#they feel like they really are younger/older versions yet they’re also very distinct

[chalkrevelations]

There’s ... something I can’t quite put my finger on yet with Kim, but I think it has something to do with Ep 5′s scene with Kim and Tankhun, which doesn’t give us a lot on its face, but has a ton of potential undercurrents that could play out and is super interesting placed in an ep that also has Kim talking to Chay about Porsche. I mean, Kim’s still a fk’n creepster preying on a kid who just wants to go to music school - and relatedly, I’ve seen some dithering about how young Barcode is to be playing romantically opposite Jeff (even though Jeff is playing younger, and I think Barcode may be playing slightly older?), and there’s also this kind of dreadfully awkward vibe between them that could maybe be an acting and directing choice, because Barcode seems much more comfortable and natural in his scenes with Apo, at least so far. I hope it’s not an actor chemistry issue, because I gotta say I think it really works at this initial part of the relationship, because it plays up Kim’s creepsterhood, but it might be an issue if it continues too far into the show. But, yes, I see what you did there, show, putting Kim manipulating his target practically back-to-back with the scenes of Vegas manipulating his target, don’t think I missed it. With Porsche, it’s the motorcycle and with Chay it’s the music, but either way it’s bait, so what are we saying about all of the Theerapanyakul men, here, hmm? But Vegas in this ep is his own post, I think.

ANYWAY, I have to wonder what they’re saying putting Kim’s scene with his own big brother in the same ep when he’s going to drill Chay for info about his big brother, because obviously Kim’s got his own little agenda, but then he also has to listen to Chay wax rhapsodic about Porsche in this kind of starry-eyed hero-worship way that sees Porsche as perfect in a way that Kim absolutely cannot have with his own big brother(s) (at least at this point, if he ever did in the past). And I have to wonder if that’s part of why Chay catches him with that song at the end. The lyrics that get emphasized by showing us the written version are “Because of you, no matter what obstacles are coming, I will continue to move forward / As long as there is a hug, even if it is uncomfortable.” So who was that kind of support for Kim in the past? Maybe more importantly who is Kim being that kind of support for now, in the present? Because I look at the scene between Kim and Tankhun, and I have to ask myself what kind of undercover shenanigans these two have going on right now, under everyone else’s noses? I mean, Tankhun accuses Kim of spying and asks him “Aren’t you dead, yet?” and Kim’s not the least bit offended by it, and while it could just be that he’s making allowances for his eccentric older brother, there’s points here where Tankhun is maintaining - for him, at least - much more tightly than we may have seen him maintain anywhere else up until now (ETA: other than when he whacks Vegas upside the head for being mean to his other little brother), and this includes when he asks Kim, “Did you get anything,” which Kim won’t answer, but they then spend an awfully long time side-eyeing each other, but not in a particularly antagonistic way, just like they’re maybe feeling each other out. I think significantly, they “run into” each other at night, showing that Kim’s been skulking around the mansion all afternoon, while Big Daddy has been dressing down Kinn, and this happens out at the fish pond. Yes, there’ll be security footage - we know this from Porsche peeing in the pond - but there’s no indication that there’s any kind of sound monitoring, so no one will be able to hear what they’re talking about out here, which you can’t guarantee in the living quarters. There’s a distinct lack of actual antagonism anywhere here, and Kim is very wry about the whole thing, at the same time that he’s not getting exercised at all about Thankhun’s various quirks.

Seriously, y’all. What is going on between these two, what kind of understanding do they have, and why is Kinn significantly not a part of it? We get no indication that Kim even sees, let alone speaks to Kinn despite skulking around the house all afternoon - or maybe coming back later that night just to “run into” Tankhun. I’m also wondering how much Tankhun is playing up his eccentricities at other times, and how much this is his escape hatch from having to play the mafia heir role that Kinn has now inherited, if Tankhun is too crazy to do it properly. Meanwhile, Kim has supposedly peaced out entirely and isn’t available for that role. It’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for Kinn and his sob story about how he’s been forced from the cradle to beat up old guys and do murders. (Cool motive, still murder.)

At any rate, I’m wondering what it must be like for Kim, to hear this breathless description of Chay’s amazing older brother, at the same time that he not only can’t look to his own older brother for protection (or can he? I’m telling you, I want to know what Tankhun has going on) but has kind of taken on the protector role, himself, if he sees what he’s doing as beneficial.

Anyway, last thought on this is wth, Porsche? Chay may think you’re the perfect big bother, but you have clearly neglected any kind of Stranger Danger discussion with him. You know better than to give your phone to Kinn in Ep 1 when you’re standing there looking right at him, but Chay doesn’t know any better than to let some rando from the internet walk out of the room with his phone?

#kim theerapanyakul #tankhun theerapanyakul #kimchay #kinnporsche #also a tiny bit #vegas theerapanyakul #porsche kittisawasd

[embraceyourdestiny]

Call for anyone who see this on their dashboard!

With a reblog, reply, or in the tags, what’s your favorite detail of a kingdom hearts character, esp your favorite Kh character?

It can be a headcanon too! Ones you or anyone else made up, I’m curious as to what stays with people or what tiny but important things people make up people’s faves

#I’ll go first #roxas sora and Ven all have freckles #Kairi does too #everyone whos contiousnly fought in battles has scars #Vanitas has the most scars of anyone with Ven in second #I was once reading a fic that said the replica bodies changed as they grew more into their identities and I’ve adopted that headcanon too #I also love how riku has a slight limp in kh3 and is protective of his left side bc of his kh2 injuries for a canon detail #roxas has brown eyes to me sometimes too #I love how much sora smiled whenever someone else was talking during kh3 #the scene in tltw when they’re talkng to Scrooge he has the biggest smile on his face while goofy talks and it’s so cute #he loves his dog dad so much #I love how roxas has a skateboard because Ven wind surfed with his keyblade and sora does that in the keyblade graveyard for the unions #this is a game detail not character but I love that they switched camera angles throughout the different bbs routes #I like that Eraqus is square for square Enix like yen sid is Disney lol #also in general I love the different models of Eraqus and xehanort #they feel like they really are younger/older versions yet they’re also very distinct #I love how enthusiastic Hayner was to bring roxas back bc he was his best friend in the data world and some part of him remembered #there’s def more but that’s enough for now pls share your own canon or headcanon details!! #kingdom hearts #kh #og #kh3 #kingdom hearts 3 #sora kh #kairi kh #kh2 #kingdom hearts 2 #riku kh #ven kh #aqua kh

[riversofmars]

That last one-shot prompt made me realize I really love the interaction of outsiders to River and the Doctor's relationship. I'd really love more of that type of thing. I've no idea if this even counts as a prompt or not but just saying.

Hi! I promise, I've not forgotten about the prompts i have yet to do, though I might be getting a bit distracted with World Enough, And Time :D Yeah I guess this wasn’t exactly a prompt but here are more reactions to their relationship as Yaz learns more about River in the next instalment of Big, Vast, Complicated and Ridiculous! :D

Chapter 7: Lake Silencio

“Blimey, you do have a mind of your own today, haven’t you.“ The Doctor huffed as the TARDIS came to a halt.

“Where are we?“ Yaz asked sounding a little worried.

“Could be anywhere.“ The Doctor sighed. “She’s been all over the place. Surprised she managed to take me to you on time when you texted…“ She skipped to the door and Yaz followed, curious to see where they had ended up. The Doctor stuck her head out the door, then pulled back and glared at the console. “Oh you silly machine, you could break time…“

“That’s your TARDIS over there?“ Yaz asked taking a step outside the door while her friend hung back. She found they had landed on a cliff face in the middle of the dessert. The sun was blazing down on them, reflecting off the azure blue lake that stretched below. The could overlook the entire valley from their vantage point and Yaz had immediately spotted the other blue box.

“Earlier model, this was some time ago.“ The Doctor answered slowly, eying the younger version of her TARDS across the ridge. There was probably a reason for why the TARDIS had taken them here.

“Well, this is nice.“ Yaz put her hands on her hips enjoying the sunshine on her face. It made a change from dreary Britain.

“Great time for a picnic…“ The Doctor mused as she looked down into the valley, to the beach by the side of the lake. There she was, so much younger, drinking wine with Amy, Rory and River. The Doctor smile a little to herself, she missed her family so much.

“Are you down there?“ Yaz asked curiously, following her gaze.

“Yeah…“ The Doctor nodded with a melancholy expression.

“And River?“ Yaz recognised her head of hair, even from a distance. It was distinctive to say the least.

“And her parents, Amy and Rory.“ The Doctor smiled wistfully pointing them out to her. She hadn’t seen them in such a long time. She missed them dearly.

“But they’re… younger than her?“ Yaz stated, bewildered. They were relatively far away but she could make out enough to pose the question.

“First thing you should know about River, I guess… she’s a time traveller.“ The Doctor chuckled. The TARDIS seemed to want her to fill Yaz in so she obliged.

“Right, that makes sense.“ Yaz sighed, shaking her head bemused. This was just like the Doctor. Of course her wife was no ordinary woman. She was intrigued to find out more.

“This was the day…“ The Doctor hummed with a bittersweet smile.

“What day?“ Yaz prompted and the Doctor chuckled:

“My wedding day.“

“Really?“ Yaz’s eyes widened in shock. She looked back down to the Doctor’s younger self.

“You did ask, didn’t you, about my history with River? Think the TARDIS is trying to fill you in.“ The Doctor smiled. She shrugged off her coat and put it down on the ground before sitting down. She always kept her cards so close to her chest, not allowing anyone, not even her friends, to really get to know or understand her. Maybe she was going about it the wrong way. Perhaps it was time to let people in again. She didn’t need to carry all these burdens by herself. And maybe, just maybe, if she let other people see, shared her past with them, maybe she would feel a little closer to being the Doctor again.

“So that’s you?“ Yaz pointed at the young Doctor again as she sat down, surprised at the inviting gesture.

“Look at how thin I was, ugh. How did River fancy me so much back then?“ The Doctor mused, looking her old self up and down.

“Look at the lake.“ Something in the distance caught Yaz’s attention and she pointed towards the shore line.

“I know, I was there, remember?“ The Doctor chuckled, amused.

“What’s happening?“ Yaz asked. It looked as thought something was emerging from the water, a figure. The others had noticed it too. The young Doctor on the picnic blanket got to his feet, as did his friends.

“Well, it’s not just the day we got married, it’s also the day she killed me.“ The Doctor answered matter-of-factly.

“What?“ Yaz’s head flung around as she looked back to her friend and the Doctor laughed a little.

“It’s complicated.“ She admitted and pointed to the figure that was walking out of the lake. It appeared to be wearing an astronaut suit. “That’s also River, in the suit, a younger version of her. The Silence, an order that was trying to kill me, are controlling her. I knew that already at the time, that’s why I asked her older self here. All of them actually, Amy and Rory too.“ She explained as they watched the Doctor below make his way towards the astronaut. “I knew I had to die - or so I thought at the time - and I didn’t want to do it by myself. And I wanted River to know that she would always be forgiven.“

“That’s so sad.“ Yaz took in her words, mulling them over.

“You wondered why she’s a wanted criminal? This is why. She got sentenced for my murder.“ The Doctor tried to create context for her.

“So she’s innocent?“ Yaz confirmed, feeling a little bad for her previous snap judgement of the Doctor’s wife.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. She did try to kill me, several times. And she’s knows her way around a weapon, I’ll tell you… and she’s not afraid to use them. So innocent? Of this particular crime, but in general?“ The Doctor shrugged, amused. She couldn’t deny, she liked a bad girl.

Far below, the astronaut shot the Doctor. The Pond family rushed towards him. River shot and missed the astronaut as it walked back into the lake…

“So how did you escape?“ Despite knowing that she would survive, Yaz felt her chest tighten as they watched.

“I was wearing a suit that saved me.“ The Doctor answered.

“Soooo…. when did the marriage happen? Did I miss it?“ Yaz asked after they sat and watched in silence for a while.

“Oh you won’t see it.“ The Doctor laughed, realising only then that she was waiting for it. “It happened in an aborted timeline. The first time around, River couldn’t bring herself to kill me and therefore create a paradox. This is a fixed point in time.“

“So you’re not actually married? If it happened in another timeline?“ Yaz exclaimed. This was getting more complicated at every turn.

“All of time was happening at once for all eternity. Every moment that ever was or ever would be. That’s how I see it, from the beginning to the end of the universe. That means we’re always married, wherever and whenever we are.“ The Doctor gave a soft smile.

“That’s very sweet.“ Yaz smiled, realising it was all a matter of perspective.

“And incredibly stupid.“ The Doctor sighed. “It hurts, Yaz…“ Yaz looked at her surprised at the uncharacteristic confession. It didn’t seem like the Doctor at all to speak so openly about her feelings so she remained quiet, allowed her time to phrase her thoughts. “It hurts when… no matter how much you love each other, no matter how much you’ve done and overcome together, you still can’t be together.“ She got to her feet. She had seen enough. She didn’t want to be a witness to the Pond family’s grief any longer. Even though she knew it would all come right in the end, it didn’t change the fact that they truly believed her former self to be dead. Their pain was real, as was her own.

“Where is she now? I mean, I get that we can travel and see her wherever but where is she really? At the end of her timeline?“ Yaz asked, getting up as well so the Doctor could shake out her coat and put it back on.

“She died…“ The Doctor answered quietly. “The first day I met her…“ She turned back towards the TARDIS.

“Doctor I… I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…“ Yaz felt like she’d been punched in the gut. That was not the answer she had expected and she regretted the question. She hurried after her back to the TARDIS.

“It’s fine.“ The Doctor managed a thin smile as they stepped back inside the blue box. “I always knew it would happen, that was the deal…“ Slowly she made her way to the console while Yaz closed the door.

“If you always knew it would happened… couldn’t you do something to change it?“ Yaz asked, feeling terrible for her friend. There had to be something they could do.

“I already did everything I could, spent lifetimes thinking about it…“ The Doctor answered. “She’s not completely gone… I managed to save her mind, her consciousness to a super computer.“ She explained. “Best I could do.“

“I guess that’s something.“ Yaz felt a little better and the Doctor managed a smile:

“Better than the alternative.“

“So does that mean I could meet her?“ Yaz asked after brief consideration. “The version of her that had had all her adventures with you? I bet she knows you like no-one in this universe.“

“I guess that’s true…“ The Doctor hummed, thinking back to her visit at the Library. “Maybe some day.“

“Do you not go and see her?“ Yaz frowned, surprised by her reluctance.

“I did when I needed that bit of space to think… like you said, she knows me like no-one else.“ The Doctor revealed.

“And not before then?“ Yaz asked and the Doctor shook her head.

“It’s hard when there is so much… guilt and regret. And when you’re so close and you still can’t touch them… sometimes it’s better to just keep yourself busy and try not to think about it.“ She admitted and Yaz understood.

#Doctor Who #fanfiction #river song #thirteen #thirteenth doctor #space wives #yowzah #Yasmin Khan #river x thirteen #thirteen/river

[wreath-of-laurels]

Todoroki/Iida - Iida becomes a villain

So @doomsdaybeamxd​ prompted me with

Pairing: Todoiida AU: Iida falls in with the villains. Big Angst Time

I’d normally write a mini fic as is proper but my brain has too many ideas for this. So here’s a general idea of how I think it goes as if I actually tried to write a tiny bit, it wouldn’t stay a tiny bit. 

As it is, I’m writing at least some of this in Variations on a Theme. How much I’ll do, I don’t know.

Childhood friends

Shouto and Tenya met shortly after Rei was put in the mental hospital.

This happened because Enji was feeling guilty over Rei and seeing Shouto being lonely so was for once in his life was trying to be a semi-decent father and decided to arrange regular playdates.

No, Enji never considered to let Natsuo or Fuyumi play with Shouto. If he thought about it, he'd have reasons but they'd all suck.

Shouto was lonely and so was Tenya as he got bullied for being ‘weird’ and bit by bit they established a friendship.

There may or may not be mutual puppy crushes involved.

Enji after gaining a +1 in parenting points, loses 10,000 by saying that Tenya is the sort of good, loyal son that he’d be proud of, and accidentally implying that Tenya is there to change Shouto into a version of him.

This makes Shouto hate Tenya, assuming that he was in on it, and he refuses to spend anymore time with him. This upsets Tenya and baffles Enji. Enji doesn’t even consider the possibility that it was his fault.

Years pass.

They meet again at UA

Years past and Tenya is really looking forward to seeing Shouto again. Elementary and middle school were not fun and he got bullied a lot. Surely Shouto has forgiven him for whatever he did!

Nope. 

If anything Shouto’s angrier as he still has feelings for Tenya and he wants them gone. Shouto won’t even tell him why they’re no longer friends. Just that it’s Tenya’s fault.

