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animeomegas · 3 years

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Pregnant!Omega!Sasuke x Alpha!Reader

Anon: how about sasuke as a mother? something like him finding his mate but it ends up as a one night stand only for them to meet up again while he’s super pregnant 😁

(Oooh, interesting idea! I took a few creative liberties but I was really happy with how this one turned out and I hope you enjoy it!)

Warnings: Mpreg, accidentally implied cheating, bureaucracy

You met Sasuke through your job as the head Suna ambassador to Konoha.

After you met, you and Sasuke fell in love slowly, and then all at once.

After 4 years, you were mated and living together.

Your relationship was difficult at times for many reasons: Sasuke’s past, balancing both of your demanding careers, cultural differences and difficulties etc.

But despite the hurdles, your relationship flourished. You were in love.

After 5 years, you decided to apply for a ‘mate’ visa. This visa would allow you to remain in Konoha even if you were no longer an ambassador, because you were mated to a Konoha citizen.

Unfortunately, you would have to leave Konoha before you could switch visas. You would also have to remain in Suna for 6 months before you could return, and have no contact with anyone in Konoha for that duration. And so that is what you did.

Sasuke wasn’t happy when he found this out, and as a mated pair, the distance was very hard on the both of you.

Your alpha was constantly snappy and on edge because you were so far from Sasuke.

And Sasuke was even more moody than normal, spending most of the months alone, distancing himself from his friends because he was so upset.

And so when you returned to Konoha, desperate to see your omega again, you were more than a little hurt to find yourself alone at the gate.

Sasuke knew exactly when you were coming home, so why wasn’t he here?

Vaguely upset, you went through all the paperwork and steps to confirm your new citizenship alone, before finally heading home. You were still desperate to see Sasuke despite the hurt. Maybe he was just mad about you leaving him for so long?

For some reason, you were kind of nervous to open the front door.

But this didn’t matter because before you could even touch the door, it came flying open, a furious Sasuke standing at the threshold. You could hear him growling lightly, his scent foul.

You had no time to process this before he dragged you by the wrist into the house, pushing you lightly down onto the sofa.

He then whirled around to face you, still furious.

You whined at the prospect of having upset your omega.

Sasuke ignored your whines and ripped off his baggy cardigan. Revealing his stomach His... swollen stomach?

“You did this to me!” Sasuke hissed. “And then you fucked off and left me to deal with it!” The ‘alone’ went unsaid, but you heard it clear as day.

Sasuke was scared. And when Sasuke was scared, he got angry.

You couldn’t take your gaze off of his stomach. Your rational mind didn’t know what to do. He was pregnant. Very pregnant.

You swore in shock and some words escaped your mouth before you could stop them.

“Is it mine?”

You regretted your words as soon as you said them. The rage on Sasuke’s face was enough to tell you that was the worst thing you could have said.

“Fuck you.” He spat, turning to storm off.

This was when your brain finally caught up with your situation.

You jumped up from sofa as quickly as you could, racing after your mate. You wrapped you arms around him, gently restraining him from behind as he tried to push away.

“Let me go.” Sasuke ground out, attempting to pull himself from your arms.

“I’m sorry.”

Sasuke stopped struggling. You continued to speak.

“I’m sorry that I left you to go through this alone. I’m sorry that I’ve been a subpar alpha and mate, not being here to protect and care for you and our pup. And I am sorry for implying you would cheat on me.”

You started to plant chaste kisses on his neck. Rubbing his stomach slowly and silently marvelling that he was pregnant.

“I know you would never cheat on me, Sasuke. I was simply surprised, not that that’s an excuse.”

You could feel Sasuke begin to shake against you. You turned him around and saw the tears beginning to fall from his eyes. Sasuke began to wipe at them angrily.

“Stupid hormones.” He grumbled.

You smiled at him and wiped the tears away with your thumbs.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here now, and I’m not going to leave again.”

Sasuke choked on a sob as you pulled him close, releasing calming pheromones as you rubbed small circles on his lower back. As you stayed there, swaying back and forth, the fact that you were going to be a parent finally sunk in.

You started to laugh suddenly, spinning Sasuke around gently.

“We’re going to be parents!” You grinned at him.

Sasuke scoffed, but you could see the pleased blush blooming on his face.

“Don’t spin me again unless you want me to throw up everywhere, idiot alpha.”

“Noted.” You laughed. “Now, let me make up for the lost time. Do you have a nest?”

“Upstairs.” Sasuke grumbled.

“Perfect!” You grinned, picking him up and moving towards the stairs.

Sasuke complained, but you could feel his smile pressed against your neck.

Finally, you were home.

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stab-the-son-of-a · 3 years

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Whumptober No.4 - Taken Hostage

TW: Guns, off-screen assumed character death, sexist character, smoking

Taglist: @whumpers-inc

There is a surprising (and hand-cramping) amount of paperwork that goes into working at a call center, even one as unconventional as 1-877-WHMP-NOW. An annoying, several hour, several stack amount. Bianca will never forgive whoever it was in HR or accounting (the only two departments who actually seem masochistic enough to enjoy bureaucracy) that suggested all these extra reports and encounter summaries and redundancy measures.

In the same way you tune out the world while enjoying a nature walk and only begin paying attention again when your unconscious mind notices something dangerously wrong, Bianca pauses in her muttered curses to the paperwork gods and listens.

“Why of course she’s in today,” Fran says in a tight tone. “I’ll just transfer you right to your personal whump-passionate care coordinator, Dom.”

Not Dom. Not that irritating, overly stuffed up crock of shit again. Dom had run through almost the entire call center, leaving Bianca the only person who had yet to swear to walk if they were forced to deal with the self-impressed asshole. Jerking her head up, Bianca stares Fran down, like a deer willing a semi-truck to change paths. She shakes her head, desperately miming cutting across her throat with a rushed flail.

Their gazes lock. Fran continues to dial, even as they watch Bianca’s distressed pantomime with all the impassive finality of a monarch’s sentence.

“Don’t you dare, Fran,” Bianca hisses. “I swear by all that is good and holy if you transfer him--”

Her line rings, and she answers it with a chipper grin that doesn’t touch her glare one bit. “Well hey, sugar!” If looks could kill, Bianca would be in a whole other line of work right now as she tosses an eraser at Fran’s head. “What can I do for you today, hun?”

Well, she can already tell this isn’t going to be a pleasant call, not if the sirens are any indication.

“Brianna,” Dom cries, “I’m too handsome for jail!”

Bianca mouths to Fran, “I’ll kill you,” even as they duck their head and pretend to be oh-so invested in their latest call report. She tosses another eraser and this one hits the mark, bouncing off the back of their skull.

“Hello! Brianna! I need you to put down the Covergirl or your nail file and do your job, sweetheart.”

Rolling her eyes, she returns her attention to Dom. “I’m awful sorry. What did you say your emergency was?”

“Thank you for the urgency,” he spits.

Bianca waits for him to elaborate. The sirens on his end of the line continue blaring, the voluming growing as they grow closer.

“Did the line cut out, sugar?” she prompts, carefully sterilizing her tone with a thick layer of honey.

“I tried to rob this small town little podunk town store and took this girl--” Dom lets out a short cry of pain and kicks at something. He corrects himself, ”This bitch. And someone had the nerve to call the cops on me!”

At the sound of gunfire- too close to the gun to be from any policeman, Bianca raises a single brow in silent question of his intelligence. In her humble, professional opinion wasting ammo on puerile displays and a lead tantrum is useless, but again, she’s just a professional. She only graduated at the top of her class and has years, if not decades, on Dom in terms of experience.

Of course, Bianca says none of that.

“Have you taken the girl hostage, Dom?”

“Yes! Jeez, do I have to spell everything out for you people?”

“It’s very helpful when our clients are clear and precise, Dom,” Bianca returns, an almost feral edge to the too wide portions of her smile. “Have you read our informational brochure, ‘So You Want to Take a Hostage’? Or perused our FAQs for whumpers?”

“Why should I?”

A year ago maybe Bianca might have been surprised. Now she’s just glad Dom can’t see the various mocking faces and mouthed insults she indulges in due to such a response. That doesn’t mitigate the desire she feels to bash her head against her desk until her mental faculties match Dom’s. Instead, she parrots, “No. Why should you.”

“So, what do I do?” Dom asks, impatience clear in his tone. “How do I get out of this?”

“Well, Dom, could I speak with your hostage for a hot sec?”

Completely ignoring her question, Dom muses aloud, “What if I just went out there with my guns and just started shooting. There’s only one car out there. I can take out some backwater donut cop.”

She loves her job. She loves her job. She. Loves. Her. Job. She may be a masochist.

“That course of action might not work well, sugar,” Bianca says carefully.

“Why not?”

Just as she’s about to answer, said aforementioned cop starts in with the megaphones and the offers for surrender. Quickly, she traces the call while Dom yells back about assholes and what he deserves and specifically what the cop deserves, involving his megaphone and uncomfortable places.

That ‘podunk’ little town is more of a small city, and even if there is only one cop currently there, there are bound to be more en route, and rapidly at that.

“Are you listening to me, sweetheart?” Dom demands. “There’s only one of him and I’ve got two guns. It’s fool proof.”

Oh, it’s something to do with fools alright. “So, to clarify, you’ve got a gun in each hand?”

“I just said that, honey, put your listening ears on and try to keep up.”

Over her ten plus years working with the call center, Bianca has heard plenty of stupid shit in her time but trying to go out dual wielding guns is… a new one. She quickly shoots Fran a short text reading, You SO owe me, Franny.

“What about your hostage? How are you going to keep control over her? Is she bound?” Bianca tries to reason with Dom, the apparent Blade wannabe, even if it’s futile.

“I’ll bring her with and put the gun to her head. Easy.”

Easy. Yes, so easy. Fran returns her text. ‘You’re the absolute goddess of dealing with BS I am not worthy.’

“Dom, could you be a dear and let me speak with her, please? Thank you sugar.”

“God what is it with women always needing to yap yap yap?” Dom complains as he rips the gag out of the hostage’s mouth.

“FUCK YOU!” She howls immediately. “I’ll bite your fingers off, you small dicked piece of shit!”

So, Bianca had admittedly harbored suspicions that the ‘girl’ was actually a grown woman, considering Dom’s typical behavior, but this certainly confirms that. A wistful sigh builds as Bianca listens to the hostage chew Dom out and insult his manhood and intelligence.

‘Damn straight. I expect pumpkin spice brownies and a latte on my desk tomorrow morning.’

‘It’s June.’

“It’s DOM.’

‘Pumpkin spice brownies gotcha.’

A solid, but wet crack jerks Bianca’s attention back to the matter at hand. The hostage is eerily quiet. Waiting for a response from either Dom or the hostage, she picks at the dry skin on her lips and taps her foot.

“Oh shit,” Dom whispers.

Screwing her eyes shut as if that will change what his answer is, Bianca asks, “Dom?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you just pistol whip your hostage?”

“Yeah.”

Nope, this is officially the stupidest, most asinine, bass-ackwards call from a client she’s ever had to suffer through. Clearly having overheard, Fran twists around to get a better vantage point to watch as Bianca places her head in her hands and fights back a scream of frustration.

Collecting herself, Bianca chirps, “I’m sorry, sugar, but you really ought to have read our guide. The first rule of a hostage situation is to keep your hostage alive as leverage. Now, as it stands, you’re a murderer surrounded by... “ She counts up each little blip. “Four cop cars and another two on the way. You have to understand, honey, that it goes against policy to stay involved.”

“What? No! You can’t do this you bitch!”

Bianca grins, sharp and vicious. “Oh, Dom, I can, and I will.” With that, and Dom still shouting injustice, she hangs up.

“I’ve wanted to do that for forever,” she breezily admits to Fran.

They match her smile inch for inch, and then some. “Bee, you’re my hero. I’m throwing in maple walnut fudge pancakes just for that.”

“Of course we’ll have IT burn the connection and remote into Dom’s phone before the incident gets too close to home, blah blah blah, and we’ll look into whether that lady remembers anything after the whole gun to the head thing,” she dismisses, “but for now, I need a smoke break or twenty. Toodles!”

#whumptober2021 #no.4 #taken hostage #oc #fic #guns #off-screen character death #smoking #sexism #wcc series #wcc fran #wcc bianca #hostage situation #pistol whipping #food mention

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somerpmemes · 3 years

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Killing Eve S3 Starters

Change as needed

“If you want to be a winner you have to sacrifice everything.”

“I am so much happier now she’s dead.”

“Bureaucracy in all its glory.”

“I’m back now, with bells on.”

“We’re always like this, aren’t we?”

“We’re gonna make a fabulous team.”

“You’re not easy to replace.”

“What’s in it for you, hmm?”

“Whatever you want, I will do it.”

“Power is there for the taking, ___. You just have to be smart about how.”

“You have friends?”

“You realize to fit in here you have to be socially inept like the rest of us.”

“You know, a normal person would flake on their friend when something better turns up.”

“Well, remind me not to rely on you for anything.”

“You can hide from it, but it won’t hide from you.”

“Are you crying? Don’t be a wimp.”

“Nothing good comes fast.”

“My work remains totally untouchable.”

“You know, you really shouldn’t leave your front door open considering the amount of people that have tried to kill you.”

“Yeah, well it’s not my problem anymore.”

“You just don’t seem very happy, that’s all.”

“Who says I want to be happy?”

“You see this and you’re transported to a time of happiness?”

“Are you ever going to apologize?”

“You really don’t think you did anything wrong at all, do you?”

“Life is just a series of trade-offs, ___.”

“This isn’t something you can fix, ___.”

“Our entire relationship has had you at the center of it.”

“She’s lying, okay?”

“You’re crying because you feel stupid. Because you WERE stupid.”

“Hey, these drinks don’t involve games or organized fun, do they?”

“I hear you’re a walking miracle.”

“You know, when a bullet has been through you, it leaves something behind.”

“And then you taught me how to swear in Russian.”

“It’s about acknowledging the sad together.”

“Couldn’t we be sad and listen to good music?”

“It’s push by the way.”

“Why would I want to look ten years younger?”

“It’s good to have many lovers. Keeps you limber.”

“Winners win alone.”

“You can’t go down that path anymore.”

“So you don’t think about her anymore?”

“So, shall we just dive right in?”

“I don’t believe in distractions.”

“I’m fully capable of doing my job without any approval from you.”

“I know you think I’m a self-serving prick.”

“Some things are bigger than the job and this is one of them.”

“You have to start taking care of yourself right now or it’s going to catch up with you.”

“How long do I have to stay?”

“Anybody can fight. It takes a special person to kill.”

“Just so you know, I’m kinda a big deal in this industry.”

“You do everything I say exactly when I say it.”

“If you make me look bad I will kill you.”

“You did all that for a boyfriend?”

“You only know a country once you know it’s drink.”

“It’s good to know he was getting some before he died.”

“Being hard on someone is sometimes what they need.”

“Don’t be embarrassed will you?”

“Why don’t you go and do your thing where you close your eyes and breathe?”

“You do not get to come here without an invitation anymore!”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m moving up in the world.”

“If I killed everybody who betrayed me there would be nobody left.”

“You have to know, you’re not safe.”

“You think you’re in control but you’re not.”

“Really, I’m fine. You should go.”

“You know I care about you?”

“You really like that baby, huh?”

“It would be really unsettling if he actually got something right.”

“I have all my best thoughts in the bath.”

“I haven’t looked up in ten minutes.”

“Meetings have biscuits.”

“That is literally the most parenting this household has ever seen.”

“You have been unfocused and manic for days.”

“I’m just having some fun.”

“It’s not my fault he was an idiot.”

“You want to amuse yourself, go crazy.”

“I’m the one doing all the work.”

“You think handling you isn’t work?”

“You should get your act together.”

“I’m not ready!”

“Once I pop, I just can’t stop.”

“I don’t have any self-control.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Did you take this job thinking it’d be easier?”

“You really should have some kind of protection, you know that right?”

“Have you ever locked and popped, ___?”

“I want to smell powerful.”

“Pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones is how we grow.”

“I adore a coincidence, it makes me feel I’m in the right place.”

“I just had the novel experience of being stood up.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have him killed.”

“A terrible lifestyle suits me, huh?”

“Do you believe a word of that?”

“This place is psychopathic.”

“I should have shot you in the head.”

“I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“I’m not here for you!”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Who doesn’t answer their phone on a stake-out?”

“Everyone, look innocent.”

“Don’t wait for me in the dark like that!”

“Don’t you want to know why I’m in your bed?”

“They own every little bit of you.”

“What kind of baby do you think I was?”

“I’m wearing power. And to keep power, you need knowledge.”

