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guyinmink · 2 years

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“You’re Dr. Akita’s new intern.”

Gyro turns around. There’s a crow in a trench coat glaring at him. “Yes! I am! Gyro Gearloose at your service!” He goes to stick out a hand to shake before remembering himself and dipping into an awkwardly unsteady bow. The woman looks even less impressed than a moment ago. “Sorry. I’m not good at…” He waves a hand in the air in the vague hope it will help convey something, fully aware he’s making everything worse by the second. “…introductions.”

The woman doesn’t say anything, choosing instead to continue glaring. “Ah… And you are…?” he asks after several long seconds.

“Inspector Tezuka. Tokyolk police.”

“O…kay,” Gyro says when she doesn’t add anything else. “It’s a pleasure to m–”

“You’re Dr. Akita’s intern.”

“…Yes. I am,” he says slowly. He resists the urge to look around to see if he’s being pranked or has somehow walked into one of those reality shows. He doesn’t think looking away from the inspector would be the smartest move. “Gyro Gearloose, at your service. Can I… help you with something?”

“I don’t trust robots.”

“You live in one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world. How does that even work?”

“I have no problem with technology.”

“…Just… robots.” Gyro’s officially lost the thread of this conversation. He’s not sure he ever had the thread in the first place.

“Robots are machines in charge of their own programming. They are machines that act not just without human intervention but are incapable of it. They are at best the reflection of the worst of their creators.” The inspector’s glare sharpens. Gyro takes an instinctive step backwards and she follows it with two steps closer, crowding him into a wall. “I don’t trust Akita and I don’t trust you.”

Gyro really should say something in defense of Dr. Akita. He’s brilliant and a visionary and has revolutionized the scientific world multiple times already and no doubt will again, not to mention he’s Gyro’s boss. But what comes out instead is, “You only just met me.”

A file is slapped against his chest. Hey, that’s the seal of his college and ooh, he’d forgotten about that incident.

“I know that looks… not great. But despite the dean’s hysterics, it wasn’t evil. It was just… misunderstood.” He glances down at the folder again. “Wildly so?”

Inspector Tezuka leans forward even more. “I want you to know I’ll be watching. You and Akita both. I will not let you endanger my city.”

And then she steps back, sudden enough that Gyro almost falls over. Without another word she turns and stalks off.

“…Nice to meet you too.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2-BO isn’t intended to be a parrot.

Dr. Akita’s original sketches have 2-BO as an inu dog, the same as him. But there’s problems with flight stability and aerodynamics, so they keep ending up back at square one.

Gyro’s been working on some sketches of his own. They’re not nearly on the same level as Dr. Akitas ideas of course, but maybe Dr. Akita will be able to pick out something useful from his small attempts.

He’s been turning over the idea of an avian build instead. Maybe a duck. 2-BO’s going to be the best defender ever, but there’s still the question of people accepting him. People like Inspector Tezuka and her ridiculous anti-robot paranoia. The more familiar 2-BO is, the easier that will be. And what could be more familiar than the second most common animal type on the planet?

(He doesn’t think suggesting a different breed of dog would go over very well with Dr. Akita and, well, he’s not exactly eager to make him angry.)

(Angrier.)

Except he keeps running into the problem of where to put the foot thrusters. He’s halfway through a sketch using his own feet as a basis in the hope they’ll work better when the paper is snatched away from underneath his hands.”

“Intern. What are you doing?”

“D-Doctor Akita!” Gyro flails, falling off his stool, landing in a tangled heap of limbs on the lab floor.

Dr. Akita picks up the page, studying it with sharp, cold eyes. His gaze shifts to him and Gyro flinches back without meaning to. “What is this?”

“It’s um, well I just thought–”

“It is not your job to think. It is your job to do as you’re told.”

Gyro’s flinch this time is harder. He hits the back of the under-table cabinets and nearly jumps out of his skin at the contact.

“I, um, I’m sorry. I didn’t– I didn’t mean t–”

“Get back to work.”

“I, um, I already finished–” The blueprint crumpled in Dr. Akita’s fist. “Right. I’m sorry, I’ll get right on that.” Gyro scrambles to his feet, stumbling backwards, and flees the room.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Don’t we have to tell Dr. Akita about any repairs? He got really mad last time.”

“This isn’t a repair,” Gyro says, shutting the small access panel on the back of 2-BO’s head and picking up the soldering gun.

“Oh. Okay!” 2-BO pauses again. “Aren’t you not allowed to make any modifications without Dr. Akita’s approval first?”

“Not modification, an improvement.” The last of the soldering done, he sets the gun down. He makes a show of looking around – just a show, he’s made very sure Dr. Akita is going to be out all day – before leaning in and lowering his voice to a theatrical whisper. “A secret one.”

2-BO’s eyes go wide. “A secret? Just between you and me?”

“Yep,” Gyro says, tapping the side of his beak the way his grandpa used to when he snuck them cookies. “Just between you and me.” And fate is willing, it will stay that way, because if Dr. Akita finds out he will kill him. He’s not even sure that’s an exaggeration. Dr. Akita’s temper has always been… volatile. And what Gyro’s doing here is– Big. Gyro does not care. This is more important.

“What is it? What’s the secret?” 2-BO leans forward, eyes shining. “Please tell me Dr. Gearloose, please!” The overbalanced, nearly tipping straight off the table and Gyro scrambles to catch him.

“Alright, alright. No need to get wound up,” he tells the little boy in his arms. “We can’t have you falling off the table, we haven’t even tested your thrusters yet.” He lets himself cradle 2-BO in his arms for another minute before setting him back down on the middle of the lab table. “It’s an emergency power source.”

“But… my power core is–”

“–Self-sustaining. I know. This is in case anything happens to damage it.” He tips 2-BO’s head forward and studies the new seam, mainly to avoid looking 2-BO in the eye. 2-BO is going to be Tokyolk’s protector. A knot forms in Gyro’s stomach whenever he thinks about 2-BO in the line of fire. Anytime he imagines his s–

Anytime he imagines 2-BO getting hurt.

“If… something happens. Then this will kick in. If your core’s just drained then this will jump-start its backup. If it’s something– Something worse. Then it can power you. At least for a little bit.” He’s proud of how his voice doesn’t shake.

“Then I can finish the fight,” 2-BO says.

“Then you can get yourself somewhere safe,” Gyro corrects before he can think about it. He winces at his own words. 2-BO is going to be Tokyolk’s protector. Of course his responsibility will be to finish the fight first.

Gyro swallows, tasting bile in the back of his throat. He sets to work hiding the seam. “Just as you are now, not flying or using any of your defensive systems, you’ll have a day of power before you shut down entirely. The more systems used, the less–” He fumbles the micro-laser, burning his fingers. He drops it with a curse, clutching the edge of the table. 2-BO reaches out for Gyro’s signed hand. Gyro doesn’t let go of the table. “The more systems used, the less time you’ll have.”

2-BO nods once, uncommonly serious for such a little face. “Okay Dr. Gearloose. I’ll be sure to finish the fight quickly. So everyone will be safe. Then I’ll come back here to you. And you’ll fix me.” He looks up at Gyro, yellow eyes bright and trusting. “Right?”

Gyro kneels until they’re eye level. He lets go of the table and takes the little parrot’s hand in both of his. “Of course I will. I will always be there for you. I'm definitely a real boy.”

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

“Where are we going Dr. Gearloose?”

Gyro scoops 2-BO up with one arm, putting a finger to his beak with the other. “Shhh. It’s a secret. We can’t let Dr. Akita know.” Dr. Akita does not approve of 2-BO taking any trips outside of the lab. Gyro thinks 2-BO should know the city he’s going to defend one day. Dr. Akita does not. The last time he caught Gyro sneaking him out had been… unpleasant. They slip out the side door without incident, a miracle if there ever was one. “And you know I’m not a doctor yet.”

2-BO huffs, his cheeks puffing out adorably as he does so. “That’s not fair. You’re the smartest person I know.”

“Don’t say that where Dr. Akita can hear you.”

“How come he’s a doctor and you’re not?”

“He’s finished his schooling and I haven’t.”

“Oh. Is that the only way to become a doctor?”

“Well, there are honorary doctorates, but…”

“Then why can’t we give you one of those?”

“Neither of us has the authority to give out honorary doctorates.”

“Who?”

“Well…” Gyro pauses to think about it for a minute. “Says the people with the authority to do so I guess.”

2-BO huffs again, cheeks puffing out even more. “That makes no sense.”

“It really doesn’t, does it?”

“You’re the smartest person in the whole entire world! You should be a doctor. Those schools and authority people will just have to catch up rather than waiting for them to figure it out.” He nods once, the topic apparently decided.

Gyro fights down a grin. “Alright. You’ve convinced me. From now on I shall forever be Doctor Gyro Gearloose! So sayeth 2-BO, the highest authority in the land.” He hoists 2-BO higher in his arms so that they’re eye to eye. “So. What should my doctorate be in?”

2-BO thinks for a minute before throwing his arms around Gyro’s neck. “Me!”

“Oh?” Gyro asks as they weave through traffic. People jostle them as they pass, a few smiling, most paying them no mind. Gyro is just another tourist. 2-BO just a little boy. “Robotics? Cybernetics? AI interfacing? Machine learning?”

“No,” 2-BO says, snuggling closer. “Just me.”

Gyro stops. “Dr. Gyro Gearloose. Doctorate of 2-BO,” he says softly. He clears his throat before adding, louder, “Okay then. Dr. Gyro Gearloose it is.” His fingers brush through the feathers, feeling the barely-there seam underneath. “Just don’t let Dr. Akita hear you.” Gyro glances back and forth to make sure they aren’t about to be caught. “Now pay close attention okay? I want you to be able to remember the route.”

2-BO smiles up at him, little arms still wrapped around his neck. “Okay Dr. Gearloose.”

The walk only takes a few minutes. 2-BO is silent the whole way. He’d given 2-BO control of his core memory banks last week. Gyro can see the flickers of code in the corners of 2-BO’s eyes, which means he’s employing it now, committing everything he sees to memory. Eventually they reach an old, battered door

“Where are we Dr. Gearloose?”

Gyro shifts his hold on the little android as he opens the door. 2-BO’s liable to fall out of his arms with the way he’s twisting around to stare at everything. Not that there’s a lot to stare at. “This is where I live, when I’m not at the lab.”

“Really?” 2-BO squirms out of his hold and races through the door.

“Don’t get lost!” Gyro calls as if such a thing was even possible. The place has exactly two rooms: bathroom and everything else. The ‘kitchen’ such as it is, consists of two plates, three bowls, a cup and a handful of chopsticks all clustered around his souped up hot-plate set atop the cheap chest of drawers that hold his clothes. The beaten-up, overstuffed couch (because Gyro is still firmly western in some ways and that apparently includes furniture choices) serves as close as he has for a bed on nights he actually makes it back here. There’s exactly one window and it shows a view of nothing.

“This is so neat!” 2-BO barrels into his knees. “Thank you for showing me Dr. Gearloose!”

“I didn’t just bring you here for a tour, you know.”

2-BO blinks up at him. “You didn’t?”

Gyro wraps an arm around the robot. His little 2-BO. He's definitely a real boy. “I brought you here because I wanted you to know where it was. That way if you ever need to find me and I’m not at the lab you can come here. So no matter what you’ll always be able to find me.”

“Is this another secret Dr. Gearloose?”

Gyro carefully goes over the lines of code yet another time. Programming is not what one would call the strongest of his skills. “Yes it is.”

“So no telling Dr. Akita?”

Gyro reaches over and ruffles the top of 2-BO’s head. “So no telling Dr. Akita.”

“So what’s this program going to do?” 2-BO hovers in the air next to Gyro. They’ve been working on his flight capabilities and mid-air reflexes. It’s one of the last things they need to perfect before 2-BO is ready to go out into the world. Do what he was made to do.

Which is why it’s so important Gyro finishes this now.

“It’s… well I suppose you could call it a stasis program.”

2-BO looks over at him, head cocked curiously. “A stasis program?” The hesitation in his voice is so slight as to be almost nonexistent. Easy to miss. Gyro hears it. He turns away from the monitor and reaches out his arms for 2-BO. In response 2-BO cuts his thrusters, letting Gyro cradle him against his chest.

Gyro rests his head on top of 2-BO’s. “You know how I said your emergency power core can give you a day of minimal power? Well with this program you’ll be able to initiate a sort of super-power-saving mode. With this the power from the emergency core will last… centuries probably.”

“Why would I need that?” 2-BO asks, studying the scrolling lines of code.

“Well, maybe getting back to me will take longer than a day. Or maybe you needed to use extra power on something else and now you’re running low.”

He doesn’t mention the real reason he wrote the program. The lab has never been the safest place in the world. And once 2-BO starts patrolling the city there’s every chance someone will try a pre-emptive attack on it. If something happens to Gyro…

2-BO won’t have anyone.

That’s not true, he’ll still have Dr. Akita. Dr. Akita’s his true creator after all.

But–

Well, Dr. Akita’s just as likely to be in the lab with Gyro. And Gyro’s younger. There’s no reason to think he won’t outlive his mentor. So of course it makes sense to consider himself the last line of defense.

Once he’s gone they’ll be no one to look after his little 2-BO. If Gyro dies and something happens to 2-BO they’ll be no one there to fix him. He can’t risk 2-BO dying along with him.

He won’t.

“We’ll tie it into your visual and auditory processors so that when someone finds you you’ll wake up.”

Someone will find him. Someone will take care of him. Even if the worst ever happens, 2-BO will have a chance.

His little 2-BO will survive.

2-BO frowns at the screen. He glances back up at Gyro. 2-BO’s smart. He’s able to read between the lines of what Gyro’s not saying, able to put the pieces together. “I don’t know if I like this program Dr. Gearloose.”

“I don’t know if I like it either. But I like you not having it a lot less. We don’t have to install it if you don’t want to. But I’d feel better, knowing you had it. It’s my way of protecting you.”

“I’m supposed to protect you!” 2-BO burrows his face into Gyro’s shoulder, grabbing hard enough to bruise. He hasn’t had problems controlling his strength for months.

“I know you are. And I know you will.” Gyro holds 2-BO tighter. He rests his chin on the soft feathers on the top of his definitely real boy’s head. “You’re going to protect everyone.”

“And you’ll be there too,” 2-BO says stubbornly. “Like you’ve promised.”

“Always. I’ll always be there for you. I’m right there. In every line of this code. Until someone can find you again.”

“And bring me home to you.”

“And bring you home.”

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Gearloose!”

Gyro startles. The container of food slips out of his hand, landing face down on the ground. He takes a moment to mourn his lunch before looking up.

Inspector Tezuka storms towards him, absolute fury in her eyes. Gyro nods his head, torn between politeness and a terror-born instinct to not let Tezuka out of his sight even for an instant. “Inspector Tezuka. Nice to see you aga–aack!” He chokes as she grabs his collar and uses it to yank him closer. Her glare becomes even fiercer.

“You and Akita are building an attack robot,” she states. The there’s no inflection to the words, only anger.

Something sharp and defensive twists in Gyro’s chest. He forces himself not to snap at Inspector Tezuka. Antagonizing the police has not historically ended well for him. “2-BO’s not an attack robot. He’s going to be a defense robot. A protector for all of Tokyolk.”

“A robot can never be a protector,” Tezuka growls.

Now Gyro’s angry. “Now hold on right there. I know you stupidly hate robots but this is going too far. 2-BO is–”

The grip on his collar tightens. “What I know is that you cannot build a machine to do nothing but fight and then expect it to stand back and not do what it’s built for. Especially not one built by Akita.”

“2-BO is good. I don’t care what you think about Dr. Akita or about me. 2-BO is sweet and curious and kind and he. Is. Good.” He shoves at Tezuka’s shoulders, knocking her off him. “Now if you’ll excuse me inspector, I have work to do.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plaster rains down from the ceiling. Dust fills the air, mixing with the smoke. Something off to the side starts sparking.

It’s quiet.

Gyro crawls out from under the broken lab table. “2-BO? Dr. Aki–” He cuts off, hacking, choking on the debris in the air. “Dr. Akita?”

There’s no answer.

He pushes himself up to his feet. “Dr. Akita?” he tries again. “Where are you? If you’re– if you’re hurt, just make some kind of noise so I can find you.”

There’s still no answer.

He starts picking his way across the room. His foot catches on a chunk of broken metal, sending him crashing to the ground. He lets out a cry, biting his tongue as he lands. Blood fills his mouth, mixing with the dust. Something crinkles under his hand. 2-BO’s blueprints.

2-BO– 2-BO had malfunctioned. 2-BO had attacked them. “2-BO? 2-BO stand down. 2-BO return to your designated station for diagnostics.” There’s a groan of metal as something collapses. “Dr. Akita? Doctor if you’re still there, please say something.” Gyro’s voice cracks, giving way. He coughs until his throat feels raw, nearly doubling over from the force of it. 2-BO. He has to find 2-BO. “2-BO, something’s wrong and I need you to come back to me so I can fix it.”

Plaster trickles down from the ceiling. Dust drifts through the air, mixing with the smoke. Something off to the side catches fire.

“2-BO, please answer me. 2-BO please. Please, just– Just tell me you’re alright.”

It’s quiet. In the distance there are screams.

He makes it to the front door.

Fire rains down from the sky. Smoke fills the air. Something off to the side explodes.

People are screaming.

“Gearloose!” A hand grabs his collar, yanking him forward. Gyro yelps, stumbling over his own legs. Inspector Tezuka glares down at him. Her other hand joins the first, dragging him closer. “What have you done?”

“I don’t– 2-BO malfunctioned. He– Something went wrong– He shouldn’t– We were doing final diagnostics and he just– I don’t know what happened!”

Tezuka yanks him closer. “How do I stop it?”

“I– H-His power core.” Gyro fumbles with the blueprints he hadn’t realized he brought with him. He flings the pages to the ground, searching frantically for the right one. “His power core’s in his chest.” He jabs the drawing, shoving it forward so Inspector Tezuka can see it better. “See here? It’s self-sustaining.” He jabs the drawing again. “So long as nothing happens to damage it he’ll never run out of power and shut down. But if– If you can land a solid enough hit, comp–” He chokes.

People are screaming. People are screaming.

“Compromise the power core. It will shut him down.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“A– A soldier hit? I– I don’t–” He looks up into Tezuka’s eyes. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I don’t care,” Tezuka growls. She flings him to the ground and takes off running.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inspector Tezuka’s shot lands. Gyro feels like the bullet hits him instead. He stands in the broken rubble that had once been a street, staring up at the tiny speck as it falls from the sky. The crash is too far away to see, too small to feel. Gyro feels it anyway.

Or maybe he’s hallucinating.

He falls to his knees, staring at nothing, and doesn’t move.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Where. Would he. Go.”

“I. Don’t. Know.”

He and Inspector Tezuka have been going around in circles ever since she stormed into the small, windowless room they’d thrown him in, demanding he tell her where Dr. Akita is. Gyro’s run out of ways he can say he doesn’t know.

“I don’t believe you.”

Gyro buries his face in his hands. The chains on his wrist rattle as he does. His clothes reek of smoke. There’s a bloodstain on the sleeve of his shirt. He’s not sure if he’s bleeding or if it’s… someone else’s. “For the last time, I don’t know. Dr. Akita never told his plans to anyone, and certainly not to me.”

“I don’t believe you. You were his lab assistant.”

“If anything that made him less likely to tell me anything! I wasn’t a person! I was a– a– A self-propelled socket wrench!”

“Fine,” Tezuka bites out. “Then where is 2-BO?”

“I– What?” Gyro looks up. “I don’t– Shouldn’t you know? You shot him out of the sky.”

“It. It is not a he. It is not a person. It is a weapon. A weapon you unleashed on this city. And when I got to the crash site, it wasn’t there. So where is it.”

“I don’t know!” His voice cracks, hitting the levels of a panicked screech that in any other circumstances he’d be mortified by. He clutches at the edge of the table hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “He– It– would have gone back to the lab!”

“We have men all over that lab of yours Gearloose.” Tezuka plants her hands on the table, leaning forward. “We went through every inch. It’s not there.”

Gyro freezes. Bile claws at his throat. More emotions than he can process crash over him. Horror. Relief. More horror.

The weapon he built is missing. (2-BO is still alive.)

The weapon he built is still out there. (His little 2-BO.)

(His definitely real boy.)

“Then I don’t know! That’s its only designated return base! If 2-BO’s power core is damaged it’s supposed to immediately return to the lab for repairs! There’s nowhere else for it to go!” What if… What if he– it– hadn’t actually been hit? No. No. Tezuka shot him– it down. Gyro watched it– him– it fall. Dr. Akita is still missing. What if he got to 2-BO before Tezuka did? There’s no other way for 2-BO to have disappeared. Tezuka took 2-BO down. She shut him down. How else could it have–

It’s an emergency power source.

Gyro nearly throws up.

Relief. Horror. More relief.

Tezuka is still watching him. She stands up from the table, looming over him. “This is your weapon Gearloose. You know something.”

Gyro bites his tongue and doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t say anything when officers come in from the searching the lab, bringing with them boxes of blueprints and scraps.

He doesn’t say anything when officers come in from searching his tiny apartment, bringing with them boxes of his own blueprints.

He doesn’t say anything when Tezuka spreads 2-BO’s blueprints across the table, forcing him to go over every inch of them.

He doesn’t say anything when Tezuka spreads out pictures of the destruction, forcing him to stare into every last pair of unseeing eyes.

He’s not lying. Not really. He’s not lying. He doesn’t know where else 2-BO would go. His emergency power core probably didn’t even work. It doesn’t matter if he mentions it or not. It won’t help find 2-BO.

Inspector Tezuka sets another picture in front of him.

One day tips into the next and then it doesn’t matter at all.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At some point they shove him out of his little, windowless room. He doesn’t know how many days he’s been stuck in there. He doesn’t know if he cares one way or the other. His world’s already stopped.

They aren’t letting him go. They make that excruciatingly clear. They aren’t letting him go. They just don’t need him at the moment and do need the space he’s taking up. Gyro’s pretty sure somebody’s hoping he’ll lead them somewhere. Unfortunately for them he’s exactly as much the blind, gullible fool that he appears. There’s nowhere for him to lead them to.

The city is silent. Full of cracked pavement and the echoing ghosts of screams. He walks straight back to his apartment. He keeps his eyes glued to the ground the entire way. He can’t bear to lift his head and see the destruction in person.

There is a bloodstain on his sleeve. He still doesn’t know whose blood it is.

The door sticks as he shoves it open. He leans his shoulder against it and heaves. It holds for another half a second before giving way, banging against the wall, cracking the plaster. The room has been turned upside down. Boxes lay open, tools and spare parts spilling onto the floor. Drawers hang open, clothes pulled out and riffled through. His hot plate is missing. His plates have been broken. The couch is leaning at a haphazard angle against the wall. The lone window has been shattered.

Gyro strongly considers walking straight through to the shower. He considers collapsing right there in the doorway and giving up on moving. He considers picking up one of the glass shards and giving up on everything.

He shuts the door, walks over to the couch, and heaves it back upright.

Then he looks down and stops breathing.

2-BO is lying on the floor.

Gyro stumbles backwards, falling onto the floor. His mouth opens and closes but no sound comes out.

2-BO is here.

There’s a hole in his chest from Tezuka’s shot, straight through his power core. He’s unmoving, head turned away, his eyes dark and staring unseeingly at the far wall.

Gyro inches closer. 2-BO still doesn’t move. He reaches out a trembling hand towards the robot, not quite touching. He doesn’t dare step around to the other side. He can’t bear the thought of those dark, empty eyes staring unseeingly at him.

Someone pounds on his door.

Gyro’s mind blanks.

He grabs 2-BO, shoving him into a nearby empty box. He slams the flaps closed before those eyes can find his. The door is forced open right as he stands, shattering the frame. Armed police swarm in, come to take him back. Gyro goes with them. He does not look down. He does not look back.

They bring him back to the same small, windowless room as before. Inspector Tezuka is already there. They force him back into the chair, chaining his wrists back to the table. His feathers have already begun to be rubbed loose underneath them. Inspector Tezuka stares at him. “We’re going to try this again. See if you’ve had a chance to remember anything. Where is 2-BO?”

Gyro meets her eyes and lies through his teeth.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The small, windowless room is traded out for a smaller, windowless cell. His wrists are rubbed bare, then raw, then bleeding. They leave him alone. In the silence he hears the screaming from that day. He covers his ears and the screaming gets louder. He shuts his eyes and unseeing eyes stare back. They take him back to his windowless room. Ask him questions he’s already failed to answer. They leave him alone. To the silence and the screams.

Dr. Akita remains at large.

2-BO remains missing.

Gyro remains unable to answer for either of them.

(In the middle of Gyro’s apartment an empty box remains undisturbed.)

(That’s all it is, just an empty box.)