The sports festival goes about the same as before except that Tenya gets the call about Tensei just before his fight with Shouto. 

Stain killed Tensei instead of crippled. His mother lets this drop on the phone.

Tenya instead of going home seeks out Shouto. Shouto’s older brother died. While he never talked about it, surely Shouto knows what it is like, maybe even knows how to cope.

Endeavor has just been blabbing away at Shouto. So Shouto is angry and totally avoids looking at Tenya or paying much attention at all, missing all the absolute BLATANT hints that Tenya needs help.

Shouto misconstrues Tenya’s disjointed ask for help and bitterly says that the normal thing is that the weak are ‘thrown out’ and the strong survive. Shouto has no clue that Tensei is dead. 

Whoops.

Tenya and Shouto have their match because the teachers haven’t heard about Tensei yet. It is a lot more brutal than the canon one. Shouto even loses himself for a while and uses his flame.

Tenya loses. Now he’s angry at Shouto too.

Shouto later has the chat with Midoriya, they have their match and Shouto starts thinking over things.

The next day Tenya refuses to talk about anything. None of the students have a clue what happened to Tensei.

The teachers do. Aizawa, Mic and Midnight went to school with Tensei. They try to be comforting. Tenya is super polite while raging inside that when Oboro died and Tensei was upset, they weren’t around. 

To be fair to the teachers, while Oboro and Tensei were close friends, Tensei wasn’t with the rest of them. Everyone was trying to keep Aizawa from falling apart at the time.

Tenya is NOT in his happy place.

Tenya goes after Stain

Tenya is a whole lot less patient at this point than his canon self. He doesn’t wait to go after Stain at this point. As his armour is at school, he uses his brother’s access cards and such to steal Villain stuff from his agency.

The one-on-one battle of Tenya against Stain goes initially better. He gets a few good hits in. Stain is ranting about Tensei was a fake hero. He eventually takes Tenya down but fail-safes in the villain gear kick in and electrocute Stain.

When Tenya gets a hold of himself, Stain is ranting about all the Iidas being false heroes that need to be cleansed. 

Tenya does not take this well.

At all.

And he has one of Stain’s knives.

Tenya finds himself wondering why his clothes are soaking wet. And red.

He then notices a few things (a) Stain is dead, probably has been for a while, (b) there’s a hero in the alley who apparently Stain attacked before Tenya showed up, (c) the hero is dead because they bled out, just like Tensei did, because Tenya was obsessed with killing Stain and (d) his parents and Aizawa have tracked him down and are watching in absolute shock.

Tenya runs. Aizawa recovers first and erases his Quirk, but Tenya runs all the time and even without it he is very, very fast. By the time, the Iida parents recover, Tenya has apparently disappeared into thin air.

This is because he kind of has. The League thought Tenya was Stain and Kurogiri warped him out of there.

Shouto finds out

Over at the Todoroki house, Fuyumi asks about how Tenya is doing, what with the death of his older brother. 

Shouto didn’t know but rolls his eyes. Though after some thought and after learning from Midoriya, it occurs to him that perhaps Endeavor doesn’t own Tenya. So maybe his actions had nothing to do with what Enji wanted.

 Also if there’s one thing he knows about Tenya is his older brother is his world.

And that expression on Tenya’s face during their match looked a lot like the nastier ones that Shouto himself has worn.

Shouto still has Tenya’s number from childhood and vice versa. He considered deleting it but at the time he was using it to remember just how much he hated Endeavor.

Tenya apparently sent some angry messages. 

“Oh no.”

Tenya is with the League

Tenya is so exhausted and upset about what he did and what his parents saw that he’s oddly accepting of being trussed up.

Tomura after some initial ranting about killing the kid who ruined the USJ (even though he didn’t), listens to the news, some police and hero chatter then puts his thinking cap on. 

Hero kid killed Stain. He is oh-so miserable about Stain being killed. I mean look at all the tears on his face . . . Good riddance.

Hero kid killed Stain when he was already out of the fight. Then kept on standing for the lolz. Nice. This could be interesting and Sensei is apparently all for it.

As Tenya is pretty much a Sim with its free will setting off at this point, Tomura instructs him through things, plants some ideas in his head and basically treats him like a very dumb pet. 

Not much happens until Stain’s diary is published and copycats start showing up. Tenya starts to wake up at this and it is not pleasant (though Tomura loves it).

Tomura pretty much points some out and lets Tenya loose and eventually Tenya comes back with a sword.

RIP Spinner.

Awwww... Tomura always wanted a little brother. 

Well, no he didn’t, but now he does.

Shouto and His Newly Reinvigorated Guilt Complex

Everyone is freaking out, trying to track down Tenya.

While they acknowledge that Tenya killed Stain, Shouto’s the only one who thinks that the Hero Killer Killer is the one responsible for killing an increasing number of Stain followers. The Iidas can’t believe that of their little boy, the teachers are letting their guilt taint their opinions and Midoriya and Uraraka are, at the end of the day, idealists.

Shouto knows what it is like to have your hatred of someone turn your life into a tunnel vision. If his father had killed his mother, Shouto has a very good idea of what would happen. 

As it was, Shouto seriously considered killing his father when he was younger. At the time, he only didn’t try to do it because it would hurt Fuyumi and he has a very hard time picturing Endeavor being able to die.

He honestly didn’t take into account that his mother wouldn’t want him to be a killer. 

He still doesn’t take that into account because Shouto, the idiot, hasn’t visited his mother because of everything that has happened. The guilt of not helping Tenya makes him ashamed and he doesn’t think he’s worthy of her. 

Shouto, you complete and utter idiot.

So he’s collecting (stealing) money from home, dyes his hair black and is going undercover to try to track Tenya down.

He’s really bad at the undercover bit (rich kid clothes) and his scar is very distinctive. Plus UA and Endeavor are tearing up the landscape to find him and he doesn’t have a magic portal man to transport him.

He’s all set to get caught when a mysterious burned man offers to show him the ways of the underworld for a price.

From here on?

I really don’t know but I don’t see the internship or summer camp arcs going the same way, if they happen at all.

#iida/todoroki #iida & todoroki friendship #my hero academia fic #ask game #prompt fills

[9worldstales]

Loki & Thor in “Thor & Loki – Double Trouble” n° 3

It seems I forgot to post my thoughts for “Thor & Loki – Double Trouble” 3 so here they are.

We left the brother falling in a hole. Well, the fall seems to be quite long in an “Alice in Wonderland” fashion and, instead than constantly panicking like Loki seems to do in “Thor: Ragnarok” the two apparently had grown quite comfortable with it, Thor perfectly straight, head down with his arms crossed while Loki seems almost seated, arms crossed behind his head and legs also crossed.

I do wonder which kind of adventures they usually live if they can get comfortable in such a situation.

Anyway, to Loki’s question if Thor has heard something, Thor insists all he could hear is the wind of Loki’s idiocy. Really, it’s worrisome Thor believes Loki is an idiot and yet he insists on playing along with his schemes. As Obi-Wan Kenobi would say ‘Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?’

I get why Loki can call himself the smart brother of the two, at least he’s not following the fool.

Anyway Loki dismisses the fact he has maybe heard a voice to ask Thor if he wants to play a game. Really, this Loki is someone who’s desperate for his brother’s attention… in the most terrible way because his way to get it is by being overall terrible.

Thor, you’re the older, you should try teaching him he can have your attention without getting you two in troubles.

Also I’d like to know how to play ‘Rock, hammer, dagger’, which Loki suggests, offering with an enthusiastic smile to even let Thor play first… since Thor turns the offering down saying he won’t give Loki another chance to stab him.

Is it a version of ‘Rock, paper, scissor’, only instead than making hand gesture you literally use them to hit your opponent?

Whatever, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, Loki notices it and as he praises himself for being the smarter… neither of the two attempts to place himself in a position that would make their landing better.

Thor falls straight on his face because for some reasons he moves behind the arms he has raised while Loki falls on his back.

Loki would like to know for how long they had been falling but Thor counters the smart question would be where they landed… to which Loki replies it wasn’t a competition for best questions. I love this Loki. I get Thor might feel like strangling him but I can’t help but love him… though if I were in Thor’s place either I find a way to handle him better or I might consider strangling him as well.

Thor thinks they’re in Jotunheim and proves his point by sniffing a rock. I don’t know what Jotunheim rocks smell like, I didn’t even know they were meant to have a distinctive smell. I though they would be ice shaped as rocks or rocks covered in ice. Whatever, every day you can learn something new, in this case that Thor can recognize Jotunheim by the smell of the rocks.

Loki thinks the orb can bring them back only… to discover he lost it. He’s not happy when Thor points it out. Thor, blaming him for losing the orb and asking him for a solution, tosses the rock away… and it predictably hit someone who was previously concealed from everyone’s sight, who’s clearly big, dangerous, with many friends (which also were concealed from everyone’s sight… really guys, why so many people hidden? And mountain giants, no less! Where you playing ‘hide and seek’?) and not happy to receive a rock on his head.

Meanwhile Loki and Thor argue. Loki claims it was his idea to fall into the tunnel and Thor says he was merely being foolish and using something he didn’t understand to clean up the mess he made and is again avoiding responsibilities and getting him in troubles. Really Thor, if you thought so, WHY DID YOU ENABLE HIM TO DO SO INSTEAD OF STOPPING HIM?

I’ve a younger brother who used to be troublesome, I didn’t use to tell him ‘yeah, go for it’ when he came up with a dumb idea and follow after him with my fingers crossed in hope it didn’t get us killed! You aren’t even tagging along because you want to babysit him, you just let yourself be completely roped by his crazy schemes and then complain if they go predictably wrong…

Also Loki, sweetheart, really, no need to lie when it’s obvious it’s a lie. As the smartest brother don’t do it, unless you enjoy arguing with Thor, which I fear is exactly the point of all this mess. You really have to learn you can get attention from him with better methods, you know?

Anyway while Thor is complaining, completely focused on his own complain Loki notices the giants approaching and tries to warn Thor.

Should I point out I love how Gurihiru, in those four panels manages to give them different expressions and poses while keeping them in the same spot in the image merely having them do a discussion?

But back to the story Thor finally notices they’re surrendered… so he accepts Loki’s suggestions they should just run away.

I love their faces as they realize so!

Though really, this time they don’t attempt to pass for brave.

Loki asks Thor which is the plan, Thor demands to know why he’s in charge of the plan and Loki points out Thor doesn’t like his own plan to which Thor agrees because he claims since Loki is the God of mischief he doesn’t have plans but fiendish plots… while Thor’s plan turns out to just hit people in the teeth with his hammer.

Great plan, Thor… -_- but really, for once Loki is deferring to you and he’s right, you don’t like his plans so why are you complaining he put you in charge of making plans?

As they talk a hammer goes past them and then SHE appears.

The goddness of Thunder. AKA Thor.

Which I’ll call ‘Lady Thor’ from now on, to make things simpler to follow.

What follows are again 4 wonderful panels of the siblings being confused (I love Thor’s expression and Loki tilting his head) before Loki satisfied point out this means they aren’t in Jotunheim and they found another Thor and not another Loki because Lokis are very rare and special...

...and Loki, love, I adore you but, first of all, I think it’s hard to manage with just one of you and second, you’re basically inviting disaster because I just know this means a Loki will show up as well.

But I love you anyway.

Female Thor doesn’t waste her time and starts beating the rock giants, pointing out Thor and Loki could make themselves useful as well.

Thor reminds himself he has a hammer as well and could help. Loki says he was just giving her space and be chivalrous. It’s kind of fun how Loki doesn’t seem to want to fight but when they started fighting he can hold his ground pretty well.

Once they’re done, Loki and Thor introduce themselves to Lady Thor. Loki is polite about it, bowing to her while Thor does so in his own boisterous manner (I love how each of them has his own panel with Lady Thor looking at each of them as they introduce)…

...which pushes Lady Thor to decide there’s not enough space in that universe for two Thors so the two attempts to fight things out before Loki realizes he has the wonderful chance to put not one but TWO Thors at work into one of his crazy competitions to see who’ll be Thor (Christmas has come early for Loki, indeed)…

...and like any true loving brother informs Lady Thor he’s rooting for her, which annoys his own brother.

They still decide to go for a competition that’s not the ‘there can be only one’ Highlander style of competition.

Thor suggests hammer toss, rejected because simple, Lady Loki best lighting strike rejected because subjective so Thor tries again with something involving strength, arm wrestle. Lady Thor, who must be more clever than him pretends to thinks it over, clearly figuring out he suggests competitions based on strength thinking her weak…

...but in the next page we see her effortlessly winning the arm competition.

Thor, who can’t even accept to lose against himself complains arm wrestle is a sport of mortals.

Lady Thor retorts it’s a good thing HE suggested it. Learn take responsibilities for your failures, Thor and be a positive example for Loki. You’re the big brother after all.

Loki points out they can’t go home without solving the small issue of a missing orb, which is their only mean to go back home.

As Lady Thor considers where it could have ended we see that the orb was retrieved by Lady Loki… who’s planning to have lot of fun with it.

Now there’s a long and complicate story with the identity of Lady Thor and Lady Loki in the Marvel universe… but, I wonder if here the case is merely that both Thor and Loki are gender swapped in that universe (if so could be said in regard to Loki…).

So, is Lady Thor Jane, or she’s the female version of Thor and Lady Loki is her sister? Was it her voice what Loki hear while they were falling or someone else is involved? Or there was just no voice?

We’ll discover in the next episode!

Anyway I continue to love this crazy comic. The characters are very expressive and the situations are funny, although a bit predictable. But whatever, Thor and Loki are love and I love this story.

#loki #thor #thor odinson #loki laufeyson #thor and loki double trouble #9 worlds comic study

[bi-lullaby]

Meredith vs People

Alternative titles: “My other post in a similar format got slightly popular and I crave attention” and “I’m still hung up on the one time Owen called Mer “the only universally liked individual in the hospital” because she is my fave”

Meredith x Cristina

Once called “the true lovestory of the show” I think it’s one of the kost refreshing relationships between characters I’ve ever seen in my, admittedly not that long, experience with fandom. The love and support each other wildly and publicly, straight up say to others how their person is important and a thing to prioritize. It’s so... Amazing to watch their deep, soulmate-like bond develop. I also love them from a narrative standpoint: How they started out as ambitious, driven people with complicated relationships with intimacy who saw surgery as the end all be all goal, and how they’re allowed to grow apart from that slightly, acquire other goals and relationships and projects (Meredith) or continue on that path, prioritizing their career and success solely/mostly (Cristina) and how both are treated as valid, rewarding choices (Mer with her happiness at family life and her Harper Avery, and Cristina with her bomb-ass hospital and the resolution of her personal relationships). They’re two characters that took on distinct journeys, but whose paths to personal fulfillment are deeply intertwined to each other.

Meredith x Alex

Okay, this is my favorite friendship ever. If Izzie showed Alex that his “evil spawn” ways weren’t exactly preferable nor they made him better than anyone or immune to pain, Meredith stuck out her hand for him and said “you’re dark and twisty? Cool. Doesn’t mean you can’t find, and fight for, happiness. Lets be dark and twisty together while we figure this out.” They relate to each other in a fascinating way, both children of neglect (to varying degrees) who worked their way to the top with a lot of bumps in the way. Also, seeing as I’m Mer’s number one stan, I also love their relationship because Alex is so amazing to her. Even Cristina had her moments of “mommy tracking” her, or even putting her aside in favor of a relationship, while Alex sticks by her side like glue and puts her above almost everything (which, I’m not saying a friendship is less valid if it’s not the most important thing in the world to you, of course not. I’m saying that everyone has a favorite person in the world, and the fact Mer is someone’s, makes that someone (Alex) even better in my eyes). Meredith sticks by the people she cares about’s sides through whatever they’re going through, in whatever way she can, and I find that that is surprisingly not-reciprocal in some instances, so it’s good she has her own ride-or-die. It’s also comic to me that two of the most sexually active, sex-driven characters in the show have never had an indication of sexual tension between them. (Almost like men and women can be friends, shocking!). The show’s not complete without Merlex, that’s for sure!