“This is where you belong!”

“So you’re saying this is it?”

“You do realize that’s my desk?”

“What is that smell?”

“You’re supposed to share the cake!”

“You’re like a sad teenager, waiting for a like on Instagram.”

“Don’t you like having fun?”

“You don’t know what it’s like when you’ve chosen to destroy your own life.”

“I promise you, whatever you’ve done is not half as bad as the stuff in my checkered past.”

“I stabbed someone.”

“Do not think that you are the only self-loathing as whole in the room, ever.”

“Choices, ___. It’s all about choices.”

“Can I stay with you tonight?”

“But it’s my job to do terrible things.”

“I want you to have a plan.”

“So not over me.”

“Ah. You made me cake.”

“It really doesn’t look like the picture.”

“Wait, wait, just because it looks bad doesn’t mean it tastes bad.”

“You don’t deserve nice things if you don’t look after them.”

“Why are you lying to me?”

“I gained valuable insight into Victorian gender politics.”

“You’re so close to getting what you want. But you have to play by the rules.”

“You are so annoying today.”

“I am just trying to save you from yourself!”

“You know, you really don’t have to be so dramatic.”

“This would be a really bad way to go!”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be my favorite.”

“What got you in such a good mood?”

“I really hate it when you do that.”

“You’re free now. You can be whoever you want.”

“But I don’t want to be free.”

“You have the hiccups?”

“I’ve been ordered to stay away from all of this.”

“What are you doing home at this hour of the day?”

“It is a bit odd being here in the daytime, isn’t it?”

“I get up to all sorts of stuff.”

“You barely even look at me.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I’m worried about you, ___!”

“You have hat hair.”

“You said you have everything under control.”

“Not getting any, huh?”

“Did they air bnb my room again?”

“I know a killer when I see a killer and she’s a killer.”

“You were mean.”

“I beat the crap out of the sofa so I don’t beat the crap out of people.”

“You’ll have lots of fun, I promise.”

“Being strong is a choice.”

“That looks like shit.”

“You don’t want to dance?”

“Eat this. Be quiet.”

“Come on, it used to make you laugh.”

“You always laugh at things that aren’t funny.”

“You do not belong here.”

“I was not a happy person.”

“You were never a happy person.”

“You were bad from the beginning.”

“Oh, I think I need to kill you.”

“It’s so good to see your eyes.”

“Do you want to put ice on it?”

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

“This is the same stuff I was doing before.”

“You know that would be okay... if you’re not okay, that is.”

“Sometimes you just need to let it win.”

“You can’t watch sports without a hot dog.”

“I don’t want to talk about it!”

“Where are we going? It better be someplace hot.”

“You should run away.”

“I don’t think you really want this.”

“Don’t let them see something’s up.”

“The plan only works if nobody knows there is one.”

“Should I… trust you?”

“None of us are to be trusted, that’s why we work here.”

“Don’t be a grump.”

“Stop or I’ll scream.”

“You know how annoying it is when you have to be around two people in love?”

“You’re a real role model, you know that?”

“You don’t have to do this. I already know you are scary.”

“___, are you comparing yourself to a carrot?”

“I don’t love being here either.”

“It would be so much better if we could have this conversation after I’ve eaten.”

“To you, I am harsh and cold and, to me, you are disappointed and expectant.”

“You don’t talk to people when they are bowling.”

“You can’t beat us, you understand?”

“Oh, I’ve got to get out of here.”

“That guy was really staring at me.”

“Do you know why I love you, ___? Because you’re an agent of chaos. And I love chaos.”

“You’re a beautiful monster, ___.”

“Thank you for the inappropriate touching. It was actually pretty nice.”

“You’re a child. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“It’s just standard white person stuff.”

“Jokes are for people who do their job correctly, ___.”

“Do you ever think of anything else?”

“Heroes only get the girl in Hollywood.”

“Do you want to sit down?”

“Is this one of those moments we pretend never happened?”

“Look what someone just gave me. It’s a shank made out of a toothbrush.”

“Tone all this down a little. It’s too much.”

“So you’re actually leaving me here?”

“Why are you making this difficult?”

“You can’t get raided twice in a day. It’s a rule.”

“You look ridiculous.”

“Germans don’t wear kilts.”

“Russia has vegans now.”

“There is no such thing as a nice surprise.”

“Just once I want to make a scene and not be told to “be quiet” or to “pull myself together” or that I’m being ridiculous!”

“What kind of person does that?”

“I hope you die.”

“He’s crying out to be killed.”

“You have lost it, haven’t you?”

“Okay, I’m gonna make myself an omelette to celebrate.”

“That random guy now wants to kill me.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Wherever I go, someone wants to murder me.”

“I probably deserve it.”

“Let’s face it, ___, I’m a prick.”

“Don’t argue with me we’re celebrating.”

“You’re not really okay, are you?”

“I fear the walls may be closing in on me.”

“It’s starting to feel personal.”

“What is wrong with you?! You’re an emotional iceberg!”

“I’m not coming at you, I’m trying to hug you.”

“This isn’t healthy.”

“You can’t just refuse to feel anything for the rest of your life.”

“A little overdramatic, don’t you think?”

“Is this really necessary?”

“You’re going to die in this room.”

“We are both to blame.”

“Do you ever think about the past?”

“They seem happy. Carefree.”

“I want to feel like that.”

“Dancing’s not my thing.”

“Are you leading or am I?”

“We’d consume each other before we got old.”

“Talk me through your outfit.”

“Comfortable is what you make people with a terminal illness.”

“I was trained to look devastating.”

“You know, you almost have no sense of humor.”

“What am I supposed to do? Applaud or…?”

“What is this really about?”

“You’ve not tried to bribe someone before, have you?”

“I expected you to look more like a stripper.”

“You know your problem? You don’t know what’s good for you.”

“Well, this is something new.”

“You’re going to burn for this.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

“You never loved me. Not even close.”

“You can be pretty athletic when you choose.”

“I don’t want to do it anymore. Any of it.”

“You were never like them. You only thought you were.”

“When I try to think of my future I just see your face over and over again.”

“Did I ruin your life?”

“Do you think I’m a monster?”

“I think we all have monsters inside of us, it’s just that most people have managed to keep theirs hidden.”

“Help me make it stop.”

#killing eve #ask meme #rp #rp meme #rp starters #starters #sentence starters #sentence starter meme #long post

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gunnerpalace · 4 years

Note

Can I ask your opinion on Fade to Black? I just rewatched it and my Ichiruki heart is just overflowing with feels! But anyways I love your analysis and opinions on all things Bleach.

I am that rare IR who does not actually like Fade to Black very much. I can see what it was trying to do, and I appreciate the idea in concept (and some little moments here and there) but I am not at all a fan of how it was actually put together and executed. I guess I’ll do this as a pros and cons list:

PROS:

I don’t like Mayuri but I sort of like how he was handled in this movie. Him keeping a physical backup of his brain is a cool sci-fi idea for dealing with advancing the plot later.

Dark Rukia’s design is fairly cool. Especially in the little promo book that came with the movie, which you sometimes see screenshots of floating around.

The degree of attachment Ichigo shows toward Rukia is endearing.

The scene where Kisuke asks what Rukia is to Ichigo is cute and pretty spot-on.

Kisuke showing up in his old captain’s uniform for seemingly no reason other than to tweak Yamamoto’s nose is pretty funny. Him and Yoruichi basically alluding to the Soul Society arc is also kind of cute.

Ichigo using some special technique that’s unique to him in order to find Rukia (because it ain’t reiraku) is great.

The fight scene between Ichigo and Dark Rukia, and how Ichigo solves it and saves her, is well done and engaging.

Their little hug scene that’s gif’d on here a lot is sweet.

The ending where they have this discussion about how maybe this isn’t the first time they’ve met feels a little underplayed (they’re real far apart and stoic for people discussing such mushy things) but it’s still nice.

CONS:

I’m really tired of arcs about rescuing Rukia and reducing her to a damsel in distress, because she’s better than that. The Soul Society arc was the first time, and it was set up well and worked just fine—it’s classic. Fade to Black’s reasons are contrived (more on that later) and derivative. Then Hell Verse did it again and it was just stupid by that point. There should’ve been a rescue Ichigo movie instead, and the Xcution arc doesn’t really count since that’s presented as a horror story mostly from his perspective.

Rukia’s has had a hard life as a character and has been dumped on consistently, so I view adding yet more misery and pain onto her as gratuitous and frankly kind of insulting in general.

While Dark Rukia’s design is cool, it’s not really Rukia at all. It is very clear she’s an unwilling participant. It kinda looks like her, but it’s all Homura and Shizuku, they’re just forcing her along into it. And you know what? That’s basically rape, even if it’s not sexual rape. It’s still a total loss of consent and bodily autonomy. I’m pretty not cool with a plot that boils down to Rukia being raped.

I just hate the visual design of the kids. I can’t explain why beyond saying they just look out of place in the setting. Homura in particular looks like she walked off the set of Yu-Gi-Oh.

The backstory with the two kids frankly doesn’t make much sense. She meets Renji when she’s seemingly somewhere around the age of Karin or Yuzu (like 8-12) and they and their friends are together for ten years. At the end of that, she enters the Academy. In the flashbacks with these kids, she looks indistinguishable from how she does in the present? When exactly was this supposed to be happening?

The entire plot of Soul Society not knowing who Rukia is is stupid. Soul Society is a bureaucracy. From what we are shown, the majority of what they do every single day is paperwork. Just like Japan still to this day loves forms in triplicate, Soul Society fucking loves paperwork. And they love records and archives. And all Byakuya can do is find one lone book that references Rukia? There would be literally hundreds and hundreds and thousands of documents referencing her, or signed by her. The most casual search would indicate she was real.

Kon is annoying as hell in this movie. Like, he’s usually annoying, but not as much as he is here. It’s distracting and grating.

Ichigo is a continual disappointment in this movie. There are so many things that I will give them their own entries denoted by letters below:

A. People say he remembers Rukia when everyone else forgets. He doesn’t. Only Kon remembers Rukia. Kon jogs Ichigo’s memory. Ichigo does admittedly remember fully and quickly, which puts him ahead of everyone else, but he still forgets to begin with. That’s stupid.

B. Ichigo is extremely wishy-washy in this movie. He requires a speech from Kon, can’t or won’t beat Shuhei of all people even with his mask on, and loses to Toushirou. It’s pathetic. I get it, he’s a sad puppy without Rukia. It’s still pathetic to watch. The only time in the manga canon where his confidence wavers when it comes to trying to get to Rukia is during the Soul Society arc, when he wants to stay and wait for Ganju so they can settle their quarrel, and you can read that as being unique because it turns out they’re cousins and Ichigo may know something is unique, even if he doesn’t know it. This shit of him becoming discouraged and sad when trying to get to her is out-of-character.

C. This is an extension of (B), but like. Okay, when Orikasa Fumiko is voicing Rukia, and she screams in agony or despair, it chills me to the bone. I cannot explain to you how much I don’t like hearing it. It makes me anxious and makes me angry. She did it on the Senzaikyu when Gin broke her resolve to face death, and she does it in this movie when the Hollow fusion starts. And all Ichigo can do… is stand there uselessly going “Rukia…” like it’s nothing unusual. If he had been on the Senzaikyu bridge when Gin had done what he’d done, and he’d heard Rukia scream like that, he’d have fucking murdered Gin right then and there in cold blood. And here he faces the equivalent and does nothing. That’s not my boy. That’s not Ichigo.

D. When Rukia is crying over the deaths of Homura and Shizuku, Ichigo just stands there uselessly beside Renji and Byakuya and does nothing to console her. Renji and Byakuya at least have an excuse because they still don’t remember her. What’s Ichigo’s? Again, not him. Go to her you moron. At least grasp her shoulder. Not the Ichigo I know.

The fight scene with the goo monster is dumb as hell. Yamamoto should be able to solo it. He activated Ryuujin Jakka and… completely disappears from the fight. He just straight up vanishes. Because you can tell they realized he should be able to solo it and that would deprive them of everyone else getting a fight too. So he just instant transmissions out of the entire movie. And we get contrived shit like the monster being faster than Yoruichi and Soi-Fon so that Kisuke can heroically save Yoruichi (because him doing it in the Yammy fight wasn’t enough already). It’s just contrived, gratuitous, and pointless.

While the IchiRuki moments are very cute (if a little overly restrained, in my opinion) I feel like the rest of the movie that is set up to make them happen is a hot mess. Things happen because they need to for the plot to work, not because it makes sense or is in character for them to happen. I can’t stand movies that are made that way for any franchise, and seeing characters I care about deeply behave in such ways really just kinda pisses me off. The story beats are derivative and generally inferior versions of things we’ve already seen.

Movie Ichigo is generally out-of-character as fuck (and not just in this movie!) in a way that reminds me of like, Jean-Luc Picard in the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies (wherein he acts basically nothing like he does on the TV show). And Movie Rukia seems generally reduced to a background character.

I said recently that Rukia and Doomguy would be friends, and you know what? I would watch that movie instead of Fade to Black or Hell Verse, to be honest. Let’s do an outline.

Ichigo is kidnapped by some denizen of Hell (Kokutou and Shuren and company, I guess? they can still be anime pretty boys even if they’re damned souls, maybe they have terrible demonic forms or something) to be used as a reiatsu battery or some shit for evil purposes. (Breaking out of Hell to overrun the other worlds?) Ichigo’s energy running wild causes some kind of temporal and dimensional vortex which draws in the Doomguy. He finds himself in the upper levels of Bleach’s Hell and does what he does, methodically murdering his way about.

Rukia is sent to investigate Ichigo’s disappearance and eventually figures out Ichigo is in Hell, and so goes to save him (against orders, with the help of Kisuke and maybe the others). There she encounters Doomguy, and is at first horrified, but she notices the rabbit’s foot he keeps on him. She decides to help him, and they’re left alone for a minute, assessing each other.

Despite their initial lack of a shared language (maybe his helmet can translate Japanese?), she communicates to him (with Chappy drawings!) that she has to go deeper into Hell to save Ichigo. Given their shared love of bunnies, Doomguy is down with that. She rides on his back as she did with Ichigo, working some of his spare guns as they go. (Imagine Rukia cocking a shotgun meaningfully tho…) Along the way Rukia freezes some dudes and Doomguy punches their heads off. The usual stuff. She tells him about Ichigo as they go, like she did to Hanataro. Doomguy says nothing because he’s Doomguy, but he seems to listen.

They eventually get to Ichigo and liberate him through the judicious application of firepower. His raging reiatsu causes a lot of damage to the surrounding environment. Doomguy takes advantage of the chaos to commit more murder, giving Ichigo and Rukia time to have a tender reunion moment. The three then team up to take on Kokutou, Shuren, and the other baddies, possibly over the course of several different battles. (Probably like a third or so of the movie is this, and maybe the others show up to pair off and get some screen time. Doesn’t really matter.)

Eventually Shuren and the other chumps die and Kokutou becomes the big bad. Ichigo and Rukia do a big tag-team bankai attack to kill him after Doomguy provides them with an opening with a BFG9000 shot (as he is mostly doing add-clear).

Victorious, the three escape to the upper levels of Hell again, where they are met by reinforcements from Soul Society and explain that Doomguy is a friend. Eventually, Kisuke does some technobabble shizzlewizzle to send Doomguy back to the dimensions he more properly belongs to. Rukia gives him a parting gift of a drawing of him and Daisy in happier times. Ichigo gives him a fistbump and a CD player with some punk music, or a collection of edgy Shakespearean poetry or something.

Ichigo and Rukia share an epilogue to decompress and have some playful banter about how she’ll always be there for him just like he’s there for her.

Roll credits to At Doom’s Gate or BFG Division. Mid-credit sequence is Doomguy sitting on a massive demon corpse, making a detailed Chappy drawing of himself, Rukia, and Ichigo killing demons together as friends. End-credit sequence is Ichigo and Rukia playing an FPS game together on a console in pajamas or lounging clothes while laughing and bantering.

Like, yes, this idea is pretty stupid (although I am increasingly tempted to write it) and a frankly bizarre crossover. But you know what? It feels truer to the characters to me, and less contrived and dumb in setting up why what is happening is. It doesn’t really make the characters needlessly helpless or incompetent to generate those good moments of interaction.

And that is really my problem with Fade to Black: what it has to do to get the good moments outweighs them, for me. Maybe it’s because I just can’t turn my brain off and can’t stop doing critical analysis, but I always feel like the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. (And I kinda feel that way about all the animated movies. I was really surprised by how much I liked the Live Action: it nailed handling things perfectly.)