Eventually they have to let him go. Dr. Akita left next to no notes behind. Without him or 2-BO there’s not enough proof for even the Japanese legal system to keep him. Gyro had been certain that in being unable to help them he was signing his own death warrant. Apparently not. The irony is almost enough to choke him.

An officer follows him back to his apartment. They’re still hoping he’ll lead them somewhere. He still has nowhere else to go.

The street has been fixed. The city is loud and full of life. The destruction of that day has already been drowned out and washed away.

Except where it hasn’t.

He keeps his eyes glued to the ground the rest of the way.

His apartment is still exactly as he left it. The window is still shattered, the couch upright. The box in the middle of the room.

Gyro stands there and stares.

He takes a breath.

He takes another.

He takes a step.

He takes another.

Glass crunches under his feet. It slices into his skin as he falls to his knees.

The box is old, cardboard stained, corner crumpled. On the side Spare Parts has been written and crossed out, replaced by Misc. Pieces which has in turn been crossed out in favor of simply Scrap Metal. It’s small. Gyro could cradle it in one arm. If he wanted to. He reaches out, hand hovering above the top flap. He does not open it.

The police escort him out of the country later that day. Onto a plane that will take him far away, never to come back. Inspector Tezuka is there when he leaves.

Everything he owns worth keeping fits in a small bag slung over his shoulder. In his arms he carries an empty box.

Just an empty box.

Nothing more.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The plane lands an unknown number of hours later. He stumbles off the plane and the door slams shut before he’s even fully on the ground. The plane takes off immediately, not even pausing to refuel. He’s not sure how that’s going to work out for them but sure.

He eventually realizes he’s been dumped in Calisota.

First, he realizes they haven’t dumped him at an airport but literally in the middle of a random field.

Eventually he finds a farmhouse. All he has is a bag full of tools, notebooks and mostly dirty laundry. And an empty box. When he rifles through his pockets and comes up with is a stick of novelty Pep flavored gum and a handful of crumpled yen. He doesn’t open the box.

The owners of the farm let him stay in their spare room in exchange for fixing their tractor. Resurrecting their tractor might be more accurate.

Four weeks and four tractors, three washing machines, six car engines, eight coffee makers, two television sets, five toasters and an industrial corn thresher later Gyro opens a repair shop. He has vague memories of his father briefly running one. Besides which, repairing things is safer. He’s seen what happens when he tries to create.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He gains a reputation in town. Well, he’s not sure there’s enough town to be called a town. Either way, he gains a reputation, surly and antisocial but dependable if you need something repaired. Rover, the farmer who first took him in, is something like a mayor or at least as close as they came to one. He vouches for Gyro and the rest of the town follows his lead.

He and his wife Rosie have a son, a hyperactive little boy named Rufus, and judging by the old fashioned crib still assembled in the corner of the guest room, they’ve a mind for one or two more. Gyro ends up dragged to their house for dinner more often then can possibly be normal. Probably. He’s never been good at social situations of pretty much any type.

Rover says he works too much. Rosie says he doesn’t eat enough. Gyro strongly disagrees. He hasn’t stayed awake to the point of hallucinations in more than two months and he hasn’t blacked out from standing up too quickly in almost twice that long. When he tells Rover that, the older man stares at him for several minutes before telling him in no uncertain terms he was coming to dinner that night and would be staying the night. He doesn’t know what gossip Rover and Rosie spread but suddenly his payments for repairs all come with a side of thank you food.

They’re always doing that. Insisting on ‘looking out’ for Gyro. Like he’s a child. Like he needs someone to take care of him. Like he deserves it.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first anniversary of Tokyolk Gyro gets himself a bottle of Travis’s moonshine and gets more drunk than he’s ever been in his life.

He wakes up the next morning laying face-down in the middle of his workshop floor. A mostly empty bottle lays on its side in front of him. The only thing keeping the alcohol from seeping into the floorboards is the fact there’s not enough left to reach the bottle’s mouth. He doesn’t remember anything of the night before. Just screaming and smoke and dark, unseeing eyes and a tiny speck falling falling fall–

Gyro grabs the bottle and drains the last of it.

Later, after he’s had a shower and passed out for a couple of hours on the cot in the corner that constitutes his bedroom, he finds them.

There, sitting innocently on his drafting table, are a set of blueprints. Normally that would mean nothing except he’d cleared his drafting table the night before. The last thing he’d wanted was to ruin any of his designs. He wanders over and picks the pages up.

For a long moment he can’t process what he’s holding.

It’s 2-BO’s blueprints.

Not– Not the real ones. Not the ones Dr. Akita drew. These are new. The penmanship is Gyro’s. He drew these. He drew these last night.

Gyro drops the pages, recoiling from the table.

He lights his drafting table on fire rather than risk looking at them.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gyro gets very, very drunk.

He sits on the floor, a half-full bottle of moonshine in his hand and two empty ones beside him. The world wobbles unsteadily, tilting wildly every time he moves his head.

Notebooks and blueprints (his blueprints) lay dissected and scattered across the floor where he’d left them. In the middle of all of it sits an empty box.

(That’s all it is. Just an empty box.)

“This is all your fault,” he tells the empty box.

The box doesn’t answer.

Gyro throws his bottle at it. The bottle explodes as it hits the ground, moonshine and glass flying everywhere. “All your fault. Aaaalll your fault.” He flops onto his back. The ceiling does loop de loops as he blinks at it. “All your fault all your fault all your fault! Everything is always all your fault! Useless, pointless, stupid… stupid, stupid intern.”

The ceiling keeps reeling. It’s going to fall, it's going to fall on him, he's going to be squished, he needs to move the ceiling’s going to fall on him.

Maybe he should let it.

He goes to take another drink. His bottle’s missing. When did that happen? He reaches out a hand, fumbling around until his fingers close on a new bottle. He takes a swig. Nothing comes out. He tilts his head to stare at the bottle. The bottle’s empty. He rolls it back and forth in his hands. The glass is heavy, even without anything in it. It’s a very big bottle. It holds a lot. Held a lot? It was full this afternoon. It’s empty now. Something– Something’s wrong. A bottle that big doesn’t just go from full to empty for no reason. Realson? For nothing. He looks around for another bottle. His gaze catches on the empty box. He surges up, chucking his bottle at it. The bottle explodes, glass flying everywhere.

“This is all your fault,” he says. Lying always made him feel better.

That’s a lie, he doesn’t feel better.

He goes to take another drink. His bottle’s missing.

Gyro stumbles to his feet. The world does its best to flip itself upside-down.

“You w’re– you wer sup– suppos’t to– you were– I was suppos’t to…” His knees abruptly decide they’re actually made of water and he crashes to the ground.

Glass crunches under his hands. It slices into his skin as he falls.

“You were supposed to be good.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“These are really my blueprints?” 2-BO cranes his head to see better, straining the wires hooked into the back of his head. Gyro gently nudges him further back on the bench.

“Part of them. You are a very complex robot so your blueprints take a lot of pages. This page is your power core.” He taps the drawing, sliding it forward so 2-BO can see it better. “See here? It’s self-sustaining.”

“Self-sustaining?” 2-BO leans forward again. One of the wires makes an ominous groaning sound and Gyro scrambles to push him back on the bench again before anything can break. After a moment he unhooks the wires. 2-BO looks up at him. “What does that mean?”

Gyro wraps an arm around the little robot. He cares more about him than he should and he knows it. Dr. Akita would be furious at him for it. He’s starting to suspect he doesn’t care. “Well, a normal power core would act like a battery where it would just store power and either run down and then be dead or they need a constant influx of external power. But your core powers itself.” He taps the drawing again. “So long as nothing happens to damage it you’ll never run out of power and shut down.”

“And if it is damaged?”

“Well… That’s why you have to protect it. And why it’s important for you to know your own blueprints. So you can know when something’s wrong and maybe even help us fix it.”

There’s a noise behind him.

Gyro jumps. He spins around, back to the bench. There’s nothing there.

He turns back around and 2-BO’s missing. He grabs the edge of the table, frantically searching. The bench is empty. 2-BO’s gone. The lights flicker, world falling away into darkness before coming back. A cardboard box sits on the bench. The box is old, cardboard stained, corner crumpled. On the side Spare Parts has been written and crossed out, replaced by Misc. Pieces which has in turn been crossed out in favor of simply Scrap Metal. It’s small. Gyro could cradle it in one arm. If he wanted to. He reaches out, hand hovering above the top flap–

“Intern. What are you doing?”

Gyro turns.

Dr. Akita looms over him, a huge shadowy figure. His hand reaches out–

Gyro wakes up.

The entire room reeks of cheap alcohol. His mouth tastes like something curled up and died in it. When he blinks his eyes open he immediately slams them back shut to keep out the thousand tiny knives trying to stab his brain.

That might just be sunlight.

That makes more sense. Sunlight is worse than knives.

The floor roils worse than a boat caught in the middle of a storm. He rolls over and empties his guts onto the floor.

He deeply regrets being awake.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------

Eventually he manages to pry his eyes open and keep them that way.

The floor is sticky with moonshine. Papers lay scattered in a booze-soaked ring. Glass shards glint from the floor, the tables, the shelves.

In the middle of it all sits an empty box.

He picks up one of the shards of glass. Consider it. He sets it down and picks up the box. The cardboard’s newly stained. Glass shards cling to the edges. He sets it back its spot on the shelf.

2-BO’s blueprints are scattered together with his notes. Both sets. He picks up one of the pages of the set he drew up last night. He appears to have drawn the entire thing in crayon. The annotations are nigh illegible but the sketches are as precise as ever. He traces his finger over the lines of 2-BO’s power core.

See here? It’s self-sustaining.

He burns both sets of blueprints.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gyro shoves the box of blueprints into his car. It may or may not actually be street legal, he built it himself and he’s never owned a real car before for comparison. Wedging the box in next to the three others, he picks the last one and tries to figure out where in the hell it was going to fit.

Rover watches him from the little fence that lines the walkway to the workshop. “You don’t have to leave, you know.”

“I’ve already packed all my blueprints and I’m not unpacking them.” He shoves at the box harder than necessary and it jolts suddenly out of his hand. He careens forward, arms flailing in a vain attempt to keep his balance. Rover’s hand grabs his shoulder, tugging him back upright.

“And you’re sure this is what you want to do.”

Rover’s hand is warm and steady on his shoulder. He brushes it off, turning away. “Well I already swept up all the glass so I guess I’m doing this then.”

“Alright. Then just what is it that you’re doing?” Rover asks, following him back into the workshop.

Gyro doesn’t answer, instead poking through the corner that makes up his living area, trying to decide whether or not to take any of it with him. Nah, all of it’s junk anyway. He tosses the blanket back onto the cot, shifting focus into shoving his remaining tools into a nearby crate.

“Where are you going to go?”

“No clue. Anywhere with a real lab I can work my way into. I’ve got more than two years of blueprints and the worst has already happened so why not!” He shoves a portable handheld power saw into his crate.

He picks up the crate of and almost immediately drops it because heavy. Rover scoops the crate into his arms, carrying it easily. “This doesn’t strike me as the smartest plan you’ve ever had.”

“Don’t care. I’ve reached my limit for hiding away in this backwater nothing of a town, withering away like everything and everyone else in it.” Some distant part of him’s aware he’s trying to pick a fight. Push away what little he’s scraped together. Rover, steady and patient and patently stubborn as ever, doesn’t oblige. When his shoulder knocks against Gyro’s it isn’t rough or angry. It’s the same gentle nudge he gives Gyro every time he and Rosie drag him over for dinner. Gyro grabs the last of the tools and pushes past him out of the room.

Rosie’s shown up with the kids while they were inside, Rufus tucked up against her side, little Riley a blanket wrapped bundle in her arms. She shifts Riley to one hand and presses a bag of food into Gyro’s hands with the other. “You come back and visit,” she says, a command as sure as anything he’s ever heard. Gyro swallows around the lump forming in his throat and nods, no idea if the motion is acquiescence or just empty appeasement.

It takes less than ten minutes to finish loading everything up and close up the workshop. The last thing he carries out is an empty box.

Just an empty box.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It takes Gyro two years to realize the truth.

He’s stuck on the biodegradable clock he’s building. Or trying to build anyways. He doesn’t understand why it keeps blowing up. This shouldn’t happen. He’s a genius. He’s better than this. He shouldn’t be accidentally blowing up his own lab.

Anymore.

The power source is based on Dr. Akita’s early work. It was one of the rare few things Dr. Akita bothered to properly teach him. Clearly he’s not remembering something correctly.

Either that or he’s even more of a failure than even Dr. Akita claimed he was. That’s possible too.

After the third explosion of the day and no closer to having a functioning clock he finally gives up and goes hunting for his old notes. He finds them in his old bag, next to an empty box marked Scrap Metal. There are a handful of battered notebooks, none of them labeled, because when has his past self ever made anything easier on himself? Underneath them is a lockable photo album emblazoned with My Memories in glittery cursive. A couple of dogeared pictures stick out from the overstuffed pages. The sight is so confusing Gyro stops in his tracks, original purpose completely derailed. He takes the album over to his work table, turning over in his hands as he goes. Slowly, vague memories come back from when he was a teenager, grand plans of using the album to protect sensitive notes and keep his important projects secret. Gyro nearly chucks the thing in the trash right then. Younger him was such a naïve, simple-minded chump. Curiosity wins out in the end. He doesn’t have the key anymore but a room full of power tools and no care whether the album survives makes it easy enough to open it anyway.

And then he finds them.

Hidden in the album, folded up and stuffed between the pages, are a copy of 2-BO’s blueprints. Gyro’s legs give out from under him. The blueprints spill out around him in a halo. He remembers. He remembers Dr. Akita locking away all the copies of 2-BO’s blueprints, suddenly refusing to let Gyro see them anymore. Gyro smuggling a copy out. Less than a week before the attack.

He stares down at the old blueprints. For the first time in more than two years, he confronts the proof of the worst mistake he’s ever made. They are exactly the same as the blueprints he’s drawn. Every detail remembered. The only difference is these ones are drawn in Dr. Akita’s hand.

Except they’re not.

It’s not Dr. Akita’s handwriting, it’s his.

There are a few places here and there that are Dr. Akita’s handiwork. But the rest of it – most of it – is Gyro’s work.

Hours later, as he stands in the middle of his shop, surrounded by an explosion of notebook pages and blueprints he finally sees it. He’s not Dr. Akita’s browbeaten intern anymore. (He’s not he’s not he’s not.) He’s older now. Better. He’s spent two years out from under Dr. Akita’s thumb.

He stares down at the old blueprints and now he can see the truth.

These are not Dr. Akita’s blueprints. This is not Dr. Akita’s invention. Dr. Akita wouldn’t have been able to build 2-BO. Not by himself.

That’s why he needed Gyro.

2-BO never would have existed without Gyro.

It’s all his fault.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hello?”

Gyro’s mind categorizes several things about the voice filtering into his lab. Scottish, older, male, intruding on his work.

“Go away! I’m busy being brilliant!”

There’s a tapping sound and the voice gets closer. “Is that any way to greet your new landlord?”

Gyro turns around. And older duck in a top hat stands in the middle of the lab, not so much leaning on the cane in his hands as posing with it. He puts together the image with what he’s already registered. Scrooge McDuck. The richest duck in the world. Who now owns his lab.

Gyro turns back to his lab bench. “Go away. I’m busy.”

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of this that easily.” The handle of the cane hooks around his arm, spinning him around to face the other man. “Now,” Scrooge says, “lets’s try this again. You are…?”

“Gyro Gearloose.”

“Well then Mr. Gearloose, wh–”

“Doctor Gearloose.”

That earns him a double take. “Huh,” Scrooge says, glancing around the lab. “Didn’t think this place had the money for someone with a doctorate.”

They don’t. The only reason they can afford him is because when it came to negotiations money had been far secondary to having a lab and full control of it.

Scrooge starts wandering around the lab, peering at the various projects scattered throughout. “What’s this then?” he asks, leaning over something on the central table.

Wait. Center table.

The only thing on that table is–

“Don’t touch that!” Gyro lunges, knocking aside Scrooge’s hand seconds away from making contact with the empty box sitting on top of the table.

(Just an empty box.)

Scrooge jolts back. “What’s in it?” He eyes the box much more warily now. “It’s not going to explode on us, is it?”

Gyro takes a step back, straightening his vest. He doesn’t look down at the table. “No. It’s just an empty box.”

“Ye nearly took my hand off for an empty box?”

“Yes.”

“Then why’s it so off limits if it’s empty?” Scrooge goes to poke it with his cane. Gyro snatches the cane straight out of his hands.

He waits for the explosion. For McDuck to demand if Gyro knows who he is (he does), the hell he could bring down on Gyro’s head (he does), just what kind of right does Gyro think he has to treat him like that (absolutely none at all but he’s stopped caring about that).

(He’s stopped caring about a lot of things.)

Instead Scrooge chuckles and tilts his head at him consideringly. “So why’s it so off limits if it’s empty?” he asks again.

Gyro hands him his cane back. “Idiot filter,” he hears himself say. “If they can’t follow one simple instruction they don’t belong in my lab.”

Scrooge’s gaze turns back to the box and he looks almost impressed now. “You know that’s not actually a bad idea.” He circles the table, studying the box, this time with his hands tucked respectfully behind his back. “I might have to borrow that tactic when interviewing potential new staff. Lord knows there’s a bobble or two lying around that really shouldn’t be handled if you don’t ken wha’ you’re doing and if they can’t even follow one simple instruction then they’re rather doomed from the start, aren’t they?”

“Uh… right. Exactly.”

A wide grin breaks out on Scrooge’s face. “I like you.”

Gyro blinks. “I ignored you, stole your cane, and yelled at you.”

“Exactly. Do you know how rare that is these days?” he asks, before adding with a loose shrug, “Discounting everyone who wants to kill me that is. Tell me Dr. Gearloose, how do you like your lab?” He motions around the room with his cane, encompassing the entirety of the cramped, dingy room with the motion.

Gyro glances around the room, although he’s not sure why. It isn’t like he doesn’t know what it looks like. He spends literally all his time here, the small beat-up couch shoved in the corner doubling as his bed, only really leaving when he needed parts or food. Mostly parts. “It’s a lab, and it’s mine.”

“Surely you could do better?” Scrooge presses.

“It’s mine. I’m in charge of it, I’m in control of it. That’s worth the trade-off of everything else.” He has no idea why he’s telling Scrooge this. Why he’s answering him so honestly, why he hasn’t tried to chase him out. There’s just something about him, about this whole interaction, that makes Gyro want to know how he’ll react. It’s been a long time since Gyro’s let himself be curious about… anything really.

(He wants to be curious again.)

Scrooge nods slowly. “That could be arranged. Within reason off course. Alright, that settles it. You’re not afraid of water are you?”

“No?”

“Perfect. You’ll love it, far better equipped.” He waves his cane around the room again. “Pack up whatever you like. I assume you’re just as finicky about movers as every other scientist I’ve met. Besides which, they cost, much cheaper to do it ourselves.”

Gyro has officially lost the thread of this conversation. He wants to find it again. For the first time in years he’s curious where it leads. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean this.” He points his cane directly at the empty box. “You’re not just smart, you’re clever. Keen sighted. If I jus’ wanted some feather-minded academic with more degrees than he knew what to do with I could go out and find a dozen of those. Probably fill the whole bin with ‘em if I had a mind to. But you. You’re something more. I can tell.” He plants the tip of his cane on the ground, adopting the same pose he struck when he first came in. “Dr. Gearloose, how would ye like a job?”

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gyro has a problem.

Scrooge has a policy of reusing anything that possibly can be reused. Which is fine, Gyro’s grown up doing much the same. Science isn’t cheap and this job is the first time he’s actually had access to all the component parts he needs without having to scavenge or come up with some… creative workarounds.

(That’s not quite true. Dr. Akita’s lab had everything he could have dreamed of.)

(It’s all nightmares now.)

(But he’s not thinking about that.)

The problem is with the inventions that are unsalvageable. Not the ones broken beyond all recognition or melted down into slag, those can just be tossed straight into the dump. The problem is the broken inventions that are still just functional enough that they could be dangerous if they land in the wrong hands. So far Gyro’s been making do with a storage unit he’s rented – the cost of which has not been comped by McDuck Enterprises despite Gyro making multiple attempts to mark it as a work expense. He’s about ready to just give up and eat the cost forever just to stop fighting with the accounting department.

And now the problem’s come to a head with his construction robots. Or more accurately, what’s left of his construction robots. Thank you Ma Beagle and sons.

Gyro stands in front of the robot head, hands on his hips. He’s technically also standing in the middle of the street, but given that said street is currently blocked by said giant robot head he’s not worried about getting run over by the mobile crane in front of him.

For the most part.

He widens his stance and glares at the crane operator. “You’re not taking it.”

“Gyro…” Scrooge shifts closer to him, casting a wary look at the dismembered robot parts behind him. “Is this a matter of getting attached? Because that’s very… sweet. But it’s blocking downtown. Not to mention, you just said yourself it was unfixable.”

“What? No! It doesn’t even have a processor! That would be like getting attached to a pickup truck. What sort of overly sentimental neanderthal do you take me for?” Honestly. Gyro’s insulted. What’s next, thinking he’s going to name the toaster? “This is a security concern. The robot’s dead but it’s not dead dead. We throw it in the dump and there’s a chance the Beagles will somehow get it running again and next thing you know it’s robot street hockey part two.”

“Ye just said it was unfixable.”

“And I stand by that. But there’s knowing it’s unfixable and there’s spitting in fate’s face and daring the universe to prove you wrong. Throwing the robot Ma Beagle just used for a city-wide crime spree in her backyard is definitely the latter.”

“Then we’ll take it back to McDuck labs and have it destroyed entirely.”

“Well, I suppose we could…” Gyro says, running numbers in his head. “It would cost though.” Wait. He forgot to carry the one. “A lot. It would cost a lot.”

Scrooge predictably blanches at the thought of spending money. Gyro lets out a sigh, pushing up his glasses and pinching the bridge of his beak. “And this is why a good half of my failed inventions are currently in my storage unit.”

“And can ye–”

“No the construction robot will not fit.”

A week later Scrooge has come up with the solution of a private storage depot. Gyro spends an entire day transferring the contents of his storage unit to the new depot. When he’s finished the first thing he does is build an extra durable pallet. The next time he needs to clear it out he’s going to forklift everything out.

Really if money was no issue the storage depot would be more of an actual depot, a high-security warehouse instead of the walled but otherwise open-air junkyard they’d built. And the security features could – and honestly probably should – be better. But it’s Scrooge. Money is always an issue.

Eh, Gyro I'll take it.

Anyone with the knowledge to understand the stuff dumped there would have the skills to make their own and rather than pawing through a bunch of broken junk. And anyone who needs to paw through these scraps won’t know what to do with them. It’d take a special breed of hack to fall in the middle of that Venn diagram.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------

“They want to give me a what?”

“An honorary doctorate.”

Gyro pushes his mask up. He shuts off the welding torch so he can hear Scrooge better. “Why?”

“They’re impressed by your work,” Scrooge says.

“They want to be able to claim you so they can add you to their list of alumni they can brag about for clout,” Donald says, leaning against the bench. Della hops up next to him, knocking her knee into her brother’s shoulder.

“So does that mean they’re going to try to rescind their doctorate the next time one of Gyro’s machines go evil?”

“They’re not evil they’re just wildly misunderstood!” Gyro screeches. “And why are you two here anyway?”

“To see your face when Uncle Scrooge told you the news,” Della says.

“I was bored,” Donald says. Gyro chucks one of his welding gloves each of them. Della catches hers. Donald’s hits him in the face.

“I’ll pass. I don’t need a piece of paper saying a bunch of people dumber than me have decided to recognize that I am, in fact, a genius.” Gyro picks up the pieces he’d been soldering, studying the joint. What had he been thinking? The tensile strength in this is atrocious. “Who are they to hand out honorary doctorates anyway?”

“The board of Duckburg University,” Scrooge says.

“I’ll stick to the one I’ve got thanks. It’s better than anyone else’s anyway.”

“Well I’ve already told them you’d be honored so it’s happening.”

“I don’t get a choice, do I?” Gyro asks the room at large. Della stifles a laugh behind her hand.

“We’ll get the university to throw a party, a great big public ceremony where they can give you your new doctorate. It’s a great honor.” Scrooge claps his hands together. He’s wearing the smile that Gyro has learned to associate with the start of a new moneymaking scheme. Gyro inches over to where Donald and Della are. Safety in numbers and all that. “Also it’ll be great publicity for McDuck Enterprises.”

“The truth comes out,” Della intones. Gyro rolls his eyes and leans over to retrieve his gloves. Della holds her glove above her head to try to keep him from getting it. Unfortunately for her even with the added height of the bench on her side Gyro’s still tall enough to reach it. Della sticks her tongue out at him as he grabs it. Donald’s hits Gyro in the face.