Meredith x Lexie

BRB, will be crying about the softest sisters ever, who deserved a much more fleshed-out relationship! To this day, all my (unpublished) Grey’s fanfiction involve “Lexie is actually alive” because it was such a traumatic loss to Meredith (that was under explored, imo, even if the little mentions of it through the show are heartwarming AND breaking). I loved that they made Mer push her way at first, because it showed her deep resentment of her own life, of not getting the doting father and the protective mother and the “growing up with siblings” and then having someone who had all that come and throw at her face the word “sisters” like they shared anything but DNA at that point... I think my two favorite examples of “family is about choice, not blood” examples of this show are their relationship and how it got deep through knowing each other (Meredith donates a piece of her liver to their father because of Lexie, but doesn’t remember Molly’s name in the same ep because Molly has not actively been her sister) and another one I’ll talk about later. And the contrast between Lexie’s own sadness from suddenly being left with basically no family (alcoholic father, dead mother,stranded older dister and far-away younger sister, all things I feel like people don’t consider enough to understand Lexie has also suffered) and her fight to get that family back was just so amazing. In a way, Lexie was Meredith’s Izzie, not only by being cuddly and fuzzy and nurturing but by having a “I deserve better than you being an asshole so I’ll make you less of an asshole or so help me god” attitude. Mer got softer for lexie and I think that’s beautiful.

Meredith x Amelia

Yeah, that’s my other “favorite family is not by blood, it’s by choice” ark. That clear-contrast scene of Amelia coming from her “sisters” meetup, emotionally drained after having to endure their toxic, demeaning, vicious attacks, and into her sisters, who are earning to hear what she has to say, who empathize with her and support her... I ate that shit UP, let me tell you. Because Mer was such a huge bitch to Amy at first, but came to love her after allowing herself to truly get to know her (which is the opposite story with Nancy and Lizzie and Kate, who all refuse to get to know her past the version that they despise). I also love that Derek was kind of a barrier between them, because he had his own views of Amy that influenced Mer and when he was gone, she had to face a... quite different reality. I see a lot of people shitting on Mer for the “You’re not my sister, Cristina is my sister. You’re Derek’s sister and Derek is dead” line, and I can see why, it was rude, but... That’s Meredith’s whole instance on family? Yeah, Amy was sweet and I’d bet she was mer’s favorite “Shepherdress” out of the four woman (she had stood up to her before, against Derek, nonetheless), and it breaks my heart that Amy saw her as “the only sister she could relate to” (seriously I was sobbing) but... Sister? That’s a personal, intimate title she reserved very, very few people in her life, and Amy has earned that right with a lot more patience and care than most people put into relationships. Of course she was more loyal to Cristina than to Amy at that point (who herself was more loyal to Addison than to her own siblings, hence she didn’t tell Derek about the affair, for example). But then? She literally tells Megan she can’t possibly choose which one of Owen’s wives she likes more, and need I remind you the other one is Cristina herself? (who she called “her soulmate” over Derek?. They’re two example of women who’ve gone through tremendous trauma and pain and came out changed from it, and the fact they have each other for support now makes me very, very happy. I do wish they had more scenes together, but the ones they do share are enough for me to say their relationship is a gift for this show.

Meredith x Maggie

So pure! I like that they meet up when they’re both older and more experienced and have kind of “set” personalities, that clash sometimes, but also can add up into beautiful things when combined. It was... slightly frustrating to see Mer push away yet another person at first, but watching them get closer was also sweet. I hate the comparisons between their relationship and Merlexie’s (and the comparisons between Maggie and Lexie/Cristina/April like she’s just a stand-in for them). They were different moments of all their lives. Mer and Lexie? Inexperienced 20-something women going though shit trying to find their place in the world, when Mer was still in her dark and twisties and needed to be cajoled into giving Lexie even an inch. Mer and Maggie? Well-established women in their late thirties whose relationship wasn’t built on a need for each other, but in working together for the sisterhood they wanted. I love that it was Maggie that had to get to know Meredith and be persuaded into liking her, actually. And look where they are now! They have such a comfortable, intimate relationship that’s based on love and mutual respect! I love Maggie’s small fangirl moment when Mer pulls that amazing straw-in-the-skull stunt in the airplane and Maggie’s filming the interview (although I hated what came afterwards. C’mon Maggie, fighting over a boy? Really?). It’s also good to see how Meredith helps Maggie navigate her first real trauma (loosing her mother) and how her pain has build her up and actually helps others! It’s an excellent stance of character development that remains true to the character. Their little interaction when Mer’s creating her little dream-induced invention and Maggie looks at the board once and understands it, helping her figure it all out, is so cute and nice! They’re sweet and good for each other, and I’ll protect this relationship forever!

Meredith and Jo

“You’re Jo Wilson, I know exactly who you are!” makes me weak. Because it’s such a powerful, important phrase, but also such... A Mer thing to say. At the end of the day, Mer loves people and takes them under her wing and empathizes with them. She becomes Jo’s support system and doesn’t let go. I love how she’s the one to stand by her side and protect her from Paul, and I love how she’s the one in the more recent episode to manage to get Jo to open up, to get up and get help. They’re almost mirrors, Jo with Mer’s headstrongness and emotional baggage, barging in and taking the world by storm, with Mer being Jo’s Bailey in a way, with a lot of crankiness and a slight superiority complex but lots of wisdom and care, looking at her go with a smirk like “that girl will go far but she’ll need a couple wrist slaps on the way”. Mer was extremely important in Alex’s life, she became extremely important in Jo’s life, and that’s beautiful and sweet. Also, their “shared custody” of Alex is hilarious.

Meredith x Callie

How could we have guessed that two people that initially were at each others throats constantly would be so close one day? They are absurdly different, and yet so close! The way they support each other’s journeys as mothers, wives and surgeons is a great thing to see. And they have such iconic moments, like the panties in the bulletin board, the trial, and the little kiss!

Meredith x Mark

I’m not gonna lie, I shipped those two very briefly but very intensely when they first met! Then they evolved into a rather sweet friendship. I love to think Mer tells Sofia all sorts of stories she heard through Derek in those first years. When she told Callie that Mark used to call her (not Derek, not Addison, not Derek’s mom, not Bailey, her!) whenever he needed advice or had a crisis in the middle of the night, I teared up a little, because that’s such a huge step from who they began as! From loner and relationship-phobic insecure to parents with loving relationships who could count on each other! My favorite dirty mistresses ever!

And there’s so much more! Meredith and Bailey and how they both grew so much, Meredith and Arizona and how their relationship is underrate, Meredith and Jackson’s sibling-esque relationship, Meredith and April... “I used to think you could only have one person, but now I know. Turns out I have a whole damn village!”.

#meredith grey #mertina #cristina yang #merlex #alex karev #lexie grey #merlexie #callie torres #merllie #meramy #amelia shepherd #merggie #maggie pierce #merk #mark sloan #greys anatomy #grey’s anatomy #mine

[captive-commando]

APPEARANCE.

▸  Height: tall / short / average

He’s 175cm (5′9″) 

▸ Are they okay with their height?

Yes and no. Most days he’s perfectly content with his height. It doesn’t impact his work in any way, but he doesn’t care for the jokes some people make about it when he’s standing next to someone significantly taller.

▸ What’s their hair like?

Thick and surprisingly soft, but often a bit greasy due to not having been washed in a few days. Prone to curling slightly when it gets humid.

▸ Spend a lot of time on their hair / grooming?

He can, but that’s more common after a long stint of not being able to groom properly. After long missions, he prefers to take an evening to wash and shave just to get himself up to snuff. Once he’s there it doesn’t take him long.

▸ Care about their appearance / what others think?

Not at all, he thinks about his body in terms of what it can do vs what it looks like, but he won’t deny enjoying when people find him handsome.

PREFERENCES.

▸ Indoors or Outdoors:

Outdoors. He enjoys camping and fishing as hobbies and likes to watch a good bonfire. Being outdoors also allows him to escape much easier than being trapped inside does. 

▸ Rain or Sunshine:

Neither really. He finds rain miserable, but bright sunny days leave him feeling a bit exposed. If he had to pick, however, he’d pick sunshine. 

▸ Forest or Beach:

Forest.  

▸ Precious metals or Gems?

Precious metals. He doesn’t see the point in gems unless they have a functional use. That’s not to say he hasn’t considered gems a great deal for engagement ring purposes.

▸ Flowers or Perfumes:

Flowers. He doesn’t want to receive either, but when gifting them he prefers flowers. There’s a simplicity in the fleeting joy flowers can bring, and he can still remember his mother having a vase with fresh flowers in them nearly all the time. Sometimes flowers can be for the sake of flowers. 

Perfume can be risky though. He loves the way some smell once they’ve settled on the skin but part of him worries about if they could be used to track someone. If they’re too distinct, could they identify someone? His past as a spy makes him wary of things like that. 

▸ Personality or Appearance:

Personality when he’s older, but he’s an undeniably visual man and appearance does play a strong factor for him. It takes more than a pretty face and he has fairly broad tastes so his interest is rarely shallow.

▸ Alone or In a crowd:

It depends on the crowd. Sports stadiums and dance halls are crowds he loves, where he feels free to disconnect a bit, but staying alone is usually safest for him. 

▸ Order or Anarchy:

Order. On some level, he will always crave the structure the military once brought him, but he’s too distrusting to actually follow orders anymore. 

▸ Painful truths or White lies:

Painful truths, but he’s bad at practicing what he preaches. His small lies and omissions are habit now as he tends not to give information easily, but he’d prefer the truth from others. 

▸ Science or Magic:

Science. Using magic is such a dirty fighting strategy in Bucky’s mind. 

▸ Peace or Conflict:

In idea? Peace. In his day to day life? Conflict. He still has work to do.

▸ Night or Day:

Night. Broad daylight is often too busy. 

▸ Dusk or Dawn:

He’s equally fond most days, but he has a soft spot for watching a bonfire during a sunset. 

▸ Warmth or Cold:

Cold. He’s spent most of his life in the cold, and he wears a decent amount of leather.

▸ Many acquaintances or A few close friends:

A few close friends. The wider your circle the less stable it is. 

▸ Reading or Playing a game:

Reading but he’s actually not bad at video games and really enjoys card games. 

QUESTIONAIRE.

▸  Your muse’s bad habits?

I could be here all day. He’s not great at listening to people or respecting boundaries, he’s prone to violence, engages in dangerous sometimes death seeking behavior. He’s more willing to use torture than a hero really should be, he’s suspicious and has a surprising temper at times. 

He’s also an asshole.

▸  Lost anyone close to them? How it affects them?

He’s lost many, many people in his life but the two that affected him the hardest were his parents. 

His mother’s death is what instilled a lot of his early anger and forced him to start hiding his feelings behind a facade. After she passed he felt pressured to act calm and happy for his sister which left him more inclined to ignore his emotions than address them. 

His father’s death a few years later affected him in a very different way. They’d last spoken on bad terms and he never got a chance to reconcile with his father. Furthermore, his death signaled the breakup of his home life as his younger sister was sent away to a boarding school. Almost overnight he was alone and a ward of the state, surrounded by emotionally repressed soldiers and often allowed to act up however he pleased. His training was the only real structure he had after that, setting him on a path to become the Winter Soldier. 

▸  What are some fond memories they have?

His memories are still decently fragmented at times, but a few strong ones stick with him even on his bad days. Both memories from his time as the Winter Soldier and his memories of the war are more bittersweet than entirely good, as the context taints them a bit, but the memories of his sister aren’t. 

He’d go with her to playgrounds and summer fairs, they’d sometimes see movies when they could, but one of his happiest is teaching his sister how to dance in the evenings when the family was sat around the radio and how she’d giggle when he twirled her.

▸  Is it easy for them to kill?

Remarkably. He very rarely feels guilt anymore, and in many cases, killing is a reflexive action. 

▸  What’s it like when they break down?

It depends on what caused the breakdown, but generally, one of two things will happen. He’ll either run; just completely drop off the face of the Earth without telling anyone who cares about him. In severe cases, he will just completely shut down. Not catatonic, but almost completely unresponsive. 

In truly bad situations he can shut down after fleeing and be lost and alone in a very vulnerable state. 

▸  Capable of trusting someone with their life?

It depends on the situation. In battle, if the lines are clearly drawn and he knows it’s not in the other person's interest to betray him he’s able to do that in the heat of the moment. Usually, however, the list of people he trusts is remarkably small. Natasha is usually on that list, as is Steve and Sharon. He does trust both Sam and Clint but doesn’t trust them enough to say so yet. 

▸ What’re they like when they’re in love?

Completely and utterly taken with them. He’s not a fool, it’s not a blind love, but he’ll almost always come running back to them no matter what their lives throw at them. True love is slow to actually happen with him, but once he’s fallen nothing can shake it. He tends to get a bit fixated and at times a bit co-dependent, but it’s hard to doubt that he cares. It’s a bit intense though. At times he can almost seem controlling.

The object of his affection (and really anyone paying the slightest bit of attention) would know pretty certain that he would take a bullet for them. No hesitation. 

He tries to be a bit more thoughtful, a bit more attentive. Generally, he’ll do whatever he can to put their happiness and well-being before his own and is still a sucker for some old fashioned romance. 

Bucky in love is both the best and worst version of him due to how strongly he feels those kinds of emotions. 

TAGGED BY: @ccmplicatedweb & @warwearysoldier  

TAGGING: @soulgiven  @thecaptaiin @lokidcttir @beingabadass @mxndwitch

#hc;; #(I'm a sucker for this kinda stuff omg)

[thecorteztwins]

Inhuman royal family in the Evo verse

I was hoping someone would ask this one! How to work the Inhumans into Evo is actually something I’ve thought about a lot, because I love the Inhumans and I love Evo, but they SEEM so incompatible, since Evo doesn’t really have any other superhuman species besides mutants, and just plonking some in doesn’t fit the tone of the universe, in my opinion.The EASIEST option is just to make them all mutants, give them some human names (Blackwell Bolton and Maxwell Bolton for the Boltagon brothers, Gordon for Gorgon, etc) and let their Inhuman names just be their codenames. But...I feel like that takes away their Inhuman-ness. That is, I think them being this weird isolated people with their own culture who are wary of outsiders and consider themselves superior to all others is a really important part of who they are, and I’d like to keep that.So my idea is they are mutants, but they’re not just normal “I grew up as a normal human in a normal human family til whoa I got my powers!” mutants. They’re an extended mutant family that has lived in an off-the-grid commune for GENERATIONS. The idea is that their ancestors were mutants whose powers surfaced much earlier in history, like Logan or Magneto, or maybe even before them. Persecuted by humanity, who believed them to be witches (like maybe they came up during Puritan times in America?) they fled and formed their own secret community. They’ve welcomed in new blood here and there over the years, but it’s still very small and tight, implied to be a little inbred. So they’re people who are mutants, who grew up knowing they were mutants even before they got their powers, whose parents and grandparents before them were mutants, whose neighbors are mutants, who have only ever known other mutants. To them, it’s HUMANS who are the weird ones. And since they didn’t have the word “mutant” til very recently in history, they’ve always called themselves “Inhumans”. The “Rite of Terrigenesis” in this version wouldn’t be what gives them their powers, but instead a coming-of-age ritual that they perform after their abilities first surface. They go deep into a mist-filled crystal cave at the center of the commune, and meditate on their new abilities until they come up with their new “Inhuman name” to reflect said abilities. So they’re given human names at birth and then take on names like Triton and Medusa later. Which makes a bit more sense than “yeah the kid we named Triton just happened to turn into a fish guy when he got his powers, what are the odds”.The emergence of mutants en masse amidst the general populace has shaken their sense of identity, as they always considered themselves a unique people, and caused debate among them if they should reach out to these other mutants, attempt to rejoin humanity, if these other mutants count as “Inhumans” too or if you have to be raised in the Inhuman culture to count, should they help the persecuted mutants in the outside world, etc. As for Xavier, he actually learned of the Inhumans long ago via Cerebro, even before he formed the X-Men. He visited them and offered them the chance to send their children to his school, but they declined, wanting nothing to do with the outside world at the time. However, since he had found them, he knew, as they did, that the rest of mankind would sooner or later. So he worked together with them to develop technology that would “block” devices like Cerebro, should anti-mutant forces ever develop them. Thus, the Inhumans stayed hidden successfully---until SOMETHING happens.I don’t have a distinct idea as to what. Off the top of my head...I���m going to say Crystal ran away, wanting to explore the outside world, and she got attacked/captured by a Sentinel. When the X-Men liberate the mutants being kept in the same holding facility as her, they of course get her as well. From her, they learn about the Inhumans, and they want to go meet them. Xavier, however, is like “no, they want to be left alone, I’ll return Crystal privately.” And Crystal is like “but I don’t wanna go home!” but since she’s not being treated badly there, Xavier is like “well you’re going” because he knows the Inhumans, he knows they’ll just come take her back by force. So Xavier takes her there in the Blackbird with some of the older X-Men. But the New Mutants, of course, are all “hey if this teenager says she doesn’t want to go home cuz it’s boring, she shouldn’t have to!” and they stow away, intending to “rescue” her. So after Crystal is handed back to her family, the New Mutants sneak out of the Blackbird and come help her escape AGAIN, but they get caught by her sister (Medusa), cousin (Gorgon), and sister’s boyfriend (Black Bolt). This is how we meet the Inhuman royals, and how they come into conflict with the New Mutants.And somehow or another, by the end of it they’ve decided they want to explore the human world too, and convince the elders/their parents to allow them to be the first explorers into the outside world since the community’s founding, as ambassadors to the “NuHumans” (as they call other mutants) They don’t become permanent members of the school or the New Mutants/X-Men, but they do have a temporary stay at the Xavier’s mansion and attend Bayville High for awhile as “transfer students” from the country of “Attilan” (the name of their commune) Xavier probably helps a lot with convincing the Bayville high officials that “Attilan” is TOTALLY a real country, guys, it’s a tiny city-state in the Himalayas! And the reason they’re white is because it was founded by, um, European missionaries!And now after that VERY LENGTHY SET-UP, here’s the Inhuman royals! As teens! Because that’s the fun of Evo!