Other people like it, and that’s fine, but I don’t really intend to ever watch it again.

#Asks #rukia-kuchiki-divided #DoomBleach #god why did this stupid crossover even occur to me #i hate it #but i love it #but i HATE it

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f-nodragonart · 4 years

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ok wait I have one more rant abt American Dragon and I swear I’m done, but the whole concept of a ‘leader’ dragon for every country is very.... strange to me

like ok, suspension of disbelief for vague hand-wavey magic, or the existence of magical creatures, etc. fine fine. but the whole PREMISE of the show is built around the concept of an American Dragon-- yet that concept is so incredibly, frustratingly vague. like I said in my original review, I’m willing to excuse a lot for a simple kid’s show that isn’t looking to worldbuild super deeply, but the main premise at the VERY least should have SOME planning behind it

for one, the physical size and population distribution of each country varies WILDLY across the globe, it’s honestly stupid to assign the same number of ‘leader’ dragons (one) to each, and expect each dragon to serve their respective country to the same degree of competence. the US is a fuckin MASSIVE country w/ two states disconnected from the mainland, and SEVERAL different biomes that have contributed to diverse sets of populations (which would likely be reflected among magical creatures as well, culturally and biologically-speaking). it’s ridiculous to expect ONE dragon to serve, represent, and protect ALL those populations

and the thing is, Jake DOESN’T do that! he’s a New York Dragon at best. the only times I remember him helping out w/ magical emergencies out-of-state are when he’s traveling for personal reasons (like visiting family) or when he’s tending to dragon council business, in which case most dragons across the world are gathering there too (not to mention these instances are generally out-of-country)

having a ‘leader’ dragon assigned to a bio/cultural region without even bothering with human borders would make FAR more sense (esp since the dragons don’t even wanna bother w/ the human world anyways, so why are they assigning things based on human constructs??). hell, there could even still be dragons representing larger areas too, so long as it was established that they’re the more broad-scope representatives that must regularly convene with the dragon representatives of the smaller regions under their jurisdiction. this would assure that each dragon is truly an intimate member of the communities they’re assigned to, rather than some outsider intruding on important matters that they simply can’t understand w/o cultural context. this especially makes sense if we assume that dragon forms are magical/psychological projections of the cultural society that a given dragon is raised in, rather than a *strictly* biological body whose traits are genetically inherited (tho like I said in my main review, I’m rly doubtful of that actually being canon to the show...)

now, it would admittedly be p cool if the show took the time to pull Jake across the nation to explore different cultural/ecological regions and the magical creatures within. but that’s expecting a lot from a show that only establishes that Jake is part-Chinese on the most shallow of levels, and fails to explore Chinese culture in any intimate manner beyond ONE(1) episode about the Chinese new year. like, the bar is on the ground, here

and even if some attention had been paid to America’s diverse cultural settings, I’d still be skeptical of Jake being able to handle the whole nation on his own. hell, I’m skeptical of an ADULT dragon being able to handle a nation as huge as the US, much less a tween handling the whole thing. I already take huge issue w/ kid’s shows framing dangerous, mature situations as “normal” responsibilities for children to encounter and just “get over”, as if they’re as commonplace and simple as like, studying for class. so every time Jake is reprimanded for not managing his time properly when he’s running on 10 min of sleep after facing off against angry trolls, or trying to take some free time for himself when he’s missed out on every other chance at a normal middle school milestone, I genuinely seethe w/ rage

at least w/ most other kid’s shows there’s some explanation I can accept for the main character having to go through that kinda stress. like w/ Danny Phantom, Danny unfortunately goes thru a freak accident, and he can’t tell his ghost-hunting parents abt it for fear that they might tear him apart for science or misguided protection, and he decides on his own that he has some responsibility to use his powers for active good (tho DP still pulls the “ghost-fighting is just like balancing school and a social life!” bullshit that I HATE..). or w/ Steven Universe, all this responsibility was thrust on Steven by adults who didn’t understand the consequences of their actions or had no other choice, and Steven’s currently dealing w/ the massive emotional fallout of having his childhood stolen from him

but with American Dragon, like... this shit is PLANNED. the council carefully CHOOSES the dragon for each nation-- these adults have a RESPONSIBILITY to both a whole WORLD of magical creatures AND their dragon subordinates to choose capable, mature dragons to lead the magical world. and for some reason they decide that this responsibility should fall on the shoulders of LITERAL CHILDREN?? who was the previous American Dragon? where the hell are they now? (Neopuff pointed out to me that Jake is in fact the first AD, which is even even more suspect than before! what!!) even if Jake is chosen to be a potential future AD, why does he have to take on that full responsibility now?? why isn’t a seasoned adult taking care of the bulk of responsibilities until Jake grows up??? like I get that children’s power fantasies hit different when ur an adult b/c u can recognize what responsibilities a child shouldn’t have to deal with-- I GET that it’s good to let children explore mature responsibilities in fiction, I’m not arguing that. but these responsibilities should at LEAST make sense in-context, and NO adult should have knowingly thrust these duties on literal children w/o some DAMN good explanation for why they literally CAN’T assign dragon duties to adults. not to mention that the whole, “you’re selfish and need to learn better time management skills,” thing is such an insidious message to direct at kids who should literally only be expected to... be kids? I’m SO fucking mad abt this!!!

and don’t even get me STARTED on the fact that Jake is being trained by the Chinese Dragon, and Haley by the Korean Dragon. like, again, the show establishes that there’s only one ‘leader’ dragon for every nation, and that Lao Shi and Sun are the current dragons of their respective countries-- they haven’t resigned, as far as we know. so like, what happened to China and Korea (and now that I think abt it, which Korea??)? they just don’t have dragon protectors? fuck them, I guess, they’re on their own now? b/c training American dragons is so much more important than protecting their own countries? b/c a Chinese and Korean dragon somehow have better knowledge of American magical communities than the dragons that have actually been living there and presumably been serving those communities for decades (and b/c every Asian country is apparently interchangeable, so a Korean dragon is obviously perfectly fit to understand the cultural background of part-Chinese dragons)? hello???

now I AM at least willing to consider that perhaps the dragon council runs on enough shallow bureaucracy that their predecessors just arbitrarily decided to assign a single, young dragon to each country, and the current council is too stubborn to change that tradition even in the face of its clear problems. like, actual real-life political systems are absolutely fucked, so it tracks that a fantasy political system could be similarly broken. this doesn’t explain all the fuckshit, but it might at least explain some of the fuckshit. BUT none of these problems are ever brought up in the show, so we have to assume that they are somehow, canonically......... not actually problems..... ugh.............

and none of this even BEGINS to tackle the weird dragon monarchy over all magical-kind. like this obviously isn’t exclusive to AD, u see this sorta bloodline-bound authority thing in a LOT of western fantasy media. but the fact that the dragon council seems so utterly incompetent when u pick apart all the above issues, I’m just sitting here like... how have the trolls/elves/merfolk/etc. not guillotined y’all yet? lmfao

-Mod Spiral

#don't get me wrong I still rly love this show. nostalgia's a helluva drug #but this RLY fucked me up while I was rewatching it #like please sir? an ounce of logic for me sir? my family is starving #american dragon #American Dragon: Jake Long #mod spiral #reviews #long post

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janiedean · 5 years

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hello dearest (not) anon, excuse me if I don’t reply to you directly but as I want to block each single one of you I’ll keep the original so I can lovingly delete it after I’m finished. :)

now, I was this tempted to just delete or troll you, but as y’all have honestly seemed to not realize that you’ve gone overboard and that I didn’t want to get further involved with this dumb shipwar but you’re basically making me go like

so fine, whatever, I’ll address this one because it has all the single dumbest arguments we could have and I kind of want it for safekeeping, so.

point one: starting an ask with you freaks and then complain we don’t complain about jaime calling brienne ugly makes me wonder if you actually re-read your asks before you send them or if you even bother to make sure they’re internally coherent, because sorry but you’re basically saying this entire fandom is made of **freaks** which last I know was not a compliment to anyone’s aesthetic, so you already don’t have ground to stand on;

point two: stupid is actually a universally degrading word when referred to a specific person and used to undermine their intelligence, especially if continuously repeated. now, in *itself* it’s not damning - an argument can be stupid, a discussion can be stupid (I mean I’ve seen people savagely arguing over who had to wash the dishes, that’s a stupid reason to argue with anyone), a law can be stupid (all of italian bureaucracy is definitely a challenge for anyone for one), of course it’s all about how it’s used. for one, if used ironically and not meaning it, as in ‘my stupid son charging against dragons’, it’s not damning either, because wow, wait a moment, every single person who says that also knows that jaime is doing that out of ptsd fight instinct and that there’s nothing funny about it, but as we are people outside the narrative who love the character, we don’t mean it in a demeaning way. obviously charging at a dragon is suicidal, and it’s exactly what he’d have done (probably also in book canon I’ll give them that), but we all know why he did it, and btw dork is nowhere near on the same level as the stupidest lannister, it can be meant positively as well and tbh it’s used way more positively than that - I mean, there’s dorks in love and idiots in love as ao3 tags, no one uses them to insult the people in the ship they’re writing about now, do they? however, the whole thing about ‘the stupidest lannister’ is completely different because it implies cersei, someone jaime trusts implicitly and who’s his sister and, to him, also his lover and his other half - going by your own/their own definition - continuously demeaning his intelligence. now, I don’t think you quite realize how emotional abuse works or how that works, but let me tell you: if people you are that close with or have a fundamental impact in your upbringing (your parents, your siblings, your first teachers etc.) tell you that all the time, you end up believing that. and what comes with it? if you think you’re more stupid then them, then it means that their decisions will be better than yours because you’re too dumb to take them properly and they’re not, and you won’t even start to wonder that maybe they’re wrong and you’re right, and it’s an exceedingly common thing that happens between abusers and their victims, ie convincing them that they’re not smart enough to know what’s good for themselves, and so coming from cersei who also doesn’t want jaime to put two and two together and realize he’s a different person from her and actually, worse, doesn’t even consider the possibility that he might actually not be a different person from her, it’s straight up emotional abuse of the ugliest kind and it has nothing to do with *fans of the character* calling him a dork over his utter lack of smoothness when hitting on people, because we know why he doesn’t know how to hit on people. other than that, in the show they made jaime canonically dyslexic. now, if you even don’t get that calling someone stupid for thirty years will do a great fucking lot of damage to them (I mean, I’ve been told I was snobbish for three years by a teacher I didn’t even particularly admire in my formative years and I still have to finish unpacking the consequence of that shit, I can’t imagine being constantly demeaned by your relatives or people you trust implicitly) I doubt you’ll realize the fucking wrongness depths of the implication that the only lannister with a canon in-show learning disability is *the stupidest lannister* especially when there’s still the stigma about dyslexic people being dumb because *they can’t read* when that’s not true at all and they just need different ways of approaching a text and then they’re good to go and it has nothing to do with how smart or no they aren’t, but I’m going to tell you: it’s ableist as hell, falls under harmful stereotypes about dyslexic people that tv shows should go against, not reinforce and it has really disgusting connotations, so excuse me if I am pressed about it and other people are pressed about it and your opinion belongs in the trash and I really hope you’re not a teacher not are planning to become one;

point three: now we go at how you don’t get at all how those two work and how brienne’s character is structured, but here, let me explain you: a) jaime calls her ugly when they meet and after he loses the hand he only calls her ugly in his head and/or to her face when he’s irritated or she has misunderstood his intentions or he feels hurt by the fact that she misunderstood his intentions (when he gives her oathkeeper in the books), and in the show he stopped mid S3. on the other side, she calls him an oathbreaker and all the worst things she can call him - if you missed it, they insult each other and they start their relationship thinking the worst of the other person, and even with that he spends the entire first chapter of his in asos checking her out but you didn’t notice that I suppose; b) jaime does not call her ugly at all after he punches ronnet connington and in the show again he hasn’t since mid s3, and given that they were supposed to start as enemies and she insulted him right back, I won’t be here being pressed about them trading insults when the entire point of the story is that they stop insulting each other after they get to know each other and get closer to each other, or have you missed that too? c) the fact that he calls her ugly is actually narratively important because let me explain you something that you don’t know because you obv. haven’t read brienne’s chapters: most of the time she remembers being hurt by other men when it comes to her feelings, it’s when she found out they lied to her about her looks. she got her first trauma related to her looks when her septa told her that people who called her pretty were lying, and she got hurt during the bet with hyle and so on because those people were courting her and telling her nice things and then they were all planning on screwing her literally and metaphorically, so if someone went to brienne and told her ‘oh hey you look hot as hell let’s bang!!’, she wouldn’t believe them. let me guarantee you, she wouldn’t. the fact that jaime did not compliment her at all if not going all the way around to do it about her fighting prowess and maskerading it as insults means that he never lied to her about her looks or about anything, and the fact that then he changes and genuinely respects her and trusts in her and gives her THE THING SHE’S WANTED MOST IN HER LIFE ie a sword and a knightly quest and someone actually believing she could be a knight and carry out her vows instead of thinking she was a joke weights a lot more than any insult he might have thrown at her in the past and actually, she can trust him to not make fun of her/she can know for sure he’s not joking exactly because he never had a problem with calling her ugly (which she knows she is according to westeros beauty standards in the beginning) nor to tell her mean things when he thought them, and so since he never lied to her before and she can see that he changed, she has no reason to think he could or would lie to her after, and considering that most of her trauma is tied to having been lied to in that sense... sorry but no, it doesn’t bother me at all because if it’s an enemies to lovers kind of trope I really don’t think I’d expect him to gift her flowers at their first meeting. I mean, *enemies* to *lovers* implies that at the beginning they don’t like each other, or did you forget that words have meanings? also, hairy is not an insult. I suppose that for people who insult other people about the peach fuzz mustache most women have it would be an insult, but let me tell you: it’s not. and given that I’ve seen posts over posts about how it’s an expression of feminism to not shave I really think you haven’t even checked that discourse lately - personally I don’t care for it but like, having body hair is not automatically a crime nor a reason why you’re unattractive. get lost. and like, excuse me if insults traded by people who didn’t know each other and that they both outgrew when they did know each other are nowhere near on the same level of making someone think they’re too fucking stupid to take their own decisions and always have to follow someone else’s lead, and excuse me if I’m way more than mildly worried that anyone in this fandom would look at that stupidest lannister bullshit and actually don’t feel horrified at it.

now, honestly, can y’all just stop with this grasping at straws which happens to also be ableist as hell while pretending to give a fuck about brienne as a character - because you don’t, it’s obvious from how you don’t understand her issues at all - and keep to your own lane or what? because honestly, it’s obvious no one has ever called you ugly in your life and that you never had to deal with anyone demeaning your intelligence because you were most likely too busy demeaning other people’s, but you’ve been at this bullshit since 2013.

didn’t you get bored?\

#jaime x brienne #jaime lannister #jb wank #ableism cw #receipts #only slightly less toxic than chernobyl's ruins #anti-cersei lannister #anti-cersei #anti-lannincest #anti-jaime x cersei #emotional abuse cw #dyslexia mention #sigh #can't y'all be more obvious just DON'T

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theskyexists · 4 years

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she-ra 4

the reason i stopped watching she-ra is the same reason i stopped watching the dragon prince.

the narrative doesn’t take the situation seriously. instead of leaning into the anguish of war and violence (atla, teen titans) - they make light of it. EVEN when the characters’ guardians are KILLED!!

when Angella died and they spent 2 seconds on Glimmer’s grief at the end of season 3 i was like......actually fuck this. HOW can i take any of these stakes seriously when they insist on brushing them off???

anyway just had to complain about that - especially because the start of the first ep of 4 is them joking AGAIN about something as grim as Glimmer now carrying all the responsibilities of her mother - who may i remind you IS DEAD

but catradora became canon apparently so now i have to struggle through

her aunt, her mother’s sister, is fuckin, joking about cakes, her friends are laughing at the joke. COME ON! how goddamn unrealistic and insensitive. EVEN if they wanna make a point of it - it’s silly! because the narrative PARTICIPATES in making light of the situation. if it was just the characters it would be less jarring

‘we’ll make sure this day is perfect’ WHAT? how could it EVER BE IF HER MOTHER IS FUCKING DEAD????????? AND THAT”S THE ONLY REASON SHE’S QUEEN????? ‘must be hard’ YEAH IT’S HARD - IN FACT IMPOSSIBLE. instead of pretending to be happy maybe you can show some genuine sensitivity. these people are so crazily emotionally underdeveloped my god. what age are they supposed to be? 16? 17? The problem that She-ra has (just like the dragon prince) is that there are no relevant adults. Oh sure there’s a Queen, and some Soldiers, and a Sorceress. But there isn’t a single relevant competent adult around who is concerned with running a bureaucracy or the emotional stability of children

I do like how Catra has overcome her fear of Hordak. but i think i remember being fuckin furious at her for almost destroying the whole world and hurting Scorpia and betraying Entrapta just to spite Adora. vaguely.

the rebellions problem is that they’re all extremely stupid himbos. like literally, in the whole story, only catra and shadowweaver have any smarts, while glimmer gains the ability to think during full moons on wednesdays. meanwhile everybodys is a slave to their emotions - which destroys any brain cells that shadowweaver or catra (or angella or anyone) might have managed. they could literally have killed hordak the entire time but just let him order them around because they’re so hot for acknowledgement

I’m glad Glimmer reflects my frustrations now hahahahaah

‘everyone is already acting like she doesn’t matter’ - yeah dudes, you fucking insensitive bastards

‘im supposed to take care of you glimmer’ - but unfortunately i have the emotional intelligence of a crab! FUCK!

this is another thing about this show that makes me groan. sappy quick resolutions of emotional turmoil through re-affirming the fuckin power of friendship in the first episode of the season.

also couldn’t Adora have done this she-ra stuff from the very beginning

that was badass.....miss glimmer’s other hair though. ok the emotions at that hologram and statue though...

the coolest part of she-ra for me is finding out more how the ancient systems all fit into Etheria and the She-Ras and Hordak Prime etc.