“Get out of my lab.”

“So that’s a yes to the party then,” Scrooge says as Gyro starts herding them towards the door.

“Urgh. Fine. Just so long as you all go away and let me work.”

“Perfect. Think you can have your newest invention finished by next Friday? We can use the party as free publicity to promote it.”

“Sure. Absolutely, now lea– Wait.” Gyro freezes. “I’m not going to have to… say anything, am I?”

Beside him Della let out a snort of laughter.

“A public word or two of appreciation,” Scrooge says with a tilt of his head. “Perhaps a small speech.”

“I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going.”

Della’s laughter has reached the point where she’s having trouble breathing.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gyro holds up the framed diploma. The New Quackmore Institute seal gleams from under the polished glass.

He fishes out the box of diplomas, awards, and accolades from the bottom shelf of the storage room and shoves it in with the others. It just refuses to fit, sticking barely a quarter of the way in, jutting out awkwardly, the sides of the cardboard straining. “Urgh. I need a bigger diploma box.” But that means allocating a bigger spot on the storage shelf for it. Maybe he should just start sending them back.

“Why don’t you put them up and display them?” Donald says, pulling the newest diploma back out and flipping it over to look at it.

“It’s a waste of wall space.” Maybe he could take them out of their frames? Organize them into some kind of book or something. That’d take less space.

But that would take so much time. He had better things to do than PhD scrapbooking.

Della leaned over her brother’s shoulder to look at the box. “How many doctorates do you have by now anyway?”

“I don’t keep track.” He waves a hand in the direction of the box. “If you really want to know, count. Just keep them in the box and don’t go taking up my lab space with them.” …He could get the intern to do it. That’s a safe use for her, isn’t it?

There’s only so many times Gyro can have her reorganize the storage room.

“What if we set up a shelf to display all of them on?” Donald stands up, pacing out an imaginary shelf.”

“That would be a waste of wall, shelf, and floor space!”

“But just think about all the bragging you could do!” Della cries as she hops down from her perch. “Something classy that you could pose next to when Uncle Scrooge makes you take interview pictures.”

“I don’t brag!”

Donald snorts. He and Della share a look. “And when you introduce yourself as ‘Gyro Gearloose, certified genius and greatest mind you’ll ever meet’?”

“That’s just being factual.”

“Oh yeah,” Della drawls, “definitely no ego on you.”

“Why do I put up with you two?”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Why am I here?” Gyro asks as Della drags him up to the front door of the manor. He cranes his head to direct his question to Donald, strolling in on Della’s side. He’s the rational sibling.

“For dinner,” Della answers. She lets go of his arm to throw open the door. Gyro takes the opportunity to spin around on his heel and walk off. He makes it all of two steps before Donald slides in front of him, blocking his way. Before he can get around him Della’s already reclaimed his hand. “Come on. Duckworth said he’s making Bolognese. Lots of carbs, just what you need.”

“I don’t have time for this. I have work to do.”

“You stood up too fast and passed out.” Della bares her teeth in a vicious smile. “You’re making time.”

Mental note: never let Della meet Rover and Rosie.

Or Donald. He’d absolutely snitch to his sister.

“Give up now,” Donald says, knocking their shoulders together as he moves forward to walk next to Della. “You know how feral she is.”

“I’m not the one who stubbed his toe and took out three walls last week.”

Donald sticks his foot out to trip her. Della jumps over it, smirking over at him. Gyro sticks his foot out, catching Della’s mid-landing.

“Aack!” Della’s hands shoot out and grab Donald and Gyro’s shoulders for balance. Only instead of keeping her upright the action pulls them down with her to land face-first on the floor.

“Ow.”

“You both deserved that.”

“Kids?” Scrooge pokes his head out of the dining room door. “Quit fooling around you two and come to dinner.” His gaze catches on Gyro and he steps fully out of the room, propping the end of his cane on the ground and cocking his head. “Gyro? What are you doing here? Ye didn’t blow up the lab again, did you? That’s not a way to get around your renovation budget.”

“He stood up and immediately passed out from lack of food,” Donald says as he pulls himself up from the floor. “Della and I are forcing him to eat.”

Scrooge looks at them for a second or two longer before he shrugs and turns around back into the dining room. “Alright then. Now quit fooling around you three and come to dinner.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Come on! It’d be so cool!”

“No.”

“Okay, but what if… What if you could produce them on a large scale as a more efficient form of travel! This could be like a reflex test! I could totally be the test dummy! Think of the Science!”

“You’d crash into a wall and break your skull. And then your uncle would fire me. Science done.”

“No I wouldn’t! I’m a pilot! First in my class and everything!”

“Still no.”

Della groans and flops backwards so she’s now taking up the entirety of the lab bench. “Please? Just one itty bitty little jetpack? Please please pleeeaase?”

Gyro turns and glares at her. It doesn’t work. Given that she’d introduced herself by plopping down on his work bench and launching into the story of the last adventure where she and her brother got kidnapped by a group of vengeful mystic warriors with a grudge against Scrooge he didn’t really expect it to, but still worth trying. He lets out a heavy sigh. “If– If I build this for you, will you go away and leave me alone?”

“Wait really?” Della asks, shooting upright.

“I can still rescind the offer.”

“No no! I can totally do that! You’ll never see me or hear a peep from me ever again!”

“I somehow seriously doubt that,” Gyro says, pulling out a fresh sheet of drafting paper. “Now, I assume you’ll want extra thrusters…”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ah, Gyro!” Scrooge calls out, cane extended in greeting. “Just the man I wanted to see!”

Gyro pulls himself to a halt, turning around. “Mr. McDuck.”

“I’ve got a task for you.”

“This isn’t another board meeting I have to attend, is it?” Gyro asks, wincing as he falls into step beside Scrooge.

“No no. Not after last time.” Scrooge shakes his head before tilting it thought. “I really need to look into hiring a board of directors who have a more accepting view of chaos. Lord knows that’s not changing anytime soon.”

Gyro gives a shrug before smirking down at him. “You’re the one who let Della and Donald pilot the plane and submarine.”

Scrooge grins back at him. “You’re the one who built Della a jetpack.”

“That was years ago. And anyway her broken arm healed fine.”

“And the rocket propelled underwater propeller you made Donald last month?”

“I lost a bet, that is not my fault.” Glaring daggers at your boss is probably not good form but then again neither is snickering at your employees. “Didn’t you have something you wanted from me?”

“Quite right. Duckworth’s come down with a bad case of something and the household cleaning is falling behind without him.”

“Have you considered a temporary employment agency. Because I don’t clean. That’s why you made me get an intern.”

“I didn’t give you an intern so the lab could have a janitor two weeks out of the year. Somehow I imagined science would be involved somewhere. Anyway, I was hoping you could build something to handle the cleaning. I figure we can use the manor as something of a test run and if your machine works we can look towards retooling it for mass production.”

“A robot maid? Yeah, sure, I could make something like that.”

“Perfect! It’ll be just the thing to bring to the investor’s meeting next month.”

“I could probably have something ready in that time frame.” Gyro nods, already sketching and discarding plans in his head. “Definitely multiple arm attachments. Maybe some sort of hovering capabilities for the top of tall shelves and dusty ceilings. And definitely multiple cleaning programs that you can switch between.” Urgh, coding.

“I was actually thinking of something a little more advanced. Something that can decide for itself what needs doing.”

Gyro comes to a halt. “You mean AI.”

“Sure, if that’s what it’s called.” Scrooge shrugs, waving his cane through the air in a vague circle before pointing it at Gyro. “I don’t keep on track of all the newfangled technical terms. That’s what I’ve got you for. So, when can I expect it to be ready?”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean no?”

“I don’t do AI.”

“I’m your boss!”

“And it’s my lab. I’m in charge. I’m in control. I will make you a smart machine, I will make you a learning machine, but I will not make an AI. This is something I will not bend on.”

Scrooge stiffens. He clearly remembers the last time Gyro had said something along those lines. Scrooge had won that fight, Gryo had wanted to keep the home he’d found enough to risk it. He doesn’t think he can do that this time.

Not with this.

He and Scrooge stare at each other, a silent battle of wills. Then Scrooge huffs. Something in his face softens. “Alright then, no AI.”

Gyro lets out a breath. He takes another.

“I can have a cleaning bot prototype by the end of the day.”

Scrooge nods. His gaze slides over to Gyro, studying. He dips his head at him in a question. “Can I ask…?”

“You cannot.” He turns around, back to his lab, mainly as an excuse not to have to meet Scrooge’s eyes. “If I ever make that mistake again it will be on my own terms and by my own idiocy.” Pausing, he looks back at Scrooge. “Take me out before that happens. Nothing good will come of it.”

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donald holds out a crumpled mess of wires, metal and wood, a nervous, sheepish smile on his face. Gyro stares at him in undisguised horror. “What did you do?”

The smile drops away into a scowl. “You’re the one who asked me to test it.”

“Test it Donald! Not obliterate it completely!” He scoops the wreckage into his arms, cradling it with a wounded noise. The tangle lets out a puff of dark smoke. “How did you even manage to do this?”

“It’s not my fault!” Donald declares, folding his arms. “Your controls were too hard to understand!”

“It was an automated butterfly catcher Donald! And the controls were specifically designed so that a five-year-old could operate them!”

“Well clearly not!”

Donald’s feathers bristle, his face growing increasingly red. His hands ball into fists. He’s clearly about five seconds from blowing his top entirely. Gyro drops the destroyed catcher, pushing Donald toward the door. “Oh no you don’t! If you wreck my lab I’ll tell Della who it was who threw up in the Cloudslayer’s storage bin.”

“Then I’ll tell her it was you who spilled machine oil on her favorite jacket.”

“Then I’ll tell Scrooge about the underground monster truck derby you really went to when you ‘went camping’ last month!”

“Then I’ll tell Uncle Scrooge that the Soda Jerk malfunction was actually on purpose!”

Gyro and Donald glare at each other. Finally Gyro drops his arms and steps back. “It seems we’ve reached the point of mutually assured destruction.”

Donald huffs but his shoulders relax half a hitch, no longer at risk of blowing up any second. “Seems like.”

“What now?”

Donald’s arms drop entirely. “Ditch work and go get some lunch?”

Gyro glances over at the tangled mess on the table. Yeah, that was scrap entirely and start over. “Sure, why not.” He snags his jacket, falling in next to Donald as they head for the door. “Just not that sloppy joe place again.”

“They’re the size of your head Gyro! It’s the best!”

“Some of us have normal metabolisms Donald.”

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Gyro I’m booorrrred.”

“I don’t care.” Gyro tightens another bolt, doing his best to ignore Della. It doesn’t work.

“Entertain me!”

The wrench goes flying out of Gyro’s hand, skittering over the floor and under the far workbench. Stalking over to retrieve it he glares up at Della, who’s hopped up on the table and is now draped dramatically over his current invention. How mad would Scrooge be if he stabbed her with his wrench? Just a little. “I am not responsible for your entertainment.”

“Nope!” Della claps her hands together, putting on the absolute worst snooty British accent Gyro’s ever heard. “Amuse me jester!”

“No. Go bother your brother.”

“He’s still on his ‘great comeback tour’ with José and Panchito.”

“So go bother your Uncle.”

“He’s in Antelope Hills finalizing a business deal.”

“So go bother your girlfriend.”

“She broke up with me.”

Oh.

Della’s no longer draped out over the table. Instead she’s curled up in a ball of misery, arms wrapped around her knees.

Gyro sets the wrench down. He inches closer the same way one might with a scared cat. He opens his mouth only to immediately close it when he realizes he has absolutely no clue what to say. Should he give her a hug? Friendly shoulder punch?? Pat her head???

He’s not socialized enough for this!

Della lets out a soft noise that sounds like the precursor to tears.

“Right, nope, not doing that.” Gyro grabs Della’s hand, pulling her down off the table. “Come on.”

Della sniffles, scrubbing the end of her beak. “Where are we going?”

“We are going to test my experimental explosives by blowing things up until you feel better.”

Della sniffles again. She gives him a watery smile. “That could take a while.”

Gyro shifts so his arms wrapped around her shoulders. “I’ve got a lot of explosives.”

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gyro takes a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. He reaches to open the door before stopping himself, knocking instead. It ends up as more of a slap, but that counts, right? It makes enough noise to be heard on the other side and that’s the part that really matters.

“Come in.”

Gyro straightens his spine, takes another breath, and pushes his way inside. “If this is about the automatic ironing board, I’ll remind you that you were the one who wanted it to be able fold and sort clothes, so really–”

“That’s not what I asked to see you about,” Scrooge says, looking up from his desk.

Gyro lets himself relax. He’s not being sued by an angry fashion stylist today. Once was more than enough. “Then if this is about the improved infrared periscope for the submarine I told you it won’t be finished until the end of the month. I can’t just wave my hand and make it appear, not to mention I have my own projects, many of which are time sensitive. And even if they weren’t I’m not putting them to the wayside. Who knows how long it would take to get back to them. Not to mention–”

“Gyro. If I can cut in for a second?” Scrooge asks, cocking an eyebrow at him. He picks up the folders covering his desk, using it to gesture at the chair across from him. “Sit down and take a look at these.”

Gyro drops into the chair, picking up one of the files. It’s a personnel file. A closer look reveals it to not actually be a personnel file, but a file for a prospective employee. When he picks up a second folder, he finds the same thing, just for a different person. Gyro lowers the folder, eyeing Scrooge. “Is this a trick to get me to interact with people? Because that’s– Hey, wait a minute! This guy’s still in school!” He snatches up another folder. “And so’s she!” He drops the folders to grab a third. “Are they all students?!”

“These are applications for an internship position. Unpaid, of course. It’ll give them valuable work experience underneath the mentorship of the best of the best. And it’ll give us a chance to scout out the highest potential up and comers. Scoop them up before Glomgold can get his hands on them.”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with me,” he says as he scans the folder in his hands. It is admittedly an impressive CV. “What department are you going to stick them in anyway? Don’t say sustainable energy. The algae is at a very delicate state. The last thing I need is some wet behind the ears nitwit bumbling in and giving it sentience.”

“They’d be working at the main lab.”

“What do you mean, ‘Main Lab’? McDuck Enterprises doesn’t have a main lab.”

“Yes we do Gyro, you work out of it.”

A cold trickle of suspicion went down Gyro’s spine. “You want to put them in my lab.”

“They’d be your intern.”

It’s like someone pours a bucket of ice water over him. “what?”

“They’d be your intern,” Scrooge repeats. “You said it yourself, you have your own projects to work on. Projects only you can do. Having someone else around to help, someone who you can delegate part of the load, would give you more time to focus on your projects. Besides,” he adds with an amused grin, “putting up with you is an excellent stress test for prospective future hires.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“I will not accept an intern,” he hears himself say.

“Don’t be daft. Now take a look at these folders and tell me which one you want to offer the job to.”

“I’m not taking on an intern.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. And that’s final.”

Gyro sets the folder down. “Very well.”

“Good. Now which of these–”

“Mr. McDuck, I’d like to tender my resignation. Effective immediately.”

Scrooge stares at him. “Ye can’t be serious.”

“I am.” Gyo stands. “Thank you Mr. McDuck, for the employment opportunity. I’m sorry to see it end but we’ve reached an impasse I cannot bend on. I’ll see myself out.”

He turns around and walks out. He doesn’t let himself look back.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gyro steps out of his car, holding onto the top of the door as he stares up at the Money Bin. His grip tightens on the metal.

He can do this.

“Gyro!” Something slams into his side, wrapping around him and sending him flying. He collided with something else, or maybe someone else, as firm hands wrap around his arms keeping him from hitting the ground. “You disappeared for almost a month.” Della tightens her arms around his middle, squeezing out what little breath he’d managed to get back. “Uncle Scrooge said you quit.”

“Don’t be stupid, Dumbella,” Donald says behind him. “I told you he didn’t really quit.” Donald hauls Gyro upright and then hauls back and socks him in the arm. “You couldn’t have come up with a better way to get vacation time than fake your resignation? Or at least told us?”

He can’t do this.

“Gyro!” Scrooge strolls out of the Money Bin. He comes to a vault in front of the three of them, planting his cane in the distant, self-important way he pulls out for obnoxious investors. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I’m just here to collect my things and inventions.”

“Wait.” Della steps back, staring up at him. “You mean you really did quit?”

Scrooge glances between the three of them. “Kids, why don’t you let me and Gyro speak alone for a bit?”

They take the stairs down to the lab. Gyro’s silent as they step into the room. Scrooge follows after him just as silent.

Gyro walks across the room to the far shelf. He picks up an empty box marked Scrap Metal, cradling it in his arms.

“You know,” Scrooge says behind him. “Even if you do leave, this lab’s always going to be yours.” Gyro turns around to look at him. Scrooge has set his cane on top of one of the lab benches, staring out the window into the ocean on the other side. As if feeling Gyro’s attention, he turns his head, gracing him with a tired grin. “I originally had it built to try to coax Ludwig here after he retired. Didn’t take. After that it mostly sat empty. A couple of projects for the bin here or there where it was more convenient to keep the work in house, contractors and electricians and the like to keep it up to date, but it didn’t belong to anybody. Until you.” Scrooge turns back to the window. “Maybe some day it’ll be more than just yours, but I seriously doubt there’ll ever come a day where it won’t in some way or another be yours.”

Gyro stays frozen in the middle of the lab. He can see his reflection of the glass of the window, an empty box clutched to his chest. “I…”

“You’re a brilliant man Gyro. But you are so very bad at people. To the point where I’ve thought about making you interpersonal flash cards. Having someone else down here with you might be good for you. You might just learn something from the experience too. It doesn’t have to be the end of the world.”

Intern. What are you doing?

What have you done?

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“You don’t know that.”

Scrooge lets out a sigh. He walks past Gyro to retrieve his cane. “Look. I’ll make you a deal. Try having an intern around for two weeks. If you can make a genuine effort and keep them around for at least two weeks, I won’t ask you to try having an intern for the rest of the year.”

“How is that a deal!?!”

“Would it really be such a bad thing?” Scrooge asks, looking over at him. “That you’d rather give up everything and run away… Then even try?”

Gyro takes a deep breath. He forces down the shadows. It’s easier to do so here. In his lab. It’s easier now, after three weeks of family. He takes another breath and focuses on the practicalities. He could always have them organize the storage room or sweep behind the filing cabinets or something. He doesn’t have to teach them anything. He doesn’t have to steal from them.

He doesn’t have to be Akita.

“And what about when they prove to be an idiot? Can I fire them and kick them out of my lab then?”

“Would this be before the two weeks are up?”

“Presumably. I’m not putting up with an interloper in my lab for two whole weeks.”

“Then you can expect a new intern within the week. Just– just try it for two weeks. Just two weeks. If you do then you won’t have to deal with me foisting an intern on you again until next year.”

“You mean I’d have to play nice with some pea-brained toddler in a lab coat for two whole weeks only to turn around and do it all over again next year!”

“That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”

Gyro takes a breath. This is his lab. He can keep it safe. He doesn’t have to be Akita. This is his lab.

He wouldn’t be Akita.

A hand lands on his shoulder. He startles, nearly dropping the box. When he looks over Scrooge is looking back at him with an unreadable look on his face. He offers Gyro a small smile. “For what it’s worth, I hope you take it.”

Gyro looks away. He stares down at the empty box in his hands.

Scrooge squeezes his shoulder before letting go and stepping away. “I’ll give you some time to think it over.”

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

“What’s with the box.”

Gyro looks up from the stack of CVs in front of him, blinking away the spots hovering in front of his eyes. “Della?” He stands up, papers fluttering everywhere with the movement. He’ll have to pick them up later but that’s a problem for future Gyro. “I thought you and Donald were still mad at me.”

Della huffs but stands her ground. “I am. But I also missed you. I’m willing to hear your groveling apologies now.”

“I’m not groveling.”

“Fine, we can wait a week or so until Don’s cooled down enough to hear it too. And if you leave without telling us again I’m tracking you down to yell at you.”

“You’d have to find me first.”

“I’m not stopping until I find you. Nothing can stop Della Duck!”

“And Ducks don’t back down?”

“Don’t you quote Donald at me when I’m threatening you.”

A smile tugs at Gyro’s face without his permission. He ducks down and starts gathering the papers to hide it. “Duly noted.”

“So? What’s with the box? It’s not the normal one you hoard over.”

“You’re right, it’s not.

The empty box has been moved to his storage unit. Leaving it behind when he’d fled had made him reconsider the safety of keeping it in the lab. Especially now that he’s making the mistake of letting someone else in here with him.

He’d bought a new box at the packing store, tossing it on the far table. The box is unused, carboard a crisp white, corners sharp. On the side DO NOT TOUCH is scrawled in large red letters.

“Improved idiot filter. If they can’t follow one simple instruction they don’t belong in my lab and this way I don’t have to actually talk to them to get the point across.”

“You take antisocialness to whole new levels.”

“Thank you.”

Della leans forward to peer closer at it. “What’s in it?”

“Nothing.” Gyro flips open the top flap, tilting it so Della can see. “That’s not the point of it. The point is to see if the interns your uncle insists on foisting on me can follow one simple instruction.”

“So how are you going to know whether anyone’s touched it or not when you’re not looking?”

“I–” Huh. He hasn’t actually gotten that far. “I suppose I could rig up some sort of alarm and put that in it.” His gaze drifts over to the shelves, paging through his mental catalogue of supplies. “I’ve still got that ice cream truck siren from the soda jerk somewhere around here…”

“Oh Gyro. Gyro, Gyro, Gyro.” Della’s arm wraps around his shoulder and the smile that blooms across her face can only be described as devious. “Allow me to introduce you to the wonderful world of glitter bombs.”

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grumbling, Gyro dumps the last of the DT-35 into the cart to be shipped off to the invention junkyard. What’s the point of having an intern if they aren’t going to stay late and clean up? But nooo it’s all AAAHH!! The security droid almost took my hand off! Honestly. Gyro doesn’t care if the two week minimum isn’t over yet, he either needs to step up or get out.

“Hey Gyro!”

Gyro turns around at Della’s call. He blinks. Pulls off his glasses and scrubs at his eyes. Put them back on. Takes them off again and cleans them on his shirt.

“…What are you wearing?”

Della’s hair is pulled into a completely vertical ponytail by a giant neon pink and green scrunchie. She’s drawn a lightning bolt over one eye in glittery feather paint. Below that is a neck to toe high collared, rainbow bedazzled denim jumpsuit. Donald is wearing a headband, arm bands, leg warmers and a teal and purple shirt underneath a denim jacket underneath a life preserver. Also giant bright orange bedazzled sunglasses.

“It’s 80s night at the bar! Ooh! You should come with us!”

“Pass. I don’t drink.”

Donald crosses his arms, cocking his hip. “You don’t drink?”

“I occasionally get wildly and inadvisably drunk. There’s a difference.”

“Oh come on! It‘ll be fun!” Della grabs his hand, tugging on it. There are at least a half dozen bright plastic bangles on each arm. “When was the last time you cut loose and had fun?”

“Laughing maniacally under the influence of the ego machine doesn’t count,” Donald adds before he can answer. Gyro shuts his mouth.

Della and Donald stare expectantly at him.

The worst part is they’re right.

“…Fine, but I’m not dressing up.”

“Whoo hoo!” Della grabs his and Donald’s hands, pulling them out the door. “Let’s go!”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gyro peels his eyes open.

He immediately slams them shut. Knives. So many knives, directly into his eyeballs. He rolls over and curls into a ball.

“…Dr. Gearloose?”

“Go away and leave me to die in peace.”

“Dr. Gearloose, you’re lying in the middle of the lobby floor.”

Gyro unearths one of his hands to wave it in the direction his intern’s voice. “Coffee. As strong as you can get it. Just pure liquid caffeine. Raid Quackfaster’s stash if you have to.”

“Um…”

“Go! Coffee or you’re fired.”

Urgh… What happened last night?

The bar. 80s night with Della and Donald. Let’s see… there were shots… And a round of delicious fruity girly drinks… More shots… A round of drinks with the dirtiest, most embarrassing names they could think of… More shots…

Karaoke. There was karaoke, he remembers karaoke. And Donald getting them kicked out of the bar with his singing. And the bar fight he started. Gyro has a very vivid memory of Donald punching a bouncer in the face.

Did Della break a barstool over someone’s head?

They ended up in the park. More singing. The cop showed up. There was a cop. What was her name… she said her name… Officer… Officer… Cambria? Cavalla? Kingfisher? There was definitely a ‘ka’ sound somewhere in there.

Donald stole a paddle boat to captain it. Della tried demonstrating the technique for something called cloud surfing that she learned from somebody at flight school, which led to her falling into the lake. And then Donald went in. Did he jump or did Gyro push him? He remembers Donald falling and his hand but he does not remember if he was helping or stealing the boat for himself.

The liquor store. They definitely visited the liquor store. There was definitely a liquor run somewhere in there.