Blackwell Bolton aka Black Bolt: As in the comics, he doesn’t speak due to the destructive nature of his vocal powers, which almost destroyed the Attilan commune when he was a child. Because of this, he feels great responsibility for the commune, and protecting it to make up for the damage he did as a baby, even though it wasn’t his fault. His first thought is therefore always looking after his fellow Inhumans, and his reason for coming to the outside world is mostly just to protect the other kids while they explore. His teachers are told that he is deaf-mute but that he has a hearing aid (he wears a fake one) so he can hear them, just not reply. The reason given to his teachers as to why he doesn’t speak sign language is that “oh he does but only Attilan sign language, and there are no interpreters for that in America!”He’s seen as the “strong silent type” by the girls at Bayville High, and it makes them VERY interested in him. The guys claim it just makes him “weird” however, mostly out of jealousy. I imagine there’s a scene where the Bayville guys invite him to play sports or have some other athletic competition, and they expect they’ll humiliate him because there’s no way the weird foreign disabled kid will be able to be good at anything...and he ends up EFFORTLESSLY WHIPPING ASS!He and Medusa might already be dating, I did call him her boyfriend earlier, but I think maybe Romantic Tension might fit Evo better. The show was ALL ABOUT THAT ROMANTIC TENSION. BB/Medusa/Max might be the new Jean/Scott/Rogue?Maxwell Bolton aka Maximus: BB’s younger brother, of course! I’m not sure if I’d make him a villain yet or not? And whether he is or not would influence if he keeps his powers a secret or not. If he’s not going to be a bad guy, then he doesn’t keep them a secret. If he is going to be a bad guy, he keeps it secret so that he can more easily use them without the other Inhumans and X-Men realizing what he’s up to. And if he’s a bad guy....what’s his motive? Do these Inhumans still have royalty? Is BB still in line to be king? Or is it something else? Also, he probably still disdains regular humans (and possibly also “NuHumans”) like in 616, so if he’s got some villainous plan that could give him motive to come along with the others to the human world. But it could also be he just wanted to hang out with Medusa, who of course he has to have an unrequited creepy crush on.Max is obviously a science/engineering whiz, basically the new Forge, and ends up being INCREDIBLY useful on the X-team for this. I think that there should probably be a scene where he and his tech single-handedly trounce the Brotherhood, all with a smirk on his face. So at first they love having him around, but his personality quickly grates on everyone, even MORE than the other Inhumans (who, it turns out, are all kind of snotty besides Crystal)I think I wouldn’t write him as obviously “mad” at the start, just very energetic and enthusiastic about his work, so hyper and weird but nothing to suggest he’s truly unstable. But there increasingly starts to be moments where he just goes “too far” against enemies or even just people who bother him, to the point it starts to be worrisome, with eventually the others having to actually FIGHT him to put a stop to it. I think that, as with the “Royals” series, there would definitely be acknowledgement and exploration with how ableist Attilan society is, that they had no sign language for Black Bolt, no way of recognizing or treating whatever it is Max specifically suffers from, with the explanation being that in this universe, they never moved on with the rest of outside society on these matters, that they still look at these ailments the way their ancestors did long ago. I think there would have to be careful balance to show that he’s not evil BECAUSE of his illness though, more than he actually ends up failing in said evil because said illness trips him up. Something like that. Also the idea wouldn’t be that he was hiding his mental illness, but that it’s developing/getting worse now that he’s hit puberty. And there should be a really emotional scene where it’s been figured out what’s going on and he begs Xavier to fix him and Xavier explains he can’t rewire Max’s brain on that level ;A;Madeleine McQuillan aka Medusa: As mentioned, she’s either Black Bolt’s girlfriend already, or there’s at least Ship Tease between them. She keeps her hair tightly bound so that she can’t subconsciously use it in public. She’s very sensible, responsible, etc., and is basically the “Jean Grey” of the group, except she’s much more no-nonsense, she can be kind of cold and harsh but only when it’s actually called for. She’s basically the serious sister to contrast Crystal’s free spirit, and she takes the leadership role in the group alongside Blackwell, being the one who reprimands the others when they get out of hand or doing something dumb that might get them hurt, reveal their powers to normal humans, etc. But she also defends them against the X-Men when the X-Men try to reprimand them for the same things; she’s very much got a “these are my idiots and only *I* can call them idiots!” attitude, and she cares about them and feels responsible for them, something Blackwell can relate to. I think her arc should be less about romance, and more about her and Crystal’s relationship, their differences and conflicts, and each coming to understand and appreciate why her sister is the way she is. Crystal McQuillan: Might give her an elemental-themed codename if I can think of one! Anyway, she’s the open-minded free spirit of the group, curious about the human world and eager to explore it. She’s very fun-loving and doesn’t hesitate to follow her heart, but the downside means she’s impulsive, childish, and doesn’t think about others before she acts. Due to her enthusiasm for the human world, she’s been consuming human media since childhood (probably something she and Max did together as kids actually), and thus seems the most “normal” to the Bayville kids and X-Men alike, and fits in with them the best out of all her family. The boys especially like her, and I imagine she’s got ship-tease with Sam Guthrie and Duncan Matthews both. I think there might be an episode where she starts getting involved with Duncan and Jean tries to warn her what a jerk Duncan is, but she ignores her and then ends up in some real trouble because of it. There should probably also be some obligatory moment where Pietro winks at her during a battle with the Brotherhood and she calls him cute or something, but nothing beyond that.Gordon Peters aka Gorgon: First thing, someone will ask him why that’s his codename since weren’t the Gorgons what the mythological Medusa was, and he’ll explain that there’s another creature in lore called a Gorgon that is a bull-like creature. Because there is, and his codename baffled me until I found this out.Anyway, Gordon ends up fitting in at the school IMMEDIATELY. He’s a jock, he loves to party, he fits right in with the “popular crowd” even while all the other Inhumans (except Crystal) struggle to various degrees to integrate. Same powers, he wears specialized boots/shoes to disguise his hooves and block the effects of his stomps if need be. I don’t really have any ideas for him besides that he probably gets a human girlfriend or at least is implied to be as popular with the ladies as Blackwell (and unlike Blackwell, he reciprocates the attention!)Carson and Tristan, aka Karnak and Triton: Haven’t picked a surname for them! I also haven’t decided if Karnak’s powers come from training like in the comics, or if they’re actually POWERS like in the ABC series. I’m thinking the latter. Either way, he’s even colder and harsher than Medusa, and way more abrasive about it, so he rubs people the wrong way easily as much as Max does. Thus it annoys the X-team EVEN MORE how useful he is. There’s probably a scene where he goes toe-to-toe with Logan during a fight in training after Logan has wiped the floor with everyone else, but instead of this making Logan or the kids LIKE him, it actually just makes them more irritated with him. The fact he doesn’t care at all makes them like him even less. He’s kind of like Jean in that people resent him for his talents, but unlike Jean this doesn’t cause him any conflict. The only thing that bothers him is when everyone else is BEING AN IDIOT.Triton had to live in the Attilan lake ever since his powers surfaced. He didn’t think he’d be able to go on the trip into the outside world, but once Maximus had access to the level of tech available at Xavier’s, he was able to build him a breathing apparatus. It fits around his neck, and he hides it with scarves and turtleneck sweaters. He uses an image inducer like Kurt, of course.Due to the fact he hasn’t been able to socialize much since he was a kid, a lot of his social skills are very awkward, and he comes off as shy and weird even when he’s TRYING to fit in very hard with the other kids, he’s just so happy to be here but they all think he’s a weirdo. It’s also hard for him to prove his worth in combat to the X-Men since like...he doesn’t really have any powers? He’s just really good at living in an aquatic environment. In the comics he has a lot of training, but in Evo I think he’d lack that, and thus be pretty useless in a fight unless it was underwater. Kurt would see him as a kindred spirit, and go out of his way to be his best buddy, take him to social events, etc.Lockjaw - Of course Lockjaw has to be included! Since there’s no Terrigen Mists though, I think he’d just be a normal dog! Still probably an unusually large bulldog, like the size of a pit bull or Saint Bernard, maybe he’s a mastiff, but he’s not cow/hippo-sized like the comics and show. He also cannot teleport, but maybe he has some kind of teleporting device put on to him by the Attilan parents as an emergency portal back home should the kids ever need it. 

#evo versions #inhumans #inhuman royal family #Anonymous

[scarlettlawyer]

Next attempt: Shelly de Killer and Pearl Fey!

Shelly de Killer:

- I hate them / I don’t like them / I’m neutral / I’m ok with them / I like them / I love them / I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

- favorite thing about them: THE PERFECT COMBINATION OF ELEGANCE AND MURDER. HE’S JUST SO GREAT!!! I love the aura of absolute calm and aesthetic interlaced with imminent threat. Well, not absolute calm. He can certainly lose his patience. But he's not really one to raise his voice. It’s a quiet and terrifying anger if invoked. The veneer of calm is part of the gentleman aesthetic; the hint of anger is the imminent threat. Outside of his being angry, however, it’s still the same: even if he’s not angry at you, his mere job makes him intimidating. That’s inescapable. But his polite demeanour is still there. The combination of those things is fantastic. He will kill you if he must but damn if he isn’t going to do it in style.

- least favorite thing about them: I actually did have a reply to this come to mind, possibly connected to AAI2, and yet it slipped away shortly thereafter and now I cannot recall it, and after losing the actual reply I had I’ve honestly sat here struggling to come up with something. Like there were moments when I enjoyed his character a bit less, but... Hard to just list off a least favourite thing from that.

- ship(s): ...Oldbag. You have done this; you have planted this idea in the mind of my friend and I. Like okay I don’t actually ship it in canon OR in your fic, but the thought of it is so out there, and therefore amusing. And then my friend came up with this amazing JFA au running with the idea so, I do “ship” it specifically in the context of her au ahahaha. I love my friend’s idea of... him liking her and her not really being aware of it? Because it’s a reversal of what’s usually the case in canon. Let a guy be interested in her for once and have her be unaware of it. XD

Also just gonna tack this fic-related message(s) on randomly too but FOR CONTEXT TO BE FAIR THIS WAS before I read the ending which actually does address the death of Wendy’s husband and before the actual dynamic between Oldbag, Shelly and Benny had been elaborated on by the story:

(I ACTUALLY MEANT IN THE SENSE OF HAVING BEEN HIRED BY SOMEONE TO KILL MR OLDBAG BUT THEN MY FRIEND WAS LIKE “HOW DO I MAKE THIS ABOUT THE SHIP” LOL). Okay but maybe Mr Oldbag could have been an important figure in an au that someone would have reason to assassinate 🤔 :P

- BROTP(s): I guess Sirhan Dogen is the main candidate for this, although I haven’t thought about their interactions too much!

- NOTP(s): I don’t think I’ve really seen any Shelly shipping haha...

- Game/case where I like them more: Gonna go with standard JFA case for this one, but AAI2 case 1 is also just really awesome. Particularly the whole hostage thing to help Edgeworth’s investigation out.

- Random headcanon: Not headcanons about the character himself but rather in relation to him; I like to imagine how scandalised Phoenix would be if he heard that yes, Shelly de Killer, that guy Edgeworth and law enforcement at large are so intent on apprehending? The guy who kidnapped Maya? Edgeworth totally spoke kinda casually with the guy a bunch of times, and was even assisted by Shelly (you could even stretch this to perhaps argue that he COOPERATED with Shelly). Even saw Shelly face to face during AAI2 and had a chat with him. Well, yes, context, but... :P Especially without context, Phoenix would not be pleased. Not that Edgeworth would readily offer up this information to him. I think Edgeworth is in a slightly awkward position with regards to Shelly post-AAI2, at least slightly more than before, given how much help Shelly was and now having actually interacted with him in person.

Another thing I was thinking of recently is that... I think that there could be a very secretive and select group of individuals working for law enforcement SPECIFICALLY dedicated to trying to arrest Shelly and gathering as much info as possible. A highly skilled and dedicated team of say 5-10 people, and all of the information they deal with, and about them, is absolutely top secret. The group itself is secret, even, because this is dangerous work. They’re all about trying to track him down, analysing all the data they’ve gathered, you name it. Not that they have much success. But they would also over time probably veer more towards less conventional methods. Delving deeper into the criminal underworld for information, going undercover... Honestly? The closest they might come to actually getting a hold of the guy in person... is to go undercover as a client. Finding out how to hire him. It’s an awfully dangerous game they would be playing and their covers would have to be airtight.

- Unpopular opinion: I wasn’t sure how I felt about him sparing Simon. I really gotta replay AAI2, get my thoughts in order. This ties in with the “least favourite” question but I wasn’t too sure about the whole thing where Simon was considered to have broken the bond of trust for not saying it was a double and yeah I just gotta, replay the game haha. But... if a client normally recounts the ENTIRETY of the circumstances to him, expected not to leave anything out, as opposed to a simple “I want this person dead”, then I suppose that makes sense....Actually, wrong question for this but I’ll add it as a headcanon anyway: when Shelly meets with a client, part of establishing that bond of trust is kind of like the client “confiding” everything thoroughly to him, like telling a story of everything connected to, and culminating in the assassination request. He wants to know not only the who, but the why. What’s the client’s connection to and history with the target? Was there a time when they got along, were they always enemies? Is it just a political or corporate matter? It’s not about justification - Shelly doesn’t care how “justified” a client is and he certainly doesn’t judge. He just listens. None of the added information is necessary to complete the job, but divulging so much information is a demonstration of trust and helps make it clear this person is real with motivations and not an undercover person trying to arrest him or something like that. It’s also kind of an added bonus to get to hear some of the tales of intrigue that result from such meetings with clients. In the context of something like this, omitting the fact that the “president” was a double is a very serious offense.

I was gonna go on another tangent but this is already long enough lol.

----

Pearl Fey

- I hate them / I don’t like them / I’m neutral / I’m ok with them / I like them / I love them / I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

(I do love her! Just not with as much intensity as some of the other characters this series has).

- favorite thing about them: She is adorable incarnate, she is strong, and very cute

- least favorite thing about them: The fact that she was not allowed to grow as a character at all post-timeskip. I have so many complaints about older!Pearl. They took a ~17 year old character and forced her into the exact same role and characterisation as a ~nine year old! She is restricted and kept the same, and it feels deeply unnatural and kind of uncomfortable to me. The whole thing around her height too, like... why did they go out of their way to make her so short and tiny? To reinforce that we are still supposed to see her as a 9 year old? I love trilogy Pearl, I love her so much, but I find older Pearl so boring and so uninspired on top of that undercurrent of discomfort. They did nothing new with her, but in a uniquely and unnaturally limiting way in the sense that she is trapped as her trilogy self. After the timeskip the games appear to have a weird preoccupation with infantilising her because I guess they think connecting back to the trilogy (instead of doing something new) is the only way to keep us caring about her??

And like... Yes, Pearl embodies and encapsulates the cuteness and innocence of children. That’s a big part of her character and I love her for it, and I would therefore be reluctant to let that go. There’s nothing wrong with preserving stuff like that when she’s older. All I’m asking is for the games to actually put at least one new spin on her; SOMETHING that can distinguish her from her younger self so I’m not left feeling like she did not change at all in nearly ten years. A slightly different design, one (1) distinct new and different thing that sets her apart from (and potentially at odds with) her younger self, and I’d probably be happy. I don’t like what they did with her hair either. It sucks. Should’ve gone with the gorgeous inverted pretzel style.

Anyway I want to be given a reason to care about and be invested in older Pearl, an older Pearl trait that I can love older Pearl for...

- ship(s): Trupearl can be cute, but I don’t think about shipping much at all seeing as I vastly prefer her younger self, haha.

- BROTP(s): General “Pearl getting along with the gang” type dynamics haha.

- NOTP(s): Well, I do not like any implication that she has a crush on Marlon or vice versa. I really don’t like that.

- Game/case where I like them more: I’m not sure ahah. Good thing I’m trying to work through the games in Chinese on youtube so maybe I can brush up on my AA knowledge a bit.

