that in their absence, she had run away to join a rally against the superhuman registration act - a trend that would continue for years. nina and cobra operated often in shades of grey. the world was not black and white, and neither was their outlook upon it. makena took after THEM, more than they could have imagined.

she was ANGRY. she was resentful to her parents for leaving her behind, and she found herself filling with rage each time she turned on the tv to see more and more people like her, like her family, like the POWERED individuals she could relate to, being prosecuted for being different. she acted out, because that was the logical next step - and in the process, she became the pain in her parents backsides. they were good. but they were also all too quick to believe that makena could handle these long stints alone well. it was only when they started seeing her in the background of news reports and started receiving calls from her school for some new stunt she had pulled - such as the time she hung a crude banner reading the physical ed teacher for filth outside that particular school - that they started to see one of their biggest parenting faults.

and then a phone call came that wasn’t about makena’s antics. and it scared them - it REALLY scared them, more than they’ve ever been able to say. she was younger than most of the group, on that fateful night. she had always gravitated towards the older kids, always found herself getting along with them much BETTER. one had stolen a car from the garage, and they were all laughing and talking and singing along to music that was playing far too loud and they weren’t really focusing on the road,  which they should have been, because it was ICY, and because the fog was impossible. they drove off the side of the road. the car fell into the water, below. it broke through the layer of ice, shattering the windows enough that the ice cold water begun to spray in, and makena went into shock. she doesn’t remember what happened. just the water. how she ended up with a lungful. how it was dark and unrelenting and she thought, the whole time, that she was ALREADY dead. she remembers the burn of her throat as she had thrown up the water that had been stealing her lifes breath away, and she remembers the fog clearing and the stars above her in the sky, and then after that, she doesn’t remember anything until she woke in the hospital with her mother and father sat on either side, grasping one hand each and promising not to leave.

they kept the promise. for a WHILE, at least. a few months. and they were more strict with her, too. wouldn’t let her out without knowing where the end destination was and who she was going with. wouldn’t take her back answering even LESS so than usual. but they slipped up, eventually. when she was BETTER, when she had been for a while, they started to ease themselves back into work - one would leave, then the other. and then, when both had to start leaving at the same time… well, the only logical way around fully breaking the promise they had made was to take her with them.

they had moved around a lot, when makena was younger. they had spent months living in different cities across the states, sometimes across the world - they always came back home to hawaii. now, it seemed as if they never WOULD. she was constantly shuttled between whoever had the most free time to spend with her, their time together as a family growing less and less. they said they kept her with them, said they kept moving her from school to school and place to place because they loved her and wanted to keep an eye on her, but RESENTMENT grew in her heart, unbidden. she loved to be cultured, don’t get me wrong, loved to see the sights and experience what the WORLD had to offer - but she would have given anything to stand still, something she had never really realized she liked doing ‘til she couldn’t.

so she rebelled. she did what she was learning she was good at. soon enough, she wasn’t leaving schools behind because they were upping sticks once again, but because she was getting forcibly removed. she would sneak out of whatever house or apartment or studio flat they had for the time being, fake id in hand, and she would join friends that she wouldn’t have a week later at the seediest nightclubs they could find. her parents or parent, however it was set up for a time, would return home to discover that she hadn’t returned from school that day and instead chose to head to a rally. worse: more than once, they had come home to discover that makena had run away, joining whichever group would TAKE her. her time on the streets was often short lived, but the girl who had always used her fists to solve her problems learnt, over time, an art of survival. she had always been taught to be independent. she learnt, now, how to be STRONG.

and then she was eighteen. and she realized, as the first rally that she had attended since her birthday dissolved into a maddening sort of violence, that her parents weren’t going to come and GET her, anymore. it wasn’t their job. she was an adult. she had to make adult choices, and when she returned home that night, battered and bruised, she informed them that she was leaving.

and to everyone’s SURPRISE, it wasn’t to join those insurgents that existed, out in the world. it wasn’t to become an extremist. makena decided, on her own, that she wanted to get an education - a steady, stable education, one that she wouldn’t have to always be running to catch up on. she found a little place of her own, she got herself settled, she started attending walt disney academy - and she, to no one’s surprise, kept up her regular ANTICS on the side. one grown up decision does not a grown up make, and makena couldn’t shake habits of her past. she was selfish, and reactive, and she had great difficulty in keeping herself in check - and with a pretty severe partying habit also on the board, it goes without saying she got herself into quite a bit of trouble. she lost almost every job she held, in college, because she was fired - not because she WALKED, like she so often claims. she got suspended twice for brawling and for indecent exposure ( it was a dare ), respectively. she got kicked out of her first ever shared flat because she and her roommate had a disagreement that there was no going back from. and she, terrible as it sounds, loved every second of it. she loved to be free. she loved to do what she wanted. no longer living a life on whatever whim her parents had, they were able to once again develop a CLOSE relationship, and once again, felt comfortable in allowing her to make the mistakes she needed to make, and learn from them.