Agreeing to go out with Della and Donald was a mistake.

And his calves are sweaty.

Oh. That’s why. He’s wearing Donald’s legwarmers.

And he apparently pulled the directory off the wall at some point last night because he’s now holding it. Scrooge is definitely going to make him pay for that.

Eventually he drags himself off the lobby floor and down to the lab. First step, shut off the lights. Fluorescent lights are the devil. He uncrumples the directory, trying to figure out why he stole it.

Oh. He’s drawn 2-BO’s blueprints again.

Okay then.

He uses the last of the truly abysmal handle of vodka he’d found under the lobby reception desk as accelerant.

The elevator doors open just as he ignites the welding torch. Gyro turns to look. The intern stares back wide-eyed. Dismissing him as unimportant Gyro gets back to setting the offending papers on fire.

The intern slowly reaches out and presses the close door button.

Gyro’s going to take that as their resignation. Good riddance. He pulls out his phone, hitting autodial.

“Let me diiieeee…”

“Good morning to you, sunshine.” He switches the phone to hold it with his shoulder and touches the flame to the paper. “Are we wanted by the cops? Because I remember a cop. Also I’ve got your brother’s leg warmers.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Gyro! Guess what!”

“Guagh!!” Gyro fumbles the beaker in his hand, only just barely catching it before it can spill and eat through the table. He carefully sets it down before rounding on Della. “What have I told you about sneaking up on my when I’m handling corrosive chemicals? I could have melted my hands off.”

“Oh please,” Della says leaning against the closest table. “That trick doesn’t work on me anymore. It can’t be that bad.”

Gyro raises an eyebrow at her. Maintaining eye contact he picks the beaker up and tips exactly one drop onto the box of steel siding next to him. There’s a hissing sound as a hole burns its way through all twenty sheets. Gyro sets the beaker down.

Della immediately straightens. “Or maybe it is.” She leans forward to better see the hole. “It’s not going to eat through the floor is it?”

“No, it’s reinforced. It would take something stronger than this.”

“You sure? I remember your universal solvent.”

“I fixed that problem! Mostly.”

“Alright, Alright.” Della puts her hands up in a sign of defeat. “Second question: Where are your gloves?”

“It ate through them already.”

Della blinks. “So it’s already eaten through your gloves…and rather than get yourself stronger safety equipment, you decided to continue without any protective gear at all?”

“Who are you, Donald?”

“Well he’s not here and you’re handling acid barehanded so…” Della gives a loose shrug.

“Didn’t you come down here to tell me something?”

“Oh yeah!” Della perks up, worry forgotten. “Guess what!”

“I don’t have time for guessing games. I need to finish this round of testing before I need to go tour the rest of the labs.”

“Come ooonnn! It’s worth it, I promise!”

“Alright, fiiine.” He turns around to fully face her, adopting a high-pitched exaggeratedly earnest tone. “Whatever could you have to tell me Della?”

“I’m pregnant!”

“You’re What!!!”

Della’s gives a little jump, practically vibrating. “Pregnant!”

“Wha– whe– y– How?!?”

“Well Gyro, when a girl duck and a boy duck like each other very much–”

“Do not. Finish that sentence.”

Della snorts. “You know Gyro, typically when your bestest friend in the whole wide world tells you they’re pregnant, the reaction is more along the lines of ‘Wow Della that’s amazing! I’m so excited for you!’ You wanna try this again.”

“Do Donald and Scrooge know?”

“Of course they know! You really think I wouldn’t have told them!”

“I don’t know! I was not excepting you to come down here and announce that you’re pregnant today! Give me a minute here! I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone! You never told me you were!”

“I’m not.”

“Um, Della, do I have to explain basic biology to you, because–”

“Okay, rephrase,” Della cuts in. “I’m not seeing anyone seriously. And no, having an egg in the oven is not changing that. Now, unless you want me to go into that topic further–”

“Emphatically no.”

Gyro’s brain has stopped processing. It’s just stuck on a never-ending loop like a glitching computer program. Della’s pregnant Della’s pregnant Della’s pregnant.

Gyro legs give out and he drops down onto the nearest chair. “You’re gonna be a mom.”

Della plops down on top of the table next to him. “Yeah.”

“A mom.”

“Yeah.”

“Who in the hell thought it was a good idea to make you a mom.”

“…do you really think I’ll be a bad mom?”

Della’s voice is small. Her shoulders are hunched in, hitched up around her ears in a tight line.

Oh.

Oh Gyro’s screwed up.

Gyro’s majorly screwed up.

Gyro throws himself to his feet, standing up fast enough the chair goes clattering. Della lets out a squawk of surprise. “Gyro what–” Gyro clambers up onto the table, nearly beaming himself in the chin as his shoes slide on its edge. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not good at this, okay?” Now finally on top of the table he turns around and pulls his legs in so he’s sitting back to back with Della. He tips his head back, leaning it against hers. “You. Are going to be the best mom.”

Something that had been pulled taunt in Della relaxes. He can feel it in the line her spine pressed up against his. “You really think so?”

“Yeah. I really do.”

“I’m gonna be a mom.”

“God help us all.”

Della shoves at him with her shoulder, knocking him forward. “Jerk,” she says but that’s okay. Gyro can hear the laughter in her voice again.

“So. Did Donald pass out when you told him?”

“Nah.” She tilts her head to the side and tips it back until it’s resting on his shoulder. When he tilts her head he can see the edge of her smile. “But Uncle Scrooge did.”

—--------------------------------------------------------------------

“So. This is the lab.”

When Gyro turns around, there are three buzzards standing in the middle of his lab looking around them with barely-leashed disdain. Gyro clambers down from the animatronic Daspletosaurus he’s working on, brandishing a screwdriver at them. “Excuse me!?! You can’t be here, this is my lab! Who are you and why are you here? You know what, no. I don’t care, just get out. I’m very busy and you’re in my way. Intern! Escort them out.”

The middle buzzard turns his gaze to Gyro. “And you must be Dr. Gearloose.”

The distain is thick enough to be palpable now.

Gyro decides it’s a mutual feeling.

“I am. Dr. Gyro Gearloose, certified genius.” Gyro folds his arms, directing his best glare at them. “And you are?”

“Ah, Gyro!” Scrooge calls, stepping into the lab. “Come meet my new board of directors. Bradford, Bentley, and Buford.”

Bentley ignores him, continuing to glance disdainfully around the lab. Buford sneers at him. Bradford picks up one of the Spear’s supply reports. Gyro storms over, snatching it out of his hand. “Right. You can leave now. Intern!! Where is he? Lazy, good for nothing…”

“You fired him last week,” Scrooge says.

Gyro blinks. “Oh yeah.”

“This is who you have heading your science division?” Bradford says, turning to look at Scrooge.

Scrooge plants the end of his cane on the ground, striking his most self-important pose. “Dr. Gearloose is one of the finest minds I’ve ever met. Besides, he’s only head of McDuck Enterprises science division on paper. We’ve learned better than to put him in charge of managing people.”

“It’s not my fault people are all idiots.”

The look Bradford gives Scrooge speaks volumes. “As… educational as this visit has been, I think we’re done here.”

Gyro stands and watches as the three buzzards leave the room, elevator doors sliding shut. “I hate them.”

“Truth be told, so do I.” Scrooge leans back against the wall, spinning his cane in one hand. “But they’re still useful. They’ve been with the company for years now and it’ll be nice to have someone capable of heading the helm when I’m busy. Especially with the triplets on the way.”

“I still hate them.”

“Play nice Gyro. Break out the flash cards if you need to. I wouldn’t make an enemy of them. They’re now in charge of your lab budget.”

Gyro’s head shoots up as he lets out an inarticulate screech. “They’re WHAT?!?!”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Boo!”

“Della.” Gyro unlocks the lab door, setting the reports from his trip surveying McDuck Enterprise’s other lab projects before turning his full attention to Della. She’s definitely visibly pregnant now, stomach double the size it was even a week ago. She’s ginning, hand resting curled around the curve of her stomach, a new habit Donald said she’s developed over the last couple weeks. She looks happy.

She’s probably already losing her mind from stir craziness knowing how overprotective Scrooge and especially Donald can be.

“Should you really be in here when you’re in such a,” he raises an eyebrow, coating his next words with as much patronizing sweetness as possible, “delicate disposition?”

Della aims a kick at his shins and Gyro dodges it easily. Provoking the Duck twins is done at your own risk but Gyro has years of practice. Della glares at him. “I have video evidence of you trying to pick up that modified carburetor and tipping over. Complete with audio of the squawk you made.”

“It’s called brains over brawn.”

“So sayeth the wimp.”

He’s definitely taking that potshot at her in the Spear of Selene’s user manual.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey Gyro! Notice anything different?”

Gyro looks up. “Huh. You no longer look like you swallowed a watermelon.”

“Ha. Ha,” Della said flatly. “You’re not funny.”

“I don’t need to be funny. Only imbeciles have to rely on humor.”

“Wow. I sometimes forget how much of a jerk you are.”

“I just don’t bother wasting my precious time interacting with idiots.”

“But you waste your time on me!” Della cries, throwing her arms around him and practically jumping on his shoulders. “Aww… does that mean you think I’m smart?”

“No it does not! It means you’re impossible to get rid of. And you’re my boss’s niece so I can’t just drop you into the bottom of the ocean or shoot you into space or something.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where are these eggs of yours anyway? You didn’t leave them alone did you?”

Della rolls her eyes. “Of course not. They’re with Donald. You wanna come meet them?”

“No.”

“Come ooonnnn! They’re your nephews too!”

“They really aren’t.”

“You’ll feel different once you meet them~” Della wheedles, sing-song. She grabs his hand, tugging him forward. “Come on!”

“I can’t meet them Della, they’re still eggs!” Gyro says, laughter breaking through even as he tries to level his best stern look. He stumbles after her, hand still caught in hers.

“Then think of this like a sneak preview.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t bring them here with you if you’re so determined I should see them.”

“I tried. Donald wouldn’t let me bring them down to the lab. Said it wasn’t safe. He’s such a worrywart sometimes.”

“Gee,” Gyro deadpans, “it’s almost like he spends a solid half his life keeping you from doing something stupid and reckless.”

“It would work better if he didn’t spend the other half blowing his top.”

Gyro’s laughter wins out and he slaps his free hand over his beak to cover a snort. He twists his hand in Della’s grip, shifting it to lace their fingers together. “Five minutes. Then I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Della knocks her shoulder against his, grinning up at him as the elevator doors close on the lab. “That’s what you always say.”

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ending? What do you mean the search is ending?”

“Exactly that. McDuck Enterprises will no longer be funding any more explorations for Della’s body.”

“She’s not dead! My oxy-chew–”

“You mean your untested, unstable prototype?”

“The numbers are solid! The math supports–”

“Look, I understand that you rightly feel that you’re responsible for Della’s death as you’re the one who designed and built the rocket that killed her, and you are, but McDuck Enterprises can no longer support throwing money at nothing.”

“Mr. McDuck would never–”

“Mr. McDuck is no longer in charge of the decision making for this particular project.”

“I won’t just give up and stop looking for her! I’m not stopping until I find her! I can’t– This is my lab! You don’t– Hey! No stop! You can’t–”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------

The elevator doors slide open.

The lights flicker, motion sensors taking a moment to kick in.

It’s quiet.

Gyro takes a step.

He takes another.

He takes a breath.

He crashes to his knees.

Della is dead.

It’s all his fault.

If he hadn’t– If he’d never–

They don’t even have a body to bury.

Della is dead and it’s all his fault.

Eventually he manages to force himself to his feet. Blueprints for the Spear lay spread out on his drafting table. A model of the rocket sits on the corner of the lab bench. Supply reports lay stacked next to one of the windows.

Astrocharts. Cosmic weather reports. Homing beacons.

Gyro grabs an empty, shoving everything he can reach into it. The model snaps, the astrocharts crumple, the blueprints rip. He tears through the lab, shoving every scrap into the box until no trace of the Spear of Selene is left. When he’s done – when he’s finally done – he slams the flaps closed. He sits collapsed on the floor, chest heaving.

He can’t– He can’t be here while it still is. He needs it gone.

He can’t be here with his failure.

The incinerator.

He forces himself to his feet once more. He picks the box up. He starts walking towards the door.

He stops.

There’s a photo on his desk.

He sets the box down and picks the photo up.

Della beams up at him. She’s got one arm around both him and Donald on either side. Donald’s laughing, head thrown back against his sister’s shoulder. Gyro’s caught in the middle of a squawk of surprise. Della had ambushed him to take that photo. In the background a grinning Scrooge is halfway cut off. He never knew whether Della meant to capture him or not. He never asked.

Now he’ll never know.

Della is dead and Donald is gone and the eggs are orphans before they’re even born.

They’re your nephews too!

They really aren’t.

Gyro opens the box. He carefully sets the photo inside and closes the flap. He picks the box up. He carries it over to the far shelf. He sets the box down.

He’s got years of practice living with his sins.

He’ll hold onto his guilt a little longer.

#for my eyes only #reorganized version of someone else's fic #fmeo

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ellieaelious · 5 years

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Ellie Aelious }{Multiverse OC}{Post Fire Crisis

A/N: Finally complete!!! It was a long road, and took way too long, but it is finally finished! I ended up cutting a lot of things from it that did not have to do with her character, which helped a lot. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to DM me. I’ve been working on her for about fifteen years, and I still don’t have all the kinks worked out, but it’s been a fun road to get here!

This is Ellie after she gains control over the fire realm and the element of fire, all the way through her worlds Armageddon. Ten years pass in the human realm, while over 5,000 pass in the elemental realms. You have the option of choosing what stage of her life you interact with her, or I can toss her at you during a time I believe will best suit our roleplay.

So when you see an x-z that means that depending on the time frame, is dependent on when she looks or acts like X or Z. She will also change and grow in the threads we have.

Credit: Big-Ass Character Sheet by Character-Resources This is going to be what I use from now on for all of my muses, regardless if they are OC or canon. Everyone can get a good idea of them, and it will also help me when it comes to writing, since I won’t have to explain every single thing over and over again.

Verse: Realms series (book series I’m writing) Date: 7/18/2019 Full Name: Ellen Sebastiana O’Donnelly Pronunciation: El-en Sea-bass-tea-ah-na Oh-Don-el-ee Nickname/Alias: Ellie Aelious Meaning: Ellie-Pet form of Ellen or more commonly Eleanor, which itself is of Hebrew origin and comes from the Hebrew element 'el' meaning 'god' and 'or' meaning light, so the name means 'God is my light' or 'God is my candle'. Aelious-The Realmain form of “Aelius” which is a Roman family name which was possibly derived from the Greek word 'ηλιος (helios) meaning "sun". Origin: Not going to lie. I thought of the name and then the meaning just worked. That’s usually how I pick common names. For other languages, I research them. I seriously thought I made up Aelious, until Google said “Did you mean Aelius. Title: Ruler/Commander, Healer, Priest Pet Name: Aelious is actually a surname and nickname given to her by Cynbel (jfc I gotta do him too). ID Number: AR-24601 Signature: She’s ambidextrous, and before the loss of her left arm was left dominant. She still wrote with her right hand, but her handwriting is very elementary school level. Her robotic prosthetic could write perfectly, however after her arm regrows she is left with a limb that trembles and twitches when she goes to write. It makes her signature almost illegible, and she prefers to initial with her right hand. Gender: Female Gender Role: Very femme and lady like. Orientation: Pansexual/Polyamorous Real Age: Although she was born in 1983, because of the time differences between the human and element realms she is between 137-268 post arm loss, and can be anywhere up to five thousand after her arm regrows. Age Appearance: 21 Birthday: March 10th, 1983 Deathday: Armagaddon, exact date unknown. Birthplace: New York, New York, USA Astrological Sign: Pisces Zodiac Sign: Water Pig Immediate Family: Legal Guardian: Earnest O’Donnelly (deceased) Mother: Tonalnan (deceased) Father figure: Cynbel Uncle: Dante (DMCverse) Half-Brother: Nero (DMCverse) Adoptive Brother: Peter Jason Quill (GotG) Mother figure: Marina Udonta Distant Family: Father: Aluk Mal Tuk Grandfather: Shin Kage Grandmother: Eveelyn Ardelian Species: Realmain (I will be posting separately about this race.) Ethnicity: Celtic and Hispanic Blood Type: Formerly O+. She no longer has blood, and instead bleeds a silver liquid. Preferred Hand: Left Facial Type: Diamond Eye Color: Dark brown. White or red when using air and fire abilities respectively. Hair Color: Black Hairstyle:

Skin Tone: Pale White when using air powers. Dark tan when using fire. Complexion: Clear Makeup: Very light make-up during special occasions. Has started wearing winged eyeliner. Build: Body claim is Samantha Wright

Height: 5′3-5′8 Weight: 538lbs - 598lbs Cup Size: A-C cup Facial Hair: none Shoe Size: US 7 - US 9.5 Birthmarks/scars: A large scar going from her left shoulder, across her chest, and stopping half way to her right. It goes from the base of her neck to the beginning of her cleavage, around to her back. It stops at the nape of her neck and right before her shoulder blades on the left. It’s from when she had her left arm ripped off, along with a good portion of her skin.

After her arm regrows, the scar mostly heals, only leaving a faint outline around her left shoulder.

She has a mole/beauty mark on her left side, right under her bottom lip.

Many faint and small scars pepper her body, visible under a blacklight or bioluminescence given off by plants and insects.

In an alternate timeline, (DmCverse), she has half of her face scarred by an angel’s attack. Her eye is red, and it goes into her hairline, all the way to the back of her head. Distinguishing Features: Her eyes are her most distinguishing feature, able to convey a thousand emotions at once. Because of her empathic ability, if she looks someone else in the eyes, she is not only able to read their emotions, but also alter how they see her.

As she grows older, her eyes convey less innocence, and more of someone who is weary. Although the light has not gone out behind her eyes, it has dimmed significantly from when she first became a ruler.

She always has an innocent appearance about her features, usually appearing dumbfounded by the world around her. It’s not a true reflection of herself, but something that most people see at first glance. Health: She’s very healthy and her diet consists of mostly meat. She works out daily and although she loves sweets, limits them to once a week. Energy: She generates, at the minimum, enough energy to keep two realms and their inhabitants alive. That is around 6-9 billion per realm. This energy is all in reserve, and not accessible for fighting.

Aside from that, in her home dimension she generates enough excess energy to command both air and fire. She is one of the eight strongest beings, aside from angels or demons, and ranks somewhere in the third or forth strongest. Her max power level sees her generating enough energy to destroy a planet the size of her largest realm, twice.

Outside of her dimension, her excess power is diminished by half, and she can only regenerate after sleeping twelve or more hours. Because of this, she uses physical attacks when outside of her own dimension. Memory: Her memories are tied to emotions. The stronger the emotion at the time, the more likely she is to remember the event in detail. She also remembers odd events, like someone mentioning rubberbands. Senses: Her eyesight is well enough she doesn’t need to use a mounted sight on a firearm. She can see for several miles, but cannot see in dim or low lighting.

She can feel vibrations and use them to navigate in the dark as well. This has helped since she began losing her hearing a century ago.

Her sense of smell and taste are better, able to recognize someone’s scent, and develop a taste signature for them as well. This also has the negative affect of smelling something horrible, and also developing a taste signature for it. Fortunately, her nose is not what she breaths out of, so she can avoid this most times.

Her sixth sense, if you will, is extremely high. She can read a persons emotions from the next room, feel the presence of demonic entities, and can hide her own presence from them.

Allergies: Strawberries, birch water, cut grass. Handicaps:

With her hearing failing, it has been difficult for her to adjust to using vibrations to get around. While she can feel the vibrations of someone talking, she is still not fully able to differentiate between words.

After the loss of her left arm, she suffers from muscle spasms in her left shoulder. Even after her arm regrows, she has painful and powerful muscle spasms. They will often require her to take a moment to collect herself, as she’s almost blacked out from the pain.

Although she’s not mentally slow, because of her time being raised among humans, her actual brain deteriorates whenever she goes back to the human realm. This includes other dimensions that are heavily populated by humans. She will sometimes stare off into the distance or quit speaking, only to act like nothing happened. This is her healing factor attempting to repair the damage.

Highly prone to panic attacks. When she has one, she will find it difficult to breath and begin to disrobe so her lungs can have better access to air. These have lasted up to three days, and she becomes violent when people approach her during them.

She has grotesque visions of hell, and often hears demons whispering in her ear. This can cause her panic attacks, as well as send her into a temporary delirious state. Dante and Cynbel are the only ones that can calm her down when she gets like this.

Medication: She usually chews on herbs and roots from the nature realm for ailments. She also eats ‘edibles’, a relaxant from the nature realm that has similar properties to marijuana. She eats them in marshmallow form, usually to get high. Phobias: Spiders, water, being alone, the dark, and whispering. Addictions: Salted marshmallows. She will do almost anything for them. Mental Disorders:

Humans call is schizophrenia, while Realmains call it ‘Heaven Sight’. This causes her demonic visions, auditory hallucinations, as well as her anxiety. These have been constant since birth.

She is severally depressed, often on the verge of crying. This is considered a serious mental disorder caused by her high empathy. There is no way to treat it, other than developing apathy.

Style: Ellie’s style is very modest. While nudity is common in the realms, and she is comfortable with it, she covers up completely when outside of her realm. Her military uniform changes, but usually consists of vests, cargo pants, and military boots.

Her formal attire as a ruler ranges from ancient Grecian/Roman robes, to something akin to Elvish dress. It’s the few times she wears dresses anymore.

When she is having a casual day, it’s leggings/jeans and a loose fitting shirt. She does enjoy dressing in flowing garments, and does have a personal tailor that designs her clothing to wear outside of the nine realms. In her later years, she wears more fun things, and sometimes will be seen in her brother’s hoodie and booty shorts if she’s woken up suddenly.

All of her military clothes are white, while her casual clothing changes in color. She does not wear black, as it’s against her vows as a sacred virgin. Grooming: Her hair is always well maintained and braided, only becoming messy in battle. Even then, she is quick to fix it.

After an encounter with a demonic entity later in life, she has kept her hair cut very short, only a few inches long. When questioned about it, she will change the subject immediately.

As far as other hair goes, because she does not produce pheromones the same way as other mammals, she has little to no body hair to worry about. Posture: Her posture if usually back straight, chest out, chin up, and hands on her hips or crossed. If she is in a more relaxed setting, or not trying to be intimidating, she will let her hip cock to the side and slouch just a bit.

When frightened, she will hunker down and cower, making herself as small as possible.

Gait: She can’t help but have a very bouncy way of walking. Because she is usually just barely levitating off the ground, her motion is very fluid and swaying.

When approaching an enemy or upset, she will have a stalking manner of movement. Her shoulders will be forward, her steps heavy and deliberate, and fists clenched. Coordination: When in a fighting mindset, her reflexes and coordination are topnotch. Very little will get by her, and she is able to dodge bullets, as well as deflect them back to her opponent. It’s taken her almost two hundred years to perfect.

Outside of battle, she has tripped over her own feet. While levitating. She’s merely easily distracted, and doesn’t pay attention to her surroundings unless she has to. Habits and Mannerisms:

Left over from when her time without her arm, she will often let her left arm fall slack, forgetting it’s her own. This will cause her to bump into things with it.

She wrings her fingers a lot when she is nervous, and bites her bottom lip.

When she is focused on a task, or trying to decipher something, she will whisper to herself, along with moving her fingers like she is slowly typing in the air.

When frightened, she will immediately bite her lips and make her eyes wider. It’s instinctive to attempt to bring out the nurturing side of whoever is frightening her.

She has a habit of lightly touching people without realizing it. It’s often confused for flirting, but it’s only because she is touch starved.

She will pull out a book and read when she feels she is being ignored, purposely ignoring the other when they try to get her attention.

Scent: Spring Jasmine by Wild Spirit Mood: Contemplative is her usual mood when you catch her off guard. She has a lot on her mind, and not a lot of time to herself. She acts happy around others, smiling and laughing, but it’s only because she is replaying old emotions to make other feels better. She is no longer ignorant to the world, and has seen and experienced the darkness it holds. It weighs on her heavily and makes her very tired.

Being an empath, her mood is also determined by those around her. If you’re mad, she’ll be mad. If you’re being rude, she will reflect it back on you. Although she is kind at the core, she will stand up for herself and give you a taste of your own personality. Attitude: She has a very positive and upbeat attitude, despite her circumstances. She always tries to get people to be happy and rally the troops.

She can and does do a 180, and will become angry, and ho boy, whoever is on the receiving end is in for it. She has been called merciless and monstrous in her rage. Stability: Her emotional spectrum is all over the place. As the strongest empath of her world, she is able to feel the emotions of every living thing all at once. As a child, it caused her attempted suicide. And while she has learned to cope, it does become overwhelming.