- Random headcanon: Ok made this one up just now: When she’s slightly older she adopts the term “Narumayo” for her shipping of Phoenix and Maya. At least, the Japanese version of her where the characters have their Japanese names... lol. I guess her English-speaking self tried but failed to come up with a good name as the counterpart headcanon. Mayanix?

Actually, I guess another headcanon would be her being a hardcore shipper for any media she’s invested in. She moves away from shipping real people and onto characters, channelling all that energy elsewhere.

Or honestly, she could stick with real people and either become an Ace Matchmaker or overall consistently terrible matchmaker. Either’s good. If you combine the two, she could try to matchmake what seems to be an absolutely horrendous pair/combination of people, only for it to actually work.

- Unpopular opinion: Well, I think I already got quite opinionated above, and nothing really comes to mind to reply to this with. I might have been too harsh on older Pearl, but everything I wrote is what I genuinely felt and the impression that I was left with. That impression may be false, I’m not sure, but yeah.

[qqueenofhades]

Prompt idea if you want to write it? What if, Flynn’s daughter Iris comes from another timeline in the future to find the time team. She is in her early twenties, and has taken on time traveling like her father to take down Rittenhouse. However in her timeline, instead of dying that night with her mother–both her parents died protecting her.

It’s very late, and the team has just gotten back from Philadelphia, 1787 (Rufus still humming “My Shot” under his breath) a few hours ago, when the klaxons go off. Lucy groans and rolls away from Flynn; they have moved to a new safe house, and she could go back to her rooming arrangement with Jiya, but it’s just seemed more appealing to stay here. He swears, fumbling for the clock. “Did they really jump again now?”

“That’s not the Mothership alarm.” Lucy sits up, frowning. “That sounds like the invasion alarm.”

They glance at each other once more, then jump straight out of bed, as Flynn grabs for his gun and clicks in a fresh magazine, and Lucy looks around for something she can use to hit someone over the head with. If it’s not yet another visit from their future selves, it’s not anybody they expected or will welcome, and they meet up with Wyatt, Rufus, Jiya, and Connor in the hall outside. Denise isn’t here for the night, since she’s trying to erase their tracks from the grid, so they’re one gun down. Wyatt and Flynn push the other four behind them, advancing carefully down the hall to the Lifeboat bay, and then stop short, guns poised, just in time to see – what is this, Grand Central Station? – the distinctive bend and twist in the air that means an arriving time machine. What the hell? Did their future selves forget to pick up the milk? Or is this a Rittenhouse trick to –

Wyatt and Flynn stand tensely shoulder to shoulder, raising their guns, as the new machine lands. It isn’t the Lifeboat, and it doesn’t look like one of theirs. The door hisses, then cycles open, and they see someone moving inside. A young woman’s voice says, “Don’t shoot.”

There is a pause as Wyatt and Flynn clearly decide whether or not to listen, but there’s something to be said not to start spraying bullets before they know what the sam hill is going on. They wait as the young woman steps out, one long leg and then the other. As she straightens up, it’s clear that she stands close to six feet even without her combat boots, and she has guns strapped to both thighs, a leather belt slung with several more dangerous-looking items, and a long braid; her hair is dark except for brief, lighter streaks of honey. Faint freckles spatter her nose and cheeks, and her eyes are cool and piercing. She does not appear to be here to fuck around in the least degree, but as her gaze falls on Flynn, she blanches. “What are – ” She stops, trying to control herself. She’s maybe twenty-two, twenty-three, but at that, she looks much younger. “Wh – what are you doing here?”

Flynn goggles at her, clearly inclined to ask the same question, thanks. Lucy stares between him and the young woman, as if this might be another mysterious time-traveling future acquaintance he’s neglected to mention. A brief, totally unnecessary prickle of jealousy stirs in her stomach, but she pushes it away. The young woman is still staring at Flynn in disbelief, raises both hands to her eyes and rubs them. Her voice trembles as she says, “Aren’t you dead?”

“Aren’t I – ?” Flynn stares at her, completely uncomprehending, as she continues to stare at him. “I’m sorry, do I…?”

“It’s me, Daddy.” The young woman bites her lip hard. “Iris.”

All the air visibly goes out of Flynn’s lungs, as if his chest has been crushed. He takes a staggering sideways step, has to put his hand on the desk for support. “No,” he says in a croak. “No, you’re dead.”

“Sorry to break in here,” Rufus interrupts. “But should we maybe sort out who thinks who is dead, and why? You, hi. What’s your name, exactly?”

“It’s Flynn.” The young woman lifts her chin and stares at him in a way that makes Rufus take an inadvertent step backward. “Iris Flynn.”

“Wait,” Rufus says. “I’m with him. You are dead.”

“No, I’m not.” Iris moves closer, glancing at Flynn. “That night in 2014, when Rittenhouse attacked us. You and Mama – both of you were shot protecting me. How can you be here? Unless… I knew I was traveling back to something, some time that could be different, but I didn’t think you could possibly be alive.”

To judge from the look on Flynn’s face, and as anyone could have guessed, the feeling is thumpingly mutual. He continues to stare at her, even as his shock and disbelief is colored by something darker. After all, the last time a lost loved one conveniently turned up from the blue, it wound up being a Rittenhouse trick, a plant, a different version of themselves that was unlike the one they had known. He clearly does not believe that Rittenhouse is not once more responsible for this, is trying a tactic that worked with considerable success last time. How that would involve finding a woman able to convincingly pose as his daughter, or even salvage her existence in another reality, who knows, but Flynn does not move to embrace her, or even say anything. His mouth opens and shuts feebly, as Lucy moves forward to silently stand at his side. Iris’ eyes flicker to them. If it is her, surely she has some curiosity about finding her father not only alive, but with a new woman. Lucy clears her throat. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to fight Rittenhouse,” Iris says fiercely. “Why else?”

“We have… kind of a bad experience with this recently.” Rufus seems to be doing his best to hold this together, to serve as the spokesperson while everyone else can’t. “How do we know we can trust you, exactly?”

“Fair.” Iris smiles mirthlessly. “I suppose strictly speaking, you have no reason to. I have some intelligence, I’ll get it. Hold on.”

With that, she disappears back into her machine, as a communal stunned silence hangs over the room and nobody says anything, glancing sidelong at Flynn, until Iris reappears. She walks down as coolly as possible and hands Rufus several thumb drives, though of a fancier and sleeker make than anything they have going. It certainly does seem possible that she could be from the future, at least from that, and she says, “I’ll show you how to use them, if you want. The agent I caught didn’t want to talk, but I got him to eventually.”

“Oh?” Rufus manages. “How?”

Iris cracks her knuckles. “Guess he felt like being cooperative.”

There’s another glance exchanged at that, as if to say that indeed, yes, this slightly scary-looking young woman, a half-healed cut slashing her cheek, could definitely be a Flynn. Her hair is falling loose in dark tendrils around her face, and to judge from the indrawn gasp from Garcia’s direction, he has in fact recognized something about her like a photographic negative, a hint of something long-buried but too essential to be forgotten. He wets his lips, glances at her, and then away. It’s certainly also like a Flynn to come marching in with little or no regard for everyone’s feelings on the matter, and while Iris keeps looking at him, as obviously anyone would if suddenly confronted with the father they watched murdered when they were five, she hasn’t rushed to him. They are as wary as an older lion watching the young lioness who might think of challenging him, and there’s a tension in the air both disbelief and distrust. It could be that Iris also thinks he’s a Rittenhouse trick. Stubbornness is, to say the least, a noted family trait. You could wait a while for either of them to break first.

“Are you staying?” Wyatt asks, the first thing he’s said since all of this has started. Obviously, he does not have much leeway to complain about anyone else bringing their loved ones to the bunker, though technically, this one brought herself. “I mean, you must have turned up here for some reason, but – “

Iris glances at him with the slightly nose-wrinkled, oh look you’re talking again expression that could have come directly from her father. She looks at Lucy as she says, “There are plenty of things you don’t know about what they’re doing. I’ll tell you, but – ”

Connor and Jiya exchange a look, as if wondering if this place can accommodate a second Flynn, when a first is already sometimes a bit much to swallow. They can’t exactly throw her gift back in her teeth, though, and Jiya clears her throat. “Should I maybe… go make some coffee? We’re all awake now, I mean. Might as well?”

“Sure,” Iris says. “Coffee would be nice.”

(She glances back at Flynn and Lucy for a long moment, at Lucy’s hand on Flynn’s arm. Her expression is outwardly calm, but there’s a certain confusion and betrayal and anger that burns soul-deep, and suddenly, Lucy isn’t altogether sure if she wants her to stay either.)

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #iris flynn #muspellsynir-noredrake #ask

[zukadiary]

Arch of Triumph / Gato Bonito!! ~ Snow Troupe 2018

I feel a bit weird writing this up after only day 2 of the run, because I’m sure the troupe is still very much warming up... but this is when I happened to be here. Yukigumi fan life has not been ideal for me since Chigi’s retirement and this was BALM FOR THE WOUNDS in unexpected ways. Beware of spoilers.

Arch of Triumph

I happen to really like the original version of this show (from back when Tom was Yukigumi’s actual top star), but despite that the primary emotion I felt re: this show choice, as a Daimon fan who has to travel 7000 miles to see her, was saltiness at the stolen lead. I anticipated suffering through this and prayed that Fujii-sensei would carry the experience for me entirely, so I was truly taken aback by how much I loved Gaisenmon. 

There is a pretty long summary on the Takawiki page, and the original is also available from TIP with subtitles.

Just objectively as a show, it’s so beautiful, and it’s beautiful in ways that I didn’t know about at all because you can’t see them on the recording. It’s a dark story and the set is kept fairly dark as well, so all the meticulously colored lights and gobos and gorgeous rain effects dissolve into unintelligible black fuzz on an 18-year-old Sky Stage video. From the second floor you can also appreciate the incredible fluidity of the set rotations and scene changes along with the amazing choreography, of which there is A LOT. It’s a really impressive feat of direction; I am (despite my Takarazuka-related fervor) not a well-versed technical theater person at all and the artistry of it still struck me as something really special. The music is also gorgeous; it’s a very moving show, but I don’t like the main characters as people enough to cry from the culmination of the story... however, the reprise of main song, delivered in beautiful powerful troupe harmony as the curtain fell, murdered me, and I burst into tears on shonichi.

My main worry, especially considering that we have a guest lead and I adore Yukigumi as a whole with all my heart, was that it’s a very top-heavy show. Yesterday I was SO pleasantly surprised at how well-balanced it felt compared to my expectations; today, unfortunately, I felt the same from my vantage point but also realized it will probably feel just as top-heavy as the original on DVD. A sizable portion of the other main players’ stage time comes from beautiful but wordless dance scenes. But despite the light usage of most of the troupe I actually felt better than I did watching Robespierre. Everyone may be on stage less, but I felt like their characters were more lovingly crafted and very distinct from each other even with the simplest backstories. 

My two biggest gripes about Tom swooping in are 1) they often like to pretend she is still 25 which she is distinctly not and 2) in what I’ve seen recently I felt like she and the troupe she’s borrowed were acting separately from each other. I think a big reason why Gaisenmon worked for me is neither of those things applied. While there were a few insertions to balance the stage time a little better, the show is largely the same as the original, yet there is nothing in it that suggests Ravic—a surgeon who escaped Germany as the Nazis came into power—is any specific age, and he works at any age... specifically, even a large age difference between Ravic and Joan is totally reasonable and believable. Against the chaotic backdrop of refugee-laden pre-war Paris, an older doctor and a younger aspiring actress could absolutely meet and fall in love. Tom also meshed with the troupe a lot better than I expected. There’s no way to sugarcoat how shot her singing voice is, but damn the woman can act, and her otokoyaku mannerisms (stage kisses in particular) definitely show her long years of practice. 

Kiichan slayed, I thought she was even better than Tsukikage Hitomi. Joan is a REALLY HARD role; she’s practical out of necessity but a bit frivolous at heart, and she’s in love but also struggles to differentiate between actual love and the fear of being alone in an increasingly dangerous world. It doesn’t sound like it in writing but in execution it’s really easy for her to come off as weak, clingy, and annoying, when she’s actually a very nuanced character. Kiichan hit all the right notes, she didn’t appear intimidated at all by Tom, and even their romance seemed totally natural for the aforementioned reasons. Her sudden lovesickness could have been so one-note but I felt the tinge of anxiety behind it throughout the whole show, and I was so impressed by that. There is a scene of misunderstanding between Joan and Ravic at a cafe that in a way triggers the unfortunate events that occur thereafter, and it’s gut-wrenching, especially on a second viewing when you can watch it unfold with the knowledge of what’s coming. Her death scene is also extremely intense.

Salty as I am, I LOVE the role of Boris for Daimon. I’ve been feeling like I’ll explode if I have to see her do another sad French play, but after watching this somehow it wound up exempt. The story is heavy and all of the characters are struggling, but amidst the turmoil Boris is a calming presence, refreshingly level-headed and quite positive in a lot of ways (EDIT: in chatting in the comments the words I wanted but couldn’t find at 3am came out: he’s definitely got a cynical edge to him as well, but it was kind of like his cynical view of the world freed him up emotionally to be quietly supportive of the other characters’ problems... I think that’s what I mean by positive). And I can’t even express HOW LOVELY it was to see Daimon play THAT CHARACTER for a change, how fulfilling not to just watch her suffer for an hour and a half. Boris is in the story himself but also the narrator. In the story bits, he’s cool and reliable and there’s a really heartwarming sense of purity in the way he freely shows his emotions. Daimon seems to enjoy over the top acting just fine, but it’s her roles that rely on subtle facial expressions and body language that absolutely kill me—this was the latter. In the narration bits, she weaves an intricate tapestry with her voice. As I said every detail of the direction is intentional and beautiful, but so much of the mood also comes from the emotion in Daimon’s singing, not only in the actual songs (one of which she sang in probably incorrectly but nonetheless tantalizingly pronounced French, ugh ♥), but also particularly when she hums background tunes as other bits of action are taking place. She barely moves and her voice is so soft and yet STILL it reverberates throughout the entire theater somehow, like it flutters into every corner. And she was so beautiful, she worked the hell out of some costumes that definitely wouldn’t be flattering on everyone. I’m TEARING UP right now, my heart is so full. 

Here’s where things get bit eh for some people and downright unfortunate for others. Saki and Shou barely had anything to do, although I understand why they were relegated to those roles versus the Aasa, Hitoko, Kari group which although comprised of very distinct characters still felt like a single unit in a way. After a bit of prologue choreography Saki doesn’t show up until past the halfway point. She’s Henri, the handsome but creepy and possessive movie producer who lands Joan some acting jobs and then also shoots her in a fit of jealousy. She really only has two notable short scenes toward the end, when Henri first tries to coerce Joan into staying with him and then comes to Ravic pleading for her life after shooting her. Shou is a sexy doctor who talks on the phone sometimes. 

The Aasa/Hitoko/Kari group, however—and, tangentially, Asu, Manaharu, Michiru, Kiwa, and Agata Sen—shone more than I expected remembering the original group (our legendary Yukigumi 3兄弟 Touko/Komu/Naruse Kouki). While they also only had a few scenes to themselves, those scenes were some of my favorites, and they’re the ones who got to decorate the outskirts of the other scenes’ action with beautiful dancing. Aasa is the only one whose role I’d call a step back from Robespierre, but only because she was my Robespierre MVP, and she was still wonderful as the more subdued Jaime. I felt distinct forward momentum from everyone else. Hitoko was absolutely adorable and injected way more into Rosenfeld than Komu did (which I can say even with the ultimate bias on my side), and Kari was truly outstanding, I could melt just looking at her and I’m so glad she landed a role with that kind of prominence. The whole Hotel International group just had so much humanity. 

Final shout outs go to Niwa who I love unconditionally in every role she plays but particularly here for a) A+ slimy awful Gestapo officer and b) the novelty of Kouju Tatsuki squeeing OMG YOU WERE KEN-2 IN THE ORIGINAL AND NOW YOU’RE SCHNEIDER?! in the talk show; and Miho Keiko who I was SURE they stuffed into Gaisenmon because Fujii-sensei demanded her presence in his show as usual, leaving me quite dumbfounded when she wasn’t in Gato Bonito at all. It wasn’t a role that one of our many boss beautiful perfect upperclassmen musumeyaku couldn’t have done, but nonetheless her presence leant some more gravitas to the show in addition to balancing out Tom a bit.

Gato Bonito!! had the opposite effect on me initially. I expected to dislike Gaisenmon and it wowed me, and then it wowed me twice over because that feeling of your expectations being so far exceeded is wonderful. Meanwhile I’ve been laying in bed at night screaming DAISUKEEEEEEEE into the darkness for months, praying he’d deliver me a perfect trilogy of HOT EYES!!, Santé!!, and now THIS!! (boy he loves double exclamation points doesn’t he). 