and then came her ex. her father might have said, at one point, that he was the biggest mistake his daughter ever made - and when ANGRY at him, she might have agreed. but the truth is, he came into kena’s life at a time when she didn’t really know she needed someone, and he taught her… so much about herself. after her one serious relationship ended, kena had settled into a life of casual dating, because it fit who she was, or at least, who she has always presented herself as - a free spirited, free talking, wild hearted woman. and it was CASUAL with him, at least for a long while, but then came so much more love than she had ever thought she’d feel, and so much heartbreak, too. she should have known way back when that it was BECAUSE she loved him so much that it always hurt so bad, when they argued - if their explosive conflicts could even be called so, sometimes. neither were perfect. neither was the relationship. but they always came back to one another.

and then - then came KENZIE. she wasn’t a part of the plan that kena had for her life, not in the least. and when she thinks back to the day that she finally bought the test that her friend had been insisting on for days, she remembers how she had sat on the bathroom floor, eyes tightly shut and her fingers crossed painfully, wishing and hoping and even praying that what she knew was TRUE wasn’t - and she feels ashamed. she hadn’t wanted a baby. had never really thought of herself as cut from the cloth of mothers, and felt like she had too much left in life to do - too much to achieve, too much to see, too much to drink - before she could COMMIT to such a thing. she went through all the motions, she sat through the appointments, she grinned her way through the first scan, but she was scared and in her mind, ALONE. and then she felt a kick. just one. the baby had moved before - she’d felt it fluttering at times and thought how real it all was, and how out of her depth she was - but she was sitting on the couch one evening, watching the real housewives, and she had shouted something rude at the tv, and where her hand had been resting atop her so far, so small belly, she felt a tiny kick. and everything changed. every single thing. it was like the world had shifted on its axis, and makena asked the bump she’d felt no real connection to, to ‘do it again’ and it DID, and once upon a time, she’d thought that she wouldn’t love anything more than she had loved him, but god, how wrong she had been. how stupid, and how small minded, to ever think that ANYTHING would matter more than the little life that was growing inside of her.

she promised her bump, every night before she fell asleep, that they would make it WORK. all of them. everything. she was just finishing up her degree - she started sending out resumes immediately, to try and secure a job for when kenzie had come along, and she got lucky. the job as BOOKING AGENT, something she had always kind of wanted, sort of fell into place. and she promised she’d sort herself out. and no matter what - no matter what happened between she and her ex, she knew both of them would do right by their bean.

kenzie thurman came into the world, and makena’s whole life changed. her lifestyle slowed down, big time. she settled into her nine to 10 jobs. her relationship with her boyfriend came to one, seemingly final end. and she kept her PROMISE. they made it work. she learnt, quickly, she didn’t need to hit a club every night to be content - because staying home to read kenzie a book was just as thrilling. she didn’t need to drink so much she couldn’t remember or take little pills that were offered at the bar, because getting home in one piece was a priority, now. she didn’t have to BRAWL. not as much, anyway. fight club came in handy, for a woman who had always found the answer laying on the other side of her fists. her job was satisfying, at least one of them. and she and her ex - they still had their many differences and disagreements, but they weren’t so BAD at the co-parenting thing, if makena said so herself.

things changed. she learnt, fairly quickly, that change wasn’t a BAD thing.

SECTION TWO OF FOUR: HEADCANONS

owns a two year old polish lowland sheepdog that she named “mr clean” because, and only because, he reminded her of a mop the first time that she ever saw him. insists that she adopted him from the pound with that name already ingrained in his memory and often will say she “tried to change his name, but he wasn’t having it”. is lying. loves him more than life itself, weird name and all.

tychokinesis ; the ability to manipulate probability, causing unlikely things to happen or likely things not to happen. like her mother before her, makena is something of a lady luck - however, her power manifested AFTER the car accident that could have easily claimed her life, and… she doesn’t really know about it. SOMETIMES, when she’s angry, things will move. she’s always known she possesses a level of telekinesis. but she knows very little about her ability to manipulate probability, little enough that she doesn’t really know she has that power, and hasn’t really honed it.