THIS IS A GOOD SPEECH. love this badass.

love Hordak getting put in his place. Love Catra realising she has power - love Hordak reaping what he sows. its unfortunate that she’s a shitty brat who JUST can’t get over her inferiority complex

if i could endlessly teleport i would do what glimmer does

also, glimmer was willing to fuckin murder catra before and she DEFINITELY will be now lol. love that for her.

why did they only introduce adora learning to transform her sword NOW ahahaha, theyve had SO MANY SCENES in which she doesnt have it and then suddenly does - and then its gone again

scorpia is the funniest and most likeable person in the whole show

they really suddenly can’t take five people on with she ra and fuckin huntara on their side??

i remember that little sadistic righteous twist in my stomach when Adora finally was like: FUCK!!!!!! YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! Catra!!!!!!! and the stupid idiot got it

FINALLY A GLANCE AT THE PEOPLE OF ETHERIA AGAIN! i love the party sequences in this!!! the people of etheria are so beautiful! nobody ever comments on the main characters all looking plain human in contrast....

‘and i fell for it!’ yeah cos you DUMB AS BRICKS ADORA

so first they quietly take out the guards....and then literally break open the door hahaahahahahaaha

‘we forgot the bots regenerate’ - yeah cos you DUMB AS BRICKS ADORA

i just dont understand why they insist on making the main characters so DUMB ahahahahaah

Adora and Catra are great at hitting where it hurts. the difference between them is that Catra KNOWS that she’s hurting Adora - she does it deliberately.

wow that could be some pretty angsty stuff constantly leaving her to struggle on the floor while painfully electrocuted. Catra has also moved to kill Adora straight up so many times. im sure she really wants to (but it would destroy her later). But now, Adora swept something at Catra that might have actually killed her. I get Catra though, I would’t want to get beaten by some blonde, blue-eyed, glowing golden kid who always gets to win and do better. this is truly the first time Adora has moved to kill Catra......

does flatterina not have parents who’d be like: uhhhhh maybe leave the soldiering for a couple more years?

catra truly burning all her bridges. hahaha. it’s so satisfying to see her use her anger and power to truly destroy herself - because of guilt!

no other villagers were like - HMMMMMMM this random new kid is here? weird..... i didnt see that coming either.

Adora doesn’t think about what Catra might have even been doing there - cos she’s DUMB AS BRICKS

the interesting thing about this show is that they’re setting up a dichotomy. they’re treating war like a high-stakes game because they have the good side adhere to an aesthetic of ....magic. they will not make the two sides equivalent in any way - which makes questions of morality moot. the show is purely an emotional drama. the horde is an army of brainwashed kids in an industrial wasteland - they fight with tech and guns. but the good guys cannot fight with an army or tech, they fight with cleverness and magic. they’re called the ‘rebellion’ - they HAVE to be underdogs because they have to follow the script of good - even though what’s really going on is war, not a rebellion. That’s why they have a single strike team that do ‘missions’. They are presented as FUNDAMENTALLY different - on the level of identity which they cannot change lest they destroy themselves - and in that way the good guys can never become the bad guys. it is ALMOST meta. think they’re gonna do something with that at one point. i hope

also Netossa has such a super cool design.

‘everyone knows you’re needed in bright moon’ - uh. really? i dont know. some random person i’ve never seen before demands you go to meetings. so? is that important? why?

spinerella can literally FLY???????? why has she been in the background this whole time??? hahahaha military inefficiency.

there was an explosion that ripped trees apart - but bo’s alive!! honesty why didn’t they try explosive suicide bots before. they’re very lucky he was still alive to heal

‘could they be tracking she-ra?’ WHAT? isn’t the obvious suggestion - A SPY???? they just assume that the general is right hahahahaa.

i love how double trouble is so meta.

actually, why wasn’t glimmer trained as a sorcerer anyway?

glimmer is upset about her growing magic plants but not her having magic ingredients

why do they present good strategic thinking (for once) as evil influence from shadowweaver

what a fuckin badass. honestly - glad that this show finally utilised glimmer’s extremely op powers like they should be. honestly, she’s much more powerful than She-Ra.

that bit with spinerella was so contrived jfc.

‘by using me as a decoy’ adora says, pissed off. uhhhh YOU went off on your own to get smushed by fuckin bots adora. Glimmer didn’t do that to you. she just used your stupidity.

glimmer really left catra to die. hahahahaa

i like adora best when she’s on her own and being a dork

they definitely managed to foreshadow that Light Hope was evil but im glad they picked up the thread now

am i seeing this wrong or did scorpia have two mums??? but also. where the fuck are they

lolololololol because everybodys dumb as bricks and emotionally volatile they’re incredibly easy to manipulate

‘i cant risk hitting flatterina’ pffft - ALL YOUR ARROWS ARE NON-LETHAL BO. ugh i cant deal with these contrived stakes

I LOVE THIS BADASS EFFICIENT HARDCORE GLIMMER

they’re really gonna spin it like this is a bad development? fuck off. finally some grit.

‘you took things way too far’ - but she got results! dumb as bricks adora

(this may seem harsh but adora is DUMB shes so fucking DUMB!!!! and she has many good qualities (such as an almost innate sense of morality) but goddamn. i guess its good to sometimes have a show about all around dumb characters. i mean, it’s not unrealistic per se, it’s just.....weird.)

the interesting thing about these characters is that you can SEE every single one of them struggling with cognitive dissonance. thats the big story of this show. they see the world a certain way - and then when something challenges that, they fight to the death to destroy or deny or ignore that new information - to everybody’s detriment. and they can’t back down because every step they’ve taken - would turn to sins they can’t live with. it’s interesting and its also a kind of conflict that‘s frustrating if not resolved at SOME point. thats why i love this season for its characters going off the rails. adora aiming to kill catra, catra destroying her last relationships, glimmer growing more and more militant.

they’re all acting like teens - that is - highly volatile - unable to keep from provoking others or be provoked - but they ARE teens.

‘catra doesn’t care. she’ll hurt people to get her way (implied: EVEN people on her side)’ - we must remember that Scorpia was entirely fine with KILLING the trio (it was Catra that wasn’t at the time).

‘you’re a bad friend’ OH OUCH. Catra - who’s always been treated as a whipping girl by those in power - does the same to those she is in power over. But on some level she doesn’t WANT to be that. she’s just always always been rejected and take advantage of and lashed out at and abandoned by the people she considered important (shadowweaver ---- doing the same to catra that was done to her is so goddamn....it’s the story of this show. the simplicity and banality of damaging and hurting others and that carrying over to harm even more people - is the story of this show and it’s immeasurably frustrating and REALISTIC)

she still flinches at Hordak’s lashing out. but she imprints on him the exact lesson she’s trying to school herself in. If you don’t need anybody - you don’t want anyone - if nobody matters but the mission and winning - then you can’t be hurt. she wants to prove her worth - but she doesn’t realise that inherently means that she’s putting somebody in power over her - again and again and again.

mermista coming in clutch with the braincells: there’s a spy! I love how this is played as completely implausible and just Mermista nonsense (who i love learning about) - while it’s so obviously true/

i actually love Adora when she’s being serious and heroic, or a huge dork. and she has the wit to RECOGNISE good ideas. but i just don’t understand why Adora is being big b about being used as a distraction. like....why?

i love that the underside of Mermista’s sneaker has a figure. but why the fuck is a common soldier with them (flatterina) and do they really think they can interrogate the whole castle filled with some shitty guards and...what - the guerilla troops they sometimes employ? where do they even live? ah in a tent city. ok

why is the GENERAL in front line combat WITHOUT SOLDIERS???? oh wait. glimmer did that too when she was general. lolololol

i understand why Adora doesn’t trust Shadowweaver and doesn’t want her around most of all - and Glimmer getting buddy buddy with her is hurtful. but...it’s not helpful to needle glimmer about it. but dismissing the guards around shadowweaver however? stupid of Glimmer. unnecessary. ‘what has she done but help us?’ - uhhhh she kidnapped you, corrupted your powers, almost wiped Adora’s mind. I wish Adora had summed up those things instead of leaving them implied.

so perfuma and mermista come across inconsistencies in the stories - but then. forget about it? i just...... UGGHGHGHGHGHGHGH. people really aren’t this dumb are they? they’re just NOT.

‘no more secrets and doing things without us’ - that was a good speech. but like, glimmer is right - she’s surrounded by INCOMPETENT IDIOTS lolololol. but good leadership is corralling idiots, Glimmer. not going off on your own. but she’s already planted the bait about the dining room.

‘we were the only ones who knew about the plan to take back dril’ ---- THEN WHY DID YOU INTERROGATE OTHER PEOPLE AHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHA

‘stop questioning my choices, stop whining about being a decoy’ YEAH FUCKIN HELL ADORA STOP BEING SUCH A FUCKING SHIT. IS THIS REALLY ‘TAKING CARE OF GLIMMER’????

‘all you do is question my authority, it’s exhausting.’ yeah god...it really is. adora needs to fucking BACK! OFF! but im loving these fights because it brings out the grievances. Adora is right to be worried about Glimmer no longer including her in her decisions. and she makes a good point that that’s bad. She makes a good point that Shadowweaver cannot be trusted. And Glimmer makes zero good points - except that it’s been hard for her and has garnered 0.1% understanding from the people around her. Oh they were working together. BUT those were definitely real grievances.

GLIMMER CAN ALREADY DO A CONTAINMENT SPELL LIKE THAT??? godDAMN. castapella completely flunked her responsibilities to Glimmer but shadowweaver did NOT.

hmmm so Solinius was....destroyed. but like, did the people die? like....the people? that’s the important bit isn’t it? i mean, they were under the sea right?

i suppose the problem i also have is that this show will NOT hurry up. normally i love filler stuff but ...the characters are too.....cheery. too flat. their quirks are fun and funny until they’re literally character flaws.

are the horde just literally attacking civilians? jezus. the war crimes. how did shadowweaver ever expect to trick Adora when she was released into the field?

‘you can’t just keep going off on your own!’ - SHE LITERALLY SAVED THE WHOLE FUCKING TOWN. SHE’S THE QUEEN! EVERYBODY SHOULD LISTEN TO HER! lolololol

the problem with Adora’s points is that everything about their dynamics are always so nebulous. why cant glimmer keep showing up to help out? WHY??? she’s the most capable fucking soldier in the field! she’s supposed to have full fucking authority! like, Adora isn’t in the right here. the problem is that her needling is only a symptom of her worries - which is that Glimmer doesn’t trust her any more. but the needling does NOTHING but make her seem like an idiot

i do love this trope reversal here - Seahawk deliberately damselling them to let the princesses save the boys? pffft

love catra getting the consequences for her actions regarding Scorpia. You can’t keep lashing out at people and expect them to stay my dear cat.....

oooohhh Glimmer.... you’re treading close to very hurtful territory. Blaming Adora for the Rebellion failing? for things she couldn’t do anything about? stupid.

really?? you’re really gonna fucking fight-resolution BLOCK ME? are you FUCKING kidding me? edging me for the whole GODDAMN SEASON??? and finally Adora cries at Glimmer going over the line???? fuckin I HATE the narrative decisions in this stupid show I FUCKING HATE THEM FUCK THESE WRITERS GOD FUKCING DAMMIT!!! this has been the whole GODDAMN SHOW!!!!!! ARGHGHGHGHGHGH

i’ve been waiting for a fucking resolution for Adora and Catra the whole! goddamn! SHOW! NOTHING! else matters! you do the exact same for glimmer and adora and now you let it fester again??? because of some no-stakes BULLSHIT? just give me the fucking godddamn PAYOFF for watching these kids be IDIOTS.

this fight on the boat is COOL and really wonderfully animated

really? Glimmer’s response to Adora being hurt and not wanting to be TOUCHED is to be angry herself? what a fucking IDIOT. god i can’t stand this. I CAN’T STAND IT

is this how people act? do they never take a moment to breathe and think and reflect and realise their priorities and take a step back and fucking apologise?

jezus FUCKING! CHRIST!

‘no matter what glimmer thinks of me’ oh that HURTED. oh damn. that’s so relatable. it’s a way to run, it’s a way to internalise the hurt and then prove the things that hurt wrong. the one that hurt you

I know Bo is supposed to be the emotionally intelligent one but he’s also too soft. He should go up to his friends individually and ask them the sharp questions. not - ‘communicate more positively’.

I just like Adora so much better when she’s alone. Her friendships’ positive moments are always so sappy or so....like over-exaggerated, the negative moments always so fucking annoying. Alone, Adora is generally driven, tragic, and cool. the problem is perhaps that i don’t care for the constant fucking drama

god i LOVE Mara so much - she’s so beautiful. and i LOVE learning more about the Old Ones. So they were trying to study Ehteria’s magic.... but then Bright Moon and the princesses were already here. The Magic-Like systems of the Old Ones are pure tech.

wow! even Mara’s transformation is way cooler.

so why was the first one’s tech (she ra) responsive to the magic? why does Raz know about She-Ra? when she ra is first ones tech????

WAIT ONE SECOND. She-Ra is ‘magic’ ??? it’s the SWORD that’s the first one’s tech! She-Ra is Etheria’s magic ! but how if the First Ones chose Mara. Did they steal She-Ra from Etheria?

so what im getting is that. the Old Ones colonised Etheria. Etheria has magic, and when Mara was chosen they made that girl an elite soldier - giving her a first one’s tech sword so she could ‘control’ Etheria’s magic. Then Mara was told to study the magic of Etheria - the ship implying that she’d not been on the planet before. then they created a Heart of Etheria project - which will probably turn the magic into a weapon. this was going to be used against Hordak Prime, im sure. I mean, Mara saved Etheria, but she did doom the rest of the universe to...extinction.... like, judging from Hordak’s strategy, Hordak Prime just literally exterminates planets and repopulates them with his clones....

But why would the planet choose a girl from amongst the colonisers - twice?

OOOHHH that anguished scream. i love anguished screams

why dont they put fucking safety belts in these ships. it’s not like the ship didn’t survive. only Mara got splatted (i guess)

also i love Mara. but damn Adora just got some more shit on her plate. why the fuck was she pushed through a portal again? for a She-Ra chain reaction?

I love madame Raz.

So they didn’t explicitly use it against Hordak Prime. and it wouldn’t have destroyed Etheria back then but it will now...

guh this showmakes it so hard to enjoy catra’s pain.

well they did finally have a good talk about it. I have to say, Glimmer is making good strategic sense - it’s just that this show only rewards harebrained schemes

Catra having a crazy panic attack cos she can’t find Scorpia and she’s completely lost and she knows its her fault. kinda love that for her. my heart

my dear Glimmer, theres a difference between absence of trust and absence of agreement.

they’re bringing king micah back just when angella is dead? oh fuckin lol

the horde....exiled micah? they exiled Micah instead of killing him???

why do they ALWAYS interrupt important conversations? i hate that shit. it’s cheap. it’s unsatisfying.

now THIS is what im here for - that unstoppable WILL!! john gonzalez is right - we watch stories for characters overcomign obstacles. writing, is creating the obstacle course. .....what does that say about me and my life....hmmm.