Well, it sure wasn’t HOT EYES. But in retrospect, that’s a damn high bar. After watching Gato Bonito today with my expectations in a reasonable place, I liked it more... especially when I think about how SUPER VOYAGER was everything I never want to see in a revue ever again tied up in one neat package, and this, in contrast, was a lot of things I want to see very much.

From the start I liked or loved all of the scenes individually, but something about the show as a whole didn’t come together for me, and after two viewings I think I have some idea of why. The sets and backdrops were off for me, in a way that I did not think could have such a large effect on the show’s overall vibe. Most revues will have a big eye-popping scene, then they’ll close the curtain and have people dance in front of it for a short transition, then open it again to another eye-popping scene. There’s a nice rise-climax-break-repeat flow. But there were so many scenes in Gato Bonito where they’d drop a curtain down, have a dance in front of it, then drop A DIFFERENT THING down and have a dance in front of that, and I just felt like I was being constantly led toward a climax that never came. When they did open up the whole stage I found the sets really spread out and airy, such that it felt as if no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t fill the stage with enough people. They were also FLAT, like literally flat on the floor, not enough gradated pieces with people standing atop them to fill the back as well as the ground. I might feel differently when I watch it from the first floor, but for now I think some pretty small adjustments could have given it overall more impact.

Also, WAAAAAYYYY too many LITERAL CATS for my taste.

THAT SAID, boy this was SO MUCH of what I love to see out of Daimon. It was hot and extra and the music was amazing and she got to stand there making these burning faces and do TRULY UNFATHOMABLY STUPID THINGS WITH HER VOICE and flamenco and tango and all that jazz. Everyone was melting pile of orange goo no thanks to the weather and the insufficient air conditioning, but other than that there were even enough good costumes to balance out those ruffle abominations (you know the ones) that of course showed up a bit. Saki was ON FIRE, I know I said I was tired of riding the Saki coaster but oops here we go up another hill. They made up for shafting her in Gaisenmon with a loooooot of juicy revue time. She’s gotten so good at emoting through her dance, she was just dynamic and sexy and 150% energy from start to finish. Kiichan has a little ways to go to catch up with everyone in her Latin dancing but there was already a really noticeable improvement between shonichi and today. 

Highlights:

Argentine tango to Yo Soy Maria ft. Daimon singing in Spanish, guessing by the lack of bedazzling on the suits that that was the ANJU-sensei scene. When the curtain opened on all the otokoyaku just mingling in the dark smoky background it PHYSICALLY HURT (it also began with all our boss beautiful perfect upperclassmen musumeyaku in slinky dresses)

There’s a scene with Saki, Shou, Aasa, and Hitoko taking turns grinding on Daimon in the world’s tackiest bodysuits, but there was something so inexplicably hot about the drag + otokoyaku hair despite the melting orange goo and poor Saki and Aasa absolutely drowning in their own sweat

The chuuzume starts with a conga line across the ginkyou, and EVERY PERSON IN THE TROUPE comes out in single file in rank order, it was A LOT for my Yukigumi-loving heart

Kiichan gets to do stuff, Daisuke is aware we have a top musumeyaku which is apparently a challenge for some people

Daimon enters from the back of the first floor singing Kuroneko no Tango at one point and when she reaches the stage there’s a daily “ad lib” (in quotes because I’m sure she’s already written them all down and rehearsed them ad nauseam), but her ad libs are so dumb I love her

ASU GOT A WHOLE SONG

I forgot to pay close enough attention through the applause today to grab the exact words, but I’m like 90% sure the final lyrics as Daimon is descending the stairs in the parade are something she also referenced in her +act interview right when she became top (I don’t have the magazine on me but I translated it as “we can live through today for the sake of tomorrow and for the sake of living tomorrow we can stand firmly right here today”). She was talking about the “soul of flamenco” and that being something that turned her whole outlook around during Don Juan, so I thought it was REALLY SWEET they threw that in as a nod to her continuing to grow. Haha nope, after 4 viewings I'm sure I was wrong, but I like my idea better Hankyu pls hire me

Did I mention her dumb stupid voice? I know Robespierre was literally written for her by a Broadway composer but for me there was no comparison; in both acts it danced and changed and filled the theater in ways that don’t seem like they should be physically possible. Like this is the ????th time I’ve seen Daimon live and I was still just absolutely slain by all the heretofore unheard things her voice can apparently do. 

I’m whole and healed and so surprised and delighted I didn’t have to wait till 2019 for that to happen. 

#takarazuka #reviews #arch of triumph #might as well just tell people I live here

[lightsandlostbells]

Druck episode 1 reaction

I’m really enjoying Druck so far! My ideal remake would be to start with a new script and story, for sure, but this one seems very in line with Skam’s principles and style. I found myself looking forward to upcoming clips.

Clip 1 - Jonas gets on a soapbox

I really love that they revamped Jonas’ opening monologue to something that is apparently relevant to German teenagers and potentially lays out some of the themes covered in the show, and that it kept the rough, raw look of the visuals.

THEY LOOK. AGE APPROPRIATE. Thank Godddd

One of the things with Skam France and Skam Italia is that a lot of people reacted by saying, “wow, they’re all so beautiful” and internally I was like nnnnnnnoooOOOOO that’s not the point but I didn’t want to be a dick about that. 

Lol at the same song playing when Leonie walks across the yard being the same song in the Skam Italia trailer. According to Wikipedia, “Bad Girls” has also been used in Skins, Gossip Girl, and 90210. It is to teen drama shows what “Hallelujah” is to sad crying scenes.

Well I immediately bought this Isak (Matteo?) having a crush on Jonas, just saying.

As far as cutting to Matteo similar to how Skam France showed Lucas … I preferred this because it’s not giving away Matteo’s feelings. Lucas definitely had a vibe that ~Something More was up that the audience should suspect. This wouldn’t have pinged me, as a new viewer, that Matteo has a secret that Hanna doesn’t know. Like I could have bought he was just bored of watching his friends make out.

Clip 2 - Hanna and Jonas in the bedroom

So Hanna and Jonas have great chemistry so far! They definitely have that easy, established couple feeling and seem comfy with the physical affection.

Youth by Daughter is such a Skam song that I’m sort of shocked it hasn’t been used already.

I was hoping for another glimpse of Matteo but I will accept his love of memes.

Is the Hero Party Druck’s version of Russ? Sounds like. Is it a party where people dress up as superheroes?

Clip 3 - Amira’s introduction

Um, YES. Good job, Druck.

This scene was a brand new spin on an existing clip! This is really what I want to see - taking the old material and making it fresh and distinguishable.

So the theater kids were changed into a refugee welcome group, and of course they assumed Amira was a refugee. I liked that they established this specific commentary.

The girl from the club gives Amira a little smile after she explains the purpose of the group as if to be like “we help people like YOU” and Amira’s just like yep … not this shit again.

Amira! Loved her immediately. She and Hanna probably just did their homework in companionable silence after this encounter, but it’s already pretty cool that the Sana character is the first one of the girl squad established (other than Eva/Hanna).

There’s a sign for a party in the background, is that the Hero Party?

Also, I like Hanna making a self-deprecating joke about herself being the one who needs tutoring. 

But honestly, how lovely that Amira got to share this moment with Hanna and even make a joke about white Germans. Because you know plenty of white people Would Not Get It.

Aside from his cultural obtuseness, I’m kind of fond of that dude and his giant hair.

Clip 4 - Matteo gets a ticket to the love nest

Well this remake just came out and said what I thought was always implied, that the reason Jonas doesn’t want Matteo to be alone is because of his family. I don’t mind this dialogue being forward since “weird family” could pertain to a lot of things, not necessarily serious (I don’t know what the exact words imply in German). Like, his family could be really into hunting for cryptids. It’s vague enough not to take it too seriously.

Listen, while I love Hanna and Jonas so far and think they have terrific chemistry, I could totally ship Jonas and Matteo. Jonas just seems really fucking excited about Matteo coming with them.

Where the fuck did Matteo come from???? It was like he teleported. We saw right over Hanna’s shoulder before he appeared and no one was there.

Though I see he took a pic of them while they were chatting that he posted to IG, lmao.

I kinda like this casual loungey, come up and sling an arm over your shoulder Matteo. He definitely seems the most chill of the Isaks so far.

ALSO they did the whole thing of Matteo watching them leave, HOWEVER this is why it works for me here more than in Skam France: they don’t show his face. They don’t make it seem like he has a secret. I definitely think you can infer that, but I also think you can infer something more simple, such as how it’s symbolic of how he’s the third wheel in this relationship. I think OG Skam did that best by having Isak trail after them, but this wasn’t too OTT. 

So it looks like we’ll be getting the full cabin episode, not just a weekend?

Clip 5 - Party

The title card being for Monday is a pretty big mistake, though I saw that the official account responded to it and apologized.

Hanna singing as she’s getting dressed is a really nice touch. We all have our getting-ready-to-go-out anthems.

Mia is already feels more like Manon than Noora, in that she’s a got more of a softer, sweeter initial vibe. I did like that they showed her watching Hanna get dragged by Leonie and deciding to cheer her up. And that they had her clarify that she had to leave (for some unspecified reason) because it was always kinda funny that Noora made a dramatic first impression and then disappeared into the night, leaving Eva wondering “who is that mysterious yet sexy stranger...”

Vilde (Kiki?) giving an actual description of Sam makes sense, like damn, there could be a dozen Sams in that club. And having the mix-up still happen is a bonus.

But most importantly, obviously, is that Kiki thinks girl Sam is extremely hot. Look, one of these remakes has to deliver on gay Vilde. Don’t keep dangling the carrot and then taking it away. plz.

I LOVE Amira and this seems like a major change in characterization from Sana? Not that Sana was allergic to fun, but I have a hard time seeing her show up at parties without her squad. Amira is actually present at parties and dancing - alone, it looks like - which is something I wondered about Imane in Skam France. What made Imane want to get in on Daphne’s party? If they go with another “the girls are planning to throw a party” plotline as a way to do russ, then it’s a decent setup for Amira to actually be seen partying. But I really hope that they take this shift in characterization to greater depths and don’t just kind of adapt Sana’s dialogue and personality around Amira. I really want to see a distinct character develop, and this is a good start.

I instantly want to see more of girl Sam and I kinda love that she’s the character with the distinctive lipstick on this show.

Kiki being like “you both have the same name, you’re both black, we get it, super funny” and asking them to leave - damn, congrats on making the worst first impression of the Vildes? Even if I get that she’s upset at the moment.

Penetrator (?) Sam seems a bit dorkier and less like a douchebro. But maybe I just feel that way because he’s posing with his cat on Instagram.

Liked that they put in Hanna sitting in front of the mirror taking off the makeup, her hair messier, as a contrast to the fun sexy getting ready scene. Just some quiet reflection of the bummer kind. That’s always how it feels after a party that turned out to not be so fun. At attempt was made to be social … and the attempt had limited success.

Changing Hanna’s parent from a mom to a dad (assuming there’s only one parent around) is a small yet potentially interesting change. Especially because conventionally, relationships between daughters and mothers are considered to be tighter than relationships between daughters and fathers, though this is by no means universal. I’m quite excited to meet Hanna’s dad and see how the parent-child dynamic plays this time around.

General comments:

From what I can tell, some of the Druck actors are in their teens and some are in the 20-22 age range. Because overall these do seem to be younger, inexperienced actors, I’m more inclined to be lenient on their performances than the other remakes. I think this is fair - Skam France and Skam Italia cast older actors to play teenagers, and in the case of Skam France many of them had already been in movies and TV shows (not sure if it’s the same for Skam Italia), so I do have higher standards for their acting. If they are going to sacrifice authenticity, then it better be for the sake of talent, otherwise what’s the point?

I mentioned this in a Skam France post too but I find it distracting that the clips end with a title card, even though they might not be able to do anything about it. It’s just a little reminder that you are watching a TV show and it takes away from the immersive experience.

One thing I noticed on Instagram is that a lot of the characters seem to have pictures of them when they were babies/little kids. That’s pretty typical for people to post on social media, it was just common enough that it caught my eye. (Hanna/boy Sam/girl Sam/Kiki, if you want to look. Cuuute).

I saw some people thought Matteo was too obvious in his feelings for Jonas, but while I thought the chemistry was there, I personally didn’t feel that it was too distracting.

On that note, I’ve been thinking about whether it’s OK to show characters other than Hanna’s (Eva’s/Emma’s) POV and I think what generally works for me is:

a) does this shot reveal something that our main girl couldn’t pick up on from the rest of the context of the scene 

b) does this shot reveal something that the audience shouldn’t yet know 

c) is this shot taking over our main girl’s big emotional moment. 

If so, not a good idea. Basically I think what works for me is brevity and ambiguity.

The reception to Druck seems to be very positive so far, going off the tag’s content. I think the enthusiasm is support for the idea that many Skam fans aren’t 100% opposed to the remakes as long as they feel like the show captures the spirit of the original series.

However, it would have been interesting to see what the reception would have been if Druck premiered first - is it that Skam France was more polished than some people preferred, and Skam Italia had some aspects from the casting and the trailer that turned people off, that Druck seemed like a strong alternative? Or if Druck premiered first, would we be more cynical about it? (I think this could have been true to a degree, but there are also some changes, like Amira’s introduction, that might have intrigued the fandom.)

I am feeling good about this show but I’m also trying to keep my expectations in check, lmao. If I expect it to completely revamp the Skam S1 storyline I’ll probably be disappointed; however, what I hope for it is at least some minor changes in characterization that create distinct, consistent personalities and that they write the script forward from these changes rather than contorting the story to fit them, if that makes sense.

I think calling it Druck is in itself a good sign, in that it seems more indicative of wanting to create a clear identity outside of a Skam remake and appeal to German teenagers. “Skam” is not a word that means anything to French/Italian viewers unless they know the original show.

#druck reactions

[aion-rsa]

Best PlayStation 5 Gifts: PS5 Games and Gadgets for Holiday 2020

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The PlayStation 5 is essentially sold out everywhere, though sporadic restocks are expected at retailers between now and Christmas. If you’re lucky enough to snag one, you’re going to make the gamer in your life very happy this holiday season.

If you have managed to track a PS5 down, there are plenty of accessories and games that would make perfect companion pieces to Sony’s next-gen console. To help you out a bit, Den of Geek has picked the best PS5 gifts to get this holiday:

PlayStation 5

$499.99 with disc drive, $399.99 without disc drive

The hottest gift of the holidays, Sony’s hulking white monolith, actually comes in two varieties. The more expensive version includes a disc drive that plays physical PS5 and PS4 discs, plus 4K UHD Blu-ray movies. For $100 less, you can pick up the exact same console minus the disc drive, meaning all games will have to be downloaded digitally.

Regardless of which console you pick up, the PS5 boasts fantastic 4K graphics at 60 fps for most games, backwards compatibility with almost the entire PS4 library, the very fun pack-in game Astro Bot Rescue Mission, and the most revolutionary controller released in years.

Buy the PS5 on Amazon.

DualSense Wireless Controller

$59.99

At first glance, the DualSense looks a lot like previous PlayStation controllers, but after just a few minutes, it becomes clear that it provides a much more immersive experience than anything that’s come before. Thanks to haptic feedback, every in-game movement has its own distinct feel. Running on a solid floor makes the controller rumble with tiny taps, while getting hit by an enemy causes a much stronger vibration.

Adding to the immersion are the adaptive triggers. You can actually feel resistance while attempting to perform certain actions in a game. The new Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has made fantastic use of this feature by giving each gun in the game its own amount of “pull.”

And if all that wasn’t enough, the controller had room left over for a built-in microphone for quick in-game chat if you don’t have a headset handy. While one DualSense is included with the console, you’re definitely going to want to pick up a second one for multiplayer games.

Buy the DualSense Wireless Controller on Amazon.

DualSense Charging Station

$29.99

Once you have two DualSense Wireless controllers, keeping them charged and ready to game at all times can be a bit tricky due to the limited number of USB ports on the PS5. The DualSense Charging Station is an elegant, inexpensive solution that can be connected to any outlet in your home, freeing up the console’s USB ports for other devices.

Buy the DualSense Charging Station on Amazon.

Pulse 3D Wireless Headset

$99.99

While it hasn’t received as much attention as the PS5’s graphical upgrades and faster loading times, 3D audio is poised to be another game changer this generation- if you have the right set up for it. With the Pulse 3D Wireless Headset, you can actually hear where in-game movement is coming from, so that if something sneaks up behind you, that should come through the headset almost like someone is in the room with you. This one should definitely make horror games more interesting. 