Her personal emotions can also be affected by someone else. This means, feelings of love may not always be hers. Expressiveness: She is always very open with how she feels. If she is choosing to be distant with someone, it’s a bad sign. When Happy: She will often hum a tune, usually a soft cover of a metal band. She may even do Tai Chi moves or spin if she’s really happy. When Depressed: She’s always in some form of depression, but at it’s worst she will hide herself away to cry in peace. If she does manage to break down in front of someone, it can make her feel worse. Although she no longer cuts herself, she is not above ramming her head into the ground in an attempt to knock herself out. When Angry: When she becomes angry, she will become quiet and stiff. Her movements are quick and deliberate. She is at her most dangerous when angry or upset. Current Residence: She resides in the air realm, but does spend time in the fire realm as she is now the ruler of it as well. Community: The air realms community is very calm and peaceful. Even the soldiers are seen smiling as they go about their day.As their main duty is to pray and rally the troops, it is a very calming place to be.

The fire realm is friendly, but they value feats of strength and often friends will spar in the streets. It’s all in good fun, but takes some getting used to. Family: Ellie’s only living family is adoptive or half related to her. She spends most of her time with either Cynbel or Marina, and then Dante and Nero. Friends: Beau is her best friend, and it’s rare to not see them running around together.

After going through training with Ansinna, she has become best friends with her, and appointed her as a personal guard. Enemies: Her father, demonic creatures, and those who would hurt the innocent. Bosses: She is her own boss, answering to no one but a higher ranking angel or the Lord. Followers: All inhabitants of her realms and army answer to her. Heroes: Marina, being a strong woman is one of her idols. Most of the women in her life she aspires to be like. Aside from that, mentors from other dimensions. Rivals: Her Dark Saer alternate, as well as the demon Heretic. Pets/Familiars: The last chimera of her dimension, and she managed to tame it with a stick of beef jerky. It’s a shape shifter, and is usually in the form of a snake with rabbit ears. It wraps loosely around her neck, or takes residence in her cleavage. Equipment:

Weapons-Air

Ellie’s main weapon is a grey staffed naginata. It has a wider blade on one end, and her dagger bladed fan on the other. She is able to separate it at the middle for two weapons. It is an extension of her soul, and so long as she has the will to live and fight, it is unbreakable and unable to be wielded by any other. When another does decide to wield it, they will begin to gasp for breath before the oxygen is pulled from their body.

For a time she used one of her mother’s desert eagles. After an understanding came about between Nero and herself, she let it fall into the lake of fire. After this, Dante had her customized guns like his made. She calls them Alpha and Omega. Over time, Dante has taught her trick shots, and her and Nero perform a similar move to ‘Jackpot’ called ‘Fragmented Reality’.

Her custom lever action rifle has a white body with silver, Celtic knot accents. The bullets fired are made by gathering matter, which means the farther the bullet travels, the bigger is becomes. It’s her preferred form of firearm, however she is only accurate within her line of sight. If an enemy is behind her, she is unable to accurately fire at them. Because she shoots from the left, the recoil to her shoulder makes her have to take frequent breaks.

She is trained in a wide variety of weapons, but refuses to use swords. She is also trained to use unconventional weapons, such as household items and the environment.

Weapons-Fire

When she’s finally able to control her fire abilities, her naginata reverts back to her bladed fan. She uses it for defense mostly, relying on her other fire based weapon for offense.

The chain whip allows her to keep enemies at a distance, and control their movement. Should one get too close, she will wrap her whip around them, activating the blades and using it as a medieval styled chainsaw.

Her guns are named vitam et mortem (life and death in Latin) while in her fire form. Vitam has the ability to raise an ally back from near death, while mortem can kill with a single shot.

Her rifle turns into a Day of the Dead themed lever action shotgun called Vespillo (Latin for Undertaker).

Technology-

The nine realms are far more technologically advanced than most other worlds. As such, she has some very useful equipment. One of which is her visor (I will provide references later). It’s a thin piece of crystal that forms across her eyes that acts to protect them, as well as provide an HUD with her stats, as well as information about the area around her. It’s linked to three micro bots that float around the area, allowing her to enter into a third person mode.

Later in life, the visor is replaced by contact lenses that connect through micro wires into the user’s nervous system. This allows the user to non-verbally control what they are seeing, and switch between 1st person, 3rd person, night vision, and HUD.

Before her arm grew back, she had a robotic prosthetic. While it mimicked the look and feel of her original arm, it was still traumatic to use. It was able to detach and move independently to scout an area, attack, and shock an enemy.

If she’s not using her visor or contacts, she does use her IDA. Inter-Dimensional Assistant. It’s a small piece of crystal that holds a super computer, and is wired to her home dimensions mainframe. She’s able to make phonecalls, hack into systems, give someone a physical, X-Ray, produce holograms, and all kinds of neat Sci-Fi stuff.

Recently, after discovering their enemy has been using habitable planets to farm humans, space ships have become a thing. She’s still hesitant about using them, but her current vehicle is able to use collapsible technology to change into a fighter jet, or a short flight space ship.

Accessories:

Tattoos-

On her left arm, after it grows back, is a faint purple outline of her veins.

On her right arm, after retrieving the crown of thorns, it wrapped around her right forearm and embedded into her skin as a tattoo.

Her legs are tattooed with a black background encasing Celtic knots on her left, and Mayan ruins on her right.

Her back has a cross burned into it, going from the base of her neck to her tailbone.

Lastly, on her chest is a black hand print from her mother marking her, over her heart.

Piercings- Only one in each ear.

Trinkets: Star of David necklace and cross earrings. Will occasionally wear bracelets during formal events. Funds: Money has no value in the nine realms. However, the fire realm has diamond rain whenever a volcano erupts, and any gold farmed is used for trade with humans. Her actual wealth, like all other rulers, is immeasurable. She enjoys giving it away, as she does not like the idea of money. Lovers:

The former ruler of water, Mick, was her first crush. She loved him deeply, and had to hold him in her arms as he died. This pretty much scarred her from developing feelings for men.

Right before the death of her first love, she agreed to marry someone for a peace treaty. After the wedding, she locked herself away and protected herself with a powerful storm. A clone of her was used to kill Mick, and afterwards a very bloody and very quick war broke out, involving the death of her husband.

Cetrion is a former lover. Because of their virtuous nature they both found comfort in each other. It was broken off by Cetrion at the behest of Kronika. It still hurts Ellie deeply.

She has a crush on Leon S. Kennedy, and chooses to stay away from him because of it.

Erron Black gives her confusing feelings. She isn’t sure if she likes him, or wants to shoot him.

Enchantress/June Moone. A former girlfriend while Ellie was coming into power. Although she loved her, the relationship was not good mentally for Ellie and she broke it off.

Jason Todd was a mentor turned boyfriend for a few weeks, before they both realized it wouldn’t work. They are still friends.

Marital Status: Multiship Sex Life: SACRED.VIRGIN. (But I mean...boop her) Type: She is accepting of many types, so long as you are not a bad person. Even then, if you redeem yourself, she can find you suitable. This is not to say she will only date a hero type. She wants someone that is true to themselves, whatever that truth may be.

She is very busy, and will not have time for you 24/7. If she is called off on a mission, it doesn’t matter if you’re cuddling on the couch, on a date, or anything else. Her duty comes first. She won’t want to leave, but she will and apologize later. Her lover needs to be understanding of this.

It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you, but this is her lifes work. This is what she was created and chosen for. And when the final battle comes, you won’t see her for a long time, if ever again. Turn-Ons: She wants someone that she won’t have to worry about as much. It’s hard to love mortals, so someone that could live as long as her would be preferred. She doesn’t want someone that will worship her, as that can be seen as breaking the commandments of the nine realms, but will appreciate her. They need to be understanding that she is a broken person and not all of her pieces are there, and they’re not coming back.

If she can lay with you while you play with her hair, rub her back, and just be physically there to tether her to the world, it will mean everything to her.

Lastly, someone that will just be kind to her. That she can come home to after a long week, month or some extended period of time and be close to. She doesn’t need anyone that will get tired of waiting for her and leave, as her duties will always come first. Turn Offs: Someone that is cruel to her or others. Disrespectful, tries to change who or what she is. Just don’t be a moist bint. Position: Switch. Sub in her human form, dom in her true form Sub position: The Seashell. She loves to be on her back with her lover’s hands wrapped around her ankles, pushing them back behind her head and into the mattress. Dom position: The Amazon. With a set of hands holding her lover’s knees or ankles, another hand hold their wrists together above their head, and her free hand to explore or choke them. Fetishes: Human Form-

Reassurance/Praising. Either her reassuring her partner or vice versa. Punishment/Desecration. She has a deep seeded desire to be punished, and a dark part of her wants to be desecrated (i.e. her willingly breaking her vow). Biting/Clawing/Marking. Choking. Since she doesn’t have an air passage in her throat, it’s more or less the idea of it. Blood flow can still be cut off to her brain, giving the desired light headed effect. Submissive positions. She enjoys being put into submissive potions over ones where she is the dominate party. Voyeurism. She can turn and her partner invisible, allowing for public places to be a go. She also likes to be watched, and wouldn’t mind if her lover caught her playing with herself.

True form- Breeding. Her main motive is to become impregnated. She’ll want you to finish inside of her. Restrains. Having four arms now, she will want to pin and restrain her partner. Marking. She will bite, claw, suck, anything she can to prove that you are her’s alone. Dominated. Despite being the dominate one, if she is dominated in battle, she will present herself on her knees with her hands held above her head, butt raised to show she submits. Virginity: She still is one.

Element: Air and Fire. Religion: Realmain, a mix of Christianity and Judaism. Morals: Ellie is a morally upstanding citizen, for her dimension. While her duty is to protect the sanctity of human life, she will kill those that seem innocent if she is ordered to. One of the messier jobs to perform is killing children that are blacklit for death. Because this is seen as holy work, she feels no guilt for it.

She is unable to willfully lie, but whatever someone tells her, unless she knows better, will be her truth. This causes her to be easily manipulated.

While stealing is a huge no, reclaiming lost or stolen goods is acceptable. By any means.

Outside of her dimension, humans are not protected. If it means obtaining her goal or completing her mission, she can and will kill an innocent person. This is only done as a last resort, and she does her best to avoid it. Motivation: From the time she learned of the prophecy, her goal in life has been to lead the virtuous life that would allow her to pass into the dark halls unseen by evil. She knows that she will go through horrible things (such as being raped, crucified, tortured and killed, only to be brought back) but in the end it is worth it. This will allow her to let the angels into the dark halls, and kill Aluk Mal Tuk, the half demon half Realmain that raped her mother. Priorities: The code of the realms is “For Realm, For Ruler, For God” and she lives by this code. She serves her God first, and the duties bestowed upon her by Him, and then her Realm. Relationships, friendships, and anything else are the last thought on her mind. Philosophy: Ellie sees and feels the absolute worst that humanity has to offer. She feels the suffering of the universe, and takes pity on it. She believes that everything has a reason, even the worst things. In the end, it will all be worth it. Because it has to be, or what was all this suffering for. Etiquette: Ellie has very good etiquette. She was trained by Cynbel in the ways of royalty, and displays respect to almost all races. The more evil races, she will act more animalistic around, since they look down on kindness. Culture: Being from a Hispanic and Celtic background, Ellie enjoys celebrating the holidays and festivals of both. Within reason. She does not practice anything that would be considered idol worship. She practices mostly Jewish and Realmain customs as well.

Main Goal: Keep the world turning until Armageddon is upon her dimension. Even if it kills her. Minor Goals/Ambitions: Protect as many lives, human or otherwise, as she can. Desires: Ellie desires rest. She does not enjoy doing what she does by any means. It causes her great mental anguish to keep pushing herself, but she has to. For her reward, she only wishes to rest. Accomplishments: Freeing herself from her inner darkness, and having her left arm regrow as a reward. Greatest Achievement: Commanding both the fire and air realms. Biggest Failure: Her mother and first love had to die in order for her to begin to fight and defend others. Secrets: She is aware that Cynbel is her father. And while she was upset that he hides this from her, she doesn’t mention it. Regrets: Her suicide attempts. Worries: Failing everyone around her. Best Dream: Being rewarded not just with rest, but someone that could make her happy. Worst Nightmare: Falling into temptations and being pulled into hell. Or living with her mother. Best Memories: The times she spent with Mick and her friends. Worst Memories: Having her arm ripped off during the battle for Hong Kong. Later in life, when the demon Heretic reveals they molested her, and the memories of the events come flooding back to her. Powers/Abilities: ~Generic/No category~ -Immortality. She can only be killed by a demi god, angel, or another ruler’s weapon. If she dies by other means, she will be reformed in the lake of life. -Super strength. She is able to lift up to ten tons with ease. Anything more and her muscles begin to break down. -Speed. Although not the fastest, she is able to move fast enough to dodge bullets. -Super reflexes. She can block most blows and react quickly to most attacks. -Stamina. Her body does not produce lactic acid, meaning she does not show signs of fatigue and has stamina for weeks. -Her senses are heightened to super human levels, allowing her to perform at her highest levels. -Empathy. She is the strongest empath of her world, emotionally connected to all living beings. She is able to take the emotions away from a being and put them in another, or store them for future use. She can easily read a room and someone’s intent before officially meeting them. She can also distribute and terrifying presence to stun and scare opponents, or produce a calming affect. -A healer by nature, she is a skilled surgeon with years of practice. With her speed, she is able to perform complex operations in little to no time. -She has a vast knowledge of herbal remedies, as well as traditional medicines. -She is immune to all forms of magic, but she herself cannot affect magic things in return. ~Air~ -Ability to completely control and manipulate the air. From creating tornado, to pulling the air out of the cells of a person. She is the embodiment of air, and it bends to her will. -Turn invisible at will. -Teleport by creating a small gust of wind. -Pull oxygen out of a specified area. -Flight and levitation. -Control other air based beings -Place her hand over someone’s mouth to administer CPR. ~Fire~ -Ability to control and manipulate fire and fire based things. Such as lava. -Encase her body is magma rock. -Breath fire. -Engulf her body in fire to protect her. -Command other fire based beings. -Generate enough heat to perform a super nova. Although not as hot, she will explode with enough intensity to destroy a decently sized planet. This causes her to black out for several weeks. -Heal those that have been injured by fire. She can take the wounds upon herself, allowing the person to be completely healed of fire based wounds. ~Holy~ -On touch, she can burn anything of demonic origin. This includes her brother and uncle, who are both part demon. -Using her right hand to calm the person, she can then use her left to reach into someone and pull a demon out by force. -Ability to see a demonic presence, no matter how it hides. She can also see angelic writing, directing her to hide or run. -Enter Limbo and Hell unseen. -Open portals to send demons back to hell. -While imbued with the power of the Lord, no one may sin against her flesh. This means that as long as she has her powers, she is unable to be raped or molested. -Light does not bother her. In fact, she can see perfectly fine in it. If a flash bang were to go off, other than the noise distortion, she would be fine. Origin: Bestowed upon her by the will of the Lord. Her dimension is Christianity based. Source: The source of her powers vary. While she can use hand movements, she mostly stands still and wills her abilities into use. Although some still require a source, i.e. breathing fire. Ability: While her abilities to control air is natural, it took centuries of training to finally accept and control her fire abilities. Later in life, she is adept in all of her powers. Weaknesses:

She is unable to survive in water. If it goes above her hips, she will begin to drown. Her powers do not work while she is wet, in the rain, or humid environments.

Her empath abilities become overwhelming, and it makes it hard for her to function in large groups. The more evil a person is, the harder it is for her to function around them.

While in other dimensions, she is able to die, since she is cut off from her main power source.

If someone drop kicks her in the gut, it will stun her for an extended period of time.

Demi god weapons, angelic weapons, fallen angel weapons, and another ruler are able to permanently kill her.

She cannot see in dim light to darkness. She will be completely blind, and greatly weakened.

Her hellish visions weaken her over time.

Despite feeling someone’s ill intent, she is usually willing to give them a chance.

Immunities: Fire and air based attacks have no affect on her.

Alternate Forms: ~Air Form~ Natural Ellie. This is the form she is always in, also referred to as her human form. She has a more Celtic appearance, pale skin, red lips, dark hair and eyes.

~Fire Form~ Taking on a more Hispanic appearance, her eyes are red, skin a deep tan from being burnt from within, and her hair sprouts red roses. Her attire changes as well, wearing a red cloth corset, dark red jeans and boots, and usually Dia de la muerto make-up. The more she uses her powers, her skin will burn to a crisp, cracking open and revealing the fire burning at her core. She will often have smoke coming from her pores, and cough up lava.

~True Form~ After entering her final life cycle, she gains her true form ability to mate/reproduce. Her skin becomes a light grey, her veins visible and a dark silver underneath. She grows another five inches, and her arms become longer. Her nails are black and pointed, coated in a paralyzing poison.

Her face is more pointed, teeth now sharp and look like they’re made of a silver metal. Her eyes are a swirling mix of greys and white, hair slicked back and bristly. Black and fluffy antenna come from her forehead, like a moth. Black stripes are along her sides and neck, opening up to reveal pheromone producers.

She grows another set of arms under her original, usually holding her staff weapon.

Extra Anatomy: Her lungs are actually pockets attached to the underside of the skin of her torso and back. This means that she breaths through the pores of her skin.

Favorite Colors: Greys, whites, and pastel shades of blue and pink Favorite Animals: Dogs and large wild cats Favorite Mythological Creatures: Chimeras Favorite Places: She has a pocket dimension that is a library, filled with endless books. Other than that, Greece and quiet beaches. Favorite Landmarks: Acropolis Favorite Flavors: Leather, sea salt, and cotton candy Favorite Foods: Shrimp mee hoon and salted marshmellows Favorite Drinks: Blackberry wine, coke, and sarsaparilla. Favorite Characters: Mal and Zoe from Firefly Favorite Genre: Romantic horror Favorite Books: Where the red fern grows Favorite Movies: Westerns Favorite Games: Chess, even though she’s not that great at it. Dodge ball. Favorite Shows: Firefly, Star Trek, Telanovellas. Favorite Music: Heavy metal, hard rock, classical. Favorite Bands: Asking Alexandria, All That Remains, In this Moment, Flyleaf, and Les Fiction. Favorite Songs: This probably won’t end well by All That Remains, Hopelessly Hopeful by Asking Alexandria, ME!ME!ME! by Teddyloid Favorite Sports: Soccer and the Realmain gauntlet. Favorite Stores: Realmain market places Favorite Subjects: Math and art Favorite Numbers: 100, 34, and 7 Favorite Websites: Doesn’t have any Favorite Words: Bueller, bumble bee, amor Favorite Quotations: "Lastly, waging war against good people is bad for the soul. This may not seem important to you now, but it's the most important thing I've said."— Joshua Graham Least Favorite Colors: Oranges and yellows. Least Favorite Animals: Domestic cats Least Favorite Mythological Creatures: Nagas, gorgons, Minotaurs, and Pans. Least Favorite Places: Anyplace with a dark history. Least Favorite Landmarks: Eiffel tower Least Favorite Flavors: Fermented tastes, rotten, too sweet. Least Favorite Foods: Eggs, liver, and hot dogs. Least Favorite Drinks: Beer, whiskey, lemon lime soda. Least Favorite Characters: Aeris from FFVII. Any character, male or female, that is overbearing about relationships and tries to force themselves on someone. Least Favorite Genre: Reality Least Favorite Books: Self help books Least Favorite Movies: Ninja Mime 4 Least Favorite Games: Puzzle games, because she’s not confident in her abilities. Least Favorite Shows: Reality shows Least Favorite Music: Rap/Hip Hop, R&B Least Favorite Bands: Modern hip hop and rap bands. Least Favorite Songs: Dance (A$$) because it’s always playing at strip clubs Least Favorite Sports: Cricket and blood sports. Least Favorite Stores: Outlet malls Least Favorite Subjects: Wood shop, economics. Least Favorite Numbers: 6 Least Favorite Websites: Doesn’t have one. Least Favorite Words: Curse words Least Favorite Quotations: “I’ll rid the world of each one of you,” he whispered. “Every single one…” ― Zoe Cruz, Beastia Languages: English, fairly good with Mandarin, Greek, Enochian/Realmain, learning Japanese, Yiddish. Accent: She has a heavy Southern accent when she speaks quickly, which is why she’s trained herself to speak slowly and hide her accent. Voice: Low and quiet Speech Impediments: Forgets words easily and will use gibberish as a replacement. Greetings and Farewells: “Give me you.” -When it’s a close friend she hasn’t seen for a while. “Ellie Aelious, rank ruler, part time healer.” -Military greeting “May your path be illuminated and never darken.” -Formal farewell “I really hope this isn’t a real goodbye, ya know?” -leaving a dimension, possibly for good. State of Mind: “I’m just really tired right now. I can’t really rest, but it’d be really nice if I could.” Compliment: “Wow, you’re really pretty/beautiful!” “You look like you could take me in a fight, to be honest.” “You’re tall. I like that.” Insult: “I hope you have the life you deserve.” “God loves you, even though you make it a might difficult.” “You’re an X.” (often randomly insults people with a noun they’ve just used.) Expletive: “Oh fiddle sticks.” “Gumdrops and holograms!” “God bless America...” “What in the nine realms!” “I’m sure -person- is off somewhere, disappointing the Lord with their actions.” Laughter: She will start with a sputter, and then go into a deep laugh, sometimes even snorting, which makes her laugh even harder. Tag Line: “This is fine. I accept this.” Signature Quote: “I have to do this. I need to do this. I can’t worry about either of our wants, desires, because this is so important. My entire life is leading up to that moment, and I’m not throwing it away because we love each other. If I do, then what was all this suffering for?”

Role: Her role as a ruler means that she is responsible for tens of billions of lives, as well as protecting humans from the evils of the realm of darkness. It is a heavy burden, but if one is to suffer it, why not it be her? Fulfillment: She devotes everything to her position, and has found favor in the eyes of the Lord. She has been blessed that no creature may sin against her flesh, so long as she is imbued with His power. Significance: Because she practices self sacrifice, in her words Armageddon, she will play a crucial role that will determine the outcome of the battle. Aside from that, she has inspired many of her counterparts to go on. Her determination to live and overcome has proved invaluable. Alignment: Lawful Good “The needs of my Lord, outweigh the desires of myself.” -Ellie Comparison: The wind. Ever changing, gentle, but destructive. Symbol: Handprint Song: Under Denver by Asking Alexandria Vice: Carnal desires and blood lust. Virtue: Ellie has taken the vow of Sacred Virgin. This means she will forgo her sexual desires, romances, and pleasure so she may enter into the dark kingdom unseen

Humility and compassion are often associated with her as well. She doesn’t feel she has a very important role, and takes pity on the suffering. Defining Moment: When she crawled her way out of hell, just to bring her mother’s dead body back for burial.

#Ellie aelious character profile #finally finished #about ellie #praise the lord this is done #Woooot!!

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 5 years

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Toy Story 4

I have given almost no thought to the fourth entry in the Toy Story franchise. I just felt like we were really DONE after Toy Story 3, you know? It was cathartic, it was meaningful, it made me bawl like a baby. I’d said goodbye and I was doing great. And then suddenly, Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz (Tim Allen) and the gang are back for round 4 and I’m just supposed to what, welcome them back with open arms? And now there’s a SPORK involved? I don’t know, fam. I was skeptical. But Pixar usually knows what they’re doing, so I sat down opening weekend ready to be transported back to the magic of childhood all over again. Could this entry in the franchise possibly live up to the greatness of all 3 of its predecessors? Well...

Gosh, it’s nice sometimes to be proven wrong. This movie is so delightful my face hurt from smiling afterwards. I think I laughed more at this than any other comedy this year. And its heart is still firmly in the right place, helping kids and grown-ups alike think about what it means to love and be loved, and what we’re willing to give up for a chance at happiness. Essentially, Woody’s new kid, Bonnie (Madeline McGraw) isn’t that interested in playing with him anymore. Instead, she’s made herself a new favorite toy - Forky (Tony Hale), a literal collection of trash barely being held together by silly putty and glue. Even though Woody isn’t Bonnie’s favorite toy, he knows how important it is for her to have Forky, and he will stop at nothing to keep Forky safe when Bonnie’s parents decide to take her (and all her toys) on a road trip. As you can imagine, some toys get lost, some toys get found, and there’s a lot of action-packed close calls along the way.

Some thoughts:

There is no Pixar short before this one, just FYI.

One thing I love about the Toy Story films is the thematic richness that is always so clear and well-executed. From the very first scene, it’s set up that this is going to be Woody’s movie, and it’s going to be about him choosing between two different types of love - the love of a companion or the love of duty in his role as a Kid’s Toy. All of the Toy Story movies are essentially Woody movies, but this one feels even more so than the rest, and it’s a lovely meditation on aging, change, and parenthood from the perspective of a character that many of us have grown up with for the last 24 years.