‘light hope told me everything i need to know’ - uhhh no she didn’t. she didn’t tell you how to harness the energy at all. ugh

how the fuck did double trouble escape. seems to me that they didn’t actually. they were let go....

it’s always so stupid when people try to tell other people: oh no you’ve got no plan - this is too risky! when that’s NEVER a problem

Glimmer is going to activate the weapon just in time for Hordak Prime to use it. And naturally she misses the return of her dad. fuck this

they’re gonna have Hordak and Catra fight? hmm

Double Trouble is right - this IS good for her - and it IS Catra - except for Shadowweaver’s case - she was an abusive bitch

I love Scorpia’s new cool fight music and also glowy eyes

is glimmer going to throw herself into lava??

the unfortunate thing is that Hordak Prime is right on the doorstep and he took over the whole universe or whatever. so they could probably have used that weapon. i mean the Old Ones must have seen something coming. there must be a reason they’re all GONE maybe????

why did Adora assume that all those stars would be destroyed?

THE ANIMATION ON THAT FINAL STUFF WAS INCREDIBLE AND EPIC

how the fukc are they going to beat Horde Prime lolololol.

i guess Glimmer really shouldn’t have done that. but at least she was in time to bond with Catra.

#my stuff #vidi #she ra

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mikami · 5 years

Text

Death Note Audio Drama 09

Disc 9: Inherited Debt - a summary / partial translation

Prior translations / an explanation as to what the fuck this is.

SHIT FINALLY GOES DOWN. Mello and Near appear, Soichiro retires (or tries to) and L explores the afterlife!

_________

Feet on sand. Watari’s voice coming closer.

WATARI: Mr. L! Mr. L!

L: Watari... It’s you! Oh wow, I’m so glad to see you.

WATARI: Pleasure is all mine, Mr. L. It’s been so long.

L: This place is really badly organized. They never tell you anything.

WATARI: I know, I know... it’s been quite hard. I deduced a little and hoped... well, that I would find you here.

L: I’m sorry that it had to be under these circumstances. But look, I need to go someplace, still.

WATARI: The meetings usually start on the full hour.

L: Yeah, I don’t wanna be late. Are you going to wait here until I’m done?

WATARI (chuckles): Where else would I even go, sir?

_______

Bells ringing.

MAN: Sit down, please. I’ve got your file around here somewhere.

L: Am I late? Sorry if I’m late.

MAN: Oh, we’re all always late, Lawliet.

L: L. Please. People call me L.

MAN: Great. Yes. L. Aaah, there you are. Uh-huuuuh.... now look at all this paperwork. You’ve been really busy.

L: The devil finds work for idle hands.

MAN: Oh, really? Uh-huh. I understand. Your case should have already been worked on a long while ago. Pardon the delay.

L: And here I still have so many things to do. I really need to get back to Tokyo, immediately.

MAN: Almost everyone still wants to take care of some things and there are ways of dealing with that. A lot of it will depend on your stamina and on how much you saved up.

L: Nobody ever explains anything around here.

MAN: I understand. Yes. You... slipped past us a little, because you... how should I put it? You were early. You came here before your time.

L: Oh, that explains a lot.

MAN: So... let’s start from the beginning, yes? Do you know where you are?`

L: Yeah?

MAN: And... you know who I am?

L: Yeah.

MAN: And... you also know you are dead.

L: Yes.

___________

TITLE MUSIC

___________

Many people talking.

MATSUDA: Do you want a drink?

SAYU: Already got one, thanks.

MATSUDA: Haha, maybe you need another.

SAYU: Thanks, I’m good.

MATSUDA: My name is Matsuda.

SAYU: I know.

MATSUDA: Uh, and you...?

SAYU: You’ve always been nice, Matsuda, but, uh... you’re too old for me. And... I don’t date cops.

MATSUDA: But I didn’t say that I--- what is wrong with going out with a policeman?

SAYU: I don’t know... the long nights, waiting for a call, cancelled weekends...

MATSUDA: Uh... are you maybe a Yagami family member?

SAYU: That’s right.

MATSUDA: Oh my god! Sayu! It’s you! Sayu!

SAYU: You should have become a detective.

MATSUDA: Light’s little sister.... You’ve become... so mature.

SAYU: One of us had to.

Voices chattering. Soichiro is announced as a speaker.

SOICHIRO: Thank you, thank you all. I’m touched that so many of you made it here on this warm April evening.... just to say goodbye to an old inspector.

Cheering. Someone shouts “Free drinks certainly helped!”

SOICHIRO: I especially want to thank my wife Sachiko, who lied so coldbloodedly about why she wanted to go to a bar on a Thursday.

SACHIKO: I’m sorry, darling.

SOICHIRO: And my daughter Sayu, who is still sticking to my instructions to never marry a cop! So... hands off!

Laughter.

SOICHIRO: It’s now been 35 years since I finished my police training. Is Kitamura here, too? No? Well, alright. We didn’t always agree. Kitamura and I finished the academy together and he took the fastest path up into administration. And he took his hat and left, in the 30th year. I stayed. And most of you know it’s because of the special conditions of a very special case. That case still isn’t finished. That’s the reason I endured 5 further long years, to set the path for a young man, to give him time to finish the academy as well so he can take the poisoned baton from me. The Kira investigation. This man is my son.

SOMEONE: Nepotism!

Laughter.

SOICHIRO: Well nobody else wants the job! I’m sure he’d love to give it to you! Isn’t that right, son? I can be proud that my boy, my wonderful boy, is Detective Light Yagami now!

Cheering.

SOICHIRO: And if I’m still allowed, I’d like to take a short moment to remember those who aren’t lucky enough to be here today. It’s been a hard time, fighting this criminal who always did some unexpected turn, and the colleagues in our district have, perhaps more than others, had to deal with some very brutal murders. Not just comrades with a badge but also civilian investigators and friendly helpers. They all risked their lives and gave it. May God bless them. Here’s to absent friends.

___________

MAN: You don’t quite understand me, L. There is no such thing as an afterlife.

L: Where am I, then?

MAN: That is... complicated. You are... nowhere. You are... nothing.

L: Are you trying to tell me all of this is a hallucination? Just a product of my neurons randomly firing while my brain is kicking the bucket?

MAN: Uh, no.

L: I know a thing or two about movies. And you could turn this into a 90 minute thriller, but not for five years. I’ve been here for five years.

MAN: I’m not sure you can apply the experiences from a cinema one on one to what happens after death.

L: Well.. you haven’t really helped me understand much yet.

MAN: Did it ever occur to you that you share some of the blame? What if this whole---

L: Pathetic bureaucracy?

MAN: Harsh words. But if it suits you. What if this whole... bureaucracy was made up by your soul to deal with the dream of your own passing? How about that?

L: So I’ve got a soul...? Something that lasts beyond death?

MAN: Hm. Well...

L: Life. After death. Indeed.

MAN: You didn’t have many friends, am I right?

L: Excuse me?

MAN: Or how did you deal with being this smart?

L: What I really want to deal with, Mr...?

MAN: Justin.

L: Mr. Justin... is which options I have. What sense is there in justice and retribution? If you’re an official here, official for what? Who’s in power here? I know there are gods of death, and I know there’s a life after death, because that’s where I’m stuck right now, it seems.

JUSTIN: There is no life after death. Human existence ends in nothingness.

L: And yet, I’m here. And so is Watari. And who are all these people lurking about outside? Why are those here?

JUSTIN: You’ve got a whole eternity to think about it, dear L.

L: Oh really? Do I now? Human life is finite and life after death is infinite? Am I immortal now?

JUSTIN: Exactly. You’re correct. It’s not my task to let myself be interrogated here.

L: And who’s task is it then? Where do I finally get answers?

__________

We hear someone talking to “Vladimir” in a friendly way. Very soon it becomes clear that it’s the US president speaking, a very obvious Trump parody. The thing is, I don’t take any joy in being reminded Trump exists, and this audio drama spends an extraordinary amount of time letting him talk. For my own sanity, I’m not going to actually translate those scenes in whole. If anyone REALLY wants to know what Death Note Audio Drama Trump is saying, I guess you can beg me for it? Just know that there is a lot of racism, sexism, and general being stupid. It’s exactly like you’d imagine Trump, really.

An exhausted secretary named Trevor tries to introduces Near to the president. Near succeeded Paula Virilio as SPK leader. Near has to explain the situation in baby-talk for the president to get it. But basically, they think Kira is still in Japan. In this verse, Near actually got all of L’s data and only the version in the task force was fully deleted. Near suspects that Kira is among the task force.

Near wants to act, now that Soichiro is retired.

___________

Bar noises.

SACHIKO: Alright, darling. Did you already think about how you want to spend your retirement?

SOICHIRO: Not really, Sachiko. I was just too busy.

SACHIKO: For 35 years.

SOICHIRO: Very funny. I don’t know... it seems an eternity ago that we were young.

His phone rings.

SACHIKO: Don’t you dare pick up. Not tonight.

SOICHIRO: It’s Kitamura.

SACHIKO: Then give it to me. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.

She picks up.

SACHIKO: Koreyoshi Kitamura, you sad mutation of the human species. Was it really too much to ask to come to the goodbye party of my husband? After all you two went through over the years, you old rascal? If this is still about who I married, that’s been decades ago! Grow up! .... huh? Oh. I thought you were... Yes, er, this is his phone, but... Uh. Right.

SOICHIRO: Who is that?

SACHIKO: Oh my god, no. No! You better talk to my husband about this. N-no, he’s right next to--- Don’t hang up! Don’t!

SOICHIRO: What’s wrong? Is he alright?

SACHIKO: What is a Death Note....?

___________

Kitamura talks to Mello, while he is tied to a chair. Mello introduces himself as M. He asks about the Kira case, but Kitamura doesn’t know much of use. Because this is an audio drama and the audience needs to know what’s up, Mello just randomly explains the concept of Wammy’s House to Kitamura.

__________

L: Looks like rain. As if there was a storm coming.

WATARI: But it will never come. It only feels like it, the whole time. Another strange aspect of this place.

L: I’ll have to be back soon. When exactly?

WATARI: I don’t know, Mr. L. Time moves differently here. People stand around, they wait. Some are playing cards. I’m especially sorry for the young ones.

L: Who?

WATARI: The millenials. They come here and they’re totally lost without their cell phones. They just hang around like... zombies.

L: But not you, right Watari? You’re always busy. Keep the old brain moving, right?

WATARI: Well, Mr L, I gave my best to put the puzzle pieces together correctly. But it’s difficult.

L: Are there TVs here? Computers?

WATARI: Nothing like that. The only hints I can get come from other people who made the passage.

L: Oh, good. What did you find out?

WATARI: You and me... we were killed.

L: I got that part.

WATARI: I think it was because we got closer and closer to the truth.

L: Well, that makes sense. What happened in the five years since?

WATARI: Wendy had an accident with her motorbike. Ivor died of liver cancer. The whole group of Yotsuba executives just dropped dead. All at the same time.

L: Someone did his homework.

WATARI: My thoughts exactly.

L: Kira is still active. The task force, who is leading that now?

WATARI: What do you think?

________

More attempts to explain the situation to Trump. They explain someone has been faking to be L.

________

Kitamura has been kidnapped, but despite just having retired, Soichiro wants to stay and work on the case anyway. The kidnappers are asking for the Death Note in return.

_________

Mello accuses Kitamura of having been really fucking shit at handling the Kira case. He apparently looked at all the security camera material from HQ. He plays a recording from it that shows L.

L: You’re looking sad, Rem. Even more so than usual. What’s up? ..... Oh really, that’s it? Why did it take you so long?

For Kitamura, L is alone in the recording, so L is alone with Rem. We then flash back to the scene.

_____________

L: Did you come for me, Rem?

REM: I did not come to take life, but to gift it.

L: To me?

REM: No, you have to die. And by defying fate, I’ll be destroyed.

L: Not dead? You said ‘destroyed’ as if total annihilation was a state equaling death.

REM: These are the final seconds of your life L, prepare yourself.

L: Prepare for what? Your existence along already implies that death isn’t the end for me. Your hesitation meanwhile implies that destruction is definitely your end.

REM: I... I don’t know.

L: You spend your eternity feeding off the life of others. As long as you take life, you’ll live forever. But you’ll put an end to your existence today, just to stop me?

REM: Yes, I will.

L: Just, why?

REM: Out of love.

L (laughs): Love? Love is the power that brings a goddess of death to her knees?

REM: Don’t mock me, L. Don’t you dare!

L: You’re in love? You know I am very close to ending the case.

REM: She sacrificed so much for him. This is the only way to restore her lifespan and guarantee her safety.

L: The price is paid in human lives. The Death Note has a price... for her. I was right then. It was her. And she gave something up for the man she loves. And that can only---

Beeping.

REM: What’s that?

L: The emergency data transmission. It’s only activated when Watari is in danger.

REM: He had to pass as well.

L: What?! The old man never even hurt a fly! He was a good person!

REM: He was just about to bring the evidence.

L: It’s just as I expected... The identity of the two Kiras... I was right!

REM: Your time is up. I have to kill you now and give my remaining time to her.

L: I was right, do you hear that?! I was---

Glass shattering, falling noises.

_____________

Near also has this video, he points out sand falling on the video. He assumes that’s the death of a shinigami.

_____________

The kidnappers call Soichiro again. When Soichiro refuses to give the notebook, they shoot Kitamura live on the phone.

They already have Sayu present as a backup hostage too.

______________

WATARI: I knew it was a heart attack. And I knew I was being discarded. It was all I could do to press the emergency button. And I could still hear the alarm, I knew it worked.

L: So you deleted all data and transferred it to Winchester.

WATARI: Mister Ruvie should have received them. And he surely knew how to interpret the circumstances.

L: Do we know what he did with that? Were my successors already ready?

WATARI: I am... not sure about that.

L: I’m sure you had someone in mind. You talked about a replacement for me time and time again.

WATARI: There were several candidates, yes. But the older one... was a little problematic. I am not sure he’s got the right personality.

L: And the younger one?

WATARI: Yes, he could have taken the responsibilities. But he really was so very young. I am not sure if he was ready.

L: I have to go back.

WATARI: We can’t go back. Death is a one-way street.

L: Is that really true?

_______________

Misa and Light on a phonecall. Misa suggests killing Sayu, so that Soichiro won’t exchange the notebook. Light refuses this. They have a longer debate about this, where Misa points out that they can’t let the notebook fall into the wrong hands, but Light remains in refusal.

______________

Near, out of breath, arrives at the task force headquarters.

NEAR: I’m here to talk to chief inspector Yagami.

LIGHT: I am Yagami.

NEAR: Really? Is today open day and everyone’s bringing their children?

LIGHT: Looks like. And whose child are you?

NEAR: Call me Near. We just got here from the US.

LIGHT: Of course. I immediately noticed your subtle and humble approach. CIA?

NEAR: CIA, FBI, NSA, whatever you want. We’re a unity spanning through all organizations and we follow the same goals as you.

Near explains that he replaced Virilio on her job and he’s very arrogant about it all. Light also remarks on that. The conversation is then interrupted by a call that Soichiro stole the notebook to do the exchange on his own.

Near then talks his way into cooperation in this case.

____________

We now follow Soichiro as he goes to the place of exchange, which is now conveniently just still in Japan. It’s in Nagasaki.

____________

Light introduces Near to the task force. They are tracking Soichiro via GPS. They decide to send a drone to Nagasaki, so they have a visual feed of the exchange when it happens.

____________

Shidoh approaches Justin to ask about his Death Note. Justin deduces that it’s the one Kira is using on Earth. He stills Shidoh to go to L, because L can help him find the notebook.

_____________

Near is still flying a drone to follow Soichiro, amazing.. Light is contacting Nagasaki police. The whole exchange sequence is pretty long and not really relevant, it’s just a whole lot of description on who is where when.

Mello also uses a drone to bring the notebook away. The gangster who wasn’t killed in a notebook test gets arrested.

____________

The gangster gets interrogated by Matsuda, but nothing really comes out of it. Light and Near talk about it and the gangster’s file.

The gangster is part of the Kinzangumi. They’re California-based organized crime with Japanese roots.

A lawyer named Yumi Hosoda waltzes into the interrogation. She’s a lawyer of the Kinzangumi. She argues with Matsuda and her lawyering gets him freed. Her arguing style makes clear that she knows of the Death Note, because her argument style relies on knowing the task force will never bring the notebook up.

Near brings up Mello’s status as a “prototype” successor, who in the end did not meet expectations, thus establishing Mello as a suspect. We then launch into a flashback.

_____________

ROGER: I didn’t say “come in”.

MELLO: I didn’t knock.

He comes in and closes the door.

MELLO: When were you going to tell me?