Buy the Pulse 3D Wireless Headset on Amazon.

HD Camera

$59.99

With the next generation of consoles allowing even more options than ever before for capturing screenshots and video, streaming is going to be a bigger part of gaming in the coming years. If you know a gamer who likes to broadcast their PS5 sessions to Twitch or YouTube directly from their console, Sony’s HD Camera provides a crystal clear picture for streaming. And considering that Sony has a long history of coupling cameras with unique game mechanics or peripherals like the PlayStation VR, it’s probably a good idea to get one now before they’re really in-demand in a couple of years.

By the HD Camera on Amazon.

Media Remote

$29.99

As fantastic of a controller as the DualSense is, it’s not really optimized for media playback. Thankfully, the Media Remote offers much better functionality in that department, especially if you’re someone who uses the PS5 to stream movies or TV shows. This handy little peripheral includes buttons for easily navigating menus, rewinding, and fast forwarding. A few other buttons even go directly to some of the most popular streaming apps like Disney+ and Netflix. While not necessary for every PS5 user, it’s definitely a useful gadget to have on hand.

Buy the Media Remote on Amazon.

WD My Passport 4TB Portable Hard Drive

$89.99

All PS5 games must be played off of its lightning fast internal SSD. Unfortunately, that 1 TB SSD only really comes with about 665 GB of usable storage out of the box, which means fairly small library of PS4 and PS5 games can fill it up fast. Sony has promised a solution to this issue down the line, although external SSDs fast enough to meet the PS5’s specifications aren’t yet available. In the meantime, a good old-fashioned mechanical external hard drive is a really good idea if you plan to play PS4 games on your next-gen console. Backwards compatible games can be played directly from the external drive, and they still benefit from the PS5’s increased resolution.

Buy the 4TB Portable Hard Drive on Amazon.

Demon’s Souls

$69.99

The original Demon’s Souls on the PS3 has always been well regarded, but it’s also a little janky and hasn’t aged particularly well. Fortunately, the PS5’s biggest launch title has solved those issues with an absolutely stunning remake that cranks the graphics up to 11 while adding several quality of life improvements that make the classic feel as smooth as any modern title. Plus, new weapons, armors, and rings offer surprises even for returning players who explored all of the original’s secrets.

Just like the original, the PS5 version of Demon’s Souls is a difficult game, but it’s oh so satisfying once you’ve finally conquered all of the game’s tough hulking bosses. This game is a must-buy for those who aren’t easily frustrated.

Buy Demon’s Souls for PS5 on Amazon.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

$49.99

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales isn’t quite a full-fledged sequel to Insomniac’s acclaimed 2018 Spider-Man game, but it’s still a fantastic follow-up. The new focus on Miles Morales, who was introduced in the comics less than a decade ago, is a fun way to explore a younger Spider-Man growing into his powers. That’s something that’s always been an integral part of the character but the first game ignored due to its focus on an older, more experienced Peter Parker. The switch in protagonists also means you’ll get to check out some of Miles’ (arguably) cooler powers like electric shocks and temporary invisibility. It’s the ideal gift for any superhero fan.

Buy Miles Morales for PS5 on Amazon.

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Sackboy: A Big Adventure

$59.99

Most of the PS5 launch hype has been focused on Demon’s Souls and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, but don’t sleep on Sackboy. Unlike the 2.5D creation-focused LittleBigPlanet series that the adorable little mascot hails from, Sackboy is a full-fledged 3D platformer featuring tight controls, surprising power ups, and an incredibly charming story. Sackboy is a lovely throwback to the lighter platformers that used to accompany console launches, and it may end up being the most underrated game of the year.

Buy Sackboy: A Big Adventure for PS5 on Amazon.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

$59.99

For years now, the Assassin’s Creed series has been pumping out absolutely massive adventure games where players can live out their historical fantasies. The first next-gen installment, Valhalla, is a fantastic exploration of Viking history and culture in the ninth century, effectively mixing some of the best combat and stealth features of prior games in the series with violent battles for control of Medieval England.

But let’s be real here: the biggest selling point is the graphics. Valhalla’s open-world looks absolutely stunning in full 4K on the PS5.

Buy Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on Amazon.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

$69.99

Call of Duty games are a reliable choice for those who enjoy multiplayer gaming. While the series has had its ups and downs, this year’s offering features a solid selection of multiplayer maps and a chaotic new 40-player mode called Fireteam. The crowd-pleasing Zombies mode also makes a return and looks better than ever on next-gen consoles. If that isn’t enough, Black Ops Cold War features one of the best Call of Duty campaigns in years, even if it doesn’t have the staying power of the multiplayer modes.

Buy Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on Amazon.

Cyberpunk 2077

$59.99

Arguably the most anticipated game of 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 will finally hit shelves in December. This sci-fi RPG takes place in a massive open-world in the distant future where bio-organic implants are the norm and tech-enhanced crime gangs rule the streets. It also features Keanu Reeves in a supporting role in case you’re wondering if this game takes any cues from The Matrix. If you enjoyed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, you’ll definitely want to pick up CD PROJEKT RED’s latest.

Buy Cyberpunk 2077 on Amazon.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[storylocke]

stray concepts

Initially inspired from this “episode” of Voice Thoughts from very early in the series but for some reason I got struck by the idea again over the weekend. It’d probably work out much better as an original concept if I flesh it out fully, but I was talking to @cunninglydisguisedkeybearer and thought I’d share the gist of it. 

Anyway, I know the concept of the "build your own child" trope has basically been done to death, but I'm still amused. Its like some alternate reality where robots have gotten so advanced, they're basically people and can be made for all kinds of services, potentially even age, not sure on that yet. Yadda yadda you know.

But its funny cause (currently) the main plot unfolding is with the Quinnel / Descartes family where we have three particular bots at the heart of all this. 

1) Napoleon, an older model meant to be like a general care giver... Hilariously not very "caring" himself because as an older model he doesn't /quite/ have the emotions thing down. Although, even if he doesn't feel things the way people do, he's good to understand many of them to know what needs to be done. For example, Mistress Johanna gets upset when something breaks, but he doesn't need to be told to fix it, he sees she's upset and goes to see why. Not sure on the "if they can age" thing because he'd have grown up in his role if he did and if not, then he does still look like an older version of his fellow unit. Even as an older model, I don't see him being much older than Pepe in reality. Definitely old enough to drive either way because he's also the chauffeur ( as well as house cleaner, cook, general assistant)

2) We have Pepe, his younger, livelier companion, who's basically just meant for entertainment: Sings, dances, tells jokes, memorizes entire books he can quote from or read to you, list goes on. And naturally, seems much more human-like than his senior often asking questions and trying to get him to understand feelings since he claims to have them himself. Leo greatly doubts this and firmly believes such "feelings" probably comes from too much poetry XD

They both stay pretty busy though, since the mistress seems to be some wealthy something or other. Loves to travel and have company and I get the feeling even in this verse these units aren't really the norm. Some celebrity trend that seems to be going around if you happen to have some 3mill+ bucks to spend for all your needs

They're both fully aware and content with this though. And Pepe even likes to joke about "how would I know? I'm just the entertainment XD" when not helping the Helper over here. Which brings us to number 3

3) Richard Is by far the youngest of the trio. If they don’t age, it might seem weird that someone might want a model of a boy, but Gracie actually is a celebrity of sorts so she has all the assistance and security she could hope for. Johanna got into the trend first, obviously, and Grace was more fascinated by the thought of a personal companion than an aid. While the little one is programmed to do lots of things, D's mostly just meant to be a companion since she doesn't have a spouse or kids of her own. Which being the most advanced he has a distinct intelligence and knack for learning. Not that he begrudges his “mother” for it, and he does like to help around the house or when traveling, meeting and showing off to her friends, but also kind of reaching that age of "what's the point?" Not in a negative way, but genuinely wants to know his purpose since he doesn’t seem to have everything together like his "cousins" seem to whenever he talks to them during visits (Leo will claim that Pepe is an overheated mess don't ever think he "has it together") 

But really, they all have their short comings, like Leo will admit he doesn't have the memory banks his younger partner does and has to either retain information for key words or even often has to delete things for room and hope it was just minor, unimportant details. Also being older tends to break easier. Not often, but even he gets "sick" sometimes |D

Pepe, much as he jokes about it, honestly doesn't know how to do a lot of things since he never has to do anything he's not supposed to. There was a scene to play out with them driving and Pep was drumming on the dashboard and Leo be like "Do you mind? -w-" 

which Pepe be like "fiiiine can you turn on the radio at least? -w-"  "Nothing is stopping you from doing it yourself."  "-STAAAAAAARES AT IT- Uh...... I get to? o.o"  "....I forget, you never sit in the passenger's seat. -clicks-"  "Yeah... Its kind of weird not having Mom with us for once...>.>"

Which the reason they were out anyway was because bitty unit either got a special message from his creator (and to all units of his series) to come see them, or he may have just left of his own for a little "soul searching" and heard the creator was in the area and be like "maybe he can tell me what's wrong with me lately." Naturally his "mom" is very upset by his sudden disappearance and her sis was either already visiting or went to see her soon as she heard and the other two were trying to stay out of the way while the women tried to explain to the police this very special bot might have been stolen in the night (as him just leaving without warning seems impossible) And its kind of sweet because the bots kind of start arguing because Pepe is like "we should go after him..." While Leo is just like "there's no reason for us to leave. It would only make things worse -w-"

And finally it came to Pepe going "look at them. -physically turns bro's head to the room- Stop thinking over the semantics and tell me what's the first thing to come to mind >/"  "........ .... -whirs a little like a sigh- That Mistress is upset because she has lost something." "And?" "And it is troublesome I do not know how to immediately fix this other than to find what is lost. It would make her happy-"  "Exactly-!" "-cuts in somewhat sharply- But she would only be more upset to lose us as well. This is a not a case for one of your stories." "Theeeen... We talk to her? If she gives us permission, then she couldn't be upset. She knows where we are 83"

Which... Point. Talks are had, preparations made, much fussing over her boys to be careful and stay together, and loans Leo one of the cars. 

(Though now I crack up at the image when Pepe was probably new and made Johanna cry over a play or novel or something and got berated out of no where because HOW DARE YOU >O)

It was funny that while they were having the deep discussion in the car (as well as Pepe starting to wonder a little too late if the mistress will be okay without them to do everything for her, Leo would like to remind him  she did plenty before they came and often does things just fine when he's under maintenance... Even if she's always glad to get him back. She'll be fine) meanwhile the sisters are having a similar conversation all "but what if they get__? Or Leo breaks down? Or Pep gets lost? Or..." "They'll be fine lets just worry about your own for now |D;;" "How can you be so calm??? D8"

Richard eventually comes across Serena bot saying she was on her way to meet their maker as well and probably teams up to travel or something. I'm not sure what would come of meeting his maker, though going with the runs, it’s very likely Lysandre. Could be a recall in the works, could be raising an army, who knows

Meanwhile the other two were on their way to an expert (and probably the "doctor" they usually see when things go wrong anyway so familiarity for a good starting point) who Leo hopes might know something about the newer series to help them as well as maybe install a sort of tracker in each of them so they can always tell where the other is in case they get separated. Pearl is actually a human friend of theirs that’s possibly wanting to be an expert himself or works with the doc. Either way, he’s too antsy to stay home and finding out they’re off on “some kind of adventure” is insistent to go with them. I’m not sure if he goes with them initially or they run into him farther down the road and realize if they don’t take him with them, he’ll just go anyway, so it’d be safer to stay together. (Besides, he can always help patch them up, as he probably brought up the first time in trying to convince them he should come.) Once they get to the real doc though (Rowan, maybe, if we wanted to be nice?) he does have some supplies for them, including the trackers, but would do them one better and figure a way for them to track their cousin as well, though finding D is still gonna be no easy deal since he's actively on the move. Probably the secondary tracker would have to go to the Pepe just because, again, Leo is having to drop memory space for his own as is |D;;

The tracker part does fine at least, get them on the right trail. Bit of a road trip of discovery of their own (hey, family bonding time XD) but that...  Brings some adventures of its own. For how it keeps coming up, I'm sure Leo’s memory thing is gonna wreck my heart when either something goes wrong or he tells something big to Pepe so it won't be lost when he has to give up something important. Also if vaguely following Run stuffs, might be the in-verse reason behind his inevitable coma / time lapse. On the upside, he does get to pick and choose what he deletes at least, so its usually kind of like having notes everywhere and tossing out the grocery list when you get home. And sometimes Mistress will go over things with him like "would you like to save these___?"

Though in a large shift like with installing the tracker, that requires like actually going into the programs control option on your computer and clearing out stuff that hasn't been used for a while. Troublesome though because you know that just because something hasn't been used for a while doesn't make it "unimportant" It that does make me laugh to think of him getting home and being like "Dusting.... -curiously twirls duster in hand- Hmm.  Um.... Mistress, may I ask something? |D" and her probably brushing it off because they'll work on that later. Not THAT important! It was minor at the time, promise!

But that's also a slippery slope for wondering if he'd come back with a whole new skill set because how much they had to learn on the way XD

On the upside, he does still have a ton of memory, so it wouldn't even show as a problem for the longest time, just things like that quip earlier of "oh, right, I forget you hav never done this." But we also have to note he's the general house servant. He's got like hundreds of recipes and cool cleaning tips he can dump before anything big comes up XD

...Either that or he passes them to Pepe so he can read them back to him at a later time. Which just brings up the humor of much later Pepe being at a party  all like "Fun fact! Did you know the song Yesterday was originally going to titled Scrambled Eggs? Speaking of, I know a cool trick for eggs" and everyone expects a trick... But he just reads off the recipe (Mistress may need to do some manual clean up with the little one when they get back. He doesn't know how to forget things since memorization is his specialty XD)

But, uh... I guess that’s everything for now. Like I said, there’s a lot to be fleshed out if it goes anywhere, but I’m rather amused by the concept. ^w^

#twitch plays pokemon #robots #pepe philippe #napoleon #richard descartes #cunninglydisguisedkeybearer

[complexmagrparchive]

                       EVIL IS WHATEVER DISTRACTS

NAME › Natalie Eunseo Howard/ Natalie Kim   D.O.B. › 08 17 1991 (25) OCCUPATION › Freelance Photographer/ Receptionist INSTA › @dysofbngwld​

content warning: alcoholism

PORTFOLIO

( Basically her style is based on JDZ Chung’s work so in no way am I claiming credit for any of the work but that’s who the actual photographer of these pieces are.)

Portrait A, for Dazed Korea

Portrait B, for Complex

Portrait C, for personal portfolio

Landscape A, for personal portfolio

Portrait D, for unreleased photobook

Portrait E and Portrait F, for Complex

Portrait G and Portrait H, for Nylon Korea

DETAILS

born to an american soldier and a young korean woman in busan.

father leaves the family, is never heard from again.

mother remarries, gives birth to siblings. natalie gets lost in the mix.

gets into art high school in seoul for drawing, stands out little among peers.

drinks for the first time as a teenager, likes it more than she should.

takes photography up as a hobby, posts to blog and slowly gains notoriety.

gets into hongik, continues to not stand out among peers, drinks more.

begins freelancing as a photographer, drops out of college.

spends too much time drinking/partying and not enough time working. sets foundation to ruin her own life.

comes to the realization that she’s probably ruining her life with destructive behavior.

A guy tells her about a condensed version of the twelve step plan, for new year’s she tells herself she’ll give it a try.

Step one; admitting that one cannot control one’s alcoholism, addiction or compulsion.

“Hi, my name is Natalie and I’m an alcoholic.”

The group greets her back as a collective, and it’s only when she looks around the room desperately searching for kind eyes to connect with that she realizes she’s the only person under thirty in the room.

Alcoholism, she notes, is not an issue faced by the average 25 year old.

“I like drinking because it makes me feel invincible, and I don’t get that when I’m sober.”

There’s the distinct throb of her own heartbeat that drowns out any noise. The group claps and Natalie takes her seat but her heart echoes too loudly in her ears and she can’t begin to focus on the next person speaking or anything that happens during the intermission.

She only knows two things for sure: she’d kill for a drink right now, and she’s never coming back to this circle of fucking losers.

Step two; recognizing a higher power that can give strength.

JESUS LOVES YOU!

It’s a gaudy sort of flier, with the words written in bubbly rainbow and a teenage girl all but shoves it in her hands as she tries to make her way past the ensuing crowd of forceful christian teens trying to spread the good word in some shit-stain sidewalk in Hongdae.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life” The rest of the flier reads, and it’s enough to make her laugh.

For God so loved Jesus he sacrificed him for the sake of the ungrateful humans who turned their backs on his majesty.

For God so loved Natalie he had her father abandon her physically, and her mother emotionally.