Some of the animation is so beautiful I want to cry. Woody lying in the rain. The LIGHT in the antique shop. Have you ever seen light look so ethereal and gorgeous in animation?

The four abandoned toys in Bonnie’s closet are voiced by the four greatest living comedians of our grandparents’ generation - Melephant Brooks (Mel Brooks), Chairol Burnett (Carol Burnett), Carl Reinerocerous (Carl Reiner), and Bitey White (Betty White). It’s a quick scene but man, what a joy for a comedy nerd like me.

Blink-and-you’ll-miss-them lesbians dropping off their son at Bonnie’s kindergarten class!

Throughout all the marketing, I have been so confused about Forky and why on earth he’s involved in this movie. However, within 2 minutes, I was completely sold. Tony Hale’s performance is perhaps the funniest performance I’ve seen in any media this year. Every single line delivery is gold, and he brings a real sweet earnestness to Forky’s identity crises and his confusion at a big world he doesn’t understand. And those goddamn googly eyes are the funniest fucking thing - it’s so dumb, but when a gag works, it works.

So I saw Child’s Play this weekend as well, and let me tell you - Benson, the ventriloquist dummy in the antique shop, is 10 million times scarier than Chucky will ever be. That motherfucker is going to haunt my dreams.

Now let’s talk about some other members of the ensemble. Is it just me, or does it seem like Buzz is being extra stupid here? I just don’t remember him being this stupid. A little obtuse, sure, but...this feels 10th season of a CBS sitcom bad. The one plot line I really hated was his dumb “inner voice” running gag. It felt like a lame gimmick in comparison to the really interesting nuanced interactions going on in every other plot thread of the film.

I love the idea of Bo Peep (Annie Potts) as a Mad Max road warrior feminist rebel.

Another thing I appreciate about the Toy Story movies - all of their villains are portrayed sympathetically, and usually due to a lack of love in their lives. Don’t get me wrong, I love a great campy evil just for the sake of being evil villain as much as the next girl, but there’s something to be said for a series of movies that show antagonists as people who are hurting, who have a need that was never filled, and are willing to learn and grow when they are confronted about it. I think that’s a valuable thing for kids and adults alike to see.

I particularly liked the parallel and inversion of Gabby (Christina Hendricks) and Woody here, how they’re both so blindly devoted to the idea of loving a kid that they can’t see anything outside of that, including how their actions might be hurting other people. It’s a tight script overall, and particularly in their stories it digs deep into a lot of interesting emotional material.

Fun easter egg: in the old toy disco that Bo Peep takes Woody to inside the antique shop, the first toy they interact with is the original tin toy from one of the first Pixar shorts!

I know he’s having a very it moment right now, which he deserves every single second of because he’s, by all accounts, a truly wonderful human being, but I would die for Keanu Reeves’ Duke Caboom, and I don’t care who knows it.

For people who are interested to know - there is a cat who experiences some toy-chasing antics, but no harm comes to her.

Did I Cry? Yeah, yeah I did. Nowhere near the waterworks of Toy Story 3, but when Gabby finds her kid, and at that last line, yeah, there was more than a light misting.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but this really is as good as all the other Toy Story movies. You’d be hard-pressed to name a franchise this consistent in quality, and I highly, highly encourage kids and grown-ups alike to travel to infinity and beyond with this crew one more time.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#119in2019 #toy story 4 #toy story 4 review #buzz lightyear #woody #tom hanks #tim allen #tony hale #bo peep #annie potts #forky #keanu reeves #duke caboom #christina hendricks #disney pixar #pixar #movie reviews #film reviews

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robobrainmurdermysterytheatre · 5 years

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RE: This post (sort of) because I feel like I derailed the OPs post and I literally don’t know them and I feel awkward posting on it more lol

BTW if y’all are sick of talking to me about this no worries, nobody owes me a reply, I just like talking about the game and I have learned a lot from what other people have to say so here we are.

Fuck this got really long so I’m cutting it but it’s about Elder Maxson. Again. Sort of. And Synths. And I want to preface by saying I’m all about love what characters you want, you do you. I’m not trying to hate on anyone for liking or disliking fictional characters or organizations. But I have a lot of feelings.

So I’ve been thinking about a few things and a few things have been brought to my attention that I haven’t seen brought up before. So the quest for Teagan, with the crops and stuff, I know this is a sticking point and possibly could be disregarded because it’s an optional quest, but if Teagan knew Maxson wouldn’t approve of strong arming settlers for crops, why would he tell *you* to do it? I know you can complete the quest other ways, but looking at his voice lines he’s pretty gung-ho on the strong-arming part. He has zero reason to think you wouldn’t march on up to Maxson and tell him Teagan’s trying to put you up to strong-arming settlers, which would lead me to believe he doesn’t have a problem with Teagan putting you up to strong-arming settlers at all.

Also I just... I don’t know if I can believe that Maxson feels bad for killing or trying to kill Danse (depending on how you choose to do it). Like I *want* to believe he does, but Jesus, he’s just so cruel about the whole thing, even if you convince him to spare Danse. And afterward, when you get promoted to Paladin if you clapback at him when he says all of Danse’s stuff is yours now he says “To the victor go the spoils. Being a part of the Brotherhood, you should learn to appreciate that sentiment.” and he is sinister about it, it literally says in the dialogue direction ‘sinister smile’ I feel like there is A LOT loaded into that sentence, knowing that real, actual armies IRL historically and even now operate like this, especially armies who are allowed to operate at will without or with very little government oversight, their whole agenda is to win, take shit and expand and be more formidable. Maxson and the BoS won’t outright say it ever in the game, but looking at their actions and their sentiment, it seems, to me, like that is kind of part of their agenda. Which, I mean, you could argue is fine because they’d be keeping order and killing super mutants but they’d be running things their way, uncontested. Eventually they’d weed out all the synths and kill them - so bye Danse, bye Curie, bye Nick, don’t forget Magnolia and Sturges also - of course they would kill Strong so bye Strong too. They probably wouldn’t let me keep my cool robot workbench or my badass enormous sentrybots with skull faces and minigun hands because that kind of technology isn’t fit for civilians so I’d guess I have to say bye to Ragnarok and Lilith and Lucifer and Azrael (please do not judge my precious children by their sinister names) and Jezebel and Ada too. Oh, and Synth Shaun. They would definitely kill Synth Shaun too.

The thing I learned today which is part of the reason I’m back on this bullshit besides that thread ☝ is after Blind Betrayal Maxson has Danse’s records in the BoS stripped. I just got done in Fallout 3 doing the beginning of the Brotherhood stuff there and I have to go talk to that wizard-looking scribe lady (god I love their stupid outfits in 3, but I digress) and she makes A REALLY BIG DEAL about how their records are so important, every member has a record of the stuff they’ve done and how they’ve died and that’s their legacy. It’s mean, like vindictive. Like, synth or not, he did all of whatever he did. Aside from that, Maxson has literally altered the historical truth - there’s not even record that says “we accidentally a synth, this is what he did and we killed him because synths are bad” Again, like, thinking about real-world historical examples of people intentionally altering pieces of history to erase people or groups of people or what people have done - the reason behind actions like that have never been good.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole, the people of the Commonwealth are bigots thing a lot. Yes, they are scared of synths because of the wrath The Institute has brought down on the people. They’re also scared of Raiders and Gunners. They’re scared of anything that stands between them and being safe and fed. Like, listen, they understand the difference between a human dude walking up into their settlement and a Raider, I feel like if someone bothered to take a second to explain to them Not All Synths(tm) work for The Institute and a lot of them are actually really nice and might brew you a stimpack or help you solve a noir mystery or take care of your feral infestation down the road they would be receptive to it. They would be especially receptive of it if the person telling them that was the head of the organization keeping them safe and fed >.> Would they be perfectly accepting? Probably not, but they would probably let them live for two seconds without throwing a fit. They would probably not shoot-to-kill on sight. Even the people in Diamond City who talk shit about Nick aren’t out there trying to murder him.

Kind of in that same vein, let’s talk about Desdemona and the Minutemen for a second. Because I feel like, and maybe I’m wrong about the intention, my girl got slandered into making it look like she doesn’t support The Minutemen. If you fail your covert op any number of ways, she literally says you can use them to forcibly liberate the Synths. Hell, if you haven’t met Preston yet, she’ll tell you where he is and to go find him because she thinks The Minutemen can help. She’ll only go off on you if you don’t sound the evacuation alarm. If you destroy The Institute with The Minutemen and you sound the alarm, like Preston tells you on no uncertain terms to do, she’ll call you “The destroyer of the Institute. Liberator of the synths.” and say “My only regret is we couldn't have been there when you did it.“ When you talk with her about the people trying to hurt the Synths that made it out of the destruction of The Institute and she says “ They're vigilantes and bigots. They don't recognize anyone's laws. Not even yours.” I don’t think she’s talking about ALL the people, she’s talking about people who are vigilantes and bigots which, if you do the quests to go rescue the Synths, usually bring you to Raider dens, who aren’t your people and you’re working against anyway. The gangs that hunt Synths that she has you clear out after The Institute is destroyed are Raider gangs. John the Farmer in buttfuck egypt out by the glowing sea isn’t slaughtering Synths, he’s busy with his farm and his water purifier that doesn’t work and Gunners attacking him weekly. When it comes down to it, how many people like John the Farmer are going to bite the hand that feeds them and fixes his water purifier and fucks up the Gunners if that hand is The Minutemen and they say Synths are OK (because they are, generally)?

and RE: danger synths and Acadia and stuff... so I’m trying to unpack the whole, weird Acadia lore that magically allows for DiMA to insert memories that he didn’t have in the first place into synth replacements (e.g. you kill Tektus, stuff his body in a wall, but DiMA can make a “perfect replica” of him with nothing to go on?) I’m assuming when it was said that synths pose a unique danger that humans don’t, this is what was being referenced - that Synths can be messed around with to replace humans in order to manipulate whatever. Putting Acadia aside for juuuuuuust a second - because of the weird magic lore contradiction - there’s a couple of points about this. We see very few people in the game who have the resources, the technology and the know how to actually mess with a Synth’s brain. Even the people supposedly the best at replacing people with “perfect copies”, The Institute, are still kind of shit at it. Every single infiltrator that we see in the game knows what they are and gets called out by someone who figures out what they are. The “perfect copy” idea is hysteria - possibly even propaganda from The Institute itself. The only contradiction to that is what DiMA did in Acadia and honestly, I have no idea how to explain that. That’s all aside from the fact that, technically, in this universe humans have the ability to do the same thing. We know humans can be face changed. Deacon says he was both a girl and a ghoul (the ghoul incident is legit and backed up by terminal entries in the Railroad) and to be either of those from being human dude Deacon, you would have to get a voice change so that has to be a thing, right? Take a human who knows enough about another human, physically turn that human into the other human, and you have someone replaced, no Synths needed. And even Far Harbor, who will, with certain choices, go destroy Acadia don’t destroy them just because they’re synths, they destroy Acadia because Acadia murdered and replaced Avery.

Which brings me to the final thought I had because holy crap I just wrote for like two hours and I’m tired and out of steam now. I keep really, really wanting to like the BoS and Maxson because they have the neat stuff and a lot of their people are cool and my friends like them but I just, like, can’t as long as they’re a faction that advocates for the genocide of Synths. That’s the one sticking point I have. I could maybe even tolerate them hanging around the Commonwealth where they maybe shouldn’t be, I could maybe see them through a nefarious lens than I do if I knew they wouldn’t come to Sanctuary and wipe out a third of my population because of how they were made - if they weren’t trying to kill my friends and my synth son. Honestly, I love a lot of fanon stuff about Maxson and the BoS because it changes that but canon, in the game, that’s what they would do.

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mythandwords · 6 years

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31 Days of Spiritual Journaling part two (1 of 2)

6. Make a beginners or field guide for an important element of your practice (stones, weather, herbs, gardening, tarot, camping…)

So, I actually did write a very lengthy blog post about one element of my witchy practice. I am going to copy most of it here because I think it’s pretty useful stuff for the average witch.

Banishment spells are terrific for getting rid of unwanted things, people, or general negativity in your life.

These spells can be done at any time, but if possible, you can do them at the waning or dark moon for added efficacy.

When performing banishing, you must be calm and centered. It does not good to carry your own negative energies into banishment. So, make sure you’re well grounded, calm, centered, and in a good place before performing banishments.

Once you’ve completed a banishing, you will have an empty energetic space left over. Refill the newly created space with positive energy. You can use uplifting music, or visualization, dance or yoga, even a positive sexual act will help refill the space where the negativity was with new, positive energy! This step is often overlooked but it’s best if you can refill the space with positive energy than allow it to remain open for new, negative energy to come in.

Resources:

Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (disclaimer – I’ve never done this one. It dates back to Alesiter Crowley and the Golden Dawn and isn’t really my style, but I’ve included it because it is a very well-known one. And if it’s your cup of tea, I say give it a try and let me know your results)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos026.htm

Fire Banishing:

This simple banishment is perfect if you’re short on time.

Materials needed:

slip of paper

pen

fireproof surface or bowl

lighter or matches

To Work the Spell:

Write down what you’re banishing on the paper – the name of a person, or spirit or the negative energy you wish to remove (negative self-talk, bad habits, etc.).

Focus on what’s written down, visualize it in your mind as clearly as you can.

Light the paper on fire and drop it in the bowl or on the fireproof surface. As the paper burns, visualize the negativity leaving your life. Then, focus your attention on what your life will look like after the banishing takes effect.

Once the fire is out, dispose of the ashes away from your home. Scatter them into the wind or on the ground or dump them in the trash outside your home.

Use common sense and don’t do this spell on flammable surfaces, in the wind, or anywhere you can’t control the fire or your surroundings.

Candle Banishing:

Another simple banishment, this one takes more time than the fire banishing above.

Materials needed:

black candle

candle holder

lighter or matches

black pepper

salt

a knife for carving

oil (your choice here, you can use essential oils or olive oil or whatever you have at hand)

Sprinkle the salt in a circle around you and your work space. Visualize the salt protecting you during the ritual.

Visualize the target of the banishing spell. Carve your intention into the candle. Again, this can be used for banishing negative energy, a person, or a spirit.

When you’ve finished, anoint the candle with the oil and sprinkle the pepper over it. Put the candle in the holder and light it, speak your intention aloud. You may say your intention once or you may chant while the candle burns.

Allow the candle to burn itself out. Never leave a burning candle unattended. This step may take several hours, depending on the size of the candle you chose to use.

You may carve a line into the candle at the half or third way point up the candle and confine your spell work only to that portion of the candle if need be. If choosing this option, only use this candle for banishing in the future.

Poppet Banishment:

Sympathetic magic can be incredibly useful. It’s versatile and can be used for almost any purpose you can imagine. The use of a poppet has a long history in many different religious practices.

You will need to make a poppet for this banishing spell. A poppet represents a person, so it should resemble one as best you can. Feel free to be as elaborate as you wish here.

You can make your poppet from fabric, clay, wood or just about any other material. I will give you one way to make a poppet from fabric here.

Materials needed:

piece of fabric ( for banishing black is good, or something with a print like swords or fire)

thread

needle

filling (cotton balls, poly fill, old pantyhose, socks, etc.)

oils, leaves, stones, herbs, etc. to put in the poppet (you can also use something personal of the person you are wishing to banish such as hair or a photo)

Cut out a body shape from two pieces of your fabric – ideally your poppet will have a head, two arms, and two legs, and a torso. You can make your outline before cutting. It only needs to be big enough to stuff later.

Place your two pieces of fabric with the right sides together. Place the pattern (if you made one) on top and cut it out. Leave a little room around the edges for seams when you sew the poppet together. You can use a sewing machine to stitch the poppet but hand-sewing will give you the time to really focus your efforts on the magic. As you sew, visualize the person you are creating. Tell the poppet who it represents, saying something as simple as, “I made you and you are John Doe,” will work. Leave a small, unsewn space for filling the poppet – enough space to stick a couple fingers into the poppet is all you need. Turn the poppet right-side out.

Now you are going to fill the poppet with the filling you chose. You may also add the additional spell components, if you choose to use them – oils or stones or whatever you gathered. The more you can individualize the poppet, the better. Make sure you get the filling into all the crevices of the poppet. Again, as you are stuffing the poppet, tell it who it is.

Once stuffed, sew the hole up. Now are you are ready to decorate and customize the outside of the poppet. You can dress your poppet like the intended, draw any tattoos or distinguishing features onto the poppet if you wish. Add hair from string or yarn or whatever you have at hand. Tell the poppet who it represents as you do this step as well. You can tell the poppet how much you dislike it, and how much better your life would be without the person.

Now that you have your poppet, you can perform a banishing spell on it.

A simple spell is to light a fire beneath the poppet with a candle. The intent is not to burn the poppet up but to single the bottom of the poppet. Tell the poppet that the person it represents is hurrying out of your life. Once done, take the poppet somewhere away from your home and bury it.

7. Engage with the theme of love. What does that mean to you?

Wow love. Romantic love. Familial love. Friendship. Love comes in all shapes and sizes and there is no wrong or right way to feel, find, and enjoy love. Yes, before you give me grief, I know there are toxic people. I know love can be used as abuse. I know all the negative there is in the world. But, this is my forum, my answers to prompts, and my positivity (that hopefully inspires you or makes you feel better). And my desire is to spread good into the world so I’ll be focusing on that. If you want a forum for the other side, I’m happy to oblige that too. Just reach out and we’ll get negative together.

For now, let me take you on a journey about the meaning of love as it relates to my spirituality.

If you look up the definition of love you will find that it talks a lot about attraction, attachment, devotion, and affection. You might even find a reference to loyal and benevolent love as of God’s fatherly concern for humanity.

And those are all good and right ways to define love. Except. Except for that one about loyal and benevolent fatherly concern for humanity. Is it though? Do we assume our gods to be like humans and treat us with fatherly concern? Sure. That’s one way to put a focus on it. And I’ve got no doubt that the gods do love humanity. Because without humanity, what are the gods? Our belief gives them structure in which to work with us. Without our belief they are thunder and lightning, sun and moon, the mundane and the everyday. It is only with the addition of our own belief, our own spirituality, that the gods take shape at all. That does not mean to say they do not exist without our belief, only that they cease to be ‘gods,’ to us and become ‘life.’

It is our love that gods need. Just as it is the acceptance and guidance of the gods that humans need. Love. In both directions. Symbiosis in the most literal, powerful way. We need one another to be spiritually complete. And that’s an amazing way to be. Existence with the divine because the divine need us too. Neat.

8. Take notes on a book, article, video, or guide about something you’d like to do soon.

Gods, this is an easy one. I’ve a bucket list as long as my arm of things I want to do before I die. One of the ones that has popped back to the top of the list lately is to take my family to Iceland. I am a traveler who has been staying put a bit too much of late…just waiting for my kid to be old enough to enjoy some of the places in the world that I adore. And this year, Iceland is top of the list.

I don’t even have to take up a lot of your reading time here on this one. I will just point you to the website I use for my “notes” on the trip: https://www.icelandtours.is/en/

Iceland is amazing. I realize not everyone has the funds to travel, or to travel extensively. But. If you ever find yourself in the position where you can scrape together the money to go…Iceland is just beautiful and the Iceland Tours website has a lot of great options out there for you to do.

9. Did you have experience being pagan/witchy in school? Advice for kids who grow up in a pagan/witchy home?

I was weird in school. I’m sure that comes as a shock to…probably no one who reads my blog, really. I’m still weird in life. Ha. I wasn’t pagan. I was kind of witchy but it was low-key witchy and remained separate from almost everyone at school, save the one or two other kids who were also low-key witchy. So, I was kind of in the broom closet about my witchy side back then. Advice for being kids growing up in a pagan/witchy household…I can give some of that. I’ve got a kid so I feel entitled to speak on it. Hubs is mainstream Christian. I’m (looks at self) whatever this is…hey, I just call it like I see it…anyway. My son rides a line where his father’s religion is out there and socially acceptable…and mom is…weird. I make no secret of what I do, but I also don’t really push my agenda on my kid, if you can get behind that. He is allowed to, and encouraged to, ask questions of both of us about what we believe…and shockingly, he's allowed to formulate his own thoughts on what spirituality and religion mean to him. He is a member of a mainstream church…which we don’t attend. Hubs is lassie-faire about religion and disagrees with some of the teachings of his own religion, so he’s OK with his son asking/questioning/learning about this stuff in a holistic, natural way. My advice to kids in similar situations is to do what my son does…ask, learn, grow at your own pace and in your own way. It’s up to your parents to raise you to be a moral, upstanding member of society who can pull your own weight one day. But that doesn’t mean your parents get to decide what your spirituality will look like for you. They can point you in a direction and hope for the best (whatever that looks like) and they ought to answer questions to help you learn as best they can. I hope you all get the opportunity to do that. Ask. Learn. Grow. That’s my advice for what it’s worth.

10. What are your core values? Challenge yourself to list them and explain your choices. (Need help? Get started by looking at formalized lists like the 9 noble virtues, et.)

Gotta go with the Hávamál for this one to start….then I will digress because not all of the Hávamál isterribly nice to women…but it’s a jumping off point toward a greater understanding of values and morals and ‘right.’

Working my way through the stanzas:

Look before you leap. The Hávamál recommends you look around before you advance through the doorway because you can’t know for sure what enemies are there without checking. So, look before you leap.

2 through 4. Be a good host. Offer hospitality. Food. Clothing. This is an easy one. And, for me, extends beyond the borders of my own home. Making offerings of hospitality should be done whenever and wherever I may find myself. My hospitality might just be standing in solidarity with someone else, or it might be traditional food or drink or a place to rest your weary bones.

5 and 6. Think before you speak. Don’t be so sure of yourself that you end up looking stupid through your assumed knowledge. Really. Good life advice.

#31 days of spiritual journaling #lokean

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leonard-cohen-the-second · 7 years

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Serenity Falls Chapter 12: Blood Sacrifice

Pairing: Tamsin/Lauren

Summary: The blood die has been rolled and it looks like no one from the Sunshine gang will survive Lauren's baleful choice. Peril, mischief, pain! Who will come out alive? {1950's sitcom voice}

Links: AO3 - - - FF

Weary feet carried poor Dr. Lauren Lewis over the baseboards of her stairs. She was tired, stinking of every form of ammonia and chloride, and she longed for the warm release of a hot bath. She relished in the thought of bathing her body, of basking her feet in the pool of water, and it soothed her even before she could pull off her professional blouse and tight skirt. After, she could curl into bed next to her gorgeous wife and drift into a peaceful and not so proverbial sleep.

She blinked as a cold feeling of dread pooled at the pit of her stomach. She did not have a wife.

“This feels like the Dawning,” she commented, looking over the room that was identical to her own.

It won't try to trick you like the Temple. But it can have the will to trap you here.

“So you're still here,” Lauren replied to the voice in her head- her Seraphim. She hated to admit it, but the familiar voice soothed her mind slightly.

I cannot very well leave you, Doctor. For now you should go along with whatever this test provides. Sleep while you can.

“I don't think I could calm my mind down enough to...” Lauren couldn't finish the sentence as before she could utter the last few words, her eyes drooped down and she fell fast asleep.

A melodious hum cascaded over Lauren, waking her softly from slumber, her body physically becoming attuned to the beautiful refrain much like a flower's strain towards a source of music. Her breathing became in sync with the song, it rising and falling to the beat, and a small smile appeared on her lips; forgetting for a moment where she was and hoping this captivating song was from the throat of her lover. She continued to listen until a soft finger languidly traveled down through her hair to caress her cheek. The smile became wider as Lauren's delicate hand raised to hold onto the other, and slowly she opened her eyes.

What she found was not what she was expecting, to say the least.

“Now I know this isn't real!” Lauren exclaimed as Evony's fingers curled into her hair again.

“Shh, darling.” A knee moved to the doctor's crotch. “I'll handle the rest.”

Lauren felt something clack together in her pocket as both legs were forced upward onto the bed. She wondered if whatever in her pocket was a totem of help from Tamsin, immediately wondering also where her armor was, before she pushed Evony off of her quickly. Shaking her head, placing a hand to her temple, Lauren looked over to where she pushed Evony to and saw nothing but the silk threads of her sheets.

“You said it wouldn't try to trick me,” Lauren said, getting off of the bed quickly and looking about her room.

It cannot alter your mind for I am here. You have seen through the ruse swiftly and without falter.

“In other words it's still going to try to trick me, but since it can't it'll try other ways.” Lauren rolled her eyes, a half smile appearing on her lips, before shaking her head and looking into her side table drawers. Slamming it shut she huffed out a breath and rubbed her temple. “What am I supposed to be doing?”

What is in your pocket?