ROGER: Tell you what?

MELLO: That Watari is dead.

ROGER: Who told you that?

MELLO: A system crash that killed the servers for exactly 24 hours. That only happens if someone presses the emergency button.

ROGER: ....yes. It seems like our patron was killed yesterday.

MELLO: That means L is gone, too. Time for me to take over.

ROGER: Mello, I’m sorry, my boy.

MELLO: Here it comes.

ROGER: Well, this is a longer conversation, that we will have at another time.

MELLO: We’re having this conversation exactly now.

ROGER: ... mhmm... Near will take over.

MELLO: He’s still a child, he didn’t even notice the download!

ROGER: He simply proved himself appropriate for this task. He’s showing greater promise.

MELLO: You mean he just absorbs everything, waiting for orders so he knows what to do. That’s why I’m standing here now and he isn’t.

ROGER: I’m sorry, Mello.

MELLO: My whole life I’ve been trained for this moment, my whole life I’ve been the golden boy, before this little punk showed up-

ROGER: There are many other tasks you can fulfill. I’m sure we’ll find a position for you that is appropriate for your talents.

MELLO: I already had a position! I was supposed to be the next L! And now I should give that up for this little boy? I’m not letting myself be degraded to an errand boy.

ROGER: Exactly this attitude is a part of the problem, if I’m honest.

MELLO: No. You are the problem. You and Watari. You never saw it. You’re wasting your time trying to bow to the system, to respect the law. If you want to catch Kira, you have to play by his rules.

ROGER: I was afraid you’d say something like that...

MELLO: You can be afraid, Ruvie. I’m out. And I’m taking the data with me.

ROGER: They’re worthless to you. It’s going to take years to work through them.

MELLO: Then golden boy will at least be busy.

ROGER: Don’t let things end like this.

MELLO: It’s your end, Ruvie. You made this happen.

ROGER: Near will be the new L.

MELLO: Yeah, maybe. And I’ll be the special edition, who doesn’t play the same game as everyone else. Go ahead, send the child to find L’s killer. I’ll be there first, you’ll see.

ROGER: But what’s the cost, Mello?

MELLO: Whatever it takes.

#death note #light yagami #l lawliet #mihael keel #audio drama translations

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lukethewitt · 4 years

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Angel on the Underground - Chapter 1

I check the graffiti for updates every morning on my commute. Any wall in an area where people spend limited amounts of time is a target for anonymous artists, and it seems tube stations are a good place for the craft. Most of the graffiti I see recommends mononymous teenagers are experts in various vulgarities, with occasional third-person declarations of people’s sexuality provided in conjunction.

However, some graffiti is artistic, and while I would never dream of defacing public property in such a way, I couldn’t help but admire the dedication that went into some pieces. Some of them were detailed, some provocative and some dangerous. There was one vivid portrait which took up a full wall in a tunnel. That is to say that it hadn’t been scrawled on the tiles of an underground station, but rather someone had waited until the trains had stopped and run along the tracks with the sole purpose of creating a striking image which would only ever be seen through the window of an underground train rushing by.

I hoped that the artist had snuck in after the lines had closed, illegal though it may have been, because the alternative was either a construction worker vandalising the lines they were meant to be repairing, or that somebody was stupid and speedy enough to run along the tracks in the limited minutes between one train leaving and another one arriving. Either way, the graffitto’s perpetrator was clearly misinformed about how fast trains move, since nobody could see anything more than a grey blur as the train rushed by in less than a second.

One of the few perks of tube stations was the access to free newspapers. Copies of the Underground magazine were placed in stands at every station in London. They would often be taken quickly, and were mostly adverts, but it was common to see them strewn and abandoned on train seats, meaning practically every commuter had instant access to the same information. A second-hand paper was fine if all the new ones had run out, the only downside being the likelihood of scribbles and drawings of glasses, wings and occasionally genitalia on every picture of a person in a paper.

I read a news story about the ruins of the school I used to teach at. The school had burnt down in the years since I left and there was a plan to demolish the ruins and replace them with a shopping mall. It was a tragedy that the building was gone, but I’d always hoped they would rebuild on the existing plans. There were some fire-damaged walls still standing. If they weren’t stable, they could at least be replaced by new materials for the same structure. Replacing one of Britain’s remaining beautiful buildings (or the ruins of one) with another bland shopping centre was a sin.

Still, I didn’t know how much to believe. Underground was notorious for being rife with mistakes and puff pieces. Even in the short article about my former workplace, they’d incorrectly given the location as Oxfordshire instead of Cambridgeshire. Still, the fact that it was outside London and was being reported in the London press was evidence of how desperate they were for something to write about.

When I got off the tube, I had time for a sweeping glance at the graffiti in Borough Station before turning the corner to my office on Angel Place. The charity I worked for had picked that street in particular as it was a good area - loads of charities had their offices in the same few streets around Borough Station, so it meant any opportunities for joint fundraisers could be organised efficiently and quickly without the need to send people all over the city. The street’s name itself had connotations they liked. Lots of people who faced abuse from loved and trusted people credited their survival to their faith, and the charity saw themselves as saviours more than willing to accept the title of ‘angels’.

I personally rejected this label, as I felt it was wrong for a charity to brag about the good work they were doing, and instead felt we should be focussed on helping people and improving the work we do. If a charity existed solely to call themselves angels, it was nothing more than a vanity project.

They were called Reduce Abuse, and worked to raise awareness of and protect victims of abuse in all its varieties. I had been employed to deal with social media, specifically protecting those who had faced cyber bullying, which Reduce Abuse identified as the biggest growing threat, particularly amongst under-18s. A lot of my work involved responding to Facebook and Twitter messages, as well as emails and occasional phone calls. That is to say, messages from victims of abuse, not the abusive messages themselves. I’d been trained on the right advice to give, how to comfort and provide practical solutions. I liked to think I was doing good, but dealing with the business side of charity could make you cynical.

I spent the morning thinking about angels, about what makes someone good. Good and evil could be tricky things to define, but sometimes you met people who seemed like they could do no wrong. You could never be sure, as even the most trustworthy person could turn and stab you in the back. I liked to think I was good. Anywhere I saw a flaw in myself, I addressed it immediately. Anything I ever did wrong I apologised for, and I did anything I could to make amends.

In art and literature, angels were always depicted as having big wings like an albatross, and eyes as blue as azure. They dressed in white sheets and had halos over their heads. I suppose it was mostly religious symbolism, but I couldn’t see how the blue eyes fit into anything. They were just aesthetic features which seemed trusting. Someone with light blue eyes could never appear sinister. Both my ex-girlfriends had blue eyes. It fit, because they were both very nice people, and I believe we ended things on amicable terms.

I’m not entirely sure why I’d been given the role of Social Media Officer. I applied for any jobs that were going, and they assigned me to that one. I was really just looking for anything that could help me. I think they must have figured I was down to earth and understood young people, what with my previous experience working as a teacher. Whatever the reason, it suited me when I got it. As time went on and I got a great deal of experience, I also realised I became good at my job and was ideal at helping struggling youths. And then as more time passed, I became too good. I didn’t enjoy the work anymore. It was the same thing, day-in, day-out. I was bored, supremely bored.

Today was my annual review. Two years I’d been here. I would bemoan that I was stuck in the same job, but it was my own choosing, so there could be nobody to blame but myself. Besides, I never liked the blame game.

I liked my old job, but teaching was exhausting work. It was draining to watch children grow and learn and then to wave them goodbye and hope they went off into the big, bad world with all the preparation they needed to survive Earth. Evidently they didn’t, because I could swear half the people who called me up or messaged me at Reduce Abuse were former students.

‘In advance of this review, I asked you to fill in a form and mark up how well you think you’re doing,’ my boss told me. I had no idea why he told me this. We both knew he’d emailed me the form the previous day and I’d filled it in and emailed it back to him. Why did he need to begin by repeating himself?

He was a strange man. He had thin grey hair and was somewhat rotund, and insisted on making smalltalk to people who didn’t like him and had no wish to have any talk with him, regardless of length.

My boss at Reduce Abuse reminded me of my boss and mentor when I worked at the Moore Academy, an elderly man named Tristan Scimitar. They were both grey-haired and authoritative, although Tristan was more Henry V, while the man in front of me was more The Great Dictator. The other reason the man reminded me of Tristan was that he reminded me just how much I missed working under a competent manager.

As my current boss scanned over the form on his screen, he quietly trumpeted with his mouth and scowled, as if reviewing an alarming piece of medical research rather than a tedious piece of bureaucracy. ‘Hmm,’ he said, if that can indeed be called talking. ‘Very interesting.’

This was a lie. I’d answered ‘satisfactory’ to all the questions. Literally just gone down the sheet and ticked the middle box on all of them. When he reached the end of the document, he said, ‘I see for the first question, “How have you been working as part of a team?” you gave the answer…’ He scrolled up to the top of the page to read what answer I’d given, although this was purely for show, as we both knew I’d given the same answer for everything. ‘“Satisfactory”. Three out of five. I think we can bump that up to an “Exceeds Expectations”, don’t you?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Well, the rest of the team seem to like you.’

‘They chuck things at me all day,’ I calmly pointed out.

‘They throw things to you, Trev. And they all checked to see that you could catch before having a throw-about.’

I said nothing.

‘If there were a question here about throwing and catching, I’d definitely put “Exceeds Expectations”. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. But you do have quite a remarkable rapport with the rest of the staff.’

I supposed that was true, but it didn’t make me happy. Lately the job was making me wonder why I ever quit teaching. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Teaching was something I was passionate about, but it was draining. This job was one I wasn’t passionate about, and it was equally draining. Still, somewhere towards the end of my teaching career, my then-girlfriend and I had this ambition of moving to London and having a new start at a new stage of our lives. We lived in constant fear of stagnation. Now I was single and stagnant in a different pond.

‘“Are you able to prioritise and manage your workload?”’ he read. ‘Again, you’ve put “Satisfactory”. Again, I’ll put “Exceeds Expectations”.’

I wasn’t really sure that the answers quite corresponded to the question, but there was no room for deviation from the tick box regime.

‘Next question…’

I could sense we would be here for some time and I could already feel my eyes drooping as we reached the third question. By the time we were approaching the end, it felt as though I’d been trapped in the same dark office for a week. Still, I supposed that it was decent preparation for dealing with victims of abuse and their concerns if the staff subjected us to a rudimentary form of pscyhological torture ourselves.

‘“Would you say you conform—”’

Without warning, my boss picked up a pen and threw it over my head, and I instinctively caught it without even realising it had been thrown. He didn’t look up, but kept reading as if nothing had happened.

‘��—to standard rules of etiquette when dealing with callers on the phone?’ You’ve only put “Satisfactory”, but I’ll have to change that to “Exceeds Expectations”.’

Here he looked up at me for confirmation I agreed with his verdict, as well as to look at my hand, still raised above my head, grasping the pen he'd thrown. I lowered my arm and handed the pen back to him.

‘Extraordinary. You’ve got cat-like reflexes. Did you never think about doing something with them?’

‘Like what?’

‘I’m not saying you’re wasting your time here – obviously the work you do is important and you do it very well.’ He gestured towards the changes he’d made on the screen, despite me being sat opposite and unable to see a screen that was facing away from me. ‘But you could be a professional baseball player or something.’

‘Do you know of any professional baseball players in London?’

‘Do you know of any professional charity workers in London?’ he said back to me, evidently a failed attempt at a snappy comeback. When I started to list the names of other people who worked in our office, he clearly wasn’t amused and carried on through the evaluation form.

In the end, he changed all my “Satisfactory”s to “Exceeds Expectations”s. He had no comments. No feedback. No improvements. Nthing. Just to stay exactly the same forever. He sighed deeply. ‘Um, is there anything you want to say to me?’ he asked out of contractual obligation.

‘No. Is there anything you want to say to me?’

He frowned. Never one to pass up the opportunity to engage in the tedious exchanging of sound, he said, ‘I saw your old school is getting knocked down.’

I wasn’t really sure what to say to that. He must have been reading Underground today as well. Were we all just passing the time by checking the same filler stories in the same free magazine? That’s the trouble with taking the tube. There’s not really enough time to take out a book and read, but it’s a long enough journey to get bored.

‘That was your former school, wasn’t it? The Moore Academy? The school you taught at, I mean, not your school.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I didn’t know it burnt down.’

‘Me neither.’ I guess I really was out of the loop. When I lived and worked out in Cambridgeshire, at the Moore Academy, my sphere of influence revolved around small-town drama. We always hated London for the way people lived in their own little bubble and ignored the rest of us, as though the United Kingdom ended when you reached the M25.

Now I was one of those Londoners, or at least a London-liver, I was part of that bubble and out of necessity I’d lost contact with the old bubble that was the Moore Academy. I couldn’t even tell you who still worked there. I suppose it’s probably a consequence of having both my ex-girlfriends working at the same school that I no longer followed their goings-on closely.

But had it really burnt down without even a whiff of the event making its way over to me? I once knew everyone in the area, now 100 km away, and now it was as though they were dead or in another country. I had become one of the ignorant.

Still, they had their own geographic pitfalls. If you ask something there about the lines and stations on the London Underground, they might have a vague idea, but those of us who live here know it intimately. Those tunnels are the veins and arteries transporting people through the city. More vital, perhaps. I know how to get from South Kenton to Stepney Green in the quickest possible time with the fewest changes, but I don’t actually know my own blood type.

‘Was anyone hurt?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How much is still standing?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, if there’s any of the original structure it would be a shame to demolish it for the sake of yet another shopping centre. It was a beautiful building.’

‘It really was.’

‘They never give you a lot of detail in the Underground, do they? And they said it was in Oxfordshire, not Cambridgeshire. Do they not have proofreaders anymore?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘It’s full of eye-grabbing headlines and tat, really. No proper journalism. I once saw an article in there about a seagull stealing a chihuahua.’

‘A chihuahua? What happened to it?’

‘The chihuahua? No idea. Oh, actually I think they said the seagull got tired and dropped it over a bridge.’

‘Over a bridge?’ My heart sank. ‘As in, over the edge of a bridge? Or on top? Was it…?’

He racked his brain. ‘They didn’t give a lot of details. Just enough to gather your interest and pick up the paper. But no depth. Anyway, let’s hope someone caught it.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

He grinned inappropriately. ‘It’s a shame you weren’t there. You would have caught it.’

‘I’m sure I would have.’

I took the tube back home at the end of the day, checking the graffiti at the station as I went, before shovelling down my dinner, crawling into bed and falling asleep in preparation for the same thing again tomorrow.

#novel #ya novels #novelist #story #writer #writing #writeaway #author #fiction #prose #weird #alternative #comedy #comic #prompt

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orchidcous · 4 years

Text

read the prophet recently ? says a certain ISAÍAS BLACK is in town. word says he’s from ilvermorny, 34 years old, and currently works as a vigilante. asked around, and most folks say he’s even-handed and resourceful, so that’s good stuff. get on his bad side, and he can be abrasive and resentful. apparently, if you need to know anything about defence against the dark arts, he’s the person to go to. — played by jon kortajarena.