For God so loved Natalie he gave her younger half-siblings more wonderful than she could ever be and a group of friends with more talent than she could ever hope for

For God so loved Natalie he made her a jealous, insecure woman who self-destructs the moment anything remotely good begins to happen.

God doesn’t make mistakes, and the bible says he loves her as much as he benevolently loves anyone else. But Natalie’s ready and willing to call bullshit.

The flier crumples up in tight pale fists and she chucks it into the street, praying a puddle destroys it before God’s love has a chance to ruin someone else’s day.

Step three; examining past errors with the help of a sponsor (experienced member).

“Do you think I’m a fuck up?”

Phone cradled between her shoulder and her face she swears she can hear the hesitation in his breath as he sighs loudly into her ear.

“This is really what you want to talk to me about at 3 a.m.? Shouldn’t you be editing photos right now, not indulging in an existential crisis?”

His voice is still rough and raspy, and Natalie is sure that before she called he was nearing his REM cycle and dreaming about something wholly more pleasant than spending the wee hours of the morning talking to a girl with a lack of boundaries or consideration for others.

“I’m editing the photos right now. But I started thinking about it and I got curious.”

He sighs again, more softly.

“Natalie go to sleep. The photos can wait, you’re ahead of the deadline this time. Hang up your phone, put the wine bottle away, turn off your laptop, and go to sleep. Don’t worry about stupid shit this late at night, you’ll only stress yourself out.”

“I’m not drinking.”

“Really? Well good for you. Now go the fuck to sleep.”

It’s her turn to sigh.

He’s too damned nice and she hates him for it. Maybe that’s why they could never work out romantically, maybe that’s why they barely work out platonically. He’s beating around the bush avoiding the ugly truth that they’re both very much aware of.

“I’ll hang up after you answer my question.”

The line goes dead for a moment, and it’s only the steady subtle sound of his breath that makes her realize he’s still there

“I don’t think you’re a fuck up— ”

“ —Bullshit.”

“Shut up and let me finish for once. I don’t think you’re a fuck up. Do I think you’re a person who fucks up a lot? Yeah, anyone with eyes can see that. But do I think you’re a fuck up? No. You’re just some girl who’s kind of selfish and likes to make herself suffer and cut herself off from people who care about her. You’re also a girl who doesn’t respect my sleep schedule, but no I don’t think you’re a fuck up. Now will you let me go to sleep.”

The total honesty of it shocks her. Granted, it’s what she asked for (what she craves), but the reality of it catches her off guard.

“Okay.”

Her voice is small and timid and suddenly she can’t seem to be bothered about the pictures staring back at her from her computer screen anymore.

“You’re not a fuck up, you’re just a person who needs some work. Don’t get yourself so down, just go to bed and don’t forget to send me those pictures sometime tomorrow. Good night.”

The line goes dead before Natalie can muster a reply.

Step four; making amends for these errors.

After a decade, her mother’s house is more or less the same.

The same family portrait of three handsome children paired with two proud parents and an awkward gawky girl standing alongside adorns the living room wall. The same cream colored couch with hard, uninviting immaculately clean cushions. The same god forsaken coffee table whose corners only serve to gouge and bruise Natalie’s skin.

She’s been gone from Busan for ten years, and yet nothing’s changed; her mother’s kept a time capsule all of these years.

“What’s this?”

The satoori that her mother spits out so incredulously sounds all too familiar and all too foreign in the same breath. They talk every now and again on the phone, but the power of her mother’s accent gets lost in the distance. In person it’s powerful and a glaring reminder of how far from a Seoul-girl Natalie really is.

“It’s money, Mom. I got a second job because I wanted to pay you and your husband back.”

The envelope sits on that damned contraption of a coffee table untouched, but Natalie can’t miss the way her mother’s eyebrow perks up in disinterest and the way her lips purse. It’s an expected gift,  unwarranted as it is. Her mother spent fifteen long years raising her and another ten sending monetary support to encourage reckless habits. It’s the least Natalie can do even if her mother isn’t interested.

“I’m making japchae for dinner. Your father and your brothers will be home soon, why don’t you stay for dinner. It’d be nice to have a full family dinner for once.”

In the reflection of the coffee table, she can see that fucking family portrait she’s spent years forgetting existed. Her mother sits on a chair and smiles brightly, with a cherubic looking baby sitting on her lap. Her mother’s husband stands behind the chair, one hand resting on the wicker, the other resting on his young son’s shoulder. Another boy stands to the side with the same twinkle in his eyes as the older boy and the beautiful baby. Then, off to the side, stands Natalie in all of her awkward gawky teenaged glory. Her features don’t match up with the children who mirror each other so well. Her forehead is too wide, her ears stick out too much, a face too exotic to fit perfectly amongst a family so proudly and obviously Korean.

She’d like to rip that potrait off the wall and smash it into the ugly table her mother adores so much.

“Can’t stay. I gotta catch a train back to Seoul today, I’ve got work later tonight.”

If she doesn’t look, she’s sure she’ll be able to avoid the guilt that undoubtedly will attack her if she meets her mother’s gaze.

“Okay then. Call me when you get to Seoul and let me know you got there okay.”

She’s out the door before her mother can dare say anything more.

The guilt finds her in the end anyways.

Step five; learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior

Knees caked in dirt and gloves now soiled, she can almost understand the appeal old women find in maintaining a lovely little garden. Her roses are starting to bloom well, and the lavender look nice in it’s lonely little corner. It’s a patrician hobby;  for those with enough money to afford the time to spend tending to pretty little flowers and enjoying the simple pleasures of life.

The sun bears down too hot on pale shoulders, and Natalie can’t help but sigh at the way her knees ache when she pushes herself up as she assess her work. It’s nice, but not nearly enough. If she works hard, by mid August the rooftop might look like the secret garden she’s got in her mind.

Her phone starts to ring the second she pulls her clammy hands out from their lycra and leather prison. Temptation has impeccable timing.

“Natty! Where are you, baby girl? I miss your crazy ass!” the voice on the other end clings to every syllable and there’s a familiar itch in the back of Natalie’s throat suddenly.

“Right now I’m on my rooftop putting away gardening tools.”

Laughter on the other end rings somewhere in between bemused and condescending in Natalie’s ear and she tries not to notice the way her fingers clench into a fist as her nails dig into the rough material of her gloves.

“What the fuck. Did you magically turn into an eighty year old while I was gone?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Okay well Miss Howl’s Moving Castle, come turn into a beautiful young girl again and come to my birthday party tonight. I know you couldn’t possibly forget.”

Her teeth clench tightly, and critical eyes begin to assess the garden again. The lavender looks to far off and lonely in the corner, she thinks she ought to plant some celosia nearby.

“I don’t know. I’m kind of busy.”

“Oh boo, I’ll be so sad if you don’t come. Don’t ruin my birthday Natty, I won’t forgive you if you do. It’s at that one club in Itaewon, our favorite one.”

“I’ll uh think about it.”

“Good.”

The line goes dead before she has a chance to give another half assed denial. Slipping her gloves back on she makes her way over to the corner of lavender. Another couple of hours in the garden won’t kill her, and neither will one night in Itaewon.

She’ll make one last great hurrah about it.

#cx:accepted #kiko mizuhara

[fireladybuckley]

Not Like This (Part 1)

Read: Part 2: Here Part 3: Here Part 4: Here Part 5: Here Fandom: Star Trek AOS (Soulmate AU) Pairing: Reader x Bones Word Count: 1,873 Prompt: A prompt from @bkwrm523​ a while back: “ So, academy era.  Soulmate Au where you can hear each other’s thoughts.  You and Leonard kinda chat sometimes, but haven’t met yet.  Leonard’s figured out that you’re both at the academy.  In the middle of one of his classes, he realizes from your thoughts that you were just in some sorta shuttle accident and badly hurt.  He leaves class immediately, gets you to tell him WHERE you are so he can call help.  Then, while rushing over, he coaches you through patching yourself up while waiting for help to arrive, all through thoughts.”  Warnings: Nothing much for this chapter, just scary scenes and a bit of blood Tag list: @outside-the-government @feelmyroarrrr Others who have asked to be tagged for this fic/expressed interest: @bkwrm523  @yourtropegirl @littlecarowrites @auduna-druitt @mccoymostly @nymphadora-blurryface  Author’s note:  This was turning into a really long one shot so I’ve decided to break it up into three (potentially four) parts.  I hope you like it!

               It happened on your first day at the Academy.  As though the enormity of starting your new life as a cadet wasn’t exciting enough, it was also the day you’d first sensed the thoughts of your soulmate.  You’d heard the stories of the few in your hometown who were fortunate enough to have been born within telepathic range of their soulmates, but you’d never expected that you’d be one of the lucky ones.  You’d dreamed of all the things that Starfleet Academy would bring you as you traveled south from your home, but you’d never imagined or really, even considered, that there was a chance of finding your soulmate.

                 It felt mostly like white noise, at first, and you’d thought that maybe your brain was just feeling fuzzy from all the excitement.  You’d pushed it away without really thinking about it, though later that day, actual words came through more than once, and you’d realized what it must mean.  You were so tired that night that you’d fallen asleep before you could really work it out, but for the next few weeks you tried harder to understand the jumble whenever you sensed it.  You remembered one of your friends from back home telling you that the thoughts are generally hard to decipher when the other person isn’t intentionally projecting them, or if they’re not feeling any particularly strong emotion.  You started to wonder if your soulmate was perhaps a bit emotionally unstable, considering the white noise was regularly punctuated with a few very clear sentences suggesting agitation, amusement or frustration.  You learned to how to handle these little outbursts of thought (they were quite startling at first), and start to wonder if your soulmate can hear you, too, though you’ve felt too shy to try and directly think at them.  

                  One night you are getting ready for bed after a particularly long day, when a very distinct thought about some kind of textbook bounces into your mind.  You get the idea that your soulmate has misplaced their xenoanatomy textbook the night before their lab, right when they need to look something up, and you chuckle to yourself as you lie down, listening to their frustration and hoping they can find it.  You listen to the white noise of their thoughts as the emotion fades, occasionally catching the odd word here and there, wondering, once again, if they can hear you.  You realize suddenly that you must have projected the thought without meaning to, because the white noise subsides and you receive your first intentional thought from your soulmate barely a second later.

               I can hear you.  Your heart stops for a second before it starts racing, and you stare wide-eyed at the ceiling as you wonder what to think back.

               Oh, you think, cringing as the thoughts leave you without your permission.  Hi. I… I guess I’m your soulmate?  You can’t hear them laugh, of course, but their thoughts have an amused tone when they reply.

               Oh, good, I thought I was just going crazy. You laugh nervously to yourself at their thought, chewing on your lower lip.  

               So… did you lose your anatomy textbook?  You ask them tentatively, not sure what else to say now that you’d made a connection.

               Xenoanatomy and Physiology, yeah. I swear I left the damn thing here in my room, but I can’t find it now.  Bet my roommate swiped it and didn’t tell me. Their thoughts have grown annoyed and frustrated, and you get the impression that they argue with their roommate a lot.

                 Which text is it?  I have the text for Xenoanatomy 1.0 right now, maybe I can help? You want to help if you can, though you have no idea if they’re in the same year as you.  You wait, absently playing with your hair, staring at the bottom of the top bunk above you.

                   I need version 4.0, so no, but thank you – I appreciate the offer.   You ponder the meaning of what they said – version 4.0 meant that they’re in their fourth year of training, the final year.  Older than you.  You feel a little flicker of excitement: you’ve always liked older guys.

                 I heard that.  Their thoughts are amused again.  Who says I’m an older guy?  Maybe I’m a younger, genius woman…  You flush with embarrassment despite being alone in the room;  you hadn’t meant to project that last thought, and now you feel incredibly flustered.   He senses your embarrassment and thinks: It’s okay, I’m just teasing.  I’m a guy. Don’t know if I’m older, though I probably am.

                 The two of you chat for a minute or two, mostly just about things happening at Starfleet, before you start fading, your exhausting day taking its toll on you.  

                 Goodnight, sleep tight, he thinks at you before you can even tell him you need to turn in, and you smile sleepily into the darkness.

                 Thanks.  Good luck in your lab tomorrow.  You barely manage to think the last word before you drift off into dreams and then a deep sleep.

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

                   It’s been eight months since you joined Starfleet.  You’re close to finishing your first year and will soon start your second.  You’re feeling a lot more confident in your abilities and more comfortable with the Academy in general.  You still haven’t actually met your soulmate yet; every time either of you suggests a time to meet, something has come up, and your schedules are at complete odds with each other.  When you’re free during the day, he is in class.  When he is free in the evening, you’re on other duties or studying furiously. You’ve lamented not being able to meet him, but you know the day will come. It’s almost time for a brief summer break, and you’ve planned a tentative first date.  You’re nervous as hell but also excited: you can’t believe you’ll actually get to meet your soulmate!

               Currently you’re on a shuttle back to the mainland after being aboard one of the starships docked in orbit for a few days, learning the ropes in the science labs.  The passengers seated around you are mostly other cadets, but there are a few civilians on board as well, mostly family members of the crew that are stationed on the orbiting ship that are unable to return to Earth for the time being.   You stare avidly out of your window as the shuttle makes its way back through the atmosphere, marvelling at the feeling of being in space and seeing the earth in all its glory.  You can’t wait until you actually get to go on a real mission, to entirely different planets, and your excitement at these thoughts bubbles over to the point that your soulmate picks up on them.

               Space is horrible, I wouldn’t recommend it. His thoughts are amused but you sense a genuine distaste for space – not something new to you, as you’ve come across this attitude from him a few times in the months you’ve been talking.  You chuckle quietly to yourself and watch as the earth creeps nearer.

                 Come on, why are you even in Starfleet if you hate space? You ask him, your tone teasing.  You can practically hear him sigh, and grin to yourself.

               I’ll tell you later.  Have a final exam in a few.  

               Okay. Good luck!

                 You doze a bit as his thoughts go quiet.  The shuttle descends to the height at which airplanes generally fly and continues on towards San Francisco, gliding nearly silently through the air.  You wake a while later as it begins its descent into the city, and you yawn, smiling at a young girl seated across the row from you with her mother, who peers at you for a moment before going back to her book.  They’d been visiting the girl’s father, who was the first officer and unable to take leave as his presence was needed on the ship. The girl, who couldn’t be more than eight, looks disappointed to be getting back to Earth, and you’re not sure if it’s because she misses her father or because she enjoys space as much as you do.

                   Your musings are interrupted as the shuttle lurches unnaturally and you look around, somewhat alarmed.  You haven’t been on too many shuttle rides yet, but from your experiences and what you’ve heard from others, they were usually very smooth.  Many of the cadets around you are looking a bit nervous as well, but you trust the pilot to keep everyone safe and assume it must be a fluke – some particularly strong air current, perhaps.

                 A few minutes later, as you’re nearing the heart of the city and close enough to see the Academy in the distance, the shuttle lurches again, more violently this time.  There are murmurs of anxiety spreading through the cabin and you look around, your heart quickening.  There are no monitoring devices or any equipment in the passenger area of this shuttle, so you have no idea what, if anything, is wrong.  The single crewman assigned to watch over the passenger area is looking startled himself, and unbuckles his seatbelt.  He heads towards the cockpit just as the shuttle tilts at a steep angle and begins to plummet towards the ground, prompting gasps of alarm and shrieks of fear all around you.  

                 The crewman stumbles and pitches forward, crashing into the cockpit door as the shuttle careens violently from side to side as it drops.  You want to help him but the gravitational force of the fall is pinning you heavily to your seat.  Terror washes over you and you can’t help but scream along with many of the others, clutching your seat handles so hard your knuckles are bright white.  You can see the ocean getting larger alarmingly fast and can feel the shuttle wildly fishtailing back and forth.  You can tell the pilot is attempting to direct the shuttle as close to the landing pad as he can, but you really don’t think you’ll make it that far. You can see the sand of the beaches now, and realize you’re only seconds away from crashing.  Your final thoughts of terror and regret are projected loud and clear to your soulmate without you realizing, but before he can even respond, the shuttle has smashed into the ground. 

                 The initial impact is so great that you feel like you’ve been hit by a car directly in the chest, and you gasp for breath as the shuttle skids along the uneven ground, snags on some rocks and flips.  People’s bags and other things burst out of the overhead compartments and become projectile missiles, injuring anyone they crash into as the shuttle continues to flip and slide.  Up to this point, you feel like you’ve been thrown into a clothes dryer and tumbled around, but just as you’re thinking that maybe you’ll manage to get through this mostly uninjured, a stray first aid kit sails across the passenger area and strikes you on the side of the head.  A large gash opens up in your skin from the sharp edge of the kit and you are instantly knocked out, going limp in your seat, your restraints holding you in place as blood drips down your face.

Read chapter 2 here

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