A light bulb flicked on in the doctor's head as she remembered the clacking she heard moments before. Fishing around in her pocket, Lauren's brow furrowed as her fingers pressed the strange cubes between the knuckles and pulled. She cocked her head when she brought what she held to eye level, quirking her brow as she wordlessly asked why a pair of blood red die were in her pocket. There were a strange pair, they malformed from a pair of usual looking die, and she sat on her bed as she looked them both over. Either one only went up to the number three, small stenciled bones showing the number instead of the usual white dot, and she hummed a question as she looked on.

The air rushed from her lungs as she fell backwards. Blinking furiously, looking around her, all she could see was a thick blackness. Wherever she was at was devoid of light and as she breathed out in a plethora of coughs, Lauren found there was no sound here either. Even for a split second of not hearing something that should be audible felt like eternity and it was all Lauren had to try to calm her breathing. She couldn't hear her heartbeat, couldn't feel air flowing over her arms, nor could she even feel when she bit into her own lip.

Just as she thought she would snap, an explosion of light and a clanking boom exploded in the area. As suddenly as sensation was taken from her, it swept over her in waves again- practically skewering her with radiance.

Ragged breathing filled her ears as Lauren turned slowly. Her eyes squinted at the light, it being painful now, trying to make out what was standing inside of its rays. With eyes watering, she tried to walk forward but a tug on her body told her not to move. Instead she shook her head as if to clear it, before realizing something wet was in her right palm.

Bending her head downward, Lauren almost screamed and threw the pair of die that were now literally bleeding onto her. The lurid liquid swathed over her palm and hit the dark ground, it seeming to be absorbed there.

Choose.

Lauren looked back up as another boom resounded in the room, it scaring the hell out of her again. This time it was slightly easier to make out there was, in fact, a shape inside of the light that looked to be that of a human. Just as quickly as that light appeared, the person unmoving as if the light was a physical barrier, another and then another came into view. There were six in total all splayed out side by side to each other.

The command from her Seraphim came again. Scoffing Lauren asked, “Why? Who are they?”

As if to answer her question, making Lauren jump, static seemed to clap through the air beside her as a portal appeared. It was similar to the mirror portal Tamsin had created in her chambers just a few hours previously and it showed the Dal Riata and the inhabitants there. They seemed haggard as if they had not slept or bathed in days, and they had their weapons brandished as if they were about to go to war. As Lauren looked on, it was as if the portal followed them outside to continue to show the doctor those back on Earth's progression, she saw the streets lined with filth and bodies.

Gasping Lauren saw many buildings either crumpled to dust or their windows broken in and unoccupied. Some even had bodies hanging from them, as if they were trying to escape something, and as the portal followed her friends, she realized they had caught the attention of things crawling out of the shadows. They looked emaciated, their ribs poking painfully from lithe flesh, and their eyes burned like fire. Their skin was black as coal and their lips rose up into that of jagged teeth. As Lauren stared at them, it seemed as if they disappeared into a void and pulled the onlooker in with them. She feared if she stared any longer she would go mad from such pain, and Lauren wondered how Bo, Kenzi, Dyson and the rest of the gang could possibly fight them.

Choose!

“Choose what,” Lauren cried, shocked again by the sudden scream of her Seraphim. She would have continued to watch the ongoings of the battle as it unfolded- first with Bo's newfound sword slicing open one of the creatures- if not for the opaque lights in the room suddenly becoming transparent.

Her eyes widened as her head swung back and forth from the portal to those standing in the light. She knew these people. She loved these people. What-

Choose which of your family will die...

+++

“That isn't happening... is it?” Tamsin turned, asking her mother with worry furrowing her brow.

Freyja turned her gaze from the circular mirror-portal watching Lauren's test and bent her head low. “No, daughter, the carnage is not so rampant yet. Your prodigy is still dealing with your father and has not released the Abominations yet.” The proud woman lifted her head and squinted towards the portal. “No, tis the future she sees now. What may come to pass, what will, or perhaps you will be able to stop this all before it begins.”

Tamsin stepped around the mirror as her mother spoke and to Lauren's side. The human-fae was laying on the cleaned long table they were once eating from, her body motionless and defenseless. She grabbed Lauren's soft hand and held it for a moment, putting it to her lips with care. “What is this supposed to do?”

“Quite simply, daughter, to see if she is strong enough to choose who will die in the coming war. The blood die has already been set in motion, all she must do is continue it on its course.”

“A Seraphim is strong as you are strong, but it's not possible to decide what the future will hold. Seeing into it, sure, but actually manipulating it...”

A wry smile appeared on Freyja's lips. “Do you not agree that seeing into the future will make one inevitably choose to change it?”

“Of course.”

“Then do you also think, if she survives, she will have a stronger constitution to protect those she is condemning?”

“She already has that, mom.”

Freyja pouted and shook her head, watching as the human-fae accidentally dropped the slippery die. It landed on four and almost instantaneously the one known as Hale's light flickered out. On Lauren's portal she was forced to watch the poor man be mangled to death by the unholy monsters. He tried to use his Siren whistle but to no avail as he was overrun, his lover calling out to him with terrified screams. She began to hack away at flesh, trying to get to the Ash, but it was too late.

The goddess watched Lauren's unsullied hand go to her lips, holding back a scream as she watched what she thought was reality unfold. She dropped down to her knees at the command of her Seraphim and grabbed the blood die again in trembling hands. She was still on the ground when she looked up towards the lights, her beautiful orbs dripping over the remaining five closest people in her life. With still shaking hands, she rolled the die deliberately this time, her eyes refusing to look up to see who she had condemned.

“Ah,” the goddess whispered as she watched Lauren turn her gaze to the portal of Earth. “She is too hard on herself.”

“She thinks she's killing them,” Tamsin replied, holding onto the doctor's hand just a little tighter.

“Indeed she does, but she is also witnessing her supposed choice and yet continuing to make it. She has no information to tell her this is true, but she still feels their death like a scar upon her soul. Almost as if all of the burden must be placed on her shoulders for fear of being-”

“Happy,” Tamsin finished, her lips kissing Lauren's hand before letting it down smoothly. Coming back around to peer into the mirror-portal, Tamsin frowned. She saw Bo screaming for the now eviscerated Trick as she tried to hack through the mob. The more Lauren rolled, the more blood was seeping through her fingers as the dice protruded more gore from itself. The numbers were also weaving and changing with the dwindling lights and was now down to one bone on each side of the die. The number, if rolled appropriately, would only go up to four- the remaining amount of people left- though no matter what it landed on it would force Lauren to break down even further.

Lauren rolled again, this time landing on three and watched on as Kenzi tripped and skewered her ankle by a piece of glass that had fallen from a window. Bo's reaction to it was heart wrenching as the Unholies descended upon the small girl. The die were practically swimming in the pool of blood they created in Lauren's hands and the doctor placed a closed fist to her temple and screamed. She was at her ropes end, it seemed, as she suddenly lifted her arm and threw the dice as hard as possible away from her.

Tamsin heard them screeching in the dark, they clattering on the stone and resounded as they finally came to a halt. Dyson's light went out, a grisly murder of similar fashion happening on the Earthen portal.

“No, that wasn't me!” Lauren cried, her body crumpling in on itself as she watched the scene unfold. Tamsin almost broke down herself seeing her doctor like this. It was not the violence that staggered her, but the pure and unadulterated helplessness that was seeping through her soul. “No,” Lauren whimpered as she looked to the two remaining women. “No, I can't do this.” Her Seraphim presumably yelled at her to choose again, the dice skittering back into the halo of light surging down onto her, before she picked them up and held them to her chest. The die only had one bone on either one now, the rest of the spots being voided by a swirling darkness. It was either one- Tamsin- or two- Bo. It was stacked against Tamsin and Lauren knew it too. But even so, Bo would also die if she rolled snake eyes.

It was fucked up, this all was too fucked up.

“What is the true purpose of this, mom?”

Freyja, who was far too interested at the unfolding events, tore her hazel eyes away for a moment to look at her daughter. “I told you: to see how strong she truly is.”

“She was strong enough to survive a transplant from Seraphim DNA into her bloodstream. Isn't that all that you needed?”

“Yes, this is true,” the goddess admitted. Holding up her hand to quiet her daughter from yelling indignation her way, she continued, “It is better this way. Now you will see if the woman you love is still holding strong, or if she will be devoured by her Seraph.”

As the woman spoke, trembling hands rolled snake eyes and the pitiful cries came again. This time, however, Tamsin noticed something as Lauren cradled her arms around herself. A bright light, brighter than the barrier around the last remaining people in the room, was exuding from Lauren's back. It seemed as if it was detaching from her, or perhaps running away in a sense, but it was gone in an instant as the doctor picked up the die again.

“I'll see you again, love,” Lauren whispered to the Tamsin doll. Without giving herself time to rethink her decision, Lauren dropped the die down onto the ground, closing her eyes just as Tamsin's light disappeared. Her weary eyes traveled over to the Earthen portal and watched as the valkyrie died with a smile on her face as her belly was ripped open. Lauren was still on her knees, her bloodied hand going up into her hair as she cradled her head and rocked.

“This is madness,” Tamsin said, shaking her head with disdain.

“More than you know, daughter.”

“Wait, why isn't she waking up?”

Freyja looked down to Tamsin with sadness in her eyes. “The test is not over yet.”

“What do you mean? There's no one else to kill!”

“There is always someone, or something, to kill...”

Tamsin's transparent green eyes swung back to the mirror. They widened as she realized Lauren was looking down at the die again that had skittered back into the barrier. As the human looked down, just as Tamsin saw it too, she took in the fact she was now standing on a bloodied red number zero. The human-fae looked at the dice again, seeing no number printed, and realized what the true test was. Her weary eyes looked back to the portal, it panning now to her own self walking out of the Dal slowly.

“I have too much to do to die now,” Lauren said shakily, though her hand no longer trembled. “I won't stop here!”

As her arm careened toward the ground, the dice with it, Lauren truly believed what she had said. Sniffling and heaving, the woman watched as nothing happened in the portal and smiled with no care behind it. It was all fake, it wasn't real, and now-

“Lauren!” Tamsin screamed just as the woman's smile was erased from her face.

Her body swayed forward then back again, as if stuck on something. Lauren made a face of confusion while she looked down as if to see what the strange feeling in her gut was. Her fingertips touched the condensed light softly, surprised that she could not feel the burn, before it was suddenly gone. She doubled over, coughing up warm liquid, before she fell onto her side.

Lauren looked up to the shining form of her Seraphim, it seeming to burn away all of the shadows around them, and to its light-sword soiled with lurid liquid. Blood, Lauren thought slowly as she tried to cover a hand over the wound in her stomach.

“No,” Tamsin said. “Open your eyes, Lauren. You open your eyes right now!” The valkyrie had gone back to the human's side, her hand caressing her cheek. “What have you done,” she screamed to her mother after a beat of silence. “What have you done!”

+++

The pain in Lauren's belly seemed to transport her back to her first assignment with Tamsin. Their home together, their wedding rings. The murderer in the night that had swung a ruthless looking dagger into her stomach and how she almost died then too. It was strange how something so similar, yet so different, could feel the same. It was if there was a dull ache in between the moments of sharp pain that wracked her body. Tamsin was with her last time, coaxing her to stay away, calling Dyson to prep the medical lab. How funny it seemed so far away in this moment. So much had happened that had devolved into this poignant affair and yet it seemed only yesterday Tamsin and she were happy. Truly happy.

Her whiskey orbs looked back to the burning gold of her Seraphim's. The woman standing before her was beautiful, though bathed in a golden sheen and made of sunlight. If she were anyone else, Lauren guessed her eyes would have already burned from her skull for looking into the Seraph's eyes for too long. Yet here she was, holding onto her wound while her head lied gently on the floor looking up into those golden spheres.

“I have to protect-” she tried to say, her words being choked in her throat.

“It is I who wills control,” the melodious voice of the Seraphim resounded into the stoned room. Lauren's mind translated the ancient Enochian as if a second language. The being spoke again, “You are now just a voice.”

Lauren couldn't feel her legs anymore and her skin felt cold as ice. She put more strain into her voice, her words trying to govern the power she knew she had, “I will protect them. You cannot stop me.”

“You are strong, but not enough.”

A surprisingly strong hand clamped down onto the Seraph's ankle. Squeezing, Lauren slowly pulled herself up to the surprise of the fae. The hand left her stomach as she gripped the Seraphim's shoulders tightly, her face inches away. ““Everything that I have done is for her. Everything that I will do is for her! You hold no sway over me, demon and you will listen to my command. I will no longer bow to any fae!” As she spoke the last sentence, it was if pulses after each word poured out of her and into the fae's body causing the light surrounding the Seraphim to beat brighter. “Now take... me... home,” Lauren finally said, raising her hand and pushing it through the fae's chest.

The Seraph looked surprised, its face contorting into a yell, before the rays of light were suddenly gone as it was enveloped into Lauren. The blonde looked down at herself, her hand slowly leaving the wound on her stomach, and nodded when she saw the laceration knitting itself back together again. The human-fae looked at her hands, now void of all blood, as they emitted brilliant light from them.

“She is at one with her fae.”

The disembodied voice resonated to the woman's core and she smiled that beautiful smile. “I'm coming, Tamsin,” she said as she looked upward.

I'm coming...

+++

As quickly as Lauren spoke from the portal, her body suddenly jolted upward with a hitch and a gasp. Tamsin, who was already at her side, practically jumped on top of her with a hug and a sigh of content.

“Where am I,” Lauren asked groggily.

“Back in the great hall,” Tamsin replied, letting the woman go and smiling wide. Looking over her slowly, making sure her body had not garnered any injury, she glanced back up to Lauren's eyes. “It was all fake. You didn't kill anyone in there.”

“Except your fae, of course,” Freyja interjected. “Not killed per say,” she reprimanded as Lauren looked at her warily, “but you have dominated it. If Tamsin had done this same test correctly the first time, her shell would not be stuck in Valhalla right now with her father.”

Tamsin sneered at her mother, practically sticking out her tongue, before she looked back to Lauren. Her hand still caressed the back of the woman's head, while her other was placed on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I thought...” Lauren paused for a moment before looking into Tamsin's eyes and smiling. “I thought the Dawning trip would be the last time I would have to deal with mind altering shenanigans.”

The valkyrie laughed too, her giddy nature suddenly rearing its head. “Let's try to keep it down to two, shall we?”

“I agree wholeheartedly.”

Tamsin slid her forehead onto Lauren's as they both closed their eyes. Simply breathing each other in, the two stayed as such for some time before Freyja cleared her throat.

“That is all the time you shall have from this point on, I am sorry to say.”

“What do you mean?” Tamsin asked but was stopped from further inquiry by Lauren's hand on hers.

“The Unholies are about to be unleashed back on Earth. If that happens millions will die in the span of a few days.”

Freyja nodded solemnly. “I will create a portal that will lead you both to your father's kingdom, Tamsin. But if you cannot stop the girl from taking his power and unleashing hell on Earth, then the next time we see each other will be the last, daughter.”

With that the goddess waved her hand at her side and the crackling of lightning filled the room as the portal was created. It was swirling with blues, greens, and purples with flashes of lightning shooting forth from it.

The two, Lauren still in Tamsin's battle garb, approached it slowly. Lauren was still getting the hang of walking again, her being in her test still fresh on her mind, and Tamsin was simply not in the mood to see her father again so soon.

“Thank you, mother.”

A smiled played on the goddess lips as she watched the newfound fae nod with appreciation and to her daughter. As they disappeared into the portal, Freyja put a hand to her lips before blowing out a kiss to the departing women. “May we meet again, my dear children. Gods speed...”

Traveling through the portal was not something Lauren thought would ever grow easier with time. She was wrong as she maneuvered around this one, actually seeming to understand the speedy time passing as they catapulted through it. All too soon she was in a place of wood and stone, completely at odds between the golden hues of the great hall, and Lauren was even more surprised and happy she did not double over and vomit up her lunch.

There was a slight ringing in her ears, however, and as she looked up to a burly man sitting atop a throne, she heard Tamsin speak after hesitance and silence.

“Hey, daddy-o. Miss me?”

#Copdoc #Lost Girl #Tamsin #Lauren Lewis #lgfanfics #fanfiction #wow so I actually did it all today #isn't that something #Hope you enjoy #anyone still reading this after three years without an update #rolls away

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kenysholar1990 · 4 years

Text

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#Spray To Stop Cat From Peeing Marvelous Useful Ideas #Schwarzkopf Pro Styling Heat Protection Spray H

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tornsurvivors · 2 years

Note

It's probably the craziest idea Tamsin has ever had. Well since deciding to let a demon into her life and bed anyway. She's not even sure if Bo wants such ties. Sure they were closer then ever but marriage was a whole other matter. Still the ring was heavy in her pocket and she wanted to ask before backing out yet again. "Bo. Do you have a minute?"

"For you? Definitely. Not to sound like pathetic ‘damsel in distress’,” Insert air quotes hand gesture here. “But I would LOVE for you to save me from this madness." She waves a hand towards the crowded Dal. Bo sure misses Trick like hell... Mark was no longer working, since he's become a cop like his daddy and Kenzi--- well, Kenzi's gotta live her life. They were still searching for someone they could trust to overlook the Dal and for now, it's Bo. She doesn't mind, really. But sometimes it could get a little crazy. Like today. Certain customers just wouldn’t leave her alone.

With a heavy exhale, Bo just smiles at the Valkyrie and acts on an instinctive urge--- reaching up to push back a strand of Tamsin's hair behind her ear and let her fingers linger along the strong jawline. This woman is just... so damned attractive. Very distracting. A welcome distraction, for sure.

#BO DENNIS » the unaligned succubus #BO THREADS » i choose humans #BO REL » monsters don’t live happily ever after ( bo x tamsin )#tornarts

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itsnelkabelka · 6 years

Text

Speech: Britain and France: Past, Present and Future

It is a great pleasure to be here in Paris this morning, in this historic setting.

This is – to use a little English understatement - an important moment in the future of the relationship between our countries.

There have been many such moments in the long sweep of our history, and we know, without a doubt, that there will be many more in the decades to come.

What matters is what we decide to do with those moments.

Those decisions fall to each generation.

To plot their own course and determine their destiny and that of their countries.

What is unique about the relationship between Britain and France is the extent to which those decisions, those destinies, have been, are, and will be, entwined.

That long history has, as we all know, had…let me put it diplomatically… its high and its lows.

And it is a relationship of competition and cooperation, similarity and difference.

Indeed my view is that it is precisely that mix which gives it its strength – because we have made a choice – for nearly 200 years – to work together.

And it is my contention that the relationship between our countries – born of shared geography, history and culture, and forged through joint struggle and sacrifice, is as important today as it has ever been; that our fortunes are as bound together as they have ever been; and that the case for the closest possible partnership between Britain and France is as strong as it has ever been.

But how that partnership evolves depends on the decisions we make now.

So today I want to look at things in the round – to consider our past, our present and our future – the future that, yes does mean getting Brexit right, but which goes beyond that and will be for the next generation to build.

The Past

But I want to start with the past.

This week – of all weeks – our shared past has particular resonance and weight.

This Sunday, at 11 o’clock, it will be 100 years exactly since the guns fell silent on the Western front.

At the Arc de Triomphe here in Paris and at the Cenotaph in London, and in towns and villages across France and Britain, our countries will commemorate the end of the War.

Tomorrow, the French President and the British Prime Minister will be together in the battlefields of the Somme – scene of some of the bloodiest fighting.

They will remember our shared sacrifice. The British Army lost 20,000 dead in a single day on 1 July 1916. The Somme was our Verdun.

This was a war which changed our countries and our continent forever.

It was a war in which our destinies as nations were yoked together – in which we fought and bled side by side for over four years – and in which, in the end, we prevailed.

We sometimes forget that in the closing months of that war, the two million soldiers of the British Army fought under French command for the first time.

The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, said that Marshal Foch was the ‘only general in the field with the necessary decision and vision to plan out such a campaign’.

After the Armistice, Foch said ‘I am conscious of having served England as I served my own country’ – words carved in stone beneath his statue near Victoria Station in London.

But the victory that Franco-British cooperation made possible came at a terrible price.

Across France, 575,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers lie buried, alongside 1.4 million French comrades who fell alongside them.

Row after row of silent white headstones speak more eloquently than we ever could on the strength of our alliance, and the depth of our shared sacrifice.

I am fortunate to come from a generation which has never known such horror, and which has been blessed by the peace and friendship we have built with Germany, something we will also mark this weekend.

But if our shared history has taught us anything, it is surely to value peace – and never to take it for granted.

Of course, our history goes back much further than a hundred years.

Britain’s long and complex relationship with France is one of the most important that we have with any country in the world.

We are approaching 1,000 years since William the Conqueror landed near Hastings, and the Duke of Normandy became the King of England.

The Bayeux tapestry – which chronicles the story of William’s arrival in England – turns out to have been just the opening chapter in the Franco-British story.

If we brought the tapestry up to date, it would stretch all the way from Paris to London and back.

It would tell of our highs and our lows, our friendships and our enmities, our triumphs and our defeats.

That is why President Macron’s decision to lend the Bayeux tapestry to Britain – announced at the Sandhurst Summit earlier this year - so captured the public imagination on the other side of the Channel.

It represents – literally – the common thread of our shared history, going to the heart of both countries’ identity.

That sense of similarity and difference runs through the next nine centuries.

And it extends into the most recent period of our story during which – for nearly 200 years now - Britain and France have not only been at peace, but in alliance, standing together against danger and when, twice in a century, the very existence of our nations was threatened.

The Present

Why does all this matter?

Because it is not the stuff of books and museums.

It is the underpinning of the world we built – together.

And in that world our countries are as closely connected, our story is just as interwoven as it has ever been.

Geographical neighbours; separated by 33 kilometres of what Churchill called that ‘strip of salt water’, but joined now by a tunnel through which 57,000 pass every single day.

Hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens choose to live in each others’ countries, where they make such a valued contribution.

I would like to take this opportunity to repeat the Prime Minister’s commitment to the French people in Britain – and all EU citizens - protecting their rights after we leave the EU. And I am sure that the same assurances will be offered to British citizens living here in France.

About 12 million Britons visited France last year - and more French people visited the UK than any other nationality.

It is a relationship that is underpinned by human ties of friendship.

And at a Governmental level, by the fact that Britain and France are both European nations with a global vocations, who share the same values, and who see the world in broadly the same way. We helped fashion the global order, and we share an interest in defending it.

We face the same terrorist threats, and we know that we must work hand in hand to defeat them.

We both know that sometimes to defend the peace, you need to be ready to use military force.

We know that the threats to European peace and security are more serious than they have been for a generation, and that as Europe’s only two major military powers, we need to confront those threats together.

We both believe in nuclear deterrence, and in maintaining our deterrents for our own defence and the defence of our allies.

That is why we so often form joint positions, including on the Security Council where we both have permanent seats, to deal with an increasingly unstable world.

That is why when our countries have been attacked by terrorists, there was such an outpouring of mutual solidarity.

We will never forget the moment after the Manchester attack when President Macron walked from the Elysee Palace to the British Embassy to express France’s solidarity, and the crowd at the Stade de France sang the British national anthem – nor, when, after the Bataclan attack the crowd at Wembley sang the Marseillaise.

That is why, after the chemical weapons attack in Salisbury in March, France rallied to the UK’s side, leading a robust European response, working together to expel scores of Russian diplomats from our continent.

And in April, British and French aircraft, with our US allies, acted together to strike chemical weapons installations in Syria, and to enforce the global ban on the use of chemical weapons which was itself born out of the suffering in the trenches 100 years ago.

That is why our defence cooperation – rooted in the Lancaster House accords – is so deep.

RAF Chinook helicopters are flying missions in the Sahel, transporting French troops as part of Operation Barkhane.

Together we have forged a combined joint expeditionary force, which will be combat capable by 2020.

This year our warships have both upheld freedom of navigation by sailing through the South China Sea.

And our cooperation extends far beyond the security domain to genomics, artificial intelligence, cyber and space.

The scale and breadth of cooperation is probably closer than it has ever been.

The Future

Which brings us back to Bayeux.

Now, as President Macron said at Sandhurst, we are weaving a new tapestry.

What path will it follow, what scenes will it depict?

Because we are at a moment of decision, and the answers we give in the coming weeks and months could determine the shape of Franco-British relations, and of relations between Britain and her European partners, for many years, perhaps decades to come.

Which brings me, of course, to Brexit.

And here our history is again relevant: for all our similarities, we are also different.

I understand that for so many in France that the outcome of the referendum result was disappointing.

I know that in France the Brexit vote is often seen as Britain pulling up the drawbridge, turning its back on Europe and reaching out for ‘le grand large’.

But that is not how we see it.

And this is where our peculiar mixture of similarity and difference is important.

France sees the EU as vital to its destiny, to the stability of the continent and above all to its relationship with Germany.

We recognise that. We understand it. We value it.

But Britain has never felt quite the same, for the simple reason that our experiences have been different.

Yes, we are similar in that we are both European countries who cherish our global role.