— BASICS.

full name: isaías leonel black

name meaning: god is salvation, lion

 date of birth: december 27th

place of birth: new york city, u.s.a.

 age: 34

 star sign:  sagittarius

alma mater: ilvermorny

house: house wampus

profession: vigilante

alignment: true neutral

mbti: istp

patronus: hawk

boggart: dementor

languages spoken: english ( native speaker ), spanish ( native speaker ), french ( fluent ), italian ( fluent ), german ( fluent ),

talents: defense against the dark arts, parseltongue

wand: 14½ inch, brittle, yew wood with phoenix feather core

mother’s name: jimena black née sánchez, deceased

father’s name: cornelius black, deceased

siblings, if any: none

blood status: pure-blood

height: 6′2″

hair colour: dark brown

eye colour: brown

— BACKSTORY.

from the bottom of my heart, yikes.

isaias was born in the upper east side of new york city, to a member of the black family of britain, and jimena sánchez, a spanish witch that immigrated to the united states. estates had to be run in the new country, and cornelius black was more than up for the task: the steadily growing nexus of dark wizards in the united states needed a leader. or at least, one among many.

there was nothing especially off with isaias’ childhood. papa would be away for weeks at a time, his mother would be distant and miserable so often, and he was left to explore around his brick manor home, alone, with a plan at the back of his mind to run away if needed. his mother would sometimes let hooded figures into the house to speak in chambers he wasn’t allowed into.

his relationship with his father was a bit — strange. cornelius was by no means cruel or harsh with his son, but treated him more like a pet than anything, something to be fed, clothed and sometimes kept as company in lonely evenings, but not as a human being, someone to know. on top of this, because he was away from home so often, isaias came to think of him as nearly a stranger, just one that sometimes patted his head and kissed his mother.

jimena did as much as she could to fill the gap that her husband left. tried to be there for isaias as much as she could, but there was only so much time she could make for him in between running the household, dealing with the dark wizards that would often frequent their home, and keeping up with her husband. she had never possessed any special liking to the dark arts — and she had thought cornelius was more prudent than he really was.

a lack of prudence inevitably gets you killed. it did cornelius, at least, when isaias was nearing eleven, just old enough to go to ilvermorny. but the death was no small accident or execution for betrayal. it was the result of a thorough investigation by the united states’ magical congress. a confrontation escalated, during which aurors were forced to kill cornelius. but the investigation didn’t end yet. every last thread had to be followed.

first isaias’ uncles and aunts, then his mother, then his mother’s siblings, and finally him. by the time he was allowed to go to ilvermorny, he was already two years older than the prescribed starting date — though it wasn’t too difficult to buy his way into school.

when you’re a black and your father’s the first wizard to have been killed by aurors in a decade, it does your reputation no favours. when he came to ilvermorny, lanky and gruff, whispers followed him from the moment he ascended mount greylock. his sorting ceremony was unusually long, with no house’s mascot stepping forward to welcome him until he scathingly demanded that one do. naturally, he was sorted into wampus, the house that favours the hot-blooded.

school was ... not fun. apart from being more or less ostracised from any of the people with moral compasses, and frequently got roped into the gang of blood purists at ilvermorny, a small though powerful group. this was where he’d find his so-called friends during his time there.

once out of school, it wasn’t easy to get a steady job. his academic understanding of magic wasn’t good enough for professorship, and it seemed that he’d be doing himself in for a lifetime of pain if he worked for the magical congress. while he certainly had the practical skills to make a good auror, he simply didn’t have the patience for the rules and procedures of it.

then his father’s brother ferdinand made him an offer — join the black clan in the united kingdom. there would always be a place for him there.

call it curiosity, stupidity, boredom. it didn’t matter, because one way or another, he was in london within a few months of graduating, and he was doing minor errands for wizards in no time — plenty of kidnappings, the occasional interrogation. none of it was particularly tasteful to him.

but unlike in ilvermorny, where he was very clearly isaias black in a sea of other students — the recognition he received here was not overfull, not menacing. just what he wanted, just what everyone else got. the feeling of being a part of something.

after a couple of years working in europe, he met serafina lestrange, the young and bored heir of a significant pureblood lineage. both of them were guarded, never given a choice or a plan in the world they were born into, and both tumbled into the same road, the same missions, the same bed. what they felt for each other was never love, because neither bothered to unravel the other, unpack scars. if anything, they applied gauze, patched up sores, made each other harder.

at the age of twenty-five, he requested to travel back to the united states — partially because he wanted to relive what he had left behind, give himself some satisfaction in his choice. and partially because he wanted to see his mother.

she was ill — from more than just polio. ill from loneliness, from regret, from feeling that her entire life could’ve been different, had she not settled for marrying a man involved with the dark arts, just because he had money, and stature.

isaias did get to meet her, but it was just a few months later that she passed away.

there was hardly a mercy period before he was reminded of what he was really there to do, besides reminisce. an auror’s life work was threatening to uncover an entire coven of dark wizards in upper new york — there was no easy way to go about it. he had to be eliminated, and his work destroyed. isaias hadn’t really killed anyone before — and it didn’t make much sense to send him in of all people.

until it did. because that auror — was his uncle. his mother’s brother, to be exact. heaven knows what had possessed him to join the police force, but it was no matter. the plan was for isaias to have a happy nephew-uncle reunion with him in his quiet brick manor upstate, spend a day or so exchanging pleasantries — murder him, burn the papers, leave without a trace. isaias had never met the man personally before.

but ricardo was welcoming, despite the news of his sister’s death affecting him silently. isaias felt a nauseating heaviness from the very beginning, knowing that this man was kin, that they were kept apart by forces that should’ve been overcome. in the manor, he saw a different life, one that could’ve been, of fireplaces and warm hearths and people looking after him. had he not been part of a family that prided itself on its disdain for foreigners.

then there was the matter of his family — wife and toddler son, not at all affiliated with magical defence. but if he killed ricardo, he’d have to take everyone else down too. killing an enemy was one thing. killing an innocent ? quite another. not to mention that they were his uncle, aunt and cousin — but orders were orders. and they’d never been a part of his life, so why should they be today ?

he sucked it up and finished the job. it was the most despicable thing he’d ever done, and it fucked him up. in less than a week, he requested to be kept out of the business altogether. mostly he was laughed at.

but because he was adamant to leave, he offered them a deal. he would go, and in return, he would make an unbreakable vow, or rather, three. never to become an auror, never to aid an auror to find a death eater, and never to kill a person with a dark mark.

this seemed to satisfy the london high command well enough. of course, he knew that he would be tracked from then on or the rest of his life anyway.

a while on the run, and he’d figured out a couple of loopholes to the terms of his vow. couldn’t be an auror. fine, the auror’s were steeped in bureaucracy and corruption anyway, it would only be a hindrance to join them. to assist an auror: he knew none, no problem. and as for killing death eaters — he wasn’t about to take anyone’s life again, but he had to take their freedom.

the torturing curse, crucio and the disarming expelliarmus became his closest allies. after debilitating the death eaters he could find, it was only too easy to leave them in places where they would be found by the authorities, given a trial and all the nice stuff — provided they were in a position to speak. this went on for years.

as of 1963, he’s arrived in paris, to join the largest wizarding convention in modern history, with delegates from more than a hundred countries, and of all professionals, rich, poor, ordinary and remarkable. he knew that death eaters had waited ages for something like this, a gathering of fish in one big barrel. it would be easy to shoot at them, all at once.

knowing that it’d happen is certainly an advantage, but such an operation might just be too much for him alone.

#literally END my life #I DESERVE NO RIGHTS #( * sick of these wounds that won’t heal | isaías black. )#( * intros. )

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angrypedestrian · 5 years

Text

THE TIME IDIOTS EPISODE 414 TITLED “Season 1 Happened? Sounds Fake But Okay” MY THOUGHTS:

My boss was being an asshole today so I am grumpy and ready for the Everyone Loves Ray Palmer power hour BRING IT ON

stop calling him Johnny that is for his hot gay lover!!!

fuckin Tabitha is just gonna be the fairy godmother isn’t it?

Don’t call him a muppet John this is how we got into this situation!!!!

Zach vs the legends understanding of government bureaucracy part iub4t89rghaon

they would retake the picture tho for security reasons

BUT zach vs the legends ACTUALLY understanding government bureaucracy

the paperwork is the most realistic thing they’ve ever done

....oh no this gary is hot

normal gary is hot

but, uh, evil gary is doing it for me too just gonna say

listen i’m not proud of it either

HEY NATE HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE RAY

nate: MORE THAN YOU’LL EVER UNDERSTAND MOTHERFUCKER

mona’s idea of what cool is is suspect to begin with

but then again she only reads romance novels so i don’t know what i expected.jpg

Brandon is doing a much better job of being evil this episode

....it....is also hot

goddammit

ASADFSGDHFJKL fuckin playing classical music for the DRAGON

and zari you are spot on he is 1000% a springsteen lover far more so than BILLY JOEL

i rarely completely disregard stuff from canon but nate’s love for billy joel is one of them

i guess zari and nate have a baby now!

zari: ...can this be, like, a game of thrones thing and we use it to destroy stuff?

nate: WE GOTTA SAVE RAY SO HE CAN MEET OUR DRAGON BABY

Gideon is SO thrilled to tell the legends about cannibalism

gideon: humans are so stupid! they’ll just eat each other? wild!

john: i have been waiting to die for 30-75 years, trust me i am good to go

oh the cgi team really had their work cut out for them with that little avalanche sequence didn’t they?

god bless they tried

oh c’mon mick it would take way too long to make you into jerky we don’t have that kind of time!

aw charlie just wants a buddy too

oh my god this is the DEEPEST hellblazer cut

the only story i could not get through from the original run cause it bored the ever loving tears out of me

Oh my god they found the black canary wig balled up behind a gross dumpster and put in on Matt’s head.

That is...hoo boy, not a great look

UH they work at the time bureau shouldn’t nora being also 15 in 2019 not be an issue? They know what her whole deal is??? I assume????

actually on second thought this is exactly what would happen good job legends

you got two

nora is already so tired and does not have the energy for mona but loves her anyways and that makes me happy

Snow bloke?

snOW BLOKE?

force ghost len: exCUSE YOU AMAYA 2 I HAVE A NAME

charlie: ain’t that the pot calling the kettle black?

force ghost len: shut UP AMAYA 2

but also he kept so many jackets!

also dominic’s accent really slipped in this scene oof

god this wig is so BAD

the FEAR MACHINE

well played legends. well played.

turns out johns are dumb con men throughout time

what a strong blood line

mona literally everyone knows the timeline is a fucking mess that is a very bad lie

wickstable? that is ADORABLE

altho i personally headcanon that the dragon is named Ellie after laura dern’s character in Jurassic Park cause if you think nate would not name a dragon after a jurassic park character you are WRONG

also this is so, so dumb

...does he just keep those drawings lying around or....

tag yrself i am zari’s attempt at keeping her one shred of dignity by saying “seriously dude” before falling for that line.

love that kooky “intro level of a mario game” hooking up music

charlie should have her own catfish show

GOD i would watch the shit out of that

charlie: i deserve an A plot goddammit!

have you SEEN me?

god the wig just keeps getting WORSE

every second it degrades further until it is literally just a pile of straw falling off of matt’s head

“i miss hating him???” exCUSE ME??? POLICE???

i would like to report a CRIME

Hey

Hey Zach

HEY

do you remember RIP? Remember that guy Rip? Rip Hunter?

REMEMBER HOW HE BROUGHT THEM ALL TOGETHER AND ALSO HE AND SARA WERE IN LOVE

Shut the fuck up phil leave me alone

But fuck I can’t believe they acknowledged the first season happened

and that they’ve grown so much since then!

mick AND sara

they’re brother and sister and i love them

asdfgdhfjkglk;’ nate’s baby bjorn

sara: FORCED FAMILY FUN TIME GODDAMMIT

so wait wolfie is just a whole separate person?

...is that how werewolf’s always work? i don’t know anything about them

or is that a specific kaupe thing?

this is confusing

hey john, love ray much? jeez

...yeah, yeah you’re right we all do

ngl king konstantyne is boring me as much here as he did the comics

even matt can’t save this storyline

even the terrible gary green catchphrase cannot stop me from thinking him hot

although it is doing its goddamn best

oh sara, if you think zari and nate hooking up will do anything but make them both exponentially weirder i am curious what ship you have been on for the last four years

gideon is SASSY tonight i am a fan

bring more Sassy gideon back!

matt’s stunt double also has a terrible wig

what a night for terrible wigs!

the WCU lives!

I have not officially created an anti-Neal McDonough Memorial Can Get It Award, but if I did, it would go to the nipple.

WHY WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US PHIL

WHY

I DESERVE A LOT OF THINGS BUT NOT THIS

pffffttt zari putting the egg underneath the fuckin roller coaster restraints that just clearly highlights how cheaply they were made

hell YEAH WOLFIE

mmmmmm i can feel the atomwave in this chili’s TONIGHT

neron!ray: john, girl, you dumb as shit

john: tell me something i don’t knnnnooowwwwwwwwww

the FUCKING fairy godmother

nate: that is MY husband you BITCH

“he tried to hypnotize mona with his nipple” is a real line of dialogue we all had to hear

nipnotize

i am so tired

uh, still unclear to me how mona’s whole becoming a werewolf thing happened?

is it because she fucked the kaupe?

....it’s because she fucked the kaupe isn’t it

i need to go to bed

NEXT WEEK: Anyways remember anything fueled by VC funding is almost certainly the work of a demon!

#legends of tomorrow #legends of tomorrow spoilers #i can't believe that egg prop has survived for two episodes #good luck and god speed to it #the time idiots #my thoughts as i have them

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calleo-bricriu · 5 years

Note

So how did YOU get good at charms work then?

Apart from paying attention at school, the Dark Arts are made up primarily of charms and that’s--kind of my job. And one of my hobbies.

Unless you start wading into Blood Magic and a few extremely specific types of Transfiguration, it's all Charms.

Curses (excluding Blood Magic based curses, of course), Hexes, and Jinxes are all charms; highly specalised and specific types of charms, but still charms.

The same is true of ward work, defensive and offensive, it's all charms, just highly specalised charms.

Most magic that isn't specifically anything I've already listed or potions is just. charms.

Nearly everything is charms. Instead of saying, "I'm bad at charms" you might as well say, "I'm bad at magic".

Anyway...

Those three specific types of charms bleed over into surrounding magic more quickly than their less harmful counterparts; all charms will bleed over into surrounding magic, which is often other charms, unless there are--ironically--other charms in place that specifically prevent that from happening.

Am I saying charms enough here?

What people tend to forget, because it's usually only impressed upon when doing ward work, is that you have to put those layers of charms that prevent bleed over down or everything will eventually either not work exactly right or will fail completely.

How long that takes depends on numerous factors, including whether or not anyone is maintaining (or trying to maintain) the mess, what other magic is present, how well the magic your charms are constantly brushing up against was done, things like that.

So, a lift, for example, that passes through several levels of the Ministry of Magic will always be a little dodgy after a few decades even with repair because of that bleed over.

A lift that passes through, say, the Department of Mysteries which, despite what they tell you, contains a lot of overlap with the Archives, or the one lift that comes all the way down here will start to fail and be more difficult to maintain a lot more quickly because curses, hexes, and jinxes bleed over a lot faster.

That can be stopped by properly securing those two departments but ask me how easy that is.

Not from a technical standpoint, from a technical standpoint it's incredibly easy and I've done it to the five offices down here but somehow wasn't allowed to do it to the hallway, which is why the lift is the way it is--or was, that's been taken care of and I will fight Maintenance until they give up on it as there's only one lift and if it's not working it's not exactly easy to leave the department.

From a Ministry bureaucracy standpoint it's next to impossible, there's no budget, it doesn't match our other mediocre spell work, you made fun of my gaudy pink hat one time four years ago, things like that.

The easiest way to deal with it is to strip all of the charms off of whatever it is and rebuild them while putting the proper charms in place to prevent that stupid bleed over because magic in and of itself is generally dumber than a sack of doorknobs.

The less easy, less effective way to deal with it is to basically push everything back so there's a--space, more or less, between where the other charms were stuck and where you want to put some fucking functional magic in place, lay down the spell work that stops the bleed over so your own work doesn't end up a mess because of an existing mess, rebuild what was supposed to be there to begin with, and tie it in to the layer that stops it being messed up again.

I've done both often enough to be reasonably good at it.

Or at least not as bad as Maintenance which, to be perfectly frank, I'd have to specifically work at failing to be.

#wards #charms #dark arts #magic #blah blah blah #ministry of magic #anonymous

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emmaswanchoosesyou · 6 years

Text

Rules & Regulations (1/4)

I’m thrilled to present my contribution to the @cssns project! This got both longer and sillier than originally intended, and I hope you all enjoy it.

Beta’d by the glorious @wingedlioness and with lovely artwork (including the banner!) done by @eastwesthomeisbest.

Rated T, for violence, language, and annoying bureaucracy. Also on AO3. ~3000 words.

He was a vamp, she was a witch; can I make it any more obvious?

&&&

He wasn’t a heathen.

Well, okay, he was, but that was just part and parcel of being a vampire.

At least vampires weren’t the soulless, lurking-in-the-night creatures of popular imagination. No, they had their souls. (Unless they’d sold it to the Devil, a demon, or witch, but any Tom, Dick, or Harry might do that.)

Killian was in possession of his soul, but he might well have lost his mind.

Emma Swan was driving him well and truly crazy.

He was just doing his best, doing what was required of him to fill the void on the Supernatural and Paranormal Beings and Creatures Council (S.P.B.C.C. for short, though it was still a mouthful) since he had killed Rumplestiltskin.

He was following the rules in a way he hadn’t since 1789, and it…chafed. If you were responsible for the death of a S.P.B.C.C. member, you had to make sure their people—or creatures, whatever--were still represented. As Rumplestiltskin was some unknown kind of imp who seemed unique in his essence in this world, there was no one left to represent, but his seat needed to be filled. Some had argued that Killian’s presence on the Council was just giving the vampires more than their share of voices, but that was rubbish.