SECTION FOUR OF FOUR: WANTED CONNECTIONS ( NOT ON MAIN )

hawaiians she grew up w !

also . ppl who .. shared her beliefs. u cant tell me that ppl who hate magic and whatnot dont exist in this world n kena ... has been hating on them from min one . 

ppl she hired for voodoo lounge ! u got a singer ? a char in a band ? hmu. kena books all the shows / accompanying acts , so she could’ve booked them before ! 

exes , cos , she prob has … so many

n current flings ! she’s been , u kno . tryna move on from her ex. she casually dates quite a bit but. it never rly goes as far as ‘introducing them to kenzie’ cos … she wants it to b serious before That happens

ppl she still parties with

hm . ANYTHING !

SECTION FOUR OF FOUR: WANTED CONNECTIONS ( ON MAIN )

MAKENA THURMAN, our ZAZIE BEETZ fc is looking for their EX BOYFRIEND, FATHER OF HER CHILDwho resembles DAVE FRANCO, OLIVER JACKSON-COHEN, RAMI MALEK, ALFIE ENOCH / UP TO PLAYER and should be 27+. they should be the child of UP TO PLAYER. applicants DO have to contact VINA to talk over details before applying   (   we stan two flawed individuals who are just … trying to successfully coparent their four year old daughter kenzie , best they can. there’s a little bit to hash out so to speak, but the cliff notes is … kena and her ex were VERY serious from when she was about eighteen, but also were… incredibly on and off. both of them are fairly quick to anger people, and one or the other would call things off for dramatic flair when their arguments went too far, or sometimes - rarely - it would be an amicable split when they thought it was for the best. they’d both see other people during their off periods, but the problem was that while at a lot of points, they really weren’t healthy - they also just couldn’t help but come back together, time and time again. kena didn’t want to be a mother at first, but the idea of kenzie certainly chilled them both out a bit, and after she was born… they both had something to try to be better for, which in turn led to their last split, which seems pretty permanent. they don’t have a custody agreement decided upon by the courts and are just trying to do whatever they can, as best as they can, and they’re REALLY trying. basically, two people who would bicker and argue and shout and yell quite a lot, once upon a time, who were always that couple people thought would be better apart - just trying to better themselves a little late, for the sake of their girl.   )

MAKENA THURMAN, our ZAZIE BEETZ fc is looking for their TUGGED ALONG ON A STRING EX who resembles DAVID CASTENEDA, DEV PATEL, KEKE PALMER, JANEL PARRISH / UP TO PLAYER and should be 25+. they should be the child of UP TO PLAYER. applicants DO NOT have to contact VINA to talk over details before applying   (   from the time she was eighteen to when they officially broke up, she and her ex had a … pretty volatile relationship. there was a lot of love, don’t get me wrong - but they were two strong personalities with a tendency to explode, and sometimes, simple arguments turned into them being “on a break”. both dated other people during such times, but this is someone who makena kind of.. led on, i suppose, for lack of a better term. they dated more than once. they were her go to, for a time, whenever she and and her ex split. and she didn’t like herself for it - she’s not THAT bad - but she wasn’t ever good at being alone, meaning that it just kept happening, even if she recognized she should have let them go, because she was always going to go back to her ex. eventually, for reasons to be discussed, it did come to an end, but it had definitely already gone on for too long, and how things are now is up in the air.   )

MAKENA THURMAN, our ZAZIE BEETZ fc is looking for their ADULTHOOD SUX SQUAD / MAX. FIVEwho resemble UP TO PLAYER and should be 24+. they should be the child of UP TO PLAYER. applicants DO NOT have to contact VINA to talk over details before applying   (   you know what’s hard about adulthood? all of it. makena was kinda super shuttled towards having to be a functioning adult when kenzie came along, but that doesn’t mean she 1. enjoys it and 2. is any good at it. paying bills on time is hard. remembering to renew her internet security is hard. getting regular smear tests? hard. nothing is easy, and this is the group of friends she laments that with. three to five wine mom’s / dad’s / parent’s / people who aren’t parents but who are in or around the same age and having just as much trouble adjusting / etc who met in a doctors office or something and who now get together every week just to - u guessed it - drink wine and complain about taxes and anti-vaxxers.   )