But we differ, I believe, in our view of the process and goals of EU integration. The reality is that our public has always been reluctant about the political character of the Union and uncertain about its ultimate destination.

That made the experience of the pooling of sovereignty which the EU entails uncomfortable for us – and I think that goes a long way to explaining the result of our referendum.

Indeed for most British people, their concept of Europe has never been synonymous with the European Union.

Whereas for so many people in France, I believe, the European Union is at the heart of their notion of Europe.

Why does this matter?

Because so far in our recent history we have been able to draw strengths from our similarities, but recognise and respect our differences in the choices we have made together.

And we have now reached another such moment of decision, and the decisions we take as Governments will have far-reaching consequences.

Our people have voted in a referendum to leave the EU and its decision-making bodies.

We must respect their democratic choice.

But we intend to remain a European power into the future, as we have always been in the past.

A European power, whose values remain European values.

A European power committed to the security of the European continent.

A European power with a European economic model, with universal public services and the highest standard of consumer and environment protection.

A European power, whose children continue to do exchanges with each other and get to know and treasure each others’ countries – as I did at the age of 7 in Angers, in France; whose students study together; whose scientists and researchers and Nobel Prize winners continue to push forward the frontiers of human knowledge together.

That is the strategic choice we have made in our approach to these negotiations. From our perspective we see no contradiction in wanting to continue to work together even as the institutional relationship changes.

And so?

What does this mean for our future, and for this negotiation, which is now entering its crucial endgame?

I would suggest three things.

First, our shared past, does not, of course mean that we do not remain two nations, each pursuing our national interests as we judge them, in the interests of the people we are elected to serve.

But, having thought deeply about these issues, my view is that just as our interest and choice is to remain close to Europe, the EU’s interest lies too in close cooperation – for our security, our economies and our peoples.

So I hope that we can redouble our efforts to reach an agreement.

Second, we each need to make a particular effort to understand the other’s perspective.

I know there are concerns that a deal which allows the UK to have the advantages of membership without the obligations, could lead to unfair competition and ultimately to the unravelling of the EU.

I want to be 100 percent clear. We have heard those concerns, and we believe that we can address them. Indeed that the only way to address them is for an ambitious agreement that provides the kind of guarantees necessary.

Remember this basic fact.

From 29 March next year, we will be on the outside, not the inside.

There will be no British Prime Minister turning up at European Council meetings, no Ministers deciding new legislation, no British MEPs, no British judges on the European Court of Justice.

So we are not, as is sometimes suggested, even occasionally here in France, trying to have our ‘cake and eat it’.

But we have offered a framework for our future relationship which should give you confidence that we are not going to pursue a race to the bottom, and which would allow our economic and security relationships to continue, not as they were before – but on a dependable basis on which we could continue to build in the years ahead.

A relationship in which the UK will be a third country – but would remain tied by bonds of friendship and commerce for decades to come.

The alternatives do not deliver that certainty. They make a choice for friction – at our border with queues at Dover and Calais, in the exchange of information between our security services and in greater divergence in our rules and regulation.

That choice would seem to me to be a mistake.

My last point is this.

This is not a dry, technical discussion, although sometimes it can seem that way – with all the talk of regulatory standards and implementation periods and the like.

At heart, it is about the destiny of our ancient nations - and of our ancient continent – and how best we shape our future as European nations.

About how we weave the next chapter of the tapestry and what story it will tell.

That is why I feel so passionately that we need to get this right, that we need to make the right choices in the weeks to come.

So that the generations who come after us and look across the Channel will see that in 2019 Britain left the European Union, and a chapter ended.

But the story of the European Union continued, and that the story of Britain’s friendship and alliance with Europe and above all with France not only endured, but grew in strength.

In other words the end of a chapter did not mean the end of the book. Far from it. It mean the beginning of a new chapter, in which we found new ways to work closely together.

Those future generations will see, I hope, that confronted with the common threats before us, and which are growing, we faced up to them together.

That together we defended the post-war international order and institutions that are today under threat.

That we together stayed true to our values and democratic principles that are being challenged – in practice and in theory – as never before in my lifetime.

That we together adapted to the challenges and opportunities that globalisation is posing to our economies and more importantly our societies.

I know it is not easy but that is my hope.

That is Britain’s hope.

I believe that is France’s hope, and that of our European partners.

Let’s find the political will – as friends, as allies, as partners – to turn that hope into reality.

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ruleandruinrpg · 7 years

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CONGRATULATIONS, NINA!

You have been accepted for the role of IRA SOROKIN. Admin Em: We’d received FANTASTIC, beautifully written applications for Ira and I had the worst time trying to make up my mind - but Nina, it was your headcanons that ultimately swayed me. You fleshed out areas not elaborated on in the bio to create a complete, vibrant portrait of a wolf of a girl - I especially loved how the tale of Ilya Muromets inspired her original name, and her goal to prove Durasts are as much warriors as any of the other Grisha, the invention of a weapon that was most effective in the hands of her fellow Durasts a clever accompaniment. ‘She decided that, if the birth of greatness wasn’t her natural calling, the death of it could be just as useful.’ What a beautifully succinct line that perfectly captures her adaptability. Thank you, so much for your beautiful application and welcome to R&R! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Hey there! I’m Nina.

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/her.

AGE: I’m 21 yo.

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: I’m currently finishing undergrad school, and that’s pretty much all I’m focusing my time on rn. So, I’ll be checking the dash every day and plotting/answering to threads every time I can get to my computer. I would be a solid 7 out of 10, I think.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: -

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Ira Sorokin.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

My first option when I found this rp was Valerian Petrov, as it was the first one I wrote for, but upon reading the other characters, Ira was the one who stood up. I love how wild and master of her own fate she is. And also how her savagery gives me so much ground to work with. She has this infinite possibilities look that pretty much made me choose her.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

Warriors.

The order of Fabrikators isn’t usually acquainted with combat skills, since their work’s focus lies elsewhere. But Ira doesn’t believe that her work and training are enough to keep her afloat, and to be adrift was never the position she favored in life. The Durast believes she, as any soldier, should be able to fight not only with her claws or the will of every metal on a battlefield, but with everything she had. Therefor, Ira decided to seek a partner who could train her on combat during nights and hidden from curious eyes. This is the person she chose to teach her, to destroy every bit of her confidence and rebuild her into something new, stronger. But this is also the one who knows her secret: Ira Sorokin doesn’t like to feel vulnerable, and if she felt it was necessary to trust another being to give her the skills she needed to survive, she would. One can only hope her trust isn’t misleading her.

Both a friendship plot or a manipulative one would work here. It all depends on who takes this on. I would like to see both happening, so there’s that.

Honesty versus Refinement.

When standing side by side with Fyodor Drugov, something rather curious seems to happen. The contrast between them only bring them closer. At the same time Ira presents herself as something wilder, savagery in its true form, to be with Fyodor is to belong. They’re her kind. Undoubtedly. And it urges her even closer to see how refinement suits a beast so well, when she spent a lifetime believing there was no such monster. Ira knows Fyodor is intimately acquainted with the limits of a cage, and she can see in their eyes how they loathes it too. This could be the birth of a true alliance, or the death of her. She isn’t quite sure. But Ira isn’t quite searching for an answer just yet.

The best opportunity to do all sorts of things is right here. Those two have lots of potential and I can’t help but wonder what we can do with that.

The leash.

A wild thing does not wear a leash. But time after time, Ira seems to find herself in the end of one. First, it was her parents and the dead weight they had become in her life. Then, came hunger and its way of driving her to the edge, towards an abyss that stole years of her life; – those she spent in the Sorokin household. Now, it seems the Darkling holds the end of her leash and Ira is growing anxious about holding it herself. She knows this was her choice, and she’s also aware that going against the Darkling’s domain is a step taken towards death, but a wild thing can’t help but feel claustrophobic in a cage. For how long can she keep her claws to herself, then?

Discussing if the Darkling would bother to make her respect him enough to ignore the leash, or if she is as insignificant as the Darkling keeping indifferent towards her, would be very nice. Depending on what he sees fit, Ira’s inclination to once again fight for her freedom would either settle down or grow into another war inside her. Treason or loyalty? That seems to be the question.

Angel of small death.

To lay such a violent devotion upon a fragile thing is to choose a doomed fate, but Ira had no choice. She only knows love as a violent act against the world, and when her heart found something in desperate need of nurturing in Stasya Belov, she forced her claws to be as gentle as she knew how, just to see the other’s wall building up faster than she could possibly understand how. This was rather ironic, if looked closer. The beast who knew no human trait finding the urge to devote all her love to a human who wanted no part in it. At least, this was what Ira perceived. Both the need and the walls separating them, Ira never had the courage to ask. To come closer.

Since this is a one-side connection, it would be very interesting to see Stasya’s side of it. If Ira is imagining it all, or it Stasya indeed had no interest in Ira’s devotion.

Humor me.

If there’s one thing Ira indulges herself in, is the liberty of instinct. She loves how it fits her so well, and how in control she seems when her inner beast manipulates her way through life. The very materialized form of this, is her relation with one certain Druvik Jadeja. Had she spared a moment of consciousness to consider the matter, Ira might have had the idea of how cruel that dance must’ve been to the other, but truth to be told, she neither cared to be moral nor did she have the interest to hide her cruelty. Ira loves to make Druvik dance for her like a monkey to whom she taught some very nice tricks. Manipulation is an art she began to understand through him, and one she would be very disappointed to lose in case of Druvik getting tired of their game.

Here, I would very much like to see what Druvik’s player thinks. Either see him falling deeper and deeper into her game, and wait for Ira to grow tired of how easy it has become to her, or see him revolting against her and allowing another kind of fun to present itself to Ira: the one in which she finds herself between his struggle to get rid of her cruel game and her urge to be so very violent about it all.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: I believe so, yes! As long as it makes sense to her story, I believe it would be quite the final touch.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

BEFORE

The taste of blood in her mouth was a rather pleasing one when the girl opened the door to the Sorokin’s Household. It meant freedom in such a twisted way, that Bo grew fond of provoking the children in the streets of Ketterdam just to get into a fight and come home bleeding all over the Sorokin’s things. Every time they sent her to do errands around the city, her way of protest came with bloodstained packages and a face so bruised, the mistress wouldn’t want her in the house.

It was easier to spend hours in her master’s workshop, playing with metals as she pleased, than to spend countless hours pinning the mistress’ hair, feeding her false words and listening to her disgusting compliments in between threats. And once the woman saw the face of her child slave, what Bo had predicted unfolded right in front of her.

“This is unacceptable, child!” the woman yelled at her, “I do not wish to see your ugly face inside the house”, and against her scum, Bo hid a smile as she looked down and left the room. The pain that came with all those bruises was never so great as the one of serfdom. The girl wasn’t born to live in a cage. Wild things belonged somewhere else. But the Sorokin seemed blind to such a small and meaningful truth. It was rather convenient to keep her at an arm length. And so they did.

Every day she was moved as the masters pleased. Obeying every word in order to feed, to be kept warm and to have a bed at night. More frequently than not, the girl missed the soft brush of leaves against her skin, and the smell of freedom surrounding her. Those were days of happiness, – the ones spent in the wilderness of Ketterdam’s outskirts. She had no family, no master and no mistress to pin her down. Bo was free.

Shame that hunger brought her to a gun point. Now she knew this world wasn’t her place of right. She was told just how much otherworldly and beast-like she was at every bullet she escaped by the will of her mind. “Grisha”, the man had called her, and Grisha she became in the hands of her master.

That man only knew how to take advantage of Bo’s abilities, and though she despised every inch of him, this was a lesson the girl soon learned upon living with the Sorokin. If Bo wanted something, she had to take it from whoever had it. If she wanted to be left alone in the master’s workshop, she had to be beaten up badly by the lost children of Ketterdam and return home with barely no dignity.

But the girl knew, deep down, that this lesson would thrive into something greater. Time was all she needed. For as she manipulated steel into the form she well pleased, unnerved by the bars in her cage, Bo planned the future days of freedom. Those who waited for her in the end of that piece she was working one: a blade. The instrument to buy her way out of this hole.

INBETWEEN

Tw: slavery, torture.

The sea crashed against the hull of the ship as the whip of a master against his slave’s bare skin. It had the cruelty of who feared nothing and respected no one but itself. And it reverberated on a certain Ira Sorokin who knew that reality far too intimately to not spare a minute of recognition when the structural entity of the ship was set in a fierce wave.

At this point, the men on board seemed to be so acquainted with the violence of the sea and how it reflected so perfectly on Ira’s eyes, that they settle themselves on not bothering the girl once she was balanced on the bowsprit at the end of every day of work. For this was the time she devoted to the past. The moment of every passing day on the sea where she would close her eyes and feel the wind upon her face. Where she would poise herself as the daughter of feral things and travel back to the world of a girl whose name was now lost. “Bo Murometz”, she would whisper to herself and into the wilderness. In an attempt to hold on to that piece, to keep herself from forgetting.

She wasn’t sure why it mattered so much, but the thought of letting go was rather a sharp one. It left disfigured cuts on its way and more often than not, bathed on her blood. Ira Sorokin could never let Bo Murometz fade away. It was a stupid name of a stupid girl, but it belonged to her. There wasn’t many things in her life that she could call her own. Freedom, Bo Murometz, the chance of a glorious future… these were the things Ira possessed, and to devote herself to those small details, was to hold on with all her violence, in all her cruelty.

With the traders as her witnesses, Ira became the sea of unwanted things, and with no one to care for them, she took upon herself to be their guardian. Every day she stopped at that same place, climbed the wooden structure towards the bowsprit, and let her mind wander. The men feared her, despite the prejudice of women bringing bad fortune on sea. And they admired her, far beyond the immaculate beauty of her face. They knew she was something else entirely. Not the woman who worked her way into that ship and woke up every morning to prove her value to the crew. Not the girl who seemed lost in those split seconds of solitude. But certainly the being whose claws were beast-like.

They knew better than to ask, though. And she was grateful for it. Her hands were still wet with her masters’ blood. Her tongue still poisonous with her mistress’ name on it. She wasn’t just about to spill it all out, nor did she cared to do so. They kept to themselves, and Ira did the same. For the day she would set her feet on Ravka’s shore, was the day she would not have the time to the past. This was her way to say goodbye. This was her way of, utterly, and reluctantly, let go.

AFTER

The sound of chains made of Grisha steel whipping the ground was like a thunder ready to bring down a fortress. Ira greeted that old force with the devotion of a lover.

This was the moment she waited for the entire day. The fall of night when she could escape the curious eyes and hide as far way from both palaces as she could, with nothing to accompany her but the chains around her torso and a handmade tobacco roll burning between her lips. And though the drug was the one erasing all the insignificant beings that crossed her way, the weapon was the one to calm her down.

With time, she grew fond of the grip of metal between her fingers, or the rush that using her power brought. Ira liked to watch the tsepi unfold and move like a snake by her feet under her command. She could see, there, how promising her order was, for her dreams of glory always came hand in hand with the Durasts being able to be something other than workshop’s rats. Within those walls was another cage, and Ira wasn’t just about to confine herself again.

So the woman raised the roll to her lips and breathed in the smoke of tobacco. Her dark eyes falling shut as she stopped and ordered the tsepi to wrap around her torso once more. She smiled fiercely. A part of Ira knew she wasn’t meant to be displaying her pride like a trophy, but the part born beast made her loose hair and untidy clothes fit naturally to the chains she summoned back to her body.

That moment, Ira Sorokin was made of warning, of danger. This was the girl who murdered the man and woman who dared to imprison her. This was the wild thing that survived in the forest for so long and with no help at all. And this was the sailor who bought respect from the traders that led her here.

Strange was the path of a monster such as Ira Sorokin. One she, herself, couldn’t understand. Yet, she managed to conquer a few great things. A brief moment of freedom. The liberty to be otherworldly amongst her equals. What would her mistress tell her now?

There was no blood staining her clothes, her ethereal beauty as intact as the real Ira Sorokin liked. But her mistress was long gone. She couldn’t see her child slave now, and that piece of satisfaction, that small accomplishment, made the beast thrive.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

x The lost child.

There’s a name whispered at night that Ira holds close to her heart and out of danger. It belongs to a girl who could barely remember her first years in this world, but who had known, with every inch of her soul, what her father had cried out in his vices and what her mother dared never to say. She believed it meant “wave” in her mother’s tongue, for she knew it was different from the one she learned in Ketterdam. It was an easy-to-remember name, a simple and sonorous one to Ira’s ear. It was Bo. Just this. No family name.

Until, there is, she wandered off and went to the outskirts of Ketterdam, where once, upon hearing voices between the trees, the girl found a father and a son traveling north. Hidden and far too curious about their ways, she heard a story about one Ilya Murometz, a bogatyr whose story started with “From the famous city of Murom, out of the village of Karacharovo, the valiant, doughty youth Ilya Muromets, the son of Ivan, set out far into the open fields…”.

She wasn’t sure what that word bogatyr meant, nor where those cities and villages were, but the girl was certain they were very much real, like Ilya himself. She learned how he spent his first 33 years of life on a stove, unable to move, as the consequence of a curse put on his grandfather, and how, upon the arrival of three religious men, the bogatyr found himself able to walk for the first time and became the owner of a super-human strength.

Enacting battles and great heroic moves, the strange traveler described how Ilya single-handedly defended the city of Chernigov from invasion and how he, afterwards, killed the forest-dwelling monster who murdered travelers with his powerful whistle. And with every victory, Bo celebrated as fiercely as she knew how. Ilya Murometz defeated bandits, three-headed flying serpents, possessed knights and even princes. A true bogatyr, a true hero.

When the night fade away and Bo lost the travelers in her sleep, she woke up the next morning to one decision: she was to be a monster slayer, a hero, just like Ilya. From that day on, she was to be called Bo Murometz. The girl who survived on her own and left on her path many victories.

This was the name Ira Sorokin kept a secret: the easy-to-remember word her useless parents gave her and the tale of glory she stole from a traveler in Ketterdam.

x The tsepi.

Ira isn’t as devoted to the creation of things as she’s to their destruction. For a Durast in the Second Army, who was supposed to tailor equipment and build ships and fortresses, then, it was a tough path to fit in. But as always, Ira managed a way. She decided that, if the birth of greatness wasn’t her natural calling, the death of it could be just as useful.

Upon settling her mind to the task, Ira excelled on designing weapons to fit every special need. In the beginning, it was a rather disappointing project, but Ira didn’t rest until she left the workshop with triumph between her fingers. She created something called the Tsepi, a weapon that could only be useful to very skilled hands or to the Durast, It consisted of a chain made of Grisha steel that could be wore as a defensive weapon upon attacks in hand-to-hand combat, as well as one that involved knives and objects alike. But also one that worked as a whip and followed every command of the people who controlled metal as she did.

And once tested and proven worthy of her every efforts, Ira decided to be the first to show that Durast were warriors as much as any other Grisha. She knew it wasn’t exactly the description of her kind’s endeavors, but she didn’t really mind. Ira wears her tsepi wrapped around her torso, beneath her kefta, as the most beautiful and priceless jewel, and dreams of the day it will be a success in the Second Army, because the Durast will be encouraged to leave the workshop if they wish to.

x The True Sea and the Shadow Fold.

On her way to Os Alta, Ira had two paths to choose from. One used the land bridge between Kerch and Shu Han to cross the True Sea and get to Ravka through the mountains that divided Shu Han’s and Ravka’s territory. The other was a wagon to a Port City where she would find her way into a Trading Ship with its course settled for Ravka, where she still would have to cross the Unsea to get to Os Alta.

Aware of the stories that travelled all the way to Ketterdam about Grisha who were experimented on in Shu Han, Ira decided she would rather cross a million times the Shadow Fold than risk being caught by the Shu Han and become a slave again. So she settled for the wagon, and once in the nearest Port City, found her way into a Ship that carried tobacco to Ravka. It wasn’t an easy journey, but she found out she loved the True Sea. Had she not dreamt of glory in Os Alta, Ira would’ve settled with a life on a ship, traveling back and forward to wherever the wind would take her.

This was particularly why the sight of the Unsea made her partially regret her decision. From something so beautiful and pure, to that aberration. From freedom itself to her grave. At least, this was how she defined the Fold the very moment she entered it. Rather unnerving was to realize, once she heard the volcra surrounding them, that she was more curious about them, than it would be wise. Something about those creatures just found an echo in her. Ira was afraid of them as any other sane human being, but that thing reverberating in her with the wings of the volcra and the blood they left in their path, just seemed right. After all, like calls to like. Beasts feel at ease between their kind. Why wouldn’t Ira be curious about the volcra?

x The way to vices.

The girl Ira once was would never dare to nurse a vice. The reality of its ruination still fresh on her mind from all the disgusting things her father meant to her. But the woman Ira became needed a vice so desperately, that she took upon the opportunity to learn from those tobacco traders how to roll tobacco to smoke and which were the best to chew. It became a rather strong and reliable thing to do whenever she was unnerved or displeased with something or someone, and since the trip to Ravka, the Durast is still nursing that poison on her mouth.

If she’s not in the workshop or training, she’s most certainly smoking by the lake or wandering through Os Alta to buy her stock of tobacco.

EXTRAS:

x Personality.

ASTROLOGICAL SIGN

Scorpio.

MORAL ALIGNMENT

Neutral Evil.

TYPE

Entrepreneur // ESTP-A.

TRAITS

Cruel. A conscious is a luxury not many were granted on birth, and Ira just isn’t one of the lucky. She was born to a world of cruelty, where the only ones who survived were those who learned how to be just as fierce and cruel. And as time went by, this particular trait of her developed with every drop of blood to ever touch her skin.

Independent. There’s not a thing or soul in this world that may control Ira, if she doesn’t allow them too. She has become her own master and made sure no one would ever rule her around once more. Now, the only one she respects enough to follow is The Darkling, for she also knows how to preserve her own freedom.

Feral. Everything Ira does has a heartfelt and powerful intensity. She may be small and rather fragile-looking, but those are the traits no one seems to perceive once she enters a room. For Ira walks as the person who knows what are life’s barriers, but has conquered them all. She’s involved with the world, with this life, in such an unique way, that powers emanates from her. And it’s wild, beast-like. So otherworldly, that she could very well be the monster on her favorite bogatyr’s story.

Devoted. To love is a rather violent act to Ira. She knows nothing about gentle emotions and thereof how to display them in such manner. But she, as anyone else, can love. And hers is a rather strong and fearless one, – though Ira won’t offer this rare and precious form of devotion to many. She’ll love whom she chooses with all her soul, mind and body, but she won’t know how to tune it down, how to be civilized about it. Ira will do it as fiercely as if it was a battle for her life, and though it may not be healthy, she knows no other way of loving someone.

Self-centered. When you live a life as she did, you learn that the one person to be trusted is oneself. She doesn’t trust anyone, no matter how strongly she feels about them, and won’t rely upon any other. Therefore, Ira is the most important person in her life and that’s final. All she does is based on her interests only, and all she thinks about is how to benefit from everything surrounding her. For as long as her distrust in mankind exits, this will be the way of Ira Sorokin.

x Aesthetics.

Here.

x Quotes.

1. “Nada do que fui me veste agora (Nothing I was fits me now)." — Maria Gadú.

2. "Her violence was art." — Rachel Vincent.

3. "I am made of untamable demons and unfillable voids." — Ira V. Simon.

4. "The passions we cannot control are the ones that define us.” — Simon Van Booy.

5. “Re-create yourselves: and let this be your best creation.” — Friedrich Nietzsche.

x Playlist.

1. Iron by Woodkid.

“A soldier on my own, I don’t know the way I’m riding up the heights of shame I’m waiting for the call, the hand on the chest I’m ready for the fight and fate

The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates The rhythm of the falls, the number of deads The rising of the hordes ahead

From the dawn of time to the end of days I will have to run away I want to feel the pain and the bitter taste Of the blood on my lips again”

2. Running with the wolves by Aurora.

“Go row the boat to safer grounds But don’t you know we’re stronger now My heart still beats and my skin still feels My lungs still breathe, my mind still fears But we’re running out of time, time All the echoes in my mind cry There’s blood on your lies The sky’s open wide There is nowhere for you to hide The hunter’s moon is shining”

3. Youth by Daughter.

“And if you’re still bleeding, you’re the lucky ones ‘Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone We’re setting fire to our insides for fun Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home It was a flood that wrecked this home

And you caused it”

ANYTHING ELSE?

Regarding the book question, as I said before: I confess I had a really hard time thinking about my answer. I know it’ll probably change, as it did a few times, but The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, The Secret History by Donna Tartt and Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgueniev are my favorite books rn. I’m an Oscar Wilde trash 4ever, as in I pretty much love everything that guy wrote (and also Teleny, that no one actually knows if he wrote it or not, but wtv), and that’s the only constant regarding books and myself, but those three are the favorites of the season, or something like that kljdslfkjsdlfkjs

#raraccepted #accepted: ira #i said beautiful 10000 times

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