For starters, Killian couldn’t stand the lot of them. They were old sticks in the mud, mostly traditionalists who went around wearing capes and talking about bloodlines. The others were Reform Vampires—poncy idiots who went on about better unliving through various serums and who were always on social media trying to manage perception of vampires in the non-magical world.

And for his part, Killian was content to reside somewhere between the two. He was here for some good, old-fashioned vengeance and violence, but one had to be practical as well. It was easier to come by coconut water than find someone’s blood to drink, even with the requisite sodium supplements he had to take. After all, leaving a swath of dead people tended to garner the wrong kind of attention.

And that was the other thing—he wanted to be left in peace to live his unlife, drinking his coconut water and from the occasional willing volunteer (gods, but he’d put on a few pounds during the Twilight craze).

He hadn’t wanted a position on the S.P.B.C.C., hadn’t wanted anything to do with it. But then Swan had descended from the sky like the terrifying bird of her namesake (he was disappointed to learn about the missed opportunity for a pun in her name, as she was in fact not a shapeshifter) and harangued him about “murdering” Rumplestiltskin and having to pay his dues.

Which meant sitting on that bloody council.

Okay, fine, he was a bit at loose ends these days. Having fulfilled his centuries-old grudge and finally offed His Glitteriness Rumplestiltskin might have left something of a void. And sure, sometimes he saw eternity stretching out before him like an unending circle of emptiness, but it was fine.

A voice cut through his musings and he jolted to attention. “Jones? Councilmember Jones? Killian Jones? Captain Hook? Do you have any fucking input for once, or are you too busy thinking about bloodbaths to pay attention to us today?” Emma Swan sounded cranky and irritable and a little like she was considering coming over and introducing a motion to punch him.

He smirked. “Sorry, love, I’m afraid you’ll have to repeat the initial question. I was rather dozing, as it is in fact daytime.”

“Not your love, Councilmember Jones. And for the love, come see me or Granny Lucas after the session,” she said, her golden hair cascading over her hands as she rubbed her temples in exasperation.

Maybe there was still some fun to be had after all.

&&&

Emma was going to murder him. Killian Jones might technically be dead already, but she would happily test out different levels of deadness.

He was impossible.

She was just trying to keep this stupid council with its stupid acronyms and stupid councilmembers running smoothly.

She hadn’t wanted this job, this position. She just wanted to work on her spells and occasional potions, help some people, and pay her bills.

But no, she’d had to go and help people a little too well. Now it was Savior This and Savior That, all for breaking a measly curse and talking a witch queen off the ledge and reuniting her with her love.

She had been going about her life much as she had since she had accidentally teleported away from a crime scene (now that was a tale) where an ex had left her literally and figuratively holding the bag. Emma certainly hadn’t intended the escape she’d made, but she could hardly complain, either. And she’d been curious about how she’d done it, to put it mildly.

A lot of internet searches, the fortunate discovery of a coven that met for a weekly book club at her local library, and maybe-not-coincidental of the discovery of a talking kitten named Henry later, she knew what she was—a witch.

Fast forward a few years, and she’d found a home of sorts up in Storybrooke, and the three of them had opened a little shop selling various magicks and magical items.

To her surprise, Emma had found she gravitated toward light magic, especially of the healing variety, though she was good with technological stuff too. And Henry, once he was grown, was very helpful. He still occasionally knocked over things on her work table, which could be problematic—he was a cat, after all—but his advice was usually sound.

She really hadn’t intended to get drawn into anything more than her perfectly satisfactory life. But then Ruby, werewolf, customer, and sometimes friend, had asked her for help. Unless someone stopped it, there would be a curse enacted.

Regina, Queen of Misthaven, had come to power 28 years before, after deposing the previous queen and her husband, cursing them to eternal sleep. Eternal sleep was eternal in the way that vampires were immortal; it could be interrupted—by death or the rupture of the curse—but would continue until something came along and meddled.

It seemed that becoming queen and cursing her former rival wasn’t enough for Regina, though. Her unhappiness increased, compounded by her magical subjects’ dislike and the distance of the other S.P.B.C.C. members kept from her. She had decided to enact a spell to doom them, all her subjects, to go back in time and live lives of medieval drudgery.

Ruby had no interest in that. To begin with, her girlfriend wouldn’t approve, and she would miss the whole voting thing. Aside from that, saying goodbye to Netflix and electricity was just unacceptable. And Ruby was far from the only concerned party.

Emma was stumped. After all, what could she do? She’d known she was a witch for a decade, and stronger people than her had attempted to do something.

Most people trying to deal with the situation, though, hadn’t had the benefit of being raised non-magically.

Sure, magic could solve a lot of problems (and create them just as easily, but that wasn’t the point). But sometimes? The best solution was good, old-fashioned, and non-magical. In this case, it meant using her investigative skills to find a dragon that had been hiding from the magical world and who was supposedly powerful enough to help.

Well, it turned out that the dragon was an ex-girlfriend of Regina’s, and reuniting the two of them had done wonders. Regina backed down from evil world domination and had even been amenable to the equally non-magical suggestion of therapy.

Maybe there was something to the whole love thing after all.

Once Regina had thawed a bit due to Maleficent’s calming presence, she had tried to break the curse of eternal sleep she had put on Queen Snow and King David...all to no avail. The only spells capable of waking them required a blood relative—a living, breathing, and awake one—and both of them were the only ones left from their families, their only child having disappeared as a baby (another unfortunate result of one of Regina’s spells).

So imagine Emma’s surprise, when, as Regina was attempting show Emma one of the spells that wasn’t working, Henry jumped on her—Emma, not Regina—and clawed her.

She scolded him, not noticing right away that blood was welling up from the gash he’d left on her hand. She didn’t notice when the blood dripped right in the pathway of the spell Regina was casting, or how her eyes widened.

Regina noticed, though. They all noticed when this spell, instead of doing nothing like the previous attempts, woke up Snow and David.

And that was how Emma learned that she was their long-lost child, the missing child of the queen and king.

It had been awkward, to be sure. Finding family you didn’t know you had, accompanied by the weight of royal expectation, took a lot to adjust to. That was to say nothing of having parents who looked the same age as Emma and had last interacted with the world in the ‘80s. (There had been a shoulder pads intervention, fortunately.)

It was...hard. After a life lived on her own and having grown up in the foster care system, Emma wasn’t exactly one for opening up and sharing. But seeing how hard Snow and David were trying to reach out to her, she was willing to try to meet them halfway.

After some negotiating with her parents, they had worked out that in light of Regina’s resignation (and she swore a blood oath to live peaceably with Maleficent all her days, but the fact remained that it left an open S.P.B.C.C. seat), Emma would stand in at the council meetings. And she didn’t have to wear nearly as many poofy robes and old-fashioned witches’ hats as her mother had originally wanted.

Her mother had originally been offered the position, but she had turned it down, citing a desire to catch up on everything she’d missed. To her parents’ glee, Emma accepted the seat when it was offered to her in her mother’s stead. Not only did it give her a way to connect with them, it gave her parents time to connect with each other and the world again, as a lot had changed over the past thirty years. That was a lot of Netflix to binge.

Honestly, it wasn’t the worst. Some days, Emma even enjoyed her work with the Supernatural and Paranormal Beings and Creatures Council. She had put a lot into it, and eventually she’d been elected Speaker for the council, which was pretty miraculous given the tensions between witches/warlocks and vampires.

It hadn’t taken Emma long in the supernatural world to learn about the longstanding enmity between her people and the vampires.

If the non-magical world was to be believed, the real beef was between werewolves and vampires. (But maybe that was the issue—the werewolves were content with the beef, while most vampires didn’t care for cow blood or other byproducts.)

In reality, it was trickier. Sure, there were some tensions between werewolves and vampires—there were between most of the different supernatural and paranormal groups and species—but they mostly got along. In fact, they often played emissary between the vampires and witches, as they had common sociopolitical aims with both.

Emma shook her head—she didn’t have time to get side-tracked musing over her own damn life story and the history of a low-grade feud between magical beings right now. She had council business to attend to.

Council business that, unfortunately, included Killian Jones.

She scowled. That vampire had been a pain in her ass since the first whisper of him she’d heard. He was just...ugh.

On some level, she could accept that in the magical world, he had a right to be on the council as the one who had defeated Rumplestiltskin. The magical world had a convoluted law that boiled down to stating that anyone who defeated another supernatural being in combat could—and should—assume their posts and responsibilities. As an American, she was appalled. It was a lot to take in and reconcile.

And that was to say nothing of the man—or man-pire, as Angel would have said—himself. He didn’t want to be there, that was clear. He was obviously just there to avoid negative legal repercussions of having taken revenge on Rumplestiltskin (for what, Emma was fuzzy on the details). He didn’t much care for the other vampires or anyone else there.

Unfortunately, that made him one hell of a swing vote. He was unpredictable and didn’t follow traditional vampire allegiances, which made his presence on the council...interesting.

Not that she was interested.

She held in a sigh. The council was trying to get some work done on a law that would regulate different supplement vendors and how they could market to supernatural and magical beings, but they were running into all kinds of issues with the different vendors.

Truthfully, Emma found it incredibly dull, but something had to be done to break up the gridlock, and Jones was one of the most likely to be able to swing the vote. It galled her, especially when he couldn’t put on his professional pants and be the grown-up he was. God, he had to be at least 250, so couldn’t he act like it?

She motioned Granny Lucas over. They approached him where he stood talking to one of the faeries, and Emma cleared her throat.

He turned around and smiled. “I was hoping it would be you, luv.”

&&&

Gods, but it was so delightful and delightfully easy to rile Swan. The way her cheeks flushed and her fist clenched...it did things to him.

He was bad man. Or vampire, whatever.

Quite frankly, Killian couldn’t care less about the whether one clan of gnomes or another received the bid or contract to produce supplements. He wasn’t even sure that’s what this session was about, but he knew it was something of that sort. Probably.

Even if he had paid attention, it was worth it to rile Emma. He would say she was delicious, but that had connotations he didn’t intend. He didn’t want to drain her, for Christ’s sake.

There was just something about the reddening of her skin that had him wanting to bite her...just not in a vampire way.

He’d had lovers since Milah died. It had been over two centuries, after all, and he wasn’t a monk. While he’d treated them with the respect due to them as people (or faeries or witches, etc.), none of those relationships had been particularly lengthy or meaningful to him.

And if he could seduce Emma, he didn’t figure she would be either, even if she was a spitfire. Hell, she kept him plenty interested as it was, and he’d only ever seen her remove her jacket once. (It had been to punch one of his fellow fanged ones on the council, and he’d loved every moment of it.)

Whatever transpired, it would be fun.

&&&

“Is something funny, Hook? Are we entertaining enough for you?” Emma bit out.

She was tired. She wanted to go home and curl up in her chair, and have Henry come purr next to her. Or sass her and tell her to feed him, which was probably more likely. Either was better than this.

And then this asshole whose vote mattered had to be the way he was.

She knew he hadn’t listened to her. It wasn’t her fault the minutiae of supernatural government was boring, and 142 other people had done okay with listening.

He wasn’t an idiot. He had survived a long-ass time. As a pirate for most of it, no less. And he’d killed Rumple-fucking-stiltskin. So he had to have a brain in there.

Which meant that his lack of listening was due to boredom, even if he had started smiling during the last bit of her speech—a distant, predatory thing that she knew had nothing to do with supplements.

Her head was pounding. She couldn’t afford to have a loose cannon on the council; she needed him to be invested.

“Look, Jones, what’s it going to take to get you to give a fuck?” she asked, shoulders slumped.

Granny looked at her in surprise. Killian did too, eyes widening before he pasted his signature smirk onto his face.

That stupid side of his mouth quirked up, and he bit his lip in a way Emma knew he knew was lascivious. Bastard. “Depends, luv, on what you’re willing to give.”

Granny snorted and said, “Well, I’ll let you two work this out between you,” and walked away.

Traitor.

She forced herself to roll her eyes. “Nothing you’re implying, buddy.”

“Me? Implying things? Swan, I would never say anything that has a double meaning,” he said, after a very fake and dramatic gasp.

“That’s because they have triple meanings,” she muttered under her breath.

“Sorry, what?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

She smiled innocently at him, “I said, we need to discuss your leanings. For the council.”

He gave her a long, considering look. “Dinner. Invite me over for dinner—” at this, he picked up her hand, turned it over, and pressed a lingering kiss to her wrist, “—and we can discuss whatever you’d like.”

Ignoring the burning where his lips had touched her skin, she pulled her hand away. “Seriously?”

“As the supplement discussions, luv.”

“Fine. Come over at seven tomorrow. I’ll text you the directions,” Emma said, huffing.

He scratched behind his ear, looking uncharacteristically sheepish. “I...I actually don’t have a cell phone.”

“Uh, okay. Do you have a...landline?”

“I do. And email,” he blurted.

She gave a sigh of relief. “Okay, I’ll email you the address later.”

Thank god she didn’t have to actually talk on the phone.

#cssns #cs ff #captain swan #cs au #cs magical au #vampires and witches and werewolves oh my #can I take anything seriously? can I get over em dashes and italics?#tune in for this and other chapters to find out!#rules & regulations #amber writes

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ishabenjuria-blog · 5 years

Text

hard and eat a diet high in protein and essential fats

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Whey Protein – Whey is rich in the BCAAs that restore sore muscle mass and cause increase. What makes it a mainly beneficial supp is its high quantity of leucine (the maximum strong amino acid) and fast digestion. It's best pre or publish-workout, and may be mixed with casein for a meal replacement.

To Help You Look And Feel Younger

Age creeps up on us all. Little twinges emerge as aches and pains and preserving muscle tissues whilst keep the stomach at bay becomes a conflict of attrition against Old Father Time. But the warfare isn’t over but, and including these 3 supplements in your food regimen – so long as you continue to consume nicely, workout intelligently and get accurate-first-class sleep – can provide your frame a higher chance of staying preventing fit for longer.

Glucosamine For Stronger Joints

Glucosamine is an amino sugar and a prime aspect of cartilage, which is the stuff that absorbs the surprise to your joints whilst you run, carry or do plyometric drills like container jumps. As you age your cartilage begins to lose the pliability that protects your joints and so will become much less powerful at doing its job. Taking glucosamine, that is generally crafted from shellfish, can strengthen cartilage by way of stimulating the cells to provide proteoglycans, which could improve joint characteristic and mobility. Aim for 3 every day doses of 500mg.

Glutamine To Add Muscle Faster

Glutamine is an amino acid that studies endorse minimizes the breakdown of muscles all through strenuous exercising in addition to improving muscle synthesis, that is the assimilation of the protein you consume into new tissue. Having good enough stages has also been linked to advanced mind and gut health. You need to already get enough of this compound from your weight loss program, however it is able to be worth taking a supplement in case you’re below plenty of strain or education tougher than everyday.

Greens Supplement For Better Overall Health

Make sure you eat as many servings of clean veg as possible each day – then attempt including a greens complement to fill any nutritional gaps you can have overlooked. Most powders incorporate a couple of servings of greens in conjunction with other exceedingly beneficial compounds you’d be loath to consume of their natural bureaucracy (assume algae and grasses). You can drink it directly – if you have no experience of taste – or mixture it right into a breakfast shake or smoothie.

Trainers’ Top Supplements

We went to 3 top coaches to find out which dietary supplements they swear with the aid of Vitamin D maintains my bones wholesome and my immune system fighting match “I most effective take a small amount of supplements as I try and get as a whole lot as I can from meals – but I continually take nutrition D. I know my body takes a pounding from the crazily stupid range of miles I run [Hughes has run 53 marathons in 53 days] but this vit allows modify absorption of calcium for healthful bones and supports my immune device to help me get better quicker.” – Amy Hughes, patience athlete, blogger and charity report breaker.

Fish oils keep my thoughts sharp and my frame organized to build muscle

“Omega three fatty acids in fish oils assist with hormone production – including testosterone, which is critical in case you need to construct lean muscle – and it’s additionally been proven to increase cognitive characteristic. People commonly lack first-rate fats intake however are reluctant to devour oily fish like mackerel, in order that’s another exact cause to take omega three supplements.” – Ben Mudge, PT and fitness model (benmudge.Com)

Whey protein shakes assist me maintain lean muscle once I’m at the pass

“If you’re looking to shed pounds it’s frequently tough to discover a meal on the road that’s excessive in protein however low in carbohydrates or fats, which is in which 20-30g of whey between feeds goes a protracted manner. It facilitates raise your protein intake for immediate recovery, curbs starvation and enables you keep away from any useless calories so that you can enjoy a huge, wholefood meal at other sittings.” – Andrew Tracey, practical health expert.

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