MAKENA THURMAN, our ZAZIE BEETZ fc is looking for their MAIN RIDE OR DIE who resembles DREW RAY TANNER, HAYLEY LAW, ANTHONY RAMOS, CARLOS VALDES / UP TO PLAYER and should be 24+. they should be the child of UP TO PLAYER. applicants DO NOT have to contact VINA to talk over details before applying   (   everyone needs their few ride or dies, and while makena likes to think of herself as a lone wolf, she’s just as in need of a few close friendships as anyone else. they’re her oldest friend - someone she met when she was just a little kid, who never seemed to grow tired of her, and who she never grew tired of either. they know all her secrets, they know all her lies, and she knows just as much about them. no matter what, they’re in each others corners, and nothing will stop them from helping out if ever it’s needed.   )

MAKENA THURMAN, our ZAZIE BEETZ fc is looking for their FELLOW MOM FRIENDwho resembles UP TO PLAYER and should be 24+. they should be the child of UP TO PLAYER. applicants DO NOT have to contact VINA to talk over details before applying   (   it’s . basically what it says on the tin. kena didn’t always WANT to be a mom, and way back when, she met this character at one of her antenatal classes. maybe they were more prepared than she was, and helped her to see the good in it. maybe they were just as freaked out as one another, and learned to be happy along the way. however their friendship started, they grew pretty close in those few months, and remained close friends ever after - meeting up a couple times a week to let their kids [ born pretty closely together! ] have a playdate, or even to just… hang out. drink coffee. watch a movie. they get one another in a way that a lot of kena’s friends DON’T get her, now, and they’re super close because of it. who else do u talk to abt how u pee a little when u sneeze , now ?    )

MAKENA THURMAN, our ZAZIE BEETZ fc is looking for their ACCIDENTAL VICTIMwho resembles UP TO PLAYER and should be ANY AGE. they should be the child of UP TO PLAYER. applicants DO NOT have to contact VINA to talk over details before applying   (   makena has some level of probability manipulation, which wasn’t always something that she … knew about, for want of better terms. this first manifested as doing well in tests she didn’t study for, but stressed about until her powers kicked in, or being unusually good at convincing her parents to allow certain things, or… dot dot dot. a lot of lucky coincidences, if you will, have dotted HER life - but for this character, just being in the vicinity of the girl that doesn’t like them and who they certainly don’t like either ( reasons tbd ) turns their luck sour. she projects onto them without even MEANING to, twisting their luck and turning it bad - meaning that when they’re around kena, they’re FAR more likely to suffer some pretty horrible happenings. maybe they realize what’s happening.. maybe not, and it’s something that needs to be discovered. either way… who’s to say how they’ll solve it?    )

MAKENA THURMAN, our ZAZIE BEETZ fc is looking for their EX HOUSEMATEwho resembles UP TO PLAYER and should be 24+. they should be the child of UP TO PLAYER. applicants DO NOT have to contact VINA to talk over details before applying   (   in the years before her daughter was born, makena wasn’t always the most stable of people. she’s also never exactly been the WORST, but… she’s always had a lot of issues with keeping her emotions in check, and she used to be horribly selfish and petty, at the worst of times. after becoming friends in college, she and this character decided to get an apartment together and split the costs - but after a few months of this, shit hit the fan, and kena fucked up in a way that she couldn’t go back from, resulting in them kicking her out. they’ve barely spoken since, and she harbors.. a lot of resentment, for that fateful event.    )

MAKENA THURMAN, our ZAZIE BEETZ fc is looking for their ADOPTIVE SIBLING / THAYER REYNOLDS… BUBBLES? who resembles LAKEITH STANFIELD, JOHN BOYEGA, SHAMIER ANDERSON, KEITH POWERS / UP TO PLAYER, SHOULD BE AT LEAST HALF BLACK and should be 26+. they should be the child of COBRA BUBBLES ( ADOPTED ). applicants DO NOT have to contact VINA to talk over details before applying   (   the lit only change i’m making to the cobra bubbles fam is … cobra couldn’t have kids, and so thayer is adopted, and makena is a child of cobra’s wife and a sperm donor. they mightn’t have the same surname, there may even be something of an age diff ; but kena LOVES her brother, and probably counts him amongst her closest friends. bring kena her bro and kenzie her uncle !   )

#wda: intro #⌜ ･ﾟ ⸰ ･ * not a woman born easy to swallow ― biography. ⌟ / thurman.